The Health Bureau (SSM) confirmed Macaus fourth case of locally infected dengue fever. The patient is a 27-year-old man who lives at Rua da Praia do Manduco, the same street where the previous three cases of dengue fever were confirmed.

On August 6, the patient developed fever, fatigue, muscle and joint pain and subsequently went to Kiang Wu Hospital to receive medical attention. His fever persisted for three days after visiting the hospital, and he was diagnosed with dengue fever on August 10. The patient is currently in a stable condition.

The SSM and Municipal Affairs Bureau (IACM) held a press conference earlier this month to alert citizens on the spread of dengue and educate the public on preventive measures.

SSM and IACM have jointly carried out measures to chemically eliminate mosquitoes in Macaus parks and public areas.

In Hong Kong, the Center for Health Protection (CHP) of the Department of Health confirmed one local case and two imported cases in the month of August, as well as an additional case under investigation. The CHP reported that the patients in the two imported cases had been to Vietnam and the Philippines.

Both the Macau and Hong Kong governments have urged the public to maintain strict environmental hygiene, mosquito control and personal protective measures both locally and during travel abroad.

Preventative measures include properly disposing of waste such as soft drink cans, empty bottles and boxes to prevent accumulation of water, as well as changing the water of flowers and plants at least weekly so that the water will not become stagnant.
Johannesburg (AFP) - Zimbabwe's first lady Grace Mugabe was to appear in a South African court Tuesday after she allegedly used an extension cord to assault a model who was at a Johannesburg hotel with her two sons.

The alleged attack threatened to spark a major diplomatic incident between the two neighbouring countries which have strong political and economic ties.

Grace Mugabe, 52, is accused of beating Gabriella Engels, 20, on Sunday evening with an electrical extension cord, leaving her with injuries on her forehead and the back of her head.

"She's not under arrest because she cooperated and handed herself over to the police," South African Police Minister Fikile Mbalula told reporters.

"In terms of foreign citizens, they must understand they have responsibilities, especially those who hold diplomatic passports."

Pictures on social media appeared to show Engels with a bleeding head injury after the alleged incident at the Capital 20 West Hotel in the upmarket Johannesburg district of Sandton.

"I cannot just go to Zimbabwe and beat up people there and then the matter will disappear," Mbalula said.

"From the police side, we have had to act in the interests of the victim, we have opened a case."

According to local media, Mugabe was to appear at Randburg Magistrate's Court at 2:00 pm (1200 GMT).

She allegedly arrived at the hotel with bodyguards and accused Engels of partying with her sons Robert and Chatunga, both in their 20s, who live in the South African city.

"We were chilling in a hotel room, and (the sons) were in the room next door. She came in and started hitting us," Engels was quoted as saying by the Times Live website on Monday.

"The front of my forehead is busted open. I'm a model and I make my money based on my looks."

A future president?

Grace Mugabe, who is 41 years younger than her husband Robert, 93, has two sons and one daughter with the Zimbabwean president.

Sizakele Nkosi-Malobane, a provincial minister in South Africa's Gauteng province, told Jacaranda FM radio that the case should be pursued fully through the courts.

"We hope that it will send a strong message to all leaders who abuse their power and assault innocent people in our country," she said.

Grace Mugabe regularly speaks at rallies in Zimbabwe and is seen as one potential candidate to take over from her increasingly frail husband.

Last month she urged her husband to name his chosen successor, reviving speculation about the race to take over from the world's oldest national leader.

President Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from British colonial rule in 1980.

The succession battle is widely expected to pit Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa against a group called "Generation 40" or "G40" because its members are generally younger, and which reportedly has Grace's backing.

Grace has previously denied harbouring ambitions to take over from her husband, but at other times has said she would be prepared to serve in any political position.

She has taken on a larger public role in recent years, speaking regularly at meetings to drum up support for the president and also heading the women's league of the ruling ZANU-PF party.

President Robert Mugabe and first lady Grace Mugabe, seen here in April, have two sons and a daughter together

In 2014, Grace led a bitter campaign to expel from the party former vice president Joice Mujuru, who had been seen as a favourite to succeed to Mugabe.

In speeches this year the president has often slurred his words, mumbled and paused for lengthy periods.

His reign has been marked by brutal repression of dissent, mass emigration, vote-rigging and a sharp economic decline since land reforms in 2000.

The Zimbabwe government made no immediate comment on Grace Mugabe's case.
Deputy General Secretary for the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) Koku Anyidoho has pooh-poohed Ghana's former High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Victor Smith for asking party executives to summon former President Rawlings.

Ghana's former High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Victor Smith has said the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) must be even in trying to maintain discipline in the party.

To him, it will be unfair to summon the former Attorney General, Martin Amidu before the NDC Disciplinary Committee and leave out ex-President Jerry John Rawlings, as many believe the utterances of these two stalwarts caused the NDC a lot of problems.

Personally, I think it will be difficult that the party leadership will summon Martin Amidu over his utterances that bring the party into disrepute without calling ex-President Rawlings. You can't call one party stalwart and leave the other; that will be really bad. We need to look for a better way of dealing with this situation, he said.

But Koku Anyidoho on Okay FM's Ade Akye Abia Morning Show reminded him that lawyer Evans Amankwah and Abigail Elorm Mensah petitioned the party against the former Attorney-General Martin Amidu; thus, the NDC didn't just decide to call Martin Amidu to the Disciplinary Committee.

 . . so Victor Smith, if he is man enough and brave, he can petition the party against Rawlings at the headquarters.

Victor Smith should not sit on the torch-line and behave like a useless man. If he is man enough, he should jump into the arena and join the fight and stop talking from the talking torch-line. I am not afraid of him; every time you sit on the torch-line and you want to indict the National Executives, he slammed.

He again challenged Victor Smith to petition against Rawlings and the party hierarchy will look at it rather than being a coward on the torch-line.

We are getting sick and tired of him; he is not an executive member of the party and he should stop disturbing our ears. He should petition against Rawlings and stop the useless fight he is propagating in the party, trying to indict the National Executives. He has said things but I have chosen to ignore him, Koku jabbed.

-Peacefmonline
Nairobi (AFP) - Kenya's Raila Odinga pushed back plans Tuesday to announce his next move on a disputed election, leaving Kenyans in suspense over a political crisis that has already sparked deadly protests.

Speaking at the weekend, Odinga promised to advise supporters Tuesday of "the next course of action" but his eagerly awaited appearance failed to transpire.

"We regret that the consultations are taking longer than anticipated and NASA will therefore not address Kenyans as projected today," said a statement signed by Musalia Mudavadi, one of the leaders of the National Super Alliance (NASA) opposition coalition.

"NASA will issue a comprehensive statement to the nation tomorrow (Wednesday)," he said, adding "our consultations are ongoing and progressing well."

Odinga, 72, insists he is the rightful winner of a "stolen" election which took place on August 8 and handed victory to the incumbent, Uhuru Kenyatta.

The claims sparked a wave of protests in his strongholds which left at least 16 dead and 177 injured, but these quickly abated as his supporters -- and the country -- await his decision on his next move.
The United States branch of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has congratulated and welcomed Ghanas new Ambassador to the USA, Dr. Barfuor Adjei-Barwuah.

On Friday, July 21, 2017, H.E. Dr. Barfuor Adjei-Barwuah, Ghanas 19th ambassador to the United States, met and presented his credentials to President Donald Trump, at the White House in Washington DC.

NPP-USA in a statement said it joins the larger Ghanaian community to congratulate Dr. Barfuor Adjei- Barwuah on his appointment and successful assumption of office.

We warmly welcome you to the United States and into the Ghanaian community.

Dr. Adjei-Barwuah is an experienced diplomat, who brings years of embassy experience as President Kufuors ambassador to Japan, to expertly serve Ghanas interest in the United States.

There is, therefore, every confidence that Ghanas mission rests in a very skilled and stable hands the group said.

We in the NPP-USA are hopeful and especially happy about Dr. Barwuahs appointment because we see his wealth of experience as a critical factor for cultural and service reforms in the embassy system which currently falls far below the expectations of Ghanaians and general embassy clientele.

It added that, Given the enormity of the task, the membership of NPP-USA pledges its support and call on all Ghanaians to work with Dr. Adjei-Barwuah to advance Ghanas mission here in the United States.
Freetown (AFP) - Sierra Leone's president appealed Tuesday for urgent help for the flood-hit capital of Freetown where more than 300 people have died, as rescue workers resumed the grim search for bodies.

The Red Cross says it is struggling to excavate families buried deep in the mud that engulfed their homes, although several bodies were pulled up by machines in the devastated hilltop community of Regent on Tuesday, according to an AFP journalist at the scene.

Addressing the media in Regent, one of the areas hit hardest by the flooding, President Ernest Bai Koroma fought back tears as he said the devastation "was overwhelming us".

"Entire communities have been wiped out," Koroma said at the disaster site, where heavy rains streaming down the hill caused a landslide and engulfed homes three or four storeys high on Monday, many of them built illegally.

"We need urgent support now."

The government has promised relief to the more than 3,000 people left homeless, opening an emergency response centre in Regent and four registration centres, while Interior Minister Paolo Conteh told Sierra Leone's state broadcaster that thousands of people remained missing.

Israel and Britain said they were sending aid as quickly as possible to the stricken west African city of around one million people.

The death toll from massive flooding in the Sierra Leone capital of Freetown is currently at 312 but the Red cross warned it could rise further

Red Cross spokesman Patrick Massaquoi told AFP on Monday that the death toll was 312, but another Red Cross official, Abu Bakarr Tarrawallie, put the death toll at 245 in an email to AFP on Tuesday, while local media and officials all gave different tolls.

'Sprawling shacks all gone'

At the Regent site, residents told AFP that boulders and rocks had killed many as they rolled onto homes in the early hours of Monday, while a hill partially collapsed as floodwaters streamed down the slopes.

Resident Abubakar Mansaray said it took just two minutes for the mudslide to suffocate families in the darkness.

"Many unfinished buildings were at the hilltop, with those sprawling shacks all gone," he told AFP.

Abibatu Kamara, a mother of three who spent the night on her neighbours' veranda, said the government response so far had been absent.

"We have not received any food or blankets since the disaster occurred yesterday," she told AFP.

Survivors required immediate shelter, medical and food assistance, he added, and dozens of injured people were receiving treatment, the Red Cross's Tarawallie told AFP.

Stagnant water

"There is a challenge of expertise in search and excavation and inadequate machines to excavate the submerged houses," Tarawallie added. "Registration of affected people is ongoing now to ascertain total number of affected people later on."

Three days of torrential rain culminated on Monday in the Regent mudslide and massive flooding elsewhere in the city, one of the world's wettest urban areas.

Makeshift settlements that clung to the hills and shores were swept away or torn apart.

The city's drainage system was quickly overwhelmed, leaving stagnant water pooling in some areas while creating dangerous churning waterways down steep streets.

Sierra Leone's meteorological department issued no warning ahead of the torrential rains, which might have allowed for swifter evacuations from the disaster zones, AFP's correspondent based in Freetown said.

Foreign donors mobilise

At the city's military hospital, community health officer Wilberforce Mohammed Rogers said he had treated several children with multiple injuries, including a six-month old baby. Many had lost their parents, Rogers said.

Three days of torrential rain culminated in a mudslide in Regent, the worst affected area of Freetown, and caused massive flooding elsewhere in the Sierra Leone capital

An AFP journalist met victims sleeping in schools, community centres and out in the open, while others squeezed into homes of relatives.

Foreign governments meanwhile began mobilising aid to Freetown.

Israel's foreign ministry said it would provide "assistance immediately and in every way possible" including clean water, medicines and blankets.

British International Development Secretary Priti Patel said she was "deeply saddened" by the devastation and the loss of life.

London was "already working with the government of Sierra Leone to coordinate the rescue aZefforts and are ready to provide further assistance to those in need".

Annual ordeal

Freetown is hit each year by flooding during several months of rain, raising the risk of waterborne diseases such as cholera.

Flooding in the capital in 2015 killed 10 people and left thousands homeless.

Sierra Leone was one of the west African nations hit by an outbreak of the Ebola virus in 2014 that left more than 4,000 people dead in the country, and it has struggled to revive its economy since the crisis.

The country ranked 179th out of 188 countries on the UNDP's 2016 Human Development Index, a basket of data combining life expectancy, education and income and other factors.
15.08.2017 LISTEN

I expect to see the homes of more Mahama appointees who were connected with the most horrific, shameful and scandalous energy deal in the history of the country raided and more. I also expect several of these criminals and scam-artists jailed and some of their properties, assets and bank accounts confiscated by the State. I also expect any overseas properties and assets of these nation-wreckers investigated and attached by the government (See Ameri Deal  NPP Making U-Turn for Political Gain  Jinapor Classfmonline.com / Modernghana.com 7/25/17).

Maybe the Mahama Deputy Energy Minister needs to listen to himself and the shambolic logic subtending his statements before consenting to have the same published for multimedia consumption. If he did, he would not be making some of the ridiculous remarks in the media that have been attributed to him in recent weeks. We need to get one thing clear: if, indeed, the AMERI Deal was entered into in good faith and with common sense befitting a highly placed Ghanaian politician or public official, Mr. John Jinapor would not be talking jazz about the Akufo-Addo Administrations arbitrarily attempting to make undue political mileage out of the same.

My simple and short answer is that if such political move or mileage redounds to the long-term benefit of the Ghanaian taxpayer, then such political move would have been worth all the efforts invested in getting to the bottom of the same. He may not have paid attention to this, but my first problem with the appointment of Dr. Kwabena Donkor, as a custom-tailored Power Minister, was the glaring and outrageous fact that the Pru-Easts National Democratic Congress Member of Parliament had not presented any feasible or substantive proposals to either then-President John Dramani Mahama or Parliament indicating that, indeed, he had the expertise or what it took to solve the chronically erratic power supply in the country, otherwise known as Dumsor.

Now, Mr. Jinapor has the temerity to tell the Ghanaian public and taxpayer that As a minister, you take decisions based on the information available before you and make the best decision possible, and that is what Dr. Donkor did, so Im surprised some people are making a U-turn because of politics. The most obvious and logical question to ask here is this: Who made the aforesaid information available, and when and for what purpose? The truth of the matter is that when one has the sort of epic energy crisis the country has been experiencing for the past 4 years, one does not turn to Dubai or the United Arab Emirates who, despite their great oil-wealth, are technologically a Third-World country like Ghana.

Rather, one turns to such proven technologically advanced nations like the United States, Britain, France, Canada, Australia, Germany and even China and Russia, not Dubai! It is only when a minister and/or a government is criminally poised towards unconscionably scamming his/its own people that s/he/it turns to such parasitic entrepreneurial middlemen like the Arabs Sheikhs of Dubai. You see, the Arabs of the Gulf States have long figured that the IQ of the key operatives of the Mahama regime was that of borderline retards. Indeed, some 6 or 7 years ago, then-Vice-President John Dramani Mahama shocked the civilized world when he attempted to enter into the infamous STX Deal, that would have ceded the entire Ghanaian housing-construction market to a South Korean firm that was widely known to have no well-established track-record in the housing and real-estate market.

I am betting my proverbial bottom-dollar here that very soon, the radar of criminal investigations will spotlight the former President and the real scammer behind the AMERI Deal Mega-Theft. If you would, Mr. Mahama may very well be Woyome Number Two. It is also preposterous for Mr. John Jinapor to pretend as if the AMERI Scam deal was the collaborative brainchild of both the National Democratic Congress erstwhile parliamentary majority operatives and their then parliamentary minority counterparts of the New Patriotic Party. Hogwash, I say!

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs
Penplusbytes in collaboration with SEND-Ghana and Centre for Democratic Development (CDD) held discussions to address administrative and financial challenges in the implementation of the National School Feeding Programme and Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) at the district level.

After a year of implementing the Tech Driven Social Accountability for Results project, Penplusbytes together with its stakeholders validated its Citizens reports from the two project districts (Ellembelle and Ashaiman) being generated from the monitoring of two national social protection policies implementation i.e. Ghana School Feeding Programme and the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP).

Speaking at the stakeholder forum in Accra dubbed, Social Accountability Clearing Platform, the Programmes Director at Penplusbytes, Jerry Sam said the wide spread politicization of the National School Feeding Programme (NSFP) and LEAP leaves much to be desired.

He indicated that the recruitment of party loyalists to the NSFP and LEAP has affected the quality of the programmes since its inception in 2009.

Mr. Jerry Sam said this at a meeting to find solutions to challenges identified in the implementation of social protection policies in Ghana by way of ensuring that there is value for money in the implementation.

In its latest citizens report from the project districts, Mr. Jerry Sam highlighted that both programmes have failed to fully achieve its objectives and aims in the area of financing and accountability.

He emphasized that children are usually not fed to their satisfaction mostly due to inadequate funds disbursed to the caterers in the schools.

According to him, 50percent of the caterers do not even know the existence of a menu and many at sometimes end up feeding the school children one particular type of meal lacking the standard prescribed meal for children which contains nutrients.

Mr. Sam posited that the lack of concentration amongst school children is high because a lot of the children focus so much on the food which distort classes.

He intimated that the effectiveness of social accountability increased steered by skilled facilitators with on-the-sound presence and close community links.

The Programme Director stressed that the forum therefore seeks to provide the link between social protection policies and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and how ICT tools can facilitate social accountability in Ghana.

The Country Director of SEND-Ghana, George Osei Bimpeh added that there are a lot of inconsistencies on how much is being spent on the two programmes by the sector agencies.

He posited that governments have failed to do proper targeting stating that we are spending so much but in terms of utilization weve lost it. They spread the social protection programmes thinly instead of targeting impoverish groups.

He indicated that the unfavorable conditions could not allow others to renew their membership adding that the Ghana Education Service (GES) disengaged the services of the local seamstress for their inability to supply the school uniforms on time.

On the contrary, the local providers claim their entitlements delays and therefore affects the operations of their businesses.

Mr. Bimpeh intimated that majority of the government free school uniforms are locked up in school stocks for seizes that do not fit the children mostly due to lack of proper coordination.

Measurements of uniforms for children in school A sometimes are mistakenly swapped to School B. These children are later forced to wear the over-sized uniforms and they obviously become an object of public ridicule, he stated.

Strong Point Agenda

Participants at the forum made recommendations to the implementing agencies and government institutions responsibilities for coordination of the social protection programmes to address the major setbacks.

Stakeholders called for strong political will to operationalise commitments under the social protection programmes fully by way of creating the fiscal space to support feeding effectively.

Members urged government on a institutional collaboration and coordination towards the adoption of a decentralised approach to optimize local production for social protection programmes with clear indicators, outcomes and evidence.

According to members, government must set a clear mode of payment and transfers to the local level beneficiaries and service providers to ease the delays and challenges.

Revival of community level structures for the purpose of ownership and leveraging of technology to support all the activities in the districts.

Civil Society and Citizens pro-active role in facilitating, operationalising and owning social protection interventions and commitment.

Strengthening media capacity for advocacy, education, information dissemination, monitoring and policy influencing towards the full benefit of the social protection programmes in the country

The forum was to increase the contribution of Civil Society in promoting accountability and effective public service delivery.

The 2-year Tech Driven Social Accountability for Results project which is being funded by Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) seeks to equip ordinary citizens with usable information via online platforms mashed-up with social media and mobile based platforms to promote their purposeful participation in demanding accountability and responsiveness from decision makers for effective public delivery.
Nairobi (AFP) - The Kenyan government has moved to shut down two rights organisations, one of which said Tuesday that it was contemplating court action over last week's disputed presidential election.

Kenyan Human Rights Commission (KHRC) board member Maina Kiai said it was "no secret" the organisation had been mulling whether to lodge a complaint at the Supreme Court over "inconsistencies" in the election process.

On Monday night the interior ministry's NGO Board said it was withdrawing the KHRC'S registration over alleged irregularities including unpaid taxes, a lack of work permits for foreign staff, and illegal bank accounts.

Then on Tuesday morning, the NGO Board asked police to shut down the Africa Centre for Open Governance (AfriCOG) and arrest its members, claiming that it was not properly registered as an NGO and was instead illegally operating as a "charitable organisation".

AfriCOG had filed several court petitions challenging the electoral commission ahead of the election.

According to Kenya's electoral laws, complaints about the election must be submitted to the Supreme Court by Friday.

The National Super Alliance (NASA), an opposition group led by Raila Odinga, has said it will not do so, and is expected to announce its next move Wednesday.

But civil society organisations can also file legal petitions challenging the results or conduct of the vote.

"These people who may go to court are being de-registered," Kiai said.

"There has been a lot of emphasis across the country urging people to go to court if they have any grievances. We have been meeting here... there is no secret about it... there is thinking about whether we should or should not" go to court, he added.

"Once you close off avenues for legal, nonviolent peaceful redress, you open up a can of worms, and the state needs to be very clear about what it wants to do."

Odinga has claimed he was the rightful winner and not President Uhuru Kenyatta, and NASA said a major hacking attack manipulated electronic results sent in from polling stations.

It said the electoral commission has yet to provide them with all the scanned forms backing up the electronic results.

The KHRC has also complained that the electoral commission streamed provisional results before backing them up with the scanned forms.

The disputed election sparked protests that at times turned violent over the weekend, leaving at least 16 people dead and 177 injured.
15.08.2017 LISTEN

In an ideal society, where common sense reigns and rules. Education is considered to be the hallmark of a glittering and bright future, devoid of uncertainties and doom. They guide and protect it jealously; participants are literally encouraged; motivating mechanisms are available in abundant. As a result of these, research is in top-gear, paving way for an exponential growth rate which is the reason why they are what they are, DEVELOPED WORLD; INDUSTRIALIZED COUNTRIES e.t.c..

Sanely speaking, no one would castigate me or say I'm drunk if I conclude that Nigeria's educational system is all but skewed. Starting from how meager our research has been than it should be, to how we keep producing robots as graduates-cramming facts and figures and bereft of an iota of logic upstairs.

Why? The reason for this fiasco is not far-fetched. I remember 2013 vividly, my admission was delayed for 6months as a result of the then ongoing ASUU strike. Those times are not all bear and skittles for the then President, Goodluck Jonathan.

What we were made to understand then was that he was incompetent, incapable, parsimonious and weak; He can't paddle the canoe of Nigeria, he's corrupt and he's naive Instead of proffering solution to the then ongoing strike by cooperating with the government, the then politicians, most especially the opposition parties seized the opportunity to hoodwink us.

We were given the assurance of a better Nigeria come 2015. Hmmm... Distractive & divertive mechanism at play. Who don't know that whenever there's an outcry or any lapses, they come up with these issues to divert the attention of the masses. They blame the incumbent for all the excruciating woes with impunity so they can have their way in the next election.

The citizens are always the targeted prey. They've mastered our psychology perfectly well; they surely know how to maneuver us; they are dab-hand when it comes to finding faults in the present administration, using these short-comings to draw their own manifestos, knowing fully well they're all but unattainable, a tantalizing reality. Nigeria's situation is synonymous to a scientific inquiry, where the citizens are the specimen, Nigeria is the laboratory, elections are the variable factors while they (politicians) are the scientist. Here, the scientist (politicians) can manipulate the variable factors (election) in order to reach their desired end.

In the tussle for power, the end will always justifies the means. That is why Buhari made a lot of promises prior and sequel to his ascendancy. Notable among them is the increment of NYSC alawee from #19,000 to #49,000, payment of ASUU's pending compensation as well as the prohibition of any government official from seeking health care offshore.. All these promises are nothing but what they are, blatant lies bereft of an iota of truth, a mirage.

Education at its best is the best legacy, but a bastardized education is nothing but a curse or an impasse. This horrendous situation would continue to characterize our educational system if we continue to politicize all our problems. The destinies of the youths (the so-called leaders of tomorrow) should not be toyed with in any way. It is disheartening that our future largely rests on the whims and caprices of those in power.

Funnily enough, The federal government instead of striking towards negotiation, conciliation and dialogue (which is what we're expecting from a sane civilian government) may start issuing one stupid ultimatum which might subsequently wreak havok or exacerbates the strike. Forgetting that destinies are at home lying fallow and delayed.

What should we do now?? Should we run? Even if we're to run, where should we run? Should we revolt? Even if we're to revolt, how many of us are ready for the herculean task? Should we secede? Even if we're to secede, who will follow suit? Should we blame the ASUU for the strike? Even if we're to blame them, are they not fighting for their entitlement? Moreover, they're fighting for a good course! Should we hold the FG responsible for all these woes? Even if it were, do they have any sense of responsibility, remorse or conscience no matter how small?

Danger beckons when the ruled began to get tired of the rulers. Perhaps, the rulers knows little or nothing about ruling which is why they rule like there are no rules or limitations. This is the situation of Nigeria right now. What a travesty! Clearly, the situation has become untenable and that is why I don't blame those who sees no good in this contraption of tragedies called Nigeria. The reason for their pessimism is crystal clear!!! I can't see any good in it either..

 Ajayi Ifeoluwa Love
Just like the presidents of every country of the world are very important to their citizens, the case is the same in Nigeria. Nigerian presidents are of great significance to their people. And so President Muhammadu Buhari has been the central point of focus for the Nigerian people since he took over the leadership of the country. It is so much so for two key reasons. One, he is the first Nigerian citizen with all the best leadership qualities to have resisted intimidation and political humiliation for over a decade - twelve years to be precise  to finally defeat stubborn incumbency and take over power through the ballot. It is quite uncommon in Nigeria and therefore, all eyes have been on him from within Nigeria and outside. It was a wonderful occurrence, something that could be likened to an intertwining of the paranormal and enigma in Nigeria, thus, nothing less than wonders  the supernaturals  were expected from him as a superman.

Second, he suddenly developed health challenge which was quite unpronounced like that of his kinsman and former president Umaru Musa Yaradua. He has been away to London to seek medical attention for two long times, the second time longer than the expectation of Nigerians, a situation that has rekindled the concern of the citizens on him. The long absence has also aggravated the criticism from the opposition groups. It is supposed to be a normal thing worldwide because human beings, regardless of position and status are fallible. If ill-health were to be goods, no one will bargain for it. But no human can assure of perfect health forever.

But in Nigeria, things seem to be a bit different in the sense that, because the Nigerian presidents had in the past underperformed against the expectations of the people, good things about them have often been undermined. Only negative things about them sell newspapers. Worse still, the people feel they have often been deceived by the leaderships by not imposing apt solutions that can better their lives. Rather, successive governments had imposed injuries, sufferings and hardships on the citizenry.

From another consideration, the wrong impression of Nigerians about politics and the devilish north-south political dichotomy wielded into the mindsets of the politicians have remained the bottleneck in the overall selection/appointment of whoever leads the country. Under this north-south power-shift arrangement and understanding, Nigerians have become impotent, as mediocrity and nepotism lord over competence and merit. Vibrancy, dexterity, and selflessness in service have all been let to the bin. On that note, they want things to happen the way their political godfathers, great-godfathers, godmothers and godsons want the politics to be played. If it is not done that way, they rent crowds sometimes made up of known citizens to cause tension and drive home their selfish interests.

Although Nigerians are very happy people and probably, according to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, the happiest people on earth amidst prolonged hardship, they have often questioned how long it will take the leaderships at all levels of government in Nigeria to get it right and turn the fortunes of the country for the benefit of all or majority of the people. That is why emotion overpowers reasoning whenever any matter concerning a Nigerian leader is thrown up for public debate and scrutiny. Buhari has, thus, been in the mirror of the people, the elite and the populace alike.

President Buhari took over Nigerias leadership with the hope of fixing the country, knowing full well he must take the path of the unorthodox, the path that definitely demands trampling on toes or even administering hard purgatives. He came into power with the anxiety of a responsible father over his family to provide, to defend, to nurse and educate as well as to instill good understanding of togetherness and the yearnings for posterity. Nigerians, being humans who often resist change, proved what they have been; a group in support and a group in the opposition  wicked opposition indeed. Overwhelmed by the challenges and juxtaposed with the eagerness to overcome them, the man who was sound and without dangerous health problem suddenly began to weaken.

President Buhari overworked himself. For the desire and readiness to die for Nigeria, he overloaded his schedule, ensuring that every bit of governance is done attended to. That was really an unusual way and against the philosophy of division of labour. But he was actually in a fix, knowing who Nigerians are and the difficulty in entrusting critical positions to unknown persons. However, he was confident he would deliver, so he toiled from early morning to late evening, sometime late nights every day. He was sure that a lot of visits to outside worlds would yield quick results to the nations growth and stability. So he made himself available for the visits during which he sought mutual cooperation with the host countries to recover Nigerias looted funds starched in those countries. He was also concerned about how the huge properties bought with the nations looted funds could be identified and taken over by the federal government, sold and the proceeds brought back to Nigeria.

This attitude, no doubt, is required to make Nigeria great. But Nigeria is a too complicated country that one must feed well, rest well, consult widely well and above all pray very well to firstly sustain life and then administer the affairs of millions of human beings. A lot of Nigerians, truly, have tested positive to untrustworthiness. Every national leader, events have shown over the years, seeks the position for the national cake. I pitied the President as he carefully went through the pages of the 2016 Budget, gave it to his vice to go through. Yet, the padding was difficult to dictate. That is how expenditures from the commonwealth are manipulated and the experts ensure that no eagle-eye pinpoints such. Also, because he was confident to succeed and abhorred too much haste, he preferred to work with a large chunk of appointees of the past government probably thinking that if he could lure them into believing in the new political order the country required to progress, his control over his own members with same mission for Nigeria would be total and fruitful. It was clear, according to unfolding events, that the past leadership of Nigeria sold out the country to itself.

It is an interesting episode that Nigerians are waking up from their slumber to monitor the government and ensure good governance. Those patriots who want President Buhari back to duty have shown love for the country; that the country should not be left for a long time without a leader  such person like Buhari. They only got it wrong by including the slang of resignation when they know that Buhari is a human being with all human shortcomings. Interestingly, he did what the constitution demanded of him by transmitting power to his able and loyal vice, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo who has been discharging his duties without complaints, taking critical decisions and making appointments as the president would have done. What else has Osinbajo not done in his capacity as the acting president that would warrant the call for his taking over when the president is recuperating and just waiting the final release by his doctors?

I hate to call those patriots who want President Buhari back to duty as anti-Buhari because they are worried of the state of Nigeria. Unless if proved beyond doubt that they are playing the script written by the anti-Nigerians, their intention should be subjected to fair criticism rather than outright condemnation. I recall that in a letter to President Buhari by Charles Oputa aka Charly Boy, he was in support of Mr. President anti corruption crusade. He urged him to recover Nigeria from all looters and destroyers and deliver the nation from the vile, evil and wicked politicians/cabals that have enforced poverty, hunger, hopelessness on Nigerians with impunity. He recalled the running battles Buhari had with some of the blackmailers, scammers, certificate forgers and the riff-raffs in the National Assembly saying, After all, Obasanjo dealt with many of them in the house; Goodluck dealt with House Speaker.

The pro and anti protests are democratic. Notwithstanding the tension both groups created in Abuja on Friday, August 11, the timely intervention of the Nigeria police was laudable. Spokesperson for the FCT Command, Anjuguri Manzah, said officers moved to disperse some miscreants, hoodlums and other criminal elements that have infiltrated the protest. He had accused the protesters of blocking major roads adjoining the area, thereby preventing citizens from free passage. This should not be do if the protest was in good faith and intention.

One cannot but rejoice for the stand of the Senate that the protesters were being unreasonable, as the president had not committed a crime. The protesters claimed that Nigerians have been kept in the dark over the heath status of their president. Though in support of Buhari's corruption fight, they observed that the controversies, narratives and different conspiracy theories surrounding Buhari's heath were not good for the country. Oputa was joined to sign a document by Deji Adeyanju and Adebayo Raphael for their group called: Our Mumu Don Do Movement.

On the other hand, the supporters of President Buhari, under the umbrella of Coalition for Good Governance and Change Initiative (CGGCI), also have shown love for Nigeria. But the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu saw the anti-protest as a fight-back from the beneficiaries of the old order, recalling warnings from Nigerians that corruption will fight back. According to him, the protesters wanted to cause distract while the government was focused on delivering its promises to the people of Nigeria.

However, the federal lawmakers and the presidency are in unanimity that President Buhari has complied 100 per cent with the constitution by handing over power to the Vice-President before proceeding on his vacation. This means that he has not breached any law or the constitution by staying away from office to take care of his health, thus the meaninglessness of the protests against the Presidents medical leave to London. The President recently received a team of media men in London and promised to return as soon as his doctors release him.

Muhammad Ajah is an advocate of humanity, peace and good governance in Abuja. E-mail [email protected]
The top U.S. military officer said yesterday that the United States wants to peacefully resolve a deepening standoff with North Korea but is also ready to use the full range of its military capabilities in case of provocation.

The comments by Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford in a series of meetings with senior South Korean military and political officials and the local media appeared to be an attempt to ease anxiety over tit-for-tat threats between President Donald Trump and North Korea while also showing a willingness to back up Trumps warnings if need be.

Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is visiting South Korea, Japan and China after a week in which Trump declared the U.S. military locked and loaded and said he was ready to unleash fire and fury if North Korea continued to threaten the United States.

North Korea, meanwhile, has threatened to lob four intermediate-range missiles into the waters near Guam, a tiny U.S. territory about 3,200 kilometers from Pyongyang, North Koreas capital. This would be a deeply provocative act from the U.S. perspective, and there has been widespread debate about whether Washington would try to shoot the missiles down if theyre fired.

The U.S.-North Korea impasse, which has simmered since the end of the Korean War in 1953, has grown more tense in recent months over worries that the Norths nuclear weapons program is nearing the ability to target the U.S. mainland. Pyongyang tested two intercontinental ballistic missiles last month.

We are seeking a peaceful resolution to the crisis, Dunford, who also met with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, said to reporters, according to a local pool report.

He earlier told his South Korean counterparts that America is ready to use the full range of military capabilities to defend our allies and the U.S. homeland, according to U.S. military spokesman Capt. Darryn James.

Moon separately called yesterday for a peaceful solution to the nuclear standoff, saying that there must not be another war on the Korean Peninsula, according to his office.

In a meeting with top aides at the presidential Blue House, Moon said South Korea would work to safeguard peace on the peninsula in cooperation with the United States and other countries. Moon said North Korea must stop issuing menacing statements and provoking.

North Korea, which is angry over new United Nations sanctions condemning its rapidly developing nuclear and missile program, continued its tough stance yesterday.

The North accused the United States of mobilizing a huge number of weapons and troops for annual military drills with South Korea that begin later this month. Pyongyang, which claims the drills are war preparation, says it will be ready to send its Guam missile launch plan to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for approval just before or as the drills begin.

What matters is that if a second conflict (on the peninsula) erupts, that cannot help but lead to a nuclear war, the Norths official Korean Central News Agency said in a commentary. We are closely monitoring every move by the United States.

The commentary said that about 3.5 million young students and workers have volunteered to join or rejoin the army because of a possible confrontation with the United States.

Dunford earlier told reporters traveling with him to Asia that he aims to sense what the temperature is in the region. He also will discuss military options in the event the diplomatic and economic pressurization campaign fails.

Were all looking to get out of this situation without a war, Dunford said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping talked on the phone Saturday with Trump and called for cool-headedness. Xi urged Washington and Pyongyang to avoid words or actions that could worsen the situation.

Trump has pushed China, North Koreas biggest economic partner and source of aid, to do more to stop the Norths nuclear ambitions. Beijing says its influence on Pyongyang is limited.

Trumps recent threats followed a report that U.S. intelligence indicates North Korea can now put a nuclear warhead on its long-range missiles.

For all his bluster, Trumps words did not appear to be backed by significant military mobilization on either side of the Pacific, and an important, quiet diplomatic channel remained open.

On Sunday, CIA Director Mike Pompeo and Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, Trumps national security adviser, tried to provide assurances that a conflict is avoidable, while also supporting Trumps tough talk. They said the United States and its allies no longer can afford to stand by as North Korea pushes ahead with the development of a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile. Foster Klug, Seoul, AP
It is a well respected axiom in every democratic dispensation that the interest of the country supersedes that of any individual citizen or political party. In the case of Nigeria, the fight against corruption and Boko Haram and the several agitations to restructure of the country are national issues that cannot be left for the ruling party alone to resolve. They call for the concerted effort and contribution of every well meaning Nigerian.

However, it is now becoming obvious that while some Nigerians are trying their best to mend fences and build up the country by addressing its socio-political problems and finding sustainable solutions to them, a few miscreants in the country are busy creating conditions of fear among the people, believing they are serving the purpose of one political party or another. These groups of people use the social media to spread hate messages in the hope of either discrediting the ruling party or creating false alerts that tend to unnecessarily agitate the people of Nigeria.

I have taken the liberty to study many forms of marriages that exist today  not because I was thinking about Nigeria when I studied them  but because I was hungry for the knowledge which I felt was necessary to tackle the challenges I was personally experiencing at the time. And I found out that arranged marriages were about the most stable, because siblings are always in them. It is not like one individual marrying another. It is one entire family marrying another. Such marriages last longer and are the most unlikely to call for a divorce because siblings are involved.

Now, get me right. There is absolutely nothing wrong with arranged marriages. I had mine, and I am still enjoying it, nearly 40 years after the contract was signed and sealed.

By extension, I now tend to believe that the various ethnic groups that make up what we know today as Nigeria fall into the group called arranged marriage. It was not that the Hausa or the Igbo or the Yoruba as the major ethnic groups saw themselves, liked themselves and decided to marry themselves into one country. Their marriage was arranged by their colonial master, Britain.

We should also not forget that Nigerias colonial master, Britain was itself once a colony of Rome. And as we speak, Britain has never found it necessary to totally shrug off all the vestiges of its colonial past. That is why the mottos of most of its important institutions like its colleges and universities are still in Latin. A few examples will suffice.

The University of Aberdeen has as its motto Initium sapientiae timor domini which means The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. Birkbeck University of Londons motto is In nocte consilium meaning In night is counsel. The University of Birminghams motto is Per Ardua Ad Alta which means Through efforts to higher things. Bournemouth Universitys motto is Discere mutani est which means To learn to change. University of Buckinghams motto is Alis volaris propiis meaning Flying on our own wings. The University of Kents motto is Cui servire regnare est meaning Whom to serve is to reign. Imperial College, London has its motto as Scientia imperii decus et tutamen which means Knowledge is the adornment and safeguard of the Empire. Kings College, London has its motto as Sancte et sapienter meaning With holiness and with wisdom. Queen Mary University of Londons motto is Coniunctis viribus meaning With United Power and London School of Economics and Political Science has its motto as Rerum cognoscere causas meaning To understand the causes of things. Even the Royal Stool of England has its motto as Dieu et mon droit meaning God and my right.

What I am saying in effect is that while many Nigerians hold what can now be seen as erroneous views that Britain lumped together the various incompatible ethnicities that make up modern Nigeria for its own economic benefit, they can still take the liberty today to compare modern London with its former colonial master, Rome. When they do that, they will be left in no doubt that given good and focused leadership, Nigeria stands a fair chance of comparing favourably with Britain tomorrow, just as Britain compares with Italy today. The vestiges of colonial experience are never so easy to shrug off and instead, countries with wise leaders can capitalise on the experience.

So, I was very upset when someone sent me a message which claimed to be a security alert. The message in effect was saying privileged information was that Boko Haram fighters had landed in both Southern and North Central Nigeria, ostensibly in Lagos, Ilorin and Port Harcourt. It advised Christians to take adequate precautionary measures, especially in Churches and on Sundays. Adequate precautionary measures were also to be taken in places with large gatherings such as markets, shopping malls, cinemas and parks. It contended that this plan to bomb the South was the reason military patrols on Nigerian highways had been withdrawn so as to pave an easy way for the Boko fighters to have a field day.

The message further said the news was that the enemy was planning some massive bombing activities that would make the Nyanya experience a childs play. It, therefore, warned Nigerian citizens in the South to mind their movements and to be careful because where the fighters were likely to attack was still unknown. As is routine with these charlatans, the message was said to have been sent from the United Nations Office (possibly in Abuja) and it gave the rapid response police numbers in all of the 36 states of the Federation to call in case of an emergency. I really think these people are simply dragging the country backwards by trying to diminish all the dividends of democracy the country has acquired so far.

An example is the recent misunderstanding between the Arewa Youths of Northern Nigeria and their Southern Ohaneze counterparts. The Northerners had given the Igbo an ultimatum to quit the North by the first of October or face trouble. The Igbo argued that the Northerners had no right to say or do such a thing. The Igbo said they were Nigerians at least as at October One because while they were agitating for a referendum to enable Nigerians determine their future, there was no visible sign that the federal government was going to do so any time soon. And while that idea remained unsettled, the issue of who was a Nigerian and who was not a Nigerian could not be a subject of constitutional contention.

The Igbo emphasised that they do not need passports to travel to any other part of Nigeria and that it was wrong for any Northern Nigerian citizen to see a Southern Nigerian citizen as an alien in his own country and vice versa. Somewhere along the line, sanity prevailed because the Northern leaders were divided in their opinion of sanctioning the Igbo. The Northern governors particularly assured the Igbo that they were safe and that any attempt to uproot them from the North would be vehemently resisted by the government.

Now, it has become necessary to make Nigerians understand that the pedlars of the message of fear and hate among Nigerians are not doing any good to the country. Some of them may be doing this in order to discredit the ruling party and portray it as incompetent. But then, that is not the right way to go about a responsible opposition. If the PDP must be seen as relevant in the current political dispensation, and I have said this elsewhere, it must sincerely desire to nurse itself as a responsible opposition.

In advanced democracies, the opposition is also known as the Shadow Government. But the way the PDP is going about, I doubt if there is anything Nigerians can conveniently call a Shadow Government in their current political dispensation. The way lovers of PDP are going about it all is just not the right way to nurse a responsible Shadow Government. They need to change their strategy into something that will be an asset and not a problem to the country.

At the end of the day, no marriage is perfect. It is the people involved in the marriage that will make it work for them. Naturally, there will be temptations. There will be misunderstandings. There could even be fights. But it still remains the duty of those in the marriage to convince the world that the marriage was not a mistake and that it would work or that it is working. If they fail, the marriage will not work. And they should recognise that some of the factors that militate against a successful marriage are greed, selfishness and not caring about the children who are offsprings of that marriage. If Nigerian politicians can eschew greed and selfishness, and take the issues confronting the welfare of the poorer families in their constituencies more seriously, I think the marriage will work. The question is: do they have the political will?
Johannesburg (AFP) - Zimbabwe's first lady Grace Mugabe was under investigation by South African police Tuesday after she allegedly used an extension cord to assault a model in a Johannesburg hotel.

The alleged attack threatened to spark a major diplomatic incident between the two countries, which have strong political and economic ties.

The 52-year-old wife of President Robert Mugabe is accused of beating Gabriella Engels, 20, on Sunday evening at the hotel where her two sons were staying, leaving the victim with injuries to her forehead and the back of her head.

"She hasn't handed herself over yet. We do not know her whereabouts at this stage," police spokesman Vishnu Naidoo told AFP.

South Africa's main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, said Mugabe had returned hurriedly to Zimbabwe late Tuesday, without citing its source.

Mugabe allegedly arrived at the hotel with bodyguards and accused Engels of partying with her sons Robert and Chatunga, who are both in their 20s and live in Johannesburg.

South African Police Minister Fikile Mbalula had earlier said Mugabe had turned herself in to officers, but Naidoo said this "just didn't materialise as it was supposed to".

"As long as we don't have a suspect in custody, we cannot say when they will appear in court," he added.

Pictures on social media appeared to show Engels bleeding from her head after the alleged assault at the Capital 20 West Hotel, in the upmarket Johannesburg district of Sandton.

"We were chilling in a hotel room, and (Mugabe's sons) were in the room next door. She came in and started hitting us," Engels told the Times Live website.

"The front of my forehead is busted open. I'm a model and I make my money based on my looks."

Police Minister Mbalula told reporters: "In terms of foreign citizens, they must understand they have responsibilities, especially those who hold diplomatic passports.

"I cannot just go to Zimbabwe and beat up people there and then the matter will disappear. We have had to act in the interests of the victim."

A future president?

On Monday, Engels registered a case with the police alleging assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm.

Sizakele Nkosi-Malobane, a provincial minister in South Africa's Gauteng province, told Jacaranda FM radio that the case must be pursued fully through the courts.

"We hope that it will send a strong message to all leaders who abuse their power and assault innocent people in our country," she said.

Grace Mugabe is 41 years younger than her 93-year-old husband and has two sons and a daughter with the Zimbabwean president.

She regularly speaks at rallies in Zimbabwe and is seen as one possible contender to take over from her increasingly frail husband.

Last month she urged her husband to name his chosen successor, reviving speculation about the race to take over from the world's oldest national leader.

President Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from British colonial rule in 1980.

The succession battle is widely expected to pit Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa against a group called "Generation 40" or "G40" because its members are generally younger, and which reportedly has Grace's backing.

While Grace Mugabe has in the past denied harbouring ambitions to take over from her husband, at other times she has said she would be prepared to serve in any political position.

She has taken on a larger public role in recent years, speaking regularly at meetings to drum up support for her husband and heading the women's league of the ruling ZANU-PF party.

President Robert Mugabe and first lady Grace Mugabe have two sons and a daughter together

In speeches this year the president has often slurred his words, mumbled and paused for lengthy periods.

His reign has been marked by brutal repression of dissent, mass emigration, vote-rigging and a sharp economic decline since land reforms in 2000.

The Zimbabwe government has so far made no comment on Grace Mugabe's case.
Osino (E/R), Aug. 14, GNA - The Mumuadu Rural Bank made a profit of GH2.1 million last year, an increase of 39.9 per cent over the profit made the previous year.

The bank therefore declared a dividend of GH0.028 per share.

This was announced by Mr. Seth Adom-Asomaning, Chairman, Board of Directors of the Bank, at the 29th Annual General Meeting of shareholders at Osino.

He said despite the strong competition in the banking industry last year, the Mumuadu Rural Bank grew its income from GH10.2 million in 2015, to GH13.3 million, representing an increase of 30.78 per cent.

The Bank's deposits increased from GH25.7million to GH33.4 million by December 2016.

Mr Adom-Asomaning said the advance portfolio of the Bank also grew from GH20million to GH22.8 million, an increase of 13.8 per cent, while total assets grew from GH36million to GH48.3million, an increase of 34.2 per cent.

He described the Bank's microfinance sector as the soul of its operations; adding that GH10million was invested, which he said has very encouraging returns.

The Bank, he said, would introduce the use of Automated Teller Machine (ATM) at all branches.

Mr Kojo Mattah, the Managing Director of the ARB APEX Bank, in a speech read on his behalf, commended the management and shareholders of the Bank for their performance over the years, which had made it to operate profitably.

He said the ARB Apex Bank had entered into agreement with telecommunication companies, MTN and Airtel to use the facilities of the ARB Apex Bank, and Rural and Community Banks (RCBs) in their mobile money transfers for enhanced commissions.

The ARB Apex Bank, he said, was also concluding agreement with selected institutions such as the Ghana Education Service, Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, in the development and deployment of computer software for collection of fees and documents on their behalf for a fee.

The Member of Parliament for Fanteakwa South, Mr Okyere Agyekum, called on entrepreneurs in the area to come out with proposal for the establishment of a factory in the District, under the government's one district one factory policy.

The District Chief Executive for Fanteakwa, Mr Charles Oware Tweneboah, appealed to the Bank to establish more branches in the District to offer the much needed financial support to the people.

GNA

By Edmund Quaynor, GNA
Accra, Aug. 14, GNA - Mr Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen, the Minister of Trade and Industry, on Monday, said the industrial transformation agenda of the government would not come by chance but requires bold, comprehensive and ambitious policy interventions.

To this end, he said it required the contributions of the various sectors of the economy including agriculture, energy, science and technology, lands and natural resources and the entire sectors of the economy

He, therefore, urged Ghanaians not to be hunted by the fear of failure but should be inspired by the challenge of success to support the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo's government to achieve industrial and economic transformation.

Mr Kyerematen said this when addressing stakeholders at the opening of the Second Edition of the National Policy Summit, in Accra.

The summit was organised by the Ministry of Information, which featured the Ministry of Trade and Industry, on the theme: 'The Industrial Transformation of Ghana.'

The platform was created to inform Ghanaians on government strategies to revamp the economy for sustained growth and national prosperity.

The event brought together captains of industry, Members of Parliament, the diplomatic community, entrepreneurs, traditional rulers, youth groups and a cross section of Ghanaians.

Government policy, he said, should be used as an instrument for change and cited how China, 30 years back, was considered a poor nation, however through two major policy instruments undertaken by their dynamic leader, changed the fortunes of that country for good and made her a super economic power.

For instance, he said the then Chinese government decided to open up China to foreign investors and not to rely on their domestic market solely.

'We in Ghana also want to use policies as instruments of transforming our economy. So we as a nation have to provide the needed leadership in terms of setting the agenda and leading the implementation process and co-ordinating the contributions of other sectors,' he said.

The Trade Minister expressed optimism that the country would work together on the transformation agenda for socio-economic growth and prosperity for all Ghanaians.

Nana Otuo Siriboe II, Juabenhene and Chairman of the Council of State, who chaired the function, proposed the establishment of Technology and Management Pool comprising retired Ghanaians with expertise in food industry, accounting, management and human resources, from which industries could tap their expertise.

For Ghana to achieve technological-driven and industrial economy, he said government must also provide relief and incentives to industries, institute tariff regime, which would give a competitive advantage to the locally-manufactured products.

In addition, he said government should ban importation of certain products that the nation had competitive advantage and ensuring the compliance of the importation of quality products into the Ghanaian market.

The traditional ruler, who is also a distinguished industrialist, noted that Ghana should employed the use of technology and management solutions for the industries, especially for the ''One District, One Factory'' initiative

GNA

By Godwill Arthur-Mensah, GNA
The Hague (AFP) - International judges issued a war crimes arrest warrant Tuesday against a senior Libyan military commander, suspected of involvement in the deaths of 33 people in the war-torn city of Benghazi.

"The International Criminal Court has issued a warrant of arrest for Mahmoud Mustafa Busayf Al-Werfalli, allegedly responsible for murder as a war crime in the context of the non-international armed conflict in Libya," the Hague-based tribunal said in a statement.

Al-Werfalli, born in 1978, is a senior commander in the Al-Saiqa brigade, an elite unit which defected from the Libyan National Army after the uprising against longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011.

He joined the brigade after Kadhafi's fall and has "played a commanding role since at least 2015," the ICC's judges said in the arrest warrant.

Since then, the brigade has been battling alongside forces loyal to Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar in Benghazi, Libya's second-largest city, which has recently been liberated after a three-year campaign against jihadist groups.

Executions

Al-Werfalli is accused of involvement in at least seven incidents in 2016 and 2017 in which he allegedly personally shot or ordered the execution of people who were either civilians or injured fighters.

"There is no information in the evidence to show that they have been afforded a trial by a legitimate court, whether military or otherwise, that would comport to any recognised standard of due process," the ICC's judges said.

The evidence included video footage purportedly showing Al-Werfalli shooting a hooded and unarmed person and afterwards telling the dead body: "You have been misled by he who did you harm. You have been misled by Satan."

In another incident, Al-Werfalli is allegedly seen in video footage reading from a document before personally commanding a firing squad which then shoots 15 people wearing orange jumpsuits and black hoods, the ICC's judges said.

"After reading the document Mr Al-Werfalli says...'Ready! Aim! Fire!," the judges said, after which the executioners shoot the prisoners in three groups of five.

Al-Werfalli and two other men then allegedly personally execute three people, before he orders the execution of yet another two others.

"The video depicting the incident, involving a total 20 executed persons, was posted on social media on 23 July 2017," the judges said.

'Cruel, dehumanising crimes'

Map of Libya showing areas of control on the ground

The ICC's chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda called on Libyan authorities to arrest and hand over Al-Werfalli to ensure his surrender to the ICC "without delay".

"Such egregious crimes, including the cruel and dehumanising manner by which they were perpetrated against helpless victims, must be stopped," Bensouda said.

But Tuesday's announcement comes as the court is still in a legal tug-of-war with Libyan authorities to transfer Kadhafi's son Seif al-Islam to The Hague.

The ICC and Libyan authorities are disputing who has the right to judge him.

Seif faces crimes against humanity charges for his own role in the Kadhafi regime's brutal attempts to put down the 2011 uprising which eventually toppled his father.

The Kadhafi heir's exact whereabouts are unknown, following a claim in June by a Zintan-based militia that it had freed Seif under an amnesty law promulgated by the parliament based in Libya's east.

The ICC, set up to investigate and prosecute the world's worst crimes, opened its probe into Libya in March 2011 to investigate atrocities committed during the uprising against Kadhafi, which erupted a month earlier.

The investigation comes after the UN Security Council referred the matter to the ICC.

Libya was then still under the iron-fisted rule of Kadhafi, who was killed a few months later by rebels in the NATO-backed uprising.

Political rivalries and fighting between militias have hampered Libya's efforts to recover from the chaos that followed the uprising in the oil-rich country.
Child Rights International (CRI) and the West African Examination Council (WAEC) are expected to meet, over the fate of the 200 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) candidates from the Bunkpurugu-Yunyoo District of the Northern Region.

This follows a directive by the Human Rights Division of an Accra High court to the two bodies to find an amicable solution to a suit filed by CRI.

CRI was in court seeking to compel WAEC to schedule a suitable date for the candidates to write some two papers they missed during the normal period of the exams.

But WAEC had maintained that the students will be allowed to write the exams in January 2018.

Following the impasse, the Executive Secretary of CRI, Bright Appiah told Citi News there were now indications all parties were going to work in the best interest of the candidates.

The parties involved have resorted to looking at how best the interests of children will be protected and all that so certain procedures were established in terms of how we want to deal with the issue so, for me, it looks positive in terms of the opportunity that they are taking for our children.

Once things are in the best interest of children, all institutions, including WAEC and GES [Ghana Education Service], must also look at it so basically, we have come to some agreement in terms of the way that we want to move forward with the case, Mr. Appiah said.



By: Kojo Agyeman/citifmonline.com/Ghana
The Minority in Parliament has admonished government to desist from overburdening the GCB bank with non-performing loans from collapsed UT bank and capital bank.

Addressing the press on the development on Tuesday, the ranking member on Parliament's Finance Committee Casiel Ato Forson urged the Bank of Ghana to ensure that the acquiring bank in this case GCB which is the largest indigenous bank with both private and public shareholders is not overburdened unnecessarily with non-performing loans and impaired assets.

He made the comment on the back of GCB's takeover of UT and Capital banks on Monday.

GCB bank was given the opportunity to assume ownership of the two banks because according to the Bank of Ghana (BoG) the said banks had severe impairment of their capital.

BoG also revoked the licenses of the two banks while the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) also suspended the listing status of UT Bank.

However, Mr. Ato Forson at the press conference urged the BoG to ensure that depositors with the two banks do not lose their monies adding that should this happen, it will result in an unforeseen burden on taxpayers instead of the original owners of UT and capital bank.

It is important for us to stress that GCB is a listed company and we are hoping that at the minimum the shareholders resolution was passed before this major transaction was taken. If that is not the case, we urge that the minority and public demand to know whether the resolution of GCB was very much so conducted or approved before this transaction was approved, the Ato Forson added.

We followed due process

But the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GCB, Raymond Sowah who addressed the press on Tuesday explained that they did not require an immediate consultation with its shareholders before the move but said they used due process .

If you were at the Bank of Ghana press conference, they indicated the sensitivity of the matter and therefore everything had to be hush-hush because they were concerned about certain things going wrong. Now we have a lot of respected shareholders. We could not say that we are going to conduct an AGM or EGM to ask this question. This is something that we can deal with post assumption, he added.

Non-performing loans, banks headache

Figures from the BoG show that nonperforming loans (NPL) in the banking sector increased by as high as 69.4% from GH 3.6 billion in July 2015 to GH 6.1 billion in July 2016.

The central bank claimed that most of the NPL also known as bad loans were contributed by mainly Ghanaian companies.

It also attributed the issue to a number of factors, including the general slowdown in the economy, increasing cost of production due to high utility tariffs and loan portfolio reclassification by some banks.



By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana

Follow @AlloteyGodwin
The Minority in Parliament has requested that the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori Atta and Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Ernest Addison be hauled before Parliament to answer questions on GCB Bank's takeover of UT Bank and Capital Bank.

The two banks, according to the Minority, will also be required to give assurance that the depositors will suffer no loss following the development.

Their request follows the Central Bank's directive instructing GCB Bank to take over both UT Bank and Capital Bank over what it described as severe impairment of capital.

They also urged BOG to ensure that the acquiring bank (GCB), which is the largest indigenous bank, with both public and private shareholders, is not overburdened unnecessarily with non-performing loans and impaired assets.

GCB was authorized to take over the two banks because according to the Central Bank, they had severe impairment of their capital.

The collapsed banks were also unable to develop an acceptable plan, according to the Central Bank which indicated in a statement that it made efforts to help UT Bank and Capital Bank recover via private alternatives.

The list below tables the Minoritys demands following the collapse of the two banks

We note that during the press conference on the P&A transaction, the Governor of the BOG, assured the nation that the approach has a distinct benefit where customers will suffer no losses. The acquiring bank (GCB) will increase its market share while the productive financial assets of UT Bank and Capital Bank will be maintained.We take note the news and urge all depositors and customers of UT Bank and Capital Bank to exercise restraint while we patiently monitor the activities of the acquiring bank (GCB), BOG, and the receivers (PwC).

We strongly urge these three institutions, (BOG, GCB, and PwC), and the Ministry of Finance (MOF) that could assume any ultimate fiscal risks under the Banking laws, to ensure strict adherence to the distinct benefit of the purchase and assumption (P&A) transaction, so that no single depositor losses his or her investment. Needless to say, should this happen, it will result in an unforeseen burden on taxpayers instead of the original owners of UT and Capital Banks.

Again, we urge BOG to ensure that the acquiring bank (GCB), which is the largest indigenous bank, with both public and private shareholders, is not overburdened unnecessarily with non-performing loans and impaired assets. We recall that the NDC Government, in recent past years, took a deliberate policy action to pay the TOR debt owed to GCB which helped to restore the Bank's balance sheet to its current healthy status, and also not to interfere in GCBs operations. It is our hope that past and future transactions involved in this indirect liquidation will not be clouded in another secrecy, on grounds of market sensitivity.

It is important for BoG to further strengthen its supervisory and monitoring responsibilities. It is unimaginable to think that these two (2) banks had won several enviable awards at recent high profile ceremonies.

The minority, as a matter of urgency, will be requesting, through the Rt. Hon. Speaker, that the Minister of Finance, and the Governor of Bank of Ghana be invited to brief Parliament about the development and to give assurance that the depositors will suffer no loss.

We also urge Bank of Ghana to conduct an investigation as to what occasioned this development.



By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana

Follow @EfeAnsah
Al-NIMIR REFUGEE CAMP (Sudan) (AFP) - The UN's refugee chief said Tuesday a long period of exile lies ahead for South Sudanese refugees fleeing a war that erupted in their country after it split from the north.

Tens of thousands of South Sudanese have been killed and millions displaced since the world's youngest country fell into a civil war less than three years after it seceded in 2011.

Urging crowds of refugees at Al-Nimir camp in the Sudanese state of East Darfur to "be strong and hopeful", Filippo Grandi said it was about time leaders of South Sudan ended a war that continued to rage on.

"I must confess that it may be a long term exile" for the refugees who continue to flee from their country every day, Grandi told AFP as he toured the camp, where about 5,000 South Sudanese have taken refuge.

Grandi said the refugees had to remain hopeful of returning to their country, but a lot depended on when South Sudan becomes stable.

"That hope depends on the action first and foremost of the leadership of South Sudan and the opposition," he said.

"They have to start behaving responsibly and thinking of their own people and not only of themselves."

South Sudan's civil war began in December 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy, Riek Machar, of plotting a coup. Since then the war has spread across the country, sweeping up other ethnic groups and local grievances.

Overall the refugee population from South Sudan has reached to about two million, of which more than 430,000 have taken refuge in Sudan, the United Nations says.

Grandi praised Khartoum for opening several "human corridors" to deliver aid directly from Sudan to areas of South Sudan, and for hosting hundreds of thousands of refugees.

However, he said it was time to develop "new models" for aiding refugees, rather than just keeping them in camps.

"For how long can you support these camps?" he said as the United Nations and other aid organisations face increasing financial crunch.

It would be better to support the local economy and infrastructure, he said, as that would "benefit the refugees also".
He wont even be able to vote, but a 16-year-old Wichita high school student says hes serious about his bid to run for governor of Kansas.

Jack Bergerson has filed to run as a Democrat in the 2018 race for governor of Kansas, saying he wanted to give people another option, The Kansas City Star reported . And it doesnt faze him that he wont even be old enough to vote in the election.

Under Kansas law, there is no law governing the qualifications for governor, not one, said Bryan Caskey, director of elections at the Kansas secretary of states office. So theres seriously nothing on the books that lays out anything, no age, no residency, no experience. Nothing.

When Bergeson, a junior at The Independent School in Wichita, found out about the lack of requirements, he thought, Oh, I could do that.

I thought, you know, lets give the people of Kansas a chance, Bergeson said. Lets try something new that has never really been tried anywhere else before.

The teenager said he wants to radically change the health care system and would support legalizing marijuana for medical purposes, while being willing to explore legalization for recreational use. But he is conservative on gun rights and supports laws that allow people to openly carry their weapons.

I think if you offer the people of Kansas something radical, something new so then that shows that we can move in a new direction, I think that will put the Democratic Party in a good position to win the seat next year, Bergeson said.

A classmate, 17-year-old Alexander Cline, will be his lieutenant governor. Cline will be able to vote in the election, since he will be 18 by then.

Other Democratic candidates running for the seat include former state Secretary of Agriculture Josh Svaty, former Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer and Arden Andersen, an Olathe doctor.

Bergersons announcement yesterday garnered national attention, including an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live. He told Kimmel one of the main reasons for his unusual campaign is to try and spark an interest in politics among his peers.

Michael Smith, a political scientist at Emporia State University, said that could be a positive part of the teenagers unusual campaign.

If this guy is at all reasonable, it could be a very good thing, Smith said. Its always such challenge to get young people to politically engage.  Im not saying hell win the nomination or anything, but if he could talk to other, maybe not 16-year-olds but people just turning 18 and get them to engage, I mean it could be a really good thing.
Fidelity Bank has rewarded the first batch of winners in the Fidelity 10x Richer Promo.

The winners of the first draw are Pius Adom of Stadium Post Branch, Adam Osman Adom of Suame Branch and Anastasia Larsen of Adentan Branch.

The rest are Nii Dalai Quist of Ridge Towers Branch and Patience Amonimaah of Tesano Branch.

All these 5 winners had their coupon balances multiplied by 10, making their coupon balance GHS 5, 000.00.

At a brief ceremony held at the Bank's Spintex Branch, the Divisional Director for Retail Banking, Mr. Julian Kingsley Opuni expressed his appreciation to customers of the Bank for doing business with Fidelity Bank for the last 10 years.

He noted that the promotion was one of the Bank's way of saying thank you to its customers for their years of loyalty.

Mr. Opuni added, In line with our 10th anniversary, we decided to give our customers the opportunity to get 10x richer, hence the concept of this new promotion dubbed Fidelity 10x Richer Promo.

With this money, they can increase their capital, pay school fees, or finance any project they are working on. Fidelity Bank offers its customers cash prizes so that they can decide what to do with the money.

Mr. Opuni indicated that there are more prizes to be won in the remaining monthly draws, adding that the stakes are even higher in the grand draw and urged all customers and prospective customers to participate in the promo if they have not yet already.

In the next 4 monthly draws, Fidelity will give 20 customers the opportunity of having their coupon balances multiplied by 10. And in the grand draw, 3 lucky customers will have their coupon balances multiplied by 1010 or 100 to each walk away with GHS 50, 000. So in all we have GHS 275, 000 up for grabs, get into the promo, who knows, you could be the one to walk away with GHS 50, 0000.00.

New customers will be required to open a current or savings account with a minimum deposit of GHS 500 or multiples of GHS 500. The money must stay in the account for a minimum of one month or more to qualify for the draw.

Existing customers will be required to top up existing account balances with GHS 500 or multiples of GHS 500. The money must also stay in the account for a minimum of one month or more to qualify.

Fidelity Bank launched the Fidelity 10x Richer Promo in June to reward loyal customers and also to inculcate in Ghanaians the habit of saving.

The draw was supervised by the National Lotteries Authority under the Caritas Lottery Platform.

Fidelity Bank was issued its universal banking license on June 28 2006, making Fidelity Bank Ghana Limited, the 22nd bank to be licensed by the Bank of Ghana under the new Banking Act, 2004 (Act 673).

The Bank was also authorized by the Bank of Ghana to undertake Agency Banking in 2013.

Fidelity Bank is the 2015 Bank of the year and was adjudged the Most Socially Responsible Bank in Ghana for two consecutive years. The Bank was also named the Bank of the year, 2016 by the Banker's Publication, promoted by the Financial Times of London.

Fidelity Bank was also adjudged the Bank of the year 2016 at the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) Finance African Banking Awards.


At least about fifty percent of the workers of UT and Capital bank will be laid off following the acquisition of the banks by GCB.

Citi Business News has also learnt that GCB will not be compensating any of the workers that will be laid off.

The infograph below provides further details of what will the fate of the workers of the collapsed banks will be.
United Nations (United States) (AFP) - Hit by several attacks on UN camps, Mali on Tuesday called on the international community to provide military material and financial aid from a new joint force being set up by five countries of the Sahel region.

Speaking before the UN Security Council, Mali's ambassador to the United Nations, Issa Konfourou, said Monday's attacks in Mali, which left nine dead, and an attack in Burkina Faso on Sunday, in which 18 people were killed, underscored the urgency of setting up the force.

He said progress had been made since the joint force was formally constituted in early July but Mali called "on all friendly countries and partner international organizations to help us to complete the budget."

The 5,000-strong force is to be made up of troops from Niger, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Burkina Faso.

It has an annual budget of about $496 million (423 million euros) a year but so far only about $127 million (108 million euros) has been pledged.

A Malian diplomat said equipment was needed for the force's five battalions. Also required is a communications systems linking them to headquarters and an emergency medical evacuation unit.

Plans call for deploying the first units in October and for the battalions to be operational by March, with priority placed on cross-border military operations.

Speaking at a UN Security Council debate on security in Africa, France's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations Anne Gueguen stressed the need for an "urgent response" to armed jihadist groups destabilizing the Sahel region, the semi-arid region in north central Africa that extends from Senegal to Sudan.

"The security situation in the Sahel is directly linked to the situation in Mali," she said.

Her American counterpart, Michele Sison, insisted that deeper cooperation between the five participating countries could help improve regional security and compliment the work of an existing UN peacekeeping force in Mali.

"Toward that end, the United States will continue its longstanding bilateral support to develop and build the capacity of G5 members' security forces," she said.

Konfourou and Niger's Ambassador Abdallah Wafy said after the Security Council meeting that the United States had not refused to contribute financially to the force -- even though unlike the European Union and France it has not announced a pledge of financial support.

They told reporters that Washington intends to participate in international donor conferences later this year to raise funds for the force, the ambassadors said.
Accra, Aug. 15, GNA - Papa Owusu-Ankomah, Ghana's High Commissioner to United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, has urged Ghanaians to hold on to their faith and live righteously as Christ expects of Christians.

He made the statement when he joined the congregation at Freedom Centre International (FCI), Welling Kent, to worship and followed on with a one to one interaction with members of the congregation, as part of his commitment to engage with Ghanaians across the UK.

A statement issued by EMH Global on behalf of FCI, said the High Commissioner shared his testimony of how his steadfastness to his faith had held him strong in his over 20 years as a politician.

He also used the opportunity to advise Ghanaians in the UK to be good citizens, hardworking, ambitious and law abiding.

Touching on the need for Ghanaians in the UK to seek the wellbeing of Ghana, Papa Owusu-Ankomah said it was the responsibility of every Ghanaian to pray for the peace and prosperity of Ghana regardless of their political affiliation, as a prosperous and peaceful country is a blessing to all.

He emphasised his commitment to use his office as the High Commissioner to unite Ghanaians in the UK and extended an invitation to all Ghanaians in London and its environs to a grand durbar scheduled to take place at the Ghana High Commission on Saturday August 19, 2017.

FCI is a thriving Ghanaian led multicultural Pentecostal church-based charity registered in the UK, and headed by Dr Shadrach Ofosuware, who is also the chairman of the Ghana Christian Council, UK.

Papa Owusu-Ankomah was accompanied by his wife, Mrs Augustina Owusu-Ankomah, and some staff at the Ghana High Commission in the UK.

GNA

By Belinda Ayamgha, GNA
Dominos Pizza [ASX:DMP] shares have fallen more than 20% after the company failed to meet its own earnings guidance targets.

While net profit after tax was up 28.8% from last year, the company failed to deliver on a 32.5% growth it told investors it would achieve at the half yearly update in February.

Same-store sales growth in Australia was 13.8%, missing the bottom of the guidance range of 1416%. And the figures were even more disappointing in Europe and Japan.

The company was trading on a high Price-Earnings (PE) ratio of around 37 before today. The slowdown in growth, particularly in the second half of the year, will have spooked investors who rely on the growth potential of the stock to justify such a high PE ratio.

The company have blamed this result on some issues in their online platform in France.

An emerging threat

With the strong growth in food delivery services such as Deliveroo and Uber Eats, the technological advantage Dominos once had over competitors may be coming to a swift end.

Uber Eats replicates all of the advantages that the Domino deliver app had, yet is available to many take away restaurants.

The next set of results will be crucial in evaluating how this left field threat has developed, and whether this was just a temporary blip in the companys strategy, as they are claiming.

Good Investing,

Ryan Dinse,

Editor, Money Morning

Why Ethereum Could Be the One Coin to Rule Them All..find out here
'The big truck is still on ...
Pakistan kicked off a day of celebrations yesterday marking 70 years of statehood and independence, the festivities beginning with gun salutes in the capital, Islamabad, and in each of the four provincial capitals.

In Islamabad, President Mamnoon Hussain hoisted the national flag at a ceremony attended by Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, visiting Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang, and scores of Pakistani military and government officials and other dignitaries.

Security was on high alert across the nation following the suicide attack on Saturday when a bomber on a motorcycle targeted a military truck in the southwestern city of Quetta, killing 15  eight soldiers and seven civilians.

Pakistan gained independence when the departing British left India and split the subcontinent in 1947, sparking one of the most violent upheavals of the 20th century.

For the Pakistanis, the anniversary comes amid political turmoil that has characterized successive civilian governments of the country, which has been dominated by military rule through much of its history.

Addressing the ceremony in the capital, Hussain urged the nation to look to the wisdom of its founders when facing the current hot environment.

Solutions to all the problems of this time persist in our ideologies, thoughts of leaders of our freedom movement and our bright history, he said. By following them we can improve our situation today and our future as well.

He appealed on the citizens to rise above their party and group interests and protect the future of the nation. Later in the evening, Hussain was to hand out medals to noteworthy citizens.

Most recently, Pakistans political scene has been shaken when the Supreme Court dismissed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from office in July for concealing his family assets.

Sharif stepped down, allowing for Abbasi to take over, but decried the courts ruling as an injustice and vowed to clear his name. Then he embarked last week on a series of on-the-road rallies, spanning four days and covering the stretch from Islamabad to his hometown, the eastern city of Lahore where he addressed tens of thousands of supporters.

Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang said his country considers Pakistan an important partner in the Belt and Road Initiative that calls for Beijing building ports, railways and other facilities in a vast arc spanning 65 countries, including Pakistan.

In Karachi, visitors paid respects at the mausoleum of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder the country.

Pakistan Air Force put on a spectacular airshow, with Pakistani, Turkish and Saudi fighter jets flying over Islamabad as thousands of spectators watched from one of the citys parks. AP
The 2017 South China Book Festival and the Canton Book Fair ended yesterday in Guangzhou. The five-day event took place at the Canton Fair Complex, covering an area of 40,000 square meters.

This year, there was a more diverse range of exhibition halls including a Hong Kong-Macau-Taiwan Hall, Canton Book Fair Hall, Digital Publishing Hall and a Picture Book Hall.

This was the second year that Macau was included in an exhibition hall.

Special areas were set up for 14 reading promotion agencies to stage activities.

Over 300 cultural activities were organized at the festival and more than 350 celebrities and literati were present to speak with visitors including writers Wang Meng, Su Tong, Geling Yan and columnist Chua Lam.

The theme of the festival this year was reading as an attitude towards life.

In addition, reading nights were held over the weekend, where visitors experienced cultural activities across different themes. On Friday, a reading talent show with the theme the journey of a book was held featuring special guests reading books and articles.

On Saturday, an activity titled 24 hour reading plan was staged, during which visitors had the chance to speak with VIP guests face to face. On Sunday, there were stage performances including modern drama, street dance and cosplay.

The organizer also established 17 bookcrossing sites in Guangdong during the event to encourage people to read and share books. People could borrow and exchange books at any of the 17 locations and return them at any of the other points.

Satellite venues brought the festival to 13 other cities around Guangdong, including Zhuhai, Foshan and Zhongshan.
CCWD Water Resources Mgr Peter Martin, Calaveras District 4 Supervisor Dennis Mills, Stanislaus County Water Resources Mgr Walter Ward celebrate new Eastside GSA partnership View Photos

San Andreas, CA  What is being billed as the first-ever partnership between Calaveras and Stanislaus counties has been forged to protect a shared groundwater system.

The relationship was triggered by a three-bill package known as the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown back in the fall of 2014, empowering water agencies to sustainably  and locally  manage groundwater plans for the states key basins.

This has led to Calaveras County Water District (CCWD), Rock Creek Water District, and Stanislaus County forming a groundwater sustainability agency that will steward the Eastern San Joaquin Groundwater Sub basin. According to CCWD officials, Calaveras County will be coming on board this fall via an amended memorandum of understanding between the four agencies.

This is a historic achievement, states CCWD General Manager Dave Eggerton. It will be invaluable in helping us address the challenges of restoring the health of the groundwater basin. He adds that the partnership of counties and water agencies that crosses county lines and agency boundaries provides a collaborative model for working together towards the restoration of a depleted groundwater basin.

The Eastside GSA, as it has been named, will cover an approximately 198 square-mile area of the Eastern San Joaquin Sub basin within Calaveras County and portions of Stanislaus County that are not already within another GSA boundary. Known as the triangle, officials say it has been critically over drafted since 1980, pointing to years of unsustainable groundwater pumping practices throughout much of California that have been key factors in causing land subsidence, dry wells and poor water quality.

The GSA will now work with other stakeholders overlying the Eastern San Joaquin Groundwater Basin to develop a Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP), which must be in place by 2020. According to the partners, the plan will create a road map for establishing groundwater sustainability in the basin by 2040. Millions in state grant funding is expected to be tappable for helping fund plan development. As part of the state requirements, the partners will be doing outreach with landowners and groundwater users in the boundaries of the planning area as well as working collaboratively with the 15 other GSAs in the Eastern San Joaquin Groundwater Basin to meet the SGMA obligations.
Sonora, CA  A board of supervisors action taken today edges Tuolumne County closer to constructing the $39-million new jail.

The supervisors voted 5-0 to approve a list of agreements with the State of California, including a ground lease, a right of entry for construction and operation, and a facility sublease. Board chair Sherri Brennan stated, This is a momentous moment, I believe.

District Five Supervisor Karl Rodefer added, A qualified, and cautious, congratulations (to staff). We still got a long way to go, but it is a big moment, and a very important project for this county.

The county received $33-million in grant money to go towards construction of the new jail off Old Wards Ferry Road. We reported last month that the county would like to award a contract in the coming months so that construction can start sometime around late November. The eventual bids received will be reviewed by both the county and state. The jail will take about 18 months to build.
Today we will temporarily move to one of the most cultured countries in the world. Yes, you've guessed correctly. We are talking about Canada! Maybe it will be useful for you to know "is Canada a cold country?" You will learn it today!

Is Canada a hot or cold country?

The main factors of the Canadian climate are latitude, the obstruction of the Rocky Mountains by the western oceanic winds. Besides, we should know the extent of the continental territories at relatively high latitude, leading to strong cooling in winter. One more important fact is the proximity of The Arctic Ocean, which makes the summer cool.

The Canadian climate is characterized by a cold winter and a cool or moderate and humid summer with a long day. The climate and temperatures vary greatly depending on the region. In the north the climate is polar. In Prairies, the temperature range varies at different times of the year or even days. But speaking of the climate in the west, in British Columbia, it is milder and more temperate. It is not overlooked by the Canadian Rockies. On the west coast and the island of Vancouver, there is the marine climate. Winters are mild and rainy due to the influence of the Pacific Ocean.

The average monthly winter temperature can drop to -15C even in the southern part of the country. But you can expect temperatures of -40C with strong icy winds. An average annual precipitation in the form of snow can reach several hundred centimeters. For example, in Quebec - 337 cm.

In summer, the actual temperatures can rise to +35C, and in the Canadian Prairies even up to +40C. The humidity index is often high in summer in the east of the country. In some villages in the extreme north of the country, temperatures were fixed to -50C in winter. The temperature in Alert in summer rarely reaches +5C. In addition, strong icy winds can dramatically lower the temperature even to -60C.

In most of the territory, the climate is continental. It is cold or very cold in winter, like Dxx according to Koppen's classification. In the southern part close to the US border, the summer is relatively warmer and longer, in the north it is shorter and cooler.

Which continent is Canada?

Canada is the continent of North America. It ranks second in the world in terms of area. It is washed by the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic Oceans, borders with the USA in the south and in the northwest. Canada also has maritime borders with Denmark (Greenland) in the northeast and with France (Saint-Pierre and Miquelon) in the east. The border of Canada and the United States is the longest common border in the world.

This country is a constitutional monarchy/kingdom with a parliamentary system. Its monarch is the monarch of the British Commonwealth of Nations. Canada is a bilingual and multicultural country. English and French are recognized as the official at the federal level. The country is technologically and industrially developed. It has a diversified economy which is based on rich natural resources and trade.

READ ALSO: South West states in Nigeria

Currently, Canada is a federal state, consisting of 10 provinces and 3 territories. Quebec is the province with a predominant French-speaking population. The rest are mainly English-speaking provinces, also called "English Canada" in comparison with the French-speaking Quebec.

As one of the nine predominantly English-speaking provinces, New Brunswick is the only officially bilingual Canadian province. The territory of the Yukon is officially bilingual (English and French), and the Northwest Territories and the Nunavut Territory recognize 11 and 4 official languages respectively. English and French are also present among them.

Where is Canada?

Speaking more about the geographical position of Canada, it should be noted that the country occupies a large part of the North of North America. The zone of the north is about 75%. Canada has a common land border with the USA in the south and in the northwest (between Alaska and Yukon). It is located from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific - in the west and to the Arctic Ocean - in the north of the country.

Want to know the best part?

You will be interested in learning some of the most interesting things about Canada!

Top 10 cool facts about Canada

1. Canada continues to remain under the patronage of the British monarch. But despite this fact, it is a technologically and industrially developed multicultural country with two official languages.

2. Canada is the second largest country in the world after Russia. Can you imagine this? Its territory is 9.9 million km2. By the way, the country has six time zones.

3. The border between the US and Canada is the longest in the world. Its length is 8,891 km.

4. The North American beaver is the national animal of Canada.

5. And now you will be surprised. The name of the country has a funny origin. When the French explorer Jacques Cartier reached the new world, the local natives invited them to "Kanata", that is, "village". Researchers decided that this is the name of the country. Later, Kanata was transformed into Canada. I think you never knew about this before!

6. Canada is the most educated country in the world. More than half of its citizens have higher education.

7. There are more lakes in Canada than in the rest of the world combined. Only in the province of Ontario, they number 250 000. They contain about 1/5 of the world's fresh water reserves.

8. Twice in history, Americans invaded Canada - in 1775 and 1812. And both times lost.

9. Car license plates in the Northwest Territories of Canada (Canadian Northwest Territories) have the form of a polar bear.

10. A big part of Canada has less earth-gravity power than the rest of the Earth. This phenomenon was discovered in the 1960s.

11. A Canadian policeman can give a "positive ticket" to a person who does something good.

12. And the last, but not the least fact! Pamela Anderson, Leonard Cohen, Avril Lavigne, Keanu Reeves, Jim Carrey, Celine Dion - all of these celebrities are Canadians.

Now you know where is Canada located. But speaking of climate in this country, a lot of things can be said. Climate really depends on where in Canada you are. If you are in the north part, so it is very cold all the time. As it has already been mentioned, the climate is continental in most of the territory.

READ ALSO: How much is Canada visa fee in Nigeria 2017?

Source: Legit.ng
While addressing members of his party at a recent event, Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers state said he has been given a cutlass to cut down opposition in his state.

Source: Legit.ng
In an exclusive chat with Legit.ng, the Ooni of Ife Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi has dismissed rumours about the alleged crash of his marriage.

There have been rumours circulating in the media that the 17 months old marriage of the Ooni and his wife Olori Wuraola has crashed.

However, speaking with Legit.ng on phone, the Ooni's director of media Comrade Moses Olafare debunked the rumours saying that he and his wife have a happy marriage. He said there is no truth to the news, it is unimaginable. He insisted that the palace will not make any formal reaction on it for that will only amount to a needless misdirection of energy

According to the Oonis media aide, the palace was not aware of the rumour until Legit.ng contacted the palace for an interview.

READ ALSO: Meet 6-year-old Moyinoluwa Oluwaseun who is a professional photographer (photo)

Ooni of Ife speaks on the alleged crash of his marriage

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Olafare said: "Ooni Ogunwusi is a working monarch committed to moving the African race forward especially in the areas of cultural tourism, youth development and women empowerment. So he's too busy to be responding to unfounded rumours and too focused to be distracted by some faceless practitioners of jungle journalism abusively benefiting from the opportunistic social media porosity"

Watch Legit.ng's interview with the Ooni of Ife on Nigeria

Source: Legit.ng
Someone who bought a Powerball ticket in Southern California has won a record $2.04 billion Powerball jackpot. The winning numbers drawn Tuesday morning at the Florida Lottery draw studio in Tallahassee were: white balls 10, 33, 41, 47 and 56, and the red Powerball was 10. The jackpot ticket was sold at Joes Service Center in Altadena, northeast of Los Angeles. The business will receive a maximum Powerball bonus of $1 million. The Multi-State Lottery Association said Monday nights scheduled drawing was delayed by nearly 10 hours until Tuesday because a participating lottery had issues processing sales. The jackpot was by far the largest lottery jackpot ever won, topping the previous record $1.586 billion prize won by three Powerball ticketholders in 2016.
- Olusegun Obasanjo, former president has accused the lawmakers of corruption

- Obasanjo said constituency projects that the lawmakers have just embanked upon is questionable

- He however said the only thing that can bring Nigeria out of recession is agriculture

Olusegun Obasanjo, former president has remarked on the constituency projects being embarked upon by lawmakers while saying it is ''corruption''.

Reports have it that Obasanjo made this known at the opening of a two-day investment forum organised by the Niger state government in Minna on Monday, August 14.

According to him, ''You and I know what constituency projects mean. It is simply corruption.

READ ALSO: What Buhari said about the 'Return or Resign' protest against him - Adesina

''The Sultan talked about roads, I hope our lawmakers will use their position and act positively so that when they put in road projects in the budget they will not turn it into what they now term as constituency projects''.

Legit.ng gathered that Obasanjo however suggested that the federal and state governments should embark on massive rural and urban road construction.

He said that will enable the movement of agricultural products from the farms to the markets easier.

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He said: ''If there is anything that will take us out of recession, it is agriculture; that is the only renewable business we can do to give us all the job creation, wealth creation that we need''.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported that Obasanjo declared that unless Nigerian youths come out to contest elective positions, old generation politicians would not quit the stage for them.

Watch this Legit.ng TV Video of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo explaining why Nigeria needs to be treated like love:

Source: Legit.ng
Editors note: Education is unarguably is key to human survival and every child is entitled to quality and qualitative education.

In an investigation carried out and sent to Legit.ng, Austin Oyibode revealed how most elitist schools abandon Nigeria education curriculum in preference for British curriculum.

Teaching with the British curriculum in schools helps the children discover their interests and potentials early enough.

This was the justification given by Amos Eboka, director of Patricia Group of Schools Asaba as to why majority of Nigerian big private schools are applying the British curriculum as opposed to the straight Nigerian curriculum.

The British curriculum, otherwise known as the National Curriculum of England, is a statutory national curriculum framework that was developed by the United Kingdom government to help guide administrators as well as tutors on integral aspects related to the educational development of children of school age who live in the United Kingdom or have direct connections to it.

Overtime, however, the curriculum is no longer restricted to Great Britain but has found its way into Africa, dominating the education sector in some countries and is now even defined as the globally acceptable standards in some countries.

One of the private schools in Nigeria. Photo: Austin Oyibode

The curriculum being designed and structured by the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) which is based on the National Policy on Education (NPE) of 1977 (last reviewed in 2004) is being jettisoned by big private schools on the ground of non-conformity to international standards. Countless big private schools in Nigeria have been observed to be guilty of this practice.

READ ALSO: 'You left Nigeria in tatters' - Buhari lists facts to remind Jonathan

It was in justifying this development that Mr. Eboka stated that the curriculum was not a complete deviation from the Nigerian curriculum as most persons assumed, but is simply targeted at teaching the same things in the Nigerian curriculum by using effective and child-friendly methods.

He explained that the British mode, which is closely linked to the Montessori system of learning, is simply a more flexible teaching style that takes the interests of each child into consideration.

According to him, the early and foundational classes tend to be a bit slow as the teacher tries to move at the childs pace, but as soon as they grab the basics, everything gets smooth and easy.

The first obvious difference is the style of teaching especially in the foundational classes, a lot of illustrations, pictures and figures are used to enable the child gets a firm grasp of things rather than just cramming.

One of the private schools in Nigeria. Photo: Austin Oyibode

"Unlike our days where we were simply made to cram and recite the multiplication tables every day, this time, the children are made to see how 6 times 4 becomes 24, instead of them just cramming. They are made to understand the process so that they can easily replicate it, just as one of the requirements in mathematics is for the child to show the workings step by step.

The child is placed in a comfortable and conducive environment where he is allowed to discover, while the teacher acts as a guide.

"This is unlike the kind of education most of us grew up with where we went to school and were made to take in everything the teacher teaches hook, line and sinker, most times without understanding how this process of how words are formed from sounds and letters and how arithmetic solving leads to the answers, he asserted.

According to Mr. Eboka the sitting arrangements applied especially at the basic level is not the strict and formal one where the teacher stands to teach and the pupil sits to listen, but a more informal arrangement where the teacher sits with them in round table and kidney shaped tables where they learn at the childs pace.

It encourages the teacher to work with each child based on his or her personality type so that the more shy and reserved ones are encouraged to gradually open up and mix with their mates while the boisterous and sociable ones are also made to calm at some point to learn.

He noted that not all the children might be in the mood to learn at the same time. Some might want to play while the others want to play with some toys while some might be in the mood for some sort of creative work. All the children are thus encouraged to discover their soft motor and psychomotor skills, while also making them to know how to read at the early age of 4 to 5 years.

This line of thought was emphasized also by Mrs. Annette Nwanne, an educationist and expert who explained that the pupils at the early stage are taught the different letters and their sounds, and how to identify them; they are later introduced to the 42 sounds.

As soon as they get it, they can easily pronounce words as the sounds have already been pre-programmed in their minds. She insisted that the British curriculum helps the childs diction making them able to fit in especially when they go out of the country to school.

One of the private schools in Nigeria. Photo: Austin Oyibode

She debunked the assumption that it prevents the child from mastering his or her native language, stating that on the other hand, it helps the child to become the master of any language he chooses to speak.

What it ensures is that the child is able to speak English like an English native without mother-tongue interference, and also speak his own native language with the required accent. It distinguishes the language in the mind of the child and helps him understand and respect languages.

When you see children who were not taught with the British curriculum, when they go outside the country they have difficulty understanding the whites when they speak, and they keep saying pardon I didnt get you and so on, but when they are taught with it from the foundation, they understand it clearly.

She also insisted that the curriculum contains all that is found in the Nigerian curriculum and even more, but that the mode of teaching and class arrangement is different. Even the foreign textbooks used employs a lot of pictures, colours and illustrations and that is why the children hardly forget what they have been taught.

They are also made to get involved in various extra-curricular activities which ensure an all-round development of the child, as the school is not only meant to address the academic needs, but also the social and psychological needs of the child.

On their social life, Mrs. Nwanne who is also the Head-teacher of Patricia Nursery and Primary schools noted that children who are taught using the British curriculum are generally more sociable, confident, bold and can interact with people of different age range.

This is as a result of the fact that they have been taught in a class system where the teacher encourages them to speak out, contribute and interact, and where they are gently and lovingly corrected even when they make mistakes.

"Unlike those children who started out in a class arrangement where the teacher teaches and the pupils learn everything without their opinion being taken into consideration.

For Dr. (Mrs.) Glory Ogugua, proprietress of Dell International School in Asaba, the British curriculum is good same way Nigerian curriculum is good. She, however, said most Nigerian parents, prefer the Nigerian way of learning.

She explained that in the British system, if a teacher wants to teach fraction, instead of telling the child it is , the British prefer using physical items displayed before the children to aid faster and better understanding.

The British will bring apple into the class, cut it into four and demonstrate it before the child. The system makes it simpler for the child to understand the concept of fraction and it is easy to comprehend, Dr. Ogugua explained.

However, she said the system is expensive. According to her, the cost of running the British system is not within the reach of the average Nigerians, hence, most Nigerian parents go for schools that operate primarily the Nigerian education curriculum.

She said some British schools charge as much as N1.5million per term as tuition fees. She explained that the high cost of the tuition fees is not unconnected with the materials used for teaching the children.

If you compare those schools that are fully into British and those schools that adopt a little of British and a little of Nigerian, their fees can never be the same.

Those who do full British charge higher fees. You cant be coming to a British school and you want to pay N120, 000. It cant work. They will tell you all things you pay for. You pay for this and that. Even Mathematics has a game. That is the British method; they make things easier for you but expensive.

The British method makes learning simple. It is expensive because of the money involved. If you are teaching a secondary school child, there are different things you need to purchase; even arranging the method takes good money.

"All Montessori equipment is expensive. Like a child of two or three, you want to teach the child that after one is two, you use something like staircase where you keep ascending, everything is dramatized for the child to see.

Dr. Ogugua explained that most of the Nigerian schools that are fully Britain are essentially aimed at preparing the children for British examinations like TOEFL, SAT, IELTS and those intending to school abroad after their secondary education in Nigeria. But she added that some of these children do not go abroad at the end of their education.

There are, however, those who feel that the use of British curriculum in Nigeria is a subtle way of enhancing neo-colonialism.

One of such teachers, Mrs. Rosemary Okwukwe, an educationist, insists that there is no wisdom in applying the British curriculum in teaching our Nigerian children within the shores of the country, when Nigerian curriculum is not being applied in the United Kingdom.

She emphasized that most parents who are even insistent on the British curriculum have neither the plans nor the wherewithal to send their children abroad.

Most of them just want to be proud to say that their child went to a British school and speak Queens English.

Eventually those children who were taught with the straight Nigerian curriculum but still went out of the country to school, they still fit in there and even excel because the Nigerian curriculum has stretched them and enhanced their brain capacity to fit in anywhere, rather than the British curriculum which wants to simplify even the most basic things, she stated.

According to her, "where the British curriculum aims to simplify everything and is suitable for application in the United Kingdom, the Nigerian curriculum which was designed by Nigerians for Nigerians aims to stretch the childs mind and enhance his capacity, making him able to reason things for himself and making him tough enough to fit in anywhere in the world.

This, in her opinion, is the reason that most Nigerian children who started poor attending government schools which did not practice the curriculum are still able to excel when they get an opportunity or a scholarship which takes them to school outside the country. We always hear of them graduating as the best students with First Class degrees.

She argued that training Nigerian children in Nigeria with a foreign standard is like manufacturing products in Nigeria and ignoring the standards set by the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) to settle for foreign standards.

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Why should that be the case? Do you want to export the children for foreign consumption or do you want them to function in the Nigerian environment and contribute to the country? These questions should be answered before people rush into avoidable errors.

Notably, the practice of applying the British curriculum either alone, or mixed with the Nigerian curriculum is found in big private schools, something which has been attributed to their need to sell to the public. Mrs. Nwanne noted that the government schools are not necessarily looking for patronage and so they see no need to apply new teaching trends in their schools.

The private schools are looking for patronage and so, they constantly see the need to send their teachers on refresher courses, to update with new and emerging teaching trends all around the world.

One of the private schools in Nigeria. Photo: Austin Oyibode

This enables them to create an environment where the child can acquire skills beyond reading and writing, skills such as creative skills, social skills, communication and language skills and cognitive skills.

However, this method has been criticized due to the high nature of the school fees especially that of schools practicing a full British curriculum whose fees cannot be afforded by the average or middle class Nigeria.

Many are also of the opinion that running any form of foreign curriculum in Nigeria is tantamount to describing the Nigerian mode of education as inferior. As the saying goes that when in Rome, one should behave as the Romans; these groups of persons insist that when in Nigeria, the Nigerian mode of education should be practiced.

However, some still suggest a need to review the Nigerian curriculum in line with existing trends, such that the curriculum would no longer be regimented or too theoretical, but becomes more technological and creativity based, to enable them become independent when they are through with their education, rather than just waiting on white-collar jobs which the curriculum emphasizes.

But office of the Chief Inspector of education (CIE) in Asaba, Delta state, told our reporter that the education ministry is not aware of this development.

Although the CIE was not around his visit, Legit.ng reporter was, however, directed to the department of education research where he was told that although the ministry is not aware of that, staff of the office who did not want to be named, said schools using the British curriculum are only doing that to grow their ego and project their reputation.

They argued that all schools in Nigeria whether private or public write the same national examinations.

They said primary and Junior School pupils write the same examination prepared by state ministries of education while senior secondary students across the country write the same examination conducted by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and National Examinations Council (NECO).

Hence, they are therefore of the opinion that there is no need using British curriculum when the children will not write British examinations in the secondary school days.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that over 80-percent of schools were operating way below the standards attainable, with poor infrastructures and a seeming lack of qualified hands being the major issues faced.

Watch this Legit.ng video as Nigerians speak on past presidents:

Source: Legit.ng
Headlines from mainstream Nigerian newspapers today, Tuesday August 15, are focused on the commencement of an indefinite strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the war of words between the presidency and former President Goodluck Jonathan over the state of the economy and the stance of the presidency about Muhammadu Buharis chances to re-contest in 2019.

The Punch reports that against the backdrop of the federal governments failure to implement the terms of the agreement reached in 2009, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), has commenced a nationwide indefinite strike.

READ ALSO: Angry mob kills soldier in Nasarawa for hitting a street hawker

Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, the president of the association, stated that the strike will be a comprehensive one, with lecturers across the country withdrawing all services including teaching and attending of meetings.

According to the publication, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has come out in support of the strike; even as the labor union urged the government to honor its agreement.

Front page of The Punch newspaper, Tuesday August 15 (Photo credit: Legit.ng)

Vanguard reports that following the strike action declared by ASUU, academic activities have grounded to a halt in all public universities in the country.

The strike which began on Monday, August 14, is expected to affect about 40 federal and 44 state universities in the country.

Parents and students have expressed outrage and dismay over the development.

Front page of Vanguard newspaper, Tuesday August 15 (Photo credit: Legit.ng)

Still on the issue of the ASUU strike, The Guardian reports that the leadership of the association has threatened to sanction any university which goes against its orders and holds any academic activity during the duration of the strike.

According to ASUUs leadership, the strike is total and indefinite.

However, the paper reports that a faction of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has appealed to the association, to resolve its dispute with the Federal Government, via alternative avenues.

Front page of The Guardian newspaper, Tuesday August 15 (Photo credit: Legit.ng)

The Nation reports that the presidency has countered the claims made by former President Goodluck Jonathan at the PDP Non-Elective Convention which held over the weekend, that he had handed over a healthy economy to Muhammadu Buhari.

In a statement released by Garba Shehu, the Buhari administration declared that it was handed an economy ravaged by years of mismanagement and corruption, by the Jonathan regime.

Shehu proceeded to outline a list of failures which he attributed to the former president.

Front page of The Nation newspaper, Tuesday August 15 (Photo credit: Legit.ng)

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ThisDay reports that aide to the president, Garba Shehu, has also stated that if given the opportunity, Muhammadu Buhari is fit enough to contest the 2019 presidential election.

This comes against the backdrop of protests about the Presidents health.

Garba stated that upon his arrival from his medical vacation, the President would speak to Nigerians.

Front page of ThisDay newspaper, Tuesday August 15 (Photo credit: Legit.ng)

Watch this Legit.ng TV video asking Nigerians what Buhari should tackle when he returns.

Source: Legit.ng
- Ibrahim Hassan, Jigawa state deputy governor has revealed what will happen to Igbo living in the state if Arewa youths insist on sending out of the region

- Hassan said he believed that there would not be any problem in Jigawa

- He also said Arewa Youths had later made some pronouncements which indicated there were solutions to the issue

Ibrahim Hassan, Jigawa state deputy governor has disclosed what will happen to Igbos resident in the state if the northern youths insist on sending them out of region.

Reports have it that Hassan made this known while briefing journalist in Duste.

Legit.ng gathered that he promised that the state government would provide security for the Igbos resident in the state.

READ ALSO: 'You left Nigeria in tatters' - Buhari lists facts to remind Jonathan

He said ''Im not aware and it is not true. Report reaching us from the security operatives indicated the Igbo are not leaving the state.

''Also, the state police commissioner has met with all the associations of non-indigenes residing in Jigawa.

''They discussed extensively with police and they were satisfied with the security situations and assurances of adequate protection of life and property which made them to continue living in the state. government is ever ready to protect them.

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''Also those that made that pronouncement (Arewa Youth) made some statement later which indicated solutions to the issue.

''By Gods grace there wouldnt be any problem in Jigawa and hopeful anywhere in the country''.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported the Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG) claimed that Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) is hindering peace talks regarding the quit notice issued by Arewa Youths to Igbos in the North.

CNG made this known in a statement issued after its town hall meeting in Kano state on Monday, August 7.

Watch this Legit.ng TV video of Nnamdi Kanu addressing his supporters in Abia:

Source: Legit.ng
- The Our Mumu Don Do movement led by veteran entertainer, CharlyBoy, has not given up on their cause

- The protesters are currently gathered at the Unity Fountain, Maitama-Abuja

- The protests however took a new turn when the protesters arrived at Wuse Market, Abuja

Sympathizers of President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday, August 15 attacked the Our Mumu Don Do protesters.

The anti-Buhari protesters had left their meeting point at Unity Fountain, Abuja and decided to take their campaign to the popular Wuse Market in the Federal Capital Territory.

On arrival, they were greeted with cheers and large crowd swarmed over them. But as soon as sympathizers of the president sighted them, the situation turned ugly as the protesters and their supporters were stoned.

Legit.ng correspondent on ground confirmed that the Nigeria police quickly took over the market, while gunshots and tear gas were fired to scare trouble makers and avert crisis.

Meanwhile, the anti-Buhari protesters have said that contrary to what many believe, President Muhammadu Buhari lacks integrity.

Charly Boy leading the protesters into Wuse Market. Photo credit: Concerned Nigerians Group

Speaking during the protest on Tuesday, August 15, one of the leaders of the group, Deji Adeyanju, said: If the president had any integrity he will honourablly resign.

Our Mumu Don do protesters at the Unity Fountain, Abuja earlier today

He continued: This government is worse than Abacha regime, Abacha during his tenure did not kill over 1,000 Shiites.

Abacha did not waste money by sharing and hiring crowd.

Reacting to the presidency on various remarks on Buhari's health, a participant, Dare Ariyo, said the group sympathises with the president's media team.

Ariyo said: We want a president that is empathetic to the sufferings of Nigeria, we want a president who would want to govern 24/7.

They will have every reason to deny all they have said today, one thing we are sure is that prosperity has a way of getting back.

All we are saying is that President Buhari should resume or resign, Ariyo added.

The anti-Buhari protesters getting ready to ho hit the streets

The group further added that it will be marching to the Presidential Villa on Wednesday, August 16, to mark President Buhari's 100 days absence.

They also prayed for the Nigerian nation before proceeding to some areas in Abuja including Wuse market in protest of the long absence of the president.

Watch Charly Boy's Our Mumu Don Do protest on Legit.ng TV held in Lagos few months ago:

Source: Legit.ng
- Chinonso Obasi, the NANS president, stated that Nigerian students see the breakdown in negotiations as further proof that political leaders dont care about their future

- Obasi appealed to the Buhari-led federal government to do all it can resolve the crisis and get lecturers back to the classrooms

- According to the student leader, ASUUs demands are reasonable and touch on the integrity of the Buhari government; especially as regards its fight against corruption

The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has issued an ultimatum to the federal government over the indefinite strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

According to reports, NANS asked the government to resolve the crisis in 21 days or face the wrath of youths across the country.

READ ALSO: ASUU under fire, as parents and students express outrage over indefinite strike

In a statement released on Monday, August 14, Chinonso Obasi, the NANS president, asked the government to negotiate with lecturers.

In the interest of Nigerian students, the student leader urged the government to resolve all outstanding issues with ASUU.

The statement read: It is with deep pain and regret that NANS received the news of another indefinite strike by ASUU over the Federal Governments indifference to their plight.

Nigerian students see the breakdown in negotiations as further proof that political leaders dont care about their future.

Consequently, we wish to call on the Federal Government to do all it can to get ASUU back to the classrooms.

The demands of ASUU are reasonable and touch on the integrity of government, especially in the light of the fight against corruption.

The NANS leader disclosed that the association will soon meet with the leadership of ASUU.

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Recall that Legit.ng previously reported that Nigerian students are set for a lengthy stay at home as the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) embarked on an indefinite strike action.

The lecturers decided to go on strike after an extensive deliberation at its meeting which held at the University of Abuja.

Watch this Legit.ng TV video asking what Buhari should tackle first when he returns:

Source: Legit.ng
- Another Boko Haram attacks have hit two communities in Adamawa state

- Many lives were lost in the incident according to a report

- But houses churches, shops, and animals were said to have been burnt down during the incident

Suspected members of the Boko Haram on Monday night August 14, attacked two Adamawa communities.

Premium Times reports that residents fled as the terrorists attacked Nyibango and Muduhu, both in Madagali Local Government Area of Adamawa.

Legit.ng gathered that the attacks came a few days after a similar incident in a neighbouring Mildu village in the same local government. At least seven people were killed in the Mildu attack.

Speaking on the Monday attack, the Chairman of Madagali Local Government Area, Yusuf Muhammed, said the attack lasted for nearly two hours.

He said that the jihadists burnt many houses and looted foodstuff.

They looted foodstuff, killed livestock and burnt the villages completely, including churches and the residence of one councillor, John Hammajam he stated.

READ ALSO: 90 billion dollar loot: Diezani finally breaks silence, says she never stole Nigerias money

Muhammed said that the exact number of dead and injured people had yet to be ascertained and that villagers who escaped the attack had fled the area.

A fleeing resident, Hamma Adamu, also said the terrorists shot sporadically and razed houses and places of worships.

The residents said the insurgents invaded the village when residents were preparing to go to bed.

Also speaking, the lawmaker who represents Madagali/Michika Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, Adamu Kamale, also said that Madagali Local Government Area is the worst affected by insurgency in the state.

Kamale in a telephone interview said the local government needs high government presence particularly security officials.

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Madagali is still experiencing sporadic attacks by the insurgents and needed urgent attention, Mr. Kamale said.

The attacks by Boko Haram on communities and other targets in the north-east have worsened since the start of the year despite the efforts of the military.

About 100,000 people have died since the insurgency began in 2009, according to official figures.

Legit.ng had earlier reported that days after troops in the northeast were given 40 days to get Abubakar Shekau alive, the leader of the Boko Haram terrorist group has released a video.

Watch this Legit.ng video and see how survivors of Boko Haram attacks now live their lives:

Source: Legit.ng
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- Charly Boy and his group were reportedly attacked by angry counter-protesters who are believed to be supporters of President Muhammadu Buhari

- The activist was reportedly rescued by security operatives who shot tear-gas into the air to disperse the attackers

- Traders within the market blamed the entertainer-turned-activist for coming to a place filled with Buhari supporters, to protest against the president

Entertainer-turned-activist, Charles Oputa aka Charly Boy, who has been leading the #ReturnorResign protest against President Muhammadu Buhari has been attacked, Premium Times reports.

The incident occurred on Tuesday, August 15, when Charly Boy led his co-protesters to the popular Wuse market in Abuja, the nations capital.

READ ALSO: It is not permitted for lecturers to compel students to buy handouts - ASUU

The activist and his group were reportedly attacked by angry counter-protesters who are believed to be supporters of the president.

Charly Boy pictured protesting against the president's continued stay in London at Wuse Market (Photo credit: Concerned Nigerians Group)

Speaking about the incident, a trader at the market stated: Charly Boy came to this market with some cameramen doing his protest here.

I was standing in front of my shop when I saw him running for his dear life, being chased by those youths.

They nearly lynched him, because those youths almost overpowered police security near him.

The Area Fada marched in solidarity with his fellow protesters at Wuse Market (Photo credit: Sahara Reporters)

Another meat seller who witnessed the incident reportedly stated: Charly Boy caused it, how can he come here to be talking against Buhari? Those Hausa boys dealt with him.

The activist was rescued by security operatives who shot tear-gas into the air to disperse the attackers. He was then whisked away to safety.

The #ReturnorResign protesters can be seen chanting against the President at Wuse Market (Photo credit: Concerned Nigerians Group)

Wuse Market is the largest in the Federal Capital Territory, and it is dominated by northerners who are believed to be supporters of the president.

Charly Boy's car was vandalized during the attack (Photo credit: Sahara Reporters)

A massive crowd gathered at the scene of the attack (Photo credit: Sahara Reporters)

Policemen pictured dispersing the crowd at Wuse Market (Photo credit: Premium Times)

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Legit.ng previously reported that sympathizers of President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday, August 15, attacked the Our Mumu Don Do protesters.

The anti-protesters had left their meeting point at Unity Fountain, Abuja and decided to take their campaign to the popular Wuse Market in the Federal Capital Territory.

Watch this Legit.ng TV video of Charly Boy leading the 'Our Mumu Don Do' protest in Lagos few months ago.

Source: Legit.ng
- The anti-Buhari protesters have announced it will hold an all night vigil at the Abuja House in London

- The group said it will hold a candle light vigil and procession will take place in front of the Presidential residence in London on Friday, August 18

- The group said the vigil which will begin at 5pm and last until dawn is open to all Nigerians in support of the #ResumeOrResign protest ongoing in Nigeria

Despite escaping lynching on Tuesday, August 15, at the populous Wuse Market, Abuja, the Charly Boy led anti-Buhari protesters have announced it will hold an all night vigil at the Abuja House in London.

One of the group's leader, Deji Adeyanju, while speaking to journalists said a candle light vigil and procession will take place in front of the Presidential residence in London on Friday, August 18.

Adeyanju also said the vigil which will begin at 5pm and last until dawn is open to all Nigerians in support of the #ResumeOrResign protest ongoing in Nigeria.

READ ALSO: JUST IN: Riot erupts at popular Abuja market as traders resist Charly Boy, anti-Buhari protesters

The group also said it will conduct a peaceful procession from the Unity Fountain to the Presidential Villa on Wednesday, August 16, at 8.30 am in Abuja.

Similarly, a peaceful procession will be conducted at the Gani Fawehinmi Park (Freedom Park) in Lagos and in front of the Nigerian Consulate, 828 Second Avenue, New York on Wednesday, August 16, by 8.30 am.

READ ALSO: 100 days out of office: Thousands of Buhari sympathizers flood Abuja (Video)

Legit.ng earlier reported that the anti-Buhari group was attacked by marketers in Abuja most populous market.

This attack came after the group led by Charly Boy stormed the market to garner support for the protest against President Muhammadu Buhari's long stay in London.

Charly Boy and his group were attacked by angry counter-protesters who are believed to be supporters of President Muhammadu Buhari.

He was rescued by security operatives who shot tear-gas into the air to disperse the attackers and he was then whisked away to safety.

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Watch Charly Boy's Our Mumu Don Do protest on Legit.ng TV held in Lagos few months ago:

Source: Legit.ng
- Nigerian Army has launched a fresh offensive attack against Boko Haram in the north east

- Army said it has ruthless determination to succeed in the fight against the terrorists group at all costs

- Ibrahim Attahiru, theatre commander major general urged Nigerians to cooperate with the army

The Nigerian Army has launched a new mobile strike team while its count down eighteen days to capture Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the Boko Haram terrorist group dead or alive.

Ibrahim Attahiru, theatre commander major general on Tuesday, August 15, said the outfit is made up of specially selected forces with mixed equipment to succeed in the fight against Boko Haram terrorists.

Attahiru also disclosed that almost two thousand soldiers were trained to enhance operational efficiency in the theatre.

Ibrahim Attahiru, theatre commander major general urged Nigerians to cooperate with the army so as to succeed in the fight against against the insurgent.

READ ALSO: President Buhari lacks integrity - Anti-Buhari protesters

He said: ''Success in battle entails a ruthless determination to succeed at all costs. This is why I urge you to be disciplined, confidence and focused so there would be zero defects in their pursuits against the terrorists.

''You will be responsible for all our supply routes and most of the rural settlements within the area of operation.

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''As a matter of fact, your effectiveness is the foundation upon which our tactical and operational end state will depend''.

Also, Nuhu Angbazo, commander of the civil military operations in the army major general said he has a responsibility to monitor what is going on in all the theatres of war in the country.

Angbazo said that they have created a human rights desk in all the division of the Nigerian army for Nigerian to reports any infractions to the military.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported that days after troops in the northeast were given 40 days to get Shekau alive, the leader of a faction of the Boko Haram terrorist group released a video.

Watch this video and see how survivors of Boko Haram attacks now live their lives:

Source: Legit.ng
- Acting President Osinbajo has revealed that he consulted pastor Adeboye before accepting to be running mate to Muhammadu Buhari

- Osinbajo also disclosed that he sought the opinion of his wife, Dolapo

- According to him, pastor Adeboye gave him the 'go ahead' to accept the VP position

Yemi Osinbajo, Nigerias acting president revealed on Tuesday August 15 that he consulted pastor Enoch Adeboye, general overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, RCCG, before he accepted to be running mate to Muhammadu Buhari during the 2015 presidential elections.

The acting president made this known at the public presentation of a book titled: Pastor E.A Adeboye: His Life and Calling which held at the Redemption Camp on Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Ogun state, Premium Times reports.

READ ALSO: Trouble for PDP as strong chieftain dumps party (photos)

He also disclosed that he consulted his wife, Dolapo, before making his decision.

I consulted Daddy (Adeboye) and he gave the go-ahead to accept the VP position; before then I was not a politician, he said.

Speaking on the RCCG, Osinbajo praised the dedication of pastor Adeboye.

Apart from Coca-Cola, the Church is next in mileage across the world. And it all has to do with sincerity, dedication and humility of Daddy G.O, Osinbajo said.

Chairman of the occasion, Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria's former president described pastor Adeboye as a man who has touched more lives than many politicians in the country.

We are supposed to touch lives; but for Pastor Adeboye, he has touched more lives than politicians.

He has been a man of God with a difference, whom I benefited from personally when I was consulting to contest the 1999 election.

In his remarks, pastor Adeboye revealed he was not aware of the publication, claiming he would not have approved it. He however forgave those behind the publication.

Because God wanted it to happen, I suppose. If I had been foretold, I would not have approved of it. And the reason is simple. Who should be celebrated? Me or the person who sent me the message (God)? Anyway, just like Baba (God) had requested, I forgive you all, he said.

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Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lashed out at acting president, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, saying he is not in charge of the government but a mere figurehead.

President Muhammadu Buhari duly handed over power to Osinbajo before he embarked on his UK trip for medical treatment but the PDP insists that Osinbajo was not in power and that the government was being run by a cabal.

Watch a Legit.ng TV video below of Osinbajo speaking about the importance of Nigeria's unity:

Source: Legit.ng
- Aloysius Ikegwuonu who was allegedly the main target of the Ozubulu killing has returned to Nigeria

- He paid a visit to some of the victims of the attack in the hospital

- He also reportedly went to the police and provided names of his assailants

Aloysius Ikegwuonu who is the supposed target of the tragic killing in a catholic church in Ozubulu area of Anambra state has returned to Nigeria.

According to Sahara Reporters, the alleged drug dealer who reportedly was in a war with his counterpart returned from South Africa on Saturday, August 12 and paid a visit to the victims of the attack.

READ ALSO: Trouble for PDP as strong chieftain dumps party (photos)

Legit.ng had reported that 13 persons were killed and 22 more injured when armed men stormed the church and opened fire on the members with their target being Ikegwuonu.

Governor Willie Obiano of Anambra had said intelligence report linked the attack to drug kingpins and was a spill over from a war between Mr. Ikegwuonu and one Chinedu Akpunonu (a.k.a Oborocho), both of whom live outside Nigeria.

Mr. Ikegwuonu visits victim of Ozubulu attack. Credit: Sahara Reporters

According to police report, Ikegwuonu provided valuable information and gave the names of the assailants whom he claimed had asked him for ransom in exchange for peace.

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According to eyewitness, the armed men were in search of their target in the church and when they did not find him, they opened fire on innocent members including Cyprian Ikegwuonu, his father who also died in the attack.

In spite of the allegation of being a drug dealer, Ikegwuonu is perceived as a philanthropist. He founded the non-governmental Ebubechukwu Uzo Foundation Ozubulu, which assists members of his as well as neighboring communities and has tarred some roads in the area.

Meanwhile, gunmen on Sunday, August 13, allegedly struck at the Assemblies of God Church on the Oguta road Onitsha, Anambra state killing one policeman and a civilian.

Punch reports that the incident happened seven days after gunmen attacked St Philips Catholic Church, Ozubulu and killed no fewer than 13 persons and injured 27.

Legit.ng gathered that an eyewitness account reported that the gunmen had momentarily stopped at the Assemblies of God Church, but on sighting some policemen at the church, opened fire on them.

Watch a Legit.ng TV video below of the political atmosphere in Anambra ahead of the governorship election:

Source: Legit.ng
- Boko Haram terrorists have attacked a refugee camp in Borno state

- The attackers blew themselves up at the gate of the camp

- Another attack in a market led to the death of 27 people

Boko Haram terrorists have reportedly launched a deadly attack in Borno state killing 27 people with 83 others wounded.

Vanguard reports that the attack was carried out on Tuesday, August 15 and was confirmed by local sources.

READ ALSO: Trouble for PDP as strong chieftain dumps party (photos)

It was reported that a female bomber detonated her explosives killing 27 other persons in a market in the village of Konduga near Maiduguri, Borno state.

An emergency service personnel also confirmed that two attackers blew themselves off at the gate of a refugee camp although no lives were lost except the perpetrators.

On its part, Premium Times quotes the Police in Borno as confirming on Wednesday, August 16 that 16 people not 27 were killed and 82 others wounded in the attack.

Commissioner Damian Chukwu made the confirmation in a text message sent to journalists on Wednesday in Maiduguri.

Meanwhile, fresh reports say at least four people have reportedly died following a Boko Haram attack on some villages in Amarwa along Maiduguri-Konduga Road in Borno state.

The reports were reportedly confirmed by a village head to a Civil Liberties Organization official Ahmed Shehu on Sunday, August 13, who in turned sent the info as SMS to pressmen in the northeast state.

The message read: Boko Haram burnt down to ashes another village unit of Wanori and Amarwa village yesterday at about 10.00pm till 11.30pm as reported by those in the village.

Watch a Legit.ng TV video below of the Air Force's operation against Boko Haram:

Source: Legit.ng
- The Nigerian army has launched special mobile strike force

- The special strike force was one of the new approaches evolved by the military to end insurgency and enhance security network in the region

- Theatre Commander, Operation Lafiya Dole, Maj.-Gen. Ibrahim Attahiru disclosed that soldiers deployed to the force were exposed to modern terrorism combat techniques to enable them to crush the insurgents

In a renewed onslaught against Boko Haram insurgents in the North-East, the Nigerian Army has inaugurated special mobile strike force.

Theatre Commander, Operation Lafiya Dole, Maj.-Gen. Ibrahim Attahiru, made the announcement on Tuesday at the inauguration of the force at Maimalari Cantonment, Maiduguri.

READ ALSO: We are ready for war with Hausa/Fulani people - Nnamdi Kanu

He said the special strike force was one of the new approaches evolved by the military to end insurgency and enhance security network in the region.

Maj.-Gen. Ibrahim Attahiru disclosed that soldiers deployed to the force were exposed to modern terrorism combat techniques to enable them to crush the insurgents. Photo credit: SK Usman

He said that soldiers deployed to the force were exposed to modern terrorism combat techniques to enable them to crush the insurgents.

The mobile strike Force (MST) is launched to deny the insurgents freedom of action and finally decimate them.

The special strike force was one of the new approaches evolved by the military to end insurgency and enhance security network in the region. Photo credit: SK Usman

This specially selected force with mixed equipment and platforms were deployed to achieve the conduct of long range patrols and ambush deep into the hinterlands.

All these are in an effort to ensure the success of Operation Lafiya Dole and enhance our operational efficiency, Attahiru said.

The commander tasked the soldiers to be resolute, disciplined and determined to achieve victory in the campaign.

He urged them to be guided by their professional ethics to enable them win the war against the insurgents.

The special strike force launched by the Army to crush Boko Haram insurgents. Photo credit: SK Usman

He told the soldiers that successful campaign against the insurgents would have indelible mark in the history of counter-insurgency campaign in the North-East.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Nigerian Army had in the past two months intensified its campaign against the insurgents.

The commander tasked the soldiers to be resolute, disciplined and determined to achieve victory in the campaign. Photo credit: SK Usman

Dozens of insurgents had been killed and arrested while a bomb factory in Borno was destroyed.

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Legit.ng had earlier reported that the Nigeria Army announced that any complaints by civilians against army personnel regarding human rights abuse would be dealt with promptly.

Solomon Kumapayi, the Director, Civil Military Affairs, gave the assurance at a sensitization workshop on human rights held at the 1 Division, Nigerian Army Kaduna.

Watch this video and see how survivors of Boko Haram attacks now live their lives:

Source: Legit.ng
- There might be some hope for Nigerian students affected by the recent ASUU strike action

- Following a meeting with the federal government, the union has agreed to an audit of earlier funds

- They also agreed on monthly remittances during the period of the audit

The leadership of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) met with the minister of labour and employment, Senator Chris Ngige, in Abuja on August 15.

According to NAN, the meeting held at the Ministers Conference Room, Ministry of Labour in Abuja.

At the end of the meeting, they had taken significant steps toward the resolution of the issues raised by ASUU.

Mr Samuel Olowookere, the deputy director, Press, Ministry of Labour, said that during the meeting they agreed on the forensic audit of the sum of N30 billion earlier given to the ASUU in 2010.

READ ALSO: Mixed reactions greet ASUU strike as Nigerians express frustration at school closure

Also they further agreed on monthly remittances to ASUU, while the audit is in progress. Senator Ngige also assured members of ASUU and Nigerians that government is already at work to resolve all outstanding issues in line with the present administrations commitment to prevent disruption of academic calendar in universities.

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Legit.ng earlier reported that the lecturers decided to go on strike after an extensive deliberation at its meeting held at the University of Abuja from Friday, August 11.

Consequently, the union directed all members against going to teach or involving themselves in any academic activity.

Watch this Legit.ng video on the salaries of teachers in the country:

Source: Legit.ng
Exploring the Mysterious Life of One of Earths First Giant Organisms Scientific American

I invested early in Google and Facebook. Now they terrify me. USA Today. Must-read.

You Are the Product LRB. Also must-read, but grab a cup of coffee.

When altcoin life imitates art Izabella Kaminska, FT Alphaville. The cryptocurrency market as a whole, meanwhile, is no more and no less than the ultimate expression of a luxury cult market.

Benchmark says the firm warned Travis Kalanick over a month ago that it would sue him Recode

Twenty Years of Media Consolidation Has Not Been Good For Our Democracy Moyers and Company

Why Dicamba-Tolerant Soybean Technology Is in Trouble Successful Farming

Farm-to-School Movement Fights for a Foothold in Corn Belt Cafeterias In These Times

Public stockholding programmes: What implications for food security? International Center for Trade and Sustainable Development

Charlottesville

5 Things That Will Happen When California Secedes from the U.S. The American Conservative

Backed by Police Unions, Legislators Stand By Laws to Protect Drivers Who Kill Protesters The Intercept (BC).

North Korea

Syraqistan

Brexit

How did the UK austerity mistake happen Mainly Macro (MT).

Macron Is Now Less Popular Than PM Philippe, YouGov Poll Says Bloomberg

Corbyn, Macron and D66: the elections that shocked the political class and why its not over yet FT

India

China

Imperial Collapse Watch

New Cold War

Trump Transition

Health Care

Class Warfare

New York City Guarantees a Lawyer to Every Resident Facing Eviction City Lab

What the summer book choices of the elites reveal about politics FT. On the (so-called) Thucydides trap, mass death, and behavioural economics.

The Daily 202: Evidence of climate change abounds amid extreme weather in the Pacific Northwest WaPo

The hidden environmental impacts of platform capitalism The Ecologist (MT).

Scientists Discover 91 Volcanoes Hidden Beneath Antarctic Ice Sheet Forbes

Antidote du jour:



Bonus video:

this is what u needed to see today pic.twitter.com/9vmk56eBkl    (@JP_1816) August 11, 2017

See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour here.
By Jerri-Lynn Scofield, who has worked as a securities lawyer and a derivatives trader. She now spends much of her time in Asia and is currently working on a book about textile artisans.

During the presidential campaign, Trump called for outright rollback of the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory regime without providing much in the way of details.

So far, hes not achieved that objective although the House of Representatives did comfortably pass the Financial Choice Act in early June. The measure is pending in the Senate and is unlikely to displace healthcare and tax reform from the top of the legislative agenda.

Yet no new legislation is necessary for the administration to proceed with plans to loosen financial regulation in many key areas.

Enforcement

No legislative or statutory changes have been necessary for the Trump administration to pursue enforcement priorities that dont include coming down hard on Wall Street.

Indeed, as Yves posted last week in Quelle Surprise! Financial Firm Fines Are Way Down Under Trump, there has been a major drop off in financial sector enforcement in the first six months of this year and that against the rather pathetic benchmarks set by the previous administration:

The Wall Street Journal published a solid, well-researched article on how much various Federal financial regulators have levied in fines in the first half of 2017 versus the first half of 2016. The decline is so large, a full 2/3, that it demonstrates that the Trump business-friendly stance, and the large number of ex-Goldmanites on his team, is proving beneficial for large financial firms.

I should mention in passing, nor has the administration pursued vigorous prosecution of environmental matters, with enforcement actions way down in that area as well, according to this article I crossposted yesterday from demogblog, In First 6 Months Under Trump, Polluters Already Paying Lower Fines to EPA.

Congressional Review Act Deployment

Congress and the President have aggressively wielded the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to overturn regulations that have targeted financial firms, most recently, in July, when the House voted to overturn the Consumer Financial Protection Bureaus ban on mandatory arbitration clauses, as I discussed in House Votes to Overturn CFPB Mandatory Arbitration Ban. Such clauses require consumers to submit to mandatory arbitration to settle disputes and to forego their rights to pursue class action lawsuits.

CRA allows for use of streamlined procedures to overturn a regulation; crucially, if a CRA resolution of disapproval is passed and signed by the President (or if there are sufficient congressional votes to override a presidential veto of such a resolution), the agency is prevented from revisiting the subject of the overturned regulation until new statutory authority is provided. That means regulation in the area is indefinitely stymied absent passage of new statutory authority.

The Wall Street Journal last week published an editorial Republicans for Richard Cordray that criticised Trump for not firing CFPB director Richard Cordray, who is soon expected to announce plans to run for governor of Ohio. That piece suggested in passing that the Senate may not, after all, opt to overturn the ban on mandatory arbitration:

Yet the repeal resolution has hit a snafu in the Senate, where Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) is opposed, no doubt as repayment to lawyers who have donated millions to support his long career blocking tort reform. Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska) and Susan Collins (R., Maine), who recently voted to preserve Obama Care, are undecided. Their opposition means the arbitration repeal wouldnt pass the upper chamber, and Mr. Cordray could begin his nationwide trial-bar fund-raising tour as a conquering hero.

Im not so sure the Senate wont opt to follow the House and scupper the ban, especially given the full court press I expect the financial industry to mount. Where I agree with the Journal is that the CFPB is likely finally to finalize another long-delayed rule, covering payday lending, before Cordray resigns. Yet as I wrote in Payday Lending and the CFPB: Another Pending Cordray Fail, that rule, too, would be likely to be kayoed by the CRA process.

Other Regulatory Rollback

The WSJ in another recent article Trump Chips Away at Postcrisis Wall Street Rules, highlighted other areas targeted for regulatory relaxation, including the Volcker rule restrictions on bank proprietary trading, and rules applying to systemically important financial institutions. The details of how or even if regulations will be relaxed are not yet clear, and will follow after deliberations by the relevant regulatory agencies. This process has been somewhat slowed by Trumps failure to staff key positions.

As the Journal reports:

The SEC and the four other federal agencies that wrote the Volcker rule agreed in recent weeks to give banks leeway on aspects of the regulation while beginning private discussions about how to rewrite it. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the chief agency that regulates federally chartered banks and which is temporarily led by a Trump appointee, took the first tangible step toward potentially rewriting the rule when it reopened it for comments from the public.

Treasury Priorities

In June, the Treasury Department produced the first blueprint on how the administration proposes to dismantle Dodd-Frank, A Financial System That Creates Economic Opportunities: Banks and Credit Unions.

As reported in The Hill:

Trump had long promised to dismantle Dodd-Frank without providing details on what hed like to change. The Monday report contains the first proposals offered by the administration on how to reshape financial regulation. The recommendations came in a report released by the Treasury Department on Monday evening, the first of four analyses mandated by orders Trump signed on April 21. The memoranda directed [Treasury Secretary Steve] Mnuchin to review Dodd-Frank for changes that would boost economic growth.

Among other issues, the report discusses banking regulation issues include stress test procedures; capital, liquidity, and leverage rules; and bank living wills. It also outlines changes in the structure of the CFPB.

SEC Agenda

As I wrote last month in SEC Punts on Unfinished Dodd-Frank Agenda, Thus Avoiding Congressional Review Act, new Securities and Exchange Commission chair Jay Clayton has lost no time in signing onto a deregulatory agenda. Although as its website makes clear, the agency has a tripartite mission to protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation Clayton made clear in his confirmation hearings that he would focus on the third, capital formation objective.

One major set of proposals that have apparently been abandoned are measures to to develop compensation rules that would discourage excessive risk taking. Since Dodd-Frank was enacted, regulators have been dilly dallying on designing any effective measures. Now regulators appear to have given up entirely on the project.

Instead, as the Journal reports in Trump Chips Away at Postcrisis Wall Street Rules:

The commissions Trump-nominated chairman, Jay Clayton, has said he wants to lighten the regulatory burden on public companies, which are required to make public filings to keep shareholders informed about financial performance, business trends and potential risks.

Bottom Line

Its not necessary for major new legislation to pass for the Trump administration to have a profound impact on financial regulation. The CRA has been used to rescind regulations recently enacted. Enforcement efforts have declined. And further future rule-making and policy rollback are front and center on the administrations deregulatory agenda. Which is worrying, as Trumps predecessor and the financial regulators he chose were not reknowned for their tough approach toward Wall Street.
TWIN FALLS  Employers providing eclipse-viewing glasses or hosting parties next Monday should be aware of situations where they may be held liable.

Andrew Wood, executive vice president of retail sales for Insureon, provided several tips for Idaho companies ahead of the big event. Insureon is a Chicago-based online provider of small commercial insurance.

If your company is planning to help employees experience the big event, here are three things to keep in mind:

1. If your business is producing its own eclipse-viewing glasses, make sure theyre the real deal. If these glasses are made with substandard plastic and dont work, causing eye damage, an insurance policy wont cover it.

Its something I would advocate a small business not to do, Wood said.

The business could be held liable and sued by anyone who experiences eye damage due to the faulty glasses.

If a business chooses to provide eclipse glasses to employees, but didnt manufacture the glasses, workers compensation would cover the employee if those glasses were faulty, he said. However, the business could still face a lawsuit for punitive damages.

2. If youre hosting a company-sanctioned event for employees to watch the eclipse, workers compensation will cover accidents that may occur, Wood said. Things get trickier when there are non-employees involved.

3. If a company, group or individual wants to host an eclipse party including non-employees, they should look into special events policies. These policies can be purchased online as early as the day before the event, Wood said.

However, keep in mind that many insurance companies may not be open on the weekend before the eclipse  so get it done now.

Some nonprofits may have a limited number of events covered in their insurance policies. Its best to check with your insurance agent, Wood said.

A special event policy covers claims for personal injuries resulting from the event. It will probably cost $150 or more, depending on the number of people, the amount of coverage, and if the event includes alcohol, Wood said.

Insureon has not seen an uptick in special event policy purchases for the eclipse, he said. He suspects many employers are choosing not to host events, but may be allowing employees to go outside to watch the solar eclipse.
Hospitals are not off limits to tragic shooting events, and with these incidents on the rise in public places, more than half of the general public expects that physicians and nurses will protect them from harm if an active shooter event erupts while they're in the hospital. Likewise, more than half of health care professionals believe they have a special duty to protect patients under these circumstances. But the two groups differ about the inherent safety of hospitals, with most people viewing them as safe havens, while health care professionals are more likely to view the hospital as a potentially risky setting for an active shooter event. These beliefs are among key findings from a national survey conducted in March 2017 by the Hartford Consensus. The results are published online as an "article in press" on the website of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons in advance of print.

The FBI defines an active shooter event as one in which one or more persons actively engages in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area. The number of active shooter events across the U.S. has grown--rising from 6.4 events per year from 2000 to 2006--to 16.4 events per year from 2007 to 2013. Within that 13-year period, four (2.5 percent) of the shooting events occurred in a health care setting, according to a 2014 analysis by Texas State University and the FBI. A further examination of shooting events from 2000 to 2011, including those not meeting the FBI's active shooter definition, shows 154 shooting incidents on hospital premises, with at least one injured person per incident.

"A hospital is even more precarious than other public places because patients are so vulnerable. Some are unable to flee, or may be impaired by medical conditions or treatments that render them unable to understand commands that can lead them to safety, " said lead author Lenworth M. Jacobs, Jr., MD, FACS, Chairman of the Hartford ConsensusTM, and professor surgery and vice-president of academic affairs at Hartford (Conn.) Hospital.

The standard directive to "run, hide, fight" in active shooter situations has a different connotation in hospitals because health care professionals are responsible for patient care. However, as the authors point out "how health care professionals should respond is an intensely personal decision." With hospital-based shootings on the rise, the Hartford Consensus wondered about the willingness of hospital staff to place themselves at risk to protect patients if an active shooter was on site.

This concern is an obvious outgrowth of the work of the Hartford Consensus, which advocates that "no one should die from uncontrolled bleeding." Preventing a severe bleeding death in victims who have a survivable injury has been the focus of work of the Joint Committee to Create a National Policy to Enhance Survivability from Intentional Mass Casualty and Active Shooters Events, convened by the American College of Surgeons. The committee's deliberations are known as the "Hartford Consensus" because the group's inaugural meeting occurred in Hartford, Conn.

To learn about the public's perceptions of active shooter events in hospitals, Dr. Jacobs secured the services of Langer Research Associates (New York City) on behalf of the Hartford Consensus to conduct a national telephone survey. A second part of the research consisted of an online survey of health care professionals, mostly physicians, who were members of the Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma; ACS Board of Governors and Board of Regents; and members of the Hartford Consensus.

The researchers designed questions for the public and health care professionals to capture their answers for five key issues of belief: the risk level for an event happening in the hospital; hospital preparedness to respond; obligations of doctors and nurses to patients during an event; level of personal risk medical professionals should accept for protecting patients; and whether professionals should be required to save patient lives at the risk of their own.

Interviews were conducted nationally by telephone with 1,017 adults: 607 interviews via cell phone and 410 via landline. Social Science Research Solutions (SSRS) of Media, Penn., preformed sampling, data collection and tabulation for the phone survey.

Next, a complementary online survey of health care professionals was programmed and administered by SSRS. Authors reported that questions about active shooter events in hospitals were recast for the online survey to ask professionals "what level of risk doctors and nurses should accept to try to protect patients in an OR, an ICU, or on a floor where patients are ambulatory."

Online responses were collected from 684 health care professionals, of which 92 percent were physicians. Within that group 95 percent worked in a hospital, with 94 percent providing direct patient care.

The authors noted these key findings from responses of both groups:

More health care professionals (33 percent) believe the risk of an active shooter event to be "high" or "very high" in a hospital than do members of the general public (18 percent).

More members of the public (72 percent) believe that hospitals are "somewhat" or "very prepared" for an active shooter event than health care professionals do (55 percent).

Regarding physician/nurse obligations to patients during active shooter events, the response rates were almost equal: 61 percent of the public and 62 percent of health care professionals responded that professionals have a special duty to protect patients, similar to the way police and firefighters protect the general public.

These strong beliefs dropped however, when it came to the issue of personal risk, with 39 percent of the public and 27 percent of professionals believing that doctors/nurses should accept a "high" or "very high" degree of personal risk to help patients in harm's way.

However, in settings where patients are more vulnerable, such as the operating room or the intensive care unit, more professionals believe they should assume a "high" or "very high" level of risk in these settings to get patients out of harm's way (45 percent and 36 percent respectively) as opposed to a location where patients may be less vulnerable, such as a floor with ambulatory patients (22 percent).

The public's belief that hospitals are not risky areas for an active shooter event are similar to findings from the 2014 Texas University/FBI study. "The public's belief of hospitals being at lower risk may be grounded in the perception of hospitals as sanctuaries of caring and healing," the authors wrote.

"Our findings also show that the public tends to view the hospital as a safe haven, certainly safer than other public places like shopping malls or airports," Dr. Jacobs said. "But we've also learned that health care professionals are realistically more aware of the potential danger."

As a next step, Dr. Jacobs recommends that hospitals take steps now to ensure their entire staff is hard-wired to deal with an active shooter event. "Ten years ago an active shooter event was a non-concept for hospitals, but clearly things have changed. Hospitals need to build resilience against such attacks as called for by Barack Obama's Presidential Policy Directive 8, promoting a fully integrated preparedness system to strengthen the nation's resilience to deal with natural and manmade disasters. That directive means hospitals need to think about their vulnerability for an active shooter event, then develop a response plan, and practice it," he concluded.
A new study is the first to link binge-watching in young adults with poorer sleep quality, more fatigue, and increased insomnia. The findings suggest that the mechanism explaining this relationship is increased cognitive alertness resulting from binge-watching.

Results show that more than 80 percent of young adults identified themselves as a binge-watcher, with 20.2 percent of them binge-watching at least a few times a week in the previous month. Those who identified as a binge-watcher reported more fatigue, more symptoms of insomnia, poorer sleep quality and greater alertness prior to going to sleep. Further analysis found that binge-watchers had a 98 percent higher likelihood of having poor sleep quality compared with those who did not consider themselves to be a binge-watcher.

"We found that the more often young people binge-watch, the higher their cognitive pre-sleep arousal," said principal investigator and lead author Liese Exelmans, a doctoral candidate in the School for Mass Communication Research at the University of Leuven in Belgium. "That in turn negatively affected sleep quality, fatigue and insomnia."

Study results are published in the Aug. 15 issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine.

The study involved 423 young adults who were 18 to 25 years old, with an average age of 22 years. Sixty-two percent of participants were women, and 74 percent were students. They completed an online survey assessing regular television viewing, binge-watching, sleep quality, fatigue, insomnia, and pre-sleep alertness. Binge-watching was defined as "watching multiple consecutive episodes of the same television show in one sitting on a screen, be it a television, laptop, computer or tablet." An average binge-watching session lasted 3 hours and 8 minutes, with 52 percent of binge-watchers viewing three to four episodes in one sitting.

"Bingeable shows often have a complex narrative structure that makes viewers become completely immersed into the story," said co-author Jan Van den Bulck, PhD, professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. "This intense engagement with television content could require a longer period to 'cool down' before going to sleep, thus affecting sleep overall."

According to Exelmans and Van den Bulck, interventions and treatments to reduce alertness before sleep, such as relaxation techniques and mindfulness, could be valuable approaches to target sleep problems associated with binge-watching. Because binge-watching often occurs unintentionally, it also has been suggested that streaming services such as Netflix should enable viewers to pre-select their maximum viewing duration before beginning each viewing session.

In May the American Academy of Sleep Medicine released tips to help viewers get healthy sleep by binge-watching responsibly. A new public awareness campaign from the AASM, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other partners in the National Healthy Sleep Awareness Project emphasizes that it is important for children, teens, and adults to "Make Time 2 Sleep".
Physicians trained at the United States' lowest-ranked medical schools write more opioid prescriptions than physicians trained at the highest-ranked schools, according to a study by Princeton University. The study suggests that better training for physicians, and for general practitioners in particular, could help curb the nation's opioid epidemic.

From 2006 to 2014, "If all general practitioners had prescribed like those from the top-ranked school [Harvard], we would have had 56.5% fewer opioid prescriptions and 8.5% fewer overdose deaths," said Janet M. Currie, the Henry Putnam Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Currie conducted the study with Molly Schnell, a Princeton Ph.D. candidate in economics.

Since 2000, the number of opioid overdose deaths in the United States has doubled, and many of those deaths were caused by drugs legally prescribed by a physician. Currie and Schnell wondered whether they could find a relationship between physicians' training and their propensity to prescribe opioids.

Using a variety of public and proprietary databases, they were able to match all 2 billion opioid prescriptions written in the United States from 2006 to 2014 against a key piece of information about prescribing doctors: U.S. News & World Report rankings of medical schools where they received their initial training. U.S. News publishes annual rankings for 92 medical schools. Currie and Schnell also considered unranked medical schools in the U.S. and abroad as separate categories.

The researchers wanted to know whether each physician wrote any opioid prescriptions at all in the course of a year, and if so, how many. They ran two analyses: one for all physicians, and one only for general practitioners, who write about half of the nation's opioid prescriptions. Geographic data let them identify where the physicians practiced.

The results were striking. Compared to doctors trained at the highest-ranked schools, graduates of the lowest-ranked schools were considerably more likely to write any opioid prescriptions at all in a given year. And among the opioid prescribers, graduates of the lowest-ranked school wrote more prescriptions. These differences were most pronounced among general practitioners. "General practitioners trained at Harvard write an average of 180.2 opioid prescriptions per year, those from the second- to fifth-ranked schools write 233 per year, and GPs from the seven lowest-ranked medical schools write nearly 550," Currie said. Across all the ranked schools, the average number of opioid prescriptions rose as the rankings declined.

So far, Currie and Schnell had only found a correlation between doctors' training and opioid prescriptions. Something else besides training could explain the differences they were seeing. In particular, doctors who went to lower-ranked schools might disproportionately see patients with a greater need for opioids, or personal characteristics of the people most likely to get into high-ranked schools might lead them to prescribe fewer opioids once they become doctors.

But the researchers found four pieces of evidence to support the idea that doctors' training is behind the differences.

First, when Currie and Schnell compared physicians in the same specialty who practiced in the same hospital or clinic, they still saw differences in opioid prescriptions based on the rank of the doctors' medical schools -- and it's unlikely that these physicians see vastly different types of patients.

Second, they found that among doctors who receive the most training in pain management after medical school -- specialists in pain medicine, physical medicine and rehabilitation, and anesthesiology -- differences in opioid-prescribing practices were much smaller. That finding suggests that training rather than the doctors' personal characteristics was the key factor behind their propensity to prescribe opioids.

Third, among foreign-trained doctors, prescribing practices varied with the region where they received their training. Doctors trained in the Caribbean and in Canada were more likely to prescribe opioids than doctors trained in other parts of the world.

Fourth, differences in opioid-prescribing practices were least pronounced among the most recent medical school graduates. Yet the highest-ranked schools grew even more selective during the study period. If the personal characteristics of people who get into high-ranked schools were driving the differences Currie and Schnell found, disparities in opioid prescriptions should have increased rather than fallen. The researchers speculated that instead, the best ideas in pain management training may be filtering down from higher- to lower-ranked medical schools.

"A distinguishing feature of the opioid epidemic is that many overdoses and deaths can be attributed to legal opioids that were prescribed by a physician," Currie said. "Training aimed at reducing prescribing rates among the most liberal prescribers, who disproportionately come from the lowest-ranked medical schools, could have large public health benefits."
Space travel can cause a lot of stress on the human body as the change in gravity, radiation and other factors creates a hostile environment. While much is known about how different parts of the body react in space, how lungs are affected by spaceflight has received little attention until now, say researchers at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and Houston Methodist Research Institute.

That will change, though, once their research project, which aims to grow lungs in space, reaches the International Space Station. UTMB and HMRI researchers say what they learn from the study could have real implications for astronauts, as well as those still on Earth, and could lead to future therapeutics.

"We know a lot about what happens in space to bones, muscle, the heart and the immune system, but nobody knows much about what happens to the lungs," said Joan Nichols, a professor of Internal Medicine and Microbiology and Immunology, and associate director for research and operations for the Galveston National Laboratory at UTMB. "We know that there are some problems with lungs in space flight, but that hasn't been closely looked into. We hope to find out how lung cells react to the change in gravity and the extreme space environment, and then that can help us protect astronauts in space, as well as the lungs of regular people here on Earth."

This investigation represents the third of four collaborative projects currently active at the HMRI's Center for Space Nanomedicine. The center, directed by Alessandro Grattoni, chairman and associate professor of the Department of Nanomedicine at HMRI, focuses on the investigation of nanotechnology-based strategies for medicine on Earth and in space. The research is supported by the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, NASA and HMRI.

Scientists from UTMB and HMRI prepared bioreactor pouches that include lung progenitor and stem cells and pieces of lung scaffolding. The scaffolding is the collagen and elastin frame on which lung cells grow. Space X successfully launched the payload containing these pouches Aug. 14 on its 12th Commercial Resupply Services mission (CRS-12) from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida and is expected to arrive at the International Space Station Aug. 16. Once on the ISS, the cells are expected to grow on the scaffold in a retrofitted bioreactor.

Once the lung cells have returned to Earth, researchers will look for the development of fibrosis, the structure of the tissues and the response of immune cells, among other changes and damage that could occur to the lung cells. Lung injuries have been found to accelerate in space, and it is through close study of those cells that therapeutics hopefully could be developed.

Nichols and Dr. Joaquin Cortiella, a professor and director of the Lab of Tissue Engineering and Organ Regeneration at UTMB, have successfully grown lungs in their lab in Galveston, but now they will see if astronauts can do the same in zero gravity. Jason Sakamoto, affiliate professor and former co-chair of the Department of Nanomedicine at HMRI, has applied his novel organ decellularization process and nanotechnology-based delivery systems to support this overall lung regeneration effort.

"We have experience working with the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space to study our nanotechnologies in action on the International Space Station," Grattoni said. "However, we are extremely excited to be a part of this clinical study, since it may play a pivotal role in how we approach future space travel in terms of preserving astronaut health. What we learn during this fundamental experiment could lead to science-fiction-like medical advancements, where organ regeneration becomes a reality in both deep space and here on Earth."

Researchers at HMRI will take the results from UTMB and work on developing therapeutics that could help astronauts, as well as people on Earth.

"This exploration will provide fundamental insight for the collaborative development of cell-based therapies for autoimmune diseases, hormone deficiencies, and other issues," Grattoni said.
GamesRadar+ is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Heres why you can trust us.
Captain America and the Winter Soldier Special #1 takes Marvel's secret history to a whole new level with a real world historical figure

If you know who Gavrilo Princip is, prepare to be shocked
The OECD Nuclear Energy Agencys (NEAs) calculation of the overnight cost for a nuclear power plant built in the OECD rose from about $1900/kWe at the end of the 1990s to $3850/kWe in 2009.

In the 2015 report Projected Costs of Generating Electricity, the overnight costs ranged from $2021/kWe in South Korea to $6215/kWe in Hungary. For China, two comparable figures were $1807/kWe and $2615/kWe. LCOE figures at a 3% discount rate range from $29/MWh in Korea to $64/MWh in the UK, at a 7% discount rate from $40/MWh (Korea) to $101/MWh (UK), and at a 10% rate $51/MWh (Korea) to $136/MWh (UK).

The cost of Chinas smaller modular pebble bed nuclear reactors should only be $420 million for a 210 MW version and $1.2 billion for a threepack that could be a dropin replacement for the coal burner at Chinas many coal plants.

The US has seen prices for US 1.2 GW AP1000 nuclear plants is far higher. Total costs for two 1.2 GW plants is heading to $25 billion. $12.5 billion for 1.2 GW with AP1000 in the USA versus $2.4 billion for 1.2 GW from six smaller pebble bed modules. Event looking at only capital and construction costs the US plants are at $5.4 billion.

Construction of two additional AP1000 reactors (3 and 4) are underway. The certified construction and capital costs incurred by Georgia Power for these two new units were originally 4,418 million which escalated to an estimated $5,440 million ($7,745 million including financing costs) according to the Sixtenth Semi-annual Vogtle Construction Monitoring Report.

Chinas current nuclear power costs>b>

The targeted construction cost of Hualong One was $2.5 million per megawatt of installed capacity when production was scaled up. CGN vice-president Zheng Dongshan said the cost would be competitive in the global 3G reactor market. Zheng said CGN and CNNC were both competitors and business partners with Westinghouse and Areva, depending on the project.

China will invest over US$100 billion to construct about seven new reactors annually between now and 2030.

Six Chinese-designed 1000 MW reactors at Yangjiang will be a huge nuclear power base for China General Nuclear, and will cost only US$11.5 billion for over 6000 MWe, a third of the cost in western countries.

Changjang Unit 1, on Hainan Island, has also achieved criticality this year, and is expected to be delivering power by December, again just five years after construction began. A second unit will be completed next year. The total cost of this first pair of Chinese-designed 600 MW units is only about US$3.15 billion. Construction will begin on two additional units in 2018.

In 2015, Fangchenggang Unit 1 achieved criticality five years after construction began in Guangxi province, close to the Vietnam border, the first nuclear reactor in that province. Six reactors are planned at this site at a total cost of about US$12 billion.

5 years and about $2 billion per reactor has become routine for China.

Pebble bed high temperature reactors

China is finishing a 210 MW pebble bed reactor (High temperature pebble bed HTR-PM) in 2018.

Chinas HTR-PM project is squarely aimed at being a cost-effective solution that will virtually eliminate air pollution and CO2 production from selected units of Chinas large installed base of modern 600 MWe supercritical coal plants.

China plans to construct two 600 MWe HTRs at Ruijin city in Chinas Jiangxi province passed a preliminary feasibility review in early 2015. The design of the Ruijin HTRs is based on the smaller Shidaowan demonstration HTR-PM. Construction of the Ruijin reactors is expected to start next year, with grid connection in 2021.

The commercial operation date is six to nine months later than scheduled when construction began, but Prof. Zhang Zuoyi proudly explained that the HTR-PM first-of-a-kind delays were much shorter than the 3-4 year delays that have plagued the EPR and AP1000 construction projects in their country.

The high temperature atomic boilers produce steam conditions that are identical to the design conditions for a large series of modern, 600 MWe steam plants that currently use coal as the heat source.

Prof. Zhang Zuoyi confirmed that some of the pebble-bed atomic boilers will be installed as replacement heat sources for existing steam plants. Those installations will be able to take advantage of the switchyards, the installed transmission networks, the cooling water systems, the sites and in some cases the entire steam plant including the steam turbine.

The overall cost of this first of a kind nuclear plant will be in the neighborhood of $5000.00/kw of capacity. That number is based on signed and mostly executed contracts, not early estimates. It is about twice the initially expected cost. According to Zhang Zuoyi, 35% of the increased cost could be attributed to higher material and component costs that initially budgeted, 31% of the increase was due to increases in labor costs  which Zhang Zuoyi noted were rising rapidly in China  and the remainder due to the increased costs associated with the project delays.

Zhang Zuoyi described the techniques that will be applied to lower the costs; he expects them to soon approach the $2,000 to $2,500 / kw capacity range.

If this can be achieved then the 210 MW reactor would be $420 to $525 million. A 630 MW reactor would be $1.2 to $1.5 billion. It could be less if the 600 MW reactor only had to have the thermal unit and could use the turbine and other parts of an existing coal plant.
Nextbigfuture interviewed Naveen Jain at the Singularity University Global Summit. Naveen K. Jain is a business executive, entrepreneur and the founder and former CEO of InfoSpace and a fonder of Moon Express, Viome, World Innovation Institute, Bluedot, iNome, TalentWise and Intelius. He was Ernst and Youngs Entrepreneur of the Year, Silicon Indias Most Admired Serial Entrepreneur, and the receiver of Albert Einstein Technology Medal for his pioneers in technology, he has been repeatedly honored for his entrepreneurial successes. Red Herring also recognized him as one of the Top 20 Serial Entrepreneurs and with the Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2015, Naveen Jain had a net worth of $2.2 billion.

The core of his belief and approach to business is that entrepreneurs are the next superpowers. Entrepreneurs can solve what only a few nation states could achieve in the past.

He believes that Nation States will become irrelevant.

Entrepreneurs are more nimble than nations.

Entrepreneurs are not limited by geographic boundaries.

Entrepreneurs are held responsible every day while national leadership may not be held accountable ever. An entrepreneur can lose many customers overnight. Uber lost 200,000 customers due to the CEO having a rant.

Capital is not patriotic.

Inefficient systems (like healthcare, education and space missions) are opportunities for entrepreneurs to apply their solutions.

In 2018, Moon Express can put a robotic lander on the moon and become the fourth entity to do it. Three other were nations (United States, Russia and China).

Moon Express plans to create a new economy on the moon and to springboard from their to other space destinations.

They are lowering the cost of moon mission from the Apollo $25-100 billion to less than $10 million and the costs will drop further to $2-3 million even without reusability. Reusability could lower costs to thousands of dollars based upon the cost of fuel.

Nextbigfuture has covered Moon Express before and will be following up with a profile of Viome.
Patrick (Rick) Smith is the Chief Executive Officer of Axon Enterprise, a company he originally founded as TASER International in a Tucson garage in 1993 with the mission to make bullets obsolete. Rick graduated from Harvard in three years with a degree in Biology in 1991. He then studied at the University of Chicago, and Leuven University in Belgium, earning both an MBA in Finance and a Masters of International Finance. While living in Europe, two of Ricks high school friends were shot and killed in a road rage incident back in Arizona. Dismayed to learn that more than 37,000 people died of bullet wounds in the U.S. in 1991, Rick set out to develop alternative technologies that would allow people to protect themselves, but without killing.

Electricity has 10X safety margin

Immediacy

Dosing

In RCMP testing, Pepper did not stop an angry individual. They are in pain but able to continue to attack. Tasers can incapacitate and can prevent them from pulling a trigger on a gun.
HANSEN  Expect to see a lot more birders with binoculars prowling the campgrounds of the South Hills and the Albion Mountains, listening for a colorful bird with a highly specialized bill.

Lodgepole pine forests of these two small mountain ranges are the only place to spot the Cassia crossbill (Loxia sinesciurus), newly recognized as Idahos sole endemic bird species.

The American Ornithological Society in April recognized the Cassia crossbill as warranting species status  a decision that put Idaho on the map for the American Birding Associations big year route.

Its exciting. I think its a new place that all serious birders in the United States will now find their way to the South Hills of Idaho to add that species to their list, Rexburg birder Darren Clark said in mid-August. I think it could be a pretty cool thing.

The phenomenon has begun.

Birders doing U.S. big years  competing to identify the most bird species in a single year  have been to the South Hills already this summer to see Loxia sinesciurus, said Clark, who has accumulated the biggest Idaho species list of all the birders with public eBird.org checklists.

Climate Change Threatens South Hills Crossbill HANSEN  The red crossbills of the South Hills and the Albion Mountains are like no others i

And the AOS decision, published in July, ignited excitement among a Facebook group of Idahos most serious birders this spring and summer.

A Hailey birder suggested Cassia crossbill T-shirts. One from Boise cautioned that outreach about the new species should include the correct pronunciation of Cassia. Magic Valley birders shared tips on the best campgrounds for locating the bird and offered to lead weekend trips. Another birder wondered whether local communities might embrace the bird and hatch a Cassia crossbill festival.

And others, with proprietary pride, assembled the short list of other states with their own endemic bird species  only Florida with the Florida scrub jay, California with the yellow-billed magpie and island scrub jay, and Hawaii with its long list. Alaska cant entirely claim the McKays bunting, which has had a few sightings outside the state.

But the Cassia crossbill is all Idaho.

For that, you can thank the absence of red squirrels from the Rocky Mountain lodgepole pine forests of the South Hills and Albion Mountains. For that reason, theres something remarkable about these pines, too.

Crossbills are seed predators, so trees that deter foraging crossbills have a reproductive advantage, says the new species page on Idahobirds.net. Because crossbills occur in higher densities and consume more seeds in the South Hills and Albions than in lodgepole pine forests elsewhere, crossbills are especially important natural selective agents on the cones.

In short, the tree and its big-billed seed predator are engaged in a contest of adaptation: pine cone defense versus the forager.

University of Wyoming evolutionary ecologist Craig W. Benkman described this bird as Loxia sinesciurus in 2009. In June 2015, when the Times-News published a Big Story report on his crossbill work in the South Hills, Benkman was finishing an extensive genetic study and preparing to recommend a second time that the Cassia crossbill  at that point considered a call type of the red or common crossbill  be recognized as a distinct species.

And if it is, it will be one of the most endangered bird species in North America, he said then.

In his scientific articles, Benkman describes the escalating arms race between the lodgepole and the Cassia crossbill, with the tree evolving thicker scales on its cone and the bird evolving a larger bill to defeat that defense and reach the seeds that are its sole food source.

What does the red squirrels absence have to do with that?

A squirrel eats systematically, removing scales successively from the base of a cone to its distal end. It likes lots of seeds per cone. Where red squirrels are present  throughout most of the range of the Rocky Mountain lodgepole pine  selection by squirrels drives the trees cone structure: smaller cones with big bases, tapered tips and only 15 or so seeds.

But a few steps away from his makeshift research station in the South Hills in 2014, Benkman picked a cone to show how the lodgepole pine has developed differently here, where crossbills are the primary predators. The cones distal end is thick, with heavy scales. Inside might be 50 or 60 seeds.

A crossbill doesnt care how many seeds are in each cone. To reach a single seed, it must pry apart the scales with its crossed mandibles and extract the seed with its tongue. Smaller-billed birds have a hard time surviving on these South Hills cones.

The result: Loxia sinesciurus.

The new crossbills English name honors Cassia County, Idaho, which includes the complete known range of the species. North America already has birds named for cities (like Philadelphia vireo), states (Kentucky warbler) and countries (Canada goose), but this may be the first one named for a county, Kenn Kaufman writes for Audubon.org.

The new endemic species isnt the only crossbill in the South Hills. Birders in search of the Cassia crossbill might also encounter two call types of red crossbill, both of smaller average size than the Cassia crossbill.

But because of extensive size overlap and no consistent plumage differences, one needs to rely on vocalizations, Idahobirds.net advises.

Its page at idahobirds.net/birding-idaho/cassia-crossbill gives contact call recordings for all three birds. And it includes highly detailed advice on where and when to find the Cassia crossbill.

Most crossbills are nomadic and therefore cannot be found reliably in any single area, the page says. But the sedentary Cassia crossbill, which relies on the stable seed production of its arms race adversary, is the only crossbill in North America that you can count on finding year-round, year after year, in the same forest.

Clark hopes the celebrity of a new endemic species might help birders discover how good Idaho is for other birding, too  a place to spot your gray partridge, say. Or your tufted titmouse. Or your flammulated owl.
An extremely small number of steelhead returning to Idaho so far has prompted the Idaho Department of Fish and Game to reduce the bag limit on adipose-clipped hatchery steelhead to zero  closing all rivers to harvest for the fall steelhead season.

Through Aug. 14, about 400 steelhead have crossed Lower Granite Dam about 30 miles downstream from Lewiston. The 10-year average for that date is about 6,000 steelhead. Regardless of the size of the hatchery return, anglers have been required to release any wild fish caught since 1987. Catch and release of wild fish is an important conservation tool to protect them, and it continues this year.

Closing harvest of hatchery steelhead while leaving it open for catch-and-release fishing will also help ensure enough broodstock return to steelhead hatcheries to produce the next generation of fish.

Although only a fraction of the steelhead run has crossed Lower Granite Dam, fisheries managers are tracking the run as it moves upstream.

Historic run data shows that by Aug. 15, about half of the fish should have already crossed Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River, which is the first dam where the fish are counted. Through Aug. 14, only 3,900 Idaho steelhead have crossed Bonneville.

Fisheries managers are carefully watching steelhead returns, and if theres an unexpected increase, harvest can be reopened, but at this point, thats very unlikely. Washington and Oregon have also restricted steelhead harvest for anglers in the Columbia River to protect Idaho-bound fish.

We realize steelhead anglers will be disappointed, and many will choose not to fish this fall as a result of the decision to close harvest, said Lance Hebdon, Fish and Games anadromous fish manager. We will continue to monitor hatchery and wild steelhead returns as the run continues to determine if changes are needed.

Fisheries managers say theyre aware some people are concerned about the possible effects of allowing catch-and-release angling on a small return.

Based on our experience, catch-and-release fishing has proven to be an effective conservation tool, and weve been able to allow it in the past while still protecting a below-average return of wild fish, Hebdon said. We realize that catch and release is not zero-impact, but it is very low impact. With the expected reduction in angler participation, we are confident that the protection is there. We have documented populations rebounding even with a limited number of spawners.

Every years run of adults is produced by at least two years of outmigrating young fish, which provide a buffer during years of poor returns.

Fish managers know that fewer people fish for steelhead when the run is small, and even fewer will fish because harvest is not allowed. But its important that anglers practicing catch-and-release treat all steelhead with care and release them with minimal handling.

Idahos steelhead runs typically fluctuate from year to year, but what makes this year unusual is an exceptionally small hatchery return at the same time as a small wild run. The 1996 steelhead run, for example, had only 7,600 wild fish, but they combined with 79,000 hatchery fish.

Fish and Game has closed all steelhead fishing (harvest and catch and release) only once in the last 43 years. Harvest restrictions and length limits have been implemented in the past for the Clearwater River, Snake and Salmon rivers to adjust for low returns.

Fisheries managers are hoping this is a short-term situation. All salmon and steelhead runs to Idaho this year have been below average, and small runs were forecast based on early indicators last year.

Portions of this steelhead run migrated to the Pacific in 2015, which was a low-water year with early hot weather that produced hazardous river conditions for young fish leaving Idaho. Ocean productivity was also poor that year, which persisted in 2016, and made conditions even more difficult for fish.

While closing the harvest for adipose-clipped steelhead could put a damper on fall fisheries, an abundant run of fall Chinook returning to Idaho will provide some good fishing opportunity. The forecast is for 27,000 Chinook, and those fish are now arriving.

Fall Chinook fishing season opens on Aug. 18, and anglers can harvest six adult Chinook daily, and theres no bag limit on jack fall Chinook smaller than 24 inches.

Roger Phillips is a spokesman for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.
TWIN FALLS  Do you play a musical instrument? The College of Southern Idaho is looking for musicians to join its Symphonic Band.

Community members, including high school students, are invited to participate. You must be able to play at least moderately difficult music.

Music professor George Halsell directs the ensemble, which rehearses from 7:30-9:30 p.m. Mondays.

Rehearsals begin Monday to prepare for the bands performance Dec. 5.

Theres no cost to join.

For more information, call 208-732-6767 or email ghalsell@csi.edu.
TWIN FALLS  Whoever Sierra is, residents and tourists alike are appalled to see her name painted on the canyon wall at the Perrine Coulee waterfall in the Snake River Canyon.

Brian Puyear and Sarah Gillum from Kansas City, Mo., drove down historic Canyon Springs Road to Centennial Park Monday and spotted the Perrine Coulee cascading over the canyons south rim. As they came back out of the canyon, they saw cars parked off the road near the falls and decided to stop to take photographs.

They crawled over rocks and through vines to enter an otherworldly cove carved in the rocks above the river. Water from the coulee plunged onto moss-covered basalt and vegetation some 200 feet below as a mist rose from the falls.

The two were stunned to see hot pink and blue graffiti amid such jaw-dropping beauty.

As soon as we got down here, I said, Who does this? Gillum said Monday. Its one thing to see it in a city, but in nature?

The name Sierra and the initials SJ and MR, along with hearts and profane references to President Donald Trump, now mar the view of the waterfall.

Its sad  thats for sure, said Twin Falls photographer Jonathan Mills, who reported the vandalism to police on Saturday.

Mills and a friend were scouting locations for a photo shoot when they saw the graffiti. The paint was fresh, he said, probably sprayed Friday.

Its sad, but its a wake up call for us to protect our natural resources, Mills said. This deserves a call to action against these atrocities, not only to prevent but to clean up after the fact.

Authorities are not sure which agency has jurisdiction of the canyon rim.

Its kind of a gray area, said Lt. Terry Thueson of the Twin Falls Police Department, who hadnt heard about the vandalism Monday when the Times-News contacted him.

Several callers reported the vandalism to Southern Idaho Regional Communication Center and dispatchers passed the information to the Twin Falls County Sheriffs Office. Deputies told SIRCOMM it was a county Parks and Waterways problem, a supervisor said.

But county parks Director Rick Novacek told the Times-News his department is responsible for Centennial Park but not the road into the canyon, which is owned by the city. In the past, Novaceks crews have removed particularly profane graffiti on guard rail at the switchback.

Behind the waterfall is the remnants of old Blue Lakes Boulevard, which used to lead to a ferry, and later a bridge, that crossed the Snake River before the first rim-to-rim bridge was built in the late 1920s.

Jerome resident Mattie MacGregor takes the vandalism personally. She practices yoga nearly every morning under the waterfall.

Once I drop into the canyon, Im completely immersed in nature, MacGregor said. This is so disheartening.
Aug. 16

Planetarium/TF: Faulkner Planetarium at Herrett Center for Arts and Science presents One World, One Sky: Big Birds Adventure, 10:30 a.m. Aug. 16; Eclipse: The Sun Revealed, 1:30 and 3:30 p.m.; and Solar System Odyssey, 2:30 p.m. Admission: $6 for adults, $5 for seniors and $4 for students. 208-732-6655 or herrett.csi.edu.

Aug. 17

Planetarium/TF: Faulkner Planetarium at Herrett Center for Arts and Science presents Dynamic Earth, 10:30 a.m. Aug. 17; Eclipse: The Sun Revealed, 1:30 and 3:30 p.m.; and Earth, Moon and Sun/Wall of China, 2:30 p.m. Admission: $6 for adults, $5 for seniors and $4 for students. 208-732-6655 or herrett.csi.edu.

Aug. 18

Film showing: At 1 p.m., The Twin Falls Library is showing a matinee of a Disney family classic with a plot that revolves around an eclipse. According to the librarys website, The Watcher in the Woods should end by 2:30 p.m. The library warns that the film may be a little scary. Free eclipse glasses will be offered.

Planetarium/TF: Faulkner Planetarium at Herrett Center for Arts and Science presents Dream to Fly, 10:30 a.m. Aug. 18; Eclipse: The Sun Revealed, 1:30, 3:30, 7 and 8 p.m.; Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity/Wall of China, 2:30 p.m. Admission: $6 for adults, $5 for seniors and $4 for students. 208-732-6655 or herrett.csi.edu.

Star Party: Beginning at 9 p.m., join experts from the Idaho Falls Astronomical Society at Craters of the Moon. Solar viewing opportunities will be available at the visitor center that day. The nighttime presentation takes place at the campground amphitheater. Then participants will head to the caves area parking lot for telescope viewing of the skies. The entrance fee is $15, good for one week, or free for those with a national park pass.

Aug. 19

Planetarium/TF: Faulkner Planetarium at Herrett Center for Arts and Science presents Dream to Fly, 10:30 a.m. Aug. 18; Eclipse: The Sun Revealed, 1:30, 3:30, 7 and 8 p.m.; Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity/Wall of China, 2:30 p.m. Admission: $6 for adults, $5 for seniors and $4 for students. 208-732-6655 or herrett.csi.edu.

Star Party: Beginning at 9 p.m., join experts from the Idaho Falls Astronomical Society at Craters of the Moon. Solar viewing opportunities will be available at the visitor center that day. The nighttime presentation takes place at the campground amphitheater. Then participants will head to the caves area parking lot for telescope viewing of the skies. The entrance fee is $15 per vehicle, good for one week, or free for those with a national park pass.

"Eclipses, Transits and the Search for Life": From 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. NASA scientist Steve Howell talks about the history and current state of the discovery of exoplanets, planets orbiting alien suns. The presentation will take place in the Craters of the Moon campground amphitheater. The entrance fee is $15 per vehicle, good for one week, or free for those with a national park pass.

USC-NASA solar eclipse high altitude balloon: From 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. in Arcos Bottolfsen Park, University of Southern California engineering students and Adjunct Associate Professor Michael Kezirian will discuss the USC/NASA High Altitude Balloon mission. USC is one of 54 teams that will each launch an HAB to live-stream video the total solar eclipse from 100,000 feet altitude. The team will launch their balloon at 10:30 a.m. as a test flight.

Aug. 20

Planetarium/TF: Faulkner Planetarium at Herrett Center for Arts and Science presents Eclipse: The Sun Revealed, 1:30, 2:30, 3:30 and 4:30 p.m. Aug. 20. Admission: $6 for adults, $5 for seniors and $4 for students. 208-732-6655 or herrett.csi.edu.

"In the Shadow of the Moon": From 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. join NASA scientist and educator Brian Day for a presentation at the Craters of the Moon visitor center theater. Learn what an eclipse is and what to look for during a solar eclipse. Safety will also be discussed. Day has chased down eight previous total solar eclipses around the world.

Revealing the Hidden, High-Energy Sun: At 5:30 p.m., the Sun Valley Center for the Arts hosts the American Astronomical Society lecture Revealing the Hidden, High-Energy Sun at the Sun Valley Opera House. This free lecture is offered in conjunction with The Centers Night Watch visual arts exhibition and is open to the public. There is no reserved seating. Seats will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. Information: visit sunvalleycenter.org or call 208.726.9491.

Aug. 21 (eclipse day)

USC-NASA solar eclipse high altitude balloon: At 8:30 a.m. in Arcos Bottolfsen Park, University of Southern California engineering students and Adjunct Associate Professor Michael Kezirian will prepare to launch the USC/NASA High Altitude Balloon. USC is one of 54 teams that will each launch an HAB to live-stream video the total solar eclipse from 100,000 feet altitude. The mission launch is timed to be at the correct altitude when the eclipse occurs. The launch will take place at 10:30 a.m. The team will monitor from the ground station and present preliminary results from the flight at 4 p.m.

Eclipse viewing: In Arcos Bottolfsen Park, the partial eclipse begins at 10:13 a.m.; totality happens from 11:31:03 a.m. to 11:32:42; partial eclipse continues until approximately 12:30 p.m.

Sun Block Party: From 10 a.m. to noon, come to Hansen Street and the Twin Falls City Park in front of the library for a Sun Block Party. There will be stories, games, activities, music, snacks and more free glasses. The event aims to help people avoid the traffic jams and watch the partial eclipse here in Twin Falls. Free eclipse glasses will be offered.

Space science exhibition: From 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. in Arcos Bottolfsen Park, learn about research at Craters of the Moon from NASA scientists affiliated with the Field Investigations to Enable Solar System Science and Exploration (FINESSE) research program. Stations will include displays and information about: spectrometers, exoplanets, Korean astronomy and a simulated volcanic eruption.

Lunar Rangers: From 7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in the Craters of the Moon campground amphitheater, children and their parents can attend and earn a Lunar Ranger patch by participating in fun activities. The entrance fee is $15 per vehicle, good for one week, or free for those with a national park pass.

NASA research at Craters of the Moon: From 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. in the Caters of the Moon campground amphitheater, join NASA scientist and Idaho State University volcanologist Scott Hughes for a presentation about space science research at Craters of the Moon. The entrance fee is $15 per vehicle, good for one week, or free for those with a national park pass.

Aug. 24-25

Solar viewing: From 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Craters of the Moon Visitor Center, observe the sun with special solar glasses and filtered solar telescopes in various wavelengths. The New Mexico Chapter of the Charlie Bates Solar Astronomy Project will teach about earth's nearest star.
TWIN FALLS  The owners of a soon-to-open rock climbing gym want to be reimbursed for removing tons of concrete from the property they purchased from the Urban Renewal Agency.

The lot at 135 Fifth Ave. S. was sold for $1 in June 2016 after the URA solicited proposals from developers in hopes of improving downtown. But when Gemstone Climbing Centers contractors broke ground for the footings in September, they discovered large chunks of concrete buried 7 to 10 feet deep.

The extra work and a muddy spring delayed the gyms planned spring 2017 opening. The $2.5 million gym is now scheduled to open to the public in mid-September.

Knowing their decision could set a precedent, URA board members were hesitant to reimburse the company $40,000 it spent on removing the construction material.

Per the purchase and sales agreement, the property was sold as-is, URA Executive Director Nathan Murray said at the board meeting Monday.  We dont feel that we have this obligation.

But Gemstone Climbing partner Don Campbell argued the URA knew  or should have known  of the debris on site, and yet failed to disclose it prior to sale. A former city contractor had told Campbell that the concrete was placed on site during a sidewalk and lighting project in the 1990s, he said.

Gemstone had ordered an assessment with a test hole prior to the purchase, partner Hailey Barnes said. The test revealed some smaller concrete chunks, but there was clean soil underneath. The problem was later discovered to be much larger, taking six weeks to clear.

The URA offered Parks and Recreation Department assistance removing the concrete, and was charged for 12 hours of labor. The parks equipment was deemed inadequate, however.

We were told keep track of your costs, and we can discuss it, Barnes said.

URA board member Brad Wills said that when public agencies look at selling property for $1, they do so with the idea that all risk is passed onto the buyer.

Those are risks of doing business, he said.

The URA had also budgeted $40,000 to help with sidewalk and alleyway improvements.

In the past, the URA has denied similar requests to improve property when faults were discovered after the sale, board members said.

If we establish a precedent, thats a big deal, Chairman Dan Brizee said.

The decision was tabled until a future meeting, when board members hope to know more history of the lot and if the URA can offer to do other public improvements in lieu of reimbursing Gemstone Climbing.

Also at the meeting, the board unanimously approved selling the building and parking lot leased to C3/CustomerContactChannels for $2.3 million to Eagle Financial. The company intends to continue C3s lease, Murray said.
9 Executives Had Resigned From the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative

Kenneth Frazier Brian Krzanich Thea Lee Denise Morrison Elon Musk Scott Paul Kevin Plank Inge Thulin Richard Trumka

Restoring the manufacturing industry was a hallmark of Mr. Trumps campaign, and this council was filled with the heads of defense contractors, automakers, health care and other major industrial companies.

Name Company Circumstances Alex Gorsky Johnson & Johnson Andrew Liveris Dow Bill Brown Harris Corp. Brian Krzanich Intel Resigned after President Trumps response to Charlottesville violence. Denise Morrison Campbell Soup Resigned after President Trumps response to Charlottesville violence. Dennis Muilenburg Boeing Doug Oberhelman Caterpillar Elon Musk Tesla Resigned after the president came out against the Paris climate accord. Greg Hayes United Technologies Inge Thulin 3M Resigned after President Trumps response to Charlottesville violence. Jeff Fettig Whirlpool Jeff Immelt G.E. Jim Kamsickas Dana John Ferriola Nucor Kenneth Frazier Merck Resigned after President Trumps response to Charlottesville violence. Kevin Plank Under Armour Resigned after President Trumps response to Charlottesville violence. Klaus Kleinfeld Arconic No longer on council after stepping down as Arconic chief. Marillyn Hewson Lockheed Mario Longhi U.S. Steel No longer on council after retiring from position at U.S. Steel. Mark Fields Ford No longer on council after ouster as Ford chief. Mark Sutton International Paper Michael Dell Dell Michael Polk Newell Brands Richard Kyle Timken Richard Trumka A.F.L.-C.I.O. Resigned after President Trumps response to Charlottesville violence. Scott Paul Alliance for American Manufacturing Resigned after President Trumps response to Charlottesville violence. Thea Lee A.F.L.-C.I.O. Resigned after President Trumps response to Charlottesville violence. Wendell Weeks Corning

3 Had Left the Strategic and Policy Forum

Bob Iger Elon Musk Travis Kalanick

This group was intended to advise the White House on economic policy and was led by Stephen A. Schwarzman, the head of Blackstone, one of the countrys largest investment firms.
A Swell of Trade Brings Complexity

Nafta, which took effect in 1994, opened the economic borders between the United States, Canada and Mexico. Chinese exports surged after China entered the World Trade Organization in 2001. The trade deals solidified the countries as the United States most important trading partners.

Total goods traded with the United States in 2015 Imports plus exports, not including services, in billions of dollars 2 7 5 8 4 1 6 Nafta countries 3 9 10 $599 6. S. Korea $115 1. China 114 7. Britain 2. Canada 577 8. France 78 3. Mexico 532 9. Taiwan 4. Japan 194 67 175 10. India 5. Germany 66 Total goods traded with the United States in 2015 Imports plus exports, not including services, in billions of dollars 5. Germany 2. 7. Britain $175 Canada Nafta countries $114 $577 6. South Korea 8. France 4. $115 $78 Japan 1. United States China $194 Top ten trading partners are labeled $599 3. 9. Taiwan Mexico $67 $532 10. India $66 Total goods traded with the United States in 2015 Imports plus exports, not including services, in billions of dollars 5. Germany 2. 7. Britain $175 Canada Nafta countries $114 $577 6. South Korea 8. France 4. $115 $78 Japan 1. United States China $194 Top ten trading partners are labeled $599 3. 9. Taiwan Mexico $67 $532 10. India $66 Total goods traded with the United States in 2015 5. Germany $175 2. Canada $577 7. Britain $114 Nafta countries 6. South Korea $115 8. France $78 4. Japan $194 1. China $599 United States Top ten trading partners are labeled 3. Mexico $532 9. Taiwan $67 10. India $66 Imports plus exports, not including services, in billions of dollars Total goods traded with the United States in 2015 5. Germany $175 2. Canada $577 7. Britain $114 Nafta countries 6. South Korea $115 8. France $78 4. Japan $194 1. China $599 United States Top ten trading partners are labeled 3. Mexico $532 9. Taiwan $67 10. India $66 Imports plus exports, not including services, in billions of dollars The New York Times | Source: Census Bureau

Concerns About Unbalanced Trade

While the growth of the American economy has followed trade, the changing dynamics have also prompted concerns about lost jobs, especially in the well-paying manufacturing sector, and the rising trade deficit. In recent years, the imbalance has become higher with Mexico.

$4.0 tril. Total United States trade 3.5 3.0 Adjusted for inflation EXPORTS 2.5 2.0 1.5 IMPORTS 1.0 0.5 90 95 00 05 10 15 Annual trade deficits Exports minus imports  $200 billion  400 Nafta takes effect China joins the W.T.O.  600  800 90 94 01 05 10 15 Total U.S. trade with Nafta countries $1.2 tril. Goods only, adjusted for inflation MEX. 1.0 0.8 CAN. EXPORTS 0.6 MEX. 0.4 IMPORTS 0.2 CAN. 90 95 00 05 10 15 Balance of trade with Nafta countries CANADA MEXICO TRADE DEFICITS $20 billion   40  60  80  100 90 94 01 05 10 15 $4.0 tril. Total United States trade Annual trade deficits 3.5 Exports minus imports  $200 billion 3.0 Adjusted for inflation EXPORTS 2.5  400 2.0 1.5 Nafta takes effect China joins the W.T.O.  600 IMPORTS 1.0 0.5  800 90 95 00 05 10 15 90 94 01 05 10 15 Total U.S. trade with Nafta countries Balance of trade with Nafta countries $1.2 tril. Goods only, adjusted for inflation CANADA MEXICO MEX. 1.0 TRADE DEFICITS $20 billion  0.8 CAN. EXPORTS  40 0.6 MEX.  60 0.4 IMPORTS  80 0.2 CAN.  100 90 95 00 05 10 15 90 94 01 05 10 15 $4.0 trillion Total United States trade Annual trade deficits 3.5 Exports minus imports Adjusted for inflation  $200 billion 3.0 EXPORTS 2.5  400 2.0 1.5 Nafta takes effect China joins the W.T.O.  600 IMPORTS 1.0 0.5  800 90 95 00 05 10 15 90 94 01 05 10 15 Total U.S. trade with Nafta countries Balance of trade with Nafta countries $1.2 trillion Goods only, adjusted for inflation CANADA MEXICO MEXICO 1.0 TRADE DEFICITS $20 billion  0.8 CANADA EXPORTS  40 0.6 MEXICO  60 0.4 IMPORTS  80 0.2 CANADA  100 90 95 00 05 10 15 90 94 01 05 10 15 $4.0 trillion Total United States trade Annual trade deficits 3.5 Exports minus imports Adjusted for inflation  $200 billion EXPORTS 3.0 2.5  400 2.0 1.5 Nafta takes effect China joins the W.T.O.  600 IMPORTS 1.0 0.5  800 90 95 00 05 10 15 90 94 01 05 10 15 Total U.S. trade with Nafta countries Balance of trade with Nafta countries $1.2 trillion Goods only, adjusted for inflation CANADA MEXICO MEXICO 1.0 TRADE DEFICITS $20 billion  0.8 CANADA EXPORTS  40 0.6 MEXICO  60 0.4 IMPORTS  80 0.2 CANADA  100 90 95 00 05 10 15 90 94 01 05 10 15 $4.0 trillion Total United States trade Annual trade deficits 3.5 Exports minus imports Adjusted for inflation  $200 billion EXPORTS 3.0 2.5  400 2.0 1.5 Nafta takes effect China joins the W.T.O.  600 IMPORTS 1.0 0.5  800 90 95 00 05 10 15 90 94 01 05 10 15 Total U.S. trade with Nafta countries Balance of trade with Nafta countries $1.2 trillion Goods only, adjusted for inflation CANADA MEXICO MEXICO 1.0 TRADE DEFICITS $20 billion  0.8 CANADA EXPORTS  40 0.6 MEXICO  60 0.4 IMPORTS  80 0.2 CANADA  100 90 95 00 05 10 15 90 94 01 05 10 15 The New York Times | Source: Census Bureau

Made in America, but With Parts From Around the Globe

Clothing. Cars. Computers. Even when something is manufactured in the United States, the product is typically made up of parts and pieces from around the world. The American auto industry is the most reliant on imports, with most coming from Japan, China, Canada, Mexico and Germany. But this cross-border supply chain has helped make the American auto industry competitive with manufacturers in Asia and Europe, which also have both lower- and higher-wage countries with different specialties.
TWIN FALLS  Saint Alphonsus Health System is in talks with city officials about building a new hospital in Twin Falls.

The health care provider contacted the citys building department two weeks ago and asked to meet about a conceptual plan. And last week, in an email to the city obtained by the Times-News, Saint Alphonsus mentioned plans to build a hospital and emergency department here.

The email was sent to discuss talking points should reporters inquire about the discussions.

We would prefer you not talk about specifics of the project (size of project, definitely not location of the project, no specifics about it being an emergency department and hospital), wrote Mike Chidester, Saint Alphonsus real estate director, in an email to Jarrod Bordi, the head of the citys building department.

On Monday, Bordi confirmed the citys discussions with Saint Alphonsus but declined to discuss specifics, saying he could be revealing industry trade secrets if he provided details. Saint Alphonsus spokesman Joshua Schlaich also confirmed that discussions were underway but said it was too preliminary to formally announce any plans.

Its very early on in the process, Schlaich said. Saint Alphonsus is considering a number of concepts for communities it could potentially serve, he said.

Where theres a need for health care services, we want to make sure were providing whats necessary to keep people healthy, Schlaich said.

Adding a new hospital would be a significant development for Twin Falls, where the economy is booming and the region continues to add residents and new businesses, schools and housing. It would also create competition for health care services and provide more choices for patients who could choose between St. Lukes, which now runs the citys only hospital, and Saint Alphonsus.

Twin Falls Mayor Shawn Barigar, whos also president and chief executive officer for the Twin Falls Area Chamber of Commerce, said Monday he hadnt heard about the conversations with Saint Alphonsus.

But as a growing community, he said, Twin Falls continues to get the attention of service providers, including retail, housing developments and health care providers.

A spokeswoman for St. Lukes Magic Valley Medical Center declined to comment, saying there was too little information about Saint Alphonsus plans.

Requesting a meeting with city officials to discuss options for a new facility isnt unusual for companies considering new projects. These types of early meetings are opportunities to learn about building codes and planning-and-zoning rules. Sometimes they lead to finished projects, sometimes they dont.

A lot of other people do that, said Bordi, the citys building official. We offer that service to everyone.

The city hasnt issued a building permit for the project, and there are no indications Saint Alphonsus has recently purchased property in Twin Falls.

Schlaich, the Saint Alphonsus spokesman, again emphasized the health care provider has not decided if it will pursue a facility here, and there is no timeline for when a decision will be made.

He said theres a lot of analysis that goes into looking at one community or another to provide services, but he couldnt point to one specific reason for looking at Twin Falls. He did, though, mention population growth and demographics, including the age of residents.

Saint Alphonsus operates hospitals in Boise; Nampa; Baker City, Ore.; and Ontario, Ore.; serving about 700,000 people. It also operates the regions only Level II Trauma Center.

St. Lukes has provided services to the Magic Valley since 2001, when it began managing practices at the Physician Center, formerly run by the Magic Valley Regional Medical Center. It built a new $242 million hospital in Twin Falls in 2011 and has since added a new surgery center to keep up with rising demand. St. Lukes is also building a new medical offices complex on its main campus on Pole Line Road.

Other hospital systems elsewhere in the Magic Valley include North Canyon Medical Center in Gooding, Cassia Regional Hospital in Burley and Minidoka Memorial Hospital in Rupert.
Congress Switchboard: 202-224-3121

"Rob Kall has certainly acquired the firsthand experiences and knowledge gained through interviews to deliver some interesting insights about the "bottom-up" information revolution. Whereas the old 'top-down' systems created stove-pipes and excessive secrecy that blocked information sharing and led to the 'failure to connect the dots' before 9-11, the bottom-up approach should be the main fix. Kall's concept would seem to interface equally well with the founding fathers' idealism in setting forth their democratic theory of governance as with the realism that makes the multi-sourced, bottom-up Wikipedia work. As someone who shares my support of both government and corporate whistleblowing -- which is nothing more than encouraging greater horizontal sharing of information, I commend Rob Kall's important work on this topic."



Coleen Rowley, former FBI special agent and named one of TIME Magazine's "Persons of the Year" in 2002)
From Paul Craig Roberts Website

Listening to NPR this morning confirmed what I already knew. Charlottesville is being turned into another nail in President Trump's coffin.

NPR had no interest whatsoever in reporting the actual facts about what had occurred in Charlottesville. The several "interviews" with the like-minded were orchestrated to produce the desired propaganda result: It was all Trump's fault.

It was Trump's fault for many reasons. He had stirred up White Supremacists and Nazis by appealing during the presidential election campaign to their supremacist views with his slogan "America first."

Of course, what Trump means by "America first," is precisely what the voters understood him to mean -- the interest of the broad American public should come before trade deals that serve the interests of other countries and the narrow profit interests of global corporations. However, the NPR propagandists put words in Trump's mouth and twisted the meaning of the slogan to be "White America Comes First."

In other words, "America first" according to NPR is code language to white supremacists to take advantage of the electoral college and elect a leader over the popular vote of the heavy population densities in the narrow geographical areas that comprise the northeast and west coasts, the centers of moral rot. Thus, Trump was the candidate of white supremacists and, thereby, illegitimate.

NPR next conveyed the message that Trump proved he was the Nazis' candidate when he criticized both sides for the trouble in Charlottesville. NPR used its orchestrated interviews to place all blame for violence on the group that had a permit for their rally. According to NPR, the group that had no permit and formed in order to protest the rally consisted entirely of white hats defending America from free speech, from alleged Nazis and racists.

There is no doubt that a rally of what is called the "alt-right" will pull into itself all sorts of extremists and that the cause of the rally, apparently defending a statue of Robert E. Lee from demolition or perhaps simply gaining attention for the organizers, was done harm by the young, apparently unbalanced, man who drove a car into counter-marchers, after the permitted rally had ended. The nonsensical element of this act has convinced some Americans that the entire scene was an orchestration by the deep state as a weapon against Trump and civil liberty.

Charlottesville has many aspects that are ignored by NPR and the rest of the presstitutes. For example, how does the Bush/Cheney/Obama/neoconservative assertion that Americans are the "exceptional people" whose country is the "indispensable country" differ from Trump's proclamation of "America first"? No one among the liberal/progressive/left was disturbed when Obama proclaimed to the world that Americans are the exceptional, indispensable people. Doesn't Obama use much clearer language that puts America first? If Americans are exceptional, everyone else is unexceptional. If Americans are indispensable, everyone else is dispensable.

What is the difference? One difference is that Obama was elected by the good people, the non-racist, non-misogynist, non-white-supremacist people, and Trump was elected by "the deplorables," to use Hillary's term. Little wonder she lost, having dismissed everyone between the two coasts as "deplorables." But she didn't lose, right? Putin and Trump conspired to steal the election from her. Trump is illegitimate and therefore must be driven out of office. He is doubly illegitimate because white heterosexual males elected him. This bogus charge despite the fact that Hillary got 2 million less votes from women than did Obama. Either the 2 million women didn't vote or they voted for Trump.

The other difference is that Trump's use of "America first" refers to the loss of millions of American middle class jobs and tax base for former manufacturing cities and states, whereas the Bush/Cheney/Obama/neoconservative use of "exceptional, indispensable America" refers to Washington's right to bomb other peoples into the stone age for not complying with Washington's orders.

The campaign to drive Trump out of office has been going on 24/7 since Trump confounded the pundits and won the election. For the liberal/progressive/left, Trump is the enemy against whom they are conducting war, and as in war, truth is crowded out by propaganda. The liberal/progressive/left gets away with this abuse of news reporting because Trump's intent to reduce tensions with Russia is seen as threats to the income and power of the military/security complex and the hegemonic ideology of the neoconservatives. Powerful material interests, ideology, and media together comprise a very strong force against which a mere president hasn't a chance.

Few Americans understand the fundamental transformation of their politics and society since the 1960s when the Civil Rights Act was stood on its head by EEOC compliance chief Alfred W. Bloomrosen. The Civil Rights Act explicitly prohibited racial and gender quotas as methods to combat "discrimination," which was mainly a product of history rather than of the motivations of white males. But it is difficult to make history a villain, and social engineering benefits from having a villain to overcome. Thus was the foundation of Identity Politics laid.

The initial stage of the new politics was that quotas established privilege for "preferred minorities," and preference began prevailing over merit. Over the decades white males have slowly but surely experienced discrimination in university admissions, hiring, promotions, university appointments, and in their ability to exercise free speech. Remember, only a few days ago a senior male engineer at Google was fired because he expressed a truthful fact -- men and women have different traits -- that is unacceptable to feminists.

Perhaps somewhere at some time a woman or a black has been fired for saying something unacceptable to a white male, but I know of no such case. Indeed, it is common parlance that white heterosexual males are racists, sexists, and homophobic. This is the accepted language of Identity Politics. Few of us are brave enough to challenge it.

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This piece was reprinted by OpEd News with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.

From Sputnik

The ugly events that have just taken place in Charlottesville, VA are a stark reminder that the cancer of white supremacy continues to fester in America -- and not just at the level of a few hundred knuckle dragging racists marching with Confederate flags.

On the contrary, white supremacy is rooted in the very foundations of America, and remains wedded into the very fabric of its society and culture.

Let us not mince words. If ever a cause was unworthy, that cause was the US Confederacy. If ever a cause was righteously defeated in battle, it was the cause of the US Confederacy. And if ever a flag was -- and is -- an insult to human decency and dignity, it is the Confederate flag.

The mere fact this is still being debated in the United States, the fact there are those who continue to accord a nobility, valor, and romanticism to the Confederacy -- regarded wistfully as the "Lost Cause" to its adherents -- this is evidence of the deep polarization that divides a society yet to fully come to terms with its legacy of slavery, racial oppression, and brutality.

Four million human beings -- men, women, and children -- were owned as chattel by the start of the US Civil War in 1861. They were bought and sold, raped, beaten, tortured and murdered upon the whim of their owners, whose barbarity has its modern equivalence in the barbarity of the followers and members of the so-called Islamic State (also known as Daesh).

When white racist fanatic, Dylann Roof, slaughtered nine people at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina back in 2015, he unwittingly exposed the truth that the US Civil War remains the defining event in the nation's history, which still today informs a cultural divide between North and South.

The reason for this lies not so much in the legitimacy of the Confederate/southern cause -- indeed how could a cause defined by the right to keep human beings as slaves ever be considered legitimate -- but in the weakness of progressive forces in succumbing to the mythology that has been ascribed to the Confederacy and to those who fought and died for it. Indeed, if ever a society was crying out for the aggressive assertion of human rights, racial equality, and justice, it is the United States.

Racial oppression, whether delivered from the gun of a mass murderer in a South Carolinian church, or the gun of a police officer, has yet to be expunged in the land of the free, even though 150 years have passed since the Confederacy was defeated in battle.

There are historical reasons why this is so, but one in particular: namely the decision of the 18th US President, Rutherford B. Hayes, to end Reconstruction as a condition of his entry into the White House with the support of southern Democrats, a tawdry political deal known to history as the Compromise of 1877. It marked the end of a decade in which so-called Radical Republicans (referred to pejoratively as Black Republicans), in control of the US Congress, had driven forward a federal program to promote and uphold the rights of former slaves throughout the South, according them the full civil and political rights that their status as free men and women demanded.

This was absolutely necessary immediately upon war's end, when local politicians assumed control of state legislatures across the South and enacted "black codes" with the objective of keeping newly freed black slaves in as close to a state of their former bondage as was possible, refusing to grant them their civil rights or the vote.

The reaction of the North was to divide the former Confederate states into military districts and occupy them with federal troops to ensure the protection of blacks from white racists and to enforce their civil rights. This was accompanied by the demand that those former Confederate states support the passage of the three post-civil war amendments to the US Constitution -- the 13th, 14th, and 15th -- outlawing slavery and granting rights of citizenship and the vote to every person born in the United States regardless of race or color in every state.

The end of Reconstruction in 1877, and the withdrawal of federal troops from states such as South Carolina, resulted in the plight of blacks in said states suffering a sharp reverse. The Klu Klux Klan's influence and power as America's first terrorist organization instantly made its presence felt, measured in the rise and entrenchment of white supremacy as a state, and the culture of segregation returned across the South. Blacks were lynched, murdered, and tortured with impunity from then on, and their status as second-class citizens entrenched.

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Endgame: How President Trump

will go Down

- Joel D. Joseph 2017

Mr. Joseph was an attorney for the Federal Election Commission, represented Presidential Candidate Eugene McCarthy and more than 60 member of Congress in federal legal proceedings. He is author of Black Mondays: Worst Decisions of the Supreme Court.

Six months from now the Trump administration will be gone. Donald Trump, Jr., former National Security Advisor General Michael Flynn, first son-in-law Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Roger Stone and Carter Page will be indicted by a federal grand jury. Donald Trump will pardon them all. Facing the likelihood on impeachment, President Trump will resign.



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(This signed, limited edition print is available from www.partisanartisan.com)

The Indictments

Indictments are easy. They don't take much evidence. The former Chief Judge of New York State, Sol Wachtler, said thirty years ago that district attorneys have so much influence on grand juries that "by and large" they could get them to "indict a ham sandwich." Special Counsel Robert Mueller won't be indicting any ham sandwiches, but he will be able convince a federal grand jury to indict many members of the Trump entourage.

General Flynn and Jarod Kushner will be indicted for lying and omitting information on FBI form 86, the form used to get a security clearance. Both omitted mentioning that they met with Russian agents. Attorney General Sessions perjured himself before Congress when he denied Russian contacts. All of the Trump entourage could be indicted under the Logan Act and for soliciting campaign contributions from foreign citizens.

In addition, General Flynn and Paul Manafort could also be indicted for failing to register and report on their representation of foreign countries. Flynn got paid handsomely for representing Turkey's interests. Manafort was paid obscenely for representing the interests of Russia and Ukrainians supported by Russia. Neither reported these foreign ties as required by federal law.

The Logan Act

The Logan Act provides, "Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both." It appears that all of Trump's associates and relatives, named above, could be indicted under the Logan Act. There have been very few prosecutions under this law, passed by the First Congress in 1789. But the First Congress, made up of many of our Founding Fathers, knew how to avoid the influence of foreign nations. We should honor them by enforcing the Logan Act.

Campaign Law Violations

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Some time ago, I read this very informative four part article* detailing the history of exactly who provides the intelligence to our political class. I'd never given much thought as to how much of the intelligence reports that were created -- by the various members of the intelligence community -- were influenced by actual data and how much were influenced by political positions and/or theory, before the politicians ever got hold of and acted on it. As I read through this article, I was astounded to realize that my illusion -- of how the political class were the ones who made the decisions regarding war and peace -- was shattered! Multiple millions of lives and multiple trillions of dollars have been wasted by our country on fighting wars that were manipulated into existence by a Machiavellian influenced intelligence community that has been operating in the super secret background of the Deep State for almost a century. Their primary belief system revolves around the concept that, as George Orwell explained by paraphrasing one of their protagonist, "... a democratic society has never existed and, so far as we can see, never will exist. Society is of its nature oligarchical, and the power of the oligarchy always rests upon force and fraud. ... Power can sometimes be won and maintained without violence, but never without fraud."

What propelled me to decide to congeal these thoughts into digital "print," was an another more recent article in The Nation regarding the Democratic National Committees' data breech of last year and the subsequent ramifications including the death of Mr. Seth Rich, who had been an employee at the DNC. A central tenet of the intelligence community's official position on the Russian interference with our 2016 Presidential Election campaign, has to do with computer "hacking" into various systems. One of the first of these revelations was the "hacking" of the DNC. I put "hacking" in quotes, because from the onset there were conflicting opinions on whether their system was "hacked" or "leaked." As the article in The Nation points out -- and as the article explains from the highly qualified perspective of numerous former concerned members of the intelligence community -- there is a critical difference between "hacking" and "leaking!" The seminal differences between the former and retired experts and our current crop of brainwashed intelligence members, has to do with the size of the downloaded file and the differences between the download rate of data via the Internet and data downloaded into a memory stick. Read The Nation's article for details on that and other discrepancies; the sum and essence of the article is that the intelligence community is lying to us.

The incredibly important point that I'm trying to make here is that we, as a nation of primarily peace seeking people, have been manipulated into wars time and time again by secret members of a Deep State! A small group of mentally warped individuals who believe that their only means to obtain and maintain control of the rest of us is through their manufactured wars and/or fraud. They have historically relied upon and are continually relying on their false reputation of acting impartially for our benefit -- and THAT JUST ISN'T A FACT! They have defiled truth to the point that it is now almost impossible for our citizens to discern who to trust. Even the Democratic Party refuses to believe any other version of what happened, other than what the creepy intelligence bunch is putting out!

We are at a cross-roads as to whether or not we should continue to allow these "Wizards" behind their curtains to keep manipulating us -- or alternatively find a way to expose and shut them down. Always in pursuit of efficient expediency, when I'm confronted with a difficult problem that requires a solution, I seek out the source and attempt to resolve it there -- rather than finding myself having to deal with a variety of often more difficult spin-off ramifications, later.

This was just published online by Salon and is another version of the same story.

* I found that the link to the second part was broken and had to be loaded from part three.

(Article changed on August 15, 2017 at 20:21)
By David Swanson and Pat Elder, World Beyond War

The Pentagon's impact on the river on whose bank it sits is not simply the diffuse impact of global warming and rising oceans contributed to by the U.S. military's massive oil consumption. The U.S. military also directly poisons the Potomac River in more ways than almost anyone would imagine.

Let's take a cruise down the Potomac from its source in the mountains of West Virginia to its mouth at the Chesapeake Bay. The journey down this mighty waterway details six EPA Superfund sites created by the Pentagon's reckless disregard for the fragile ecosystem of the Potomac River watershed.

The U.S. Navy's Allegany Ballistics Laboratory in Rocket Center, West Virginia, 130 miles north of Washington, is a critical source of contamination in the Potomac River. The on-site disposal of explosive metals and solvent wastes contaminates soil and groundwater with hazardous chemicals. The groundwater and soil along the river are laced with explosives, dioxins, volatile organic compounds, acids, laboratory and industrial wastes, bottom sludge from solvent recovery, metal plating pretreatment sludge, paints, and thinners. The site also has a beryllium landfill. An active burning area is still used for waste disposal, sprinkling chemical dust over the river. It's not good.

Traveling the river 90 miles further south brings us to Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland, the Army's "proving ground" for the nation's biological warfare program. Anthrax, Phosgene, and radioactive carbon, sulfur, and phosphorous are buried here. The groundwater is laced with deadly trichloroethylene, a human carcinogen, and tetrachloroethene, suspected of causing tumors in laboratory animals. The Army tested ghastly and heinous agents here, like Bacillus globigii, Serratia marcescens, and Escherichia coli. Although the DOD says it ceased biological weapons testing for offensive purposes in 1971, the claim is like the military's placement of "defensive" missile systems near an enemy's border.

Fort Detrick also has a history of dumping high levels of phosphorus into its drain system that ultimately washes into the lower Monocacy River, a tributary of the Potomac. In fact, the Maryland Department of Environment has cited the Army for exceeding allowable permit levels. Too much phosphorus in the water causes algae to grow faster than the Potomac ecosystem can handle. It is deadly. The Army is a leading polluter of the Potomac River watershed.

Just 40 miles down the river from Fort Detrick lies Washington's Spring Valley neighborhood and the campus of American University. This area was used by the Army during World War I to test Lewisite, a lethal gas made of arsenic. Soldiers tied animals to stakes and set off chemical bombs to see how quickly the animals died. The area was densely covered with deadly biological agents and soldiers buried the remaining stockpiles of munitions after testing. Perchlorate and Arsenic are present in groundwater today. Toxic pits of buried chemicals have contaminated groundwater close to the Dalecarlia Reservoir, just off the Potomac.

Five miles further south, the Washington Navy Yard is located on the Anacostia River, close to its confluence with the Potomac. It is one of the most contaminated patches of real estate in the country. The Navy Yard was a former foundry for the manufacture of cannons, shells, and shot. The ground adjacent to the river is contaminated with tetrachloride, cyanide, perchloroethylene, carbon tetrachloride, dichloroethene, vinyl chloride, lead, and heavy metals, acids, cleaners, caustics, iridite and alkaline, lead, chromium, cadmium, antimony, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and dioxins.

Along the Maryland shoreline, 20 miles from the Navy Yard, we come to the Indian Head Naval Surface Warfare Center in Charles County, with its 100-year history of dumping and burning hazardous waste products. The site routinely discharged industrial waste into septic systems, open ditches and storm sewers that emptied directly into surrounding water bodies which empty into the Potomac. Surface water at the facility is contaminated with high levels of mercury.

Groundwater samples collected at Indian Head contained perchlorate at concentrations between 1,600 and 436,000 ug/L. To put these data into context, the Maryland Department of the Environment established a drinking water advisory level of 1 ug/L. Perchlorate has been linked to its negative effect on the thyroid gland.

Finally, we arrive at The Naval Surface Warfare Center -- Dahlgren, located another 20 miles south of Indian Head, along the Potomac River in King George County, Virginia. Reckless disposal of chemical agents contaminates the soil, groundwater, and sediment. To this day, Dahlgren open burns hazardous waste, sprinkling a powder of poison over the Potomac, the Northern Neck of Virginia, and Southern Maryland. A study of alternative methods for waste treatment at Dahlgren lists the capital costs of open burn as "$0." According to the EPA, "DOD officials don't have any motivation to push for a change to the way they've done it for 70 years. Open burn and detonation is the cheapest for them."

At Dahlgren, discarded mercury is mixed with sediments in Gambo Creek, which empties directly into the Potomac. The burial of munitions contaminated with heavy metals and polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) have poisoned the earth along the mighty Potomac. PCBs, Trichloroethane, and various pesticides mix with lead contamination from firing ranges and buried depleted uranium used to make a type of nuclear weapon known as a bunker buster.

In 1608 John Smith was the first European to explore the waters of the Potomac from the Chesapeake Bay to Washington. Describing the river and the Chesapeake, Smith wrote, "Heaven and Earth never agreed better to frame a place for man's habitation." It is still lovely, but 400 years later, the waters and soils are poisoned. The EPA Superfund sites described above will soon receive much less attention than they should because President Trump's 2018 budget plan calls for cutting the Superfund cleanup program by about a quarter.

The EPA has identified these poisons in the waters of the Potomac river basin, all of them the result of military activities: Acetone, Alkaline, Arsenic, Anthrax, Antimony, Bacillus Globigii, Beryllium, Bis(2-ethylhexyl) Phthalate, Cadmium, Carbon Tetrachloride, Chromium, Cyanide, Cyclonite, Depleted Uranium, Dichloroethylene, Dichloromethane, Dinitrotoluene, Dioxins, Escherichia Coli, Iridite, Lead, Mercury, Nickel, Nitroglycerin, Perchlorate, Perchloroethylene, Phosgene, Phosphorous, Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs), Polyaromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) , Radioactive Carbon, Radioactive sulfur, Serratia Marcescens, Tetrachloride, Tetrachloroethane, Tetrachloroethylene, Toluene, Trans-Dichloroethylene, Trichloroethene, Trichlororethylene, Trinitrobenzene, Trinitrotoluene, Vinyl Chloride, Xlene, and Zinc.

The Potomac is far from unique. Sixty-nine percent of U.S. Superfund environmental disaster sites are the result of war preparations.

Preparations for war cost over 10 times the money that actual wars do, and cause at least 10 times the deaths. Routine U.S. military war preparations cause deaths by diverting resources from human needs and directly through massive environmental destruction spread all over the world including in the United States, and including in the Potomac.

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It's Monday and people have had a day to stop and think about all that happened over the weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia. The politicians from our President to the local Mayor have spoken with many calling out the white supremacists for promoting and engaging in unadulterated violence AKA domestic terror.

Barbara Simmons, Executive Director of The Peace Center in Langhorne, PA put out the word that there would be a gathering in Newtown on Monday evening at 7pm at State and Center Streets followed by a dialogue at the Newtown Friends Meeting House a few blocks away. It was advertised as a gathering at which we would speak up in unity, in harmony and in love.

I got there just after 7, parked down the street and joined a crowd that was holding signs expressing their hopes and love and singing Blowing in the Wind led by LisaBeth Weber. Barbara got on a hand held megaphone and read a short tribute to people of all faiths and then after another song asked us to walk on to the Meeting House.

It was crowded in the hallways, all the seats were taken and lots of people were peering down from the balcony to see and hear all that was said. Barbara began by saying; "I've never seen so many people here. This is what love looks like!"

She said;" we made a symbolic gesture at the corner where people could see us. But we are here to talk about, to confront the hatred. 400 years of white affirmative action. It's time to right the wrongs. "

She introduced Rabbi Anna Boswell-Levy from Congregation Kol Emet in Yardley.

She said; If we're truly a caring community we not only show up to comfort the needy, but to afflict the comfortable. We have to stand up and speak out in a multiplicity of voices. We are lights everywhere. We can't just show up tonight." She mentioned her children including her two 18 month old twins and said; I'm doing this for my children. We pray with our feet. This is a long walk that we all need to support each other on. We are committed to this for the long haul."

Then she led a Hebrew song in English and Hebrew: Olam Chessed Yibaneh: I will build this world with love. You will build this world with love. And if we build this world with love; Then G-d will build this world with love.

LisaBeth then led the CSNY classic, Teach your Children .

Then a number of members of the Peace Center spoke about protecting their children and teaching diversity in area schools. Gail, Barbara's community dialogue partner who is a mother of six and a black woman from Newtown said that "nothing has changed from 40 some years ago to today. She said one of her daughter's saw her cry for the first time "As a woman of color young black women need to see a mother that is strong. I see power in this room. There is power in numbers. As we say to America in solidarity. We've had enough."

Barbara mentioned the importance of teaching about the "Pyramid of Hate." "It starts with micro-aggression's and at the top is genocide.

Another member of the Peace Center came up to the center of the Meeting House to introduce a lady he just met who was about to leave. Renee came with her daughter. She is a 93 year old s Holocaust survivor and she had sewn numbers on her skirt as a reminder. Her daughter helped her to the center and briefly told her story of keeping silent in the face of imprisonment and being sent to a concentration camp in France; Cermec. Her family was wealthy before the war and was able to buy her out with gold coins. Her daughter said her Mother found it scary when Trump started speaking against minorities and then about a Muslim ban. She told her daughter that first they, the Nazis, find a group to speak against. She's having nightmares now. She wears the badge to remember Building 36 and that she was prisoner number 14.

John made his way to the front and introduced himself to Barbara who announced that he lives nearby and just returned from Charlottesville.

John asked that; "You please show up! In Charlottesville they knew we were outnumbered. They surrounded us. They doused us with kerosene and threw torches at us including a woman in a wheel chair." He went on to say that he wasn't new to confrontations. But, "the hate that I looked at affected me forever. I didn't feel safe till I got home last night and cried."

"Just show up! If we had had all these people that are here tonight it would have been different. The police did nothing. There were pitched battles all through town."

LisaBeth led the audience in a rousing rendition of This Land is Your Land and then it was over. People introduced themselves to each other and moved around to see friends and share a few words. It was an amazing community building event.
Congress Switchboard: 202-224-3121

"Rob Kall is tapping in, exploring, assessing, and clarifying this important new way of thinking that has been influenced by the civil rights movement; women's movement; and new, more effective ways of doing business. This will be an important book that can make changes in our world."



Dr. Linda Seger, author of twelve books, including the best-selling Making a Good Script Great, Spiritual Steps on the Road to Success and The Better Way to Win.
This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com.

Ever since 2001, when President George W. Bush launched an endless "global war" not on al-Qaeda but on a phenomenon, or perhaps simply a feeling ("terror") and those who could potentially induce it, America's all-too-real conflicts have become, as TomDispatchregular Rebecca Gordon writes today, ever more metaphorical. In a sense, they have come to seem so distant from our shores and lives (unless you happen to be a member of the country's all-volunteer military or a family member of such a volunteer) as to be little short of fantastical -- or nonexistent. Who here even notices when, as in recent weeks, American military personnel again hit the ground in Yemen, or the Pentagon considers loosing its drones on jihadists in the Philippines, or U.S. raids occur in Somalia, or civilians in significant numbers continue to die in a Syrian city under American air strikes? The answer is essentially no one.

Washington's conflicts in those distant lands couldn't be more real and yet here in the United States they have largely been replaced by a single fantasy bogeyman: Islamic terrorism. It matters little that the actual danger to Americans at the hands of such terrorists is vanishingly small. Fear of them (and the need to feel "safe" from them) has filled American screens and minds for years, helping fund our national security state at levels that might once have staggered the imagination and prepared the way for the election of a truly strange, even fantastical president.

Think of it this way: as Washington has engaged in a set of disastrous spreading conflicts across the Greater Middle East, the population of this country has been gripped by the strangest of war fevers -- a demobilizing set of militarized fantasies largely focused on our own potential destruction that have distorted how we look at our world in dangerous and crippling ways. Rebecca Gordon, who has been writing about America's "forever wars" and the fantasies that accompany them for some time now, considers what happens when war and metaphor become one, when militarized fantasies invade and occupy everyday life. Tom

When All the World's a War...

And All the Men and Women Merely Soldiers

By Rebecca Gordon

Since September 11, 2001, the United States has been fighting a "war on terror." Real soldiers have been deployed to distant lands; real cluster bombs and white phosphorus have been used; real cruise missiles have been launched; the first MOAB, the largest non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal, has been dropped; and real cities have been reduced to rubble. In revenge for the deaths of 2,977 civilians that day, real people -- in the millions -- have died and millions more have become refugees. But is the war on terror actually a war at all -- or is it only a metaphor?

In a real war, nations or organized non-state actors square off against each other. A metaphorical war is like a real war -- after all, that's what a metaphor is, a way of saying that one thing is like something else -- but the enemy isn't a country or even a single group of Islamic jihadists. It's some other kind of threat: a disease, a social problem, or in the case of the war on terror, an emotion.

In truth, it may not matter if the war on terror is a real one, since metaphorical wars have a striking way of killing real people in real numbers, too. Take the U.S war on drugs, for example. In Mexico, that war, fueled by U.S. weapons, using U.S. drones, and conducted with the assistance of the Pentagon and the CIA, has already led to the deaths of many thousands of people. A 2015 U.S. Congressional Research Service report estimates that organized crime caused 80,000 deaths in Mexico between 2007 and 2015. Most of the guns used in what has essentially been a mass murder spree came from this country, which is also the main market for the marijuana, cocaine, and heroin that are the identified enemy in this war of ours. As with our more literal wars of recent years, the war on drugs shows no sign of ending (nor does the U.S. hunger for drugs show any sign of abating). If anyone is winning this particular war, it's the drugs -- and, of course, the criminal cartels that move them across the continent.

American metaphorical wars fought in my own lifetime began with President Lyndon Johnson's "war on poverty," first announced in 1964 when I was 12 years old. Indeed, my mother "served" in that war. We lived in Washington, D.C., at the time and she worked for the United Planning Organization, a community-based group funded under Johnson's Model Cities program. It fought poverty in the slums of my hometown, just a few blocks from the White House. As with other similar groups around the country, its personnel tested new "weapons" in the war on poverty -- job training programs, citizen advice bureaus, and community-organizing efforts of various sorts. I was proud that my mother was a "soldier" in that war, which for a few brief years it even looked like we might be winning.

And there were victories. After all, the legacy of Johnson's Great Society and the war that went with it included Medicare for older people -- I'll be starting on it next month myself -- and Medicaid for people of any age living in poverty. The struggles, sacrifices, and deaths of civil rights activists together with Johnson's political mastery gave us the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. (Of course the Trump Justice Department is doing its best to roll back both of these victories.) Then, as now, poverty touched the lives of many white people, but it flourished most abundantly in black and brown communities and so these new rights for people of color, some of us believed, signaled a light at the end of the tunnel when it came to the genuine abatement of poverty.

By 1968, Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Council were addressing poverty across racial divides, organizing a Poor People's Campaign. It was to include a march on Washington and culminate in the building on the Capitol Mall of a "Resurrection City," which was to serve as a model -- a metaphor -- for a United States risen from the cross of poverty. King was, however, murdered that April and so didn't live to see that city. It turned out, in any case, to be a plywood encampment that would be drowned in mud from days of torrential rain. In the minds of those who still remember it, Resurrection City became a sad metaphor for Lyndon Johnson's war. "The war on poverty," as the saying went, "is over. Poverty won."

Meanwhile, much of the country was distracted from that metaphorical war by an actual war in Vietnam, where the only metaphor around was the insistence of commander of U.S. forces General William Westmoreland that there was "light at the end of the tunnel" when it came to that disastrous conflict.

What's in a Metaphor?

The war on poverty was hardly this country's first metaphorical war. In the 1930s, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover launched a "war on crime," anticipating by some 40 years Richard Nixon's war on drugs, which itself has lasted another 40 years with no end in sight. Nixon also gave us the "war on cancer" -- still ongoing -- even as he continued to pursue the actual war in Vietnam, a rare American conflict in the second half of the twentieth century, metaphorical or otherwise, that came to a definitive end (even if in defeat).

Nor is the United States alone in fighting "wars" against nonhuman enemies. The World Bank, for example, ran a seven-year "total war" on AIDS in Kenya. The project ended in 2014, by which time 1.6 million people, or 6% of the population, were infected with HIV. Perhaps the bank was smarter than the U.S. in choosing to declare victory and go home, as at one point Vermont Governor George Aiken famously suggested we should do in relation to Vietnam.

What, you might wonder, is the problem in using the metaphor of war to represent a collective effort to battle and overcome some social evil? Certainly, fighting a war often requires from whole populations a special kind of heroic focus, a willingness to mobilize and sacrifice, a commitment to community or country, and for those in uniform, loyalty to one's fellow soldiers. It also requires people to relinquish their own petty interests in the service of a greater whole. Correspondent Chris Hedges caught this aspect of war in the title of his powerful book War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. Aren't such qualities useful ones to bring to the struggle to solve urgent, life-destroying problems like disease, poverty, or addiction? Wouldn't it be wonderful if human beings could confront those horrors with the same kind of passion, intensity, and funding we bring to actual wars?
From Our Future

Her name was Heather Heyer. She was marching for justice in Charlottesville when she was killed by a white racist. Say her name.

His name was Timothy Caughman. He was walking down the street in New York City when he was killed by a white racist. Say his name.

Their names were Ricky John Best and Taliesen Myrddin Namkai-Meche. They were riding a train in Portland when they saw a Muslim woman and her friend being threatened. They stepped forward to protect them and were killed by a white racist.

Their names were Cynthia Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lee Lance, Depayne Middleton-Doctor, Clementa C. Pinckney, Tywanza Sanders, Daniel Simmons, Wharonda Coleman-Singleton, and Myra Thompson. They were studying the Bible in a Charleston church when they were killed by a white racist. Say their names.

And say the name of the real murderer, the one who sent agents out to kill: white nationalist terror.

It took real bravery for Heather Heyer to march that day. And it takes bravery just to be black or Muslim or Jewish or gay or trans in the United States, where the threat of violence hangs over every walk down the street, every ride on a train, even a Bible class in a great and historic church.

Last year, Donald Trump insisted that it was important to name your adversary. "Now, to solve a problem," Trump said in an October 9, 2016 debate , "you have to be able to state what the problem is or at least say the name. (Hillary Clinton) won't say the name and President Obama won't say the name. But the name is there. It's radical Islamic terror."

It's your turn, Mr. President. Say the name: White nationalist terror.

There were nearly twice as many incidents of white nationalist terrorism as Islam-related terror in the United States between 2008 and the end of 2016, according to one analysis. But instead of standing up to the terrorists, Trump has refused to even name the threat. He refused again when he was asked about the violence in Charlottesville and the death of Heather Heyer, making this now-infamous comment instead:

"We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides."

Leaving aside the bizarre "many sides" construction -- Trump somehow turned a two-sided confrontation into an ethical hypercube -- the meaning of this comment was not lost on most observers: The President of the United States deliberately refused to make a distinction between actual Nazis and other self-proclaimed racists and the people who were opposing them because ... well, because they were actual Nazis and self-proclaimed racists.

The Nazis were happy with Trump's statement. The "Daily Stormer," an amateurish neo-Nazi website -- imagine a student newspaper published by the feral kids from William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies -- wrote, "Trump's comments were good... Nothing specific about us."

Trump refused to acknowledge the violent death, at the hands of a white supremacist, of the 32-year-old woman who was peacefully exercising her rights of free speech and assembly. He has remained silent as we have learned more about the killer's openly pro-Nazi statements and his attendance at a fascist rally in Charlottesville before he killed Heather Heyer.

There is one name we will not say today: the killer's. When you face a pack of wild dogs and one of them goes for your throat, does it really need a name?

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The NAFTA renegotiationslong promised by President Donald Trumpare about to start. We have never renegotiated a trade agreement before, and this is our largest and most important by far.

There are reasons to be deeply worried about the outcome. Trumps history on trade and the administrations declared priorities in reworking the North American Free Trade Agreement create a bleak backdrop for the Aug. 16 launch of renegotiation talks.

The optimists playbook on the president has been, watch his actions, not his words. We now have had six months of actionsbacked up by decades of wordsand the verdict is in on Trump and trade: He is the most unorthodox and nationalist president of the modern era.

The presidents words on trade could not be more stark. NAFTA is the worst trade deal in the history of the world, right up there with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), another disaster done and pushed by special interests who want to rape our country.

Since his inauguration on Jan. 20, Trumps words are becoming actions. In the first week of his presidency, he withdrew from the TPP and announced his intent to renegotiate NAFTA. In April, he publicly toyed with pullingthe United States out of NAFTA altogether. He has issued eight executive actions to protect us from trade.

And now we have the administrations long-awaited Summary of Objectives for the NAFTA Renegotiation. Our partners in Mexico and Canada hope for straightforward negotiations as the talks start this month, and even conclusion by years end.

Hope is natural, but the realities of the U.S. objectives cannot be overlooked. True, much of the document is straight out of the trade wonks script: borrowing from other recent negotiations, including the TPP (irony of ironies), and modernizing this 23-year-old agreement.

But what makes the NAFTA objectivesand the upcoming talksso exceptional, even radical, is the very first objective: Improve the U.S. trade balance and reduce the trade deficit with the NAFTA countries. This is new and unique. As the accompanying news release puts it, for the first time USTR has included deficit reduction as a specific objective for the NAFTA negotiations.

Trumps single-minded focus on bilateral trade deficits puzzles mainstream economists, whose assessment is that they mean little on their own and instead reflect deeper issues such as savings and consumption rates rather than inherent unfairness. Nevertheless, deficit reduction surfaces over and over in the presidents thinkingback to 1987, rememberand it is now officially Objective No. 1, for NAFTA and no doubt all future Trump trade talks.

What impact will Objective No. 1 have on the negotiations? Well, our trade deficit with Mexico is approximately $60 billion. Although the objectives assert that the United States will seek to reduce that deficit by expanding U.S. exports, Mexicos economy is comparatively small and its citizens and businesses purchasing power comparatively limited. Can Mexico afford to buy $60 billion more from us rather than producing it themselves? Voluntarily? That equals 6 percent of its total gross domestic product. Doubtful.

There are only three sure ways to reduce a trade deficit as large as Mexicos, and they would do so by brute force: tariffs, quotas or managed trade, such as the voluntary restrictions on Japanese auto and semiconductor imports back in the 1980s. These blunt instruments are anathema to the much smaller economies of Canada and Mexico, and indeed to all of our trading partners. Add the issue of the wall, and the outlook can only be bleak.

If the NAFTA talks that begin this week are an arena where nations compete for advantage, as the presidents aides have described the presidents clear-eyed worldview, and the presidents unchanging and unyielding views on trade are now officially Objective No. 1then no one should expect a normal negotiation, and no one should rule out collapse.

If the administration surprises and the talks go well, we would wind up with a modernized NAFTA well-suited to the 21st century. But if the talks fall apart, then our relations with our closest neighbors would be shattered, supply lines across our continent sundered, and our borders north and south thickened.North America would enter a new era riven with trade barriers, tariffs and mutual suspicion.And the winner in all this would be China, no longer competing against a unified and efficient North American manufacturing platform and a gigantic internal market. So just as when Trump pulled us out of the TPP and the Paris climate change accord, the global benefactor may well be the very country against whom Trump directed so much of his campaign rhetoric.

Trump wants to put America First. Instead, he may be helping ensure a China Next.
During these trying times, for any of us with even an ounce of rationality, please go out and get the 1997 Barry Levinson film Wag the Dog. This satire ( is it really? ) was originally based on the sexual scandals around our president at the time, Bill ' Ignore my smirks ' Clinton. In reality, this film is really a testament to many of our presidents and how they use phony foreign threats to raise their poll numbers.

We can go back to Bush Jr.'s father, who in early 1990 had terrible poll numbers or what the media likes to call ' Approval ratings'. So, according to the transcripts of her interview with Saddam Hussein in ' 90, U.S. ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie was told by Hussein about his disagreement with Kuwait over certain oil deposits bordering their two countries. Hussein was pissed off and issued ' veiled threats'. Glaspie's response to Hussein, which many feel more or less gave him the ' green light ' to move with military actions :" We have no opinion on your Arab - Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary (of State James) Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960's, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America." (Saddam smiles). Then, BOOM! THIS MEANS WAR!!! Remember those yellow ribbons that so many of our ' Moron Amerikans ' tied to their trees and on their cars? Levinson had it right.

Fast forward a mere eleven years later and another Bush ( Lord protect us!) sat in the White House with low ' Approval ratings'. So, they ' wagged the dog ' and pulled Hussein out again for some of the same. This time it was WMDs that the UN weapons inspectors said most likely no longer existed... of course they meant in Iraq and not in the U.S. , the UK and Israel, France, Pakistan etc. Too bad guys, said the Bush/Cheney cabal... THIS MEANS WAR!! To anyone with even ' half a brain,' that so called war, which really was an illegal and immoral invasion and occupation of Iraq. That action has resonated and will resonate as the most heinous action by our empire since the totally unnecessary dropping of two atomic bombs in August of 1945. Please read Mark Weber's Was Hiroshima necessary? in the 1997 Journal of Historical Review . As generations of Japanese civilians have been genetically destroyed by the A-bomb radiation, so too have millions of Iraqis been physically and culturally destroyed by our ' Shock and Awe ' carpet bombings and use of depleted uranium on them and their infrastructure.

Ten years after the Iraq disgrace, we had a 'Hope and Change ' president in office. Well, after having his own doubts ( proof as to who really runs our ' Deep State' ) Mr. Obama gave in to the war mongering Mrs. Clinton and her Neo Con allies in the Pentagon and Dept. of State. We got NATO, our puppet organization, to agree to join us in the carpet bombing of one of the most progressive nations in Africa, Libya. However much of a demagogue Mr. Khadafy was, his people lived much better than most of the nations of the entire planet! Well, Khadafy planned to go off of the use of our dollars in his oil transactions, replacing them with a new African currency called the ' Gold Dinar', and of course he wanted no part of the United States Africa Command. So, in 2011 NATO.. oh sorry, the U.S. ,attacked and destroyed Libya using another ' Wag the Dog ' excuse of aiding civilians caught up in its civil war. Once we conquered that country, and of course brutally killed Khadafy ( Mrs. Clinton: " We came, we saw, he died") that nation, as with Iraq and Afghanistan, is in ruins.

Now, we have ' The Donald' using another ' Wag the Dog' on North Korea. Why not? It has always worked, and sadly, for MoronAmerika, it will again. Pogo was correct: We have met the enemy and he be US!
White nationalists and neo-Nazis celebrated President Donald Trump's remarks about the protests in Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday (August 12), in which he denounced violence "on all sides" rather than explicitly condemning white supremacism, the Business Insider reported.

The founder of the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi and white supremacist website that considers itself a part of the alt-right, celebrated the fact that Trump "outright refused to disavow" the white nationalist rally and movement, the Business Insider said adding:

"People saying he cucked are shills and kikes," wrote the founder, Andrew Anglin. "He did the opposite of cuck. He refused to even mention anything to do with us. When reporters were screaming at him about White Nationalism he just walked out of the room."

"Cuck" is short for "cuckservative" -- a portmanteau of "cuckold" and "conservative" used by the alt-right to describe white Republicans "who are participating in the displacement of European Americans," according to white nationalist Richard Spencer.

"Trump comments were good," said another Daily Stormer commenter. "He didn't attack us. He just said the nation should come together. Nothing specific against us. He said that we need to study why people are so angry, and implied that there was hate... on both sides! So he implied the antifa are haters."

The commenter continued: "There was virtually no counter-signaling of us at all. He said he loves us all. Also refused to answer a question about white nationalists supporting him. No condemnation at all. When asked to condemn, he just walked out of the room. Really, really good. God bless him."

"We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides," Trump said at a press conference. "On many sides."

Many were quick to criticize the president for failing to denounce the "Unite the Right" rally held by white nationalists on Friday in response to a plan to remove a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee from a park in Charlottesville.

Many critics -- including Republicans -- slammed Trump for not explicitly calling out the white nationalists in Virginia, noting that one woman was killed when a car drove into a crowd of counter-protesters, and calling it a "terror attack."

A New Generation of White Supremacists Emerges in Charlottesville





The white supremacist forces arrayed in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend -- the largest gathering of its sort in at least a generation -- represented a new incarnation of the white supremacy movement, ProPublica reported Sunday adding:

"Old-guard groups like the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nations and the Nazi skinheads, which had long stood at the center of racist politics in America, were largely absent. Instead, the ranks of the young men who drove to Charlottesville with clubs, shields, pepper spray and guns included many college-educated people who have left the political mainstream in favor of extremist ideologies over the past few years. A large number have adopted a very clean cut, frat-boyish look designed to appeal to the average white guy in a way that KKK robes or skinhead regalia never could. Interviews show that at least some of these leaders have spent time in the U.S. armed forces.

"Many belong to new organizations like Vanguard America, Identity Evropa, the Traditionalist Workers Party and True Cascadia, which have seen their numbers expand dramatically in the past year. Most of these groups view themselves as part of a broader "alt-right" movement that represents the extreme edge of right-wing politics in the U.S.

On Saturday, ProPublica reported that that the white supremacists who arrived in Charlottesville on Saturday "had spent months openly planning for war":

The Daily Stormer, a popular neo-Nazi website, encouraged rally attendees to bring shields, pepper spray, and fascist flags and flagpoles. A prominent racist podcast told its listeners to come carrying guns. "Bring whatever you need, that you feel you need for your self defense. Do what you need to do for security of your own person," said Mike "Enoch" Peinovich on The Right Stuff podcast.

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Charlottesville car attacker Fields may have been an agent provocateur.



Divide and rule is a strategy that can help some political causes more than others. Some dark forces may be attempting to seed a race war between Americans.



We do know crisis actors have been reappearing in these events, and that they're actually hired to participate. So the possibility of a staged or directed event is quite high. Plus, Fields may have been a Hillary supporter, and the organizer of "Unite the Right," Jason Kessler, had been part of Occupy as recently as November 2016. Swings of loyalty are a real red flag; if Fields were so devoted a white nationalist, where's the history?



The notion of an agent provocateur dates back to ancient times where one side will insert a covert agent who provokes a mob into doing acts of violence which then precipitate a violent reaction by the other party. America's seen its share of this tool, dating back to strikes and other demonstrations in our not-too-distant past.




While Charlotte, North Carolina is cultivating a booming beer scene, one wouldnt think to visit the city for their boundary-pushing bars. But we say, why not? It is one of the fastest growing cities in the country. It makes sense that their spirits scene would be maturing just as impressively as the beer.

If youre looking for a drink in an unconventional atmosphere or a bartender who goes above and beyond their job description, head to any of these seven innovative drinking institutions in the Queen City.

What began simply as a father-in-laws brewing hobby has now evolved into what can best be described as an endeavor greater than the sum of its parts. The Suffolk Punch, owned by the brewers son-in-law and his childhood friend, is a hybrid drinking and dining destination featuring a tap house with over 48 offerings; a craft coffee, tea and cocktail bar; and a restaurant serving up sustainably sourced breakfast, lunch and dinner. Hyde Brewing will be operating from within the space, so The Suffolk Punch will have exclusive access to their beer, while also serving others. Additionally, the building features a climate controlled fermentation lab focused on applied zymology so that The Suffolk Punchs kitchen and Hydes brewing team can formulate produce preservation recipes and cultivate specialty yeast strains for proprietary use in the brewing, cooking and roasting processes. Thats what we call overachieving.

Opening on Labor Day, Resident Culture is looking to bring the funk and haze to Charlottes blossoming craft beer scene. Having just left the finance world, co-owner Phil McLamb teamed-up with his longtime friend Slates Snider to build Resident Culture. Once the brewery was in place, McLamb and Snider went on to add the third key employee to their trio, Chris Tropeano, their head brewer who had been working at the iconic Russian River Brewery the previous two years under the famous Vinnie Cilurzo.

Each bringing a key component to the table, the three are looking to provide Charlotte with something unique, starting with the citys first ever coolship, a vessel used to create spontaneously fermented beer. Its probably what Im most excited about to be honest, says Tropeano, who will use the coolship to develop a variety of unorthodox brews. With a beer portfolio that will also include unfiltered hoppy brews, sours and a barrel-program featuring mostly mixed fermentation brews with a few stouts mixed in, Resident Culture is looking to raise the bar for craft beer in Charlotte.

While the world was busy geeking out over the farm-to-table scene, brothers Jeff and Jason Alexander (not of Seinfeld fame) were busy trying to figure out farm-to-tap. Which they have, and the end product is Free Range Brewing. Their rotating beers frequently feature local ingredients, whether it be from a nearby farm or local delicacy, like their Susie Tead Off, which features hibiscus and tangerine peel; or their She May, a Belgian strong ale with honey.

If youve ever been to Charlotte, youve heard of the Punch Room, on the 15th floor of the Ritz Carlton. Led by mixologist Bob Peters, the Punch Room takes cocktails seriously. Their menu features a selection of handcrafted cocktails and specialty punches with an emphasis on small-batch spirits and local fruits, herbs and vegetables. Cant decide between the Fiesta Punch, the Boiler Mule or the Ghost in the Graveyard? Mosey on up to the bar and Peters, or whoever is manning it at the time, will give you the equivalent of a What Drink Are You? quiz and whip you up something custom on the spot that caters to your taste buds.

Want the personal and craft experience without the crowds or the Ritz-y prices? Stay grounded and make your way to The Asbury, another hotel restaurantalthough it doesnt look it at first glance as it has its own street entrance and isnt hotel-y at all. Borrowing the Dunhill Hotels lobby bar (right outside the restaurant) mixologist, The Asburys drink menu features creative libations like the Ghost CiderDalmore 12Y, spiced syrup, orange and lemon. Dont be surprised if theres a new drink when youre there; the bartender frequently plays around during the day to come up with a new cocktail for feature that evening. And if nothing on the menu calls to you, they will whip something up based on your flavor and alcohol preferences.

Corkbuzz Restaurant and Wine Studio in South Park opened sister concept, The Cellar @ Corkbuzz, earlier this year directly next door. A self proclaimed casual wine bar offering with a separate small plates menu and wine retail, The Cellar is much more than that. In addition to a great wine retail selection with an expert staff, were offering wine profiles to help guests better understand and articulate their wine preferences, said Corkbuzz Owner and Master Sommelier Laura Maniec in a press release. The exercise, that takes about 45 minutes and costs $25, arms you with a wine cheat sheet that will prove handy in restaurant ordering and retail purchasing situations. So, while they have a traditional wine list with familiar names like chardonnay, Chenin Blanc, Syrah and Tempranillo, to some people, those names arent actually so familiar. Which is when the wine profiling comes in handy. It helps patrons look past the label and appreciate whats on the inside.

If you know your wine, or you do now thanks to Corkbuzzs wine profile assistance, head on over to Assorted Table Wine Shoppe. This spot offers an ever-increasing selection of quality, unique fine wines ranging from $5 to over $1000. What really makes this place different, though, is the effort the owner gives and the lengths he travels to find the wine. The end result is an offering of quality new world and Old World wines from far-off regions like Idaho, New Mexico, Lebanon,, Macedonia, Hungry, Uruguay, Croatia, Slovenia, Israel and Corsica. Of course, hes got the local NC wines on hand as well.
The National Youth Authority (NYA) under the Ministry of Youth and Sport in conjunction with the UNFPA, on the 11th day of August 2016 joined the world to celebrate the International Youth Day at the Osu Castle, Greater Accra Region.



The programme, which was under the theme; Youth Building Peace attracted great men and women specifically the youth from all the 10 regions in Ghana.



Addressing the gathering, was the Senior Minister, Nana Yaw Osafo Maafo, explained how appropriate and relevant it is to us as a nation at a time when we are trying to inject some sanity into the system in the face of recent cases of crime-related violence and negative mob-actions, he made this statement in relation to the year theme; which is "Youth Building Peace".



According to him, the NPP Manifesto outlined a number of programmes that will seek to decentralize the development and bring the needed change. The agenda for change will entail the following; Building a prosperous society, Creating opportunity for all Ghanaians especially the Youth to eradicate the youth unemployment from the system, Safeguarding the natural environment and ensuring a resilient built environment and maintaining a stable, united and safe society for all Ghanaians.



Again he continued to outline some of the things which can help to create the needed jobs for the youth, which is by working hand-in--hand or collaborating with the Government agricultural flagship programme which is "Planting for Food and Jobs' Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Programme (IPEP), that a cedi equivalent of $1million dollars for each constituency, the One District, One Factory, One Village programmed, One Dam programmed, Small Business Development and Stimulus package of $50million for ailing but viable industries.



He assured the youth that Government through the National Youth Authority from now till December, 2017 will provide skills and livelihood raining programmes in ICT, agriculture, irrigation, heavy duty equipment driving, tiling, POP applications in building construction, hairdressing, among others to about 16,000 youth unemployment in the system. He said this is expected to reach 50,000 youth by the end of 2018, and will ensure that developments take place at the district level and stem the rural-urban migration in the medium term.



Speaking to the CEO of the National Youth Authority, Lawyer Justin Kodua Frimpong said "the youth are willing to study in any skill such as mechanic, hairdressing, cosmetology, fashion etc but the problem at-hand is the lack of money to finance themselves after the completion of the programme in that particular filled of study, and assured that the NYEP in collaboration with government is ready to support by assisting them in securing a loan from National Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program (NIEP) to help boost their businesses."



Lawyer Kodua asked the youth to think outside the box because there are so many innovative programmes out there for them to bring on board, by citing some of them as branded Corn Dough business, Shear Butter and Dawadawa business.



He also emphasized on the implementation plan for youth development policies include youth in agriculture, youth in environmental protection and youth in entrepreneurship must be taken serious by the youth and participate in it.



The CEO admonished all to continue to contribute their quota to make the country strong in order to eradicate poverty.



He added that the NYAs overall objective is to secure improved livelihoods for the youth.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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After a disappointing race in Rotorua, New Zealand, Curtis Keene and Jared Graves arrive in Tasmania, Australia to spend a week preparing. But despite their best efforts, unforeseen developments leave them adjusting strategies at the last minute.
Guam employers who sued U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions over the near-100 percent denial of petitions for foreign workers on H-2B visas may have met another setback in federal court.

Magistrate Judge Joaquin V.E. Manibusan Jr., in a decision released yesterday, said he is recommending that Chief Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood deny a motion for a preliminary injunction against the Justice Department, a legal avenue the plaintiffs had hoped would reopen approvals for these types of visa petitions.

A preliminary injunction is an "extraordinary and drastic remedy," according to the magistrate judge.

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The magistrate judge acknowleged that there's a public interest at stake on the issue: A delay in the military construction projects or a shutdown of businesses as a result of labor shortages will affect Guam's economy.

"The court concurs that the denials of the H-2B petitions has negatively impacted Guam's economy," Manibusan said.

"However, although the plaintiffs have shown that they are likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of a preliminary injunction, and that the balance of equities and the public interest appears to tip in favor of the plaintiffs, the court finds that the plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate that they are likely to succeed on the merits of their claims," the magistrate judge said.

Hundreds of millions of dollars in military construction contracts are at stake if the employers can't find the labor they need for the projects, the Guam Contractors Association has stated.

John Robertson, vice chairman of the board for the association, said the recruitment of skilled construction workers through the H-2B visa program has been brought to a standstill.

"That's had a negative impact on contractors that is continuing to this year," he said.

He said that although Guam Delegate Madeleine Bordallo has included language in the National Defense Authorization Act that would allow skilled foreign workers to come into Guam to work on military projects, such legislation will not help with construction projects geared toward tourism.

The magistrate judge's recommendation will still need the concurrence of Chief Judge Tydingco-Gatewood.

The plaintiffs have 14 days to respond to the magistrate judge's recommendation.

High rejection rates

Some of Guam's largest employers, mostly in construction, but also including a few in health care, have said their ability to fulfill existing contracts has been hampered by immigration desk officers' high rejection rates for petitions to hire or extend the employment of foreign workers on H-2B visas.

As an example, Ace Builders stated in the lawsuit it has more than $100 million in contracts, 75 perecent of which are with the military.

"The company has been a successful user of the H-2B visa program since 2008, and had enjoyed a 100 percent approval rate on its petitions up until 2016, according to the lawsuit.

Just one of Ace Builders' military contracts has a liquidated damages clause of $56,000 per day if a project is not completed as scheduled, according to the lawsuit.

In past years, Guam would see around 1,400 workers on H-2B visas in a year, but now, because of the high rejection rates, fewer than 100 workers on H-2B visas remain, according to previous statistics from the local labor department.

H-2B approval rates were 95 percent between 1995 and 2015, but last year, that rate went down to 0.3 percent, according to the plaintiffs. The high denial rates occurred even before the Trump administration took office.

Reliance on H-2B program

The plaintiffs contended that they have "historically relied" on the H-2B program "to supplement their existing workforce because of a peak load need for temporary workers to complete a project, and/or meet the needs of their businesses or because of a one-time occurrence need."

These employers asserted that they "have not changed the nature of their businesses, their hiring practices, or their contracts" and that "(n)othing about the petitions ... filed varied in any significant way from previous petitions," court documents state.

The Guam employers said beginning in 2015, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service began denying their petitions "based on a new interpretation of 'temporary need.'"

The magistrate judge cites immigration law, which places the burden of proof upon the employer  as the applicant  to establish that a prospective employee is eligible for H-2B classification.

"If the evidence submitted with a petition does not establish an employer's eligibility, USCIS may deny the petition, request more information or evidence be submitted within a specified period of time, or notify the employer of its intent to deny the petition and the basis for the proposed denial and require the employer to submit a response within a specified period of time," according to immigration law the magistrate judge cited.
Last month the Fanohge Coalition sent a simple survey to all candidates seeking to represent Guam in I Liheslaturan Guahan, as its attorney ge Read more19 candidates take stand on CHamoru self-determination, future status, Marine buildup
New channels for SpectralWorks and MestreLab products.

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The software companies SpectralWorks Ltd (SpectralWorks) and Mestrelab Research SL (Mestrelab) announced today that they have entered into a mutual reseller agreement. Under this agreement both parties will be able to promote the full suite of products available from each company.John Moncur, CEO of SpectralWorks, said The Mnova NMR software suite and our RemoteAnalyzer cross platform open access solution have been brought together to provide seamless integration of MS and NMR sample submission, tracking and data processing. This provides the analytical chemist with a consistent user interface which is independent of which instruments are being used and requires no specialist expertise.Santiago Dominguez, CEO of Mestrelab Research, commented We are delighted to start our collaboration with SpectralWorks. With their capabilities for Open Access sample management and the reprocessing, analysis and reporting capabilities of Mnova, the scientist workflow when interacting with analytical instrumentation and data will be significantly simplified, which will deliver valuable gains in productivity and research acceleration.About SpectralWorks LimitedSpectralWorks Limited ( www.spectralworks.com) is a leading UK based software development company. They are dedicated to providing innovative solutions targeted for markets within the life sciences industry and have strong working relationships with a number of the major instrument manufacturers. Coupled with their collaborations within academia and industry, they have the right balance between scientific and software development expertise to provide the best scientific solutions for the end user. Their vendor neutral MS data processing software, AnalyzerPro and their cross platform open access MS and NMR solution, RemoteAnalyzer, are widely used in academia and industry. They provide highly respected consultancy services able to cover the complete software development cycle or specific steps within a project life cycle.About Mestrelab Research SLMestrelab Research SL ( http://www.mestrelab.com) is a Spanish company specialized in the development of state of the art software applications for handling of analytical chemistry data (NMR, LC/GC/MS). Mestrelab Research SL develops and commercializes Mnova , a World leading integrated software package for processing and advanced analysis of NMR and LC/GC/MS data with multivendor support and an extensive Worldwide user base. The companys mission is to develop software solutions which become the universal processing and analysis interface between analytical instrumentation and chemists.
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FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for Vanadium One Energy Corp.--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---Toronto, Ontario (FSCWire) - Vanadium One Energy Corp. (TSX Venture:VONE). has issued a press release with the following headline:Vanadium One Energy Drilling Confirms Mineralized Targets at Mont Sorcier Fe-V-Ti ProjectTo view this press release on the FSCwire website, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:If you would prefer, you can also view this press release as a PDF file, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:For more information on Vanadium One Energy Corp., or to see additional press releases issued by this company, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser: http://www.fscwire.com/public-company/Vanadium One Energy Corp.Source: Vanadium One Energy Corp. (TSX Venture: VONE, FWB: 9VR1, WKN: A2DKRC, ISIN: CA92142L1094)Date: August 15, 2017Time: 2:00 AM EDT--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of Vanadium One Energy Corp. and disseminated through FSCwire.About FSCwireFSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.), is a global newswire dissemination, SEDAR, SEDI, and EDGAR / XBRL service provider.FSCwire is a full service global newswire dissemination company and is fully approved by all exchanges in Canada and the U.S. Press releases can be distributed for all sizes of public, private or not for profit companies and any other organization requiring news distribution. In addition to individual companies; public relations, communications and investor relations firms trust FSCwire to distribute press releases for their respective clients.In addition to newswire dissemination FSCwire also offers EDGAR, XBRL, SEDAR, SEDI, and additional services for publicly traded companies. For more information, please go to our website: http://www.fscwire.com Maximum News Dissemination by FSCwire. http://www.fscwire.com Copyright 2017 - FSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.)
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.




Four years ago more than 1,000 Syrian civilians, including hundreds of children, were gassed to death and thousands more were injured while sleeping in their homes in the suburbs of Damascus. It was the most deadly chemical weapons attack in nearly 30 years, but it wasn't the last and more could be on the way.

As the international community marks the 20th anniversary of the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) this year, the Bashar al-Assad regime's flagrant violations of the Treaty's fundamental obligations should be of high concern. They also should serve as a reminder that chemical weapons remain a threat that demands a global solution.

Assaddespite signing the CWC in October 2013 and pledging to destroy his declared chemical weapons stockpiles and production capabilitieshas continued chemical attacks on the Syrian opposition ( PDF ). In April this year, the regime used sarin again at Khan in northwestern Syria, killing at least 74 people, including nearly a dozen children, and injuring more than 500.

President Trump took prompt, but limited military action against the Syrian military airbase responsible for staging the April sarin attack, and threatened additional strikes should the Syrian regime attempt future chemical attacks. But more steps are necessary to hold Assad and his military commanders responsible for chemical weapons attacks that violate treaty commitments they recently made.

ISIS has repeatedly used mustard gas and chlorine on the battlefield in Syria and Iraq and can produce crude mustard gas as detailed by former CIA Director, John Brennan, in 2016. North Korea's Kim Jong-un chose the extremely deadly nerve agent, VX, to assassinate his half-brother at Kuala Lumpur international airport last year. One possible explanation for why Kim chose to have his half-brother killed with such an exotic military grade chemical agent is to signal to potential adversaries the type of weapon he has in his national arsenal and his willingness to use it. Other countries, including CWC signatories, may be reconsidering their options as well.

There can be no doubt that when Assad reviews the landscape of past and present despots, such as Libya's Moammar Qaddafi, Iraq's Saddam Hussein, and North Korea's Kim, he surely will take note that only Kimwith his nuclear weapons program and a chemical weapons arsenalis still alive and in power. Rather than relinquishing his remaining chemical weapons stockpiles, Assad could choose instead to covertly restock them.

To counter Assad and others who might turn to the use of chemical weapons, the U.S. could collaborate with other major powers to bolster the international ban on chemical weapons. Convening a major conferenceakin to the Nuclear Security Summit held last yearfocused on strengthening the treaty's inspection and enforcement provisions could be a worthy first step. Enhanced sanctions could be imposed on the Syrian regime, given its acceptance of the CWC treaty terms prohibiting the use of chemicals as weapons. Additionally, Russia, could be held accountable for aiding Syria despite the regime's repeated use of chemical weapons. Finally, in order to strengthen international norms, the U.S. could warn Assad, and other rogue leaders considering treaty banned weapons, that if chemical weapons are used, severe military, diplomatic, and economic actions will follow.

Ted Clark is a senior political scientist at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation and former Chief of CIA's Chemical Weapons Analysis.

This commentary originally appeared on Foreign Policy Concepts on August 15, 2017. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis.
In recent weeks, two major players in the private security industry proposed that Trump administration officials privatize U.S. military operations in Afghanistan to an unprecedented degree. Erik Prince, former owner of the now-defunct firm Blackwater Worldwide, proposed a scheme that would entail the appointment of a viceroy to oversee operations in Afghanistan, and the use of private military units to fill in gaps left by departing U.S. troops. Meanwhile, Stephen Feinbergowner of DynCorp International, which holds numerous major U.S. government security contracts at presentsimilarly proposed that the Trump administration privatize the military force in Afghanistan, though his conceptualization of such a force calls for it to be placed under CIA control.

Luckily, Defense Secretary Mattis reportedly has so far declined both offers. Research overwhelmingly indicates that replacing U.S. military personnel with contractors is not likely to be a militarily effective solution for the Afghanistan problem.

First, research has shown that security contractors tend to decrease military effectiveness when working alongside regular military units in large numbers, primarily due to coordination issues fed by convoluted command-and-control systems and resentment and misperception between the two types of forces. Coordination problems between the military and contractor forces lead contractors to have a negative impact on the military's integration, responsiveness, and skill when the two groups are co-deployed in the field.

Second, while security contractors operating on their ownfree from any alliance with an extensive force of friendly military troopshave been shown in some instances to increase operational effectiveness and achieve tactical and strategic goals, this has primarily occurred when they have been sent into an area without clear state support. In such cases, they can operate covertly and with plausible deniability for the state actor supporting them, which may allow for looser interpretations of the norms of international humanitarian law. In other words, contractors can be effective, but it may not always be pretty. Notably, current Department of Defense policy mandates compliance with standards ( PDF ) of behavior may preclude such activitiesbut may also explicitly preclude some of what Prince is proposing.

Perhaps more relevant in this case is the fact that the tactical and strategic effectiveness of contractors who are operating without longer-term military support typically lasts only as long as the contract is in place. In Sierra Leone, in the late 1990s, paramilitary firm Executive Outcomes was successful in securing enough of the country to hold the first free elections in thirty years, but the peacefully-elected president was then ousted in a coup within eighty-nine days of the contract expiration.

The remainder of this commentary is available at nationalinterest.org.

Molly Dunigan is a senior political scientist and associate director of the Defense and Political Sciences Department at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation and a lecturer in Carnegie Mellon University's Institute for Politics and Strategy.

This commentary originally appeared on The National Interest on August 13, 2017. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis.
Have we been here before? A hostile power other than the Soviet Union, led by a leader considered by many to be a madman, is developing a nuclear capability with the ultimate aim of being able to strike the U.S. with nuclear-tipped missiles.

Yes. China in the 1950s began a nuclear weapons development program that concerned the Kennedy administration when it came to power in early 1961.

Within the previous decade, China and the U.S. had been at war in Korea and had gone through two serious crises over Chinese shelling of the Taiwan held Islands of Quemoy and Matsu. China and the U.S. were mutual enemies. They did not have diplomatic relations.

The Chinese nuclear program deeply worried President Kennedy. According to the historical record, he considered Chinese acquisition of a nuclear weapon likely to be the most significant and worst event of the 1960s.

His military and civilian advisers launched a series of analyses of military options, direct and covert attacks, to destroy or delay the program. Although these studies were largely complete during his administration, they continued into the first year of the Johnson administration after Kennedy's assassination in late 1963. Johnson decided not to pursue the military options.

The Kennedy administration studies had largely demonstrated that the military options were either infeasible or too risky, effectively leaving deterrence as the only optionthe U.S. threat to attack China with nuclear weapons should it try to attack us or our allies.

China exploded its first nuclear device soon after Johnson's decision. It would take more than a decade before China developed a capability to strike the U.S. with intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). During that period the U.S. did not seek to stop the missile programs, other than to argue that they were a reason that the U.S. needed to develop a limited anti-ballistic missile program during the Nixon administration.

A lot of this should sound familiar to anyone following the debate on the North Korean nuclear program.

Of course, a lot changed in the U.S.-China relationship since the mid-1960s. Johnson was not as hostile toward China has Kennedy had been. The relationship needed to be managed deftly during the Vietnam War.

For strategic reasons, President Nixon decided to pursue a diplomatic opening to China, which culminated in the Shanghai Communique with the promise to work toward normalization of relations. President Carter and Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping achieved normalization in 1978.

The conclusion that the only option is deterrence is still sound.

Thus during the period that China was developing an ICBM, the U.S. relationship with China changed from mutual hostility to a close, if not always friendly, relationship. By the early 1980s, analysts saw Chinese nuclear weapons as more oriented toward the Soviet Union than the U.S.

A similar warming of relations has clearly not happened in the U.S.-North Korean relationship during the period of North Korean ICBM development.

But the conclusion that the only option is deterrence is still sound. The military options have the same problems now as then. In fact they are made more complicated by the vulnerability of South Korea to North Korean artillery and the possibility that a U.S. war with the North could lead to a U.S. war with China.

A two-track strategy of deterrence and diplomacy is needed. Deterrence needs to be manifest through policy statements, military doctrine, and capabilities and exercises.

Diplomacy must be equally active, perhaps starting with a proposal to formally end the decades-old Korean War.

James A. Thomson is president emeritus of the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation and a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School.

This commentary originally appeared on Newsweek on August 14, 2017. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis.
Istanbul-based distribution company Global Agency has struck an international deal with Queens, a Jose Luis Moreno production broadcast in Spain by RTVE.





Originally filmed in English, Queens is a period drama which tells the story of two powerful women: Elizabeth I of England and Mary Stuart of Scotland. The Spanish version, named Reinas, has already been broadcast by the Spanish public broadcaster though it didnt reach as high an audience as expected RTVE also introduced the six-episodes series to the international market during the last editions of MIPTV and LA Screeni ngs. Now, Global Agency has partnered with the producer, Jose Luis Moreno, to introduce Queens original version to the global TV scenario.Commenting on the deal, Izzet Pinto, CEO of Global Agency, said: The very first moment that we saw Queens, we got so excited as it impressed us with its story, structure, performances and production quality. Our goal is to deliver this epic content to all around the world and we hope Queens will win the love of the audiences worldwide.
In the middle of a wave of levies on OTT firms in Latin America, Costa Rica has announced a plan to land a 15% tax on video-on-demand (VOD) and online video-based services.





According to Fernando Rodriguez, Costa Ricas vice-minister of Finance , the Government is planning to add a 15% VAT for every subscription-based streaming TV service. The move would not aim to equal competition in the video market but to increase tax income from a growing industry.We are preparing a reform to change VAT regulations son we start taxing Internet-based services which usually compete against local companies, said Rodriguez. Its a debate we are having on an international level, inside the OECD.Costa Ricas announcement comes after a year during which different reforms have been sanctioned in Latin America in order to tax over-the-top services. Starting by Colombia , Argentina and Brazil are also debating a special regulation for OTT services and Uruguay is considering legislative changes to start charging services like Netflix.
Indian police have arrested four people after a new episode of Game of Thrones with a Star India watermark had been leaked and made available illegally on the Internet.





Those arrested in Maharashtra are associated with Star Indias technology vendor, Prime Focus Technologies, the broadcaster said in a statement. Prime Focus manages data for Star and its digital subsidiary Novi.The fourth episode of the seventh season of HBOs global hit drama was scheduled to be aired in both the USA and India on 7 August (at 7.30am in India) but was leaked before its transmission.This is the first time in the history of Star India that an incident of this nature has occurred. We are deeply grateful to the police for their swift and prompt action. We believe that valuable intellectual property is a critical part of the development of the creative industry and strict enforcement of the law is essential to protecting it, Star India said in a statement.Prime Focus had lodged a complaint with the police against one of its employees, as well as a former member of staff and others who had gained unauthorised access to the episode from season 7 of Game of Thrones.. The office of the Special IGP (Cyber), Government of Maharashtra, which is investigating, said a joint team from the office of Cyber & PAW, Government of Maharashtra and the office of DCP (Cyber), BKC, Mumbai, led by an Assistant Commissioner of Police, swooped in on the Bangalore office of Prime Focus Technologies from where the leakage was apprehended to have occurred and carried out interrogation of the employees throughout the night on August 11, 2017.The four individuals were arrested on 14 August, and after appearing before magistrates, have been placed in police custody for until 21 August 2017. The investigation continues, said police.
A year after the shows UK premiere on Channel 4, UK factual indie True North and creator, producer and distributor FremantleMedia have announced a host of international sales of factual reality series The Lie Detective.





The programme sees current couples, wannabe couples, and ex-couples engage in what are described as heart-to-heart and compellingly candid, conversations with their loved ones to find out whether theyve always told it like it is. The host then uses a lie detective kit to find out exactly whats going on in each others minds.The series is distributed by FremantleMedia which holds the non-US global tape and format rights. To date, FremantleMedia International has completed tape sales in Africa, Russia, Sweden, Australia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India Sub-Continent, New Zealand, Pan-Regional Asia and Latin America pan-regional with additional offers pending in several other territories.FremantleMedia has also produced or licensed local versions of The Lie Detective in the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Greece, Slovenia and Latvia with several additional options still in play. In Belgium, airing on commercial network Vier, the show was said to have performed up to 88% higher than Viers prime time average among young adults aged 15-34.Creating a breakout format and seeing our shows remade internationally has always been an ambition for us here at True North, commented the companys MD Marc Allen. So to see The Lie Detective capture the imagination of so many international broadcasters so quickly is amazing. We hope the success of these international versions will see the brand continue to grow globally and create a platform for more of our ideas to travel internationally.Added Angela Neillis, director of non-scripted, UK, EMEA and Asia Pacific, global content, Fremantle Media International : When we first spoke to True North about The Lie Detective, we knew that the show had massive potential for distribution as both a finished tape sale of the Channel 4 version, but also as a format, which FremantleMedia has converted into a remarkable number of sales. True Norths show has absolute honesty at its core which provides audiences with awkward revelations, heart felt declarations or relationship destroying confessions  all addictive viewing.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on May 15 officially unveiled a 19-kilometer-long road bridge linking the annexed Crimean Peninsula with Russian territories across the Kerch Strait. Construction of the bridge, which can carry up to 40,000 cars a day, started in 2016. It was originally expected to open in December but was finished ahead of schedule. A railway bridge is due to be completed by the end of 2019.



Ukraine has condemned the project, which cost 228 billion rubles ($3.7 billion). Sanctions imposed by the European Union and the United States have targeted those involved in the bridge, including businessman Arkady Rotenberg, a close Putin ally whose company won the construction contract.



The bridge surpasses the Vasco de Gama bridge in Portugal as the longest in Europe.



(Gallery updated on May 15, 2018)
Unidentified attackers have gunned down and killed three Afghan employees of a U.S.-based aid organization in the central province of Ghor, officials say.

The three employees of the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) were killed on August 14 near the provincial capital, Firozkoh.

Two other employees were also wounded in the incident, said provincial police spokesman Iqbal Nezami.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Taliban and an Islamic State affiliate are both active in the area.

"We are shocked and heartbroken over the loss of our colleagues in Afghanistan," CRS spokeswoman Megan Gilbert said, adding that the attackers' motives are unknown.

CRS currently works in Bamiyan, Daykundi, Ghor, Herat, and Kabul Provinces, according to its website, with a focus on agriculture, education, and disaster response.

Based on reporting by AP and Reuters


Serbia's Civil Aviation Directorate says national carrier Air Serbia acted in line with regulations when it barred an 11-year-old autistic boy from flying with his family because he was crying at the check-in counter.

In a report released on August 14, the Directorate said that the airline had not been notified in advance that the boy was a special needs passenger and that an on-duty doctor at Belgrade airport had assessed the child as unfit to travel when the family was checking in for the August 6 flight.

The boys father, well-known Serbian historian Cedomir Antic, said that his son was crying at the airport but that such behavior was usual given his condition and that he usually stopped within 10 minutes.

The child has flown several times and never had an issue nor had special conditions set for his flights, said Antic, who told the daily Vecernje Novosti last week that he was filing a lawsuit against the airport and the airline.

"During an extraordinary inspection, it was established that the air carrier complied with the provisions of the procedures specified in the manual, and that there was no violation of the Law on Air Traffic and the Law of Obligations," the Directorate said in the report.

Air Serbia said that it regretted the inconvenience the family experienced, but that the decision was made after the boy became "very agitated, and started to behave more aggressively while waiting in the check-in line."

After an assessment by a doctor, we informed the family that the member of their party, unfortunately, would not be able to travel, it said in a statement.

Global air-travel regulations, the airline said, put in place procedures for doctors to check any passengers showing signs of anxiety to ensure they are able to fly without posing a safety concern for other passengers and the crew.

Antic questioned the doctors assessment, saying that it was carried out in a corridor of the airport, and added that he saw no signs of concern from other passengers when his son was crying. He called on the airline to release video from the terminal to prove that others were not bothered by what was happening.

In response to the incident, Branicka Jankovic, Serbias commissioner for the protection of equality, said that institutions and companies need to have additional understanding in such cases to deal fairly with people with health problems or special needs.

"We invite parents...but also all others who think they are discriminated against to submit complaints to the commissioner in order to determine whether the Law on the Prohibition of Discrimination has been violated," she said in an August 9 statement.

With reporting by N1 and b92


Welcome back to The Farda Briefing, an RFE/RL newsletter that tracks the key issues in Iran and explains why they matter. To subscribe, click here.

I'm RFE/RL correspondent Golnaz Esfandiari. Here's what I've been following during the past week and what I'm watching for in the days ahead.

The Big Issue

Iran has for the first time admitted that it sent "a small number" of drones to Russia, but it said they were supplied months before Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in February. Kyiv and its Western allies have accused Russian forces of using Iranian-made combat drones to destroy civilian infrastructure in Ukraine in recent weeks.

Following Iran's admission, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Tehran was lying about the number of drones it had supplied Russia. He said Ukrainian air defenses shoot down at least 10 Iranian-made drones every day. The U.S. envoy to Iran, Rob Malley, said Iran had transferred dozens of drones to Russia in recent months and deployed military personnel to help Russia use the drones.

Why It Matters: Iran's decision to supply combat drones -- and potentially ballistic missiles -- to Russia is a sign of the deepening ties between Tehran and Moscow. Both countries, which have pledged to work together against the West, have been hit by international sanctions and isolation.

The move also reflects Tehran's policy of looking to the East -- turning to allies Russia and China -- after then-U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew Washington from the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers and reimposed sanctions in 2018.

Ali Vaez, the director of the Iran project at the International Crisis Group, told me Tehran has concluded that Russia's potential defeat in Ukraine would "weaken Iran." Raz Zimmt, a research associate at Tel Aviv University, said Tehran is looking to exploit Russia's "weakness in Ukraine in order to make their relations with Moscow more equal and beneficial toward Iran."

He added that Tehran can also "now show that it has the ability of using its military asymmetric capabilities even outside the Middle East."

What's Next: Britain and the European Union have imposed sanctions on Iran for supplying Iranian-made drones to Russia that are being used in attacks on Ukraine. Tehran could face further punitive measures from the West, but it is unlikely to change course.

Henry Rome, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told me that "Iran probably calculates that the strategic and security benefits outweigh greater opprobrium from the West." Rome also said Iran's decision to send drones to Russia allows Tehran to deepen its relationship with Moscow, "a country that the leadership likely considers essential to Iran's geopolitical and security interests, especially in a world in which the [nuclear deal] is not revived."

Stories You Might Have Missed

A new investigation by Schemes, the investigative unit of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, found that the Iranian combat drones Russia is deploying in its war against Ukraine use Western components, raising questions about how Tehran obtains this technology despite sanctions. Iran's Mohajer-6 drones contain components produced by companies from the United States and the European Union, both of which have sanctions restricting the export of such technology to Iran.

A resident of Iran's Kurdistan region, Yahya Rahimi, was allegedly shot dead by security forces for honking his car horn in support of the ongoing anti-government protests. His father, Ahmad Rahimi, told RFE/RL's Radio Farda that the authorities had pressured him to declare his son was a member of the Basij paramilitary forces, a branch of Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), in an apparent attempt to blame his death on protesters.

What We're Watching

Iranian lawmakers urged the judiciary on November 6 to "deal decisively" with anti-government protesters as the authorities struggle to suppress the biggest show of dissent in years. A majority of 227 lawmakers from Iran's 290-seat, hard-line parliament made the request. The lawmakers called for the judiciary to enforce the Islamic "eye for an eye" retribution law. Separately, a judicial spokesman said sentences against "rioters" should create "regrets" and teach them a lesson.

Why It Matters: At least 300 people have been killed and several thousand arrested in the state's violent crackdown on nationwide protests since mid-September. Yet, the protests have continued. The call by lawmakers for harsher sentences appears to be an attempt by the establishment to stoke fear and pressure protesters to end the rallies.

That's all from me for now. Don't forget to send me any questions, comments, or tips that you have.

Until next time,



Golnaz Esfandiari



If you enjoyed this briefing and don't want to miss the next edition, subscribe here. It will be sent to your inbox every Wednesday.
BISHKEK -- The politically-charged bribery trial of Kyrgyz opposition leader Omurbek Tekebaev was interrupted on August 15 when an ambulance was called after the defendant felt ill.

Tekebaev's lawyer, Chynara Jakupbekova, told RFE/RL that Tekebaev's blood pressure was high and that he needed medical assistance.

The medical team attended to Tekebaev and the trial resumed, with the ambulance still stationed outside.

It was the second time an ambulance has been called since the high-profile trial began in June.

Last week, a first-aid crew came to attend to Tekebaev, 58, and Judge Aibek Ernis-Uulu, who also felt unwell.

Tekebaev is the leader of the opposition Ata-Meken (Fatherland) party, which says the trial is a politically motivated effort to keep him out of a presidential election scheduled for October 15 in the Central Asian country.

Tekebaev and his co-defendant, former Emergency Situations Minister Duishonkul Chotonov, are charged with receiving a $1 million bribe from a Russian businessman in 2010, when Tekebaev was deputy prime minister. Both deny wrongdoing.

On August 10, the prosecutor asked the judge to sentence Tekebaev to 10 years in prison and Chotonov to eight years in prison if they are convicted.

The prosecutor also requested that both politicians' property be confiscated and that the defendants be barred from government posts for three years after their release.

Tekebaev was arrested in late February. On March 5, Ata-Meken named him as its candidate in the presidential election.

A verdict had been expected on August 11, but the trial was adjourned for the weekend and continued on August 14 and August 15.

A veteran politician who has served as speaker of parliament, Tekebaev is a former ally of President Almazbek Atambaev.

But their relations soured badly in 2016 after Atambaev proposed constitutional amendments -- which are now in place -- that critics say could enable him to retain power after he leaves the presidency.

Atambaev is limited to a single term by the constitution.


A roadside bomb targeted a convoy carrying paramilitary troops in southwestern Pakistan late on August 14, killing six soldiers and wounding at least two others, officials said.

The attack on a Frontier Corps patrol in the province of Balochistan came as the nation celebrated the 70th anniversary of its statehood and independence from British colonial rule.

It was a powerful bomb and one vehicle was totally destroyed, Khan Wasseh, a spokesman for the paramilitary Frontier Corps, told dpa by phone from Quetta.

AFP reported that the separatist Baluch Liberation Army claimed responsibility in a telephone call.

It was the second attack targeting security forces in the region in three days after a roadside bomb in Quetta killed at least 15 soldiers and civilians on August 12.

Balochistan, which shares a border with both Afghanistan and Iran, is Pakistans largest and most volatile province.

It faces a multifaceted threat from Sunni militant groups like the Taliban and separatist insurgents seeking liberation of their province from Islamabad.

Based on reporting by AP, AFP, and dpa
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has filed petitions with the country's Supreme Court challenging his disqualification from office over undeclared assets.

Environment Minister Mushahidullah Khan, who is also a member of Sharif's party, said on August 15 that three petitions have been filed with the court by the former premiers lawyers.

"It is our right to seek a review," the Reuters news agency quoted Jan Achakzai, an official at the ruling PML-N party, as saying. "People of Pakistan haven't accepted the decision."

Sharif, 67, resigned during his third term as prime minister shortly after the same court ruled on July 28 that he should be disqualified and ordered a criminal probe into his family's wealth.

The investigation stemmed from the so-called Panama Papers leaks in April 2016, when documents from a Panama-based law firm revealed that three of Sharif's four children owned offshore companies and used them to buy properties in London.

According to Achakzai, the appeals seek a review of the disqualification on the fact that two of the five Supreme Court judges, who had already given a dissenting note in an April verdict ruling, were not supposed to sit on the panel that gave the final ruling in July.

Within days of the court decision, Sharif moved quickly to have the PML-Ns strong majority in parliament approve Shahid Khaqan Abbasi as his replacement.

Sharif held a series of rallies across the country last week, criticizing the court ruling and seeking to whip up popular support.

Based on reporting by Reuters and AP
Police in Russia's second largest city, St. Petersburg, have launched an investigation into an attack on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) activists and journalists after local lawmakers urged them to do so.

The Interior Ministry's directorate in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region made the announcement on August 15, a day after seven members of the citys Legislative Assembly called on police to investigate the August 12 attack.

Reports said that several young men in tracksuits used pepper spray to attack the LGBT activists who had been rallying in the city. Some 15 activists and journalists who were covering the rally were injured in the attack.

According to the journalists and lawmakers, police officers were standing not far from the site when the attack took place but did not intervene.

Some journalists have started their own investigations and published photos of the incident on Facebook.

Based on reporting by Interfax and Fontanka
Russian diamond giant Alrosa says rescuers have abandoned a search for four of eight missing workers at a flooded diamond mine in eastern Siberia.

State-controlled Alrosa said on August 15 that it was impossible to continue searching at a depth of 310 meters, where four miners were working when a cavern collapsed and sent water rushing in at the Mir mine in the Sakha-Yakutia region on August 4.

The search for the other four still missing after the accident will continue, according to Alrosa. It said they were at a depth of 210 meters when the flooding began.

The rest of the 151 workers who were in the mine at the time of the accident have been rescued.

The Mir mine was launched in 2009 and produces 1 million tons of diamond ore per year. Last year, the diamonds it produced totaled 3.19 million carats, according to the company's website.


A Russian nationalist activist has been charged in absentia with making public calls for extremist activities.

Vyacheslav Maltsev's lawyer, Sergei Badamshin, said on August 15 that statements he made at a May 6 rally dubbed For Russia Against Lawlessness And Repressions had been defined as a call for the "armed seizure of power."

Maltsev fled Russia on July 4 after authorities launched an investigation into his statements. His whereabouts are not widely known.

Another prominent nationalist, Yury Gorsky, said on August 14 that Lithuanian authorities had accepted his official request for political asylum and the final decision is due in several months.

Gorsky was detained on July 3 near the Moscow City Court, where hearings on an appeal by jailed nationalist Dmitry Dyomushkin were being held, and was charged with publicly calling for extremist actions.

Gorsky left Russia for Lithuania later in July, after a Moscow court placed him under house arrest.

With reporting by openrussia.org and Interfax


Lighting a cigarette with a church candle, using a religious icon as a paintbrush, and beheading a rooster on an Orthodox shroud to hex Ukraine's president are all acts that can lead to prison time in Russia.

Ever since President Vladimir Putin signed a 2013 law criminalizing "public actions" that "clearly disrespect society" and are aimed at "insulting believers' religious feelings," such behavior and other acts have resulted in people being charged with felony crimes.

More than three years after the controversial law came into effect, only a handful of Russians have been prosecuted under the statute, which critics say is being used to stifle constitutionally protected expression. But convictions have trended upward under the law, one of several initiatives in Putin's third term widely seen as aimed at shoring up support from conservative elements in Russian society.

According to official data from Russia's Supreme Court, there was one such conviction in 2014, two in 2015, and six convictions as well as one cased of forced psychiatric care in 2016.

With more than four months left until the end of the year, four people have already been convicted in 2017, according to the respected Moscow-based Sova Center, which monitors the use and abuse of antiextremism laws in Russia. And other criminal investigations appear to be ongoing, according to public records.

None of these convictions have resulted in actual prison time, though the law allows for imprisonment of up to three years. Instead, those convicted have largely been slapped with fines. The most famous case -- that of Ruslan Sokolovsky, known as the "Pokemon Go Blogger" -- led to a 3 1/2-year suspended sentence.

After that conviction, prominent Russian journalist and atheist Vladimir Pozner asked on state television if propagating his views on religion is now illegal in Russia.

Here's a look at how the Russian authorities have cracked down on alleged insults to "religious feelings" under the law, which was enacted in the wake of the 2012 conviction of two members of the Pussy Riot collective for their performance-art piece in Moscow's main Russian Orthodox cathedral.

Pokemon Go

Name: Ruslan Sokolovsky

Age: 22

Place: Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk region

Sokolovsky was found guilty in May both of hate speech and insulting religious believers' feelings. A popular blogger, Sokolovsky was prosecuted for a series of YouTube videos peppered with profanity in which he mocked and ridiculed both Christianity and Islam. The case grabbed headlines worldwide, in large part because one of the videos showed him playing Pokemon Go in a Russian Orthodox church.

Sokolovsky was arrested in September 2016, and the Yekaterinburg court handed him a 3 1/2-year suspended sentence -- meaning he was not sent to prison -- that was later reduced. He has also been added to an official list of "terrorists and extremists" maintained by Russia's Federal Financial Monitoring Service.

The verdict cited a litany of alleged offenses, including that Sokolovsky insulted believers by calling Jesus Christ a "rare Pokemon." Reading out the verdict, the judge said an analysis showed that Sokolovsky offended "the feelings of followers of Christianity and Islam by denying the existence of God and denying the existence of the founders of Christianity and Islam, Jesus Christ, and the Prophet Muhammad."

Sokolovsky's prosecution and conviction triggered denunciations from Russian and international rights watchdogs.

'Evil Christ'

Name: Sergei Lazarov

Age: 29

Place: Orenburg, Orenburg region

Lazarov, a writer and a poet, was convicted and fined 35,000 rubles ($584) in February 2016 after being found guilty of posting an essay -- by a different author -- about portrayals of Jesus Christ in Byzantine icons at St. Catherine's Monastery in Egypt's Sinai.

The essay, published in 2013 under the headline Evil Christ, explores the theology of the ancient Gnostics and uses words such as "tyrant" and "murderer" to describe the demiurge -- in Gnostic beliefs, the fallible creator of the physical world sometimes associated with God of the Old Testament.

Court documents from Lazarov's case seen by RFE/RL state that "police officers detected an insult of believers' feelings." The judge who rejected Lazarov's appeal cited "expert" analysis stating, in part, that the essay's author "expressed his viewpoint tendentiously with regards to the Jewish and Christian religion" and that the text showed "signs of psychological influence on readers." While Lazarov's appeal of his conviction was rejected, he was not forced to pay the fine because the statute of limitations had expired.

Aleksandr Verkhovsky of the Sova Center told RFE/RL that Lazarov "was convicted of heresy -- in the strictest sense of that word."

See The Light

Name: Unknown

Age: 22

Place: Belgorod, Belgorod region

In May, a 22-year-old woman was found guilty of offending religious believers' feelings by posting public photographs on Russia's popular social-media site VKontakte purportedly showing her lighting a cigarette from a burning candle in a Russian Orthodox cathedral in central Belgorod.

Placing beeswax candles before icons is an important and often somber, reflective tradition in Orthodox worship. Prosecutors said the young woman, whose name has not been released, posted the photographs in question three times over an 11-month period beginning in June 2015. "Such actions demonstrate a clear disrespect to society and believers, and insults their religious feelings," prosecutors said.

They added that a Belgorod court fined the woman 15,000 rubles ($250) after taking into account "mitigating circumstances." A spokeswoman for regional prosecutors, Yelena Kozyreva, declined to identify the woman, telling RFE/RL that "a decision was made not to release her name." The photographs in question could not be immediately located.

Also in May, authorities in the Siberian region of Kemerovo said they, too, were investigating a social-media post showing a woman lighting a cigarette from an Orthodox church candle.

A state TV news anchor reporting on the incident said posting such photographs would result in a criminal case "in almost any country in the world." The report said the individual who posted the image may be in Kyiv and suggested the photograph could be part of a Ukrainian "propaganda" campaign.

Rooster With Its Head Cut Off

Name: Anton Simakov

Age: 32

Place: Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk region

Not even riding the Kremlin's political winds helped Simakov, an eccentric self-described "voodoo magician" caught up in one of the stranger cases involving Russia's "religious feelings" law. Simakov was charged under the statute for a stunt in which he cut the head off of a rooster atop an Orthodox shroud.

The ceremony, which Simakov said was aimed at placing a curse on Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, was performed in October 2014 following Russia's seizure of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and amid the war between Kyiv's forces and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. (The video is still available on the YouTube channel of Russia's state-run RT network -- warning, graphic content.)

The case against Simakov was opened following a complaint from a self-described "Russian patriot" journalist who gave testimony against Sokolovsky, the "Pokemon Go" blogger. Local prosecutors in February 2016 asked a court to place Simakov under forced psychiatric care.

The court found Simakov guilty and granted the prosecutors' request. He was released from psychiatric care in January, according to local media reports.

Middle Finger To Jesus

Name: Maksim Vorobyov

Age: 26

Place: Yoshkar-Ola, Mari El Republic

Vorobyov was convicted in August 2016 for a post he made on his page on VKontakte over a three-day period in September 2014, according to regional prosecutors. He was sentenced to 200 hours of community service. According to a copy of the verdict posted online at Rospravosudie.com, the images featured an Orthodox cross embellished with profanity, and a scene from the crucifixion of Jesus Christ that included a man "with a smile on his face" and his middle finger extended upward. The verdict quoted an "expert" as saying that the images featured "nods to Satanic views."

Vorobyov had previously been convicted of hate speech for VKontakte posts advocating "the extermination of the Jewish ethnic group and the peoples of the Caucasus and Central Asia," prosecutors said in a statement.

He was also convicted of hate speech in a separate case for a poem he published that allegedly encouraged violence based on religious beliefs, according to prosecutors.

Going Medieval

Name: Viktor Nochevnov

Age: 32

Place: Sochi, Krasnodar Krai

In a verdict that referenced a medieval synod, Nochevnov was convicted in early August for reposting several images mocking Jesus Christ on his account on VKontakte. He avoided prison but was ordered to pay a 50,000-ruble ($834) fine. The images, which have been seen by RFE/RL, include an illustration of Jesus's face photoshopped onto the body of a man wearing a Nazi SS uniform. The caption is a play on a traditional phrase spoken by Russian Orthodox believers on Easter.

Another image is an illustration of Jesus on the cross being carried by followers. A sign above his head reads "Let's go!" -- an apparent reference to the phrase Soviet cosmonaut Yury Gagarin uttered as he took off to become the first human in orbit in 1961.

Russian opposition figure Leonid Gozman later published on his Facebook page several other images Nochevnov was convicted for, including one of Jesus playing an electric guitar.

In its verdict, the Sochi court included testimony from a local Russian Orthodox Church official who quoted a proclamation by a synod of Christian bishops in A.D. 787 stating that the "veneration accorded to an icon is in effect transmitted to the prototype." The reference was part of the church official's explanation of why the images posted by Nochevnov were offensive. Nochevnov told RFE/RL that he was doing "fine" after his conviction. "I can walk down the street at night without any problems. It's just that I can't scrounge up 50,000 [rubles]," he said.

'There Is No God!'

Name: Viktor Krasnov

Age: 39

Place: Stavropol, Stavropol Krai

Krasnov, a blacksmith and heavy-metal fan, was charged in 2015 in connection with a heated argument in the comments section of a post on VKontakte. In the exchange, Krasnov ridiculed the Bible as "bullshit" and a "bunch of Jewish fairy tales." He also wrote, "There is no God!" Two individuals he was arguing with complained to the authorities and investigators later determined that his public comments were aimed at "insulting the religious feelings of believers."

An avowed atheist, Krasnov refused to admit guilt in the case, which was sent to court in November 2015 but was temporarily halted the following year. The case resumed in January 2017 but was dropped by prosecutors who said the statute of limitations had run out.

Krasnov told numerous Russian media outlets that he was forced into a mental-health facility to undergo psychiatric evaluation for a month in connection with the investigation. The lawyer who represented him, Andrei Sabinin, told RFE/RL that the court ordered his mental evaluation at the request of investigators. Krasnov told RFE/RL in a March 2016 interview: "I simply don't understand what 'believers' feelings' are. And nobody understands this, even the judges -- that was clear. It's not written anywhere in the constitution or in the laws, and no one can give a definition of what it is. How I can insult something that doesn't exist, I have no idea."

Icon Paintbrush

Name: Unknown

Age: 21

Place: Angarsk, Irkutsk region

Investigators in the Siberian region said in July that a criminal case had been opened against a young local resident suspected of posting content on VKontakte that was insulting to religious believers' feelings. The statement released by the regional branch of Russia's powerful Investigative Committee gave few details about the nature of the content and the suspect has not been publicly identified.

But a representative for the regional branch was quoted by the local news portal Tayga.info as saying that the investigation centered around a video showing an Orthodox icon being used to "paint a wall." Prosecutors added in their statement that the man had previously been convicted of hate speech.
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- Seven members of the Legislative Assembly in Russia's second-largest city, St. Petersburg, have urged local law enforcement to investigate an attack on LGBT activists.

Local lawmaker Boris Vishnevsky said on August 14 that he and six other lawmakers have written to the police chief of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region, Sergei Umnov, urging him to fully investigate an attack that occurred on August 12.

Several young men used pepper spray to attack the LGBT activists, who had rallied in the city. Some 15 activists and journalists who were covering the rally were injured in the attack.

According to the journalists and lawmakers, police officers were standing not far from the site when the attack took place but did not interfere.

Some journalists have started their own investigations and published photos of the incident on Facebook.

It is expected that Umnov will respond to the lawmakers' note later on August 15.


Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) says it has detained a senior reconnaissance officer from a Ukrainian military unit and claims he was planning acts of sabotage in Crimea.

The FSB said on August 15 that Hennadiy Limeshko was detained on August 12 while attempting to disrupt power lines on the Russian-controlled peninsula. He was placed under pretrial arrest.

According to the FSB, the suspect had explosive devices in his possession.

A spokesman for Ukraine's armed forces, Yuzef Venskovych, said on August 15 that Limeshko is not an active-duty serviceman.

Limeshko served in the Ukrainian Army between November 2016 and May 2017, Venskovych said, adding: "He was discharged in May this year due to incompatibility with service."

The announcement came days after a Russian court sentenced two Ukrainian nationals in separate cases to lengthy prison terms on terrorism charges.

Rights activists say Russia has jailed several Ukrainians on trumped-up, politically motivated charges since Moscow seized Ukraine's Crimea region in March 2014.

In March, the European Parliament called on Russia to free more than 30 Ukrainian citizens who are in prison or who have had their freedom of movement restricted in Russia, Crimea, and parts of eastern Ukraine that are controlled by Russia-backed separatists.

With reporting by Unian, RIA Novosti and Interfax
The Taliban militant group has sent an "open letter" to U.S. President Donald Trump, calling for the United States to leave Afghanistan rather than increase the number of troops after 16 years of conflict.

"Previous experiences have shown that sending more troops to Afghanistan will not result in anything other than further destruction of American military and economical might," the letter sent to journalists on August 15 said in English.

The 1,600-word note sent by Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid also said a U.S. withdrawal would "truly deliver American troops from harm's way" and bring about "an end to an inherited war."

Mujahid asserted that Trump recognized what the Taliban spokesman called the errors of his predecessors by seeking a review of the U.S. strategy for Afghanistan.



U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on August 14 that the Trump administration was very close to announcing its new military strategy for Afghanistan.

Since peaking at about 100,000 troops in 2010-11, the U.S. force has diminished. Some 8,400 U.S. service members remain in Afghanistan after most NATO forces pulled out in 2014.

About 5,000 non-U.S. NATO forces are still in the country.

Media reports say Mattis has recommended a 4,000-troop increase, but nothing has as yet been approved by Trump.

Based on reporting by AP and dpa
ON MY MIND

In a piece featured below, Levada Center sociologist Aleksei Levinson notes that the Russian electorate wants changes in domestic policy but is by-and-large happy with the confrontational line Vladimir Putin's Kremlin is taking with the West.

This is hardly surprising. The problem of a revanchist Russia is, of course, not solely a function of Putin's regime. Rather, it is deeply rooted in Russian public opinion and will remain after Russia's current rulers pass from the scene.

Putin's Kremlin has, of course, encouraged, nurtured, and exploited this revanchist element in Russian public opinion.

And this raises a bit of a conundrum should future Russian rulers seek to liberalize the economy and raise living standards. Recent research by economists Filip Novokmet, Thomas Piketty, and Gabriel Zucman on inequality in Russia (featured below) suggests this will probably be necessary.

But reforming Russia's economy will require investment and access to Western credits, which, in turn, will require better relations with the West. And this means dialing back the revanchist foreign policy.

The Russian electorate wants domestic changes without foreign-policy changes. But it probably can't have one without the other.

IN THE NEWS

Powerful Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar has met with Russia's foreign and defense ministers in Moscow.

Kyiv has denied a story in The New York Times quoting an expert as saying North Korea may have obtained rocket engines from a Ukrainian state-run factory known as Yuzhmash, and instead alleges Russia is to blame.

Seven members of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly have urged local law enforcement to investigate an attack on LGBT activists.

Five Crimean Tatar activists have been detained while protesting the jailing of Server Karametov, a 76-year-old man who has Parkinson's disease, by the Russian-imposed authorities.

Russia's Federal Security Service says it has detained a senior reconnaissance officer of a Ukrainian military unit who was allegedly planning acts of sabotage in Crimea.

Russian authorities say they have thwarted terrorist attacks directed by the extremist group Islamic State.

Russian authorities say the leader of an armed criminal group has been killed in the volatile North Caucasus region of Daghestan.

The in-absentia treason trial of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych is scheduled to restart today.

Georgia's opposition United National Movement party has called for an independent forensic testing of an audio recording in which the Ukrainian and Georgian interior ministers are apparently discussing the possible extradition of Mikheil Saakashvili, a former Georgian president and ex-governor of Ukraine's Odesa region.

Georgia's president and prime minister have issued separate statements voicing hope for reconciliation on the 25th anniversary of the outbreak of war over the breakaway Abkhazia region.

Moldovan President Igor Dodon says he discovered nothing "dubious" during an inspection of a Moldovan Army training base that a Russian media report claimed would house U.S.-funded "military facilities."

The leader of an independent labor union in Belarus says he has been charged with tax evasion.

WHAT I'M READING

Inequality In Russia

In his column for Bloomberg, political commentator Leonid Bershidsky looks at new research by French economist Thomas Piketty and others on inequality in Russia.

You can read the research paper From Soviets To Oligarchs: Inequality And Property In Russia 1905-2016, co-authored by Filip Novokmet and Thomas Piketty of the Paris School of Economics and Gabriel Zucman of the University of California at Berkeley, here.

Navalny And His Critics

On his YouTube channel Navalny LIVE, opposition leader Aleksei Navalny answered recent criticisms against him from leftist Sergei Udaltsov and exiled former oil tycoon MIkhail Khodorkovsky.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta also has a story looking at the bickering between Navalny, Udaltsov, and Khodorkovsky.

Human Rights Monitor

Tanya Lokshina, the Russia program director of Human Rights Watch, has a piece on how feminists are being harassed by police and Cossacks in the Krasnodar region.

Yekaterina Trifonova has a piece in Nezavisimaya Gazeta contrasting an upbeat official report on ethnic and racial discrimination that Russia presented to the United Nations earlier this month with an alternative report from leading Russian human rights groups.

The Russian Electorate Wants Change -- And No Change

Sociologist Aleksei Levinson of the Levada Center has a piece in Vedomosti arguing that Russians want changes in the Kremlin's domestic politics -- but not in its foreign policy.

The Eroding Federation

In Intersection magazine, Victoria Poltoratskaya argues that the demise of Tatarstan's semi-autonomous status illustrates that "formal institutions in Russia are eroding."

Why The Kremlin Fears The Kursk Anniversary

In his column for Republic.ru, opposition journalist Oleg Kashin explains why the Kremlin is reluctant to commemorate the August 2000 Kursk tragedy.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has accused Islamic State militants of genocide against a range of religious groups. In a speech on August 15 to release the State Department's annual International Religious Freedom Report for 2016, Tillerson said that the militants are "clearly responsible for genocide" against Yazidis, Christians, and Shia Muslims in areas they have controlled. "[Islamic State] is also responsible for crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing directed at these same groups, and in some cases against Sunni Muslims, Kurds, and other minorities," Tillerson added. (AP)
Ukrainian officials and local residents moved to stabilize conditions in the freshly recaptured southern city of Kherson, as Russian symbols were being torn down and with the restoration of Ukrainian radio and television service and a new police presence.

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.

The action on November 12 came after months of occupation by Russian forces following their unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February and as Ukrainian and Western officials hailed Kyivs latest extraordinary battlefield success and Moscows strategic failure.

Separately, Russian occupying forces said late on November 12 that they were preparing to leave the city of Nova Kakhovka, the site of a damaged dam on the Dnieper River, to a safer location, according to Russian state-run TASS news agency.

As jubilant Kherson residents awoke the morning following the arrival of the first Ukrainian troops, Ukraines military said it was putting stabilization measures in place to ensure safety.

Ihor Klymenko, chief of the National Police of Ukraine, said about 200 officers were at their posts in Kherson and that checkpoints had been set up. Authorities also began seeking out any evidence of possible Russian war crimes, he said in a Facebook post.



The Ukrainian communications watchdog said national TV and radio broadcasts had resumed in the strategic southern city and officials said aid supplies had begun to arrive from nearby regions.

Social media postings on November 12 showed local residents removing memorial plaques put up by Kremlin-installed authorities during the occupation.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and other officials warned that while special forces had entered central Kherson, the full deployment of Ukrainian troops was still under way and that some Russian soldiers could have shed military uniforms for civilian clothing and remained in the city.

Even when the city is not yet completely cleansed of the enemys presence, the people of Kherson themselves are already removing Russian symbols and any traces of the occupiers stay in Kherson from the streets and buildings, Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

But he said that medicine, communications, social services are returning. Life is returning.

WATCH: Local residents welcomed Ukrainian soldiers into Snihurivka on November 10, as advance forces of the Ukrainian military recaptured the town in the southern Mykolayiv region.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, speaking to world leaders at an ASEAN summit in Cambodia, warned that the celebratory mood could turn grim with the possible discovery of war crimes evidence in Kherson.

Such evidence was discovered after Russian troops pulled out of the Kyiv and Kharkiv regions months ago.

Every time we liberate a piece of our territory, when we enter a city liberated from the Russian Army, we find torture rooms and mass graves with civilians tortured and murdered by the Russian Army in the course of the occupation of the territories," he said. "Its not easy to speak with people like this. But I said that every war ends with diplomacy and Russia has to approach talks in good faith.

The White House on November 12 hailed Russias withdrawal from Kherson as an "extraordinary victory" for Ukraine.

"It does look as though the Ukrainians have just won an extraordinary victory where the one regional capital that Russia had seized in this war is now back under a Ukrainian flag -- and that is quite a remarkable thing," U.S. national-security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters as he accompanied President Joe Biden to the ASEAN summit.

Sullivan said that the Russian retreat would have "broader strategic implications," including relieving the longer-term threat by Russia to other southern Ukrainian cities such as Odesa.

"It's a big moment, and it's due to the incredible tenacity and skill of the Ukrainians, backed by the relentless and united support of the United States and our allies," Sullivan said.

Asked about reports that the Biden administration has started to press Zelenskiy to explore negotiations with Moscow, Sullivan said Russia, not Ukraine, was the side that has to decide whether or not to go to the table.

"This whole notion, I think, in the Western press of, 'When's Ukraine going to negotiate?' misses the underlying fundamentals," Sullivan said.

Russia, he added, continues to make "outlandish claims" about its self-declared annexations of Ukrainian lands, even as it retreats from Ukrainian counterattacks.

"Ultimately, at a 30,000-foot level, Ukraine is the party of peace in this conflict and Russia is the party of war. Russia invaded Ukraine. If Russia chose to stop fighting in Ukraine and left, it would be the end of the war. If Ukraine chose to stop fighting and give up, it would be the end of Ukraine," he said. "In that context, our position remains the same as it has been and fundamentally is in close consultation and support of President Zelenskiy.

Separately, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said on November 12 that Moscow's "strategic failure" in Kherson will sow doubt among the Russian public about the point of the war in Ukraine.

"Russia's announced withdrawal from Kherson marks another strategic failure for them. In February, Russia failed to take any of its major objectives except Kherson," Wallace said in a statement. "Now with that also being surrendered, ordinary people of Russia must surely ask themselves: 'What was it all for?'"

Meanwhile, Pavel Filipchuk, the head of the occupation government in Nova Kakhovka, told administrators and residents that Russian forces will be pullng back from the city on the right bank of the Dnieper River.

He cited concerns that the key dam could be damaged by missiles, which would result in flooding.

Both Kyiv and Moscow have accused each other of planning to blast the dam, which has already been severely damaged.

With reporting by AFP, AP, dpa, and Reuters
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The United States says the extremist group Islamic State (IS) continues to damage religious freedom by targeting members of multiple religions and ethnicities for rape, kidnapping, enslavement, and death.

In the first annual International Religious Freedom Report since President Donald Trump took office in January, the State Department said on August 15 that such non-state groups imperiled religious liberties not only in the Middle East, Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa, but also in areas of eastern Ukraine controlled by Russia-backed separatists.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who released the report, said that IS, the only group singled out in the preface of the document, is "clearly responsible for genocide" against Yezidis, Christians, and Shi'a in areas it controlled. He also accused it of crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.

"Religious persecution and intolerance remain far too prevalent. Almost 80 percent of the global population live with restrictions on, or hostilities to limit their freedom of religion. Where religious freedom is not protected, we know that instability, human rights abuses, and violent extremism have a greater opportunity to take root," he said.

The report, which covers 199 countries and territories around the world for 2016, was little changed in tone from the previous year.

'Universal Human Right'

Tillerson, a former oil executive, has said several times since taking his portfolio that U.S. foreign policy under the Trump administration would refocus on the security and prosperity of the American people, with less of an emphasis in promoting democratic values for their own sake.

But the first words in his preface to the report stated that religious freedom is "a cherished American value and a universal human right." He went on to say that the United States "promotes religious freedom as a moral imperative."

The protection of groups subject to violent extremism "is a human rights priority for the Trump administration," Tillerson also said.

The report notes that, in Russia and Ukraines Crimea Peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014, members of Jehovahs Witnesses and the Church of Latter-Day Saints, or Mormons, have suffered numerous attacks on their freedom to worship.

"[Russian] government authorities continued to detain and fine members of minority religious groups and minority religious organizations for alleged extremism," the report said. "The government also fined and issued deportation orders for a number of U.S. citizens for engaging in religious activity, in particular volunteers from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints."

The Russian Supreme Court ruled in April that the Jehovah's Witnesses were an extremist organization and prohibited them from operating in the country. The court upheld the ruling on appeal in July.

Orthodox 'Privileges'

Freedom of religion is formally guaranteed in Russia but legislation sets out Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism as the country's four traditional religions, and smaller denominations frequently face discrimination.

Despite this guarantee, the State Department report said that the Russian government "continued to grant privileges to the [Russian Orthodox Church] not accorded to any other church or religious association, including the right to review draft legislation and greater access to public institutions."

The report also chided Irans government for the continued use of anti-Semitic and anti-Bahai rhetoric in official statements, as well as for promoting Holocaust denial.

Shiite religious leaders who did not support government policies reportedly continued to face intimidation and arrest, according to the report.

It said the Iranian government "continued to harass, interrogate, and arrest" Bahais, Christians, Sunni Muslims, and other religious minorities, and regulated Christian religious practices closely to enforce the prohibition on proselytizing.

The United States has no diplomatic relations with Iran, so the government used public statements, sanctions, and diplomatic initiatives in international forums to write the report, it noted.

Tillerson also warned that religious freedom is under attack in Pakistan, where more than two dozen are on death row or serving life imprisonment for blasphemy.

It is my hope that the new Prime Minister [Shahid Khaqan Abbasi] government will promote interfaith harmony and protect the rights of religious minorities," he said.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned the "harassment" of reporters in Ukraine after security services raided the offices of an independent news website and a member of parliament criticized the head of the national press union for his response to the raid.

Ukrainian authorities should "end their harassment" of Strana.ua and "stop fostering a hostile environment toward the press," said CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova in a statement on August 14.

Strana.ua said security service agents searched its Kyiv premises and the homes of two of its journalists last week as part of an investigation into allegations that the website disclosed confidential government information.

The raid was criticized by the chairman of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine, Serhiy Tomilenko, who in turn was accused by deputy Dmytro Tymchuk of supporting anti-Ukrainian activities.

CPJ quoted Tomilenko as saying that he has since received threatening messages on social media.

"Politicians are creating a toxic atmosphere for the media by dividing Ukrainian journalists into patriotic and unpatriotic, when they should be encouraging a wide variety of viewpoints to inform the public, Ognianova said.


The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on Ukrainian authorities to remove "all restrictions" on Russian journalist Tamara Nersesian's ability to report from Ukraine, after she was deported from the country.

"We call on Ukraine to allow Tamara [Nersesian] and all journalists to report freely from the country, regardless of their country of origin or the editorial line of their employers," CPJ Europe and Central Asia program coordinator Nina Ognianova said in a statement on August 15.

"Banning Russian media from Ukraine is neither democratic nor conducive to resolving the crisis between the two countries," Ognianova added.

Earlier, Olena Hitlyanska, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), wrote on Facebook that "Russian propagandist" Nersesian had been deported overnight over national security concerns and barred from entering Ukraine for three years.

Nersesian is a correspondent for the Russian state broadcaster VGTRK.

She told the Russian media holding RBC that security officials had detained her in Kyiv, brought her to the SBU headquarters, and questioned her for three hours.

Nersesian also said that she was told she was being expelled from Ukraine and banned from the country because of her reporting, which officials told her inflamed the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Kyiv has banned more than a dozen Russian television channels since 2014, accusing them of spreading war propaganda.

Russian-Ukrainian relations soured after street protests in Kyiv toppled Ukraine's then-president, Viktor Yanukovych, a Kremlin ally, in February 2014.

Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March 2014 and threw its support behind separatists in the country's east in a conflict that has killed more than 10,000 people since 2014.

With reporting by RIA Novosti, UNIAN, and RBC
KYIV -- The in-absentia treason trial of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych is scheduled to restart on August 15.

It is expected that Ukraine's former ambassador to the United Nations, Yuriy Serheyev, will testify at the hearing.

Yanukovych, who is currently in Russia, announced last month that he would not participate in the trial, claiming that it is politically motivated, and dismissed his lawyers from the case.

The court then decided to hold the trial in absentia and provide Yanukovych with a state-appointed lawyer.

Yanukovych abandoned office in late February 2014 and fled to Russia in the face of protests triggered by his decision to scrap plans for a landmark deal with the European Union and instead improve trade ties with Moscow.

Dozens of people were killed when his government attempted to clamp down on the pro-European protests known as the Euromaidan.

Prosecutors are seeking life imprisonment for Yanukovych, who is accused of treason, violating Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and abetting Russian aggression.

After he fled, Russia seized Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and fomented opposition to the central government in eastern Ukraine, where the ensuing war between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists has killed more than 10,000 people since 2014.
KYIV -- A retired senior Ukrainian diplomat has testified at the in-absentia treason trial of former President Viktor Yanukovych.

Yuriy Serheyev, Ukraine's ambassador to the United Nations from 2007 to 2015, spoke for over an hour in the Kyiv courtroom as the trial resumed on August 15 after a two-week hiatus.

He gave testimony about the situation at the UN and in Ukraine and Russia in February and March 2014, when Moscow sent troops in unmarked uniforms to Crimea to establish control over the Ukrainian region before illegally annexing it.

Serheyev said that Russia used Yanukovych to try to justify its intervention by claiming that the "legal president of Ukraine had asked Moscow to send troops into Ukraine to preserve order and to ensure the safety of personnel at Russia's naval base in Crimea.

"Yanukovych's address to Putin was the last attempt by the Russian Federation to justify its aggression against Ukraine before the world community," he said, referring to a letter dated March 1, 2014, that Russia's UN ambassador read from at a Security Council meeting three days later.

Serheyev also recalled a March 27, 2014 meeting at which the UN General Assembly, by a vote of 100-11 with 58 abstentions, passed a resolution declaring that the Russian-orchestrated referendum on Crimea's secession from Ukraine had "no validity" and urging the international community "not to recognize any alteration of the status" of Crimea.

Yanukovych abandoned office in late February 2014 and fled to Russia in the face of protests triggered by his decision to scrap plans for a landmark deal with the European Union and instead improve trade ties with Moscow.

Dozens of people were killed when his government attempted to clamp down on the pro-European protests known as the Euromaidan.

Prosecutors are seeking life imprisonment for Yanukovych, who is accused of treason, violating Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and abetting Russian aggression.

After he fled, Russia seized Crimea and fomented opposition to the central government in eastern Ukraine, where the ensuing war between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists has killed more than 10,000 people since April 2014.

The Ukrainian court had tried to arrange for Yanukovych to take part in the trial by video-link from Russia, where he remains.

But Yanukovych announced on July 6 that he would not participate, charging that the trial is politically motivated, and dismissed his lawyers from the case.

The court then appointed a lawyer to represent Yanukovych.


Thomas Kokoraleis, 57 now, his brother and two other men, were part of a satanic gang that drove around in a red van looking for lone women to kidnap, beat, rape, torture and kill. Many of their victims were abducted in broad daylight and in well-known public places. It has been said that those who partake in ritualistic killings do so due to a belief that they will be granted supernatural powers.



Old and recent image of Thomas Kokoraleis

The criminal group was leaded by Robin Gecht. Even if she was tortured like the all the other victims, one of them., Beverly Washington, was dumped by the railroad track .with one breast completely removed but managed to survive. She was able to provide detectives with specific details pertaining to her attackers and the vehicle used in her abduction. Despite the eyewitness account, the testimony against Gecht was ultimately found inadmissible in court. His accomplices who informed detectives of Gechts role in the murders, refused to testify against him. However, Gecht did confess to the brutal attack on Beverly Washington and was ultimately charged with attempted murder, rape, and battery, for which he was sentenced to 120 years. Being 63 old, he has a parole date in 2042. Edward Spreitzer was initially sentenced to death, but the sentence would later be commuted to life imprisonment. Andrew Kokoraleis was sentenced to death. He was executed on March 17, 1999. People are outraged knowing Thomas Kokoraleis could be seen in the streets. Prosecutors are fighting to keep Kokoraleis behind bars.
Page Content

California employers must reimburse workers for reasonable business expenses. This issue may seem less significant than some California mandatessuch as paid-time-off and additional leave requirementsbut failing to properly reimburse employees for the expenses they incur can lead to class-action lawsuits. Here are some tips from California employment attorneys to help businesses stay compliant.

California law requires an employer to reimburse an employee for "all necessary expenditures or losses incurred by the employee" in carrying out job duties or employer directives.

[SHRM members-only HR Q&A: What are the business-related expense reimbursement requirements under California law?]

However, the statutory phrase "expenditures or losses incurred" is not as clear as it seems, said James Carter, an attorney with Jackson Lewis in Irvine. As an example, he pointed to a case in which a California appellate court held that an employee who was required to use his personal cellphone for work purposes was also entitled to reimbursementeven if he already had an unlimited plan and his cellphone bill didn't increase because of his work usage.

Reasonable costs also include attorney's fees incurred by an employee who attempts to enforce his or her rights. "As such, there is a built-in incentive for plaintiffs' counsel to take these cases since there is a statutory right" to attorney's fees, said Michelle Lee Flores, an attorney with Cozen O'Connor in Los Angeles.

Personal Vehicles

California law in this area differs from federal law. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) doesn't require employers to reimburse for mileage or other vehicle expenses, but California law does.

Flores said employers should note that even under the FLSA, an employee's earnings can't fall below the minimum wage. So an employer may be required to reimburse business expenseseven under federal lawif a worker's wage rate falls below the minimum wage after he or she pays out of pocket for business expenses.

"For obvious reasons, this concept would also apply to require reimbursement at the state level if failure to do so would reduce the employee's pay below the applicable state minimum wage," she added.

Employees commonly use their own vehicles to get to job sites, run work-related errands and meet with clients. California employers must reimburse employees for expenses incurred while using their personal vehicles for anything other than normal commuting. Covered expenses may include maintenance and repairs, fuel, insurance and registration, and depreciation, Carter explained.

Businesses frequently reimburse workers for personal-vehicle use at the established IRS rate.

Flores cautioned, however, that the IRS reimbursement rate might not always be adequate in California. The obligation to reimburse is for the actual "expenditures or losses incurred by the employee."

Accordingly, employees who receive the IRS rate can argue that they are actually owed more. For example, Flores said, "if an employee has a very expensive car that gets poor gas mileage, the employee could argue that the IRS rate is not sufficient reimbursement for the actual expenditures or losses incurred when the employee used his or her own vehicle for company business," she said.

Carter noted that California law gives employees the right to challenge the adequacy of the employer's reimbursement calculation, regardless of whether the employer uses a lump-sum, mileage-basis or actual expense method for reimbursement.

Limits on Reimbursement

So are there limits on what an employer needs to reimburse in California? The law states that "all necessary expenditures or losses" must be reimbursed.

"As such, it requires reimbursement for the actual costs incurred, but it still has a 'necessary' component to it," Flores said. "This has allowed employers to apply a common sense approach or limit to determine what is 'necessary'which case law has deemed depends on whether the employee made reasonable choices."

Carter noted that lodging at five-star hotels when more modest accommodations would do probably would not be considered necessary or reasonableas long as the employer did not direct the employee to stay at such places.

In certain circumstances, employers are not required to reimburse for hand tools, personal equipment or generic uniforms, Carter noted.

"Employer limits, however, should be reasonable and communicated in writing and in advance," he added.

An employer's policy can require preapproval for expenses to help determine what is "necessary," but there is a legal risk for the employer if it refuses to provide payment based solely on an employee's failure to obtain preapproval, Flores said.

Under these circumstances, a less-risky practice would be to provide payment to the employee in order to comply with the employer's obligation to reimburse for such expenses and then also counsel or discipline the employee for failing to follow company policy, she said.

HR's Role

Carter and Flores both said it is a good idea to consult experienced employment counsel when developing policies and procedures for expense reimbursementparticularly for multistate businesses.

"It is quite likely that the employer can treat all of its employeeswith the exception of those in Californiathe same regarding reimbursement," Flores said. "As such, a separate policy for California employees could be drafted that explains that, based on state law, the company will reimburse certain expenses" as stated in the policy.

She added that any written policy should contain a catch-all provision stating that, to the extent federal or applicable state law requires some additional reimbursement, the company will comply with such laws.

Carter said multistate employers could alternatively opt to establish a California-compliant expense reimbursement policy and apply it to all its employees throughout the country. "This would bring the added benefit of compliance for situations in which non-California employees travel to and incur necessary expenses in California, where they're entitled to California employee protection," he said.




Introduction

The total solar eclipse on Aug. 21 provides scientists across the country with a special opportunity  a chance to get detailed observations of the sun's atmosphere.

Researchers have already organized a nationwide campaign to gather huge amounts of data during the few minutes of total eclipse. In many cases, these teams will compare their observations to those made by NASA spacecraft.

This slideshow is a sampling of some of the many science projects underway. [Total Solar Eclipse 2017: When, Where and How to See It (Safely)]

From Earth: Ground and sky

Mark Kolbe/Getty

The total solar eclipse will progress from Oregon to South Carolina, giving a unique opportunity to scientists across the country to get involved. NASA is going to support several studies from the ground and sky, using balloons and planes as well as ground-based instruments.

The eclipse will give teams the chance to image lower parts of the sun's outer atmosphere, which is known as the corona  a region that usually isn't visible. The corona is quite mysterious. For example, scientists still don't know why it's so much hotter than the rest of the sun. Cracking these and other mysteries could help researchers make better predictions about space weather, which can affect Earth.

From Earth: Studying the corona

Williams College Eclipse Expedition  Jay M. Pasachoff, Muzhou Lu and Craig Malamut

NASA is sponsoring several projects that will be looking at the corona. These include:

Citizen Science Approach to Measuring the Polarization of the Solar Corona (led by Padma Yanamandra-Fisher, a senior research scientist at the Space Science Institute in Rancho Cucamonga, California). This effort will map electron distribution in the inner solar corona, which could help reveal why the corona is so much hotter than the solar surface. This is done in association with a citizen science project called Citizen CATE (which is discussed later in this slideshow).

Studying the Corona in Infrared and Visible Wavelengths (led by Philip Judge, a senior scientist at the High Altitude Observatory in Boulder, Colorado). This project will image the corona in visible and near-infrared wavelengths, which is expected to give better insights into space weather.

Measuring the Infrared Solar Corona (led by Paul Bryans, a project scientist at the National Corporation for Atmospheric Research). This will study infrared light from the corona from the first time. The goal is to better understand the sun's magnetic field.

Exploring the Physics of the Coronal Plasma through Imaging Spectroscopy (led by Shadia Habbal, a solar physicist at the University of Hawaiis Institute for Astronomy in Honolulu). This project will image the corona in several different wavelengths, to better understand the corona's temperature, composition and particle speeds.

Testing a Polarization Sensor for Measuring Temperature and Flow Speed in the Solar Corona (led by Nat Gopalswamy, a staff scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland). This team will look at the corona using a new polarization camera, which features thousands of tiny polarization filters instead of the typical design that puts one polarizer filter through three angles for each wavelength. If the camera works successfully, this could be an improvement for future corona observations.

From Earth: Effects on Earth's atmosphere

NASA

NASA will look at how Earth's atmosphere changes when the sun's radiation dips during the eclipse. This will be done with projects across the United States, including:

Solar Eclipse-Induced Changes in the Ionosphere Over the Continental US (led by Phil Erickson, assistant director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Haystack Observatory in Westford, Massachusetts). Disturbances in the ionosphere  a large layer that lies between about 45 miles and 620 miles (75 to 1,000 kilometers) above Earth  can be triggered when eclipses create atmospheric gravity waves (which are different than gravitational waves created in space by the acceleration of massive cosmic objects.) This team will use 6,000 ground sensors and data from NASA's Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics satellite mission.

Land and Atmospheric Responses to the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse (co-led by Bohumil Svoma and Jeffrey Wood from the University of Missouri in Columbia). This team will use ground instruments and weather balloons to see how the lower atmosphere and the land below responds to the solar eclipse. Plants and the weather may respond differently than during a normal sunset, since the sun's light will disappear three times faster, scientists said.

Quantifying the Contributions of Ionization Sources on the Ionosphere (led by Bob Marshall, a remote sensing specialist at the University of Colorado Boulder). This project will monitor radio- wave transmissions to see how radiation in the ionosphere is affected during an eclipse.

Studying Earths Atmosphere During an Eclipse from Above and Below (led by Guoyong Wen, an Earth scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland). This project will look at how the solar eclipse affects radiation hitting the Earth's atmosphere and surface. Team members will use two instruments  a spectrometer (which shows how much light is available in a particular wavelength) and a pyranometer (which measures how much solar irradiance comes toward the surface). This will be linked with data from missions in space.

Empirically Guided Solar Eclipse Modeling of the Earths Ionosphere (led by Greg Earle, a space science instrumentation researcher at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg). The goal is to learn how the ionosphere changes with the available sunlight, using radio transmitters and receivers across the United States.

From balloons

NASA

A balloon is much cheaper than a spacecraft and can still fly above most of Earth's obscuring atmosphere. During the eclipse, several balloon experiments will look at the sun and the moon's shadow on Earth. NASA Space Grant is also supporting an eclipse ballooning project, in which students in more than 50 locations will launch high-altitude balloon flights between Oregon and South Carolina.

From airplanes

NASA/Faroe Islands/SwRI

NASA will send two WB-57F research jets 50,000 feet (15,000 meters) into the sky on Aug. 21, catching a glimpse of the sun's outer atmosphere through twin telescopes on the noses of these spacecraft. The project will also take the first-ever thermal images of Mercury, mapping temperature changes on the planet's surface. The telescopes on the jets will be able to see the eclipse for 3.5 minutes, longer than anyone on the ground. The project is led by Amir Caspi, an astrophysicist at the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado.

From space

NASA

NASA has a fleet of Earth-observing spacecraft that monitor climate change and help with disaster relief, among other tasks. Many of them will be temporarily repurposed for eclipse observations on Aug. 21. NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites, and the NASA camera aboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Deep Space Climate Observatory will look at Earth during the total solar eclipse, mapping everything from temperature changes to alterations in the local weather. The eclipse shadow will be captured by the NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership and GOES-16 satellites.

There are also a number of spacecraft that study the sun, mainly to monitor solar weather and how it affects the Earth. Here's what each of them will be doing during the eclipse:

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)/NASA Hinode: Looking at the corona and X-ray jets from the sun's surface.

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO): Watching the corona.

NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS): This spacecraft will see several moon transits in front of the sun. Its specialty will be looking at the lower atmosphere of the sun (the chromosphere) as well as imaging the entire limb of the sun.

European Space Agency (ESA)/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO): This spacecraft will see just the corona during the eclipse. SOHO can create artificial eclipses using an instrument called a coronagraph.

NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO): The single STEREO spacecraft in communication (the mission originally had two) will be on the far side of the sun and will see only the corona, but from a very different perspective.

From space, part 2: The moon

NASA

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has long provided high-resolution imagery of the moon, which has allowed scientists to map the moon's shadow on Earth in unprecedented detail. We can now predict where totality will fall, based not only on where the moon is going, but the shape of its disk (which is affected by mountains and valleys). During the eclipse, LRO will image the moon's shadow on Earth.

From space, part 3: Astronaut views

Astronauts on the International Space Station will be lucky enough to see the eclipse three times, and will observe it safely using special glasses and camera filters already on the station. They will observe totality twice (the second time over the continental United States), and, on the third run, they'll see a partial eclipse that covers 85 percent of the sun.

From the public: GLOBE Observer

NASA

Wherever you're standing in the path of totality, you're bound to see some changes in the clouds, the air temperature and on the surface. The aim of this project is for individual people (even non-scientists) to gather observations and then submit them to a database that researchers will use to learn more about the atmosphere's changes during an eclipse. You can read more about how to get involved here: https://www.globe.gov/web/eclipse/overview

From the public: HamSCI (Virginia Tech/New Jersey Institute of Technology)

NASA

Amateur radio operators across the country will unite to study the ionosphere and how it changes when an eclipse is in progress. The ionosphere affects the propagation of radio waves, particularly at very low frequencies. You can read more about how to get involved here: http://www.hamsci.org/basic-project/2017-total-solar-eclipse
Eyes on the prize

NASA

Millions of people in the United States will turn their faces to the sky on Aug. 21 to watch the total solar eclipse as it sweeps from coast to coast. The event will also capture the attention of several spacecraft, as well as the six crewmembers currently aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

From their perches near Earth, orbiting the moon or in deep space, these spacecraft will track the behavior of the sun or how the moon's shadow passes across the Earth's surface.

Check out the planned activities of these spacecraft, as well as the ISS crew, in the following slideshow. [Total Solar Eclipse 2017: When, Where and How to See It (Safely)]

Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (NASA)

NASA

The Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) mission launched in 2006 with two spacecraft, each in an Earth-like orbit. One of those spacecraft orbited ahead of Earth (STEREO-Ahead/Stereo-A) and the other behind (STEREO-Behind/STEREO-B). The twin observatories showed how solar storms leave the sun and move through space, enhancing space weather predictions. NASA lost contact with STEREO-B in 2014, except for a brief period in 2016. The agency still is in contact with STEREO-A.

Because STEREO-A is behind the sun (from Earth's perspective), the spacecraft won't see the moon pass in front of the sun. However, STEREO-A's coronagraph will provide views of the corona from a totally different perspective than that of Earth. "The observations STEREO gathers during the eclipse can also be used to round out observations of the solar atmosphere taken from the ground and thus create a robust, more three-dimensional picture of the sun's dynamic corona," NASA stated.

Solar Dynamics Observatory (NASA)

NASA

The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has been in space since 2010, looking at the sun 24/7. This observatory views the sun in a few different wavelengths, each of which shows material from a different layer of the sun or from its corona.

SDO is in an inclined geosynchronous orbit, which means that, from the perspective of the Earth's surface, the spacecraft is almost motionless over one spot. From that perspective, SDO will see a partial eclipse on Aug. 21 from 3:27 p.m. to 3:55 p.m. EDT (1927 to 1955 GMT).

"Scientists will be able to compare SDO imagery of the corona to images captured from the ground," NASA stated. "During a total eclipse, the lower parts of the sun's atmosphere, or corona, can be seen in a way that cannot completely be replicated by current human-made instruments. The combination of space-based and ground-based observations together create[s] a more comprehensive picture than either can do alone."

Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (NASA)

Lockheed Martin/NASA

The Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) spacecraft, which launched in 2013, studies how the solar atmosphere is energized. The spacecraft does this by capturing ultraviolet images of the chromosphere (the lower part of the sun's atmosphere) and the transition region between the sun's surface and its atmosphere, where temperatures jump dramatically.

IRIS is in a sun-synchronous orbit, which is a near-polar orbit. The spacecraft always passes over Earth at the same local solar time; in other words, IRIS is in constant sunlight. IRIS will see the moon pass in front of the sun several times during the solar eclipse, for about 15 minutes each pass. IRIS will calibrate its instruments during the transit, NASA officials said.

IRIS will focus especially on the lower atmosphere (the chromosphere) and loops of material projecting from the sun (prominences.) IRIS can view solar material at temperatures impossible to see from Earth's surface. It will also scan the entire limb of the sun in high resolution.

IRIS will also work in conjunction with observatories on the ground, NASA officials said.

Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (European Space Agency/NASA)

NASA

The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) is an extraordinarily long-running satellite, having launched in 1995. Its mission goals include looking at the sun's internal structure, outer atmosphere and the region where the solar wind originates. (The solar wind is a continuous stream of charged particles from the sun.) Such observations help scientists make predictions about solar weather. The probe orbits at L1, which is a stable gravitational location between the Earth and the sun.

From its vantage point, SOHO won't see the moon going in front of the sun, but its coronagraph allows for the viewing of artificial eclipses. The coronagraph is a disk that fully blocks the sun's disk, just like the moon does during a total solar eclipse.

"SOHO's coronagraph will be capturing observations on Aug. 21, which can be used with ground-based observations to provide deeper insight into the processes driving the suns atmosphere," NASA stated.

Hinode (JAXA/NASA)

JAXA/NASA

Hinode is a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and it has been operating since 2006. Some of its science goals include learning how energy moves through the sun and how changes in energy affect interplanetary space (and the environment around Earth).

Scientists plan to use Hinode's X-ray telescope to look at the corona, or the outer atmosphere of the sun. The observations from space will be compared to observations made from the ground, according to NASA.

"One study will look at X-ray jets  explosions that erupt from the sun's surface, expelling hot gas into the corona  on the limb to determine where they occur more commonly," NASA officials said. "This research is best accomplished when we also have a view of the lower corona that can be seen only during a total solar eclipse."

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (NASA)

NASA

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) launched in 2009 to provide high-resolution images of the moon's surface. Some of this orbiter's many science activities include characterizing lunar radiation, mapping the moon's mineralogy, searching for water ice and (through its images) scouting out future landing sites.

LRO has already been helpful for the eclipse, because the orbiter's high-resolution maps of the lunar surface have allowed researchers to predict with unprecedented accuracy how the moon's shadow will fall across Earth during the eclipse. Eclipse maps today can now take into account the hills and valleys of the moon when predicting where totality will fall.

The spacecraft, however, will continue providing science during the eclipse: "LRO instruments will turn around and take pictures of the moon's shadow on Earth during the eclipse. A new image-processing capability may allow the team to release the planned 2017 eclipse image in color," NASA stated.

Terra and Aqua (NASA) and Deep Space Climate Observatory (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/NASA)

NASA/DSCOVR-EPIC Team

These three spacecraft will all watch Earth during the solar eclipse to monitor changes on the planet's surface. Here is a brief summary of the science of each:

Terra (launched 1999): Terra looks at several systems on Earth to help scientists better understand how the climate is changing and how such changes could affect life on the planet. Areas that this spacecraft studies include atmospheric composition, climate variability, the carbon cycle, water and energy, weather, and the Earth's surface and interior.

Aqua (launched 2002): Aqua focuses on Earth's water cycle. The things it studies include ocean evaporation, atmospheric water vapor, precipitation, ice on land and sea, snow cover, and soil moisture.

DSCOVER (launched 2015): This spacecraft monitors the solar wind, particularly when it affects Earth. The goal of DISCOVR is to provide a warning of 15-60 minutes before a big geomagnetic storm hits; these storms happen when coronal mass ejections of charged particles leave the sun and stream toward Earth. Geomagnetic storms can affect satellites, power lines and telecommunications, among other items. DSCOVR is primarily a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) mission, but the craft also carries a NASA-provided Earth-observing camera, which will be working hard on Aug. 21.

Suomi NPP (NASA/NOAA/DoD) and GOES-16 (NOAA/NASA)

NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS

Both of these spacecraft will watch the lunar shadow on Earth's surface. These are the main science missions of each:

Suomi NPP (launched 2011): This spacecraft's goal is to help generate better weather and climate forecasts. The features the spacecraft tracks include the ozone layer, vegetation, natural disasters, global ice cover, temperatures and air pollution. (The satellite's name is short for Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership.)

GOES (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite)-16 (launched 2016): This is the first of a new generation of weather satellites in geostationary orbit. Its work in space includes lightning mapping (which helps with storm predictions), space-weather monitoring, and taking images of both the Earth and the sun in high resolution.

International Space Station

NASA

The ISS is a megaproject involving 15 nations, including the United States, Russia and several countries in the European Union. This station has been continuously occupied since Nov. 2, 2000, and usually has crews of from three to six people on board. The main goal of the ISS program is to prepare humans for living in deep space, by studying technologies that can be used on future space missions and by figuring out how to keep people healthy.

Because the ISS zooms around Earth once every 90 minutes, crewmembers will see the eclipse three different times on Aug. 21, Expedition 52/53 NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik told Space.com in a preflight interview in late July. The crewmembers already have special filters and cameras on board to protect their eyes during the eclipse.

"Over three different passes, we'll get to see the solar eclipse looking up from the station on the first one," Bresnik said. "The next pass, when we come over the United States, we'll actually be able to see the solar eclipse as it transits across the continental U.S. And then, on the third pass  we'll actually be able to look up and see about an 85 percent occlusion of the sun."
Paul Sutter is an astrophysicist at The Ohio State University and the chief scientist at COSI Science Center. Sutter leads science-themed tours around the world at AstroTouring.com. Sutter contributed this article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

People enjoy looking at the sky. People enjoy writing down minute details of their daily lives. Ergo, when people see something interesting in the sky, they write it down. We have historic  and surprisingly, prehistoric  records of celestial events going back thousands of years, including solar eclipses. So when you pick just the right Instagram filter for your "solar selfie" this Aug. 21, you're following in the footsteps of an ancient and noble tradition. (Note: Do not photograph an eclipse without a safe solar filter when any portion of the sun is visible.)

Due to their very nature, prehistoric records of solar eclipses are the hardest to interpret. Does that swirly thing represent the sun? Are the concentric circles the full moon? The new moon? And what about those zigzags? If we're correctly interpreting the petroglyphs on the ancient monuments near Loughcrew, Ireland, then the oldest recorded solar eclipse dates to 3340 B.C.

Once we enter written history things get a little more reliable. A peculiar tale comes down to us telling the story of Chinese Emperor Chung K'ang, who apparently beheaded his court astronomers for failing to predict the eclipse of 2137 B.C. While the anecdote may be purely apocryphal, it is a good way to frighten young astronomers around the campfire. [Total Solar Eclipse 2017: When, Where and How to See It (Safely)]

I should mention that the Chinese went on to record nearly a thousand eclipses from the eighth century B.C. until the fifth century B.C., with no associated beheadings reported.

They weren't alone, however. The Babylonians and Greeks busied themselves recording solar eclipses, using colorful language like "the sun was put to shame," as one ancient clay tablet attests. Solar eclipses were too hard to predict with any degree of confidence with the limited accuracy available to the ancients  poor consolation to the Chinese court astronomers, I know  but as far as we can tell, all the civilizations that kept track of eclipses quickly realized that they were a result of the natural motions of the sun and moon.

That said, the astrological worldview posited that the motions of the heavens were connected to earthly events, so solar eclipses weren't necessarily to be feared (at least, by the intelligentsia of their respective cultures), but were used to read the fortunes of emperors, generals, religious leaders and other important folk. [10 Solar Eclipses That Changed Science]

Entering the scientific era of astronomy, solar eclipses began to be used for more than just finding a tenuous connection to the fortunes of the big boss. Observers began to study the corona in more detail, discovering helium (Helios, like the Greek god of the sun  get the name now?) in the process. Later on, they would be used to verify the prediction of general relativity that massive objects can bend the path of light.

These days, as on Aug. 21, they will be an opportunity to ooh and ah at the beauty of the natural world while simultaneously doing research. And no beheadings.

Follow Paul @PaulMattSutter and facebook.com/PaulMattSutter. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
NASA's record-shattering astronaut Peggy Whitson will return to Earth next month after a momentous extended visit to the International Space Station (ISS). Whitson connected with Space.com from the orbiting laboratory on Aug. 9 to discuss the highlights of her mission  including the solar eclipse of Aug. 21  and what her life will be like back on Earth.

Since Whitson launched to the ISS in November 2016, she has set a multitude of spaceflight records, including several for women in space. On day one, she became the oldest woman to go to space at the age of 56. During a spacewalk in March, she set a new record for the most spacewalking time accumulated by a female astronaut. One month later, she broke the record for cumulative time in space by a NASA astronaut, as well as the longest single spaceflight by a woman.

By the time Whitson heads home on Sept. 2, she'll have spent 289 consecutive days in space and a total of 665 days throughout the course of her 21-year career as an astronaut. She was originally supposed to spend just six months at the ISS, but NASA decided to keep her in space for an extra three months, which put her on track to continue her record-breaking streak. [In Photos: Record-Breaking NASA Astronaut Peggy Whitson]

Before Whitson departs the space station, she and her crewmates will have the opportunity to watch a total solar eclipse sweep across North America on Aug. 21. "We have plans to take pictures and watch during the eclipse," Whitson told Space.com, adding that the space station crew will have three opportunities to view the eclipse. "Our orbits won't be terribly close  I think they said around 1,700 miles  but we're still hoping to be able to see it on three different orbits around the Earth, so it will be interesting [and] fun  my first time to see an eclipse from up here."

Throughout her current mission to the ISS, Whitson has also helped to conduct several science investigations. As someone with a background in biochemistry, Whitson said that her favorite experiments involved looking at cell cultures of cancerous lung cells, testing new drug treatments and studying bone cells in microgravity.

Many of those experiments will continue both in space and on Earth after Whitson returns from the ISS. "We do a lot of the baseline data collections  the final data collections for all the experiments that have been running since before we launched," Whitson explained. "There are many investigations on the human body that we've been doing up here in orbit, and we'll have to continue those studies as well."

While Whitson said she has no plans to return to space, her work with the International Space Station is far from over. She and her crewmates will spend the first 45 days after returning to Earth undergoing physical rehabilitation to get reacquainted with gravity. After that, Whitson said that she'll continue to work with the ISS program, "doing a lot of debriefs talking to the ground teams about procedures that worked really well, procedures that we need to try and improve on, tools or hardware, things that we had issues with  just ideas of how to operationally improve the efficiencies up here so that we can get even more done."

Clearly, astronauts are superbusy people, even after their mission ends. But that doesn't mean they don't get to have a little vacation time, too. Whitson said she expects to take about four weeks off between now and Christmas (Dec. 25), followed by a boat trip with friends and family in February. After going almost 300 days without a single vacation, who can blame her?

Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her @hannekescience. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

By all accounts a total solar eclipse is a life-changing event. I wouldn't know, I've never seen one. Fortunately for me and millions across the U.S., that will change this summer.

I'm not really an eclipse expert, even though I can't wait for August 21. I'm actually a meteorologist, and a fairly specialized one at that. Six months ago, I didn't know the difference between an umbra and penumbra. What I did know is that the sun provides energy for everything that happens on our planet, and that the daily cycle of sun rising and setting is a key component of what happens in the atmosphere, and how air circulates locally and globally.

So why is someone who worries about subsecond- and submeter-scale winds interested in this astronomical-scale event? Because any change in incoming sun  such as the complete blackout during a total solar eclipse  will affect the energy received by the land, and in turn the energy transferred back to the atmosphere. And because the total eclipse period is short, those changes will be small. It's both an exciting event and an interesting challenge: a scientist's dream.

Coupled with advances in observational techniques, every eclipse offers a new chance to prove meteorological theories. This one even more so because coordination across the entire length of the continental United States almost guarantees that someone will have ideal observing conditions. We're prepping our weather balloons and weather stations to take advantage of that opportunity  to see exactly what a short blackout does to atmospheric motion.

Meteorology all goes back to the sun

From how pollutants are formed and transported, to how plants exchange carbon using photosynthesis, to what direction the wind blows, daytime processes are different from nighttime processes. Without energy input from the sun, the lower atmosphere slowly flips itself at night.

During the day, it's warm near the ground and cooler up above; at night it's just the opposite. This "stable" (warmer over cooler) air inhibits vertical motion of the air and anything suspended in it. So pollutants can stay closer to the ground, clouds form differently, air flows faster down valleys and at the coasts wind blows offshore instead of on.

While those generalities are known, the nuances and timings aren't fully understood, and thus they are not completely predictable. That's my sphere of science  turbulence. I'm interested in the atmospheric changes in short times and small spaces that can eventually influence the larger "weather" most people are familiar with.

The total solar eclipse is a mini-night experience, so we will use it as a natural experiment. Is a brief period without solar radiation enough to cause detectable changes in turbulence and stability, or is it the slower interactions of land and atmosphere over a whole night that are required? We'll take what we find and use it to think about normal non-eclipse conditions.

Head in the sky

The troposphere is the part of the atmosphere closest to Earths surface and includes the air we breathe. (Image credit: NASA ESPO/INTEX-NA Educational Outreach, CC BY)

By launching a series of weather balloons before, during and after the eclipse we will see the evolution of winds and temperatures above the Earth's surface over time. The instrument packages attached to the balloons take measurements from about 100 meters above the surface up through the lower atmosphere, troposphere and lower stratosphere, eventually reaching nearly 20 kilometers. Scientists are coordinating all across the eclipse's path, and will conduct this same experiment at several sites across the country.

At our site in South Carolina, we are focusing on the question of whether a total eclipse can generate internal atmospheric gravity waves: parcels of air moving together as chunks trying to regain an equilibrium in temperature and density. (These are different from the gravitational waves that result when black holes collide.) Sometimes gravity waves are visible in clouds. During previous eclipses there has been promising evidence of gravity wave activity, but not enough data from enough locations to fully understand them.

The pattern of atmospheric gravity waves is visible in this satellite image of double, overlapping arcs of clouds over the Indian Ocean. (Image credit: Jacques Descloitres/MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC, CC BY)

The vertical profiles of temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and wind direction we collect will be used to answer a number of other scientific questions as well. First, we'll add to the sparse database of eclipse-induced temperature changes and provide quantitative measures of how strong the temperature change is and how long the lag between the total blackness at solar minimum and the temperature minimum is.

We will also be able to see if the cooling when the sun disappears and sudden rewarming when it returns propagates vertically and, if so, how far above the Earth's surface it goes. In terms of wind, questions to be answered center around changes in wind speed and turbulence intensity. We believe we will see a reduction of both, which provides further explanation for the eerie "eclipse wind" so often cited by human observers.

This more comprehensive examination of the troposphere and stratosphere in time and space will help inform our modeling and prediction of regional weather and climate.

Feet on the ground

But what if the changes are smaller? A helium-filled balloon leaves the ground quickly  ideally at five meters per second  and the first reliable measurement is almost 100 meters above the ground. A lot can happen in 100 meters.

To fill in that gap, at our site in South Carolina, we are adding other measurements. We've erected a small tower with fine thermocouples every half-meter from the ground up. These thin wires can detect temperature changes over 0.1-second time periods and will help us see if the darkness causes a very shallow layer of cooler air to start to grow under the typical daytime warmth.

The tower will also house two sonic anemometers  sensors that use disruption in a sound pulse to measure the wind speed in three dimensions at very fast rates  to see if a wind shear develops near ground level.

An infrared gas analyzer will record carbon fluxes throughout the eclipse period to see if there is any detectable change in plant respiration. Remember, they breathe in carbon dioxide. Some animals interpret an eclipse as night  do the plants?

The USC backscatter lidar at a recent field deployment in New Zealand. (Image credit: April Hiscox)

Finally, we'll also deploy a lidar system. That's like a radar, but with a laser that will point upward. This is to see if there are any changes in the depth of the boundary layer  a transition point between where the atmosphere is affected by the Earth's surface to the free troposphere above.

And we're going to do all of this in just two minutes and 36 seconds. A tiny window for a big impact.

Collating the data to flesh out the theory

A total solar eclipse is often referred to as a meteorological playground, and that is just how it feels. We're taking out all our scientific toys to see what we can find. Eclipse events are relatively rare; meteorologists like me take what we know about the interactions between land and air to think logically about what will happen during an eclipse. But until we see it, put an equation on it and predict the next one, it still falls into the realm of theory, not reliably predictable weather.

I feel like a kid again  the eclipse has forced me to think about meteorology in a new and different way  just like looking at the world while hanging upside down from monkey bars.

April Hiscox, Associate Professor of Geography, University of South Carolina

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates  and become part of the discussion  on Facebook, Twitter and Google +. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.
A partial solar eclipse is seen just after sunrise over the Queens borough of New York across the East River on Nov. 3, 2013.

This story was updated on Aug. 21.

NEW YORK  New York City isn't in the "path of totality," but millions of New Yorkers will be able to see a partial solar eclipse today (Aug. 21)  and it's totally worth checking out, local astrophysicist and science celebrity Neil deGrasse Tyson said in a briefing at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH).

Skywatchers along a narrow path from Oregon to South Carolina will see skies darken during the total solar eclipse. But the rest of the U.S. will still have a pretty cool view of this astronomical event using solar eclipse glasses or some type of pinhole projector.

In New York City, the partial eclipse will begin at 1:23 p.m. local time, when the moon first appears to touch the sun in the sky. "It starts to look like the Death Star is moving in front of the sun," Jackie Faherty, senior scientist and education manager at AMNH, said during the briefing. The museum will host an eclipse-watching event. [Amazing Solar Eclipse Pictures from Around the World]

By 2:44 p.m., the moon will block about 72 percent of the sun's surface as the partial eclipse reaches its maximum. Then, the cusps of the crescent-shaped sun will appear to be pointing downward, Joe Rao, FiOS1 meteorologist and Space.com columnist, said during the briefing. After the maximum eclipse, the moon will slowly begin to slide off the sun's face, and the eclipse will end at 4 p.m.

Although the skies won't darken beneath a partial eclipse in the same way that total solar eclipses briefly turn day into night, those who are paying attention may still notice some environmental changes during the partial eclipse, Rao said. He quoted American astronomer Leslie Peltier, who described his experience while watching a 75 percent partial eclipse in Delphos, Ohio, in 1918:

"At mid-eclipse, I turned away and looked about. Everything I saw  the nearby fields, the distant vistas  all seemed wrapped in some strange, unearthly early twilight. The sky seemed darker, shadows sharp and distinct. A cool wind  almost chilly  had sprung up from the West."

The partial eclipse over New York on Aug. 21 will have about the same magnitude as Peltier's partial eclipse and should bring a similar experience, Rao said. "If we're lucky enough to have clear weather here in New York at 2:44 next Monday afternoon, I have a feeling that's pretty much what we're going to see in the New York metropolitan area."

Rao equated a partial solar eclipse to a flashlight with low batteries. While the light still shines, it's not as bright as a flashlight with full batteries, and the light looks "almost yellowish" in color. "That's kind of like what it will be like next week at the midpoint of the eclipse," he said. "There's going to be a certain amount of yellowness in the air along with that dimming or diminishing twilight for a few minutes around the peak."

So, if you're in the city around the peak of the partial eclipse, don't forget to step outside and check it out. Solar eclipse glasses are the best way to see the partial eclipse, and you can still find them in stores around the city. AMNH will provide safe viewing glasses to visitors at the Hayden Planetarium's special event. But if you can't get the glasses in time and can't make it to the museum, Tyson has a great alternative that most New Yorkers can find in their own homes.

"Go into your kitchen and get a spaghetti strainer or a colander," Tyson said. "Not with mesh, the kind with holes in it. Go outside and hold that up over the ground. Each one of those holes will act as a pinhole camera and you'll see hundreds of images of the crescent sun on the ground and you can watch the eclipse unfold safelythat's the urban version of watching the pinhole camera images through the modeled light of sunlight passing through the leaves of a tree. It'll just be fun." So if you happen to be near any tree during the partial eclipse, check out their shadows and look for the tiny eclipse projections on the ground.

There's really no excuse for missing out on this celestial event, whether you're lucky enough to be in the path of totality, or if only a partial solar eclipse is heading your way. "It won't happen that often in your lifetime that you can walk outside of your own house and watch even a partial happen," Faherty said. The next time any type of solar eclipse will be visible over New York will be during a partial annular eclipse in 2021.

Editor's note: Find out how the solar eclipse will look from your location  Space.com has teamed up with Simulation Curriculum to offer this awesome Eclipse Safari app to help you enjoy your eclipse experience. The free app is available for Apple (opens in new tab) and Android, and you can view it on the web. If you take an amazing photo of the Aug. 21 solar eclipse, let us know! Send photos and comments to spacephotos@space.com.

Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her @hannekescience. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
Algiers, August 14, 2017 (SPS) - Western Sahara ambassador to Algiers and representatives of Algerian and Sahrawi women's associations and organizations, said Sunday that the Sahrawi question was going through a "sensitive and crucial" stage.

This stage requires regional and international measures to put pressure on Morocco and bring it to comply with international legality, while calling for new mechanisms to make known the resistance and the struggle of the Sahrawi woman.

Speaking at a meeting in support of the resistance of Sahrawi women organized by the commune of Algiers, in collaboration with the commune of occupied Al-Ayun, in the Larbi Ben M'hidi cultural center, Sahrawi ambassador Bouchraya Hamoudi Bayoune stressed the need for regional and international measures, particularly from the UN and the Security Council to put pressure on Morocco and bring it to comply with the international law."

"As a member of the African Union (AU), Morocco is obliged to implement its resolutions," said the ambassador who called on the African organization to "take coercive decisions by imposing economic and even military sanctions to bring the occupation authority to apply international law and engage into peace negotiations without preconditions." (SPS)

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Boumerdas (Algeria), August 15, 2017 (SPS) - The expert on strategic and security issues and president of the Algerian-African Committee for Peace and Reconciliation, Ahmed Mizab, affirmed at his conference at the University of Summer for the POLISARIO, SADR officials, that the looting by Morocco of Saharawi natural resources violates the principles established by the United Nations.

The Algerian expert said in his lecture: "the Saharawi cause in the context of regional and international changes," that "the activation of the Saharawi diplomatic to cease the Moroccan plunder of Saharawi natural resources, will contribute to the solution of the conflict."

In the same regard, the speaker stressed the importance of the use of soft power in order to sensitize the international public opinion and force the UN to play a more effective role, taking advantage of the situation in Morocco.

On the other hand, the expert Ahmed Mizab, considered that the readmission of Morocco in the African family, is a victory of the Saharawi cause, since Morocco would be obliged to abide by the basic principles of the UA that include the respect to the borders inherited from the colonialism.

Finally, Ahmed Mizab, stated that in the face of the spread of organized crime and terrorism, the international community is obliged to seek a way out of the Saharawi-Moroccan conflict, to avoid the outbreak of the situation. SPS

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N ot long now. At midnight on March 29, 2019, Britain will leave the European Union.

You might not think it from some of the commentary, but the sun will still rise the next day, therell still be a clean water supply, and the trains and buses will still run. Life will go on.

Yet while the apocalyptic stuff about life after Europe may be dismissed, we ought to face up to the reality that the most likely possible outcome is a Hard Brexit, whether we like it or not.

Indeed even a so-called transition deal after March 2019 amounts to Hard Brexit.

The latest government thinking on that came in that joint article from International Trade Secretary Liam Fox and Chancellor Philip Hammond, with Hard Brexit plainly looming: We are both clear that during this period the UK will be outside the single market and outside the customs union and will be a third-country not party to EU treaties, they said.

No matter that this is inconsistent with them also wanting to see that the UKs borders must continue to operate smoothly, that goods bought on the internet must still cross borders, and businesses must still be able to supply their customers across the EU after Brexit. Cake and eat it, in short. Much the same goes for the Governments position papers on membership.

Theres been much more sense from Mervyn, now Lord, King. As he said the other day, it is time we made a plan.

I never thought Id miss the former Governor of the Bank of England so much, his owlish presence in our national life so swiftly eclipsed by his rock star successor Mark Carney. Yet I can only echo Mervyns warnings.

For it does looks increasingly obvious that Britain will not enjoy, if thats the right word, a so-called Soft Brexit, either for the short term  the transition or implementation phase as its being called  or in the long run.

First, theres no such thing as Soft Brexit anyway. I give Theresa May credit for recognising this in her Lancaster House speech, and the Fox-Hammond article echoes that. Being in the single market means accepting free movement of labour; unacceptable to the British, though the Europeans insist on it. Only Liechtenstein enjoys the perk of membership without free movement, as a micro-state tax haven.

Staying in the EU customs union means we cant sign any trade deals with other countries, so that too is out. In either case well have no say in the European Council or the European Parliament. We can try for a bespoke deal, but well not get that either, because the EU has no incentive to make Brexit beneficial.

Time has probably already run out to get any soft deal anyway. A resolution of the Irish border issue is essential before the EU talks move on to broader trade in October. The British have had 600 years to sort out the Irish Question, and this modern iteration of it will not be sorted by David Davis over the summer hols.

Therefore the trade talks may not even start in October and all that is before a fractious and chaotic Parliament gets its hands on things. The talks will get bogged down and fail and we may as well admit it now. Soft Brexit, then, is a false hope. We need a plan. Here are some radical ideas:

*We operate a unilateral free trade policy. So: no tedious trade talks required, and at least our borders are frictionless in one direction, inwards.

We let into the UK whatever we want, and stop the other stuff, by exception. We take advantage of world prices and bargains, like a giant version of Lidl. If we dont fancy chlorinated chicken from America, we just say no. If we like the idea of tariff-free Ford Mustangs, then in they come. Simple.

*We scrap many restrictions on immigration. It makes the best economic sense.

Not what many voted for last year, but still, needs must and the economy comes first. We offer companies, farms and agencies the right to bring in key workers. That way Goldman Sachs or the LSE would be free to recruit as many Indian, American, South African or Dutch economists as they need; and bulb growers in Lincolnshire too would still be able to employ seasonal labour from Bulgaria, or Bangladesh for that matter.

*We let the pound go. Hard Brexit means sterling will overshoot on the downside as the euphemism goes. Fine; it will help the adjustment.

*The UK needs to let rip as the Singapore of Europe, a free-trading, flexible, productive powerhouse. A highly competitive economy is the only chance we have in world markets.

That means relaxing labour laws, a radical shrinking of the state, and an ultra-low corporate and personal taxation regime. Its been called Margaret Thatchers Fourth Term and it is no coincidence that so many hard Brexiteers are also hard Thatcherites.

The UK economic model has to be reset, as Philip Hammond once put it (though he has since retreated from that, a little messily).

*There has to be a shift from consumption to investment, so lower living standards but better infrastructure and capital for future productivity growth  sacrifices again.

So what might this brave new world feel like? A harsher, more bracing, more unequal country, for sure.

We could, in fact, wake up to a Tudor-style kingdom. Scotland and Northern Ireland would go their separate ways, leaving just England and Wales, as Henry VIII might have recognised things: A post-EU Littler Britain endowed with the same spirit of adventure and commerce as drove the First Elizabeth, Drake, Raleigh and Frobisher.

London, then as now, would be at the centre of this great buccaneering maritime power in a Second Elizabethan Age with David Davis, Boris Johnson and Liam Fox in doublet and hose.

Well, theres a plan. More to the point, wheres the Governments?
F or most journalists working in Britain today and certainly, I would venture, all broadcasters, there has never been a subject like Brexit. Most of us think of what we do as something akin to being a football referee: attempting to call out the political fouls  from lies, to spin to arguments ill-supported by any kind of fact  in the face of players and fans who like nothing better than to question the refs integrity.

If that has always been true, its got worse with Brexit. From the start we have been comparing what we know  the status quo  with what we dont. We have had to balance empirical facts against a leap of faith. Its like refereeing an argument between Richard Dawkins and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

After the referendum it did at least seem that the matter was finally settled. But now I am not so sure. It seems to be gradually dawning on all sides that Brexiteers won an important battle with that result but they didnt necessarily win the war.

On one level this is an absurd suggestion. We exit automatically in March 2019 and transition arrangements have not yet even been agreed. We are out and that is that. But some kind of interim arrangement will almost certainly be devised  and Brexiteers most visceral fear must be that this might be extended and then extended again. If the Europeans are intransigent and slow and seem only inclined to offer us a deal that is all on their terms, then why would walking off a cliff edge be any more palatable in 2022 (just before an election) than in 2019?

At the moment the consensus seems to be that we are most likely to join (or remain in) the European Economic Area  the so called Norway model  in 2019, on the grounds that the EU will have neither the time nor the inclination to design a bespoke transition model for us. This would mean that, as we approach the next election, we would have had to accept the outline of a divorce settlement without any meaningful change to our relationship with the EU itself.

So heres a thought: what would happen if the Labour Party decided at this point to break ranks with the current consensus and make staying in or rejoining the EU its official policy, with or without another referendum? At the moment the Brexit vote is treated by both main parties as a tablet of stone handed down by the people to their parliament, but if we were to have four or five years of continued uncertainty and, in the words of the Governor of the Bank of England last week, a sluggish economy (and that is still a big if), then it is at least conceivable that the public mood might begin to change.

Sign of the times: an anti-Brexit march in London last year / NurPhoto via Getty Images

The Labour Party appeared to benefit at the last election from a clear shift to it by both Remainers in general and young people in particular, and it is currently going through an agonising internal argument about whether or not to support staying in the single market and the customs union. But what if, as the negotiations grind on, the EU was to make a bold offer to try and persuade us to stay?

It is fair to say Jeremy Corbyn would be unlikely to switch back to a pro-EU policy but might a new, possibly younger, leader of the centre or the Left be tempted? And would that not, potentially, be a way to further gather both the youth vote and the centrist vote around a new banner?

There are many what ifs in this scenario but perhaps not as many as there were only a few months ago. Lets deal with the most obvious: does the EU actually want us to stay?

Recent visitors to high office in both Paris and Berlin report that, in essence, the French want us out  and quickly  and the Germans would like to find a way to get us to change our minds and stay. But even here there are arguments within arguments.

Part of the reason the French wanted us out was so they could be the dominant military power within the EU (a balance to German economic might) but I am told the Elysee has been unsettled by American insistence on Germany up ping its defence spending to two per cent. The Germans arent keen on this either, since it would make their army potentially enormous again. The idea of the Germans dominating the continent in both economic and military terms well, at the very least it is enough to focus European minds in a wholly new context.

So, in short, it is more than possible that after the anger at the referendum begins to die down on the Continent the EU may come to the common and cool-headed position that is in everyones interests to make one last bid to keep us on the inside. Perhaps it might include some offer on freedom of movement. Or maybe continuing Brexit uncertainty will make a return to the status quo appealing enough for some.

The Brexiteers can see all this coming, of course, which is why the last and most important battle in this long war may be within the Tory Party itself. Their dilemma is surely likely to be simple: cliff edge or not, could they and should they try to force us out  perhaps by picking a leader markedly of the Right  before the election, regardless of whether any kind of deal is finalised?

If they dont, and we are therefore not out by the time we go to the polls in 2022, Id stake a fair amount of money that we never will be.

Tom Bradby is anchor of ITVs News at Ten.
W alking into Heathrow Arrivals after returning from Los Angeles I was met by a taxi driver with my name resting across his gut. He had an air of defeat about him, his face like a funeral barge, his bearing expressing an ineffable sorrow that this  the airport, the holiday crowds, middle-age, human evolution  should have to happen to him. I apologised. It had taken a while to get through passport control. Bloody murder, innit, he grunted and headed towards the car park.

At the time I found the contrast with the sunny optimism Id grown used to in California jarring. In LA its your civic duty to keep your fellow citizens focused on their dream, to assure them theyre crushing it, 100 per cent. Unabashed grumpiness is rude. Now that I have re-familiarised myself with the Motherland, however, I see that the taxi driver was just being friendly.

To moan is really the English way of saying: Hey, whats up! What I was supposed to do was have a bit of a moan myself: Yeah, bloody no one on bloody passport control, shocking really. And then we might have had a warm and effusive conversation as we circumnavigated the M25: Bloody idiots.

Bloody Brexit.

Bloody Mary?

The journey passed in silence.

Moaning plays a vital role in English social relations, a sort of minor-key counterpart to our much-vaunted sense of humour. Its hard to think of another country that would devote whole TV series (Very British Problems, Grumpy Old Men) to celebrities moaning. And moaning seems particularly important for middle-aged white men, who are often isolated and at risk of radicalisation. To moan about the price of beer, or silly tourists, or the August rain is a way of establishing common cause  of inviting a stranger to join their special moaning club.

Still, the moaning has definitely increased since last summer. Its the most noticeable thing about returning to London (that and how amazingly crowded and booze-sodden it is). No one really wants to hear that you had a nice time while you were away. Theyre waiting for you to have a small moan. Wasnt everyone in California all annoyingly positive? Oh a bit. But British negativity feels no less contrived. Its frowned upon here to begin a conversation with a happy statement.

Of course, its hard to overstate the impact Brexit has made on the national moaning product  it not only affects low-level moaning subjects like holiday exchange rates but high-level moaning subjects like this bloody country. Naturally, the Brexit zealots have a witty term for people who regret the result: Remoaners! But I would counter that most so-called Remoaning falls into more continental categories of ennui, angst and rage.

Strangely it still seems to be the Brexiteers who are the most prolific moaners  or perhaps not so strangely given that it has always been based on the moans of a certain kind of middle-aged man. Its increasingly clear that the referendum result was the worst thing that could have happened to them because they now actually have to come good on their moans. They have been moaned themselves out of their preferred moaning subject, which was the EU, a convenient moangoat for all their self-inflicted problems.

The kindest thing, I suppose, would be to cancel Brexit and let them have a good moan about that. But the original mistake was to take their moaning seriously and hold a referendum about it. The point of the moan is not to effect change. Its just to moan. Maybe find someone else to moan with. But mostly moan. It has served our archipelago pretty well these past 1,000 years or so.

Taylor Swifts slapdown for a bottom-feeding DJ

It never seemed to be an even contest. A Colorado radio host named David Mueller was suing the pop star Taylor Swift for $3 million.

Swift was counter-suing Mueller for $1. She claimed that back in 2013 he stuck his hand up her skirt at a meet-and-greet event and helped himself to a definite grab... A very long grab. He grabbed my ass underneath my skirt. Mueller said her claiming that had resulted in career ruin (he was sacked from his radio show) and public humiliation. Which will only get more humiliating now Swift has won her counter-claim, hoping to set an example to other women who may resist publicly reliving similar outrageous and humiliating acts. And Mueller is now the guy who sued a woman because he groped her. So now we know. A mans reputation = $3 m. A womans ass = $1. And yet, in terms of moral capital, how much richer is Swift today?
W ith regard to bringing 4G network to the Tube, does the Mayor really want to wreck the most civilised Underground in the world, catering for the most diverse bunch of passengers [August 10]?

It is only recently that yelling into mobile phones for entire journeys has lessened on the buses, mainly due to passenger disapproval. Now imagine 20 or 30 people in a Tube carriage talking into their phones for entire journeys. We will lose that relaxed, quiet comfort we get  aside from during the rush hour.

It is great to see so many people sitting on upholstered seats, perusing this paper, reading from the same hymn sheets.

Others read novels, some have a chat or try to go to sleep while others listen to music. Yes, the trains sometimes screech and rattle, and the announcements can be annoying, but mainly it is a peaceful experience.

Enabling people to use their phones for calls will destroy this culture completely.

Wenda Clenaghen



About a month ago I was stranded on the Tube on a train between Temple and Embankment station in a pitch-back tunnel.

For about an hour I had no signal on my phone, no way of contacting my boss that I was quite obviously going to be late, and no way of getting off the train.

Just like every new policy, there will always be opponents, and in the case of phones having 4G signal on Underground trains, it will inevitably mean more people being able to make calls and therefore producing more noise.

But tourists and Londoners often complain that, for the high cost of tickets, London Undergrounds network should have a phone signal like so many other countries  and I am inclined to agree with them.

Katy Williams



Almost all the phone calls I hear on buses are utterly unnecessary, and the inane ramblings that go on for a whole journey drive me wild  and probably most of the other passengers too.

No one is so indispensable as to be needed for the 10 or 20 minutes they spend on a Tube in central London. There is already wi-fi at most stations, even if the connectivity can be iffy in my experience. The Tube is noisy enough as it is.

David Reed



Is there no escape from mobile phones? It is unlikely that there will be many urgent calls made, and this is more likely to produce chat either side of you. Given that most people seem to regard their phones as megaphones, it will be a nightmare.

We have managed all these years to be free of phones. Perhaps, for the sake of sanity, at least one carriage could be mobile-free?

James Horne



Let's get rid of all nuclear weapons

Karin von Hippel gives us a frightening yet accurate insight into the dangers of the nuclear confrontation between the United States and North Korea [Comment, August 10]. But she fails to mention an important point.

Since 1968, when the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty was signed, the US, like Britain, has been legally committed to work in good faith for the elimination of all nuclear weapons. Yet these two countries show no interest in getting rid of their own. Indeed, we are spending at least 205 billion on renewing Trident. No wonder the North Koreans are not impressed.

It is to be hoped that both nations will come to see that nuclear weapons only mean more insecurity in the world. It is time to get rid of the lot and spend the millions saved on the real needs of humanity.

Bruce Kent



A way to stop hard border with Ireland

The question of an Irish border is complicated. A hard border opens up again the smuggling business, and no one wants it. The DUP will not have an internal UK border and, given its crucial role in keeping the Tory party in government, if they dont want it then it wont happen.

But perhaps theres a simple solution. Let there be no border and let goods and people flow freely as now. If the UK plan works and trade deals are effected with the US, Australia and India, it can benefit Ireland.

Dr George Maher



Google gender row was misinterpreted

Ayesha Hazarikas column describes an angry bloke at Google who has railed against gender equality in the most manly way possible  a huffy internal anonymous memo [Comment, August 8].

She obviously hadnt read the news stories, which made it clear that far from being anonymous, the author was an engineer called James Damore. She also hadnt read the memo, even though it is widely available online. He wasnt railing against gender equality.

Julia Spira

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Heathrow expansion has majority support

I read with interest the Reverend Andrew McCluskeys letter about the strength of opposition to a new runway at Heathrow [Letters, August 9].

It is worth recalling that polls have consistently stated that more local people support expansion than oppose it. More than 70 per cent of MPs (cross-party) believe the years of shilly-shallying needs to end and the Government has confirmed that there will be a vote on expansion in the first half of 2018.

Beyond the economic case for an additional 77,000 local jobs and the eradication of youth unemployment in the area, we should remember that as aircraft technology has improved, planes are getting cleaner and quieter all the time.

Environmentalists are getting on board with Heathrow expansion. The former executive director of Friends of the Earth, Tony Juniper, is now working on the project to ensure we can have a bigger, better, quieter and greener airport.

Parmjit Dhanda, executive director, Back Heathrow

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Spurs players are paid enough

Tottenham defender Danny Rose says he was unhappy with the wage structure at the club. I take it he has continued to draw his wages while on the sidelines, while many people do not get paid for time off from work.

Rose believes players at Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United earn more than him but these clubs have been more successful over recent years and can therefore afford it. I would hate to see Rose leave or indeed any more of our first-team players, but if they are not committed to the clubs long-term plan, maybe its best they leave.

Spurs do have a rigid pay structure but many of our star players have had several increases over the past year and are very well paid. Once the new stadium is completed, I am certain the wage structure will be adjusted. Some patience, faith and loyalty, I think, is required.

Paul Casey

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1. The tartan puffer

If autumn/winter 17 could be defined by a shape, that shape would be a big, round, squishy one - such is fashions continued affection for puffer jackets of ever cuddlier proportions.

While there was no shortage of overstuffed outerwear around last winter, spanning Balenciaga to North Face, this season there is only one puffer the style set have their sights set on - and it can be found in Uniqlo.

The piece de resistance in the debut collaboration with London Fashion Week designer J.W.Anderson - who counts himself as one of Uniqlos best customers - this quintessentially British incarnation is on the wish list of every fashion editor in London, thanks to its superlight technology and spot-it-a-mile-off tartan check.

Put September 19 in your calendar now to bag one (89.90. From Sept 19; uniqlo.com).

2. The fringed dress

Last season, thanks to the likes of Balenciaga and Preen, you couldnt swing a bunch of begonias in a Tube carriage without hitting at least 10 mid-length, long-sleeve, floral dresses.

And while it looks like flowers on frocks are proving perennial - until next spring, at least - those with their fingers firmly on the fashion pulse may wish to consider the floral dresss latest rival - the fringed dress.

Available in a host of incarnations, from statement at Stella McCartney to more subtle at Ganni, the beauty of the fringed dress is its guarantee to make you stand out.

This maxi-fringed mini dress from Mango, for example, is definitely not designed for wall flowers (119.99, mango.com).

3. The ruffle blouse

When it comes to bossing it in the boardroom this autumn, embracing your feminine side will pay dividends.

While its all well and good turning up to work in a sharp suit and a kick-ass attitude, power dressing has taken a more demure turn of late.

This flouncy, ruffled, pink rose- peppered option from Uterque is not just pretty but its also a confident choice.

Your favourite black trousers and a no-distractions ponytail are all you need to complete the look (145, uterque.com).

4. The It-Knit

During these last days of summer, shopping for knitwear may not be top of your to-do list. But while youre glugging the last of the Aperol spritzes and relishing the final moments of sandal season, consider this Fair Isle sweater as a worthwhile early investment.

A standout piece from Josephs covetable pre-fall collection, this yolk yellow It-Knit features an ingenious double layer design, meaning it can be worn as a sleeveless cape style now if your picnic takes a chilly turn or long-sleeved later on when autumn takes hold (275, joseph-fashion.com).

5. The power couple

Millennial pink may have peaked higher than avocado on toast but its not time to stop blushing just yet. Instead, the futures fuchsia - a shade which is proving to be a particularly popular choice when paired with scarlet.

This striking power couple was a winner across the pre-fall collections, with Delpozo championing hot pink culottes with a tomato top and Valentinos Pierpaolo Piccioli opting for pyjama tailoring in contrasting shades of raspberry and claret.

But the combos biggest ambassador is Stella McCartney, who clashed cerise suiting with ruby red outerwear and layered fuchsia trousers under scarlet dresses - fringed, of course (Jacket, 985, trousers, 450, stellamccartney.com).

6. The jumbo cords

If youre wondering what the next big jeans trend is, you can stop right there because next season its not even denim. Instead, your new go-to Sunday brunch attire is likely to be a pair of jumbo cord trousers.

No longer reserved for country gents and three-piece suites, your chosen cord must boast grooves as thick and deep as a McCoys Ridge Cut crisp as needlecord doesnt have nearly the same street cred.

These classic biscuit cord trousers may look like theyre straight out of the Seventies but are actually due to land in Urban Outfitters stores at the end of the month (56, urbanoutfitters.com).

7. The pyjama jumpsuit

For the majority of women who call the capital home, preferred eveningwear often falls into two categories: a universal occasion jumpsuit or their favourite PJs.

So it will come as no surprise that one of the capitals go-to names on the high street has cleverly combined the two.

Whistles floral silk pyjama-suit is about as far from last years regrettable onesie obsession as possible.

Buy it now, team with a block-heel sandal and a great pair of earrings and wear to every social engagement you have in your diary this autumn (279, whistles.com).
T wo Michelin starred chef Simon Rogan will make an early return to London this autumn when he opens what is probably the capitals smallest restaurant.

Aulis London will launch in an undisclosed but central location and seat just eight diners at a time, each paying 250 a head.

The restaurant is a standalone version of an experience offered at Fera at Claridges while Simon Rogan was chef there, as well as at his two Michelin starred flagship LEnclume in Cumbra where Aulis acts as the development kitchen.

The London offshoot promises a dynamic and interactive dining experience, and will offer no menu with the food and matching wines simply selected by the chefs each service.

Given its size, guests will be given the option of booking either individual seats or the entire table.

Only after making a reservation will its location and exact timings be revealed to diners.

It will serve dinner only, and during the day will act as an experimental hub for Simons upcoming venture Roganic, which is opening in Marylebone later this year.

Along with Simon, the restaurant will be led by chef Rafael Cagali who has previously worked at the Fat Duck as well as Fera.

Simon said: I am really excited that Aulis will be returning to London and weve found the perfect spot for it. Aulis is an integral part of our operation in the Lake District and it will be no different in London.

He added: With only eight seats, Aulis London can give our customers a really up close and personal insight into how we operate. We are going to have a lot of fun there.

30 must-try dishes in London restaurants 1 /41 30 must-try dishes in London restaurants Bone marrow on toast with parsley salad at St John Not only has this dish kicked off countless wonderful meals over the course of St Johns 25 years, but it also gets credit for putting British cooking back on the global culinary map. Roasted bone marrow, coaxed out onto toast, cut perfectly with salad of parsley, shallots and capers. A nose-to-tail revolution, and utterly divine. Whole turbot at Brat Tomos Parrys talents with a turbot first came to feverish acclaim at Mayfair restaurant Kitty Fishers, but they are now the star attraction at his Michelin-starred solo spot. This whole fish  grilled Basque-style, over hot coals and in a specially designed cage  softens as if it has melted, and is basted at the table in an emulsion made with its own juices. Benjamin McMahon Marinara at 50 Kalo di Ciro Salvo Superlatives should be used in moderation  but heck it, this might just be Londons best pizza. This under-the-radar London iteration of a Naples pizzeria serves an unrivalled marinara: just tomato sauce, oil, garlic and oregano. No need for any more  with a sauce this good and a base so fine and perfectly charred, you can stop mourning your cancelled Italian holiday at first bite. Luciano Furia Clay pot baked pork and crab glass noodles at Kiln When we say Kiln is one of the hottest spots in town, we mean it  hang over the counter at the Thai barbecue and youre not far out of range for the odd flame. Baking in the heart of the swirling heat is this must order: shimmering glass noodles, coated with a silky sauce enriched with fatty slicks of Tamworth pork belly and improbably unctuous crab meat. Lamb chops, Melabes Perhaps because its quietly tucked in among its unassuming neighbours down on the wrong end of High Street Kensington, Melabes is often overlooked by Londons food lovers. An unwarranted shame, as this partly Middle Eastern, partly Mediterranean set-up is really very good; it is somewhere to pick and choose from bits and pieces, and put a meal together yourself. The lamb chops, which come all smokey and burnished from the grill, are perfect; pink as a Vegas sign inside, but the fat all soft and dripping and delicious. A must, whatever the order. Steak tartare imperial at Bob Bob Ricard Theres Press For Champagne buttons, lobster in your mac and cheese and anything that stays still long enough gets gilded  there is no point in going small at Bob Bob Ricard. Steak tartare is a luxurious pick at the best of times, but the Imperial upgrade here comes with a dollop of caviar  even without the finishing touch, the tartare itself is one of the best in the capital. Bacon naan at Dishoom Londoners spent decades believing bacon in a bap with some ketchup (or brown sauce, but lets not have that argument now) couldnt be beaten  and then Dishoom came along. This breakfast sandwich fills a fresh naan with bacon, a slathering of cream cheese, a luxurious tomato and chilli chutney, coriander and an oozing fried egg if you feel so inclined. Hangover be gone. Cacio e pepe at Padella Five years ago, you would have thought anyone queuing for pasta in London to have lost their minds  this dish changed that. The starlet of Padellas much coveted is this plate of pici  hand-rolled fat worms of eggless pasta  with a mirror-shine sauce of parmesan cheese and pasta. Simple but unrivalled  and itll set you back just 6. Jamon croquetas at Barrafina A dish like this should be elusive  it is far too easy to eat seven portions of croquetas in a single sitting, which is why we presume Barrafina makes you queue. Very sensible. As the crunchy coating gives way to the oozing centre, enriched with the flavour of Spanish jamon (the best ham in the business), were already planning our next visit. Biang biang noodles at Xi'an Biang Biang Noodles There are oodles of noodles in the capital, but Guirong Weis triumphant take is one of the finest. First finding followers at her north London restaurant Xian Impression (soon to reopen for dine-in, but not yet), the dish of has inspired a whole spin-off restaurant in Spitalfields. Thick, hand-pulled, chewy noodles soak up all the spice and zing of the special sauce they swim in  very special indeed. Souffle Suissesse, Le Gavroche Le Gavroche  the street urchin  is perhaps not for everyone. It is a Mayfair time machine, a reminder of how things were done once upon a time. Fortunately, it happens that how things were once done was very well indeed, and lunch or supper here is a masterclass in traditional French luxury (and often, happily, includes very large glasses of wine). Staff make the place, anyone who has been gently teased by the twins pretending to be each other will know. A tendency towards the old ways does mean the cooking offers little in the way of evolution or revolution, but new, after all, isnt always better. Michel Roux Jrs cheese souffle, baked on double cream, stuns, so overwhelmingly tasty, utter decadence that clings to the taste buds. Buttermilk Jamaican Jerk Chicken, Around the Cluck / 12:51 James Cochran found his signature dish early on, but its good it should stay with him for the rest of his career. While he has chops, and can do more beyond, theres something special in the way he works with his chicken; hotly spiced, gorgeously crispy, beautifully soft on the inside. A long-standing favourite and, though 12:51 cant operate as it did before, there are tables at his new project Around the Cluck, which is operating out of the same site. Breakfast at Hawksmoor Guildhall Your Full English is not full in comparison to the Hawksmoor breakfast at the steak connoisseurs Guildhall restaurant. The mind-boggling two-person spread swaps bacon rashers for an entire smoked chop, serves its bubble and squeak with short rib, puts trotter meat into its baked beans, and adds grilled bone marrow to all the usual trimmings. Cauliflower shawarma at Berber & Q Its not often that the main event at a barbecue restaurant is the veg, but Berber & Q have achieved just that. The cauliflower shawarma here is cooked on their flaming grill until softened and charred, before being doused liberally in tahini, pomegranate molasses, coriander, pomegranate seeds and a scattering of dried rose petals. BBQ Butter Chicken Wings at Brigadiers Brigadiers is a bold, boisterous sort of place: a labyrinthine City dining room, packed to the rafters with beer and Indian food that is indisputably gutsy. But arguably its finest moment comes in one of its smallest packages  these chicken wings may be diminutive, but are mightily spiced, deftly charred and dripping with ghee-fuelled succulence. Beef brisket bun at Smokestak David Carters Shoreditch restaurant occupies itself by giving the entirety of Kansas City a run for its money on a daily basis. The star turn at this lauded barbecue restaurant is its beef brisket bun  the meat is soft and juicy, riddled with its fats in the centre, while charred and treacle-like on the outside, paired perfectly with pickled chillies. To remember it is to salivate, we assure you. Snails, LEscargot LEscargot is one of Sohos old aristocrats and in its grand, beret red dining room there is always a mischievous sense of fun  perhaps because it is still such a smart, suited, chandeliered place, and people are often drinking themselves rather silly. The clue to good eating is in the name; the snails come still clinging to their shells and submerged in their butter and parsley sauce. Dive in; you will emerge stinking gloriously of garlic. It wont matter a jot; roll on the red wine and settle in for a long, comforting night. Confit potatoes at Quality Chop House Yes, there are some high quality chops on offer at this 150-year-old Clerkenwell restaurant but blimey, leave room for the chips. Fine slices of potato are stacked into architecturally sound wedges, and confited until shatteringly crispy on the outside and devastatingly soft in the centre. They have been much imitated in recent years, but never bettered. Smoked eel sandwich at Quo Vadis Jeremy Lee cooks many things to a legendary level at Quo Vadis  his pies could so easily have also made this list  but he gets the nod here for his unrivalled take on the fancy sandwich. Smoked eel, horseradish cream and Dijon mustard, served with red onion pickle  a combination so popular Lee says he nearly ran out of eel on post-lockdown reopening. Classic bao at Bao London has buns in abundance, but we still bow down to the fluffy superiority of Bao. The Taiwanese restaurant has become a cross-town favourite, thanks to its pleasingly pert rice buns (they are genuinely very pert, no crassness intended) and carefully considered fillings. The classic order comes filled with braised pork, fermented veg, coriander and a dusting of peanut powder. Carol Sachs Potato and roe, Core by Clare Smyth Clare Smyth has a knack that must infuriate other chefs; she is able to take the simplest of ingredients  say, a single carrot and a smattering of lamb mince  do something devilish with it and charge rather a lot for it; so good are the results, though, that few mind. Smyths sorcery is perhaps best witnessed with her signature, the potato and roe. It is simply a potato on a plate in a little sauce, but then it is also perhaps the best potato dish in the world; it has this wonderful salty richness, a certain seaside intenseness. It is glorious; so too is the smoked chicken that tends to come as an amuse bouche. Youll be treated here. Omelette Arnold Bennett Dont worry, no Arnolds were harmed in the making of this dish. Alongside impeccable service and an arguably perfect dining room, you could add another highlight to your breakfast at The Wolseley by ordering this creamy, haddock-filled dish, named for the writer who inspired its creation while staying at the Savoy. Fish pie, J Sheekey Long an actors favourite, J Sheekeys glamour has never lost its lustre. Its kept its regulars and charmed newcomers with a menu that plays the greatest hits of fine dining favourites. Seafood is Sheekeys thing; simply done sole is beautiful here, crab comes three ways, brill brushed in butter has a meatiness thats beyond satisfying. The fish pie is famous though, and rightly so; beneath the flaking pastry is a sea of cream, mustard and white wine, in it bobbing cod, haddock and salmon. It is simple but never fails; it does on its own for lunch, but is a failsafe at supper, too. John Carey The Ari Gold at Patty & Bun Theres a cheeseburger on every high street in the capital  but not all of them are created equal. Patty & Bun has got the classic combination down to a tee with its curiously named Ari Gold burger: a fat, 35-day aged patty is served medium rare, and topped with gooey American cheese, smokey house mayo and tangy pickled red onions. Xiao long bao at Din Tai Fung Few dishes in the capital have been known to cause queues of four hours. Thats exactly what the world-famous xiao long bao dumplings did when top Taiwanese restaurant group Din Tai Fung first opened in Covent Garden. An intricately folded out layer (made by chefs trained for at least 18 months) gives way to succulent meat and a broth you could take on by the bowlful. Pig's trotter, the French House Upstairs in the Soho local, Neil Borthwick is quietly running one of the areas best kitchens. He orders in particularly good oysters, does brilliant things with brill and with his pigs trotter, has a dish that is rich and fatty, but with a beautiful salty cut that makes it madly moreish. The menu tends to change often upstairs in the French, but have this if its on. That little dining room is somewhere to go in early for lunch and stay until late, eventually spilling down into the pub below, to drink pints  they do pints now, not just halfs  all while merrily reliving the joys upstairs. Peter Clark Dover sole with crab butter at Bentley's Oyster Bar and Grill There are so many delights at Bentleys, its tricky to pick a single one. This could so easily have been a plate of rigorously sourced oysters, the fish pie, the decadent Royal seafood platter (pictured). It is however, the Dover sole that wins. A sublime piece of fish always, expertly cooked without fail  choose it either filleted with beautiful crab butter, or grilled and whole for a simple pleasure. Over in the City, Corrigan does similarly brilliant things with lobster at Daffodil Mulligan. Ragu, Lina Stores Sohos Lina Stores  the pasta bar, not the longstanding Italian deli it comes from  is the sort of restaurant one longs for; small, fun, friendly, not too pricey. They do small plates of near perfect pasta; their ragu, whether lamb or veal, is a gem. A good ragu is hard to find  too often theres too little meat, or meat not cooked for long enough  but here, they spend the time over it, cooking slowly, carefully. No restaurant can compare with a Nonna, but Lina gets gratifyingly close. Porterhouse steak, the Guinea Grill London is not short of steakhouses, but the Guinea does not number among them. A pub  a proper one  it is tucked down a Mayfair sidestreet, away from everything and yet still perpetually busy. Besides the small bar is a dining room that looks much as it must have done when the likes of Sinatra was in (or Bette Midler, or Kylie, or Regan, or, or, or), where theyve served prime Aberdeen Angus cooked on a smoking hot grill. The Guinea is all about having a good time  pints, red wine, brandies, the lot  but they cook beautifully, and their handling of a good piece of beef is second to none. Puree de pommes de terre, Le Comptoir Robuchon The late Joel Robuchon may have been the most decorated chef of his and perhaps any other era, but his signature stayed humble  mashed potato. Until youve had it, it is hard to believe it could be quite so good; mash, after all, is mash. No matter the scepticism, it will always surprise; it is almost silly that so little could taste of so much. A side, it will match almost everything on the menu; of which, the lamb with aubergine on the menu of classics is extraordinarily good.

Simon announced he was leaving Fera in April this year before revealing plans to relaunch Roganic, which he ran as a pop-up in Marylebone in 2012 and 2013.

Email AulisLondon@SimonRogan.co.uk to make a reservation.
F or most of us, happiness means love, money and career success.

But the secret to happiness may be none of these things, at least according to a new study by international researchers.

The results of the study of 2,300 participants found people are actually happier when they feel and accept the emotions they desire, even if these emotions are negative.

Researchers asked university students from the USA, Brazil, China, Germany, Ghana, Israel, Poland and Singapore what emotions they desired and felt.

This was then compared to how they rated their overall life satisfaction or happiness. Those with the greatest life satisfaction experienced emotions that matched those they desired, even if these were unpleasant.

In that case, can feeling bad actually be good?

Lead researcher Dr Maya Tamir from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem told the BBC: "If you feel emotions you want to feel, even if they're unpleasant, then you're better off."

Dr Tamir explained: "Someone who feels no anger when reading about child abuse might think they should be angrier about the plight of abused children, so want to feel more anger than they actually do in that moment."

She added that a woman who is unwilling to leave an abusive partner may be happier if she loved him less, for example.

The study also found that 11 per cent of people wanted to feel less of positive emotions like love and empathy, while 10 per cent of people wanted to feel more negative emotions.

Dr Tamir said: "People want to feel very good all the time in Western cultures. Even if they feel good most of the time, they may still think that they should feel even better, which might make them less happy overall."
P olice in the City of London are unable to share footage from body cameras directly with prosecutors because of differences in computer software systems, it was revealed today.

Instead, police have to transfer footage onto DVDs which are then hand-delivered to the Crown Prosecution Service.

The City of London force is one of several across the UK which cannot download video to the CPS, it has emerged. Only the Met is able to share footage digitally with prosecutors, with officers now routinely submitting more than 3,000 clips a month.

The 700-strong City force, which patrols the Square Mile, is rolling out body-worn cameras to all its front-line officers and launched a trial of the system early last year.

Researchers from the London Metropolitan University were employed to examine the effectiveness of the cameras and look at officers attitudes to the new technology.

The study, released today, found that a big majority, 83 per cent of 149 officers questioned, welcomed the introduction of cameras but several highlighted frustration that they could not share footage with the CPS.

One officer remarked: The only thing we werent taught, which still hasnt gone live yet, is how we send data to CPS.

The report by two criminologists headed by Dr James Morgan from the London Met said the failure to synchronise the systems inhibited successful policing outcomes.

Researchers found that the cameras had not led to more efficient justice in the City, with figures showing only a slight increase in the number of guilty pleas submitted following their introduction.

The study suggested that because technology was not available to send footage to the CPS, the evidence was not routinely available in court. A City police spokesman said: This is a national issue which affects a number of forces and is currently being addressed, and a system is currently being developed to allow the direct transfer of footage.

Digital policing chief constable Andy Marsh said forces were working on ways to share footage wirelessly.

In other findings the London Met university study recorded that the number of complaints from the public about incivility or oppressive conduct halved during the trial period, though the numbers were small  down from 11 and 10 in 2014 and 2015 to five during the trial period in 2016. All but one of those five complaints were dismissed.

Some officers said having a camera had a calming effect on confrontational situations and backed up their evidence, debunking malicious complaints.

Some said the cameras were also useful in prosecuting minor crimes such as motorists or cyclists breaking red lights when in the past it was often one persons word against anothers.

One officer said: We have all had trouble in proving that someone is drunk, violent, or abusive.

That is usually what we deal with on Friday, Saturday, Thursday, Wednesday nights even ... with the body camera it will be good to have the footage to back up what Im saying.

Dr Morgan said: There have been assumptions about cop culture which see the police as resistant to change but we found a group of officers who very much wanted to have their side of the story told.
V ictims of a scam run out of a London BMW dealership today told how the horrendous breach of trust had turned their lives upside down.

Michael Daniels, former head of sales at BMW Berry in Chiswick, kept spare keys to sold cars and handed them to accomplice Alex Tingle, 28, with the buyers home address.

Tingle and a third man would then go and steal the newly sold vehicles, getting away with luxury cars worth 210,000 in just three months. Isleworth crown court heard one victim, Robert Mitchell, missed the birth of his daughter because his car had been stolen and he could not get to the hospital on Christmas Eve.

Another, Numan Hashim, said the sale of his house fell through after the buyer found out about the car theft on a crime database.

Mr Hashim told the Standard he had bought a 16,000 BMW 1-series for his wife just before Christmas in 2015 but had to fly to Pakistan at short notice.The vehicle was delivered to his house in south-west London without a spare key, held back at the dealership for safekeeping until his return.

Soon after returning to the UK he realised the car had vanished. He said: At first I thought my wife had taken it, but she was still at home and the key was still there. We started to panic.

I called the showroom and spoke to the director before even making a call to the police. He checked and said the spare key was still there. But when the insurance company became involved they said they couldnt find it.

The family put their home up for sale in March and had attracted an offer when the buyer contacted them to ask about the theft.

Mr Hashim said: Im there on the crime map as the car having been stolen. I had to say what had happened. The offer was pulled.

Daniels, 40, from Ashford, Surrey, was jailed for five years and three months on Friday for conspiracy to steal motor vehicles between December 2015 and February last year. Judge Simon Davis told him he was guilty of a horrendous breach of trust that had real repercussions for the victims.

Tingle, from Ealing, admitted conspiracy to steal motor vehicles and was jailed for two years.


A man has been rushed to hospital after being injured in a shooting in north London.

Police were called to Station Road, Wood Green, shortly before midnight on Monday following reports of gunfire.

A 25-year-old man was found shot in the leg. He was rushed to hospital by paramedics and, at this stage, his injuries are not believed to be life-threatening.

Police investigating the shooting said they are keeping an "open mind" as to the motive of the shooter.

Road users have been warned to avoid Wood Green High Road as the junction with Lordship Lane and Station Road is closed. Officers said "significant traffic delays are anticipated".

Residents expressed shock at the incident on social media.

One person tweeted: "Wood Green is on lock down", while another posted: "What the is happening in Wood Green? Massive Police Corden around the junction at Wood Green Station".

Anyone who witnessed this incident or has information that could assist the investigation is asked to contact 101, @MetCC or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
C ampaigners who object to the 775 million Paddington Cube development have won permission to fight a fresh battle over the controversial scheme.

The decision, which was made in the High Court despite the project being given the official go-ahead, is likely to dismay the developers.

A senior judge ruled that Save Britains Heritage has arguable grounds for seeking a judicial review, after communities secretary refused to call in the project for a public inquiry.

The group is accusing the minister of unlawfully failing to give reasons why he decided not to intervene over the construction of the floating office block near Paddington station.

An artist's impression of how the Cube in Paddington will look

Health chiefs have expressed "serious concerns" that the development would impede ambulances at St Mary's Hospital, which is one of the capital's four major trauma centres and treated victims of the Grenfell Tower disaster.

It is also being opposed on the grounds that it will have a negative impact on an important conservation area in the heart of the capital.

Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, which runs St Mary's, joined Save Britain's Heritage and the Victorian Society earlier this year in asking the secretary of state to call in the project.

The judge heard that Westminster City Council, which initially gave its approval last December, has now issued a final permission for the 14-storey block.

Saira Sheikh QC, appearing for the planning authority, argued that, as permission had been given, there would be no purpose in the legal challenge proceeding.

Richard Harwood QC, appearing for Save Britain's Heritage, disagreed and said the Communities Secretary was under a legal duty to give reasons.

If the legal challenge succeeded and the decision not to call in was quashed, the Communities Secretary would have to reconsider the case, Mr Harwood told judge Sir Ross Cranston.
A lex Salmond is embroiled in a sexism row after he made a crude joke at Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

The former first minister of Scotland and now ex-MP made the gag in the second edition of his show on Sunday.

He told the audience: I promised you today wed either have Theresa May or Nicola Sturgeon, or Ruth Davidson or Melania Trump, but I couldnt make any of these wonderful women come

Following a drum roll delivered by his onstage band he added: To the show.

Critics blasted the former minister for reducing powerful women to sexualising punchlines and said he would not be winning any awards for his comedy show performed at the city's Assembly Rooms.

Alex Salmond has been criticised for his "degrading" joke about Theresa May and other female politicians / PA

Labour MSP Monica Lennon said: "It would be wrong to laugh these comments off as a bit of banter, this is a former First Minister degrading politicians.

"Alex Salmond should know that comments like these are simply unacceptable and he should apologise. It would set a horrendous example to young men if he tries to hide behind these sexist comments as risque humour."

But a spokesman for the 62-year-old ex SNP leader said: "Don't be absurd. They are green at the gills. Scottish Labour are just miffed they didn't get a mention.

"It's the Edinburgh Fringe we are at, not fringe politics with Labour."

Talat Yaqoo, founder of the Women 50:50 campaign group which lobbies for equal gender representation in politics, said: We hear time and time again that women are put off entering politics because of the vast sexism they face.

This attempt at a joke is an illustration of that sexism. Reducing the first minister and the prime minister to a sexualised punchline is unacceptable and we should expect better from someone with the political experience of Alex Salmond.

The Scottish Tory MSP Murdo Fraser said: Alex Salmond has gone from being first minister to a bore propping up the bar in the space for a few years.

He made the gag on the first day of his Unleashed gig, which has been described as "a festival of fun, friends and freedom", during a two-week run at the worlds largest arts festival.
P arliament racked up a 130,000 pest control bill in a bid to rid the Palace of Westminster of mice and moths disturbed by building work, it has been revealed.

Payment to control the infestation soared to almost a third higher than last years bill amid fears the political hub was overrun with vermin.

According to a report by the Daily Mail, costs covered employing a full time pest controller and setting more than 1,700 traps.

Some 411 mouse sightings were reported between January and June compared to just 313 the previous year, the newspaper reported.

Some 8,900 was spent on catching moths and 16,000 spent on a hawk to control pigeons.

Political puss: Larry the Downing Street cat

A spokesman for the House of Commons told the Daily Mail: The increase in pest control costs in 2016/17 is due to a higher number of maintenance projects across the estate which have disturbed pests and made them more visible, increasing the need for pest control, hawk flying and moth deterrents.

Office renovations on the estate have also resulted in an increased requirement for pest control measures.

However MPs taking the problem into their own hands have apparently been disciplined for taking cats into their offices.

Foreign Office: Palmerston was rescued from Battersea Dogs and Cats Home / Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

Minister Penny Mordaunt is among politicians who have been rebuked by officials for taking cats to their office.

She tweeted: A great believer in credible deterrence, Im applying the principle to the lower ministerial corridor mouse problem.

Tory backbencher Pauline Latham told the Daily Mail: There are definitely more mice about. We see them all the time.

Big Ben: The famous landmark is to fall silent for four years / EPA

They say we can't have a cat because they would go on desks and be unhygienic. What do they think the mice do when we're not there?

During recess they should have lots of cats. Maybe stray cats, borrow them from Battersea Cats' Home.

Political felines won the hearts of animal lovers across the UK during the General Election as images emerged of Larry the Downing Street cat and Palmerston from the Foreign Office.

Last year the parliamentary authorities reportedly wrote to politicians complaining about an increase in the number of banned animals appearing at Westminster.

In a message to the whips' office, the Serjeant at Arms said: This rule is in place because of the duty of care that would arise in relation to animal welfare and the health, safety and wellbeing of members, staff and visitors on the parliamentary estate.
T he cost of bacon sandwiches is set to soar thanks to rising prices of pork and butter.

An average 2.50 bacon butty is set to cost more as the essentials are hit by price hikes of up to 90 per cent.

International market figures show pork prices have hit a four-year high and butter is trading at almost twice as much since last year.

According to international bank, Rabobank, demand continues to outstrip supply which has a knock on effect for price tags here in the UK.

Butter production has also fallen by seven per cent with prices rising significantly as makers are turning their attention to cheddar for its higher profit margins.

The Grocer magazine said of the butter crisis: Prices have kept rising due to low supplies in the EU and high demand."
B ritain will attempt to retain access to the customs union for several years after Brexit.

The Government has unveiled plans to continue with current customs arrangements for at least three years after Britain officially leaves the EU in 2019.

The move, announced in a government paper published on Tuesday, marks a victory for those advocating a smooth transition deal rather than a "cliff-edge" feared by businesses.

The UK will set out its ambitious proposals for a time-limited transition period, which Brexit Secretary David Davis believes will create the "freest and most frictionless possible trade" with Europe.

It is hoped the temporary measure with avert border chaos and calm UK businesses worried by the effects of leaving the European Union.

Critics have dubbed the proposals "a fantasy" and said they will do little to provide the certainty businesses have called for.

It is hoped the 'temporary' plans will avert border chaos during Brexit / PA Archive/PA Images

Mr Davis, writing for the City AM newspaper, said the UK's new customs arrangements "will need to facilitate the freest and most frictionless possible trade in goods between Britain and the EU".

He said the Government would seek to negotiate an interim period with the EU in order to avoid "unnecessary disruption".

He added: "That would be a strong indicator to all our businesses and citizens that politicians on both sides are serious about finding a constructive outcome that works for all involved. Doing so is our shared duty.

"The united desire to avoid unnecessary disruption or a disorderly exit for the United Kingdom from the European Union is a strong foundation for the negotiations."

Ministers have been warned about the strain ports could be put under if they face a big increase in bureaucracy for dealing with goods entering and leaving the country.

The proposals for new customs arrangements to allow trade with the EU are being outlined in the first of a series of "future partnership papers" being released by the Government.

Although negotiations on a new system are not scheduled to start for some time, the Government said setting out its aims showed the UK's "desire to ensure our exit from the EU is smooth, orderly and successful".

One option being put forward by Mr Davis for new arrangements would see the UK manage a new customs border with administration streamlined to the "fullest extent possible".

Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, called the proposals "incoherent and inadequate" in response to pleas for certainty from British businesses.

He said: "The Cabinet remain split on key issues and cannot decide between two very different but equally unachievable options.

"The first proposal suggests 'a new customs border with the EU' could be introduced without disrupting trade; the second suggests a new borderless customs partnership could somehow be agreed while Britain also signs external trade deals.

"These fantastical and contradictory proposals provide no guidance for negotiators or certainty for businesses.

It comes after Chancellor Philip Hammond and International Trade Secretary Liam Fox said the UK would pull out of both the single market and the customs union in 2019.

Labour former shadow chancellor Chris Leslie, a leading supporter of the Open Britain campaign group, said: "It looks like the new unified position in the Cabinet is to return the Government to the territory of wanting to have their cake and eat it.

He added: "It is a fantasy to pretend we can have the freest and most frictionless trade possible with our largest partner when the Government remain intent on pulling Britain out of the customs union."

Tom Brake, the Liberal Democrats Brexit spokesman, said the Government's "extreme Brexit will end up leaving Britain poorer".
A team of doctors and nurses is taking hospital equipment from Britain to Iraq to treat Peshmerga fighters and civilians injured in the conflict against Islamic State.

The medics, who will by led by orthopaedic surgeons Deiary Kader and Richard Field, expect to conduct at least 35 operations at a hospital in Erbil in Kurdish Iraq. Their patients will include Kurdish troops wounded by bullets during the recent battle for Mosul as well as members of families hurt in the fighting.

To help them perform the surgery safely, they will be using anaesthetic equipment which has been decommissioned by South West London Elective Orthopaedic Centre at Epsom Hospital, and transported to Iraq.

Professor Kader, an Iraqi Kurd who came to Britain as a refugee in 1993, said the aim was to help poorer Kurds who had suffered conflict injuries that they could not afford to have treated.

We will be operating on injured Peshmerga, their families and civilians who have fled from danger. We treat every poor person who cannot afford the burden of travelling abroad for high-tech modern treatment.

Some have blunt trauma injuries, some have bullet injuries. Most have been affected by conflict. Some have had fractures before, some have severely deformed joints, arthritis as a result of trauma. We do surgery on the destitute and the underprivileged. Professor Kader, 52, is a knee specialist whose career includes a period as team doctor to Newcastle United. He said the donated equipment had been replaced by more modern machinery in Epsom, but was still safer and better than that currently in Kurdish Iraq.

Taking these machines will be helping to deliver safer healthcare. They will be used to put patients to sleep and monitor them while they are operated on, he said.

Our hospital in Epsom decommissioned them after acquiring new ones. They are high quality and much safer than the ones in Kurdistan. We do fractures, multiple ligament injuries, hip, ankle and knee surgery.

He emphasised that patients of all faiths would be treated. NGMV, the charity which he set up to carry out such missions, has been going to Iraq for six years to help injured people. We have treated thousands of patients. We have never discriminated, he said.

Professor Field travelled to the Tunisian border in 2011 to treat victims of the conflict in Libya.

Six other medical staff will join the trip to Erbil this month, including a surgeon from Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and nurses.
A newlywed Cambridge University student was killed during a terrorist attack in poverty-stricken Burkina Faso.

Tammy Chen, 34, was at the Aziz Istanbul restaurant in the capital, Ouagadougou, when suspected Islamic extremists opened fire on dining patrons on Sunday.

The "exceptional PHD student was one of 18 killed in the devastating attack, which also left at least 22 wounded.

It is believed she was pregnant when she died, according to the Cambridge News.

Her husband Mehsen Fenaiche is also thought to have died in the attack, the newspaper reported.

Ms Chen, who was originally from Canada, was studying for a doctorate in international development at Gonville and Caius college, and is believed to have been visiting the impoverished West African nation for a charity trip with her husband.

Tammy Chen (right) and her husband Mehsen Fenaiche were killed in the attack / Facebook

A statement issued by the college on Tuesday said that the entire Caius community were "shocked and devastated" at the news of her death.

Caius graduate tutor Dr Jonathan Evans said she was "a bright and enthusiastic student, and a warm and compassionate human being".

He added: "She was determined to pursue her goals, undaunted by difficult and challenging circumstances, and driven by a constant desire to help others.

"Tammy enriched the life of everyone she met."

It was the second terrorist atrocity to have rocked Burkina Faso in less than two years, after jihadists killed 30 people in a similar attack at the nearby Cappuccino cafe last year.
A senior German politician has spoken out over concerns not enough people living in Berlin actually speak the country's language.

Jens Spahn, Merkel's right-wing deputy finance minister, told a German newspaper that it increasingly drives me up the wall that waiters in some Berlin restaurants only speak English.

He told Neue Osnabrucker Zeitung: You would never find this craziness in Paris.

Some districts of the German capital have become popular in recent years with ex-pats including Americans and Brits, and restaurants have sprung up to cater to them.

Mr Spahn called on foreigners living in Germany to learn the language and added that it was something we can and should expect of every immigrant.

His comments came after a journalist writing for Berlin newspaper Tagesspiegel told how on a recent visit to a French cafe in the capital's hip Neukolln district none of the four waiters spoke German.

Hello, how are you, was becoming the standard greeting in Berlin, he wrote, adding that his girlfriend felt "uncomfortable" in the cafe - especially since there was no written menu.

Mr Spahn, who belongs to the Christian Democratic Union, is not the only German lawmaker to have raised the issue of Germany's language.

Three MPs from different parties recently wrote to the German chancellor to press for more EU documents to be available in their language.

"In addition to the equal use of the German language as a working language in the bodies of the European Union and increased use in all international institutions, the German language especially needs to be thoroughly used in our own country," wrote Johannes Singhammer of the CSU party, Gunter Krichbaum of the CDU, and the SPD's Axel Schafer.

Some politicians, however, have chosen to highlight the benefits of Berlin's increasingly bilingual culture.

Ramona Pop, a Green party politician, has said that good command of the English language was better for business.

Online forums are replete with English-speaking people who plan to move to Berlin asking questions such as: "Going to Berlin. I don't speak German. How rough will that be?"

"I went to Berlin with zero English and was 100% fine. Almost everyone speaks at least a bit of English," came one reply.
T hree British men have been sentenced to caning after sexually assaulting a woman whilst on a stag party in Singapore.

Khong Tam Thanh, 22, Le Michael, 24 and Vu Thai son, also 24, were initially charged with raping the 23-year-old Malaysian woman but pleaded guilty to the lesser charges of sexual assault and outrage of modesty.

The court heard how the men took it in turns to have sex with the woman as she lay unconscious in the hotel room.

The Judge described their behaviour as reprehensible and sentenced them to between five and six-and-a-half years in jail with between five and eight strokes of the cane.

Jailed: Le Michael, 24, was one of the three men convicted / AFP/Getty Images

Last year the men travelled to Singapore for a bachelor party for Khongs brother.

After attending a music festival the stag group of nine men met with a woman who agreed to go back to the hotel with one of the members of the group.

Later Khong, Le and Vu quietly entered the hotel room as she lay unconscious and had sex with her. She work up to find Le assaulting her.

Sentencing the three, Judicial Commissioner Hoo Sheau Peng said: While she was asleep, and quite unable to protect herself, they took advantage of her vulnerable state so as to commit these serious sexual crimes... In doing so, they showed no respect for her dignity and autonomy, and no regard for any harm and hurt they might cause to her.
A ngry protesters toppled a statue of a Confederate statue during a rally in response to violence by white supremacists.

The activists gathered in Durham, North Carolina, after anti-fascist campaigner Heather Heyer died after being mown down by a car in Charlottesville at the weekend.

Footage posted to social media showed a protestor putting a rope around the statue before it was yanked off its pedestal to the cheers of the assembled crowds.

The statue had shown a boy with a gun on top of a concrete column, with the inscription: "In memory of the boys who wore gray."

The demonstration was one of many held across the US to vent public fury over the death of 32-year-old Ms Heyer, who was mown down by a car as she protested against a far-right rally on Saturday.

At least 19 others were injured.

The suspect, 20-year-old James Field, was allegedly seen with members of a far-right group and holding a shield with an ultra-nationalist symbol on it before the incident.

Why are Confederate statues controversial? Confederate statues are divisive since they represent a rebellion by the American South against anti-slavery laws. During the civil war of 1861-65, seven southern states formed an army and rebeled against President Abraham Lincoln's anti-slavery reforms. Confederate statues are criticised for celebrating racism and slavery, although their defenders say they commemorate an important part of history. The violence on Saturday began with a far-right protest against the removal of the Confederate general Robert E. Lee, who commanded the Confederate Army of North Virginia until their surrender in 1865. The Southern Poverty Law Centre estimates that there are more than 700 Confederate statues across the US.

Politicians and other prominent public figures slammed US president Donald Trump's apparent reluctance to rebuke neo-Nazi groups in the wake of the tragedy.

It was not until Monday that Mr Trump spoke personally to specifically condemn far-right extremists, saying: "Racism is evil ... Those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans."

Governor of North Carolina, Roy Cooper, said protesters angry about the weekend's "unacceptable" events should find different ways to take action.

He wrote on Twitter: "The racism and deadly violence in Charlottesville is unacceptable but there is a better way to remove these monuments."

Some states are making efforts to remove Confederate symbols - a statue of general Robert E. Lee was taken off its plinth in New Orleans this summer.

However, far-right groups oppose the removals, often travelling from other states to stage demonstrations.
U S president Donald Trump has retweeted a man who called him a fascist.

In what looked like an accident, Mr Trump forwarded to his 34 million followers a message by British man Mike Holden saying: @foxandfriends and @realDonaldTrump Hes a fascist, so not unusual.

Mr Holdens tweet was in response to a story by Fox News that Mr Trump was seriously considering a pardon for ex-sheriff of Arizona Joe Arpaio.

Mr Arpaio was two weeks ago found guilty of breaking a court order to stop racially profiling Latinos.

Mr Holdens notifications feed was plunged into chaos as Trump supporters tweeted criticism at him

When he realised that he had been retweeted by the US president, though, he responded with enthusiasm.

OMG I DIDN'T REALISE HE RTD IT!!! I'M RETIRING FROM TWITTER, MY WORK IS DONE!! he tweeted.

He said he was taking the retweet as an official endorsement.

I'm going to put Endorsed by the President of the United States on my bio, as soon as they have a decent one! he wrote.

He then updated his bio to say: Officially Endorsed by the President of the United States. I wish that were a good thing.

The retweet was deleted a short time later by the US president.

But the publicity storm had only just begun.

Phone call with a Washington Post reporter. Pretty standard dinnertime really, wrote Mr Holden.
T he tense stand-off between North Korea and the United States eased today as Kim Jong-un appeared to back off over his threat to target missiles at waters near Guam.

But the rogue regimes leader warned he could change his mind if the Yankees persist in their extremely dangerous reckless actions.

Pyongyangs state media reported that while Kim had decided against firing four missiles at the US territory in the Pacific Ocean for now, the launch could still happen at any time.

It would, said Kim, be a most delightful historic moment and wring the windpipes of the Yankees and point daggers at their necks.

North Korean state TV makes claims about Kim Jong-un

Despite the colourful language, the move will help dial back tensions in the region, which rose last week with a war of words between President Donald Trump and North Koreas leadership.

Mr Trump warned that the US military was locked and loaded and could launch a fire and fury strike against North Korea.

Pyongyang threatened to target Guam in enveloping fire with a provocative ballistic missile attack.

Concern in Washington had been growing that North Korea would go ahead with the threat after withdrawing its ambassadors from China, Russia and the US.

Kim had also remained out of sight recently. In the past, his disappearance from public view has been followed by a missile test. However, he visited his ballistic missile command yesterday.

The development will be seen by Trump supporters as a victory for the presidents tough stance and his uncompromising statements amid fears that Kim may be less than a year away from developing a nuclear warhead capable of reaching the US.

Guam governor Eddie Calvo said he was grateful that Mr Trump took a strong stand against North Korea.

Everyone who grew up in the school-yard in elementary school, we understand a bully, Mr Calvo said yesterday. Kim Jong-un is a bully with some very strong weapons, a bully has to be countered very strongly. Sometimes a bully can only be stopped with a punch in the nose.

China has been putting heavy pressure on Pyongyang to reduce its threats.

In line with new UN sanctions, Beijing put more pressure on its trading partner to behave yesterday by banning a number of North Korean products, including the purchase of coal, iron, lead and seafood. As well as being its only ally, China buys 90 per cent of North Koreas exports.

Today, South Korean president Moon Jae-in said there would be no military action without Seouls consent.

Military action on the Korean peninsula can only be decided by South Korea and no one else can decide to take military action without the consent of South Korea, he insisted. The government, putting everything on the line, will block war by all means.

China is urging South Korea and America to call off a planned joint military drill next week that is likely to irritate the North.
T he only daughter of the Sultan of Malaysias Johor district married a Dutch property developer in a lavish ceremony on Monday.

The streets of the state were adorned with flags in celebration as Princess Tunku Tun Aminah Maimunah Iskandariah, 31, married 28-year-old Dennis Muhammad Abdullah.

More than 1000 members of the public were invited to attend the main wedding event, which involved a formal sitting-in-state ceremony.

And others were able to watch the event on a large public screen in city squares in Johor.

Royal wedding: The couple have been together three years / EPA

The bride, the only daughter of the powerful Sultan, wore a simple and elegant cream gown with a lace veil and sparkling tiara.

The couple met three years ago in a cafe in Malaysia when the Amsterdam-born groom was named Dennis Verbaas. In 2015, he embraced Islam and now works as a property developer in Johor.

In a statement, the Princess said: "We will move into our own home and start life anew as husband and wife. It will be the first time I will be living alone and away from my parents and family.
A Swiss hotel has sparked outrage after signs telling Jewish guests to shower before entering its swimming pool appeared.

The Paradies Arosa hotel in eastern Switzerland triggered formal complaints of anti-Semitisim after a picture of the sign was posted on Facebook.

It read: To our Jewish guests, women, men and children, please take a shower before you go swimming.

The sign at the hotel in the Alpine village of Arosa in the east of the country, added: If you break the rules Im forced to [close] the swimming pool for you.

On Twitter, Israeli deputy foreign minister Tzipi Hotovely called for "justice".

Swiss Tourism spokesman Markus Berger called the sign "unacceptable", adding it has been removed and hotel management has apologised.

Mr Berger cited a trend among some Orthodox Jews of summer travel to the area.

Hotel manager Ruth Thomann was quoted in Swiss media saying: "I wrote something naive on that poster".

She aded that she was not anti-Semitic and admitted her "choice of words was a mistake".
P olice in India have arrested four people suspected of leaking episodes of Game of Thrones before they were aired on HBO.

Authorities have confirmed that three of those arrested are current employees of Prime Focus Technology, while one is a former employee.

The Mumbai-based company stores and processes the fantasy show for Indian streaming site, Hotstar.

We investigated the case and have arrested four individuals for unauthorised publication of the fourth episode from season seven," Deputy Commissioner of Police Akbar Pathan told AFP news agency.

game of thrones S7 E6 trailer

We have arrested the four accused. Three of them are employees of the firm while one is a former employee, he added.

Two weeks ago an episode of Game of Thrones was leaked online a few days ahead of its air date, being made available on Google Drive and quickly circulated on Reddit on the Friday, before being removed.

The copy of the eagerly-awaited new episode featured a for internal viewing only watermark, suggesting that it is the genuine episode.

Game of Thrones: Season 7 - In pictures 1 /28 Game of Thrones: Season 7 - In pictures Kit Harington as Jon Snow HBO Nathalie Emmenuel as Missandei, Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister, Conleth Hill as Lord Varys, Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen and Jacob Anderson as Grey Worm Home Box Office Maisie Williams as Arya Stark HBO The Knight King HBO Sophie Turner as Sansa Stark Nathalie Emmanuel as Missandei HBO Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen HBO Gwendoline Christie as Brienne of Tarth, Kristofer Hivju as Tormund Giantsbane HBO Kit Harington as Jon Snow HBO The Knight King HBO Lena Headey as Cersei Lannister and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Jaime Lannister HBO Sophie Turner as Sansa Stark and Aidan Gillen as Petyr Baelish HBO Rory McCann as Sandor Clegane HBO Conleth Hill as Lord Varys HBO Isaac Hempstead Wright as Bran Stark, Ellie Kendrick as Meera Reed HBO Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen Home Box Office HBO Maisie Williams as Arya Stark HBO Bella Ramsey as Lyanna Mormont The Knight King HBO Lena Headey as Cersei Lannister and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Jaime Lannister HBO

HBO was subject to a cyber-attack last week, but distribution partner Star India quickly confirmed that the leak came from their compromised database.

This confirms the compromise of episode 4 of Game of Thrones Season 7, earlier this afternoon, said a Star India spokesperson.

We take this breach very seriously and have immediately initiated forensic investigations at our and the technology partners end to swiftly determine the cause.

This is a grave issue and we are taking appropriate legal remedial action.

A separate cyber-attack on HBO saw a number of episodes, scripts and personal cast information fall into the hands of hackers last week.


I ts being touted as an alternative to the Great British Bake Off for loyal BBC fans following the show's departure to Channel 4.

And while the Big Family Cooking Showdown does have 2015 winner Nadiya Hussain on the presenting team and a healthy dose of Bake Off-style warmth, thats just about where the similarities end.

The new series is about cooking instead of baking and features families working together to wow the judges, plus theres not a tent in sight.

Heres everything you need to know about the new show.

Who are the families?

The families hail from all different corners of the UK, with different generations of home cooks on each team.

Contestants include the Marks, who hope to use their Swedish heritage to make their dishes stand out; the Karims, headed up by mum Zakila whose home-made samosas are so popular shes started selling them in the office; and the Massacessi family with father and daughter duo Giordano and Niamh who perform music together in the local Italian restaurant where they work.

How does the competition work?

Each week two families of home cooks will go head to head to prove their skills over the course of three rounds. First up is the 10 challenge, where each group will be tasked with feeding four people on a budget of just 10, in an hour and a quarter.

Candice Brown: BBC'S Final Great British Bake Off Winner 1 /16 Candice Brown: BBC'S Final Great British Bake Off Winner Jane Beedle (right), Andrew Smyth and Candice Brown, who has been crowned champion of this year's Great British Bake Off Mark Bourdillon/Love Productions/BBC Mary Berry with Candice Brown, who was crowned champion of this year's Great British Bake Off Love Productions/BBC Paul Hollywood hugging Candice Brown, who has been crowned champion of this year's Great British Bake Off Love Productions/BBC Candice Brown won the Great British Bake Off Love Productions/BBC Mary Berry shaking hands with Candice Brown, who has been crowned champion of this year's Great British Bake Off. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Issue date: Wednesday October 26, 2016. The PE teacher, 31, took the title ahead of rivals Jane Beedle and Andrew Smyth and said it was the biggest moment of her life so far Love Productions/BBC Mary Berry with Candice Brown, who was crowned champion of this year's Great British Bake Off Love Productions/BBC Candice Brown, who has been crowned champion of this year's Great British Bake Off Love Productions/BBC Candice is embraced by her proud boyfriend Mark Bourdillon/Love Productions/BBC Candice in action during her Showstopper Tom Graham/Love Productions/BBC Candice decorating and piping Love Productions/BBC Candice in action during her Showstopper Joseph Cavaciuti/Love Productions/BBC Candice in action during her technical challenge Tom Graham/Love Productions/BBC

Next judges Rosemary Shrager and Giorgio Locatelli will visit each of the families homes to sample their cooking in situ, with the contestants whipping up a main course and a dessert in an hour and a half.

Finally the families will return to the studio to cook a showstopping starter and a main course for the judges and audience to sample.

The successful contestants from each of the eight heats will then go through to the semi final stage, before three families face off in the final.

Who are the presenters?

Great British Bake Off trailer released

Bake Off champion Hussain, fresh from her BBC series Nadias British Food Adventure, will be on hosting duties alongside Radio 2 and Strictly spin off It Takes Two presenter Zoe Ball.

Who are the judges?

Hopefuls will be submitted their creations to renowned cooking teacher Shrager and Michelin-starred chef Locatelli for approval. The judging duo will even be visiting contestants home in a bed to find the most skilful home cooks.

Whens it on?

The 12 part series will air weekly on Tuesdays at 8pm on BBC Two, with the first show on August 15.
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Despite their age, the B-52 heavy bombers of the U.S. Air Force continue to be upgraded and updated. These were elderly (built in the early 1960s) B-52s have proved to useful to ignore. The latest upgrade was more of a reliability test. In mid-2017 there was a test of the bombers ability to drop the PDU-5 leaflet bomb. This is a variant of the cluster bomb long carried by B-52s. But instead of dispersing 247 bomblets from a larger canister the PDU-5 disperses 60,000 leaflets over several square kilometers. The PDU-5 has been used regularly since 2001 to warn people (usually in target areas) that a bombing or artillery attack is coming. Normally PDU-5s are delivered by jet fighters but helicopters have been used and the test drops from the B-52H is to ensure that there are no problems with the bomb colliding with the aircraft once dropped.

The B-52 PDU-5 test wasnt an upgrade as much as standard safety check. The B-52H has a better reliability record than much more recent aircraft and much smaller aircraft. For example the U.S. Air Force mission capable or readiness rate (percentage of available aircraft able to do their job) varies by type and technology. Age has less to do with it than you might think. As of 2015 the B-52H rate was 72 percent compared to 47 percent for the B-1B heavy bomber and 71 percent for the F-15E fighter bomber.

The last round of hardware upgrades was in 2015 and included installing some improvements to the aircraft electronics. That came a few years after another upgrade that enabled B-52 crew to program (enter GPS coordinates for a target) smart bombs carried internally. Previously only the smart bombs carried under the wings could be programmed by the crew. This upgrade simply means wiring the bomb bay so that smart bombs can be plugged into the aircraft fire control system. This was important because that made it possible to carry other programmable weapons like the MALD (radar and anti-aircraft missile decoys) and the JASSM (long range smart bombs used for taking out enemy air defenses). By 2017 about half the B-52s had their bomb bay wiring upgraded.

A decade ago the B-52 was modified so it could carry over a hundred of the 130 kg (285 pound) Small Diameter Bombs (SDB, also known as the GBU-39/B). Back in 2006, the rotary bomb rack inside the B-52 was modified to carry 32 SDBs instead of 15 larger bombs. The B-52 could already carry more SDBs under its wings using special racks that held 4 SBDs where one larger bomb would normally be.

Until the recent upgrades, the SBDs carried internally had to receive their target coordinates on the ground, not in the air. The ability to enter or change GPS coordinates in smart bombs is necessary now because heavy bombers typically stay in the air over the combat zone for 8 hours or more at a time, delivering smart bombs as needed by troops on the ground. The B-52 also has its own targeting pod now that enables the crew to spot targets, program one of its smart bombs, and take them out without needing GPS coordinates from someone on the ground.

This greater bomb carrying capability makes the B-52 even more effective, as it is cheaper to have one "bomb truck" over the combat zone rather than several fighter-bombers. With a max takeoff weight of 240-250 tons the BUFF (Big Ugly Fat Fellow) is basically a large aircraft designed to carry bombs cheaply and efficiently. The readiness rate of these bombers remains high because it was not designed to operate at supersonic speed or carry out stressful maneuvers. Although 60 years old, most of the internal gear has been replaced with modern electronics and furnishings. Its all flat screens and modern gear. Look closer and you see a lot of 60 year old metal.

The B-52 is one of the cheapest (along with the B-1B) to operate heavy bombers in the air force, and one of them can cover all of Afghanistan. These B-52s are often based on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia and from there can support operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. In late 2001, ten B-52s dropped a third of the bomb tonnage in Afghanistan. That's a remarkable record for a 60-year-old aircraft design. The B-52 carried that much of the load because it was the most cost-effective American heavy bomber. The B-52 also has a lower accident rate than the B-1 and B-2. Compared to the supersonic B-1 and high-tech B-2, the B-52 is just a flying truck. Thus the B-52, despite its age, was long the cheapest, safest, and most reliable way to deliver smart bombs over Afghanistan. In the last few years the B-1B became the cheapest (per flight hour) heavy bomber to operate but not by much and mainly because the cost of maintaining a 60 year old aircraft gets higher with age simply because more things wear out and have to be replaced. But because of its large bomb load and ability to handle smart bombs the B-52H is one of the cheapest ways to deliver a smart bomb.

For example, over Afghanistan, carrying a dozen 909 kg (2000-pound) JDAM (GPS-guided bombs) or a larger number of smaller bombs, a B-52 could circle a combat area for hours, waiting for the special force guys or Air Force controllers on the ground to send them the coordinates of a target. The JDAM landed (over 90 percent of the time) within 16 meters (50 feet) of the location the ground troopers wanted it. Better yet, most of the bombs arrived within 10 minutes of the request.

The B-52 was the principal heavy bomber throughout most of the Cold War (1947-91). The B-52 prototype first flew in 1952. The last one built, a B-52H, was in 1962. The B-52 has seen a lot of action in Vietnam, the Persian Gulf War, in the Balkans, and over Afghanistan. It has a crew of five (pilot, copilot, navigator, electronics warfare officer, and radar navigator). There used to be a gunner for a rear-firing 20mm cannon but this was eliminated in the 1990s. Automation can reduce crew size even more. The 1970s era B-1B has a crew of four, and the 1980s era B-2 has a crew of two. The only B-52s flying are the B-52H model, which has been much modified since the last one rolled off the assembly line.

A true replacement for the B-52 was never built because no one foresaw the development of such accurate smart bombs and the ability of the U. S. Air Force to destroy most anti-aircraft defenses. Indeed, even when faced with heavy defenses, the B-52 was able to fight its way through. During the twelve days of Linebacker II raids against North Vietnam in 1972, 15 B-52s were shot down by Soviet-built SAM-2 missiles. The 150 B-52s stationed in Guam flew 729 missions, for a loss rate of 2 percent. But because of the number of sorties flown, 10 percent of the B-52s involved were brought down. Of the 92 airmen in the downed aircraft, 33 died.

After Vietnam the B-52s received several generations of new electronic warfare equipment, learning much from the experience during Linebacker II. But there never was enough money to keep the B-52 completely up to date, especially with the equipment needed to use some of the newer bombs. As a result, some B-52s got their JDAM equipment just before the 2001 war in Afghanistan. The B-52 was upgraded to use JDAM before the B-1B because the B-52 is more reliable. In any event, the upgrade was cheap - wiring from the weapons officer's station to the bombs so GPS location data could be changed in flight. The 50-year-old B-52 soon became the weapon of choice over Afghanistan, able to hang around for hours and drop one-ton JDAM bombs on demand.

Currently, the Air Force has the capacity to shut down the high-altitude missile systems of just about anyone and then bring the B-52s in at high altitude to avoid low-altitude anti-aircraft guns and mobile antiaircraft missile systems. The B-1B and B-2 were built to deal with even more intense antiaircraft defenses they would face in the Soviet Union. But with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, no one else had such an air defense system. Perhaps, in the future, a nation like China may build another such formidable antiaircraft defense system. For the moment, because of the lack of first rate air defenses to stop it, the B-52 can still hack it in the combat zone, even delivering nuclear weapons.

Currently the air force expects to keep some (as many as fifty) B-52H bombers in service until the 2040s.
In mid-2017 China ordered four more Russian Mi-17E transport helicopters, for delivery within a year. This comes after another order in late 2016 for 18 more Russian transport helicopters. This order included eight Ansats (a three ton transport similar to the UH-1 and used as an ambulance), four Ka-32s (the civilian version of the 12 ton Ka-27 naval helicopter that can carry up to four tons) and six Mi-17Es. Despite having their own helicopter industry (including licensed manufacture of some European and Russian designs) China continues to buy Mi-17Es from Russia because China needs more military transport helicopters right now and still needs other types of Russian helicopters in such small quantities that producing them in China is not practical. The Russian military still has budget problems and the Russian Helicopter Corporation (a recent merger of most Russian helicopter firms) is geared mainly for export sales and has the capability to expedite orders for favored customers, which China qualifies as. Moreover the 2014 sanctions imposed on Russia caused Russian Helicopters to lose some business, especially from Afghanistan (but paid for by the United States). Afghanistan is now replacing its Mi-17s with UH-60s.

The last major Chinese Mi-17E import order was completed in 2014 when the last of 52 Mi-171Es China ordered since 2012 were delivered. This model can carry up to 37 passengers or four tons of cargo and has engines that are particularly effective under "hot and high" conditions. This is useful for the Chinese, who need equipment that can operate in Tibet, where many areas are at altitudes of over 4,000 meters. China is quite fond of the Mi-17E and the older Mi-8 it is derived from even though China has based its locally made designs on Western models. Then again so have the Russians, especially since the 1990s. But the Mi-17 is like the DC-3 or C-130; a design you can improve but not replace.

Currently China has about 300 Mi-17/Mi-8 type helicopters and over 500 locally made helicopters. Most (Z9/Z-19) of these local builds are based on the Eurocopter AS 365 Dauphin while another hundred locally built Z-10 gunships were based on a Russian design. China has shown a preference for the Mi-8/17 design and would like to more than double its force of Mi-17s.

In 2010 Chinese and Russian helicopter manufacturers established a joint venture to perform maintenance and refurbishment on helicopters, especially those of Russian design. This was part of a larger plan, which also included the factory in China building Mi-171s. This came in the wake of a 2008 China deal that allows China to legally manufacture the Mi-171 at the Sichuan Lantian Helicopter Company Limited (SLHCL). There was also a proposal for China and Russia to jointly develop a large transport helicopter, based on the existing Mi-26T (a 20 ton aircraft that can carry 80 passengers). The Mi-26T model was modified to suit Chinese needs and the Chinese military and commercial firms continue to buy it from Russia. There may be other joint development deals to produce updated versions of existing Russian helicopter designs. This sort of thing could be mutually beneficial. China now has a domestic source for inexpensive transport helicopters which its civilian and military users are demanding many of.

The M-171 is basically an inexpensive transport helicopter. But it can easily be modified to carry weapons, or any other specialized gear. Some of the Mi-171s are even being equipped with radars and other sensors, to be used for reconnaissance and surveillance. The Mi-171 is based on the 1970s era Mi-17, which is the export version of the similar Mi-8. Weighing about 12 tons, and carrying a four ton load, the Mi-171 has a range of 590 kilometers at a cruising speed of 250 kilometers per hour. There is a crew of three and as many passengers as can be squeezed in (up to 40 people, but usually 20-30.) A sling underneath can also carry up to four tons. Several hundred Mi-171s have been exported by Russia. The helicopter is rugged, inexpensive ($4-5 million each) and better suited for less affluent nations. Development of this model was completed in 1998 and Russia has been pushing sales hard.
Over the weekend Russia made a point of revealing another of their post-Cold War EW (electronic warfare) aircraft. This one is called the Il-22PP and described as an airborne electronic jammer that can block all manner of signals but particularly the digital ones (like Link 16) favored by Western warplanes. The Il-22PP was also described as being able to protect itself from anti-radiation missiles, like the American AGM-88. Since late 2015 Russia has revealed (to the public) the existence of other post-Cold War electronic warfare aircraft by using them in Syria or over Ukraine. Not so the Il-22PP, at least not yet.

An even more interesting tech mystery surfaced nearby as Ukraine denied that it had ever exported to North Korea ICBM rocket engines or the plans to build them. This comes after technical experts noted that the new North Korean ICBM was using engines very similar to those built at the Ukrainian Yuzhmash factory. During the Cold War Yuzhmash produced RD-250 engines for the Soviet 1970s era R-36M (SS-18 or "Satan" in the West) ICBM. The RS-18 was developed as a "light" ICBM, in effect, a competitor for the U.S. Minuteman series. The R-36M was designed in 1969, first tested in 1972 and entered service in 1975. It's the largest ICBM the Russians ever built, with a liftoff weight of 210 tons and a warhead weighing eight tons. While it's a liquid fuel rocket, storable liquid fuel is used. This avoids lengthily fueling procedures common with earlier Russian ICBMs. Modifications and upgrades for the missile produced six separate models, the last one entering service in 1990. After 2000 Russia wanted to refurbish a hundred of the most recently built (in the 1980s, for the most part) R-36Ms. Shortages of cash and resources reduced the number refurbished and as of 2016 only about fifty were operational. By 2018 only about 30 will be working and by 2020 none will. Work on SS-18 components in the Yuzhmash plant ceased after Ukraine split from the Soviet Union in 1991 and Yuzhmash converted to building satellite launchers, which it still does. Russia was a customer but since 2014 Yuzhmash has put more emphasis on non-Russian customers. Yuzhmash executives point out that the RD-250 engines showed up in North Korea recently and Yuzhmash has had nothing to do with the RD-250 for over two decades while Russia still had RD-250s and maintains some ICBMs that use them. That means Russia has the people still familiar with the RD-250 and up-to-date plans on how the RD-250 is built. If anyone has spare RD-250s (to keep existing SS-18s operational) it is Russia. Ukrainians point out that Russia has more often been a source of illegally obtained military tech than Ukraine. Both Russia and Ukraine were sources of stolen military technology after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and it was easier to get Russian stuff to North Korea because the two share a common border. Meanwhile Ukraine sold a lot of Soviet era military tech to China, often legally (although the Russians didnt always agree). Ukraine blames these accusations on Russian Information War efforts against Ukraine to try and distract media attention from the continued Russian determination to seize and hold Ukrainian territory.

Speaking of corruption (which Ukraine suffers from a bit more than Russia) there has been more publicity about prosecutions of Russian managers in space program related industries. These investigations were known long before North Korea made its sudden advances in ICBM tech over the last year. The corruption in the Russian space program has been widespread and became a public matter (the government prefers to deal with corruption problems quietly) when it became obvious more than a decade ago that Russia was having problems building new ICBMs or satellite launchers. Recently the state controlled Russian media has had several stories of prosecutions for embezzlement and other misbehavior explain a lot of the financial and quality control issues in firms that design and build ICBMs and satellite launchers.

Syria

Russia, Iran and Turkey want to keep the Assads in power and develop better relations with the each other. Evidence of this strategy can be seen in the Russian monitored neutral (ceasefire or de-escalation) zones in southern Syria, along the Jordanian and Israeli borders. Since agree to on July 7th this zone is apparently working and was initially monitored by 400 Russian military police. Russia has since moved in more (now four) battalions of military police, many of them within sight of people on both sides of the Syrian border with Israel and Jordan. These police are also being used in the other neutral zones established in August. The problem is Iran and most Islamic terrorists, especially al Qaeda and ISIL have not agreed to observe the neutral zone. That results in some violence, mostly from ISIL. The other Islamic terror groups are willing to unofficially observe the ceasefire.

To deal with the remaining ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) threat (and any new Iranian ones) Israel made it clear that it was not bound by the neutral zone rules either. Yet since this neutral zone was declared Iran has behaved. This has something to do with Russian refusal to act against the increasingly loud and frequent Israeli reminders that their air force will attack any Iranian attempt to set up operations near the Israeli border. This is just the beginning of a long-term struggle for who will control what in Syria. Meanwhile further west in Lebanon Iranian controlled Hezbollah is more active on the Israeli border, even if some of these moves violate the UN agreement that ended the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel.

Once ISIL is gone as a major threat, perhaps by the end of 2017, the only thing left to fight over is how much of Syria will a post-war Syrian government control. Turkey wants to control most of the northern border, as least the parts that border Turkey and have Kurds on either side of the border. The Turkish plan is currently disputed by the Syrian Kurds, who want to control northeastern Syria (their ancestral homeland) and at least have access to the rest of the northern border, if not control of smaller border areas that were traditionally mostly Kurdish. Iran wants free access to southern Syria, especially the main roads from Iraq to southern Lebanon and areas along the Israeli border. Russia has a lease on a naval base on the Syrian coast (plus a nearby airbase) and wants to hold onto that. Some of these demands contradict others.

Israel is openly hostile to a permanent Iranian presence in Syria and Turkey quietly agrees. Russia supports that more openly and Israel keeps trying to improve relations with the unstable Turkish Islamic government. Recently American officials openly confirmed this understanding which was apparently worked out in at least one secret meeting between Israeli, American and Russian officials. The only thing that makes Russia, Iran and Turkey allies is their desire for the Assads to stay in power and keep Syria free of Sunni Islamic terrorists and Kurdish separatists. Turkey, Iran and Russia back the Assads directly (with cash, personnel and weapons) and coordinate their military operations to help the Assads survive. The Sunni Arab states want the Assads gone and are more open in opposing Iranian plans for post-war Syria. Despite opposition from Israel, the Arabs, the Americans and even some Iranian allies Iran is determined to have a land route from Iran to Lebanon and military installations in post-war Syria. Israel has made it clear that it will, and can, make sure that does not happen. Turkey and Russia recognize that Israel is not only the stronger military power here but also has the most at stake. For decades Iran has called for the destruction of Israel and that does not sit well with Turkey and Russia because both nations have had clashes with aggressive Iranian ambitions over the past few centuries.

Meanwhile the other ceasefire zones in central Syria (Homs) and elsewhere became active in early August. The violence declined but was not eliminated. As with the southern neutral zones (near Damascus and along the southern borders) not every armed group in or near the ceasefire zones has agreed to the ceasefire and even some who have are unable to prevent some of their factions or subordinate units from getting involved in unauthorized violence. Russia considers this a success because it reduces violence and can be used as a model to bring peace to the entire country. That implies defeat by the rebels, something none of the rebels see as a viable option.

Russian Attrition

Among the many problems have with its population, one that gets little notice outside Russia is the sharp decline in the working age (15-64) population. The drop began in 2010 when there were about 103 million working age Russians. Unless something drastic happens to reverse the situation the working age population will continue to decline by at least half a million people a year until the 2050s.

The current sanctions and police state government have made it worse. Since the Ukraine related sanctions hit in 2015 Russia has lost over two million more workers it cannot afford to lose. About a million of those were actually foreigners who came to fill jobs there were no Russians for as the economy still showed promise. But the decline of oil prices after 2013 followed by sanctions and more official hostility to outsiders sent these skilled foreigners home. At the same time many skilled Russians left and that continues. The reduced economic opportunities, corruption and police state policies discourage many Russians, especially skilled and educated ones, from having children. This makes the decline much worse, because the loss of skills is steeper than the loss of individual workers. This is particularly noticeable with the Slav (especially ethnic Russian) population, who are not only leaving but those who remain are most frequently not having children. Russia still has a lot of non-Slav minorities and these minorities have higher birth-rates than the ethnic Russians.

For centuries Russia (rebranded as the Soviet Union in the early 1920s) was considered a threat to its neighbors in part because of its larger population. But since the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991 (and half the population broke away to form 14 new nations) the remaining Russian population has been in decline. Twenty years after the Soviet Union collapsed, the Russian population implosion was getting worse. While in the 1990s the population was shrinking at a rate of .1 percent a year, in the first decade of the 21st century that increased to .2 percent a year. This was because the non-Slav Russians are having fewer children, just as the Slavs have been doing (or, rather, not doing) for decades. The Russian population had declined three percent since 1989, from 147 to 142.9 million. The proportion of the population that is ethnic Russian (Slav) declined from 81.5 percent to 77 percent in that same period. The Russian slide could have been worse had it not been for the fact that millions of ethnic Russians in the 14 new states felt unwelcome with government controlled by the locals, not Russians in far off Moscow. Often the locals wanted the ethnic locals in their midst gone and Russia made it easy for ethnic Russians to return to the motherland. This prevented the Russian population decline from being closer to ten percent. Until the 2014 invasion of Ukraine, sanctions and lower oil prices, the Russian birth rate was growing again. That has stopped since the invasion of Ukraine and more Russians are seeking to emigrate as are many foreigners working in Russia. The extent of this can be seen in Moscow where rents for high-end (Western) apartments (for wealthy Russians and foreign professionals) declined than 40 percent in a year.

Afghanistan

The U.S. and Afghanistan keep finding evidence that Russia is supplying weapons to the Taliban. When pressed Russian officials will talk about the Taliban are the only ones fighting ISIL in Afghanistan and need more weapons for that. This is absurd because Russia considers the Afghan heroin coming into Russia as a bigger threat than ISIL. The latest evidence of Russian arms getting to the Taliban comes from northern Afghanistan, where there is little ISIL activity but major heroin export routes to Central Asia and Russia. The Taliban has always been active up there when it comes to protecting those smuggling routes. .

Earlier in 2017 the American accused Russia of colluding with Iran, or Iranian arms smugglers, to supply the Taliban with weapons. Apparently Russia is again trying to destabilize the Afghan government so that they, and their ally Iran, will have more influence. This has been going on since the 1800s. But for over a thousand years before that warlords in Iran and northern India fought to control parts of Afghanistan, especially those areas that were part of the Silk Road between the Middle East (and Europe) and China (as well as stops along the way, like India and Iran.) Russia and Iran are concerned about the damage Afghan opium and heroin are doing (by creating millions of Russian and Iranian addicts) but are willing to tolerate the Afghan drug gangs if the export of the drugs can be better regulated to avoid Russia and Iran. That rarely works well but Russia, Iran and Pakistan are willing to try but understand that the American in particular and the West in general would never go along. Meanwhile Western nations are the main source of foreign aid that keeps the Afghan government going. Thus the Russians supplying weapons to the Taliban in northern Afghanistan.

Because of the Ukraine related sanctions on Russia it has proved difficult to keep the Afghan Air Force Russian helicopters operational. Two of the four Russian made Mi-35 helicopter gunships are grounded because of this and there are problems getting technical support for the 26 Mi-17 transport helicopters. The solution for this problem is to replace the Russian helicopters with American UH-60s. Some Afghan Mi-17 pilots have already had training for this and report that the conversion training is not a problem and for experienced pilots is quite easy. The Afghan Air Force expects to be receiving at least 18 UH-60s by the end of 2018. The U.S. has already supplied twenty MD-530F helicopters armed with machine-guns, missiles and rockets and the U.S. has agreed to supply 30 more. These are easier to operate and maintain than the Mi-35s and cheaper as well. Since UH-60s can be armed as well that will be the solution to the grounded Mi-35 problem. The Afghan Air Force plans to increase its helicopter force from 71 now to 214 by 2024 and replace all the Russian helicopters with American ones in the process.

August 12, 2017: The Defense Ministry announced that for the first time since World War II (or the Great Patriotic War to Russians) the air force will train women to be combat pilots. There were several hundred female combat pilots during World War II, many of them learning to fly before the war. Most of the female pilots flew small, slow night bombers that were so effective the Germans called all Russian night bombers night witches because they were difficult to shoot down at night and the female pilots were skilled at bringing damaged aircraft back to base, or at least away from the Germans. There were some female fighter pilots and a few became aces. But now, like so many other nations (even Moslem ones) the shortage of technically trained and mentally capable male pilots for warplanes has led one nation after another to recruit qualified women for the job.

The man responsible for rebuilding the Libyan Armed Forces and its current leader general Khalifa Belgacem Hiftar visited Russia once more. He has made several (since 2016) such visits and established good relationships with Russian political and military officials. Most of what was left of the pre-2011 Libyan armed forces was rebuilt by Hiftar, who was a Libyan Army officer who turned against Kaddafi in the 1980s and received asylum in the United States. But Hiftar was unacceptable to some of the factions the UN had united to form the GNA national government in 2016 and that turned out to be a bad decision. The rival HoR (House of Representatives) government in eastern Libya asked Russia for economic assistance and state controlled Russian oil company agreed to work with the Libyan NOC (National Oil Company) to repair, upgrade and expand Libyan oil facilities. Hiftar visits Egypt regularly and has managed to keep Egypt and a few other Arab states providing support. Egypt allows banned goods (like weapons and ammo) cross the border unhindered. Russia and many Arab states have pressured the UN to rethink its Libyan strategy and its support for the GNA. That eventually worked because in late July the two rival governments agreed to merge and Hiftar was a major player in making that happen. In addition to visiting Russia, in January 2017 Russia visited him when the Russian aircraft carrier Kuznetsov and its escorts arrived off the coast of eastern Libya. The carrier sent a helicopter to nearby Tobruk and picked up Hiftar and two other senior officers (all in uniform) and took them to the carrier. The visit to the Kuznetsov was captured on video and broadcast. The video showed the event treated as an official visit with sailors in dress uniforms lined up and a band playing the Libyan national anthem. Hiftar was given a tour of the ship and then held a video conference (not shown) with the Russian defense minister back in Moscow.

In the central Syria (Homs province) the Assad forces took advantage of their air power (mostly Russian) and the fact that most of Homs is thinly populated desert to raid an isolated ISIL position. The raid involved air strikes quickly followed by Syrian troops landing by helicopter. At least 31 died (25 Islamic terrorists and six soldiers). Many more ISIL men were captured (often because they were wounded). This raid was apparently for the purpose of taking prisoners and capture documents. It also boosts morale among the Assad forces and further demoralizes the rebels in general and ISIL in particular. This was the first such raid carried out deep in enemy territory and Russian media pointed out that Russian military advisors helped plan it but made no mention of Russian troops taking part in the fighting on the ground. It was mentioned that the new Russian Ka-52 helicopter gunship was involved and performed as expected. The Kamov Ka-52 is a two-seat version of the earlier Ka-50 gunship. It is a reconnaissance and attack helicopter whose development started in 1994 and the first flight took place in 1997. Until recently only Russia had been using it and in small number due budget restrictions. But now Russia is seeking export customers and deliberately uses new weapons in Syria in order to attract foreign buyers.

August 11, 2017: The Air Force announced that its new (and still not ready) stealth fighter had an official designation; Su-57. Formerly known as the T-50 (or PAK-FA) Russia still has India as a development partner and export customer for the new 5th generation stealth fighter. To do that Russia agreed in 2016 to cut the development cost by a third (to $8 billion) with India providing half that and Russia being responsible for any additional costs. In addition three of the eleven prototypes will be built to Indian specifications and the first of these will be flown to India by 2019. In return India will buy up to 250 Su-57s. Russia already has nine Su-57 prototypes flying, although one was damaged in a fire. Indian Air Force officials have been criticizing the progress of the Su-57 program for several years. This aircraft is the Russian answer to the U.S. F-22 and according to the Indians, who have contributed nearly a billion dollars (so far) to development of the Su-57, they are entitled by the 2007 agreement with Russian to have access to technical details. The Russians tried to withhold detailed development updates from their Indian partners. The Indians know from experience that when the Russians clam up about a military project it is usually because the news is bad and the Russians would rather not share. There are growing doubts about the Russian ability to develop the needed tech and pay for it, even with the Indian assistance. India and Russia play down the fact that the main reason for the Su-57 is to deal with Chinese efforts to get stealth fighters into service. Russia now says the Su-57 will enter service in 2019, or at least thats the current plan. The American F-22 entered service in 2006 and the F-35 ten years later. One of the Chinese stealth fighter designs (the J-20) is said to have entered service in early 2016 but it hasnt been seen much. About a dozen J-20s have been built. The Su-57 looks a lot like the F-22. The 37 ton Su-57 about the same weight as the F-22, and has a similar shape but lacks reliable engines and competitive electronics.

August 10, 2017: In Russia, the Indian Army was embarrassed when both the T-90S tanks it bought for the annual military competition broke down during the finals of one of the competitions the 19 participating nations engage in. To make matters worse the two T-90S vehicles were among those built under licenses in India. Russia has long blamed Indian manufacturing errors for Russian weapons built under license by the Indians having problems. The competition was part of the International Army Games which Russia has hosted every year since 2013 at their Alabino Ranges facility. While the Russians blame India for the embarrassing failure (via a broken fan belt and an oil leak) of Russias most modern tank designs India and Russia have other disputes about the quality of Russian work. One involves the carrier version of the MiG-29 Russia developed (and India paid) and sold to India. Now Russia is using this MiG-29K itself but Russia is accused of not helping much with the reliability problems India is having with their MiG-29Ks. Theres a similar problem with the new Su-57 stealth fighter, which India supplied much of the development money for. India has complained of numerous broken promises by the Russians but decades of buying Russian has made many Indian politicians reluctant to drop India as a supplier, at least not yet.

In Ukraine the government terminated a 2004 agreement with Russia to cooperate in exporting military systems that both nations contributed technology or manufacturing for. Since 2014 a lot of these systems have been withdrawn from production because of the Russian aggression.

August 3, 2017: The Russian government has gone public with denials that more Russian military personnel have been killed in Syria than have been reported. Currently the government official count is ten killed so far this year and 32 Russians killed in Syria since mid-2015. The actual number is believed to be 30-80 percent (or more) higher because of the growing use of Russian military contractors, who are not, for record keeping purposes, members of the Russian military. Recent reports in the West, backed up by data supplied by Russian families who have lost someone recently in Syria, put the total so far this year at 40. The government finally admitted that there are Russian volunteers in Syria but they are not military personnel (even if they are being used as such and serving alongside military personnel).

To make their Syria intervention work Russia had had to resort to Russian private security companies. About half these private security firms are believed to have organized combat units that are reliable enough to be used in place of scarce army special operations troops. By monitoring Russian language social media activity (which anyone can do) it has been noted that recent military veterans working for several of these private security companies have been in Syria and Ukraine. Casualties were suffered in both places although the duties of the contractors were different. In Syria the security contractors mainly guarded Russian bases but were also used in combat when they provided security for Russian artillery units supporting Syrian Army troops. In a few cases the contractors were sent in to assist Syrian troops who got themselves in trouble. Russia described these men as special operations troops, because outside Russia the security contractors often wear Russian military uniforms. But social media revealed that many of these dead Russians in Syria were actually contractors. In Ukraine at least one private security company has been used as enforcers to punish troublesome pro-Russian Ukrainian rebels. Often this just meant arranging an accidental death for a disobedient rebel leader but in a few cases a larger number of rebels had to disappear. The Russian supported rebels came to call these contractors cleaners and were justifiably terrorized and impressed.

The most reliable source of data on Russian casualties in Donbas or Syria are groups representing the families of the Russian dead. These are active on the Internet and use the net to share and compile casualty data. These groups believe about 1,500 Russians have died in Donbas since 2014 and many of those were contractors rather than conscripts or career military. Most Russians see though this government scam but Russia is once more a place where it isnt safe to openly criticize the government. The difference now is that the Internet makes it much more difficult for the government to keep the truth out. The government and China are openly cooperating to develop ways to deal with that Internet problems. Meanwhile the Syrian war effort, despite the low number of Russian casualties, is not popular with most Russians who see Assad and most other Middle Eastern governments (especially former Soviet allies) as losers.

August 2, 2017: The U.S. imposed new sanctions on Russia by making it more difficult for EU (European Union) firms to business with Russia. This is important because Russia is dependent on many EU firms for key services or tech items.

In Syria four mortar shells were fired at the Russian embassy compound in Damascus. Two shells fell within the embassy compound and exploded causing some material damage. The other two shells landed outside the compound. No one was injured. These embassy attacks have happened regularly, sometimes monthly, since 2011. At this time there are still some rebels within mortar range of this part of Damascus and that apparently accounts for the continued attacks.

July 28, 2017: Russia is trying to improve its relationship with North Korea but most of what the Russians do is more publicity stunt than economic boost. The latest example is the failed ferry. In June 2017 Russia and North Korea opened a new weekly ferry service between North Korea and Vladivostok, the major Russian port on the Pacific coast. A 1,500 ton North Korean ship was used, a vessel that carries 193 passengers plus cargo. Because Russia is checking cargo (for sanctioned items) and IDs the ferry is not getting much business. Russia continues to observe European rules on who and what can legally go to North Korea. This is done so as not to threaten trade Russia still has with European nations. Russia has also increased its exports to North Korea in 2017 but that does not amount to much as Russian trade always accounted for only a few percent of North Korean foreign trade.

July 26, 2017: Satellite photos show Russia has replaced a dozen of the older warplanes at its Syrian Hmeymin airbase. Most of the 20 or so aircraft there are now Su-34, Su-35 and Su-30SM, which are built to mainly deliver smart bombs and guided missiles. For over a year Russia was using older warplanes that could only deliver unguided bombs because Russia had quickly exhausted its supply of smart bombs by early 2016. The more modern warplanes are also more effective at air-to-air combat. Hmeymin is outside the port city of Latakia and defended by Russias most modern air defense system (the S-400). Russia recently signed a 49 year lease with the Assads for the use of Hmeymin airbase. The lease can be extended for 25 years at a time after the initial 49 years. Russia is also upgrading its military port facilities in the Syrian port of Tartus to that of a permanent naval base.

July 20, 2017: In eastern Ukraine attacks by Russian backed rebels left nine Ukrainian soldiers dead, the most killed during one day so far this year. The 2015 Donbas ceasefire has meant there are no major combat operations but the violence (usually initiated by the Russian-backed rebels) is a daily event and some days are worse than others.
Bay of Plenty Regional Council staff are holding a special ceremony at The Strand today to bless their new boat Awanui.

Awanui is an 11.25 metre oil spill response/multi role vessel that will help Councils maritime team with oil spill response, navigation aid maintenance and safety on the water.

The reason for the $624,000 crafts purchase can be laid squarely at the feet of the Great Mobil Oil Spill of Anzac weekend 2015.

An estimated 1500 litres of heavy fuel oil spilled into the harbour under the Mount Maunganui wharf and carried by an incoming tide and gale force northerlies, was blown up the harbour as far as Maungatapu.

There isnt anything different we could have done on the day that spill happened, because the weather was atrocious, says harbourmaster Peter Buell.

But we looked at it and said, what if the spill had happened on another day? Are we as well equipped as we think we should be? And the answer was, we thought we could do better.

So that was the starting point for what we looked at here. But when you look at a vessel like this you dont want it to be just for oil spills, because thats a lot of money for something that would never get used or very rarely used.

By adding the navigation aid function to it, it becomes a vessel we will be able use an awful lot. She becomes very capable for us and has a multi-role function.

Awanui looks like a landing craft. It has bow doors, a Palfinger crane on starboard, and a spud on the portside.

A spud is a long pole that is used to keep the craft in one place, with more precision that is offered by an anchor.

Powered by twin Suzuki 250hp outboards it has a top speed of 30 knots light, says Peter.

Awanui made the delivery voyage from Auckland in seven and a half hours.

Also part of the equipment is the oil skimmer that can be deployed and recovered by the crane, either over the side or through the opened bow ramp.
A negative review from Consumer Reports can be damning for a product. The non-profit has long been a reliable source when trying to determine the value of goods. Millions of people give the opinions of Consumer Reports high regard when making purchasing decisions.

Ever since the watchdog group recently withdrew its recommendation for the Surface line of tablets and laptops due to poor reliability, Microsoft has been in damage control mode. The tech giant insisted in an email to CR that it believes the data they used was not accurate. It claims that the real-world return rates for the devices are considerably different from the ones that Consumer Reports published.

Tech blogger Paul Thurrott allegedly uncovered an internal company memo written by Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Devices Panos Panay. In it, Panay vowed that the company would work with Consumer Reports to learn from its data, improve customer satisfaction, and get them to "reverse their findings."

"Feedback like this stings, but pushes us to obsess more about our customers," said the Surface VP.

The memo admits that there were significant problems with the release of the Surface Book and others in the line and that the return rates early on were quite high (above 10 percent). However, a graph included in the document showed that return rates have been declining on the entire Surface family since the company began addressing the issues. Currently, only about one to five percent of the devices are returned.

Panay suggested that Consumer Reports survey sample may have a disproportionate number of early Surface users who are still angry over their purchases. He also put forward that perhaps CR's definition of "failure" was too broad and included things like the occasional "frozen screen or unresponsive touch [pad]" as failures. Microsoft considers these things "minor incidents that are easily rectified by the user."

Thurrott points out that when Surface returns were at a high, Microsoft blamed Intel for the problems. It claimed that the Skylake chipsets were causing the failures. As a result, Microsoft switched to ARM processors. However, one of Thurrott's sources told him that the blaming of Intel was just a cover story for the fact that Windows developers had botched drivers and settings that were custom-made for Surface devices.

Now, two years later, the company is facing the consequences of a stinging Consumer Reports rating. All the company can do is try to convince the advocacy organization to change its mind. It would not be the first time CR has reevaluated a product and changed its recommendation.

Late last year Apple failed to get a Consumer Reports recommendation for the new MacBook Pros thanks to inconsistent and shortened battery life. Apple investigated the problem and discovered that a bug in Safari was causing the battery life issue. Developers fixed the problem, and Consumer Reports agreed to re-test the MacBook Pro. After a second look, CR did indeed change its mind and gave the laptops its recommendation.

Microsoft has an opportunity to redeem the reputation of the Surface line, but just telling Consumer Reports that it is wrong is not likely to get them to reconsider. Redmond will have to prove that it has rectified the problems with its products before the consumer group is likely to revisit its recommendation.
Intel boss Brian Krzanich has become the latest executive to resign from a Donald Trump advisory council. He was the third CEO in a day to quit the American manufacturing council, a protest against the administration's muted response to the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville.

In a Policy@Intel blog post, Krzanich wrote: "I have already made clear my abhorrence at the recent hate-spawned violence in Charlottesville, and earlier today I called on all leaders to condemn the white supremacists and their ilk who marched and committed violence. I resigned because I wanted to make progress, while many in Washington seem more concerned with attacking anyone who disagrees with them. We should honor---not attack---those who have stood up for equality and other cherished American values. I hope this will change, and I remain willing to serve when it does."

Krzanich followed Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank and Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier out of the door yesterday. Trump wasn't pleased with the Merck Pharma boss' decision, who said he left "as a matter of personal conscience." The president later posted a tweet criticizing the company.

Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President's Manufacturing Council,he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES! --- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 14, 2017

Trump's initial statement regarding the Charlottesville protests, which saw the death of 32-year-old Heather Heyer, stated: "We condemn in the strong possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides."

Trump's failure to mention and condemn any of the white nationalist groups involved with the rally drew widespread condemnation. Before he left the council, Krzanich tweeted "There should be no hesitation in condemning hate speech or white supremacy by name. #Intel asks all our countries leadership to do the same"

There should be no hesitation in condemning hate speech or white supremacy by name. #Intel asks all our countries leadership to do the same --- Brian Krzanich (@bkrunner) August 14, 2017

Since the council members' resignations, Trump has released a second statement on Charlottesville that called out the nationalist organizations by name. But for Krzanich, Plank, and Frazier, it seems like a case of too little, too late.

Racism is evil. And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including KKK, Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists, and other hate groups are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans. Those who spread violence in the name of bigotry strike at the very core of America.

Trump's decision to leave the Paris accord back in June saw Elon Musk and Disney's Bob Iger leave his councils. Uber's then-CEO Travis Kalanick and Hint Water's Kara Goldin had resigned in protest against the immigration ban four months earlier.
Two weeks ago, the cybersecurity industry reeled at the news of WannaCry hero Marcus Hutchins' arrest by the FBI in Las Vegas over accusations that he created and sold the Kronos malware. Yesterday, the British researcher pleaded "not guilty" to all charges at a court in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Hutchins was hailed a hero when he accidentally stopped the spread of WannaCry. He created a website found in WannaCry's code that turned out to be a kill switch. Once the ransomware detected the URL had been registered, it stopped infecting new computers.

Hutchins was arrested while visiting Las Vegas for the Def Con hacking conference. He faces six charges dated between July 2014 and July 2015 that relate to the creation and distribution of Kronos, which is used to steal online banking credentials.

The white hat hacker was granted $30,000 bail and released last week. He was ordered to surrender his passport, wear a GPS, and was restricted from accessing the internet. While the first two conditions are still in place, he has now been given permission by the court to return online and get back to work, though he won't be allowed to access the server he used to halt WannaCry.

Posting on his @MalwareTechBlog account, Hutchins wrote: "There's a lot of people I'd like to thank for amazing support over the past 11 days, which I will do when I get a chance to publish my blog." Another tweet stated "I'm still on trial, still not allowed to go home, still on house arrest; but now i am allowed online. Will get my computers back soon."

Hutchins showed he had kept his sense of humor despite his ordeal. His 'to do' list for Def Con includes "Be indicted by the FBI."

Things to do during defcon:

Attend parties

Visit red rock canyon

Go shooting

Be indicted by the FBI

Rent supercars --- MalwareTech (@MalwareTechBlog) August 14, 2017

A trial has been scheduled for October. Should Hutchins be found guilty, he could face up to 40 years in prison. He was indicted alongside a second defendant, who has not been named.

"Marcus Hutchins is a brilliant young man and a hero," said his attorney, Marcia Hofmann. "He's going to vigorously defend himself against these charges and when the evidence comes to light, we are confident he will be fully vindicated."
Discord, a popular chat platform for gamers, is shutting down servers and accounts associated with the "alt-right". The company announced the actions on Twitter following the protests and resulting violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.

According to Discord, members of the alt-right groups on the chat service such as AltRight.com reported messages for violating Discord's terms of service since Discord itself cannot read the private messages on its servers. "When hatred like this violates our community standards we act swiftly to take servers down and ban individual users," the company said in a statement. "The public server linked to AltRight.com that violated those terms was shut down along with several other public groups and accounts fostering bad actors on Discord. We will continue to be aggressive to ensure that Discord exists for the community we set out to support --- gamers."

Following the ban, members of those servers were predictably outraged with many claiming censorship and political bias. Others called for Discord to ban the servers of the counter-protestors as well with the company promptly replying to report those servers and they would be investigated also.

The ban of alt-right accounts on Discord follows earlier news of GoDaddy and Google banning white supremacist site The Daily Stormer for posting a disparaging article on Heather Hayer, a 32 year old woman killed in Charlottesville during the protests.

While many would view these series of events as an extreme reaction by companies, there has been a lot of pressure on social media networks in particular to clamp down on views deemed "hateful" or "extreme".

Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have faced backlash for allowing extremist Islamic groups such as ISIS to use their platforms as a means to spread their ideology. Chat platforms such as Discord and even domain hosting companies such as GoDaddy are now trying to figure out how to deal with views considered extreme.

Last week, Google had to defend itself over a 10-page "manifesto" penned by former Google engineer, James Damore, that criticized Google's diversity initiatives and claimed conservative voices were suppressed and discriminated against. Although Damore was summarily dismissed from Google as a result of his manifesto, there were some within Google itself who quietly agreed with him but did not voice their opinions for fear of being fired. Furthermore, others commented that Damore's firing was exactly the kind of behavior that Damore was decrying, suppression and/or elimination of views that contradict the majority.

In a previous article, I wrote:

A larger issue still looms over what actually defines "extremist ideology". What's extreme for one person may be just fine to another person. Who gets to decide what is extreme? Could this lead to widespread censorship on every major social media platform?

I believe this sentiment still rings true. While many (if not all) companies have terms of service that have zero tolerance policies regarding hate speech against protected classes such as race, gender, and sexual orientation, there still seems to be a lingering issue as to who gets to decide what is hateful and whether or not such views should be allowed. While I believe a great majority of people would agree that white supremacist/neo-Nazi ideologies are hateful, should their voices be suppressed simply because they are hateful? The answer may seem pretty cut and dry to most folks and yet complex to others.
The United States Department of Justice (DoJ) requested information on approximately 1.3 million visitors to #DisruptJ20, a website used to organize protests against President Donald Trump. The website was hosted by Dreamhost, the company that the DoJ contacted in order to get the information it needed. However, Dreamhost believes the request constitutionally goes too far.

In a blog post, Dreamhost claimed that the complying with the warrant would amount to handing over roughly 1.3 million visitor IP addresses to the government. Additionally, complying would also expose contact information, emails, business information, the length of service (including start date), means and source of payment for services (including any credit card or bank account number), information about any domain name registration, and photos of thousands of visitors to the website.

"The internet was founded --- and continues to survive, in the main --- on its democratizing ability to facilitate a free exchange of ideas," DreamHost wrote. "Internet users have a reasonable expectation that they will not get swept up in criminal investigations simply by exercising their right to political speech against the government."

The DoJ filed a motion in the Washington, D.C. Superior Court asking for the court to compel DreamHost to produce the information despite the company's attempts to narrow the scope of the warrant.

The warrant, dated July 12th, is aimed at collecting any information about violations of the D.C. code regarding felony riots. More than 200 people were indicted on felony rioting charges in connection with the protests in Washington on President Trump's Inauguration Day.

Dreamhost's general counsel, Chris Ghazarian, issued a legal argument claiming, "In essence, the Search Warrant not only aims to identify the political dissidents of the current administration, but attempts to identify and understand what content each of these dissidents viewed on the website." Dreamhost is also receiving professional support from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

"In just one example of the staggering overbreadth of the search warrant, it would require DreamHost to turn over the IP logs of all visitors to the [disruptj20.org] site," the EFF wrote in their own blog post. "Millions of visitors --- activists, reporters, or you (if you clicked on the link) --- would have records of their visits turned over to the government. The warrant also sought production of all emails associated with the account and unpublished content, like draft blog posts and photos."

A hearing is scheduled for Friday in Washington where Mr. Gharzarian is expected to represent Dreamhost.
News from Roanza Truck & Van - Mercedes-Benz Citans raise ADB Alarms to a new high







Mercedes-Benz Citans raise ADB Alarms to a new high

A visit to the action-packed Mercedes-Benz VanExperience Live event left husband-and-wife team Alan and Jackie Bennett in no doubt that they had made the right decision by investing in another four Citan vans bearing the legendary three-pointed star.

The couple behind ADB Alarms, of Stoke-on-Trent, had just taken delivery of an Approved Used Citan 109 CDI from the local branch of Dealer Roanza Truck & Van, and have since commissioned three new Citan 111 CDIs.

The 14th annual Mercedes-Benz Van Experience was staged, once again, at the world-renowned Millbrook Proving Ground in Bedfordshire. The manufacturer welcomed a record 2,867 guests over its nine-day duration - between them, they clocked-up almost 50,000 miles in the 258 vehicles which were available for test drives.

"Awesome!," declared Jackie Bennett. "That's the best word I can think of to describe Mercedes-Benz VanExperience Live. My husband had been before but this was my first time... I didn't know what we'd be doing, or what I'd be driving, so I was more than a little nervous at the start. I needn't have worried, because the instructors were very reassuring.

"The wet skid pan session was my favourite. I thought when I was told not to touch the brakes that the van was sure to topple over but nothing happened. And that's the great thing about this event - it's terrific fun, but there's a serious side to it too.

"I'm very conscious of our Duty of Care to staff and other road users, and I wouldn't send them out in a vehicle I wasn't happy to use myself. From a safety point of view, it has to be a Mercedes-Benz every time."

Founded by Alan Bennett in 1980, ADB Alarms is approved by the SSAIB (Security Systems Alarm Inspection Board) and recognised by police and fire authorities nationwide, as well as insurers. The company, which also opened a branch in Cheltenham last year, prides itself on the high level of customer service that has underpinned its growth.

ADB Alarms now runs five Citans, which are assigned to installation and maintenance engineers. Roanza took back three Euro 5-engined versions in part-exchange, against their Long-bodied, Euro 6 successors. The Citan is the smallest member of the Mercedes-Benz Vans family, and impressively fuel-efficient. The 111 CDI variant produces 110 hp and, like its 90 hp 109 CDI stablemate, is capable of returning an outstanding 61.4 mpg (combined cycle).

ADB Alarms purchased its first Citans in 2014, a year after the model's UK launch. Mr Bennett recalled: "Having tried various types of vehicle over the years, we were using another brand's vans and estate cars but suffering reliability issues, as the gearboxes and steering pumps were packing up after 50,000 miles. One of my daughters showed me an ad for the new Mercedes-Benz, so we contacted our local Dealer and have never looked back."

He continued: "Although most assignments are undertaken within a 200-mile radius of base, we sometimes go as far afield as Scotland. The Citans are out six days a week and never break down, while despite being bigger than the vehicles we were using previously they are also more economical to run.

"The fact that we can get our Mercedes-Benz vans serviced at night by Roanza is another important plus, because it means they're never off the road when we need them. The engineers love them too - the Citan is exceptionally comfortable, so they arrive on site refreshed and ready for work."

ADB Alarms took advantage of a 0% interest finance offer when purchasing its Approved Used Citan from Roanza. "That vehicle had 13,500 miles on the clock when it arrived," said Mr Bennett. "It was very well presented and a cracking deal."

He added: "People like to be associated with companies that are doing well, and the prestige associated with the three-pointed star reinforces the premium image that we want to project of our own business during this current period of growth."

www.adbalarms.co.uk<http://www.adbalarms.co.uk>
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/08/2017 (1916 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A number of infrastructure projects will move forward in southeastern Manitoba, now that the provincial and federal governments have announced more than $34 million in new funding for infrastructure in small communities across Manitoba.

Last week, the joint funding was announced for 42 infrastructure projects in 37 Manitoba communities under the federal governments Small Communities Fund.

The feds and the province will each contribute $10 million towards an estimated $34.6 million in total project costs.

Through the Small Communities Fund, our government is delivering support for projects of local or regional significance in municipalities all across rural Manitoba, Eileen Clarke, Manitobas minister of indigenous and municipal relations, said in a press release.

Strategic investments in community infrastructure help facilitate growth and improve quality of life in Manitoba communities, and I am proud that the 42 projects announced today will improve drinking water, wastewater management, culture, tourism, recreation, public transit and more within the province.

Communities in southeastern Manitoba that will see projects move forward as a result of the funding include the RM of Springfield, which will see $717,000 go towards a Dugald water system upgrade, as well as the RM of Morris, which will receive $401,000 towards the Rosenort Industrial Park road extension.

The RM of Emerson-Franklin will receive just over $333,000 for truck route renewal for RTAC loading, and the RM of Stuartburn will see nearly $115,000 go towards the Vita lagoon upgrade project.

The RM of Reynolds will receive $50,000 for Phase 3 of the Medika drain rehabilitation project, while the RM of Ritchot will receive $21,000 to install a condenser and a dehumidifier at the St Adolphe arena.

Chris Goertzen, president of the Association of Manitoba Municipalities, applauded the funding announcement in a press release.

The benefits from todays announcement will not stop at local borders, Goertzen said. High quality public infrastructure is an essential part of the fabric that makes up not only communities, but entire regions all across Manitoba.

The Small Communities Fund supports priority public infrastructure projects in Manitoba communities with fewer than 100,000 residents.
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WESCO International, Inc. provides business-to-business distribution, logistics services, and supply chain solutions in the United States, Canada, and internationally. It operates through three segments: Electrical & Electronic Solutions (EES), Communications & Security Solutions (CSS), and Utility and Broadband Solutions (UBS). The EES segment supplies products and supply chain solutions, including electrical equipment and supplies, automation and connected devices, security, lighting, wire and cable, and safety, as well as maintenance, repair, and operating (MRO) products. This segment also offers contractor solutions, direct and indirect manufacturing supply chain optimization programs, lighting and renewables advisory services, and digital and automation solutions. The CSS segment operates in the network infrastructure and security markets. This segment sells products directly to end-users or through various channels, including data communications contractors, security, network, professional audio/visual, and systems integrators. It also provides safety and energy management solutions. The UBS segment offers products and services to investor-owned utilities; public power companies; and service and wireless providers, broadband operators, and contractors. This segment's products include wire and cable, transformers, transmission and distribution hardware, switches, protective devices, connectors, conduits, pole line hardware, racks, cabinets, safety and MRO products, and point-to-point wireless devices. This segment also offers various service solutions, including fiber project management, high and medium voltage project design and support, pre-wired meters and capacitor banks, meter testing and metering infrastructure installation, personal protective equipment dielectric testing, and tool repair, as well as emergency response, storage yard, materials, and logistics management. The company was founded in 1922 and is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Ford Motor Company is the second largest US auto manufacturer by market cap and market share and ranks 4th globally. The company was founded in 1903 by Henry Ford following a series of cars that led to the introduction of the Model T. The Model T revolutionized the automobile industry not only because it made vehicles affordable for the budding middle class but it changed the way manufacturing was done. The Ford factory features the worlds first moving assembly line, an introduction that not only improved the pace of production but lowered the cost of its vehicles.

Other prominent innovations made by Mr. Ford include the strict standardization of parts that allowed for easy construction and repair and the standardized workweek. Henry Fords switch to a $5 workday and 8-hour shifts allowed him to run 3 shifts per day and improve productivity while providing his employees with the power to buy their own products.

Today, Ford Motor Company makes and markets a large lineup of cars, trucks, SUVs, EVs, and Lincoln luxury vehicles globally. The companys iconic F-series of trucks is the worlds best-selling pickup truck for decades running and the new all-electric Lightning is on track to dominate the top spot in the EV market. Other iconic brands in the Ford lineup include the Thunderbird introduced in 1954, the Mustang in 1964, and the Transit work van in 1965. The Mustang, notably, was created for the Worlds Fair and expected to sell 100,000 in its first year but shocked the industry with 22,000 units sold on the first day.

The company operates through four segments including Ford Blue (ICE vehicles), Model e (EVs) Mobility, and Ford Credit. The Ford Blue and Model e segments sell Ford and Lincoln vehicles, parts, and accessories while the Mobility segment designs and builds advanced technologies including but not limited to self-driving autonomous car systems.

The Ford Credit segment primarily offers commercial and retail loans to auto dealers and car buyers. This segment not only provides financing for new purchases and dealer inventory but makes loans for new dealerships and expansions of old ones.

Ford has fully embraced the switch to EV and is planning for an all-EV future. To that end, the company pledged to spend up to $50 billion on EV infrastructure by 2026. The plans include the build-out of an entirely new campus dedicated to EV manufacture from batteries to motor platforms, manufacturing capacity, and new vehicles. In regard to total capacity, the company is targeting 2 million in total annual EV sales by that same year.
Consolidated Edison, Inc., through its subsidiaries, engages in the regulated electric, gas, and steam delivery businesses in the United States. It offers electric services to approximately 3.5 million customers in New York City and Westchester County; gas to approximately 1.1 million customers in Manhattan, the Bronx, parts of Queens, and Westchester County; and steam to approximately 1,555 customers in parts of Manhattan. The company also supplies electricity to approximately 0.3 million customers in southeastern New York and northern New Jersey; and gas to approximately 0.1 million customers in southeastern New York. In addition, it operates 533 circuit miles of transmission lines; 15 transmission substations; 64 distribution substations; 87,564 in-service line transformers; 3,924 pole miles of overhead distribution lines; and 2,291 miles of underground distribution lines, as well as 4,350 miles of mains and 377,971 service lines for natural gas distribution. Further, the company owns, operates, and develops renewable and energy infrastructure projects; and provides energy-related products and services to wholesale and retail customers, as well as invests in electric and gas transmission projects. It primarily sells electricity to industrial, commercial, residential, and government customers. The company was founded in 1823 and is based in New York, New York.
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.
Allergan plc, a pharmaceutical company, develops, manufactures, and commercializes branded pharmaceutical, device, biologic, surgical, and regenerative medicine products worldwide. The company operates in three segments: US Specialized Therapeutics, US General Medicine, and International. It offers a portfolio of products in various therapeutic areas, including medical aesthetics and dermatology, eye care, neuroscience, urology, gastrointestinal, women's health, and anti-infective therapeutic products. The company also offers breast implants and tissue expanders; and RM-131 (relamorelin), a peptide ghrelin agonist for the treatment of diabetic gastroparesis. In addition, it develops medical and cosmetic treatments; therapies for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis and other liver diseases; inhibitor for the treatment of psoriasis and other autoimmune disorders; atopic dermatitis drug candidate; peri-ocular rings for extended drug delivery and reducing elevated intraocular pressure in glaucoma patients; and treatments for neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer's disease. Further, the company develops RST-001, a novel gene therapy for the treatment of retinitis pigmentosa; small molecule therapeutics for inflammatory and fibrotic diseases; topical medicines for fat reduction; and delivery system and botulinum toxin-based prescription products. It has collaboration, option, and license agreement with Lyndra, Inc.; and strategic alliance and option agreement with Editas Medicine, Inc. Allergan plc also has licensing agreements with Assembly Biosciences, Inc.; MedImmune; and Heptares Therapeutics, Ltd. The company was formerly known as Actavis plc and changed its name to Allergan plc in June 2015. Allergan plc was founded in 1983 and is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland.
MetLife, Inc., a financial services company, provides insurance, annuities, employee benefits, and asset management services worldwide. It operates through five segments: U.S.; Asia; Latin America; Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and MetLife Holdings. The company offers life, dental, group short-and long-term disability, individual disability, pet insurance, accidental death and dismemberment, vision, and accident and health coverages, as well as prepaid legal plans; administrative services-only arrangements to employers; and general and separate account, and synthetic guaranteed interest contracts, as well as private floating rate funding agreements. It also provides pension risk transfers, institutional income annuities, structured settlements, and capital markets investment products; and other products and services, such as life insurance products and funding agreements for funding postretirement benefits, as well as company, bank, or trust-owned life insurance used to finance nonqualified benefit programs for executives. In addition, it provides fixed, indexed-linked, and variable annuities; and pension products; regular savings products; whole and term life, endowments, universal and variable life, and group life products; longevity reinsurance solutions; credit insurance products; and protection against long-term health care services. MetLife, Inc. was founded in 1863 and is headquartered in New York, New York.
Natural Gas Services Group, Inc. provides natural gas compression services and equipment to the energy industry in the United States. It fabricates, manufactures, rents, and sells natural gas compressors and related equipment. The company primarily engages in the rental of compression units that provide small, medium, and large horsepower applications for unconventional oil and natural gas production. As of December 31, 2021, the company had 2,023 natural gas compression units in its rental fleet with 418,041 horsepower. The company also engages in the design, fabrication, and assembly of compressor components into compressor units for rental or sale; engineers and fabricates natural gas compressors; and designs and manufactures a line of reciprocating compressor frames, cylinders, and parts. In addition, it is involved in the design, fabrication, sale, installation, and service of flare stacks and related ignition and control devices for the onshore and offshore incineration of gas compounds, such as hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide, natural gas, and liquefied petroleum gases. Further, the company offers customer support services for its compressor and flare sales business; and exchange and rebuild program for small horsepower screw compressors. Its primary customers are exploration and production(E&P) companies that utilize compressor units for artificial lift applications; E&P companies that focuses on natural gas-weighted production; and midstream companies. Natural Gas Services Group, Inc. was incorporated in 1998 and is headquartered in Midland, Texas.
James Alex Fields Jr. Photo: Albemarle-Charlottesville Region

Police records released on Monday reveal that the mother of James Alex Fields Jr., the 20-year-old white nationalist who plowed his car into a group of anti-racism protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, repeatedly called 911 to report that he was beating or physically threatening her.

As the Associated Press reports, records from the Florence Police Department in Kentucky show that Fieldss mother, Samantha Bloom, who is disabled and uses a wheelchair, called police in 2010 and told them that Fields hit her over the head and locked her in a bathroom after she asked him to stop playing video games. She also told officers at the time that her son was taking medication to help control his temper.

Bloom also called 911 in October 2011 to report that Fields was being very threatening toward her and that she didnt feel in control on the situation, according to the Washington Post. The next month, in November, police came to their house after Bloom says Fields stood behind her with a 12-inch knife and spit in her face; she asked that he be assessed at a hospital. Mom is scared he is going to become violent here and [is] afraid to transport her by herself in her car, a dispatcher wrote, according to the Post.

During the Saturday attack in Charlottesville, Fields rammed his car into a group of anti-racism protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others. The revelation about his mothers 911 calls makes Fields the latest (attempted) mass killer with a history of domestic violence. Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people and hurt 53 others at an Orlando gay club in June 2016, had a history of domestic abuse. Robert Lewis Dear, who killed three people and wounded nine more at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood in November 2016, had been accused by two of his three ex-wives of domestic abuse. Cedric Anderson, who killed his special-needs-teacher wife and an 8-year-old student at an elementary school in San Bernardino in April, had a history of violence as well.

As Emily Crockett wrote for Vox, domestic violence is one of the best predictors of future violent behavior. Research from nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety found that of all the mass shootings in the U.S. between 2009 and 2015, 16 percent of the attackers had been previously charged with domestic abuse.

In Fieldss case, he had not only an apparent history of violence against his mother, but he also reportedly identified as a white supremacist and idolized Adolf Hitler. One of his former high-school teachers, Derek Weimer, told the AP that Fields had also confided that he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia at a young age.
Kim Wall, Peter Madsen. Photo: Courtesy of Kim-Wall.com; Getty Images

On Thursday night, journalist Kim Wall boarded the UC3 Nautilus submarine in Copenhagen for a story she was writing about its inventor, Peter Madsen. The submarine sank on Friday morning, Wall hasnt been seen since, and Madsen is being held in police custody.

Heres what we know about the case so far.

Who is Kim Wall?

Shes a 30-year-old journalist originally from Sweden whos based in both New York and Berlin. Wall has written for outlets like the New York Times, the Guardian, Harpers magazine, The Atlantic, and Vice and describes her beat as identity, gender, pop-culture, social justice, foreign policy and the undercurrents of rebellion.

Who is Peter Madsen?

Hes a 46-year-old Danish inventor, amateur aerospace engineer, and submarine builder known as Rocket Madsen in his home country. He built the UC3 Nautilus, said to be one of the worlds largest DIY submarines.

When was Wall first reported missing?

Her boyfriend alerted police when she didnt return home from reporting the story on Thursday night. Madsen claims he dropped her back off at the Copenhagen harbor after they spent three hours together.

What happened to the submarine?

Danish Navy went out looking for it following Walls disappearance and found it sinking on Friday morning. Madsen was in the boat at the time, and was reported to be absolutely calm as it was happening, then swam to safety.

Okay, but what really happened to the submarine?

Police believe that Madsen sank it on purpose. Although he attributed the sinking to issues with the ballast tank, according to the Guardian, police have since said he has given them a different version of events  although they would not say what.

Wheres Madsen right now?

Hes in police custody, where he can remain for up to 24 days. He was charged with negligent manslaughter for having killed in an unknown way and in an unknown place Kim Isabell Frerika Wall of Sweden sometime after Thursday 5 p.m. Madsen is denying that he had anything to do with Walls disappearance, though it sounds like he was the last person who saw her alive. If the case goes to trial and hes found guilty, hes looking at between five years to life in prison.

Hows the search for Wall going?

Ole Thiell Sorensen, who works for the Danish Defence Operations Center, called it a big job, saying, at the moment we dont know where she is or if shes alive. That means police and rescue workers have to look both on land and at sea.
Trump rat. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Another day, another giant, inflatable animal with a Trumpcut. First there was the chicken behind the White House, and now, there is the 15-foot inflatable Trump Rat, whose beady eyes, fleshy lips, and buck teeth will invade your thoughts every time you try to have an intimate moment with your partner from now on.

Modeled after Scabby the Union Rat, the inflatable rats frequently used by labor unions to protest worksites accused of union-busting, Trump Rat has a long tail, protruding ears, a Russian-flag lapel, and Confederate-flag cufflinks.

The rodent-president was erected on Monday, two blocks away from Trump Tower, ahead of the presidents first visit home since inauguration. Trump was initially expected to return to New York City on Sunday, but was delayed after the events in Charlottesville, Virginia, and by trying to decide whether or not to condemn nazis. When he finally arrived at Trump Tower on Monday night, the president was greeted by his inflatable likeness, as well as thousands of protesters shouting, No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA!

Trump Rat was commissioned and installed by BravinLee, a Chelsea gallery, and funded by a Kickstarter campaign. And according to BravinLees website, the rat will be available to rent:

The inflatable rat, an enduring sign of resistance and ridicule, has been re-purposed to help lead protest against Trumps policies. Funded through a Kickstarter campaign and originally designed by Artist, Jeffrey Beebe, the intent was to fabricate an inflatable Trump Rat and get it out into the world, keep it circulating, and loan it out to protests. We will inflate and position it in as many different locations that we are able. This inflatable was made in America.

But just days after 32-year-old Heather Heyer was killed while protesting white nationalists in Charlottesville, and with the threat of nuclear war looming over our heads, John Lee of BravinLee is quick to point out that this grotesque inflatable is not a political statement.

Political discussion is one for me where people trade ideas about what the actual policies are, on the issues, I dont think thats what were [doing] here, he told Gothamist.We want to ridicule this very thin-skinned, very incompetent guy who has no business being President of the United States.

Whether Trump is offended or not, the repulsive image of Trump Rat will haunt my psyche for a long time to come.
Police shot dead an Islamic State (IS) militant in custody Sunday in Istanbul after the alleged terrorist stabbed a policeman who died of his injuries at hospital.

The alleged terrorist was arrested earlier in the day in an anti-terrorism operation in the Turkish city. He later attacked a police agent who was taking him to a detention room and stabbed the security personnel, reports say.

The policeman died of serious injuries in hospital.

Turkish media reported Monday that 12 IS suspects were arrested in other raids in Istanbul. The suspects believed from Iran, Syria and Iraq were apprehended in addresses in Fatih and Aksaray districts, Daily Sabah reports.

Turkey has been facing attacks by IS militants since the group entered the country from neighboring Syria, where it established a stronghold. Several security forces and civilians were killed in terror attacks.

Last Friday, authorities in the eastern province of Elazig announced local police have arrested 22 members of the Islamic State group, all of them men, in coordinated raids.

Turkish authorities have detained over 5,000 IS suspects and deported over 3,290 foreign terrorist fighters, originating from 95 different countries. Turkey also refused entry to more than 38,269 individuals.
Bahrains Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed is currently on a visit to Iraq to boost ties between Manama and Baghdad as their relations have been tense following statements made by Iraqi officials after the conviction of several Bahraini citizens.

The visiting Foreign Minister met separately with his Iraqi counterpart Ibrahim al-Jaafari, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and President Fuad Masoum.

Both countries are faced with security challenges posed by terrorist groups. Jaafari underlined that whoever believes that the war against terrorist groups has ended is wrong because the war against terrorism today is a global war targeting civilians everywhere in the world.

Baghdad has been fighting against the Islamic State group over the past three years while Manama claims that terrorist cells supported by Hezbollah and Tehran are threatening its security and stability.

The two Foreign Ministers stressed the need to foster cooperation between the two countries primarily in security and intelligence to prevent the spread of terrorism.

The two countries are also faced with sectarian issues predominantly between the Sunnis and Shias. In this vein, Prime Minister Abadi warned that sectarian segregation only serves the interests of terrorist groups.

Regarding bilateral ties, he said Baghdad is keen to enhance political, economic, trade and cultural relations with Bahrain.

Members of the Iraqi parliament foreign affairs committee noted that the visit will contribute to warming up the strained relations between Iraq and Bahrain.
Leaked emails published by Middle East Eye have revealed that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman wants to withdraw his forces from the war in Yemen.

Martin Indyk, the former US ambassador to Israel, in an email exchange with Youssef Otaiba, UAEs ambassador in Washington, wrote that the Crown Prince was quite clear with Steve Hadley (a former US national security adviser) and me that he wants out of Yemen and that he is OK with the US engaging Iran as long as it is co-ordinated in advance and the objectives are clear.

The emails date back to April 2017.

Indyk and Otaiba agreed on Mohammeds pragmatism. The UAE diplomat thinks that there might never be a more pragmatic leader in Riyadh and engaging the oil rich kingdom at this moment is so important and will yield the most results we can ever get out of Saudi.

Riyadh led a military campaign against the Houthi rebels in neighboring Yemen and launched on 26th March 2015 Decisive Storm operation in a bid to reinstate Abd Rabbuh Hadi as the legitimate president. More than 10,000 people have been killed and 40,000 injured in the war in Yemen. More than two years since the operation begun, most of the northern part of the country continues to be under the control of the rebel forces.

Yemens population is in a devastating situation and the outbreak of Cholera has worsened public health safety as several medical centers lay in ruins. Two-thirds of the population, more than 18 million people, need humanitarian assistance and more than seven million are suffering from malnutrition.

The Saudi-led coalition is lately at the receiving end of Yemens central bank wrath. Governor Mansr al-Qaiti lamented that the coalition has blocked cash deliveries to the bank 13 times for unknown reasons. The deliveries are made through the coalition controlled Aden airport.

He added that they are facing extreme difficulties, which could create dangerous strangulation for the Yemeni economy.
The Iraqi Prime Minister has once again refused to join the Saudi-led bloc in the regional diplomatic row opposing Qatar and its neighbors.

Haider al-Abadi Sunday said no to Bahrains invitation to Iraq to join the Saudi-led bloc, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt, and cut ties with Qatar, The New Arab noted citing anonymous Iraqi sources.

The Iraqi leaders no came during a meeting with Bahraini Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa in Baghdad.

The hour-and-half-long meeting between Abadi and Sheikh Khalid in Baghdads green zone touched on several pressing issues, a high-ranking Iraqi official told The New Arab.

The Bahraini minister brought up the Gulf crisis and the allegations of Qatars support for terrorism and the damage it has caused Iraq, the source added.

Abadi expressed his desire to see a quick end to the crisis but directly told the minister he was against joining any side to the conflict.

Relations between Qatar and its neighbors have fallen apart since June 5 after the bloc accused the tiny emirate of supporting terrorism. The boycotting countries cut air, sea and ground links with Doha.

Saudi Arabia, and UAE reportedly tried last month to drag Baghdad into the spat but Abadi pushed off their requests.

Several Muslim countries, namely, Yemen, Libyas eastern government, Mauritania, Comoros Islands, Niger, and the Maldives have sided with the Saudi-led bloc.
FREDERICTONAt least five New Brunswick children whose families were known to protective workers have died, but little is publicly known about their deaths  and the provinces child and youth advocate says that has to change.

The provincial government accepted most recommendations stemming from an investigation of the cases on Monday, but authorities released no information that could identify the children or the circumstances of their deaths.

Advocate Norm Bosse says the public needs to know more about the children to have a better understanding of the problems that exist  including the age, gender and area of the province where the death occurred.

I think its important, if we are going to ask people in the community to make sure that they report neglect or child abuse, that they know about it. If they dont know that its happening in their own backyard, then hows that supposed to change? Bosse said Tuesday.

For small children its so important that we be a lot more transparent because I think theres a lot more the community can do to make sure that these children are not hurt further.

The Child Death Review Committee released its recommendations on the five deaths in June, and Bosse said hes pleased the government moved quickly to respond.

One of the recommendations says that when a child has been a victim of a non-accidental injury and the perpetrator has not been identified from the household in which the injury occurred, the child should not be reunified until the perpetrator has been identified.

Families and Children Minister Stephen Horsman said he accepts the intent of the recommendation. In a statement, he said a plan for the child will be developed through the familys collaboration, child protection mediation or a permanency planning conference.

If the childs parents are not in agreement with the plan, the minister will consult with family Crown counsel to determine if a court order is warranted, the statement reads.

Another recommendation is that the Department of Social Development review its policy on the followup with babies born to mothers who consumed drugs during the pregnancy.

The minister says he accepts the intent of the recommendation and recognizes that infants born to mothers who used methadone during their pregnancy may require special care.

Bosse said that in all cases, social workers should be making unannounced visits to check on children and their families.

You want to see the normal day-to-day interaction with that child in the family unit after he or she is returned to the family, Bosse said.

Horsman said greater public reporting of the circumstances surrounding childrens deaths is under discussion.

Discussions have been held with the Office of the Child and Youth Advocate and the access to information and privacy commissioner, and the government has committed to providing an update later this year, Horsman said in the statement.

Bosse notes that in some situations names have been released, such as the case of Ashley Smith, a New Brunswick teen who was able to strangle herself while under a suicide watch in a womens prison in Ontario.

He says its important for the public to report cases of neglect or child abuse.

The Child Death Review Committee reviews the deaths of children under the age of 19, including those who were in legal care of the minister of social development, or whose families were in contact with the child protection system within 12 months before the childs death.

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OTTAWAPrime Minister Justin Trudeau is offering condolences in the wake of a terrorist attack in Burkina Faso that killed 18 people, including two Canadians.

In a statement, the prime minister says he is deeply saddened by the incident.

Canadians Tammy Chen and Bilel Diffalah were among those killed during the attack on a popular restaurant in downtown Ouagadougou.

Read more: Two Canadians, pregnant newlywed student and volunteer, killed in Burkina Faso attack

Trudeau is offering his personal condolences as well as those of the government and wishing a speedy recovery to the injured.

Diffalah worked with an NGO in the West African country, while Chen founded a charity called Bright Futures Burkina Faso.

The prime minister is condemning what he calls a heinous and cowardly attack.

People should not have to live in fear over their safety and security  no matter where they call home or where they travel, he said in the statement.

We will continue to work closely with the international community to fight terrorism and bring those responsible to justice.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland says consular officials are working to provide help to the families of two Canadians killed in an attack in Burkina Faso. Suspected Islamic extremists opened fire at a restaurant Sunday. (The Canadian Press

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The Ontario Court of Appeal has ruled that police investigating a suspected marijuana grow-op in a Hamilton home needed a search warrant to obtain hydro records from a local utility company.

The landmark decision sends a clear message to law enforcement agencies and hydro companies, says Toronto cannabis lawyer Paul Lewin. He argued the case on behalf of appellants Maria Del Carmen Orlandis-Habsburgo and Edwin Robert LeFrancois.

Going forward, police must obtain a warrant or other judicial authorization in order to search and seize hydro consumption records with respect to suspected residential cannabis grow operations, Lewin said in a statement.

Despite the fact the court did not, however, exclude the marijuana and cash seized  so the convictions for possession for the purpose of trafficking and possession of proceeds of crime, were upheld  the case is nonetheless a positive development for cannabis growers and privacy advocates, Lewin said Tuesday.

We have an expectation of privacy in all our most private places, like our homes, our briefcases  our cars, Lewin said Tuesday. Electricity usage records, which reveal a lot about your lifestyle, didnt have an expectation of privacy and now it does.

The defendants, whom Lewin described as a medicine woman and Indigenous activist, rented a home in Hamilton with a grow-op in the basement.

Horizon Utilities, using customized software, noted a pattern of electricity use in the residence that was consistent with the operation of a grow-op. Horizon forwarded the information to police, the court ruling says.

Ontario utilities have routinely turned over such information without requiring a warrant. But Horizon went further in this case, Lewin said.

When police began an investigation, including surveillance, they requested additional information about ongoing electricity use at the home and at neighbouring residences. The utility voluntarily complied.

Police applied for a warrant to search the residence relying, in part, on energy consumption information supplied by Horizon. Police found a grow-op in the basement, seized $23,000 and charged the pair.

A judge convicted them in 2014 after finding the defendants rights were not violated under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

But three judges of the Court of Appeal found their rights against an unreasonable search and seizure were violated when Horizon shared the information with police, which launched the investigation.

The provinces high court rejected the Crown argument that the appellants did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the data.

The examination and use of the data by the police was not authorized by law, and therefore could not be reasonable within the meaning of s. 8 of the Charter, Justice David Doherty, writing on behalf of the panel, wrote in a decision released Aug. 11.

The appellants right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure was breached.

The judges, however, determined the evidence should not be excluded because police might have believed in good faith that they were entitled to the energy consumption data without a warrant.

Once pot is legal next year, Canadians will be able to grow up to four plants while there is no maximum for medical growers. Their plant limit is based on the number of grams per day prescribed by a doctor. Even if authorities suspect people are exceeding those limits, now no one can spy on them, they are private in their home, Lewin said.

Correction  August 16, 2017: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said medical growers are allowed a maximum of 12 plants.

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Staring straight ahead, never once looking back at the woman they were caught mocking or her phalanx of supporters, the two Toronto police officers accused of professional misconduct for spouting insults captured on their own cruisers dash camera appeared before a disciplinary hearing Tuesday.

Constables Sasa Sljivo and Matthew Saris are charged under the Police Services Act after they laughed and called Francie Munoz, a 29-year-old woman with Down syndrome, a half woman and a little disfigured in comments to each other during a traffic stop.

Their words and chuckles were discovered after Francies mother, Pamela Munoz, fought an alleged traffic violation and subsequently obtained dash cam video from the traffic stop in November 2016. The audio also recorded one of the officers referring to her daughter as different.

Read more: Mother of woman with Down syndrome enraged after finding police dash cam footage of officers insulting her daughter

Toronto officers caught mocking woman with Down syndrome face Police Service Act charges

Pamela Munoz, right, with her daughter Francie outside the tribunal Tuesday, says she hopes the officers accused of misconduct "leave the Toronto Police Service."





The officers, dressed in dark blue suits, made their first, brief appearance before the police disciplinary tribunal, which was packed with Munozs family and friends, including some with Down syndrome and their relatives.

The officers quickly left the hearing room after the minutes-long appearance, averting their eyes.

I looked at them, Francie Munoz said afterward. They did not look at me.

Toronto police documents detailing the charges allege that Sljivo was the officer doing the talking. He faces two charges under the Police Act: one for allegedly using profane, abusive or insulting language in contravention of the Ontario Human Rights Code and Toronto police policy, procedures and standards of conduct, and the second for allegedly acting in a disorderly manner likely to discredit Toronto police.

Saris faces one count for allegedly being complicit in Sljivos comments and failing to report his conduct to a superior.

Neither officer entered a plea Tuesday.

Last month, Sljivo and Saris sent a letter to the family apologizing for their inexcusable remarks and taking full responsibility.

Soon after the incident came to light, Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders addressed the officers comments, telling CP24 that they were not a fair representation of what goes on on a day-to-day basis. Saunders also apologized to the family in person.

However, the written apology from the two officers themselves did not seem sincere, Pamela Munoz said. The family had asked for them to apologize in person and wanted their comments to be captured on video. If the officers were willing to do that, Munoz said, they would withdraw their complaint to the Office of the Independent Police Review Director, which had resulted in the misconduct charges.

The officers, however, had not agreed to the familys terms.

Mike McCormack, president of the Toronto Police Association, said last month that Sljivo and Saris had made repeated attempts to arrange an in-person meeting with Francie Munoz and her family, and that the officers have accepted responsibility for their comments from the beginning.

They have taken a lot of justified criticism from the public and their peers and regret their comments, McCormack told the Star last month.

McCormack added Tuesday that the TPA has arranged a meeting with the Down Syndrome Association of Ontario in September.

Professional misconduct charges before the police tribunal can result in penalties ranging from a reprimand to dismissal. After the hearing Tuesday, Pamela Munoz told reporters she hopes for the latter, though she doubts that will occur.

In our hearts, a great outcome would have been for them to leave the Toronto Police Service because its shameful for police officers to feel that way, she said.

The family feels buoyed by friends and supporters standing alongside them at the hearing, she continued, particularly relatives of other people with disabilities.

It doesnt just affect us. It affects our community, she said. (Other parents) are frightened about the repercussions: Will our kids be looked at differently by the police, will they not take care of them if they need help? she said.

Faisal Bhabha, Munozs lawyer, said the family is participating in the process to ensure her voice is heard throughout. The family also wants a guarantee that this wont happen again in the future  that there arent more officers who hold these attitudes, he said after the hearing.

It is not Sljivos first time coming under fire for comments made on the job. In 2013, the officer testified in court that he had stripped hundreds of people completely naked during searches  despite police policy stating that must not be done and a Supreme Court ruling stating no one should be stripped completely naked during a search.

The Supreme Courts rules are intended to maintain the dignity of the person being searched. Toronto police policy stipulates that once a piece of clothing is removed, the person is searched along with the clothing, then it must be replaced before the officer performing the search removes another item of clothing.

The officers admission came during a drug trafficking trial, after which the judge raised concerns about the officers statements.

Sljivo was not charged under the Police Services Act in connection to his strip search comments.

Sljivo and Saris are due back before the tribunal next month. The Munoz family is also filing a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.

Wendy Gillis can be reached at wgillis@thestar.ca

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After a long 3  months, the Parkdale rent strike has come to an end. Organizers declared victory, citing concessions from landlord MetCap Living Management Inc. including: reductions in planned above-guideline rent increases, relief for tenants facing financial hardship as well as a program of maintenance and repair work. (The company has maintained throughout the strike that they tried to address tenant concerns and set up a special hotline for repairs.)

Cole Webber, who helped organize the strike, talked about what other tenants can learn from their success:

Organize

Tenants said units badly needed repairs and that unfair rent hikes were designed to force them out. Instead of fighting alone, they banded together.

The rent strike was successful because tenants organized in their buildings and then linked up across the neighbourhood in order to put that pressure on the landlord, said Webber. Getting organized in your own building is the first step.

Communicate

Tenants formed committees in their buildings that brought neighbours together.

They would hold meetings in lobbies of their buildings, they would do door-to-door outreach, they would have conversations one-on-one with their neighbours, and then as they got organized they expanded that to mass texts, email lists, phone trees, Webber explained.

Be bold

When tenants organize theres strength in numbers, and so the rent strikers were able to take actions which were rather bold because they had that organization, he said. At its peak, according to Webber, the strike comprised 300 people in 12 buildings.

There was some degree of hesitancy, but I think people felt like they had no other choice. They were put in a position where they felt they were being priced out of their homes and so they had to take collective action.

Work around the system

Webber said tenants shouldnt give up if they dont get results from official channels like the Landlord and Tenant Board.

The system doesnt work for tenants, so tenants really need to find other ways of putting forward their demands  and the best way of doing that is by getting organized.

Take it forward

I think the rent strikers are keen to continue organizing in Parkdale and to share the lessons that theyve learned with their neighbours, and Im sure theyd be open to speaking to tenants from other parts of the city as well, Webber said.

With files from Emily Mathieu and Jim Rankin

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Tammy Jane Mackay Chen, one of two Canadians killed during a terror attack in Burkina Faso is being remembered as a passionate, charismatic and diligent teacher by her former students and colleagues.

Chen, 34, was killed alongside her husband in an attack on a restaurant Sunday night in Ouagadougou. She was six months pregnant and a newlywed who was living in the country while finishing a doctorate at the University of Cambridge in England. Chen and her husband, Mehsen Fenaiche, who was a Senegalese citizen and a Muslim, were married last month in Ouagadougou.

Eighteen people were killed in the attack, which is being treated as a terrorist incident.

Chen taught at Glen Ames Senior Public School until 2013 when she left for the University of Cambridge, the Toronto District School Board said in a statement released Tuesday.

Not only was she respected and well-liked by students, parents and colleagues, she was always willing to go the extra mile to help students, the statement read.

Katrina Yablonski told the Star that Chen taught her Grade 8 French at Glen Ames, and it became one of her favourite classes.

I was never really good at French, but she made me really excited to go to class, Yablonski said. You could tell she was so passionate about teaching.

She said Chens teaching style made the students interested in learning the course material and that it also brought the class closer together.

She was super fun, she would always been making jokes with us. She made sure everyone felt included and welcome.

Chen, who was from Montreal, had previously taught at Swansea Junior Public School.

The other Canadian killed in the attack was Bilel Diffalah, who had been volunteering since November 2016 as a hygiene and bio-security adviser with a local organization known as the Interprofessional Poultry Organization, said the Montreal-based Centre for International Studies and Cooperation.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau released a statement Tuesday following the incident.

Canada strongly condemns this heinous attack. People should not have to live in fear over their safety and security  no matter where they call home or where they travel. We will continue to work closely with the international community to fight terrorism and bring those responsible to justice, he said.

On behalf of the Government of Canada, Sophie and I offer our condolences to the families and friends of those killed and wish a speedy recovery to all those injured.

On Sunday evening, assailants arrived at the restaurant on motorcycles and began shooting randomly.

Local authorities say other foreigners killed include two Kuwaitis and one person each from France, Nigeria, Lebanon and Turkey. Seven Burkina Faso citizens were also killed and authorities said three other victims had not yet been identified.

Burkina Faso, a landlocked nation in West Africa, is one of the poorest countries in the world. It shares a northern border with Mali, which has long battled Islamic extremists.

With files from Allan Woods

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland says consular officials are working to provide help to the families of two Canadians killed in an attack in Burkina Faso. Suspected Islamic extremists opened fire at a restaurant Sunday. (The Canadian Press

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Ontario patients may soon learn how much some of the provinces highest billing doctors receive in taxpayer-funded OHIP payments.

If the Ontario Medical Association follows through on a proposal from some of its members, it would assist in publicly releasing the names of some top-billers, a move that would mark a dramatic reversal in its position that such disclosure would be a violation of personal privacy.

Doctors have been discussing the plan for more than a week on a social media site, the Star has learned.

Proponents say they are likely to lose a two-plus year court battle against the Star and the Ontario privacy commissioner to keep the names secret. They say they could minimize the damage by abruptly ending their legal fight and publicly releasing the names themselves.

Read more:What MDs are saying about the proposal to name some top billers

Under the scheme, doctors would pre-emptively leak the names not to the Star, but to another news media outlet in a bid to obtain more favourable coverage than the proponents believe they might receive from the Star.

Definitely open to the idea. Better for us to control the message, OMA president Dr. Shawn Whatley wrote Aug. 5 on the Ontario Doctors Discussion Forum, a Facebook group with more than 10,400 members.

We are discussing it this week, he wrote in response to a request for the OMA get involved in the scheme.

But when the Star subsequently asked Whatley for an on-the-record comment about the strategy, his public relations office released a statement, indicating the organization is not acting on it:

The matter regarding physician billings disclosure is still before the courts. We are pursuing leave to appeal. We continue to update members on court proceedings; any further strategy would need to go through a consultation with our members. The OMA is not actively consulting with our membership regarding the release of their billings prior to a court ruling.

The Facebook forum is a vehicle for doctors  as individuals  to express frustrations and share ideas, the statement said. There is a distinction between our own personal comments and the work of the OMA.

Ontario lags behind other jurisdictions in making physician-identified billings public. British Columbia, Manitoba and New Brunswick proactively release the information annually. So does the United States. Newfoundland and P.E.I. are currently tackling the issue.

The damage-control strategy was pitched on the site on an account credited to Baseer Khan, who is a Vaughan ophthalmologist. He warned that the court battle  launched by the OMA as well as two other physician groups  is doomed and urged that doctors take control of how the names of top billers are made public. Describing himself as a top-100 biller, Khan wrote:

Full disclosure  I am one of these individuals. Ive spoken to a number of individuals in and out of our profession and I am of the strong opinion that the appeal from the OMA will be turned down and our names will be published.

Invariably, the story will be played out negatively in the press and media  however IF we control the narrative, we can minimize the damage.

Khan did not respond to numerous requests from the Star for an interview.

Physicians on the forum responded favourably to his idea.

Its a solid plan. Scoop the Stars story. They spent a fortune fighting for this. Lick their lollipop before they have a chance to enjoy it, wrote Toronto radiologist Dr. David Jacobs, vice-president of the Ontario Association of Radiologists.

Jacobs wrote on the forum that he had no intention of responding to a request from the Star for an interview.

In June, a three-judge panel of the Ontario Divisional Court ruled unanimously against the doctors in their bid to keep the names secret. The court ordered the doctors to pay the Star $50,000 in legal costs.

The following month, the doctors announced plans to continue their legal fight. They filed a notice of application for leave to appeal to the Ontario Court of Appeal.

A court order preventing to Star from getting access to the names  which had been sought and obtained by the doctors  was extended so they could pursue their appeal.

On the Facebook forum, Khan urged that the highest paid doctors voluntarily disclose our Billings . . . to a more balanced paper like the globe or sun. He also suggested they disclose the number of services and visits rendered, taxes paid, cost of overhead and expenses and final net income.

Khan proposed that the OMA, which represents all of the provinces 29,000 practising physicians, get directly involved in the scheme, with the aim of portraying top billers in the best light:

If enough of us agree, we can petition the OMA PR group to package this info and present it the best way possible.

Explaining his logic: We are going to lose this appeal anyways  if we withdraw the appeal and disclose then we . . . take the wind out of the star and (reporter Theresa Boyles) sails (and) stop look like were hiding things and playing into the characterization that were fraudulent  rather that we work our asses off.

Khan suggested that doctors move quickly on the idea: The summer is the best time to do this (because) people are thinking about different things . . . The bigger time spread we can created (sic) between this new story and negotiations  the better.

A new round of negotiations between the OMA and province for a new fee contract is set to start next month. Doctors have been without a contract for more than three years.

Efforts to reach a deal have been acrimonious with one of the biggest stumbling blocks being how to address the significant disparities between what different classes of medical specialties receive in OHIP fee-for-service payments.

The Stars efforts to make physician-identified payment data public began in 2014 with a Freedom-of-Information request to Ontarios Health Ministry. The Star asked for the names, medical specialties and payment totals of the 100 top-billing doctors for the five most recent years available.

Payments to physicians are not the same as income as they do not take into account expenses for office rent, staff salaries and supplies.

The ministry provided information about medical specialties and payments, but denied access to names, reasoning the release would be an unjustified invasion of privacy. (The information provided showed ophthalmologists were the biggest billers, followed by diagnostic radiologists and then cardiologists.)

The Star successfully appealed that decision to Ontarios Information and Privacy Commissioner (IPC).

The three doctors groups then sought to get the IPC decision quashed through a judicial review.

In Junes ruling against the doctors, the Divisional Court rejected their argument that the Star had failed to establish a proper rationale for disclosure. Their argument ignored the well-established rationale that underlies access-to-information legislation, the court said.

The rationale is that the public is entitled to information in the possession of their governments so that the public may, among other things, hold their governments accountable, the decision stated.

The OMA announced the following month that it would try to get the decision overturned at the Ontario Court of Appeal. An email to members said:

The (OMA) board continues to strongly disagree with the IPC adjudicators ruling that physician payment information is not personal information protected from disclosure. The board overwhelmingly decided that we must stand our ground and exhaust every possible avenue to fight for our members on this matter.

Khan asked Whatley on the forum if the OMA could help stickhandle the plan by getting the top billers to work with the organization on it.

Shawn: others on the list may not want to disclose their identity to me or anyone other (sic) doc, are you willing/able to assign someone at the OMA to compile a list of docs who are willing to do this?

Whatley responded that the OMA would consider the idea.

Someone posting on the Facebook forum under the name Rox Lab wrote that the OMAs public relations team already had the issue on its radar and urged any top billers interested in participating in a PR response to get in contact:

OMA PR wanted to do a human interest piece on these doctors showing what services they provide. If you are interested to do this individually email the communications team.

Rox Lab declined to respond to queries from the Star and advised a reporter to get in touch with the OMA for comment.

One of the main concerns doctors have expressed about disclosure of billings is that the public might not appreciate the distinction between OHIP payments and actual income.

It is important to remember that disclosure of billings without context does not provide the public with an adequate picture, and may lead to a misunderstanding of billings versus income, Whatley said in his statement to the Star.

Without an understanding of each individual physicians overhead costs, in addition to hours worked, one cannot truly interpret the data. The comments made on the Facebook forum are an example of grassroots brainstorming to provide this context. At the OMA, we are always looking to highlight the benefits each physician brings to their community.

Star lawyer Iris Fischer said the paper has continued to make the distinction between OHIP payments and overhead.

The Star has been clear in its reporting on this issue that payments from OHIP are not doctors take-home pay  which was also the evidence before the IPC and important to the finding that payment information is not personal to doctors, she stated when the doctors announced plans to appeal.

In Fischers closing arguments during the judicial review, she said the public and media should have access to billing information so they can ask questions, identify anomalies and confirm appropriateness.

How many people is that doctor billing on behalf of? What is the size of his or her practice? What are the possible implications of billing (for working) 366 days a year? Fischer asked, referring to a finding in last year's provincial auditor's report.

Maybe the real reason is a high-billing doctor is actually overworked in an underserviced area. It's a structural problem that needs to be addressed by the ministry, she said.

The provincial auditors report raised the issue of problematic billing, stating that nine specialists claimed they worked more than 360 days in the 2015/16 fiscal year. They included six doctors who billed OHIP for work they said they did on 366 days during the 2015/16 fiscal year (which had an extra day because 2016 was a leap year).

The report cited the case of an ophthalmologist who billed $6.6 million in 2014/15 and had previously been described by Health Minister Eric Hoskins as the provinces highest biller.

A Health Ministry audit of the 12 top billers, obtained by the Star last year through a separate Freedom-of-Information request, suggested they are overcharging OHIP.

Among concerns highlighted in the audit were: billing for services not rendered, upcoding or charging OHIP using fee codes for more expensive procedures; and charging for medically unnecessary services that the plan is not designed to fund.

In urging doctors to drop their appeal, Khan wrote on the forum that it would allow OMA resources to be spent fighting fights ALL of us need such a corporation issues and negotiations.

And it would build good will (sic) with other docs in the province who dont benefit from this fight, he continued.

Reporter Theresa Boyle can be reached at tboyle@thestar.ca

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Saudi Arabia is ready to work out a rapprochement with rival Iran, Iraqi interior minister revealed, adding that he has been chosen by Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman to mediate between the two countries.

Qassim al-Araji told his Iranian counterpart that Riyadh is eager to bridge rivalry between the two countries, The New Arab reports.

The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia has formally asked me to mediate with Iran to curb the tension between the two countries, he said during a news conference on Sunday.

Al-Araji also pointed out that Saudi Arabia indicated that it would treat positively Iranian pilgrims and allow them to visit the cemetery of Baqi.

Respect for Iranian pilgrims is very important for Tehran, he said, adding that Iran is always seeking to strengthen its relations with Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia and Iran have been competing for influence in the region, accusing each other of supporting terrorism. The two have waged proxy wars in Yemen and Syria, backing opposed sides.

Saudi Arabia severed ties with Iran last year in January after mobs attacked and ransacked its diplomatic missions in Tehran and Mashhad following the execution of top Saudi Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr.

Iran condemned the attacks and 10 people charged with attacking the missions have been handed various prison sentences ranging from six months to three years.

Riyadh had also accused Teheran of pushing a Shia agenda in Iraq. But the Kingdom has recently renewed ties with Iran-backed Shia forces in Iraq.

Al-Araji, himself an Iran-backed Iraqi leader, and a senior leader of the Popular Mobilisation Forces known in Arabic as al-Hashd al-Shaabi, visited Riyadh mid-July at the request of Saudi authorities to discuss important topics.

Another prominent Iran-backed Iraqi leader, Moqtada Sadr met with the Saudi Crown Prince last month, a move deemed as an evidence of Iraq Shias distance from rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Teheran.

During the news conference, Al-Araji noted that rapprochement between the two rivals will contribute to strengthening security in the region.

During the OIC meeting over the situation in Jerusalem held in Istanbul early August, the Saudi and Iranian Foreign Ministers, Adel Jubeir and Javad Zarif, shook hands and the Iranian news agency ISNA noted then that the two top diplomats have had a friendly exchange on the sidelines of the event.

Many analysts saw in the handshake a change in the Saudi approach regarding relations with Iran and another signal that Riyadh is willing to mend fences with Iran and avoid a costly confrontation, as stated by Abdel Bari Atwan, the editor-in-chief of the London-based online newspaper Rai al-Youm.

The prominent Arab journalist had commented that the return of Iranian pilgrims to hajj this year was the first positive sign that raised hopes of tensions easing between the two countries.
When David Makepeace experienced his first total solar eclipse in 1991, he didnt expect it would completely transform his life.

My slate was wiped clean . . . I have not been the same since, said Makepeace, now 54 and a filmmaker/video producer in Toronto.

Its difficult to describe the rush he gets from seeing an eclipse, he says, but its an overpowering feeling of being at one with the cosmos.

You see that first one and then its all over. As soon as the shadow of the moon rushes off you, you want that feeling back.

Now Makepeace is addicted to chasing solar eclipses  hes travelled to all seven continents to stand in the moons shadow.

In 2003, he spent a month on an icebreaker travelling to the far side of Antarctica, where he witnessed an eclipse from an ice shelf. Hes gone into the Saharan desert to see an eclipse with thousands of other people at a campsite in Libya. Hes gone to a volcanic island in Indonesia and hes even taken a chartered flight, so he and more than 70 other eclipse chasers could sail through the moons shadow at more than 11,200 metres.

On Monday, Makepeace will witness his 23rd eclipse  and 16th total eclipse in Wyoming. A total solar eclipse is an experience he firmly believes everybody should have at least once in their lifetime  in fact, he runs a website called EclipseGuy.comdedicated to spreading the word.

During a total eclipse, everything goes dark, you can see planets, birds roost, animals behave oddly  theres just a litany of change taking place all around you when youre standing in the shadow of the moon, said Makepeace, who estimates hes spent around $100,000 chasing eclipses.

Read more:

Where to watch the eclipse in the Toronto area

All Toronto outdoor pools will close during solar eclipse peak

Portland friends partly blinded by sun during eclipse warn of dangers: 20 seconds worth of burning

Seeing the corona  the aura surrounding the eclipsed sun  is especially intense. He said people are often overcome with tears during the experience.

Theres no way to really describe it unless you see totality yourself, he said.

On Monday, people across the United States will witness a total solar eclipse  the rare astronomical event where the moon passes between the earth and the sun, fully covering the sun and darkening part of the Earth with its shadow. Millions of people will be in the roughly 110-kilometre wide path of totality, a ribbon spanning from Salem, Ore., to Charleston, S.C., according to NASA.

People in Toronto will experience a partial solar eclipse Monday when the moon will cover about 70 per cent of the sun with maximum coverage at 2:32 p.m.

Makepeace is part of a community of eclipse chasers, who avidly seek out the shadow of the moon  although he says hes among the most hardcore. He generally sees eclipses with a band of other avid chasers  it makes more sense to go in groups, especially when hunting down eclipses in remote places.

A total eclipse is a spectacular experience, said Chris Malicki, a family doctor in Mississauga whos travelled the world to see 14 total eclipses and five annular eclipses, where the moon covers the suns centre.

He vividly remembers being flabbergasted by his first total eclipse in 1979; next week his five- and seven-year-old grandchildren will see an eclipse for their first time.

I think its the most dramatic and beautiful thing one can see in nature, said Malicki, whose wife is also an eclipse chaser.

Its like standing on another planet during the precious two minutes or so when the sun completely disappears . . . Theres beautiful angel wings around this black hole, its dark, then suddenly in the period of a minute or two it just becomes daylight again. Its unreal.

Randy Attwood, the executive director of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, will see his 10th solar eclipse on Monday. He and his wife actually chased an eclipse during their honeymoon in 1984, travelling to a small fishing village in Papua New Guinea where there was no electricity or running water.

Attwood said that its difficult for people whove never seen a total eclipse to understand whats so incredible about them.

Generally people who see their first eclipse, the first thing they say after the eclipse is whens the next one?  Attwood said.

The light levels change dramatically, you can actually see the moons shadow race across the sky . . . You actually reach a point where you are aligned with the moon and the sun and the earth.

For people staying in Toronto, Attwood said its crucial that people dont look at the partially eclipsed sun without proper protection. He urges people to wear properly made solar viewers or eclipse glasses  sunglasses are not sufficient.

For thousands in the U.S., Monday will be their first time seeing a total solar eclipse.

Yvette Cendes, 31, has been planning to see this total eclipse since she was 13 years old. Now an astronomy PhD student at the University of Toronto, Cendes cant wait to travel to Jackson Hole, Wy., to be in the path of totality for the first time.

Several people from her department are travelling for the event, she said, and she also has astronomer friends flying in from Europe to see it.

Its going to be pretty big. Im kind of joking its like a wedding, what are we going to talk about once the eclipse is done?, she said, laughing, adding that shes a little worried about getting hooked on the expensive hobby.

On Wednesday, Makepeace will fly to Wyoming, where he and a dozen friends will pack into RVs and travel to the centreline of the eclipse path. If it looks like it might be cloudy, theyll hop in their RVs and move  youve got to be mobile, or risk missing the eclipse, he said.

He usually has five or six cameras rolling during every eclipse, but the experience is impossible to truly capture.

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For 13 years, Barney Williams Jr. remembers sitting in a dining room with his residential school classmates eating mush as he watched their disciplinarian feast on bacon, eggs, toast and jam.

We didnt get healthy food in the school. Mush in the morning and then sometimes wieners, baloney at times, Williams recalled of his time at the B.C. school. You had half an orange sometimes and if you were lucky, the bully didnt take it. Most of us were hungry a lot of the time.

A University of Toronto study published this week in the Canadian Medical Association Journal shows that malnutrition and severe hunger in residential schools has contributed to long-term health issues in the Indigenous community, even among younger generations.

Elevated risk of obesity and diabetes in Indigenous peoples can be linked back to the mistreatment of residential school children, according to the research.

While moderately active children between 4 and 18 years old require 1,400 to 3,200 calories per day, the average daily calorie intake of a residential school student was usually 1,000 to 1,450 calories, according to estimates based on survivor testimony.

Through most of the history of the schools, there was insufficient funding to actually purchase healthy foods for children, to hire appropriate staff, said researcher Ian Mosby, an adjunct lecturer and food historian in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. Particularly up until the late 1950s, schools were simply providing inadequate food.

Mosby, along with Tracey Galloway, an assistant professor of anthropology, reviewed other studies about the effects of food deprivation on children during famines and other high-poverty environments.

We found that those studies actually described the types of conditions that many survivors were themselves describing about the hunger that they were experiencing, Mosby said.

Their research showed that children were more likely to experience a range of physiological effects due to malnourishment, such as height-stunting, which can lead to greater fat-mass accumulation and obesity once nutrition becomes available.

Height-stunted children also demonstrate greater insulin sensitivity and lower insulin levels, making them prone to developing Type 2 diabetes.

Williams said this helps explain what hes seen first-hand since leaving the residential school system when he was 18.

I really believe theres a correlation between whats happening with us, he said. Im 77, I have heart problems, Ive got spine problems, I have arthritis and a lot of peers have diabetes. I think its a carry-over.

Williams recalled eating six orders of bacon and eggs in a restaurant one time after he got out of the residential school, much to the restaurant owners disbelief.

I would take so much food. It was always that thought in the back of my mind that there wasnt going to be enough, he said. We overeat now, a lot of us. I could eat half-a-dozen oranges in one sitting when I first came home.

The U of T study suggests that the effects of childhood malnutrition may even be felt by children and grandchildren of survivors.

Children of female survivors with obesity and diabetes are more likely to experience low or high birth weight, growth faltering and go on to develop insulin resistance and diabetes. These conditions have also been observed in studies of adult grandchildren of famine survivors.

In most of the literature on diabetes, obesity and other chronic health conditions in Indigenous communities, this is not even mentioned as a cause, Mosby said.

One of the things that we want to do is to try to encourage physicians and medical practitioners and policymakers to start thinking about the long-term effects of malnutrition in residential schools.

Williams said he hopes continued research into the residential school system  which took 150,000 Indigenous children away from their families  will help further the publics understanding about what he and so many others endured.

For me, the key is believe us, he said. Were not just making up stories. Were not looking for sympathy. Were looking to educate the general public about what happened to us.

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Im generally on the side of comedian Louis CK who had a bit a few years ago in which he sounded off on people complaining about flying. In one version he says, Theyre like it was the worst day of my life: first of all we didnt board for 20 minutes, and then we got on the plane and they made us sit there on the runway for 40 minutes.

Oh really? C.K. goes on to ask. What happened next? Did you fly through the air incredibly like a bird? Did you partake in the miracle of human flight? Youre flying! Its amazing. Everybody on every plane should be constantly going Oh my god! Wow! Youre sitting in a chair in the sky.

Hes right. Walking into the airport is still exciting: the anticipation of a trip, people from all over, smart uniforms, smarter technology. Better still, hang around the arrivals lounge of any airport and cure whatever cynicism you have for humanity by watching reunion after reunion, sometimes entire extended families, other times just a lone person waiting with flowers. You can imagine the stories as your heart swells.

Read more: United Airlines gives away toddlers seat on overbooked flight

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Passengers confined to plane on Ottawa runway for six hours, woman says

Airports are emotional landscapes, but sometimes the emotions run red hot. Such was the case back in May when I had an impromptu reunion with my mom who was flying from Halifax to Windsor via Toronto. When she arrived at Pearson airport she, along with everyone else with a similar connection, were told their flight had been cancelled. Recall that spring was a season of cancelled and delayed flights at Pearson due to runway construction.

In the early evening, I got a text from mom saying she was in line to speak to an Air Canada agent about rebooking. I, naively, said because they cancelled it theyd put her up in an airport hotel, as they should, or at least, as they used to. However after two hours in line she was told it would be two days before she could fly home to Windsor and that no hotel or reimbursement would be offered as it was the airports fault, not theirs.

She and others had to scramble to find either a hotel or arrange another way home so I drove out and picked up a very dehydrated 70 year old (nobody leaves their place in an airport line, even if its two hours long) and brought her downtown to my apartment. Though an unexpected visit with mom is not a bad thing, had I not lived nearby and been free to pick her up, shed have been stranded. Story after story like this came out during these weeks, yet the airport and airlines carried on like it was business as usual.

Though Air Canada told her two days, next morning moms travel agent in Kentville, N.S., was able to book her on a flight to Windsor leaving in a few hours, a very few, so we rushed to the airport. I wasnt going to leave until her plane was wheels up so I stuck around for a couple hours. Mom eventually took off on a plane that, she reported, was only about half full, and I left with a $28 parking bill for this unplanned trip. When I asked, via Twitter, if theyd reimburse that $28 because Air Canada said it was their fault, the Greater Toronto Airport Authority (GTAA) didnt answer. Their spokesperson later said they were not refunding anybody.

After writing a letter of complaint to them, Air Canada said they wouldnt offer compensation either, but gave my mom a one-time discount of 25 per cent off the base fare on her next booking. Neither here nor there, but Air Canada just posted a record $300 million profit for their second quarter, a period of time that covers moms delay.

Whats stunning about this story is the airlines blamed the airport while the GTAA said passengers were the responsibility of the airlines. Some then blamed Nav Canada, the private, not-for-profit corporation that manages air traffic control in this country. Are you confused? We were. Nobody would accept blame for knowingly running an airport at full capacity when they could not deal with that capacity. It was like they were all colluding to take peoples money away from them by selling a service they knew they couldnt provide.

Yet, what should have been a public relations disaster for the GTAA and the airlines, wasnt. A few weeks later the runway reopened, and the springtime troubles were seemingly forgotten. Trips were booked and life goes on. The airlines, for their part, went on with business as usual. Last week Air Transat stranded passengers for six hours in a hot airplane in Ottawa on a flight from Brussels to Montreal that had been diverted. The airline blamed the airport for its inability to unload the passengers, and, well, you get the feeling everyone involved all retire to the airport bar at the end of day and chuckle about how effortlessly they can shift blame to one another like a spoiled hot potato only the passengers have to eat.

The Federal governments Bill C-49 that is proposing changes to air travel regulation would, in part, create a passenger bill of rights, but critics say it doesnt go far enough. Despite that, the president of Air Transat, Jean-Francois Lemay, said this week that such regulation would unfairly punish airlines and shifted blame to, you guessed it, the airports. See you at the bar, Jean-Francois!

Even if we blame the airports, they exist in a strange unaccountable bubble. The GTAA is a private, non-profit corporation, a long arms length away from both government and industry oversight. They are also well known to resist co-operation with other agencies; when the UP Express began operation, signage to find the station inside Pearson was terrible, and it took sustained public complaints for the GTAA to fix it. Recall, too, they originally wanted to charge UPX passengers an additional $2 airport fee, but that was dropped after public outcry.

Of late theres been talk of letting private investors have a stake in the GTAA to help fund a massive transit hub by the airport. Pearson is a critical and valuable economic asset, says the GTAA, facilitating an estimated 332,000 jobs and responsible for $42 billion or 6.3 per cent of Ontarios economic output. All fine and good, but what about the passengers? Some might dismiss air travel as a luxury, but many people on limited incomes save up for years for a special flight, perhaps to the old country or to visit a far flung loved one. For all of these reasons, Bill C-49 needs a stronger passenger bill of rights and more public oversight over airports, a critical part of our economy and national infrastructure.

Louis CK was right: flying is incredible, so incredible that airports and airlines are currently immune from accountability.

Shawn Micallef writes every Saturday about where and how we live in the GTA. Wander the streets with him on Twitter @shawnmicallef

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In most cities, growth is measured building by building. In Toronto, where demand for space is insatiable, it's neighbourhood by neighbourhood.

The latest example is Dupont St. between Spadina and Ossington. So far there's not much to see, but the ad campaigns have been launched and hoardings are up. At last count, there were 10 or so projects in various stages of evolution. Most are lowrise residential slabs with retail and commercial uses added to the mix.

But what makes The New Dupont, as developers have dubbed it, interesting is that it's one of Toronto's few preplanned precincts. The best known and most successful instance is the waterfront, which was divided into precincts and laid out long before the first development call was issued. In the case of Dupont, the city planners, prodded into action by local councillors and residents, roused themselves to produce a set of guidelines that give the corridor a serious shot at being more than another condo mishmash that adds up to less than the sum of its parts.

The city and the community have done the hard work, explains Councillor Joe Cressy. The point was to create a neighbourhood that isn't just a bunch of buildings. What we've tried to do is articulate a clear sense of what we want in development. We looked at what was the appropriate height and scale, the appropriate amount of retail and the public realm component. It was a prime example of an attempt to embrace appropriate development and oppose ridiculous development.

Industry's response indicates that it likes what it sees. Jim Ritchie, Tridel's vice-president of sales and marketing, calls Dupont a new opportunity for intensification. His firm, which has two projects on the street, sees it as the start of different type of growth. We looked at it as a location that will be of more interest to end-users not investors. The size is much larger than the usual; the average unit will be between 1,000 and 1,500 square feet. There's not much of this sort of product available in Toronto. It's quite unlike what we'd do downtown.

According to Ritchie, the typical buyer will be in his or her mid-40s and looking for something more than 600-square-foot box in a glass-and-steel tower. Clearly, the city's insistence on architectural excellence and enhanced landscaping, which Ritchie calls the motherhood stuff, is paying off. So, too, is the nine-storey height limit, which appeals both to buyers and neighbours.

Of course, not all developers were willing to accept the guidelines. Freed Developments has appealed to the Ontario Municipal Board for permission to build a 19-storey mixed-use condo/commercial complex. Freed also wants to build closer than regulations allow to the railway tracks that run parallel to Dupont.

The OMB verdict, which is expected any day, will have a profound influence on how development unfolds along Dupont. Given that two freight trains collided just a year ago near Dupont and Bathurst, the issues are far from theoretical.

That's why all eyes are on the OMB. As well as providing more ammunition for those who believe the board has to go, the situation is a reminder of how even the city's best laid plans are vulnerable to developers and provincial second-guessing. The beauty of the guidelines is that they present a unified vision; they accommodate neighbourhood demands and the economic, political and physical realities of the site.

Dupont, which combines residential on the south side with retail and an old industrial infrastructure on the north, offers a unique opportunity to smooth Toronto's entry into the modern urban age. For the most part, this transition has been clumsy, confusing and haphazard. Rather than solving the problems of yesterday, it has created a whole new set for tomorrow.

Christopher Humes column appears weekly. He can be reached at jcwhume4@gmail.com

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WASHINGTONNorth Koreas autocratic ruler has decided not to launch a threatened missile attack on Guam, Pyongyangs state media reported Tuesday, easing the immediate threat of an attack on the U.S. territory in the western Pacific.

The North Korean statement said Kim Jong Un could change his mind if the Yankees persist in their extremely dangerous reckless actions.

The announcement appeared shortly after Defense Secretary James N. Mattis warned that an attack could quickly escalate to war, although its unclear if they were linked.

If they fire at the United States it could escalate into war very quickly, Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon. Thats called war, if they shoot at us. ... You dont shoot at people in this world unless you want to bear the consequences.

Read more:

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Mattis cited a classic Hollywood political satire about nuclear war to say he wasnt drawing red lines or making idle threats to spark a confrontation.

Its not declaring war  its not that Im over here, Dr. Strangelove, doing things like that, he said.

North Korea tested an intercontinental ballistic missile last month for the first time, and U.S. intelligence agencies assess that Pyongyang can build a nuclear warhead small enough to fit atop a long-range missile, although its not clear if it can target U.S. cities.

The latest missile tests led to a sharp rise in tensions. The United Nations Security Council voted unanimously to add new sanctions on North Korea, and President Donald Trump warned he would unleash fire and fury if Pyongyang continued its threats.

In response, North Korea said Kim was reviewing a plan to fire four mid-range missiles over Japan and into international waters at least 20 miles off Guam, where the U.S. military operates several major bases.

Mattis was ambiguous as to how Washington would respond if Pyongyang launched a missile toward Guam as a show of force, and it landed far offshore.

War is up to the president, and perhaps up to Congress, Mattis said. The bottom line is we will defend the country from attack.

The U.S. military would be able to determine if a North Korean missile is headed toward Guam within moments, he said, because of spy satellites, radars and other high-tech sensors that track missile launches.

If necessary, well take it out, Mattis said, suggesting the U.S. military would attempt to shoot it down with anti-missile interceptors on land and ships.

Earlier, Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sought to defuse tensions in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that said the Trump administration did not seek regime change or accelerated reunification of Korea, issues of special concern to China, which supports Pyongyang.

Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrived late Monday in Beijing to meet with Chinese military leaders. Earlier, he met with South Korean President Moon Jae-in at Osan Air Base, a U.S. air force base about 40 miles south of Seoul.

Dunford said in Beijing that his goal was to continue to develop our military-to-military relationships, to mitigate the risk of miscalculation in the region and to have co-operation where those opportunities exist, according to a Pentagon statement.

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CORTLAND, OHIOOhio officials have granted a womans request to have U.S. President Donald Trumps mysterious tweeted typo, covfefe, on her licence plate.

Brittany Scott tells The Columbus Dispatch in May she saw a Twitter post by Trump that read: Despite the constant negative press covfefe.

The 29-year-old Cortland woman says she wrote in her application that her request stemmed from a tweet from the 45th president of the United States, and the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles approved it.

Read more: Six months of spelling mistakes from the Trump White House: Analysis

Scott says she hasnt received any complaints online or from fellow motorists.

A bureau committee examines hundreds of applications each day for vanity plates, denying profane, obscene or sexually explicit ones. It also rejects those it determines could provoke violence or advocate lawlessness.

Cortland is about 103 kilometres southeast of Cleveland.

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GENEVASwitzerlands tourism office on Tuesday decried an unfortunate incident in which a small Alpine hotel posted a sign asking Jewish guests to shower before swimming in the hotel pool.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center demanded the closure of the Paradies Arosa hotel, and issued a statement calling on the broader Jewish community and their Gentile friends to blacklist this horrific hotel. On Twitter, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely called for justice against the hotels management.

Officials said the hotel in the eastern town of Arosa had apologized for the incident and taken the sign down. Hotel management didnt immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Swiss Tourism spokesman Markus Berger called the sign unacceptable, adding: It always needs to stay in perspective: This is one unfortunate incident.

Under the headline To our Jewish Guests, the sign read: Please take a shower before you go swimming. If you break the rules, I am forced to cloes (sic) the swimming pool for you. Thank you for your understanding.

Tzipi Livni, a former Israeli foreign minister, posted an image of the sign on her Facebook page and wrote that there can be no tolerance and no indifference to anti-Semitism and racism, in comments that also alluded also to violence around a white supremacist rally in Virginia in the United States.

We must not let there be a place in the free world for Nazi flags or Ku Klux Klan masks or ugly signs in hotels directed at Jews only, she wrote. We cannot allow acts of hate against Jews around the world to become normal.

The secretary-general of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities said it was really a dumb thing to do, but he called for calm.

Its somebody who really didnt think a lot, Jonathan Kreutner said in a phone interview.

He said that calls to close the hotel were very exaggerated, Kreutner said. This is the most important thing now: To stay cool. Things happened that are not good. I dont want to reduce the problem behind this, but it is very important to stay cool.

Read more: Anti-Semitism, the disease that refuses to be cured: Marmur

Kreutner said that most of the Jews who visit the area are from Belgium, Britain, Israel, Switzerland and the U.S.

Berger, the tourism spokesman, cited a recent trend of Orthodox and other Jews travelling to four Alpine villages in the area in the summertime, including Davos of World Economic Forum fame. He said didnt know the origin of the trend, but that numbers definitely in the thousands have grown in recent years. He said many area hotels serve kosher food, and that Jewish guests feel well-treated there.

Its just this one lady at this one hotel who was not on top of the situation, Berger said. Its an isolated incident that doesnt need for greater action to be taken.

Switzerlands foreign ministry, responding to a request for comment from The Associated Press, said that it has been in touch with the Israeli ambassador and outlined to him that Switzerland condemns racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination in any form. Switzerland has been strongly committed for years  as it is at the moment, for example, within its presidency for the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance  to raise awareness to the dangers of racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination.

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WASHINGTONThe Trump administration denounced Daesh, also known as ISIS or ISIL, on Tuesday for carrying out genocide against Christians and other religious minorities in areas under its control.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the group is clearly responsible for genocide against Christians and Yazidis in Iraq and Shiite Muslims in Syria and elsewhere. His comments were made as the State Department released its annual report on international religious freedom.

Tillerson said he was making the pronouncement to remove any ambiguity about previous genocide assertions made by his predecessor, John Kerry, who in March 2016, determined that genocide was occurring in Daesh-held areas but was criticized by lawmakers and religious groups for not declaring genocide was taking place earlier. Neither administrations genocide determination carries with it any legal obligation for the U.S. or others.

ISIS has and continues to target members of multiple religions and ethnicities for rape, kidnapping, enslavement and death, Tillerson told reporters in presenting the report.

Read more:

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ISIS is clearly responsible for genocide against Yazidis, Christians and Shia Muslims in areas it controlled. ISIS is also responsible for crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing directed at these same groups, and in some cases against Sunni Muslims, Kurds and other minorities, Tillerson said. The protection of these groups  and others who are targets of violent extremism  remains a human-rights priority for the Trump administration.

The religious freedom report, which is mandated by Congress, covers 2016 and does not address the Trump administrations decision to temporarily halt the admission of all refugees, many of whom are fleeing religious persecution. The administration has appealed challenges to the suspension of those admissions to the Supreme Court.

An appendix to the report covering refugees said admissions are a vital tool in addressing religious persecution and other human rights abuses. It said more than 70 per cent of the nearly 85,000 refugees admitted to the U.S. in 2016 came from five nations  Congo, Syria, Myanmar, Iraq and Somalia  where the report itself said that freedom to worship is under threat. Syria and Somalia are among the six mainly Muslim nations that are also included in the administrations visa ban that is also before the Supreme Court.

Michael Kozak, the acting assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labour, said the administration is concentrating on trying to alleviate repressive conditions to reduce the need for people to flee their homes. He noted that many who have fled would prefer to return to their homes than move abroad. And, he noted that in Iraq and Syria specifically, it was preferable not to disturb millennia-old religious minorities.

We dont want to uproot communities that have been there for thousands of years and take them elsewhere, he said.

In addition to Daesh, Tillerson and the report called out Bahrain, China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Turkey for persecuting, stigmatizing or otherwise restricting the rights of religious minorities.

Religious persecution and intolerance remains far too prevalent, Tillerson said, noting that some 80 per cent of the worlds population live with persecution or limits on their ability to worship.

We cannot ignore these conditions, he said.

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LONDONBritain on Tuesday gave its most detailed indication yet of how its future trade with the European Union might work after Brexit, laying out proposals to replace membership in the blocs customs union with new mechanisms designed to allow frictionless trade to continue.

The plans were dismissed as a fantasy by one senior EU official. And anti-Brexit campaigners in Britain said they would merely replace EU regulations with new ones that could be even more onerous.

The Department for Exiting the European Union said there could be a temporary customs union between the U.K. and the EU to avoid border chaos when Britain officially leaves the bloc in March 2019.

Brexit Secretary David Davis said the transition period could last about two years.

Read more:

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In the long term, the department said, a customs partnership could eliminate the need for a border for goods travelling between Britain and the EU. The partnership would see Britain impose the exact same requirements as the EU on goods from outside the bloc destined for member states.

Alternately, it suggested a highly streamlined customs arrangement could be set up, using technology to ease border procedures.

The proposals drew a cool response from Brussels.

To be in & out of the Customs Union & invisible borders is a fantasy, tweeted Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliaments Brexit co-ordinator.

Some British businesses have accused the government of being vague about whether there will be economic barriers with the EU after Brexit. The persistent uncertainty  14 months after Britain voted to leave the EU  is weighing on the economy.

Trade Secretary Liam Fox and Treasury chief Philip Hammond wrote in the Sunday Telegraph that in 2019 Britain will leave both the EUs single market in goods and services and its customs union.

The single market ensures tariff-less trade in goods and services and is linked closely by the EU with other rights, such as the right of EU citizens to cross borders. The customs union allows goods to move within the EU without checks, but also imposes tariffs on imports from outside the EU. That would prevent Britain striking new free trade deals while it remains inside the arrangement.

The British proposal says the U.K. should be free to negotiate new trade relationships during the transition period, something EU officials are likely to find problematic.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who favours Britains staying in the single market and customs union, accused the government on Twitter of having a daft have cake and eat it approach to Brexit.

Pro-EU Labour lawmaker Chuka Umunna said the proposals are offering a red tape bombshell for British business.

The customs proposals are the first in a series of papers covering thorny issues in the negotiations, which are due to resume in Brussels at the end of this month. Another, on the status of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, is due to be published this week.

The European Commission said it took note of Britains suggestions, but we will only address them once we have made sufficient progress on the terms of the orderly withdrawal from the bloc.

The EU says negotiations on its future relations with Britain cant start until sufficient progress has been made on three initial issues: how much money the U.K. will have to pay to settle its outstanding commitments to the bloc; whether security checks and customs duties will be instituted on the Irish border; and the status of 3 million EU nationals living in Britain.

Michel Barnier, the EUs chief Brexit negotiator, tweeted that the quicker the two sides agree on citizens, settling accounts and Ireland, the quicker we can discuss customs & future relationship.

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BUENOS AIRESU.S. Vice-President Mike Pence is in Argentina, where hes expected to praise President Mauricio Macris economic reforms days after local primary elections that were seen as a boost for Macris pro-business agenda.

Pence is expected to meet with local officials, hold a joint press conference with Macri, and deliver a speech at the Buenos Aires stock exchange focused on economic ties between the two countries as part of a weeklong visit to Latin America.

Investors have praised Macris decision to cut government spending, reduce taxes on exports and end economic distortions that led to years of high consumer prices under his left-leaning predecessor. But job cuts and the slashing of utility subsidies have also stoked unrest in a country with a long tradition of providing generous state jobs and benefits.

Macri and U.S. President Donald Trump enjoy a personal relationship dating back years from their days as businessmen, and both had hoped to leverage those ties to bolster U.S.-Argentine relationship after years of anti-American posturing by Macris predecessor, Cristina Fernandez.

Read more:

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During a visit to the White House in April, Trump heaped praise on Macri and declared that the two countries would be great friends, better than ever before  despite that Macri had supported Trump rival Hillary Clinton in the U.S. presidential election.

Theres a personal relationship there and I imagine the vice-president will want to build on that, said Harold Trinkunas, an expert in Latin American politics who currently works at Stanford Universitys Center for International Security and Cooperation.

Pences visit comes two days after the surprising success of Macris political coalition in key Argentine provinces in a primary election. The results strengthened the collations position heading into Octobers midterm legislative vote and gave a boost to its pro-business economic reforms.

The vote was closely watched to gauge Macris popularity and the strength of former president Fernandez, who is expected to run for a Senate seat in October. Investors fear a return of the populist Fernandez who has vowed to fight Macris reforms.

Fernandez had been widely expected to beat Macris candidate in Buenos Aires province, but the contest ended in a virtual tie that was seen a major win for the president.

Pences speech is expected to stress a message he has delivered repeatedly now: That Trumps America first policy does not mean America alone. Pence is also expected to argue that secure Latin America is crucial to the security of the United States, praise Macris economic reforms and argue that a more prosperous Latin America is good for the U.S.

During her presidency, Fernandez kept prices for things such as bread, bus rides and energy low. But her free-spending policies led to soaring consumer prices, limits on exports and currency controls that created a black market for dollars.

Macri was elected promising to clean up corruption and jump-start the economy with a pro-business government that would roll back some of Fernandezs policies and cut back government spending. But he has struggled to rein in double-digit inflation and has been criticized for firing tens of thousands of state workers.

Pence will probably stress the benefits of the changes, said Michael Matera, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who previously served as deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires, among other positions.

Certainly the reason youre going to Argentina is to show support for a process thats still somewhat tenuous, somewhat precarious, he said.

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov underlined Monday at a meeting in Moscow with Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar of the Libyan National Army (LNA) that Russia supports a political solution to the Libyan crisis and the full-scale restoration of the statehood of the North African country.

Lavrov admitted that the situation in Libya remains difficult and that the threat posed by extremism persists.

He welcomed last months meeting held near Paris between Haftar and Faiez Serraj of the Presidency Council. He also expressed hope that new UN Special Envoy Ghassan Salame will focus all mediation and efforts and ideas on the political front on the basis of the activities of the United Nations while promoting the most favorable conditions for a dialogue between key figures in Libya, so that they themselves agree on the future of their country.

Russia wants all major political forces, tribes and regions to undertake the path of dialogue, he insisted.

Haftar, who also held talks with Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, said he discussed military aid with Russian authorities as he affirmed that Russia remains a good friend of ours and will not refuse to help.

Moscow has been supportive of the renegade military officials actions in the war-torn North African country.

Haftar claimed that his forces have liberated roughly 90 percent of the country in their fight against terrorism amid the unlimited financial and military support for terrorists. Armed groups in Libya have often referred to their rivals as terrorists. The Field Marshall thinks that the UN arms embargo is negatively affecting his military operations.

Haftars visit to Moscow is his third since November 2016. Under the Gadhafi regime, Russia was leading supplier in arms to the North African country.
In the digital era, politicians and government agencies frequently find themselves the subject of criticism on social media. There have been concerning news stories recently of public authorities blocking users or deleting unwelcome posts, effectively silencing dissenting views in popular online forums.

This troubling trend has serious implications for the freedom of expression. Citizens should be free to criticize government authorities on social media platforms. Government conduct muzzling such criticism may well be unconstitutional.

The right to free expression is a foundational one in any liberal democracy. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirms the universal right to freedom of opinion and expression, which includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Closer to home, thanks to the protection of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Canadians are free to peacefully express ideas and opinions that challenge government, subject only to such reasonable limits as may be justified in a free and democratic society.

Over history, the publics right to free expression has been exercised in many different media and forums.

Social media is just the latest platform where people can exchange ideas, debate pressing social and political issues, and criticize the government.

But unlike protest marches or pamphlets, political dissent on social media can be silenced in an instant. No need for riot police or bookstore raids. All you need is the click of a button by a website administrator or Twitter account holder. This is the paradox of social media as a tool for political dissent: exercising freedom of expression is easier than ever before, but so is censorship.

Repeated examples of such censorship have been reported in recent months. South of the border, lawsuits have been filed against President Trump and two Republican governors claiming they violated the First Amendment rights of individuals they blocked from accessing their official social media accounts.

Here in Canada, there is a growing list of informal complaints by individuals who have been blocked from seeing or communicating on politicians official social media accounts  including the official account of at least one federal cabinet minister.

And in a story reported earlier this month, the Canadian Transportation Agency repeatedly removed a negative comment posted on the Agencys Facebook page by an airline passenger rights activist. Despite requests, the agency has apparently failed to explain what, if anything, is unproven or inaccurate about the post.

This kind of conduct may violate the charter right to free expression.

Political expression  particularly on government property  lies at the heart of that right and is deserving of the utmost protection. As former Supreme Court of Canada Justice Claire LHeureux-Dube once wrote, The liberty to comment on and criticize existing institutions and structures is an indispensable component of a free and democratic society. It is imperative for such societies to benefit from a multiplicity of viewpoints which can find fertile sustenance through various media of communication.

Government agencies that remove negative Facebook comments, or Parliamentarians who block critical Twitter followers on their official accounts, are state actors interfering with the constitutionally protected right of constituents to voice opinions on social and political issues in the online equivalent of government property.

Of course, no right is absolute. The charter accepts reasonable limits on the freedom of expression. Before the digital era, such limits were recognized where necessary to maintain law and order, combat hate speech, preserve an individuals reputation against defamation, or for other pressing and substantial concerns.

These same concerns may be legitimate reasons for a government agency or politician to suppress expressive activity online. Indeed, social media can be a breeding ground for racism, harassment, defamation and other vile speech that does little to contribute to the market place of ideas and state actors might properly block such communications without breaching the charter.

But lets be clear: it is the charter, and the framework developed by courts to interpret and apply the charter, that must govern. The internet is not a charter-free zone where state actors are free to stifle critical or unpopular speech simply because they have readily available tools to do so.

Andrea Gonsalves and Justin Safayeni practice media/defamation and constitutional law at Stockwoods LLP, a boutique litigation firm in Toronto.

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Re: Coming out hasnt come as far as we think, Teitel, Aug. 11

Coming out hasnt come as far as we think, Teitel, Aug. 11

As a senior gay man, I was delighted to read Emma Teitels column on coming out. As open and accepting as Canada has become, coming out remains an event fraught with fear and anxiety for many.

Apart from blatant homophobia that continues to exist, even in Toronto, I believe an important psychological dynamic is internalized homophobia. I grew up getting a very clear message at home, at school, in my place of worship, in the media and from my doctors that being gay was aberrant and, in some unexplained way, dirty and evil.

Those messages must have been imprinted on my psychological makeup. But at the same time, I was totally powerless over my choice of sexual preference. Im not a therapist but what a horrible dilemma that was for me.

Growing up with those messages, which continue to this day, and hearing about institutionalized homophobia in most parts of the world, leading in some cases to the killing of gay people, how could this not become part of my psychological makeup.

The trauma of growing up this way has affected many areas of my life. I believe it will take many generations of acceptance before gay people will truly be integrated into the fabric of our society. I feel grateful every day that this journey is well underway.

Melvin Tonken, Toronto

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Re: Chief must fire disgraced officers or go down trying, DiManno, Aug. 12

Chief must fire disgraced officers or go down trying, DiManno, Aug. 12

It is frightening to me that these three cops may be reinstated as police officers in Toronto or anywhere else. Their behaviour that night was reprehensible.

These three cops have tarnished the reputation of all officers on the force. Their behaviour will have a disastrous effect on how the people of Toronto feel about their police. People will be even less likely to trust the police, help them solve crimes or co-operate with them.

I truly believe the majority of Toronto police officers are good, and must be ashamed and disgusted to have these three men on the force. It is very good news that senior officers have been told to inform all officers that even when off duty, officers must adhere to the core values of integrity, honour and trustworthiness.

Donna Patterson, Toronto

Let me compliment Rosie DiManno and the Star for her great column, pointing out a real problem that makes it clear why respect for police has become virtually non-existent.

The lack of respect shown to the public apparently reflects the absence of respect within their own ranks. It might be appropriate to reiterate a quote by Edmund Burke: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

The addition of 80 officers will not solve the problem as long as the current culture to protect abominable behaviour continues.

L.T. Fraser, Innisfil

Rosie DiManno nailed it. Chief Mark Saunders must get a grip on his officers to eliminate the Thin Blue Line mutual-protection culture. Honour, honesty and ethics must prevail among those who are given almost limitless power over the rest of us. The current alternative is neither palatable nor sustainable.

Edward A. Collis, Burlington

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Chicken will be the best-positioned protein due to its low price position in times of pressure on consumer spending power but rises in production costs and the long-term impact of COVID-19 threaten to disrupt the sector, according to Rabobank.
Danone SA (DANOY) shares rose sharply again Tuesday following reports that an activist investor has built a stake in one of the world's biggest yogurt makers.

Danone was marked 1.9% higher by mid-day in Paris to change hands at 67.70 after Bloomberg reported that Corvex Management, a U.S.-based fund controlled by Keith Meister, has taken a 400 million stake in the French group and wants to press for changes from the company's management that he argues would unlock value in the group.

Danone shares were also active in Monday's European session after the New York Post reported that the group could be a potential takeover target, although some analysts questioned the ability of a U.S.-based takeover given the French government's previous reluctance to allow foreign ownership of what it has called a "flower of our industry".

The shares have gained 2.5% over the past two days and 7.8% so far this month, far outpacing the 1.02% gain for the benchmark CAC-40.

The French government has consistently thwarted foreign investment in the daily industry, which generates nearly 30 billion in annual revenue and employs more than 250,000 people in Europe's second largest economy.

In 2011, French private equity group PAI was essentially forced to split its holding in Yoplait, a yogurt maker, into a brand unit and an operating unit before it could be sold to U.S.-based General Mills Inc. (GIS) - Get Free Report in a deal that was wroth around $2.3 billion at the time.

General Mills and Sodiaal, a French farmers' co-operative group, took equal ownership of the brand company while General Mills took 51% of the operating group.

"The government reaffirms its desire to preserve jobs and the future of the dairy sector in France," said Christine Lagarde, now Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund but then France's Finance Minister. "It will be particularly keen to see the shareholders put forward an industrial plan that favours job creation, innovation and milk producers."

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GoPro (GPRO) - Get Free Report is no longer on death watch.

Shares of the camera maker climbed nearly 5% Tuesday morning after Goldman Sachs analyst Doug Clark upgraded his rating to "neutral" from "sell" with a price target of $10, up from $6.75.

Clark said investor attention should soon focus on upcoming product introductions, which are historically good for GoPro's stock price. The San Mateo, California-based company is expected to release a new Hero6 camera in the second half of 2017 and a 360-degree Fusion camera sometime in 2018.

Goldman's concerns about GoPro's liquidity have also abated to some extent. As the company has raised convertible debt, restructured costs and reduced inventory, Clark has come to recognize that Goldman "underestimated the company's ability to improve its capital structure and liquidity position." GoPro increased its available cash by 100% sequentially at the end of the second quarter.

Clark's new $10 price target implies about 2.6% upside for the stock from its Monday close. GoPro shares have gained almost 18% since the start of the year.

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American International Group Inc (AIG) - Get Free Report , the largest commercial insurer in the U.S. and Canada, is said to be working with Goldman Sachs (GS) - Get Free Report to find a buyer for its $2 billion life settlements portfolio, Reuters reported.

Private equity firm Apollo Global Management LLC (APO) - Get Free Report has looked at buying some of the policies, which are typically sold by elderly or terminally ill policyholders who need cash, sources say. Investors snap up the life settlements, hoping to pay less for the policy than they'll get when the customer dies.

Blackstone Group LP (BX) - Get Free Report has purchased similar death benefits packages from AIG in the past.

The potential sale comes as AIG nears the end of a decade-long string of divestitures that cut its balance sheet in half. New CEO Brian Duperreault has renewed focus on core commercial and consumer businesses, but there is still a small portion of "legacy" assets AIG is trying to wind down, including the life settlements.

The Deal, a sister publication of TheStreet, reported last week that AIG had retained ITM Twenty First LLC, a Minneapolis-based firm that services its life settlement portfolio, to run an auction for 84 policies dubbed the "Gold Portfolio" with $523.7 million in death benefits.

AIG stock was up 0.5% to $63.21 in early afternoon trading Tuesday.

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As bricks-and-mortar clothing retailers like Macy's Inc. (M) - Get Free Report and J.C. Penney Company, Inc. (JCP) - Get Free Report fight for their lives by contractingshuttering locations and laying off employeesdiscounter TJX Companies, Inc. (TJX) - Get Free Report is living large.

This year, the owner of TJMaxx, Marshalls and HomeGoods will open 260 new stores. Among them will be its premier home decor line, HomeSense, CEO Ernie Herrman told analysts during an earnings call on Tuesday, Aug. 15, following the second-quarter earnings release.

"The customer is clearly telling us that brick-and-mortar retail continues to be an essential part of the shopping experience, certainly when it is executed right with the right values," Herrman said. "All of this gives us confidence in our long-term global store growth potential."

While the company was tight-lipped about how many of the company's brands will be represented in the expansion, CNBC reported in February that about 80 will be HomeGoods stores.

These new openings, according to Herrman, bring TJX closer to its long-term goal of having 5,600 outposts worldwide.

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The company posted higher-than-expected profit and sales in its earnings report Tuesday, with a 3% year-over-year comparable store sales increase in the second quarter of 2017, which ended July 29, and net sales of $8.4 billiona 6% uptickin the same period.

TJX Companies is a holding in Jim Cramer's Action Alerts PLUS Charitable Trust Portfolio. Want to be alerted before Cramer buys or sells TJX? Learn more now.

TJX outperformed analyst expectations, thanks largely to lowered selling, goods and administrative costs, according to the equity research firm Cowen in a Tuesday note. "TJX's +3c [more than 3 cents] beat versus our estimates was driven primarily by lower than expected SG&A [selling, general and administrative expenses]," wrote Cowen analyst Oliver Chen. "Management noted customer traffic was up and was the primary driver of comps at every division, while merchandise margins were also up."

Customer traffic, Herrman said, was the main driver of comp store sales increase. The largest demographic of new customers? Millennials, thanks to an emphasis on digital marketing.

"Our media spend on digital media formats is way up," Herrman said. "We're talking about it all the time. I would tell you our person who's in charge of marketing is always on that mission to reach out to the younger demos."

The first HomeSense, which differs from HomeGoods in that it will sell home furnishings, will open Thursday in Framingham, Mass.

This piece was written by Cathaleen Chen.

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Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. engages in the natural gas midstream, and intrastate transportation and storage businesses in the United States. The company's Intrastate Transportation and Storage segment transports natural gas from various natural gas producing areas through connections with other pipeline systems, as well as through its ET Fuel System and HPL System. This segment owns and operates approximately 7,900 miles of natural gas transportation pipelines and three natural gas storage facilities in Texas. Its Interstate Transportation and Storage segment provides natural gas transportation and storage services; owns and operates approximately 11,800 miles of interstate natural gas pipelines; and has interests in various natural gas pipelines. The company's Midstream segment gathers, compresses, treats, blends, processes, and markets natural gas. It owns and operates natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGL) gathering pipelines, natural gas processing plants, natural gas treating facilities, and natural gas conditioning facilities. The company's NGL and Refined Products Transportation and Services segment transports mixed NGLs and other hydrocarbons; stores mixed NGLs, NGL products, and petrochemical products; and separates mixed NGL streams into purity products. This segment owns and operates various NGL pipelines, NGL and propane fractionation facilities, and NGL storage facilities. Its Crude Oil Transportation and Services segment engages in the transportation, terminalling, and acquisition and marketing of crude oil; and operates crude oil trunk and gathering pipelines. The company's All Other segment engages in the natural gas compression equipment business; provides natural gas compression equipment and compression services; manages coal and natural resources property, sells standing timber, and leases coal-related infrastructure facilities; and generates electrical power. Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. was founded in 1995 and is based in Dallas, Texas.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 is the best big-screen phone yet, thanks to its versatile dual cameras, S Pen improvements and beautiful 6.3-inch screen.

Why you can trust Tom's Guide Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test .

Samsung's Galaxy Note 8 is a big-screen phone that commands your attention  and not just because it's a sequel to a device the company was forced to recall. It's because the Note 8 ushers in a new class of smartphones that is super-premium.

Priced between $930 and $960 (depending on the carrier), Samsung's new phablet has the loftiest price tag of any mainstream Android handset yet. But the Note 8 tries to justify its high price with the first dual-camera setup ever on a Samsung phone; the biggest screen ever offered by Samsung, at 6.3 inches; and a host of new tricks for the S Pen. The Note 8 also offers more RAM than the Galaxy S8 and S8+, as well as a smart new way to multitask.

Is all of that worth about $80 to $100 more than the already large-and-in-charge Galaxy S8+? After living with the Note 8 for more than a week, I would say "yes."

We've updated our review of the Galaxy Note 8 based on our in-depth smartphone drop tests. See the results below.

Design: The pinnacle of phablets

With its curved Infinity Display that goes from nearly edge to edge, the glass front of the Galaxy Note 8 is simply stunning. In fact, it makes other big-screen phones like the LG V30, Google Pixel XL and iPhone 7 Plus look downright dowdy.

I know what you're wondering: Is 6.3 inches too big? Not really, and I have pretty small hands. That's because this phone has the same narrow 18.5:9 aspect ratio as the Galaxy S8 and S8+. I found I could reach across the screen with my thumb, but because the Note's design is so tall, I sometimes had to reposition the phone in my hand to target items on the top or bottom of the display.

Samsung purposely made the curves on this screen less severe than those on the S8 or S8+, which gives you more usable real estate for the pen. I dig these more slanted edges, as they also help visually differentiate the Note 8 from its siblings. However, I do wish Samsung would offer more color options in the U.S. to make this phone truly pop. U.S. carriers are offering midnight black and orchid gray, but I want to see the gold and blue versions that are available overseas arrive stateside, too.

Around the back, you'll find the dual-lens cameras and a fingerprint reader to the right of the flash. I'm not a fan of this somewhat awkward placement, as it would be easier if the sensor were beneath the camera. It also didnt always work on the first try; fortunately, you can log in via facial recognition or iris scanning.

MORE: Which Carrier Has the Best Note 8 Deal?



Measuring 6.4 x 2.9 x 0.34 inches and weighing 6.9 ounces, the Note 8 is on the heavy side, but it feels pretty balanced in my hand. By comparison, the S8+ is slightly shorter, at 6.3 inches, but significantly lighter, at 6.1 ounces. That's to be expected, though, because the Note 8 carries a stylus.



Durability: It could be tougher

As with the Galaxy S8, the Note 8 is water-resistant. It's also pretty tough; I accidentally stepped on the screen, and it didn't crack.

But to get a better sense of the phone's durability, we tested the toughness of the Galaxy Note 8 by dropping it on its face onto wood from a height of 4 feet and 6 feet; we then dropped it on its edge and face onto concrete from 4 feet; we then dropped it on its edge and face from 6 feet onto concrete.

Samsung's phablet withstood 4- and 6-foot drops on its face onto a wood surface without any difficulty. A 4-foot fall on its edge onto concrete caused some minor scratches on the bottom edge, but a 4-foot drop on its face cracked the screen in a number of places, including in front of its front-facing camera, which gave selfies a very artistic look. A 6-foot face drop onto concrete caused the Note 8's screen to start flashing white, black and green, and the touch screen was completely unresponsive.

As a result, the Note 8 earned a low toughness score of 4.3 out of 10. To see the results of other smartphones, as well as our complete scoring methodology, check out our smartphone drop tests.

Galaxy Note 8 Specs

Swipe to scroll horizontally Price $930 to $960, depending on carrier

Display: A big and beautiful canvas with more purpose

The 6.3-inch Infinity Display on the Note 8 makes your jaw drop even before you put it in your hands, and Samsung devised a clever new way to make the most of the phone's billboard-like real estate.

For starters, the Note 8's screen is deliciously colorful. I was mesmerized by the multifaceted silver armor of Cyborg in the Justice League trailer, as well as his piercing red eye. When playing Mortal Kombat X, I marveled at how grotesquely awesome the gooey brains of my splayed enemy looked when they spilled out of his head.

MORE: The Best Smartphones Available Right Now



In our lab tests, the Note 8's display covered 204.8 percent of the sRGB color gamut. By comparison, the Moto Z2 Force's OLED screen hit 199.7 percent, and the LG G6's LCD displayed 134 percent. The Note 8's display delivers accurate hues, too, as it registered a Delta-E score of 0.5; a score of 0 is perfect. The Z2 Force notched 1.06, and the LG G6 scored 1.1.

Because the Note 8's panel supports HDR (high dynamic range), you should be able to enjoy better contrast and more colors when streaming HDR content.

To maximize this phone's ultrawide screen, Samsung introduced a feature called App Pair with the Note 8. When you swipe in from the right side of the screen, you can launch two apps on the screen at once  side by side or on top of each other, depending on how you hold the phone. It's also pretty easy to create pairs.

I liked being able to have the Email app open on the left and the Calendar app on the right, or the browser on one side and YouTube on the other.

Dual Cameras: Amazing photos, great flexibility

Samsung isn't just playing catch-up with the dual cameras on the Note 8. It has leaped ahead of the iPhone  at least for now. That's because both 12-megapixel cameras on this device offer optical image stabilization; the iPhone 7 Plus' telephoto lens doesn't have that feature.

What can you do with these dual shooters? For starters, you get a 2x optical zoom with a simple tap on the screen. In Union Square, I could easily zoom in on a statue from afar without losing any detail.

You also get a new Live Focus mode, which is similar to the Portrait mode on the iPhone 7 Plus, which blurs the background and makes your subject pop. But only the Note 8 lets you adjust the intensity of this effect both before and after you snap the photo.



I felt like a pro when I snapped an image of purple flowers in front of a fountain. The iPhone 7 Plus did a better job than the Note 8 of blurring the background more consistently through the frame, but I liked that I could control how much of the fountain I could see.



I also really like the Dual Capture feature on the Note 8, which snaps both a close-up and a wide-angle photo at the same time, and then lets you toggle between both views in the gallery. One pic I took of the New York City skyline looked so good that a woman sitting next to me on the bus asked me to text it to her. Even in a moving vehicle, the picture turned out fairly sharp, thanks to the optical image stabilization.

My only complaint is that I sometimes had to tap more than once on the screen to switch between the close-up and wide-angle views.

In terms of image quality, the Note 8 delivered the same type of remarkably sharp and colorful pics that made the Galaxy S8 our top camera phone.

Compared with a shot taken with the iPhone 7 Plus, a Note 8 photo of trees and a statue in Union Square had richer greens and slightly more refined details around the edges when zoomed in. However, as with most iPhone photos, its colors were warmer than the Note 8's, and the Samsung image ran a bit cooler and nearly blew out some of the highlights.



S Pen: Neat new tricks (with some kinks)

Samsung has been broadening the appeal of the S Pen for the past few years, and the Note 8 takes it to the next level.

For starters, you can now take up to 100 pages of notes using the Screen Off memo feature. You just take out the pen and start writing. It's easy to pin notes to the always-on display and to edit notes in place. I found this feature handy when crossing off items on my to-do list and shopping lists.

The coolest new S Pen feature is Live Message, which turns your scribbles into animated GIFs to share with others. For example, I wrote "Love you" on top of a photo with a fun sparkle pen tip and then tried to send it to my wife via text message. I say "tried" because I got an error message that said "Maximum total size of attachments exceeded." Strangely, other times, I didn't get that error, so it might depend on the size of the image captured.

The other noteworthy new S Pen feature is the ability to translate full sentences into different languages just by hovering the pen above the screen. This worked well when I visited the French site Le Monde and highlighted a few rows of text.

For those so inclined, the S Pen remains a viable tool for sketching and drawing. I handed the Note 8 off to a colleague to create a couple of sketches, and he found the pen to be fairly accurate. However, he wished that the pen offered more nuanced control, as the Apple Pencil does on the iPad.

Battery Life: Surprisingly good

We'll have to wait and see whether the Note 8's battery lives up to Samsung's safety claims, but I can say that the phone lasts quite a long time on a charge. Although the battery's 3,300-mAh capacity is a bit lower than that of the battery inside the ill-fated Note 7, as well as the battery in the Galaxy S8+ (both 3,500 mAh), it turned in excellent results.

On the Tom's Guide Battery Test, which involves continuous web surfing over 4G on 150 nits of screen brightness, the Note 8 lasted a very strong 11 hours and 11 minutes on T-Mobile's network. That's even better than the 11:04 that the S8+ turned in and the 10:39 runtime from the S8, both also tested on T-Mobile. It's possible that the Note 8's extra RAM makes it slightly more efficient.

MORE: Smartphones with the Longest Battery Life

By comparison, the iPhone 7 Plus lasted 10:38, and the Moto Z2 Force ran for 10:23. The LG G6 mustered only 8:39.

Performance: More RAM, serious power

The Note 8 has the same Snapdragon 835 processor as other current Android flagships, but it ups the ante with 6GB of RAM. Most other phones make do with 4GB of RAM; exceptions include the OnePlus 5, which comes with up to 8GB of RAM.

In everyday use, the Note 8 was very swift, whether I was jumping right into the camera from the lock screen instantly (just double-press the home button) or playing Injustice 2 with silky-smooth frame rates. However, there were more than a couple of times when I had to tap the screen more than once for the phone to do what I wanted.

On Geekbench, which measures overall performance, the Note 8 scored 6,564 on the multicore portion of the test. That's better than the Galaxy S8 (6,124), a bit better than the Moto Z2 Force (6,489) and just slightly faster than the OnePlus 5 with 8GB of RAM (6,542).

When it comes to graphics performance, the Note 8 more than holds its own. It notched 39,834 on the 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited test, which beat the Galaxy S8 (35,903) and edged out the Z2 Force (39,807) and the OnePlus 5 (39,576).

Software: Bixby is underrated

Other than the added capabilities of the S Pen and the App Pair feature for split-screen multitasking, Bixby is the highlight software feature on the Note 8, which runs Android 7.1.1. It's best not to think of Bixby as a direct Siri competitor but rather more of a personal assistant that speeds up tasks that typically take multiple taps.

For instance, I said, "Capture a screenshot, and show it to me in the gallery," and the Note 8 did both tasks in succession successfully. I also liked that I could add specific items to my to-do list by saying them aloud, such as "Add 'approve vacation day' to my task list." At first, Bixby thought I said "A prove," but the mistake was easy to correct.

MORE: Galaxy Note 8: Features to Enable and Disable

The other main highlight is the Apps Edge menu, which makes it easy to pull up your favorite apps without having to go back to the home screen. You can also quickly access your favorite contacts from this menu.

Accessories Aplenty

The Galaxy Note 8 has a new design, so you're definitely going to need a new case for this 6.3-inch monster. The good news is that there are plenty of options to choose from already, including a suede-like Alcantara cover that's available in multiple colors. My favorite is green.

MORE: 11 Best Galaxy Note 8 Accessories

The Note 8 also supports a new version of the Gear VR headset ($129) for people who want to get into virtual reality. The headset comes with a motion controller to make the VR experience more immersive.

DeX Station

If you want to leverage the full power of the Note 8 on a bigger screen, check out the DeX Station, which costs about $125. With this dock, you can run Android apps on a full-size HD monitor, and get a desktop-like experience with a mouse and keyboard connected to the peripheral. More developers are starting to support this accessory, including Zoom, which lets you seamlessly continue your conference call after you plug the phone into the dock.

Bottom Line

Spending nearly $1,000 on a smartphone seems a bit nuts when you can get a very good phone, like the OnePlus 5, for less than $500. But the Note 8 isn't just very good  it is awesome. The combination of its glorious 6.3-inch Infinity Display, excellent dual cameras and more versatile S Pen makes it the big-screen phone to beat. Some people may want to wait for the iPhone 8, but if you're an Android fan, you need look no further.

The Note 8 could be better in some ways. The fingerprint sensor is located in an awkward spot, and the Live Message feature (as novel as it is) doesn't always work the way it should. Then, there's the price. If you don't have a need for the S Pen and you just want a big screen, you'll be plenty happy with the $850 Galaxy S8 Plus. But I'd spend the extra dough on the Note 8 simply because of its dual-lens camera and what you can do with it.

Credit: Shaun Lucas/Tom's Guide


Medhat Shousha, Head of the countrys railway department resigned Sunday after two trains collided Friday on the outskirt of Alexandria killing over 40 people and wounding at least 170 passengers.

The resignation was announced by Transport Minister Hesham Arafat at a press conference following a cabinet meeting.

Eight other railways officials have been suspended following the accident, the deadliest in Egypts history.

One train was traveling from Cairo and the other from Port Said.

Authorities said reliance on humans for railway operation, as well as the lack of infrastructure development over decades caused tragic accident.

The two train drivers have been arrested and subjected to interrogation.

In a related development, the health ministry has punished six rescue workers after they took selfies near the wreck of one of the trains. The punishment came after the outcry on social media.

Pictures of an ambulance crew taking selfie pictures in front of the wreckage sparked anger on social media, with one Twitter user posting a photograph with a hashtag reading: conscience in a coma.

The six, all of them ambulance crew, have been transferred to the western Siwa oasis as punishment. Ahmed al-Ansari, Director of emergency services at the ministry told AFP that the workers behaviors were inappropriate.

The countrys ambulance services were hailed in the past, especially during 2011 uprising and subsequent violent events.
Ebrahim K Kanoo, sole distributor of Toyota vehicles in Bahrain, has opened the second Toyota Technical Education Programme (TTEP) at a ceremony held at Al-Jabriya Secondary Technical Boys School in the kingdom.



The event also saw training materials and equipment donated to the school.



Held under the patronage of Minister of Education, Dr Majid bin Ali Al-Noaimi, the event is part of a global Toyota Motor Company (TMC) initiative aimed at recruiting young local talent from vocational schools and educational outlets worldwide and inducting them into the Toyota network.



The donation included textbooks, car panels and bumpers, spray guns and a Lexus IS250 training vehicle, all of which will be used to provide hands-on skills training for students looking to pursue a career in the automotive industry. The activity falls in line with Ebrahim K Kanoos Corporate Social Responsibility strategy, which focuses on education and youth development. The company has employed a large number of talented students over the years through similar initiatives.

Ebrahim K Kanoo director of Corporate Services, Talal Kanoo said: It is part of Toyotas mandate to encourage local talent and give back to communities. T-TEP aims to create long-term change by improving local skill sets and providing a platform for future generations to improve their abilities. We strive to build an educated, more effective workforce that will elevate the automotive industry locally and globally.



The ceremony was attended by Dr Al-Noaimi, Ministry of Education, Undersecretary for Curriculum, Dr Fawzi Aljowder, assistant undersecretary for General Education, Latifa Al-Bonoutha, director of Technical and Vocational Education, Dr Mohammed Abdul-Razzaq Al-Siddiqi, Toyota Motor Corporation  Bahrain Representative Office (TMCBRO) general manager, Yoshiyuki Koike, Ebrahim K. Kanoo board members, school headmaster Sayed Redha Alawi, and other school staff members.



Al-Jabirya Technical School Body & Paint Section is the second registered T-TEP School in Bahrain, with Bahrain Training Institute (BTI) officially registered since 1998 as the first institute to implement Toyotas global initiative.  TradeArabia News Service
Jumeirah Messilah Beach Hotel & Spa, Kuwaits idyllic resort, has appointed Savino Leone as general manager of Kuwaits idyllic resort.



Leone, a French national, joins the Jumeirah Group after his position as general manager of InterContinental Osaka, in Japan. Prior to this, he worked as the general manager of Crowne Plaza Doha  The Business Park, Qatar, for four years where he led the pre-opening team.



With a focus on exceeding guest expectations and instilling a culture of service excellence, Leones expertise of over 20 years in the luxury hospitality spans Asia, Europe, Middle East, and Africa. Leone held the role of several senior management positions in InterContinental properties, such as resident manager of InterContinental Doha, executive assistant of food and beverage in Cairo, as well food and beverage manager in London and assistant food and beverage manager in Dubai. His passion for local knowledge and different cultures has helped him achieve recognition for supporting diversity and his empowering approach to leading, educating, inspiring, and engaging his team.



In his new role, Leone will be responsible for running the Jumeirah Messilah Beach Hotel & Spa which offers 316 rooms & suites, 79 residential suites, Royal Suite, 12 private luxurious villas, Talise Spa, and 7 unique restaurants.



The luxury resort is situated in the secluded area of Messilah along the shores of the Arabian Gulf, with easy access to Kuwaits Central Business District, airport, and major attractions. - TradeArabia News Service


International Relations and Cooperation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane and SADC executive secretary Stergomena Lawrence Tax have cautioned that the Southern African Development Community (SADC) regional integration agenda will remain theory unless member states-start to implement concrete plans to move together as one region.

The two briefed the media on Monday ahead of the SADC summit taking place in Tshwane this coming weekend.

We need to ensure that as a region we move with one voice otherwise regional integration will remain theory, Tax said.

South Africa will take over from Swaziland as the chair of the regional body and the country will oversee the celebrations of SADCs 25 years of existence. Deliberations will be kick-started by a meeting of ministers on Tuesday and Wednesday who will prepare several reports for the Heads of State Summit taking place on Saturday and Sunday.

The Council of Ministers oversees the functioning and development of our Community, SADC, and ensures that policies are properly implemented. The Council consists of Ministers from each of the fifteen Member States, usually from the Ministries of foreign affairs, economic planning, or finance, and it meets twice a year in February or March and immediately prior to the Summit in August or September.

Lesotho and the Democratic Republic of Congo are likely to be under the spotlight in the discussions on peace and security. The Ministerial Committee of the organ on Politics, Defence and Security cooperation and the ORGAN Troika will meet on Friday.

Both countries have been plagued by political instability where even killings have taken place as in the case of Lesotho. On Monday, Tax said the regional body will continue to support countries in conflict and these include Lesotho and the DRC. Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa was appointed as SADC Facilitator in Lesotho ahead of the elections in that country.

Minister Nkoana-Mashabane also confirmed on Monday that to commemorate SADC historic founding, the current Chairperson of SADC King Mswati III of Swaziland, will deliver the SADC Day Message for 2017 on Wednesday.

The Heads of State on Saturday are expected to endorse the theme for the 37th Summit which has been chosen as: Partnering with the Private Sector in Developing Industry and Regional Value Chains. South Africa, as the incoming chair, proposed the theme and will be presented to the summit for its approval and subsequent operationalisation.

Minister Nkoana-Mashabane said the council of ministers will receive progress on actions undertaken by the Secretariat in implementing the pdf SADC Industrialization Strategy and Roadmap 2015-2063 (2.34 MB) .

Council will also receive and review the proposed Milestones for Monitoring Implementation of the SADC Industrialization Strategy and Roadmap for approval by Summit, she said.

The Council will also receive reports on the findings of the exercise on profiling of the mineral and pharmaceutical sectors and identification of potential areas for the development of value chains. SADC has identified at least six value chain clusters in the fields of Agro-processing, Mineral beneficiation and related mining operations, pharmaceuticals, other consumer goods, capital goods and services.

The Council on Tuesday will also receive progress on the operationalisation of the SADC University of Transformation, following the meeting of the Committee on Higher Education, Training and Research earlier this year.

At the time, the council observed that the concept of the SADC University of Transformation has the potential to address the provision of appropriate skills required for value addition, in the three agreed value chains of the SADC Industrialisation Strategy and Roadmap.

The Council will receive and consider the Report of the SADC Executive Secretary for the period 2016-2017 which includes the overview of the political and economic developments in the region and the implementation of programmes of regional cooperation and integration.

The Council will consider the Draft SADC Common Position on the negotiations of the Draft Protocol to the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community relating to the Free Movement of Persons, Right of Residence and Right of Establishment, said the minister.

The Summit on Saturday will also consider the application by the Union of Comoros and the Republic of Burundi for membership of SADC.

Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane: Media briefing on 37th SADC Summit

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen of the Media, thank you for coming to this mornings Pre-Council information sharing session.

As it has become customary to SADC, we invited you with the view to share information on the upcoming meeting of the SADC Council of Ministers scheduled to take place here in Pretoria from Tuesday to Wednesday August 15-16, 2017, in preparation of the 37th Ordinary Summit of SADC Heads of States and Government.

To date, the following meetings have already taken place:

On Thursday and Friday, the 10th and 11th of August, the Standing Committee of Senior Officials met.

On Saturday the 12th of August, the Finance Committee met to receive the report of the Finance Sub Committee, the Human Resources Committee and the Audit Committee and finalized the preparation of the issues to be discussed at the meeting of the Council of Ministers.

Other activities leading to the 37th Summit are as follows:

From Wednesday, 16th to Thursday 17th August, the Council of Ministers Meeting will take place. The Council of Ministers oversees the functioning and development of our Community, SADC, and ensures that policies are properly implemented.

The Council consists of Ministers from each of the fifteen Member States, usually from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Economic Planning, or Finance, and it meets twice a year in February or March and immediately prior to the Summit in August or September.

As you may know, the 17th August is an important day on the SADC calendar as this is the day when our regional organisation was established in 1992. To commemorate this day, the current Chairperson of SADC, His Majesty King Mswati III of the Kingdom of Swaziland, will deliver the SADC Day Message for 2017 which will be shared with the Media.

On Friday the 18th of August, the Ministerial Committee of the ORGAN (MCO) on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation and the ORGAN Troika Meeting will be held at Army Foundation, Pretoria.

On Saturday, the 19th the Official Opening of the 37th Ordinary Summit of the SADC Heads of State and Government will take place in this building.

During its meeting in the coming two days, the SADC Council of Ministers will endorse the theme for the 37th Summit of Heads of State and Government, titled: Partnering with the Private Sector in Developing Industry and Regional Value Chains, which has been proposed by the Government of the Republic of South Africa, in its capacity as the Incoming Chair of SADC, and will be presented to the Summit for its approval and subsequent operationalization.

Issues on the agenda

The Council will receive progress on actions undertaken by the Secretariat in implementing the SADC Industrialization Strategy and Roadmap 2015-2063. Council will also receive and review the proposed Milestones for Monitoring Implementation of the SADC Industrialization Strategy and Roadmap for approval by Summit.

The Council will also receive reports on the findings of the exercise on profiling of the mineral and pharmaceutical sectors and identification of potential areas for the development of value chains.

The Council will further receive progress on the operationalisation of the SADC University of Transformation, following the meeting of the Committee on Higher Education, Training and Research that met 20 March 2017. The Committee observed that the concept of the SADC University of Transformation has the potential to address the provision of appropriate skills required for value addition, in the three agreed Value Chains of the SADC Industrialisation Strategy and Roadmap. The Committee improved the terms of reference for the skills assessment and scoping study to take into account the issues from Summit to cover transformative initiatives from Member States.

The Council will also receive the report on the outcomes of the Ministerial Retreat on the SADC we want, which was held in Ezulwini, Swaziland, in March 2017 and the progress on the development of the Implementation Plan and Roadmap.

The Council will receive some Legal Instruments such as the draft Agreement amending the Protocol on Extradition, and the Draft Agreement Amending the Protocol on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal matters, with a view to recommend to Summit for approval and adoption and subsequent submission to the State Parties for signatures.

The Council will receive and consider the Report of the SADC Executive Secretary for the period 2016-2017 which includes the overview of the political and economic developments in the Region, the Implementation of Programmes of Regional Cooperation and Integration, the implementation of Corporate Activities, the Continental Cooperation and Integration, the Development Cooperation and Resource Mobilisation, the Good Governance and Financial Management, and the Summary of Implementation Challenges and Recommendations. The report will cover progress on the Secretariat activities, challenges confronted and proposals aimed at addressing such challenges and subsequently, Council will provide guidance where necessary, on the implementation of SADC programmes and projects for regional cooperation and integration.

On Continental Integration, the Council will receive progress on the implementation of the Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA), the COMESA-EAC-SADC Agreement; and Continental Free Trade Area negotiations.

The Council will consider the Draft SADC Common Position on the negotiations of the Draft Protocol to the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community relating to the Free Movement of Persons, Right of Residence and Right of Establishment.

The Council will also recommend for approval by Summit, the convening of the SADC Solidarity Conference with Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR)/Western Sahara.

Council will receive progress on the second year of the implementation of the Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP), as well as the progress report on the implementation of the Regional Indicative Strategic Plan and the proposed Milestones for Monitoring Implementation of SADC Industrialization Strategy and Roadmap for approval by Summit.

In Politics, Defense and Security, Council will receive the progress made in the development of the draft Concept Paper on the SADC Peace Fund to be submitted to the next Ministerial Committee of the ORGAN (MCO) for consideration.

On the application by the Union of Comoros, and the Republic of Burundi for membership to SADC, Council will receive the report from the meeting of the Ministerial Committee of the ORGAN (MCO) on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation held on 21 July 2017 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

The Council will receive the report on the improvement of the Food Security situation in the region following the climate change factors that affected the region with some of the Member States experiencing drought while others experienced floods.

Council will receive the report and decisions from the Committee of Ministers of Finance and Investment on the operationalisation of the SADC Regional Development Fund, the Regional Resource Mobilisation Framework and the Disaster preparedness and response fund as well as the request to approve the regional Disaster Preparedness and Response Fund as part of the Social Window in the SADC Regional Development.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have just given you highlights of issues to be discussed during the Council of Ministers.
Former Libyan Prime Minister, Ali Zidan, has been taken away by armed men reported to be members of the Tripoli Revolutionaries Brigade (TRB) in Tripoli on Sunday.

The former Libyan top ranking government official was lodged at the Victoria Hotel in Tripoli when he was taken under custody. His whereabouts are currently unknown as there has not been any statement by any authority or armed group claiming responsibility.

Zidan left Libya in 2014 after he was sacked from his position as Prime Minister by the General National Congress (GNC). He has been living in Germany since then, but has often visited his native country.

A source from the Libyan Interior Ministry claimed that his arrest is in compliance with an arrest warrant issued by Attorney General Sadiq al-Sour in Tripoli.

The TRB is a militant group under the command of Haytham Tajouri who is loyal to the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) based in the capital. The source added that prior to his arrest, Zidan was received by the Presidency Council, which asked him to stay at the hotel.

Reasons of his arrest are still unclear. According to some press reports, during a tour last month to numerous Libyan towns, including Sebha, he called for the partition of Libya. He firmly denied making such statements and reiterated his support for the territorial integrity of the country, stressing that he has refrained himself for political matters.

In October 2013, Ali Zidan, who was then Prime Minister, was abducted in Tripolis Corinthia Hotel and taken as a hostage allegedly by angry locals. Zidan had held some members of the GNC responsible for his abduction. The ordeal lasted for a few hours before he was released.
New research suggests that a rise in tick-borne diseases could be linked to a shortage of mouse predators like foxes and martens.

When left to take care of itself, Mother Nature does a pretty good job of figuring stuff out ... until the human part of the equation comes along and messes things up, that is. Habitat destruction and nudging harmonious ecosystems out of whack come to mind  and both of those could be contributing to a rise in tick-borne diseases.

A new study looking at the relationship between ticks, mice, and mouse predators  especially red foxes and martens  suggests that the rise in tick-borne disease may be tied to a dearth of traditional mouse predators, whose presence might otherwise send mice scurrying into their burrows, writes Amy Harmon in The New York Times. When first hatched, larval ticks rely on mice and other small mammals for their blood meals. Fewer predators like foxes means more freedom for the mammalian food trucks to be out and about, which leads to a veritable feast for ticks.

For the study, titled Cascading effects of predator activity on tick-borne disease risk, lead researcher Tim R. Hofmeester positioned cameras in 20 plots throughout the Dutch countryside to measure the activity of foxes and stone martens, both major predators of mice. Some of the cameras were in areas in which foxes were protected, other cameras were in places in which foxes were heavily hunted.

After two years of painstaking work  trapping mice, counting ticks, testing the ticks, and dragging a blanket on the ground to capture additional ticks  Hofmeester had some rather conclusive-seeming data. In the plots where predator activity was higher, he found only 10 to 20 percent as many newly hatched ticks on the mice. Thus, there would be fewer ticks to pass along pathogens to next generation of mice, writes Harmon.

Curiously, areas of higher predator activity didn't correlate to a decrease in the numbers of mice themselves, just a lower rates of infected ticks. Hofmeester suggests that the predators' activity curtailed the roaming of the small mammals, which was enough to make an impact.

This is the first paper to empirically show that predators are good for your health with respect to tick-borne pathogens, Dr. Taal Levi, an ecologist at Oregon State University, told The Times. Weve had the theory but this kind of field work is really hard and takes years.

As tick-borne diseases continue their march into the American midwest, Canada and higher altitudes of Europe, were finding that taking actions like culling deer and spraying with pesticides doesnt have much effect. Seems like it would behoove us all to consider giving some of the work back to nature.

"If the studys results are borne out by more research," Harmon writes, "public health officials might be moved to try interventions like protecting foxes or factoring the habitat needs of particular predators into land-use decisions to foster their population size."

Which makes perfect sense ... the question is if we'll be smart enough to actually follow through with the novel of idea of letting Mother Nature be our ally.
A wolf family with three young has been caught on camera in the Bavarian National Forest Park in southern Germany.

In the land where the Brothers Grimm once filled folk with fear of the Big Bad Wolf, but which the newest science now claims is the single geographic origin of domesticated dogs, our beloved companions, one can only expect the news of the first wild-born litter of wolf cubs to meet with mixed reviews.

The very short video from a nature-trap camera seems to capture both sides of the story as well. Look for two beady eyes behind the bushes from the left, eerily penetrating the dark, before realizing that these are the watchful eyes of mama or papa wolf as a series of darling cubs hustle into the scene to catch up.

The press release on the wolf cubs from the Bavarian environmental agency (pdf, German) helpfully points out that owners of domesticated animals in the area where wolves are known to reside should ensure adequate fencing is installed, and consider the use of dogs to protect their herds.

But farmers organizations support more aggressive measures, and the Bavarian agricultural minister, Helmut Brunner, promptly spoke in favor of relaxing the endangered species protections, even extending to culling wolves if necessary, according to German news Die Welt.

Wolves have been seen in Bavaria since 2006, usually lone wolves passing through. And the German state has had a management plan in place since 2007, which involves the input of all affected parties. In recent years, the efforts to make the environment attractive again to these animals that once roamed the region widely have paid off, with a number of wolves establishing themselves in the area.

But the litter of young wolves captured by the video trap in the Bavarian Forest National Park represent the first wild-born animals of the species in over 150 years. It remains to be seen if the wolves can thrive in their new habitat without threatening the most dangerous species of all, humans.

If the comments at Die Welt are any indicator, the wolves have little chance.
To anyone considering doing some big game hunting in Africa, don't even think about bringing a souvenir back to England.

Calling it a "morally indefensible act," Britain is ushering in the strictest trophy hunting rules on the planet. The new law, announced this week, will prohibit endangered animal parts  including those found in furs and rugs  from entering the country.

It's being hailed as a potential lifesaver for countless endangered species.

"The fight against trophy hunting of endangered animals matters," animal welfare minister Zac Goldsmith told The Telegraph. "It is clear that it is morally indefensible and that is why I am delighted that the Conservative Government will consult on a ban on the import of these trophies. By placing a higher value on animals alive rather than dead, we will begin to turn back the tide of extinction."

Goldsmith has been campaigning to crack down on trophy hunting  or at least, hauling its spoils back to Britain  for years. Last May, in a speech to the House of Commons, he declared, "We are exhausting the planet, and we need radical and immediate action to reverse that.

"I will not claim today that tackling trophy hunting will reverse this mass extinction  far from it  but I put the debate in that context to remind us all of what is at stake and the situation we find ourselves in."

Turning the tide of opinion

Trophy hunting, which involves shooting large animals such as elephants, rhinos, lions and bears, has come under increased scrutiny in recent years, particularly in the aftermath of high-profile deaths like Cecil the Lion and a rare large-tusked elephant in Zimbabwe.

Not only are governments taking action to slow the decline of canned hunting expeditions, but it seems the animals themselves are making their own physiological adjustments.

Some elephants have developed a genetic trait that allows them to go tuskless. Jonathan Pledger/Shutterstock

Elephants, for example, may be growing smaller tusks or none at all in response to the removal of many big-tusked elephants from the gene pool at the hands of poachers and hunters.

Similarly, bighorn sheep, a popular target due to their namesake horns, may actually be growing smaller horns.

At the same time, the hunts are legal in many African countries, where animals are farmed strictly for gun-toting tourists to kill. In fact, among the 63 countries that sanction pleasure hunting, more than a third are in Africa.

Trophy hunting proponents point out that indigenous communities rely on these tourist dollars. In addition, funds from killing one animal are reinvested in the conservation of many more endangered species  an oft-cited argument among hunters that doesn't sit well with animal welfare groups.

As Azzedine Downes, president of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, writes in the Huffington Post, "How can we possibly imagine a world in which wild animals are forced to give up their lives to fund their species' survival? Or made to live within boundaries of private game reserves rather than within their natural habitat?"

The new U.K. legislation is expected to pass through parliament shortly after Conservative Party Conference, which is being held this week. By strictly banning any endangered animal parts from import or export, it aims to discourage the practice by depriving trophy hunters of their "trophy"  a keepsake of their kill.
- Opposition leader Raila Odinga now claims to ahve "compelling evidence" against the IEBC regarding the just concluded General Election

- Raila still maintains that the electoral process was a sham , although he made it clear he would not be contesting again

- He is set to adress his supporters on Tuesday, August 15 where he will reveal the "compelling evidence"

I have some compelling evidence against regarding the just concluded general election and I am ready to unleash it soon, opposition leader Raila Odinga has promised.

Raila was speaking to BBC, where he shed some light on some of his next move after falling short of the presidency at the fourth attempt.

The NASA leader still maintains that the elections was a sham, and that the world was treated to a charade.

Raila Odinga addressing a past rally. PHOTO: Nation

READ ALSO: Nairobi Governor-elect Mike Sonko declines Sh 25 million gift

"We will show the kind of charade the whole world has been treated to." Raila was quoted saying.

Despite disputing the 2017 General Elections, Raila said he would not vie for presidency again.

NASA leaders, on Friday, August 11, declined to participate in the announcement of the president at the Bomas of Kenya, on grounds that the IEBC had failed to listen to their concerns before announcing the winner.

Raila Odinga casting his vote on Tuesday, August 8. PHOTO: Facebook.com/RailaOdinga

READ ALSO: Uhuru finally responds to Raila over rigging claims

The announcement of Uhuru Kenyatta as the winner of the polls came with some chaos in parts of Raila Odingas stronghold, with the NASA leader rallying up his supporters in Kibera and Mathare on Sunday, August 13 in protest.

On why he is emerging with evidence of rigging despite not saying he wouldnt vie again, Raila simply said it as about knowing the truth at this point.

"It is not about me. Its not about Raila Odinga,. Im not going to be a candidate again... we just want Kenyans to know what happened, what the whole world is not understanding is happening. He told BBC.

The NASA leader is set to hold a rally on Tuesday, August 15, to reveal the alleged malpractice within the electoral process.

Have anything to this article or suggestions? Share with us on news@tuko.co.ke

Jubilee Senator laughs off NASAs demand against IEBC

Source: TUKO.co.ke
- Former US Secretary John Kerry has received a backlash on social media after he tweeted over the just concluded August 8 elections

- Kerry, who was part of the observers gave the elections a clean bill of health but a section of Kenyans were not impressed

- Social media users responded to his tweet airing their grievances on why he declared the elections free and fair

Former US secretary of Sate John Kerry was met with backlash on Twitter when he posted a message to Kenyans following the just concluded elections.

Kerry was commenting on a story indicating that at least 24 people had been killed since the elections results were announced.

Kenyans went to the polls on August 8 to elect the President, Governors, Senators, Members of Parliament, Woman Representatives and Members of County Assembly.

READ ALSO: Trump piles pressure on Raila to move to court ahead of tense NASA declaration

Kerry, head of Carter Centre Observers Mission, was part of an international team of observers who gave the Kenyan elections a clean bill of health terming the exercise free, fair and credible.

However, Kerrys comment was met with anger with Nairobi Woman Representative-elect Esther Passaris leading Kenyans on Twitter (KOT) in bashing him.

READ ALSO: World leaders flood Uhuru with congratulatory messages for his win against Raila

Also in the fray was Anthony Scarammucci, an American financier and political figure as well as media critic, who wondered why anyone would be upset about the elections that Kerry had Okayed.

Passaris told Kerry that the US has the ability to carry out investigations to clear the air about the disputed Presidential results.

She also asked: While you have us in your thoughts. Ponder on this. What if the elections were stolen right before your eyes? Where goes our democracy?

READ ALSO: All international observers disagree with Raila claims on election fraud

Another Kenyan said he regrets having Kerry around only for him to endorse sham elections.

READ ALSO: Raila postpones 'major announcement'

READ ALSO: The mystery of a handwritten form 34A on IEBC's website

And another Kenyan told Kerry that the blood of the Kenyans who died was on his hands explaining that Kerry had the chance to stop the madness but blew that opportunity away.

They also wondered how the observers gave their verdict even before the whole process was over.

Venting their anger and displeasure at the verdict of the observers, some Kenyans posted ballot boxes and papers in a private house, which they said was evidence enough the elections were a sham.

Source: TUKO.co.ke
After the attack carried out in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso Saturday, Gunmen in Mali on Monday opened fire on UN peacekeepers and Malian troops in the northern city of Timbuktu and the central city of Douentza, the spokesperson of the mission said.

In the first attack against the UN peacekeeping mission base of Timbuktu, the armed men killed seven people, including five Malian security guards, a gendarme and a civilian.

An attack has been launched against one of our camps in Timbuktu (by) unknown men with machine guns, Radhia Achouri, a spokeswoman for the UN peacekeeping mission told Reuters.

In the second attack, the suspected militants killed a peacekeeper, the mission said.

The mission, known as MINUSMA, said it dispatched a quick reaction force and attack helicopters to secure the Timbuktu headquarters. It said UN troops killed six assailants.

No one has claimed responsibility for Mondays violence.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the attacks and said they may constitute war crimes under international law.

More than 100 peacekeepers have been killed in Mali, making it the most deadly of the United Nations 16 global peacekeeping operations.

The attack in Mali took place two days after a terror attack in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso where Gunmen killed nearly 20 people and wounded several others during an overnight attack on a restaurant.

The UN Security Council condemned in the strongest terms the barbaric and cowardly terrorist attack carried out in Ouagadougou and reaffirmed that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security.

The Council members expressed their solidarity with Burkina Faso in its fight against terrorism and stressed the need to intensify regional and international efforts to combat terrorism and violent extremism, which may be conducive to terrorism.

The members of the Security Council commended the efforts of the region, including through the development of a G5 Sahel Joint Force, in order to address the transnational dimension of the terrorist threat in the Sahel region, and encouraged further progress in this regard.

The UN Secretary-General also condemned the attack in Ouagadougou, stressing that there can be no justification for such acts of indiscriminate violence.

He also reaffirms the Organizations commitment to the countries of the G5 Sahel as they scale up efforts to tackle multiple security challenges in order to promote peace and development in the sub-region, said his Deputy Spokesperson, Farhan Haq.

The Group of Five (G5) countries  Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger have deployed a joint force to tackle the threat of terrorism, as well as the serious challenges posed by transnational organized crime in Africas restive Sahel region.
- Bahati MP Kimani Ngunjiri has warned the Mt. Kenya region against abandoning DP Ruto in 2022

- Ngunjiri says it will be morally and politically incorrect not to support Ruto

- Ruto is seeking to become president in 2022

A member of parliament re-elected on a Jubilee party ticket has warned the Mt. Kenya region against reneging on its promise to support Deputy President William Ruto come 2022.

Bahati MP Kimani Ngunjiri said it will be dishonest for leaders and residents from the region to abandon Ruto after the support he has offered President Uhuru Kenyatta.

He further warned those saying the region will abandon the DP saying they will make a major moral and political mistake.

Bahati MP Kimani Ngunjiri Photo: Buzz Kenya

READ ALSO: The mystery of a handwritten form 34A on IEBC's website

It will be politically and morally wrong to support any other candidate for the presidency considering the work done by the deputy president for President Uhuru and the whole country, Ngunjiri said as quoted by Hivi Sasa.

Hs warning comes amid claims that DP Ruto's presidential ambitions will suffer a setback as the region will field its own candidate.

Former Kiambu Governor William Kabogo and former nominated MP Paul Njoroge warned Ruto that he is not guaranteed support from the region.

Deputy President William Ruto Photo: Standard

READ ALSO: The mystery of a handwritten form 34A on IEBC's website

Ruto has declared he will take over from Uhuru in 2022 but he will face competition from other people who have declared interest in the seat.

They include Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho, his Machakos counterpart Alfred Mutua and Kalonzo Musyoka.

Raila rejects results

Have something to add to this article or suggestions? Send to news@tuko.co.ke

Source: TUKO.co.ke
- Charity Ngilu has turned down money set aside for her inauguration ceremony and redirected it for other uses

- Ngilu was recently elected as Kitui governor and she has just followed in the footsteps of Mike Sonko

- Mike Sonko declined about KSh 25 million that had been set aside for him and directed it goes towards paying county workers

Kitui county Governor-elect Charity Ngilu has followed in the footsteps of her colleagues by rejecting millions of shillings set aside for her inauguration ceremony.

Ngilu on Tuesday, August 15, said the KSh 6 million that had been set for the ceremony be used to provide water for Kitui county residents.

She said all she needed on her big day are a Bible and a venue.

Charity Ngilu follows in the footsteps of Mike Sonko by declining millions set for her inauguration Photo: Standard

READ ALSO: You are on your own- UN turns down Raila's request in his grievances against Uhuru's victory

All we need on that day is a Bible and venue and it certainly does not cost KSh 6 million. Let us be sensitive to the poor in all our actions, Ngilu said as quoted by Capital FM.

She added that the people of Kitui have been suffering and that is why they considered her for the governorship seat.

Ngilu's actions come just a day after two of her newly elected colleagues, Nairobi's Mike Sonko and Nyeri's Wahome Gakuru, redirected millions of shillings meant for their inauguration.

Nairobi governor-elect Mike Sonko Photo: Star

READ ALSO: Raila postpones 'major announcement'

On Monday, August 14, Sonko redirected KSh 25 million to paying salaries and arrears to county staff.

His actions were lauded by all and sundry.

He was followed by Gakuru who a day later redirected KSh 5 million meant for the same.

Raila rejects results

Have something to add to this article or suggestions? Send to news@tuko.co.ke

Source: TUKO.co.ke
The Airports Authority has successfully carried out a simulation of a crash landing at Piarco.
Militants launched 31 attacks on positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in ATO area in Donbas over the past day. Eight Ukrainian soldiers were wounded.

This is reported by the ATO press center.

The tensest situation was observed in Donetsk direction, where militants used grenade launchers, heavy machine guns, 82mm and 120mm mortars to launch continuous attacks on Ukrainian positions in the industrial area of Avdiivka (18km north of Donetsk). In addition, ATO troops came under enemy fire outside Kamyanka (62km south of Donetsk) and Luhanske (59km north-east of Donetsk). Five Ukrainian servicemen were wounded as a result of militants shelling of strongholds of the Ukrainian Armed Forces near Verkhniotoretske (22km north-east of Donetsk).

In Mariupol direction, illegal armed formations shelled Marinka (35 km south-west of Donetsk), using mortars. Another Ukrainian soldier was wounded after Russian-backed militants had used grenade launchers to fire at Ukrainian positions in Vodiane (16km north-west of Donetsk).

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On Tuesday, a standard-bearing group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will take part in the parade on the occasion of the Polish Army Day.

"A standard-bearing group of the Ukrainian Armed Forces will participate in the parade on the occasion of the Polish Army Day, which is traditionally marked in Poland on August 15, the anniversary of the Battle of Warsaw in 1920," the Polish Radio reports.

It is noted that Ukrainian Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak will also attend the parade in Warsaw.

In turn, the Polish military will participate in the parade on the occasion of Ukraine's Independence Day in Kyiv on August 24.

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Eight Ukrainian soldiers were wounded in the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) zone in eastern Ukraine over the past day.

Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Spokesperson for ATO issues Oleksandr Motuzianyk said this at a press briefing on Tuesday, an Ukrinform correspondent reported.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces sustained no losses as a result of combat actions over the past day. At the same time, eight soldiers were wounded, Motuzianyk said.

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Observers of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine have seen the insignia of Russia and other nations in the Donbas territories not under the control of the Ukrainian authorities.

OSCE SMM Principal Deputy Chief Monitor Alexander Hug stated this at a briefing in Lviv on Tuesday, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"We report what we see. And we have seen insignia of the Russian Federation and other nations. We have spoken to people who claimed they had been part of army of the Russian Federation," Hug said.

He also noted that observers had seen specific types of weapons and had described in their public reports, including electronic warfare equipment.

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Ukrainian enterprises have never produced or designed combat missiles, Acting Chairman of the State Space Agency of Ukraine Yuriy Radchenko has said.

"Until now Ukraine and enterprises operating in the space industry have not been engaged in the production of military missiles. We did not design [them]," he said at a briefing at Ukrinform on Tuesday, adding that only space rockets were being produced as part of the implementation of the Russian space program.

Radchenko said that in order to properly use a rocket and engine, it is necessary to have access to the technology of rocket fuel production.

"[North] Korea has no technology of this kind. It is owned, by and large, by two sides - Russia and China. The State Space Agency instructed the Yuzhnoye design bureau to conclude how this technology could get to Korea. A report was published on the website of a technical agency, on the website of the Yuzhnoye design bureau that these technologies and products could not get to Korea from Ukrainian territory. Our opinion and expert opinion on this matter are unambiguous, as we comply with all international restrictions on the supply of missile technologies and Ukraine's commitments on the transfer of technology to other countries," he said.

He also noted that in 2011, North Korean citizens tried to obtain documentation on the production of missile technology, but they were detained.

"At an international conference held in the city of Dnipropetrovsk, citizens of North Korea tried to obtain documentation, diploma work on missile technology. But they were detained by security forces and sentenced in accordance with the law. They were sentenced to eight years in prison, that is they are still imprisoned," Radchenko said.

According to him, there were no other provocations on the part of North Korea regarding the receipt of documentation or finished products from Ukrainian enterprises.

Earlier, The New York Times, citing Michael Elleman, a missile expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and referring to classified assessments by American intelligence agencies, wrote that North Korea's success in testing an intercontinental ballistic missile that appears able to reach the United States was made possible by black-market purchases of powerful rocket engines probably from a Ukrainian factory with historical ties to Russia's missile program.

In this regard, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksandr Turchynov said that this information did not have any grounds, was provocative and, most likely, "provoked by the Russian special services to cover up their own crimes."

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Odesa is introducing new standards for a new economy, in which a key element is the so-called impact investing, Yehor Hrebennykov, the founder of Impact Hub Odessa, has written in his blog on the website of the Ekonomichna Pravda online news site.

According to the patron, impact investing gives an answer to the question of where and how to invest and receive not only financial dividends, but also a strong dream generated by pure conscience and fulfilled obligations.

"The capacity of the market for impact investments is not very big today, even on a global scale. It's more modest within Ukraine. You can keep to the beaten track, applying, for example, to a Swiss fund dealing with impact investing, and choose ready-made instruments from its portfolio. But the object of such investments will most likely be a social enterprise, thousands of kilometers away from Ukraine," Hrebennykov said.

The entrepreneur said he was confident that there are many projects in Ukraine that might be of interest to impact investors. Impact Hub Odessa is engaged in the search for and development of new ideas for social transformation. The creation of the latter in 2012, in his opinion, was a utopian idea. However, from 2012 to 2017, the businessman spent nearly $5 million on the development of the Impact Hub and the Green Theater.

Today Impact Hub Odessa is 1,300 square meters of educational space, seven regular programs in various spheres, over 200 social projects, 1,700 public events and 50,000 visitors per year.

"Firstly, we simply gathered people and organizations that believe that the city and the country could be better. We brought together projects and professionals from different spheres, and they immediately gained common sense and found shared values and new ideas. When the concentration of social start-ups exceeded the mark 'one start-up per square meter,' we began to present projects to businessmen and concerned officials and launched a series of free master classes from professional financiers, marketers, lawyers, as well as owners and top managers of different businesses," Hrebennykov wrote.

He added that a disadvantage of impact investors in Ukraine was virtually zero or even negative profitability of social transformative projects. However, the scale of the social effect pays back lavishly the expectations, as happened, in particular, with the Green Theater project in Odesa.

"In 2014, I felt that the format of a big cultural and educational open air platform would be in demand and rented the Odesa-based Green Theater, which was abandoned a quarter of a century ago. The restoration seemed to be endless and required new investments... As a result, given the development, maintenance and free events, the project cost $530,000. Over the past three years, we have managed to turn the theater into comfortable public space with a rich cultural and educational program, but these investments will not come back. However, the transformation of the Green Theater from an overgrown landfill into a place, which thousands of people want to visit every day is a feeling worth a million!" he said.

He noted that in the field of impact investment there are projects for everyone - for pensioners and for wealthy citizens. Later, the creator of Impact Hub Odessa promised to talk in more detail about how to choose a project to your taste and purse, how to get pleasure, profit, new experience and network, if someone has vacant real estate of any size, as well as how to choose a team for projects in the field of social innovation, if the main activity does not leave the time at all.

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On Ninth Anniversary of Russian-Georgian war, Putin visits de facto Abkhazia

By Tina Tskhovrebadze

August 8, 2008 is a painful day in the history of independent Georgia. On this day the Russian Georgian war started, as a result of which more than 400 citizens died (half of them were peaceful residents of Georgia), 1747 were wounded and 150 000 left their homes in the war against the Russian occupation. Russian Army came through the Roki Tunnel into the Tskhinvali Region (de facto South Ossetia). Russian aviation bombed Georgian villages, airdromes and military bases. Russians bombed Gori, Poti Port, Senaki and Marneuli military bases. The Russian 58th army occupied Akhalgori district, Upper Abkhazia (Zemo Afkhazeti as it is called in Georgian), Zugdidi, several villages of Gori district. The war, which lasted for five days, was interrupted by the Ceasefire Agreement on August 12, 2008. However, Russia still has not fulfilled its obligations and continues occupation of the Georgian land with barbed wires and fire protection zones at the de facto border with Georgia.This week Russia demonstrated another method to show her power over the breakaway regions of Georgia. The President of Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin visited breakaway region of Abkhazia. Putin had a meeting with de facto leader of Abkhazia Raul Khajimba on August 8.Vladimir Zantaria, advisor of de facto President of Abkhazia, said that Putins visit has a huge meaning for Abkhazia as there is no peace in the world and big states oppose each other. Putins visit to Abkhazia is not a visit for only acknowledging socio-economic situation here. According to Zantaria, the President of Russia knows despite of its small size Abkhazia plays a strategic role in the geopolitics. We are a buffer zone. The questions that arise at the meeting between Vladimir Putin and Raul Khajimba will define the direction of development of the Republic, he added.Ketevan Tsikhelashvili, State Minister of Georgia for Reconciliation and Civic Equality, had a clear assessment of this visit.Putins visit to Abkhazia on this tragic day August 8, after 9 years from the Russian aggression, is an open message that Russia keeps on the occupation of Georgian lands and strengthens her exclusive control over these territories. Our response and message is very open and clear too  we will not accept the occupation, she stressed.Levan Izoria, Minister of Defense of Georgia, declares that Georgia with the International Community is consolidated against unfair actions of Russia, which violate the international standards.The President of Georgia, Giorgi Margvelashvili, also evaluated Putins visit to Abkhazia. He said the visit of Russian President is an ineffective attempt to legitimate historical unfairness. This way Putin seeks to justify Russian occupation of Georgian land conducted in 2008 and the decision of the Russian government to break Georgia into pieces.None of the Georgians will ever recognize the occupation. None of the barbed wires, fire protection zones and fake borders will break the unity and firmness of our country, stated President Margvelashvili.In response to the Russian occupation, residents of Georgia made a live chain near the occupation line. One of the organizers, David Katsarava states that they want to show a protest against the Russian occupation that has not stopped after 2008 and started 200 years ago. We try to unite civil society to show the protest and fight for the de-occupation of Georgia.It is hard to predict how and when the dispute over the occupied Georgian land will be settled, but nine years after the war, it is a fact that due to its unfair and violent politics Russia remains an unfavorable political partner for peaceful development of the region.
The Cabinet of Ministers intends to allocate UAH 250 million to complete the construction of the southern bypass road for Dnipro city this year.

Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman stated this during his working trip to Dnipropetrovsk region on August 15, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"As for Dnipro: the southern bypass is an extremely important project for the region. If there is need and possibility of using these funds, we will allocate UAH 250 million to complete [the construction of the bypass road] next year, Groysman said.

He reminded that estimated costs of Dnipro bypass road total UAH 470 million.

The first stage of the bypass road has been built and already put into operation.

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Over 20 projects for the construction of new schools will be launched this year throughout Ukraine, Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman has said.

He stated this at an all-Ukrainian meeting on preparations for the new academic year during his visit to Dnipropetrovsk region on Tuesday, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"Now we have more than 20 projects for the construction of new schools, which should be launched this year all over Ukraine," Groysman said.

According to him, these projects will be co-financed from the regional development fund.

He said that new schools would help solve the problem of overcrowded schools, in particular, in big cities.

At the same time, the prime minister said that 388 hub schools had currently been created in Ukraine.

"It is very important that we start a program for the creation of hub schools. Today we have 388 schools of this kind in Ukraine," Groysman said.

According to him, Kirovohrad, Lviv, Zhytomyr and Kyiv regions best deal with the creation of such schools.

Groysman also said that in the process of creating hub schools priority should also be given to the provision of children with proper transportation, as well as high-quality road infrastructure.

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The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) plans to increase the volume of financing of various sectors of the Ukrainian economy in the national currency.

Director of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development for Ukraine Sevki Acuner said this while signing the agreement between the EBRD and the OTP Leasing, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"One of our goals is to increase the capabilities and the volume of financing in the national currency of different sectors, financial institutions, corporate clients and municipal enterprises," Acuner said.

He stressed that the EBRD, apart from the banking sector, also cooperated with corporate clients on development of financing in the national currency.

"We also intend to start to finance the municipal and public utility companies in hryvnias as they need hryvnias in regards to risks and area of activity," Acuner added.

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The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine expresses its categorical protest over another wave of political repressions by the Russian side in relation to the citizens of Ukraine in occupied Crimea.

This statement has been posted on the ministrys official website.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine expresses its categorical protest and outrage over the next wave of political repressions and human rights violations by the Kremlin regarding the citizens of Ukraine. The Russian occupation authorities continue the discrimination on national and religious grounds in the occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, persecuting Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars, reads the statement.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs noted that at least five politically motivated sentences of imprisonment were announced, seven people were arrested or fined in Crimea over the past month. Also, at least three searches in the houses of Crimean Tatars were conducted over the past week.

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There were no citizens of Ukraine among those killed or injured as a result of a bus crash in Turkey.

This is reported by the Department of Consular Service of the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine on Twitter.

"The consul informs about the absence of citizens of Ukraine among those killed or injured in the accident in Turkey on August 14," the report says.

As reported, at least four people were killed and 18 others wounded early Monday in a bus crash in the Turkish capital Ankara.

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Ex-president of Georgia, former chairman of the Odesa Regional State Administration Mikheil Saakashvili, who has been recently deprived of Ukrainian citizenship, is ready to return to Ukraine.

He said this on the air of Channel 24.

"I am going to return to Ukraine. I plan to cross the border of Ukraine with a European state. I have no other place of permanent residence in Europe or elsewhere. All my belongings are still in Ukraine. Most of my friends and the party which I head are also there. The day after tomorrow I will announce the exact date of my return," Saakashvili said.

As reported, July 27, the Administration of the President of Ukraine confirmed that Mikheil Saakashvili was deprived of Ukrainian citizenship. August 1, President Petro Poroshenko signed a corresponding decree. The reason for depriving citizenship was that Saakashvili had provided inaccurate information when applying for Ukrainian citizenship. He allegedly concealed the information about the criminal proceedings opened against him in Georgia.

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The Ukrainian government during the implementation of reforms on decentralization and public administration appreciates the support of international partners, in particular Germany.

Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman stated this at a meeting with Georg Milbradt, German government's special envoy for reforms, in particular in the field of governance and decentralization, the Ukrainian governments press service reports.

"The program of decentralization in the country is a component of the Ukrainian presidents programs. This means that both the parliament, the president, and the government are working towards the delegation of authorities, the formation of a new system of government administration, where local government forms the basis, Groysman said.

Speaking about the renewal of civil service, Groysman recalled that 1,000 new specialists will be hired to government bodies through open competitions this autumn, and they will promote carrying out reforms in the country.

In this context, the prime minister stressed that the support of partners, especially Germany, is appropriate and valuable.

We deeply appreciate the level of our cooperation with the German government. We are grateful to the government and directly to Chancellor Angela Merkel for the full support of Ukraine. The fact that in line with the [German] governments decision, the special envoy on reform issues has been sent [to Ukraine] is of great importance for us, the prime minister stress.

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Foreign Minister of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin expressed condolences to the citizens of Sierra Leone, where, according to recent data, more than 300 people were killed as a result of mudslides.

"Heartbreaking news from Sierra Leone... Sincere condolences to people of this beautiful country. Our thoughts&prayers w/families of victims," Klimkin wrote on Twitter.

As reported, mudslides and torrential flooding killed more than 300 people in and around Sierra Leone's capital early Monday following heavy rains, with many victims trapped in homes buried under tons of mud.

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Russia continues its occupation

By Messenger Staff

Nine years have passed since the Russia-Georgia war in August 2008, and Georgias Foreign Ministry has released a special statement.Nine years have passed since the war, and still the Russian Federation does not follow the August 12 cease-fire agreement and has been continuing the occupation and annexation of integral parts of a sovereign state in violation of the principles of international law, which is reflected in the illegal integration of Georgia's Abkhazia and South Ossetian regions into the military and socio-economic system of Russia, the militarization of the occupied regions and erection of barbed wire fences and other artificial barriers on the occupation line. illegal detentions and kidnappings of people along the occupation line, restriction of freedom of movement and access by residents of the adjacent territories to their farmlands and houses regularly take place. This situation has been even more aggravated by closure of four so-called crossing points in Abkhazia region, the Ministry reported.The Ministry stated that ethnic discrimination and the violation of the fundamental rights of Georgians living in the occupied territories still continues.While hundreds of thousands of people are being driven out of their homes, the Russian occupation regime treats the oldest Georgian population remaining in Abkhazia and Tskhinvali regions as foreigners, says the statement.According to the Ministry, the Russian occupation regime tries to further isolate Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region and deliberately obstructs humanitarian contact between the people living there and the rest of Georgia and the world.Despite Russias provocative actions, the Government of Georgia continues its unwavering peace policy and strives for peaceful conflict resolution through diplomatic means, negotiations and dialogue. In contrast to the Russian Federation, Georgia stays in firm compliance with the 12 August 2008 Ceasefire Agreement and through constructive engagement tries to achieve the tangible result in the Geneva International Discussions, the Ministry stated.Moreover, in light of the systematic use of force by the Russian Federation in the occupied regions, the Georgian government has repeatedly confirmed its commitment to the non-use of force, including at the executive and legislative levels. In response to the erection of artificial barriers on the occupation line, the government of Georgia pursues intensive policy of restoration of trust and relations between the societies split by conflict, said the Ministry.The Ministry underscored that Georgia highly appreciates the strong support of its partner countries and international organizations for the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and their respective decisions, which greatly contribute to the regulation of the conflict in accordance with the principles of international law.After nine years of ongoing occupation, the Georgian side once again calls upon the international community to make consolidated efforts to address the consequences of the August 2008 war and resolve the Russia-Georgia conflict peacefully, says the statement.At the end of the statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed its condolences to the families and relatives of the war heroes and civilians killed in the war.The final section of the statement is of the utmost importance as without the string international support it will be very hard for Georgia to reintegrate its territories.It is obvious that Georgia lacks opportunities to cope with Russias aggression alone, however, there are a lot of things governments of Georgia and the Georgian people can settle alone and make the country stronger economically and politically.Unfortunately, Georgia is still far from being an economically strong nation, wherein peoples welfare is ensured.
The Department of Urology at the Mount Sinai Health System is hosting its 2nd Annual International Prostate Cancer Symposium and Inaugural World Congress in collaboration with Society of Urologic Robotic Surgeons and Endourological Society. More than 110 renowned faculty from around the world will participate in Live 3D surgical demonstrations, including prostate, kidney and bladder and reconstruction as well as Inaugural Symposiums: Immunotherapy of Prostate Cancer and GU Cancers and World Consortium on Advanced Prostate Cancer.Lecture topics will include immunotherapy and tumor microenvironment, active surveillance, focal therapy, advanced prostate cancer, locally advanced disease, radical prostatectomy, morbidity and quality of life. Participants will also discuss the recent U.S. Services Preventative Task Force (USPSTF) recommendations that encourage men ages 55 to 69 to make an individualized decision about prostate screening with their clinician.
Purpose: Men with prostate cancer often describe low levels of empowerment. eHealth interventions may represent useful tools to deliver care and education and to meet patients' needs within an empowerment framework. In order to design a platform for cancer patients' empowerment within the H2020 iManageCancer project, the perspective of the target population for the platform was assessed. The present study aims to assess the qualitative experience of prostate cancer patients during treatment in order to provide insights for clinical practice with a particular focus on the design of a web platform to promote cancer patients' empowerment. Methods: Ten patients undergoing radiation therapy treatment took part in a semi-structured interview to explore different aspects of patient empowerment. Four main thematic areas were addressed: patient-healthcare providers' communication, decision-making, needs, and resources. A qualitative approach using thematic analysis was followed. Results: Half of the patients reported little to no possibility to share information and questions with healthcare providers. With regards to decision-making, the role of healthcare providers was perceived as directive/informative, but half of the patients perceived to assume an active role in at least one interaction. Difficulties and needs included the choice of the specialist or of the structure after diagnosis, clinicians' support in self-management, surgical consequences, and side effects, preparation for radiation therapy. Resources included family and social support both from a practical and from an emotional perspective, coping style, and work schedule management. Conclusions: These results suggest that relations with healthcare providers should be supported, especially immediately after diagnosis and after surgery. Support to self-management after surgery and at the beginning of radiation therapy treatment also constitutes a priority. The adoption of a personalized approach from the beginning of prostate cancer care flow may promote patient empowerment, overcoming the aforementioned needs and mobilizing resources. The social network represents an important resource that could be integrated in interventions. These considerations will be taken into account in the design of a cancer self-management platform aiming to increase patients' empowerment.

Frontiers in psychology. 2017 Jul 26*** epublish ***

Chiara Renzi, Chiara Fioretti, Serena Oliveri, Ketti Mazzocco, Dario Zerini, Ombretta Alessandro, Damaris P Rojas, Barbara A Jereczek-Fossa, Gabriella Pravettoni

Applied Research Division for Cognitive and Psychological Science, European Institute of OncologyMilan, Italy., Interdisciplinary Research and Intervention on Decision, Department of Oncology and Hemato-Oncology, University of MilanMilan, Italy., Division of Radiation Oncology, European Institute of OncologyMilan, Italy.

PubMed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28798701
The justice ministry is planning to introduce community service to replace mandatory detention in the hope that it will ease pressure on the countrys beleaguered prison system.

Chin Malin, a justice spokesman, said the scheme would be piloted in Battambang province before launching nationwide.

When the project is put into practice, we will set up a legal framework and detailed policy and consider later what changes are needed for community service, he said.

We will then consider about skills, location, and forms of investigation. We will provide more detail before the implementation of the project, he added.

According to the Department of Prisons, more than 26,000 people are incarcerated in Cambodias 29 jails.

Malin said community service would benefit society and also reduce the burden on the prison system.

Its a good opportunity for prisoners to correct their wrongdoing. Also, they can use their skills and talents to serve the society and community, rather than doing nothing, he said.

But it does not mean they will be freed. They will be under strict supervision.

He added that community service has long been legislated in Cambodia for sentences of less than three years, but has rarely been put into practice over fears convicts could face mob violence if reintroduced into the community.

As a result of these fears, the pilot project would include education of communities where the convicts are to carry out their work, he said.

Duch Piseth, advocacy director of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, said the project was unlikely to be successful unless the courts did more to combat corruption.

There need to be accountable figures who inspect and manage the prisoners doing community service, he said. The ministry should make efforts to explain to people in the community to understand about the project in order to stop people from being afraid of the prisoners.
Algeria's presidency has recalled veteran crisis manager Ahmed Ouyahia as prime minister, a job he held in the 1990s when Algeria was battling an Islamist insurgency.

Ouyahia, 65, will replace Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who held the job for just three months, the office of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika said Tuesday.

Ouyahia will most likely be seen as a steadying influence as Algeria tries to carry out economic adjustments to cope with a fall in oil prices that has slashed state revenues.

The presidency statement gave no reason for the change.

Ouyahia has served three terms as prime minister and most recently was Bouteflika's chief of staff.

A veteran politician and diplomat by training, Ouyahia is leader of the National Rally for Democracy, a party close to the presidency that increased its number of seats in May's parliamentary election.

"Ouyahia is a renowned servant of the state who has the experience to manage situations of crisis," said Arslan Chikhaoui, an Algiers-based analyst who runs a private consultancy.

The North African state's political system is often opaque, and Bouteflika, 80, has rarely been seen in public since suffering a stroke in 2013. Under the constitution, the president appoints the prime minister.

Political jostling around Bouteflika has intensified as his health has waned, fueling questions about the shape of any transition if he steps down before his term ends in 2019.

Moves to reduce subsidies and imports and diversify Algeria's oil-dependent economy have created political divisions over how far to push reforms.

As prime minister, Tebboune was leading the austerity drive, and had also spoken out about the need to separate money from politics.

In the run-up to Tebboune's dismissal, there was media speculation that he had fallen out of favor because of differences with Ali Haddad, a prominent businessman close to the presidency.

Tebboune was also perceived to be encroaching on foreign policy, seen as a preserve of the presidency, after he held a meeting with French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe this month, said one senior source who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.

"My loyalty to the president remains complete," Tebboune said after his dismissal.
2 Japan's Emperor Akihito (R) and Empress Michiko bow at an altar for the war dead during a memorial ceremony marking the 72nd anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II, at Budokan Hall in Tokyo.
Canada laid down a tough line ahead of talks on modernizing NAFTA on Monday, suggesting it could walk away if the United States pushed to remove a key dispute-settlement mechanism in the trade deal.

Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, giving the most substantive outline yet of Canada's goals, said she was "very optimistic" the negotiations would be a success.

North American Free Trade Agreement members Canada, Mexico and the United States hold their first session in Washington on Wednesday.

Watch: Difficult Negotiations Ahead as NAFTA Talks Begin in Washington

Canada, heavily reliant on exports to the United States, opposes Washington's push to scrap the so-called Chapter 19 dispute settlement mechanism, under which bi-national panels made binding decisions on complaints about illegal subsidies and dumping. The United States has frequently lost such cases.

"Canada will uphold and preserve the elements in NAFTA that Canadians deem key to our national interest -- including a process to ensure anti-dumping and countervailing duties are only applied fairly when truly warranted," Freeland said in a speech at the University of Ottawa.

Noting that Canada had withdrawn its chief negotiator from 1987 talks on a bilateral trade treaty with the United States over the same issue, Freeland said "our government will be equally resolute."

Freeland later sidestepped reporters' questions about whether maintaining Chapter 19 was a make-or-break issue for Canada, saying she would let her U.S. counterparts know how important the matter was to Ottawa.

Trade among the three nations has quadrupled since NAFTA came into effect in 1994, surpassing $1 trillion in 2015. But U.S. President Donald Trump regularly calls the treaty a disaster and has threatened to walk away from it unless major changes are made, citing U.S. job losses and a trade deficit with Mexico.

Freeland, who predicted there would be moments of drama during the talks, said Canada wanted a progressive trade deal featuring stricter environmental and labor standards as well as a focus on climate change, a concept Trump has little time for.

"One needs to be ambitious and put everything on the table ... what do we have to lose? Nothing," said Patrick Leblond, a University of Ottawa professor who is a foreign policy specialist.

Outreach Campaign

Canada, like Mexico, sends the majority of its exports to the United States and would be hurt by U.S. protectionist moves.

The United States runs a slight surplus in trade of goods and services with Canada, which has mounted a major outreach campaign to persuade U.S. business leaders and politicians that NAFTA is a success.

"American partners have been listening," Freeland said.

"They understand ... our relationship, the greatest economic partnership in the world, is balanced and mutually beneficial."

Freeland stressed that Canada would protect tariffs and quotas that keep domestic dairy prices high and imports low.

U.S. dairy farmers strongly dislike the system.

A modernized NAFTA should take into account technological advances and make it easier for professionals to move from one member nation to another, she added.

Mexico's goals include prioritizing free access for goods and services and greater labor market integration, according to a document seen by Reuters.
The deadly violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend, had the hallmarks of a tactic increasingly employed by Islamic State sympathizers in Europe: use of a vehicle as a weapon of terror.

James Alex Fields Jr., a 20-year-old Ohio man, rammed his car into a group of counter protesters at a white nationalist rally Saturday, killing one person and injuring 19 others.

But was the violence a hate crime or an act of domestic terrorism, and how should it be prosecuted?

It is a dilemma that prosecutors face as they investigate the attack and consider criminal charges against Fields.

State charges filed

Fields is being held on state charges of second-degree murder, malicious wounding and failure to stop at the scene of an accident that resulted in a death. Under Virginia law, conviction of second-degree murder carries a penalty of up to 40 years in prison.

But additional charges could follow as investigators from the Department of Justice and the FBI press forward with a civil rights investigation that was opened Saturday.

In a statement issued Sunday, the Justice Department said the attack could potentially have involved one or more hate crime statutes.

While the department did not rule out bringing terrorism charges in the case, it said that doing so would require enough evidence to be suspicious that the suspect intended to send a message and not just harm immediate victims.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Monday the evil act in Charlottesville meets the legal definition of domestic terrorism.

We are pursuing it in the Department of Justice in every way that we can make a case," Sessions said on ABC's Good Morning America. "You can be sure we will charge and advance the investigation towards the most serious charges that can be brought because this is unequivocally an unacceptable, evil attack."

Domestic terrorism prosecutions rare

Historically, federal prosecutors have rarely brought terror charges in domestic terrorism cases, relying instead on traditional criminal statutes such as hate crime laws to bring charges.

That is partly because while federal law makes domestic terrorism a crime, it does not offer a specific charge for it.

As a result, some of the most high profile domestic terrorism cases have been prosecuted as under criminal statutes.

Oklahoma City bombing

Take the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the deadliest act of domestic terrorism before the attacks of September 11, 2001. Timothy McVeigh, the perpetrator, was charged with the use of a weapon of mass destruction, destruction with the use of explosives and eight counts of murder but he was never charged with domestic terrorism.

In the 2015 killing of nine black worshippers at a South Carolina church, a mass murder widely seen as an act of domestic terrorism, Dylann Roof was charged with and later convicted of 33 counts of federal hate crimes but no terror related charges were brought against him.

Prosecutors have had a high degree of success using civil rights statutes, said Brian Levin, a criminologist and director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University.

The Charlottesville attack, he said, could be prosecuted as either a hate crime or an act of domestic terrorism. But it might very well be easier for prosecutors to use the traditional hate crime statutes just because of the burdens of proof.

Federal law defines domestic terrorism as acts intended to intimidate or coerce the public or influence government policy or action through mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping.

The FBI defines a hate crime as a criminal offense motivated by bias against race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender or gender identity.

Bringing terrorism-related charges will not necessarily help the prosecutors case against Fields, Levin said.

On the one hand, there is a legitimate call by the community for this to be identified and prosecuted for what it is  which is both terrorism and hate crime  but we also have a high burden of legal requirements for prosecutors and give them discretion to try and prosecute these cases to the best of their ability, he said.

Frederick Lawrence, a distinguished lecturer at the Georgetown Law Center, said that accurately describing a crime does matter.

The criminal law is designed not only to punish but to express the highest values of the society, Lawrence said. What took place here allegedly is not merely a homicide, its a homicide with the kind of motivation that is particularly dangerous not only to the victim but to all people connected to the victim and, indeed, to the entire society.
A court in China has held a closed door hearing for prominent rights activist Wu Gan, with legal observers saying a ruling in the case could be handed down in about a week.

They say Wu, who is best known for his mockery of official efforts to obstruct his push for justice, and his online name "The Butcher," could face up to 10 years in prison.

Formerly a military man, Wu, 44, rose to prominence for his unconventional advocacy campaigns that combined online speech, humorous satire and street performance.



Wu was first taken into custody in May 2015 after he allegedly cursed at the head of the court in Nanchang, Jiangxi. Two months later, Wu was officially charged with inciting state subversion.



But, his detention is believed to be tied to the July 9 Crackdown on rights lawyers that began the same month. Wu worked in an investigative capacity for the Beijing Fengrui Law Firm, the main target of the crackdown.



A secret trial

Wus trial on Monday was not open to the public because state secrets were involved, the court in Tianjin said in a post-trial statement published on its Weibo account.

According to the statement, during the proceeding Wu recognized that his behavior was a crime and that his lawyers fully presented their defense arguments.



A verdict would be handed down at a later date, the statement added.



Prior to his trial, Wu issued a statement that was published online by his father.



In his statement, Wu said he expects a heavy sentence because of his acts of defiance, including his refusal to accept a state-appointed lawyer, plead guilty and make a televised confession for authorities propaganda purposes, as well as his determination to reveal the polices torture on him.

He described Mondays trial as a farce and said he would refuse to speak in his own defense.

An innocent man

An innocent person doesnt need to defend himself, Wu said in the statement.

Wu added he has done nothing wrong but to exercise his civil rights guaranteed by the Constitution, referring to those 12 crimes he was accused of.

My crime of subverting the Communist regime is a great honor A guilty verdict issued by a dictatorial regime is a golden glittering trophy awarded to warriors for liberty and democracy, he added.

You Minglei, a legal assistant and close friend to the defendant, said Wu will likely be given a 7- to 10-year sentence as "the states hatred for him has gone off the charts."

Authorities have long held a grudge against him because of his pursuit of illegal misconduct by local governments or public office holders and his use of cyber manhunts or a wanted list of pigs to be butchered, You told VOA.

His past articles including Guides to Butchering Pigs and Guides to Drinking Tea in defiance of the state has also drawn the ire of the authorities, You added.

Tough man

You called Wu a tough man, who will never comprise in exchange for a lenient jail term.

He said he expects a verdict to be reached in about a week although any delay is also possible.

Wus lawyer, Ge Yongxi, also told VOA that a verdict should be handed down soon, although it was inconvenient for him to comment on the case now.

Jerome Cohen, a law professor at New York University, called Wus pre-trial statement one of the most moving and accurate descriptions hes ever read of Chinas manipulation of its legal system to stamp out speech freedom.

This account of his personal experience encapsulates virtually all the abuses the Xi Jinping regime has been committing against human rights activists, the professor said in his blog, adding that It is tragic testimony to the pathetic attempts of the Communist Party to drape its oppression in the mantle of law.

Forced collaboration

The saddest aspects, he added, are its reminder of the forced collaboration between the countrys judges and legal apparatuses in suppressing its peoples constitutionally-prescribed civil rights and freedom.

Mondays secret trial was heavily guarded by the police in Tianjin.

Several China-based diplomats and journalists were barred from observing the trial and even standing outside the courthouse. In response to their efforts to cover the trial, a VOA journalist and his news assistant were taken to a nearby police station for questioning for nearly five hours.

Before the trial on Monday, a group of 21 of Wus supporters, including Zhu Chengzhu and Wang Lihong, were reportedly apprehended by plain-clothed police and taken to a nearby police station.

Ive now arrived at a detention center, along with Wang Lihong, just the two of us. The detention centers [officers] have come. I wont be allowed to talk on my cell phone. Thats it for now, Zhu told VOA before he hung up.

According to an online report, Zhu has been released but is under police control in Hunan on Tuesday. According to You, Wus father is under police control in his hometown of Fuqing City in Fujian Province.
A decision by the United States to investigate Chinas trade practices is a unilateralist baring of fangs that will hurt both sides, Chinas state news agency Xinhua said Tuesday.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday authorized an inquiry into Chinas alleged theft of intellectual property that administration officials said could have cost the United States as much as $600 billion.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer will have a year to look into whether to launch a formal investigation of Chinas trade policies on intellectual property, which the White House and U.S. industry lobby groups say are harming U.S. businesses and jobs.

While it is still too soon to say that the United States intends a showdown with China on trade, it is no exaggeration that the latest baring of fangs on Washingtons part against China, like all the other unilateral moves by Washington, will hurt not only China, but the United States itself in the long run, Xinhua said.

Xinhua said while Chinese exporters could be the first to suffer from trade sanctions, the pain would soon spread to U.S. industries and households, adding that China was willing to resolve any disputes between the two sides through dialogue.

The investigation is likely to cast a shadow over U.S. relations with China, its largest trading partner, just as Trump is asking Beijing to put more pressure on North Korea to give up its nuclear program.

Ken Jarrett, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, said in a statement Tuesday that trade and North Korea should not be linked, and said the investigation was a sign of growing U.S. discontent with Chinese trade practices.

The presidents executive order reflects building frustration with Chinese trade and market entry policies, particularly those that pressure American companies to part with technologies and intellectual property in exchange for market access, he said. Chinese companies operating in the United States do not face this pressure.

We support actions that recognize the importance of U.S.-China commercial ties but which also encourage progress toward a more equitable trading relationship, he said.
Elias Kanyangale is ecstatic about his maize harvest. Balancing on a homemade ladder, the farmer retrieves cobs from a full granary, the bounty of this year's good rains, which broke three years of drought in Malawi.

Kanyangale, 44, from Kalumbu village, part of the capital city Lilongwe, says his 5-ton harvest of maize is double the previous year's crop, and he has some soya beans too. But he is still worried about his income.

I am not sure I will get good prices for my crop. I planted more maize for home consumption and more soya beans for sale because the rains were good after the drought of last year, but if I do not get good prices, I will not have enough income to help my family, he said.

Many of Malawi's smallholder farmers who grow maize as a cash crop have diversified into legumes like soya and groundnuts, hoping for better market prices should one crop fail due to drought.

But faced with climate change, uncertain markets and government policies they see as unhelpful, many farmers feel ill-equipped to decide how much of which crop to plant and when.

Last year's extreme weather, bringing both floods and drought, left many in a food fix.

Acting on specialist advice to diversify away from maize, some farmers grew more tobacco and soya in 2016, based on expectations of favourable prices in 2017.

But a glut has frustrated them, depriving them of a ready market for their surplus soya beans.

Yet those who ignored the advice and stuck with maize are also in trouble because of a government ban on the export of maize grown for domestic consumption.

I am not happy about the ban, said Kanyangale, a member of the 1,500-member Nyanja Farmers' Association. If this is not lifted soon, I could [be forced to] sell my maize at giveaway prices to middlemen.

Growing maize is a must for me and low prices affect me greatly, he added.

Help to adapt

Changing farming ways does not happen overnight, explained Peter Kaupa, a field officer with the National Smallholder Farmers' Association of Malawi (NASFAM) who works with the Nyanja group.

This year farmers will grow more tobacco because the price is right, and might grow less maize and soya because of what they have seen this season, Kaupa said.

Farmers used to mono-cropping are reluctant to change their practices, he added, and struggle to make prompt decisions in the face of climate extremes and the implications of government policy for crop marketing and exports.

Kaupa's organization offers training on farm business practices, including cost-benefit analysis of which crops to grow and climate-smart agriculture to adapt to erratic weather.

NASFAM's initiative is part of a project promoted by the Technical Center for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), an international institution based in the Netherlands, which aims to reach over 200,000 farmers in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

More than 50,000 smallholder farmers across five districts in Malawi will be shown how to access real-time climate information, obtain weather-based insurance, and use drought-tolerant crop varieties.

Olu Ajayi, project leader at the CTA, said it hopes to help smallholder farmers increase their yields during droughts.

Our partner in Malawi, NASFAM, also addresses the marketing aspect of the value chain by facilitating opportunities for farmers to get the best price for their produce, said Ajayi.

Maize maze

Alice Kachere, who also farms in Lilongwe, grew more maize than soya this year, fearing lower prices for the legume.

Kachere hopes to sell her bumper harvest of 13 tons of maize and buy seed and equipment for next season.

Last year she planted tobacco but made a big loss and had to borrow money to prepare for this season. She too is anxious for the export ban to end so she can take advantage of trade with Kenya.

I hear there is drought (in Kenya) and the prices we get will be high, Kachere said. I will be in trouble if the ban is not lifted.

In May, Joseph Mwanamvekha, Malawi's trade minister, said the government was ready to issue export licences to traders who can prove they bought the maize for export and to farmers who have grown maize specifically to sell outside the country.

The government has not yet indicated when it will lift the ban on maize grown for home consumption, but the wait is affecting farmers who are anticipating better income from crop sales.

Malawi is projecting a bumper harvest of 3.2 million tons of maize this year, an increase of one-third over production in the 2015/16 season.

With an El Nino weather system forecast for this year, farmers would do well to brace for another drought by diversifying their crops, said Lluis Navarro, head of cooperation for the European Union in Malawi, which has invested in developing the southern African nation's agriculture.

Maize is a crop that is very sensitive to climate change, said Navarro.

Malawi's maize prices are the most volatile in the region, he said, making farmers reluctant to invest and produce a surplus they cannot be sure of selling.
U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis issued a warning to North Korea, saying that any attempt to launch missiles at U.S. soil could escalate into war very quickly.

If they do that, its game on, Mattis told Pentagon reporters during an impromptu briefing late Monday. You dont shoot at people in this world unless you want to bear the consequence.

Kim to watch US

KCNA, North Koreas official news agency, said Tuesday that the countrys leader, Kim Jong Un, had received a report from his army on its plans to strike the area around Guam, a U.S. territory in the western Pacific Ocean. Kim said he would watch the actions of the United States for a while longer before making a decision, according to the report.

The Norths leader ordered the army to be fire-ready should he make a decision for action, the report said.

Talking tough, pushing diplomacy

Mattis sought to allay fears following previous North Korean threats to launch missiles in the direction of Guam.

We know within moments where its going, he said of any potential launch.

The top U.S. defense chief said that if officials determined a missile was likely to hit Guam, Well take it out.

Mattis has not shied away from similarly tough talk in the past but has consistently emphasized Washington would prefer diplomatic solutions to resolve differences with Pyongyang.

The U.S. has no interest in regime change or accelerated reunification of Korea, he wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, published Monday. We do not seek an excuse to garrison U.S. troops north of the Demilitarized Zone.
From defiant lawsuits to reversing policies, U.S. cities and counties are zeroing in on their immigration rules to avoid losing millions in public safety dollars that the White House has threatened to withhold amid a high-stakes clash over sanctuary policies.

President Donald Trump has made it a top priority to revoke federal dollars from so-called sanctuary cities, broadly defined as places that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Trump says he believes such cities and counties are providing a haven for criminal activity.

Amid an executive order and almost weekly threats by the administration, cities and counties are fighting back.

At least six locales are suing, with Chicago becoming the latest city to join the legal fray last week. Leaders in Baltimore and the Las Vegas area have been trying to prove to the federal government that they don't have sanctuary policies so they can qualify for public safety help. Some local governments have sought to comply with the administration's edicts.

The result for cities and counties: growing confusion, budgeting headaches, worries about increased crime and more tension with immigrant residents. And experts expect more lawsuits and turmoil at the local level.

"They're not getting clarity," said Yucel Ors, a program director for public safety at the National League of Cities. "When you're planning budgets or there's an expectation for grants and applications, it becomes very difficult to properly judge what your resource is going to be, especially with law enforcement."

Sanctuary policies have existed for decades. There's no single definition, but generally local officials enact policies friendly to people living in the U.S. without legal permission, including limiting cooperation with agents in local jails and prohibiting police from asking about immigration status during traffic stops.

The nation's roughly 200 sanctuary cities and counties are now a focal point in the immigration debate with Trump in the White House.

Some locales, including Florida's Miami-Dade County, have already changed their immigration policies to comply. Others are considering the same.

Pushing back

But the more common tactic among sanctuary cities has been to push back. Lawsuits over constitutional concerns cropped up in California's Santa Clara County, San Francisco, Seattle and two Boston-area cities, with the California lawsuits prompting a temporary injunction.

In its federal lawsuit last week, Chicago targeted new conditions for a public safety grant calling for close cooperation with federal authorities, including access to jails. Chicago, a sanctuary city since the 1980s, calls the changes unconstitutional.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who was President Barack Obama's first White House chief of staff, argued Trump's aggressive stance and rhetoric impedes trust in law enforcement and could prevent immigrants from reporting crimes.

"The Trump Justice Department ... is asking the city of Chicago to choose between our core values as a welcoming city and our fundamental principles of community policing," Emanuel said at a recent news conference. "It is a false choice and a wrong choice. Chicago will not let our police officers become political pawns in a debate."

In response, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions doubled down on his sanctuary cities stance, accusing Chicago of "deliberately and intentionally" adopting rules that obstruct the immigration system.

Nationally, the federal government awarded about $264 million to more than 1,000 different entities last year through the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant program, also known as Byrne JAG. Chicago's share was about $2.3 million, including for police cars. The program is named after a New York City officer killed in 1988 while protecting an immigrant witness who'd agreed to testify against drug dealers.

The fight has led to chaos in cities and counties that say they're being inaccurately branded by the administration.

Federal programs

Roughly $1 million in Byrne JAG money was in limbo for Nevada's Clark County until this month. The county submitted a 108-page memo covering the role of Las Vegas police to prove it should continue receive funds it uses for things like juvenile services.

Baltimore city officials were baffled when they received an August letter saying they wouldn't qualify for a different federal anti-crime program. The city hasn't formally declared itself a sanctuary city, and city jails are run by the state of Maryland, not the city. Baltimore faces a Friday deadline to prove its case.

In New Mexico, Albuquerque received a similar warning. Albuquerque eliminated a sanctuary policy years ago, but city and county officials approved largely symbolic "immigrant friendly" measures this year. The federal warning appeared to target immigrant jail policies in Bernalillo County, where Albuquerque is located. County commissioners debated a plan allowing more cooperation between local and federal immigration authorities, but the Democrat-majority board defeated it last week at a meeting well-attended by opponents.

Two California cities, Stockton and San Bernardino, were also called out after expressing interest in the Justice Department's Public Safety Partnership, which enlists federal agents and technology to find crime solutions. They were told they wouldn't qualify unless they give federal immigration authorities access to jails and notify agents before releasing inmates wanted on immigration violations.

Miami-Dade County reversed its policy earlier this year, saying the county would honor "detainers," or holding people for extra time to be arrested by immigration authorities. Local officials defended the change, saying they wanted to keep receiving federal money for body cameras and community policing. However, the reversal is now the subject of an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit.

In New Mexico, concerns linger about possible lost funding opportunities for Albuquerque, which ranks first nationwide for the number of cars stolen daily per capita. Commissioner Wayne Johnson, a Republican, said he introduced the plan to increase cooperation with immigration authorities in response to Trump's warning.

"We have a broken criminal justice system," said Johnson, who's running for mayor. "We need to have every tool at our disposal."
The News in Brief

Grigol Vashadze: Vladimir Putin's visit to occupied Abkhazia is tragic and looks ridiculous



According to one of the leaders of the United National Movement, Grigo lVashadze, Vladimir Putin's visit to occupied Abkhazia is tragic and looks ridiculous.



The Vice President of the United States of America arrived in Georgia and it drew the world's attention. The Russian Federation has allies such as Abkhazia, and so Putin visits Sokhumi. It is comical and tragic at the same time  the occupant Russian President going to occupied Abkhazia," Grigol Vashadze said.



The press service of the party spread the comments of Grigol Vashadze. (ipn)







,b>Georgian Defence Minister, NATO Core Team leader discuss Substantial Package



The implementation of the Substantial NATO-Georgia Package has been in focus at todays meeting between Georgian Defence Minister LevanIzoria and new leader of the NATO Core Team, Stephan Annghoefer.



The pair met in Tbilisi on August 7.



The Defence Ministry said in a press release following the meeting that the officials discussed details of future cooperation.



Izoria said that NATO-Georgia cooperation has registered immense progress in two directions, namely the operation of the NATO-Georgian Joint Training and Evaluation Center and the Defence Institution School.



"Our cooperation will intensify in the future in these two directions; as for other initiatives within the Substantial NATO-Georgia Package, they will be synchronised and we will do our best to achieve the ultimate result  Georgias integration into NATO, Izoria said.



NATO introduced its "substantial package to Georgia in 2014. Along with boosting Georgia's defence capabilities and NATO interoperability, the package is to advance Georgia on its track to become a NATO member state.



Georgia has announced that currently one of its key priorities is to effectively implement (with the direct involvement and significant support of the NATO member states) all elements envisaged by the Substantial NATO-Georgia Package.



Two years ago, the NATO Core Team was established within the Substantial NATO-Georgia Package, which coordinates and supervises the effective implementation process of existing initiatives envisaged by the Package. (Agenda.ge)







BDO Solutions accomplished SAP Business One implementation project in Anaklia



BDO Solutions has successfully completed the major SAP Business One implementation project for Anaklia Development Consortium (ADC).



BDO and ADC teams have been working on the project intending to provide robust technological platform to manage construction and development of the port and related operations. Specific modules introduced in ADCs system are Assets & Inventory, Procurement, Financial Accounting & Reporting, Settlements and Payroll.



We knew what we wanted when we opted for SAP Business One here at Anaklia, says ZurabPichkhaia, CFO. Complete operational visibility and control, integration with common systems and laws and potential for strong analytics on SAP HANA platform along with BDO Solutions experience in the field, were the drivers in our decision to work with them on this project. Dedicated BDO team turned out to be very helpful and comfortable to work with. We have yet to uncover more benefits of SAP as we go, which I have seen this whole period, are integrally available in the software once you identify the need to use them.



Designed to meet the tailored needs of growing businesses such as the Anaklia Development Consortium SAP, Business One quickly after adoption demonstrates the measurable benefits of using an integrated ERP application, including:



 Targeted business growth through streamlined operations



 Operational efficiency achieved by eliminating redundant and manual data entry errors with integrated core functionality



 Closer relationships with key stakeholders including vendors and employees through better supply chain management



 Lower technology costs and speed time to value



For businesses in the construction and real estate sector, SAP Business One is an intelligent solution for proper integration of key business areas from financials and accounting to inventory and procurement, to provide clear visibility into entire business. By capturing data into a single centralized location, the business can access critical real-time information to make fast, informed decisions.



BDO Solutions provides ongoing support to the Anaklia Development Consortium for the smooth deployment of all SAP B1 modules integrated so far.



BDO Solutions is a successful market player in software developments, active since 2004. Since 2016, BDO Solutions is a member of the international BDO network of accounting and business advisory firms and shares the core principles of global brand in provision of exceptional client service



With over thirteen years experience in the field, BDO Solutions is the partner of SAP  a leading software corporation worldwide as well as the first and the largest partner of 1C in Georgia, holding exclusive rights for translating and adapting the 1C platform for the Georgian market. (ipn)




Food insecurity in the Somali region of Ethiopia has worsened, putting 700,000 people on the verge of starvation, according to Oxfam International.

The humanitarian organization says that about 8.5 million people across the country face a high risk of hunger, a 30 percent increase since the beginning of the year.

Food shortages and hunger have led to displacement and negative coping mechanisms such as increases in child labor, early marriage and school dropouts, according to a recent joint report by the Ethiopian government and humanitarian partners. Sex for food and child labor were reported in some woredas [districts], the report said.

Much of Ethiopia is now in the midst of its lean season, and some people at risk have not received any food distributions since May.

Were not looking at a situation which will give respite until at least 2018 when you have a new harvest, and then maybe some food may come to the market, Manish Kumar Agrawal, Oxfams humanitarian program manager in Ethiopia, told VOA in a phone interview. Currently, we are going through the most difficult time, and, if the situation is not handled now, it can convert into a big catastrophe.

The Famine Early Warning Systems Network, a U.S. government-funded monitoring body, said a lack of rainfall during the past year caused the food crisis. The group forecasts that, even if the October to December rainy season is plentiful, herders will continue to suffer because many animals have already died or stopped reproducing or giving milk.

More than $1B in aid needed

Agrawal said Ethiopia needs $1.25 billion in food, water and other life-saving assistance, but only 39 percent of requested funding has been met. He said Oxfam is prioritizing the most vulnerable people, including households with children under five, pregnant or breastfeeding women, and households headed by women.

We are trying to do a very hardcore targeting, and we are going to go about those districts often and then trying to identify how best we can serve with our limited resources to the worst affected people, said Agrawal.

Acute watery diarrhea continues to be a problem in the region, due in part to people being forced to drink water from unclean sources. About two months ago, Ethiopia had 32,000 cases, Agrawal said, nearly all in the Somali region.

Its gone down in the last couple of months, but the risk is still there. And there are really cases that are popping up every day in there, and the current situation, again, more than 10 million people dont have a sustainable water supply system, and they are really facing acute water shortages, he said.



The worst affected zones in Ethiopias Somali region are Dollo, Korahe, Afder and Jarar. Although the southern Somali region is the hardest hit, the southern Oromia region and the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region are also experiencing high levels of food insecurity.
The former number-two leader of al-Shabab says he has quit the Somalia-based militant group.

Mukhtar Robow, also known as Abu Mansour, made the announcement to journalists at a Mogadishu hotel on Tuesday.

I would like to state to the Somali people and the international community that I quit al-Shabab five years and seven months ago and that Im not a member of the group, he said, reading a prepared statement.

He said he left the group because of differences with other al-Shabab leaders.

I quit because of misunderstanding and differences over the ideology, which is not in the interest of the religion [Islam], people and the country, he said.

The former al-Shabab official indicated he is holding talks with the Somali government and said "Im hopeful we can pave the way for a lasting peace.

Robow surrendered to the Somali government on Sunday in the Bakool region after several days of heavy fighting between his militia and al-Shabab fighters. He said al-Shabab wanted to kill him.

For five years and seven months I was living in the jungle where I was attacked [by al-Shabab]. They wanted to kill me but I defended myself, he said.

Robow was a founder of al-Shabab and served as the group's deputy leader under longtime emir Ahmed Abdi Godane. The two men were known to disagree over tactics and strategy in al-Shabab's war to overthrow the Somali government and install a strict Islamist state.

In 2012, the U.S. government offered a $5 million reward for information leading to Robow's capture or death. The U.S. dropped the reward offer in June, as al-Shabab closed in on Robow's hideout.

No remorse

A former senior intelligence official noted that Robow did not express remorse about his role with al-Shabab.

Abdi Hassan Hussein, the former director of the U.S.-backed Puntland Intelligence Agency (PIA), says Robow failed to reject al-Shababs ideology.

He did not make it clear, as Somali people were expecting and waiting, that al-Shababs objectives and principles have no basis in Islamic law and not suitable for the Somali people, he said.

Hussein says Robow only addressed differences he had with al-Shabab and did not reject the ideology itself.

You can tell he is still sympathetic, still has feelings for the organization, he said. He should have apologized and asked for forgiveness for what he did to the Somali people on behalf of al-Shabab.

Human Rights Watch has urged the Somali government to investigate Robow for alleged human rights abuses.

It said Robow had a leadership role in al-Shabab at a time when HRW documented indiscriminate attacks on civilians, forced recruitment of children, and other abuses against residents."

Investigate Robows role and ensure that those responsible for the worst abuses arent able to escape just punishment, the rights group said in a brief statement Tuesday.

The Somali government has not commented on the defection and Robow's statement.



Former PIA director Hussein said he believes the defection of Robow is a positive step and good news for the government.

Its an example to other al-Shabab leaders who still have not found the right conditions to leave the group to emulate, he said.
The whereabouts of Zimbabwean first lady Grace Mugabe are unknown as South African police and her lawyers negotiate terms to turn herself in to face charges of assaulting a young woman at a luxury Johannesburg hotel.

South African authorities said Mugabe did not appear in court after police minister Fikile Mbalula initially had said Mugabe had "cooperated and handed herself over" to police on Tuesday. He said Mugabe "will be charged."

A senior police source later said, "The negotiations for her to hand herself in are still going on. We are at a point where we cannot effect an arrest yet."

Reuters, citing a senior unnamed Zimbabwean government official, reported the first lady returned Tuesday to her homeland.

"She is back in the country," the official said, and added administration officials "don't know where this issue of assault charges is coming from."

Some South African news organizations reported that an arrest warrant had not been prepared. A court official told VOA that he did not have a docket with Mugabe's name on it.

The 52-year-old wife of President Robert Mugabe is accused of beating 20-year-old Gabriella Engels Sunday with an extension cord as she visited Mugabe's sons in a hotel. Photos posted on social media show Engels, a professional model, with a bloody gash on her forehead.

It was not immediately clear what precipitated the alleged assault.

The allegation against the first lady threatened to trigger a diplomatic disagreement between South Africa and Zimbabwe, neighboring countries with a strong political and economic relationship.

Grace Mugabe, 52, is considered a possible successor to her 93-year-old husband, who has ruled Zimbabwe since gaining independence from colonial British rule in 1980.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi marked the 70th anniversary of India's break from British colonial rule with a vow to end corruption and a plea for religious tolerance.

Modi used his annual Independence Day speech Tuesday at New Delhi's landmark Red Fort to tout his controversial decision to withdraw large currency notes from circulation.

The prime minister says the decision pulled in at least $46 billion in undeclared wealth from the underground economy into India's formal banking system, even though it caused a serious cash shortage.

Modi denounced violence carried out by right-wing Hindus against minority Muslims and lower-caste Hindus accused of eating beef, which violates the belief among Hindus that cows are sacred.

He also proclaimed India could defend itself against any and all enemies, "be it the sea or borders, cyber or space." India is currently engaged in a tense, two-month long territorial dispute with China in a strategic eastern Himalayan region.

During a phone call Monday, the White House says U.S. President Donald Trump and Modi resolved to "enhance peace and stability across the Indo-Pacific region by establishing a new 2-by-2 ministerial dialogue that will elevate their strategic consultations." Trump also congratulated India's 1.2 billion citizens on their country's independence, with both leaders looking forward to the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in India in November. Trump's daughter, Ivanka, is leading the U.S. summit delegation.

The White House says Modi "thanked President Trump for his strong leadership uniting the world against the North Korean menace."

During Tuesday's Independence Day speech, Modi offered a note of conciliation towards the Muslim-majority Himalayan region of Kashmir, saying it was a better option than "bullets or abuses."

Indian security forces have been fighting Kashmir separatists who are seeking either independence or greater ties to Pakistan, India's bitter rival. Kashmir has been the center point of a territorial tug-of-war between India and Pakistan for decades.

In 1947, Britain split its giant Indian empire into two new nations, a Hindu-majority India and Muslim-dominated Pakistan. Pakistan celebrated its independence on Monday.
Islamic State is seeking to radicalize disaffected ethnic minorities in majority Shi'ite Iran to encourage attacks intended to avenge Tehran's offensive against the group across the Middle East.

Sunni Islamic State, in decline in Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for an unprecedented attack on June 7 in which suicide bombers and gunmen attacked the Iranian parliament and Ayatollah Khomeini's mausoleum in Tehran, killing 18 people. The attackers were Kurdish Iranian Sunnis.

In interviews, dissidents and representatives of Iran's minority Kurds, Baluchs and Arabs said that decades-old liberation movements are evolving into sectarian-tinged struggles, spurred on by geopolitical rivalries in the region.

They told Reuters some Iranian separatist groups, several of which have pursued armed insurgencies for their nationalist or civil movements, increasingly see themselves as part of a struggle between Sunnis and Shi'ites in the region.

Some activists side with Shi'ite Irans increasingly assertive rival, Sunni Saudi Arabia, to show their anger against what they see as oppression by the Iranian theocratic state, in which up to 10 percent of the population is Sunni.

Other radicalized Iranians go even further by joining al-Qaida and Islamic State, enemies of both Iran and Saudi Arabia, to wage war on Shi'ites on the battlefield.

The Irbil-based head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) - a secular armed group which launches periodic attacks into Iran - said religious extremism was rapidly gaining traction among "emotional, poorly educated youths."

"If the Islamic Republic of Iran does not change its policies towards Sunni Muslims in Iran and in the region, more people will be inclined to organizations like Daesh," Mustafa Hijri said, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

The Iranian government declined to comment. Sunni militant groups have long carried out periodic attacks on military and civilian targets, in protest against what they say is discrimination against Iran's Arab minority and Sunni ethnic groups. Iran stepped up its crackdown against members of such networks in recent years, with arrests and death sentences.

Threatening video

On August 9, IS issued a video threatening new attacks in Iran and calling on young Iranians to rise up and launch jihad in their country.

The group has often showcased its global reach by airing testimonials from its polyglot foreign followers online.

But its heaviest propaganda swipe at Iran came with a 40-minute documentary in March which attacked Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as a friend of the West and featured Baluchi, Persian and Ahwazi fighters urging attacks inside Iran.

The video was released as Iranian-backed Iraqi forces and militias recaptured major areas from Islamic State territory in Iraq and Syria.

"We tell you, O Zoroastrian apostates," said a fighter called Abu Mujahid al-Baluchi, naming Iran's pre-Islamic faith.

"Our hands won't be far from you. As you tasted our strength in Iraq and the Levant, by God's will we will conquer Persia and make it Sunni."

After the Tehran attack, Iran was quick to blame Saudi Arabia, pointing to a statement by Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman in May that the kingdom would make sure any future struggle between the two countries "is waged in Iran".

Tehran offered no evidence to back up its charge, and Riyadh denied the accusation. Reacting to the Tehran assault, the kingdom said it condemned terrorist attacks everywhere.

Iran has arrested at least 100 people linked to IS since the attack. Critics say the Iranian government has used the June attack in Tehran to crack down on minorities. The government declined to comment.

Earlier this month, the Iranian state news agency said that security forces had broken up a group linked to Islamic State which was planning attacks on religious centers.

Intelligence ministry agents arrested "a terrorist group linked to Daesh [Islamic State] that intended to carry out terror operations in religious cities," IRNA said. They were trying to bring weapons and ammunition into Iran and 27 people were arrested, it added.

Days earlier, Iranian media said Iran's Revolutionary Guards had killed two people in clashes with a group of militants in the northwest of the country, where shootouts with Iranian Kurdish militant groups based in Iraq are common.

In June, Iran announced the arrests of members of a group linked to Islamic State which was planning suicide attacks. It did not elaborate.

Anti-government Kurdish activists told Reuters that authorities for years tolerated Salafi preachers and militants linked to al-Qaida on condition that they shunt their violence beyond Iran's borders towards Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Forces linked to Daesh were publicly collecting money in some mosques in Iranian Kurdistan and the regime was clearly turning a blind eye to these actions," Hijri of the KDPI said. Iran's Interior Ministry declined to comment.

Iranian Arabs

Mokhtar Hooshmand, a Kurdish activist jailed in Iran on national security charges from 2010 to 2012, described the rise of Sunni militants in Kurdish areas and meeting dozens of the militants behind bars.

"They started preaching in 2004 in mosques. They made no secret of forming morality enforcement squads, attacking female hairdressing shops, weddings and cafes."

"Many Iranians have joined IS, have been trained in Syria or Iraq and are now back in the country. Daesh has influence in all Sunni provinces of Iran," he added. Reuters could not independently verify his statements.

Apart from Kurdish regions, potential flashpoints center on Sunni Baluchis or residents of the poor area of Sistan-Baluchestan in Iran's southeast, and ethnic Arabs of oil-rich southwestern Khuzestan province.

Minorities in Iran say they are deprived of decent living standards and civil rights.

While majority Shi'ite, many Arabs of the area they call Ahwaz see themselves as under Persian occupation. Their struggle for independence or autonomy has taken on a religious bent.

Iran has accused Saudi Arabia of providing material or financial support to Ahwazi militants, a charge denied by the Saudi government. Some privately-owned Gulf religious TV networks have advocated the Ahwazi cause.

"In Ahwaz, thousands of Shi'ites have converted to Sunni Islam after 2005, but not all to extremist Sunni groups like al-Qaida," said Mohammed Majid Ahwazi, a political activist and journalist in Sweden, who was also jailed in Iran for two years for dissent.

"Before the Syrian crisis, Arab countries were indifferent to the internal affairs of Iran," he said, adding: "But after the Syrian crisis, Bahrain unrest, war in Yemen and the presence of the Revolutionary Guards in Iraq - Arab countries have put Ahwaz, Baluchestan and the Kurds issue on their agenda.
U.S. President Donald Trump again expressed his displeasure with the 2015 Iran nuclear deal last week, calling it horrible and saying Tehran is not in compliance, leaving some to worry that the agreement may be in jeopardy. But what message does that send to North Korea, where a peaceful conclusion to the current nuclear crisis would be likely to end with a similar international deal?

The Iran deal was negotiated between the permanent five U.N. Security Council members plus Germany. In exchange for limits on Tehrans nuclear program, most international sanctions were lifted, giving the Iranian government access to billions of dollars.

Doubters

Under the Security Council resolution endorsing the nuclear deal is language calling upon Iran not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles, including launches using that kind of technology. But in both 2016 and 2017, Iran conducted launches that have raised Western concerns about its compliance with the spirit of the agreement.

The topic of the Iranian regimes compliance with its international obligations reminds me of the fable of the scorpion and the frog, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley told the Security Council in June.

She went on to tell the story of a scorpion that asks a frog for a ride across a river. The frog hesitates, fearful the scorpion will sting him. But the scorpion reassures the frog that they would both drown if he did that. The frog relents and takes the scorpion on his back, but halfway across the river, the scorpion stings him.

With his last breath the frog asks, Why? And the scorpion replies, Because its in my nature, Haley said, characterizing the scorpion as Iran and the international community as the frog.

Haley is scheduled to travel to Vienna later this month to meet with officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who monitor Irans compliance with the 2015 deal.

Monitoring the deal

Every 90 days, the U.S. administration must recertify Iranian compliance to the Congress. If it denies certification, then Congress can decide to reinstate unilateral U.S. sanctions. The next certification is due in October.

I think youll see some very strong things taking place if they dont get themselves in compliance, Trump warned Thursday when asked about Iran.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif responded Friday via Twitter:

POTUS always wanted to kill JCPOA. To avoid isolation, hes trying to blame it on Iran. Bad faith on top of US violating the letter & spirit, he wrote, referring to the nuclear agreement by its acronym.

Clearly President Trump has misgivings about this deal; clearly he wants to see if something can be done about it, said Alex Vatanka, senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute.

Vatanka notes that as long as Tehran abides by the deal, The United States will have a very difficult time going around the world and asking other countries to join it in this call to overhaul, or in worst case, nullify this agreement.

Damaging diplomatic initiatives?

Could anxiety that the Iran deal may be in some kind of danger potentially hurt diplomatic initiatives on North Korea? Why sign up for a deal that could be upended by the next U.S. administration?

Should there be changes in ones posture, withdrawing from certain agreements that your predecessor negotiated, frankly makes it far more difficult in the future to negotiate any deals with any country on any given issue, said Rosemary DiCarlo, a former U.S. ambassador and president of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy in New York.

Right now, the North Koreans are in a situation in which they have very little incentive to give up a nuclear program that gives them a considerable amount of bargaining leverage, said Carla Ann Robbins, adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Everybody is paying attention to a country that has nothing else, she added.

Vatanka said neither the Iranian nor the North Korean regimes have demonstrated a suicidal streak.

A suicidal regime will not stay in power for half a century or more, which is the case of the North Koreans, he said. They are looking for a way out.

Rhetoric and sanctions

I would certainly cool the rhetoric to lessen chances of having an explosion or a miscalculation, Robbins said. I think that should be the No. 1 goal right now.

The experts say that sanctions and pressure can only go so far and that dialogue is a crucial tool.

We saw this with Iran, we had very tough sanctions, but we also had an opening for dialogue, DiCarlo said. We were open to dialogue; we had dialogue. Obviously, in the case of the DPRK, something similar is going to need to transpire.

The recent U.N. sanctions are pretty powerful, in that these and the ones last year, the Chinese are gradually tightening the screws somewhat, said former U.S. official and Georgetown University professor Bill Brown. China is in a very difficult spot on this, probably in the most difficult. They are starting to put some real pressure on the North Koreans, especially not buying their coal.

Coal is North Koreas biggest export, and in the last three rounds of U.N. sanctions, the international community has worked its way up to a total ban.

Brown notes that while some have criticized China for not fully enforcing previous rounds of sanctions, Chinese trade data from June shows a huge drop in imports from North Korea, an indication that they are strengthening enforcement.

The latest round of sanctions, imposed just more than a week ago, aim to cut North Koreas export revenue by a third  revenue that the international community says would have fueled the countrys illicit nuclear weapons program.

The experts say economic reform will be the most likely impetus to get North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to the negotiating table and to dial back his nuclear program.

If hes truly denied the kind of trade and economic stimulus that hes getting from certain countries, it is going to be very, very hard for him to have a viable nuclear program, one that is considered a threat to anybody, DiCarlo noted.

Getting back to the table

From 2003 through 2009, China, Japan, North Korea, Russia, South Korea and the United States participated in a series of negotiations known as the Six-Party Talks. Chaired by China, they were a multilateral effort to dismantle North Koreas nuclear program. The talks broke down in 2009 when Pyongyang pulled out.

MEIs Vatanka says a lesson the North Koreans could take from the Iran talks is to keep the discussions multilateral.

Dont make this into a conversation between North Korea and the United States, the lesson is bring as many voices into it as you can, he said. And thats where we are with President Trump on the Iran question: By broadening the conversation, it has made it that much harder for the U.S. to rebuild the multilateral front it put together, which leaves the United States either to do nothing or act unilaterally.


In a rare visit, the head of Irans armed forces is in Turkey. The two neighbors have found themselves increasing rivals in Iraq and Syria, but both sides are trying to find common ground.

The chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces, Major General Mohammad-Hossein Baqeri, arrived in Ankara, leading a high-ranking military and political delegation, for three days of talks. It is the first visit by Irans chief of staff since the 1979 Iranian revolution.

Regional rivalries

Former Turkish ambassador to Iraq Unal Cevikoz now heads the Ankara Policy Forum. He says conflicts in Iraq and Syria have exacerbated regional rivalries.

"Iran is becoming a very important actor in the region, particularly in Iraq and Syria," he said. "It seems Iran has certain intentions. And when we look at the Turkish Iranian relations pertaining to the situation in Iraq and Syria, it is obvious Turkey and Iran are not on the same page."

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has positioned himself as an advocate of Sunni Muslim rights in the region and has been in the forefront of criticizing Tehrans policy in Iraq and Syria.

Erdogan has strongly criticized the treatment of Sunnis by Iraqi militia backed by Tehran. Ankara is one of the main supporters of Syrian rebels fighting the Damascus government supported by Iran.

The Iranian general's visit comes as Tehran, Ankara and Moscow are cooperating in what is called the Astana process to resolve the Syrian civil war. The conflict is expected to be discussed during the visit.

Idlib enclave



Political columnist Semih Idiz of the Al Monitor website says talks will include the Syrian enclave of Idlib, one of the last areas the rebel forces control.

"Idlib is a potential hornets nest. There is infighting there between two radical Islamist groups," said Idiz. "One is considered nominally more moderate and supported by Turkey and the other one more close to ISIS in sentiment. It is not clear how that is going to play out in Idlib and [Syrian President] Assad is going to take advantage of that."

Idlib borders Turkey, and there are growing concerns in Ankara that if it is overrun by Syrian government forces Turkey could experience a major refugee influx, which could include many radical jihadists. Last week Ankara closed its border crossing into Idlib due to security concerns.

The aspirations of the regions Kurds is also expected to be on the Iranian generals agenda in Ankara, with both countries having large and restive Kurdish minorities. Next month's independence referendum by Iraqi Kurds will provide common ground, with Tehran and Ankara strongly opposing the vote.
Jordan held local elections Tuesday in a move that officials said would help devolve some powers to larger cities and underdeveloped rural regions, but that critics said fell short of promised wider political reform.

The countrywide municipal vote  the first since 2013  was a stated bid by the government to bring wider grass-roots democracy that King Abdullah has said would provided marginalized communities with a bigger voice in state decisions.

Over 1.3 million people, or 31 percent of those eligible, voted Tuesday, said the head of the government-run electoral commission, Khaled Kalaldeh. Over 30,000 police were deployed to secure more than 5,000 polling stations nationwide.

Over 6,000 candidates competed for 1,833 seats on 100 city and town councils and 12 new provincial councils that will have the decisive say on investments in infrastructure and other projects of regional concern.

"Decisions on major developmental projects are now in their [provincial] hands and they are the ones who will set the priorities, not the ministries in the capital," a senior government official told Reuters.

Last year parliament approved a decentralization law that established the provincial councils, with a 10 percent quota for women to encourage their participation.

"The Jordanian state continues to encourage elections and dialogue through the ballot boxes, at a time when we are surrounded by bloodshed and violence," government spokesman Mohammad al Momani said.

Reproducing 'past woes'

But critics said the election turnout pointed to widespread voter apathy, particularly in the capital, Amman, and the industrial city of Zarqa, where many voiced doubt the government would delivering on pledges of democratic reform.

"Elections are a chance for change and shaping the future in democratic countries but, in the presence of authoritarianism, elections just reproduce past woes and existing suffering," said Zaki Bani Rusheid, a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood is Jordan's largest opposition party but its activities are restricted by state authorities in the kingdom.

Wider reforms, among them steps to curb gerrymandering that favors pro-government deputies, have stalled after a brief period in which the authorities allowed large peaceful protests and freer media expression to forestall an uprising of the sort that shattered other Arab countries starting in 2011.

The opposition's main demand is an overhaul of an electoral law that magnifies the clout of sparsely populated tribal areas. These areas form the backbone of support for the monarchy at the expense of larger cities where Islamists and Jordanians of Palestinian origin have a strong presence.

King Abdullah's security forces have returned to keeping a tight lid on public dissent, routinely jailing peaceful activists who criticize Jordan's ruling elite  the monarchy, security services and military  on social media.

Jordan, a staunch U.S. ally, has been relatively unscathed by the revolts, insurgencies and civil wars that have torn through Arab states, including its neighbors Iraq and Syria, over the past six years.
The U.S. Justice Department has requested information from a California web hosting provider about anyone who visited DisruptJ20.org, a website that coordinated protests against Donald Trump's presidency on Inauguration Day.

DreamHost received a search warrant last month requesting any "record or other information" related to the DisruptJ20 website, which the company said amounted to more than 1.3 million visitor internet protocol addresses.

In a post on its website Monday, DreamHost said complying with the request would require it to hand over "contact information, email content, and photos of thousands of people," prompting the company to question the legality of the order.

"That information could be used to identify any individuals who used this site to exercise and express political speech protected under the Constitution's First Amendment," DreamHost said. "That should be enough to set alarm bells off in anyone's mind."

In a court filing last month, government prosecutors said the DisruptJ20 website was "used in the development, planning, advertisement and organization of a violent riot that occurred in Washington, D.C., on January 20, 2017."

In April, authorities charged 234 people with felony rioting for their roles in riots that played out in Washington on Inauguration Day. Video of the incidents shows rioters throwing rocks and bricks at police and using crowbars and bats to smash storefronts and vehicles. Six police officers were injured in the mayhem, and one limousine was set on fire.

DreamHost called the search warrant a "clear abuse of government authority" and said it would fight the warrant in court.

A hearing on the matter will take place Friday.
Kenyans continue to wait in suspense for a statement by opposition leader Raila Odinga, who has rejected the results of the presidential contest, announced Friday. He claims the election was rigged.

Odinga and his NASA coalition were scheduled to announce their next move Tuesday. But they instead released a statement postponing his remarks to Wednesday, given what they called the urgency, complexity and delicate nature of the issues being considered.



The electoral commission announced on August 11 that incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta had won the election with 54.3 percent of the vote, beating Odingas 44.8 percent.



Odinga has rejected the results, asserting that the voting system was hacked. The opposition has rejected calls to challenge the poll results in court.

The White House released a statement Tuesday congratulating Kenyatta on his re-election, and said it welcomed the statements by international and domestic observer missions affirming the credibility of the election. It also called on Kenyans to reject violence and resolve disputes in accordance with the Kenyan constitution and the rule of law.



The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights said Saturday that 24 people had lost their lives since the day following the election as a result of police using live bullets. Police dispute that figure, saying 10 people have been killed, and all of them were criminals.



Meanwhile, the Kenya Human Rights Commission, or KHRC, says it is being targeted for closure by the state regulator, the NGO Coordination Board.



A letter from the board to KHRC released online Monday accuses the KHRC of employing foreigners without work permits, making secret payments to board members, failing to pay taxes, and having illegal bank accounts.



KHRC says that NGO Coordination Board director Fazul Mohamed has banned NGOs affiliated with the opposition, and has refused to meet with the KHRC about the accusations against the group.



KHRC executive director George Kegoro spoke to reporters Tuesday.



Mohamed Fazul only attacks us in the media. He never writes to us. He has never written to us a single letter. We see these documents flying in the media and never directed to us, said Kegoro.



Amnesty International says the NGO Coordination Board is also asking authorities to close down another local rights group, the African Center for Open Governance. The group is accused of operating without proper registration as an NGO.



In a statement, Amnesty International said the NGO Coordination Board is seeking to discredit human rights organizations, calling the action unlawful and irresponsible.



VOA was unsuccessful in its attempts to get comment from the NGO Coordination Board.
Judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Tuesday issued an arrest warrant for a Libyan National Army (LNA) commander accused over the alleged execution of dozens of prisoners.

Prosecutors at the world's permanent war crimes court are seeking Mahmoud al-Werfalli's hand-over to face charges of murder during the armed conflict in Libya.

According to the ICC, Werfalli is alleged to have directly committed and to have ordered the commission of murder as a war crime during seven incidents, involving 33 persons in June and July 2017 in and near Benghazi.

The LNA, which controls the eastern part of Libya, has been pushing to expand its presence in the central and southern part of the country where it has been vying for control with forces linked to the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli and other groups.

The United Nations called for the LNA to suspend Werfalli after a video in March allegedly showed Werfalli shooting dead three men who were kneeling and facing a wall with their hands tied behind their backs.

The LNA said it would investigate any potential war crimes but has not released any details of such a probe.

In June, two further videos appeared to show summary executions carried out by LNA fighters on his orders.

The ICC has jurisdiction over war crimes in Libya after a referral by the United Nations Security Council in 2011 and has been investigating alleged atrocities there.
The United Nations says gunmen have attacked a U.N. peacekeeping base in the northern Mali city of Timbuktu, killing seven people.

U.N. officials say the dead include five Malian security guards, a gendarme and a Malian contractor working for the U.N. mission.

They say six assailants were also killed by U.N. peacekeepers during the Monday afternoon attack.

The violence follows an attack earlier Monday in which armed men opened fire on U.N. peacekeepers and Malian troops in the central Malian town of Douentza. One peacekeeper and one Malian soldier were killed in that attack.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the attacks and said they may constitute war crimes under international law.

No one has claimed responsibility for Mondays violence, however Islamist militants frequently target the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali. More than 100 peacekeepers have been killed in Mali, making it the most deadly of the United Nations 16 global peacekeeping operations.

U.N. peacekeepers along with French forces are in Mali to help the country deal with the remnants of an Islamic insurgency in the north. Al-Qaida-linked militants briefly took over the north of the country in 2012 after a failed coup in Bamako.

The militants have also spread to southern Mali, along the border with Burkina Faso.


The U.S. has issued more than 10,000 visas to North Koreans in the past 20 years, 18 of them this year from March to June, a Voice of America analysis of visa records shows.

There is no record of the whereabouts or activities in the United States of those who visit on business or tourism  a group accounting for as many as half the North Korean visitors last year. The State Department does not keep track visa applicants specific purposes for entering the U.S.  a piece of information typically gathered through visa applications and interviews, a State Department official told VOA.

Theres no systematic way that thats done, the official said. And it would be impossible to do because visas often are multiple-entry.

The official said all visa applicants are subject to very strict security screening standards, and the U.S. issues visas to anyone who fulfills application requirements and is not determined to be a security threat. As the U.S. does not have official diplomatic relations with North Korea, the official said, all visa applications for North Koreans are issued outside the country.

So far this year, 18 North Koreans received visas from March to June, seven of them were business or tourist visas.

The U.S. State Departments Bureau of Consular Affairs only began publishing monthly visa statistics in April.

Business or tourist visas

Last year, the U.S. issued 100 visas to North Koreans, 52 of which were business or tourist visas under the B-1/B-2 category, Voice of America found. The rest were diplomats.

VOA looked at yearly nonimmigrant visa statistics published by the Bureau of Consular Affairs from 1997 to 2016, as well as the monthly figures from this year. Immigrant visa werent included because the bureau was not able to produce immigrant visa records based on nationality. North Koreans who have renounced their citizenship  such as defectors  also werent included in the analysis.

From 1997 to 2001, the second half of Bill Clintons presidency, more than 1,200 North Koreans obtained business or tourist visas each year, with several dozen more getting student or diplomatic visas. Nine received work visas.

Other than diplomatic visas for officials stationed at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City, North Koreans have also been in the U.S. under an array of visas. Between 1997 and 2016, North Koreans received 281 F-1 student visas and 15 H-1B visas.

North Koreans have participated in educational and cultural exchange programs in the U.S. on topics from medicine to agriculture, Keith Luse, the executive director of the National Committee on North Korea, wrote to VOA.

Other North Korean visa recipients include athletes, artists, trainees, sailors on foreign-flagged ships, employees of international companies, transit visitors and a fiance or fiancee of a U.S. citizen. (A list of U.S. visa categories can be accessed here.)

Upper echelons

North Korean citizens traveling or residing overseas are likely to be members of Pyongyangs upper echelons, Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, told VOA. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, for instance, studied in Switzerland while his grandfather and father before him led the one-party state.

They keep a low profile; they blend in, Scarlatoiu said. Probably in the case of students, their peers will not know that theyre from North Korea.

Kim Byung-ki, a political science and international relations professor at Korea University in Seoul, told VOA that when abroad, North Koreans are tasked to gather information.

The trip to the United States serves a very important purpose of understanding the society, how American people think about North Korea, learn more about their behavior, their taste, their political views, their social views, Kim said. I believe it is an important intelligence-gathering operation as it was the case in the Soviet Union times.

US-North Korea tensions increase

Tensions between the United States and North Korea have ratcheted up since President Donald Trump took office. North Korea has fired 18 missiles this year, and the State Department has barred most Americans from traveling to North Korea after the death of Otto Warmbier. An American university student who was detained for 18 months, Warmbier was returned to the U.S. in a coma and died on June 19, 2017.

But, U.S. and North Korea relations have not always been as tense as they are today. And even now, contacts are occurring regularly between Joseph Yun, the U.S. envoy for North Korea policy, and Pak Song Il, a senior North Korean diplomat at the countrys U.N. mission, according to U.S. officials and others briefed on the process, according to the Associated Press. The officials werent authorized to discuss the confidential exchanges and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

The Clinton administration, from 1993 to 2001, marked a relatively amicable period for U.S.-North Korea relations, as rapprochement efforts between the two governments were at their high point, Robert Gallucci, the chief U.S. negotiator during the North Korean nuclear crisis in the 1990s, said to VOA.

Gallucci led the brokering of the 1994 Agreed Framework, an agreement with North Korea that aimed to freeze its nuclear weapons program.

I tend to think of the period as one in which relations improved mostly because we had thought we were successfully addressing the threat from the North Koreans developing nuclear weapons program in the 90s, Gallucci said.

During Clintons presidency, North Korea endured a severe famine and was riddled with the imposing of sanctions on Pyongyang as the regime strived to circumvent the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which North Korea acceded in 1985 and left in 2003.

The relationship went downhill from the George W. Bush administration, which dubbed Pyongyang as an axis of evil, as it held a different view about the value of engagement with North Koreans, Gallucci said.

The Bush administration, along with China, Japan, Russia and the two Koreas, participated in the Six-Party Talks, a convention that aims to dismantle Pyongyangs nuclear operations. The six countries last convened for the sixth round in 2008, when North Korea chose to reverse its dismantlement efforts.

Attempts to bring Pyongyang back to the table have been stymied since.
More than 200 people are dead after several days of flash flooding and mudslides across India, Nepal and Bangladesh, while millions of others have been displaced.

The majority of the deaths have been reported in southern lowlands of Nepal, where officials say more than 100 people were killed by flooding that left several villages underwater.

At least 70 people are also dead across three states in northeastern India, while at least 25 deaths have been reported in neighboring Bangladesh.

Security forces across the region have been deployed to rescue residents marooned on the rooftops of their flooded homes, deliver emergency supplies and establish emergency shelters.

Heavy rains accompanied by deadly flooding and landslides are common across South Asia during the monsoon season, which stretches from June to September.
Since April, Boko Haram has carried out more than 100 attacks in Nigeria's northeastern city of Maiduguri. Efforts are underway to secure the city, including the relocation of military chiefs to Maiduguri, and to tighten security at the university after staff abductions and repeated suicide bombings.

In the past week, the Nigerian military has carried out a cordon-and-search operation for fleeing Boko Haram members. The head of the operation said more than 30 houses were searched, based on information that high-level Boko Haram suspects had infiltrated an area in Maiduguri.

Maiduguri, the Borno state capital, is the birthplace of Boko Haram and remains the epicenter of the group's insurgency, which began in 2009. Several parts of the state have seen a spike in Boko Haram attacks in the past six months.

Intelligence officer Lieutenant Aliko Ibrahim El-Rasheed told VOA there have been at least 37 attacks in Maiduguri and nearby areas in the past two weeks and more than 100 in the past six months.

Local support

El-Rasheed said the weather has contributed to the sharp increase because the air force and navy can't patrol effectively during the rainy season. He said another big factor was local support for the group.

"Boko Haram has a substantial level of local support and they also have sympathizers," he said. "Let me just tell you the fact: If you count one, two, three houses in Maiduguri, the third one, definitely, one of those household members is a member of Boko Haram."

In response, military chiefs deployed to Maiduguri two weeks ago following orders by Nigeria's acting president, Yemi Osinbajo.

One property searched in the recent raids included a U.N.-rented residence. Workers of several humanitarian organizations use the compound, known as "Red Roof."

Militant leader

There were rumors that the commander of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, was hiding there. He released a video last month claiming that he was in Maiduguri.

After the searches, the military said there were no arrests and no suspects were found.

Last month, Nigeria's army chief of staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai, issued a 40-day deadline for capturing Shekau, dead or alive. The order appeared to contradict numerous past reports alleging the Nigerian military had already killed Shekau.

"Nobody has ever said, especially on the part of the Nigerian army, said Shekau was dead," Brigadier General Sani Usman told journalists recently. "The deadline for the capture of Shekau either dead or alive will be accomplished."

Across Maiduguri, residents have noticed the increased presence of the Nigerian military. Convoys containing military service chiefs can often be seen on the streets.

Resident skeptical

Longtime Maiduguri resident Bulus Mungopark works as a humanitarian contract worker and an ad hoc member of the vigilante force. He said he was skeptical about how much good the deployment of military chiefs to Maiduguri could do, and that he was not relying on the government to protect his wife and three young children.

"If I heard the news of attack from somewhere, what I do is quickly move my family to a safer location," he said. "That is what I will be doing for now."

Mungopark lives near the University of Maiduguri, which has been repeatedly attacked this year. The school has ramped up efforts to complete a 27-kilometer earthen trench around the campus. It is an effort to make the university safer in time for classes to resume in November.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says he and U.S. President Donald Trump have agreed that stopping North Korea from launching nuclear missiles is their top priority.

Abe and Trump reached the agreement during a phone call Tuesday, the Japanese leader told reporters in Tokyo.

The dialogue between the two allies came as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he will wait to launch missiles at the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam.

Kim to observe

North Koreas official news agency KCNA said Tuesday that Kim had received a report from his army on its plans to strike the area around Guam, which is home to a number of U.S. military facilities.

The report said Kim will continue to observe the foolish and stupid conduct of the Yankees before making a final decision. But he was also quoted as saying if the Yankees persist in their extremely dangerous reckless actions on the Korean Peninsula, the North would follow through with its plans.

Kim also urged the United States to, show through actions if they wish to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula and prevent a dangerous military clash, according to the KCNA report.

Moon tries to calm fears

The statement was an apparent reference to the annual joint U.S.-South Korean military drills that are scheduled to begin next week. Pyongyang considers the drills a dress rehearsal for an invasion of the North, a charge denied by Washington and Seoul.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in is also trying to calm fears of a possible war.

In a speech Tuesday marking the anniversary of the Korean Peninsulas liberation from Japanese colonial rule at the end of World War II, President Moon vowed that his government will put everything on the line to prevent another war on the peninsula, and added that no military action can take place on the peninsula without Seouls consent.

Mattis warning

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis issued a warning to North Korea, saying any attempt to launch missiles at U.S. soil could escalate into war very quickly.

If they do that, its game on, Mattis told Pentagon reporters during an impromptu briefing late Monday. You dont shoot at people in this world unless you want to bear the consequence.

Mattis sought to allay fears following previous North Korean threats to launch missiles in the direction of Guam.

We know within moments where its going, he said of any potential launch.

The U.S. defense chief said if officials determine a missile is likely to hit Guam, Well take it out.

Mattis has not shied away from similarly tough talk in the past but has consistently emphasized Washington would prefer diplomatic solutions to resolve differences with Pyongyang.

The U.S. has no interest in regime change or accelerated reunification of Korea, he wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, published Monday. We do not seek an excuse to garrison U.S. troops north of the Demilitarized Zone.
North Korea has achieved great advancements in its missile capabilities over the past two years, fueled in part by what appear to be Soviet-style engines acquired from illicit networks in Russia and Ukraine, according to a report published Monday.

After a number of failed intermediate-range missile launches in 2016, North Korea has made mysteriously large steps in its development of missiles.

New evidence appears to show the country illicitly obtained technology for its Hwasong-14 and Hwasong-12 rockets from the European black market, writes Michael Elleman, a senior fellow for missile defense at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

According to Ellerman, North Korea likely acquired a high-performance liquid-propellant engine through illicit channels operating in Russia and/or Ukraine.

In an interview with The New York Times, Ellerman said he thinks North Korea likely obtained the engines illegally from workers at Yuzhmash, a state-owned Ukrainian aerospace company.

Ellerman said executives at Yuzhmash likely were not involved in the deal, but he thinks workers at the plant likely supplied the engine to the North Koreans.

Its likely that these engines came from Ukraine  probably illicitly, Elleman told the Times. The big question is how many they have and whether the Ukrainians are helping them now. Im very worried.

Ukraines government flat-out denied the report that the rocket engine came from one of its state-owned factories and said Russian intelligence officials may be behind the allegations.

"This information is not based on any grounds, provocative by its content, and most likely provoked by Russian secret services to cover their own crimes, according to Oleksandr Turchynov, head of Ukraines National Security and Defense Council.

Ukraines space agency said the RD-250 engine type reportedly used in North Korea was made in a Ukrainian factory, but only for use in rockets supplied to Russia.

Acting space agency chief Yuriy Radchenko told journalists the engines were produced at the Ukrainian plant until 2001 and a total of 233 were made.

He said, according to Ukrainian information, Russia has between 7 and 20 of the Cyclone rockets for which the engines were produced, and the Russians are free to supply these engines from the finished rockets to whoever they want."
Ousted Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday sought a review of a Supreme Court decision that disqualified him from office over undeclared assets, an official from his ruling party said on Tuesday.

Sharif, 67, resigned during his third stint as prime minister shortly after the Supreme Court ruled on July 28 that he should be disqualified and ordered a criminal probe into his family's wealth.

Jan Achakzai, a PML-N official, told Reuters Sharif had filed three separate appeals in the Supreme Court.

"It is our right to seek a review," he said. "People of Pakistan haven't accepted the decision."

Achakzai said the same five-judge panel that decided on the disqualification would likely hear the review petitions.

Sharif's disqualification stems from the Panama Papers leaks in 2016 which appeared to show that Sharif's daughter and two sons owned offshore holding companies registered in the British Virgin Islands and used them to buy properties in London.

In April, the Supreme Court ruled that there was insufficient evidence to remove Sharif from office - by a split 2-3 verdict - over the Panama revelations but it ordered further investigations into his family's wealth.

The judges in July alleged Sharif did not declare a small source of income that the veteran leader disputes receiving.

Achakzai said the appeals sought a review of the disqualification on the basis that two of the five judges, who had already given a dissenting note in April's verdict, were not supposed to sit on the panel that gave the final ruling.

Sharif has kept a grip on the ruling PML-N party, which has a solid majority in parliament, and elected one of his loyalists, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, as his replacement within days of the court decision.

Critics say Sharif remains in control of the country through Abbasi and is trying to undermine the judiciary.

Sharif's aides say he shows no signs of leaving politics and he recently called the Supreme Court ruling against him "an insult to the mandate of 200 million voters".

Last week he started a so-called homecoming "caravan" procession across the Punjab region where he derives his voter base, from the capital Islamabad to the eastern city of Lahore, drawing large crowds along the way.
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence met Monday with refugees who fled the chaos in Venezuela for the safety of a church in Cartagena, Colombia.

The president ( Trump ) sent me here with a message of compassion for those families that are fleeing Venezuela, Pence told reporters. We are with them. We stand with them to restore democracy in Venezuela.

With store shelves empty and staples hard to find, many Venezuelans cross into Brazil and Colombia to buy food. Some do not return.

US 'will not stand by'

Pence repeated what he told Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos  that the United States will not stand by while Venezuela collapses into dictatorship. We will not stand by while Venezuela crumbles.

Pence did not talk about Trump's threat to use military force to help restore democracy to Venezuela. But he did say "a failed state in Venezuela threatens the security and prosperity of an entire hemisphere and the people of the United States of America."

Santos has told Pence that no Latin America country would accept any form of U.S. military intervention in Venezuela and that it should never even be considered.

Recalling more than a century of U.S. military action throughout the Americas, Santos said no Latin leader wants that phantom to reappear.

Venezuela plans military exercises

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has ordered military exercises later this month in reaction to Trump's threat, even if U.S. military intervention is highly unlikely.

Maduro also offered to speak to Trump by telephone to tell the U.S. president that everything they tell you about Venezuela is a lie and they're throwing you into a ditch.

He called Pence's visit a sign of imperialist desperation.

Maduro has blamed Venezuela's economic calamity, violence, and political unrest on the United States and its supports among the opposition, believing the U.S. wants to get its hands on Venezuelan oil.

Pence will be in Argentina Tuesday for talks with President Mauricio Macri, and will later stop in Chile and Panama.

The visits will not only focus on marshaling support for Venezuelan democracy, but trade and bipartisan ties.
U.S. policymakers are very, very close to a new military strategy for Afghanistan and South Asia, but options still range from withdrawal to an increased reliance on private security contractors.

I believe we are close, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters late Monday, cautioning a range of options are under consideration.

Were sharpening each one of the options so you can see the pluses and minuses of each one, he said.

The U.S. has about 8,400 troops in Afghanistan helping Afghan forces fight the Taliban, while also targeting militants aligned with the al-Qaida and Islamic State terror groups.

Plans to send perhaps an additional 4,000 troops to boost U.S. efforts there have been delayed while the White House and military planners review various options.

Private contractors

One possibility that has reportedly caught the President Donald Trumps attention is a proposal to decrease U.S. reliance on its military forces and instead turn to private contractors.

One plan put forward by the founder of a private security firm, formerly known as Blackwater, calls for replacing U.S. troops with about 5,000 contractors who would be backed by a 90-plane private air force.

The United States, right now, is spending more than the entire U.K. defense budget, just in Afghanistan. And the U.S. cant continue that forever, Blackwater founder Erik Prince told VOAs Afghan service.

Prince described Washingtons current approach very chaotic and disorganized, and says his plan would get the job done for less than $10 billion a year.

Legal and mutual security questions

Afghanistans government has not yet officially responded to the proposal. But a senior Afghan defense official told VOA, The plan has legal problems and raises questions about our mutual security agreements with the U.S.

Still, Mattis said the possibility of using more private security contractors has not been ruled out.

Its part of the options being considered, and the president is open to the advice of the secretary of state and myself and the director of CIA, he said.

Mattis also expressed confidence in the current commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Army Gen. John Nicholson.

Trump reportedly suggested firing Nicholson last month for not winning the war against the Taliban.

He has the confidence of NATO. He has the confidence of Afghanistan. He has the confidence of the United States, Mattis said.

But when asked if Trump remained confident in Nicholsons leadership, Mattis said, Ask the president.

William Gallo, Ayub Khawreen and Hasib Danish Alikozai contributed to this report.


Pakistans northwestern tribal region, beleaguered for years by terrorism and lawlessness, has seen a decline in militant activities during the past few months as the result of government counterinsurgency operations, a recent security report says.



FATA Research Center (FRC), a non-governmental organization based in the capital of Pakistan, observed a decline of 19 percent in violent incidents during the second quarter of 2017 in the semi-autonomous Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) along the border with Afghanistan.



The report also indicated, however, that banned terror outfits such as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Jamat-ul-Ahrar, Islamic State of Khorasan and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi were still able to carry out terrorist attacks.



The 33-page report is based on terrorism-related data from all seven FATA tribal agencies covering April through June of 2017. It focuses on militant attacks and counterinsurgency measures, civilian and security forces casualties, tactics and strategies used by the militants and military operations and government airstrikes.



The report details a surge in counterinsurgency measures by the government during the period and reveals most counterterrorism attacks were executed in the Khyber Agency.



Out of 61 counterterrorism operations, 19 intelligence-based operations and three aerial strikes were carried out in the Khyber Agency, the report said.



Pakistans military launched Operation Khyber on July 4, aiming to eradicate Islamic State militants in the Khyber Agencys Rajgal Valley area. Later in July, Pakistan announced that the first phase of the operation was completed successfully.



The report says 100 violent attacks were recorded in the second quarter, down from 119 in the January-March period. Seventy of the fatalities from terror attacks in FATA region were civilians, including 45 who died in a twin suicide blast in late June that shook the main bazaar of Parachinar, headquarters of the Kurram Agency. Another 134 civilians were wounded, according to the report.



Some security and political analysts say measures taken by the government are commendable, but that Pakistan needs to make sure to keep insurgents and militants completely out of business in the volatile FATA region.

Decrease in numbers, but not severity observed

Insurgent attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and other border areas may have decreased in number, but - as demonstrated by the June attacks in Kurram Agency, which killed over 60 people - not necessarily in severity," Jonah Blank, senior political scientist with the RAND Corp., a global policy think-tank in Washington, D.C., told VOA.



In the past, the Pakistani government has tried to redirect militant groups towards its own goals rather than actually disarming them. Both civilian and military officials say that is not the case any longer. Hopefully, this will be proven true, Blank added.



Security analysts from Pakistan charge that the recent statistics are encouraging, though they also warn that the government needs to ensure the terrorists will not be able to re-establish their networks.



There had been a drop in militancy in the tribal region, Amir Rana, director of the Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies, told VOA. Pakistans government and army must now ensure to not allow the militants and insurgents of different banned terror groups to pave their way back and regain strength in areas of FATA that have been cleared after the military operations.



Khyber Pakhtunwas government says the province had been a victim of terrorism for more than a decade now and has taken solid measures to curb militancy.



Its unrealistic to claim there is no militants presence in the province anymore, Mushtaq Ghani, Minister for Information in Khyber Pakhtunkhwas government, told VOA, But we have a strategy in place. Along with the military operations in FATA, we are working to enhance the capabilities of police, bomb disposal squads, counterterrorism departments and the intelligence bureaus.

U.S. and Afghanistan officials have long accused Pakistan of being selective in its crackdown on militants. They claim Islamabad targets only groups, including TTP, that pose a threat to Pakistan's interests, and overlook other militants who are using the country's territory to plan attacks on Afghanistan and India.

Pakistan has denied those allegations and claims it is going after all militant groups operating in the region.
The United States accused Islamic State insurgents on Tuesday of carrying out a reign of violence targeting religious minorities and opposition ethnic groups, even as they have been losing control of large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Islamic State "is clearly responsible for genocide ... and crimes against humanity."

Tillerson: 'ISIS Responsible For Genocide'

Tillerson, speaking as he released the State Department's annual report on religious freedom in 199 countries and territories around the globe, said, "Religious persecution and intolerance remains far too prevalent."

The top U.S. diplomat said that "almost 80 percent of the global population live with restrictions on or hostilities to limit their freedom of religion. Where religious freedom is not protected we know that instability, human rights abuses and violent extremism have a greater opportunity to take root. We cannot ignore these conditions."



Seven countries



Tillerson singled out seven countries for an array of abuses in the way their governments treat the faithful: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Bahrain, China, Pakistan and Sudan. Tillerson said that in various ways these nations intimidate believers practicing their faiths through harassment, imprisonment and executions.

"No one should have to live in fear, worship in secret, or face discrimination because of his or her beliefs," he said.

But he laid out his most detailed indictment against Islamic State.

As we make progress in defeating ISIS and denying them their caliphate, their terrorist members have and continue to target multiple religions and ethnic groups for rape, kidnapping enslavement and even death," he said.



"To remove any ambiguity from previous statements or reports by the State Department," Tillerson said, "the crime of genocide requires three elements: specific acts with specific intent to destroy and hold or impart specific people. Members of national, ethnic, racial or religious groups. Specific act-specific intent-specific people. Application of the law to the facts at hand leads to the conclusion ISIS is clearly responsible for genocide against Yazidis, Christians and Shia Muslims in areas it controls or has controlled.

US priority

Tillerson said the protection of religious minorities "and others who are targets of violent extremism  remains a human rights priority" for President Donald Trump's administration.

The report said that in Iraq, where Baghdad's forces have reclaimed the northern city of Mosul from Islamic State control, the insurgents "pursued a campaign of violence against members of all faiths, but against non-Sunnis in particular."

The State Department said, "In areas under its control, ISIS continued to commit individual and mass killings, and to engage in rape, kidnapping, random detentions and mass abductions, torture, abduction and forced conversion of non-Muslim male children, and the enslavement and sex trafficking of women and girls from minority religious communities."

It said Islamic State "continued to engage in harassment, intimidation, robbery, and the destruction of personal property and religious sites. In areas not under ISIS control, it continued suicide bombings and vehicle-borne improvised explosive device attacks against all segments of society."

In Syria, the report said that "nonstate actors, including a number of groups designated as terrorist organizations by the United States and other governments, such as ISIS and ... al-Nusra Front, targeted Shia, Alawites, Christians, and other religious minorities, as well as other Sunnis, with indiscriminate attacks, as well as killings, kidnappings, physical mistreatment, and arrests in the areas of the country under their control.

"ISIS killed dozens through public executions, crucifixions, and beheadings of men, women, and children on charges of apostasy, blasphemy, homosexuality, and cursing God," the report said, "In Raqqa [Islamic State's self-declared capital] and elsewhere in Syria, ISIS continued to hold thousands of enslaved Yazidi women and girls kidnapped in Iraq and trafficked to Syria to be sold or distributed to ISIS members as 'spoils of war' because of their religious beliefs."

China

The report singled out China for what it said were the government's abuse, detention, arrests and torture of adherents of various faiths.

"The government cited concerns over the 'three evils' of 'ethnic separatism, religious extremism, and violent terrorism' as grounds to enact and enforce restrictions on religious practices of Uighur Muslims," the report said. "The government sought the forcible repatriation of Uighur Muslims from foreign countries, many of whom sought asylum in those countries on the grounds of religious persecution."
The Taliban has called on U.S. President Donald Trump to pull out all forces from Afghanistan as a responsible leader of the United States and stop listening to stooges in Kabul.

In a so-called open letter to the American president Tuesday, the Islamist insurgent group asserted that a number of war mongering congressmen and generals are pressing Trump to prolong the Afghan conflict because they seek to preserve their military privileges.

About 8,400 U.S. troops are in Afghanistan, training, advising and assisting local forces under a NATO-led military coalition, in addition to conducting counterterrorism operations.

If you failed to win the Afghan war with disciplined U.S. and NATO troops, advanced technology, experienced military generals, consecutive strategies and mighty economy, you shall never be able to win it with mercenaries, notorious contractor firms and immoral stooges, said the Taliban letter.

The insurgency's main spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, released the letter to media outlets, including VOA.

While preparing its new military strategy for Afghanistan, the Trump administration is reviewing various options ranging from troop withdrawal to an increased reliance on private security contractors to help Afghan security forces reverse Taliban territorial gains.

We have noticed that you have understood the errors of your predecessors and have resolved to thoroughly rethinking your new strategy in Afghanistan, noted the Taliban letter.

You must also not handover the Afghan issue to warmongering generals but must make a decision where history shall remember you as an advocate of peace, it said. The letter also alleged U.S. generals are concealing casualties the Taliban is inflicting on American forces.

The statement went on say that the Afghan conflict could be resolved by the withdrawal of U.S.-led foreign occupation forces from the country.

Therefore it would be better for you to understand the realities as a responsible president of the United States and then make decisions based upon them, it added.

Commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan General John Nicholson has requested several thousand additional troops to help Afghan forces break the military stalemate with the Taliban. Some influential Republican congressmen also have supported the call for troop surge.

The Taliban has made unprecedented battlefield gains since the beginning of 2017, inflicting heavy casualties on Afghan forces. The insurgents also have besieged several provincial capitals and blocked main highways that cross Afghanistan.

You must realize that these repulsive sellouts neither care about your interests nor that of their own nation, rather the only thing they hold dear is retaining their seat of power and securing their personal interests, said the Taliban letter, while taking aim at the Afghan government.

Corruption in security related Afghan state institutions and emerging political rivalries within President Ashraf Ghanis national unity government, critics say, have enabled the Taliban to increase its influence.

Afghan officials have not commented on the Taliban letter, nor has there been a reaction from the Trump administration.

Taliban spokesman Mujahid, meanwhile, has denied as "baseless propaganda" official claims of him being injured during Afghan forces' operations in northern Faryab province.

A regional military commander told reporters Tuesday Mujahid received "serious injuries" but similar previous official assertions had turned out to be untrue.
Of all the trade deals he lambasted on the campaign trail as threats to American workers, President Donald Trump reserved particular scorn for one: the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The NAFTA agreement with Mexico and Canada was "the worst trade deal in history," candidate Trump declared. He accused NAFTA of having swollen America's trade deficit with Mexico, pulled factories south of the border and killed jobs across the United States.

Trump promised to renegotiate the 23-year-old deal  or walk away from it. Now the time has come. Five days of talks aimed at overhauling NAFTA begin Wednesday in Washington, with negotiations to follow in Mexico and Canada.

The United States has never before tried to overhaul a major trade agreement, so analysts aren't sure what will emerge from the talks.

But it's clear that delivering on Trump's campaign promises will be difficult. A new version of NAFTA would require approval from a divided Congress. And even an improved NAFTA might not deliver the payoff Trump and his supporters are hoping for: the restoration of millions of lost manufacturing jobs.

Economists and trade analysts do see opportunities to improve NAFTA, which eliminated most barriers on trade among the United States, Canada and Mexico. If nothing else, the pact could be updated to reflect the growth of the digital economy.

But a technocratic rewrite is unlikely to satisfy Trump supporters and NAFTA critics who want a revamped agreement to shrink America's trade deficit and return jobs to the United States.

A more aggressive approach  demanding more made-in-America content for products that qualify for NAFTA's duty-free status, for example  risks imperiling some benefits that Americans think the trade deal provided to them.

American farmers, for example, fear losing easy access to the Mexican market. Manufacturing companies have built supply chains that crisscross NAFTA borders; they worry about having investments jeopardized. And Canada and Mexico are sure to respond to any harsh American demands with their own.

Plus, the clock is ticking. Next year brings a presidential election in Mexico and congressional elections in the United States. Forging a complex agreement will be even tougher if the political temperature is running hot.

U.S. objectives

Last month, the Trump administration listed its objectives for the renegotiation. Some of them will meet fierce resistance from Canadian and Mexican negotiators.

The administration has riled Canada, for example, by saying it wants to eliminate a dispute-resolution process established under NAFTA. That process lets Mexico and Canada appeal unfavorable rulings by U.S. courts and agencies in trade cases. They can appeal to five-person NAFTA panels, composed of two members from each county in the dispute and a fifth that usually alternates between them. The panels' rulings are binding.

But the panels have a reputation for overturning U.S. trade decisions. That is especially so in cases involving Canadian softwood timber imports to the United States  a long-standing source of conflict. America complains that Canada subsidizes its loggers, allowing them to dump cheap timber in the United States.

"We lose lots of sales," said Jason Brochu, co-president of Pleasant River Lumber in Dover-Foxcroft, Maine. "It's not fair to have subsidized lumber come in unchecked." The ruling panels, he says, lack "a proper dispute-resolution process." He'd like to see them eliminated.

That idea causes heartburn in Ottawa. Before they could rely on the panels, Canadians "felt they were not getting a fair shake" in U.S. courts and administrative proceedings, says Daniel Ujczo, a trade lawyer with Dickson Wright in Columbus, Ohio. "They see [the panels] as something they earned."

The United States also wants more leeway to slap tariffs on imports that are found to hurt American industry. For now, NAFTA limits America's ability to use that power in cases involving Canada and Mexico. If America imposes taxes on their exports, would Canada and Mexico retaliate with their own tariffs?

In another attempt to ensure that any revamped pact promotes U.S. manufacturing, the Trump administration wants tougher rules requiring that goods that qualify for NAFTA benefits are actually made mostly inside the three-country free-trade bloc  and don't include too many components from, say, China. Manufacturers, which have built supply chains that straddle NAFTA borders, worry that a NAFTA redo will disrupt their operations.

Magna International, an auto supplier based in Aurora, Ontario, for instance, has 55 manufacturing plants in the United States, 50 in Canada and 30 in Mexico. Its products, such as car-seat components, can cross NAFTA borders five or six times. If it had to pay tariffs at each border crossing or produce more paperwork to prove where parts originated, Magna's costs would rise.

If a NAFTA overhaul raises costs, "eventually that cost is going to get to you  you, the end consumer," said Scott Paradise, a Magna senior executive.

American consumers have benefited, after all, from low-cost small cars built south of border.

Restoring jobs

Renegotiating NAFTA is part of the administration's plan to restore a chunk of the 7 million factory jobs America has lost since U.S. manufacturing employment peaked in 1979. NAFTA lured many manufacturers to Mexico to capitalize on cheaper labor.

But Matthew Gold, a former U.S. trade official who teaches at Fordham University's School of Law, says robots and competition from China have played a bigger role in wiping out American factory jobs.

"Nothing in the NAFTA renegotiation will bring back that tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs that America lost to automation and to trade with China in the years since we entered into NAFTA," he said. "While this renegotiation will improve NAFTA, it will be a great disappointment to those who expect the see its impact on their lives."
President Donald Trump went home to Trump Tower Monday for the first time since his inauguration, with a throng of chanting protesters awaiting, but never seeing, him.

Thousands of demonstrators roared shame, shame, shame and not my president! while watching for Trumps motorcade along Manhattans Fifth Avenue, but it ultimately approached from another direction. A far smaller crowd of Trump supporters also awaited him.

Onlookers who did see the motorcade greeted it with cellphone cameras and a few obscene gestures.

By the tower, some protesters carried signs with such messages as impeach and the White House is no place for white supremacy. Chants including love, not hate  thats what makes America great and New York hates you! echoed off the surrounding buildings. Nearby, an inflatable, ratlike caricature of Trump stood by The Plaza hotel.

Adam Vazquez had protested at Trump Tower on Election Night and said he returned because he felt the country had hit a pivotal point, particularly after the white supremacist rally that descended into violence Saturday in Charlottesville, Virginia. The Republican presidents initial condemnation of bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides spurred two days of pressure to specifically denounce white supremacist groups, which he did Monday.

It shows you that the president, in a time of crisis, could not step up, said Vazquez, a 26-year-old video and content producer. That is something we have to take note of, coming out tonight and showing that this is not OK.

Trump supporters on hand too

Meanwhile, about two dozen Trump fans near The Plaza chanted God bless President Trump and carried American flags and signs with such sentiments as now is not the time for divisiveness.

We are here to show President Trump ... that he has a lot of fans here, even in liberal New York City, even in Manhattan, said Ariel Kohane, a 46-year-old member of a group called Jews for Trump.

He said he supported the president because of his views on national security, immigration and fighting radical Islamists and crime, among other issues. The anti-Trump protesters, to him, are left-wing, liberal Communist snowflakes.

With supporters and anti-Trump demonstrators penned behind police barricades across the sidewalk, both sides yelled at each other, Go home!

Police arrest two

A block south of Trump Tower, police officers with bullhorns confronted protesters pressing against and straining the barricades, telling the demonstrators to step back. Police said two people were arrested for disorderly conduct amid the protests but didnt say where or when.

Police stationed sand-filled sanitation trucks as barriers around Trumps signature skyscraper and layers of metal police barricades around the main entrance.

After Trump was elected, security around the tower ramped up dramatically, with barricades and checkpoints manned by scores of uniformed police officers. The security precautions have been lessened somewhat in Trumps absence but still have inconvenienced residents and business owners in the busy area, home to stores such as Tiffany and Louis Vuitton.

Trump, a native New Yorker, said Friday that he had stayed away since January because he realized the impact of the street closings and other aspects of a presidential visit.

I would love to go to my home in Trump Tower, but its very, very disruptive to do, he said.

No welcome mat

And protesters, including City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, were not welcoming him.

Gabby Parra, a 17-year-old high school senior from Teaneck, New Jersey, said she did not have the proper words to describe her dislike for Trump. She said she feels the president dehumanizes minorities, noting that he launched his campaign by portraying Mexico as a source of rapists and murderers coming into the U.S.

The Rev. Jan Powell, a retired minister of the United Church of Christ, is troubled by Trump, too, and particularly resented his response to the violence in Virginia.

Still, she said, I pray for him every day. We are both human beings.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order to speed approvals of permits for highways, bridges and other major building efforts as part of his proposal to spend $1 trillion to fix aging U.S. infrastructure.

The text of Trump's executive order was not immediately available. Earlier, sources said it revoked an Obama-era executive order that required strict building standards for government-funded projects to reduce exposure to increased flooding from sea level rise and other consequences of climate change.

No longer will we allow the infrastructure of our magnificent country to crumble and decay, Trump said at a press conference at Trump Tower in New York. "While protecting the environment, we will build gleaming new roads, bridges, railways, waterways, tunnels and highways.

We will rebuild our country with American workers, American iron, American aluminum, American steel, he added.

Revoking standards set by Obama

By revoking standards set by the Obama administration, Trump hopes to streamline the current process for infrastructure projects, a government official said.

Separately a White House spokesperson said the order would set a two-year goal for completing permits needed on major infrastructure plans, and create a one Federal decision protocol for big projects.

The Trump administration has complained that it takes too much time to get permits and approvals for construction projects. It has issued dozens of rules and orders to reverse Obama-era regulations addressing climate change and its consequences such as rising sea levels and more severe storms.

Factor in scientific projections

The Obama-era standard required that builders factor in scientific projections for increased flooding and ensure projects can withstand rising sea levels and stronger downpours.

The Obama administration required all federal agencies apply the standard to public infrastructure projects from housing to highways.

It raised base flood levels to a higher vertical elevation to "address current and future flood risk and ensure that projects funded with taxpayer dollars last as long as intended," according to a 2015 Treasury Department presentation.

U.S. officials have estimated the United States suffered $260 billion in flood related damages between 1980 and 2013.

Some disagree with decision

Rafael Lemaitre, former director of public affairs at FEMA who worked on the Obama-era order, said Trump is undoing the most significant action taken in a generation to safeguard U.S. infrastructure.

Eliminating this requirement is self-defeating; we can either build smarter now, or put taxpayers on the hook to pay exponentially more when it floods. And it will, he said.

Flood policy expert Eli Lehrer, president of the libertarian R Street Institute who has criticized many Obama initiatives, said that in this case, The Trump administration is acting very rashly in part out of the desire to undo a climate measure from its predecessor.

He called Trump's order an enormous mistake that is disastrous for taxpayers, adding the Obama rule would have saved billions of dollars over time.
A U.N. human rights panel urged the United States on Monday to end widespread detention of would-be immigrants including asylum-seekers, saying the practice has grown exponentially and violates international law.

The holding of migrants and would-be refugees in custody is often punitive, unreasonably long, unnecessary and costly and should be used only as a last resort, the panel said in a 23-page report to the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Each year, an estimated 352,850 people are detained across the United States pending the outcome of their immigration proceedings at a cost of about $2 billion, it said.

A last resort

The independent experts, who form the U.N. working group on arbitrary detention, were reporting on their mission last October at the invitation of the Obama administration.

The Working Group is of the view that all administrative detention, in particular of immigrants in an irregular situation, should be in accordance with international human rights law; and that such detention is to be a measure of last resort, necessary and proportionate and be not punitive in nature, and that alternatives to detention are to be sought whenever possible, the report said.

In Washington, the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the findings.

President Donald Trump has backed legislation to crack down on illegal immigrants, describing it as vital to protect American lives.

Punitive conditions

The U.N. experts interviewed 280 detainees during their visits to nine prisons in Texas, California and Illinois. Some were remote locations with limited access to legal services.

They reported seeing immigrants and asylum seekers held in punitive conditions comparable to those of convicted criminals despite their right to seek asylum under international law.

In some cases, the length of detention pending immigration proceedings was unreasonable, lasting from six months to more than one year without resolution.

The experts voiced concern at Trumps executive order in January and an implementing memorandum that lay the groundwork for expanding the existing detention system by increasing the number of individuals subject to immigration detention.

Under the order, apprehended individuals may be detained on suspicion of violating federal or state law, which includes unauthorized entry, they said.

They received information in March that the Department of Homeland Security was considering separating children from parents caught crossing the border, in an attempt to deter illegal immigration from Mexico, they said.

This is particularly serious given the increasing trend of unaccompanied children migrating to escape violence and reunite with family members.
Top U.S. and Chinese military officers have signed an agreement aimed at improving communication amid tensions over North Korea's missile program and China's controversial claims in the South China Sea.

Speaking in Beijing with Chinese General Fang Fenghui, U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joe Dunford said the two countries have "many difficult issues" to work through.

Tuesday's signing of the Joint Staff Dialogue Mechanism** opens the door for building trust and understanding between the two militaries, "but it will only be useful if it results in meaningful dialogue that reduces the risk of miscalculation  which is especially critical now due to growing North Korea provocations," a senior U.S. defense official told VOA on Tuesday.

The first talks to result from the agreement have been scheduled for November. U.S. and Chinese military leaders responsible for military strategy, plans and policy recommendations will take part in those discussions.

Tuesday's meeting was the highest-level meeting between the two countries' militaries since Fang and U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis met alongside President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in April.

On Wednesday, Dunford will travel to the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang to observe an exercise by the People's Liberation Army's Northern Theater Command. Fang said the visit could help increase mutual trust.

The Northern Theater Command is roughly 200 kilometers from the border with North Korea.

China has pushed the U.S. and North Korea to avoid actions and rhetoric that could worsen tensions on the Korean peninsula. Both China and the United States have stressed they do not want a war on the Korean peninsula and are participating in international sanctions against North Korea aimed at stopping Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.

At the Pentagon on Tuesday, when asked about North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's earlier threat to fire a missile near the U.S. territory of Guam, Mattis told reporters, "here in the Pentagon, we're part of the sentinel for our nation and we stand ready to defend our nation."

China began enforcing new sanctions against North Korea on Tuesday as punishment for its latest missile tests. North Korean imports banned in China now include seafood, coal and iron.

When it comes to the South China Sea, China and the U.S. strongly disagree on territorial claims in the sea's international waterways. China considers much of the sea its territory, overlapping with the territorial claims of other nations. The U.S. continues to conduct freedom of navigation operations in the area to dispute China's claims. Last week, the USS John S. McCain destroyer traveled within 22 kilometers of the artificial island Mischief Reef, some 250 kilometers west of Palawan island in the Philippines.

**In an earlier version of the story, VOA misnamed the agreement "Joint Strategic Dialogue Mechanism."
On a blistering hot afternoon, Zainab Omar Ali methodically sorts through freshly picked bunches of kale on her farm in Alimao village in northeast Kenya.

"I managed to sell most of my batch at the market this morning," she said with satisfaction. "I'll try to sell the remaining fresh ones tomorrow, and cook the rest at home."

Near her farm in Wajir County, women buzz around four greenhouses made of dark shade nets, watering vegetable plots and removing weeds.

Omar Ali and other women in this village bordering Somalia used to grow vegetables by fetching water from a hand-dug shallow well and keeping off pests with old mosquito nets.

But increasingly dry weather and rising temperatures damaged their already limited harvests and weakened their cattle, the women said.

Change is afoot, however. Since 2016, a project led by an international charity is helping women from Alimao grow vegetables like kale and onions under shade nets that protect the crops from predators and the sun's intensity.

A drip irrigation system is installed under the nets to use water more efficiently.

The "Kenya Resilient Arid Lands Partnership for Integrated Development" (Kenya RAPID) program, implemented by World Vision Kenya, aims to improve 45,000 people's access to water and sanitation in dry northern counties.

Rebuilding after drought

After losing all their livestock to drought in the 1990s, Omar Ali and her family left their village in northern Kenya and migrated to Wajir County.

"Life was hard without any meat or milk to rely on," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "My [six] children and I would sometimes go for two days without a proper meal and had to rely on wild fruits."

Experts say women bear the brunt of climate change in many developing countries, and are often more vulnerable than men when disasters like floods or droughts strike.

Richard Munang, climate change program coordinator for Africa at U.N. Environment, said men in pastoralist communities control the main source of income - livestock -- meaning women cannot take the decision to sell or slaughter an animal.

"That makes them more likely than men to have to go without food in times of need, while they must walk long distances to fetch water," he said.

With no stable income to rely on, Omar Ali and six other village women decided to pool their limited savings in 2013.

"We used to have weekly meetings where each member would give 200 Kenyan shillings ($1.93) to buy milk from livestock herders and resell it to town dwellers," she recalled, bending to water her vegetables. "But the milk would often spoil due to the heat."

Halima Qureysh, another group member, said the women then tried farming a small piece of land allocated by village elders, but the hand-dug shallow wells they used often ran dry.

Since last year, however, the women have used the shade nets provided by the Kenya RAPID project, which is funded by the U.S. and Swiss governments, to help protect their crops from extreme heat.

Last year they harvested 35 tons of kale, compared to just a few bunches each previously, which was barely enough for domestic consumption.

Omar Ali said the group's "healthy-looking" kale now fetches 50 shillings per kilo, instead of only 20 previously.

She now makes about 4,500 shillings per month -- three times what she used to earn.

"I can take my children to school, cook balanced meals for my family and I have gained recognition in my community," she said.

"In our society, women are not normally allowed to speak in public forums," she added. "But given our group's success, men are now letting the members speak to the rest of the village and make decisions at a family level."

Solar-powered pump

With support from the project, the group has also set up a borehole with a solar-powered pump to ease water shortages.

The women purify water from the borehole, store it in tanks and sell it to the rest of the community.

"We used to share dirty water with livestock in water pans a if there was water at all," said Omar Ali. "But the water we get now is clean."

Dickens Thunde, former country director at World Vision Kenya, said working with the community's existing ways of coping with climate extremes - rather than introducing a new system - had been key to the success of the project.

"This community was already managing its own natural resources - it just needed a sustainable water source to withstand shocks," he said.

However, challenges remain in reaching other vulnerable community members who aren't part of the women's group.

Hadabah Mahamoud, a project officer for sanitation and nutrition with World Vision, said a lack of funding has so far limited the project's expansion to other villages.

"Once established, these projects are easy to manage, but the initial cost of setting them up and sourcing the equipment like irrigation pumps is quite high," she said.

"Most people in this arid region still lack proper access to water, without which they cannot expect a healthy harvest or livestock," she added.

For now, said Omar Ali, the women plan to use the group's savings to offer training in sustainable farming to other women in the region, using their village as "a center of excellence."

($1 = 103.7500 Kenyan shillings)
The whereabouts of Zimbabwean first lady Grace Mugabe are unknown as South African police and her lawyers negotiate terms to turn herself in to face charges of assaulting a young woman at a luxury Johannesburg hotel.

South African authorities said Mugabe did not appear in court after police minister Fikile Mbalula initially had said Mugabe had "cooperated and handed herself over" to police on Tuesday. He said Mugabe "will be charged."

A senior police source later said, "The negotiations for her to hand herself in are still going on. We are at a point where we cannot effect an arrest yet."

Reuters, citing a senior unnamed Zimbabwean government official, reported the first lady returned Tuesday to her homeland.

"She is back in the country," the official said, and added administration officials "don't know where this issue of assault charges is coming from."

Some South African news organizations reported that an arrest warrant had not been prepared. A court official told VOA that he did not have a docket with Mugabe's name on it.

The 52-year-old wife of President Robert Mugabe is accused of beating 20-year-old Gabriella Engels on Sunday with an extension cord as she visited Mugabe's sons in a hotel. Photos posted on social media show Engels, a professional model, with a bloody gash on her forehead.

It was not immediately clear what precipitated the alleged assault.

The allegation against the first lady threatened to trigger a diplomatic disagreement between South Africa and Zimbabwe, neighboring countries with a strong political and economic relationship.

Grace Mugabe, 52, is considered a possible successor to her 93-year-old husband, who has ruled Zimbabwe since gaining independence from colonial British rule in 1980.
(Reuters) - Zimbabwe's first lady, Grace Mugabe, handed herself in to South African police on Tuesday after reports she had assaulted a woman in Johannesburg's up-market Sandton district over the weekend, eNCA television said.

South African police minister Fikile Mbalula earlier told reporters that he expected to get a report from investigators on Tuesday and that 52-year-old Grace, a possible successor to her husband, Zimbabwe's 93-year-old president Robert Mugabe, could be arrested.

A Zimbabwean intelligence source said Mrs. Mugabe was traveling on a normal passport. "She was here on business," the source told Reuters.

According to the Citizen newspaper, eNCA reporter Nickolaus Bauer asked Mbalula if Mrs. Mugabe had been placed under arrest, and Mbalula responded: Not under arrest, because she cooperated and handed herself over to the police. That is cooperation, more than any necessity to go and arrest a person.

She is expected to appear at the Wynberg magistrate's court facing charges of assault.

Mrs. Mugabe, 52, allegedly attacked Gabriella Engels, 20, with an extension cord, wounding her forehead and the back of her head at a Johannesburg Hotel where her two sons Robert Mugabe Junior and Berlamine Chatunga Mugabe have been staying.

The two boys have been allegedly living a lavish lifestyle, which has attracted some girls and teenage boozers.

Indications are that Mrs. Mugabe does not have any diplomatic immunity since she travelled to South Africa
Background:

Kliuchevskoi is Kamchatka's highest and most active volcano. Since its origin about 6000 years ago, the beautifully symmetrical, 4835-m-high basaltic stratovolcano has produced frequent moderate-volume explosive and effusive eruptions without major periods of inactivity. Kliuchevskoi rises above a saddle NE of sharp-peaked Kamen volcano and lies SE of the broad Ushkovsky massif. More than 100 flank eruptions have occurred at Kliuchevskoi during the past roughly 3000 years, with most lateral craters and cones occurring along radial fissures between the unconfined NE-to-SE flanks of the conical volcano between 500 m and 3600 m elevation. The morphology of its 700-m-wide summit crater has been frequently modified by historical eruptions, which have been recorded since the late-17th century. Historical eruptions have originated primarily from the summit crater, but have also included numerous major explosive and effusive eruptions from flank craters.

---

Source: Klyuchevsky information by the GVP (Smithsonian Institution)
RIDE-HAILING

Uber agrees to secure customers data

Uber agreed Tuesday to protect data and audit use of rider information to settle a federal government complaint that it deceived customers.

The Federal Trade Commission alleged that Uber failed to secure data about rider trips and neglected to monitor employee access to the data.

Uber said the allegations date to 2014 and that it had already put safeguards in place to protect rider and driver data.

But Uber stopped using a monitoring system less than a year later and for nine months, rarely monitored access to data.

Also, Uber claimed that its data was securely stored in its databases, but an intruder gained access to driver data in May of 2014, including 100,000 names and drivers license numbers, the complaint said.

Uber has agreed to stop misrepresenting how it monitors access to customer information and to stop misrepresenting how it secures the data, the FTC said. Uber also agreed to put a program in place to protect customer privacy. It must do an audit every two years for the next two decades to make sure the privacy program is in place.

 Associated Press

DEFENSE CONTRACTORS

Huntington to pay $9.2 million in billing suit

Huntington Ingalls Industries will pay $9.2 million to settle civil charges that it violated the False Claims Act by overbilling for labor on U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships, the Justice Department said Tuesday.

The company, the largest shipbuilder for the U.S. government, settled the case without admitting liability.

An HII spokesman said the company had informed the government of alleged misconduct by certain employees and fully cooperated with the investigation.

The Justice Department said the allegations date back as far as 2003 and were originally made in a whistleblower lawsuit brought by Byron Faulkner, a former HII employee.

 Reuters

LAWSUITS

Man wins appeal in Spokeo lawsuit

A federal appeals court on Tuesday revived a California mans lawsuit accusing Spokeo of publishing an online profile of him that was filled with errors.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 3-0 in favor of Thomas Robins, 15 months after the U.S. Supreme Court asked it to more closely assess whether Robins had suffered the concrete and particularized injury needed to justify a lawsuit.

Spokeo sells data aggregated from various databases to users, including employers and people seeking romantic partners.

Robins sued after learning that his profile, which carried someone elses photo, was completely false, including his marital and employment status.

He said all of the information was wrong, and he accused Spokeo of willfully violating the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, with potential damages of $1,000.

 Reuters

Also in Business

Amazon.com is rolling out U.S. pickup points where shoppers can retrieve items immediately after ordering them. The online retailer has launched Instant Pickup points around five college campuses, it said Tuesday. Amazon said it plans to add the program to more sites by the end of the year. Shoppers on Amazons mobile app can select from several hundred fast-selling items at each location. Amazon employees then load orders into lockers within two minutes. Amazon chief executive Jeffrey Bezos owns The Washington Post.

Obamacare supporters scored a victory as health insurer Centene decided to dramatically expand in Nevada, filling in rural counties that were at risk of having no health insurance options under the Affordable Care Act next year. Centene said Tuesday that it will sell statewide via its SilverSummit unit. The Nevada counties were left bare after Anthem and another insurer exited the state.

Facebook will spend $750 million on a new data center in central Ohio, the company announced Tuesday. The 22-acre center in New Albany will be powered with renewable energy. It is expected to employ 100 people to start and to begin providing services in 2019. Facebook has been adding data centers in the United States and internationally to handle the growing number of photos, videos and additional digital content it must process from its 2 billion users.

 From news reports

Coming today

8:30 a.m.: Commerce Department releases housing starts for July.

2 p.m.: Federal Reserve releases minutes from its July interest-rate meeting.

Earnings: Target.
The push for Internet businesses to remove hateful speech spread to an influential corner of the tech industry on Monday as web registration service GoDaddy delisted a prominent neo-Nazi site in the wake of violent clashes over the weekend in Charlottesville.

The move by GoDaddy, which registers domain names for 71 million websites globally, is the latest and perhaps the broadest indication of how far technology companies are willing to go in response to public outcry that their services are being used to facilitate racism and white supremacy. Although Silicon Valley companies have long resisted calls to police the content they host, in the current political climate they are under more pressure than ever to take a stand  and appear to be bowing at least to some of it.

This may very well indicate that the sense of responsibility among tech companies is deepening, said Susan Benesch, director of the Dangerous Speech Project, a nonprofit group that researches the intersection of harmful online content and free speech. They are under gigantic pressure to solve this problem, and they are reacting as they never have before.

On Monday, GoDaddy kicked the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer off its systems, citing company policies that prohibit websites from speech that incites violence against people.

GoDaddy said the move was in response to an appeal from a Twitter user who called attention late Sunday to an online post by Daily Stormer founder Andrew Anglin that disparaged Heather Heyer, 32, who was killed Saturday in Charlottesville, police say, when a man plowed into a crowd with his vehicle.

The post attacked Heyers appearance, used a slur to describe her as promiscuous and said she was childless. Most people are glad she is dead, Anglin wrote.

The Daily Stormer then transferred its registration to Google, prompting an immediate outcry and a swift response from the Silicon Valley giant, which cut off the white supremacy site, citing policy violations.

A lesser-known tech start-up, Cloudflare, continued to service the Daily Stormer.

Liberal activists and even some conservatives praised GoDaddys decision in the wake of Saturdays attack, saying the move represented a shift by tech corporations to take more responsibility.

Its well past time for platforms that already exercise some discretion to stop pretending they are just dumb pipes that allow all types of garbage to flow through them, said Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard University. It seems to me a significant move in a direction that is long overdue.

But the American Civil Liberties Union said that consumers should not be so quick to condemn the display of even the most vile white supremacist speech.

People are relieved when speech they disagree with is removed, but the censorship can come back to bite them when they find themselves on the receiving end, said Lee Rowland, senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberty Unions Speech, Privacy & Technology Project. The First Amendment has enabled Americans throughout the countrys history to challenge the status quo, because we are able to reveal what people really think and counter it, she added.

Other experts said the move to regulate speech puts Silicon Valley in an even deeper bind that is far from resolved. Technology companies are becoming the reluctant gatekeepers and facilitators of political expression for much of the world. Facebook now serves one third of the worlds population monthly; GoDaddy is the largest domain registration service.

The traditional view was that if you are a social media company, as long as people arent advocating violence, you should let them use your platform because censorship is a slippery slope, said Mike Cernovich, a popular conservative media personality. There are always ideas people have on the left and right [that] are going to offend somebody, but do we really want corporations taking sides?

In a statement, GoDaddy spokesman Dan Race said that the web-hosting company generally errs on the side of protecting free speech, but that it had determined that the Daily Stormer had crossed the line and encouraged and promoted violence.

We generally do not take action on complaints that would constitute censorship of content, the statement said. In instances where a site goes beyond the mere exercise of these freedoms, however, and crosses over to promoting, encouraging, or otherwise engaging in violence against any person, we will take action.

GoDaddy said that it had received complaints about the Daily Stormer before and that the complaints hadnt warranted action. But as recently as July, the site had promised to track down the parents, siblings, spouses and children of CNN staff members. Daily Stormer also has posted the names and contact information for a Jewish family in Whitefish, Mont., describing the 12-year-old son with slurs for Jewish and gay people.

In an email to The Post, Anglin indicated that he was working with an unidentified agent in Mongolia to reset my server so I can restore from backups. The site is hosted there, he said, because weve been kicked off of so many hosts. An email to obtain further comment was not returned.

In a statement, Cloudflare said it was aware of the concerns about some websites but would not comment on specific sites.

In an interview, Cloudflare general counsel Doug Kramer said the start-up is not a social media company and doesnt store any data. It considers itself more like a utility, he said, adding that it would be inappropriate for it to be a judge of free expression.

We don't host this content, moderate it, or edit it, he said. We just move the bits around. We don't have the expertise to pass judgment.

He said the company, which now sees 10 percent of all Internet traffic flow through its servers, fields 15,000 abuse complaints a week. The nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center said that Cloudflare services at least four dozen hate sites.



GoDaddys decision comes on the heels of largely reactive moves by tech giants to crack down on hateful content. After nearly a year of pressure from activists, payment processor PayPal and Patreon recently canceled accounts for some right-wing figures. The move prompted some neo-Nazi and white nationalist leaders to turn to a new crowdfunding site, Hatreon, which says it does not police speech.

Meanwhile, Google recently apologized to major advertisers after their content appeared on hate and white supremacist sites and promised to do better. Facebook also has blocked several far-right pages in recent weeks, while Airbnb stopped neo-Nazis from using the site to book lodging for their rally in Charlottesville.

Yet as they move further into policing speech and expression, Silicon Valley companies are becoming vulnerable to accusations of inconsistency and arbitrary behavior. They are blocking some sites in response to public pressure, but thousands of others remain.

And as they face more calls to scan their services and enforce their policies more proactively, they may be forced to hire thousands more content monitors and wade further into judgment calls they dont want to make.

Already, the companies are targets of growing amounts of right- and left-wing ire. In conservative circles, pulling peoples accounts adds fuel to the belief that these platforms are run by liberals who want to curtail free speech. The conservative news website Breitbart is running daily feature stories attacking Google for suppressing free speech, a response to the firing of a Google employee who wrote a manifesto attacking the companys diversity policies. Some conservatives described PayPal and Patreons actions as a declaration of war, and vowed to give alternative services their business.

Unlike media companies, technology companies are shielded by laws that do not hold them responsible for content that appears on their platforms.

Even as companies have taken down certain sites or blocked certain accounts, they have insisted that they do not want to be arbiters of truth  a phrase used by Twitter and Facebook executives recently to describe their dilemma.

The more they police, the more they take on collective responsibility, which they fear can lead to legal responsibility, said Benesch, of the Dangerous Speech Project.

Jan reported from Washington. Andrew deGrandpre in Washington contributed to this report.
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PHILADELPHIA  Art Gutierrez comes to the corner of Kensington Avenue and Somerset Street every morning to buy heroin.

What hes actually getting in Philadelphias notorious open-air drug market is heroin laced with an even more potent additive, often in unpredictable amounts that even antidotes cant stop from being deadly. That narcotic, increasingly spliced into the nations illicit drug supply, is fentanyl, a synthetic painkiller exacerbating heroins deadly trap. In cities across America, it is fueling deeper addiction and has become one of the most prominent killers linked to the nations drug crisis.

Its a new epidemic, said Gutierrez, 42, who shoots up on the sidewalks here in Kensington by day and ducks into abandoned buildings to sleep at night as he copes with crippling addiction. He has watched his friends die and says, If you catch a pure bag of fentanyl, that Narcan aint bringing you back.



Art Gutierrez, 42, left, sits at a storefront in July, as another man sleeps on the sidewalk in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia. Fentanyl has been creeping into the heroin supply there, leading to a rise in overdoses. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

This city, like many others across the United States long mired in a battle against opioid addiction, is seeing the precipitous rise of illicit fentanyl. Once a minor player in the drug crisis, the man-made narcotic  about 50 times stronger than heroin  is directly linked to thousands of overdoses and a shocking rise in fatalities nationwide, a trend that is particularly noticeable in the nations urban areas.

In 24 of the nations largest cities and the counties that surround them, fentanyl-related overdose deaths increased nearly 600 percent from 2014 to 2016, according to county health departments nationwide. According to overdose records in those cities reviewed by The Washington Post, there were 582 fatal overdoses linked to fentanyl in 2014, a number that soared to 3,946 last year. Officials estimate there will be a much higher number of fatal fentanyl-related overdoses in 2017.





Cook County, Ill., (Chicago) recorded a 2,700 percent increase in fatal fentanyl-related overdoses, jumping from 20 in 2014 to 562 in 2016. Orange County, Fla., (Orlando) saw its 34 fatal fentanyl overdoses in 2014 triple to 105 in 2016. And Franklin County, Ohio, (Columbus) went from 13 such overdoses two years ago to 111 in 2016.

Law enforcement and public health officials say they are alarmed by the rate at which fentanyl has infiltrated the illicit drug market and how it is transforming the face of the drug crisis, which resulted in 60,000 fatal overdoses in 2016, more than half of which were from opioids.

If anything can be likened to a weapon of mass destruction in what it can do to a community, its fentanyl, said Michael Ferguson, the special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administrations New England division. Its manufactured death.

The spike in fatal fentanyl overdoses in greater Philadelphia has been among the steepest. In 2012, the drug was linked to nine fatal overdoses, according to the health department. By 2014, that number had grown to 100. Pennsylvania law enforcement officials just announced last years totals: Fentanyl was responsible for more than 400 overdose deaths in Philadelphia last year and more than 2,000 fatal overdoses statewide  marking the first time in recent state history that heroin was not the most deadly overdose drug.

The trend is not going to change, unfortunately, said Patrick Trainor, a DEA special agent in Philadelphia. Not anytime soon.

Philadelphias Health Commissioner Thomas Farley said the city is averaging 100 overdose deaths per month in 2017, noting that fentanyl has thrown gasoline onto a fire that was already raging.

This is a health crisis thats worse than weve ever seen, Farley said. This will kill more people than the AIDS epidemic. Youd have to go back to the influenza pandemic of 1918 if you even wanted to start making comparisons.

Officials note that in some places, medical examiners did not test overdose victims for fentanyl  which does not show up on all standard drug screenings  until 2015, probably causing an undercount in its lethality until then. But they say the raw number of fentanyl-related deaths last year was staggering.

It cuts across all demographics, race, gender, socioeconomic status, said Chuck Rosenberg, acting administrator of the DEA. Its everywhere all the time.

President Trump on Thursday agreed, saying that the opioid crisis is a national emergency, pledging more money and attention to the problem.

It is a serious problem, the likes of which weve never had. You know, when I was growing up, they had the LSD, and they had certain generations of drugs, Trump said. Theres never been anything like whats happened to this country over the last four or five years.



A woman walks past storefronts along Kensington Avenue in Philadelphia, an area that houses a notorious open-air drug market. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

Fentanyls rise

The U.S. opioid epidemic can be traced to the 1990s, when the pharmaceutical industry began producing new opioid painkillers, such as OxyContin, that were marketed as safer and less prone to abuse than prior medications. At the same time, the medical establishment seized on the notion that freedom from pain is a human right and a vital sign, much like blood pressure or heart rate.

Suddenly, opioid painkillers were prescribed for a wide range of ailments. In some communities already ravaged by joblessness and substance abuse, unscrupulous doctors dispensed the painkillers in bulk via pill mills. As officials sought to reduce illegitimate prescriptions, the street price of the painkillers soared, sending many users to relatively cheaper heroin, mostly imported from Mexico.

As users developed tolerances for the heroin, dealers in search of something cheaper and even stronger began mixing in illicit fentanyl  a synthetic drug that in its legal form is sometimes used in anesthesia to prevent surgical pain. Soon, even as overdoses spiked, countless drug abusers sought out the more powerful fentanyl-laced heroin, and thousands of users became hooked on the drug.

Amanda Bennett, 26, of Baltimore became addicted to opioids after she was prescribed oxycodone while recovering from an emergency C-section. Her addiction transitioned from pills to heroin, which then escalated to fentanyl-laced heroin.

If theres no fentanyl in it, I dont want it at all. Im addicted to the fentanyl. If theres no fentanyl in it, it doesnt get me well at all, Bennett said, using a phrase common to heroin users for how the drugs make them feel.

Bennett, whose two children, ages 7 and 4, live with their godmother, said she tried a 14-day rehab stay, but the pull of the drug was too strong. The first thing she did after getting out was get high.

I made em bring me some. . . . I wasnt ready, she said. This is all I know anymore. Its all I know.



Micheal Rouwhorst, 28, prepares an injection of heroin and cocaine near a set of train tracks in Philadelphia. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

Art Gutierrez holds an orange container, known as a trash can, filled with heroin. The heroin supply increasingly includes super-powerful fentanyl. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

Miamis fentanyl problem came into stark view in July, when authorities released preliminary toxicology results showing that 10-year-old Alton Banks died in June from a combination of heroin and fentanyl. The state attorney there raised the possibility that Alton came into contact with the drugs at a community pool or on his walk home through a neighborhood known to be an illicit drug marketplace. Because any contact with fentanyl can be deadly, some police departments send doctors with police on raids so they can treat officers if necessary. An officer in East Liverpool, Ohio, said he accidentally overdosed in May after a traffic stop when he used his hand to brush powdered fentanyl off his uniform.





While many of those overdosing on fentanyl specifically sought to use the drug, health providers and police officials say overdoses also occur among users who dont know the powerful opioid was cut into their heroin  or even their cocaine.

Amber Snyder, 29, recalled a change in her fathers behavior during the last months of his life. Ray Snyders speech was slow and slurred, he wanted to sleep all day, his memory was shaky. Her father had been a substance abuser for as long as she could remember: alcohol, crack cocaine, heroin. But something this time was different.

The last night she saw him, she and her parents had ordered takeout from a Chicago Mediterranean restaurant, their Friday tradition. After dinner, Ray Snyder retreated to the basement, where he would often go to use drugs. He was found dead several hours later.

An autopsy report from the Cook County medical examiners office revealed the truth to her: Ray Snyder, 46, died on Jan. 17, 2016, with cocaine and possibly heroin in his system. Also present: fentanyl.

I expected to see cocaine. I expected perhaps to see heroin, she said. But I did not expect, at all, to see fentanyl.

A hospital in New Haven, Conn., treated 12 overdoses, three of them fatal, in just an eight-hour period in June 2016 among people who thought they were using cocaine they purchased on the citys streets. The white powder turned out to be fentanyl. Overdose records in Philadelphia show that at least 162 people died there last year from a combination of fentanyl and cocaine, one such death almost every other day. In New York, which recorded more than 600 fentanyl-related fatal overdoses last year, at least 115 were due to cocaine and fentanyl combinations.



Gary Tuggle, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administrations Philadelphia field division, center right, and Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro take questions from the media after a July 27 news conference in Philadelphia announcing the release of the 2016 Pennsylvania drug overdose death report. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

Authorities and experts believe the migration of fentanyl into other drug supplies portends major problems. Daniel Raymond, policy director for the Harm Reduction Coalition, said the fact that fentanyl is showing up in cocaine in New York means it almost certainly will be in suburban and rural areas, too.

Fentanyl ending up in a lot of the cocaine supply and reaching relatively naive users would be a super dangerous thing, Raymond said.

The illicit fentanyl often is imported directly from Chinese sources by mail or comes from Mexico, where the drug is manufactured using chemical compounds, experts and authorities said. Dealers then mix the powder into other drugs, making for imprecise potency in sometimes-lethal doses.

In Clevelands Cuyahoga County, the medical examiner has raised concerns about overdose trends, blaming fentanyl-laced cocaine for a doubling of African American fentanyl deaths in the county last year. Cocaine users often arent aware they could encounter a dangerous opioid when they use.

Records show there were 10 fatal overdoses in Cleveland that included a combination of cocaine and fentanyl in 2014. Two years later, there were 141.



People gather outside the Last Stop, a Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous group at Kensington Avenue and Somerset Street  the heart of drug use and sales in Philadelphia. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

Dont let me die

Tyrone Tavasci kicked his 18-year-old daughter Emma out of his Orange County, Calif., home after finding out that she was using drugs, sending the teen to live with her boyfriend.

I just said I was scared for her and didnt want to see her going down the same path I went down, said Tavasci, 45, who works in recovery services after his own battle with substance use. Just a month later, his daughter was begging him for help, and he got her into a rehabilitation center.

It didnt work. Six months later, on July 22, 2016, the teenager was pronounced dead, her autopsy citing a cocktail of substances including cocaine, chemical traces of marijuana, two prescription drugs and fentanyl.

She was aware of the risk of opiates, he said. She very much had an Im indestructible point of view, and when it comes to that stuff, it doesnt discriminate.

In Philadelphia, there are an estimated 70,000 heroin users, according to a mayoral task force working to combat the opioid epidemic. As fentanyl kills more drug users, the number of people seeking training on how to use naloxone, an overdose-reversing drug sold under the name Narcan, has increased, according to Elvis Rosado, who facilitates training in Kensington. Many want to use Narcan as a lifeline, knowing they might need it when they get high.



A man sleeps on the sidewalk across from the Last Stop. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

Why am I still alive?

Most days, in the early mornings, Gutierrez gets his first hit of heroin free. Heroin has been sold in Kensington for decades, and the neighborhood, known colloquially as the Badlands, has a reputation for offering the purest kind. The introduction of fentanyl has led to increased competition, and dealers now aim for the best price and the highest potency.

Some give away a little product as an enticement, but the samples come with a deadly catch, Gutierrez said. One bag out of the batch usually contains a lethal dose of fentanyl. If word of an overdose from the lethal bag spreads, drug users seek out the dealer  because they know that dealer has the strongest product, the best fix for the money.

Gutierrez said his friend overdosed and died in an abandoned building earlier this year from a lethal sample.

They hit him with a hotshot, he said. The boy died instantly. He took his last breath sliding down the wall.

Gutierrez returns here because he has to. The pain of withdrawal is unbearable.

Every bone in your body hurts, he said. You get hot and cold sweats. It is 90 degrees out here, but youd be freezing with goose bumps. There is no middle ground.

But as people die around him, he wonders why he survives.

Some of the best kids come out here and do one bag and die. They dont deserve it, he said. Why am I still alive?



Gutierrez injects a dose of heroin. He recently watched a friend die after taking a lethal dose of fentanyl. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

Achenbach reported from Boston and Baltimore. Kevin Sullivan in Miami contributed to this report.


Cornish hens weigh 1 1/2 to 2 pounds, slaughtered young. They have less fat than older, larger chickens and are easier to cut up. (Deb Lindsey/For The Washington Post)

One no-recipe option: Toss the parts with olive oil, salt, pepper and fresh herbs, then roast at 425 degrees for about 30 minutes. (Deb Lindsey/For The Washington Post)

Modern Farmer magazine calls the Cornish game hen a tiny liar, because it is not game and has a 50 percent chance of being male. Oh, and it need not contain a speck of Cornish chicken DNA, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

[ Reclaiming the lost art of cutting up a chicken ]

Id rather see it as a kitchen aid, with benefits. This bird, slaughtered at less than 5 weeks old and weighing considerably less, sometimes less than half as much, as its broiler/fryer elders, has the same anatomy  just smaller. Anyone who wants to practice breaking down a whole chicken into parts can start on a less-intimidating Cornish hen, with a sharp paring knife. They might find it easier, in fact. It isnt small enough to be fiddly, and the joints pop with little effort.

When organic or pastured, the small birds can cost more per pound than boneless, skinless chicken breasts. But Cornish hens are in less demand now than 20 or 30 years ago, so when sell-by dates close in, they often are priced to fly off the shelf. A recent grocery sale, with loyalty card, reduced the price to $2.88 for a two-pound bird.

It could be harder for the cook of a small household to justify dispatching a four- or five-pounder, but a Cornish hen can make a meal or three. Separate pieces roast quick enough to do on a weeknight; you dont need to break down the leg quarters further into drumstick and thigh. Because they are young, they contain less fat than an older chicken. It takes about 30 minutes to roast eight Cornish hen pieces in a 425-degree oven, pictured on a quarter-baking sheet above, dressed with olive oil, fresh herbs, salt and pepper.

 B.S.B.


Fear not the whole chicken  its easier to break down into parts than you think. (Deb Lindsey/For The Washington Post)

You could go your whole life without cutting up a whole raw chicken. But if its one of your favored proteins  and America eats more chicken per person than any other nation on Earth  learning how to do so is a smack-your-forehead, no-brainer endeavor. Its even a little empowering.

We have gotten awfully used to the convenience of buying cut-up chicken parts, which found a place in retail markets more than five decades ago. Today, two-thirds of the chicken we consume has been dismantled by someone else, and we are paying dearly for the service. Some peg the parts rise to our penchant for lean breast meat, while others say its because we shudder at the thought of carving up a pink, fleshy body.

[Heres how to break down a whole chicken]

We are a white-meat, boneless-skinless country, says Tom Super, senior vice president of communications for the National Chicken Council, a lobbying group with such serious intentions that it has relegated poultry recipes to its allied websites. His assessment is accurate and data- driven: We go for the wings and breasts. That means more of our dark-meat and other chicken parts are shipped abroad where they are prized, rightly so, for their flavor. One out of every five pounds of commercially raised meat chickens is exported. Sustainably savvy, but sad.



BBQ Chicken Skewers make the most of bland boneless, skinless chicken breasts. (Deb Lindsey/For The Washington Post)

[Make the recipe: BBQ Chicken Skewers]

Nobody taught you. It seems intimidating. Well, you can call up one of dozens of how-to videos online, narrated by the precise language of Martha Stewart or the folksy patter of a Kraft Foods kitcheneer. Play a few in succession, and you will find the same technique, give or take an airline breast here and an order-of- business there. The moving hands use big chefs knives or poultry shears. Step by step, one side and then the other. Still, we are not motivated. What will it take?

The cost of convenience

We would love to know the same thing, says Daniel Salatin. The average American family could save thousands if they bought whole chickens and cut em up themselves.

He is operations manager for Polyface Farms in Swoope, Va., where his family and famous firebrand farmer father, Joel Salatin, run a sustainable clean meat enterprise. They say they sell 8,000 to 12,000 pastured chickens a year, with an eight-piece package priced at $4.65 per pound  a buck more per pound than their whole birds. But Polyfaces boneless, skinless chicken breast halves cost $14 per pound. That price was calculated to offset any loss of sales on less-popular parts and to achieve the same revenue that the farms whole birds generated. Still, breasts are their top seller.

We didnt start cutting up birds until the early 2000s, Salatin says. There was a kind of perfect storm, as he sees it: Older, thriftier generations were doing less cooking. Families decreased in size. People lost the art and had the money to have someone else do the cutting. Plus, they were told that lean chicken was a more healthful meat option than beef.

The almighty factor is, of course, convenience. But when that is compared with the combined benefits of menu versatility, stretching food dollars and the surprising ease of the divvying itself, though, DIY butchery deserves consideration. A home cook with a family can make three meals from one whole chicken, Salatin says. But youd have to know what youre doing.

Brian Patterson knows what hes doing. He has broken down thousands of whole chickens. Start to finish, it takes him about two minutes, working at a smooth and steady pace. Washington- area cooks know him as the Knife Skills Guy at LAcademie de Cuisine, where the former restaurant chef taught culinary cuts on onions, carrots, tomatoes and mangoes in recreational classes at the schools suburban Maryland locations. A whole chicken, typically a 2  pounder, was the piece de resistance.

[Cornish hens, a learning tool]

When his instruction moved to the schools professional culinary program, he found that his students had no more experience cutting up whole birds than the home cooks. Teaching them that skill has almost become a mission for him. The chef is all for removing some of the distance between people and processes of modern food: It was a critter. You get to understand the structure, which is valuable for someone whos carving a roasted bird as well, Patterson says.

More of his pro-cutting logic: The bird stays fresher longer when it is whole. Super of the chicken council is not so sure about that, but he does say that the U.S. Department of Agricultures Food Safety and Inspection Service set standards for, and began sampling, raw chicken parts for pathogens such as campylobacter and salmonella only in the past few years (as of February 2016); similar standards had been in place for whole birds since 1996.

Field work

If you eliminate the stress, They Will Cut.

Thats the takeaway lesson from my hands-on experience with newsroom colleagues. Over the past four months, sessions of five mostly millennial volunteers at a time spent an hour with me after work in the WaPoFood Lab  their own knives in hand, to help familiarize the process of breaking down a bird. We made sure their tools were sharp enough for the task and not too large, because when you know how to cut up a chicken into eight or 10 pieces, you dont need to hack through a single bone.

Their reasons for wanting to learn were mainly 1. conquering poultry fears in a non- intimidating situation, 2. augmenting their life skills and 3. saving on food costs. Heartening!



A whole bird, minus wing tips . . . (Deb Lindsey/For The Washington Post)

. . . can yield 12 parts, tenderloins included. (Deb Lindsey/For The Washington Post)

The anatomy of the bird, being symmetrical, gives folks an immediate opportunity to practice what they have just learned. Remove one wingette, then do it again on the other side. One leg quarter, then the other. Treasures were uncovered along the way: Chefs and informed cooks know about the birds two oysters  those dime-size disks of dark meat that sit in pockets on the underside. They are a tasty treat and a test, in Pattersons universe, of carving competence. The fact that the tenderloins were attached to the breast produced an aha moment every time. (Thats where they come from?) One buoyed participant figured the new skills would help with his Thanksgiving turkey carving, and he was right.

View Graphic How to cut a raw chicken into pieces to save money

Each group noted how easy the task was, and the word empowering was mentioned more than once. Some knew the non-meaty parts are good for making stock and that the skin can be fried into crisp, sinful snacks. I bought chickens from different vendors and stores along the way, which prompted discussions about variations in skin color and tone, size and presence of a giblets packet  the liver, heart and/or gizzard. (Large-scale processors tend to sell those off for other uses; small-scale farmers may sell them separately or upon customer request. But lately, none of those pieces are in high consumer demand.)

The subject of whether to rinse the chicken came up often. The Food and Drug Administration says no, as splashed water can spread bacteria. I understand the impulse to wash, because birds treated with a salt-solution for packing look like they are in need of a shower. But a few minutes of verticality over the garbage can, plus a pat-down with paper towels, will make them suitable for handling.

Poultry shears work, especially when you want to spatchcock, or butterfly, a whole bird by cutting through the backbone. Chicken on the bone cooks faster that way. For cutting chicken into parts, a six-inch knife with a thin, flexible blade is preferable. But ever since I watched the famous French chef Michel Roux break down a couple of chickens using my $5 serrated paring knife, I have followed suit.

You cut through skin to expose joints, which can be bent till they pop. You can cut close to that cartilage without brute force. You also cut along some thin lines of fat, as professionals do in seam butchery. Bones lend flavor, so leaving them in will improve the taste of most cut-up parts. But once you head down this road, you can see how the meat of a chicken thigh is easily teased away from the bone with short cutting strokes, attached marginally by cartilage at the top and bottom.

Using all the parts

Americans eat an average of 91 pounds of chicken per person per year, according to the NCCs Super. Even if we embraced the DIY bird breakdown, would we know what to do with all of it? Isnt just buying the bits we eat more economical in the long run than creating waste?

Again, a little education can do wonders, and looking into the chicken habits of other cultures is a fine place to start.



Annies Chicken Chayote Soup (Tinola). (Deb Lindsey/For The Washington Post)

Annies Chicken Stew (Caldereta). (Deb Lindsey/For The Washington Post)

As a Filipino of a certain age, I learned how to kill the chicken, bleed it and cut it up when I was growing up, says Annie Cabayan Wilderman. As an assistant manager at Capitol Hill Poultry in Eastern Market, she sees people buying more parts than whole chickens, and she cringes at the thought of all those backs and necks going to waste: There is no focus on how to mitigate it in this country.

[Make the recipes: Annies Chicken Chayote Soup (Tinola); Annies Chicken Stew (Caldereta)]

On a recent weekend afternoon, she showed me how the gizzard (a muscle from the chickens stomach) and other giblets can be cooked, separately, to eliminate impurities, and used as flavor and texture enhancers. Chicken feet were offered as well: They are the tastiest! Thats why we dont use bouillon cubes. The giblets joined wing tips and other skin-on bony bits in a pot for a thorough saute. Then she added water, fresh ginger and a touch of seasoning blend known to Filipino cooks. Within an hour of furious bubbling, simple and inexpensive ingredients yielded an impressively chicken-y broth. Chayote, green papaya, baby bok choy and fresh pepper leaves completed the soup, which is called tinola in her native country.

In her take on the light-tasting Filipino stew, the meaty parts of the chicken got a similar saute treatment, a different seasoning blend and braise. She began by using a little salt and running water  no fan of the FDA no-rinse guideline  to get rid of what she calls some gooey membranes between skin and flesh. Wilderman cut each bone-in breast half crosswise into four or five pieces, stretching the number of servings and keeping the pieces close to the same size, which ensured their simultaneous doneness. Small potatoes cooked separately, frozen peas, fresh carrots and a last-minute addition of bell peppers lended color and crunch.

And because boneless, skinless chicken breasts offer little flavor yet sell so well, she brought along the makings for marinated chunks to be skewered and then grill-basted with a mahogany- colored ginger-soy sauce. They could pass for dark meat any day.

Surely all that food, from one whole chicken, makes learning the art of poultry butchering all the more opportune.

Daniel Salatin of Polyface Farms will join the Free Range chat Wednesday at noon: live.washingtonpost.com.
Bei Bei is held by his mother, Mei Xiang, about four months after he was born in 2015. The National Zoos giant panda experts say they think Mei Xiang may be pregnant. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

Bei Bei, the Smithsonian National Zoos giant panda cub, is about to turn 2. For his birthday, he will get a special ice cake, but he might also get a surprise  a new sibling.

The zoos giant panda experts say they think Bei Beis mom, Mei Xiang (pronounced may SHONG), may be pregnant. But panda reproduction is complicated, to say the least.

A cub on the way?

To start off with, female pandas have only a very short time when their bodies are ready to become pregnant  about two or three days a year.

Giant pandas in zoos often dont mate on their own. So at the end of May, panda experts performed a medical procedure to help Mei Xiang have a cub.

Right now, were sort of in the wait-and-see mode, said Michael Brown-Palsgrove, the giant panda curator.

Another of Mei Xiangs cubs is Bao Bao, whom panda keeper Nicole MacCorkle introduced to the public in 2014. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)

Panda experts look for hints of pregnancy. One sign is rising hormone levels, which research veterinarian Pierre Comizzoli said he expects to see in Mei Xiang for the second time soon. Once that happens, it takes about 45 to 55 days for a cub to be born.

Nothing is black and white with pandas, though  except for the panda itself. Hormones also rise during whats called a pseudopregnancy (soo-doh-preg-nan-cee), when the panda acts pregnant but actually isnt.

In past pregnancies, panda experts have sometimes seen the fetus by taking an ultrasound scan of Mei Xiangs belly, but thats easier said than done.

Shes a pretty large animal, and the fetal development is pretty tiny, Comizzoli said. (At birth, pandas typically weigh about four to six ounces and are about the size of a stick of butter.)

The experts wont be sure Mei Xiang is pregnant until the end of the 45-to-55-day period, at which point, Comizzoli said, theres either a cub on the ground or theres not.

45 years of learning

Giant pandas, found in the wild only in China, are relatively new to U.S. zoos. The first pair arrived at the National Zoo in 1972. Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing (sing sing) were a gift from the Chinese government to the United States. The pair produced five cubs between 1983 and 1989, but none survived more than a few days.

Those early losses were learning experiences for the zoos panda team.

Mei Xiang is also the mother of Tai Shan, who showed off his lying-on-his-belly skills at the zoo soon after he was born in 2005. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

Weve made a lot of progress in terms of monitoring everything we can and this period of time where we dont really know whats going on, Comizzoli said.

The zoos second pair, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian (t-YEN t-YEN), who arrived in 2000, are three-time parents. Tai Shan (tie SHON), who is 12, and Bao Bao (rhymes with now-now), whos almost 4, live in China.

[Watch a video of the National Zoos only girl cub, Bao Bao.]

Only a few zoos in the world  including four in the United States  have pandas, and they rely on one another for information and training.

We all know each other and help each other as much as we can, Comizzoli said.

Every year, the National Zoo panda team meets with other panda keepers.

Its really just an informal way to talk about our experiences and what were doing, Brown-Palsgrove said.

National Zoo staff members also write research papers and sometimes have their colleagues come to Washington for hands-on training.

A few years ago, panda keepers from Toronto, Canada, visited the National Zoo to learn about panda breeding. The training paid off: Er Shun gave birth to twins in Toronto in 2015.

Recently, a French zoo had giant panda twins, but only one survived. Although the National Zoo panda keepers communicated with the French zoo, they were not directly involved in the birth, Comizzoli said.

They had the Chinese experts assisting them in France, he said. Theyre the real experts.
Dear Amy: I have a lovely daughter who just turned 13. Shes happy, smart, kind and caring. During the last school year (seventh grade) she asked if she could date a boy. At first I said no. Then she insisted that it would only be a simple, silly kid dating thing, and I then allowed it. Fast-forward to six months later, and things have changed.

Over the summer break this boy has done what many kids of this age might do  play video games and sleep.

Hes made little effort to see her, which is fine by me. But when she gets in touch with him, he tells her all the things a girl loves to hear and then goes back to doing the same things.

Shes smitten and committed to their relationship. But shes also sad, which breaks my heart.

As a mother I want to tell her to run. I want to pull the parent card and tell her she cant date anymore, but I also know that this is the fastest way to send her 100 percent to the opposite direction.

How can I stop her from heading into this doormat-style career of dating?

Heartbroken Mom

Heartbroken Mom: Your daughter is adopting the cultural relationship tropes she sees around her  the concepts of dating, emotional (and probably some physical) intimacy, and exclusivity.

The only hitch is that Cary Grant is dead, George Clooney is too old, and your daughter is stuck dating a 13-year-old boy. From your description, this boy is simply being himself, doing what he feels like doing and quite oblivious to the impact on her. Plus, if he wanted to see her, he would.

Her current behavior does not consign her to life as a doormat. But you should gently lead her toward her own power, not in relation to boys, but in relation to herself.

Ask her to grab some girlfriends and take them to see the movie Wonder Woman at the multiplex. Afterward, ask whats different about that movie and how they feel about it. Tell them that this superhero movie was directed by a woman, because she didnt see enough examples of how strong, smart and brave women are. Follow up with a home viewing of Hidden Figures (or read the wonderful book).

Encourage her to be busy and active, and to develop a new skill (like playing poker, or the ukulele).

Let her know, He is putting himself first, and thats what 13-year-olds are supposed to do. You should put yourself first, too. I dont like to see you this way, because you are giving your power to someone else.

This all started when your daughter was 12. Yes, she was too young to date, and she still is too young. If you played the parent card now, she might (secretly) be quite relieved.

The hidden figure in this situation is the girls father or another adult male who loves her. He should talk to her tenderly, listen to her lovingly and let her know that it is vital that she be with people who respect her.

Obviously, scan your daughters social media, and act immediately if you detect signs of obsession or depression.

Dear Amy: I am a father of two children (ages 8 and 3) and a happily married husband. When I was 20, I was at the point of signing on with the military. My fiancee (now wife) convinced me not to enlist. I am now 30 years old with a job that pays the bills. I am big on honor and find myself empty inside.

My wife and I have spoken about this, and at this point she is clearly against the idea of enlisting. I feel that enlisting will not only provide for my family, but fill that void inside of me. Please help.

A Father, Torn

Father: You should look into joining the military reserves. Reservists go to boot camp and receive further military training (typically over one weekend a month), while maintaining their civilian careers. Reservists are an important part of our nations military.

You have a duty to yourself to try to meet your own personal goals, but understand that your choice has a huge impact on your wife and children.

Dear Amy: Nonsmoker wondered what to do about smokers at an outdoor event. Go to his/her city council and ask that the city restrict smoking at outdoor events. Some communities have done this.

Get help and ideas from Americans for Nonsmokers Rights at no-smoke.org.

Happy and Healthy

Happy and Healthy: Great suggestion.
Much of the water supplied in Montgomery and Prince Georges Counties comes from the Potomac River. (Photo by Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post) (Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post)

Hundreds of people in Montgomery and Prince Georges Counties have been complaining about discolored, brownish water gushing from their taps, but the problem is one of appearance and not of safety, authorities said.

Since the start of this month, the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, which serves the two Maryland counties, has received more than 700 complaints about the color of the water, the utility said Monday.

In the spring, it said, about 200 to 300 such complaints are logged each month.

But the utilitys CEO, Carla A. Reid, said no adverse health effects are expected.

I want all our customers to know that WSSC water is safe,she said.

However, she acknowledged what might be called the Yechhh! effect.

From an aesthetic standpoint,  she said, the water is unacceptable.

Apologizing to customers whose faucets spewed discolored water, she expressed apologies.

Our customers should not have to think twice about their drinking water when they turn on their taps, she said.

It appears from the WSSC explanation, that the unappealing-looking H2O seems to have been created by a combination of nature, health concerns and chemistry.

According to a WSSC statement, the heavy rains of recent days and weeks may have washed more decayed lives, tree bark and branches, and other vegetation into the Potomac River. The river is the source of much of the water provided by the utility.

Adding chlorine to the river water is the way that utilities disinfect it. However, the reaction between chlorine and the tree and plant material in the water creates byproducts.

These so-called disinfection byproducts are indeed a health concern, the WSSC said.

To tamp down their levels below safety threshholds at a time when organic material has increased, , the WSSC said it slightly reducted the level of chlorine used to treat river water.

That, however, had an undesirable effect.

An element called manganese is also found in waterways. It is not a health hazard, but in high enough levels, it can cause discoloration. At high enough levels chlorine controls the manganese sufficiently to prevent discoloration.

Thus, with more tree and plant debris in the river, public health considerations prompted a cut in chlorine levels, which permitted levels of manganese high enough to cause the discoloration, the WSSC said in a statement.

It was a question, apparently, of health coming before appearances.

However, as is well known, appearance counts. So when will matters clear up?

Not for a while, the WSSC said.

Unfortunately, said the utilitys director of production, J.C. Langley,the aesthetic issue of manganese will be around for the next several weeks until river conditions change.

What are residents of Montgomery and Prince Georges to do in the meantime?

Well, basically, it appears, most of what they usually do, with a major exception.

WSSC said it is NOT recommending discolored water for doing laundry.

If clothes get stained, it said, wash them again, at once, with a rust remover product.
Protesters gather in front of the White House on Monday to condemn white supremacy after the weekend violence in Charlottesville. (Perry Stein/The Washington Post)

Protesters rallied for the second consecutive evening in front of the White House on Monday, condemning white supremacy and calling on the Trump administration to take a more hard-line stance against it.

The rally, organized on Facebook by local college students, comes in response to violence at a rally of white supremacists in Charlottesville over the weekend that claimed the life of counterprotester Heather Heyer, 32. In a separate incident, two Virginia state troopers monitoring the protest were killed when their helicopter crashed in nearby woods.

[Trump denounces KKK, neo-Nazis as repugnant as he seeks to quell criticism of his response to Charlottesville]

Protesters trickled in after work on Monday, carrying signs that read Black Lives Matter and Make Racists Afraid Again. The young organizers invited anyone to vent or rant, particularly encouraging people of color and those with disabilities to speak. People discussed their experiences with racism and discrimination, as well as how they want to counter it.

We will not stop until this type of white supremacy is removed from our country, said Jason Charter, an activist who also attended the counterprotest Saturday in Charlottesville.

(The Washington Post)

Trump denounced the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis by name Monday, declaring racist hate groups criminals and thugs and repugnant to all that we hold dear.

The presidents statement on Monday came amid mounting criticism from Republicans and Democrats to his initial response. On Saturday, Trump condemned the egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, but he did not single out and condemn the white supremacists by name.

Patty Pablo, 20, who helped to organize Mondays rally, said Trumps words earlier in the day were too little, too late.

If it takes you three days, its a reflection of how you feel, she said.

Pablo, an immigrant from the Philippines, said she decided to organize a protest on Facebook after watching news unfold Saturday and feeling helpless.

Im a person of color and an immigrant. These things affect me, she said. I felt hurt and helpless.

Seven-year-old Bridget Niven briefly took the megaphone to address the crowd, saying I came here today for love. Im so sad that so many people are dying.

1 of 45 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  Scenes during vigils for Charlottesville victims View Photos Crowds gathered to show support in Washington, D.C., Charlottesville and beyond. Caption Crowds gathered to show support in D.C., Charlottesville and beyond. Aug. 16, 2017 Hundreds of people march with lit candles across the University of Virginia campus in Charlottesville. Salwan Georges/The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue.

[After violence in Charlottesville, vigils for peace and healing]

On Sunday, several hundred protesters rallied in front of the White House and held a moment of silence for the three who died Saturday. Protesters then marched down Pennsylvania Avenue, past the Trump International Hotel and toward the statue of Confederate Gen. Albert Pike.

Vigils also took place Sunday in Richmond and Charlottesville.
A man prays in front of a memorial to Confederate sailors in Baltimore earlier this year. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)

Mayor Catherine Pugh pledged to Monday take down Confederate-era monuments in Baltimore  and said she has asked contractors for estimates on how much it will cost.

Its my intention to move forward with the removal of the statues, the mayor said. She said she planned to look into moving them outside the city, suggesting Confederate cemeteries as one possibility.

The mayors pledge comes as cities and states across the country are considering removing monuments to the Confederacy after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., turned deadly over the weekend. Statues in Lexington, Ky., and Gainesville, Fla., were targeted Monday for removal, while Maryland House Speaker Michael E. Busch called for the removal of a statue on the State House grounds in Annapolis.

But Pughs pledge to remove the monuments wasnt enough for some members of the Baltimore City Council, who said statues recognizing Confederate leaders should be destroyed, not moved.

These people were terrorists. They were traitors. Why are we honoring them? said City Councilman Brandon Scott.

(CharmTV Citizen's Hub)

Pugh said most cities she has studied have chosen to remove their statues, not destroy them. She said she worried a public destruction of the monuments could attract racist groups to Baltimore and spark a violent clash, like what happened in Virginia.

[Recounting a day of rage, hate, violence and death in Charlottesville]

Im not trying to have a bonfire, she said. Theres a positive way to move through this process.

Former Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake appointed a commission of academics and officials to review Baltimores four Confederate monuments in 2015 after the shooting deaths of nine African-Americans in a historically black South Carolina church by a white man who had posted photographs of himself with the Confederate battle flag. The memorials include the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Mount Royal Avenue, the Confederate Womens Monument on West University Parkway, the Roger B. Taney Monument on Mount Vernon Place, and the Robert E. Lee and Thomas. J. Stonewall Jackson Monument in the Wyman Park Dell.

[See more on the citys statues from The Baltimore Sun]

The commission recommended getting rid of the Taney statue and the tribute to Lee and Jackson. It recommended adding signs to the two others to provide historical context.

Pugh said she was frustrated the process for removing the statues wasnt further along when she took office in December. She noted that Rawlings-Blake had the commissions recommendation for nearly a year before leaving office.

Pugh said she plans to go further than the commission recommended. Were looking at all four of them, she said.

Carolyn Billups, former president of the Maryland chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, argued the city should spend its limited money elsewhere.

Where is the city going to get the money, hello? she said. What about the crime rates? What about schools? Dont you think the money would be better spent?

The 65-year-old retired radiographer said her great-great-grandfather, Joseph Hardin Massie, fought in the 13th Virginia Infantry during the Civil War. Billups wrote a book in the late 1990s about Louise Wigfall Wright, the woman who founded the Maryland chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

Wright led the fundraising to erect the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Bolton Hill in 1903. The statue depicts a Confederate soldier embraced by the winged figure of Glory. The inscription reads Gloria Victis, meaning Glory to the vanquished.

They were all put up with an honorable intention, Billups said. They were not erected as a show of racism.

She said that, if necessary, she would try to block the removals.

Im not sure if its practical to chain myself to it, but something along those lines, she said. I am serious about spending days, weeks, whatever it takes to defend the monument.

[Charlottesville might be changed for me forever]

The monument was vandalized at some point over the weekend  on Monday, it was covered in red paint. On Sunday, demonstrators placed a statue of a pregnant black woman, fist raised, with a child on her back, in front of the Lee and Jackson Monument in the Wyman Park Dell.

Scott introduced a City Council resolution Monday to have the monuments destroyed. The 15-member council unanimously voted for the resolution, but not before the suggestion sparked debate between council members.

Councilman Eric T. Costello said he wanted the monuments gone but believed destroying artwork goes down a dangerous path.

Im opposed to destroying anything thats artwork, he said.

Councilman Leon Pinkett noted that there are streets and sites throughout Baltimore named after people who held racist views.

Are we prepared to go beyond these statues? he asked. Im just saying if were going to do this, we need to be prepared to go all the way.

Councilman Ryan Dorsey argued all the statues need to be destroyed.

The very least we can do is destroy the symbols we have of oppression, he said.

Pugh said there are still a number of matters to take care of before the monuments can be removed, including paying for the work and receiving permission from the Maryland Historical Trust.

She said Rawlings-Blake was supposed to appoint a task force to handle those details, but never did.

[Md. state leaders pressed to remove controversial statue in Annapolis]

She said she planned to appoint a working group to lead the process for removing the Confederate monuments.

Pugh said she met with New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu about the monuments there, and he told her removing four monuments in New Orleans cost $2.1 million. She said she didnt want to announce a specific date when the monuments would be removed in hopes of avoiding the violence experienced in Charlottesville over the weekend when white nationalists from out of state descended on the town.

Pugh said she hoped to transfer the statues to Confederate cemeteries elsewhere in Maryland. She said Confederate soldiers have been buried at the Washington Confederate Cemetery in Hagerstown and the Point Lookout Confederate Cemetery in Scotland, Md.

We will inquire as to their willingness to accept the monuments and prepare agreements for the transfer, Pugh said.

The commission appointed by Rawlings-Blake suggested the Lee and Jackson statue be offered to the National Park Service to place in Chancellorsville, Va., where the two Confederate generals last met in 1863. They said the statue of Taney, the chief justice from Maryland who wrote in the notorious Dred Scott decision that African-Americans could not be U.S. citizens, should be discarded.

The commission noted that about 65,000 Marylanders fought for the Union while 22,000 fought for the Confederacy, yet Baltimore has just one public monument to the Union.

Before Rawlings-Blake left office last year, she added signs in front of the four Confederate monuments in Baltimore. The signs said, in part, that the monuments were part of a propaganda campaign of national pro-Confederate organizations to perpetuate the beliefs of white supremacy, falsify history and support segregation and racial intimidation.

Baltimore Sun reporter Tim Prudente contributed to this article.
THE DISTRICT

Man is fatally shot

in Anacostia

A man was fatally shot Monday afternoon in the Anacostia business district of Southeast D.C., police said.

The shooting occurred about 12:30 p.m. in the 1900 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue.

The shooting happened near the offices of the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development and several businesses.

Police have not yet identified the victim.

 Peter Hermann

MARYLAND

Police ID Lanham shooting victim

Police have identified a man found fatally shot in Lanham on Friday as Troy Foster, 24, of Southeast Washington.

Officers answering a call for a welfare check Friday found Foster lying along a footpath in the 7000 block of Palamar Turn at about 9:15 a.m., Prince Georges County police said. Foster had gunshot wounds. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

 Lynh Bui

Man faces charges

in fatal July shooting

A Maryland man has been charged in the fatal shooting of another man in Capitol Heights, Md., in July.

Martinez Ferrell, 39, of Landover was charged with murder in the killing of Kevin Hawkins, 29, Prince Georges County police said.

Officers responding to a call for a welfare check found Hawkins, also of Landover, suffering from a gunshot wound on the side of the street about 11:30 a.m. July 29 in the 1400 block of Pine Grove Road, police said.

He was taken to a hospital in critical condition and died Aug. 3, police said.

Ferrell and Hawkins were acquaintances, police said.

VIRGINIA

Police: Man dragged woman into woods

A man dragged a woman into the woods in Reston on Monday afternoon and tried to remove her clothes before fleeing, Fairfax County police said.

The incident occurred in the 12000 block of North Shore Drive at about 2:30 p.m., police said. The man came out of a wooded area and approached the woman from behind and pulled her into a wooded area.

Police said something spooked the man and he fled. No sexual assault occurred.

The man left the area in a gray Hyundai. He is described as a Hispanic male in his late 20s or early 30s. He had brown hair and a full beard. He was wearing a gray shirt with red writing on it, a red ball cap and shorts of an unknown color.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) announced Tuesday that he wants to remove from the State House grounds a statue of Roger B. Taney, a U.S. Supreme Court justice and slavery defender who penned in the infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision that black people cannot be U.S. citizens.

While we cannot hide from our history  nor should we  the time has come to make clear the difference between properly acknowledging our past and glorifying the darkest chapters of our history, Hogan said in a statement. I believe removing the Justice Roger B. Taney statue from the State House grounds is the right thing to do.

The decision, which comes after the deadly rally of white nationalists in Charlottesville over the weekend, is a reversal for Hogan. Last year, the governor said he had no interest in removing Taneys statue, and he described calls for the removal of statues and other Confederate monuments as political correctness run amok.

Hogan said Tuesday that he will ask the State House Trust to take immediate action to remove the statue.

The governor chairs the four-member State House Trust board, which controls the grounds of the capitol complex. House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel), Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) and Maryland Historical Trust Chair Charles L. Edson make up the rest of the board.

The statue of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney on the grounds of the State House in Annapolis. Taney is best known as the author of the 1857 Dred Scott decision, which upheld slavery and said African Americans were not citizens. (Greg Dohler/The Gazette)

On Monday, Busch said in a Facebook post that the time has come for Taney to come down. Miller and Edson have indicated that if Hogan wants to remove the statue, they will agree.

Communities across the region and country are debating whether to remove from other public spaces the names and statues of historical figures who represent a legacy of slavery and racism.

On Monday, Baltimore Mayor Catherine E. Pugh (D) announced plans to remove four Confederate statues in that city. And, in the District on Tuesday, D.C. Council member David Grosso (I-At Large) sent a letter to the National Park Service asking that it do everything in its power to permanently remove the Albert Pike Statue, which is located in Judiciary Square. Pike, a lawyer and a poet who was active in the Masonic movement, was a Confederate brigadier general.

Amelia Chasse, a spokeswoman for Hogan, said that the governor was disgusted by what happened in Charlottesville and that he rightly concluded that these memorials have become a rallying point for white supremacists and bigots and he believes that their presence on prominent public land was sending a confusing and ultimately inappropriate message.

Several Maryland state lawmakers, including Busch, and Ben Jealous, a Democratic gubernatorial candidate, on Monday pressed Hogan to remove the statue.

Jealous, a former NAACP president, said Hogan took action only to improve his standing for the 2018 election.

The only difference between now and then is Governor Hogan is running for reelection, he said. Real leadership doesnt tie our values to the political calendar. As Governor, Larry Hogan has a responsibility to show our children that doing whats right should always matter more than political convenience.

There have been several unsuccessful efforts in the state legislature to remove the Taney statue.

Former state delegate Aisha N. Braveboy said that the J. Franklyn Bourne Bar Association, an association of black lawyers from Prince Georges and Montgomery counties, lobbied last year for a bill but that no action was taken.

Its a great feeling to know that our leaders are recognizing that having a symbol of white supremacy at a place of honor, on our State House grounds, is unacceptable, Braveboy said. Taney has no place at our State House.

Hogan, who called Maryland a state of middle temperament, received some backlash on social media.

Debby Mullins wrote on Hogans Facebook page that she appreciated his fortitude and good sense when he opposed the removal of the monuments last year. With Tuesdays decision, she said: You have lost my vote.

Chasse said the State House Trust board could vote on the removal of the Taney statue in the coming days or weeks.

In the District, Grossos letter to the National Park Service, which also was signed by D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine (D), council members Kenyan R. McDuffie (D-Ward 5), Anita Bonds (D-At Large), Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), Brianne K. Nadeau (D-Ward 1), Elissa Silverman (I-At Large) and Robert C. White Jr. (D-At Large), is considered the first step toward removing the Pike statue. Grosso plans to introduce a resolution when the D.C. Council reconvenes next month.

Its not that we shouldnt remember or study history, but we dont need a whole statue to someone who doesnt represent the values of the District, Grosso said.

Josh Hicks and Rachel Chason contributed to this report.
Cathleen S. Morawetz, whose achievements in mathematics found widespread practical use, helped open her profession to other women and made her the first female mathematician to receive the National Medal of Science, died Aug. 8 at her home in New York. She was 94.

Her death was announced by New York University, where she spent nearly her entire career, and where she was a former director of the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. The cause was pneumonia and renal failure, said a daughter, Nancy Morawetz.

Dr. Morawetz rose to the top of her profession at a time when few women received the encouragement or opportunity to pursue mathematical studies or work. She gravitated to questions with immediate and useful applications, once describing herself as an applied mathematician who proves theorems to solve problems.

[From PostEverything: Most of my medical colleagues are women. The Google guy gets them wrong.]

After establishing herself in the 1950s, she quickly became known for her study of transonic flow, or the behavior of air when an object such as a plane approaches the speed of sound.

It was a matter of vital importance for military aeronautical engineers, who sought to design airplane wings capable of blunting the shock waves that are produced when air around the plane passes the sound barrier.

Dr. Morawetzs theorem showed that, contrary to the hopes of the engineers, a shockless design was theoretically maybe possible but practically not possible, Robert V. Kohn, a professor of mathematics at NYU, said in an interview. Engineers, therefore, focused on reducing rather than averting shock waves.

Speaking to the journal Science in 1979, Dr. Morawetz remarked that her work on transonic flow presented the unusual example of engineers calling upon a mathematician for a proof, rather than engineers bellyaching about mathematicians who explain problems the engineers have already solved.

Dr. Morawetz also was noted for her work explaining the scattering of sound, light, water and gravitational waves off obstacles. The concept of a Morawetz inequality, as her formulation was known, continues to be used in a very broad range of applications, said Deane Yang, also a mathematics professor at NYU.

The citation for Dr. Morawetzs National Medal of Science, awarded in 1998, credited her with academic achievements that were matched by her leadership and inspiration, judgment and vision, and knowledge and generosity to colleagues and collaborators.

She often was cited as a trailblazing influence for women in mathematics. In 2014, the Iranian mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani became the first woman to win the prestigious Fields Medal. She died in July at age 40 of breast cancer.

[Maryam Mirzakhani, first woman to win Fields Medal in mathematics, dies at 40]

Cathleen Synge  her maiden name was pronounced sing  was born on May 5, 1923, in Toronto, where her father, the noted Irish mathematician John Lighton Synge, held an academic appointment at the University of Toronto. His students over the years included John F. Nash Jr., the Nobel Prize-winning game theorist whose life was dramatized in the 2001 film A Beautiful Mind.

[John F. Nash Jr. dies; Nobel laureates life story inspired A Beautiful Mind]

Her mother, Elizabeth Allen, who also was from Ireland, had studied mathematics as well. Dr. Morawetz credited both parents with encouraging her intellectual and professional ambitions  traits that she once joked were at the time very unladylike.

She received a bachelors degree from the University of Toronto in 1945, a masters degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1946 and a PhD from NYU in 1951, all in mathematics.

Looking for work, she just wanted what a man could get, she once told USA Today. She said the Courant Institute supported her career by giving her a raise when she had her first child, so that she could pay for child care when she returned to work.

Asked if she fretted about her children when she was at the office, she quipped to Science that she was much more likely to worry about a theorem when she was with her children. A paid death notice in the New York Times described her as equally at home proving a complex theorem as getting down on the floor to play with her grandchildren.

Survivors include her husband of 71 years, Herbert Morawetz, a chemist, of New York; four children, Pegeen Rubinstein of Westport, Conn., John Morawetz of Erlanger, Ky., Lida Jeck of Chapel Hill, N.C., and Nancy Morawetz of New York; a sister; 10 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

Dr. Morawetz served as a trustee of Princeton University and of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, as well as president of the American Mathematical Society, which honored her with a lifetime achievement award.

When she received the National Medal of Science, she told USA Today that she hoped the honor would draw attention to the idea that women can do math and will have some influence on women all the way from grade school to graduate school and beyond.

An earlier version of this article misstated the surname of a colleague of Dr. Morawetzs at New York University. He is Deane Yang, not Deane Young. Also, her mother was known as Elizabeth Allen, not Eleanor Allen. The article has been updated.
U.R. Rao in 1983. He directed the Indian space program from 1984 to 1994. (William K. Stevens/The New York Times)

For many Western observers in the 1960s and 70s, Indias fledgling space program seemed the result of wishful, even misguided thinking  a clumsy, multimillion-rupee effort to launch satellites and rockets rather than antipoverty programs and literacy campaigns.

The rockets were developed inside a leaky church on the coastline of Kerala, while the satellites  built inside a brick shed in an industrial section of Bangalore  were sometimes transported in an ox cart.

Yet when an Indian-made rocket took the satellite Rohini into space on July 18, 1980  11 months after a failed attempt sent a similar satellite splashing into the Bay of Bengal  India became just the seventh country in the world to take an object into orbit with its own launch vehicle.

Following on the heels of the Soviet Union, the United States, France, Japan, China and England, the country soon established itself as a capable and distinctive space power, focused more on developing satellites for civilian and scientific aims than for their military potential.

For many years, the space programs scientific lodestar and most prominent advocate was U.R. Rao, a cosmic-ray physicist-turned-satellite designer who died July 24 at his home in Bangalore. He was 85.

The Indian Space Research Organization, which Dr. Rao led as chairman from 1984 to 1994, announced his death but did not disclose the cause. He was reportedly hospitalized earlier this year because of a heart ailment.

Dr. Rao was a former student of ISROs founder, Vikram Sarabhai, and the principal architect of its satellite program. Leading with the mantra, If others can do, we can do better, he oversaw the launch of a novel telecommunications satellite network and maintained an advisory role at the space program until his death, helping to shape missions to the moon in 2008 and to Mars in 2013.

No developing country can use technology as a black box, Dr. Rao told Englands New Scientist magazine in 1988, arguing for the importance of Indias space program. If it does, it will not progress.

He joined ISRO in 1972 as technical director of its satellite project in Bangalore, where he led a group of about 300 Indian engineers who, Dr. Rao later recalled, did not know much about satellites. Within three years, his team had developed Indias first satellite, Aryabhata.

Launched by the Soviet Union on April 19, 1975, it gathered information on the Earths ionosphere and studied bursts of gamma rays produced by the sun. An electrical malfunction knocked it out of commission five days after it entered orbit, but the satellite laid the groundwork for increasingly complex missions, including the launch of the Indian National Satellite System in the mid-1980s.

Known as INSAT, the satellite network was the embodiment of Dr. Raos belief that the space program could be used to better the lives of everyday Indians.

Its first functioning satellite, INSAT-B, was described by the New York Times as being one-of-a-kind, combining telecommunications tools that handled more than 100,000 phone calls each day with equipment for weather forecasting and television broadcasting.

Subsequent satellites enabled Indian officials to map the extent of forests and floods, predict and manage droughts, and locate water sources near rural communities.

Dr. Rao was particularly proud of the television capabilities of the satellite system he oversaw, which streamed family-planning and health programs, among other series, to government-provided satellite TVs.

There are very remote areas in Orissa, he told Sky & Telescope magazine in 1985, referring to an eastern state in India, where people went to magicians instead of doctors. But we found that after seeing the programs, they were going to the doctors as well as the magicians. We made a step forward.

Udupi Ramachandra Rao was born March 10, 1932, to a lower-class family in Adamaru, a village near the western city of Udupi. His father was a cook.

Dr. Rao graduated from the University of Madras in 1951 and received a masters degree two years later from Banaras Hindu University. After receiving a doctorate from Gujarat University in 1960, he traveled to the United States to work as a professor and a researcher on NASA space probes, including the Venus flyby craft Mariner 2.

He returned to India in 1966 as a professor at the Physical Research Laboratory, a government-run center that is sometimes known as Indias cradle of space sciences. Dr. Rao later chaired its governing council, holding that position until his death while also working as chancellor of the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, a university in Thiruvananthapuram. He published more than 360 scientific papers.

According to the Indian newspaper the Hindu, survivors include his wife, Yashoda, and two children, Madan and Mala.

Dr. Rao received two of Indias highest civilian honors, the Padma Bhushan in 1976 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2017, and was inducted into the halls of fame of the Society of Satellite Professionals International and the International Astronautical Federation.

We started modestly and built step by step, he told the Times in 1986, recalling the space programs early years. There was a lot of criticism along the way. But today everyone is convinced that this is the best way to meet the countrys needs.
Three women were in U.S. Park Police custody Tuesday after a police chase tied to an earlier robbery, authorities said.

One of the women was hospitalized after a struggle with an officer, Park Police spokeswoman Sgt. Anna Rose said. In addition to the robbery, authorities were investigating why an officer fired his weapon on the scene, Rose said.

Rose said that about 3 a.m., officers began chasing a vehicle matching the description for a robbery that occurred in the 3400 block of Minnesota Ave. SE. The chase concluded on 19th Street Southeast between P and Q Streets, Rose said.

As police apprehended the three women, one officer fired his weapon, Rose said. No one was injured as a result of the guns firing, she said. But in a separate struggle with officers, a woman was injured and was taken to a hospital.

D.C. police are investigating the robbery, Rose said. Park Police are investigating the weapons firing. Rose said she could not comment on why the weapon was fired or the circumstances surrounding the struggle.

Rose said Park Police investigate any use of force, including whether the firing of a weapon is justified.
A man speaking Arabic was threatened and assaulted in Rockville Sunday in what Montgomery County police said is being investigated as a hate crime.

They said the man suffered minor injuries in the attack, which did not involve a weapon.

According to police, the incident occurred about 4 p.m. as the man and his wife were walking on the sidewalk on Rollins Avenue, near E. Jefferson Street.

The victim told police that he and his wife were speaking Arabic as they passed a man who was standing on the sidewalk. Police said the victim told them that the man made derogatory marks about Muslims to him and his wife.

After attacking the victim, the man ran toward Rockville Pike. The victim declined medical treatment, police said.

A description of the assailant said he was a white man, from 37 to 43 years old, five feet 10, with a muscular build. He wore blue jeans and a black vest over a white T-shirt.
Charlottesville Police Chief Al S. Thomas Jr., shown on Saturday, said Monday that his force had to adjust quickly as circumstances changed at the rally. (Win Mcnamee/Getty Images)

The Charlottesville police chief defended his departments response to the mayhem triggered by a white-nationalist rally in the Virginia city this weekend, responding to criticism that his officers did not do enough to prevent the bloodshed.

Police Chief Al S. Thomas Jr. said he regretted the loss of life after the violence ended in the death of a Charlottesville woman hit by a driver accused of ramming into counterprotesters, and the deaths of two Virginia state troopers killed when the helicopter they were in monitoring the rally crashed.

Thomas said organizers of the Unite the Right rally did not follow what the chief said had been an agreed-upon plan that involved controlling the demonstrators access to Emancipation Park through a rear entrance.

When rally attendees started coming in from all sides Saturday morning, the chief said, his officers had to alter their plans and transition into protective gear from the street uniforms they were wearing. Protesters and counterprotesters converged in some pitched battles in the streets before Charlottesville police, backed by Virginia State Police, quelled the fighting.

Thomas said his force was never too far from the melee and had a very large footprint, intervening in street fights and evacuating the park.

Charlottesville police officers were originally on-site in their everyday uniforms, he said during a Monday afternoon news conference. We again were hoping that the members of the alt-right rally would cooperate with our safety plan of ingress and egress.

The Charlottesville Police Department has been pummeled by intense criticism since the calamity Saturday, with all sides accusing officers of reacting too slowly to the chaos in streets around the park and standing idly by as clashes erupted.

Thomas dismissed reports that officers were discouraged from making arrests. That is simply not true, he said.

The heavily armed demonstrators from the alt-right rally at the park and counterprotesters spilled into the streets by 11 a.m., throwing punches, beating one another with sticks, spraying chemical agents and drawing blood throughout downtown Charlottesville, as police tried to keep the groups separate, they said.

By then, city officials had declared the rally an unlawful assembly and the governor declared a state of emergency.

Thomas denied that his officers were intimidated by the firepower of the protesters, including the presence of militia with military-style semiautomatic rifles, but said it was prudent for them to change into riot gear before returning to confront the violence. After clearing the park, it took police about an hour to regain control of the streets, and officers begin following different groups of mutually combative troublemakers but did not specify who Thomas thought was ultimately responsible for initiating the violence.

It was a challenge, he said. We were spread thin once the groups dispersed.

Thomas said more than 250 calls for service came in, including from people injured when a driver rammed into a crowd of antiracism protesters on 4th Street, killing Heather Heyer, 32, and sending 19 others to the hospital.

James Alex Fields Jr., 20, of Ohio was denied bond Monday and is being held at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail on multiple felony charges, including second-degree murder, in the incident in which police allege he drove his Dodge Challenger through the crowd and fled the scene before his capture.

The police chief said the departments action plan called for the street crossing where Heyer was killed to be closed but it was less clear why it may have been open at the time Fields is accused of driving into the crowd at a high speed after a collision with another vehicle.

Asked whether he had regrets, Thomas said: Absolutely. . . . It was a tragic, tragic weekend. But when pressed by a reporter about whether his police officers were adequately prepared, the chief reiterated that his specific regret was the tragic outcome of the day.
A man running from D.C. police carjacked a motorist at gunpoint late Monday morning and was quickly arrested after crashing into another car along New York Avenue NE, according to authorities.

Police said they recovered a .45-caliber Hi-Point handgun and charged Kevin Hammond, 25, of Suitland, Md., with armed carjacking, carrying a handgun without a license, unauthorized use of a vehicle and leaving the scene of an accident.

The incident began about 7 a.m., when officers were on the lookout for a white Ford work van with Apartment Turnover Inc on the side. The vehicle had been reported taken during a home-invasion robbery in Prince Georges County.

Police saw the van parked next to a rental storage facility in the 2000 block of Fairview Avenue NE, in the Ivy City neighborhood. The location is one block off New York Avenue.

Police said a man was in the vehicle.

Seeing the officers, authorities said, the man sped off in the vehicle, which then crashed. He got out of the van, climbed a six-foot fence topped with razor wire and ran west on New York Avenue.

Police said the man confronted the driver of a Toyota Camry, struck the driver in the face with a handgun and took the vehicle.

Police said he drove recklessly a high rate of speed and struck another vehicle a few blocks away. Hammond was arrested about a block away.

Police did not say how the gun was recovered. Details on the home-invasion case were not immediately available.

Police shut down New York Avenue, a main thoroughfare in and out of the District, for about an hour after the incident.
A man who was shot and wounded by a D.C. police officer during a foot pursuit Monday evening in Southeast Washington produced a gun after he had climbed a fence, according to a police report.

The officer, fearing for his safety, fired and struck the man in the upper leg, police said. The man was identified as Kevontae Stewart, 19, of Southeast.

On Tuesday, police charged Stewart with assault on a police officer while armed and carrying a handgun without a license. Officers recovered a P95 Ruger handgun loaded with 11 bullets, the police report said.

A uniformed officer responded about 6 p.m. to a drug complaint in the 2600 block of Naylor Road SE, the report said. Stewart ran as the officer approached, police said.

The officer chased Stewart, who at one point climbed a high iron fence, injuring his hands, the report said. He then produced a firearm. Fearing for his safety, [the officer] fired his issued service weapon one time, the report said.

Police put a tourniquet on the wound, and Stewart was taken to a hospital. His injuries are not believed to be life threatening. The shooting is being investigated by the Internal Affairs Bureau. Authorities declined to identify the officer who fired.

D.C. police say they have shot at seven people this year, striking six and killing two.
Maryland gubernatorial candidate Ben Jealous, a former NAACP president, and Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-Ill.) were among 27 arrested at an immigration protest near the White House on Tuesday, authorities said.

At least 80 people joined a march defending the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which granted deportation reprieves to hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants, often called dreamers, who came to the United States as children. The fate of the program under President Trump, who has criticized it, is unclear.

[GOP officials in 10 states push Trump administration to end DACA program]

Twenty-seven of the protesters were arrested, according to a spokeswoman for the U.S. Park Police.

Jealous, who announced his bid for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in May, was the first protester arrested, according to Yanet Amanuel, a recent University of Maryland graduate who was there. Amanuel said Jealous and the others were detained after they refused to move from a sidewalk.

Ben has been a supporter of dreamers in particular and ensuring that they are able to prosper and access the same rights as any other American, particularly in situations where America is the only home theyve ever had, said Kevin Harris, a spokesman for Jealous.

Around 4 p.m., Gutierrezs office tweeted that he was still in US Park Police custody after being arrested.
A Maryland man accused of accepting nearly $9,000 from foreign entities to finance a terrorist attack in the United States has pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material support to the Islamic State.

Mohamed Yousef Elshinawy, 32, of Edgewood, pledged his allegiance to the militant group and received cash from foreign companies run by people looking to develop weaponized drones, according to federal court records outlining the government's allegations.

Elshinawy, a U.S. national of Egyptian descent, had kept in touch with a childhood friend who was a self-described member of the Islamic State, court records stated. Through social media conversations in 2015, he asked his friend to tell the groups leadership that he was one of their soldiers and committed to violent jihad, the records state.

[Maryland man accused of receiving $9,000 from ISIS to carry out attack on American soil]

From March to June 2015, companies based in Britain and Bangladesh began sending Elshinawy cash to carry out an attack in the United States, prosecutors said. The money was disguised in a bid to evade government detection, authorities said. In one instance, a cash transfer was made to look like a purchase of printers, court records stated.

At one point, Elshinawy asked his friend for advice on how to obtain an explosive device and silencer and tried to recruit his brother to join the Islamic State, the government said.

He said his project and desire was to wage violent jihad and die as a martyr, court records filed by the government asserted.

[Held on charges of supporting ISIS, he says the FBI trapped him in its own terror plot]

When the FBI detained Elshinawy and asked him about the transfers and communications, he gave false information about the amount of money he received, saying he planned to scam the Islamic State out of it, court records state. After speaking with federal law enforcement, he wiped out his social media communications and attempted to tip off his friend that he had been revealed and uncovered, the government said.

Elshinawys attorney could not be reached for comment.

Elshinawy, who also pleaded guilty to collection of terrorism financing and making false statements in a terrorism matter, faces up 48 years in prison.
Fairfax County police have released a sketch of a man they believe abducted and sexually assaulted a 5-year-old girl on Sunday.

The man took the girl from a common area of an apartment complex in the 6700 block of Tower Drive in the Alexandria section of Fairfax County around 5 p.m. on Sunday and transferred her to another location, where the assault occurred, police said.

A family member noticed the girl was missing and she returned a short-time later and told the family what had happened, police said.

It seems to be one of those rare cases of a true stranger abduction, said Officer Reem Awad, a spokeswoman for the Fairfax County police.

Police were not able to say if the girl was lured from the common area or forcibly taken.

Police released this sketch of a man they believe sexually assaulted a 5-year-old girl. (Fairfax County Police)

The suspect is described as a light-skin Hispanic male in his mid-20s to early 30s. He is approximately 5-foot-8 to 5-foot-9 and weighs 200 pounds. The suspect is clean-shaven and has black hair.
A D.C. police officer shot and wounded someone Monday evening after a chase in Southeast Washington, police said.

The person, described only as male, was taken to a hospital with a wound that did not appear to be life-threatening, a D.C. police spokeswoman said.

The shooting, at about 6:25 p.m., occurred after police were called to the 2600 block of Naylor Road SE, for what was said to be a drug complaint, the spokeswoman said. When police arrived, someone ran away, and one or more officers followed.

In an initial account, a police spokeswoman said the individual produced a gun. However, in a brief news conference at the scene, police Commander David Taylor, who heads the police sixth district, later said only that a weapon has been recovered.

He said that the investigation was in its preliminary stages, and that more information would be provided.

Police took one person into custody, the spokeswoman said.
Two fatal shootings in less than a week in Anacostias central business district have unnerved residents and left a local leader worried that the violence could derail the historic neighborhoods attempt to overcome a dangerous reputation.

Kenneth Ronald Davis, 22, was shot Aug. 9 at Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. and W St. in Southeast. Donta McNeil, 31, was shot a block away on Monday sitting in a green Mercedes-Benz at Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. and U St.

Davis was killed about 1 a.m. McNeil was shot at 12:30 p.m., during the middle of the lunch hour, steps from a D.C. government housing office and near a proposed development featuring a new technology company, restaurant, grocery store and spa.

Talk of the future mentions a Busboys and Poets restaurant possibly in 2018, and at some point perhaps, a raised park along the pillars of the old 11th Street Bridge, something like New York Citys High Line.

During the Districts murderous years of the late 1980s and early 1990s, Anacostia was synonymous with crime. That stigma has eroded over the past several years.

Anacostia is on the rebound, said Troy Donte Prestwood, who chairs the Advisory Neighborhood Commission. Were trying desperately to leave those bad old days behind. We know there are great days ahead. . . . Were trying not to go backward.

The shooting of McNeil, who lived in Southeast, was one of four shootings Monday that killed one person and injured three others. The fatal shooting occurred shortly after 10 p.m. in the 4300 block of Second Street NE, north of the Catholic University of America.

[Two men shot, killed in Southeast, Northeast Washington]

Police said Petros Gurmessa Amessa, 58, of Northeast was robbed at gunpoint as he walked with a friend.

The victim resisted and the suspect shot him once in the torso, D.C. Police Lt. Matthew Domas said on the departments community Internet bulletin board. Amessa was pronounced dead at a hospital. His family could not be reached for an interview.

Violent crime has decreased by 26 percent in the District this year. The city has had 74 homicides, down from 85 at the same point in 2016.

In Anacostia, violent crime has plunged 58 percent in 2017, with sharp drops in armed robberies and gun assaults. But homicides remain even with last year, at four.

Authorities have not linked any of the killings or publicly discussed possible motives. Police said there is no immediate reason to think the shootings of Davis and McNeil are related, but detectives are examining the possibility because of the proximity in the deaths.

McNeil was released from the D.C. jail in March after the U.S. attorneys office dismissed a second-degree murder charge filed in October 2015 against him in connection with a shooting in Barry Farm during an argument at a dice game.

Prosecutors alleged that McNeil had shot Antonio Dean, 24, after a witness told police he saw a man point a gun at Dean, then watched as the two men walked into a residence, heard gunshots and saw the suspect exit. McNeils attorney argued in court papers that no one saw the shooting, and he said that police had improperly influenced the witness by showing him one mugshot of his client.

Prosecutors dismissed the case before a judge could rule. Bill Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. attorneys office, said his office had insufficient evidence to go forward at the time.

Said Prestwood: Is there fear in the community? Absolutely. People are generally afraid because the violence seems to random. . . . We want to find out the latest in the investigation into who did it. 
Its a slightly comical transportation system in the bowels of the U.S. Capitol that few Americans know exists: the Senate subway system. Not subway like Metro  but two sets of tracks that carry underground trains ferrying lawmakers from Senate chambers to their office buildings, less than a third of a mile away.

And its the unlikely backdrop to the tumultuous Capitol Hill legislative goings-on of the past seven months.

The subway and its adjoining no-frills, fluorescent-lit station platform have long been a gathering place for the swarm of Capitol Hill journalists, aides and lobbyists who aim to pounce on senators as they disembark from trams or hitch a ride in the same car as a fellow lawmaker, hoping to bend an ear for the 90-second ride from one station to another.

But at a time when Congress has all but abandoned regular order  with legislation crafted in secret, public hearings placed on the back burner and pivotal actions determined by razor-thin vote margins  the transit-station jockeying has taken on new levels of intensity and importance.

Stand at the bank of trains long enough and youll get a momentary reading on the state of American politics: Theres former House speaker Newt Gingrich, setting off a flurry of speculative tweets when hes spotted disembarking from a train to the Capitol. Theres Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), jumping over the live tracks to ditch a gaggle of reporters seeking details on the Affordable Care Act repeal vote.

In the Senate subway, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) answers questions from persistent journalists on a day when the Senate health-care bill is the topic of the day on Capitol Hill. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

There are warnings from the Senate Media Gallery that the subway platforms are too crowded with the hordes of journalists seeking reactions to President Trumps latest tweets. A lobbyist, waiting for one of the trains, turns to a slightly bewildered-looking police officer.

Is it me, she says, or are things really crazy here today?

And there, in the middle of the night, minutes before a climactic vote last month on the repeal of Obamacare, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has a heart-to-heart with Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) as they make their way from the Russell Senate Office Building to the Senate chambers, a conversation so meaningful that Murphy later said he plans to share it with his grandchildren.

The subway tunnels snaking underneath the Capitol have always been busy, said Donald A. Ritchie, the Senate historian emeritus. But of late, the system has reached new levels of stardom.

Its a little like Times Square down there now, Ritchie said.

[Inside the heaving, jostling Capitol media mob: We are one tripped senator away from disaster.]

The feverish atmosphere may be new, but the underlying infrastructure is not. The need to build an underground Capitol transportation network came more than 100 years ago, when new office buildings were being built beside the Capitol to meet the demands of lawmakers seeking their own office space. To win over the senators miffed at the prospect of exile in an adjacent building, architects came up with a compromise: The government would build a transportation system to ferry lawmakers back and forth to the Senate for casting votes, a chore that sometimes takes place several times per day.

With her daughter on her lap, Sen. Tammy Duckworth moves through mobs of journalists in the Senate subway to vote on the Senate floor. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

The tunnel to the offices first featured electric Studebaker automobiles; later, officials switched to trains on tracks out of concern that a lawmaker would one day get mowed over by a careering car.

After multiple rounds of expansions and upgrades, there are now two types of trains on the Senate side: an open-air tram to the Russell building driven by operators who ping-pong back-and-forth all day, and a Disneyland-style driverless train that runs from the Capitol to the Dirksen and Hart office buildings.

Back when the tunnels were first built, such an investment in infrastructure for a rarefied few seemed excessive.

And now, to many, it still seems like an excessive expense. But Ritchie defended the system.

If the Capitol had been designed as a 60-story building, youd have a bank of elevators and you wouldnt be surprised, he said.

[Some senators need a lift, others use the elevator to go bunning for cover]

Many of the design changes over the years have reflected shifts in Congresss cultural sensibilities. After Margaret Chase Smith (R-Maine) joined the Senate 1949, plexiglass shields were installed on the open-air trains. (Gusts from the 15-mph train rides mussed her hair to the point that she sat with her head ducked low in the cab.)

And the newer set of cars were designed for accessibility, which helped accommodate lawmakers such as former senator Max Cleland (D-Ga.), a Vietnam War veteran who had lost both legs and his right forearm and used a wheelchair during his time in the Senate.

Some politicians refusal to use the subway served as a political message. Former senator Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) refused to take the train in a protest against government waste and forbid his staff from riding too. Hard-charging former senators Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) were both known for skipping the trains to power-walk through the adjacent tunnel walkways.

And occasionally, the Senate subway has been a place of confrontation. In 1950, as Smith prepared to give a speech on the growing risks that McCarthyism posed to freedom of speech, she was approached by none other than Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.) as she boarded the train to the Capitol.

Margaret, you look very serious, Smith later recalled McCarthy saying. Are you going to make a speech?

Yes, she responded, and you will not like it.

According to Smith, McCarthy used the rest of the subway ride to make threatening remarks in an (ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to intimidate her from making the speech.

[The U.S. Capitols shadow army of nighttime workers]

But for the most part, the subway is a place of bipartisan goodwill.

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) recalled that his first meeting with Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) took place on a train. In his memoir, Franken called the transit run-in a real meet-cute  Grassleys opening line: You look just like you look on TV!  and the subway-train bonding session laid the groundwork for extensive legislative co-sponsorship.

Rushing out of the Capitol and back to his office last month, Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) said that hed occasionally time his subway ride strategically to catch a colleague and talk policy. Once, he said, he used the 90 seconds on the subway to persuade the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee to move a federal judge.

Weve gotten some deals done on the train, Cardin said. I mean, youre looking for somebody, and you know you have a captured audience for about a minute. For the Senate, thats a long time.

And Ritchie, the historian, has caught more than one heartwarming senatorial moment inside a packed Capitol Hill train. One time, he said, he stepped into a subway car and encountered a group of senators on their way to vote on a bill  doomed to fail  that would have ceded the District of Columbia to Maryland.

One lawmaker turned to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and quipped: Bernie, why doesnt Vermont take the District?

Oh, no, were planning to annex Quebec, Sanders shot back, according to Ritchie.

The banter proceeded among the senators, with more and more preposterous proposals, until Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) piped up.

Whatever you do, Cochran said, chuckling, dont secede. We tried it, and it doesnt work.

That type of idle joking and banter, Ritchie said, is an important part of fostering civility across the political aisle.

The real problem is that theres so little social time between them, outside of the legislative process, Ritchie said. Those few 90 seconds on the trains may be one of the very few off-camera moments they have when they can actually joke with each other. You have to make the most of that time.

Those interactions, however, might be growing increasingly rare. Bipartisanship in Congress is arguably at an all-time low. The senatorial gentility of yore has, at times, given way to the rancor and harsh words of the Twitter age.

And then, theres the most troublesome shift of all: the advent of the Fitbit.

As Cardin power-walked down the walkway next to the Dirksen-Hart subway line, he admitted that he hardly ever rides the train anymore.

The senator lifted his hand and pointed to the slim black band on his wrist.

I gotta get my steps in, he said, as another train zoomed by.

[Aug. 1994: Is the Senate subway going down the tubes?]
@amysherman1

Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, a conservative group, is targeting U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat, and U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a Miami Republican, in digital ads urging them to support tax reform.

The ads target House Ways and Means lawmakers who have expressed support for comprehensive tax reform, but who have yet to take a stand against the Border Adjustment Tax on imported goods, according to Freedom Partners. The ads, which also target key Senate members, target members from both parties and in Florida also includes U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan.

Freedom Partners supports a series of changes to taxes including lowering individual and corporate rates, eliminating most tax credits and deductions and the estate tax and taxes on gifts.

When asked for his opinion about the proposed changes, Curbelo's spokeswoman Joanna Rodriguez replied: Congressman Curbelo is still reviewing all the different proposals and concepts for comprehensive tax reform. His goal is a simpler, fairer tax code that leads to greater economic growth, prosperity, and opportunity for Florida families and employers.

Freedom Partners Action Fund, a super PAC, helped Curbelo in the 2014 race by attacking his Democratic rival U.S. Rep. Joe Garcia.
James Alex Fields Jr., second from left, at a white supremacist rally. He allegedly later drove a car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing one person and injuring many more. Vanguard America, a white supremacist group with whom Fields congregated, denies that he was a member. (Alan Goffinski/AP)

James Alex Fields Jr. held up a black shield emblazoned with Vanguard Americas logo, and he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with members of the self-proclaimed fascist group as they formed a barrier around a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee. At the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville on Saturday, Fields also sported the unofficial uniform of the group: a white polo shirt and khaki pants.

Soon after, Fields allegedly drove a car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing a 32-year-old woman and injuring at least 19 people. Vanguard America was quick to say Fields was not a member of the group and had nothing to do with the contingent at the rally. He had simply walked up and grabbed a shield  which he displayed upside down, as shown in photos  and stood a post with Vanguard.

The driver of the vehicle that hit counter protesters today was, in no way, a member of Vanguard America, the group said in a statement on Twitter. The shields seen do not denote membership, nor does the white shirt. The shields were freely handed out to anyone in attendance.

The secretive organization has been emerging publicly since the presidential election, starting with white nationalist fliers on several college campuses and recruiting on a website that vilifies Jews, racial minorities, gays and multiculturalism. Group members have been rallying alongside neo-Nazis, white nationalists and white supremacists, and its members have been seen in images on social media  faces often blurred  as groups of young white men waving black flags and wearing black hats emblazoned with a Vanguard America white eagle logo.

[We have a right to exist. White supremacist fliers reported at U-Md.]

Men who say they are members of the Vanguard America organization pose in Washingtons Lafayette Square on May 12. They declined to give their names or show their faces. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)

Despite the groups presence at numerous white nationalist rallies, the most notable being the Charlottesville event, it is unclear how many members Vanguard America has or what broader influence it has achieved. The groups website rails against the loss of white control of the United States and proclaims white Americas right to exist.

Leaders claim to have more than 100 members nationwide, many of them in the Washington region and in Texas, but they have declined The Washington Posts requests for reporters to attend membership meetings. Five men who said they are members of Vanguard met with Post reporters on the Mall this year; all wore masks and some wore sunglasses. They almost always speak anonymously.

Dillon Irizarry, 29, a Marine veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and identifies himself as the groups president, said in a Skype interview Monday that his is a political group that does not call for or condone violence. He said that Fields has nothing to do with Vanguard, which says it has strict membership criteria, including that applicants be employed, not smoke or drink, or display hand or neck tattoos. Irizarry legally changed his name to Dillon Ulysses Hopper in 2006 and served in the military using that name, according to court and military records.

A spokesman for Irizarry said no one using Fieldss name ever applied to join Vanguard: I can assure you if he did apply, by his actions, he seems psychotic. He would not have gotten in.

Fields obtained the Vanguard shield in Charlottesville because of a communications error, the spokesman said. Vanguard equipment was distributed to any person who asked or who showed up.

[One dead as car strikes crowds amid protests of white nationalist gathering in Charlottesville; two police officers die in helicopter crash]

The Vanguard leader who made the decision to distribute shields to nonmembers  including Fields  is now being drummed out of the organization, Irizarry said. The reason this person was photographed with us was due to leadership being incompetent, Irizarry said.

While arguing that counterprotesters were responsible for some of the violence Saturday, Irizarry and his spokesman condemned the vehicle attack.

Personally, Im disgusted, the spokesman said. We obviously do not condone violence. We dont tell our members to do this kind of stuff. We are a political movement . . . nothing more.

The groups manifesto states that it is not an advocate of lawlessness and does not condone or endorse the use of criminal activity. It also says that members who wish to commit criminal acts are expelled, and those left are those who assuredly respect the law.

By distancing itself from Fields, Vanguard acknowledged that white nationalist movements are attracting unaffiliated people  many of them young men  whose motives range from political demonstration to hatred to violence. And because much of the recruitment for the rallies is done online, it can draw anyone from anywhere. In this case, Fields drove from Ohio and was able to blend in immediately.

Oren Segal, director of the Anti-Defamation Leagues Center on Extremism, said Vanguard America is loosely organized and not particularly coherent. Much of its organizing targets 18- to 24-year-olds, he said.

Segal, who tweeted a New York Daily News photo showing Fields at the rally, said whether he was an official Vanguard America member is in some ways irrelevant.

You have this individual dressed like a white supremacist, holding a white supremacist symbol and hanging out with white supremacists, he said. Whether he was a member or not, that was his crew for that day.

Irizarry, whom the ADL also identifies as the groups leader, said Vanguard has a centralized application procedure. Its website  removed from its host Monday and republished on another host as of Tuesday morning  lists requirements, saying members must be at least 80% White/European heritage, and that the group prohibits homosexuals, transsexual, adulterers, or any other form of sexual degeneracy, as well as criminals and those with addictions.

Vanguard makes clear that it is a white nationalist group that seeks a nation for our people.

A multicultural nation is no nation at all, but a collection of smaller ethnic nations ruled over by an overbearing tyrannical state, the group says on its website. Our America is to be a nation exclusively for the White American peoples who out of the barren hills, empty plains, and vast mountains forged the most powerful nation to ever have existed. Vanguard America stands indomitably opposed to the tyranny of globalism and capitalism, a system under which nations are stripped of their heritage and their people are turned into nothing more than units of cheap, expendable labor.

But members say they do not want to appear as neo-Nazis. They want respect.

 Fascist is an accurate term, said a man who identified himself as Francisco Rivera, speaking in front of the White House in May. Rivera, who said he is a spokesman for Vanguard Americas Virginia branch, also appeared at an anti-sharia rally in Harrisburg, Pa., in June, giving a speech to about a dozen people there. The lying press and the feeble politicians preach at us that we need more multiculturalism, Rivera said. To them we say . . . we will take action to defend our country.

[Anti-sharia demonstrators hold rallies in cities across the country]

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, said in May that its information on Vanguard America was sketchy. Heidi Beirich, director of the SPLCs Intelligence Project, said that Vanguard America does not have a membership list.

There has been a bit of a sea change in the white supremacist world in the last few years, Beirich said. She said that five or six years ago, she thought that the movement was dying but that it has since been infused with a new generation of adherents.

Julie Tate contributed to this report.
Jessica Leveto, chair of Moving Forward Together, a grass-roots group in Ohio, watches people sign petitions at the Harbor Perk Coffeehouse in Ashtabula. (Maddie McGarvey/FOR THE WASHINGTON POST)

When Susan Kroger decided to help launch a political activism group for women in her largely rural, pro-Trump region, she expected a few dozen liberal neighbors to show up.

But when she opened the doors at the groups first community meeting in Sioux Falls, S.D., 100 people flooded into the room. Now nine months later, Kroger says the group has quickly grown to 2,300 active members.

Its a story emerging across Trump country, where left-leaning grass-roots groups have popped up in some of the reddest parts of the nation  a sign that the resistance has gone rural.

Most surprisingly, Kroger said, some of her newest members are disappointed Trump voters. The uncertainty over health-care policy has become a top issue driving first-time activists to join their ranks, Kroger and other grass-roots organizers said.

The exciting thing about our events is that every time we hold one, I always ask Who here is new? and about half the people raise their hand, said Kroger, co-chair of LEAD South Dakota, an abbreviation for Leaders Engaged and Determined. Ive heard from a few women who voted for Trump and have since had a change of heart.

(McKenna Ewen,Whitney Leaming,Whitney Shefte/The Washington Post)

[New poll of rural Americans shows deep cultural divide with urban centers ]

Donald Trump won 60 percent of rural voters in the 2016 presidential election, slightly more than Mitt Romney in 2012 and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in 2008. But since then, the presidents national approval rating has slipped to 39 percent in late July, according to Gallup, helping to explain why political activism groups are flourishing in some places that turned out heavily in Trumps favor during the election.

Results of a Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll suggest that Trump has long been on shaky ground in parts of rural America. Rural respondents to the April poll were as likely to strongly disapprove of Trumps job as president as to strongly approve, 30 percent each. When broken down by gender, rural women reported a slightly higher disapproval than rural men, perhaps why many of the grass-roots groups are led by women.

Kelly Sullivan, a 30-year-old restaurant server in Sioux Falls and member of LEAD, noted that rural America has long been politically diverse, but the recent surge of political activism has made it more noticeable.

People like us in smaller places and people that are in the rural communities, were just the same as the big city slickers, Sullivan said of her fellow rural activists. The feeling that were not being represented, or the feeling that the current administration is doing things that we disagree with, were on the same page as the people who are in the big cities.

[Rural America lifted trump to the presidency. Support is strong, but not monolithic]

Trump won all but five of the 66 counties in South Dakota  including Minnehaha, the county in which Sioux Falls, a city of about 170,000 people, is located. The state gave Trump one of the highest approval ratings in the country during his first six months in office  54 percent, according to Gallup.

Still, Sullivan said a resistance effort has been building in the state since Trump was elected. In January, she co-chaired a local march in conjunction with the national womens march, attracting nearly 3,300 demonstrators to downtown Sioux Falls in 30 degree temperatures. Sullivan said the experience  seeing the sea of like-minded people  transformed her from a person who never dreamed of being politically active to someone who uses her spare time to call lawmakers. She is also preparing for her own run for a state legislative seat next year.

LEAD South Dakota has a nine-person board of directors and committees tasked with monitoring state legislative activity, candidate recruitment and other efforts. So far, the group is working with 75 candidates who are interested in running for office and is planning to break into chapters across the state to help manage its rapid growth.

I was absolutely surprised to see the groundswell here in South Dakota, Kroger said. I have some experience in politics so I know how it feels to be the little guy in a state where you very much feel like the minority.

In Ohio, Moving Forward Together Ashtabula County, a grass-roots group affiliated with the nationwide Trump resistance movement Indivisible, has also exceeded its leaders initial expectations.

When Moving Forward hosted its first community forum in May, a panel to discuss concerns about health care and immigration, I was afraid it would be three people and a sign, said the groups chair, Jessica Leveto. The forum took place in Jefferson, Ohio  a rural town of about 3,000 people, in a county that cast 57 percent of its votes for Trump.

Nearly 125 people showed up, Leveto said.

[In rural America, fewer immigrants and less tolerance]

Moving Forward started in a local coffee shop in February, and within two weeks  with a few social media posts and through word of mouth  its numbers outgrew the space, said Leveto, an assistant professor of sociology at Kent State University at Ashtabula.

Leveto points to Mays Affordable Care Act repeal vote as an indicator of her groups growing muscle. Despite routinely following party line votes, Ashtabulas congressman, U.S. Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio), was among the 20 Republicans who did not vote in favor of the repeal.

I think we had something to do with that, Leveto said. I dont think it was just our group, but the groups in the district. I think there were a lot of phone calls.

Joyce did not return requests for comment.

Rural political action organizers say a health-care revision is a dominant issue that has galvanized their groups because members are concerned that rural citizens will be largely affected by any changes. Leveto said, specifically, many attendees at her groups May event wanted answers on how an overhaul might effect the areas fight against the opioid crisis.

In The Post -Kaiser poll, 95 percent of rural respondents said Medicaid is very or somewhat important to their communities. Thirteen percent said they rely on Medicaid themselves, compared to 10 percent of their urban and suburban counterparts, a statistically insignificant difference.

[Differences in black and white: rural Americans views often set apart by race]

Our communities are at risk, these are things that even in the South, we see the need to stand up and fight for the people in our community and I think thats something that transcends region, said Mandy Fowler, founding member of the Kudzu Coalition of West Alabama, a growing political action organization.

As an Indivisible group, the Kudzu Coalition hosts local forums, provides advocacy training and coordinates phone calls and emails to legislators. Its cornerstone event is a weekly demonstration called Show up Shelby, when members gather in the lobby of Republican Sen. Richard C. Shelbys Tuscaloosa office to call for a town hall meeting.

The group uses the name of the Kudzu plant, an invasive species common in the South that is resistant to most herbicides. Fowler said its an appropriate moniker in a state where nearly 63 percent of voters backed Trump.

We grow fast and we connect and we flourish in an area where it can be difficult for others to thrive. We are hard to get rid of, Fowler said.

The group spun off from a closed Facebook page that connected Alabamians who wanted to discuss their dissatisfaction with the election.

Especially in a red state, it can make things uncomfortable at work, school, places like that, where people are more Republican, said Kisha Emmanuel, a graduate student in Tuscaloosa who began following the page soon after the election. Shes now an active member of the Kudzu Coalition.

As the number of page followers grew, Fowler said she wanted to mobilize the energy she was seeing online and began in-person meetings in December.

Small town and rural mobilizing will probably yield results, said James Simmons, a professor at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh who recently researched voter trends and attitudes in rural areas.

If you look across the country, and you look at the real change that has happened over the last five or 20 years, it hasnt happened at the national level, you see policy driven at the state level, Simmons said. If youre talking about populist discontent, this is where it was bubbling.
@amysherman

Broward County Commissioners will hold a closed-door meeting Tuesday review a consultant's report about the Jan. 6 mass shooting at the Fort Lauderdale airport but it is unclear when the report will be released to the public.

County commissioners will hold a shade meeting at 10 a.m. to discuss the report followed by a news conference at 2 p.m. where county, airport and law enforcement officials will discuss the report prepared by consultant Ross & Baruzzini for Broward Countys Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (FLL). Under Florida's Sunshine law, the county can meet in private to discuss security at county facilities.

"The report is currently under review by Federal Authorities," airport spokesman Greg Meyer said. "We are hopeful that they will give us approval to release it in advance of the news conference."

A separate draft report by the Broward Sheriff's Office found poor communication by BSO and the Broward County Aviation Department, along with other mistakes, contributed to the chaos which left 12,000 passengers trapped in the airport for several hours. County officials disputed some of the allegations in the report.

The consultant's report is expected to include security recommendations which commissioners can use when they set the annual budget in September. Broward Sheriff Scott Israel is expected to join Mayor Barbara Sharief and airport director Mark Gale at the press conference.

Law enforcement apprehended Esteban Santiago in less than two minutes, but more chaos occurred about 90 minutes later amid a false report about another shooting.

Santiago faces trial in January.
Illinois state Rep. Reggie Phillips poses for a portrait in Charleston, Ill. He voted for a budget that included an income tax increase, triggering blowback from fellow Republicans. (Whitney Curtis/For The Washington Post)

Reggie Phillips had all the right qualifications to get elected to the state House from this rural community about 200 miles and a world away from Chicago. The silver-haired businessman was successful and self-made, a born-again Christian with a deeply conservative, low-tax message.

But that was in 2014. A two-year partisan standoff over the budget rattled his district, leaving the university that is its economic engine struggling for survival. So a few months into his second term as a member of the Illinois House, Phillips broke with most of the states other Republicans and voted for a budget that raised the state income tax 32 percent.

My choices were, let it burn or come back and fight another day, recalled Phillips, 64, sitting low in his chair in the dining room of a hotel he owns here. Im really not interested in seeing my state burn.

Phillips is not alone. Across the country, Republicans who had long adhered to anti-tax approaches are defying party orthodoxy and voting to raise taxes, bending in the face of dire financial problems plaguing their state budgets and pressure from constituents.

Kai Hung, who teaches at Eastern Illinois University, poses beneath exposed pipes and wiring  reminders of renovation that was never finished because of the states budget impasse. (Whitney Curtis/For The Washington Post)

[Its not just New Jersey and Illinois  many states are facing budget trouble]

In South Carolina, Indiana and Tennessee, Republicans voted to increase gas taxes. In Alaska, some Republicans proposed reinstating the income tax to fill a gaping hole in the budget caused by low oil prices. In Michigan, a dozen Republicans joined with Democrats in the legislature to sink a proposal to reduce the income tax.

Kansas most famously became a cautionary tale this year after the Republican-controlled legislature rolled back a series of dramatic tax cuts that did not turbocharge the economy  as Gov. Sam Brownback (R) had promised  but rather left the state in debt and schools underfunded.

[Kansas Republicans raise taxes, ending their GOP governors policy experiment]

The fight also is playing out in Washington, where Republicans who control Congress could take up tax reform as their next priority. President Trump has promised to enact the a huge tax cut, but he is expected to face resistance from moderates within his party.

The resistance is mounting within a faction of the GOP because Republicans are finding that the low-tax dogma they espouse either doesnt work or isnt favored by voters, said Bruce Bartlett, an economist who served in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations.

There are massive and growing pressures to spend money on things that people want government to spend money on, and there just isnt any way of doing that without raising revenue, Bartlett said. If you view tax cuts and spending increases as opposites, the trend has moved in the direction of spending, and that has changed the political calculation that raising taxes is a viable option.

But to hard-liners in the GOP, the actions of Republican defectors like Phillips amount to a betrayal of fundamental party values.

Whats been exposed is . . . there is this contingent within the GOP of big-government Republicans, said Dan Proft, an influential Republican strategist and conservative talk show host in Illinois. Theyre afraid to reduce, reshape, rescind benefits that have been conferred even if we cant afford them.

Proft is chairman of Liberty Principles, a powerful political action committee allied with Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner (R). The PAC endorsed Phillips in 2014 and 2016, but Proft said it will not do so in 2018. I like Reggie personally, hes a good guy and a decent legislator, but I think he should retire, Proft said.

Phillips has not said whether he will run for reelection. Of the 16 Illinois Republicans who voted for the budget compromise last month, six have announced plans to retire, Proft said. Days after the vote, Jeremy Yost, a Charleston businessman and Navy veteran, announced his intention to seek Phillipss seat, deriding the incumbent as a taxer and spender  an attack usually reserved for Democrats.

Phillips, a longtime Republican, said the criticism from the extreme right has been infuriating. The son of a factory worker, he supported himself through college doing construction work and now owns a hotel, a number of rental properties and a chain of assisted-living facilities.

In 2014, he decided to seek a seat in the state legislature with the notion that he could make the body run more like a business. He pledged to firmly oppose any tax increase unless it was accompanied by reforms favored by the governor, whose turnaround agenda includes spending cuts, reform of workers compensation and pensions, and a weakening of labor unions.

Upon taking office, Phillips said, he quickly realized that many of his aspirations were just fantasies while Democrats controlled the legislature. And that even within the Republican Party, it can be hard to be heard when you are a little-known junior House member from a rural district on the Indiana border.

I suppose I was naive, Phillips said.

Its not his only change of heart. Phillips campaigned on a promise to serve only two terms. But now he thinks terms should be limited to three or four so that members have time to gain influence and leadership positions.

The vote to pass the budget in Illinois came amid uniquely bleak circumstances. The Republican governor and the Democratic-controlled legislature had failed for more than two years to agree on a plan to address a gap in revenue and spending, with Rauner focusing on his reform agenda and Democrats insisting on a tax increase.

The impasse left the state $15 billion in debt and on the verge of seeing its credit rating downgraded to junk status. The state had no mechanism to pay what it owed to state agencies and social-service nonprofits, forcing them to take out loans or cut services. Universities, already suffering from plummeting enrollment, shed employees and shaved programs. Dentists all but stopped getting paid by the insurance plan that covers state employees; Illinois owed some of them hundreds of thousands of dollars.

With the help of the Republican defectors, the legislature passed a budget last month that included the tax increase but lacked some of Rauners reforms, leading the governor to veto it. Then, 11 of those defectors  among them Phillips  helped Democrats override Rauners veto.

If I decide to press my button to override the governor, it doesnt make me any less a conservative Republican than the rest of the people that stand in here, Phillips said on the floor before casting his veto override vote, according to a transcript by the Effingham Daily News. Ultimately, one has to vote for his district.

The stalemate had particularly squeezed rural communities like Charleston, where many residents are state workers. The town, which has a population of 21,000, was starting to see the trickle-down effect of the woes of its centerpiece, Eastern Illinois University  particularly the layoffs, which numbered more than 300, according to union figures.

Phillips said he held out as long as he could but finally decided to support the budget plan, in large part to rescue the university.

While many constituents thanked him for his vote, the blowback from conservatives was fierce.

Facebook began filling up with angry comments from friends and neighbors, calling him a traitor. In one particularly painful episode, a farmer whose daughter had dated Phillipss son for four years used crude language to suggest that he was beholden to the Democratic House speaker, Michael J. Madigan.

At the same time, many of those who pressured Phillips to support the budget were less than celebratory.

Jerri Boughan, a dentist from Lawrenceville, had pleaded with Phillips to support the budget. Because a number of her patients are state employees, she said, the government owes her about $120,000. More concerning, she said, was the fact that many of those patients were so embarrassed that their bills were going unpaid that they put off necessary visits.

Despite the budgets passage, the state has not said how it will reimburse her and other dentists. Yet her employees have already suffered the results of the tax increase.

I understand why Reggie went across party lines and tried to agree with someone to do something, because we were at a stalemate for three years. Someone had to give, she said. At the same time, I hate it for my employees that July 1, wham-bam, thank you, maam, they got an automatic 2 percent taken out of their paychecks.

Kai Hung, a biology professor and faculty union official at Eastern Illinois, said he is grateful that the impasse is over.

On the first floor of the life sciences building, which he said was constructed in 1964, he pointed up at a ceiling of exposed pipes and sagging electrical wires. That, he said, was the result of a modernization project that abruptly stopped when the state budget impasse struck.

I appreciate their vote, Hung said of Phillips and other Republican defectors. But I am not going to forget that for two years before that, they voted knowing . . . the kind of damage they are doing to their communities.

Today, the legislature is embroiled in another stalemate, this time over schools.

While the July budget authorized funding for K-12 education, lawmakers put off an acrimonious debate about how to divvy up that money across the state. Democrats in the Chicago area are seeking what they view as their students fair share, while the governor and Republicans accuse them of seeking a bailout because of the districts poor handling of the pension system.

This time, Phillips said, he is 100 percent behind the governor and has no plans to cross party lines.
ARIZONA

Trump says he might issue pardon for Arpaio

President Trump told Fox News that he is seriously considering issuing a pardon for former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted last month of criminal contempt for ignoring a judges order to stop detaining people because he merely suspected them of being undocumented immigrants.

Trump told the news outlet during a conversation in Bedminster, N.J., that the pardon could come quickly, perhaps in a matter of days. The news outlet reported the conversation on its website Monday. Trump said Arpaio is a great American patriot who has done a lot in the fight against illegal immigration.

Arpaio, 85, whose extreme stance and tactics on illegal immigration made him a household name, was convicted of criminal contempt last month by a federal judge in Arizona. He faces up to six months in prison at his sentencing, which is scheduled for Oct. 5.

Jack Wilenchik, Arpaios attorney, did not immediately respond to phone and email messages seeking comment Monday. A White House spokeswoman did not immediately answer an email seeking comment. A Justice Department spokeswoman said she was not aware of the presidents remarks but would wait until action was taken before commenting.

Arpaio told Fox News, I would accept the pardon because I am 100 percent not guilty.

The former sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz., has long been an advocate for Trump and spoke in support of him at the Republican National Convention in July.

 Matt Zapotosky

17 immigrants found locked in truck: Police in Texas acting on a tip found 17 immigrants locked inside a tractor-trailer parked at a gas station about 20 miles from the border with Mexico, less than a month after 10 people died in the back of a hot truck in San Antonio. Edinburg Assistant Police Chief Oscar Trevino told KGBT-TV that the immigrants from Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and Romania may have been locked inside the 18-wheeler in Edinburg for at least eight hours before being freed by officers late Sunday morning. None of the people inside the tractor-trailer required medical attention. A man and woman who Trevino said are Cuban nationals were in charge of the rig and have been detained.

Cybersecurity expert pleads not guilty: A British cybersecurity researcher credited with helping curb a recent worldwide ransomware attack pleaded not guilty Monday to U.S. federal charges accusing him of creating malicious software to steal banking information three years ago. Marcus Hutchins, 23, entered his plea in Wisconsin federal court, where prosecutors charged him and an unnamed co-defendant with conspiring to commit computer fraud in the state and elsewhere. He was arrested on Aug. 2 at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, on his way back to Britain after attending a cybersecurity convention. Hutchins was hailed as a hero four months ago when he found a kill switch to slow the outbreak of the WannaCry virus that crippled computers worldwide.

 From news services
SIERRA LEONE

Nearly 400 bodies found after mudslide

Rescue workers have recovered nearly 400 bodies from a mudslide on the outskirts of Sierra Leones capital, Freetown, the chief coroner said Tuesday, as morgues struggled to find space for all of the dead.

Dozens of houses were buried when a mountainside collapsed in the town of Regent on Monday morning, one of the deadliest natural disasters in Africa in recent years.

President Ernest Bai Koroma urged residents of Regent and other flooded areas near Freetown to evacuate so that crews could continue to search for survivors. Hundreds of people remain missing, aid agencies said.

As the search continues, we have collected nearly 400 bodies, but we anticipate more than 500, the chief coroner, Seneh Dumbuya, said.

Bodies continued to arrive Tuesday at Freetowns overwhelmed central morgue. To relieve pressure on the morgue, authorities and aid agencies were preparing to bury the bodies in four cemeteries across Freetown, said an emergency response coordinator for Catholic Relief Services.

Volunteers search for bodies from the scene of heavy flooding and mudslides in Regent, just outside of Sierra Leone's capital of Freetown. Hundreds of people remained missing Tuesday. (Manika Kamara/AP)

 Reuters

SOUTH AFRICA

Zimbabwes first lady is accused of assault

The wife of Zimbabwes president has been accused of assaulting a young woman at an upscale hotel in South Africa, though she did not show up for court Tuesday as police had indicated.

It was not clear where Grace Mugabe was. Minister of Police Fikile Mbalula said in a video posted by a local broadcaster that Mugabe had handed herself over to police. But a police spokesman later said that no arrest had been made and that police were talking with Mugabes attorneys.

The case draws yet more attention to the increasingly outspoken wife of the worlds oldest head of state, Robert Mugabe, 93. Last month, she challenged her husband publicly to name a successor, positioning herself as a possibility ahead of next years election.

Gabriella Engels, a 20-year-old model, has accused Grace Mugabe of assaulting her Sunday night while she was visiting mutual friends of Mugabes sons in a hotel room in an upscale Johannesburg suburb. She alleges that the first ladys bodyguards stood by and watched as Mugabe attacked her.

Engels posted photos on social media showing a gash on her forehead that she attributed to the alleged incident.

It was unclear whether Mugabe would qualify for diplomatic immunity if charges are filed or whether she was still in South Africa or had returned home.

Mugabe has been accused of assaults during other overseas trips, including a 2009 visit to Hong Kong in which a photographer accused her of beating him up.

 Associated Press

ICC orders arrest of commander loyal to Libyan general: The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for a Libyan commander said to have been involved in the killing of 33 captives in cold blood this year. Mahmoud al-Warfalli heads an anti-terrorism unit under Khalifa Hifter, who commands a self-styled national army that is battling Islamist militants in eastern Libya and who is allied with a government based in the east. Warfalli is suspected of links with killings in the eastern city of Benghazi. The ICC says his actions have been featured in several videos posted online.

Iran freezes local assets of BBCs Farsi service staff: An Iranian court order has frozen the local assets of more than 150 people associated with the BBCs Farsi-language service, the British broadcaster said, the latest effort by Tehran to crack down on the services popular newscasts. The BBC said the order banned current and former staffers, as well as contributors, from selling or buying property, cars and other goods. The order came to light only when a relative of a BBC Persian employee tried to sell a property on their behalf, the broadcaster said.

Pakistans ex-leader challenges disqualification by court: A Pakistani official said former prime minister Nawaz Sharif has filed three petitions with the Supreme Court to challenge his disqualification and removal from office. The court disqualified Sharif after documents leaked from a Panama-based law firm showed that his family held previously undisclosed overseas assets. A five-judge panel last month disqualified Sharif, accusing him of concealing assets. Sharif held rallies across the country last week, criticizing the court ruling and seeking to whip up popular support.

 From news services
JAMAHRI SYDNOR was in that wonderful moment before a new world opens up, just counting down the days before enrolling at Florida A&M University. At 17 years old, she reached this turning point with an unusual amount of spirit and verve, a graduate of Woodrow Wilson High School, the captain of the cheerleading squad, a member of the choir who helped the group win a top award at a competition this summer in New York and a peer counselor who helped classmates through tough times. Her voice boomed with enthusiasm, and she was the kind of person, a friend recalled, whom you looked for if you were having a bad day.

She seems to have done so many things right for a young person in todays fraught world.

On Thursday at 3:32 in the afternoon, she was driving a young relative home in a white Nissan Versa sedan on a tree-lined stretch of Saratoga Avenue NE, in Brentwood. Two gunmen stood up from bushes on the side of the street. They carried .40-caliber and .45-caliber handguns and opened fire at a group across the street. Twelve bullets were fired as the car passed.

One of the bullets crashed through the glass of the Nissan and hit Ms. Sydnor in the head. The car smacked into another as she lost control. She died on Saturday in a hospital. Her passenger was showered in glass; another bystander was injured. The shooters disappeared. The next day, a suspect, Philip Carlos McDaniel, 21, was arrested and charged with assault with intent to kill. Court documents show that he denied to police he was the shooter but said he drove two men to the spot just before the incident. Police are searching for the two.

In a single moment of horrible violence, Ms. Sydnors life was taken and her dreams extinguished. To say the bullet was a stray or that Ms. Sydnor was an innocent bystander does not do justice to the fact it was fired deliberately on a city street in daytime by men with intent to kill someone. We trust that law enforcement will soon find the suspects and they will face justice for a senseless crime. But that will bring scant comfort. Our hearts go out to Ms. Sydnors family. Her mother is a 30-year veteran of the D.C. police who has worked as a detective.

Everyone who cares about the District should be appalled and angry at this lawless gunplay, and ask why .40-caliber and .45-caliber bullets are whizzing through the air in a D.C. neighborhood in the middle of the afternoon. At this point, it is not known who fired the guns, nor why. But we do know that Ms. Sydnor was a promising young woman on the threshold of a new chapter in life, and that her death is intolerable.
A photograph of Heather Heyer is seen on Aug. 14 among flowers left at the scene of the car attack on a group of counterprotesters that took her life in Charlottesville. (Justin Ide/Reuters)

White supremacy has never been far from the surface in this countrys tortured history. It got new life during last years presidential election, fueled by then-candidate Donald Trumps dog-whistle racism, campaign rallies encouraging violence, and policies of mass deportation and law and order. And it exploded into plain sight when Saturdays white supremacist rally in Charlottesville turned deadly.

President Trumps initial response to the horrific events  a vague condemnation of violence and hatred on many sides  was a disgrace. It was also unsurprising. After all, the marchers were espousing a racist ideology, defined in part by the poisonous belief that white people are the real victims in todays politically correct society, whose goals are being actively advanced by some in Trumps administration. On Saturday night, the Justice Department announced that it would open a narrow civil rights investigation into the murder of Heather Heyer, who lost her life protesting the abominable views on display in Charlottesville. But it is fair to question whether the department is up to the task given that Attorney General Jeff Sessions, in just six months in office, has transformed it into a political weapon that is being used to roll back hard-won progress and resist efforts to ensure full civil rights and equality for all.

One of the most obvious examples of Sessionss perverted sense of justice is his enthusiasm for the failed war on drugs and its ignominious legacy of mass incarceration. Today, the United States has the worlds largest prison population with some 2.3 million people behind bars. As a result of racial disparities in sentencing, more than half of those incarcerated are minorities. The disproportionate incarceration of black and brown Americans is a legitimate civil rights crisis, astutely labeled The New Jim Crow by legal scholar and author Michelle Alexander, that is devastating communities across the country. So, it is for good reason that criminal justice reform is among the few issues that have transcended the bitter partisanship of the past few years, drawing support from leading activists and lawmakers across the political spectrum.

Upon taking office, Sessions moved quickly to thwart that momentum. In May, he rescinded sentencing guidelines that then-Attorney General Eric H. Holder issued in 2013, which aimed to reduce the prison terms of many nonviolent drug offenders. Instead, Sessions directed federal prosecutors to pursue the harshest possible charges and punishments, including ineffective and unjust mandatory minimums for low-level offenses. The order was swiftly criticized by supporters of criminal justice reform in both parties. Mandatory minimum sentences have unfairly and disproportionately incarcerated too many minorities for too long, declared Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who more recently introduced bipartisan legislation to reform the bail system with Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.). Attorney General Sessions new policy will accentuate that injustice.

Moreover, Sessionss hostility to reforming the criminal justice system is not limited to what happens after a guilty verdict is rendered. Despite the public outcry over police brutality and discrimination resulting from the sometimes fatal violence against black people, including innocent children, at the hands of law enforcement officials, Sessions remains fiercely opposed to the idea of policing the polices behavior. In March, Sessions ordered a review of all existing consent decrees, agreements between the Justice Department and local authorities in cities including Baltimore and Chicago to address systemic misconduct, arguing that it is not the responsibility of the federal government to manage non-federal law enforcement agencies. Civil rights leaders blasted the move, which NAACP President and Chief Executive Cornell William Brooks called a morally bankrupt step that could have disastrous results regarding the protection of black lives.

But reversing progress toward criminal justice and police reform is only part of the ugly record the Justice Department has racked up in Sessionss tenure so far. The department has advanced the Trump administrations assault on voting rights, reversing course on Texass strict voter ID requirement and defending Ohios controversial use it or lose it policy, under which the state has purged some 2 million voters from the states election rolls. Sessions has eagerly contributed to Trumps anti-immigrant crackdown, promising more aggressive prosecution of immigration violations and threatening to cut off grants to sanctuary cities. And just this month, he signaled his intention to use the Justice Departments civil rights division  the same division that is now responsible for investigating what happened in Charlottesville  to go after the use of affirmative action in college admissions.

Although Trump has belittled his attorney general as very weak, Sessions has successfully flipped the Justice Departments mission to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans on its head. From canceling plans to phase out federal use of for-profit private prisons to calling for an increase in civil asset forfeitures, a practice the American Civil Liberties Union has likened to legalized theft by law enforcement officials, to arguing that LGBT employees are not legally protected from discrimination, virtually all of Sessionss actions have served to undermine civil rights, not protect them.

Responding to the ghastly violence in Charlottesville this weekend, Sessions did manage to clear the pathetically low bar set by his boss. When such actions arise from racial bigotry and hatred, he said, they betray our core values and cannot be tolerated. Tragically, however, many of his actions suggest otherwise.

Read more from Katrina vanden Heuvels archive or follow her on Twitter.
Scott Atran, co-founder of Artis International and author of Talking to the Enemy, is an anthropologist who also holds positions at the University of Michigan, University of Oxford and Frances National Center for Scientific Research.

The violence in Charlottesville last weekend may seem new to some Americans: A white supremacist terrorizing protesters with his car, killing and maiming nearly at random. But in fact, the scene is painfully familiar, recalling recent attacks by vehicles in London, Nice and Berlin  all inspired by the Islamic State.

In the days since, members of the Charlottesville community have grappled with what could have been done to prevent the incident. As the attackers former high school teacher said: I admit I failed. I tried my best. But this is definitely a teachable moment and something we need to be vigilant about, because this stuff is tearing up our country.

Indeed, the values of liberal and open democracy increasingly appear to be losing ground around the world to those of narrow, xenophobic ethno-nationalisms and radical Islam  similar to attacks on republican values by fascists and communists in the 1920s and 1930s.

But this is not a clash of civilizations; its a collapse of communities. Ethno-nationalist violent extremism  as well as jihadi terrorism  represent not the resurgence of traditional cultures but their unraveling. Young people unmoored from millennial traditions flail about in search of a social identity that gives personal significance and glory.

This is the dark side of globalization. Individuals radicalize while seeking identity in an increasingly flattened world. We have replaced vertical lines of communication between generations with horizontal peer-to-peer attachments that can span the globe, but paradoxically within ever-narrower channels for information. Without broad awareness and serious effort at guidance, we risk fanning violent passions to our likely detriment and that of others across the world.

The creative destruction of our market-based economy, which forces people to gamble on innovation and change, often comes at steep social cost, especially for communities and regions that have little time to adapt. New institutions eclipse spiritual values of traditional communities, long-standing cultures and religions. Anxiety and alienation along prevailing political fault lines often erupt in the form of redemptive violence.

Religious philosopher Soren Kierkegaard called this the dizziness of freedom. Humanist philosopher Erich Fromm argued that social disruption leads people to seek stability in authoritarian systems, such as Fascism, Nazism and Stalinism.

My research teams ongoing work on radicalization among young people seems to confirm those theories. In Hungary, we find that youths today strongly support the governments call for restoring the national cohesion of the countrys former fascist, pro-Nazi regime. And in Iraq, we find nearly all young people we interview who are coming out from under Islamic State rule in Mosul initially welcomed it for stability and security amid the chaos following the U.S. invasion. In Eastern Europe, people increasingly reject democracy as a competition of values that divides The Nation, and in the Middle East, people view Gods Law as the value that keeps person and society whole.

In the West, left-leaning working-class communities disadvantaged by economic globalization and right-leaning defenders of cultural ideals threatened by multicultural globalism have joined populist movements that reaffirm the primacy of the nation-state. They reject international alliances and abhor political correctness and the push for cultural diversity. In other parts of the world, transnational terrorist movements have enabled violent groups to reach increasingly marginalized immigrant communities, destabilizing host societies in Europe and elsewhere.

Fearful of the chauvinism and xenophobia that fed two world wars, many Western leaders and members of the media simply denounce as bigoted or racist the concern with national identity or cultural preference. Instead of seeking alternatives to leaving defense of heartfelt patriotism and value preference  including traditional religious values  to political fringe groups that increasingly encroach on the mainstream, there is an ostrich-like blindness to panhuman preferences for ones own.

But across cultures, the strongest forms of primary group identity are bounded by sacred values, such as an unwillingness to sell out ones religion or ones country at any cost. Such devotion  whether religious or attached to a secular ideological -ism  leads some groups to prevail despite having considerably less firepower and manpower than the state armies and police forces they oppose.

The resolution of these seemingly intractable conflicts requires intimate and long-term commitment to exploring the limits of ones own tolerance and respect. As one imam who formerly recruited for the Islamic State told me: The young who came to us were not to be lectured at like witless children; we have to give them a better, positive message.

We need a strategy to redirect radicalized youth by engaging with their passions, rather than simply ignoring or fearing or satisfying ourselves by denouncing them.
IF LOCAL and international observers are right, Kenya has just staged one of the fairest and most transparent elections in its history, as well as in the recent history of Africa. On Aug. 8, some 15 million voters went to the polls to elect 1,882 officials, including the president; on Friday, the independent electoral commission announced that incumbent Uhuru Kenyatta was reelected with slightly more than 54 percent of the vote. Electoral observers from the African Union, European Union and Carter Center praised the electoral commissions work, and a local observation group that dispatched more than 8,000 monitors to the polls said its tallies from polling stations were consistent with the official results.

Kenya has nevertheless been teetering on the brink of crisis, largely because Mr. Kenyattas opponent, Raila Odinga, refuses to accept the results or even the established legal process for challenging them. Instead, Mr. Odinga has been leveling charges of fraud without offering any evidence to support them and encouraging his supporters to take to the streets. Over the weekend many of them did so in Nairobi and other cities, triggering a violent response by security forces, who reportedly fired on crowds with live ammunition. According to the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, two dozen people have been killed since the election.

On Monday there were signs of returning stability: Most people ignored Mr. Odingas call for a strike. But maintaining political peace in Kenya, and its status as an emerging democracy and attraction for foreign investors, will require the government and opposition to act responsibly and with restraint in the coming days.

Mr. Odinga has some cause for grievance. At 72, he has now been defeated in four presidential elections. His loss in 2007 featured significant irregularities and led to violence in which more than 1,000 people died; in 2013, his appeals were rejected by the Supreme Court. This years election had one particularly sinister twist: the murder days before the election of an official responsible for the electronic voting system.

Nevertheless, election observers, including former secretary of state John F. Kerry, said they saw no sign of irregularities in last weeks vote. As Mr. Kerry pointed out, a paper trail of tallies from individual voting stations, confirmed by party representatives, provides a solid basis for confirming the official result. Mr. Odingas claim that a hacker somehow changed the result electronically can be authoritatively checked. The proper place for his complaints is not the streets but the courts.

The human rights commission rightly underlined the need for the electoral commission to make the paper tally forms public on its website. It also found that security forces had used excessive force and that Kenyan media had exercised self-censorship. It is up to Mr. Kenyatta, who has been urging citizens to remain peaceful, to stop the excesses of police as well as the apparent pressure being applied to media and nongovernmental organizations. The killing of the election official should be thoroughly investigated and the perpetrators brought to justice. Mr. Kenyatta appears to have fairly won a democratic mandate; he should not tarnish it with repression.
If there was one silver lining to President Trumps election, it was supposed to be this: Those who voted for Trump because of, rather than despite, his demonization of Muslims and Hispanics; who fear a majority minority America; and who wax nostalgic for the Jim Crow era were mostly old white people.

Which meant they and their abhorrent prejudices would soon pass on  and be replaced by generations of younger, more racially enlightened Americans.

The white nationalist rally this past weekend in Charlottesville clearly proves this to be a myth. Racist grandpas may be dying out, but their bigotry is regenerating in todays youths.

Yes, there were swastika-tattooed, Ku Klux Klan-hooded 50-somethings on the streets of Charlottesville. The most chilling photos, however, show hordes of torch-bearing, fresh-faced, fashy-coiffed white men in their teens and 20s.

Some marchers in this youth brigade are still students, one the leader of his campus chapter of the College Republicans. And some did more than march.

(Elyse Samuels,Zoeann Murphy/The Washington Post)

The driver accused of murdering counterprotester Heather Heyer and injuring 19 is a 20-year-old white man.

[From I need loyalty to Witch Hunt: Trumps second 100 days, in his words and ours]

He would of course not be the first radicalized young white man to commit an act of domestic terrorism. There was the then-21-year-old white male who murdered nine African Americans at a Charleston church in 2015, and the 28-year-old white Baltimore man who in March allegedly rode a bus 200 miles to New York in search of black men to kill at random.

A recent Joint Intelligence Bulletin, obtained by Foreign Policy magazine, details plenty of other attacks perpetrated by young white-supremacist men.

The public faces of the white supremacist alt-right movement are likewise skewing younger. David Duke is still around, but as a charismatic figurehead he has mostly been displaced by the likes of 39-year-old Richard Spencer, 26-year-old Matthew Heimbach and 29-year-old Tim Baked Alaska Gionet.

These are not people whose backwardness we can write off as an unfortunate product of their time.

That is, were not talking about young white Americans whose happy formative years took place in a world with (de jure) school segregation, redlining, anti-miscegenation laws and phrenology.

(Adriana Usero/The Washington Post)

If any had family who fought for the Confederacy, theyve been dead for at least a century. No one is telling them about the good ol days on the plantation.

If anything, parents of the Charlottesville rallygoers have professed ignorance or repudiation of their childrens odious beliefs.

So why are millennials, of all people, at the forefront of the small but highly visible resurrection of neo-Nazism?

Some seem to be reactionaries, essentially trolls who may or may not truly believe the anti-Semitic and racist bile that they meme and share to get a rise out of the politically correct left. If youthful rebellion in the 1960s meant embracing free love, peace and equality, then today  at least for anti-anti-Trumpers  it is about promoting hatred and structural inequity.

Others may genuinely wish to burn the whole system down.

It is a flawed system, after all, one whose recent financial crisis irreparably scarred millennials economic prospects. Most anti-establishment millennials have drifted toward leftist populist alternatives, but some have sorted into the opposite (and more violent) extreme. For right-wing populists, the key flaw with the system is not that it allows the rich to hoard all the money, but that it privileges undeserving minorities at innocent whites expense.

[Why Trumps poll numbers are still in free fall]

Weve already seen a version of this bifurcated youth populism take hold elsewhere. In Frances first-round presidential election this year, for example, a plurality of young voters chose the Communist-allied far-left candidate. But in second place was far-right ethno-nationalist Marine Le Pen.

Here in the United States, extreme ideology and iconography may also no longer carry the same political baggage they once did. Just as socialism is not a toxic word to people who came of age after the Cold War, perhaps aligning with Nazis no longer seems as inherently, reflexively evil for those so far removed from World War II.

More significantly, the presumption that millennials are uniformly more progressive than earlier generations is false.

Millennials overall are more racially tolerant than earlier generations  but thats because young people today are less likely to be white. White millennials exhibit about as much racial prejudice, as measured by explicit bias, as white Gen Xers and boomers. Yet even young people know that overt racial animus is socially frowned upon, a dealbreaker for those seeking friends, spouses or gainful employment.

At least, they did, until the 2016 presidential campaign. Perhaps its no wonder that some self-aggrandizing young white men heard a siren call in all those dog whistles: Tomorrow belongs to them.
@PatriciaMazzei

President Donald Trump should stop listening to two top White House aides who want to "accommodate" white nationalist groups, Miami Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo said after the weekend's deadly violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Curbelo did not go as far as to call for Steve Bannon, Trump's chief strategist and senior counselor, and Stephen Miller, Trump's senior adviser for policy, to be fired. But he told CNN the two men should be "marginalized," and the president should give more weight to other advisers, such as new Chief of Staff John Kelly.

"'Alt-right' is about white nationalism. It's about racism. It is about dividing this country," Curbelo said on CNN's "Out Front" with Erin Burnett on Monday. "And regrettably, there are members of the president's staff who at least believe that this movement should be accommodated."

Curbelo named Bannon and Miller and blamed them for Trump's initial "lack of clarity" in his response to the Charlottesville clashes.

"I'm not saying these people are racists," Curbelo said. "I'm not saying they want to advance a racist agenda. But it is pretty clear they think these people should be accommodated."

Curbelo was one of many Republicans to slam Trump for failing to forcefully denounce white supremacists Saturday. Trump only did so, with apparent reluctance, on Monday.

"Better late than never," Curbelo told CNN. "I'm glad the president came out and called evil by name." But he said he remained "concerned with that glaring omission from Saturday."

"He needs to take steps to make sure things like this never happen again," Curbelo said.

On Wednesday, Trump went back to blaming the violence on "both sides:" neo-Nazis and white supremacists and racists but also their counter-protesters.

He left Bannon's future in question.

"He is not a racist, I can tell you that," Trump told reporters. "We'll see what happens with Mr. Bannon. But he's a good person" who gets treated "unfairly" by the press, he said.

Miami Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen began calling for Bannon's ouster in April.
Jamahri Sydnor, 17, was shot in the head by a stray bullet as she drove through a Northeast Washington intersection on Aug. 10. She died Saturday. (Photo courtesy of AMee Barnes)

Regarding the Aug. 14 Metro article Stray bullet snuffs out radiant spirit, bright mind:

I was deeply saddened to read of the death of Woodrow Wilson High School graduate Jamahri Sydnor. Only days away from starting her college experience at Florida A&M University, the 17-year-old was hit in the head by a stray bullet while driving a relative home in Northeast Washington. A police report indicated that two young men emerged from bushes where they had been hiding and opened fire on a group across the street at about 3:30 p.m., not during the dark of night or the wee hours before sunrise but in broad daylight while children are at play.

The most depressing aspect of this homicide, aside from the loss of a bright young woman beginning a chapter in her life that would undoubtedly have led to her making substantial contributions to society, is that the carnage will not end anytime soon, because we remain a gun-crazy population that hides behind a wildly interpreted Second Amendment and makes guns available to just about anyone who wants them. Shame on us.

Robert Litman, Washington
AT AN incendiary moment in this country, as racists, anti-Semites and white supremacists grow ever more emboldened, it shouldnt be hard to draw lines  to identify hatred and denounce it as a threat to democracy and the republic.

It wasnt hard for Kenneth C. Frazier, chief executive of Merck pharmaceuticals, who resigned from President Trumps American Manufacturing Council on Monday after two days of presidential equivocation about the racist violence in Charlottesville. Americas leaders must honor our fundamental views, Mr. Frazier said. It wasnt hard for Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado, a Republican who set partisanship aside and called out Mr. Trump on Saturday for failing to blame white supremacists for the bloodshed in Virginia. Mr. President, he said in a tweet, we must call evil by its name.

It shouldnt be difficult to stand up for tolerance and coexistence, but in fact it was too hard for many of Mr. Trumps allies and apologists, who sought to excuse, soften, modify, justify and reinterpret his evasive initial statement about the events Saturday. Even national security adviser H.R. McMaster, widely respected as a straight-talking general, joined the ranks of Mr. Trumps enablers. The president has been very clear, Mr. McMaster said Sunday on ABCs This Week.

No, Mr. McMaster, the president had not been very clear.

Thanks partly to Mr. Frazier, the avalanche of condemnation directed at Mr. Trump became overwhelming Monday. The president responded first with a dyspeptic rejoinder to the drug company CEO but then finally uttered the words of condemnation he should and could easily have pronounced on Saturday. After two days of equivocation, he said what a presidential president would have said at the outset  that racists and neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.

But what punch do the right words pack when they are so obviously begrudging, belated and bestowed under the weight of overwhelming pressure? Will white supremacists such as Richard Spencer, who gleefully noted that Mr. Trumps initial statement blamed the violence on many sides, while saying nothing about racists, really feel the sting of rebuke? Or will the apostles of intolerance be heartened anew, as they have been by Mr. Trumps ascent over the course of two years?

If there is reason for hope at this dismal juncture, it is that Americans who stand on principle are recognized and extolled for having done so. By speaking truth to power, Mr. Frazier and others like him galvanized the national conversation and helped cauterize the wound inflicted by Charlottesville, at least for the moment. That, at least, should give Americans cause for pride.
James Lankford, a Republican, represents Oklahoma in the U.S. Senate.

Last month, the Trump administration issued its objectives for a renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. There is much about the trade agreement that should be modernized, such as updated rules for e-commerce and stronger intellectual property protections. I support the presidents objective to maintain existing duty-free market access for agricultural goods, as it is important for industries in many states, including my home state of Oklahoma.

However, the administration has also emphasized its desire to reduce the trade deficit  the degree to which the United States imports more than it exports  in NAFTA renegotiations. This is rooted in the belief that when the United States buys more from foreign countries than those countries buy from us, jobs increase elsewhere and decrease here at home. This is a faulty assumption but one that has unfortunately found its way into mainstream political dialogue. Trade deficits are not always bad for U.S. workers and consumers, nor should they remain the focus in NAFTA renegotiations.

For starters, a powerful economy such as ours often runs a trade deficit because of the immense buying power of its people. Mexicos average net per capita income is roughly $13,000, while the average U.S. household brings in more than $41,000 each year. Americans have a far greater capacity to buy goods than do consumers in Mexico. It should come as no surprise that we do exactly that.

If the United States and Mexico were the only countries in the world, and both countries traded openly with each other, American consumers would still benefit from Mexican imports in order to satisfy our buying power and immense market demand. Conversely, Mexico would still import goods from the United States. Its citizens, however, simply cannot afford to buy things at the same rate and quantity that Americans do from Mexico. If Mexicans suddenly became wealthier, they would likely start buying more U.S. products. That is why one of the best things that can happen to our economy is for other nations economies to grow. When they grow, they buy more American products, and we grow even more. This trading relationship holds true for many countries with relatively high-consumption populations.

As the United States purchases more goods from Mexico, Mexican workers become wealthier, which means they will be able to purchase more goods from the United States. A growing economy in Mexico also means that Mexican workers have less reason to immigrate illegally into the United States. And while U.S. consumers and businesses are buying more cheap goods from Mexico, it gives us greater purchasing power to buy more things and reinvest in our own economy, lifting our own standard of living. Simply put, free and fair trade is a win-win scenario.

Foreign investment also tilts the trade-balance calculation. Because we have the worlds largest economy and the strongest currency, more money comes into the United States than goes out. This surplus of investment adds to our trade deficit, even though this foreign cash stimulus is a positive for our economy.

When a Canadian company decides to invest in a U.S.-based company, it increases our trade deficit. Similarly, when the Mexican government buys U.S. Treasury bonds (as most of the world does), the likelihood of an American trade deficit increases. Investments such as these are indicative of a strong economy.

It should be an encouraging sign that we are by far the worlds largest receiver of foreign direct investment. Our trade deficit means, in part, that U.S. companies are considered to be a better investment than companies in other countries. More investment in American businesses means more jobs and higher wages for American workers.

It is my hope that as the Trump administration begins quickly reviewing past and future trade agreements, we can work together toward building a better future for the American middle class. We have real problems with trade, such as closed markets, foreign subsidies and stolen intellectual property. But setting up additional barriers and taxes on imports to reduce the trade deficit should not be the focus of our trade policy. The United States already benefits from trade and, when there is free and open competition, American workers and consumers always win.
Last month, Simon Kuper wrote in his Financial Times column that he was applying for French citizenship. His wife and children, Americans all, had already done so. They live in Paris, so they are not leaving one country for another, but the column made me wonder if I could ever do anything similar. The quick answer is no, but President Trump has put my relationship with my own country on the rocks. Some days I think I dont know it anymore.

Trumps reaction Saturday to the Charlottesville hate-fest is an example of what I find so troubling. I never thought a president of the United States would hedge his bets when it came to denouncing racists and anti-Semites. There is abundant boilerplate for these incidents, whole attics of cliches, but Trump could utter not a one. Instead, he pushed out some mush about an egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides.

On Monday, the president toughened up. Racism is evil, Trump said, no doubt at the urging of his aides. He denounced the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans. Nice try, but three days late and many dollars short. The stain of the original statement cannot be removed. It is the authentic Trump  the genuine embodiment of a president who has both identified a rage in part of the American electorate and validated it.

America has had these moments before. The reign of Sen. Joseph McCarthy comes to mind. He was a lying opportunist who exploited a Red Scare to ruin lives and careers. But for all his villainy, he was just a senator and, in due course, the Senate took care of its own. It censured McCarthy.

Trump, however, is vastly more powerful. His tweets dominate the news cycle. His claim that 3 million to 5 million illegal immigrants voted for Hillary Clinton and deprived him of a popular-vote victory has seeped into the Republican electorate. The Post last week reported that about half of Republicans would support postponing the 2020 presidential election until the problem is fixed.

(The Washington Post)

That the problem cannot be fixed because it does not exist is almost beside the point. More important is the blatant disregard for both the Constitution and tradition. We hold presidential elections every four years. Always have. The presidents term is set by the Constitution. Look it up.

Simultaneous with the delegitimization of the electoral process has been a subversion of truth. It has been reduced to just another thing  something like an alternative to the alternative facts of Kellyanne Conways invention. Trumps incessant attacks on the press have taken a toll. The so-called mainstream media has for years been a GOP whipping boy, but now it is not merely in opposition, it is also corrupt. Theyre lying, theyre cheating, theyre stealing, Trump said during a rally in October in Grand Junction, Colo. Theyre doing everything, these people right back here. He was pointing to the press section.

Grand Junction, in fact, is where Peter Hessler of the New Yorker found that Trumps message of anger and intolerance has not only taken hold, but also metastasized. The local GOP, always conservative, was nonetheless taken over by even more conservative Trump supporters. The local newspaper, the reliably middle-of-the-road Daily Sentinel, has lost subscribers and is under siege for its moderation. Grand Junction has its problems, and it is not all of America. But it aint anywhere else, either.

Beliefs that used to be found only on the fringe of the far right have entered the Republican mainstream. The furious and unbalanced hatred of Clinton, the conviction that the election was almost stolen  all this and more have been given such legitimacy by Trump that neo-Nazis can march in Thomas Jeffersons home town, confident that they have Trumps support. They were wrong. They only had his indifference.

The ultimate question is whether the name Donald Trump will be attached to an era  whether he will so change America that it will never be the same afterward. The answer, I think, lies with members of the presidents own party, Republicans who so far have been loath to confront the president.

Maybe Charlottesville will be a turning point. Maybe the death of counterprotester Heather Heyer will produce the realization that she may not be the last to be killed by hate. Others may follow because the president of the United States winks at hatred and responds to a hate march with a pudding of a statement. It was not what he initially said, though, that was telling. It was his total lack of outrage. Maybe thats his America. Its not mine.

Read more from Richard Cohens archive.
No one should have been surprised to see President Trump playing footsie with racists. Hes been doing it for years.

On Saturday, when Trump could not bring himself to condemn white supremacists for the Charlottesville tragedy, he was just being consistent: He often has shown empathy for white racial grievance.

After all, who was the most prominent voice of birtherism, the unfounded and blatantly racist challenge to President Barack Obamas legitimacy? Who exclaimed on Twitter in 2014 that you wont see another black president for generations because of Obamas performance? Who has disseminated false, racially charged statistics about black crime?

Trump made a rare climb-down on Monday, specifically condemning violence by white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. But his initial reaction on Saturday  after a car, allegedly driven by a young Nazi sympathizer, plowed into a crowd of demonstrators, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring many others  was to denounce hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides.

In fact, there were just two sides in Charlottesville: militant white nationalists, including former Klan leader David Duke and neo-Nazis, who had descended in large numbers; and counterprotesters, who came out to tell the assembled racist horde to get lost. Trumps first statement seemed to make no moral distinction.

Prominent Republicans quickly took the president to task for his disgraceful equivocation. Very important for the nation to hear @potus describe events in #Charlottesville for what they are, a terror attack by #whitesupremacists, Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) said on Twitter. I urge the Department of Justice to immediately investigate and prosecute this grotesque act of domestic terrorism, tweeted Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.). We should call evil by its name. My brother didnt give his life fighting Hitler for Nazi ideas to go unchallenged here at home, wrote Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (Utah).

Those are stirring words, gentlemen, but where have you been hiding all this righteousness? Were you not paying attention when then-candidate Trump attacked a federal judge for his Mexican American heritage and demeaned a Gold Star mother and father for their Muslim faith? Did you not hear the screech of white grievance at his campaign rallies, often not so much a dog whistle as a blaring siren?

I might take all the GOP breast-beating more seriously if the party would abandon its state-by-state campaign to impose restrictive election laws that disproportionately disenfranchise African American and Hispanic voters.

In contrast to the Republican reaction, the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer website was quite pleased with Trumps initial comment. He didnt attack us. He just said the nation should come together, wrote the racist, anti-Semitic sites founder. No condemnation at all. When asked to condemn, he just walked out of the room. Really, really good. God bless him.

One prominent African American who gave the Trump administration a chance  Kenneth C. Frazier, chief executive of the giant Merck pharmaceutical company  decided Monday morning that hed had enough, resigning in protest from Trumps advisory American Manufacturing Council. Trump shot back on Twitter that now Frazier will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!

Note that a personal slight provoked a sharp, speedy, all-caps response. Yet even in the Monday statement, Trump did not call Saturdays horror an act of domestic terrorism.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Charlottesville incident was, indeed, an act of terrorism, and that the Justice Department has opened a hate-crime investigation to ascertain whether others may have been involved. Reflect for a moment on how Trumps many sides comment made Sessions, of all people, look like some kind of civil rights hero.

There are those who see Trumps initial reluctance to denounce white-power groups as nothing but politics  an appeal to white voters who are anxious about growing diversity. Yet the presidents Monday reversal was clearly a political calculation. I believe what we heard Saturday was simply a genuine first reaction.

In 1973, Trump and his father were sued by the Justice Department for refusing to rent apartments to African Americans. He said in a 1989 interview that a well-educated black has an advantage in the job market  a victimhood claim refuted by academic studies and his own record of not having minorities in key posts at the Trump Organization. He maintained as recently as last October that the Central Park Five  four African American men and one Latino  were guilty of a brutal 1989 rape, despite definitive DNA evidence that exonerated them years ago.

Trump has called himself the least racist person on Earth. There is no end to the mans lies.

Read more from Eugene Robinsons archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. You can also join him Tuesdays at 1 p.m. for a live Q&A.
Regarding the Aug. 11 news article Little to stop Trump if he orders nuclear attack:

The missing question is whether the military would act or decline to act. An order to launch a nuclear attack would pass from the president to the defense secretary to the appropriate combatant commander(s) in the field (presumably through the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) to the individuals who actually control the designated weapons. Anyone in this chain could halt execution. So, uniformed personnel have three options. They could obediently carry out the order; refuse the order (and decline to step aside, thus forcing their firing), either privately or publicly; or tender their resignation on principle (rather than refuse per se), either privately or publicly.

In line with the tacit contract that binds the military to its civilian political overseers, and both in turn to society, the military agrees to muzzle itself and be obedient. It does so, however, in return for the implicit expectation that its civilian masters will demonstrate strategic competence.

Where civilian authorities demonstrate strategic incompetence, the contract is broken and all bets are off. We live in a new era of civil-military relations, in which those in uniform must ask themselves anew whether their principal obligation is to be silent or to speak, to obey or desist; and in which society must ask what it expects of the military: one that dutifully, unquestioningly and silently executes, regardless of circumstance, or one that courageously stands up to resist in the face of politically motivated strategic catastrophe.

Gregory D. Foster, Vienna

The writer is a professor at the

National Defense University.

The enlightening Aug. 12 Religion article Trumps threat of fire and fury  showed how Americans who believe in an authoritarian God tend to prefer an authoritarian political leader. This explains a lot about our current politics.

The article failed to mention one fact that reinforces its point, however. For most of human history, church and state were the same thing. Following the leader was not only patriotic but also pious. Opposition was not only treasonous but also heretical. This is why the separation of church and state, while fundamental to our democratic culture, is still vital and still contested.

The authoritarian style of leadership the article described brings to mind the priest-kings of the past. It is contrary to the founding principles of the United States, but it is a sad fact that many people still love it.

Thats a real problem for our democracy.

Mark Weaver, Catonsville, Md.
Vice President Pence, right, and Argentine President Mauricio Macri head to a news conference after a working meeting at the Quinta de Olivos in Buenos Aires on Tuesday. (Juan Mabromata/AFP/Getty Images)

Vice President Pence celebrated Argentina as a model for a prosperous Latin America and vowed additional U.S. trade partnerships here Tuesday while also seeking to further isolate Venezuela and pressure its autocratic leader to reverse course and restore democracy there.

Delivering the centerpiece speech of his week-long visit to South and Central America, Pence on Tuesday declared the dawn of a new era in the New World. He carried a message of unity here to Buenos Aires and promoted economic and security ties between the Trump administration and Argentine President Mauricio Macris government.

A secure Latin America means a more secure United States of America, Pence said. A prosperous Latin America means a more prosperous United States of America. And the advance of freedom and democracy in Latin America benefits the cause of freedom everywhere.

Pence singled out one exception: Venezuela, the South American country where President Nicolas Maduro has precipitated an economic collapse and drawn international scorn by cracking down on dissent and asserting his autocratic rule.

Venezuela is sliding into dictatorship, and as President Donald Trump has said, the United States will not stand by as Venezuela crumbles, Pence said.

Vice President Pence, left, views artifacts following a wreath-laying ceremony at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Buenos Aires on Tuesday. (Erica Canepa/Bloomberg News)

Pence sought to soothe U.S. allies across the hemisphere, including Argentina, that reacted with alarm to Trumps threat late last week that the United States was considering military action in Venezuela.

As he did earlier in the week in Cartagena, Colombia, Pence made clear that the Trump administration would focus on diplomatic efforts and economic sanctions, although all options  including military ones  remain on the table.

As President Trump said just a few days ago, we have many options for Venezuela, Pence said in Buenos Aires. But the president also remains confident that working with all of our allies across Latin America, and across the wider world, that we can achieve a peaceable solution restoring democracy and ending the crisis facing the people of Venezuela.

[Pence vows to end the tragedy of tyranny in Venezuela through peaceable means]

Pence delivered his speech from the Bolsa de Comercio, the old stock exchange building in downtown Buenos Aires, following a busy day of official events. Pence met with Macri at the presidential residence, Quinta de Olivos, where the two leaders held a joint news conference.

Macri, who has a personal relationship with Trump dating back many years, distanced himself from the U.S. presidents military threat in Venezuela. Standing next to Pence, Macri said, We must refine diplomatic and economic skills in order to ensure that a democracy is restored as quickly as possible.

He added: The way to go is not the use of force.

Vice President Pence, center, and members of the U.S. delegation listen during a meeting with Gabriela Michetti, Argentina's vice president (not pictured) Buenos Aires. (Erica Canepa/Bloomberg News)

Pence also met with Argentinas vice president, Gabriela Michetti, at the stately Casa Rosada, or the Pink House, which serves as the seat of Argentinas national government and the building from which Eva Evita Peron would address the masses from a balcony during the 1940s and 50s.

Pence also toured the Metropolitan Cathedral, the 16th-century house of worship where Pope Francis served as an archbishop before his promotion to the Vatican. Pence paid his respects at a memorial inside the cathedral for the victims of the 1992 Israeli Embassy bombing.

The threat of terror still looms across our hemisphere, and we will stand together to confront it and protect our people from it, Pence said in his remarks at the old stock exchange. And so, too, must we stand together to defeat the most immediate threat to Latin Americas security and prosperity  the menace of transnational crime.

Pence is planning to travel Wednesday to Santiago, Chile, for a day of official meetings, and then visit Panama City on Thursday to tour the newly expanded Panama Canal.

Venezuela has been a core focus of Pences trip. He spoke extensively about the Maduro government while visiting neighboring Colombia, and met at a Cartagena church on Monday with dozens of Venezuelan refugees who had fled the country in recent weeks.

We are seeing tragedy of tyranny play out before our eyes in our own hemisphere, Pence said Tuesday in Buenos Aires.
Correction: An earlier version of this report contained an incorrect starting price for the residences. The price of the townhouses starts at $365,090.



In Haymarket Crossing, Stanley Martin is building a community of spacious three-bedroom townhouses in a tree-lined neighborhood that will have a pavilion, benches and two tot lots. (Benjamin C Tankersley for The Washington Post)

With a population of about 2,000, the town of Haymarket is tucked away in Virginias Prince William County.

A little-known fact to newer residents of the Washington area is that in the mid-1990s, the Walt Disney Co. purchased large amounts of land in the area for a proposed U.S. history theme park to be built in Haymarket, just several miles from Manassas National Battlefield Park.

Local residents opposed the idea, and the controversial plan fell through. The bulk of the land was then sold to a local business executive, who sold it to developers. While there is no theme park, there are signs of a growing community that has also managed to retain a certain amount of small-town charm.

Mary Scarpinito, originally from Long Island, has lived in Arlington for five years and has been house hunting for the past two years. She has looked in Washington, Arlington and Woodbridge, then out to Leesburg and Haymarket.

She said she decided on Haymarket Crossing, where Stanley Martin is building a community of spacious three-

bedroom townhouses in a tree-lined neighborhood that will have a pavilion, benches and two tot lots.

[Chapel Creek Village townhomes offer two-car garages, flex space and a butterfly garden]

Haymarket Crossing opened at the end of May and will have about 140 townhouses once the community is completed. Its situated near the Haymarket Village Center with a number of retail and dining options.

Haymarket is a beautiful town that is easily accessible and has top-rated schools. I love going to the vineyards, so being within a 15-minute drive from several of them is appealing, Scarpinito said. She said she also likes being near all of the new stores and restaurants in the area and a 10-minute drive from the concert venue, Jiffy Lube Live.

1 of 15 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  Buying New | Haymarket Crossing in Haymarket, Va. View Photos The townhouses start at $365,090. Caption The townhouses start at $365,090. Haymarket Crossing in Haymarket, Va., opened at the end of May and will have about 140 townhouses once the community is completed. Benjamin C. Tankersley/For The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue.

Open floor plan: Theres one primary floor plan, the Sampson, with various elevations. Guests enter the home on the lower level, which has a one-car garage, a foyer and an optional den with a full bathroom.

[The pet-friendly One-Five condominium building has a roof deck with Capitol views]

Scarpinito said the Sampson model doesnt look like your average townhouse with a traditional brick facade. It has a lot of character, she said.

One of the things thats evident as soon as you reach the top of the landing to the main level is the huge open space that defines the great room, kitchen and dining area. This creates one large space with only the uncovered dark wood floors in the kitchen and an oversize rug in the great room defining the areas. The open-concept interior leaves a great space for entertaining, she said, adding that the nine-foot-high ceilings throughout each level make a significant difference in grandeur.

The entire main level is set up so that the common areas can easily be shared with family and friends. The model showcases an alternative main-level floor plan with larger rooms and a swap of the great room from the front of the home to the back of the home. The standard great room is 13 by 20 feet, but this one is 19 by 16 and has a wall of windows with a sunny atrium door that leads onto a deck with white railings.

Theres a gourmet kitchen in the model with a center island breakfast bar with workspace, stainless-steel appliances with a silver-toned backsplash highlighting the wall behind the stove. A separate sunny dining area with windows overlooks the front yard.

We also love the deck off the back of the living level as well as the sliding glass doors in the rec room, Scarpinito said.



The kitchen has a center island breakfast bar with workspace, stainless-steel appliances and a silver-toned backsplash highlighting the wall behind the stove. (Benjamin C Tankersley for The Washington Post)

Second owners suite option: A powder room sits near the landing before heading up to the top level. The model home showcases hardwood flooring that continues upstairs and stops at the hallway. This floor comes standard with three bedrooms and two full bathrooms. Two bedrooms are next to each other and share a hall bathroom while the main bedroom owners suite has a private bath with dual sinks, granite counters and a huge walk-in closet.

Buyers have the option of forgoing a third bedroom and instead have two similarly sized owners suites with private bathrooms and walk-in closets. An additional option includes a boxed tray ceiling in the owners bedroom. This top level has a laundry room and linen closet in the hall.

Amanda Gray, the builders marketing manager, said that the most requested features include the gourmet kitchen and hardwood flooring on the main floor. She added that the homeowners association fee is $200 per month, which takes care of a master insurance policy, snow and trash removal, as well as the use of amenities such as walking trails, a gazebo, tot lots and parks.

The townhouses have about 2,100 square feet, so theres plenty of room to spread out in three stories.

Schools: Haymarket Elementary, Reagan Middle, Battlefied High.

Transit: The community is minutes from Routes 15 and 29 and Interstate 66.



The master bedroom in the Sampson model at Haymarket Crossing has a tray ceiling and a large walk-in closet. (Benjamin C Tankersley for The Washington Post)
Seventy-three years ago, a young Marine from Montana, deployed to the Pacific island of Saipan, stumbled across a body. A Japanese soldier, lying on his back, dead.

Poking out from underneath his jacket was a good luck flag  a Japanese flag covered with the signatures and good-luck wishes of 180 people from his family and his home town of Higashi-Shirakawa, deep in the Japanese Alps.

Long-lasting fortune in battle was written in large letters across the top.

The 20-year-old Marine, Marvin Strombo, who was part of a scout-sniping platoon, reached down and took the flag. For decades, it was displayed in the glass-fronted gun cabinet in his home in Missoula, Mont., becoming a talking point among visitors and a point of pride for the veteran.

But on Tuesday, the 72nd anniversary of Japans World War II surrender, Strombo traveled about 5,300 miles from Missoula to this remote village, population 2,338, to return the flag to the soldiers family. Local residents dressed in black, and schoolchildren turned out for the ceremony.

I had such a moment with your brother 73 years ago. I promised him one day I would return the flag to his family, Strombo told the family of Sadao Yasue, the soldier whose flag he took. It took a long time, but I was able to bring the flag back to you, where it belongs.

When Strombo handed the flag to Yasues younger brother, 89-year-old Tatsuya Yasue buried his face in it, then took it to his older sister, now 95 and in a wheelchair, who did the same. Supported by her family members, she wiped away the tears.

Marvin, thank you very much for bringing us this flag, Tatsuya Yasue told the veteran, who was accompanied by his two daughters and representatives from the Obon Society, an Oregon-based nonprofit that promotes reconciliation between the wartime enemies.

Looking at this flag, the signatures are very clear, and I can almost smell my brothers skin from the flag, Yasue said. We know that you have kept it well for so long.

[ Japans leader stops short of WWII apology ]

The moment was part of an effort to promote healing and closure over the loss of life from the war, said Rex Ziak, co-founder, with his wife, Keiko, of the Obon Society.

The group returns battlefield souvenirs such as this flag to families in Japan, but this was the first time such an artifact had been returned in person.

We cannot change the past, but from this day forward, we want this historic meeting of the families to be known as the final chapter of the war, Ziak said.

After graduating from high school, Strombo, one of seven children born into a Montana ranching family, joined the Marines and fought in three of the toughest battles against the Japanese during World War II  in Tarawa, Tinian and Saipan.

It was during the battle for Saipan in June 1944 that he stumbled upon the body of Sadao Yasue, the oldest of six children born into a farming family in the mountains of Gifu prefecture.

Strombo had become separated from his squad and found himself alone on the Japanese front line.

He was trying to make his way to Garapan, a coastal town, to find them.

As he was walking, he came upon the soldier lying on his back.

He had a sword, so I knew he was an officer, Strombo recalled. It was almost like he was sleeping. There were no wounds, no shrapnel. Thats the way I found him, he said, adding that it appeared he was killed by a mortar blast.

This was the first time that Yasues family found out what had happened to him.

The day before Yasue was deployed, the 25-year-old sat on the grass with his family.

Our brother whispered to us: It seems that they are sending me off to a remote island in the south ocean,  Tatsuya Yasue recalled during the ceremony. He said, I will probably not come back alive, so please take care of our parents well. 

That was the last word they heard from their brother  until Strombo arrived here Tuesday.

We got nothing back from the battlefield, including his body, Yasue said. So we didnt know anything about how he died or where he died or when he died until today, until we heard what Mr. Strombo said.

[ In Japan, former American prisoners of war close a dark chapter ]

Hearing the account of their brothers death gave the family some closure.

We found out today that my brother fought bravely on the island of Saipan for our country, Yasue said. I feel so proud of him today.

Looking at Sadao Yasues body in June 1944, Strombo decided to take the flag but said he promised that he would return it one day to the mans family. Making that promise made him feel better about taking the souvenir, he said.

But deciphering the symbols on the flag was difficult, especially in the era before the Internet. There were times I didnt think Id ever get it back, he said.

So the flag continued to be displayed in Strombos house.

Then, late last year, Strombo was approached by the University of Montana, where the Japanese studies department wanted to hear about the flag.

That opened up a new avenue, leading to the Obon Society and discovering the provenance of the flag.

Im so glad we finally got it back to you, and Im sorry it took so long, Strombo told the dead soldiers family Tuesday.

Tatsuya Yasue will take the flag to his parents grave and show them that the flag has been returned.

Then it will be passed down through the Yasue family, a reminder of the tragedy of war.

Read more

Bowing deeply, Japanese PM tries to put problems behind him with new cabinet

Japanese prime ministers poll numbers are so low they make Trumps look good

Japans prime minister pushes ahead with controversial anti-conspiracy bill

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news


@PatriciaMazzei

Miami Rep. Carlos Curbelo is headed to a storied site for Republicans -- former President Ronald Reagan's California ranch -- to help the House GOP make its tax-reform pitch.

Curbelo will join Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas and other lawmakers at Rancho del Cielo in Santa Barbara on Wednesday. Brady chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, which writes tax policy. Curbelo is the only South Florida legislator on the panel -- which makes him the most prominent local voice on the issue.

It's not the sexiest of political topics, Curbelo readily acknowledges: "It's easy for this issue to become a technical issue."

Republicans intend to return from their August congressional recess and push tax reform, moving on from their failed effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. A super PAC tied to House Speaker Paul Ryan is already running ads in Curbelo's district urging a tax-code rewrite. His votes will be closely watched by Democrats, who consider Curbelo's Westchester-to-Key West 26th district a top 2018 target.

The most contentious tax question for Republicans so far has been whether to support a 20 percent tax on imports into the country -- the so-called Border Adjustment Tax. Ads have asked Curbelo to oppose it.

Curbelo said tax reform already taken up most of his time in Washington this year, in part because he's had to master the complexities of tax policy.

"Most of what I knew about taxes was how to file them," he said.

Since then, he's tried to simplify the issue by filming YouTube videos in English and Spanish outside a Miami coffee window -- a ventanita. His line? "Tax reform is about people."

Wednesday's event is intended to recall tax reform passed under Reagan, the last major overhaul of the code. Curbelo's piece will be proposing more targeted child tax credits and a larger standard deduction, two changes the GOP says will save families money. Curbelo has also filed legislation to permanently extend IRS tax-prep services for low-income filers, and and to allow marijuana businesses to benefit from tax deductions and credits.

Ahead of Wednesday's talk, Curbelo tried to frame the discussion as a big-picture economic question.

"I actually look at a lot of the pessimism and anger and even some of the violence in our country, and I attribute at least part of it to the fact that we've been growing at a very slow rate for the last decade-plus," he said. "People are hopeless. A lot of people feel like they don't have the opportunities, or have a prosperous future in this country, so they are resentful and they look for scapegoats."

"My big goal in tax reform is to make people happy in this country," he said. "I think we achieve that by getting to 3 percent growth through tax reform and tax simplification and tax reduction."

Photo credit: Jose A. Iglesias, el Nuevo Herald
Georg Pazderski, chairman of the Berlin branch of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, is seen before a vote on the citys new mayor on Dec. 8, 2016. (NurPhoto/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

The European far right, once eager to make common cause with factions in the United States emboldened since the election of President Trump, struggled to respond to a show of force by white nationalists over the weekend that descended into deadly chaos.

Intent on normalizing themselves to attain electoral clout, parties in Germany, France and elsewhere were mostly silent about the spectacle of racial fury in Charlottesville, or they made statements dispersing blame. A notable exception was the Dutch Freedom Party, whose leader, Geert Wilders, tweeted Sunday: Our population is being replaced. No more.

European far-right leaders, while in many countries divided, have worked to distance themselves from the Nazi ideology that a former teacher said transfixed James Alex Fields Jr., the man accused of plowing into a group of counterprotesters in Charlottesville, killing one. This has created tension with the continents far-right fringes, which lit up the murky corners of the Internet with predictions of a new front in global racial conflict.

The really extreme groups will look at a rally that turns violent, like in Charlottesville, and there will be ripple effects, with questions like, Why are we not able to actually do something like that and clash with people?  said Thomas Greven, a political scientist at the Free University in Berlin. For the more mainstream parties, which nevertheless have extremist roots or connections and initially seemed to get a boost from Trumps election, theres disillusionment. They dont want to be tarnished by every scandal or misstep that rocks the Trump presidency.

[We have drawn a different lesson from history: How the world is reacting to Charlottesville]

For one far-right politician in Germany, the violence in Charlottesville prompted reflections on American memory.

I myself traveled through the Deep South in the U.S. and visited battlefields of the Civil War, and I saw the status Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson have in the southern U.S., said Georg Pazderski, chairman of the Berlin branch of Alternative for Germany (AfD), a far-right, anti-immigrant party poised to enter the German Parliament in elections next month. Responsibility for the Charlottesville unrest, Pazderski said, lay at least in part with city officials who voted to remove a statue of Lee, a Confederate general. I think it was a stupid thing to do this.

Pazderski did not endorse the use of violence, calling Fields mentally ill. But the retired colonel said he shares the concerns about national culture that animated the rally. And he took no issue with the response of Trump, who waited two days to condemn neo-Nazis and other white-supremacist groups. Its not good or bad, he said of the presidents reaction  before Trump on Tuesday doubled down on the claim that left-wing activists were equally blameworthy.

Support for the tactics employed in Charlottesville was limited to the social-media pages of local groups and parties associated with Europes far right. In Germany, a regional branch of Germanys neo-Nazi National Democratic Party posted a photo of the car attack with the caption, The Americans arent as patient as German nationalists. The partys national branch was more cautious, claiming on its Facebook page that the attack had been an accident.

A British page for white nationalists posted a video of clashes in Charlottesville, celebrating, Goodnight left side! Well done white nationalists, while other nationalist groups  such as Britain First and the English Defense League  fell silent.

On the website of the Nordic Resistance Movement  among the largest neo-Nazi movements in northern Europe  one of the groups leaders, Swedish far-right activist Simon Lindberg, wrote that the rally was something I had been waiting for  white Americans who are really fighting for our cause. Lindberg urged the U.S. far right to build more coordinated networks resembling those in Europe.

Transatlantic networks already exist, said Thomas Grumke, a specialist in right-wing extremism formerly with the Interior Ministry of the German state of North Rhine-Westphfalia. The Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter reported that Swedish far-right extremists joined the demonstration in Charlottesville.

Theyre nationalists, but they work very much internationally, because they see this as the last fight for racial domination of the world, Grumke said. The German racist right has a very global view. They have been motivated by Poland, Hungary and Russia. And now they count the U.S. in that category, where they think people are finally standing up for the white man.

The Alternative for Germany party, Grumke said, would never want anything to do with people like that, in a way that mirrors Trumps response to Charlottesville  he sees it as irrelevant to him. Beatrix von Storch, deputy chair of the AfD, blamed extremism of all stripes. A local party member, Leon Spindeldreier, tweeted of a leftist mob in Charlottesville, employing the epithet Lugenpresse, or lying press, used by Adolf Hitler to discredit the news media in Nazi Germany.

The National Front, Frances far-right populist party, has been noticeably silent on the events in Charlottesville. Neither the party nor its leader, Marine Le Pen, has publicly addressed the violence.

This, political analysts say, is in keeping with the desire of European far-right movements to join the political mainstream, which often requires separating themselves from their own origins.

I think that this silence, which is also the case with the Freedom Party of Austria and with the Lega Nord in Italy, is due to the search for respectability of the National Front and Alternative for Germany, especially in an election period, as is the case in Germany and Austria, said Jean-Yves Camus, a scholar of right-wing movements in France and elsewhere in Europe.

McAuley reported from Paris and Noack from London. Luisa Beck in Berlin and Michael Birnbaum in Brussels contributed to this report.



Read more:

Meticulous torchlight rally spawned a day of rage, chaos and death in Charlottesville

A Twitter campaign is outing people who marched with white nationalists in Charlottesville

With Le Pen defeat, Europes far-right surge stalls

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
Migrants wait to be rescued by the Italian coast guard in the Mediterranean Sea, 30 nautical miles from the Libyan coast, on Aug. 6, 2017. (Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP/Getty Images)

Italys top law enforcement official said Tuesday that his nations aggressive approach to halting migration across the Mediterranean was making progress, amid a steep drop in the number of migrants arriving on Italys shores in the past month.

The sharp drop in the number of asylum seekers entering Italy comes as migrant advocates warn of rising dangers for those who remain in Libya or who set out into the Mediterranean for the perilous voyage. There are fewer ships rescuing migrants after several aid organizations suspended their operations in recent days, following a declaration by the Libyan coast guard that it plans to expand its patrol zone beyond national waters. The coast guard, trained by the Italians, has pursued a newly muscular approach in recent weeks.

If the traffic holds steady, migration pressures on Europe could significantly ease after years of mounting strain. The flow has emboldened anti-migrant nationalists across the continent and challenged societies as they try to integrate the new arrivals. But a calmer Europe probably means worse conditions for the asylum seekers in Libya, a war-torn society where migrants have been subjected to torture, slavery and imprisonment, critics say.

Governing migrant flow is very hard, but not impossible, Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti told reporters in Rome. We are still in the tunnel, and the tunnel is very long, but I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I dont know if Im too optimistic.

Last year, more than 11,000 migrants arrived in the first two weeks of August. This year, just 2,000 did. July figures were also down by more than half compared with a year ago. Numbers this year are down 4.2 percent overall, the result of a sudden and steep shift in the middle of July. Before that shift, arrivals were running about 20 percent higher than in 2016.

It is clear that at this point in the Central Mediterranean, there is no emergency, Minniti said.

Analysts attribute the drop to both the increased activity of the Libyan coast guard and a stretch of bad weather in the Mediterranean starting in mid-July.

Italys stepped-up approach to the migrant flow came after a June ballot-box blow to the governing center-left party in local elections, when a wave of anti-migrant mayors and local councilors were swept into office around the country. Italian leaders have imposed strict rules on rescue ships that the operators say will hamper their ability to help distressed migrants. And they have also pushed the Libyan government to do more to patrol its frontiers. The pressure from the Italians has been accompanied by promises of aid to Libya and a vow to help improve conditions in migrant camps inside the chaotic country.

But critics say that Italian leaders are pursuing short-term electoral gain at the cost of migrants lives.

We wanted to rescue lives, and now we are public enemies, said Michael Buschheuer, the leader of the Sea-Eye rescue group, a German organization that purchased an old East German fishing vessel to help migrants in distress in the Mediterranean. On Sunday, he suspended rescue operations after an announcement by the Libyan coast guard that it planned to expand its search-and-rescue zone beyond its internationally recognized territorial waters.

For us its too dangerous; we cant calculate the risk, he said. He said he blamed the Italian government for pressuring the Libyans.

A Libyan coast guard official did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Minniti, who has worked extensively with Libyan authorities, said Tuesday that any expansion of the Libyan-controlled search-and-rescue zone was unlikely to go into effect immediately.

Doctors Without Borders and Save the Children also suspended their rescue operations after the Libyan decision. The aid groups are concerned that the Libyan coast guard might menace their ships. The coast guard has boarded and impounded rescue vessels in past years, and it has also fired warning shots at rescuers.

Italian authorities have also seized the vessel of one such nongovernmental organization, saying the group was working directly with traffickers, a charge it denies.

Aid organization leaders say that any blow to their rescue efforts immediately imperils migrants. So far this year, 97,293 have arrived in Italy. For all of 2016, more than 181,000 made the journey.

The prognosis is pretty poor, really, because people are going to be leaving, and there will be fewer rescuers there to actually perform these rescues, said Rob MacGillivray, the head of operations for the Save the Children rescue operation in the Mediterranean.

Italian authorities have sometimes criticized the aid organizations, saying that the groups, which operate immediately outside Libyas national waters, have become key enablers for the people-smugglers who operate the migrant boats. Most migrants now set out in rubber dinghies that stand no chance of managing the Mediterraneans rough seas. And most are now rescued close to Libya by the aid groups or by merchant vessels in the area.

The aid groups point to the 2,408 people who have died in the Mediterranean this year, and they say that desperate migrants would be trying to make it to Europe regardless of whether the rescue ships were there to rescue them.

Were seeing in this flow of migrants and refugees across the Mediterranean the fact that there are people who are desperate enough to attempt the crossing, said Barbara Molinario, a Rome-based spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee agency.

Despite all the efforts by the Italian coast guard and all the other actors involved in rescue in the Mediterranean, its simply not enough, she said. So we find it really, really concerning.

Pitrelli reported from Rome.

Read more:

A far-right group chartered a boat to repel migrants on the Mediterranean. Then part of its crew filed for asylum.

Italy offers swimming lessons for refugees traumatized while crossing the Mediterranean

Overwhelmed by immigrants, Italy threatens to bar the door to rescue ships

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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The Islamic State has stepped up its efforts to target Iran, releasing a stream of propaganda, vowing more bloodshed and boosting recruitment among the countrys Sunni minority groups.

Last week, Iranian authorities said they arrested more than two dozen people who planned to bomb religious sites with smuggled explosives. The Islamic State then released a video in which a Farsi-speaking militant threatened to cut the necks of Irans majority Shiites, whom the group regards as apostates.

Two months earlier, the Islamic State staged its first major attack in Iran, with militants opening fire at the nations parliament and outside the shrine of its revolutionary leader. The assault, stunning in both its symbolism and execution, left 18 people dead and caught Iranian security forces off guard.

Iran is a target because of the cash, guns and troops it has poured into the battle against the radical Islamists, whose lightning ascent in Iraq and Syria three years ago threatened Irans security. But now, Iranian advisers and an army of Iran-backed militias are fighting the Islamic State from central Iraq to southeastern Syria.

The escalation could inflame a region already beset by conflict and stoke domestic instability in Iran. There, marginalized Sunnis have grown increasingly receptive to the Islamic States appeal. Situated along Irans porous borders, the communities, which make up about 10 percent of Irans population of 80 million, may make fertile ground for a jihadist group working to replenish its ranks.

Police sit outside Iran's parliament building following an attack by several gunmen in Tehran on June 7. It was the first Islamic State attack in Iran, whose Shiite Muslim majority the militants regard as apostates. (Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)

Iran is fighting the Islamic State on multiple fronts, and Iraq and Syria is certainly one of them, said Dina Esfandiary, a MacArthur fellow at the Center for Science and Security Studies at Kings College in London. But the fight against the Islamic State inside Iran has become even more important.

Suffering decades of neglect, Irans Sunni communities are a good target for the Islamic State, said Esfandiary, who co-wrote a paper on Irans policies toward the militants. Its a population ripe for recruitment, she said.

[Islamic State claims new reach into Iran with twin attacks in Tehran]

Indeed, Irans Sunni populations hail mainly from two ethnic minorities, including the Kurds who live along the Iraqi border in the west, and the Baluch community in the southeast near Pakistan. In both places, poverty, repression and black-market economies have allowed Sunni radicalism to creep in and take root.

Baluch areas in particular are severely underdeveloped, according to the U.S. State Departments 2016 human rights report on Iran, and unemployment hovers at about 40 percent. In Kurdish communities, residents complain of widespread discrimination and arbitrary arrests. Rights groups have slammed Iran for the detention and execution of dozens of Sunni Kurds, often for unspecified crimes.

It is unclear how many Iranians have joined the Islamic State, but estimates from Kurdish media and analysts vary from dozens to hundreds. In the Islamic States first Persian-language video, released in March, at least one of the militants identified as Baluch.

According to a report from the International Center for Counter-Terrorism at The Hague, seven Iranians carried out suicide operations for the Islamic State from December 2015 through November 2016.

Iranian police evacuate a child from the parliament building in Tehran during an attack on the complex June 7. The assault, stunning in both its symbolism and execution, left 18 people dead and caught Iranian security forces off-guard. (Omid Vahabzadeh/AFP/Getty Images)

The Iranians do have to worry about it. The numbers arent insignificant, said Alex Vatanka, senior fellow and Iran expert at the Middle East Institute in Washington. Even if only a few end up radicalized, he said, once they have the support of the ISIS machinery to carry out attacks, they can do real harm, as weve seen with the attack in June.

At least four of the five assailants came from the same Kurdish town in western Iran, about 10 miles from the Iraqi border, officials said. The attackers had all belonged to local Islamist militant groups before traveling abroad to fight for the Islamic State.

[The United States and Europe are on a collision course over Iran]

For years, local and other militants used the area as a logistics hub to attack U.S. forces across the border in Iraq. But the Kurdish militants most recent return to Iran, after they had traveled to Iraq and Syria, exposed weaknesses in the countrys counterterrorism strategy, analysts said, which emphasized operations abroad but may have downplayed the potential for radicalization at home.

Iran effectively adopted a strategy of combating Sunni radicals at a distance to weaken these groups outside of its borders while simultaneously allowing a degree of latitude for these groups inside the country, said Nat Guillou, political risk and security analyst at Stirling Assynt, a global intelligence firm based in London.

Irans lenience meant that there were effectively ready-made smuggling routes that Iranian Kurds could exploit to help avoid detection in the event of an attack, Guillou said.

In Baluch areas, which border some of the most lawless territory in Pakistan and Afghanistan, local insurgents have also adopted a jihadist message to mobilize against the government in Tehran.

They were once leftist nationalists, but over the past decade or so, they have now begun to take up the mantle of jihad and a sectarian Sunni message, Vatanka said. This is very dangerous from Irans internal security point of view.

The groups are believed to have cross-border links with like-minded militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But, analysts say, they have not yet pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.

Still, as the Islamic State loses territory in Iraq and Syria, it may seek to coax local groups into providing its fighters sanctuary or establishing a new base.

Among the Baluch militants, there are certainly those that would be receptive to involvement in transnational jihad, Guillou said. But the real risk concerns how the state deals with this increased threat from the Sunnis.

So far, the security forces have really focused very tightly on suspected militants, he said, adding that a broader crackdown could push some of Irans more conservative Sunnis into the jihadi camp.

The government, under President Hassan Rouhani, has also reached out to Sunni leaders in a bid to immunize the state against the growing threat. Rouhani won reelection with landslide majorities in both Kurdish and Baluch areas in May. But his efforts so far, analysts say, have been halting and ultimately failed to impress.

There are many officials within the administration that realize how important it is to reach out to Sunni communities, to talk to them, Esfandiary said.

But it hasnt gone very well, she said, not least because it was sort of a halfhearted attempt on the part of the government.

There are still discrepancies between the way the minority communities are treated compared to normal Shia Iranians, she said. Its a big problem for the Iranian government.

Read more:

Iran calls new U.S. sanctions a violation of nuclear deal

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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Acting Drug Enforcement Administration administrator Chuck Rosenberg said he stands by his assertion that the DEA would support more research of marijuana. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)

The Justice Department under Attorney General Jeff Sessions has effectively blocked the Drug Enforcement Administration from taking action on more than two dozen requests to grow marijuana to use in research, one of a number of areas in which the anti-drug agency is at odds with the Trump administration, U.S. officials familiar with the matter said.

A year ago, the DEA began accepting applications to grow more marijuana for research, and as of this month it had 25 proposals to consider. But DEA officials said they need the Justice Departments approval to move forward. So far, the department has not been willing to provide it.

Theyre sitting on it, said one law enforcement official familiar with the matter. They just will not act on these things.

As a result, said one senior DEA official, the Justice Department has effectively shut down this program to increase research registrations.

DEA spokesman Rusty Payne said the agency has always been in favor of enhanced research for controlled substances such as marijuana.

(Claritza Jimenez/The Washington Post)

Lauren Ehrsam, a Justice Department spokeswoman, declined to comment.

The standoff is the latest example of the nations premier narcotics enforcement agency finding itself in disagreement with the new administration. While President Trump and Sessions have vowed a crackdown on drugs and violent crime, DEA officials have publicly and privately questioned some of the administrations statements and goals.

Late last month, acting DEA administrator Chuck Rosenberg wrote in an email to staff members that Trump had condoned police misconduct in remarking to officers on Long Island that they need not protect suspects heads when putting them into police vehicles. The acting administrator said he was writing his employees because we have an obligation to speak out when something is wrong. After public criticism, White House officials said the president was joking.

DEA officials say Sessions and his Justice Department have pressed the agency for action specifically on MS-13 despite warnings from Rosenberg and others at the DEA that the gang, which draws Central American teenagers for most of its recruits, is not one of the biggest players when it comes to distributing and selling narcotics.

Mexican cartels, DEA officials have warned, will use any gang to sell their drugs, and DEA leaders have directed those in their field offices to focus on the biggest threat in their particular geographic area. In many parts of the country, MS-13 simply does not pose a major criminal or drug-dealing threat compared with other groups, these officials said.

The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they could face professional consequences for candidly describing the internal disputes.

Mexican cartels, Mexican transnational organizations are the greatest criminal threat to the United States, Payne, the DEA spokesman, said. Theres no other group currently positioned to challenge them. Whenever drug investigations that we do involve MS-13, we respond, but right now the No. 1 drug threat in the U.S. is the Mexican cartels.

(The Washington Post)

Sessions frequently speaks harshly about marijuana use, and Justice Department officials have been reviewing the policy of his predecessor when it comes to enforcing federal laws on marijuana in states where the drug is legal. Sessions, too, has called medical marijuana hyped, maybe too much, and signaled that he is skeptical about the benefits of smoking it.

Dosages can be constructed in a way that might be beneficial, I acknowledge that, but if you smoke marijuana, for example, where you have no idea how much THC youre getting, its probably not a good way to administer a medicinal amount. So forgive me if Im a bit dubious about that, Sessions said earlier this year.

The DEA is no shrinking violet when it comes to marijuana enforcement. Last year, Rosenberg declined to lessen restrictions on its use, maintaining its classification as a Schedule 1 controlled substance  which means it has no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.

But Rosenberg wrote at the time that the DEA would support and promote legitimate research regarding marijuana and its constituent parts. The DEA, he wrote, already had approved such research, registering 354 people and institutions to study marijuana and related components, including the effects of smoked marijuana on humans.

The DEA indicated at the time it was willing to see those studies expand, asking for applications from people who wanted to grow marijuana to be used for research. The only source of marijuana for researchers then was  and is  the University of Mississippi, which has permission to grow and distribute the drug for research.

One still-waiting applicant is Lyle Craker, a professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Craker has spent years seeking approval to do research into whether other parts of marijuana plants have medicinal value.

Ive filled out the forms, but I havent heard back from them. I assume they dont want to answer, Craker said. They need to think about why they are holding this up when there are products that could be used to improve peoples health. I think marijuana has some bad effects, but there can be some good, and without investigation we really dont know.

Craker submitted his latest application Feb. 14; after getting additional questions from the DEA in March, he supplied additional information in April.

Brad Burge, spokesman for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, said that the federal government for years has prevented important research into marijuana.

Thats a sad state of affairs, he said. If the DEA is now asking for permission to say yes, then the resistance is now further up the chain of command.

Rosenberg indicated in a call with The Washington Post that he still would support more marijuana research.

I stand by what I wrote, he said.

Tension between Rosenberg and Trump is perhaps unsurprising. Rosenberg was appointed during the Obama administration, and he had served as chief of staff and senior counselor to James B. Comey, who was the FBI director until Trump fired him earlier this year.

The Justice Department has not rejected any of the 25 people whose applications to grow marijuana the DEA is considering. Rather, the department is not taking any action at all, officials said. Before approving such applications, DEA officials have to assess each applicant and determine whether their facility is secure and whether they had previously been complying with federal law.
via @learyreports

Gary Morse, the man who developed the Villages, died in 2014 but his family continues to play a role in politics, and recently gave $100,000 to a super PAC chaired by Gov. Rick Scott.

The Holding Company of the Villages contributed to the New Republican PAC, which Scott announced in May, and is the biggest single donation to date. The super PAC took in $270,000 in the first six months of 2017.

Morse over the years gave millions to Republicans and the new donation illustrates his family intends to remain politically active.

Among other major donors to New Republican PAC: New Yorker financier Roger Hertog ($25,000); Dosal Tobacco Corp. ($25,000); and Friends of Mike H, the committee controlled by Mike Haridopolos ($25,000).

New Republican PAC spent just under $50,000, for consulting and travel.
A Los Angeles-based tech company is resisting a federal demand for more than 1.3 million IP addresses to identify visitors to a website set up to coordinate protests on Inauguration Day  a request whose breadth the company says violates the Constitution.

What we have is a sweeping request for every single file we have in relation to DisruptJ20.org, said Chris Ghazarian, general counsel for DreamHost, which hosts the site. The search warrant is not only dealing with everything in relation to the website but also tons of data about people who visited it.

The request also covers emails between the sites organizers and people interested in attending the protests, any deleted messages and files, as well as subscriber information  such as names and addresses  and unpublished photos and blog posts that are stored in the sites database, according to the warrant and Ghazarian.

The request, which DreamHost made public Monday, set off a storm of protest among civil liberties advocates and within the tech community.

What youre seeing is pure prosecutorial overreach by a politicized Justice Department, allowing the Trump administration to use prosecutors to silence critics, Ghazarian said.

Media and protesters move through the smoke of percussion grenades as protesters and police clash on the streets of D.C. on Inauguration Day. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)

A spokesman for the U.S. attorneys office in the District of Columbia, which sought the warrant, declined to comment. But prosecutors, in court documents, argued that the request was constitutional and there was no reason for DreamHost not to comply.

The search warrant was issued July 12 by a Superior Court judge in the District of Columbia and served on DreamHost on July 17.

The request marked an escalation from January when prosecutors investigating the protests asked DreamHost to preserve records and issued a subpoena for a limited set of data on the site. The company complied with both requests, Ghazarian said.

In April, the federal government charged more than 200 people in connection with the protests that injured six police officers and damaged store windows and at least one vehicle. The charges included property damage and assault.

After the search warrant was served, DreamHost raised concerns with Assistant U.S. Attorney John W. Borchert, according to court documents. The company thought the request was overbroad and that it sought information  such as draft blog posts  in violation of the 1980 Privacy Protection Act.

Prosecutors responded July 28 with a motion to compel the company to turn over the data on DisruptJ20. That website was used in the development, planning, advertisement and organization of a violent riot that occurred in Washington, D.C. on January 20, 2017, U.S. Attorney Channing Phillips said in the motion. DreamHosts concern about breadth simply is not a sufficient basis . . . to refuse to comply with the warrant.

(Erin Patrick O'Connor,Whitney Leaming,Thomas Johnson/The Washington Post)

The prosecutors also argued that the warrant identified the precise categories of information that DreamHost must provide and precise limitations on the information that the government may seize. They also argued that the Privacy Protection Act does not preclude the government from seizing even protected materials with a search warrant.

On Friday, DreamHost filed a reply arguing that the warrants breadth violates the Fourth Amendment because it failed to describe with particularity the items to be seized. Asking for all records or other information pertaining to the site, including all files, databases and database records is far too broad, the company said.

The warrant also raises First Amendment issues, it said. Visitors to the protest site should have the right to keep their identities private, but if they fear that the Justice Department will have information on them, that will chill their freedom of speech and association, the company argued.

The company said that the warrant would require them to turn over data on potentially tens of thousands of law-abiding website visitors.

Mark Rumold, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that no plausible explanation exists for a search warrant of such breadth, other than to cast a digital dragnet as broadly as possible.

He said that the government appears to be investigating a conspiracy to riot, but its doing it in a blunt manner that does not take into account the significant First Amendment interests.

Even people who were nowhere near Washington on Inauguration Day who visited the website will have their data swept into a criminal investigation, he said.

A hearing is scheduled for Friday in Superior Court before Judge Lynn Leibovitz.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrives at the Royal Malaysian Air Force base in Subang on Aug. 8. On Aug. 15, the United States issued its first report on world religious freedom since President Trump took office, and again targeted the Islamic State group's campaign of genocide. (Manan Vatsyayana/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images)

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson highlighted abuses committed by the Islamic State group and Iran as he released a new survey Tuesday of religious rights and freedoms around the world.

The first global report on the status of religious freedoms issued under President Trump is critical of U.S. adversaries and allies alike. Tillerson called out some important partners, such as Bahrain, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey in brief remarks introducing the annual report, which Congress has mandated since 1998.

He devoted the most attention to the Islamic State, however, accusing the group of targeted, religiously motivated atrocities against Christians and minority sects. The Obama administration had accused the Islamic State of genocide, and Tillerson endorsed that position Tuesday.

ISIS has and continues to target members of multiple religions and ethnicities for rape, kidnapping, enslavement and death, Tillerson said, using one acronym for the group that holds territory in Iraq and Syria. ISIS is clearly responsible for genocide against Yazidis, Christians and Shia Muslims, as well as ethnic cleansing.

The protection of these groups and others who are targets of violent extremism remains a human rights priority for the Trump administration, he added.

Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.), a longtime advocate of U.S. action on religious persecution overseas, welcomed the focus on the Islamic State.

I applaud Rex Tillerson for being so clear and unambiguous about ISIS, Smith said, adding that he had been frustrated about how long it took the Obama administration to brand the groups actions genocide.

[ Yazidis who suffered genocide are fleeing again]

Criticizing Iran, Tillerson pointed to persecution of religious minorities and said that country had carried out executions last year under vague apostasy laws.

The new International Religious Freedom Report covers 2016, before the Trump presidency, but conclusions and decisions about what to highlight were reached under the current administration.

Religious persecution and intolerance remains far too prevalent. Almost 80 percent of the global population live with restrictions on or hostilities to limit their freedom of religion, Tillerson said. Where religious freedom is not protected, we know that instability, human rights abuses, and violent extremism have a greater opportunity to take root.

Human rights groups and some political conservatives were waiting for the report, hoping it would provide clues to the new administrations priorities.

The survey is of particular interest to evangelical Christians, who were an important part of Trumps political base. Exit polls in November showed Trump defeating Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton 80 percent to 16 percent among white evangelical Christians, and he has been eager to please this key part of his base. He signed an executive order in May aimed at allowing churches to engage in more political activity, and a month later told the Faith and Freedom Coalition, It is time to put a stop to the attacks on religion.

[For Trump and evangelicals, unlikely bond persists]

But the report also comes under an administration with an America First mandate that has sought to temporarily ban travel from several Muslim-majority nations and temporarily restrict U.S. acceptance of refugees, many of whom claim to be fleeing religious persecution at home.

The report singles out Saudi Arabia, the first country Trump visited as president, as a place of special concern because of its religious restrictions. The designation can be a first step to U.S. sanctions, although past administrations have waived that for Saudi Arabia, a key partner in counterterrorism.

That message contrasts with Trumps speech during his May visit, when he said, We are not here to lecture  we are not here to tell other people how to live, what to do, who to be, or how to worship.

The report has been a regular irritant to Saudi Arabia and to other major countries, including China and Russia, where Trump has sought new footing.

The current report was released without much fanfare, and without lengthy thematic analyses and personal anecdotes about victims of religious persecution that have marked previous annual surveys.

On China, Tillerson said the report documents how that nation imprisons thousands for practicing their religious beliefs.

The report notes that China has been labeled a country of particular concern under the law that established the State Department office responsible for the report.

Tillerson did not mention Russia in his remarks at the State Department. The report details alleged persecution against Jews and others in Russia. Russia is not singled out for special concern based on the 2016 findings.

Tillerson noted that Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) has been selected as the next head of that office, which carries the title of ambassador at large.

Brownbacks selection eased concerns that the position might be on Tillersons chopping block. Tillerson has said he wants to reduce the overall size of the State Department and has targeted various special representatives and advisers with overlapping authority.

Shaun Casey, who until January was the State Departments special representative for religion and global affairs and headed an office of 30 people, said the diplomatic effort to promote religious freedom has been undermined by Trumps other actions.

When he went to Riyadh and told the Saudis, Were not going to tell you how to run your country, that means, Were not going to hector you about [your] religious freedom problem,  said Casey, who now heads the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs at Georgetown University. If youre going to ban a specific religious group from entry into the United States, that doesnt comport with international norms for religious freedom.

The U.S. government also has an ambassador and a separate commission for religious freedom. Casey called the overlapping branches duplicative, inefficient and often ineffective.
It was March 2020, and the world was closing down as the COVID-19 pandemic spread. At first, the news of...
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/08/2017 (1916 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Supplied Toronto-based art appraiser Rob Cowley of Consignor Canadian Fine Art will be in Winnipeg later this week to conduct free valuations, and hell be happy to tell you whether youre sitting on an artistic goldmine.

Is the painting on your wall worth $1 million?

Toronto-based art appraiser Rob Cowley of Consignor Canadian Fine Art will be in Winnipeg on Thursday to conduct free valuations, and hell be happy to tell you.

Since its founding in 2013, Consignor has appraised an estimated $20 million worth of fine paintings, sketches and other artwork  much of which was valued during the companys annual valuation tour.

A lot of the time we see work weve never seen before, Cowley said.

People can be sitting on a gold mine and not even know it.

At one valuation, a collector brought in an early painting of a winter landscape in Ontarios Algoma region by Group of Seven member A.Y. Jackson. The collector knew it was valuable, but didnt expect it to be appraised for $20,000.

Across Canada, Cowley said, many pieces of art have been handed off from generation to generation, and the current holders might simply mount them on their walls, unaware of any historical significance.

Sometimes, people dont know the value, Cowley said. And thats where we step in.

In one case, a family was handed a one-of-a-kind piece by famed Manitoba artist William Kurelek near the end of his life and never even knew the mans identity until bringing it to be evaluated.

Kurelek, who grew up in Stonewall, became renowned in the 1950s and 60s for his ethnic-themed oil paintings and mixed media portrayals of life on the Canadian Prairies.

In the mid-70s, a woman in Toronto brought a local photographer a basket of Ukrainian-style strudel as a thank you gift, and Kurelek was there to taste a sample.

This is better than my mother used to make, Kurelek said, as the story goes. And then, without any indication of who he was, Kurelek brought the painting to the woman as a thank you gift to her. He died of cancer in 1977, only a short time after the encounter.

For more than 40 years, Kureleks painting  with the titular proverb He who chases two rabbits at the same time catches neither written at the bottom in English and Ukrainian  stayed in the familys collection.

When it was brought in to be appraised by Consignor, the collector brought in five pieces. The first four were recreations. Whats this worth? the collector asked of the Kurelek original, expecting nothing but chump change.

It was appraised to be worth between $15,000 and $20,000. a few months later, sold for $41,400 at auction.

Finds like the Kurelek are obviously exhilarating for the owners, but Cowley said the appraisers and auctioneers for Consignor get just as much of a thrill uncovering the art of the past.

Last spring, Consignor gave its highest-ever valuation for a large original painting by Lawren Harris, another artist of Group of Seven fame.

The painting was done during one of the groups early sketching trips, sometimes referred to as boxcar trips, because the artists would work out of a train-car-turned-workspace.

But this painting wasnt in Winnipeg or Regina or Vancouver; it was in a private collection in Australia, so Consignor flew out to see it for themselves.

Consignor appraised the Harris original, and estimated its value to be as high as $600,000. In 2016s spring auction, the painting sold for a whopping $977,500.

While not every sketch is a Lawren Harris or an A.Y. Jackson, Cowley says the Prairies are rich with valuable pieces by artists like Norval Morrisseau and Illingworth Kerr, among others.

A million-dollar painting might not be hanging on your wall but, then again, it just might be.

ben.waldman@freepress.mb.ca
@PatriciaMazzei

Check out Miami Republicans' tweets from Saturday and now, again, from Tuesday, in response to President Donald Trump's insistence that "both sides" -- and not just white supremacists and neo-Nazis -- were to blame for violence over the weekend Charlottesville. The three lawmakers are Hispanic.

These haters in #Charlotesville are agitators in search of relevance & publicity for a vile cause very few people support 1/2  Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) August 12, 2017

Can't ignore them,but also don't give them relevance they crave.Only way they win is if they can turn the rest of us against each other 2/2  Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) August 12, 2017

Very important for the nation to hear @potus describe events in #Charlottesville for what they are, a terror attack by #whitesupremacists  Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) August 12, 2017

Good time to re-up https://t.co/RZ24UhKtDw  Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) August 15, 2017

The organizers of events which inspired & led to #charlottesvilleterroristattack are 100% to blame for a number of reasons. 1/6  Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) August 15, 2017

They are adherents of an evil ideology which argues certain people are inferior because of race, ethnicity or nation of origin. 2/6  Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) August 15, 2017

When entire movement built on anger & hatred towards people different than you,it justifies & ultimately leads to violence against them 3/6  Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) August 15, 2017

These groups today use SAME symbols & same arguments of #Nazi & #KKK, groups responsible for some of worst crimes against humanity ever 4/6  Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) August 15, 2017

Mr. President,you can't allow #WhiteSupremacists to share only part of blame.They support idea which cost nation & world so much pain 5/6  Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) August 15, 2017

The #WhiteSupremacy groups will see being assigned only 50% of blame as a win.We can not allow this old evil to be resurrected 6/6  Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) August 15, 2017

White supremacists, Neo-Nazis and anti-Semites are the antithesis of our American values. There are no other "sides" to hatred and bigotry.  Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (@RosLehtinen) August 12, 2017

Blaming "both sides" for #Charlottesville?! No. Back to relativism when dealing with KKK, Nazi sympathizers, white supremacists? Just no.  Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (@RosLehtinen) August 15, 2017

The hatred on display in #Charlottesville is sickening. Leaders who sow resentment to divide Americans for political gain share in the blame  Carlos Curbelo (@carloslcurbelo) August 12, 2017

Appreciate @POTUS' effort to heal the nation, but he must be more explicit. Those promoting racism & hatred must be unequivocally condemned.  Carlos Curbelo (@carloslcurbelo) August 12, 2017

Every American should unequivocally condemn today's #terrorism in #Charlottesville inspired by despicable #whitenationalists  Carlos Curbelo (@carloslcurbelo) August 12, 2017

.@POTUS has always called out radical Islamic terrorists. He must now call out radical white supremacist terrorists #Charolettesville  Carlos Curbelo (@carloslcurbelo) August 13, 2017

.@potus finally identifies those responsible for #Charlottesville. Aides who drafted weak initial statement should be held to account. https://t.co/kV3ErgknZN  Carlos Curbelo (@carloslcurbelo) August 14, 2017
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 14/08/2017 (1917 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA  Manitoba has evaded the spotlight as Ottawa opens up about its strategy for going nose-to-nose with the countrys biggest trading partner in crucial NAFTA talks.

Experts say the province has less to lose or gain when negotiations start Wednesday for a new North American Free Trade Agreement  though Manitoba could be caught in the crossfire if larger provinces trigger a firefight.

On Monday, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland laid out 10 core objectives for talks with the United States and Mexico.

Sean Kilpatrick / The Canadian Press Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland discusses modernizing NAFTA at public forum at the University of Ottawa on Monday.

They include increasing cross-border access to government contracts, adding to the professions eligible for work visas and reforming the process in which investors sue governments to preserve regulations that are made in the public interest.

Phil Cyrenne, a University of Winnipeg economics professor studying trade, says Manitoba is largely spared by the sticking points around Ontarios automotive sector and Quebecs protected milk producers.

I think we can fly a bit under the radar in these issues, said Cyrenne, adding that the Trump administrations seems much more interested in stemming Mexicos NAFTA gains.

Freeland repeatedly assured MPs and journalists she would preserve the supply-management system, which regulates the production and pricing of dairy products, eggs and poultry.

Thats likely to reassure Manitobas dairy and egg farmers, though each group accounts for less than 500 people.

Yet Eric Millar, a Washington, D.C. consultant on Canada-U.S. trade, said supply management is an issue for all Manitobans to watch, because governors have already pushed against it, and might retaliate with other industries if they dont make headway.

Similarly, Freeland said the longstanding softwood-lumber dispute is being negotiated in parallel with NAFTA, though it could be merged into the agreement.

Millar said the forestry industry plays a larger role in places like British Columbia and Quebec, but its a long-standing issue for the Americans that could spill over into the NAFTA negotiations, and undermine provinces like Manitoba.

Softwood is one of those things that can poison the bilateral relationship, he said. It has been an issue literally since Congress imposed its first import tariffs in 1789.

Manitobas worst-case scenarios include American changes on grain imports  something for which industry groups are watching but havent raised an alarm.

Another nightmare would be a revival of the country-of-origin dispute, in which an American law had imported beef labelled on grocery shelves. The World Trade Organization ruled the 2001 law discriminated against Canadian stock, and the U.S. repealed it in 2015.

Freeland also said Monday that Canada will push for stronger labour standards in NAFTA 2.0, as well as chapters on gender and Indigenous rights.

Progressive elements are also important if you want a free-trade deal thats also a fair-trade deal, said Freeland. She believes Canada can find common ground on tougher environmental protections, though her opponents doubted the U.S. would allow the words climate change appear in the text.

While Freeland mentioned cutting red tape, the head of the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce said Canada shouldve included harmonized regulations in its Top 10 list, to reflect how integrated the countries have become since NAFTAs 1994 launch.

Our economy is much more digital than it was back then, said Loren Remillard. The supply chain is further integrated across the border, and at the same time we have a smattering of regulatory jurisdictions.

Manitobas provincial Trade Minister Cliff Cullen said Mondays priorities are in line with what hes heard from industry groups.

We look forward to working with our federal counterparts to modernize NAFTA and ensure that any changes build on the gains under the existing NAFTA, Cullen said in a statement.

Millar, who has advised the government on its NAFTA strategy, noted that Americans have been much more open about their goals, releasing a 12-page list of goals and demands.

Yet Millar met with Canadas lead negotiator last week, and said he was impressed by how many people Canadas team has consulted.

I was heartened by how ready they are to go, and frankly how prepared they are. I think people in Manitoba can take heart with how well-represented we are in the negotiations.

With files from the Canadian Press

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/08/2017 (1916 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

More than 500 nurses will see their jobs change over the next two months during the early stage of the Winnipeg Regional Health Authoritys system overhaul.

However, what exactly that change will mean  A new shift? A new unit? A new hospital?  remains unclear, even with the closure of the Victoria General Hospital ER and Misericordia Urgent Care Centre looming. Some will most certainly need to apply for new positions, although the WRHA remains adamant that there are jobs for all nurses who want them (it cant yet say the same for health care aides or unit clerks).

JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS The nurses at Victoria and Grace Hospitals, as well as the Misericordia Urgent Care Centre, will be the first to go through the changes.

These are the most significant changes to health care in Manitoba in a generation, said Karlee Blatz, the WRHAs senior labour relations counsel.

Blatz spoke at length with reporters Tuesday morning about the nursing changes required to further the provinces plans to drastically change how Winnipeggers access health care, in keeping with the recommendations of the 2015 Peachey report.

Throughout the summer, the WRHA has been serving numerous unions with notice that their members jobs may change. However, the nurses at Victoria and Grace Hospitals, as well as the Misericordia Urgent Care Centre, will be the first to go through the actual process, which involves multiple steps in accordance with individual union agreements.

Over the next few weeks, roughly 250 nurses at Victoria Hospital and and 250 nurses at Grace Hospital will receive deletion notices, meaning their jobs, as theyve performed them, are being eliminated. Twenty-five nurses at Misericordia will receive the same notice.

Some will have the chance to stay in their current unit and pick a new role or new rotation, while some specialty nurses will be allowed to follow their patients to new facilities. For instance, critical care nurses at Victoria Hospital will be offered the chance to move with their patients when critical care beds are moved to Grace Hospital and St. Boniface Hospital.

Nurses can also choose to apply for another open job  the WRHA says it currently has 400 vacancies for permanent nursing jobs  or choose to be laid off. If theyre still unhappy with their options, nurses will then have the opportunity to bump one of their peers, meaning use their seniority to take over an already-occupied position if they are qualified for it.

This entire process, including training to ensure a smooth transition, is to be finished during October.

We wont have staff who are waking up and going to a brand-new environment, expected to deliver the same level of care, said Lori Lamont, WRHA vice president and chief nursing officer, stressing there is a plan for the transition.

Justin Samanski-Langille / Winni JUSTIN SAMANSKI-LANGILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Karlee Blatz, regional director of labour relations and senior legal counsel for human resources, WRHA speaks at a press conference Tuesday providing more details on the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority reorganization and consolidation reforms currently being undertaken. 170815 - Tuesday, August 15, 2017.

The WHRA says its unclear yet how many of the more than 500 nurses will be able to stay at their current facility or have to move to another one. At least in the interim, while Victoria Hospital undergoes renovations to consolidate mental health care services, Blatz said it wont be possible for all nurses who want to to stay there to actually stay. But, she went on, we want to focus our staff on the end state because in the end state there is an opportunity for every nurse.

Ultimately, whether to stay or to go is a personal decision, explained Sandi Mowat, president of the Manitoba Nurses Union, as some nurses will want to stay in the field theyre involved in while others will want to stay with the facility theyre experienced with. Our point from the beginning was the sooner we could get to this, the smoother it would go, she said.

Whether the WRHA is actually able to push through these changes come October remains to be seen, Mowat said, it depends when the deletion notices come out, Im hoping its going to be in the next couple of weeks. Although disappointed the WRHA didnt give the union advance notice the announcement would be Tuesday, she said shes ultimately pleased with the process the MNU helped devise to transition jobs. The problem is nurses have been in limbo for a long time so we need to get on with things, Mowat said.

JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Sandi Mowat, president of the Manitoba Nurses Union

Nurses arent the only ones in limbo, said the president of the Manitoba Government and General Employees Union.

Theyre saying theres a job for every nurse, said Michelle Gawronsky, whose union represents health care aides and unit clerks, among other workers. We have not been given those reassurances at all.

Each new tidbit of information only seems to raise additional questions.

Theyre moving too far, too fast, Gawronsky said, weve got some real concerns on the amount of chaos thats out there.

In a release, the NDP called on the Manitoba government to halt the fall closures in light of further evidence the WRHA is unprepared.

Blatz said the WRHA plans to keep workers in the loop as these changes progress. Nurses at St. Boniface and Health Sciences Centre, whose jobs will also transition as part of phase one of the city-wide overhaul, will be dealt with at a later date.

jane.gerster@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @Jane_Gerster
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 14/08/2017 (1917 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Sheriffs officers did not show up in Portage la Prairie at 11 a.m. Monday to evict 18 families who havent paid rent for their Manitoba Housing units for 21 years.

They could show up any time without warning until Aug. 28, the deadline by which a court of appeal ruling in June said the evictions would take place.

And thats about the only thing on which the parties in an ever-more-complex situation could agree Monday.

JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Donna Gabriel holds eviction notices received last wek by families living in Manitoba Housing in Portage la Prairie.

Residents organizer Donna Gabriel said Monday that the families are unhappy with news coverage  the story is not that they havent paid rent, or that some of them also receive social assistance, she said from Portage la Prairie.

Our people are very upset about what youre writing, Gabriel said. Shed said Friday the sheriffs office had told the residents the evictions would start at 11 a.m. Monday.

Gabriel said that the province promised the residents theyd get free housing back in 1996, when they were removed forcibly from Waterhen  now known as Skownan First Nation  after protesting against the chief and band council of the day. Thats the story, she said.

Its not us whos breached, said Gabriel. Talk to the Manitoba government.

Gabriel said she was surprised to read in Saturdays Free Press that Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada Minister Carolyn Bennett has suggested creating a new reserve for the families.

Well, of course, thats what weve been demanding the last 20 years. Were entitled to land, as treaty people, she said. I havent heard anything yet (from Bennett).

Families Minister Scott Fielding said in an interview Monday that he has 1,000 people on a Manitoba Housing waiting list who are all prepared to pay rent.

There has been fairness over a 20-year period, he said. Were going to abide by the court decision.

The province has been more than patient for many years, and now its in the hands of the sheriff, Fielding said. He estimates the 18 families owe more than $1.2 million in rent.

Fielding said that its up to Ottawa to decide if it will pay the housing costs of First Nations residents who are no longer living on the reserve.

Meanwhile, Winnipeg Centre Liberal MP Robert-Falcon Ouellette weighed into the fray while at an unrelated event Monday.

You have to go back to whatever the original injustice was. Are they refugees in their own land? Ouellette said in an interview.

Housing is never free in our society, he said, but the answer may be a return to their home community, Ouellette said.

The chief and band council involved in the 1996 dispute are long gone.

Skownan Chief Cameron Catcheway declined to be interviewed Monday. Im not going to answer nothing right now, he said from the community about 108 kilometres northeast of Dauphin.

Id rather talk to the people in Portage, if they have the courage to give me a call, Catcheway said.

And if Ouellette has something to say, he can call Skownan, said Catcheway.

The final action and its timing are up to the sheriffs department, said Fielding, whose staff referred any inquiries about evictions to the sheriffs department.

It in turn referred inquiries to Manitoba Justice, which said the sheriff will choose when to start evictions.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 14/08/2017 (1917 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

One month to the day since the blockade at the Parker lands began, protesters have branched out, establishing a secondary camp on the disputed south Winnipeg property by dragging three tents into a small clearing surrounded by tall aspen trees.

Protesters said Monday they felt they had no choice but to expand their camp into the forest  next to private property signs  after actions of contractors and Gem Equities Inc. employees led them to fear more trees would be cut down on the 42-acre site.

The decision was made Monday morning, as contractors hired by developer Gem Equities (the legal owner of the property) finished construction on a fence bordering the 15 acres of the site already cleared of trees.

BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Jenna Vandal is one of the protestors camped out on the Parker Lands development site to prevent destruction of the forested area. Protesters have branched out, establishing a secondary camp on the disputed south Winnipeg property.

We worry the fence is there so that they can clear-cut the forest and maybe control our movement in and out of the area. We were concerned mulching would begin shortly, said Jenna Vandal, a spokeswoman for the protesters.

We spoke about it and decided the best move was to occupy the forest. Were just trying to wait and get a fair chance in court, but it appears (owner of Gem Equities Andrew) Marquess is not giving us that chance.

On July 26, the Manitoba Court of Queens Bench denied a request for an urgent hearing into the protesters right to remain on the land, putting the matter over until Nov. 2. Gem is appealing that decision.

Protesters said the new forest camp will help ensure no further trees are cut before the case can play out in court. Vandal added she feels the construction of the fence is aimed at circumventing the court process.

Kevin Toyne, legal representative for Marquess, denied the accusation that his client is not respecting the legal process, turning it around on the protesters.

Theyre simply continuing to break the law in a different part of the property. Its an unfortunate step, particularly in light of the ongoing process, as its disrespectful to the courts. Like any land owner, the plaintiffs have the right and ability to erect a fence around their property, Toyne said Monday.

The development comes less than a week after Marquess took a number of steps to increase security on the site, including hiring someone to photograph those who come and go, as well as installing lights that are turned on from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. daily.

On Aug. 11, the two main figures in the month-long conflict (Vandal and Marquess) had their first face-to-face interaction.

Seeing the owner of Gem Equities on site, Vandal approached him to explain why shed chosen to occupy the land.

My argument is, not only is it important Indigenous land, but ecologically its very important, she said, while Marquess performed maintenance on one of the security lights.

Theres endangered birds here, tall grass, swamp Im not trying to pick on you, specifically, its just this piece of forest thats left, Im trying to preserve it and just get Indigenous people involved in the conversation.

Establishing an open dialogue about the future of the site between Marquess, the City of Winnipeg, and the Manitoba Metis Federation (MMF) is ultimately what all of her efforts have been aimed at, Vandal said.

But, in Toynes perspective, the time for that has long passed. Marquess obtained the land from the city in 2009, and says the Manitoba Metis Federation has never reached out to him.

There have been numerous opportunities for any interested person to come forward and express their concerns, but they didnt, Toyne said.

Vandal counters that during the years following the 2009 land swap, which resulted in Marquess becoming the sites legal owner, the MMF was busy with a court case concerning the Manitoba Act of 1870.

The federation won the case in the Supreme Court of Canada in 2014. Now that they have more resources available, Vandal said the MMF should be given the opportunity to speak on the future of the Parker lands if it wishes.

I think its only fair to give them a chance to have their voice heard. I want them involved in the conversation, she said. But if they dont want to get involved with this, then my role is done. I will no longer step in the way, even though I hope the rest of the forest can be preserved and I know a lot of other people feel the same way.

On Wednesday morning, the first step in the appeal process initiated by Toyne begins and will determine when the matter will go before a judge.

 with files from Ben Waldman

ryan.thorpe@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/08/2017 (1916 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Are you OK?

Sitting in class one day last year, Abbigail Guse said she couldnt admit to her instructor that she wasnt OK  she was juggling college, work, relationships and struggling with anxiety and depression.

I felt like I couldnt say, Im not sick, but Im considering throwing myself in front of a bus today.

JUSTIN SAMANSKI-LANGILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Health co-ordinator Breanna Sawatzky hopes the new digital platform will help.

She felt alone and once attempted suicide that year.

About 1,300 Red River College (RRC) students accessed counselling and accessibility services last year, with over 200 struggling with suicidal thoughts.

With Guse as an example, its possible there were more students suffering in silence.

But when RRC students resume classes in a few weeks, theyll have a resource that Guse didnt, and its one that mental health co-ordinator Breanna Sawatzky hopes caters to the digital generation.

Red River Relief Line is a 24/7 online platform for students to talk about mental health issues anonymously with trained peer listeners.

Despite being known as the oversharing generation, students today often hide their symptoms of mental illness, said Sawatzky, adding theres still a lot of really negative attitudes toward mental health problems, where theyre seen as an internal character weakness of a person.

In line with apps like Uber and Skip the Dishes, Red River Relief Line creates quality assurance with a rating system that allows the user to rate the listener.

One risk about the relief line that Sawatzky acknowledged is that peer listeners are not monitored to ensure they follow the strict rule to listen to students problems  but to never give advice.

The one-year pilot project launched last March, just before classes wrapped up for summer, so this year it will truly be put to the test.

The online resource is a more realistic option for Guse, who said shes not comfortable talking to a school counselor or using a phone hotline.

Being able to do it when its 3 a.m. and I cant sleep and Im cramming on projects, is important because thats when people potentially feel the most overwhelmed.

Guse found the relief line on Mind it!, a website launched back in 2014 by an RRC student that features blog posts, information and other mental health resources.

After that student graduated, the website went quiet until Sawatzky picked up the torch last October.

Mind it! and the relief line are part of the colleges re-energized mental health strategy called Healthy Minds Healthy College.

We know that each year, one in five Canadians will experience mental illness, and we want to make sure that those in our community are able to notice when they might need to get treatment or get help, Sawatzky said.

That statistic doesnt just apply to students, and neither does the colleges push for better mental health on campus.

This year, 120 managers at the college will receive workplace mental health education to better understand how employees with mental illness are accommodated and learn techniques for boosting personal mental health, among other goals.

We do hope that the increased education awareness and stigma reduction will also influence how people work with students, Sawatzky said.

In yet another new project, the college will plan activities for Mental Illness Awareness Week for the first time ever.

The added efforts may seem justified when some data suggests students mental health is worsening.

Over 600 RRC students identified mental health as their primary reason to seek counselling last year, up 40 per cent from three years ago.

On a larger scale, the 2016 National College Health Assessment found that eight per cent fewer students than in 2013 said their health was very good or excellent.

Of all 44,000 post-secondary students surveyed, one fifth reported to be in distress, according to the data from the Canadian Association of College and University Student Services.

About 18 per cent reported having been diagnosed or treated for anxiety in the last year.

Guse is among that 18 per cent, but believes the grim numbers might be thanks to efforts institutions like Red River College that encourage students to speak out.

Its not as taboo as it used to be, you arent going to get shipped off to a looney bin just because you want to talk to somebody.

keila.depape@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/08/2017 (1916 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

More than three years after she last saw her son, Nofa Mihlo Rafo will finally be reunited with her boy Thursday at the Winnipeg airport.

Mihlo Rafo has been pleading with the Canadian government to bring her son Emad Mishko Tamo to Canada since discovering he was alive on July 15 after photos of the injured boy were posted on social media following his liberation from Islamic State militants.

It will be emotional for everybody, whether you know the family or not. Itll be emotional, said Hadji Hesso, a spokesman for the Yazidi Association of Manitoba.

WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Nofa Mihlo Rafo with her children from left, Maher, Rebar, Vian and Eman in Winnipeg.

Its a true story, a unique story, and after what happened to the entire region and in particular this mother and her son, its just going to be a fantastic moment.

Emad was only nine when mother and son were captured and separated by IS militants while attempting to escape the besieged town of Sinjar in northern Iraq, where thousands of Yazidi men, woman and children were murdered or abducted.

Mihlo Rafo arrived in Winnipeg in January this year with four of her children as government-sponsored Yazidi refugees.

She knew Emad had been captured and imprisoned, but for years didnt know whether he was alive or dead. Also missing was another of her children and her husband.

Last month, the young boy was liberated by Iraqi forces in Mosul and his picture was circulated on social media. The photo was spotted by one of his mothers cousins, who informed Mihlo Rafo her son was alive.

It was at this point she was able to speak to him on the phone for the first time in years and begin frantically trying to get him to Canada.

During his three-year ordeal Emad had been shot in the arm and cut by shrapnel on the right side of his stomach. Although he received medical treatment in a refugee camp in Dohuk, the Yazidi Association of Manitoba plans to get him further medical and mental health treatment upon his arrival.

Hes doing good, but hes been traumatized after being a prisoner of IS. When he arrives hell need more medical examination so doctors can determine what he needs to recover as quick as possible, Hesso said.

A video taken of Emad in a Kurdish hospital shows the boy telling his mom hes OK, and in another, he says in Kurdish, Take me to Canada to my mom.

SUPPLIED Nofa Mihlo Rafos son Emad Mishko Tamo.

Emads request will soon come true.

Shortly after midnight Thursday, his plane is scheduled to land in Winnipeg and Mihlo Rafo, his siblings and the entire Yazidi Winnipeg community will be there to meet him.

Two other families of Yazidi refugees living in Winnipeg will also be arriving, and the Yazidi Association of Manitoba is inviting anyone who wants to welcome the families to join them in celebrating the reunion at the airport.

Emad wont be leaving the airport empty handed, either. After learning the young boy really wanted a bike when he arrived in Canada, a brand new bicycle has been donated for him.

She (Mihlo Rafo) cannot wait. Shes happy, theres no description. Shell be reunited with her son. It may have taken a few years, but shell be reunited with her son, Hesso said.
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/08/2017 (1916 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Donald Trump, the hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons once told me, is the official bling-bling white man.

Simmons, a frequent guest at Mar-a-Lago, was explaining to me more than a decade ago why Trump had gained widespread acclaim among rappers. In short, Simmons said, Trump was extravagant, obsessed with public displays of his wealth and loving every minute of it. Rappers saw Trump as a role model, and as someone who was inclusive. A lot of rich white guys want to thumb their noses at you and have their cake, Simmons said. Thats not Donald.

Simmons and Trump arent pals anymore.

Evan Vucci / The Associated Press U.S. President Donald Trump speaks on Monday about the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend.

Simmons now describes the president as the epitome of white supremacy. Shortly after Trump was elected last year, Simmons published a letter asking him to reconsider some of his campaign themes.

The far right wing and the alt-right were your most staunch supporters, but those people are not your friends and you know that, Simmons wrote. You must stop with the hateful and harmful language towards women and people of colour.

Trump hasnt taken Simmons advice. He has never really distanced himself from the white nationalists who have been among his most visible backers since he announced his presidential bid two years ago. And last weekend he reached a new low when he failed to clearly condemn the avowed racists who gathered in Charlottesville, Va., to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

The rally turned violent, a woman was killed by an alleged white nationalist, and Trump equivocated: Many sides were to blame for the tragedy, he said in a televised statement Saturday.

After then being pilloried by activists, politicians from both parties, the media and on and on, Trump  who typically seizes any opportunity to opine publicly about the news of the day  couldnt come up with anything much better than that initial statement. He took to Twitter to express his disappointment (but Charlottesville sad! he offered) and then his daughter Ivanka Trump entered the fray to say what her father apparently wasnt willing to: There should be no place in society for racism, white supremacy and neo-nazis.

The White House also sought to mollify the presidents critics, issuing a statement on Sunday condemning white supremacists, KKK, Neo-Nazi and all extremist groups for the violence. Better, maybe. Clearer, certainly. But thats still very weak brew amid a national tragedy.

I dont think Trump  who finally issued a slightly stronger scripted statement on Monday  is failing to rise to the majesty and demands of the office he now holds because hes uncertain about how to respond to Charlottesville, or simply because hes pandering to a vocal and vicious segment of his political base.

I suspect, rather, that the president isnt being clear and forceful about Charlottesville because he has a long history as a race-baiter himself  and to overtly condemn others for the same is beyond him.

Remember, our president is the same man who took out full-page newspaper ads in 1989 condemning black and Latino teenagers accused of assaulting a white jogger in Central Park. Trump had no need to insert himself in that event, other than to stir up the racial animosities brewing around it and exploit them for his own publicity. Even after the teenagers were fully exonerated, including by DNA evidence proving they werent the assailants, Trump continued to insist on their guilt as recently as last year.

The U.S. president is the same man who embraced birtherism as a way to hound Barack Obama during his presidency, an effort that also kept Trump in the public eye. Hes the same man who attacked a federal judge overseeing fraud litigation involving Trump University by highlighting his Mexican heritage. Hes the same man who ran a housing and real-estate business with his father that was investigated and sanctioned by the Justice Department in the 1970s for discriminating against prospective tenants of colour. Hes the same man who brought Steve Bannon, the former boss of Breitbart, the white-nationalist tribune, into the White House.

Trump is the same man who refused last year to explicitly condemn former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke. I know nothing about David Duke; I know nothing about white supremacists, Trump told CNN at the time.

Duke himself knows better. He joined the Charlottesville rally over the weekend, telling NBC that he attended because he saw the event as a turning point for white nationalists seeking to fulfil the promises of Donald Trump.

David Duke is right. And Russell Simmons is right. The president has long consorted freely with bigotry, dignifying and empowering the racism thats now unspooling onto our streets.

Timothy L. OBrien is the executive editor of Bloomberg Gadfly and Bloomberg View. His books include TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald.

 Bloomberg
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/08/2017 (1916 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Saskatchewan Premier Brad Walls intuitive decision to step down one year and four months into a new mandate had some Saskatchewanians scratching their heads last week.

Others, like me, who understand the demanding electorate, observe that Wall had no other choice. It was either go now, or face leadership opposition within the Saskatchewan Party  or, even worse, humiliation at the polls in 2020.

This time last year, Wall  first elected in November 2007  was riding high in the polls after the April 2016 election in which he received a majority mandate to govern for the next four years.

Mark Taylor / THE CANADIAN PRESS Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall announces he is retiring from politics during a press conference at the Legislative Building in Regina last Thursday.

So what happened?

One unpopular budget and the Saskatchewan Party premier, a member of the Mennonite faiths conservative wing, is folding up his evangelists tent and moving on like Steve Martin in Leap of Faith.

After the miserly April 2017 budget, Wall, who was once the most popular premier in Canada, watched on helplessly as his SaskParty approval ratings dipped to a record low of 40 per cent.

It was a small cut to the coffers and the elimination of the government-owned, money-draining Saskatchewan Transportation Company (STC) that left Wall stranded.

Outside the provinces major centres, if you want to get on the bus, Gus, or make a new plan, Stan, youll have to hitch a ride, Clyde, cause Uber doesnt service rural Saskatchewan.

Walls rural stronghold of conservative seniors has evaporated, since those without drivers licences and with city medical appointments can no longer ride the STC, which has been the lifeline for rural people since 1946. That senior demographic can no longer rally for Wall in Regina.

Sure, there was a literate outcry over the de-funding of libraries in that same ill-fated budget. But the library funding was soon restored for just one more year. The funding structures will be re-evaluated in 2018 after a consultation with librarians.

When Wall and his government sharpened their pencils with this most recent budget, they made a massive miscalculation: the SaskParty didnt spend money during a downturn.

Instead, the government punished the electorate with a philosophical budget that off-loaded the treasurys shortfall onto voters. Walls ill-advised April budget was an act of fiscal conservatism, which was an attempt to bolster his credibility with his conservative base  a rookie move for a premier of almost 10 years.

Like other western Canadian resource-based provinces, Saskatchewans economy has been listing like an old navy destroyer. Perhaps Wall, who has always had a good grasp on the mood of the electorate, knows his party is facing imminent failure at the polls in 2020.

Still, its a kick in the teeth to the loyal voters who elected his SaskParty based on the reassurance that a moderate would be at the helm for four more years.

The majority of voters in this polarized province chose between two extremes: the socialist NDP and the free-enterprise SaskParty. There hasnt been a Liberal premier since W. Ross Thatcher (1964-1971).

The so-called polarized major political parties are more alike then theyll admit: both are dominated by prudish social conservatives who thrive on the status quo; nothing changes in Saskatchewan not even the time zone.

Wall the populist knew this, so he assumed the position of the appearance of change, without any bold policies that would set off the stuffy electorate. His moderate stance endeared him to the voting majority while alienating the far-right factions of his party.

So its farewell to Brad Wall. His 2016 winning election platform of Keeping Saskatchewan Strong has been an epic fail. All it did was fortify the NDP, who are now poised to steal the province from the SaskParty, thanks to the erosion of Walls rural base.

So what are Brad Walls future career options? Open a surf shop in Tofino or sit on the board of PotashCorp? Will Brad and Tami Wall buy a Class A motorhome, become roadies and tour with their 22-year-old musician son, Colter, a rising blues-folk-Americana star in North America and Europe?

Perhaps Wall knew the voters were ready to run him, and his party, out on a rail. Its the only other way out of town now that the STC has been cut. To drown their transportation sorrows, rural voters  thanks to a quasi-privatization scheme for liquor stores  can now buy a cheap bottle of Golden Wedding rye at the same hotel bar where the STC once stopped.

Patricia Dawn Robertson is an independent journalist in Wakaw, Sask.
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/08/2017 (1916 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland Monday dropped a gentle hint that she might walk away from trade talks with the United States if the deal is not good enough. Gentle hints, however, may not have much effect in Donald Trumps Washington. The government should prepare Canadians  and our trade partners  for eventual news that the attempt to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement has failed.

There are good reasons for expecting the attempt may fail. The Trump administration has said again and again its main aim in trade policy, including North American trade policy, is to alter the U.S. trade balance. U.S. trade volumes fluctuate widely from month to month but showed a deficit (excess of imports over exports) with the entire world of around US$40 billion a month for the last year.

Free trade agreements, however, do not regulate the balance of trade. The administration is therefore likely to be dissatisfied with any agreement that could emerge from the talks that are opening this week in Washington. They will want Canada and Mexico to agree to measures that will block Canadian and Mexican goods and services from entering the U.S., but we have no reason to agree to such a thing.

Sean Kilpatrick / The Canadian Press Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland discusses modernizing NAFTA at public forum at the University of Ottawa on Monday.

In particular, President Trump loves requiring the use of U.S. materials in U.S. public works projects, but he wants access for U.S. suppliers to government procurement in Canada and Mexico. If the U.S. really wanted an agreement, they would not come to the table with nonsense like that. U.S. trade-policy professionals know they have to offer something the other side can accept, but they are working for a president who may not understand this.

Ms. Freeland Monday outlined her plan for NAFTA renewal under the sunny view that NAFTA is good for all three countries and can be made even better. She warned gently that there may be rough moments during the negotiation. She recalled that she had to walk away from trade talks with the European Union when the Wallonian provincial authorities objected to the investor-rights provisions. She recalled also that Canada had to walk away from the 1987 talks for the original Canada-U.S. free trade agreement in order to compel U.S. agreement.

But if the American side knows that Canada is hungry for an agreement and cannot accept failure, then walking out of the store wont have the desired effect. Theyll know were bluffing.

The Canadian public needs to be well-informed about where well be the day the three governments announce that agreement on revision of NAFTA cannot be achieved. The Trump administration loves tearing up this and walking out of that. The wreckage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Paris Climate Accord lie smoking on the ground to show how this administration operates.

Canada cannot put itself in the position of begging the U.S. for an agreement  any agreement  because we just cant live without it.

The moment the talks fail should be prepared well in advance. Ms. Freeland should go well beyond the gentle hints and explain, as best she can, how Canada will trade with the U.S. and how the trade will be managed after failure of these talks. If the government does not brace the country for that possible result, then well be begging and Washington will be dictating.
via @ogleconnie

Former Vice President Joe Biden isnt the only famous political name on this years list of Miami Book Fair authors.

The fair, which opens Nov. 12 with journalist Dan Rather, has announced that Sen. Al Franken will close out the fair on Nov. 19 to talk about his book Giant of the Senate.

Also appearing are Barbara Pierce Bush and Jenna Bush Hager  you know them as the Bush twins, daughters of former President George W. Bush and his wife Laura Bush  to discuss their joint memoir Sisters First: Stories from Our Wild and Wonderful Life.

The fair takes place at Miami Dade Colleges Wolfson campus in downtown Miami. But Biden, who will talk about his book Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose, will appear Nov. 18 in partnership with the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts.

More here.
Following US President Donald Trumps threats of nuclear war against North Korea, New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English told the media on August 11: If there was any military action at all we would consider our contribution on its merits.

English said, Were in close contact with the US and Australia, adding only that any decision New Zealand makes about North Korea we make according to our own interests.

Two days earlier English made a mild criticism of Trumps threat to unleash fire and fury like the world has never seen. English said Trumps statement was not helpful when the situation is so tense and more likely to escalate than to settle things.

Englishs cautious comments contrast with the unqualified commitment given by Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. In terms of defence, we are joined at the hip with the US, Turnbull said, and we would come to their aid in a war. Turnbull was immediately supported by the Labor Party.

Nevertheless, New Zealands government is considering dragging the country into a war, without any public debate and behind the backs of the population.

For the ruling and opposition parties, the danger of war that menaces the worlds population has been the great unmentionable in their campaigns for the election, scheduled for September 23. The working class and young people overwhelmingly oppose war and the Trump administration, but their views find no political expression within the establishment parties.

The National, Labour and Green parties have not released election statements on foreign policy or defence, but all agreed last year on a $20 billion increase in military spending over the next 15 years to improve interoperability between New Zealand and US forces. Meanwhile, all parties are committed to deepening austerity measures to attack the working class at home.

The basis for a US war against North Korea and its only ally, China, was prepared by the Obama administrations pivot to Asia. The entire New Zealand political establishment supported this strategy to militarily encircle and threaten China. The government remains concerned about antagonising China, which is New Zealands main trading partner. Nonetheless, successive governments have strengthened military and intelligence ties with the US.

The media has noted that New Zealand, unlike Australia, is not a formal US ally and not obligated to join a US war. New Zealand has been excluded from the ANZUS defence alliance since the mid-1980s, when the Labour Party government imposed an anti-nuclear policy that effectively banned US navy ship visits.

New Zealand, however, is a minor imperialist power which has relied on a de facto alliance with the US since the end of World War II to defend its own predatory interests in the Pacific and other parts of the world.

The rift with Washington in the 1980s was mainly for public posturing. While spouting pacifist rhetoric, the Labour government opened the powerful Waihopai spy base in the South Island and strengthened intelligence collaboration with the US. New Zealand is a partner in the US-led Five Eyes spy alliance and, as Edward Snowden revealed, New Zealands Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) spies on China on behalf of the US National Security Agency.

Military collaboration expanded under the 1999-2008 Labour government of Helen Clark and the current National government, which both sent troops to Afghanistan and Iraq. Last year the government, supported by Labour and the Greens, hosted a US warship visit for the first time since the 1980sanother sign of closer military relations.

New Zealand regularly joins military exercises with the US, aimed at preparing for war with China. The NZ Air Force has just completed an anti-submarine warfare exercise in Guam, alongside US and Japanese forces. After the North Korean regime responded to Trump by threatening to launch missiles into waters near Guam, NZs Defence Force confirmed on August 10 it would not withdraw from the exercise.

An official propaganda campaign, connected with the centenary of the First World War, is underway in Australia and New Zealand to prepare the population and especially young people for future wars. Significantly, during this years Anzac Day commemorations on April 25, Governor-General Patsy Reddy praised New Zealands involvement in the Korean War, in which 4,700 NZ soldiers participated.

In another recent attempt to whip up pro-war sentiment, Foreign Minister Gerry Brownlee provocatively declared on June 12 that Pyongyang was developing a missile that could hit New Zealand as well as the US. Brownlee demonised North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as irrational  nuts and not a sort of person that youd want to have with a finger anywhere near the trigger of a nuclear weapon.

On August 9, Labour Party foreign affairs spokesman David Parker hypocritically told the New Zealand Herald that Trumps statements on North Korea were as silly as the shock-and-awe language that was used by George Bush before invading Iraq, which has already led to more than a decade of war.

However, the opposition parties have not opposed Englishs comment that New Zealand would join a US war with North Korea. Parker echoed Washingtons demand for Russia and China to increase economic pressure on North Korea.

The author also recommends:

The world on the brink

[12 August 2017]

US secretary of state visits New Zealand to counter China

[9 June 2017]

New Zealand Defence White Paper prepares for war

[17 June 2016]
Police in Edinburg, Texas on Sunday recovered a group of 17 undocumented immigrants at a Flying J gas station who had been locked inside a hot tractor-trailer for more than eight hours. According to reporters, no ambulances were on the scene and police have not reported any injuries or casualties. The group of immigrants were then detained and loaded onto Border Patrol vans.

The immigrants were from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and Romania. The owners of the tractor-trailer, a male and female of Cuban nationality, were taken into custody.

According to police, they received a call from an unknown individual from Mexico sometime before 11 a.m., who reported that a relative was trapped inside a parked tractor-trailer. The caller said the relative was with other immigrants who were fighting heat exhaustion and were trapped inside the 18-wheeler truck.

When police arrived at the gas station they began knocking on all the tractor-trailers in the park, until they heard one of the trailers knock back from the inside. The group had been trapped for more than 8 hours as temperatures reached 102 degrees over the weekend.

Edinburg police gave water and pizza to the survivors. None reportedly required medical assistance and they were loaded into vans for likely deportation. Border Patrol, Homeland Security, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) then took over the investigation and promised to launch an investigation into the human smuggling operation.

However, Homeland Security Investigations agent Nina Pruneda declared, Its too early to speculate who is involved.

The incident, which easily could have ended in tragedy, comes less than a month after 8 immigrants were found dead inside a tractor trailer in a Walmart parking lot in San Antonio, Texas. Two more immigrants later died from heat exhaustion at the hospital.

The driver of the tractor, James Matthew Bradley Jr., has now been charged with one count of transporting illegal immigrants in federal court on Monday. If convicted he could get the death penalty or life in prison and a $250,000 fine. Bradley has claimed he did not know they were people trapped inside his trailer and once he realized he tried to help them.

Whatever the exact circumstances of the San Antonio tragedy, the real blame should be placed on American capitalism and its twin parties, the Democrats and Republicans, who have engaged in anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies for decades.

The near tragedy in Edinburg should serve as a reminder of the inhuman conditions forced upon immigrants internationally as they face poverty, violence and war. How many more trailers are filled with precious human cargo in 21st century America and around the world is impossible to know.
US Defence Secretary James Mattis warned North Korea yesterday that any attempt to fire missiles towards the American territory of Guam or the United States itself would be game onin other words, war between the two countries.

His threat came as US President Trump signed an executive order initiating an investigation that could result in trade war measures against China. Trump officials have been increasingly critical of Beijing for failing to use crippling economic sanctions to force Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear and missile programs.

Mattiss remarks followed bellicose threats by President Trump last week to engulf North Korea in fire and fury like the world has never seen if it continued to threaten the US. On Friday, Trump warned that the military option was now locked and loaded should North Korea act unwisely.

The Pyongyang regime responded by announcing that its military was drawing up plans to fire four intermediate-range missiles to plunge into the sea near Guam, home to US military bases that would be used in any war with North Korea. The state-owned media KCNA reported yesterday that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un had reviewed the plans and discussed the possibility of carrying out the fire of power demonstration.

Mattis warned that if North Korea shot at the United States, he would assume that its missiles would hit the US and if they do that, then its game on. He underscored the warning by declaring: You dont shoot at people in this world unless you want to bear the consequences.

Mattis also made clear that the US would pre-emptively destroy any North Korean missiles shortly after they were fired. He said that the US military would be able to determine within moments after launch whether a missile was headed to any American territory, including Guam and would take it out if it was.

While saying that war was up to the President, perhaps up to the Congress, Mattis insisted that the bottom line is we will defend the country from an attack, for us thats war, thats a wartime situation. In other words, the firing of a North Korean missile that the Pentagon alleges could hit American territory could become the pretext for a massive US attack on the Pyongyang regime and war, without the green light of Trump or Congress.

Amid high tensions with North Korea, President Trump broke into his vacation yesterday to sign an executive memorandum directing the US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to determine whether to initiate an investigation of Chinas alleged theft of US intellectual property.

In the course of last years presidential election campaign, Trump accused China of raping the US through its trade policies and threatened a series of trade war measures against Beijing. In office, however, Trump pulled back from imposing heavy tariffs of up to 45 percent or declaring China a currency manipulator in order to secure Beijings assistance in bullying North Korea into line.

Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in April and toned down the trade threats in the expectation that China would force North Korea to denuclearise. US relations rapidly soured, however, after North Korea test fired two long-range ballistic missiles. Trump lashed out in a tweet: Our foolish past leaders have allowed them [China] to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk.

During yesterdays signing, Trump warned that it was a very big move and vowed that it was just the beginning of a crackdown on alleged unfair trade practices around the world. Declaring that he was keeping his election promises, he declared: We will defend our workers. And we will protect the innovations, creations and inventions that power our magnificent country.

As well as putting pressure on China, Trumps heavily-promoted announcement was also an attempt to arrest his plunging support in the opinion polls, including among lower-income voters, whose living standards have continued to deteriorate under his presidency. The trade war measures now being contemplated against China will do nothing to defend the jobs, wages and conditions of American workers.

What Trump and his trade advisers brand as theft is nothing more than Chinese investment rules that require foreign companies investing in the country to form joint ventures with Chinese partners and share intellectual property. Writing in the Financial Times, US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross accused China of attacking American genius as part of a Made in China 2025 plan to be a world leader in technologies such as robotics, semi-conductors and autonomous vehicles.

While complaining about the Chinese rules, American corporations have entered into joint ventures to gain access to Chinas large and growing markets. The degree to which US companies rely on the monopoly status provided intellectual property is underscored by a 2016 Department of Commerce report which estimated that intellectual property accounted for nearly 40 percent of the US economy in 2014.

US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer firstly has to determine whether an inquiry is warranted and the investigation itself could take up to a year to complete. It could, however, open the door for a range of trade war penalties against China, including unilateral US measures under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. Section 301 has been little used since the creation of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 1995.

Beijing has reacted angrily to Trumps announcement. An editorial yesterday in the state-owned China Daily warned against a rash decision, saying that instead of advancing the United States interests, politicising trade will only [exacerbate] the countrys economic woes, and poison the overall China-US relationship. It linked the US move to Trumps increasing disappointment at what he deems as Chinas failure to bring [North Korea] into line.

An op-ed article by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defence Secretary Mattis in the Wall Street Journal on Sunday pointedly demanded that China do far more to use its influence over North Korea. That will include rigorous enforcement of sanctions, leaving no North Korean source of revenue untouched. In particular, the US will continue to request Chinese and Russian commitments not to provide the regime with economic lifelines and to persuade it to abandon its dangerous path.

Trumps announcement of the first steps towards trade war measures against China makes clear that the requests will be backed by penalties. Moreover, it demonstrates that the US confrontation with North Korea is linked to a broader strategy to undermine and subordinate China in particular, which Washington regards as its chief obstacle to dominance in Asia and globally.
The number of recorded cholera infections in Yemen this year surpassed half a million on Sunday, in what the World Health Organization (WHO) has called the worst cholera outbreak in the world. Some 2,000 people have been killed by the disease since the outbreak mushroomed in April when the sewage system of the capital city of Sanaa suddenly stopped functioning.

While the number of new infections reported per week has begun to somewhat subside due to emergency interventions by the Red Cross and other humanitarian organizations, nearly 24,000 new cases were reported last week. The disease has spread to almost every corner of the country, affecting 22 out of 23 governates.

The conditions for the deadly outbreak have been created by the savage war waged by Saudi Arabia and a coalition of Gulf monarchies, now in its third year, with the full backing of the United States, which has provided intelligence and aerial refueling flights.

Pursuing its stated goal of reinstating the deposed government of Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, the Saudi coalition has devastated the already deeply impoverished country with round after round of air strikes and a ground invasion spearheaded by the United Arab Emirates. Hadi fled the country after Houthi insurgents and elements aligned with former dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh took control of significant portions of the country, including Sanaa.

According to the UN, between March 2015 and March 2017 at least 10,000 civilians were killed as a consequence of the Saudi-led assault, accounting for a majority of fatalities. More than 2 million people have been displaced since 2015.

From the outset of the war, the Obama administration made sure that the Saudi armory remained stocked with billions of dollars in bombs, weapons and equipment. The military support structures put in place by the Obama administration have been maintained and expanded under President Donald Trump.

In March, US Defense Secretary James Mad Dog Mattis issued a memo calling for stepped-up US support for the criminal war, which the US is backing as part of its drive to isolate and ultimately topple the regime in Iran.

In May, Trump visited Saudi Arabia and ostentatiously hailed the totalitarian monarchy as a bastion of stability in the region and linchpin in a US-led crusade against Islamist terrorismthe pretext for their joint war for regime-change in Syria and efforts to destabilize Iran. Trump praised Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies for having taken strong actions against Houthi militants in Yemen.

In Riyadh, Trump and the Saudi monarchy finalized a number of agreements, including a $110 billion arms deal that includes an option for the Saudis to purchase $350 billion worth of US weapons over the next 10 years. Following his visit, Trump backed the Saudi regime and its allies in the region when they imposed sanctions and a blockade on Qatar in an attempt to force that regime to cut off relations with Iran.

It is increasingly clear that the cholera outbreak in Yemen is not an unintended consequence of the Saudi-led war, but is being used as a weapon in the US-backed coalitions efforts to subjugate the country.

Domination of Yemen is crucial to the control of the Bab el Mandeb Strait, a geo-strategic waterway through which much of the worlds oil must pass.

Coalition air strikes and shelling have deliberately targeted civilian residential areas, hospitals, schools, markets, sewers and other critical infrastructure. This unrelenting assault has made it impossible to properly dispose of trash, which has piled up in the streets.

Individuals contract cholera by consuming water that has been contaminated by human feces. At least 14 million people have been blocked from regular access to clean water by the war, putting them at risk of cholera and other water-borne diseases. The dramatic decline in sanitation conditions and the breakdown in access to water supplies resulting from the Saudi onslaught have fueled the rapid spread of cholera.

With the aid of the US Navy, Yemen has also been subjected to a blockade that has curtailed exports and threatens a collapse in the import of staple foods. Yemen relies on imports to meet more than 90 percent of its grain supply.

Exacerbating the situation, the main international airport in Sanaa has been closed since last year, when the Saudi coalition established a no-fly zone over Yemen. Limited amounts of aid from humanitarian organizations have been allowed into the country via the airport only after the approval of the Saudi monarchy. However, those in need of emergency medical aid available outside of the country have been blocked from leaving.

All of this has pushed Yemen to the brink of famine. The World Food Programme has determined that 17 million Yemenis, more than 60 percent of the countrys population, do not have enough food to eat. UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Justin Forsyth reported in July that 1.8 million children are threatened with acute malnutrition and another 385,000 confront severe acute malnutrition.

The humanitarian disaster in Yemen is being compounded by the collapse of the health care system. Forty-nine of the countrys 333 districts do not have a single doctor, and health workers nationwide have not been paid in many months.

Last week, it was reported that without a rapid infusion of supplies and money, Yemens main blood bank, the National Blood Transfusion Centre, would be forced to close its doors, denying life-saving treatment to approximately 3,000 people every month.

Doctors Without Borders recently handed off responsibly for maintaining the facility to the WHO, but supplies have been blocked from reaching the facility by the Saudi embargo. If the blood bank is shuttered, thousands of patients suffering from war wounds, cancer or kidney failure will be condemned to death.

The enormity of the war crimes being carried out in Yemen make all the more stark the silence of the mainstream media, the political establishment and their hangers-on in the pseudo-left. While they clamor for war crimes charges against Bashar al Assad and demand regime-change in Syria, they give a pass to the United States and Saudi Arabia to destroy an entire society, sinking Yemen into one of the worst humanitarian crises in recent history, with no apparent end in sight.
Trump attacks Merck boss on Twitter shortly after he announces departure, as chief of AFL-CIO says union federation is reconsidering role with panel

Kenneth Frazier: Americas leaders must honor our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry, and group supremacy. Photograph: Eric Thayer/Reuters

One of the USs most high-profile African American executives quit Donald Trumps business advisory panel on Monday, citing a responsibility to take a stand against violence and extremism and triggering an almost immediate attack from the president.

Kenneth Frazier, chief executive officer of the pharmaceutical giant Merck, made the announcement as Trump faces mounting criticism over his failure to directly criticize the white nationalists at the center of the weekends fatal protests in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The decision followed Trumps statement blaming hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides for the violent protests that left one woman dead and 19 injured  a statement that has been condemned by members of his own party as well as opponents.

Americas leaders must honor our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry, and group supremacy, which run counter to the American ideal that all people are created equal, Frazier said in a statement.

Our countrys strength stems from its diversity and the contributions made by men and women of different faiths, races, sexual orientations and political beliefs, said Frazier, one of just four black executives running a Fortune 500 company.



Trump attacked Frazier shortly after the announcement. Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from Presidents Manufacturing Council, he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES! he tweeted.



Trump has previously criticized pharmaceutical companies for charging astronomical drug prices and pledged to find ways to bring prices down.

Following Fraziers announcement, Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO  a union federation with 12 million members  said it was also assessing its involvement with Trumps business panel. Trumka sits on the panel.

Story continues

The AFL-CIO has unequivocally denounced the actions of bigoted domestic terrorists in Charlottesville and called on the president to do the same. We are aware of the decisions by other members of the presidents manufacturing council, which has yet to hold any real meeting, and are assessing our role. While the AFL-CIO will remain a powerful voice for the freedoms of working people, there are real questions into the effectiveness of this council to deliver real policy that lifts working families, said Trumka.

Frazier is the fourth business leader to quit Trumps business panel. The Disney chairman Bob Iger and Tesla chief executive Elon Musk both resigned in June after the president announced he would withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreement.

Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world, Musk wrote on Twitter.

Trump announced the creation of his Strategic and Policy Forum last December. The aim was to create a forum for business leaders to advise the president on ways to make it attractive for firms to create new jobs.



But the business panel was dogged by controversy from the outset, with staff and customers of many of the companies represented protesting that the involvement of their bosses appeared to endorse policies that their companies opposed.

Ubers CEO, Travis Kalanick, became the first executive to quit the council. In February, he announced his resignation following intense criticism from staff and customers over Trumps immigration executive order  which attempted to suspend immigration from six predominantly Muslim countries.

Kalnick said he had resigned because of the order and its issues for our community.

Fraziers resignation will put pressure of the remaining members on the council - many of whose companies have policies on immigration and climate change that are in conflict with the Trump administration. Remaining members include Mary Barra, chief executive of General Motors; Jamie Dimon, chairman of JP Morgan; Indra Nooyi, chair and chief executive of Pepsi; Ginni Rometty, chief executive of IBM; and Steven Schwarzman, chief executive of Blackstone.
A Jewish family staying at a hotel in the Swiss Alps encountered more than one sign at the facility that appeared to be anti-Semitic. One note was placed on the refrigerator at the Aparthaus Paradeis hotel, while the other was tacked to the entrance to the hotel pool.

To our Jewish guests: Please take a shower before you go swimming and although [sic] after swimming, the sign by the pool read. If you break the rules, Im forced to cloes [sic] the swimming pool for you. Thank you for understanding: Ruth Thomann.

Another sign on a refrigerator hotel stated that Jewish guests were only allowed to use it during certain hours to avoid bothering hotel staff.

After we made the reservation, we spoke to a woman who was very nice to us. We told her that we are Jewish and she said that not many Jews stay at the hotel, the father of the family staying at the hotel told Israels Channel 2.

We were shocked, he said of encountering the first sign. None of us went to the refrigerator because we didnt want there to be an argument but the day after that, the sign at the entrance to the pool suddenly appeared and that was a real embarrassment.

The man said he attempted to contact the hotels manager but she was not at the hotel.

Its very strange, he said. Even the goyim cant understand [why these signs are here]. There is a really nice group of Jews here from all over the world  there are barely any Israelis. Everyone is acting really respectfully. This is a very weird phenomenon. This is anti-Semitism that we had never been exposed to before.

The hotels owner, Ruth Thomann, however, said the entire situation was a misunderstanding caused by her using the wrong words.

I made a note and I used the wrong words, she told The Algemeiner Monday. I wrote for our Jewish guests, and one of them wrote me an email asking me to take it down.

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Thomann said she put the note by the pool because some of these guests went swimming with clothes on, with T-shirts and didnt take a shower.

As for the refrigerator note, Thomann told The Algemeiner that the hotel allowed Jewish guests traveling with Kosher food the privilege of storing such food in refrigerators in the hotels kitchen.

The refrigerators in the rooms are small, she explained. So I told them, You can store some small things with our stuff, but dont go in every time.

Thomann said she was absolutely not anti-Semitic and that Jewish guests frequented her hotel.

We have lots of Jewish guests and they have been coming here for forty years, she said. I would not take Jewish guests if I had a problem with them.

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A German politician says waiters speaking English in Berlin 'drives me up the wall' - Getty Images Contributor

One of Germanys most prominent politcians has launched an oustpoken attack on the increasing use of the English language in every day life, and called for a crackdown.

Co-existence can only work in Germany if we all speak German, Jens Spahn, seen by many as a potential successor to Angela Merkel, said. We can and should expect this from every immigrant.

Mr Spahn, currently junior finance minister, reserved his greatest anger for the growing number of people who work in the German capital despite speaking no German.

It drives me up the wall the way waiters in Berlin restaurants only speak English, he told Neue Osnabrucker Zeitung newspaper.

Comparing Germans often relaxed attitude to the fierce French protectiveness of their language, he added: You would never find this kind of lunacy in Paris.

Tourists take selfies in front of the mural 'Test the Rest' by artist Birgit Kinder at a section of the former Berlin Wall called the East Side Gallery in Berlin, Germany Credit: EPA

Speaking good English has long been seen as an important life skill in Germany, and children start learn the language as early as kindergarten.

But the German language is increasingly becoming a political issue amid the perceived threat from immigration and globalisation.

Fashionable Berlin districts such as Mitte and Prenzlauerberg have long been home to large numbers of British and American expatriates, and with restaurants and bars recruiting staff from across Europe, it is not uncommon to find daily specials advertised in English and waiters who speak only limited German.

Mrs Merkels government has made it compulsory for the more than one million asylum-seekers who have arrived in the country since 2015 to learn German. Those who dont risk losing their benefits and cannot win permanent residence.

But no such restrictions apply to the hundreds of thousands of people from less successful economies who come to Germany in search of work under the EUs freedom of movement rules.

With Germany facing high levels of immigration, language has increasingly become an issue of identity. With people divided over what constitutes German culture, the language is the one element all sides agree on.

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This is the need to have a home, to feel at home, Mr Spahn said. People want to be able to know what they can expect in every day life and that things arent changing all the time. Not every cultural difference is an enrichment. I have to accept the growing number of headscarfs on our streets, but I do not feel enriched by it.

Three senior German MPs made international headlines this week with a letter to Mrs Merkel calling on her to challenge Englishs dominance as the working language of the EU, and promote the use of German.

Gunther Krichbaum, Axel Schafer and Johannes Singhammer called for equal use of the German language as a working language in the EU and increased use in international institutions.

The EU has warned that English is likely to be dropped as an official language in the wake of Brexit.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, caused controversy earlier this year when he said English was losing importance.

But the German MPs initiative has more to do with German domestic concerns than attempted point-scoring over Brexit.

The German language especially needs to be thoroughly used in our own country, they wrote in their letter to Mrs Merkel.

Everything must be done to ensure that German does not become a sort of residual language.
An Argentinian man in Namibia was trampled and killed by an elephant Saturday, according to the Namibia Press Agency Monday. Jose Monzalvez, 46, was hunting in a group Saturday afternoon when he was trampled by an elephant in a private wildlife area 70 kilometers  or approximately 43 miles  from the town of Kalkfeld.

He and four others were following a group of elephants on the farm. One of the elephants charged at the group before they could assemble to shoot it. Monzalvez, who worked for an oil company, was with three Namibians and another Argentine when he was killed, according to Otjozondjupa regional police spokesperson warrant officer Maureen Mbeha. Monzalvez had a hunting permit with him at the time of his death. All five members of the group were professional trophy hunters.

Monzalvez's family was later informed of his death.

In May, a South African hunter was trampled and killed by an elephant another member of his hunting group shot. According to Netwerk24, someone in the group shot the elephant. As it fell, it crushed Theunis Botha. The 51-year-old Johannesburg man was a well-known trophy hunter. His death sparked support from his friends and fellow hunters but also led to backlash from critics of big game hunting.

According to Elephant Rage, a 2005 National Geographic documentary, about 500 people are killed by elephants a year. Attacks increase each year.

I do think that elephants are becoming more aggressive towards humans in very compressed areas where they are being shot at and harassed, Caitlin OConnell-Rodwell, a biologist at Stanford University, said to National Geographic in a June 2005 phone interview. It is a difficult dilemma in areas where elephant habitat is shrinking and the human population is increasing such that poor farmers have little choice but to expand their farms to make ends meet.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) reported 1.3 million African elephants in 1970 but said that number shrank to 600,000 by 1989. Some areas of Africa took measures to preserve the elephant population, while other areas reduce elephant numbers with controlled hunts and other methods.

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WWF listed Asian elephants as endangered and as requiring extreme preservation measures to control their population. WWF listed African elephants as being overall vulnerable, which is one step above being endangered. However, some African elephant populations are still endangered because of the now-illegal ivory trade, for which hunters would cut the tusks off elephants. National Geographic reported on its website the current population trend of African elephants as increasing.

african elephant

Photo: Buena Vista Images

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Donald Trumps comments condemning white supremacists may have been belated  and heavily scripted  but body language experts say they were largely sincere.

On Monday, under mounting media pressure, Mr Trump took to the podium to call out white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the KKK. Three days earlier, a hundred of them had descended on Charlottesville, Virginia, in protests that lead to three deaths and dozens of injuries.

Mr Trump had initially attributed the casualties to violence on many sides. On Monday, however, he called out the hate groups specifically.

Racism is evil, Mr Trump said, in hastily arranged remarks at the White House. And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.

Body language experts Susan Constantine and Lillian Glass both told The Independent that the remarks appeared scripted, and devoid of the President's usual ad-libbing  an indication of the seriousness of the topic. But both women agreed that Mr Trump couldn't help letting slip some telling body-language cues.

Hes got to either concentrate on his words and reading off the script, or on showing the right affect, Ms Constantine said. Ive found that what he does is he reads the script, but at the moment he feels he wants to add emphasis, he uses hand gestures.

'Racism is evil': Trump condemns white supremacist groups after deadly protest in Charlottesville pic.twitter.com/4g3PL4SsdP  Business Insider (@businessinsider) August 14, 2017

Ms Constantine pointed to his signature bouncing, up-and-down hand gesture, which she says connotes his anger. The gesture, she said, is similar to someone shaking their finger. It means: I am telling you with a level of certainty, I will absolutely not put up with it.

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Ms Glass also saw signs of authentic anger from the President, especially when he talked about one of the weekend's victims.

When discussing the death of 32-year-old Heather Heyer, she said, the President breathes in through his nose, which shows he is angry". She compared the breathing to that of a bull before it enters the ring. His upturned palm, she added, shows he was speaking honestly on the subject.

But Ms Glass also noticed something odd about his remarks  a new gesture she had never witnessed the President making. The movement  a sort of pinching of the thumb and forefinger  is a gesture she says was pioneered by John F Kennedy, and parroted by every president after him.

I guess hes trying to be contained, because hes got this new gesture, she said. ...In essence, hes starting to get more in-script and more in the politics of the matter.

Despite this, Ms Glass is convinced that Mr Trump meant the bulk of what he said from behind the podium  whether or not he wrote the words himself.

He's very controlled because he knows this is such a divisive issue, she said, ...But he does leak out his anger and passion when he breathes through his nose, and his honesty comes out through his hand being open.

Ms Constantine concurred.

When hes talking about how he wants everyone to love each other ... he's using his hand gestures, she said. And as a body language expert, that s what you look for: Do the words match the gesture? If he didn't feel that, his hands would be on the podium.
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A man who marched in the white supremacy rally in Charlottesville, Virginia has been disowned by his family.

Peter Tefft of Fargo, North Dakota, is a maniac, who has turned away from all of us and gone down some insane internet rabbit-hole, and turned into a crazy nazi, said his nephew, Jacob Scott, in a statement to a local television station.

On Saturday, Charlottesville became embroiled in violence when white nationals, who were protesting against the removal of a Confederate statue, clashed with counter-demonstrators.

[Peter] scares us all, we dont feel safe around him, and we dont know how he came to be this way, Mr Scott continued. My grandfather feels especially grieved, as though he has failed as a father.

In February, Mr Tefft told a reporter in Fargo he was 100 per cent pro-white.

Mr Teffts father said he and the rest of the family are entirely against his sons racist beliefs.

In a letter published on Monday in The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, Pearce Tefft wrote that he and other family members wish to loudly repudiate his sons vile, hateful and racist rhetoric and actions.

We do not know specifically where he learned these beliefs, Mr Pearce Tefft wrote. He did not learn them at home.

In the letter, the father said he has taught his children that all men and women are created equal and that we must love each other all the same.

Evidently Peter has chosen to unlearn these lessons, much to my and his familys heartbreak and distress, he wrote.

We have been silent up until now, but now we see that this was a mistake, the elder Tefft continued. It was the silence of good people that allowed the Nazis to flourish the first time around, and it is the silence of good people that is allowing them to flourish now.

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He said Peter is no longer welcome at family gatherings.

I pray my prodigal son will renounce his hateful beliefs and return home. Then and only then will I lay out the feast, he said.

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Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, shook up the Senate power structure in a big and unexpected way Tuesday, stripping some veteran Republicans of their committee assignments and rewarding others with new, high-profile assignments.

Negron told the Herald/Times on Tuesday that with 20 freshmen in the 40-member Senate, he felt it was important to redistribute influence.

"In an era of term limits, I believe it's important for each senator to be considered for additional opportunities to participate in the committee process," Negron said.

Nine Senate committees will have new leaders, including five of the seven budget subcommittees.

Negron removed Sen. David Simmons, R-Altamonte Springs, from his chairmanship of a Senate budget subcommittee for pre-K-12 education. Simmons' replacement in both positions is first-term Sen. Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, who like Simmons is an attorney.

Negron moved Republican Sen. Jeff Brandes of St. Petersburg from the Senate budget subcommittee on transportation and economic development to the panel that oversees civil and criminal justice, including the state prison system, courts, prosecutors and public defenders. In his new role, Brandes replaces Sen. Aaron Bean, R-Fernandina Beach, who lost that chairmanship but is now head of a Senate panel on utilities that was led by former Sen. Frank Artiles, R-Miami, who resigned in April.

The complete Senate committee reorganization can be found here.

Sen. Rob Bradley, R-Fleming Island, replaces Brandes as "TED" appropriations chairman, putting him in charge of nearly one-fourth of the state budget, including all road projects and the state highway safety agency.

Sen. Denise Grimsley, R-Sebring, will replace Sen. Keith Perry, R-Gainesville, as chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. Grimsley is a candidate to replace Adam Putnam as agriculture commissioner.

Sen. Anitere Flores, R-Miami, acknowledged that while it is not common for Senate presidents to re-shuffle the committee chair line-up in mid-term, there also haven't been 20 freshman senators. She said the changes are a reflection of people indicating they have interests or strengths in previous areas and who's best suited on different policy issues."

"You've got to look at Joe Negron as a person,'' she said. "He's methodical and fair on policy -- and not vindictive."

Flores said it would be wrong for people to view Simmons' removal from the pre-K-12 Appropriations subcommittee as retaliation for his opposition to HB 7069. "That bill would have had the same result if it were held today,- unless there is a change in Senate District 40,'' she said, referring to the open seat of Sen. Frank Artiles being sought by Miami Republican Rep. Jose Felix Diaz and Democrat Annette Taddeo.

Like Flores, Sen. Rene Garcia, R-Hialeah, saw no change in his assignments. Three Tampa Bay Republicans -- Jack Latvala of Clearwater, Tom Lee of Thonotosassa and Dana Young -- also saw no changes.

House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Land O'Lakes, also plans to announce a shakeup in House committee assignments. Under legislative rules, House assignments are for one year and Senate assignments are for two years.
On Saturday a gathering of neo-Nazis, KKK members and white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, lead to the death of Heather D. Heyer, after a car plowed through a group of counter-protesters following the rally. Nineteen other people were also injured.

Shortly after the incident, James Alex Fields Jr. of Ohio was arrested and charged with second degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding, and one more count related to the incident. On Saturday multiple media outlets began reporting that based on vehicle registration records, the car involved in the incident was registered to Fields.

According to The New York Times, Fields is 20 years old. He was born in Kenton, Kentucky to Samantha Lea Bloom.

In a very painful video posted by The Associated Press Saturday, reporters broke the news of the attack to a woman who identifies herself as Fieldss mother. She said she had no idea that Fields was interested interested in white supremacy, but was aware that he was going to the rally, which she understood to have something to do with Trump.

According to photos from the event, Fields appears to have congregated with Vanguard America during the protest, a white supremacist group that opposes multiculturalism and believes America is an exclusively white nation, according to the Anti-Defamation League. As a racist and anti-Semitic group, they have made a focus out of engaging and indoctrinating young men.

Vanguard America denied Saturday night that Fields was a member.

According to the Washington Post, Fields has been described by family and acquaintances as quiet and often solitary. Speaking to the Post on the condition of anonymity, an uncle said that Fieldss father was killed by a drunk driver five months before he was born.

Derek Weimer, a history teacher who said he taught Fields during his junior and senior years at Randall K. Cooper High School in Kentucky, told The Post that when Fields was a student he wrote a paper that appeared to laude the Nazi military during World War II.

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It was obvious that he had this fascination with Nazism and a big idolatry of Adolf Hitler, Weimer said. He had white supremacist views. He really believed in that stuff.

Fieldss research project into the Nazi military was well written, Weimer said, but it appeared to be a big lovefest for the German military and the Waffen-SS.

The Unite the Right rally, which was scheduled to take place Saturday in Charlottesvilles Emancipation Park, quickly turned into chaos as activist groups such as Black Lives Matter and Antifa confronted white supremacists as they marched towards the park. While many counter-protesters and inter-faith groups demonstrated peacefully, violence did break out between white supremacists and some counter-protesters, resulting in multiple injuries. Within hours, officials declared the rally an unlawful assembly, and a state of emergency was declared by the governor as police attempted to disperse people from the park. About two hours later, the car drove through a group of counter-protesters.

Charlottesville has become an ideological conflict zone since it decided to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from what was formerly known as Lee Park, now renamed to Emancipation Park.

Fields is currently being held without bail. He will be arraigned on Monday in Charlottesville General District Court.

Must Read: White Supremacists in Charlottesville Show Alt-Rights True Colors

Photos via Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail

Written by Grace Lisa Scott

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A memorial to the woman who died during the bloody crash in Charlottesville: Reuters

The man accused of driving his car through a crowd of activists in Virginia  killing one and injuring 19 more  idolised Hitler and white supremacy, a former teacher of his says.

A former history teacher of James Alex Fields Jrs says that, in high school, his former pupil accused of second degree murder sympathised with Nazi views and espoused extremist ideals as a student. Mr Fields is 20-years-old.

It was obvious that he had this fascination with Nazism and a big idolatry of Adolf Hitler, Derek Weimer, the teacher, told the Washington Post.

Videos of the attack in Charlottesville show a grey car plowing through a crowd of demonstrators participating in a counter-protest to a gathering of white supremacists there. The car then reverses, quickly, as hit protesters looked on, stunned, while others attempted to hit the vehicle as it fled the scene.

Mr Fields had apparently driven to Charlottesville from his home in Ohio to attend the so-called Unite the Right rally, which brought together the self-described alt-right movement that has been recognised as a white nationalist group. The rally had been organised to protest planned removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee.

The rally quickly saw clashes between counter-protesters and the alt-right demonstrators, and police quickly had to disperse the demonstrations minutes after the scheduled start time at noon Saturday. Just the night before, a torch-lit pre-rally march had descended into violence.

In his first court appearance, via video conference, Mr Fields did not enter a plea in connexion to the crime he has been accused of. He told the court that he could not afford a lawyer. He was also denied bail, and given a return date.

The alt-right movement has gained some national exposure after the unexpected victory of Donald Trump, who many see as sympathetic to the cause. The group is seen as part of a larger backlash against diversity and identity politics in the United States that was seen as a larger cultural backlash that propped up Mr Trumps campaign.

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Other hate groups were also represented at the rally, including the more traditional white nationalist groups like the neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan.

Efforts to remove the state of Lee resulted in city council members pointing out that Lee had no tangible connexion to the city, and therefore the existence of the statue on public grounds was just an indirect way to celebrate the Confederacy  the secessionist government that started the Civil War over disagreements with the northern states about whether slavery should exist in the US.

The issue of Confederate monuments in the US  they are predominantly located in the US South, but can be found all over the country  has been a point of contentious debate since at least 2015, when 21-year-old white supremacist Dylann Roof killed nine black people at a historically black church in South Carolina. Pictures of Roof, who wrote in journals that he wanted to spark a race war, holding the Confederate flag later surfaced, leading to the removal of the flag form the state capitol grounds.

The removal of that flag was controversial, and preceded many efforts across the South to remove Confederate symbols from public spaces. A review of Confederate monuments in the US conducted by the Southern Poverty Law Center has found that there are at least 1,503 Confederate place names or symbols in the US.
While the country is still reeling from the violence seen at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va. last weekend, a handful of alt-right protest planned for later this week are causing concern.

In Boston, where a free speech rally is planned for Saturday at noon, Mayor Martin Walsh is reportedly looking into ways to shut it down. At least one of the speakers at the Charlottesville rally, Tim Gionet a.k.a. Baked Alaska, is expected to attend the Boston event along with other right-wing speakers.

I dont want them here, we dont need them here, theres no reason to be here, Walsh said, according to the Boston Herald.

The Boston Free Speech rally organizers have taken steps to distance themselves from the Charlottesville event in a Saturday Facebook post. We are not in any way associated with the organizers of the Charlottesville rally, the post reads in part.

Law enforcement, city and state officials are said to be preparing for Saturdays rally in order to keep people safe. But Boston will not be the only city where right-leaning activists will be gathering. In nine cities, protests are planned in response to a an anti-diversity memo penned by a former Google employee. The cities include Mountain View, Calif.; New York; D.C.; Boston, Austin; Atlanta; Los Angeles; Pittsburgh and Seattle.

Google is a monopoly, and its abusing its power to silence dissent and manipulate election results, the March on Google website reads. Their company YouTube is censoring and silencing dissenting voices by creating ghettos for videos questioning the dominant narrative. We will thus be Marching on Google!

On Sunday, the organizers of the Google march also denounced the violence in Charlottesville in a statement.

Despite many false rumors from those seeking to discredit us we are in no way associated with any group who organized there, the statement reads. We condemn in the strongest possible terms any display of hatred and bigotry from any side. It has no place in America.

Counter-protests are planned in response to the rally in Boston, with Black Lives Matter and other activist groups planning to join the march.
The mayor of Lexington, Kentucky, is pushing forward on plans to remove Confederate symbols from government grounds after the devastating attack in Virginia that left one dead and 19 injured in a clash over white nationalism.

Mayor Jim Gray said that the events in Charlottesville  where an individual plowed a car through a group of people protesting a white supremacist rally there  had accelerated the process to remove the symbols.

We have thoroughly examined this issue and heard from many of our citizens, Mr Gray said in a statement the day of the tragedy. The tragic events in Charlottesville today have accelerated the announcement I intended to make next week.

The mayor intends on asking the Lexington-Layette County Urban County Council to take a first step in the removal process by asking the state military commission for permission to remove two statues. Those statues portray John Hunt Morgan and John C Breckinridge. The vote, Mr Gray said, was already in the works.

The Kentucky Military Heritage Commission would need to green light the removal of the statues, and officials with the city and county have been warned that approval wouldnt be granted until the city decides where the statues would be moved. That commission was established more than 40 years ago, and is tasked with identifying and preserving historic sites and monuments in Kentucky.

Mr Grays relationship with the monuments, just as can be said for many in Kentucky and the United States, is one of competing narratives and heritages. All his life, Mr Gray has heard stories of three great uncles who fought in the Civil War  two who fought for the Union Army, and one who fought for the Confederate Army  and the complex legacy that creates.

But, now as mayor, he is overseeing a transition of the old Fayette County courthouse in downtown Lexington. The city wants to create a new and welcoming center for visitors as a part of a $30 million renovation intending to position the city as a beacon of a new and progressive South. But, standing in the way of the projects success  which will have a planned bourbon bar, office space, and restaurant  are the two Confederate monuments that represent a history of slavery and racism for many, while at the same time representing an enduring heritage to others.

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Its the right thing to do, Mr Gray recently told the Washington Post about his support for moving the monuments. But doing it right is just as important.

As the events in Charlottesville and elsewhere show, the removal of Confederate memorials and symbols can have deadly effects. White supremacists had originally decided to hold their rally in the Virginia town known more for being a quiet college town than political activism, as a result of plans to remove a statue of Robert E Lee there. That rally was quickly dispersed by police over violent skirmishes between the white supremacists and counter-protesters.

Other attempts throughout the country to bring down Confederate memorials have resulted in varying levels of violence, and frequently result in vocal opposition.

Lexingtons statues honour Morgan  a man known then as the Thunderbolt of the Confederacy  and Breckinridge  the former US vice president who was kicked out of the Senate for joining the Confederate army. Breckinridge served as the last Confederate secretary of war.

Mr Grays office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Independent.
A Confederate statue in Hemming Park in Jacksonville, Fla. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Anna Lopez Brosche grew up in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Jacksonville, Fla. She loves and appreciates history, she said, but didnt have strong feelings about the Confederate monuments and memorials throughout her hometown.

I knew that they were a reflection of history. Did they elicit any of the very strong emotions that Im seeing on both sides? The answer is no, they did not elicit that strong emotion in me, Brosche told Yahoo News.

But the white nationalist Unite the Right rally around a statue of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Va., pushed the continued existence of these monuments to the Confederacy to the front of a national conversation about U.S. history and racism.

Related slideshow: Violent clashes erupt at Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va. >>>

When white nationalists, including neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members, descended on Charlottesville over the weekend, they violently clashed with others groups who were there to oppose them. A car driven into a crowd of counterprotesters killed Heather Heyer, 32.

Brosche, the president of Jacksonvilles city council, announced on Monday that she asked the parks and recreation department and the historic preservation section of their planning department to conduct an inventory of the Confederate monuments, memorials and markers throughout the 844 square miles of Duval County. (Jacksonville and Duval County have a consolidated city-county government.) She said this is the first step toward respectfully removing the controversial monuments and placing them in museums or educational institutions, where they can be preserved and contextualized in the citys history.

Anna Lopez Brosche is the president of the city council in Jacksonville, Fla. (Photo: voteannabrosche.com)

She hopes this process will help in honoring and preserving the history and what it means to some in the community, yet also removing them from our public parks and public property because not everyone receives them in that same light. She added, They are a symbol of hurt and pain for some in the community.

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Brosche, who is just beginning her third year in office, has broken through several glass ceilings: She is the first Asian-American elected to the Jacksonville City Council and the first Filipina-American city council member in Florida.

She said she was not sure whether any of her 18 colleagues were going to take action on the issue of Confederate monuments  so she did. So far its received a mixed reception among her colleagues and Mayor Lenny Curry has not yet given his opinion.

With the events of Charlottesville and seeing what things mean  and I appreciate both perspectives, which are absolutely on opposite ends of the spectrum  I would just like to open up a dialogue, Brosche said.

Woman of the Southland statue in Jacksonville, Fla. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

After a white supremacist murdered nine people at an African-American church in Charleston, S.C., in June 2015, prompting the removal of the Confederate flag from the state capitol, the Southern Poverty Law Center launched a project to catalog place names and symbols honoring the Confederacy in the South and across the country, identifying a total of 1,503. This includes 718 monuments and statues (nearly 300 are in Georgia, Virginia and North Carolina), 109 public schools, 80 counties and cities, nine Confederate holidays in six states and 10 U.S. military bases.

According to the SPLC, the argument that removing Confederate monuments is essentially erasing history ignores the heritage of African-Americans and trivializes their pain and concerns about racism in history and today.

Related slideshow: Confederate statue toppled in Durham, N.C.; others vandalized as cities consider removal of such monuments >>>

A new generation of neo-Nazis, who have rebranded themselves under the alt-right moniker, used websites like the Daily Stormer to organize the rally in Charlottesville to condemn the citys decision to remove the statue dedicated to Lee.

The violence in Charlottesville, including the shocking video of a car fatally plowing into counterprotesters, prompted several cities and states to take proactive measures in removing their own Confederate statues. Since Charlottesville, Confederate soldier statues were taken down in Gainesville, Fla., and Durham, N.C., and Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh announced her plan to follow suit.

Confederate Park in Jacksonville, Fla. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

In Jacksonville, Brosche hopes her announcement will be just the first step in a long process of handling the Confederate legacy in her own city.

This was just step No. 1 in a process, and this isnt something that will happen quickly, in terms of legislation, nor do I think if it were to pass that it would happen quickly in terms of making a change, Brosche said. I dont even understand the full scope of whats out there in order to decide what happens. Thats why this is step one.

Related video:
Charlottesville, Va. Workers from the City of Charlottesville Parks Department cover the statue of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson in a black tarp in Charlottesville, Va., Aug. 23, 2017. (Photo: Justin Ide/Reuters)

Workers in Charlottesville draped giant black covers over two statues of Confederate generals on Wednesday, July 23, to symbolize the citys mourning for a woman killed while protesting a white nationalist rally.

On Thursday, July 17, President Trump fired off a flurry of tweets bemoaning the removal of beautiful Confederate monuments in the aftermath of violent clashes in Charlottesville, Va., where a white supremacist defending a local statue rally drew national condemnation. Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart, Trump said.

Here are photos of some of those Confederate monuments that are being taken down. (AP/Yahoo News)

See more news-related photo galleries and follow us on Yahoo News Photo Twitter and Tumblr.
Photo credit: Niels Hougaard /Ritzau / AP

From Popular Mechanics

A Danish court ordered the owner of an amateur-built submarine Saturday held in pre-trial detention for 24 days while police investigate the disappearance of a Swedish journalist who had been on the ship before it sank.

Peter Madsen was arrested Friday on preliminary manslaughter charges, hours after his 40-ton, nearly 18-meter-long (60-foot-long) submarine sank off Denmark's eastern coast.

The inventor, who is from Denmark, has denied responsibility for the fate of 30-year-old Kim Wall, saying the journalist disembarked before his vessel went down.

Judge Kari Soerensen announced the ruling after a two-hour custody hearing held behind closed doors.

Madsen's defense lawyer, Bettina Hald Engmark, said her client maintains his innocence. He is "willing to cooperate" and hasn't decided whether to appeal the detention ruling, Hald Engmark said.

Before the hearing was closed, the courtroom was packed with Danish and Swedish reporters and the 46-year-old Madsen's relatives. Madsen smiled and chatted with his lawyer.

"I would very much like to express myself," he said after the preliminary charges were read.

Prosecutor Louise Pedersen said Madsen faces the preliminary manslaughter charge "for having killed in an unknown way and in an unknown place Kim Isabell Frerika Wall of Sweden sometime after Thursday 5 p.m."

Wall's boyfriend alerted authorities early Friday that the sub, named the UC3 Nautilus, had not returned to Copenhagen as expected. The Danish Navy launched a major search involving two helicopters, three ships and several private boats. The Navy said the sub was seen sailing, but then sank shortly afterward.

Kristian Isbak, who had responded to the Navy's call to help locate the ship on Friday, told The Associated Press he first spotted Madsen standing wearing his trademark military fatigues in the submarine's tower while it was still afloat.

"He then climbed down inside the submarine and there was then some kind of air flow coming up and the submarine started to sink," Isbak said. "(He) came up again and stayed in the tower until water came into it" before swimming to a nearby boat as the submarine sank, he added.

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Madsen told authorities he had dropped Wall off on an island in Copenhagen's harbor a few hours into their Thursday night trip.

"It is with great dismay that we received the news that Kim went missing during an assignment in Denmark," her family said in statement emailed to The Associated Press.

The Sweden-born freelance journalist studied at the Sorbonne university in Paris, the London School of Economics and at Columbia University in New York, where she graduated with a master's degree in journalism in 2013.

She lived in New York and Peking, her family said, and had written for The New York Times, The Guardian, the South China Morning Post and Vice Magazine, among other publications.

A salvage vessel on Saturday raised the submarine, which was seven meters (23 feet) under water off Copenhagen's south island of Dragoer. Danish police say they have not found the body of the missing Swedish journalist inside the submarine.

In theory, the Nautilus can dive up to 470 meters (1,550 feet) but has rarely gone deeper than 40 meters (132 feet), according to Madsen's business web site.

If tried and found guilty, Madsen would face between five years and life in prison.

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Secretary of Defense James Mattis shifted his tone regarding North Korea on Monday, saying if the country launches an attack on American territory, it could escalate into war very quickly, CBS News reports.

North Korea and the U.S. have been locked in a battle of fire words in recent days as Pyongyang and Washington have traded increasingly intense threats. After the North tested intercontinental ballistic missiles last month and sharply criticized the U.S. over new United Nations sanctions, President Donald Trump promised to unleash fire and fury on the country.

In the midst of the back-and-forth, North Korea has threatened to attack Guam, while Trump has doubled down on his tough stance.

Some U.S. have tried to deescalate the situation, such as when Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Aug. 9 that Americans should sleep well and insisted there is not any imminent threat. Mattis himself emphasized diplomatic options during an event Aug. 11 and said that war with North Korea would be catastrophic.

Tillerson and Mattis wrote an opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal on Monday saying the U.S. is not interested in regime change in North Korea, and is willing to negotiate with Pygongyang if it ends its threats.

However, Mattis struck a more aggressive note in his comments to reporters on Monday, according to CBS. He said that if North Korea takes action, its game on, and added, well take it out, indicating that the U.S. may try to shoot down missiles aimed at the U.S. mainland or Guam.

Mattis noted that his comments should not be taken as a declaration of war, though. The bottom line is we will defend the country and for us (the military) thats war, he said, according to CBS. You dont shoot at people in this world unless you bear the consequences.
Merck & Co. President and CEO Kenneth Frazier: Getty Images

Donald Trump has taken to Twitter to attack an African American CEO who stood down from a manufacturing council that advises the president, following the deadly clashes in Charlottesville.

President Trump has come under fire on all sides for his reaction to the violence in Virginia, in which a woman was killed and dozens injured when white supremacists and anti-fascist protesters clashed in the city.

In a press conference, the president condemned the egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, without directly condemning white supremacists. The White House has since said the President condemns white supremacist groups.

Mr Trump took to Twitter to directly attack Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier after he resigned from the American Manufacturing Council however, claiming that the leader of Americas third-largest pharmaceutical company will now have more time to lower ripoff drug prices!

Mr Frazier resigned from council on Monday, apparently citing the presidents reaction to the events in Charlottesville as a reason, stating that he felt a responsibility to take a stand.

Mr Frazier said in a statement: Americas leaders must honour our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy, which run counter to the American ideal that all people are created equal.

Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President's Manufacturing Council,he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 14, 2017

As CEO of Merck and as a matter of personal conscience, I feel a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism.

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Drug makers have come under closer scrutiny because of rising drug prices, although Merck has not been one of the companies targeted by politicians or watchdogs.

Other executives who agreed to serve on councils advising the president have already resigned, citing separate stances taken by the Trump administration.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk resigned from the manufacturing council in June, as well as two other advisory groups to the president, after the US withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement.

Walt Disney chairman and CEO Bob Iger also resigned from a White House advisory council for the same reason.

Additional reporting by Associated Press
By Harriet McLeod

CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) - A former South Carolina state trooper will serve a total of five years behind bars for shooting and injuring an unarmed black driver during a 2014 traffic stop, an incident that added to the debate roiling the country over the treatment of black men by law enforcement officers.

Sean Groubert, who is white, shot motorist Levar Jones after stopping him in Richland County for not wearing a seat belt. Patrol car video of the incident showed Jones with his hands raised as he was shot.

Groubert, 34, was fired from the state Highway Patrol after the shooting and pleaded guilty last year to assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature.

Circuit Court Judge Casey Manning on Tuesday sentenced Groubert to 12 years' incarceration but suspended the prison time to five years and gave him credit for the 17 months he has served in jail after pleading guilty. Groubert will have to serve his full sentence only if he violates probation after his release from prison.

Wearing a jail jumpsuit and shackled in chains at his sentencing hearing, in a Columbia courtroom, the former trooper apologized to Jones.

"I screwed up," Groubert told Jones. "I pray that one day you'll be able to come to peace with this and forgive me."

Jones was shot on Sept. 4, 2014, less than a month after Michael Brown was killed by a white officer in Ferguson, Missouri, sparking days of racial unrest.

After being pulled over at a gas station, Jones exited his car and then reached back into it for his wallet when the state trooper ran for cover, shouted and fired his gun.

The dashboard video showed Groubert shooting at Jones four times as Jones, hands raised, backed away. A bullet struck Jones in the hip and he fell to the ground. Jones could be heard asking, "What did I do, sir? Why did you shoot me?"

Groubert handcuffed Jones and left him on the ground until an ambulance arrived.

"It took eight seconds," Jones told Judge Manning at the sentencing, where he asked for the maximum sentence of 20 years for Groubert.

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After the shooting, "I was treated like an animal being put in a cage," Jones said.

Groubert sobbed in court as the video of Jones' shooting played.

"I realize now that I misread body language," Groubert told the judge.

(Reporting by Harriet McLeod in Charleston, S.C.; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
The new suede boots and slides from Via Spigas Fall 2017 collection. (Photo: Maxime Poiblanc)

When it comes to footwear, Im always trying to push boundaries  because that is what inspires me every day, Carla De Freitas, Via Spigas newly appointed creative director, tells Yahoo Style.

Though Via Spiga shoes have always been synonymous with quality, theyve lately been associated more with discounted footwear found at outlet malls. Now De Freitas is aiming to elevate the 30-year-old brand back to its original glory with a collection of well-crafted Italian shoes made for the modern-day professional woman.

One of her first major moves toward that end? Bringing the brands manufacturing back to its roots, in Italy. After all, Via Spiga takes its name from one of the countrys most fashionable streets, Via della Spiga, in Milan.

It just felt like a no-brainer, she says, noting that although Via Spigas manufacturing isnt entirely out of China yet, its already at about 70/30. It brought us back to the people who first knew the brand.  Theres just a real warmth with everyone who worked on Via Spiga in Italy. They have a real connection. They have a great memory of what the brand was.

Carla De Freitas, Via Spiga Creative Director. (Photo: Courtesy of Via Spiga)

Mohair slides in rich, vibrant colors like red, navy, and green from the new Via Spiga Fall 2017 collection. (Photo: Maxime Poiblanc)

In her new Fall 2017 collection, out now, De Freitas incorporates luxury materials like supple Italian leather, buttery suede, and smooth calf-hair with the unexpected neoprene, allowing for more flexibility and comfort for the wearer. The range of hues includes rich burgundy and navy alongside a neutral color palette of beige, black, and white. And silhouettes and styles have a new clean minimalism an aesthetic that De Freitas knows well, having worked at high-fashion labels such as Alexander Wang and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsens line, Elizabeth and James, as well as commercial brands such as Vince and Topshop.

The new Via Spiga is where style and comfort effortlessly merge  an ethos carried over from its early days. To that end, De Freitas says she wants there to be two aha moments for the consumer: First, when you fall in love with how the shoes look, and second, the thrill of how they feel when you put them on.

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The collections stylistic highlights include supple leather slippers with metal details, leather zip-up boots, neoprene structured heels, and mohair slides  all equally suitable for being dressed up or down, for work or for that fabulous post-office dinner.

The new leather boots from Via Spigas Fall 2017 collection. (Photo: Maxime Poiblanc)

Moving manufacturing back to Italy has had one effect that may take consumers some getting used to: a higher price point than in the past, with shoes now ranging from $195 to $495, compared with $185 to $395 previously.

Still, when compared with Italian footwear brands like Valentino or Prada, the shoes can be viewed as a steal. Sometimes I cant believe were able to do what we do, to be honest, De Freitas says, adding that its important for consumers to think about the production line as a whole, and the fact that there could, at times, be nearly 60 people working on a single pair of shoes. Via Spiga, then, could be seen as a great balance of price and luxury quality.

A close-up of Via Spigas new black leather boot being worked on at one of its Italian factories. (Photo: Neige Benedetti)

De Freitas says that becoming creative director at the brand was a full-circle moment for her, and the fulfillment of a big life goal. For me, Im all about authenticity, and I had to find something that I could connect with, she says, adding that, interestingly, she often found herself drawing inspiration from Via Spiga while she was working at Vince.

An inside look into the process of how a shoe is made in one of Via Spigas Italian factories. (Photo: Neige Benedetti)

Im very lucky to do what I do every day. And to be able to take a brand, and amazingly one that I connect with, its a great thing for me, says the Scottish-born designer, adding, I didnt even plan to stay in America as long as I have. It was all meant to be. It is the American dream.

The Via Spiga team testing out a few select shoes from the new collection. (Photo: Neige Benedetti)

The new Via Spiga Fall 2017 collection is available now online at viaspiga.com and select department stores and specialty boutiques.

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Web hosting provider DreamHost announced Monday that is is engaged in an ongoing legal battle with the United States Justice Department over its demand to see records of visitors to an anti-Trump website.

At the center of the conflict is disruptj20.org, a website run by a group of activists who were attempting to build the framework needed for mass protests to shut down the inauguration of Donald Trump and planning widespread direct actions to make that happen.

The U.S. Justice Department, currently headed by Attorney General Sessions, has demanded DreamHostthe company currently hosting disruptj20.orgto provide all information available about the website, its owner and its visitors.

On July 12, a search warrant was issued by the Superior Court of the District of Columbia that required DreamHost disclose a significant amount of information that would be stored on the companys servers. The warrant included a request for all files associated with the site, email accounts the contents of those accounts associated with the site and contact and billing information of the person who registered the site.

The warrant also demanded DreamHost disclose any information it had about people who simply visited the website. The Justice Department asked for the IP addresses of visitors, which would generally provides information about a visitors location and other potentially identifiable information, as well as contact information of people who used the site.

DreamHost was required to comply with the search warrant within 10 days of it being issued but has been fighting the broad demands the Justice Department has made. The company filed an opposition motion in response to the warrant, objecting to its requests.

In essence, the Search Warrant not only aims to identify the political dissidents of the current administration, but attempts to identify and understand what content each of these dissidents viewed on the website, the company said in a legal filing.

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DreamHost said it challenged the warrant and attempted to quell the requests through reason, logic and legal process. In response to that effort, the Justice Department filed a motion on July 28 asking the court to compel DreamHost to produce the requested records, prompting the hosting company to respond with its filing opposing the motion.

More than 200 people were arrested on the day of President Donald Trumps inauguration, though its not clear how many of those people were directly or even loosely associated to disruptj20.org or events and demonstrations the site was used to organize.

Under the Justice Departments warrant, it wouldnt matter if a person used the site with the intention to break the law or simply looked at it out of curiosity; the information of every visitor would be collected by the agency.

The internet was foundedand continues to survive, in the mainon its democratizing ability to facilitate a free exchange of ideas. Internet users have a reasonable expectation that they will not get swept up in criminal investigations simply by exercising their right to political speech against the government, DreamHost said in a statement.

We intend to take whatever steps are necessary to support and shield these users from what is, in our view, a very unfocused search and an unlawful request for their personal information.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration attempted to compel Twitter to unmask an anonymous user on its site who had been critical of President Trump. Twitter challenged the effort and the administration eventually dropped the request.

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When Donald Trump was running for president, George Papadopoulos, a young foreign policy adviser to his campaign, suggested the candidate meet with Russian leaders, The Washington Post reported Monday evening.

In March 2016, in an email to the campaigns foreign policy team, Papadopoulos suggested he coordinate a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss U.S.-Russia ties under President Trump, the Post reported, citing internal campaign emails turned over to congressional committees. Those committees are investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and possible coordination with the Trump campaign. Robert Mueller, the Department of Justice special counsel, is overseeing a separate FBI probe on the same subject.

Related: Kremlin behind Trump Jr. meeting, opponent testifies

When he was part of the Trump campaign, Papadopoulos received attention for his youth. At the time, the Posts Jia Lynn Yang pointed out his listing Model United Nations as a credential on LinkedIn. (Newsweek attempted to reach out to Papadopoulos through this account, but he was not immediately available for comment). According to the LinkedIn account that appears to belong to Papadopoulos, he graduated from DePaul University in 2009 with a bachelors degree in political science and government. He then received masters degrees from University College London and the London Schol of Economics. After graduating, he worked from 2011 to 2015 as a research associate at the Hudson Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

08_14_George_Papadopoulos_Trump

Joe Raedle/Getty

When the 2016 presidential election season was gearing up, he first worked as an adviser to the campaign of Dr. Ben Carson before switching in May 2016 to the Trump team, according to the LinkedIn account.

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Since Trump took office, the account lists him working as an independent oil, gas and policy consultant.

The initial Russia offer by Papadopoulos apparently went nowhere, as other members of the foreign policy team rejected the suggestion, according to the Post. Papadopoulos persisted, emailing then-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski in April 2016, Putin wants to host the Trump team when the time is right. He also forwarded campaign members an email from Ivan Timofeev, a senior official in the government-funded Russian International Affairs Council, about coordinating a Trump visit to Moscow. Again, campaign members, including Paul Manafort, whose Virginia home the FBI raided in July, rejected the suggestion.

But months later, in June 2016, Manafort, Jared Kushner and Donald Trump Jr. met with a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin who had promised disparaging information about Trump's opponent, Hillary Clinton. Trump Jr. has said he did nothing wrong by attending the meeting. But William Browder, a financier and longtime critic of the Russian government, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in July that the lawyer was probably trying to initiate an agreement on behalf of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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Alexis McBride, 12, explained to a local news station how a lifeguard told her she couldnt ride a water slide because of her insulin pump. (Photo: Fox45now.com)

The mom of a daughter with Type 1 diabetes called out a public park employee who allegedly kept the girl from riding a water slide because of the insulin pump she wears attached to her stomach.

She was in tears and upset, as she has every right to be, Beth McBride, of Kettering, Ohio, told Fox 45 about the incident involving her 12-year-old daughter, Alexis. I mean she was discriminated against basically.

Beth could not be reached for comment by Yahoo Beauty. But on Facebook, she noted on Aug. 13, Well I am officially boycotting this place until they educate their lifeguards and managers! My kid cannot disconnect her omnipod insulin pump to go down water slides. She was told she could not use any of the water slides with her pump or Dexcom on. I tried to explain to the manager and he blew me off! Her pump is made to be in water. She can be on slides with it!!!

On Monday, she added an update that she was meeting with the manager of the Kettering recreation department that evening.

Beth McBride, right, with her daughter Alexis. (Photo: Fox45now.com)

The mom told the news station that not allowing her daughter on the water slide amounted to the town violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which, under Title III, prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in the activities of places of public accommodations (businesses that are generally open to the public and that fall into one of 12 categories listed in the ADA, such as restaurants, movie theaters, schools, day care facilities, recreation facilities, and doctors offices)

Both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes are considered disabilities under the ADA, according to the American Diabetes Association.

The town of Kettering did not reply to Yahoo Beautys request for comment, but did tell Fox 45 that officials were still gathering facts about the incident before issuing any public statement.

Alexis and her mom explaining how her insulin pump works. (Photo: Fox45now.com)

Alexis told the news station about what happened when she attempted to ride a water slide at the Adventure Reef Water Park, explaining, It was that one slide and that one lifeguard, that when I walked up there she pointed at my insulin pump and said you cannot go on the slide with that on.

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Type 1 diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Associations website, usually affects children and young adults and makes up only 5 percent of all people with diabetes. The site also explains that insulin pumps like Alexiss, attached to catheters, can work in one of two ways: in a steady measured and continuous dose (the basal insulin), or as a surge (bolus) dose, at an individuals direction, around mealtime. Its not known what type of pump the 12-year-old wore, but it was the first time she had worn it exposed, with a two-piece swimsuit.

Its completely true bliss, the insulin is actually in a chamber here, McBride told Fox 45. Its made to be worn in water parks, its made to be worn in the ocean, in showers and bathtubs; shes allowed to wear it. Removing it in order to ride the water slide, she added, could have led to her daughters death.

Fox 45s Facebook post of this story has been shared more than 50 times, has more than 175 reactions, and inspired great debate in its comment section, with many expressing empathy and suggesting perhaps its just a matter of educating park employees. Being type 1, this girl shouldnt ever be ashamed or embarrassed of that insulin pump on your body! I embrace all the questions and looks I get daily. Secondly, this shouldnt of happened, noted one empathizer. Added another, My heart goes out to Alexis. My husband has an insulin pump and sensor as well. Some people just dont know what they are and the job that they do. Instead of automatically telling her that she cannot ride on the slide, the water park needs to be educated as to what role an insulin pump plays in a diabetics life.

Other commenters, however, called the mother out for not simply disconnecting the pump momentarily. As a mom of a Type 1 also, a child will NOT die with out the device. Yes it is made to withstand water but safety has to come first! What if it was ripped off and another person was struck by the device? Many others also suggested that sliding with the pump could have been unsafe, with one noting, Patient safety should always be first & foremost. What would have been more devastating is to have allowed her to go down the slide have the pump get snagged on the slide ripped from her body.

Beth responded to many of those who called her out, though, noting in one case, If it did happen to rip off it feels like an extremely stuck band aid. She would have came to me and we would have put on another one. I am always prepared with extra supplies.

Read more from Yahoo Style + Beauty:

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Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's wife Grace greets party supporters at a rally in Chinhoyi - AP

Grace Mugabe, the wife of the Zimbabwean president, reportedly fled back to Harare on Tuesday following an alleged assault against a South African model.

The claim, which came from an unnamed official cited by Reuters, could not be verified, amid contradictory reports that Mrs Mugabe had either returned to Harare by private aircraft or was staying at a rented property in Johannesburg.

Guards were seen waiting outside the suburban Johannesburg home she stays in while visiting, and a van was parked outside the wall.

The minister for police initially suggested that Mrs Mugabe, 52, was due to appear at a magistrates court in Johannesburg after she was accused of launching a vicious attack on Gabriella Engels, 20, at a party in a Johannesburg hotel on Sunday night.

But court staff said they never received a docket with charges and police later admitted they were unsure of Mrs Mugabe's location and could not confirm if she was still in the country.

"She hasn't handed herself over yet. We do not know her whereabouts at this stage," Vishnu Naidoo, police national spokesman, told reporters.

I have to more injuries at the back of my head pic.twitter.com/fz3olUz9tN  Gah-bee (@DaNamesGaby) August 14, 2017

"As long as we don't have a suspect in custody, we cannot say when they will appear in court. Earlier in the day Fikile Mbalula, South Africas police minister, had said Mrs Mugabe was not arrested because she "cooperated and handed herself over to the police".

On Tuesday, South African police were still negotiating with Mrs Mugabe's lawyers, amid suggestions Mrs Mugabe had returned to Zimbabwe.

"Yes, she is back in the country. We don't know where this issue of assault charges is coming from," a senior Zimbabwean government official told Reuters.

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The Democratic Alliance, South Africa's main opposition party, said it would demand an inquiry into how Mrs Mugabe was able to leave the country.

The apparent vanishing act came as further details emerged of the alleged assault on Sunday night. Gabriellas mother, Debbie Engels, told the Daily Telegraph her daughter was still very upset. We are all upset."

"How do we know there will be justice in this case when she (Grace Mugabe) is powerful and we are just ordinary people."

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe and Grace in 2009 Credit: ANSA

Mrs Engels claimed her daughter only managed to escape even more serious injuries because she was rescued by a man at the hotel where Grace Mugabe's sons, Robert Jnr and Chatunga Bellarmine, 21, rent rooms.

There were about 10 or 12 guards there, with that woman, (Mrs Mugabe) at that time. It was dark, my daughter told me.

"They did nothing to help her when that woman was attacking my daughter, Mrs Engels said.

Gabrielle Engels has claimed she had no idea at the time that the powerful woman who attacked her was Mrs Mugabe. She only found this out from an assistant at the hotel who helped rescue her.

I had no clue who this woman was when she started beating me, said Ms Engels, who has 14 stitches in two wounds on her head.

She said she had not wanted to press charges against Mrs Mugabe but was persuaded to do so by her mother.

These people are dangerous, and I was scared, she told local radio station, 702. Mrs Mugabe, who had only recently returned home after undergoing medical treatment in Johannesburg, arrived back in South Africa hours before the alleged assault.

She reportedly insisted several passengers were thrown off a South African Airways flight from Harare to Johannesburg earlier in the day.

She found her sons in the company of several young people including Miss Engels in hotel rooms she apparently did not know they had rented.

Police said no arrest warrant had been issued for Mrs Mugabe, meaning she may not have broken the law if she has left the country.
Johannesburg (AFP) - Zimbabwe's first lady Grace Mugabe was under investigation by South African police Tuesday after she allegedly used an extension cord to assault a model in a Johannesburg hotel.

The alleged attack threatened to spark a major diplomatic incident between the two countries, which have strong political and economic ties.

The 52-year-old wife of President Robert Mugabe is accused of beating Gabriella Engels, 20, on Sunday evening at the hotel where her two sons were staying, leaving the victim with injuries to her forehead and the back of her head.

"She hasn't handed herself over yet. We do not know her whereabouts at this stage," police spokesman Vishnu Naidoo told AFP.

South Africa's main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, said Mugabe had returned hurriedly to Zimbabwe late Tuesday, without citing its source.

Mugabe allegedly arrived at the hotel with bodyguards and accused Engels of partying with her sons Robert and Chatunga, who are both in their 20s and live in Johannesburg.

South African Police Minister Fikile Mbalula had earlier said Mugabe had turned herself in to officers, but Naidoo said this "just didn't materialise as it was supposed to".

"As long as we don't have a suspect in custody, we cannot say when they will appear in court," he added.

Pictures on social media appeared to show Engels bleeding from her head after the alleged assault at the Capital 20 West Hotel, in the upmarket Johannesburg district of Sandton.

"We were chilling in a hotel room, and (Mugabe's sons) were in the room next door. She came in and started hitting us," Engels told the Times Live website.

"The front of my forehead is busted open. I'm a model and I make my money based on my looks."

Police Minister Mbalula told reporters: "In terms of foreign citizens, they must understand they have responsibilities, especially those who hold diplomatic passports.

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"I cannot just go to Zimbabwe and beat up people there and then the matter will disappear. We have had to act in the interests of the victim."

- A future president? -

On Monday, Engels registered a case with the police alleging assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm.

Sizakele Nkosi-Malobane, a provincial minister in South Africa's Gauteng province, told Jacaranda FM radio that the case must be pursued fully through the courts.

"We hope that it will send a strong message to all leaders who abuse their power and assault innocent people in our country," she said.

Grace Mugabe is 41 years younger than her 93-year-old husband and has two sons and a daughter with the Zimbabwean president.

She regularly speaks at rallies in Zimbabwe and is seen as one possible contender to take over from her increasingly frail husband.

Last month she urged her husband to name his chosen successor, reviving speculation about the race to take over from the world's oldest national leader.

President Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from British colonial rule in 1980.

The succession battle is widely expected to pit Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa against a group called "Generation 40" or "G40" because its members are generally younger, and which reportedly has Grace's backing.

While Grace Mugabe has in the past denied harbouring ambitions to take over from her husband, at other times she has said she would be prepared to serve in any political position.

She has taken on a larger public role in recent years, speaking regularly at meetings to drum up support for her husband and heading the women's league of the ruling ZANU-PF party.

In speeches this year the president has often slurred his words, mumbled and paused for lengthy periods.

His reign has been marked by brutal repression of dissent, mass emigration, vote-rigging and a sharp economic decline since land reforms in 2000.

The Zimbabwe government has so far made no comment on Grace Mugabe's case.
Guam officials were "ecstatic" Tuesday as North Korea appeared to back away from its threat to fire four missiles towards the US territory in the western Pacific.

"There doesn't appear to be any indication, based on what we're hearing, that there will be any missiles attacking in the near future or in the distant future," lieutenant governor Ray Tonorio said.

Guam Homeland Security adviser George Charfauros dismissed reports that satellite images showed North Korea moving a missile into place for a possible launch, saying it was likely "just a ruse".

"It is their Liberation Day... North Korea tends to use symbolism as part of their decision making," he said after CNN reported on the US spy satellite pictures.

"We are almost ecstatic that Kim Jong Un has backed off," he added.

Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that Kim had examined plans to fire missiles near Guam, but made no move towards an immediate strike.

Instead he hinted he would hold off, saying he would "watch a little more the foolish and stupid conduct of the Yankees spending a hard time of every minute of their miserable lot".

Tensions have been mounting since North Korea last month conducted two intercontinental ballistic missile tests, which appeared to bring much of the US within range.

President Donald Trump responded by warning Pyongyang of "fire and fury like the world has never seen".

The North replied by setting a mid-August deadline to finalise plans to test-fire its missiles towards Guam, a US territory in the Pacific.

- False alarm -

As Guam residents waited anxiously for the deadline, they were woken just after midnight Tuesday by a "civil danger warning" that was accidentally broadcast by a radio station.

A statement from the Guam Homeland Security and Civil Defense office said the "unauthorised test was not connected to any emergency, threat or warning" and it was working to ensure "human error will not occur again".

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Tonorio said Kim appeared to have "calmed down" some of his rhetoric. "We're happy that he has taken a look at their plans and will be holding off on, at least it appears, the imminent threats to Guam," he said.

"At this point, our government is operating, our tourism is continuing to grow, there have been no major changes in our forecast."

Guam's citizens have been stoic through the crisis, with many saying they fear the looming typhoon season more than aggression from North Korea which has threatened the island several times in recent years.

"It doesnt change the way I feel. At the height of the threats, I was not worried. I have faith in the Lord," 58-year-old accountant Adoracion Manibusan said after Pyongyang took a step back from the brink.

"Besides, there is really nothing we can do if we get attacked. Theres no place to hide," she said.

Despite the cooler language from North Korea, Tonorio said there was no change to the threat level in Guam, which is home to two large US military installations and more than 6,000 military personnel.

"I think the rhetoric is one thing but if we have any belief, as a country or as an island, that there is going to be a threat, we are going to be prepared. We are going to be ready for it," he said.
The senate of the Midwestern state plans to send copies of the resolution to President Donald Trump, members of Congress and Republican Governor Bruce Rauner: Getty Images

A US state has passed a resolution calling for police to class neo-Nazi groups as terrorist organisations in the wake of the violent clashes in Charlottesville.

The Illinois Senate approved an anti-hate group resolution in direct response to the violence which erupted at a white supremacist rally in Virginia over the weekend leaving one person dead and scores more injured.

The measure, which was passed on Sunday, stated neo-Nazism and white nationalism continue to pose dangerous threats to cohesion and society overall. The resolution argued far-right extremism was accelerating in the attempt to divide America and promote hate.

State Senator Don Harmon, who sponsored the measure, said: It is vital that we stand in total opposition to the hatred, bigotry and violence displayed by the white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups in Charlottesville this past weekend.

The Democrat added: They are the heirs to the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazis. We fought two bloody wars in opposition to their ideologies. We must continue to fight those same twisted ideologies today.

The senate of the Midwestern state plans to send copies of the resolution to President Donald Trump, members of Congress and Republican Governor Bruce Rauner.

Governor Rauner was subject to a torrent of criticism from Democrats for failing to label the death of Heather Heyer, the 32-year-old women who was killed after a car ploughed into a crowd of anti-fascist protesters in Virginia, as domestic terrorism.

But after saying What doesn't matter is definitions, he was eventually forced to perform something of a U-turn and rework his position claiming: The deadly violence in Charlottesville this weekend is abhorrent and absolutely an act of domestic terrorism.

White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' with body armor and combat weapons evacuate comrades who were pepper sprayed after the 'Unite the Right' rally was declared a unlawful gathering by Virginia State Police (Getty Images)

The largest gathering of white nationalists the US has seen in descended on Virginia over the weekend. The rally was attended by neo-Nazis, skinheads, and members of the Ku Klux Klan clutching flaming torches and assault rifles and wearing paramilitary clothing.

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Hundreds of anti-fascist protesters converged on the city in response and ugly clashes with fist fights quickly broke out in the street and pepper spray released onto the fighting crowds. Authorities declared the Unite the Right rally an unlawful assembly and later announced a state of emergency.

White nationalist, James Alex Fields Jr is being held in a Virgina jail in connection with the deadly crash near the white nationalist rally. The 20-year-old, who is from Ohio, was arrested on Saturday and charged with second-degree murder and other criminal counts.

In the wake of the rally, Richard Spencer, a leading white supremacist who helped organise the gathering in the generally peaceful quiet university town, has promised to carry on protesting.

Richard Spencer, who heads up the white nationalist National Policy Institute, said he had the will to win in the battle not to pull down the statue of a Confederate General, Robert E Lee from a local park  the initial reason for the rally.

Were going to be back here and were going to humiliate all of these people who opposed us, he told the Daily Mail. Well be back here 100 times if necessary. I always win. Because I have the will to win, I keep going until I win.

Mr Spencer, who is crediting with inventing the term alt-right, blamed the Mayor of Charlottesville, Mike Signer, for the violence. Writing on Twitter, he said the attempt to stop the protest constituted an attack on free speech, and claimed that Charlottesville was a total set-up.

Mr Spencers pledge is at direct loggerheads with the instruction from Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe who demanded white nationalists to go home.

Mr Spencer rose to fame for being punched at an anti-Trump protest earlier in the year. The spokesperson for the so-called alt-right  a far-right movement which has been accused of racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and misogyny  became an overnight meme after the clip went viral. At the time, he said he was worried the video would become the meme to end all memes.
Baghdad (AFP) - Iraqi officials said Monday that preparations have been made for the battle to retake Tal Afar, a town held by the Islamic State jihadist group between Mosul and the Syrian border.

Federal police chief Lieutenant General Raed Shakir Jawdat said in a statement that "armoured and elite units are headed for Tal Afar", the main remaining stronghold of IS in northern Iraq.

The town is located 70 kilometres (43.5 miles) west of Mosul, where the jihadist group declared its "caliphate" in 2014 before being ousted from the city in July.

The units, whose number has not been specified, were "regrouping in combat positions in preparation for the next battle, said the statement.

Joining them is the Hashed al-Shaabi, a Shiite-dominated coalition of paramilitary units deployed since 2014 to halt the jihadist advance.

"Hashed al-Shaabi commanders met Saturday with army and police commanders to decide on the plan to free Tal Afar," spokesman Ahmed al-Assadi told reporters.

The coalition, which includes Iran-backed militias, would take part "actively and on all fronts" in the battle for Tal Afar to be launched within days, he said.

Assadi did not give a date for the launch and said that only Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi could announce the beginning of military operations.

IS jihadists overran Tal Afar in June 2014, when it had a population of around 200,000.

Tal Afar is surrounded by Hashed al-Shaabi and cut off from Mosul in the east and the Syrian border to the north and west.

The town was a Shiite-majority enclave in the mostly Sunni Muslim area with an overwhelmingly Turkmen population before its capture by IS.

The jihadists still hold Hawija, in the province of Kirkuk, 300 kilometres north of Baghdad.

But any military offensive in Hawija is expected to be postponed due to an upcoming planned referendum on Kurdish independence.

IS is also still present in the western Iraqi province of Anbar, including the Al-Qaim area on the border with war-ravaged Syria.
By Maher Chmaytelli ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi forces are carrying out air strikes on Tal Afar, a town held by Islamic State west of Mosul, in preparation for a ground assault, an Iraqi military spokesman said on Tuesday. Islamic State's self-proclaimed caliphate effectively collapsed last month, when U.S.-backed Iraqi forces completed the recapture of Mosul, the militants' capital in northern Iraq, after a nine-month campaign. Parts of Iraq and Syria remain however under Islamic State control, especially along the border. Iraqi authorities had said Tal Afar, 80 km (50 miles) west of Mosul, will be the next target in the war on Islamic State, who swept through parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014. The town, which had about 200,000 residents before falling to Islamic State, experienced cycles of sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shi'ites after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and has produced some of Islamic State's most senior commanders. "The preparations are under way, there are strikes aimed at wearing them down and keeping them busy, targeting their command and control centers, their depots... these strikes have been going on for some time," Iraqi military spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Rasool said in a statement. "We are waiting for the commander in chief of the armed forces (Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi)to give the orders for the liberation battle to start." Earlier on Tuesday, Baghdad-based al-Sumariya TV quoted Defence Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Khodari as saying the ground attack should start after the aerial bombardment campaign. Tal Afar has become the focus of a wider regional struggle for influence. Turkey, which claims affinity with Tal Afar's predominantly ethnic Turkmen population, opposes the involvement of Shi'ite paramilitary groups fighting with Iraqi forces, some of which are backed by Iran. One of Iraq's senior military commanders, Major-General Najm al-Jabouri, told Reuters last month that between 1,500 and 2,000 militants were in Tal Afar, a figure which possibly includes some family members who support them. The U.S.-led coalition is also keeping up its support to the Iraqi forces' campaign to end the militants presence all over the country. Coalition spokesman Colonel Ryad Dillon said last Thursday that the coalition carried out more than 50 strikes in the past week against Islamic State defensive positions, headquarters, weapons caches, and bomb factories in Tal Afar and also Kisik Junction to the east. "We fully expect this to be a difficult fight to root out ISIS from one of their last strongholds in Iraq," Dillon told a news briefing. Jabouri had a different assessment of the battle, expecting a relatively easy victory because the militants and their families there are "worn out and demoralized". Islamic State has also lost swathes of Syrian territory to separate campaigns being waged by Syrian government forces backed by Russia and Iran and by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic (SDF) Forces, which is dominated by the Kurdish YPG militia. The SDF is currently focused on capturing Raqqa city from Islamic State. (Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Angus MacSwan)
Fields, 20, addresses packed Virginia courthouse by video link from county jail in first public appearance since since being charged

James Alex Fields Jr is seen participating in the Unite the Right rally before his arrest in Charlottesville. Photograph: Stringer/Reuters



In a packed Virginia courthouse, a few hundred meters from the statue of the Confederate general Robert E Lee that led hundreds of neo-Nazis, armed militiamen and alt-right protesters to this small campus city over the weekend, James Alex Fields Jr made his first appearance in public since being charged with murder.

The 20-year-old is accused of mowing down a crowd of anti-fascist protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer, a local paralegal, and injuring 19 others after 48 hours of violence in Charlottesville that has again exposed Americas fractured race relations to the world.

Donald Trump returned to Washington on Monday still under fire for his refusal to directly condemn the white supremacist groups that targeted the city.

Fields appeared before the circuit judge Robert Downer by video link from the county jail on a small screen, dressed in a black and white striped jumpsuit, his head bowed for much of the short arraignment hearing.

Mr Fields, you are charged with a number of felonies, including murder and malicious wounding, Downer told the inmate, who wore the undercut hairstyle synonymous with the alt-right.

Fields answered in short sentences as Downer ran quickly through the hearing. The court heard how the young man from Ohio earned a bi-monthly salary of $650 from employment in Ohio.

James Alex Fields Jr is seen via video link from jail in a courtroom sketch. Photograph: Stringer/Reuters

The US army has said that Fields signed up for basic training in August 2015 but was released from active duty due to a failure to meet training standards four months later.

Asked if he had any ties to the community in Charlottesville, Fields, staring into the camera, replied: No, sir.

The public defenders office could not represent Fields, the court heard, as attorneys working in the office had relatives wounded in the attack. Fields was assigned a local attorney, Charles Webber, by the court and told he would remain in custody until a bond hearing later in the month.

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Police records from 2010 and 2011 reportedly showed that Fields mother called 911 on multiple occasions saying that she was scared of him and once reported that hed threatened her with a knife.

As the hearing adjourned and the reporters poured on to the street outside, Matthew Heimbach, the Indiana leader of the white nationalist group the Traditional Workers Party, held an impromptu press conference. He screamed at onlookers, accused the press of being liars and argued that Fields had been scared for his life before the attack.



The nationalist community defended ourselves against thugs, he said, arguing that radical leftists were the ones who came to kill us.

As Heimbach continued to shout, his words were gradually muffled by a small group of protesters who chanted: Nazis, go home.

The white nationalist, who on Saturday had attended a rally approaching the Robert E Lee statue dressed in a black combat helmet, flanked by security guards, then fled the courthouse, accompanied by a scrum of reporters.

The statue of Lee, in the recently renamed Emancipation Park, was still spattered with fluorescent pink and green paint on Monday as small groups of activists came to sit nearby.

Chris McMillan, a 20-year-old student from Washington DC, said the statue represented division and the history of slavery in this country.

When I think of Robert E. Lee, I think about oppression and enslavement, McMillan added.

Later, a 24-year-old activist from New York, who would not give her name, got up and urinated on the statues base.

It needs to be peed on, she said. Its a symbol of hate.

The woman had been at the protests over the weekend and said she had been about 20ft away from the car attack that killed 32 year-old Heather Heyer.

It was intense and Im still shaken up from it, she said.

A few blocks away, at the site of Heyers death, a group of five women held a quiet vigil, praying by the roadside that was now covered in chalked messages, flowers, candles and a picture of Heyer.

Other mourners gathered in silence, staring at the road where she fell.
Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is the head of one of Mexico's most violent drugs gangs, the Sinaloa Cartel, and for decades oversaw the trafficking of billions of dollars in narcotics into America and around the world.

He made international headlines for escaping from maximum security prisons twice in Mexico, as well as evading police on numerous other occasions.

He was recaptured in January 2016 in a shootout with Mexican marines and US law enforcement, and was extradited to the US in January 2017.

He is currently behind bars in New York while he awaits trial.

Mexican drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman Credit: EPA

What is the Sinaloa Cartel?

The Sinaloa is one of the world's largest drug trafficking organisations.

Founded in the mid 1980s in the poor, mountainous region of Sinaloa, in western Mexico, it initially specialised in smuggling marijuana and heroin, made from the poppies that grow in the state.

The 1985 murder of a US drugs enforcement agency (DEA) officer, Enrique Camarena, forced the Mexican authorities to act, with the cartel splintering. Senior figures in the group set up rival organisations in other states; Guzman, who was brought in as a young man by a family friend, remained in Sinaloa.

Under Guzman's leadership, with the assistance of Ismael Zambada Garcia, "El Mayo," and Juan Jose Esparragoza Moreno, alias "El Azul", the power of the Sinaloa cartel grew.

Its tentacles stretch from New York City to Buenos Aires, and across the Atlantic into Europe and Africa. By some estimates the Sinaloa cartel is present in 50 countries.

El Azul may have died of a heart attack in June 2014 - no one is quite sure. El Mayo remains a powerful force, as do his children.

Chapo Guzman, arrested in January 2016

How long has he been behind bars?

Guzman is no stranger to prison.

He was first captured in 1993, in Guatemala, and was detained initially at the Altiplano prison, at Almoloya de Juarez in Mexico State.

He was transferred in 1995 to the Puente Grande prison in Jalisco, where he remained until escaping hidden under a laundry cart in 2001.

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After 13 years on the run, he was recaptured in February 2014 and held at Altiplano again. But in July 2015 he escaped for a second time, tunneling out of the prison.

He was recaptured in January 2016, and held at Altiplano and then in Ciudad Juarez, before being extradited to the US on the day of Barack Obama's presidency, in January 2017.

When will he go on trial?

Guzman will go on trial in in the United States in April 2018, with the case expected to be one of the most significant drug trafficking trials in history.

The trial is expected to take two to three months and evidence will include 1,500 recordings and 10,000 documents.

In New York, he is named in a sweeping 17-count indictment alleging that from 1989 to 2014, Guzman led a continuing criminal enterprise responsible for importing and distributing massive amounts of narcotics and conspiring to murder rivals who posed a threat.

Guzman is also charged with firearm violations related to drug trafficking and money laundering connected to the smuggling from the United States to Mexico of more than $14 billion in cash from narcotics sales.

Guzman and other cartel leaders were indicted in 2009 in US District Court in Brooklyn on charges of conspiring to import more than 264,000 pounds of cocaine into the United States between 1990 and 2005. The alleged traffickers are accused of sharing drug transportation routes and obtaining their drugs from Colombian drug organizations.

The charges span two decades, cross borders and rely on a parade of cooperating witnesses who will have to be investigated by the defence.

How much is he worth?

The Mexican government estimates that the drug lord controls a $14 billion empire, but so far they haven't been able to seize any of his money or assets.

He regularly appeared on lists of the most powerful people in the world, and Forbes once estimated his net worth at $1 billion (811 million).

Is there any chance of him escaping again?

Guzman is in solitary confinement in a 20-by-12-foot cell for 23 hours a day, on the tenth floor of the Metropolitan Correctional Center - known as the Special Housing Unit, or the SHU.

The jail is sandwiched between federal prosecutors' offices and two federal courthouses and is protected by steel barricades that can stop a seven-and-a-half-ton truck. Cameras capable of reading a newspaper a block away are trained on the area.

Guzman is allowed to send pre-screened letters to his wife Emma Coronel, a former beauty queen and a US citizen, but she is not allowed to visit him. She has been present at all his court appearances in New York.

The US government has said severe restrictions are necessary for Guzman in part because he used coded messages, bribes and other means to continue operating his drug empire from behind bars and arrange escapes.

Who will represent him?

Guzman auditioned at least 16 different lawyers in the first three months he was in a New York prison.

Many firms would be unwilling to take the case, given that whoever accepts the case will face a number of serious challenges - including the question of getting paid. Guzman will have to show that any funds used for legal fees, whether from him or a benefactor, do not come from a criminal enterprise.

On August 8 it was reported that he had settled on his legal team, headed by Jeffrey Lichtman, who successfully defended New York mafia suspect John Gotti Jr, son of the Gambino clan chief.

He will also be represented by Marc Fernich, who assisted Mr Lichtman during the trial.

Two other lawyers, Eduardo Balarezo and William Purpura, who both previously represented Mexican drug lord Alfredo Beltran Leyva, have also joined the team.

Who are his family?

Guzman's wife, Ms Coronel, is a 27-year-old former beauty queen and mother of his twin daughters.

Guzman's wife, Emma Coronel, leaves court in New York in May

He has many other children, however - some of whom have attended court in New York.

His sons Ivan Archivaldo Guzman, 33, and Jesus Alfredo Guzman, are believed to be in day-to-day control of the cartel, although they are said to have clashed with El Mayo over their flashy lifestyles.

Known, along with another of Guzman's sons, Ovidio, as "narco juniors", their social media accounts have been flooded of pictures of the young men surrounded by scantily-clad women, or posing with tigers, or flaunting guns, cars and jewels.

His 86-year-old mother, Consuelo, still lives in Sinaloa - although her home was raided in June 2016, and she is now in hiding.
In this Aug. 10, 2017, file photo, a man watches a television screen showing U.S. President Donald Trump, left, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during a news programme at the Seoul Train Station in Seoul, South Korea - AP

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has been briefed on a plan to fire missiles towards the US territory of Guam, home to US air and naval bases, Pyongyang's state media said early on Tuesday morning.

Mr Kim "examined the plan for a long time" and "discussed it" with commanding officers on Monday during his inspection of the command of the Strategic Force in charge of the North's missile units, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The state-run news agency said Mr Kim would watch the actions of the United States for a while longer before making a decision.

"The United States, which was the first to bring numerous strategic nuclear equipment near us, should first make the right decision and show through actions if they wish to ease tensions on the Korean peninsula and prevent a dangerous military clash," Mr Kim was cited as saying.

"He said that if the Yankees persist in their extremely dangerous reckless actions on the Korean peninsula and in its vicinity, testing the self-restraint of the DPRK, the latter will make an important decision as it already declared," the report said.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits the Command of the Strategic Force of the Korean People's Army (KPA) in an unknown location in North Korea Credit: Reuters

Mr Kim's remarks would appear to bring into play the large-scale military exercises held every year by South Korea and the United States that are expected to kick off later this month.

The North has always denounced the drills as provocative rehearsals for invasion and has in the past offered a moratorium on further nuclear and missile testing in exchange for their cancellation - a trade-off promoted by Pyongyang's main ally China, but repeatedly rejected by Washington and Seoul.

Some analysts said the North Korean leader was seeking a similar quid-pro-quo this time around, using the Guam missile threat as leverage.

"This is a direct invitation to talk reciprocal constraints on exercises and missile launches," said Adam Mount, senior fellow at the Centre for American Progress.

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North Korea nuclear grid

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Tuesday he agreed with President Donald Trump during a telephone call that their top priority on North Korea was to do what they could to halt its missile launches.

"Through a firm partnership between Japan and the U.S. and cooperating with China, Russia and the international community we agreed that our priority was to work to ensure that North Korea doesn't launch more missiles," Mr Abe told reporter after he spoke to Trump.

Mr Abe said he also praised a commitment by Mr Trump that the United States would ensure the security of U.S. allies in the region as threats from North Korea intensify.

"President Trump reaffirmed that the United States stands ready to defend and respond to any threat or actions taken by North Korea against the United States or its allies, South Korea and Japan," the White House said in a statement.

The standoff has sparked global alarm, with world leaders including Chinese President Xi Jinping urging calm on both sides.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is seen being applauded at a performance in Pyongyang, in footage released on Tuesday Credit: AP

South Korean President Moon Jae-In weighed in on Tuesday, saying Seoul would avoid a second Korean War at all costs.

"Military action on the Korean Peninsula can only be decided by the Republic of Korea and no one may decide to take military action without the consent of the Republic of Korea," Moon said.

But he added there could be no dialogue before the North halts its "nuclear and missile provocations".

On Monday, James Mattis, the US defence secretary, said if North Korean missiles were considered to be a threat to Guam "then it's game on".

He added: "We will try and do our best to make sure it does not hit the United States."

Pyongyang's plans for the strike near Guam prompted a surge in tensions in the region last week, with President Donald Trump warning he would unleash "fire and fury" on North Korea if it threatened the US.

Map: Guam in relation to North Korea
By Gabriella Borter

(Reuters) - James Fields walked into the former Nazi concentration camp in Dachau, Germany, on a school trip two years ago and told a classmate he was "where the magic happened."

The account was one of several describing Fields' white supremacist views that emerged in telephone and Facebook interviews on Monday, two days after his arrest on a murder charge for ramming his car into a group of people objecting to neo-Nazis rallying in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Several students who attended Randall K. Cooper High School with Fields in Union, Kentucky, recalled him as an angry young man who spoke admiringly about the Nazis and Adolf Hitler.

Fields' court-appointed lawyer, Charles "Buddy" Weber, could not immediately be reached for comment.

The 20-year-old suspect made a brief court appearance via video link on Monday. A judge denied bail for Fields, accused of killing one woman and injuring at least 19 other people on Saturday.

During the June 2015 school trip, Fields spat on a Russian war memorial in Germany and refused to shower because he did not want to use what he called "that dirty pig water," according to a former classmate who has known Fields since childhood.

At Dachau, Fields looked like "a kid at an amusement park," said the classmate, who asked not to be identified for fear of being targeted.

"He would read excerpts from Mein Kampf, and listen to Nazi propaganda music at night," the classmate told Reuters.

Another former high school classmate, Morgan Stidham, said she did not know Fields well and never saw him doing anything violent.

"I only overheard him talking about things like Nazi stuff and how amazing Hitler was," Stidham said.

Caleb Orndorff, who went to the same high school and who is black, said he and his brother once got into a verbal confrontation with Fields and that Fields called them a racial slur in response.

His former history teacher, Derek Weimer, also told several news outlets about Fields' fascination with Hitler.

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"My first feeling: I failed, we failed," Weimer told the Toledo Blade after learning about the charge against Fields.

White nationalist groups gathered in the Southern college town of Charlottesville on Saturday in a "Unite the Right" rally to protest the planned removal of a statue of Confederate army commander General Robert E. Lee from a park.

Fields was among several rally participants whose pictures were shown on social media. The Anti-Defamation League posted a picture on Twitter that appeared to show Fields carrying a shield affiliated with Vanguard America, a white nationalist group. In a statement, the group denied that Fields was a member.

Fields' mother, Samantha Bloom, said he told her he was attending a rally but did not describe it in detail, according to the Blade.

"I thought it had something to do with Trump," she told the newspaper. "I try to stay out of his political views."

Fields and his mother moved from northern Kentucky to the town of Maumee in northwestern Ohio about a year ago for her job, according to the Blade. Fields began living in his own apartment several months ago and traveled to Virginia for Saturday's rally.

In a report sourced to police records, the newspaper said that wheelchair-bound Bloom called police in Florence, Kentucky, at least nine times starting in 2010 seeking help with her sometimes violent son.

Soon after graduating high school in 2015, Fields joined the U.S. Army but left by December after failing to meet training standards, the Army said in a statement.

Fields' father was killed by a drunk driver months before his birth, the Washington Post reported, citing an unidentified uncle.

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter in New York; Additional reporting by Taylor Harris in New York and Scott Malone in Charlottesville, Va. and Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Writing by Joseph Ax; editing by Grant McCool)
(Reuters) - An Oklahoma man angry with the government has been arrested by the FBI on charges that he tried to blow up an Oklahoma City bank building with a van he thought was packed with explosives, U.S. prosecutors said on Monday.

Jerry Varnell, 23, of Sayre, Oklahoma, was taken into custody on Saturday after an eight-month investigation. Federal prosecutors said he wanted to use an explosive device similar to the one that was detonated outside a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people.

According to a criminal complaint, Varnell told an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation that he was seeking retaliation against the government and financial institutions.

"I'm out for blood,'" the complaint quoted Varnell as saying.

Federal prosecutors said in a statement the device he sought to detonate was inert, and the public was not in danger.

"He wanted to make the biggest impact wherever he was going to place this bomb," FBI agent Raul Bujanda told a news conference in Oklahoma City.

The BancFirst building is a few blocks from where the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building once stood.

Bomber Timothy McVeigh used a fuel and fertilizer bomb to turn the Murrah Federal Building into a tomb of rubble on April 19, 1995, in one of the deadliest attacks in modern U.S. history. More than 680 people were injured. McVeigh was executed in 2001 for his role in that attack.

"We are disheartened that a young man who calls Oklahoma home would resort to domestic terrorism, knowing the deep sense of loss still felt by people impacted by the Oklahoma City bombing," the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum said in a statement. The memorial honors the victims, survivors and others affected by the 1995 attack.

Varnell made a brief appearance at a federal court in Oklahoma City on Monday and was scheduled to have a detention and preliminary hearing on Tuesday, said Scott Williams, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma.

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Prosecutors were not immediately able to say if Varnell had a lawyer.

Prosecutors said that during the investigation an undercover agent had posed as a co-conspirator and agreed to help Varnell build what he believed was a 1,000-pound (454 kg) explosive.

Agents arrested him after he made a call on Saturday to a mobile phone he believed would detonate a device in a van parked beside a BancFirst Corp building in downtown Oklahoma City, the complaint said.

Varnell was charged with malicious attempted destruction of a building in interstate commerce and could face up to 20 years in jail if convicted.

The complaint filed in the federal court in Oklahoma City said at the onset of the investigation, Varnell said he wanted to build a team to conduct a bombing.

U.S. prosecutors said Varnell had prepared a social media message to be posted after the explosion, and helped make and load a device into a stolen van.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax in New York, Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Toni Reinhold)
While President Donald Trump was condemned by Republicans and Democrats alike for not not calling out white supremacists for their "Unite the Right" march, which left one dead and at least 34 injured in its wake, first lady Melania Trump came in for criticism of a different kind despite her reaction to the violence hitting all the right notes.

Soon after the violence at the rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Melania tweeted Aug. 12, "Our country encourages freedom of speech, but let's communicate w/o hate in our hearts. No good comes from violence. #Charlottesville.

However, no sooner had the first lady put out her tweet that a meme started doing the round claiming that Meliania's response on Twitter was copied from a comment made by former first lady Michelle Obama last year.

Although its still an unproven claim whether Melania stole Obama's words, Twitter had a field day over the allegation as this would not be the first time that the first lady has been accused of plagiarising Obama.

Social media users debated whether Melania was a repeat offender.

Back in July 2016, when Melania addressed the Republican National Convention on its opening night, many pointed out that her speech was similar to the one that Obama had given at the Democratic National Convention in 2008.

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While political speeches could be derived from a standard set of ideals and promises, Melania's speech was nearly identical to Obamas, not just in content but also in wordings.

Melania Trump, 2016:

From a young age, my parents impressed on me the values that you work hard for what you want in life; that your word is your bond and you do what you say and keep your promise; that you treat people with respect. They taught and showed me values and morals in their daily life. That is a lesson that I continue to pass along to our son, and we need to pass those lessons on to the many generations to follow. Because we want our children in this nation to know that the only limit to your achievements is the strength of your dreams and your willingness to work for them.

Michelle Obama, 2008:

And Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values: that you work hard for what you want in life; that your word is your bond and you do what you say you're going to do; that you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don't know them, and even if you don't agree with them. And Barack and I set out to build lives guided by these values, and pass them on to the next generation. Because we want our children  and all children in this nation  to know that the only limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work for them.

While the possibility of plagiarism has not been ruled out in the latest instance, reports said the viral meme was most likely a spoof.

Meanwhile, Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia declared a state of emergency after the clashes. The deceased was identified as Heather D. Heyer, a paralegal and a passionate advocate for the disenfranchised and was often moved to tears by the worlds injustices."

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By Gabriel Stargardter MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A Mexican federal police officer who captured drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman in northwest Mexico last year was moved for his own safety to a posting at the Mexican embassy in Washington, DC, according to two Mexican law enforcement sources. Nicolas Gonzalez was a senior federal police officer in the northwestern state of Sinaloa during the January 2016 capture of Guzman, the sources said. Gonzalez is now Mexico's law enforcement emissary in Washington, according to the sources and the Mexican foreign ministry website. Currently awaiting trial in New York after being deported to the United States, Guzman was re-captured in the Sinaloa town of Los Mochis. The kingpin, who ran the feared Sinaloa drug cartel, had been on the run after infamously escaping through a tunnel from his high-security jail in 2015. During the navy-led operation to detain Guzman, the drug lord and his henchman evaded the marines by escaping via the sewer. However, after stealing a car, they were stopped by federal police who had been tasked with blocking roads out of Los Mochis and were unaware of the navy's hunt, the sources said. The police officers who inadvertently stopped Guzman, for speeding and driving in a stolen car, phoned Gonzalez, who took over custody of Guzman at the motel where he was being held. Gonzalez was unwilling to hand his prized charge to the navy, the sources said. As such, the capture of Guzman after escaping the navy was a big victory for the federal police and brought Gonzalez into the spotlight. Gonzalez's quiet transfer to Washington last year was portrayed as a promotion, but was mainly due to fears for the safety of him and his family, the two sources said. Violence in Sinaloa has jumped since Guzman's detention, as tensions within the cartel and incursions from other criminal gangs have sparked a sharp rise in killings. Gonzalez could not immediately be reached for comment, and the foreign ministry referred questions to the National Security Commission, which did not immediately reply to requests for comment. Guzman was transferred under heavy guard from his cell to a court in Brooklyn, New York, on Monday. (Editing by Marcy Nicholson)
A mutant pig, born with two heads and eight legs, died just minutes after birth on a farm in China. A Chinese farmer, Gao Baiqi, who raises animals, said he "had never seen anything like it."

The mutant piglet appeared to have been born with a parasitic twin, according to Daily Mail Monday. Baiqi, who lives in Fe County in Linyi City, located in Chinas eastern Shandong Province, said he discovered the mutant piglet among the litter after birth.

"Besides having one head, two bodies and eight legs, the piglet appeared normal and had all other organs," Baiqi told Asia Wire.

Because it was weak, Baiqi reportedly planned to nurture the abnormal piglet by hand instead of letting it feed from its mother. It was born with underdeveloped skin, and it jerked and thrashed about before it abruptly stopped breathing.

"I had prepared milk and wanted to feed it myself, but it died in a few minutes," Baiqi said. He reportedly buried the piglet before he showed it to nearby residents.

Baiqi hasnt figured out what caused the piglets deformities. However, the birth defect was possibly the result of an egg that hadnt separated during conception, as is the case in human conjoined twins.

According to a report by Berkeley regarding evolution and causes of mutation, deformities happen for many reasons and are "naturally occurring."

"For example, when a cell divides, it makes a copy of its DNA  and sometimes the copy is not quite perfect. That small difference from the original DNA sequence is a mutation," the report read.

External influences also caused mutations, according to the report.

"Mutations can also be caused by exposure to specific chemicals or radiation," the report continued. "These agents cause the DNA to break down. When the cell repairs the DNA, it might not do a perfect job of the repair. So the cell would end up with DNA slightly different than the original DNA and hence, a mutation."

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Another deformed pig surfaced in China in 2015, though this time the animal bared what some said resembled a penis on its forehead, according to Mirror. A Chinese farmer named Tao Lu noticed the deformed pig among the litter after birth.

"It was a large litter, and the mutant was one of the last of 19 piglets to be born," Tao said. "All the others were normal, just this one was really bizarre.

"It is a shame it died, I could have got more money for it than for the rest of the family put together based on what people were offering me on the phone," he continued.

The farmer said he intended to put the malformed pig on display for locals to behold. One local, Wu Kung, 32, witnessed the animal close up.

"I was one of a dozen people who went there to see the piglet, and it really did have human face and exactly like he said, a penis growing out of its forehead," he said.

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Washington (AFP) - North Korea's recent rapid progress in developing a long-range missile appears to have come after it refurbished rocket engines procured from a plant in the former Soviet Union, according to an expert report published Monday.

According to Michael Elleman of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the missiles used in recent North Korean tests were based on the RD-250 engine once made at a plant in what is now an independent Ukraine.

These could have been bought from corrupt workers at arsenals in what are now the rival states of Russia and Ukraine and smuggled to North Korea by criminal networks -- at some point between the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and Ukraine's current crisis.

North Korea has been testing missile technology since procuring a Soviet-designed Scud in the 1970s, but was until recently struggling to construct a working intercontinental missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to US targets.

The latest IISS report and others suggest that Kim Jong-Un's regime has abandoned attempts to modify the Russian-built OKB-456 and has now switched to the once Ukrainian-made RD-250 -- with spectacular and ominous results.

During the Soviet era, the RD-250 was produced at the Yuzhnoye design bureau's Yuzhmash plant in Dnipro, a city that is today in Kiev government-held central Ukraine, around 150 kilometers (80 miles) from an active frontline held by Russian-backed separatists.

Ukraine reacted angrily to The New York Times' account of the IISS report -- which emphasized the Ukrainian origin of the technology -- insisting that Yuzhmash has not produced military rockets since Ukraine's independence and has no links to North Korea's nuclear missile program.

But the report itself does not contradict this, suggesting instead that the missile motors may have remained in storage, whether in what is now the Russian Federation or in independent Ukraine, after the Soviet Union broke up.

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"A small team of disgruntled employees or underpaid guards at any one of the storage sites... could be enticed to steal a few dozen engines by one of the many illicit arms dealers, criminal networks, or transnational smugglers operating in the former Soviet Union," it said.

"The engines (less than two meters tall and one meter wide) can be flown or, more likely, transported by train through Russia to North Korea."

The report includes pictures issued by Kim's regime which appear to show similarities between the latest missiles to be tested and the RD-250 design for a liquid-fuelled rocket.

"This is not to suggest that the Ukrainian government was involved, and not necessarily Yuzhnoye executives," Elleman wrote in the IISS report.

"Workers at Yuzhnoye facilities in Dnipropetrovsk and Pavlograd were likely the first ones to suffer the consequences of the economic misfortunes, leaving them susceptible to exploitation by unscrupulous traders, arms dealers and transnational criminals operating in Russia, Ukraine and elsewhere."

- 'Ominous questions' -

The Yuzhmash plant's marketing department said the company "has never before and does not have anything to do with North Korean missile programs of a space or defense nature."

And Oleksandr Turchynov, secretary of Ukraine's national security and defense council, seized on the report to attack Moscow, saying: "We believe this anti-Ukrainian campaign was provoked by Russian special services to cover their participation in North Korean nuclear and missile programs."

As the controversy erupted, Elleman took to Twitter to clarify his conclusions.

"Let me be clear about DPRK's source of ICBM engine: Yuzhnoye is one of several possible sources, there are other potentials in Russia," he wrote, adding that he does not believe the current Kiev government condoned or even knew about the transfer.

And he noted -- as had his original report -- that Ukraine had in fact arrested two suspected North Korean agents in July 2012 as they tried to steal secrets from the Yuzhnoye design bureau in Dnipro.

Other outside experts have backed the conclusion that the latest round of North Korean missile tests, which have sharply raised tensions between Pyongyang and Washington, involved rockets using the RD-250 design.

Last week, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists published a report suggesting the switch to Yuzhnoye's design over another Soviet-era model that had failed in previous North Korean tests was cause for concern.

This, the academic authors said, "raises new and potentially ominous questions about the variety and extent to which Soviet rocket motors might have been obtained by North Korea during the collapse of the Soviet Union."

dc-burs/jm
New York (AFP) - A US federal judge on Monday refused to help private lawyers hoping to represent drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman obtain guarantees that they would get paid if they take the case.

The four attorneys that Guzman has chosen want a guarantee that US prosecutors will not seize their legal fees as part of the $14 billion forfeiture they are seeking of Guzman's alleged drug profits.

But at a hearing in federal court in Brooklyn, US District Judge Brian Cogan said that the lawyers should run the risk of working without pay if they want to defend Guzman.

If the private attorneys want "to come in, they have to do it soon... and take the contingency," Cogan said.

Defense attorney Jeffrey Lichtman told reporters outside the courthouse that his team is "looking forward desperately to come into this case."

However, "we have to make some arrangements to make sure that we can come in and that we'll be able to actually get paid," said Lichtman, best known for successfully defending John "Junior" Gotti, son of the so-called "Dapper Don" John Gotti Senior at trial in 2005.

"We're willing to take the case," Lichtman said, but don't want to get paid "and then two weeks later the government freezes all our bank accounts. Where does that put us?"

He reminded the defense that the trial will begin on April 16 and that he does not want to postpone it.

Guzman, 60, is one of the world's most notorious criminals who twice escaped prison in his native Mexico.

He is accused of running the Sinaloa cartel, one of the world's biggest drug empires. He was extradited to New York on January 19, and is being held in solitary confinement.

- 'Not as quick mentally' -

Guzman faces a string of firearms, drug trafficking and conspiracy charges.

If convicted of just the first charge -- heading the Sinaloa Cartel -- he will likely spend the rest of his life behind US bars.

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The attorneys said that Guzman will meet on Thursday with a relative for the first time since his extradition, and that authorities will monitor the meeting, scheduled to last two hours.

That relative, however, will not be his 28 year-old beauty-queen wife Emma Coronel. Guzman is not allowed to meet her.

Lichtman said that his team has been working for months on the case, and once Guzman "meets with his family, we are hoping that soon thereafter we'll be able to be retained and plead the case."

Guzman wore a blue prison jumpsuit at the hearing. He is currently being represented by two court-appointed attorneys.

Coronel was also at the hearing along with the couple's young twin daughters.

Lichtman also said that he noted some "deterioration" in Guzman's health.

"I've noticed it weekly since February, he's not as quick mentally as in February," Lichtman said.

The next hearing is scheduled for November 6.
With nights getting longer and cooler, a couple of sections of rivers in southwest Montana have met the criteria for lifting fishing restrictions.

Effective immediately, the following sections of rivers, previously under hoot owl restrictions," are open to fishing daily:

 Big Hole River from Saginaw Bridge on Skinner Meadows Road to the Mouth of the North Fork Big Hole River

 Lower Beaverhead River from Anderson Lane to confluence with Big Hole River
An enormous asteroid has only a one in 100,000 chance of striking Earth in this century, a NASA scientist has said.

Some scientists have been studying Apophis, a 1,000-foot asteroid discovered in 2004, because of how close the space rock will be getting to our planet. It is scheduled to pass by in 2029, when it might get closer than 20,000 miles to Earth  closer than some satellites. It will appear again in 2036 but will be several million miles away.

Although scientists have ruled out collisions in the next two flybys, the future beyond that was unclear.

We cannot yet exclude the possibility that it could impact our planet, Paul Chodas from the Jet Propulsion Laboratorys Center for Near Earth Object Studies told Astrowatch.net, but he noted that the odds he calculated for the asteroid hitting our planet over the next 100 years  one in 100,000  are extremely small.

apophis-asteroid

Photo: NASA

It doesnt exactly inspire confidence when NASA explains how the asteroid got its name: Also known as Apep, the Destroyer, Apophis is the Egyptian god of evil and destruction who dwelled in eternal darkness. But Astrowatch.net reported the newly calculated impact odds were even lower than expected.

To be further secure in Earths safety, astronomers will continue monitoring Apophis, as they do with other near-Earth objects like asteroids.

Apophis is certainly a hazardous asteroid, and for that reason it has been tracked extensively, and so we know its orbit very accurately, Chodas told Astrowatch.net. In all likelihood further tracking measurements will eliminate even that possibility (one in 100,000).

If an asteroid were to pose a threat to Earth, there are protocols in place for responding to it and preventing a catastrophe, including communicating with one another and with governments.

Prevention measures include launching spacecraft that would throw the asteroid into a new orbit and off its collision course, either through gravitational pull, a planned crash into the asteroid or, in an Armageddon-type method, planting and donating a device on the rock.

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The third option is a last resort, to be used if there isnt enough time for anything else.

asteroid-apophis

Photo: NASA/ESA/Herschel/PACS/MACH-11/MPE/ESAC

NASAs Planetary Defense Coordination Office and other groups will test their incoming asteroid response in October when the asteroid 2012 TC4 comes close to Earth. Its a small rock, between 30 and 100 feet across, that is projected to pass by the planet without incident, and the experts are using its pass as a drill of sorts. It will come between 4,200 and 170,000 miles of Earth, both distances that are closer than the moon. The range is so large because scientists dont know very much about the asteroid; they will also use its flyby to gather more information about it.

Scientists have always appreciated knowing when an asteroid will make a close approach to and safely pass the Earth because they can make preparations to collect data to characterize and learn as much as possible about it, program scientist Michael Kelley said in a statement from NASA last month. This time we are adding in another layer of effort, using this asteroid flyby to test the worldwide asteroid detection and tracking network, assessing our capability to work together in response to finding a potential real asteroid threat.

Laboratories and observatories across the world are working on the tracking effort and drill.

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President Donald Trumps approval rating hit a new low on Monday, just two days after he struggled to address the country in the wake of a racist attack at a protest in Charlottesville, Va.

Trump faced criticism for initially failing to name white supremacist groups in his statement denouncing the violence. One person died and 19 others were injured after a white supremacist drove a car into a crowd of counter-protesters.

According to Gallups daily tracker of Trumps approval rating, only 34% of Americans approve of the work the president is doing as of Monday. The president has been in office for just over 200 days; this is the lowest his Gallup approval rating has been in that time. Some 61% of voters disapprove  a record high for the poll.

The numbers come as part of a three-day polling average including Friday, Saturday and Sunday, meaning some respondents were polled before the violence in Charlottesville.

The new low comes a little over a week after a poll that showed the presidents approval rating had even begun to slip among members of his base. Despite Trump tweeting otherwise last Monday, an August Quinnipiac University poll found that 76% of Republicans approve of the President, down from 84% a month earlier. That same poll found that support for the president had also slipped among whites without a college degree.

At the time, White House aide Kellyanne Conway said the numbers showed the presidents supporters wanted him to focus. They are telling him just enact your program  focus on the agenda, she told ABC Newss This Week.

Gallup surveyed 1,500 American adults and its poll has a margin of error of plus-or-minus three percentage points.
Catholic priests should face criminal charges if they fail to report allegations of child sex abuse disclosed during confession, according to an Australian inquiry.

The measure was among 85 proposed changes published in a report Monday by the Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which was set up in 2013 to investigate claims of child sex abuse in multiple Australian institutions, including Boy Scouts, the Salvation Army and various churches and religious groups.

The Catholic Church regards what is said in confession as strictly confidential, and priests face automatic excommunication if they reveal what they have been told by people in their confessions.

Pope Francis confession

LUCA ZENNARO/AFP/Getty

Catholic bishops in Australia have said they will fight the measure. Recommendations made by the royal commission will be put to Australian legislators to decide whether they should become law.

Related: How the Catholic Churchs hierarchy makes it difficult to punish sexual abusers

The commission, Australias highest form of inquiry, heard that more than 1,000 Catholic institutions and a total of 1,880 alleged perpetrators were identified in sexual abuse allegations between 1980 and 2015. Various other institutions were also implicated; the commission heard 1,100 abuse complaints against the Anglican Church of Australia during the same time period.

The commission said that in some cases, abusers had admitted to their crimes during confession but had gone on to reoffend, as they knew they would not be reported to police.

We are satisfied that, where the elements of the reporting obligation are met, there should be no exemption, excuse, protection or privilege from the offence granted to clergy for failing to report information disclosed in or in connection with a religious confession, said the report in its executive summary.

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Australia child abuse protest

David Gray/Reuters

The head of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne, said in a statement that confession in the Catholic Church is a spiritual encounter with God through the priest.

It is a fundamental part of the freedom of religion, and it is recognized in the Law of Australia and many other countries. It must remain so here in Australia. Outside of this all offences against children must be reported to the authorities, and we are absolutely committed to doing so, said Hart in the statement.

Many jurisdictions recognize what is known as priest-penitent privilege or clergy privilege, which protects from judicial inquiry certain forms of communication between a religious official and members of their congregation.

In the United States, prosecutors are forbidden from probing the nature of religious confessions. In 2014, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that a priest may be compelled to disclose what he heard in the confessional; the case involved a 2008 incident in which a 14-year-old girl said she had told the priest that she was abused by a member of the parish. The same court later overturned the ruling.

According to the Catholic Church's teachings, the priest is merely a mediator during confession; the conversation is actually between the person confessing and God.

Australias highest-ranking Catholic priest, Cardinal George Pella close adviser to Pope Franciswas charged in June with multiple counts of sexual assault relating to his time as a priest in Victoria. Pell indicated in July that he would plead not guilty at his trial, which recommences in September.

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Rebecca Gayheart, pictured in February, buried her younger sister, Rachel, on Monday. (Photo: Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for Barneys New York)

Rebecca Gayheart was reminded that life is precious when she buried her sister this week.

The Beverly Hills, 90210 alum and wife of Eric Dane shared on Instagram that her baby sister Rachel had died. Life has not been easy for her sibling, Rebecca noted in her tribute, but now the single mother can be peaceful.

My baby sister Rachel ray  has sadly passed away, Gayheart, 46, posted, along with a photo of her family reunited for her sisters funeral. We buried her on the hilltop in Kentucky along with my grandparents and cousins. She was loved by everyone and had a wicked sense of humor and the most loving heart.

She continued, Life has not been easy for you sis but now you can be peaceful. Im so grateful that I was able to be with my family during this time and want to say thank you to everyone for all of the love and support youve sent to me and my family. Let this be a reminder that every day is precious and we must live our best life NOW. Let your loved ones know how much you care as there is no guarantee that you will get another day to do so.

She gave the post a series of hashtags including heartbroken, my people, and life is hard.

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Rachels obituary stated that she died on Friday at the Hazard Appalachian Regional Medical Center. Radar Online reports that she had contracted pneumonia while incarcerated at Kentucky River Regional Jail for an unspecified offense. After being transported to the hospital, she died three or four days later. At this time her exact cause of death is still under investigation, a Kentucky State Police detective told the website.

Rebecca grew up in Hazard, Ky., before becoming a model and actress and settling down in L.A. with her Greys Anatomy hunk husband.

Rachel is survived by her parents, two other siblings, and her only son, Ethan, who posted an online tribute to his mom.

The funeral was held Monday at the Hindman Funeral Services Chapel and included a singing service.



Rebecca has had her share of troubles through the years. Earlier this year her hubby took time off from his latest show, The Last Ship, to be treated for depression. But the couple made headlines in 2009 for a sex tape they made with former Miss Teen USA Kari Ann Peniche. Rebecca also had her own brush with the law: She was convicted of a misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter charge in 2001 for hitting a boy with her car.





Read more from Yahoo Celebrity:
The Syrian military and its allies, including Russia, are approaching the final steps toward completely surrounding the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) in a massive pocket of Syrian territory spanning the size of nearly two entire U.S. states.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a U.K.-based monitoring group with ties to the exiled opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, released a report Monday detailing recent pro-government gains on two fronts that, if met, would seal off over 3,000 square miles of ISIS-held land in the Syrian desert, an area roughly equivalent to the states of Delaware and Rhode Island combined.

Russia has played a major role in backing the Syrian military and allied factions, which the SOHR said included fighters of Afghan, Lebanese, Iraqi and Palestinian origins. After the most recent advances, including a Syrian paratrooper attack on ISIS that Russia called "unprecedented," the SOHR said the Syrian military was less than 15 and a half miles away from laying siege to ISIS.

Related: What Is ISIS Fighting for Now? The Islamic State Dream Is Dead, But Its Violence Lives On in the Middle East

"Violent clashes due to the regime and Russian aircraft's intensive strikes on the battlefield, in addition to heavy missile bombardment, enabled regime forces to achieve new progress, as they imposed control by air and missile cover over three new areas located near Wahat al-Koum," SOHR wrote.

"The clashes and shelling left dead and wounded on both sides of the fighting," the group added.

GettyImages-831061356

Stringer/AFP/Reuters

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The report also referenced a successful Syrian airborne landing Saturday in the village of Qadir, located miles behind ISIS lines near the border of Homs and Raqqa governorates. Prior to the operation, Russian Ka-52 Alligator attack helicopters and the Syrian military reportedly conducted a nighttime assault on ISIS positions in Qadir, which lies some 75 miles west of ISIS-held Deir ez-Zor, the retaking of which is among the ultimate goals of the Syrian campaign against the jihadists. Paratroopers of the Syrian army then managed to land over a dozen miles from the front lines near the villages of Qadir and Khirbet Mikman, ultimately dislodging ISIS from the area, Russian state media reported.

"For the first time since the beginning of combat operations against the terrorist group Islamic State in Syria, Syrian government forces organized and conducted a virtuosic tactical landing operation behind militants lines with their subsequent defeat and liberation of the settlement of Qadir," Russia's defense ministry said in a statement, according to Tass Russian News Agency.

"Russian military advisers took direct part in the preparation of the operation and control over it," it added.

Saturday's southbound advances into Homs paralleled another strategic victory over the formerly ISIS-controlled village of Sukhnah, where a separate Syrian military formation is progressing to the north. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told state media Sunday that recent Syrian military accomplishments have allowed the Syrian government to more than double its territory in the past two months, and that the anticipated recapture of Deir ez-Zor, which has been under ISIS siege since 2014, would "say a lot, if not everything, about the end of the battle with [ISIS]."

RTS1ATHM

Institute for the Study of War/Reuters

As the Russia-backed Syrian military advances against ISIS in Homs and in the outskirts of Raqqa, the U.S. has also made recent gains against ISIS elsewhere through Washington's own local allies. The Syrian Democratic Forces, a mostly Kurdish alliance of Arabs and ethnic minorities, has continued to make slow yet steady progress against the thousands of jihadists entrenched in the remaining half of their de facto capital of Raqqa. The western and eastern flanks of the majority-Kurd fighters storming the city met Saturday for the first time, signaling another huge blow to ISIS's final defenses in Syria, the Associated Press reported.

SOHR and a number of other human rights groups have accused both international-led campaigns against ISIS of amassing substantial civilian casualties and of using weapons that violate international treaties on warfare, infractions that could potentially amount to war crimes. ISIS has closely documented and proliferated its own atrocities via social media since taking nearly half of Iraq and Syria in 2014. A U.N. war crimes chief resigned last week over what she said was the international community's failure to take action against human rights abuses in more than six years of war in Syria, where she said "everyone is bad now," according to The Telegraph.

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Dozens of volcanoes are lurking underneath the ice of Antarctica, possibly making one part of the frozen continent the biggest volcanic region in the world.

Scientists reported in the Geological Society Special Publications that they have identified 91 new volcanoes below the surface of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, after using topographical information from radar data to identify cone-shaped features sticking up into the ice. They were searching for peaks made out of basalt, an igneous rock that also makes up the tips of known volcanoes that push through to the surface.

We propose that these edifices represent subglacial volcanoes, the authors say, adding that their analysis has created an inventory of West Antarcticas subglacial volcanism.

The 91 new finds were added to another almost 50 volcanoes already known to exist there.

Although the volcanoes cover a wide area, they are especially concentrated and orientated in a particular area central to the 2,200-mile-long West Antarctic rift system, a series of rifts in the ice where all of the continents most recently active volcanoes are located. It runs from the Ross Ice Shelf, the largest ice shelf on Antarctica, to the Antarctic Peninsula  the tentacle-like arm that reaches up toward the curling, southernmost tip of South America that lies about 650 miles away.

antarctica-60608_1920

Photo: Pixabay, public domain

According to the study, the analysis gives a deeper look at an area that is not well understood from a volcanic standpoint, due to the ice cover. It may also help climate scientists who are investigating how Antarctica will change as global temperatures rise.

Improving our understanding of subglacial volcanic activity across the province is important both for helping to constrain how volcanism and rifting may have influenced ice-sheet growth and decay over previous glacial cycles, the study says, and in light of concerns over whether enhanced geothermal heat fluxes and subglacial melting may contribute to instability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

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The University of Edinburgh reported that the biggest of the volcanoes that the scientists have just discovered is as tall as Switzerlands Eiger, a 13,000-foot mountain in the Alps. The volcanoes get as small as about 325 feet tall.

The teams results do not indicate whether the volcanoes are active, but should inform ongoing research into seismic monitoring in the area, the university said. Volcanic activity may increase if Antarcticas ice thins, which is likely in a warming climate.

antarctic-volcanoes-map

Photo: Geological Society Special Publications

Previous research has suggested that historically Antarctica had more volcanic activity during warmer periods.

The volcanic region hiding under West Antarctica might be comparable to that of the volcanic region along the East African Rift System, which is thought to hold the densest distribution of volcanoes on Earth.

It is fascinating to uncover an extensive range of volcanoes in this relatively unexplored continent, researcher Robert Bingham said in the statement. Better understanding of volcanic activity could shed light on their impact on Antarcticas ice in the past, present and future, and on other rift systems around the world.

mountain-1445845_1920

Photo: Pixabay, public domain

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White House terrorism advisor Sebastian Gorka speaks at the The Republican National Lawyers Association: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Just days before a white supremacist rally resulted in the death of three people in Virginia, a White House adviser claimed that white supremacists were not the problem in America.

Sebastian Gorka, a deputy assistant to the president with a murky White House role and a controversial history, appeared on the Breitbart News Daily radio show to discuss the real threat to the US  radical Islamic terror.

Its this constant, Oh, its the white man. Its the white supremacists. Thats the problem. No, it isnt, Maggie Haberman, Mr Gorka said, referring to the prominent New York Times reporter.

He added: Go to Sinjar. Go to the Middle East, and tell me what the real problem is today. Go to Manchester.

Mr Gorka was responding to the backlash over his recent comments on MSNBC, in which he claimed there was no such thing as a lone wolf and insisted that there has never been a serious attack or a serious plot that was unconnected from ISIS or al Qaeda.

Mr Gorka's critics pointed to the 1995 Oklahoma city attack, in which two white men bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people and injuring hundreds more. Mr Gorka dismissed this point as outdated, saying that the attack took place more than 20 years ago.

Talk to me about the last 60 years of hundreds of thousands of people killed in the middle east by jihadis, he told Breitbart Daily News.

For those who remain confused:



- this man was NOT a Jihadi

- he had an accomplice

- OKC was 22 years ago



"Lone-wolves" are NOT the issue. pic.twitter.com/ODfJP9bwSu  Sebastian Gorka DrG (@SebGorka) August 9, 2017

Three days later, a man accused of being a Nazi sympathiser allegedly hit and killed a counter-protester at a white supremacist march.

The man, James Alex Fields Jr, was attending a Charlottesville, Virginia rally protesting the removal of a Confederate monument. Police claim he ran his Dodge Charger into a crowd of counter-protesters at the rally, killing a 32-year-old woman and injuring at least 19 others.

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The rally  in which attendees were seen carrying Nazi flags and chanting Jew will not replace us  devolved into violence after the Virginia governor attempted to shut it down. Police say 35 people were injured over the weekend.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions described the car attack as terrorism in an interview with ABCs Good Morning America on Monday.

You can be sure we will charge and advance the investigation towards the most serious charges that can be brought because this is unequivocally an unacceptable evil attack, he said.

A 2013 study from the United States Military Academy found right-wing extremists were responsible for substantially more domestic terrorist attacks since 9/11 than American Muslims.

The study concludes that a contentious political climate and ideological political empowerment play important roles in increasing the volume of violence.

Thus, it is not only feelings of deprivation which motivate those involved in far-right violence, the authors wrote, but also the sense of empowerment which emerges when the political system is perceived to be increasingly open to far right ideas.
Bosses from Intel, Merck and Under Armour distance themselves from administration after presidents reluctance to denounce white nationalists

Kevin Plank (center right), CEO Under Armour, with Donald Trump and other business leaders at the White House. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Three executives have quit Donald Trumps business advisory panel, throwing it into chaos, in the wake of the presidents failure to immediately denounce white supremacists over a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that left one dead and several others injured.

The CEOs of pharmaceutical giant Merck, sportswear retailer Under Armour and computer company Intel have all resigned from Trumps American Manufacturing Council as pressure mounts for business leaders who aligned themselves with the president to abandon his administration.



Under Armours Kevin Plank quit after Kenneth Frazier, the CEO of pharmaceutical giant Merck and one of the USs most high-profile African American executives, stepped down from the council on Monday as Trump came under intense criticism for initially failing to condemn white supremacists and neo-Nazi groups following the Charlottesville attack.



Under Armour engages in sports, not politics, Plank said in a statement posted to the sportswear companys official Twitter account. I am appreciative for the opportunity to have served, but have decided to step down from the council.

I love our country & company. I am stepping down from the council to focus on inspiring & uniting through power of sport. - CEO Kevin Plank pic.twitter.com/8YvndJMjj1  Under Armour (@UnderArmour) August 15, 2017

I love our country and our company and will continue to focus my efforts on inspiring every person that they can do anything through the power of sport which promotes unity, diversity and inclusion.

Not long after Planks statement came a similar announcement from Brian Krzanich, the CEO of technology company Intel.

I resigned to call attention to the serious harm our divided political climate is causing to critical issues, including the serious need to address the decline of American manufacturing, Krzanich said.

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Politics and political agendas have sidelined the important mission of rebuilding Americas manufacturing base  I resigned because I want to make progress, while many in Washington seem more concerned with attacking anyone who disagrees with them.

Plank and other members of the council have come under pressure in the aftermath of the attack in Charlottesville where a white supremacist rally erupted into violence. One of the rally participants has been accused of intentionally driving his car into counter-protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer.



Plank had earlier tweeted: We are saddened by #Charlottesville. There is no place for racism or discrimination in this world. We choose love & unity.

We are saddened by #Charlottesville. There is no place for racism or discrimination in this world. We choose love & unity. - CEO Kevin Plank  Under Armour (@UnderArmour) August 14, 2017

That response was found to be insufficient by Twitter users, who urged Plank to step down from Trumps council. Their calls were amplified when Frazier resigned from the council on Monday, citing his responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism.

Trump prompted a firestorm by initially refusing to condemn white supremacists, choosing instead to denounce violence on all sides. The president did not explicitly single out white supremacists until Monday, declaring in a speech that racism is evil.

After that statement, the US president went on to share a tweet from the conspiracy theorist and pro-Trump provocateur, Jack Posobiec, who is known for promoting discredited theories about the killing of the Democratic National Committee employee, Seth Rich.

Posobiec, who worked to promote Trumps election campaign, also propagated the erroneous pizzagate allegations against Hillary Clinton that led a man to walk into a restaurant with an assault rifle and fire off three rounds, among other falsehoods.

Frazier quit Trumps panel earlier on Monday, citing a responsibility to take a stand against violence and extremism and triggering an almost immediate attack from the president.

His decision followed Trumps statement blaming hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides for the violent protests that left one woman dead and 19 injured  a statement that has been condemned by members of his own party as well as opponents.



Americas leaders must honor our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry, and group supremacy, which run counter to the American ideal that all people are created equal, Frazier, one of just four black executives running a Fortune 500 company, said in a statement.

Trump attacked Frazier shortly after the announcement. Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from Presidents Manufacturing Council, he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES! he tweeted.



Trump has previously criticized pharmaceutical companies for charging astronomical drug prices and pledged to find ways to bring prices down.

Following Fraziers announcement, Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO  a union federation with 12 million members  said it was also assessing its involvement with Trumps business panel. Trumka sits on the panel.

The AFL-CIO has unequivocally denounced the actions of bigoted domestic terrorists in Charlottesville and called on the president to do the same, Trumka said, adding, While the AFL-CIO will remain a powerful voice for the freedoms of working people, there are real questions into the effectiveness of this council to deliver real policy that lifts working families.



Frazier and Plank are the fourth and fifth business leaders to quit Trumps business panel. The Disney chairman Bob Iger and Tesla chief executive Elon Musk both resigned in June after the president announced he would withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreement.

Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world, Musk wrote on Twitter.

Trump announced the creation of his Strategic and Policy Forum last December. The aim was to create a forum for business leaders to advise the president on ways to make it attractive for firms to create new jobs.



But the business panel was dogged by controversy from the outset, with staff and customers of many of the companies represented protesting that the involvement of their bosses appeared to endorse policies that their companies opposed.

Ubers CEO, Travis Kalanick, was the first executive to quit the council. In February, he announced his resignation following intense criticism from staff and customers over Trumps immigration executive order  which attempted to suspend immigration from six predominantly Muslim countries.

What happened in Charlottesville on 12 August?

White nationalists gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia, to protest against a plan to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee, the Confederacys top general in the American civil war.

Demonstrators chanted racist statements, carried antisemitic placards and held torches during the Unite the Right rally, which was organised by white nationalist Jason Kessler.

The march was met by anti-fascist demonstrators, and some skirmishes broke out before James Fields, 20, allegedly ploughed a car into a group of counter-demonstrators.

Civil rights activist Heather Heyer, 32, died and others were injured. Fields has been charged with murder.

Mondays resignations will put pressure of the remaining members on the council, many of whose companies have policies on immigration and climate change that are in conflict with the Trump administration. Remaining members include Mary Barra, chief executive of General Motors; Jamie Dimon, chairman of JP Morgan; Indra Nooyi, chair and chief executive of Pepsi; Ginni Rometty, chief executive of IBM; and Stephen Schwarzman, chief executive of Blackstone.

Trumps lackluster response to the attack in Charlottesville drew widespread criticism, including from members of his own party. A growing list of elected Republicans called on the president to more forcefully condemn the white supremacists behind the protests, with many openly referring to the moment as an existential crisis for the Republican Party.

Alex Conant, a former adviser to Marco Rubio, said Trumps missed opportunity to unite the country only compounded his existing problems.

Once you lose political capital, its really hard to earn it back, said Conant, who now runs the public affairs firm Firehouse Strategies.

Trumps terrible poll numbers have real consequences. Nobody wants to join a losing team.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions says President Trump has every right to attack him.

Appearing on several national morning television shows on Monday to defend Trumps response to the violence in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend, Sessions was asked about the presidents withering public critique of his own attorney general.

Has the president apologized for his kind of public scolding of you? NBCs Savannah Guthrie asked Sessions on the Today show.

Well, I believe in the presidents agenda; his leadership, Sessions replied. He has a right to scold his Cabinet members if hes not happy with them. And he has the right to have people in his Cabinet he believes will serve his agenda.

"Has the president apologized for his kind of public scolding of you?" @savannahguthrie asks AG Sessions pic.twitter.com/F08RVJPeEL  TODAY (@TODAYshow) August 14, 2017

Last month, Trump slammed Sessions in a series of caustic tweets. The president also described the attorney general as beleaguered amid reports that he was considering firing him.

On Friday, Trump was asked by reporters to describe his relationship with Sessions.

Its fine, the president replied. It is what it is. Its fine.

On CBS This Morning, Sessions was asked how he sees his relationship with Trump now.

I think its considerably better, he said, adding that he is looking forward to meeting with Trump and FBI leaders in Washington, D.C., on Monday morning.

Sessions was also asked how long he expects to be the nations top law enforcement officer.

I intend to serve as long as I can make a contribution and as long as the president wants me to serve, Sessions said. He can have his attorney general be someone else if he chooses. He can ask me to depart. But I intend to fulfill my duties. I feel good about what were accomplishing. I feel like we are accomplishing the presidents agenda in an effective and professional way.

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Trump, who condemned many sides for the violence in Charlottesville, has faced widespread criticism for not explicitly calling out the torch-bearing white supremacists who gathered there to protest the removal of a Confederate statue.

Sessions said that he expects Trump to address Charlottesville again on Monday.

He is a strong leader; he is an outspoken leader, Sessions said on ABCs Good Morning America. He expresses himself in clear and blunt terms. When the American people elected him, I think that was one of the things they liked about him. And I think hell be honest and direct with the American people as soon as he talks to them again.

Read more from Yahoo News:
The culmination of Marvin Strombos dream is at hand.

The 93-year-old Marine veteran from Missoula is in Japan with a flag he took from a fallen Japanese officer in World War II. On Tuesday morning  Monday evening in Montana  he was scheduled to formally return it to the officers family.

The moving returning ceremony was live streamed and can be seen on the Obon Societys Facebook page (www.facebook.com/OBONSOCIETY).

Rex and Keiko Ziak, co-founders of the Oregon-based Obon Society, tracked down the surviving family members of Sadao Yasue, including a brother and two sisters, in Higashi Shirakawa, a remote village in the south-central prefecture of Gifu where the ceremony took place.

The Ziaks are in Japan with Strombo, 93; his daughter Brenda Strombo of Portland; daughter Sandra Williamson and grand-daughter Emily Williamson of Missoula, as well as author Joseph Tachovsky of Wisconsin. The party flew out of Portland, Oregon, last Thursday and is due back in the United States this Thursday after a morning press conference in Tokyo.

Its going to be a 10,000-mile journey involving plane, train and car for Marvin to reach this remote village where the family lives, Rex Ziak said before they left.

Tachovsky, whose father was Strombos commander in the South Pacific, wrote the upcoming book, Forty Thieves of Saipan. Strombo is one of three survivors of the Forty Thieves, a daring 6th Marine Regiment platoon that spent much of its time behind enemy lines. Tachovsky has become good friends with Strombo and his family. In March he picked up the flag in Missoula and delivered it to the Obon Society in Astoria, Oregon.

The Hinomaru yosegaki, or good-luck flag, holds the signatures of 42 relatives and some 140 other friends and neighbors who saw Yasue off to war. He was killed by what Strombo thinks was a mortar blast outside the city of Garapan during the U.S. invasion of Saipan in July 1944. Until now, his loved ones never knew how or when he died.

The Ziaks have been chronicling the trip with videos and posts on the Obon Societys Facebook page.

On Sunday in Japan, Strombo and his colleagues were in Tokyo where they visited a memorial shrine and a war museum, and Strombo was the focal point of a press conference. Strombo met the mayor of Takayama. A video post shows him ringing the bell to the city twice with a wooden mallet.

Another clip shows Strombo smiling while he samples a glass of sake.

I last had sake in Nagasaki  sounds right, dont it, sake in Nagasaki?  in 1945, he quipped. It was a little bit bigger glass than this. I enjoyed it then and I enjoyed it now.

The next day the party left for Higashi Shirawaka, where Yasue grew up the oldest of six children in a farming family. His brother, Tatsuya Yasue, is still actively farming at age 89.

Rex Ziak said the Obon Society gets daily inquires from soldiers wanting to repatriate the souvenir flags they claimed during World War II and has returned roughly 125 of them. Strombo is the first to return one in person through the Obon Society.
More than 300 people have been killed after a mudslide and heavy flooding in Sierra Leone.

Relatives were left digging through mud in search of their loved-ones, as a mortuary in the capital of Freetown was overwhelmed by bodies.

Houses were submerged in mud after a night of heavy rain that saw a hillside in the Regent area collapse, with roads described by witnesses as being turned into "churning rivers of mud".

A coroner's official said that more than 200 bodies had been taken to the city mortuary, which was left struggling to cope. The Red Cross said the death toll had risen to 312.

However, a precise death toll is not yet clear and is likely to rise as many people might have been asleep when the mudslide happened in the early hours of Monday.

An estimated 2,000 people have also been made homeless after heavy rains caused properties to disappear under water.

Houses were left submerged in mud after a night of heavy rain that saw a hillside in the Regent area collapse Credit: Society for Climate Change Communication Sierra Leone

Speaking at the scene, Sierra Leone's Vice President, Victor Foh, said: "It is likely that hundreds are lying dead underneath the rubble."

He added: "The disaster is so serious that I myself feel broken. We're trying to cordon (off) the area (and) evacuate the people."

People cried as they looked at the damage under steady rain, gesturing towards a muddy hillside where dozens of houses used to stand.

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Cars submerged in muddy water in streets in Regent Credit: Society for Climate Change Communication Sierra Leone/AFP

Sinneh Kamara, a coroner technician at the Connaught Hospital, told local media that the number of those killed had overwhelmed the facility.

"The capacity at the mortuary is too small for the corpses," he told the Sierra Leone National Broadcasting Corporation.

Youngsters flee flooded homes in Regent, near Freetown Credit: Society for Climate Change Communication Sierra Leone/AFP

Sierra Leone's national television broadcaster interrupted its regular programming to show scenes of people trying to retrieve the bodies of loved-ones. Others were seen carrying relatives' remains in rice sacks to the mortuary.

Military personnel have been deployed to help in the rescue operation in the West African country.

Flowing water floods the streets in an area on the outskirts of Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone Credit: Society for Climate Change Communication Sierra Leone

Fatmata Sesay - who lives on the hilltop area of Juba - said she, her three children and husband were woken at 4.30am by rain beating down on their mud house, which was by then submerged by water. She managed to escape by climbing onto the roof.

"We have lost everything and we do not have a place to sleep," she told AFP.

Villagers look on in this image that shows the aftermath of the Sierra Leone mudslide Credit: Society for Climate Change Communication Sierra Leone

Images shared by local media showed people waist-deep trying to navigate streets of flowing water.

Locals carry belongings after the mudslide early on Monday in this picture said to show the scene near Freetown Credit: Society for Climate Change Communication Sierra Leone

Other pictures showed scenes after a section of a hill in the Regent area was reported to have collapsed.

#SierraLeone#Flood alert Heavy rains cause landslide at Regent, back of GUMA reservoir - Eyewitness report section of hill has collapsed pic.twitter.com/gUEznTqHaQ  S4CCC-SL (@scccsierraleone) August 14, 2017

Freetown, an overcrowded coastal city of 1.2 million, is hit annually by flooding during several months of rain that destroys makeshift settlements and raises the risk of waterborne diseases such as cholera.

Many of the impoverished areas are close to sea level and have poor drainage systems, exacerbating flooding during the country's rainy season.

We are saddened to hear about awful flooding in areas of Freetown. The strong spirit of the people of SL & Hull will help you get through. pic.twitter.com/OfTEbPl1d1  The Freetown Society (@FreetownSociety) August 14, 2017

Flooding in the capital in 2015 killed 10 people and left thousands homeless.

#freetown #rainseason #myafricanadventure #Komba A post shared by Jacob Lund (@jacobluund) on Aug 14, 2017 at 1:06am PDT

Sierra Leone was one of the west African nations hit by an outbreak of the Ebola virus in 2014 that left more than 4,000 people dead in the country and it has struggled to revive its economy since the crisis.

About 60 percent of people in Sierra Leone live below the national poverty line, according to the United Nations Development Programme.

The mudslide happened in Regent, a town near Freetown in Sierra Leone
A British amateur sleuth has been lauded for using the promise of free pizza to trick a little girl's father, who allegedly abducted her, into revealing his location a world away.

After police say Virgil Henley, 28, abducted his daughter, Yvette, 4, when a court awarded her custody to her grandparents, a 21-year-old gamer managed to track the two to Arizona from his computer in Surrey, England.

Read: Killer of Father and Infant Son - Who Also Tried to Abduct Trial Judge - Is Executed in Texas

Supermarket employee Harry Brown, 21, traced Yvette to a motel in Arizona by convincing Henley to allow a pizza be delivered to his room.

Brown, an avid online gamer, had previously connected with Henley online years ago. Yvette's grandparents in California discovered the link and implored Brown for help, according to SWNS.

Brown agreed and set out to establish trust with Henley. Two days later, the information began to flow.

With Brown's help, the grandparents and authorities say they learned Henley had taken his girlfriend and Yvette to Arizona, where they were staying in cheap hotels.

But in order to pinpoint their exact location, Brown needed to use trickery. When Brown offered to send a pizza to Henley's room, the alleged abductor took the bait, giving up his location and room number.

That's when cops thousands of miles away stepped in and seized the child, who was turned over to her grandparents, who have legal custody.

"The police had been trying to find her since May and within two days I got his exact location," Brown said. "I spend my life on the internet but little did I know that talking to random people would lead to me finding this little girl."

Brown continued: "She is loving where she is now. I cried so much when I saw the photos of her with her grandparents."

Her grandparents are loving life, as well.

"When Yvette was missing, it was exhausting," her grandfather, Gary, said. "I made it my mission to find her but ended up losing the two jobs I was working. I was just desperate to find her.

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"I can't explain how much Harry helped. He was the key to everything."

Read: Day Before Execution, Serial Killer Insists He Didn't Murder 3 Women: 'My Conscience Is Clear'

The grandparents say they are deeply indebted to Brown, who is going to fly from England to California to visit the reunited family.

"It is amazing to have Yvette home," Gary said. "In my heart, Harry saved her life. I will be forever in gratitude to him for that."

Watch: Police Search for Killer Who Stabbed Nurse to Death in Her Bedroom

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South Korean President Moon Jae-in poses with US Joint Chiefs Chairman General Joseph Dunford for a photo during a meeting at the presidential Blue House in Seoul, South Korea: Bae Jae-man/Yonhap via AP

South Korea's President Moon Jae-in has called on the US to help bring about a "peaceful solution" to the deepening diplomatic crisis with its northern neighbour after days of threat and counter threat.

Donald Trump's recent comments that the US military is "locked and loaded" to deal with North Korea are part of an escalating war of words, with that warning coming in response to Pyongyang's threat to attack the US territory of Guam, a small Pacific island about 3,540 kilometres (2,200 miles) southeast of the Korean peninsula.

There must be no more war on the Korean peninsula. Whatever ups and downs we face, the North Korean nuclear situation must be resolved peacefully, Mr Moon told a meeting of senior aides and advisers. I am certain the United States will respond to the current situation calmly and responsibly in a stance that is equal to ours, he said.

Separately, Mr Moon met with the top US military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford, in Seoul, who said the US wants to peacefully resolve a deepening standoff with North Korea but is also ready to use the full range of its military capabilities in case of provocation and if a diplomatic push or sanctions did not work.

The comments by General Dunford  made during a trip that will also include visits to Japan and China  appeared to be an attempt to ease anxiety over tit-for-tat threats between Mr Trump and North Korea while also showing a willingness to back up The President's warnings if need be.

We are seeking a peaceful resolution to the crisis, General Dunford told local reporters. He added he aims to use the Asia trip to get a sense what the temperature is in the region. He also will discuss military options in the event the diplomatic and economic pressurisation campaign fails.

He earlier told his South Korean counterparts that America is ready to use the full range of military capabilities to defend our allies and the US homeland, according to military spokesman Captain Darryn James.

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That point was reinforced by US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis later in the day. If they fire at the United States, it could escalate into war very quickly, Mr Mattis said.

Mr Mattis added the United States would know the trajectory of a North Korean missile within moments and if a missile is assessed to be hitting Guam, we will take it out.

The latest tension between the US and North Korea has been sparked by worries that the North's nuclear weapons programme is nearing the ability to target the US mainland. Pyongyang conducted two intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) tests in July and there have been reports that US intelligence agencies belive the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un have successfully miniaturised a nuclear weapon that could potentially fit on such a missile.

Seoul is within easy striking distance of Pyongyang. The US also has about 28,500 troops stationed there at any given time.

The North has accused the US of mobilising a huge number of weapons and troops for annual military drills with South Korea that begin later this month. Pyongyang claims the drills are war preparation and has signalled it would back down in the face of any action by the US..

What matters is that if a second conflict [on the peninsula] erupts, that cannot help but lead to a nuclear war, the North's official Korean Central News Agency said in a commentary. We are closely monitoring every move by the United States.

The commentary said that about 3.5 million young students and workers have volunteered to join or rejoin the army because of a possible confrontation with the United States.

Scott Snyder, Senior Fellow for Korea Studies and Director of the Programme on US-Korea Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations told The Independent that if Pyongyang attacks Guam, it would be "suicidal, and Kim Jong-un is not suicidal".

But, the threat is not an empty one despite the small chance of follow-through. "If you are a US security planner ... You still have to prepare for that possibility," Mr Snyder noted.

To that end, General Dunford said prior to his arrival in Seoul that "as a military leader, I have to make sure that the President does have viable military options in the event that the diplomatic and economic pressurisation campaign fails".

Mr Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have also penned an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal.

They say they called the Trump administration policy a reaction to previous administrations' "failed policy of strategic patience, which expedited the North Korean threat".

They called the approach "strategic accountability" which essentially prompts China to exercise its economic power over Pyongyang as a method of avoiding military options.

Tuesday marks the anniversary of Japan's expulsion from the Korean peninsula, a rare holiday celebrated by both the North and the South. Mr Moon and Mr Kim, who has not been seen publicly for several days, are both expected to make addresses on their respective sides of the heavily militarised border.

US National Security Adviser HR McMaster and CIA Director Mike Pompeo have both said they do not foresee a war with North Korea despite the President's fiery rhetoric.

Mr Trump has repeatedly urged China, the North's main ally and trading partner, to do more to rein in its neighbour, often linking Beijing's efforts to comments around US-China trade. China strenuously rejects linking the two issues.

On Monday, Mr Trump signed a presidential memorandum authorising an investigation into China's alleged theft of American intellectual property, declaring it one big move.

The order directs US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to determine whether to investigate Chinese trade practises that force US companies operating in China to turn over intellectual property.

This is just the beginning, Mr Trump added.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying had earlier said that Beijing has made clear many times the essence of China-US trade and business ties is mutual benefit and that there is no future in any trade war between China and the United States.

The (Korean) peninsula issue and trade and business issues are in a different category from each other, Ms Hua added. On these two issues, China and the United States should respect each other and increase cooperation. Using one issue as a tool for exerting pressure on another is clearly inappropriate.

China's Commerce Ministry also issued an order on Monday banning imports of coal, iron ore, lead concentrates and ore, lead and seafood from North Korea, effective from Tuesday as part of sanctions recently agreed by the UN Security Council.
Starting Monday, a Tesla Tiny House showcasing the companys energy offerings will tour Australia. It will be towed by a Model X car and powered fully by renewable energy and show how the companys Powerwall and solar tiles can power an entire home.

We want to bring the Tesla Tiny House to you, so you can fully experience what it means to be self-powered. Our next stop could be in your town, tell us where you'd like to see us, the company stated on its website.

The Tesla Tiny House is an endeavor by the company to educate the public on generating, storing and using renewable energy for homes.

The Tiny House weighs 2 tonnes and measures 6 meters x 2.2 meters x 4 meters. It gets 2 kilowatts of energy from a system of 6 panels using a single Tesla Powerwall unit. The exterior of the house is made with locally sourced, chemical free sustainable timber. The interior comprises of a design studio and a configurator, which will let customers calculate their home needs. The Tiny House will also have Tesla staff at hand to answer questions.

It already has a booked schedule, which includes the Australian cities of Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney.

A Tesla spokesperson told Electrek Sunday, The tour is designed to provide a one-on-one educational experience on how to integrate Powerwall and solar to seamlessly power an entire home 24/7, allowing Australian consumers to gain control and understanding of their power use.

But, why is this product showcase touring Australia and not the United States, the prime market for Tesla products? The company has not explained this yet. But, chances are Tesla is targeting Australia since it has the worlds largest penetration of rooftop solar power with 15 percent of the 1.5 million households.

Tesla has just started showcasing its offerings and isnt yet offering its products in Australia since, SolarCity, which it acquired last year only provided its services in U.S. and Mexico. The possibility is that depending on demand, Tesla may soon start offering solar installations in Australia.

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The company is also setting up commercial offerings in Australia and is in the process of setting up a 100 megawatts/129 megawatt-hours energy storage. The facility, set up in South Australia will be the world's largest lithium-ion facility. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has promised to deliver a large-scale Powerpack system to the government of South Australia in 100 days or make it free.

Tesla has been diversifying into markets other than the U.S. for a long time and given the present administrations stance on renewable energy, it makes sense for the company to do so.

The company revealed plans to set up Gigafactories in China and Europe in its earnings call on Aug. 3. The company has also set up an increased focus on solar and will be powering all its Supercharging stations for its cars with solar energy.

Teslas solar technology has a large potential globally, with large countries such as India and China not just interested in producing solar energy but actively working towards its mass production.

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Officials at Texas A&M University said Monday that thhe school would not allow a white supremacist group to hold a rally on campus next month.

After consolation with law enforcement and considerable study, Texas A&M is cancelling the event scheduled by Preston Wiginton at Rudder Plaza on campus on September 11 because of concerns about the safety of its students, faculty, staff, and the public, the university said in a statement, according to KTRK, a local ABC affiliate.

Wiginton, a one-time A&M student, brought white nationalist Richard Spencer to speak at the university in December, and that event drew intense protests and an opposition event, the Houston Chronicle reported at the time.Wiginton announced plans for his September 11 event  again featuring Spencer  on Saturday afternoon, after violence broke out a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., leaving one woman dead and others injured.

The September event was billed with a press release declaring: Today Charlottesville, Tomorrow Texas A&M.

Texas A&M said in its statement that no university-affiliated organization or person had invited Wiginton to campus. The white nationalist event was slated to take place outside in the middle of the campus, during a school day, which the university said would provide disruption to our class schedules and to student, faculty and staff movement.

Linking the tragedy of Charlottesville with the Texas A&M event creates a major security risk on our campus, the university added.

The cancellation came after multiple state legislators condemned the event and called on the university to block it, according to The Eagle.

Texas A&M reaffirmed its commitment to the First Amendment in its statement about cancelling the event. It noted that students had the opportunity to hear Wigintons views in December, but said this time circumstances, including risks of threat to life and safety meant they would cancel the event.
Tiki Brand, makers of the popular backyard bamboo torches, is distancing itself from the white supremacists who used them during nighttime rallies in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend.

The Wisconsin-based company released a statement on Sunday denouncing the use of the torches by hate groups:

TIKI Brand is not associated in any way with the events that took place in Charlottesville and are deeply saddened and disappointed. We do not support their message or the use of our products in this way. Our products are designed to enhance backyard gatherings and to help family and friends connect with each other at home in their yard.

The torch-bearing demonstrators descended on Charlottesville on Friday night to protest the planned removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. Violence erupted Friday night and continued into Saturday afternoon, when a car rammed into a group of counterprotesters, killing a 32-year-old woman and injuring 19 other people.

The driver, 20-year-old James Alex Fields Jr., was arrested and charged with second-degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding and one count related to leaving the scene. Fields was seen earlier in the day demonstrating with a white nationalist group. Fields former teacher said he was a Nazi sympathizer.

Two Virginia state troopers were also killed when their police helicopter crashed into woods near the rally.

A terrifying mob of white nationalists marched on the UVA campus. (Alejandro Alvarez/News2Share via Reuters)

Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer said Sunday on CNN that one of the torch-bearing groups showed up outside a historic church to interrupt an interfaith service on Friday night.

So you had already a clash of this hatred and this intimidation, this intolerance and this terror coming right up on the doorstep of people who were trying to bring love against hate, Signer said.

Its not the first time Tiki torches have been used by white supremacists in Charlottesville. Back in May, Signer condemned a large group of torch-bearing white nationalists who marched across a city park in protest of the statues removal.

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This event involving torches at night in Lee Park was either profoundly ignorant or was designed to instill fear in our minority populations in a way that harks back to the days of the KKK, Signer said at the time. Either way, as mayor of this city, I want everyone to know this: We reject this intimidation. We are a welcoming city, but such intolerance is not welcome here.

Read more from Yahoo News on the violence in Charlottesville:
President Donald Trumps approval rating reached a new low Sunday amid condemnation for his initial reaction to the protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, that resulted in one person dead.

The Republican presidents job approval rating hit 34 percent Sunday compared with a 61 percent disapproval rating that put Trump in an unenviable historical class, according to Gallups most recent numbers.

Earlier this month, Trump experienced a slight bump to 38 percent approval but has since declined to the lowest point in the early months of his presidency. The billionaires previous low was 35 percent approval on March 28. Other polls around that time indicated that the gap between Trumps approval and disapproval ratings had been the worst of any president through 69 days in office, according to FiveThirtyEight.

In fact, only one other president, George W. Bush, has reached such a poor disapproval rating, and the 43rd commander in chief did not reach that dubious milestone until well into his second term.

The historical significance, as well as many comparisons between the Trump-Russia and Watergate scandals, has put Trump only 10 points ahead of former President Richard Nixons personal all-time low approval rating. Nixon plummeted to 24 percent approval before he resigned from office in August 1974.

The all-time low under Gallups approval rating is still currently held by President Harry Truman, who garnered a 22 percent rating in February 1952, just months before he would leave office.

Trump was heavily blasted for his initial response to Saturdays violence in Charlottesville, when he did not specifically condemn white supremacist groups. "We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides," Trump said.

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That led critics to question whether Trump had deliberately failed to mention racist groups, and some called for the dismissal of the presidents top political adviser Steve Bannonwho previously ran Breitbart News, a website of the "alt-right" white nationalist movementand national security adviser Sebastian Gorka.

On Monday, Trump made a more direct statement and specifically called out white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups for both violence and their political views.

"Racism is eviland those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups, are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans," Trump said during a press conference at the White House.

The poor approval ratings could also be a reaction to Trumps strong rhetoric toward North Korea for its missile and nuclear defense tests. The president said Kim Jon Uns regime should no longer threaten the United States, or it could face fire and fury that the world had never seen.

The threatening remarks, which Trump backed up by tweeting that the military was locked and loaded, worried many around the globe over a possible war on the Korean Peninsula or a potential nuclear strike by either side.

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By Jeff Mason NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump unabashedly insisted on Tuesday that both left- and right-wing extremists resorted to violence during a weekend rally by white nationalists in Virginia, and that some present were peacefully protesting plans to remove a Confederate monument when the upheaval began. Trump, taking questions from reporters in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York, reverted to his initial comments blaming "many sides" for Saturday's violence in Charlottesville, a day after bowing to pressure to explicitly condemn the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups. "They came at each other with clubs ... it was a horrible thing to watch," Trump said during what was supposed to be an announcement about his administration's infrastructure policy. He also said left-wing protesters "came violently attacking the other group." Trump has faced a storm of criticism from Democrats and members of his own Republican Party over his response to the deadly violence, which erupted after white nationalists converged in Charlottesville for a "Unite the Right" rally in protest of plans to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee, commander of the pro-slavery Confederate army during the U.S. Civil War. Many of the rally participants were seen carrying firearms, sticks and shields. Some also wore helmets. Counter-protesters likewise came equipped with sticks, helmets and shields. The two sides clashed in scattered street brawls before a car plowed into the rally opponents, killing one woman and injuring 19 others. A 20-year-old Ohio man, James Fields, said to have harbored Nazi sympathies, was charged with murder. Two state police officers also were killed that day in the fiery crash of the helicopter they were flying in as part of crowd-control operations. Addressing the melee for the first time on Saturday, Trump denounced hatred and violence "on many sides." The comment drew sharp criticism across the political spectrum for not explicitly condemning the white nationalists whose presence in the Southern college town was widely seen as having provoked the unrest. Critics said Trump's remarks then belied his reluctance to alienate extreme right-wing organizations, whose followers constitute a devoted segment of his political base despite his disavowal of them. Yielding two days later to a mounting political furor over his initial response, Trump delivered a follow-up message expressly referring to the "KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists and other hate groups" as "repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans." Trump's detractors dismissed his revised statements as too little too late, but his remarks on Tuesday casting blame on both sides and suggesting that not everyone attending the rally was a white supremacist newly inflamed the controversy. Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke immediately applauded Trump on Twitter. "Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth about #Charlottesville & condemn the leftist terrorists in BLM/Antifa," Duke wrote, referring to Black Lives Matter (BLM) and anti-facists. Democrats seized on Trump's latest words as evidence that Trump sees white nationalists and those protesting against them as morally equivalent. "By saying he is not taking sides, Donald Trump clearly is," Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer of New York, said. "When David Duke and white supremacists cheer your remarks, you're doing it very, very wrong." In a similar vein, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, said Trump's characterization of the violence missed the mark. Neo-Nazis, Klansmen and white supremacists came to Charlottesville heavily armed, spewing hatred and looking for a fight. One of them murdered a young woman in an act of domestic terrorism, and two of our finest officers were killed in a tragic accident while serving to protect this community. This was not 'both sides,'" he said. Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO labor federation representing 12.5 million workers, became the latest member of Trump's advisory American Manufacturing Council to resign in protest, saying, "We cannot sit on a council for a president who tolerates bigotry and domestic terrorism," Trumka said. "President Trump's remarks today repudiate his forced remarks yesterday about the KKK and neo-Nazis." Three other members of the council - the chief executives of pharmaceutical maker Merck & Co Inc, sportswear company Under Armour Inc and computer chipmaker Intel Corp - resigned on Monday. In his remarks on Tuesday, Trump also sympathized with protesters seeking to keep Lee's statue in place but offered no equivalent remarks for those who favored its removal. "You had people in that group ... that were there to protest the taking down of a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name," Trump said. Trump also grouped former presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, two of the nation's founding fathers, together with Confederate leaders such as Lee, Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson, who fought to separate Southern states from the Union, noting that all were slave owners. "Was George Washington a slave owner? Will George Washington now lose his status? Are we going to take down statues to George Washington? How about Thomas Jefferson? ... Because he was a major slave owner," Trump said. On Tuesday, Trump explained his initial restrained response by saying: "The statement I made on Saturday, the first statement, was a fine statement, but you don't make statements that direct unless you know the facts. It takes a little while to get the facts." In a sometimes heated exchange with reporters shouting questions, Trump said, "You also had people that were very fine people on both sides." He said that while neo-Nazis and white nationalists "should be condemned totally," Trump said protesters in the other group "also had trouble-makers. And you see them come with the black outfits and with the helmets and with the baseball bats. You got a lot of bad people in the other group too." (Reporting by Jeff Mason in New York, Susan Heavey in Washington and Scott Malone in Charlottesville, Virginia; Writing by Grant McCool and Steve Gorman; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Charlottesville, Virginia, is home to the University of Virginia, founded by Thomas Jefferson; he was a slave owner, but today stands as a symbol of the U.S.s egalitarian ethos and political myth. But on August 12, some seven months into Donald Trumps presidency, Charlottesville saw a far uglier side of the U.S. on display: a "Unite the Right" rally bringing together people and organizations who resented the proposed removal of a statue of Confederate Civil War general, Robert E, Lee.

On the eve of the rally, the universitys Charlottesville campus became the site of a march of torch-bearing white supremacists, evoking the Klan rallies seen throughout the 20th century. Tense clashes between marchers and counter-protesters ensued, and the next day, the rally itself turned violent.

Radical right marchers turned up along with citizen militia groups (their guns on full display thanks to open carry legislation) and clashed with anti-fascist and other groups who stood up to them. Then 20-year-old James Alex Fields Jr, plowed his car into a group of protesters, and has now been charged with the second-degree murder of Heather Heyer, who died after he ran into her.

The context for these events is as old as the U.S. itself. The country was borne of violence: a revolution that overthrew British rule, violent suppression of the Native American population, a violent Civil War that took more than 600,000 lives, and a philosophy of "manifest destiny" that expanded the American nation across a continent.

Much of this violence was social and political. The Civil War has been seen as the true American revolution; it pitted a social and political order based on rugged individualistic capitalism against one of plantation economics and strong social hierarchy, including the system of slavery. The southern model was defeated, the slaves emancipated, and Confederate leaders and sympathizers left to mourn their project as a "lost cause." But the culture of white supremacy was far from defeated, and radical right-wing social movements and organizations have troubled the U.S. ever since.

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The most notorious group, the Ku Klux Klan, was borne of Southern Democrats resentment of emancipation; over the years, it has been invigorated by other radical right groups founded on a powerful ideology of "Christian Identity," a commitment to the racial superiority of white people and a mission to secure white power and dominance. (The Southern Poverty Law Center has spent decades documenting and mapping their prevalence, discourses and actions across the U.S.)

To this day, there are strong social elements in the south and elsewhere that resent the outcome of the Civil War and the consequences of reconstruction. To them, those consequences include the enfranchisement of women, the Civil Rights movement, Supreme Court rulings such as Brown v, Board of Education (which desegregated schools in 1954) and Roe v, Wade (which legalized abortion in 1973), and the overall advance of a progressive social agendaone that to them culminated in the election and presidency of Barack Obama.

This politics of resentment gathered steam during the Trump campaign, and as the events in Charlottesville demonstrate, its now flourishing under his presidency.

Fanning the Flames

During the 2016 campaign, Trumps rhetoric was caustic and divisive. He described differences between groups as if they were essential and irreducible; he named Mexicans and Muslims as having special attributes, lesser qualities, and who were in need of special measures, such as a "complete shutdown" on Muslims entering the U.S. and a 2,000-mile border wall to keep out Mexican "rapists and murderers."

His rhetoric also legitimized interpersonal violence more generally. He boasted that he could shoot someone and not lose votes, and encouraged participants at his rallies to use physical force against dissenters.

Now hes president, Trump is trying to follow through on this rhetoric with executive orders and new legislation. This essentially gives license to the U.S.s radical right elements to pursue their ends more zealouslyand tellingly, Trumps initial response to the events in Charlottesville was muted and non-specific.

Trump failed to name the right-wing violence as white supremacy, or to specifically condemn it; instead, he lamented the violence on all sides. The job of denouncing white supremacist racism was left to his daughter Ivanka and his vice-president, Mike Pence, who used much stronger language. After something of an outcry at his vague words, he finally took to Twitter to rail against "all that hate stands for."

Many asked why Trump did not unequivocally condemn the events. But to explicitly condemn these groups would alienate a significant portion of his electoral basesomething specifically pointed out to him by former Klan leader David Duke.

The protesters in Virginia, who came from across the U.S., closely resemble many who attended Trump rallies during the campaignand much as he did post-Charlottesville, when asked by a journalist to specifically condemn the violence at those events, Trump declined.

The Conversation

While many of the grievances Trump issued during the campaign are legitimatethe decline of the manufacturing, steel, and coal industries, decaying infrastructure, and so onthe rhetorical framing of the campaign galvanized a right-wing populism that had been in abeyance for much of the 1990s and early 2000s. In mid-2017, this dark side of populism is clearly very much awake.

Todd Landman is professor of political science and pro vice chancellor of the social sciences at the University of Nottingham

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Laws with boring names and little fanfare are sneaking through Congress.

They are described by promoters as an attempt to lift unnecessary regulatory burdens, but in effect they constitute a license to pollute, Jan Hoem of Missoula said Monday. Hoem is past president and current longtime board member of the Missoula City-County Air Quality Advisory Council.

The Regulatory Reform Act and the Regulatory Accountability Act have the potential to weaken the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and a number of others, Hoem said during a press conference at the Milltown State Park overlook.

One example of what these bills do is require regulators to adopt rules that are least costly to industry  even when laws exist that say human health takes precedence over costs, she said. The practical effect of these bills is to give Congress new power to repeal existing protections and block new ones. They must be stopped.

Hoem joined a knot of health, fire and environmental officials on the bluff above the Milltown Reservoir Superfund cleanup site on a rare clean-air afternoon to call attention to the impacts on Missoula and Montana that President Donald Trumps proposed budget cuts and health and safety protection rollbacks will have.

Hoem was joined by Dr. Paul Smith, a pediatric pulmonologist in Missoula; John Woodland, former Superior fire chief and co-chairman of the climate activist group 350 Missoula; Karen Knudsen, executive director of the Clark Fork Coalition; and Joe Griffin, a retired Montana Department of Environmental Quality hydrologist who managed the Butte Specialty Soils Superfund site.

One of the first things on the agenda when Congress returns to work in September will be the fiscal 2018 budget. Foremost among the agencies Trump has in his crosshairs is the Environmental Protection Agency. Its unlikely lawmakers will go along with a proposal to reduce the agencys budget by more than 30 percent and some 3,500 jobs, but significant changes are in the wind. Smith said they threaten to sacrifice the gains made over decades to protect the health of Americans, and in particular Americas children.

To date this administration has put forward no actions that improve the environment, and instead has done just the opposite, placing on hold or reversing or seeking to reverse over 30 such protections, he said.

The rollbacks include regulations on mercury, methane, benzene, carbon pollution and pesticides known to cause birth defects.

Controls are given to the very industries that create the waste, Smith said. They have been given a seat at the table while you and I have not.

Knudsen sang the praises of EPA Superfund cleanups on the Clark Fork River, even as tubers below floated through the former site of the Milltown Dam, where the confluence with the Blackfoot River has been restored.

The Clark Fork Coalition and the responsible party, the Atlantic Richfield Co., have joined an array of other agencies and groups to count similar successes all the way up to the headwaters at Silver Bow Creek, cleanups that have and can become the kind of economic drivers Trump says hes after.

This whole region, because of its biological and historic values, could just be an exceptional place to live, to recreate and to raise family, Knudsen said. So with this type of community and environmental vision right within reach, it is truly baffling to see the current administration slam on the brakes through budget slashings at EPA and Superfund programs and through some of these regulatory rollbacks that were seeing.

A stated top priority for EPA administrator Scott Pruitt is the Superfund program, she added.

He has also promised that within Superfund programs, projects that already have responsible parties at the table, that have funds secured and have agreements in place are the highest priority of all. That is the upper Clark Fork.

So why, we ask, in this field season have we seen no action on any of the projects in Butte, no action on the projects on the Clark Fork river corridor? We are in lockstep with Scott Pruitts vision, but were not seeing the action on the ground.

The press conference was hosted by Clean Air Montana, which on its website calls itself a coalition of Montanans committed to protecting clean air, taking action on climate change and ensuring a positive future for our children. It's supported by organizations such as the Sierra Club, the National Wildlife Federation, the Montana Conservation Voters Education Fund, Moms Clean Air Force and Environment Montana.

Woodland served as Superiors fire chief for 10 years, and this summer has had a ringside seat to the Sunrise fire in Mineral County from his deck across the river. Hes also an outspoken climate change activist, and on Monday he pointed to potential lasting effects that more large fires and longer wildfire seasons could have on Montanas forests.

Its a field ripe for more study, but its kind of been sneaking up on me that I dont think a lot of those trees are ever going to be replaced," Woodland said. "Theyre not going to grow back and thats because of climate change.

He cited a fire experts opinion that the forest landscapes of the West will become brush and grass by 2085.

It just so shocks me to think were at that point where that kind of change is happening to the world because of what weve failed to address, Woodland said.

Griffin said as the responsible party for a century-plus of mining and smelter contamination in the Clark Fork Valley, ARCO is footing the cleanup bill. But problems such as the Berkeley Pit in Butte will never be solved, and its important that the EPAs Superfund program be funded to assure its ongoing treatment.

Montanas congressional delegation is of varying degrees of help, the speakers said.

Republican Sen. Steve Daines isnt helping the cause, Griffin said. He has no idea what hes talking about.

Woodland has talked to Democratic Sen. Jon Tester on several occasions, most recently last Friday night.

Im pleased to see that in two different statements in the last week, hes come out and indicated one of the factors behind the fires that were experiencing now is in fact the changing climate, Woodland said. What he has not done is talked at all about why the climates changing. Hes got a ways to go. Hes doing a little better, but hes got a ways to go.
Updated | President Donald Trump was not telling the truth when he said most terrorists who struck the United States came from abroad, according to a new lawsuit by Benjamin Wittes, a friend of former FBI Director James Comey.

Wittes is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the co-founder and editor in chief of Lawfare, a national security blog that has gained attention since the November election. The lawsuit, which Wittes filed on August 11 and announced the next day, challenges a claim Trump made in February before a joint session of Congress, when the president said, According to data provided by the Department of Justice, the vast majority of individuals convicted of terrorism and terrorism-related offenses since 9/11 came here from outside of our country. Comey is not named in the lawsuit or involved in the lawsuit.

Related: Comey Tried To Hide In White House Curtains

Lawfare investigated the terrorism claim and has said it is inaccurate. I not only believe that the White House made up alternative facts about the substance of this matter in a presidential address to a joint session of Congress, Wittes wrote in April. I dont believe that the National Security Division of the Justice Department provided any data or analysis to the White House that could reasonably be read to support the presidents claim. In other words, I believe the president was lying not merely about the underlying facts but also about his own Justice Department.

On Saturday, Wittes wrote in a blog post that he had filed a Freedom of Information Act request months ago for communications between the Justice Department and the White House about Trumps remark. Because he had not heard back about the request, he filed the lawsuit, alleging a violation of the Freedom of Information Act.

08_14_Trump_Comey_Wittes

BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty

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Before Trump fired Comey on May 9, Wittes was known among journalists as a friend of the FBI director. About a week after the firing, Wittes drew attention after telling The New York Times that Comey had wanted to maintain a distance from Trump, once even trying to blend in with the curtains so that the president would not call him out. On June 8, when Comey testified to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that he had given a memo about former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to a friend to pass along to the press, referring to Columbia University professor Daniel Richman, a senator on the panel responded, Mr. Wittes?

Wittes has gained notoriety not only as a confidant of Comey but also as a staunch critic of Trump. He perhaps became best known among followersand at least one opponentfor tweeting tick tick tick when the Trump administration seemed to be under fire. Traffic to the Lawfare website is 600 percent higher than it was in July 2016, New York magazines Simon van Zuylen-Wood wrote in a profile of Wittes in July. (Newsweek once published an article by Wittes, in 2010.)

The lawsuit, filed in United States district court in Washington, D.C., also names the Office of Management and Budget as a defendant. A spokesperson for that office was not immediately available to comment on Monday, and a Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment. As of Monday morning, neither defendant appeared to have assigned a lawyer to the case.

This article has been updated to include additional information about the relationship between former FBI Director James Comey and Benjamin Wittes, and to clarify that Comey is not involved in Wittess lawsuit. It was also updated with a response from a Department of Justice spokesperson.

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By Scott Malone and Jeff Mason

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va./WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump denounced neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan as criminals and thugs on Monday, bowing to mounting political pressure to condemn such groups explicitly after a white-nationalist rally turned deadly in Virginia.

Trump had been assailed from across the political spectrum for failing to respond more forcefully to Saturday's violence in Charlottesville. The head Merck & Co Inc , one of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies, quit a presidential business panel as a result, saying he was taking a stand against intolerance and extremism.

The chief executives of two other prominent companies - sportswear manufacturer Under Armour and semiconductor chip maker Intel Corp - followed suit hours later.

Critics denounced Trump for waiting too long to address the bloodshed, and for initially faulting hatred and violence "on many sides," rather than singling out the white supremacists widely seen as instigating the melee.

Democrats said Trump's reaction belied a reluctance to alienate white nationalists and "alt-right" political activists who occupy a loyal segment of Trump's political base. Several senators from his own Republican Party had harsh words for him.

Some 48 hours into the biggest domestic challenge of his young presidency, Trump tried to correct course.

"Racism is evil, and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans," the president said in a statement to reporters at the White House on Monday.

"We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence," he said.

A 20-year-old man said to have harbored Nazi sympathies was arrested on charges of plowing his car into protesters opposing the white nationalists, killing 32-year-old paralegal Heather Heyer and injuring 19 people. The accused, James Fields, was denied bail at a court hearing on Monday.

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Several others were arrested in connection with street brawls during the day that left another 15 people injured. And two airborne state troopers involved in crowd control were killed when their helicopter crashed.

Saturday's disturbances erupted after white nationalists converged in Charlottesville, home of the University of Virginia's flagship campus, to protest plans for removing a statue of General Robert E. Lee, commander of the pro-slavery Confederate army of the U.S. Civil War.

Trump's belated denunciation of white supremacists by name was welcomed by Heyer's mother, Susan Bro, who thanked the president for what she called "those words of comfort and for denouncing those who promote violence and hatred."

But not everyone was mollified.

"I wish that he would have said those same words on Saturday," responded Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia on MSNBC. "I'm disappointed it took him a couple of days."

A group of community leaders meeting in Charlottesville likewise said they were unimpressed by Trump's latest message.

Why did it take criticism from his Republican buddies to move him ... to adjust the moral compass that he does not possess? said Don Gathers, who serves as chairman for the citys commission on monuments and memorials.

Trump lashed out at his critics late on Monday on Twitter: "Made additional remarks on Charlottesville and realize once again that the #Fake News Media will never be satisfied...truly bad people!"

REBUKES FROM BUSINESS

Trump's revised statement on Charlottesville, following a day of silence despite a rising chorus of outrage over the violence, came after the chief executive of Merck & Co Inc delivered one of the more noteworthy rebukes of the president.

Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier, who is black, resigned from Trump's American Manufacturing Council, saying expressions of hatred and bigotry must be rejected.

Trump quickly hit back on Twitter, but made no reference to Frazier's reasons for quitting the panel, instead revisiting a longstanding gripe about expensive medicines. Frazier would have more time to focus on lowering "ripoff" drug prices, Trump tweeted.

Frazier's resignation was followed hours later by two other members of the business panel quitting in protest, Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank and Intel chief Brian Krzanich.

"I resigned to call attention to the serious harm our divided political climate is causing to critical issues, including the serious need to address the decline of American manufacturing," Krzanich wrote in a blog post.

The AFL-CIO organized labor federation that represents 12.5 million workers said it, too, was considering pulling its representative from the committee.

The jarring images of violence from Charlottesville and the heated public debate over racism resonated around the world, particularly in Europe where leaders are contending with a wave of xenophobia.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told broadcaster Phoenix on Monday that clear and forceful action must be taken to counter right-wing extremism, and that "we have quite a lot to do at home ourselves."

About 130 people demonstrated outside the U.S. Embassy in London, some with placards reading "Fascism is not to be debated, it is to be smashed," and "I am an ashamed American."

The United Nations said there must be no place in today's societies for the violent racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia and discrimination on display in Charlottesville.

About 500 protesters assembled in front of the White House for a "Reject White Supremacy" rally, then marched to Trump's hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue nearby. In Manhattan, thousands of demonstrators stood outside Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue shouting "No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA."

In Durham, North Carolina, a crowd of demonstrators stormed the site of a Confederate monument outside a court and toppled the bronze statue from its base. Television news footage showed protesters taking turns stomping and kicking the fallen statue as dozens cheered.

Hundreds of miles to the north, a Holocaust memorial in Boston was vandalized, but police said they quickly arrested a 17-year-old boy who was grabbed by onlookers who saw him shatter one of the monument's glass panels with a rock.

Asked on Monday whether one side was more responsible for the violence than another in Charlottesville, Police Chief Al Thomas said: "This was an alt-right rally" - using the term that has become a banner for various far-right ideologies that includes neo-Nazis, white supremacists and anti-Semites.

Fields appeared in a Charlottesville court on Monday by video link from the jail where he was being held on a second-degree murder charge, three counts of malicious wounding and a single count of leaving the scene of a fatal accident. His next court date was set for Aug. 25.

Several students who attended high school with Fields in Kentucky described him as an angry young man who passionately espoused white supremacist ideology.

The U.S. Justice Department was pressing its own federal investigation of the incident as a hate crime.

(Reporting by Scott Malone in Charlottesville and Jeff Mason in Washington; Additional reporting by Brandon Shulleeta in Charlottesville, Susan Heavey, Timothy Ahmann and Mohammad Zargham in Washington, Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Emma Rumney in London and Michelle Martin in Berlin; Writing by Frances Kerry, Daniel Wallis and Steve Gorman; Editing by Bill Rigby and Mary Milliken)
The Hwaesong 14 launch was test launched in July 2014. - KCNA via KNS

The Ukrainian government has denied supplying advanced missile engines to North Korea after a report said Pyongyangs latest ICBMs use motors produced in a factory in former Soviet state.

Kiev said the suggestion that advanced rocket engine might have been sold to North Korea by corrupt staff or managers at the Yuzhmash missile factor in the city of Dnipro was ill-informed and probably Russian propaganda.

"This information is not based on any grounds, provocative by its content, and most likely provoked by Russian secret services to cover their own crimes," said Oleksandr Turchynov, the chairman of Ukraine's Security and Defence Council said.

Ukraine has always adhered to all its international commitments, therefore, Ukrainian defense and aerospace complex did not supply weapons and military technology to North Korea, the council said in a statement.

Analysts say the performance and design suggest the Hwasong-14 uses a modified version of the Soviet-designed RD-250 engine Credit: Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP

Michael Elleman, a missile engineer and analyst for the International Institute of Strategic Studies, said in a report published on Monday that two new long-range missiles unveiled by Kim Jon-un's regime this year appeared to be powered by a specially modified version of the RD-250, an engine previously used in Soviet ICBMs.

The RD-250 was designed and built by Yuzhmash, in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, and Energomash, a Russian rocket building company, for use in Cold War era nuclear missiles. Russia bought the engine from Yuzhmash for use in Tsiklon-2 satellite carrying rockets at least until 2007.

Mr Elleman told the Telegraph that he stands by his analysis that North Korean engineers could not have produced an advanced engine of the kind seen in the tests in May and July.

The only people who can modify it easily are people at Yuzhmash or Energomash, he said. I talked to people that have visited Yuzhmash recently and they confirmed there is a single chamber version like those seen in the North Korean test launches, Mr Elleman said. He declined to name the person who saw the modified engine.

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Map: Guam in relation to North Korea

"I am not saying it definitely came form Yuzhmash. What we do know is that there is a single chamber version of the engine because it has been seen. And for all I know the redesign has been done by Russians," he said.

"What I do know is that the Koreans didnt do it. So we dont know where it came from, but we know it was modified and it was smuggled," he added.

North Korea tested two new long range missiles, the Hwangsong 12 and the Hwangson 14, in May and July this year.

The success of the long-range missiles, which experts believe could reach the US pacific island of Guam and even the US West Coast, shocked the international community and sparked a diplomatic crisis between Pyongyang and Washington.

Mr Elleman told the Telegraph that the he did not believe the Ukrainian government knew about any illicit sale and that the engines could conceivably have come from stocks in either Russia or Ukraine that were fenced through front companies and smuggling rings.

Most experts believe North Korean rocket engineers have historically concentrated on reverse-engineering and adapting Soviet-era designs like the Scud missile to build their own models. Such models have had a haphazard success rate and only limited range.

However, Igor Sutyagin, a Russian military expert at the Royal United Services Institute, said he was sceptical about Mr Elleman's analysis.

"To be honest I would be a bit more careful about statements saying the North Koreans cannot do anything themselves. It is an underestimation of their capabilities," he said.

"If Soviet scientists could build these types of engines in the 1950s after the Germans showed them how, why couldn't North Koreans educated in the Soviet Union do so 60 years later?"

Kim Jong-un has threatened to fire missiles at Guam Credit: Wong Maye-E/AP

North Korea has attempted to procure missile technology via front companies in the past. In 2012 two North Korean nationals were arrested in Ukraine after attempting to procure equipment from Yuzhmash.

Yuzhmash said in a statement that is does not and never has had any connection with the North Korean missile program and has never exported the RD-250 or any military engines overseas.

As a state owned company Yuzhmash strictly observes the Missile technology Control Regime which Ukraine has been a member of since 1998 (effectively since 1995), the company said.

Energomash had not responded to emailed questions on Monday afternoon.
Nairobi (AFP) - Churches preached peace on Sunday in Mathare, a Nairobi slum that has been hit by days of violent demonstrations since last week's disputed presidential vote, but it was opposition leader Raila Odinga the people were desperate to hear from.

Odinga had been silent since the Friday night declaration that his opponent, incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta, had won the election, but he re-emerged Sunday afternoon to reiterate his claims of vote fraud and to announce that his next moves would be unveiled on Tuesday.

"I want to tell you not to go to work tomorrow (Monday). We are not done yet. We will not give up," Odinga told thousands of fist-pumping supporters who gathered in a dirt clearing in Nairobi's Kibera slum.

The speech was exactly what his supporters wanted to hear as they waited for a sign from their flagbearer after scenes of looting and clashes in opposition strongholds like Kibera and Mathare and in parts of western Kenya.

- 'Ready for whatever will come' -

"It was quiet and we were worried, because we did not know the plan. Now, we're very ready for whatever will come," said Duncan Nyamo, an Odinga supporter who was among the crowd in the slum.

"We are ready to die."

In both Kibera and Mathare, roads still displayed burn marks from tyres set ablaze by protesters over previous days, but on Sunday many people were going about their business and some shopkeepers were timidly reopening.

"It has been very violent over the past few days, but it's a lot calmer today," said Susan Atieno, 19, as she sold doughnuts on a garbage-strewn roadside in Mathare.

AFP's tally of deaths between Friday evening and Saturday night stands at 16, including nine killed in Nairobi's slums.

- Deep frustration -

Slum residents flocked to church on Sunday where pastors urged peace, while understanding the concerns of their congregation.

"What you have to understand is the amount of frustration here," Reverend Julius Tai said outside his tiny corrugated iron church with 30 plastic chairs for worshippers.

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Kenyatta, a wealthy member of the Kikuyu elite, was elected Friday with more than 54 percent of the vote, beating Odinga, a Luo.

It is the fourth time Odinga has lost a presidential election, running on a platform of more equitable economic growth, an argument that goes down well in the slums.

But ethnic grievance is also a key aspect of his appeal.

"Since independence, only two tribes have ruled the country, but the others also want their share of the cake," the pastor said.

Three of Kenya's four presidents have been Kikuyu and the other Kalenjin, leaving Luos feeling excluded from power for over half a century.

- 'Violence is useless' -

Ten years after the worst electoral violence in Kenya's history left 1,100 dead, the pastor called for peace.

"I firmly believe in the rule of law, and we should use the justice if we want to protest against the election result," Tai said.

"Violence is useless. After all, we are all Kenyan brothers, and you don't kill your brother."

Nearby, Reverend John Gitonga gave a sermon at his church. "It is important to respect peace, we are not different from our neighbours," he said.

Religious beliefs are strongly held in Kenya and among the protesters, said Patrick, a 25-year-old Odinga supporter who had taken to the streets in recent days.

"Today, it's the day of the Lord, so the slum is quiet. But we are waiting for Raila's instructions, and we'll do exactly what he says."

Susan, the doughnut vendor, was more circumspect. "I will listen to Raila to know the way forward, but violence is not good for business, I have to pay the rent, and to eat," she said.

And if he calls for violence? "I will listen to God first," she replied.
A total solar eclipse that crosses the U.S. from coast to coast will be visible on Aug. 21, 2017, and millions of people across the country will witness it in person or by watching live video online. In a total solar eclipse, the moon moves directly between the Earth and the sun, completely obscuring the suns face. During the brief minutes of the total eclipse, the sky darkens and the air cools.

The Aug. 21 eclipse will be the first total solar eclipse in the contiguous U.S. since 1979. The eclipse will begin in Lincoln Beach, Ore., at 9:05 a.m. PDT as a partial solar eclipse, in which the moon only partly covers the sun, and will progress to a total solar eclipse at 10:16 a.m. The eclipse will then make its way eastward across the country, ending at 2:44 p.m. EDT near Columbia, S.C.

For those who want to see the total eclipse in person, it will be visible in parts of 14 states, including Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, and will last for up to two minutes and 40 seconds. Skygazers in other states will be able to see a partial eclipse, but for those who want to experience the total eclipse, there are plenty of ways to catch it live online.

TIME will stream the eclipse starting at 12 p.m. EDT on Aug. 21 on Time.com, along with its Facebook and YouTube pages. Spaceflight historian and YouTuber Amy Shira Teitel will co-host the viewing from New York City, while TIMEs Jeff Kluger will co-host it from Casper, Wyo. The free livestream will feature interviews, information on how solar eclipses work, a history of eclipses, a segment on safe viewing practices and more. The astronaut Marsha Ivins will also join the livestream on air.

Additionally, TIME and LIFE VR will be producing a 360 VR livestream of the solar eclipse on TIMEs Facebook and YouTube pages, in partnership with Mesmerise Global. The stream will show an on-the-ground view from Casper, Wyo., including footage of the solar eclipse in totality as well as scenes of revelers who have gathered for the event. An edited version of the 360 livestream will also be available in the LIFE VR app for iOS and Android and in LIFE VRs Samsung VR channel immediately following the eclipse.

Elsewhere, NASA will host an Eclipse Megacast, a four-hour program covering the eclipse as it moves across the U.S., on its website. NASAs coverage will allow viewers to interact with scientists and people who are viewing the eclipse in person, according to the organization. NASA TV will also broadcast the program, as will some local television stations.

You can also watch the eclipse online at Slooh, a space broadcaster that is holding a three-day festival in honor of the eclipse. Slooh will cover the eclipse as it travels from coast to coast and broadcast views of it from Idaho.
A young man was catapulted into the air as he was hit by an oncoming car during Saturday's violence in Charlottesville, Va., but not before pushing his fiance out of harm's way.

Read: Friend Raises Incredible $200,000 in Memory of Woman Killed in Charlottesville Attack

Marcus Martins fiance, Marissa Blair, is also a friend of Heather Heyer, the 32-year-old paralegal who was killed when the Dodge Challenger plowed into the crowd.

You see bodies flying and then the car comes and I just feel somebody push me out of the way, she told Inside Edition. Heather was right there. Heather was right in front of me when it happened. So it was unbelievable, it was unreal. Words can't even describe that moment.

Her fiance escaped with a broken leg. The driver accused of hitting them, James Alex Fields Jr., was arrested Saturday and appeared in court Monday.

He was charged with murder, hit and run, and three counts of malicious wounding. He did not enter a plea.

There is more fallout over the Charlottesville violence as one of the president's top business advisers, Kenneth Frazier, CEO of the medical company Merck, resigned over the president's tepid rebuke of white supremacist groups.

"Americas leaders must honor our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy, Frazier said Monday. I feel a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism.

He was reacting to Trump's statement Saturday, for which he was criticized for not mentioning the Ku Klux Klan, Nazis or white supremacy by name.

President Trump also slammed Frazier on Twitter, saying, "He will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES.

Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President's Manufacturing Council,he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 14, 2017

The president made a much tougher denunciation on the violence Monday, saying, Racism has no place in America.

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"Racism is evil, and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans," Trump said. Those who spread violence in the name of bigotry strike at the very core of America."

Meanwhile, some of the white supremacists that have been pictured marching are being shamed on social media.

A Twitter account named @YesYoureARacist is asking, If you recognize any of the Nazis marching in Charlottesville, send me their names and Ill make them famous.

Read: One Dead, Several Injured After Car Plows Into Pedestrians at White Nationalist Rally: 'I Am Heartbroken'

One of the neo-Nazis identified has been fired from his job with the hot dog chain Top Dog.

TIKI Brand Products, the company who makes the tiki torches wielded by white supremacist groups is distancing itself from the movement.

"We do not support the use of our products in this way. Our products are designed to enhance backyard gatherings," the company said in a statement.

John Oliver, the host of Last Week Tonight on HBO, also joined in the chorus of criticism.

In a country where previous presidents actually defeated Nazis we have a president who can't even condemn them, he said.

Watch: Trump's 'Fire and Fury' Remark About North Korea Was Improvised: Report

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Tech companies are leaving your private data unlocked online and there isnt much you can do about it. (image: Flickr/ Maarten Van Damme)

SANTA ROSA, CALIF.  Chances are your private data has probably been available on the web for any random visitor to read. And you may not even be able to blame hackers or identity thieves for it.

Instead, somebody at a company that collected or handled your information  maybe a wireless carrier, maybe a software firm with a mailing list, maybe a political research firm trying to put you in one likely-voter box or another  may have left it vulnerable on their own. And this happens often enough for a security researcher to make finding these exposures his speciality.

Whats more, theres really not much you can do about it short of becoming a digital hermit.

A boom in breaches

Chris Vickery, director of cyber risk research at Upguard Security, has a simple theory for why he keeps finding databases open.

I would say convenience is probably the biggest reason, Vickery said during an interview at a coffee shop in this Sonoma County city where he works remotely for his Mountain View, California employer. Its easier just to have it open to everybody.

At best, he added, some hapless employee doesnt think they left the data exposed or believes nobody will stumble upon their attempt to ease telecommuting.

The biggest such example Vickery found to day was some 200 million voter-registration records that a Republican National Committee contractor left publicly accessible.

But the consequences of changing secure default settings in such cloud systems as Amazons (AMZN) AWS can go well beyond extra spam.

For example, the 13 million account credentials from the Mac-software firm Kromtech that Vickery found in 2015 could have been used to hack into other accounts secured with the same passwords.

The 6 million Verizon (VZ) wireless subscriber records Vickery found last month included some account passcodes that an attacker might have used to defeat two-step verification security that confirms strange logins with a one-time code texted to your phone.

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(Verizons media division Oath owns Yahoo Finance.)

And the 87 million Mexican voting records he uncovered in 2016 could have been exploited by drug traffickers to compound the countrys plague of kidnappings and murders. Vickery recalled one immediate reaction: You cannot let the cartels know about this.

The 32-year-olds work has won endorsements from other security researchers.

Chris has been enormously effective at sniffing out exposed data left at risk in all sorts of obscure places, said Troy Hunt, an Australian researcher who runs a data-breach index called Have I been pwned? that can reveal if your accounts have been exposed.

How to find a breach

Vickery said the easy part of his job is finding these databases, thanks to a searchable catalogue of publicly-accessible devices called Shodan and automated scanning tools that can quickly detect databases left open.

The amount of data that comes back isnt a ton, but it happens at a very, very fast rate, he said.

At no point, he said, does he engage in hacking or impersonation of a legitimate user.

If you have a password or a username set up, Im not going to go any further, he said. I dont trick anything.

If a search locates apparently sensitive data, he will download a sample to confirm that it represents material that should have stayed private. He usually doesnt bother looking for his own info, but he has not been amused when he finds it  such as in a leaked voter-registration database in 2016.

I looked myself up just to see if it was legit, and it was all my data, he recalled I was pretty pissed.

Then he will try to notify the affected company. That hasnt always been easy. Kromtech, the maker of the often-scorned security app MacKeeper, didnt respond to his queries until he posted about the problem on Reddit  though after securing the data, the firm hired him to blog about security issues.

Hunt, the Australian researcher, recently met even more egregious resistance when a British firm selling family discounts for things like theme parks blocked him and others on Twitter for tweeting about its lax security.

I used to start at the bottom, calling the receptionist or something, Vickery said. Now Ill start with the breached data and then find the CEOs home number and call him at dinner. That usually gets a faster response.

Unhelpful responses and an unhelpful law

But a response accepting his findings can still come seasoned with denial. Vickery advised against trusting the common excuse that only he saw the exposed data  many companies dont keep the access records needed to prove that claim.

They can say that plausibly because theyre not keeping logs, he said.

Vickery said he has also received the occasional legal threat, despite making a point of not using hacking tools to sneak into sites.

No law enforcement agency has ever even suggested that what I do is illegal, he said.

But the 1986-vintage Computer Fraud and Abuse Act applies such a broad definition of online trespassing that a company could feasibly try to sue a researcher like Vickery.

A new bill, the Internet of Things (IoT) Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2017, would exempt more security research from the CFAA as part of a larger tightening of security standards for internet-connected devices in government use. But this laws vagaries have survived years of talk about reforming it.

Will another round of data-breach headlines change that? Well probably find out soon enough, Vickery said. While consumers are now better educated about the scope of the problem, companies keep making the same mistakes.

I think things have gotten better in the past couple of years as far as awareness goes, Vickery said. But the number of breaches happening hasnt decreased at all.

More from Rob:

Email Rob at rob@robpegoraro.com; follow him on Twitter at @robpegoraro.
Hackers with believed ties to the North Korean government have taken to targeting defense contractors working with the United States government, according to security researchers.

Network and enterprise security company Palo Alto Networks released new research Monday that suggested Lazarus Group, a collective of hackers who are often linked to North Korea, are behind a number of cyber attacks aimed at defense industry companies.

According to researchers at Palo Alto Networks, a number of attacks have been carried out by a threat group utilizing the same tools and techniques used by Lazarus Group. The attacks have been ongoing through July and are likely still active.

The most recent activity from the group includes launching weaponized Microsoft Office Document files, which are laced with malicious files that can infect a victims computer if they download and open the document.

The fake documents target English speakersa shift from the prior attacks that targeted Korean language speakersand are designed to appear as job descriptions or internal policy documents from U.S. defense contractors.

One of the documents spotted by Palo Alto Networks included a job description for a mechanical integration engineering manager. Another contained an exact copy of a job postingincluding typos and other errorsposted by a contractor.

While the documents have changed, Palo Alto Networks researchers found the attack itself, including the malicious payload attached to the fake files, is essentially the same as one targeting South Korean victims earlier this year. The researchers said the threat actors behind the attacks are reusing tools, techniques, and procedures which overlap throughout these operations with little variance.

Through analysis of malicious code, files, and infrastructure it is clear the group behind this campaign is either directly responsible for or has cooperated with the group which conducted Operation Blockbuster Sequel and, ultimately, Operation Blockbuster, the researchers wrote, referencing the 2014 hack of Sony Pictures that was attributed to Lazarus Group.

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Because the malicious actors have not changed their approach despite public discovery, Palo Alto Networks said it expects the attacks are likely to continue. Luckily, security program can identify the malicious files and potentially cease the spread of the attacks if a system is properly protected.

The continued activity from the hacking group comes weeks after researchers in South Korea found North Korean hackers have expressed more interest in financial gain in recent hacks rather than stealing state secrets or wreaking havoc in the affairs of other nations.

Earlier this month, a number of malware campaigns targeting organizations in North Korea were discovered. The campaigns were believed to be launched in response to the isolated nations recent successful test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and other advancements in its nuclear weapons programs.

The attacks began just days after North Korea tested its ICBM. Ciscos cybersecurity firm Talos Intelligence said the campaign appeared directly related to the launch and the ensuing discussion of North Korean missile technology.

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From Woman's Day

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1. WINNER SELECTION: Winners (individually and collectively, the "Winner") will be selected on or about 11/31/2017 in a random drawing from among all eligible entries received. Each sweepstakes is a different drawing that must be entered separately. All the sweepstakes in these Official Rules are individually and collectively the "Sweepstakes." In the event the Sponsor does not receive any eligible entries, the Sponsor has the right to cancel the Sweepstakes. Drawing will be conducted by Woman's Day, whose decisions are final. Odds of winning will depend upon the total number of eligible entries received. In the event Canadians are eligible to enter as specified in the Eligibility paragraph below, and if there is a Canadian Winner, the Winner will be required to correctly answer a mathematical skill testing question as a condition of receiving the prize. Important Notice: You may be charged for visiting the mobile website in accordance with the terms of your service agreement with your carrier. Please consult your wireless service provider regarding your pricing plan. You must use a Smartphone device to participate via your mobile phone. Not all mobile phone providers carry the necessary service to participate. Check your phone capabilities for specific Internet instructions. If your data usage exceeds what is allotted by your data plan, you could be subject to additional fees by your carrier. Please contact your mobile service provider with any questions regarding your bill.

2. WINNER NOTIFICATION: Winner will be notified within one (1) month of the last day of the Sweepstakes, via e-mail, and/or at Sponsor's discretion, via phone or postal mail. In the event the Winner doesn't respond to Sponsor's notification or does not accept the prize within five (5) business days of notification, the prize will be deemed forfeited and an alternate Winner will be selected. In the event that any one or more potential Winner(s) fails to respond as stated above, declines the prize or fails to provide signed affidavits or releases, such Winner(s) will be deemed to forfeit the prize and Sponsor will select an alternate Winner(s) from the remaining eligible entrants. If any alternate(s) similarly fails to respond or declines the prize, Sponsor will use a reasonable number of attempts, in its discretion, to award the prize(s) to another alternate(s) but if it is unable to do so, the prize(s) will be finally forfeited and Sponsor shall have no further liability in connection with said Sweepstakes. List of Winner(s): For the name(s) of the Winner(s), send a separate self-addressed, stamped envelope to September 2017 Woman's Day 80th Anniversary Sweepstakes Winners' List, Hearst Communications, Inc., 300 West 57th Street NY, NY 10019 within two (2) months from the Winner notification date as specified above.

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Topshop Sweepstakes: Enter beginning 12:01 A.M. (ET) on August 15, 2017, through 11:59 P.M. (ET) on October 15, 2017 (the "Entry Period"). Go to womansday.com/giveaways on a computer or wireless device and complete and submit the entry form pursuant to the onscreen instructions. PLEASE NOTE THAT YOUR ENTRY WILL NOT BE COMPLETED UNTIL YOU HAVE COMPLETED THE OFFICIAL ENTRY FORM AND ENTERED YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION. Prizes & Approximate Retail Value: One (1) winner will receive three tubes of lipstick in Mind Your Manners, Temptation, and Partition from Topshop Lips (ARV: $10 each). Total ARV of all prizes awarded: $30. Any difference between the stated ARV and the actual value of the prize will not be awarded in any form.

3. ENTRIES: Limit one (1) entry per person per day for each Sweepstakes. Multiple entries from the same person per day for the same sweepstakes will be disqualified. Entries become the property of the Sponsor and will not be returned. Proof of submission does not constitute proof of receipt. If applicable, illegible, inaccurate, lost, late, misdirected, incomplete, mutilated, postage due or mechanically reproduced entry forms or entry forms that have been tampered with will be disqualified. Online entrants must have valid email address and it is entrant's responsibility to update Sponsor of any change in email address. The mobile phone number and wireless service provider/carrier of mobile entrants (if applicable) will be automatically captured in the Sweepstakes database and all participation will be limited to that phone number unless entrant notifies Sponsor of a change. If there is a dispute as to the identity of an online or mobile entrant, the prize will be awarded to the authorized account holder of the email address or mobile phone. The "authorized account holder" is defined as the natural person to whom the email address or mobile phone is assigned by an internet service provider, online service provider, carrier, mobile phone provider or other organization (e.g., business, educational institution, etc.) that is responsible for assigning the email addresses for the domain associated with the submitted email address or responsible for assigning the mobile phone number.

4. ELIGIBILITY: For the Topshop Sweepstakes, open to legal residents of the 48 contiguous United States (excluding Alaska and Hawaii), the District of Columbia, and Canada (excluding Quebec) who have reached the age of majority in their state or territory at time of entry. For all the other sweepstakes, open to legal residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia, who have reached the age of majority in their state or territory of residence at time of entry. Legal residents of Canada (excluding Quebec) who have reached the aforementioned age in their province of residence at time of entry are also eligible to enter. Void in Puerto Rico and where prohibited by law. Employees of Sponsor, its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries, participating advertising and promotion agencies, independent judging organizations, and prize suppliers (and members of their immediate family and/or those living in the same of household of each such employee) are not eligible.

5. CONDITIONS OF PARTICIPATION: Expenses not specifically included in prize description and all taxes are the sole responsibility of the Winner. Each prize is awarded "as is" with no warranty or guarantee, either express or implied outside of manufacturer's limited warranty. No transfer, assignment or substitution of a prize permitted, except Sponsor reserves the right to substitute prize for an item of equal or greater value in the event an advertised prize is unavailable. The Winner is required to comply with any and all applicable federal, state, provincial, if Canadians are eligible to enter, and local laws, rules and regulations. All federal, state and local taxes, and any other costs not specifically provided for in these Official Rules are solely the Winner's responsibility. If the actual retail value of any Winner's prize is $600 or more, the Winner must complete a W9 form and supply Sponsor with his/her social security number for tax purposes. An IRS Form 1099 will be issued in the name of the Winner for the actual value of the prizes received. Sponsor shall have no responsibility or obligation to the Winner or potential Winner who are unable or unavailable to accept or utilize prizes as described herein. Entrants agree to be bound by the terms of these Official Rules and by the decisions of Sponsor, which are final and binding on all matters pertaining to this Sweepstakes. Winner may be required to sign and return an Affidavit of Eligibility, a Liability Release and where legally permissible a Publicity Release within seven (7) days following the date of first attempted notification. Failure to comply with this deadline may result in forfeiture of the prize and selection of an alternate Winner. Return of any prize/prize notification as undeliverable may result in disqualification and selection of an alternate Winner. Winner hereby further agrees that it will sign any documents necessary to transfer copyright of his/her submitted entry, if applicable, to Sponsor within seven (7) days following the date of first attempted notification. By entering, Entrant grants permission for Sponsor, and any of its affiliates and subsidiaries, participating advertising and promotion agencies, and prize suppliers to use the entrant's submission (including an altered form of the entry), if any, for editorial, advertising and promotional purposes without additional compensation, unless prohibited by law. If images are being submitted to Sponsor as a requirement for entry, Entrants agree that they have all rights to use the images submitted and to allow Sponsor, any of its affiliates and subsidiaries, participating advertising and promotion agencies, and prize suppliers to reuse any of the images, without any liability, for editorial, advertising and promotional purposes. Additionally, acceptance of the prize by Winner constitutes permission for Sponsor and any affiliates and subsidiaries, participating advertising and promotion agencies, and prize suppliers to use Winner's name and/or likeness and biographical material for editorial, advertising and promotional purposes without additional compensation, unless prohibited by law. By accepting prize, Winner agrees to hold Sponsor, its advertising and promotion agencies and their respective parent companies, subsidiaries, affiliates, partners, representative agents, successors, assigns, officers, directors, and employees harmless for any injury or damage caused or claimed to be caused by participation in the Sweepstakes or acceptance or use of the prize. Sponsor is not responsible for any printing, typographical, mechanical or other error in the printing of the offer, administration of the Sweepstakes or in the announcement of the prize.

6. INTERNET/MOBILE: Sponsor is not responsible for electronic transmission errors resulting in omission, interruption, deletion, defect, delay in operations or transmission, theft or destruction or unauthorized access to or alterations of entry materials, or for technical, network, telephone equipment, electronic, computer, hardware or software malfunctions or limitations of any kind, or inaccurate transmissions of or failure to receive entry information by Sponsor or presenter on account of technical problems or traffic congestion on the Internet, at any Web site, or via the mobile phone or any combination thereof. If for any reason the Internet or mobile phone portion of the program is not capable of running as planned, including infection by computer virus, bugs, tampering, unauthorized intervention, fraud, technical failures, or any other causes which corrupt of affect the administration, security, fairness, integrity, or proper conduct of this Sweepstakes, Sponsor reserves the right at its sole discretion to cancel, terminate, modify or suspend the Sweepstakes. Sponsor reserves the right to select winners from eligible entries received as of the termination date. Sponsor further reserves the right to disqualify any individual who tampers with the entry process. Sponsor may prohibit an entrant from participating in the Sweepstakes if it determines that said entrant is attempting to undermine the legitimate operation of the Sweepstakes by cheating, hacking, deception or other unfair playing practices or intending to abuse, threaten or harass other entrants. Caution: Any attempt by a participant to deliberately damage any Web site or undermine the legitimate operation of the Sweepstakes is a violation of criminal and civil laws and should such an attempt be made, Sponsor reserves the right to seek damages from any such participant to the fullest extent of the law.

7. DISPUTES/CHOICE OF LAW: Except where prohibited, each entrant agrees that: (1) any and all disputes, claims and causes of action arising out of or connected with this or any prize awarded shall be resolved individually, without resort to any form of class action, and exclusively by state or federal courts situated in New York, NY, (2) any and all claims, judgments and awards shall be limited to actual out-of-pocket costs incurred, but in no event attorneys' fees; and (3) no punitive, incidental, special, consequential or other damages, including without limitation lost profits may be awarded (collectively, "Special Damages"), and (4) entrant hereby waives all rights to claim Special Damages and all rights to have such damages multiplied or increased. New York State law, without reference to New York's choice of law rules, governs the Sweepstakes and all aspects related thereto.

8. SPONSOR: The Sponsor of these Sweepstakes is Hearst Communications, Inc., 300 W. 57th Street, New York, NY 10019.

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The University of Montana has sent letters notifying an estimated 40 lecturers that their contracts will end on Dec. 31, 2017.

In the letter, Provost Beverly Edmond said individuals who do not have tenure "have no expectation to reappointment or renewal."

"Per University Policy 350, the purpose of this letter is to give you one semester's notice that your employment contract with the University of Montana will end as of December 31, 2017, and to clarify that at this time, we do not have an intent to provide you with a contract thereafter."

President Sheila Stearns announced the notice in an email to the campus on Friday. A spokeswoman said UM intended to email the letter to lecturers Monday after sending hard copies Friday.

"The letters may be unsettling to recipients and their colleagues," Stearns said. "This weighs heavily on my mind and those of the university's campus leaders and executive team."

The university has been cutting its budget because of enrollment declines and has already reduced faculty through attrition and early retirement buyouts. An estimated 41 tenured or tenure-track faculty out of 552 last school year won't return, according to the most recent data from UM.

***

The letter to lecturers and decision to send it before the conclusion of a process to identify priority programs at UM have come under fire from the University Faculty Association. The association also alleges the notice is a breach of university policy.

University termination procedure notes that after the third consecutive year of service, lecturers shall have the right to one semesters notice of the intention to terminate the relationship. In this case, the association argued the intention doesnt in fact exist for all letter recipients.

"When President Stearns shared with me her intention to send out a blanket letter to all lecturers, knowing full well that many if not most would be rehired in the spring, I pointed out that this was an improper use of the policy and would likely result in grievances being filed," wrote association President Paul Haber in a letter to lecturers.

UM legal counsel Lucy France said she was not aware of allegations that the letter was contrary to university policy but said she believes UM acted properly.

"All of UMs management decisions, to our knowledge are in compliance with union contracts," France said in an email.

Stearns did not confirm or deny that she had communicated UM would rehire many if not most of its lecturers come spring. In an email, though, she said UM has "excellent" lecturers, and she doesn't take the notice lightly.

"I look forward to the day that UM might once again be able to guarantee lecturers longer term employment," Stearns said. "But we are not in that situation now.

"It is important for our legal requirements, and frankly fair to them, to be clear that at this time, we do not have an intent to renew their contracts for Spring semester 2018."

***

In an email to the Missoulian, Edmond said enrollment is the driving factor behind the appointment of lecturers and other faculty.

"We set the schedule each academic year and begin registration for the spring in mid-fall semester," Edmond said. "If the courses fill up or appear as if they will fill up, then the faculty scheduled to teach them are continued in the subsequent semester; in the case of lecturers or adjuncts, their (appointments) are extended.

"Therefore, it is not really possible to predict which courses, particularly for lecturers, will be needed."

Haber, though, said the president told him UM intends to rehire many lecturers in the spring, and the blanket letter distributed "just in case we need to really fire you" is a misuse of policy.

"This decision is profoundly disappointing and we are worried reflects an approach from Administration that appears to be looking for what is politically and legally expedient rather than what is strategic or will improve the university for the students," Haber wrote in a letter to members.

In a telephone interview, Haber said he had been lobbying the administration to hold off on sending the letter. He said the association interprets university policy to mean that letters go out when UM truly intends to terminate people.

In this case, he said, the administration has no intention of actually terminating all the lecturers who received notice. So the letter is being sent with a "wink, wink, here's the deal."

Haber also said he would prefer to see letters go out after the process to set priorities at UM concludes, including the identification of programs deemed a lower priority.

"If lecturers are in those programs, then of course, they're going to be part of that curtailment," Haber said. "But my argument was, let's let the process go through."

UM communications director Paula Short, though, said the letters giving notice shouldn't be tied to the process to set priorities.

"In the near term, those two items are not connected simply because we have not completed program prioritization," Short said. "We are still in the midst of that. Really, the decision is about maintaining the fiscal flexibility at the university."

Kevin McRae, spokesman for the Montana Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education, said UM will finish setting priorities in time to rehire lecturers for spring based on its conclusions.

He also said the faculty union already has a contract in place; lecturers who get letters have the right to one semester's notice, and that's what UM is providing.

"We already have a negotiated agreement through the University Faculty Association for the order in which faculty positions can and should be considered for reductions," McRae said. "And the current collective bargaining agreement points us to and guides us to adjunct positions first."
Jordan's Information Minister and government spokesman Mohammad al-Momani said Sunday the kingdom opposes the presence of Shi'ite militias supported by Iran on its border.

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The Syrian army has recently managed to regain control of some 30 kilometers of its border with Jordan, previously held by rebel organizations, according to reports by the Syrian army and two rebel groups. It did so with the help of Iranian-backed Shiite organizations.

Assad army raising Syrian flag after victory near Jordanian border (Photo: AFOP)

"This is unacceptable," al-Momani said. "We view this presence as a strategic threat and will take the necessary steps to ensure there is security and stability on our border."

Syrian army at border with Jordan

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"There are regional countries that see this issue more severely than Jordan. The international community and world powers regard the matter with the same severity that Jordan does," Al-Momani added.

On the recent achievements of the Syrian army on the border with Jordan, the Jordanian minister said that "it is early to judge these reports. We have not received information confirming them."

Mohammad al-Momani (Photo: AFP)

A spokesman for another rebel organization said the Assad regime's achievements were made possible by the sudden retreat of a Jordanian-backed rebel organization responsible for patrols along the border.

It was also reported the border crossings the Assad army took over were the main crossings through which the rebel groups transferred weapons to their operatives from Jordan into Syria.

Assad army at As-Suwayda district (Photo: AFP)

The London-based Syrian Center for Human Rights confirmed the reports of the Assad regime's achievements on the Jordanian border and explained the regime had used the cease-fire in the nearby Daraa district to launch a strenuous offensive in the nearby As-Suwayda district.

"The regime's forces launched an offensive on both sides of the eastern part of the province, and most of it is now in its hands," said Said Seif, an official with the Western-backed Free Syrian Army Shahid Ahmed Abdo rebel group. "The army advanced toward the border and re-took control of positions it abandoned in the early years of the civil war. They are now on the Jordanian border."
Mohammed Abu Khdeir, 22, the cousin of the 16-year-old boy of the same name who was murdered in 2014 by Jewish extremists, and two other residents of the Shuafat neighborhood in east Jerusalem were charged Monday with planning attacks against Israeli security forces.

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The Jerusalem District Attorney's Office filed an indictment against Abu Khdeir and his two accomplices, Abbas Salahi and Amro Maatouk, for multiple security offenses, including active membership in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which is desginated as a terror organization by Israel, the United States, Canada, Australia, and the European Union.

Photo: Shutterstock

The three were indicted for conspiring to commit murder, attempting to illegally purchase weapons, possession of arms, shooting in residential areas, attempting to attack policemen, rioting and other offenses.

According to the indictment, the three met on several occasions between March 2017 and their arrest in July 2017 and conspired to carry out attacks against Israeli citizens.

Mohammed Abu Khdeir, 16, who was murdered by Jewish settlers (Photo: Reuters)

Among other things, the defendants planned to carry out a shooting attack against Israeli vehicles traveling on the Nablus bypass and plant explosives on it. In addition, on several occasions, the defendants participated in riots and stone throwing at Israeli military forces.

Abu Khdeir has three previous convictions for rioting, attempting to attack police officers, vandalizing a vehicle and endangering human life. He already spent time in prison, and in 2015 he was sentenced to probation, which he is set to serve should he be found guilty of any of the aforementioned crimes.
A German court has found a Syrian refugee guilty of attempting to defraud ISIS, a court spokeswoman said on Monday, granting legal protection to a group viewed as terrorists by the European Union.

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A judge in the district court in the southwestern city of Saarbruecken sentenced the 39-year old hairdresser from Damascus to two years in prison for trying to get ISIS operatives to transfer him up to 180,000 euro ($212,400.00).

ISIS file photo (Photo: AP)

The judge ruled that the man used the false pretence that he would carry out attacks in Germany for ISIS using explosives. The money was never transferred to the man.

The court rejected the prosecution's argument that the man was guilty of the more serious crime of planning to carry out attacks on behalf of the militant organization.

Both parties have appealed the ruling to the Federal Supreme Court, the court spokeswoman said.

The Syrian refugee was named only as Hasan A. due to German privacy laws.
Why am I not surprised by the anti-Jewish protest held last week in the town of Helsingborg in southern Sweden? I wrote "anti-Jewish" and not "anti-Israel" because the main slogans that were shouted theresuch as "the Jews are offspring of apes and pigs"have nothing to do with the Middle East. This is blatant anti-Semitism of the ugliest kind.

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So why am I not surprised? Because in this Scandinavian country, with a prime minister like Stefan Lofven, and a foreign minister like Margot Wallstrom, anti-Semitic displays, all the more so anti-Israel, are not supposed to "knock us off our feet."

Sweden was the first country to recognize "Palestine," it contributes great sums of money to the Palestinian Authority, and its government is hostile towards Israel . Wallstrom herself makes no effort to hide the fact she loathes us. Two small reminders: In November 2015 she tied the ISIS terror attacks in Paris to "Palestinian desperation," and shortly after thatat the height of the wave of terrorismshe called for an investigation into allegations Israel carries out "extrajudicial killings" of Palestinians.

Anti-Semitic demonstration in Helsingborg

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Even though one should not generalizeobviously, not all Swedes are anti-Semites or Israel hatersthere is another reason why I'm not surprised by the anti-Semitic displays in Sweden.

During World War II, for a long time, the "neutral" Sweden refused to take in some 7,700 Jews from Denmark, which had been conquered by Hitler's forces, and save them from being sent to extermination camps. It was only after great efforts by influential figures that Sweden finally agreed, near the end of 1943, to take in Denmark's Jews.

Denmark was the only conquered country in which almost all of its citizens, including King Christian and the royal family, sought to aid Jews and hide them. After receiving the okay from Sweden, they smuggled some 7,200 Jews and some 700 of their non-Jewish relatives to the neighboring country in an organized operation that lasted for three weeks in ships, motorboats, and smaller boats. Some 500 Jews who were unable to escapemostly the elderly and invalidwere caught and sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in German-occupied Czechoslovakia.

Anti-Israel protest in Malmo

Sweden may have eventually agreed to take in the Jews of Denmark, but it's worth mentioning that it supported Hitler's Third Reich, providing it with iron for its war industry, among other things. Many of the citizens of the "neutral" Sweden also wanted to see Germany win the war. So is it any wonder some of their descendants remained unequivocal anti-Semites?

Another factor that undoubtedly affects the level of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiments in Sweden is the massive, ever-growing Muslim population in the country, whose positions on Jews in general and Israel in particular are no secret.

It's enough to mention that Gothenburg, the second largest city in the country, has been used for years as one of ISIS' largest recruitment centers in Europe, while in Malmo, the third largest city, some 40 percent of the population is Muslim, and they essentially "control" the city.

I've visited Sweden many times. Several years ago, locals I've spoken to told me they were worried about the "invasion" of their country. "We have no idea how we're going to overcome this problem," they told me. And, indeed, they have yet to overcome it.
Maj. Gen. Amikam Norkin officially assumed command of the Israel Air Force (IAF) in a ceremony held at Tel Nof Airbase on Monday evenin.

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The ceremony was attended by Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot and US Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen. David Goldfein.

Norkin is replacing Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel, who is retiring from the IDF after 40 years of service.

Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot (L), Maj. Gen. Amikam Norkin (C) and former IAF commander Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel (R) (Photo: Shaul Golan)

During Eshel's tenure, two major operations were conducted in the Gaza Stripthe 2012 Operation Pillar of Defense and the 2014 Operation Protective Edgealong with hundreds of sorties and covert operations beyond Israel's borders, including strikes against Hamas and Hezbollah.

IAF change of command ceremony (:  )

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"The Middle East is changing before our eyes. The global transformation in the balance of forces and the changing battlefield continue to expand the responsibility and mission of the Air Force. It also requires us to continue developing our capabilities to deal with the challenges of the future," said Norkin.

"The Air Force will continue to acquire new and advanced technologies. The Air Force of the future will continue to strengthen its ties with other air forces and strengthen Israel's standing in the region and in the world. I take this command with confidence in our people and our capabilities," Norkin concluded.

In his remarks, Eshel said, "The skills of the IAF in offense and defense have been tested in recent years in thousands of operations across five arenas; both in close range and thousands of kilometers from home. Threats were thwarted, rockets were destroyed and aircraft were intercepted in the Middle East and beyond its borders.

"The Israeli Air Force gives the IDF unprecedented strength. Our enemies cannot imagine its quality and scope. If we are forced to fight, they will be very surprised. Our personnel are extremely professional, determined and humble."

Photo: Shaul Golan

Lt. Gen. Eisenkot echoed the confidence in the IAF of both men, saying, "The Air Force is the strategic arm that is the guarantor of the security of the State of Israel. The map of threats is expanding and changing at a rapid pace, which obligates us to adapt our capabilities to the modern battlefield.

"At our borders terrorist organizations are organizing and growing stronger. The IDF needs a very high level of preparedness against any threat."
Some 150 children who are either hurt or lost loved ones in terror attacks arrived at the Ben Shemen Forest in central Israel on Sunday for a special summer camp.

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Among the campers were three of the children of Elad Salomon , 35, who was murdered along with his father Yosef, 70, and sister Haya, 46, by a terrorist who infiltrated the family home in the settlement of Halamish last month.

"This summer, because of the attack, we haven't done any activities," said Elad's widow Michal, who brought their three elder children to the campAvinoam, 10.5, Reut, 9, and Amitai, 5. "I'm glad this activity gave us the opportunity to break away from everyday routine."

Michal Salomon, right, with her children (l-r) Amitai, Avinoam and Reut.

"It's a miracle we're alive," she added. "It's thanks to my late husband, who fought the terrorist with all of his strength, and I admire him for that."

While the children enjoyed the drum circles and jeep tours led by the Jeep Unit of ZAKA Israel, they did miss their father dearly.

"It's a shame dad wasn't with us, because he would have enjoyed it a lot," said nine-year-old Reut. "We think about him all the time. During today's activity, we were able to forget about the attack for a little bit and managed to have some fun."

Other campers include the children of the Shabo family from Itamar, which lost five of its members in 2002 when two Palestinian terrorists broke into their home, and Ayala Shapira, who suffered serious burns when a Molotov cocktail was thrown at the car she was traveling in.

Elad Salomon's children with their cousins

Apart from the Salomon family, the rest of the campers headed at the end of the day to Eilat for three days.

"Families who experienced disasters, such as serious terror attacks, don't forget the sights and feelings for the rest of their lives," explained ZAKA CEO Israel Hezi Shavaks. "That is why we view it as very important to allow them to have experiences that could help them forget the difficult times, if only a little bit."
It seems some malicious individuals and media outlets are spreading rumors of the death of Alhaji Asoma Banda.

Get more news on current and trending issues in Ghana here on YEN.com.gh

The family of the business have since denied all reports of the death of Asomah Banda.

READ ALSO: NDC vows to investigate GCB Bank's "shady" takeover of UT Bank and Capital Bank

According to a report by Ghanaian online publication, MyNewsGh.com, the Banda family was responding to rumors that the stalwart of the opposition National Democratic Congress has passed away.

Alhaji Asomah Banda's family rubbishes reports of his untimely death

The reports of the death of Alhaji Banda first surfaced online on Monday, 14th August.

However, speaking to MyNewsGH.com, one nephew of the businessman, Abu Banda, rubbished the false reports.

He reportedly told the publication, "The old man is alive. He is not dead so kindly disregard the reports".

Alhaji Asomah Banda's family rubbishes reports of his untimely death

Abu continued to state that the Banda family would release a statement to the bad reports of death "soon".

He usually makes headlines with his comments on political issues in Ghana and is well-known as an open supporter of the NDC.

READ ALSO: Ghanaians accuse Shatta Wale of trying to hide "cocaine" in trending video

Send us a message on our official YEN Facebook group or at info@yen.com.gh.

YEN is building a platform where Ghanaians can share local news and own experiences with each other.

Witnessing an incident? Want to tell about a local problem? Know someone who is extremely talented and needs recognition?

Your stories and photos are always welcome.

Source: YEN.com.gh
A federal judge has blocked a proposed 176-million ton expansion of a central Montana coal mine in a ruling that criticized U.S. officials for downplaying the climate change impacts of the project and inflating its economic benefits.

U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy issued an order Monday barring Signal Peak Energy from mining in the 11-square mile expansion area at the Bull Mountain coal mine pending a new round of environmental studies.

Molloy says the Interior Department's Office of Surface Mining must consider the environmental effects of shipping the fuel to customers in Asia and from the greenhouse gases and other pollutants emitted when the fuel is burned to generate electricity.

Courts in Colorado and Montana previously have issued similar rulings about greenhouse gas emissions from mine expansions. In those cases, the expansions ultimately were allowed to proceed following further environmental reviews.

Molloy's ruling stems from a 2015 lawsuit filed by the Montana Environmental Information Center, Sierra Club and Montana Elders for a Livable Tomorrow. The groups argued that the government did not look closely enough at the effects of the expansion on waterways, air pollution and the health of people who live along the coal's shipping routes.

A Signal Peak spokesman said Tuesday that the company was reviewing the ruling, which was not expected to immediately affect operations.

Federal mining officials said the proposed expansion would contribute almost $24 million annually in tax revenues.

They also said there would be no additional environmental impacts from burning more coal from Bull Mountain because its customers would simply go somewhere else if the expansion were not approved.

But Molloy rejected the claim.

"This conclusion is illogical, and places the (Interior Department's) thumb on the scale by inflating the benefits of the action while minimizing its impacts," the judge wrote.

A representative of one of the plaintiffs in the case, the Montana Environmental Information Center, said Molloy's ruling underscores the need to address the "real costs that are hidden in the fossil fuel world."

"It doesn't help (mine) workers to ignore the inevitable  that coal is on a downward slide whether it's in this country or overseas," said the group's deputy director, Anne Hedges.

Bull Mountain, located near Roundup, is a major employer in central Montana with more than 250 workers at the underground mine and a coal preparation plant on the site. As much as 95 percent of its coal has been exported in past years, to South Korea, Japan and the Netherlands, according to court volumes.

The mine's production volumes dropped sharply in recent years as overseas coal markets have been in decline. Signal Peak extracted 5.6 million tons of coal last year, down by 35 percent since peaking at 8.7 million tons in 2013, according to company filings with the U.S. Mine Health and Safety Administration.

Under the proposed expansion, the company anticipated mining up to 12 million tons annually.

Office of Surface Mining spokesman Chris Holmes referred questions on the ruling to the Department of Justice, where a spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
LOLO  The large plume and torching trees are readily visible from Highway 12 up the Mill Creek drainage, but while the Lolo Peak fires movement triggered evacuations Sunday, it didnt blow up as expected Sunday night.

Still, after a two-mile run in about an hour Saturday night, fire managers remain concerned about possible unexpected moves and kept the evacuation order in place Monday for about 165 residences, with another 140 homes on an evacuation warning.

At a 6 a.m. fire briefing on Monday, Incident Manager Noel Livingston compared the Lolo Peak fire to boxer Sugar Ray Robinson, and urged firefighters to be quick, adaptable and flexible like the boxer.

Yesterday, we figured a big change was coming and  we got in place expecting wind, Livingston told about 100 firefighters gathered in a Florence school gymnasium Monday morning. It sat there, due to the weather. I suspect today this will do something we dont expect it will do, so we have to think, How will I adapt? How will I adjust?

At a community meeting Monday night, Livingston apologized to those forced out of their homes, saying they understand the difficulties in being displaced and thanking them for their patience.

We are thinking about you, and trying to get you back in your homes, he said.

Homemade signs line Highway 12 and in Lolo, lauding the firefighting efforts and thanking them for their work.

But not everyone left. Dave Swartz and neighbors Mark, Kim and Jake Marr stood in the shade of a ponderosa pine Monday afternoon off of Mill Creek Road, watching the plume rise to the south of their homes. Theyve worked on creating defensible space around their structures, and have sprinklers and a flatbed truck with a tank on it to pump water if the flames should reach their homes.

They appreciate the firefighters efforts. But theyre dubious about the top fire officials management efforts of the Lolo Peak fire, and questioned Public Information Officer Bill Queen as to why the fire wasnt put out when it was first discovered July 15 after a lightning storm.

They pulled the gloves off before they even got in the ring, Swartz said. The fire lines are clear down to houses, and theyre not good fire lines. The wind was blowing back on the fire for 11 days, and they had a lot of opportunity to put it out.

What is their logic? Theyre going to let it all burn, everything burn right to their containment line.

Queen noted that since the Lolo Peak fire began, fire managers said they couldnt do a direct attack because it was in steep, rugged terrain that was difficult to reach and too dangerous for firefighters. The hazards of firefighting were underscored when California Hotshot Brent Witham died on Aug. 2 when felling a tree to prepare a fire line for burnout operations.

Fire managers are using bulldozers and other heavy machinery to either widen existing old dirt roads or create new firebreaks. Theyve had underbrush cleared even farther from the upper sides of the firebreaks. Hose lines with sprinklers every 100 feet or so lie alongside them.

Along with the day shifts, night crews are patrolling the area, and are working with state and local firefighting agencies, as well as private contractors, to ensure the safety of structures.

Theyve also burned off fuels in areas where they expect the fire to make a run, in order to lessen the intensity when it does come off the mountainside.

But Swartz and the Marr family are still frustrated with the waiting game.

They didnt put any dozer lines on the ridges  as you know, thats the best place to stop this fire, Swartz said. I understand firefighter safety, but you have to put people on the fire.

Im tired of the smoke and Im tired of the fire. I think there needs to be more accountability.

Like an unwanted summer guest, however, the smoke and the fire probably are sticking around for the rest of the summer, Livingston told the crowd Monday night. He said theyve been flying the heck out of the helicopters in the past few weeks to drop water and retardant on the fire lines to slow down or direct the flames movements  about 690,000 gallons of retardant and 90,000 to 100,000 gallons of water, with 370 hours of flight time.

And he told the crowd that while the fire was sitting relatively quietly Monday, compared to the big run Saturday night, that they arent out of the woods by any means. It currently sits at 10,147 acres, with about 500 personnel working on it.

The potential for this to run east toward the valley remains high. We will do everything we can to stop it, but the potential remains, he said. Unless this fire decides to park it on a hillside, we will be living with this through August and probably September."

The Red Cross has opened a shelter at the Florence-Carlton Community Church at 20075 Old U.S. Highway 93 for evacuees. People who leave their homes are allowed to return for necessities like medications, but Brian Watson, a public safety liaison with Livingstons team, said he cant guarantee once people leave their homes in the area under evacuation orders that theyll be allowed to return.

Were trying to accommodate people when it is a legitimate reason, but we still need to maintain some control over who gets in and out, Watson said, adding that they want to ensure that no one is breaking into the evacuees homes. In many cases we are escorting people in and out for the security of those we did evacuate.

The Montana Department of Transportation temporarily closed Highway 12, but now is using pilot cars to allow people to travel between Idaho and Montana.
The company proposing a copper mine in the Smith River watershed near White Sulphur Springs has cleared its first regulatory hurdle.

Tintina Resources Inc. received notice from the Montana Department of Environmental Quality Monday, informing it that its application for a permit to mine has met its completeness and compliance review. That triggers an environmental impact statement (EIS) for the Black Butte Copper Project  a year-long review process that includes public comment and likely public hearings.

This has been a long and involved process, and we now can clearly demonstrate that the development and operation of this state-of-the-art project meets and exceeds all state rules and regulations, John Shanahan, Tintina CEO said in a statement.

Tintina first applied in late 2015 and went back and forth with DEQ to address deficiencies in its application.

DEQ communications director Kristi Ponozzo confirmed late Monday the compliance letter, saying the agency planned a more formal announcement Tuesday. DEQ will issue a more complete document early next month, which will then trigger the statutorily mandated 12-months for environmental review.

The EIS is the states burden of analyzing potential environmental consequences of the project, whether the mine can comply with state law or mitigations will be required under a permit.

DEQ is currently in the process of selecting a third party to conduct the EIS, Ponozzo said.

Black Butte has brought often-contentious debate up to this point that will undoubtedly continue.

Proponents of the mine say that if developed responsibly with modern mining techniques, it can bring jobs to White Sulphur and the surrounding area.

Opposition centers mainly on the proposed mines location and concerns about potential pollution and dewatering of a tributary of the Smith, and what that could mean downstream. Opponents have also questioned Tintinas foreign ownership and long-term goals by citing statements to investors about a potential 50-year mining district. Black Butte carries an expected mine life of less than 15 years.

Approval of the completeness review and compliance was not unexpected, said David Brooks, executive director of Montana Trout Unlimited.

The completeness review is a small step in a long process before metals will be dug out near Sheep Creek, the tributary of the Smith, he said.

TU contracted its own review team to examine and make recommendations during DEQs process. Based on that review, Brooks speculated that environmental concerns will bear out during the EIS and show a risk to the river.

Brooks declined to speculate on a legal challenge to DEQ's decision but did say his group is committed to protecting the Smith.

Tintina has maintained that state environmental regulations and its mine design will ensure the project is environmentally friendly.
As members of the American Indian Caucus of the Montana Legislature, we extend our condolences to the family of Heather Heyer, who lost her life protesting hate and bigotry in Charlottesville, Virginia. Our hearts also go out to the families of Lt. H. Jay Cullen and Trooper Berke M.M. Bates of the Virginia State Police, who lost their lives while monitoring the rally. Our thoughts and prayers are with Charlottesville and those across this great country who have been hurt physically and emotionally by the despicable actions exhibited by white nationalists.

White nationalists, neo-Nazis, alt-right, and any other groups that propagate hate, discrimination, violence and bigotry, have no place in our country. These groups dishonor the basic principles of equality on which this nation exists. Advocating hate through violence is terrorism and shouldnt be labeled as anything less. Generations of soldiers and civilians have given their lives fighting for equality. We are grateful to our veterans, our active military members, and those who lost their lives serving and defending our Constitution and country.

Our ancestors fought and our family members still fight for our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Thousands of American Indian soldiers fought for the Union Army to end slavery, and thousands more fought fascism and genocide in World War II. American Indians will continue the fight against those who are misguided enough to perpetuate those beliefs.

Today, we must recognize the fact that the Confederacy and its symbolism has stood for segregation, secession and slavery. The Confederate flag was even used by the Dixiecrats, a segregationist political party of the 1940s. The flag continues to serve as an emblem for racism and racial inequality for domestic terrorist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and other white nationalist organizations.

That is why we call upon the Helena City Commission and all of our statewide officials to step up and remove the Confederate Memorial Fountain from Helena, Montana, our capital city. The fountain was commissioned by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, an organization that openly supported the white supremacist views and mission of the early Ku Klux Klan. This is the only Confederate monument in the northwestern United States.

It is especially troubling that although the commission voted more than two years ago to add a sign explaining the history of the monument and its roots in a racist movement, city staff has not yet been able to complete this task.

We ask that you all recognize the harmful message that this fountain sends to Indians, minorities and all Montanans of this great state. Please take a stand and recognize that this fountain is a divisive symbol in Montana and represents a history that our country and citizens have repeatedly fought against.

Public property in Montana should not be used to promote Nazism, fascism, totalitarianism, separatism or racism. Please send a message that there is no hate in our state by removing this divisive memorabilia from the capital city.
Members of the American Indian Caucus in the Montana Legislature are calling for the city of Helena to remove a Confederate memorial that sits in a city park.

The memorial to Confederate soldiers is a granite fountain in Hill Park. Though statues and memorials that honored controversial figures of the Civil War are being taken down in cities around the country, the Helena city commission is working to install a sign explaining the fountain's history. That sign has not yet been installed.

Over the weekend, three people were killed as white supremacists and neo-Nazis gathered for a "Unite the Right" march in Charlottesville, Virginia. President Donald Trump has come under fire for initially refusing to denounce the hate groups and later only doing so under pressure.

"Today, we must recognize the fact that the Confederacy and its symbolism has stood for segregation, secession, and slavery," reads a letter from state lawmakers Rep. Shane Morigeau, D-Missoula; Rep. Jonathan Windy Boy, D-Rocky Boy; Rep. Bridget Smith, D-Wolf Point; Rep. George Kipp III, D-Heart Butte; Rep. Susan Webber, D-Browning; Rep. Sharon Stewart-Peregoy, D-Crow Agency; Rep. Rae Peppers, D-Lame Deer, and Sen. Jason Small, R-Busby.

"The Confederate flag was even used by the Dixiecrats, a segregationist political party of the 1940s. The flag continues to serve as an emblem for racism and racial inequality for domestic terrorist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, and other white nationalist organizations."

The group is calling on the Helena City Commission and all statewide officials to remove the memorial.

Helena Mayor Jim Smith, who is seeking re-election, said the city commission will likely discuss the future of the fountain at an administrative meeting scheduled for 4 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 16, in room 326 of the City-County Building. There will be an opportunity for public comment, he said.

This is something we want to talk about and we want to hear from people about, Smith said.

Though he has previously said he was opposed to removing or altering the fountain, Smith said he is open to the idea now. He said he wants to discuss the issue with the community and the city commission before making a decision.

Im just deeply troubled by whats going on in the country today, and the fountains a part of it, so well have a discussion about the fountain, he said. But are we headed toward the second American Civil War? Theres larger questions that need to be discussed.

Commissioner Dan Ellison also said hed like to hear from the other commissioners before making a decision, though at least one commission member has already made up his mind.

After Charlottesville the only contemporary context is racial and political hate. Now the Memorial must be removed, Commissioner Ed Noonan said in an email.   I think that leaves it open to being treated as an artifact to be stored for future disposition.

In their letter, members of the American Indian Caucus said white nationalists, neo-Nazis, members of the alt-right and any other groups that propagate hate, discrimination, violence and bigotry have no place in this country.

"These groups dishonor the basic principles of equality on which this nation exists. Advocating hate through violence is terrorism and shouldnt be labeled as anything less. Generations of soldiers and civilians have given their lives fighting for equality. We are grateful to our veterans, our active military members, and those who lost their lives serving and defending our Constitution and country," the letter reads.

"Our ancestors fought and our family members still fight for our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Thousands of American Indian soldiers fought for the Union Army to end slavery, and thousands more fought fascism and genocide in World War II. American Indians will continue the fight against those who are misguided enough to perpetuate those beliefs.

"That is why we call upon the Helena City Commission and all of our statewide officials to step up and remove the Confederate Memorial Fountain from Helena, Montana, our capital city. The fountain was commissioned by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, an organization that openly supported the white supremacist views and mission of the early Ku Klux Klan. This is the only Confederate monument in the northwestern United States."

The letter calls out the commission for voting to add the sign, saying the fountain still has its roots in a racist movement.

"We ask that you all recognize the harmful message that this fountain sends to Indians, minorities, and all Montanans of this great state. Please take a stand and recognize that this fountain is a divisive symbol in Montana and represents a history that our country and citizens have repeatedly fought against. Public property in Montana should not be used to promote Nazism, fascism, totalitarianism, separatism, or racism. Please send a message that there is no hate in our state by removing this divisive memorabilia from the capital city."

The fountain was given to the city in 1916 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The memorial hardly drew a second glance before a 21-year-old man who had previously been photographed with the Confederate flag shot and killed nine people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Carolina in June 2015, which sparked a robust community discussion about what to do with the Confederate symbol in Helena.

Another state lawmaker, Rep. Mary Ann Dunwell, a Democrat from Helena, joined with the caucus to call for the fountain to come down.

"This Confederate fountain needs to go," Dunwell said. "It fans the flames of hatred and represents deep hurtful prejudice  historic preservation must not jeopardize public safety or supersede social justice. I'm saddened by the history our country is making with its racist rhetoric and hateful killings. Let's denounce the hate and lovingly remove the fountain."
Montanas Fly Fishing Industry Needs Action on Climate Change

Even though some politicians in Washington want to keep disagreeing with the science, the effects of climate change in Montana can be seen far and wide. Whether it is the spread of mountain pine beetle infestations, increased frequency of wildfires, or extreme drought, climate change threatens to affect the way of life for many Montanans.

Montana has some of the best fly fishing in the country, with abundant wild trout populations and numerous blue-ribbon trout streams. Montanas fly fishing industry is a huge economic driver, providing thousands of jobs and bringing tens of millions of dollars in consumer spending to the Treasure State each year. But the industry has already seen negative impacts from the greatest threat to cold water fisheries around the West.

Last year, anglers witnessed unprecedented fishing restrictions on our rivers due to low stream flows and warm water temperatures. According to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, 2016 saw a record number of water bodies restricted around the state and some of the earliest closures ever, some beginning as early as late June. In addition to these restrictions, low flows and warm temperatures exacerbated a largescale outbreak of proliferative kidney disease (PKD) in mountain whitefish, resulting in the shutdown of 186 miles of the Yellowstone River to all recreation. The economic impacts from the closure were felt by business owners around the region.

This spring, the above-average snowpack in most of the state gave hope to many anglers that 2017 would be a good water year. However, with scorching heat in the month of July and little to no precipitation, rivers and streams dropped very rapidly, leading to warm water temperatures and subsequent hoot-owl restrictions.

A large-scale interagency study led by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in 2012 looked at changes in stream discharge in five major Western watershed basins. Comparing stream discharge to historical data from 1950-2009, the study found a common trend across basins of greater discharge earlier in the year leading to less discharge later in summer months.

Though the need for fishing restrictions was non-existent decades ago, they are now the new norm in Montana as climate change is having a dramatic impact on snowpack and hydrologic cycles.

The Montana Wildlife Federation (MWF) has been gathering input from Montana hunters and anglers on climate change for several years. Earlier this year, MWF launched a program to hear from outfitters, guides, and other fishing industry professionals. This effort gives guides the opportunity to meet with local biologists to talk about the effects of climate change already seen in their local rivers. The program also features an opportunity for guides to speak on the issue and brainstorm opportunities to take action.

When anglers and business owners work together, a lot more can be done to combat the negative impacts of climate change. If our elected officials are not working in the best interests of the citizens of Montana, including business owners who rely on our rivers, then they must be held accountable.

Climate change is not a partisan issue and anglers, guides, outfitters and other business owners who care for the health of our rivers are showing the courage to look 50 years into the future and step up to the plate to combat climate change. Sportsmen have long been the stewards of conservation of fish and wildlife. With collective action, anglers can keep it that way and help preserve our outdoor traditions for future generations.

-- Alec Underwood is the western field representative for the Montana Wildlife Federation in Helena.
Butte-Silver Bow commissioners approved a $128-million budget Monday that steers more money to roads, helps fund four additional firefighters, and provides small pay raises for all county employees.

The spending plan also raises property taxes, with the bill on a home worth $100,000 increasing $18.56 per year. The increase amounts will be less for houses valued under $100,000 and more for those worth more than that.

If commissioners approve a separate measure next month, water rates will go up 10 percent on Oct. 1 and another 10 percent the next year.

Over a five-year period, property taxes have gone up little. There was a big drop in fiscal year 2014  more than $38 on a house worth $100,000  and even including this year, the tax bill over that time has increased $1.12.

The council approved the plan on a 10-0 voice vote. Commissioners Bill Andersen and Dan Foley were absent.

The biggest reason for the tax hike this time is because county officials did not tap into reserves from Buttes industrial taxing district to prop up spending. That left a big revenue hole, since they got $1.3 million from that kitty last year.

Budget Director Danette Gleason said every fund within the budget was balanced, meaning none spends more than projected revenues.

Chief Executive Dave Palmer got funding for three of five new positions he wanted, failing to win council backing for a new construction superintendent and an accountant for the Parks Division and building manager.

But he said Gleason did a great job crafting the plan and making sure it was balanced, and overall, I think it worked out very well.

Butte-Silver Bow employees get a 1.5-percent pay raise and $30 more toward health insurance. But those in the countys self-funded health plan will see premiums jump significantly once again, this time by 13.5 percent  a $170-per-month increase on average, or $140 counting the $30 offset.

But not everything is going up. There are no increases in sewer rates or fees for storm water, street maintenance, or the landfill.

And even though a proposal to revamp street fees was put on hold, there will be more money for roads  the top funding priority among county residents year after year, based on surveys.

Higher gasoline taxes enacted by Montana lawmakers will generate about $240,000 in new road funding for Butte-Silver Bow this year with a county match of only $12,000. And the county didnt spend all of its own road money last year, meaning some rolls over for this year.

The budget is retroactive to July 1, the start of the countys fiscal year, and runs through June 30, 2018. The property tax increases will be reflected first on November bills, with the second half payable in May.

There are a few other reasons for the tax increases, including new operation and maintenance costs for the waterpark expected to open next May.

A federal grant will pay 75 percent of costs this year for hiring four additional firefighters, with the county match increasing taxes slightly. Fire officials say it will add a firefighter to every shift and enhance public safety.

The budget could spend up to $128 million, but that is from all revenue sources, including federal and state money, bills people pay for their water and sewer services, and private donations.

Projects and their possible spending amounts this year include the waterpark at $6.3 million and Uptown parking garage at $4.5 million. The parking garage is expected to open in December, the waterpark by May 2018.

The plan creates three new county employee positions, but because of budgetary moves or outside funding, they should not cost taxpayers more money. The positions are arborist, taxing-district accountant, and part-time Superfund coordinator.

The budget will increase the allotment given to the YMCA from $40,000 to $42,000 and the contract with Action Inc., a non-profit social services agency, from $152,000 to $172,000.
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MUSCATINE  In 38 years of being a member of the Rotary Club of Muscatine, Mike Ruby has only one regret: he didn't become involved with the club sooner.

Ruby, who has served as Muscatine Rotary Club president for two separate terms, was named Rotary District 6000 District Governor this year. The district includes 66 Rotary Clubs, and about 3,800 members, mostly in southern Iowa.

In the Muscatine club's 97-year history, Ruby is only the second member to be named district governor. Breck Breckenfelder was the first Muscatine Rotary Club member to earn the title in 1990. Watching Breckenfelder work as district governor inspired Ruby to pursue a similar path.

"When he was district governor, I had no clue what the district was or what the district governor did," Ruby said. "But I remember sitting next to him in meetings, and listening to him talk with this deep passion for Rotary. And I listened."

It took Ruby about 20 years before becoming fully involved in the club, and eventually being named president. He has been dedicated to the Rotary's mission ever since. In his time with the club, Ruby has traveled to Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Haiti and elsewhere, for conventions and missionary trips.

Before deciding to pursue this path, Ruby said he spoke with about 10 previous district governors.

"Every one of them, with no exception ... said it was one of the best years of their lives," Ruby said. "And that was a good enough recommendation for me. And they are correct. Jo Anne and I are absolutely having the time of our life."

Ruby spent one year as District Governor Elect before taking over as governor in July. During that year, Ruby and his wife traveled to all 66 Rotary Clubs in the district, to meet the members and understand the "personality of each club."

"It was one of the best decisions we've ever made; it was worth every mile, every minute," he said.

For the next year, Ruby will attend Rotary Club meetings across southern Iowa, head projects and initiatives in the district and be a representative for Rotary International.

While serving as district governor, Ruby wants to grow membership in the Rotary district by 3 percent.

"It's a very aggressive goal because the average Rotary Club will lose about 10 to 12 percent of their members," he said. "So to maintain the status quo and still grow 3 percent is very ambitious."

Ruby also has the goal of encouraging Rotary members to leave 5 percent of their estates to the Rotary Foundation, to help fund charity projects and scholarships. In addition, he is changing how the district holds its annual conference.

Typically, Ruby said, Rotary District 6000 holds its conference in a different city each year. But, Ruby said traveling and attending the conference can be expensive, and sometimes excludes members with families or jobs who cannot take time off. This year, Ruby will hold five events across the district, so that more members can attend.

Ruby expects this year to be a whirlwind of meetings, visits and planning sessions, but he wouldn't have it any other way.

"(Jo Anne) and I couldn't keep up this pace for years, but this year we can and are committed to making a difference," he said. "And Jo Anne has been as much a part of this commitment as I am. We literally work side-by-side."

Mike and Jo Anne Ruby, who were both previously teachers, have been dedicated to charity work, through their church and other organizations, for decades. But this year, Mike Ruby said Rotary Club is their sole mission.

Mike Ruby writes a monthly column for the Muscatine Journal.
State Rep. Todd Prichard said Tuesday he is suspending his campaign for Iowa governor.

He cited fundraising challenges among the reasons.

Prichard, a Charles City Democrat, is one of eight who had said they would seek the party's nomination next year. However, in a Facebook message Tuesday afternoon, he said he would instead run for re-election to his House seat.

"It has been an honor to participate in the Democratic Party's primary for governor over the last few months. I am humbled by the support I have received across the state. However, my responsibilities to my family, the Army, my constituents, as well as my small business must take priority over the many hours a day it takes to raise the sums of money required to run successfully," he said.

Prichard had just returned from a three-week stint overseas while serving in the Army Reserves, and over the weekend he'd appeared with other candidates at the Iowa Democratic Wing Ding, a prominent event in Clear Lake.

In his campaign, Prichard had emphasized his rural roots and his military career and was arguing for a broader economic development plan that would produce more high-paying jobs.

A Davenport native, Prichard is the latest Democrat to exit from the field citing fundraising concerns. Former DNR Director Rich Leopold also cited fundraising concerns in dropping out. Davenport Alderman Mike Matson, who never formally announced a candidacy, also said that raising money was a worry.

Prichard's exit from the race still leaves a large field. Just Monday, Ross Wilburn of Ames, a former mayor of Iowa City, announced that he was jumping into the race.

Also still in the running are Iowa Sen. Nate Boulton, D-Des Moines; former Iowa Democratic Party Chair Andy McGuire; Des Moines businessman Fred Hubbell; John Norris, a former top aide to Tom Harkin and Tom Vilsack; Cathy Glasson, the president of SEIU, Local 199, and former Des Moines School Board Chair Jon Neiderbach.

Glasson has not formally announced her campaign but is expected to do so soon.
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 []
Raila Odinga has refused to concede defeat and has only halfheartedly appealed for calm. This is despite immense local and international pressure, after what most people agree was a credible election.

Some political analysts had predicted well before the election that Raila would try and force a nusu mkate government if he lost the election. It now looks like this is his play. On Sunday, he visited Kibera where he told his supporters not to give up and to take a break from work on Monday. This he said is as they await further instructions today.

As the country holds its breath to see what Raila has in store, we can all be sure that it wont be a concession speech.

Weve been told many times that we should not fight for them to lead, but since Friday, many lives have already been lost. The numbers been released are conflicting, but according to the Kenya Red Cross, at least 17 people have died.

And yet, Raila has not come out strongly to tell them to stop engaging police for their own sake. Im not trying to justify use of live bullets on demonstrators, but most people agree that only Raila Odinga has the power to bring all this to an end.

It is not true that he doesnt control his supporters.. Well, at least not the hooligans looting and burning property. Raila knows a simple word will calm tensions but he has chosen not to make it happen, and actually done the opposite. Case in point Sunday, where his words and those of the ODM MPs can be termed incitement.

Why?

Heres a story about Raila that I read some time back on social media, which I thought applies to the current state of things. It may provide some context. Bear in mind this was written before last weeks election.

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Why do you guys hate Raila? This is a question that has been posed here many times. In fact, one weekend I had promised @Abba that i would write a hekaya, nay, a story from a while ago that killed something in me about the man.

I do not hate the man. He simply does not inspire me and I happen to know something about him that is behind the facade.

In 1993, we had just come from the first multiparty elections. The elections had come through the blood and tears of many of us who braved Saba Saba at Kamukunji and several other demos. We were idealistic young men and women who believed in a better, more just Kenya. We had our heroes in the likes of Matiba and Rubia, Martin Shikuku, Masinde Muliro who passed on before the elections and the young Turks that included koigi, muite, RAO, Kijana wamalwa, Orengo, Imanyara, Kiraitu and many others. They were our generals. I was 28.

The elections in December 1992 found me in Bungoma. We had put in a lot of work to see a number of mps get to parliament on the Ford-Asili and Ford-k ticket, something we considered an achievement considering the kanu juggernaut we had had to fight. In any case, we felt that we were robbed of the ultimate victory through Kanu rigging.

It was therefore with a feeling of betrayal that we received the news of defections of several of the Ford-A MPs from Western in March of 1993. One such MP was Apili Wawire of Lugari who had beaten a former Kanu Secretary General Burundi Nabwera during the 1992 elections.

It followed therefore that in July there was a by-election in Lugari. The entire opposition young turks were there leading us the foot soldiers in a dust and mud campaign that we believed we had won only for the traitor Wawire to be declared winner at dawn in the Mautuma Secondary school hall.

During the campaigns, Alfred Sambu, who had contested the Webuye seat on a DP ticket and lost to Musikari Kombo, had been arm-twisted by the Moi machinery to lead the KANU troops alongside Cyrus Jirongo, the YK92 chairman. He was our chief adversary.

We licked our wounds and repaired to Webuye. While us wakeleketwa went to Park Villa Hotel, the MPs and other leaders went to Musikari Kombos home near the Uganda Highway junction, and about 200 meters from Park Villa.

I had just polished a steak and fries and was drowning my disappointment in a Tusker when Alfred Sambu walked in in the company of three other people. The moment he spotted us he started taunting us with shouts of Jogoo while waving the one finger salute.

In the parking lot of park villa were two battered landrover 109 caravans. In them and under them catching some sleep were Railas goons from Kisumu; the infamous Baghdad Boys. The shouts of Kanu awakened them and they were like a swarm of bees. Soon they were swarming into the restaurant with shouts of erego,erego?(Where is he?). They were armed with truncheons, nyahunyos, a fanbelt and other butu weapons. Sensing danger, Sambu attempted to get out of the restaurant and came face to face with the goons. One of them who was unarmed picked a metal mud scrapper and hit Sambu on the forehead and he fell backwards into the restaurant. As the goons tried to squeeze through the door hotel staff picked Sambu and whisked him into a pantry or the kitchen.

Meanwhile the commander of the gang had with military precision detached some of his combatants and ordered them to go round to seal any exit. It was then that I came out of my stupor and decided to go to a callbox that was at the gate and called Kombos Place. As I made the call, one of the three people with Sambu (who happened to be his outside son who also served as his driver) shot out of one of the doors and clambered over the perimeter wall. The goons ran out of the gate to pursue but one of them confronted me and asked if I was calling the police. He grabbed the phone after I told him I was calling mheshimiwa and he confirmed. That is how I survived to write this story.

I realised talking on the phone wasnt going to save lives and got out and ran very fast to Kombos place. He was telling akina Raila what i had told him and on my arrival they were all eager to hear what I had to say.

I quickly narrated what had transpired but it was RAOs reaction that surprised me. While I had expected him to dispatch one of his minions to go cool down the goons to at least save some lives, Raila just nonchalantly said  Hm, Hm, anatufuata nini? and he went back to his beer. It was the victims fault for being in the wrong place.

That one act, or lack of one, helped me see those who seek power, RAO my hero among them, in a completely new light. These were people devoid of humanity. The ideals of justice and equality they preached in rallies were alien to them. Other acts such as the violent disruption of a ford-kenya delegates meeting in Thika a few years later, the PEV and the MIB saga at Kasarani have not helped repair the negative impression of him I picked at Webuye that sunny afternoon. My faith in him died there

P/S  Sambus son while fleeing misstepped, fell and broke his neck, dying promptlymay he rest in peace.

 By the time the goons were returning to the hotel after the fatal chase police had arrived and they scattered into nearby villages. They were hunted down and at least eight of them were arrested. They went through a grueling murder trial in Bungoma and most of them did not survive remand. by the time I was leaving Bungoma two years later only three were remaining to continue with the trial.

Alfred Sambu is the current Webuye East MP and a former KFF Chairman

Source  Kenya Talk
First there was Githeri Man and now we have a man called Avocado.

Last week, residents of Chemosot ward in Bureti constituency elected the popular local social activist William Soi to be their MCA.

Soi, known for doing odd jobs, beat all odds as an independent candidate to snatch the seat from the incumbent, Philip Koskei(Jubilee), in a Jubilee Party zone.

As an activist, Soi is credited with pressuring the Bureti MP to set aside funds from the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) to buy an acre of land for the construction of Chesingoro Primary School.

Before the elections, he did odd jobs in the village, including being a casual labourer at Litein Tea Factory and a photographer.

Last weeks election was Sois second attempt at winning a political seat. In 2013, he took a gamble and sold half an acre of his land for Sh750, 000, which he used to campaign but lost in the elections.

He also lost in the Jubilee Party primaries but maintains that he was the rightful winner.

I am thankful to Chemosot residents who believed in my leadership qualities. I must also say my win is a miracle from God. It was not lost on the residents that I had won the Jubilee Party primaries but it was unfortunate that I was denied the party ticket, leaving me with no option but to seek election as an independent candidate, Soi told the Standard.

Soi, 45, is a father of twelve; nine boys and three girls. He is popularly known as Avocado because his compound is full of avocado trees.

His nickname after the popular Kenyan staple fruit has caught the attention of internet users who are celebrating him as one of their own.
Perennial presidential election loser Raila Odinga has said that he will not be vying for the presidency in the future.

The Opposition leader, who has now failed four times to become president, also said he was not trying to win power through unconstitutional means.

It is not about me. Its not about Raila Odinga, Im not going to be a candidate again, he said.

We just want Kenyans to know what happened, what the whole world is not understanding is happening, Odinga told the Financial Times.

He added: Theres no point people going to elections in the future, queuing for hours to vote, or running around for months campaigning. At the end of the day its the computer in the national tallying centre thats making the decisions.

Mr Odinga further promised to reveal compelling evidence of IEBCs alleged rigging aimed at favoring Uhuru Kenyatta.

We will show the kind of charade the whole world has been treated to, he told the Financial Times in an interview at his Nairobi home.

Additional Reporting by Financial Times
Following Kideros loss in last weeks General Election, Sonkos job moving forward should be relatively easy. Kidero was without a doubt the least performing governor in the whole country and Nairobians must be expecting progress under the Sonko-Igathe leadership.

The Nairobi governor elect is wasting no time and has set the ball rolling in what will be a crucial five years as the Capital City boss.

Even before the swearing in ceremony, Sonko has done more work than Kidero ever did in five years.

Sonkos first major headline making move is the Magufulisque rejection of the Sh 25 Million set aside for his inauguration ceremony.

Sonko has, instead, directed that the money, allocated by the Assumption of Office Committee, be used to offset the one-month arrears owed to county employees.

We had a fruitful meeting with Kenya County Government Workers Union (KCGWU) and agreed workers must be paid before I assume office, said Mr Sonko.

Of the Sh 25 Million, Sh2.4 million had been set aside for fuel of VIP cars, security Sh6.3 million, works Sh2.7million, swearingin ceremony Sh11.1 million, public health Sh384,900 and briefing and documentation Sh2 million.

The former Senator said he will also contract more than 1,000 youths, including members of the Sonko Rescue Team, to remove posters of candidates of the just-concluded elections and other litter.

Another note-worthy move by Sonko is his pledge to contain the rampant unscrupulous tenderpreneurs within City Hall.

In a statement released yesterday, Sonko said he had noted some individuals purporting to be my staff are soliciting bribes from contractors and suppliers to influence speedy processing of their pending payments.

To contain the situation, Sonko said once he is sworn in, he will put in place an elaborate process to ensure tenders are awarded transparently.



Early signs are looking good for Nairobians.
It appears Ababu Namwambas wife, Priscah Mwaro, is mustering the strength to cope with her husbands loss in last weeks General Election.

The former ODM secretary-general was defeated by former MP Raphael Wanjala in one of the biggest political casualties of this years polls.

Wanjala regained the Budalangi seat on an ODM ticket, the party Ababu decamped after his daring public fall out with party leader Raila Odinga.

While Ababu might have anticipated a loss as he made the courageous decision to back Uhuru under Labour Party of Kenya, the loss must have dealt a huge blow on his pride and political career.

Luckily for Ababu, his lovely wife Priscah is staying strong for her husband.

In addition to publicly pledging her support on social media, Priscah has been toning up her muscles.

The mother of three took to social media to share pictures of herself as she worked out a sweat at a makeshift gym in Busia.

However, the unconventional bush gym, complete with homemade weights, did not go unnoticed from the prying eyes of social media critics who always have a thing to say about everything thats none of their business.

Some reactions:
The Nairobi Securities Exchange index has risen nearly seven per cent to a 14-month high as investors welcomed President Uhurus reelection.

The NSE-20 index rose 2.51 per cent on Monday after calm returned to several parts of the country following protests against the outcome of the General Election.

The market was also throughout last week negatively affected by the political uncertainty facing the country.

Aly Khan Satchu, an independent trader, and analyst in Nairobi said the market worried that Raila, who identifies himself as a social democrat, would have changed the economys course.

The markets were concerned around a leftist Magufuli-like tilt which would have eroded Kenyas hard won free market credentials. So part of this rally is a relief rally, he told Reuters.

On Monday, the Kenyan shilling firmed to touch an intra-day high of 103.65 per dollar, from 104 before the election, while Kenyan dollar bonds have also rallied after the election.

Ken Minjire, the head of securities at Genghis Capital, said investors had been encouraged by endorsements of the election by various foreign observer groups.

The international investors are more or less confident, he said.

The Business Daily reports that NSE recorded an improved 1,161 deals on Friday, up from 843 on Thursday. Investors traded a total of 48 million shares, compared to the previous days 8.35 million.

Turnover at the bourse stood at Sh1.41 billion by close of trading on Friday, a large increase from Sh207.2 million on Thursday, and Sh166.6 million on Wednesday.

This means there is a tonne of liquidity that is set to enter the market and underpin valuations, Satchu added.
These days, were all marketers. The opportunities to position yourself as an industry expert and increase your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) value are unlimited.

However, with those opportunities come the relentless pressure to consistently craft brilliant blog posts, social media posts and snappy newsletters to remind your clients that youre still out there.

Trying to make it all work on top of your other responsibilities can be overwhelming.

Lets make this easy for you: it starts with a blog

Content marketing doesnt have to be overwhelming. It starts with a blog  make this the workhorse of your content marketing program.

Your blog accomplishes two objectives:

It provides fresh content for your website, helping it rank in search engines, increasing your SEO value.

Youre sharing your expertise, positioning yourself as a thought leader.

Your weekly blog drives your content marketing program

Post your blog to social media with a link back to your website to drive traffic.

Extract excerpts and post to social media sites along with images to keep them lively.

Repurpose your blogposts to your newsletter and post to Linkedin and Blogger to reach new audiences.

Having trouble blogging?

Blogging is a commitment, and many people are defeated before they begin.

But you may be trying too hard.

Youre not trying to do something really difficult like get a bill through Congress or bring peace to the Middle East.

Talk about something you know  tell a story that positions you as a problem-solver.

Be funny and use humor as a tool. Everyone loves to laugh.

Showcase a client, an employee, a colleague, a community event or something you learned at a webinar or workshop.

Subscribe to industry publications and scan these for topics. Take someone elses ideas and expand upon them or disagree and explain why.

Stay on top of industry news and discuss emerging ideas. Share your opinions.

For additional inspiration: Use amalgamator sites like SlideShare or Buzzsumo; key in your industry and pull up presentations and article.

Identify a time every week to write and post your blog and own it.

Do create a voice and tone and brand yourself with your writing. Dont be afraid of your opinions. Those who love you will love you even more. Those who dont, well . . .

A blog should have substance, at least 300 words to rank well in search engines.

It should be informative  not a promotion, but something that will help people do their jobs.

Subject lines are, well, everything. You need to be clever to attract the attention of your audience. Be mindful of character limits  with mobile devices these days, stay within 50 characters.

Make blogging part of your life. Think up blog topics when youre exercising, stuck in traffic, during commercials.

The benefits? Content marketing works

The key is consistent delivery of quality content.

It doesnt happen overnight, but people begin seeing your name, reading your articles, then looking forward to reading them.

When they need your services or know somebody who does, they will contact you.
An obscure Napa County position may soon play a bigger role in the sometimes-contentious wine country growth world.

All new winery applications presently go before the Planning Commission. The county is exploring a faster track for proposed wineries that would produce 30,000 gallons or less annually and meet other small winery criteria. They would go to the Zoning Administrator.

Would the county simply be cutting a little red tape for the routine or giving some possibly controversial wine country growth issues a lower profile? And who is the Zoning Administrator anyway?

Meet the Zoning Administrator. Hes county Planning, Building and Environmental Services Director David Morrison or whichever staff member he designates.

The Zoning Administrator typically takes on minor permit applications, such as turning a garage into a second dwelling unit. Last Thursday, Morrison put on his zoning administrator hat  figuratively, not literally  and tackled two issues at a low-key public meeting.

Dakato Shy winery asked to add two water tanks. Todd Newman of the winery and Paul Bartelt of Napas Bartelt Engineering attended.

Applicants and planning staff gathered around a Planning Department conference room table, the site plans spread out before them. Planner Suzie Gardner-Gambill explained the project to Morrison.

Unlike a Planning Commission meeting, there was no Pledge of Allegiance, no dais, no gavel, no video filming. No member of the public attended  other than a Napa Valley Register reporterthough Morrison welcomed public comments.

Also, to let you know, Mr. Director Bartelt said at one point.

Davids fine, Morrison replied.

Morrison asked various questions and approved the item. Like Planning Commission decisions, zoning administrator decisions can be appealed to the Board of Supervisors.

After the meeting, Bartelt said keeping this routine Dakota Shy item off the busy Planning Commission docket probably saved his client two to three months of time.

This is a lot less formal, he said.

Newman went before the Planning Commission in January 2016 for approval of a 14,000-gallon-a-year Dakota Shy winery. What does he think of the fast-track idea that might send such proposals to the Zoning Administrator instead?

He wished such a small winery law had been in place in 2016, since he said he believes Dakato Shy would have qualified. He might have saved time on the project.

Whether the Zoning Administrator route might save more than a few months time is the question. Morrison said as much as 75 percent of the time the county spends processing a winery request can involve getting a complete application from the applicant.

Meanwhile, Morrison in the conference room had another item to tackle. He had to decide if a proposed 6,444-square-foot home with 1,450-square-foot garage, 2,670-square-foot barn, 1,200-square foot second dwelling and 6,025-square-foot barn on Polson Road in Jameson Canyon met county view protection standards.

Neither the applicant nor the public attended. Morrison asked questions of staff and approved the item.

At least one Zoning Administrator meeting was more formal than Thursdays. A June 2015 hearing on whether Blakeley Construction could remain at its home of a half-century near Calistoga  it didnt comply with the agricultural-watershed zoningdrew about 80 people.

The hearing was to be held in a Planning Department conference room, but the crowd spilled out into other offices. That prompted planners to move the meeting to a large room in the county library a block away.

Gone was the idea of a few people talking around a table. Instead, the large number of public commentators had to step up to a microphone, the same as at a Planning Commission meeting.

Resident Kathy Felch last month expressed concern about having a Zoning Administrator hearing for certain small winery proposals rather than having a Planning Commission hearing.

Its not as visible, Felch said. We should be moving in the direction of encouraging participating in government, rather than discouraging it.

No mention of Thursdays Zoning Administrator hearing appeared on the countys website, not even on the county calendar. The county posted a notice on the bulletin board outside the county administration building and in the Napa Valley Register classified ad section a few weeks prior.

In contrast, neighboring Solano County posts Zoning Administrator agendas, minutes and staff reports on its website.

But Morrison said Zoning Administrator hearings notices are coming to the Napa County website.

Those changes are in the works and will happen regardless of what happens with the limited winery ordinance, Morrison said.

The 2008 county General Plan called for the county to explore a streamlined approval process for small wineries. The Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors more recently decided to follow through on this idea.

Among the criteria for a proposed winery to qualify for the faster track before the Zoning Administrator:

- The winery could produce no more than 30,000 gallons of wine annually.

- At least 85 percent of the wine must be made from vineyards owned or leased by the winery and within the same American Viticultural Area, where applicable.

- Total building and cave area cannot exceed 12,000 square feet.

- No more than 20 round-trips daily and five peak-hour trips daily can be generated by the winery, with the exception of marketing events.

- No more than 10 marketing events can be held annually, with no more than 30 people attending each event. The exception is one event can be a charitable event with up to 100 people attending.

- The winery must be located at least 1,000 feet from a city or town.

Morrison said hes received various comments on the proposed small winery law. Some people dont want any more wineries, period. Others think 30,000 gallons is too large an amount for this streamlined process.

Go to www.countyofnapa.org/PBES/CurrentProjects to see a copy of the proposed limited winery ordinance. Morrison is accepting comments on the proposal at david.morrison@countyofnapa.org through 4 p.m. Sept. 18 prior to settling on a version for public hearings.
Napa County Public Health Officer Dr. Karen Relucio reminds parents to ensure their childrens vaccinations required for school are up to date.

As summer comes to an end, we want to remind parents to get their children any necessary vaccines, so they dont miss out on the first days of school, said Dr. Relucio. Talk to your healthcare provider to verify their vaccines are up to date and ensure you have proper documentation.

Vaccinations include those that protect against chicken pox; mumps, measles, and rubella; polio; tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis (also known as whooping cough).

Parents of children without health insurance, with MediCal, or are Native American or Alaskan Native can call the Napa County Public Health Immunization Clinic at 707-253-4270 to make an appointment for vaccinations.

California law requires students to be vaccinated to attend school. Students with a medical exemption written by their doctor may attend school without vaccinations. Students with personal or religious exemptions are no longer accepted.

Students who are not vaccinated, and who do not have a medical exemption, will not be allowed to attend school. Parents must make alternate school plans if their child does not have a medical exemption against vaccination, and they do not want their child to be vaccinated.
PETALUMA -- An animal activist was arrested early Monday morning on property owned by a poultry producer in Petaluma, according to police.

Jonathan Frohnmayer, a Stanford graduate and attorney was arrested on suspicion of trespassing at about 12:30 a.m. at Petaluma Poultry at 2700 Lakeville Highway.

Frohnmayer was allegedly on private property owned by Petaluma Poultry. He was allegedly sitting in front of a truck delivering chickens to the business and refused to move.

Officials with the activist group Direct Action Everywhere said Frohnmayer sat down to save the birds from slaughter.

Direct Action Everywhere officials said that a partner group called Bay Area Animal Save organized the event.

Police said they went to Petaluma Poultry because someone called to say that demonstrators were allegedly sitting and standing in the road blocking a vehicle from entering the business.

Police said that when they arrived they found 20 people allegedly surrounding a big-rig and one person was sitting on a private driveway.

According to police, the demonstrators allegedly would not let the truck move and were creating a traffic hazard for themselves, the truck driver and other motorists.

Officers ordered the protesters to move. They initially stayed where they were, but they all eventually moved except for Frohnmayer.

Security then asked police to arrest Frohnmayer because he was allegedly on private property.

Police said Frohnmayer was arrested without incident.

Frohnmayer said police were professional and very kind during the arrest.

He said, "I think that humanity's treatment toward animals is the number one thing that we should change."

"We care about everyone but we're here to represent the animals perspective because if we don't no one else will," Frohnmayer added.

Before his arrest, the truck driver allegedly drove into the activists, according to protest organizers.

"The truck pushed right into us," activist Rachel Ziegel said in a statement. "The security guards said they were going to run us over."

At that time, activists said they were holding signs that said, "No hate for truckers. Just love for animals."

Frohnmayer said no one was injured but the truck allegedly came in contact with some demonstrators.

The activists allege the chickens on the truck were denied protections under the 28 Hour Law, which keeps animals from being transported for more than 28 hours without being unloaded and given food, rest and water.

According to the activists, police should have pressed charges against Petaluma Poultry.

A spokesman for Petaluma Poultry said it's unlikely that the company broke the 28 Hour Law because many of the chickens come from the area near to the plant and called the protesters' allegations "disingenuous."

"All chickens are locally sourced on family farms," spokesman Brian Sobel said. "In the most extreme cases, they are held in transit for no more than four or five hours, and that's in the most extreme case," he said.

The spokesman said company officials are concerned that someone will get hurt if demonstrations continue. Activists, however, said they are planning more protests later this week to demand that the plant close.

Frohnmayer has since been released from jail.
An Alameda County sheriff's spokesman apologized Tuesday morning for what he said was an accidental retweet Monday night of a video posted by white nationalist Richard Spencer.

The video was of a media briefing held by Spencer, a prominent white nationalist, following the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that turned deadly when a man drove a car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing a woman and injuring nearly two dozen other people.

Alameda County sheriff's Sgt. Ray Kelly said he was doing research on Spencer because he's a "focal point" of a right-wing rally planned in Berkeley on Aug. 27 that organizers have titled "No to Marxism in America."

Kelly said when he was trying to close the video, he "hit a bunch of buttons at the bottom, and one must have been the retweet button."

The tweet remained shared on the Twitter profile of the sheriff's office for an extended period of time, prompting inquiries from journalists and other Twitter users.

"I'm not very savvy with Twitter," Kelly said. "I had to call our IT person to take it down, that's why it took a bit of time."

"It was a mistake, I deserve it on this one," he said, but emphasized "it was an accident, and there was no ill will or bad intention."

The Aug. 27 Berkeley event is planned for 1 p.m. in Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park and is already prompting plans for a counter-protest.

Multiple similar events organized by white nationalists took place in Berkeley earlier this year, most recently in late April following the cancellation of a planned speech by conservative commentator Ann Coulter at University of California at Berkeley.

A day before the Berkeley event planned for later this month, a right-wing group titled Patriot Prayer is organizing an Aug. 26 rally at Crissy Field in San Francisco.

Counter-protests are also expected at that event, and National Park Service officials have said they are working with U.S. Park Police and San Francisco police and firefighters to develop security plans.
A 69-year-old woman from San Rafael was rescued by a helicopter after crashing her bicycle near Santa Rosa on Saturday, according to the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office.

The crash was reported around 11:30 a.m. in Trione-Annadel State Park, just east of Santa Rosa.

Henry-1, the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office helicopter, flew to the area and helped a medical team find the victim. They determined that a hip injury and a cut were preventing her from walking out under her own power.

The helicopter crew conducted a long-line rescue using a basket at the end of a rope and dropped her off at an ambulance waiting on Channel Drive.

The victim was transported to a hospital after that. Further information about her condition was not immediately available.
SAN FRANCISCO -- In the wake of the weekend's violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, San Francisco officials are preparing for a planned right-wing rally and possible counter protest at Crissy Field later this month.

The right-wing, pro-Trump group Patriot Prayer has been granted a permit for a rally on Saturday, Aug. 26 from 2 to 5 p.m., according to National Park Service spokeswoman Sonja Hanson.

"By law we have to grant First Amendment permits," Hanson said.

The pro-Trump group Patriot Prayer, which has been described as an "alt-right" group by hate group watchdog the Southern Poverty Law Center, has dubbed its event "Free Speech, Unity and Peace San Francisco."

The group, organized by Joey Gibson, also held an event in Seattle on Sunday, only a day after a rally by white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia ended with a man allegedly driving a car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one woman and sending dozens of others to the hospital.

Gibson has disavowed that attack in public statements.

Counter-protests are expected at the event, and Hanson said National Park Service Officials and U.S. Park police are working with city police and fire officials to develop plans to maintain security.

"The park enforces a peaceful and safe First Amendment event, so if that changes it will be canceled and everyone turned away," Hanson said.

San Francisco police said security plans for the event are "still in the planning stages," but confirmed they would be taking the recent events in Charlottesville into account.

"We always have to look at these things, whether they be local or national or foreign," Officer Robert Rueca said.

A separate right-wing event, titled "No to Marxism in America," is also planned to take place in Berkeley's Martin Luther King, Jr. Civic Center Park on Sunday Aug. 27 from 1 to 5 p.m. That event's host is listed as Amber Cummings.

A counter-protest for that event, "Bay Area Rally Against Hate," is scheduled to take place at University of California at Berkeley from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 a.m.
At the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, this past weekend, marchers carried Confederate and Nazi flags side by side, protesting plans to remove Confederate statues from the city's Emancipation Park. That would have surprised Southerners not that long ago. While both the Confederacy and Nazi Germany waged wars to defend white supremacy, those two symbols were mostly kept apart for decades after World War II. How those two symbols of white supremacy have come to overlap tells us a great deal about how white racist extremism developed - and where it might go.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Southern whites who supported Jim Crow racism fervently opposed the Nazi regime. Some Nazi leaders were intrigued by Southern racial politics. On the eve of Operation Barbarossa, a major German offensive against the Soviet Union, Joseph Goebbels apparently passed the time by watching the German release of "Gone with the Wind."

But for the most part, Southern whites did not reciprocate this interest. Southern Democrats in Congress were the quickest to support military action in Europe. As early as 1939, public opinion polls found that support for the Allies - including the possibility of U.S. military action - was strongest among Southern respondents. Southern newspapers, too, opposed the Nazis and rejected comparisons between the German regime and their own region's racial politics.

That might not seem to make sense, given the white South's deeply illiberal racial attitudes. Even by 1944, for example, just 20 percent of Southern whites agreed that "Negro blood [was] the same as white blood." Southern members of Congress who supported intervention were often the same ones who limited liberalism during the New Deal, ensuring that social programs let states and localities discriminate against black southerners.

Why did Southern whites oppose Nazi Germany?

There are several reasons. Nearly all white Southerners could trace their heritage to the United Kingdom, and evangelical Protestantism has long been an important component of Southern culture. Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that Southern whites were not particularly drawn to a regime that was anti-British and anti-religion. Once the United States entered the war after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the calculus of Southern whites was likely even simpler: They were fighting to defend their country and their way of life from an alliance of foreign enemies that included Nazi Germany.

Although Southern newspapers sometimes compared Nazi atrocities to the Ku Klux Klan, the Southern KKK itself was generally not pro-Nazi - at least not then. After the war, the Army sent Congress a list of 1,000 Nazi Party members living in the United States. Only about 2 percent lived in the Southern states.

Over time, Nazi symbolism became joined to the symbols of American white supremacy

The 1970s saw a "Nazification of the KKK," as David Duke and others "fused Klan iconography with Nazi racialism," as scholar John Drabble has written. The Klan and the American Nazi Party began to collaborate. That drew national attention when members of both groups joined up in 1979 to attack a Communist Workers' Party rally in Greensboro, N.C. Five people were killed and at least a dozen wounded, but the perpetrators were acquitted at trial.

By the end of the 1970s, these new Nazi-KKK hybrid groups became more popular than traditional Klan organizations, marking an important shift in both the symbolism and tactics of white supremacist groups. Confederate and Nazi flags held side by side - which would have been nearly unthinkable in the 1930s and 1940s - became (and remain) commonplace on the racist right.

What does the Nazification of Confederate monuments mean for American politics today?

Many white Americans still view Confederate symbolism as standing for "heritage" rather than "hate." That's not true for Nazi symbols. While some whites might like the explicitly racist appeals made at the Unite the Right rally, the growing popular linkage between Nazi and Confederate symbols might backfire - and lead at least some observers to reevaluate what the Confederacy and what its monuments actually mean.
After two days, blistering criticism from his own party and tougher anti-white-nationalist statements from the company that makes Tiki torches and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Donald Trump dragged himself to the podium for a statement that specifically condemned white nationalists, neo-Nazis and other racists. He had to begin with some self-congratulations on the economy - because his accomplishments are what he really cares about. He told the country, "To anyone who acted criminally in this weekend's racist violence, you will be held fully accountable. Justice will be delivered." He finally spit it out by calling racism "evil" and condemning the "KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups."

He read from a teleprompter. Speaking from his heart would have been impossible, given his obvious lack of passion and willful blindness over the past couple of days. He did not mention the "alt-right," nor did he announce he is firing Stephen K. Bannon, who once bragged he gave the alt-right a platform at Breitbart. He did not announce any specific policy measures. He did not apologize for his moral obtuseness. This was the weakest statement he could have gotten away with, 48 hours too late. Why did it have to come to this?

The white nationalists in Charlottesville did not hide their intentions. They were there to revel in the Trump presidency, which explicitly told them it was time to "take their country back." Former KKK grand wizard David Duke left no confusion as to his followers' admiration for the president:

"This represents a turning point for the people of this country. We are determined to take our country back. We're going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. That's what we believed in, that's why we voted for Donald Trump, because he said he's going to take our country back, and that's what we've got to do."

His invocation of the president's name and campaign rhetoric makes the president's equivocation all the more appalling - and revealing. Whereas any normal president or politician would renounce support from neo-Nazis and white nationalists, Trump - until forced to do so - would not criticize them, let alone refuse to accept their support. (Contrast that to 1996 GOP presidential nominee Bob Dole's remarks at his convention: "The Republican Party is broad and inclusive. It represents - The Republican Party is broad and inclusive. It represents many streams of opinion and many points of view. But if there's anyone who has mistakenly attached themselves to our party in the belief that we are not open to citizens of every race and religion, then let me remind you, tonight this hall belongs to the Party of Lincoln. And the exits which are clearly marked are for you to walk out of as I stand this ground without compromise.")

Not to have rejected immediately the support or to tell the neo-Nazis they misunderstood his message shocks even the most jaded Trump critics and puts President Trump in a category of one - American politicians who gladly accept support from white nationalists, neo-Nazis and the alt-right (white nationalists with intellectual pretensions).

One might conclude from Trump's foot-dragging and obsession with stoking racial tensions (e.g. his vote fraud commission, his crusade against legal and illegal immigrants, etc.) that, despite his apologists' protestations, his campaign message was aimed at white resentment. Trump continues to tell those who want to "take back their country" that "their" country is being overrun by foreigners, non-Christians, non-whites. The majority of his followers had a more benign, non-racial interpretation (take the country back from liberals, elites, urbanites, etc.), but it surely hit home and brought out from the shadows Duke and his ilk.

Indeed, Trump's constant demonization of cities as bastions of illegal immigrants, crime and blight was never aimed at minority audiences. It was a portrait that played to the worst racial and ethnic stereotypes of rural whites who are left behind in the post-industrial economy as Silicon Valley, the Acela Corridor and the Pacific Coast produce more and more of the wealth. As Will Wilkerson wrote:

He persists in his efforts to slur cities as radioactive war zones because the fact that America's diverse big cities are thriving relative to the whiter, less populous parts of the country suggests that the liberal experiment works - that people of diverse origins and faiths prosper together in free and open societies. To advance his administration's agenda, with its protectionism and cultural nationalism, Trump needs to spread the notion that the polyglot metropolis is a dangerous failure.

Trump's dance with the racists is therefore inseparable from his agenda. A nativist, populist president without the support of the most extreme defenders of Christian white America would be an impossibility.

There is anotherr more mundane explanation for Trump's grudging, belated statement and refusal even now to reject support from white nationalists - just as he refuses to speak a critical word about Vladimir Putin. This is classic narcissistic behavior. The sole determination of whether Trump likes someone (Saudi royalty, thuggish leaders, etc.) is whether they praise him. It's always and only about him. He has been far more antagonistic toward Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and his own attorney general (or even Ken Frazier of Merck, who resigned from Trump's manufacturing council) than he has been toward white nationalists because the former were disloyal in his mind, the only unforgivable sin in the Trump White House. And as a bonus, of course, anytime the media, liberal elites, policy experts and political insiders express outrage over his choice of soulmates, Trump is happy.

In sum, Trump's ideology and political platform necessitate at the very least a truce (if not overt alliance) with white nationalists. Only when his presidential authority seems at risk will he relent to read someone else's words. But let's remember from this that he is also a patsy for those who either sincerely or manipulatively sing his praises and whose support horrifies his opponents. No wonder Putin wanted him to win - Trump is the perfect patsy for anyone seeking to undo the West's liberal (small "l"), democratic (small "d") tradition. And come to think of it, Trump has now condemned even the KKK but never openly criticized Putin.
Paul Moser got it right in his recent article describing Donald Trump's presidency as a Greek tragedy -- with jokes (Aug. 10). Indeed, the whole thing is a tragedy but it is becoming less funny anymore.

In reference to the latest North Korean standoff, I'd call it an old-fashioned game of nuclear chicken rather than a Greek tragedy. What we have is two juveniles - Trump and Kim Jong Un - racing toward each other in swooped-up '56 Chevys with nuclear warheads strapped to the front bumpers daring each other to "chicken-out" at the last second and pull to the side of the road.

If one driver "chickens-out," the most that can happen is a rearrangement of the pecking order. If both drivers "chicken-out," everybody wins and life goes on until the next bully gets elected. If neither driver "chickens-out," we're all toast.

Why can't these two juveniles put their toys away, grow up and start working together to solve some of the real problems we all face, like poverty, unemployment, climate change and affordable health care for all? Wishful thinking? Maybe, but it's better than destroying two perfectly classic '56 Chevys.

Mike Wallace

Napa
The 2016 California Voter Choice Act is bringing important voting changes to Napa County next June 5, including every voter receiving a ballot by mail and new drop box locations throughout the county for returning a vote by mail ballot.

The countys Election Division needs the publics help in making sure that these changes improve accessibility for all voters.

The Election Division is seeking input on a draft Napa County Election Administration Plan (EAP), which will guide its outreach efforts. Two public meetings will be held: one for voters with disabilities and one for voters from language minority communities and the groups that support them.

The public meeting for voters with disabilities will be held at 7 p.m., Monday, Aug. 21 at the American Canyon Library, 300 Crawford Way.

The meeting for those language minority voters is 6 p.m., Tuesday, Aug. 22 in the second-floor conference room at the Calistoga Spa, 1006 Washington St.

The draft EAP is available at this link: countyofnapa.org/ElectionDivision/

For more information, contact Registrar of Voters John Tuteur at john.tuteur@countyofnapa.org or call 707-253-4459.
(Natural News) For decades, those on the extreme left have been vocal advocates of imposing more regulations on the Second Amendment so as to decrease both the number of guns on the streets as well as the national crime rate, a relationship that has been largely debunked time and time again. Its ironic, however, that now that President Trump is in office, more and more left wing extremist organizations are starting to rise up, wielding firearms and openly calling for a violent revolution. It would appear that they oppose the idea of decent, law-abiding Americans owning firearms for personal self-defense, but when it comes to imposing their radical totalitarian agenda, these groups are all for it.

One of these groups is Red Guards Austin, a left wing terrorist organization hell-bent on introducing communism into the United States. On their website, Red Guards Austin describes themselves as an autonomous Marxist-Leninist-Maoist collective based in Austin, Texas. In a section labeled Why We Are Boycotting the Elections, they explain how the capitalist-imperialist system is one where the ruling class holds all the power, and because of that fact, the only democracy that exists is ruling-class democracy.

Later, Red Guards Austin explains why they dont run candidates in elections: Real change, the type this country desperately needs, does not and cannot come from the ballot box. The end of capitalism is what is required, and that requires millions of active participants. (Related: Americas universities are becoming training camps for left wing extremism.)

As extreme as they are, there is one thing that Red Guards Austin got right  this country does need change. However, the type of change that we should be working towards has nothing to do with the centralization of power or the establishment of a communist state; rather, it has to do with decreasing the size of the federal government and returning the United States back to its constitutional roots.

Furthermore, being an advocate for communism because you oppose an oppressive capitalist-imperialist system doesnt even make any sense. The truth is, a communist state would be more oppressive and more despotic than any capitalist or wealthy CEO could ever be.

If you were truly looking to end oppression and give everyone an equal playing field, then you would embrace capitalism, not reject it. As much as the radical left will tell you otherwise, there is no fairer economic system than the free market, which is based on individual liberty and property rights. Unlike socialism and communism, capitalism does not see demographics. How much you earn is not based on your gender, your race, your religion or your sexual orientation; rather, it is based solely on innovation, creativity, and the drive to become successful.

Sadly, Red Guards Austin isnt the only radical left wing group that is arming up in opposition to President Trump. Redneck Revolt is an organization that describes itself as an above ground militant formation founded in June of last year. Claiming that they have over 30 vetted branches across the country, Redneck Revolt supports the idea of militant resistance to white supremacy and capitalism, much like Red Guards Austins opposition to what they consider to be a ruling class democracy. In a 36 page handbook published on their website, Redneck Revolt includes specific sections on guerilla warfare, including sabotage, kidnapping, executions, armed propaganda, and terrorism. (Related: Liberals turn to hate as they unleash violent beatings on Trump supporters.)

Youll notice that the progressives in the media and in Washington DC are very reluctant to call out groups like Red Guards Austin and Redneck Revolt, even though they are openly calling for an armed revolution. If the left wanted to maintain even a shred of integrity, then they would immediately condemn these violent organizations and distance themselves as much as they possibly can. Otherwise, all of their credibility (which wasnt much to begin with) will be tossed out the window.

Sources include:

FarLeftWatch.com

RedGaurdsAustin.Wordpress.com
(Natural News) With the United States and North Korea inching toward war, millions of Americans are inundating prepper supply stores with orders even to the point where several of them are having difficulty keeping up with demand. And frankly, for those who are just now getting into prepper mode, its possible youre too late.

As reported by CBS Detroit, a local shop manager, Ben Orr of Army Supply, said hes been selling a ton of prepper items over the past week.

Weve been very busy. Unusually busy, Id say, Orr told the local affiliate WWJ. Its definitely an increase, just in selling all the normal prepper stuff, end of the world stuff. A lot of water prep stuff, food, MREs  the military meals. (Related: Click here for The Health Rangers science-based preparedness guide for surviving nuclear fallout.)

In addition, because much of what is causing the friction between Pyongyang and Washington has to do with the formers nuclear weapons program, Orr said sales of radiation antidote potassium iodide products have been especially heavy.

It actually stops your thyroid from absorbing any radiation. So, it fills your thyroid with iodine, which it normally does anyways, said Orr. Your body cant tell the difference between bad, radioactive iodine and acceptable iodine, so it actually will stop you from getting thyroid cancer.

He added: Its supposed to work. Its FDA approved. But they also recommend you dont take it unless the government says to take it. Unless people are scared of something, we dont really ever sell it. [Natural News founder/editor Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, and inventor of Cesium Eliminator says iodine does not block radioactive cesium  check out the website here.]

Gas masks are also flying out the door, Orr said, though many are outdated and there is no guarantee with them.

As reported by SHTFPlan, Ed Thomas, a spokesman for TopTierGearUSA.com, a company that distributes functional gear to protect against nuclear, chemical and biological emergencies, says the company has experienced a 1,200 percent increase in orders the past week.

Were barely keeping up with the inflow of orders and our staff is working double shifts just to get everything shipped, he said. People are concerned with North Korea, World War III, and what President Trump might do. Ive never seen it at these levels.

And then he said this, which is vitally important to our discussion here: Our biggest concern is that our manufacturers wont be able to keep up with demand.

Exactly. Because the manufacturing and supply chain is not equipped or set up to handle this kind of demand, which always happens at the time things seem to be getting worse.

As reported by the Sacramento Bee Ron Hubbard, president of Atlas Survival Shelters in Los Angeles, noted similar demand:

Its crazy, Ive never seen anything like it. Its all over the country. I sold shelters today in North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Oregon, Washington, Arizona California.

Eventually, too, he wont be able to keep up with demand if it continues like this, which its sure to do for at least the near-term, as Trump does not appear ready to back down from a tinpot dictator lunatic, lest the U.S. seem weak.

Whats more, as SHTFPlan noted, as demand continues to spike and supplies dwindle, prices for what remains or what can be had will spike, meaning people will pay many times more for the same items this week they could have  and should have  bought much cheaper just a month ago

Threat conditions change constantly, be they overseas or domestic. Whether its a crazy little dictator threatening to launch nuclear missiles or Left-wing hate groups like Antifa threatening to disrupt the civil society with mass protests and violence, the concept of prepping means you prepare for these contingencies before they happen. That requires planning, forethought, anticipation, and commitment.

For those who are using current events as their impetus to just now begin prepping, they are behind the curve. They are throwing their money away. Prepping is proactive, not reactive.

If we are fortunate enough for things calm down overseas, these newbies should use current events as a learning opportunity and commit fully to the prepper lifestyle. Because the next crisis is likely already brewing.

J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.

Sources include:

SHTFPlan.com

SacBee.com

Detroit.CBSLocal.com

Bugout.news
(Natural News) Imagine if there was a natural remedy everybody was using to treat cancer, but then the FDA and CDC found out it actually caused more cancers to develop in the body, and scientific studies proved it. How fast would the FDA and CDC come in, shut it all down and make the treatment illegal? The news would be plastered all over mass media and everyone would know. There would be lawsuits for millions, if not billions of dollars, levied against the creators of the treatment. We would never hear the end of it. Consider, on top of that horror story, if thousands of doctors actually knew that the treatment method was a fraud, but kept using it on their cancer patients anyway because of the major revenue. How many of those doctors would lose their license to practice medicine and how many would serve time in federal prison for malpractice?

Thanks to scientific research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, we now know that chemo SPREADS cancer

A new study that was just published in the journal Science Translational Medicine reveals chemotherapy increases the number of cancer cells circulating in the body and in the lungs. The chemotherapy drugs not only created new cancers, but spread them to other parts of the body where they are nearly always lethal. Dr George Karagiannis, of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, New York, discovered the horrifying fact that chemotherapy caused new cancers for 20 patients receiving two very common chemotherapy drugs. Dr. Karagiannis noted that women could be monitored during chemo to observe when the cancer starts circulating and doorways begin emerging. This would be accomplished by obtaining a small amount of tumor tissue after a few doses of the preoperative chemo.

Patients with breast cancer who are given chemotherapy drugs prior to surgery shrink their breast tumors in the short run while triggering the spread of deadly cancer around the body. Its like sealing up a wound only to find out later youre bleeding to death internally. What good is that?

Why do the chemotherapy drugs cause new cancers? The doctors and scientists believe the toxic medication literally switches on a mechanism in the body that ultimately allows cancer tumors to come back with a vengeance and kill the patient. Top that off with the discovery that chemotherapy increases the number of doorways on blood vessels that allow the cancer to catapult to vital organs and tissues in the body.

If you study the history of chemotherapy, you will find out that Nazi scientists invented it, and they learned back in the 1950s (when they went to work for Big Pharma in America) that chemotherapy only temporarily rescinded cancer tumors, but brought back the cancer even worse. This new scientific research only reaffirms what only a few elitist insiders already knew.

Chemotherapy induces breast cancer metastasis through what is termed a TMEM-mediated mechanism (tumor microenvironment of metastasis). Plus, breast cancer is one of the most common tumor types, so this type of metastasis greatly increases the risk of death from this cell disorder that is exacerbated and spread by more chemicals.

How many people does the cancer industry KILL every year? Meet two of the most evil doctors on the planet: Farid Fata and David Gorski

What would happen to the cancer industrial complex and the fake War on Cancer if every single American stopped falling for the tricky sales tactics of the for-profit cancer industry and found out that chemotherapy creates more cancer? After all, what proof is there that surgery, chemotherapy and radiation are the best chance cancer victims have of surviving? The answer is none. How many Americans are aware that chemotherapy, on average, fails more than 97% of the time?

As of this moment in time, chemotherapy is exposed as a repeat business model for pharma. Just like many convicts in prison, chemotherapy is a repeat offender, as are the doctors who know this and still administer it on their patients. That brings us to discussing two evil doctors who do know, one of whom is serving 45 years in federal prison for giving chemo to his patients who didnt even have cancer. In July of 2015, Detroit area oncologist Farid Fata, M.D. was investigated by the FBI and sentenced to prison for defrauding Medicare and private insurance companies, embezzling $17 million, and dosing his patients to death with lethal doses of chemo he called The European Protocol. He plead guilty in court, in case you were wondering. He also named several accomplices while on trial, but those names have been sealed and protected by the cancer industrial complex. They had to burn a scarecrow to make America believe that these types of crimes dont go unpunished. So who else did Farid the Fraudster Fata name in court as co-conspirators?

Another Detroit area oncologist and a breast cancer surgeon was also reported to the FBI for fraud and deception, but was never indicted. Who is that freak who knew Farid Fata and worked close to him at the same cancer industrial complex under the umbrella of Karmanos? That internet troll and atrocity to the cancer industry is Karmanos Cancer Center breast cancer surgeon David H. Gorski, who trolls the internet under his alias ORAC. Message boards on his virulently pro-vax and pro-chemotherapy website, Respectful Insolence, advocate fraudulently impersonating disease-injured families in the comment sections of medical freedom websites such as Age of Autism and Mothering Magazine. Gorskis sole intent is to discredit anything that casts doubt on his money-making, cancer causing and pseudo-scientific religion.

The truth about chemotherapy is out and its not some conspiracy theory either. Its been proven by science that chemotherapy creates new deadly cancers in the body. Are you convinced yet to contact your Naturopathic physician instead and learn about natural remedies that really do work, and dont have horrific side effects?

Learn more at Chemo.news.

Sources for this article include:

Telegraph.co.uk

STM.sciencemag.org

TruthWiki.org

AntiCorruptionSociety.com

NaturalNews.com

TheRefusers.com

NaturalNews.com

TruthWiki.org

TruthWiki.org

NaturalNews.com
(Natural News) Google has published another update to its Quality Rater Guidelines that grades conspiracy theories as meriting a lower search results ranking. Some 10,000 search quality raters across the world work for Google on a contract basis to evaluate search results and algorithms after conducting real searches.

Join the upcoming March on Google this Saturday, August 19th, across nine U.S. cities.

Among other things, in furtherance of its anti-fake news agenda, the latest guidelines tweak addresses conspiracy theories and focuses primarily on international non-English results, according to The SEMPost.

Google wants the raters to look specifically at sites or pages where the conspiracy theories are presented as fact. Presents unsubstantiated conspiracy theories as if the information were factual.

And raters should rate them: Lowest quality MC: demonstrably inaccurate content.

Every responsible Google user wants to access content that is on the level, but as the Activist Post suggests, the free flow of information could be at risk with too wide-ranging a definition of conspiracy.

[W]ho decides what is and what isnt real? Who are the companies behind this valiant effort to police Googles search engine, and who watches the watchers?

Against that backdrop, Google has been accused of censorship within its organization (exemplified by this weeks firing of the software engineer who challenged its diversity-at-all-costs policy) and without.

Google critics maintain that the search engine giant has down-ranked independent journalism and natural medicine sites, including Natural News at one point, that dont share its progressive worldview and destroy their web traffic in the process. Pushing a website far down the indexing pecking order can essentially doom an otherwise viable web portal.

Some controversy over Google-owned YouTube demonetizing certain political videos has already emerged, effectively leading to a form of revenue-loss censorship. Google recently launched a commendable if not overdue effort to block terrorist training content using screening software and its human Trusted Flagger group, which presumably seems to be a cohort similar to the quality raters. Google also says it is getting tougher with inflammatory religious and supremacist content, but there are some concerns about how broadly the term inflammatory will be interpreted as a practical matter.

Last year, The Intercept reported that Google execs and lobbyists were regular visitors at the Obama White House on a weekly basis and that at least 250 individuals participated in revolving door employment between Google and the Obama administration. (Related: Read more about search engine manipulation at Journalism.news.)

In June 2016, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange claimed that Google was actively engaged in trying to help Hillary Clinton become president. In a subsequently deleted video, SourceFed demonstrated that Google was allegedly manipulating auto-complete search results to bury negative information about Hillary Clinton.

Be sure to join the March on Google this Saturday, across nine U.S. cities.

Sources include:

SearchEngineLand.com

TheSEMpost.com

ActivistPost.com

TheIntercept.com

Inquisitr.com
(Natural News) Have you ever stopped and asked yourself why the left-wing media constantly lies to the American people? It would seem that if the people really were embracing big government, and really did want to surrender their liberty to an all powerful state, then the liberals would just be up front with their true agenda. Likewise, if President Trump really were as incompetent, reckless and destructive as they say he is, then why are they constantly being caught lying about him?

The answer to both of these questions is simple: The left has to lie because they have no other options. If they didnt lie, then not only would they not be able to effectively advance their agenda, but the people would also begin to increasingly show their support for President Trump. Obviously, the liberals cant let this happen, so they are forced to deceive the public every chance at every opportunity.

The latest example of this comes from the fake news publication known as the New York Times, which on Wednesday of last week published a front-page article entitled, Scientists Fear Trump Will Dismiss Blunt Climate Report. In the article, the New York Times stated that they had obtained a copy of the report which has not yet been made public because scientists were concerned that the Trump administration would suppress it.

However, the report that the Times said had not yet been made public had actually been available online for over half a year, since January, and even had a public comment period for more than three months, which anyone in the world with internet access could engage in. If this sounds like a blatant attempt to discredit President Trump and his skepticism towards so-called climate science, thats because it most likely was. How convenient it is that the New York Times never checked with the White House to make sure that the climate report really was hidden from the public.

Its very disappointing, yet entirely predictable to learn The New York Times would write off a draft report without first verifying its contents with the White House or any of the federal agencies directly involved with climate and environmental policy, a White House official told the DCNF. As others have pointed out  and The New York Times should have noticed  drafts of this report have been published and made widely available online months ago during the public comment period. The White House will withhold comment on any draft report before its scheduled release date.

So far, several scientists have come out in opposition to the story published by the New York Times, and even the Washington Post recently called it an epic screw up.

The New York Times issued a statement addressing the controversy, but did not revise the part of their story that talked about how President Trump could suppress the report. An article on Tuesday about a sweeping federal climate change report referred incorrectly to the availability of the report, the Times wrote, adding that it had previously been published on the Internet Archive back in January and was not first made public by the New York Times. (Related: NYT commits treason in an attempt to overthrow the United States government.)

By this point, the never-ending campaign to discredit and delegitimize President Trump really is getting old. Its clear that the Democrat Party, along with most writers and commentators that make up the mainstream media, are still bitter and even jealous over the fact that Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton last November, and dont believe that he legitimately deserves to be in the Oval Office. As such, they continue to do everything and anything they can to make it seem as though President Trump is destroying the country from the inside out, including manufacture phony scandals regarding Russian collusion during the presidential election.

News outlets like the New York Times are losing all of their credibility trying to sabotage the President of the United States, and frankly, they deserve it.

Sources include:

FreeBeacon.com

DailyCaller.com

WashingtonPost.com
Editor's note: Emory University President Claire E. Sterk sent the following message to the Emory community via email on Aug. 14, 2017.

Dear members of the Emory community:

The recent events in Charlottesville, Virginia, serve as a stark reminder that although we have made tremendous advances in civil and human rights, we have work to do. We are fortunate to live in Atlanta: the heart of the civil rights movement. With great privilege comes responsibility. Now is the time for speaking the truth.

Emorys core values call us to be champions of equality, inclusion, and the pursuit of knowledge. I stand committed to our values and am proud that Emory strives to be a place where people can hold difficult conversations respectfully. But let me be clear: supremacist groups are not engaged in the difficult work of informed civil discourse. Theirs is a different project. These groups seek to undermine the fabric of civil society through ignorance, fear, and violence. Their actions stand in contrast to everything we strive for as members of an academic community committed to the discovery and application of knowledge for the greater good.

I believe that education still matters. I believe that the liberal arts, the sciences, and the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake still form the foundation of civil discourse in this society. Supremacist ideology does not, and will not, have a seat at Emory Universitys table.

As president of Emory University, I am proud of the courage shown by those who stand for our shared values.

Thank you.



Claire E. Sterk

President
How Emory Worksis a series dedicated to shining a spotlight on the people and processes that keep a university bigger than some Georgia cities running smoothly and efficiently. Other stories:

How Emory Works: Inside the Emory Steam Plant

When Emorys newest students arrive this week to move in at their respective campuses, theyll be joining in a time-honored ritual  an experience made smoother by months of advance planning and hundreds of volunteers.

While orientation leaders have spent summer months preparing to welcome Emory students to the collegiate experience, staff members across multiple divisions have been readying the campus for the arrival of the Class of 2021.

From changing residence hall air filters and lofting beds to landscaping and painting, from double-checking fire safety measures in every residence hall to planning the traditional first-year Coca-Cola toast, this month marks the culmination of a common goal, as the Emory community comes together to create a fluid transition for incoming students.

Move-in is a monumental coordinated effort by quite a few staff sections across the university, explains Todd Kerzie, assistant vice president of facilities management for Campus Services.

It takes deep and often invisible cooperation across many departments to make move-in happen successfully, Kerzie notes.

Involvement ranges from the those within Campus Life, including residence life and housing operations, campus dining and mail services, to Campus Services, including public safety, planning design and construction, special event coordination, parking and transportation services, and facilities management, which covers maintenance and custodial support, landscaping and staging services, among others.

Throughout the summer, campus staff has been readying residence hall rooms  used by campus visitors for much of the summer  tracking and completing work orders, and renovating 65 apartment units at the Clairmont Campus.

Once students arrive, then operations step up, making sure the water is hot and the lights are on, working with partners to make sure each house is clean and our students are satisfied, says Jonathan Cooper, director of Emorys housing facilities and operations.

In the end, we work hard to help make them feel at home, he says.

Home away from home

All the advance work is intended to smooth out Move-In Day, which is held on different dates for students arriving on different campuses.

At Emorys Atlanta campus, move-in for first-year students, transfer students and students continuing from Oxford College will be Saturday, Aug. 19; on Sunday, Aug. 20, upper-level returning students will move in at the Clairmont Campus and main campus.

On Emorys Oxford College campus, move-in for first-year students will be Friday, Aug. 18; returning sophomores move in on Tuesday, Aug. 22. On both campuses, resident assistants, orientation leaders and international students have already arrived, says Michael Toney, director of orientation for Emory College of Arts and Sciences.

Once parents and students arrive to unload, dozens of volunteers will swarm their cars, relocate student belongings into carts, and roll them to awaiting rooms. While volunteers strive to empty a car within five minutes, most are emptied in under two minutes  the volunteer teams of students, faculty, staff and campus administrators are just that good, Cooper says.

Its all hands on deck, he says. We have an army of volunteers and everyone on the housing staff will be here. Whether its assisting a concerned parent or helping someone who wants to relocate, we have to be agile.

In fact, at the morning shift briefing for Emory police on Move-In Day, much of the focus is on customer service, answering questions and calming nerves. We make sure our officers all have directions to the nearest Target or Walmart, because at some point during the day, theyll be asked, says Craig Watson, assistant vice president of public safety.

For us, its actually a fun time of the year  a new start for students, he says. You cant help but get excited along with them.

But there is no way we could ever do this job without the teamwork that goes on behind the scenes, he adds. Its a pure teamwork approach on the part of everybody, working so well together and so far ahead on the planning piece."

Once students have moved in to their residence halls, orientation activities  which include beloved traditions such as Emorys SongFest and the Oxford Olympics  continue into the week, with classes starting Wednesday, Aug. 23.

In addition to helping students adjust to college life and step into their roles as new members of the Emory community, Toney says that orientation volunteers know they will also be helping them make memories.

Our student orientation leaders will focus on making them feel welcome, but also really giving them a solid foundation, setting them up for success at Emory, he says.

DUC-ling opens for student dining

This year, planning for the return of students to Emory's Atlanta campus has required special considerations.

In some ways, weve been preparing for the Class of 2021 for two years, because thats how long we have been preparing for the DUC-ling, notes Chad Sunstein, Emory campus dining director.

This summers demolition of the Dobbs University Center (DUC)  in preparation for the construction of a new Campus Life Center  created the need for a new temporary dining space.

The answer? Construction of what some have dubbed the DUC-ling, a spacious new interim dining facility located in the outdoor courtyard of the Woodruff Physical Education Center.

Food service workers have spent the summer gearing up to serve around 3,200 meals a day once students flock back to campus this fall, says Sunstein. It was designed and built so that our students will have a comfortable, welcoming dining experience, he says.

Bon Appetit has been very busy menu planning and getting food orders in so that food and supplies will be rolling into campus in a big way this week, he says.

A class of distinction

Before this years new students even arrived, the Class of 2021 will have already distinguished itself in several unique ways.

A few days after moving in, new students will be invited to several campus events planned around safely viewing the Aug. 21 solar eclipse, a historic event that hasn't occurred in the Atlanta area for more than 30 years.

And for the first time, first-year students at Oxford College will be transported to Emorys Atlanta campus on Sunday, Aug. 20, to help spell out 2021 for the traditional first-year class photo on the Emory Quadrangle.

Together, the class will be greeted by Emory President Claire E. Sterk, then proceed together to the Quad for their class photograph  the first time the picture will represent first-year students from both campuses, Toney says.

Its in recognition of the fact that Oxford students will be transitioning to the Atlanta campus in two years, and that they are already part of this great class as well, Toney says.
Author Jeannine Pedersen-Guzman

Jeannine Pedersen-Guzman, associate curator for archaeology at the John D. Cooper Archaeological and Paleontological Center, is the author of a new childrens book, Ehengmay and the Raven that focuses on the Native American cultures of Orange County.

The book tells about the Tongva and Kizh (Gabrielino) and the Acjachemen (Juaneno) tribes and will be used mainly in third grade classrooms since that is when students are taught local history.

The Cooper Center  a partnership between CSUF and OC Parks  and the Orange County Historical Commission sponsored a printing of 600 books, which will be donated and distributed in the fall to public elementary schools in Orange County. The Orange County Department of Education will facilitate the distribution of the books to the schools. Anne Handberry, the books illustrator, is a volunteer at the Cooper Center.

What is your book all about?

My book tells the story of a young Native American girl, Ehengmay (pronounced e-HENG-my and means bird in the Acjachemen language), who goes on a dream journey to discover the meaning of her name, with the story interwoven with local Native American culture. Ehengmay is guided by Raven, a bird who helps her understand the importance of being caring, helpful and knowledgeable about her culture. Throughout her journey Ehengmay encounters native animals, plants and environments of what is today Southern California.

Why did you become interested in this topic?

Through my work at the Cooper Center, it is my job to preserve the regions Native American artifacts and to share their history with the greater community. I began searching for sources of information to add to our website in an effort to help local teachers instruct their students about local Native Americans  and I couldnt find very much. So I decided to write the book to assist teachers in their instruction. I wanted to do a storybook rather than a history book so that students could imagine the life of local Native Americans.

Why is it important for children  and adults  to know about this subject?

Orange County has a long and rich history of Native American settlement and most people are unaware of this. It is important for children and others to understand their history and the people who came before them. It fosters respect and gives people a sense of place and community.

Any new information you discovered?

I worked with several members of the local Native American community throughout the process and I learned a great deal. They helped guide the book so that it was historically and culturally accurate. For example, in one part of the story I had the main character sitting by the fire and listening to her father and uncles play music. But a local Native American woman told me that a young girl wouldnt have been allowed to sit by the fire, so I changed it so that she was listening from a distance. It is a small detail, but very important.

What is one surprising fact about OCs Native Americans?

Native American cultures have made this region their home for over 12,000 years. The late prehistoric societies had rich cultural traditions and their communities were allied and networked with each other through intermarriage, trade and ceremony. These relationships surpassed linguistic boundaries, and it is likely that many Native Americans were able to understand, and speak the languages of their neighbors.
The University of Miami has appointed Maria de Lourdes Dieck-Assad to a newly created role as vice president for Hemispheric and Global Affairs. A world-renowned economist who has held positions in academia, business and government, including serving as Mexicos ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg and chief of the Mexican Mission to the European Union, she begins her new post at the University on August 15.

Dieck-Assad is currently dean emeritus and distinguished professor of economics at the Graduate School of Business Administration (EGADE Business School) at the Monterrey Institute of Technology (ITESM) in Monterrey, Mexico.

As vice president for hemispheric and global affairs at UM, she will promote, coordinate and oversee collaborative arrangements between the University and world-wide partners, with a special focus on the Americas. Dieck-Assad will directly oversee the Hemispheric University Consortium, which will advance research and education throughout the Americas, and will play a key role in the Hemispheric Innovation Hub, which will promote innovation, entrepreneurship and new ventures in Miami.

I cannot think of anyone better qualified to take on this strategic task, UM President Julio Frenk said in making his announcement to the University community. Dr. Dieck-Assad brings with her a wealth of experience that will guide our engagement and collaboration efforts throughout the Americas and the globe.

Dieck-Assad will also work diligently to identify opportunities and engage with academic institutions, businesses, non-governmental organizations and governments throughout Latin America, the Caribbean and North America, as well as worldwide where synergies exist. She will develop a hemispheric platform that will serve all parts of UM to facilitate collaborations throughout the hemisphere.

I am thrilled at the opportunity to join the University of Miami community and represent the institution on a hemispheric and global scale, said Dieck-Assad. I look forward to serving the University, strengthening relationships and establishing new ones in this role.

A board member of several national and international Boards, Dieck-Assad has served since 2014 on the World Economic Forum task force for the study of competitiveness and productivity challenges for Latin America. She is a respected author, publishing extensively on economics and political economic topics, and has received multiple honors throughout her career, including the Grand Cross of the Order of the Crown, which is the highest honor awarded by the Government and the King of Belgium, for her achievements as Mexican ambassador to Belgium.

In the public sector, she was appointed by President Vicente Fox as ambassador of Mexico to Belgium and Luxembourg, chief of the Mexican Mission to the European Union and permanent representative before the European Union. She was also under-secretary of Economic Affairs and International Cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Chief of Staff at the Ministry of the Economy.

In the academic field, Dieck-Assad was professor and researcher of the Economics Department (undergraduate and graduate programs) and director of the Ph.D. Program in Management at ITESM. Simultaneously, she was a consultant at ITESMs Center for Strategic Studies and was also professor and chair of the Economics Department at Trinity University in Washington, D. C. and economics professor at Anahuac University in Mexico City. Her extensive experience in academic administration has included several leadership positions at ITESM, one of the top ranked universities in Latin America. These include being Dean of EGADE Business School, Dean of the School of Government, Social Sciences and Humanities, Dean of the School of Public Policy and Director of the Santa Fe Campus in Mexico City.

A board member of several national and international Boards and a consultant for national and international organizations such as the World Bank, Dr. Dieck-Assad has served on the World Economic Forum task force for the study of competitiveness and productivity challenges for Latin America. As an author, she has published extensively on economics and political economic topics.

Dieck-Assad received her B.A. degree from ITESM, her M.A. degree from Vanderbilt University  where she studied on a Fulbright Scholarship  and her Ph.D. from University of Texas at Austin, all in economics.
The People's Democratic Party in Edo State has condemned the events surrounding the impeachment of the Speaker of the state house of assembly and described it as a mockery of democracy and the legislative procedure.Obiaks News yesterday reported that the former EDHA speaker was impeached and immediately replaced. We can also conform now that the erstwhile speaker was also suspended by 19 of the state's legislators during plenary on Monday.Whilst addressing the Media in Benin City, Chris Nehikhare, PDP Benin's publicity secretary stated that the actions of the State House of Assembly was unattractive and generally condemned by EDO people.He said "The Edo State House of Assembly and the Edo State APC government have a knack for changing the decisions of the House of Assembly."You will recall that the last time there was a change for a jeep, for an SUV the Speaker relinquished her position even though she was chosen by majority of the members of the Edo state House of Assembly."What we have witnessed again today, we suspect is somebody who wants a Jeep. I do not think this impeachment will stand the test of time,"" he said.
Posted by Mark Williams | August 15, 2017





By Tim Esterdahl

For years now, automakers have been trying to solve the puzzle of a hybrid pickup truck with little success. Hybrid pickups have been expensive to purchase compared to non-hybrid models, and they lacked a measurable gain in fuel economy, which caused consumers to pass on them. But what about a nontraditional pickup truck? Could a Honda Ridgeline equipped with an in-house hybrid system be a success?

At first glance, a hybrid pickup doesn't make a lot of sense for traditional pickup buyers. For starters, hybrid powertrains use an electric battery pack and a small-displacement engine, which get depleted quickly under load when towing or hauling. And, as mentioned, they typically cost more than traditional gasoline powertrains and offer only marginal improvements in fuel economy.

Here's an example: Chevrolet offered a mild-hybrid system in the 2016 Silverado 1500 in California via its eAssist technology. This truck improved city/combined fuel economy by 2 and 1 mpg, respectively; the option cost an extra $500 without sacrificing any of the truck's capability. Sure, this sounded good, but Chevy expected this to be a low-volume experiment since it built only about 500; it has since expanded its plans to offer model-year 2017 Silverado 1500s with eAssist across the U.S., however. Earlier this year Ford announced it will offer a hybrid version of the F-150, promising it will be available within five years. We'll be watching this development.

A Different Truckmaker

Honda is not like other truckmakers. The Ridgeline stands out among its peers as being, to put it bluntly, the "non-macho" version of a pickup. It doesn't brag endlessly about towing, hauling or torque numbers. Instead, it offers the versatility of a pickup bed  rated to carry 1,584 pounds (an RT all-wheel drive) and tow a 5,0000-pound trailer (AWD)  with the smooth ride of an SUV packaged with features such as a dual-action tailgate, in-bed audio, a multi-terrain system and hidden bed storage. The Ridgeline gets decent fuel economy with its front-wheel-drive models, returning an EPA-estimated 19/26/22 mpg city/highway/combined when equipped with the 3.5-liter V-6 engine.

This got us thinking ... could this kind of pickup offer a true hybrid powertrain and be the first dual-powertrain success in the mid-size pickup class? In other words, are consumer expectations for the Ridgeline different enough that a hybrid version could become a sales success?

We think this could be a good strategy since Honda already has the powertrain available. Acura, Honda's luxury brand, introduced a hybrid powertrain into its SUV lineup in the form of the 2017 Acura MDX Sport Hybrid. It is the brand's first hybrid SUV; the powertrain was developed for the RLX sedan and used in the NSX supercar as well. It just makes sense that with this hybrid powertain's use in a sedan, supercar and SUV, Honda should be able to use it in the Ridgeline at a reasonable cost.

The MDX Sport Hybrid powertrain  available in AWD only  returns 31 horsepower more than the MDX V-6 gasoline version and improves the fuel economy to 26/27/27 mpg city/highway/combined. That's an increase of 8 mpg city, 1 mpg highway and 6 mpg combined over the AWD gasoline engine. This improvement comes with a $3,500 surcharge over the gasoline MDX with FWD. But we see the same cost differences between gasoline and diesel pickups. The Chevrolet Colorado serves as a case in point: Moving from the gas V-6 to the inline-four-cylinder diesel costs almost an additional $3,500. Imagine this new more powerful and efficient powertrain in the Ridgeline, which has a curb weight almost identical to the MDX.

Using the fuel-economy increases for the MDX Hybrid, a hybrid Ridgeline could easily deliver 311 horsepower (up from 280) and have an EPA-estimated fuel economy of 27/27/28 mpg city/highway/combined.

If the MDX Hybrid improvements held true for a Ridgeline hybrid, it possibly could beat the current mid-size fuel-economy champ, the Chevrolet Colorado with the turbo-diesel 2.8-liter engine. In extended- or crew-cab models equipped with the six-speed automatic transmission, the Colorado returns 22/30/25 mpg city/highway/combined for roughly the same $3,500 difference between a FWD gas and AWD hybrid MDX.

Is It Feasible?

During a recent pickup event, a top-level Honda engineer said Honda could add the engine to the Ridgeline with relatively little investment in engineering. Since the hybrid is already used in-house by a similarly sized vehicle with an almost identical engine bay, the front of the pickup would not have to undergo a substantial change. Of course, placement of the hybrid system's battery pack and electric motor poses a challenge.

Be that as it may, a hybrid Ridgeline could be a perfect fit for Honda as it continues to expand its brand to reach new-truck owners. By offering a compact hybrid pickup, Honda could capture a market niche in which other truckmakers have failed to succeed.

Since Honda's core products are cars and SUVs, a hybrid Ridgeline wouldn't have to be a big seller for the company to be considered a true success. And it might just force other truckmakers to rethink their current or future hybrid pickup plans.

Editor's note: This story was updated Aug. 17, 2017, to reflect that Chevrolet Silverado 1500s with eAssist are sold in all 50 U.S. states.

Manufacturer images
















21:56

Even as Dahi Handi was celebrated with fervour in and around Mumbai, at least 45 Govindas were injured in the city while forming human pyramids as part of the festival, while another one died in Palghar district after he suffered an epileptic attack during the celebrations.



However, the dahi handi celebrations this year were relatively low-key in view of the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), income tax woes and demonetisation.



Rains and fear of injuries failed to dampen the spirit of 'govindas' as hundreds of them were seen moving around in trucks and tempos, travelling from one 'handi' venue to another in the metropolis.



The festival, which marks the birth of Lord Krishna, was celebrated with enthusiasm across the city, including in areas like Ghatkopar, Dadar, Lalbaug and Bhandup.



"As many as 45 govindas were injured in Mumbai till 5 pm," civic officials.



"One of them was seriously injured and admitted to a hospital, while others were discharged after they were administered first aid," they added.



In Palghar, 21-year-old Rohan Kini died after he suffered an epileptic attack during the celebrations, police said.



"He got down from the human pyramid after breaking the handi. But immediately afterwards, he suffered an epileptic attack. He died on way to a hospital in Palghar around 6.30 pm," a police officer said.



Members of some Dahi Handi mandals said the dahi handi celebrations this year were slightly subdued.



"After the demonetisation, several mandals substantially reduced the prize money offered to the Govinda troupes," member of a mandal said.



Another member said, "While demonetisation has slightly hit the cash flow, the implementation of GST, has made the people doubly cautious as they fear that the Income Tax department may come knocking any time. Therefore, many have decided to reduce the prize money."



Last week, the state government had assured the Bombay high court during the hearing on a PIL that it would ensure that children below 14 years of age would not participate in formation of Dahi Handi pyramids.



The HC, however, had refused to impose any restriction on the height of human pyramid formations.



Secretary of Dahi Handi Samanvay Samiti, Kamlesh Bhoir, said, "After the high court removed the restrictions on the height of pyramids, we were only left with the task of ensuring that children under the age of 14 do not participate in forming the human pyramids."



Across Maharashtra, 'Govinda' troupes compete to form multi-tier pyramids and break pitchers of curd and buttermilk tied high above the ground on this day. -- PTI



IMAGE: A human pyramid formed by govindas in Thane. Photograph: Sahil Salvi


Daily Egyptian nominated for top online college newspaper award

by Pete Rosenbery

CARBONDALE, Ill. -- The Daily Egyptian, Southern Illinois University Carbondales student-produced newspaper, is a finalist to receive one of the nations top online collegiate awards.

The Associated Collegiate Press (ACP) recognized the Daily Egyptian as one of 25 online news and magazine sites in the Online Pacemaker competition. ACP is the nations largest and older national membership association for college student media, according to the organizations website. The organization received 105 entries from colleges and universities.

Finalists will be recognized and winners announced Oct. 28 at the ACP/College Media Association National College Media Convention in Dallas, Texas.

The Daily Egyptian celebrated its 100th anniversary in October 2016, marking the original publication on Oct. 28, 1916. The newspaper is now printed once a week but operates daily online at http://dailyegyptian.com/

Eric Fidler, the newspapers faculty managing editor, was pleased the newspapers staff received recognition for their work.

We have fewer staff members than most of these papers do editors, so it shows you how hard our people work, he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 00:52:44|Editor: yan

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CAIRO, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- Egypt strongly condemned on Monday the terrorist attack that killed and injured dozens in Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou.

Egypt's Foreign Ministry expressed in a statement full solidarity with the people of Burkina Faso and their leadership in their war against terrorism.

The North African country offered condolences to the families of the victims and wished speedy recovery for the injured.

On Sunday, a group of armed men attacked a Turkish restaurant in downtown Ouagadougou, the capital of the Western African country, killing at least 18 and wounding eight others.

Burkina Faso has suffered a series of terrorist attacks that claimed the lives of tens in recent years.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 01:43:06|Editor: yan

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CAIRO, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- The Arab League (AL) condemned Israel on Monday for holding bodies of Palestinians killed by the Israeli forces during the prolonged conflict.

"Israel still holds bodies of many Palestinians killed by its forces in 'cemeteries of numbers' to hide its crimes against them," an AL report on the Israeli violations against the Palestinians said.

The report said Israel holds the bodies of some 249 Palestinians since the 1960s and still refuses to return the bodies to their families, describing the Israeli behavior as an act of collective punishment.

The report said that the Israeli authorities also steal the organs of killed Palestinians.

The decades-long Palestinian-Israeli conflict emerged since the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and the Western-backed creation of Israel in 1948.

The Palestinians seek to establish an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital in the light of the UN-proposed two-state solution based on the pre-1967 borders.

However, 24 years of U.S. sponsored peace process has so far failed to give the Palestinians a state on the territories occupied in 1976 that include the Gaza Strip, West bank and East Jerusalem.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 02:18:13|Editor: yan

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BEIRUT, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- Buses carrying rebels and their families have left Monday from the border town of Arsal for Syria's eastern al-Qalamoun, the National News Agency (NNA) reported.

Meanwhile, the Directorate of the General Security said in a statement that "34 buses transporting hundreds of Saraya Ahl al-Sham Brigades gunmen and their families left Lebanon for the Syrian territories."

"Patrols from the security agency convoyed the departing buses, in coordination with the Lebanese Red Cross," the statement added.

The security chief has confirmed the departure of gunmen who had occupied parts of the Lebanese territories on the outskirts of Arsal, following deals made after negotiations between different factions in concern.

Hezbollah media said for its part that the vehicles took the same path as the ones that transported former al-Qaida affiliate al-Nusra Front militants from a restive border area in the outskirts of Arsal early in August.

The evacuation of the militants was scheduled on Saturday, but it was delayed due to "logistical issues" related to the means of transport.

As part of the deal between Hezbollah, the Lebanese negotiator General Security Chief Abbas Ibrahim and the rebel group, the fighters would head to the government-held town of Ruhaiba, about 50 kilometers northeast of the Syrian capital Damascus where they will benefit from an amnesty by the regime and return to normal life.

The evacuation deal follows a military offensive by Hezbollah and Syrian troops during which they captured border areas between the two countries and left hundreds of Nusra fighters besieged in a small rugged mountainous area.

The battle ended with a ceasefire and an exchange deal that saw the release of three Hezbollah soldiers captured by al-Nusra militants.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 02:43:22|Editor: yan

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ACCRA, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- Ghanaian president Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on Monday said his government was strategizing to increase export volumes under the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) from 29 million U.S. dollars in 2016 to 500 million dollars by 2020.

He said the government was working to institute measures to ensure the country took full advantage of the US market through the AGOA initiative.

"We aim at increasing our export volumes under AGOA to 500 million dollars in 2020, which will create in its wake hundreds of thousands of jobs. The target is ambitious, but certainly achievable," he said, while launching the expansion project of Dignity Do-The-Right-Thing (DTRT) Apparel in Accra.

Dignity DTRT is a Ghanaian-American joint venture initiative currently employing some 1,600 people, and is set to export 30 million dollars worth of clothing to the US by 2018.

The AGOA is a preferential market access system given to specific countries in Africa and the Caribbean by the United States.

Under the trade agreement, most of Sub Saharan African countries are allowed to export over 6,000 products duty-free to the U.S. market.

Akufo-Addo described the apparel project as being consistent with his government's vision to make Ghana an industrial hub in West Africa and drive its socio-economic development.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 03:18:37|Editor: yan

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OTTAWA, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- One Canadian was killed Sunday night in an attack at a tourist restaurant in Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso, according to CTV on Monday.

Eighteen people died and at least eight others were wounded in the attack, most of the victims are children and women, who are of several different nationalities, including two Kuwaitis and one person each from France, Senegal, Nigeria, Lebanon and Turkey, and seven from Burkina Faso. Three other victims have yet to be identified.

There is no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. Assailants opened fire on crowds dining at a restaurant popular with tourists in the West African country's capital Sunday night.

Burkina Faso's special forces traced and had a gun battle with the assailants that lasted well into the early hours of Monday. The special forces killed two of the assailants.

In a statement issued on Monday, the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Canada says they are reaching out to Canadian citizens in the area and are ready to provide consular assistance as required.

The ministry also advises Canadians in a tweet on Monday to avoid the affected area in Ouagadougou and to follow the instructions of local authorities.

It also urges Canadians to avoid "all travel" to the northern area of Burkina Faso and its border with Mali.

Last January, armed men attacked a cafe frequented by foreigners, killing 30 people dead. That attack was claimed by al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and a jihadist group called Al Mourabitoun.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 03:23:43|Editor: yan

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DAR ES SALAAM, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- Tanzanian President John Magufuli said on Monday Egypt has committed to construct a mega-meat processing plant in the east African country.

Addressing a joint news conference in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam shortly after he had held talks with the visiting Egyptian President El-Sisi, President Magufuli said the construction of the meat plant will provide big relief to livestock keepers who will be sure of selling their livestock at better prices.

Tanzania has one of the largest livestock populations in Africa with 13.5 million head of cattle, 5.5 million goats, 3.6 million sheep, 0.4 million pigs and 23.2 million chickens, according to statistics by the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries. But the country lacks a meat processing plant.

President Magufuli said: "Egypt has a vast meat market so they have promised us with the market."

President Magufuli also highlighted education, health, defense and security, and agriculture as among areas that Egypt has shown interest in investing in Tanzania.

"The tourism sector is also among the sectors which we have agreed to improve by boosting the number of tourists. Egypt attracts over 10 million tourists annually while Tanzanians is attracting less than 2 million tourists annually," said Magufuli, adding that the two countries have agreed to promote tourism through their national airlines.

He said the two countries have also agreed to resume talks on the use of the Nile River Basin waters for the benefit of people in both countries.

President Magufuli said the talks on the use of the Nile River waters should equally benefit all 10 member states of the Nile Basin countries of Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Eritrea, Sudan and Egypt.

The Nile River Basin agreement of 2010 established principles governing the use, management, development and conservation of the Nile water resources and details the rights and obligations of basin states.

Tanzania still recognized the 2010 Comprehensive Framework Agreement signed by upstream Nile Basin countries.

Stretching more than 6,600 kilometres from Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean, the Nile is a vital water and energy source for the countries through which it flows.

However, Egypt and Sudan have refused to sign the new agreement on the Nile River Basin Co-operative Framework demanding that the two countries should still maintain their current Nile water uses and rights.

For his part, Egyptian President El-Sisi, who was on a two-day official visit to Tanzania, commended President Magufuli for his warm welcome vowing that his country was committed towards improving relations between the two countries.

He said his country will invest heavily in the Tanzanian sectors of agriculture and water including drilling water wells to enable the public to have access to clean and safe water.

The Egyptian leader also commended President Magufuli on his tireless efforts of fighting corruption in the country saying that he has shown that he was a good and committed leader.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 03:58:59|Editor: yan

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KIEV, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- The Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) Monday dismissed foreign media reports that Ukraine's state-owned aerospace manufacturer Yuzhmash may have supplied rocket engines to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

"Ukraine has never supplied rocket engines or any kind of missile technology to the DPRK," Oleksandr Turchynov, head of the NSDC, was quoted as saying by his press service.

Turchynov said the information, which has been spread by the media, is "not based on any grounds and provocative by its content."

Earlier in the day, The New York Times, citing a missile expert, said the Yuzhmash is "most likely" source of the engines for the DPRK's intercontinental ballistic missiles launched in July.

The Yuzhmash plant, headquartered in Ukraine's southeastern city of Dnipro, produces space craft, rocket launch vehicles, rocket engines and other equipment.

According to the Yuzhmash website, the company carries out foreign economic activities in 23 countries.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 04:09:04|Editor: yan

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GENEVA, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said on Monday that among the over 65 million persons being forcibly displaced in 2016, almost 10 million were persons with disabilities.

In a statement issued Monday, the UNHCR said that in situations of forced displacement, persons with disabilities "continued to be left behind", and continued to face compounded risks on the basis of disability and displacement.

The agency added that it is now seeking to meaningfully include the voices of persons with disabilities in the development of the Global Compact on Refugees, to be presented to the UN General Assembly in 2018.

"The New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2016, provided a solid foundation for UNHCR to expand partnerships with stakeholders to strengthen service systems in refugee hosting countries for the benefit of persons with disabilities in situations of displacement," it noted.

According to UNHCR, such efforts include strengthening of community-based support networks and addressing exclusion and discrimination experienced by persons with disabilities.

The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on Monday opened its eighteenth session, during which it will review measures taken by a number of countries to implement the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 05:14:44|Editor: Zhou Xin

Dennis Chookaszian, adjunct professor of strategic management at Booth School of Business of the University of Chicago, speaks during an interview with Xinhua News Agency in Chicago, the United States, on August 11, 2017. Renegotiation of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), scheduled on August 16-20 in Washington, D.C., has caused concerns that rewriting the terms of trade could turn out to be a double-edged sword: benefiting some industries while hurting certain sectors. (Xinhua/Wang Ping)

By Xinhua writers Xu Jing, Miao Zhuang, Wang Ping

CHICAGO, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- Renegotiation of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), scheduled on August 16-20 in Washington, D.C., has caused concerns that rewriting the terms of trade could turn out to be a double-edged sword: benefiting some industries while hurting certain sectors.

Agriculture in the U.S. no doubt is the largest beneficiary of the NAFTA. Statistics show that after NAFTA officially took effect on January 1, 1994, U.S. annual agricultural exports to Mexico has skyrocketed from 4 billion U.S. dollars to 18.5 billion U.S. dollars. With exports to Canada added, U.S. annual exports to other NAFTA countries could reach 40 billion U.S. dollars, four times the amount reported before 1994.

For U.S. farmers, the current NAFTA has ensured them a steady and continuous access to the Canadian and Mexican markets. A broad consensus is that the NAFTA has increased the integration of the agricultural markets in North America. But as renegotiation for the agreement is around the corner, U.S. farmers are worried that their interest might be harmed as the concerns on trade imbalances expressed by U.S. President Donald Trump are mainly focused on manufacturing, not agriculture.

"Farmers in the U.S. have expressed to the administration strong concerns about doing anything in the NAFTA negotiations that would harm or undercut the expansion of agriculture trade we have experienced under the existing agreement," Kirk Leeds, chief executive officer of Iowa Soybean Association, told Xinhua, adding that they have repeatedly told Trump and members of his team "Do no harm."

"By some estimates, agriculture trade between the U.S., Canada and Mexico has quadrupled under the NAFTA. Any pull back from this progress would be detrimental to U.S. agriculture," Leeds said.

Automaking is another industry that has a mixed feeling, as no industry other than auto is more closely entwined with the NAFTA.

The NAFTA has eliminated barriers to trade in the region, and changed the way automakers manufacture products in North America. Thanks to the NAFTA, the three NAFTA countries are exporting and importing billions of U.S. dollars worth of auto parts from one another.

Now speculation runs high that Trump will seek to tighten the rule of origin requirements for automobiles and auto parts in order to reduce U.S.'s trade deficit with Mexico, and the required North American content may be increased to as much as 70 or 80 percent, as against the current 62.5 percent.

American Automotive Policy Council President Matt Blunt holds that the current 62.5-percent local content requirement strikes the right balance, and tightening the rules of origin in NAFTA could be disruptive and hurt the competitiveness of automakers in U.S., Canada and Mexico.

A recent study conducted by the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan, concluded that withdrawing from the NAFTA or restricting automotive trade would increase costs for manufacturers in the U.S., and make its auto sector less competitive. Rather than shifting production to the U.S., automakers would be more likely to move production to low-cost countries.

John Ciorciari, associate professor of public policy at the Ford School of Public Policy of the University of Michigan, said the image of laid-off auto workers has strong popular resonance, and Rust Belt grievances are real, "but bringing back jobs is not straightforward." "U.S. firms would suffer if cheap cars they make in Mexico become dearer or if their own exports to the NAFTA partners are disfavored," he told Xinhua.

"I expect the U.S. list of demands to be much less dramatic than the sweeping tariffs Trump suggested on the campaign trail," he added.

Dennis Chookaszian, adjunct professor of strategic management at Booth School of Business of the University of Chicago, said "the NAFTA agreement is a complex issue." The contention Trump made in the election is that jobs were being lost. But "the reality of it and all of the economic studies show that really has not been the case. Jobs have not been lost in America."

Chookaszian holds that the NAFTA in fact has had some positive benefits. In Chookaszian's eyes, the one real challenge with the NAFTA is: there was no e-commerce in 1994 when it was initiated.

E-commerce is now the way everybody ships. "The most important element of the NAFTA renegotiation isn't really about the NAFTA. It's about establishing e-commerce principles," Chookaszian told Xinhua.

"I'm actually in favor of seeing NAFTA renegotiation take place to get the e-commerce rules inserted," Chookaszian said, adding that "I believe a compromise will be reached that will make a sensible sort of e-commerce rules."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 06:45:27|Editor: yan

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SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- As American universities will start the new school year in weeks, concerns are raising over safety of international students who will face a new American setting filled with unfamiliar risks and even threats.

From his understanding, officer Wade MacAdam, who works with UC Berkeley Police Department's Safety Programs, expected international students to be more alert, not only on surroundings but on personal property as well, as they are more likely to be "easy target."

He said in a recent interview with Xinhua that safety has always been a real issue for international students to take into consideration seriously, especially for those from China, following the kidnapping of Zhang Yingying, a visiting scholar at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in June and her whereabouts still remains a mystery.

"UC Berkely is in the downtown area, so we are not secluded. We don't have any walls, we are an open environment," said MacAdam, implying that security risks outside campus post a challenge.

"International students need to have street smart and be aware of their surroundings," he said, adding that their parents also need to remember that students are not in a secluded protected area.

Information released by the campus police shows that robbery, theft and assault are among the most common crimes that happen on and around Berkeley campus.

MacAdam said that they find students from China are very affectionate and warm to people around them, which might make them vulnerable when it comes to safety.

"We just want to remind them that some people might want to trick them, or to prey on them," he explained.

"They might talk to them on the sidewalk, and ask them some questions, or try to convince them to give them money, or talk to them as a distraction while their friends might come out of the bushes and take their property."

According to his advise, Chinese students need to be mindful of surroundings and on the guard as they interact with people, even if they want to be friendly and enjoy their visit here, with the awareness that some people might want to take advantage of them and look at them as an easy target.

In the case of Zhang Yingying, it's known that the 26-year-old female got a ride in a car driven by someone strange to her on the campus while running on her way to sign a new apartment lease.

The man driving the car was arrested later and accused of kidnapping Zhang. The young scholar is now presumed dead unfortunately.

Keeping vigilant against theft is another piece of security tip offered by MacAdam to international students, who he finds have a lot valuables, such as expensive cameras, laptops, and mobile devices, and often leave them in plain sight.

In stead of advertising their electronic devices to be stolen, he said they need to hide them, keeping them in their backpack, for instance.

It's also important for them to make some changes on lifestyle in order to prevent theft. They need to avoid using their cell phones, texting or wearing headphones while walking if they don't want to be target of theft, the officer said.

So far, many American universities are committed to campus security. Here in the University of California, Berkeley, which has one of the highest campus crime rates in the state of California, campus police has installed various security measures to help students stay safe.

Once in emergency, international students are encouraged to call police with no hesitation.

"We are accessible and approachable, please don't be afraid of us. We are your friend. Call us if there's anything you need," said MacAdam.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 08:00:51|Editor: ying

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by Xinhua writer Liu Chen

WASHINGTON, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said on Monday during his Latin American tour that the United States would bring economic and diplomatic power to bear over the ongoing Venezuelan crisis, a more conciliatory tone than President Donald Trump's surprising tough words last week.

With "military option" still not ruled out in the crisis-hit country, the United States' stance has sparked criticism around the region while its potential economic sanctions were seen as possibly having limited effect.

PEACEFUL SOLUTION OR MILITARY ACTION

While visiting the Colombian city of Cartagena, Pence said that a "failed" Venezuela would threaten Americans and the United States would bring all economic and diplomatic power to bear to solve the crisis.

"A failed state in Venezuela threatens the security and prosperity of our entire hemisphere and the people of the United States of America," Pence told reporters.

One day earlier, Pence, kicking off his week-long Latin American tour in Colombia, said that the United States still preferred a "peaceful" solution over the Venezuelan issue.

Meanwhile, the U.S. vice president stood by Trump's strong warnings that military action was not ruled out.

On Friday, Trump said that military operation was "something we could pursue," a claim that was seen as a sudden escalation of Washington's response to Venezuela's crisis.

Pence's four-state tour, covering Colombia, Argentina, Chile and Panama, came as the United States tried to rally the region against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's attempts to consolidate his power.

However, with military option not ruled out by the Trump administration, Pence's tour has been shadowed by opposing voices from Latin American countries.

Peru has voiced its rejection of any kind of threats or use of force unauthorized by the United Nations and called for dialogues among related parties.

"All foreign or domestic threats to resort to force undermine the goal of reinstating democratic governance in Venezuela, as well as the principles enshrined in the UN charter," Peru's Foreign Minister Ricardo Luna said in a statement on Saturday.

Colombia also firmly rejected the possibility of any military intervention, ratifying its respect for the sovereignty of Venezuela and calling for a negotiated solution to its neighbor's crisis.

A military intervention "shouldn't even be considered," said Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos during the joint press conference with Pence on Sunday.

What Pence needed to do was to assure its regional allies that the United States respected their diplomatic efforts, David Smilde, a Venezuela expert at Tulane University, told reporters.

The United States should let their allies know that they "will not engage in unilateral measures that are guaranteed to be counterproductive," Smilde added.

MORE SANCTIONS AHEAD?

During his stay in Colombia, Pence has also discussed possible further sanctions against Venezuela, which was undergoing unrest and political turmoil.

"President Santos and I discussed in some detail additional measures that could be taken to further pressure the regime in Venezuela economically," Pence told reporters in Cartagena on Sunday.

The United States was "looking at a full range of additional economic sanctions," Pence said.

Tensions have been escalating between Washington and Caracas over Venezuela's National Constituent Assembly (ANC) which was formed after an election on July 30.

After the election, the United States slapped a string of sanctions on Venezuelan individuals involved in the creation of the ANC, including Maduro.

"Expanding individual sanctions will do little to change anything on the ground," said Shannon K. O'Neil, senior fellow at Council on Foreign Relations, in an article published on CNN website.

Meanwhile, O'Neil also said that Sanctions were just "one tool," which would not work in a diplomatic vacuum.

Over the last 7 years, the United States have sanctioned over two dozen nations, while "none of those sanctions have led to swift political change," she added.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 08:05:54|Editor: Xiang Bo

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BERLIN, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- Borussia Monchengladbach have extended the expiring contract with Oscar Wendt, the "Foals" announced in an official statement on Monday.

The 31-year-old defender will stay with the "Foals" after putting pen to paper on a contract extension, which will keep him with Borussia until June 2019.

"Oscar developed into a key player. He is our team skipper. We are therefore very delighted about his contract extension," Monchengladbach's sporting director Max Eberl said.

The former Sweden international joined Monchengladbach in 2011 and provided 13 goals in 181 appearances since his arrival.

"It was my wish to extend my contract here. I always said that I feel super comfortable at Borussia. I love to play for this club and I am glad that I can stay here for longer," Wendt told the club's official homepage.

Monchengladbach will encounter Cologne at the first round in Bundesliga on August 20.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 09:15:55|Editor: ying

A representative holds a picture of a "Comfort Woman" during a rally on the sidewalk in front of Japanese Consulate General in San Francisco, the United States, on Aug. 14, 2017. The "Comfort Women" Justice Coalition organized a rally here on Monday to mark the International Memorial Day for "Comfort Women". (Xinhua/Xu Yong)
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 10:32:42|Editor: Zhou Xin

Photo taken on Aug. 14, 2017 shows the flooding site in Freetown, Sierra Leone. More than 300 people were killed in a mudslide and flooding on Monday in the area of Sierra Leone's capital Freetown, the national broadcaster said. (Xinhua/Liu Yu)

FREETOWN, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- More than 300 people were killed in a mudslide and flooding on Monday in the area of Sierra Leone's capital Freetown, the national broadcaster said.

The death toll is expected to rise in the worst ever natural disaster caused by heavy rain to hit the city, which has also left more than 2,000 people homeless.

Heavy rain in the early hours of Monday was reported to have caused the side of a hill to collapse, trapping hundreds of people in the hilltop town of Regent on the outskirts of Freetown, a coastal city of about 1.2 million.

Bodies were buried under the debris of ruined homes or floating in water. The dead were taken to Freetown's Connaught Hospital, where people were stopped by servicemen from identifying the bodies in order to reduce chaos, reports said.

Videos posted online by local residents showed yellow mud rushed to the streets of Freetown and the flood water reached as high as people's chest.

Rescue work is still going on in and near the capital of the western African country, one of the world's least developed countries, which is still recovering from an outbreak of the Ebola virus in 2014 that caused more than 4,000 deaths.

Sierra Leone's President Ernest Bai Koroma said emergency services were doing everything possible to tackle the current disaster.

Koroma said in an address broadcast on television late Monday that an emergency response center had been set up in the town of Regent, which is worst hit.

"Our nation has once again been gripped by grief. Many of our compatriots have lost their lives, many more have been gravely injured and billions of Leones' worth of property destroyed in the flooding and landslides that swept across some parts of our city," he said.

"Every single family, every single ethnic group, every single region is either directly or indirectly affected by this disaster," Koroma added.

He meanwhile praised the efforts made by the military personnel and police in the rescue work.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday expressed condolences over the deaths in the country.

"The Secretary-General is saddened by the deaths and devastation caused by the mudslide and flooding in the town of Regent, Sierra Leone, and throughout Freetown," said Farhan Haq, Guterres' deputy spokesman.

"The Secretary-General extends his condolences to the people and Government of Sierra Leone for the loss of life and destruction caused by this natural disaster."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 10:37:46|Editor: ying

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TOKYO, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a monetary offering to the notorious war-linked Yasukuni Shrine Tuesday on the 72nd anniversary of Japan's surrender which brought an end to World War II.

The Japanese leader sent his special advisor, Masahiko Shibayama, to make the monetary donation by proxy to the shrine.

The donation was made in Abe's capacity as the leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

After making the donation as Abe's proxy, Shibayama told a press briefing that Abe had instructed him to pay a visit on his behalf and said that he "feels sorry for not being able to visit the shrine."

It is the fifth consecutive year that Abe has made a ritual offering to the notorious shrine.

Visits and ritual offerings made by senior politicians to the war-linked shrine consistently disregard the feelings of those in Japan's neighboring countries.

As such, the move will likely draw the ire of Japan's closest neighbors, including South Korea and China, who suffered immeasurably at the barbaric hands of the Imperial Army of Japan before, during and after World War II.

Yasukuni Shrine honors 14 Class-A convicted war criminals among 2.5 million Japanese war dead from World War II and is regarded as a symbol of past Japanese militarism.

The shrine is run by a private foundation and the 14 Class-A war criminals' "souls" were enshrined there secretly in 1978, by the clandestine organization.

The foundation, which also runs Yasukuni's museum, nowadays openly depicts the war criminals as martyrs and blatantly misrepresents Japan's war in China as an act of "suppression" rather than one of aggression.

The museum has numerous displays depicting Japan's war-time endeavors, but has flagrantly misrepresented the actual facts, in not referring to the well-documented Nanjing massacre (also known as the Rape of Nanjing), experiments conducted on prisoners of war and the suffering of thousands of "comfort women" at the hands of the Imperial Japanese Army.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 10:37:47|Editor: ying

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CANBERRA, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The government of Australia faces losing its parliamentary majority after it was revealed the Deputy Prime Minister could be a citizen of New Zealand.

Barnaby Joyce, deputy PM of Australia and a member of parliament (MP) serving a rural electorate in New South Wales (NSW), on Monday referred himself to the nation's High Court after receiving advice he could hold a New Zealand-Australian dual citizenship.

Under section 44(i) of the Australian Constitution, anyone who is a citizen of a country other than Australia is ineligible to be elected to parliament.

If the High Court finds Joyce is ineligible to serve, he will be forced to resign from the lower house of Australian parliament, leaving the government with 75 of 150 total seats.

Constitutional law experts on Tuesday said that Joyce was in "clear difficulty" after Bill English, PM of New Zealand, confirmed that "unwittingly or not" Joyce was a citizen of New Zealand.

George Williams, a law expert from the University of NSW, said that the only way Joyce could win in the High Court was if the court applied a "generous interpretation" of the constitutional requirements.

"On the face of it, (Joyce) is disqualified," Williams told Australian media on Tuesday.

Antony Green, Australia's leading election forecaster, said that if he was disqualified, he could quickly renounce his NZ citizenship and run again in the New England by-election that would be called.

"You'd imagine the government would call that as quickly as possible after the court judgement, which would make it harder for anybody to run a campaign," Green said.

Joyce narrowly won the seat in the 2016 Australian election.

It was revealed on Tuesday that the question over Joyce's eligibility came about after members of the opposition Australian Labor Party asked members of New Zealand Labor to investigate whether Joyce would be a citizen due to his father being born in New Zealand.

"Clearly the Labor Party are involved in a conspiracy using a foreign government, in this case New Zealand, to try and bring down the Australian government," Chris Pyne, Australia's defence industry minister, said.

Pyne said that the government would take action to refer any Labor MPs with questionable status to the High Court at the same time as Joyce.

"The Labor Party needs to produce the evidence or the government will obviously consider its options,"
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 10:42:49|Editor: ying

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MEXICO CITY, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- The Mexican agricultural sector would benefit from the upcoming North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) renegotiations, Mexican Agriculture Secretary Jose Calzada said on Monday.

Speaking at an event in Mexico City, Calzada said the competitiveness and prestige of Mexican agricultural products would be considered in the negotiations.

Calzada said that Mexico now enjoys an agricultural trade surplus, as opposed to the deficit it faced in 1994, when NAFTA came into force with Canada and the Unite States.

Mexico's agricultural surplus with the United States stands at about 7 billion U.S. dollars, and 3 billion U.S. dollars with the rest of the world. Since 1994, the country has climbed from the 14th place to the 10th on the list of global food exporters.

"We have built up prestige in terms of food production in the world, and this must prevail," said Calzada.

According to the minister, he has held meetings with his American and Canadian counterparts.

The negotiating teams from all three countries will begin their first round of talks on Wednesday, after the United States released objectives for the renegotiation which aim to reduce its trade deficit.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 10:42:51|Editor: An

BEIJING, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- China's Ministry of Commerce on Tuesday expressed "grave concerns" about an executive memorandum signed by U.S. President Donald Trump to direct a trade representative to examine the so-called China's intellectual property practices. "We hope that the U.S. trade representative respects facts and acts with prudence," the ministry said in a statement on its website.

If the U.S. side fails to respect basic facts and multilateral trade rules, and takes measures that harm bilateral economic and trade relations, "China will definitely not sit by, but take all appropriate measures to resolutely safeguard its legitimate rights and interests," it said.

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Trump directs USTR to examine China's IP practices despite worries about potential harms to bilateral trade ties

WASHINGTON, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday directed the U.S. trade representative (USTR) Robert Lighthizer to examine the so-called China's intellectual property practices, despite worries about potential harms to China-U.S. trade ties.

"Ambassador Lighthizer, you are empowered to consider all available options at your disposal," Trump said at the White House before signing an executive memorandum authorizing Lighthizer to examine the issue. Full story

Commentary: America's undying passion for unilateralism

BEIJING, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- In another show of his tougher trade stance, U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday asked his top trade adviser to determine whether to start a so-called Section 301 investigation into China's trade practices and policies.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 11:13:02|Editor: ying

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ADEN, Yemen, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Central Bank of Yemen has decided to float its currency, starting at the price of 250 Yemeni rials to 1 U.S. dollar, down from 215 rials after more than two years of civil war.

In a statement to commercial banks, the Central Bank said as of Tuesday, the currency policy will be based on a floating exchange rate rather than the previous fixed rate.

Yemen's economy received a devastating blow as conflicts between President Abdu-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and the Houthi rebels turned into a civil war in March 2015 when the Saudi-led coalition militarily intervened to support Hadi.

Hadi declared the southern port city of Aden as a temporary capital in the same month after he escaped a house arrest by the Houthi rebels who controlled the capital Sanaa.

The coalition forces imposed a blockade on all Yemeni ports which halted most of exports and restricted imports.

The Central Bank said Sunday that the coalition has blocked the delivery of funds through Aden International Airport 13 times for unknown reasons.

The bank's move to float the currency comes amid a deepening liquidity crisis in the country as government employees, most of whom are in regions controlled by the Houthis, have received no salaries since September 2016. The exchange rate at the black market has decreased to 336 rials to 1 dollar.

Yemen has been receiving cash printed in Russia since the Central Bank was relocated from Sanaa to Aden in late 2016. But officials said the funds were not enough to pay the salaries of all employees.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 11:18:04|Editor: ying

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CANBERRA, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Australia is home to six of the world's top 100 universities, according to an International survey released on Tuesday.

The Shanghai-based Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) rated The University of Melbourne as the world's 39th best university, up from No. 40 in 2017 and No. 57 in 2012, and the best in Australia.

The University of Queensland (55), Monash University (78), The University of Sydney (83), University of Western Australia (91) and Australian National University (ANU) also made the top 100 with 17 others making the full list of 500.

Australia came in third place for the most number of institutions ranked in the top 100 behind the United States (U.S.) which had 48 and the Britain with nine.

The prestigious Harvard and Stanford, both in the U.S., retained their ranking as the top two universities in the world.

The only country represented in the top 20 outside the U.S. and Britain was Switzerland with the ETH Zurich rated the best university in Continental Europe at No. 19.

ANU had the biggest drop in ranking among Australian institutions, falling 20 places from its 2016 ranking of 77.

A spokesperson for ANU said that the rankings tended "to move around each year as the rankings methodology and metrics change."

"The latest ARWU rankings show that ANU continues to sit among the very best universities in the world," the spokesperson told Australian media on Tuesday.

Western Australia's Curtin University was one of the biggest improvers, moving into the 151-200 ranking group, up from the 401-500 band in 2012.

Debroah Terry, vice-chancellor of Curtin University, said the institution was "absolutely delighted" with the ranking which she said vindicated the university's research strategy.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 11:23:06|Editor: ying

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WASHINGTON, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis warned on Monday that if the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) fires at the United States, the situation could quickly escalate into war.

"If they (DPRK) fire at the United States, it could escalate into war very quickly," Mattis told reporters.

"If they shoot at the United States, I'm assuming they hit the United States. If they do that, it's game on," he added.

According to Mattis, the Pentagon would know "within moments" if a missile launched by the DPRK was headed for U.S. territory, including Guam.

He said the U.S. military would "take it out" if a missile was headed for any U.S. territory.

If a missile is fired in the direction of Guam but not hit the U.S. territory, Mattis said, "it becomes an issue we take up however the president chooses."

The DPRK military said in a statement Thursday that its plan to strike Guam with intermediate missiles will be ready by mid-August and its implementation will depend on a decision by the DPRK's top leader Kim Jong Un.

It was a response to U.S. President Donald Trump's unusually stern warning to the DPRK on Tuesday, when he said "North Korea (DPRK) best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 11:28:07|Editor: An

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by Xinhua writer Zhi Linfei

CAIRO, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- China as a rising power is poised to shoulder more responsibilities in helping resolve hotspot issues around the world, especially in the chaotic Middle East.

By launching a new peace initiative to push forward the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, China has sent out a signal that it is ready to play a bigger role in the Middle East peace process.

Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed a four-point proposal on the Palestine issue during Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' visit to Beijing in July.

In the proposal, Xi reiterated that China supports a two-state solution to the Palestine issue and supports Palestine to build an independent, fully sovereign state along the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. He also introduced new initiatives, including China's concrete measures to back Palestine's economic development.

China also offered to host a symposium on peace later this year and launch a tripartite dialogue mechanism with Palestine and Israel to coordinate the implementation of major assistance programs in Palestine within the framework of China's Belt and Road Initiative.

The proposal is in line with China's vision of achieving a peaceful and prosperous Middle East as elaborated in a policy speech Xi made during his visit to the region last year.

Speaking at the headquarters of the Arab League in Egypt's capital of Cairo in January 2016, Xi proposed promoting peace through advancing economic development as a creative way to tackle the challenges of poverty and terrorism in the Middle East.

Middle Eastern countries were also invited to actively participate in China's Belt and Road Initiative to build more infrastructure facilities, so to create more job opportunities and lift more people out of poverty.

Last month, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held meetings in Beijing respectively with senior officials from Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Tunisia to discuss the Gulf standoff and Libyan peace process.

Wang put forward a three-point proposal on easing tensions between Qatar and the Saudi Arabia-led Quartet through political dialogues within the framework of the Gulf Cooperation Council, while outlining four principles on settling the Libyan issue through dialogues and negotiations under the leadership of the United Nations.

Achieving peace in the Middle East holds the key to building "a human community with shared destiny" as envisioned by China. The concept aims at maintaining peace, sustaining development and ensuring continued prosperity through achieving shared, win-win development.

As China walks onto the center of the world stage, it is ready to increase its engagement with the Middle East, at a time when the U.S.-led West is nearly at its wit's end in seeking a viable solution to the chaos.

Based on its miraculous achievements in realizing fast economic growth and eradicating poverty, China indeed has a lot of experiences to share with the Middle East.

China has also delivered more public goods compatible with its status as a responsible big player, by increasing humanitarian aid to a chain of war-torn countries across the region, such as Palestine, South Sudan, Syria, Libya and Yemen, just to name a few.

In April, China pledged to provide South Sudan with 8,800 tons of rice, 1,500 tons of which were already delivered. In July, China contributed 5 million U.S. dollars to the UN Food Programme in emergency food aid to the hunger-stricken Yemen.

No doubt, China's new peace initiative and increased contribution will inject new impetus into the peace efforts in the Middle East, whose stability is so crucial to achieving world peace and prosperity.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 11:28:08|Editor: ying

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HAVANA, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- About 82 percent of Cuba's 500 sandy beaches have shown signs of erosion, warned an Environment Ministry expert on Monday.

Odalys Goicochea, the department's environment director, said the Caribbean island is seeing the beach coastline decline by an average of 1.2 meters per year.

She stressed that for many years, structures have been built along sand dunes, contributing to the destruction and deterioration of the beaches.

Goicochea highlighted the government's "Life Task" plan approved last April to reverse these conditions and mitigate the effects of climate change.

The project contains 11 missions aimed at counteracting the effects of erosion in vulnerable areas, such as banning building new houses in coastal settlements and reducing the cultivation of fields near the coast.

Tourism is Cuba's second largest source of income. The new plan also takes this into consideration, outlining how the construction of hotels must seek to mitigate or prevent erosion.

The project also includes efforts to halt the deterioration of coral reefs, as well as other programs related to renewable energy, energy efficiency, food security, health and sustainable tourism.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 12:38:20|Editor: Xiang Bo

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TOKYO, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and U.S. President Donald Trump agreed during telephone talks on Tuesday to work with the international community to prevent the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) from launching missiles that might be aimed toward the U.S. territory of Guam.

While stating that the threat of the launch had raised regional tensions, Abe told a press briefing after talks that the Japanese government will "continue to work closely with the United States and South Korea, also with the international community, including China and Russia."

"At the same time, we will make utmost efforts to protect our citizens' lives by preparing for any possible situation. We'll maintain a high level of vigilance and our missile defense system under the strong Japan-U.S. alliance," Abe added.

The conversation between the two leaders took place following the DPRK intimating it could fire missiles into waters off Guam in the western pacific.

Abe said that fears had been stoked in Japan because the missiles' flight path could see them fly over at least four prefectures in Japan.

According to government officials here, the two leaders also lauded fresh UN Security Council resolutions imposing stricter sanctions on the DPRK.

Japan's Foreign Minister Taro Kono and Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera will hold a so-called "two-plus-two" meeting in Washington with their U.S. counterparts this week, where security issues, officials here said, are likely to top the agenda.

The Japanese ministers will also hold one-on-one talks with their respective counterparts, government officials here also said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 13:08:24|Editor: Song Lifang

A girl holding a bunch of flowers participates in an evening vigil at Federal Plaza in Chicago, the United States, on Aug. 13, 2017. Several hundred people joined a Sunday evening vigil at Federal Plaza in downtown Chicago, for those who fell victim to the violence in Charlottesville of Virginia during the weekend.(Xinhua/Wang Ping)

NEW YORK, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- The violent incidents involving white nationalists that occurred in Charlottesville, a historic college town in the U.S. state of Virginia, again highlighted the dangers of playing identity politics in the deeply divided nation, said experts.

"It's a dangerous and regressive setback, but it's a natural and logical reaction to extreme non-white identity politics, which largely vilified white people and demanded power and wealth transfer on the basis of race and gender," Lee Cheng, co-founder and director of the Asian American Legal Foundation, told Xinhua in an interview.

RESURGENCE OF WHITE NATIONALISM

The Charlottesville violence was "another resurgence" of white nationalism "in the world of identity politics," where everyone is defined by their skin color, gender, among others, Cheng added.

"I have been worried about the resurgence of white identity politics for some time," he said. "It didn't make sense to me that all white people, especially the poor ones, would accept being constantly told they are privileged and racist very well. "

Cheng's views was echoed by Perry Bacon Jr., a political writer for FiveThirtyEight, an website that focuses on opinion poll analysis.

"...now it appears that a kind of white identity politics is a key part of American politics," said Bacon in his article titled Charlottesville And The Rise Of White Identity Politics posted online Monday.

Identity politics is not a new thing in the United States, he said. From Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan, presidents (mostly Republican) at least in recent decades have "regularly appealed to white, conservative-leaning voters by playing up fears and stereotypes about African-Americans and other minority groups," he added.

TWO COMPETING NARRATIVES

Bacon pointed out that there are two "competing narratives" about race and racism at the center of today's discussions in the United States.

One perspective, most directly expressed by Black Lives Matter activists but also shared by many Democratic politicians, the media and other elite institutions, is that a "Black Lives Matter" movement is "necessary because, by a lot of metrics, America has left blacks behind."

The movement emerged after the killing of Michael Brown by a policeman in Ferguson, Missouri in August 2014 and the resulting protests.

The competing narrative, one expressed mainly by conservatives, is that "Black Lives Matter" is "essentially a liberal political movement like any other," and "not a reflection of real, structural discrimination or inequality."

"Conservatives therefore can and should make a counter-argument. And if blacks (and women and Latinos and Asians) are invoking their race and identity, why can't whites as well?" Bacon said.

One of the chants white nationalists repeatedly turned to as they marched in Charlottesville on Friday night and Saturday was "white lives matter" - a direct response to the "Black Lives Matter" movement.

The number of hate groups across the United States increased in 2016 to 917, up from 892 in 2015, according to an annual report on extremism in America released in February by Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center.

The white and non-white identity politics "feeds on" each other, Cheng said, "they are unfortunately sucking in or destroying the center."

ASIAN AMERICANS' SITUATION

In Cheng's opinion, "Asian Americans, who are neither white nor considered minority by those who run the anti-white faction (which welcomes some yellow faces and voices as gatekeeper tokens but doesn't really want to afford Asians equal rights), are in deep trouble if either extreme wins."

"We will lose if either white supremacists (who are really the original identity-focused racists) win, or non-white identity focused racists win," he said. "We can only be safe if race and ethnicity are not permitted to be used under law for decision-making and discrimination."

"Charlottesville is the kind of America that identity politics is calling into being. It's time for straight talk about that," said Rod Dreher, a senior editor at The American Conservative, in an article titled The Curse Of Identity Politics published on Sunday.

"It is not enough for conservative politicians and leaders to condemn these incidents. In their rhetoric, they need to start criticizing the principles of identity politics, across the board. They should emphasize what unites us as Americans," Dreher said.

President Donald Trump condemned white supremacist violence in Charlottesville on Monday, two days after an initial statement that blamed "many sides" for violence largely instigated by far-right activists.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 13:13:28|Editor: ying

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UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- The members of the United Nations Security Council on Monday condemned "in the strongest terms" the terrorist attacks on the camps of the UN mission in Mali, which killed nine people.

The council members called on the government of Mali to swiftly investigate those attacks and bring the perpetrators to justice, said the council in a statement.

The council members underlined that attacks targeting peacekeepers may constitute war crimes under international law.

In Monday's attacks on the camps of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (Minusma) in Douenza and Timbuktu in Mali, a UN peacekeeper from Togo, a Malian soldier, a member of the Malian gendarmerie as well as six Malian contractors were killed. A number of others were wounded, including a UN peacekeeper.

The council members reiterated their full support for Minusma and the French forces that support it. They reiterated their strong support for the special representative of the UN secretary-general for Mali, Mahamat Saleh Annadif, and for Minusma to assist the Malian authorities and the Malian people in their efforts to bring lasting peace and stability to their country.

They expressed their concern about the security situation in Mali and urged the Malian parties to fully implement the Agreement for Peace and Reconciliation in Mali without further delay. They noted that a full implementation of the peace agreement and an intensification of efforts to overcome asymmetric threats can contribute to improving the security situation across Mali.

The council members reaffirmed that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security, urging all states to combat terrorism by all means.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 13:58:44|Editor: ying

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MOSCOW, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- For the first time, the average life expectancy in Russia exceeded 72 years in the first half of 2017, the country's deputy prime minister said Monday.

"In the first half of 2017, the average life expectancy in Russia has reached 72.4 for the first time," Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets was quoted by TASS news agency as saying.

The average life expectancy grew by six months compared with 2016, she added.

According to Golodets, consistent work aimed at decreasing the mortality was the key factor behind the life expectancy growth. In the first half of 2017, the mortality rate had decreased to 12.9 per 1,000 people compared with 13.2 in the same period of 2016.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in March that the average life expectancy in Russia reached 71.8 years in 2016 and would increase to 76 years by 2025.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 14:13:50|Editor: ying

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UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Security Council on Monday condemned "in the strongest terms" the "barbaric and cowardly" terror attack in Burkina Faso, which killed at least 18 people.

"The members of the Security Council expressed their solidarity with Burkina Faso in its fight against terrorism and stressed the need to intensify regional and international efforts to combat terrorism and violent extremism, which may be conducive to terrorism," said the council in a press statement.

The members of the Security Council commended the efforts of the region, including through the development of a multinational military force, in order to address the transnational dimension of the terrorist threat in the Sahel region, and encouraged further progress in this regard, said the statement.

The five African countries of Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger agreed in February to establish a multinational military force, G5 Sahel Joint Force, to fight Islamist militants in the Sahel region. France agreed to provide substantial aid in early July.

A group of gunmen attacked a Turkish restaurant in downtown Ouagadougou, the capital city of Burkina Faso, on Sunday night, leaving 18 people dead and as many people wounded.

The council members reaffirmed that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security.

They reiterated that any acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of their motivation, wherever, whenever and by whomsoever committed.

They reaffirmed the need for all states to combat by all means, in accordance with the UN Charter and other obligations under international law, threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts.

They underlined the need to bring the perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of terrorist acts to justice, and urged all states to cooperate actively with the government of Burkina Faso and all other relevant authorities in this regard.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 14:49:09|Editor: ying

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NEW DELHI, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday pledged to build a New India by 2022 that is free of casteism, terrorism and corruption, a day after Indian President Ram Nath Kovind pitched for the same.

"A New India is one that leaves behind a Chalta Hai (it's okay) attitude. We have to think of Badal Sakta Hai (we can change). This attitude will help us as a nation," Modi said in his Independence Day speech from the iconic Red Fort in the heart of the national capital.

"The millennials turn 18 next year. I invite India's young to take this opportunity to shape the future of the nation and participate in India's development," he said.

Invoking Team India to run for a New India by 2022, Modi said: "By then, the poor shall have concrete houses, the farmer shall double his income, youths and women will get ample opportunities, an India free of casteism, terrorism, corruption, nepotism, a clean India."

The prime minister also reached out to the youths in violence-hit Indian-controlled Kashmir, urging them to join the mainstream.

"You have every right to make your voices heard in Indian democracy. My government is determined to restore to Kashmir its status of heaven on earth. Bullets or abuses won't solve Kashmir's problem... change can be brought only by embracing Kashmiris," he said.

Modi also issued a stern warning to cow vigilantes, saying "violence in the name of faith is unacceptable."

"India is about peace, unity and amity. Casteism and communalism will not help us."

India celebrates 70 years of independence from Britain this year.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 15:54:44|Editor: Zhou Xin

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HOUSTON, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- Texas A&M University on Monday canceled a white supremacist rally planned for September by an outside organizer, citing safety concerns.

The university said in a news release that after consultation with law enforcement and considerable study, Texas A&M is canceling the event scheduled by Preston Wiginton at Rudder Plaza on campus on Sept. 11 because of concerns about the safety of its students, faculty, staff, and the public.

"Linking the tragedy of Charlottesville with the Texas A&M event creates a major security risk on our campus," it said, adding that the risks of threat to life and safety "compel us to cancel the event."

Meanwhile, it stressed that Texas A&M's support of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the freedom of speech cannot be questioned.

Earlier on Saturday, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe declared the state of emergency as thousands of white nationalists, neo-Confederates and right-wing protesters, as well as groups that oppose them, clashed during the "Unite the Right" demonstrations in Charlottesville.

White supremacist groups gathered in Charlottesville Friday evening to protest the city's decision to remove a statue of Civil War Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from a park. The rally evolved into clashes on Saturday.

U.S. President Donald Trump condemned "all that hate stands for" after Virginia declared emergency.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 15:59:47|Editor: Zhou Xin

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COLOMBO, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka's Minister of Development Assignments Tilak Marapana was appointed as the nation's new Foreign Minister by President Maithripala Sirisena on Tuesday, the President's Media Division said.

Marapana, from the ruling United National Party, was filled into the post following the resignation of Ravi Karunanayake last week over his involvement in an alleged corruption scandal.

Marapana had previously served as Minister of Law and Order and Prison Reforms before officially resigning from the position on November 9, 2015.
Rouhani warns Tuesday to exit the the nuclear deal signed with world powers if US keeps on imposing new sanctions on Iran. (AFP Photo)

TEHRAN, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Iran's President Hassan Rouhani warned Tuesday to exit the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers if the U.S. keeps on imposing new sanctions, he said in a televised address.

Rouhani's comments come with the nuclear deal under mounting pressure after Tehran carried out missile tests, and Washington imposed new sanctions -- with each accusing the other of violating the spirit of the agreement.

Rouhani warned that Iran was ready to exit the 2015 deal, which saw the lifting of most international sanctions in return for curbs on its nuclear programme, if Washington persisted.

He said Iran did prefer to stick with the nuclear deal, which he called "a model of victory for peace and diplomacy over war and unilateralism" but that this was not the "only option".

Rouhani said Trump had shown he was an unreliable partner not just for Iran but for the U.S. allies.

Iran's parliament on Sunday approved more than half a billion dollars in funding for the country's missile programme and foreign operations of the elite Revolutionary Guards in response to the new U.S. sanctions.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 16:04:57|Editor: ying

Sheik Raed Salah (2nd L) arrives at Rishon Lezion Justice court in Rishon Lezion, near Tel Aviv, Israel, on Aug. 15, 2017. Israeli police said in a statement on Tuesday that it arrested a senior Islamic leader over suspected "incitement." Sheik Raed Salah is the head of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement, a movement Israel outlawed in November 2015. (Xinhua/JINI/Gideon Markowicz)

JERUSALEM, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Israeli police said in a statement on Tuesday that it arrested a senior Islamic leader over suspected "incitement."

Sheik Raed Salah is the head of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement, a movement Israel outlawed in November 2015.

Israeli authorities charge that the movement has "incited" tensions over East Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a flashpoint site that Israel annexed, together with the rest of East Jerusalem, after seizing the territory from Jordan in 1976.

Police Spokeswoman Luba Samri said Salah was taken for questioning in the headquarters of Lahav 433, Israel's FBI, and the police will decide later in the day if they will ask the court to remand him in custody.

According to the spokeswoman, Salah was accused of leading a campaign stating that "Al-Aqsa is in danger" and Israel wants to change the status quo in the holy site, an allegation denied by Israel.

Last month, the new electronic gates Israel installed at the entrance to the holy mosque sparked massive protests, which claimed the lives of at least four Palestinians.

"On several occasions, after the (Islamic) Movement was outlawed, the inciter spoke before an audience and a series of statements were published in the media," a police statement said.

An examination of the publications "indicates that some of the statements raise suspicion of committing offenses," the statement added.

Salah's wife, Um Omar, told Hebrew-language Ynet news site that some 20 police officers stormed into their home, confiscating computers and arresting her husband without telling them the reason for his arrest.

Salah has a history of clashes with Israeli authorities.

In 2013, He was sentenced to nine months in prison for "inciting violence" and "racism" during a rally against Israeli construction near the Al-Aqsa compound in 2007. In the rally, he called on "all Muslims and Arabs to start an uprising in support of holy Jerusalem and the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque."

In 2010, he was sentenced to ten months in jail on charges of rioting and assaulting a police officer. In 2003, he was convicted after a plea bargain for contacting a foreign agent and providing services to the Islamic Hamas movement.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 16:25:08|Editor: Yurou

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Members of an anti-war NGO based in Kobe, Japan attend a peace assembly at the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province, Aug. 15, 2017. Representatives from countries such as China, Japan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Jordan attended the assembly to commemorate the 72nd anniversary of Japan's unconditional surrender in World War II. (Xinhua/Ji Chunpeng)

NANJING, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- A peace assembly was held Tuesday in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province, to commemorate the 72nd anniversary of Japan's unconditional surrender in World War II.

Representatives from countries such as China, Japan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Jordan attended the assembly in the Nanjing Massacre Victim's Memorial Hall, mourning the 300,000 people who died in the massacre in the name of world peace.

On Dec. 13, 1937, Japanese troops began six weeks of destruction, pillage, rape and slaughter in Nanjing. More than 300,000 Chinese, including unarmed soldiers and innocent civilians, were murdered.

Hida Yuichi with Japan-based Kobe Student Youth Center laid a wreath and stood for several minutes in silence. It was the 21st time he had attend the peace assembly in Nanjing.

He said he had watched a documentary about Unit 731 by Japan's public broadcaster NHK before he visited China and was "shocked" by what he saw.

The documentary strengthened his belief in the truth. Regrettably, he said, many people in Japan still denied their war crimes including the Nanjing massacre and Unit 731, a germ warfare unit in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province.

Raqibul Hassan, an overseas student from Bangladesh, held a piece of paper reading "please say sorry."

He said the WWII ended 72 years ago. Germany has apologized for its war crimes, but Japan had not. He hoped more Japanese would say sorry to Chinese people.

Miyauchi Yoko, head of an anti-war NGO based in Kobe, Japan, said young Japanese still think that they were the victims because of the U.S. use of the atom bomb on two Japanese cities, and do not recognize Japan as the villain of the piece.

"Don't take peace for granted. It should be pursued and maintained," said Ali Qadir, a Pakistani student. "Everyone should learn a painful lesson from war."

This year is the 72nd anniversary of the end of the war. Every year around Aug. 15, peace-loving NGOs across the world gather in the Nanjing to remember the victims.
China supports two-state solution on Palestinian issue, President Xi Jinping says in talks with Mahmoud Abbas in Beijing in July. (Xinhua Photo)

CAIRO, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- China as a rising power is poised to shoulder more responsibilities in helping resolve hotspot issues around the world, especially in the chaotic Middle East.

By launching a new peace initiative to push forward the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, China has sent out a signal that it is ready to play a bigger role in the Middle East peace process.

Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed a four-point proposal on the Palestine issue during Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' visit to Beijing in July.

In the proposal, Xi reiterated that China supports a two-state solution to the Palestine issue and supports Palestine to build an independent, fully sovereign state along the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. He also introduced new initiatives, including China's concrete measures to back Palestine's economic development.

China also offered to host a symposium on peace later this year and launch a tripartite dialogue mechanism with Palestine and Israel to coordinate the implementation of major assistance programs in Palestine within the framework of China's Belt and Road Initiative.

The proposal is in line with China's vision of achieving a peaceful and prosperous Middle East as elaborated in a policy speech Xi made during his visit to the region last year.

Speaking at the headquarters of the Arab League in Egypt's capital of Cairo in January 2016, Xi proposed promoting peace through advancing economic development as a creative way to tackle the challenges of poverty and terrorism in the Middle East.

Middle Eastern countries were also invited to actively participate in China's Belt and Road Initiative to build more infrastructure facilities, so to create more job opportunities and lift more people out of poverty.

Last month, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held meetings in Beijing respectively with senior officials from Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Tunisia to discuss the Gulf standoff and Libyan peace process.

Wang put forward a three-point proposal on easing tensions between Qatar and the Saudi Arabia-led Quartet through political dialogues within the framework of the Gulf Cooperation Council, while outlining four principles on settling the Libyan issue through dialogues and negotiations under the leadership of the United Nations.

Achieving peace in the Middle East holds the key to building "a human community with shared destiny" as envisioned by China. The concept aims at maintaining peace, sustaining development and ensuring continued prosperity through achieving shared, win-win development.

As China walks onto the center of the world stage, it is ready to increase its engagement with the Middle East, at a time when the U.S.-led West is nearly at its wit's end in seeking a viable solution to the chaos.

Based on its miraculous achievements in realizing fast economic growth and eradicating poverty, China indeed has a lot of experiences to share with the Middle East.

China has also delivered more public goods compatible with its status as a responsible big player, by increasing humanitarian aid to a chain of war-torn countries across the region, such as Palestine, South Sudan, Syria, Libya and Yemen, just to name a few.

In April, China pledged to provide South Sudan with 8,800 tons of rice, 1,500 tons of which were already delivered. In July, China contributed 5 million U.S. dollars to the UN Food Programme in emergency food aid to the hunger-stricken Yemen.

No doubt, China's new peace initiative and increased contribution will inject new impetus into the peace efforts in the Middle East, whose stability is so crucial to achieving world peace and prosperity.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 16:53:44|Editor: Zhou Xin

Palestinian patients receive treatment at the department of kidney dialyses at a hospital, during the worsening crisis of power outages, in the Gaza City, on Aug. 14, 2017. Residents of Gaza experience 20 hours of electricity outage per day. (Xinhua/Wissam Nassar)
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 17:30:47|Editor: Mengjie

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SHENZHEN, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- South China's Shenzhen City destroyed more than 320 drug dens and seized 12.25 tonnes of narcotics as of July this year, Xu Wenhai, Shenzhen's deputy mayor, said Tuesday.

Suspects associated with the dens were involved in more than 4,600 drug-related cases, Xu added.

Local police have established offices to handle anti-drug and drug rehabilitation work in all 74 sub-districts in Shenzhen this year. More than 600 employees were recruited to work in rehabilitation centers in 126 communities across the city.

Additionally, drug education and prevention was promoted in 31 primary and middle schools.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 17:50:57|Editor: Mengjie

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JUBA, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- South Sudan on Tuesday denied rebels allied to former First Vice President Riek Machar recaptured the strategic Pagak town near the Ethiopian from government troops.

Dickson Gatluak, a spokesman for SPLA-in opposition (SPLA-IO) faction of First Vice President Taban Deng Gai, which formed coalition with President Salva Kiir after the ouster of Machar, told Xinhua their troops were still in control of Pagak following violent clashes on Monday.

"This is not true we had been attacked since yesterday (Monday) in northern Pagak at the bridge near the Ethiopian border and we resisted. Our forces are still in control of the town," he told Xinhua in Juba.

This contradicts the account of the deputy rebel spokesman Col. Lam Paul Gabriel who earlier revealed they had since Friday recaptured the rebel headquarters from government troops and were now acting in self defense in case of any attack.

Gatluak disclosed that the rebels who are currently staged in the northern part of Pagak tried to push them off the bridge connecting the northeastern remote town to Ethiopia but they resisted.

"The rebels are in the northern part of the town. They (rebels) are not far from the (Pagak) town," he added.

Government troops early last week captured the rebel stronghold after fierce fighting forced thousands of civilians to flee across the Ethiopian border leaving the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) wary of the unfolding humanitarian situation and violations.

UNMISS urged for restraint on both warring sides and reminded them of their responsibility towards protecting civilians from conflict.

"UNMISS reiterates that peace in South Sudan is only possible through a political rather than a military solution to the ongoing crisis," UNMISS spokesman Daniel Dickinson told Xinhua.

South Sudan descended into violence in December 2013 after political dispute between President Kiir and his former deputy Machar led to fighting that pitied mostly Dinka ethnic soldiers loyal to Kiir against Machar's Nuer ethnic group.

The 2015 peace agreement to end the violence was again violated in July 2016 when the rival factions resumed fighting in the capital forcing Machar to flee into exile.

The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions that have sought refuge in neighboring countries.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 17:56:01|Editor: Liangyu

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TRINKOT, Afghanistan, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- At least one school teacher was killed and a few students injured as an explosive device went off in Chora district of the southern Uruzgan province in Afghanistan on Monday night, a local official Ubaidullah Barakzai said Tuesday.

Without giving more details, the official said that an investigation has been initiated into the case.

Meantime, Choori district police chief Aka Assadullah blamed the Taliban for organizing the blast.

Taliban militants have not commented on the attack.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 18:16:19|Editor: Liangyu

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TEHRAN, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Iran's President Hassan Rouhani warned Tuesday to exit the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers if the United States keeps on imposing new sanctions, he said in a televised address.

Rouhani's comments come with the nuclear deal under mounting pressure after Tehran carried out missile tests, and Washington imposed new sanctions, with each accusing the other of violating the spirit of the agreement.

Rouhani warned that Iran was ready to exit the 2015 deal, which saw the lifting of most international sanctions in return for curbs on its nuclear program, if Washington persisted.

He said Iran did prefer to stick with the nuclear deal, which he called "a model of victory for peace and diplomacy over war and unilateralism" but that this was not the "only option."

Rouhani said Trump had shown he was an unreliable partner not just for Iran but for the U.S. allies.

"The reason for the U.S. excuses and renege is Iran's commitment to its undertakings under the nuclear deal, upholding its rights, and the U.S. failure in pursuing its covetousness," Rouhani said.

The U.S. new administration is trying to gear back to the sanctions against Iran, but Iran will respond to any threats "properly," he said.

The U.S. officials should know that failure in exerting sanction pressures on the Islamic republic forced them to the negotiation table with Iran on its nuclear program, Rouhani said.

"If they want to hold on their past experience, Iran will definitely return (its nuclear program) to pre-deal situation in a very quick and advanced manner," the Iranian president stressed.

Iran's parliament on Sunday overwhelmingly approved the generalities of a motion to counter U.S. pressures and its "terrorist and adventurous" acts in the region.

It also approved more than half a billion U.S. dollars in funding for the country's missile program and foreign operations of the elite Revolutionary Guards in response to the new U.S. sanctions.

On Aug. 2, U.S. President Donald Trump signed a sanctions bill on Russia, Iran and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Sanctions against Iran is mainly in response to Tehran's growing missile program.

Iranian officials have repeatedly said Iran's missile program is for deterrent purposes.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 18:21:20|Editor: Zhou Xin

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COLOMBO, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka's largest business community, the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC), on Tuesday expressed the appreciation for the steps taken to develop the Hambantota Port.

In a statement, the CCC said the reported scale and size of the investment is expected to generate meaningful foreign direct investments (FDIs) in port related activities, as well as businesses around the Hambantota port.

Sri Lanka and China last month signed an agreement to develop the port. The agreement was signed between China Merchants Port Holdings and the Sri Lanka Ports Authority.

Observing that international rating agencies had been quick to highlight the positive effects of the transaction from the Hambantota Port agreement, the CCC said industry representatives also noted the economic benefits arising from a growth in industrial activity.

The agreement would create more employment opportunities in the region and also provide sizable impetus to propel growth in the maritime related services and logistics sectors around the Port, it said.

"The Chamber now expects the implementation of the Agreement to be effected in a manner that would serve the best interests of our country," the CCC said.

"Sri Lanka needs to enhance its reputation as a business destination that has a credible and predictable investment regime."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 18:26:24|Editor: Zhou Xin

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LONDON, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Smoke engulfed the platform at Holborn tube station in London's West End area early Tuesday, and the station was closed after evacuation, local police said.

Two fire engines and 10 firefighters were sent to the station. British firefighters are investigating reports of smoke at Holborn station.

"It was an overheated compressor on a train not a fire," London Fire Brigade said in a statement.

Officers are working to reopen it, said the British Transport Police.

Video clips on social media showed that commuters were walking calmly as heavy smoke could be seen behind them on the tube platform.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 18:31:26|Editor: Zhou Xin

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KUNDUZ, Afghanistan, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- At least two security personnel have been confirmed dead and four others wounded as a suicide attacker targeted a security checkpoint in Chardara district of the northern Afghan province of Kunduz on Tuesday, police said.

"A suicide bomber blew himself up near a security checkpoint in Chardara district of Kunduz province, killing at least two security members of the checkpoint and wounding four others," police spokesman Mahfuzzullah Akbari told reporters here.

The suicide bomber obviously driving an explosive-laden car had been attempting to enter Kunduz city but was recognized by police and ordered to stop, but he refused and blew himself up next to the security checkpoint, the official added.

Zabihullah Majahid, who claims to speak for the Taliban militants in contact with the media, claimed responsibility for the attack.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 18:31:28|Editor: Zhou Xin

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RAMALLAH, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian national unity government on Tuesday urged Israel to end its civil administration in the West Bank, saying it "undermines" the Palestinian National Authority (PNA).

In its weekly statement to press, the Palestinian government criticized Israel's intention to strengthen the Israeli Civil Administration (ICA) by employing more staff, adding that it will consider how to respond to the Israeli move.

The statement expressed the PNA's discontent with the ICA's attempts "to open direct channels with Palestinian citizens and businesspersons."

It called the ICA "the main arm of the Israeli occupation to seize control over the West Bank and consolidate the occupation in all aspects of life."

The statement stressed that the ICA should have been dismantled years ago under the Oslo Accords that were signed between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel in 1993.

"Those steps are a clear Israeli annulment of the Oslo Accords and a unilateral retracting of signed agreement," said the statement.

ICA is a civil-miliary body that is mandated with coordinating Israeli government's dealing with Palestinians in the West Bank, but not Jewish settlers who live in the settlements.

Its activities include issuing special permits for movement of Palestinians and goods that are required to pass some Israeli checkpoints.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 18:31:29|Editor: Zhou Xin

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FREETOWN, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- At least 286 people have died after a devastating mudslide struck an area on the outskirts of Sierra Leone's capital city Freetown, Sinneh Kamara, an official in charge at the Connaught Hospital's mortuary said on Tuesday.

Kamara said that a total of 280 bodies had been brought to the facility, while the ambulance has just left to collect six more bodies that were discovered on Tuesday morning.

So far the number of survivors still remains unknown but sources at the Connaught said about 20 survivors with severe injuries are currently responding to treatment.

Relatives of the victims at the hospital are seeking to identify their loved ones but they are not allowed entry by security forces who want to minimize chaos.

Head of Operation of the Sierra Leone police, Al Sheik Kamara said many people are still buried under the rubbles and excavators are removing debris to discover more bodies.

So far, the government has not yet released official figures regarding the death toll as rescue work is under way.

Xinhua correspondent at the scene said the weather remains cloudy on Tuesday morning, stoking fears of more rain that could impede rescue work.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 18:36:33|Editor: Zhou Xin

Investigators work on the site of a damaged hotel after a raid on the hideout of a suspected militant in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Aug. 15, 2017. A suspected militant was killed in a suicide blast during a raid on a hotel in Bangladesh capital Dhaka on Tuesday, the country's police chief told journalists. (Xinhua/Jibon Ahsan)

by Naim-Ul-Karim

DHAKA, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- A suspected militant was killed in a suicide blast during a raid on a hotel in Bangladesh capital Dhaka on Tuesday, the country's police chief told journalists.

After the raid on the militant hideout ended on Tuesday morning at about 11 a.m. local time, AKM Shahidul Hoque, inspector general of Bangladesh Police, told journalists at the scene that "Militant Saiful Islam has blown himself up during the raid despite repeated requests to surrender."

The law enforcement agencies early on Tuesday cordoned off Hotel Olio International.

A portion of the hotel's fourth storey reportedly collapsed and fell onto the road after the explosion.

A pedestrian was injured in an explosion that rocked the area during the operation codenamed "August Bite."

The hotel is located a few blocks away from the memorial museum of Bangladesh's founding president Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman who was assassinated on Aug. 15, 1975 along with 13 members of his family.

On Tuesday morning. Bangladeshi President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina led the nation in paying homage by placing wreaths at the portrait of Bangabandhu installed in front of the memorial museum in Western Dhaka's posh Dhanmondi area.

The incident came when mourning ceremonies were held at the memorial museum on Tuesday morning with presence of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, daughter of Mujib, who survived at least 19 attempts on her life, the worst being on Aug. 21 in 2004 when grenades thrown by unidentified assailants tore through her Bangladesh Awami League party rally in Dhaka.

Hoque said militant Saiful Islam is a member of Neo-JMB (an offshoot of the banned militant outfit Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh) who was blamed for the deadly attack on the Spanish cafe in Dhaka's diplomatic enclave Gulshan on July 1, 2016.

The militant was previously a member of Chhatra Shibir (the student wing of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party), Haque added.

He said the suicide bomber was assigned to target the mourning processions toward memorial museum.

"Acting on a tip off we've come to know that he was planning to bomb the mourning day program taken out in the area."

Haque told the media on the scene that they had found huge improvised explosive devices or IEDs inside the hotel room which the militant rented Sunday.

He said their bomb disposal units were working to defuse the IEDs which if exploded could cause massive casualties.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 18:46:37|Editor: Zhou Xin

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MOSCOW, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said Tuesday that it had caught a suspected Ukrainian saboteur when he was trying to blow up a power line in Crimea.

Gennady Limeshko was detained Saturday when he attempted to damage a power line between the settlements of Sudak and Novy Svet on the southern shore of the peninsula, said an FSB statement.

Limeshko, an ex-senior scout in the Ukrainian military, was sent to Crimea to commit acts of sabotage, including damaging power lines, setting forests and communal facilities on fire and engineering a landslide which would block a vital road, the statement said.

The FSB seized from the detainee two blocks of TNT explosive with fuses, a hand grenade, containers with flammable liquid and a digital camera to keep a record of the sabotage activities, it said.

The FSB has launched criminal proceedings against Limeshko and is searching for possible accomplices.

The autonomous republic of Crimea has become part of Russia since March 2014 following a local referendum, which, however, was rejected by Kiev and Western countries.

Since then, the FSB has reported various cases of suspected Ukrainian acts of sabotage in the peninsula, but Kiev denied the charges.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 18:48:10|Editor: Zhou Xin

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LONDON, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Forty artworks, highlights from the Beijing International Art Biennale Exhibitions, are shown here for the first time from Monday to Friday.

The works, shown at the Mall Galary under the title "Art & Peace -- An Exhibition of Contemporary Chinese Art", include ink paintings, oil paintings, wood block prints, sculptures, watercolour paintings and mixed media, all by renowned Chinese artists.

As a part of the China Arts World Tour, hosted by The China Artists Association, the exhibition celebrates the 45th anniversary of the establishment of ambassador-level diplomatic relations between China and the United Kingdom.

The Tour aims to promote and strengthen mutual understanding and exchange between China's artists and fine art communities around the world.

At the opening ceremony, Liu Xiaoming, Chinese ambassador to the United Kingdom, said the exhibition not only showcases the unique charm of contemporary Chinese art but also expresses Chinese artists' commitment to world peace and development, as well as the Chinese people's keen aspiration for peace and "a shared future for mankind".

"For the Chinese nation, the pursuit of peace, concord, and harmony is a way of life and at the heart of Chinese culture," Liu added.

"I believe that viewers visiting this exhibition will gain a deeper understanding about the value of peace, about the healing power of art, and about the importance for humanity to pursue and uphold peace together."

Funded by the China National Arts Fund, the China Arts World Tour had a successful run in Italy and Finland. After the exhibition in Britain, it will go to Georgia.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 18:58:14|Editor: Zhou Xin

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BERLIN, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is experiencing a late surge in voter support as national elections loom, a survey by a political research institute concludes Tuesday.

The AfD would receive the vote of 10 percent of those polled in the survey, up 1 percentage point from previous polls, leaving the controversial party in the third place behind the Social Democrats (SPD) at 25 percent, up 0.5 percentage point, and the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU) sister parties with a combined 37 percent, according to the survey conducted by the Insa political research institute for the newspaper Bild.

Despite a slight improvement, the survey shows that SPD leader Martin Schulz has still been unable to close the gap between his party and Angela Merkel's (CDU) conservatives.

After an initial surge in support when he took the reins of the SPD in March 2017, the former president of the European Parliament struggled to translate the so-called "Schulz effect" into a lasting electoral following.

The SPD has suffered defeats in three state elections in Saarland, Schleswig Holstein and North Rhine Westphalia, raising questions over Schulz's ability to compete with Merkel.

More recently, the party was dealt another humiliating blow when the defection of a member of the SPD-Green party governing coalition to the CDU in Lower Saxony, which brought the government of governor Stephan Weil (SPD) to a fall.

The Left party (Linke) fell 1 percentage point to 9 percent, while both the Green party (Gruene) and Free Democratic Party (FDP) held steady at 7 and 9 percent respectively.

According the Insa survey, there would be no majority for a coalition between the CDU/CSU and FDP as they only achieved a combined 46 percent of votes.

A coalition between the Left, SPD and Greens would also fail to muster a majority (41 percent), leaving only another "Grand Coalition" between the CDU/CSU and SPD, or an alliance between the CDU/CSU, FDP and Greens as options to form a government.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with Russian President Vladimir Putin during their bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany July 7, 2017. (Reuters Photo)

MOSCOW, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Western sanctions have not exerted "particularly negative impact" on Russian industrial sector and it has almost fully adapted to them instead, Russian Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov has said.

"I would say it adapted almost fully. If one looks back, it is clear that the sanctions did not have a particularly negative impact," Manturov said Monday in an interview with Russian news agency RIA Novosti, adding that the imposed sanctions had allowed the country's authorities to respond to existing challenges more effectively.

He said the outlook for a 2-percent industrial production growth in 2017 is not changed, and "in the first six months of 2017, we already have a 2-percent growth."

The most positive dynamics were shown in pharmaceutical and chemical, car manufacturing, electrical equipment manufacturing, and consumer goods industries. "We have reasons to believe that in the second six months these positive trends will remain," said the minister.

In July, the Russian Economic Development Ministry announced that Russia's economic growth accelerated in the second quarter and is likely to exceed 2 percent for the entire year.

The U.S. legislature in July overwhelmingly approved a bill slapping tougher sanctions on Russia.

The bill will also grant the U.S. Congress the power to block President Donald Trump from unilaterally lifting sanctions. Trump later signed it into law.

Days later, the European Union (EU) broadened sanctions on Russia, adding three persons and three companies to a sanction list.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 19:08:18|Editor: Zhou Xin

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by Xinhua writers Zhu Shaobin, Alusine and Zhao Shuting

FREETOWN, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- At least 286 people have died after a devastating mudslide struck an area on the outskirts of Sierra Leone's capital city Freetown, Sinneh Kamara, an official in charge at the Connaught Hospital's mortuary said on Tuesday.

Kamara said that a total of 280 bodies had been brought to the facility, while the ambulance has just left to collect six more bodies that were discovered on Tuesday morning.

At present, mortuary staff are busy placing corpses in body bags.

The number of survivors still remains unknown but sources at the Connaught said about 20 survivors with severe injuries are currently responding to treatment.

Relatives of the victims at the hospital are seeking to identify their loved ones but they are not allowed entry by security forces who want to minimize chaos.

Head of Operation of the Sierra Leone police, Al Sheik Kamara said many people are still buried under the rubbles and excavators are removing debris to discover more bodies.

The police officer said seven more survivors at Mount Sugar Loaf where the mudslide occurred were rescued on Tuesday.

So far, the government has not yet released official figures regarding the death toll as rescue work is under way.

Xinhua correspondent at the scene said the weather remains cloudy on Tuesday morning, stoking fears of more rain that could impede rescue work. Meteorological authorities in Freetown said on Tuesday the area could expect more rain toward the end of the day.

Aminata Kamara, a relative of the victims, is wailing as she said she lost 21 members of her extended family.

Some of the bodies are unidentifiable because of the severe damage.

MUDDY ROADS SLOW RESCUE

Wang Bo, a staff member of China Railway Seventh Group who works in the West African country, told Xinhua that his company has dispatched two excavators to the site upon request by the Sierra Leonean side to help with rescue.

"A total of 35 staff members of our company were quickly mobilized and dispatched for the rescue," Wang said, adding that the mudslide which occurred Monday had been triggered by heavy rain amounting to 220 millimeters which started since the early hours of Monday.

"As August is the peak rain season in Sierra Leone, the rains as well as heavy crowds and vehicles are making it very difficult for the vehicles to travel on the muddy roads leading up to the rescue site," Wang said, adding that his colleagues later abandoned the vehicles and made it the site on foot.

"The scene is quite messy. Most homes were destroyed and buried. And rain on and off is making rescue work difficult," Wang said, who earlier called for a more coordinated working plan by all rescue forces so as to conduct work orderly.

Sierra Leone's President Ernest Bai Koroma said emergency services were doing everything possible to tackle the current disaster.

Koroma said in an address broadcast on television late Monday that an emergency response center had been set up in the town of Regent, which is worst hit.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 19:13:25|Editor: Zhou Xin

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TOKYO, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- As rain fell from a grey and gloomy sky above Japan's capital city of Tokyo, the dulcet sounds from an acoustic guitar reverberated brilliantly off the concrete walls under a small bridge, naturally amplifying the harmonics.

The accompanying voice albeit astounding, was, however, distinctly haunting.

"I usually play over there," said 23-year-old Naoyuki Hironaka, gesturing to the tall trees that surround the city's iconic Yoyogi Park.

"But I've come here to take shelter. I'll play on regardless. I have something to say," the young musician said determinedly.

While the talents of this soloist were incontrovertible, with his rhythmic, contemporary, urban style not dissimilar to that of the likes of Ed Sheeran, it was the content of the lyrics and the passion with which they were belted out that set this musician apart.

"There's no place in this world for war. If we look to the past we can see the future. As a nation we scream 'no more!' We live to love with peace as the wind in our sail and we'll end up at the perfect destination," so the English translation of Hironaka's chorus went.

The young musician told Xinhua that he often sings about Japan, admitting that while a few years ago he sang about more lighthearted topics in a style that was more "pop," nowadays he felt the climate around him changing and so found his music becoming darker, more melancholy, politically-charged and stirring to the ears.

He said that he feared for the future of Japan amid such uncertain times, adding that since he'd left school and university, he'd been more exposed and had learned more about the political scene here from a global perspective.

"When I was younger, I thought we (Japan) had always been a peaceful nation and that the world wasn't such a bad place. We didn't learn much about history in school, but we became more politically active in university and some of our foreign lecturers told us things about the war we'd never been taught before," said Hironaka.

"I read a lot of foreign history books that had been translated into Japanese and started checking stuff out on the Internet and realized the awful things Japan did to so many people during the war. It really upset me, but when I asked my non-uni friends and family about this, they didn't seem to know," Hironaka added despondently.

It's possible that those Hironaka was referring to not fully understanding about Japan's war history and the culpability of the Imperial Japanese Army for war crimes and the immeasurable suffering brought to innumerable people in its victim countries, has a lot to do with the education here.

It's equally possible that the lack of knowledge is a direct result of the government's longstanding campaign of attempting to whitewash its tainted history and in doing so ensuring that the nation will never be able to fully reflect on its wartime past.

The likelihood is, however, that it's a combination of both - as inextricably linked as they are - coupled with the nation's preference for conformity and for turning a blind eye to negative or upsetting matters, past or present, even those it was responsible for.

"Social media has also helped me learn about the war and make friends and chat with foreigners, but it's been really upsetting today on some sites like Twitter and Instagram as other people in Asia have been posting stuff about the atrocities Japan committed during the war and how even today, Japan has not fully accepted its responsibility," Hironaka said, failing to hide a sense of self-reproach.

He went on to say that if he could understand the true reality of Japan's role and actions during World War II, it was inexcusable for older generations and particularly teachers, politicians and the media to perpetuate a myth of innocence and present a skewed view of history with Japan as the victim.

A lot of younger people want to reach out beyond the confines of Japan's hegemonic society and make connections and share experiences with friends from overseas, but Hironaka pointed out that the government here is making this difficult for the younger generations - the very ones that will one day inherit the country.

"I'm only 23 (years old), but even I know that Yasukuni Shrine is bad news and that anyone visiting there, particularly today (the 72nd anniversary of Japan's surrender in WWII), and particularly politicians, is going to cause trouble and upset those living in countries close to ours," stated Hironaka.

Abe's memorial speech today "didn't really seem to be aimed at true reconciliation with the countries we (Japan) invaded. I've just watched it on YouTube and some of the comments below really criticized Abe and Japan as well," he added.

"And while they hurt my feelings too, I know if the truth of Japan's war history became the norm in Japanese politics, education and society and we truly take the time to think about the acts we (Japan) committed during the war, such rightfully scathing comments wouldn't be made and people like me could make loads of more friends overseas."

Despite the darkening clouds above threatening to drench him to the bone, Hironaka stepped out of his cramped shelter, slung his guitar back on and beat out a rhythm on the case with his thumb while strumming his signature tune.

"There's no place in this world for war. If we look to the past we can see the future. As a nation we scream 'no more!' We live to love with peace the wind in our sail. We'll end up at the perfect destination," belted out Hironaka at the top of his lungs.

When asked what she thought about Hironaka's tune as she was passing by, a bespectacled, middle-aged lady clutching a lavender-hued umbrella said: "He's got a lovely voice; really powerful but great tone. And the lyrics, well, they're certainly thought provoking, but he's really on point. Such an important message."

"Could you tell me his name so I can find him on YouTube?" she asked. "My kids would love this too."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 19:18:32|Editor: Zhou Xin

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NICOSIA, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- United Nations mediator on Cyprus Espen Barth Eide has requested the Secretary General to release him from his responsibilities in order to run in the upcoming legislative elections in his native country Norway on Sept. 11, said a UN statement released in Nicosia Tuesday.

Eide was appointed as Secretary General's special envoy on Cyprus 27 months ago to lead the negotiations for the reunification of Cyprus, which was partitioned when Turkey occupied its northern part in 1974.

Negotiations between Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci made unprecedented progress but failed to reach a final agreement.

"Over the last 27 months, with steadfast dedication, commitment and creativity, Mr. Eide helped the two leaders make unprecedented progress towards reaching a viable and sustainable solution to the decades old dispute, bringing them closer than ever before to their shared vision of a united Cyprus", the statement said.

However, the negotiations floundered during what was supposed to be a final conference on Cyprus in July.

Anastasiades, who is also the leader of the Greek Cypriot community has criticized Eide of presenting an inaccurate view of Turkey's positions.

Eide had insisted that Turkey was ready to relinquish intervention rights in Cyprus and negotiate the withdrawal of its troops, but the country's foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Ankara was not ready to do either of the two.

It is not yet clear whether UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres would appoint a new special envoy on Cyprus or to continue the Cyprus negotiations.

After announcing the failure of the conference at Crans-Montana in Switzerland on July 7, Guterres sent the parties home to reflect for an unspecified time.

Before quitting his post, Eide prepared a detailed report on what has been achieved in over two years of negotiations, which also contains an account of the final controversial stage of the negotiations.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 19:33:52|Editor: Zhou Xin

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BERLIN, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) has issued a warning against the negative implications of a Washington-provoked trade war between the United States and China on Tuesday.

"A conflict between the world's two largest economies would also negatively affect the German economy," DIHK president Eric Schweitzer told German newspaper Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung.

Schweitzer stressed how deeply intertwined the German, U.S. and Chinese economies had become.

"Germany shares a trade volume with both countries of nearly 170 billion euros (199.8 billion U.S. dollars) each," he noted. The combined 335 billion euros account for more than 15 percent of Germany's total trade.

Schweitzer reprimanded U.S. president Donald Trump for his protectionist "America First" rhetoric, emphasizing that all sides had to abide by the rules of the World Trade Organization. He called for a strengthening of the Geneva-based organization to resolve disputes.

According to the DIHK president "a trade war would only produce losers."

German politicians and business leaders have repeatedly voiced concern over Trump's vocal criticism of globalization and related threats to impose tariffs and non-tariff barriers since his election.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has sought to intensify cooperation with China and other international partners to defend free global trade in response, while the European Commission has warned that Washington's move towards protectionism would be met with swift retaliation by the European Union.

On Monday, Trump continued to fan the flames of a potential trade war by ordering an investigation into China's use of intellectual property rights and threatening to impose higher tariffs depending on its outcome.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 19:39:00|Editor: Zhou Xin

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by Xinhua writer Yan Lei

TOKYO, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Japanese government and authorities should pay heed to the calls for reflection upon its past aggressive war from all peace-loving people.

At a ceremony marking the 72nd anniversary of the end of World War Two on Tuesday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe once again failed to offer a sincere apology for the country's wartime aggression in Asia.

This was the fifth consecutive year for Abe to have failed to offer "reflection" at the annual memorial service since he retook office as prime minister in 2012, once again showing the rightist government's reluctance to face history squarely.

What's more, Abe also sent a ritual offering Tuesday morning as leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to the notorious Yasukuni Shrine which honors 14 Class-A convicted criminals of WWII, regardless of the feelings of the peoples in neighboring countries.

Over the years, the Japanese government has been trying to downplay its role as an aggressor and portray itself as a victim through distorting history textbooks and pressuring the media from printing the truth.

But it has also been noticed that some peace-loving people in Japan such as Tamaki Matsuoka, often called "Japan's Conscience," and some veterans who have experienced WWII, have never ceased their efforts to convey to the younger generations the true history and call for reflection, despite the obstruction and threats imposed by the ultra-rightist forces.

Their efforts, plus the fact that iron-clad evidence of Japan's atrocities will never be completely buried despite the ultra-right groups' best efforts, are making more and more people open their eyes to the truth and start to think.

One of the most recent examples was a documentary released by Japan's public broadcaster NHK titled: The Truth of Harbin Unit 731.

The documentary revealed the outrageous crimes committed by Unit 731, a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that undertook lethal human experimentation during WWII.

The documentary, while irritating the ultra-rightwing forces, made many Japanese people learn about the truth of the war and start to reflect upon history.

The Japanese government and the ultra-rightist forces shall be cognizant of the fact that truth can not be glossed over, and only by reflecting upon the history could Japan be prevented from repeating the past crimes.

Moreover, only by looking at its notorious past in the mirror, can Japan earn the respect and trust from its Asian neighbors as well as the rest of the international community, and start to present itself as a normal country in the world.

Abe's cabinet support rate has plunged sharply recently, at one point below the 30 percent mark, which, according to local polls, was largely due to a loss of trust in the sitting prime minister over multiple scandals as well as disappointment at his government's policies.

Local polls also showed that the majority of Japanese people are still against the Abe administration's attempts to revise the pacifist Constitution, which has been a long-held goal of Abe and the ruling LDP.

Although Abe's recent cabinet reshuffle lifted people's expectations a little, it is commonly understood that these effects could be worn off soon unless the government can come up with policies that could ultimately be translated into real benefits for the general public.

It is therefore high time for the Abe administration to give serious consideration to what are the best choices for Japan going forward. Refusing to learn from the past and hyping up regional tensions are definitely not among them.
 

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Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 19:49:06|Editor: Zhou Xin

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CAIRO, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Unidentified militants on Tuesday shot a policeman dead in Egypt's North Sinai province, an official security source said.

"The gunmen opened fire on him while heading for the morning prayers," the source told Xinhua.

The security men started a massive manhunt operation in search for the perpetrators, he added.

Egypt is experiencing wave of terrorist attacks which target the security men since the ouster of the Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013 in response to mass protest against his one-year in rule.

The attacks that have killed hundreds of military and police men were mostly claimed by Islamic State branch in Sinai.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 19:54:09|Editor: Zhou Xin

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WELLINGTON, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand will host APEC in 2021 with Leaders' Week to be held in Auckland from Nov. 8 to Nov. 14, Foreign Minister Gerry Brownlee said in a statement on Tuesday.

"With Auckland also set to host the America's Cup, 2021 will be a big year for the country's biggest city," Brownlee said in a statement, adding "we are announcing the dates as early as possible to provide some clarity for planning, which is already under way."

APEC 2021 will be the largest event ever hosted by the New Zealand government and is "a wonderful opportunity for New Zealand to shine on the international stage," Brownlee said.

Auckland last hosted APEC in 1999.

APEC will bring world leaders to New Zealand and create significant opportunities to promote New Zealand's economic interests with trading nations including China, the U.S. and Japan, he said, adding that the Asia-Pacific is the fastest growing economic region in the world and APEC is its leading economic forum.

APEC member economies account for almost half of all global trade, and more than 70 percent of New Zealand's goods and services are exported to APEC economies, the minister said.

It is expected that APEC will attract up to 22,000 international attendees to the 12 significant APEC-related events held throughout the year, with around 10,000 attendees expected for Leaders' Week, he said.

"While Auckland is confirmed to host the Leaders' Week, we intend to spread meetings and events across other large cities, including Christchurch, to showcase the very best of New Zealand's capability, innovation, culture and amazing landscapes," Brownlee said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 20:04:16|Editor: Zhou Xin

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TOKYO, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Yohei Kono, Japanese dovish politician and former speaker of the House of Representatives, has criticized the security and foreign policies of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's administration, saying that Abe's long stint in office was "a misfortune for the Japanese people."

In an exclusive interview that took place in late July but was published on Tuesday on the occasion of the 72nd anniversary of the end of World War II by the local Kanagawa Shimbun, 80-year-old Kono said that he was born during wartime and knew well about the horrors of war.

He said the problems in the world should be solved through diplomacy and economic means such as the Official Development Assistance (ODA) instead of wars, saying politics should serve to prevent wars from happening.

Noting that the United States was a "warlike" country, Kono expressed concerns for Japan's one-sided security policy of following the lead of the United States, especially the government's decision to lift the ban on the so-called collective self-defense and its attempts to revise the pacifist Constitution.

He called on the Japanese government to attach more importance to its relationship with its Asian neighbors such as China and South Korea, stressing that it has been the long-held wish of the Japanese people.

Kono said that the Abe administration had made empty promises in election campaigns. After taking office, Abe has shown little regard for the people's feelings and wishes and his long stint in office "is a misfortune to the Japanese people."

Kono was a lawmaker from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. He was most well-known for an official statement he made as chief cabinet secretary in 1993 in which he admitted the then Japanese government and military's involvement in forcibly recruiting "comfort women" during World War II and offered an apology to victims of "comfort women" system.

Kono is also father of Taro Kono who took office earlier this month as Japan's new foreign minister.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 20:04:21|Editor: Zhou Xin

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ABUJA, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Two suspects have been arrested following the killing of a Nigerian soldier in a mob action in the country's central region, local police said on Tuesday.

The military man, who was on a pass from Maiduguri, where he joined in the fight against terror group Boko Haram, was killed by an irate mob in Akwanga area of Nigeria's central state of Nasarawa on Monday.

A police spokesman said the victim, identified as Ayuba Ali, was accused of hitting a street hawker while riding on a motorbike.

"He (the soldier) was in mufti. He tried to pacify the hawker and an altercation ensued, resulting in irate youth beating him into a coma," Kennedy Idrisu, the police spokesman, told Xinhua.

The soldier later died at the hospital, Idrisu added.

A police investigation is underway to ascertain the cause of the mob action.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 20:14:27|Editor: Zhou Xin

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BERLIN, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- German doctor Hartmut Hopp has been sentenced to five years in prison on Tuesday for his involvement in abuse at the Chilean Nazi pedophile commune of "Colonia Dignidad."

A previous sentence was thus upheld by the Krefeld court although the ruling is not final, and Hopp's lawyers have announced an appeal.

Colonia Dignidad was an enclave of German expatriates and Nazi fugitives which achieved international notoriety after reports of sexual abuse of children and minors, the rigid indoctrination of members, and slavery-like practices and torture over the course of three decades.

The physician Hopp acted as the right-hand man of Paul Schaefer, the former Wehrmacht-soldier and convicted pedophile who founded Colonia Dignidad in 1961.

Hopp was already convicted in Chile back in 2011 for crimes including complicity in the sexual abuse of 16 minors. However, he managed to flee to Germany before the final court ruling was imposed.

German and Chilean prosecutors jointly called for Hopp to serve his five-year prison sentence in the country of his origin a year ago, a request which has now been granted by the Krefeld court.

The decision was welcomed by the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights which described it as a long-overdue step "in the resolution of the crimes of Colonia Dignidad, in particular rape and sexual abuse of minors."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 20:14:28|Editor: Zhou Xin

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FREETOWN, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Government of Sierra Leone is expected on Tuesday to undertake the burial of the majority of corpses of victims in the devastating mudslide which had claimed nearly 300 lives, sources close to the government told Xinhua.

It is unclear whether the mass burial is meant to free up space for more bodies in the central morgue, but Sulaiman Zainu Parker, environment officer at the Freetown City Council said the disaster had killed some entire families and there is nobody to identify them.

Sierra Leone's President Ernest Bai Koroma was in the disaster-hit area Tuesday morning and communicated with rescue teams on disaster relief. Witnesses said the president looked grief-stricken.

Koroma said in an address broadcast on television late Monday that an emergency response center had been set up in the town of Regent, which is worst hit.

At least 286 people have died after a devastating mudslide struck an area on the outskirts of Sierra Leone's capital city Freetown, Sinneh Kamara, an official in charge at the Connaught Hospital's mortuary said on Tuesday.

Kamara said that a total of 280 bodies had been brought to the facility, while the ambulance has just left to collect six more bodies that were discovered on Tuesday morning.

At present, mortuary staff are busy placing corpses in body bags.

The number of survivors still remains unknown but sources at the Connaught said about 20 survivors with severe injuries are currently responding to treatment.

Head of Operation of the Sierra Leone police, Al Sheik Kamara said many people are still buried under the rubbles and excavators are removing debris to discover more bodies.

The police officer said seven more survivors at Mount Sugar Loaf where the mudslide occurred were rescued on Tuesday.

So far, the government has not yet released official figures regarding the death toll as rescue work is under way.

Xinhua correspondent at the scene said the weather remains cloudy on Tuesday morning, stoking fears of more rain that could impede rescue work. Meteorological authorities in Freetown said on Tuesday the area could expect more rain toward the end of the day.

Aminata Kamara, a relative of the victims, is wailing as she said she lost 21 members of her extended family.

Some of the bodies are unidentifiable because of the severe damage.

MUDDY ROADS SLOW RESCUE

Wang Bo, a staff member of China Railway Seventh Group who works in the West African country, told Xinhua that his company has dispatched two excavators to the site upon request by the Sierra Leonean side to help with rescue.

"A total of 35 staff members of our company were quickly mobilized and dispatched for the rescue," Wang said, adding that the mudslide which occurred Monday had been triggered by heavy rain amounting to 220 millimeters which started since the early hours of Monday.

"As August is the peak rain season in Sierra Leone, the rains as well as heavy crowds and vehicles are making it very difficult for the vehicles to travel on the muddy roads leading up to the rescue site," Wang said, adding that his colleagues later abandoned the vehicles and made it to the site on foot.

"The scene is quite messy. Most homes were destroyed and buried. And rain on and off is making rescue work difficult," Wang said, who earlier called for a more coordinated working plan by all rescue forces so as to conduct work orderly.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 20:24:35|Editor: Mengjie

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BEIJING, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- China is ready to provide assistance to mudslide-hit areas of Sierra Leone, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said Tuesday.

More than 300 people were killed in a mudslide and flooding in the capital Freetown Monday, according to Sierra Leone's national broadcaster.

The death toll is expected to rise and more than 2,000 people have been left homeless.

China expressed its sympathy to those affected by the disaster, spokesperson Hua Chunying told a press conference.

Hua said the Chinese Embassy in Sierra Leone has launched emergency procedures and is closely monitoring the situation.

No casualties to Chinese nationals have been reported, Hua said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 20:34:38|Editor: Zhou Xin

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MOGADISHU, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Former Al-Shabaab deputy leader Mukhtar Robow Tuesday addressed journalists in Mogadishu three days after he surrendered to the government and declared that he had cut links with the Al-Qaeda affiliated group.

Robow, who was ushered into a hotel room to address the media by security officials, declared he has no affiliation to the group and that he is now in talks with the Somali government.

"I announced today that I have quit Al-Shabaab following differences with them and I believe what they are doing does not serve the interests of the people," Robow said in brief remarks.

"Negotiations with the government are ongoing and I hope we will get a useful result out of it. I thank the government of Somalia," Robow said, adding he will work for the peace of the country.

The former Al-Shabaab renegade who deserted the group in 2013 was airlifted to Mogadishu Sunday following government reinforcement of his fighters in a two-week-long fierce fight with Al-Shabaab which had declared an all-out war with their former leader.

Robow now joins other former Al-Shabaab leaders under government custody in Mogadishu, among them Hassan Dahir Aweys, Mohamed Sheikh Atom and Zakariya Ahmed Ismail Hersi.

He said the defected from the militant group after a fall out with the top leader over ideological differences that do not serve the interests of Islam, people and Somalis.

"There have been ideological differences and misunderstanding between me and Al-Shabaab leadership over the doctrine and ideology that made me to defect about five years and seven months ago," Robow said.

Robow who is also known as Abu Mansour is intelligent and was a main pillar of the Somali militant Islamist group.

Analysts say his defection will deny Al-Shabaab vital manpower and intelligence. It is a big blow that Al-Shabaab will certainly lose all South of Somalia due to Robow's influence there besides the tight noose by Kenya Defense Forces.

Robow's defection will likely enable pro-government forces to operate in the regions of Bay and Bakool, reducing the insurgents' operational territory in two.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 20:34:41|Editor: Zhou Xin

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CAIRO, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Antiquities Ministry of Egypt said Tuesday that three tombs dating back to the Ptolemaic era were unearthed in the Upper Egypt province of Minya.

"A mission from the ministry has found the tombs in the southwest of Samalout city, some 241 km from the capital," Ayman Ashmawy, head of the ministry's antiquities sector, said in a statement.

In the first tomb, the excavating team found four coffins for two men and two women, as well as nine holes with remains of buried bodies, Ashmawy said.

The second tomb has two burial chambers and some wooden residues were unveiled during the excavation, while the cleaning in the third tomb isn't finished yet.

The excavation in Samalout started in May, according to the official.

The newly-discovered tombs would uncover more information about the Ptolemaic era starting 332 B.C., he noted.
Egypt's former antiquities minister Zahi Hawass gives an interview with media at his office in Cairo on May 22, 2017. (AFP Photo)

CAIRO, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Antiquities Ministry of Egypt said Tuesday that three tombs dating back to the Ptolemaic era were unearthed in the Upper Egypt province of Minya.

"A mission from the ministry has found the tombs in the southwest of Samalout city, some 241 km from the capital," Ayman Ashmawy, head of the ministry's antiquities sector, said in a statement.

In the first tomb, the excavating team found four coffins for two men and two women, as well as nine holes with remains of buried bodies, Ashmawy said.

The second tomb has two burial chambers and some wooden residues were unveiled during the excavation, while the cleaning in the third tomb isn't finished yet.

The excavation in Samalout started in May, according to the official.

The newly-discovered tombs would uncover more information about the Ptolemaic era starting 332 B.C., he noted.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 20:44:47|Editor: Zhou Xin

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ADDIS ABABA, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn left here on Tuesday for a three-day official state visit to Ethiopia's neighboring country Sudan.

Desalegn, during his visit to Sudan starting from Tuesday, is expected to discuss bilateral and regional issues with Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on ways of strengthening ties between the two neighboring countries, according to the Ethiopian Foreign Affairs Ministry.

The prime minister is also expected to hold talks with Sudan's First Vice-President and Prime Minister Bakri Hassan Salih. He will then deliver a lecture in Sudan's capital Khartoum on Thursday on topics pertaining the Horn of Africa region state of affairs, it was indicated.

Desalegn is also expected to attend a cultural display event in Sudan which would be followed by a visit to Sudan's major industrial installations.

The partnership among the two neighboring countries, both the people to people relations and state level partnership, is among the oldest in the horn of African region. The Sudanese-Ethiopian relations have recently witnessed rapid development in the political, economic, cultural and military fields.

The two countries also share the Nile river, in which Ethiopia is presently building the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which will be regarded as Africa's largest dam upon completion with a total volume of 74,000 million cubic meters.

Ethiopia and Sudan have signed a memorandum of understanding in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa in October last year to enhance joint security and military cooperation in the fight against terrorism.

The two countries have also signed various cooperation agreements earlier this year with an aim of promoting economic relations and strengthening overall ties.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 20:49:51|Editor: Zhou Xin

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ATHENS, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Wildfire that has broken out in Athens' northern suburbs since Sunday afternoon continues to rage for the third day on Tuesday.

Firefighters gave a huge battle all night to prevent the fast-moving forest fire from spreading and reaching the inhabited area of Metochi and the village of Kapandriti, located some 40 km north of Athens.

Early in the morning, firefighting aircraft along with four helicopters started dropping water in the area.

A total of 180 firefighters were working in the area, manning 72 fire engines, with the help of volunteers.

Strong winds and hot weather make more difficult for the firefighters to control the raging wildfire. According to the National Meteorological Service, the winds will become stronger during the day.

Forest fires continue to spread throughout Greece. A total of 55 forest fires were recorded in the last 24 hours throughout the country, according to a statement released by the Fire Service.

In the Ionian island of Zakynhthos, that is declared in a state of emergency, a total of 22 fires were recorded within the last five days. Arson investigators have been dispatched to the island.

In other fronts, in the Peloponnese region of Ilia, the site of Greece's worst fires in 2007, which killed more than 70 people, blazes broke out in three areas on Monday, prompting the evacuation of a village.

Greece suffers each summer from destructive wildfires which are linked to scorching temperatures, and arson in many cases.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 20:54:55|Editor: Zhou Xin

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CAIRO, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Two terrorists were killed on Tuesday in exchange of fire with the police forces in Egyptian province of Wadi Al-Gaded, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

Abdullah Saad, prominent terrorist figure, who has been involved in many violence attacks, has been killed during the shootout, the statement said.

The security men tracked the terrorists who were escaping into the desert after the policemen approached their hideout, it added.

Another terrorist has been killed before detonating his explosive belt according to the statement.

Egypt has been suffering wave of anti-security operations, mainly centered in north Sinai since the army-led ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in response to mass protests against his one-year rule.

Lately, some of the attacks have crept into the capital and other cities. Hundreds of security men and dozens of civilians have been killed in attacks.

A Sinai-based extremist militant group loyal to the regional Islamic State (IS) militia claimed responsibility for most of the attacks.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 20:59:56|Editor: Zhou Xin

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RIGA, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Police in Latvia have detained 110 people in connection with a phone scam in which residents of China might have been defrauded of 2 million euros in just a few months, Latvian law enforcement officials informed.

The arrests were made during a sweeping police operation in Riga and the vicinity this week.

Janis Lazdins, head of the Latvian criminal police, told a news conference Tuesday that responding to a legal assistance request from China, Latvian law enforcement authorities investigated the suspected scam for two months.

It was established during the probe that a group of criminals had been using several addresses in Latvia to operate their fraud scheme in China from the beginning of March to the end of July. They reportedly used telecommunications and the internet to steal more than 2 million euros from their victims in China.

The criminal police chief said that there is only one Latvian citizen among the 110 suspects nabbed. The others are foreign nationals, and several of them might be staying in Latvia illegally.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 20:59:57|Editor: Zhou Xin

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CAIRO, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Egyptian ministry of Social Solidarity on Tuesday signed a cooperation protocol with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime to develop social care institutions, official news agency MENA reported.

The three-year protocol targets improving re-qualification programs to reach to all the children in social care institutions, Minister of Social Solidarity Ghada Wali said.

The protocol seeks to focus on psychosocial-social, economic-legal aspects as well as improving the capabilities of the employees in those institutions, Wali added.

The ministry, in coordination with the concerned bodies, will work on enabling children to get accredited vocational certificates to qualify for the labor market.

The UN office will shoulder the responsibility of developing the current workshops in the institution and connect it with the markets.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 21:04:59|Editor: Zhou Xin

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PYONGYANG, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Tuesday urged Japan to reflect on and assume responsibility for the wartime crimes committed by the Japanese army against Asian peoples, including sexual slavery.

A spokesman for the Korean Committee on Measures for the Sexual Slavery for Japanese Army and Drafting Victims issued a statement Tuesday on the 72nd anniversary of the unconditional surrender of Japan in the World War II.

"When the whole world mourns the guiltless war dead, high-ranking officials and politicians of Japan visited the Yasukuni Shrine which enshrines the departed soul of war criminals who took their lives," said the statement.

On Tuesday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a monetary offering to the notorious war-linked Yasukuni Shrine that honors 14 Class-A convicted war criminals.

Also, two groups of lawmakers visited the shrine early Tuesday with one group of junior, conservative Liberal Democratic Party members headed by known nationalist Tomomi Inada.

In the same statement, the DPRK body said textbooks which distorted the aggression war as "war of justice" and colonial rule over other nations as "cooperation and contribution" to the development and prosperity were finding their way to younger generation in Japan.

It also slammed those Japanese politicians who are busy reexamining the Kono statement, "which officially recognizes sexual slavery for the Imperial Japanese Army, in a bid to overturn truth about it though it was proved materially and its illegality was confirmed by the international law."

Former Japanese chief cabinet secretary Yohei Kono acknowledged in 1993 that the Japanese military was involved in recruiting women, notably Koreans, and coercing them into sex slavery or comfort women for Japanese soldiers before and during the Second World War.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 21:05:00|Editor: Mengjie

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BEIJING, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- China on Tuesday called on the United States to back up Monday's statement by senior U.S. officials that the United States wished to resolve Korean Peninsula issue via diplomatic means.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying made the remarks in response to an opinion piece by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis stressing the importance of a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

Tillerson and Mattis wrote in the Monday edition of The Wall Street Journal that Washington has "no interest" in regime change in Pyongyang nor in accelerated reunification of the Korean Peninsula, and that "diplomacy is our preferred means" of changing the DPRK's course of action.

Speaking at a daily press briefing, Hua said that China hopes to see concrete policies by the U.S. side towards the DPRK that reflect the views of the two senior officials.

"We also call on the DPRK to respond to these remarks," she said.

Tensions escalated on the peninsula after the DPRK twice test-fired what it called an intercontinental ballistic missile last month.

U.S. President Donald Trump warned Pyongyang that if it continued to threaten the United States, it would be met with "fire and fury."

In response, the DPRK warned of the launch of intermediate-range ballistic missiles targeting the waters off the U.S. island of Guam in the Pacific.

Hua said China has always believed that the security issue is the crux of Korean Peninsula denuclearization, and that "the key is in the hands of the United States and the DPRK."

She said China hopes that all parties concerned will accept China's "suspension for suspension" proposal which requires the DPRK to suspend its missile and nuclear activities in exchange for the suspension of large-scale military drills between the United States and the Republic of Korea (ROK).

China will continue to implement UN Security Council resolutions and play an active role in the peaceful resolution of the Korean Peninsula issue, she said.

ROK President Moon Jae-in said in a televised speech Tuesday that U.S. military action on the Korean Peninsula may not be taken without Seoul's consent, and the crisis should "absolutely" be solved peacefully.

Hua said it is in all parties' interests to solve the issue in a peaceful way. She urged all concerned to show restraint and make a responsible choice to ease the tensions in a highly sensitive and complex situation.

The spokesperson also said that it is in line with the fundamental interests of both the DPRK and the ROK to improve bilateral ties via dialogue and promote reconciliation.

"We hope the two sides can work together and create conditions to restart dialogue," she said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 21:05:01|Editor: Zhou Xin

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SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- An advocacy group on Monday mobilized a rally outside the Japanese consulate in San Francisco in order to seek justice for "comfort women," a euphemism for the women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Army of Japan during the 1930s through the end of the WWII.

Organized by the "Comfort Women" Justice Coalition, or CWJC, a local grassroots advocacy group consisting of more than 30 multi-ethnic community organizations, the rally took place on the sidewalk of a street in downtown San Francisco, a city on the U.S. West Coast, in front of an office building where the Japanese Consulate General is housed.

The atmosphere was somber, as organizers put up pictures of four former "comfort women" who survived raping and other atrocities during the war. The pictures were of Chen Lien-Hua, one of the three known "comfort women" in Taiwan, a province of China, who died on April 20 this year at age 93; and Kim Haksoon, a Korean woman forcefully taken by Japanese soldiers and confined to a "comfort station" of the Imperial Amy at age 17. Kim died in December 1997 at age 73.

Kim was the first among surviving "comfort women" to go public about her story in August 1991, and one of the first to join a class-action lawsuit in December that year against the Japanese government.

The day Kim being the first to break silence, Aug. 14, thereby igniting the "comfort women" justice struggle, was designated the International Memorial Day for "Comfort Women" in 2012 by the 11th Asian Alliance Conference for "Comfort Women."

As the memorial day fell on Monday this year, the CWJC rallied in front of the Japanese consulate, pushing for "truth and justice," as the aged victims are passing away without seeing any closure to their ordeals, because history deniers denigrate them as "paid prostitutes" or "willing volunteers."

On Aug. 12, two days before the memorial day, Huang Youliang, one of former Chinese "comfort women" who shared her wartime experiences and joined the lawsuit, died at her home in Hainan, a southern province of China, at age 90. With her death, there are 14 remaining known former "comfort women" on the Chinese mainland.

Historians say that as many as 200,000 women, mostly from the Korean Peninsula as well as from China and Southeast Asian nations, were forced into sex enslavement for Japan's Imperial Army during the devastating war.

To raise public awareness over the issue, the CWJC has been working with the City of San Francisco to build a memorial dedicated to "comfort women." Depicting three girls - Korean, Chinese and Philippine - and a senior woman, Kim Haksoon, the statue was approved by the city's Board of Supervisors two years ago and is expected to be erected in a public plaza by the end of this year.

"Time is of the essence. Japan must stop denying history and work with all the remaining victim women from all the affected countries in Asia," noted the CWJC in a statement. "To deny history is to repeat history, and the practice of sexual slavery and sexual violence during wartime must be stopped once and for all."

Lillian Sing and Julie Tang, both retired judges of the Superior Court of San Francisco County and co-chairs of the CWJC, said at the rally that "justice delayed is justice denied."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 21:20:04|Editor: Zhou Xin

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LONDON, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Britain on Tuesday published a position paper in a bid to negotiate a "temporary customs union" arrangement with the European Union (EU) for an interim period after Brexit to avoid chaos in cross-border trade.

Britain is seeking to strike the EU deal to retain the main benefits of the customs union for years after it has left the regional bloc, said the position paper.

The official document, the first in a series of "future partnership papers" to reveal the British government's strategy on the post-Brexit arrangement, was published as part of London's efforts to counter criticism from Brussels about its approach to the Brexit talks.

EU officials said in July that it was hard to make a progress in the Brexit talks because Britain had no position at all on many issues.

Britain hopes to keep the temporary arrangement in place until a final trade agreement with the EU takes effect, according to the paper.

The British proposal, if accepted by Brussels, will allow the transit of goods across borders to continue as now. After Brexit, there will be no need for companies to fill in additional paperwork, ensuring that goods move smoothly across the border with the rest of the EU countries.

In 2016, Britain imports and exports from the EU totalled 553 billion pounds (some 718 billion U.S. dollars).

The position paper was released ahead of the start of next round of negotiations between Britain and the EU on Aug. 28. London is expected to issue the second position paper on Wednesday on the borders between Ireland and northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom.

The proposed model, which means close association with the EU customs union for a time-limited period, would ensure that UK businesses only have to adjust once to a new customs relationship.

This would minimize disruption and offering business a smooth and orderly transition, observers said here.

David Davis, the British Brexit secretary, told reporters here Tuesday that the new custom union is expected to be in place by the first half of 2019.

"The approaches we are setting out today will benefit both the EU and UK, and avoid a cliff-edge for businesses and individuals on both sides," Davis said.

"The way we approach the movement of goods across our border will be a critical building block for our independent trade policy," he said. "An interim period would mean businesses only need to adjust once to the new regime and would allow for a smooth and orderly transition."

Meanwhile, the British chancellor of the exchequer, Philip Hammond, said: "Our proposals are ambitious and set out arrangements that would allow British businesses to continue to trade with their European partners in the future, while expanding their markets beyond the EU."

The Brexit talks reached their second round in Brussels in July, but reported little progress.

The two-year deadline for negotiations was set into operation when British Prime Minister Theresa May triggered Article 50 to leave the EU at the end of March.
Photo taken on Aug. 15, 2015 shows two giraffes at the Masai Mara National Reserve of Kenya. (Xinhua/Sun Ruibo)

NAIROBI, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Kenya plans to target Chinese tourists in order to boost the resilience of the tourism sector, officials have said.

Kenya Tourism Board (KTB) chairman Jimi Kariuki told Xinhua in Nairobi Monday that for Kenya, China is one of that nations that have posted double digit growth of tourists in the past three years.

"We are therefore going to enhance our marketing activities in China, in order to cushion the tourism sector from fluctuations in tourist arrivals from our traditional source markets in the west," Kariuki said on the sidelines of a tourism stakeholders forum.

He noted that China is one of the key markets that Kenya will continue to focus in future.

Government data indicates out of the 874,385 international visitors in Kenya in 2016, about 69,000 were Chinese nationals. The number of Chinese tourists increased by 35 percent in 2016.

"According to our projections, we also expect to experience a 35 percent increase or more of Chinese tourists in 2017," Kariuki said.

He said that Kenya and other African countries are still not familiar to Chinese tourists and most Chinese prefer to visit cities in Europe and North America.

"However, over time we are seeing increased interest in the African continent primarily due to its abundant wildlife resources," he added.

KTB said that most Chinese visitors come to Kenya to visit the world famous Masai Mara National Reserve that is home to the annual wildebeest migration.

The tourism agency noted that the presence of direct flights between the Kenya and China has also helped to increase the number of Chinese tourists coming to the east African country.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 21:40:13|Editor: Zhou Xin

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ROME, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Managing migration is the key to preserving Italy's social fabric, Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti said Tuesday.

In remarks to the press following a meeting of the National Public Security Committee, Minniti outlined his strategy for dealing with the influx of men, women and children fleeing war and destitution in North Africa and the Middle East.

"On June 28 and 29 ... we had 27 ships request permission to dock in our country, which dropped off 12,500 migrants in 36 hours," Minniti said. "After that, we made managing the flows our objective, because unmanaged migration threatens the social and democratic fabric of Italy."

Minniti stressed that "the rights of those being received have the same weight as the rights of those doing the receiving."

Part of the strategy is the Italian government's code of conduct for the eight search-and-rescue NGOs operating along the Central Mediterranean route from Libya to Italy, the minister said.

So far, five of the humanitarian groups -- the Malta-based Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS), Spain's Proactiva Open Arms, Save the Children, Sea Eye, and SOS Mediterranee -- have signed the EU-approved code.

Minniti added that the migrant flows are not an emergency but a structural phenomenon, and must be dealt with as such.

In July, the number of migrants arriving in Italy through the Central Mediterranean route from Libya fell by 57 percent compared to the previous month to 10,160, the lowest level for the month of July since 2014, according to EU border agency Frontex.

Total arrivals in Italy for the first seven months of this year stood at 93,900, roughly in line with the same period last year, Frontex reported.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 21:50:20|Editor: Mengjie

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BEIJING, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- China denounced Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's monetary offering to the Yasukuni Shrine on Tuesday, the 72nd anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II.

"China strongly opposes Japan's move as the shrine honors Class-A convicted war criminals directly responsible for Japanese aggression in WWII," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said at a regular news briefing.

This year marks the 80th anniversary of Lugouqiao Incident, which marked the beginning of Japan's all-out invasion of China, including the Nanjing Massacre that killed 300,000 Chinese soldiers and civilians.

"China has demanded Japan face and deeply reflect on its history of aggression and end militarism to gain the trust of its Asian neighbors and the international community," Hua said.

Two days earlier, the Japanese public broadcaster NHK aired a documentary about Unit 731, a Japanese germ warfare unit that committed atrocities during the occupation of northeast China from 1935 to 1945.

Lethal human experiments undertaken by the Japanese military cannot be denied, Hua said. "Only by viewing history in the correct way can Japan possibly unload its historical burden."

China appreciates some Japanese for their courage to reveal the truth and hopes Japan can listen to the call for justice and respect the feelings of the people of China and other Asian countries, the spokesperson said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 21:55:19|Editor: Mengjie

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BEIJING, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The current crisis in Venezuela should be resolved by its own government and people, and China will not interfere in other countries' domestic affairs, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said.

Wang made the comments when meeting with Bolivia's Foreign Minister Fernando Huanacuni Mamani on Tuesday.

Parties in Venezuela should find an appropriate resolution through dialogue and within the framework of law, he added.

"History has proven that imposed pressure and interference from outside will not help to settle a crisis," Wang said.

During the meeting, Wang and his Bolivian counterpart hailed the two countries' current bilateral ties and pledged to facilitate cooperation in various fields.

Mamani is on a working visit to China from Aug. 10 to 16 at the invitation of Wang.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 22:15:30|Editor: Zhou Xin

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MOGADISHU, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- One person was shot dead and another injured in a drive by shooting in Mogadishu's Hodan district Tuesday, police said.

The victims who were travelling in a car were hit by gun bullets from armed men in a vehicle which blocked the road before opening fire on the occupants of the car.

"We have established that one person was killed and another wounded after the assailants opened fire on their car. They blocked them vehicle and fired at it killing the occupant," Hodan district police commissioner Abdifitah Bishar told journalists.

Residents said they heard multiple rounds of gunfire.

"I heard several rounds of bullets fired near Digfer Hospital," Fartun Shiino, a shop trader told Xinhua.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack and the motive could not be immediately established.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 22:30:50|Editor: Mengjie

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BEIJING, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Tuesday called for a peaceful settlement to the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula in a phone conversation with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

Peacefully settling the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula is fully compatible with the common interests of all parties concerned, including China and Russia, Wang said, adding that both countries have maintained close coordination on the issue, a reflection of the high-level strategic collaboration between them

Wang also said that under the current circumstances, China and Russia should further communicate to ensure the situation remains under control while sparing no effort in promoting negotiations. Wang added that no one should be permitted to stir up tensions on China and Russia's doorstep.

It is urgent that the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) "put the brakes" on mutually irritating rhetoric and actions to cool tensions and head off a "August crisis," he stressed.

For his part, Lavrov said the situation on the Korean Peninsula could be intensified again as the joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises draw near.

Solving the DPRK nuclear issue through military means is absolutely unacceptable; instead it should be resolved peacefully through political and diplomatic means, the Russian foreign minister said.

Russia is willing to continue to enhance communication and coordination with China in this regard, Lavrov added.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 22:35:53|Editor: yan

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BAGHDAD, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Iraq's paramilitary Hashd Shaabi units foiled two suicide bomb attacks by Islamic State (IS) militants in Salahudin province on Tuesday.

The attack took place in the early morning when a suicide car bomb and a suicide bomber wearing explosive vest attacked the Hashd Shaabi base on the main road that links Salahudin's provincial capital Tikrit and the neighboring province of Kirkuk, the units said in a statement.

The paramilitary members detonated the car bomb and killed the suicide bombers before they reached their targets in the military base, the statement said, adding that two of the Hashd Shaabi members were wounded by the blasts.

In Salahudin province, IS is still in control of Makhoul mountain range and the villages between the range and the Tigris River.

The eastern bank of the town of Shirqat, about 280 km north of Baghdad, as well as its surrounding villages and rural area that stretch to the IS-held town of Hawijah in the western part of the oil-rich province of Kirkuk are also under IS rule.

Iraqi security forces and allied paramilitary Hashd Shaabi units have freed Tikrit, about 170 km north of Baghdad, and other key cities and towns in the predominately Sunni Arab province of Salahudin.

In a separate incident during the day, a man, his wife and three children were killed when a roadside bomb struck their truck near the town of Qara-Tapa, some 175 km northeast of Baghdad, Ammar al-Jubouri, a member of Diyala's provincial council, told Xinhua.

IS militants frequently attack the urban areas in Diyala province using the orchards near the villages and the sprawling rugged area in the northern part of Diyala, which also extends to the main IS redoubt in Mteibijah at the provincial border line with the neighboring Salahudin province.

Many blame the current cycle of violence and emergence of extremist groups, such as the IS, on the U.S. which invaded and occupied Iraq in March 2003.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 22:35:54|Editor: yan

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JAKARTA, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian police's anti-terror squad arrested five terrorists on Tuesday in West Java province's capital of Bandung.

West Bandung Provincial Police Headquarters Spokesperson Yusri Yunus said that police found chemical substances stashed in a house in downtown Bandung rented by one of the arrested.

"Assembling of those chemical substances into bombs was expected to be done later this month. They said August was the 'appropriate time' to detonate the bombs," Yusri said.

According to information extracted from the suspects, besides targeting police, they planned to attack presidential palace and police's mobile brigade headquarters in Bandung and capital Jakarta.

Yusri said the bombs assembled by them were more devastating compared to the pressure-cooker bombs used in previous attacks.

The five suspects were members of Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), a radical group which has pledged their allegiance to terrorist organization of Islamic State (IS), according to Yusri.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 22:40:57|Editor: yan

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NAIROBI, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Kenya's veteran opposition leader Raila Odinga who was last week trounced by President Uhuru Kenyatta during a hotly contested race for the top seat on Tuesday postponed the announcement of his eagerly awaited future plans.

Odinga garnered 6.76 million or 44.74 percent of total votes cast compared to Kenyatta who garnered 8.20 million or 54.27 percent of the more than 15 million votes cast during the Aug. 8 polls.

The 72-year-old Odinga who was running for presidency under the National Super Alliance (NASA) party is yet to concede defeat, citing irregularities in the tallying of votes.

NASA National Campaign Committee chairman Musalia Mudavadi said Odinga will "issue a comprehensive statement" on Wednesday.

"Owing to the urgency, complexity and delicate nature of issues NASA Summit is handling, our consultations are on-going and progressing well," Mudavadi said in a statement issued in Nairobi.

"We regret that the consultations are taking longer than anticipated and NASA will therefore not address Kenyans as projected today. NASA will issue a comprehensive statement to the nation tomorrow (Wednesday)," he added.

On several occasions last week, Odinga and his lieutenants alleged that the presidential results were manipulated in favor of the incumbent through an elaborate scheme by hackers who gained entry into the electoral body's servers.

His chief agent declined to sign presidential results declaration forms issued by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) on Friday ahead of declaration of Kenyatta as the winner of the tight race.

Sporadic riots erupted in perceived opposition strongholds of Nairobi's informal settlements and Western Kenyan towns when the Chairman of IEBC declared the 55-year-old Kenyatta the winner of presidential election.

Running battles between police and rioting mobs throughout Friday night and Saturday left an unknown number of casualties in Nairobi's Kibera and Mathare slums as well as western Kenyan town of Kisumu.

The international community and rights groups condemned chaos that ensued after the announcement of presidential results and urged dialogue on both sides of the political divide to restore normalcy.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 22:40:57|Editor: yan

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GARISSA, Kenya, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Suspected Islamist militant group Al-Shabaab on Tuesday killed five police officers and injured another during an ambush in Garissa County in northeast Kenya, police said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 22:46:03|Editor: yan

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ROME, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Italy has decided to resume diplomatic relations with Egypt, citing progress made in the unsolved case of Italian scholar Giulio Regeni, who was tortured and murdered in Cairo last year.

While the decision sparked protests from the victim's parents and human rights organizations, lawmakers explained Tuesday that it was taken due to larger strategy issues in the region -- namely the need to work with Libya to stem migrant flows into Italy.

"It was painful decision to make (but) the Libya issue does not allow us not to talk to Egypt," Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Pier Ferdinando Casini explained to RAI public broadcaster in an interview.

"Egypt is an important player in the region, and the refugee issue is important for Italy," Casini told RAI. "We cannot not have an ear in Cairo."

Regeni's parents said in a statement Monday they are "indignant" at Italy's decision to resume diplomatic relations with Egypt.

However, Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano said in a statement in which he announced Rome was sending Ambassador Giampaolo Cantini to Cairo that "the Italian government remains committed to shedding light on Giulio (Regeni)'s tragic disappearance."

Regeni, a Cambridge University doctoral student researching Egyptian labor movements, was abducted on the night of Jan. 25, 2016. The 28-year-old's burned and mutilated body was found ditched on a road outside the Egyptian capital on the following Feb. 3.

Autopsies carried out by both Egyptian and Italian coroners ascertained he had been tortured for several days before being killed. Egyptian authorities offered a series of unconvincing explanations for the crime, prompting Italy to recall its ambassador for consultations in April last year.

However, Italian news agency ANSA on Monday cited the government as saying Egyptian prosecutors had turned over key evidence in the case, warranting a resumption of diplomatic relations.

The evidence includes transcripts of fresh questioning of the Egyptian police officers who first investigated the Regeni murder, according to ANSA.

Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni called Regeni's parents on Monday night, assuring them of Italy's continued commitment to bringing their son's murderers to justice, ANSA reported.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 22:51:08|Editor: yan

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KATHMANDU, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang and Nepali Deputy Prime Minister Bijay Kumar Gachhadar agreed on Tuesday to make joint efforts to further advance pragmatic cooperation between the two countries.

Calling China and Nepal trustworthy friends and partners for cooperation of mutual benefit, Wang said China is willing to join hands with Nepal to implement consensus reached between leaders of the two neighbors so as to promote their pragmatic cooperation under the framework of Belt and Road Initiative.

The Chinese vice premier called on the two sides to expand bilateral trade and investment, increase connectivity including construction of railways, roads and ports, and enhance cooperation in oil and gas, electricity and clean energy.

"China is ready to help Nepal increase its self-sufficiency of energy," Wang said.

The Chinese vice premier also urged the two countries to deepen people-to-people exchanges, cooperation between local governments, and collaboration in promoting Nepal's tourism in China.

Wang said China will increase cooperation in health care with Nepal and conduct joint research on improving quality of drinking water in Nepali cities.

Expressing condolences and sympathies to victims of recent flood disasters in Nepal, Wang said China will continue to support Nepal in disaster prevention and reconstruction.

For his part, Gachhadar, who is also the minister for federal affairs and local development, said Nepal and China share a long history of friendship and pragmatic cooperation between the two countries has made fruitful achievements.

Gachhadar expressed gratitude for the assistance that the Chinese side had offered to Nepal's socio-economic development, especially assistance to the country's disaster relief and reconstruction efforts.

He noted that Nepal looks forward to further expanding cooperation with China under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, enhancing bilateral trade and investment, strengthening interconnectivity, and pushing forward cooperation in such sectors as transportation infrastructure, energy, disaster prevention and relief.

Gachhadar added that Nepal is willing to provide better investment environment for Chinese enterprises, and he expects more Chinese tourists to visit the Himalayan country.

Also on Tuesday, Wang met respectively with chairman of Communist Party of Nepal (CPN Maoist Center) and former prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, also known as Prachanda, and CPN-UML (Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist and Leninist) chief and former prime minister Khadga Prasad Oli, on strengthening cooperation.
Association of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry (DIHK) President Eric Schweitzer meets with Chinese Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng (L) in Berlin, capital of Germany, on Feb. 25, 2016. (Xinhua/Zhang Fan)

BERLIN, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) has issued a warning against the negative implications of a Washington-provoked trade war between the United States and China on Tuesday.

"A conflict between the world's two largest economies would also negatively affect the German economy," DIHK president Eric Schweitzer told German newspaper Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung.

Schweitzer stressed how deeply intertwined the German, U.S. and Chinese economies had become.

"Germany shares a trade volume with both countries of nearly 170 billion euros (199.8 billion U.S. dollars) each," he noted. The combined 335 billion euros account for more than 15 percent of Germany's total trade.

Schweitzer reprimanded U.S. president Donald Trump for his protectionist "America First" rhetoric, emphasizing that all sides had to abide by the rules of the World Trade Organization. He called for a strengthening of the Geneva-based organization to resolve disputes.

According to the DIHK president "a trade war would only produce losers."

German politicians and business leaders have repeatedly voiced concern over Trump's vocal criticism of globalization and related threats to impose tariffs and non-tariff barriers since his election.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has sought to intensify cooperation with China and other international partners to defend free global trade in response, while the European Commission has warned that Washington's move towards protectionism would be met with swift retaliation by the European Union.

On Monday, Trump continued to fan the flames of a potential trade war by ordering an investigation into China's use of intellectual property rights and threatening to impose higher tariffs depending on its outcome.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 22:56:11|Editor: yan

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LONDON, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Opposition politicians in Britain on Tuesday criticised government proposals for an interim trading deal with the European Union (EU), but business leaders welcomed the proposals, saying that if accepted by Brussels, it would avoid a "cliff edge" in March 2019 when Britain leaves the EU.

Brexit Secretary David Davis wants a tariff-free interim customs arrangement to start when Britain ends its EU membership.

It would mean current exporting and importing arrangements would continue virtually unchanged to enable a permanent deal to eventually be agreed by both sides.

The new paper was released as the first in a series of documents to be published in order to outline Britain's position on major issues of Brexit.

Labour's Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, described Davis's proposals as "incoherent and inadequate," saying they were designed to gloss over deep and continuing divisions within British Prime Minister Theresa May's cabinet.

"Businesses, trade unions and the country need certainty about our future trading and customs arrangements," Starmer said. "Instead, the cabinet remain split on key issues and cannot decide between two very different but equally unachievable options."

The first proposal which suggests "a new customs border with the EU" could be introduced without disrupting trade; the second suggests a new borderless customs partnership could somehow be agreed while Britain also signs external trade deals.

"These fantastical and contradictory proposals provide no guidance for negotiators or certainty for businesses," he said. "The proposals also make it less likely that necessary transitional arrangements will be in place by March 2019."

For his part, Nicola Sturgeon, first minister of the Scottish Parliament and leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party, said, "It seems the UK government is back to its daft 'have your cake and eat it' approach to Brexit.

Sturgeon added that the British government should commit to staying in the EU single market and the customs union.

One of the strongest attacks came from Nigel Farage, founder and former leader of UKIP, the party set up to campaign for Britain to leave the EU.

Farage, who sits as a British member in the European Parliament said: "We might find ourselves 10 years down the road from Brexit having not got what we wanted."

"There's no doubt that during this transitional period, the free movement of people will continue, the European Court of Justice will go on having judgements over British business and, of course, we'll go on paying a membership fee," Farage said. "None of those things are acceptable to Brexit voters in any way at all."

Tom Blake, Brexit spokesman for the minority Liberal Democrat party. said the government's customs union proposal would delay the economic pain caused by leaving the customs union.

Blake said: "We still face the prospect of more red tape for businesses, longer queues at our borders and higher prices for consumers once the transition comes to an end."

Business leaders in Britain, however, broadly welcomed the official proposals, saying it will avoid a feared "cliff edge" if no post-2019 export and import arrangements are in place.

Josh Hardie, deputy director-general of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), said: "Companies will welcome the progress the government has made today in publishing these papers."

"It's encouraging to see that these papers propose a time-limited interim period and a customs system that is as barrier-free as possible," he said.

Hardie said business wants to see as frictionless a customs system as possible, with a strong emphasis on digital systems that make it easier to trade.

New round of talks between the British government and EU negotiators are due to resume at the end of this month.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 22:56:13|Editor: huaxia

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KIEV, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) on Tuesday denied a statement by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) on the detention of a Ukrainian intelligence officer in Crimea.

Earlier in the day, the FSB said in a statement that it had detained a Ukrainian intelligence agent, who was plotting acts of sabotage against infrastructure facilities in Russia-annexed Crimea.

According to the statement, the detained man had planned to damage power lines in Crimea, set forests ablaze and disrupt traffic on a local highway.

The FSB said that the alleged SBU officer was detained while trying to cut power lines supplying electricity to 50,000 people in the Black Sea resort of Sudak and the neighboring communities.

The suspect was identified by the FSB as Gennady Limeshko, a Ukrainian citizen born in eastern Kharkov region.

Over the past year, Ukraine and Russia have detained several of each other's citizens on accusations of spying or plotting acts of sabotage.

The autonomous republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol were absorbed into Russia in March 2014 following a referendum, which was recognized by Moscow but rejected by Kiev. Enditem
Around 90 Japanese cross-party lawmakers visit the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on April 21, 2017. (Xinhua/Ma Ping)

BERLIN, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- As the 72nd anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II comes on Tuesday, an old topic brings into people's mind again -- Tokyo's ambiguity on its war crimes versus the sincerity of Germany's reflection.

That difference shows in their attitudes toward war prisoners and the explanation of history, with Yasukuni Shrine as an outstanding example.

Shinto shrines are Japan's aboriginal religious sites, but Yasukuni Shrine is special, as it honors Japan's war dead including 14 Class-A WWII criminals. Since the end of WWII in 1945, Japan's militarist sympathizers, including high-ranking officials and politicians, have never stopped visiting or paying tribute to Yasukuni Shrine.

Disgracefully, it is still true today. On Tuesday morning, Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, disregarding the feelings of the peoples of neighboring countries, sent his special advisor Masahiko Shibayama to make a ritual offering as leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to Yasukuni Shrine.

It is the fifth consecutive year that Abe has made a ritual offering to the notorious shrine.

What if Yasukuni Shrine were in Germany? In a country that outlaws all Nazi symbols like straight-arm salutes, swastikas and any rhetoric denying its WWII war crimes and Holocaust, that existence would be impossible.

A visit to the Yasukuni Shrine helps people find how ridiculous and distorted the history is explained. It distortedly expresses that it was China's provocations that led to the full-scale war, but the truth is that China was fighting against Japan on its own land occupied by Japan.

In comparison, although cemeteries were built for German soldiers fell during the war, there is no burial site for Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler or other Nazi leaders.

The exhibition in the Yasukuni Shrine is not able to exist in Germany. German criminal code inflicts heavy punishment on such beautification of war crimes, and the offenders shall be punished with imprisonment for up to three years or a fine.

In February 2015, an ex-lawyer was sentenced to 20 months in jail by a court in Munich for saying that the "so-called Holocaust" had never been legally defined or proven.

The attitude of thorough reflection has also become a consensus of the whole German society. On Saturday, a drunken American tourist was beaten up by a stranger passer-by in the eastern German city of Dresden and later arrested as he gave Hitler-salute for several times. Earlier this month, two tourists were also arrested for the same reason in Berlin.

If Yasukuni Shrine were in Germany, those visitors dressing WWII Japanese military uniforms for the memorial of Japan's military victories would end up with imprisonment, not to mention those trying to deny the Nanjing Massacre and the issue of "comfort women", or military slaves in Japanese army.

Japanese officials' visit to the Shrine has also been criticized by Germany. Days after Japanese Prime Minister visited Yasukuni Shrine in late 2013, German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said all nations must honestly live up to their role in the horrible events of the 20th century.

"Only on the basis of this honest accounting is it possible to build a future with former foes. This is a conviction Germany takes to heart and which in my opinion applies to all states," Seibert then said.

When visiting Japan in March 2015, Merkel said because Germany did face its past squarely, the country was lucky to be reintroduced and accepted by the international community after the horrible days during the Nazi rule and the Holocaust.

Merkel also criticized Japanese rightists who spare no efforts to deny and whitewash the country's wartime atrocities.

But in comparison, Japan's half-hearted reflection on its past evil not only hinders it from becoming a trustful and responsible member of the international community, but also affects its relations with China, South Korea and other countries once suffered Japan's invasion.

For decades Japan is sparing no efforts to become a "normal country", but Tokyo must understand that without splitting thoroughly from its past atrocities it cannot past the threshold of a "normal country".

For that reason, Germany is quite a good example for Japan to learn from, if Tokyo really wants to split itself from the dishonorable past and wins the trust of the rest of the world.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 23:01:15|Editor: yan

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VIENTIANE, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Laos will continue to face budgetary tension next year despite taking a number of steps to mitigate fiscal problems, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Somdy Duangdy said on Tuesday.

The financial difficulty has arisen as revenue collection has not increased as anticipated, while budgetary expenditure has risen significantly over the past few years, the official addressed a meeting between representatives of the government and the National Assembly.

Laos requires more funds to take care of its expenses and to pay rising debts. It is often challenged in seeking funding to handle the budget expenditure, leading to deficit, he said.

For 2017, the government plans to collect 23.94 trillion Lao kip (2.9 billion U.S. dollars) in revenue and spend 32.4 trillion Lao kip (3.9 billion dollars), with the deficit set to be 8.46 trillion Lao kip (1 billion dollars), or 6.5 percent of GDP.

However, only 10.36 trillion Lao kip (1.2 billion dollars) has been collected in the first six months of this year, representing around 43 percent of the annual plan.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 23:11:29|Editor: ZD

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Members of an anti-war NGO based in Kobe, Japan attend a peace assembly at the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province, Aug. 15, 2017. Representatives from countries such as China, Japan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Jordan attended the assembly to commemorate the 72nd anniversary of Japan's unconditional surrender in World War II. (Xinhua/Ji Chunpeng)

NANJING, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- A peace assembly was held Tuesday in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province, to commemorate the 72nd anniversary of Japan's unconditional surrender in World War II.

Representatives from countries such as China, Japan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Jordan attended the assembly in the Nanjing Massacre Victim's Memorial Hall, mourning the 300,000 people who died in the massacre in the name of world peace.

On Dec. 13, 1937, Japanese troops began six weeks of destruction, pillage, rape and slaughter in Nanjing. More than 300,000 Chinese, including unarmed soldiers and innocent civilians, were murdered.

Hida Yuichi with Japan-based Kobe Student Youth Center laid a wreath and stood for several minutes in silence. It was the 21st time he had attended the peace assembly in Nanjing.

He said he had watched a documentary about Unit 731 by Japan's public broadcaster NHK before he visited China and was "shocked" by what he saw.

The documentary strengthened his belief in the truth. Regrettably, he said, many people in Japan still denied their war crimes including the Nanjing massacre and Unit 731, a germ warfare unit in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province.

Raqibul Hassan, an overseas student from Bangladesh, held a piece of paper reading "please say sorry."

He said the WWII ended 72 years ago. Germany has apologized for its war crimes, but Japan had not. He hoped more Japanese would say sorry to Chinese people.

Miyauchi Yoko, head of an anti-war NGO based in Kobe, Japan, said young Japanese still think that they were the victims because of the U.S. use of the atom bomb on two Japanese cities, and do not recognize Japan as the villain of the piece.

"Don't take peace for granted. It should be pursued and maintained," said Ali Qadir, a Pakistani student. "Everyone should learn a painful lesson from war."

This year is the 72nd anniversary of the end of the war. Every year around Aug. 15, peace-loving NGOs across the world gather in the Nanjing to remember the victims.

The Exhibition Hall of Crime Evidences in northeast China's Harbin, built upon the ruins of Unit 731, has received over 1.9 million visitors since it opened two years ago on Aug. 15.

According to Jin Chengmin, the curator, foreign visitors account for about 10 percent. Most come from the Republic of Korea, Japan, Russia, Europe and America. The largest tour group to visit came from Japan with over 270 members.

In late 1990s, Jin discovered a transfer file which documented people sent to Unit 731 for human experimentation without court trials. So far experts have identified 1,549 victims from the file.

In the exhibition hall, a complete evidence chain including the ruins, documents and testimonies, retells Japan's crimes against humanity, Jin said.

"However, the Japanese government has remained silent all these years. The NHK documentary sent a message that a large number of Japanese wish to know the truth," he said.

Unit 731 was a top-secret biological and chemical warfare research base established in Harbin in 1935 as the nerve center of Japanese biological warfare in China and Southeast Asia during WWII.

Civilians and prisoners of war from China, the Soviet Union, the Korean Peninsula and Mongolia all perished at the hands of Japanese scientists.

The retreating Japanese invaders blew up the base when the Soviet Union army took Harbin in 1945.

In north China's Shanxi Province, the memorial hall of Michael Lindsay and Li Hsiao opened to the public for free on Tuesday.

Lindsay arrived in China at the invitation of John Leighton Stuart, headmaster of Yenching University (later Peking University), to teach economics in December 1937. He married Li Hsiao, a Chinese graduate, while transporting supplies to the Communists.

Lindsay also built hundreds of radio stations for Communist guerrillas in north China and broadcast news about Chinese attacks behind enemy lines in English to the rest of the world.

The couple continued to promote the friendship between China and Britain after the WWII victory.

"The spirit of the Lindsays is worth remembering, and the memorial hall aims to record the couple's heroic deeds," said Chang Shuming, a local Party chief.

Related:

Abe's misadventure in constitution revision

Japan marks 72nd anniversary of WWII end with PM failing to mention reflection for 5th year
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 23:26:34|Editor: yan

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RIGA, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Latvian-Russian intergovernmental commission, which after a four-year break met in Riga on Tuesday, agreed to step up cooperation in transport and ensure uninterrupted cargo traffic between the two neighbor countries, Latvian Transport Minister Uldis Augulis told reporters after the talks.

Augulis, who co-chairs the intergovernmental committee together with Russian Transport Minister Maksim Sokolov, indicated that despite the long break in the commission's work practical cooperation between Latvia and Russia has continued in areas like border control, transport, migration and culture.

As far as economic cooperation is concerned, Russia has always been an important partner, the Latvian minister said.

In addition to the agreement on uninterrupted cargo traffic across the Latvian- Russian border, the sides also intend to sign an accord on direct international rail cargo traffic by the end of this year. Augulis informed that Latvia has already approved the agreement and will sign it as soon as the Russian side is ready for that.

The intergovernmental commission also agreed on closer cooperation in using Russian and Latvian transport infrastructure for shipping Chinese freight to Europe.

Citing trade statistics, Russian Transport Minister Sokolov said at the news conference following the talks in Riga that economic exchange between Latvia and Russia has been resuming and developing and that the intergovernmental commission had agreed on further steps that have to be taken to facilitate this process.

The Latvian-Russian intergovernmental commission is a format for bilateral talks on economic, regional, transport and humanitarian cooperation. The panel's previous meeting took place in November 2013 in Moscow.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 23:36:42|Editor: yan

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GARISSA, Kenya, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Islamist militant group Al-Shabaab on Tuesday killed five police officers and injured another during an ambush in Garissa County in northeast Kenya, the police said.

The local police said an unknown number of Al-Shabaab militia ambushed seven police officers from Bothai Police Station who were on patrol at Alijize which is along Bothai-Ijara road.

"During the ambush, five police officers were killed, one injured and another one found safe. Their police land cruiser was burnt by the militants," said the officer who declined to be named.

Northeastern Regional Coordinator Mohammed Saleh who confirmed the attack said a combined contingent of security forces from Hulugho are at Alijize and pursuing the militants, while air surveillance has been requested to assist the combined forces.

"We are pursuing the attackers. No arrest has been made so far," said Saleh.

Several areas in the northeastern Kenya that borders Somalia have been the target of Al-Shabaab terrorists who kill innocent citizens, as well as security officers and other government officials, using either gunfire or grenades.

The region is also prone to attacks where police officers including civilians have lost their lives or sustained injuries when patrol cars run over landmines or grenade attack

The East African nation faces insecurity as bomb attacks using improvised explosive devices and grenades have been hurled in the coastal region of Lamu and northern eastern region including Nairobi since Kenyan soldiers entered Somalia in 2011 to secure the shared border with Somalia.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 23:41:44|Editor: yan

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ALGIERS, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Algerian President, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, on Tuesday appointed Ahmed Ouyahia as prime minister, replacing Abdelmadjid Tebboune, APS news agency reported.

According to article 91 of the Constitution, the president has dismissed Tebboune, after less than three months in office, and appointed Ouyahia as prime minister after consulting the parliamentary majority, the report quoted the President Office as saying.

The source has not provided further details on the causes of these changes.

Ouyahia, who is also leader of the ruling party of the Democratic National Rally (RNS) and chief of staff at the President Office, has occupied the post of prime minister for several times, the last of which dates back to 2012.

For his part, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, avoided to comment on his departure. He said "All I can say is that I'm still faithful to President Bouteflika."

The dismissal of Tebboune comes amid criticism of him by employer organizations following his pledge to fight corruption and separate "money from politics."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 23:41:47|Editor: yan

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TIRANA, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) has already completed half of its Albania onshore route works, TAP representatives here informed Tuesday.

"The TAP project implementation is well on track to kick off the offshore section as scheduled," they told local media while making an overview of works progress.

This means that construction of the TAP's offshore section will start in 2018.

TAP pipeline will bring gas from Azerbaijan fields to Europe while the first gas deliveries are expected to kick off early 2020.

The pipeline starts near Kipoi on the border of Turkey and Greece while its Albania onshore section traverses the cities of Korca in southeast, and Berat and Fier in central region, according to a press release issued by TAP.

The TAP is considered as the largest and most strategic foreign investment in Albania.

Albanian authorities expect the project to inject over 800 million euros in foreign direct investment in Albania while it is also foreseen to enable Albania's gasification.

According to the government, TAP will turn Albania into a focal point in terms of gas distribution and make it an important player in the gas market.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 23:46:50|Editor: yan

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DAMASCUS, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- A rebel group claimed on Tuesday to have downed a Syrian warplane in Sweida province in southern Syria.

The Jaish Usud al-Sharqiyeh rebel group, or the Army of Eastern Lions, which are active in the Syrian Desert, said its fighters downed a MiG-21 in the Syrian Desert at the outskirts of the eastern countryside of Sweida, as part of a battle called "the Land is Ours."

In a statement, the group said the pilot was captured.

The state-run media outlets have yet to report or comment on the incident.

The Syrian army has captured large swathes of the eastern countryside of Sweida, but activists said the rebels attacked positions of the army in eastern Sweida on Tuesday.

Activists said the rebels launched their attacks from the Tanf area, where a border crossing under the same name with Iraq is located.

The United States has been backing rebels near Tanf, where it has military bases.

The rebel attack comes days after the Syrian army said it had captured all border points between Sweida countryside and Jordan amid notable progress against the rebels in the Syrian Desert.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 23:46:52|Editor: yan

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ULAN BATOR, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The newly elected Mongolian President Khaltmaa Battulga discussed his foreign policy regarding Russia and the development of Mongolia-Russia relations in an exclusive interview with Russian news agency TASS on Tuesday.

This is Battulga's first interview with Russian media after his inauguration ceremony in early July, when he said he will "expand friendly relations with China and Russia in all spheres."

In the interview with TASS, the president also expressed his intention to participate in the third Eastern Economic Forum to be held in the Russian city of Vladivostok on Sept. 6-7.

In recent years, high-level mutual visits by leaders of Mongolia and Russia have demonstrated growing political relations between the two countries.

Trade turnover between Mongolia and Russia amounted to 559 million U.S. dollars in the first half of 2017, up 43 percent year on year.

A trade deficit remains for Mongolia, as Russia currently accounts for more than 90 percent of the total volume of bilateral trade, among which oil products and electricity take the largest share. Russia only accounts for about 2 percent of Mongolian exports.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-15 23:56:57|Editor: yan

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LISBON, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Twelve people were confirmed dead and 50 injured after a big tree collapsed on the Portuguese island of Madeira around midday Tuesday, local media reported.

The incident occurred at Largo da Fonte, on the outskirts of Funchal capital of Madeira autonomous region, as crowds assembled for the Our Lady of the Mount religious procession.

Ten people were killed instantly and two dead at the hospitals. A child was confirmed dead among those killed.

Portugese Prime Minister Antonio Costa has expressed his condolences for the victims of the accident in Madeira.

It is not yet known why the tree fell, but locals told Portuguese Lusa News Agency that the tree, an oak, had been tied back two years ago and that the trunk was hollow.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 00:57:08|Editor: yan

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KIEV, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine is interested in expanding the presence of its agricultural producers in the Chinese market, Ukraine's State Service for Food Safety and Consumer Protection said on Tuesday.

In particular, this year, Ukraine plans to start exporting fish products and animal feeding stuff to China, the agency said in a statement following the 6th meeting of the subcommittee on agriculture cooperation of the Chinese-Ukrainian intergovernmental commission.

"The protocols of sanitary and phytosanitary requirements for oilseed meals and sugar beet pulp exports have been already agreed and initialed," Volodymyr Lapa, head of the agency, said in the statement.

By the end of the next year, Ukraine hopes to get a green light from China on eggs, poultry, honey products and berries exports, the statement said.

This year, China has allowed beef imports from Ukraine and increased the list of certified Ukrainian dairy suppliers from 18 to 27.

According to the Ukrainian statistics, between 2012 and 2016, the trade turnover in agriculture products between Ukraine and China had increased by fivefold to 1.03 billion U.S. dollars.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 01:02:15|Editor: yan

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by Alusine Sesay

FREETOWN, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Chief coordinator of the Emergency Response Center set up by the government of Sierra Leone in Freetown, the capital city, revealed to the media Tuesday that over 500 people have been registered as missing since a devastating mudslide struck an area on the outskirts of Freetown early Monday.

However, out of these registered people, nearly 300 of them have been discovered dead, and sent to the Connaught Hospital Mortuary, according to coordinator Evon Aki-Sawyer.

This means at least 200 people are still missing from the mudslide and flooding disaster that occurred on Monday morning in the West African country following heavy rains.

To collect data on residents in the disaster affected areas of Sugar Loaf, Kaningo in the Lumley community and other parts of the city, the government set up the emergency response center at Regent town in the Western Rural, where relatives could register their loved ones feared to be missing in the disaster.

As registration work is still ongoing at the center, the number of people missing is feared to rise further.

At the centre, wailing family members are clustered to get the names of their relatives registered in the government data.

In total, four excavators are deployed at the disaster site, but only three are in operation while rescue officers including the Sierra Leone Red Cross, the military, the police and other youth volunteers are helping to remove more bodies from the debris.

Although the Commander of the Joint Forces of the Sierra Leone Armed Forces, General B. Sesay could not grant an interview at the site, observations are that the rescue team is not well equipped to carry out the rescue operation.

According to one of the excavator operators, Mohamed Sillah, an employee of the Gento Group of Companies, it would be difficult to get everybody out from the debris "because the boulders are so heavy that the machines cannot easily lift them".

He estimated that the operation could last for a week but expressed fear that buried bodies could have been decomposed by then.

SURVIVOR GIVES ACCOUNT OF MUDSLIDE

"I was assisting one of my neighbours whose house was flooded while it was raining. I narrowly escaped when I experienced an earth quake-like trembling. I quickly ran away when I saw something like a smoke from the mountain," said Samuel Fofanah, one of the survivors in the disaster.

He continued that he lost his entire family. He sustained minor injury on one of his legs and he is currently at the response centre at Regent where he is being provided with medical and psychosocial treatment.

At the centre, food, medicine, clothing and other facilities are being provided by the government, individuals and humanitarian organizations for traumatized relatives.

Also, the Environmental and Santitation Officer of the Freetown City Council, Sulaiman Zainu Parker, said the government would start burying corpses although he could not indicate the actual date.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 01:07:14|Editor: huaxia

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GENEVA, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The UN migrant agency IOM on Tuesday said that during the past three days its staff continued to find more survivors as well as the remains of more victims from last week's tragic incidents.

A total of 280 migrants headed towards the Gulf countries were forced by smugglers from two boats off the coast of Yemen's Shabwa Governorate on Aug. 9 and 10 in two incidents.

IOM reported on Tuesday that of the 280 people forced into Yemen's rough seas, 226 people survived, 42 are confirmed dead and 12 are still missing.

"The total number of presumed dead is currently 54," an IOM spokesperson told a press briefing here on Tuesday.

According to IOM, the survivors left IOM's care and are most likely making their way to Yemen's borders with the Gulf countries, a journey which takes a week or more depending on the route.

The agency said it will continue to patrol Yemen's beaches to provide assistance to migrants in distress and to search for the migrants still missing. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 01:07:15|Editor: yan

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MOGADISHU, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Somali government on Tuesday called on more Al-Shabaab fighters to renounce extremism and pursue the peace process.

The ministry of information, culture and tourism said the militants should take advantage of President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo who had offered training, employment and education to fighters who gave themselves up.

"The Somalia government's policy is to welcome those willing to renounce terrorists and join the peace process and nation building," the ministry said hours after the government held talks with former Al-Shabaab deputy leader Mukhtar Robow in Mogadishu, the capital.

Robow who is also known as Abu Mansour deserted the militant group in 2013 and retreated to his homeland over disagreement on using foreign fighters in the group.

His surrender comes after weeks of deadly fighting between Al-Shabaab militants and his militia backed by Somalia security forces.

"In light of President Farmajo's pardon, the government declares to receive anyone that gives up his/her twisted ideology of Al-Shabaab," the ministry said.

"The government hugely thanks anyone who played a role in facilitating the current discussion with Robow, in particular all segments of the society and our international friends and partners," it said.

Analysts say his defection will deny Al-Shabaab vital manpower and intelligence. It is a big blow that, Al-Shabaab will certainly lose all South of Somalia due to Robow's influence there besides the tight noose by Kenya Defense Forces.

Robow's defection will likely enable pro-government forces to operate in the regions of Bay and Bakool, thus reducing the insurgents' operational territory.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 01:07:16|Editor: yan

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WASHINGTON, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Tuesday that the United States remains open to talks with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

"We continue to be interested in trying to find a way to get to dialogue but that's up to him (DPRK) top leader Kim Jong-un," Tillerson told reporters here at a press conference.

Tension has remained high on the Korean Peninsula over the past days between the United States and the DPRK after the DPRK military said last Thursday that its plan to strike Guam with intermediate missiles will be ready by mid-August and its implementation will depend on a decision by the DPRK's top leader Kim Jong-un.

It was a response to U.S. President Donald Trump's unusually stern warning to the DPRK last week, when he said the DPRK "best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 01:17:21|Editor: yan

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ADDIS ABABA, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- In what appears to be a concrete answer to the preoccupations of the public, the Ethiopian government is undertaking its large scale anti-corruption investigation and arrest during the past few weeks.

During the crack down, 56 senior government officials, businessperson and middlemen were arrested in less than a month.

The Ethiopian Ministry of Government Communication Affairs Office has indicated that the large-scale anti-corruption investigation and arrest of high-profile individuals is part of the Ethiopian government's reform agenda, which was started at the end of 2016 following mass protests in different parts of the country.

The Ethiopian government has since then stressed bad-governance and corruption among the major reasons for the preoccupations of the public that rocked the east African country back in late 2016.

Even though Ethiopians have witnessed their country's economy growing as one of the fastest economies in the world with double-digit economic growth for consecutive years, challenges attributed to bad-governance and corruption have led to violence during the last quarter of 2016.

The Ethiopian government, in its response to the public anger, had reshuffled majority of its senior officials and ministers soon after the declaration of the state of emergency back in October last year.

The Ethiopian House of Peoples' Representatives (Ethiopian Parliament), soon after the violence, had also endorsed the Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn's proposal of the appointment of new cabinet members.

The prime minister, who had promised the general public to reshuffle his government, has introduced new cabinet members, of which only 9 of the ministers in the 30-member cabinet remained in their previous positions.

The government reshuffle process was soon followed by training government officials on good-governance and leadership.

Desalegn, in his message to the first batch of 470 high-level leadership cadres, stressed that leaders have to work hard to address concerns of good governance with the help of the ongoing reform process, which is designed to give a new impetus to the country's aspiration to realize targets in its second five-year Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP-II).

The Ethiopian government, which had promised to take the reform process further with large scale investigations, started the arrest of high-level government officials and their associates last month.

As the large-scale investigation is still underway in the east African country, the number of suspected government officials and their associates could still rise. Investigators also froze the assets of 210 individuals and 15 companies that have link with the recently arrested individuals.

Majority of the 56 defendants have so far appeared before the Ethiopian court, including former Deputy Minister of Finance and Economic Cooperation, Alemayehu Gujo, the former Manager of Addis Ababa Roads Authority, Fekade Haile, and former head of Ethiopian Roads Authority Zayid WoldeGebrel.

Ethiopian roads authority Communications Director, Samson Wondimu, is the latest Ethiopian government official detained on Friday in connection with the large scale anti-corruption investigation in Ethiopia's modern history.

Other senior government officials from the Ethiopian Roads Authority, the Addis Ababa Roads Authority, the Ethiopian Sugar Corporation and some foreign nationals were also arrested during the crack down.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 01:22:24|Editor: yan

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ADDIS ABABA, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Ethiopian Meteorology Agency warned Ethiopians on Tuesday over a prospect of above-average rainfall induced flood accidents in different parts of the east African country.

The announcement by the agency on Tuesday indicated that a probable above-average rainfall during the coming six days could result in an unprecedented flood as major rivers in the country could run out of their path.

The agency warned that rivers including Blue Nile, major tributary to the world's longest river Nile, could receive excessive water from the expected average and above-average rainfall that could threaten the lives of people living near and by the river banks.

Other Ethiopian rivers that could run out of their path also include river Baro in the Ethiopia-Sudan border, river Omo in the southern part of Ethiopia, and Awash in drought hit Ethiopia's Afar regional state, it was indicated.

The announcement by the agency came amid Ethiopia's battle with the ongoing drought scenario that hits parts of the east African country, affecting close to 8.5 million Ethiopians in need of emergency food and humanitarian assistance.

The announcement, however, valued the expected above-average rainfall as an advantage to agricultural production in drought affected arid and semi-arid parts of the country.

As some parts of the country still face below-average rainfall, the agency recommended farmers and institutions to take water saving measures during the coming days so as to combat the long-term impact of the drought.

The Ethiopian Meteorology Agency has also advised farmers to watch over their harvest from any threat that could emanate from the unprecedented rainfall.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 01:22:27|Editor: yan

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ABUJA, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Nigeria on Tuesday launched a special military force to enhance security network against terror group Boko Haram, particularly in the northeast region.

Named "special mobile strike force," the troops deployed from various military units, are expected to bring vigor into the renewed onslaught against Boko Haram, said Ibrahim Attahiru, commander of troops in the theater of operation in the northeastern city of Maiduguri.

Attahiru told reporters in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, that the special military team became necessary as one of the new approaches evolved by the military to end acts of terrorism in the West African country.

According to him, soldiers deployed to the force were exposed to modern terrorism combat techniques to enable them to crush the Boko Haram fighters, deny them freedom of action and finally decimate them.

"This specially selected force with mixed equipment and platforms were deployed to achieve the conduct of long range patrols and ambush deep into the hinterlands," he said.

The Nigerian troops, which aimed to clear unrepentant Boko Haram fighters from the shores of the most populous African country, have been sustaining the tempo in their fight against terrorists.

In the past two months, the Nigerian troops had intensified its campaign against the terrorists, killing and arresting dozens of Boko Haram fighters. A bomb factory in Borno was also destroyed.

Boko Haram has killed more than 20,000 and displaced 2.3 million people in its attacks since 2009.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 01:27:32|Editor: ZD

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BEIJING, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- China insists on settling the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula peacefully and hopes Germany will play an active role to this end, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Tuesday.

In a phone conversation with Sigmar Gabriel, German vice-chancellor and foreign minister, Wang said that thanks to concerted efforts of all parties concerned, the tensions on the Korean Peninsula has shown some signs of easing. However, the "August crisis" has not ended yet and all parties should continue to work to resolve the issue.

Stressing that China insists on a peaceful solution to the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula, Wang urged all parties concerned to make a correct judgement and wise choice by taking a responsible attitude toward history and people.

China is willing to see Germany play an active role in this regard, he added.

For his part, Gabriel said that all parties should learn from the painful lessons of Europe in the past to prevent the situation on the Korean Peninsula from spiralling out of control.

Expressing appreciation for China's important role in helping solve the Korean nuclear issue, Gabriel said Germany understands and supports China's dual-track approach. Germany is willing to work with China to promote a peaceful settlement of the issue, he added.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 01:32:35|Editor: yan

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LUSAKA, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Zambian President Edgar Lungu on Tuesday launched a campaign to promote HIV testing with a declaration that HIV testing, counseling and treatment has now become compulsory in all public health institutions.

Lungu said the development was official government policy and was in response to the government's agenda of ending HIV by 2030.

Lungu said that the cabinet during its sitting on Monday approved the move to make HIV testing compulsory unlike the current situation where testing was voluntary.

"Just the same way we don't consult you for consent when we are testing for malaria, we will go ahead and test you for HIV and we will counsel you and if you are positive, we will commence you on treatment," he said.

The Zambian leader said contrary to claims by some people that the decision was against human rights and rights to privacy, the move will go a long way in protecting life as those who will be found positive will be put on treatment.

The government, he said, has since launched self-HIV testing kits and that people should take advantage of the service to know their status.

He particularly called on men to take a keen interest in knowing their HIV status.

While 67 percent of the country's population knows their HIV status, the Zambian leader expressed concern that the percentage of men going for testing was lower than that for women.

He said while women undergo HIV testing each time they went for antenatal clinics, it was not the same for men and urged stakeholders to find ways of encouraging men as well.

The HIV scourge, he said, has continued to pose one of the biggest threats to the country's development, with about 1.2 million people currently living with the virus.

United Nations (UN) Resident Coordinator Janet Rogan said more people needed to know their status in order to ensure sustained fight against HIV.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 01:37:43|Editor: yan

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LISBON, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Twelve people are confirmed dead and 52 injured after a large tree collapsed on the Portuguese island of Madeira around midday Tuesday, local media reported.

The incident occurred in the Largo da Fonte square in the Monte neighbourhood of Funchal, capital of the autonomous region of Madeira, as crowds assembled for the Our Lady of the Mount religious procession.

Ten people were killed instantly and two died subsequently in hospital. One child is confirmed among the dead and seven of the injured are said to be in a serious condition.

Regional Secretary of Health, Pedro Ramos, has confirmed that German, French and Hungarian nationals are among those injured.

It is not yet known why the tree fell. President of the Regional Government, Miguel Albuquerque, refused to be drawn on speculation that the tree was in a poor state of repair, saying that the priority for the moment was to support the injured and the families of the victims.

Locals told the Portuguese Lusa News Agency that the tree, a 200-year-old oak, had been tied back with metal wire for the past two years and that the trunk was hollow.

Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa has expressed his condolences to the victims and President Marcelo Rebola de Sousa is flying straight to the island to better inform himself of the incident and to "offer words of encouragement."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 01:37:44|Editor: yan

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ANKARA, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Iran's military chief of staff has arrived in Ankara for talks with Turkey's leadership reportedly aimed at narrowing differences on the Syria crisis and coordinating policy on Iraq.

General Mohammad Hossein Bagheri is due to meet Defense Minister Nurettin Canikli and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during his three-day visit.

He kicked off the visit Tuesday afternoon by meeting his Turkish counterpart, General Hulusi Akar, in a rare meeting between two such senior military figures in the Turkish capital, the state-run Anadolu news agency said, without providing further details.

Pro-government Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah quoted diplomatic sources as saying the visit was a "milestone" and "would not have been possible unless both sides were willing to make deals on both Syria and Iraq."

Iran's official IRNA news agency meanwhile described the visit as "unprecedented" in the history of bilateral relations amid differences on the Syria crisis.

"It is an important visit indeed and the timing is also very appropriate. Turkey and Iran are two friendly neighboring states which have important influence and interests in the region, politically, economically and culturally," said to Xinhua a Turkish diplomatic source.

Relations between overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim Turkey and the mainly Shia Islamic Republic of Iran have on occasion been tense.

Turkey and Iran are on opposing sides of the Syrian conflict, with Erdogan seeking the toppling of President Bashar al-Assad to end the war and Tehran, along with Moscow, his key remaining ally and backer.

But Turkey, nearly seven years into the civil war in neighboring Syria and after having accepted on its soil some 3,5 million refugees, has changed its hardline tone on an ousting of the Syrian president.

Ankara's main concern actually in Syria is the presence of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), the armed wing of the Syrian Democratic Union (PYD), along its border.

Ankara considers these groups as terrorists and accuses them of being affiliated to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged insurgency since 1984 against Turkish forces in southeast Turkey.

Erdogan hinted recently at a new ground offensive against this Kurdish faction in the lines of a previous incursion in 2016 against jihadist of the Islamic State (IS).

Both Turkey and Iran have significant Kurdish minorities and they oppose a plan by Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region to organize a vote on independence, planned for September 25th.

Both Iran and Turkey have declared that this vote as an "unacceptable move" which could spark more tensions in the already volatile region. The United States, Russia and the central Bagdad administration have also criticized the decision.

Iranian army chief's visit coincides with the building by Turkey of a "security wall" along part of its border with Iran, a 144 km barrier which aims to prevent armed militant infiltrations and drug trafficking.

A similar 700-km-long barrier on the Syrian border is nearing completion and a third one on the Iraqi border is also being considered, according to Turkish officials.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 01:42:47|Editor: yan

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ADDIS ABABA, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Ethiopia has generated close to 271 million U.S. dollars from the exports of flower and other horticulture products during the just concluded Ethiopian fiscal year, the Ethiopian horticulture and Agriculture Investment Authority revealed on Tuesday.

The Ethiopian Horticulture and Agriculture Investment Authority, however, disclosed that the amount earned during the just concluded 2016-2017 Ethiopian fiscal year was slightly less than last fiscal year's earnings by 1.5 percent.

The authority further indicated that the revenue earned from the sector was 190 million U.S. dollars short of its initial target for the reported period.

Export of flower holds the lion-share of the total 271 million U.S. dollars generated from the sector, with 218 million U.S. dollars. Other horticulture products, vegetable and fruits, accounted for the 53 million U.S. dollars generated.

The authority further revealed that various activities are being done so as to increase the amount of flower and other horticulture products export during the just commenced 2017-2018 Ethiopian fiscal year.

The Ethiopian Horticulture Producers and Exporters Association has recently disclosed the need to promote the country's horticulture products in more international markets such as China.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 01:52:54|Editor: yan

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KHARTOUM, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn on Tuesday arrived in the Sudanese capital Khartoum on an official three-day visit to boost bilateral ties.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and senior government officials received Desalegn upon arrival at Khartoum airport.

Sudan's Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour told reporters at the airport that Desalegn's visit reflects the progressive ties between Sudan and Ethiopia.

"The visit aims to discuss bilateral ties and how to boost them, as well as issues of the Horn of Africa region, particularly at a time when eastern Africa region is witnessing many issues that need the two countries' leadership to agree on strategies to preserve security in the region and Africa," said Ghandour.

Last April, Sudan and Ethiopia declared a comprehensive cooperation ties in security, military, political, economic, social and cultural fields.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 02:02:59|Editor: An



Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail (4th R, Rear) attends the signing ceremony between Egypt's National Authority for Tunnels (NAT) and the joint coalition of China's AVIC International and China Railway Group Limited in Cairo, Egypt, on Aug. 15, 2017. The Egyptian Ministry of Transport and a coalition of Chinese firms signed on Tuesday an agreement worth 1.24 billion U.S. dollars to build a light rail transit in new districts around Cairo. (Xinhua/Meng Tao)

CAIRO, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Egyptian Ministry of Transport and a coalition of Chinese firms signed on Tuesday an agreement worth 1.24 billion U.S. dollars to build a light rail transit in new districts around Cairo.

The aspired light rail is a fast tram expected to cover a distance of 66 km with 11 stops, connecting the under-construction new administrative capital city with distant districts of Greater Cairo including Al-Salam City, Ramadan 10 City, Obour City, Badr City and Shorouk City.

The signing ceremony between Egypt's National Authority for Tunnels (NAT) and the joint coalition of China's AVIC International and China Railway Group Limited was attended by Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, Transport Minister Hesham Arafat and Chinese Ambassador to Cairo Song Aiguo.

NAT chief Tarek Gamal El-Din said the project will start within two or three months, expecting it to accommodate 340,000 passengers daily, reduce traffic on the Cairo-Ismailia highway by about 30 percent and save Egypt some 2.3 billion Egyptian pounds (about 129.5 million dollars) annually.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi met earlier in mid-July with the Chinese coalition for negotiations over the key project.

The Chinese group said it would assign Egyptian contractors with some civil and railway construction works that will provide thousands of job opportunities in the country.

Egypt and China enjoy strong bilateral relations that have been elevated to the level of comprehensive strategic partnership. The two countries marked in 2016 the 60th anniversary of the establishment of their diplomatic relations.

The volume of trade between Egypt and China has mounted to 11.3 billion U.S. dollars in 2016, ranking Egypt as the third African trade partner with China.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 02:13:02|Editor: yan

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ADDIS ABABA, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Ethiopia on Tuesday unveiled its plan to transform major service deliveries in its capital Addis Ababa.

As part of the plan, the Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn and Addis Ababa city Mayor, Diriba Kuma, have signed an agreement earlier on Tuesday that envisages an improved service provision in the capital.

The agreement, which was signed in the presence of high level government officials from the federal government and Addis Ababa city administration, focused on improving service deliveries of 6 sectors, which include urban land renewal, land tenure, issuance of construction licenses, waste management, water supply and one-stop service center.

Desalegn, after signing the agreement, stressed that leaderships at all levels are expected to deliver efficient services for the residents and discharge their responsibilities.

The premier also affirmed the need to put in place a system of accountability so as to address challenges related to mal-administration that is witnessed in the capital Addis Ababa with regards to service delivery.

Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa is known for hosting various international and regional organizations, which include the African Union (AU) headquarters and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UN-ECA).

The city is also one major tourist destination for the east African country, in which the capital had attracted over 650,000 tourists during the first three quarters of the just completed 2016-2017 Ethiopian fiscal year, according figures from the Addis Ababa city administration.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 02:18:02|Editor: yan

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ACCRA, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Ghanaian President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on Tuesday laid the foundation stone for the construction of a new cement grinding factory in the port city of Tema, some 30 kilometers east of the capital city Accra.

The technologically advanced factory, to be located at the Free Zones Enclave, is being executed by CBI Ghana, an affiliate of Lafarge-Holcim, a world-leader in cement manufacturing, headquartered in Switzerland.

President Akufo-Addo noted that the consumption of cement was guaranteed to increase as his government deals with growing urbanization, the huge deficit in the housing needs, and the anticipated rise in government and private sector infrastructure development projects.

He therefore asked the company, as the latest entrant to the sector, supported, by Lafarge-Holcim, to bring the latest advanced cement grinding technology to Ghana.

"I look forward to the construction of what we expect to be a state-of-the-art cement grinding factory to diversify the sector, promote healthy competition, and improve product standards," he said.

"With your affiliation to Lafarge-Holcim, the world-leader in cement manufacturing, operating in 90 countries, 30 of which are in Africa alone, we hope to see in-flows of knowledge, global best practices and technical-skills into Ghana's cement and related sectors," he said.

When completed, the CBI Ghana plant will produce premium cement under the brand name "Supacem".
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 02:33:08|Editor: yan

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KIGALI, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of the Rwandan catholic faithfuls on Tuesday joined the rest of the world to celebrate the Assumption Day.

The Assumption day is a public holiday in Rwanda to enable Catholics enjoy the day with their loved ones.

The day is one of the oldest of catholic celebrations in Rwanda.

To mark the day, many Rwandan catholic faithfuls and others from all over the world converged at Kibeho in Nyaruguru District, Southern Province.

Bishop Philip Rukamba, head of the Episcopal Conference of Catholic Bishops of Rwanda told Xinhua the day is very important to catholic religion since it glorifies God and inspires further devotion to the Virgin Mary.

Statistics from the Rwanda Political Parties and Religious Based Organization showed that 56.9 percent of Rwanda's population is Roman Catholic, Protestants and Anglicans represent 26 percent, 11.1 percent is Seventh-day Adventist, 4.6 percent is Muslim, while 1.7 percent claims no religious affiliation, and 0.1 percent practices traditional indigenous beliefs.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 02:38:13|Editor: yan

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MOSCOW, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Russian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday condemned the expulsion of a Russian report from Ukraine and urged Kiev to abide by the international obligations.

"We express outrage at the gross violation of the rights of Russian journalists and demand Kiev to adhere to international obligations in the field of media freedom and ensure their safety," the ministry said in a statement.

Tamara Nersesyan, a reporter with the All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (VGTRK), said earlier that she was interrogated by the Security Service of Ukraine on Monday and put in a car and taken to the border with Russia, where she was offered to cross the border on foot. She used a car provided by the Russian border guards to reach Moscow.

According to Nersesyan, she was banned from entering Ukraine for the next three years because her reports presented a threat to the territorial integrity of the country.

Last month, Ukraine expelled another VGTRK reporter for similar reasons.

Over the past year, Ukraine and Russia have detained several of each other's citizens on accusations of spying or plotting acts of sabotage.

Relations between Russia and Ukraine began to deteriorate in 2014 after Russia incorporated Crimea from Ukraine following a local referendum.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 02:53:14|Editor: yan

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UNITED NAIONS, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- China on Tuesday called for more investment from both regional countries and the international community to tackle rampant terrorist acts in the Sahel region in Africa.

The terrorist attacks in Burkina Faso and Mali in recent days have shown again that the security situation in the Sahel region remains very grave with widespread terrorism and violence and cross-border organized crime, Chinese representative Shen Bo told a Security Council meeting on Tuesday.

Both regional countries and the international community should continue to increase investment and adopt a comprehensive approach to tackle the problem, he said.

The multinational military force, which was launched in July by the countries of the G5 Sahel -- Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger -- demonstrates the will of Africa to unite and solve problems by themselves. The 5,000-strong force is an important contribution to peace in Africa and the world at large, said Shen.

China welcomes the progress with regard to the development of the joint force and commends the efforts of the Sahel countries to restore peace and security in their region. China expects the force to play an important role in restoring stability in the Sahel, he said.

The international community should respect Africa's leading role in solving their own problems and support regional countries in their efforts to regain peace in the Sahel, said the Chinese diplomat.

The international community should assess the situation the joint military force is facing, take note of the difficulties with regard to logistics and funding, and find ways to address them, he said. "The international community should provide targeted aid to boost the capacity of the joint military force."

China hopes the G5 Sahel force will coordinate efforts with the UN mission in Mali so that they can form joint strength, said Shen.

China is willing to work with the international community and play a constructive role in promoting peace, stability and development in the Sahel region and in Africa as a whole, he said.

Terrorist attacks in Burkina Faso and Mali, two of the Sahel countries, alerted the international community of the volatile security situation in the region.

Gunmen attacked camps of the UN mission in Mali on Monday, killing a UN peacekeeper and wounding another. A Malian soldier and a member of the Malian gendarmerie were killed as were six Malian contractors. A number of others were wounded.

A restaurant in downtown Ouagadougou, the capital city of Burkina Faso, was attacked by gunmen on Sunday night, killing at least 18 people.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 02:53:15|Editor: huaxia

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KHARTOUM, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Sudan said on Tuesday any discussion about the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) would be under a tripartite framework, involving the development rights of Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia.

Sudan's Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour made the remarks during the visit of the Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, saying that the discussion about the GERD project would also include the water security of the three countries.

"Any discussion about the Renaissance Dam will be related to how to overcome barriers and ensure the water security for the three countries," Ghandour said.

"The GERD is an Ethiopian development project, but it also concerns Sudan and Egypt, where all the discussions about it revolve within this tripartite framework," he added.

The dam will be regarded as Africa's largest dam, located about 20 km away from the Sudanese border on the Nile River, with a total volume of 74,000 million cubic meters upon completion.

The dam is set to produce around 6,000 megawatts of electricity and expected to be completed by the end of 2017.

The project worries Egypt, which fears that the construction of the dam would affect its share of 55.5 billion cubic meters of the Nile water, while Ethiopia said the dam would not harm any country.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir is said to hold talks with Desalegn later Tuesday to discuss issues including the situation in East Africa and also in South Sudan, as well as the relations between Sudan and Ethiopia.

Last April, the two countries declared a comprehensive cooperation in fields of security, economy, social development and culture. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 03:38:24|Editor: yan

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OTTAWA, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Tuesday condemned the terrorist attack in Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso in Africa last Sunday, killing 18 people, including two Canadians.

In a statement, Trudeau said, "Canada strongly condemns this heinous attack. People should not have to live in fear over their safety and security -- no matter where they call home or where they travel. We will continue to work closely with the international community to fight terrorism and bring those responsible to justice."

Trudeau said he was deeply saddened that 18 people, including two Canadians, were killed during a terrorist attack on a popular restaurant in downtown Ouagadougou, adding "these cowardly acts seek to instill fear and divide us. In the face of hatred, we must stand united in the values of diversity, openness, and inclusion."

In the statement, the Canadian prime minister also offered condolences to the families and friends of those killed and wished a speedy recovery to all those injured.

Burkina Faso is a landlocked nation in West Africa. Canada and Burkina Faso established diplomatic relations in 1962.

Canada is the country's largest foreign investor. Bilateral trade between the two countries totalled 72 million U.S.dollars in 2015.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 03:38:26|Editor: ying

Rescuers work at the site where a 200-year-old oak tree collapsed during a religious procession on the Portuguese island of Madeira, Portugal, on Aug. 15, 2017. Thirteen people are now confirmed dead and dozens of others injured after a large tree collapsed on the Portuguese island of Madeira around midday Tuesday, local media reported. (Xinhua/Helder Santos)

LISBON, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Thirteen people are now confirmed dead and 49 others injured after a large tree collapsed on the Portuguese island of Madeira around midday Tuesday, local media reported.

The incident occurred in the Largo da Fonte square in the Monte neighborhood of Funchal, capital of the autonomous region of Madeira, as crowds assembled for the Our Lady of the Mount religious procession.

Ten people were killed instantly and a further three died in hospital. One child is confirmed to be among the dead and six of the injured are said to be in a serious condition.

Regional Secretary of Health, Pedro Ramos, has confirmed that five people of German, French, Dutch and Hungarian nationals are among those injured.

It is not yet known why the tree fell. President of the Regional Government, Miguel Albuquerque, refused to be drawn on speculation that the tree was in a poor state of repair or whether another tree fell three months ago. He said that the priority for the moment was to support the injured and the families of the victims, and he declared three days of mourning throughout the region, starting on Wednesday.

Locals told the Portuguese Lusa News Agency that the tree, a 200-year-old oak, had been tied back with metal wire for the past two years, but not tied to anything, and that the trunk was hollow.

The Funchal Town Hall has confirmed that specialists will examine the scene of the tragedy Wednesday and seek to establish a cause, working in conjunction with the Institute of Agronomy. A source at the Atorney General's Office informed Lusa that the public prosecution service has setup an inquest.

Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa expressed his condolences to the victims and President Marcelo Rebola de Sousa flew straight to the island. "What has happened has shocked me. I really felt it. There's a need to show support to the people of Madeira," he said.

"At this moment, a moment of pain, what's important is to show solidarity, offer comfort and be with those who are suffering," he added.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 03:38:40|Editor: yan

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by Yin Xia, Pan Geping

BRUSSELS, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Several European countries are affected by fipronil contaminated eggs, causing millions of eggs to be removed from shelves in European markets.

So far, contaminated eggs from the Netherlands have been found in Belgium, Germany, France, Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Austria, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Denmark, Switzerland, and China's Hong Kong, according to European Commission's spokesperson Daniel Rosario.

Slow reaction

With the development of the contaminated eggs incident, legal procedures have started in some of the countries affected. The Dutch public prosecutor has said that two people had been arrested in the country for being involved into the contamination.

A spokesman of Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel also confirmed that Belgium would set up a task force to examine all possible measures to support the poultry sector following the insecticide-contaminated egg scandal.

Despite these measures, the incident has provoked concern in different sectors of society in Europe over the slow reaction of governments to the problem.

Ruben Sanchez, the spokesperson for the Spanish consumer association, Consumers in Action (FACUA), told Xinhua that some European Union (EU) counties were late to inform about the detection of the contaminated eggs, provoking anger in other EU and also non-EU nations.

It was known in November 2016 that the problem existed in the Dutch company, Chickfriend, and the adequate measures were not taken. Moreover, the Belgian food safety agency discovered the contaminated eggs on June 2, but reported the issue to the EU on July 20.

Ingmar Streese, Head of consumer policy department of the Federation of German Consumer Organisations, said that to their surprise and disappointment, public authorities in Belgium and the Netherlands were very slow in reaction and very slow in putting these information into the European database rapid alert system. This has been handled very poorly by authorities of these states, he added.

He continued that they hope all European countries, in the future in any kind of food crisis or toxins within food, immediately inform the other countries.

Transparency and cooperation

EU has long been famous for its high standard of good safety, however, the incident of contaminated eggs not only provoked concerns in Europe about the slow reaction of the governments, but also about their capacity to deal with such public health crisis.

Sanchez said that the EU should "work to find out who is responsible, investigate and consider sanctions against those countries who have committed irregularities and also shown a lack of transparency".

And he believed that transparency is very important and governments should join hands with civil society.

"We believe that a serious government should give information to consumer protection organizations. The (Spanish) Health Ministry, however, failed to publish any declaration until FACUA issued a press communique criticizing their lack of transparency and publically talked about our worries of what could happen and the need to set up a protocol," he said.

He added that governments have to inform the organizations of civil society.

Streese had the same view on the importance of civil society. He said, "We will hold government and authorities accountable, to react immediately to be really consumer-oriented, not business-oriented because it's a matter of toxication. We will ask them on a regular basis what they have changed."

"We will also focus on the industry. We still have to wait for results what exactly happened in this crisis. We will see if there is criminal intent to contaminate the natural cleaning agent with fipronil. We will be a loudspeaker for any warnings given to consumers," he added.

In an increasingly globalised world, a great amount of food circulates around the earth. Thus, there might be loopholes in any part of the food supply chain. When an incident which may risk public health takes place in one country, it is extremely difficult to guarantee that it will not spread to other countries.

Therefore, EU countries should be transparent on such important public crisis and cooperate with civil society to better protect their consumers. (This story was also contributed by Feng Junwei, Tian Ying, Zhang Yirong)
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 03:38:42|Editor: An

"President Xi's four-point proposal embodies the noble concept of building a community of shared destiny for humanity, and China's responsibility as a power in firmly supporting the just cause of the Palestinian people," says Chen Xingzhong (R), director of the Office of the People's Republic of China to the State of Palestine. (Xinhua/Liu Liwei)

RAMALLAH, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The four-point proposal by Chinese President Xi Jinping to settle the Palestinian issue embodies China's responsibility as a big power on international matters, the Chinese envoy to Palestine told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Xi put forward the proposal in a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during the latter' visit to Beijing in July.

"President Xi's four-point proposal embodies the noble concept of building a community of shared destiny for humanity, and China's responsibility as a power in firmly supporting the just cause of the Palestinian people," said Chen Xingzhong, director of the Office of the People's Republic of China to the State of Palestine.

In the proposal, Xi reiterated China's firm support to a political settlement of the Palestinian issue on the basis of the two-state solution, and the establishment of an independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state along the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

The proposal came four months ahead of the 70th anniversary of the 1947 United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181, which recommended the establishment of a Jewish state and an Arab state in the former British mandate territory of Palestine.

The Chinese leader highlighted the importance of enhancing international coordination to achieve peace between Israel and Palestine, while calling for supporting Palestine's economic development within the framework of China's Belt and Road Initiative.

Xi also offered to host a symposium on the Israeli-Palestinian peace later this year and launch a tripartite dialogue mechanism with Palestine and Israel, in order to create necessary conditions for resuming the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and increase their mutual trust.

Shining with "China's wisdom," the four-point proposal will be the general guide for China's subsequent efforts to promote a political solution to the Palestinian issue, Chen noted.

Chen pointed out that China's peacemaking efforts in the Middle East aim for neither competition nor exclusion.

"China will continue to work with the international community and regional countries to inject positive energy into seeking early settlement of the Palestinian issue in a fair, reasonable and comprehensive way," he said.

Chen also said that Xi's proposal was well received among Palestinian officials, including Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki and Secretary General of the Palestinian Presidency Tayeb Abdelrahim.

The Palestinian side agreed that Xi's proposal came at the right time and will serve to "bring the Palestinian issue back into the international focus, reach a consensus among related parties, and break the stalemate in the peace process," the Chinese envoy said.

Palestinian officials spoke highly of China's impartial position in its consistent peacemaking and mediation efforts, while expecting a more active, constructive role from China in resolving the Palestinian issue, Chen said.

As the year 2018 will mark the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Palestine, China is willing to deepen coordination with the Palestinian side in various sectors to benefit both peoples, he added.

The 1967 Middle East war resulted in Israel's occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

The last round of peace talks between Israel and Palestine broke down in 2014, mainly due to the continuing expansion of Jewish settlements on the occupied Palestinian territories.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 03:38:45|Editor: yan

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LAGOS, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Academic activities in Nigerian universities are grounded as the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has commenced an indefinite nationwide strike for more financial support.

Strikers are pressing for the implementation of an agreement signed between the ASUU and the Nigerian federal government in 2009.

ASUU President Biodun Ogunyemi announced the strike on Monday in Abuja, Nigeria's capital city, where the ASUU concluded an emergency national executive council meeting.

"There shall be no teaching, no examination and no attendance of statutory meetings of any kind in any of our branches till government meets the union's demands," he told reporters.

President Muhammadu Buhari had in January approved a 16-man committee, headed by Wale Babalakin, to renegotiate the 2009 Federal Government agreement with the staff unions in the federal universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.

The committee was constituted with a view to engendering sustainable peace and industrial harmony in tertiary institutions.

The ASUU president said the Wale Babalakin-led committee set up by the government lacked the powers to resolve the issue as there were unimplemented items in the 2009 agreement.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 03:38:49|Editor: yan

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GENEVA, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Weeks after the retaking of Iraq's Mosul city from the ISIL, many internally displaced persons (IDPs) are exhibiting signs of stress and anxiety, the UN migrant agency IOM warned on Tuesday.

The UN agency cited its local staff as saying that many of the IDPs seeking help display symptoms of acute stress such as hyper vigilance, anxiety, depression, anger, memory loss, psychosomatic symptoms and a lack of appetite.

Amongst the many children IOM works with, a spokesperson of IOM told a press briefing that those from Mosul tend to display symptoms of developmental regression, exhibited by episodes of bed-wetting, severe anxiety, apathy and quickness to get angry or cry.

"As the psychological toll of what many had endured over the last three years kicks in, children in particular have been scarred by the violence of life under ISIL and they will need long-term psychological support," the spokesperson said.

IOM said that it has been offering support to IDPs since November 2016, virtually since the start of the Mosul crisis, by providing integrated psychosocial services to 24,399 internally displaced Iraqis.

IOM said that its outreach ranges from individual counselling to structured play. Emotional support comes in the form of sporting activities, as well as from guided group discussions and specialized consultations.

With support from other institutes, IOM's Mental Health and Psychosocial Support programme now has seven centers catering to IDPs from Mosul and its surrounding areas, it added.

During nearly three years of operations, IOM said it has reached over 50,000 beneficiaries in Iraq and provided roughly 150,000 different psychosocial support activities.

"We concentrate on containment and preventative measures to help the IDPs establish a sense of safety and normalcy," the spokesperson said, adding that the goal is to empower individuals to see themselves as survivors rather than victims, facilitating acceptance of the new conditions, and to activate resilient strategies to cope with past, present and future challenges.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 03:43:59|Editor: yan

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PARIS, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The popularity of French President Emmanuel Macron, who celebrated Tuesday his 100 days in office, has dropped to a historical low, recent polls showed.

President Macron's approval rating dropped to 36 percent, a historical low for a French president's 100 days in modern era. His unpopularity rate is 10 points higher than his predecessor Francois Hollande, according to an Ifop poll published last Friday.

This was a sharp contrast with the 66.10 percent votes Macron obtained in the general elections on May 8, 2017.

The fall of his approval rating can be partly explained by the budgetary savings for 2017 initiated by the government, the departure of several ministers and the implementation of a project to moralize the country's political life.

What originally caused the decline in his popularity was the reforms initiated by the government, especially the reduction of housing subsidies of 5 euros per month starting from October.

"We need to undertake a comprehensive reform of personal housing subsidies, which is absolutely essential because we are dealing with amounts to be mastered but above all with structural reforms to be put in place," Jacques Mezard, Minister of Territorial Cohesion, told French radio station RTL in late July.

The announcement has triggered debates in France. For the opponents as well as a large number of French, the government attacks the poorest by lowering this aid.

Housing aid cost France 20 billion euros (23.47 billion U.S. dollars) last year, according to official figures. French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has stressed the importance of reducing the housing aid cost, saying "we spend twice as much as our European neighbors on housing assistance."

Meanwhile, Macron's plan to trim defense budget spending by 850 million euros (980.4 million U.S. dollars) to help the nation meet the deficit target of 3 percent met opposition of France's most senior armed forces chief Pierre de Villiers, who resigned in July.

"Under the current circumstances I see myself no longer able to guarantee the robust defense force I believe necessary to guarantee the protection of France and the French people, today and tomorrow, and to sustain the aims of our country," de Villiers said in a statement.

In an interview with the French journal Le Figaro, Jerome Fourquet, director of the opinion and strategy department of the French Institute of Public Opinion, contributed the fall of the approval rating of the French president to those reforms he undertook.

"From the general policy speeches and the announcements of the cuts in various ministries, the comet of Macron has returned to the atmosphere. We are then struggling with the reality which is complicated, because there are arbitrages to take, means are narrow, and therefore discontent is generated, "said Mr. Fourquet.

The scandals involving several ministers of the government also damaged the image of the new team in public opinion, and therefore caused the sharp decline in the popularity rating of Emmanuel Macron.

The Minister of Territorial Cohesion Richard Ferrand, one of the faithful of Macron, is accused of having favored in 2011 his wife in a real estate market while he was director general of the Mutuelles de Bretagne and having hired his son in 2014 as a parliamentary collaborator while he was a socialist deputy.

The opposition quickly made it parallel with the so-called Penelopegate affair. Mr. Ferrand ended up by resignation, followed later by his colleagues of the Army, Sylvie Goulard; European Affairs, Marielle de Sarnez and Justice, Francois Bayrou.

These resignations took place at a time when the government was preparing to implement one of its campaign promises: the moralization of political life.
"President Xi's four-point proposal embodies the noble concept of building a community of shared destiny for humanity, and China's responsibility as a power in firmly supporting the just cause of the Palestinian people," says Chen Xingzhong (R), director of the Office of the People's Republic of China to the State of Palestine. (Xinhua/Liu Liwei)

RAMALLAH, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The four-point proposal by Chinese President Xi Jinping to settle the Palestinian issue embodies China's responsibility as a big power on international matters, the Chinese envoy to Palestine told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Xi put forward the proposal in a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during the latter' visit to Beijing in July.

"President Xi's four-point proposal embodies the noble concept of building a community of shared destiny for humanity, and China's responsibility as a power in firmly supporting the just cause of the Palestinian people," said Chen Xingzhong, director of the Office of the People's Republic of China to the State of Palestine.

In the proposal, Xi reiterated China's firm support to a political settlement of the Palestinian issue on the basis of the two-state solution, and the establishment of an independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state along the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

The proposal came four months ahead of the 70th anniversary of the 1947 United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181, which recommended the establishment of a Jewish state and an Arab state in the former British mandate territory of Palestine.

The Chinese leader highlighted the importance of enhancing international coordination to achieve peace between Israel and Palestine, while calling for supporting Palestine's economic development within the framework of China's Belt and Road Initiative.

Xi also offered to host a symposium on the Israeli-Palestinian peace later this year and launch a tripartite dialogue mechanism with Palestine and Israel, in order to create necessary conditions for resuming the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and increase their mutual trust.

Shining with "China's wisdom," the four-point proposal will be the general guide for China's subsequent efforts to promote a political solution to the Palestinian issue, Chen noted.

Chen pointed out that China's peacemaking efforts in the Middle East aim for neither competition nor exclusion.

"China will continue to work with the international community and regional countries to inject positive energy into seeking early settlement of the Palestinian issue in a fair, reasonable and comprehensive way," he said.

Chen also said that Xi's proposal was well received among Palestinian officials, including Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki and Secretary General of the Palestinian Presidency Tayeb Abdelrahim.

The Palestinian side agreed that Xi's proposal came at the right time and will serve to "bring the Palestinian issue back into the international focus, reach a consensus among related parties, and break the stalemate in the peace process," the Chinese envoy said.

Palestinian officials spoke highly of China's impartial position in its consistent peacemaking and mediation efforts, while expecting a more active, constructive role from China in resolving the Palestinian issue, Chen said.

As the year 2018 will mark the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Palestine, China is willing to deepen coordination with the Palestinian side in various sectors to benefit both peoples, he added.

The 1967 Middle East war resulted in Israel's occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

The last round of peace talks between Israel and Palestine broke down in 2014, mainly due to the continuing expansion of Jewish settlements on the occupied Palestinian territories.
Photo taken on July 25, 2017, shows a blue light emergency phone column installed outside the south entrance of UC Berkeley in Berkeley, California, the United States.(Xinhua/Ma Dan)

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- As American universities will start the new school year in weeks, concerns are raising over safety of international students who will face a new American setting filled with unfamiliar risks and even threats.

From his understanding, officer Wade MacAdam, who works with UC Berkeley Police Department's Safety Programs, expected international students to be more alert, not only on surroundings but on personal property as well, as they are more likely to be "easy target."

He said in a recent interview with Xinhua that safety has always been a real issue for international students to take into consideration seriously, especially for those from China, following the kidnapping of Zhang Yingying, a visiting scholar at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in June and her whereabouts still remains a mystery.

"UC Berkely is in the downtown area, so we are not secluded. We don't have any walls, we are an open environment," said MacAdam, implying that security risks outside campus post a challenge.

"International students need to have street smart and be aware of their surroundings," he said, adding that their parents also need to remember that students are not in a secluded protected area.

Information released by the campus police shows that robbery, theft and assault are among the most common crimes that happen on and around Berkeley campus.

Photo taken on July 25, 2017, shows the police car of UC Berkeley Police Department on the campus in Berkeley, California, the United States. (Xinhua/Ma Dan)

MacAdam said that they find students from China are very affectionate and warm to people around them, which might make them vulnerable when it comes to safety.

"We just want to remind them that some people might want to trick them, or to prey on them," he explained.

"They might talk to them on the sidewalk, and ask them some questions, or try to convince them to give them money, or talk to them as a distraction while their friends might come out of the bushes and take their property."

According to his advise, Chinese students need to be mindful of surroundings and on the guard as they interact with people, even if they want to be friendly and enjoy their visit here, with the awareness that some people might want to take advantage of them and look at them as an easy target.

In the case of Zhang Yingying, it's known that the 26-year-old female got a ride in a car driven by someone strange to her on the campus while running on her way to sign a new apartment lease.

The man driving the car was arrested later and accused of kidnapping Zhang. The young scholar is now presumed dead unfortunately.

Keeping vigilant against theft is another piece of security tip offered by MacAdam to international students, who he finds have a lot valuables, such as expensive cameras, laptops, and mobile devices, and often leave them in plain sight.

Photo taken on July 25, 2017, shows the buttons and direction on a blue light emergency phone column installed outside the south entrance of UC Berkeley in Berkeley, California, the United States. (Xinhua/Ma Dan)

In stead of advertising their electronic devices to be stolen, he said they need to hide them, keeping them in their backpack, for instance.

It's also important for them to make some changes on lifestyle in order to prevent theft. They need to avoid using their cell phones, texting or wearing headphones while walking if they don't want to be target of theft, the officer said.

So far, many American universities are committed to campus security. Here in the University of California, Berkeley, which has one of the highest campus crime rates in the state of California, campus police has installed various security measures to help students stay safe.

Once in emergency, international students are encouraged to call police with no hesitation.

"We are accessible and approachable, please don't be afraid of us. We are your friend. Call us if there's anything you need," said MacAdam.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 04:54:45|Editor: yan

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CAPE TOWN, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- South Africa's Parliament on Tuesday refused to meet a delegation from the Israeli Knesset (parliament) in protest against Israel's settlement building in the occupied Palestinian territories.

This followed a decision of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) Parliamentary Caucus to reject a request from the Israeli Ambassador Arthur Lenk for the South African Parliament's Portfolio Committee on International Relations to meet a delegation from the Israeli Knesset on August 16-17.

"The disquiet of our Parliament arises from among other concerns the Israeli Knesset having passed legislation which retrospectively legalizes settlements into Palestinian territories, thus undermining the Two-State Solution the South African government supports," ANC parliamentary spokesperson Nonceba Mhlauli said.

The UN Security Council has also bemoaned these actions through its Resolution (UNSCR) 2334 of December 2016, which states that Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem have "no legal validity and constitute a flagrant violation under International Law", Mhlauli said.

The continuous killings of Palestinians by the Israeli security forces, administrative detentions, deportations and many other human rights violations also form part of the reasons why the ANC cannot allow itself to be co-opted into this charm offensive by Israel through this parliamentary visit, said Mhlauli.

"We are unequivocal in our support of the Palestinian peoples' fight for self-determination, and maintain the view that they are victims of the ongoing conflict against Israel. The ANC continues to support and advocate for the peaceful co-existence of the two nations," he said.

South Africa, a staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause, has been critical of Israel for its policy towards the Palestinians.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 05:04:51|Editor: yan

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LAGOS, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Scores of people were feared killed by suspected Boko Haram suicide bombers at a market in the village of Konduga in northeast Nigeria's Borno State, multiple sources said late Tuesday.

A security source who confirmed the attacks told Xinhua that he was yet to get full details of the incident which occurred at about 35 kilometers from Maiduguri, the state capital.

An emergency source who spoke on condition of anonymity said that dozens of people were killed and others injured.

Lagos-based Vanguard newspaper however reported that at least 27 people were killed and while 83 were wounded in northeast Nigeria on Tuesday, quoting local sources.

According to the newspaper, a woman bomber blew herself up and killed 27 others at a market in the village of Konduga near Maiduguri.

It quoted an emergency service official as saying that two other suicide bombers also blew themselves up at the gates to a nearby refugee camp, leaving many injured.

Military authorities in Borno State have yet to confirm the attacks.

Borno State, located in Nigeria's northeast region, is a flash-point of attacks perpetrated by Boko Haram since 2009, when the sect launched its insurgency targeting churches, security facilities, schools and villages.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 05:24:59|Editor: yan

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CHICAGO, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) grains futures closed lower on Tuesday with corn and wheat posting more than two percent losses.

The most active corn contract for December delivery fell 7.75 cents, or 2.06 percent, to 3.685 dollars per bushel. December wheat delivery went down 11.75 cents, or 2.51 percent to 4.56 dollars per bushel. November soybeans dropped 14 cents, or 1.49 percent, to 9.2425 dollars per bushel.

CBOT brokers reported that funds sold 7,000 contracts of corn, 9,000 contracts of soybeans, and 4,000 contracts of wheat. The sell-offs dragged down all the prices.

The decrease of futures' prices was due to improving crop conditions, with no sign of extended heat, said analysts.

Traders are also worried that a stronger dollar makes U.S. agricultural products less competitive in the world market.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported on Monday better corn crop conditions and favorable weather in leading agricultural State of Iowa added more pressure on corn and soybean futures.

Ample wheat supplies in world market led to the downturn of its prices both in the U.S. and Europe.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 06:00:12|Editor: yan

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by Mahmoud Fouly

CAIRO, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The recent breakthrough in the Egyptian-Italian diplomatic ties after an 18-month rift has been motivated by a combination of political and economic factors including Cairo's regional role in fighting terror and illegal immigration as well as the massive economic and trade relations between the two countries, said Egyptian experts.

Rome announced on Monday intention to return its ambassador to Cairo after its previous envoy was recalled in April 2016 over the ambiguous murder of a 28-year-old Italian doctoral student, Giulio Regeni, whose tortured, half-naked body was found in early February 2016 on a distant roadside just outside Cairo.

The decision was welcomed by Cairo that decided in turn to appoint a new ambassador to Rome.

"The main motivation is the long, deep-rooted bilateral relations between Egypt and Italy, particularly the political, economic and security ties," said Noha Bakr, a political science professor at the American University in Cairo.

While Egypt plays a key role in collecting efforts for a political settlement in neighboring war-torn Libya, a main terror and migrant exporter to Europe, military and security cooperation between Egypt and Italy continues as a main factor for the security of their Mediterranean Sea shores.

"Italy suffers inflow of terrorism, organized crimes and illegal immigration through the Mediterranean Sea where Egypt plays a key role to maintain its maritime security," Bakr told Xinhua.

She explained that 60 percent of Italian trade passes through Egypt's Suez Canal and Italy is the fifth largest investor in Egypt with key investments worth 2.6 billion euros (3.5 billion U.S. dollars) annually, adding that Italy has invested in Egypt over 15.5 billion euros since 1970.

Italy's oil major firm Eni announced in early August that it intends to pump investments of 3.5 billion dollars into Egypt in 2018, noting it represents half of Eni's investments planned for the year.

The Italian company, which has been operating in Egypt for over 60 years, announced in August 2015 the discovery of the largest gas field, Zohr, in the Egyptian offshore of the Mediterranean Sea, saying it could hold a potential of 30 trillion cubic feet (850 billion cubic meters) of lean gas in a place covering an area of about 100 square km.

"The investment and trade relations between Egypt and Italy are a win-win situation for the economies of both states," Bakr said, noting that Italy is also the world's sixth and Europe's third largest tourist exporter to Egypt.

Italy said that resuming diplomatic relations with Egypt will not affect the probe into the death of Regeni, who visited Cairo to research labor movements in Egypt.

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni reassured Regeni's parents on Monday of Italy's continued commitment to bringing the murderers to justice, according to Italian news agency ANSA.

Italy in the beginning was not satisfied with the relevant investigation and information offered by the Egyptian side, which led to the rift.

"But eventually the Egyptian general prosecutor's office showed earnest and intensified judicial cooperation with the Italian side, which helped thaw the tense ties," the professor told Xinhua.

On the other hand, an Italian tourist has recently beaten to death an Egyptian engineer supervising work at a Red Sea hotel. Besides, a couple of Egyptian citizens were also murdered and disappeared in Italy over the past year. All might have pressured Italy to resume ties with the most populous Arab state.

"The Italian initial reaction to Regeni's death and the withdrawal of their ambassador to Cairo did not go with the old and firm ties between Egypt and Italy," said Mohamed Nehad Asqalani, Egypt's former assistant foreign minister.

Cairo has a large weight in the region and the Egyptian wise, coherent and fixed foreign policy principles eventually helped contain the rift with Italy, the ex-diplomat said.

"Egypt's foreign policy principles and the Western need for Cairo's influence in the chaotic Middle East region led to a positive approach between Egypt and Italy in particular and the European world in general," Asqalani told Xinhua.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 06:45:21|Editor: ying

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MEXICO CITY, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Mexico will be renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) from a position of strength, the head of a United Nations agency said on Tuesday.

Alicia Barcena, the executive secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), spoke of the upcoming talks between Mexico, Canada and the United States on the sidelines of a seminar in Mexico City.

When U.S. President Donald Trump took office in January, his protectionist policies sought to dismantle the three-way trade agreement, noted Barcena.

"Mexico succeeded in changing the conversation, because Trump did not want the accord. Mexico managed to maintain the deal and have it renegotiated," Barcena told reporters.

More than just a free-trade agreement, NAFTA transformed the three North American countries into a combined productive region, she said.

This regional integration will be key to Mexico's arguments at the talks, which starts Wednesday in U.S. capital of Washington DC.

As an example, she cited that many of Mexico's assembly plants along its northern border with the United States use U.S.-made parts to assemble cars and other products.

"There is really a very significant integration of value chains between the United States and Mexico, so that many of the products that Mexico exports have a high content of parts and pieces produced in the United States," said Barcena.

While Mexico's negotiating team needs to beware of U.S. attempts to introduce tariffs or other protectionist measures to goods under negotiation, its position is solid, she said.

"Mexico is going from a position of strength, even more so if it goes united with Canada," she said, adding the talks should benefit Mexico's work force.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-16 07:00:24|Editor: ying

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UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- UN Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, El-Ghassim Wane, told the Security Council Tuesday that cross-border terrorist threat in the Sahel region in Africa remains serious.

Wane made the remarks while briefing the Security Council on the activities of the G5 Sahel Joint Force, which comprises troop participation from all G5 countries -- Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Burkina Faso and Chad.

The cross-border dimension of the terrorist threat in the Sahel region, as well as the serious challenges posed by transnational organized crime and its links with terrorism, continue to pose a serious threat to stability, prosperity and growth in the Sahel, he said.

Wane noted that the G5 Sahel Joint Force "presents a unique opportunity to address regional challenges through a regional approach," but said that a number of challenges remain, including in relation to funding, force generation, training and equipment, among others.

"The opportunity the Force presents will only be seized if, in addition to tackling these challenges, the causes of instability in Mali and the region are addressed simultaneously," he said.

"This requires going beyond military action," he said, to tackle governance problems, poverty, unemployment and climate change.

Wane added that a political strategy should guide the Joint Force's activities.

In recent years, the vast, arid Sahel region has become a breeding ground for violent radical groups, some with ties to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. European leaders fear that these militants could pose a great danger to their neighboring continent without intervention.

On July 2, leaders of the G5 Sahel officially launched the new G5 Sahel force, in the presence of French President Emmanuel Macron. This followed a meeting in February in which the G5 Sahel heads of state announced that a new force would be set up to fight terrorism in the sub-region.
Photo taken on July 25, 2017 shows the University of Chicago's campus in Chicago, the United States.(Xinhua/Wang Ping)

CHICAGO, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Holding top-10 positions in numerous national and international rankings, University of Chicago (UoC) attracts students in U.S. and all over world, even if the university stands in an unsafe neighborhood at city's southern side.

Being called "Murder Capital of America," Chicago saw a surge in gun violence in 2016 with 762 murders, which was more than New York City and Los Angeles combined, according to the Chicago Police Department. Most of the criminal incidents took place in the southern area.

However, UoC manages to protect students by setting up a safety network consisting of free bus service, heavy monitoring and expanded policing.

Kenneth Rogers, University of Chicago student, speaks during an interview with Xinhua at Chicago, the United States, on July 25, 2017. (Xinhua/Wang Ping)

"I think the campus is very safe. When you are walking back to dorms at night, there is always somebody on the corner, protecting you, making you feel safe," UoC student Kenneth Rogers said.

However, view of a 3rd year PHD student, Liu Jialu, is somewhat different. "Neighborhoods near UoC are kind of special. One neighborhood is called Hyde Park, where most of the students live. It is adjacent to UoC, but is not safe around there."

She said areas south to 60th and west to Drexel Street are minority neighborhoods. It means that the university's surrounding areas are not very safe, but people don't usually go to those places, she said.

Liu Jialu, 3rd year PHD student of University of Chicago, speaks during an interview with Xinhua at Chicago, the United States, on July 25, 2017. (Xinhua/Wang Ping)

Established in 1890, UoC is a private research university with around 15,000 students overall.

For safety concern, UoC has bought the neighborhoods. Every single apartment building between 47th street and 61st street is now owned by UoC.

They filled the apartments with their own students, faculty and staff. Then they make sure to rent the other spare rooms to people whose background they had checked and trusted.

UoC's another step is to hire the third largest police force in the state of Illinois, after the City of Chicago and the City of Springfield.

Photo taken on July 25, 2017 shows the University of Chicago's campus in Chicago, the United States.(Xinhua/Wang Ping)

Liu said "on campus there is a blue emergency box every 10 meters with its serial number on it. Once you are in need, you can run to the nearest emergency box and press the button on it. It will send off alarm and you get positioned automatically."

David, a UoC student, said "if you press the button, UoC police will usually come to that location. If you are not able to stay in that location because maybe someone is following you, you can keep on pressing the blue lights and UoC police will know where you are."

Liu said usually there will be an university security guard every one or two blocks." They keep on guard until 2:00 a.m., so they can keep students safe."

During freshman orientation, the university will give the new students police's phone numbers. If anything happens, they are supposed to call the police, who will be here in three or five minutes, she added.

Free bus service is an extra measure to protect the students in UoC. "The university provides bus service during day time, and then there are shuttles at night. The shuttles will stop at your wave at any bus stop, and take you home," Liu said.

Keeping safety on minds, students of UoC have their own tips to avoid potential danger.

"First of all, don't walk alone on the street at night. Even during daytime you should stick to main roads, and try to avoid remote roads. It is better to travel with classmates and in groups," Liu said.

"When you are walking, especially at night, do not just walk or play your smart phone. Your phone could be robbed. At the same time it is hard for you to see the surroundings. You should keep aware of the situation while walking," Liu suggested.
Republic Group appoints new Chief Risk Officer

Antar, the current General Manager for Corporate Operations and Process Improvement at Republic Bank Limited, will assume the role from Anthony Subero, who will retire from the bank after more than 35 years of sterling service.

In announcing the appointment, RFHL yesterday said Antar has contributed immensely to myriad functions at the bank, including Marketing, Branch Operations, Information Technology, Operational Risk and Corporate Security as well as Administration, Premises, Business Continuity Planning, Business Systems and Process Improvement, and Portfolio Management.

Antar is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators (ACIS) and holds Chartered Institute of Bankers UK (ACIB) certification.

Republic Group yesterday congratulated Antar on his new appointment and wished him success in his career.
Attorney: Soldiers detainment is lengthy and unreasonable

Merritt raised the issue at a hearing before High Court Judge Justice Joan Charles two days after granting a writ of habeas corpus instructing the Defence Force to release the soldiers. Merrit said while he understood the need for military investigators to establish a board of inquiry and interview witnesses, it did not negate the fact that his clients were also entitled rights under the Constitution.

Keeping someone 18 days without any actual charge was unreasonable, he said.

They are saying their investigation process, because they have 26 witnesses to take statements from, is what kept them from doing anything further.

They said they were awaiting the chance to convene a board of inquiry but our position is that the board of inquiry does not negate the process of letting the men have their liberty. Merritt said the men were not allowed to communicate with their attorneys during the period of their detainment and this amounted to a violation of his clients Constitutional rights.

They also said they had warrants to execute at banks but I dont understand how keeping my clients inside would affect that. Ravi Rajkumar, attorney for the Defence Force, said the matter was one for internal investigations and felt the court should not interfere in the proceedings.

However Charles told Rajkumar while the soldiers may be subject to military law, they were still citizens of this country and are granted certain rights under the Constitution.

Hearing of the matter continues today.
Father of two stabbed to death in Fyzabad

Randy Ramkissoon died on the spot after he was stabbed in the chest, back and abdominal area by his attacker.

According to a police report, at about 11.30 pm, Ramkissoon was in the living room of the family home watching television when he heard a knocking at the front door and someone calling his name.

When Ramkissoon opened the door a man with a knife ambushed him and began stabbing him investigators said. Speaking to Newsday at the familys home yesterday, Ramkissoons fatherin- law Anthony Alleyne, who lives a short distance away, said he was awakened by the screams of Ramkissoons wife Crystal who called out to him saying her husband was killed.

I did not hear anything until Crystal called out to us, an emotional Alleyne said.

I rushed to the house to see Randy covered in blood. He was already dead. He said Crystal was crying hysterically.

She was also asleep with the children and awoke after hearing noises from the living room. But by that time the killer was gone.

He killed a father knowing that his children were sleeping in another room. That hurts the most. He said they did not want the children to see the image of their father covered in blood so they only allowed them to leave the bedroom after the body was removed. We did not want them to remember their father in that way, it would be too much for them. Ramkissoon was a self employed mechanic. Alleyne said he was not aware of any threats made on his son-in-laws life. This is very strange. But, from what I gather, he may have known his killer. But I am thankful that the children and their mothers lives were spared.

But what is really sad is that these children will now grow up without a father. We have lost it as a people. There is no more value on human life. Ramkissoon was described as a family man who was hardworking. His dream was to purchase land for his children. He loved his children so much. They are still very young to understand what happened, but we explained to them that their daddy is gone, Alleyne said.

Funeral arrangements are still being made. Members of the Homicide Region Three are investigating.
Second chance for accused youth

Port of Spain Fifth Court magistrate Andre Darmanie urged Martin to use the opportunity he was given wisely. You have been given a chance in life and it is now up to you to make sure you do not end up here again, Darmanie said. He said we are living in a world where people are being murdered everyday with the use of illegal firearms.

The proliferation of illegal guns is not to be taken lightly and no court intends to do so. He said all factors including his age,admission of guilt and his remorse showm involved in Martins case were considered. Darmanie said he was not planning to give Martin a custodial sentence, however he will not get off scot-free.

Martin was fined a total of $15,000 and has seven days to pay or serve six months in prison with hard labour. Darmanie said even after paying the fine, Martin will no longer have access to the benefits which other citizens enjoy as he now has a dirty record. Martin was arrested on Wednesday last by police who stopped a car at Lady Young Road in Belmont.

The car was being driven by 32-year-old Hugh Isaac. The court was told the men were ordered to exit the car which was searched.

Police said they found the gun and the ammunition. The men were arrested and taken into custody.
A HOUSE DIVIDED

So he broke down the top half of the house.

The action did not go down well last week with a High Court judge who has ordered a valuation of the property located in Penal in order to bring an end to the family feud. It all began when the sister Khusmawatie Harripersad, 55, filed an injunction against her brother Amardeep Singh, 49, restraining him from breaking the house which their mother Chandardaye Singh left for both of them to share. The mother died in April 2006. Harripersad and Singh left Trinidad to live in Florida.

In court documents filed in the San Fernando High Court, Harripersad said there was a small wooden structure on the land and whilst she and her brother lived abroad, she allowed a cousin and his mother to live on the property.

A concrete structure was then built after the wooden house burned down in April and the cousin and his mother continued living there.

The house is located at Lalbeharry Trace, Penal, and according to Harripersads injunction, filed by attorney Ravi Mungalsingh, she received a telephone call in early July, while in the United States, from a relative in Trinidad, that her brother was demolishing the top part of the house.

Harripersad she immediately made arrangements to return to Trinidad.

She said upon her arrival, she visited the property on July 24 and saw Singh had broken the top portion of the house.

There were construction materials in the yard. She said there was a confrontation and a heated argument ensued.

She then took legal action against her brother and Mungalsingh wrote to Singh about his alleged trespass to property.

He was ordered to cease all work on the property.

The injunction hearing came up before Justice Devindra Rampersad in the San Fernando High Court last week Thursday. Attorney Jeevan Andrew Rampersad represented Singh who consented to resolve the matter amicably.

By consent between Singh and Harripersad, Rampersad ordered a valuation be done on the property and that Singh be given the first option to buy his sisters half.

The order, however, stated that if Singh fails to buy Harripersads share within 30 days after the valuation, his sister should be given the option to buy his share.

The judge ordered Singh to pay Harripersad compensation for trespass only to the upstairs of the house.
US Embassy discusses juvenile delinquency

Chief Military liaison officer at the US Embassy here, Colonel Claudia Carrizales, made the statement yesterday during a visit to the San Fernando City Corporation to discuss initiatives for security, outreach, and good governance partnerships with the city.

Carrizales and the Embassys chief consular liaison to south Trinidad, Timothy Swanson, and assistant public affairs officer Michael Barrera met Mayor Junia Regrello. After the meeting Carrizales told reporters many people do not realise the US military also has a large hold in communities with its outreach programmes. One of the three key areas in which US military is interested includes education, she said. Another is building the response capability for the San Fernando community so that in the event of natural or man-made disaster, people are prepared. She said the third key relates to security which means partnering with the local military and police.

On Saturday last, this country joined with others worldwide to celebrate International Youth Day as declared by the United Nations General Assembly.

Carrizales main message to youths was for them to be the change they want to be.
CWU secretary general denies newspaper report

The union never presented a list to anybody, Elder told Newsday yesterday.

As a matter of fact, we dont even have a list yet.

I dont know where they got that from. Nothing I said to the reporter on Sunday was in the papers today (yesterday). The story also stated that the TDC was scheduled to close yesterday.

Elder said the article was printed without any input from him.

The only thing in the papers is that we had a meeting with Minister (Stuart) Young and the company on Friday.

That is true. But the result of that meeting was not contained in the paper whatsoever. Elder said what was supposed to happen yesterday was the employees were supposed to be given their retrenchment notices, but it has not happened as yet.

That means the workers would be given 45 days notice starting today which is in accordance with the orders of the Court of Appeal.

It is up to the company to decide whether they are doing it today, tomorrow, Wednesday or next week. After the discussions with Minister Young they did indicate they wanted to do that today(yesterday). Later, at 3 pm yesterday, the TDC called in workers and issued them with retrenchment notices.

Couva North MP Ramona Ramdial said as the TDC closed its doors to make way for a new entity, Tourism Trinidad Destination Management Company Limited, about 120 workers would be left without jobs.

This new company will now employ 50 workers with no assurances from Tourism Minister Shamfa Cudjoe or Minister Stuart Young that these 50 workers are to be hired from within the cadre of 120 former TDC employees. Even though the CWU, representing the TDC employees, did all necessary to save the jobs of these workers, Government still decided to move ahead and retrench, Ramdial said.

She said the impact of retrenchment would not just affect the individual workers, but also families.

In this time of economic hardship where keeping jobs is of utmost importance, we have a weak, incompetent Government, hell-bent on retrenching workers from every sector. We have noteworthy, alternative suggestions being proffered by economists and financial experts where Government can focus on other strategies to cut expenditure and still grow the economy, but instead, thousands of jobs have been lost since this Government assumed office in September 2015, Ramdial said.

She said the first duty of any government should be to take care of its human resource capital.
UTT showcases marine environment

Local species of marine flora and fauna were displayed to educate the public on indigenous wildlife and raise conservation awareness.

A combination of living marine and coastal organisms as well as preserved and dried specimens were exhibited.

Live species on display included caiman, lion fish, stingrays, eels, various types of saltwater fish, crabs, freshwater turtles, tubeworms and echinoderms among other organisms. Preserved specimen consisted of a lamprey and horseshoe crab, eels, rays, sharks, echinoderms, molluscs, crustaceans, shells and eggs of five different sea turtles and bones (skulls, vertebrae, jaws) of other marine animals.

The public was also treated to useful information on several topics such as invasive species, shark conservation, seismic testing, oil spills and COREXIT, which is an oil dispersant used during oil spill response operations.

Every year, the marine sciences unit extends an invitation to stakeholders who play an important role in the marine environment to participate in the showcase.

This years event, which was co-sponsored by Trincity Mall in collaboration with Turtle Village Trust, the Coast Guard, Caribbean Fisheries Training and Development Institute, Institute of Marine Affairs, the University of the West Indies Zoological Museum and the Solid Waste Management Company, saw a steady influx of visitors.

Besides students, faculty and staff of UTTs Marine Sciences programmes, and volunteers of different ages also assisted.

Volunteers were given training prior to the event and they gained hands-on experience dealing with the animals (both live and preserved).

They also were also exposed to basic aquaria maintenance. Information on applying to Marine Sciences and other UTT programmes was also made available to the public. Annually, the showcase is seen as an avenue to remind citizens to be mindful of their responsibility to protect and conserve our environment and the organisms that live within it. Anyone interested in partnering or volunteering with the marine sciences unit can contact assistant professor Dr. Reia Guppy at marine.sciences@ utt.edu.tt.
Pan on the Promenade

Pan Trinbago president Keith Diaz expressed hope the event would promote appreciation for the national instrument and knowledge about its past. When asked about the choice of location, he said, We realise every person passing by stops to watch...women, children, those on their way to work. The exhibition showcased the craftsmanship of pans made here from the early 1950s to present. Previously, the country imported drums but the exhibition highlighted a new variety of patented pans specially made here which Diaz described as our inventions, made from scratch. He also explained there is a great difference between regular drums and the new pans which are louder, more powerful and more durable because of the difference in steel used. He gave the example that that the 27-inch drum has the volume of three pans.

He hinted of other differences but said, We cant reveal all the secrets. Experimentation is going on in T&T right now but there is more to come in the pan world.

The exhibition was a journey through pan history with special established boards displaying designs by pioneers such as Anthony Williams, Ellie Mannette and Bertie Marshall straight up to present innovators like inventor of the G-Pan, Dr Brian Copeland.

Diaz said, The history should be taught in a great and more effective way in this country.

People outside want this (steel pan) more than us. The exhibition is hosted annually during Pan Month in August and two more events are scheduled for Friday at Harris Promenade, San Fernando and August 25 in Arima.
Education Minister promises to pay money owed

In a release issued yesterday, the ministry said on August 3, part payment of the monies owed to the PTSC maxi-taxi drivers was disbursed.

Education Minister Anthony Garcia said he is committed to providing payment before the new school term begins.

The PTSC provides a subsidised service to the children of Trinidad and Tobago as a part of the Governments promise of accessible and quality education for all.

The collaboration between the Ministry of Education and the PTSC was established to assist lesser privileged students in getting to and from school with ease.

The Ministry said it will continue to make every effort to ensure that all money owed to the PTSC maxi-drivers are paid, and that students have access to this essential service once school re-opens.

The Ministry also said it will embark on a comprehensive review of the system in which the maxi-taxi drivers operate.

This will ensure that the investment being made produces value for money as spending is of national concern in these challenging economic times, the ministry said.
Rambharat: Teak ban is working

Speaking at the post-Cabinet news conference at the Diplomatic Centre in St Anns on Thursday, he explained improper management in the past led to the emergence of portable saws licensed as sawmills and operated by one man operations. Rambharat said these people go into the forests, harvest teak or pine, export the wood and leave little material for local use.

By banning the export of teak in that form, we are retaining the material to use here.
Several NGOs rescuing migrants off Libyas coasts have suspended operations because of security threats from Libyan coastguard whom they accuse of firing at their ships.

Germany-based Sea-Eye has joined Save the Children and halted its interventions in international waters to save migrants crossing the Mediterranean to reach Europes southern coast.

The charity said it made the decision to halt its water rescues with a heavy heart, but for the sake of its crews safety, Associated Press reports.

Libyan authorities in Tripoli have reportedly stepped up their patrol in Western Mediterranean and intend to extend their control to international waters in a move to deter NGOs rescuing migrants.

Italy and Libya have accused NGOs of helping migrants reach Europes southern coast. They also accused them of colliding with migrant smugglers.

Save the Children also announced its ship was anchored in Malta over possible military actions of Libyan coastguards against the ship even beyond the 12-mile limit.

Doctors without Borders (MSF) said Saturday it contemplated suspending its operations on security grounds after a Spanish NGO said Libyan coastguards last week fired warning shots at them while the vessel was in international waters.

Sunday, Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano welcomed Libyan authorities decision to take actions against the NGOs, pointing out that it would help curb migrant flows to Italy.

This sends a signal that the balance is being restored in the Mediterranean, he said in an interview with Italian La Stampa daily newspaper.

Italy recently voted to send warships into Libyan waters as part of the fight against illegal migration developed by traffickers who indulge into the lucrative business.

Rome said the decision to dispatch vessels was suggested by the Tripoli-based Libyan government.

Around 100,000 migrants have been sent to sea on inflatable rafts or decrepit fishing boats, so far this year.
Morocco rejected the accusations by Reporters without Borders (RSF) on press freedom in the Rif region, saying that allegations concerning obstacles to reporters are biased, unfounded and lacking in credibility and proof.

This came in a statement by the Culture and Communication Ministry in charge of accrediting national and international reporters in the country after the RSF issued a scathing statement accusing the authorities in the North African country of preventing journalists from covering events in the Rif, particularly in the city of Al-Hoceima.

The Ministry underscored that all accredited media carry out their reporting tasks unhindered and that 89 foreign media correspondents accredited in Morocco hold all the permits necessary to carry out their work under normal conditions across the country.

The Ministry also made it clear that it has not influenced the coverage of any foreign or local journalist.

It recalled that visits to the city of AL Hoceima and its surroundings were organized to the benefit of foreign journalists, who freely conducted their news coverage.

The Ministry noted, however, that only one journalist was tried according to the law in force on charges of inciting the public to take part in a banned march.

Tension has been simmering in Al Hoceima since the death of Mouhcine Fikri who was crushed to death in a garbage compactor while attempting to retrieve fish that the police had confiscated and thrown away.

Since this tragic death that occurred in October 2016, protests have been building up in the city initially to claim justice for Mouhcine Fikri. However, the protests have increasingly become focused on addressing the various economic, social, and administrative challenges the Rif region faces.
A diplomatic frost is silently developing between Rabat and Madrid, after Spanish media spoke of an upcoming visit by the Queen of Spain to the enclave of Ceuta on September 9.

The Spanish-occupied city of Ceuta is yet again at the heart of a new row after Morocco protested in 2007 against a visit by Juan Carlos, then king of Spain, to the city. Back then, Morocco described the visit as a provocation and recalled its ambassador to Madrid in protest.

The silent anger of Rabat concerning the announced visit is also triggered by the agenda of the visit, as the Queen is expected to attend a military ceremony with the participation of Spains defense minister Maria Dolores de Cospedal.

As a first incidence, a friendly game between Moroccos Moghreb Tetuan and AD Ceuta has been canceled upon instructions from the government of Morocco.

Some analysts ascribe the chill in Moroccan-Spanish relations to the surge of illegal migration attempts on the borders of Ceuta and Melilla.

Spanish news outlets such as El Confidential Digital claimed that Morocco is letting migrants storm into Ceutas borders on purpose as a protest against the Queens visit.

Ceuta has been under Spanish occupation since the 16th century. Morocco claims the city along with the other Spanish occupied city of Melilla as an integral part of its national territory.

When King Juan Carlos made his first royal tour of the cities in November 2007, he stirred up a hornets nest, igniting Moroccan claims that the two enclaves be returned to their rightful claimant.

Madrid asserts that both territories are integral parts of Spain and have the same status as the semi-autonomous regions on its mainland.
Over 2200 Algerian nationals will be expelled from Germany after their asylum applications were rejected, according to German magazine Funke Mediengruppe.

These Algerians, currently in illegal situation, will be sent home as the repatriation agreement signed between Algeria and Germany has entered into force, explained the magazine, saying that German Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development Gerd Muller is in favor of providing financial assistance to the deportees.

According to press reports, 623 asylum seekers from North Africa were turned down between January and June 2017 but only 166 of them were deported.

In Algeria, human rights organizations slam the German move, saying it is discriminatory as it targets more Algerian asylum seekers than other nationals.

After the Berlin Christmas market attack, the German government started toughening the deportation laws, allowing authorities to easily reject asylum applications lodged by nationals from countries deemed safe.

In the few past years, Germany has labeled six countries  Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia, Kosovo and Serbia  safe countries of origin.

About a year ago, Chancellor Angela Merkels conservative party CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), commonly known as the Union, began to demand that North African countries be added to the list, claiming this would accelerate deportations and deter other migrants from seeking refuge in Germany.

Since Merkels controversial decision to open temporarily the borders to refugees stuck in Hungary in the fall of 2015, political resistance to her open-door policy has steadily grown.

The far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) has become increasingly popular. And Merkels decision has fractured relations between her party and the traditionally more conservative Bavarian CSU.

Although Merkel has since changed her rhetoric and toughened up rules for asylum seekers, her Bavarian allies have continued to be among her most vocal critics, demanding, for example, a limit on migrants entering Germany, which Merkel rejects.
The African Union called on Morocco to bring logistical support for the Sahel G5 anti-terrorism force in the wake of the terrorist attack on a restaurant in Burkina Faso leaving 20 dead.

The African Union Chairman, President of Guinea Alpha Conde called on Morocco, Nigeria, Egypt, Algeria and South Africa to offer logistical support to make the G5 force operational.

President Conde also condemned in the strongest terms the terrorist attack on a restaurant popular with expatriates in Ouagadougou.

Last June, the UN Security Council unanimously welcomed in a resolution the deployment of a military force by West African states to combat terrorism and arms, drug and human trafficking in the Sahel region after France and the US reached a consensus on the issue.

Five African countries, namely Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger (known as G5 countries), agreed to form the special counterterrorism force of 5,000 troops for the Sahel region.

The Sahel has become a breeding ground for several terrorist groups taking advantage of vast swathes of deserts and porous borders to engage in various terrorist, trafficking and criminal activities.

Radicalization and human trafficking are major threats in the impoverished region, where Al Qaeda and associated groups have a significant presence, while the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) also appears to be staking a claim in the volatile region.
Clockwise from top left: Roger Taney in Baltimore; Nathan Bedford Forrest in Memphis; Albert Pike in Washington, D.C.; and Wade Hampton in Columbia, South Carolina. Photo: Ron Cogswell (Taney & Hampton); Rob Shenk (Bedford); DB King (Pike)/CC/Flickr

In the aftermath of the deadly violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday, local politicians in many cities and states issued calls to remove or destroy Confederate statues and memorials from public land.

The Unite the Right group that held Saturdays rally was to meet at a soon-to-be-removed statue of Robert E. Lee on Saturday, but street violence and chaos erupted before the official event took place.

The long-standing debate over Civil War iconography around the United States  primarily in the South  has taken renewed urgency in the last several years amid several high-profile police shootings, the rise of movements like Black Lives Matter in response, and white-supremacist acts of violence like Dylann Roofs slaughter at a South Carolina church. But it has become perhaps even more charged since the election of President Trump, which emboldened white nationalists who see the removal of such iconography as an existential threat.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of such markers all over the country, many constructed decades after the Civil War by neo-Confederates. Their removal often faces fierce local opposition.

Nonetheless, politicians and citizens pressed ahead to hasten their removal. Below, a rundown of notable developments on this front post-Charlottesville:

- On Saturday afternoon the mayor of Lexington, Kentucky, said he would accelerate the planned removal of statues of John C. Breckinridge, a U.S. vice-president and Confederate Secretary of War, and John Hunt Morgan, and another Confederate general. In a statement, he wrote that the tragic events in Charlottesville today have accelerated the announcement I intended to make next week.

- Jacksonville, FL City Council president Anna Lopez Brosche announced in a statement that she would prepare a plan to move all Confederate memorials off public property. She cited Charlottesville and wrote, It is important to never forget the history of our great city; and, these monuments, memorials, and markers represent a time in our history that caused pain to so many.

- The mayor of Baltimore, MD said shed go ahead with the removal of Confederate statues from the city, and contacted contractors about beginning work. The Baltimore City Council unanimously endorsed her plan.

- Marylands House Speaker said the statue of Supreme Court Justice Roger B. Taney, who handed down the Dred Scott decision, should be removed from the state house.

- Former NAACP president Benjamin Jealous called for Baltimores statue of Taney to be melted down.

Ben Jealous is calling for Baltimore's Roger Taney statue to be melted down. He wants the metal used to create a Frederick Douglass memorial pic.twitter.com/8SzJpsh4Rj  Talia Richman (@TaliRichman) August 14, 2017

- The city of Memphis, TN announced it would sue the state of Tennessee in an effort to get Confederate statues removed.

- A 113-year-old Confederate statue was removed from Gainesville, FL:

6. Workers in Gainesville, Florida, remove Confederate statue https://t.co/BaVnY3Pru9  ryan teague beckwith (@ryanbeckwith) August 14, 2017

- Protesters gathered around one of Washington, D.C.s many Confederate statues, this one of General Albert E. Pike:

Chants of "tear it down" in front of statue of Confederate general Albert Pike in D.C. pic.twitter.com/Zh5mcrTqRx  Nick Wing (@nickpwing) August 14, 2017

- Protesters massed in Nashville, TN to call for the removal of a bust of Confederate hero Nathan Bedford Forrest:

Rally at the Nashville capital to take down the Nathan Bedford Forrest bust. pic.twitter.com/uQOpVQpuIG  Radley Balko (@radleybalko) August 14, 2017

But at least one public official was unmoved, and said so. Henry McMaster, governor of South Carolina, condemned the violence in Charlottesville but said, We have been over these issues over the years. I think our people are different. The South Carolina legislature voted to remove the Confederate flag that flew outside the grounds of the capitol in the wake of the Roof killings in 2015.
Krzanich, Frazier, and Plank. Photo: Chris Kleponis-Pool/Getty Images; Ron Sachs - Pool/Getty Images; Ethan Miller/Getty Images

President Trump disbanded two business advisory councils Wednesday as CEOs continued to distance themselves from the White House in the wake of Trumps response to the deadly violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend.

Rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum, I am ending both. Thank you all!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 16, 2017

The move comes despite Trumps claim Tuesday that he could easily replace any grandstander who quit.

For every CEO that drops out of the Manufacturing Council, I have many to take their place. Grandstanders should not have gone on. JOBS!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 15, 2017

Earlier Wednesday, 3M CEO Inge Thulin became the fifth chief executive to leave Trumps manufacturing council since Saturday.

3M is out of Trump's manufacturing group: pic.twitter.com/ebFiqYdzfD  Jill Disis (@jdisis) August 16, 2017

Thulin was followed in short order by Campbells CEO Denise Morrison, who wrote a strongly worded statement:

The New York Times reported that the entire council was on the verge of dissolving a day after Trump once again blamed both sides for the violence and showed sympathy with white nationalists.

Doug McMillon, the CEO of Walmart, had issued a statement on Tuesday calling out President Trump for his inadequate response to the deadly white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last weekend.

As we watched the events and the response from President Trump over the weekend, we too felt that he missed a critical opportunity to help bring our country together by unequivocally rejecting the appalling actions of white supremacists, McMillon wrote.

Full statement from @walmart CEO Doug McMillon >> pic.twitter.com/YKSws2OYU4  Christina Wilkie (@christinawilkie) August 15, 2017

Despite the excoriation, it appeared that McMillon would remain on Trumps presidential manufacturing council.

After Merck CEO Ken Frazier quit the council on Monday morning over the presidents failure to denounce white nationalists over the weekend, two other chief executives followed suit, with signs that more may follow.

Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank announced his decision to resign from the council Monday evening in a vaguely worded statement that didnt mention President Trump or Charlottesville.

I love our country & company. I am stepping down from the council to focus on inspiring & uniting through power of sport. - CEO Kevin Plank pic.twitter.com/8YvndJMjj1  Under Armour (@UnderArmour) August 15, 2017

Third to go was Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, who wrote in a much more direct blog post Monday night that he resigned to call attention to the serious harm our divided political climate is causing to critical issues.

On Tuesday, Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, tweeted his resignation from the council.

I'm resigning from the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative because it's the right thing for me to do.  Scott Paul (@ScottPaulAAM) August 15, 2017

Full statement from @walmart CEO Doug McMillon >> pic.twitter.com/YKSws2OYU4  Christina Wilkie (@christinawilkie) August 15, 2017

And after a bizarre press conference in which President Trump criticized the alt-left for instigating some of the violence in Charlottesville, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka had heard enough. We cannot sit on a council for a president who tolerates bigotry and domestic terrorism, he wrote.

JUST IN: AFL-CIO officials resign from Presidential Council on Manufacturing. pic.twitter.com/lQ9ceTdDfI  NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (@NBCNightlyNews) August 15, 2017

Pressure continued to mount on other executives to quit, but the New York Times reported on Monday that some were too frightened by the threat of presidential excoriation, or of losing business opportunities, to pull the trigger. Dell and General Electric said that their CEOs would remain on the council.

Trump quickly went after Frazier, who is black, on Twitter Monday morning, calling him out for Mercks high drug prices. (Never mind that the Trump administration has done nothing to combat them.) At that point, the president still hadnt issued a full-throated condemnation of the white nationalists who rallied in Charlottesville on Saturday. His much-delayed press conference on the matter didnt appear to stem the tide of corporate criticism, and Axios reported that the conversation about whether to leave the council is viral in boardrooms right now.

Then on Tuesday, in a raucous press conference at Trump Tower, the president said that CEOs who quit the council did so out of embarrassment because their products are made outside the U.S. He said that such executives arent taking their jobs seriously.

This post has been updated to reflect Wednesdays developments.
Protesters celebrate after toppling a statue of a Confederate soldier in Durham on Monday. Photo: Casey Toth/AP

In response to the deadly white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday, which was centered on the planned removal of a Robert E. Lee statue, officials around the country issued new calls for local symbols of the Confederacy to be removed.

On Monday evening, activists in Durham, North Carolina, decided they could not wait for a lengthy debate on the merits of preserving such symbols, and pulled down the citys Confederate Soldiers Monument.

Protesters gathered in front of the county administrative building to discuss their experiences in Charlottesville and march for an end to racism. After about an hour, two of the protest leaders urged the crowd of about 100 to gather around the statute, which was erected in 1924. The News & Observer reports:

A ladder was brought out, and placed in the back of the pedestal. A protester climbed the ladder and slipped a yellow, bungie-like cord around the soldiers head and arm. A group of people pulled the long yellow cord. Within seconds the soldier fell, the metal collapsing as the statute did a somersault against the stone pedestal.

Protestors cheered and started to kick the crumpled mass.

Police videotaped the incident but did not intervene to save the statue. Under a North Carolina law passed in 2015, its illegal to remove Confederate symbols on public property without the permission of state officials.

Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat, tweeted that he was opposed to how the statue was taken down:

The racism and deadly violence in Charlottesville is unacceptable but there is a better way to remove these monuments #durham - RC  Governor Roy Cooper (@NC_Governor) August 15, 2017

But protesters said they hope their action inspires others. Its going to send shock waves through the country, all the rest of the racist monuments and symbols can get town down also, said Isaiah Wallace, 26, of Durham.
Former sheriff Joe Arpaio was a staunch supporter of Donald Trump. So Trump may pardon him for his defiant use of racial profiling. Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images

On Sunday, while the president was fielding advice about what, if anything, to say concerning lethal racist violence in Charlottesville, he was also facing another quandary: whether to pardon former Maricopa County, Arizona, sheriff Joe Arpaio.

I am seriously considering a pardon for Sheriff Arpaio, the president said Sunday, during a conversation with Fox News at his club in Bedminster, N.J. He has done a lot in the fight against illegal immigration. Hes a great American patriot and I hate to see what has happened to him.

Arpaio was convicted of criminal contempt of court a couple of weeks ago for his serial defiance of a court order aimed at stopping his departments eager use of racial-profiling methods. He was probably lucky he was only popped for a misdemeanor, since the racial profiling went on for years and Arpaio at one point admitted his lawyers had hired a private eye to investigate the wife of the judge he was battling. Then theres the fact that his fight with the courts cost his countys taxpayers well over $50 million. He could have been ordered to make restitution.

Trump likely does sympathize with the old nativist demagogue  and not just because Arpaio was an early and avid backer of Trumps own campaign, and a big-league fellow birther. In October of last year, candidate Trump made it clearly known he didnt think racial profiling by cops was a problem:

They [police officers] see somebody thats suspicious, they will profile, Trump said. Look whats going on: Do we really have a choice? Were trying to be so politically correct in our country, and this is only going to get worse.

Perhaps thats why Trump thinks Arpaio has done a lot in the fight against illegal immigration.

Given his age (hes 85), its unlikely that Arpaio will draw jail time when sentencing rolls around next month. But the president seems determined to make a gesture, saying he might [pardon Arpaio] right away, maybe early this week. I am seriously thinking about it.

Maybe hell issue the pardon to make sure his alt-right supporters dont misunderstand todays condemnation of racism as applying to good patriotic Americans like Arpaio. Whats racist about a little racial profiling? Latinos being pulled over for what they look like have nothing to worry about so long as they havent broken any laws, right?

No, the presidents much-delayed and apparently grudging denunciation of racism today is not going to allay doubts about his ability to look at nonwhite Americans and see fellow patriots.
Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

The Unite the Right protest this past weekend was about, among other things, protecting a Civil War memorial statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Yesterday, in solidarity, protesters in North Carolina tore down a Confederate memorial statue and stomped all over it.

This caused actor and conservative commentator James Woods to worry that rabid libs, fiending for more statue blood, would begin tearing down other memorials. He used the Marine Corps War Memorial, which depicts soldiers at Iwo Jima, as an example. Because liberals hate all American armies, not just the racist ones, I guess?

Before the #liberals find a reason to deface, destroy or degrade this one, I thought some of you might like to see it one more time... pic.twitter.com/juArhCpiXl  James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) August 14, 2017

Anyway, long story short, people are clowning on Woods by applying the text of his tweet to other non-Confederate sculptures.

Before the #liberals find a reason to deface, destroy or degrade this one, I thought some of you might like to see it one more time... pic.twitter.com/CVyid8SFLN  Jesse McLaren (@McJesse) August 15, 2017

Before the #liberals find a reason to deface, destroy or degrade this one, I thought some of you might like to see it one more time... pic.twitter.com/FY7469YxeP  Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) August 15, 2017

Before the #liberals find a reason to deface, destroy or degrade this one, I thought some of you might like to see it one more time... pic.twitter.com/dN6DBb0vyy  Brend@n (@ChiBDM) August 15, 2017

Don't let them tear down this statue of a Confederate hero. Retweet if you love and respect General Joseph Paterno. pic.twitter.com/gun1frfLQc  17 follower guy whose pinned tweet is a reply (@boring_as_heck) August 15, 2017

Before the #liberals find a reason to deface, destroy or degrade this one, I thought some of you might like to see it one more time... pic.twitter.com/N2smF9SKhz  Bruno Puntz Jones (@KlausBromi) August 15, 2017

Before the #liberals find a reason to deface, destroy or degrade this one, I thought some of you might like to see it one more time... pic.twitter.com/tvPCTFs6zo  Schooley (@Rschooley) August 15, 2017

Before the #liberals find a reason to deface, destroy or degrade this one, I thought some of you might like to see it one more time... pic.twitter.com/LC11HKwZZ3  illy bocean (@IllyBocean) August 15, 2017

There are many more here.
Police in Kampala has arrested two young women suspected of distributing counterfeit money in the central Business district.



The two ladies identified as Shakira Ninsima and Nusrat Namanya were arrested at Energy Center building after police received a tip-off from one of their friends.



Preliminary investigations indicate that the duo had already distributed more than Shs 2 million in counterfeit currency by the time they were arrested.



According to the deputy Kampala Metropolitan police spokesperson, Lucas Owoyesigire, there has been a number of cases of counterfeit money reported in various shopping malls in the city centre in the last few weeks.



"We have already recorded statements from complainants and we are interrogating the suspects to establish the source of the counterfeit money," Owoyesigire told URN.



The suspects, both waitresses at Ezone bar in Kasubi a Kampala suburb, were found with six counterfeit notes of Shs 50,000 each.



In a statement recorded with the investigating officers, one if the suspects; Namanya revealed that they had been distributing the counterfeit notes on behalf of a dealer only identified as Hakim.



For every Shs 500,000 distributed the dealer pays each of the women Shs 50,000.



"He gave us the notes and told us how to distribute them. He was going to pay us Shs 50,000 for every 500,000 we had changed," reads the statement in part.



The mode of distribution which the two women have been using includes; going into a shop mainly targeting children in the shops, handing them an original Shs 50,000 note; bargaining for a small item costing less than Shs 5,000 and later pretending like they won't buy and taking back the money.

They then return immediately and hand the shop attendant a counterfeit note. Thinking that it is the original note he/she initially checked, the shop attendant immediately gives back the balance and the item purchased.
More than 20 children, who were picked off the streets in Kampala and enrolled in a school in Kamwokya, are facing a grim future after their sponsor reportedly abandoned them.



The pupils were sponsored by Street Child Care Uganda (SCCU), an NGO who's mission is "to bring vulnerable and street children off the streets through sports, and cultural activities, and rehabilitate them back into society and their homes through education, learning, and love."

Some of the children under care of Street Child Care Uganda (SCCU)

21 of the former street children are now enrolled at KCCA primary school-Kamwokya. However, the NGO has not cleared school fees for the children since 2005.



The school has now indicated that it's ending the relationship with the organisation with immediate effect, a decision which has left the youngsters' education future hanging in balance. The school claims the NGO owes them close to Shs 7 million.



"Every term, we send reminders that are answered in the same fashion that the person meant to sign is out of the country. But doesn't this person ever come back? I think we have been dealing with conmen and have decided to put an end to our association with them," Jane Kansiime, the head teacher KCCA primary school Kamwokya says.



Adding; "After knowing that they are conmen, their children are out class. We have sent them away. Now, for them they have been used to telling us lies but now it is over. It is over. They just keep writing our director is out of the country."

The school has now denied the pupils access to the end of term examinations until payments are cleared. Among the affected children are four pupils in primary seven who will not be sitting for mock examinations and Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE) if the dues are not cleared.



Exams at the school begun last week and are expected to end this Thursday.



Kampala Central Division town clerk Theophius Tibihika told URN that they got a letter from the school informing them of the situation and are carrying out investigations on the matter.



Ivan Muyanja, the education officer at Street Child Care Uganda told URN that he was not aware that the children were out of school and missing exams at the moment.



"I am away and I did not know that the children were chased but I will be back in town on Monday and talk to the head teacher so that the children can be taken back to school."
A section of the new specialised hospital

The newly constructed Specialised Maternal and Neonatal hospital wing at Mulago requires over Shs 1 billion to construct a wall that will guard it from the damaging effects of soil erosion and sediment.



The urgent need arises from the existence of a 15-meter escarpment standing adjacent to the ten-story building. There is fear that escarpment could cave-in any time if a supportive concrete wall is not put in place.



An Egyptian firm, Arab Contractors (Osman Ahmed Osman & Co.), the company constructing the $24 million (about Shs 86 billion) facility estimates that putting up a supportive wall would require over an additional $300,000 (about Shs 1 billion). The contractors have less than two months to hand over the hospital to the government of Uganda.



Mulago hospital executive director Dr Byarugaba Baterana in an interview with URN confirmed that the contractors have already warned him about the threat that the escarpment presents to the facility.



Byarugaba however says the hospital currently has no money to commit for the construction of a supportive wall. It is feared that most of the Galloway House located at Upper Mulago hill compound could be eroded into the low part of the new hospital building.



The construction of the building commenced in mid-May 2015 after ministry of Health signed a contract with Osman Ahmed Osman & Co. An official from the construction firm at the site declined to be interviewed by URN saying he is not authorized to speak.



The new hospital is expected to decongest the main hospital and reduce maternal and newborn deaths in the country.

It houses facilities for high-risk antenatal care, delivery and postnatal services, emergency gynecology services specifically focusing on obstetric fistula, intensive care services and In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) services to women with fertility problems.



However, the lack of funds for construction of the supportive wall is one of the immediate problems faced by the project constructed with funding under the Islamic Bank loan.



There is still uncertainty whether government will be able to meet the hospital's operating costs when it opens to the public. Joel Aita, an engineer with Joadah Consult Limited, the company supervising the contractor, says the hospital needs about five megawatts of power for it to operate smoothly.



Joadah Consult had suggested the installation of solar energy as one of the cost-cutting options but Aita says Mulago may not afford the upfront cost.



"We have done a very nice building but there is definitely going to be a huge burden on the hospital in terms of maintenance and most especially power. Mulago shall need close to around 5 mega watts (MW) of power.

Right now we have installed generators, here (up) we have installed around 1MW, down it is going to be around 4MW of power. So that is going to be a huge power consumption alone. Then plus the maintenance and all these, all the electricity - the hospital should be ready to take care of that otherwise you will find that the hospital is going to become a white elephant", said Aita.



Aita says the contractors and engineering consultants are yet to prepare a maintenance and operation manual for the entire building but he expects that the cost will be high.

"The idea was that; all lights and some smaller machines should be operating on solar and then the bigger ones to be operating on UMEME [hydro power grid]. Unfortunately there wasnt a budget for that. We need to put it"



He says a range of energy and water saving options will be suggested to government at time of hand over.
The Kabaka of Buganda Ronald Muwenda Mutebi II has reiterated opposition to the proposed constitutional amendment on land ownership.



The amendment bill, now before parliament, seeks to amend Article 26 of the Constitution to provide for compulsory acquisition of land for development projects, pending negotiations on compensation with the affected persons.



The article in its current form sets conditions for prompt payment of fair and adequate compensation before the compulsory acquisition of property for public use.

The Kabaka of Buganda has called for fair compensation of land owners by government

Lands minister Betty Amongi says the current law, which allows negotiation and compensation of the land owner before the project takes off, slows down government programmes particularly projects related to infrastructure development.



Amongi says that the proposed amendment seeks to resolve the problem of delayed implementation of government infrastructure and investment projects due to land disputes.



Speaking at the official opening of the 25th Buganda Lukiiko sitting at Bulange-Mengo yesterday, Kabaka Mutebi cautioned that developments on private land should only take off after agreement between government and land owners.



"This agreement should be fair and when people are fully compensated. Here in Buganda, we have land on which traditional sites are (Etaaka elye'noono) which we think is very important and crucial in the Kingdom and all people of Uganda." Kabaka said.



He added that it would be prudent if there are plans to use this kind of land for the country's development purposes, to negotiate with the owners fairly.



This is the second time the Kabaka is speaking out on the proposed amendment. Early this month while officiating at a function in Lubiri-Mengo, the Kabaka described the proposed land amendment as a pain and poses an existential threat to the future generation.



Members of the opposition groups in parliament are currently holding countrywide sensitization meetings encouraging Ugandans to reject the amendment.



Justice and Constitutional Affairs minister Maj. Gen. Kahinda Otafiire recently asked parliament's Legal committee for more time before appearing again over the matter.
Lol that's all I see when I read Harding.

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I loved Girls Aloud but calling their moves "hot, proper dance routines" is being a tad dishonest. They lacked rhythm.

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what are you talking about GA is a dance phenomenon

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lmao sarah said on the show she'd have meltdowns every month 'cause she couldn't master these moves like the other girls

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They tried so hard.





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~Hot, proper dance routines.

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So many chicken legs on that second gif, oof

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Screaming at the middle gif







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isn't she the louis tomlison out of the group anyway smh

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lmao oof

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the way cheryl looks at her when she's done with the note, im S C R E A M I N G 

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Ugh the CBB talent show was so cringe

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LMFAOOOO NADINE'S FACE FUCKING KILLLLLLLS ME EVERY TIME

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u mean cheryl right...?

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LOL! This is still so damn funny all these years later.

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lmao all i think about when i hear her name

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this is literally the only girls aloud song I know because of this video

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Jesus Christ

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LOL damn

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LMAO

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what the hell

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Lol legendary

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Lmaooo jesus. And DEAD @ "(we love you Sarah!)

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oh my fucking GOD.

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the look of disgust on Cheryl's face gets me every damn time

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nnn what key was that?!

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Lol!!! I love that song tho.

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iconic



(i thought stephen was so hot lmao)

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LAGUNA BEACH!

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this was honestly legit iconic tbh

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A man calling a woman a slut is iconic? ok.....

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I thought this was Dennis Reynolds at first and the gif was totally acceptable but now I realize it was a real person and I hope he falls off a cliff.

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This is men. Upset that they can't get what they want and start throwing around sexist insults. So emotional.

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I preface this by saying I had no idea who she was prior to this, and I've never listened to a Girls Aloud song ever. I felt for her the first couple days when everyone was ganging up on her, but it seems that her character? She's a real foul person. Not even bringing any drama with those comments.



I'm actually rooting for the older people this time, Darren and Sean, though I don't know them much outside the house. Everyone is terrible.

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Girls Aloud is honestly a great girl group tbh and Sarah is honestly the worst. I used to feel for her because she was an outsider in the group but now it's easy to see why

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isnt this the talentless loser who butchered her note live on british television once???



omg yep!







thats all she'll ever be known for lmao shes tragic





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lol her face once she finishes, sad!

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omfg awful

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lol girl bye. slut shamming is not cute esp when you're fucking around on your significant other.

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When you are an oldhead and can't keep up with the changing time.

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He's my new favorite after saying he doesnt "kizzle and tizzle" wtf

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omg that's so cute

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He used to play Work From Home on his Snapchat all the time.



Edited at 2017-08-15 03:10 am (UTC)

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they didnt wear much cause it was hot...



and I guess now the climate is permanently winter & its no longer hot for anyone else on stage

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Yeah I can't imagine anyone would voluntarily pick out some of those ugly clothes they wear lol

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Yeah I remember Camila always changed the words to Worth It in live performances or something because the "I like it rough" line made her uncomfortable, YET any time you try to call out their label for giving them a sleazy porntastic image everyone is like "IT'S THEIR CHOICE, YOU'RE SUCH A BAD FEMINIST!" like there's anything feminist about a think tank of 40+ y/o male executives trying to figure out how to sell young girl's bodies lmao

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That part made me uncomfortable while singing along too

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I've had the 'its what they want' thrown at me so many times

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It drives me mad that old dudes are responsible for targeting young, females singers images to straight dudes when their fan bases are almost all girls and young gay guys.

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"we didn't wear much because it was so hot"



lol..

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Mte

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That's my go to excuse from now on

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fucking global warming

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like, who does she think she's fooling???

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lmao yup

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Lmaoooo

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like sis youre from the Uk dont front

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Say "slut" one more time.



The British are the worst.



(Yes I am aware of the USA's current president; he didn't win the popular vote ok!)

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Don't try to gross me out with this trio of LEECHES

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rme

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White ladies try so hard to distance themselves from their racist ass boyfriends/brothers/fathers/cousins/gran dfathers yet they're literally the reason Trump is in office

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bingo

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Yep. Propping up their White Kangs, whilst promoting their racist doctrine.

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It's 2017 and people still think a deeply average white woman who did OK on tv one time is the voice we need to magnify. Sad!  KB (@KaraRBrown) August 15, 2017



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I like Lauren Duca generally but that tweet of hers was really unnecessary. There's a point to be made about the "alt right" Neo Nazi radicalization of young white men as an alarming trend but she was not doing that. Still I think it's kind of unfair to accuse her of just trying to "promote her brand"... not to mention hypocritical when the Jezebel writer is a white woman writing an article to promote her own brand.

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mte she is so exhausting

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White Passing Latina here.



I call my family out on racist shit. They don't pass for White. But I have to shut them the fuck up when they talk ill of other minorities.



and call them out over Xenophobic shit against Salvis and Honduris and MExicans..I'm like "You morons relaize were' from Nicaragua right?"





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yeah. I get sooo pissed over it.



Like growing up I thought it was normal, then it was like "oh wait, i can get my ass kicked" cuz of the school I went to.





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Anti blackness is present in every community, unfortunately and the erasure of black Latinos is disgusting. Latin media always has the lightest people as their news anchors and tv presenters and novela stars so there's a severe lack of representation in both USA and Latin America media. But the Latin community doesn't want to wake the fuck up and address it already, it's always the "gringos" that are the super racist ones without taking a deep look at themselves

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I'm a white passing Latina too and some of my non-white passing family think they're exempt from criticism when they use racist language and I have to shut that shit down.

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my mom is a non-white passing latina and she is racist af. when i call out on her comments she's always come to the "shup up i'm your mom" speech :/

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. @realDonaldTrump @POTUS

You should read my poll I have a lot of followers. https://t.co/59LcPxPWxJ  xoxo, Gaga (@ladygaga) August 14, 2017





she is literally doing the most right now. taylor hew? she is literally doing the most right now. taylor hew?

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I love Gaga but I feel like she always makes things about herself

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This made me laugh when I saw it. I guess she hasn't got Trump's memo about negative polls being Fake News.

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"i have a lot of followers..." Sums up her narcissistic and pathetic personality pretty well.

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omg stefani shut up

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What the actual fuck.

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This read like a response to how Trump speaks imo.

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Don't encourage hashtags that shift blame and say #ThisisNotUs , for one.

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the non-racist white community who loves u



does this sound a little passive aggressive to anyone else?

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That along with a dash of patting herself on the back.

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It sounds a lil condescending lmao but to be honest whatever gets the information out for people who are completely oblivious.





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Yeah and patronizing.

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it's not even passive tbh.

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@NICKIMINAJ I've done nothing but love & support you. It's unlike you to pit women against each other. Maybe one of the men took your slot..  Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) July 21, 2015





Edited at 2017-08-15 07:34 pm (UTC)

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lol. I'd forgotten about this. lol. I'd forgotten about this.

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lmao it really does



not to mention there is no such thing as a perfectly non-racist white person

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I can't stand her.

She's so fake.

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I don't understand this community. You're always complaining about white celebs and white people in general not educating themselves/doing enough/caring and when they do you bash them? 

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I think people are right now just irritated with her, she seems well intentioned, but she across as really self serving.

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isn't that her entire shtick tho? shes been like this for years lol

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Because she's an adult and it's tiring being a POC to have to tell white people to stand up for us against their family members, that's the issue here. I get she means well but it also comes across so pathetic that we still need to have this conversation when it's been said over and over again if you have racists in your family try educating them sometime.

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It's a mixed bag here. No one can win because there are 40 different teams at all times.

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Because it's as stupid as saying "Dear women, please tell us men who don't beat up ladies how to treat you nicely. It's a mystery to us & we're out of ideas!"

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The thing is, it shouldn't take black people and POC to educate you on how to combat racism. Why should these people remove time from their day to sit down and tell her what we have to deal with? It is an eternal struggle to us to deal with day to day and white people have the privilege to choose when they fight about racial equality. And sometimes their support as often seen as given validity to a cause when POC have toiled forever to let their voice be heard.

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She got a whole ass song inspired by Trayvon Martin's death on her album, but she gotta ask black folks on twitter how to do anti-racism activism like that ain't something she should have already had her ass involved in while using a black boy's murder to sell records????



FUCK.HER.

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Some of us are sick and tired of grown ass white people who need multiple tries before doing the easiest things right. That would have been welcomed if she didn't just preach her #BeKind bs a couple of days ago and wasn't so tone deaf and dismissive when POC tried to explain why she was wrong. She didn't listen then, are we supposed to give her a cookie for doing it now?Some of us are sick and tired of grown ass white people who need multiple tries before doing the easiest things right.

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MFTE!!!!!!!!!!! like when taylor doesnt speak they drag her maybe even rightfully so but lady gaga actually GIVES a F! i dont care if shes OTT trump memes have been old to me i want ppl to advance to the next level as a whole and actually get him IMPEACHED that wont solve racism but its a GREAT start!

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Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

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RIGHT?!

LITERALLY CAME HERE TO POST THIS.

Two days ago she was "not helping"

Now she's asking for tips and advice on how to help and she's doing it wrong.

ONTD is full of people who just don't understand how to be functioning, reasonable adults.

If someone means well, but does something the wrong way--YOU HELP THEM.

You don't rip them to shreds and attack everything about them because they "didn't do it right."

Here she is, LEGIT asking for advice, and all the people can do on here is say, "This isn't about you..." "This is garbage..." "She just wants attention..."

Dude, fuck all of them.

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in other news i just realized am at the bitch eating crackers phase with ha. lol, guess she went thru the #thisisnotus replies.in other news i just realized am at the bitch eating crackers phase with ha.

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you can start by stop saying stupid shit on twitter..



Edited at 2017-08-15 07:34 pm (UTC)

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Her tweets sound so condescending lmao. Gaga, you're making it hard to be a stan gdi. But if you're able to, call out your racist ass family. Don't let them think racist comments, even if they're stereotypes or microaggressions, are okay.

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what a self serving loser omg.....

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This election has made it basically impossible to maintain a relationship with my parents. They're Indian, and my dad has BEEN racist against Mexicans and Muslims for years, and this presidency has only given him the courage to openly talk shit every time he gets drunk. My mother on the other hand, didn't support him, but has a lot of internalized misogyny and we fought last week because she told me I needed to "respect Trump" when I went on a rant about how badly he's been handling North Korea.



Honestly, I could use all the tips in the world to figure out how to talk to them. My dad has more or less gone off the deep end and listens to conspiracy theorist radio talk shows, and my mom just hangs up on me if I try to calmly explain to her why her thinking is wrong.



What makes it especially terrible is literally all of my uncles and aunts are fiercely anti-Trump, are constantly calling senators and donating to organisations that are being defunded by the current administration and it's like, "how am I the only one to end up with the Trump-supporting parents?"

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As an Indian, it blows my mind, how racist Indians are. What you think Westerners are going to treat you better than other poc?



Maybe try having a talk with them in a family function? You will get support of your relatives, and he might just listen to some older people.

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It doesn't blow my mind at all honestly, but then again, since my dad has been openly anti-Muslim and my mom was "afraid of black people" since I was a child, I was raised looking at sort of the worst of Indian society when it comes to racism.



My mom's brothers are visiting my mom this week and OF COURSE I'm not in town to sort of talk to her about it. But I'm tempted to maybe reach out to a cousin and see if she can talk her her dad (one of the brothers) about maybe bringing it up. She will talk to me in small doses but she gets easily irritated when I make references to the more violent parts of history as reasons for why we need to be very wary of what kind of rhetoric we're slinging right now.



My dad is the real tricky one. He and I have never really had a great relationship and when he's sober he'll actually listen to me rebuffing the literal fake news he ingests. It's easier to have rational conversation with him. Ironically, he supports BLM... He's such a bizarre person.



Edited at 2017-08-16 09:02 pm (UTC)

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I dunno how you can reach them. I don't like this tactic, but can you point out that it's in his best interest to not fan the anti-Muslim flames? I have had so many Indian friends who are believed to be Muslim and are harassed for that. It doesn't help him either to participate in any anti-immigrant rhetoric- a lot of people will think he's "illegal" or he "stole" some job.



TBH, I really am at a loss with a lot of people.

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My mum has a good friend who is Hindu Indian and the amount of emails she forwards about hating muslims is. Sort of scary?

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I got into it recently with my 100 year old grandfather on the phone about his racist ass and why he's part of the problem. He hung up on me, multiple times. So I'm done with him, but not the other ones who might have the capability to listen and think.



And don't tell me old people can't change. In the past year, the man completely reversed his stance on homosexuality because his pastor (who ACTUALLY might be doing the lord's work) had a sit-down with him and the pastor brought up the mind-boggling concept, "Well, if everything god does is good, and he makes us as we are...then gay people are made as they are and are also good". Blew the old man's mind and now he's fine with it.



Anyway. Time for the urn.

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GRANDPA, FUCK YOU. I AM SO NOT COMING TO YOUR 101ST BIRTHDAY.

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Didn't go to any of his birthdays, to be honest, for this very reason.

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Two analyst firms have revised upwards their production growth forecasts for the Permian, expecting oil output there to be 300,000 bpd higher by the end of this year. The firms are none other than Wood Mackenzie, whose analysts expect 300,000 bpd more in Permian output by end-2017a 200,000-bpd increase to its year-end forecastand Rystad, which sees the cumulative increase for June-December at 300,000 bpd.

Thats the kind of consensus market players like to see, especially when it comes a couple of days after reports that investors are pulling out from the Permian after Pioneer Resources reported the share of natural gas and gas liquids in its overall output has been rising at the expense of oil. Investors love their crude, after all, and are much less excited about gas.

Amid the worry, which some say is not as widespread as it may seem, the upbeat forecasts of these analysts were certainly welcome. Indeed, EIA data shows that the Permian continues to be the leader among the shale plays in terms of production growth. This month, output there is seen to rise by 64,000 bpd from July, to 2.535 million bpd. To compare, the second-fastest output growth is forecast for Eagle Ford, at a distant 27,000 bpd this month. In fact, the Permian should account for over half of the total U.S. shale oil output increase in August from July. The figure stands at 113,000 bpd. Related: Oil Rises, But Saudis Face Daunting Dilemma

Going back three months in EIAs drilling productivity reports reveals that the rate of production growth in the Permian was within the range of 65,000 bpd (in June) to 76,000 bpd (in April). In the first quarter, production growth rose from 53,000 bpd in January to 79,000 bpd in March. One thing seems very obvious: the monthly growth rates so far this year are lower than 100,000 bpd, let alone the 300,000 bpd Rystad and Wood Mac forecast.

Thats because so far this year drillers have rushed to add rigs, but the output from these new rigs takes a few months to show up on production reports. This means that over the next four to five months, if the analysts are right, were likely to see a pretty sharp increase in Permian oil output. This, in turn, could spell US$40 for West Texas Intermediate. Related: Brazils Pre-Salt Extraction Costs Fall To $8 Per Barrel

An analysis by Oil & Gas Financial Journals Mikaila Adams quotes some energy independents spending plans, which suggest this years push will continue as initially planned in the happy days following OPECs decision to start cutting, but next year many independents are likely to take it down a notch, anticipating a potential price fall to US$40-45. In other words, these companies are preparing for the consequences of their output boost. Some, and no small fish, have already announced capex cuts for this year, including Anadarko and Continental. The total capex cut for shale producers for the year has come in at US$1.2 billion.

Continentals Harold Hamm warned his peers that too aggressive an output increase would drive prices into the ground. The temptation, however, must have been irresistible, what with all the debt to pay, so shale operators continue to ramp up production. The latest news suggests they are being more careful than last time, however. These plans to cut spending and reduce rigs counts in case prices start falling below the minimum comfortable level indicate that shale producers are wary of being caught by surprise again, as they were in 2014. Perhaps, if the Permian production growth estimates prove true, we might get to see exactly how nimble shale operators can be when push comes to shove.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Oil lost ground in the last few days on slipping OPEC compliance rates and fears of persistent oversupply. But the tightening of the oil market is still proceeding, and there are some signs that the more pessimistic projections about oil prices could be overblown.

On Monday, as oil prices dipped, analysts attributed the drop off to the appreciating U.S. dollar. But while the immediate catalyst shifts from day-to-day, the forecast for the next few quarters remains the same: the inventory overhang might not go anywhere because the OPEC cuts are offset by rising production elsewhere.

For example, the bullish demand figures from the IEA last week were shrugged off because they are only marginally above the current level of OPEC output, according to Commerzbank analysts. In other words, there will no longer be any significant supply deficit in the second half of the year, so there is hardly likely to be any further inventory reduction, Commerzbank said in a research note. No change in inventories; no change in oil prices.

But a lot of the assumptions regarding an ongoing state of oversupply are based on the swift return of U.S. shale, plus rising production from Libya and Nigeria, all of which will roughly offset the production cuts made by the rest of OPEC. The rising rig count in the U.S. will lead to more production, it is assumed, casting doubt on rebalancing efforts, JBC Energy said. We expect the total liquids balance to return to a more pronounced surplus over 2018, bringing with it a return to stock builds and a firm lid on prices, JBC wrote.

However, those production gains are not a given. Take Libya for example. The North African OPEC member is exempted from the production cut deal, and it has gone a long way to restoring lost output. Most recently, Libya added more than 150,000 bpd in July, taking its output above the 1 million-barrel-per-day mark. But that output, not to mention further gains, is fragile.

Over the weekend, Libyas largest oil field  the Sharara  saw its output slashed by a third because of protests at the Zueitina export terminal, which interrupted shipments. That pushed Shararas output down from 300,000 bpd last week to just 200,000 bpd. That came after a separate disruption last week, which only lasted for a few hours, at the oil field itself. After months of boosting oil production, Libya currently seems to be experiencing output disruptions, said Michael Poulsen, an analyst at Global Risk Management Ltd., according to Bloomberg. Related: Oil Rises, But Saudis Face Daunting Dilemma

Meanwhile, hundreds of protestors stormed an oil facility owned by Royal Dutch Shell in Nigeria last week, which could interrupt Shells Bonny export terminal. Niger Delta communities have long been incensed that they see little benefit to the regions crude oil production, a situation that shows no sign of changing. Nigeria suffered heavy disruptions last year from attacks in the Niger Delta, and the fragile peace seen so far in 2017 could unravel at any moment. Shells troubles in recent days are a clear sign that instability could return at any point.

So, we cant assume that Libya and Nigeria will continue to add supply. But what about the U.S., where things are stable and shale continues to ramp up? That is where an even bigger potential surprise lurks.

In the Permian, there have been some troubling reports in recent weeks that shale drillers are slowing down and having problems with their existing wells. The decline rate is accelerating and some wells are producing a higher gas-to-oil ratio than expected. Pioneer Natural Resources disappointing figures from the second quarter have sparked some concern that the Permian might not live up to the hype.

It remains to be seen if Pioneers struggles are indicative of a broader trend in the region. Analysts such as Wood Mackenzie are waving away concerns about the Permian  in a new report, the consultancy sees Permian production growing by another 300,000 bpd by the end of the year.

But the fact is that most analysts are assuming very strong production growth from the U.S.  the EIA sees output surging from 9.3 mb/d in 2017 to an all-time high of 9.9 mb/d next year. These gains are baked into everyones forecast, including OPECs. It is entirely possible that the shale surge starts to sputter, which would upend production assumptions for the rest of this year and into 2018. Related: Brazils Pre-Salt Extraction Costs Fall To $8 Per Barrel

Then there is Venezuela. Nobody knows what the immediate future holds for imploding South American country, but the direction of the countrys oil production is clearly negative. The only question is how quickly output will fall. The recent announcements from international companies withdrawing their personnel from Venezuela are a bad sign. Chevron, Total and Repsol have begun to reduce their number of workers in Venezuela, although it is unclear what that will mean for oil production. Still, the Trump administration could still push Venezuela over the edge with harsh sanctions, which could lead to a downward spiral in output. Some market watchers say that if things get bad enough, PDVSAs oil workers might stop showing up to work.

In short, there is no shortage of supply risks to the market. If the gains in Libya and Nigeria start to reverse, U.S. shale undershoots, and Venezuela loses production at an increasing rate, then the oil market could look a lot tighter towards the end of this year than everyone assumes.

By Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Australia this week moved a step closer to becoming a real problem for Qatar on the LNG market, after the second floating production, storage, and offloading vessel for the Ichthys gas field reached its destination.

The Ichthys Venturer joins the Ichthys Explorer at the field operated by Japans Inpex, with the first LNG shipment from the field scheduled for next spring.

The Venturer has a capacity of 1.12 million barrels of gas condensate and will process, stabilize, and store condensate it will receive from the other FPSO, and then load it on tankers.

The Ichthys largest overseas investment by Japan, and Inpex, Reuters notes, and the companys first foray into LNG.

The US$34-billion project will tap reserves estimated at over 12 trillion cu ft of natural gas, helping Australia take on the world leader in LNG exports, Qatar. It has run into difficulties, however, with costs rising to US$37 billion and the launch of production getting delayed by a year.

Now analysts are watching the Ichthys development closely to see if Inpex could pull it off without any more budget blow-outs and delays, and whether it could compete with Shell in Australian waters. Earlier this year, the Anglo-Dutch supermajor delivered the Prelude FPSO to its same-name field, in waters adjacent to the Ichthys. The US$12.6-billion development has also been running behind schedule and now first production from the worlds largest FLNG facility is set for between April and July 2018.

Who beats who to first production is important because the Prelude and the Ichthys share reserves, analysts note, so whoever starts earlier, will be effectively undermining the production of the loser.



Related: China Prepares For A Natural Gas Import Boom

Inpex, however, is better placed to benefit either way: it has a minority stake in the Prelude project besides its 62.2 percent interest in Ichthys.

Australia is eyeing the top spot among LNG exporters by 2020 thanks to an investment boom estimated at US$200 billion. However, a gas shortage on the domestic market earlier this year prompted the federal government to install export controls aimed at first ensuring local energy security and then advancing the export growth strategy.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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Iran continues to raise market share in Asia, with crude sales to South Korea increasing by 26.5 percent on the year in July, while Saudi Arabias oil sales to Seoul declined on an annual basis, according to Korean customs data, as reported by Reuters.

South Koreas imports of Iranian oilmost of which is the ultra-light condensateincreased to 1.40 million tons last month, equal to 330,151 bpd, compared to 1.10 million tons imported from Iran in July last year.

At the same time, South Koreas purchases of Saudi Arabian crude oil dropped by 9.3 percent to 873,656 bpd last month, according to customs data cited by Reuters.

Seouls purchases of Iranian oil soared by 47.7 percent between January and July, to 10.67 million tons, or 368,952 bpd, up from 7.22 million tons of Iranian crude imports in the first seven months last year.

Under the OPEC production cut deal, Iranthe cartels no.3 producer--is not cutting output. Saudi Arabiathe no.1 producer and Irans bitter regional rival--is shouldering most of the cuts. Iran is thus looking to regain shares of the market it lost in the five years under Western sanctions on its oil trade.

As early as January this year, Iran was set to boost market share in South Korea at the expense of Saudi Arabia. South Korea doubled its imports of Iranian crude in January from the same time last year, when Iran returned to the international oil market and started exporting growing amounts of oil in a bid to regain lost market share.

For this month, South Korea is expected to be Iranian oils second-biggest customer behind China. At the same time, however, India is said to be scaling back imports from Tehran, while Iran is set to boost its exports to China to an 11-month high.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com
In a sign that Libyas powerful military is moving closer to Russia, Libyan National Army (LNA) commander Khalifa Haftarthe man responsible for recapturing the countrys oil ports and essentially restarting productionis meeting top officials in Moscow.

Haftar is the key political and military rival to the Western-backed central government in Tripoli, and his trip to Russia indicates a fragile game of alliances that could upset the delicate balance of control over Libyan oil.

Last weekends was not Haftars first visit to Moscow: he had visited Russia at least twice in the past year, and has been forging friendly relations with Moscow, while the U.S. is supporting the increasingly weakened internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA).

During Haftars meeting with Russias Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu this past weekend, Special attention was paid to situation in the North Africa focusing on situation in Libya. The parties stressed the importance of dialogue and agreed to continue contacts, Russias Defense Ministry said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also welcomed Haftar, saying that Russia actively supports the tentative revival of a political settlement and the complete recovery of statehood by your country.

On Monday, Haftar said in Moscow that troops under his command had taken control over Libyas second-biggest city, Benghazi, which is close to many oil fields and is an oil infrastructure hub.

We expect to continue this struggle until the Libyan National Army takes control of Libyas entire territory in order to ensure stability and security, Haftar said, as quoted by Stars and Stripes, the daily published for the U.S. military.

Haftars LNA recaptured Libyas key ports in the east in September last year, and handed control over them to the National Oil Company (NOC), and crude exports were resumed after a two-year blockade by the Petroleum Facilities Guard (PFG)an armed group affiliated at the time with the UN-backed Libyan government. The PFG had used its control to extract money from various authorities.

Factional fighting at some ports returned in March this year, and a rival faction seized the terminals for a few days, but Haftars LNA had reclaimed the ports by mid-March.

Related: Tech Guru Unveils New Battery To Challenge Lithium-Ion

No major fights over port facilities have been recorded since then, which allowed the North African country to restore its crude oil production to over 1 million bpd for the first time in four years.

In July, Libyas average production topped 1 million bpd, as per OPEC secondary sources, with the North African producer exempt from the cuts raising output by 154,300 bpd from June and accounting for most of the total OPEC production rise.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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A new oil slick off of Kuwaits southern shores is spreading in the Persian Gulf and will add on the impact of a recent 35,000-barrel spill in the same water body, according to emerging reports.

The spill is the second reported this week. The first incident, which occurred just 60 kilometers away from the second one, is currently under control, spokesman Sheikh Talal Khaled Al-Sabah of the Kuwait Petroleum Corp said.

The spill reached 1.6 kilometers in length at press time, and measures have been taken to stop the leakage and limit environmental damage, according to the Gulf nations Environment Public Authority.

The Ras al-Zour area, in which the new slick appeared, is also home to two power and water desalination plants, both of which were unaffected by the spill.

Experts from Saudi Arabian Chevron and Oil Spill Response Limited have joined the effort to clean up after the leak.

A previous spill over the weekend was attributed to a pipeline leak, though there has been no official confirmation on the size or cause of the accident.

The Kuwait National Petroleum Company is currently building the biggest oil refinery in the Middle East in Ras al-Zour. The facility will be capable of handling 615,000 barrels of crude daily and with $11.5 billion in contracts. The project is worth $30 billion.

Related: Brazils Pre-Salt Extraction Costs Fall To $8 Per Barrel

The spill is also near an offshore field that is developed jointly by Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, in their neutral zone. The field, Al Khafji, has a 50-kilometer pipeline running to the coast, and it was this pipeline that some industry experts said was the culprit for the spill.

The head of the Environment Public Authority, Sheikh Abdullah al-Sabah, told the Associated Press after the first spill: "There will be severe consequences to those responsible for this incident, and we will prosecute them."

By Zainab Calcuttawala for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
No support for PML-N to amend Constitution: Bilawal Bhutto

LAHORE/KARACHI: Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Monday ruled out any support for Nawaz Sharifs proposal to amend the Constitution, even as the former prime minister revealed his intentions to change the provisions which govern the judiciarys workings.



The former PM, who had announced his intention to give the country a new Constitution during his GT Road rally, said on Monday that if his party came to power in 2018, it would table certain amendments aimed at ensuring the hassle-free dispensation of justice.



We will make sure that free and swift justice is provided to the people. We need to get rid of the system where a case is not decided for three generations, he said, reiterating that Pakistan belonged to 200 million people, and not to only a few.



However, speaking to reporters after paying his respects at the mausoleum of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the PPP leader ruled out the possibility of joining hands with the PML-N for any constitutional amendment, saying: We have our own principles and will continue to practise principled politics and strive for peace in the country.



He said that after the disqualification of Nawaz Sharif, the government had crossed all limits. He was of the opinion that even if an amendment was made to the Constitution, it would not rescue Nawaz Sharif, nor could it achieve their desired objective.



However, as far as the PPP is concerned, we would never join hands with the PML-N, he said.



Mr Bhutto-Zardari insisted that leaders from Punjab should be wary of the situation on the countrys borders before issuing inappropriate statements that could lead to further tensions in the country.



For his part, Mr Sharif insisted that his disqualification had derailed the PML-Ns economic agenda, and regretted that the development projects he had initiated could only be completed once the PML-N returned to power in 2018.



Speaking to reporters at Hazuri Bagh, where he came to pay his respects at the mausoleum of Allama Iqbal, the ousted prime minister said that even though his party was in government, it would not be easy to maintain the pace of development that he had initiated.



Strangely, Mr Sharif seemed to discount Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasis ability to complete his unfinished agenda and regretted that had he not been sent packing, his government would have produced more electricity than the country needed at cheaper rates.



We wanted to provide housing at affordable rates to those who could not afford it, he said, but did not explain why the PML-N government could not continue these policies under the new prime minister.



Still be smarting from his ouster, Mr Sharif said the people should be asked whether they were actually joyous on this Independence Day. We would have been happy had East Pakistan (Bangladesh) been with us today. We have only seen chaos in Pakistan during the last 70 years. Had we respected the ballot, we would not be faced with such a situation today, he said.



The ex-PM cautioned that the country could face a repeat of the East Pakistan situation if the ongoing drama was not stopped. Referring to a respect for the ballot, he said: It is because the ballot was not respected that we have been facing problems since 1947.



The political wrangling between the two parties was picked up by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah and Governor Mohammad Zubair, who also paid their respects at the Quaids tomb on Monday.



Mr Shah recalled that when the 1973 Constitution was being restored to its original shape through the 18th amendment, it was the PML-N that strongly opposed any amendment to clause 62(1)(f).



But now the PML-N leadership is proposing a repeal of the clauses. Had it been amended or repealed back then, things would have been different, he said.
State forest rangers spent part of Sunday night and early Monday looking for a lost mountain biker in eastern Hamilton County, near the Siamese Ponds Wilderness Area. The man spent an unplanned night in the woods, and made his way out early Monday unharmed. Sounds like he was prepared, and wasn't hurt, which is good to hear.

With more and more people taking up hiking and heading into the woods, the region's forest rangers are very busy this time of year. They also spend part of Monday battling a brush fire near Shelving Rock Falls, as that area just gets more and more visitors.

It's a great time of year to hike, as the trails have dried out, bug season is drawing to a close and the summer's heat is dwindling. But always be prepared to spend an unplanned night in the woods when heading into the forest preserve or a wilderness area.

Below is the state's weekly forest ranger rescue report, with some local rescues from last week.

-- Don Lehman

Town of Long Lake

Hamilton County

Rescue: On August 7 at 5:45 p.m., DEC Ray Brook Dispatch received a call from the director of a young adult outdoor group. She stated that one of the participants was having issues due to a preexisting heart condition and needed to be evacuated from the north end of Long Lake to receive medical attention. The camp was located deep in the wilderness beyond Deep Hole and the subject was being towed via kayak to meet assistance at the outlet of Long Lake. Forest Ranger James Waters and Long Lake Rescue Squad EMT Chuck Taylor responded. EMT Taylor monitored the subject during the boat ride back to the Long Lake Boat Launch. At 7:15 p.m., the subject was transferred to an ambulance and transported to the Adirondack Medical Center-Saranac Lake.

Town of Keene

Essex County

Rescue: On August 9 at 10:56 a.m., DEC Ray Brook Dispatch received a direct call from a woman hiking with her family on Cascade Mountain. During the descent from the summit, the womans father fell and injured his knee. Dispatch directed the caller to contact 911 for coordinates. Five Forest Rangers and an assistant Forest Ranger responded to the trailhead and began to hiking in to the subject. Rangers located the man and assessed his injury. After re-splinting the injury, the subject was mobile but moving slowly. The Rangers assisted him to the trailhead, where he was taken by his family to a local hospital for further medical attention.

Town of Keene

Essex County

Rescue: On August 9 at 4:09 p.m., Essex County 911 called DEC Ray Brook Dispatch reporting a 31-year-old female with a possible broken ankle after a fall on a steep section of trail. Coordinates obtained from 911 placed the subject 1.5 miles from the trailhead on Cascade Mountain. Forest Rangers responded to the scene and stabilized the injured ankle. The subject attempted to walk out to the trailhead. However, after a short distance the hiker could not continue. New York State Police Aviation was requested to airlift the injured individual and she was transferred to the Adirondack Medical Center-Saranac Lake for further care.

Town of North Elba

Essex County

Rescue: On August 9 at 4:18 p.m., DEC Ray Brook Dispatch received a call from Essex County 911 regarding a severely ill 53-year-old woman. The subject was at the Moose Pond Lean-to on the Northville-Placid Trail in the High Peaks Wilderness. The woman's daughter had hiked to Wanika Falls to make the emergency call. The woman was airlifted to the Adirondack Medical Center-Lake Placid for further medical care.

Town of Duane

Franklin County

Search: Just before midnight on August 9, an 80-year-old male was reported overdue from hiking Debar Mountain. The man was reported to be in good health and an experienced hiker. His vehicle was found at the parking area of Debar Mountain. The subject had a ledger from a past hike of the same mountain, advising that he rode a bike part way up the trail. Two Rangers hiked the trail and found a bike on the side of the trail. The Rangers continued to hike reached the summit without finding the subject. On August 10 at 4:35 a.m., Rangers requested additional resources and a command post was established at Meacham Lake Campground. As Rangers and other search personal conducted search efforts around Debar Mountain, the subject was located at 1:13 p.m. by a New York State Police Captain. The hiker had found his way to the road and was walking on Route 30 in the Cold Brook Road area. The man was dehydrated and had lacerations to both shins. The subject was treated by EMS and transported to Alicia Hyde Hospital.

Town of Westport

Essex County

Search: August 10 at 1:10 p.m., DEC Ray Brook Dispatch received a call from Essex County 911 requesting assistance for a woman and a 9-year-old child lost on Coon Mountain. Essex County provided cell phone coordinates. One Forest Ranger responded and located the subjects in good health. The subjects were assisted to the trailhead where their vehicle was parked. The incident concluded at 3:28 p.m.

Town of Hunter

Greene County

Search: On August 11 at 2:58 p.m., a 36-year-old male hiker from New York City called Greene County 911 requesting assistance to get out of the woods. The subject stated he and two other hikers began their hike at Prediger Road the previous day. The group planned to hike the entire Devil's Path in two days, but didn't get as far as expected. They camped at Mink Hollow Thursday night. On Friday, two of the hikers continued on while one subject experienced knee pain and decided to hike out a shortcut to Mink Hollow to meet his party at Devil's Tombstone Campground. He had no map and was unfamiliar with the area. When he could no longer find trail markers, he used his cell phone to call for help. A Forest Ranger contacted the subject by phone and determined he was near the Mink Hollow spring. The Ranger responded to the hiker's location, guided him to the road, and gave him a courtesy ride to his car at Prediger Road.

Town of Fine

St. Lawrence County

Rescue/Recovery: On August 11 at 6:10 p.m., Ray Brook Dispatch received notification from an assistant Forest Ranger that a 51-year-old male camping at a primitive site on Cranberry Lake collapsed while chopping wood and hit his head during the resulting fall. Fellow campers traveled more than a mile to obtain cell phone service to call for help. Cranberry Lake Rescue responded and tried to revive the subject. Family members were administering CPR when rescuers arrived. Rescue efforts continued for about an hour but the subject remained unresponsive. By 7:10 p.m., first responders ceased resuscitation efforts and Rangers secured the scene until the arrival of the St. Lawrence County Coroner and New York State Police investigators. The subject was officially pronounced deceased and transported by Cranberry Lake Fire and Rescue to the dock at 9 p.m.

Town of Shandaken

Ulster County

Enforcement: On August 12 at approximately 1:50 a.m., the caretaker of Woodland Valley Campground notified Central Dispatch of a group of what appeared to be intoxicated, unruly campers and requested Forest Ranger assistance. A Forest Ranger was dispatched to the campground and spoke with the group. The next morning, the unruly group was evicted from the campground and left the area by 10 a.m.

Town of Keene

Essex County

Rescue: On August 12 at 1:52 p.m., DEC Ray Brook Dispatch received a report of a subject involved in a swimming accident at a swimming hole on the Bouquet River near the High Bridge off Route 73 near Chapel Pond. The subject was conscious but sustained lacerations and suffered neck pain. Forest Rangers were dispatched to the Bouquet River and joined by first responders from Keene and Keene Valley fire departments. The subject received first aid and was transported by ambulance to Elizabethtown Hospital for treatment.

Town of Hardenburgh

Ulster County

Search: On August 13 at 9:38 p.m., DEC Central Dispatch received information from a caller stating that his neighbor had not returned from a hike. The neighbor, a 78-year-old male, planned to hike near Balsam Mountain, his exact route and destination unknown. Rangers were dispatched to check parking areas and trail registers at Balsam Mountain for evidence of the mans whereabouts. The subjects car was located by Rangers at the Rider Hollow Trail Head (Big Indian-Beaverkill Range Wilderness Area) at approximately 11 p.m. A subsequent search of the area located the man who was unable to move due to a leg injury he sustained while hiking. Rangers and local fire and EMS responders assessed the injury and packaged the hiker for a carry-out. He was transferred by ambulance to a local hospital for further medical treatment.
CAMBRIDGE  The Cambridge Food Co-op is celebrating its 40th anniversary with a community picnic at 5 p.m. Sunday.

The Cambridge Assisted Living Residence and the new Argyle Brewery Tasting Room have offered to share the farmers market area around their facilities for the co-op party.

Picnickers will gather under a tent on the lawn next to the train depot. Local chefs will put together picnic fare using local foods from southern Washington County. The Hubbard Hall Tune Jam Band will play, and there will be a silent auction to benefit the co-op Building Fund.

The Cambridge Food Co-op is one of the oldest rural food cooperatives still operating in New York state.

The co-op opened on Election Day 1976. At the time, the store shared space with Helen Whites Village Store in the downstairs of what would become Hubbard Hall Projects.

Over the years, membership in the co-op has grown to more than 340 families, and more than half of all sales are made to customers from the general public.

Many local businesses are contributing to the celebration, including Flying Pigs Farm, Sal & Piper Caterers, Long Days Farm, Battenkill Valley Creamery, Owl Woods Farm, Round House Bakery, Black Dog Wine and Spirits, and Victory View Vineyard.

Tickets are $40. The suggested donation for those younger than 12 is $10.

To buy tickets or for information, contact or stop by the co-op, 1 W. Main St. in Cambridge; 677-5731; www.cambridgefoodcoop.com.
MOREAU  A former police officer who resigned after a 2014 incident in which he roughed up a man whose car he illegally searched was arrested Monday for illegally possessing three guns, police said.

Shawn R. Glans, 48, of Moreau, a former Saratoga County Sheriff's Office sergeant and South Glens Falls Police patrolman, was charged with one felony count of criminal possession of a weapon and one misdemeanor charge of criminal possession of a weapon after guns were seen at his home on Tanglewood Drive on Aug. 8, according to the Sheriff's Office.

Police said a "medical incident" resulted in officers going to the home, and several rifles and a handgun were noted.

Glans can't possess guns because of a 2015 official misconduct conviction stemming from the on-duty incident in Halfmoon that led to his resignation. He was videotaped slapping a young man and cursing him when demanding to search his vehicle, authorities said.

Glans was arraigned in Malta Town Court and released pending prosecution.
FORT ANN  The final victory in the towns fight to preserve a Revolutionary War battlefield ended not with a surrender but with a celebration.

On Friday, Gino Vona of Big Boy Construction signed the documents allowing the Civil War Trust to take ownership of the 165-acre site where the Battle of Fort Anne took place in 1777.

After the trust qualifies for an exemption from the Agricultural Stewardship Association, it will turn the land over to the town, which will develop it into a historical site.

It was great to see so many people there making it official, said Supervisor Richard Moore, who has played a major role in preserving the land. We had representatives there from the Civil War Trust, the American Battlefield Protection Program, the state Historic Preservation Office and Binghamton University.

Moore was especially excited by the displays the university archaeology representatives brought.

You had to see it to believe it, he said. There was a small key, and you knew it was 240 years old. There were bullets and other items. It was amazing to see things that came right from the battle.

Moore said the town is already seeking a grant from the Greenway Conservancy for the Hudson River Valley for a survey of the site and will seek other grant opportunities as well.

I think our end game, as I see it, is to have trails, two or three benches and some kiosks that show the timeline and history of the battle, Moore said. We want to make it so people can visit.

Moore said the one aspect that makes that planning difficult is Battle Hill itself.

The topography of the land is challenging, so we are not sure what we are going to do there, Moore said.

The Battle Hill site will join several other key historic sites in the region, including Fort Ticonderoga, Fort William Henry in Lake George and Rogers Island in Fort Edward.

Wanted a mine

Vona, who bought the land from from Marilyn Bray in 2007 for $55,000, had been fighting for the better part of a decade to get state permission to build a mine on part of the site. But in March 2016, he contacted town officials and said he was interested in selling the site to the town.

Moore said the value of the land was listed at $320,000 and the deal will include $210,000 from the trust. Vona donated the rest of the land.

Moore said Vona was at Fort Ann Town Hall on Friday to sign the deeds but had work commitments that kept him from attending the ceremony.

Crucial battle

The Battle of Fort Anne was fought on July 8, 1777, when the outcome of the war and the countrys future were still in doubt, according to research done by the Civil War Trust.

British troops under Gen. John Burgoyne were trying to slice the new nation in two. He wanted to cut off New England from the other colonies.

According to the Civil War Trust, Burgoyne planned to march down the Hudson River, capture Albany, and build a chain of outposts from New York City to Montreal.

After a number of successes, Burgoynes forces made their way to Fort Anne, where Colonial forces made a stand at Fort Anne, attacking a detachment of 200 redcoats on a wooded hill.

The combatants fought until they exhausted their ammunition and the Colonials withdrew, anticipating British reinforcements. The Battle of Fort Anne was a precursor to the destruction of Burgoynes army three months later at Saratoga.

At the time of the battle, the town was spelled Fort Anne and later changed to Fort Ann.

According to the Civil War Trust, almost 70 percent of Revolutionary War and War of 1812 battlefields are in urban areas. Of the 243 Revolutionary War and War of 1812 battlefields identified by the National Park Service, 141 are either lost or so extremely fragmented that only commemorative, rather than land acquisition, opportunities remain.

Of those that do still retain their historic integrity, 18 currently have no legal protection whatsoever.

The Civil War Trust also preserved its first War of 1812 battlefield as part of this years Campaign 1776 acquisition process.

The trust purchased the 24-acre Horse Island in Lake Ontario near the upstate village of Sackets Harbor, where Americas Great Lakes fleet was saved during the nations Second War of Independence against Great Britain.
GLENS FALLS  Agata Stanford said she was in City Park Monday night, because this cant stand. The rhetoric has gotten so violent.

Beth Fitzgerald of South Glens Falls said she came because no one is making anyone responsible, and Tricia Pleu of Saratoga United said she was there because what happened in Charlottesville was a tipping point. It was so far beyond the line.

In all, about 100 people came to City Park, picked up candles and marched silently through downtown in memory of 32-year-old Heather Heyer, who was killed in Charlottesville, Virginia Saturday.

There were families walking together, politicians, political activists, librarians, members of the NAACP and clergy.

We need to take a stand against the violence, said Rob Ward of Glens Falls, who was standing with Cait Palmer, also of Glens Falls. They were wearing red shirts identifying themselves as members of the Albany chapter of Democratic Socialists of America.

Stanford, the organizer, is a member of The New Resistance USA and said the march was not a political statement.

Its not political. Its about humanity, she said.

Fitzgerald said she didnt expect to be marching against hate in the U.S.

I didnt think I would get to the point in my life that I would ever have to do this in America. This is not what we are about, she said.

John Miller said hed had an early start to the day, but felt he needed to be at the march.

When I saw there was violence in a place like Seattle, where you would never expect it, that really shook me, he said.

Stanford said she watched the Virginia violence on television.

I just want to denounce the violence in Charlottesville that was caused by bunch of Nazi sympathizers and white supremacists, she said.

The march came during a jazz band concert at the City Park gazebo, but the band took a break as the marchers walked through the park, turned onto Ridge Street and then walked down Glen Street and back to the park.

Some were carrying signs and others were carrying homemade signs.

Pleu said coming together so quickly was very important.

We need to be united, she said. This is unacceptable. This is America.

The Rev. Meredith Vanderminden, pastor of Christ Church United Methodist, said she came because she believed she had to.

She was wearing her clerical color and a brightly colored stole and was handing out candles and holders.

I want to be here to say that this is not what Jesus preached, Vanderminden said. He preached love, not hate.

For religious supremacists to say otherwise is abhorrent, she added.

In a brief statement on her official Facebook page, U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Willsboro, said, Hatred and bigotry have no place in our society. We stand united as Americans in condemnation of the violence in Charlottesville.
ALBANY  A Saratoga Springs man who sold heroin to a longtime friend who died from an overdose pleaded guilty Monday to a felony charge.

Matthew P. Charo, 36, pleaded guilty to distributing a controlled substance, a felony, in U.S. District Court, in connection with the Oct. 2, 2014 death of 30-year-old Saratoga Springs resident Katie Lynn Scheidt.

Police said Charo was paid through an arrangement to use a food stamp benefits card that belonged to Scheidt.

The heroin the defendant distributed ended the life of a 30-year-old woman he knew from high school, Acting U.S. Attorney Grant Jaquith said in a news release.

Under the terms of a plea deal, he likely faces a 10-year prison sentence to be followed by 3 years on parole when sentenced Dec. 7 by Senior U.S. District Judge Frederick Scullin.

The case was brought federally because state law limits the charges that local district attorneys can bring in drug overdose death cases.

District attorneys from Warren and Washington counties have met with federal prosecutors to ask for investigations and possible federal charges in overdose death cases, as heroin use has grown as a problem in recent years.

Saratoga Springs Police Chief Gregory Veitch thanked the involved agencies for pursuing the case.

Saratoga Springs, like all communities, is not immune from the tragic consequences of the opioid epidemic that law enforcement and other first responders deal with on a daily basis, he said.

Charo had faced a felony count of distribution of a controlled substance with death resulting, which can bring a prison sentence of up to 20 years, but pleaded guilty to a lesser charge.

Trial in the case had been set for September.

Charo was represented by James Knox, who could not be reached Tuesday morning.

The case was investigated by Saratoga Springs Police, State Police, the FBI and Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Hanlon.
QUEENSBURY  A Warren County grand jury on Tuesday indicted the Glens Falls man who was arrested Friday for allegedly killing a mother and her daughter, and an arraignment has been scheduled for Wednesday.

The eight-count indictment against Bryan M. Redden was filed Tuesday afternoon in Warren County Court. It includes two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of second-degree murder and lesser charges of criminal possession of a weapon, grand larceny and tampering with physical evidence.

Redden is to be arraigned at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, before Warren County Judge John Hall.

A preliminary hearing that was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon in Glens Falls City Court was cancelled, as the grand jury indictment results in the cases transfer to Warren County Court.

Redden, 21, is accused of killing 33-year-old Crystal Riley and her 4-year-old daughter, Lilly Frasier, in their South Street, Glens Falls home early Friday morning. Police said he is believed to have slashed both of their throats with a knife, but it is unclear what prompted the attack.

The grand larceny charges stem from his alleged theft of Rileys vehicle after the Friday morning homicides. Police said he was found driving the vehicle about 4 hours after the killings, leading to his questioning and an alleged confession. The tampering with physical evidence charge relates to the removal of the knife used in the killings from the home.

Glens Falls Police Detective Lt. Peter Casertino said the knife was recovered, but police have not said where or whether Redden told them where to find it. In addition to admissions to police, Redden told two friends about the deaths Friday morning, before police caught up to him.

Redden told authorities he is homeless, but has been staying with friends in the Glens Falls area over he past year or so, working at various restaurants.

Redden knew Riley, and claims they had a romantic relationship, but her family did not know of his involvement in her life.

The police investigation was continuing Tuesday, part of it including reaching out to police in Collier County, Florida about a death case that occurred when Redden was there in March, 2016.

A person was found dead of apparent knife wounds at a home in Immokalee, and Redden was among those who appeared in a television news broadcast about the case as having seen the persons remains. Casertino said Glens Falls Police reached out to their counterparts in southeast Florida and learned that the death was ruled a suicide, and that Redden was a person who had come upon the scene but not witnessed the death.

First-degree murder, which alleges a person killed multiple victims, is punishable by up to life in state prison without parole.

Redden is being held in Warren County Jail without bail and is being represented by the Warren County Public Defenders Office. Public Defender Marcy Flores could not be reached Tuesday afternoon.

Riley was a single mother of three, her two older sons living with their father. A fundraiser has been organized for the boys Sunday at Sky Zone trampoline park in Queensbury. It will be held at the Corinth Road business from 2:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. and will include auctions, live music, baked goods, t-shirts and other events to help the family. Sky Zone is also donating $5 from every pass to the trampoline park that is sold during the event, as an entry fee will be charged.
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Davenport School Board members passed a revised food service payment policy Monday, but not before several expressed concern over hungry students might not be served if they can't pay for a meal.

Board member Richard Clewell raised an alarm about the policy, citing a phrase that shows the rule would mean that students in grades 6-12 who could not pay for a meal would be denied food or beverages.

"I am not comfortable with this. Students who don't have sufficient funds would not be able to charge meals in grades 6-12. That does not line up with me, or our joint concern with poverty in this district," Clewell said.

District officials, including Micki Carrington, supervisor of food and nutrition programs in the Davenport, told Clewell and others that there are alternatives in place to pay for students in need.

To start, Carrington said the payment policy does not apply to the 66 percent of Davenport students who qualify for support from the federal Free and Reduced Price lunch program. There are also nine schools in the district that feed all students, regardless of income, she said.

Very few students would slip through all the safety checks, Carrington said, because most parents do provide their children with either lunch money, or a lunch from home.

Still, Carrington said there typically are $5,000 to $10,000 in unpaid food bills at the end of the year. Schools use money from pop machines, and principals often have a special fund for such situations.

However, the food program is prohibited from using its funds for student food purchases, and monies cannot come from the district's general fund, she said.

"This policy does not reflect our priorities," board member Daniel Gosa said. But board president Linda Hayes said most principals make sure their students do get lunch every day.

Carrington said a couple of the district's schools ran out of money to pay for student meals at the end of the school year. Typically, a student with an overdue account would have a tray held back, and be told to go to the principal's office for money to pay for the meal.

Rob Scott, assistant superintendent, said food service workers should not be in the position of judging which students eat and which do not. "We want a policy to support the workers," he said.

Jamie Snyder, who heads the board's policy committee, said the board passed the same food policy six weeks ago, and it was on the agenda again because it was categorized incorrectly.

The policy, now numbered 305.1, is required by the federal government by July 1, Carrington said. That approval was made on June 26, and the new vote was an administrative adjustment.
A new insurance program for 64 copiers used in the Davenport Community School District drew concern from Davenport School Board members early this week.

"What I see is, we are spending more than $315,000 to save $200,000," Jamie Snyder, a board member said to Marsha Tangen, the district's chief financial officer who authored the contract renewal request.

Tangan, speaking during the board's meeting on Aug. 14, said the payment is essentially for copier repairs that formerly were in maintenance contracts. Coverage now comes from the insurance policy that costs the district $315,915 annually.

Right now, there is a gap in expenses, she agreed, but expects that may change in the near future. The district's copiers are brand new, and so they are not breaking down. "We will see cost savings increase down the road," she said.

Ralph Johanson, board president, said insurance companies are not in business to lose money. "You believe this is the right thing to do?" he asked Tangen. "It goes against my grain ..."

If the savings are not realized, the district won't renew the insurance policy, she said.

"I just can't see where this is fiscally responsible at all," Snyder said.

Board member Linda Hayes asked why the companies are not responsible for upkeep as the district rents the machines, and Johanson questioned Tangen on the district's relationship with copier vendors.

The district shares the insurance information with its copier vendors, she said.

"You trust those vendors a lot," Johanson said, adding the system could be abused. But Tangen said the administrative costs are zero, and the process could be easily double-checked.

In the end, the contract renewal was approved on a split vote; voting yes were Johanson, Julie DeSalvo, Clyde Mayfield, Richard Clewell and Daniel Gosa; no's were from Hayes and Snyder.

The insurance plan administrator is Jester Insurance of Des Moines, with the policy underwritten by SU Insurance Co., Wisconsin, both in partnership with Ruhl & Ruhl Insurance, Davenport.

According to Tangen's request to the board, the coverage is for 64 Xerox machines used across the district which eliminates the need for maintenance contracts.

It's a savings to the district's management fund that would otherwise be paid for by general fund dollars, and it was done as a budget reduction measure, according to the request.
Rick is on a well-deserved vacation. I'll be your guest host until he returns.

Davenport house fired on

The Davenport Police Department is investigating a shooting that occurred early Tuesday.

Police responded at 4:14 a.m. to the 1300 block of West 13th Street for a report of multiple shots being fired.

Officers recovered casings in the street and found that a house had been struck. No injuries were reported.

Fairmount Cemetery in state hands

For the first time in several months, the lights were on Monday morning in the office at Fairmount Cemetery.

The legion of volunteers who have been hauling their mowers and trimmers to the hills above Rockingham Road in Davenport now can count on the old cemetery getting the attention it needs.

The Iowa Insurance Division, which administers state cemetery laws, last week was named in Iowa District Court in Polk County as the receiver of the long-suffering cemetery. After fall-outs among board members and claims of mismanagement over a several-year span, Fairmount's grounds were in near ruin.

University of Iowa gets pushback on tuition plan

University of Iowa President Bruce Harreld made a pitch Monday to raise resident undergraduate tuition 41 percent over the next five years, but students and lawmakers pushed back, calling the plan a failure and urging the university to go back to the drawing board.

Davenport schools iron out food service plan

Davenport School Board members passed a revised food service payment policy Monday, but not before several expressed concern over hungry students might not be served if they can't pay for a meal.

Board member Richard Clewell raised an alarm about the policy, citing a phrase that shows the rule would mean that students in grades 6-12 who could not pay for a meal would be denied food or beverages.

Weather

A clear day with temperatures between the mid-70s and low 80s make it a shame to stay indoors.

Traffic

A semi crash has shut down I-88
DES MOINES  Gov. Kim Reynolds on Tuesday joined a chorus of Iowans urging the state Board of Regents to take a cautious approach to raising yearly tuition for students enrolled at the three state universities.

A regent panel has received proposals from presidents of the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa to make up for declining state appropriations by raising undergraduate tuition by as much as 41 percent over the next five years, but the governor balked at the idea during her weekly news conference.

"That is too much," Reynolds told reporters. "There is no way that Iowa families could afford a 7 percent increase over five years."

The governor did not say if she supported raising tuition and, if so, what level she would recommend. Instead she said she is encouraging the regents to "take a look at what's manageable and keep in the forefront doing everything we can do to keep higher education costs, post-secondary costs down." She pointed to past efforts that froze tuition at state universities for two and a half years.

This week, University of Iowa President Bruce Harreld offered a multi-year plan that would increase resident undergrad rates 7.08 percent each year through 2022, raising rates from $7,486 this fall to $10,537. The five-year plan also includes an annual 2.08 percent bump for non-resident undergrads, increasing this year's $29,130 to $32,288 by 2022. The proposed University of Iowa tuition increases also would extend to graduate students and those in costlier programs such as medicine, engineering, dentistry and business.

Last week, University of Northern Iowa and Iowa State University officials presented their plans to the task force. Iowa State pitched a similar rate plan, and Northern Iowa proposed a smaller 2.5 annualized bump for resident undergrads, provided the Legislature also appropriated enough money.

The regents would have to approve any tuition increases annually, making the university plans only suggestions. But if regents approve the proposed increases, they would usher in the first significant split in basic resident undergrad rates between the three public universities.

While the Iowa and Iowa State plans would push resident undergrad costs to around $10,500, Northern Iowa's comparable rate would rise more slowly to $8,237 by 2022.

"They're going to work through the process," Reynolds said of the regents' future deliberations. "The regents will take a look at what's possible and what's the right amount moving forward. Their work is just getting started, and I'm going to let them work through the process."

On other topics, Reynolds:

 Acknowledged Iowa is among the states being considered as a possible site for a joint venture by Japanese automakers Toyota and Mazda to build a $1.6 billion U.S. assembly plant that would create up to 4,000 jobs, but she declined to divulge any additional details. "We don't want to let other states to know what we're doing," she said, naming as assets Iowa's central location, talented workforce, infrastructure, certified industrial sites and low electric rates.

 Said state officials are monitoring dry weather conditions that continue to negatively affect Iowa's corn and soybean crops as harvest approaches. A report issued Monday showed 3 percent of Iowa's corn crop was rated in very poor condition and 9 percent poor, while 81 percent was still rated in fair to good condition and 9 percent excellent. Similar conditions were reported for Iowa's soybean acres.

 Said she called Christina Andersen, the graphic designer who created the options for the new Iowa Department of Transportation license places, to thank her for her work in the face of negative social media responses to the three designs that are in the running to become the new state license plate. "We need to treat everybody with respect and dignity. It's OK to have an opinion, but it's not OK to make them personal," the governor said. Much of the criticism, Reynolds said, related to design limitations relating to law enforcement and cost issues associated with producing a new license plate that were beyond the designer's control.
NEW IN THEATERS:

"Annabelle: Creation": Several years after the tragic death of their little girl, a dollmaker and his wife welcome a nun and several girls from a shuttered orphanage into their home, soon becoming the target of the dollmaker's possessed creation, Annabelle. R: 109 minutes. AMC 10, Rushmore 7, Northern Hills Cinema

"The Glass Castle": Based on one of the longest-running New York Times bestsellers, "The Glass Castle" tells the story of Jeannette Walls' unconventional upbringing at the hands of her deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant parents, and her journey towards acceptance and fulfillment. PG-13: 127 minutes. AMC 10

Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature": Following the events of the first film, Surly and his friends must stop Oakton City's mayor from destroying their home to make way for a dysfunctional amusement park. PG: 91 minutes. Rushmore 7, Northern Hills Cinema

OPENING AUG. 18:

"The Hitman's Body Guard": Professional bodyguard Michael Bryce (Ryan Reynolds) must protect his longtime nemesis, hitman Darius Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson), after the latter agrees to testify at the Hague against an Eastern European dictator (Gary Oldman). The constantly bickering pair are forced to go on a journey together from England to the Netherlands, and are targeted by the dictator's henchmen along the way. Salma Hayek and Elodie Yung co-star. R:111 minutes. AMC 10, Rushmore 7

"Logan Lucky": Two down-on-their-luck brothers (Channing Tatum and Adam Driver), fed up by their dismal economic prospects, plot an elaborate heist at the Charlotte Motor Speedway in North Carolina. When their plan calls for an explosives expert, they attempt to recruit an eccentric convict named Joe Bang (Daniel Craig) -- but securing his help will require breaking him out of prison. Seth MacFarlane, Riley Keough, Katie Holmes, Hilary Swank, Katherine Waterston, and Sebastian Stan co-star. Logan Lucky is the first feature film directed by Steven Soderbergh following a four-year hiatus, PG13: 119 minutes. AMC 10

NOW PLAYING:

Movie showings are current up to Aug. 10 and are subject to change. For an updated listing on later dates, visit amctheatres.com, elkstheatre.com or nhcinema.com.

Roy's Black Hills Twin Drive-In (Hermosa): West screen showing double feature of "The Nut Job 2: Nutty By Nature" and "The Dark Tower"; east screen showing double feature of "The Emoji Movie" and "Wonder Woman" through Aug. 17.

"The Dark Tower": Stephen King's ambitious story from makes its long-awaited launch to the big screen, starring Idris Elba as Roland Deschain and Matthew McConaughey as the Man in Black. Sharing an ancient vendetta, they must fight to the death in this epic battle over the fate of the All-World Universe. PG13: 90 minutes. AMC 10, Northern Hills Cinema

"Detroit": From the Academy Award-winning director of "The Hurt Locker" and " Zero Dark Thirty," "Detroit" tells the gripping story of one of the darkest moments during the civil unrest that rocked Detroit in the summer of '67. R: 143 minutes. AMC 10, Northern Hills Cinema

"Atomic Blonde": A high-stakes, global action-thriller that takes place in the city of Berlin, on the eve of the Wall's collapse and the shifting of superpower alliances. Charlize Theron portrays Lorraine Broughton, a top-level spy for MI6, who is dispatched to Berlin to take down a ruthless espionage ring that has just killed an undercover agent for reasons unknown. She is ordered to cooperate with Berlin station chief David Percival (James McAvoy), and the two form an uneasy alliance, unleashing their full arsenal of skills in pursuing a threat that jeopardizes the West's entire intelligence operation. R: 114 minutes. AMC 10, Northern Hills Cinema.

"Dunkirk": Allied soldiers from Belgium, the British Empire and France are surrounded by the German army and evacuated during a fierce battle in World War II. PG-13: 106 minutes. AMC 10, Rushmore 7, Northern Hills Cinema.

"Girls Trip": When four lifelong friends travel to New Orleans for the annual Essence Festival, sisterhoods are rekindled, wild sides are rediscovered, and there's enough dancing, drinking, brawling and romancing to make the Big Easy blush. R: 126 minutes. AMC 10, Northern Hills Cinema.

"War for the Planet of the Apes": The third chapter of the critically acclaimed blockbuster franchise, Caesar and his apes are forced into a deadly conflict with an army of humans led by a ruthless Colonel. After the apes suffer unimaginable losses, Caesar wrestles with his darker instincts and begins his own mythic quest to avenge his kind. As the journey finally brings them face to face, Caesar and the Colonel are pitted against each other in an epic battle that will determine the fate of both their species and the future of the planet. PG-13: 140 minutes. AMC 10.

"Kidnap": Karla Dyson's (Academy Award winner Halley Berry) will and strength are put to the test when -- after looking away for just one second - her son is taken at a town fair. She finds him just in time to see his kidnappers put him in their car and drive away, where she narrowly misses stopping them on foot, dropping her cell phone as she chases after the car. With no one to turn to but herself, she jumps in her own car and speeds after them, determined to stop at nothing to bring her son to safety and take down his kidnappers. R: 82 minutes. Rushmore 7

"Valerian": In the 28th century, Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Laureline (Cara Delevingne) are a team of special operatives charged with maintaining order throughout the human territories. Under assignment from the Minister of Defense, the two embark on a mission to the astonishing city of Alpha, where a mystery and a dark force threaten the peaceful existence of the City of a Thousand Planets. Valerian and Laureline must race to identify the marauding menace and safeguard not just Alpha, but the future of the universe. PG-13: 137 minutes. Rushmore 7,

"Spider-Man: Homecoming": PG-13: 143 minutes. AMC 10, Rushmore 7.

"Despicable Me 3": PG: 90 minutes. AMC 10, Northern Hills Cinema.

"Wonder Woman": PG-13: 141 minutes. AMC 10.

"The Emoji Movie": PG: 91 minutes. Rushmore 7, Northern Hills Cinema.

"Baby Driver": R: 113 minutes. Rushmore 7.

"Cars 3": G: 109 minutes. Rushmore 7, Elks Theatre.

"Transformers: The Last Night": PG-13, 149 minutes. Elks Theatre

"The House:" R: 88 minutes. Elks Theatre
September is Yard to Table Month: A celebration of urban and rural sustainable agriculture in the Sioux Empire.

Homegrown Sioux Empire is proud to announce Yard to Table Month  with events throughout September.

Join Homegrown Sioux Empire for Yard to Table month, a celebration of producing, preserving, consuming, and sharing what you grow around you! Yard to Table focuses on how to get your household involved, getting your hands dirty, and learning as you go. The ability to grow and raise the food that sustains us in the vicinity of our homes is important to fostering a self-sustaining and healthy lifestyle while building a community around local food production. Throughout the month of September, skills and information will be shared during events each week around the Sioux Empire Area. Yard to Table Month will culminate in the 6th annual Tour de Coop. All events are free and open to the public.

Homegrown Sioux Empire will host Yard to Table each week during September:

Thursday 9/7/17  Soil Quality and Composting

Saturday 9/9/17  Growing Season Extension and Farm Tour

Thursday 9/14/17  Fermentation Skill Share

Saturday 9/16/17  Canning Skill Share

Saturday 9/23/17  Chicken Processing Skill Share

Thursday 9/28/17  Brewery & Hops Tour

Saturday 9/30/17  6th Annual Tour de Coop

For more details on each of the Yard to Table events visit www/facebook.com/homegrownsiouxempire/events.

About Homegrown Sioux Empire Chapter of Dakota Rural Action: Our chapters goal is to: (1) Build strong networks which embrace a culture of interdependent self-sufficiency, (2) Create channels for local resource sharing, and (3) Promote, educate, and advocate for sustainable urbanization and ecological economics throughout Sioux Falls and the surrounding areas.

As a chapter of Dakota Rural Action, Homegrown Sioux Empire shares DRAs grassroots and community based origins. Members believe that reviving the land based heritage and incorporating that wisdom with new energy, ideas, and methods will create the best possible quality of life and help ensure a vibrant future for Sioux Falls area citizens across the socioeconomic spectrum. The chapter supports democratic community governance and the establishment and maintenance of infrastructure which fosters interdependent self-sufficiency for the production of food, energy and housing. Homegrown Sioux Empire is currently focused on working to promote self-sufficiency, urban agriculture, energy and water conservation, and working to create a cleaner Big Sioux River.
Chadron was a stop on two tours of the state by officials representing various state agencies and organizations earlier this month.

The Nebraska State Bar Associations Presidents Caravan brought Judge Joseph Bataillon to Chadron with several colleagues the same day that University of Nebraska-Lincoln Chancellor Ronnie Green stopped to visit with several individuals in the community.

Bataillon, president of the NSBA, was accompanied by Ronald Volkmer, a professor of law at Creighton University, and Richard Moberly, the dean of the UNL College of Law, as they promoted access to justice across the state.

Nineteen counties in Nebraska have three or fewer attorneys, and 13 have none at all. The NSBA is making a targeted effort to remedy that situation. Residents of those underserved counties are attempting to navigate the legal system on their own or with the help of internet legal services, often making mistakes and getting themselves into more trouble, Bataillon said.

And its only because there are no attorneys in their counties, he said.

One of the projects they have launched is essentially a job fair for attorneys, giving them a chance to meet with nearly two dozen law firms, including some outside of the Lincoln and Omaha area.

But another initiative that will have an impact closer to home is the newly created RLOP  Rural Law Opportunities Program  modeled after the successful RHOP for health professionals. Five incoming freshmen at Chadron State College, as well as one senior and one sophomore, have been accepted to the RLOP program and will have a spot at the UNL College of Law once they complete their undergraduate studies.

The program is also available at Wayne and the University of Nebraska-Kearney. The idea came from an UNL alumnus who was concerned about the attorney shortage in rural Nebraska, Moberly said.

The schools were really excited about it as soon as we mentioned it to them, he continued.

The program will help encourage newly-minted attorneys to return to the rural areas they grew up in to practice, and its incumbent upon the states two law schools to do a better job getting the message across to students that practicing in a smaller area is another kind of success.

They can have a real, varied practice and professional life (in rural areas), Moberly said. People make choices and rural practice is just as valid of a choice as urban practice is.

Its important for them to make a conscious decision, Bataillon said.

In the meantime, for residents of rural areas with limited legal resources, the NSBA has started an online service of its own. Nebraska Free Legal Answers, found at www.Ne.FreeLegalAnswers.org, is staffed by Nebraska attorneys on a pro-bono basis and is available to those who meet certain qualifications regarding age, assets and household income.

People who cant afford a lawyer to begin with are really at a loss, Bataillon said. This is a great program for both the people who need this service and for the lawyers. Lawyers have an obligation to do pro bono work.

Once qualifications are determined, users are allowed to post a question about a civil legal problem, which is posted to a queue for attorneys to review and respond to. For those who are not qualified to use the online service, the website will direct them to information and other services, such as private bar referrals, self-help and legal aid options.

The law schools at both Creighton and UNL are sponsor Legal Clinics to provide third-year law students with experience and assistance to individuals. At Creighton, for example, the College of Law has a longstanding tradition of global engagement, studying the Nuremburg Trials and taking mission of ministry trips to the Dominican Republic to assist the poverty-stricken with legal needs. In the Dominican Republic, the law students often are dealing with economic refugees from Haiti, Volkmer said.

This year, the Creighton College of Law will add an Immigrant and Refugee Law Clinic to its rotation as part of its Justice for our Neighbors collaboration. Eight students will work in the clinic, assisting some of the 40 percent of individuals who do not have attorneys during their immigration proceedings.

Outreach to rural areas of the state was also Chancellor Greens mission during his trip to Chadron.

Much of the conversation revolved around UNL Extension, and Green called the universitys Extension program one of the most elite in the country.

The Extension mission is equally important as academics, as a land grant university, he said.

The university is set to break another enrollment record this fall, as it did last year, and is turning its attention to getting more students graduated in four years as a way to decrease the cost of education.
As school districts are being asked to do more with less, Chadron Public Schools is undertaking a new strategic planning effort, seeking community input on several issues to aid in the districts two to five year planning.

A community-wide rollout of the districts strategic planning outreach will include a screening of a new film by Nebraska Loves Public Schools that features the Chadron, Omaha and Schuyler districts.

Seeds of Hope will be screened Sept. 27 at noon at the Chadron State College Student Center Ballroom. The film focuses on English language learning programs in the three districts. Chadrons work with a blossoming Marshallese population is highlighted.

Its not just about the kids, said Superintendent Dr. Caroline Winchester. Youre really dealing with the families.

Nebraska State Board of Education member Molly OHalleran will be present, and News Channel Nebraska will film the screening and panel discussion that follows. The discussion will be incorporated into the districts strategic planning.

Were really trying to get at the heart of what people want, Winchester said.

There are four themes around which the district is starting its process:

*What is particularly satisfying to you about Chadron Public Schools? What is concerning?

*What value does CPS bring to the community?

*How might the district increase its collaboration in the community?

*Given the declining approval of schools in the media, whats your hunch about what is producing that?

In addition to the rollout planned for Sept. 27, the district wants to present to other groups and organizations that have regular meeting times in the community, both that day and at other times. Given that a majority of the residents in the district do not have a direct connection with the school, Winchester said its important to meet with as many people as possible and hear their ideas. Any group that would like the district to visit one of its regular meetings should contact the central office at 432-0700.

Barring that, Winchester encourages everyone in the community to attend the Sept. 27 screening of Seeds of Hope and the panel discussion.

Please come. We value your thoughts, she said.
MOUNT VERNON, Va.  Sturgis-native and Campbell County School District No. 1 teacher Rhonda McPherson traveled to George Washingtons Mount Vernon to participate in a four-day, residential professional development program Aug. 2-6.

The George Washington Teacher Institute program McPherson attended, First In Business: Washingtons Entrepreneurial Ventures, included an intensive study led by noted Washington scholar Dr. Edward Lengel of the Papers of George Washington at the University of Virginia. Participants collaborated with Mount Vernons knowledgeable historians, curators, and educators while on site.

In addition to studying George Washingtons lesser known role as businessman, participants paired hands-on science activities at recreated 18th century sites with primary sources to explore the innovations and changes that Washingtons Mount Vernon underwent during his lifetime in order to connect cross curricular subjects in the classroom.

Institute participants from around the country included K-12 teachers, librarians, and media specialists selected by the George Washington Teacher Institute in a competitive application process.

I enjoy attending this type of teacher institute and soaking in the information shared by the experts and by my fellow teachers. There is much to be learned and I would encourage all teachers to apply for this fantastic opportunity in 2018.

While at the Institute, McPherson lived on George Washingtons estate, within view of his mansion, and attended daily sessions in the 45,000-square foot Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington which opened in 2013. She will develop and conduct a professional development workshop for her education community in order to share information from the Institute.

The George Washington Teacher Institute, founded in 1999, provides K-12 educators with professional development opportunities throughout the year through residential, online, and regional programming, as well as Teacher Fellowships. Private funding supports full scholarships for residential program participants, including a transportation stipend, to qualified educators from select states.

For more information about the George Washington Teacher Institute, visit www.MountVernon.org/Teachers
Nine men were arrested in undercover sex stings during the Sturgis motorcycle rally earlier this month, according to authorities.

This is the fifth year in a row that state and federal law enforcement agents have conducted the operation, which targeted people wanting to engage in sexual activity with minors. Some of the men agreed to pay for sex with either cash or goods, including marijuana, federal court documents reveal.

Undercover agents used ads online and social media applications to establish communication with the men, who were interested in underage females. The men, including out-of-state residents and a foreigner, were identified by the South Dakota Attorney General's Office in a release as follows:

Donald Scott Baker, 45, Osceloa, Mo.

Joshua Aschwege, 33, Black Hawk

Abdurrahman Keskin, 26, Silvan, Turkey

Jimmy Rudy Custodio, 39, Edina, Minn.

Erik Glenn Dahlquist, 29, Rapid City

Daniel David Wasner, 31, St. Cloud, Minn.

Eric Carl Afrank, 22, Rapid City

Kevin J. Carney, 30, Portland, Conn.

Carlocito Ponce Slim, 31, Lake Jackson, Texas

All of the men, according to the attorney general's office, are charged with attempted enticement of a minor using the internet and attempted transfer of obscene material to a minor.

Attempted enticement of a minor is punishable by 10 years to life in prison. Attempted transfer of obscene material to a minor carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

The stings were conducted by the South Dakota Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, which includes members of the state Division of Criminal Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, Rapid City Police Department and Pennington County Sheriffs Office.

The defendants were booked at the Pennington County Jail and have made initial appearances at the federal courthouse in Rapid City. As of Tuesday afternoon, Dahlquist and Afrank had been granted release with conditions.

The Sturgis undercover sex stings from 2013 to last year nabbed a total of 27 men, according to official data. Seventeen of the defendants have either pleaded guilty or been convicted at trial of various federal charges, including commercial sex trafficking.

One case was dismissed because the defendant died, and the rest are still going through court proceedings.

The motorcycle rally this year was held Aug. 4 to 13.
Despite the prosecutors objection and witnesses waiting to testify, a judge decided Monday to again postpone the trial of a Pennington County official accused of violating a county zoning ordinance.

George Ferebee, 77, a county commissioner, was scheduled to go on trial Monday afternoon on a charge that the wastewater treatment system in his rural Hill City property lacked an operating permit. It was at least the sixth time Ferebees bench trial date had been scheduled since he was charged in October 2015.

A longtime critic of government oversight of septic systems, Ferebee believes the nature of his land holding makes it exempt from the zoning ordinance. He has also challenged the laws legality.

The presiding judge, Warren Johnson, rescheduled the trial for Sept. 25 because Ferebee couldnt be represented in court by a lawyer.

His lawyer, Shawn Tornow, told the court in a conference call that Ferebee had retained him around 6 p.m. Friday. Tornow, of Sioux Falls, said he was still familiarizing himself with Ferebees case.

The prosecutor, Assistant State Attorney General Robert Haivala, objected to the delay, saying witnesses were ready to take the stand that day. At least seven were waiting by a Pennington County courtroom, including local prosecutors who said they had been called to testify by Ferebee.

Haivala also noted the numerous trial postponements. This has become a strategy of the defendant, said Haivala, who took over the case last month after the previous prosecutor became a magistrate judge in the Fourth Judicial Circuit.

Johnson, a retired Fourth Circuit judge, apologized to the witnesses for the inconvenience but said he had pondered on the appropriate decision.

Johnson said he didnt want to deny Ferebee the right to an attorney and that he believed the trial would go more smoothly if the defendant had a lawyer.

When Johnson asked if Tornow were committed to the case, the lawyer said he was in for the long haul. Ferebees previous lawyer, Kenneth Jasper, withdrew from the case in May, citing health problems.

September 25th, one oclock, were gonna resolve the case, said Johnson, who had taken over the case from Magistrate Judge Eric Strawn, who recently had been appointed circuit judge in the Fourth Judicial Circuit.

Come heck or high water, well try this on Sept. 25, Tornow responded.

Ferebees charge is punishable by up to 30 days in jail and a $500 fine. But Strawn already ruled in May 2016 that if found guilty, Ferebee will not face jail time and that his fine will be capped at $200.

Haivala said also that Ferebee has brought up issues the previous judge already resolved. The six issues, according to a notice Haivala filed in court, includes the case having been determined to be a criminal matter rather than a civil one and that the enactment of the septic system zoning ordinance was constitutional.

After the hearing, Ferebee declined to answer questions from the Journal.

Meanwhile, Ferebee has agreed to sign a waiver for a speedy trial, the right of every defendant to have a trial within 180 days of his or her first appearance before a judge.
Rapid City officials are trying to determine whether contaminants from a grease spill in a downtown alley over the weekend entered Rapid Creek.

The spill occurred over the weekend in the alley connecting Sixth and Seventh streets between Main and Omaha streets. A city employee who was coming to work Monday morning reported the spill, city spokesman Darrell Shoemaker said.

The grease flowed through the alley, onto Sixth Street and into the storm sewers. Tests of the water were conducted in a constructed wetland area between the Fifth and Sixth street bridges, as well as in water in Rapid Creek, to determine if there was any contamination.

A downtown alley was closed for four hours as the city used a Vactor Truck to recover grease runoff. Street crews worked with vacuums at the entrance of the alley and out into Sixth Street, while staff from the Firehouse Brewing Company pressure washed the alley.

The city initially said that the spill was likely caused by a grease dumpster that overflowed after heavy rains over the weekend, Shoemaker said. The dumpster is owned by the Firehouse.

However, the brewery's owner, Bob Fuchs, said the spill was caused by a barrel that was knocked over. Someone walking through the alley behind the restaurant in the 600 block of Main Street intentionally knocked over a barrel containing less than 20 gallons of discarded cooking grease, Fuchs said.

Vagrants wander through those alleys, and somebody thought theyd be funny, Fuchs said. Unfortunately it made it a little further into the storm sewer. But we got it all cleaned up just fine.

Contamination from the spill "appears to be minimal," Dave Van Cleave, the city's water reclamation superintendent, said in a news release. "Much of what flowed into the storm sewer either was caught up in pools in the constructed wetland near Rapid Creek or stayed in the storm water sewer system," he said.

"The constructed wetland area is there to clear away and block anything in the storm water runoff before its gets to Rapid Creek. The wetland did its job."

The creek is still safe for fishing or swimming, Shoemaker said, adding that a visual inspection showed no discoloration of the water or "stuff floating."

The city reported the spill to the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources. Rick Lancaster, an environmental scientist with the agency, said it will review the final report on the spill and visit with the owner of Firehouse.

Whether the business will face any punishment because of the spill will be determined at a later date, said Kelli Buscher, administrator of the state's Surface Water Quality Program. "We really have a range of tools that we can choose from," she said, such as a warning letter or  in more serious cases  court action.

Water samples were sent Monday to Mid Continent Testing Lab of Rapid City, and results are expected later in the week. City crews will continue to sample water in Rapid Creek and the constructed wetland area, the release said.

"We will vacuum what we can from the storm sewer and wetlands and if necessary excavate in the wetlands to remove contaminated soil and debris, Van Cleave said in the release.
State governments Board of Regents wants central office staff and officials from South Dakotas two largest universities to bring a plan for closing the jointly operated Capital University Center in Pierre.

Without taking a vote, the regents last week directed the plan should be ready for their next board meeting Oct. 3 to 5 at Dakota State University in Madison.

The matter came to a head Thursday, during a long discussion about the university centers at Pierre, Sioux Falls and Rapid City, on the final afternoon of a three-day planning meeting in Pierre.

We have to do some type of wind-down. What will that be? regent John Bastian of Belle Fourche said about CUC. If we decide to do that, we can make intelligent decisions.
"God save thee, ancient mariner! From the fiends, that plague thee thus! So said the wedding guest to the Ancient Mariner, the man who wore the albatross around his neck, doomed to forever roam the world telling his sad tale born of what we now call post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

Colebridges tale of the Ancient Mariner, a man caught between death and life-in-death, is an old story. Think "Pirates of the Caribbean" and the "Ghost Ship" from Davey Jones Locker  pirates who couldnt die until their penance was complete.

Or the Army of the Dead in the "Lord of the Rings" who could not die until they had satisfied their promise to the King of Gondor. Good people commit suicide for many reasons, most of which we know nothing.

There are clues. Mercedes McGuire killed herself August 4. No longer able to bear the pain of trigeminal neuralgia after her opioid pain killers were cut off, she left her four-year-old son to people who could care for him. A veteran recently walked up to a VA clinic in Virginia, put a bullet through the front door, and then shot himself in the head, no longer able to bear the unrelenting chronic pain that afflicted his life after an accident. The VA cut off his pain medication  opioids  because they were worried about potential addiction.

Never mind that the opioids Mercedes and the veteran took every day made their lives bearable and livable, that they were not addicted but were dependent, and that there is not one pain-relief strategy that compares to patient relief from legal prescription opioids  less than 5 percent of those taking opioids are at risk of addiction.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and President Trump think they have a law enforcement problem. So do many South Dakota legislators. If we restrict the amount of pain medication a doctor prescribes to a patient, we can stop the drug problem. Thats never been true. What is true is that any war produces casualties and unintended consequences.

Its not just the War on Pain Patients by law enforcement and addiction-care providers that is causing the wave of suicides among veterans, now averaging 30 per month, or pain patients, or the high incidence of unfathomable, non-drug related suicides in children and adults in two South Dakota counties that should cause us alarm: Its our whole approach to complex problems we dont understand that should give us pause.

Going full steam at all hours was what kept me alive in Rwanda (during the Genocide), wrote Canadian General Romeo Dallaire. And it felt like it was keeping me alive now. Eerie echoes of Chris Kyle, the "American Sniper," and so many others.

Fighting PTSD is a race to forget or replace the trauma we experienced  sometimes at war, sometimes at home, sometimes at school  with action that keeps us moving forward. General Dallaire tried suicide many times to escape the Rwandan slaughter he was powerless to prevent. Mercedes killed herself as the bearable alternative. The child at Pine Ridge, victimized and abused to the point of being stunned, takes the short road home.

Its never going to be OK for people in chronic intractable pain, emotional or physical. Some may be saved by finding other purposes in life. Some may be saved by pretending hard enough that the pain isnt there. But none will be saved by our current attitudes that all will be well. Just grin and bear it.

Where there is no hope, there is no life. Stopping those in pain from getting treatment that works was never the answer.
Vneshprombank ex-presidents sentence for $2 bln embezzlement reduced by 6 months

MOSCOW, August 15 (RAPSI, Yevgeniya Sokolova)  The Moscow City Court has reduced the sentence given to Vneshprombank ex-president Larisa Markus for embezzling 113.5 billion rubles (about $2 billion) from 9 to 8.5 years in prison, RAPSI reports from the courtroom on Tuesday.

A 4-year sentence of another defendant, former vice-president of the bank Yekaterina Glushakova, was upheld.

Markus and Glushakova were convicted and sentenced in May. They pleaded guilty. Later, the women were declared bankrupt.

Investigators believe that Markus along with her brother Georgy Bedzhamov, who once co-owned the bank, created an organized crime group to siphon money from the bank. The group including Glushakova allegedly granted loans to sub-companies and did not refund money to Vneshprombank. Allegedly, from May 2009 to December 2015, conspirators managed to embezzle about 114 billion rubles.

Bedzhamov was arrested in absentia and put on the international wanted list.

In March 2016, the Moscow Commercial Court declared Vneshprombank bankrupt. Vneshprombank was one of the top 40 by assets before it lost its license in January of the same year.
Russian antimonopoly watchdog closes case against Microsoft

MOSCOW, August 15 (RAPSI)  The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has closed a case against Microsoft after the IT giant complied with the watchdogs warning, FAS deputy head Anatoly Golomolzin told journalists during the briefing on Tuesday.

Microsoft is not going to be subjected to any fines.

On August 11, Kaspersky Lab cybersecurity company said that it had withdrawn all complaints against Microsoft seeking antimonopoly probe against the U.S. IT giant.

According to the statement, Microsoft has eliminated the violations specified in the warning issued by Russias Federal Antimonopoly Agency (FAS). Kaspersky Lab expressed gratitude to Microsoft for upkeeping conditions for cooperation between developers and for healthy competition on the market.

As part of the settlement between two companies, Microsoft will allow alerts and notifications from other developers to be more visible after release of new Windows versions.

In June, the cybersecurity company filed claims with the European Commission and Germanys Federal Cartel Office seeking probe similar to one in Russia. Kaspersky Lab complained that after Windows 10 operating system was released Microsoft began to discourage customers from using products developed by its competitors in the cybersecurity field and inclined users to use the built-in Windows Defender program.

In November 2016, FAS launched investigation. Due to the fact that Microsoft itself is a developer of antivirus software Windows Defender, which automatically launches if third-party software had no time to adapt to Windows 10, this decision results in unjustified advantages for Microsoft on the software market, Golomolzin commented on the probe.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Medical Mutual of Ohio got the green light this week to buy its longtime headquarters building, in a $37.9 million transaction that will keep a major employer in downtown Cleveland and avert a foreclosure.

Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Cassandra Collier-Williams signed off on the sale plan Monday, after the parties in the foreclosure case signaled their assent. The sale of the Rose Building and its annex, a 381,000-square-foot property at East Ninth Street and Prospect Avenue, is scheduled to occur by Oct. 2 but appears likely to happen sooner.

In an email, a Medical Mutual spokesman said the insurer is pleased with the outcome of Monday's settlement conference. But the company, which employs more than 1,000 people downtown and roughly 700 in the suburbs, wouldn't say more about its plans for its workforce.

The Rose Building isn't large enough to house 1,700 employees. And the property does not include parking. In an interview early this month, Medical Mutual Chief Financial Officer Ray Mueller acknowledged that the company would need at least one other facility.

Medical Mutual has been evaluating its real estate options since last year.

The lease at the 10-story Rose Building and six-story annex is set to expire in three years, on Sept. 30, 2020, and the insurer's suburban leases also are approaching their end dates.

Court records show that Medical Mutual has a backup headquarters location in mind - an unidentified property in Northeast Ohio. But the company only has until Sept. 30 to commit to a lease at that alternative site. Come October, the competing offer will be off the table.

"Accordingly, if Medical Mutual is unable to close on the purchase of the Rose Building by September 30, 2017, Medical Mutual will have no alternative but to ... execute a lease with the [other landlord], which it will do," James Cellura, the company's vice president of corporate treasury and investments, wrote in an affidavit filed in court.

At the Rose Building, litigation opened a door for Medical Mutual to become an owner - a role the company actually played before, from the mid-1980s until 2000.

Seventeen years ago, Medical Mutual sold the downtown property and other buildings to free up cash. BentleyForbes, a landlord based in California, stepped in and leased the spaces back to the insurer.

Last year, though, BentleyForbes couldn't pay off or refinance its mortgage on the Rose Building, where Medical Mutual is the only tenant. A representative for the mortgage-holders on the property filed the foreclosure lawsuit, leading the judge to appoint an outside expert - a receiver - to managing the building and determine the best path for the property.

Medical Mutual, working with Allegro Real Estate Brokers & Advisors of Cleveland, recently hashed out a purchase agreement with the receiver. On Monday, BentleyForbes and another lender on the property dropped their objections to the sale.

The real estate deal doesn't resolve every claim in the litigation, which is now headed for a pretrial conference in late October. But the judge's decision to let receiver Donald Green sell the property provides clarity about the future of a historic building and the jobs it supports.

In an affidavit filed in court, Green wrote that the $37.9 million price is much higher - by upwards of $10 million - than what Medical Mutual originally offered.

And the price, which accounts for Medical Mutual's remaining lease payments and the value of the real estate, is more than twice what Cuyahoga County says the property is worth. That's noteworthy, since the property-tax bill eventually will increase as a result of the sale.

Built in the early 1900s, the Rose Building is named after Benjamin Rose, a Cleveland meat packer and a pioneer in refrigerated shipping. Medical Mutual, the oldest and largest health insurance company based in Ohio, has called the building home for 70 years.
Japanas Emperor Akihito (right) and Empress Michiko bow at an altar for the war dead during a memorial ceremony marking the 72nd anniversary of Japanas surrender in World War Two, at Budokan Hall in Tokyo, Japan, on August 15, 2017. Photo: Reuters

TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a ritual offering to a controversial shrine to war dead on Tuesday, the anniversary of Japans World War Two surrender, but did not visit in person in an apparent effort to avoid increasing regional tensions.

Masahiko Shibayama, a lawmaker who made the offering on Abes behalf, said he did so to express condolences for those who died in the war and to pray for peace. He added that Abe said he was sorry he could not visit the Yasukuni shrine.

Past visits by Japanese leaders to Yasukuni have outraged Beijing and Seoul because it honours 14 Japanese leaders convicted by an Allied tribunal as war criminals, along with other war dead. Abe himself has only visited once since becoming prime minister again in 2012.

Maintaining harmony with China and Seoul is now more important than ever amid heightened tensions in Asia in the wake of North Korean missile tests, threats from Pyongyang to strike the area around the US Pacific territory of Guam and US President Donald Trump warning of retaliation.

After the war, our country has consistently taken steps as a country that abhors war and treasures peace, and has made efforts to promote the peace and prosperity of the world, Abe said at a national ceremony to honour war dead on Tuesday.

We intend to keep this immovable policy firmly, throughout the ages, while facing history with humility.

Abe visited the Yasukuni shrine in 2013, an action that prompted criticism from key ally the United States as well as from Asian nations, but has sent offerings on August 15 and during Yasukunis twice yearly festivals.

Dozens of Japanese lawmakers visited the shrine along with scores of ordinary Japanese, a move prompting a protest from media in China, which with South Korea views the shrine as a symbol of Japans past militarism.

The official Peoples Liberation Army Daily wrote in a commentary on Tuesday that the anniversary should be a time for Japan to reflect on its history, not to go further down the forked road of harming Sino-Japanese ties and regional peace and stability.

Tensions in the region weighed on the minds of many who visited the shrine.

I am furious about the threat from North Korea, said Katsuhiko Ikeda, 78.

North Koreas missile threat towards Guam means anything would pass by Japan, and if anything happened, it could affect us.
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Aug-14-2017 23:32 TweetFollow @OregonNews Brother and Sister Hikers Rescued off of Three-Fingered Jack area Conditions became foggy and visibility was near zero.

Three Fingered Jack seen from the southwest.

Image: EncMstr, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4516787

(LINN COUNTY, Ore.) - Linn County Sheriff Bruce Riley reported his deputies were attempting a rescue of two hikers from the Three Fingered Jack area just before noon today. On Sunday August 13, 2017, at 4:57 p.m., Linn County Sheriff's Office dispatch received a 9-1-1 call from two climbers saying they lost their way in the fog and was stuck on a rock face, unable to get out on their own. The two climbers were identified as 21 year-old Mikayla Jean Duvenik of Sisters, and her brother, 25 year-old Charles "Justin" Duvenik of Ashland. Mikayla and Justin, both experienced climbers, were summiting Three Fingered Jack, when conditions became foggy. They got disoriented and became stuck on a rock face, unable to descend on their own any further. Visibility was near zero. The two were able to get cell service at their location which allowed them to call for help. As Linn County Search and Rescue members responded, deputies were able to contact the two hikers several times by phone through the night. The hikers were cold and concerned about hypothermia. With the assistance of the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center, the deputies were able to pinpoint their location through their cell phone. At 11:26 p.m., Search and Rescue teams located the climbers flashing light. At 1:25 a.m. this morning, Corvallis Mountain Rescue was able to make contact with the hikers and worked on getting blankets, food and water into them. Linn County Sheriff's Office Search and Rescue coordinated with the Oregon Army National Guard to air lift Mikayla off the mountain, as she may have sustained an injury to her shoulder. She was evaluated by medics and was not transported to the hospital. Search and rescue teams are currently guiding Justin, who is uninjured, out on foot and should be out of the area in a few hours. Linn County Sheriff's Office would like to thank Corvallis Mountain Rescue, Eugene Mountain Rescue, the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center and the Oregon Army National Guard, Sister Fire Department and Deschutes County Mounted Posse for their assistance in rescuing Mikayla Duvenik and her brother, Justin Duvenik. Source: Linn County Sheriff's Office _________________________________________

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Articles for August 14, 2017 | Articles for August 15, 2017
Kevin Merrill of Mesa Vineyard Management is a board member of the Santa Barbara County Farm Bureau, and a director on the Santa Barbara County Fair Board. He can be reached at kmerrill@mesavineayrd.com
Artist Sheila Krausse's paintings, which combine influences of impressionism and realism, will be on display at the Los Olivos Wine Merchant & Cafe in September.
Digital Humanities: Using tools from the 1990s to answer questions from the 1960s about 19th century America.
tech institute

Graduates of the institute will be steeped in the culture of entrepreneurship, technology and international cooperation, and their focus will be working in teams to tackle some of the big problems faced by industry and society as a whole.



Cauce said the degree is designed to break boundaries between academic disciplines, and also involve business and industry partners. The plan to build GIX was announced in June 2015 by Gov. Jay Inslee and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, accompanied by Cauce and Tsinghua President Qiu Yong.



Microsoft donated $40 million toward construction, and no state money is involved. This really is a partnership that includes industry, Cauce said.





Forty-four students, half from China, will make up the inaugural class. Students are also coming from other countries around the globe, including Russia, India and Estonia. Faculty members will do teaching exchanges between the two universities, as well.

Summer Leadership Institute for principals

Garfield.

rising tide of hate/violence towards many Americans by white supremacy groups

"Other C.E.O.s, like Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, have contended that they consider it part of their patriotic duty to remain on the presidents business council, even when they disagree with things Mr. Trump says or does.



It is very hard if you say, Im going to go off an advisory group or not do A-B-C, because you disagree on one issue, Mr. Dimon said in early June after Mr. Trump withdrew from the Paris climate agreement, a move that Mr. Dimon was against. Elon Musk of Tesla and Robert Iger of Disney resigned from the council in protest."

A new- a joint project between the University of Washington and China's Tsinghua University - will open this fall in Bellevue. Story from the Times I note that the district had itswhich the Seattle Council PTSA helped support. In one Friday Memo, Superintendent Nyland goes on to say that the SCPTSA then had their own leadership event atThere's some irony - having a PTSA leadership event at a school where its own leader - Principal Ted Howard - won't even come to a PTSA meeting.I have adult children so discussions about theare much easier. What have talks around the dinner table at your house been like? What would you like for teachers to say (or not say) if this continues into the school year? (I say "if" as a hopeful thing when I know good and well that because of the leadership of this country, it will.)There are many, many people of good faith speaking up and rising up. But when you have business leaders like the head of JP Morgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, saying this (from the NY Times this morning):I'm not sure what issue would move Mr. Dimon if protecting the planet or standing up against violence/hatred of other Americans is not a "patriotic duty."All of this is history playing out before our children's eyes. How they make sense of it is up to us.What's on your mind?
"The direct effects will be survivable beyond a few miles except for the fallout plume, which could extend farther depending on wind, rain and the detonation yield," Dr. Michael May, an expert on nuclear arms at Stanford University says in an email interview.

There are three different damage zones that form during a nuclear blast, says Brooke Buddemeier, a health physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, in an email. Using a 10-kiloton nuclear blast, which is about the size of the bombs the United States dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II, as an example, the deadliest of these zones, the severe damage zone, will extend outward in a 0.5-mile (0.8-kilometer) radius from ground zero. In this zone, most buildings will be destroyed, and chances for survival are minimal.

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The moderate damage zone extends from radius of 0.5 mile (0.8 kilometer) to 1 mile (1.6 kilometers). In this zone, buildings will experience major damage. For humans, early medical attention can significantly reduce the number of casualties.

The light damage zone extends in a 1- to 3-mile (1.6- to 4.8-kilometer) radius. A person's chances for surviving a blast in this zone are very high, especially if they are in a shelter (more on those in a minute). "Most injuries in the light damage zone are relatively minor, and most people in this area would be uninjured," Buddemeier says.

In 2007, the Preventative Defense Project at both Harvard and Stanford universities, held a workshop on what would happen during and after a nuclear blast. May, along with Ashton Carter and Dr. William J. Perry, both of whom served as U.S. secretaries of defense, summarized the workshop's findings in a report titled "The Day After: Action in the 24 Hours Following a Nuclear Blast in an American City." The portrait they paint is bleak. The group looked at what would happen if a 10-kiloton uranium bomb detonated in a major U.S. city without advance warning.

A ground burst would obliterate a city's downtown, while just outside that area, people wounded by fire, flying debris and intense radiation would more than likely die. A "plume of radioactive debris" would spread over a wide area, depending on wind and weather conditions.

"Those people who were relatively close to the detonation point, or who did not shelter themselves from the radiation (which would be most intense on the Day After and then subside with time) would receive large but varying doses of radiation," May and his co-authors write. "If the dose was intense (more than 400 rems), they would get sick and die; if strong but moderate (50 to 400 rems), they would get sick but probably recover; if moderate (below 50 rems), they would not notice the effect immediately but would have a greater chance of contracting cancer over their lifetime than if they had received no dose."

Most people within the blast area wouldn't survive, the report states. The majority of buildings would be destroyed or severely damaged. Things don't get much better away from the blast. About 5 miles (8 kilometers) out, people could be bombarded with fatal doses of radiation on the first day (depending on the prevailing winds) if they were not in a shelter.

"Within the first mile or so, little can be done," May says. "Beyond that, protective structures will help. How much depends on the structure. The chances of survival increase with distance. Chances depend on the yield and altitude of the detonation and other details such as whether the location is shielded by hills, etc."
A slight, delicate flower, Phoenix has planted himself in the middle of nowhere.

Also known as the Mojave Desert in California, this particular "nowhere" is quiet, spacious, and sparsely populated. And that's just how Phoenix, portrayed with somber gravity by Tom Sizemore, likes it. He has a daily routine to pass the time, which he follows religiously, shying away from anyone he encounters.

Phoenix's routine includes prescribed medication, and a fastidious fascination with his mail. Adding those elements to his anxious avoidance of outside contact, as well as his apparent lack of employment, it's easy enough to deduce that he's up to something criminal, though he obviously has qualms about it.

When a new mail carrier named Ariel (Christina Bennett Lind) arrives, there is a disturbance in the force. When new neighbors arrive, the crack in Phoenix's routine widens.

Ariel soon becomes an erotic fantasy figure for Phoenix. The neighbors become a different sort of distraction. Luigi (Luigi Jacuzio), from Italy, and Charlotte (Charlotte De Bruyne), from Belgium, are world travelers who have settled in the High Desert area to raise their son, though it quickly becomes evident that Luigi resents his son. Their marital squabbling eventually increases.

The new people who have ridden roughshod into his life are accepted by Phoenix, but the roots of his deep depression lie elsewhere. His past defines who he has become and explains why he lives away from everybody.

Written and directed by Valerio Esposito, Calico Skies has a good sense of place. The High Desert is a region that people tend to love or hate; growing up in a Southern California suburb, I've always been attracted to the look and the sound, though the film rarely plays on those factors.

Instead, it's a stand-in for emotional isolation, representing the distance that Phoenix has imposed between himself and the rest of humanity. It's effective, as far as that goes, but there's not much of a story beyond that.

Phoenix ultimately becomes frustrating as the central character because none of the few other characters rise up to balance his inaction with any meaningful responses until very late in the narrative. By that time, the film has been swallowed up by a feeling of inertia; randomly adding guns and dead bodies to the mix doesn't help.

What is worthwhile is to watch Tom Sizemore in a lead role. He remains extremely capable at suggesting thoughts and emotions with a glance of the eyes or a casual gesture. Without much conflict, though, Calico Skies is limited to a study of quiet desperation in the California desert.

The film is now available to watch on a variety of Video On Demand platforms via Freestyle Digital Media.


If you manage to deliver a directorial debut as scintillating as The Witch people are bound to keep a close eye on your next move. When at the tail end of 2016 Robert Eggers confirmed rumors that he would follow up his high caliber indie hit with a new version of F.W. Murnaus Nosferatu high expectations met a certain degree of skepticism. After all, Nosferatu, in essence an unauthorized "Dracula" adaptation but also a pinnacle of German expressionism from the silent movie era, is still revered as a horror classic.

Is a remake at all necessary? Probably not. But if it is to happen, who better to tackle it than the man who brought The Witch: A New-England Folktale to the screen? Not only did Eggers debut breathe uncanny life into a remote past thanks to careful attention to period detail, his richly atmospheric film cleverly contested the misogyny inherent in witchcraft myths, resulting in an empowering fable for modern times. If his Nosferatu can strike the same delicate balance between authenticity and freshness, the remake may well be worth everyones time.

The news that Eggers is in negotiations with Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witchs Thomasin), which Variety reported yesterday, is exciting to say the least. Conventional casting would see Taylor-Joy assume the role of either Annie (the Lucy Westenra of this unofficial "Dracula") or Ellen (Mina Murray), but what if Eggers cast her in the lead role? How would that influence the themes of the story? Eggers did tell IndieWire he cant [] do Max Schreck again 
If you are currently a print subscriber but don't have an online account, select this option. You will need to use your 7 digit subscriber account number (with leading zeros) and your last name (in UPPERCASE).
 Imaginging how the internet "could put an end to prisons as we know them" | Main | Two notable new commentaries on how we define violent offenders and what to do with them 

August 14, 2017

More notable talk by Prez Trump about possible use of his pardon authority

As noted in this post from a few weeks ago, Prez Trump earlier this summer got more than a few media members and academic talking about the historic presidential clemency authority when he reportedly starting asking about his whether he could pardon folks potential caught up in the on-going Russia investigation. Today brings more summer pardon talk from Prez Trump, but with a notably different (though also controversial) target. This Fox News piece, headlined "Trump 'seriously considering' a pardon for ex-Sheriff Joe Arpaio," provides the details:

President Trump may soon issue a pardon for Joe Arpaio, the colorful former Arizona sheriff who was found guilty two weeks ago of criminal contempt for defying a state judges order to stop traffic patrols targeting suspected undocumented immigrants. In his final years as Maricopa County sheriff, Arpaio had emerged as a leading opponent of illegal immigration. I am seriously considering a pardon for Sheriff Arpaio, the president said Sunday, during a conversation with Fox News at his club in Bedminster, N.J. He has done a lot in the fight against illegal immigration. Hes a great American patriot and I hate to see what has happened to him. Trump said the pardon could happen in the next few days, should he decide to do so. Arpaio, 85, was convicted by U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton of misdemeanor contempt of court for willfully disregarding an Arizona judges order in 2011 to stop the anti-immigrant traffic patrols. Arpaio had maintained the law enforcement patrols for 17 months thereafter. The man who built a controversial national reputation as Americas toughest sheriff admitted he prolonged his patrols, but insisted he did not intend to break the law because one of his former attorneys did not explain to him the full measure of restrictions contained in the court order. He is expected to be sentenced on Oct. 5 and could face up to six months in jail. However, since he is 85 years old and has no prior convictions, some attorneys doubt he will receive any jail time. Citing his long service as an outstanding sheriff, the president said Arpaio is admired by many Arizona citizens who respected his tough-on-crime approach. Arpaios widely publicized tactics included forcing inmates to wear pink underwear and housing them in desert tent camps where temperatures often climbed well past 100 degrees Fahrenheit. He also controversially brought back chain gains, including a voluntary chain gang for women prisoners. Civil liberties and prisoner advocates as well as supporters of immigrants rights have criticized Arpaio for years, culminating in his prosecution. He lost his bid for reelection last year. Is there anyone in local law enforcement who has done more to crack down on illegal immigration than Sheriff Joe? asked Trump. He has protected people from crimes and saved lives. He doesnt deserve to be treated this way. Stopping the flow of undocumented immigrants across the southern U.S. border was a central theme of the presidents campaign. Arpaio endorsed Trump in January 2016. Trump indicated he may move quickly should he decide to issue a presidential pardon. I might do it right away, maybe early this week. I am seriously thinking about it. Trump could decide to await the outcome of an appeal by Arpaios lawyers who contend their clients case should have been decided by a jury, not a judge. In a statement after the verdict, his attorneys stated, The judges verdict is contrary to what every single witness testified in the case. Arpaio believes that a jury would have found in his favor, and that it will. Reached Monday for reaction to the possible pardon, Arpaio expressed surprise that Trump was aware of his legal predicament. I am happy he understands the case, he told Fox News. I would accept the pardon because I am 100 percent not guilty. The former sheriff said he will continue to be a strong supporter of the president regardless of whether he receives a pardon. But he also voiced concern that a pardon might cause problems for Trump, saying, I would never ask him for a pardon, especially if it causes heat. I dont want to do anything that would hurt the president. Trump has not granted any pardons so far in his presidency.

While I was putting this post together, I received an email with a link to this ACLU comment on a possible Arpaio pardon. The comment closes with these notably sharp statements:

ACLU Deputy Legal Director Cecillia Wang had this reaction to media reports that Trump may pardon Arpaio: President Trump would be literally pardoning Joe Arpaios flagrant violation of federal court orders that prohibited the illegal detention of Latinos. He would undo a conviction secured by his own career attorneys at the Justice Department. Make no mistake: This would be an official presidential endorsement of racism.

August 14, 2017 at 04:26 PM | Permalink

Comments

The ALCU's comments while correct are short-sighted. Many social liberals have complained for decades about the stinginess of pardons under both Clinton and Obama. If Trump were to do something like this it would free the president in some future liberal administration to do something similar and shield him or herself from blowback by pointing the finger at Trump. I personally see a more aggressive presidential pardon power as a good thing and if it takes pardoning that asshole to get us there then it is worth the price.

Posted by: Daniel | Aug 14, 2017 5:20:22 PM

It depends upon what this pardon is precedent for. There is plenty of precedent for presidents pardoning (or commuting the sentences of) public officials for putting that president's policy preferences above the legal and constitutional restraints on (mostly federal) executive branch officials. I think the "social liberals" critique is that the pardon hasn't been available to the average criminal who has reformed and "deserves" some type of break from the continuing collateral consequences of a conviction but seems to be readily available to the well-connected who have not reformed. That critique does not just apply to the stinginess of Clinton and Obama, but also the folks pardoned by Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, and G.W. Bush.

Posted by: tmm | Aug 14, 2017 6:25:23 PM

@tmm

A fair rejoinder. What I was driving at was the fact that when it comes to pardons recent precedent seems to be that presidents shy away from anything even remotely considered daring. Look at Obama's pardon legacy: it is cautious to the point of being dull. So my hope is that in pardoning someone as controversial as Sheriff Joe it would set a precedent for making more controversial...more daring...pardons in the future. It is this daring aspect, rather than elite vs non-elite, that makes the prospect of pardoning Sheriff Joe. Let's get some excitement back into the pardon process!

Posted by: Daniel | Aug 14, 2017 7:19:29 PM

Bush Sr. pardoned certain people involved in Iran Contra.

That is the sort of thing that is involved here, if a different sort of special pleading. It isn't some general principle. It's Trump favoring a specific person with racist implications. This is not the sort of use of the pardon power that I really want to strengthen the precedent for.

Posted by: Joe | Aug 14, 2017 8:49:49 PM

I question whether contempt of court is actually an offense against the United States that can be cured with a pardon.

Posted by: Soronel Haetir | Aug 15, 2017 1:01:33 AM

SH, I had the same thought---might be some separation of powers issues also. But I think it would qualify.

Posted by: federalist | Aug 15, 2017 7:49:55 AM

As to the pardon power here, see Ex Parte Grossman.

"A criminal contempt, committed by disobedience of an injunction issued by the District Court to abate a nuisance in pursuance of the Prohibition Law, is an "offence against the United States," within the meaning of Article II, 2, Cl. 1 of the Constitution, and pardonable by the President thereunder."

Posted by: Joe | Aug 15, 2017 9:57:14 AM

Joe,

Thanks. That is pretty much a definitive answer to that question.

Posted by: Soronel Haetir | Aug 15, 2017 2:56:47 PM

Post a comment
 Two notable new commentaries on how we define violent offenders and what to do with them | Main | ABA delegates pass resolution against mandatory minimums and defer vote on resolution against new Sessions charging memo 

August 15, 2017

Spotlighting a prominent constitutional challenge to Arizona's and the nation's death penalty

Chris Geidner has this new Buzzfeed News report about a new cert petition under the headline "A Top Lawyer Asks Supreme Court To Hear A Major Death Penalty Case." Here are some of the details:

An Arizona death row inmate, Abel Daniel Hidalgo, has been arguing for the past three years that the states death penalty law is unconstitutional because it doesnt do enough to narrow who is eligible for the death penalty, among those convicted of murder. Earlier this year, Neal Katyal, best known these days for serving as the lead lawyer for Hawaiis challenge to President Trumps travel ban, agreed to serve as Hidalgos lawyer at the Supreme Court. Katyal, the former acting solicitor general in the Obama administration, asked the justices in Mondays filing to hear Hidalgos case and to strike down Arizonas death penalty law. The filing comes more than two years after Justice Stephen Breyer, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, called for a wholesale review of the constitutionality of the death penalty. Justice Sonia Sotomayor has also expressed great concerns about the courts handling of death penalty cases, as well as some states death penalty laws. And Justice Anthony Kennedy has expressed concerns about the death penaltys imposition, and has cast key votes excluding groups of people  like children or the intellectually disabled  from being eligible for the death penalty. He has not, however, given any specific indication that he is ready to join Breyers call to review the constitutionality of the death penalty overall  and has allowed several executions to proceed since Breyer's call. Katyal, however, joined by other lawyers at his firm, Hogan Lovells, as well as the Office of the Legal Advocate in Arizona and Arizona attorney Garrett Simpson, thinks the time is now  a move that could be tied to concerns by many liberal lawyers about whether and when Kennedy, at 81, might retire from the court. I have spent the last few years with my team looking for cases that highlight the gross problems with the death penalty in practice, and this case is a perfect example of them, Katyal told BuzzFeed News on Monday evening. We look forward to the Supreme Court's review of Mr. Hidalgo's petition.... The brief points out that the court in Gregg found the new state death penalty laws to be constitutional because they required the finding of aggravating circumstances  a move that the courts controlling opinion concluded would direct and limit who was eligible for execution so as to minimize the risk of wholly arbitrary and capricious action. Forty years later, Arizonas death penalty law is such that there are so many aggravating circumstances that every first degree murder case filed in Maricopa County in 2010 and 2011 had at least one aggravating factor making the person eligible for the death penalty. Hidalgo pleaded guilty in 2015 to two January 2001 murders in a murder-for-hire scheme in Maricopa County, Arizona. He was then sentenced to death by a jury. Arizonas scheme utterly fails, Katyal wrote, to genuinely narrow the class of persons eligible for the death penalty as the court has required over the time since Gregg. For this reason alone, Hidalgos legal team argues, the court should take the case and strike down Arizonas death penalty law. But, beyond that, the filing goes on, A national consensus has emerged that the death penalty is an unacceptable punishment in any circumstance. The brief argues that the court should take the case and rule that the death penalty, nationwide, is unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendments guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment. This is so, the brief argues, because the number of death sentences imposed and carried out has plummeted. The brief also points to three further key arguments in support of this larger aim: First, states cant give guidance that ensures that only the worst offenders are sentenced to death. Second, states cant enforce the death penalty without ensnaring and putting to death the innocent. And, finally, the present reality of capital punishment  decades spent on death row with the remote but very real possibility of execution  is its own possible constitutional violation.

The cert petition, available at this link, sets out these "Questions Presented":

I. Whether Arizonas capital sentencing scheme, which includes so many aggravating circumstances that virtually every defendant convicted of first-degree murder is eligible for death, violates the Eighth Amendment. II. Whether the death penalty in and of itself violates the Eighth Amendment, in light of contemporary standards of decency.

August 15, 2017 at 11:12 AM | Permalink

Comments

Looking at the author's Twitter feed, saw this that might be of interest:

A new lawsuit in DC federal court is challenging gun ownership prohibitions for white-collar crime offenders

https://t.co/liEyKA37io

Posted by: Joe | Aug 15, 2017 12:47:22 PM

Q1 starkly presents the question of whether there is a statutory narrowing requirement at all. AZ makes felony murder death eligible and in Ring v. AZ the state argued that the sole source of statutory narrowing comes from the aggravating circumstances. The record before the Court is that 99% of all first degree murders have an aggravating circumstance present.

Posted by: John | Aug 15, 2017 1:52:27 PM

In a perfect world, SCOTUS would grant cert. and take this as an opportunity to repudiate all this sentencing "jurisprudence"--

Posted by: federalist | Aug 15, 2017 2:02:40 PM

Thanks for the gun suit link, Joe. I have thought the kinds of claims raised in the complaint have been ripe for litigation ever since Heller. That we are nearly a decade since Heller and the issue has not yet been seriously address is an interesting example of how slowly some constitutional doctrines develop.

Posted by: Doug B. | Aug 15, 2017 3:31:24 PM

The recent D.C. ruling involving public carry might force their hand unless it is avoided by an en banc ruling or something else. Seems to be a clear conflict between the circuits.

Posted by: Joe | Aug 15, 2017 8:37:53 PM

Nothing new just a high profile liberal that websites like these and op-ed are made for. Has zero chance of succeeding. Next #KILLtheKILLERS

Posted by: deano | Aug 16, 2017 7:38:33 AM

Moving to the original comment ...

I don't think Anthony Kennedy is ready (shortly after Glossip, the man himself still alive because the state itself granted a moratorium to examine the problems with their procedure) to declare the death penalty unconstitutional.

If the Supreme Court takes this case, pretty good chance it will only take the first question. The liberals will strategically not want to grant cert just to re-affirm the death penalty's constitutionality on the other point.

Posted by: Joe | Aug 16, 2017 10:21:33 AM

If the Congress decides to impeach Justices for their wrongful decisions, start with Justice Kennedy. This dangerous extremist must be stopped by the Senate.

Posted by: David Behar | Aug 17, 2017 12:31:48 AM

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This weekends awful and disheartening events at the white nationalist/alt-right rally in Charlottesville were met with the requisite Bay Area condemnation, with a protest shutting down I-580 Saturday night, more gatherings and vigils Sunday, and an exposed torch-wielding marcher from Berkeley promptly fired from his job. But we may need to brace for baskets of deplorables right on our doorstep, as the Examiner reports that similar alt-right and neo-Nazi rallies are being planned later this month in San Francisco (Saturday, August 26) and Berkeley (Sunday, August 27). These are not the same deplorables who organized the Charlotteville rally, this is a group called Patriot Prayer who rallied in Seattle yesterday and Portland last week. But as was the case in Charlottesville, Facebook chatter indicates these alt-right wannabe-stormtroopers and toy soldiers will be primarily out-of-state agitators coming here again to poke the antifa hive.

SFist has chosen to link to the Facebook invite for the August 26 Free Speech, Unity, and Peace San Francisco rally, because the comments are an inspiring chorus of Bay Area locals making it well clear that Patriot Prayers intolerance will not be tolerated in San Francisco. (Regrettably, the commentary on the proposed Sunday, August 27 No To Marxism in America Facebook invite does skew almost completely in favor of the white supremacists. You can search it and look at it if you want, but I would not recommend it as reading).

Crissy Field? On a Sunday? Where ever will they park?  Morgan Johnson (@Poormojo) August 13, 2017

As youd expect with neo-Nazis, they do not have their permits in place for these events  and given how one of them is charged with murder, malicious wounding, and hit and run for this weekends proceedings, the granting of such permits seems unlikely. But as noted in the Examiner, Crissy Field is the under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service. The NPS is a federal agency, and the Nazi movement does appear to have some friends in high places of the federal government right now.

But they have few friends in San Francisco. Its a tragedy what happened in Charlottesville, city attorney Dennis Herrera told the Examiner. Its time people stand up against hate and intolerance, and condemn supremacist organizations that are terrorizing our communities.

Could you use an island of hope in todays ocean of deplorability? USA Today has a livestream of the anti-racism rally at Trump Tower happening right at this very moment, as Trump is scheduled to arrive there tonight. (Our colleagues at Gothamist will also be covering the rally.) A GoFundMe campaign for the Charlottesville victim Heather Heyer raised its requested $250,000 in less than 24 hours, and is no longer accepting donations. A general GoFundMe campaign for the 19 other hospitalized people is still accepting contributions.

Related: Woman Punched By White Supremacist In Berkeley Speaks Out


A large crowd has come together this evening in Oakland for a candlelight vigil for Charolettesville. #wpxi pic.twitter.com/AV9phFW9J3  Ryan (@WPXIPhotogRyan) August 13, 2017

Following a spontaneous and mostly peaceful march in Oakland Saturday night in response to the events in Charlottesville that day that briefly shut down a freeway, as well as a gathering in downtown San Francisco, more such gatherings sprang up around the Bay Area Sunday. These included another, quieter gathering in Oakland's Latham Square that the Chronicle described has having a quieter mood and older crowd than Saturday's march  and included some 1960s-style folk singing and much quoting of Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela.

In San Francisco's Civic Center Plaza across from City Hall, hundreds gathered despite drizzly weather Sunday evening, according to IndyBay, carrying signs that read "Disgusted I Have To Say No to Neo Nazis; United Against Violence; No KKK, No Fascist USA; Trump/Pence Regime Must Go; My Grandfather's Relatives Were Murdered By Nazis; and Silence = Death."

Per the Chronicle, the event began with some speakers  using an Occupy-era convention of a "people's mic"  condemning the ACLU for endorsing the alt-right groups' right to gather in Charlottesville in the first place  the ACLU has long taken the stand that all speech, including most hate speech, is protected by the First Amendment. But others shouted those speakers down and said they were there to mourn the death of 32-year-old Heather Heyer, allegedly at the hands of 20-year-old James Field Jr.

Similar vigils and gatherings, many organized by the group Indivisible, happened throughout Sunday in Berkeley, Point Reyes Station, Santa Rosa, Petaluma, Mill Valley, Novato, San Anselmo, San Rafael, El Cerrito, Castro Valley, and Mountain View.

But in less than two weeks, we could be facing more street skirmishes and  hopefully not, but very possibly  more bloodshed here in the Bay Area. As SFist reported today, the Pacific Northwest-based Patriot Prayer is organizing alt-right rallies in San Francisco and Berkeley on August 26 and 27, both of which are likely to draw new-Nazi contingents just as rallies in Berkeley did this spring.

Additionally, an alt-right March on Google is scheduled for this Saturday, August 19, to protest last week's firing of engineer James Damore.
As San Francisco braces for an invasion of unknown size of alt-right and white nationalist factions a week from Saturday, one vital thing still does not seem to have gotten through to those on the left and those who believe that fascism must be met with loud, angry anti-fascist resistance: You are giving them what they want by showing up.

It may seem insane, and antithetical to all that the Bay Area represents to many of us, to allow and implicitly condone the presence of groups who spout racial hatred like those who showed up to rally in Charlottesville last weekend. But they are coming, they have a legal right to gather, and while protest of various creative kinds should take place, battles with sticks, shields, and pepper spray should not. The sooner the passionate foes of racism and fascism understand this, the better off this country will be. Perhaps the liberal youth of 2017 needs to be reminded that the most powerful images of the civil rights era came out of acts of passive resistance that were met with violence and rage. We are living in an age when images matter more than ever, and spread within seconds across social media, and the worst thing you can do to an alt-right rally is ignore it and make it look as small as possible, and show up in greater numbers elsewhere.

"The antifas feel that they have to come and have to confront them, says Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin, speaking to the Chronicle. So you have two sides who are so passionate and ideological about what they believe in that its hard to talk some sense into them."

Rallies by the group Patriot Prayer are planned at San Francisco's Crissy Field on August 26, and in downtown Berkeley on August 27, and many of the attendees want nothing more than to have to do battle again  in Berkeley for the third time in six months  so that they can play the victim and contend that they never provoke violence. If you watched Vice News's excellent coverage of Charlottesville on Monday night, which you can see below, white supremacist figure Christopher Cantwell states that from his perspective, the alt-right showed great restraint in the face of leftist violence Saturday, and he passes off the vehicular death of one woman and injuries to 19 others as potentially an accidental casualty of one man's defensive panic in the face of attacks from counter-protesters.

California-based white nationalist leader Nathan Damigo of the group Identity Evropa, virally famous in April after video spread of him appearing to punch a female counter-protester during some chaos in Berkeley (he so far faces no charges), echoes Cantwell's sentiment to the Chronicle, clearly repeating what is currently the alt-right party line on the guilt or innocence of 20-year-old James Field Jr. He also helped organize the Unite the Right rally that led to the deaths of three people, including two law enforcement officers killed in a helicopter crash.

"We simply dont know what the intent was, Damigo tells the Chronicle in an interview, regarding Field. I do feel that the blood rests in the hands of local law enforcement as well as the city officials in Charlottesville, because [they] created a scenario that created chaos and violence."

Damigo spoke also to KQED on Monday, suggesting that Charlottesville is going to aid in recruitment for the alt-right and, "I think theres going to be a lot of people who are going to, for the first time, realize that theyre not getting the full story."

He also confirmed that groups like his thrive on the publicity that comes as a result of antifa groups coming to wage war with them. "The more these people kick and scream and whine and cry, the more publicity we get," he tells KQED.

#BREAKING UPDATE: Berkeley police have made 15 arrests and "anticipate more" as violent protesters swarm city roads. https://t.co/s1SrxHksnZ pic.twitter.com/i38hv9jH0E  NBC Bay Area (@nbcbayarea) April 15, 2017

Because Crissy Field, where the first rally is planned on August 26, is federal land, Patriot Prayer applied to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area for a permit, and they've gotten one, as an agency rep confirms to the Chronicle. Supervisor Mark Farrell, in whose district the event will occur, issued a statement saying his office would be coordinating with the National Park Service. He added "While I appreciate the event organizers claiming that they condemn hate and violence, we must remain vigilant. Unfortunately, at past events they have hosted, fringe individuals and hate groups have felt emboldened to publicly share their racist and discriminatory views. Those individuals and groups are not welcome here in San Francisco and should not plan to attend this rally."

The location will be particularly powerful when it comes to image-making, and that is likely the intent of Patriot Prayer in choosing it. Ostensibly a "religious" organization, the Southern Poverty Law Center calls them "provocateurs" and confirms that their previous rallies have appeared to be attempts "to provoke black-clad ideologues on the left into acts of violence." And pictures and video of such violence with the Golden Gate Bridge as a backdrop  given all that the words "San Francisco" symbolize for commentators on the right, and even the center-right  are most certainly what extremist groups and alt-right personalities are hoping for.

A Sunday event organized by the group in downtown Seattle was largely peaceful, however, and the SPLC reports that protesters on the left far outnumbered those who showed up on the right.

"The park will review and assess safety, says GGNRA spokesperson Sonja Hanson of the Crissy Field event. Were planning accordingly.

Mayor Ed Lee is calling for peace and love in the face of any hatred, saying, "I ask that when they chant of hate, San Francisco chants of love."

Arreguin is more pointed in his comments when it comes to facing yet another potential battle on the streets of Berkeley the following day. "If this was really about freedom of speech  the city of Berkeley welcomes freedom of speech, he tells the Chronicle. This isnt about that. This is about confrontation. This is about people coming to commit violence and spout hate speech and promote bigotry and promote white supremacy.

Hanging banners from the Golden Gate Bridge, engaging in non-violent, non-confrontational acts that make the alt-right look silly, those are the kinds of things activists on the left should be planning. But, 1,300 people have already expressed interest in a planned counter-protest at Crissy Field  the title of which, "Unafraid!," implies the possibility of violence.

Lecia Brooks, an Oakland native, just helped co-author this guide to dealing with alt-right invasions on liberal college campuses for the Southern Poverty Law Center. As she tells the Chronicle, "Theyre trying to agitate a lot of people into reacting to them... They're determined to make a name for themselves."

The guide suggests holding alternative events during alt-right speaking engagements or rallies, in a different location, rather than showing up where they are and creating a spectacle. "Alt-right personalities know their cause is helped by news footage of large jeering crowds, heated confrontations and outright violence at their events... Denying an alt-right speaker of such a spectacle is the worst insult they can endure."

All in the Bay Area who want to show that hate and white nationalism will not be tolerated here should do so by showing up in numbers elsewhere  marching down Market Street, drawing the cameras away from what may turn out to be small gatherings of extremists, all armed to do battle again and eager to do it.

As Cantwell told Vice, shortly after the events in Charlottesville, summing up the hunger for confrontation on the alt-right, "I think it's going to be really tough to top but we're up to the challenge... I think a lot more people are going to die before we're done here... These people want violence and the right is just meeting market demand."

Previously: Neo-Nazis And Alt-Right 'Patriots' To Bring Racism Road Show To Bay Area This Month




Prospective San Francisco home buyers are generally more attracted to phrases like Wonderful Victorian home in amazing Dolores Heights location than, say Notorious Castro Drug Den or persistent neighborhood nuisance. But both turns of phrase have been used to a describe a certain property near Sanchez Street and 18th Street. That property has been raided numerous times for crystal meth, heroin, and cocaine trafficking operations, its owner had been sued by the city on multiple occasions, and the structure has been issued a rash of habitability and safety code violations like the lower level units exterior door being made of an old cabinet door.

But this case of apartment sadness appears to be coming to a happy ending, as Socketsite reports that the one-time drug den has been sold. The asking price was $2.6 million, and the sale of the house is now in contract to close.

The place has an, erm, colorful history. The city sued former owner Joel Elliott back in 2012 because police had to raid the place so many times. After initially responding to a call regarding an armed trespasser in the house in January 2012, police found a significant amount of methamphetamine, cocaine and other narcotics, City Attorney Dennis Herrera wrote in the lawsuit. Subsequent searches resulted in similar findings.

Elliott himself was arrested at the property in a raid later that year, leading to a Socketsite writeup whose accompanying Google Street View image appears to show a mans exposed butt crack.

The Google Street View image has since been cleaned up. Considering the place has just been sold for presumably $2.6 million, the building safety and crime problems have likely been cleaned up as well.

Hopefully this will simply provide the new owner in this hot-hot neighborhood some lively dinner table conversation in future years.

Related: When Realtors Say 'Eureka Valley' Instead Of 'Castro,' Is That Just Homophobic?
Former millionaire marketing exec Ralph Melvin Flynn pleaded no contest to sexually abusing his adopted sons for years and years. He and his wife Carolyn were each recently sentenced to long prison terms in their criminal trial, him to 24 years and her to 12. Now, as ABC 7 reports, Flynn doesn't seem to remember any of the abuse in a videotaped deposition for the ongoing civil trial filed by one of the Flynn's sons/victims.

We told you about the Flynns recently as the Los Gatos couple was getting sentenced, and this deposition was taken as part of a separate personal injury civil suit filed by Denis Flynn, the son who finally turned in his adoptive parents after a decade of systematic abuse.

Both sons, one adopted in 1972 and the other adopted in 2002, claim the abuse began in the Flynns' Los Gatos home when each child was between seven and nine years old. It began with Ralph and as the boys got older, Carolyn participated. "I lost my virginity to my mother," Denis told the San Francisco Chronicle in an interview.

Los Gatos man accepts 24-year prison sentence for molesting adopted son from Russia, but denies the claims in lawsuit. I have his depo at 6. pic.twitter.com/3JDUFBNP5v  Dan Noyes (@dannoyes) August 15, 2017

If you can handle a confessed child molester saying he doesn't "recall" showing his son pornography among other denials, ABC's Dan Noyes has obtained exclusive footage from Flynn's deposition. Bear in mind, this deposition comes after Flynn had admitted to authorities that he engaged in masturbation and oral sex with his young sons.

Regarding the pornography question, Flynn said things like "I don't believe I did," and in response to a question about whether his adoptive son is lying about the abuse, Flynn says, "I don't know if he is lying, but I know that he is not telling the truth." Attorney Nina Shapirshteyn, who is working for Denis Flynn, tells ABC 7 that Flynn's responses are "textbook pedophile."

In a truly bizarre coincidence, the news channel happened to cover an adoption event in Sarasota 17 years ago, and they have interview footage with the Flynns on the very day they decided to adopt their victim.

"There is just no comparison to what their life is like [in Russia] compared to the children of Silicon Valley," Ralph Flynn said at the time.

Related: Horrible Los Gatos Couple Pleads Guilty To Using Adopted Son As A Sex Slave
SPENCER, Iowa | A man was arrested Monday after a two-hour standoff with city and county authorities.

Nathan Tesch, 30, was booked into the Clay County Jail on a charge of interference with official acts and faces charges in Dickinson County for unrelated offenses.

A Clay County Sheriff's deputy and Spencer Police officer went to a home in the 1400 block of Fourth Avenue West to serve an arrest warrant and protection order on Tesch at 10:36 a.m. Monday. When they arrived, they saw Tesch standing at the back door of the home. He then went inside and refused officers' orders to come out, according to a news release from the Spencer Police Department.

Officers secured the home, and attempts to contact Tesch were unsuccessful.

At 12:54 p.m., members of the Clay County Sheriff's Office, Iowa State Patrol, Spencer Police Department and Spencer K9 entered the home and took Tesch into custody without incident.

He faces two charges of domestic abuse assault and other charges in Dickinson County. He was also wanted for contempt of court and failure to pay fines in Palo Alto County.
David Giese, 26, entered his plea Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Sioux Falls to one count of bank robbery. Sentencing was set for Nov. 6. The charge carries a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison.

Giese walked into the Wells Fargo bank at 200 Cedar St. on July 26, 2016, while holding a package and demanded money, claiming that the package was an explosive device. The package was later found to not be an explosive. Police said no other weapon was used during the robbery.
DAKOTA CITY | A South Sioux City woman charged with keeping her children in a home littered with rotten food and cockroaches was bound over to district court Tuesday.

Jennifer Corrin, 42, waived her right to a preliminary hearing, and Dakota County Judge Kurt Rager bound the case over to district court. Corrin is scheduled to be arraigned on four counts of felony child abuse on Sept. 26 in Dakota County District Court.

Corrin was arrested last month after police responding to a call at her home in the 300 block of First Avenue found her and her five children, ages 5-18, living in a home reeking of rotten food. Police observed cockroaches on the walls, old food containers, rotten food, pizza crusts, dog feces, piles of dirty clothes and open bags of trash throughout the house.

Officers found only a few pieces of inedible food inside the refrigerator and three small bags of macaroni in a cabinet.

The Nebraska Department of Human Services removed the children from the home for further placement.
SPIRIT LAKE, Iowa | Sergeant Bluff-Luton Community School District superintendent Rod Earleywine has pleaded not guilty to driving while intoxicated in the Iowa Great Lakes area.

Earleywine, 57, of Sioux City, entered his written plea Monday in Dickinson County District Court. An Oct. 10 trial date was set.

He was arrested Aug. 5 after police stopped him at 10:29 p.m. for failing to yield at the intersection of U.S Highway 71 and 165th Street in Spirit Lake. According to court documents, Earleywine turned left in front of another vehicle, causing the driver to hit the brakes to avoid a collision.

The arresting officer reported that an odor of alcohol could be smelled on Earleywine, who admitted to drinking two glasses of wine and part of a margarita that evening, court documents said.

According to court documents, field sobriety tests indicated Earleywine was impaired, and two tests showed Earleywine's blood-alcohol content at 0.097 percent and 0.087 percent, both above Iowa's legal limit of 0.08 percent.
SIOUX CITY | A candle left burning in a bedroom started a fire that damaged a Sioux City home early Tuesday.

Sioux City Fire Rescue was called to 2026 W. Palmer Ave. at 1:57 a.m. to a fire in a two-story home.

Deputy Sioux City Fire Marshal Joe Rodriguez said one of the occupants was sleeping when she woke up and saw flames on her bedroom curtains and smoke on the ceiling. The woman was able to alert the other female occupant of the home, and they exited through the back door of the home without receiving any injuries, Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez said a candle burning next to the curtains in the bedroom ignited the fire, which caused severe damage to the bedroom and smoke damage throughout the first floor of the house.

City inspectors were to visit the house Tuesday morning to determine if it would be red-tagged as unfit for occupancy.
SIOUX CITY | Help, healing or just that little boost you need to help make sense of life's everyday triumphs and challenges can come in a variety of forms.

Michael O'Connor believes that traditions Native Americans have carried down through the centuries can play a role in helping people find the inner peace they seek.

For about an hour each week, he leads a talking circle, a gathering that incorporates Native American traditions to help people talk about what's on their minds and grow personally.

"Talking circle is an old Native American concept, a practice that when there's meetings that need to be held, you gather in a circle, a prayer is said and that circle becomes holy and people feel safe to talk safely and in-depth," said O'Connor, a Yankton Sioux who has a background in social services and drug and alcohol education and prevention on the Yankton Sioux Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

Now a manager of a Sober Apartment Living unit in Sioux City, O'Connor said talking circles helped him kick addictions and turn his life around. He wants to help others find peace and understanding. It's not counseling, he said, and it differs from current Sioux City talking circles offered for those seeking sobriety from drug or alcohol addictions.

"I wanted to make the talking circle available to anyone and everyone," he said. "I know I've benefited from talking circles and they have helped me and I wanted to share it."

The circle began meeting at 8 p.m. on Mondays in July at the {Be} Yoga studio, located at 1101 Fourth St. Eight or nine participants have shown up thus far to share their thoughts and feelings.

"I left feeling positive, so that's why I came back the second Monday," said Suzanne, who did not wish to use her last name.

Those positive feelings are what O'Connor hopes circle members develop through sharing.

"I think it's a good place for people to open up, and when people open up, they grow," he said.

O'Connor utilizes Native American symbols to create a relaxed atmosphere. At a recent gathering, O'Connor opened with a prayer, spoken partly in the Lakota language, asking the Creator to acknowledge the circle's holiness and come into their hearts.

Sage is burned and presented to each member to breathe in. Its burning, O'Connor said, is a form of prayer that offers cleansing of the consciousness and the heart. If you offer a prayer, it goes into the smoke and off into creation.

After burning the sage, one of the participants reads a meditation and then members take turns discussing how it applies to their lives.

While each person speaks, he or she holds an eagle feather, another important symbol utilized in the circle. The eagle is considered a messenger from God because it flies the highest, O'Connor said, and those holding an eagle feather are more inclined to tell the truth.

It's not an airing of problems. Sure, participants reveal things that are troubling them, but they also talk about things that have made them happy since the last meeting. They talk in serious tones, but also crack a few jokes about their experiences and feelings.

Just as O'Connor hoped they would. The circle can serve different purposes to different people, so the free meetings are open for anyone to show up whenever they wish. With no attendance requirements, participants can come whenever they feel the need to be there.

O'Connor wants to see participants feel better and find healing for whatever might be troubling them.

"I think they reach a deeper level of awareness, a deeper level of honesty," he said. "You get braver in the circle, and then you take that with you."

His desire to share the circle follows the teachings of his elders who taught him that one is not measured by what he can get, but by what he can give.

"I would just like to see it continue and see more people come and fall in love with it like I have, to benefit from it, to pass it on," he said.

It's hard for some to pass up an hour of calm self-examination, shared with others seeking the same thing.
UPDATE: Booe has been arrested.

The U.S. Marshals Service Northern Iowa Fugitive Task Force is seeking the public's assistance in locating the following person:

* Trent Booe, 40. Booe is 5 feet 11 inches tall and 175 pounds. He is wanted by the Woodbury County Sheriffs Office for absence from custody. Booe failed to turn himself in as ordered by a judge to serve a jail sentence.

Anyone with information can call the Northern Iowa Fugitive Task Force at 712-252-0211, email siouxlands.mostwanted@usdoj.gov or text the keyword TEN99 and the tip to tip411 (847411).
SIOUX CITY | A new Hunt Elementary School is planned to be built and opened by 2022, as the next facility in line amid the major period of school building over the last 15 years in the Sioux City School District.

The Sioux City School Board on Monday purchased the first of 11 properties needed for clearing, to have enough space to build the school near 20th and Nebraska streets. Board members approved paying $120,000 to Jesus Diaz Castelan, for the home at 1920 Nebraska St.

"We look forward to more success in our property acquisitions," school district Director of Operations and Maintenance Brian Fahrendholz said.

The current Hunt Elementary is at 615 20th St.

Fahrendholz said he hopes all 11 properties can be purchased by early spring 2018, so the project can be done five years from now. Some site work could soon begin, he added.

Fahrendholz said the 11 parcels are owned by 10 people or entities, including two by a nearby Methodist church. The purchase made Monday is at the spot of the southwest corner of the new Hunt school.

The school district is underway with one other school construction project, as the new Bryant Elementary School is slated to open in August 2019, with the total combined cost above $21 million.

School district officials are aiming to construct a new Bryant to replace the old building that dated to 1890 and was demolished in summer 2016 at 821 30th St.

Benchmarks

In other business, Director of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment April Tidwell shared a 40-minute report on a series of student achievement benchmarks for the 2016-17 school year. Tidwell gave a host of statistics on attendance, test scores and dropout rates, at times broken down by demographic categories.

The composite score for graduating seniors on the ACT, a test taken to determine eligibility in some colleges, was 20.9. That is slightly higher than the national average of 20.8, but lower than the state average of schools in Iowa.

Sioux City has the third highest graduation rate among Iowas eight urban districts, and Tidwell said the attendance rate is 95 percent in grades K-5.

Full data from the report will be posted on the district's website in September.

School board members Mike McTaggart and Mike Krysl said the report was interesting to summarize key categories to determine how the district's students are faring. The two men added that standardized testing doesn't always give a clear snapshot for how some students can perform.
SIOUX CITY  A plethora of new options presented by Downtown Partners convinced most members of the Sioux City Council to reconsider an ordinance aimed at resolving downtown parking woes.

Ragen Cote, executive director of Downtown Partners  a nonprofit dedicated to improving Sioux Citys central hub  offered the alternatives to the council when it met Monday for its regular meeting.

Cote said her organization developed the suggestions alongside downtown business and property owners, residents, city officials and ABM Parking Services.

That committee has been developing its plan since June after city officials asked Downtown Partners to help ease parking concerns shortly after it was announced that a five-story Marriott hotel was going to be built over a large free parking lot on Fourth Street.

When the council met last Monday, it approved the first reading of an ordinance that would make the first hour of parking in the city's ramps free.

Rather than making the first hour of parking in the citys ramps free, one of Cote's solutions was to add parking meters to meterless areas around the Promenade movie theater and creating drop-off zones. She noted the meters would help with the consistency issues in downtown where most areas are metered.

Another change she suggested was to keep the stop-arms down at the parking ramps. People who left after 5 p.m. would pay their fees up to 5 p.m., and people who took tickets after that time wouldnt be charged, so long as they left the ramp before meter enforcement hours began the following day.

A fix specific to the Heritage Parking Ramp was to convert the Jackson and Jones street openings to enter/exit spots to ease congestion concerns. Currently, Jackson is an exit-only area and Jones is an entrance-only area.

After a lengthy dialogue involving the council, Cote, and Public Works director Dave Carney, Councilman Alex Watters suggested the citys Parking and Skywalk System Board of Trustees review Downtown Partners' proposals when it meets Wednesday and bring a recommendation to the council when it meets Aug. 21.

Watters' motion was approved 4-1 with Mayor Bob Scott casting the lone no" vote. During and after the meeting, Scott emphasized downtown has way too much parking capacity as is.

He also noted if the city tried Downtown Partners' suggestions on a trial basis, which is what the organization recommended, he doesnt see it doing much to increase retail foot traffic because of the limited store operating hours and the prevalence of online shopping. He also was concerned with the potential cost to taxpayers who already subsidize expenses at the city's parking ramps.

After the meeting, Cote, who is a member of the Parking and Skywalk trust, said she hopes that when the group meets again Wednesday it can agree on a recommendation to bring to the city Monday.

I'll take this to them again as well," she said. "They haven't seen the cost to be fair  they did see the letter  but maybe from there we can look through that and dig a little deeper and hopefully come back next week."
SIOUX CITY | U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, will hold several town hall meetings to discuss national issues with people in late August.

Grassley's office released a schedule of the meetings, which will each be one hour in length. Grassley holds the meetings as a way to meet Iowans in all 99 counties each year.

On Aug. 29, Grassley has set an event at 3:45 p.m. for O'Brien County at the Primghar Community Building, 215 First St. SE, in Primghar.

An Osceola County event will take place at 8 a.m. Aug. 30, at the Sibley Senior Center, 612 Eighth St., in Sibley.

At 10 a.m. Aug. 31, a Monona County meeting will be held at the Mapleton Community Center, 511 Main St., in Mapleton.
SIOUX CITY | Rex Mueller was on his way to what he believed was a career as an art teacher when he took a criminal justice class.

Not long after that, the Sioux City native switched his major from art to criminal justice.

"It felt like a calling to me," Mueller said Tuesday, minutes after city manager Bob Padmore announced his recommendation that Mueller be appointed the next chief of the Sioux City Police Department.

A member of the Sioux City police force since 1996 and currently a captain, Mueller said he was humbled to be named the successor to Doug Young, who is retiring.

"Opportunities come, and you ask yourself if you're ready for those opportunities. I couldn't be happier for this opportunity. I love the community and I love the officers," Mueller said.

Mueller's appointment must be approved by the city council, and Padmore said he expected to have it placed on the agenda for Monday's meeting. Padmore said Mueller's salary will be $121,000.

Mueller was chosen over three other finalists: Sioux City Police Capt. Lisa Claeys; Colorado Springs, Colorado, Police Lt. Patricia Feese; and Roswell, New Mexico, Police Chief Philip Smith.

Padmore said that during the interview process, the two internal candidates stood out, and he believed that he couldn't go wrong choosing either Mueller or Claeys.

"At the end, his name kept coming up on my mind with the way I wanted the police department to go," said Padmore, who made his decision late last week and offered Mueller the job Friday.

Mueller said Young and previous chief Joe Frisbie have left the department, which includes approximately 125 sworn officers and 25 civilian employees, heading in the right direction.

"They have left quite a legacy. There's nothing to fix here," Mueller said.

Nothing to fix, but room to improve. The 1990 Bishop Heelan High School graduate said the department must continue to improve its community outreach, engaging minority residents and upgrading technology. He's a big believer in community policing and personally connecting with the city's residents.

"Our success in the department is very tied into and very key with our use of community policing," he said. "It's been a big part of my career, and I really believe in it."

If the department is to grow and improve, it must continually develop new programs and incorporate the latest technology. Those are areas in which Mueller said his artful, creative side could be helpful.

"Certainly having a creative side probably helps me think about things a little differently," Mueller said.

Young said he's observed that creative thinking in Mueller, and he thinks it will help him be successful.

"He thinks outside the box quite a bit. I think one of his great strengths is his ability to communicate. He's a great guy, and I expect a lot of good things from him," said Young, 60, who will retire after serving in the department for 36 years, the final eight as chief.

Promoted to captain in November 2016, Mueller, 45, currently oversees the department's Uniformed Services Bureau, which includes the three watch commands, the K-9 unit, the Selective Traffic Enforcement Program, Alcohol Safety Action Program and telecommunications unit.

As a Sioux City native, Mueller said he believes he has a duty to give back to his home town. Serving as police chief will give him more opportunities to serve the department and community he loves.

"I will get up every morning happy to go to work for the officers and the citizens of Sioux City," Mueller said.
SIOUX CITY | A man who has led two county park systems in northern Iowa will shift to become the director of Woodbury County parks at the end of the year.

The Woodbury County Conservation Board has hired Daniel Heissel, of Clay County, to become the new director. It is the first director vacancy in four decades.

Rick Schneider has been director of the Woodbury County Conservation Board since March 1975, and Schneider is retiring at the end of 2017.

The monthly conservation board meeting in August included acceptance of the recommended new director, from a committee that interviewed candidates.

"Mr. Heissel has 27 years experience as a conservation director, 12 years with Pocahontas County and the last 15 at Clay County," Schneider said.

Heissel will begin as the new director on Nov. 1, in order to give some overlap training time, before Schneider leaves on Dec. 17.

The Clay County parks system has more than two dozen parks, wildlife refuges, river access points and campgrounds, with most being in Spencer, plus others in or near Dickens, Everly, Fostoria, Peterson and Webb.

The Woodbury County Conservation Board oversees 16 outdoor options, including wildlife areas, nature preserves and parks such as Little Sioux Park south of Correctionville, Southwood Conservation Area near Smithland, and Brown's Lake-Bigelow Park and Snyder Bend Park, both near Salix. Many of the areas were in infancy when Schneider arrived.

Schneider currently oversees a staff of 17 employees, plus many more seasonal workers.
IOWA CITY  University of Iowa President Bruce Harreld made a pitch Monday to hike resident undergraduate tuition 41 percent over the next five years, but students and lawmakers pushed back  calling the plan a failure and urging the UI to go back to the drawing board.

It makes my heart beat a little too fast, Sen. Tod Bowman, D-Maquoketa, told an Iowa Board of Regents tuition task force meeting on the UI campus. Its irresponsible to ask that much of hardworking parents supporting their children.

The UI tuition proposal  the last of five-year pitches from Iowas three public universities  would increase resident undergrad rates 7.08 percent each year through 2022  raising rates from $7,486 this fall to $10,537.

The five-year plan also includes an annual 2.08 percent bump for non-resident undergrads  increasing this years $29,130 to $32,288 by 2022.

The proposed UI tuition increases also would extend to graduate students and those in costlier programs like medicine, engineering, dentistry and business.

Last week, the University of Northern Iowa and Iowa State University presented their plans to the task force. ISU pitched a similar rate plan and UNI proposed a smaller 2.5 annualized bump for resident undergrads, provided the Legislature also appropriated enough money.

The regents would have to approve any tuition increases annually, making the university plans only suggestions. But if regents approve the proposed increases, they would usher in the first significant split in basic resident undergrad rates between the three public universities.

While the UI and ISU would push resident undergrad costs to around $10,500, UNIs comparable rate would rise more slowly to $8,237 by 2022.

Harreld said Monday he agreed with comments made last week by UNI President Mark Nook that the three institutions have different missions and needs.

Weve been slipping

If the board approves the proposed increases, Harreld said, his university would use the estimated net $12 million in annual additional revenue to pursue its strategic plan. That plan  which is expected to cost between $154.5 million and $164.5 million in all  includes improving faculty pay and hiring more professors and research scientists.

Specifically, the UI hopes to use the additional revenue to hire 100 new faculty in the next five years, along with 25 research scientists.

The consequences of not doing so could be dire, according to Harreld, who cited mounting losses in top faculty and sliding national rankings. Over the past decade, the UI has dropped 18 places in U.S. News & World Report rankings to No. 82 among public and private colleges  near the bottom of what it considers its peers.

Additionally, the UIs four-year graduation rate at 51 percent is below its peer average.

Weve been slipping, Harreld said. Its time to put a stop to that and actually deliver. If you graduate from here, it needs to be world-class without any questions. Not eroding in U.S. News & World Report and other rankings. We owe that to the citizens of Iowa.

The board created its tuition task force and charged the universities with creating five-year plans after the state clawed back more than $20 million in base funding for the regent universities in the last budget year. The Legislature further cut its support by nearly $10 million in the current budget year.

Harreld said the proposed rates are based on seeing similar state appropriations over the next five years. But if the appropriations fall more, his institution would take another look.

Depending on any changes at the state level, Harreld acknowledged the university could even request a midyear tuition hike.

Regents President Mike Richards said last week he wants to stick with the tuition rates board members already have approved this year.

After hearing students and lawmakers criticize the UI proposal and urge the board and its universities to push harder for more legislative support, Richards said he and his colleagues will look at the whole picture  including the criticism  in deciding on rates.

7 percent is too high

With years of frozen tuition, the UI sits at the bottom of its peer group in residential undergrad tuition and fees, and near the bottom in non-resident undergraduate tuition and fees.

But those who spoke suggested thats not necessarily a bad thing.

State Sen. Joe Bolkcom, D-Iowa City, said Harreld made a rational argument for more resources. But I have to say I strongly oppose the rate of increase, Bolkcom said. I recognize tuition is going up. I think 7 percent is too high.

The spike, he said, would increase student debt and decrease accessibility to higher ed.

This proposal throws in the towel on the people of Iowa who have helped build these intuitions, and I think it throws in the towel on the governor and Legislatures responsibility to support our public universities, Bolkcom said.

Of the seven lawmakers who attended the meeting Monday, none were Republicans although the GOP controls both chambers of the Legislature and the governors office.

UI Student Government President Jacob Simpson applauded the narrative of excellence Harreld has ushered in since arriving two years ago. But, he said, I believe this proposal is not one of excellence.

He, like some others, encouraged more fundraising, more penny-pinching and more advocacy for state funding.
An Aug. 6 Letter to the Editor writer expressed thanks that his Dutch ancestors could immigrate without the ability to speak English. I, too, am thankful that my parents could come here from Sweden without that skill.

There are, however, significant differences between now and a hundred years ago. English has become a universal language and has, therefore, been taught universally. As Cal Thomas noted in his Aug. 9 column in The Journal, people he meets with wherever he travels all speak English.

Also, the expectations of our ancestors were far different from those of today. They knew life would be difficult. They strove to learn the new language and worked hard, doing whatever was required to make a living. Without easy credit or government aid, if they didn't have the cash, they didn't buy what they could live without.

They passed on to us, by teaching and by example, the virtues of patriotism, thrift, diligence, respect for authority, etc., and above all, the fear and love of God. Unfortunately, in our endless pursuit of pleasure and possessions, we have forgotten God and are reaping the consequences of lawlessness and violence, insubordination, insurmountable debt, on and on.

"Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people." Proverbs 14:34. "It is time to seek the Lord." Hosea 10:12. - Shirley Anderson, Sioux City
(WB) Chelsea Manning seemed to officially kick off her new life in a profile piece for Vogues September 125th Anniversary Collectors Edition issue.

Manning, who served seven years in prison for leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, sported a red, one-piece swimsuit for the upcoming issue in a photo shot by Annie Leibovitz.

She tweeted the photo along with the caption,Guess this is what freedom looks like.

Former President Barack Obama granted clemency to Manning as one of his final acts as president. She was released in May and has been living in New York City.

Manning told Vogue she accepts responsibility for her actions but believes the government needs an overhaul for real change to be made.

I think its important to remember that when somebody sees government wrongdoingwhether its illegal or immoral or unethicalthere isnt the means available to do something about it, Manning says. Everyone keeps saying, You should have gone through the proper channels! But the proper channels dont work.

Manning also says being able to truly live as who she really is has lifted a giant weight off her shoulders.

It feels natural. It feels like its how its supposed to be, instead of this anxiety, this uncertainty, this ball of self-consciousness that comes with pretending to be male, Manning told Vogue. It didnt feel right. I didnt know what it was. I couldnt describe it. Now thats gone.

As for her future career plans, Manning is still taking time to figure it all out. But she says a memoir is in the works.

My goal is to use these next six months to figure out where I want to go, Manning says. I have these values that I can connect with: responsibility, compassion. Those are really foundational for me. Do and say and be who you are because, no matter what happens, you are loved unconditionally. Unconditional love. It is OK to be who I am.

Vogues September issue hits stands Aug. 22.

 Mariah Cooper, Washington Blade courtesy of the National LGBTQ Media Association.
(WB) Two out Missouri high school students say their school removed their senior yearbook quotes because they referenced being gay.

Kearney High students Joey Slivinski and Thomas Swartz told KCTV5 when they checked to see their yearbook quotes under their senior portraits, they were nowhere to be found.

It was a blank picture under my name, Swartz says.

Slivinskis submitted quote was, Of course I dress well, I didnt spend all that time in the closet for nothing.

While Swartz read, If Harry Potter taught us anything, its that no one should have to live in the closet.

Im comfortable in my own skin and with who I am, Slivinski says. It felt like the district took that from me.

Slivinski and Swartz say they plan to make stickers with their quotes to put in their own yearbooks and in their friends.

In a Facebook post, Slivinski further expressed his disappointment with the Kearney School District.

Our schools are supposed to be a place that you can express being who you are. Today I realized Kearney isnt ready for me being me, Slivinski writes. Thank you to the Kearney School District for making me feel like youre ashamed of having a gay student.

In a statement, the Kearney School District says the quote removal was to err on the side of caution and apologized for offending the students.

In an effort to protect our students, quotes that could potentially offend another student or groups of students are not published. It is the schools practice to err on the side of caution. Doing so, in this case, had the unintentional consequence of offending the very students the practice was designed to protect. We sincerely apologize to those students, the statement reads.

KCTV5

 Mariah Cooper, Washington Blade courtesy of the National LGBTQ Media Association.
Some say that adolescence is the most dynamic period with uncertain maturity. Characters are still being formed, so things like likes and 
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.




From Tacoma to Everett to Bellingham, weve been delighted to profile a number of exciting new Washington State cafe openings this year not located in the city of Seattle. But what about on the other side of the state? Spokane is enjoying something of a moment right now for food, art, and music, with a booming cafe culture helping fuel it all. We profiled the scene in depth back in 2013, and today were happy to show off the newest member of a growing scene: this is The Roast House at My Fresh Basket in Spokane, Washington.

As told to Sprudge by Aaron Jordan.

For those who arent familiar, will you tell us about your company?

Roast House was founded on and remains committed to sourcing only sustainably grown, organic, and ethically traded coffees. We value planet and people as much as we value coffees with unparalleled clarity of flavor, liveliness, and sweetness. We pride ourselves on making buying choices that support forests, water quality, gender equality, food security, and the future of the planet. We are committed to crafting those beans into coffees that entice, illuminate, and satisfy our customers palates. To us, its pretty simple: we love coffee! We feel passionately about coffee. We love dreaming about coffee, roasting coffee, brewing coffee, talking about coffee, and drinking coffee.

Can you tell us a bit about the new space?

My Fresh Basket is a day-market experience in Kendall Yardsa new retail/living development near the heart of downtown Spokane, Washington. Patio views on the second story of the store overlook downtown and the Spokane River. A spacious patio on the main level will be equipped with heating lamps come fall and winter. Alongside full scale grocery offerings, the space at the market offers fresh-made juices and smoothies during the day, a small selection of wines for the evening, but the focal point is a sustainable and quality-driven coffee program.

Our menu is built around covering the classics with a few fun menu items to spice things up. Two For Here, One For The Road sets up folks looking to have a quick cup of coffee on the patio with a One & One (single espresso and single macchiato served with soda water on custom Saint Anthony Industries serving trays) and an eight-ounce drip to to go for the trip to the office. We also feature a selection of four single origin pour-overs brewed with Kalita Wave 185s, and the option of having any of those coffees as flash brew (brewed directly onto ice). All of our saucesvegan caramel, chocolate ganache, and vanilla as well as a simple syrupare made in-house and really elevate those iced drinks! Our tea menu features Tea & Company which is all organic and aligns with the core values we bring to coffee. We also feature a local-made chai tea from Mandala Chai Company, which is friggin delicious!

Whats your approach to coffee?

Our goal is to present the crazy-wonderful coffees that specialty coffee producers feature in a super approachable and enjoyable manner. At our roastery we have a complimentary tasting room. This has allowed us to serve both the coffee nerd who wants to geek out on various brew methods, brew ratios, and varietal tastings, and the newbie drinker ready to learn the difference between a natural processed and a washed coffee, an espresso and a pour-over. Its not uncommon that a guest visits us and leaves extremely pumpedas much from the unique education experience as the multiple pours they sample with us. In this new buildout, being our first full-service retail space, our goal was to recreate that experience where guests can come grab a coffee on the run or stay and geek out on intricacies while being efficient enough to handle those pre- and intra-work day rushes! Our offering list always comprises a balance of structured and sessionable coffees with highlighted limited releases for those juicy and fruity offerings that dazzle us all.

Any machines, coffees, special equipment lined up?

This is the first retail location in the area with the Modbar Pour-Over system in it. We will be featuring four seasonally rotating single origin coffees on the menu. Our menu will always feature one crazy, mouth party of a coffeethink Geshas, fruit-bomb naturals, Kenyansthat sort of thing, a crisp and vibrant option along with two staple, rounded offerings, like sweetly layered coffees from Costa Rica, Peru, and those type of gems. Each coffee has a designated hopper with four Baratza Vario W next to the Pour-Over taps. Our opening offering list comes from Red Fox Coffee Merchants and Sustainable Harvest with some very exciting offerings come winter from Nordic Approach.

On espresso, we are featuring our ode to the O.G. of blends: Mocha Java using two Ethiopians (a washed and a natural) and a small percentage of a wet-hulled Sumatra. We pull it on a custom pressure profile on our two-group Modbar espresso system and our Compak E10 Master. We also feature this coffee on our ICB Bunn brewer for batch brewingrotating on single origins every now and again to keep things fresh and exciting. Decaf offering is made possible by the fine folks at Swiss Waterwe pull this at a lower pressure profile thanks to Modbars capabilities using a Baratza Sette 270W.

Whats your hopeful target opening date/month?

We had a soft open June 30th and Grand Opening July 21st!

Are you working with craftspeople, architects, and/or creatives that youd like to mention?

We had the great fortune of working with some fantastic people on this project. The physical space was laid out and designed with Tim and Dan Phillips of Food Market Designs. Our menu was a collaborative effort with Luke Baumgarten and Jacquelyn Barnes from We Are Treatment here in Spokane who did a knockout job! Serving trays for espressos, cappuccinos, macchiatos and One & Ones were made by the amazing Saint Anthony Industries, which go great with the bright red Acme Co cups we use for service. Through the facilitation of Black Rabbit Service Co we were able to feature Specht Designs bad-to-the-bone walnut risers to lift our espresso taps for better bar flow. Will Frith and the whole Modbar team were fantastic at helping us dial-in installation and layout. All around, despite the chaos of a buildout, we had a wealth of talented and hardworking individuals that made it all possible.

Thank you!

No, thank YOU!

The Build-Outs Of Summer is an annual series on Sprudge. Live the thrill of the build all summer long in our Build-Outs feature hub. Got a Build-Out of your own? Get in touch.
Women of Grace Takes Catholic Women's Leadership Education to New Levels

Contact: Sue Brinkmann, Women of Grace, 813-983-9701

CLEARWATER, Fla., Aug. 15, 2017 /Standard Newswire/ -- Women of Grace, a pioneer in Catholic Women's Leadership education, has entered into a partnership with historic Holy Apostles College & Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut to offer certification, undergraduate and graduate credit hours in Catholic Women's Leadership in an online format.

Benedicta Women's Leadership Studies is a first-of-its-kind program that offers graduate credit hours that can be applied toward a Master of Arts in Pastoral Studies (MAPS) with a concentration in Catholic Women's Leadership Studies. Courses include an exploration of Catholic Social Doctrine, the anthropology of the female person in light of her innate authority in Scripture and Church history, the words and wisdom of holy women, and more.

Formerly based out of St. Cyril and Methodius Seminary in Orchard Lakes, Michigan, the program transitioned to Holy Apostles in order to expand the curriculum and accommodate women who were looking for an on-line option.

"We looked for a partner that would provide a solid theological education that was efficient and affordable for women at all stages in life. Holy Apostles College and Seminary was the perfect fit," said Father Joshua D. Genig, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Church History and Benedicta Leadership Institute Studies Chair of the Women's Leadership Studies Concentration (MAPS Program).

"The women in this program are busy. So, with the coursework being offered online, they can study at any time, from any place in the entire world. They will also have opportunities for face-to-face formation experiences so as not to lose the personal touch," Father added.

Holy Apostles is offering a full MAPS degree with a concentration in Women's Leadership Studies as well as certification with undergraduate or graduate credits in Women's Leadership Studies or certification without credit in Women's Leadership Studies (issued by the Benedicta Leadership Institute). Associates as well as Bachelor of Arts degrees with a focus in Women's Leadership Studies are available. The Institute is also offering dual enrollment for high school women interested in beginning college course work early.

"No matter which level of endeavor a woman desires, this program will help her attain her goal, and assist her to help transform the world one woman at a time," said Johnnette Benkovic, founder of Women of Grace and pioneer of Benedicta Women's Leadership Studies.

The first course offering in Women's Leadership Studies begins August 28. Visit www.benedicta.womenofgrace.com or click here for more information.
Sandra Merritt Seeks Dismissal of Charges

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 15, 2017 / Standard Newswire / -- Sandra 'Susan' Merritt filed a Motion to Dismiss late yesterday asking the San Francisco Superior Court to dismiss the politically-motivated criminal complaints brought against her by the State of California because the Attorney General failed to timely file an amended complaint by the 10-day deadline regarding the dismissed Counts 1-14.



Photo: Horatio Mihet, Liberty Counsel's Vice President of Legal Affairs; Sandra 'Susan' Merritt, center; and Mat Staver, Chairman of Liberty Counsel, right.

Liberty Counsel is defending Merritt and seeks dismissal of the 14 felony charges brought against her for her undercover work in exposing Planned Parenthood's unethical and potentially illegal profiteering from the sale of aborted baby body parts. Additionally, Merritt requests that her cash bail of $75,000 be exonerated.

The Court had previously agreed with Liberty Counsel that the criminal complaint filed by Attorney General Xavier Becerra against Merritt was legally defective and dismissed 14 of the 15 counts. The Court granted the Attorney General 10 days to attempt to correct the defects and re-file the charges, but the Attorney General failed to file any amended complaint in Merritt's case within the required deadline. Failure to timely file an amended complaint after it has been dismissed means that Counts 1-14 must be permanently dismissed. Liberty Counsel's recently Motion to Dismiss argues that Counts 1-14 must be dismissed with prejudice, meaning they cannot be filed again.

The Attorney General, who has received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Planned Parenthood, claims that Merritt and David Daleiden filmed 14 people without permission between October 2013 and July 2015 in Los Angeles, San Francisco and the county of El Dorado. One felony count was filed for each person filmed. The 15th charge was for "criminal conspiracy" to invade "privacy." However, the videos produced by Merritt and Daleiden exposed unethical and potentially illegal conduct by Planned Parenthood, and Planned Parenthood itself has admitted, under oath, that the recorded conversations took place in "non-confidential" and public venues.

"The Superior Court's docket in Sandra Merritt's case is indisputably missing a timely filed amended complaint," said Horatio Mihet, Liberty Counsel's Vice President of Legal Affairs and Chief Litigation Counsel. "The Attorney General  California's top lawyer with a staff of 4,500 and an annual budget in excess of $800 million  has no excuse for his inability to comply with clear and simple legal requirements in the high-profile political prosecution he has chosen to bring against Ms. Merritt. This bogus case must be dismissed," said Mihet.
After several hours of testimony and debate, the Cowlitz County commissioners Tuesday afternoon decided to kill the countys needle exchange program effective Sept. 21.

The vote was 2-1, with Commissioners Arne Mortensen and Joe Gardner voting to end the 17-year-old program, which was created to help prevent the spread of blood-borne illnesses among intravenous drug users.

Commissioner Dennis Weber wanted to retain the program with modifications proposed recently by the county health department.

The vote does not mean the program will end. Last week, Dian Cooper, director of the Family Health Center, which currently works with the county to operate the syringe exchange, said the center would continue the program without public funds if the commissioners terminated it.

Cooper stood by her promise Tuesday, reaffirming Family Health Centers commitment to keeping the exchange alive with private funds. Family Health Center will meet with Cowlitz County Health and Human Services officials tomorrow to discuss details.

We have the beginnings of a transition plan, and were working on the details right now, Cooper said.

With commissioners Dennis Weber and Mortensen previously split about the needle exchange, Gardner was the deciding vote. He said Tuesday he made his decision after talking with all kinds of folks, including PeaceHealth officials, and after looking up the minutes of the 1999 meeting when the county created the exchange.

He said in that 1999 meeting, the commissioners at that time emphasized a need to keep statistics on the program, which is something that other commissioners did not follow through on in later years.

I think there was a trust broken with the people, Gardner said. I dont know if that trust can be regained overnight. Maybe somebody else taking the reins on (the exchange) may be whats needed for it.

Right before Gardner announced he would vote against the program, Weber made a passionate plea to keep the service running with the health departments proposed revisions, which included making the program a true one-for-one exchange.

What do we do with those 800 addicts who participate in the exchange? Weber said. It sounded like these (exchange opponents) assume that if you take away their syringes, the problem will go away. They wont go away. Theyre addicts. Theyre not acting rationally.

Mortensen proposed the motion to shut down the exchange. He said the health department was uncooperative and had lost the publics faith.

The public certainly seems to have no confidence, he said. This has been reflected in the (online) polls taken by CCNU (Cowlitz County News Uncensored) and TDN, as well as emails I have received. (Neither of the polls is scientific.)

On June 27, the commissioners voted to suspend the countys syringe exchange program, which cost the county $100,000 annually, within 90 days unless the health department met five conditions within 30 days.

One month later, the health department released a revised plan for the exchange, which addressed certain issues the commissioners brought up, such as issuing quarterly reports and limiting the number of needles exchanged at any one time. But it also, citing legal issues, resisted some of the commissioners other demands.

This decision comes after a heated public workshop last week, in which commissioners, health department officials and citizens all debated the future of the exchange.

During Tuesdays meeting, more than 25 citizens voiced their opinions on the exchange, with many both for and against the controversial program.

Betsy Carpenter, from Castle Rock, said she worked in an Olympia pharmacy for more than a decade, and her pharmacy was the only location open in four counties that sold needles. She said due to her experience working with drug addicts and selling syringes, she didnt feel that the exchange program was helpful.

I would urge you to consider that when you give free needles, you are asking irresponsible people to be responsible, she said. I watched that over 12 years and it didnt work. As a taxpayer, I find issue with my tax dollars going to evil, illegal behavior.

Longview port commissioner Jeff Wilson also voiced his distaste for the program, pointing out that the countys many discarded needles were a very harmful form of pollution.

This is the hazard that keeps on giving, he said. Its the Energizer Bunny of discarded debris. How long can a needle live when thrown on the ground? They dont decompose, so many, many years.

Ashley Helenberg, a Castle Rock citizen who brought her young son to the meeting, said she was horrified after her kids were sent home from their day care after another child found a used needle in their playground.

You tell them why this program has put fear in my family, Helenberg said, tearfully. I want you to sit down with my sons and explain how the program works. You to console their uncontrollable tears.

Meanwhile, Kalama City Councilwoman Rosemary Siipola said she believed the exchange is an important step in helping addicts get clean. She asked the exchange naysayers to have empathy for drug addicts.

We cant continue to ignore these folks, because at some point its going to hit your family, she said. To put these people in a corral and say they dont deserve treatment and that theyre weak doesnt address the basic issue that this impacts people differently.

Retired Kalama physician Dan Roberts said ending the syringe exchange would dramatically increase the risk of Hepatitis C. He noted cases of the disease had decreased 84 percent in Cowlitz County since the start of the exchange in 2001, as reported by county health department officials.

Stopping the needle exchange to see what would happen would be malpractice, he said. It would be like stopping treating pneumonia to see what could happen. We cannot afford to play politics with peoples lives.

Two different people spoke as former customers of the needle exchange, and both said the program helped them on the road to a drug-free life.

One of those two, Jerry Wilkins, said he currently works for Family Health Center with the needle exchange.

I believe we are saving lives, he said. Whether they get into treatment or not, (addicts) use clean syringes and are not spreading disease to those in our community.
Southwest Washington hotel managers say theyre experiencing an unexpected bump in bookings this weekend as travelers flock to the region to watch the solar eclipse next Monday.

In Cowlitz County, many hotels say theyre at or near capacity Sunday night, with visitors seeking to witness the first total solar eclipse in the Northwest since 1979.

Longview is about 88 miles outside of the path of totality  a 70-mile wide path extending across the nation from Newport, Ore., to Charleston, S.C., when day will turn dark for up to 2 minutes and 40 seconds. The only part of the sun that will be visible in the area of totality is the corona, a bright aura that surrounds the sun. The moon is expected to cover about 97 to 98 percent of the sun in Longview.

Oregon hotels have been preparing for the eclipse for months because the path of totality begins on the coast there at about 10 a.m. Yet hotels in Cowlitz and Clark counties were surprised to see some of that activity trickling up into Washington.

Jessica Burton, manager at Best Western in Woodland, said the corporate office sent a notification about the eclipse a year ago, but it did not list Washington state as an area expected to see a jump in travelers.

I thought, Oh I dont need to worry about it because were not within the line (path of totality) there, Burton said. But a week before the eclipse, Burton said the hotels 51 rooms were sold out for the night before the big cosmic event.

Other hotels in the Kelso-Longview area also saw an uptick in reservations for that night, too.

We didnt really think were a prime location until you guys (The Daily News) put out an article about it, said Betty Wilson, manager at Quality Inn.

Eclipse-related reservations started arriving in July, Wilson said. Now at least half of the hotels 50 rooms are related to the eclipse, she estimated. Rates ticked up to about $220 a night because of the higher demand.

Other motels and hotels in Kelso and Longview had rates between $120 to $180 that night, which isnt significantly higher than a typical night in August.

Further south in the Vancouver-Portland area though, rates have crept up closer to $200 or $300 per a night, The Columbian reported. Rooms averaged $608 per a night at the Best Western Inn at the Meadows in Portland and have been sold out for a month, according to the hotel.

Closer to the path of totality in Central Oregon, rooms were up to $1,000 a nght, Burton said.

Washington Department of Transportation is warning commuters to expect highways to be clogged with travelers Monday morning.

We really dont know what to expect. Its not a like concert where theres a certain number of people coming and leaving at the same time, said Tamara Greenwell, spokeswoman for WSDOT.

Yet Greenwall echoed advice from Oregon Department of Transportation officials that eclipse viewers should Arrive Early, Stay Put and Leave Late.

Unless you already live in Longview area, in which case the best advice may be just to stay put.
Washington State health officials have suspended the license of Clark County chiropractor Mark S. LaRue, a Kalama resident who faces felony allegations that he had sexual contact with patients.

LaRue is charged with second-degree rape and indecent liberties without forcible compulsion in Clark County Superior Court. The Oregon Board of Chiropractic Examiners last month suspended LaRues Oregon license based on those same conduct allegations.

LaRue cannot practice in Washington until the charges are resolved. He has 20 days to respond to the charges and request a hearing, according to a state Health Department press release.

LaRue, 64, owns Battle Ground Family Chiropractic at 713 W. Main St. and has practiced chiropractic medicine at his clinic since 2002. He is licensed in both Washington and Oregon.

More than a dozen women have complained to police that LaRue inappropriately touched them during treatment sessions. Nearly half of those cases fall outside the statute of limitations to press charges, according to the prosecutor. In all, he is charged with inappropriately touching eight women.
Harassment  Cowlitz County Sheriffs officers Saturday arrested Brandon Albert Knight, 35, of Kelso on suspicion of felony harassment and fourth-degree domestic violence assault.

Contact order  Kelso police Sunday arrested Adrian Rene Bailey-Trumbo, 56, of Kelso on a Department of Corrections warrant and on suspicion of violation of no contact order.

Drugs  Kelso police Sunday arrested Nicholas Chase Colbert, 19, of Longview on suspicion of felony third-degree driving with a suspended license and drug violation.

Theft, forgery  Longview police Sunday arrested Virginia Kay Boggs, 25, of Kelso on suspicion of forgery, obstructing a law enforcement officer, second degree theft, a drug violation and other charges.

Theft, forgery  Longview police Sunday arrested Stan W. Cantebury, 61, of Aloha, Ore. on suspicion of forgery, second-degree theft and other charges.

Witness intimidation  Longview police Sunday arrested Jeri Jean Elliott, 36, of Longview on suspicion of intimidating a witness.

Theft  Longview police Sunday arrested Jessica Michelle Boggs, 31, of Longview on suspicion of third-degree theft, theft, trafficking stolen property and other charges.

Forgery  Longview police Sunday arrested Holly Michelle Boggs, 53, of Kelso on suspicion of forgery, theft and other charges.

Forgery Longview police Sunday arrested Michael Franklin Chester,34, of Kelso on suspicion of forgery, second-degree theft, a drug violation and other charges.

Vehicle theft  Cowlitz County Sheriffs officers Sunday arrested Cody Allan Mullins, 22, of Castle Rock on suspicion of taking a motor vehicle without permission.

Vehicle Prowl

800 block of Burcham Street, Kelso. Saturday.

600 block of Hall Road, Silver Lake.

Malicious Mischief

2600 block of Cascade Way, Longview. Saturday.

500 block of 24th Avenue, Longview. Saturday.

Stolen vehicles

1300 block of Seventh Avenue, Kelso. Saturday. Maroon 1998 Subaru Outback.

1100 block of Tenth Avenue, Longview. Red 1998 Ford Mustang. License ABF8099.

Theft

500 block of Hawthorne Street, Kelso. Saturday.

400 block of Long Avenue, Kelso. Saturday.

200 block of Cypress Street, Longview. Sunday.

3100 block of Kansas Street, Longview. Sunday. Jewelry.

3000 block of Delaware Street, Longview. Sunday. Vehicle tags.

Vandalism/Malicious Mischief

4600 block of Mount Solo Road, Longview. Sunday. Gate torn off property.
UK to seek 'temporary customs union' after Brexit

Britain\'s membership of the EU customs union precludes it from striking its own trade deals

AFP, London :

Britain will seek a "temporary customs union" with the European Union after Brexit, the government said Tuesday as it prepared to publish its first detailed proposals on the future partnership.

The government said it would seek to agree a "time-limited period of implementation" after leaving the EU to provide certainty for businesses and allow new customs arrangements to be set up.

The Department for Exiting the EU said Britain wanted to be able to sign free trade agreements with third countries during this period, although these would only be implemented at the end of it. The proposal was welcomed by the Confederation of British Industry, Britain's big business lobby, but opposition parties dismissed it as "fantasy".

Brexit minister David Davis told BBC radio that the transition period could last "something like two years" and would have to be over by the time of the next general election, which is set for 2022.

Britain says its membership of the EU customs union, which currently allows for the tariff-free movement of goods, will end along with its membership of the single market when it leaves the bloc in March 2019.

After that "one possible approach would be a temporary customs union between the UK and the EU," the Brexit ministry said in a statement, ahead of the publication of the full paper later on Tuesday. Experts have warned it will be extremely difficult to negotiate a new EU-UK free trade agreement before Britain leaves the bloc-particularly as Brussels has so far refused even to start trade talks.

It says there must be broad agreement first on three key issues-Britain's financial settlement, the issue of expatriate rights, and the question of the border between British-controlled Northern Ireland and Ireland.

Asked about the divorce bill on Tuesday, Davis said that Britain would meet "any real international obligations" but added that "there won't be a number by October or November". Britain will publish its proposals on the Northern Ireland border issue on Wednesday, ahead of the third round of Brexit negotiations in Brussels at the end of the month. The CBI's deputy director Josh Hardie said the government's proposal of a customs transition period was "encouraging".

"The clock is ticking and what matters now is giving companies the confidence to continue investing as quickly as possible," he said.

But opposition Labour lawmaker Chris Leslie, from the campaign group Open Britain, said the proposal represented "wishful thinking of the highest order".

"It is a fantasy to pretend we can have the freest and most frictionless trade possible with our largest partner when the government remain intent on pulling Britain out of the customs union," he said.

The Liberal Democrats, a minor opposition party that is calling for a second referendum that could allow Britain to stay in the EU, said the proposal for an interim arrangement "will only delay the economic pain caused by leaving the customs union".




Conflicts in Syria, Iraq far from over despite IS setbacks

An Iraqi woman carrying a child walks by the destroyed Al-Nuri Mosque as she flees the Old City of Mosul.

AFP, Baghdad :

Despite the recapture of swathes of territory from the Islamic State group, the conflicts in Iraq and Syria are far from over as their governments face major political challenges, experts warn.

In July the jihadists lost control of Iraq's second city Mosul in a major setback three years after declaring a "caliphate" straddling the two countries.

Across the border around half of IS's de facto Syrian capital Raqa has been retaken by US-backed fighters.

But divisions across political, religious and ethnic lines will again rise to the surface in Iraq after the extremist group is driven out of its last bastions, said Mathieu Guidere, an expert on jihadist organisations.

A month before Iraq declared the liberation of Mosul, the country's autonomous Kurdish region announced plans to proceed with a referendum on statehood in September.

The idea was not new but its timing was criticised by Baghdad, which opposes Kurdish independence, and by Washington, coming as it did with the anti-IS campaign still unfinished.

Analysts said the referendum is one of the many challenges facing the Iraq government along with the presence of a Shiite paramilitary force in Sunni-majority areas and the fate of minorities such as the Yazidis.

How the government deals with these thorny issues will determine whether it succeeds in a post-IS era, experts said.

The jihadist group "is the illustration-violent, long and complex-of the dystrophy that reigns in Iraq", said Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou, professor of international history at Geneva's Graduate Institue.

Ould Mohamedou advocates a "new national covenant" for Iraq that would allow the Shiite-dominated government to gain the trust of the Sunni population and other minorities, particularly in the northern Mosul region.

At the same time the government will also have to skilfully deal with the paramilitary Hashed al-Shaabi umbrella organisation which is dominated by Iran-backed Shiite militias.

Some of the components within Hashed al-Shaabi, which battled IS in Iraq, have for years been sending fighters to support the Syrian regime in its conflict with various rebel groups.

Even as leaders in both Iraq and Syria savour the setbacks inflicted by their forces on IS, they still need to examine the reasons that led to the formidable rise of the jihadist group.

After declaring "victory over brutality and terrorism" in Mosul, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said there were "lessons to be learned" to ensure his country never again falls into the grip of IS.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad also faces huge challenges in the country's multi-sided war, despite his forces being backed by allies Russia, Iran and the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah in the battle against jihadists and rebels.

IS fighters are steadily losing chunks of Raqa to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a US-backed Arab-Kurdish alliance which broke into the northern city in June.

A Russian-backed government offensive has also targeted IS forces in the central Syrian desert.

Analysts said that if Raqa falls, the Kurdish fighters that dominate the SDF could clash with regime troops.




T-Aman cultivation going on in full swing in Gafargaon

Arshad Ahmed Asad Gafargaon ,Mymensingh :

The cultivation of T-Aman paddy has begun in full swing at Gafargaon Upazila under Mymensingh during the current season.

Due to a favourable climate condition and sufficient rain falls, farmers of this upazila are passing busy hours round the clock in their paddy fields for transplanting T-Aman seedlings from seed-bed.

Experts farmers stressed the need for cultivation T-Aman paddy on their land to increase rice production in the region during current season.Farmers are also passing busy hours to transplant T-Aman Seedlings.

According to Department of Agriculture Extension sources , a total of 15000 hectares of land would be brought under T-Aman paddy cultivation in this season of this upazila.

S.S Farhana Hossain, Upazila Department of Agriculture Extension officer told this correspondent that farmers of this upazila in the meantime have already transplanted seedlings on about 10 percent of the total targeted land. Of the total 10000 hectares of land would be brought under High Yielding Variety (HYV) of the paddy and 5000 hectares are under local variety. Department of Agriculture Extension DAE office sources said, Assistant Agriculture Extension officer informed has so far distributed 200 tonnes of seeds among the farmers and there is no shortage of T-Aman seedlings in this upazila. The DAE officials expressed the hope that cultivation of T-Aman might exceed the targeted fixed by the department in the current season. They also expected from 1500 hectares of land in this upazila with production targeted 30000 tonnes of aman paddy.

Although the recent heavy poured rain and floods had damaged Aman paddy on about 200 hectares in this upazila , the farmers are expecting a good harvest this season. Again the farmers are transplanting new T-Aman paddy seedlings on their land and some farmers have changed the crops instead of Aman said , Mafiz uddin ,suruj Mea of Baluakanda village , Siraj Uddin, Monsur , Anis farmers of charmoslonda village of Char Algi Union , Rukun, Saiful of Malimara village of Panchbag union .

The farmers said, Plantation of T-Aman seedling is going on successfully and the fixed target is expected to be achieved with in the permissible time . Besides, the favourable prevailing weather is helping the farmers in transplanting of T-Aman seedlings during the current season.

The farmers planted T-Aman paddy seedlings after two months because of rainy season in the past. But at present in char area rainy season does not occur during this time .So, farmers are planting T-Aman paddy seedlings during this hours and floods cannot do any harm their crops. The enthusiastic farmers start transplanting T-Aman seedlings in full swing everywhere amid favourable climate ,sufficient rainfalls and late coming rainy season.




A discussion meeting was arranged in observance of the National Mourning Day at Veterinary University of Chittagong with its Vice-Chancellor Prof. Dr. Goutam Buddha Das in the chair.
Demand, supply ratio of organ donation is screwed up

Life Desk :

Organ donation is giving an organ to help someone who needs a transplant. Transplants can save or greatly enhance the lives of other people. But this relies on donors and their families agreeing to donate their organ.

There are two types of organ donation - Live Donation & Deceased or Cadaver Donation. Every year, 90% people in need of a critical organ to save their life end up facing death due to unavailability of donors.

'Having a medical condition does not always prevent you from becoming an organ donor. At death, a qualified doctor responsible for your care will decide whether some or all organs are suitable for transplant.'

According to organindia.org, for 5000 hearts required there are only 70 available donors. Similarly, only 5000 kidneys are available against a demand of 21000. This screwed up demand and supply ratio is due to very less people who actually donate their organs. In fact, India has one of the lowest count of organ donors in the world.

Compared to 26 donors per million people in USA and 36 donors per million people in Spain, India stands at an alarming 0.26 donors per million people, which means that there is not even one person donating organs in one million of population. While awareness about organ donation and transplantation in India is limited to only certain sections of the populace, the situation becomes even dire when the people having pledged to be organ donors don't contribute to this cause.

Dr Neerav Goyal, Senior Consultant & Head of Liver Transplant at Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, Delhi highlighted the major reasons for these concerning statistics, "The major reason is unawareness about organ donation. Even people who take the pledge do not actually end up donating their organs due to lack of literacy on the registration process and the complexities attached with the procedures." "Another factor which hinders the organ donation is that there are many unscientific and superstitious myths attached to it which discourage people to come forward to register.

Those who are willing to donate at times succumb to such pressures which are created by family and friends. However, in contrast, most major religious support organ donation as a life saving practise," the doctor added. According to the Indian law, despite the will of the donor final approval over the donation is subject to the deceased's family. If they are unwilling, the donor's organs cannot be harvested. Even though there are no costs that the family of the donor would have to bear for the donation process.

Source: ANI
Permission for industries around Sundarbans breaks govt own rules

THE government decision to allow industries and legalize existing ones in the Ecologically Critical Area (ECA) around Sundarbans clearly shows that it is compromising the sensitive issue to pressure from powerful quarter inside and outside the country. The move came at a time when UNESCO has asked the government to carry out a Strategic Environment Assessment (SEA) in the region before taking any such step that may allow setting big plants and other industries in the area only to hasten destruction of the Sundarbans. We find it really difficult why the government is so adamant to give permission to big and small infrastructure in the area breaking existing environmental rules put in place as late as in 2015.

It clearly ignore concerns of people and environmental groups at home and abroad agitating against Rampal Coal-Based Power Plants and this time new industries captured the list at great risk to the mangrove forest. The UNESCO recognizes Sundarbans as a world heritage and is opposed to any industry that will cause emission and pollute air and water to aggravate the critical ecological balance of the area around the forest zone. We demand that the government should pay heed to the calls of the environmentalist groups, the latest being issued early this week to refrain from allowing any industry in the ecologically sensitive area and rollback the ones already exist.

It is really awful that the National Environmental Committee in a meeting last week legalised about 150 industries in 63 unions of 11 upazilas of five districts around the Sundarbans. The meeting also decided to relax and change some rules and policies to allow industries, potentially risky for the environment in the area. Earlier, permission was denied to any polluting industry around Sundarbans but the latest move shows a clear shift from earlier policies.

Despite the fact that the Environment Ministry stopped environmental clearance to industries in the area from 2015 following a gazette notification in this regard, the new decision of the government to relax and change some rules to allow LPG bottling plants and such other industries in the area appear self-defeating. Bangladesh Environment Conservation Rules-1997 had also sidetracked LPG bottling plants.

What is more shocking is that many industrialists have already bought farmland in villages near the Rampal power plant and are taking environment clearances to set up plants destroying crop land. Cluster of villages are under threat for eventual evacuation as industries are spreading; some of them within a kilometer of Rampal Power Plant. It is true new industries may provide jobs to thousands as Sundarbans now provides livelihood to millions. But once forest protection to the region from cyclonic storm will fade away, the consequence may prove suicidal. In our view the government should review the new decision only to allow industries far away from the forest.




White supremacists in the USA threatening social peace

THE death of a person and injury to over nineteen others when a member of white supremacist group rammed a crowd of people opposing a far-right rally in the US state of Virginia, last Saturday came as a fresh shock how extremism is creating unrest in the US society. The rally titled as "Unite the Right" was meant to stage protest against plans to remove the statue of a civil war time general who had fought for pro-slavery confederacy and the city council now want to remove it to foster social harmony. The racists' attack on the crowd is an ominous sign of racial prejudice making a comeback in America under the Trump administration.

The white supremacist group organised the march in the streets in military-style formation holding a torchlight rally the previous night on the University of Virginia campus. They uttered insulting and racial slogans at both events aimed at the black to provoke the clash. White supremacists propagate for racial purity of the white demeaning the black and immigrants in the US society.

President Donald Trump has condemned the event that in his word showed egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence from many sides. The point is, however, delay in condemning the white supremacists by name caused widespread criticism from all over; even from his own Republican leadership. He did it now clearly calling out the anarchists as members of racist KKK clan, New Nazis and White Supremacists but most people are calling on the President now to remove his adviser Steve Bannon from White House for his known identity as leader of the White Supremacists organizing them to create chaos.

Virginia governor said white supremacists are spreading domestic terrorism and like many others he poured shame on them. They are destroying everything that stands for American values and the evil must be resisted, they said. Americans believe there can't be any compromise to stop hatred, racism and manmade divisions in the multiracial US society; it must stop right now.

Charlottesville town has become a focal point for white nationalists after the City Council voted to remove the statue of the Army General Gen Lee whom the white supremacists adore as their spiritual leader to preserve while American purity. But the democratic rights and liberal values in the US society reject it now only become vocal again taking strength from Trump presidency in the White House.

Lastly, the sudden rise of racial and religious discrimination in the USA must not be allowed to present America in a wrong way to the global community. With a new President barely eight months into the office many white Americans however seem to be leaning towards extreme ideological stance. We are gravely concerned.
Online media contributing to Digital Bangladesh

City Desk :

State Minister for Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives Mashiur Rahman Ranga said the online media is appreciably contributing to building a Digital Bangladesh. "The online media is also presenting national history, culture, tradition and heritage of the country successfully throughout the globe," Ranga said this while inaugurating new office and studio of the local online newspaper uttorbangla.com in Rangpur as the chief guest.

Editor of the uttorbangla.com Dr Swasswato Bhattacharya presided over the ceremony arranged at its new office on the Station Road in the city on the occasion moderated by its Publisher Murad Mahmud. Officer-in-Charge of Kotwali Thana Inspector ABM Zahidul Islam, Vice-president of the central committee of Jatiya Jubo Sanghati Haji Md Abdur Razzaque, News Editor of the uttorbangla.com Sayeed Ahmed Nisahd, among others, addressed the function.
A suspected member of Neo-JMB identified as Saiful Islam was killed in a suicide blast during anti-militant drive at Hotel Olio International at Panthapath in city on Tuesday.
Iran judiciary freezes assets of BBC Persian staff

BBC Online :

The BBC has called on the Iranian authorities to reverse a new order that appears to effectively freeze the assets of its staff in Iran.

BBC World Service Director Francesca Unsworth said it deplored the apparent "targeted attack" on BBC Persian staff, former staff and some contributors.

She said the order was preventing staff from selling or buying property, cars and other goods.

BBC Persian, which broadcasts on TV, on radio and online, is banned in Iran.

In recent years staff and

their family members have been routinely subjected to harassment and intimidation by the Iranian authorities.

BBC Persian has obtained a court order that lists the names of 152 staff, former staff and contributors whose non-liquid assets have been frozen by Iran's judiciary.
Rice price yet to come down despite rise in imports

Anisul Islam Noor :

Rice prices are yet to come down in local markets despite rise in imports of this staple food.

Following the cut in import tariff to 10 per cent from 28 per cent in June, a good number of importers from Dhaka, Khatunganj of Chittagong and Noapara of Jessore started the import process.

The food ministry, however, said there is no crisis of rice. The market is under control. The price will fall if import increases in the days ahead. The government made many agreements to import rice although it earlier claimed that it has a deficit of only 1 million tonnes of rice.

The rice crisis emerged this year after the crops in the haor areas were damaged by heavy rainfall and floods.

Bangladesh, the 4th rice-growing country globally, has thus turned into a major importer, though the government did not import rice over the past four years.

In fact, the government measures confirm that rice import has now been the government's only way out for keeping the price stable in the local markets.

Still, market data suggest, the efforts made over the past two months have failed to resolve the rice crisis.

In two months, 57,000 tonnes of rice were procured from the international market. The government's silos, which are capable of storing 1.7 million tonnes, have only 2,73,000 tonnes of rice, official data show.

The Directorate of Food has not yet started selling rice in the open market, a programme to distribute food at cheaper rate. Other social safety programmes have been cut.

The food ministry has recently requested the National Board of Revenue to cut import tariff by 5 per cent more in the second phase. As a result, the import price of rice will drop by Tk 1.5 per kg.

And rice prices, after remaining static for the last three weeks, increased further by Tk 2-Tk 3 a kilogram (kg) at the city retail markets as coarse rice sold at Tk 45-Tk 48 a kg in recent days.

According to the district-level traders, prices of imported coarse rice also remained static at hubs like Dinajpur, Rangpur, Naogaon, Jessore and Kushtia.

The cut in import cost helped ease prices of coarse and medium varieties of rice by Tk 3-Tk 4 a kg across the country in July last, according to sources in the market.

The prices of all varities of rice, however, witnessed a further hike. Coarse varieties like Swarna sold at Tk 48 and hybrid quality at Tk 45-Tk 46 a kg. Medium quality Brridhan-28 and Lota sold at Tk 48-52 a kg and finer rice Miniket, Jeerashail and Najirshail at Tk 55-Tk 62 a kg.

The government-run Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) data showed the surge at Tk 1-Tk 2 a kg only.

Akbar Hossain, a grocer at Shantinagar area in the city, said he bought Swarna at Tk 46.5 a kg from Karwan Bazar on Monday which was Tk 45 a kg only a week back.

Miniket prices showed hike by Tk 45-Tk 50 per 50 kg sack at wholesale level, he said.

When asked, Muhammad Asadullah, Joint-Secretary of Badamtoli-Babubazar Rice Wholesalers' Association in the city, said rice prices have been increasing for the last two weeks in milling hubs.

He said, "The prices of finer and medium quality rice witnessed a hike between Tk 0.5 and Tk1.0 a kg in the last one week at Babubazar following a hike in mills."

"But," he claimed, "wholesale prices of coarse rice didn't soar," he claimed.

Dinajpur-based importer Sujan Kumar told the correspondent that they were selling Indian Swarna at Tk 38-Tk 39 a kg for the last two weeks.

He said the prices may reduce further if the government cuts the import duty further.

The food ministry data showed private importers brought 0.244 million tonnes while the government imported another 0.04 million tonnes of rice so far this fiscal year (July 1 to August 8).

When contacted, President of the Bangladesh Auto Major Husking Mill Owners Association Abdur Rashid said prices of Miniket and Brridhan-28 increased slightly following a normal market trend.

He said paddy prices, after a fall, started rising since the last part of July.

"Brridhan-28 now sells at Tk 1,010 a maund (40 kg), which was Tk 850-Tk 900 earlier" he said.

"The domestic rice market has been showing much volatility compared to the last few years," Additional Research Director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue Dr Khandaker Golam Moajjem said.

He said the poor public stock is also influencing it.

He said the government should assess the need for grain for its ongoing projects, and for any natural calamity also.
Ill-practice by new banks draws flak

They spend CSR fund more to collect deposits, dodge tax, bankers allege

Badrul Ahsan :

New generation banks are allegedly spending much in the name of corporate social responsibility (CSR) fund to collect deposits and to evade taxation.

Banking sector insiders say these new banks donate cash and different types of instruments to different government, semi-government and autonomous bodies who are compelled to deposit a certain amount in banks every year.

Authorities of these banks donate the amount or instruments on conditions of giving deposits to their banks.

A recent study carried out by the Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management (BIBM) pointed out that such spending was 205 percent of the banks' previous year's net profit.

CSR fund spending by these private sector banks

aim at tax-dodging, the study also found. The BIBM study was released at a recent seminar in the city.

It was carried out by a four-member BIBM team led

by its Associate Professor Sohail Mustafa.

Bangladesh Bank guidelines allow banks to spend 10 percent of their net profit on CSR fund, but the report found that NRB Global Bank spent 205 percent in 2016, which was unusual.

In 2015, Union Bank spent 99 percent, Midland Bank 92 percent and NRB Global Bank 35 percent. In 2014, NRB Global spent 49 percent, NRB Commercial 37 percent and Union Bank 15 percent.

"We have observed some banks specially the new ones are using their CSR money to collect deposits," a General Manager of Bangladesh Bank (BB) told The New Nation, preferring anonymity.

The BB official warned these banks of stern action if such ill-practice is continued by them.

SK Sur Chowdhury, BB Deputy Governor, said allegations relating to use of CSR fund against nine new commercial banks are wingspread. Two-three of them are in deplorable condition and the central bank is watching them, Chowdhury added.

In response to a query, Khondkar Ibrahim Khaled, a former deputy governor of BB, said the new banks are doing unethical activities.

"The government should keep watch on activities of the new banks, including usage of CSR fund, deposit collection, loan sanctions to avoid any unexpected situation and wrong-doing," he said.

However, this noted economist said there is nothing to be worried as a very small amount of loans these banks sanction has turned defaulted.

Khaled also expressed dismay over the number of new banks.

"The number of banks is more than the size of Bangladesh economy," he opined.

The licences of the banks showing bad performance should be cancelled, he suggested.
`Militant` killed in suicide blast

Cops foil Neo-JMB's plot to attack on Mourning Day rally: IGP

Staff Reporter :

One suspected militant was killed in a suicidal blast during the law and orkder department's 'Operation August Bite' into Hotel Olio International at Panthapath, about 300 metres from the Bangabandhu Museum where mourners gathered to pay tribute to Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in the city's Dhanmondi on Tuesday morning.

The victim has been identified as Saiful Islam, 21, a student of BL College, Khulna. He is son of Abul Khayer from Dumuria upazila of Khulna district, Police said.

"The police cordoned-off the hotel near Square Hospitals at 03:30am, suspecting that militants might be hiding there. Police also blocked the road in front of Square Hospitals to Dhanmondi." Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit Chief Monirul Islam said this after conclusion of the operation at Dhanmondi-32 around 12:45pm Tuesday.

"Boarders of the all hotel rooms responded to, but not the Room No. 301. None agreed to get out of the room and said that the door won't be opened before the evening. At one stage, all the residents of the hotel were taken out and the room was locked on outside.," the CTTC Chief said.

The militant who was staying inside the room rejected the police requests to surrender. At this, members of SWAT (Special Weapons And Tactics) and CTTC launched the raid, said Monirul Islam.

To weaken the militant, a gas was sprayed. To this, a bomb was exploded, leaving the door and the wall collapsed. Afterwards, the militant exploded another bomb, damaging the veranda. When the operation ended at about 10:30am, Bomb disposal unit defused another bomb, according to CTTC chief.

Saiful Islam, the slain militant, was a member of Neo-JMB, an offshoot of banned militant outfit Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), he said.

The CTTC Chief claimed that the militant who blew himself up during the raid into the Hotel Olio International at Panthapath planned for carrying out major attack on the events marking National Mourning Day, Monirul Islam added.

"August is the month of mourning, but not sabotage and confusion. The cell of Neo-JMB grew too desperate to make another occasion in the month", he mentioned.

A police member was injured in the bomb explosion, said Sanowar Hossain, Additional Deputy Commissioner of the CTTC unit of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP).

A loud explosion was heard from the hotel at 9:45am, followed by gunfire. The explosion caused a section of the building's fourth floor wall to collapse. Saiful was found dead in the debris on the fourth floor, the ADC said.

After conclusion of the operation, Inspector General of Police (IGP) AKM Shahidul Haque said in a press briefing that Saiful Islam, the slain militant, conspired to carry out a suicide attack in the capital.
Homage paid to Bangabandhu

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Sheikh Rehana offering Doa & Munajat after placing wreaths on the Mazar of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman at Tungipara marking the 42nd National Mourning Day on Tuesday.

UNB, Dhaka :

The nation observed the National Mourning Day on Tuesday with due respect, marking the 42nd anniversary of the martyrdom of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina led the nation in paying deep homage to the Father of the Nation by placing wreaths at his portrait in front of Bangabandhu Memorial Museum at Dhanmondi Road No. 32 in the morning.

After placing the wreaths, they stood in solemn silence for some time showing respect to the great leader.

A smartly turned out contingent of Bangladesh Armed Forces gave state salute at that time, while the bugle played the tune of grief and somber to the last post.

A munajat was offered seeking the eternal peace of the departed souls of the August 15 carnage.

Sheikh Rehana, the youngest daughter of Bangabandhu, Speaker Dr Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury, Chief Justice SK Sinha, cabinet members, Prime Minister's advisers, senior leaders of Awami League and 14-Party and senior government officials were present.

Later, Sheikh Hasina, also the President of Awami League, flanked by party's General Secretary Obaidul Quader and senior leaders, placed wreaths at the portrait of Bangabandhu on behalf of the party.

After paying the tributes to Bangabandhu, the Prime Minister along with her sister Sheikh Rehana visited the historic residence of Bangabandhu at Dhanmondi Road No. 32 which witnessed the world's most barbaric carnage on this day 42 years ago.

After their departure, people from all walks of life wearing black badges paid homage to the Father of the Nation by placing wreaths at his portrait there.

The Prime Minister also placed a floral wreath at the mazar of the great leader at Tungipara of Gopalganj on the occasion.

She also attended a milad and doa mahfil arranged by Mohila Awami League after Asr prayers in front of the Bangabandhu Memorial Museum at Dhanmondi in the capital.

A milad and doa mahfil was held at Bangabhaban after Johr prayers attended by President Abdul Hamid.

Different socio-cultural, political and professional

organisations also observed the day with elaborate programmes.

Bangabandhu was assassinated along with most of his family members at the crack of dawn on August 15, 1975 by a cabal of unruly army personnel under a deep-rooted conspiracy against the country and its independence.

His two daughters-Sheikh Hasina, now the Prime Minister, and Sheikh Rehana-survived the barbaric carnage as they were abroad at that time.

Eighteen members of the Bangabandhu's family, including wife Sheikh Fazilatunnesa Mujib, three sons-Captain Sheikh Kamal, Lt Sheikh Jamal and Sheikh Russell, two daughters-in-law Sultana Kamal and Rosy Jamal, brother Sheikh Naser, peasant leader Abdur Rob Serniabat, youth leader Sheikh Fazlul Haq Moni and his wife Arzu Moni, Baby Serniabat, Sukanta Babu, Arif and Abdul Nayeem Khan Rintu, were killed on the fateful night.

Bangabandhu's Military Secretary Col Jamil was also killed. Some members of a family at Mohammadpur in the capital were killed by artillery shells fired by the killers on the same day.

The national flag was kept half-mast at all government, semi-government and autonomous bodies, educational institutions, private buildings and Bangladesh missions abroad.

Food was distributed among orphans and destitute people at noon.

Besides, Awami League will arrange a discussion at the city's Bangabandhu International Conference Centre at 4:00 pm on Wednesday where Awami League President Sheikh Hasina will be present as the chief guest.

State-run Bangladesh Betar and Bangladesh Television as well as private television channels and radio stations aired special programmes highlighting the life, struggle and achievements of the great leader while newspapers brought out supplements on the occasion.
All BD Hajj aspirants get visa

Flight operation to be extended by Aug 28

Staff Reporter :

The Saudi authorities have granted visa to all the Bangladeshi pilgrims amid deepening crisis over visa and Hajj flight operation.

A total of 1,27,198 pilgrims have intended to perform Hajj this year.

The Saudi authorities have approved visas of 1,18,924 pilgrims till August 14. And they will approve visas of rest of the pilgrims by Thursday, Director of Hajj office at Ashkona Saiful Islam told media quoting officials of the Saudi Embassy in Dhaka.

Some 68,158 Bangladeshi Hajj pilgrims out of 1,27,198 reached Saudi Arabia so far, officials said.

On Monday, five Biman flights carrying Hajj pilgrims reached Saudi Arabia.

Earlier, Biman had to cancel 27 hajj flights due to passenger crisis resulted from visa complication and accommodation.

Amid deepening crisis over carrying Hajj aspirants to Saudi Arabia, the government decided to extend Hajj flight operations till August 28 from August 26.

The government also expects that a Malaysian aircraft, taken on lease, will start carrying Bangladeshi Hajj pilgrims on August 20.






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CAIRO  The Southern Illinoisan has filed a lawsuit in Alexander County Circuit Court alleging that Cairo Public Utility Co. is improperly withholding public records sought under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act.

The newspaper sought public records from Cairo Public Utility Co. earlier this summer as part of its ongoing reporting of a housing crisis in Cairo and separate but parallel issues concerning challenges to economic recovery in Alexander County.

Residents, business owners, government agencies and nonprofits operating in Cairo have complained of high electric and gas bills for years. Federal housing officials also have raised concerns about utility bills in Cairo since taking over day-to-day operations of the Alexander County Housing Authority on Feb. 22, 2016, citing years of mismanagement and alleged civil rights violations.

In an April financial review of the housing authority, Housing and Urban Development cited abnormally high utility costs among top reasons why the housing authority was insolvent and on the brink of collapse without significant corrective action.

Representatives from both HUD and the utility company said the parties worked out an agreement for short-term cost relief, but such a deal does not address the broader issue of utility costs hamstringing economic revitalization efforts.

There has not been any new residential construction in Cairo in 40 years. The lack of development in the city  both residential and commercial  has become problematic as HUD prepares to raze two large public housing complexes and relocate close to 400 people outside of Alexander County because of a lack of affordable housing options in Cairo. HUD officials also have said that because the economy is so depressed, they have been unsuccessful to date in finding a private developer willing to partner to build new housing in Cairo.

High utility costs also have been cited as a roadblock in efforts by federal housing and city officials to secure a private developer to partner with the government in the construction of new affordable housing.

As is the case anytime we encounter concerns about a potential problem in a community in our coverage area, our reporters tried to get to the bottom of the many complaints we had heard about high utility costs in Cairo, said Executive Editor Tom English. In July, we published a seven-part series on the utility costs and related issues after speaking to utility company executives, residents and numerous others.

But in light of the housing crisis playing out in Cairo, and the serious challenges this community is facing, we thought it was necessary to review and publish public records that would be standard for any other municipal electric agency in the state of Illinois to make available for inspection.

The newspaper was unable to reach Cairo Public Utility or its attorney, Mark Johnson, of the law firm Johnson, Schneider & Ferrell LLC, for comment on the lawsuit.

Cairo Public Utility Co. denied two separate requests for information filed by Reporter Isaac Smith on behalf of the newspaper in May and June. In the initial FOIA request, filed May 24, Smith sought from the utility its past three years Form 990s, which are IRS documents filed by most tax-exempt bodies.

The utility responded to Smiths request by stating they are not required to file Form 990 with the IRS. Additionally, the utility attached to its response a copy of an advisory opinion from the Illinois Attorney General opining that CPU was not a public body for the purposes of FOIA and therefore is not subject to the requirements of the act. In his second request, Smith sought the utilitys last three complete financial audits and detailed salary information for CPU board members and administrative staff.

The opinion from the Attorney Generals Office that the utility company provided in response to both requests was issued in 2010. Around that time, a private citizen had asked for an opinion from the Attorney Generals Public Access Bureau after she was denied records she had sought under FOIA law.

The Southern Illinoisan claims in its lawsuit that the Attorney Generals opinion did not consider Section 7(2) of the act, which states that public records held by a party that is not a public body but with whom the agency has contracted to perform a governmental function on behalf of the public body, and that directly relates to the governmental function  shall be considered public for purpose of the act.

According to the lawsuit, the city of Cairo, in 1995, passed an ordinance that authorized and approved a Municipal Utility Transfer Agreement enabling the CPU to operate a municipal electric and gas utilities owned and operated by the city. The ordinance states, according to the lawsuit: Providing electric and natural gas energy to the residents of the city and areas outside of the city served by the utility are an essential governmental service of the city.

The ordinance also states that CPU was formed for the purposes of operating the utility on behalf of the city.

Additionally, during a June 14 interview with the newspaper, Cairo Public Utility Co. General Manager Larry Klein told the newspaper that the nonprofit utility was formed in 1995 as an instrumentality of the city of Cairo. Klein was explaining how the utility was able to remain a member of the Illinois Municipal Electric Agency, its wholesale electric supplier based in Springfield, which serves exclusively municipalities with the exception of the nonprofit CPU, which is a quasi-municipal entity.

Don Craven, an attorney with the Illinois Press Association, is representing the newspaper in this case. Funding for the lawsuit is through a partnership between the newspaper and the IPAs Legal Defense Fund. The Southern Illinoisan is a member newspaper of the IPA, the largest state newspaper association in the country.

HUD, in its financial review of the Alexander County Housing Authority, in explaining why CPUs rates are higher than its peers, stated that CPU is an Illinois nonprofit that is not regulated by the Illinois Commerce Commission and therefore able to pass on most, if not all, of its costs to its customer base. Further, due to its remote location CPU has a limited number of customers over which to spread its costs, resulting in rates higher than the industry average.

Klein, CPUs general manager, said in the June interview with the newspaper that the senior HUD staff had paid a visit to the utility company to ask for rate relief. Klein said they were disappointed by the request from HUD, but said they did work out a deal to help them reduce costs. He said that CPU could not offer the housing authority a rate relief without doing the same for all customers in the same rate class, which Klein said the utility could not afford to do.

In its report, HUD said its Alexander County developments are serviced by CPU and Ameren, though it appears from reviewing public records that the ACHAs largest payments are to CPU. The report said the ACHAs total utilities expense of $197.04 per unit month for 2015 was more than double the $86.78 per unit month compared to similar sized housing authorities in the Midwest.

In a follow-up interview, Klein, and Todd Ely, a Springfield consultant working on behalf of the utility, said that electric rates in Cairo are problematic. But they pointed fingers toward their wholesale supplier in Springfield, the Illinois Municipal Electric Agency. Ely blamed the high rates on a poor management decision made by IMEA executives to purchase about 15 percent of the Prairie State Energy Campus, a mine-to-mouth coal fired energy plant in Marissa that came online in 2012. Ely said cost overruns and early inefficiencies at the plant have driven up electric rates for member organizations.

In previous interviews, IMEA executives defended the decision to buy into the plan that was backed by St. Louis-based Peabody, at the time the nations largest coal producer, but that has since sold its last remaining shares. IMEA argued that the Peabody plant was but one investment in a diverse portfolio managed on behalf of its members that also includes renewables and long-term supply contracts for the purchase of electricity from coal, natural gas and diesel units.

IMEA also noted that a representative of CPU sits on the IMEA board and voted in favor of the purchase. Staci Wilson said that IMEA is not to blame for Cairos economic woes, but recognizing the difficulties the member city faced, she said at the time that IMEA did offer the city a wholesale rate break in an attempt to help them out. Ely said it was not enough to correct the problem of excessively high rates.

IMEA has about $1.3 billion in bond debt on its books for its electric piece, according to its most recent audited financial statements. Cairo, a city of about 2,400, purchases about 1.7 percent of the power supplied by IMEA, and therefore is responsible for about $22 million of the bond debt, which is why IMEA is unlikely to release CPU from its contract without significant penalties. If CPU isnt purchasing its share, the debt load would have be spread out among IMEAs other members, and the other municipalities likely would resist.

The contract between CPU and IMEA expires in 2035. The contract between CPU and the city of Cairo expires in 2028.
HERRIN  Herrin Police Officer Ryan Howell provided assistance of an unusual nature to residents of a Herrin neighborhood. Officer Howell rescued a three-foot long ball python found in the area of Bogey Drive on Sunday.

It is not an indigenous species, so I assume it was somebodys pet. This is the first one (animal rescue) I can recall during my time at Herrin Police Department involving an exotic reptile, Herrin Police Chief Quinn Laird said.

A resident who first spotted the snake called Laird after talking to a neighbor. Laird went over to look at it and called the department.

They just happened to see it and were not really sure what to do about it, Laird said.

Howell captured the snake. It was sent to Free Again Wildlife Rehabilitation.

The concern with snake like that is that it might be able to kill a small animal or neighborhood pets, Laird said.

 Marilyn Halstead
"Tracy and I can't thank the people of Southern Illinois enough for their support and their prayers. Our victory tonight sends a powerful message to out-of-touch politicians everywhere that we're unified and unyielding in the fight for our conservative values. Joe Biden's going to be held accountable for destroying the economy, ignoring the border crisis, and taking us from America First to America Last in two years flat. But none of this would be possible without the trust of voters from across our vast 12th District. Serving you is truly the honor of a lifetime."
CARBONDALE  The Southern Illinoisan was one of two newspapers in the country named winners of the sixth annual Associated Press Media Editors Community Journalism Public Service Initiative.

The Southern and Unalaska Community Broadcasting Inc. (KUCB Radio) in Alaska were named as winners of $2,500 grants plus expenses to attend the annual ASNE-APME-APPM News Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C.

The judges felt that these two news organizations presented totally different projects, but were both equally deserving of the honor, Joe Hight, chairman of the grant project and judging panel this year, said in a news release from APME. They and the other entrants typify the outstanding public service work that smaller news organizations are doing in this country. APME continues to honor them through these grants.

The grant will support The Southern Illinoisan's ongoing coverage in Cairo and other issues concerning rural public housing.

This newsrooms powerful award-winning watchdog work on conditions in Cairo has already drawn a lot of outside attention and praise. Best of all, HUD took action against corrupt housing officials in the face of evidence documented by the newspaper, Cate Barron, a grant judge and vice president for content for PA Media Group, said in the release. Now, The (Southern) Illinoisan wants to take its investigation to another level, using multimedia to examine conditions in neglected public housing developments throughout the region.  With the newsrooms track record of dramatic results, we are sure the funding will be put to good use.

The Southern reporter Molly Parker has been covering the issues in Cairo since 2015. In April of this year, HUD announced it was going to tear down the McBride and Elmwood housing complexes and help residents find housing that is safe and decent.

Sometimes, when you live in a rural community and work for a small paper, it can feel like you have to knock at the door a little bit longer to get anyone's attention. But I think this project shows that local journalism and community engagement can bring about change. I look forward to continuing our work in Cairo while also shining a broader light on affordable housing challenges in the Heartland, Parker said.

Since HUD made its announcement, major news organizations from all over the country have picked up on the story.

I'm proud of the work Molly has done on this incredible project, said Tom English, executive editor for The Southern. She, along with Richard Sitler and Isaac Smith, deserves a lot of praise for what theyve done. Im happy Molly is getting recognized for all the hours, days and weeks that she has put into it. Molly is very deserving of this  and shes earned everything that has come with it.

The Unalaska Community Broadcasting Inc. won for its project to record the history of the Unangax people, who were forced to evacuate and then were interned after the bombing of Dutch Harbor in Alaska'a Aleutian Chain during World War II.
DENMARK  Workers removed the City of Denmarks old water tower on Monday.

Although some residents wanted the tower to remain, others said it is time for it to go.

Edward Felder, a lifelong resident of Denmark, said, That water tower has been here for years. We dont need it for water.

Its all rusty, and it makes things look bad.

Iseler Demolition began removing the tower Monday morning. It had the low bid of $19,200 for the removal.

Iseler foreman John Phillips estimated the water tower is about 100 years old.

When you see a double lattice, you are talking pre-1920. I would date it at 1914, after the turn of the century, he said.

The rusting water tank featured fading dogwood blossoms painted by the late Jim Harrison, a nationally acclaimed artist.

Ashley Jordan, Detra Salley-Bruce and others sought to keep the water tower standing. Some wanted it turned into an art project or to have the demolition money spent elsewhere in the downtown.

On Monday morning, Denmark resident Clary Johnson said, Take it down! It isnt serving any purpose. Look at the condition it is in.

W.E. Pete Brooker, owner of Brookers Hardware, said, Its time for it to come down because of its condition. The city is not able to bring it up to par to use it.

I think its dangerous if it does not come down. In time, it could be dangerous.

Some cell transmitters that were placed on the tower several years ago are not in use any more and dont bring revenue to the city, he said.

Iseler Demolition arrived before 9 a.m. with hooks, trucks and a crane among other equipment.

Phillips said, We should have four hours of hook time. By three oclock this afternoon, I hope to be leaving.

He said, There is no portion of the water tower that looks terrible. Its all rusted, though.

According to Phillips, Iseler Demolition averages 120 to 130 tank removals a year.

Phillips added, For as many as we take down, there are four companies building them.
By Azernews





By Sara Israfilbayova

Azerbaijan develops its agricultural cooperation with China in new dimensions as it does in all other spheres of the economy.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture Ilham Guliyev made the remark at a meeting with a Chinese delegation led by the chairman of the Board of the Beijing-based Norinco International Cooperation Ltd, Wang Yitong.

Guliyev said Azerbaijan will build a state-of-the-art plant using the Chinese experience in order to renovate Gakh Silk Farming Station.

The government greatly supports the agricultural development in Azerbaijan. Farmers and entrepreneurs are free from all taxes, except land tax, and get 70 percent and 40 percent discounts for fertilizers and machinery, respectively. We consider it expedient to apply China`s successful experience in the spheres of silk farming, cotton-growing and tea growing in Azerbaijan, he added.

Yitong, in turn, expressed interest in developing agricultural relations with Azerbaijan.

China is a huge opportunity and a priority market for Azerbaijan. More than 50 agreements were signed between the two countries so far.

In the first quarter of 2016, the Chinese government invested $419 million in various spheres of Azerbaijan. The cost of contracts signed between the two countries amounted to $227 million. Azerbaijan invested in 59 projects implemented in China and the total amount of these investments amounted to $7.8 million.

Trade and economic contacts occupy a significant place in bilateral relations between China and Azerbaijan. The process of interaction between the two countries was marked by constant tendencies of expansion and strengthening of cooperation.

In early August, Azerbaijan Export and Investment Promotion Foundation (AZPROMO) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT).

The document provides for the development of trade, economic and investment relations between the two countries, as well as promotion of export and exchange of experience.

Moreover, the active cooperation between China and Azerbaijan strongly contributes to the realization of the Great Silk road program.

The Great Silk Road is a general name of a caravan road, which has been the main two-way trading bridge of East and West since III century BC up to now. The Great Silk Road starts in Japan and China stretches up to Europe cutting through India, Afghanistan, Iran, Central Asia, Caucasus, Asia Minor, Northern Africa including/connecting Indian Ocean, Chinese sea, Japanese sea, Red sea, Caspian sea, Black sea, Azov sea and Mediterranean sea.

The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and China amounted to $395.6 million in January-April 2017.
By Trend





Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed the decree approving the execution of seven investment projects worth $40 million in the Sirdaryo branch of the Jizzakh free economic zone.

Chinas Wenzhou Jinsheng Trading Co. will participate in the projects, reads the Uzbek presidents decree published on his official website.

It is planned to launch enterprises for the production of footwear, leather goods, brass and copper connectors for pipe fittings, locks and other products in 2017-2019 on the branch premises.

The largest project is for the production of leather goods, with the designed capacity of 60,000 square meters and the cost of $9 million.

Almalyk Mining and Metallurgical Combine will act as the Uzbek partner in four projects.

Sirdaryo branch of the Jizzakh free economic zone was established in 2009.
By Trend





President Hassan Rouhani stressed on promoting strategic relations with the neighboring countries, especially Russia, IRNA reported.

President Rouhani made the remarks Monday in a phone conversation with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

He emphasized the fact that Iran's principled policy is to develop all-out ties with Russia.

President Rouhani pointed to good relations between two countries, and urged active investors and private sectors of Russia to participate in Iran's infrastructural projects in industry and energy field.

He pointed to complexities in the region and also the bad situation in Yemen, Iraq and Syria.

President Rouhani also underscored the need for Iran-Russia consultations in solving these problems and in fighting terrorism as well.

He referred to Iran's nuclear deal known as Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) as a multilateral accord, saying Iran has always been committed.

He went on to say that International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also approves Iran's commitment.

Iranian president urged Russia to play positive role in reinforcing JCPOA.

Meanwhile, President Putin congratulated Rouhani on commencing the 12th government.

He also emphasized Russian investors and economic activists' eagerness in participating in Iran's infrastructural projects.

Fortunately, Iran-Russia efforts have brought about good achievements in stabilizing the situation in the region, President Putin said.

The Russian president went on to say that both countries will be able to send humanitarian aids to Yemen by promoting cooperation.
By Azernews





By Ali Mustafayev

Moscow and Ankara plan to hold consultations regarding issues on the valid trade bans, including the tomato ban, which raised a huge concern in Turkey.

Russia and Turkey didn't revise the reached agreements on lifting of restrictions on deliveries of the Turkish tomatoes and will discuss access of this production to the Russian market in the next weeks, said Alexei Gruzdev, Deputy Minister of Economic Development, Ria Novosti reported.

The first meeting will is scheduled for August 18.

As it was mentioned in the declaration of the deputy prime ministers - nothing is reviewed. The corresponding consultations will be held in the nearest future, but they will be begun that is you shouldn't expect that the decision will be made. I think that the first contacts within the next several weeks will be, on all complex of questions, including on tomatoes, he explained.

Gruzdev stressed that the sides will discuss the situation and exchange views within the reached agreements, mentioning that they have a mechanism of the restriction settlement.

Previously, Turkish Minister of the Economy Nihad Zeybekchi stated that Turkey will have to take contra measures, in case if Russia doesnt remove the current restrictions on the import of Turkish tomato.

The Turkish government expresses hope for the effective dialogue during the negotiations which will start on 18 August in Izmir.

In 2016 Russia imposed a number of economic sanctions on Turkey, including the suspension of visa-free travel to Russia for Turkish citizens, limits on Turkish residents and companies doing business in Russia and bans on import of Turkish products.

Russia dropped restrictions on Turkish citrus fruits in late 2016 and both nations signed a memorandum agreeing to lift the vast majority of the bilateral trade restrictions laid down in 2015. However, the Russian ban on Turkish tomato imports still remains in place.

Russia says that the reason lies in Russian agriculturists, who invested a large amount of money in the national agriculture during tensions between Russia and Turkey and who are still waiting for the profit.

The ban on the tomato import is considered to be the most negative for Turkey since Russia was the largest market for the Turkish tomato export with annual profit amounting to billions of dollars.
Uzbekistans President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has signed a decree appointing Ruslanbek Davletov as the countrys new justice minister, says a message posted on the Uzbek presidents website.

Davletov has served as the first deputy state advisor to the Uzbek president on coordination of work with appeals of individuals and legal entities.

The newly appointed minister succeeded Muzraf Ikramov, who has been appointed as chairman of the Accounting Chamber by another presidential decree. Ikramov has served as the countrys justice minister since February 2015.
GFH Financial Group today announced that it has completed the acquisition of a $1.2-billion infrastructure portfolio in Africa and the Middle East.



The acquisition comes as part of GFHs new strategy approved in the last shareholders extraordinary general meeting in March 2017 and subsequent to regulatory approvals.



The acquisition has been funded by $315 million capital increase, taking GFH issued and paid-up capital to $975 million. The portfolio acquired will make GFH one of the key land banks with more than 200 million sq ft across Africa, GCC and India.



Hisham Alrayes, CEO of GFH, said: We are pleased to complete this major acquisition in GFH history today and deliver one of the key milestones in our new strategy. The acquisition adds another main line of business to GFH, infrastructure investments, alongside investment banking, commercial banking and real estate.



"International and regional reputed developers have expressed their interest to partner with GFH in this portfolio. Hence we foresee substantial returns to our shareholders in the medium to long term. - TradeArabia News Service


Bahrain-based Bank ABC, a leading international banking group in Mena, has recently joined blockchain-inspired consortium headed by R3, a financial innovation firm, headquartered in New York City.



The over 80-strong consortium of the world's biggest financial institutions is spearheading research and development of blockchaininspired distributed ledger technologies (DLT) to build the next generation of financial services infrastructure.



DLT enables participating parties to form and maintain consensus about the existence, status and evolution of a set of shared facts on their stakeholders. These systems allow competing firms to collaborate to maintain secure, shared databases and reduce cost and execution time.



We are privileged to be part of this prestigious consortium of international banks and financial institutions, which is spearheading a pivotal change in the industry. DLT and blockchain technology has added a new dimension to the evolving FinTech landscape and we are confident that this alliance will propel us further to achieve our strategic goals, said Sael Al Waary, deputy Group CEO of Bank ABC.



We are committed to continue to provide our customers with exceptional customer service and innovative financial products. DLT will help us fulfil our promise to clients.



Bank ABCs group head of IT, Stuart Rennie, added: access to the wealth of knowledge and resources available through the R3 consortium will strengthen Bank ABC to leverage our investment in technology and support the delivery of our digital strategy.



David Rutter, CEO of R3said: Weve already made substantial progress in our development of distributed ledger technology, with the launch of Corda and numerous successful proof-of-concepts, our open source distributed ledger platform. The addition of Bank ABC marks a significant milestone for R3, becoming our first partner in the Middle East as we continue to expand our global network. We look forward to working with them and extending the benefits of distributed ledger technology even further.



Bank ABC is a leading player in the regions banking industry and provides innovative wholesale financial products and services that include corporate banking, financial and capital markets, trade finance, project and structured finance, syndications, treasury products and Islamic banking. It also provides retail banking services through its network of retail banks in Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria.  TradeArabia News Service
The Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company (GPIC) has been licensed by the Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications Ports and Maritime Navigation Affairs Department to operate and manage the companys export terminal.



The two-year licence was officially handed over when GPIC president Dr Abdulrahman Jawahery received assistant undersecretary for Maritime Ports Affairs Bader Houd Al Mahmoud, said a statement.



Members of GPIC executive management, officials of departments and ports and maritime affairs officials were present, it said.



Al Mahmoud praised the company's efforts to quickly and professionally meet all licence requirements, which indicated its keenness to achieve excellence and quality in its export operations, it added.



Dr Jawahery thanked officials at the ministry, headed by the minister, Kamal bin Ahmed, and those from the department for their cooperation in all joint procedures. He said it would be in the interest of the company to upgrade the work at the terminal.



He said the licence confirms Bahrains keenness to implement all international requirements regarding laws on ships and ports and its commitment to have the latest procedures in place. This, he said, has contributed to maintaining its reputation in the field of management.



Dr Jawahery also said GPIC having been given the licence is clear evidence of the companys regulations and the support it has received from the board of directors.



A new law that requires port users and operators of private berths to register themselves at the department was recently issued.



GPIC has since taken all necessary measures and initiated strict audit by external auditors.



The company exports urea from its own terminal, which conforms to the highest international specifications. It manages and operates the terminal with highly trained and qualified Bahraini staff in compliance with all maritime and industrial safety requirements.



The licence comes as a result of the company's compliance with the Ports and Docks Permits Act. As the regulator of the marine industry, the Department of Ports and Maritime Affairs oversees the granting of licences, registration of vessels, port operators and operations, it stated.  TradeArabia News Service
Aluminium Bahrain (Alba), the Bahrain-based international aluminium smelter, has marked the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking by sponsoring and partnering with Bahrains General Directorate of Criminal Investigation and Forensic Science in many anti-drug related activities.



Alba has carried out this initiative as part of its corporate social responsibility, said a statement from the company.



The International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking was introduced in Bahrain on December 7, 1987, based on UN resolution 42/112, and Bahrains Ministry of Interior has been observing it as part of its efforts in combating drug abuse and illicit trafficking.



Alba was recognised for its supportive role at a ceremony that was held under the patronage of Bahrains Interior Minister, Lieutenant General Shaikh Rashid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa on June 21.



Albas chief financial officer Ali Al Baqali, said: Drug abuse is an epidemic facing many countries in the world today and requires major commitment from corporate and social institutions to control it.



We believe in supporting and fostering the efforts that are aimed at community welfare. We are much proud to back the activities for the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking as it will play a major role in highlighting the dangers of drugs and prevent its spread, he added.  TradeArabia News Service
The first UAE Genes in Space competition held in the UAE and made possible through a partnership of the UAE Space Agency, The National and Boeing has picked a UAE high school students experiment for launch to the International Space Station (ISS).



The DNA-based research competition was open to all students in Grades 7 through 12 across the country. The contest invites students to propose experiments that contribute to solving real-life space exploration problems.



The experiment by Al Mansoori, 15, of Al Mawakeb School Al Barsha in Dubai, will be the third award winner to fly an experiment to the ISS under the auspices of the Genes in Space competition and the first outside the US. Al Mansooris experiment will examine DNA produced in space for changes in protein expression. The results may provide clues on how to prevent unwanted cell death in order to keep future astronauts healthy during long-duration missions into deep space, including flights to Mars.



Al Mansoori worked with scientists from miniPCR to prepare her experiment for launch and operations aboard the station. Working with a miniPCR DNA replicator smaller than a glove box, astronauts will create numerous chains of DNA on orbit to see how they change. Al Mansoori said UAE Genes in Space inspired her by offering the opportunity to potentially help future astronauts reach Mars safely.



The need to explore connects us all as humans and it inspires us in different ways to pursue advances, said Al Mansoori. I looked at how astronauts might need to be protected while in space, or at least offer them a way to see what changes are taking place in their bodies. Knowing that, it may be possible to prevent such damage from taking place at all.



Dr Ahmad Belhoul Al Falasi, Minister of State for Higher Education and Chairman of the UAE Space Agency, said: The UAE Space Agencys organization and backing of this competition comes as part of the UAEs comprehensive efforts to support its ambitious youth and their endeavours. This competition has highlighted the deep interest among our youth in a range of applied space sciences and technologies. These fields are a foundation of national growth that will advance our strong international standing.

Al Mansooris research effort will follow in the successful paths of Anna-Sophia Boguraev, who won the inaugural Genes in Space competition in 2015, Julian Rubinfein, who won the 2016 competition, as well as the two individual winners of the 2017 Elizabeth Reizis and Sophia Chen.



The students worked with accomplished scientists from MIT, Harvard and Yale University, who mentored them to get their projects prepared and then performed on orbit aboard the unique microgravity environment offered by the station. The research resulted in published scientific reports to ensure the students findings are available to researchers working to decipher the riddles of human spaceflight.



The students who take part in this competition bring so much imagination and creativity to the research they propose that I think it drives all of us to work that much harder to make sure the experiment is successful and knowing that the results are making a meaningful contribution to science and the future of human space exploration, said Bernard Dunn, Boeings president for MENAT Region.  TradeArabia News Service
Dubais DIFC Courts witnessed sustained growth in the first six months of 2017, with the English-language, common law judiciary continuing to help global businesses resolve their largest and most complex disputes.



The judiciary is also becoming the increasingly preferred forum for settling the smaller claims of corporations, SMEs and individuals, a statement said.



The workload of the main Court of First Instance (CFI), including arbitration-related cases and counter claims, continued to grow in the first half of 2017, increasing by 57 per cent from the first half of 2016.



The total value of cases in the same period increased to Dh7.5 billion ($2 billion) as against Dh3.44 billion during H1 2016, a 118 per cent increase, although this figure was impacted by a particularly large arbitration case. The underlying trend for case values showed stable year-on-year growth.



The ongoing growth of CFI case volumes and values underscores the DIFC Courts maturity and position in the regional and international judicial landscape. This was further supported by a report from law firm Clyde & Co earlier this year that found between 2015-2017, where litigation was the preferred option for its regional clients, the DIFC Courts were chosen in 76 per cent of contracts dealing with Mergers and Acquisitions, making it the preferred Court system for handling such transactions.



The period was notable for the first enforcement of a United States court judgment, affirming the international connectivity of the DIFC Courts. They also further extended their international enforcement framework with the signing of a cooperation agreement with the Federal Court of Malaysia. Since their jurisdiction was opened to businesses worldwide in 2011, the DIFC Courts have established one of the worlds strongest enforcement regimes with jurisdictions including the Commercial Court of England and Wales, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, and the Shanghai High Peoples Court.



Small Claims Tribunal awareness and access soar

The performance of the regions first Small Claims Tribunal (SCT) was particularly noteworthy in the first six months of 2017, as its case load increased by 90 per cent to 150 (H1 2016: 79 cases), driven by greater awareness, the innovative use of technology, and new partnerships opening access to companies in free zones such as Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC). The total value of claims increased from Dh9 million to Dh13.9 million.



In 2016, the DIFC Courts launched the Smart SCT, enabling parties to resolve disputes from any location by participating via smartphone. Only the judge need be present in the purpose-built facility in Dubai, with screens showing the parties and a control panel making it possible to either open the virtual courtroom to all, or switch to private mode. In July, the Smart SCT was named among the worlds Top 10 Court Technology Solutions by the US-based National Association for Court Management.



Mark Beer, OBE, co-chief executive and registrar general of the DIFC Courts, said: The first half of 2017 saw the DIFC Courts serve big business, small firms and individuals seeking justice with equal consideration. Healthy growth in the main court cements our preferred status for resolving the biggest corporate disputes, while rapid growth in the Small Claims Tribunal underscores our ability to support SMEs and individuals. Our performance so far this year speaks to the maturity of the DIFC Courts, our position as a valued public service, and our status as global leader in the field of commercial justice.



Innovation track record set to continue



The DIFC Courts has proven to be among the most innovative commercial courts in the world and have pioneered many firsts for Middle East judiciaries, including the regions first Pro Bono programme and Small Claims Tribunal.



They recently affirmed their commitment to use technology to increase judicial efficiency by forming a partnership with one of the worlds leading technology companies to drive the digital transformation of commercial courts and create the courts of the future.



In October 2017 DIFC Courts will introduce a specialist Technology and Construction Division (TCD). A claim may be brought as a TCD case if it involves issues or questions which are technically complex, with a specialised Judge appointed to oversee disputes handled by the division.  TradeArabia News Service
Top industry experts, thought leaders and officials will gather to discuss and gain exclusive insights into the latest trends driving growth in the fertiliser market at the upcoming Gulf Petrochemicals and Chemicals Association (GPCA) Fertilizer Convention, next month in Bahrain.



The 8th edition of the convention will take place under the theme New beginnings: Return to growth, and will run from September 26 to 28 in The Ritz Carlton.



As changing market dynamics in the fertiliser industry create new business opportunities, the three-day event will offer exclusive insights into the impact of current market changes on fertiliser trade, as well as key drivers behind future growth, said a statement.



This year, the event will kick off with a welcome address from Shaikh Mohamed bin Khalifa bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, Minister of Oil for Bahrain.



It will also feature senior executives from the industry including Dr Abdulrahman Jawahery, president, Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company (GPIC) and chairman, Fertilizer Committee, GPCA; Khalid Al Mudaifer, president and CEO, Maaden; Charlotte Hebebrand, director general, International Fertilizer Association (IFA) and Peter Huang, CEO, China National Chemical Information Center (CNCIC) Consulting, among many others.



In line with the GPCAs drive to equip a new generation of aspiring students and future industry leaders with the requisite knowledge and skills to succeed, as well as enabling access to industry platforms, a student seminar will also take place during the convention, as part of the GPCAs Leaders of Tomorrow initiative.



During the 10-year period between 2006 and 2016, GCC fertiliser production capacity almost doubled in size, growing from 19.4 million tonnes to 37.8 million tonnes. 2017 is set to be another encouraging year, as GCC fertiliser production capacity is estimated to reach 42.3 million tonnes, with Saudi Arabia continuing to take the lead in GCC fertiliser production, raising its total capacity by almost a third to 21.5 million tonnes in 2017 from 16.8 in 2016.



Against the backdrop of increasing food demand in the region, coupled with a need for more fertiliser imports, the convention will explore themes for market stabilisation, global and regional megatrends, specialty fertilisers, resolving environmental and technical challenges and competition in major supply markets, said a statement.



Dr Abdulwahab Al Sadoun, secretary general, GPCA, said: As the first industry to be set up in the GCC, the fertiliser sector has grown exponentially over the years, delivering exceptional value to the Arabian Gulf region and markets across the globe.



The convention has established itself as the Middle Easts leading platform to network, share best practices and exchange ideas for the future in a highly dynamic business landscape, he said.



As a unique and must-attend forum for market-leading insights, the convention will open doors to future opportunities, help regional exporters establish a firm foothold in new markets and adapt to a new era of competitiveness, he added.



Dr Abdulrahman Jawahery, president, Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company (GPIC) and chairman, Fertilizer Committee, GPCA, said: We at GPCA are proud to host this important conference, focused on the latest developments of this strategic industry, for the very first time in Bahrain.



The convention brings together the industrys elite and gives us the opportunity to learn more about the challenges and solutions facing the fertiliser industry regionally and globally. Like previous editions, we are dedicated to this years success, he added.  TradeArabia News Service
Camtek Ltd, a provider of automated and technologically advanced solutions, has established a strategic cooperation with Sun Chemical, a leading producer of printing inks, coatings and supplies, pigments, polymers, liquid compounds, solid compounds, and application materials.



As per this agreement, Sun will develop liquid solder mask ink to be used in Camtek's inkjet system for PCB applications, said a statement.



The resulting ink may also target all other end user markets for PCB manufacturing, including the high-end automotive sector, with soldermask technology capable of meeting the most stringent OEM specifications, and the parties will share profits derived from the ink developed, it said.



Tony Searle, Circuits Business Manager, Sun Chemical, said: This is a great opportunity for us to work with an established advanced equipment manufacturer like Camtek.



The agreement brings our wealth of experience with inkjet technologies and applies it to the PCB industry, he said.



Rafi Amit, CEO, Camtek, said: We are very pleased to form this strategic cooperation with Sun Chemical, bringing to the table very significant experience with chemicals and inks for electronic manufacturing, especially soldermask.



Our two companies have highly complementary expertise and working together will be highly synergistic. As an addition to our own ink-development capabilities - this presents a significant stride forward in our efforts to commercialize the inkjet technology for PCBs, he added.  TradeArabia News Service
Dana Gas, the Middle Easts largest regional private sector natural gas company, has posted a net profit of $23 million for the first half (H1) of the year, as against $13 million during H1 2016,marking an increase of 77 per cent.



The company reported gross revenues of $222 million for the period as compared to $178 million n H1 2016.



During the second quarter 2017, the company reported gross revenues of $104 million and a net profit of $12 million as compared to $96 million and $7 million respectively in Q2 2016.



Dr Patrick Allman-Ward, CEO, Dana Gas, said: I am pleased to report a solid set of operational and financial figures for the first-half of 2017. We posted higher revenue and nearly doubled our net profit to $23 million.



We maintained strong production numbers by adding a further 13 per cent output in Egypt despite the planned shutdown of the El Wastani Gas Plant, which was completed successfully and without incident. Furthermore, we have plans to drill three exploration wells on Block 1 in Egypt in Q4 as part of our concession activity commitment.



We remain excited about the potential for medium to long-term growth but also recognise the need to manage the short-term cash collection challenges until we recover affirmed receivables and thereby realise the enormous value of our assets, he added.



The solid increase in the half-year profitability is based on several factors: firstly, a 25 per cent increase in gross revenue; secondly, an increase in the profit entitlement from Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI); thirdly, the positive impact of the cost management program, which further optimised operating costs by 7 per cent; fourthly, a$5 million increase in other income segment and lastly, a reduction in finance costs by $8 million as a result of settling Zora and other loans during the period. However, this increase was partly offset by a reduction in investment and finance income.



In the first half, opex dropped 7 per cent to $25 million and G&A remained steady at $7 million. Capex was down 84 per cent to $13 million as the Company continued to balance capex with available sources of cash.



Average realised prices in H1 were $40 per barrel of oil equivalent (boe) versus $30 per boe in H1 2016, boosting revenue across the portfolio.



Total average group production was 67,550 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) in the first half 2017, 6 per cent higher compared to H1 2016. The increase in production was driven by higher output in Egypt, up 13 per cent and consistent performance in KRI.



The company generated $142million in free cash flow in the half-year, principally due to an industry payment from the Egyptian government of $110 million. However, the Company has financial commitments of $60 million in Egypt that have accumulated during the last 18 months of drilling activity related to GPEA investment program that need to be repaid. Furthermore, the Company has plans to drill three exploration wells on Block 1 in Egypt in Q4 as part of its concession activity commitment.



Collections were strong in the first half 2017. The collection rate in Egypt and KRI, for the first half 2017, was 229 per cent and 115 per cent respectively. The company collected $198 million, the bulk of which came from Egypt at $135 million. Collections in KRI and UAE were $55 million and $8 million respectively.



Due to the higher collections during the first-half 2017, the current cash balance, as at 30 June 2017 increased to $337 million, up from $302 million at year-end 2016 and the total trade receivable balance fell to $900 million at the period end as compared to $982millionat the end of December 2016.  TradeArabia News Service
Kuwait is expected to issue a tender to build the estimated $1.2-billion Dibdibah solar power plant in the first quarter of 2018, a senior official said.



September 7 is the deadline for companies to express interest in the 1 gigawatt (GW) project, Shukri AbdulAziz Al Mahrous, deputy chief executive officer of planning and finance at Kuwait National Petroleum Company, said in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek.



The 32-sq-km plant, which should be completed by the end of 2020 in Kuwaits northwest, will save burning 5.2 million barrels of oil a year and reduce carbon emissions by 1.3 million tons annually, Al Mahrous said.



The project is part of the countrys plans to produce 15 per cent of power from renewable energy by 2030.



Kuwait consumes a maximum of 14 GW of electricity a day, usually in the summer when temperatures can top 50 deg C. It has a capacity of 17 GW of electricity.
Regional governments are looking at coal to diversify the energy mix and enhance energy security, but despite the several reasons, coal is likely to only play a marginal role in the future of the regions power sector, a report said.



Coal continues to be the dominant fuel in the global power mix, added the new report titled The future of coal in the Mena power mix from Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation (Apicorp).



As of 2014, its share represented 41 per cent, whereas gas and renewables amounted to 22 per cent and 6 per cent. This is an increase compared to the year 2000, when coal stood at 39 per cent, and gas and renewables at 18 per cent and 2 per cent. As the global community substitutes coal with gas and renewable energy to meet its climate change commitments, a downward trend of the share of coal in electricity generation is almost inevitable.



Mena countries with the exception of Morocco do not consume coal in their power sectors. Coal was never really part of governments strategies to tackle demand growth, due to the very low coal reserves in the region. These countries have been relying on oil and gas-fired power plants to meet most of their demand needs. The oil and gas rich GCC region depends on its vast cheap-to-extract resources, while energy poor countries in the region have relied on fuel imports to feed their plants.



However, the substantial growth in demand for electricity and the resulting strain on existing capacity has forced governments in the region to diversify their energy mix, and in some cases coal has started to feature in their planning. For example, the UAE has included coal in its 2050 Energy Strategy and is currently building its first clean coal power plant, while Egypt is studying plans to add significant coal capacity next decade.



Coals relatively low operational costs, technological advances in power plant design, concerns over reliability of gas supply and Chinas role in the financing, construction and development of plants are all contributory factors; but climate change considerations will mean that overall, the share of coal in the power mix will remain very small.



Coal can be competitive



Coal projects and particularly clean coal require substantial upfront capital but exhibit lower operational and fuel costs over their lifetime, typically over 40 years. Upfront capital costs range from $1.2 billion-3 billion/GW of installed capacity, significantly less than nuclear and comparable with gas-fired plants. Investment decisions are therefore heavily dependent on the availability of finance, government support, and coal supplies.



Coal can be competitive against other sources of baseload power. The levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) for coal increases at higher discount rates, given that it is capital intensive. At a discount rate of 3 per cent, coal is less competitive than nuclear but more competitive than gas. At 7 per cent and 10 per cent, coal remains competitive with gas and nuclear.



Coal share in the power mix will remain limited



There are several reasons which justify the decision to include coal in the power mix. First, despite Mena countries conviction that gas should play the dominant role in adding generation capacity, supply uncertainty in some countries and expensive-to-extract gas in others are forcing governments to diversify their sources of electricity. For example, the Hassyan coal project in Dubai was first designed to be gas-fired, but the government changed the project to coal due to uncertainties of gas supplies.



Reducing dependency on oil and gas in the power sector is strategically important for exporters who are wary of rising domestic oil and gas consumption potentially reducing exports. At the same time, gas importers want to improve their energy security by reducing reliance on imports.



Second, although the regional momentum is with renewable energy, it will take many years to add significant capacity to increase its share in the power mix. Coal plants are a highly reliable source of baseload capacity, making them a good complement to renewable sources. Additionally, coal prices have declined over the past decade, and whilst there has been a recovery more recently, demand is still weak.



Third, the technology is improving. According to estimates, 80 per cent of coal plants globally are sub-critical and have efficiencies between 25-37 per cent. Environmental and efficiency concerns and rising global commitments to tackle climate change have driven coal efficiency standards to improve. Development of new technology such as the advanced ultra-supercritical pulverized coal combustion is allowing efficiencies rates of 50 per cent, with 15 per cent reduction in CO2 emissions compared with supercritical technology.



Recent policy progress concerning emissions and pollution has forced countries to reassess the role of coal in their energy development strategies. This is paving the way for more renewable-energy generation, coming at the expense of fossil fuels, especially coal.



For Mena countries, adding capacity quickly to meet demand is pivotal. Governments will continue to prioritise natural gas and renewables in power generation. But the fact is that energy security concerns are rising amidst higher uncertainty, and energy diversification is at the top of policymakers agenda. While this will push some governments to re-consider coal in their energy mix, coal is not likely to play a significant role in the region's power mix.  TradeArabia News Service
The innovative InterCityHotel brand has unveiled plans for a new hotel in Frankfurt, Germany, which will welcome guests in 2019.

Offering 400 guest rooms, six conference rooms, a bar and a restaurant, the new IntercityHotel Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof Sud will become the largest hotel to operate under the IntercityHotel brand and will also feature the new interior design concept created by the Italian architect Matteo Thun.



The building which will house the hotel is currently under construction as part of a major regeneration scheme for a larger site lying to the South of Frankfurt Main Station, progress on which can be viewed via a special webcam. The IntercityHotel Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof Sud will be located within the direct proximity of a new bus station offering inter-city services and near a newly constructed multi-storey public car park.



"This is a special place and time for our company," said Joachim Marusczyk, managing director of IntercityHotel. "The successful development of our brand began precisely 30 years ago with the founding of IntercityHotel. The very first IntercityHotel opened at Frankfurt's main train station. We are proud that we will soon be able to launch our future flagship hotel on this highly attractive site."



The hotel's central position means that it will provide excellent links to various means of travel such as mainline trains and long distance bus services and will enable easy access to regional and local public transport. Both the Trade Fair Centre and Frankfurt Airport, for example, can be reached by suburban railway in a mere matter of minutes. In combination with the so-called "FreeCityTicket", which entitles guests at IntercityHotels to use local public transport free of charge, this is bound to make the hotel an attractive option for tourists and business travellers alike. Guests will be able to check in and out by using the convenient "Hotelbird" mobile app and will also have the option of using their smartphone to open the door to their room.



The hotel will be operated within the scope of a lease agreement. The property owner is CA Immo Deutschland GmbH. Jakob Vowinckel, Head of CA Immo Frankfurt: "Because we already own the IntercityHotel at Berlin Central Station, this project in Frankfurt means that we now have the two largest IntercityHotels in our portfolio. We are delighted to be expanding our cooperation in this way, and wish the General Manager every success in terms of guest numbers."



The position of General Manager will be filled with effect from September 1. Anton Wustefeld will be guiding the hotel through its pre-opening phase and ensuring a smooth transition to regular operations. Wustefeld brings 45 years of professional experience to the table. Most recently, he has completed a highly successful stint of many years in charge at the IntercityHotel Frankfurt Airport and thus enjoys excellent connections within the Rhine-Main region. - TradeArabia News Service
Ibtm china is set to welcome a high-profile group of Hosted Buyers and exhibitors for the forthcoming 12th edition of the growing event, taking place in Beijing on August 23 and 24.



As the Meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (Mice) market in China continues to develop and international interest in the region continues in the ascendant, ibtm china is one of the regions foremost events within the Mice industry.



International Hosted Buyers will attend from corporations including Siemens China, ABBVIE, Herbalife, Volvo(China) investment Co.,Ltd, and associations such as China International Health & Medical Tourism Association (CIHMTA), International China Investment Forum (ICIF) and China International Health & Medical Tourism Association (CIHMTA).



Domestic exhibitors include Beijing Exhibition Centre, JW Marriott Hotel Beijing Central, Macao Trade and Investment Promotion Institute (IPIM), and Shanghai International Convention Center. Many high-profile new and returning international exhibitors also have been announced, including Accor hotels, Business Events Canada, Melia Hotels International, Floating Island Seoul, Millennium Hotels and Resorts and Ayana Resort and Spa Bali.



The itinerary for the event has been specifically designed to ensure the very best environment for doing business and to allow delegates to take away tangible learnings that will have a positive impact on their business. The market-leading knowledge programme will this year include the keynote speakers Roger Simons, Bo Kruger and Jeremy Wong, who will be speaking on topics including technology, sustainability and innovation, games and play, and conducting business across different cultures.



Ibtm china event director, Christine Guan said: Visitors to this years event can expect a show geared at creating maximum business opportunities in this dynamic and rapidly growing market for the Mice industry.



We pride ourselves on the quality of our Hosted Buyers, who must meet strict qualifying criteria before attending. Together with our matchmaking technology, we can ensure that buyers and exhibitors at ibtm china have the most positive and productive experience possible.



Destination presentations will take place regularly in the community hub, and there will be a full programme of networking opportunities and education sessions offering advice on how to do business in China.



Exhibitors include domestic and international venues, hotels, destinations, business travel and events services providers and the show attracts buyers, event planners and all those involved in the decision-making process for meetings, events, conferences and incentives.



The event is the number one event for the regions Mice industry, gathering over 5,000 meetings industry professionals from around the world. - TradeArabia News Service
Passengers travelling to or coming from Pakistan or India this week were treated to terminal-wide festivities at Abu Dhabi International Airport, marking the Pakistan Independence Day on August 14, and the India Independence Day on August 15.



The celebrations included a flash mob that surprised passengers arriving from various destinations in both countries. Passengers also had the opportunity to take photos in front of the famous Wagah Border, which is a tradition that reflects the close relations between the two communities. Both Terminal 1 and 3 were carrying the flags and colours of both countries in a tribute to those nations.



Abu Dhabi Duty Free and several of its concessionaires also joined in with many offers and discounts over the two days, including Sharaf DG, Pure Gold, and the airport lounges operated by Plaza Premium. In addition, the VIP Terminal chose 50 lucky passengers and gave them the opportunity to experiment the luxury travel experience they have on offer.



Acting chief executive officer, Abdul Majeed Al Khoori said: Abu Dhabi Airports is honoured to take part in the national celebrations of these two dear nations. India and Pakistan have been strong travel markets for Abu Dhabi International Airport, being one of the top regions from the Capitals airport, and generating together on average 22 per cent of its annual passengers. - TradeArabia News Service
Posting the lowest crime index of just 13.54, and the highest safety index of 86.46, Abu Dhabi has been named the safest city in the world, said a report.



The results were released by Numbeo, a website that curates and collates data to develop the worlds largest user-contributed database about cities and countries worldwide, said a report in WAM.



Coming in as the second safest city was Basel, Switzerland.



Respondents to the index stated that Abu Dhabi has very low crime levels and scored the capital at 94 per cent for a general feeling of safety in the city, it said.



The index is an estimation of overall level of crime in a given city or a country. Crime levels lower than 20 are considered as "very low", between 20 and 40 as being "low", between 40 and 60 as being "moderate", between 60 and 80 as being "high", and crime levels higher than 80 as being "very high."



Saif Saeed Ghobash, director-general of TCA Abu Dhabi, said: "Abu Dhabi has a solid reputation for safety with a virtually crime-free society. It is a priority when choosing a city to visit or live in and provides peace of mind knowing that you can feel safe anywhere you go in Abu Dhabi. The result of this index supports Abu Dhabis position as the leading city in the world to live, work and do business in, and highlights an aspect of life in Abu Dhabi that is a matter of great pride to all residents."


HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, recently toured the Airbus Plant in Hamburg, Germany, said a report.



He was accompanied by HH Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, chairman of Dubai Civil Aviation Authority and chairman of Emirates Group, and Khalifa Saeed Soliman, director general of the Dubai Protocol, said a report in WAM.



Sheikh Mohammed was given an inside look into the manufacturing of the A380, which is largely operated by Dubai-based Emirates, as well as the installing and executing the state-of-the-art interiors and painting of the aircraft with the colors of Emirates.



Emirates fleet now includes 96 A380s and is expected to reach 100 by November this year. In 2025, the number of A380 planes at Emirates is set to reach 142 as part of the bilateral agreement between the two companies, which will make Emirates the worlds first to own this large number of the jumbo plane.



"Im delighted with my visit to the Airbus plant in Hamburg after my first visit to the A380 Airbus plant in Toulous in the 1990s. During that time I was briefed on the mechanism of work at the plants different departments and technologies used in the aviation industry which helps shorten distances between the peoples of the universe and brings closer world cultures, helping in inculcating principles of human, cultural, tourist and trade continuity and co-existence between peace-loving peoples," H.H. Sheikh Mohammed noted.
Grocery shelves will be barren. Police wont respond to calls. Highways will be closed.

If all the rumors surrounding the eclipse are true, Casper is going to turn into a crime-ridden apocalyptic nightmare when tens of thousands of visitors descend on the city to view the astronomical event on Monday.

Fortunately, city officials say many eclipse-related rumors are false.

For starters, the Wyoming Department of Transportation has no plans to close any interstate or highway for the eclipse, according to Jeff Goetz, a senior public relations specialist at the department.

They might shut themselves down with cars, but were not doing it, he said.

Rest areas will also remain open, said Goetz, adding that hes received questions about their status.

Anna Wilcox, the executive director of the Wyoming Eclipse Festival, said shes also heard concerns from people who thought officials were planning to close off all the roads into Casper.

That is absolutely, positively not happening, she said, laughing.

Wilcox said she has no idea how that rumor was started, as closing roadways was never part of the plan.

That hasnt even been mentioned, she said.

Some Casperites are also worried about their gas tanks and pantries, said Jeff Hatcher, a detective with the Casper Police Department. Residents have asked if they should anticipate food and gas shortages due to the crowds.

People just dont know what to expect, he said, adding that he thinks some people are treating the eclipse as if it were a natural disaster.

Hatcher said community officials have discussed this issue with the owners of gas stations and grocery stores, who have reassured police that theyve stocked up on extra supplies and arent expecting any shortages  just long lines.

JoAnn Heckert, a cashier at Bentzs Town Pump near downtown, confirmed that the station filled all its underground tanks and isnt expecting to run out.

Well find out when the time comes, she added.

Although Hatcher said shortages arent expected, he still advised picking up necessities before the crowds hit to avoid a hectic experience.

The detective previously told the Star-Tribune that some residents worry police will be too busy responding to visitors calls to look out for local residents. However, those who think this will be the ideal time to commit crimes should think again.

On a typical day in Casper, about 10 police officers are patrolling, and the same number will be standing by during the eclipse to handle routine matters, said Hatcher.

Additional officers will be on hand to handle festival-related incidents, he explained.

Mayor Kenyne Humphrey said she hadnt heard any rumors about the water or sewage systems being overwhelmed during the eclipse, but she admitted Monday it occurred to her while she was trying to envision the worst-case scenarios.

She checked in with water treatment and sewage plant officials and is now 100 percent confident that the systems will be fine.

We are not worried about that part of the infrastructure at all, she said.

Wilcox understands that people are drawn to gossip.

However, Wilcox said that the truth isnt very juicy: Plans are in place, and everyone is prepared.
A Natrona County man faces charges alleging he repeatedly raped a child, court documents show.

Michael A. Griswold, 43, is also accused of attempting to molest a second child.

Griswold has been charged with six counts of first-degree sexual assault of a minor, one count of third-degree sexual assault and a count of indecent liberties with a minor.

Wearing an orange jumpsuit and shackles, Griswold appeared in court Tuesday to waive his right to a speedy preliminary hearing and request a bond reduction. The hearing is now set for next month.

Ian Sandefer, who is representing Griswold, requested Tuesday that his clients bond be reduced from $500,000 to $25,000, saying his client was not a flight risk. Sandefer described the allegations against Griswold as highly defensible.

The request was denied.

One of the alleged victims, now an adult, told a police investigator Griswold had raped her multiple times, including when she was 11 to 12 years old, according to court documents.

The alleged victim told the investigator she came forward because she was concerned about a child Griswold spent time around. She said she did not want the child to suffer the same abuse she allegedly did, the documents said.

Another woman interviewed by the investigator said Griswold had attempted to reach into her underwear when she was about 8, the court documents state. The two had been watching a Disney movie in his house, she said, when she alleged he attempted to assault her. She pinned his arm to stop him and then left his house, she said.

A third woman told the investigator she had previously had a sexual relationship with Griswold and the allegations described word for word how he conducted himself.

The six counts of first-degree sexual assault can each be penalized with up to 50 years in prison.
CHEYENNE  A 20-year-old Wyoming man has pleaded not guilty to charges that he stabbed two men in Cheyenne, killing one of them, during a fight over his ex-girlfriend.

Vincent A. Ramirez pleaded not guilty on Friday to second-degree murder in the death last month of 18-year-old Ian Dangler. He also pleaded not guilty to attempted second-degree murder of 20-year-old Camilo Olivas during a hearing in Laramie County District Court.

Prosecutors say Dangler was stabbed in the heart with a pocket knife on July 12.

Ramirez remains jailed with his bail set at $500,000. His trial was set for Nov. 13.
When the moon passes in front of the sun Monday, leaving Casper in shadow, many residents and most of the 35,000 people who are expected to visit the city will have their eyes locked on the sky, where a rare celestial event  a total solar eclipse  will be taking place.

But Bryan Tobias hopes to be looking down.

The University of Texas at San Antonio doctoral student wont be doing it with his own eyes. If all goes according to plan, hell be in a quiet spot on Casper Mountain, piloting a drone about 2,000 feet above his head, capturing footage of the darkened ground as the moons shadow races across Casper.

Youll see millions of photos of the eclipse, all looking up, he said. So I have decided I want to be looking down.

His drone will be recording video, but not of the eclipse itself. Tobias, one of several people who will be conducting research in Casper during the eclipse, is interested in the lunar umbra  the shadow the moon will cast across the city and region in the moment that totality begins.

That same day, a team at Casper College is planning to launch a weather balloon to livestream the eclipse, while another group of researchers will be studying how the moons shadow compares to those of clouds and how that relates to long-term climate patterns. The eclipse offers a rare opportunity to witness a solar spectacle and do some science all at once.

Tobias hopes to capture 15 to 20 minutes of the umbral shadow as it races across the Earth at about 2,200 mph. It will fall over Casper from the north-northwest just before totality  when the moon moves into place to completely cover the sun. Tobias hopes to track it as it approaches and then pivot his drone so that it can capture footage of the shadow continuing its path away from Casper, toward Nebraska, then Missouri and ultimately South Carolina and the Atlantic Ocean.

Its going to get dark as (the moon shadow) is coming across the terrain, he said. There will be a 30- to 40-mile swath of darkness.

He notes that people in the 70-mile path of totality will be within sight of both other planets and daylight, though the skies above them will dim.

Tobias is working on his Ph.D in astrophysics. He has researched this project since January, but he still has a few challenges to work through: His drone has a battery life of about 28 minutes, so he has to ration his time. It can fly to 1,700 feet above the launch site, so he wants to be as high up as he possibly can. And he has to think about how hell land it safely, so hes looking for a secluded area.

Ultimately, the viewing perspective will be like on the Empire State Building, but in Casper, he said.

Tobias plans to be on the mountain, though hes still looking for the perfect spot. He planned to scout locations while he was in town for AstroCon 2017, which is bringing hundreds of amateur astronomers to the Parkway Plaza and to Casper College for a national conference that will end Saturday, two days before the eclipse.

The rare celestial event has energized attendance at the convention. Most years, Tobias said, numbers hover around 200. This year, at least 800 astronomers are expected to descend on Casper. In fact, organizers had to cap registration so the event wouldnt be overcrowded.

Most of those stargazers, of course, plan to stick around for the eclipse. But theyll be busy in the days leading up to it, attending lectures and social events  one evening meal for convention-goers is called the Star BQ  and taking in Casper and Wyoming.

But on the day of the eclipse, Tobias says, it wont matter exactly where they are. As long as skies are clear, you can be smack dab in the middle of downtown or anywhere else in the path of totality and have an unparalleled view of a rare event.

Itll be quite the spectacle, he said.

Clouds and the weather

While Tobias is somewhere on Casper Mountain, scanning the ground for the moons approaching shadow, a group of researchers will be on the roof of the Gertrude Krampert Theatre on the Casper College campus.

Jay Herman and his team, which includes two Casper College faculty members, dont actually need to be there. Their equipment  two spectrometers and a radiometer set up on campus, plus a satellite orbiting a million miles from Earth  will take all the measurements they need.

But he and his companions wouldnt miss it.

This eclipse is a chance for them to test the way theyve been calculating how the suns radiation is affected by clouds.

Scientists study how clouds impact the amount of radiation that falls to Earth from the sun. Clouds create a shadow on Earth, just like the moon will do during this solar eclipse. They reflect light back to space and prevent light from reaching the surface of the planet and the lower atmosphere. In short, they modify the suns heating effects.

The moon is a very controlled, well-known object as compared to clouds, so were going to use the moon to test the calculation method, and then it will be applied to clouds, said Herman, who works at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

Before the eclipse, the two spectrometers will measure trace gases such as ozone and nitrogen dioxide. Once the eclipse starts, one will measure how the light decreases as the moon gradually blocks the sun. The other will measure scattered radiation from the sun. The radiometer, meanwhile, measures the light coming from all directions.

And up in space, there is a remote participant. The DSCOVR EPIC is a satellite that has been collecting data since June 2015 and will be called into service. The acronyms stand for Deep Space Climate Observatory and Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera.

Because of where its positioned, the satellite has an uninterrupted view of the illuminated side of our home planet and what happens when the moons shadow crosses it.

It sees the whole sunlit disc of the Earth, Herman said.

Herman also is looking forward to the spectacle itself. This wont be his first eclipse  he saw one decades ago  but hes eagerly anticipating the experience.

Based on what I saw the first time, I sure want to see it again, he said.

Balloon in the sky

About an hour before totality  maybe a little less  Megan Graham and the members of the robotics club at Casper College will be watching the sky as their helium-filled weather balloon ascends into the darkening heavens.

At that point, the gray blob will be about 8 feet in diameter and heading toward the stratosphere, which starts at about 60,000 feet above Earth. As it rises, Graham said, the air pressure will ease, and the balloon will expand until it reaches about 35 feet in diameter, hovering in the blackness of space. Within half an hour, it will have cleared the level of the sky that airplanes soar through.

The robotics team hopes to send it 85,000 feet in the air at totality, but it may go as high as 100,000. By that time, it will be far out of sight and at the mercy of space weather.

Were at the whim of the winds, said Graham, an electronics technology and robotics technology instructor at the college.

If all goes well, the team on the ground will see a clear and unbroken video stream of the eclipse  the first time such an attempt has been made.

But they wont be the only ones. The livestream, which the Casper College team and dozens of others across the country will contribute to, will be available to anyone on Earth with the ability to navigate to eclipsestream.live. Even people who live thousands of miles from the path of totality will be able to marvel at the eclipse as if they were directly in the line that spans the continental United States from coast to coast.

Many details of the launch have yet to be decided. The team will base its ground station  which includes a satellite dish to track the balloon  at Casper College. They might launch from there, too. But they might also have to start farther north. The exact launch site and time will be chosen closer to the day of the eclipse, based on the weather forecast.

The balloon will be carrying a few payloads. One is a computer the size of a credit card, called a Raspberry Pi. It will control the video feed.

The second payload contains three Raspberry Pis and three cameras that will capture still images of the eclipse. The third is a controller that will measure temperature, light, humidity and acceleration.

The final one is strips of bacteria, which NASA is sending up to see how they react in the stratosphere.

The strips might sound like stowaways, but its no free ride. The Casper College teams project, along with 43 others at schools, college and universities from Oregon to South Carolina, is funded by the NASA Space Grant Consortium. The other teams in Wyoming will be located in Riverton and near Glendo.

The space agency is attempting the first livestream of an eclipse and has enlisted the students around the country to be part of the effort.

The Casper College team is composed of eight students studying computer science, engineering, robotics and electronics. Theyre also being mentored by two doctoral students at the University of Wyoming. For this project, the group will be known as the WY Space Cowboys.

The work hasnt come without hiccups. The team has had to retrieve its balloon from places as far as Midwest and Medicine Bow. Once, a parachute failed to fully deploy, and the balloon crashed into the ground from 100,000 feet.

That was a hard landing, Graham acknowledged  but she also noted that the team didnt lose much because the payload was packed very securely.

Were all learning new tricks and new things, she said. Every time you launch, theres something different.
Love wins. Even for immigrants.

Recently, a federal district court struck down a Louisiana state law denying marriage equality to foreign-born residents. The law had been backed by the religious right, the same crowd that had earlier fought to deny marriage equality to same-sex couples.

The legislation, which I first wrote about last October, required anyone wishing to get hitched to produce a birth certificate as well as an unexpired passport or visa before receiving a marriage license. People born in the United States were allowed to get a waiver from a judge if for some reason they didnt have a birth certificate; people born abroad were given no such option.

Ostensibly the objective was to prevent bigamy and other types of marriage fraud. And also, somehow, to thwart crafty terrorists.

We dont want terrorists obtaining green cards and citizenship through marriage and I believe my constituents would agree with me, the legislations sponsor, Republican state Rep. Valarie Hodges, told a local radio station when the law went into effect in January 2016.

Whatever the laws purported justification, one vulnerable population was especially hurt by it: refugees.

Louisiana has a large population of refugees who fled Laos and Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Despite being here legally  and in many cases, having ultimately received U.S. citizenship  these Louisianans often were never issued birth certificates.

This affected couples such as Laotian-born refugee Out Xanamane and his longtime partner, U.S.-born Marilyn Cheng. Xanamane had been born at home in a village near Savannakhet, Laos, in 1975, in the year the country fell to communism. He never received a birth certificate.

The couple had undergone a Buddhist religious marriage ceremony in 1997  and subsequently had four kids  but never filed paperwork with the state. After Xanamane was diagnosed with liver cancer in 2016, he desperately needed a legally recognized marriage certificate to qualify for Chengs employer-sponsored health insurance plan.

Xanamane had multiple forms of identification, including a green card and state-issued drivers license, but the couple was turned away by multiple parish clerks because he could not produce a birth certificate.

They told me I have to go back to Laos and get my birth certificate, Xanamane told me last fall. But there isnt any birth certificate there, either.

The family contacted lawyers, judges and public officials, and everyone told them there was no wiggle room in the law. The couple and their kids ultimately drove to Alabama and got married there instead.

Other immigrants who were turned away by Louisiana parish clerks simply gave up. One, Viet Victor Anh Vo, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in an Indonesian refugee camp to Vietnamese parents, sued.

In addition to being heartless, the law was also unconstitutional because it infringed on the fundamental right to marry.

The court recognized that Louisiana had a two-tiered system, between those born outside of the country and those born inside the country, said Alvaro Huerta, a National Immigration Law Center staff attorney who represents Vo.

Tuesdays ruling was based on the equal-protection and due-process clauses, which do not distinguish between people of different immigration status, the court said. In the most recent legislative session, state lawmakers had applied some fixes to the marriage law, but the new bill did not address all its constitutional problems.

Vo and his U.S.-born significant other, Heather Pham, convinced a Catholic priest to officiate at their religious marriage ceremony last year even after they found out they could not get a state-issued license. (The planned wedding was two weeks away at the time, and they didnt want to cancel on their guests and vendors.) And while the court had issued a preliminary injunction against the law in March, thereby allowing the couple to obtain a legal marriage license, they decided to hold off until a ruling on the merits that vindicated all Louisianan immigrants marriage rights.

The happy couple expects to re-apply for a state-issued marriage license soon.

Also cheering the ruling is Out Xanamanes cousin, Phanat Xanamane, born in a Thai refugee camp to Laotian parents and now a naturalized U.S. citizen.

I feel that justice was upheld today, Phanat, who is not married, wrote me.

This is actually not the first time a federal court needed to step in and affirm Phanats constitutional right to wed; Phanat is gay, and almost exactly two years ago he celebrated when the Supreme Court made same-sex marriage the law of the land.

Tuesdays ruling, he said, shows you how easily you can have your rights ripped away if youre not paying attention to lawmakers.
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When a three-foot tall bronze statue of a nymph was returned to the Pima County Courthouse patio fountain after a cleaning, there was a bit of a controversy.

It wasn't that the little nymph was nude. It was that many at the courthouse remembered the statue a little differently before the cleaning. Some thought the nymph was cleaned in Denmark  meaning that a sex change had taken place.
A handcuffed woman who was in DPS custody Saturday escaped and drove away in a detective's vehicle. She was captured after crashing into another vehicle and a light pole nearby, authorities said.

No one was injured in the crash.

Hayley Clark, 20, was booked into the Pima County jail and faces escape, theft of means, endangerment and criminal damage, said Quentin Mehr, an Arizona Department of Public Safety spokesman Monday, Aug. 14.

According to Mehr:

On Saturday, a detective with the Vehicle Theft Task Force was assisting highway patrol troopers with an investigation involving an occupied stolen vehicle near Interstate 10 and West 22nd Street.

During the investigation, Clark was placed in handcuffs behind her back and was seated in the passenger seat of the detective's vehicle while being questioned.

The detective got out of the vehicle for a moment and during that time Clark was able to get into the driver's seat and drove away. Clark then crashed into another vehicle and a light pole on the I-10 frontage road at West Congress Street.

Clark was taken into custody by Tucson police officers and turned over to DPS troopers.
A fire destroyed an apartment on Tucson's northwest side Monday.

No one was injured in the Aug. 14 blaze, said Capt. Brian Keeley of Northwest Fire District.

Shortly before 2:30 p.m., a 911 caller reported a fire in their apartment at Enclave at the Foothills at 7300 N. Mona Lisa Road, Keeley said.

The neighborhood is north of West Ina Road near North La Cholla Boulevard.

Two residents at the apartment left after reporting the fire.

Firefighters put out the fire and prevented it from spreading to other apartments. The apartment above the burning apartment suffered minor smoke damage, Keeley said.

Fire investigators are trying to determine the cause of the fire. A damage estimate is unknown at this time, Keeley said.

The Northwest Fire Community Assistance team is working with the Southern Arizona Chapter of the American Red Cross to aid any residents who are displaced, said Keeley.
PHOENIX  Gov. Doug Ducey condemned white nationalists after the weekend violence in Virginia, but said when asked that he has no interest in removing Confederate monuments on state land.

Its important that people know our history, the governor told reporters Monday. I dont think we should try to hide our history.

The governor, speaking after a publicity event in Buckeye, said he 100 percent condemned groups like the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and white nationalists. Many of those groups were involved in the demonstration in Virginia Saturday that led to one sympathizer driving his vehicle into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one and injuring 19.

Ducey said that 70 percent of Arizonans have moved here from somewhere else. Its a very welcoming place and I want to keep it that way, he said.

Its not my desire or mission to tear down any monuments or memorials, he continued.

Ducey also said that as governor he lacks the unilateral power to have any of the monuments removed. He said anyone who thinks its inappropriate to have monuments on public land to Confederate soldiers or to have a portion of a highway named after Confederacy President Jefferson Davis should take their case to the boards that can change them.

Members of both boards say they have gotten no such requests from the governor.

Ducey said he sees all this as part of our history. We fought the Civil War and the United States won the Civil War, he said. We freed the slaves and we followed up with civil rights after that.

The governors comments about preserving history drew derision from Rep. Reginald Bolding, D-Laveen. He said the call has never been to eradicate all monuments that mention the Confederacy.

The call has been to move away from having any Confederate monuments that are on state property, Bolding said.

Any African-American and many other individuals should not be required to use our taxpayer dollars to keep up with the upkeep and maintenance of these memorials, Bolding said. He said that would be comparable to having monuments on public lands to Nazi soldiers.

A memorial was placed across from the state Capitol in 1961 by the Daughters of the Confederacy, and a portion of U.S. 60 in Apache Junction has a road name and marker as Jefferson Davis Highway. Bolding said he also questions having a monument at Picacho Peak State Park, which was the site of the westernmost battle of the Civil War.

The Confederates, they were terrorists of their times, Bolding said. These were people who were saying people who looked like me should not have equal rights, we should be slaves.

I believe the governor has the ability to exhibit influence and leadership, he said.

Two panels are at issue: The Legislative Governmental Mall Commission, which decides what monuments go in the Wesley Bolin Memorial park across from the Capitol; and the Arizona State Board on Geographic and Historic Names, which can place official names on mountains, rivers and roads.

He absolutely has the ability to pick up the phone and reach out to these chairs and have them call a meeting, Bolding said of Ducey.

Bolding said that lobbyist Kevin DeMenna, who chairs the mall commission, told him months ago he would convene a meeting in July. Its August, the lawmaker said. DeMenna did not return repeated calls to his office and cell phone seeking comment.

Dennis Preisler, who chairs the names board, said no one has approached him about the Jefferson Davis Highway issue. But Preisler said it wasnt his board that approved it in the first place, noting that the name  and the monument placed alongside the road  date to 1943, decades before his board existed.

A spokesman for the state Department of Transportation, meanwhile, said its not within the purview of his agency.

There is also a monument to Confederate soldiers at the state-run Veteran Cemetery in Sierra Vista.

A spokeswoman for the Arizona Department of Veterans Services said it is in a section of the cemetery where remains of those who fought in the Indian wars and Civil War were reburied after being dug up in Tucson. She said there also is a monument there to Union soldiers.

She said the one for the Confederacy, erected by a Sons of Confederacy chapter, is engraved In memorial to Arizona Confederate veterans who sacrificed all in the struggle for independence and the constitutional right of self government. No Confederate soldiers are interred there, she said.
Saying her recent Facebook comments further legitimize the immoral ideology of white supremacy, Pima County Supervisor Richard Elias called for Supervisor Ally Miller to apologize Monday.

Instead of calling for unity after the deaths of three Americans, as Neo-Nazis and domestic terrorists marched on the streets of an American city, Supervisor Miller called for further division, Elias said in written comments, referencing this weekends Unite the Right summit in Charlottesville, Virginia.

On Saturday evening, several hours after an apparent white supremacist allegedly drove his vehicle into a crowd of counter protesters, killing one, Millers personal Facebook account posted, Im sick and tired of being hit for being white.... It is all about making us feel like we need to apologize. I am WHITE-and proud of it! No apologies necessary.

Nobody is asking you to apologize for being white, but you owe it to our community to apologize for your remarks, Elias said.

In a Facebook post sharing his statement, Elias was more conciliatory, writing: We all make mistakes.

Supervisors Sharon Bronson and Ramon Valadez told the Star they are also supportive of the call for an apology.

In a separate written statement put out Monday, Valadez said one of our biggest responsibilities is to help our communities heal and come together. For leaders to espouse words or philosophies of division, bifurcation, separation or hatred is not leadership.

Our strength as Americans comes from those differences, our diversity, and the welcoming of others who may not be like us, the statement concluded.

Miller did not respond to repeated requests for comment from the Star.

On the James T. Harris radio show on 104.1 KQTH Monday afternoon, Miller said her post was meant to criticize the simple-minded identity politics that defines us based on nothing more than the color of our skin. And I was expressing my frustration with the identity politics. And I think the American people are rejecting those politics, and I certainly will not be ashamed for the color of my skin.

She agreed with Harris that the reaction to her comments was an example of gotcha politics, and added later: I hope everyone is proud of their race.

Why is that a bad thing to say? And why do they extrapolate? Its pretty clear they extrapolated my comment into their narrative and assumed that because I say Im proud of being white that means I hate everybody.

Miller also condemned white supremacists and hate speech, and said it was unfair to attribute any responsibility for the violence in Charlottesville to President Donald Trump.

Her fellow Republican Supervisor Steve Christy denounced the Charlottesville violence, and the white supremacists behind it, as deplorable and shocking, but did not call for an apology from Miller, in a written statement Monday. Rather, he said Millers post unfortunately gave her detractors the fodder they have been waiting for  an opportunity to pounce and to denounce her.

In another written statement earlier this month, Christy sharply rebuked county communications specialist Jason Ground for urging members of a private Facebook group to attend an upcoming board meeting and criticize Millers position on an anti-conversion therapy ordinance. Ground followed up with an expletive directed at Miller, actions he was later disciplined for.

Christy described the posts as deplorable, reprehensible and egregious and called for Ground to be subject to every facet of the countys disciplinary process.
David Van Auker wasted little time.

Earlier this month, the Silver City, New Mexico, furniture and antiques dealer realized the painting that was among the items he had just purchased from an estate was Willem de Koonings Woman-Ochre. It had been stolen more than 31 years ago from the University of Arizona Museum of Art.

Van Auker and the other players involved in bringing back the painting, said to be worth as much as $160 million, gathered Monday, Aug. 14, to talk about the pieces return.

As the story of its recovery was revealed in an upstairs gallery at the UA Museum of Art, the painting sat in a guarded downstairs room. After the conference, the press was allowed to view it, one person at a time. The abstract expressionist piece practically glowed under the museum light, and de Koonings aggressive strokes and the swaths of blues and reds did not look worse for the wear to the untrained eye.

The paintings journey since it was sliced out of its frame almost 32 years ago:

Sometime after the 1985 theft, it found its way to the Cliff, New Mexico, home of Jerry and Rita Alter, the Silver City Daily Press reported. There it hung behind a bedroom door. Jerry Alter, a symphony musician and teacher in New York City before he retired to New Mexico, died in 2012; Rita, a retired speech pathologist, died in the last year. An FBI investigation into how the painting came to be at the Alters modest three-bedroom home on 20 acres continues.

Van Auker noticed the painting behind that door as he was considering what to purchase at the Alter home. He thought it was cool, he said at Mondays news conference. He put the painting on top of the pile he gathered and headed back to his store.

Van Auker propped Woman-Ochre up at the store, where a customer came in and looked closely at it. He reached out to touch it when Van Aukers partner said, Dont touch the painting; youll put your finger through it. I think thats a de Kooning, the customer said. Another customer came in and said the same thing. And a third.

Van Auker did some research and came across a story about the theft. There on the computer screen was a picture of the painting, he said.

He was starting to get nervous about having it at the store.

At this point, we put it in the bathroom, Van Auker said.

He knew it was a pricey piece of art sitting in his bathroom, but he never considered holding on to it.

We returned something that was stolen, he said. Thats what everyone should do; thats the way I was raised.

He quickly decided to call the UA Museum of Art: I have a painting that was stolen from the university 30-some years ago, he said in that Aug. 3 call. Please hold, the receptionist said.

UA museum staff rushed to Silver City the next day. By this time, the painting was out of his shop and put in the home of a friend for safe-keeping. The friend was having a party when visited by Meg Hagyard, the interim head of the UA museum; curator Olivia Miller; and Nancy Odegaard, head of restoration at the Arizona State Museum. They were led to the painting.

Odegaard kneeled in front of it and starting examining it. It took about two hours before she was satisfied that it was authentic. The last step was matching the cut marks in the original frame to those on the canvas edges. The thieves had used a razor blade to roughly cut the canvas from its frame.

The de Kooning was kept overnight in a vault at the Silver City police station. By Aug. 7, it had been crated up, driven back to Tucson and settled safely in the environmentally controlled, well-protected museum.

The painting needs some restoration, says Odegaard. In addition to the ripped edges that may be able to be reattached, it was stapled to a board inside a frame, and there is a crease mark where it had been rolled. Theres a slight brittleness to the work, said Odegaard. But she added, there were no paint flakes.

The painting will not go back on the wall until further authentication and restoration is done, said Hagyard.

At the time of the theft, a third party had offered a $10,000 reward. UA Police Chief Brian Seastone, who had been an investigator when the piece was stolen, said at the news conference that he does not know if the cash will still be awarded.

The painting was insured, and the UA Museum of Art received a $400,000 check after it was stolen. That money was put in an endowment fund, and the interest from it was used to upgrade security at the museum.

The amount was returned to the insurer last week, said Chris Sigurdson, the UAs vice president of communication.

Stolen artwork worth as much as $160 million recovered for University of Arizona Willem de Kooning "Woman-Ochre" Returned to UA Museum of Art Stolen painting Stolen painting Stolen painting Painting recovered Suspects in art theft Missing de Kooning painting
When Stephen Trejo, one of four finalists in the running to become Tucson Unified School Districts next superintendent, was asked at a public forum Monday night how he would build consensus with a divided school board, the crowd chuckled.

To many in the room, the term divided board was an understatement.

Trejo  the first of the four finalists to face the public at a series of forums scheduled this week  sounded like somewhat of a relationship counselor as he responded to the question, saying he would work with board members to attempt to reset relations.

Its really hard to apologize to someone when you think they have wronged you. But Ive found that to be very effective  even if they have wronged you, you sincerely apologize to them, he said, adding that board members all want the best for students but dont know how to get along with each other.

Trejo noted that board relations are an important part of student success, citing a study that looked at the interactions of school board members across the country and found a correlation between school board members that dont get along with each other, and poorly performing school districts.

Standing on a stage in front of about 100 parents, teachers, TUSD board members and employees, Trejo fielded two hours of questions from the audience, offering his opinion on everything from TUSDs low test scores, the districts decades-old desegregation lawsuit, Mexican American Studies, teacher certification and retention, and how hell stop the revolving door plaguing the superintendents position.

Trejo retired from TUSDs C.E. Rose K-8 School in July 2016, capping a 23-year career with the district. In his 13 years as C.E. Rose principal, he turned the formerly failing south-side campus into a nationally recognized school and a gem of Tucsons largest school district. Since leaving TUSD, he has been working as the chief academic officer for the American Leadership Academy, a Gilbert-based charter school with campuses in Arizona and Nevada.

Roughly two-thirds of TUSD students failed the AzMERIT test administered in the spring, according to unofficial results, and turning around student performance on standardized tests was on many minds at the forum.

Trejo said improving student achievement is his top goal, and while some may not like standardized tests, thats how the district is judged. To that end, he wants to reorganize the district leadership to ensure theyre focused on results.

That, he said, would allow teachers to focus on both lead measures, such as ongoing grades, and lag measures, such as standardized test scores.

But, he noted, even the best plans to help improve student performance will fall flat if the execution is botched.

Its not just about having great ideas, Trejo said. Really, where the rubber hits the road is execution.

As C.E. Rose principal, Trejo said he visited every classroom every day, and he wants to implement that concept districtwide. When principals are in every classroom, they know whats working and whats not, he said. And they can recognize teachers who are succeeding and zero in on helping teachers who are struggling.

Some teachers may take that as micromanaging, but I never took it that way, he said.

Perhaps the biggest issue facing the next superintendent will be whether they can bring TUSD out from under a federal desegregation order.

And although Trejo acknowledged that in his capacity as a principal, he wasnt actively involved in the legal negotiations, he said he believes everyone involved wants to end the case and that the district is getting closer to satisfying some of the judges demands.

I think were close but we need to continue to fulfill the criteria theyve set in front of us, he said.

When faced with questions of TUSDs controversial Mexican American Studies program, Trejo noted he has a degree in Spanish with a minor in Latin American Studies and has spent his career working with Hispanic students.

Its really important to me that they love their heritage and that they understand it and that they have the opportunity to learn more about it, he said.

Trejo also may have jumped into hot water with the teachers union, which has pushed back against a new state law that allows uncertified teachers to teach in the classroom. Trejo said he would love to be able to hire non-certified teachers.

We have a lot of classrooms without teachers, and we have lots of talented people out there with degrees. And some, frankly, without degrees, he said.

The forum crowd again chuckled when Trejo was asked how he would address the strong sense among TUSD employees that the superintendents office is plagued by a revolving door.

If selected, Trejo would be the seventh permanent, interim or acting superintendent in the past decade.

Trejo replied that he didnt have a silver bullet to stay in the boards good favor, but as a longtime principal of TUSDs C.E. Rose, Trejo said he often just tried to ignore the board.

I think part of the reason C.E. Rose was successful was because the same person was there; there wasnt this revolving door that kind of creates a new program, a new approach to education year after year, he said. In fact, I hate to say this because some of the board members are in the room, but sometimes we just kind of did our own thing.
Not long after Grab announced that it would increase its own share of revenue between the company and its partners, multiple GrabBike drivers in Vietnam have staged a strike and called for a boycott of the ride-sharing app.

GrabBike is the motorbike taxi (xe om) service of Grab Vietnam, allowing users to hail a motorcycle for private travel, instead of cars in the Uber-like GrabCar.

Grab Vietnam has lured a huge number of locals to join its driver network, where they are called partners, by initially offering a revenue share of 15 percent.

Local tech-based xe om drivers said the 15 percent deduction, plus fuel and motorbike maintenance costs, still ensures a decent income for them.

However, Grab announced last week that the commission rate would be adjusted to 20 percent from September 5, meaning a fifth of the money earned from each ride will go to the company behind the app.

The announcement has proven to be the last straw for many Vietnamese GrabBike drivers, following multiple recent policy adjustments that put the drivers at a financial disadvantage.

On Sunday night, disgruntled drivers began calling on each other to go on strike by turning off the app.

Other drivers chose to hail a GrabBike ride of their own only to cancel the booking later. This floods the app network with ride requests, making it harder for people with genuine travel demands to find a driver.

Some on-strike drivers went even further by trying to affect the business of their colleagues who did not join the protest.

According to Dan Tri (Intellectual) news website, drivers would book new GrabBike rides with random itineraries, but fail to show up or cancel the booking.

The driver who received the sabotage booking would then be unable to get other customers and would have to cancel the booking on their own, one driver explained to Dan Tri.

If a driver makes too many ride cancelations, he will receive fewer bonuses from the Grab support program and may even have his account locked for good.

A GrabBike and his customer are seen in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Another GrabBike driver told Dan Tri that the company had earlier stopped paying bonuses for drivers who pick up passengers during rush hour from August 7.

Struggling on streets packed with vehicles of all kinds during this busy time, without receiving any financial support, is the last thing GrabBike drivers may want to do.

I have since turned off my app during rush hour as those rides bring nothing but losses, he said.

The driver added that the tech-based xe oms used to actually only earn 75 percent of each ride fare in reality, with 15 percent going to Grab and around 10 percent covering petrol costs.

The 20 percent commission means we will only receive a third of the fare earned from each ride, not to mention expenses like a 3G data plan and bike repairs, he said.

According to data gathered by Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper, GrabBike drivers would normally make VND150,000 to VND300,000 (US$6-$13) per day during the early days of the service.

However, with the number of drivers constantly increasing, each driver receives fewer rides and their daily incomes have accordingly dropped to around VND100,000 ($4.5).

It is totally absurd for Grab to ask for a bigger commission when our total incomes are falling, one driver told Tuoi Tre.

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In recent years, Vietnam has become the inspiration for a number of beautifully shot videos created by foreign travelers.

While falling in love with Vietnam, many visitors have also captured its beauty in videos which have attracted millions of views from netizens around the world.

The videos have become a source of pride for Vietnamese viewers.

Vietnam - Land of the Dragon

One of the latest videos is South African time-lapse artist Rory Allens clip entitled Vietnam - Land of the Dragon.

The two-minute video posted on Allens Facebook page earlier this year was the product of Allen and his girlfriends three-week visit to Vietnam in September 2015.

I really enjoy travelling and creating travel-based films from the places I travel to, and once the flights were booked to Vietnam, I knew already that I wanted to create something there, Allen shared with Tuoi Tre News via email.

The couple started out in Ho Chi Minh City before moving to Phu Quoc Island in the south, then flying up to Hanoi and Cat Ba Island in the north, before catching a bus to Hue and through Da Nang to Hoi An on the way back to Ho Chi Minh City.

Vietnam is visually and culturally mind-blowing, concluded Allen.

Rory Allen's Vietnam - Land of Dragon

Vietnam - Land of Dragon has quickly drawn the attention of the internet after being posted on Facebook, YouTube and Vimeo, attracting more than 251,000 views and over 2,400 shares on Facebook.

Hoi An footage

In April, Australian Benn Tkalcevic wondered why he had received so many Facebook friend requests from Vietnam, the country he and his sisters and brothers visited earlier.

It turns out that a video he made about the central tourist town of Hoi An had been shared by a Hoi An fan page and reached more than 6,700 views.

The video has quite a long name of Hoi An, Vietnam, The most BEAUTIFUL City in the world (City of lanterns) and is about its creators feelings about a place he called a must visit destination when travelling to Vietnam.

Benn Tkalcevic's film of Hoi An

Though Tkalcevic also made a number of videos about Hanoi, Ninh Binh and Cat Ba, the Hoi An video remains his favorite, as it brings back lots of memories of an amazing adventure in such a beautiful town.

The 24-year-old filmmaker later entered and won a travel video contest with his 1:30 sec video of Vietnam featuring multiple destinations.

'Reverie of Vietnam'

In December last year, Italian director and photographer Oliver Astrologo posted his Reverie of Vietnam on Facebook and has since achieved more than 3.3 million views and over 42,000 social shares.

The video was the story of his 1,650km journey from north to south between March and April 2015 with two friends.

Reverie of Vietnam by Oliver Astrologo

Astrologo said during his trip, he tried to capture the best of Vietnam such as Hanois old quarter, the breathtaking Ha Long Bay, the claustrophobic caves inside Trang An, the glamorous fabric merchants in Hoi An, the secret temples inside the marble mountain in Da Nang, the historical old capital of Hue, the wet and tropical Mekong Delta and the white sandy beaches in Phu Quoc.

Reverie means a state of being pleasantly lost in one's own thoughts, a daydream, Astrologo explained in an email to Tuoi Tre News. Its the emotion I feel every time I remember my experience of Vietnam.

Russian shots

At the beginning of 2015, Russian Georgy Tarasov mesmerized viewers by releasing his video; The Road Story Vietnam after his trip to the country in September 2014.

During the 3-minute-37-second video, the man in the clip, Daniil Tarasov, Georgys brother, takes viewers on an exciting adventure through many parts of Vietnam, from cities to the countryside, by train, bike or motorbike, rowing a boat and jumping under a waterfall.

The video has been praised by netizens for its beautiful cinematography and enchanting background music, as well as its inspirational traveling spirit.

The Road Story Vietnam by Georgy Tarasov

Love the land, love the people

Although the videos are produced in different ways, they have one thing in common: they all reflect a love for the country their creators visited.

I have always been inspired to capture the world in amazing ways through my lens, to make it look more amazing than it may be, this is a passion Ive had for many years and Vietnam was one of the places I wanted to show to the world, Benn Tkalcevic shared.

Despite the fact that he has been in Vietnam only once, the man from Melbourne said he absolutely loved the country and the local people within it [because] the landscapes are amazing and ancient locations are so full of history.

The incredible old French architecture can be seen all over Hoi An in its buildings, and the vibrant blues and yellows of this town's walls imprint a memory that cannot be forgotten, Tkalcevic wrote in the description of his Hoi An video on YouTube.

Home is not necessarily the place you live, but where the heart is, he affirmed at the beginning of his video.

Meanwhile, for Rory Allen, a highlight of Vietnam were the scooters.

The time-lapses in the video will give you some idea, but its hard to explain how many scooters there are constantly driving around. Its an experience, especially if you rent your own. Our highlight was actually being caught in a heavy rain and lightning storm on a rental scooter, as it was getting dark, (and we were) very far from the place we were staying, he recalled.

Also, Allen said he was impressed by the friendly nature and at how accommodating the people of Vietnam are, along with the beauty of the landscapes and the contrast of the cities.

One of Rory Allen's greatest impressons of Vietnam is its motorbikes. Photo: Rory Allen

The best experience was when I took a bus with some local Vietnamese people, most of them were going back to their homes after work, Oliver Astrologo said about one of his memorable moments in Vietnam. They were very friendly and we spent some time enjoying and talking together!

My lasting impression is the Vietnamese people are very friendly and available to being filmed, Astrologo said, revealing that he will return to the country this year for another project.

Meanwhile, Russian Georgy Tarasov confirmed, Vietnam is beautiful."
An ex-leader of the agricultural department of Ben Tre Province, in Vietnams Mekong Delta, has been sentenced to three years in prison for illegally exploiting forested land.

Tran Van Hung, former deputy director of the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, was sentenced to three years in jail for abusing his power, the Ben Tre Peoples Court ruled on Monday.

Vo Van Ngan, former head of the provincial Protection Forest Management Committee, was also given a three-year custodial sentence, along with Nguyen Van Doan, the erstwhile head of the Forest Protection Department, who was given two and a half years.

Other defendants, namely Tiet Kiem Chieu and Nguyen Duc Duc, former members of staff at the agricultural department, received four-year probation periods.

Tran Van Hung, former deputy director of the Ben Tre Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, during his trial on August 14, 2017. Photo: Tuoi Tre

The five are also responsible for paying VND412 million (US$18,134) to the Ben Tre Protection Forest Management Committee.

According to the indictment, in February 2012, Ngan directed his subordinates to make a false report of infestation, requesting the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development allow the exploitation of 25.8 hectares of forest at the Thanh Phu nature reserve.

On May 18, 2012, Hung, who was the deputy director of the farming department, submitted a proposal for the activity to the provincial Peoples Committee, despite acknowledging that the exploitation was against the law.

Hung claimed at the time that trees in that section of the forest had stopped growing due to disease and infestation, and so the petition was approved by the administration in June.

Vo Van Ngan, former head of the provincial Protection Forest Management Committee, at the trial. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Ngan then wrote a document, later approved by Hung, which appointed both the institution that would carry out the work and purchase the timber upon completion.

The dishonest scheme was discovered by the relevant authorities and the exploitation was ceased.

In September 2013, results of an examination by the Ben Tre Plant Protection Department showed that trees in the 25.8 hectare section of forest in the Thanh Phu nature reserve were in fact perfectly healthy and not affected by any disease, as claimed by Hung

At that time, Hung and Ngan were slapped with a warning and dismissed from their positions.

Authorities then brought the case back to life in May 2016, arresting Hung, Ngan, and the three other defendants.

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A new toll station connected to a BOT project in southern Vietnam has recently come under fire because of what drivers are calling its unreasonable rates.

Local drivers and transport businesses have increasingly expressed their disapproval of the Cai Lay toll station, which is on the section of National Highway 1 in Cai Lay Town, in the Mekong Delta province of Tien Giang.

Drivers are charged between VND35,000 (US$1.54) and VND180,000 ($7.92) depending on their vehicles.

The toll station belongs to a BOT (build-operate-transfer) project upgrading the section of highway and building a detour across Cai Lay Town, and cost a total of VND1.3 trillion ($57.2 million).

BOT is a project-financing framework in which the developer receives a concession from the private or public sector to finance, design, construct and operate a facility for a certain period, during which it has to raise the finances for, and is entitled to retain all revenues generated by, the project.

The facility is then transferred to the public administration at the end of the concession agreement.

Many drivers consider the current toll exorbitant, while the location of the station is also said to be unreasonable.

They assert that the station should be placed on the new detour instead of on the existing highway.

Their objection began on social media in mid-July, a few weeks before the official opening of the road project in August.

The situation got out of control on Sunday evening when hundreds of drivers did the same thing, causing serious congestion in the area.

Many commuters have expressed their disagreement by paying the toll in small change, making it more difficult for attendants to count the money as well as causing traffic delays at the station.

The toll station was forced to shut down until 2:00 am on Monday.

A large number of commuters have avoided the facility by traveling on smaller local streets, placing enormous pressure on the capacity of such infrastructure.

According to Nguyen Phu Hiep, director of the National Highway No.1 Tien Giang Investment Company, developer of the road project in Cai Lay, the work included two main parts.

The first part included the building of a 12-kilometer detour with an investment recorded at VND1 trillion ($44 million), while the second part involved the renovation of a 26.5 kilometer section of National Highway 1, costing another VND300 billion ($13.2 million).

The toll includes traveing on both routes, he continued, adding that the location had been approved by the Ministry of Transport and the Tien Giang Peoples Committee.

Regarding the issue, a meeting was convened between Nguyen Manh Thang, deputy head of the Directorate for Roads of Vietnam under the Ministry of Transport, and the Tien Giang transport department on Monday.

The developer has the right to collect a toll as their benefit in the BOT project. However, they should also take into consideration the rights of citizens, Thang remarked.

Some drivers said that the toll was unreasonable given that they had already paid road maintenance fees for the highway, the official explained, adding that the amount is not enough for the implementation of the project, thus a BOT contract was necessary.

We have reviewed all feedback and are discussing with provincial authorities the best solution, which is expected to be concluded in September, Thang said.

Speaking at the gathering, Tran Van Bon, director of the Tien Giang Department of Transport, proposed an adjustment to the toll rates.

Traffic police units will also take part in a solution to ensure safety and order at the toll station, Bon added.

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Titanium and zircon mining sites in Binh Thuan Province are said to be ruining the landscape of the popular south-central Vietnamese province by creating unsightly impact craters.

Vietnams Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has issued mining permits at seven projects in Binh Thuan, covering a combined area of over 2,542 hectares.

All seven of the titanium-zircon mines have had their operations temporarily suspended however, due to their failure to satisfy all of the necessary conditions.

A number of scientists have pointed out major shortcomings in Binh Thuans vision for a sustainable titanium-zircon mining industry.

Earlier feasibility reports on the local titanium reserves that painted a bright picture and talked up the economic power that the resource would bring have since been called out by experts as delusional.

The Binh Thuan Peoples Committee has admitted that its planning of titanium mines along the coastline and on high ground could pose local safety and environmental risks.

According to Professor Dang Trung Thuan, an expert from the not-for-profit environmental group PanNature, mining titanium requires deep drilling, which can result in the destruction of environmental balance and losses of water supply  a crucial resource already scarce in Binh Thuan.

Other scientists have pointed out that titanium mining has not only failed to deliver any economic benefit to Binh Thuan over the past few years but has in fact slowed down the provinces socio-economic development.

This has largely been attributed to the illogical and scientifically unfounded planning of titanium mines, turning Binh Thuan into a mining site filled with craters that threaten the local tourism industry.

A titanium mine in Binh Thuan Province is located close to the ocean, posing environmental risks. Photo: Tuoi Tre

A titanium mine in Binh Thuan Province is located on high ground, threatening a nearby lifeline route leading to a local residential area and tourist resort. Photo: Tuoi Tre

A machine in operation at a titanium mine in Binh Thuan Province. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Previous reports that Binh Thuan Province was home to titanium reserves amounting to 5.9 million metric tons, valued at US$138 billion, have been called out as exaggerated. Photo: Tuoi Tre

A massive reservoir containing waste from titanium mining activities in Binh Thuan Province. Photo: Tuoi Tre

A titanium mine in Binh Thuan Province whose sludge reservoir gave way in 2016, causing an environmental disaster. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Ongoing constructions to repair the damage of the environmental disaster in 2016 at a titanium mine in Binh Thuan Province. Photo: Tuoi Tre

The disaster caused 1.96 hectares of coastline and tourist resorts in Binh Thuan Province to be covered in sludge. The titanium mine was later found to be operating despite failing to meet mining conditions. Photo: Tuoi Tre

A local points at a large crack on the walls of her house caused by titanium mining activities in Binh Thuan Province. Photo: Tuoi Tre

A tourist project in Binh Thuan Province is left unfinished due to the impact of local titanium mines. Photo: Tuoi Tre

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Help India!

Lucknow, (IANS): The Yogi Adityanath government has been targetted over the Gorakhpur hospital tragedy by an RSS functionary, who said the Uttar Pradesh government should do penance for the deaths.

Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) Sanghchalak of the Avadh region, Prabhu Narayan, in a Facebook post has expressed his displeasure over the deaths of over 60 children in a Gorakhpur hospital and said the state government cannot escape moral responsibility.

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The RSS leader said the country is stunned at the tragedy and loss of innocent lives and the statements of the state Health Minister and Medical Education Minister have pained him further.

He said while the niyat (intentions) of Chief Minister Adityanath are good, the statistics and explanation offered on the tragedy were not fair. Irrespective of who is guilty the state government cannot escape moral responsibility for whatever has happened in Gorakhpur, he said.

The RSS leader has also called for a prayashchit (penance), in whatever form, and suggested the holding of a Prayashcit Diwas. Calling for sensitivity on such matters, the RSS leader said that by making a handful of scapegoats will not suffice now, the government needs to be answerable and proactive.
Help India!

New Delhi, (IANS): Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said his government plans to invest Rs 1,000 crore to transform 20 universities into world class educational institutions.

In his Independence Day address from the ramparts of the historic Red Fort here, Modi said the government had taken an important step to grant the universities freedom from restrictions to make them world class universities.

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We have asked 20 universities to decide their own destiny. The government will not interfere in their functioning. Besides, the government is willing to provide funds up to Rs 1,000 crore, Modi said.

We have appealed to them and I am confident that the education institutions of our country will certainly come forward and make it a success.

He added that the government had set up six IITs, seven new IIMs and eight new IIITs over the last three years.

We have also done the groundwork for linking education with job opportunities, he said.
The 26-year-old German model and ex-Nanny to former Spice Girl Mel B and husband Stephen Belafonte has made some explosive claims of sex tapes and threesomes during her relationship with the couple. In court papers filed, Lorraine Gilles responds to claims made by Mel B in her divorce filings and denies that the child she was carrying was Stephen's, MSN reported.

Mel B's divorce filing

Melanie Brown known as Mel B, filed for divorce from her husband earlier this year claiming extreme physical abuse and sexual exploitation. She said she was forced to engage in sexual acts with her husband and other men which were videotaped and that he got the nanny pregnant and demanded that she have an abortion.

The Nanny's claim

In her libel suit, Lorraine Gilles revealed that the three of them engaged in sex together and refers to a sexual and employment relationship with Mel B that lasted for almost seven years. According to The Sun, she said that the two of them had sex multiple times a week on occasions during the relationship. The nanny further alleged that she only had sex with Stephen when Mel B told her to do so and during those times Melanie would join in or videotape the events.

Clearing her name

According to Melanie B's nanny, she filed the libel suit to clear her name of what she calls lies spread by the former Spice Girl in order to get an advantage in her divorce proceedings. She denies that she has any sex tapes and described the shame and disgrace she has endured at the hands of internet trolls based on how she has been portrayed by her former boss.

She also denies that she was pregnant by Belafonte and said that Melanie paid for her abortion.

A sexual employment relationship

Lorraine Gilles described her relationship with the family of Mel B as a sexual employment relationship. She recounted their first meeting that took place when she was just 18 in a restaurant in West Hollywood.

She was a new arrival from Germany and was invited to the couple's home where she participated in consensual group sex. She accepted a job as nanny to Melanie's three children after finishing her English studies and returning to Germany. Mel B helped her get a work visa to return to the US.

A contentious breakup

The former Spice Girl reportedly named her nanny in her divorce filing suggesting that she contributed to the breakup of the family.

Lorraine Gilles who is married strongly disputes this characterization in her court papers. She was fired from her six thousand plus a month job and given a $30,000 severance package in September 2016. Gilles claims she is now working as a waitress.
One of the favorite weapons of killing resorted to by Islamic Terror supporters is a knife. This happens when a fire arm is not available. Most terrorists who operate singly and do not have a fire arm resort to attacking bystanders and people on the street with knives. Such men are highly motivated, but an odd woman may also commit the crime. A careful analysis of the attacks shows that the killers mostly target women with knives. Even the latest terror attack at the El Palacio holiday resort on the Red Sea in Egypt resulted in the death of 2 German women.

In all six women were attacked. "He had a knife with him and stabbed each of them three times in the chest. They died on the beach," Saud Abdelaziz, the security manager at the hotel, told BBC.

Knife attacks

There have been cases of knife attacks in England and Israel, and the victims are mostly women. This is contrary to the teachings enshrined in the Holy books of Islam. The Quran explicitly states neither to kill a woman or a child nor an aged man. Knife attacks are quite common more so in countries like the UK and Israel which has stringent laws against owning a firearm. One of the latest attacks was the Red Sea resort in Egypt. Earlier an Israeli policewoman was stabbed to death in Jerusalem.

Knife attacks have a long unending story. Knife attacks can result in a significant number of fatalities as well as in 2014 Islamic terrorists attacked a rail station in China and killed 31.

Women victims

One reason for women being targeted is that they are soft targets and women are unlikely to offer much resistance when attacked with a knife.

The list of women killed by knife attacks is pretty large, but the killers execute the attacks in the belief that what they are doing is right. Nobody has been able to explain the psychology of these killings, but it is due to a deep commitment that they are avenging a perceived insult to their religion. Nobody has been able to specify the insult, and most of the facts are replaced by rhetoric.

These acts are nurtured as many states support them.

A knife is the simplest instrument of killing. But to wield and kill with a knife requires an iron nerve. Its not like pulling the trigger of a gun. These knife attacks show a deep belief and commitment to extremist Islamic ideology. It signifies a fatalistic resolve as well. Such persons are ready to die for the cause. Most knife welders have been shot dead, but it has not stopped knife attacks.

Study required

There is a need to explore the knife attackers psychology to get to the real reason behind the stabbings. It shows a warped mind that allows a killer to kill a defenseless woman who cannot retaliate and unable to defend herself. This is not mentioned in the holy books but who will explain to the killers.
It is important to make two points at the beginning of this piece:

1) The White supremacist movement, presently gaining some ground in the USA is an indefensible, racist movement that continues the stench of the Nazi party who caused the loss of so many lives of all creeds and colours just over half a century ago.

2) All acts of violence at demonstrations should be condemned for two principal reasons. Firstly they substitute progress by democracy for progress by thuggery. Secondly, they place in danger the lives of people who have to be there to protect us from ourselves.

This point was clearly illustrated by the tragic loss of two police officers in the Charlottesville riots. The events that are the parent of this article.

I don't think I can be any plainer than that!

The rest of the truth

Having said the above there are other points that must be made, however unpleasant they may be to the equally violent left wing protesters. Not all of the facts have so far emerged about the numbskull who caused the car to crash into the crowd leaving at least one person dead. Most reports state that his father was a Republican and that he was too, but others claim he was a Democrat. It does not matter. His actions were psychopathic and no punishment will be too extreme. More importantly, the demonstration by the supremacists was a licensed, planned demonstration whereas the counter demonstration from Antifa was not (Oh, and it looked like at least one of the Antifa mob took a flamethrower along, just in case).

The Antifa group are as hateful and violent as the right wing brutes. The demonstration was about the removal of the statue of Robert E Lee the Confederate leader of the Civil War. He now upsets left wing sensibilities and a statue that has stood for years was to be removed. A legal and planned protest was held, as was the right of the supporters of Lee.

But Antifa was there as always, denying the right to protest because they disagreed and calling for loathsome violence to befall their opponents. Behaving in the exact, fascist way they claim to oppose. It is hardly surprising that violence and murder followed.

It is easy to predict the reaction many on the left will have to the above facts.

It's our right and duty to fight fascism in any way, wherever we find it. Doesn't matter who drove the car it was Trump's fault overall. It's all a conspiracy by billionaires. And so on. The left wing crusaders are so certain that they are correct that democracy, reason, including indisputable facts and accepting any hint of responsibility for anything, is beyond them.

When you reject democracy you open the door to Anarchy and Repression

The election of Trump, as well as in Europe, the decision to leave the EU have not been accepted, most of the opposition loudly trumpet that fact. The hate and rage they feel against Trump and Brexiteers transcend everything. They demand protests, they often welcome violent ones.

They pretend that lies have only been told by one side (the other side) and make up incredible fantasies relating to plots by billionaires, conveniently forgetting that the Democrats outspent Trump and that most UK billionaires were on the side of remain. They refuse to let the President carry out the policies he was democratically elected to implement. In Europe, there have been politicians like Blair, Clegg and Heseltine who all agitate to deny the will of the people, after spending the previous forty years denying them a vote.

In America, this refusal to accept democracy has even led to many prominent people siding with an evil lunatic, who has murdered (or had murdered) many of his own people and is now threatening nuclear destruction to Japan, South Korea and America, over their own duly elected Commander in Chief.

They would rather excuse a wicked, tinpot dictator and continue the appeasement that has allowed North Korea to become the world's most unstable nuclear power, than stand firmly behind the President and the free world and let Kim know that attempting to carry out the action he has threatened will lead to his immediate and complete destruction.

This hateful control of only accepting decisions you agree with and demanding everyone falls into line with your idealism has been tried many times. The old USSR were masters at it, but when the Berlin Wall came down everyone ran from East to West. Iran still continues this behaviour but that country is a poverty stricken throwback to the Dark Ages. Venezuela is the latest experiment of this stupidity to lead a previously prosperous country to poverty, violence and despair.

The future of the free world demands freedom of speech, the plurality of opinion and the right to review. It also demands the supporting of the democratically made decisions of your country, even if you don't agree with them and supporting the people who have the duty to put them in to practice.
The violence in Charlottesville over removing the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee was a clash between far right protesters and far left groups. The 'Unite the Right' protest to defend the statue of Robert E. Lee consisted of Neo-Nazis, KKK groups, pro-Confederate groups and more moderate right-of-centre groups. Confronting them were so called anti-Fascist groups made up of left wing groups and genuine anti-racists no doubt.

Whenever right and left-of-centre groups congregate violence is sure to happen, and this is what indeed did happen.

A young car driver with Neo-Nazi sympathies ploughed into an anti-Fascist crowd killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer. Donald Trump was once again in the firing line of the liberal and left wing media for not condemning the right wingers. Instead, his first statement was condemning all violence whether right or left and seemingly under pressure Trump came out and condemned racism.

It was into this that Franklin Graham son of the preacher and international evangelist Billy Graham emerged.

Franklin Graham defends Trump

In a sense, it is not surprising that Graham would defend President Donald Trump as both are considered right of centre. Trump also had the backing and prayers of right wing Christian evangelists like Kenneth Copeland and John Hagee.

Indeed many Christians on the right consider Trump to have been put in the White House by God. No doubt many of those who voted for Trump too would have had this belief in mind as they cast their vote.

Franklin Graham has said "Shame on those blaming Trump for what happened in Charlottesville," and in a way he is right. Trump cannot be held directly accountable for what happened in Charlottesville however maybe his sentiments during the Presidential campaign could be to blame.

Trump has attracted far right support and genuine disgruntled European American support who felt Obama's America had left them behind.

Many European Americans are attracted to the far right because they feel America is not theirs anymore. While a good percentage of these people are racists some are non-racists just concerned about the future of their country.

Graham: A controversial figure?

Franklin Graham like Trump does not mince his words, whether you like it or not, and is a sworn enemy of today's liberal and politically correct society. A strong opponent of gay marriage and other liberal politics Graham does not apologise for being a Christian on the right and taking the Bible literally.

Wherever he goes left wing groups gather to protest against the man and his views which never seemingly happened when his father Billy was evangelising. Billy Graham was direct and still is vociferous in his views, however, he appears more humble than his unapologetic son.

Franklin meanwhile is like Marmite, you either agree with him or not, both from a Christian or political belief.
A Springfield, Mass. police officer could be facing problems with his job after making an insensitive comment on social media relating to Heather Heyers death during a counter-protest to the white supremacist demonstration in Charlottesville, Va. His comment included the words Hahahaha love this as he went on to talk about people blocking the road.

Springfield cop apologizes for his comment

According to MassLive, Conrad Lariviere of the Springfield Police has since apologized for what he dubbed a stupid comment relating to people blocking the streets.

Social media users had followed up his comment by pointing out that one person had died and 19 more had been injured, with many accusing him of being neo-Nazi. Others accused the cop of standing with the driver of the vehicle, James Fields Jr., rather than with the victims of the attack. While the original post, with the comments, has since been deleted, plenty of social media users had made screenshots, which are being shared online. Of interest to note, a quick search on Facebook for "Conrad Lariviere" came up empty today, so he may have deleted his account.

This is how a white police officer in Springfield, MA reacted to the death & injuries in #Charlottesville His name is Conrad Lariviere pic.twitter.com/c9OcOIJgxw  RiotWomenn (@riotwomennn) August 14, 2017

Lariviere reportedly went on to tell the reporter that he would never want someone to be murdered.

He said he is not racist and doesnt believe in what the protesters are doing, adding that he is a good man who happened to make a stupid comment. Lariviere closed the conversation by saying he would like to be left alone.

However many on social media are saying his apology was too little, too late, as Twitter comes alive with criticism against Lariviere.

@SPD_HQ You praised Conrad Lariviere for arresting these minorities. He has come out as a racist. U owe us due diligence. @AP @ShaunKing pic.twitter.com/AYHM4PftL0  David (@ShockneyLane) August 14, 2017

Investigation launched by Springfield Police

On top of that, the officers job could now be at risk. Springfield Police Commissioner John Barbieri has confirmed to MassLive that an investigation into the online incident has since been launched.

Barbieri said he had been notified about the Facebook comment by email and that the post was allegedly from a Springfield Police officer. This led to him taking immediate steps to open a thorough internal investigation. Barbieri went on to add that should the post have originated from one of their officers, the incident would then be reviewed by the Community Police Hearings Board.

Call the Springfield, MA police department 413-787-6302 and let them know how you feel about Conrad Lariviere's comments on FB. pic.twitter.com/NgeJA3cNjD  your chick habit. (@parkerandcooley) August 14, 2017

Springfield Mayor shocked by the incident

As reported by ABC News, Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno was also shocked by the comments, saying he had just issued a statement about the tragic incidents in Charlottesville, Vi., when he finds one of their officers had done this.

Sarno said there was no place for behavior like this in society, especially from a Springfield Police officer. He added that he commends and stands by Barbieris steps in launching a thorough investigation into the incident.

Mayor Sarno ripped by Springfield Police Officer Conrad Larivieres Facebook remarks: pic.twitter.com/Fa9yoCGE3k  CityofSpringfield,MA (@SpfldMACityHall) August 14, 2017

Meanwhile, John Fields, Jr., who drove his car into the crowds in the counter-protest in Charlottesville, Vi., is facing second-degree murder and other charges relating to the incident.
North Korean state media has reported that Kim Jong-un has decided not to, after all, launch missiles against Guam, thus averting war with the United States. Of course, the dictator could change his mind at any time, as he has indicated, but for now, the world is breathing a sigh of relief. Most are ascribing the decision to tough warnings emanating from the trump administration as well as promises of economic sanctions from China. Nevertheless, Kim and a nuclear North Korea remain a problem that needs fixing.

Fire and fury avoided for the time being

When President Trump promised to visit Fire And Fury on North Korea if it persisted in its threats, his critics pounced, suggesting that he was being reckless and might even provoke Pyongyang into launching an attack. However, the Trump administration doubled down on the warnings. Trump noted that the American military was locked and loaded and ready for action should it be necessary. Secretary of Defense James Mattis added that it would be game on the moment missiles were launched against the United States or her allies.

In the meantime, China informed its client state that it would be on its own if it launched the first strike. Beijing also promised that it would adhere to economic sanctions as ordered by the UN Security Council and would cut off imports of a variety of goods from North Korea.

It was in this context that Kim decided to back down, at least for now.

North Korea remains a problem

Of course, North Korea retains a nuclear arsenal and a missile development program. Kim, who is, if anything, unpredictable and irrational, could change his mind at any time and decide to have a go at the United States and her allies, South Korea and Japan after all.

However, the North Korean dictator has proven that he will respond to pressure when it is applied.

The fact that North Korea was persuaded to stand down from attacking Guam suggests that it can be influenced to further actions if the pressure is continued to be applied. That means a military buildup, increasing economic sanctions, and continued diplomatic isolation.

Above all, missile defenses have to be augmented to make sure that Kims nuclear arsenal will lose at least part of its capability to intimidate.

The development does show that Team Trump is more adroit at crisis management than was the presidents predecessor, who allowed things to fester and grow in what has become an increasingly discredited strategy of strategic patience. That approach has been replaced with a more traditional, but far more effective strategy that actively engages the threat and seeks every means to reduce and eventually eliminate it.
This weekend in Virginia was one shrouded in protest, hatred, and violence. Protests started on Friday night at the University of Virginia. White supremacists and counter protesters clashed on Friday night. On Saturday, as the white nationalists prepared for the "Unite the Right" rally, further clashes occurred. There was fighting and all sorts of violence, including the use of pepper spray. Then suddenly, a gray car barreled down the road, aimed at a group of counter protesters. One person was killed in the incident and 19 others were injured.

President Donald Trump has since issued a statement, condemning such violence and encouraging greater unity.

Trump's statement

Trump's main statement about the events in Charlottesville, Virginia was as follows, "We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence, on many sides. On many sides. It's been going on for a long time in our country. Not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama. This has been going on for a long, long time."

Trump added that the events in Charlottesville make him terribly sad, according to Real Clear Politics. He called on all Americans to unite and remember how great their nation is. He said that he believes that this "hatred" and "division" needs to go.

The president told the press that he condemns the events in Virginia. He wants all Americans to realize that they are not so very different from each other. They should use their great nation to unite with each other.

Reactions to the president's statement

Trump's statement has been met with a fair share of criticism. According to CNN, Trump is going too easy on the white supremacists who are responsible for this violence.

Trump has simply declared that all sides bring about violence, without informing the white nationalists alone that they are to blame. Furthermore, the president has been criticized for spending so little time focusing on the event before moving on to other stories. Trump practically brushed over the story before moving on to the many great things that are happening in the country and his contributions to the nation.

It seems as though Trump is not speaking the blunt truth that he promised the nation he would speak. In a tweet, Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado told President Trump that it is time to call evil out for what it is. Trump is being accused of shirking the blame and responsibility and then moving on.

The events in Virginia this past weekend are a terrible reminder of the amount of work that still needs to be done in America. There is still much work that needs to be done before the United States can truly call themselves a "free" country. Our thoughts are with the families who have suffered as a result of the violence in Virginia.
While Chicago and Cook County elected Democrats remain smugly confident that Republicans can't win in their districts despite the Southside neighborhoods erupting into war zones, a Democratic sponsored state tax hike, and unfunded, bankrupt city and state school and government-worker pension plans, a brand-new soda-Pop Tax has voters' undivided attention.

New soda tax hits low-income voters

Described by the Chicago Times yesterday as a deeply unpopular county pop tax piled on top of recent state and city tax increases, the beverage tax hits all citizens, even those who arent used to paying taxes.

During Cook County Democrats' endorsement session for next year's primary season, Board president Toni Preckwinkle was asked by Rep. Luis Arroyo if she intended to repeal the soft drink tax, a measure of the pop-tax's disapproval rating with voters.

Trifecta of city, county state tax increases

Normally, Chicagoans and Cook County residents dont put up much of a fuss about taxes, perhaps because its a one-party town with little Republican representation to thwart tax increases. However, Democratic state legislators recently overrode Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner's veto of a State Income Tax rate hike, which raised the Illinois state tax from 3.75 percent to 4.95 percent. Unfortunately for taxpayers, that state income tax hike was little more than a desperate attempt to balance budgets for monies long spent.

The new pop tax hits financially-strapped Chicagoans who dont usually have to pay state and federal income taxes, a group that has joined forces with the state's anti-tax roast simmering in the electoral crock pot next to the freshly taxed bottle of pop.

As for Preckwinkles response to Arroyo's question about repealing the pop tax, she fully supports the tax increase, citing the potential layoff of about 1,100 government workers that politicos like her would need to implement without the new tax on cold drinks.

"My answer is no," Preckwinkle responded.

"We had a choice last fall, either raise revenue, or make 1,100 cuts in personnel and lay off 1,100 people, and I thought then, I think now, that would severely impact the quality of services," said Preckwinkle, as quoted in the Chicago Tribune story published yesterday.

Nevertheless, representatives and other elected officials at the meeting that have to face voters next year seemed dismayed and confused about voter backlash some claim to be experiencing.

"People at the grocery store are asking me why I voted for it," said one recently elected Democrat. Democratic Party members at the meeting expressed fears that a trifecta of new taxes levied by the city, county and state, all coming at about the same time, could work against Democratic campaigns.

Politicians hope voters move on

Another Democrat at the meeting attempted sooth the politicians' concerns by suggesting that voters have a short memories and by the time the rubber hits the road on this, people will have moved on. But still more said the new soda tax will hit Democrats at the ballot box in 2018. Nevertheless, we are talking about Chicago and the Democrats are simply wringing their hands, not voting against the new taxes.

While elected officials like Northwest Side Ald. Nicholas Sposato, who said there will be some backlash against the pop tax "down the road in the election next year", most Democrats in attendance seem to understand that their government pensions come first, that is after all the golden goose of Chicago and by default, Cook County Democrats.
Amid tensions between North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Un and President Trump, Threats were made last week against Guam. Kim threatened to nuke the small island in retaliation to Trump's statements of raining fire and fury on the North end of the Korean peninsula. After the threat, President Trump doubled down on the threat to the dictator.

As a result, as reported by The Daily Caller, Kim has backed down from his intentions to fire missiles on Guam. Many were skeptical about the harshness of Trump's words, however, they seem to have been effective, claim experts.

Kim now appears to be de-escalating the conflict between the two countries. Kims threats came due to the tougher sanctions, approved by the U.N. last Wednesday. Kim threatened a show of force in retaliation that ended with him cowering.

The history of North Korea and US tensions

Since the Korean War, the North and South of the Korean peninsula have been two separate countries. Under the dictatorship of Kim Sr., the South was determined to be free of the Norths fierce leadership. Asking the US to help, South Korea engaged in the bloody battle that would split the two halves of the country. Because the US helped, North Korea now holds the US responsible.

The US bases in South Korea keep the North from advancing and re-taking the other half of the country.

Because of this, the North has threatened to go to war with America. Yet, nothing has happened to that effect. The threats have never gone further than just talk. However, they have escalated under the Obama administration, and grown even more under Trump. I believe the only thing that would stop North Korean aggression is for the South to submit to Kims Dictatorship, which will never happen.

Will China help keep N. Korea at bay?

In a piece written by Adam Behsudi of Politico on August 10, The reason China is reluctant to isolate North Korea is due to the Natural resources, like fuel and oil, sold to the North. Billions of dollars in resources are sold each year to the small country. On numerous occasions, Trump has asked for China to intervene.

Each time, China has said they would, but to no avail. This has many experts wondering if he ever will? In this day and age, money talks.

Will China throw away all that money to help the US? Many do not think so. China has its own issues with America. So intervention is highly unlikely. As we sit back and watch the drama of the world stage unfold, we often have to ask ourselves if intervention is even worth it. When you see all the innocent lives on the south end of the Korean peninsula, we can only imagine what would happen if America backed down. Those thoughts keep us in the middle of it.

What are your thoughts? Comment is the comment section below and let us know.
During what was supposed to be a peaceful protest Sunday, turned into a free for all of assault and Pepper Spray. Protestors from both the right and left sides of the aisle engaged in an enormous display of hateful violence. protesters from the Solidarity Against Hate clashed with the Freedom Rally, which was hosted by the Patriot Prayer Group. All was well until the group Solidarity Against Hate showed up and that is when all hell broke loose, reported The Daily Caller.

Police officers clashed with protesters from both sided, leading in arrests and pepper spray being deployed.

The clash, ended with injuries to both sides, as-well-as to the officers, overseeing the protest. Police used blast ball and pepper spray, to keep the protesters separated. Blast balls are plastic balls full of pepper spray that explodes on impact similar to a paint ball and releases pepper spray on the individuals aimed at.

Who is the Solidarity Against Hate, group?

Better known as Anti-Fascist, (ANTIFA) are known to travel from state to state, protesting what they call Fascists. In their wake, they cause destruction everywhere they protest. Many experts compare these members with terrorists. They cover their faces to conceal their identities so they cant be recognized.

Dictionary.com defines fascism as a government led by a dictator that suppresses opposition and attempts to silence those that disagree with their ideology.

ANTIFA is known to fly communist flags and hail dictators from the past, such as Joseph Stalin. If the ANTIFA is so opposed to fascism, then why do they try to silence the right wing activists? Their behavior completely contradicts what they claim to stand for.

Free speech under attack

I am totally for freedom of expression from either side.

Listening to both sides of a story is the American way. However, that is not the case these days. Both sides of the aisle engage in Anti-free speech against the other side in magnanimous proportions. If someone doesnt agree with our ideology, the first thing we do is call the person names and engages in name calling and bullying.

Spews of names such as Racist and Islamaphobe fly too quickly in a heated debate. Whatever happened to everyone being entitled to their own opinion? As the liberal media try to discredit anyone with a difference of opinion, they have been met with equal force, lately. Yet, Fox News has been doing the same thing for the past few months. It is no wonder that many people are leaving the two main political parties to become independents. What are your thoughts?
Samsung is expected to launch the successor to its infamous Galaxy Note 7 smartphone  the Galaxy Note 8 at the companys Unpacked event on August 23. There is immense pressure on Samsung regarding the phone as the device serves as the flagship offering made by Samsung, thereby putting it in direct competition with other high-end smartphones including Apple iPhone 8. Secondly, the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 smartphone is a way for Samsung to revive its lost glory.

While Samsung hasnt made any official confirmation regarding the specifications set to arrive in the upcoming Galaxy Note 8 smartphone, thanks to the prevailing leaks and rumors, the fans have an idea of what can be expected from it.

Lets take a look at the complete compilation of all the rumors suggested regarding the Galaxy Note 8 smartphone.

Specs, features and other details

The new smartphone is expected to feature a 6.3-inch QHD+ Infinity display, with a resolution of 1,440 x 2,960 pixels, according to Tech Radar. The smartphone also supports 4K video content streaming. The smartphone is also going to come with curved glass on the rear and front panels of the smartphone. There are a lot of reports that state that the smartphone will be quite similar to the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus smartphones.

Apart from this, the phablet smartphone is also going to come accompanied by the companys iconic stylus S Pen. Samsung's website describes it as "the ideal solution for even easier use of your Galaxy Note 8."

The device is further reported to come powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 system-on-chip.

The device on several occasions has been rumored to have a dual rear camera setup with two 12-megapixel rear sensors along with an 8-megapixel front camera as well. The smartphone is also expected to come with support for 2x optical zoom as well.

A true flagship device

Samsung has also been reported to debut eight new color variants for the smartphone according to GSMArena.

It remains to be seen exactly what takes place next, as the information has not been confirmed by Samsung.

On the storage front, the high-end phablet is expected to offer 4GB of RAM, along with 64GB of internal storage. Users may also be provided with the option of 128GB of memory expansion via its microSD card lot option. The phone is also expected to come with wireless charging technology as well. The device is going to be in direct competition to Apples iPhone 8 device  which is expected to debut in September this year.
From left: Weiqiang Zhong, of American Wonder Porcelain and Jianping Huang, chairman and president of The Wonderful Group, are joined by Michael Kephart, president of American Wonder Porcelain, Bob Rolfe, commissioner of Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development and Bill Griese, of the Tile Council of North America, at a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the American Wonder Porcelain plant in Lebanon, Tennessee, earlier this year. PROVIDED TO China Daily

The southern state has benefited from foreign direct investment in the US and the rise of mainland firms setting up factories there

Frank Chen, the CEO of Sinomax USA, had been looking for a location for some time.

Logistics were developing into a challenge as "bedding products are bulky, and it takes a lot to ship them a long distance", he pointed out.

So in 2013, when retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc unveiled a plan to bring back manufacturing jobs to the US, Chen decided it was time for his Hong Kong-based company to find a stateside location. He went for Tennessee.

For Jianping Huang, chairman and president of The Wonderful Group, based in Dongguan, Guangdong province, proximity to the US market was a key factor in opening a US ceramics plant.

"We want to be near our customers in the US," Huang said. "The American ceramic industry imports about 70 percent of its product, with about 13 percent of that coming from China. Setting up this factory is better for our customers."

Huang also chose Tennessee.

Chinese companies have provided a boost to the southern state's economy in recent years, whether it's building a new plant or retrofitting an old factory.

Data from the state's Economic and Community Development department in 2015 and 2016, showed Tennessee attracted $3.18 billion of foreign direct investment. China accounted for about $270 million of that and helped create more than 1,000 jobs.

The TN China Network, a trade promotion group, confirmed that by June there were 47 companies in the state that received Chinese investment.

According to the New York-based Rhodium Group, the top four industries for investment are health and biotech, followed by automotive and aviation.

All this has a local impact.

"We were happy that the Chinese were coming. Any investment is a big deal for us because it helps our local economy," said Bernie Ash, mayor of Lebanon, Tennessee, upon learning that The Wonderful Group would invest $150 million and open a porcelain plant in his hometown.

In La Vergne, 27 miles southwest of Lebanon, more than 500 jobs were lost when Whirlpool Corp closed a plant there in 2008.

Sinomax USA recently opened a factory and will eventually employ more than 300 workers.

City Administrator Bruce Richardson welcomed Chinese investment.

"We are happy to see the facility back in use, and we hope that a lot of La Vergne residents will be able to get jobs there to support their families," Richardson wrote in an email.

Ceramics have also become important to the state.

Porcelain was developed in China more than 2,000 years ago before being exported to Europe and the rest of the world.

The American Wonder Porcelain facility signifies the first investment in the US from a Chinese ceramic tile manufacturer. The Wonderful Group is a division of Marco Polo, which is the largest producer of ceramic tiles in China.

Its factory is adding to Tennessee's roster of ceramic plantsthere are now six. Indeed, that was a major reason why the Wonderful plant was rolled out in Lebanon.

"Other ceramic factories are in Tennesseethere is a good supply of raw materials, and the Tennessee government welcomed us here," Huang said.

Michael Kephart (left), president of American Wonder Porcelain and Jianping Huang, chairman and president of The Wonderful Group, outside of the American Wonder Porcelain plant in Lebanon, Tennessee. PAUL WELITZKIN / CHINA DAILY

Michael Kephart, a veteran of the ceramic tile industry, was hired by Huang to be president and CEO of American Wonder Porcelain. "Our goal is to produce high-quality, finished porcelain tiles that will be used in floors, walls and counters in residential and commercial applications," he said.

Porcelain is made from raw clay and other materials. "We mix it together with water to produce slurry that is dried, milled and processed before it is heated up," Kephart added.

He admitted that he was not surprised to be working for a Chinese company. "I have worked in Europe and Asia before," he said.

In addition to Wonderful Group team members from China who are helping to set up the Lebanon plant, there are workers from Italy and other countries at the facility to help install machinery. There are also residents from the community who need to be trained.

Kephart believes that such diversity may be a harbinger of what a typical American workplace will look like in the future. He also praised Huang for enabling him to set up "a Western type of company". "Despite some language differences, our team is cohesive, productive and dedicated," he said.

The plant has 50 to 60 employees, and when it begins full production, Kephart anticipates a workforce of 175 to 225.

Riley Tang, who worked for The Wonderful Group in China, has been living in the Lebanon area for two years.

"The people are nice and kind to everyone. I like living here and noticed that country music is very popular," he said through an interpreter.

Even with language hurdles, Tang described a smooth operating team. "We get along well, and (they) help me in work and life," he said, adding that he would not object to staying in Tennessee and making a career there.

Brian Messamore has lived in the state for 10 years and is a veteran of the ceramic industry. He said that diversity is a way of life in the sector. "Right now manufacturing porcelain tile in America is a multicultural thing," he said. "There is always a lot of cultural diversity.

"I think there is a lot we can learn from the Chinese, and there is a lot they can learn from us," he added. "There is a bond developing on this team."

Bonds are also important to Sinomax USA, which manufacturers memory foam bedding and related products. It has been a supplier to Walmart since 2006, and the company has since added Costco and Kohl's as clients.

"We were considering making an investment in the US several years ago," said Chen, who comes from Beijing.

"Initially we considered a partner for a joint venture. But that didn't work because it's hard to find the right one," he added.

Chen then thought about acquiring an existing US company, but that did not pan out either. Meanwhile, he said it was getting harder to take care of his US clients from a manufacturing base in China.

In 2013, Walmart unveiled a $250 billion initiative to bring back manufacturing jobs that had been outsourced to China and other nations.

Rightly or wrongly, the company had been blamed for sending thousands of US jobs overseas since the 1990s.

That program turned out to be the tipping point for Chen and his company's ambitions in the world's biggest economy.

"Walmart's program certainly helped us decide to make a US commitment," he said.

Chen then had to decide on a location for his first plant and whether to construct a new building or remodel an existing one.

"Location was very important to us," Chen recalled. "Somewhere in the Southeast would put us close to most of our major customers."

Initially, Chen identified eight states and then narrowed his choice to twoArkansas and Tennessee. Arkansas offered a very attractive package.

But a closed Whirlpool plant near La Vergne just outside of Nashville met all the requirements Chen was seeking for his $28 million investment.

There was rail access to the building. "That was important to us. But it was also close to major highways, and Tennessee is an ideal location," he added.

While the state provided incentives, there was another important factor in selecting La Vergne.

"The reason we came here wasn't just the incentives," Chen said. "We came here because there are technical schools and community colleges and universities nearby.

"This allows us to recruit a deep talent pool in the area," he added.

Bruce Miller, executive vice-president of operations at Sinomax, assembled a team for the Tennessee facility. When he told everyone the company owners were from China, the response was interesting.

"At first, the reaction was most jobs are going from the US to China. Now a Chinese company is bringing jobs to the US," Miller said.

"It was a change and it was, 'Wow this is a great new trend.' American workers can compete with those from outside of the country," he added.

When Tao Zhu was one year old, he and his parents left Fuzhou in Fujian province and moved to Minneapolis. Zhu was educated in Minneapolis and received his bachelor's degree from the University of Minnesota. He is now an engineer at Sinomax.

"I never really expected it," he said of learning that Sinomax was a Chinese-owned company.

"I didn't see that many Chinese companies in the US. I was more aware of outsourcing to China, especially in manufacturing," Zhu added. "I feel lucky to be a part of this company. Having them build this plant here shows they are taking the initiative to bring jobs here."

The Sinomax plant in La Vergne, Tennessee. PROVIDED TO China Daily

DeWayne Cid, a product data manager for Sinomax who has lived in the area for 12 years, likes the company's approach.

"It may be a Chinese-owned company, but it is providing Americans with jobs," he said. "The company has partnerships and is supplied by other American companies.

"It does matter that we are manufacturing in the US and are not just distributing. That has really impressed me," he added.

Foreign direct investment has helped create a vibrant job market in a state that until recently had been known for agricultural products and a country music shrine, the Grand Ole Opry.

Beginning in the 1980s, Tennessee's economy began to shift from manufacturing nondurable products, such as leather goods and chemicals, to making durable products, according to Bill Fox, director of the University of Tennessee's Boyd Center for Business and Economic Research.

"We added a lot of employment in durable manufacturing, specifically in automobile production," he added.

Tennessee, called the Volunteer State, "has outpaced the nation by modest amounts since the 1980s. The transition in the state's economy has been as important as the growth," Fox said.

Now Tennessee is referred to by many as the "Detroit of the South". The automobile industry helped kick off the foreign direct investment wave in the state.

Japan's Nissan Motor Co Ltd put Tennessee on the auto industry map, Fox pointed out, when it opened an assembly plant in Smyrna, outside the state capital of Nashville, in 1983.

"From there it expanded to Spring Hill when General Motors opened a Saturn plant in the 1990s, and recently we had Volkswagen open a plant in Chattanooga," he said.

In turn, the automotive plants helped unleash a wave of investment from auto parts manufacturers and suppliersmany of them foreign-owned"all over the state".

Yanfeng USA, the largest Chinese manufacturer of automotive interior components and a subsidiary of Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp, built a plant near Chattanooga.

In 2014, South Korea's Hankook Tire Co Ltd broke ground for an $800 million car and light-truck tire plant in Clarksville which may employ up to 1,200.

Hankook also intends to put its North American headquarters in Nashville. Japan's Bridgestone Tire is also there.

In April, Germany's Wacker Chemie AG officially opened its new polysilicon production site in Charleston. The $2.5 billion investment is expected to create about 650 jobs.

"There is no doubt that it (FDI) has been critical for us. We have led the nation (in FDI) the last couple of years," said Governor Bill Haslam.

Huang, chairman and president of The Wonderful Group, is aware that his company's US investment will be closely watched in China.

"The Wonderful Group investment has been mentioned in the media. Many will watch and see if we are successful," he said.

"If we are a success, it will be a good example for other Chinese companies," Huang added.

Clockwise: Frank Chen, CEO, Sinomax USA; Brian Messamore, American Wonder Porcelain; DeWayne Cid, product data manager, Sinomax USA; Bernie Ash, mayor of Lebanon, Tennessee; and Riley Tang, American Wonder Porcelain [PROVIDED TO China Daily]

Weaver helps sell business opportunities

Li Weaver's job to is to represent and market the state in China as director of business development for the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development.

She is a native of Taiyuan in Shanxi province, which is a sister city to Nashville, Tennessee's capital. She is also fluent in English and Mandarin.

Weaver said many members of the Chinese business community are at least somewhat familiar with Tennessee, and when discussing the state with them, she emphasizes its location, vibrant manufacturing economy and pro-business attitude.

"Tennessee is perfectly located to service the eastern half of the US, particularly the Southeast," she said. "Our existing advanced manufacturing base helps to attract other companies.

"For example, we have a lot of automotive companies in China looking at the state because we already have a thriving auto industry," she added. "Our business-friendly environment and tax policies are also big draws."

Weaver believes that her office is crucial in attracting Chinese foreign direct investment.

"The relationships that we build are very important," she said. "We can help to bridge language and cultural gaps."
US President Donald Trump, fl anked by Cabinet members and other officials, after signing a memo directing the US trade representative to review of trade issues with China on Monday. JONATHAN ERNST/REUTERS

China voiced "grave concern" over US President Donald Trump's move to initiate an investigation into China's intellectual property policies and practices.

The executive memorandum Trump signed on Monday instructed US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to find out whether to investigate any of China's laws, policies, practices or actions that may be unreasonable or discriminatory, or may be harming US intellectual property and innovation technology.

China's Ministry of Commerce responded on Tuesday that China will take all necessary and appropriate measures to protect its commercial and trade interests if the US government wrongly accuses China over alleged theft of US technology and intellectual property.

China has been putting a strong emphasis on intellectual property rights protections and urged all WTO members to ensure a fair global trade.

Trump's move has triggered opposition from the Chinese government and concerns of strained trade relations between the world's two largest economies.

In Beijing on Monday, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman

Hua Chunying said that "any member of the WTO should observe its rules in taking trade measures," a view expressed by China's Ministry of Commerce 10 days ago.

"Given the increasingly converging China-US interests and the close-knit pattern of the two countries being mutually dependent, there will be no future or winner but only losers in a trade war," Hua warned.

Trump's signing came at a sensitive time, coinciding with his tweet last week that if China helps more on restraining the nuclear weapons program of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, he might think differently about trade issues.

But a senior White House official indicated that the two issues were not related.

Hua said that the Korean Peninsula issue and the economic and trade issue fall into different categories. "It is obviously improper to use one issue as a tool to exercise pressure on the other," she told the daily briefing.

Henry Levine, a senior advisor at the Albright Stonebridge Group and a former US deputy assistant secretary of commerce, said that despite the issue over forced technology transfer, Trump's action on Monday should not cause short-term concerns for US or Chinese companies.

The study Trump requested could take up to a year and a 301 investigation, if launched, would take additional time, according to Levine. "Therefore, we are very far from any substantive actions that would create serious problems in US-China relations," he told China Daily.

Levine said if it ever reaches a point of Section 301 action, it would be well advised to use the WTO rather than any unilateral US action.

"Aside from the strongly negative impact on US-China relations, unilateral US trade actions would significantly weaken the global trading system, to the detriment of all countries," he said.

Levine believes that the conclusion of a high-quality US-China bilateral investment treaty (BIT) would help address such issues between the two countries.

Some observers interpreted Trump's signing on Monday as a move to show his supporters that he is finally keeping a campaign promise.

chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com
Activists rally in front of the Japanese consulate in San Francisco on Monday, demanding justice for "comfort women" around the world, in commemoration of the international "Comfort Women" Day of Remembrance. LIA ZHU/CHINA DAILY

Human rights activists and organizations on Monday rallied in front of the Japanese consulate in San Francisco, demanding justice for "comfort women" around the world, in commemoration of the international "Comfort Women" Day of Remembrance.

"In court we say, justice delayed is justice denied," said Lillian Sing, co-chair of the Comfort Women Justice Coalition (CWJC) and a retired judge of San Francisco's Superior Court. "On this International Comfort Women Day, we call upon Japan to do what Germany did over 70 years ago - apologize, take responsibility for your crimes and resolve the 'comfort women' issue according to the international standard."

Led by CWJC, a San Francisco-based grassroots coalition consisting of more than a dozen multi-ethnic organizations, around 100 people turned out at the demonstration, holding signs of "women's rights are human rights" and chanting "comfort women justice now".

Individuals from ally organizations also spoke during the rally in solidarity with the survivors and supporters around the world.

On August 14, 1991, the late Hak-soon Kim, a former "comfort woman", first broke the silence to demand justice from the Japanese government.

During World War II, hundreds of thousands of other victims from more than a dozen different countries suffered from the system of military sexual slavery by the Imperial Army of Japan.

The Japanese government, however, has never acknowledged its state responsibility for the institutionalized sexual slavery in what is known as the largest case of sex trafficking in the 20th century.

"The world cannot wait any longer. Justice has been denied for too long. It is already a crime to delay it all this time," said Sing. "Today only 14 comfort women from China are still alive out of an estimated 200,000 Chinese girls and women who were kidnapped and sexually enslaved by Japan during World War II," she said.

Huang Youliang, the last victim to have sued the Japanese government over sex slavery on the Chinese mainland, died on Saturday at the age of 90 at her home in Yidui Village in China's southern island province of Hainan.

In October 1941, the 15-year-old Huang was raped when Japanese troops invaded her hometown. She was later forced into military prostitution for two years.

"This news (Huang's death) adds great sadness and a sense of urgency that we must move quickly to add pressure on the Japanese government to formally acknowledge its government responsibility and offer an official and unequivocal apology to all victims around the globe," said Phyllis Kim, executive director of the Korean American Forum of California and a member of the CWJC executive committee.

liazhu@chinadailyusa.com
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, bailed out by US taxpayers during the financial crisis, recently rejected an acquisition bid by an unidentified Chinese automaker, according to Automotive News.

The Chinese automaker made at least one offer this month to buy Fiat Chrysler at a small premium over its market value, Automotive News reported on Monday. The offer was rejected for not being enough, the industry publication said.

Automotive News also said that that other Chinese auto companies could be considering a bid for the maker of the Jeep, Ram, Chrysler and Dodge brands.

A Fiat Chrysler spokeswoman on Monday declined to comment on the report, according to the Detroit Free Press.

The US government began a bailout of the American auto industry in 2008 under President George W. Bush with $25 billion in aid to General Motors Co, Chrysler and their lending units. Then President Barack Obama added about $55 billion to the total.

Fiat, based in Italy, picked up 58.5 percent of Chrysler in 2009 amid the bailout and in 2014 assumed full ownership of Chrysler.

In January John Murphy, an auto analyst with Bank of America Merrill Lynch, raised the possibility of Fiat Chrysler being purchased by a Chinese automaker in the next three to five years - maybe with help from the Chinese government.

Murphy said Fiat Chrysler could resolve its debt issues by partnering with a company including a Chinese automaker looking to enter the US market, the Detroit News reported. He said a Chinese auto company would also have to put a lot of capital into Fiat Chrysler.

Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne has been open to industry consolidation to cut expenses and attract investment in the capital-intensive global auto business.

Chinese automakers have reportedly been interested in entering the competitive US market. In January Guangzhou Automobile Group or GAC, said it would open a research and development center in California's Silicon Valley.

"We would like to be in the US market and the R&D center is a good start," said Liang Weibiao, GAC vice-president.

paulwelitzkin@chinadailyusa.com
Chinese students at the University of Virginia are trying to process a deadly clash between white nationalists and counter-protesters over the weekend in their usually peaceful college town.

"What makes me really sad is after the riots, many people and media think those Nazis, those extremists are victims. For the riots, they should take all the responsibility!" said Bai, who did not want his first name used.

"As a Chinese in the US, I hope we can live in an environment without discrimination and violence, everybody equal, so we can focus on studying or working," Bai said.

Bai, a graduate student at the School of Engineering at the university in Charlottesville, said he still couldn't believe that the violence took place in the city. He said all the activities on the campus were suspended on Saturday.

Bai stayed at home on Saturday after the university sent an email on Aug 4 advising students to pay attention to their safety.

A federal civil rights investigation is underway after a 20-year-old Ohio man, James Alex Fields Jr., allegedly rammed his vehicle into a crowd of counter protesters at a "Unite the Right" rally, killing Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old local woman, and seriously injuring scores of others.

White nationalists descended on the city to rally against plans to remove the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from a city park.

An AP reporter and photographer who were on the scene Saturday estimated the white nationalist group at about 500 and the counter-protesters at double that.

"Look at the counter protesters; most of them are local residents who live a peaceful life and love the place they live in, so that's why they linked arms to form a barrier to resist the extremists," Bai said.

"I have to say, against Nazism and against extremism is a basic for people with a conscience," he added.

UVA President Teresa A. Sullivan wrote in an email on Aug 4 that UVA believes "that diversity is an essential element of excellence, and that intolerance and exclusion inhibit progress. We also support the First Amendment rights to free speech and assembly. These rights belong to the 'Unite the Right' activists who will express their beliefs, and to the many others who disagree with them. There is a credible risk of violence at this event, and your safety is my foremost concern."

Jiang (who did not disclose his first name), also a graduate student at UVA, said that when the violence broke out on Saturday, he was on his way to a cinema downtown.

"The scene was chaotic," Jiang recalled. Jiang said basically all the stores in town were still closed, and the atmosphere on campus was tense.

The Associated Press and Yuan Yuan in Washington contributed to this story.

xiaohong@chinadailyusa.com
Guizhou province, which hopes to build itself into China's "Big Data Valley", is looking to link up with Silicon Valley.

"Silicon Valley is the heart of the world's innovation, so we attach great importance to cooperation with the US, especially Silicon Valley," said Qin Rupei, vice-governor of Guizhou, at a conference on Friday in San Jose, California.

The conference, which drew more than 200 participants from high-tech and entrepreneurial communities, was aimed at promoting China's first national Big Data pilot zone in the southwestern province.

In 2015, China adopted Big Data as a national development strategy and the efforts of Guizhou were recognized by the central government. In early 2016, the National Big Data Comprehensive Pilot Zone was established in Guizhou, with the goal of improving the government's administrative abilities, promoting industrial transformation and upgrading, as well as improving people's livelihood through Big Data services.

"While developing the Big Data industry, we have been emphasizing opening-up," said Qin. "Guizhou's rapid economic growth and increasing level of opening-up makes the province suitable for other countries to participate in developing a 'Big Data Valley', providing broader markets and more diverse business opportunities."

The province has begun building green data centers at 12 national pilot sites. The 12 centers can load 13,400 racks and support installation of 158,000 servers. By 2020, those centers are expected to load 2 million servers, with an industrial chain value of more than $15 billion, according to the Guizhou Provincial Leading Group for Big Data Development.

"Guizhou enjoys the advantages that the Big Data industry requires. It is one of the most suitable places for developing big data in China or in the world," Qin said.

The province incorporates Big Data projects in urban planning and annual planning for land use, and offers broadband rent subsidies to Big Data companies, according to the provincial big data group.

Chinese tech companies like Alibaba, Baidu, Tencent and Huawei have set up research and development centers in the pilot zone. Tencent has been working with Guizhou in such areas as smart city, poverty relief and chronic disease management. The company also plans to locate its data backup center for disaster recovery in the province. Foxconn has located a 4th-generation industrial park, green tunnel data center and R&D center in Guizhou.

Big international companies have also established partnerships with Guizhou.

Qualcomm, which set up regional headquarters for China in Guizhou, has invested in an integrated circuit industry to develop server chips for the Chinese market. Microsoft is working with the province to build a "bulk data" laboratory, education cloud and a cloud for middle- and small-sized enterprises. Google is developing international e-commerce projects for targeted marketing through global big data analysis.

liazhu@chinadailyusa.com
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Farmers and producers in the Mekong Delta say they have a number of specialities that can be exported, but authorities have not paid enough attention to them. Photo daibieunhandan.vn

HCM City  Farmers and producers in the Mekong Delta say they have a number of specialities that can be exported, but authorities have not paid enough attention to them.

Salted ducks egg, a unique nutritious Vietnamese product, is an example. [It] has potential for export, especially if the ducks are bred in fields, but the market hasnt been exploited yet, chairman of the Viet Nam Poultry Breeding Association, Nguyen Thanh Son, was quoted as saying by au Tu (Viet Nam Investment Review) newspaper.

Only one company in Vinh Long Province and two in Can Tho City export these eggs and only to three traditional markets: Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore.

Their exports fluctuate depending on the severity of bird flu outbreaks: 20 million in 2014, 10.2 million in 2015, and 20 million in 2016.

Singapore, which buys up 90 per cent of Vietnamese exports, also imports from Thailand and Taiwan, but their quality does not match Viet Nams.

The Vietnamese exporters have successfully developed processing technologies that meet international food safety standards.

International demand for salted duck eggs is huge, especially from China and other Asian nations, and Viet Nam should dominate the market, Son added.

But the countrys weakness is that the companies have not set up a closed value chain, from breeding ducks to bringing standard products to international customers.

Vietnamese enterprises are based on a household model, dont invest in marketing or expanding their markets, and have not received any attention from relevant authorities, Son added.

Quail products are in a similar situation.

There are no official figures on quail because they are not considered part of poultry, Assoc Prof and Dr La Van Kinh, director of the Southern Livestock sub-Institute, said.

There might be around 20 million individuals and ong Nai Province has the largest number, estimated at around 8.5 million.

Quail grow rapidly, maturing in five to six weeks with 85  90 per cent of females then laying eggs themselves. Many households breed quail since it requires little capital.

Quail eggs and meat are popular in the local market and neighbouring nation of Cambodia, but exports are illegal now because exporters need to dress fowl while Cambodians prefer them with their organs.

A lot of quail are smuggled out but authorities often seize and destroy consignments.

There is no authority to consider the requirement of export markets and amend export regulations, Son said.

There is demand in Japan for canned quail eggs, but there is only one company exporting them, the Nguyen Ho Quail Farm in the Mekong Delta province of Tien Giang, which has been shipping them to that country since 2013.

To be able to export, a farm must breed quail to strict international standards and tie up for processing and canning the eggs with the Tien Giang Fruit and Vegetable Company, the only one in the country with the capability. -- VNS
HA NOI  Viet Nams Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) is drawing up a report summing up 30 years of foreign direct investment (FDI) since approval of the national Law on Foreign Investment, looking back at the impact of opening the countrys doors to multinational companies.

Speaking at an MPI meeting last week, Nguyen Van Trung, Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment, said the FDI sector had helped rebuild the countrys economy, increase export turnover, expand Viet Nams reach to world markets, generate jobs, acquire technology transfers, management skills and attain global economic integration.

The MPI report will include results from different ministries and departments, experts and business associations in terms of FDI attraction and management.

The report will go into details on other key issues related to FDI, such as support industries, technology transfer, infrastructure, the high-tech agriculture and service sectors, as well as preferential policies and taxation, and prospects for the future.

According to MPI data, accumulated capital invested in Viet Nam to the end of July 2017, has reached US$307.86 billion in registered capital and $163.9 billion in actuality.

These capital flows are divided across 19 branches of the economy over 63 cities and provinces. Some notable branches include the manufacturing sector with $181.8 billion in FDI, the real estate sector with $51.6 billion, amd the electronics sector with $18.4 billion in the last three decades.

Out of the 122 countries and territories whose multinational corporations have set up production in Viet Nam, the Republic of Korea takes the lead with $55.26 billion in FDI, followed by Japan at $46.47 billion and Singapore with $41.6 billion.

Many other countries with strong financial ability have expressed their intention to increase investment in Viet Nam, such as the US and China.

At present, more than 23,000 FDI companies are operating in Viet Nam, contributing up to 22 to 25 per cent of social capital, and up to 15 per cent of the State budget. FDI companies now employ about seven per cent of the countrys total workforce. Furthermore, FDI production accounts for more than 70 per cent of Viet Nams total export turnover.

The MPI also cited World Bank data showing that at the end of 2016, the FDI sector had contributed around 19 per cent of Viet Nams gross domestic product, almost twice the rate in the year 2000.

Despite its key role and major success, critics point to below expectation investment results, added values and value chain integration. There are also limits on different economic sectors in terms of FDI attraction, less than desired technological advances, and some unsolved legal matters pertaining to environmental protection, taxation and price transfer breaching.

Of special note is the fact that only up to 27 per cent of total FDI production input is generated by domestic producers, and only about 36 per cent of Vietnamese firms now participate in the FDI production network, according to the MPI.  VNS
HA NOI  The development of high-tech agriculture in Viet Nam remains sluggish due to unplanned and small-scale production, and is not commensurate with the countrys comparative advantages and efforts.

So far, only 28 enterprises nationwide have been recognised by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) as high-tech businesses.

At a conference held yesterday by the (MARD) in the Central Highlands province of Lam ongs a Lat City, participants agreed that development of technology-based agriculture is essential for Viet Nams agriculture sector to achieve greater value-added for export products, global competitiveness and consistently high quality.

Speaking at the event, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Quoc Doanh said over the past three decades of renovation, Viet Nam has become self-sufficient in food with an annual export of US$30 billion, providing livelihoods for 10 million rural households and contributing nearly 22 per cent of the gross domestic product and 23-35 per cent of exports. However, the agricultural sector tends to grow slowly due to spontaneous and small-scale production, limited technological application in agro-forestry-fisheries enterprises, and impacts of climate change, environmental pollution and food hygiene, he said.

The Government has adopted various policies to promote the development of high-tech agriculture. In 2012, for example, the Prime Minister issued Decision 1895 approving implementation of an agricultural development programme using high-tech applications.

The programme aims to promote the development and effective application of high technology in the agricultural sector, contributing to the development of a large-scale, modern, and highly competitive and comprehensive agriculture model.

It also targets an annual growth rate of over 3.5 per cent in the agricultural sector while ensuring national food security.

In 2015, the PM signed another decision approving the master plan to build 10 high-tech agricultural zones by 2020.

But in fact, by mid-2017, the whole country has only two high-tech agriculture zones, established in the southern provinces of Hau Giang and Phu Yen.

Lam ong model

During the conference, participants hailed Lam ong Province for being on the way to becoming a model of high-tech farming.

The province has tremendous potential to attract more foreign investment in high-tech agriculture due to its climate, land and proximity to the southern economic region.

By applying technology in cultivation, the average value of hydroponic vegetables grown in the province has reached VN500 million per hectare per year, and the value of flowers touches VN1.2 billion per hectare per year. The figures for tea and coffee are respectively VN250 million and 240 million per hectare per year.

Many farm produce of the province have been exported.

However, according to Nguyen Van Son, director of the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, farmers and businesses engaged in high-tech agriculture in the province still face many difficulties relating to land funds, shortage of investment, and access to investment capital.

A representative from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environments General Department of Land Management underscored the need to refine regulations on the rights of land users and issue policies to encourage the rent of land use rights.

According to the State Bank of Viet Nam (SBV), outstanding loans for high-tech farming amount to VN177.4 billion ($7.71 million), but farmers are hard pressed to pay them back due to lack of information about domestic and foreign consumption markets. The SBV directed commercial banks to offer more loans and pledged all possible support throughout the process.

At the conference, the MARD presented certificates recognising DaLat Hasfarm and An Phu companies operating in Lam ong as high-tech agricultural firms, and recognised Thai Phien high-tech agricultural zone in the province.  VNS
BMLGWith the arrival of daughter Ada James Akins this weekend, Thomas Rhett admits he is now officially #outnumbered, as he joked in a recent Instagram post.

Saturday, Ada joined big sister Willa Gray, who TR and wife Lauren adopted from a Ugandan orphanage earlier this year. Thomas confesses he and Lauren are just figuring things out as they go along.

We don't have any idea what we're doing at all, he says candidly. And I feel like we kinda got spoiled on the front end, because Willa sleeps like 12 hours a night.

Even as his family grows, TR isnt slowing down career-wise. Hell be back at work Thursday night, playing in Brownsville, Oregon, and on September 9, his third album, the aptly titled Life Changes, comes out.

I think for me personally, I'm just trying to enjoy the ride, and trying to cherish all these great moments, Thomas reflects. Because we have gotten to do a lot of cool stuff over the past couple years, and especially this year, getting to headline and having a baby and putting a record out is probably the busiest year of my life. But it's a lot of good things that I'll remember for a lifetime.

Wednesday night, you can catch Thomas Rhett hosting the annual three-hour CMA Fest special, along with Kelsea Ballerini. The non-stop night of stars kicks off at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.
HA NOI  Viet Nams exports to Algeria continued to grow by 29 per cent year-on-year to US$208 million in the first seven months of 2017, according to the General Department of Customs.

Coffee remained the largest earner, which saw a shipment of over 35,300 tonnes for about $76 million (up 12.8 per cent), followed by telephones and spare parts valued at $58 million (up 5 per cent).

Rice came third with exports worth of over $10 million, jumping five-fold from the same period last year.

Algeria is now Viet Nams second largest importer in Africa, after South Africa.

Viet Nams shipments to Algeria were estimated at $271.42 million in 2016, a year-on-year increase of 37 per cent, with most of the revenue also coming from coffee and rice.

Last year, Viet Nams trade office in Algeria organised an array of trade promotion activities, including five workshops on bilateral trade potential. It also assisted two delegations of Vietnamese businesses to attend international fairs and stepped up communication activities, such as publishing business news bulletins in French.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade also sent staff to Algeria to work with local ministries and agencies there, seeking ways to boost cooperation in the future.

Viet Nam-Algeria economic cooperation prospects are said to be plentiful, with Algerian consumers familiar with the Vietnamese goods, while Algerian animal feed, medicine and natural minerals are sold in Viet Nam.

In terms of investment, the Bir-Seba gas and oil joint venture between Petro Viet Nam, Sonatrach (Algeria) and PTT (Thailand) became operational in 2015, producing 18,000 barrels each day.  VNS
NINH BINH  A red-shanked douc langur (pygathrix nemaeus) was handed over to the Cuc Phuong national park in the northern province of Ninh Binh by forest rangers in Phu Loc District in central province of Thua Thien-Hue on Monday.

The stray male langur, weighing 6.5kg, was caught in Lang Co Town of Phu Loc District by the local people on August 13.

The primate is listed in the IIB group as endangered in the Red Book of Viet Nam.

About 80 red-shanked douc langurs are living and being protected in North Hai Van protective forest in Thua Thien-Hue Province.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the species can also be found in Laos and Cambodia.

It is listed in Viet Nams Red Book and is on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Hunting is a major threat to this species, most often used for subsistence and traditional medicines. It is also sold in international pet trade. The destruction of its natural habitat has become a threat to this species, according to IUCN.  VNS
HCM CITY  Designer o Trinh Hoai Nams ao dai (Vietnamese national dress) collection, called Sen Vang (Golden Lotus), has been chosen for the first catwalk event at the 26th Couture Fashion Week New York, which starts on September 8.

The collection features dozens of ao dai in Vietnamese silk and satin made by skilled artisans from silk producing regions in Viet Nam: the Ha ong District in Ha Noi, Thai Binh and Lam ong provinces.

The designs use traditional patterns from the 19th century and are embroidered with images of lotuses and water puppets.

A group of Vietnamese and American fashion models will appear on the catwalk.

The seven-day event will feature the latest collections by more than 30 well-known designers from many countries, such as Arie Cedeno of Dominica, Carlos Benguigui of Venezuela, Catalin Botezatu of Romania.

Dozen of couture and luxury fashion shows will be featured.

Nams collection will open the event together with two designers from Asian countries.

Born in Ha Noi, Nam began his love for fashion when he was 13 years old.

He started his career as a tailor in his village, Xuan inh, which is famous for handicraft products.

In 2003, he rose to fame after wining the Viet Nam Collection Grand Prix 2014 presented by Viet Nam Design Institute and became one of the finalists at Mercedes Benz Asia Fashion Week 2014.

Nam has attended leading fashion events at home and abroad. His ao dai collections have impressed Vietnamese and foreigners.

He has worked with movie stars and pop idols and now owns a garment and fashion company as well as a model agency.

His shops in Ha Noi and northern provinces offer around 80 designs and accessories each, with a new collection each year.

His elegant and eye-catching pieces, using high-quality silk, satin, cotton and line, are considered glamorous.

My dream is to bring our ao dai to the world, said the 42-year-old.  VNS
As India celebrates its Independence Day (August 15), Ambassador Parvathaneni Harish reflects on a movement that inspired the world as well as two millennia of India-Viet Nam ties untainted by any vested interest.

It gives me great pleasure to greet Indian citizens and friends of India on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of Indias independence, a momentous event in the history of the 20th century and which was a result of the efforts of millions of patriotic freedom fighters led by Mahatma Gandhi. It heralded the liberation of the long suppressed peoples of Asia and Africa and provided inspiration and encouragement to freedom movements worldwide, including the Vietnamese freedom struggle led by President Ho Chi Minh.

His Excellency Mr. Ram Nath Kovind, in his speech last month on assumption of office as President of India, remarked that for India, our endeavors are not for ourselves alone because we believe that the world is our family  Vasudaiva Kutumbakam. He noted that it is very appropriate that the land of Lord Buddha should lead the world in its search for peace, tranquility and ecological balance.

We also celebrate 2017 as the Year of Friendship commemorating the 45th anniversary of diplomatic relations between India and Viet Nam, the 10th anniversary of our Strategic Partnership as also the 25th anniversary of India-ASEAN Dialogue Partnership.

India and Viet Nam have, over two millennia, shared geographical, historical and civilizational ties. We evolved a common cultural matrix of Buddhism and Hinduism, exchanged traders and monks, learnt each others languages including Sanskrit, and intermingled without conquest or colonization. Our friendship has strengthened during the phase of national reunification of Viet Nam and the relationship has diversified during the current phase of national reconstruction and development.

Dispelling darkness: Lamps lit for Diwali, Indias festival of lights. -- Photo courtesy of the Embassy of India

The landmark visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year had upgraded our bilateral relationship to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. A Plan of Action to give concrete shape to this Partnership was agreed upon by External Affairs Minister Mrs. Sushma Swaraj and Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh last month.

High level visits by the Chairwoman of the National Assembly Mme. Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan and Minister for National Defence Gen. Ngo Xuan Lich to India last year and visits of our Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Mrs. Nirmala Sitharaman and Minister of State for External Affairs Gen. Dr. V. K. Singh have strengthened various dimensions of our relationship.

Defence and security co-operation is an important pillar of our partnership, characterised by established dialogue mechanisms, human resource development, ship visits and defence industry linkages. Our co-operation includes non-traditional security, counterterrorism and cyber security.

Our leaders have identified strong economic engagement as a key element of our partnership and have set an ambitious trade target of US$15 billion by the year 2020. Bilateral trade during 2016-2017 was slightly over US$10 billion and we remain committed to diversifying our trade and exploring new areas to reach the target set by our leaders. Many ongoing and new infrastructure projects in traditional and renewable energy will significantly enhance Indian investments in Viet Nam.

Indias development partnership activities in Viet Nam have a long history and have focused on human resource development and institution building. Indias assistance in the establishment of the Cuu Long Rice Research Institute and the Buffalo and Forage Research Center and in training agricultural and dairy scientists in the 1970s has helped transform the agricultural destiny of Viet Nam and remains a shining example of effective and need-based assistance rendered at the right time in a meaningful way. Today, Viet Nam is the worlds third largest exporter of rice and a significant agricultural economy.

For India, ASEAN is at the heart of our Act East Policy and at the center of a dream of an Asian century, of which Viet Nam is an important pillar. We believe that ASEAN has a central role in bringing about an open and inclusive regional security architecture for greater security and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. As our Co-ordinator Country in ASEAN, Viet Nam and India will be working closely to organize a number of events to mark the silver jubilee of the India-ASEAN partnership including a commemorative summit in New Delhi that will reflect on our joint achievements and define a roadmap for the future.

The cultural connect between our people remains an important aspect of our bilateral engagement. I have spent over a year in Viet Nam and the popularity of Indian television serials, movies and yoga is very unique. During the recent International Day of Yoga celebrations in June this year, I was struck by the passion and commitment of thousands of Vietnamese friends who performed yoga. Yoga has emerged as a strong binding cultural element between our people and the recent inauguration of the Indian Cultural Center in Ha Noi and its regular classes will provide new opportunities for reaching out to those who have not yet been touched by the miracle of yoga.

Earlier this year, the Archaeological Survey of India began the conservation and restoration of the Cham monuments at My Son. There is huge excitement among Indian and Vietnamese archaeologists at having discovered new artefacts. We are happy to contribute to the preservation of our joint cultural heritage.

I thank the leadership, government and the people of Viet Nam for their friendship towards India and the Indian people, and their commitment to further strengthen our relationship.

VIET NAM - AN O MUON NAM!

Long live India Viet Nam friendship!
HA NOI  The Viet Nam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) will focus on tourism promotion activities abroad from now to the end of the year.

The agency plans to organise a programme to promote Viet Nams tourist destinations in China, a leading market for the countrys tourism sector. Around 2.2 million Chinese vacationers visited Viet Nam in the first seven months of 2017, a year-on-year rise of 51 per cent.

Between August 18 and 23, several tourism promotion events will be held in China, at Xiamen City in Fujian Province, Baotou City in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and Nanchang City in Jiangxi Province. These events are expected to see the participation of 300 to 350 local travel firms.

Besides China, the VNAT will carry out promotional tourism programmes in other markets such as Australia, Northern Europe, Japan, and the ASEAN region in August and September.

The agency will also participate in major international tourism fairs such as the JATA Tourism Expo in Tokyo from September 21-24; the Top Resa Tourism Trade Fair in Paris from September 26-29; the International Travel Fair in Taiwan from October 27-30; and the World Travel Market in London from November 6-10.

The VNAT is also simultaneously promoting tourism through websites vietnamtourism.gov.vn, vietnamtourism.com and vietnamtourism.vn, as well as social networks.

Viet Nam welcomed more than 7.2 million foreign tourists from January to July, up 28.8 per cent from the same period last year, according to the General Statistics Office.

By 2020, the country aims to receive 17-20 million foreign arrivals and serve 82 million domestic visitors, contributing 10 per cent of the countrys GDP.  VNS
HA NOI  Leading Vietnamese and Thai lawmakers agreed yesterday to support each other on issues of common concern at international and regional inter-parliamentary forums, thus contributing to peace, stability and development in the Asia-Pacific region.

In talks held between National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan and President of the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) of Thailand, Pornpetch Wichitcholchai, the parliamentarians also expressed satisfaction with the sound development of bilateral relations as reflected in exchange visits by high-ranking delegations.

Wichitcholchai is on a four-day (August 13-16) official visit to Viet Nam.

Ngan affirmed Viet Nams consistent policy of prioritising its strategic partnership with Thailand. She said both sides should work more closely to effectively implement action plans drawn up for the 2014- 2018 period. They should also strengthen important co-operation mechanisms like joint cabinet meetings, political consultations and high-level dialogues on security and defence policy.

Both sides agreed that to optimise their bilateral co-operation potential, specialised agencies of the two parliaments should closely supervise the Governments co-operation agreements and maintain delegation exchanges at all levels. The two parliamentary friendship groups should also strengthen connections, they said.

Highlighting thriving trade and investment ties, they noted Thailand ranked 10th among foreign investors and was Viet Nams biggest trade partner in the ASEAN bloc. Viet Nam, in turn, was the eighth largest foreign investor in Thailand.

Bilateral trade hit US$12.5 billion in 2016, up 8.9 per cent year on year, and was approximately $7 billion in the first half of 2017, up 22.5 per cent year on year, they noted.

Ngan said the two sides should co-ordinate better to reach the targeted trade revenue of $20 billion in 2020 and reduce their trade imbalance, since Viet Nam still has a high trade deficit with Thailand.

More favourable conditions should be created for Vietnamese and Thai businesses to boost trade and investment activities, she added.

She pledged that the NA and Government of Viet Nam would create optimal conditions for Thai firms to invest in tourism (especially marine tourism), textile and garment, footwear, cosmetics, food, agriculture, machinery, chemicals and material production sectors. These are areas that match Thailands strength and Viet Nams potential, she said.

Echoing his host, Wichitcholchai said the two countries need to step up partnership in trade and investment and gradually balance the trade deficit. Thailand wants more Vietnamese investment, he said, adding that the two legislative agencies are ready to work together to resolve obstacles facing investors.

In 2016, about 800,000 Vietnamese tourists visited Thailand, but only 260,000 Thais visited Viet Nam.

Wichitcholchai said he hoped that after more routes linking the two countries are opened, the number of Thai visitors to Viet Nam will surge.

Ngan said as ASEAN members, Viet Nam and Thailand need to enhance solidarity to promote the blocs unity, strength and central role. They should remain steadfast ton ASEANs common principles and viewpoints on regional and global issues, she said.

She urged further co-ordination with each other and other Mekong riparian countries to promote co-operation, management and sustainable use of the rivers water resources, and to effectively implement the outcomes of the seventh Summit of the AyeyawadyChao PhrayaMekong Economic Co-operation Strategy (ACMECS 7), held in October 2016.

The legislators discussed the signing of a new Memorandum of Understanding on agricultural co-operation between Viet Nam and Thailand, as well as the signing of an agreement to set up a hotline for fisheries activities at sea.

Ngan suggested that both sides consider expanding the areas of work as well as job openings for Vietnamese workers in Thailand. The labour ministries of both countries should carry out relevant procedures soon so that Thailand can officially recruit Vietnamese workers, she said.

She also thanked the Thai Government for creating favourable conditions for Vietnamese-Thais to integrate into local society and for the construction and management of the relic sites related to late President Ho Chi Minh in Udon Thani and Nakhon Phanom provinces.

The officials also discussed regional and international issues of shared concern. Ngan said Viet Nam wants to continue working with Thailand to strengthen ASEAN solidarity, boost the blocs common voice and role in settling security and development affairs in the region, and help deal with East Sea disputes through peaceful means in line with international law.  VNS
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc (R) receives President of the National Legislative Assembly of Thailand Pornpetch Wichitcholchai in Ha Noi yesterday.  VNA/VNS Photo Thong Nhat

HA NOI  Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc hosted a reception for President of the National Legislative Assembly of Thailand Pornpetch Wichitcholchai in Ha Noi yesterday.

The PM said he will lead a high-level Government delegation to visit Thailand from August 17-19 to exchange measures promoting bilateral friendship and co-operation, and enhance the two countries strategic partnership.

Viet Nam and Thailand have improved co-ordination across various fields from politics, security, and defense to economics, trade, tourism, culture and society in recent years, Phuc said.

Thailand is Viet Nam biggest trading partner in ASEAN, with two-way trade reaching US$12.5 billion in 2016. However, as Viet Nam ran a trade deficit of $5 billion with Thailand, Phuc hoped the two countries will seek measures to balance trade and increase bilateral trade to $20 billion by 2020.

Tourism co-operation has also developed, with about 800,000 Vietnamese tourists visiting Thailand in 2016 while over 200,000 Thais travelled to Viet Nam, he noted.

The PM proposed Thailand further open its market for Vietnamese goods and create more favourable conditions for Vietnamese workers to work in the country as well as encourage Thai businesses to boost investment in Viet Nam.

Viet Nam will address difficulties and create conditions for Thai investors to do business, he affirmed.

For his part, Pornpetch highlighted the sound relations between the Vietnamese and Thai legislatures. The two sides spoke about ways to boost bilateral co-operation at international forums.

Thailand and Viet Nam are big trade and investment partners, he said, adding that they have pushed co-operation in other fields such as security, defense, and marine patrol.

The connection of roads and railways between Thailand and Viet Nam via third countries in the future will be an important factor in the promotion of bilateral and wide-ranging co-operation, including tourism, he said, hoping that the two sides will strengthen measures to draw more Thai tourists to Viet Nam.  VNS
HA NOI  Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong has signed the first-ever regulations on specific standards and assessment criteria for high-ranking officials, requiring them to always put the interests of the Party, the nation and the people first and to trust Marxist-Leninist ideology.

Under Regulation 90-Q/TW, the Party set out rules for top officials that include fighting corruption, avoiding nepotism and living modestly.

The officials are required to set examples for others in morality, lifestyle and attitude, while resolutely fighting against degradation of political ideology. The regulations also emphasise that officials must have absolutely no ambition for power, and must prevent their relatives or friends from taking advantage of their positions for personal interests.

They should also have an honest, modest, sincere, transparent, simple and generous life, and must display no signs of corruption or opportunism.

The officials are required to be willing to sacrifice for the Partys revolution, the countrys independence and freedom as well as peoples happiness.

Party senior officials must show absolute loyalty to the Party, nation and people, and steadfast trust in the Marxist-Leninist ideology, Ho Chi Minh thoughts and the ideal of national independence and socialism, the directive said.

In terms of personal capacity and prestige, officials holding high positions should have innovative mindsets, strategic vision and scientific working methods and political sensitivity, along with strong capacity in leading, directing and organising the effective implementation of Party and State policies and laws. They must be dynamic and hardworking, and have high prestige among Party members and the people.

Besides general regulations, the Politburo also stipulates detailed standards for specific positions, including Party General Secretary, the President, the Prime Minister, the National Assembly Chairperson, members of the Party Central Committee, Politburo and Party Central Committee Secretariat, among others.

At the same time, the Politburo also issued Regulation 89-QD-TW on criteria for holders of leadership and management positions at all levels as well as assessment criteria for them. VNS
Gia Loc

HCM CITY- A third-year student of the HCM City Open University, Tran Thi My Linh has done several part-time jobs while pursuing her degree in tourism administration.

Being a receptionist and a waitress at small restaurants has helped her earn some money, but she has gained something far more valuable  work experience, which will make it easier for her to get a full-time job after graduating, she hopes.

Finding part-time jobs is not very difficult, Linh said, adding that she usually works in the afternoon and evening, when she does not have to attend university classes.

These jobs teach me how to serve and communicate with people and how to solve problems at work, she said.

Linh is among many students who are aware that they stand a better chance at getting good jobs if they have some work experience when they apply.

A third year student of the HCM City University of Pedagogy, who did not want to be named, said students have many options for getting part time jobs.

I am majoring in English, so I apply to work as a translator at exhibitions, fairs and other events organised at hotels, convention centres and similar places, she said.

Experts in Human Resources (HR) affirm that students with some work experience will find it easier to get jobs after graduating than those who only study to pass the examinations.

Pham Thi Hoai Linh, HR director at Navigos Group, said that at Vietnamworks.com, 74 per cent of enterprises that advertised on the employment website in the first six months of the year required new graduates to have to some work experience besides professional knowledge learned at universities.

Navigos Group runs Vietnamworks.com and Navigos Search, providing online recruitment and executive search services, human resource consulting and aptitude tests.

Speaking at the Career Day organized on August 13 at the HCM City Open University, Linh said a common way to get work experience was through internships that many enterprises provide. Many of them need second and third year students as interns, but fail to get them.

Early start

Students should not wait for the last year of studies to seek internship opportunities at companies. Interning as soon as possible while studying at university helps students have more time to gather experience and build a good environment to learn soft skills that will help them compete in the labour market.

Nguyen Thi To Uyen, HR director at Sacombank, said students should also consider internships as opportunities to find out which job is suitable for them.

She noted that unlike in past, many enterprises were taking the initiative in visiting universities and colleges to offer programmes for students to intern.

At Sacombank, a third-year student of Finance and Banking Faculty can attend a programme called the Sacombank Semester for five to six months, she said.

Under this programme, students would work as an assistant to the banks official staff, and six months, they would have gained a deeper understanding about banking jobs and can evaluate whether or not they like them.

A poster at the Career Day event showed many major enterprises like NEC Viet Nam Co. Ltd, DHL Supply Chain Viet Nam Ltd, Suntory Pepsico Vietnam Beverage, and TP&P Technology Co. Ltd were looking for third and fourth year students to work as interns. The poster also carried work descriptions.

For instance, interns at TP&P Technology Co. Ltd would receive training and perform tasks assigned by technical leaders and have opportunities to research new products and technologies.

It could also be seen that the companies were looking for students with good English communication skills.

Linh of Navigos Group said English was a decisive element for success or failure of students in a competitive labour market.

Students should consider that learning English to communicate well is a must, Linh said.

Tran Anh Tuan, deputy head of Centre for Forecasting Manpower Needs and Labour Market Information, said many students did not have adequate English communication skills. This was also a common problem that weakened Vietnamese workers position in the labour market, he said.

Several foreign enterprises have also complained to me about my generationsindolence, which will not help new graduates succeed at work,Tuan said.

Uyen of Sacombank also advised that students and new graduates should have the qualities of diligence and patience, which ever career they choose.

Because of many opportunities, it will be easy for them not to focus on a particular job, switching to more lucrative ones very often. However, this indicates a lack of passion for a job or career, she said.

Tuan said: They should work with the spirit of a startup, meaning that they should dare to work hard and develop.

People with good qualifications, English skills and soft skills are never unemployed, he said. VNS
CENTRAL HIGHLANDS - A massive influx of migrants from remote northern provinces to the Tay Nguyen (Central Highlands) region has put intense pressure on the local population and has hindered socio-economic development.

The Central Highlands is considered a promising destination for migrants because of favourable weather conditions and rich basalt soil. Such movement can be prompted by State policy or out of economic need.

In ak Nong Province, home to vast areas of land and forests, migrants move into natural and protected forests, encroaching on land for production or putting up tents illegally.

Five years ago, some households moved into zones 1644 and 1645 of Hop Tien co-operative in Quang Son Commune, ak Glong District to live and hunt.

Now, up to 126 households are living in the area, causing increased damage to forest land.

Nguyen Anh uc, director of Hop Tien co-operative said that members of the households had damaged the vehicles of forest rangers and attacked them using homemade weapons, such as guns and spears. Faced with such an aggressive reaction, and severely outnumbered, forest rangers and local authorities felt the situation was hopeless.

Meanwhile, in ak Lak Province, local authorities are concerned about the pressure on the local population caused by free migration.

During the 40 years from 1976 to 2016, more than 59,000 households with some 290,000 inhabitants of 60 provinces and cities nationwide migrated to 15 districts and towns of ak Lak Province. They live among the local ethnic community or in the area under the free migrant stabilization programme.

The provincial agricultural sector pointed out that the migrants are mostly ethnic minority groups from disadvantaged northern mountainous area. Despite the advantages of labour supply and diverse cultural identities for the province, the free movement of migration has put pressure on socio-economic growth.

Nguyen Van Tam, chairman of Cu Pui Communes Peoples Committee in Krong Bong District said that in six out of 13 villages with more than 7,000 migrants, the high rate of third children being born is a big problem.

He said that local officers who are also from ethnic groups went to each house to explain to migrants the negative consequences of having third children. But many people still believe that the more children they have, the richer they will be as the sons will help them with farming.

For this reason, the dissemination of information has not been effective, he said.

Firm and soft solutions

Le Quang Dan, deputy director of ak Nong Provinces Department of Agriculture and Rural Development said that migrants destroying forests and erecting tents in restricted areas is illegal.

There are many reasons for deforestation but based on investigations at migration hot spots, we have seen that some groups of migrants are responsible. Police are investigating the worst spots so that punishments can be enforced, he said.

The engagement of local authorities over the past years in ending free movement in the Central Highlands region has reduced the number of migrants. However, the situation has become more complex.

Y Giang Gry Nie Knong, vice chairman of ak Lak Province said that the State remains passive in stabilising the lives of migrants, leading to bankrupt provincial planning.

He said that there needs to be stronger collaboration between localities from which migrants move from and the ones they move to.

The Government and sectors should pay more attention to northern mountainous provinces to stabilise production, improve locals incomes and address social welfare to limit and look at ending uncontrolled migration.

Disadvantaged localities which lack long-term production conditions must report to the Government to have migration planning put in place following annual State plans, he said.

For long-term solutions, the Central Highlands regions Steering Committee has asked provincial peoples committees to step up the management of free migrants and put in place plans to stabilise their lives.

The committee has proposed that the land use purpose of the forest land encroached by migrants should be switched. It is proposed that the land lots are handed over to local authorities for management or forestry companies. Then the companies will rent the land out to migrants. - VNS
HA NOI  Torrential rains flooded some northern cities and provinces yesterday, affecting peoples lives and causing traffic chaos.

In Quang Ninh Provinces Ha Long City, rains flooded main streets and caused the death of a 12-year-old school girl. The victim was among three school girls of Ly Tu Trong Junior Highschool who were swept away by floods on their way home. Two others were rescued.

Rains also submerged hundreds of households in mountainous district of Ba Ches Luong Mong, Minh Cam and ap Thanh communes.

Hundreds more households in Cam Pha Citys Mong Duong Ward were also flooded and covered with dirt and mud.

Rain also caused traffic chaos and congestion in ien Bien Provinces ien Bien Phu City. Hundreds of motorbikes and electric bikes were damaged by the floods.

Heavy rains are forecast for northern Viet Nam in the next few days, and localities are being urged to prepare for possible floods and landslides.

In a notice sent to local authorities, ministries and relevant agencies, the Central Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control said rainstorms are expected from August 13 to 16, especially in mountainous provinces.

According to the Hydrometeorological Forecast Centre, rainfall is expected to range between 150-250mm in the region with some areas even experiencing rainfall of over 300mm.

The steering committee warned Lai Chau, Son La, ien Bien, Lao Cai, Yen Bai, Ha Giang, Tuyen Quang, Cao Bang and Bac Kan provinces of high risks of landslides and flash floods.

To minimise human and property losses, the committee asked local natural disaster and search and rescue steering boards to assign teams to areas at risk of landslides and flash floods that could cut them off.

Localities were asked to monitor rain and flood developments and spread information to residents.

The Vietnam News Agency, Vietnam Television and the Voice of Vietnam, as well as local news and media agencies, have been asked to increase coverage of disaster-related events.

Flash floods in Hoang Lien National Park on Saturday swept away three people aged 18-36 in Sa Pa District of the northern mountainous province of Lao Cai, a local official said.

Vu Hung Dung, Chairman of the districts Peoples Committee, said two bodies were found on Sunday and one remains missing.

Swept away

Also on Sunday, a five-year old girl was killed and her parents were slightly injured when their house was buried by a landslide in Na Vai Village, Ngan Son District, in the northern province of Bac Kan.

The familys neighbours said that they heard a louse noise in the early morning hours while they were sleeping. The victims house was destroyed as stones buried it. Doanh Thiem Phuong and his wife o Thi Nga were saved but their daughter died.

Chu Thi Huyen, chairwoman of the Ngan Son District Peoples Committee, said the district had experienced heavy rains during the past two days, with rising streams and rivers causing floods and landslides.

Flashfloods triggered by torrential rains have isolated many mountainous communes in Quang Ninh Province, including Luong Mong, Minh Cam and ap Thanh communes.

Heavy rains and flashfloods that started Saturday have submerged some areas, caused landslides at nearly 40 points on provincial highways and made some bridges in Luong Mong Commune collapse.

Bridge collapses

Local authorities have mobilised available forces to build makeshift bridges to help local people cross rivers. Meanwhile, water levels keep rising, hindering rescue tasks.

According to the Central Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control, since the beginning of August, heavy rains and flash floods have claimed at least 34 lives and left 11 others missing and more than 20 injured.

About 230 houses had been swept away or collapsed, while 245 others had been damaged and 340 hectares of rice have been submerged by floodwater. Nearly 400 households had to leave their homes to safer places.  VNS
Two more construction projects in coastal Son Tra and Ngu Hanh Son districts of a Nang have been found discharging untreated wastewater into the citys household sewage system.  Photo moitruong.net.vn

A NANG  Two more construction projects in coastal Son Tra and Ngu Hanh Son districts of a Nang have been found discharging untreated wastewater into the citys household sewage system.

The head of the citys construction department inspection team, Le Van Tuan, said the hotel project of the Vietnam Holiday Company and the Sea Shore Hotel of Chinwin Company had illegally pumped wastewater from their on-going excavation of basement floors into the citys household waste treatment system.

Tuan said the wastewater from these projects would pollute the popular beaches of Ngu Hanh Son and Son Tra districts. We asked the two investors to stop discharging wastewater into the citys sewage system before an assessment of the wastewater at the two sites are approved, Tuan said.

He added that the department will carry out additional inspections of all construction projects in the coastal area.

Last week, the 27-storey Royal Era 1 Hotel was caught discharging untreated wastewater from its construction site into My Khe Beach. The project investor, TMS Hotel a Nang Joint Stock Company, was fined VN6 million (US$265).  VNS
LANG SON  The police in the northern mountainous province of Lang Son have captured a Chinese national for entering Viet Nam illegally, while carrying nearly US$1 million in cash.

The local police said last week they stopped a four-seater car to check if the necessary paperwork was in order. While conducting the check, they found a Chinese man, who was carrying a backpack filled with US dollars.

The man, a 26-year-old resident of Chinas Guangdong Province, confirmed that the money  $930,000 in cash  belonged to him. He had transferred the money from China to Viet Nam through a trail in Van Lang Districts Tan My Commune. Later, he had rented a car to go to Quang Ninh Province.

The case is being investigated further.  VNS
New Hartford

Lions host meal

NEW HARTFORD  The New Hartford Lions will have an omelet and all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast on Sunday.

It will be from 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the New Hartford Community Building.

Cost is $6 for adults or $3 for children younger than 12.

Wheaton to host

support group

CEDAR FALLS  Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare will offer a free support group for all people with diabetes and their family members from 1 to 2 p.m. Thursday in the foundation conference room of Sartori Memorial Hospital.

Rummage sale

set in Washburn

WASHBURN  The Moose Lodge will host a rummage sale from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday.

There will be clothing, kitchenware, household goods, furniture, exercise equipment and much more.

Lunch will be served for $4.

Youth event

set in Waterloo

WATERLOO  The EPIC Youth Ministry of Antioch Baptist Church, 426 Sumner St., will host a 2017 back-to-school youth conference from 8:45 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday and 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Friday for youths in fifth grade and above.

On Thursday, Charletta Sudduth will facilitate a round-table discussion for all parents, What it takes to succeed in school. This event is free, and dinner will be provided.

On Friday evening, the youth will host a Rock the Block party from 5:30 to 9 p.m. on the church grounds.

The finale will take place at 4 p.m. Sunday with a back-to-school praise and prayer rally.

Cost for youths to attend is $20, with continental breakfast, lunch, material and T-shirt.

For more information, please contact Terri Smith at 233-3907.

Friday market

open this week

WATERLOO  The Friday Market on the Park is open from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Friday at Lincoln Park downtown.

There will be local vendors and products.

Auditions set

for comedy DYSART  The Wolf Creek Players will host open auditions for The Two Musketeers! a comedy by Jon Jory. Auditions are planned for 1 to 3 p.m. Aug. 27, and 6:30 to 8 p.m. Aug. 29 at St Josephs Building, 101 Clark St.

Performances are scheduled for Nov. 10, 11 and 12.

The production will be directed by Deb Kloster. There are many opportunities for roles for both males and females.

Wolf Creek Players is a community theatre founded in 2009.

For more information, email wolfcreekplayers2009@gmail.com. Legion post plans

events

WATERLOO  American Legion Post 138 at 728 Commercial St. has several events planned.

At 11 a.m. today, hamburgers, fries and tenderloins are on the menu.

Tuesday there will be bingo at 6:15 and 7 p.m. Open pool is planned from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Snack bar open until 8 p.m.

Hot dogs, pork ribeye chops and brats will be available at 11 a.m. Wednesday.

A pepper tournament will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday. On Sunday, bingo is planned for 1:15 and 2 p.m., with the snack bar open.
TOLEDO  A judge has overturned a jurys verdict that found Tait Otis Purk guilty of killing his fiance.

Purk, 51, was convicted of first-degree murder during a May trial after prosecutors said he killed Cora Okonski 17 years ago.

On Monday, Judge Mitchell Turner, who oversaw the trial, vacated the verdict and ordered a new trial after ruling the verdict was contrary to the evidence and lack of evidence presented at trial.

UPDATE: Tait Purk guilty in Tama cold case MARENGO  A jury Wednesday found Tait Purk guilty of first-degree murder in the death of fia

The court further finds that the credible evidence produced at trial preponderates heavily against the verdict, Turner wrote in his opinion, which was released Tuesday.

Purk had been scheduled for sentencing Friday, but his attorneys  Scott Hunter and Aaron Siebrecht  argued for a new trial during a July hearing. Following the ruling, the Friday sentencing was been cancelled, and the court will schedule a future conference to pick a trial date.

Assistant Iowa Attorney General Laura Roan, who prosecuted the case with Tama County Attorney Brent Heeren, said the state is weighing its options.

We are considering all legal options at this time. The state is disheartened that the trial court did not allow the jury verdict to stand, Roan said in an email comment.

Okonski, a Chicago native, disappeared in April 16, 2000, while she was living with Purk in Tama, and her body has never been found. Purk wasnt arrested in the case until December 2016.

At trial, the states case rested heavily the testimony of a former-coworker of Purk who said Purk had told him he killed a girlfriend because she threatened to turn him in for a burglary and a truck theft, and the testimony of a man who served prison time with Purk who said Purk told him he killed Okonski with a choke slam during an argument about drug sales and then buried her body.

Purk told authorities, and testified at trial, that they had been arguing about the approaching wedding, and she left the house to buy cigarettes and never returned.

Turner pointed to several reasons for turning down the verdict.

He first took issue with the states assertion Okonski was killed April 16, 2000.

Such a finding was necessary for Tait Purk to be found guilty of the offense of murder in the first degree as alleged by the state, Turner wrote in his ruling.

Prosecutors said, while no body was found, Okonskis death can be shown by the fact she never contacted Social Security officials to forward her disability checks, never returned for her then 2-year-old son and hasnt been seen in 17 years.

Turner pointed to testimony about sightings of Okonski at a bar after she left the house that night, at a Chicago truck stop where two people identified her through a photo as someone they had seen after April 2000, and a woman who knew Okonski and said she had talked with her in May 2000.

The issue is not whether Cora Okonski is now deceased. Given the circumstantial evidence over time and the evidence regarding Coras history and lifestyle, it is certainly possible that Cora Okonski passed away long ago, Turner wrote.

The judge then turned to the testimony of the two witnesses who said Purk confessed to them and whether their accounts could be corroborated by other evidence.

The judge said co-worker Chad Rogers testimony lacked credibility and was suspect when considering the lack of details and the witnesss motives for coming forward.

This rather flawed evidence, even if believed, establishes nothing other than an alleged motive and does not tend to establish or support any material factor element of the charge of murder in the first degree, Turner wrote in the order.

Testimony from fellow inmate Sean Ward, Turner said, wasnt corroborated by other evidence and pointed to a lesser crime.

The testimony would heavily preponderate in favor of a finding that the choke slam was spontaneous and the result of a sudden loss of temper, and that while the choke-slam was intentional, it was not intended to result in Cora Okonskis death, Turner wrote. While possibly guilty of lesser offenses, the notion that Sean Wards testimony even comes close to establishing that the choke-slam was done by Mr. Purk with the specific intent to kill Cora or that it was premeditated is problematic at best and strains credulity to its breaking point.

At trial, the defense requested jurors not be given lesser alternatives to consider, limiting the panels choices to first-degree murder or acquittal.
CEDAR FALLS  Area education agency staff returned from summer break Monday to a new central office location, the former Park Place Event Center.

A $1.28 million renovation is being completed in the facility at 1521 Technology Parkway, which had been known as the Pipac Centre on the Lake. The work is giving a new look to both the inside and outside of the building.

Big events center proposed in Cedar Falls CEDAR FALLS  A 140 room hotel and 1,000-person events center is being proposed near the Hud

It also includes a new name  for the building and for what had been known as Area Education Agency 267 since 2003.

An electronic sign visible from Hudson Road shows the moniker chosen last fall by the AEAs board of directors: Central Rivers Area Education Agency. The name, also emblazoned across the front of the building, became official July 1, shortly before agency staff members began moving in from their former offices on Cedar Heights Drive.

Although most staff members spend the majority of their time in schools across the 18 counties in central and northeast Iowa served by the agency, more than 500 employees gathered Monday for a kick-off meeting and other first-day of work matters. Central Rivers provides special education, technology, media and instructional/curriculum support to schools throughout the region.

This was our first big test of the building to see if we could all be here, said Beth Strike, director of creative services and communication.

A major use of the building will be as a location to provide professional development to educators. Even though the footprint of the agencys offices has shrunk, it has much more meeting space. That includes a large conference center that can be divided into five rooms if needed.

Our ability to serve has more than doubled, said Chief Administrator Sam Miller. We hosted a P.D. in June at our own space (on Cedar Heights Drive), 190 people in the room. It literally felt like sardines, the way everyone was packed in.

This morning, we had 550 people in there, he said of the much more spacious conference center in the new building. In no way did it feel like sardines.

Formerly, the agency had 71,000 square feet in three buildings. Now it has 46,000 square feet, a reduction of just over a third of its space.

Its been great to be in the same building as everyone else, said Rusti Sparks, a special education consultant, instead of having staff offices split between three buildings. Its just been kind of fun to see people you work with on a regular basis.

Downsizing was made possible by eliminating dedicated office space for staff that spends most of its time in schools. Those staff members will instead work in multipurpose areas while in the building.

That flexibility was on display Monday as numerable groupings of agency staff met in all available spaces  the partitioned conference center, conference rooms, multipurpose work spaces, even the family waiting area at the bottom of the stairs on the lower level.

We named all the conference rooms after rivers to go with our central theme, said Strike, noting there are 11. The Cedar, Shell Rock, Iowa, Wapsi and Little Turkey are among the river-themed rooms.

In many cases, conference rooms include a glass wall in keeping with the open and light-filled design of the building. An area dubbed Central Perk maintains the curved bar that was in the restaurant and some booth seating along a wall. Strike noted that they were looking to create a coffee house feel in that space to encourage an atmosphere of interaction and collaboration.

Its very welcoming and inviting and it meets the needs of our staff, said Cari Teske, a technology integrationist and teacher librarian for the agency.

The former kitchen has been turned into the print production area. Its filled with computer stations, copy machines, printers and shelves loaded with reams of paper  and a lot of people busily working. Like a lot of building, it retains much of the character it had before the agency moved in.

We tried to look at the space and say what within this room is still functional, said Strike. With the focus on meeting space, designers frequently found many of the event center spaces could be kept the same. This building was almost tailor-made for us.

Most of the central staff are based in the lower level, in what had been the Pipac headquarters. Offices are being reused with others added and part of it remaining open space where cubicles have been set up for staff.

As workers put some of the finishing touches on renovations, Miller said they havent seen cost overruns for the project.

The architects did an outstanding job with budgeting for this project, he said. So weve really come out where we want to be.
WATERLOO  More than 300 people came out to Lincoln Park on Monday night to express the words of sorrow, angst and unity they said they did not hear from the nations leader after a domestic terrorist attack in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend: Hate has no home here.

The White House is a building. I dont want to hear from a building. I want to hear from the president, the vice president and everyone in the administration, said Robert Henderson in response to Mondays updated statement from the White House.

Henderson, vice-chair of the NAACP of Black Hawk County, was one of a half-dozen speakers who spoke out against hate, who spoke of their worries in these times and who called for unity after the death of Heather Heyer.

Heyer was killed in what is being investigated as a domestic terrorist attack while protesting against a white supremacist rally. The Solidarity with Charlottesville vigil in Waterloo also honored the two state troopers who died while monitoring the events Saturday in Virginia.

These people didnt die in vain in Charlottesville. Heather was spectacular, and she was just like those of us out here today, said the Rev. Abraham Funchess, executive director of the Waterloo Commission on Human Rights. We want to encourage you to stand in the gap, continue the fight, dont turn back but keep being strong, and together we can outdo hate and all of this violence that plagues cities all across this nation.

Several speakers noted their fear that comes with speaking out, recognizing themselves in Heyer who was peacefully protesting before a car allegedly driven by James Alex Fields Jr., of Ohio, intentionally drove into the protesters, injuring 19 of them aside from Heyer.

What happened this weekend in Virginia is just the beginning of what we have to encounter. Were in a new time of civil rights, a new time of a civil rights movement. Were at a time where we should not be desensitized to the hate, to the fear and to the violence, said Ashley Sanchez, president of Panthers for DREAM Iowa.

But those words of fear also were met by calls to rise to the occasion.

Our country needs us  me, you, all of us together to examine our past and chart our future, said Kathryn Mahoney, a Waterloo attorney involved in civil rights issues. I know, as surely as I know anything, that we were born in this time. We were born of this time. We were born for this time. We must destroy the ills of white supremacy and we cannot fail. All that is good and holy compels us to act, and so we will act.

The first action argued Vikki Brown, chairwoman of the Black Hawk Democratic Party and a longtime civil rights activist, is to name what theyre fighting against.

We should stand together and boldly declare that we will not stand by and passively condone deliberate attacks of domestic terrorism, intentional bigotry, racism and hatred with premeditated angst. So, lets have an honest discussion and call (Saturdays) event exactly what it was, Brown said.

She added, As a community and as a country, we need to let the world know that the events that took place in Charlottesville (Saturday)  the hate, the bigotry, the vitriol and discrimination  has no place in our country.

Brown, like others in the crowd, also noted the election had real-world consequences and called on people not just to make their voices heard at events like Mondays but also to make their voice heard at the ballot box.

Chris Schwartz, of the Americans for Democratic Action Iowa, also pointed out that for as far away as Charlottesville seems, Iowa is not immune to hate. He pointed to incidents here in the Cedar Valley, throughout the state and noted at least four known white supremacy or hate groups exist in Iowa.

This is not a problem in some far off community. Its a problem right here in Iowa, and its a problem right here in the Cedar Valley, Schwartz said. But we arent going to live in fear, because we are brave people, so I ask you to be brave, be vocal and continue to build as a nonviolent movement to squash out all hate groups.
Brown names

campaign posts

CEDAR FALLS -- Mayor Jim Brown announced several leadership positions on his re-election committee.

Robert J. "Bob" Brown, co-chair and treasurer, and Drew Stensland, co-chair, are guiding the effort.

The committee is made up of more than 40 Cedar Falls residents.

School offices

closed Monday

WATERLOO  All Waterloo Schools buildings and offices will be closed from 8 a.m. to noon Monday due to district meetings.

Offices will return to normal working hours Tuesday.

League hosts

annual meeting

WATERLOO -- The League of Women Voters of Black Hawk-Bremer Counties is holding its annual celebration/fundraiser on Womens Equality Day, Aug. 26, from 10 a.m. until noon, with a 9:30 a.m. check-in, at the YWCA, 425 Lafayette St.

The theme of the celebration is Generations Strong: Celebrating Our Past, Present and Future.

The program includes a one-woman play about suffrage leader Carrie Chapman Catt, performed by Jane Cox, and a comedy, Misbehaving Women, performed by Cheryl Mullenbach. In addition, Joy Briscoe, YWCA marketing and development director, will share her message, Why the Y. Brunch will be provided, and there will be a silent auction. Tickets are $35.

The league is a nonpartisan political organization that encourages informed and active participation in government. Proceeds from the fundraiser help to pay for league programming.

RSVPs, with payment, are required to attend. Send checks payable to LWV BHB Fundraiser to League Vice President Cindy Wells, 2300 West Seventh St., Waterloo, IA 50702. They are due Monday.

University Ave.

section to close

CEDAR FALLS -- University Avenue will be closed between Rasmusson Towing, 9716 University Ave., and the Hillcrest Park apartments, 9614 University Ave., beginning Sept. 5 for six to eight weeks for the Greenhill Road extension project.

A detour and signing will be put in place which routes traffic around the construction on Hudson Road, West 27th Street and Union Road. Questions may be directed to the Cedar Falls Engineering Division at 268-5161.

Fall candidate

forums slated

WATERLOO -- The League of Women Voters of Black Hawk-Bremer Counties announces the schedule for fall candidate forums in Cedar Falls and Waterloo school and municipal elections:

Tuesday, Aug. 29 -- Cedar Falls School Board Candidates Forum, Cedar Falls City Hall, 7 to 9 pm.

Tuesday, Sept. 5 -- Waterloo School Board Candidates Forum, Education Service Center at the Waterloo School Office, 7 to 8:30 pm.

Tuesday, Oct. 10 -- Cedar Falls City Candidates Forum, Cedar Falls City Hall, 7 to 9 pm.

Thursday, Oct. 26 -- Waterloo City Candidates Forum, Waterloo City Hall, 7 to 9 pm.

The public is encouraged to attend these forums. For updates on league events, go to lwvbhb.org and the group's Facebook page.
WATERLOO  A new Perkins Restaurant & Bakery will be located at the former Lone Star Steakhouse site at San Marnan Drive and Hammond Avenue near Crossroads Center.

Construction is expected to start soon and the restaurant is anticipated to open in late September, said Matt Rahfaldt, vice president of operations of of Cy-Hawk Hospitality, which operates Perkins restaurants in Altoona, Ankeny, Fort Dodge and Sioux City, and in other states.

Waterloo Lone Star restaurant closes WATERLOO  A Crossroads Center-area location of a national restaurant chain has closed after

The existing Perkins on University Avenue in Waterloo is a separately-run corporate store and recently completed a remodeling. It has operated there since 1978, according to Courier files.

Were happy to be in Waterloo and we felt Waterloo could support a second Perkins, Rahfaldt said, as well as maybe a third in Cedar Falls at some point in the future. He said there is, in particular, a market for the restaurant in the southern part of the city.

Work is underway gutting the restaurants interior in preparation for installing Perkins fixtures, said Rahfeldt, an Ames High School and Iowa State University graduate now living in Kansas near Kansas City. Well make it look brand new, he said. He said the project represents a $500,000 investment by his company, its 14th Perkins.

Weve always loved doing business in Iowa, and Waterloo is a city thats been on our radar for quite a while, Rahfaldt said

The new Waterloo location will be staffed by about 80 full- and part-time employees and will feature Perkins full menu.

Lone Star ceased operations at the Hammond and San Marnan location in January. It had operated there since 1993. Lockard Development owns the building.

We are excited to have Perkins as a new tenant in our building in Waterloo, Lockard executive vice presdent Dave Wilson said. This will be an excellent location to serve the needs of the community. Lockard is very thankful to have them as a long-standing tenant, and that Tori Lockard and Dustin Whitehead on my team were able to secure them in this location.

In addition to its proximity to Crossroads, Wilson noted the new restaurant is close to Lost Island Waterpark and a considerable amount of senior housing in the area.
WATERLOO  The recently completed 11th annual Iowa Irish Fest set record attendance, according to the events organizers.

We are still whittling away at the reports, but its safe to say we had and attendance increase of 3 percent, Iowa Irish Fest president Chad Shipman said, over the record 37,500 who attended each of the previous two years.

That would put this years attendance at roughly 38,600  less than the goal of 40,000 Shipman was shooting for, but a record nonetheless.

More attendees than ever before came from outside Black Hawk County, Shipman added.

Among other highlights:

Nearly 1,300 volunteers participated, filling around 1,500 different work shifts.

More than 2,215 kids ages 12 and younger participated in the family area near the Waterloo Elks Club on Lafayette Street.

There was an 8 percent increase in canned food donation from Sunday morning Mass attendees in Lincoln Park over last year which went directly to the Northeast Iowa Food Bank. Cash collection donations during Mass not directed to specific local parishes totaled $4,000, which went to the St. Vincent de Paul anti-poverty operations locally.

The new High Nelly bicycle and Celtic Cruise motorcycle rides each had right around 100 registered riders, which Shipman said was an incredible turnout for each event the first year they were offered.

The 5k walk/run had a record turnout with nearly 700 runners or walkers.

The rugby tournaments were a huge success, Shipman said, with all but one team coming from outside Black Hawk County. Both tournaments were won by teams from the Bremer County Bucks Rugby Club.

We have some verbal commitments to a few bands to attend again next year, Shipman said, though he did not disclose which ones pending final formal agreements.

Of the various beers served, Our No. 1 beer served was Guinness Stout, he said, a traditional Irish brew, possibly to no ones surprise. But the lighter Guinness Blonde ran out Friday.

We were well aware of that issue and plan not to have that happen again! Shipman quipped.

The fest is held Friday through Sunday on the first weekend in August each year.
WATERLOO  Some soldiers in a Waterloo-based Iowa Army National Guard helicopter unit are headed overseas.

The Iowa Army National Guard has announced Detachment 1, Company C, 2-211th General Support Aviation Battalion, will deploy as part of Operation Enduring Freedom.

Approximately 35 Iowa Army National Guard soldiers will be mobilized for this mission. The detachment has approximately 65 soldiers, Iowa National Guard Col. Greg Hapgood said. Most deployments today are approximately one year in duration, depending on the mission requirements. A community send-off ceremony for the detachment will be held at 10 a.m. Aug. 25 at the Waterloo Army Aviation Support Facility, 2245 W. Big Rock Road north of the Waterloo Regional Airport.

Local officials and Iowa National Guard leadership will participate, and the public is welcome and encouraged to attend the send-off ceremony.

Following the send-off ceremony they will report to their mobilization station at Fort Hood, Texas, for additional training and preparation before assignment to specific overseas locations in the U.S. Central Command theater of operation.

Central Command is comprised of 20 nations in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia, including Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries. Aviation units fly missions throughout the theater of operations.

It is anticipated that the soldiers will spend approximately nine months in theater, Hapgood said.

The detachment provides medevac aerial medical evacuations via UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters, supplying medical service and support for patients en route to combat support hospitals.

The unit, created in 2005, is comprised of the former Troops D, E and F of 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry, all of Waterloo.

In 2012, the unit was mobilized to support Operation Enduring Freedom in support of the global war on terrorism. They completed federal active duty in Afghanistan and returned to Iowa in June 2013.
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Donald Trump doesnt spare much time for reading. I never have, he explains. Im always busy doing a lot.

But what he is now busy doing is managing a global crisis with nuclear dimensions and historical precedents. One adviser, Sebastian Gorka, has said, This is analogous to the Cuban missile crisis. Which demonstrates how a little bedside reading might come in handy.

In his account of that 1962 nuclear standoff, Thirteen Days, Robert F. Kennedy describes a meeting with President John F. Kennedy early in the crisis. A short time before, recounts RFK, the president had read Barbara Tuchmans book The Guns of August  a still-compelling account of the lead-up to World War I. He talked, RFK continues, about the miscalculations of the Germans, the Russians, the Austrians, the French and the British. They somehow seemed to tumble into war, he said, through stupidity, individual idiosyncrasies, misunderstandings, and personal complexes of inferiority and grandeur.

I am not going to follow a course, JFK later says, which will allow anyone to write a comparable book about this time, The Missiles of October. ... If anyone is around to write after this, they are going to understand that we made every effort to find peace and every effort to give our adversary room to move.

Is it possible to imagine our current president reading The Guns of August and applying its lessons to current events? By all indications, Trump lives in the eternal now of his own wants and compulsions. He combines a total ignorance of the past with a total confidence in his own instincts. Now, in the first crisis not of his own making, he must produce traits of leadership he has not exhibited before: judgment, prudence and wisdom. His default mindset is not only indifferent to these traits; it is antithetical to them.

Trumps main virtue as president (and there are some) has been his choice of responsible, respected advisers on foreign and defense policy. The three generals  John Kelly as chief of staff, H.R. McMaster as national security adviser and James Mattis as defense secretary  are the real reasons Americans should sleep well at night, or at least sleep. And Secretary of State Rex Tillerson  though resented by his own demoralized department  is trying to be a calming influence.

But Trump has begun this chess game with a move taken from cage fighting  promising fire and fury if North Korea makes any more threats to the United States, then defending and emphasizing his intemperance. This may be the flimsiest, most foolhardy red line in presidential history. The North Koreans  with a threat to Guam  crossed the line immediately without consequence.

Ultimately, the most consequential event in the current crisis will take place between the presidents ears. He must decide if a North Korea with nuclear-tipped ICBMs is acceptable or not. Yes or no.

This is the decision we are trusting Donald Trump to make  a choice that will determine policy at every stage of the standoff. And what will inform that decision? The instincts of an untested leader? The deal-making experience of the New York real estate market? The collective wisdom of military leadership?

During the 1962 crisis, President Kennedy determined the presence of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba was unacceptable. But he consistently pushed back against the advice of military action and probed its assumptions. In the end, he pursued a nonnegotiable objective with maximal diplomatic flexibility. Above all, he later said, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to the choice of either a humiliating defeat or a nuclear war.

What Trump may need most at this moment is a geography lesson. The White House library is in the basement, right next to the main stairs.
The removal of a statue honoring Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee was the magnet that drew white nationalists, neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan last weekend to Charlottesville, Va., the hometown of Thomas Jefferson.

The Confederate flag was waved and neo-Nazis carried tiki candles  emulating torches carried by Adolf Hitlers followers.

They were met by counterprotestors, denounced as antifa  or anti-facists by the Daily Stormer, the neo-Nazi website. A young man with a history of Nazi worship allegedly decided to emulate ISIS terrorists, using his car as a weapon against that group, killing a woman and injuring 19.

As moral equivalence goes, none existed  white nationalists versus anti-fascists.

As Sen. Charles Grassley tweeted, What WhiteNationalist are doing in Charlottesville is homegrown terrorism that cant be tolerated anymore that what Any extremist does. That seemed to escape President Trump, We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, he said, and for emphasis, repeated, On many sides.

Given a chance to speak out against white nationalists, Trump took a pass, cheering the fascists.

Mr. President, Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., tweeted, we must call evil by its name. These were white supremacists and this was domestic terrorism.

But the white nationalists took solace. Trumps comments were good. He didnt attack us  Nothing specific against us, the Daily Stormer wrote. He said that we need to study why people are so angry, and implied that there was hate  on both sides! So he implied the antifa are haters.

It called his refusal to denounce white nationalists, Really, really good.

The removal of Confederate statues, flags and other memorabilia are long overdue. Secession was anti-American, a reproach of Jeffersons statement in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal.

Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens, in his soul of the Confederacy speech March 21, 1861, stated, Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.

In New Orleans, which is eliminating all civic things Confederate, Mayor Mitch Landrieu stripped away the excuses for honoring the Confederacy.

It is self-evident that these men did not fight for the United States of America, they fought against it, he said. They may have been warriors, but in this cause they were not patriots. These statues are not just stone and metal. They are not just innocent remembrances of a benign history. These monuments purposefully celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy; ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement and the terror that it actually stood for.

As for the neo-Nazis, Sen. Oran Hatch, R-Utah, recalled his older brother, Jesse, an Air Force nose turret gunner killed in 1945 when his B-24 bomber was shot down over Austria. My brother didnt give his life fighting Hitler for Nazi ideas to go unchallenged here at home.

When Hitler begin his rise in the 1920s, few took seriously a disgruntled Austrian painter who promised to make Germany great again after its humiliating defeat in World War I. Hitler identified convenient scapegoats who soon became pariahs. Few had the courage to challenge him. As Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemoller wrote after the war:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out  Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out  Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out  Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me  and there was no one left to speak for me.

Much has been made that Trump didnt immediately castigate the white nationalists because they are part of his base.

Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke had tweeted, Make no mistake about it, our people have played a HUGE role in electing Trump. White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon is a fan of Italian fascists, which prompted white supremacist leader Richard Spencer to remark, It means a tremendous amount that he is at least open to them.

Trump hasnt shown misgivings about castigating fellow Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, whom he needs to be successful. Yet he was reticent to attack this basket of deplorables.

Ivanka Trump finally tweeted what her father should have said, There should be no place in society for racism, white supremacy and neo-Nazis.
Dear Doctor: We live in Orlando, and last year a teenager here was infected with that brain-eating amoeba. Now were reading its in the drinking water in Louisiana. How common is it? Should we be worried about an epidemic?

Dear Reader: Theres nothing quite like the words brain-eating amoeba to get the news cycle humming. And the reassurance were about to give you  it is extremely, exceedingly rare  is not necessarily the most attention-grabbing. But thats where were going to begin.

Between 2007 and 2016, there have been just 40 cases of the so-called brain-eating amoeba reported in all of the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. To put that into even clearer perspective, thats 40 cases in 10 years among 324 million people.

The microscopic creature thats been making headlines is called Naegleria fowleri. Trace amounts of it were discovered in two community water systems in southern Louisiana during routine testing last June. Customers of the affected water facilities were promptly alerted by the Louisiana Department of Health, and disinfection procedures were implemented.

So what is it?

Naegleria fowleri is a single-celled organism found throughout the world in warm freshwater, like lakes, streams, rivers, ponds and hot springs. It enters the body through the nose, typically when people accidentally inhale water while swimming or diving. The amoeba then travels through the nasal passages and enters the brain via the olfactory nerve. Once there, it begins to destroy brain tissues.

You cant become infected by drinking contaminated water or by swimming in water that has been adequately chlorinated.

The majority of infections reported since 1962 have been in the southern U.S., with half of those in Florida and Texas. But infections have occurred as far north as Minnesota and as far west as Nevada and California. The specific disease the organism causes is called primary amebic meningoencephalitis, or PAM.

Symptoms begin one to nine days after infection, and are divided into two stages. Theyre similar to those of bacterial meningitis, which adds a level of difficulty to an accurate diagnosis.

The first stage of the disease is marked by a severe headache in the front of the head, often with fever, nausea and vomiting. This is followed by stiffness in the neck, altered mental state, seizures and coma.

Although in most cases the disease is fatal, the Orlando teenager youre referring to survived. It is believed a swift diagnosis  the infection was identified within hours of the onset of symptoms  was key to his beating the odds. So was aggressive treatment, which included an investigational drug and cooling his body to well below normal body temperature, a process known as therapeutic hypothermia.

Unlike other survivors, who had permanent neurological damage, the Orlando teen recovered fully and is back in school. The hope is early diagnosis and novel therapeutics may lead to higher survival rates in the future.
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Persistence is important.

Possibly a few choice words and some immediate prayers to the lessor gods help also? Maybe sacrifice or two on the gods alters might help at the same time, but I decided not to go that far. Sammy the Volga is done

The final piece of the journey to rebuild Sammy, was yesterday. The crew that rebuilt her, ended with a whimper. The work they did was good and Sammy drives straight and narrow now. The car is beautiful and like new. Yes it was successful, but

They basically dropped the car off and. I knew something was wrong. The guys that dropped off Sammy where not the guys who should have dropped off Sammy. We had a Sammy the Volga with a serious issue and this issue was threatening our going back to Moscow

After such fantastic work and such a good excursion into life itself. These guys ran and hid at the end of all this fun They had an accident and somehow (make long to short), broke and engine part, that when they did fix it, they found it had compounded into a mess and ran like scared rabbits. Silly Wabbits!

But..

Car delivered and the radiator, plus several other tidbits needed repaired and all due to some game playing by silly wabbits

Grouchy Bear Grouched, Sweety Pie made phone calls and between Vova from our Tiny Russian Village and Andrew from the Big Village. We got Sammy back in great shape. I will be good, for I will not cry over spilled milk and the good still outweighs the bad and Sammy looks great

The final straw and I started to laugh, was they had siphoned out all our fuel. Someone at the shop had stolen almost a full tank of fuel! What can you do? Just laugh and wish them good luck, for the next guy might just beat their asses

Svetochka, my sweet innocent girl, wants to kick their butts and jump up and down on them after they lay on the ground. I guess she had enough also?

Last night Svetochka said, It is finally done and I feel relief!

Andrew a friend of ours in the Big Village, just happened to have a almost brand new radiator for our Volga. He said that he was approached by the guys to get his radiator and I guess since he wanted money for it and they being only just paid by us, yet I am sure already broke, declined to get the radiator (That they crushed somehow?) and then they dropped off the car and ran and hid 

Wabbits!

* * * * *

So being a grouchy bear, I will be nice and not eat wabbits for lunch. The car is just too good now to be mad and I just feel sorry for guys who have such potential and yet lost the self-control at the end. Running and hiding is what you do when guilty, as charged

Sammy runs as good as new. She tracks down the highway perfect, she is solid as a rock, no squeaks, no rattles and is pretty as a morning of dew drops in the sun

* * * * *

I tried to teach my managers in business that the last impression is the most important one to accomplish. You can have a flawless presentation, but if you slap the guest/partner across the face as he/she leaves. He will not care a hoot how good the meal/meeting was, how witty/knowledgeable the conversation was and how sweet you were all night/day. He only remembers that slap across the face, as he walked out the door. 

They failed (slap)

Yet I still hope they succeed, for we are basically happy with what they did. Sammy is doing great, with a little help from all involved

They just should have made that last impression a touch better

WtR
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A startup needs to test an idea quickly. For this, an MVP is created. MVP, Minimal Viable Product  a test version of a product or service with a minimum set of functions (up to one or two), which allows you to see the product's value for consumers and the market. MVP is created to test hypotheses and check the viability of the intended product: is it worth developing the project further, what changes should be made? The sooner a startup brings its MVP to market and tests the idea, the better. This article will look at how no-code technology can help founders achieve their business goals.

This article will try to cover everything that a founder needs to know about no-code at the initial stage of creating a startup.

What is no-code?

No-code, zero-code platform is a tool for creating websites, applications, chatbots, and other programs without the need for direct code writing by programmers. No-code is a valuable alternative to traditional development.

No-code is confused with low-code, but there is a difference in these terms. Low-code includes no-code and the ability to "finish code", add parts of code and the functionality.

A user of a no-code platform usually does not need to know layout, programming languages, or hire a team of programmers. The user of the no-code tool creates an application using a visual block constructor, which he fills with the necessary content and functions, and the no-code platform itself does the processing of requests, compiling the application and other "magic." It generates code using AI and/or contains blocks of code pre-written by programmers.

No-code allows the startup founder to create an MVP himself, entrust it to his employee with basic technical literacy and understanding of the project, or hire a no-code developer. Even in the case of hiring a no-code developer, the cost of creating an MVP will be significantly lower than with classical development with programmers. For example, you can read the interview of a startup and no-code developer on our website, who initially worked as a Product Manager and was able to master no-code for his project himself.

Benefits of no-code for a startup founder

There are the following key advantages for a startup founder in using no-code technology:

a large selection of no-code tools, platforms, and their integrations at the moment  already in 2022, there are many tools and platforms for creating an MVP, a larger project, or even a finished product on no-code, but few people still know about them, and others are far from all startups and founders use their potential;

cost  no-code development saves the money by speeding up the development process, not hiring professional programmers or no need to maintain a developer department, monitoring functions and quick bug fixes, avoiding or reducing the growth of technical debt;

speed is the main advantage over classical development  no-code allows you to build a simple application in a weekend, and a more complex one can be built in a month. In this way, you can test an MVP and even several versions of an MVP very quickly;

low entry threshold  to master a no-code platform, you often do not need technical education at all, but only an understanding of a company's business processes or product from the inside. In the case of pro-level no-code platforms, technical education is required, but you can get used to it hundreds of times faster than with any programming language. This makes no-code available to almost everyone who wants to work with technology;

ease of use  no need to write hundreds of code lines  just move the blocks and assign links between them. Work on a project can be entrusted to your employee without communicating with a team of third-party developers. You can speak "in your language" without the need to understand the "inner kitchen" of developers;

flexibility  with the help of no-code, it is easy for a startup founder to add new functionality and new features right during a project or a MVP testing without a significant increase in development costs.

Possible disadvantages of no-code for a startup founder

As often, any property can be, under certain conditions, both a disadvantage and an advantage. In no-code, many of the benefits with the wrong choice of tool can turn into disadvantages:

no-code is not always a budget solution for a project. Sometimes in a no-code development package, you get unnecessary functions and additions (on AppMaster.io you can separately connect the frontend and pay only for the backend or only for those functions that you are using); if you do not understand the needs of your project, then you can make a mistake with the choice of a no-code tool and not be able to implement the necessary functions on it, or it will be too difficult to implement them; often, no-code tools fail to ensure proper data security and contribute to data leakage (but AppMaster.io allows you to host a finished application on any server); no-code tools often do not provide the ability to upload source code or provide uploading in an inconvenient format, which makes it difficult to move to another tool or to your development. You have to choose a no-code tool "once and forever immediately" (AppMaster. io gives you the ability to download the source code. Also, we generate human-readable code and you will not have any difficulties with its transportation); most no-code tools on the market are not suitable for creating a finished product, and there are significant difficulties with scaling the project if the MVP is successful (AppMaster.io is a professional no-code platform and our capabilities allow us to implement and support the finished product and scale it in the future).

Forewarned is forearmed. Choose your no-code tool wisely and take full advantage of your choice.

Types of no-code platforms

Conventionally, all no-code tools can be divided into several types: no-code devices with a low entry threshold (you can create frontend and not very powerful backend on them), integrators that help connect applications and services, and professional no-code platforms (they strive to replace the code completely, provide the ability to create a robust backend and high bandwidth).

The basic principle of operation of your MVP and the choice of a no-code platform depend on such a conditional division into types. For example, if you make a simple application like a diary, you can limit yourself to a no-code tool with a low entry threshold and a beautiful design.

If your application has powerful potential, high bandwidth, multi-user interface, and works with large amounts of data or real-time data, it is better to choose a professional no-code platform like AppMaster.io or Direcual.

If you use several services at once, link them on integrators like Integromat and Zapier.

Adalo

An easy-to-learn designer with a relatively user-friendly interface. The free version is helpful for learning. The free version contains Adalo watermarks and does not allow you to upload your applications to GooglePlayMarket and AppStore. Beginners often choose this no-code platform to create their first applications with simple logic.

Bubble

It will take more time to learn Bubble , but the platform allows you to work with the backend, databases, business processes, and layout. There are many plugins. The free plan allows you to master the tool, and you can start developing at the middle rate. The price increase is due to the rise in the number of users.

Integromat

It is an integrator. Experts talk about it as a simple and affordable platform for linking applications and services. Scenarios can be created personally, or you can use templates. If you need to connect an application with a service not from the Integromat database, fill out the form and connect to its API via HTTP.

Zapier

This is an integrator for linking applications with each other or with other external services. You can transfer data between thousands of applications. There is a script constructor (one event starts a chain of necessary actions).

Directual

The no-code platform positions itself for creating MVP applications (Minimal Viable Product, minimum viable product) and full-fledged applications of finished products. Scenarios are the backbone of the platform. Using scripts, you can automate the backend logic of the application, create and combine workflows. The Directual catalog includes out-of-the-box connectors, HTTP requests, webhooks, database listeners, and integration with popular services.

AppMaster.io

No-code next-generation platform for creating native and web applications on a real backend. Visual drag-and-drop designer, user-friendly business process designer, one-click app publishing to AppMaster Cloud, or integration with any cloud platform. Push notifications, authorization using social networks. Networks, email, and more. Connect applications to hundreds of services or programmatically access them using APIs. The ability to upload source code and documentation in a human-readable format and transfer it to your servers. Documentation auto-generation. Modern and fast language GoLang at the core.

No-code perspectives for startups

No-code development is gradually gaining popularity around the world. There are already more than 500 no-code tools for creating websites and various types of applications.

According to the forecasts of IT world experts, no-code will develop more and more actively and capture parts of the market responsible for medicine, small online business, small business, and all niches where it is possibly necessary to optimize and automate development processes.

The mass shift of businesses and their customers online and to gadgets has increased the demand for the fast and inexpensive creation of mobile applications that would work according to a single quality standard and have a simple, understandable, user-friendly interface.

Conclusion

No-code is visual programming in the form of a constructor without directly writing code. Usually, basic knowledge in development is enough to build applications on no-code.

The logic of no-code constructors is intuitive: the application interface is assembled from blocks, icons, buttons, and text which are connected to the database. Usually, you can choose a suitable template or do everything from scratch. Speed and economy are the main advantages of no-code tools.

No-code is suitable for creating an MVP, testing an idea or new features in a product, saving time for solving standard tasks. PRO level no-code platforms can provide you with a finished product, an application.

If you don't have an account on AppMaster.io yet, join us. After registration, you will be given a free trial period for 14 days, in which all the basic functionality of the platform is available. It will allow you to learn the intricacies of working with a professional-level no-code platform and understand its potential.
Aug 15, 2017 | By Benedict

Researchers at the University of Oxford have found a new way to 3D print living structures from lab-grown cells. The structures could be used as human tissue models, removing the need for animal testing.

The 3D printing of living tissues, one of the most exciting applications of modern science, is going to benefit a lot of people: patients with complex diseases, 3D printing journalists, and animal rights campaigners, to name but a few.

And while the benefit to the first of those two groups is self-explanatory, the third is maybe a little more subtle.

The fact is that 3D printed or bioprinted tissue, once perfected, wont just be a means of repairing damaged areas of the human bodythough this is perhaps its most urgent and potentially beneficial application.

Printed tissue will also be used to test experimental drugs and medical procedures: by printing a living but ex vivo cell structure, scientists will be able to see how certain pharmaceutical ingredients react with human tissue.

And heres where things get really handy for animal rights campaigners (and animals): these 3D printed cell structures could someday remove the need for animal testing altogether, since they will offer an even more realistic picture of human-drug interaction than can be drawn from research with lab animals.

In a research paper that has been published in the journal Scientific Reports, an interdisciplinary team from the University of Oxford (Department of Chemistry; Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics) and the University of Bristol (Centre for Molecular Medicine) has demonstrated a new method for 3D printing human and animal tissue constructs.

Led by Hagan Bayley, Professor of Chemical Biology in Oxford's Department of Chemistry, the researchers have devised a way to produce tissues in self-contained cells that support the structures and help to keep their shape.

The droplet-based 3D printing technique involves 3D printing cells in protective nanoliter droplets wrapped in a lipid coating, a method that supposedly improves the survival rate of the individual cells.

We were aiming to fabricate three-dimensional living tissues that could display the basic behaviors and physiology found in natural organisms, explained Dr Alexander Graham, lead author and 3D Bioprinting Scientist at OxSyBio (Oxford Synthetic Biology). We focused on designing a high-resolution cell printing platform, from relatively inexpensive components, that could be used to reproducibly produce artificial tissues with appropriate complexity from a range of cells including stem cells.

The research team hopes that its new printing method could have a positive impact on healthcare around the world, resulting in reproducible human tissue models that eliminate the need for animal testing, as well as new tissue regeneration therapies.

Given the potential impact of the 3D printing technique, the researchers already have one eye on commercializing the technology. In January 2016, London-based medical 3D printing company OxSyBio officially spun-out from the Bayley Lab, and the company will look to commercialize the new technique for industrial and biomedical purposes.

New complementary printing techniques will be trialled over the coming months, allowing the researchers to experiment with a wider range of living and hybrid materials.

There are many potential applications for bioprinting and we believe it will be possible to create personalized treatments by using cells sourced from patients to mimic or enhance natural tissue function, said Dr Sam Olof, Chief Technology Officer at OxSyBio. In the future, 3D bioprinted tissues maybe also be used for diagnostic applicationsfor example, for drug or toxin screening.

Dr Adam Perriman, from the University of Bristol's School of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, added: The ability to 3D print with adult stem cells and still have them differentiate was remarkable, and really shows the potential of this new methodology to impact regenerative medicine globally.

Read the researchers study here.

Posted in 3D Printing Application

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Aug 15, 2017 | By Tess

While many may be inclined to screen alumni donation phone calls from their alma maters, one notable alum from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell has gone above and beyond with his giving back.

Lawrence Lin, who received his doctorate in polymer science and plastics engineering from the university almost two decades ago, has donated $1 million to his alma mater for the establishment of an extensive 3D printing lab for students.

GDI president and UMass Lowell alum Lawrence Lin

Since his graduation from UMass Lowell in 1990, Lin has gone on to become the president of Grand Dynasty Industrial Co. Ltd., a Taiwan-based injection molding and plastics company which was founded by his father and older brother.

According to Lin, his education and training at UMass Lowell enabled him to return to Taiwan and transform his familys grassroots company into a globally recognized injection molding specialist. Understandably, he has felt the need to give back.

His $1 million donation to the school, which was first announced last year, has gone towards setting up an 8,500 square foot 3D printing and rapid prototyping lab. Appropriately dubbed the Lawrence Lin MakerSpace, the facility contains an assortment of 3D printers, CNC machines, laser cutters, and a slew of other prototyping and manufacturing tools.

What we found particularly notable about Lins donated MakerSpace is that it is open and running 24 hours a day, so as not to limit when students find inspiration to make.

Though his company specializes in injection molding processes, which are often seen as distinct and even opposite to additive manufacturing, Lin believes that 3D printing has a role to play in the prototyping and manufacturing of parts and tools. In fact, his company has adopted metal 3D printing technologies in order to produce molds for injection molding.

Lin and UMass students hold a map of Lowell designed and manufactured at the $1M maker space

(Images: University of Massachusetts Lowell)

Lin has taken a progressive stance in regards to his business, recognizing that environmentally friendly and smart manufacturing technologies should be the future and can help to overcome current challenges in the industry.

In practice, GDI has joined a partnership between industry and government in Taiwan to promote the adoption and shift towards Industry 4.0 technologies, of which 3D printing is included.

Lin believed that because many of Taiwans manufacturing companies are relatively small, they can adapt easily to changing technologies and processes.

Currently, GDI employs 245 people and has two New Taipei City facilities in operation. Lin said that this fall construction will begin for a third facility, worth $20 million, that will be geared towards the medical market.

GDIs client base is diverse, with many of its key customers being based in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, and Italy. Local business only accounts for 1.5 percent of GDIs total sales, and its business in mainland China is mainly with multinationals who have offices in the country.

"Lawrence has said he owes this university a lot, but we at UMass Lowell owe him a lotboth for his philanthropy and for his faith in our mission," commented UMass Lowell Chancellor Jacquie Moloney earlier this year. "The Lin MakerSpace empowers our students to bring their engineering concepts to life, like the members of our eNABLE team who use its 3D printers to fabricate prosthetic hands for young children."

Posted in Hackerspaces

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Welcome to the stylish downtown tasting room of Napa's first Blackowned winery
Jefferson cruises to 11AAA state title over Harrisburg in 2nd year

Head coach Vince Benedetto asks his team the same question after every game: "Can we play better?" But Saturday, "it doesn't matter because we're champions."
Distribution of company announcements to the professional platforms, finance portals and syndication of important corporate news to a wide variety of news aggregators and financial news systems.
Bombardier Business Aircraft has delivered its first Learjet 75 aircraft to a Brazilian customer.





The Learjet 75 joins Bombardiers business jet fleet of 685 Learjet, Challenger and Global aircraft in Latin America.



Learjet aircraft are iconic, rooted in deep pride and based on a history of ingenuity. We are proud a Brazilian customer selected the Learjet 75 for its class-leading performance, smooth ride and most private and quiet cabin, said Stephane Leroy, Vice President, Sales, Latin America, Bombardier Business Aircraft. The Learjet 75 aircraft is the only business jet in its class to feature a pocket door for reduced noise levels.



Latin America is the third largest market for business aviation deliveries, with Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and Venezuela making up over 80% of the regional fleet. There are currently over 510 Learjet aircraft in Latin America.



In 2016 Bombardier introduced the Learjet 75 aircraft featuring an innovative pocket door design. The pocket door divides the cabin from the entry area and reduces noise levels inside the cabin by up to eight decibels, while creating a distinct private living space for passengers.



In June 2017, Bombardier Business Aircraft celebrated a historic milestone in business aviation  the delivery of the 3,000th manufactured Bombardier Learjet. The aircraft was also the 100th Learjet 75 jet to be delivered.
April Fools! Well, not really. It's August 15th, 2017. After the violence in Charlottesville, VA over the weekend, Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier resigned from President Trump's Manufacturing Council:

Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier is leaving President Trump's American Manufacturing Council, saying, "I feel a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism."

The resignation came after Trump was criticized for his response to the violence at white supremacist events in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend. The president, famous for his ability to be direct and forceful, was faulted for condemning violence "on many sides."



Ken found his conscience? I think a Ken doll has more cojones than Ken Frazier.



Dan Olmsted always referred to AofA as "agnostic." Our discussions of autism and vaccine injury have praised and damned Republicans and Democrats, Conservatives and Liberals alike. The epidemic sees no party when it strikes a family. What happened in Virginia goes well past politics into chaos. That said, the resignation of the CEO of the very company that makes the very vaccines that have made our kids so very sick on the grounds of "conscience" from the President's Manufacturing Council is head turning. I can only speak for myself, and I can tell you I do not condone the violence and extremism that happened in Virginia. The mantra of white supremacy and the violence are repugnant to me.



But I fear that the the not-so-veiled undertones of vaccination status supremacy now freely discussed in America are approaching a similar progression. Crazy, you think? Not so much. We say, "Ignore your rights, and they will go away." We're seeing that. Doctors who condone calling Child Protective Services on parents who do not fully vaccinate. Laws to keep healthy American kids out of school based on vaccination status. Even a threats of violence toward families who make medical choices that go against the 100% vaccination compliant mantra.



Merck makes a fortune from vaccinations. The former head of the CDC became Merck's President of the Vaccine Division after leaving her post in Atlanta. Dr. William Thompson, a CDC scientist, blew the whistle on how the autism MMR link was watered down in study machinations - putting African American male toddlers are particular risk of autism.

How about this for intolerance? Merck's $250M equal-pay lawsuit gains heft as 400 more women claim discrimination



And who could forget the planet's BIGGEST fines for illegal marketing of Vioxx and THEN for the deaths and injuries? Merck Vioxx killed and injured hundreds of thousands of Americans.
Aiken, SC (29801)

Today

Some clouds this morning will give way to generally sunny skies for the afternoon. Much cooler. High 57F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Clear skies. Low 34F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph.
Syriac Catholic Patriarch Says West Has 'Betrayed' Christian Minorities

Father Emanuel Youkhana, an archimandrite of the Assyrian Church of the East, looks through the rubble of a Syriac Catholic Church Jan. 27 in Qaraqosh, Iraq. The mannequin and poster were used as target practice. ( CNS/Paul Jeffrey) EL CAJON, Calif. (CNS) -- The Syriac Catholic patriarch doesn't mince words about the ongoing violence and unrest in the Middle East. Nor does he shy away from calling out the West for not doing enough to protect Christian minorities. "I can tell you, we've been not only abandoned by the Western countries, but even we have been betrayed," Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan told The Southern Cross, newspaper of the Diocese of San Diego. He made the comments in a recent interview at Our Mother of Perpetual Help Syriac Catholic Parish in El Cajon.While the Christian minority in Syria and Iraq is composed of "peaceful people" who have been "working honestly for the well-being of their countries," he said, these Christians are neither oil-rich nor do they represent a terrorist threat to the West. Therefore, he said, they have been essentially ignored by the West and "abandoned to our destiny." The Syriac Catholic Church is an Eastern Catholic Church in communion with the pope. Among the Catholic hierarchy, a patriarch is outranked only by the pope. Patriarch Younan, whose patriarchal see is based in Beirut, visited Our Mother of Perpetual Help on July 24 as one stop on his pastoral visit to the Syriac Catholic Eparchy of Our Lady of Deliverance, which has its headquarters in New Jersey. The eparchy includes all Syriac Catholic parishes and missions in the United States and Canada. The patriarch was accompanied by the head of the eparchy, Bishop Yousif B. Habash, and Syriac Catholic Archbishop Yousif Abba of Baghdad. In conversation with The Southern Cross, Patriarch Younan lamented the "horrendous war" in Syria that is now in its seventh year and he contested the claim, which has been made by Western governments and media, that there is a moderate Muslim faction among the rebel forces. "It's a lie," he said. Meanwhile, the situation in Iraq remains grim, he said. In that country, since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, "chaos" continues to reign, he said, and more than 140,000 Christians -- about a third of whom are Syriac Catholics -- have fled the country. This exodus has been a "real tragedy" and poses a grave threat to the continued existence of the region's Christian community, which is not seeking any special privileges but simply the ability to live and worship without fear, he said. "We Christians in the Middle East ... are the indigenous communities of these countries," Patriarch Younan said, noting that it was in this region that Christianity was born. "We've been there for millennia and we have been always persecuted. And now ... our very survival is at stake." Many Syriac Catholics have simply given up on the possibility of stable government in their homeland and have relocated to other countries, like the United States, where they have been able to practice their faith in freedom and safety at parishes such as Our Mother of Perpetual Help. Patriarch Younan, who as a priest helped establish Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in 1994, said he hopes that the opportunities afforded by life in the United States will allow these members of his flock to grow even stronger in their faith. Through his pastoral visit, he hoped to impart a hopeful message to the first-generation immigrants and to encourage younger generations to walk a "path of joyful service." Regrettably, Patriarch Younan said, Western leaders have succumbed to "pandering" and utilizing "politically correct language" in their dealings with the Middle East. He said that, unless the United States and European nations demonstrate that they have the political will to speak honestly with the region's leaders, helping them to create "a civilized constitution" and insisting that they separate religion and politics, "there is no hope for the future."
Virgin Australia has kicked off its new five-times a week, Airbus A330-200 passenger service between Melbourne and Hong Kong with the route proving popular with air cargo customers.

The 15 tonne belly offering is already looking extremely promising in both directions and may even spill over to Virgin Australias Melbourne-Los Angeles service.

While the inaugural flight went purposely light on cargo for operational reasons  four tonnes of mostly perishables including health supplements, wine, fresh fish, meat and cheese, heading northbound  the subsequent return flights in the immediate days following were nearly fully booked, hitting an average of 12 tonnes with a 97% load factor.

Cargo sales on these Virgin Australia flights are marketed by Virgin Atlantic Cargo, which also sells space on Virgin Australias existing long-haul services from Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne to Los Angeles.

The new route marks 12 months of preparation, with Virgin Atlantic Cargo gleaning insights from its former Sydney-Hong Kong route. As a cargo route, that one proved not particularly stellar, partly because of substantial capacity in that market from both Qantas and Cathay, but also due to the nature of Sydneys economic base which is more service-related.

The new route is extremely significant because we are now able to give our customers in both points of sale more choice with regular frequencies to and from Hong Kong, which is one of the worlds premier air cargo markets and gateways, says John Lloyd, managing director of Virgin Atlantic Cargo, adding our expectations for the route are high.

The southbound portion is perhaps a no-brainer  the strong production economies of Hong Kong and China generate substantial e-commerce shipments for Australian consumers, along with some degree of more traditional electronics and general cargo.

But it is the northbound leg that has exceeded expectations. We were also pleasantly surprised about the potential of the northbound market and the level of demand we identified, says Lloyd.

He highlights the State of Victorias pre-eminence as a high-quality agricultural producer which is generating a good level of demand from customers for Australian produce across a wide-range of fish, meat and packaged food goods, as well as for milk powder.

From a revenue perspective, the composition of this northbound produce is a healthy situation  dense cargo which makes for very good positional revenue.

We expect both the southbound and northbound sectors to make an important contribution to the overall route profitability, Lloyd adds.

In terms of the cargo component, this Australian connection is a bit like the missing piece of the puzzle.

Currently, Virgin Atlantics China/Hong Kong proposition consists of daily flights, Hong Kong-London and Shanghai-London, operated with Boeing 787-9 aircraft.

Air Cargo News understands these are typically operating to their limit in terms of the residual cargo capacity, which means more than 15 tonnes of payload on every single departure.

With the addition of Melbourne, this obviously gives the additional southbound opportunity. Weve had a lot of interest on the new route and already customers have permanent bookings with us, Lloyd says.

Weve identified there are good point-to-point cargo volumes, but we will certainly be looking for opportunities that enable us to maximise the revenue potential of the route.

Weve also received enquiries for shipments destined for Los Angeles via Melbourne utilising our B777 Virgin Australia service, adds Lloyd, whose division is already selling Virgin Australias cargo capacity from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane to Los Angeles.

With such strong demand from the get-go, it begs the question as to whether more capacity would be in order.

Clearly one source of improvement in this regard would be to upscale from its current five-days a week frequency to a daily flight  something that will surely prove challenging given ever-worsening capacity rest-raints at Hong Kong International Airport.

Will the Australian carrier look at expanding its cargo offering into Hong Kong and/or mainland China  either directly or through some form of cargo alliance or partnership?

Virgin Australia chief executive John Borghetti says that the carrier has only just established its cargo division and was making its first steps.

We only started a cargo division about four months ago, so its a relatively new business and obviously a lot of our focus has been on the domestic scene. Whilst weve had an arrangement with Virgin Atlantic on international cargo, we needed to build up the business at home first, Borghetti adds.

What the Melbourne-Hong Kong flight does is start opening up opportunities for us on the cargo side as well.

As I look at the cargo bookings Im already seeing some pretty significant flows, but you have to walk before you can run and this is our first step.

As we go forward, once we establish ourselves, firstly with more services, we can then go into the second phase of seeing how we expand this with freighters etc.

But Borghetti wouldnt be drawn on the question as to whether Virgin Australia would potentially tie-up with Air Hong Kong  the two inked a codeshare on the passenger side in June  on the cargo side given that the Hong Kong carrier has significant maindeck capacity.

This is our first step, Borghetti reiterates, before adding that the airlines first priority is getting more slots in Hong Kong. He adds: The very first thing is we have to arrange for Melbourne to go daily.

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August 15, 2017

Irans chief of general staff arrived in Ankara today for a three-day visit heralded by Iran's state news agency as unprecedented and by Turkey's Daily Sabah as a "milestone" as the two regional rivals seek to reconcile differences over Syria and Iraq and to discuss shared fears of Kurdish separatism.

Gen. Mohammad Hossein Bagheri, "citing border security and the fight against terror," told Irans official news agency, This trip was necessary for better consultation and cooperation on various military and regional issues. The visit comes ahead of a sixth round of talks between Turkey, Iran and Russia to establish so-called de-escalation zones in Syria. That meeting is planned to be held by the end of August in the Kazakh capital, Astana. It also comes a week before US Secretary of Defense James Mattis is slated to travel to Ankara, part of a regional tour. Officials involved in its planning told Al-Monitor the trip will include stops in Iraq and Qatar.

Without a doubt, Bagheris moves will be closely scrutinized by the Trump administration, which has embraced a markedly bellicose tone against Iran. It is already being translated into action in Syria, where US forces have moved against Iranian-backed militias and downed Iranian drones. Russia, whose own relations with Tehran are being tested over the latters uncompromising stance in Syria, as noted this week by Al-Monitors Anton Mardasov, will be interested in the outcome of the generals parlays in Turkey as well.

Pro-government news outlets in Turkey have cast his visit in a determinedly upbeat light. The English-language Daily Sabah claimed, The two sides are more willing than ever to reach deals in Syria and Iraq. Quoting senior diplomatic sources in Ankara, the newspaper predicted that firm steps are set to be taken.

Until recently, such optimism would have been unthinkable. The historic rivals were diametrically opposed in the Syrian conflict, with Iran propping up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with blood and treasure and Turkey backing Sunni rebels bent on toppling him.

But as the United States and Russia seek ways to end the conflict and  as Iran and Turkey see things  cut deals behind their backs, Tehran and Ankara seem eager to project unity.

Even though Qatar is, alongside Turkey, the biggest sponsor of the anti-Assad rebels, the regions strongest non-Arab states are siding with Qatar in the tiny Gulf emirates unresolved spat with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Turkey and Iran are home to the regions largest Kurdish populations. Turkey has at least 14 million Kurds, and Iran at least half that many. Both powers are opposed to the Iraqi Kurds referendum on independence from Baghdad that is due to be held on Sept. 25 because they fear the potential effects of Iraqi Kurdish independence on their own restive Kurdish populations. But Turkey is far more spooked by Kurdish gains in northern Syria overseen by the Peoples Protection Units (YPG), which is closely linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The latter marked the 33rd anniversary of the launch of its bloody campaign for Kurdish independence, and now for self-rule, in Turkeys mainly Kurdish southeast region today.

Iran occasionally treats the PKK as a tactical lever against Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds, much in the same way Assad and his father and predecessor have. But in the broader scheme of things, Iran sees the group and other Kurdish-Iranian rebels based in Iraqi Kurdistan as a threat, especially now that the United States is engaging, albeit indirectly, with the PKK via the YPG. (It cannot formally talk with the PKK because the group is on the State Department's list of terror outfits.) What if the Donald Trump administration decides to destabilize and overthrow the Iranian regime by fomenting a separatist uprising in its mainly Kurdish provinces? Turkey has a similarly paranoid view of the US-YPG partnership. Pro-government newspapers brim with conspiracies of how America wants to dismember Turkey by arming the YPG, which remains the US-led coalition's most effective partner against the Islamic State.

Ankara is keeping up threats to invade Afrin, the mainly Kurdish enclave across its border that is administered by the YPG and its political allies. Afrin is cut off from the rest of the contiguous YPG-run territories that are effectively under US protection, and Turkey is determined that it remains so. A Western diplomat told Al-Monitor on strict condition of anonymity that Turkey would be willing to make peace with Assad in a heartbeat if he would help it crush the YPG. Thus Iran, which is bent on keeping Assad in power, scents an opportunity. So does Russia, which has been pressing Turkey to take firmer action against al-Qaeda-linked militants who control Idlib and according to YPG officials has been dangling Afrin as a bargaining chip.

Daily Sabah reported that members of Turkeys national spy agency MIT and the Turkish armed forces met with Iranian and Russian officials in Tehran last month to discuss Afrin. Unnamed sources quoted by the newspaper contended that if Turkey could convince the rebels to withdraw from some areas in southern Syria, then Iran and Russia may keep silent over the handover of Afrin.
Chris Kleponis-Pool/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Though President Donald Trump condemned hate groups on Monday following the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, this past weekend, for some the remarks were too little, too late.



Trump's immediate response to the violence, which left one dead Saturday after a driver rammed a car into a crowd of people in the midst of violent clashes over a white nationalist rally, was met with bipartisan backlash, particularly because he did not label the ramming an act of terrorism or include a denunciation of white supremacists.



One of the president's most vocal critics was Jonathan Greenblatt, the director and CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, who specifically singled out Trump for initially referring to the incident as an egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides.



Speaking Monday to reporters, Greenblatt lambasted Trump for not taking a swift and strong stance against hate groups on Saturday, something he says the president has done repeatedly.



"We have seen a pattern of the president equivocating when it comes to denouncing hate groups, including white supremacists and anti-Semitic groups, said Greenblatt.



One of the clearest examples of this came when then-candidate Trump did not immediately distance himself from the endorsement of David Duke, a former Louisiana lawmaker who was once grand wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.



At first, Trump declined to disavow the support Duke, insisting during a CNN interview that he needed "to look at the group" first, despite being reminded of Dukes long association with the KKK.



"Honestly, I don't know David Duke, I don't believe I've ever met him, I'm pretty sure I didn't meet him, and I just don't know anything about him," Trump told CNN on Feb. 28, 2016.

He later said he "disavowed" Duke and reiterated that throughout the week following the interview.

As I stated at the press conference on Friday regarding David Duke- I disavow. pic.twitter.com/OIXFKPUlz2  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 28, 2016

Heidi Beirich, the director of the Southern Poverty Law Centers Intelligence Project, which tracks hate groups, said that the disavowal of Duke, and the time that it took Trump to make that statement, is "another example where he just kind of pussyfooted around something."



Both Beirich and Greenblatt referenced how Trump retweeted posts from users with handles like "@WhiteGenocideTM" and how he used memes recycled from white supremacist websites as examples of his lack of separation from such groups during the campaign.



Other instances include the neo-Nazis and white supremacists sometimes spotted at Trump campaign events, a white nationalist super PAC making robocalls on Trump's behalf, and a prominent member of an alt-right group expressing his support of Trump.



Greenblatt noted Monday on the call how a number of anti-Semitic sentiments were also expressed during the Charlottesville melee this weekend and pointed out that Trump has faced accusations of anti-Semitism before as well.



Two examples of that include the controversy surrounding the Trump campaigns use of a picture on Twitter that showed Hillary Clintons face superimposed on a stack of money and a six-pointed star that many likened to a Star of David, and his administrations release of a statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day that failed to mention Jews.



Trump has repeatedly denied that he is anti-Semitic or racist, regularly pointing to his close ties to the Jewish community. Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner practices Orthodox Judaism, and the president's daughter Ivanka Trump converted when she married Kushner.



Kushner himself has defended his father-in-law in the past, saying in a statement in July 2016, "I know that Donald does not at all subscribe to any racist or anti-Semitic thinking. I have personally seen him embrace people of all racial and religious backgrounds. The suggestion that he may be intolerant is not reflective of the Donald Trump I know."



And in remarks on Monday, Trump called out hate groups for their behavior, saying, "Racism is evil. And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the [Ku Klux Klan], neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans." Trump again did not use the term "terrorism" to describe the incident, however.



Monday's comments were not enough for Greenblatt, who sees Trump's initial Charlottesville statement as a call to action.



This wasnt a subtle dog whistle. This was like a bullhorn and a signal for them to try and rise, Greenblatt said of Trumps repeated instances of not taking swift action in condemning such hate groups.



Beirich said that Trump "waits too long" to make his public criticisms, and when he does speak out, the earlier message resonates.



"What is so hard about saying 'I decry the neo-Nazis and the white supremacists that were in Charlottesville,'" she said, referencing the first statement Trump made about the violence in Virginia on Saturday. "He went out of his way to not decry neo-Nazis and white supremacists."



"When it comes to white supremacist terrorism, Donald Trump doesn't seem to care," she said.

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
August 15, 2017

On Aug. 14, Irans supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, appointed Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi as the new chairman of the Expediency Council. Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani had headed the council for decades, until his death in January.

The Expediency Council was established in 1988 to resolve differences or conflicts between the parliament and the Guardian Council, which is tasked with assessing and approving parliament bills based on their adherence to Islamic law.

Prior to Khamenei announcing the council's new leader, rumors had circulated about the possible appointment of conservative Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Movahedi Kermani, who temporarily chaired council sessions after Rafsanjani's death, of Ebrahim Raisi, the conservative cleric defeated in the May presidential elections by moderate incumbent Hassan Rouhani.

The eventual appointee, Hashemi Shahroudi, headed the judiciary from 2001 to 2009 and is a member of the Assembly of Experts, which chooses and supervises the supreme leader. In the Iranian political arena, Shahroudi is considered a moderate ayatollah and has views close to those of Rafsanjani, who also served as Iran's president for two terms (1989-1997) and led the moderate camp.

In remarks suggestive of the Reformists being content with Shahroudis appointment, Nemat Ahmadi, a Reformist analyst, told the daily Arman on Aug. 15, Given the national position and moderate attitude of Ayatollah Shahroudi, there is hope that we will see the Expediency Council reaching the goals that have been set and see effective decisions taken like those [by] Ayatollah Rafsanjani.

Meanwhile, former hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was disqualified from running in the May elections, had his membership on the Expediency Council renewed. His reappointment surprised observers given that he had ignored Khameneis public advice to him that he not run for the presidency.

Faridoldin Haddad-Adel, an influential conservative figure and son of former parliament Speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, tweeted Aug. 14, Appointing Mr. Ahmadinejad [to] the Expediency Council is his last chance in his political life. He added that Ahmadinejads reinstatement doesnt mean that his irreparable mistake of bucking the supreme leader would be ignored.

The other new members on the Expediency Council are Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, the conservative presidential candidate who withdrew in favor of Raisi in the last election; Raisi, custodian of the holy shrine of the eighth imam of Shiites in Mashhad; Ahmad Tavakoli, a former conservative parliamentarian; Seyyed Mohammad Sadr, a former Reformist diplomat; Ayatollah Mohsen Mojtahed Shabestari, former prayer leader of Tabriz; and Seyyed Mohammad Mir-Mohammadi, the chief of staff for Ayatollah Khamenei during his presidency between 1981 and 1989.

According to the Aug. 15 edition of the Reformist daily Shargh, Rouhani and parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, previously members of the Expediency Council, have not been reappointed and will only attend the sessions in their roles as president and speaker.

Based on an Aug. 15 report by the Reformist Etemaad, the supreme leader has asked the new chairman and members of the Expediency Council to better organize the council to improve its effectiveness.
August 15, 2017

White House officials confirmed Aug. 11 that a high-ranking delegation would visit the Middle East at the end of the month to discuss strengthening our relations with regional partners and the economic steps that can be taken both now and after a peace deal is signed to ensure security, stability and prosperity for the region. In his seven months in office, US President Donald Trump has had time to realize that Israel cannot expect peace with its Arab neighbors without resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israeli-Saudi ties and the preservation of Israeli-Egyptian and Israeli-Jordanian partnerships require a divorce agreement and a fair and reasonable division of assets between the Jewish state and the Palestinian one. Israel can reach peace with the Arab world only after resolving the conflict with the Palestinians. The White House also made sure to add, The president is personally committed to achieving a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.

Two days earlier, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made it clear that he did not intend to carry out the division of real estate required to break with occupied Palestine. He is trying to convince the public that he can dance at two weddings  that he can approve the construction of a new West Bank settlement in territories designated for a future Palestinian state and be accorded a warm welcome in world capitals. At the embarrassing rally organized by Likud activists in support of the Netanyahus on Aug. 9, Netanyahu declared, We have Dimona and we have Amona. Netanyahu was responding to Labor chair Avi Gabbay's July 10 statement about the need to first take care of Dimona residents, meaning poor Israelis, before the Amona settlers. Dimona is an impoverished city in the heart of southern Israel, and Amona is the West bank settlement evacuated last February by court order. Chastising the media, Netanyahu added, You recall that the fake news media repeats  that if we dont withdraw from areas of our historical homeland we will be isolated, weakened and abandoned. Instead, he boasted, Israel is enjoying an unprecedented political prosperity on all continents.

In a July 19 meeting with four Eastern Europe leaders, Netanyahu bragged that unlike the crazy behavior of Western Europe, which conditions its ties with Israel on progress in peace talks with the Palestinians, the Arabs talk with us about technology and everything were talking about here. True, Israeli defense officials, senior figures of the countrys weapons industry and cybersecurity experts secretly share intelligence and combat doctrine with colleagues from neighboring Arab states. However, the attitude of those states  among them Egypt and Jordan, which have peace treaties with Israel  are more like that of a married person and a lover: They satisfy each others needs but keep their relationship away from prying eyes.

Israels embassy in Cairo has been vacant for nine months. This is the longest period since the establishment of ties between the two countries in 1979 that the embassy  Israel's first in an Arab state  has been unstaffed. Israels embassy in Amman has also been abandoned since the clash over Jerusalems Temple Mount in July and the ensuing violence on July 23, in which an Israeli Embassy guard in Amman shot dead two Jordanians, one of whom tried to attack him. But even prior to that crisis, there had been a decline in the embassys public activity in Jordan. On Aug. 13 an Israeli security delegation arrived in Cairo, attempting to reach an arrangement with the Egyptians on security measures that would enable the reopening of the embassy. According to Ynet, the sides have reached understandings that will soon enable the return of Ambassador David Govrin to the Egyptian capital.

But even if the Israeli diplomats in Cairo return to their desks, ties between the two countries will probably not be resuscitated. Govrin said at an Institute for National Security Studies conference in March that bilateral relations are primarily military. He warned that such a focus risks eroding peace. The ambassador complimented the strong ties between Netanyahu and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, but emphasized that for peace to form deep roots, it must be based on two pillars  a military one and a civil-economic one.

In an April 1 article for Egypt's Al-Ahram, Ahmad Fuad Anwar, a professor at Alexandria University who concentrates on Israel, criticized Netanyahu's failure to set up a pro-peace government, preferring to establish a government with far-right elements. In an April 29 article, Anwar wrote that Egyptian-Israeli relations have not known such tension since the first Separation of Forces Agreement was signed in 1974.

Haaretz correspondent Barak Ravid reported on Aug. 8 that at a debate in the foreign affairs subcommittee of the Knessets Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee, representatives of the Foreign Ministry and the Trade Ministry expressed concern over the significant decline in ties with Egypt since the diplomatic staff left. While representatives of the National Security Council in the prime ministers office said Netanyahu places more importance on intact defense ties with Egypt than on the staffing of the embassy, representatives of the militarys planning division noted that tensions between Israel and Egypt are having a negative impact on ties with senior Egyptian military officers.

This week, Al-Monitor heard the views of two former Israeli ambassadors on the paralysis of Israels two diplomatic offices in Arab states. Shimon Shamir, who served as ambassador in both Egypt and Jordan, was unambiguous, stating, If the peace is important, the embassies are important. Shamir added that a big question mark hangs over ties between countries that do not exchange ambassadors. This is a symbolic manifestation, but also a practical sign that the peace is not stable and is at risk, he said. The senior Middle East scholar noted that embassy staff are deployed at the front, facing a hostile media and reacting to conspiracy theories and evil accusations that endanger the peace."

Shamir added, Failure to send back an ambassador sends a message to the public there. He stressed that ties between peoples create lasting relationships, whereas ties between governments can be terminated in a minute. The Egyptian people dont know whether there is defense coordination with Israel, the retired diplomat said. The people do know that theres no Israeli Embassy. Shamir was not oblivious to the security threats faced by the embassy staff, but noted that the United States does not shut down its embassies in states where American diplomats are under threat. Diplomats are soldiers on the front, he said. You dont pull back soldiers from the front because of a threat to their lives.

Oded Eran, formerly Israels ambassador to Jordan and currently a senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, presented a different view. Its a little hard for professional diplomats to admit, but states have economic and defense interests that can only be protected by compromising on principles and symbols, he said. Eran added that Israeli prime ministers have diminished the status of ambassadors to that of a flag. Its highly doubtful that the prime minister knew the identity of the ambassador in Amman before deciding to make time on his schedule for a photo op with the security guard, he said in a biting reference to the guard pulled from Israel's embassy in Jordan after the shooting. Israeli prime ministers, he added, have accepted the format set by late King Hussein of Jordan and former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who preferred to conduct ties with Israel via special envoys and defense officials. This formula enabled the Arab leaders to limit domestic criticism over their relationship with Israel amid the continuing stalemate in talks with the Palestinians and the ongoing Israeli settlement drive.

Eran agreed that lowering the Israeli flag in Arab capitals is a negligible price compared to the one Israel would have to pay for a full and effective ambassadorial presence in Cairo, Amman and other Arab capitals that are signatories of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative. He is likely referring to precious territorial currency. What domestic political price is Trump willing to pay to prove he's personally committed to achieving a peace deal?
August 14, 2017

Naftali Bennett, the chairman of HaBayit HaYehudi, sent a series of tweets Aug. 14 in an attempt to stymie a political and media attack on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his effort du jour to bolster his power at the expense of the government and the Knesset.

The preceding day, Channel 2 had aired an exclusive report revealing that over the past few weeks, Netanyahu has been promoting an amendment to the Basic Law Concerning the Government. The proposed provision would allow the prime minister to declare war or to launch a military operation, without the need for its approval by the government, and in certain cases, without the presence of the entire [security] Cabinet. According to the report, the new law would be submitted to the Knesset as soon as it returns from recess in October.

The report was headlined A Declaration of War without Government Approval. As expected, it has received considerable attention in the political world and in the media.

Meretz Chair Zehava Gal-On used her Facebook page to accuse Netanyahu of promoting a law that will make it possible to send soldiers to their deaths, without the approval of the government, and on occasion, without the [security] Cabinet's approval either. She went on to accuse government ministers of having lost all sense of shame. Netanyahu has made them one step lower than a rubber stamp, and they are silent, Gal-On wrote.

Netanyahu was apparently implementing the recommendations of a committee established a year and a half ago and led by Maj. Gen. (Res.) Yaakov Amidror to improve the efficiency of the security Cabinet. Netanyahu created the committee in response to Bennett's demands that the Cabinet's work undergo reassessment in light of disagreements in it over Operation Protective Edge in 2014 and the lessons learned from the campaign.

One of the Amidror Committee's recommendations was that the Cabinet's authority to launch a military operation or war without the approval of the entire government should be anchored in law. This would require an amendment to Article 40 of the Basic Law Concerning the Government, which grants the authority to go to war to the government. The law also states that the government has the authority to relegate that authority to smaller forums, such as the security Cabinet. Netanyahu's proposed amendment is based on that recommendation.

Bennett was quick to respond right after the report was aired, proclaiming, Its a non-story, and arguing that the law being pushed by Netanyahu secures the basis for a situation that already exists. In an interview with the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation, KAN, he noted that according to foreign sources, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Cabinet had allegedly decided on the 1981 attack on a Syrian nuclear reactor without involving the entire government, even though the decision could have resulted in an all-out regional war.

Bennett said, All this talk about Netanyahu being a warmonger is nonsense.  In the 21st century, we do not declare war with a fanfare of trumpets. What usually happens is a gradual deterioration of the situation. He also noted that the proposal would reduce the possibility of leaks.

Bennett is right in many ways. The government authorizes the security Cabinet to make decisions about launching a military operation. If, however, this is already the situation, why take such a significant and demonstrative step like amending a Basic Law, and why announce it now?

The answer has to do with Netanyahu's current political situation and his legal entanglements. It will be quite obvious to anyone following Netanyahu's statements and actions since late last week that he is doing everything he can to knock police investigations into his affairs from the headlines and replace them with defense issues. In other words, now that his political future is hanging in the balance, Netanyahu wants the public to focus on one question: Who is the person that I want to run the country in wartime or during sensitive security situations? The prime minister is well-aware that on these issues, he is far ahead of all his rivals in all the polls, old and new rivals alike.

On Aug. 12, Netanyahu announced on his Facebook page that he had toured the security fence on Mount Hebron and paid a visit to Niv Nehemiah, who was injured Aug. 2 in a stabbing attack in the town of Yavneh. The next day, he announced to the Cabinet that Meir Ben Shabbat, a senior member of Shin Bet, had been appointed to head the National Security Council, which has not had a permanent head since January 2016.

Addressing a rally in Ashdod that evening, Netanyahu focused on security issues. He referred to a briefing to the government that morning by Mossad Director Yossi Cohen. In it, Cohen discussed the security challenges facing Israel. Netanyahu described them as follows: I'll give you a summary in one sentence  ISIS [Islamic State] going out, Iran coming in.  Our policy is clear: We firmly oppose the military buildup of Iran and its proxies, primarily Hezbollah, in Syria. And we will do whatever it takes to protect Israel's security.

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah contributed to Netanyahu's effort to shift the public agenda from criminal to security affairs when he released a speech marking the 11th anniversary of the Second Lebanon War. In it, he warned that if Israeli forces cross into Lebanon, they will encounter a military force one hundred times stronger than the Hezbollah of 2006.

It is safe to assume that the leak to Channel 2 about the immediate advancement of Netanyahu's war law is part of the same media strategy to shift the public's attention to defense issues. On the other hand, even if, as Bennett claims, the proposed law does little more than provide a secure basis for an existing situation, it can hardly be called a non-story.

The new law is just one of many actions and initiatives taken by Netanyahu to shift the balance of power between the various authorities and the main forces in the ruling establishment  the military, the diplomatic and the political. With his aggressive maneuvering in the legislature and the media, his troubling laws targeting the left and his efforts to weaken the legal system, Netanyahu is chipping away at the flimsy foundations of Israeli democracy.

Even if the war amendment is passed, the prime minister will not be able to declare war on his own. On the other hand, transferring authority to declare war from the government to the security Cabinet removes the government from one of the most critical decision-making processes, thereby weakening it considerably. If the duly elected government is deprived of this authority, there will certainly be those who will wonder if the same approach should be implemented in regard to other important issues as well.
August 15, 2017

WASHINGTON  Secretary of State Rex Tillerson today committed the US government to fighting for religious freedom around the world, singling out the Islamic State (IS) and Iran, as well as US allies such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Turkey, for their intolerance toward religious minorities.

The secretary's remarks accompanying the release of the State Departments 2016 International Religious Freedom Report were particularly noteworthy amid reports that the Donald Trump administration wants to shift away from promoting democracy abroad. Tillerson adopted a much different tone in his opening remarks today, touting the defense of freedom abroad as an ethical and national security priority.

The United States promotes religious freedom as a moral imperative, he said. As importantly, we promote religious freedom because countries that effectively safeguard this human right are more stable, economically vibrant and peaceful. The failure of governments to protect this right breeds instability, terrorism and violence.

Tillersons remarks follow Trumps nomination last month of Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback to serve as the next ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. The remarks were a hit on Capitol Hill, where many lawmakers have vowed to oppose the administrations proposed cuts to US foreign aid.

I applaud Secretary Rex Tillerson's remarks on the release of today's State Department International Religious Freedom Report, Senate Appropriations Committee member James Lankford, R-Okla., said in a statement. It is vitally important that our top diplomat clearly and unequivocally proclaim that religious freedom is a core American value and a universal human right.

Tillerson reserved much of his criticism for the crimes perpetrated by IS. He asserted that the group's mass murder, rape and enslavement of Yazidis met the legal definition of genocide, a conclusion the Barack Obama administration first reached in March 2016.

[IS] is clearly responsible for genocide against Yazidis, Christians and Shia Muslims in areas it controls or has controlled, Tillerson said. [IS] is also responsible for crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing directed at these same groups, and in some cases against Sunni Muslims, Kurds and other minorities.

Under the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act, the State Department is required to report to Congress annually about the state of religious freedom in countries around the world. The report itself does not rank countries or have direct policy consequences, but provides data to help inform policymakers. Ninety days after the reports release, the secretary of state is supposed to submit to Congress a list of countries deemed of concern.

The purpose of the report is to give Congress and the executive branch data to inform judgments about foreign assistance, allocation of diplomatic resources and other issues, including adjudication of asylum and refugee requests, Ambassador Michael Kozak, a senior adviser to the State Departments Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, told journalists in a telephone briefing today. It is not designed to pass judgment or to rank other countries, but rather to create a fact-based review for use in US government decision-making.

Tillerson, in his overview of the report, singled out Saudi Arabia for official intolerance of non-Sunni Muslims, and Bahrain for persecution of the countrys Shiite majority.

We remain concerned about the state of religious freedom in Saudi Arabia, Tillerson said. The government does not recognize the right of non-Muslims to practice their religion in public, and applied criminal penalties, including prison sentences, lashings and fines, for apostasy, atheism, blasphemy and insulting the states interpretation of Islam. Of particular concern are attacks targeting Shia Muslims, and the continued pattern of social prejudice and discrimination against them."

In Bahrain, the government continued to question, detain and arrest Shia clerics, community members and opposition politicians, he added. Bahrain must stop discriminating against the Shia communities.

And in Turkey, Tillerson said, authorities continued to limit the human rights of members of some religious minority groups, and some communities continue to experience protracted property disputes. He added that non-Sunni Muslims, such as Alevi Muslims, do not receive the same governmental protections as those enjoyed by recognized non-Muslim minorities.

Tillerson also accused Iran of persecuting in particular its Bahai minority. Members of the Bahai community are in prison today simply for abiding by their beliefs, he said.

US officials said one of the lessons learned from tracking the mistreatment of religious minorities is the need to act before systematic persecution of religious minorities.

There is a growing consensus on the need to act, Kozak said. The genocidal acts of [IS] awakened the international community to the threats facing religious minorities.
August 15, 2017

It is not clear whether the Kurdistan Regional Governments (KRG) independence referendum planned for Sept. 25 will go ahead. KRG President Massoud Barzani says it will, but he faces strong opposition from the West on the grounds that it will endanger Iraqs territorial integrity. Turkey also opposes the referendum, ostensibly for the same reason, but primarily because of the effect this could have on its restive Kurds.

Many agree, however, that Ankara's response to Barzanis announcement of the referendum in June was much milder than expected. They point to the strong ties between Ankara and the KRG, from which both sides have benefited. If Barzani were to bow to pressure and postpone the vote, it would be a relief to Ankara, but not lasting. The can would only be kicked down the road.

Galip Dalay, a former researcher with the government-sponsored Political, Economic and Social Research Foundation and current head of the Al Sharq Forum, said the KRGs referendum announcement shows again that Turkey lacks a Kurdish policy.

In a recent article in the government friendly daily Karar, Dalay argued, Turkey has different policies for different [Kurdish] groups, citing the Kurdistan Workers Party and its affiliate, the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria (both of which Ankara says are terrorist organizations); Barzanis Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP); the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, led by Jalal Talabani; and the Gorran movement in northern Iraq. Dalay said that in sum, Turkey's piecemeal approach does not amount to a Kurdish policy.

Ankara is clearly caught between a rock and a hard place. It abhors the idea of independence for Iraqi Kurds, but there are considerations it cannot ignore. Iraqs autonomous Kurdish region was established under US protection, following the 1990-91 Gulf War against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, despite strong opposition from Turkey.

Events beyond its control, though, forced Ankara not only to cooperate with the KRG, but also to turn the situation to its advantage by making the autonomous Kurdish region a major partner in the economic and energy fields. Energy Minister Berat Albayrak warned last week that an independence referendum would have dire consequences for the KRG in terms of energy cooperation with Turkey. Northern Iraq knows that its only regional ally is Turkey, Albayrak said.

The problem is that the volume of trade between Turkey and northern Iraq currently stands at around $8.5 billion, and there are billions of dollars worth of energy projects being discussed. This disarms Albayraks warning, since any steps Ankara takes against the KRG will also come at a steep price for Turkey.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the KDP have also developed warm political ties, which have resulted in close personal ties between Barzani and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Barzani has in the past called on Turkeys Kurds to support Erdogan, first in general and later in presidential elections, a fact that Erdogan cannot afford to overlook given Turkeys very large Kurdish minority.

Ankara has also looked to its ties with the KRG when it has had differences with Baghdad. Its relations with the Iraqi government remain strained over a host of issues, including the future of Mosul, which also makes it more difficult for Ankara to come down hard on the KRG.

Having been forced to accept northern Iraqs autonomous status over time, Ankara may have no option in the long run but to accept the regions independence, either as a federal entity loosely attached to Baghdad or as an independent territory. This compounds its dilemma, however, begging questions about the future of Syrian Kurds, since independence or a federal arrangement for the KRG will establish a precedent for the Syrians, especially those under the PYD's banner, with which Ankara is at war.

Ankara is already smarting from the support the PYD enjoys from the United States and Russia and the fact that the two key permanent members of the UN Security Council are not averse to autonomy for the Kurds in a unified Syria. Nihat Ali Ozcan from the Economic Policy Research Foundation in Ankara told Al-Monitor, The general situation in the region makes it important for Turkey to come up with a broad and realistic policy toward the regions Kurds. He doubts, however, that Ankara can do so given its limited capabilities. This position of weakness, Ozcan believes, like most analysts, has forced Turkey into a position of only addressing issues as they crop up.

Because of its limitations, Turkey reacts to daily occurrences but does not have a long-term road map, and I dont believe it can come up with one, Ozcan said. To be able to do this, it has to first understand the realities of the region.

Ozturk Yilmaz, a former diplomat and current deputy for the main opposition Republican People's Party, agrees. There is the notion that we can prevent Kurdish aspirations by military means, but the strengthening of the Kurds in the region has shown that Turkey lacks an overall policy in this regard, Yilmaz told Al-Monitor. We dont even know if independence for the KRG is good or bad for Turkey. We have difficulty in acknowledging the Kurdish reality and understanding the other realities that govern the region.

Yilmaz, who as Turkeys consul general was held hostage for 101 days by the Islamic State after Mosul fell to the group in 2014, contends that Iran, which is vehemently opposed to the KRGs referendum, has a more coherent policy. Call it divide and rule, or what you will, that is what Iran is doing, and this is what we lack, he said.

Irans chief of the general staff, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Baqeri, was due in Ankara as Yilmaz was responding to Al-Monitor. It is the first such visit since the Iranian Revolution, and many think the Kurdish issue will be the main topic discussed. Yilmaz disagrees, however, believing that Idlib will likely be the focus. The Kurdish question could, nevertheless, force Turkey and Iran to overcome their many differences and cooperate on the Kurdish issue.

Murat Ozcelik, Turkeys ambassador to Baghdad during 2009-11, said that although Turkey is not a key player when it comes to the Kurdish question, KRG officials still value Ankara's view on the referendum.

They get confused, though, when they hear a soft tone from the government, and a harsher one from President Erdogan in some of his public addresses, Ozcelik told Al-Monitor. This difference in tone shows that there is no coordination in Ankara on this topic.

Ozcelik also highlighted another quandary for Erdogan and the AKP. If Turkey opposes the referendum too strongly, its own Kurds will react angrily, he said, adding that Erdogan is betting on Kurdish voters in the 2019 elections.

Yet another problem for Erdogan is that cooperating with the KRG is still anathema to Turkish nationalists, who are angry over the KRGs attempts to annex Kirkuk, which they see as a traditionally Turkmen city. This compounds Erdogans situation, because he is also relying on nationalist voters in 2019.

Whichever way one looks at it, Turkeys Kurdish headache is set to continue, not specifically due to developments on the ground, but because of Ankaras lack of a visionary, long-term approach to the issue.
August 11, 2017

Turkey recently appointed 37 new ambassadors, and this lineup has some atypical players: Five of them are not career diplomats and two are headscarved women. The latter caught the publics attention.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has altered Turkeys longtime tradition of appointing career diplomats, enabling the government to nominate "outside" civilians without any sort of confirmation process.

The issue is not necessarily about the women's headscarves but rather about their family connections. The ambassador to Kuwait, Ayse Sayan Koytak, is the older sister of Turkeys Family and Social Policies Minister Fatma Kaya. Kayas younger sister, Sumeyye Sayan, made the news in April as an AKP member of the Istanbul City Municipality. Reports connected Sayan to firms that won multiple tenders from the municipality to provide psychological support services totaling a hefty yearly income of 2 million Turkish liras ($565,000). The opposition charged that this was unethical, as Sayan is a municipality official.

The second person who wears a headscarf is Merve Kavakci. In 1999, Kavakci was not allowed to take her elected seat in the Turkish parliament because of a secular ban on headscarves. She also lost her citizenship, as she had become a dual US-Turkish citizen without informing authorities. Kavakci regained her Turkish citizenship this year and is now the ambassador to Malaysia. Kavakcis younger sister has been an AKP lawmaker since 2015.

With the nomination of these two women, the importance of family ties in building a career in Turkish politics and bureaucracy has become a topic of discussion. A rhetorical but bitter question in Ankara among opposition figures is: What is the probability of becoming an ambassador if your sibling is from the AKP?

On Transparency Internationals 2013 Corruption Perception Index, Turkey ranked 53rd among 175 countries  the lower the number, the better. In 2016, it fell to 75th place among 176 countries.

In 2016, according to Transparency International findings and the polling of 2,000 people by the research firm Ipsos Group, 55% of the respondents believed corruption had increased in Turkey in the previous two years, and 60% were not hopeful that the corruption would decrease in the next two years. The most devastating finding of the detailed research is that more young respondents, compared with older respondents, think it is acceptable for a government employee to accept gifts and money. For ages 18-24, 29% said it is normal, whereas for those above 65, 11% believe such gifts are acceptable. The poll also showed that respondents with less education showed less concern about corruption than more-educated participants. Most people surveyed failed to comprehend that political corruption is stealing from their incomes. To the contrary, the general understanding goes as follows: Yes, there are some corrupt government employees, but this the reality of Turkey. Whoever comes to power will be corrupt. At least the AKP provides services.

The Turkish public's acquiescence doesn't mean people are oblivious to institutional corruption. Survey participants ranked institutions related to education, land acquisition, municipalities and health as the most troubled.

Indeed, we can see the effects of corruption and a lack of accountability in three primary areas.

First is the growth of discretionary funds. From the time now-President Recep Tayyip Erdogan became prime minister in 2003 until 2016, discretionary funds have grown by a factor of 17. In the first six months of 2017, opposition newspapers reported Erdogans and Prime Minister Binali Yildirims record-breaking spending. Their unaudited spending reached 1.7 billion Turkish liras ($481 million). These funds are growing without oversight, behind a veil of secrecy. As parliaments powers are significantly curtailed, we can only expect this sort of spending to increase.

The second area of corruption and lack of accountability is the incredible extent of cronyism seen in two areas: hiring at government agencies and bribing of government officials. Since the July 15, 2016, coup attempt, the government has been diligently purging staff from all agencies it believes might be connected. The Gulen movement has been accused of engineering high test scores on written government and military entrance exams by stealing the questions and answers for their members. There also are allegations that Alevis, Kurds and secular Turks are systematically discriminated against when they seek government jobs. One of the oppositions main concerns is that the large number of positions left vacant by the purge are being filled by members of religious orders or by family members of the AKP elite. Competition among top AKP members to secure lucrative government positions for their family members is intense. That links to the issue of bribery. Many government employees, including lawmakers, live beyond their financial means. The common complaint is that the salaries of even the top officials are not sufficient to buy a decent house or pay for education or health care for their families. So a system that leaves behind little trace of corruption has been established. Wealthy businesspeople provide payments directly to officials in exchange for getting their business deals worked out smoothly. The most obvious cases are in the media sector.

The third area of corruption and lack of accountability is that of turning state agencies into vessels to pay off loyalists. For example, Turkish Radio and Television (TRT) has been making the news for its lavish spending on private production companies. On Aug. 8, taxes for smartphones and tablets were increased to 10% of the sale price to contribute to TRTs budget. From 2015 to 2016, TRT's employee count dropped by 280 workers, but its annual employment costs increased 79 million Turkish liras. Despite employing more than 6,000 people, it still outsources programming, paying more than 753 million Turkish liras in 2016. One worker at a sitcom production agency told Al-Monitor, We do not make much money really. The money is supposedly paid to our company, but then we have to pay off government people. These are mostly pro-government academics or journalists who are hired as consultants to the show.

Perhaps the bigger the amount of money involved, the less need to hide any family connections involved. Germany's Siemens recently won the tender for a $1 billion wind-power project in Turkey with its consortium partners Turkerler and Kalyon, both Turkish companies. Energy Minister Berat Albayrak, Erdogans son-in-law, happily announced the deal, as the Kalyon Group is linked to Albayraks brother.

Another recent allegation from the opposition is that Istanbul Municipalitys "i-taxi" project (recording the voices and images of passengers) is estimated to deliver 200 million Turkish liras of annual revenue. Part of this money will allegedly be delivered to a programming company that belongs to an AKP lawmakers son.

If one uses an internet search engine to look up corruption in state institutions in Turkish, several of the top hits lead to discussions about whether such corruption is permissible in Islam. Most of the online discussions reflect that it is seen as not only an acceptable system, but also an efficient one. Getting things done is the justification for siphoning money from the state.

How long can such a system be sustained? As long as political corruption is not seen as illicit or harmful to individuals' livelihood, the system will endure.
August 14, 2017

Aidarous al-Zubaidi, the head of the South Transitional Council (STC), told Al-Monitor that the council stands with the Saudi-led Arab coalition against what he called the rebels in North Yemen, referring to the alliance between Ansar Allah (Houthis) and former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who leads the General People's Congress.

He said that he has forces fighting in areas in North Yemen alongside the coalition to defeat what he called the Iranian project. Zubaidi noted that the establishment of the council has nothing to do with his dismissal from his position as governor of Aden, saying that the idea of establishing the council came up a year ago. He asserted that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has no goals and plans in South Yemen and that there is no disagreement between Saudi Arabia and the UAE regarding the war in Yemen. He also said that he was the first to uncover Qatars involvement in supporting terrorist groups in Aden and a number of areas in South Yemen.

Al-Monitor interviewed Zubaidi via email, on July 31, almost a month after his return from a tour that included Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt. He visited Riyadh on May 11, where he met Saudi officers and briefed them on the progress of counterterrorism efforts and the achievements of the Aden security forces. Then, on May 19, Zubaidi traveled to Abu Dhabi, where he met with Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and senior UAE officials. On May 24, he headed to Cairo, where he met former Yemeni President Ali Nasser Mohammed and stayed there until returning to Yemen on July 3.

The text of the interview follows.

Al-Monitor: You toured Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Who did you meet and what were the objectives of these visits?

Zubaidi: I wanted to meet the Saudi-led coalition leadership to discuss the latest developments in South Yemen, especially after the announcement of the formation of the South Transitional Council. I was able to present the STC, its objectives and vision on many issues  such as crushing the Houthi coup and solving the social and security situation in the south. The visit to Saudi Arabia aimed to discuss how to face and defeat the rebels and how to foil the Iranian expansionist project in the region. These same topics were discussed with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and senior UAE officials. Some development projects in South Yemen were also discussed.

In Egypt, I met with former [South Yemen] President Ali Nasser Mohammed and listened to his vision on the internal situation in Yemen and how to address internal affairs in South Yemen to obtain freedom and independence. It is not true that Mohammed opposes the formation of the STC; he is rather one of the supporters of this process. Meeting with Egyptian officials was not part of the visit. Another visit to Cairo is planned to discuss with Egyptian leadership issues of common concern. Egypt's role is pivotal and indispensable.

Al-Monitor: How was the STC formed? Is this related to your dismissal from your position as governor of Aden by President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi?

Zubaidi: Our declaration of the STC is the culmination of a struggle ongoing for many years. This step aims to unite the southern leadership and find a just political solution to the southern issue. About a year ago, I called for the establishment of a southern political entity during my tenure as governor of the capital Aden. From that moment, the preparations for the establishment of this entity continued and were crowned by the announcement of the STC. This means that all news and rumors linking the establishment of the STC to my dismissal are not true. I did not establish the STC as a retaliatory reaction to my dismissal.

Al-Monitor: Why does the UAE support your movements and formation of the STC?

Zubaidi: The UAEs support to our people is a sincere and enlightened position stemming from the UAEs long history in supporting vulnerable peoples in the face of injustice. When the UAE offered our people all this generous support  in terms of money and forces  it was not expecting anything in return. We have nothing to offer but our gratitude. Our people will never forget those who stood by them and offered them a helping hand in their ordeal. They will always appreciate the UAEs support.

Al-Monitor: Is the UAE planning a long stay in South Yemen?

Zubaidi: Many rumors shroud the UAEs intervention in South Yemen. Indeed, this country is helping rebuild our national army and working to secure the international waterway from the rebels coups and terrorist groups. This is a priority for the world, for the Arab coalition and for the region.

Al-Monitor: So you are saying that the UAE has no plans or goals for Socotra Island and the port of Aden?

Zubaidi: Those who are spreading these ridiculous rumors are those that have been hurt by the victories of the southern resistance and the Arab coalition. The UAE is reconstructing and rehabilitating infrastructure in Aden, Socotra and Hadramout. It is only natural for hostile parties to spread such malicious rumors. The southerners will not accept in any way to forsake any grain of dust from their homeland, you can be sure of that.

Al-Monitor: How do you respond to those who say that your move reflects Saudi-UAE disagreements on the war in Yemen?

Zubaidi: There are no disagreements and we do not plan on exploiting and betting on any disagreements between our Arab coalition brethren countries. The last position on the crisis with Qatar confirms the solid relationship between Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other Arab countries.

Al-Monitor: What is your position on the current Gulf crisis?

Zubaidi: From the very beginning, we were clear that we were against terrorist groups and any state that supports them, because we had suffered a lot from terrorism. It is thanks to the support of the Arab coalition, specifically the UAE, to the command of Aden securitys director Maj. Gen. Shalal Ali Shayea, to the sacrifices of soldiers and the solidarity of the southern citizens that we were able to defeat al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and the other terrorist groups amid difficult circumstances and in a short time. We were the first to take a position against Qatar as being involved in supporting terrorist groups in Aden and many liberated southern regions.

Al-Monitor: Declaring independence requires an international decision. What are the messages that you have received from international parties?

Zubaidi: The world is convinced that South Yemen is the most appropriate partner in combating terrorism, securing borders with its neighbors and preserving the security of the region and the international waterways. There is great satisfaction expressed by many countries and the outcomes will be positive, God willing.

Al-Monitor: The waterway in the Red Sea is a red line for Egypt, the West and Gulf states. Therefore, clear agreements regarding this waterway must be reached before settling the issue of independence of South Yemen. What do you have to say about that?

Zubaidi: The southerners proved to be a great partner in preserving stability and security in the region, including the Red Sea. Egypt and the entire world have witnessed how the south has been an active and faithful partner in securing this important international waterway. We are also ready to cooperate in order to protect this strategic waterway against pirates and thieves and anything that could be questioned by the international community.

Al-Monitor: President Hadis loyalists and the groups that are said to be linked to Saudi Arabia began to move in Aden. Fighting erupts from time to time, even at Aden airport. How do you explain this?

Zubaidi: These are the post-war repercussions. It is only normal for militias to emerge during this period and Aden is no exception. The coalition has been working for two years to bring back normal life to Aden, without resorting to violence and through understandings that led to the handover of the airport to the Aden Security Directorate. These sporadic events are usually blown out of proportion by the parties that are against the south and the coalition. At the end of the day, we are in times of war.

Al-Monitor: You say that you are still part of the Arab coalition in the Yemeni war. Does that mean that you are still fighting in the north against the forces of Ansar Allah, i.e., the Houthis, and former President Ali Abdullah Saleh?

Zubaidi: Yes, our soldiers remain stationed on many fronts  such as in Mocha in Taiz province  making sacrifices. They are also fighting side by side with the coalition forces on other fronts like Karash in Lahij governorate and Beihan in Shabwa governorate.

Al-Monitor: Why are southerners fighting in the north?

Zubaidi: Because we are part of the Arab coalition forces. There are strategic goals for this coalition led by Saudi Arabia. The STC supports the coalition to defeat the rebels, which is a key objective. One should not forget that the rebels are the ones who invaded, destroyed and killed in the south. We want to make sure that this will never occur again at the hands of these murderous groups.

Al-Monitor: Do southern leaders unanimously approve your steps?

Zubaidi: Of course. All southern leaders approve of our steps. Ambassador Kassem Askar Jubran, the secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Peaceful Southern Movement, has expressed support for the STC, as well as Lahij Gov. Nasser al-Khabji, former Hadramout Gov. Ahmed Said Ben Brik and former Vice President Ali Salim al-Beidh.

Al-Monitor: Is there any contact between you and northern leaders?

Zubaidi: We do not have any problem with the people of North Yemen. Many intellectuals in the brotherly north support us and our peoples right to self-determination, in such a way to ensure good relations between the two brotherly peoples.
A Birmingham lighting company has been sold to a Florida company.

Maitland, Florida's SESCO Lighting has bought G2 Lighting Agency, based at 255 Riverchase Parkway in Birmingham.

SESCO's President and CEO Todd Langner said the company made the acquisition because the company wanted to expand into Alabama, both to expand the geographic presence and to increase opportunities in the Gulf Coast and Atlanta markets.

G2 and its employees will be integrated into SESCO over the next month.

SESCO has more than 250 employees and annual sales of nearly $300 million. It has 14 branch offices and eight support divisions.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

"When looking at this acquisition, it quickly became apparent that Shannon Godwin and the team at G2 Lighting were an extraordinarily good fit for SESCO," SESCO Chairman Marshall Graham said in a press release. "The fact that SESCO and G2 Lighting are both specification driven companies made Shannon's team the obvious choice."
Metro Diner will go from no Alabama locations to four within a year.

The restaurant, which was featured on the Food Network show Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, is in the process of opening new locations in Vestavia Hills and Madison.

The Vestavia Hills location will open this fall at 1088 Montgomery Highway. It'll occupy 4,800 square feet.

The Madison location will open this winter at 7620 U.S. Highway 72. It'll occupy 3,800 square feet.

"Alabama is a great family state that has welcomed the Metro Diner team with open arms," Todd Ianniello, Metro Diner Joint Venture Partner for Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, said in a statement. "We are thrilled to currently have two locations in Birmingham and Tuscaloosa and look forward to expanding throughout the state as a place where our diners can create memories around the table."

The restaurant offers new takes on classic dishes, like fried chicken and waffles with homemade strawberry butter, and Charleston Shrimp and Grits and hand-cut home fries. Most entrees cost less than $15.

Earlier this year, the restaurant opened its first Alabama location in Tuscaloosa. Metro Diner was founded in 1992. In August, Metro Diner opened off of U.S. 280 in Birmingham.
An assistant clerk in the northeast Alabama town of Ider is accused of stealing tens of thousands of dollars from the town.

Pamela Thompson Harris, a 48-year-old from nearby Henagar, worked as an assistant clerk for 18 months before she was arrested Friday on four felony charges, said Ider police Chief Buddy Crabtree.

Crabtree said police began investigating after discrepancies were discovered the town's payroll tax accounts and bookeeping. Ider is a DeKalb County town with fewer than 1,000 residents.

"We called in an auditor and conducted our investigation," the chief said. "We sent the case to the (district attorney) and came back with four felony warrants."

The charges include two counts of fraudulent use of a credit/debit card, and one count each of first-degree forgery and first-degree theft.

Crabtree told AL.com he could release only few details of the case but said the theft "reaches into the tens of thousands."

The monthslong investigation included probing records that date back to 2016, when the theft is believed to have begun, the chief said.

As an assistant clerk, Harris was responsible for payroll accounts, accounts receivable and accounts payable.

If convicted of all charges, Harris faces up to 40 years in prison. She was arrested and released from the DeKalb County Jail on $6,000 bail late Friday.
Birmingham City Hall

The contentious Birmingham mayor's race is nearing its conclusion.

Birmingham voters have one week to make their decision and cast their votes on Aug. 22.

Many issues have become central in the race, including the mayor's working relationship with the city council, crime, economic development, street paving and weed abatement.

In the third and final installment of our series on issues affecting Birmingham, AL.com let the candidates for mayor give their take on what the biggest challenges the city's 99 neighborhoods are facing.

The candidates were asked the following questions:

What are the biggest issues facing Birmingham's underserved neighborhoods? How would you work to solve these issues?

Eight of the 12 candidates responded to AL.com's questions. Here are their responses:

Randall Woodfin: If we truly want to make Birmingham the best version of itself, we need a mayor that embraces economic development downtown, yet remains responsive to the needs of the other 98 neighborhoods across the city. Sadly, the biggest issue facing our underserved neighborhoods are neglect from the Bell administration and a lack of opportunity for our unemployed and underemployed residents.

I plan to generate opportunity in neighborhoods that are persistently left behind through a six-point agenda that will begin with revitalization plans for every City Council district that identify priorities for neighborhood renewal and development and the deployment of interdepartmental neighborhood revitalization teams that would work to implement each neighborhood plan.

My revitalization agenda also gives residents in underserved communities a stronger voice through participatory budgeting for capital projects in their communities. I will also commit unprecedented resources for demolishing and land banking abandoned properties, weed abatement, and street resurfacing and sidewalk repairs. Seven years of neglect and inattention from Mayor Bell has created a logjam of overgrown lots and abandoned properties, but that will change on the first day of a Woodfin administration.

Additionally, my opportunity agenda targets some of Birmingham's most distressed neighborhoods through the creation of repurposed community centers as "Opportunity Centers" and targeted tax credits for hiring residents from high-unemployment communities. The Opportunity Centers will partner with local job training and workforce development providers to connect Birmingham residents to training, adult education and local employment opportunities. I will also create an "Opportunity Tax Credit" for employers in Birmingham that hire and retain residents from high-unemployment neighborhoods as well as public housing residents and formerly incarcerated residents.

Fernandez Sims: The biggest issues that face our underserved neighborhoods are that they are uncared for from the standpoint of infrastructure (abandoned properties), public safety (violent crime against the citizens and property crimes), and education (failing schools will have to be eliminated). To revitalize and serve our neighborhoods in the best way, will take a holistic approach that encompasses dealing with these great needs.

Trudy Hunter: The lack of planning with the revitalization process, because it breeds high crime. We must have a comprehensive plan that would acknowledge the interdependent nature of the many challenges, including access to transportation and quality housing, barriers to limited economic development activity and securing employment, as well as the environmental barriers. During the process of writing my dissertation on Juvenile Injustice: Disproportionate Minority Contact in Alabama research shows that Birmingham ranked 6th as the most dangerous city to live in Alabama. Every year the FBI releases two crime datasets, a preliminary dataset limited to the biggest cities in the country, followed by a more detailed release at the end of the year.

Data analysis was used from 2015 that showed the most dangerous cities currently in the Heart of Dixie are, this order: Bessemer, Anniston, Tarrant, Lanett, Jasper, Birmingham, Gadsden, Childersburg, Prichard and Talladega. Data sets for 2016 will be released in September 2017. In 2013, 24/7 wallstreet.com citied that Birmingham was ranked overall fourth worse in the country when it was found that nearly a third of the foreclosed homes were abandoned. Finally, in July 2017, wallethub.com ranked the Best & Worst Places for First-Time Home Buyers and Birmingham, AL was ranked 208 out of 300 cities listed.

ln order to address the many challenges distressed urban areas face, it is critical for all leaders across both the private and public sectors, and all agencies to meet and identify key challenges affecting their communities. We must establish shared outcomes to empower residents in investing, inspiring and encouraging every individual with the authority to make and create change to address those issues. By collaboration that empowers teamwork and partners to support community success with adequate education and income, clean environment, secure housing and employment, the ability to control stress, and a continuous social support network, by aligning up with the many sources of resources identified so that we can create a joint plan that builds on the strength of each stakeholder group.

Chris Woods: The biggest issue facing Birmingham's underserved neighborhoods is the fact that there is no long-term plan that includes all of our neighborhoods. The city has all of the resources it needs to effectively correct many of the problems the neighborhoods face, but unfortunately under the current administration it just does not seem to be a priority. I believe that you determine what someone's priorities are by observing what they spend their money on and when I look at the most recent budget proposed by the mayor, it doesn't reflect that the neighborhoods are a priority.

As mayor, I will implement a long-term strategy to ensure that all dilapidated houses are removed, to ensure that sidewalks are installed/maintained, to ensure that potholes are repaired and to ensure that the neighborhoods are included in new developments. I plan to bring government closer to the people and a large part of this plan is to develop a municipal city council office in each district. This development will allow the residents to have more access to their council member and bring a multi-purpose development to each district that will serve as an anchor tenant and will attract more business and organizations to the area.

William Bell: The biggest issues facing Birmingham neighborhoods are economic development, public safety and infrastructure.

We must unleash the creative potential of small-scale manufacturing, and the maker movement, an ever-growing group ranging from hobbyists and tinkerers to independent designers, inventors and other entrepreneurs. We are at the frontline of innovation to create a more inclusive, diverse, vibrant and economically strong city, overcoming challenges and grabbing opportunities to make Birmingham a brighter place for local business. We have actively engaged in partnership with UAB, Birmingham Business Alliance and Innovation Depot to help create and grown more tech jobs focusing on career technology including Tech Hire and The Craft Career Tech Academy that partners with our Birmingham City School System.

Like most cities across the nation, the murder rate had dropped significantly in 2013 and 2014 but has followed the national trend and is back up again. Public safety is always the top priority of our city. We are actively engaged with every segment of the community to alleviate crime and keep our citizens safe. Even though homicides have seen an uptick in crime, crime is still at its lowest point in decades.

We have many initiatives that have been put in place to find viable solutions and keep our communities safer. The city of Birmingham was one of five cities in the nation to receive a grant for violence reduction entitled the Birmingham Violence Reduction Initiative balancing strong consequences for street groups involved in murder with a firm commitment to help individuals turn their lives around.

This model was chosen because recent research shows this to be one of the most effective strategies in reducing crime. Everyone has to get involved- ministers, outreach workers, members of neighborhood associations, ex-offenders and others with positive influence over street groups - join together with law enforcement and social service providers in a partnership to directly engage with these groups and clearly communicate a credible moral message against violence from key community leaders, and a credible message from law enforcement about the consequences of further violence with a genuine offer of help from social service providers like The Dannon Project for those who want it.

Community policing and revitalization is another solution to assist in our efforts to combat crime in every community throughout the city. We have also partnered with the YWCA to help reduce issues such as domestic violence, sexual abuse and human trafficking.

We are incorporating bike paths, more green spaces, handicap-accessible sidewalks, brighter energy saving LED lighting in every neighborhood, repairing potholes, tearing down abandoned homes, cutting overgrown lots, and securing federal, state, and local funds for the Maxine Herring Parker bridge in North Birmingham so residents will have better access to travel.

The city has made a promise to repave every street in all 99 neighborhoods within the next three years, and implemented the first Land Bank Authority in the state to reduce blight.

We know the impact and the effect that infrastructure decisions can have on the lives of our most vulnerable citizens. We are addressing and taking steps to improve health outcomes by linking elements of infrastructure to public health and have partnered with the Jefferson County Health Department, Cooper Green, and UAB. We also placed emphasis on the importance of active, and safe transportation and funded the new Intermodal Transportation Facility with a combination of federal, state and local funds, the Zyp bike share program, walking trails that add to the overall vitality of Birmingham and her citizens. We are constantly looking at how these decisions will impact our citizens in a positive manner that will add to the vibrancy of our city.

Frank Matthews: Poverty is the greatest issue facing Birmingham and will continue to be the issue for the next four years. We must consider the fact that for 40 years, poverty in Birmingham been in the 30th percentile. Dealing with the issue of poverty should be the highest priority.

We must consider the fact that 74 percent of Birmingham's population is black and it's more astounding that the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) was $64 billion last year. But yet, 37 percent of Birmingham's people live in poverty and 63 percent are barely living above the poverty level, which means that only 1 percent are currently thriving in Birmingham.

These demographics are shocking when you consider the fact that again, 74 percent of the population is black.

My answer? The financial institutions that have Birmingham money on deposit must invest more within the 164 square miles of Birmingham. Specifically, the financial institutions must invest more within the poverty-stricken areas and must be in compliance with the 1979 Congressional Community Reinvestment Act.

As 34th mayor of the city of Birmingham, within my first 21 days, I will convene a meeting with the CEOs and their shareholders that have more than $1 million of Birmingham monies on deposit within their banks. I will seek a comprehensive plan within 90 days that would deal with the issues of poverty within the city of Birmingham. I will set up the mayor's office of small business stimulus. I will offer my $40 million plan, which is to set aside $10 million per year for up to 200 small businesses to receiving $50,000 to arrest hardship issues that hamper their growth. There are other measures initiate and undertake to deal with the 30th percentile of poverty in Birmingham.

The citizens of Birmingham can be assured that under Frank Matthews' leadership, poverty will not exist in the 30th percentiles for the next 40 years because of measures I will put in place as 34th mayor of Birmingham.

Randy Davis: Our neighborhoods roads and drainage system needs to be revitalized. I will also work with Alabama power to light our neighborhoods. We need to initiate community programs, such as GED and trade, and add community centers. With these centers in place, I would then Initiate a city-sponsored after-school mentoring program for students. Birmingham is ready, and I'm ready to take it to the next level.

Patricia Bell: The problem of predatory lending was caused by negligence on the part of poor political watchmen. Before Birmingham tax dollars are placed into any bank, citizens should be assured of no discriminatory practices. Voters in Birmingham went to payday loans because their politicians didn't speak up for them when bank relations were established with the taxpayers' money. It won't happen when I'm elected mayor. I was the city's first woman to ask for this job in 1995.

Imparting knowledge about services available to citizens will be top priority in my administration.
Birmingham Mayor William Bell, on Tuesday afternoon, ordered the Confederate monument at Linn Park covered while legal options to remove it are being considered.

This move comes just hours after Birmingham City Council President Johnathan Austin, earlier on Tuesday, asked Bell to defy Alabama law and remove Confederate monuments from city parks.

"We need to take them down," he told the mayor during the city council's weekly meeting. "We will deal with the repercussions after that."

The monuments are "offensive to our citizens," Austin said.

The monument was temporarily covered in plastic this afternoon. The plastic was later removed. Around 9 p.m., city crews arrived at the park to replace the covering with plywood.

Austin readdressed the controversial issue days after a woman was killed and more than 19 people were injured Saturday when an Ohio man drove a car through a crowd of people in Charlottesville, Va. protesting neo-Nazis and white nationalists. The violent protests stemmed from that city's efforts to remove a Confederate monument.

The deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville has renewed calls around the nation for the removal of Confederate statues, according to the Associated Press. In some cases the statues have been removed by protesters, such as in Durham North Carolina and in other cities or states politicians are calling for the monument removals, such as in Baltimore and San Antonio, the AP reports.

Workers covered the monument. (Contributed)

Austin issued this statement after learning of Bell's order:

"Thanks to Mayor Bell for coming around to understand the pain caused by the continued presence of these monuments. I appreciate his commitment to upholding the laws.

"However, more than 50 years ago in a cell just a few blocks from where we sit today, Dr. (Martin Luther) King (Jr.) instructed us on the importance of identifying and defying unjust laws. In a letter from the Birmingham jail, he advised us, 'Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.' There is nothing more degrading than slavery, or the rejection of the fundamental principle that all men are created equal. The so-called 'lost cause' of the Confederacy degraded African Americans and any celebration of that gives life to that cause. I call on Mayor Bell to reject the degradation of the citizens he was elected to serve. Mr. Mayor, tear down those statues."

Two years ago, the Birmingham Park and Recreation Board unanimously approved a resolution to ask city attorneys to research the removal of the 112-year-old monument to Confederate veterans at Birmingham's Linn Park.

Save Our South, a nonprofit organization that aims to "preserve history and provide a voice for Southerners," filed a lawsuit to prevent the removal.

During Tuesday's city council meeting, Bell said he is looking to challenge state law prohibiting local governments from moving historical monuments on public property.

Gov. Kay Ivey signed the bill into law in May. Breaking the law could result in a $25,000 fine.

Within a short time of Austin's suggestion on Tuesday a Gofundme account was established by a group called "People of Birmingham" with a goal of $25,000 to pay the state fine for the removal of the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Birmingham Alabama's Linn Park. As of early afternoon, $180 had been raised.

Bell said the monument at Linn Park was put there with private funds.

But, the mayor said he wouldn't break the law and remove it.

"I am not in the business to break the law, I am charged to protect," he said, but adding that he will challenge the law.

Bell told Austin that he and the rest of the city council could "disregard the law just as well and go and take it down."

During Tuesday's meeting, Austin gave Bell a few options to consider in the removal of the monument. He said order the removal immediately, or ask the Birmingham Parks and Recreation Department to remove it.

He said the mayor could also ask for legal advice from the city law department. No matter their answer, Austin said Bell should remove the monument and deal with the repercussions later.

Austin also suggested Bell could submit an application to the state and ask permission to remove the monument.

"If they say no, we still take them down," he said.

The 52-foot memorial at Linn Park was commissioned by the Pelham Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and dedicated in 1905.
The mother of a young boy shot while waiting at a Birmingham bus stop said she and her son were running away when they realized a bullet had struck him.

"All he said was, 'Mom, I'm hit,''' Jawanna Kinnion said in interview from Children's of Alabama.

Kinnion and her 8-year-old son, a third-grader whose name she didn't want used, were standing at the bus stop in the 6000 block of First Avenue North about 6:30 a.m. when she saw a man and woman get into an argument.

"As we were standing there, a fight broke out and I took off running with my child,'' she said.

She said she never dreamed gunfire would erupt. "I just didn't want him to see that (a fight), period,'' she said. "As we were running, shots went off. We were still running."

Eventually, they ended up in the parking lot of Pacific Seafood. There was a burning sensation in the young boy's leg, and he told her he was wounded. "I pulled up his shorts and that's when I saw it,'' she said. "It wasn't bad, but it was bad enough."

Kinnion said she was panicking. "He saw me praying and he thought I'd gotten hurt,'' she said. "Then he realized I was standing there praying."

While she said she was "freaking out,'' the wounded boy kept calm. "He calmed me down to be honest,'' she said. "He was real brave about the situation."

Birmingham police spokesman Lt. Sean Edwards said the argument was between a white female and a black male. The male - 40 - also was shot. He was taken to the hospital with a gunshot wound to the leg, where he was treated and already released.

The suspected female shooter fled the scene. A white female was taken into custody at a nearby apartment complex. Edwards said it is unclear right now whether that woman is the shooter.

Kinnion, who has three children, said doctors are keeping her son in the hospital overnight but he is expected to be OK. She said he's not happy to be missing school for several days, but is somewhat enjoying the attention - at least just a little. "He's actually been really calm,'' she said.

Her son is the third child wounded by gunfire in Birmingham in just 10 days. On Monday night, a child under the age of 10 was shot in the hand during a robbery at an east Birmingham apartment complex. On Saturday, Aug. 5, 2-year-old Duke Austin was shot and killed while riding in a vehicle with his parents and another man in Avondale.

Kinnion said Tuesday was a day of reflection for her as she stayed by her son's side. "It's just crazy. Stuff is happening every day, but I didn't really expect it to happen to us,'' she said. "I've just been sitting here thinking about it all. Honestly, I'm just grateful that he's OK because it could have been worse."
A second Alabama school system has announced it will close early on Aug. 21 for the solar eclipse.

The Houston County School System will dismiss schools at 11 a.m., according to Superintendent David Sewell. The decision was made on safety grounds, he said.

"In the interest of safety for our students and affording them an opportunity to experience this unusual natural phenomenon outside the structured environment of a school campus, I feel it is best to dismiss Houston County Schools at 11 a.m," Sewell told WSFA. "By doing this, each parent can ensure their child's safety and have the opportunity to watch the eclipse."

He encouraged schools that have purchased approved safety glasses to send a pair home with each student.



Last week, Madison City Schools became the first system in the state to announce it was closing on the day of the Great American Eclipse. Superintendent Robby Parker said the system could not provide glasses to its more than 10,000 students and that safety concerns dictated his decision.

The eclipse will start Monday morning in Oregon before moving along a path of totality from the west coast to South Carolina. While outside the path of totality, Alabama will experience as much as 97 percent coverage of the sun starting at about 1:20 p.m.

Experts advise anyone looking at the eclipse to use special glasses or viewing devices to avoid eye damage.

While Houston and Madison are the only systems to announce early dismissal so far, schools across the state are taking viewing precautions.

The potential for eye damage has prompted many systems to require permission slips and other steps for students wanting to watch the Monday eclipse. Some schools have provided safety viewing glasses and many are requiring younger students to watch the event via livestream.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions said President Donald Trump has not apologized for verbally attacking him, adding he thinks it is appropriate for the president to publicly criticize his own cabinet.

Appearing on the "Today" show, Sessions was asked if the president had apologized for a series of scathing comments calling the former Attorney General "weak" and "beleaguered." Reports soon surfaced that Trump was considering firing Sessions, once one of his closest allies.

Sessions, who has maintained he planned to stay at his post, said Monday he continues to support the president.

"I believe in the president's agenda; I believe in his leadership," Sessions said. "He has a right to scold his Cabinet members if he's not happy with them. And he has the right to have people in his Cabinet he believes will serve his agenda."

Sessions said he continues to meet with the president and "appreciates the opportunity to serve in his administration."

"He has not apologized," Sessions said when asked again about the president's comments. "He is very frank about his concerns and he expressed them openly."

Sessions appeared on the morning program to defend the president's statements in regards to racial violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.

You can watch the exchange below:
How Muslims perform the rituals of the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.

Millions of Muslims from around the world gather annually in Mecca in anticipation of Hajj  the Muslim pilgrimage, which follows the actions of the Prophet Muhammad 1,377 years ago.

Taking part in the pilgrimage at least once in ones lifetime is a major obligation for all able-bodied Muslims of financial means, and between two and three million people participate in the six-day ritual every year.

Hajj occurs in the 12th month of the Islamic lunar calendar, called Dhul-Hijjah, between the eighth and 13th days of the month.

While the specific rituals carried out by Muslims today date back to the Prophet Muhammads farewell pilgrimage in 632 AD, travelling to Mecca was a sacred annual rite for Arabian tribes centuries before the advent of Islam.

According to Islamic tradition, the Kaaba  a black silk-clad stone structure at the heart of the Grand Mosque in Mecca  was built by the Prophet Abraham in biblical times.

Hajj is, put simply, complex. There are several different ways of performing it, and numerous schools of Islamic thought, between which lie many scholarly differences. Here is a breakdown of the steps included in performing hajj.

Enter ihram (the sacred state)

The very first rite of Hajj is entering ihram  a pilgrims sacred state  when crossing the outer boundaries of Mecca, called Miqat.

On the eighth of Dhul-Hijjah, pilgrims enter ihram, which entails wearing plain garments  two unstitched cloths for men, or loose-fitting clothing for women  as well as following certain rules, such as not giving in to anger or engaging in sexual activity.

Head to Mina, a sprawling tent city

The pilgrims then set out en masse from Mecca to the sprawling tent-city of Mina, whether by foot along pilgrim paths or by buses and cars. It is an 8 km journey.

The pilgrims will spend the day in Mina, only setting out the next morning at dawn. Most of the time in Mina is spent in prayer and remembering Allah.

Spend the day at Arafat

The Day of Arafat is considered one of the most important days, not just of Hajj, but of the Islamic calendar. Mount Mercy at Arafat was the scene of the Prophet Muhammads final sermon. After making the 14.4 km journey from Mina, pilgrims spend the day here in reverent prayer.

Elsewhere in the world, many Muslims choose to fast on this day.

Collect pebbles at Muzdalifah

After sunset, its time to move again, this time to Muzdalifah  a 9 km trip  where they spend the night under the stars. Many will also begin collecting pebbles here for tomorrows rites, departing again just before sunrise.





Throw stones at the pillars

For those performing Hajj, the day is known as yawm-ul hajj al-akbar (The big hajj day) and is probably the longest day of the pilgrimage, and the most dangerous.The 10th of Dhul-Hijjah is Eid al-Adha, a day celebrated by Muslims around the world as the greater of the two Muslim holidays.

Pilgrims start the day in Muzdalifah and begin heading back to Mina before dawn. Once in Mina, they perform the first rami, throwing seven pebbles at the largest of three columns known as Jamarat.

This act is a symbolic stoning of the devil, based on historical tradition. God told Abraham to sacrifice his son, the story goes, as proof of faith. It is believed that at this spot in Mina, the devil appeared and tried to dissuade Abraham from heeding the command. Abraham responded by throwing stones to scare him off.

Millions of pilgrims converge at the Jamarat Bridge, which houses the three columns representing the devil, in order to re-enact the story.

The bridge has been the sight of deadly stampedes in the past, with around 350 people being crushed to death in 2006.

But in recent years, the event has taken place without major incident.

After casting their stones, pilgrims must perform the sacrifice. Completing the story, when Abraham went to sacrifice his son, he found God had placed a ram there to be slaughtered instead.

Pilgrims thus must slaughter a sheep, goat, cow or camel  or more likely, pay for it to be done in their names.

At this point, pilgrims trim or shave (men only) their hair and remove their ihram clothes. Many will then proceed to Mecca to perform tawaf and saee, first circling the Kaaba seven times, then walking seven times between the hills of Safa and Marwa.

When all is finally done, they return to their campsite in Mina.

Final days in Mina

On each day, they will again symbolically stone the devil  this time throwing seven pebbles at each of the three pillars.With the hardest part behind them, pilgrims will now spend the next two or three days in Mina.

When their time in Mina is finished, the pilgrims return to Mecca to perform the final circulation of the Kaaba, a farewell tawaf.

Before heading home, many also go to Medina, the second holiest city in Islam, where the Prophet Muhammad is buried along with his closest companions. Visiting Medina, however, is not part of the pilgrimage.
The forthcoming summit is likely to increase Israels influence in the UN and the African continent, Palestinians say.

A group of Palestinian activists, academics, and civil society organisations have launched a campaign to deter African nations from partaking in the upcoming Africa-Israel summit, slated to take place in Togo in October.

Several African countries, including South Africa, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Mauritania, have already decided to boycott the summit, where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to meet leaders from more than 20 countries to rekindle a diplomatic and economic relationship. The summit will be the first of its kind.





According to activist Razan Zuayter, a campaign organiser based in Jordan, the Popular Conference for Palestinians Abroad is seeking to point out to African countries Israels dangerous activities in the continent, such as its diamond trade, often illegally imported from Africa as revealed in a 2009 United Nations report, and its mistreatment of African minorities in Israel.

If it [the summit] happens, we want a counter movement to emerge in Africa that can act in parallel to it, Zuayter told Al Jazeera.

The summit, scheduled for October 23, will have leaders from Africa and Israel discuss ways to enhance cooperation in the fields of technology, development and security.

In a letter addressed to African governments and their respective embassies, the Popular Conference for Palestinians Abroad organisation called for the boycott of the summit on the basis that establishing relations with an apartheid state and condoning its actions against the occupied Palestinian people comes in violation of various UN conventions.

African countries which fought colonialism for decades and became free after a long suffering should never associate themselves with the only, longest and most brutal colonial project in the world today, the letter reads.

In the name of justice and freedom and in the name of the African legacy of long struggle for freedom, we ask your country to disassociate from Israels Apartheid regime.

Netanyahu previously pledged to strengthen ties with the continent and described his pledge as a priority at a regional security conference he attended in Liberia in June 2017.

I believe in Africa, I believe in its potential- present and future. It is a continent on the rise, he said in his address to West African leaders.

Historically, African leaders did not have warm relationships with the State of Israel. Following the 1973 October War, sub-Saharan African countries severed ties with Israel. In 2016, Netanyahu became the first Israeli leader to visit sub-Saharan Africa in almost three decades.

READ MORE: Israels Africa policies an exercise in cynicism

The organisation, representing the Palestinian diaspora, is also working with civil society groups and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) on the ground to pressure participating governments into pulling out from the summit.

While these new friendships with Israel might bring certain African countries short-term benefitsthey should beware of Israel's longer-term agenda, which may ultimately be detrimental to their own national interests. by Ayesha Kajee, South African political analyst

Salman Abu Sitta, Chairperson of the organisation, told Al Jazeera that these African countries have been hard, determined fighters in the battle against western colonialism.

It [the summit] is a very sad regression; it is regrettable that they deny that history and became enemies of their historyto become aligned with the very epitome of racism and discrimination that is Israel, he said.

Is Togo ready to send ships of slaves from Togo to Israel in annotation of their long history? he added.

According to Abu Sitta, the main consequence of a renewed Africa-Israel relationship is losing what is now a solid majority in the UN General Assembly in favour of ending the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Traditionally, African nations have been supporters of the Palestinian cause when voting on resolutions concerning the right of return, the dismantlement of the Separation Wall, and ending the illegal settlement expansion project.

Out of 193 member states, there are 54 African states in the UN.

If we lose them [African votes], it is very dangerous, Abu Sitta explained.

Israel will have centres of influence in these countries, which will actively increase Israels influence in the UN and in the African continent, he added, pointing out that the countries involved with organising the summit, including Togo, may have private or monetary motives for setting up the summit.

Al Jazeera reached out to the summit organisers for comment but received no reply in time for publication.

Similarly, Ghada Karmi, an academic and spokesperson for the organisation, told Al Jazeera that the campaign is significant in encouraging a discussion about Israeli apartheid policies and in raising awareness.

Israel, Karmi said, is determined to carry out the summit to reverse or abolish the pro-Arab policy of the African states. If the summit were successful, it would be a milestone on the Israeli campaign, she explained.

We have to ask what is Israel offering to the African countries  it seems to us that it is offering support for dictators, she said, which would aid governments in repressing liberation movements. This [campaign] should be done at the state level, said Karmi, describing the lack of government action as problematic.

We have been reaching out to states to condemn this summit, not only African governments.

FEATURE: Its okay to be racist in Israel

South African human rights activist and political analyst Ayesha Kajee, based in Johannesburg, told Al Jazeera that Israel has been on a mission to strengthen ties with Africa, even to the extent of attempting to gain observer status at the African Union.

While these new friendships with Israel might bring certain African countries short-term benefitsthey should beware of Israels longer-term agenda, which may ultimately be detrimental to their own national interests, she said.

During Netanyahus visit to the continent in 2016, the Israeli government approved a $13m deal in development packages for African countries. The move was intended to symbolise the start of a closer economic relationship.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from the Occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, Mustafa Barghouti, the former Palestinian information minister and general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative political party, said that Israel is taking advantage of its technological abilities and of its military and security services to carry out the summit.

We started seeing changing trends in the UN with regards to the Palestinian cause, he said. Loss of support could lead to dominance of the Israeli narrative about the Palestinian issue and about the situation today.

In addition to utilising support from the United States to establish a base in African countries, Barghouti said that this relationship is a chance for Israel to market their products and surveillance services, especially at a time where the activities of the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement are proving effective in curbing Israels economic success.

Naeem Jeenah, executive director of the Afro-Middle East Centre in Johannesburg, told Al Jazeera that a relationship with Israel would undermine African countries sovereignty.

Through marketing their products and services, Israel seeks to penetrate into the security services of these countries, Jeenah explained.

It is a problem when a foreign state takes over the security functions of another governmentthey [African governments] become dependent on the Israelis, he said.

Despite ongoing efforts to raise awareness, according to Jeenah, some 15 African countries are already in the Israeli camp, and no amount of civil society can reverse that.

African countries who oppose Israeli policies have not been vocal, he says, but with more government pressure, countries on the fencecould be influenced.
Experts calculate that malaria cases could triple this year as the country suffers from a shortage of medication.

Las Claritas, Bolivar state, Venezuela  The health clinic in the mining town of Las Claritas has broken windows and a sign informing patients that malaria treatments are not available until further notice.

Jose Grifon sits on the ground a few metres from the clinics door, his pallid face full of desperation. His friend sits silently beside him, his head between his knees, his body shivering.

Ive had malaria 40 times already, says Grifon, coughing. The 22-year-old miner has experienced so many relapses because proper treatment is difficult to come by.

Its stuck in my kidney, he says, referring to the symptoms of renal failure he has experienced as a result of the disease.

Worldwide, malaria has affected 212 million people, according to the latest figures from the World Health Organization, with a mortality rate of nearly 30 percent.

According to some reports, 18 of Venezuelas 23 states are experiencing an outbreak. Ironically, the country was the first in Latin America to declare itself malaria-free in 1961, but the current outbreak is spiralling out of control.

Illegal gold mines

Grifon, who grew up on the Caribbean Margarita Island off the northern Atlantic coast, has been working in the illegal gold mines in the south of the country for a few years now. And, just like many of his fellow miners, he has contracted malaria.

The life-threatening illness spreads to people through the transmission of a parasite by mosquitoes.

Im already waiting six days for medicines, complains Grifon. Bone and headaches, fever, dizziness, diarrhoea, everything, but still waiting, what else can I do? he asks while listing the common symptoms that afflict those who have been infected. If not treated promptly, the infection can lead to death.

In the first 27 weeks of this year, doctors estimate that more than 150,000 of Bolivars two million inhabitants contracted or had a relapse of malaria.

In comparison, in the entire year of 2016 there were 242,976 cases of malaria, according to the Venezuelan Society on Public Health: a historic peak, but nothing compared with this years prospects.





The non-governmental organisation predicts that nearly one million Venezuelans will be infected this year  more than three times the number of people infected last year.

An acute shortage of medicines has left the sick at great risk since an economic crisis swept the country and led to widespread and deadly protests.

In March this year, Venezuelas President Nicolas Maduro even asked the UN for help to receive medicine supplies to alleviate the crippling shortages.

Ive asked for support from the UN to help treat economic and social injuries that have hit our people, caused by the economic war and the sharp fall in petroleum prices, Maduro said in a televised appearance.

With proper measures, preventing the spread of malaria should not be difficult, says Marianella Herrera, the director of the Venezuelan Health Observatory, but these are lacking in the crisis-stricken country and a combination of several factors has ensured the continued spread of the disease.

The shortage of medical supplies in places such as Bolivar state and the fact that the number of cases is underreported as a result of the failing system creates an environment conducive to the spread of infection.

Furthermore, she explains, the countrys population is more vulnerable to malaria due to being malnourished as a result of food shortages, which weakens the immune system.

At risk of infection

Herrera warns that neighbouring countries may be at risk of infection if proper preventative measures are not taken soon as desperate Venezuelans will seek to cross the borders in search of medical attention and medicines that are not available in Venezuela.

Dr Oscar Noya, director of the Center of Malaria Studies and researcher at the Institute of Tropical Medicine and associate professor at the Central University of Venezuela, agrees.

In this moment there is an autochthonous transmission in all states of the country, he says.

This means the infection is spreading from person to person through mosquitoes that bite an infected individual and spread the parasite to another.

Noya says there is also a [significant] exchange of [transmission] cases at the borders with Brazil, Colombia and Guyana.

One medical researcher concurs that the shortage of medicines is contributing to the spread of the disease.

She has requested to remain anonymous because she fears retribution from the government for discussing the problem with the press, siting the example of Venezuelas former health minister, Antonieta Caporale, who reportedly lost her job after communicating child mortality statistics to the press in May this year.

The researcher, who works at a local health centre in Bolivar state, also points to another major factor that has played a key role in the infections  illegal mining.

She explains that the mines serve as incubators for mosquitoes as large swaths of jungle are cleared and the mining pits fill with stagnant water, providing an ideal breeding ground for mosquito larvae.

An estimated 250,000 people try to make a living through illegal mining in Venezuela, according to local media reports. In Las Cristinas, thousands of them sleep in makeshift shacks or on hammocks in the open air with no way to shield themselves from mosquitoes.

Waiting for medicines

In another mining settlement in Bolivar state, Tumeremo, more than 150 infected people line up every day in front of a clinic waiting for medicines to arrive.

On most days, there isnt any. If, on a lucky day, medicines are available, the clinic runs out in 10 minutes.

The high demand for the malaria medicines has created ideal conditions for black-market dealings to thrive.

While the clinic hands out the medicines free of charge when they are available, they often end up on the black market where miners are forced to pay one or two grams of gold for the cure.

The Venezuelan Society of Public Health estimates that the 14 different medications from the World Health Organisation to treat the parasites causing the spread of the disease in Venezuela would cost $4m.

This would suffice for a year and would also control the spread of other parasitic diseases.

The two medications used to treat malaria, primaquine and chloroquine, are very rarely available in Venezuela.

They work together to clear the body of the parasite: primaquine cleans the bloodstream and liver, and prevents relapses, while chloroquine eliminates the parasite from the blood.

One doctor working in Bolivar state, who also prefers not to be named, says he is not surprised that malaria spreads so fast in mining regions.

The frontier between man and mosquito does not exist anymore, he says.

Tumeremo and the gangs

Tumeremo is an inconspicuous small regional town, but gained notoriety when 28 miners disappeared there in March and are thought to have been killed in an act of violence allegedly linked to local gangs and local security forces.

Every day recently arrived miners are transported from Tumeremo to the nearby illegal mines.

Many are not professional miners and have a difficult time getting along with the armed gangs, called pranes, and the security forces that control organised crime and mining in the region, respectively. But the relationship is intertwined.

Americo de De Grazia, deputy to the National Assembly for Bolivar state, says that in spite of the appearance that the military is actively battling the pranes, the government forces are actually propping up the local gangs.

You have the military, the military has operators, called pranes, and the pranes have miners, they have mines, he says. The pranes are agents of retention, says de Grazia. Miners pay them and they pay the military on their turn.

Las Claritas is one of the few places in Venezuela where people can still be seen openly walking around with stacks of cash and smartphones.

Crime rates are high in Venezuela, and Caracas, the capital, has one of the highest murder rates in the world at a reported 130.35 homicides per 100,000 residents. But Las Claritas has its own curious kind of security.

Jesus Salazar, 45, started mining here three months ago. It is very hard, he says.

He was a construction worker before, working in the state capital, Puerto Ordaz. But he went to the mines when the economic crisis left him without work.

Salazar works with a batea, a wooden washing board. Because he doesnt make much profit, he is not forced to pay a commission to the armed gangs, he says.

Las Cristinas, the town where Jose Grifon lives, is a few hours drive south of Tumeremo amid jungle wastelands pockmarked with mines.

Mining takes place around the clock here. Gold resellers and shops with mining equipment are found on every street.

The town bustles with movement, honking pick-up trucks and boisterous miners gathered around corners and alleyways.

Even at night, people look for gold in the mines. On a street corner, two men, no older than 20, use a gas burner to separate mercury from gold in an iron bowl, ignoring the toxic fumes emanating from the flame.

Toxic environment

Meanwhile, malaria infections keep spreading through the mines and their toxic environment to the urban centres of the country.

It is already happening. There is malaria now even in urban areas, says Phillip Gunson, an International Crisis Group analyst in Venezuela.

He thinks the worst is still to come. The governments anti-malaria programme has effectively been dismantled, with much of the material [mosquito nets, prophylactics etc] simply stolen or diverted to the black market. NGOs trying to cope with the spread of malaria have been forced out. Control is in the hands of the army and of armed civilians often linked to the state government.

In the meantime, sick miners such as Grifon continue their wait for medicines in the under-resourced health centres in the south of the country.

Noya, the doctor, says the involvement of state elements that benefit from illegal mining makes the work of the health sector impossible.

This limits and weakens the campaigns of the Ministry of Health, the doctor says.








Blasphemy and accusations of the crime have led to the deaths of dozens of people in Pakistan since 1990.

Rights groups have repeatedly criticised and called for the reform or repeal of the countrys controversial blasphemy laws, which date back to the British empire.

The Islamabad High Court asked parliament on Friday to make changes to the current decree to prevent people from being falsely accused of the crime, which is punishable by death if the Prophet Muhammad is insulted.

Other punishments include a fine or prison term, depending on the specific offence.

In a lengthy 116-page order, Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui suggested that parliament amend the law to require the same punishment of the death penalty for those who falsely allege blasphemy as for those who commit the crime.

READ MORE: Pakistan: Death penalty for blasphemy on Facebook

Currently, there is a very minor punishment for falsely accusing someone of blasphemy, the judgement said.

Under the existing law, the false accuser faces punishments ranging from two years in prison to life imprisonment.

Mehdi Hasan, chairman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, welcomed the Islamabad courts move seeking amendment for the law.

This law is being misused by people to take revenge against their opponents, and it is very easy to charge anyone for blasphemy, he told Al Jazeera from Lahore.

Exploitation of law

Fridays ruling noted that some critics are demanding the law be abolished but Siddiqui argued that its better to stop the laws exploitation rather than get rid of it.

A majority vote in the provincial assemblies is required for the law to be amended. Backing of that vote by the federal government would likely be needed for the Senate to move.

Decrees in Pakistan are derived from the British common law, but the constitution holds that no laws shall be passed that are against the teachings of Islam.

WATCH UpFront: Tahir ul Qadri: No rule of law in Pakistan

After previous unsuccessful attempts to amend the blasphemy laws, legal experts offered little optimism over the new recommendation.

Blasphemy is a very difficult topic, and any small change will be opposed by the right when they feel like its being watered down and by the left when they feel its being made stronger, Angbeen Mirza, a lawyer based in Lahore, told Al Jazeera.

In late January, Pakistans Senate officially took up the issue of the laws potential misuse for the first time in 24 years.





Analysts say previous attempts at reviewing the law have been thwarted by the pressure of religious parties who, along with most in society, see it as equivalent to religion in the country.

The religious right is on the offensive in Pakistan and because of the apologetic attitude of all governments they do not take a stand, Hasan said.

Legal experts say instead of repealing the law, legislation to curb false accusations and hate speech is required to deter the decrees exploitation for personal gains.

An accusation of blasphemy hardly ever results in legal process, Mirza said.

When someone makes an accusation, the neighbours do the rest.

She added: The justice system is slow and provides no protection, leaving the accused at the mercy of the people.

Aarafat Mazhar, an independent researcher of Pakistans blasphemy laws, said there is a tendency in the country to resort to public accusations rather than formally registering a case.

Labelling a specific person or a community as being a blasphemer or just being anti-Islamic in general can be a death sentence and is a cause for disruption in public order, he said.

Constitutionally speaking, such speech is not protected, and there is a definite need for legislation.

Culture of intolerance

Tahir Mahmood Ashrafi, a religious cleric and chairman of the Pakistan Ulema Council, said while there can be no room for change in the existing law, a review to prevent its misuse should take place.

Any change or addition to the current law could bring about a state of unrest in the country, he told Al Jazeera. We should not go in that direction.

However, beyond legal parameters, it is thought that a culture of intolerance towards free speech and religion is at the root of the problem.

Other countries have survived without blasphemy provisions, Mirza said. All they regulate is hate speech. By creating offences where there should probably be none, Pakistan is creating hatred.

In a December 2016 report, rights group Amnesty International condemned Pakistans blasphemy laws for violating human rights and called for their abolition.

While not a single convict has ever been executed for blasphemy in Pakistan, currently about 40 people are on death row or serving life sentences for the crime, according to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Increasingly, however, right-wing vigilantes and mobs have taken the law into their own hands, killing at least 69 people over alleged blasphemy since 1990, according to an Al Jazeera tally.

In April, a university student, Mashal Khan, was killed and two others wounded during a violent mob attack after being accused of committing blasphemy in the northern city of Mardan.

In two prominent cases in 2011, Salman Taseer, governor of Punjab, and Shahbaz Bhatti, minorities minister, were both assassinated within two months of each other for asking for the law to be reformed.

Taseers killer and bodyguard, Mumtaz Qadri, was hanged in February 2016.

READ MORE: Campaigning to reform Pakistans deadly blasphemy law

Ashrafi blamed the judiciarys failure to hand down timely judgements for the rise in public tensions.

When the punishments are not given, or the judgements are not passed on time, then people get an opportunity to take the law in their own hands, he said.

Academic circles in Pakistan advocate more research and urge authorities to learn from the example of other Muslim countries.

The point is to make sure that our laws are aligned with the fundamental rights promised in the constitution, Mazhar said.

Death or nothing is a rhetoric that creates a false binary and leads the conversation nowhere.
Reports of potential Iraq-led mediation between Iran and Saudi Arabia come as the latter leads the third year of a costly, intractable war across its border in Yemen.

A rapprochement with long-time rival Iran, which is backing opposing forces in the Yemen proxy war and in Syria, could ease political and economic pressures on both sides, analysts say. Although the struggle for regional supremacy has long defined Saudi-Iran relations, the extent of the turmoil in neighbouring countries might have led to the realisation that both would benefit from a thaw.

There is a political dilemma where the Saudis are playing a role in Syria and Yemen  It is straining Riyadh politically and economically, and [in both] places, Iran is playing an important role, said Mahjoob Zweiri, an associate professor of contemporary Middle East history at Qatar University. Oil production is also a factor, he noted.

Both countries are important producers of oil, and any mediation efforts that lead to reducing the tension between them will affect oil prices positively, Zweiri told Al Jazeera.

OPINION: Saudi Arabia and Iran and how we got here

Earlier this week, Iraqi media reported that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud had asked Iraqs prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, to lead mediation with Iran. According to a report from the Iraqi Alghadeer channel, citing information from Iraqi Interior Minister Qasim al-Araji, Iran was looking at the request positively.

Then, on Tuesday, leaked emails emerged in which Mohammed bin Salman told former US officials that he wants out of the Yemen war. The emails also indicated that the crown prince would not oppose a US rapprochement with Iran.

The reported request for Iraqi mediation comes just weeks after Iraqi Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr travelled to Saudi to meet Mohammed bin Salman and other officials. We have been very pleased with what we found to be a positive breakthrough in the Saudi-Iraqi relations, and we hope it is the beginning of the retreat of sectarian strife in the Arab-Islamic region, Sadrs office said in a statement after the meeting.

According to Iraqi political scientist Saad Jawad, this weeks news of potential Saudi-Iran mediation must be viewed with scepticism  but if true, Iraq would be well positioned to gain a reputation of being a moderate and neutral party in the region.





Saudi Arabia and Iran, meanwhile, would benefit from a de-escalation of tensions, which hit a peak in January 2016 as Saudi severed diplomatic ties with Iran after protesters, reacting to Saudis execution of Shia religious leader Nimr al-Nimr, attacked the countrys embassy in Tehran.

The escalation of the dispute has gone too far, and it is going towards an armed struggle, which I dont think the Saudis or the Iranians would like to see, Jawad told Al Jazeera.

The timing of the proposed mediation, however, is odd for various reasons. It comes just months after a Saudi-led group imposed a blockade on Qatar, issuing a list of 13 demands that included cutting off military and intelligence cooperation with Iran.

The main Saudi request was for Qatar to sever its relations with Iran  How could they ask Qatar to sever its relations, and on the other hand ask somebody to mediate with Iran? Jawad asked.

Zweiri noted, however, that the demands issued in the Qatar-GCC crisis were contradictory; Qatars foreign minister has suggested the primary goal was to bully his country into forfeiting its sovereignty. In addition, Saudi appeared to be differentiating between the security issues raised in the Gulf crisis and the idea of political mediation with Iran, Zweiri said.

From Irans perspective, with the nuclear deal failing to deliver the economic miracle that Iranians were hoping for, improved relations with Saudi could give a major boost to the government of President Hassan Rouhani at a time when he faces internal challenges.

If Iran responds positively to this mediation effort and really decides to open up to Saudi Arabia, this will tell us one thing  that the differences between both countries are politicised and have nothing to do with religion, Zweiri said. If Iran puts conditions, or mentions such issues as the [ongoing conflict in the] eastern part of Saudi Arabia, this means religious issues are a priority for Iran. I do believe myself that Iran is a political issue. I think they will be more interested to open up, and the issue of Awamiya and other things, they will be the last items [on the agenda].

The Awamiya factor

The current situation in Awamiya is another reason why the mediation proposal surprised some observers. For three months, Saudi Arabia has engaged in an unprecedented offensive against the eastern town, which has been a hotbed of Shia resistance in the country.

The Saudi campaign has flattened Awamiyas old quarter, reducing dozens of buildings to rubble and forcing thousands of people to flee. Clashes have resulted in casualties on both sides, with activists estimating more than 20 civilian deaths and Saudi authorities reporting the deaths of 12 police officers and special forces members.

The Saudi government has claimed that the goal of its operation in Awamiya was to root out terrorists and prime the area for redevelopment, but Adam Coogle, a Middle East researcher with Human Rights Watch, told Al Jazeera that the driver of dissent in eastern Saudi Arabia was the governments long-term and systematic discrimination against Saudi Shia citizens. Awamiya was also home to Nimr, whose death sparked outrage throughout Shia-majority Iran.

Without a change in state policy, the unrest in eastern Saudi will likely continue to fester, Coogle said: As long as Saudi authorities continue this discrimination, they will face dissent from the Saudi Shia community.

#___

Displaced people of #Awamia are expressing their will and eagerness to go back home in this hashtag.  Angry Qatifi (@AngryQatifi) August 13, 2017

Ali Adubisi, the director of the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights, a Berlin-based activist group, said the brutality of the states campaign in Awamiya was unparalleled in the countrys history. Thousands of displaced residents are now facing an uncertain future, he added.

In this process, the state relied not only on weapons but also on the official media, which was lying, misleading and falsifying facts. Regional and religious hatred was also used to ensure the greatest acceptance of [Saudis] crimes in this military operation, Adubisi told Al Jazeera, noting that the offensive, contrary to its aim of quashing opposition, would likely rally more citizens against the state.

I think it will increase the peaceful civilian opposition  The military process has shown unprecedented repressive dimensions, and many people outside of Awamiya [and media professionals] were stunned by what they saw.

How this internal conflict could affect potential mediation with Iran, however, remains to be seen.

Follow Megan OToole on Twitter: @megan_otoole
India and Pakistan  On the 70th anniversary of the partition of British India, 101 East presenter Steve Chao travelled to India and Pakistan to examine the troubled legacy of this historic event.

When British rulers divided the subcontinent into two nations, it prompted the greatest mass migration of people in history and unleashed a wave of violence that claimed more than a million lives.

From the elderly survivors who endured the violent aftermath of the partition to the military commanders and angry nationalists whose hostility shows little sign of fading, these images powerfully depict how the legacy of partition continues to shape India and Pakistan today.

Follow Al Jazeeras coverage of India-Pakistan 70 years of partition here.
Earlier this month, the film Detroit opened in theatres all across the United States. Produced by Academy Award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal, the movie was right on time for the 50th anniversary of the historic 1967 Rebellion.

The 30-million-dollar film starts with a convincing depiction of what triggered the unrest and moves quickly to the citys Algiers Motel, where three black men were murdered by police officers. The officers responsible for the killings were later acquitted.





The spark that set the fire of rebellion was the busting of an after-hours joint  a blind pig  in the heart of a black neighbourhood. The community swiftly responded to the raid: Detroit burned for five days, 43 people died, 1,189 people were injured, over 7,000 were arrested and more than 2,000 buildings were destroyed. The national guard was brought in. It was a catastrophe that would change the city forever.

Inspired by the 50th anniversary of the rebellion, I came home to Detroit this past Memorial Day to present my annual Burn and Bury Memorial ritual  a mock funeral for and cremation of the Confederate flag featuring some of the citys finest poets and activists  to an audience gathered at the NNamdi Gallery. The ceremony took place a few weeks before the official commemoration of the 1967 rebellion, which included a full programme of events led by the Detroit Historical Society, Wright Museum, and Detroit Institute of Arts, demonstrating how special the anniversary is for Detroit.

And since I was in Detroit and in utero during the summer of 1967, this time in history is particularly meaningful to me  the stories, the burned out remains, the pain, the expression, and the need to resist and rebel against the historical gravity of American white supremacy. And so, I was very excited to see this movie.

A horror flick without context

My excitement about Bigelows Detroit was quickly eclipsed once I got past its beautiful and powerful opening scene, which features lightly animated variations on Jacob Lawrences painting series on the Great Migration. And by the time the film ended, I felt like I had watched a mash-up of Get Out, Five Heartbeats, and the most brutal parts of 12 Years a Slave.

The film was not really about the complex factors and stories that led to and sustained five days of activity. It was a sub-narrative dramatisation of mass murder and psychological pathos about what happened in a motel  a worthy of story and film all by itself. And the film works better this way, if the expectations were restricted to this important story.

READ MORE: 1967 Detroit riots, resistance then and now

The films title is the first problem. The film should have been called Algiers Motel and not Detroit. The naming of the film is clearly an exploitative strategy timed to take advantage of the anniversary of the citys rebellion. Producers appear to be cashing in on growing national and international interest in the Motor City, which is on the verge of a very curious, white-ish comeback.

Even the gigantic pop-up promos of the film, exhibited at theatres around the country, are misleading and require correction as they fail to communicate to potential audiences the real content of the film. When you study the production credits, and follow the reviews, it becomes clear that this is a movie by white people for white people. I think they call that Hollywood. So, where are my matches and spray paint? (see results in the above art image).

While I appreciate how Hollywood can bring important stories to a national audience, I question if white directors, writers, artists and producers are feeling more and more comfortable telling stories that centre around black pain, trauma, and resistance, profiting in ways that comparable black storytellers can't. by

The storyline of the film is riveting, but also problematic on many levels. What happens when you put a bunch of black men in a confined space with white party girls, then add some racist cops and the National Guard? You get a horror flick and anything going on outside the motel becomes a distraction, even if it is a rebellion brought on by decades of segregation, police brutality and general racism.

The story presents the great American threat  the black men, the ones that might shoot back, the ones that might pimp some white girl or deal drugs or steal property  being punished by the first line of defence of white supremacy: the police.

And the one character that had a big dream, an American dream, one you may have rooted for to survive, is the one person who refuses to sing for you in the end. His only form of protest left was to riot against his own talent and murder off his opportunity for greatness. This story is all too familiar  just check the American prison system.

With the hollow character development, the minimal political context surrounding the rebellion, and evidence that the writers may love Motowns music more than its people, I struggled to find an emotional connection deep enough to offset the pornographic violence featured in the film.

Weve all seen the current level of raw police brutality against black men, but what needs elucidation, as much today as ever, is the fundamental inequality that created conditions for the rebellious response. I have to wonder if this Passion of Christ level of brutality is what drives the white guilt that fuels temporary race-based empathy.

While the tension between good and evil, good cop and bad cop are great devices to drive a Hollywood story, in this film, the excessive humanisation of white cops is unbelievable, unfair, and is used as a way to shift blame to a few bad guys, obfuscating the real culprit  the whole system. Since the principal bad cop in the film, who is presented as the main culprit behind the three murders, is largely fictional, one wonders how about the acceptable ethical level of manipulation in creating definable objects of blame.

Who owns Harlem or Detroit?

While I appreciate how Hollywood can bring important stories to a national audience, I question if white directors, writers, artists and producers are feeling more and more comfortable telling stories that centre around black pain, trauma, and resistance, profiting in ways that comparable black storytellers cant.

But the bigger question or concern is: Who owns political and cultural experiences and stories? Who owns Harlem or Detroit? Who owns the stories of the 1967 Detroit Rebellion and who should tell and produce them? Who are allowed to respond? This makes me think about Tarantinos Django Unchained, artist Dana Shultzs controversial Emmett Till painting, and HBOs Confederate  a new TV series developed by producers David Benioff and DB Weiss, creators of the very popular Game of Thrones.

Bigelow admits in an interview with Variety magazine that she might not have been the best director for the film, but she was the one who could do it. So maybe a more fitting pathological thriller would be to do a film on the dynamics behind the very recent and deadly Unite the Right aka neo-Nazi/Confederate/Right reunion in Charlottesville, Virginia. While I give Bigelow much credit for being honest, it is a bold statement of privilege  Norman Lears Good Times kind of privilege  that good ole white privilege. So much for black privilege in such matters of art, stories and film.

Black productions matter

Sometimes these dynamics produce a situation where one is not sure whether to feel honoured, cheated, or both. While Black Stories Matter, so do black productions.





Cultural and political production should not be without allies and comrades from different backgrounds and experiences. Artists should be able to tell stories across cultural lines, provided it is done with respect and grace, not out of a paternalistic or maternalistic, saviour complex or solely for profit.

For instance, John Hersey, a white, male, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, wrote the book, Algiers Motel Incident. His grandson, Cannon Hersey  an artist and activist who was just recently in Detroit doing social justice projects  informed me that his grandfather gave up all of the proceeds from the royalties, much of it going to a scholarship fund for African Americans. Not wanting his work to be exploited by Hollywood, his family refused to sell the rights to the book.

This is probably why Boal had to organise his own research team to write the script. This sort of understanding is more the exception than the bottom-line rule. I wish Bigelow and Boal moved in the same way. I wish the producers had included a scene or two about the mock trial Shrine of Black Madonna, a Pan-African Orthodox Christian Church, organised for the three cops, who were acquitted in the real courts.

I wish there had been a black womans voice somewhere, anywhere. I wish the whole film had been shot in Detroit rather than in the faraway city of Boston. This would have given Detroiters the opportunity to be a part of the re-enactments and space to witness how art can promote discourse from the inside out. And if there was one, I must have missed it.

READ MORE: Grisly Halloween display in Detroit decries US violence

As we approach a very rare total solar eclipse on August 21, I am drawn to think that after all is gone in the shadows, all that is left are stories. If those on the forefront of experience do not tell these stories loudly, others will, in ways that might eclipse the truth, and justice, and faith, leaving behind a darkness  whispers of a lost opportunity for real healing and redemption.

So I hope that when its centennial comes around in 2067, someone among us, maybe someone in someones womb at this very moment, will get the support to do a dramatic feature on the whole story of Detroit 1967. I hope it will, upon another 50 years of reflection, finally be told right, more impactfully, more inclusively and in a way that will make Detroiters and their descendants, both black, white and brown, come to know the story of the price, pain and power of resistance and rebellion. But for now, check out the oral histories, exhibitions and all things related to the citys historic rebellion at the website of the multiyear community project Detroit 67: Looking Back to Move Forward.

John Sims, a Detroit native, is a multi-media artist, writer, producer and creator of Recoloration Proclamation, a 16-year multimedia project featuring a series of Confederate flags installations, The AfroDixieRemixes, the annual Burn and Bury Confederate Flag Memorial Day ritual and a forthcoming memoir.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
The Congress attempt to ban the BDS movement is an attack on core democratic values of the US.

The adage goes, Be careful what you wish for, because you might just get it. Indeed, this is the very predicament in which the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) could soon find itself.

In its obsessive efforts to defeat the Palestinian-led boycott movement, AIPAC will soon force the revisitation of a long-dormant debate on the illegal Israeli military occupation of Palestine.





US mainstream media has long avoided an honest discussion on Israel and Palestine as if the mere acknowledgment of a Palestinian point of view, let alone Palestinian rights, is in itself a sinister act.

If it were not for alternative media and varied margins available in international media, the Palestinian voice would have been completely silenced, and Palestinians would merely exist as notorious terrorist figures standing obstacle to Israels supposedly Western-style democracy.

In fact, this is the very image that is constantly peddled by the Israeli government, its official propaganda (hasbara) machine and its many allies in the United States.

A large network that is purportedly motivated by its undying love for Israel, encompasses among its ranks powerful politicians, end-of-time religious fanatics, business interests and media moguls.

It is this conglomerate of individuals and the massive interests they represent that we often refer to as the lobby. AIPAC is the central piece in the lobbys intricate web, which has to a large degree succeeded in tainting the oppressed Palestinian as an aggressor, and the militarily powerful Israel as a victim.

READ MORE: The uneven alliance  How America became pro-Israel

To ensure that ordinary Americans never understand that reality is entirely different from what the media reports, the Palestinian voice is habitually muffled and the Palestinian intellectual is hidden from view. For many years, the debate has rarely focused on Palestinian rights, but has been a one-sided Israeli diatribe about its security, future and its twisted, convenient and ever-flexible definition of anti-Semitism.

But the rise of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement posed a serious challenge to Israels self-tailored narrative.

Anti-Palestinian measures in the US are nothing new. In fact, ardent support for Israel and the complete disregard for Palestinians is the only aspect which Democrats and Republicans have in common. by

Contrary to the typical behaviour of the Israeli lobby, the BDS movement sought the solidarity of civil society organisations, churches and student groups. It engaged people in meaningful discussion and used direct democracy as a vehicle to propel action.

At first, the boycott efforts seemed minuscule and unthreatening.

In its early years, the mission of combating any kind of dissent against Israel within the US was entrusted to the likes of notorious Zionist Daniel Pipes and his Campus Watch, a Big Brother type of organisation aimed at intimidating teachers, scaring off students and monitoring and reporting nonconformist educational institutions across the country.

Not only did Pipes miserably fail, but his tactics unwittingly inspired real, often heated debates and discussions across American campuses, where BDS began taking the initiative and ultimately prevailing. Thanks to BDS-affiliated student groups, many campuses either declared their support of Palestinian rights, or pushed university boards to divest from Israeli companies or firms that contribute to the oppression of the Palestinians. Churches, companies, academic collectives, artists and others followed suit.

Thus far, every attempt at demonising and silencing BDS has failed, simply because the movements just demands speak for themselves: ending the Israeli military occupation, equal rights to Palestinian-Arab citizens of Israel, right of return for Palestinian refugees. Every single demand is supported by international and humanitarian laws, and needless to say, basic human rights and morality.

READ MORE: Israel challenges BDS at home and beyond

Aware of its failure, and the notable success of BDS, the Israeli government and its wealthy supporters across the US began deliberating the need for a well-financed, coherent strategy to combat the boycott movement.

The pinnacle of the Israeli campaign is now to lobby the US Congress to officially ban BDS and punish its supporters.

By doing so, Israel and the lobby entered new, uncharted waters as the war on Palestinians is now becoming a war on freedom of speech in the US as protected by the First Amendment.

The plot thickens

Cheered on by AIPAC and others, the US Congress is now leading the Israeli war on Palestinians and their supporters. In the process, they are attempting to demolish the very core of American democratic values.





The build-up to this particular battle began when AIPAC declared in its 2017 Lobbying Agenda (PDF) that criminalising the boycott of Israel is a top priority.

The US Congress, which has historically proven subservient to the Israeli government and its lobbies, enthusiastically embraced AIPACs efforts. This resulted in the Senate Bill S.720  also known as the Anti-Israel Boycott Act  which aims to ban the boycott of Israel and its illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian West Bank.

Thus far, the bill has the support of 48 Senators and 234 House members. Unsurprisingly, it was drafted mostly by AIPAC itself.

Punishment of those who violate the proposed law ranges from $250,000 to $1 million and 10 years in prison.

Anti-Palestinian measures in the US are nothing new. In fact, ardent support for Israel and the complete disregard for Palestinians is the only aspect which Democrats and Republicans have in common.

But S.720 marks a completely different story. It is part of a massive campaign that would, once and for all, make it illegal for even ordinary Americans to be critical of Israel.

REPORTERS NOTEBOOK: AIPAC watches US-Israeli ties reshaping under Trump

Initiated in 2014, this process has been gathering steam without much challenge from either major political parties, government or mainstream media.

Since then, 21 US states have passed and enacted legislation to criminalise boycott efforts. State attorney generals have shamelessly and systematically coordinated to push their agendas from a state level to Washington, DC, itself.

The very individuals who were meant to guard the Constitution are the ones openly violating it. The First Amendment to the US Constitution has been the pillar in defence of the peoples right to free speech, freedom of the press, the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The more the lobby tries to defeat BDS, the more it exposes itself and its stranglehold on the American government and media. by

This right has, however, often been curtailed when it applies to Israel. The Center for Constitutional Rights refers to this fact as The Palestine Exception.

S.720, if it passes, will cement the new US status, that of flawed democracy as opposed to a fully democratic nation that legislates and applies all laws fairly and equally to all of its citizens.

On July 17, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) issued a letter calling on legislators who signed the senate version of the bill to reconsider their decision.

The bill would punish businesses and individuals, based solely on their point of view, The ACLU said. Such a penalty is in direct violation of the First Amendment.

An opportunity

Dire as it may seem, there is something positive in this. For many years, it has been wrongly perceived that Israels solicitation of American support against Palestinians and Arabs is, by no means, a foreign country meddling or interfering in the US political system or undermining US democracy.

The Israel Anti-Boycott Act, however, is the most egregious of such interventions, for it strikes down the First Amendment, the very foundation of American democracy, by using Americas own legislators to be its executors.

This bill exposes Israel, as well as its hordes of supporters in US Congress. Moreover, it presents human rights defenders with the opportunity to champion BDS, hence, the rights of the Palestinian people and also the rights of all Americans.

OPINION: AIPAC: American watchdog or Israels attack-dog?

It would be the first time in many years that the battle for Palestinian rights can be openly discussed and contextualised in a way that most Americans find relevant to their everyday life.

This was one of the aims of BDS from the very beginning. While the boycott and delegitimisation of the Israeli military occupation of Palestine are at the core of the civil society-backed movement, BDS also aims at generating an urgent discussion on Israel and Palestine.

Although inadvertently, the US Congress is now making this very much possible.

Interestingly, the mobilisation of the US  and other western governments  to punish the boycott movement is largely consistent with its targeting of the South African anti-Apartheid movement in the past.

The US government strongly opposed the South African liberation movement, condemned the international boycott against the country, and backed the racist authoritarian role of PW Botha to the very end. Former President Ronald Reagan perceived Nelson Mandela as a terrorist. In fact, Mandela was not removed from the US terror list until 2008.

Now, it seems history is repeating itself. The Israeli version of Apartheid is fighting for legitimacy and refuses to concede. It aims to colonise all of Palestine, mistreat and oppress its people, and violate international law without any form of censure from either individuals or organisations.

Failure guaranteed

But none of this will succeed, because, put simply, noble ideas cannot be defeated.

Moreover, for Israel, this is a new kind of battle, one which is foolishly attempting to fight using the same traditional tactics: threats and intimidation backed by blind US support.

The more the lobby tries to defeat BDS, the more it exposes itself and its stranglehold on the American government and media.

Israel is no student of history. It has learned nothing from the experience of the anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa. It is no surprise that Israel remained the last supporter of the Apartheid regime in that country until its demise.

As for true champions of human rights, regardless of their race, religion or citizenship, this is their moment, as no meaningful change ever occurs without people being united in struggle and sacrifice.

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of Palestine Chronicle. His forthcoming book is The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story (Pluto Press, London). Baroud has a PhD in Palestine studies from the University of Exeter and is a non-resident Scholar at Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, University of California Santa Barbara. His website is www.ramzybaroud.net.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
If US President Donald Trump decided to test-launch a missile by firing it from one side of North Korea, with a trajectory over the country, and then landing it just off the opposite North Korean coast, we would probably be at war.

North Koreas Kim Jong-un, who has been vocal about his opposition to any military activity near his countrys borders, would simply not tolerate such an intrusion. Yet, such a test-launch is exactly what the leader of North Korea is now said to be considering. The difference is that the North Korean missile would be fired east and over Japan before landing around 27 to 40km off the coast of the US Pacific territory of Guam.





North Korea has long been increasing its nuclear capabilities and missile technologies in absolute defiance of the international community. But if it flies a missile over Japan and lands it in the territorial waters of the United States, it would be breaching three important rules that have been helping to keep peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Failing to issue a notification

The first rule is the obligation of notification. It is extremely important for countries to share detailed information about their planned launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles. A failure to do so may cause grave misunderstandings that can even lead to an accidental nuclear war.

Before conducting a test-launch, every country is obliged to provide advance information about the launch date, launch area, direction of the missile and re-entry impact area. This obligation is heightened when a country is sending missiles outside its sovereign territory.

The goal of advance warning is to both build confidence between opposing sides and reduce the risk of war as a result of misinterpretation, miscalculation or accident.

OPINION: Why a war with North Korea is unlikely

North Korea is rarely providing notification to the international community for its test-launches, and when it does, the information provided is inadequate. It is yet to officially notify Japan or the US about its plans to fire missiles towards Guam. So far, the only information about the test-launch came from the North Korean state media, which simply announced that its military was drawing up plans to fire missiles in the waters off the coast of the US Pacific territory in the coming days.

Shooting missiles over foreign territory

Although destroying an unauthorised North Korean missile flying over Japan could be considered a sensible act of self-defence, such an act is still dangerous, since it can easily trigger a destructive chain reaction. by

The second rule Kim Jong-un would be breaching with this test-launch is about missile trajectory. Countries are expected to test missiles over their own territory or over international spaces such as the high seas. Flying missiles over other countries, especially without their consent, is unacceptable in international law. North Korea first breached this rule in 1998 by flying a missile over Japan.

North Korea has announced that it is planning to fly another missile over Japan in the coming days, but it certainly did not contact the Japanese government to ask whether it would consent to such an intrusion. Also, it is safe to assume that even if North Koreans asked for permission, Japan would say no.

Although international law is not clear about the boundary between the airspace above a country and common space, when a country determines that its airspace is violated and national security put at risk, it is allowed to take strong action.

For example, in 1960, a US U-2 spy plane was shot down while operating around 70,000 feet (well-above what is normally considered national airspace) above the Soviet Union, but Moscows decision to down the plane was not considered a breach of international law.

So, if the US or Japan were able to shoot down a North Korean missile as it went over their territories  at whatever altitude  without their consent, this would not be in breach of international law. Although destroying an unauthorised North Korean missile flying over Japan could be considered a sensible act of self-defence, such an act is still dangerous, since it can easily trigger a destructive chain reaction.

READ MORE: North Korea explained in graphics

Landing missiles in foreign waters

The third rule Kim Jong-un would be breaching with this test-launch is about target locations. Countries are expected to test their missiles within their borders or at least land them in the high seas. Conducting a test-launch which would conclude with a missile landing in the territory of another country is not acceptable.

In essence, international law creates circles around the land of a country and projects their sovereignty into the ocean. The maritime boundaries recognised under international law include three main circles: the territorial sea, the contiguous zone and the exclusive economic zone. The rights and responsibilities within these circles become stronger the closer to the land they area.





While the countries have limited sovereignty in the exclusive economic zone, which is the outer circle of their maritime boundary, in tighter circles, namely the territorial sea (12 nautical miles or 22km from the shore) and the contiguous zone (24 nautical miles or 44km) they have much stronger sovereign rights.

If the information coming out of North Korea is correct, it is aiming for the missile to come down approximately 27km from Guam. This means that the missile will fall just outside the territorial sea and within the contiguous zone of the United States.

Japan previously tolerated North Korea testing missiles just outside its exclusive economic zone. But Kim Jung-uns latest test-launch is aiming to violate the contiguous, or possibly territorial, zones of the US. The significance of this difference cannot be underestimated as the missiles are going to impact much closer to land in a territory under US sovereign control. After all, Guam, as US overseas territory, possesses exactly the same rights over the oceans connected to it as California or Florida.

The likelihood of Trump withstanding these provocations with regards to notification, trajectory and impact zones, is about the same as Kim Jong-un doing the same if he were presented with a similar scenario.

The US president has already warned North Korea to expect big, big trouble if anything happens to Guam.

Hard times are on the horizon for the Korean Peninsula.

Alexander Gillespie is professor of international law at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. His research focuses on laws of war and armed conflict. He is the author of the three-volume set A History of the Laws of War and the three-volume set The Causes of War.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
Apparent admission follows Al Jazeera investigation exposing how Yameen and aides embezzled millions from state coffers.

Maldives President Abdulla Yameen has apparently admitted receiving bags of stolen cash at his private residence after an Al Jazeera investigation exposed how he and his former deputy coordinated the theft of millions of dollars from state coffers.

Al Jazeera only saw the cash that entered my house, Yameen told ruling party supporters on Monday. Al Jazeera did not see anything else.

Yameen, who assumed office in 2013, blames his former deputy, Ahmed Adeeb, for the giant embezzlement scheme.

He has previously said he was not aware the cash he received from Adeeb had been stolen, saying he believed it was gifts he had received from businessmen who supported him.





Al Jazeeras investigation, Stealing Paradise, revealed how Yameen and Adeeb plundered at least $79m paid by tourism companies to the Maldives treasury.

Secretly filmed confessions obtained by Al Jazeera show three of Adeebs associates explaining how they carried cash to the president and many politicians in the Maldives.

For the president, its difficult to carry even, laughed one as he described delivering black travel bags filled with cash of up to $1m to Yameens private residence, Dhoovehi.

The investigation also found Yameens ministers and aides plotted to launder up to $1.5bn through the Maldives central bank.

On Monday, Yameen said the stolen money was also spent on electing ruling party officials to the parliament.

It wasnt only Dhoovehi that the cash entered in boxes, Yameen said in a speech broadcast on state television.

At the time, there were some lawmakers we wanted elected. Ahmed Adeeb spent on them. The cash that entered my house was not halal. And if those lawmakers believe that, they must resign.

READ MORE: Maldives parliament shut down to stop speakers removal

Yameens apparent admission has caused an uproar in the Maldives, with the opposition calling for his immediate resignation.

Eva Abdulla, an opposition politician, said: Stealing Paradise uncovered ample evidence of Yameens involvement in what has become the Maldives biggest ever corruption scandal. And now the president himself has admitted his guilt.

This is enough evidence to prosecute him.

The ruling Progressive Party of the Maldives issued a statement saying the presidents comments had been misconstrued and taken out of context.

Several legislators have now turned against Yameen and launched a bid to remove his ally, the parliament speaker, in a campaign to undermine the president before next years presidential election.

Adeeb was jailed last year for 33 years on terrorism and corruption charges.

The president and his deputy fell out of favour after an explosion on Yameens speedboat in 2015, which the police said was an assassination plot masterminded by Adeeb.

Yameen said on Monday he would recover the stolen money to save his reputation, adding that Adeeb could only be freed from prison if he returns the embezzled funds.

The embattled president is facing a coalition of four opposition parties, led by his brother Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who ruled the Maldives with an iron fist for 30 years, and Mohamed Nasheed, the countrys first democratically elected president.
Scores, including women and children, were killed in Mirzawalang in what officials say was a joint ISIL-Taliban attack.

Afghan forces have recaptured a remote village where fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group massacred dozens of civilians earlier this month, officials said.

A spokesman for the Afghan army said on Tuesday that government troops retook Mirzawalang village in northern Sar-e Pul province after several days of intense clashes with Taliban fighters.

Our forces are in full control of the village and are searching for Taliban mines and booby traps, Nasratullah Jamshidi told the AFP news agency.

Dawlat Waziri, a spokesman for the Afghan defence ministry, said its forces had pushed the Taliban out of the village on Monday afternoon.

READ MORE: Father of robotics team member killed in Herat attack

Troops are due to start searching for mass graves following claims by families and local officials that about 50 villagers, including women and children, were either shot or beheaded on August 5.

ISIL on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the killings, but officials said it was a joint operation by ISIL and Taliban fighters.

They had recruited forces from other provinces of the country and attacked Mirzawalang village, Zabihullah Amani, spokesman for the provincial governor, said after the attack.

The Taliban earlier claimed that its fighters had captured the village but said they did so alone. It also denied allegations that they had killed civilians.

Survivors fleeing the violence described the horror, detailing how fighters went from house to house shooting villagers.





Me, my brother Ghulam and my sister-in-law left our home to escape the horror that was happening in the village, Sakhi, a resident of Mirzawalang, told Al Jazeera, adding: When we reached the highway, the militants blocking it asked us to get out of the car and started hitting us.

They beheaded my brother and the others in the car, who were with us trying to escape.

I grabbed my sister-in-laws hand and ran as fast as I could. They started firing, but we managed to escape, Sakhi said, describing how he also witnessed women and children being beheaded.

I cant cope with the horror and painweve been through hell.

Over the past year, ISIL has carried out a number of deadly attacks on civilians, particularly the Shia community in Afghanistan.

This month two suicide bombers killed more than 33 worshippers at a mosque in Afghanistans western city of Herat, in an attack claimed by the group.
Beijing says it will not sit idle if a US probe into its intellectual property practices leads to sanctions.

Chinas government says it will take action to defend its interests after US President Donald Trump authorised an inquiry into whether Beijing is improperly obtaining foreign technology.

Chinas commerce ministry on Tuesday voiced serious concern about Trumps order and warned any US trade protectionism will definitely harm bilateral trade relations.

Trump told American trade officials on Monday to look into whether Beijing improperly requires foreign companies to hand over technology in exchange for access to Chinese markets. He has frequently accused China of undermining the US economy.

Chinas policy of forcing foreign companies to turn over technology to Chinese joint venture partners and failure to crack down on intellectual property theft have been long-standing problems for several US administrations.

Trump administration officials have estimated that theft of intellectual property by China could be worth as much as $600bn.

READ MORE: US seeks lower trade deficit in NAFTA renegotiation

Trade groups for technology companies welcomed the US move, but Chinas commerce ministry criticised it as strong unilateralism that violates the spirit of international trade agreements.

If the US side take actions that impair the mutual trade relations, disregarding the facts and disrespecting multilateral trade rules, China will not sit idle, the ministry said in a statement.

China will adopt all appropriate measures to vigorously defend its rights and interests, it said.

The United States is Chinas second-largest trading partner after the European Union.

Intellectual property theft





The new inquiry joins numerous investigations launched by Washington into Chinese trade practices, notably those concerning steel and aluminium and their national security consequences.

The start of a US inquiry will not immediately result in open confrontation.

US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer will first need to reach a preliminary finding of unfair practices by China before opening a formal investigation, which could take as much as a year, administration officials said.

Last week, Washington announced preliminary sanctions against Chinese imports of aluminium foil. But so far, the US has not imposed heavier trade measures on Chinese goods.

Trump said in April he was setting aside disputes over market access and currency while Washington and Beijing worked together to persuade North Korea to give up its pursuit of nuclear weapons technology.

Ken Jarrett, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, said the new investigation was a measured and necessary step.

Trumps order reflects growing frustration among American companies about Chinas trade policies, he said in a statement on Tuesday.

Chinese companies operating in the US are not pressured to part with technologies and intellectual property in exchange for market access, he noted.
Zimbabwes first lady fails to hand herself in to South African police after facing accusations of assaulting a model.

Zimbabwes first lady, Grace Mugabe, has returned home from South Africa after failing to turn herself in to police in Johannesburg to face charges of assaulting a model in a hotel room.

There was no immediate public comment on Tuesday on the case from Grace, 52, a possible successor to her husband President Robert Mugabe, 93, who has ruled Zimbabwe since 1980. But Zimbabwe government sources confirmed she had returned home.

Yes, she is back in the country. We dont know where this issue of assault charges is coming from, a senior government official told Reuters news agency on condition of anonymity.

READ MORE: Zimbabwes season of rising discontent

A second official also confirmed to Reuters that Grace had returned, saying she is around now and accused the news media of a plot to tarnish the first familys name.

Earlier, South African police had been negotiating with Graces lawyers to get her to turn herself in to face charges of assault, a senior police source said.

Twenty-year-old Gabriella Engels told South African news media that Grace attacked her after the model had gone to see the Mugabes sons Robert and Chatunga at a hotel in Johannesburgs Sandton district on Sunday.





Confusion surrounded the case on Tuesday. Fikile Mbalula, South Africas police minister, said early on Tuesday that Grace had already handed herself in to police and would appear in court shortly.

But in the afternoon, the magistrates court where Grace had been expected to be formally charged closed for the day without her appearing.

The police source said Grace had originally agreed to hand herself in at 10am local time (08:00 GMT) but failed to do so.

The source said police were investigating a charge of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm.

Asked if Grace was now considered a fugitive, the source said that was not the case at this stage.

One cannot be a fugitive for not appearing at a court to which they have not been summoned and when they have not been charged of any crime! Jonathan Moyo, Graces close ally and Zimbabwes higher education minister, said on Twitter.

South African news media said Grace had been in the country to have an injured foot examined. It was unclear whether she was travelling on a diplomatic passport.

On whether she could be arrested despite having diplomatic immunity, South Africas Mbalula said: All those implications will be taken into consideration. He then added: She will be charged.

Non-diplomatic passport

A Zimbabwean intelligence source said Grace had been travelling on an ordinary non-diplomatic passport and was in South Africa on personal business.

The News24 website quoted Engels version of events in the hotel room. When Grace entered, I had no idea who she was. She walked in with an extension cord and just started beating me with it, the model said.

She flipped and just kept beating me with the plug. Over and over. I had no idea what was going on. I was surprised  I needed to crawl out of the room before I could run away.

OPINION: Courageous legal challenge by child brides in Zimbabwe

News24 published a picture of a woman it said was Engels with a large gash in her forehead. I am a model, with this scar over my face my whole career is ruined, she said.

It was unclear what triggered the incident.

Mugabes two sons were kicked out of the Regent luxury apartment complex in Sandton last month after an incident in the middle of the night, staff at the complex told Reuters.





Imelda Fincham, Regents manager, did not elaborate but confirmed the pair had left. Theyre no longer here, she said.

In 2009, a press photographer in Hong Kong said Grace and her bodyguard had assaulted him. Police there said the incident was reported but that no charges were brought.

President Mugabe spoke at a public event marking Defence Forces Day in Harare on Tuesday but did not mention Grace.

Grace was in the news in late July when she challenged her husband to name his preferred successor.

The issue of who will succeed Mugabe has deeply divided Zimbabwes ruling ZANU-PF party.

One faction supports Grace and the other Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is recovering in a South African hospital after he fell ill and was airlifted from Zimbabwe.

Grace has taken on a larger public role in recent years, speaking regularly at meetings to drum up support for her husband and heading the womens league of the ruling ZANU-PF party.

In speeches this year the president has often slurred his words, mumbled and paused for lengthy periods.

His reign has been marked by brutal repression of dissent, mass emigration, vote rigging and a sharp economic decline since land reforms in 2000.
Hague-based court holds Mahmoud al-Werfalli responsible for murder as a war crime of 33 people in Libyas east.

The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for a senior Libyan military commander allied with Khalifa Haftar who is suspected of involvement in the deaths of 33 people in the eastern city of Benghazi.

Haftar is the controversial chief of the self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA), which now controls key Libyan oil ports.

Libya descended into chaos following the 2011 civil war that toppled and killed longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi, and the country is now split between rival governments and militias.

The ICC document, seen by Al Jazeera on Tuesday, says: Mahmoud Mustafa Busayf Al-Werfalli [is] allegedly responsible for murder as a war crime in the context of the non-international armed conflict in Libya.

READ MORE: Libya mired in culture of impunity

The murders were committed in seven incidents, taking place from on or before 3 June 2016 until on or about 17 July 2017, in Benghazi or surrounding areas, the warrant says.

Werfalli allegedly personally shot or ordered the execution of people who were either civilians or injured fighters, according to the document.

There is no information in the evidence to show that they have been afforded a trial by a legitimate court, whether military or otherwise, that would comport to any recognised standard of due process, the ICCs judges say.

Witness interviews

The charges are backed up by recordings of witness interviews, video material and other evidence, the warrant said.

One video purportedly shows Werfalli shooting a hooded and unarmed person and afterwards telling the dead body: You have been misled by he who did you harm. You have been misled by Satan.

In another incident, Werfalli is allegedly seen in video footage reading from a document before personally commanding a firing squad which then shoots 15 people wearing orange jumpsuits and black hoods, the ICCs judges said.

Faultlines: Libya  State of Insecurity

After reading the document, Mr Al-Werfalli says Ready! Aim! Fire!, the judges said, after which the executioners shoot the prisoners in three groups of five.

Al-Werfalli and two other men then allegedly personally execute three people, before he orders the execution of yet another two others.

The video depicting the incident, involving a total 20 executed persons, was posted on social media on 23 July 2017, the judges said.





Fatou Bensouda, ICCs chief prosecutor, called on Libyan authorities to arrest and hand over Werfalli to ensure his surrender to the ICC without delay.

Such egregious crimes, including the cruel and dehumanising manner by which they were perpetrated against helpless victims, must be stopped, she said.

In a statement, Heba Morayef, director of Amnesty Internationals North Africa Research, said the ICCs decision was a significant step towards ending the rampant impunity for war crimes in Libya.

The Libyan authorities must urgently comply with this arrest warrant and hand [Werfalli] over to the ICC to face his accusers in a fair trial, she said.

This warrant sends a clear message that those who commit or order horrendous crimes are not above the law and will not go unpunished.

Werfallis background

Werfalli, born in 1978, is a senior commander in the Special Forces Brigade, or al-Saiqa, which defected from the Libyan military after the 2011 uprising against Gaddafi.

He joined al-Saiqa after Gaddafis fall and has played a commanding role since at least 2015, the ICCs judges said in the arrest warrant.

Since then, al-Saiqa has been battling alongside forces loyal to Haftar in Benghazi.

Haftar is a dominant figure for factions in eastern Libya that have rejected the UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA), contributing to its failure to expand its power in the capital, Tripoli, and beyond.

Libyas eastern-based parliament, the House of Representatives (HoR), is a rival of the GNA and allied with Haftar.
Iranian leader describes his US counterpart Donald Trump as not a good partner after US imposed new sanctions.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned that Tehran could abandon its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers within hours if the United States keeps on imposing new sanctions.

In a speech to parliament on Tuesday, he also hit out at US counterpart Donald Trump saying he had shown the world that Washington was not a good partner.

Rouhanis comments come with the nuclear deal under mounting pressure after Tehran carried out missile tests and Washington imposed new sanctions, with each accusing the other of violating the spirit of the agreement.

WATCH: Iran: The Sanctions Hotel

The US Treasury sanctioned six Iranian firms in late July for their role in the development of a ballistic missile programme after Tehran launched a rocket capable of putting a satellite into orbit.

Rouhani warned that Iran was ready to walk out of the 2015 deal, which saw the lifting of most international sanctions in return for curbs on its nuclear programme, if Washington persisted.

Those who try to return to the language of threats and sanctions are prisoners of their past delusions, he said in the televised address.

If they want to go back to that experience, definitely in a short time, not weeks or months, but in the scale of hours and days, we will return to our previous situation very much more stronger.

In early August, Trump signed into law new sanctions on Iran, Russia, and North Korea that were passed by the US Congress.

The sanctions in that bill also target Irans missile programmes as well as human rights abuses.

Washington imposed unilateral sanctions after saying Irans ballistic missile tests violated a UN resolution that endorsed the nuclear deal and called upon Tehran not to undertake activities related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such technology.

It stopped short of explicitly barring such activity.

Iran denies its missile development breaches the resolution, saying its missiles are not designed to carry nuclear weapons.

Model of peace

Rouhani said Iran preferred to stick with the nuclear deal, which he called a model of victory for peace and diplomacy over war and unilateralism but that this was not the only option.

He said Trump had shown he was an unreliable partner not just for Iran but for US allies.

In recent months, the world has witnessed that the US, in addition to its constant and repetitive breaking of its promises in the JCPOA [nuclear deal], has ignored several other global agreements and shown its allies that the US is neither a good partner nor a reliable negotiating party, he said.

He highlighted Trumps decisions to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement and international trade deals.

Irans parliament on Sunday approved more than half a billion dollars in funding for the countrys missile programme and foreign operations of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in response to the new US sanctions.

Not a happy man

Foad Azadi, a specialist in US-Iranian relations at the University of Tehran, told Al Jazeera the US sanctions had made it harder for Rouhani to counter those in the Iranian parliament who opposed the nuclear deal.

Weve had in previous years attempts to reduce tensions and resolve problems and basically each time the US was not interested, Azadi said.

What the Trump administration is doing is trying to fulfil the promise that President Trump made during the [election] campaign, which is to tear apart the nuclear agreement.

The actions of the US Congress and the signing of the new law is not making President Rouhani a happy man.
At a speech marking Indias independence day, PM says Kashmirs conflict will not be solved by abuse and bullets.

Narendra Modi said force would not resolve the situation in Kashmir in a speech marking 70 years of Indian independence.

The Indian prime ministers comments on Tuesday came amid an upturn in fighting between Indian soldiers and separatist fighters in the Himalayan region and angry protests against Indian rule.

Abuse and bullets will not solve the Kashmir issue, Modi said, adding embracing Kashmiris will.

Just two days earlier in south Kashmirs Shopian area, three local fighters, two soldiers, and two civilians were killed in a firefight that led to street protests that wounded more than a dozen people.

The situation in Kashmir continues to be tense, particularly in its southern areas.

Indian forces have launched a major operation that has resulted in the deaths of more than 130 fighters and civilians, officials say.

Different reality

Sheikh Showkat Hussain, a Kashmiri political analyst, said statements such as Modis about Kashmir rarely lead to improvements for its residents.





Experts on the ground say the situation speaks of a grim reality and the government has been dealing with the civilian population with an iron fist, Hussain said.

This is not the first time that such statement is being made on Kashmir. What we see practically is more oppression and humiliation. These statements never get translated on the ground.

Hussain said young men are regularly killed in Kashmir in fake encounters, or incidents where security forces shoot unarmed protesters and later claim they were armed attackers.

Young boys who have joined militancy just for 10 days or a week are being killed. Modi gives these soft statements just for the media coverage and to wash away his past sins, Hussain said.

Parvez Imroz, a leading rights activist in Kashmir, told Al Jazeera that the government in Kashmir has turned more offensive in recent years and they are adopting what he described as Israeli tactics.

The reality on the ground is totally different to what Modi said today, he said.

IN PICTURES: Enduring the effects of partition in Kashmir

They are pushing Kashmiris to the wall; they are using these tactics for the upcoming 2019 elections. They are more inspired by the Israeli way The Modi government doesnt care about its image or the international community, said Imroz.

They just want to show that their government is strong. They are bringing more troops to Kashmir and have turned it into an open garrison. They are just provoking Kashmiris.

Omar Abdullah, a former chief minister of Kashmir, wrote on Twitter, PM Modis words for Kashmir have been very well received by people here, but everyone here is weary of yet more talk and no concrete action.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. We look forward to being embraced in the warm grip of understanding, acceptance and respect.

The moderate separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said the resolution of Kashmir would become a reality when abuses and bullets are replaced with humanity and justice.

Rival claims





Nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan each administer part of Kashmir, but both claim the Himalayan territory in its entirety.

Separatist groups have been fighting since 1989 for the Indian-administered portion to become independent or merge with Pakistan.

Nearly 70,000 people have been killed in the uprising and the ensuing Indian military crackdown.

India maintains roughly 500,000 soldiers in the territory.

Anti-India sentiment runs deep among Kashmirs mostly Muslim population, and most support the rebels against Indian rule.

India has accused Pakistan of arming and training the fighters, which Islamabad denies.

Armed groups have largely been suppressed by Indian forces in recent years, and public opposition to Indian rule is now primarily expressed through street protests.
Kim Jong-un said he will watch the actions of the US before deciding whether to launch missiles towards Guam.

North Koreas leader received a report from his army on plans to fire missiles towards Guam and said he will watch the actions of the US before making a decision to fire, North Koreas official news agency said on Tuesday.

Kim Jong-un ordered the army to be ready to launch should he make the decision for military action.

North Korea said last week it was finalising plans to launch four missiles into the waters near the US Pacific territory of Guam, and its army would report the attack plan to Kim and wait for his order.

Kim, who inspected the command of North Koreas army on Monday, examined the plan for a long time and discussed it with army officers, the official KCNA agency said.

READ MORE: North Koreas nuclear weapons  Here is what we know

He said that if the Yankees persist in their extremely dangerous reckless actions on the Korean Peninsula and in its vicinity, testing the self-restraint of the DPRK, the latter will make an important decision as it already declared, it said.

The DPRK stands for North Koreas official name, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea.

North Koreas threat to attack near Guam prompted a surge in tensions in the region last week, with US President Donald Trump warning he would unleash fire and fury on North Korea if it did so.





Kim said the US should make the right choice in order to defuse the tensions and prevent the dangerous military conflict on the Korean Peninsula.

The visit to the Korean Peoples Army Strategic Force marks Kims first public appearance in about two weeks.

Trump spoke to Shinzo Abe, Japans prime minister, late on Monday to discuss North Korea.

President Trump reaffirmed that the United States stands ready to defend and respond to any threat or actions taken by North Korea against the United States or its allies, South Korea and Japan, a White House statement said early Tuesday.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in said on Tuesday there would be no military action without Seouls consent and his government would prevent war by all means.

Military action on the Korean Peninsula can only be decided by South Korea and no one else can decide to take military action without the consent of South Korea, Moon said in a speech to commemorate the anniversary of the nations liberation from Japanese military rule in 1945.

OPINION: North Koreas Guam threats can lead to big trouble

The government, putting everything on the line, will block war by all means, Moon said.

North Korea is angry about new UN sanctions over its expanding nuclear weapons and missile programme and annual military drills between the US and South Korea beginning later this month that North Korea condemns as invasion rehearsals.





A Guam official said he was ecstatic as North Korea appeared to back away from its threat.

There doesnt appear to be any indication, based on what were hearing, that there will be any missiles attacking in the near future or in the distant future, Lieutenant-Governor Ray Tonorio said.

Jim Mattis, US defence secretary, warned on Monday the US military would be prepared to intercept a missile fired by North Korea if it was headed to Guam.

Mattis said that the US military would know the trajectory of a missile fired by North Korea within moments and would take it out if it looked like it would hit the US Pacific territory.

The bottom line is, we will defend the country from an attack. For us that is war, Mattis said.

Richard Broinowski, former Australian ambassador to Seoul, told Al Jazeera from Sydney on Tuesday that there was no real threat of war.

Kim Jong-un is not stupid. Hes led his country for a number of years now, and hes done well. Theres a lot of bluster and hyperbole, he said. On the part of the US, we have a president who is unschooled and unskilled in diplomacy. But hes surrounded by people who are.

He also said that the solution was direct talks without conditions between the US and North Korea.

Its been tried before and it needs to be tried again, said Broinowski.
Hundreds gather outside Trump Tower voicing anger at US president over his response to white supremacist violence.

Several hundred protesters demonstrated outside Trump Tower in New York denouncing US President Donald Trump before his first visit to his New York home since taking office more than six months ago.

The visit on Monday comes amid an uproar in the United States over his response to a white supremacist attack in Charlottesville, Virginia, which left one person dead.

Trump blamed many sides for the violence and did not condemn neo-Nazi elements involved by name until several days later.

Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Trump the racist has to go, the crowd sang, some holding up giant balloon letters in gold that read FU TRUMP.

No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA, the group chanted.

Lynn Gray, a former banker who now runs her own company, was among those denouncing the president.

I am terrified of what country weve become, the fact that white supremacists, Nazis, anti-Semites feel empowered by our president. Hes destroying everything that our forefathers worked for, Gray said.

Teacher Kevin Gallagher, 61, said he at first gave Trump a chance despite his dislike of the Republican.

But this week has been truly the lowest of his presidency, Gallagher said. He needs to see what his fellow citizens think of him.

Dozens of officers stood guard in the surrounding area and at least one woman protesting was arrested, as angry demonstrators rounded on those in uniform shouting Who do you serve?





Trump arrived in New York City in the late evening, driving through the relatively empty streets of Manhattan under a heavy police presence.

No protesters could be seen from the motorcade along the way, as many were gathered on a different street from its route.

Feels good to be home after seven months, but the White House is very special, there is no place like it  and the US is really my home, Trump said on Twitter.

Trump took heat from Democrats and Republicans alike for his initial subdued response to a deadly weekend rally by white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Under pressure to explicitly condemn the violence, Trump earlier Monday denounced racism and slammed the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis as criminals and thugs.

Trumps presidential campaign drew the backing of many on the far-right, including former-KKK leader David Duke and white supremacist ideologue Richard Spencer.

The US presidents promise to ban Muslims from entering the country and descriptions of some Hispanics as rapists, drug dealers, and bad hombres, won him acclaim in far-right circles.
Protesters say racist symbols must be taken down, forcibly if necessary, as they are protected by US law.

Protesters in the US state of North Carolina toppled a nearly century-old statue of a Confederate soldier at a rally against racism as the backlash against a deadly white nationalist gathering last weekend continued.

Activists in Durham brought a ladder up to the statue on Monday and used a rope to pull down the Confederate Soldiers Monument that was dedicated in 1924. A diverse crowd of dozens cheered as the statue of a soldier holding a rifle fell to the ground in front of an old courthouse building that now houses local government offices.

Seconds after the monument fell, protesters began kicking the crumpled bronze monument.

I was a little bit shocked people could come here and come together like that, said Isaiah Wallace, who is black.

READ MORE: Trump decries KKK, neo-Nazi violence in Charlottesville

Wallace said he watched as others toppled the statue, adding he hopes other Confederate symbols elsewhere will follow.

I feel like this is going to send shockwaves through the country and hopefully they can bring down other racist symbols, he said.

A group of protesters topple a Confederate statue during a rally in Durham, North Carolina. pic.twitter.com/HIDtlQD0ZS  NBC News (@NBCNews) August 14, 2017

The Durham protest was in response to a white nationalist rally held in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend. One woman was killed on Saturday after a white nationalist drove his car into a group of peaceful counter-protesters.

Although the violence in Virginia has prompted fresh talk by government officials about bringing down symbols of the Confederacy around the southern United States, North Carolina has a law protecting them. The 2015 law prevents removing such monuments on public property without permission from state officials.

In response to the statue in Durham being torn down, Democratic North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper tweeted: The racism and deadly violence in Charlottesville is unacceptable, but there is a better way to remove these monuments.

Robin Williamson works downtown and arrived in the area about an hour after the statue came down. Williamson, who is black, said he could sympathise with people who are upset with the state of racial discourse in the country.

People feel that with Donald Trump as leader, racists can be vocal, he said.

OPINION: Charlottesville is America everywhere

He said while Confederate monuments have been defaced in other cities, it was surprising to see an entire statue brought down by protesters.

This is a little bit more intense because they took the whole statue down, he said.

Bree Newsome, a civil rights activist who was arrested for pulling down a Confederate flag in South Carolina in 2015, said the law is standing in the way of removing symbols of racism. She faced five years in prison and a $3,000 fine, but the charges were later dropped.

There are an estimated 700 such symbols across 31 US states.

Public opinion is really turning against Confederate monuments in public spaces, Newsome told Al Jazeera. The practice of civil disobedience  theres a role for that in a vibrant democracy because there are times when the law itself is unjust. In order to achieve justice, we have to challenge these laws.
Rain fell at a time of year that is normally bone dry.

There was excitement in Doha this morning as residents woke to clouds and rain for the first time in months.

August is the middle of the dry season in Qatar and rain at this time of year is rare. In fact, the last time it rained in the capital was March 27.

Rain usually falls in the winter months, between November and April. During the rainy season, the rain can sometimes be heavy and cause flooding.

In November 2016, torrential rain triggered widespread flooding in Qatar, forcing the closure of schools and several roads.

However, between May and October, rain is relatively rare.

Qatars Civil Aviation Authority issued a statement saying that the current cloud over the Arabian Peninsula is due to the Intertropical Convergence Zone, known as the ITCZ.

The ITCZ is a band of showers and thunderstorms which encircles the globe near the equator. It is formed by the convergence of the prevailing winds  in the Northern Hemisphere the winds are generally northeasterly, and in the Southern Hemisphere, they are southeasterly. When the winds converge, the air is forced up into the atmosphere, forming the showers.

At this time of year, the ITCZ would be expected to be near the south coast of Oman, but this year it has pushed northwards across the Arabian Peninsula.

This is triggering showers across many parts of the region, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar.

This means that more rain is possible across the country over the next few days.

Above photo courtesy of @QGossip_Genuine
Arar crossing to reopen for transportation of goods after Riyadh establishes joint trade commission with Baghdad.

Saudi Arabia plans to open the Arar border crossing with Iraq for the first time since 1990, according to Saudi local news media and officials.

Abdul Aziz al-Shammari, Saudi charge daffaires in Baghdad, said on Tuesday the crossing that will open soon will be dedicated to the transportation of goods.

The Mecca newspaper reported that Saudi and Iraqi officials toured the site on Monday and spoke with Iraqi religious pilgrims, who had access to the crossing only once annually during the Hajj pilgrimage season.

Sohaib al-Rawi, the governor of Iraqs southwestern Anbar province, whose staff was on hand for the ceremonies, said the Iraqi government had deployed troops to protect the desert route leading to Arar and called its opening a significant move to boost ties.

READ MORE: Saudi Arabia seeks Iraqs help to mend ties with Iran

This is a great start for further future cooperation between Iraq and Saudi Arabia, said al-Rawi.

The border was closed after Baghdad and Riyadh cut ties following former Iraqi President Saddam Husseins invasion of Kuwait.

The announcement follows a decision by the Saudi cabinet on Monday to establish a joint trade commission with Iraq.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are both currently wooing their northern neighbour in an effort to halt the growing regional influence of archrival Iran.

The Sunni-led Arab Gulf countries have hosted influential Iraqi Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr for talks with their crown princes in recent weeks, rare visits after years of troubled relations.

Saudis donate $10m to Iraq

Sadrs office said his meeting with Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, resulted in an agreement for Saudi Arabia to donate $10m in aid to the Iraqi government and study possible investments in Shia regions of southern Iraq.

The opening of border crossings for trade was also on a list of goals for the talks published by Sadrs office.

Sadr commands a large following among the urban poor of Baghdad and southern Iraq and is one of few Iraqi Shia leaders to keep some distance from the Iranian government.

The Saudi-Iraqi rapprochement extends back to 2015 when Saudi Arabia reopened its embassy in Baghdad following a 25-year break.

Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi foreign minister, visited Baghdad in February, and the two countries announced in June they would set up a coordination council to upgrade ties.
Death toll put at more than 300 with another 600 missing following flash flooding and mudslides in and around Freetown.

The president of Sierra Leone says his country needs urgent support now for thousands of people affected by flash flooding and mudslides in and around the capital Freetown.

Ernest Bai Koroma fought back tears on Tuesday as he said at a news conference in the hilltop community of Regent that the disaster was overwhelming.

Entire communities have been wiped out, Koroma said at the site where heavy rains streaming down the hill caused a landslide and engulfed homes three or four storeys high on Monday, many of them built illegally.

According to authorities, more than 300 people were killed, and many were trapped under tonnes of mud as they slept.

Gaston Slanwa, the representative for Sierra Leones Christian charity Tearfund, told Al Jazeera from Freetown that there was a need for food, shelter, blankets and safe water among other things.

We are going to open churches to provide shelter. We hope to provide food, clothing, blankets and water. And we are working with other agencies to see how best we can address the situation, he said.

He also said that there was a risk of further flooding that was adding to the worry in the area.

The UK and Israel said they were sending aid, including clean water, medicines and blankets, as quickly as possible.

Tonnes of mud

Sulaiman Parker, the environmental protection officer on the Freetown City Council, said bodies would be buried in the next 48 hours.

The Red Cross has estimated that 600 people were still missing and it was struggling to bring enough equipment to the site to excavate those buried deep in the mud.

I have never seen anything like it, said Abdul Nasir, programme coordinator for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

A river of mud came out of nowhere and swallowed entire communities, just wiped them away. We are racing against time, more flooding and the risk of disease to help these affected communities survive and cope with their loss.

Paolo Conteh, the interior minister, told Sierra Leones state broadcaster that thousands of people remained missing.

The government has promised relief to the more than 3,000 people left homeless, opening an emergency response centre in Regent and four registration centres.

Abibatu Kamara, a mother of three who spent the night on her neighbours veranda, said the government response so far had been absent.

We have not received any food or blankets since the disaster occurred yesterday, she told AFP news agency.
Three suicide bombers detonate explosives near northeast city of Maiduguri in attacks bearing hallmark of Boko Haram.

A female suicide bomber blew herself up and killed at least 27 others at a market in northeast Nigeria on Tuesday, two local officials said, in an attack bearing the hallmark of Boko Haram.

Two more suicide bombers detonated their devices at the gates to a nearby refugee camp, wounding many people, an emergency services official said.

The regional Emergency Agency said 45 people were critically injured. The death toll could be as high as 30.

In all, at least 83 people were wounded in the three explosions near the city of Maiduguri, the epicentre of the long-running conflict between government forces and Boko Haram.

Nigerias military last year wrested back large swaths of territory from the armed group. But they have struck back with renewed zeal since June, killing at least 143 people before Tuesdays bombings and weakening the armys control.

READ MORE: Northern Nigeria  Refuge for IDPs fleeing Boko Haram

The group has waged an eight-year war to create an Islamic state in northeast Nigeria and provoked international outrage by kidnapping more than 200 schoolgirls known as the Chibok Girls in April 2014.

More than 80 of the nearly 200 schoolgirls who were still missing after a mass Boko Haram abduction in northeast Nigeria in 2014 were freed in May in exchange for prisoners.





Its better-known faction, led by Abubakar Shekau, has mainly based itself in the sprawling Sambisa forest and has been characterised by its use of women and children as suicide bombers targeting mosques and markets.

Fiyaso Soyomb, Editor of the International Centre for Investigative Reporting in Nigeria, told Al Jazeera that Boko Haram likes to use female suicide bombers because they are harder to detect.

Following the trend of attacks, its clear that there has been an upsurge since the release of [more than 80] girls in exchange for Boko Haram commanders  thats a big factor.

A rival faction  based in the Lake Chad region, led by Abu Musab al-Barnawi and boasting ties to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS)  has in the meantime quietly become a deadly force capable of carrying out highly-organised attacks.

Last month, an oil prospecting team was captured by al-Barnawis group. At least 37 people, including members of the team, died when rescuers from the military and vigilantes attempted to free them.

The Boko Haram rebellion has killed 20,000 people and forced some 2.7 million to flee their homes in the last eight years.
Armed group presses US president for a complete withdrawal to save the lives of Americans and Afghans in an open letter.

The Taliban called on President Donald Trump on Tuesday to review the strategy for the war in Afghanistan and to hold peaceful dialogue directly with Afghans instead of engaging corrupt politicians.

Written in a tone of negotiation, the Taliban asked Trump to study the historical mistakes of his predecessors and to withdraw troops from Afghanistan completely.





The letter urged the United States to interact with Afghans generously instead of imposing war.

It seems to be a historical mistake on the part of the previous administrations to have dispatched American youth for the slaughter of Afghans. However, as a responsible American president, you need to study the mistakes of your predecessors and prevent death and injury to American forces in Afghanistan, it said.

Afghanistan was invaded by the US in 2001 and has become Washingtons longest military intervention since Vietnam. It has also been the costliest with more than $100bn spent.

American youth are not born to be killed in the deserts and mountains of Afghanistan in order to establish the writ of thieves and corrupt officials and neither would their parents approve of them killing civilians in Afghanistan, the letter said.

The Taliban also accused Afghan politicians and generals of protracting the war and occupation for personal gain.

A number of warmongering congressmen and generals in Afghanistan are pressing you to protract the war in Afghanistan because they seek to preserve their military privileges, but instead you must act responsibly as the fate of many Americans and Afghans alike is tied to this issue.

Afghanistans interior ministry declined to comment when contacted by Al Jazeera.

READ MORE: SIGAR questions millions spent in Afghanistan

In a press conference on Monday, US Defense Secretary James Mattis said all options for Afghanistan remained on the table, and a full withdrawal of troops is one of them.

Trump has yet to announce a strategy for Afghanistan, but Mattis said one is very, very close.

Possible plans include sending thousands more troops into the nearly 16-year conflict, or taking the opposite tack and pulling out, leaving private military contractors to help the Afghans oversee the fragile security situation.

Erik Prince, founder of the private security company Blackwater, has offered his private military force for Afghanistan, proposing a two-year plan in which American troops  aside from a handful of special forces  would be replaced by his army of about 5,500 contractors who would train Afghan soldiers and join them in the fight against the Taliban.

However, the Taliban said privatising the war effort would be a grave mistake.

If the war cant be won with professional US and NATO troops  you shall never be able to win it with mercenaries, notorious contractor firms, and immoral stooges, the Taliban letter said.
President Maduro urges army and civilians to prepare for imperialist invasion after Trump spoke of military option.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has called for military exercises after US President Donald Trumps threat of a possible armed intervention in the country.

Speaking on Monday, Maduro insisted he still wanted to hold talks with the US leader whose threat of a military option came amid violent protests in Venezuela.

Maduro told supporters in Caracas to prepare for an imperialist invasion while US Vice President Mike Pence sought to calm concerns in the region about Trumps talk, promising a peaceful solution to Venezuelas collapse into dictatorship.

President Trump has made it very clear that we will not stand by while Venezuela collapses into dictatorship, Pence said in Cartagena, Colombia, according to Reuters news agency.

A failed state in Venezuela threatens the security and prosperity of our entire hemisphere and the people of the United States of America.

Deeply saddened

Venezuelas Vice President Tareck el-Aissami condemned the visit by his US counterpart to neighbouring Colombia.

We are deeply saddened that that nation, a sibling country that is Colombia, founded under the same sword that founded this homeland, would lend itself to that menace, would lend itself to the aggression against our people, he said.

Maduro is struggling with a faltering economy at home and increasing diplomatic isolation abroad. Trumps comments on Friday have fuelled long-standing accusations that the US is preparing a military attack.

Everyone has to join the defence plan, millions of men and women, lets see how the American imperialists like it, Maduro told supporters, urging them to join the two-day operation on Aug 26 and 27 involving both soldiers and civilians.

Thousands of government supporters rallied in Caracas where they denounced Trumps suggestion of armed force to resolve Venezuelas crisis.

True situation

More than 120 people have been killed since anti-government protests began in April, driven by outrage over Venezuelas economic crisis and Maduros creation of a legislative superbody that critics say is dictatorial.

Maduro said Trumps advisers had confused him about the true situation in Venezuela.
Three Gainesville men and one Archer man were arrested late Sunday night after police said they tried breaking into a womans car outside her home.

A witness observed the four men outside the car at about 10:13 p.m. near 608 Queens Road and confronted them, according to an Alachua County Sheriffs Office arrest report. After the witness asked the four men what they were doing, they ran away and were later caught and arrested by police just before midnight.

The four men  Quintel Shamon Austin, 18, of Gainesville; Keonte Arthur Larry, 18, of Gainesville; Demarquez Sevontae Parhm, 20, of Gainesville; and Daytaveya Lamar Brown, 19, of Archer  all remain in the Alachua County Jail, as of press time, and face third-degree felony charges.

Police said the men used two black socks, in place of gloves, to cover their fingerprints during the burglary, according to the report.

The attempted car burglary took place less than two miles from where a July 21 shooting in Reflections Apartments killed a Gainesville resident, and less than three miles from where police shot a 16-year-old male armed with a rifle replica at Majestic Oaks Apartments in March 2016, according to Alligator archives.

So far this year, police have handled at least 268 car burglaries, ACSO spokesperson Art Forgey wrote in an email.

Last year, there were 311 in the same time frame.

Typically, car burglaries come in spurts in the same general area, Forgey said, and police advise residents to keep their car as safe as possible overnight.

Lock it or lose it, he said. Keep valuables out of sight in your vehicles or remove them, and always lock the doors.

Austin and Brown each faces a charge of burglary into an unoccupied vehicle and are being held on a $15,000 bond; Larry is faces an additional charge of obstructing justice and is being held on an $80,000 bond; and Parhm faces an additional charge of marijuana possession and is being held on a $20,000 bond.

The owner of the car could not be immediately be reached for comment.

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I firmly condemn last nights vile attack on a Turkish restaurant in Ouagadougou. We join the relatives of the victims in their grief and we express our sympathy to the injured, confiding in their prompt recovery. To the Government of Burkina Faso, to which we are bound by ties of friendship, we convey our solidarity []Source : http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Appa-sourceTheAfric...
Silk Way West Airlines, a growing cargo operator based in Azerbaijan, and Alaska Airlines on Thursday signed contracts with Boeing for two freighters apiece  but that is where the similarities ended. Silk Way West said it will take two 777-8s, the largest plane available from Boeing (NYSE: BA) and one so modern it isnt []
To nice, nerdy James Damores surprise, Google does not want to engage in a discussion of how their hiring discrimination against white and Asian males can be justified. Googles corporate culture has been exposed as an Orwellian pig farm, where social justice warriors (SJWs) send daily missives on the correct way to think. Those who express contrary opinions are bullied, sent to HR for reprogramming, fired and  not punished enough - put on Silicon Valley blacklists to ruin their careers.

Several managers have openly admitted to keeping blacklists of the employees in question, and preventing them from seeking work at other companies. There have been numerous cases in which social justice activists coordinated attempts to sabotage other employees performance reviews for expressing a different opinion. These have been raised to the Senior VP level, with no action taken whatsoever.

This would just one more sorry tale of progressive bullying, but for one thing. This is the company that runs the largest search engine in the world. Political bullying is supported and instigated by top management. Groupthink is official HR policy. These SJW Marxists are not content with a reign of terror within the company. They are after your free speech on the Internet.

Our Brave New World is in Silicon Valley, and is coming to you right now, with growing Internet censorship of conservative viewpoints.

Allum Bokhari has a series of must-read Breitbart Rebels of Google interviews with whistleblowers who have had enough:

AB: Many people now fear that Google, Facebook, and other companies are moving to control and censor their content. Are these fears justified? Hal: That is absolutely what Google is trying to do. The pro-censorship voices are very loud, and they have the managements ear. The anti-censorship people are afraid of retaliation, and people are afraid to openly support them because everyone in their management chain is constantly signaling their allegiance to far-left ideology.

Google employees in the advertising department are trying to stop ads that support conservative websites. They are fiddling with search engines to demote results to web content that is anti-communist, anti-Islamist, or non-PC.

Think about Google blocking Internet content that is anti-communist. The progressive left is a euphemism for old left Marxists. They are the ideological and often literal grandchildren of Stalinists. (As are Obama, Valerie Jarrett, David Axelrod and Obamas head of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, all red diaper babies). No wonder tyrannical behavior comes to naturally to them.

Damore is not alone. He is only the first casualty of Googles war on free thought to make headlines. The company immersion in leftist politics and punishment of rebels reached critical proportions in Obamas second term. Google is facing trial in November for an earlier complaint to the National Labor Relations Board.

(F)or interfering with employees legal right to discuss workplace diversity and social justice initiatives. The complaint alleges that Senior Vice President Urs Holzle and numerous managers in his organization actively stoked up witch hunts in 2015 and 2016 intended to muzzle low-level employees who raised concerns about the companys practices.

Senior Vice President Urs Holzele is a prominent computer scientist and Googles eighth hire, a power within the company.

Management is 100% behind hard-left employees mixing politics and politically correct crusades into the daily workflow and weekly digital meetings. Any dissent can lead to humiliating forms of training that resemble Maoist struggle sessions.

The campus fascists are now in charge of the largest Internet search engine on earth. Google even has the same denial of due process for allegations of sexual harassment that grew out of the Obamas DOJ weaponizing rape accusations on campus.

There have been a number of massive witch hunts where hundreds of SJWs mobilize across the corporate intranet to punish somebody who defied the Narrative. The first one I remember is when Kelly Ellis made unfounded allegations of sexual harassment against her former manager, and Google terminated the manager in response to the internal SJW outrage. This was similar in intensity to the current witch hunt. Anyone who sympathized with the managers plight or asked for any sort of due process was counseled by HR and told that they were creating a hostile workplace for women and minorities by sticking up for a harasser.

The influence of Marxist group Black Lives Matter now reigns at Google.

According to Gordon, things took a turn for the worse when the Black Lives Matter ideology started to spread through the corporate culture. One thing thats unusual about Google is that it is fine to harshly and even unprofessionally criticize managers and other teams. Before we became politicized, this seemed liberating. Then, when Black Lives Matter hysteria hit its peak, sometime in 2015, it became taboo to criticize identity politics, and later on, it became very dangerous to criticize any member of a minority group at all (even if the criticism had nothing to do with their identity).

Wonder why the decent people at Google dont speak up? A group of them tried. Thjey started a mailing list called freespeech  were accused by a female SJW of hate speech, and lost their jobs.

Google is run like a religious cult. Conform and carry out the rituals, and youll be rewarded and praised; ask any uncomfortable questions or offend the wrong people, and the threats and public shaming will be swift and ruthless. The religion in this case is a kind of intersectional feminism, its central tenets are Diversity and Inclusion, its demonic enemy is Bias, and its purifying rituals include humiliating forms of training that resemble Maoist struggle sessions.

Google is the red line where our natural and Constitutional rights to freedom of thought and speech are defended. Americans are sick of discrimination in the name of equality. We want straightforward equality before the law  the same laws, the same rules, the same opportunities for everyone.

Some of this can be done by directives from DOJ that our anti-discrimination laws apply equally to everyone. Congress needs to protect us with new laws that ban race and gender based quotas, period.

Employees need protection from being fired for political reasons.

As for Google, abusing their power to censor conservatives on the Internet cannot be allowed. Their monopoly is dangerous to our civil rights. We need a Trump intervention.

Kurt Schlicter has a few useful things to say on this topic.

It's not hard to imagine that they'll soon try and silence the rest of us. One way is by weaponizing the information they maintain on all of us from search histories, purchases, and even email, information that gives leftist hacks incredible leverage to intimidate and extort opponents. Gee, Mr. Conservative, itd sure be a pity if the world found out about your browser history .

Another Schlicter proposal is an Algorithm Transparency Act to ban Internet companies from:

...willful manipulation of the algorithms that determine what can and cannot be said and read And transparency means allowing an army of Davids to dig through Facebook and Googles code, finding out why things the tech leftists don't want you to know are getting buried, and then feeding that info to trial lawyers.

Googles Maoist company culture threatens us all. We need new laws for this new age to protect freedom of speech and assembly in the digital realm.
The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses. Two recent recipients were U.S. presidents, Democrats of course, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama. A U.S. vice-president also won the prize, Al Gore, another Democrat.

Jimmy Carter won his prize in 2002, long after his presidency, "for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development." Again, after his presidency and post presidential humanitarian efforts.

Barack Obama won his prize in 2009, just months into his presidency, "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." Other than a few speeches, he had not done anything of substance. Surprisingly, his prize was not rescinded after Benghazi, Iraq, Egypt, Libya, and ISIS, all highly successful efforts in international diplomacy.

Al Gore received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."

As a quick aside, of 130 Peace Prize Laureates, only 16 were women. Eight percent. Forget chasing Google. Social justice warriors have a much better target with the Nobel committee. Start the protests and boycotts.

Obamas prize was awarded on the come, a gambling term for betting on cards that may come in the future. Or in business, compensation based on future success. The Nobel prize committee was betting that the hope and change media creation would actually pan out in the future.

Similarly, Gores prize was a bet on the come that lower temperatures would be coming based on Als movies, speeches, and carbon credits. The Nobel prize didnt bring peace but instead brought fabulous wealth to Gore, paving the way for him to potentially become the worlds first carbon billionaire.

I never thought I would be giving kudos to the Nobel prize committee for their wise and prescient award to Al Gore. Few American Thinker readers would expect such an acknowledgement either. But credit where credits due.

Meteorologist Joe Bastardi, looking at global temperatures over the past twelve years noted something interesting. Temperatures were warmer when Gore won his peace prize in 2007 than they are today. As you can see in the chart below:

Shazam! Al Gore is actually lowering global temperatures. The Nobel prize committee got it right, giving Gore the prize is responsible for lower temps now than the day he won the prize. Or not.

Instead the Nobel prize committee could have awarded the 2007 prize to Mother Nature, who is managing to lower temperatures without the need for books, movies, speeches, or carbon credits. A recently published German study concludes, We can expect climate cooling for next 50 years!

Al should be taking credit for lowering global temperatures rather than predicting doomsday. In 2006, a year before he received the famous prize, he predicted that unless we took drastic measures the world would reach a point of no return within ten years. Now eleven years later his predicted true planetary emergency has as much validity as predictions of Hillary Clinton winning the presidential election in a landslide.

If he had just kept quiet, he could now claim success given that global temperatures have dropped since the time he won the peace prize. But no. Instead he has a second movie, doubling down on the failed predictions of his first movie. The new one is called, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power. The only thing inconvenient will be more failed predictions:

Stronger storms, worsening floods, deeper droughts, mega-fires, tropical diseases spreading through vulnerable populations in all parts of the earth, melting ice caps flooding coastal cities, unsurvivable [sic] heat extremes, and hundreds of millions of climate refugees.

The left is missing a golden opportunity to bask in the success of Al Gores Nobel Peace Prize, taking full credit for lower temperatures today compared to when he won the prize. They could claim that their green measures, whatever they may be, are working.

Instead, they are snatching political defeat from the jaws a victory, in apparent imitation of the Republicans, beclowning themselves with silly headlines as recently in the New York Times, North Korea aside, Guam faces another threat: Climate change. If I lived on Guam, I would be far more worried about one of Kim Jung-uns missiles landing on my head than being swallowed up by a rising ocean.

With all the hot air coming from Al Gore and the liberal media, its a wonder that all of the polar ice hasnt yet melted with fish swimming in the streets of New York and Miami. The Nobel committee should give Gore another Nobel Peace Prize, secure in the belief that in ten years, global temperatures will again drop by a fraction of a degree, all due to his winning the prize.

Brian C. Joondeph, MD, MPS, a Denver based physician and writer. Follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
As the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) prepares to hold a long awaited independence referendum on September 25 of this year, it's wise to look at South Sudan to prevent dangerous scenarios regarding a future Kurdish state.

Background

South Sudan is the world's youngest nation, established in 2011, when it finally broke away from Sudan. Similar to the KRI, it is a landlocked region surrounded by Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, the Central African Republic, and of course Sudan. Before gaining statehood, the region experienced two civil wars, the first in 1955 and the second in 1983, which ended in 2005 and led to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. This agreement allowed for an autonomous region, separate from the central government in Khartoum.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) was established in 1992 with the implementation of a no-fly zone (NFZ) with the backing of the United States after the first Gulf War in 1991. The NFZ allowed for an autonomous Kurdish region with its own borders, security, flag, constitution, parliament, and president  everything except a universally recognized border on a physical map.

South Sudan held a referendum as well, with a 98.83% success rate, similar to the unofficial Kurdish referendum in 2005, with a majority voting in favor of autonomy at 98%.

It's been six years since South Sudan began to enjoy its sovereignty. Despite this, South Sudan is considered the number-one failed state, surpassing Somalia, according to the Fragile States Index. Nearly half the country is in dire need of food aid and is currently facing extreme hunger, one million have already fled as refugees, and 2 million are considered internally displaced. The population of South Sudan is double that of the KRI at over 12 million, but 7.5 million people in the country are in need of humanitarian assistance.

The Cause

In short, what precipitated South Sudan's predicament was a civil war ignited between the government of Salva Kiir and Vice President Riek Machar. The conflict quickly developed an ethnic characteristic. The Dinka ethnic group aligned with the president, and the Nuer ethnic group, the larger of the two, supported Vice President Kier. The conflict also contained oil disputes between Juba, capital of South Sudan, and Khartoum.

If we focus on the KRI, it too has oil disputes with Baghdad and disputed territories such as Kirkuk with an abundant quantity of oil. This has the possibility to trigger a larger war than that against the Islamic State (ISIS). To make matters worse, Kirkuk also includes the ethnic aspect: the city is majority-Kurdish with Arab and Turkoman minorities, which may force neighboring Turkey and Iraq to battle over the territory. Another dangerous possibility is the split between the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), both in control of large powerful armed forces. The KRG has experienced a civil war as well, between the KDP and PUK, which took the lives of 5,000 Kurdish fighters and civilians in 1994.

The Lesson

To prevent a similar disastrous entrance to the international stage, the KRG must first and foremost establish a sense of unity among all those living in its territory, Kurds and non-Kurds alike. This will not only prevent a civil war, but establish stronger ties with neighbors, since the state is also landlocked by Iraq, Iran, Turkey and what is left of Syria. A united Kurdistan can also be used as leverage against Turkey and Iran, the KRG's strongest neighbors. Today, the KDP has close ties with Turkey and the PUK with Iran. Such conflicting relations must end.

Second, the KRG must distance itself from tribal politics. The ruling families of KDP-Barzani and PUK-Talabani can no longer believe they are entitled to certain positions; Kurdistan will not survive with a monarchy. An active democratic and transparent parliament must be functioning at all times despite disagreements among top parties. (The parliament has been inactive since 2015.)

Third, the unity of the forces, both PUK and KDP, have separate Peshmerga groups numbering over 50,000 each, with only 42,000 under the official government. The conversion of the Peshmerga into a national army is a necessity if the Kurds are keen on surviving to become a powerful and viable force in the region.

Lastly, the KRG must not rely on the United States for unlimited military support. South Sudan's push for statehood was backed by the U.S. and still failed.

State-building is a challenging task, but not impossible. The KRG and the leadership must shy away from the thought that internal issues will be "automatically" solved once a state is declared. This immature belief has proven disastrous in South Sudan. The Kurdistan Regional Government is not immune to failure and should always prepare for the worst with its geographically hostile environment.
When Robert Mueller took the gig with the Department of Justice to lead the silent coup against the Trump administration, things looked great. One hundred percent, or close to it, of the media was reporting different levels and incidents of Russian collusion.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a close Trump confidant, had recused himself. The deputy AG, Rod Rosenstein, quickly buckled under media pressure to name a Special Counsel where no crime had been found and only an FBI counterintelligence investigation was taking place. No criminal investigation of the president, said the FBI director. Mueller had the chance to overturn an epic election mistake by uninformed American deplorables and be the darling of the swamp for a generation. How could he say no?

That was then, this is now.

All the kings horses and all the kings men have not found Russian collusion with Trump. Even Mueller likely knows it, because he is now investigating everything but Russian collusion. You do not expand an investigations scope because you have found a deep vein of criminality tied to prima facie Russian collusion -- if you did, you would be going deep into that vein.

Every week, more evidence comes out that the Democratic Party computers were not hacked -- something vital to the concept of the Russians stealing those emails and giving to them to WikiLeaks. The fundamental requirement that the Russians stole Democratic emails might have been overturned if the FBI looked at the servers -- which they chose not to do. Who among us would be able to tell the FBI that we do not choose to give them our servers for an investigation? Which is what the DNC did, asserting that their own forensic group would make a finding.

Then the mysterious Seth Rich events play out. Seldom has the character so close to the event in question been so protected by family, media, police, and the FBI from showing possible ties to the critical initiating event.

Who was Seth Rich? He was the young man who appears to have downloaded the Democratic Party emails and given them to WikiLeaks. When he was murdered, the police avoided any deep, comprehensive investigation.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, Seymour Hersh, commented in a recorded interview about clear evidence he saw from the FBI that Seth Rich was indeed the person who downloaded the emails -- not the Russkies.

Richs family threatened to sue anyone who even hints that they are going to get to the bottom of what happened.

Sean Hannity and Fox News get shut down through threats of lawsuits and the organized Lefts movement to intimidate Hannity's sponsors. Hannity has gone silent on any comments regarding Seth Rich. Why?

Then, on a quiet morning, a progressive magazine publishes a story that appears to tie it all together. The Nation delivers a very comprehensive, well-researched, and certainly nonpartisan study noting that top computer security people from previous administrations, all beyond reproach, used computer forensics to determine that the Democratic Party computers were not hacked -- someone downloaded the emails to a thumb drive. Someone inside -- not likely a Russian.

They discover email metadata regarding the quantity and speed of the sinister download. Conclusion: no server in the country and certainly none outside the country could have downloaded so much information so fast. It is a physical impossibility. However, any thumb drive would meet this speed/data download requirement. And thumb drives require fingers -- and thus an insider did it.

These forensic experts have shown, using physics, not opinions, that the Democratic Party was not hacked; that someone inside downloaded the files and thus there was no Russian interference in this matter.

Scores of threads have been appearing that converge the stories that the Democratic Party emails were downloaded by an insider (not Russians) and that Seth Rich was probably the insider. These threads are getting thicker by the day.

So back to our friend Bob Mueller.

The Russians stole the emails narrative is coming apart, removing any underlying support for collusion. Most dangerously, the foundation of the story -- a hack of the Democratic party computers -- is not going to hold up, because, as The Nation notes, physics do not lie. Oops, no initiating event.

Whats an inside-the-Beltway swamp creature to do in this situation?

Trump isnt likely to fire him -- which would have been a very good way out -- a martyr for truth when there was no crime. The promise of becoming the modern-day Archibald Cox, a dazzling ornament at any cocktail party and a prize on any law firm masthead, is sliding out of reach.

The swamp creatures have faced this problem before and they found a clever solution. They went after Dick Cheney but, nothing there. So they created a crime with his chief of staff -- Scooter Libby. They got Scooter on a made-up crime when they knew who actually did the deed -- and never went there. There was the Colin Powell pal Richard Armitage, another swamp dweller.

So where to look for a crime? Where to find a technical violation? Where to find that piece of paperwork that was not properly filed?

Lets dig into the 30-year portfolio of the man who represented the worst of the worst -- Ferdinand Marcos, Jonas Savimbi, and Viktor Yanukovych, the deposed president of Ukraine.

Thats Paul Manafort, but unfortunately for Mueller, he is cooperating openly with the congressional Russia investigation.

The swamp is not going to let witness cooperation become an obstacle.

Raid his house, knock on his bedroom door on a sleepy morning, scare the heck out of him and his family, and show him the swamp means business. The drama alone makes the story interesting.

So if Mueller cannot get Trump, and if there was probably never a crime because some internal Democratic operative -- likely Seth Rich -- just downloaded the files, well, theres the Scooter Libby fallback.

If Mueller had anything, his team would perform the honorable leftist action and properly leak it to the Washington Post and the New York Times. Instead, he raids the home of a cooperating witness with the full force and intimidation value of the United States Government.

This is what Mueller does when he has nothing better to leak and nowhere else to go.
Republicans in Congress look pretty pathetic to many Americans, but even more pathetic is the Democratic Party, which is nothing these days but an anti-Trump circus. This is a direct consequence of victimology run wild, geographic myopia, and the utter sterility of modern leftism.

Consider the "leaders" of the Democratic Party in the last election cycle. Hillary Clinton, who has done nothing of consequence her entire life, won the nomination based on the fact that she was an insider and an old, angry woman. Moreover, Hillary has clearly committed a number of crimes related to her private email server and deleted files.

Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat floor leader in the House of Representatives, routinely makes egregious mistakes like referring to President Trump as President Bush. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, once head of the DNC, now faces legal problems because she hired foreign nationals who also were criminals to handle her computer security.

Lois Lerner at the IRS was an equally obnoxious and stupid woman who included in her communication with subordinates the sort of nasty and bigoted comments about conservatives that would have led to serious criminal investigations if Washington were an honest place with objective people. Loretta Lynch was just as hapless, just as bigoted, and just as silly as Lerner. Both were examples of Democrats promoting leftist women far beyond their ability and their ethics to posts of power.

If the Democrat obsession with female victimology was not enough, the Pathetic Democrats seem unable to look beyond those narrow strips of America of the Beltway and the Los Angeles and San Francisco regions of California. While there are some areas of America that are genuinely "purple" in the red-blue division, even in these areas, there are popular Republican governors (Susana Martinez, for example), Republican legislatures (Minnesota, for example), and states that defied leftist expectations and voted for Trump (Michigan and Pennsylvania, for example.)

One might think a minority party at every level of state and federal offices might want to reach out to the majority of Americans in Flyover Country, who control the political destiny of America. Instead, Democrats watch blankly while a Democratic governor in West Virginia changes parties, placing Senator Joseph Manchin III slowly twisting in the wind.

Democrats seem to have forgotten that aside from Obama, the last four Democratic Party presidents came from Arkansas, Georgia, Texas, and Missouri  places smack-dab in the middle of Flyover Country  and that these presidents, despite their many failures in other areas, were able to speak the language of ordinary hardworking Americans.

It is unthinkable that any of those four presidents would have ever described one quarter of America as "deplorable" or snipe at a San Francisco party that there are Americans "bitterly clinging to their guns and religion." Democrats do not know even how to begin to speak to those Americans whose votes control the Electoral College, the Senate, and the House.

Democrats also have virtually nothing substantive to say to America. No one wants to hear the whining of notionally oppressed groups, and no one, except those already hardcore Democrats, wants to hear incessantly about imagined crimes by Trump. Everyone also sees that the policies of the last fifty years, which is the legacy of the left even when implemented by Republicans, is a vast failure in every way. Democrats who wanted to regain power would begin to dissect the cadaver of leftism to find out why it failed so badly. This, though, would require free and bright minds, and the Democrats have neither. Can anyone name a single new idea Democrats have produced in the last decade or a single genuine critique of some area of leftism? The left and the Democratic Party, which is its host in American politics, are utterly sterile.

There is not much reason to give plaudits to the Republican Party, except that it is not the Democratic Party, and it can produce original minds and independent politicians. It is destined to be the new majority party in America for a generation or more  less by merit and more by default. Democrats give Americans outside the tiny slivers of land the left wholly infests any reason to vote for them at all.
There is something we conservatives do all the time that has to stop, because it is causing us great harm. We can no longer refer to ourselves or allow ourselves to be characterized as people of the "right."

I personally don't know any Republican or conservative who wants to be associated with any Unite The Right campaign that draws us into the same circle as hooded, cross-burning, boot-clicking, swastika-clad purveyors of hate. But that is precisely what the left is trying to do.

We are actually people of the middle  the middle of America and the middle of sound policy. We are on the right only because it is advantageous for the left to paint us with the same brush as totalitarian regimes, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, the KKK, and now the alt-right (a new scary term used by the left to connect all of that dreck with run-of-the-mill conservatives, Tea Partiers, Trump supporters, blue-dog Dems, and traditional Republicans).

According to History.com, it all started with the French. Mais bien sur! While drafting a constitution and debating how much power King Louis XVI should have, the anti-royalists sat to the left in the assembly hall, while those supporting a strong monarchy sat to the right  or the commoners were on left and the aristocracy on the right. This alone should disqualify any conservative from identifying with the "right," given that we seek to decentralize power in the government, rein in government largesse, and generally advocate for the common man versus political elites.

Over the decades, we have allowed the left to advance the fiction that they are for the little guy. If nothing else, that's the beauty of Trump. He is systematically exposing the press and the Democrats for the naked emperors they are  wrapped in claims of being the champion for the average Joe when, in fact, they control the commoners for their personal political and economic benefit.

Eventually, this right-left seating arrangement migrated to America in the 20th century along with omelette du fromage and voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir, and the rest is, as they say, histoire.

But seriously, how do we change this paradigm? It's not easy when we have to battle the Democrat-Media Leviathan, but it starts small, with each of us bringing this to light in his political conversations with others. Eventually, conservative bloggers, commentators, and journalists must follow suit. And, ideally, our politicians should do the same  I'm just not convinced they have the emotional fortitude or political courage to do so.

Conservative pundits should regularly challenge anyone who refers to conservatives or Republicans as "right" or "right-wing." They should simply respond comme ca:

We conservatives and traditional Republicans are not on the "right" as long as Democrats and liberals insist on aligning us with the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and the alt-right  all groups whose views are inimical to anything we believe. Conservatives and traditional Republicans are not of the left or right but of the people. Our policies promote the most freedom and the most prosperity for the most people, with the least amount of government.

If the networks allow for more time, this should be tied in to whatever policy discussion is on the table. If not, c'est la vie. The left never hesitates to forego a substantive policy discussion in order to promulgate their propaganda du jour (aka talking points). Democrats could be engaged in a discussion about Pluto or A.I., the latest exhibit at the Louvre or the parade of stars at Cannes, and they'll find a way of beating the Trump and Russia drum. Find a Democrat on TV, and all you will hear is his or her endless blabber about chaos in the White House. Charlottesville? These were Trump people, n'est-ce pas?

If you are a radio talk show host interviewing someone who characterizes us as the "right," stop him right there and say, Hey, Jim. We aren't people of the right.

From now on, instead of saying "for those of us on the right," we should say: For those of us aligned with [take your pick] the little guy, the average Joe, the forgotten heartland, the neglected urban masses, the minorities, the poor and the downtrodden held captive by oppressive Democrat policies...

The vice mayor of Charlottesville, Wes Bellamy, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer, "This [has] now become a nationwide issue when you see these white [supremacists] under the guidance of their president, number 45, they have become empowered and emboldened[.]" Stating that this is an opportunity for Trump to grow as president, Bellamy continued: "So 45, we're looking for your leadership. Condemn the white [supremacist] attacks. Condemn these domestic terrorists. Tell them to leave. You're their leader. Stand up."

Like most good Democrats, Mr. Bellamy denounced the hate and violence of the Unite The Right crowd but ignored the same from counter-protesters. He didn't like the fact that our president had condemned both.

But sweeping Unite The Right's First Amendment rights under the rug, as countless left-wingers demand  either through legislation or mobs storming a press conference and physically suppressing speech, as they did in Charlottesville  actually fans the flames of resentment. The more these groups are driven underground, the bolder and angrier they will grow as dutiful Nazis and Klansmen wonder why left-wing violence and vitriol are tolerated but theirs is not.

Like most decent people, I abhor the Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, and Antifa movements as much as I detest the groups behind the Unite The Right rally. Like most, my heart goes out to the family of the woman killed in the riots. I wish I lived in a world where none of these maniacs existed. But they do, so I want to hear all they have to say. I want to see them at their marches and rallies. I want to know where they live and work. Let them freely assemble  left, right, anarchist, fascist. The more they are all exposed, the more likely they will all be rebuked by honorable people. Wasn't it liberal Justice Brandeis who said "sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants"?

The lesson from all of this free speech hoopla should be that all political speech is permissible  however offensive  and can be denied only in limited circumstances. Instead, the free-speech takeaway from Charlottesville is that if left-wing factions decide that certain speech  even objectionably reprehensible speech  should be prohibited and that is a social good, they can use any means available to stifle even constitutionally protected speech.

When the left shuts down speech, it is social justice being enforced by freedom-loving warriors exercising their First Amendment rights in healthy protest against hate. When conservatives shut down speech or protests...wait, when do we ever do that?

Until stodgy conservatives and traditional Republicans stuck in the old ways realize that we are in a war as much about ideology and policy as it is about words  a war as much in the streets as it is on paper, on screens, and in cyberspace  we will never gain ground.

It won't happen overnight. We'll have to hijack the conversation and often forego input on pressing topics. After a while, certain pundits who stick to this tactic will be ousted from their CNN or NPR gigs. But eventually, we will no longer refer to ourselves as right-wingers and inadvertently align ourselves with people hostile to everything we hold dear and true.

My youngest son was horrified, as was I, with Charlottesville. Yet I was happy to see that he understood that these reprobates are still entitled to their First Amendment rights and that if we outlaw this or that group from speaking, all we do is foment their hate. If they are permitted to be out and upfront, everyone can see them for who they are and publicly and openly debate the issues. You cannot fight what you cannot see. Moreover, he seemed to understand that once you start outlawing one group, you open the floodgates to outlawing any group.

But I'm certain that if he hadn't had us as parents, he would have reflexively followed his marching orders from the Democrat-Media Complex and thrown all conservatives, Tea Partiers, and traditional Republicans in with the alt-right. Not every Pajama Boy and government-dependent Julia has a conservative parent to look to as a reference point.

But I'm just one parent, and our president can't go it alone. Time for all of us to punch back. Bonne chance, mes amis.

Any mistakes in French are the fault of the left wing (Google Translate).
Many on the left certainly have a novel interpretation of our Constitution. They are constantly finding new "rights' buried between the lines of our founding document that many of the rest of us have trouble seeing.

But in addition to their new discoveries and original interpretations of the Constitution, they also, apparently, have difficulty in reading what it says.

Washington Free Beacon:

Host Katy Tur asked Dignity and Power Now founder Patrisse Cullors about President Donald Trump's initial statement on the violence from white supremacists at a Charlottesville, Va. rally, which appeared to equate the neo-Nazis with the counter-protesters. "Draw a distinction for me, if you will," Tur asked Cullors, who first spread the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter. "I think what is important at this moment is white nationalists are actually fighting to take away people's rights," she responded. "Black Lives Matter and groups like Black Lives Matter are fighting for equality." "Hate speech, which is what we're seeing coming out of white nationalists groups, is not protected under the First Amendment rights," she continued.

The founders carefully and deliberately defined the First Amendment so that only a village idiot at the time could mistake its meaning. "Congress shall make no law..." is about as clear a statement of intent as can be found in the document. The extremely small number of exceptions carved out by the Supreme Court over the centuries notwithstanding, it can be successfully argued that the First Amendment was specifically written to protect hate speech and all other forms of speech that are unpopular, idiotic, factually incorrect, maddening, hurtful, obscene, sickening, or, as in the case of Ms. Cullors, just plain stupid.

Oh...and the First Amendment also protects speech that is popular.

The problem envisioned by the founders and that should be obvious to even racialists like Cullors, is that somebody, somewhere, somehow has to define "hate speech" in order for Congress to ban it. And it should scare the beejeebus out of us that people like Cullors will be put in charge of coming up with those definitions.

Not only that, but 20, 30, 50 years from now, maybe some other ideology will be dominant and anything that people like Cullors say could be defined as "hate speech."

Besides, what's the best way to fight what most of us would agree is hateful, racist speech? Suppress it? Or draw it out in the open and criticize it, marginalize it, and counter it with the truth?

People like Cullors have no confidence in the vast majority of Americans of all colors and creeds to resist hate speech and counter hate with tolerance. That's all that can be asked of Americans - to fight against hate but to tolerate intolerant speech. That's what the Constitution says in the clearest wording found in that document. Any alteration to that wording would sound the death knell of the American republic.
This is a sad yet comical metaphor for the lefts view about civility.

Polite yet pugnacious former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli was featured on CNNs Chris Cuomo show Monday to discuss Charlottesville. With him as counterpoint was former Bernie Sanders press secretary Symone Sanders, who in 2016 said, "[W]e don't need white people leading the Democratic party right now."

At about .15 in the very edited version, and after Sanders had interrupted Cuccinelli as he was making a point, Cuccinelli said, [C]an I finish Symone, will you just shut up for a minute and let me finish?

Sanders went off, demanding decorum, and telling Cuccinelli under no circumstances should he speak to her that way on national television (.22 to .40).

Then she tells Cuccinelli that he should shut up.

You cant make this stuff up.

By this point Cuomo had lost control over the conversation, and immediately after Sanders told Cuccinelli to shut up, Cuomo admonished, Ken, you dont want to use language like that when youre talking with Symone, starting at (.44). Cuomo never admonished Sanders for her same sin.

Sanders, the left press, other left-wingers immediately afterwards took to social media to express outrage that Cuccinelli had told her to shut up, and in some cases to call him a racist.

You can watch a longer video of the interview here where Sanders demands, and Cuomo asks for, an apology from Cuccinelli, he gives it, but Sanders refuses to do the same in kind, beginning at 7:42 of the video.
Recently, Kansas voted to increase taxes, overriding the governor's veto and rolling back tax cuts. On the left, this was hailed as a definitive case against tax cuts and evidence as to why President Trump's tax reform should not be enacted. Tax reform, however, is much more complicated than it seems.

It is generally accepted among economists that tax cuts increase growth and tax hikes decrease growth. Yet a 2010 study by Christina and David Romer found that every dollar in tax increases takes three dollars out of the economy. Christina Romer served as the chairwoman of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, so she's a far cry from a staunchly supply-side economist like Arthur Laffer.

Studies by the OECD and the National Bureau of Economic Research confirm these findings as well, and these institutions are far from being considered conservative or libertarian think-tanks. The U.S. tax code desperately needs reform, and that includes making responsible rate reductions to free up American capital and spur investment.

Simply cutting taxes with no regard for which taxes to cut  or which exemptions are kept  is not the best strategy. Public finance is complicated, and the failure of tax cuts to boost growth while also fueling deficits in one state is certainly not going to provide enough evidence to prove that taxes needed to be raised rather than lowered.

The findings of mainstream institutions and think-tanks are validated by Kansas's experience. The Kansas debacle shows that indiscriminately cutting taxes has just as many unforeseen costs as indiscriminately raising them. If politicians are going to be setting policy that directly impacts how much of your paycheck you can keep, it is important that they understand all of the evidence.

One of the major problems that Kansas faced was that revenues kept declining, leaving the state unable to fund essential programs such as education. Lowering tax rates does not have to result in lower revenues, however, if these revenue losses are offset by a combination of economic growth and expanding the amount of taxable income  namely, by removing deductions. For example, the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan think-tank devoted to researching the impact of tax policy, found that cutting the top rate down to 27 percent and eliminating all deductions except charitable contributions and mortgage interest would boost growth by 1 percent while increasing revenue by $255 billion over ten years, both of which are sorely needed in this environment, in which two-percent growth represents an upper limit.

Growth does not have to be nearly as sluggish as it is, and tax reform would free up capital needed to spur investment. In general, indiscriminate tax cuts will not generate as much growth as a targeted reform effort. This is precisely the problem Kansas encountered in its tax cuts. The Kansas legislature cut the top rate and exempted some business income from taxation altogether without planning to offset the loss in government revenues.

In fact, reforming the corporate tax code shows the benefits of responsible, measured changes over indiscriminate cutting. According to Tax Foundation data, implementing full capital expensing, which lowers the tax rate on new investments and thus encourages more business investment, will increase growth by twice as much as an equivalent corporate tax rate cut while lowering revenue by the same amount.

Public finance is not merely the question of the perfect rate of taxation. It also involves the proper structuring of tax rates, expenditures, credits, and exemptions, as well as deciding which organizations pay which taxes. Tax rates should be lowered  economic analysis from the left, right, and center has confirmed that finding. The error of the tax cuts in Kansas was that since they represented reform at the state level, only state taxes were cut. But since so much taxation occurs at the federal level, it was not a meaningful enough reform to offset the revenue reductions with new growth. Since the federal government collects around 61 percent of all taxes, while states collect only 28 percent, any meaningful change has to originate from the federal level.

To unleash the engines of economic growth in the United States, it is of paramount importance to make a tax code that spurs investment and innovation by incentivizing investment and letting households keep their hard-earned paychecks.

Matthew Fagerstrom is a student at Villanova University studying economics and political science. He has written for Squared Politics, a bipartisan political blog on Villanova's campus, and can be found at @mattjfstrom on Twitter.
Fox Newss prime time program The Five produced one of its best shows ever on Monday evening. In particular, rookie co-host Jesse Watters stood out in what was a memorable broadcast, and showed that he has the potential for gravitas.

The Five, the ensemble political talk show that moved to 9 p.m. EDT on May 1 after a successful six-year run at 5 p.m., has been ratings-challenged in its new time period and is usually beaten by Rachel Maddow on MSNBC. On Monday, August 14, after two days of wall-to-wall cable news coverage of the deadly, racially tinged weekend violence in Charlottesville, Va., four of The Fives co-hosts (not including Juan Williams) added some much needed clarity and perspective. A near-universal anti-Trump political spin had dominated the MSMs Charlottesville reporting during the previous 54 hours. That mainstream reporting, especially on CNN, has been noxious to a sickening degree and, almost three days later now, it shows no signs of abating.

About ten minutes into the A block of The Five on Monday, Watters had his first shot:

I just want to make it clear that Trump is not the villain. The racist killer is the villain. . . Lets look at the facts about the whole many sides debate. You had both sides coming into the town armed to the teeth  with clubs, shields, mace  the Antifa people, the Black Lives Matter people, the white supremacists, the Neo-Nazis  they wanted to rumble. Its true  the whites were the ones who started this racist rally and it was a white racist that committed this murder, allegedly. The New York Times said, and she was on the ground, their reporter [Sheryl Gay Stolberg]: The hard left seemed as hate-filled as the alt-right. I saw Antifa beating a white nationalist. The ACLU of Virginia: Not sure who provoked first. Both sides were hitting on each other. And then one of the four people who were arrested was a left-wing radical who punched a reporter in the face, a female reporter.

Jesse Watters

Using every moment of his time to maximum effect, Watters continued his monologue, glancing down occasionally at notes:

We can armchair President Trumps responses all we want, but theres a lot of hypocrisy going on here. Hillary Clinton waited two weeks after Benghazi to call that terrorism. If Trump had blamed Charlottesville on a video, maybe he would have gotten a free pass. President Obama waited four days during Ferguson while that city burned. And he was in Marthas Vineyard having dinner, and when he came out then he blamed both sides, the looters and the police. When Black Lives Matter activists executed NYPD people and shot cops cold dead in the streets in Dallas, what did the president do? He didnt condemn Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter got invited to the White House. And when he did speak about it, he goes, Its hard to untangle the motivations of the shooter, and we dont want to assign blame from one kook to a larger national movement. Obama called terrorism workplace violence. So its hard to be lectured about word games from the left. And the Scalise shooter  this guy, a Bernie Sanders volunteer, targeted Republican congressmen with a weapon. No one blamed Bernie Sanders for that! But they want to lay this death at the doorstep of Donald Trump? Its disgraceful. These same people who are mad at President Trump for saying radical Islam now all of a sudden want him to say white supremacy? Its totally ridiculous.

At which point, liberal co-host Juan Williams interrupted and said, among other predictable things, I cant abide that. The show went on from there  with, in this writers opinion, some outstanding comments by Greg Gutfeld, Kimberly Guilfoyle, and, to a lesser extent, Dana Perino. Full disclosure: I am not a fan of The Five especially since it has relocated to prime time. But in the aftermath of the Charlottesville tragedy, this episode may have been the programs finest hour.

A video of the The Fives August 14 episode is online here. A transcript will be available on Tuesday August 15 linked from this program transcripts page.

Bravo, Jesse Watters, and your colleagues, for shedding some much needed clarity and light on this difficult issue.

Peter Barry Chowka is a veteran journalist who writes about national politics, media, popular culture, and health care. He is a frequent contributor to American Thinker. His latest website is AltMedNews.net.
Charlottesville provided a "dog whistle" for the left to lurch into anti-Trump mode and blame him for the violence that occurred there on Saturday. The hysteria served up by the leftist media over the weekend was calculated and contemptible. What is wrong with this picture? So much.

The event had been in the works for months, a product of the leftists who are intent upon the destruction of every statue of former Confederate icons (Democrats all). The rally protesting the planned destruction of a Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville had been issued a permit that was defended by the ACLU when the city tried to revoke it.

The locals -- Governor McAuliffe, Mayor Michael Signer, and the police -- had ample warning that a conflict was likely. The ragtag smaller group of protestors with a permit saw neo-Nazi and white nationalist groups run to the front of the parade to claim leadership (with the full cooperation of the media), while the Antifa and Black Lives Matter counter protesters who did not seek a permit for their counter-demonstrations, have a recent history of violence. Antifa, first and foremost, is known for particularly lethal violence, much more than the silly white supremacist groups that regularly show their ugly faces.

Pending the Department of Justice investigation, we do not know who initiated the violence in Charlottesville, but there is, as usual, a media backout on close examination of the violence clearly intended by the counter-protestors without a permit for their activity. The unspoken law of the press is that every word reported must conform to their agenda; that would be the Democrat/leftist/media agenda that is of course anti-Trump. The man could part the Red Sea and the left would attack him for interfering with the oceans. That is how it is. And it is not likely to change any time soon.

President Trump had nothing whatsoever to do with what happened in Charlottesville but the venal media and their cohorts in Congress on both sides of the aisle could not wait five minutes before blaming him for the violence. Does that not feel like a set-up? Just as in Berkeley, Ferguson and Baltimore, the police stood by as violent, masked, armed thugs attacked. For one reason or another, riots and chaos were permitted furthering the cause of racial division. This is the legacy of the Obama administration. For eight years, Obama promoted racial conflict; he reveled in it. He was proud of it.

The worker bees of the Democratic Party, leftist media CNN, NBC CBS, ABC, MSNBC, NYT, WaPo, LA Times, aided and abetted the skullduggery of the leftists, who want nothing more than to bring Trump down, to see him impeached. They are shameless and completely immoral in this quest. The violence in Charlottesville is a perfect example. A hoard of mentally ill people, small in number but ripe for media exploitation, act up like the morons they are. The local police stand down and let them do their thing. It will be good for Gov. McAulliffe's presidential ambitions. These thugs will behave badly and the left can use it. A woman died and others were injured. It will work to the benefit of the left.

It should be unimaginable, how vile and amoral the leftists are today. They are ready, willing and able to mount any smear campaign, indict any innocent conservative, slime any person wrongly if it furthers their agenda, to bring down Trump. The Saul Alinsky left has taken over the Democrats and it is a tragedy. This lot is prepared to torch the country to take him down because he won an election. Sadly, they have many collaborators in the Republican Party. These anti-Trumpers misjudge Trump's base so grievously. That base really is made up of Americans who just want to make America great again. They will not be fooled by the absolute nonsense that is "Trump is to blame for Charlottesville." He is not. They are.
North Korea has backed off its threat to target missiles off the coast of Guam as it became apparent that the US military was prepared to strike the Kim regime with overwhelming force.

Fox News:

Kim Jong Un appeared to blink first, with North Korean media reporting Tuesday the dictator had delayed a decision about whether to fire missiles toward Guam  a pronouncement that came hours after a particularly stark warning from Defense Secretary James Mattis promised further escalation would mean game on. Kim Jong Uns remarks came as he made his first public appearance in nearly two weeks, inspecting his army and examining missile plans, the official state media arm, KCNA, reported, according to Reuters. But the leader also tempered his recent fiery rhetoric, appearing to step back from the brink in an intensifying war of words between United States and North Korean leaders. He said that if the Yankees persist in their extremely dangerous reckless actions on the Korean peninsula and in its vicinity, testing the self-restraint of the DPRK, the latter will make an important decision as it already declared, KCNA reported. Kim Jong Un's statement followed President Trump's promise of fire and fury if North Korea continued to threaten the U.S. and, on Monday, Mattis saying any sign North Korea was attempting to fire a missile at the U.S. territory of Guam would amount to game on. It could escalate into war very quickly, Mattis said. Yes, thats called war, if they shoot at us. The Tuesday statement is a long way from previous declarations, in which Kim Jong Un went so far as to circle a date for his plan to fire a missile at Guam. The latest uproar between Pyongyang and the rest of the world began following a stunning acceleration in North Koreas nuke program. North Korea twice successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile in July, and dual reports last week  out of Japan and the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency  suggested North Korea had acquired the technology to miniaturize a nuclear weapon to fit on a missile. While Pyongyang still has hurdles to cross in developing a reliable nuclear ICBM delivery vehicle, the rogue regimes rapid progress shocked the world.

The takeaway from this is that Kim is not suicidal - for the time being, anyway. And that's the problem with a regime like North Korea having possession of nuclear weapons.

What made the Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine work during the Cold War was the predictability of the actions of the Soviets and the U.S. It was assumed that both countries were controlled by rational actors whose actions and responses could be reasonably deduced from history and an understanding of the psychology of the political leaders.

But North Korea is different. The veil of secrecy that is maintained by the regime prevents the U.S. from having complete confidence in their response to crisis and extrernal threats. So, for this kind of regime to possess nuclear weapons is enormously destablizing. Allowing North Korea to possess WMD is akin to giving a two year old a loaded gun with the hammer cocked. Anything can happen. This raises tensions automatically during a crisis because no one can discern the real plans of the North Korean government. Needless to say, the chances of an accidental war escalate to uncomfortable and dangerous levels.

Trump should resist the temptation to negotiate and reward Kim for his brinksmanship. We should keep urging China and South Korea to keep the pressure on. But until North Korea demonstrates its seriousness by halting its missile and nuclear weapons program, there litterally is nothing to talk about.
As the president sends his envoys back to Israel and the Palestinian territories, the usual flood of voices has offered advice  do this, do that, say this, say that. Whatever.

Let's try something different.

When people talk about the "two-state solution," their parameters are generally clear  the West Bank and Gaza more or less, give or take, some land swaps, and some arrangement for Eastern Jerusalem. The fact that the Palestinian Authority doesn't control the Gaza Strip appears not to faze the two-staters at all. So, for now, let's go with that. Rather than asking the Palestinians if they are willing to constrict their aspirations to land others have decided might make a good Palestinian State, why not ask the Palestinians where the State of Israel will be when the negotiation is concluded and a Palestinian state emerges?

Will East Jerusalem be in Israel?

Will Hebron be in Israel?

Will Jacob's Tomb or Rachel's Tomb be in Israel?

Will West Jerusalem be in Israel?

Will the Galilee or Jaffa be in Israel?

Will Tel Aviv be in Israel?

Without some understanding of where the Palestinians see Israel, how can anyone hope to understand where the Palestinians see Palestine? Are they looking at acreage or principle?

Yes, it is a trick question. To date, neither Yasser Arafat at or after Oslo nor Mahmoud Abbas of the P.A. has provided a realistic assessment of land to which Israel is entitled for the purpose of exercising Jewish sovereignty  nor can either be expected to. Folded into the question of acreage is the principle of the so-called "right of return," Palestinian insistence that the original refugees of 1948-49 and their descendants should have the right to go to those places in pre-1967 Israel from which they claim to have been displaced.

Although President Clinton at Camp David in 2000 and American presidents following him have talked about the Palestinian refugees, it has been in the nature of compensation, not what they claim as their homes. Pretending Arafat's and Abbas's promises to their people don't matter, or pretending for them that they will take "compensation" instead, is insulting. Who is President Clinton to give up their rights? Who are those Americans who didn't live and die in refugee camps waiting for promises to be fulfilled to say, "Never mind. Israel gets what you claim, and you get something else, or 'compensation'"?

Beating that horse again is...well, beating a dead horse.

Its not that the Palestinians aren't clear. For years, textbooks in Palestinian schools use the map of Palestine "From the River to the Sea" to teach their children that they have a claim to all of it. President Trump's envoys should ask for copies of the books  UNRWA sponsors some, the E.U. sponsors some, so it shouldn't be difficult to find them.

But so what if they make maximalist claims? It's their claim, right? Their "narrative," as they say. Why should the Palestinian Authority offer anything to Israel?

Because Israel has a claim as well, enshrined in U.N. Security Council Resolution 242. Following the unwillingness of the Arab states to accept any boundaries at all for the Jewish State established in 1948, and following the Arab states' determination to erase Israel in 1948 and 1967, the Security Council voted that Israel was entitled to:

... [t]ermination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every state in the areas and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.

Where the boundaries are is less important than that they are "secure and recognized" and accompanied by the "termination of all claims or states of belligerency." Israel has already made it clear that it is willing to withdraw from territory occupied in 1967  Sinai constituted 92% of the total.

As heir to the West Bank following its illegal annexation and occupation by Jordan until 1967, the Palestinian Authority is heir to the debt incurred by the Arab states.

The Trump envoys would do well to probe the Palestinians on the question of their aspirations, and also on the question of their understanding of what land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is available to Israel for Jewish sovereignty. Is it based on acreage or on principle? The answer may dismay them, but it will be the beginning of wisdom.
Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Amid heightening rhetoric over an attack on the U.S. island territory of Guam, Secretary of Defense James Mattis told reporters Monday that his department will know within moments where a North Korean missile is headed, were it to be launched.



"We'll know if it's going towards Guam within moments," he said, adding later, "We know swiftly after it's launched where it's going to land."



Mattis also cautioned that we'll take it out if the missile is located heading to the U.S. territory off the coast of Philippines.



However, Mattis said that President Donald Trump would be the one to decide Americas response if the missile is found to have been launched into Guam's surroundings waters.



"Well, then it becomes an issue that we take up however the president chooses," he responded.



Mattis chose stronger words for the hostile North Korean regime during the press gaggle Monday in comparison to his words last week during an event in California.



Mattis said that if North Korean leader Kim Jong-uns army fired a missile at the U.S, it would escalate into war very quickly, and that if it hit U.S. cities, it would be game on. But the retired U.S. Marine Corps general stressed that the Defense Department will do its best to make sure it doesnt hit the U.S.



When asked to clarify his comments on an escalation of war, Mattis said, "War is up to the president, perhaps up to Congress. The bottom line is that we will defend the country from an attack. For us, that's war. That's a war-time situation."



Mattis also pointed out that making the decision to go to war cant be done in advance, given a host of things going on, especially since there are allies that [they] have to consult with.



Mattis' strong statement comes as Yonhap reports that KNCA, North Korea's state news agency, reported that "Dear Supreme Leader said today that the Americans' reckless military confrontational behavior has ended up the U.S. trapping themselves with their own hands and are spending pathetic fate by weary minutes and seconds and that Dear Supreme Leader will watch such stupid American behavior for a bit longer.



On August 10, Mattis told reporters that a potential nuclear incident "would be catastrophic" and warned that the tragedy of war is well-known. Mattis looked to be opting for a more diplomatic route during the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx) event in California, saying that he wanted to stay right here now in the American effort [that] is diplomatically led.



"Its [North Korea's] aligning the United Nations in very serious sanctions, and I would just tell you that it did not happen by accident," Mattis said, of the 15-0 unanimous U.N. Security Council vote to impose economic sanctions on North Korea and stop its missile production.



However, Mattis changed his tune on Monday, saying welcome to reality for the young troops who would be going into a wartime situation, adding that this doesnt mean war is being declared yet.



Mattis referenced the political satire Dr. Strangelove, a film that satirized the Cold War fears of a nuclear conflict between the Soviet Union and the U.S., saying hes not trying to do things like that.



Mattis released a harsher statement immediately following Trumps initial fire and fury comments last week and North Koreas threat to send four intermediate range missiles to Guam. The war veteran said it must be noted that the combined allied militaries now possess the most precise, rehearsed and robust defensive...capabilities on Earth, adding that any arms race would be grossly overmatched by ours.



Mattis has continuously warned North Korea of the consequences the rogue nation could bear in his slew of statements, despite calling for actions in a diplomatically effective manner.



The secretary said he regularly speaks with former secretaries of defense and state, as well as former national security advisers.



"Korea looms large in those discussions with all those predecessors," he said.



Mattis comments Monday come on the heels of North Koreas warning Saturday that the Trump administration better talk and act properly if it doesnt want to meet its tragic doom.



The U.S. has done all sorts of wrongs to the DPRK but now it finds itself in an ever worsening dilemma, being thrown into the grip of extreme security unrest by the DPRK. This is tragicomedy of its own making, North Korea said in a statement distributed through state-run media.



Trump spoke with a key leader in the conflict, Chinas President Xi JinPing, on Saturday to reiterate both nations commitments to denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.


Etihad has already suffered from the bankruptcy of Italian national carrier Alitalia which was part-owned and financially supported by Etihad.

Germany's federal government has stepped in with a bridging loan in order to maintain flight operations "for the long term", Air Berlin says. "All flights operated by Air Berlin and [Austrian subsidiary] Niki will continue as planned," it said.

In a statement today Etihad described Air Berlin's insolvency filing as "extremely disappointing for all parties, especially as Etihad has provided extensive support to Air Berlin for its previous liquidity challenges and restructuring efforts over the past six years".

The Gulf carrier notes that, despite its injection of 250 million in April, "Air Berlin's business has deteriorated at an unprecedented pace, preventing it from overcoming its significant challenges and from implementing alternative strategic solutions".

Etihad insisted it remains "open to helping find a commercially viable solution for all parties" and that it "will support Air Berlin's management during these difficult times"

Analyst Saj Ahmad commented: "Air Berlins collapse underscores the immense difficulties and challenges that Etihad endured in trying to get the airline to restructure, change and become a viable competitor to Lufthansa.



"That Etihad has taken a massive financial hit in its earnings a few weeks ago highlights to good effect why they were not prepared to bail out the airline any more. Coupled with the toxic situation at Alitalia and the sale of Darwin Airline, it looks like Etihad is re-evaluating its position and is probably better off concentrating on its own organic expansion as opposed to be side-tracked by equity stakes that have not delivered the rewards that had been envisioned."



Ahmad added: "With that in mind, the new leadership at Etihad, in my mind, has to wipe the slate clean from this sort of troublesome exposure and get back to showcasing Etihads premium offerings which are undeniably beyond the rest of its rivals. Etihad has spent too long trying to help others, it has lost ground and needs to recover that. Its a bad day in the Etihad office, thats for sure, but now that Etihad is arguably free from Air Berlin, it can get back to business as it looks to turn around its losses."

.

(c) Reuters
Reporting to Michael Amalfitano, President & CEO of Embraer Executive Jets, Friedrich is responsible for the direct management of the global sales organisation for new and pre-flown aircraft as well as the oversight of relationships with customers and industry collaborators.

Stephen brings a wealth of experience in sales, marketing, finance, customer support and services, and aftermarket programs from over 30 years in the leasing and aerospace sectors, said Amalfitano. With our strategic shift to focus on value, his dynamic leadership will strengthen our global sales team and challenge us to create more comprehensive solutions for our customers to outperform.

Previously serving as Vice President for Sales and Marketing at Rolls-Royce Civil Aerospace, Friedrich was responsible for leading a global sales team and the marketing activities for business aviation as well as forecasting and pricing of services. Since joining Rolls-Royce in 2001, he also served in the aviation finance group. Prior to Rolls-Royce, Friedrich held leadership roles in banking and aviation finance.

This is an exciting time to join Embraer Executive Jets as it prioritizes the value of its portfolio, said Friedrich. Embraers revolutionary jets have set new standards in comfort, performance and reliability, delivering outstanding value to customers.
"Airbus has assured us we would receive our airplanes, though late, but we will receive it before the end of the year," said Qatar Airways chief executive Akbar Al-Baker.

Qatar Airways is the launch customer and is scheduled to receive its first of 37 on order this year.
The report reveals that in the first seven months of the year, 1st Jan  31st July 2017, total international flight arrivals grew by 14.0% over the same period in 2016. Most significantly, growth was stronger for travel to and from the Africa than within the continent. Arrivals from Europe, which make up 46% of the market, were up 13.2%. From the Americas, arrivals were up 17.6%; from the Middle East, they were up 14.0% and from Asia Pacific, they were up 18.4%. By comparison, intra-African air travel, which makes up 26% of the market, was up 12.6%.

Looking at Africas top ten destination countries, there have been stand-out performances from Tunisia and Egypt, which are recovering from notorious terrorist attacks two years ago, up 33.5% and 24.8% respectively. In addition, Morocco and Tunisia received a huge boost in arrivals from China, up 450% and 250% respectively, after they relaxed visa restrictions. The one disappointment is Nigeria, which has seen a 0.8% drop, in the wake of recession in 2016, caused by a collapse in the oil price to a 13-year low.

Looking forward to the end of the calendar year, bookings for flights to Africa are currently 16.8% ahead of where they were on July 31st, 2016. Bookings from Europe are currently 17.5% ahead, from the Americas 26.6% ahead, from Asia Pacific 11.5% ahead, from the Middle East 8.2% ahead and bookings for intra-African air travel are 11.0% ahead.

A specific look at East Africa shows very similar trends in year to date performance and outlook to the end of the year. However, it has stronger forward bookings from Europe, 22.9% ahead and less strong forward bookings from elsewhere; the Americas are 15.5% ahead and intra-African air travel 7.6% ahead. However, bookings from the Middle East and Asia Pacific are 6.0% and 3.8% behind respectively.

On an individual airport level, the most significant capacity increase in East Africa is at Kigali, with new routes to Brussels, London and Mumbai. Other notable new capacity includes Kilimanjaro to Dubai and Nairobi to Muscat and to Yemen.
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announces that homeless would be provided houses by 2019.

Mumbai: The Maharashtra government aims to make farmers of the state debt-free, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Tuesday said. He said this after unfurling the tricolour at the state secretariat 'Mantralaya' here to mark the 71st Independence Day, which was celebrated with fervour across the state.

The chief minister also announced that the homeless would be provided houses by 2019 and construction of three lakh houses in the state under 'houses for all' scheme has begun. Every citizen should contribute to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's mission of creating a 'Nav Bharat' (New India), he said.

The Independence Day celebrations at some places in Maharashtra were marred by protests by farmers who sought to disrupt flag hoisting by district guardian ministers. Members of the steering committee comprising representatives of various farmer groups had on Saturday said that guardian ministers will not be allowed to unfurl the national flag at district headquarters on August 15 if the government fails to announce an unconditional loan-waiver.

"The loan-waiver announced by the BJP-led government in the state is full of flaws and riders. Those should be done away with," said Raghunanthdada Patil, a member of the committee.

"There should be a total loan-waiver for farmers. Only then will we allow ministers to unfurl the national flag," Patil had said. The state government had on June 24 announced a Rs 34,000-crore crop loan-waiver scheme for the state's marginal farmers.

Named as 'Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Krushi Sanman Yojana', the scheme is designed to benefit about 89 lakh farmers. Under the scheme, farmers having outstanding loans between April 1, 2012 and June 30, 2016, would be entitled for the waiver.

Loans up to Rs 1.5 lakh would be written off immediately, making some 35 lakh farmers instantly debt-free. A one-time settlement scheme was offered to nine lakh farmers with debts of over Rs 1.5 lakh. They would be eligible for a waiver of 25 per cent of the outstanding amount or Rs 1.5 lakh, whichever was less, Fadnavis had said.
With India celebrating its 71st Independence Day today, Bollywood celebrities took to the social media to mark this special day.

Celebs beam with pride on the occassion of 71st Independence Day. (Photos: Twitter)

Mumbai: With India celebrating its 71st Independence Day today, Bollywood celebrities took to the social media to mark this special day.

While the megastar Amitabh Bachchan tweeted a video of himself saluting the tricolour national flag with the caption, "Jai Hind," other B-Town celebs like Shah Rukh Khan, Rishi Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra and Boman Irani shared their best wishes for fans.

Here's Amitabh Bachchan's Independence Day post:

The 'Raees' star wrote, "Happy Independence Day to all of us," while the 'Quantico' star posted a picture of herself holding a tricoloured dupatta, captioning it as, "Independence Day #Vibes #MyHeartBelongsToIndia #HappyIndependenceDayIndia #JaiHind"

Happy Independence Day to all of us.  Shah Rukh Khan (@iamsrk) August 14, 2017

Perfectionist Aamir Khan, who has associated himself with various social service organisations for the betterment of the society says, "Wishing everyone a very happy independence day! Love. a."

Wishing everyone a very happy independence day! Love. a.  Aamir Khan (@aamir_khan) August 15, 2017

The 'Roy' star Arjun Rampal shared the wish in his own style, "Freedom in the mind,faith in the words,pride in our souls,let's salute our nation on her Independence Day. #happyindependenceday #jaihind."

Freedom in the mind,faith in the words,pride in our souls,let's salute our nation on her Independence Day. #happyindependenceday #jaihind  arjun rampal (@rampalarjun) August 15, 2017

Javed Akhtar wrote, "Happy Independence Day to all the Indians. Now lets endeavour to get freedom from hunger poverty, illiteracy, violence and injustice."

Happy Independence Day to all the https://t.co/vhHf5PWXrU lets endeavour to get freedom from hunger poverty illiteracy violence n injustice  Javed Akhtar (@Javedakhtarjadu) August 15, 2017

Rishi Kapoor exercises the freedom of democracy by sharing his opinion and views. He, too, wished everyone this occasion of peace and love. He wrote, " And wishing my INDIA, the greatest, a very Happy 70th "Independence Day"! Let peace, brotherhood and love prevail. Vande Mataram! Jai Hind! "

And wishing my INDIA, the greatest, a very Happy 70th "Independence Day"! Let peace, brotherhood and love prevail. Vande Mataram! Jai Hind! pic.twitter.com/CRGnK9FmnQ  Rishi Kapoor (@chintskap) August 14, 2017

'Badrinath Ki Dulhania' star Varun Dhawan posted a video with a caption, "Happy Independence Day . Today we can enjoy this day only because of our jawaans who sacrifice their lives for us. #jaihind."

Happy Independence Day . Today we can enjoy this day only because of our jawaans who sacrifice their lives for us. #jaihind pic.twitter.com/g2g3BnMgcd  Varun Dhawan (@Varun_dvn) August 14, 2017

The 'Ae Dil Hai Mushkil' director Karan Johar wrote, "I am immensely proud and honoured to be born to a land of diversity...strength and valour...#HappyIndependanceDayIndia #IndiaAt70."

I am immensely proud and honoured to be born to a land of diversity...strength and valour...#HappyIndependanceDayIndia #IndiaAt70  Karan Johar (@karanjohar) August 15, 2017

'Toilet: Ek Prem Katha' star Akshay Kumar tweeted, "They gave their tomorrow for our today...A lot has been done but a lot still needs to be done. Happy #IndependenceDayIndia."

They gave their tomorrow for our today...A lot has been done but a lot still needs to be done. Happy #IndependenceDayIndia pic.twitter.com/PxPAXYpfUT  Akshay Kumar (@akshaykumar) August 15, 2017

Akshay, even pleaded the audience to extend their support to the soldiers and their families, by contributing to his initiative. He tweeted, "This #IndependenceDay let's pledge to support our soldiers. Visit http://bharatkeveer.gov.in to extend your support. We owe them this much ."

Gearing up for his 'Lucknow Central's release and currently in Pune, Farhan Akhtar posted a picture of his outside Chetwode Building, with the flag flying high, and wished the democratic nation its 71st independence.

Boman Irani wrote: As I wished Mom, she said, "Was a twenty year old girl when I woke up to freedom, seventy years ago. What a feeling!" #HappyIndependenceDay
Mamta and her boyfriend have failed to turn up for interrogation in 2016 haul case of Ephedrine.

Mumbai: The Thane police have sought the session courts permission to seize the properties of Mamta Kulkarni and her alleged boyfriend narcotics dealer Vicky Goswami.

Both are the accused in the case related to the 2016 haul of Ephedrine worth `2,000 crores and they have failed to present themselves for interrogation despite summons.

The police are likely to seize the properties in a fortnight. The assets that may get seized are two flats in Versova, Andheri and a residence in Ahmedabad.

ACP B. Shelke said, Mamta Kulkarni and Vicky Goswami were already declared as proclaimed offenders in the month of June. After that we have issued notices to them to present themselves in front of the court but none of them came to us. Now we have already preceded papers in the Thane sessions court and made a request to give permission to seize their properties. The court will give order in the next week and within 15 days we will be able to seize their properties.

Last year, the Thane police sealed eight of Kulkarnis bank accounts, holding `93 lakhs, at bank branches in Nariman Point, Parel, Dharavi, Malad in Mumbai; Kalyan and Badlapur in Thane; and Bhuj and Rajkot in Gujarat. Kulkarni has eight bank accounts in India. A Malad bank has `67 lakhs, while the remaining `26 lakhs are in other banks. The former actor has not made any transaction in the past one and half year.

The Thane police, in collaboration with the narcotics department of Thane crime branch, in April 2016 seized a huge haul of drugs worth `2,000 crore from the outskirts

of Thane.

Among the narcotics seized was 18,600 kg of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine powder. The haul is said to be the biggest ever in the state.

A total of seven persons have been arrested in the case under various sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substance (NDPS) Act and the Indian Penal Code.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi began his Independence address from Red Fort. Addressing the nation, Narendra Modi remembered the contributions of martyrs who laid down their lives for the country.

A great sense of patriotism grips the country as India celebrates its 70th anniversary of Independence.

This will be Modi's fourth Independence Day address. Dressed in off-white kurta and crimson turban, Modi first paid tributes to the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat on Tuesday morning before heading to the Red Fort where he will unfurl the Tricolour.

Narendra Modi had invited constructive ideas from citizens to address this Independence Day and has received at least 8,000.

Read: PM receives over 9,000 ideas for Independence Day speech

Security has been tightened across the country to ensure a seamless feat of celebration for its countrymen.

The Chief Guest this year is Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Mohammad bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Independence Day speech:

Those who have contributed and sacrificed for us all to see a free India, I salute you all

I see that lots of you have come as young Krishnas 15th August 2017, being Janmashtami too

People of India stand shoulder to shoulder with those affected due to natural disasters and the tragedy in Gorakhpur

This is a special year as it marks the 75th anniversary of Quit India, 100th anniversary of Champaran Satyagraha, 125th anniversary of Ganesh Utsav

We have to take the nation forward with the resolve of creating a 'New India'

Everybody is equal in our nation, no one big or small. We together can bring a positive change in the nation

Must leave this 'Chalta Hai' nature. We have to now think of 'Badal Sakta Hai'- it will help us progress as a nation

GST has shown the spirit of cooperative federalism. The nation has come together to support GST & the role of technology has also helped

Good governance is about speed and simplification of processes

The country's security remains our priority; our forces have always proved their mettle

India's security is our priority

Those who have looted the nation and looted the poor are not able to sleep peacefully today

Na Gaali se Na Goli Se Parivartan hoga Gale Laga Ke (Only friendship can end differences

You will be happy to know that today we are not alone in our fight against terrorism, many countries supporting us actively (India's stature in the world is rising. The world is with us in fighting the menace of terror. I thank all nations helping us doing so)

We have to work for the progress of Jammu and Kashmir

There is no question of being soft on terrorism or terrorists

Humne 'one rank one pension' laagu kara, suraksha balon ka hausla aur badha

We can reach Mangalyaan within 9 months, this is our capability, but one rail project was stuck for last 42 years

New India is the strength of our democracy

The country supported me to give up gas subsidy

People have supported demonetisation started by my government. They have come together to root out corruption from India

We have achieved record agricultural output

A New India is an India where the system doesn't control the common man, but the common man should control the system. Every Indian in a New India should remember the words 'Swaraj mera janm siddh adhikaar hai' (Swaraj is my birth right)

We have brought a change in labour law for the benefits of mothers and sisters of India

I want to appreciate women who raised their voices against 'triple talaaq'. I assure you that the country will help them in their fight and win

A New India will be our democracy's biggest strength

With change in demand and technology, nature of jobs are changing. We are nurturing our youngsters to be job creators and not job seekers

We are working to take the country to a new level and we would continue to do all that will further take India to growth trajectory

The poison of casteism and communalism can never be beneficial for our nation. This is the country of Lord Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi

India is about Shanti, Ekta and Sadbhavana. Casteism and communalism will not help us

Violence in the name of 'Astha' is not something to be happy about, it will not be accepted in India

We are taking the nation on a new track (of development) and are moving ahead with speed

We are giving significant attention to eastern India including Bihar, Assam, West Bengal, Odisha, Northeast. These states have to grow further

In 1942, the nation's call was 'Bharat Chhoro'. In 2017, the nation's call is 'Bharat Jodo'

Today banks are reducing interest rates as they have money after demonetisation

We should give priority to digital transaction

Our aim is to give a better and cheaper healthcare facilities to poor of our country

I request my countrymen to move ahead with the vision of New India

We have to take a promise to make New India by 2022, where everyone has a roof over them, water facility and other basic amenities

We have to take a promise of a cleaner and greener India by 2022

Today people are celebrating honesty. Dishonest have no place in the country

There is a remarkable rise in taxpayers in India. Following GST and demonetisation, over 18 lakh people with disproportionate incomes have been brought to book. Tax has been collected from them and they have been brought into the tax fold
India is celebrating its 71st Independence Day in 2017.

Persuading the development of an India on the backdrop of the youth, Modi urged the formation of a 'New India' on Tuesday in his Independence Day speech. (Photo: ANI)

Haridwar: Yoga guru Baba Ramdev has hoisted a 100 ft tricolor, on Tuesday at Patanjali Yogpeeth in Haridwar.

India is celebrating its 71st Independence Day in 2017.

#WATCH Baba Ramdev unfurls 100 ft tricolour at Patanjali Yogpeeth in Haridwar #IndependenceDayIndia pic.twitter.com/jjeSnOX70s  ANI (@ANI) August 15, 2017

2017 also marks the 75th anniversary of the ' Quit India Movement', 100th anniversary of the ' Champaran Satyagraha', and the 125th anniversary of Ganesh Utsav, as mentioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while addressing the nation from Red Fort on Tuesday.

Additionally, persuading the development of an India on the backdrop of the youth, Prime Minister Modi urged the formation of a 'New India'.

"January 1 2018 will not be an ordinary day; those born in this century will start turning 18, the ' Bhagya Vidhatas' of our country. Everybody is equal in our nation; no one is big or small. Together we can bring a positive change in the nation," he said.
Lauding the Government for surgical strike, General Bakshi said, 'This was long overdue and must not be a one-off. This must be continued.'

Retired Indian Army Major General Gagandeep Bakshi pointed out that the Indian Army needs to modernise its equipment, especially Medium Artillery and Light Helicopters with night fighting capabilities. (Photo: EPIC Channel)

Mumbai: 70 years ago, on this day, India had its tryst with destiny when it attained its Independence from the shackles of the British Raj. The day is special for all Indians and it also gives a sense of pride to fellow countrymen.

As citizens remember the contributions of those, who laid down their lives for the freedom struggle, and also for the ones, who are at the war footing to ensure we are safe, Deccan Chronicle spoke to retired Indian Army Major General Gagandeep Bakshi.

GD Bakshi is from the Jammu and Kashmir Rifles.

Sharing his message for the nation on the 70th Independence Day, Bakshi said, The nation must remember those who laid down their lives and gave their today for our tomorrow.

When asked about his first major on-battle experience at Kargil in 1999, Bakshi said the war was thrilling as well as transformative. Our greatest moment was when we were having massive fire exchange with the 29 Baluch Regiment of Pakistan Army in the area of Kaksar, he added.

We used our Artillery Regiments' 175/24 Gun in direct shooting role, along with 2 x Anti-tank Guns and 2 x Anti-aircraft (AAC) Guns. The Pakistani posts were downed and we forced Pakistanis to show white flags - begging for ceasefire. They never misbehaved thereafter. We were on Cloud Nine thereafter, Bakshi said further.

Giving his opinion on the incessant ceasefire violations along the Line of Control (LoC), Bakshi  a veteran of many skirmishes on the border and of counter-terrorist operations in Jammu and Kashmir, and Punjab  said, Pakistan needs to be taught a lesson that it will not forget in a hurry.

Retired Indian Army Major General Gagandeep Bakshi

General Bakshi also lauded the government for the recent surgical strike and said, This (surgical strike) was long overdue and must not be a one-off. This must be continued.

Commenting on the ongoing Sikkim standoff, the Army veteran said, The Doklam plateau is of core strategic interest for India as well as Bhutan. Should China complete its road construction there, they can bring up Artillery Guns that can target the Siliguri corridor, the Bhutanese capital city of Thimpu and the airport of Paro. This is non-negotiable.

When asked if the Army is prepared for a war with China, as the neighbouring country is unwilling to back-off, General Bakshi said, We do not want war, but if forced, we can give the Chinese a bloody nose. There is no need for us therefore, to back down or be diffident.

General Bakshi also pointed out that the Indian Army needs to modernise its equipment, especially Medium Artillery and Light Helicopters with night fighting capabilities.

However, the Army veteran concluded, War is not the solution to all problems.

Major Bakshi is presenting a documentary on the occasion of Independence Day on EPIC channel and said it is vital for him as it reminds us of the super sacrifice of super heroes.
Says states problem can be solved by embracing Kashmiris.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort in New Delhi on Tuesday on the occasion of Indias 71st Independence Day. (Photo: Pritam Bandyopadhyay)

New Delhi: Toeing Atal Behari Vajpayees Kashmir doctrine of Kashmiriyat, Jamhooriyat aur Insaniyat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi from the ramparts of Red Fort on Tuesday held out some hope for the strife-ridden Kashmir Valley as he called for compassion and not coercion. Addressing the nation on Indias 71st Independence Day, the Prime Minister said: Na gaali se, na goli se, parivartan hoga gale lagaane se... samasya suljhegi har Kashmiri ko gale lagane se (Kashmir problem cannot be resolved by either bullets or by abuses. It can be resolved by embracing Kashmiris). Making it clear that his government would not be soft on terrorism, Mr Modi also slammed violence in the name of faith, saying it was not acceptable and that communalism and casteism were a poison that would do no good to the country.

Wearing his trademark half-sleeve kurta and a Rajasthani turban, in his 57-minute speech, the shortest of all the four speeches he has delivered since 2014, he assured that the government was committed to making Kashmir a paradise once again. He said that a handful of separatists were resorting to various tactics to create problems in the state.

Referring to the Gorakhpur tragedy, the Prime Minister said sympathies of the entire nation were with the families who lost their children at a state-run hospital in Uttar Pradesh. He assured that the Centre would leave no stone unturned to extend help to them. Many parts of the country faced natural calamities in the recent past. A few days ago, at a hospital, our innocent children died. In this time of distress and sadness, sympathies of 125 crore people of the country are with them, he said.

Mr Modi also asked the countrymen to shed the chalta hai attitude and instead adopt an approach of badal sakta hai (can change) for positive change.

Invoking Bal Gangadhar Tilaks slogan of swaraj (self- rule), he said now their motto should be suraj (good governance) as he underlined his vision for a new India by 2022.

In New India, he said, Tantra se lok nahin, lok se tantra chalega (people would be the driving force behind the establishment rather than the other way around). He lamented that democracy has been confined to ballots.

The nation had shown its collective strength between 1942 and 1947 culminating in Indias Independence, he said, asking people to show the same resolve to create a new India by 2022.

Most of his speech, however, focussed on the economy, as he pointed out the various reforms carried out by his government, including demonetisation, the implementation of GST and the crackdown on black money. Those who have looted the nation and looted the poor are not able to sleep peacefully today, the Prime Minister said, vowing to continue the crackdown.

He said over Rs 1.75 lakh crore has been deposited in banks since the note-ban, and more than 18 lakh people with disproportionate income are under government scrutiny.

He said demonetisation of old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes last November had helped bring over Rs 3 lakh crore of unaccounted wealth into the banking system.
Indrani is currently facing trial in Mumbai in connection with the murder of her daughter Sheena Bora and is lodged in a prison there.

New Delhi: The CBI has decided to seek a Mumbai courts permission for examining jailed INX Media director Indrani Mukerjea over alleged manipulation of a tax probe against the media group that also involves Karti Chidambaram, son of former finance minister P. Chidamabaram.

Karti Chidambaram is accused of getting kickbacks through a company indirectly controlled by him, allegedly to scuttle a probe by the revenue department against INX Media, then controlled by Indrani and her husband Peter Mukerjea.

The CBI alleged that INX Media had got permission to receive Rs 4.62 crore investment from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) but got Rs 305 crore from two companies based in Mauritius.

Indrani is currently facing trial in Mumbai in connection with the murder of her daughter Sheena Bora and is lodged in a prison there.

CBI sources said, Ms Mukerjeas examination is crucial in connection with the FIPB clearance given to the media group for receiving funds from Mauritius. The probe agency registered the case against Karti Chidambaram on May 15. His company Chess Management Services, INX Media, Advantage Strategic Consulting Services, its director Padma Vishwanathan and the Mukerjeas were also booked.

The Supreme Court on Monday asked Karti Chidambaram to appear before the CBI in connection with the case.

The apex court stayed the Madras high court order allowing Karti Chidambaram to go abroad on August 16. The high court had on August 10 stayed a look out circulars issued against him and four others by the Centre over the corruption case filed by the CBI.

The INX Media, sources said, stated in its records that an amount of `10 lakh was given to Advantage Strategic Consulting Services, a firm indirectly owned by Karti Chidambaram, for management consultancy charges towards an FIPB notification and clarification.

The CBI alleged that Karti Chidambaram received money from INX Media for using his influence to manipulate a tax probe against it in the FIPB violation case.
Sharma wondered that who had stopped the PM from taking action against people who vitiate the atmosphere of peace.

New Delhi: The Congress Party has termed Prime Minister Narendra Modis Independence Day speech as most disappointing. Senior spokesman of the Congress, Anand Sharma, said, The Prime Ministers Independence Day address has been most disappointing. After three years, it was time for him to give an account of the failure of his government in fulfilling its promises to the people, especially the youth, farmers and weaker sections.

The Congress leader also hit out at the Prime Minister for comparing the Gorakhpur tragedy, in which children lost their lives, to a natural calamity. The PM has not shown sensitivity, and he has not actually registered the gravity of the situation. That a large number of children, infants have died because of callous neglect and he has just in a very trivial manner equated the Gorakhpur tragedy to the other natural calamities, he should have been careful, Mr Sharma said. On the call of the Prime Minister to embrace Kashmiris, the Congress said that nobody stopped the Prime Minister from embracing Kashmiris in the first place and that he should talk to all sections and create a national consensus, as well as in Kashmir, to resolve the states issues.

On the PMs assertion that violence in the name of faith has no place in society, Mr Sharma wondered that who had stopped the PM from taking action against people who vitiate the atmosphere of peace.

He said, Why has action not been taken against such individuals or organisations, when they have their government in the Centre and states? Why have they not been arrested.

The Congress said that the Prime Minister should have shown grace and acknowledged the support of the Opposition parties in passing the GST. Mr Sharma added that it was Mr Modi, as the chief minister of Gujarat, who had vehemently opposed the GST. On the figures given by the Prime Minister regarding demonetisation, Mr Sharma said, Why has this government not given an account of how much black money there is in the money that has come back to the RBI vaults.
Bihar CM seeks govt aid over financial assistance.

Bihar CM Nitish Kumar distributes sweets to school girls at a Independence Day function at his residence in Patna. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: After walking out of the Grand Alliance, JD(U) chief and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar will visit Delhi in the last week of August to discuss the modalities of joining the NDA government at the Centre.

During his three-day visit after the Bihar Assembly session ends on August 25, Mr Kumar will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah and officials of the Central government for seeking financial assistance.

A senior JD(U) leader told this newspaper that Mr Kumar wants Centres help to tide over the states financial crisis.

The chief minister has prepared a detailed list of ministry-wise requirements that he will be presenting to the Central government, he said.

The Bihar chief ministers discussions with BJPs central leaders on joining the Union Cabinet will come shortly after the partys national convention on August 19, where a resolution on the issue is likely to be passed.

The JD(U) is facing a split over the issue of going with the BJP in Bihar, with senior leader Sharad Yadav and his supporters complaining that he was not consulted before the decision was taken.

Though Mr Yadav is unlikely to attend the partys convention on August 19, the meeting is likely to be a stormy affair due to presence of some supporters of Mr Yadav, who has claimed support of many JD(U) state units against Mr Kumars decision to form government with BJP.

Sources said that Mr Kumar is unlikely to take a decision on continuance of Mr Yadav in the party on August 19.

The JD(U) chief first wants party workers to see Mr Yadav and tainted RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav share the stage in RJDs August 27 rally in Patna. Only then will he take a decision, said a leader.

Sources said Mr Kumar was firm that his decision to go with the BJP had sound political logic as he feared that the RJD was eating into the JD(U) vote bank.
Kaylee wants to have a sexual relationship with her boyfriend but is also nervous about having sex for the first time.

With rising awareness and a higher willingness to explore sexuality, sex has become a major part of relationships and is a priority for young people across the world. But while most people have pretty active sex lives with more access to platforms for meeting different people and hookups, everyone isnt so lucky.

A woman from Arizona in US cant have sex as she was born without a vagina and out of desperation the 22-year-old is now raising funds for a surgery which can enable her to have sex with her boyfriend like any other woman of her age.

The reason behind Kaylee Moats ordeal is a bizarre condition called Mayer Rokitansky Kuster Hauser syndrome which caused her to be born without a vaginal opening. While she was afraid to share this with others since she was diagnosed, things changed after she met her boyfriend Robbie who doesnt care about the absence of sex.

As Kaylee is trying to raise close to $15000 for a surgery, Robbie contributes $50 from his monthly salary for the fund to get Kaylee a vaginal opening. Kaylee wants to have a sexual relationship but is also nervous about doing it for the first time after surgery.

Kaylees life has been a struggle to come to terms with her condition and she was always afraid about future boyfriends rejecting her as a normal human being.
The victims were allegedly abducted from outside the New Delhi Railway Station by two persons posing as Delhi Police personnel.

New Delhi: Two employees of an Ahmedabad-based jeweller were allegedly robbed of gold worth over Rs 1 crore, the police said on Monday.

The incident took place on August 12. They were allegedly abducted from outside the New Delhi Railway Station by two persons posing as Delhi Police personnel.

The gold worth Rs 1.25 crore was robbed from them following which they were dumped in Haryana.

According to the police, the incident took place when Nitin and Shailesh, employees of jeweller Soni Rajesh Changanlal, came to old Delhi to buy some gold, they said.

They were accompanied by another employee Umakant who went inside the station.

While they were paying the fare to a rickshaw-puller, a man in police uniform asked them to accompany him at gunpoint, they added.

They were taken to a parked car in which another man was sitting and they were taken to Haryana. They were dumped after being looted.

Their employer approached the police today and a case was registered. The police are scanning the CCTV footage from the railway station and other areas to identify the accused.
Prince lives near Hanuman temple with his family where a man used to teach the underprivileged children on a weekly basis.

An Indian street vendor sells Indian flags at a traffic intersection on the eve of India's Independence Day. (Photo: AP)

New Delhi: A 10-year-old boy Prince, who is selling tri-colour flags at a traffic island opposite Hanuman Mandir in central Delhi, for him how much he would earn on the eve of I-Day would decide whether or not he will get admitted into school.

Prince lives near Hanuman temple with his family where a man used to teach the underprivileged children on a weekly basis. However, three months ago, in an anti-encroachment drive, the family got relocated to Shankar market by the municipal authorities.

Since then, getting an education has remained a priority for Prince whose father, who sells fidget spinners. The boys father promised him that he would send him to school if he helps him in increasing the earnings for the family.

Ahead of Independence Day people love to buy these flags, badges, bands among others, which will fetch me a good amount of money. I can then go to school after August 15, he said.

At a distance, stood Radha, persuading visitors at Connaught Place to buy hand bands, flags and badges for I-Day. The 20-year-old girl has spent her entire childhood on the streets.

When asked what azadi meant to her, she started wondering at the question and after some thought, said, These festivals dont matter to me.

I have invested around Rs 700 to Rs 800, but in the last five days, I have earned only Rs 400, she said, sighing.
Police said that during questioning, Meitei had revealed his involvement in terror activities and other crimes in Manipur.

The three members of Manipur-based banned Kangleipak Communist Party in police custory. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: Three members of a Manipur-based banned terror outfit, including its self-styled commander-in-chief, have been arrested in Delhi, the police said on Monday.

Kangleipak Communist Party (Peoples War Group) chief Laishram Ranjit Meitei (45), Khumanthem Naobicha Singh (36), and Thoidam Chaothoi (30) were arrested near the Inter-State Bus Terminus (ISBT) in North Delhi on Sunday evening, deputy commissioner of police Pramod Kushwah said.

A laptop, a tablet two mobile phones, and extortion letters were seized from the men who were looking for a safe hideout in Delhi after their hideout on the India-Nepal border was busted by security forces.

They target schools, businessmen, and owners of oil tankers to extort money for funding their terror activities, the officer said.

Police said that during questioning, Meitei had revealed his involvement in terror activities and other crimes in Manipur.

He was earlier arrested by Manipur police but has been on the run for the past five years, during which he stayed in Nepal for three years.

In January, the self-styled Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP) convener, Ranjjet Singh Porai, was arrested in Delhi.
The city was kept under an unprecedented ground-to-air security cover in view of the twin occasions of the Independence Day and Janmashtami festival.

Thousands of security personnel, including 9,100 personnel from the Delhi police, were deployed in and around the historic Mughal fort, which saw the presence of senior ministers, top bureaucrats, foreign dignitaries and common people during the Prime Ministers address. (Photo: AP)

New Delhi: Nearly 70,000 Delhi police personnel were on their toes and kept a tight vigil over the national capital, especially around the Red Fort from where PM Narendra Modi addressed the nation, on the 71st Independence Day on Tuesday.

The city was kept under an unprecedented ground-to-air security cover in view of the twin occasions of the Independence Day and Janmashtami festival. Thousands of security personnel, including 9,100 personnel from the Delhi police, were deployed in and around the historic Mughal fort, which saw the presence of senior ministers, top bureaucrats, foreign dignitaries and common people during the Prime Ministers address.

Two dozen Parakram Vans, manned by quick reaction teams of NSG-trained commandos, had been stationed in areas with high footfall to thwart any attempt by terror groups to disrupt peace. As many as 11 such vans had been deployed in the area around the fort.

Barricades were put up at various places where armed police and paramilitary personnel kept a strict vigil. Traffic personnel allowed only authorised vehicles to head towards the venue.

At the Red Fort, a special team of NSG snipers and commandos formed the inner layers of the security cordon, while anti-aircraft guns had been deployed to thwart any aerial intrusion by objects like drones and projectiles, senior police officials said.

The Delhi police had earlier in an advisory prohibited aerial activities across the city. Also, the police surveyed the areas in the vicinity of the Red Fort and collected details of over 9,000 people residing there. The buildings facing the Red Fort were secured by the police and paramilitary personnel.

Security along the route to be taken by the Prime Ministers cavalcade from his official residence to the Red Fort was being monitored with the help of hundreds of CCTV cameras.
The government had earlier announced that Aadhaar card would be interlinked to the loan amount for loan waiver.

Mumbai: Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis chaired a high-level meeting in Mumbai on Monday to discuss the drought like situation in Maharashtra, in which he directed a connection between Aadhaar card numbers and 7/12 land records for the smooth disbursement of government aid in drought management. The government had earlier announced that Aadhaar card would be interlinked to the loan amount for loan waiver.

A part of Marathwada and Vidarbha are currenly facing a drought-like situation as the second sowing has also failed to cultivate crops. Against this backdrop, Opposition parties and agriculture experts had requested the state government to be prepared for drought management. Mr Fadnavis directives are a response to that request.

Mondays meeting was arranged as per the procedural instructions decided by the state government in 2016. In the meeting, Mr Fadnavi clearly asked the officers to link the farmers Aadhaar numbers to their 7/12 papers to make the process of identifying the needy farmers easier. We are already linking Aadhar numbers for loan waiver scheme. If we link it to the 7/12 as well, it would be helpful for the government machinery, said Mr Fadnavis.

He further said, The government will use drone cameras to survey the drought hit area and damaged crops to get an exact idea of the situation. A few districts have sufficient rain in catchments of big dams but certain other parts have received less rain, so we need to start planning accordingly for the severe droughts.

He has also asked officers to be lenient while deciding the criteria for drought-affected farmers.

This year, parts of Marathwada and Vidarbha have received less rainfall and farmers from districts like Yavatmal, Washim, Hingoli, Beed and Nanded are worried about the failure of crop cultivation even after sowing twice.
Rohan Kini from Kashipada village in Palghar was rushed to privately-run Philia hospital but was declared dead on arrival.

Kini was a part of human pyramid and his position was on the ground level.

Mumbai: Two Govindas lost their lives in two separate incidents during the Dahi Handi celebrations in the city on Tuesday, while 117 others were injured.

In Palghar, a 21-year-old Govinda allegedly died after a suffering an attack of epilepsy during the formation of the human pyramid, while another 30-year-old Govinda was electrocuted after he accidentally touched a loose wire in Airoli.

Rohan Kini from Kashipada village in Palghar was rushed to privately-run Philia hospital but was declared dead on arrival. The Palghar police has registered a case of accidental death (ADR) and his body has been sent for post-mortem. Kini was a part of human pyramid and his position was on the ground level.

In the second incident, a 30-year-old Govinda, Jayesh Sarale, was electrocuted after he accidentally touched a loose wire, as his troupe and he were about to return from a Dahi Handi event organised in Airoli by local Shiv Sena leader Vijay Chougule.
Mirza Ghalib prescribed the first route in the 19th century. The second way has been popularised by Narendra Modi.

Travelling can work in opposite ways. It can come as wanderlust that gives one a feel of new horizons befitting a seeker. Or it can be a temptation to contaminate new climes with hidebound habits. Mirza Ghalib prescribed the first route in the 19th century. The second way has been popularised by Narendra Modi.

Hasad se dil agar afsurda hai, garm-i-tamasha ho/ Ke chashm-i-tang shaayad kasrat-i-nazara se va ho. That was Ghalibs prescription. A good antidote to suffocating ennui or chashm-i-tang, he said, could be kasrat-i-nazara, the expansiveness of new things to see, new people to meet, new ideas to ponder. Marco Polo and Ibne Batuta would have warmed the cockles of Ghalibs heart. T.S. Eliot captured the Urdu poets advice succinctly: Oh, do not ask, What is it?/ Let us go and make our visit. The lines from Eliots much-critiqued poem  The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock  have nudged many towards nirvana.

Modis apparent insecurities with his identity  or his search for one, as his constantly changing attire reflects  can be seen in loudly choreographed cultural assertions. This obviously was not the case with the more confident Nehru and others who preceded him, not even with A.B. Vajpayee who Modi grudgingly respects.

Modis avoidable complexes have found him distributing copies of the Bhagvad Gita to visitors even as he makes bold claims to insights into Indias hoary past. Come to think of it, the pope, whose job it is to proselytise, doesnt offer free copies of the Bible to his visitors. If anything, world leaders who come to the Vatican to confer with him would not miss the opportunity to visit the Sistine Chapel and be awestruck by Michelangelos work of art. Modi, though, would derive greater pleasure from securing an easy sanction from the ruler of Abu Dhabi to build a temple in the oil-rich emirate.

Would Modi visit the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village in New York, a catalyst for the gay rights movement in the US?

Ghalib, to return to the master of cultural assimilation, memorably set off on a journey to colonial Calcutta from his modest perch in Mughal Delhi. En route, he composed an amazing tribute to the majesty of Benares and its Hindu populace, and their reverence for River Ganga. Savour an excerpt from Qurratulain Hyders translation of Chiragh-i-Dair or ((temple lamps):

May Heaven keep/ The grandeur of Benares/ Arbour of bliss, meadow of joy,/ For oft-returning souls/ Their journeys end./ In this weary Temple-land of the world/ Safe from the whirlwind of Time,/ Benaras is forever spring,/ Where autumn turns/ Into the touch of sandal on their foreheads/ Springtime wears the sacred thread/ Of flower-waves/ And the splash of twilight/ Is the crimson mark of Kashis/ Dust on heavens brow.

Weve seen snapshots of Modis engagements with his Indian fans abroad. Had he gone to New York to gain first-hand knowledge about a multicultural city instead, the prime minister would have visited the streets of Harlem with Savona Bailey-McClain. The African-American art curator and historian would have walked him through the evolution of the district. Ghalib described British vengeance when they flattened the old city of Delhi after 1857. Modi would now learn that the British also burnt down the district of Manhattan (centuries before the advent of Osama bin Laden) in their pursuit of George Washingtons ragtag militia.

Would Modi visit the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village in New York, a catalyst for the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world? Maries Crisis is a piano bar in the vicinity. Its main room is wedged below street level, so that you descend into it as you would to a secret rendezvous. All the men and women of varied sexual orientations can be found in the evenings singing everything under the sun  and utterly tunefully too. What they would not sing is any remotely patriotic song  a lesson for the zealous South Asians.

The inimitable pamphleteer and documentary-maker Michael Moore is currently appearing on Broadway in a play about himself. It is called The Terms of My Surrender, a 90-minute one-man show mostly about how to get even with Donald Trumps ideology of hate and racist violence. Moore announces to each packed show how he keeps a seat in the balcony for the president of the United States. We recommend he keep a place for Mr Modi too.

How the hell did this happen? Moores opening gambit sets the tempo for the absorbing monologue. The audience goes into raptures. Moore reasons how things may not be as bad as they look. The president, the vice president, the supreme court, both houses of Congress belong to the rivals. But we have the majority. Moores optimism flows from the actual headcount, which gave the Democrats a majority of the votes while the electoral college robbed them of victory  a message for the needlessly disheartened on how to bring down a Nixon.

Ghalib would enjoy the planetarium in New York. Our sun is an ordinary star, just one among hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy, a plaque reminds us tersely. As the only star we can observe in detail, it provides a basis for our understanding of all stars.

The message unwittingly summarises Ghalibs own fulminations: Hasti ke mat fareb mein aajaaiyo Asad/ Aalam tamaam halqa-i-daam-i-khayaal hai. The universe deceptively fits into a single hole of the fishermans net that resembles the mind, said the poet. The Big Bang occurred 13 billion years ago. And 3.8bn years ago, life took root on Earth. How ancient is religion or any nation, including Mr Modis?

By arrangement with Dawn
President Kovind has no election to fight in the near future, and he was therefore free to express the Sangh Parivars true objectives.

Two landmark speeches over two days by the President and the Prime Minister were a study in contrast. In reversed roles, while Mr Ram Nath Kovind, in his first Independence Day-eve speech, took a partisan path by hawking the virtues of the Sangh Parivar founders strain of integral humanist quotient, Mr Narendra Modi tried to take the high road by condemning cow vigilantes and suggesting, contrary to his partys dogma, that the Kashmir problem could not be resolved by force alone.

Whether anything will change on the ground remains to be seen, but after three years in power Mr Modis thoughts seem to be guided by the 2019 general election, and he took the safe target of the 75th Independence anniversary in 2022 to make new promises. There were interesting nuances in the Prime Ministers three-year record of rule that left many promises remaining unfulfilled.

The most glaring, of course, is the promise to create millions of new jobs. In an attempt to get over his embarrassment, he talked of job creators. And he devoted considerable time to justifying the demonetisation decision which most economists have panned as foolish, despite his ability to persuade the poor that it was an anti-rich move. Even President Kovind was brought in to defend the demonetisation move.

The PM for the first time also publicly expressed sympathy for the parents who had lost their children by the dozens in the Gorakhpur hospital tragedy, but he had no remedy to offer. Above all, the tragedy symbolised the dysfunctional state of government hospitals in Uttar Pradesh and elsewhere, thanks to sharp budget cuts made in health and education in Mr Modis priorities. With the BJPs eyes fixed on 2019, no major reform is contemplated. Mr Modi was on firmer ground in singing the virtues of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), despite the hiccups. It was a bold move that makes sense for the countrys future development. On the other hand, Mr Modi did not mention China or Pakistan in his address, presumably because the standoff with Beijing in the Himalayas continues, and any mention of Islamabad would invite a riposte.

Interestingly, unlike in his inaugural speech omitting Jawaharlal Nehru, President Kovind did mention the towering first Prime Minister of India as an also-ran in the following words recalling the role of countless freedom fighters who made great sacrifices men and women who represented all parts of our country and a variety of social and political thought, naming among others Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.

Both President Kovind and Mr Modi talked about the new India. The accent was obviously on nailing down the votes of dailts and other backward communities, although the former dealt at length on a compassionate and egalitarian society that does not discriminate on gender or religious background in a New India, which must include that integral humanist component that is our DNA.

Taken together, the two speeches are an outline of what the BJP government intends to achieve: the building of a Hindu India guided by large doses of nationalism wrapped in saffron colours, in the Presidents case more explicitly. Mr Modi has made few other promises on the remaining two years of his term. Even on Kashmir, there are no new markers and the arrest of BJP supporters in Kashmir on Independence-eve is one example of the contradictions involved.

Mr Modi chose not to spell out his governments policy on farmers plight as their mounting agitations increasingly leading to suicides was sought to be tackled in the short run by loan waivers without an attempt to frame a policy on circumventing of mounting debts. Indeed, the impression one gained from Mr Modis Red Fort speech was his objective not to rock his governments boat at a time the Opposition was in disarray, with the BJP having demolished the grand coalition in Bihar by capturing the allegiance of Mr Nitish Kumar, often touted as the combined Opposition candidate in 2019.

President Kovind has no election to fight in the near future, and he was therefore free to express the Sangh Parivars true objectives. Ironically, RSS leader Mohan Bhagwat was prohibited from unfurling the national flag in Marxist-ruled Kerala. He, however, went ahead and hoisted the flag defying the district administrations order.

Granted that politics is the art of the possible, Mr Modi is discovering that this time around his histrionic abilities did not match the message he had to deliver. It was one of caution and staying the path without any new stirring themes to work on. If there was a measure of disappointment among many, it was muted.

The question that President Kovinds performance raises is whether he has compromised his new role as President by reading from an RSS-inspired script. Despite his disavowal of party loyalties, he seems unable to grasp his being head of state of a diverse multi-ethnic and multi-religious country. The new vice-president, M. Venkiah Naidu, has already take issue with his predecessor, Hamid Ansari, for suggesting that Muslims felt insecure in the new India that is being built.

It was an unbecoming intervention. Will it serve as a warning sign for the new President? Speculation in political circles is that he will do as he is told to do by the BJP government. In the end, it would boil down to Mr Modis ability to retain a measure of autonomy from the RSS over the pace of the Hinduising of India.

In any event, the two speeches, taken together, give us a sense of what to expect in the new configuration of both the President and Prime Minister having their roots in the Sangh Parivar. The question that remains unclear is the extent to which the government plans to use the presidency as a bully pulpit to spread its message of Hindutva.
A neo-Nazi website that helped promote the gathering said there will be more events soon.

People fly into the air as a vehicle drives into a group of protesters demonstrating against a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville. (Photo: AP)

Birmingham: Emboldened and proclaiming victory after a bloody weekend in Virginia, white nationalists are planning more demonstrations to promote their agenda after the violence that left a woman dead and dozens injured.

The University of Florida said white provocateur Richard Spencer, whose appearances sometimes stoke unrest, is seeking permission to speak there next month. White nationalist Preston Wiginton had said he was planning a "White Lives Matter" rally at Texas A&M University in September, but the university later said it has been canceled.

Also, a neo-Confederate group has asked the state of Virginia for permission to rally at a monument to Confederate Gen. Robert E Lee in Richmond on September 16, and other events are likely.

Read: Three CEOs resign from Trump's council over Charlottesville violent clashes

"We're going to be more active than ever before," Matthew Heimbach, a white nationalist leader, said Monday.

James Alex Fields Jr, a young man who was said to idolize Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany in high school, was charged with killing a woman by slamming a car into a group of counter-protesters at a white nationalist rally Sunday in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Fields, 20, who recently moved to Ohio from his home state of Kentucky, was held without bail on murder charges. He was photographed at the rally behind a shield bearing the emblem of the white nationalist Vanguard America, though the group denied he was a member.

Two state troopers also died Sunday when their helicopter crashed during an effort to contain the violence.

The US Justice Department said it will review the violence, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions told ABC the death of counter-protester Heather Heyer, 32, met the definition of domestic terrorism. White nationalists said they were undaunted.

Read: Charlottesville driver previously accused of beating his disabled mother

Heimbach, who said he was pepper-sprayed during the melee in Charlottesville, called the event Saturday "an absolute stunning victory" for the far right because of the large number of supporters who descended on the city to decry plans to remove a statue of Lee.

Hundreds of white nationalists, white supremacists, neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members and others were involved, by some estimates, in what Heimbach, leader of the Traditionalist Workers Party, called the nation's biggest such event in a decade or more. Even more opponents turned out, and the two sides clashed violently.

A neo-Nazi website that helped promote the gathering said there will be more events soon.

"We are going to start doing this non-stop. Across the country," said the site, which internet domain host GoDaddy said it was shutting down after it mocked the woman killed in Charlottesville.

The head of the National Socialist Movement, Jeff Schoep, said Charlottesville was a "really good" white nationalist event that was being overshadowed by the deaths. "Any time someone loses their life it's unfortunate," he said.

He blamed the violence on inadequate police protection and counter-demonstrators and said he doubts white nationalists will be deterred from attending more such demonstrations.

Preserving memorials to the Old South has become an animating force for the white nationalist movement, not because all members are Southern, Schoep said, but because adherents see the drive to remove such monuments as part of a larger, anti-white crusade.

"It's an assault on American freedoms. Today it's Confederate monuments. Tomorrow it may be the Constitution or the American flag," Schoep said.

At the University of Florida, where Spencer has asked to speak, President W. Kent Fuchs called the events in Virginia "deplorable" but indicated school officials might be unable to block his appearance.

"While this speaker's views do not align with our values as an institution, we must follow the law, upholding the First Amendment not to discriminate based on content and provide access to a public space," Fuchs said in a message on the university's Facebook page.

Auburn University spent nearly $30,000 in legal fees in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent Spencer from speaking on its campus in Alabama in April.
A scathing letter of reference by the previous company had cost Ramesh Krishnan the chance to join another firm.

Krishnan lost the defamation suit in the High Court in 2015, but the Court of Appeal later ruled that AXA had breached its duty of care to him, the report said. (Photo: Pixabay/Representational)

Singapore: A 47-year-old Indian-origin Singaporean has received a hefty compensation of over 4 million Singaporean dollars from his previous employer after a scathing letter of reference by them cost him the chance to join another company.

Ramesh Krishnan, described as "one of AXA's best-compensated advisers", had accused the company of defaming him in 2012 when providing references on his work performance, The Straits Times reported.

Krishnan lost the defamation suit in the High Court in 2015, but the Court of Appeal later ruled that AXA had breached its duty of care to him, the report said.

When the company Krishnan had applied to asked AXA for the reference, it wrote back to say that he "showed a very poor 13th month persistency rate" - meaning that many of his clients did not stick with their policies - and "we are very concerned as to whether the clients have been provided with proper advice".

The Court of Appeal said this would have given the mistaken impression that Krishnan was not competent, and did not square with the evidence that he was one of AXA's best financial services directors and it had earlier persuaded him not to resign.

Justice George Wei noted yesterday that the stands of both parties had been "polar opposites" when it came to damages. Krishnan had sought 63 million Singaporean dollar, while AXA urged he should be awarded only a nominal sum of 1 Singaporean dollar.

Starting from April 2011, this included a commencement allowance of 675,000 Singaporean dollars, and an initial monthly salary of 65,625 Singaporean dollars for the first 12 months and 43,750 Singaporean dollars for the following months till July last year.

He also looked at loss of future earnings between August last year and July next year at a discounted rate.

An AXA Singapore spokesman said yesterday it is seeking legal advice on the judgment.

"Providing for and protecting our policyholders is our top priority and we remain committed to ensuring that our appointed representatives are fit and proper and meet the competency, financial soundness and integrity standards required by us and the MAS (Monetary Authority of Singapore)," the spokesman was quoted as saying.

Ramesh said: "People must know that justice is served. Somebody must go out there and make a point."
General Mohammad Hossein Bagheri is due to meet Defense Min Nurettin Canikli and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during his three-day visit.

Erdogan has sometimes lashed out at the rise of "Persian nationalism" in the region, especially in Iraq. (Photo: File)

Ankara: Iran's chief of staff arrived in Ankara Tuesday for "unprecedented" talks with Turkey's leadership reportedly aimed at narrowing differences on the Syria crisis and coordinating policy on Iraq.

General Mohammad Hossein Bagheri is due to meet Defence Minister Nurettin Canikli and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during his three-day visit. He kicked off the visit by meeting his Turkish counterpart Hulusi Akar, the state-run Anadolu news agency said.

Pro-government Turkish Daily Sabah quoted diplomatic sources as saying the visit was a "milestone" and would not have been possible unless both sides were willing to make deals on both Syria and Iraq. Iran's official IRNA news agency meanwhile described the visit as "unprecedented" in the history of bilateral relations. "This trip was necessary for better consultation and cooperation on various military and regional issues," Bagheri said in a statement to state Iranian broadcaster IRIB, citing border security and the fight against terror.

Yet relations between overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim Turkey, a secular state, and the mainly Shiite Islamic Republic of Iran have on occasion been tense in the last years.

Erdogan has sometimes lashed out at the rise of "Persian nationalism" in the region, especially in Iraq. Turkey and Iran lie on opposing sides of the Syrian conflict, with Erdogan seeking the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad to end the war and Tehran, along with Moscow, his key remaining ally and backer.

But Turkey and Russia have been cooperating more over Syria in recent months, helping to extract civilians from Aleppo and then co-sponsoring peace talks in the Kazakh capital Astana. But with its anti-Assad rhetoric toned down, Ankara now appears especially concerned about the presence of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in the border area.

Although an ally of the United States, the YPG is considered by Turkey as terror group and the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which has waged a deadly three decade insurgency in the Turkish southeast.

The rise of jihadists in the province of Idlib, neighbouring Turkey, has also alarmed Ankara, Moscow and Tehran. Both Turkey and Iran have substantial Kurdish minorities and they vehemently oppose a plan by Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region to organise a vote on independence later this year.

Turkey has begun building a "security wall" along part of its border with Iran, regional officials said this month, along the lines of a similar barrier on the Syrian border.
US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction said the Taliban hold sway in nearly 50 percent of the country.

Islamabad: The Afghan Taliban on Tuesday released an "open letter" to President Donald Trump, reiterating their calls for the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan after 16 years of war.

In a long and rambling note in English that was sent to journalists by Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, the insurgents said Trump has recognized the errors of his predecessors by seeking a review of the US strategy for Afghanistan.

However, Mujahid said Trump should not hand control of the US Afghan policy to the military but rather announce the withdrawal of US forces - and not an increase in troops as the administration has planned.

The 1,600-word note said a US withdrawal would "truly deliver American troops from harm's way" and bring about "an end to an inherited war." The United States now has about 8,400 troops in Afghanistan.

Trump has so far resisted the Pentagon's recommendations to send almost 4,000 more to expand training of Afghan military forces and bolster U.S. counterterrorism operations.

The deployment has been held up amid broader strategy questions, including how to engage regional powers in an effort to stabilize Afghanistan.

What is evident is that the Afghan government has struggled to halt Taliban advances on its own and is now also battling an Islamic State affiliate that has carved out a foothold mostly in eastern Afghanistan.

In its most recent report, the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction said the Taliban hold sway in nearly 50 percent of the country.

The Taliban letter sought to flatter Trump for initiating the Afghan policy review while warning against handing it to "warmongering generals."

"We have noticed that you have understood the errors of your predecessors and have resolved to thoroughly rethinking your new strategy in Afghanistan," it said, addressing Trump.

"You must also not hand over the Afghan issue to warmongering generals, but must make a decision where history shall remember you as an advocate of peace."

The letter also offered a long list of complaints against Afghanistan's US-orchestrated unity government and referenced a newly formed coalition of disgruntled warlords formed at a meeting last month in Turkey as an opposition bloc to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

Ghani has been under pressure from critics who have described him as divisive and accused him of stoking ethnic rivalries.

The opposition bloc includes Uzbek warlord and Afghanistan's first vice president, Rashid Dostum, who has been criticized by the U.S. for human rights abuses and is currently living in Turkey.

Atta Mohammed Noor, a Tajik warlord and governor of northern Balkh province and Mohammed Mohaqiq, an ethnic Hazara lawmaker are also in the bloc.
During the Angelus of the Assumption, Pope Francis entrusted to Mary "the anxieties and sorrows of the populations who suffer in many parts of the world from natural calamities, social tensions or conflicts." God works great things through humble people, unknown to the world, like Mary herself, whilst Our Lady also brought to us a new joy full of meaning.

Vatican City (AsiaNews)  "By celebrating the Mary Most Holy Assumed in Heaven, we would like Her, once again, to bring to us, our families, our communities, that immense gift, that unique grace that we must always ask first and above all the other graces that are close to our heart: the grace that is Jesus Christ!" said Pope Francis in front of the pilgrims assembled in St Peter's Square for the Angelus prayer on the solemnity of the Assumption of Mary.

In the meditation that preceded the Marian prayer, the pontiff emphasised the mystery of Jesus's presence in Mary's womb, taking his inspiration from todays Gospel (Lk 1:39-56) about Mary's visit to her cousin Elisabetta.

"When she arrived," he explained, "Mary heard from her [Elizabeths] mouth the words that have come to form the prayer of the Blessed Virgin Mary: 'Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb (Lk 1:42). In fact, the greatest gift Mary brought to Elizabeth  and to the whole world  is Jesus, who already lived in her, and lived not only for the faith and the wait, as in so many Old Testament women: from the Virgin Jesus took human flesh for his mission of salvation."

"In Elizabeths and her husband Zechariahs home, where sadness reigned before for the lack of children, there was now the joy of a coming child: a child who would become the great John the Baptist, the precursor of the Messiah. When Mary arrived, the joy overflowed and burst out of the hearts, because the invisible but real presence of Jesus filled everything with meaning: life, the family, the salvation of the people . . . Everything! This full joy expressed itself through Mary's voice in the wonderful prayer that the Gospel of Luke has transmitted to us and which, from the first Latin word, is called Magnificat. It is a song of praise to God who works great things through humble people, unknown to the world, like Mary herself, and her husband Joseph, as well as the place where they live, Nazareth.

The Magnificat sings the merciful and faithful God who accomplishes his plan of salvation with the marginalised and the poor, with those who have faith in him, who trust his Word, as Mary does. Here is the exclamation of Elizabeth: Blessed are you who believed" (Lk 1:45). In that house, the coming of Jesus through Mary created not only a climate of joy and fraternal communion but also a climate of faith that leads to hope, prayer, and praise. "

"We would like to have all this happen today in our homes. By celebrating the Mary Most Holy Assumed in Heaven, we would like Her, once again, to bring to us, our families, our communities, that immense gift, that unique grace that we must always ask first and above all the other graces that are close to our heart: the grace that is Jesus Christ!

By carrying Jesus, Our Lady also brought to us a new joy full of meaning; she brought us a new ability to pass faithfully through the most painful and difficult moments; she brought us the capacity of mercy, to forgive us, to understand us, to support each other. "

"Mary is a model of virtue and faith. By contemplating her today assumed in heaven, in the final fulfillment of her earthly journey, we thank her for always preceding us in the pilgrimage of life and faith. We ask her to protect us and support us, that we may have a strong, joyful and merciful faith, that she may help us be holy, to meet her, in Heaven, one day."

After the Angelus Francis entrusted to Mary, Queen of Peace, "the anxieties and sorrows of the populations who suffer in many parts of the world from natural calamities, social tensions or conflicts."

He concluded saying "May our Heavenly Mother, obtain for us everyone the consolation and a future of serenity and concord!
iStock/Thinkstock(SEOUL) -- Despite the fiery rhetoric coming from both President Donald Trump and North Korean officials, as well as concerns over the countrys recent advances in missile technology, experts maintain that nuclear war is not what Kim Jong-Un wants. Rather, experts say what Kim is searching for can be summed up in one word: survival.



This is not a man who wants to go to war with the United States, Jonathan Pollack, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who focuses on Northeast Asian studies, told ABC News.



[The North Koreans] were not going to strike first because they know the risks if they did launch some kind of missile attack," Pollack said, adding that those risks include Trump deciding to put North Korea "out of business."



While statements were being hurled back and forth by both Trump and Kim last week, Scott Snyder, a senior fellow for Korea studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, told ABC News that "what we know of Kim Jong-Un is that he wants to survive."



Steve Ganyard, an ABC News aviation contributor and retired Marine Corps colonel, agreed: "Kim Jong-Un is a rational man, so the whole goal is regime survival."



He's learned the lesson of Saddam [Hussein] and Muammar [Gaddafi]," Ganyard said. "He's never going to give up his nukes, so I think at some point we go back to Cold War-style deterrence and containment the way we did with the Soviet Union successfully," Ganyard added.



That would bring relations with the U.S. back to the status quo, but not change things much on the ground in North Korea.



"It will remain a standoff unless we can ratchet up the economic sanctions to the point that it begins to cripple the North Korean economy," Ganyard said.



Pollack went further, saying that in addition to simply surviving as the country's leader, Kim wants to be validated.



He presides over one of the most misbegotten regimes in the world that has an economy one fortieth the size of South Korea's, Pollack said of Kim. He is trying to claim that he is now on a level playing field with the most powerful state in the world, so he does this through an over-commitment to military programs."

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
By Joe Burton, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Security and Crime Science, University of Waikato

KCNA/Reuters, CC BY-ND

Claims that North Korea could fire nuclear weapons at the continental US present a serious threat to global security. But its hostile activities dont end there. North Korea has also become an aggressive cyber power, regularly using cyber attacks to advance its interests.

Last month, a threat intelligence firm, Recorded Future, reported that North Korea may have been using New Zealands internet networks as proxies to launch cyber attacks worldwide. The New Zealand governments Communications Security Bureau is assessing the veracity of these claims.

The report suggests that North Korea may have both a physical and a virtual presence in New Zealand. It raised the possibility of a network of patriot hackers using New Zealand cyber networks to pursue the aims of the North Korean regime.

North Koreas history of cyber attacks

Cyber attacks have become a wide-ranging tool in the arsenal of authoritarian governments to coerce and intimidate foreign governments, to subvert democratic processes, and to impose costs on their adversaries.

In North Koreas case, this pattern of activity stretches back many years. North Korea is estimated to have an army of 6,000 hackers, engaging in malicious cyber activity regularly.

In March 2013, hackers linked to North Korea attacked South Korean banks and media agencies, causing widespread disruption. In November 2014, cyber attacks against Sony Pictures followed the release of the film The Interview, which caricatured and mocked the North Korean leader.

The attack led to the release of personal information on thousands of Sony employees and the cancellation of the films launch. The incident quickly escalated into a serious diplomatic dispute between the US and North Korea.

In 2016, a Bangladeshi bank became the victim of North Korean hackers. Reports said that US$81 million were lost through compromised financial transactions.

Most recently, the WannaCry ransomware attack, which affected computers in more than 150 countries, has been linked to the Lazarus group of hackers, which has links to the North Korean regime. This suggests North Korea is now using state-sponsored hackers to help raise revenue for a country starved of access to international markets and funding.

Cyber attacks further threat to nuclear security

Analysis of North Koreas activities often misses the connections between cyber and nuclear security. North Koreas nuclear program has itself become a victim of cyber attacks.

A report in the New York Times in March this year revealed that the Obama administration ordered a campaign of cyber subversion aimed at North Koreas nuclear and missile programs. It mirrors the now infamous Stuxnet attacks directed against Iran in 2010.

In the absence of progress on North Korean disarmament, delaying its ability to pursue nuclear weapon programs through cyber attacks has become a feature of US strategy. Its a strategy that may yield short-term results, but presents significant escalatory dangers.

Proliferation risks

Cyber attacks pose increasingly serious risks to classified nuclear information, the security of nuclear facilities, and the integrity of the components that nuclear arms and missile technologies rely on.

Last year, the UK government was warned that its trident nuclear submarine program was vulnerable to cyber intrusions. The think-tank report Hacking UK Trident: A Growing Threat argued that a cyber attack directed against the submarines could:

 neutralise operations, lead to loss of life, defeat or perhaps even the catastrophic exchange of nuclear warheads (directly or indirectly).

In June this year, the US government reported multiple cyber breaches of its own nuclear installations. This followed similar revelations about attacks directed against South Koreas nuclear reactor operators Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Co Ltd in 2015.

Another concerning aspect of the cyber-nuclear nexus is that hacking could facilitate the proliferation of nuclear materials and technology to other aggressive states and non-state actors.

Reining in North Korea

The growing connections between nuclear and cyber security are changing the strategic balance between nuclear powers in subtle and undetermined ways. Approaches to dealing with the North Korean regime must treat these issues as related.

So what can be done about North Koreas aggressive use of the internet? Unfortunately, just as with its nuclear program, there few good options. Sanctions imposed on the regime for its cyber activity, such as those following the Sony hack, have proved ineffective at changing the regimes behaviour.

China and Russia may have a role to play in persuading Kim Jong-un to play nicely in cyberspace, but both countries also have a long history of malicious cyber operations.

There are examples where states have given up destructive weapons programs. These include Colonel Gaddafis regime in Libya and the more recent Iran deal. However, the difficulty of verifying whether offensive cyber programs have been dismantled presents a major obstacle.

Cyber armies operating from a virtual realm can easily be hidden. Given that punishing the North Korean regime for its behaviour has not yielded results, it may be time to start thinking about a range of positive inducements to bring the country back into the international community, including offering diplomatic talks without precondition.

Rewarding North Korea for its errant behaviour may be unpalatable, but the combined danger of its nuclear and cyber capabilities would appear to warrant a significant shift in strategy.

Joe Burton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Originally published in The Conversation.
Photo courtesy of General Motors.

General Motors will sell the Chevrolet Traverse mid-size SUV in Russia by the end of 2017, as the automaker looks to capitalize on Russian interest for utility vehicles.

Sales of utility vehicles have been steady despite the countrys recent economic distress, and U.S. vehicles overall favorable image there, said the automakers Russian subsidiary. Analysts in the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade predict GM Russia may sell between 1,000 and 1,200 units of the Traverse in its first year on the market.

The 2018 Traverse is powered by a new 3.6-liter V-6, and features a nine-speed automatic transmission. Safety features include surround vision, lane-keep assist, land departure warning, forward collision alert, and low-speed and high-speed forward automatic braking.

Chevrolet sales totaled 14,889 units through June, up 0.7% from the same period a year ago, according to the automaker.

GM was Russias second-biggest automaker by sales volume as recently as 2014, however, the countrys fiscal crisis prompted GM in 2015 to halt both manufacturing operations and sales of its former Opel brand. It continued selling some U.S.-built Chevrolet and Cadillac models.

The current range of Chevrolet models in Russia comprises of the Tahoe, Camaro and Corvette. GM Russia plans to expand its offerings beyond the Traverse as the countrys economy continues recovering.
Auto Rental Summit invades Miami for the first time. This years event will take place Nov. 6-7 at Miami Hilton Downtown. Fleet Forward Conference will convene on Nov. 7 with a cocktail reception and programming on Nov. 8. Photo courtesy of Miami Hilton Downtown.

Auto Rental Summit  the conference dedicated to people, process, and profits  moves to Miami for the first time with a roster of new speakers and an inaugural add-on event dedicated to smart mobility solutions for fleets.

Auto Rental Summit will celebrate its sixth anniversary this year, though you could call it a brand-new event, says Chris Brown, executive editor of Auto Rental News.

Auto Rental Summit will take place Nov. 6-7 at Miami Hilton Downtown. Collocated with Auto Rental Summit, a new event, Fleet Forward Conference, convenes on Nov. 8.

Photos courtesy of Eric Tillotson

Fresh Perspectives

More than two-thirds of this years speakers are new to Auto Rental Summit, and yet they collectively bring decades of experience in car rental to their presentations, Brown says.

Accomplished speaker, author, and leadership consultant Mike Pitcher will deliver this years keynote address: The Seven eLements of Leadership for a New Breed of Leader. Pitcher, the former CEO of LeasePlan USA and a C-suite executive at Dell and Pitney Bowes, will bring his brand of humor, inspiration, and storytelling to takeaways on building a road map of success for both new and seasoned leaders.

When I saw Pitch speak, he got a standing ovation, and thats a standard occurrence for him, Brown says. One of Auto Rental Summits core missions is to motivate attendees to bring inspiration back to their workplaces. Pitcher will deliver on that.

This years agenda also features Neil Abrams, the car rental industrys preeminent consultant and market analyst. Abrams will bring more than 40 years of industry knowledge to a discussion on the future of car rental, including the most recent strategies of the majors, the impacts of new transportation models and collaborative consumption, and how the advent of autonomous vehicles will transform the traditional car rental model forever.

Auto Rental Summit will once again take a deep dive into fleet during the Fleet Jam Session. Jonathan Smoke, chief economist for Cox Automotive, will review the macroeconomic factors affecting the automotive and car rental industries, while Jonathan Banks, vice president of vehicle analysis and analytics at J.D. Power, will discuss vehicle values by segment and relate them to supply, volume, and penetration statistics.

Joe Lyons of Americas Auto Auction and Mike Muehlenfeld of Mile Fleet will round out Fleet Jam with their perspectives on the dynamic world of fleet sales and auctions.

From the high-level analyses of Jonathan Smoke and Jonathan Banks to a window into the trenches of buying and selling thousands of vehicles, Fleet Jam will equip operators with the tools to make better decisions in fleet planning, Brown says.

In line with Pitchers address, two more seminars will help operators hone management skills: Pat the Trainer of International Franchise Systems will deliver a new blueprint for managing employee performance, while Trey Russell, former director of franchise operations for both Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group Inc. and The Hertz Corp., will outline a process for operators to refocus on long-term company initiatives.

For More Information www.autorentalsummit.com www.fleetforwardconference.com Professional of the Year: www.AutoRentalSummit.com/awards

Other seminars will dispense best practices on running a successful car rental operation. Topics include tools for lawsuit prevention and tax reduction, ways to boost Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI), understanding payment processing, brand building through social media, and how to avoid common accounting mistakes.

Two seminars  to be delivered in Spanish  are directed to Latin American attendees. Daniel Nunes Romero, CEO of Manheim Brazil, will outline the current state of remarketing in Latin America, while Luis Montalto of Rate Highway and Alex Shartsis of Perfect Price will give operators from Latin America new tools to price against their competitors.

Celebrating Excellence

Two deserving associates will once again be honored with an Auto Rental News Professional of the Year Award at the 2017 event. The Professional of the Year Awards honor associates who demonstrate and promote outstanding customer satisfaction and leadership in car rental worldwide.

In addition to awarding one associate from either a corporate, franchise, or independent location, another award will be given to an associate from a vendor company to the auto rental industry.

The deadline for applications is Sept. 19, 2017.
Photo via Getty Images.com/Neil Kendall

For car rental operators new to telematics, the idea of installing a system to track rental vehicles represents another considerable expense. Ask most operators already using telematics, and theyll tell you their systems are invaluable.

When you have a large fleet, its a considerable cost, says Jen Toth, manager of an Avis, Budget, and Payless franchise in New Jersey. But if three vehicles go missing, youve paid for half of the cost of the devices. Its worth it, when you can minimize downtime and know where your vehicles are.

Had we not installed trackers we wouldve lost at least a dozen cars when we opened Sixt in Philadelphia, says Michael Kulp, a Sixt licensee. After 25 years of being in business, I now insist on trackers in all of our cars.

Seasoned operators have heard for years about using GPS tracking to mitigate theft and misuse of rental vehicles. For those with memories of clunky interfaces, time-consuming installs, and unreasonable price points, times have changed. Termed telematics today, the next generation of systems offers better mapping, bundled pricing, flexible reporting, and more fleet management tools.

Car rental operators are taking advantage of these new tools to mitigate misuse but also better manage fleet.

Defining Parameters

Toth doesnt have time to micromanage some 2,000 rental cars spread across 32 Avis, Budget, and Payless locations, so she has her telematics system alert her to any exceptions from the norm. Its really out-of-state cars that havent moved that we keep an eye on, she says. If I check every other day, thats a lot.

While Toth takes a more hands-off approach, I want to know every morning which cars pinged out and which cars didnt, says James Dorsey, risk manager for NextCar. Dorsey manages the telematics for NextCars locations and Rent-A-Wrecks corporate stores, and he consults with Rent-A-Wreck and Priceless franchisees on telematics implementation.

A telematics system can accommodate both management styles  its all about how you configure its parameters to meet your needs.

Dorsey has assigned geofences for when vehicles cross into impound yards, the Canadian and Mexican borders, and the Mississippi River. Other parameters include speed and mileage; some systems can identify a crash. Toth gets an alert if a vehicle is being towed  when its moving without the engine running.

When any of these thresholds are crossed, a defined distribution list receives immediate alerts via text or email, as well as in exception reports that can be downloaded in spreadsheet form.

For Dorsey and others, location information informs the recovery process. We use [our system] to know how were going to recover that vehicle, either ourselves or with a professional recovery agent, he says, which might be a safer play depending on where the car is.

Management Decisions

Dorsey prefers to locate fleet at Zero Dark Thirty  before dawn. Thats helpful because it tells you where the cars spent the night, and also which cars didnt ping out, he says, which could be trouble or merely indicates the renter parked in an obstructed area such as an underground garage.

If a renter is a couple of days late, Dorsey will make sure the renters credit card is still valid and then have the renter called. If that goes well, you still want to keep an eye on the car, he says.

If the renter is not responsive, and the car doesnt ping the following day, Dorsey will research the customers rental history, if any, and use previous tracking data to determine a likely workplace or residence.

James Dorsey, risk manager for NextCar, checks the status of NextCars fleet every morning. A car that doesnt ping out could be trouble or merely indicate the renter parked in an obstructed area such as an underground garage.

For Kulp, If a car is overdue, we look for it immediately, he says. We call, we track it down, and we go get it. The times weve delayed the car wound up in Africa. Weve had that happen twice.

Kulp has also located an overdue car in California; he sent the spare set of keys via FedEx for professional repossession.

Smaller operators who are new to telematics might be daunted by the task of system management. Some GPS providers will go further into a consultancy role, interpreting the data for their clients and alerting them when potential problems arise.

Ultimately, Dorsey says, the idea is to allow the system to do the alerting by precise configuration based on the operators needs.

Use Cases

While preventing outright theft is critical, most use cases in car rental are more mundane: a renter is past the contract date and has an invalid credit card or is using a debit card, the vehicle has been in an accident or impounded, or it was simply lost due to an employee mistake.

Without telematics, these issues could result in considerable lag time before an operator is notified. The renter will be the last to tell you where the car is because sometimes they dont know, says Dorsey.

There are many reasons for lost revenue on a vehicle, says Anne Taylor, sales representative for Guidepoint Systems, a telematics provider. GPS tracking gives the ability to get that vehicle back into the fleet and generating revenue sooner than they would have if they didnt have a system.

Aside from vehicles going awry, knowing their exact locations immediately allows for more proactive fleet management, especially for operators running multiple lots and satellite locations. You can better manage overdues and see that 20 vehicles are available at one location and there are only two in another, so lets get the vehicles to where theyre needed, Taylor says.

Some systems offer lot management functions to automatically read fuel, odometer, and vehicle trouble codes, says Brian Deeley, director, product manager for the vehicle finance group at Spireon, a telematics provider.

As rental situations  and risks  vary within a franchise or independent rental company, operators must decide whether to install hardware in all or part of the fleet. Toth has the system installed in 95% of her fleet, Kulp in every vehicle.

Some NextCar locations serve predominantly retail clients while others serve low-risk insurance replacement. Dorsey nonetheless installs hardware in the entire NextCar corporate-owned fleet, up to 2,400 cars in the summer. We install in every vehicle as part of our in-fleeting process, he says, adding that fleet vehicles sometimes move from one office to another.

Installation Guidelines

As rental vehicles turn over every six to 18 months, honing the installation process is essential. Some operators choose professional installers, while others, such as Kulp, train staff. We do extensive reconditioning for retail sales so its nothing [for our staff] to pull a tracker out, he says.

Deeley says it should take trained personnel about 30 minutes to install the units in each vehicle. He sees an even mix with clients between in-house and third-party installations. The important thing is that these installations are done correctly and tested in the field to be confident that theyre reporting accurately, he says.

Operators managing rent-to-own programs or renting exotic vehicles would be more inclined to install a system with starter interrupt capabilities, though this adds complexity and expense to the install process.

As overall costs have been reduced in the past few years, some operators decide to just leave the hardware in the vehicle upon de-fleeting instead of taking it out and reinstalling. Deeley says many clients rotate devices to new vehicles. Toth and Kulp uninstall and reinstall in the next vehicle; Dorsey does, too, with some exceptions.

Dorsey says the hardware generally holds up through multiple install-uninstall cycles. He says some operators will take out the device for reuse but leave the wiring harness, which is relatively inexpensive but takes extra effort to uninstall.

From a process standpoint, having telematics installed at the factory  available as another vehicle option  is a welcome future. That future has arrived in some commercial fleet applications. It will be available to individual consumers as a premium option soon, Deeley says, but rental fleets of mixed auto manufacturers will have to wait awhile.

Nonetheless, installation has become less of an issue today as overall costs have come down considerably, say Taylor and Deeley. What were once long-term contracts and separate costs for hardware, installation, airtime, and monthly service have now been bundled into one fee with a contract length tailored to rental fleet use.

Weve learned over the years to more effectively manage the cost of install and de-install, says Dorsey, and the cost of the devices has gotten to where its acceptable.
Photo via iStockPhoto.com/Ridofranz

While working for a Dollar franchise, Jennifer Romanowski-Sullivan remembers getting a call from the manager of the Philadelphia location about missing vehicles.

Within a month, we had a bizarre rate of cars going missing, she says. Renters were disappearing. They would come in and rent a car for one to two days and everything would check out. Then after a week, we were reporting the car stolen.

One of the missing vehicles  eventually recovered  involved a woman who was later convicted of identity fraud. She used various aliases to open bank accounts, obtain credit cards, and make large purchases.

The drivers license was from Georgia and matched the renters debit card, says Romanowski-Sullivan. The photo looked good and the debit card swiped. We got a $250 deposit; everything seemed to check out.

Fortunately, the vehicle was eventually recovered and the woman was later convicted of identity fraud.

Penny Sottile, franchise operations manager at Rent-A-Wreck and manager of the companys Baltimore corporate store, received a call from the police saying that one of her rental vehicles had been used in an armed robbery. The kicker  the customer allegedly told police that the rental company gave him the car with all the guns in it.

I was speechless, says Sottile. This customer had rented from us at least six times with no issues. He passed all of the qualifications at the counter. I would have never guessed that he would commit a crime with our car.

For Romanowski-Sullivan, Sottile, and other car rental operators, vigorous counter procedures cant always prevent theft or someone committing a crime with a car, but they can help reduce these instances from happening. Auto Rental News talked to car rental professionals  and an expert in auto theft prevention  for best practices to vet the renter before handing over the keys.

Why Rental Cars?

Renting a car can be a good way to avoid detection if you have committed a crime, says Steve Haney, attorney at The Haney Law Group and former lead attorney of the Auto Theft Division and Organized Crime Unit in the Michigan Attorney Generals office.

If the criminal borrows the car from a legitimate renter, police wont be able to tie the car back to that person.

The police will run the plate and it will come back to the rental company, says Haney.

In Michigan, Haney sees a lot of rental cars used in drug trafficking, because arresting agencies can by law seize a drug dealers car in drug forfeitures. Rental cars subjected to forfeiture will be returned under the innocent owner statute, says Haney. But that could entail days  or weeks  of lost rental income.

Haney says cash or debit card rentals are more likely to lead to non-permissive use. And when an unauthorized driver causes an accident in the rental car, that will violate the authorized renters insurance coverage  leaving the rental company on the hook for the damages.

Verification Process

The first gate-check when verifying a renters identity is establishing residency and employment through up-to-date documents, especially for cash or debit card customers. Also, does the license photo actually match the person standing in front of you? James Dorsey, risk manager for NextCar, says this simple step is often overlooked.

Sottile requires three phone numbers: from an employer, an emergency contact, and a cellphone  and not a prepaid phone number, she says. If a customer opts to use personal insurance, Sottiles counter agents will call the insurance company and verify that the customer has an active policy. If her customers policy doesnt check out, the customer must take the companys collision waiver.

Its a hassle to call the insurance company but it has saved us; we have gotten burned, she says, adding that time can be saved by calling the insurer before the renter arrives.

Sottile recalls one customer who passed out drunk at a rental desk. That decision to prevent the rental was easy, as are those times in which potential customers need to blow into an ignition interlock device to prove they arent drunk. To this end, she also recommends checking the back of the license for wording to the effect of alcohol restricted driver.

To help check the validity of drivers licenses and credit cards, Sottile installed ultraviolet (UV) document scanners at each counter station. The devices UV lights illuminate the security features embedded in licenses from each of the 50 states as well as the emblem on the back of credit cards.

The scanners cost about $50 and dont require any extra fees  but theyre not fail-safe. Sophisticated criminals, such as the renter in Romanowski-Sullivans case, will overlay magnetic strips with valid information onto valid credit cards or licenses. In these cases, real-time verification systems are necessary, though in addition to hardware costs they come with a fee for each document check.

Romanowski-Sullivans company allowed debit card customers, but went one step further by using a LexisNexis program to complete drivers license verifications.

To Romanowski-Sullivan, its also about asking questions. Make it more of a general conversation as part of your customer service process, she says. Most people have no problem sharing information if they arent up to anything. Feel your customer out.

What happens if a customer checks out using the normal procedures but a counter agent still gets that gut instinct to not give the customer a car? Sottile says that requiring a list of qualifications, and sticking to that list firmly, will weed out most customers who wont take the time to gather all the paperwork.

Your companys policies are your strongest defense at the counter, she says. If your employees dont follow them, you are in trouble.

Counter and Lot Security

Though seemingly a basic procedure, Dorsey says to lock car doors on the lot. And dont tempt renters by leaving car keys in view of renters. When you go out to the lot, dont leave a board of keys visibly sitting on the counter while you have a rental lobby with 13 people in it, says Dorsey.

A well-lit rental lot can help reduce vandalism or theft in the middle of the night. According to Dorsey, some rental operators install cameras on their lots, too. In my personal opinion, cameras arent too great at facial recognition, but they are good at catching license plate numbers, he says.

No one hotwires cars anymore, says Dorsey. However, operators should be aware of a device that can capture a signal from a nearby key fob that would allow a criminal to open the car  and activate the push-button start to drive away.

To keep better track of vehicles, Dorsey recommends walking the lot each day to conduct fleet inventory.

Take the printed report [the number of fleet vehicles calculated by your system] and compare it to the number of vehicles you count on your lot, says Dorsey. You could have a stolen car but might not know. Its a better way to more tightly manage your fleet inventory.
Photo via Getty Images.com/Triloks

Any small- to medium-sized car rental operator will say its crucial to protect rental customer information, especially with all of the hacking of personal information that seems to make daily headlines.

In addition to protecting customers data, cybersecurity is also important to protect a companys reputation, says Jason Harker, head of IT at Dollar Thriftys U.K. franchise. There are also legal threats. Starting next year in Europe, companies can be fined up to 20 million euros for a data breach under the General Data Protection Regulation.

Many, however, are ill-informed as to the types of threats and how to protect against them.

According to the Small Business Committee, the majority of cyberattacks happen at small businesses.

In fact, 71% of cyberattacks occur at businesses with fewer than 100 employees, said Steve Chabot (R-Ohio), chair of the House Small Business Committee, during a 2015 hearing titled Small Business, Big Threat: Protecting Small Businesses from Cyber Attacks.

These attacks come from criminal syndicates, hacktivists, and foreign nations, Chabot said. They are after intellectual property, bank accounts, Social Security numbers, and anything else that can be used for financial gain or a competitive edge.

A company could face various types of cyberattack threats including phishing, spear phishing, brute force, and viruses (malware and ransomware).

Regardless of the method used, most cyberattacks have a similar goal to infiltrate and exploit, says Robin Tatam, director of security technologies at HelpSystems, a provider of IT management software solutions.

Company data has an intrinsic value to someone somewhere. Sensitive data such as employee information can be used for identity theft. Credit card data can be sold on the dark Web.

Cybersecurity needs to be a priority for companies of all sizes, according to the National Cybersecurity Institute. The institute emphasizes the importance of developing a formal plan for cybersecurity. The outline would include steps the company would take to mitigate cyber threats as well as a plan of response if a security breach occurs.

Sensitive Information

Rental companies collect several pieces of personal information from their customers.

Personal Identifiable Information (PII) includes a customers contact information, drivers license information, Social Security information, passport information, insurance information, and credit card information.

A customers personal information can be found on a rental companys servers, desktops, the cloud, mobile devices, and email. Additionally, the information can be found in physical form if companies still make photocopies and print out rental contracts.

If you photocopy a rental contract, you run the risk of that customer leaving its contract in the rental car and the next customer having access to that information, says Shawn Concannon, executive vice president at TSD, a provider of fleet management software. Once those transactions are complete, put those physical copies in a locked file drawer or shred them.

Phil Jones, vice president of Bluebird Auto Rental Systems, advises companies to not make any photocopies of a customers personal information. Its against the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard.

If there is a breach and peoples credit card data gets stolen, you can get fined and/or lose your right to process credit cards, he says.

Rental software companies like TSD and Bluebird can host a rental companys customer data. Bluebirds customer databases feature layers of security to prevent intruders from hacking into the system, according to Jones. Security procedures include intrusion prevention software and encrypting sensitive data at rest, such as credit card information.

Protect Computers From Outside Threats

When storing personal information digitally, a companys computer networks and applications need to be protected.

To start, a company must apply all the latest updates from its computer manufacturer as soon as they come out, according to Jones. Then turn on some kind of anti-virus or anti-malware software and update regularly. A firewall should also be set up to prevent intruders from accessing your network.

Anti-virus software gives you some protection from existing threats, says Brian Powers, network administrator at Bluebird. You also want to make sure that your networks firewall doesnt have any open ports that dont need to be open.

Powers also recommends not having an open share on a computer drive. This means everyone at the company has read/write access to the drive. If a company experiences a virus outbreak, an open share would provide a direct pathway that can write to the drive and encrypt any data on it.

To ensure that computer security stays up to date, Jones suggests assigning a specific person to handle the ongoing maintenance and updating of software. If possible, it could be helpful to assign this responsibility to an employee with some level of IT experience.

Our IT department, including myself, monitors the companys cybersecurity through weekly vulnerability scans on all of our public-facing servers, says Harker. We also install intrusion-prevention software on our networks.

Internal Threats

Security threats dont just happen externally; they also happen internally. Attacks can be caused by employees and supplier or service providers. ZDNet, a business technology news website, reported that 75% of large corporations have experienced a security breach that was attributed to its workers.

I think the greatest threat is people not looking internally  employee theft and data loss, says Concannon. If employees are all on company laptops, someone could put a thumb drive in the laptop and walk away with all of the company data.

How can a company prevent sensitive data from being taken by its employees? To minimize employee exposure to company data, State Van Rental has security accesses set for positions internally, according to Nima Mobasser, vice president of Los Angeles-based State Van Rental.

Rental companies should reassess their software and who has permission to see certain information. What are your software security permissions and levels? Does your counter agent have full access to the software? Do you have a data security log to know when someone accesses information?

Software programs can limit data access to employees. Through Bluebirds software, rental companies can secure different menu items; a log-in and password would only be issued to certain employees, says Jones.

Concannon recommends preventing the temptation of employee theft. For example, dont leave thousands of dollars in your cash box. Restrict an employees use of the rental software via the internet. That way, he or she can only use the software on a certain IP address. Lock down laptops so employees cant use a thumb drive or email information from it.

Consider running a weekly audit report to ensure the right people are doing the right things in the system. TSDs software will provide a daily report of which employees are accessing what information, according to Concannon.

Data access should also be limited to vendors. Concannon suggests setting up a data protection agreement that discusses whether vendors can exchange information or what data restrictions should be in place. Its also important to know if a vendor has security policies or some type of cyber liability coverage in case of a breach or cyberattack.

Vendors are also responsible for housing a companys data, says Concannon. Vendors shouldnt be sharing a rental companys data without its permission.

Create a Security Policy

If a company has never developed a cybersecurity policy, Concannon suggests getting an outside security audit. A vendor such as HelpSystems will first do a security assessment by scanning a companys servers. Then it develops a security policy for the business.

HelpSystems has designed a solution portfolio that leverages services and software to identify vulnerabilities and manage risk, says Tatam. Offered services include remediation planning, implementation, and even managed security services. We offer tools for intrusion detection and prevention, user privilege elevation and tracking, and provisioning.

As part of a security policy, employees should be educated about online threats and how to protect data, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration. Consequences for violating the policies should be outlined in the policy.

Jones emphasizes the importance of training employees about cyberattacks such as ransomware. These viruses are transmitted through links and attachments in emails. Once an employee clicks on the link, the virus infects a companys computer system and encrypts the companys data. According to Jones, a company should have a security policy to not open any unknown links or attachments received through email.

If a rental company is using its own rental software system, a security policy should also include procedures on backing up sensitive data.

If something goes wrong, you preferably want to have a backup of your whole system, says Powers. The system should be verified and restored monthly. At Bluebird, we look at backup logs every morning and do test restores on a regular basis.

A security plan should be updated on a continual basis. Keep your cybersecurity current, says Concannon. Just because I put a security policy in place five years ago doesnt mean its still effective today.
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A Confederate marker was removed without much fanfare Tuesday in St. Petersburg.

Stonewall Jackson Memorial Highway marker had been in place for decades

It was removed Tuesday at request of Mayor Kriseman

City workers will try to find the marker's owners



The Stonewall Jackson Memorial Highway marker sat at the corner of Central Avenue and Bayshore Drive for almost 80 years.

The marker says, "This marks the terminal of the Stonewall Jackson Memorial Highway erected by the Dixie Chapter United Daughters of the Confederacy." It is dated Jan. 22, 1939.

The marker faced toward the street, away from the sidewalk, so many people may not have known it was there.

City officials had not received complaints about the marker, and Mayor Rick Kriseman had just learned about it. He had it removed Tuesday.

"Even before what happened in Virginia, and you had the debate in Hillsborough County, and that's been going all around the country," Kriseman said. "It's a debate that I've never really quite understood."

"There's a difference between history and recognizing history and celebrating it," he continued. "I don't think you celebrate things that represent bigotry and hatred, and that's what these monuments often times do."

Residents shared a range of opinions with us regarding Kriseman's move to remove the marker. Terry Anderson, for one, said he's glad it's gone.

"I dont think theres any place for it in our society, they [sic] really dont," Anderson said. "This brings back old memories of slavery and we won the war on slavery. Its part of history, we cant get rid of that but we really just need to get past it."

Resident Nancy Hupert expressed a different view.

"Thats something youll just have to live with, because its still part of history," Hupert said. "Everything isnt good in the world, so maybe it was put there for a good reason and they just look at it in bad way, in a negative way, and its not fair to other people who dont see it the same way."

The mayor said the marker is now in a city facility, and workers will try to find its owners.

If they don't locate the owners, the marker could be given to the Museum of History.
Opening statements and testimony began Aug. 15 in the first degree murder trial of Nathan Johnson. Johnson is accused of participating in the brutal Jan. 14, 2016 Lakeland murder of 31 year-old Robert Banks. Johnson was 16 at the time of the murder.

Johnson accused along with 3 other defendants

Prosecution states victim lured into trap under guise of drug deal

Other defendants face trials at later dates

Prosecutors said Nathan Johnson, along with his older brothers, Brian and Anthony Johnson, and their friend Michael Gunn tricked Banks into coming to their mobile home under the guise of making a drug deal. Their true intent, according to the state, was to attack him for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman they knew.

Prosecutors said once Banks got inside the mobile home, the suspects kicked him, beat him with their fists and a pipe. They are also accused of sexually assaulting him and choking him with an electrical cord.

Prosecutor Mark Levine also told jurors that Nathan Johnson took cell phone pictures of Banks after he was dead.

"And this man took pictures," said Levine. "Not one picture. Not two pictures, but multiple pictures and from different angles too. This man got plenty of pictures of Mr. Banks' face, him face down, of him in a sexually abused position because he wanted a memory of what he did."

Authorities said the four suspects then got Nathan Johnsons father to drive with several of them to Sumter County, where they dumped Banks body in a wildlife management area and set it on fire. It was later discovered by hikers.

Defense attorney Joshua Wescott tried to cast doubt about Nathan Johnsons role in the murder.

"He was in the wrong place at the wrong time in a bad circumstance," said Wescott. "Not to say that the actions that were carried out by Mr. Nathan Johnson were necessarily appropriate."

Banks's mother Debbie Gardner traveled from her home in Alabama for the trial. She said it was difficult being in court and hearing the horrible details of the case.

"I know I have to do this for justice for my child, she said. I have to do this for any mother out there that won't have to go through anything like this."

The other three defendants in the murder face trials at later dates.
The events in Charlottesville, Virginia have sparked debates about free speech.

UF dealing with struggle over white nationalists and free speech

School may host visit from Richard Spencer, a white nationalist who operates the National Policy Institute

School president denouces possible visit but stresses first amendment

That debate has reached Florida as the University of Florida may host a visit from Richard Spencer, a white nationalist who operates the National Policy Institute.

The Institute is dedicated to the "heritage, identity and future of people of European descent."

Spencer's group has requested space on the Gainesville campus for Sept. 12. A recent request from Spencer was canceled at Texas A&M University.

School officials in College Station said the event was canceled due to safety concerns. Spencer spoke at Texas A&M in December and that visit sparked new rules - speakers now have to have on-campus sponsorship by a recognized organization for external speakers.

As of Tuesday, UF is still considering the request.

UF is denouncing his intended September visit but says the school may not be able to block him from coming.

University officials in Gainesville fear a repeat of the weekend's violence at the University of Virginia.

A car plowed into a crowd of people peacefully protesting a white nationalist rally Saturday in Charlottesville, killing one person, hurting more than a dozen others and ratcheting up tension in a day full of violent confrontations.

Last year, the NPI rally in Texas erupted into chaos between demonstrators and counter-protestors.

Meanwhile, UF president Ken Fuchs issued a long statement over the weekend denouncing the group but added that upholding the first amendment is pertinent.

"For many in our community, including myself, this speakers presence would be deeply disturbing," Fuchs said in his official statement. "What weve watched happen in Charlottesville, VA. is deplorable.

"I again denounce all statements and symbols of hate. The University of Florida is a community of learners, educators and scholars. We encourage open and honest dialogue, and we strive to build an inclusive environment where hate is not welcome."
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With its newly painted bright white exterior, Kimmy's Cafe in Port Arthur stands out from the road like a beacon, prodding you to stop by and satisfy your appetite.

The family-owned-and-operated business opened in February.

Owner Ricardo Ceja, who owns the local Tequila's restaurants, wanted to bring something different to the table than his other restaurants.

Kimmy's Cafe, named after Ceja's daughter, offers breakfast and deli food with a New York spin.

Kimmy's Cafe Where: 2950 Jimmy Johnson Blvd., Port ArthurHours: 6 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday-Saturday; 6 a.m.-2 p.m. Sunday

Credit cards: All major

Drink situation: Coffee, tea, juice, soft drinks

Drive-thru: Yes

Info: (409) 344-9095 or "Kimmy's Cafe" on Facebook

Price range: $6-$10 See More Collapse

"We want to make it like a New York deli," Ricardo Ceja Jr., manager and Ceja's son, said. "We want to get the meat and cut it in front of you. In New York, there are delis on every corner and fresh bread and fresh cuts. That's what we want to turn it into."

The New York theme is inspiring a new selection at Kimmy's - bagels.

"We're trying to bring New York bagels from Long Island, New York, and we're having them shipped here," Ceja Jr. said. "They're real New York bagels."

Manager Melanie Barajas from Long Island is bringing the food staple to the restaurant as a way to share where she's from.

"She wants to bring a little piece of her home here to the Southeast Texas community," Ceja Jr. said.

Breakfast foods include waffles, French toast, pancakes, biscuits and eggs with options to mix them up in various combos.

Other selections include carne asada - a piece of marinated fajita meat, topped onions, mushrooms and fried beans served with three tortillas (flour or corn) -- and huevos rancheros -- two eggs any style, fried tortilla, topped salsa, fried beans and house diced potatoes with three tortillas.

The health-conscious can go for the veggie scrambled option -- eggs scrambled with spinach, roast red peppers, diced tomato, parmesan cheese and hash browns -- and the fit-breakfast -- two eggs any style, two veggie patties, one piece of honeydew melon and one piece of cantaloupe.

Juices such as green apple, beet, cucumber and orange are available.

Kimmy's offers omelettes and burritos, including the fajita mix omelette. Those who can't decide on a meat should try the deluxe omelette - shredded beef, bacon, ham, sausage, green peppers, onions and cheddar cheese.

Switch up your routine with the chorizo burrito, a 12-inch flour tortilla filled with chorizo and eggs, or try the triplet burrito with flour tortilla, green bell peppers, onions, tomato, pastrami meat, grilled chicken breast, beef fajita, ketchup and mayonnaise.

House-made salsas include green salsa, red salsa, molcajete salsa and guacamole.

If you can handle the heat, try the namesake-inspired specialty, Kimmy's Club, featuring ghost pepper cheese.

A customer favorite includes the zesty chipotle sandwich with chile chipotle, grilled chicken, tomatoes, American cheese and bacon.

Another popular dish is the fajita mix salad -- lettuce, beef, tomatoes, colored tortilla chips and grilled mix vegetables with a choice of dressing.

Round off your meal with some ice cream, which comes in vanilla, chocolate and strawberry.

Wait time is not a factor at Kimmy's, and they have two drive-through windows.

Kara Timberlake is a freelance writer.
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On the day the state education commissioner announced two more appointments to the Beaumont ISD board of managers, an outgoing manager said the state is interfering with election results and should hand the district back to elected trustees sooner.

Board secretary Robert Turner said he plans to resign at the end of the month because staying on the board would subvert voters' election of seven new trustees this past spring.

"I think our job that we were installed to do has been completed," he said. "My belief is that the public has spoken. They elected people to represent them in the school district, and it was a legal election. I think that any time that we remain, we would be in the way of what the public and the voters have signaled that they want to do."

Turner is the fourth manager to resign this summer. Education Commissioner Mike Morath last week made two new appointments to the board - Angela Corbin Bransford and Mitch Templeton. He has indicated he will name two more before the end of the year, restoring the board to seven members.

State law requires a multi-year transition from elected to

appointed officials, which Turner said he thinks will take too long - longer than he planned to stay on the board.

"Every time we have an election, if we elect a new judge, he's brand new, and all the cases he tries are based on his ability as a new judge. If we elect a new commissioner in the county, he's going to be brand new," he said. The trustees should have that same opportunity, he said.

"I truly believe that when we have an election and the people speak, that election should stand for what the public wanted, good or bad," Turner said. "That's the American way. I grew up as a young person in the '60s, watching people try to fix elections and my parents complained about it. I don't see this as any different."

"The commissioner has the power. I believe that the people have spoken, and anything that I or anyone else would do to stop that process from taking place is meddling in the election," he said.

Jimmy Simmons, Lenny Caballero and Jack Carroll resigned on July 31, after staying on for a year after their initial terms.

Simmons said last month that he hoped Morath would expedite the transition to elected officials.

"I think he's putting together a plan right now," he said. The resignations "give him the opportunity to begin this transition as soon as possible," though the appointment of new managers calls that into question.

Although state law outlines the process for returning to local control after a takeover, it isn't mandated. Attorney General Ken Paxton has issued an opinion that the law gives Morath authority to extend the managers' terms indefinitely until he deems the district has made sufficient progress.

The law requires elected trustees to complete "training in effective leadership strategies" before the Commissioner formally initiates the transition process.

"In the coming months, TEA staff will schedule a Lone Star Governance training session for members of the elected Beaumont ISD board of trustees," TEA said Friday. "Once the training is successfully completed, the transition to the elected board can begin."

An agency spokesman declined to specify when that training will be held.

Templeton said he hasn't been told how long the commissioner expects him or the managers to serve. "We're at the pleasure of the commissioner, as a community and as a school board," he said.

He and Bransford were among 21 people who applied for spots on the board earlier this year.

Templeton, a lawyer with the Beaumont firm Templeton and Brinkley, said his best asset on the board will be his legal experience.

"I felt like I had the ability, talent and genuine concern to get involved," he said. "There are so many laws that are involved, and the board has to work with outside and general counsel. I have 25 years of litigation and trial experience, that's probably my main strength."

"I am eager to help our district become top-notch, because our kids deserve it," Bransford said. "There was a need, I was asked to fill it and I'm happy to do that... We are so ripe to do better."

In Friday's statement, TEA highlighted the district's recent accomplishment of the first successful financial accountability rating since before the takeover. BISD was rated "Above Standard Achievement."

Academic accountability ratings, which will also be considered in determining progress, will be released Tuesday.

LTeitz@BeaumontEnterprise.comTwitter.com/LizTeitz
Hardin County's district attorney will review the prosecution of cases involving a Silsbee police officer who was fired after an internal investigation determined he lied on the job.

Officer David Norton was dismissed on Aug. 1 following the conclusion of an administrative investigation that began last spring, according to Silsbee Police Chief Waylan Rhodes.

Rhodes said the investigation found evidence that Norton was "not being truthful."

No criminal charges will be filed against Norton, who worked for the department for 32 years, he said.

Rhodes said Norton's appeal of his dismissal has been denied.

Norton did not respond to requests for comment.

Rhodes said cases that involved Norton could be affected by the circumstances of his termination.

Hardin County District Attorney David Sheffield said Norton investigated many Silsbee cases he has prosecuted and has been a witness in some of them.

Sheffield said he plans to meet with Rhodes to discuss the impact.

"It's hard to know and hard to tell until the chief tells me what about the situation was concerning," he said.

Rhodes had "substantial involvement" in a number of police cases, including the case of Donny Dominique Ratcliff, a 44-year-old Silsbee man facing a capital murder charge for the 2015 death of his 9-month-old son, Donatello, Sheffield said.

The child was found unresponsive by police at a Silsbee trailer park on Feb. 13, 2015. An autopsy reported the cause of death as asphyxia, which would include manual strangulation or smothering.

Ratcliff was arrested six months after his son's death, and his trial date is pending, Sheffield said.

NKrebs@BeaumontEnterprise.comtwitter.com/natalie_krebs
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Using an SLR camera, a tripod and a bit of celestial knowledge, George Myers captures light from the other side of the clouds.

Colorful nebulae, constellations and other heavenly bodies are all subjects of Myers' lenses.

Myers, 46, shoots the stars largely near the less populated areas of Lake Sam Rayburn and Toledo Bend, but he has traveled to the southern edges of Texas looking for spots where man-made light is scarce.

"Too much light pollution can ruin your chance for a good photo," said Myers, gesturing toward the hazy lime-green glow of

Ivanhoe (population 887) during a shoot late last month at Kara Farms near Woodville.

During that shoot, Myers photographed the stars from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. using a compass, a planisphere (a low-tech space map), space tracking apps on his cell phone and ranch scenery, all of which helped him compose images of the galaxy.

In between camera adjustments and taking pictures, the Lumberton man talked about his good and bad experiences over the years and how he's learned to improve his craft.

While repeated shoots have trained him to keep an eye on things like lens focus, shutter speed, white balance, wind variations and location, one of Myers' most important lessons was learning to pay attention to physicals hazards that can be hidden in the dim light of a new moon.

He learned that the hard way after slipping on granite and landing in the frigid waters of California's King Canyon in 2015.

For several days after a shoot, Myers said he spends time selecting the best photos and editing them on his computer.

After he's happy with his work, he posts the images online or prints them for contests and framing.

Myres said he hopes to one day sell his work. For now, the 18-year veteran electrician seems content to bring home a little piece of the Milky Way to hang on his walls.

At a glance

George Myers' 5 tips for photographing the stars:

n Buy a good tripod and a head lamp with a red light. The tripod will keep the camera steady for long exposures and the red light's low-frequency will keep your eye comfortable with the dark.

n Buy an intervalometer to help maintain a frequency of shots during meteor showers.

n Buy a good wide-angle lens (17 mm or wider) with an F-stop of 2.8 or faster.

n Research and scout areas. Use Google maps and darksitefinder.com to find interesting areas for good compensation and dark areas to avoid light pollution.

n Preset the lens' focus, then test the photos on a computer to make sure they are tack sharp. When you find a good setting, lock and tape down the auto focus switch to lock in the lens.

GBarranco@HearstNP.comTwitter.com/SpotNewsShooter
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Each week, Letha Ruiz carefully maps out her days, scheduling tutoring sessions and Mary Kay appointments around her work as a manager at The Rustic Door gift shop.

The Nederland woman works 60 to 70 hours a week, including about 20 hours in her two "side jobs," teaching Spanish and selling cosmetics.

She manages the schedule in "a huge planner," squeezing hours in where she can - she can do a facial during her lunch break, she said, and offers hourlong tutoring sessions in the evenings.

"It's a struggle sometimes," said Ruiz, 52, "but it's also a struggle to pay bills."

More than 44 million Americans like Ruiz supplement income with "side hustles," a recent study from Bankrate found.

While working second jobs is nothing new, Lamar University economics professor Larry Allen said the importance and incidence of side jobs among workers with full-time employment has increased as low and stagnant wages have left people looking for extra sources of income.

Side gigs pay necessary expenses

"Real wages, in terms of purchasing power, have not grown very fast for a long time now," Allen said.

While the unemployment rate has dropped, real wages haven't increased since at least 2000, he said. "If unemployment continues to drop and there's no upward pressure on wages, then that's a sign of a lot of people in substandard jobs."

Employers are also hiring more part-time than full-time employees, he said, cutting their costs for insurance and benefits, which leaves employees with more costs to cover on their own.

"Working more jobs is a way to compensate," Allen said.

The majority of people with side jobs use the extra money for expenses, rather than as disposable income, and women are more likely than men to rely on their side jobs to pay for necessities, the Bankrate survey found.

Almost 30 percent of 18- to 26-year-olds have side jobs, the Bankrate survey found, making them the most common, likely because starting and early career salaries are lower and due to rising student loans. Americans of all ages, however, are working the extra hours, and young Baby Boomers tend to make the most money from their side gigs.

Second jobs offer flexibility

Donny Avery, 34, a full-time travel counselor at the Regional Visitors Center, said he works about 20 hours a week at his side jobs, driving for Waitr and Uber and hosting weekly trivia night at Luke's Icehouse.

Despite the 60-hour work weeks, "I live paycheck to paycheck," he said. "I have a great job with great benefits and health insurance," he said, but rent and other bills add up and make the extra gigs necessary.

Avery said the flexibility of Waitr and Uber make the jobs more appealing than waiting tables or another side job with a set schedule, because it lets him arrange his hours around other commitments, like Beaumont Community Players.

"I can pick when I want to work and when I'm free," he said, so he can pick up extra shifts in the summer when his full-time job schedule changes, or drop a few hours when theater gets hectic.

Technology has spurred the growth in side hustles by making it easier to promote side businesses and opening up more flexible schedules.

A 2016 study by the Pew Research Center found that 8 percent of Americans had earned money in the previous year using a "digital platform," like ride-hailing or delivery apps, or selling services like cleaning.

Another 18 percent of Americans sold items online to make money, with 30- to 49-year-olds most likely to be online sellers, followed by 18- to 29-year olds, who were most likely to use digital work platforms.

An assist from social media

Ruiz originally attracted her Spanish students by word of mouth but advertised for the first time on Facebook last week. After helping friends and family with tutoring or translations for free for years, she started charging last year to bring in extra money. Her post in a popular Nederland group quickly drew interested responses.

Facebook and other social media platforms offer easy marketplaces for marketing homemade or direct sales items as well: Southeast Texans use them for selling everything from custom T-shirts and water bottles to makeup and clothing.

Julie Hausen, 27, started an online Etsy shop selling art and graphic designs for fun while working as a music teacher, which became so successful that it turned into her full-time job.

"I was really enjoying creating my own illustrations for different lesson plans and things like that," she said. The Etsy shop "kind of took off a bit," with high demand for prints and digital downloads of her work, and started taking over more of her time. "I needed to make a decision one way or the other," Hausen said, and chose to turn the side hustle full-time.

Social media helped Wesley Casey, 22, find work as a mover, hauling debris and doing yardwork on top of different full-time jobs. He posted about his availability on Facebook, he said, and also found work through word of mouth.

He will start a certification course for HVAC and welding this month and said he would like to find a more stable full-time job, but he doesn't plan to stop working extra jobs anytime soon.

Trend not going away

Ruiz, who has been selling Mary Kay for almost 30 years, said she has worked more than one job most of her life.

Like Casey, Avery said he'll likely keep up his side hustles until he's able to make more from his main job. The extra hours are worth it to support a full-time job he loves.

Unless the labor market tightens and wages rise, the need for side jobs likely won't go away, Lamar's Allen said.

While the layoff rate has decreased, a good sign for the economy, wages will stay low until competition for workers increases.

"We have inequality in wealth and wages, and people need to work more jobs to make up for that, which is a trend that is of some concern and deserves some consideration," he said.

LTeitz@BeaumontEnterprise.comTwitter.com/LizTeitz
A grandma in North Texas is facing drug charges after police said they found her in a car with methamphetamine and her two young grandsons.

Laura Ann Nichols, 57, was pulled over by Weatherford police in a traffic stop on Saturday night, according to WFAA.
McGuireWoods hosted a webinar titled "Key Business and Legal Issues Facing Surgery Centers" on Aug. 14 moderated by Scott Becker, publisher of Becker's Healthcare and partner at McGuireWoods.

Webinar panelists included Luke Lambert, CEO of Ambulatory Surgical Centers of America; Joseph Zasa, managing partner of ASD Management; Melissa Szabad, partner at McGuireWoods; Timothy Fry, associate at McGuireWoods; and Michele Satterlund, partner at McGuireWoods Consulting.

Here are 10 key ASCs trends the panelists discussed.

1. Growth of new ASCs remains slow, but more procedures are moving into the outpatient setting. Surgeons can now safely perform high acuity cases such as total joints and spine surgery at freestanding ASCs, especially as hospitals begin to take on risk-bearing contracts with payers. Over the past few years, CMS has added spine codes to the ASC payable list and in July announced the agency would consider paying for total knee and hip replacements in the ASC.

"ASCs are going to have to show, in a mathematical way, how we can be a more effective deliverer of care from a cost and quality standpoint," said Mr. Zasa.

2. Many ASC physicians are nearing retirement and the dynamics at surgery centers are changing. Opportunities exist for buyers within surgery centers where physicians planning to retire in the next five years currently perform 30 to 40 percent of cases.

"I don't see big gains in the total ASC growth, but there is an ebb and flow as some centers are older and some are younger and growing," said Mr. Lambert. "Even in the private market, you can find opportunities for new centers or to acquire existing centers and bring new surgeons on board."

3. ASCs offer a value proposition to buyers beyond hospitals and corporate partners. Investment firm KKR announced plans in early August to acquire Covenant Surgical Partners, and other large transactions such as Optum's acquisition of Surgical Care Affiliates in January show how valuable ASC chains can be.

4. The ASC market can still be good for lenders, as long as lenders understand the market and lend smartly. Factors that affect the lender's risk include ASC ownership, who operates the center and in-network status. "If you are a lender, get up to speed in the industry and particulars of the client so you can assess the risk," said Mr. Lambert. "There are thousands of ASCs that would make excellent clients."

Lenders typically require a personal guarantee from physician owners before the transaction.

5. ENT and orthopedics remain great specialties for ASCs because they produce higher profit margins than other specialties. However, surgeons may have a bigger impact on whether a specialty is successful; a surgeon who performs cases efficiently with high quality will benefit the center in nearly any specialty.

6. Specialties that are falling out of favor at ASCs include cosmetic plastic surgery and dental procedures. Patients typically pay in full for cosmetic plastic surgery and negotiate the price with their physician, and not all insurance companies reimburse for dental procedures in an ASC. Multispecialty ASCs may also have difficulty integrating OB/GYN procedures into their block schedules and workflows.

7. Pain management can be successful in ASCs, especially procedures like spinal cord stimulators. However, pain physicians still have the option to perform may procedures in office . "A lot of those procedures can be done in the office more efficiently and rapidly benefit the pain management physician," said Ms. Szabad. "It might not be the best fit depending on the group mix. There are also reimbursement issues, depending on the type of contract the surgery centers have."

8. In addition to spine and orthopedics, ASC owners and operators are investigating whether cardiovascular procedures would make sense in their facilities.

9. Bundled payments are becoming more common among healthcare providers, including ASCs. Bundles for higher acuity cases especially peak interest. "We are seeing more and more interest in bundles," said Mr. Fry. The challenge will be whether the ASC, anesthesia provider and surgeon can come together in a single bundle.

10. Nationally, policy makers are looking at new ways to increase access to healthcare for rural and underserved markets; ASCs could be a part of the solution. Policy makers are more willing to reconsider the certificate of public need laws on a state-by-state basis. "The tenor out in the national framework is changing to recognize, as access is such a significant issue, that we have to give COPNs a second thought and think about how ASCs fit into all this," said Ms. Satterlund.

Whenever COPN rules are loosened or removed, there is a boom in the market with new ASC growth. Anesthesia providers also play a role to increase access in rural area. CRNA scopes of practice are evolving state-by-state, with many rural states allowing CRNAs to practice at the top of their licenses.

Each panelist gave their best piece of advice for ASCs going forward.

1. Surgeons should decide whether a case goes to the hospital or ASC or office. Make sure your surgeons are bringing all appropriate cases to the ASC and make it easy for them to do so, said Mr. Lambert.

2. Hire and promote strong leadership at the center. "Are your staff still interested in the facility? From a leadership standpoint, is the leadership doing what is really best for the center or are they doing what is best for the individual? Is there complacency in the center?" said Mr. Zasa. "The leadership should send a cohesive message throughout the facility and identify bumps in the road from a leadership standpoint."

3. Focus on compliance. "Make sure you're implementing and adhering to a compliance plan and creating a culture of compliance so people know you're welcome to that," said Ms. Szabad. "That will help head off a lot of crises ASCs often have to deal with.

4. Double-down on what your surgery center does well, especially with the uncertainty as to how the federal government will proceed with healthcare legislation. Regardless of what happens to the ACA, the government will continue to go after fraud and abuse. "It's the ASC's ability to be the lower cost vehicle that emphasizes to payers, patients and physicians the value proposition. We continue to see that as a place where ASCs could drive value," said Mr. Fry.

5. Stay involved in local and national advocacy efforts. "We don't know where everything will end up with Congress, but a lot of policies are being made at the state level. Stay involved with the regulatory boards," said Ms. Satterlund. "You never know when a policy will be put forward that could impact your well-being."
The Meira and Shaul G. Massry Foundation bestowed the 2017 Massry Prize on UC San Diego's Rob Knight, PhD; Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis' Jeffrey Gordon, MD; and University of Colorado in Boulder's Norman Pace, PhD.

The three were recognized for their "outstanding" contributions to microbiome research.

Here's what you should know:

1. Dr. Knight serves on the AGA Center for Gut Microbiome Research and Education's board. He also cofounded the American Gut Project, the largest crowdfunded citizen science effort. Dr. Knight is actively researching the microbiome relationship with many different human diseases.

2. Dr. Gordon was recognized for his research efforts. He discovered a link between human gut microbiome and obesity and malnutrition. He served on the AGA's Center for Gut Microbiome Research and Education's board when it launched in 2012.

3. Dr. Pace was recognized for developing methods that are now commonly used to see the full biosphere. He pioneered several molecular methods to survey microbial populations in their habitats as well.

The researchers will share a $200,000 prize.
Last week, U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman ordered Illinois to come up with a plan to improve care provided to disabled individuals, reports Reuters.

The judge said Illinois violated a federal consent decree when it did not offer these individuals "resources of sufficient quality, scope and variety," according to the report.

The state was in a budget impasse until last month. Ms. Johnson noted Illinois' "dire financial condition" in her ruling and said she could not order the state to increase funding for disabled care, reports Reuters. However, she did order the state to come up with a plan for improving such care and comply with the federal consent decree.

The judge's ruling comes after the Illinois Attorney General's Office opposed a potential court order that would have increased state funding for disabled care by up to $1 billion per year, saying such an order could mean budget cuts to other programs.

The state's budget for fiscal year 2018 currently includes $53.4 million for disabled care, according to the report. Now, "the state will continue to meet all its legal obligations and will review the court's rulings to determine appropriate next steps," a spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Human Services told Reuters via email.

A status hearing on the matter is scheduled for late October, according to the report.

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CMS said New Hampshire may lose government funding for its Medicaid expansion program due to concerns the state is out of compliance with federal requirements.

Here are three things to know.



1. New Hampshire's Medicaid expansion program was signed into law April 2016, The Keene Sentinel reports. To fund the state's portion of the government program, New Hampshire receives donations from healthcare providers.



2. In a July 25 letter to Jeffrey Meyers, commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services, CMS said the state's use of provider donations to fund its share of Medicaid expansion costs may establish an illegal quid pro quo relationship between providers and the state.

"In the case of the New Hampshire's arrangement, CMS believes there is a relationship between the donations and Medicaid payments because Medicaid expansion is conditioned on the receipt of donations as articulated in New Hampshire legislation."



3. New Hampshire has until the end of fiscal year 2018 to bring the state's share of the expansion program into compliance. If the state's next budget excludes necessary provisions, CMS would deny government funds for the expansion program.
Avera Gregory (S.D.) Hospital CEO Anthony Timanus is leaving his post for a 13-month deployment, during which he will care for soldiers in the Middle East, according to a report by The Daily Republic.

Here are four takeaways:

1. Mr. Timanus will be deployed with the South Dakota National Guard's Rapid City-based 189th Aviation Regiment. The unit provides aerial medical evacuations for soldiers.

2. He is a former active duty member of the U.S. Army (2001 to 2011) and was deployed three times during that time period.

3. This will be his third deployment with the 189th Aviation Regiment.

4. The CEO of Avera Hand County Memorial Hospital in Miller, S.D., will oversee Avera Gregory while Mr. Timanus is away.
Vero Beach, Fla.-based Indian River Medical Center COO Camie Patterson resigned to take on a new role at Manatee Memorial Hospital in Bradenton, Fla.

Here are three things to know:

1. Ms. Patterson has served as COO of IRMC since August 2016.

2. She is taking on the COO role at Manatee Memorial.

3. Prior to joining IRMC, she worked for Studer Group, a healthcare consulting firm.
Mandatory vacations may yield higher productivity and greater employee satisfaction than traditional vacation policies or unlimited vacations, according to a new study from Harvard Business Review.

Under traditional vacation policies, many employees feel pressure to maximize enjoyment from their two- or three-week breaks,, though the looming anxiety from work before and after their time away can make relaxation difficult. In recent years, many companies began to offer unlimited vacation policies, though some of those firms have found that employees are nervous about taking too much time off and don't want to be perceived as lazy. As a result, many employees end up taking less vacation time.

Neil Pasricha, director of the Institute for Global Happiness, conducted a study at aviation strategy firm SimpliFlying that forced employees to take a mandatory week of vacation for every seven weeks of work. If vacationing employees tried to contact the office during their time away, they faced financial penalties.

After 12 weeks of staggered vacations for the staff of 10 employees, managers filled out surveys about their employees. According to survey results, managers reported a 33 percent increase in staff creativity, 25 percent increase in happiness and 31 percent increase in productivity.

Though these results are positive, Mr. Pasricha noted the schedule of vacations must be carefully thought out to ensure vital tasks and group projects can still be effectively performed without certain employees.

Mandatory vacations are far from a perfect option, and the results here are those from a 10-person company. Nonetheless, the philosophy presents an interesting alternative for employers who want to make sure their workers are achieving an optimal work-life balance and are taking full advantage of their vacation time.

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Some states with particularly precarious individual markets are requesting federal funding to help stabilize their market and convince payers to continue offering coverage, reports Politico.

Here are four things to know.

1. Alaska took steps to stabilize its insurance market last year when the state agreed to designate $55 million for at least one year to pay healthcare costs for the state's sickest residents. The state program came as Premera Blue Cross  the only insurer remaining on the state's ACA exchange  threatened to exit Alaska's exchange or drastically increase premiums. The program is funded via an existing premium tax on health insurers and other insurance companies in the state, according to the report. It is similar to state-run "high-risk" health insurance pools.

2. Now Alaska is poised to receive millions of dollars from the federal government to further stabilize its insurance market. Over the next five years, Alaska is slated to receive $323 million to combat rising premiums in the individual marketplace and incentivize Premera Blue Cross to stay, according to the report. Federal officials approved Alaska's waiver this summer.

3. Oklahoma, Oregon, Minnesota and Iowa are among the states following Alaska's example. These states currently have federal waiver applications pending to help them stabilize their insurance markets, reports Politico, noting Maine and New Hampshire are also considering similar plans.

4. House and Senate lawmakers have also begun talks on a bipartisan plan to stabilize individual insurance markets, according to the report.

Read the full report here.
Stefan Pulst, MD, professor and chairman of the neurology department at Salt Lake City-based University of Utah School of Medicine, was reinstated to his position four months after he was ousted "in a similar fashion" to Huntsman Cancer Institute Director and CEO Mary Beckerle's, PhD, April firing, according to The Salt Lake City Tribune.

Dr. Pulst, who served as chairman of the department for 10 years prior to his termination, said he was "among numerous university department heads" fired in April by Vivian Lee, MD, PhD, the former senior vice president for health sciences, medical school dean and CEO of University of Utah Health Care.

Dr. Lee fired Dr. Beckerle over email without any explanation April 17. University trustees voted to reinstate her one week later. Dr. Lee resigned from her position in May following the conflict. At the same time, University of Utah President David Pershing, PhD, said he would step down as president once the university selected his predecessor, a process which has yet to be completed, according to the report.

A. Lorris Betz, MD, PhD, who took over as dean of the medical school after Dr. Lee's resignation, reinstated Dr. Pulst to his position as chief of the neurology department. A spokesperson for the university confirmed his reinstatement to The Salt Lake Tribune.

It is unclear if Dr. Betz will reinstate any of the other department heads terminated under Dr. Lee. It is also unclear why he chose to reinstate Dr. Pulst, who's firing would not have gone into effect until Oct. 1.
Downers Grove, Ill.-based Advocate Health Care will have to acknowledge and commence contract negotiations with the Illinois Nurses Association  at least for now, according to a Crain's Chicago Business report.

The order came from U.S. District Court Judge John Lee Friday. Last year, Advocate entered an agreement to operate 56 in-store Walgreens healthcare clinics across the greater Chicago area. INA subsequently filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Review Board on behalf of nurse practitioners it represents at the clinics in Walgreens. The complaint accused Advocate of "interfering with the rights of employees ... to labor organization and ... refusing to engage in collective bargaining with these employees," the judge's order states. According to Crain's Chicago Business, the union added additional charges last September, and the case was sent to federal court five months ago.

Mr. Lee ordered Advocate and INA Friday "to submit a proposed injunction order to the court by Aug. 18." At that point, Advocate legally must "recognize and negotiate terms with INA, at least until a decision on the original complaint is reached," reports Crain's Chicago Business.

Alice Johnson, executive director of INA, told Becker's Hospital Review via phone the union was "very happy" with the judge's decision and "look[s] forward to getting to the bargaining table and negotiating a fair contract."

In an emailed statement to Becker's Hospital Review, Advocate revealed plans to appeal the judge's decision "as we are confident that legal precedent supports our position."

"We respect our associates' rights to consider union membership. At the same time, we greatly value our direct relationship with associates, which is key to providing the optimal environment to deliver the best outcomes for patients," the health system added.
A 60-year-old Texas physician was sentenced Aug. 9 to 35 years in prison for orchestrating a $375 million healthcare fraud scheme, according to the Department of Justice.

Federal prosecutors said Jacques Roy, MD, and his cohorts used promises of cash, groceries and food stamps to recruit patients, including some of Dallas' homeless, as part of the fraud scheme.

From January 2006 to November 2011, Dr. Roy's office, Medistat Group Associates in DeSoto, Texas, handled more home healthcare visits than any physician's office in the country. Dr. Roy allegedly certified or directed the certification of more than 11,000 individual patients from more than 500 home healthcare agencies for home health services during that time, according to the DOJ.

"A doctor cannot care for 11,000 patients at once," Assistant U.S. Attorney P.J. Meitl said during the trial, according to The Dallas Morning News

In April 2016, Dr. Roy, who has lost his medical license, was found guilty on eight counts of healthcare fraud, two counts of making a false statement relating to healthcare matters, one count of obstruction of justice and one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud. Three owners of home healthcare agencies were also convicted on various felony offenses.

In addition to his 35-year prison term, Dr. Roy was ordered to pay $268.15 million in restitution.

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In its sixth edition, Becker's Healthcare is pleased to highlight a variety of Medicare and commercial payer accountable care organizations led by hospitals, health systems, physician groups and other organizations.

Leavitt Partners, a Salt Lake City-based healthcare consulting firm, reports 934 active public and private ACOs in the United States during the first quarter of 2017 covering 2.2 million lives. Over the past year, 138 new ACOs began operation and 46 dropped their accountable care contracts, leading to an 11 percent growth year-over-year, according to Health Affairs.

Several ACOs represented on this list participate in the Medicare Shared Savings Program. Tracks 1 and 2 have limited provider risk; participants can benefit from shared savings but aren't at risk for loss. MSSP Track 3, added in 2016, creates shared savings opportunities with greater risk. Track 3 ACO providers can share up to 25 percent of savings, but are at risk for loss. The most recently reported data for MSSP ACOs is the 2015 performance year.

CMS launched the Next Generation ACO Model in 2016, requiring providers to shoulder greater financial risk with the potential of earning more shared savings. The Next Generation ACOs qualify as advanced alternative payment models under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act's Quality Payment Program in the 2017 reporting year. There are currently 45 participants in the Next Generation ACO Model.

These governmental contracts are in addition to commercial ACO arrangements, which at 715 in number, represent the plurality of all contracts, according to Health Affairs. Commercial ACOs tend to cover more lives than their Medicare counterparts.

Becker's included ACOs on this list based on several factors, such as cost performance, participation in CMS ACO models and participation in innovative commercial agreements. ACOs are presented in alphabetical order. ACOs with multiple contracts are listed by the health system or provider group name.

Contact Laura Dyrda at ldyrda@beckershealthcare.com with any questions or comments on this list.

Note: ACOs cannot pay for inclusion on this list.

Accountable Care Coalition of Chesapeake (Houston). In 2013, Universal American Corp. and a group of primary care physicians collaborated to launch Accountable Care Coalition of Chesapeake. [CLICK HERE]

Accountable Care Coalition of Southeast Wisconsin (Milwaukee). Accountable Care Coalition of Southeast Wisconsin renewed participation in the Medicare Shared Savings Program in 2016 in partnership with Milwaukee-based Independent Physicians Network. [CLICK HERE]

Accountable Care Coalition of Texas (Houston). Accountable Care Coalition of Texas is a Track 1 Medicare Shared Savings Program ACO. [CLICK HERE]

Accountable Care Collaborative (Denver). Accountable Care Collaborative is Health First Colorado's primary ACO, which began in 2011 with one participating practice and 500 enrollees. [CLICK HERE]

Accountable Care Options (Boynton Beach, Fla.). Accountable Care Options is a Next Generation ACO serving Medicare beneficiaries in South Florida's Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties. [CLICK HERE]

Advocate Health Care (Downers Grove, Ill.). Advocate Health Care became an ACO in 2010 after entering the agreement with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, the first of its kind for the payer. [CLICK HERE]

Aledade (Bethesda, Md.). Farzad Mostashari, MD, founded Aledade in 2014. Aledade is a Track 1 Medicare Shared Savings Program participant and contracts with commercial payers including Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas and Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield. [CLICK HERE]

Alegent Health Partners (Omaha, Neb.). Alegent Health Partners was founded in 2013 as part of UniNet Healthcare, a clinically integrated network of employed physicians and advanced practice clinicians in Nebraska. [CLICK HERE]

Allina Health (Minneapolis). Allina Health's ACO, officially Allina Integrated Medical Network, joined the Pioneer ACO Model in 2012 and transitioned to the Next Generation ACO Model in 2017. [CLICK HERE]

AMITA Health Accountable Care Organization (Arlington Heights, Ill.). AMITA Health ACO has participated in the Medicare Shared Savings Program since 2013. [CLICK HERE]

Arizona Care Network (Phoenix). Arizona Care Network is a physician-led and -governed clinically integrated organization formed through a partnership between San Francisco-based Dignity Health, Dallas-based Tenet Health Systems and Phoenix Children's Hospital. [CLICK HERE]

Ascension Care Management (Nashville, Tenn.). Ascension Risk Service, MissionPoint Health Partners and US Health Holdings joined together in 2016 to form Ascension Care Management, an Ascension Health subsidiary formerly known as MissionPoint Health Partners. [CLICK HERE]

Atrius Health (Newton, Mass.). Atrius Health spent five years in the Pioneer ACO Model before transitioning to the Next Generation ACO Model in 2017. [CLICK HERE]

Aurora Accountable Care Organization (Milwaukee). Aurora ACO joined the Medicare Shared Savings Program in 2012 and joined Track 3 in 2017. [CLICK HERE]

Banner Health Network (Mesa, Ariz.). Banner Health Network includes more than 5,000 providers that serve 400,000 patients in Arizona. [CLICK HERE]

Baroma Health Partners (Miami). Baroma Accountable Care, known as Baroma Health Partners, joined the Medicare Shared Savings Program in 2013 and transitioned to a Next Generation ACO in 2016. [CLICK HERE]

Baylor Scott & White Quality Alliance (Dallas). Baylor Scott & White Quality Alliance formed commercial accountable care agreements with Aetna in 2014 and UnitedHealthcare in 2015. [CLICK HERE]

Beacon Health (Brewer, Maine). Brewer-based Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems' Beacon Health became a Track 1 Medicare Shared Savings ACO in 2012 and transitioned to the Next Generation ACO Model in 2016. [CLICK HERE]

Bellin Health Partners (Green Bay, Wis.). Bellin Health Partners is a clinically integrated network of 86 independent physicians, 220-bed Bellin Health, Bellin Psychiatric Center, 147-member Bellin Medical and Specialty Group and Bellin Oconto (Wis.) Hospital & Medical Center. [CLICK HERE]

Beth Israel Deaconess Care Organization (Westwood, Mass.). Beth Israel Deaconess Care Organization is a Track 3 Medicare Shared Savings Program ACO including more than 2,500 primary care physicians and specialists. [CLICK HERE]

BJC HealthCare ACO (St. Louis). BJC HealthCare ACO launched in 2012 as one of the first in St. Louis. A Track 3 Medicare Shared Savings Program participant, the ACO is designed to distribute 50 percent of shared savings to ACO physicians and 50 percent to BJC Hospitals. [CLICK HERE]

Carilion Clinic (Roanoke, Va.). After forming a patient-centered medical home in 2008, Carilion Clinic was ready to adopt the ACO model in 2011 through an agreement with Aetna. [CLICK HERE]

Catholic Medical Partners-Accountable Care IPA (Buffalo, N.Y.). Buffalo-based Catholic Health and Catholic Health Partners, a network of more than 900 independent physicians, formed Catholic Medical Partners-Accountable Care IPA in 2012. [CLICK HERE]

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. CHOP earned Level 1 ACO accreditation from the National Committee for Quality Assurance in 2013, becoming the first children's hospital in the country to earn the distinction. [CLICK HERE]

Christus Health Quality Care Alliance (Irving, Texas). Christus Health Quality Care Alliance participates in the Medicare Shared Savings Program. [CLICK HERE]

Cleveland Clinic Medicare ACO. Cleveland Clinic launched an ACO and joined the Medicare Shared Savings Program in 2015. [CLICK HERE]

Coastal Medical (Providence, R.I.). Coastal Medical launched its ACO in July 2012 as part of the Medicare Shared Savings Program. [CLICK HERE]

Collaborative Care of Florida (Orlando). Collaborative Care of Florida launched in 2013 as a collaboration between Orlando Health, Orlando Physicians Network, Orlando Health Physician Associates, Southwest Orlando Family Medicine and West Orange Physicians Group. [CLICK HERE]

Collaborative Health ACO (Natick, Mass.). Collaborative Health ACO is a joint venture between Worcester, Mass.-based Saint Vincent Hospital and MetroWest Accountable Care Organization, which is comprised of Boston area primary care physicians and specialists. [CLICK HERE]

Cornerstone Health Enablement Strategic Solutions (High Point, N.C.). Cornerstone Health Enablement Strategic Solutions is a physician-led company jointly owned by Winston-Salem-based North Carolina Baptist Hospital; High Point, N.C.-based Cornerstone Health Care; and Burlington, N.C.-based Laboratory Corporation of America. [CLICK HERE]

Dartmouth-Hitchcock (Lebanon, N.H.). Dartmouth-Hitchcock joined the Medicare Shared Savings Program in 2012 and transitioned to the Next Generation ACO Model in 2016. [CLICK HERE]

DaVita Medical ACO California. In 2012, DaVita acquired HealthCare Partners in a $4.42 billion deal and the combined organization launched DaVita Medical ACO. [CLICK HERE]

Deaconess Care Integration (Evansville, Ind.). Evansville-based Deaconess Health System established Deaconess Care Integration in 2012. [CLICK HERE]

DeKalb Physician Hospital Organization (Decatur, Ga.). DeKalb Physician Hospital Organization incorporated in 1994 and has ACO contracts with several payers. [CLICK HERE]

Delaware Valley ACO (Villanova, Pa.). Delaware Valley ACO participates in the Medicare Shared Savings Program and includes more than 670 primary care physicians. [CLICK HERE]

Dignity Health (San Francisco). Dignity Health launched an ACO pilot program in 2009 with Blue Shield of California and Hill Physicians Medical Group for about 44,000 CalPERS members. [CLICK HERE]

Essentia Health (Duluth, Minn.). Essentia Health, which serves patients in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota and Idaho, launched an ACO and joined the Medicare Shared Savings Program in 2012. [CLICK HERE]

Fairview Health Services (Minneapolis). Fairview Health Services, an eight-hospital system in Minneapolis, was one of 32 ACOs to join Medicare's Pioneer ACO program in 2012. [CLICK HERE]

Franciscan ACO (Mishawaka, Ind.). Franciscan Health's Franciscan ACO, formerly Franciscan Alliance ACO, was the only ACO in Indiana to participate in Medicare's Pioneer ACO program in 2011. [CLICK HERE]

Genesis HealthCare ACO (Kennett Square, Pa.). Genesis HealthCare ACO joined the Medicare Shared Savings Program in January 2016. [CLICK HERE]

Hackensack Meridian Health (Edison, N.J.). Hackensack (N.J.) University Health Network and Neptune, N.J.-based Meridian Health merged in July 2016, joining their ACOs  Hackensack Alliance ACO, Meridian Accountable Care Organization and Meridian's co-branded ACO with Aetna. [CLICK HERE]

Health Choice Preferred (Phoenix). Health Choice Preferred is a physician-led, non-exclusive ACO that includes accountable care networks in Arizona and Utah. [CLICK HERE]

Henry Ford Physician ACO (Detroit). Henry Ford Physician ACO launched Jan. 1, 2016. [CLICK HERE]

Heritage California ACO (Northridge, Calif.). Heritage California ACO is an affiliate of Northridge-based Heritage Provider Network. [CLICK HERE]

Hill Physicians Medical Group (San Ramon, Calif.). Hill Physicians Medical Group participates in four ACOs across California: CalPERS ACO, City & County of San Francisco ACO, University of California Employees in San Francisco ACO and San Joaquin County ACO. [CLICK HERE]

HSHS ACO (Springfield, Ill.). HSHS ACO became a Medicare Shared Savings Program ACO in 2016. [CLICK HERE]

Indiana University Health (Indianapolis). In 2017, CMS selected Indiana University Health ACO to participate in the Next Generation ACO Model. [CLICK HERE]

Integra Community Care Network (Providence, R.I.). Integra Community Care Network covers more than 120,000 lives and 19,000 Medicare beneficiaries through the Medicare Shared Savings Program. [CLICK HERE]

John Muir Health (Walnut Creek, Calif.). John Muir Health's Muir Health Medicare ACO participates in the Medicare Shared Savings Program. [CLICK HERE]

Johns Hopkins Medicine Alliance for Patients (Glen Burnie, Md.). Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins Medicine launched Johns Hopkins Medicine Alliance for Patients in 2014. [CLICK HERE]

KentuckyOne Health Partners (Louisville, Ky.). KentuckyOne Health Partners incorporated in June 2012 and covers 115,000 lives. [CLICK HERE]

Lahey Clinical Performance ACO (Beverly, Mass.). Lahey Clinical Performance ACO includes more than 30 participants. In the 2015 performance year  the third year of its first agreement period  the ACO reported shared savings of $4.61 million. [CLICK HERE]

MedStar Accountable Care (Baltimore). Columbia, Md.-based MedStar Health-affiliated physicians and community members lead MedStar Accountable Care, which joined the Medicare Shared Savings Program in 2016. [CLICK HERE]

Memorial Hermann ACO (Houston). Houston-based Memorial Hermann Health System's 12 hospitals, numerous specialty institutes, outpatient facilities and a network of affiliated physicians participate in Memorial Hermann ACO. [CLICK HERE]

MemorialCare Regional ACO (Fountain Valley, Calif.). MemorialCare Health System's five hospitals, imaging centers, providers and skilled nursing facilities participate in the health system's Next Generation ACO. [CLICK HERE]

Mercy ACO (Des Moines, Iowa). Mercy Medical Center-Des Moines owns and manages Mercy ACO. Founded in 2012, the organization is comprised of more than 2,000 physicians and 147 healthcare affiliate sites. [CLICK HERE]

Mercy Health Select (Cincinnati). Mercy Health Select participates in the Medicare Shared Savings Program. [CLICK HERE]

Michigan Pioneer ACO (Southfield). Michigan Pioneer ACO, affiliated with Detroit Medical Center, was one of the original 32 Pioneer ACOs in 2012 and became a Next Generation ACO in January 2017. [CLICK HERE]

Mid-Atlantic Collaborative Care (Houston). Mid-Atlantic Collaborative Care became a Medicare Shared Savings Program ACO in 2017. [CLICK HERE]

Millennium ACO (Fort Myers, Fla.). Millennium ACO, a Millennium Physician Group company, participates in the Medicare Shared Savings Program. [CLICK HERE]

Monarch HealthCare ACO (Irvine, Calif.). Monarch HealthCare ACO was among the five ACOs chosen for the Brookings-Dartmouth ACO Pilot in 2011. [CLICK HERE]

Montefiore ACO (Bronx, N.Y.). Montefiore ACO was established in 2012 and transitioned to the Next Generation ACO Model in 2017.[CLICK HERE]

Mount Sinai Care (New York City). Mount Sinai Care participates in the Medicare Shared Savings Program. [CLICK HERE]

National ACO (Beverly Hills, Calif.). National ACO is owned and operated by physicians. [CLICK HERE]

National Rural Accountable Care Consortium (Beaverton, Ore.). A group of rural physicians and hospital administrators established the National Rural Accountable Care Consortium in 2013. [CLICK HERE]

NH Accountable Care Partners (Concord, N.H.). NH Accountable Care Partners is a nonprofit organization formed through a joint venture between five hospitals and ACO clinical and non-clinical participants. [CLICK HERE]

Northwell Health ACO (Manhasset, N.Y.). North Shore-LIJ MSSP ACO, known as Northwell Health ACO, was selected to participate in the Medicare Shared Savings Program in 2016. [CLICK HERE]

Northwestern Medicine Physician Partners (Oak Brook, Ill.). Northwestern Medicine Physician Partners is an ACO associated with Chicago-based Northwestern Medicine. [CLICK HERE]

Oakwood ACO (Dearborn, Mich.). Oakwood ACO is a partnership between physicians and Royal Oak, Mich.-based Beaumont Health, which includes more than 1,000 physician members and offers 18-plus health plans. [CLICK HERE]

OneCare Vermont (Colchester). OneCare Vermont works with Medicare, Vermont Medicaid and the Commercial Exchange Shared Saving Programs. [CLICK HERE]

Optum ACO (Phoenix). Independent physicians across Arizona's Maricopa County partnered to form Optum ACO. [CLICK HERE]

Collaborative Care of Florida (Orlando). Collaborative Care of Florida formed in 2013. Orlando Health, Orlando Physicians Network, Orlando Health Physician Associates, Southwest Orlando Family Medicine and West Orange Physicians Group participate in the ACO. [CLICK HERE]

OSF HealthCare System (Peoria, Ill.). OSF HealthCare created an ACO under the CMS Pioneer model in 2011 and landed its first commercial accountable care agreement with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois for 40,000 beneficiaries in 2013. [CLICK HERE]

Palm Beach ACO (Palm Springs, Fla.). Palm Beach ACO, a Medicare Shared Savings Program participant, is wholly owned and operated by physicians. [CLICK HERE]

Park Nicollet Health Services (St. Louis Park, Minn.). Park Nicollet Health Services participated in the Pioneer ACO program from 2012 to 2015. [CLICK HERE]

Partners HealthCare (Needham, Mass.). Boston-based Partners HealthCare has two ACOs: one that participates in the Next Generation ACO model and Partners Care Connect, a Medicaid ACO. [CLICK HERE]

Partners for Kids (Columbus, Ohio). Partners for Kids is affiliated with Columbus-based Nationwide Children's Hospital. Founded in 1994, PFK is one of the nation's oldest ACOs. [CLICK HERE]

Physician Organization of Michigan ACO (Ann Arbor, Mich.). Physician Organization of Michigan joined the Medicare Shared Savings Program in 2013. [CLICK HERE]

Physicians of Southwest Washington (Olympia). Thurston County physicians formed Physicians of Southwest Washington in 1995 as an independent physician association; today, the group has more than 400 members in 93 practices and two hospitals. [CLICK HERE]

Pioneer Valley Accountable Care (Springfield, Mass.). Pioneer Valley Accountable Care serves Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries in the Pioneer Valley. [CLICK HERE]

Premier Health ACO of Ohio (Dayton). Premier Health ACO of Ohio joined the Medicare Shared Savings Program in 2012 and transitioned into the Next Generation ACO Model in 2017. [CLICK HERE]

ProHEALTH Accountable Care Medical Group (Lake Success, N.Y.). ProHEALTH Care Associates employees and partners participate in ProHEALTH Accountable Care Medical Group.[CLICK HERE]

ProHealth Solutions (Waukesha, Wis.). ProHealth Solutions formed in July 2012 through a joint venture between ProHealth Care and Waukesha (Wis.) Elmbrook Health Care. [CLICK HERE]

ProMedica Health Network (Toledo, Ohio). ProMedica Health Network is a physician-led ACO, consisting of more than 50 participants. [CLICK HERE]

Qualuable Medical Professionals (Kingsport, Tenn.). Qualuable Medical Professionals renewed participation in the Medicare Shared Savings Program in January 2016.[CLICK HERE]

RGV ACO Health Providers (Donna, Texas). RGV ACO Health Providers participates in the Medicare Shared Savings Program. [CLICK HERE]

Rio Grande Valley Health Alliance (McAllen, Texas). Eighteen members from 16 independent practices participate in the Rio Grande Valley Health Alliance. [CLICK HERE]



Robert Wood Johnson Partners (New Brunswick, N.J.). New Brunswick-based Robert Wood Johnson University Health System, Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and New Brunswick-based Rutgers University formed Robert Wood Johnson Partners in 2012. [CLICK HERE]

Rush Health Chicago. More than 1,100 physicians and 300 nonphysician clinicians partake in Rush Health Chicago. [CLICK HERE]

Scripps Health (San Diego). Scripps Health is a Track 3 Medicare Shared Savings Program ACO that includes approximately 1,300 physicians across four Scripps-affiliated hospitals. [CLICK HERE]

SERPA-ACO (Crete, Neb.). SERPA-ACO is a Track 1 Medicare Shared Savings Program participant with 16 clinics across Nebraska. [CLICK HERE]

Sharp HealthCare ACO  II (San Diego). The 800-physician Sharp Community Medical Group and 500-physician Sharp Rees-Stealy Medical Group participate in the Sharp HealthCare ACO  II along with seven hospitals. [CLICK HERE]

St. Luke's Clinic Coordinated Care (Boise, Idaho). St. Luke's Clinic Coordinated Care joined the Medicare Shared Savings Program in 2013 as a Track 1 ACO and transitioned to the Next Generation ACO Model in 2017. [CLICK HERE]



Summa Health  NewHealth Collaborative (Akron, Ohio). Summa Health - NewHealth Collaborative, founded in 2012, is a Track 1 Medicare Shared Savings Program ACO.[CLICK HERE]

Tenet Healthcare (Dallas). More than 1 million patients are covered by Tenet Healthcare's ACO-affiliated hospitals, which represent 80 percent of the system's 80 hospitals.[CLICK HERE]

ThedaCare ACO (Appleton, Wis.). ThedaCare ACO is a Next Generation participant that includes seven medical centers and more than 6,800 medical professionals. ThedaCare ACO joined the Next Generation model in collaboration with Appleton-based ThedaCare and a cohort of independent physicians in 2016. [CLICK HERE]

Torrance (Calif.) Memorial Integrated Physicians. Torrance Memorial Integrated Physicians launched in 2012 and is currently a Track 3 Medicare Shared Savings Program participant, taking on two-sided risk to foster greater savings. [CLICK HERE]

TPN Health Partners (Omaha, Neb.). TPN Health Partners is a Medicare Shared Savings Program ACO that includes five hospitals operated by Englewood, Colo.-based Catholic Health Initiatives and The Physician Network. [CLICK HERE]

Triad HealthCare Network (Greensboro, N.C.). Triad HealthCare Network holds various risk-based contracts with payers including Medicare, UnitedHealthcare and Humana, covering patients across five North Carolina counties. [CLICK HERE]

Trinity Health ACO (Livonia, Mich.). Trinity Health coordinates care for patients across Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey and Ohio as a Next Generation ACO. [CLICK HERE]

UNC Senior Alliance (Morrisville, N.C.). UNC Senior Alliance is a physician-led ACO comprised of UNC Health Care-employed and independent providers. [CLICK HERE]

UnityPoint Accountable Care (West Des Moines). UnityPoint Health founded UnityPoint Accountable Care, formerly known as Iowa Health Accountable Care, in 2012 as a Pioneer ACO. [CLICK HERE]

University Hospitals (Cleveland). University Hospitals gained CMS approval to participate in the Medicare Shared Savings Program in 2012 and recorded $5.6 million in shared savings during its third performance year. [CLICK HERE]

UT Southwestern Health Resources Accountable Care Network (Dallas). The Southwestern Health Resources Accountable Care Network manages more than 300,000 lives in North Texas. [CLICK HERE]

UW Health ACO (Madison, Wis.). UW Health ACO became a Track 1 Medicare Shared Savings Program ACO in 2013. [CLICK HERE]

WakeMed Key Community Care (Raleigh, N.C.). More than 370 primary care and 750 specialty care providers representing WakeMed Health & Hospitals and Key Physicians make up WakeMed Key Community Care. [CLICK HERE]

Weill Cornell Physician Organization (New York City). In 2012, Weill Cornell Physician Organization and Cigna rolled out the first New York City-based ACO partnership between a physician group and a health plan. [CLICK HERE]

WellStar Health Network ACO (Marietta, Ga.). CMS selected WellStar Health Network ACO to participate as a Track 1 ACO in the Medicare Shared Savings Program in 2012. [CLICK HERE]

West Florida ACO (Trinity, Fla.). West Florida ACO joined the Medicare Shared Savings Program in 2012 and generated $9.8 million in shared savings for performance year 2015. [CLICK HERE]
South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson filed suit against Purdue Pharma Tuesday, alleging the OxyContin manufacturer conducted deceptive opioid marketing in the state.

The lawsuit alleges Purdue violated the state's Unfair Trade Practices Act, broke the terms of a 2007 court settlement and created a public nuisance. Specifically, the suit argues Purdue downplayed the addictive qualities of its opioid products since 2007 after three Purdue executives pled guilty to charges regarding the deceptive marketing of opioids and reached civil settlements with South Carolina, 25 other states and the District of Columbia.

"This suit seeks to hold Purdue accountable for creating this crisis and seeks remedies to stop its misleading, deceptive and dangerous marketing tactics," Mr. Wilson said. "While there is a time and place for patients to receive opioids, Purdue prevented doctors and patients from receiving complete and accurate information about opioids in order to make informed choices about their treatment options."

Purdue denied the lawsuit's claims in an emailed statement to Becker's.

"While we vigorously deny the allegations, we share South Carolina officials' concerns about the opioid crisis, and we are committed to working collaboratively to find solutions," Purdue spokesman John Puskar told Becker's. "OxyContin accounts for less than 2 percent of the opioid analgesic prescription market nationally, but we are an industry leader in the development of abuse-deterrent technology, advocating for the use of prescription drug monitoring programs and supporting access to naloxone  all important components for combating the opioid crisis."

More than 3,000 residents of South Carolina have died from prescription opioid overdoses since 2011. Last week, New Hampshire's attorney general filed a similar suit against Purdue Pharma.

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A power outage at Opelika-based East Alabama Medical Center caused the hospital to redirect its ambulance and emergency room services for over an hour Monday night, according to oanow.com.

After lightning struck a nearby transformer, the hospital imposed a disaster plan at 7:22 p.m. to address the issue. At 9:00 p.m. the hospital enacted its diversion plan, which calls for patients in need of emergency services to be redirected to other hospitals.

Both the disaster plan and diversion plan ended at 10:30 p.m. when power was restored to the facility.

"It affected our power, including our chillers. And so there wasn't much air flow and it probably caused discomfort," EAMC spokesman, John Atkinson, told oanow.com.
The Texas Senate approved a controversial bill that restricts insurance coverage for women seeking abortions, according to the Texas Tribune.

The bill, which passed in the House Aug. 8, requires women to pay an additional insurance premium if they want their health plan to cover non-emergency abortions.

Senate Democrats pushed to add exceptions to the bill such as insurance coverage for fetal abnormalities, rape or incest. Senate Republicans voted down all of the proposed amendments.

Supporters of the bill said that opponents of abortion should not have to finance the procedure through their insurance plans.

The bill heads to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's desk for a signature.
A letter from the District Health Department to Washington, D.C.-based United Medical Center, obtained by the Washington Post, disclosed the mistakes that caused district regulators to impose a 90-day obstetrics ward shutdown at UMC.

The letter revealed, in one case, that UMC staff did not take proper steps to prevent the transmission of HIV from an infected mother to her baby, such as providing antiretroviral medication after birth or delivering via Caesarian section.

The letter also highlighted a case where the hospital improperly monitored and treated a 35-week pregnant obese woman with a history of serious blood pressure problems. The letter also stated the hospital failed to physically screen a newborn at the right time after birth. The letter does not disclose names or outcomes of these patients.

In a statement issued Aug. 9, United Medical Center attributed the shutdown to "three separate cases involving deficiencies in screening, clinical assessment and delivery protocols." A hospital spokeswoman, Jennifer Devlin, said HIPAA regulations prohibited the hospital from releasing details.

Rosemary Gibson, a patient advocate and adviser at the Hastings Center research group, told the Washington Post that hospitals often cite patient privacy as a reason to withhold information the public deserves to know.

Read the full letter here.
Pakistan and Indian military officials exchanged sweets at the Wagah-Attari border in Amritsar on Monday to celebrate Pakistan's 70th Independence day. Earlier, Pakistan commenced the Independence Day proceedings boy hoisting its highest national flag at the border at midnight on Sunday. The 400-foot-high flag is reportedly the highest in South Asian and eighth highest in the world.
A customs border being proposed between Northern Ireland and the Republic will cause costs to spiral and serious trade delays, businesses here are warning.

And one business group has said ministers should "go back to the drawing board", as it's understood plans are being pushed forward for a so-called 'light touch' customs regime.

That's likely to involve spot checks, as well as technology, to control the flow of goods. It flies in the face of Irish premier Leo Varadkar's calls for a rethinking of a customs border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

"I think any customs border is not the road to go down," said Glyn Roberts, chief executive of Retail NI.

"It does flag up here, that there has to be more consultation with the business community. I wouldn't think this proposed solution is going to go down well in any sectors of the economy. We have to look at the complete detail, if it is what is being described, then they need to go back to the drawing board."

Ann McGregor, chief executive of the Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce, said "it will be interesting to hear if by Wednesday they have moved closer on the proposed format of the transition".

And Seamus Leheny, policy and membership manager, of the Freight Transport Association (FTA), said: "The implementation of border controls on goods will result in an administrative burden both for the local industry and those hauliers transporting goods cross-border.

"This will inevitably lead to additional costs, delays and for businesses involved in large cross-border volume, the need to hire extra staff."

He said around 6,000 heavy goods vehicles cross the border each day and inspections on even a fraction of those will lead to "costs for delays and wages as well as late deliveries".

Brexit Secretary David Davis will float plans for a customs partnership with the EU that would negate the need for a customs border between the UK and the rest of the bloc.

A position paper on the fraught issue of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic will be published tomorrow, ahead of the third round of Brexit negotiations in Brussels later this month.

One option being put forward by Mr Davis would see the UK manage a new customs border with administration streamlined to the "fullest extent possible".

Stephen Kelly, chief executive of Manufacturing NI, reiterated concerns of soaring costs, delays and the disruption which would be caused to businesses as a result of a customs border.

"Any solution which would be a choice between either controls along cross border road routes or indeed at GB ports of entry would be unwelcome and damaging. We all, governments and business, want to retain the benefits we currently enjoy.

"If this is what is to be proposed, then there would be a requirement to compensate for these costs within businesses or by government."

Ann McGregor, chief executive of the Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said: "While a position paper is not an agreed approach, the talk this weekend of a Hammond and Fox position paper on Brexit is interesting.

"It is the first sign of senior Cabinet members on both sides of the Brexit debate speaking of compromise.

"One has wanted a transition period, the other not. Now they seem to agree that one is required."

Mr Roberts added that a lack of representation at Stormont means Northern Ireland's voice is not being heard.

"Not having ministers at Stormont is having an impact.

"We need to see the UK government showing a good deal more imagination, in terms of solutions."
Northern Irelands pork firms are set to miss out on the chance to meet Chinese buyers just weeks after being given the go-ahead to export to the economic giant, the Belfast Telegraph can reveal

Northern Irelands pork firms are set to miss out on the chance to meet Chinese buyers just weeks after being given the go-ahead to export to the economic giant, the Belfast Telegraph can reveal.

On Friday, it was announced that China had given the green light to allow British pork products to enter the country for the first time.

However, it will be too late for firms here to apply to take part in the next Invest NI trade mission to the worlds most populated country from October 16 to 20.

Applications for the trip which visits Beijing and Shanghai, Chinas two largest cities, closed on July 7.

As a result, no pork firms from the region have signed up for the trip, missing out on the opportunity to capitalise on the deal.

However, one Northern Ireland firm says the deal will put a squeeze on smaller pork firms with rising pork prices likely.

The pig meat industry in Northern Ireland supports more than 400 farming families and 2,000 jobs. Its thought the deal could be worth up to 10m a year to the regions economy. And across the UK, its been claimed the deal with will bring a 200m boost to the countrys food industry helping to support 1,500 jobs.

The deal has given Cookstowns Karro and Cranswicks plant in Ballymena approval to export.

The Ulster Farmers Union said securing access to the Chinese pork market is a big win for the industry.

The UFUs pork and bacon chairman, Norman Robson, said access to China would ultimately add value to carcases, and said he looked forward to seeing the first exports in the near future.

The Chinese market has the potential to offer significant long-term demand for pork products. Access to this market should boost returns for processors. Farmers will now look forward to seeing this added value distributed fairly along the supply chain, he said.

However, a spokeswoman for Invest NI confirmed it was too late for Northern Ireland pork firms to apply for the upcoming trade mission, despite the announcement coming more than two months before the trip.

The China trade mission in October was open to all businesses across all sectors, she said. While on this occasion no food companies applied to attend, they (including pork companies) have participated in past trade missions.

Invest NI is working closely with the food sector in their efforts to access the Chinese market and will continue to support their future plans. This will include support from our in-market team in China to help develop business relationships.

Pork firm Pinkertons which supplies foodservice and wholesale markets here said that the announcement would cause local pork prices to rise, putting a squeeze on smaller processing firms.

The Co Armagh firm employs 34 people and exports a small amount of pork to the Republic of Ireland, mainly servicing the hospitality and retail sectors.

It already sells by-products such as trotters locally through butchers.

Theres very little waste with our product, director David Gibson said. We find these parts are popular with foreign nationals living in Northern Ireland and we sell them through butchers.

We sell most of our products within Northern Ireland. If the larger firms start to push exports it will mean we will have to pay more to buy pork from producers. It will eventually push the price up for consumers and local companies here who are too small to export will suffer. Cheaper European imports will start to come in to fill the gap.

Its expected to be at least four weeks before any pork products are shipped from Northern Ireland, but producers can start to pack their products now for the Chinese market.
Camile will open up its second Northern Ireland restaurant in Ballyhackamore, Belfast

A Thai takeaway and restaurant is set to open its second Northern Ireland location in east Belfast, it can be revealed.

Camiles first foray into the city was at a former Marks & Spencer Simply Food unit on Belfasts Lisburn Road. The firm, which is based in Dublin, created around 25 new jobs with the new restaurant.

The unit close to the Chelsea Wine Bar has been empty for more than two years after M&S relocated to bigger premises on the other side of the road.

Its now taking on a site vacated by the Co-op supermarket in the Ballyhackamore area of east Belfast.

Commercial property firm TDK acted for the firm. Stephen Deyermond of TDK, said: Camile is trading really well on the Lisburn Road and we expect Ballyhackamore will also do very well. Ballyhackamore has quickly established itself as one of Belfasts main foodie destinations and the addition of Camile adds to the already great offer in the neighbourhood.

TDK are delighted to have been at the forefront of the Ballyhackamore regeneration, having also let the Pizza Express, Caffe Nero and Clements units. We are still interested in adding to the chain in the Greater Belfast area, in locations that will complement the Lisburn Road and Ballyhackmore units.

In a review of Camile on the Lisburn Road last December, Belfast Telegraph food critic Joris Minne said it was a welcome addition to Lisburn Road.
Moira Loughran from Invest NI with (left) Michael Budden and Jonathan Clarke from Locum Match

Belfast software firm Locum Match has embarked on a major expansion with plans to take on 16 new staff on the back of its growth across the UK.

The roles include a mobile app developer, operations manager, designer and a recruitment executive, and follow on from deals with four of the UK's largest pharmacy firms. The website already pairs hundreds of pharmacists around the UK with over 8,000 pharmacies including brands Boots, Well, Rowlands and Lloyds.

Locum Match's website allow pharmacies to find locums at short notice to cover leave or illness. However, the firm also plans to develop an app.

Moira Loughran from Invest NI said: "Locum Match has developed impressive software that is making it a key player in the UK's medical recruitment market.

"In a commitment to growth, it is working with Invest NI to support it to create new jobs, invest in R&D and undertake marketing activity to grow business in Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland."

Invest NI has offered just over 200,000 to support the jobs, as well as research and development and marketing.
A Northern Ireland wind farm has been sold as part of a 105m deal, it has emerged. Greencoat UK Wind has agreed to acquire two wind farms from institutional investors in Liverpool and Northern Ireland for around 105m.

The acquisitions of the North Hoyle and Slieve Divena wind farms are expected to complete in August 2017 and will be funded by the renewable infrastructure fund's revolving credit facility.

The deal adds a total capacity of 90MW and takes Greencoat UK's net generating capacity to 547MW.

Slieve Divena is located in Co Tyrone, and has a capacity of 30MW. It was originally developed by SSE, and also receives one renewable obligation certificate per megawatt hour.

North Hoyle was developed by German firm Innogy SE and was commissioned in June 2004, making it one of the UK's earliest offshore wind farms. Located five miles offshore in Liverpool Bay, it has a capacity of 60MW and receives one renewable obligation certificate per megawatt hour.

Following completion of the acquisitions, Greencoat UK's total borrowings will amount to 318m, equivalent to 28% of gross asset value.

Earlier this summer it was revealed that renewable energy giant Gaelectric is launching two new wind farms in Co Tyrone as part of a 41m investment.

Inishative and Cregganconroe in Pomeroy will generate a combined total of 27.6MW of renewable energy.

They are Gaelectric's fifth and sixth operating wind farms in Northern Ireland.

The company said that they would be enough to power 17,500 homes every year.

Elsewhere, a renewable energy giant headed by a Co Down man is expanding its growing business into the US.

Nick Boyle runs Lightsource Renewable Energy, Europe's biggest developer of industrial-scale solar projects.

It built Crookedstone Road Solar Farm for Belfast International Airport under a 25-year agreement that will provide 30% of the terminal's electricity.

After 10 months in operation, Aldergrove has saved 100,000 in energy costs as a result of the scheme.

Lightsource employs 300 people and is based in Holborn, London, with offices in Belfast and Dublin.

It was established in 2011 with just six employees. The company has announced its North American management team that will lead its expansion into the US energy sector.

The San Francisco-based team is chief executive Tim Derrick, chief operating officer Kevin Christy and chief compliance officer Katherine Ryzhaya.

The firm's UK arm has grown into a business building and developing more than 2.4bn worth of solar projects alongside investment partners.

Meanwhile, one of the largest energy projects in the last decade is due to go before Belfast City Council's planning committee tonight.

Evermore is developing a massive 280m gas-fired plant at Belfast Harbour.

Co-founder Ciaran Devine told the Belfast Telegraph earlier this year that it could power up to 50% of Northern Ireland's homes and businesses. Now the application, which is being decided by the Department for Infrastructure, will go before the city's planning committee.
Belfast Zoo keepers Aisling McMahon and Tracey McWilliams are now trained bee keepers and will care for Belfast Zoo's hive of 2000 bees.

Belfast Zoo has welcomed a colony of 2000 Irish black honeybees.

The new arrivals will take up residence in the Zoo's newly renovated Buzz Stop which will open text week.

Native to Ireland, the black honeybees are much darker and have evolved thicker, longer hair and a larger body than their golden-coloured, southern European cousins.

This allows them to keep warm in the cooler climates of Britain and Ireland, which is thought to be one of the reasons for a reduction in honeybee colonies, by up to 30%, in recent years.

Zoo manager, Alyn Cairns, said: Belfast Zoo is well known for the vital conservation work that we carry out to protect endangered species from around the world but we are also committed to protecting wildlife on our own doorstep.

"In 2004 we formed a native species group in the zoo to focus on local conservation projects. We have therefore worked with a number of native species facing increasing threats and which are disappearing at an alarming rate including the barn owl, the white-tailed sea eagle and the red squirrel.

"Our team are excited to work with the bees in order to educate visitors about the issues that these insects are facing but we are also delighted to be playing an important conservation role at a local level.

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Damien Rice from the Belfast and District Beekeepers Association, was fundamental in consulting with the zoo team on the project.

He provided vital advice on the design of the hive as well as beekeeping techniques for the staff.

Damien said: Throughout history, animals have transformed human civilization and bees may just be the most critical to our future survival. Bees are essential in the pollination of plants, crops and native flora, making these small insects of huge economic and ecological importance.

"In fact, it is estimated that one of every three mouthfuls of the food that we eat depends on the work of bees. The world we live in would therefore be a very different place without bees, which is why their dramatic decline is of such concern.

Damien continued: Sadly three bee species have become extinct in Ireland within the last 80 years with many more species in decline. Conservation strategies must therefore be proactive so that causes of the decline are managed before it is too late.

Over the next few weeks, Belfast Zoos bee colony will be given the privacy and opportunity to settle into their new hive.

The Buzz Stop will officially open on Friday 25 August and to celebrate Belfast Zoo will be holding a Big Bee Bonanza from Saturday 26 to Monday 28 August.
10 month old Lily Callaghan, from Malahide, gate crashes a photocall, on the grounds of Malahide Castle, Dublin, to introduce the 65 International Roses hoping to make it through to the 2017 International Rose Television Selections. (Brian Lawless/PA Wire)

The contestants for this year's Rose of Tralee welcomed a surprise guest during their first photocall on Tuesday.

The Roses were taking part in a photo shoot with Rose of Tralee television host Daithi O Se at Malahide Castle in Dublin, when little Lily Callaghan gate crashed the event.

The 10 month old from Malahide was welcomed with open arms by the Roses, who are hoping to make it through to the 2017 Rose of Tralee Television Selections.

The Rose of Tralee International Festival runs from August 16-22.

Expand Close 10 month old Lily Callaghan, from Malahide, gate crashes a photocall, on the grounds of Malahide Castle, Dublin, to introduce the 65 International Roses hoping to make it through to the 2017 International Rose Television Selections. (Brian Lawless/PA Wire) PA / Facebook

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Whatsapp 10 month old Lily Callaghan, from Malahide, gate crashes a photocall, on the grounds of Malahide Castle, Dublin, to introduce the 65 International Roses hoping to make it through to the 2017 International Rose Television Selections. (Brian Lawless/PA Wire)

Roses from each county in Ireland, plus those from overseas, are preparing for the annual Rose selection, which takes place over two nights from Monday, August 21 - Tuesday, August 22.

The ladies will be interviewed by Daithi before the 2017 winner is announced.
Former SAS soldier turned best-selling writer Andy McNab has angrily condemned the renewed wave of investigations into killings carried out by the Army in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.

But the highly-decorated soldier, whose real name is still a closely-guarded secret, has insisted he would have no fears of standing trial for killing people in the province, the first when he was a teenage squaddie.

"I feel totally justified in what I did. So I don't mind being in front of a jury, because nine out of ten times, people are quite sensible," said the English author, but insisted it was wrong for him and other veterans to be coming under scrutiny.

McNab rose to fame in the 1990s with his controversial memoir Bravo Two Zero, which is still hailed as the top-selling military book of all time.

It recounted how McNab led a mission behind enemy lines in the first Gulf War and he has followed up his debut book with more than 30 fictional works, hitting the No 1 spot on the Amazon charts no fewer than eight times.

At the weekend, McNab publicly expressed his support for the Army veterans and their supporters who've taken part in a series of protests in Belfast, London and Glasgow against what they say is a "witch-hunt" of soldiers over killings and other incidents at the height of the conflict here.

The campaign has been organised by the Justice for Northern Ireland Veterans (JFNIV) group, who have criticised prosecutions and investigations into alleged abuses by British soldiers throughout the Troubles.

Among them is 76-year-old Dennis Hutchings from Cornwall, who is to stand trial over the killing of John Patrick Cunningham, who had learning difficulties in 1974. The 27 year-old was shot as he ran away from an Army patrol in Benburb.

In his interview with an English magazine, McNab agreed with the JFNIV view that there was an imbalance in the way the authorities were treating former soldiers compared to the Provisional IRA.

He said: "All of a sudden, everything that took place on the government side is now being reassessed.

"We've got no protection. You want a military force when the s*** hits the fans, but then when everything is okay you basically f*** us over.

"It's absolutely crazy."

In an interview with the Belfast Telegraph in 2013, McNab urged the authorities not to bring to court the Parachute Regiment soldiers who were involved in the Bloody Sunday killings in the Bogside in 1972, long before he joined the Army.

"We are not talking about soldiers who'd been going round bayoneting people," he said. "These were men who were in a state of confusion in a fluid situation and they'd been given the right to open fire if they thought they were in danger. You can't question that decades afterwards."

McNab first came to Northern Ireland on a number of regular battalion tours with the Green Jackets in the Seventies and he was awarded a military medal after a firefight in which IRA man Peadar McElvanna was killed near Keady in 1979.

Five years later after he joined the SAS, McNab was involved in the mission which led to the deaths of two IRA men and an undercover colleague near Kesh in Fermanagh in December 1984.

McNab has always vowed he will never reveal his true identity because he claims he is still receiving death threats, including some from republicans in Northern Ireland, although he still visits the province, mainly for regimental functions
Analysis of the ecological impact of building a major new road scheme near landscape made famous by poet Seamus Heaney is not fit for purpose, the Court of Appeal heard today.

Ornithologist Chris Murphy claimed the environmental assessment for part of the 160m A6 Belfast to Derry was out of date, and that the project would destroy the tranquility which draws migratory birds back every year.

But lawyers for the Department for Infrastructure insisted surveys of whooper swan patterns on Lough Neagh and Lough Beg close to the disputed Toome to Castledawson stretch have been maintained annually.

Mr Murphy is seeking to overturn a ruling that the proposals do not breach a habitats directive on specially protected areas.

Reserving judgment on his appeal, Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan pledged to give a decision as soon as possible.

The environmentalist's continuing legal battle centres on plans to construct part of the road near Moosbawn, Co Derry - the childhood home of the former Nobel laureate poet.

The route was identified following a public inquiry nearly a decade ago.

Former Infrastructure Minister Chris Hazzard gave the green light to the scheme last year in a bid to significantly improve a major transport corridor and ease rush-hour gridlock.

Proceedings centred on ecological checks made to potential disturbance to the wintering swans.

Earlier this year a High Court judge held that the Department's decision was lawful and rational.

Representing himself once again in an appeal against that verdict, Mr Murphy claimed the project was based on environmental information from nearly a decade ago.

He insisted the authorities were legally required to carry out a new appropriate assessment of the ecological impact under Article 6 of the Habitats Directive.

Instead, he claimed, the analysis carried out in 2016 was "not fit for purpose".

According to Mr Murphy the area represents the most important wintering site for whooper swans in Ireland - but their numbers are now in decline.

Building a dual carriageway there will destroy the seclusion and tranquility which brings the birds back, he contended.

"This whole complex provides a mosaic of fields and provides familiar territory when these swans come in to land," he said.

However, Paul McLaughlin, for the Department stressed how the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) was consulted and concluded that the scheme will not have an adverse impact.

He argued that data has been kept up to date with annual surveys on the swans carried out to ensure complete monitoring of the entire complex.

"This was not just someone going out with a pair of binoculars and counting the number of swans in a field," Mr McLaughlin added.

Following submissions Sir Declan, sitting with Lord Justice Gillen, confirmed a decision on the appeal will be given at a later date.

He said: "We are going to reserve our judgment and give it as soon as we can."
A Green Party MLA has submitted a formal complaint to the Assemblys standards watchdog over a tweet by the DUPs Edwin Poots in the wake of controversy over Prince George being branded a "gay icon".

Clare Bailey acted after a Green Party NI petition calling for Stormonts Commissioner for Standards to investigate Mr Poots for posting the tweet received over 5,400 signatures in five days.

The online petition relates to a tweet posted by the Lagan Valley MLA last Friday, which stated: "Totally supporting Jim on this one, making children an icon of sexuality today, pedophilia (sic) tomorrow. Absolutely disgusting."

Mr Poots tweet contained a link to a letter from TUV leader Jim Allister to Benjamin Cohen, the chief executive of LGBT website PinkNews, which was published in the Belfast News Letter.

The letter condemned PinkNews for posting a picture of Prince George on a helicopter with his face in his hands, accompanied by the statement: "Prince George has become a gay icon overnight."

The Green Party NI petition, which had gathered over 5,400 signatures at the time of going to press, slammed Mr Poots response to the article.

It stated: "Mr Pootss tweet, with its grossly offensive linking of the LGBTQ community with "pedophilia" (sic) is contrary to the Northern Ireland Assembly Code of Conduct.

"We therefore call upon the Commissioner for Standards to carry out a full investigation of these comments by Mr Poots."

Some of the Assemblys Principles of Conduct include equality, respect and promoting good relations.

In a statement, South Belfast MLA Ms Bailey said: "The huge response to the Green Party petition shows the level of offence caused by Edwin Poots comments.

"To associate the LGBTQ community with paedophilia is grossly offensive and in my mind is a clear breach of the Assembly Code of Conduct."

However, Mr Poots told the Belfast Telegraph that he didnt accept his tweet linked homosexuality with paedophilia.

"The individuals who made a child a sexual icon did that, and that was what I was pointing out," he stated.
Irish language activists have called on the UK government to ensure the introduction of legislative protections for gaelic speakers amid an ongoing Stormont stalemate on the issue.

Demonstrators held a picket outside Hillsborough Castle and handed in individual letters urging Secretary of State James Brokenshire to intervene.

A row over whether an Irish Language Act should be enshrined in law in Northern Ireland is one of the main obstacles preventing the reestablishment of a powersharing executive at Stormont.

It is one of Sinn Fein's preconditions for re-entering devolved government.

The Democratic Unionists have indicated a willingness to legislate to protect Irish language rights, but only if similar measures are introduced for the Ulster Scots community.

Sinn Fein has rejected that proposal, insisting a stand-alone Irish Language Act was promised by the UK government in the 2006 St Andrews Agreement.

With little sign of a breakthrough on the issue at Stormont, campaigners descended on Hillsborough to call on Mr Brokenshire to push for a resolution.

They also called on the Secretary of State to meet with them on the matter.

Children and teenagers educated in Irish language schools were among those to hand in letters at the front gates of the castle, which is Mr Brokenshire's official residence in Northern Ireland.

Campaigner Grainne Ni Ghillin said: "The call for an Irish Language Act is one that comes directly from our streets, from our families, our schools and our young people.

"We have taken this to the very heart of the political debate and we want to keep it there until our rights are realised in law.

"The British Government can no longer stand by.

"It is high time they fulfilled their own obligations as co-guarantors of the St Andrews Agreement, and as a Government that facilitates the same legislation in both Scotland and Wales."

Fellow activist Ciaran Mac Giolla Bhein said the Irish language community had been waiting too long for an Act.

"Now is the time for action," he said.

"We are calling on the Secretary of State to officially meet us and discuss this matter with us.

"We are also calling on him to use his role during the cross-party talks that will reconvene in September, to ensure that this issue is resolved and that outstanding commitments in relation to the Irish language are finally fulfilled."
Eddie Girvan, 67, was found dead in his own home

Prosecutors in Northern Ireland are to examine whether there is a legal basis to appeal the length of sentence handed down to a mother-of-two who killed a pensioner.

Margaret Henderson McCarroll, 31, was given a six-year term - three of which are to be spent behind bars - for the manslaughter of Eddie Girvan in his Greenisland home in Co Antrim.

Mr Girvan, a 67-year-old retired plumber, was found gagged and tied to a chair with two stab wounds to his chest in January 2016.

Henderson McCarroll, with a previous address at Verner Street, Belfast, admitted his manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

The heroin addict claimed she was high on a cocktail of drugs at the time of the incident and insisted she acted in self-defence during a row about money she alleged Mr Girvan owed her for sex.

The Public Prosecution Service said it was reviewing the sentence handed down by Mr Justice Treacy in Belfast Crown Court on Monday to determine whether an appeal was justified.

"The Public Prosecution Service is considering if there is a basis to refer the sentence handed down in this case to the Court of Appeal on the grounds that it may be unduly lenient," said a PPS spokeswoman.

The PPS has 28 days within which to refer the sentence to the Court of Appeal.
Cynical observers of the new Titanic currently being built in China have argued that there is no historical connection between that country and the ill-fated Belfast-built ship.

But now a little known fact - that eight Chinese passengers were on board when the legendary liner perished in 1912 - has emerged.

Six of the eight - all stokers - survived the sinking, and their appearance on the rescue ship Carpathia is said to have raised more than a few eyebrows at the time.

Little was heard of the six after that - indeed, they supposedly vanished without trace - but a new documentary from US film-maker and maritime historian Steven Schwankert may be about to change all that.

'The Six', which will be released early next year, spotlights who the six Chinese survivors are, how they survived, and why they vanishe d from the records - having been forced to leave within 24 hours of their arrival in the United States because of the controversial Chinese Exclusion Act that was in force at the time.

"That huge vessel that came out of Belfast is the alpha and the omega of shipwrecks," said Schwankert, who is also China correspondent for America Magazine and Variety. "This isn't just a Western story, it's a global story. And now, a Chinese story."

One of 'The Six', Fang Lang, was found on a floating piece of the wreckage by other survivors in a lifeboat, prompting a debate as to whether he should be saved.

As one officer in the lifeboat wrongly remarked: "There's others better worth saving than a Jap."

The other passengers disagreed, and plucked the 26-year-old Hong Kong man from the sea. Despite being dehydrated and exhausted, the 'Jap' took over from another passenger and "worked like a hero", according to the same officer who had initially questioned his worth.

The Chinese were actually the largest group of non-European or north American passengers on board the doomed liner, which sank on its maiden voyage with the loss of 1,500 of its 2,200 passengers and crew.

Vanishing from the history books in the disaster's aftermath, their absence has left even more questions unanswered - including a claim that they were stowaways, not genuine seamen.

"Their story is actually one of courage and of quick thinking," said Mr Schwankert, adding: "We don't accept the history as it is presented - we don't believe these guys just disappeared."

So far, he and director Arthur Jones have been to the home village of at least one of the men, and have traced their descendants to the UK, US and Canada.

During the investigation into the sinking of the Harland and Wolff-built vessel, owner J Bruce Ismay, who was on the same lifeboat as two of the Chinese survivors, said they only "found four Chinamen stowed away under the thwarts" after the boat was already in the water.

Schwankert says, however: "No matter what Ismay said or thought, they were not stowaways on any lifeboats."

James Cameron's 1997 film has led to a huge surge of Chinese interest in the Titanic, including the construction of a 105m exact replica of the ship in Sichuan Province, which will be open to the public in 2019.
Two sisters from Scotland missing in Northern Ireland were found after a woman read a police appeal on Facebook about a motorhome the girls were believed to be in - and looked up to find it in front of her.

Police Scotland believe Grace Elizabeth McKinney (8) and Kara McKinney (5) travelled to Northern Ireland with their father Michael McKinney, his girlfriend Martina and her three year-old son in a cream Elddis Autoquest motorhome on August 10.

Appeals were issued and last night, PSNI Larne posted on their Facebook page that "Grace and Kara McKinney have been found safe and well. Police would like to thank the public for their assistance".

A young woman called Sarah Butler appears to have spotted the van in Ballycastle last night and reported it to police.

A man believed to be the partner of the girls' mother posted: "A massive thank you to this amazingly wonderful lady in Ballycastle."

Sarah responded: "You are very welcome! It was the strangest thing, I had literally just read the PSNI's post and description of the van and I looked up and it was just in front of me! Glad the girls are safe and well."
A Manx shearwater was found in the same place where it was originally ringed as a chick in 1977

A 40-year-old bird caught off the Co Down coast has got twitchers in a flap.

The adult Manx shearwater was caught on the Copeland Islands, at the same spot where it was first ringed in 1977 - 40 years ago.

The long-lived seabird was a new chick in the same year that Star Wars was released, Marc Bolan died and Saturday Night Fever launched John Travolta's movie career.

Wesley Smith, secretary of Copeland Bird Observatory, which has been studying the islands' seabird colonies for years, said the 'Methuselah' chick was ringed on September 3, 1977 and has been handled 11 times since.

"At one stage we had a 49-year-old one and at that time I think it was maybe the oldest bird in the northern hemisphere," he said. "They are pretty impressive birds. They breed on a lot of offshore islands that are free of predators, particularly rats. They breed down burrows. On Copeland these tend to be dug by rabbits and the Manx shearwaters take over the burrows."

The Copeland colony is Northern Ireland's only colony of Manx shearwaters and has grown from several hundred pairs when the observatory was founded in 1954 to at least 4,500 breeding pairs this summer.

Every September the shearwaters set off on an arduous migration across the Atlantic Ocean to south America where they spend winter, returning to the Copelands in mid-March.

"They are very faithful, not only to the island that they were hatched on, but even the area of the island where they hatched. This bird was caught in the same place where it was ringed 40 years ago," Mr Smith said.

The pairs hatch a single chick during the breeding season. These are expected to start emerging from their burrows in the next couple of weeks.

"We'll be doing a lot of chick-ringing in the next few weeks, going out at dark. Manx shearwaters come in at nighttime when they are returning to the colony because the gulls will attack them in daylight," Mr Smith said.

"The air above you is just thriving with the sound of them calling."

A post about a 36-year-old bird that was caught on the Copelands earlier this summer garnered more than 20,000 views on Twitter.

Shane Wolsey, of the British Trust for Ornithology, said the youngsters will be emerging from burrows until mid-September. "Then they will all head off together down to South America. They go down as far south as Rio," he said. "The youngsters won't be back again next year but the adults will. The youngsters start coming back after three to four years. After four to five years they will breed and they nearly always come back to their natal colony. Their navigational abilities are astonishing. Trying to catch the older ones isn't easy, so catching one that is as old as 40 years is pretty exciting."
The Greenisland house where he was killed

Forensic experts at the scene of the killing

The three years in prison handed down to a mother-of-two for what a senior judge described as the "horrific'' killing of a Co Antrim pensioner was last night branded "too lenient".

Margaret Henderson-McCarroll (31), formerly of Verner Street, Belfast, had previously pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of 67-year-old retired plumber Eddie Girvan.

He was gagged, bound and stabbed at his Greenisland home on January 18, 2016.

Dressed in denim jeans, black jacket and white top and with her red hair now dyed blonde and cut into a mohawk-style, Henderson-McCarroll spoke briefly to family and friends in the public gallery after she was brought into court in handcuffs.

Henderson-McCarroll wiped away tears as the judge entered the court room.

Passing sentence yesterday at Belfast Crown Court, Mr Justice Treacy said the defendant would serve three years behind bars and a further three on licence .

Judges are bound by sentencing guidelines and must take into account mitigating circumstances such as early guilty pleas, co-operation with police and remorse, as well as aggravating factors such as intent and excessive violence.

Alliance MLA Stewart Dickson, who was well-known to Mr Girvan, said he was "disappointed" at the sentencing.

"It's difficult to accept such a short sentence as I feel it is too lenient," he said.

"I'm concerned that someone who did what that they did in such a heinous way has been handed a short sentence.

"People in the area have also been shocked by the sentencing.

"There is public concern that this is a short sentence."

His long-term friend and neighbour John Milliken said: "I would have hoped for something stiffer. I knew Eddie for a long time.

"He shouldn't have been killed."

Mr Milliken told the Belfast Telegraph that his friend was "brilliant with his hands", "interested in loads of things" and "had a great mind".

"I think he would have loved to have been a mechanic as he loved motorbikes and rode grass track in his younger days," said Mr Milliken.

"There was nothing mechanical that he couldn't work with or fix."

Justice Treacy said he agreed with two consultant forensic psychologists that Henderson-McCarroll did not meet the dangerous provisions and that she did not pose a "significant risk of serious harm to the public in the future''.

The judge told the court: "This was an horrific crime and the deceased must have suffered terribly.''

The prosecution accepted her guilty plea to the manslaughter of the Mr Girvan on the grounds of "diminished responsibility''.

Her defence had argued that at the time of the killing, Henderson-McCarroll was high on a cocktail of heroin and crystal meth.

A defence QC had told a plea and sentence hearing in June this year that at the time of the manslaughter her life had descended into a "heroin hell'' following the cot death of her infant daughter.

The court heard that Henderson-McCarroll had known Mr Girvan for a number of years and she received "money for sex with him''.

In the hours after the attack Henderson-McCarroll was driving Mr Girvan's car when she was involved in a road collision in Belfast.

Police traced his address and went to speak to him several times, however there was no answer.

After becoming concerned for his safety, police broke into his home where they found his dead body bound, gagged and seated in a room on the ground floor.

Mr Justice Treacy said that Mr Girvan had sustained two stab wounds to his body - one wound was to the upper right chest area measuring 10cms in depth which had "punctured his lung causing high bleeding into the lung'' and which alone "could have resulted in death''.

"The deceased had a large wad of kitchen roll stuffed into his mouth and he had been gagged with a tie.

"This too, of itself, could have resulted in death.''

She told police she had been at his Greenisland home that weekend where she took drink and drugs.

The court heard that on the morning of Mr Girvan's death, he and Henderson-McCarroll had an argument about money she claimed he owed her for sex.

She told police he pushed her against a mantelpiece and the deceased pulled out a stick sword. She further alleged that she grabbed the stick sword and there was a struggle and then she grabbed a knife.

The judge continued: "You say you lifted it and poked him, to use your words, in the chest, and he fell on the chair.

"You said that you panicked, that Mr Girvan was shouting at you, and so you put a tie on his mouth to quieten him.

"You then left his house, took his car, drove to Belfast, were involved in a hit-and-run and had taken more heroin before the journey to calm your nerves.''

Mr Justice Treacy said that Henderson-McCarroll had 100 previous criminal convictions which included offences of robbery, theft and assault.

He added that she had a "clear propensity" to use threats and violence and that in a number of these attacks, she had bitten, punched and headbutted some of her victims who included children, elderly men, young women and adult men.

A consultant forensic psychiatrist, who had examined the defendant, said in a report to the court that she had an addiction history to opiates and stimulants which had led to a "chaotic life''.

"It is evident her abuse of illicit drugs intensified following the death of her infant daughter which led to a subsequent significant deterioration in her mental health and social functioning,'' the report stated.

"She also exhibits traits of an emotionally unstable personality disorder due to the background of violence and sexual abuse at the hands of a number of male partners.''

Mr Justice Treacy also handed down concurrent prison sentences and banned her from driving for one year for a series of offences.

Henderson-McCarroll, who remained emotionless as she was handed down the sentence, made heart gestures to her family and partner as she was being led away to serve her sentence.

It's understood Mr Girvan had been estranged from his former wife Heather and two daughters Martina and Amanda.

None of Mr Girvan's family members were present at court yesterday.
The imposition of a customs frontier on the Irish border would "play fast and loose" with both the economy and peace process, Sinn Fein has warned.

The republican party dismissed any suggestion trade movement between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic could be monitored by technology as "nonsense and impossible to deliver".

The UK government's vision of how its only land border with the EU will operate when it exits the Union will be outlined in a much-anticipated document on Wednesday.

There are more than 200 roads crossing the Irish border.

Critics of a technology-based solution, potentially involving CCTV cameras and number plate recognition systems, question how movement between the jurisdictions could ever be tracked without causing major disruption.

The Irish government has made clear its position that technology alone will not resolve the border conundrum.

David Cullinane TD, Sinn Fein's spokesman on Brexit, said: "It is clear that the British Tory party are in disarray over Brexit.

"They have no plan, no solutions for Brexit, only slogans."

He added: "The notion of a frictionless technological border has been dismissed as nonsense and impossible to deliver.

"What is clear is that Tories are prepared to use Ireland as collateral damage in their negotiations with the EU.

"What we need is a real solution that works for our economy, our communities, and delivers for all Ireland."

However, Democratic Unionist MP Sir Jeffrey Donaldson insisted only the main arterial routes needed to be monitored.

"If people want to export their goods they have to go through the proper process and clearly most of the cross border roads aren't used for trade purposes, they are used on a daily basis by local people," he told the BBC.

"It is the main roads that are used for haulage and trading.

"So we are confident that we can deal with this in a pragmatic way."

On Sunday, SDLP Leader Colum Eastwood accused the UK government of drawing up its border plan on the "back of an envelope".

"It is almost laughable that it took the British Government over a year to come up with it," he said.

"Anyone who knows anything about the Irish border knows it's a non-runner."

He added: "Any border must be around the island of Ireland, not across it.

"This is the only position which recognises our unique circumstances and it is the only position which is actually enforceable.

"It is the only serious and credible solution to the Brexit problem which has so far been proposed."

Meanwhile, Ulster Unionist leader Robin Swann has urged the Dublin government to kill off any suggestion that a customs border could be imposed in the Irish Sea, around the island rather than dividing it.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has already said the proposal is not one he is tabling as a potential alternative.

Mr Swann called on him to go further.

"If he has any respect for the people of Northern Ireland, Leo Varadkar must come out and dismiss the idea of a post-Brexit border in the Irish Sea once and for all," he said.

Mr Swann repeated his concern that the Brexit issue was being pursued by republicans and nationalists to advance a united Ireland.

"Brexit negotiations should not be used as a Trojan Horse by those who seek to exploit the situation to further their united Ireland agenda," he said.

A spokesman for the Irish Government said it welcomed indications that the UK is providing "more clarity on its thinking".

He said the position paper on future EU-UK customs arrangements will be analysed in detail and will need careful consideration.

The Government said the immediate focus of negotiations would be on issues including citizens' rights, the financial settlement and Irish specific issues.

"In this regard, the Government welcomes the UK's intention to publish a second position paper, on Northern Ireland and Ireland specific issues, later this week," the spokesman said.

"Once sufficient progress has been made on these phase one issues, we will be in a position to commence phase two of the negotiations, where parallel discussions will take place with the UK on future relationship issues, including customs."
The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali is the deadliest of the its 16 global peacekeeping operations

Gunmen have attacked the headquarters of the UN peacekeeping force in the northern Mali city of Timbuktu, killing seven people and injuring seven others.

The UN peacekeeping mission said six assailants were killed by UN peacekeepers in the attack on Monday afternoon.

The mission said five Malian security guards and a Malian contractor working for the mission were killed along with a member of the Malian gendarmerie.

UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said earlier on Monday that unidentified gunmen attacked two neighbouring UN camps in Douentza in the Mopti region of central Mali, killing one Malian soldier and one U.N. peacekeeper.

The peacekeeping mission in Mali is the deadliest of the UN's 16 global peacekeeping operations, and this was one of the worst losses of mission staff.
A man takes a photo of a TV news programme showing Kim Jong Un, who has been briefed on his military's plans to launch missiles into waters near Guam (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi)

North Korea's military has presented leader Kim Jong Un with plans to launch missiles into waters near Guam and "wring the windpipes of the Yankees".

The move came despite both Koreas and the United States signalling their willingness to avert a deepening crisis, with each suggesting a path towards negotiations.

The tentative interest in diplomacy follows unusually combative threats between President Donald Trump and North Korea amid worries Pyongyang is nearing its long-sought goal of being able to send a nuclear missile to the US mainland.

Next week's start of US-South Korean military exercises that enrage the North each year could make diplomacy even more difficult.

During an inspection of the North Korean army's strategic forces, which handles the missile programme, Mr Kim praised the military for drawing up a "close and careful plan".

He also said he would watch the "foolish and stupid conduct of the Yankees" a little more before deciding whether to order the missile test, the state-run Korean Central News Agency said.

Mr Kim appeared in photos sitting at a table with a large map marked by a straight line between what appeared to be north-eastern North Korea and Guam, and passing over Japan - apparently showing the missiles' flight route.

The missile plans were previously announced. Mr Kim said North Korea would conduct the launches if the "Yankees persist in their extremely dangerous reckless actions on the Korean Peninsula and its vicinity", warning the United States to "think reasonably and judge properly" to avoid shaming itself, the news agency said.

The Trump administration had no immediate comments on Mr Kim's declaration.

"We continue to be interested in trying to find a way to get to dialogue, but that's up to him," US secretary of state Rex Tillerson told reporters in Washington.

Lobbing missiles toward Guam, a major US military hub in the Pacific, would be deeply provocative from the US perspective.

A miscalculation on either side could lead to military confrontation. On Monday, US defence secretary James Mattis said Washington would take out any such missile seen to be heading for American soil, warning that such a North Korean attack could mean war.

Mr Kim's conditional tone, however, hinted the friction could ease if the US offered a gesture that Pyongyang sees as a step back from "extremely dangerous reckless actions".

That could refer to the US-South Korean military drills set to begin on August 21, which the North claims are rehearsals for invasion.

It also could mean the B-1B bombers that the US occasionally flies over the Korean Peninsula as a show of force.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in, meanwhile, a liberal who favours diplomacy, urged North Korea to stop provocations and to commit to talks over its nuclear weapons programme.

Mr Moon, in a televised speech, said Seoul and Washington agree that the nuclear stand-off should "absolutely be solved peacefully". He said no US military action on the Korean Peninsula could be taken without Seoul's consent.

Mr Moon said the North could spur talks by stopping nuclear and missile tests.

"Our government will put everything on the line to prevent another war on the Korean Peninsula," Mr Moon said. "Regardless of whatever twist and turns we could experience, the North Korean nuclear programme should absolutely be solved peacefully, and the (South Korean) government and the US government don't have a different position on this."

The chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, Marine Corps Gen Joseph Dunford, on Monday met with senior South Korean military and political officials and the local media, seeking to ease anxiety while showing his willingness to back Mr Trump's warnings if need be.

The US wants to peacefully resolve tensions with North Korea, but Washington is also ready to use the "full range" of its military capabilities, Gen Dunford said.

He is also visiting Japan and China after a week in which Mr Trump declared the US military "locked and loaded" and said he was ready to unleash "fire and fury" if North Korea continued to threaten the United States.

North Korea's military said last week it would finalise the plan to fire four ballistic missiles near Guam, which is about 2,000 miles from Pyongyang.

AP
Congratulations to Belfast blogger Gemma-Louise Bond and former Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman for posting what could be described as candid photographs of how they look in swimwear.

They were not the usual celebrity-style images showing women in unattainable perfection, but instead appeared as how many women look. That takes courage.

Hopefully others will take confidence from them and realise that the endless promotion of stick-thin models or fashion styles which only look good on a hanger is just commerce, and nothing to do with any woman's real beauty - which is being comfortable in her own skin.
Pensioner Eddie Girvan was the victim of a horrific crime and must have suffered terribly before he died. He had been stabbed twice and gagged - either would have resulted in his death. (stock photo)

Pensioner Eddie Girvan was the victim of a horrific crime and must have suffered terribly before he died. He had been stabbed twice and gagged - either would have resulted in his death.

The judge, the person best placed to know all about the 67-year-old's final moments - apart from the woman who killed him - painted a distressing picture of his agonising death.

But those who were not in court and privy to all the evidence in the case will wonder why that woman ended up with a three-year jail sentence and another three on licence.

This was a woman with a propensity for violence - assaults featured frequently among the 100 crimes on her record. She had drug problems and after killing the pensioner she fled in his car and was involved in a hit-and-run incident. It was this which led police to discover Mr Girvan's body.

But it has to be remembered that judges are bound by detailed and quite prescriptive guidelines when it comes to sentencing.

They must take into account mitigating factors such as early pleas, co-operation with police and remorse if expressed. Those of course have to be balanced against the amount of force used and the intent of the person involved.

The woman in this case did plead guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and that plea was accepted by the prosecution. The court also heard of her own troubled background including the tragic cot death of her daughter.

But even taking all these factors into account, there remains an impression in the public mind that the scales of justice in this case were unbalanced.

Who was there to speak up for Mr Girvan? He may have had a sex-for-money relationship with his killer but stranger things than that happen behind closed doors.

He was a man liked by those who knew him and they feel the sentence imposed was too lenient.

That will always be a matter of debate.

However, the Executive and its justice scrutiny committee, whenever they return to office, can examine sentencing tariffs and decide if they need to be more severe in cases where people, especially the elderly and vulnerable, are killed or seriously injured.

Judges of course must have discretion, but there is also a duty on legislators to assure people who feel at risk that the law is there to protect them.
Police prepare to send the body of a suspected militant who blew himself up to a Dhaka hospital for an autopsy, Aug. 15, 2017.

A suspected militant who planned to attack people marking Bangladeshs National Mourning Day blew himself up in a Dhaka hotel room on Tuesday after officers confronted him, the countrys police chief said.

The suspect, identified as Saiful Islam, 21, set off a bomb at the Hotel Olio International in the Panthapath neighborhood, about 300 meters (984 feet) from a house in the adjacent Dhanmondi neighborhood where founding President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and much of his family were assassinated on Aug. 15, 1975.

Saiful, who was a madrassa student and a member of militant group Jamaat-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), had checked into the hotel armed with explosives on Monday night, Inspector General of Police A.K.M. Shahidul Haque told reporters. Police have blamed a faction of JMB for carrying out a terrorist attack at a local cafe, the Holey Artisan Bakery, that left 29 people dead in July 2016.

We had the information that this militant planned to attack the people going to the Dhanmondi 32 to pay their respects. This precaution helped us to avoid an attack, Haque told reporters, referring to Old Road No. 32 in Dhanmondi.

We repeatedly urged him to surrender starting Monday night, but he rejected our pleas.  Finally he blew him up at around 9:45 a.m. as our forces started the operation to capture him, he said.

Aug. 15 is observed in Bangladesh as a national day of mourning to mark the anniversary of the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the father of Sheikh Hasina, who is now the prime minister. She was out of the country when the assassination took place 42 years ago.

The explosion occurred about three hours after Hasina and President Abdul Hamid placed floral wreaths at the house, which is now a museum.

The blast ripped an outside wall from the hotel and injured a security guard and a police officer. Other guests and employees had been evacuated from the hotel, according to officials.

A huge explosion followed and the wall of the room collapsed. It rocked the whole building, Sanwar Hossain, an additional deputy commissioner of the counter terrorism unit, told BenarNews.

Fire brigade members rushed to the scene and took one injured person to a nearby hospital.

Haque identified Saiful as a JMB member who was a former member of Islami Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, a faith-based political party. Jamaat-e-Islami and JMB are not linked.

Assistant Inspector General of Police Mohammad Moniruzzaman said Saiful was from Southwestern Khulna district and had been a political science student at B.L. College in Khulna.

A bomb blast ripped the outside wall from the Hotel Olio International in the Panthapath neighborhood in Dhaka, Aug. 15, 2017. [Focus Bangla]

Witness account

Salahuddin, a salesman whose shop is in front of the hotel, told BenarNews that he saw troops mobilize after 12:30 a.m. Tuesday, but thought they were being deployed for the day of mourning.

I sleep here. When I tried to open the shop, (the police) ordered us not to come out. After a while I saw members of different security agencies flood the area, he said, adding that traffic came to a halt.

Salahuddin said he saw a Special Weapon and Tactics officer fire a shot from across the road, at around 9:44 a.m.

According to a Panthapath area resident, who asked not to be named, police had been conducting security checks in the area over the last two weeks.

A person had to undergo three security checks before reaching Hotel Olio. How could he reach the hotel with explosives, the resident told BenarNews.

Militancy Not Over

Earlier, Monirul Islam, the chief of the polices counter-terrorist unit, told reporters that ongoing preemptive law enforcement attacks over the last year had eroded militant networks in Bangladesh. At least 70 suspected militants have been killed in police raids since the Holey Artisan attack, according to authorities.

Extremist groups are having a tough time regrouping, but militants will not disappear unless their distorted ideology was rooted out, Islam warned.

An analyst agreed.

Look, militancy had been there, and now exists. This is yet to be eliminated. The law enforcers have done a commendable job. They must remain alert at all times, Shafqat Munir, a fellow of the Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies, told BenarNews.
Indonesians arrive at the Ain Issa camp, 50 km (31 miles) north of Raqqa, Syria, after fleeing the Islamic State group's Syrian bastion, June 13, 2017.

Eighteen Indonesians who emigrated to the so-called Islamic State in Syria are in police custody after returning to their homeland on Saturday, police said.

The group reportedly includes a former high-ranking civil servant from Batam, an Indonesian island about 12 miles (18 km) from Singapore, who abandoned his post in August 2015 to go to Syria, as well as four other men, nine women and four children.

Police are questioning the individuals to determine to what degree they have been radicalized, and whether they joined IS, police spokesman Setyo Wasisto told BenarNews on Monday.

Interrogation and interviews are still being carried by Densus 88 and BNPT," he said, referring to the counter-terrorism police and the National Counterterrorism Agency by its acronym.

The group, originally reported as 17 people, turned up at Ain Issa refugee camp near Raqqa in June, telling reporters they had been enticed to Syria two years earlier by the promise of a prosperous life in an Islamic State.

The moment we entered ISIS territory, entered their country, we saw something far different than what they said on the Internet, Nur, a 19-year-old Indonesian woman, was quoted as telling AFP news agency at the time.

Gone to Syria

Police announced Saturday that a group of 18 IS volunteers had arrived at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport near Jakarta that afternoon, via a post uploaded on a national police Instagram account.

A team of Densus 88 antiterrorism police met them and took them to Police Mobile Brigade headaquarters inDepok, West Java, for questioning, it said.

The group included former senior civil servant Dwi Djoko Wiwoho and his daughter Nurshadrina Khairadhania, Indonesian media outlets TribunNews and Sindobatam.com reported.

When he went missing, Djoko was director of the Indonesia Investment Coordinating Board's licensing office in the Riau Islands, which include Batam, the Straits Times reported. He left with his wife and three daughters, reports said at the time.

BNPT spokesman Nurfan Idris declined to provide information on the investigation into the 18 thus far.

Im sorry, I cant yet, he said.

In August 2016, Indonesian police said they had arrested six suspected IS-linked militants who were planning to launch a cross-border rocket attack on Singapore from Batam.

We dont know for sure

Ridlwan Habib, a terrorism expert at Indonesia University (UI), said the new arrivals would be screened to determine whether they pose a threat to society.

Indonesias anti-terrorism laws do not allow for them to be indefinitely detained, but they can be subjected to a certain degree of scrutiny under immigration regulations, he said.

The problem is, we dont know for sure how dangerous they are, or whether they no longer pose a problem, he said.

Taufik Andrie, a terrorism analyst at the Institute for International Peacebuilding in Jakarta, agreed that police should determine whether the new arrivals were capable of carrying out acts of terror in their homeland.

The results of the examination will need to be explained clearly, whether all of them were involved with ISIS, or were they just deceived, or what their activities were there, he said, using another acronym for the terror group.

A Syria returnee attacked a police station in North Sumatra on the night of Idul Fitri in June, stabbing to death an officer and injuring another before he was killed, Taufik recalled.

Their activities after repatriation should also be monitored. Dont let it happen again that a radicalized person carries out an act of terror like in Medan, he said.

Since 2015, about 430 Indonesians have been deported from Turkey after trying to cross into Syria. The figure includes 193 individuals in 2015; 60 in 2016; and 177 in the first six months of 2017, Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi told reporters in June.
Security personnel and attendees try to extinguish a flare thrown at the audience during the Nothing to Hide 2.0 political forum in Selangor, Aug. 13, 2017.

Updated at 7:55 a.m. ET on 2017-08-15

A day after chairs, shoes and lit flares were tossed during a political forum, Malaysian opposition leaders and analysts expressed concern Monday that more violence could tarnish the upcoming general election.

On Sunday, former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad took questions during the Nothing to Hide 2.0 forum when violence broke out. Prime Minister Najib Razak was invited to the forum but did not attend.

Pandemonium erupted after people hurled slippers and chairs toward the stage. At least two flares were lit and pitched at the audience while fisticuffs broke out between men inside and outside the hall.

Mahathir and opposition leaders were uninjured and escorted out of the building. Two people, including a journalist, were slightly injured.

Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi on Monday condemned the violence and called on police to take appropriate action.

Although we have different opinions, no violence should be committed toward any individual or leader, he told reporters in Kuala Lumpur.

Anwar Ibrahim, a leading figure of the opposition Peoples Justice Party (PKR), warned that political violence could increase.

Such incidents are feared to rise ahead of the 14th general election, Anwar, who remains in prison after his sodomy conviction, said in a statement on Monday. The government is responsible to ensure that the rights and freedom of speech must be protected, including that of Mahathirs.

Malaysias general elections take place every five years but the sitting prime minister announces the date. The next election must take place by June 2018 at the latest.

The forum organized by the United Malaysian Indigenous Party (PPBM) in Selangor state drew about 600 people. It was supposed to be a face-to-face forum between the 92-year-old Mahathir and Najib.

Mahathir, one of Najibs most-vocal critics, is PPBM chairman. He has been leading calls for Najib to resign over a multibillion-dollar scandal involving debt-laden 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), a state-owned investment fund. The government has said it found no criminal wrongdoing at 1MDB and Najib has denied embezzlement allegations.

Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad (center) takes questions at the forum, Aug. 13, 2017. [FadzilAziz/BenarNews]

Three teenagers, ages 17, 18, and 19, were remanded in connection with the incident.

I confirm that we have granted four days remand for three suspects in the incident, Shah Alam assistant police commissioner Shafien Mamat told BenarNews. Investigations were focused on violations of the Peaceful Assembly Act and laws pertaining to corrosive substances and explosives, along with dangerous weapons.

That is not the custom of the Malays

Azmi Hassan, a geopolitical professor at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, warned violence could continue as the current political climate focuses on personalities rather than issues.

Yes, this unfortunate trend will continue in the future, Hassan told BenarNews. In fact, it is a sign of immaturity of Malaysians when facing political matters. A debate should be focused on policies and the direction of political parties and not on matters that are not related to the future of a nation.

Such level of political immaturity should be condemned and stopped, Hassan said.

Mohamed Azmin Ali, PKRs deputy president, said he was appalled by violence at the forum.

Democracy is about contesting ideas. You may disagree with Mahathir but you dont respond with chairs, slippers and shoes, he said. That is not the custom of the Malays. If you dont agree, argue back with facts and figures.

Meanwhile, UMNO youth leader Razlan Rafii slammed opposition leaders for blaming Najibs party for the chaos.

Everything on Sunday, from the venue to the security preparations and the questions, were moderated and taken care of by PPBM members, and therefore, there was no basis for them to blame others, he told BenarNews.

Just admit the opposition coalition is synonymous with street riots and now political hooliganism, he said.

Fadzil Aziz in Selangor and Hata Wahari and N. Natha in Kuala Lumpur contributed to this report.

An injured journalist is taken for treatment after the violence at Sundays political forum, Aug. 13, 2017. [FadzilAziz/BenarNews]

An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the general election must be held by March 2018 at the latest.
The image of Reynaldo Parojinog, the mayor of the southern Philippine city of Ozamiz who was killed in an anti-narcotics raid by police, appears on a screen during a wake attended by hundreds of his supporters, Aug. 13, 2017.

Police gunned down at least 21 suspected drug addicts in coordinated operations near Manila, just days after President Rodrigo Duterte vowed to shield policemen from prosecution in shootings related to his administrations deadly war on narcotics.

The shootings during overnight operations that began on Monday were among the deadliest involving drug suspects since Duterte became president in June 2016, according to officials, and the spokesman for national police even suggested that the death toll from the evenings combined raids was normal.

Provincial police chief Romeo Caramat said the suspects were killed after resisting arrest and fighting it out with police officers, adding that 64 others had been arrested.

In September, simultaneous raids by police and attacks by unknown vigilantes had also left 20 people dead cross the country, in one of the bloodiest nights around the capital Manila since Duterte took office as president.

Mondays violence came more than two weeks after police in the southern Philippine city of Ozamiz killed the local mayor and 14 of his relatives and supporters in a drugs raid.

Police commandos killed Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog in an alleged shootout on July 30.

He was the third mayor killed from among a list of 150 politicians, judges, policemen and military personnel whom Duterte had publicly accused of being engaged in the illegal drugs trade.

A woman reacts at the wake for Ozamiz Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog, Aug. 13, 2017. [Mark Navales/BenarNews]

If there had been 22 or 25 operations conducted, then that means that (death toll) was just normal, Chief Supt. Dionardo Carlos, the spokesman for national police, told reporters in Manila. But if that had been a single operation that resulted to that number of casualties, that could be suspicious.

He said that police in Bulacan province were really doing their part in the anti-drug war.

Nonetheless, he said, the internal affairs service of the national police would investigate the raids to make sure there was no foul play.

Last week, Duterte said he would protect police officers from prosecution if they killed a suspect in a shootout during a drug raid. He lambasted critics, including local and international rights group, for questioning his drugs war, which he said was meant to prevent the Philippines from turning into a narco-state.

He said he never ordered policemen to kill suspects wantonly, but stressed that every policeman should protect himself if attacked.

If they want to put up a violent fight, thereby placing yourself, the lawmen, in jeopardy, go for it. That is my order, Duterte had said.

He warned that should drug kingpins insist on war, I will kill you all.

Since he took office as president, more than 8,000 people have died in the drug war, including suspects shot by police and those whose deaths were blamed on vigilantes.

Felipe Villamor in Manila contributed to this report.
A Thai court on Tuesday sentenced a college student to two and a half years in prison for violating the nations strict royal defamation law, in the first such case filed under Thailands new king.

Jatupat Pai Boonpattararaksa, a 25-year-old student activist at Khon Kaen University and a critic of Thailands military government, was arrested on Dec. 3 and charged under the so-called Lese-Majeste law after sharing on Facebook a BBC News profile of King Maha Vajiralongkorn that was deemed to be defamatory. Maha Vajiralongkorn became king on Dec. 1.

The court sentenced Jatupat to 5 years but reduced it to two and a half years, because he pleaded guilty, Jatupats lawyer, Krisadang Nutcharas, told BenarNews at the courthouse in northeastern Khon Khaen province, 450 km (281 miles) northeast of Bangkok.

A two-judge panel handed down the verdict during a closed-door session that was attended by Jatupats parents, his legal team and a few Thai officials.

Afterwards Jatuptas father, Viboon, told reporters outside the courthouse that his son chose to plead guilty in the hopes of getting a lenient sentence.

My son did not receive justice, he said. Pai pleaded guilty because, as we discussed, the court promised him a lenient punishment.

Jatupat, who appeared calm and relaxed during the sentencing, will serve two and a half years, minus his almost eight months of detention since Dec. 29, 2016, his lawyer said.

Thousands of people on social media had also shared a link to the BBC report.

Last year, police officials in Khon Khaen said they might use Jatupats case as a template to prosecute more people violating the law on social media.

Under the Lese-Majeste law, one count of defaming, insulting or threatening the Thai royal family carries a penalty of three to 15 years in prison. But it is common for Thai courts to reduce sentences after receiving guilty pleas from defendants.

It appears that Jatupat was singled out, from thousands of people who shared the BBC article, and prosecuted for his strong opposition to military rule than any harm incurred by the monarchy, Brad Adams, Asia Director at Human Rights Watch said in a statement condemning Tuesdays verdict.

His guilty verdict and jail sentence show yet again how Thailands draconian insulting the monarchy law has been misused to punish dissenters, Adams said.

Since the military seized power in a coup in May 2014, at least 82 people have been charged under Lese-Majeste, according to iLaw, a rights advocacy group.

Those cases so far have resulted in 38 convictions  including the Jatupat case  and seven acquittals, iLaw said.

In June, a Bangkok military court handed the longest Lese-Majeste prison sentence, ordering a man to serve 35 years after the court reduced his original 70-year sentence.

A chokehold on freedom of expression is being created in the name of protecting the monarchy, Adams said.

Viboon Boonpattararaksa, father of Jatupat Boonpattararaksa, a university student convicted of violating Thailands strict Lese-Majeste law, talks to reporters at the Khon Khaen criminal court, Aug. 15, 2017. [Nontarat Phaicharoen/BenarNews]
After an 18-year run in Goose Creek and unforeseen challenges presented by COVID-19, Dreamalot Books has gradually  but decidedly  gained a steady foothold in the Moncks Corner community as a welcoming haven of second-hand books for both area bibliophiles and those traveling in from Myrtle Read moreThe 'happy place' for used books: Dreamalot Books emerging as a go-to hot spot in Moncks Corner
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Starting your day with a cup of mushroom coffee can give a much-needed twist to your daily regimen. Many speak of its benefits, and some even prefer it to regular coffee. But given its unique
"We will build together such an India, which will be clean, healthy and fulfil the dream of self-rule"

PMs Independence Day Speech 2017- Highlights in English

The Prime Minster, Shri Narendra Modi today addressed the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort on the 71th Independence Day. Following are the highlights from his speech:

1. Greetings to my fellow Indians on Independence Day.

2. For the freedom and glory of the country, those who have contributed, those who suffered and sacrificed their lives, I salute all those noble souls, mothers and sisters on behalf of 125 crore people of the country from the ramparts of the Red Fort.

3. We remember the great women and men who worked hard for India's freedom.

4. People of India stand shoulder to shoulder with those affected in the wake of natural disasters in parts of the country & the death of children in the hospital.

5. This is a special year- 75th anniversary of Quit India, 100th anniversary of Champaran Satyagraha, 125th anniversary of Ganesh Utsav.

6. The Quit India Movement was Bharat Chhodo, but the call today is Bharat Jodo.

7. We have to take the country ahead with the determination of creating a 'New India'.

8. From 1942 to 1947, the country had demonstrated collective strength, in the coming 5 years, we have to take the country forward with the same collective strength, commitment and hard work.

9. In our nation, there is no one big or small...everybody is equal. Together we can bring a positive change in the nation.

10. We have to move forward for making a New India with the collective strength of 125 crore people without any discrimination of small and big people.

11. 1st January 2018 will not be an ordinary day- those born in this century will start turning 18. They are Bhagya Vidhatas of our nation.

12. We have to leave this 'Chalta Hai' attitude. We have to think of 'Badal Sakta Hai'- this attitude will help us as a nation.

13. The country has changed, is changing and can change. We have to move forward with this belief and commitment.

14. Security of the country is our priority. Internal security is our priority. Whether it is our oceans or borders, cyber world or space for all kind of security India is capable to defeat all such inimical forces.

15. Our uniformed forces have achieved the pinnacle of sacrifice in fighting left-wing extremism, terrorism, infiltration and elements disturbing peace. The world had to recognise the strength of India and it clout in the surgical strike.

16. One rank, One Pension policy has boosted the morale of our security forces.

17. Those who have looted the nation and looted the poor are not able to sleep peacefully today.

18. No law was passed for those having Benami property for years. However after the recent passage of the Benami Act, within a short span of time, government has confiscated Benami property worth Rs. 800 crores when these things happen, common men feel that this country is for the honest people.

19. Today, we are celebrating the festival of honesty.

20. GST has shown the spirit of cooperative federalism. The nation has come together to support GST & the role of technology has also helped.

21. Today, the poor of the country is joining the main stream and the country is moving torwards the path of progress.

22. Good governance is about speed and simplification of processes.

23. India's stature in the world is rising. The world is with us in fighting the menace of terror. I thank all nations helping us doing so.

24. We have to work for the progress of Jammu and Kashmir.

25. There is no question of being soft of terrorism or terrorists.

26. Neither by bullet: nor by abuses but by hugging we can solve the problem of Kashmir.

27. Our fight against black money and corruption will continue. We are trying to bring transparency through technology.

28. There is no question of being soft on terrorism or terrorists.

29. People would be the driving force behind the establishment, rather than the other way around  Tantra se Lok nahin, Lok se tantra chalega.

30. New India will be the biggest strength of democracy.

31. Nature of job is changing with changing demand and changing technology.

32. We are nurturing our youngsters to be job creators and not job seekers.

33. I want to mention those women who have to suffer due to 'Triple Talaq'- I admire their courage. We are with them in their struggles.

34. India is about Shanti, Ekta and Sadbhavana. Casteism and communalism will not help us.

35. Violence in the name of 'Astha' is not something to be happy about, it will not be accepted in India.

36. The country is being run by peace, unity and harmony. It is our civilisation and culture to take everybody along.

37. We are taking the nation on a new track (of development) and are moving ahead with speed.

38. We are devoting significant attention to eastern India- Bihar, Assam, West Bengal, Odisha, Northeast. These parts have to grow further.

39. Our farmers have worked hard to ensure a Record foodgrain production.

40. Over 5.75 crore farmers have been covererd under Pradhan Mantri Fasal Beema Yojaana.

41. Under Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana, 30 projects have been completed while work is on for 50 more projects.

42. Under Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samapada Yojana we are providing handholding to the farmers from availing seeds to accessing the markets for their produce.

43. More than 14000 un-electrified villages have been electrified.

44. 29 crore JanDhan accounts opened.

45. More than 8 crore youth have received loans without any guarantee.

46. We are fighting corruption - for the bright future of India and the wellbeing of our people.

47. Our fight against black money and corruption will continue and move forward and the loot in the country will not be allowed.

48. Our strive for a Corruption Free India has yielded results.

49. Black money worth Rs. 1.25 lakh cror has been unearthed.

50. Over 1.75 lakh fake companies have been shut down.

51. Post GST savings and efficiency in transportation sector has increased. Efficiency has gone up by 30 percent.

52. More money has come to the banks due to demonetization which will give impetus to the economy.

53. Our country has the worlds largest youth population. Today is the era of IT and lets move ahead on the path of digital transaction.

54. Let us lead from front, promote digital economy and adopt the Bhim App.

55. We have moved from Co-operative Federalism to Competitive Co-operative federalism.

56. It had been said in the old scriptures that if a work is not completed on time, one does not get the desired results.

57. For the Team India it is the right time to commit for a New India.

58. We shall build together an India, where the poor will have concrete houses with water and electricity connection.

59. We will build such an India, where the farmers will have a peaceful sleep without any worry. He will earn double than what he is earning today.

60. Our resolve is to build an India, which provides all the opportunities to the youth and women to fulfil their dreams.

61. Our resolve is to build such an India, free from terrorism, communalism and casteism.

62. We will build together an India, where there will be no place for nepotism and corruption.

63. We will build together such an India, which will be clean, healthy and fulfil the dream of self-rule (Swaraj).

64. We aspire to build a Divya and Bhavya Bharat.
A tender given to a company which had a tax glitch has resulted in hundreds of state cancer patients waiting months for bone scans, with some so desperately in need they were put on buses to the Western Cape.

Livingstone Hospital in Port Elizabeth. Photo: Bhekisisa/Oupa Nkosi

The standoff due to the tax issue has brought the construction of a special bunker for a bone scanner at Port Elizabeth's Livingstone Hospital to a halt.

Now Health MEC Pumza Dyantyi has been asked to step in and explain the situation to the provincial legislature.

The hospital's old scanner broke down around January this year and technicians said it could no longer be fixed as it was too old.

A new multimillion-rand machine was purchased, but is standing idle at provincial hospital as it needs a special concrete bunker for health and safety reasons.

The old casualty unit at Livingstone Hospital was identified as a suitable place for the installation of the new machine.

But Eastern Cape health spokesman Sizwe Kupelo said the delays were caused by a standoff over the tax situation of the contractor.

"The contractor we appointed had tax problems and we have insisted that he needs to get his tax situation in order before he can continue with the building," Kupelo said.

"We are now looking for an alternative contractor and we have approached the supply chain unit to find a compliant service provider."

He said the construction of the bunker was a specialised job.

"We anticipate that construction will resume soon to ensure this machine can be used," he said.

Two patients with severe back problems, who asked not to be named as they feared being victimised, told The Herald they had been sent to Cape Town by bus to get bone scans.

The DA's Celeste Barker said the appointment of a contractor that was not tax-compliant was reckless and careless.

"It will increase patient suffering, delay service provision and add to the already overstretched bed utilisation rates," she said.

"Those in need will have their healthcare compromised by the inefficient and careless appointment process. This will undoubtedly cost lives and cause unspeakable agony."

Barker said she would submit questions to the legislature, asking Dyantyi to explain how this had happened.

Fikile Boyce, of the Eastern Cape Health Crisis Coalition Action Group, said it did not help for the department to boast about "substantial investment" in radiotherapy in Nelson Mandela Bay and the Sarah Baartman District.

"A new machine that cannot be installed is as bad as no machine . Taxpayers' money is being wasted while people die," he said.
The money set aside by Anglo American and Gold Fields to pay out former miners sick with silicosis and TB may be a bargain for shareholders.

Makatleho Selibo is the widow of Mahola Selibo who worked as a team leader at President Steyn mine in Welkom. He worked underground for 33 years. He passed away in 2013 and suffered from tuberculosis and silicosis. He did not receive any compensation from the mines. Photo: Thom Pierce

Editors summary Gold miners sick with silicosis or TB (or their surviving families) are suing the big mining companies in a class action.

The first part of the case was won by the miners, but the mining companies have appealed.

Now Anglo American and Gold Fields have set aside R1.76 billion in a trust that will be used to reach an out-of-court settlement with the miners. There is optimism on both sides that an agreement will be reached.

But there are complications: The number of sick miners, or miners who died of silicosis or TB, is a rough estimate. Many may still become sick. The mines have to find miners affected by silicosis and TB, or their surviving families, across southern Africa.

Lewis explains that the settlement amount may turn out to be a real bargain for the gold mining industry.

As reported by Miningne.ws and AFP in the past fortnight, Anglo American and Gold Fields have formally notified shareholders in their latest half-year financial statements that they have set aside $101 million and $30 million respectively towards a trust to pay compensation to former gold miners suffering from occupationally-caused silicosis and TB. At current exchange rates, that is a total of R1.76 billion. These sums are to settle the class action that sick former mineworkers mounted in the South African courts in 2012 for compensation for damages due to their lung disease.

Anglos financial report showed a profit of profit of $1.415 billion for the first six months of 2017, which turned around a loss of $0.8 billion for the same period last year. This rapid and steep rise in profits, which Anglo attributes to cost cutting and higher commodity prices on markets around the world dwarfs the amount lost due to the proposed settlement of the silicosis/TB matter. Anglo has announced a dividend payout to shareholders on the strength of it, and its share price in London rose by 3.2% on the news.

The other large mining houses operating in South Africa such as African Rainbow Minerals, Harmony Gold, and Sibanye also cited in the class action  might presumably follow suit and set aside funds to settle it.

Lawyers for the former mineworkers and their dependents have been in settlement discussions with the gold industry since the South Gauteng High Court ruled in May 2016 that the scores of miners named in the litigation could bring a class action suit on behalf of all current and former uncompensated miners affected by these diseases. The gold industry leaders have appealed against this ruling and the Supreme Court of Appeal is due to hear the appeal in March 2018 or thereabouts.

Both sides in the litigation seem optimistic about the possibility of reaching a financial settlement in the not-too-distant future. If this happens before the end of the first quarter of 2018, the industrys appeal will essentially fall away. But then requirements in the South Gauteng High Court for it to oversee and approve any out-of-court settlement will apply. This is important because the court made clear findings on a number of crucial issues, including the right of dependents to inherit successful damages claims if sick miners die any time between 2012  when they lodged court papers in the case  and the date of settlement. Many have died already, and they continue to die at a high rate.

The Court also ordered the mines to advertise in newspapers and radio stations all over the southern Africa to help bring sick, impoverished and rurally-isolated mineworkers forward for certification and payment. How much money, to be spent by the mining houses on what types of search and rescue operation for these former mineworkers will therefore be prominent in the mind of the Court when approving any out-of-court settlement.

The big six gold mining houses want new legislation that will bring future claims for silicosis and TB in mining under the Compensation for Occupational Injury and Diseases Act (COIDA) instead of the Occupational Diseases in Mines and Works Act (ODIMWA). The former is under the Department of Labour while the latter is under the Department of Health.

The discussions on this matter between government, trade unions, and the mining houses have been slow to produce results. They have been beset bydifficulties owing to a lack of clarity on eventual solvency, or maladministration, of the benefit funds provided for in both these statutes. So, progress on this question now seems not to be an industry pre-condition for settlement of the class action litigation.

The announcement of money allocated by the mines for settlement coincides with the publication by Professor Rodney Ehrlich of UCT Medical School and three of his colleagues of a scientific paper titled Public Health Implications of changing patterns of recruitment into the South African mining industry, 1973-2012. The authors studied about 10.3 million mining contracts issued or registered by The Employment Bureau of Africa in the 40 years up to 2012, mostly in the gold sector, where silicosis and TB are by far most prevalent. TEBA was owned by the Chamber of Mines, and therefore the major mining houses, until it became a non-profit company in 2005.

The 10 million contracts (short term and open-ended) were taken up by 1.64 million workers and the study gives a detailed picture of the changing geographical origin of migrant mine workers over the period, down to district level, for the entire subcontinent. It is therefore much easier to state with confidence where the workers who will be eligible for the settlement trust payouts are to be found. This should guide the search and rescue efforts already under way, and make it easier to step them up when the settlement is reached.

Ehrlich and his colleagues also discuss in detail the question of how many ex-gold mineworkers with compensable silicosis and TB are actually likely to be still alive, and how long they will live, given what is scientifically known about their exposure times to silica dust and the relationship between silicosis in its various stages of progression, and TB morbidity and mortality. Mandatory lung X-rays for mineworkers begin to pick up silicosis when a gold mine worker has had 15 years of exposure to silica dust. From their study of the TEBA database, Ehrlich and his colleagues estimate that if 60% of gold miners who worked more than 15 years in the mines in the 40 year period to 2012 are still living, this high risk group for silicosis and TB would be a minimum of 133,000 people.

But this is an underestimate, because it does not include increasing numbers of gold mine workers who circumvented the TEBA hiring process in the 1990s until the mid-2000s by signing on directly at the mine. Also, Ehrlich points out that there is other important evidence about the incidence of lung disease in gold mine workers that would increase the potential number of beneficiaries of any settlement.

This evidence emerges from the other major source of data on lung disease in mine workers' mandatory lung and heart autopsies under ODIMWA for all gold mine workers who died of any cause while in mine employment. A large database of the results of these autopsies from the 1970s to early 1990s were studied by other researchers after year 2000, and the results showed that 4% of black miners with less than ten years' of exposure, and 13% with 10 to 14 years of service, died with silicosis. Ehrlich and his colleagues conclude that even relatively short service ex-gold miners may remain at risk of later progression of silicosis to the radiological stage.

They too will be entitled to compensation by law, and any settlement trust should include them when their disease progresses to X-ray detectability, which is required for medical certification under ODIMWA and therefore by the trust before it pays any sick miner out. Ehrlich says that it is not known for certain how long disease progression to X-ray detectability takes for miners with these shorter periods of exposure in their mining careers.

In addition, miners with silicosis, at whatever stage of progression, also have an elevated risk of contracting TB throughout their lifetime. Many have repeated infections of TB after treatment, for which they are also eligible for compensation under ODIMWA and therefore under the settlement trust. Compensation for TB, which is curable, is less of a financial burden to any settlement trust than compensation for silicosis, which is both incurable and progressive (it gets worse and more disabling over time, which increases the compensation the worker is entitled to). But the lower payouts for TB are balanced by the size of the epidemic in the region. Ehrlich points to a 2011 modelling study for TB in the subcontinent which concluded that there are 760,000 new cases of TB every year, which may be linked to mining activity.

With all these uncertainties and time-dependent liabilities for the proposed settlement trust, the lifetime of the trust becomes very important. The longer the trust operates, the more likely it is that it will have to pay out workers with relatively short lifetime exposure to mining, those that by-passed TEBA in the 1990s, and those that survive but continue to be re-infected with TB.

Conversely, if the trust is too short-lived, it will exclude these workers from benefiting when they eventually get sick. In approving any out-of-court settlement, the High Court will therefore have to decide the question of how long the trust must continue before it is wound up. This question is bound up with the financial amount of the settlement, and the extent of the search and rescue operation.

Given the damage that scientific inquiry has shown to have been caused to the migrant labour population by the gold mines in the subcontinent since the 1970s, let alone before that time, the settlement amount may turn out to be a real bargain for the gold mining industry. Certainly, its predominantly institutional investors, such as pension funds, seem happy. It is a deep and humourless irony that successive generations of gold mine workers and their families in sub-Saharan Africa have suffered the devastating effects of lung disease, to say nothing of injury and sudden death from rock falls, so that pension fund managers investing in blue chip South African gold shares could assist generations of pensioners around the developed world to be comfortable in their ever-expanding old age.

Published originally on GroundUp
It was really a daunting thought of coming back to the world of media, after spending a year away from the industry upon having my first baby. After all, a year away from media is like dog years, multiplied by seven. So much can change in a relatively short space of time. I gave all of my time and attention to my little one and blocked out, for the most part, social media and any advertising or media-related conversation, other than having the radio constantly playing during the day in an effort to not over-stimulate my baby with what was on television. How was I going to assimilate back into the media world again? How was I going to catch up with all the changes? How would I cope with a full work day under a fair amount of sleep deprivation (my boy wasn't, and still isn't sleeping through the night)? After spending every single minute of every day with him for the past 365 days, how would this affect me emotionally? Was I going to be bursting into tears at my desk, or in meetings because I miss him so much? These are all very scary thoughts that kept me up at night, for about a month before returning to work.

Hemlata Naidoo

Thankfully, there are so many of us moms in media, and just working moms in general, that I could speak to and be reassured that, being a working mom really makes you work towards being the most efficient mom/person that you can be  at work, as well as at home. You make the hours and minutes count even more when you are spending time away from your child. You appreciate every moment even more. Being a mom really puts things into perspective and you almost feel better equipped to handle the stresses that media can bring. A study done in 2010 by Yale University revealed that growth changes do occur in a womans brain during the first two years of motherhood and that the parts that grow are responsible for emotion, reasoning and judgement, the senses and reward behaviour, definitely some of which we could use in our daily media lives. The study also mentioned that the brain is so amazing at storing information, that coming back to media was almost like riding a bicycle again after many years of not.

Of course working for a forward-thinking company that allows you the flexibility to be a mom really helps too! In Cape Town there are many media agencies led by strong woman, who are moms, so it is encouraging and inspiring to be part of this era, as we have that common thread that helps us relate to each other at various levels of seniority. Taking all of this into consideration, it makes you realise that being a mom really is amazing, but being a mom in media is even better, because you really can have it all.

About Carat

Carats mission is to Redefine Media. Carat creates better business outcomes for clients through its command of media convergence. Established in 1968 as the worlds first media agency, Carat is part of the Dentsu Aegis Network, the global communications network Innovating the Way Brands Are Built. Consistently at the top of RECMAs Global Qualitative Evaluation ranking, Carat serves clients in 150 countries via a network of more than 9,000 talented staff. For more information visit Carat.com or follow @CaratGlobal.

About Dentsu Aegis Network

Part of Dentsu Inc., Dentsu Aegis Network is made up of ten global network brands - Carat, Dentsu, Dentsu media, iProspect, Isobar, mcgarrybowen, Merkle, MKTG, Posterscope and Vizeum and supported by its specialist/multi-market brands. Dentsu Aegis Network is Innovating the Way Brands Are Built for its clients through its best-in-class expertise and capabilities in media, digital and creative communications services. Offering a distinctive and innovative range of products and services, Dentsu Aegis Network is headquartered in London and operates in 145 countries worldwide with more than 38,000 dedicated specialists. www.dentsuaegisnetwork.com




Nowadays it's not just a case of companies being able to unlock the value of their data, they also have to remain compliant with the multiple pieces of data-focused legislation across the globe.

Cleo Becker, regional counsel, sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East, Pakistan, Turkey and Israel for Hitachi Data Systems. Photo: techitout

The EUs General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) coming into effect on 25 May 2018, so South African companies need to understand exactly how they will be affected if they do business in Europe.

According to the legislation any company which processes the personal data of EU residents in connection with the offering of goods or services, or monitors the behaviour of those residents may need to comply.

GDPR will affect SA businesses

There are several key requirements set out in Article 5 of the GDPR, which include the responsibility for companies to process personal data lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner, as well as to ensure that personal data is kept accurate and up to date, and only retained for as long as necessary for a company to achieve the purposes for which the personal data was collected.

There are further requirements stipulated in the legislation of which companies need to take note. One of the most topical of these may be the obligation for personal data to be processed in a manner that ensures appropriate security of that data, including protection against unauthorised or unlawful processing and against accidental loss, destruction or damage. This is particularly the case due to the growing threat of cyberattacks which target personal data.

These requirements make it essential for companies to know what kind of personal data they hold and where it is stored.

How PoPI fits into the picture

To complicate matters, South African companies also need to comply with the Protection of Personal Information Act (PoPI).

Luckily, the provisions across the two pieces of data protection legislation are so similar (save for naming conventions) that complying with the GDPR means complying with PoPI should be smooth sailing.

For example, both PoPI and the GDPR necessitate compliance with certain principles when processing personal data, they both require the regulator be notified in the case of a privacy breach (although notification time periods differ), both PoPI and GDPR call for a data protection officer to be appointed, and both place restrictions on and requirements for what personal data can be sent outside of the EU (in the case of the GDPR) and South Africa (in the case of PoPI).

Unlike the GDPR, we dont know when PoPI will come into effect. What we do know is that there will be a one-year transitional period for companies to become compliant once the date of implementation is announced.

Make sure youre ready

Both POPI and the GDPR require companies to identify all the personal data they hold, keep that personal data up to date and accurate, set retention policies around each piece of personal data and put appropriate security safeguards in place to prevent unauthorised access, loss, damage, modification or destruction of that data.

This means businesses need to make sure they employ industry best practice when it comes to their technology, IT processes and security, ensuring they have clear policies in place; that their staff are properly trained; and that there is adequate protection in their supplier contracts.

To meet these security requirements, companies may also wish to consider technology functionality such as encryption, and ensure that they back up or replicate their data in accordance with best practices to avoid losses.

How tech can help

Technology will play a big role in efficient compliance with GDPR and PoPI as large amounts of data need to be clearly identified and stored for certain periods.

Technology can help companies make sense of their data and increase efficiencies through automation. For example, it can assist in responding to requests from both data subjects and regulators in a timely manner by making the data easily searchable. Once personal data is identified, technology can be used to set further controls around who accesses the personal data and for how long it needs to be retained.

Its no secret that data is increasingly becoming the lifeblood of organisations - gaining greater insight into that data not only assists with regulatory compliance, but also with identifying and uncovering new revenue opportunities.

In remaining compliant with new data protection legislation, companies can generate even greater value from their data, says
A brand new Deluxe Laser branch has opened its doors in The Constantia Village shopping centre in Cape Town. The spa's trained therapists perform a range of skin and body treatments targeted at men and women that are non-invasive and virtually painless.

None of the treatments require recovery time, which means customers leave the spa without any redness or sensitivity. Deluxe Laser uses trusted skincare and body care brands, including QMS Medicosmetics and Caribbean Tan. It's also one of the few local spas that uses and stocks Italian brand Team Dr Joseph, which manufactures a wide range of products to delicately, but effectively, treat various skin types and concerns. The brand is committed to manufacturing high-tech natural cosmetics that fuse nature with science while respecting the natural balance of the skin.

Treatments on offer at the Constantia branch include permanent hair removal using Soprano Ice/eLase Motif laser technology and the FDA-approved Exilis Elite non-surgical anti-ageing procedure that uses radio frequency technology to reduce wrinkles and restore an even skin tone. For facials, Deluxe makes exclusive use of the award-winning spa brand QMS Medicosmetics. There are also manicures, massages and a range of cellulite-reducing treatments to choose from.

Deluxe Laser Constantia Village is the newest branch in the Deluxe Laser family. Other branches include Cavendish Square, Cloud 9 Hotel in Tamboerskloof, Piazza Da Luz in Sea Point, Watercrest Mall and La Lucia Mall.
Schaap composes these delicate photographs using plastic waste found on Cape Towns Clifton Beach. Each of her images is arranged within moments using pastel-hued paper as a background. She scours the beach, collecting handfuls of discarded items and groups them together according to their colours. In her view, plastic straws, clumps of fishing wire and rubber flip-flops present an opportunity for beauty which should not to be overlooked.

Speaking to i-D, Schaap describes the moment that spurred her on to start Plastic Ocean as an ongoing project. After witnessing how colourful debris would wash onto the local beach like decorative flecks of shrapnel among the sand, Schaap decided to move.

"It was like confetti, like there'd been a birthday," she says, "It made me realise what we've done."

Though ethereal and pretty, Schaaps Plastic Ocean represents the real ecological danger of our global obsession with plastic products. She aims to turn some of her flotsam photographs into instructive posters to be distributed among coastal wildlife organisations, to help beach-goers identify and recycle different types of plastic waste on their own. By the same token, Schaaps work is a noteworthy exercise on how preciousness can be made from nothing for a good cause.
As sub-Saharan Africa's climate changes, small-scale farmers are increasingly looking to innovative ways of dealing with agricultural challenges. And in some instances, the techniques they adopt are helping to combat climate change, too.

Alternative animal feed, climate-friendly grasses and the use of fodder trees are among the examples providing farmers resilience and leading to benefits such as more productive livestock and new business opportunities - all while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and building healthy soils.

As unpredictable weather and natural disasters hamper food security across the globe, innovation will be paramount for the world's food producers, from smallholder farmers to industrial operations. Here are three novel ways African farmers are using adaptive strategies to thrive.

Brachiaria grass

In sub-Saharan Africa, some farmers are adapting to climate change by seeding pastures with Brachiaria grass. Some varieties of this forage can survive harsh conditions, such as drought and low fertile soils while helping to reduce the environmental impacts of livestock production.

Jonathan Wilkins via Wikimedia Commons - Brachiaria pasture

In October 2016, a study by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, CIAT for short, found that farmers in East Africa stood to produce 15-40 percent more milk and generate tens of millions of dollars in additional revenue by using the drought-tolerant grass.

Unlike Napier grass, which is forage used by many farmers in zero-grazing agricultural systems, production of Brachiaria is not constrained during the dry season, according to An Notenbaert, CIAT's forage coordinator for Africa.

"Farmers like Brachiaria because of its adaptability to low rainfall... and low fertility and acidic soils, and its production of green forage year round without any input of fertiliser," she says. "Brachiaria grass has [a] relatively high crude protein content due to greater leafiness and thinner stems than those of traditional Napier grass, resulting in higher nutritive quality."

One farmer who has witnessed the benefits of this grass is Albanas Nduva, who lives in Kikambuani village in eastern Kenya, an hour's drive east of Nairobi. He has 10 dairy cows on his five-hectare (12-acre) piece of land, of which 0.8 hectares (2 acres) has been set aside for planting Brachiaria grass. "The grass grows very fast compared to others, and I have observed increased milk production from my cows," says Nduva, who uses the grass as forage instead of pasture because his animals are kept in an enclosure. "I harvest the grass every two months, which is in contrast to other types, such as Napier, which matures at between three and four months." Nduva got 38 liters (10 gallons) of milk per cow daily before he began feeding them with the new grass. Now he gets 47 liters (12 gallons).

In 2012, with funding from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, the Biosciences eastern and central Africa - International Livestock Research Institute and a number of other research facilities and organisations began studying new Brachiaria grasses in Kenya and Rwanda. They found that Brachiaria is good for the environment because cows easily digest it, reducing the release of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. In addition, because these grasses are deep-rooted they are able to sequester more carbon than other grasses.

More than 6,000 farmers are now growing the grass species across Kenya, according to Donald Njarui, senior principal scientist at the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization, a corporate body that coordinates and promotes agricultural research and that's part of the Kenyan government. However, Njarui says, for wider dissemination and more research it will be necessary to register the grass species as varieties, which will allow seeds to be imported and opened to a global market.

"This will make it possible to import the seeds from any part of the world, unlike what is happening today," Njarui says - a key step since Brachiaria grass has become very important across the world, with seed production already commercialised in big cattle-producing countries like Brazil.

Nutrient block

As droughts become more frequent and more severe, pastoralists in northern Kenya are increasingly using a multi-urea nutrient block feed supplement for livestock as a coping mechanism when wild forage is in short supply.

Marsabit County, where more than three-quarters of rural residents live below the poverty line of 1,562 Kenyan shillings (about $15) per month, is an eight-hour drive north of Nairobi. Here, cyclical droughts are common and severely disrupt the people's livestock-dependent livelihoods, often causing massive livestock deaths due to lack of vegetation and water. However, Benson Mosor, the former food security field officer at Soliderites International, says that since the introduction of the multi-nutrient block, livestock deaths have gone down 10 percent.

Solidarites International, an international humanitarian organisation, helped train farmers to make and sell the blocks - which are a mixture of molasses, urea, salt, lime and other ingredients that help with bone formation, energy production and food absorption while providing necessary nutrients. "It was a big challenge to work with villagers at the beginning because they did not understand immediately what we were talking about," says Mosor. However, the nutrient block is gaining acceptance among pastoralists due to education efforts, according to Mosor.

A three to four-kilogramme (seven to nine-pound) block costs around 100 Kenyan shillings (about $1) to make and helps feed between four to five goats for a week, making it much cheaper than conventional feed. Corn-based feed, for instance, will cost between 2,000 to 3,300 Kenya shillings ($20 to$30) per week to feed the same number of animals.

Andrew Abudo, a 27-year old goatherd from Galasa village, says that since he began supplementing his animal feed with the nutrient block his goats are thriving, even in the face of severe drought. The United Nations issued an alert in December 2016 advising the country to brace itself for a worsening drought in 2017. "The animals will never die after feeding them on this block, unlike what used to happen before I started feeding it to my goats," says Abudo.

Sgt. Michelle Halpin via Wikimedia Commons

In addition to these benefits, a business opportunity has emerged, with villagers from Galasa making and selling the blocks. "We make these blocks to sell to outlying communities," explains Ali Elema, a member of this group. One block sells for 250 Kenya shillings ($2.50). The villagers have showcased their product in various forums, including the Kalacha Cultural Food and Music Festival, a popular gathering in Marsabit where pastoralists share knowledge and experience.

Planting fodder trees

Fodder trees are fast-growing trees that provide food for dairy cows and goats. The World Agroforestry Centre, or ICRAF, estimates that nearly a quarter-million farmers have planted these trees in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda. "These trees are important for helping farmers adapt to climate change because, being deep-rooted, they are resistant to drought and maintain high-protein green fodder during the dry season, when the protein level of grasses decline[s]," says Steve Franzel, principal agricultural economist at ICRAF.

Nevit Dilmen via Wikimedia Commons - Acacias are fodder trees planted in Tanzania as fodder trees

In addition, "the trees are generally planted as hedges and often along field contours, helping prevent soil erosion," says Franzel.

Mary Gichuki, a farmer who lives a few minutes' drive from Nairobi in Kiambu County, not only uses fodder trees on her land, but also sells tree seeds and seedlings and educates other farmers on using them. She began planting the trees in her small plot in 2006 after receiving training from ICRAF. "Farmers listen to me more because people have seen how the trees have lifted me from some level of poverty to where I am today," says Gichuki.

A two-kilogramme (four-pound) packet of the seeds will fetch her 6,000 Kenyan shillings ($60), and she has between 60 and 90 customers a month during the rainy season.

Increasingly important innovations

Irregular and erratic weather is a big impediment for improving crop yields for smallholder farmers, especially in a region that depends on rain-fed agriculture. Meanwhile, food security will continue to be a global issue affecting much of the world's population. Innovations that make farms less vulnerable to wide swings in conditions will become increasingly important as climate changes and population grows. Productive, affordable and accessible practices like these could make all the difference between barely surviving and thriving in an increasingly uncertain future.
Investec Property Fund (IPF) has sold a seed portfolio to Izandla Property, its broad-based black empowerment partner, for R586.9m.

The portfolio of 17 properties represents an initial property yield of 10.4% on a fully let basis. The disposal consideration would be settled partly in cash and partly through the provision of the requisite funding to Izandla by IPF and the Entrepreneurship Development Trust. Izandla is majority owned by EDT, a broad-based charitable trust, which has 65% shareholding, while IPF owns the remaining 35%.

Izandla founder Sthembile Nkabinde said she wanted the company to grow to be a separately listed entity that could compete in the property sector within a few years.

The seed portfolio comprised properties with an average value per property of R35m.

The portfolio weighted average lease expiry (wale) was 3.4 years with an average escalation of 7.8% per annum.

Nkabinde said the portfolio would benefit from both a strong quality of earnings and potential upside through redevelopment.

The two largest assets by value are the Union Castle Building in Cape Town's CBD with a weighted average lease expiry of 4.8 years and Greenhill Village, which is a multi-tenanted office property located in Lynwood, Pretoria.

"The Foschini building in the Joburg CBD presents potential future residential conversion opportunities which can be explored by Izandla," she said.

Given the relative size of IPF's investment into Izandla Property compared with its total assets, the seed portfolio transaction was not expected to have an effect on IPF's distribution per share for the year ending March 31, 2018. The net property income attributable to the seed portfolio in respect of the 12 months ended March 31, 2017 was a total of R58.7m and excluded income on either currently vacant space, or space assumed to become vacant during the year. On a fully let basis, the net property income would be R2.5m higher for the same period. IPF would guarantee the gross rental income of the Izandla portfolio to May 2018, saying that it would increase at least 8.0% a year until the end of May 2020. IPF would provide about R13m for maintenance capital expenditure, tenant installations and letting commissions during the period.

Izandla is more than 30% female owned.

Source: Business Day
Highly awarded hotel architect and founder of Dexter Moren Associates, Dexter Moren is returning to THINC Africa by popular demand to share his expertise and experience, speaking on the Design and Development panel.

THINC is the perfect size, not too big, so there is the opportunity to converse with most of the attendees, which is not always possible at larger events. There was also an interesting group of people over the two days last year, Moren says, adding that he was looking forward to returning as he was impressed by the inaugural conference and the level of networking it offered.

Golf Park Hotel evening view with signage

Moren grew up in Johannesburg and maintains a strong affinity with Africa, which is evident in the spectacular hospitality designs he and his team have created throughout the continent. His first hotel design was the 30-storey iconic beachfront Marine Parade hotel in Durban in 1981. Its a testament to his incredible career that 36 years later he is now about to see the launch of his latest African hotel design, Tsogo Suns SunSquare complex in Cape Town, opening in September 2017 - which is currently owned by the same owners as that first Durban hotel.

Moren says the South African market is sophisticated with good construction and trades. There were no unusual challenges with Tsogo Sun, and the project is set to open earlier than anticipated too, perhaps a minor challenge was negotiating the local architect planning design committee.

Challenges in developing a hotel in Africa

Regarding the challenges of developing a hotel in Africa, compared with Europe, Moren says those challenges often arise due to different policies, finance and logistics. To have a successful project in Africa, you need to work with partners who are experienced, as well as eager to work in the country. We have developed good working relationships with both local and international developers.

When it comes to the future of tourism in Africa, Moren is very optimistic: The wonderful thing about arriving in Africa is that you will always receive a very warm welcome, rather than being questioned on why you are visiting.

It is crucial for the growth of tourism, however, that government creates an environment which encourages foreigners to invest.

To quote Bill Marriott  The first impression is the lasting impression. If talking about tourism, what more do you want than a beautiful country and friendly people who want you to experience it.

Celebrating 25 years in business, DMA is an award-winning practice of architecture and design specialists who work across the entire hospitality spectrum, with a design-led ethos of creating places people want to stay.

The second annual THINC Africa conference is taking place in Cape Town 30-31 August at the FNB Portside Building, V&A Waterfront. For more information visit THINC Africa.
Most people probably don't put much value in playparks as an educational facility, but they're more than just a place to let your kids run riot for the afternoon.

This Women's Month, I chatted to the entrepreneurial genius behind Bugz Playpark, Lise Liebenberg, about early childhood development beyond the classroom, and running your own business...

Tell us a bit about yourself...

I am the owner of the largest childrens playpark in the Western Cape with a full blown passion for that one little word called play.

I live with my partner Jadrick Coetzee in Paarl. We do not have any kids of our own but I turn to our eight nieces and nephews for inspiration and advice in our world of play.

My hobbies include travelling and constantly scouring the internet for the latest trends in playparks.

The ethos at Bugz Playpark is all about play with purpose and getting the little ones to play naturally and outdoors where possible.

I live by the statement that When you want to do something you feel passionate about making a success, you will research, budget and fight for it as long as it takes! Any entrepreneurial idea can work but you have to feel it in your veins!

What inspired you to open Bugz Playpark?

During my travels I came across the magical Sprokieswereld in Efteling, Holland. I fell in love with their magical concept and admired their clever mix of play equipment combined with their building structures that stimulates ones imagination. The craftsmanship of Sprokieswereld was to me, out of this world.

Completely blown away and even more determined to make my dreams a reality, Jadrick and I sold a property in KwaZulu-Natal to act as the start-up cost for the project.

I also decided to try my hand at entrepreneurship instead of settling for the comfort of a steady income in the corporate world.

What do you believe are the most important things children learn from play?

I can watch kids play for hours. I wish parents would spend more time observing their children at play as there is so much to see and learn about ones child through the way they play. It is through play that children learn and develop essential skills such as problem-solving, social interaction, independence and so forth. It also allows kids a way to express and cope with feelings.

Play is also all important in the development and strengthening of a child's gross and fine motor skills. If these small and large muscles are well developed through play then it assists children in e.g. holding their pencil, comfortably using small objects such as their lego blocks and specifically also enhancing their concentration.

We pay too little attention to the development of these motor skills and I am often fascinated about how many kids struggle with their gross motor skills. If one has to watch the kids on the monkey bars these days, it is clear to see how many struggle to hang and it is very obvious that outdoor play is not being encouraged as much as it should be.

At any playpark, with kids climbing and jumping all over the place, safety is always a concern. How do you address this?

The safety of all equipment is paramount to us and safety checks are conducted all the time. We have a full time maintenance team ensuring that all equipment meets safety standards.

We also ensure that our play professionals only allow kids on rides that are age appropriate.

However, we are also firm believers that a certain amount of risk-taking in play is necessary for a childs development. We encourage parents to be observant in this regard and to allow kids to test their comfort zone. All under the watchful guidance of the parent, of course.

Where do you see Bugz Playpark in five years (and what can we do to convince you to open a branch in the Southern Suburbs or Deep South)?

We have often toyed with the idea of franchising Bugz as we believe that every main suburb should have a decent place of play for kids. However, many people underestimate the cost of starting such an initiative. The reality of the required infrastructure in terms of ground, groundworks, energy supply, HR etc has been the deterring factor thus far.

Until then we are in the infancy stages of planning an outdoor adventure park on the way to Stellenbosch. We already have the ground which is half the battle won.

What advice would you give your younger self?

Do not worry as much because 80% of the things that you worry about do not happen.

Its the toughest times that are the most significant in honing oneself and honing ones business, so embrace those times

Write down your goals for each week and do them first otherwise you will find that you have wasted much time on insignificant things.

As we're celebrating Women's Month, what message do you have for aspiring women entrepreneurs?

Spending time on setting your goals in writing is the best time that you could possibly spend.

Goal setting assists in clarity of vision and if you have clarity of vision then you can make anything happen. There is a website called livingwellspendingless.com and they have a very specific goal setting workbook that I would highly recommend to all woman entrepreneurs. Completing this goal setting workbook will most probably be one of the best things that you could do for yourself.
The conventional view is that insecurity of land tenure results from the lack of a registered title deed which records the property rights of occupants of land or housing. Across Africa, many governments and international development agencies are promoting large-scale land titling as the solution.

Nearly 60% of all South Africans, live on land or in dwellings outside of the land titling system. Filckr/Icrisat

In the South African context, some commentators suggest that a key legacy of the apartheid past is the continued tenure insecurity of the third of the population who live in communal areas, under unelected chiefs or of traditional councils. The remedy, they suggest, is simple: extend the system of title deeds to all South Africans.

We have just published a book which disputes this view. Untitled. Securing land tenure in urban and rural South Africa contains case studies of a wide range of land tenure systems found in different parts of the country. These include informal settlements, inner city buildings in Johannesburg, deep rural communal systems, land reform projects, and examples of systems of freehold rights held by black South Africans since the 19th century.

With the exception of systems of freehold rights, most people who occupy land or dwellings in these areas are untitled, and occupy land or dwellings under a very different kind of property regime. We term these social or off-register tenures.

But we argue that, fundamentally, South Africans need to question the assumption that the sole solution to the problem of tenure insecurity is a system of title deeds. Alternative approaches are needed, which we set out to explore.

Social tenures

The book offers an analysis of social tenures, which are regulated by a different logic and set of norms than those underpinning private property. Such tenures are diverse but share some key features. As is the case across the developing world, including Africa, land tenure is directly embedded in social identities and relations.

Rights are often shared and overlapping in character and generally derive from accepted membership of a community or kinship group. Processes of land allocation and dispute resolution are overseen by local institutional structures.

In these contexts, decisions are often informed by norms and values that stress the importance of reciprocal social relationships rather than buying power as the basis for land allocation. They involve flexible processes of asserting, negotiating and defending land rights, rather than the enforcement of legally defined rules.

Its estimated that in 2011 some 1.5 million people lived in low-cost dwellings provided to the poor by governments, so-called Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) houses, with inaccurate or outdated titles, in most cases due to transfers outside of the formal system.

Another 5 million lived in RDP houses where no titles had yet been issued due to systemic inefficiencies. Along with 1.9 million people in backyard shacks, 2 million on commercial farms, and 17 million in communal areas, this means that in that year around 30 million people, nearly 60% of all South Africans, lived on land or in dwellings held outside of the land titling system.

Flickr

The edifice of title deeds

The book contrasts social tenures with the conventional system of title deeds, which constitutes a key element of an imposing edifice. The current system of rates, services and processes of development assumes that land tenure equals a surveyed plot with a singular registered owner, which may be persons or corporate bodies.

The system is serviced by a Deeds Registry, private sector surveyors and conveyancers, as well as municipal officials, all governed by a range of laws and regulations in a complex and interlocking manner.

One key problem facing those in social tenures is the discrimination they suffer at the hands of the state and the private sector. Despite some protection under laws such as the Interim Protection of Informal Land Rights Act of 1996, people living in social tenures are severely disadvantaged. They may have to go to court to have their rights legally enforced, but most cannot afford to do so.

Development and land use planning, public investment and service delivery are constrained under these systems of tenure. Elite capture or abuse by unaccountable leaders can also take place, as in communal areas where minerals are found and chiefs and councils enter into business deals with mining companies that benefit only a few.

Titling enthusiasts argue that another problem with social tenures is the fact that banks do not accept untitled land or dwellings as security for bank loans. This constrains the poor from borrowing capital to invest in businesses of their own. But research indicates that few of the poor are willing to risk their homes in this way, since small enterprises often fail.

Tenure reform policy options

How then to proceed with pro-poor tenure reform? Our research indicates that it is not realistic to extend land titling to all; the system may be at breaking point, and is inadequate even for the emerging middle class.

Another option is to adapt elements of the edifice to provide a degree of official and legal recognition of rights within social tenures. Lawyers and planners working with communities and officials have developed a range of innovative practices, concepts and instruments aimed at securing such rights in an incremental manner. This includes special land use zones, recognising occupation rights in informal settlements, and recording rights using locally accepted forms of evidence.

A third option is a more radical overhaul of land tenure, leading to systematic recognition of and large scale support for social tenures. This would involve stronger laws protecting rights holders, an adjudication system that allows new forms of evidence to be considered in determining who holds rights, and new institutions for negotiating, recording and registering rights under social tenures. The system could include the office of a Land Rights Protector.

We believe that these alternatives all pose their own challenges. But we also believe that pursuing alternatives to a system of title deeds is not an impossible task.

The book was co-authored with Dona Hornby, a post-doctoral student at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape; Rosalie Kingwill, at the institute and Lauren Royston, a researcher at the Socio-Economic Rights Institute.
African airlines have registered the fastest growth in freight volumes in seven years in the first half of this year, buoyed by strong trade lines between the continent and Asia.

Konstantin von Wedelstaedt via Wikimedia Commons

Data released by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) for the global airfreight markets shows that the volumes were up 31.6 percent, with a capacity increase of 7.6 percent. This improvement contributed to a freight demand growth of 25.9 percent in the first half of 2017 - the fastest in all regions.

The demand has resulted from increased trade between the continent and China, which has grown by nearly 60 percent in the six months to June 2017.

"Seasonally adjusted growth has levelled off in recent months, but growth is set to remain in double digits for the remainder of 2017," IATA said in its half-year report.

Air cargo flying high

IATA director-general Alexandre de Juniac said that air cargo is flying high on the back of a stronger global economy and a rebound from the 2010 global economic crisis. "This was the strongest first half-year performance in seven years and nearly triple the industry's average growth rate of 3.9 percent over the past five years.

"We have seen the demand grow at a faster pace than at any time since the global financial crisis. That's great news after many years of stagnation," said Juniac.

Industry taking advantage of momentum

"And even more importantly, the industry is taking advantage of this momentum to accelerate the much-needed modernisation process and improve the value it provides to its customers."

In June, Ethiopian Airlines announced that it had signed a commitment with Boeing for the purchase of two B777 freighters at a cost of $651.4m. This was after purchasing two aircraft to boost its freight business. The airline's group chief executive officer Tewolde GebreMariam said the freighters are strategic for the airline as it seeks to chart its long-term plan.

"We are building one of the world's largest cargo terminals, and having a new generation and high-performance aircraft shows our commitment to supporting the continent's growing cargo and logistics service," said Tewolde.

KQ's cargo centre

In April, Kenya Airways opened a new cargo centre at its hub at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, projecting to increase its annual revenue by $2m.

"This centre will benefit our cargo business partners through reduced lead time. This will help us position JKIA as the preferred transit cargo hub. The centre is modelled as a one-stop shop to ease the clearing process. We will now be more efficient in handling specialised cargo like pharmaceuticals," the airline's then chief executive Mbuvi Ngunze said.

Kenya Airways' reduced capacity to uplift cargo saw its tonnage uplift decrease by 20.9 percent in the first half of the financial year ending March this year.

On the global scale, the cargo volumes grew by 10.4 percent in the first-half of 2017 compared with 8.4 percent growth over the same period in 2016. Freight capacity also grew by 3.6 percent as airlines updated their freighters or got new equipment.

Signs that the cyclical growth period may have peaked

The IATA report shows that the global demand growth continued to significantly outstrip capacity growth, which is positive for yields.

"The sustained growth of air freight demand is consistent with an improvement in global trade, with new global export orders remaining close to a six-year high. However, there are signs that the cyclical growth period may have peaked.

"The global inventory-to-sales ratio has stopped falling. This indicates that the period when companies look to restock inventories quickly, which often gives air cargo a boost, may be nearing an end.

"Regardless of these developments, the outlook for air freight is optimistic with demand expected to grow at a robust rate of eight percent in the third quarter of this year," the IATA report notes.

Passenger traffic

African airlines' passenger traffic, on the other hand, increased by 9.9 percent in the six months to June 2017, while the capacity rose to 7.1 percent. Their load factor (capacity utilisation) grew marginally by 1.7 percentage points to 64.3 percent - the lowest in the world.

Globally, in the six months to June, the passenger traffic demand rose by 7.8 percent compared with the same period a year ago, largely driven by the Asian, Americas and European markets. For the first six months of this year, the industry experienced a 12-year high in traffic growth of 7.9 percent and a record first half load factor of 80.7 percent.

"The brighter global economic picture and lower airfares are keeping demand for travel strong. But as costs rise, this stimulus of lower fares is likely to fade. And uncertainties such as Brexit must be watched carefully. Nonetheless, we still expect to see an above-trend growth this year," said Juniac.

IATA says that the conditions in Africa's two largest economies have continued to diverge, with business confidence in Nigeria rising sharply in recent months, while South Africa's economy fell into recession in the first quarter, affecting the performance of the airlines.

This year, several African airlines have received new aircraft as they position themselves for the battle for the skies. In June, Ethiopian Airlines signed an order of 10 Airbus A350-900 planes worth more than $3bn, in addition to another two orders it has placed.

The airline also placed orders worth $163m with the Canadian plane maker Bombardier for five aircraft. Rwandan national carrier RwandAir, Kenya's low-cost carrier Jambojet and Air Tanzania are among airlines that have received aircraft this year.
The trade and investment relationship with the United States through AGOA should support the continent's efforts to industrialise in line with Agenda 2063; and contribute to regional integration and support the development of regional value-chains, Africa ministers of trade have emphasised in a joint statement.

 Peter Titmuss via 123RF

However, more needs to be done to promote value-added trade and promote industrial development in Africa. In terms of the African Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA), eligible countries remain largely exporters of primary products, so Ministers of Trade from AGOA eligible-countries met on the sidelines of the 16th AGOA Forum held from 9-10 August 2017 in Lome, Togo and developed a joint statement (the Readout).

The Forum was held under the theme United States and Africa Partnering for prosperity through trade.

The ministers emphasised that AGOA must support industrialisation and promote regional integration, as well as value-addition so as to change the structure of the economies in the continent.

AGOA is a unilateral Act of the US Congress that was introduced in 2000 to provide duty-free quota-free treatment for over 6 000 tariff lines into the United States market. It was worth $33 billion in trade in 2016 between the US and Sub-Saharan Africa.

AGOA is a cornerstone of United States-Africa trade relations and has facilitated mutually beneficial trade and investment relations between eligible African countries and the US. Through AGOA, non-energy exports from Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) into the US, mainly for clothing and textile, autos and agriculture and food products have grown.

Sustainable development

Policy issues should be on the basis of cooperation and should not limit the use of policy tools which Africa needs to industrialise.

Ministers noted that AGOA is an Act of US Congress to promote two-way trade and investment with a view to support sustainable development. They agreed that the out-of-cycle review is an integral part of AGOA legislation. However, the review process should not be used in a way that would be detrimental to the spirit of AGOA and urged the United States to consider legitimate public policy issues that are critical to Africas development, in considering petitions for out-of-cycle reviews.

The gathering was the first forum between Sub-Saharan Africa and the United States under the Trump Administration. According to the Readout, strengthening the African regional integration agenda through initiatives such as the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA), will boost Intra-Africa trade, promote the development Regional Value Chains and boost industrial development. This will increase the utilisation of AGOA preferences and expand benefits across a greater number of African countries.

In addition, there is a need for African countries to develop a common position on the trade and investment relationship with the United States.

The Forum is held on an alternating basis between Sub-Saharan Africa and the United States, with the 2016 Forum held in Washington, USA. The AGOA legislation was reauthorised in 2015 for 10 years until 2025.

For South Africa, AGOA has contributed to growth in trade with the United States in a mutually beneficial manner and is estimated to have created 62 000 jobs in South Africa and over 100 000 jobs in the US. More importantly, it has promoted intra-industry investments and linkages.

South Africas exports to the US grew from R64.4 billion in 2012 to R80.4 billion in 2016. Key South African exports into the U.S. include transport equipment, agricultural products, minerals and metal products, as well as chemical products.
LUANDA, Angola - A new Angolan beverage plant has been approved for development. Grupo Sun Ocean Lda is a project in Angola's beverage sector with capacity to produce, package and distribute juice, water and wine with significant capacity to contribute to positive economic and social impacts in Angola.

(L-R) Joana Filipe Simplicio, legal consultant; Silvia Fernandes, head of department (Chefe de departamento in Portuguese), UTIP; Martin Bachmann, group head active management, Quantum Global Group.

Grupo Sun Ocean Lda is a project in Angolas beverage sector with capacity to produce, package and distribute juice, water and wine with significant capacity to contribute to positive economic and social impacts in Angola.

A company (Grupo Sun Ocean Lda) formed by Sun Ocean Holdings Ltd, a local partner with extensive experience in the Angolan market, Embasa (Equatorial Guinea) and QG African Infrastructure 1 LP, has received formal approval from UTIP (Technical Unit for Private Investment) in Angola.

UTIP, whose function is to receive, analyse and manage private investment, took into consideration the socio-economic justification of the project within the Angolan context, in particular, for the beverage sector in the country. In addition, the approval provides a green light for the projects financial model and feasibility assessment.

Martin Bachmann, group head active management, Quantum Global Group, commented: I am truly delighted about the creation of this project [Grupo Sun Ocean Lda] and to receive the approval of UTIP. Quantum Global is excited to be investing in a sector which will contribute greatly to Angolas drink and beverage sector as well as the diversification of the Angolan economy.

Once fully operational, Grupo Sun Ocean Lda has a target output of over 80 million litres annually and will employ over 400 employees. The company will occupy a unique position in Angolas drinks and beverage market, in a country that has shown significant progress in increasing wealth, macroeconomic stability and economic diversification in recent years.

Working to develop local juice, water and wine production and packaging capacity in Angola, initially serving the Luanda market and other nearby provinces in Angola, Grupo Sun Ocean Lda. is well positioned to contribute to the stability and ongoing development of the countrys drink and beverage sector as well as the significant creation of new jobs and comprehensive supply chains.
In line with its strategy to grow its presence in Africa, Vuma Reputation Management, headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, has signed memorandums of understanding (MOU) with four leading African communications agencies, boosting its footprint across the continent.

Janine Hills

Vuma is a leading South African reputation and crisis management company which celebrates its 12th anniversary this year; and has operated in 10 African countries providing support to multi-national companies. The company specialises in reputation management, stakeholder relationship management, media relations management, crisis communication, and public relations.

It has signed MOUs with the following agencies on the continent:

 BSD Group, based in Nairobi, Kenya.

 Zeleman, based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

 Prosper Agbenyega, based in Accra, Ghana.

 Design Innovation, based at Lusaka, Zambia.

With economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa projected by the World Bank to rebound over the next three years, following a lull last year, we want to be part of this growth story and contribute to the advancement of our beautiful continent, said Janine Hills, CEO and founder of Vuma Reputation Management, and Brand South Africa board member.

Hills said the MOUs with its African partners will give the company strong presence in three African regions - namely East, West, and Southern Africa - where African companies and multinationals can tap into the continents growth opportunities by leveraging strategic reputation management, communications, and public relations capabilities.

Tshepo Sefotlhelo, chief operations officer for Vuma Reputation Management, has been instrumental in securing affiliate partnerships with these four leading agencies. We firmly believe that the journey we have embarked on with our African partners will accelerate our shared and mutual growth, whereby we will provide world class services to our clients doing business in Africa and those businesses that are looking for investment opportunities on the continent. We are Africans working for Africa, said Sefotlhelo.

Africas expanding economy

According to the World Bank, growth in Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to recover moderately in 2017 to 2.6% after slowing in 2016 to 1.5%. The continents economic prospects are expected to improve further in 2018 and 2019, with Africas economy projected to expand at 3.2% and 3.5% respectively on the back of improvement in commodity prices and a recovery in the global economy.

As part of its expansion strategy, Vuma Reputation Management has established the Africa Division, which is led by Nonye Mpho Omotola, business director, Africa, who is a communications specialist with more than 15 years in strategic brand experience gained in the UK, South Africa, and Nigeria.

Omotola said the four communications agencies are a perfect fit for Vuma Reputation Management as they bring to the table their deep local knowledge of the markets they operate in, while Vuma Reputation Management brings a full range of reputation management and communications services that will benefit its African partners and their clients alike.

Vuma Reputation Management has more than a decade of experience in reinforcing our clients positions in their respective markets, and in creating proactive strategies to build and manage their reputations. We now want to grow our market leadership across Africa, where we have identified market gaps and opportunities to offer services, said Omotola.

Vuma Reputation Management will work closely with its partners to improve reputation management and communication standards on the African continent. Through the Vuma Training Academy, Vuma Reputation Management will transfer skills and knowledge to help develop a pool of African communication professionals and reputation managers to ensure that companies operating on the continent receive an excellent service.
The new party is the result of a merger between the Kayah Unity Democracy Party and the All Nationals Democracy Party (Kayah State).

The party was created with the aim of establishing federalism in the region including via the peace process, said Sai Naing Naing Htwe, spokesperson of the Kayah State Democratic Party.

The officials from the two political parties felt that by uniting forces they could form a stronger bloc, he added.

The party was registered with the Union Election Commission on August 4, and the partys new name, flag and emblem are being announced to the public.

Sai Naing Naing Htwe said the party will begin drafting its policy manifesto and will lay out future plans and elect the executive committee soon.

We will work as an ally with all democratic parties that are interested in the federal union system. We will focus on the politics of Kayah State and work together with other democratic forces on the issues, he said.


Ma Thida Mon, the main suspects wife, was

arrested on August 14 after police found a hand

grenade in her home (Photo: MNA) Ma Thida Mon, the main suspects wife, wasarrested on August 14 after police found a handgrenade in her home (Photo: MNA)

The suspect police were looking for, Ko Soe Khet, also known as Ko Kyaw Khet, 29, was not at his house in Hnit Kayin Village at the time of the police inspection. Ma Thida Mon, the suspects wife, told the officers she did not know of her husbands whereabouts.

In searching the premises, police found a hand grenade in a wardrobe, according to U Shwe, a member of the Hnit Kayin Villages voluntary fire brigade who took part in the bust.

We heard that he [Ko Soe Khet] had a bomb. We didnt dare go [to his house] at night so we only went there in the morning. He didnt come home that night. There was only his wife, mother-in-law and child [at home], said U Shwe.

The Lamaing Myoma Police Station charged Ma Thida Mon under Section 19 of the Arms Act.

We havent been able to arrest Ko Kyaw Khet yet. We have arrested people who use and distribute drugs. We are taking action against these suspects, said Police Inspector Nai Win Thein, head of the Hnit Kayin Police Outpost.

Police also arrested five drug users and distributors in the area, including a 21-year-old who was arrested at his home with 0.1 grams of methamphetamine, or ICE. A 47-year-old man and a 28-year-old man were arrested together at a rubber plantation with 0.02 grams of ICE. Another two suspected users, a 22-year-old and 23-year-old were arrested with six ICE pills and told police they had bought the drugs from Ko Kyaw Khet, according to officers at the Hnit Kayin Police Outpost.

Lamaing Myoma Police Station filed charges against the five men and against Ko Soe Khet under sections 15, 16(c), and 21 of the Narcotics Drug and Psychotropic Substance Law.

According to the Hnit Kayin Village administrator, Ko Soe Khet is a Mon national from Tha Byu Chaung Village, Paung township who moved to Hnit Kayin Village with his family.
Q: Please tell us about the Karen Swedish Community.

A: We established the Karen Swedish Community in 2005. There were only a few members, 20 or 30, back then. We werent able to organize well at first.

Our aim is to preserve our Karen language and Karen traditions and customs like days of significance and Karen attire for the next generation. We also want to share our experiences and help each other after we arrived in Sweden, while not forgetting what our parents have faced. We dont want our history to be forgotten in Sweden.

We have organized this community to help ensure the Karen people do not face difficulties, depression or discrimination in Sweden.

Q: How many members are in the Karen Swedish Community now?

A: As far as we know, there are over 1,200 Karen people living in Sweden. We have over 600 members, including about 300 to 400 active members. There are 11 people on the executive committee. We also have womens affairs, youth affairs, and education [committees]. These committees meet once a year. An election is held every two years.

Q: When did the Karen people start settling in Sweden? How did they end up there?

A: A few of them arrived at the end of 2004. The number [of Karen people] increased in 2005. The people who came in 2004 came under the IDP Resettlement Program...More Karen people came directly from the refugee camps under the resettlement program in 2005-2006.

Q: What has it been like trying to preserve Karen culture, literature, traditions and customs over the last ten years, especially among the Karen youth in Sweden?

A: There arent any problems with the youth, but the children who were born here and those who arrived at a young age have difficulty learning their own language and culture because they are very close to the local [Swedish] society. Youth around the age of 15 or 16 dont have problems. They can understand the Karen language well. They can also read and write the language and they understand Karen culture. Children who arrived at the age of five or six dont know how to speak in Karen. This is our first concern. The main responsibility of the KSC is to preserve the Karen language and culture.

Up to 128 youth have graduated from high schools since we arrived here. This is something to be happy about. One or two youth have graduated from college. As far as we know, many Karen youth are attending college now. This will increase in the future. We expect the youth to work hard. We always urge them to study hard.

Q: The Karen people mostly called land in the mountains and forests home in the past. What kind of difficulties have they faced after settling in a big country?

A: Some adults struggle to learn a new language so its very difficult for them to enter Swedish society. Most of them only socialise within the Karen community, they dont go anywhere else. Children and youth dont have any problems. They can keep up [with the Swedish society]. We encourage the adults to learn, but in my opinion, the adults grew up in a culture very different from Swedish society. They have different views. As they dont understand the language well, they cant search for information. They dont understand the laws so they are always afraid. This greatly affects their morale.

The employment standards are mostly high in Sweden. They mostly want [to hire] educated people. Even if you want to work as a cleaning staff, you need to attend a training on how to clean a house. You must understand the language and pass the training. No matter what you do, you must pass the training. So there are difficulties when the adults cant understand the language. Most of the adults are unemployed due to lack of experience and education. This greatly harms their morale. Its very difficult for some of them. But when we look at the youth and children, they have great opportunities. They receive free healthcare, social welfare and education. Its a very good situation for the youth and children.

Q: Anything else you want to add?

A: As I was a refugee, and came here under the resettlement program, I want to give [other refugees] this advice: No matter which country you go to through the resettlement program, the adults cant catch up with the education sector. But we must have hope in our children and the next generation. We need to urge our children and grandchildren to study hard. We need to strive hard through improving our education. Dont give up this hope.

Our Karen people have been oppressed for many generations so we have many weaknesses. We need many educated people who can build the Karen State in the future. We must have hope in the youth and the next generation, their education can help them to assist and contribute to our country one day.

We, the Karen people, shouldnt forget our people. We must try to remember our people who are living in the country and help them as much as we can.

***Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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Local wheat milling companies may face collapse if the government does not restore the 15 percent wheat levy it had put in place to protect the millers, an official has said.

Botswana Millers Association (BMA) chairman, Nkosi Mwaba said the milling industry is under existential threat from predatory pricing behaviour on imports of finished goods from South Africa. He said this is particularly so in wheat flour products which are being dumped into Botswana at below cost.

Mwaba complained that the removal of critical protection mechanism that was levelling the playing field between Botswana and South Africa by the Ministry of Investment Trade and Industry (MITI) is set to badly affect the milling players.





MITI is in the process of a 10 year phase out decision on the 15 percent wheat levy that was protecting the local milling industry. The levy is now at 10.5 percent and is being phased out every year at a rate of 1.5 percent, said Mwaba. The BMA president said maize and wheat millers run integrated operations and without the wheat milling component, the maize milling activity will collapse as well.

Without the wheat levy, millers estimate that they will not survive longer than five years in Botswana. It is absolutely critical that the Government reconsiders this decision urgently if farmers are to still have an attractive market in the mid-term looking at the bigger picture, said Mwaba.

According to BMA, its members consume a total of 120,000 tonnes of white maize per annum and this equates to a value of about P500 million per annum. He said their highest consumption figures in recent years show that millers have only been able to access 8 percent of maize crop from local farmers, which is less than 10,000 tonnes. To put this into perspective, millers are spending a maximum of P40million on local harvest while over P450 million is spent on farmers in SA and other global suppliers such as the US, Mexico, Argentina and Brazil, said Mwaba. Although projections from local farmers and the Botswana Agricultural Marketing Board point to a bumper harvest this year, Mwaba said there is still a lot of work to be done in commercialising crop production in Botswana. He stated that the Botswana milling companies, through the Maize and Wheat Millers Association, have committed to fully support local farmers and make them a priority. We have matured as an industry to a point where we are ready to make a firm commitment to support local farmers by buying their crop. The Association does not need to be forced to do so by statute nor by internal pressure but has a responsibility to help develop farming and Agribusiness in Botswana, he said adding that the P500 million spent on raw material purchases in grain should be going to Batswana farmers.

He challenged the Botswana government to take a leaf from Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe who this year have taken decisions to close their borders on maize imports and lift existing restrictions on exports of this commodity.

We are currently in discussions with various farmers associations across the country to discuss our position and demonstrate our buying power and level of support. We will be inviting various stakeholders to our meetings to strengthen direct linkages and relationships with farmer representatives and other stakeholders, said Mwaba.

He said they will be playing a proactive role in the development and commercialisation of grain farming in Botswana and are confident that the benefits will soon be seen and felt by the economy and Batswana at large. Efforts to contact Ministry of Investments, Trade and Industry to get their side of the story were unsuccessful at press time on Wednesday since their phones were not answered.
Citizen company Ezymox Holdings, has engaged the Jwaneng Mine Workers Union to raise over P15 million capital through crowd funding.

Ezymox Holdings director, Mathews Wilson told BG Business that they want to mobilise monetary contributions to venture into various businesses. He stated that they are going to build supermarkets with the capital where shareholders will get a dividend when the business starts making profit. Mine Workers Union in Jwaneng is coming on board to work together with us to mobilise resources and actually buy shares from Ezymox Holdings and run retail businesses as well as businesses in the mining and hospitality sectors, said Wilson.

He said their target is to raise over P15 million for business ventures. Initially we wanted to raise about P15 million for the five supermarkets and five liquor outlets but now with the addition of a mine the figure is going to increase because we need to buy the machinery and everything else, he said.





The company was formed last year and according to Wilson we have done our due diligence with the Non-Bank Financial Institutions Regulatory Authority (NBFIRA). He stated that as soon as the capital has been raised then the company will be converted from a private company to a public entity. We want to empower Batswana for them to be players in the economy of the country, said Wilson. He said the concept of crowd funding is being practised in the United States of America, United Kingdom and many other countries. The Kenyans in Africa are doing it and in Colombia they have actually built something similar to the iTowers building. There is one company in Botswana which is actually into property business through crowd funding, said the Ezymox director.Secretary General of Jwaneng Mine Workers, Alexander Heii confirmed that they are in partnership talks with Ezymox to raise money through crowd funding. He said they are looking for initiatives that serve the best interests of the workers under his union.

Its a good initiative that we would like to look into and I am going to further consult my union members and chart the way forward. The mining sector has been affected and workers have been hit hard by taxes and we have lost our incentives so we are looking for ways to increase our income, said Heii. He said many mine workers lack entrepreneurial skills and their mind is to wake up and go to work and hence the need to change that mindset. Heii added that mining business is not there forever and they are looking for alternative sources of income. In 2015, it was estimated that worldwide over US$34 billion was raised through crowd funding.
In a modern world where one banks decision can lead to a domino effect that results in total paralysis of the worlds financial system, times have come for capital markets to make a 180 degree turn-around to introspect.

Its a world in which a Murdoch-type Ponzi scheme can rip off billions of US dollars from pension funds and wipe off the savings of thousands, a world where the richest 10 people supposedly hold 90 percent of global wealth.

Capital markets priorities have traditionally been two fold - risk versus return. Impact investing shifts the capital markets tectonic plates from this conventional school of thought to bring in the aspect of impact -more specifically, social impact. This type of model is right at the intersection of philanthropy and for-profit capitalism.





In earnest, this investor sees himself as contributing to the social good and at the same time still making profit. This type of investing has gained much-needed momentum in the developed world and is slowly spreading towards sub-Saharan Africa. It is estimated that global investors are redirecting capital at the rate of a growth of 19 percent more capital invested in Africa in 2017 and beyond than in 2013, when the model was fairly new.

According to the 2017 Annual Impact Investor Survey, 208 respondents collectively manage a minimum of US$114 Billion in assets of impact investing. The survey collected data on a large array of institutions that varied from pension fund managers to banks and even foundations. The report goes on to note that 89 percent of investments are below market rate or not adjusted for risk rate. A point which most investors agree, poses a considerable threat to social impact investing.

Botswana is not classified as an emerging market but a frontier market according to FTSE, Standard & Poor and the Russel lists. An emerging market is a market that mimics or has certain characteristics similar to those of a developed market. On the other hand, frontier market is one that is developing slower than that of an emerging economy, but more than a least developed country or failed states.

This article attempts to look at different industries which impact investors can consider with a view to possibly improve socio economic indicators in Botswana.

The world over, it is estimated that 34 percent of all corporate giants invested in agriculture invest in sub-Saharan Africa. This on its own is an indication that as food prices continue to soar, investors continue to rake in profits and so does the region become more food secure. Botswana like many other African countries continues to hold vast underdeveloped natural resources like land and surface water bodies.

With more than half the population being under 65, labour is highly available and cheap but as noted by political pundits, severely underutilised. South Africa in comparison to Botswana is a more industrialised country hence agriculture is highly modernised than in Botswana. In terms of impact investing, the focus is on the use of environmentally friendly equipment.

South Africa was a victim of political unrest and sanctions which handicapped investments. But the turnaround came in the 90s when the likes of Ford began seriously reinvesting in the country. These companies, although not Greenfield investments, have the potential to drive impact investing through production of cheaper and environmentally friendly agricultural equipment.

Hence, Botswana may not be able to attract socially impactful investments in the short term because of the above, in as much as it cannot attract general foreign direct investment compared to more industrialised countries.

Botswana had the second highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rates in the world in 2011 at 23.4 percent just behind Swaziland at 26 percent. This result can be attributed to ARVs which prolong life and increase prevalence rates (Timmrek, 2002). When the disease was first diagnosed on a human, the estimated median survival time was only 12 months, but after the introduction of ARVs, this estimate rose to five years.

Therefore, the duration of a disease affects prevalence positively. Prevalence will most likely remain higher for longer periods if life years increase and this is bound to have an effect on health expenditure. Therefore, this is a potential impact investment vehicle for investors. In social impact investing, one invests in the improvement of outcomes.

That is, the more you invest, the more likely those charged with the utilisation of the investment will have freedom to employ their objectives. The higher the investment, the more the disease remedying interventions are put in place. That results in more preventative care than curative, which has been proven to be more effective. Therefore, in terms of health care, impact investing is not far-fetched. What remains are those who stand in between the investor and the recipient to devise the vehicles through which we can invest in these positive outcomes.

These areas are non-exhaustible and include investments in clean energy in solar power, fluorescent paint for our roads and electric intra-city train systems. They include investments in the arts which are proving to be a growing industry with huge potential for profit. A notable contributor in this industry is ThabisoBlakMashaba of THESE HANDS, a social enterprise with a focus on the arts.

Particularly notable is his work with the indigenous people of Dkar. These are investment vehicles that show potential to turn philanthropy into a cash cow. In conclusion, with more focus on climate change by governments, social impact investing will surely grow in the coming decade. The classical question will always be why capital does not flow from developed economies to frontier markets like Botswana today?

When in these infancy years, capital is still cheap, labour is still cheap. Then of course there is the Lucas paradox (which requires another publication of course). This notes that, contrary to the classical school of thought, capital does not flow to poor countries as expected and factor price equalisation is slower than expected.Whatever the case, the future is in impact investing; finding cold hard profit in doing good.

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Some local pastors are suggesting that Tshepo Ricki Kgositau, who has launched a landmark case against government for refusing to change her gender marker, needs deliverance.

Kgositau wants to be recognised and addressed as a woman. She was born a male. Her case will be heard before Gaborone High Court Judge Leatile Dambe on 12 December 2017. It had to be postponed from last week as Dambe is out of the country.

In an interview, Pastor Matthew Makola of Grace Church in Kanye says Kgositau should confess her sin to God for changing her gender identity. He says that Kgositau should know that after God created her, He saw her as good like the rest of His creation. He questions her motive for transforming her identity.





In the beginning God created man and woman and they never changed how they were made. Kgositau should repent and survive hell, he says, citing Genesis 1 to explain how God created human beings. Another church leader Prophet Kgolagano Nokaneng of Divine says that it is the work of Satan for a human being to change her gender identity.

He states that a man who wants to be a woman brings confusion to the society. If he felt inside that he was a woman, she should have sought deliverance from churches and not done expensive surgeries. Now the attention following her will stick forever, he says.

But for Pastor Lucas Mthethwa of St. John Apostolic Church, God loves sinners but hates sin. He says that people who have gender identity issues should run to God and not surgeries. What is she going to tell her children? That she was a man first and did a surgery? We need God more than ever, he says, adding that God still loves Kgositau but wants her to make things right with Him.

She needs to be prayed for, he says.

Speaking to a sister publication recently, The Midweek Sun, Kgositau noted that she did not take kindly to being referred to as a man regardless of the circumstances.

I dont appreciate how certain members of society have continued to address me as a he instead of a she. I gave my time to some people, opening myself up and sharing intimate details of my life but my experiences are being sensationalised, she said.

Coordinator of the Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals of Botswana Caine Youngman says pastors should refrain from questioning Kgositaus decision, and rather preach love. God has a purpose for transgender people too, thats why He created them, he says, adding that Kgositau is a Christian.

The biggest claim of the transgender movement is that a man who thinks hes a woman can really be a woman, and vice versa. This manifests in many ways  from preferred pronouns, sex reassignment surgeries, and demands to use the restroom of perceived rather than given gender.
Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) has accused Botswana Federation of Public, Private Sector Unions (BOFEPPUSU) of stealing its limelight off the payment of back-pays for public servants.

BDP Secretary General Mpho Balopi explained this week that they are surprised to see the media awash with reports that BOFEPPUSU is pushing for the immediate payment of back-pays for public servants who are BOFEPPUSU members.

When government made salary increment last year and this year, it decided to exclude BOFEPPUSU because at that time they were still members of the currently moribund Public Service Bargaining Council (PSBC).





According to the Deputy Secretary General of the federation, Ketlhalefile Motshegwa BOFEPUSU wrote a letter to the Director of Directorate of Public Service Management (DPSM), Ruth Maphorisa last month indicating that it is importantly necessary to make payment of salary increment arrears to members of the BOFEPPUSU affiliates for purpose of equity.

This week Balopi said they are the ones who spoke to government especially Minister of Finance and Economic Development Kenneth Matambo and Minister for Presidential Affairs, Governance and Public Administration Eric Molale. He stated that no one pushed that issue but the BDP.

The proof is our resolution where the BDP resolved at its elective congress in Tonota last month that government should backdate the 3 percent salaries for public servants who did not get their increase due to the protracted legal battle between government and BOFEPPUSU. The resolution we took in Tonota said immediately. Now we see people say they have asked government to pay with immediate effect as if they are the ones who pushed the matter, Balopi stated.

He explained that they learnt about this through a letter from BOFEPUSU to Presidential Affairs Minister Molale. Balopi however said they are not fighting over the matter but their argument is that BOFEPPUSU started talking about paying public servants their dues immediately after the BDP had taken a binding resolution on the matter.

That decision to call for immediate payment came after they went to court, pulled out of PSBC and following our decision from the congress. We take our public service seriously and we know their worth, he said.

Motshegwa stated that the Government had already made a unilateral increment of three percent and four percent for financial years 2016/17 and 2017/18 respectively to non-unionised public servants and unionised members of Unions not affiliated to BOFEPPUSU.

He said the DPSM boss has not responded to their call even though at the last court settlement the government has promised to pay salary arrears without any conditions.

Other public servants have already been awarded the increment effective 1st April 2016 for financial year 2016/17 and effective 1st April 2017 for financial year 2017/18, said Motshegwa.
Catholics around Botswana and neighbouring countries have expressed shock at the sudden resignation of Bishop Valentine Tsamme Seane from the pastoral care of the Diocese of Gaborone.

The leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Bishop Seane but Catholics who spoke to BG News on condition of anonymity said his resignation is unexpected as it has never happened before in Botswana.

Seane, who was liked by many and famous for playing key roles in many peace keeping missions, tendered his resignation this week to the leader of the Catholic Church in Vatican City, Rome- Pope Francis. Following the Popes approval, Seane yesterday announced his resignation as the Bishop of the Diocese of Gaborone. In his letter of communication to the congregation,Seane says after prayer and reflection he has decided to step down from his present ministry of leadership of the Diocese of Gaborone for personal reasons.





I am still a Catholic priest and Bishop. After some time Providence and the Church will decide how best I can continue to serve the body of Christ, says Seane. Having served the Diocese of Gaborone for eight years as Bishop, Seane believes he has worked for the increase and deepening of the faith in people. Many people have grown in their faith and now they are proud to be Catholics.

These signs of grace give me inner spiritual joy. Our journey in the Lord is ongoing until we reach the Promised Land, he said. According to the report, the Pope has appointed His Lordship Frank Nubuasah S.V.D., who is currently the apostolic administrator of Vicariate of Francistown to be apostolic administrator of the Diosece of Gaborone.

Meanwhile Catholics are still shocked by the decision of the Bishops resignation which they say was unexpected as it has never happened in Botswana.
Members of Parliament are expected to get more than the initial 4 percent which was published in the Government Gazette in April this year, Botswana Guardian has been informed.

According to the initial Bill the MPs were to get four (4) percent salary hike. At press time Minister for Presidential Affairs, Governance and Public Administration Eric Molale was scheduled to present some amendments to Parliament which are expected to increase MPs salaries by around P10 000 which is close to 40 percent.

The Bill, currently at committee stage, has been embraced by MPs across the aisle. During the previous Parliament sitting, this Bill nearly caused an uproar as MPs wanted it to be tabled before they could debate and support the Presidents (Pensions and Retirement) Bill. Prior to agreeing to the four (4) percent proposed by Government, MPs had allegedly proposed 25 percent increase, 40 percent Constituency Allowance, Provision of transport for each Constituency and review of their Terminal Benefits.





Presidential Affairs Minister Eric Molale however awarded the MPs four (4) percent salary increase and 40 percent Constituency allowance. According to the Bill published on 6th April 2017 the President, Vice President, Ministers, assistant ministers and MPs will have their 4 percent salary increment backdated to April 1st 2017 as soon as Parliament passes the Bill.

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InnoLead Academy, a renowned Project Management training provider in Botswana recently hosted its Inaugural Award Ceremony.

The night of stars which was held at an upmarket restaurant, Table50Two was graced by various local company executives and project professionals to celebrate top graduates from the institution.

Speaking at the event, InnoLead Managing Director, Oabona Kgengwenyane highlighted that the academy has trained over 10 000 project management professionals since its inception in 2002. He said the release of these professionals into the Botswana market has





contributed greatly to the maturity of Project Management in Botswana. However, he alluded to the fact that more could still be done as there is a growing shortage of the skill globally. In a recent study by the Project Management Institute, it is projected that by 2027, Qualified Project Managers will be the most sought after skill with innovation

and technology rapidly taking over the job market. This therefore means, as a country it is important that we take the step to prepare ourselves by certifying more project management professionals to better deliver ongoing development projects. Kgengwenyane congratulated the award

recipients and urged them to go and use the skills acquired to make an impact in improving project delivery.

The CEO of HRDC, Dr Raphael Dingalo who was the Guest Speaker said that InnoLead forms part of the organisations that contribute towards human capital development in Botswana and congratulated them for their continuous effort to achieve that. He said as Botswana is on a journey to move from a resource based economy to a knowledge-based economy it can be achieved by producing new and innovative goods and services, developing sophisticated production processes and educating and training high level knowledge workers. He urged InnoLead to consistently achieve the latter as part of their contribution to the overall national plan.
President Ian Khama has urged farmers to continue with their commitment to produce quality food that ends up on our tables and grows our countrys economy.

Khama was officiating at the Serowe Agricultural Show recently. The President said that a nations agricultural wealth is measured through the use of its arable land as well as whether it is able to fully utilise it to produce food that could sustain its population over time. Your efforts are always fully appreciated, he said.

Khama said that his government remains committed to the improvement of the agricultural sector in order to help farmers achieve self-sufficiency in the production of food which is the objective of farmers. Reassuring the farmers that governments commitment towards agriculture will continue undiminished, he said that there has been an increased investment in the agricultural sector by his government.





If anything, there is a clear demonstration of commitment towards agriculture through increased investment in areas such as research and development as seen through institutions such as the Botswana Vaccine Institute (BVI) as well as other components of veterinary research, said Khama who noted that identifying and improving breeds to ensure local suitability to local conditions remains a priority.

He told the show that government has made agriculture one of its key priority areas. He said agriculture has been identified as one of the vital sectors that can contribute towards the comprehensive economic diversity of the country from being a mineral led economy. In this regard, government has been channelling funds into the sector through programmes such as NAMPAD, LIMID, ISPAAD and the Young Farmers Fund.

Khama told his audience that, agriculture has benefited from the Economic Stimulus Programme (ESP) with the aim to position it as one of the catalysts for economic diversification. Programmes in this regard included among others those that graded roads leading to production areas, electrification of production clusters, construction of service centres in various strategic areas and the establishment of a grey water irrigation scheme, said Khama.

He said that government efforts aim at complementing the efforts of the farmers to be better placed to achieve their objectives, especially of ensuring self-sufficiency or food security. He noted that, agricultural shows are not only critical for farmers but also give consumers an opportunity to meet with all stakeholders in one place, in the process also affording them opportunities to see first-hand the quality of products in the market.

For farmers, it is first and foremost an exposition to showcase their products. It affords you the opportunity to see first-hand some of the prospects available, as well as the best practices that obtain amongst you. It thus accords you the chance to benchmark from the very best, network and synergise with others. These are the simple modalities to development and coming up with better and more viable products, said Khama.

He added that agricultural shows promote other sectors such as those dealing in transport and logistics, catering and other Small and Medium Enterprises (SMMEs) including those in the informal sector. This show has indeed made its mark and has now become a major annual event that people now plan for, said Khama.
Francistown High Court Judge, Lot Moroka on Wednesday slammed a 31 year old man, Kenalemang Rakgomo with a 10 year sentence for murder after he entered a plea of guilt.

According to court documents, Rakgomo killed Tsholofelo Kemolathe who was in a relationship with him in 2010. During the course of the relationship, Rakgomo and Kemolatlhe had a misunderstanding owing to Rakgomos suspicion that the deceased was in another relationship with a boy called Nombi. Rakgomo is said to have seen Kemolathe with Nombi naked in a passage which suggested that they had been having sexual intercourse.

When the two saw the accused they ran in different directions. However, Rakgomo caught up with Kemolathe and took her to Serale pond where he assaulted her before stabbing her with a knife on the neck.





In the sentence which was back dated from the 1st August 2016 when he was remanded in custody, Kenalemang will serve nine years for the murder of his lover.

When sentencing him, Moroka found that there were extenuating circumstances in this case and therefore had to exclude capital punishment from the list of available sentencing options. Moroka said that he was also aware of the circumstances surrounding the commission of the offence adding that Rakgomo was a first offender.

The accused was aged 24 years at the time of the commission of the offence, he has a child to care for, Moroka said. However, he said that the offence cannot escape the inevitable observation that murder visits the highest form of loss to society. He said that the offence carries a higher degree of both harmfulness and culpability than most offences in the penal statue books.

If we look at the level of culpability of the accused person in this case, it is slightly diminished by his sudden anger and jealousy occasioned by seeing his girlfriend naked in the presence of a man she had earlier denied to be in love with, Moroka said, adding that the absence of pre-meditation also doubles up as mitigating factor over the above role in extenuation.

He said that the fact that Rakgomo pleaded guilty counts for remorse and shows that a genuine expression of self-motivated determination to change his ways after a once fall from grace ought to be spared a harsh sentence on account of being a threat to society.
The Botswana Public Employees Unions (BOPEU) cultural night held this past weekend at Tlotlo Conference Centre in Gaborone under the theme Seboba re bata sa mokwatla sa mpa re a mpampetsa, was an enthralling event.

From the attire to the food and music, it was clear that the night was designed to promote culture, while at the same time raising funds to give back to the community. The cultural dinner attracted people from almost all parts of the country. In fact the tickets were sold out and some people bounced at the doors, with that enthusiasm of lending a giving hand while embracing culture. The conference room looked stunning. It was clear that Setswana culture is also stylish just like western culture. Couples came in for the date and some families also came to wine and dine at the event. The room was also accessorised with common cultural decor while on each table there was a small three-legged pot for the rich snack; kabu (boiled maize). The foods of the night were proudly from Batswana fields including; samp, bogobe jwa lerotse, morogo wa dinawa together with beef and pounded goat meat (seswaa) and boiled Tswana chicken among other foods. `

Bojalwa jwa Setswana was also in abundance for the imbibers. Everyone at the event appreciated the meals. We need such events very often because these days we just depend on fast foods from food outlets because jobs keep us busy from even visiting our own fields to embrace our staple food, one of the attendants told BG Style.





On the other hand, one could easily spot that Botswana designers and the fashion industry continue to grow. Everyone had observed the protocol of the night and was dressed in their most fancy cultural wear of different designs. Ladies dresses, pants, tops, jumpsuits and even mens shirts all looked stylish and trendy.

This proved that fashion designers have upgraded to another level when it comes to designing using African print. It is no longer about the old simple dresses and skirts only but the elegant fashionable clothes made out of the African print in different designs. The cultural night had the most elegant audience ever.

The audience was treated to the spontaneous music of renowned local artists including Dipela tsa ga Kobokwe, the united Culture Spears with a comeback of the sensational artist; Selonyana, Ditiro Leero, Dr Vom and Sereetsi & The Natives. All these groups did fairly well as they interacted so well with the audience causing them to linger for more of their superb music. President Ian Khamas favourite music and dance Polka, was also represented by Welkom Polka Group, which also stunned the audience.

The BOPEU annual cultural night came bigger and better after failure to host one last year due to budget constraints. This years funds will be given to the selected underprivileged organisations yet to be announced after the final assessments.
When hearing about the Desert Bush Walk last year, this young lady had second thoughts because sport activities have never got her attention. She registered her name promising to participate but she did not fulfill her promises as she failed to catch the bus which was leaving at 4:30 am in Gaborone.

It was a kind of a relief for me, because in the first place I did not want to go. This year I just decided to create time out of my busy Saturday schedule to participate in this crowd pulling event, my intention was to just go and watch people do the excersise. Friday 28 July was the longest day of the year for me because since morning I was unsettled in my thoughts, I was wandering about in the Diamond Town trying to visualise the track, the starting point, the whole terrain, the mood of the walkers and the whole Jwaneng residents. Well, the sun never changes pace, my long waiting period ceased, by 3 am I was already awake, anxiety could not allow my mind to rest. Within 30 minutes I was already geared up for the walk, the bus left at 4:39. The road to Jwaneng seemed to be too long because it was very dark and so cold. Everyone inside was very quiet, This lady and her colleague had a little chat but within some few minutes they slept off. They woke up in Polokwe when the bus stopped. The other bus in front was struggling to climb the steep, curvey slope, so we had to wait for it to restart and move.

The bus arrived in Jwaneng at 7 oclock, the crowd was far beyond her imagination, she thought there were going to be about 500 people but there were more than 2000 participants. The whole place was decorated with banners and gazebos of various organisations and companies which were sponsoring the event. The event attracted participants from neighbouring countries such as Lesotho, Swaziland and South Africa. Everyone was welcomed by the sweet melody of the music, as she took a look around she saw people lined up warming up with the aerobics exercise, she decided that she would not just watch, but wanted to have a story to tell.





The last aerobics session she did was in 2014, so this was a good opportunity for her. At exactly 7:30 the instructor gave the green light and everyone took off, people were so crowded on one lane road, it was so sandy. After the first 100 steps those with low stamina were announcing themselves, they felt like they have walked for 2 hours climbing a hill, the sand was an embargo which did not want people to go anywhere. The tracks formed tiny dunes, they could be likened to the vast number of small anthills. When looking far ahead, over the shrubs appeared the heads of people, moving in a small track like the ants crawling to the hole. It was a long chain because track was very narrow to contain more than 2000 people walking together.

This walk was categorised according to distance, the 10 kilometer and 30 kilometer but the first 5 kilometer was the same track. She and her colleagues were very surprised to hear that their stickers are for 30 kilometers.They could not take it as they were already exhausted at 5 kilometers so they could not take it five times. Well, they ignored the stickers and turned left, taking the shortest route back to the starting point. There were only two roads, one going east and another west, we faced eastwards and continued walking. After the water and snack stop, people looked more energised,the journey became more interesting, even the road was now growing wider. Reaching the 7.5kilometer mark one could hardly see someone at close range, people were scattered, the road was now growing wider and most people were quiet. I passed two ladies, I greeted them and showed them the distance we have travelled so far.

Another one screamed, No they want to kill us. I burst into laughter, she said, no they want to finish us we have travelled a long way are we not reaching the finishing point? she said. In my heart I agreed with her that they want to finish us, it was only hope that kept me going now, all I wanted was just to see myself at the finishing point. I increased speed because the more I slowed down, the more I got exhausted and felt the heat of the sun.

This ladys questions were now answered, she had the experience and she saw the mood of everyone, she now had mixed feelings, excited because she was walking in the bush, something that she really loves, hurt because she was very tired and the road seemed to be stretching longer and longer.It was not only getting longer but the sand kept on increasing. It was now very thick and very soft. She stopped and took a look at it, it was not sand but silt, it was very fine. When you step on it, it covers almost your whole feet.

After joining the road that we started on she could see the finishing point, she thought of running but the sand would not allow. She tried to divert from the main road, the shrubs were so thick, She couldnt get through, She looked at the back, so many people were exhausted and some of them looked so hurt, they were really exhausted, others looked more energised and relieved. She could tell they have surrendered complaining and had now gained confidence to face the giant, if they could only reach the finishing point. At 11:05, young lady and her colleague reached the finishing point. They found two of their colleagues already resting, they were the first Botswana Guardian team members to arrive.Everyone was awarded the finishers medal. She could not wait for another two and half hours to get to Gaborone, all she wanted was to take a bath and sleep, but this was only wishes as they had to wait for everyone to arrive. At 3 pm the bus arrived and we headed back to Gaborone at 4pm.
The legendary Sipho Hotstix Mabuse is making his maiden appearance at Botswana Craft to kick off Spring in style as the Mascom Live Sessions return on August 25th.

This is one show strictly for those familiar with music by the legends and should not be attended by greenhorns. That is unless, the audience in question would be attending the show to go and watch local artist, A.T.I setting the stage on fire and performing material from his latest album Envelop that has hits such as Khiri Khiring Khorong.

The energetic A.T.I born Atsasaone Molemogi is making a return to the Mascom Live Sessions events having previously shared the stage with the likes of Bongo Maffin when they reunited on stage on May 2014. A release states that Sipho Mabuse has been working in the music industry for decades and created hits like Jive Soweto, Shikisa and Burn Out, all of which still remain household hits.





He is one of Africas living legends in the music industry and Botswana Craft is honoured to host him as he headlines the 37th Mascom Live Sessions event. The shows have been running since 2011 and have featured top musical talent from across the globe. Artists who have already serenaded Batswana include Ringo Madlingozi, Afro Jazz Trio (made up of Kearoma Rantao, Shanti Lo, and Nnunu), Micasa, Zahara, Hugh Masekela, Freshly Ground, Salif Keita, as well as Andy Narell. The event is meant to provide a bigger platform for local artists alongside their international counterparts. Sponsors and partners of the Mascom Live Sessions include Travelodge, The Voice, Duma FM, the Gazette, Savanna, MI5 and Mascom.
Some 120 new apprenticeship positions are being created with the start of Ireland's first-ever accountancy programme.

Under the scheme, major firms throughout the country will offer both school leavers and mature students a chance to "earn as they learn".

Gillian Doherty from Accounting Technicians Ireland says it is addressing a shortage of skills within the industry.

"It will equip school-leavers and mature learners with transferable business skills and a technical knowledge of finance and accounting practice, which ultimately will enable them to secure employment in a broad range of accounting and finance roles," she said.

The Government is committed to building a Republic of Opportunity. This is about making sure that every person has the opportunity to fulfil their potential, said Minister for Education and Skills, Mr Richard Bruton TD.

One of the greatest casualties of the recession were apprenticeships and traineeships. Enrolment in their career pathway collapsed and fell by over 80%.

Through our Apprenticeship and Traineeship Plan we are rebuilding this important career pathway.

This would see the present apprenticeship and traineeship system expand significantly, to cover all major economic sectors, and doubling enrolments to 14,000.

This will require us to forge a new partnership with employers, both in the public and private sectors.

I am delighted to be able to launch today the new National Accounting Technician Apprenticeship. This new national apprenticeship offers a welcome pathway to a career in accountancy and finance, where apprentices will learn critical skills to succeed in the field.

I would encourage Leaving Certificate students who get their results this week to consider the programme as a solid option towards a career in accountancy and finance.

Todays announcement is an important step in meeting the targets set out in the Ministers Apprenticeship and Traineeship Plan, which seeks to double the number of annual apprenticeship and traineeship enrolments to 14,000 by 2020.

Apprenticeship is a very attractive option for students. Apprentices can earn while they learn, getting valuable experience for future career progression, in this case as an accounting technician.

Meanwhile, employers in all sectors can diversify their workforce through this work-based learning programme and develop a new stream of talent. It is very encouraging to see so many employers nationwide supporting the new initiative.
Small businesses have expressed concerns about new traffic restrictions along Dublin's Quays.

The City Council is trying to ease one of the biggest bottlenecks in the city before the Luas begins its Cross City services.

Starting on Sunday, a range of changes will kick in including a 'no-go zone' for private cars who will no longer be able to turn right from the North Quays onto O'Connell Bridge.

Graeme McQueen from Dublin Chamber says nobody knows what to expect.

"Businesses and workers in the city are quite nervous about this change," he said.

"I think there is a lack of information out there. We're five days away from this change coming into effect, and a lot of this information is coming to people for the first time.

"People are going to wake up on Monday morning and try to make their usual drive into town, and they're not going to know where to go."
Brexit makes it more important for Ireland to develop new overseas markets, the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said.

As the UK Government set out ideas for keeping customs checks to a minimum once the split from Europe kicks in, the Taoiseach is holding a second round of talks with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau in as many months.
Dublin beach-goers are being warned to be wary about the water quality at Portmarnock beach today.

Heavy rain yesterday evening caused a storm-water overflow and the public are being advised to avoid swallowing or splashing the water, and to wash their hands before handling food.
The number of professional job vacancies available in Ireland fell by 12% last month when compared to the same month in 2016.

The Morgan McKinley Ireland Monthly Employment Monitor also found that it had gone down by 24% since June.

The figures from the professional services recruitment firm found there was a 5% increase in the number of professionals seeking jobs in Ireland in July compared to the same month a year ago.

They said they see this as an "indicator of continuing employee confidence, mobility and a willingness to consider opportunities".

They said the slide is likely to carry through the current month of August, but consider it as seasonal.

Morgan McKinley Ireland Director of Inward Investment, Trayc Keevans, said: There are currently fewer professional jobs coming onto the market however we have seen a much busier period of recruitment in the first half of 2017 than in any year previously since the economic crisis, so some level of seasonality is now to be expected.

In a very competitive market for talent acquisition, we are also seeing an elongation of hiring timelines including an increase in assertiveness by employers where there is a trend of counter offers being made to retain employees. This is predominantly for critical functions in the ICT and Financial Services industries.

"Employers are also deliberately enhancing their career progression, succession planning and employee retention strategies."

They said that foreign direct investment interest in Ireland is still strong.

They said: "It includes interest from multinationals considering Ireland as a European hub and who have already ruled out other European locations, in the context of Brexit.

"This is due largely to Irelands overall competitiveness, skills availability and supportive business climate.

Internationally owned financial services organisations are continuing to expand in Ireland although this is not necessarily being portrayed as a result of Brexit.

They highlighted infrastructure as a key concern for Irelands appeal to international companies, including:

housing,

rental availability and sustainability,

telecommunications,

commuter transport,

educational investments and training opportunities

They said: "After a near decade of contraction, the pace of economic recovery is such that there are a range of pressure points which could impinge on our competitive progress.

"The Governments proposed new Ireland 2040 spatial strategy anticipates that the population will grow by 750,000 over the next two decades.

"Developments must be dispersed throughout urban centres across Ireland, and not just Dublin, including the encouragement of multinational investment and employment in the regions.
President Donald Trump has condemned white supremacist groups by name, declaring "racism is evil" two days after the deadly race-fuelled clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia.

In a statement at the White House, Mr Trump branded members of the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists who take part in violence as "criminals and thugs".

The groups are "repugnant to everything that we hold dear as Americans," he said.

In his initial remarks on the violence on Saturday, the president did not single out the groups and instead bemoaned violence on "many sides".

Those remarks prompted stern criticism from fellow Republicans as well as Democrats, who urged him to seize the moral authority of his office to condemn hate groups.

Mr Trump's softer statement on Saturday had come as graphic images of a car ploughing into a crowd in Charlottesville were playing continually on television.

#BREAKING : Video of the car running over protestors at the counter rally in #Charlottesville

Many reported injured ! pic.twitter.com/dbLvROZFra  Zain Khan (@ZKhanOfficial) August 12, 2017

White nationalists had assembled in the city to protest against plans to take down a statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee, and counter-demonstrators gathered in opposition.

Fights broke out, and then a man drove into the opponents of the white supremacists. One woman was killed and many more badly hurt.

James Fields, 20, of Ohio is charged with second-degree murder and other counts.

Loath to appear to be admitting a mistake, Mr Trump was reluctant to change his remarks.

He expressed anger to those close to him about what he perceived as the media's unfair assessment of his comments, believing he had effectively denounced all forms of bigotry, according to outside advisers and White House officials.

Several of Mr Trump's senior advisers, including new chief of staff John Kelly, had urged him to make a more specific condemnation, warning the negative story would not go away and the rising tide of criticism from fellow Republicans could endanger his legislative agenda.

Yesterday, Mr Trump had planned to interrupt his 17-day working holiday at his New Jersey golf club to travel to Washington for an announcement he hoped would showcase some tough talk on China's trade practices.

But by the time he arrived, it was clear all other messages would be drowned out until he said more about Charlottesville.

Reading from a teleprompter, he made a point of beginning with an unrelated reference to the strength of the economy under his leadership.

Then, taking pains to insist "as I said on Saturday," Mr Trump denounced the hate groups and called for unity.

"We must love each other, show affection for each other and unite together in condemnation of hatred, bigotry and violence," he said.

Mr Trump for the first time mentioned Heather Heyer by name as he paid tribute to the woman killed by the car.

At the trade event later, he was asked why it took two days for him to offer an explicit denunciation of the hate groups.

"They have been condemned," he responded before offering a fresh criticism of some media as "fake news".

He followed up by tweeting: "Made additional remarks on Charlottesville and realize once again that the #Fake News Media will never be satisfied...truly bad people!"

His attorney general, Jeff Sessions, had said earlier: ''You can be sure we will charge and advance the investigation toward the most serious charges that can be brought, because this is an unequivocally unacceptable and evil attack that cannot be accepted in America."

Mr Trump's initial comments had drawn praise from the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer, which wrote: "Trump comments were good. He didn't attack us. He just said the nation should come together. Nothing specific against us. ... No condemnation at all."

Though the Daily Stormer did not criticise Mr Trump's new statement, the Occidental Dissent, a white nationalist website, published a message saying whites had been "deserted by their president".

Mr Trump, as a presidential candidate, frequently came under scrutiny for being slow to offer condemnation of white supremacists.

Early on Monday, the chief executive of the third largest pharmaceutical company in the US said he was resigning from the president's American Manufacturing Council, citing "a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism".

Mr Trump hit back at Merck boss Kenneth Frazier on Twitter, saying: "Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President's Manufacturing Council,he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!"

Later, the chief executive of sportswear manufacturer Under Armour also resigned from the panel, saying his company "engages in innovation and sports, not politics".

Kevin Plank said his company will focus on promoting "unity, diversity and inclusion" through sport.
An emergency alert was mistakenly broadcast to Guam residents amid fears of missile strikes against the Pacific island by North Korea.

The alert went out on a radio station just after midnight on Tuesday in Guam and said a "civil danger warning" had been issued for the island.
The wife of Zimbabwes president has handed herself over to police in South Africa after being accused of assaulting a young woman at a Johannesburg hotel, South Africas police minister said.

Grace Mugabe was due to appear in court later, local news outlet eNCA reported.

She is "not under arrest because she cooperated and handed herself over", minister of police Fikile Mbalula said in a video posted on eNCA.

Twenty-year-old Gabriella Engels has accused Mrs Mugabe of assaulting her while she was visiting Mrs Mugabes sons in a hotel room in an upscale Johannesburg suburb.

She claims the first ladys bodyguards stood by and watched as Mrs Mugabe attacked her.

Pictures alleging #GraceMugabe assault appear on social media showing Gabriella Engels suffering a big forehead head cut and bleeding. pic.twitter.com/6XpH2pKoTI   Seyi Gesinde  Gheshe (@GhesheS) August 15, 2017

Ms Engels posted several photos on social media showing a gash in her forehead, which she claimed was a result of the alleged encounter.

"I had no clue who this woman was when she started beating me," she told local radio station 702.

Police confirmed that a 20-year-old woman registered "a case of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm" on Monday, but said the suspect could not be named as she had not yet appeared in court.

"The investigation into this case has already reached an advanced stage," a police statement said.

AP
Police in Canberra will not pursue Greens MLA Shane Rattenbury for "failing" to pass on evidence of animal cruelty in Canberra's greyhound racing industry, after determining no crime had been committed.

The Canberra Greyhound Racing Club last month reported the ACT politician to the police after he told a Canberra radio station he'd seen reports of cruelty within the Canberra industry.

ACT Greens MLA Shane Rattenbury. Police have declined to further pursue a referral by the Canberra Greyhound Racing Club about Mr Rattenbury. Credit:Rohan Thomson

The club alleged Mr Rattenbury "failed" in his "legal and moral responsibility" to pass this information onto the authorities.

But acting Chief Police Officer Mark Walters said the report, which was made via the Crimestoppers online tool, failed to prove Mr Rattenbury had done anything wrong.
"They particularly wanted music that would uplift and edify," Vine says. "It's curious, but that simple directive has a lot of ramifications in terms of language and structure and it took me a long time to find a solution that wasn't trite."

Vine's new work was commissioned by Michael and Frederique Katz, the Seattle Commissioning Club, long-time friends of the quartet, and Carnegie Hall where the quartet frequently perform.

The Takacs String Quartet, from left, Karoly Schranz (second violin), Andras Fejer (cello), Geraldine Walther (viola), Edward Dusinberre (first violin), are regular visitors to Australia. Credit:Keith Saunders

For their Canberra program the Takacs Quartet will perform not only string quartets by two trailblazers of the genre, Haydn and Beethoven, but also the world premiere of Carl Vine's String Quartet No.6. Audiences will be able to hear Vine, Musica Viva's artistic director, give a preview of the 2018 program as he travels Australia-wide with the quartet.

The resultant work, Child's Play, is the sixth of Vine's series of string quartets, but he explains the work is not necessarily about children.

"It's about the childishness in all of us and that sort of wide-eyed innocence. So I took five elements of childishness or of that unbridled passion that we can tap on. The other thing about the title is that it's mildly ironic. Frequently when you say that something is 'child's play' it's really rather complex so there's a combination of that irony but also a fascination with simple wishes."

And just how do you represent these ideas in music? Vine asks. He settled on five movements: Play, Concentration, Friendship, Sleep and Running.

"It's actually to remind people of the innocence of youth," he says,

"Particularly the last movement, 'Running', is about the sheer joy that you can get at any age really, that sense of speed with the wind running through your hair."
The Western Bulldogs will be without key forward Jack Redpath for three matches after the AFL tribunal found him guilty of striking.

The finding means Redpath will miss the last two rounds of the 2017 home-and-away season and either the Bulldogs' first final or round one of next season depending on where Luke Beveridge's side finishes on the ladder.

Jack Redpath of the Bulldogs Credit:AAP

Redpath was charged with striking Greater Western Sydney's Phil Davis during the Giants' 48-point win on Friday night and could have accepted a two-game ban with an early plea.

Bulldogs legal counsel Rob Stary argued the open-handed blow was careless, not intentional, and to Davis' upper chest rather than his neck.
There are still some loose ends to the Essendon supplements saga and we could see some key figures from the Bombers and the AFL back in court after a meeting on September 1.

That's the whisper in this week's episode of The Age Real Footy Podcast, but we have plenty more on the agenda as well.

Sam McClure is joined by Caroline Wilson and Greg Baum to talk impending changes to the AFL judiciary system, Graeme Allan's future, and the situation at Carlton as Neil Craig announces his departure.

We hear about the "money men" who are dreading a grand final match-up between Adelaide and GWS, anticipate the huge Friday night clash between attacking Adelaide and suffocating Sydney and take a moment to applaud Geelong ahead of their clash with the Pies.
If you are only paying $30 a month for the NBN, don't expect a super fast experience, especially at peak hours, when you are most likely to actually want to use the internet.

Instead, customers paying only $30 per month are part of the "land grab" among telcos trying to get as many customers as possible out of the scrum as millions of Australians transfer from a Telstra-owned phone network onto NBN Co's infrastructure, according to NBN Co's chief executive Bill Morrow.

"You should expect a 12 megabit per second [Mbps] top line speed, and the actual speed at busy hour will depend and vary by retailer but I would not expect that speed to remain at 12 Mbps if you are paying $29," Mr Morrow told Fairfax Media.

He recently told a parliamentary joint committee the slower 12 Mbps product "was never designed for broadband" and its widespread use may be why so many people complain about their experience on the NBN.
The potential fallout from the acquisition and subsequent inquiry looms as a nightmare for Iluka, despite the firm acting as a model corporate citizen in notifying international authorities of the suspected bribery as soon as it was detected. It also highlights the dangers of acquiring businesses in high risk jurisdictions. John Sisay - Sierre Leone presidential candidate. Iluka risks prosecution, fines, the potential fracturing of its relationship with senior government figures in Sierra Leone and possible shareholder legal action. The revelations also thrust Australia's struggling anti-foreign bribery regime back into the spotlight and highlight what some experts, senior police and companies say is a gaping hole in the system: the failure to provide a tangible benefit to companies who transparently and immediately disclose corruption discovered during an internal inquiry. Had it disclosed the alleged bribery in the US, Iluka would stand a greater chance of cutting a deal to avoid sanctions or prosecution, although under UK and Australian regimes, this is much harder. In comments missed by the media but reported to the ASX in April, Iluka's chairman Greg Martin  who also chairs Sydney's desalination plant  hinted at the alleged corruption uncovered by the company.

Payments by presidential candidate A Senate committee is examining why there has been limited disclosure, detection and prosecution of bribery involving Australian multinationals. Since 1999, Australian authorities have launched just two prosecutions with one of the cases  the details of which can't be disclosed for legal reasons  mired in years of delays and legal challenges. Several companies, including Rio Tinto, Leighton Holdings (now CIMIC), Getax, Sundance Resources, engineering firm SMEC and defence giant Tenix, have been implicated in the alleged bribery of heads of state or overseas officials but have not faced any charges. Much of this alleged improper conduct has been uncovered or exposed by Fairfax Media. Evidence uncovered by Iluka and forwarded to the UK Serious Fraud Office suggests payments authorised by Mr Sisay were used to allegedly bribe senior mining officials to secure government approvals. The Serious Fraud Office is also assessing documents that suggest Sierra Rutile paid for at least $50,000 in undisclosed international travel, including flights from Freetown to London, for Ms Konomanyi, the minister for Lands, Country Planning and the Environment. Ms Konomanyi is reportedly considering becoming Mr Sisay's running mate in the presidential campaign.

In an exclusive interview, the director of Sierra Leone's corruption commission, Ady Macauley, told Fairfax Media that he had launched his own bribery inquiry into Sierra Rutile's activities. "We have written to the management of Iluka to tell them we have commenced an investigation. It can take many, many months and you can never predict what you might see," he said. Chairman hints at corruption In comments missed by the media but reported to the ASX in April, Iluka's chairman Greg Martin  who also chairs Sydney's desalination plant  hinted at the alleged corruption uncovered by the company. He revealed the firm had ditched three exploration licences granted to Sierra Rutile "under circumstances inconsistent with Iluka's Code of Conduct". Those licences have been reapplied for "according to proper procedure". "Although these licences did not have value attributed to them during the acquisition process, and while the outcome of the re-application is not financially material to Iluka, the company considers it is vitally important to be 'walking the talk' in relation to expected standards of conduct."

Mr Martin did not explicitly state the company was investigating bribery in Sierra Leone or had notified the SFO, although it is understood this is because Mr Martin did not want to jeapordise ongoing investigations. Iluka has mineral sands mining operations in Australia, Sierra Leone and in the US. Rutile is a material used in paint, plastics and sunscreen and the firm acquired by Iluka has been touted as a major success story in a country blighted by poverty, civil war, corruption and the infamous 'blood diamonds' trade. Sisay ambitions Mr Sisay, a former student union president of London University's Goldsmith College, recently ramped up his campaign to replace his cousin as Sierra Leone's next president, travelling the country and launching a social media strategy. London's The Independent recently reported there was a "strong chance" Mr Sisay would replace President Koroma when he steps down in 2018. "We south Londoners are pretty damned determined when we set our mind to something," Mr Sisay told the newspaper.

The corruption allegations uncovered by Iluka involve evidence suggesting Mr Sisay approved a $110,000 bribe payment funnelled via a West African logistics company, Imatrix 101 Ltd, and deposited in a third party bank account. An amount of $110,000 was separately paid by Sierra Rutile to Imatrix, according to company invoices. In a statement, Mr Sisay denied any wrong doing and said he had not been contacted by Iluka or investigators about the allegations. "As Chief Executive Officer of... [a] listed company myself and my board operated in compliance with the highest ethical standards at all times and in full compliance with [the] rules, standards and regulations. At no stage whilst CEO of Sierra Rutile did I authorise improper payments of any kind to any Sierra Leone Government officials for any reason," Mr Sisay said. "At no time since its acquisition of Sierra Rutile in December 2016 has Iluka, its accountants or its lawyers raised with me any issue concerning any payments made by the company whilst I was CEO. Nor have I had any contact from any investigators, whether in Australia, Sierra Leone, the UK or anywhere else." Mr Sisay also claimed the publishing in Australia of details of the bribery investigation was "intended... to influence the up-coming party leadership elections."
Perth-based fund manager Mair Property Funds has swooped on two industrial facilities in Melbourne's west in a $20.3 million off-market deal.

The small fund manager said it had bought a 13,930-square-metre facility leased to Australian Pipe and Tubing in the Orbis Business Park- in Ravenhall- for $8.86 million.

The Altona North industrial warehouse sold for $11.5 million.

The property, with a 6888 sq m building constructed in 2010, has a 15-year lease in place to the business until 2031.

The other industrial warehouse in Altona North, which sold for $11.5 million, was occupied by Grace Records Management, which had recently signed an eight-year lease that expires in 2025.
We've all got a job to do in the next few days, all of us, gay, straight and others. And we need to do it to achieve equality.

Teachers first. They have so much power and I hope many will use it wisely in the next 10 days. The voting rolls close next week and there is still much to be done. Why is it important now? Because we are all about to assess the importance of equality. This postal survey  if that's what we are calling it now  is not about marriage. It's about much more than that.

Only about half of all 18 year olds are enrolled to vote, according to the Australian Electoral Commission. That means half are not yet motivated enough to sign up.

And that's where teachers come in. The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority agreed years ago that students should be taught civics and citizenship, although sadly that's now embedded in history and geography subjects instead of taught independently.
Big-name stars such as Tony Jones and Leigh Sales would have their salaries revealed to the public and the ABC may be restricted from competing with commercial rivals under a deal struck between the Turnbull government and One Nation.

Pauline Hanson announced support for the government's media deregulation package on Tuesday afternoon after Communications Minister Mitch Fifield agreed to a number of conditions, including introducing legislation requiring the ABC to be "fair and balanced".

The government will also try to change the ABC charter to explicitly require it to focus on regional Australia and two ABC board members will have to have a substantial connection to the regions.

The deal brings the government within reach of locking in the numbers required to scrap the so-called "reach" and "two-out-of-three" rules restricting media ownership. If the Nick Xenophon Team comes on board the government will have the numbers to pass its changes.
The Turnbull government is threatening to refer a group of Labor MPs to the High Court if they refuse to provide evidence they were validly elected with only Australian citizenship.

Government ministers are ramping up pressure on the opposition after a dramatic day in Parliament that left Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce's future and the government's wafer-thin majority hanging in the balance, after revelations Mr Joyce is a dual Australian-New Zealand citizen.

But Labor is resisting demands it produce proof that none of its MPs have dual citizenship, claiming its candidate vetting processes prevent any dual citizens from slipping through the cracks.

Leader of the House Christopher Pyne has named Labor MPs Justine Keay, Susan Lamb, Brendan O'Connor, Maria Vamvakinou and Tony Zappia as being under a cloud.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has accused Labor leader Bill Shorten of "conspiring with a foreign power" to steal government, as he fights for survival following Barnaby Joyce's citizenship bombshell.

The Coalition is also threatening to take the unprecedented step of using its numbers to refer lower house Labor MPs to the High Court to have their eligibility assessed - completely contradicting the government's position as recently as last week that such referrals should never be partisan.

Mr Joyce referred himself to the High Court on Monday after confirming he was a dual citizen of New Zealand, potentially ruling him constitutionally ineligible to stay on in Federal Parliament.

Labor is demanding he step down from cabinet and abstain from votes in the House of Representatives until the court rules on his status.
Ever since the Meiji Period (1868-1912), treaties and the laws of other countries have been used to justify laws the Japanese people neither want nor need. The most recent use of this technique involves a treaty called the U.N. Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.

Never heard of it? According to the Abe administration, implementing the treaty was important enough to justify creating hundreds of new criminal offenses, most comprising an entirely new category, namely planning the execution of a serious crime for a terrorist or other organized crime group.1 Most writers are using the word conspiracy, not just because it describes the new crimes more concisely, but also as this whole endeavor is widely regarded as the repackaging of past government efforts to add conspiracy to law enforcements arsenal.

Protest against new Organized Crime law

The official rationale for what may prove to be this centurys most dramatic expansion of state coercive powers in Japan is that it is required in order for the nation to implement the U.N. Transnational Crime Convention.2 Abe and government spokesmen also claim it will be a tool to fight terrorism, an especially important issue as Tokyo prepares to host the Olympics.

Among the grounds for suspicion of the governments intentions, there hasnt been any serious effort to articulate concrete deficiencies in existing laws  such as bad guys who got away because of them  that will be remedied by the new ones. In fact, I read the Convention in vain for mention of a requirement to criminalize conspiracy, other than in connection with money laundering.

The fact that a U.N. treaty is central to the justification for the new law might explain why the government seems particularly annoyed at concerns expressed by a U.N. expert regarding the laws potential for arbitrary use and infringement of civil liberties.3

Under the new law, it will potentially be a separate offense for two or more people to plan (i.e., discuss) the commission of dozens of crimes already on the books. Some make sense if terrorism is the target: Conspiring to have possession of cluster bombs, land mines or biological weapons? Sure, lock em up! Planning to violate the Plant Variety and Seed Protection Act? Amazingly, this is also included in the list of 277 offenses appended to the statute.

Some offenses have the potential to arise in a range of day-to-day affairs: conspiring to avoid consumption tax or favor some creditors over others  even directors conspiring to pay dividends in violation of a corporations charter may become a crime.

Remember, we are not talking about people actually committing the crime and seeing that proven in court; discussing or planning will itself be an offense.

Three reasons to be skeptical

According to the Ministry of Justice, these laws will not  cannot  be used against the average citizen or group.4 Why? First, the conspiracy offenses will only apply when committed by organized crime groups. Second, the types of crimes that are covered are clearly listed. Third, for a conspiracy to be punishable, not only must there be planning, but also action in furtherance of it.

It will only apply to criminal organizations is not very comforting given that, in connection with the public order situation, the NPAs annual white paper regards the Japan Communist Party and populist demonstrations as worthy of special attention, lumped together with ultranationalists, hate groups and the remnants of the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult.5 The Justice Ministrys own Public Security Intelligence Agency also openly refers to the JCP as one of many organizations and forces that threaten to impact public safety.6 Moreover, according to a 1999 leak of internal PSIA documents, the Agency actually conducts surveillance of groups that present such fearsome threats to society as Amnesty International and the Pen Club.7

Once a group gets marked for this type of attention, it may not be hard to become a criminal organization  particularly if its members are conspiring to commit crimes! That said, the criminal organization requirement will doubtless mean nobody in government can ever be guilty of conspiracy.

As for clear definition, the sheer length of the list of new offenses offers little comfort that the law wont become the 21st century version of the Peace Preservation Act, the 1925 statute used in prewar Japan to round up members of Japans nascent communist party and other groups bold enough to make statements that challenged the kokutai, a society based on veneration of a divine emperor.

Finally, the action in furtherance requirement will almost certainly prove meaningless if mundane acts can be shown in hindsight to have been part of a criminal scheme. Trivial things already serve as a pretext for arrest: Earlier this year three men were arrested for sharing the costs of a rental van used for anti-nuclear tours. Why? For operating an unlicensed taxi service.8 If conspiracy had been a separate crime here, they could have been nicked merely for reserving the van (an act in furtherance).

Devil is in the detention

Some might argue Japan is just adding crimes that have long been part of Anglo-American law to its own arsenal. This is true, but the real issue is not any individual offense, but how they are prosecuted.

Criminal procedure is deeply political and each country has a different historical experience with the use of prosecutions as a political weapon. Virtually everything Americans take for granted as basic rights in the criminal process  the right of an accused to know the nature of the charges against them, to the assistance of counsel, to cross-examine hostile witnesses  under English common law were initially only accorded to defendants in treason cases.9 Treason was easy to allege and difficult to rebut if the charge was someone unnamed has alleged you said threatening things about the king, and punished horrifically  perfect for taking out rival courtiers.

Anglo-American criminal procedure thus reflects centuries of painful constitutional evolution towards minimizing the ability to use criminal prosecutions to crush political enemies. Japan has had a very different evolution, with power-sharing, turn-taking and near-constant one-party rule in the postwar period having made brazenly partisan prosecutions of leading politicians rare (though they do happen). What political use of the criminal justice system has taken place has instead focused on smothering dissent from government outsiders: arresting communists, labor organizers and student and community activists, often for trivial offenses.

Moreover, Japanese criminal procedure lacks arraignment proceedings  an initial hearing where an arrested suspect learns of the charges against him or her and can start preparing a defense with the assistance of counsel. Instead, the first time a person who has been arrested in Japan may see a judge is if a prosecutor asks one to issue a warrant to detain him in order to facilitate further investigations of the alleged crime. Judges grant such warrants in over 96 percent of cases based mainly on the prosecutors say-so and a presumption of guilt.

Through renewals and other techniques, law enforcement can detain suspects for weeks, sometimes longer, before deciding whether to prosecute. During this period they can question suspects from dawn until dusk, with limited access to a lawyer. (You cant talk to your client until we have finished questioning him is literally the logic of the code of criminal procedure here.) Moreover, although a suspect may be arrested for one crime, it may be a pretext for investigating another, leading to further arrests that restart the detention clock.

Thus, without conspiracy being added to the mix, Japanese law enforcement authorities already have broad powers to punish people they dont like without ever putting them on trial. A few days or weeks in jail may not seem like much, but think how quickly your life would be ruined if you suddenly disappeared, unable to contact anyone, pay your bills or go to work? All that is required to mete out this punishment is a pretext for an arrest. A recent example is the shocking five-month pre-trial incarceration of an Okinawan leader of protests against U.S. military base expansion. Incredibly, throughout this period the police even denied their victim visits from family members or anyone other than his attorneys. Even more incredibly, this brutal treatment was approved by judges charged with overseeing the system.10

The Constitution prohibits arrests except for crimes in progress or pursuant to an arrest warrant. In fiscal 2015 Japans courts rejected only 62 of 100,880 requests for such warrants.11 Conspiracy will thus add countless new pretexts to arrest and punish almost anyone. Already complicit in this system, the judiciary cannot be expected to check abuses.

The incredibly coercive nature of pre-charge detention creates an environment where suspects may be eager to agree with whatever version of events police want. Offering confessions or statements implicating other suspects  even if misleading or untrue  may be the fastest way of escaping the punishment already being administered. The Constitution prohibits convictions based solely on confessions but is silent as to those based on testimony of a single witness. Should they choose to, police and prosecutors may soon be able to use the dark, secret confines of interrogation chambers to manufacture conspiracies by turning average citizens into witnesses against each other based solely on allegations of conversations and mundane acts.

By vastly expanding the universe of possible crimes, the ability of law enforcement to conduct surveillance of suspects will also be enhanced. Wiretaps require warrants, but these will also be rubber-stamped by courts. The broad scope of conspiracy crimes means the bar for starting investigations and conducting less intrusive surveillance activities will also be effectively lowered. As illustrated by the comprehensive police surveillance of Japans Muslim community  approved by the courts  that bar is already near the ground.12

In his 1753 Commentaries on the Laws of England, Sir William Blackstone categorized conspiracy as a crime against public justice and wrote specifically of conspiracies to indict an innocent man of felony falsely and maliciously. Japans version of the crime will no doubt be used to protect public order; hopefully the cost to public justice will not be too great.

This is a revised and expanded verion of an article by the same author that originally appeared in The Japan Times on June 14, 2017). Colin P.A. Jones, Conspiracy theory becomes frightening reality (Japan Times, June 14, 2017)
The Turnbull government has been rocked by another day of drama over the dual citizenship fiasco, a diplomatic stoush with New Zealand and another Liberal MP facing questions over their eligibility for Parliament.

The government is moving closer towards unilaterally referring four Labor MPs to the High Court to have the validity of their election tested.

The move would mark a dramatic escalation of the citizenship stoush that has so far led five MPs - Barnaby Joyce and Matt Canavan (Nationals), Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters (Greens), and Malcolm Roberts (One Nation) - to be referred to the High Court to have the validity of their elections examined.

The move to refer those four Labor MPs - Justine Keay and Susan Lamb (both with British heritage), Tony Zappia (born in Italy) and Maria Vamvakinou (born in Greece) - would force them to produce documents that back up the detailed explanations they have given that they say proves they have complied with section 44 of the constitution, which states that dual citizens cannot be elected to the Federal Parliament.
Amber Heard and Johnny Depp made headlines in April 2015, after they were forced to fly their pet terriers, Pistol and Boo, back to Los Angeles following revelations they had brought them into Queensland without placing them in quarantine.

The couple had been living on the Gold Coast while Depp filmed Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, released this year.

In his capacity as Minister for Agriculture, Joyce said the dogs had to be removed from the country within 50 hours or they would be euthanised.

"It doesn't matter if Johnny Depp has been awarded sexiest man alive twice, it's time Boo and Pistol bugger off home," he said.

Speaking on Sunrise after the incident, Heard said she would be avoiding Australia in the future thanks to "certain politicians there".
Of course fast-fashion retailers don't use that term; they call it "trending now". As in, the Gucci track pant/Balenciaga sock boot/Vetements floral dress is trending now, so we're offering a very similar look for a fraction of the price.

According to Refinery 29 , "juicy bits" of the story include explaining how "Zara was founded on creating knockoffs".

The internet is excited about an upcoming German doco on Zara's Spanish founder Amancio Ortega, aka the second-richest man in the world.

Most bigger brands seem content to shrug their shoulders at copying culture because it's so entrenched. Pre-portable cameras, sneaky thieves posing as buyers used to surreptitiously sketch the outfits shown at the Paris couture shows; Christian Dior was always turfing them out apparently.

Every generation has its knockoff scandals. In the 1940s it was sniped that Mr Dior himself had nicked some of his silhouettes from Cristobal Balenciaga. In the 1950s and '60s, Australian and American designers routinely copied Paris clothes, and when I first arrived in Sydney from London in the 1990s, little had changed. Designers here "referenced" the European catwalks constantly  some of them still do.

Big names are not immune. I remember in the early 2000s when Nicolas Ghesquiere, then at Balenciaga, admitted copying a patchwork vest by an obscure 1970s San Franscisco-based designer called Kaisik Wong. The noughties were also rife with downmarket rip-offs as logo mania reached its peak.

But in 2017, homage culture has stepped up a notch, exacerbated by our impatience  who wants to wait months for a runway collection to reach the stores?  and enabled by social media. Contemporary culture has become one giant Pinterest board, and designers at all ends of the market shamelessly pinch ideas from one another. .

It's getting harder to tell what's wry postmodern pick 'n' mix and what's simply lazy pilfering. Balenciaga's recent ode to IKEA's blue Frakta shopping bag? How about current Gucci referencing the work of Dapper Dan, who built his career in 1990s Harlem referencing Louis Vuitton? Gucci's creative director Alessandro Michele ain't apologising  he calls it an "exploration of faux-real culture".
The University of Sydney's residential colleges, a number of which have come under fire for repeated sexual misbehaviour, will not be required to share the findings of an 18-month-long cultural review led by former sex discrimination commissioner Elizabeth Broderick with the university or students.

The review was triggered by a slew of incidents, including a female student at St John's being rushed to hospital after being forced by senior students to drink a mix of shampoo, sour milk, dog food, Tabasco sauce and alcohol, and the establishment of a "pro-rape" Facebook page by St Paul's students.

"Ms Broderick will provide a proposal to the university and the colleges to ensure effective and cohesive action, which builds on the independent cultural change programs underway at the colleges," a spokeswoman for the University of Sydney said.

"The university has previously committed to any report it receives as a result of the process being made public. Any material provided directly to the college is a matter for them."
Police have taken a man into custody after a standoff near Townsville on Tuesday afternoon.

Emergency services responded to reports of a domestic violence incident at a residence on Paul James Drive in Nome just after 1pm.

The standoff ended just after 4pm. Credit:Glenn Hunt

It is understood the man barricaded himself inside the property and made threats, prompting negotiators to be called to the scene.

However, just over three hours later, the man emerged from the residence, surrendered to police peacefully and was taken into custody.
The Queensland Government will launch a three-month independent investigation into the inter-state transport and dumping of waste.

The investigation will examine look at how to prevent the dumping from continuing, whether any laws or regulations have been breached and how to get other states on board.

In New South Wales, the government charges companies $138 per tonne to dispose their waste. In Queensland, it costs nothing. Credit:Robert Pearce

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said she hoped the announcement would send a clear message across the country that "Queensland is not a free for all".

"I met with industry yesterday to discuss long-term strategies to manage waste, and the investigation is an outcome of that meeting," she said.
"The wellspring of the technology was the need to reform the way hospitals run and improve patient safety levels, as well the job satisfaction of medical staff.

Darling developed SmartWard after the death of his daughter, having watched inefficient and sometimes downright dangerous hospital practices at close proximity for too long.

But the hospital sector doesn't want to listen. So Matt Darling and his team are pursuing other, potentially more lucrative, opportunities.

"My obsession has been to improve hospitals and it's a bit of a shock to have other sectors looking at the capability we built. Many settings have large, fragmented systems. These environments eventually become so complex that they become difficult to use," he says

SmartWard can resolve this through the unique way it ties information systems together.

"We solved the problem with health care in mind, but I have met some brilliant people who have pointed out a multitude of applications," says Darling, who thinks his system has use across logistics, defence and other areas in health, including aged and primary care.

"So from that point of view it's been a very interesting journey." Darling recently returned from New York as the guest of a large multinational, where he met a range of its international clients to present the technology.

"What our system does is build the view of the information that people need according to their role, their location and the time of day. That's what's needed in health and apparently in other areas, too," Darling explains.
More than 50 patients allegedly molested by a Melbourne neurologist have settled one of the biggest medical abuse cases in Australia.

Lawyers for 52 of Dr Andrew Churchyard's former patients announced the confidential settlement after Supreme Court proceedings were launched against his estate last year. The settlement was made with a denial of liability clause.

Dr Andrew Churchyard took his own life after he was committed to stand trial over sex abuse allegations.

Dr Churchyard took his own life after being committed to stand trial in connection to allegations he sexually abused 19-year-old Tom Monagle, and was under police investigation over three other complaints.

More than 100 alleged victims came forward after Fairfax Media revealed the case of Dr Churchyard.
Upgrades to the Swan Street Bridge will blow out another six months after workers discovered 70-year-old plans for the bridge were incorrect.

Roads Minister Luke Donnellan said he felt "like a fool" after discovering the $30 million project, due to be finished last month, would need to be redesigned and would not be finished until January 2018.

The works to add another eastbound lane and widen footpaths on the Swan Street Bridge have created massive congestion in the Richmond area since construction began in March, with travel times ballooning by almost 20 minutes in peak times.

Mr Donnellan said he was embarrassed by the setback but said surveys done at the start of the project did not reveal any issues.
A Wheatbelt man has been charged after sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl at his home in Narrogin.

Police spokesman Adam Brouwer said police claim the 40-year-old man sexually assaulted the girl - who is known to the man - over two years between January 2014 and December 2015.

Police say the man knew the girl who he allegedly sexually assaulted. Credit:Craig Sillitoe

Narrogin detectives charged the man with indecent dealing of a child under 13 years and will face Narrogin Magistrates Court on Tuesday.
The real dream of the people and Fr Joice was to build a new church, but how?

At first they thought of attaching a wing to the old church but abandoned the idea as impractical.

The people together with the parish priest Fr Joice Packel CST considered the options.

The old church building was falling into serious disrepair and the community was quickly outgrowing it.

THE people of Saint John the Apostle Parish in Hedmari, Hela Province, recently hosted a joyful and reverent celebration for the blessing of their new one-of-a-kind church building.

Hedemari is a rural village and the community does not have much money. But it has great faith and determination - and with that the project was started.

The people received great assistance from Mathias Manga, a long-time parishioner, who provided construction materials. They also received assistance from two MPs, Philip Undialu and Francis Potape, and others.

More than anything, though, what made the project possible was the hard work and determination of everyone in the community.

Young and old, men and women, all put their hearts together to make a dream come true.

The carpenters were not professional, nor did they demand big salaries - virtually donating their services. Fr Joice worked beside them sharing his knowledge and skills every step of the way.

The day of the blessing arrived and the people prepared in the customary way. Scores of pigs were brought for the mumu. Dozens of people came in traditional Huli attire, including many youngsters.

The traditional Mali drummers added an extra layer of solemnity to the celebration. Priests and sisters came from every corner of the Diocese of Mendi (which comprises the Southern Highlands as well as the Hela Province). And Bishop Donald Lippert was there to officiate at the historic blessing.

When the first missionaries came to this area in the mid-1950's, Hedemari was one of the first places they reached. Fr Berard Tomasetti and Br Mark Bollinger were the first Capuchin-Franciscan missionaries. From Hedemari they went on to Koroba and to Pureni.

In his homily, based on scripture readings, Bishop Donald spoke to the assembly of how the new church building was a proof of God's closeness to the people.

Fr Joice Packel is the priest of Saint John Church and is the first resident priest in Hedemari. He is a member of the Congregation of St Therese of the Little Flower which is headquartered in Kerala, India.

Hedemari is a pastoral area, not yet a full parish and, after mass, community leaders requested that it be raised to the level of parish. If the community continues to grow in faith, hope and love, it won't be long before another dream of the people comes true.
Most shoppers love a gift with purchase but preferably not one with eight legs and a sting in the tail.

A Canadian weatherman got a nasty surprise as he unpacked his groceries, discovering a live scorpion in a bag of bananas.

Canadian man Nathan Coleman discovered a scorpion in a bag of bananas he bought from Costco in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Credit:Nathan Coleman

Nathan Coleman was alerted to the squirming creature by his 11-year-old daughter.

"It was as scary as it was shocking," Mr Coleman told Huffington Post Canada. "It's just such a strange bug. It's actually very surreal. I cover all of Atlantic Canada, but I didn't have to go very far to find this story. It was right in my kitchen."
Cucuta, Colombia: Under a scorching sun just a short walk from Colombia's border with Venezuela, hundreds of hungry men, women and children line up for bowls of chicken and rice - the first full meal some have eaten in days.

An estimated 25,000 Venezuelans make the trek across the Simon Bolivar International Bridge into Colombia each day. Many come for a few hours to work or trade goods on the black market, looking for household supplies they cannot find back home.

A woman carrying a bundle on her head waits in line to cross the border into Colombia through the Simon Bolivar International Bridge in San Antonio del Tachira, Venezuela. Credit:AP

But increasingly, they are coming to eat in one of a half-dozen facilities offering struggling Venezuelans a free plate of food.

"I never thought I'd say this," said Erick Oropeza, 29, a former worker with Venezuela's Ministry of Education who recently began crossing the bridge each day. "But I'm more grateful for what Colombia has offered me in this short time than what I ever received from Venezuela my entire life."
A finance executive who has been called a pioneer in the development of the Australian mortgages business has joined Yellow Brick Road's board as non-executive director, the company announced yesterday (14 August).



Frank Ganis joins the company following a 28-year career at Macquarie Group, where as an executive director he was instrumental in the restructuring, transformation and growth of the Australian mortgage industry.



Ganis was responsible for the launch of the bank's mortgages and securitisation business in the early 1990s and established the PUMA Program as a leading Australian issuer of residential mortgage-backed securities which resulted in greater competition in the marketplace.



Frank Ganis will be a great asset to YBR. As we continue to deliver on our strategy, Franks input on the board will be invaluable. He has unrivalled expertise in developing funding alternatives and is widely respected for his role in the evolution of the Australian lending landscape," said Mark Bouris, executive chairman of Yellow Brick Road Group.



As YBR continues to capitalise on our strong brand and distribution network, we will benefit from Franks extensive knowledge and experience in the sector, Bouris said.
Bucks County schools help Give a Christmas reach local families in need

In its 64-year history, the Give-a-Christmas drive has raised $5.26 million to help thousands of families at the holiday season.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants to crack down on hate-fueled rioting in the aftermath of the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia last weekend.

Cuomo proposed the "Charlottesville provisions"  changes to state law that would establish new hate crimes for inciting to riot or rioting "when directed at a protected class." The charges would apply if a riot targets an individual or group based on several classifications, including age, color, gender, race, religion or sexual orientation.

The bill would establish stiffer penalties for inciting to riot and rioting. For inciting to riot, the charge would be elevated from a class A misdemeanor to a class E felony. Rioting would be a class D felony, up from a class E felony.

While peaceful demonstrations will be permitted, the goal of the legislation is to discourage rallies that encourage violence against certain classes of people.

"Our diversity is our strength and this legislation will help protect New Yorkers and send a clear signal that violence and discrimination have no place in our society," Cuomo said in a statement.

The governor's proposal also seeks to expand the state's human rights law to include public school students.

According to Cuomo's office, a state Court of Appeals decision in 2012 prevents the state Division of Human Rights from investigating reports of discrimination in public schools. The agency does have the authority to investigate discrimination claims at private schools.

The violence in Charlottesville stemmed from a white supremacist rally that was organized to protest the city's planned removal of a statue honoring Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

A member of one white supremacist group is accused of driving his vehicle into a crowd of counter-protesters who gathered in the city. One person died and 19 others were hurt in the attack.

There were 15 other injuries reported in violence Saturday.

The Virginia State Police is also mourning the loss of two state troopers who died in a helicopter crash. The troopers were in a helicopter that was monitoring the protests at the time of the accident.

On Sunday, Cuomo launched a petition urging President Donald Trump to condemn white supremacists. As of Tuesday, 18,300 people have signed the petition, according to the governor's office.

"The ugly events that took place in Charlottesville must never be repeated, and in New York we're going to stand united against hate in all of its forms," Cuomo said.
Cayuga County has received federal approval for the Owasco Flats restoration project, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Tuesday.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approved federal wetland permits for the project. The county needed the permits to advance the restoration work.

A spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers said Monday that an unvalidated permit was sent to the county Thursday. The next step is for the county to review the permit and, if they agree to the terms, sign it and return it to the agency.

The Army Corps will then validate the permit. Once the permit is validated, work may commence.

The state issued its permits for the restoration initiative in July. But it couldn't proceed without federal approval. That's when Cuomo and Schumer, D-N.Y., intervened.

Schumer visited Owasco in July and urged the Army Corps of Engineers to expedite its review process and approve the permits. Days after Schumer's visit, Cuomo sent a letter to the Army Corps' Buffalo district office supporting the Owasco Flats restoration initiative and calling on the agency to quickly approve the work.

"The Owasco Flats restoration project is a critical tool for local officials to beat back algal blooms and protect the county's largest source of drinking water  which is why I asked the Army Corps to act fast when granting necessary approvals," Schumer said Tuesday. "Today I am pleased to announce the Army Corps has heeded our calls and delivered federal permits that will allow this long-awaited project to begin."

Cuomo added that he's pleased the Army Corps of Engineers is "fulfilling its duties" by signing off on the project.

"I am directing state agencies to assist the county to expedite the implementation of this critical project and help make a stronger, healthier New York for all," he said.

The restoration project is years in the making. The state awarded the county a $712,500 grant for the first phase of the work in 2011, but the project has faced regulatory hurdles.

The goal of the initiative is to reduce sediment plumes and prevent algal blooms from developing in Owasco Lake. Basins will be constructed to prevent nutrients from flowing into the inlet and, eventually, Owasco Lake.

Now that the permits have been awarded, the bidding process may begin. Bruce Natale, an environmental engineer for Cayuga County, said Tuesday that the project will be advertised in the next week and bids will be due by mid-September.

The Cayuga County Legislature may award the bid by the end of September.

There was a new development in the project after the Army Corps of Engineers' review. The county will be required to survey reed canary grass in Owasco Flats. Because reed canary grass is considered an invasive species, the county must monitor it so they avoid spreading it to other areas.

Staff from the state Department of Environmental Conservation's regional office in Syracuse will assist the county with the invasive species survey.

Staff writer Gwendolyn Craig contributed to this report.
White supremacist groups, emboldened by political rhetoric and policy, are part of an old tradition that isnt going away, UB history professor says

Charlottesville wont be the last time we see something like this, Carole Emberton says

White supremacists are emboldened now and are more vocal and aggressive and see a moment when people who are echoing their sentiments are in positions of power  in the Trump administration. 

BUFFALO  The photos and videos coming out of Charlottesville, Virginia  heavily armed individuals, antisemitic and racist chants, torch-lit rallies  are all images this country has seen throughout its history, says Carole Emberton, associate professor of history at the University at Buffalo.

So when Emberton saw what was unfolding over the weekend in Charlottesville, she was certainly disturbed, but not all that surprised. These images are not only reminiscent of history, she says, but are also likely to continue again, long after the vigils and memorials in Charlottesville.

The removal of the Robert E. Lee statue might have ignited the rally this weekend, but I think that was an excuse in many ways, Emberton says. White supremacists are emboldened now and are more vocal and aggressive and see a moment when people who are echoing their sentiments are in positions of power  in the Trump administration. That gives every day citizens who might be inclined to act out in that way a stamp of approval to do exactly what we saw this weekend.

Emberton studies the Civil War era, the history of race and wrote the book Beyond Redemption: Race Violence, and the American South after the Civil War.

So while the attention this weekend focused on Charlottesville, it has been in many other places before and will be in other places again, she says.

The election of Donald Trump empowered white supremacist groups, she says. We saw it earlier this year in Berkeley, Portland, New Orleans and in Charlottesville before this weekend. The groups hateful rhetoric is steeped in history, Emberton says, and it is only getting more vocal and aggressive since the election of Trump.

White supremacist groups want to invoke chaos, she says  it justifies what they are doing. Their goal is to paint themselves as an attacked minority group. Throughout history these groups have dressed in camouflage, heavily armed, Emberton says, in an effort to look like the National Guard or other military or law enforcement groups.

We have a long history of conflict in this country and it isnt going to go away, especially as political divisions deepen, she says. It happened in Virginia this weekend, but it could happen anywhere. This wont be the last time we see something like this.

Editor's note: The spelling of antisemitic was corrected on Feb. 10, 2022.
At a time of significant growth, Russell Roof Tiles has appointed a Technical Sales Manager in the north east.

Mick Robinson from Hartlepool, joins the company with more than 26 years experience within the sales and manufacturing industry, having previously worked with blue chip manufacturers in the roofing, insulation and solar energy industries.

Building on his wealth of experience and background in strong specifications, Mick will be responsible for the firms business in the north east of the UK including Tyne and Wear, Cumbria, Northumberland, North Yorkshire and County Durham, enabling Russell Roof Tiles to expand and develop in the area.

Commenting on his new appointment, Mick, said: I am proud to be joining such an experienced and enthusiastic team at Russell Roof Tiles of which I know  and have experienced first-hand - dedicated to going the extra mile for the customer, whether it be through the expert support of the technical team, or the personal visits and help from the sales teams.

The team has already built strong connections and relationships here in the north with contractors, planners and builders, and it will be great to be able to expand and build on this success even further.

Russell Roof Tiles currently employs a team of 180 across its two factories in Burton and one in Lockerbie in Scotland. Mick will join the 10 sales professionals who are currently located across the UK including in Wales, Scotland, the south and the Midlands.

Alan Young, Regional Sales Director at Russell Roof Tiles, added: Mick joins the team at Russell Roof Tiles at a time of significant expansion for the company where we have seen additional sales alongside an expansion of the companys product range. We know that he will be a valuable asset to the team and will help us continue our success in the north.
The first apprentices to be placed by the Builders Merchants Federations (BMFs) accredited Apprenticeship Training Agency (ATA), start work this month.

The BMF ATA is acting as the formal employer of two of the apprentices who have been placed with member companies. Andrews Building Supplies Peterborough branch is hosting apprentice Harry Osman, and Beers Bromborough branch is hosting apprentice Michael Comber. Both are undertaking Level 2 Apprenticeships in Trade Business Services.

Two more BMF member companies have directly employed apprentices with the support of the BMF ATA. Chandlers Building Supplies has taken on Billy Hunt at its Halesowen branch as a Level 2 Warehouse and Storage apprentice, and are already looking to take on a second apprentice.

Meanwhile, Emerys decided to use the scheme to upskill Jack Rowley, an existing employee at its Stoke-on-Trent branch, who is now working towards a Level 2 Trade Business Services qualification. Emerys is also working with the BMF ATA to recruit an accounting apprentice.

Richard Ellithorne, Membership Services Director at the BMF, said: Its encouraging to see the BMF Apprenticeship Plus scheme being used in the two different ways we envisaged. By acting as the employer, the BMF ATA removes potential administrative hurdles making it easy for BMF members to take on an apprentice in any job role.

BMF Apprenticeship Plus also helps those members who are happy to directly employ an apprentice to recruit and train a suitable candidate. The BMF ATA opens up a far wider portfolio of established and pre-vetted training providers offering new qualifications and funded training opportunities.
Democrats largely prevail in SJ, but reversals loom in two townships

Democratic incumbents held on to many seats, but GOP challengers made inroads in two large townships
Multiple defendants were arraigned in Auburn City Court Monday on unrelated felony charges following arrests by the Auburn Police Department.

On Saturday, police arrested 31-year-old Laronda F. A. Agee on charges related to an incident that occurred on July 27.

Police said Agee, of 4 Lizette St., Auburn, drove her vehicle onto the sidewalk in front of the Auburn City Courthouse on Genesee Street in an attempt to run over her 16-year-old daughter, who had an order of protection filed against her mother.

Agee was charged with first-degree criminal contempt, a felony, endangering the welfare of a child and third-degree menacing. She was arraigned in Auburn City Court Monday and released on her own recognizance. She is scheduled to reappear in court on Sept. 13.

In an unrelated case, police arrested Robert J. Stryker, 47, of 6606 E. Seneca Turnpike Road, Jamesville, on Monday and charged him with five felonies stemming from a crime that took place in June.

Deputy Police Chief Roger Anthony said that on June 26, Stryker broke into a house on Aspen Street in Auburn through the garage and took two purses that contained credit and debit cards. Stryker used one of the cards to buy a 55-inch TV at Walmart and signed for the purchase using the victim's name, Anthony said.

An investigation into the crime led to Stryker after he was arrested in Syracuse for allegedly stealing a vehicle and running from police officers two days after the Auburn burglary allegedly took place. For the Auburn incident, Stryker was charged with second-degree burglary, first-degree identity theft, second-degree forgery, fourth-degree grand larceny and fourth-degree criminal possession of stolen property, all felonies. He was arraigned Monday afternoon in Auburn City Court and returned to the Onondaga County Justice Center.

Later Monday night, police arrested Matthew J. Stanley after officers were called to Delevan Street in Auburn.

When police arrived, the 19-year-old was found to be in possession of a 9 mm handgun, which he intended to trade to someone in exchange for an ounce of marijuana, Anthony said. According to police, the gun was not loaded but Stanley did have ammunition on him when he was arrested.

Stanley was charged with two felonies: second-degree criminal possession of a weapon and third-degree criminal sale of a firearm. He was arraigned Monday night in Auburn City Court and was being held at the Cayuga County Jail in lieu of $5,000 cash bail or $10,000 bond. Stanley's next court date is scheduled for Aug. 21.
The Karnataka government has reached out to Tim Cook, chief executive of technology major Apple Inc, asking him to adopt locally built keyboard layouts and fonts for Kannada on its flagship software iOS. The move is consistent with India's push to get the world's most valuable company to comply with local standards if it wants to tap the country's massive customer base.
Flipkart and Amazon, the two dominant players in the Indian e-commerce world, are now facing competition from  as far as the pecking order is concerned.
Reaching out to strife-hit Kashmiris, Prime Minister on Tuesday said bullets or abuses will not help resolve their problems and a change can take place by embracing all Kashmiris.

In his Independence Day address from the ramparts of the historic Red Fort, he also slammed violence in the name of faith, saying it was "not acceptable" and that communalism and casteism were a "poison" that would do no good to the country.

During his hour-long speech, Modi also asserted that India is capable of tackling any kind of security challenge, be it the sea or borders, a remark that assumes significance in view of the standoff with China in Doklam.

Attired in his trademark half-sleeve 'kurta', churidar pajamaand Rajasthani headgear, Modi started his speech with a reference to casualties caused by natural calamities in different parts of the country and deaths of children in a state-run hospital in Gorakhpur, saying sympathies of the entire nation are with the affected families.

Addressing the nation for the fourth time from the Red Fort, he also spoke about his three-year-old government's achievements and the major decisions taken, particularly referring to the GST (goods and services tax) rollout and demonetisation.

He said security is a priority for the government and there will be no soft approach towards terrorists or terrorism.

Referring to Kashmir where the situation has been uneasy since last year, the prime minister said, "Na gaalise, nagolise, parivartanhoga gale lagaanese... Samasya suljhegi har Kashmiri ko gale laganese (problems of Kashmir cannot be addressed by either bullets or by abuses. The change can come by embracing all Kashmiris)."



He said only a handful of separatists were resorting to different tactics to create problems in the state but the government is committed to making Kashmir a paradise once again.

Modi said not only the Jammu and Kashmir government but the entire country is with the people of the state in helping them realise their dreams of development.

He said the government is committed to restoring the lost glory of Kashmir and again make it the 'heaven on earth'.

Modi referred to last year's surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC) and said the world has realised the mettle of India's security forces.

He said India's stature in the world is rising and several countries are cooperating with India in fighting the menace of terrorism.

"It is clear that security of our country is our priority. Internal security is our priority. Be it sea or borders, be it cyber or space, India is capable of tackling every security challenge," he said amidst the standoff with China in Doklam, which he did not refer to directly.

"Our army, our bravehearts, every personnel in uniform and not only the Army, Navy, the IAF (Indian Air Force), have shown their capability and grit whenever there was a situation. Our heroes never shied away from sacrifices," he said.

India stands for peace, unity, and harmony, he said, adding "poison" of casteism and communalism will not help the nation.

"Violence in the name of faith is not acceptable in the country," Modi said while invoking Mahatma Gandhi and Lord Buddha.

"Bharat Jodo" (connect India) should be the slogan like "Bharat chhodo" (Quit India) was during the freedom struggle, he said.

He also referred to the issue of 'triple talaq', saying he paid regards to the women who had to lead a pitiable life because of it and had started a movement which has created an environment in the country against the practice.

Talking about the roll out of GST on July 1, he said it was a key illustration of cooperative federalism.

He said an abolition of inter-state check posts after the implementation of GST has reduced the time for movement of goods by 30 per cent and saved thousands of crores of rupees.

Mentioning his resolve to curb black money, he said demonetisation of old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes last November had helped bring over Rs 3 lakh crore of hereto unaccounted wealth into the banking system.

He said over Rs 1.75 lakh crore has been deposited in banks post note-ban and more than 18 lakh people with disproportionate income are under government scrutiny.

"Those who have looted the nation and looted the poor are not able to sleep peacefully today," the prime minister said, vowing to continue the crackdown on black money.

Modi also asked the countrymen to shed 'chalta hai' attitude and instead adopt an approach of 'badalsakta hai' (can change) for positive change.

Invoking Bal Gangadhar Tilak's slogan of swaraj (self- rule), he said now their motto should be 'suraj' (good governance) as he underlined his vision for a 'new India' by 2022.

In 'new India', he said, "Tantra seloknahin, lokse tantra chalega (people would be the driving force behind the establishment rather than the other way around)." He lamented that democracy has been confined to ballots.

The nation had shown its collective strength between 1942 and 1947 culminating in India's Independence, he said, asking people to show the same resolve to create a 'new India' by 2022.

He emphasised that everyone is equal in the nation and together they can bring about a qualitative transformation.

Highlighting the problems in work culture, he said while the nation had the capability of sending 'mangalyaan' (Mars mission) in nine months, on the other hand, a rail track project had been pending for over four decades, leading to disappointment among the people over the situation.

He said his government has put the decision- making on the fast-track.

Concluding his speech, he called for a 'new India' where the poor would have houses and access to water and electricity; where farmers would be free from worry and would earn twice of what they earn today; youth and women would get ample opportunities to fulfil their dreams.

Also, an India which will be free from terrorism, communalism, casteism, corruption and nepotism and an India which is clean and healthy, he said.
The six-year-old daughter of slain CRPF Commandant Pramod Kumar and his wife on Tuesday unfurled the tricolour from the same battalion camp in Srinagar, where exactly a year ago he hoisted the flag and was killed minutes later in a militant encounter.

Kumar's wife Neha Tripathy and daughter Aarna performed the ceremonial unfurling and saluting the flag at the 49th battalion camp in the Karan Nagar area.

Tripathy then performed the traditional drill of distributing sweets to the men of the battalion, once commanded by her husband. She also placed a wreath at the martyr's memorial built at the camp.

Kumar (44) was on Monday decorated by the government with the Kirti Chakra (posthumously), the third highest peacetime gallantry medal, for his dare devil action where he picked up his AK-47 rifle and rushed to the Nowhatta Chowk area after he was told his patrol party was under attack, during the last Independence Day.

He suffered a fatal bullet shot in his head during the encounter at Nowhatta Chowk area and succumbed soon after.

Kumar's wife had on Monday told PTI that she wanted her daughter to know what her father did for the country and hence decided to mark his first death anniversary at the same camp where he took his last salute.

"I want my daughter to know what her father stood for and what he did. She should know that what is the importance of earning a Kirti Chakra. Hence, I made it a point to be on the same soil where my husband lost his life, to mark his first death anniversary.

"As he unfurled the tricolour at the 49th battalion camp exactly a year before, we will be doing it tomorrow," she had said.

On the last Independence Day, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) CO had hoisted the flag between 8:30-8:40 AM and in his speech remarked that with India clocking 70 years of its freedom, the responsibility on security forces has "increased" and they have to effectively tackle militants and incidents of stone pelting in Jammu and Kashmir.

Just before he ended his speech, Kumar, in a recorded video of the event, is seen looking at his watch and saying "it is an important day", unaware of the fate that awaited him.

Minutes later he was killed at the Nowhatta Chowk fighting militants.

While Kumar and his men eliminated the two armed foreign militants, nine other personnel, including a state police official, were injured in the attack.

The CO was posted to Srinagar in April 2014 and was promoted as a Commandant only a few days before the fateful day, on July 12.

He hailed from Patna in Bihar but lived in neighbouring Jharkhand's Jamtara district.

The officer had been thrice decorated with the CRPF Director General's commendation in 2015, 2014 and in 2011.

He had also served in the Special Protection Group (SPG) for three years.

The officer joined the force in 1998.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the nation on Tuesday from the ramparts of the Red Fort on the occasion of India's 71st Independence Day. During his Independence Day 2017 speech, PM Modi touched on various issues, including the recent tragedy in Gorakhpur, where over 60 children have died in a hospital over the past few days, his government's fight against black money, creating a 'New India', empowering the youth of the country, and India's security.
His tenure, which was to end on March 24, was extended by three months. Upon its completion, his term was extended by another three months
The birth of Lord Krishna was rung in with religious fervour on Tuesday and was followed by colourful 'Dahi Handi' with a distinct flavour by thousands of Govindas all over Mumbai and other parts of Maharashtra on the occasion of Krishna Janmashtami.

With the bar on heights of human pyramids relaxed by the Bombay High Court, the celebrations were organised with full gusto in Mumbai, Thane, Navi Mumbai, Palghar, Pune, Nashik, Kolhapur, Nagpur and other major cities.

Groups of revellers  or Govindas as they are popularly known  went around various venues singing "Govinda Ala Re, Ala, Zara Matki Sambhal Brij Bala" to the accompaniment of drums and music as huge crowds of excited onlookers welcomed them.

The Govinda troupes quickly moved onto centre-stage and tried their luck at the 'Dahi Handi', pot of milk, butter and curds, hanging high above the ground, between 30-40 feet.

Those successfully breaking the 'Dahi Handi' hanging barely within reach of the precariously balanced human pyramids, were rewarded with grand prizes in cash and kind, besides fame and glory.

Members from a Govinda mandal's tribute to martyred army soldier Nilesh Sawant while celebrating Dahi Handi on the occasion of Krishna Janmashtami in Mumbai on Tuesday, August 15, 2017. Photo: Kamlesh Pednekar

Combining the spirit of 'Dahi Handi' with the country's Independence Day celebrations, the revellers sported tattoos, face colours, attires in the tri-colour, while pots were decorated in the tri-colour and other symbols of nationalism.

A Dadar group managed to break the 'Dahi Handi' pot with an eight-tier pyramid, while a Thane all-girls group succeeded with a six-tier pyramid.In Mumbai, major pyramids built over six to eight tiers were witnessed in Dadar, Ghatkopar, Borivali, Jogeshwari and Mulund, besides Thane and Navi Mumbai, many patronized by local units of major political parties.

In Thane, the biggest prize money on offer was Rs 11 lakh and in Ghatkopar the figure was Rs 25 lakh for the successful Govinda troupe.

Members from a Govinda mandal build a human pyramid to break Dahi Handi on the occasion of Krishna Janmashtami in Mumbai on Tuesday, August 15, 2017. Photo: Kamlesh Pednekar

The Jai Jawan Mandal of Thane attempted to build a nine-tier pyramid, but before the top Govinda could grab the pot, it came crashing down like a pack of cards.

All-girls Govinda groups in Dadar, Goregaon and Vikhroli were a huge attraction when they created six-tier pyramids, while an all-girls group of Vile Parle managed to reach and break the 'Dahi Handi' pot, amidst deafening cheers and claps, making them among the first to succeed in the city on Tuesday afternoon.

According to government directives, all the organisers implemented stringent security measures like helmets, harnesses and body belts, mattresses on the ground to soften the fall besides volunteers ready to rush them to waiting ambulances in case a pyramid collapsed.

The organisers made it a point to check the identity cards of all the younger Govindas to ensure they complied with the minimum age requirement of 14, besides other conditions stipulated by the government.

In addition to these highly trained, professional groups, there were small groups of amateurs in schools, colleges and housing societies with their own modest celebrations.

The 'Dahi Handi' was typically hung around 12-15 feet and the Govinda pyramids rose one or two-tiers for grabbing the potful of fresh butter, curds  and lots of sweets after they "crashed" down with their families, friends and neighbours as the audience.
AUBURN  Dozens of people  of all ages, genders, races and occupations  gathered Monday night in front of the Harriet Tubman Memorial Mosaic in downtown Auburn to stand in solidarity with Charlottesville, Virginia.

Those who attended held up homemade signs and electric candles, speaking out against bigotry and hatred in America. Auburn Community Chorus members Stephanie DeVito and Rhoda Overstreet-Wilson led the crowd in song, singing uplifting and unifying songs such as "This Little Light of Mine" and "This Land is Your Land."

Auburn resident Jim Spencer held up a poster board sign that read "Only love is the answer" in green block lettering.

"How on earth can someone, any group of people, fuel themselves with enough hatred to go out and commit acts against other people? People are people, regardless of shape, race, age, color," Spencer said. "Everybody's just people."

While Auburn's gathering was small compared to other cities, Spencer said it is a group's intent, not its size, that matters in the end.

"If one person drives by and goes 'Hey, check this out' and changes how they think about race, religion, et cetera, then mission accomplished," he said.

Kentucky woman Kim Edwards grew up in Skaneateles and is currently visiting Cayuga County. She said she would have participated in a solidarity vigil if she was back home and when she found out about Auburn's, she was eager to join.

"I wanted to come and say that I don't want hate to take root in our country," Edwards said.

Auburn City Councilor Debby McCormick shared similar sentiments with the group that gathered.

"To have everybody come together like this is a big deal," McCormick said. "It's great to live in a community that welcomes people and treats people with respect. We've got to appreciate that and stand up for the people who don't live in the same kind of atmosphere that we do."

The vigil was organized by Debra Rose Brillati, a member of Celebrate! Diverse Auburn. Brillati said she wanted to organize an event against hatred and bigotry in Auburn after she heard the news of the violence in Charlottesville over the weekend.

"It's really difficult that we're still fighting the same struggles but I think all of us here are here because we don't want to be discouraged and we do that by giving one another hope," Brillati said to the crowd. "By being together, we're stronger."

Brillati said she was pleased with the vigil's turnout, especially given the short notice.

"To me, this was grassroots, it was the community working," Brillati said. "Everybody played a part."
Pakistan troops violated ceasefire on Independence Day on Tuesday by firing at two places along the Line of Control (LoC) in the Uri sector of Jammu and Kashmir, injuring a woman.

A police official said Hanifa Begum was hit in one leg and an arm by the bullets from across the LoC.

"Pakistani troops resorted to unprovoked firing at two places in Uri sector today," an army official said.

She was given first aid at a military camp before being moved to a civilian hospital for treatment.

This is for the third consecutive day on Tuesday that Pakistan troops have violated ceasefire along the LoC in North Kashmir.
The Centre is exploring a mechanism to assist states in depositing the losses suffered by farmers into their bank accounts, instead of purchasing their produce.
Taking forward a long standing goal of the government, the latest economic survey has again harped on the need for India to achieve a respectable share of 5 per cent of global exports but exporters are not too sure how the country will get there.
The Indian solar market added 1,869 megawatt (Mw) in the second quarter of 2017, bringing installations in the first half of the year to 4,765 Mw. This figure surpasses the 4,313 Mw installed in all of 2016.
In the penultimate speech of his current term, Prime Minister on Tuesday looked beyond the Lok Sabha polls due in April 2019 to give a call for building a new India by 2022.

If in his previous three speeches, the PM had announced such path-breaking steps as the abolition of the Planning Commission and schemes such as Startup India and Stand-Up India, Modis speech on Tuesday was devoid of new announcements except the launch of a website to honour gallantry award winners.

Instead, the PM focused on giving a report card of his governments performance in the last three years and spelt out his vision of a new India. He indicated the lynchpins of his Lok Sabha campaign would be his governments efforts at curbing corruption, building modern infrastructure, and delivering welfare.

Modi said by 2022, the 75th anniversary of Indias independence, he envisioned a country where each family would have a pucca house, electricity, and power supply; farmers would earn twice of what they get currently; the country would be free of terrorism, communalism, casteism, corruption, and nepotism; and it would be clean and healthy.

The PM appealed to people to leave behind the chalta hai attitude, to think of badal sakta hai, or we can transform. Asking countrymen to take the New India pledge and move ahead, the PM quoted from scriptures: If we dont accomplish work within a stipulated time, we shall not be able to get the desired results.

Modi asked people to replicate between 2017 and 2022 the resolve Indians showed from 1942 (Quit India Movement) to 1947. He said if Quit Indias slogan was Bharat chhoro todays slogan should be Bharat jodo.

In his fourth speech from the historic Red Fort, the 17th century structure built during the reign of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, the PM had special words for the millions of new voters who would exercise their franchise in the next Lok Sabha polls.

He said January 1, 2018, would be no ordinary day, as those born in this century will start turning 18. Modi said it would be a decisive year of their lives, as they are going to be the creator of the destiny of the nation. You have an opportunity to shape the destiny of our country, the PM said.

In his speech  at 57 minutes, the shortest he has delivered on since 2014  the PM sidestepped issues of external security such as the military standoff with China in Doklam, but referred to the surgical strike of September 2016 as evidence of Indias capability and strength.

It was only in passing that he referred to the death of about 60 children in a Gorakhpur hospital last week, reportedly because disrupted oxygen supply, clubbing it with other natural calamities.

But he spoke at length about the successes of his government, including demonetisation and the roll-out of the goods and services tax (GST). The PM also said he would ensure completion of 99 unfinished projects he announced last year by 2019.

On job generation, the PM said effort was on to make people job-creators and loans worth Rs 8 crore had been disbursed under the MUDRA scheme. The governments record on employment generation has been abysmal, with Opposition reminding the PM his 2014 election promise of 20 million jobs a year.

Elaborating at length on his governments anti-corruption efforts, the PM said Rs 800 crore worth of benami properties had been confiscated after the law was amended. He said his government, in three years, had confiscated black money to the tune of Rs 1.25 lakh crore.

On demonetisation, the PM said the move led to Rs 3 lakh crore coming into the banking system. However, the Reserve Bank of India is yet to release data on the amount of currency that was deposited during the note ban. Modi said more than Rs 1.75 lakh crore deposited after demonetisation in banks was under the scanner and that black money to the tune Rs 2 lakh crore has been deposited in banks.

Modi said his governments efforts had resulted in more taxpayers filing income-tax returns. The numbers, he said, had more than doubled from 2.2 million last year to 5.6 million this year. He said over 1.8 million people have been identified who earned more than their declared income. Of these, around 450,000 have come forward to try tread the right path after accepting their mistakes.

The PM said post-demonetisation data revealed there are 300,000 shell companies indulging in hawala transactions. Of these, the registration of 175,000 companies had been cancelled.

On the GST roll-out, the PM said it had increased efficiency by 30% and brought corruption down. He said truck drivers were saving 30% in travel time. The PM also said digital transactions had increased by 34% since last year, while prepaid transactions had increased 44%.

Modi said his government has ensured that those who have looted the nation and its poor are not able to sleep peacefully, and the confidence of the hardworking and the honest had increased. He said roads and railway lines were being built at twice the speed, more than 14,000 villages had been electrified and 90 million farmers had got health cards.

As proof of good governance, Modi said home loans were cheaper, inflation is under control and red-tapism for businesspersons has reduced. With the Bharatiya Janata Party trying to expand in the east and the Northeast, the PM said his government was devoting significant attention to Bihar, Assam, West Bengal, Odisha and the Northeastern states.

On Kashmir, the PM said, The problem will be solved neither by abuse or bullets  it will be solved by embracing all Kashmiris. Modi said his government had laid emphasis on cooperative federalism, but was now moving towards a competitive co-operative federalism. The PM also spoke about the sisters who have launched a movement against triple talaq.

Sometimes in the name of faith, some people due to lack of patience end up destroying the social fabric, he said. The PM, however, didnt contextualise if his message was for cow vigilantes.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, from the ramparts of the Red Fort, rolled out statistics to defend demonetisation, while skipping mention of a lower dividend by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) as a pitfall of this move.
PM addresses nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort on 71st Independence Day

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The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, today addressed the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort on the 71st Independence Day. .

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The Prime Minister recalled the great women and men who worked hard for India's freedom. He said the people of India stand shoulder to shoulder with those affected due to natural disasters, and the tragedy in Gorakhpur. .

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The Prime Minister noted that the current year is special, because it marks the 75th anniversary of the Quit India Movement; the 100th anniversary of Champaran Satyagraha; and the 125th anniversary of the celebration of Saarvjanik Ganesh Utsav inspired by Bal Gangadhar Tilak. .

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The Prime Minister said that the nation had shown its collective strength between 1942 and 1947, culminating in Indias independence. He said that we must show the same collective determination and resolve to create a New India by 2022. He emphasized that everyone is equal in our nation, and together we can bring about a qualitative transformation. .

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The Prime Minister called for an end to the chalta hai" attitude of complacency, and its replacement with an attitude of badal sakta hai" for positive change. .

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Shri Narendra Modi said that Indias security is our priority, and the surgical strike had underscored this. He added that Indias stature in the world is rising, and several countries are cooperating with India in fighting the menace of terrorism. On demonetization, he said that those who have looted the nation, and the poor, are not able to sleep peacefully, and honesty is being celebrated today. He asserted that the fight against black money will continue, and technology will help bring about transparency. He encouraged people to further promote digital transactions. .

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The Prime Minister described the implementation of GST as a key illustration of cooperative federalism. He said the poor are joining the mainstream through initiatives of financial inclusion. He emphasized that good governance is about speed and simplification of processes. On Jammu and Kashmir, the Prime Minister emphasized that neither abuses, nor bullets, but only embracing, can solve the problems in the State. (Na gaali se, na goli se, parivartan hoga gale lagaane se). .

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Describing his vision for New India, the Prime Minister said that people would be the driving force behind the establishment, rather than the other way around Tantra se Lok nahin, Lok se tantra chalega. .

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The Prime Minister appreciated the farmers and the agriculture scientists for record crop production this year. He said the Government had procured 16 lakh tonnes of pulses this year, far in excess of the procurement of previous years. .

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The Prime Minister said the changing nature of technology is resulting in the requirement of different skill-sets for employment. He also added that the youth is being nurtured to become job-creators, and not job-seekers..

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Mentioning women who have to suffer due to Triple Talaq, the Prime Minister said that he admires the courage of those who have stood up against this practice, and added that the nation stands with them in their struggle. .

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The Prime Minister said India stands for peace, unity, and harmony. He said casteism and communalism will not help us. He strongly condemned the use of violence in the name of faith, and said this will not be accepted in India. He said the call of the Quit India Movement was Bharat Chhodo," but the call today is Bharat Jodo.".

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The Prime Minister said significant attention is being paid to the development of eastern and north-eastern India. He said the Government has taken India on new tracks of development, without slackening pace. .

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Quoting from scriptures, the Prime Minister said that if we do not take the right step at the right time, we do not achieve desired results. He said this is the right time for Team India to resolve for New India. .

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He called for a New India where the poor would have houses, and access to water and electricity; where farmers would be free from worry, and would earn twice of what they earn today; youth and women would get ample opportunities to fulfil their dreams; an India free from terrorism, communalism, casteism, corruption and nepotism; and an India which is clean and healthy..

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The Prime Minister announced the launch of a website to honour gallantry award winners. .

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President Trump, following days of bellicose threats toward North Korea and jitters about a looming trade war with China, moved on several fronts Monday to ease tensions in East Asia, after making the region a flash point for his administration.
At what point do the CEOs of the largest in the United States tell President Trump that enough is enough?
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Tuesday warned that the country could pull out of a nuclear agreement signed with the world's major powers within hours if the US imposes more sanctions.

Rouhani delivered the warning during a live televised speech, reports Efe news.

He added the new "rulers" of the US should know that the "failed experience of sanctions" brought their previous administrations to the negotiating table.

Rouhani also criticised US President Donald Trump for threatening to break the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Trump has repeatedly rallied against the agreement, which was signed between Iran and the P5+1 (UK, US, France, Russia and China plus Germany) countries in July 2015, calling it "the worst deal ever".

According to Rouhani, the Atomic Energy Agency has acknowledged in seven reports that Iran was complying with the agreement.

"Iran has remained and will remain committed to the deal though any breach of promise by other parties will receive appropriate responses," the President added.

Iran agreed to limit its nuclear ability in exchange for lifting oil and financial sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic.

The US has imposed on Iran several sanctions related to its ballistic missile programme, considered as a violation of the agreement by Tehran.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The state police in Waterloo is seeking the public's help locating a missing person.

Margaret Pollino was last seen entering her vehicle Sunday in the town of Waterloo. The car is described as a gray 2010 Hyundai Elantra. The vehicle's license plate number is HRT3997.

Pollino is a 50-year-old white woman. No other details about her description were provided.

Anyone with information about Pollino's whereabouts should contact the state police in Canandaigua at (585) 398-4100.
Israeli police on Tuesday said it arrested a senior Islamic leader over suspected "incitement".

Sheik Raed Salah is the head of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement, a movement outlawed in November 2015, Xinhua news agency reported.

Israeli authorities charge the movement with having "incited" tensions over East Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a flashpoint site that annexed, together with the rest of East Jerusalem, after seizing the territory from Jordan in 1976.

Police Spokeswoman Luba Samri said Salah was taken for questioning in the headquarters of Lahav 433, Israel's FBI, and the police will decide if they will ask the court to remand him in custody.

According to the spokeswoman, Salah was accused of leading a campaign stating that "Al-Aqsa is in danger" and wants to change the status quo in the holy site, an allegation denied by Tel Aviv.

Last month, the new electronic gates Israel installed at the entrance to the holy mosque sparked massive protests, which claimed the lives of at least four Palestinians.

"On several occasions, after the (Islamic) Movement was outlawed, the inciter spoke before an audience and a series of statements were published in the media," a police statement said.

An examination of the publications "indicates that some of the statements raise suspicion of committing offences", the statement added.

Salah's wife, Um Omar, said about 20 police officers stormed into their home, confiscating computers and arresting her husband without telling them the reason for his arrest.

Salah has a history of clashes with Israeli authorities.

In 2013, He was sentenced to nine months in prison for "inciting violence" and "racism" during a rally against Israeli construction near the Al-Aqsa compound in 2007.

In the rally, he called on "all Muslims and Arabs to start an uprising in support of holy Jerusalem and the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque".
In Chinese schools, students learn that the United States became a great nation partly by stealing technology from Britain. In the halls of government, officials speak of the need to inspire innovation by protecting inventions. In boardrooms, executives strategise about using infringement laws to fell foreign rivals.
The have sent an "open letter" to President Donald Trump, reiterating their calls for America to leave Afghanistan after 16 years of war.

In a long and rambling note in English that was sent to journalists on Tuesday by Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesman, the insurgents say Trump recognised the errors of his predecessors by seeking a review of the US strategy for Afghanistan.

Mujahid says Trump should not hand control of the US, Afghan policy to the military but rather, announce the withdrawal of US forces and not an increase in troops as the Trump administration has planned.

The note, which is 1,600 words long, also says a US withdrawal would "truly deliver American troops from harm's way" and bring about "an end to an inherited war.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
President Donald Trump on Tuesday ordered a probe into China's "unfair" trade practices and "theft" of American intellectual property, drawing a sharp reaction from Beijing which warned that it "will not sit idle" in the face of punitive US actions.

Trump signed a memorandum that directs US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to determine whether an investigation is needed into alleged unfair Chinese trade practices. Shortly after Trump signed the directive, Lighthizer said his office will launch a probe and, "if needed, take action to preserve the future of US industry".

Trump's action comes amid rising tensions between the two nations over provocative missile tests and threats by Beijing's ally North Korea.

"The theft of intellectual property by foreign countries costs our nation millions of jobs and billions and billions of dollars each and every year. For too long, this wealth has been drained from our country while Washington has done nothing," Trump said.

"Today, I'm directing the United States Trade Representative to examine China's policies, practices, and actions with regard to the forced transfers of American technology and the theft of American intellectual property," Trump said as he signed the memorandum.

"As President of the United States, it's my duty and responsibility to protect the American workers, technology, and industry from unfair and abusive actions," he said.

Trump said his administration will stand up to any country that unlawfully forces American companies to transfer their valuable technology as a condition of market access.

Following Trump's order and his remarks on crackdown on unfair trade practices, China's commerce ministry issued a stern statement voicing "serious concern" and warning that any punitive measures will harm bilateral trade relations.

"If the US side takes actions that impair the mutual trade relations, disregarding the facts and disrespecting multilateral trade rules, China will not sit idle," the statement said.

China "is definitely going to adopt all appropriate measures to vigorously defend" its lawful rights and interest, it said.

The country has "always been paying high attention to intellectual property right protection, continuously perfecting the legislation", and that the progress it has made on that front is "obvious to all", the commerce ministry said.

Trump said the US will combat the counterfeiting and piracy that destroys American jobs and enforce the rules of fair and reciprocal trade that form the foundation of responsible commerce.

"We will protect forgotten Americans who have been left behind by a global trade system that has failed to look  and I mean look  out for their interests. They have not been looking out at all," he said.

Trump said the US Trade Representative Lighthizer is empowered to consider all available options at his disposal.

"We will safeguard the copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, and other intellectual property that is so vital to our security and to our prosperity. We will uphold our values, we will defend our workers, and we will protect the innovations, creations, and inventions that power our magnificent country," he said.

Lighthizer said the US has for many years been facing a very serious problem. "China industrial policies and other practices reportedly have forced the transfer of vital US technology to Chinese companies," he alleged.

"We will engage in a thorough investigation and, if needed, take action to preserve the future of US industry. Thousands of jobs are at stake for our workers and for future generations. This will be one of USTR's highest priorities, and we will report back to the President as soon as possible," Lighthizer said.

Top American lawmakers welcomed the move. "I am pleased that President Trump has targeted China's forced technology policies. These practices have unfairly forced American companies to surrender vital intellectual property to their Chinese competitors as the price for doing business," said House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady.

Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi alleged that for years now, China's brazenly unfair trade practices have weakened America's and hurt American workers.

Pelosi asked USTR to take steps against China's theft of American trade-secrets, China's piracy of other American intellectual property, including software and market barriers facing US businesses and products in China.

The bipartisan IP Commission also welcomed Trump's decision.

"The scale of Chinese forced transfer and theft of American intellectual property threatens these interests, both our prosperity and security and thus US policy must address this set of issues," said Dr Richard Ellings, director of the IP Commission and president of National Bureau of Asian Research.
In a move that has evinced mixed responses from the domestic jewellery manufacturing industry, export of gold ornaments, medallions or any other articles beyond 22 carat purity has been banned.
Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi's convoy was attacked on Tuesday near Chaksikandar in Vaishali district.

The Deputy Chief Minister is safe but alleges that attackers were Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) workers who pelted stones on his car.

The incident took place at seven o'clock in the evening.

According to reports, Sushil Modi was going to take part in a program at the house of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator from Mahanar Achuthanand.

More details to follow.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Tuesday demanded action from Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his Independence Day speech from Red Fort.

CPI-M general secretary Sitaram Yechury said there is a 'blaring' gap between the statements given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day address and the ground reality.

"Whatever I am hearing about solving the Kashmir issue or handling communalism is only in speeches and no real action is being taken. Even after the Gorakhpur tragedy, there are people standing together to express solidarity. This alone will not help, the government needs to take action," Yechury told ANI.

Responding to Prime Minister Modi's stance on eradicating communalism, Yechury referred to the recent attacks in the name of cow vigilantism and termed it to be the highest form of communalism that exists in India.

"In the recent past, we have seen the gau rakshaks attack innocent people in the name of nationalism and cow protection. Similarly, there are attacks on Muslims in various pockets of the country. If this is not communalism then what is?" said Yechury.

Defending this stance, CPI (M) leader Brinda Karat stated that before talking about embracing Kashmiris, Prime Minister Modi should first call for an all-party delegation and facilitate political dialogue over Kashmir.

"Forget about embracing Kashmiris, you are not even ready to talk to them. There is a huge gap between the statements given by the Prime Minister and the reality. His statements are the exact opposite of his actions," Brinda told ANI.

Furthermore, she opined that the ambassadors of the current government are 'preaching violence and discrimination'.

"The fight against communalism and casteism has to start. The fight needs to be against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Rashtirya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) ideology," she said.

In his address on account of the 71st Independence Day, Prime Minister Modi said the Kashmir issue can't be resolved with bullets and abuses, but by embracing Kashmiris.

The Prime Minister further added that "we have to work for the progress of Jammu and Kashmir and we are committed to restoring Kashmir's status of Heaven on Earth".

Taking a clear stance on communalism, Prime Minister Modi asserted that in the country of Lord Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi, communalism will be detrimental.

"This is the country of Lord Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi. The poison of casteism and communalism can never be beneficial for our nation. Violence in the name of faith will not be tolerated," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Fighting between Taliban insurgents and Afghan security forces in Mirza Olang village of Sayad district in Sar-e-Pul province has left nearly five hundred families homeless.

The ongoing combat has left many families homeless as the Taliban insurgent took control of their village.

As per reports, provincial governor Mohammad Zahir Wahdat has said 471 families were forced to leave their houses in the valley.

Most of the families have suffered extensive psychological trauma due to the loss of their loved ones.

A 40-year-old woman Hamida recently fled to Sar-e-Pul city after she witnessed the killing of her brother by the insurgents in the village.

"They martyred my brother without any guilt, without him having weapons or being involved in war," Tolo News quoted Hamida, as saying.

One of the survivors, Ahmad, who also fled with his family to Sar-e-Pul city said, "The government does not care and brought the nation to these killings."

The families requested the government to identify and arrest those who neglected to defend Mirza Olang valley which led to the killing of villagers.

Last week, at least 40 Afghan villagers were killed by the Taliban insurgents in the village.

According to the police, the Taliban beheaded some villagers and shot others dead. They had also taken dozens as hostage.

According to Tolo News, the provincial governor had warned that the insurgents could overrun the entire district if the security forces do not retaliate on time.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on Tuesday said that Independence Day is for the entire nation to celebrate and it is not for any particular political party.

RSS leader Rakesh Sinha told ANI that "RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat has hoisted the tricolor in a school despite the obstacle created by the communist government in Kerala. Freedom movement is a festival, it is not a ritual and a state festival. Independence Day is for whole nation not only for any particular political party."

He added that the RSS has been working from last 90 years with just one objective that people in all dimensions must be away from casteism and liberalism.

Senior RSS leader M.G. Vaidya said that in Kerala there is government of communists and in the area of communist they don't give importance to other ideologies.

"Mohan Bhagwat was not given the permission to hoist the flag in the school but as I got to know he hoisted the flag in a school. It's good that they realized their mistake very soon and gave him the permission," he added.

After a major setback, RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat finally hoisted the flag in Karnakkiyamman School here, on Tuesday, to mark the 71st Independence Day of India.

Earlier in the day, he was not allowed to hoist the tri-colour after the District collector issued a memo to the school, categorically stating that it was inappropriate for a political leader to hoist the flag in an aided school.

The District collector added that only a teacher or elected representative of the people was allowed to do so.

However, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) challenged the Collector's decision; standing affirmative that Bhagwat would hoist the flag.

India on Tuesday celebrated its 71st Independence Day. Prime Minister Narendra Modi unfurled tri-colour at the historical Red Fort in New Delhi.

In his address, Prime Minster Modi vowed to fight terrorism, corruption, casteism, and communalism.

The Prime Minister also opined that the country, in unison, can bring a positive change.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
United States Defence Secretary James Mattis on Monday said that the U.S. military would know "within moments" if the North Korean missile launched is heading towards the U.S. territory or not, including Guam.

He issued a strong warning to North Korea saying, "If they shoot at the United States, I'm assuming they've hit the United States. ... If they do that, then it's game on."

"US military would be able to determine 'within moments' after launch whether or not a North Korean missile was headed for US territory, including Guam. He later added that the US would 'take it out' if the missile was determined to be headed for any US territory," CNN quoted Mattis, as saying.

However, he clarified that a declaration of war remains with President Donald Trump and Congress.

"War is up to the President, perhaps up to the Congress, the bottom line is we will defend the country from an attack, for us that's war, that's a wartime situation," he said.

"We will defend the country from any attack, at any time, from any quarter. Yes, that means for a lot of young troops they're going to be in a wartime situation, welcome to reality. But it's not declaring war, it's not that I'm over here Dr. Strangelove doing things like that," he added.

Soon after Mattis's warning, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, reportedly, reviewed his military's plan to launch missiles at Guam.

Tensions between North Korea and the U.S. have escalated after two ICBMs were tested by Kim Jong. President Trump has pledged to meet further provocations "with fire and fury like the has never seen".

North Korea further threatened to attack Guam and other US territories in the Pacific region, with a government spokesman saying a strike plan was ready "to put into practise in a multi-current and consecutive way any moment" on Kim's instruction.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A close-up of the Tibetan-style Sakya Monastery in Shigatse city. [Photo by Zhang Xingjian/chinadaily.com.cn]

Located in Sakya county, Southwest of Shigatse city, Tibet autonomous region, the Sakya Monastery is the principal monastery of the Sakyapa Sect of Tibetan Buddhism.

At first, it comprised both the Northern and Southern Monasteries; however, the Northern Monastery is today only as a ruin.

The Sakya Monastery is famed as the "Second Dunhuang" due to its colossal collection of numerous Tibetan Buddhist scriptures, murals and Thangkas.

Most of the murals are from the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). Among them, few of the most outstanding and precious murals depict portraits of the former Sakya ancestors, Phakpa's meeting with Kublai Khan, the founder of the Yuan Dynasty, and mandalas.
PHOENIX  State utility regulators agreed Tuesday to allow APS to collect another $95 million a year from its customers.

But whether the company gets to keep it remains to be seen.

The 4-1 vote by the Arizona Corporation Commission came after the majority rejected a bid by Bob Burns to delay the rate case until his lawsuit with APS and his fellow commissioners is resolved. That involves the question of whether he was denied what he believes is his constitutional right as a commissioner to subpoena utility executives over how they've spent money in the past.

Burns had no better luck with a proposal to allow the rate hike to take effect but require APS to post a bond equal to the new dollars in case a judge ultimately sides with him and courts conclude the rate case was not handled properly.

But ultimately it may not matter.

In explaining his vote, Burns said he repeatedly reminded colleagues of their duties and their obligation to let me do my job to consider and protect the interests of the consumers who elected me. He said he had hoped they would change their minds about proceeding, especially with his raising questions about whether they are biased in favor of APS.

It appears I will not see that change and will now need to rely on our courts to enforce my rights and the other commissioners' duties, Burns said. And he left no question about what he believes happens to the APS rate case if Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Daniel Kiley concludes that he should have been entitled to raise his questions.

Any such vote will be subject to reversal, with a corresponding finding and command that all rate charges imposed on Arizona consumers in accordance therewith were illegal, unauthorized and must be refunded, he said.

APS legal counsel Thomas Loquavm declined to comment on the possibility of refunds because of the pending lawsuit.

In the meantime, as of Saturday most APS customers will be paying more under the terms of a deal involving APS, commission staff, the Residential Utility Consumer Office and some other parties to the case.

It computes out to a nearly 3.9 percent rate increase. But for residential customers the figure is closer to 4.5 percent, a figure that APS figures will mean an average $6-a-month increase for its more than 1 million residential customers.

But within that, there also are some significant changes in how bills are computed.

People who are currently paying a flat rate will find their basic charges -- what they pay no matter how much or little energy they use -- going up sharply. For basic customers, the figure is going from less than $9 a month to $15; for those large-use customers, meaning homeowners using more than 1,000 kilowatts a month, the base rate will be $20.

Much of that is designed to encourage customers to switch to alternate rate structures. One is a time-of-use rate, where the charge per kilowatt hour is higher during peak periods but lower at off-peak times.

APS currently has such a program, with higher rates from noon until 7 p.m. The new rate structure sets the peak hours from 3 to 8 p.m.

That drew concern from some consumer advocates who noted the higher overall rates and said it will be difficult for customers to use less power during that early evening hour.

And there's something else: Any new APS customer will be automatically put into a time-of-day rate for at least 90 days. Only after that would they be able to decide that a flat per kilowatt hour makes more financial sense.

Burns attempted to insert a provision to guarantee a refund for new customers who pay more under a time-of-use rate than they would have under a flat rate. APS opposed the move, a position that Steve Jennings of AARP said shows what this is really about: corporate profits.

I think you can see by the company's position on this that they're admitting that they're going to charge people more than people need to pay for the power, he told regulators. People should only have to pay what it costs for them to get the power, not one penny more.

But APS Vice President Barbara Lockwood said all this is part of the company's need to move to more modern rates that reflect the cost and availability of electricity.

More to the point, Lockwood said promising customers a refund if a flat rate would have cost them less undermines that goal of getting customers to work with the rates to see if they can save money by adjusting their energy use.

If it's a flat guarantee, then there's really no purpose or reason for customers to actually experience the rates, she said.

Burns' objections to the vote start with his inability to ask executives of APS and parent company Pinnacle West Capital Corp. about whether they were the source of $3.2 million in money from anonymous sources spent in 2014 to elect fellow Republicans Tom Forese and Doug Little. He contends it is his constitutional right as a commissioner to question utility officials about how money, which ultimately comes from ratepayers, is being spent.

APS has refused to comply with his subpoenas and the other four commissioners refused to issue an order to enforce them, which is why Burns wants Kiley to rule that the subpoenas are enforceable.

But he's also accused the other commissioners of acting illegally in thwarting his efforts. And that, he argued, undermines the legitimacy of the whole rate case.

Such unlawful actions have prevented the development of an appropriate and complete factual record for this proceeding and have unlawfully favored the economic interests of APS and Pinnacle West over the interests of consumers, he charged.

Legal issues aside, Burns also questioned whether APS and its parent really are entitled to more money, noting that the commission's own staff had originally called the request unjustified.

He pointed out that Pinnacle West CEO Don Brandt had total compensation last year of more than $11.3 million. By contrast, Mark Bonsall, the CEO of Salt River Project, the other major utility in the Phoenix area, gets about $1.1 million a year in salary and benefits.

APS spokesman Alan Bunnell said Brandt's pay is tied to detailed performance goals set by the company's board at the beginning of the year, including electricity reliability, customer service, workplace safety and keeping the company financially strong.

The company performed well on these metrics in 2016 and shareholders also benefited from the company's solid performance, he said.

As to how those shareholders are doing, their dividends have increased every year since 2012. In fact the current dividend of 62.5 cents a share is 25 percent higher than what it was in 2012.

In hammering out a deal, APS made some concessions to blunt or eliminate foes.

For example, one provision provides a special discount rate for schools, a move that brought on the Arizona School Boards Association. There also is a new rate to attract data centers and customers with multiple locations, like grocery chains, will be able to have a single aggregate rate with lower costs.
Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama greeted India on the occasion of its 71st Independence Day and said the country can combine modern education, technology, and material development and at the same time bring peace of mind.

Speaking to media, the spiritual leader said India has thousands years of knowledge of tackling emotions.

"I think it's a very happy day and I think over last seventy year's progress is the basis of our determination, our hope. I already am telling that India can combine modern education, modern technology, and material development and at the same time bring peace of mind," the Dalai Lama told ANI.

"Material development alone cannot guarantee bring peace of mind. So, India, you have, I think thousands of year old knowledge as to how to tackle our emotion," he added

The Dalai Lama today returned to his exile home in north Indian hill town Dharamsala after a month long visit to Ladakh, Delhi and Mumbai.

President of Central Tibetan Administration, Lobsang Sangay and Speaker Khenpo Sonam Tenphel, officials of CTA and representatives of Tibetan NGOs extended a warm reception to the Dalai Lama at kangra airport here yesterday afternoon.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
India's 71st Independence Day was celebrated with the hoisting of tricolor at the Ambassador's residence in Wassenaar, Netherlands.

Deputy Mayors of the The Hague Karsten Klein and Rabin Baldewsingh, Theo Henrar- Chairman of Tata Steel Nederland, Eric Niehe former Dutch Ambassador to India, Tanja Jadnanansing former Dutch parliamentarian and Edo de Ronde of Rotterdam Partners attended the flag-hoisting function at the Ambassador's residence in Netherlands and witnessed the largest gathering of 500 people of the Indian diaspora and friends of India on any such occasion.

India and the Netherlands celebrate 70 years of establishing diplomatic relations this year, with the Dutch being amongst the first to establish diplomatic relations with independent India.

The 71st Independence Day celebrations began with Hoisting of the National flag by the Ambassador, singing of the National anthem and reading out of President Ram Nath Kovind's address to the nation. This was followed by a performance of patriotic songs and Bhangra dance.

The event was organized as an open house and efforts were made to reach out to the Dutch society, with special focus on the 200,000 strong Surinamese Hindustani community in the Netherlands. Netherlands has the largest Indian diaspora in mainland Europe.

India and Netherlands ties are warm and friendly, anchored by strong economic and commercial relations which continue to grow.

In the last two years, around US $6 billion worth of investments have come to India from the Netherlands and currently more than 200 Dutch companies are present in India.

India also makes significant investments into the Netherlands, with 220 companies based here and US $3.3 billion worth of investments. Two-way trade between India and the Netherlands stood at US$ 4.81 billion in 2016.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
To honour the death of Lieutenant Ummer Fayaz, who was abducted and killed by terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir, the Indian Army today on the occasion of Independence Day, renamed a school after the former as "Lt Ummer Goodwill School."

Earlier, Indian Army officials had met the bereaved family members of Lt Fayaz in May, and informed his kin that the Goodwill School Behibagh would be renamed as 'Shaheed Lt Ummer Fayaz Goodwill School'.

Earlier in May, Fayaz from RAJRIF unit in Akhnoor went to attend the wedding of his uncle's daughter at Batapura (Near Behibagh), from where he was reportedly abducted by terrorists and a day after that his bullet-riddled body was found at Harmen.

His mortal remains underwent post mortem at the District Hospital in Shopian and was subsequently brought to Sursun for burial with full military honours.

Lt. Fayaz was commissioned on December 10, 2016 from the Defence Academy (NDA) and was set to head for the Young Officers Course in September this year.

The police said that the officer was shot by terrorists five times in an orchard.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Japanese Government will be providing Nepal a grand aid of (Nepalese Rupees) NRs. 280 million to the School Sector Development Program of Nepal.

The objective of the SSDP for Nepal is to improve the quality, equitable access, and efficiency of basic and secondary education in Nepal by supporting the government's School Sector Development Program.

As per a Kathmandu Times report, the exchange of notes was signed between Secretary Ministry of Finance Shanta Raj Subedi and Japanese Ambassador to Nepal Masashi Ogawa on Tuesday, while Joint Secretary Baikuntha Aryal and Chief Representative of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Nepal Jun Sakuma signed the grant agreement and memorandum of understanding.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Chief Mohan Bhagwat on Tuesday was detained from hoisting the flag in Karnakkiyamman School here.

The District collector issued a memo to the school in this regard, categorically stating that it was inappropriate for a political leader to hoist the flag in an aided school. He added that only a teacher or elected representative of the people was allowed to do so.

However, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) challenged the Collector's decision; standing affirmative that Bhagwat would hoist the flag.

Meanwhile, in his Independence Day addressal, Prime Minister Narendra Modi opined that the country, in unison, can bring a positive change.

"Everybody is equal in our nation, no one big or small. We together can bring a positive change in the nation," he said.

Security has been beefed up across the capital in wake of the celebrations at the Red Fort from where Prime Minister Modi is addressing the nation.

A seven-layer security cover has been arranged with thousands of security personnel, including over 5,000 men from the Delhi Police, have been deployed.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In a tragic development, a man died while forming a human pyramid during Dahi Handi celebrations on the eve of Janamashtami in Dhansar Kashipada of Palghar district on Tuesday.

The incident happened around 6.30 p.m., when Rohan Gopinath Kini fell off during human pyramid formation after suffering a seizure, following which he was rushed immediately taken to Philia hospital but was declared brought dead by the medical officer.

Police has registered a case of accidental death in Palghar police station.

The deceased's body was sent for the post mortem and the actual reason of death will be clear only after the report.

Reportedly, in last five years, around 1,171 govindas got injured and approximately five lost their lives while attempting to break the dahi handis.

On August, the Maharashtra Government filed a caveat in the Supreme Court in connection with the Dahi Handi matter.

While on August 1, the apex court sent back the 'Dahi Handi' case to Bombay High Court for fresh consideration in view of written submissions filed by the State.

A division bench of the apex court, headed by Justice Kurian Joseph and also comprising Justice R. Banumathi, sent back the case to the Bombay High court for fresh consideration.

The apex court conducted the hearing on the affidavit filed by the Maharashtra Government.

The affidavit states that the Maharashtra Police has issued guidelines for the said event, according to which, the organisers are directed to make arrangements for mattresses for all the Dahi Handi events across the state.

In the guidelines, it has also been stated that a strong network of nylon rope will be used at every venue. Moreover, first aid and ambulances will be ready at the venue.

The participants should be given medical facility immediately after being wounded and sent to the hospital, the guidelines stated.

The court had earlier banned youth below the age of 18 to participate in Dahi Handi rituals and restricted the height of the human pyramid to 20 feet.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Calling Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Maviya Ali's claim that religious identity comes before identity as the "most ridiculous statement", the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday said that these are the reasons that people of this country are rejecting such decadent forces that do not have commitment to the nation.

"It is the most ridiculous statement we have heard from an Indian citizen. These are the reasons that people of this country are rejecting such decadent forces who do not have commitment to the nation. We are a party of nation first. We believe that first comes the nation then comes the party and then is the self. And that is why people have trust in the BJP that BJP is the only party that will work in nationalist line and will take India to new glories," BJP leader Sudesh Verma told ANI.

Ali's remark comes at a time when the Uttar Pradesh government has instructed the madrassas to hoist the flag, sing the anthem and pay tributes to freedom fighters on the occasion of Independence Day.

"Pehle musalman hain phir Hindustani, duniya mein kahin bhi musalman ho pehle musalman hai phir kisi desh ka naagrik (We are first Muslims then Indians. Everywhere in the world, a Muslim is first a Muslim and then the citizen of the nation)," Ali told ANI.

As per the circular issued by U.P. government, madrassas are expected to hoist national flag, recite the National Anthem and pay their tribute to our freedom fighters and martyrs.

Furthermore, the madrassas are expected to highlight the importance of Independence Day, by narrating stories and be told about the history of August 15.

A major controversy erupted a few days ago as some clerics oppose the circular saying that the madrassas actively celebrate the Independence Day and won't undergo Patriot test for the government's sake.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Civil activists in Paktia province of Afghanistan, declared August 14, the Independence Day of Pakistan, as a "black day" in the history of the region.

"Civil activists in Paktia province, declared 14th August, the Pakistan's Independence Day as a black day in the history of the region," tweeted former Strategic Communications Director and spokesperson at the Office of National Security Council of Afghanistan Tawab Ghorzang.

Civil activists in Paktia province, declared 14th August, the Pakistan's Independence Day as a black day in the history of the region (1) pic.twitter.com/mX9ryxf7Ix  Tawab Ghorzang (@TawabGhorzang1) August 14, 2017

He also said that the activists expressed their dislike for the "Pakistan Army terrorism sponsoring agenda".

They also expressed their dislikes for the Pak Army Terrorism Sponsoring Agenda (2).  Tawab Ghorzang (@TawabGhorzang1) August 14, 2017

Paktia is located along the Durand Line close to the tribal regions of Pakistan, which is home to several Taliban insurgents and the Haqqani Network.

Insurgency activities, including coordinated attacks on government and security compounds, are often carried out by the militants in this province.

U.S. President Donald Trump has recently said that his administration is getting close to a decision on an updated strategy for the war in Afghanistan.

As per CNN, US National Security Adviser HR McMaster recommended an increase the number of U.S. troops in war-ravaged Afghanistan to bolster American forces in the country.

Terrorism in Pakistan has become a major and highly destructive phenomenon in recent years.

Pakistan has long been accused by its neighbours India and Afghanistan and western nations like the United States and the United Kingdom of its involvement in terrorist activities in the region and beyond.

In July, the United States withheld the disbursement of USD 350 million in aid to Pakistan after Pentagon chief Jim Mattis informed the Congress that Islamabad had not taken sufficient measures to counter the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani Network.

Pakistan was allotted USD 900 million aid through the special fund by the United States. And it had already received USD 550 million funds out of the allotted aid.

The move came after the Trump administration retained Pakistan's name in its list of nations and regions providing "safe havens" to terrorists.

In its annual 'Country Report on Terrorism', as mandated by the Congress, the State Department said that Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) continue to operate, train, organise and fundraise inside Islamabad and Pakistani military and security forces undertook operations against groups that conducted attacks within Pakistan such as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan.

"Pakistan did not take substantial action against the Afghan Taliban or Haqqani, or substantially limit their ability to threaten US interests in Afghanistan, although Pakistan supported efforts to bring both groups into an Afghan-led peace process," the State Department said.

"Pakistan did not take sufficient action against other externally focused groups, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) in 2016, which continued to operate, train, organise, and fundraise in Pakistan," the report said.

The U.S. officials have often accused Pakistan of helping the militants, a charge Islamabad vehemently denies.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has thanked United States President Donald Trump for his strong leadership in uniting the world against the threats posed by North Korea.

Prime Minister Modi received a phone call from President Trump on Monday night, conveying greeting on the eve of India's 71st Independence Day.

In the phone call, Trump and Prime Minister Modi also resolved to enhance peace and stability across the Indo-Pacific region by establishing a new 2-by-2 ministerial dialogue that will elevate their strategic consultations.

"As the leaders of two of the world's largest and fastest-growing major economies, President Trump and Prime Minister Modi looked forward to the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in India this November. President Trump has asked Advisor to the President Ivanka Trump to lead the United States summit delegation," the White House said in a statement.

President Trump further welcomed the first ever shipment of American crude oil to India, which will occur from Texas this month, pledging that the United States would continue to be a reliable, long-term supplier of energy.

Trump has reiterated his bellicose rhetoric on North Korea and warned Kim Jong Un that if any of the U.S. territory is attacked, he "will truly regret it."

"This man will not get away with what he is doing," Trump said. "If he utters one threat in the form of an overt threat ... or if he does anything with respect to Guam, or any place else that is an American territory or an America ally, he will truly regret it and he will regret it fast."

"I hope they are going to fully understand the gravity of what I said. And what I said is what I mean," Trump said, adding that his statements' significance was "pretty obvious" and his administration is looking "very carefully" at possible future actions against North Korea.

However, North Korea has called Trump's warning of "fire and fury" against Pyongyang a "load of nonsense."

According to state-run news agency KCNA, North Korea's military said in a statement that only "absolute force" can work on someone as "bereft of reason" as Trump.

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In a bid to make Goa drug-free, Goa Tourism Minister Manohar Azgaonkar has asserted the politicians in the state must assist the police of Goa in drug-related cases, rather than keeping them under bounds.

Speaking to ANI about the same, Azgaonkar said that the police must do everything in their power to keep the issue in check and not succumb to any political pressure.

He said, "Drug mafia should not be spared and their backbone should be broken. Police should work like this. They should not worry about political interference. They should tell the press openly that these politicians are interfering in drug related matters."

"Police should check the political patronage of the shack owner. The shack can belong to a person of any political party," he added.

He also said that all the 40 MLAs in the state must help the police regarding these issues.

Speaking on how the drug mafia affects the tourism in Goa, he said, "Tourists come to Goa to see Goa's beauty. They do not come here for drugs. I refuse to believe that. Some tourists may be coming for drugs, but the police should be alert and arrest them."

Azgaonkar had previously demanded a probe against the police, in whose jurisdiction narcotics trade is carried off.

Earlier, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar directed Goa Police to crackdown on all illegal parties, including the suspected drug-laced dance and music festivals.

With the government once again in the spotlight over suspected drug overdose deaths and illegal parties in the coastal belt, the CM called an emergency meeting with the police brass demanding action against those involved.

"There should be a crackdown on rave parties and all such parties that violate the Indian laws. If any party-house owner is found on the wrong side of the law, he/she should be arrested along with others involved in the criminal offence," said an official, who was a part of the joint meeting with Director General of Police Dr Muktesh Chander, North Goa SP Chandan Chowdhary, ANC SP and coastal police on Monday.

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There are many unsung folks who work diligently on behalf of themselves while whole-heartedly being generous to others. They're the people who always make the extra effort, thank others for any kindness and all the while radiate a consistent thoughtfulness. As the lucky residents of this area, we all know personalities like that and appreciate being the recipient of their daily altruism. Consideration of others is one of the most reliable traits of our mountain town.

And then there are those people we rarely hear about but who are always somewhere doing something positive in our surrounding woods. They're usually found in small, dedicated groups doing necessary work that benefits our high country forests. Such an organization is the Friends of Northern Arizona Forests (FONAF).

One of their many activities is modifying barbed wire fencing to make it more pronghorn friendly. These fast-moving animals -- they're not antelope -- prefer to dash under the lowest barbed wire rather than jump over, and the FONAF folks are currently replacing that danger with a smooth bottom wire. It's always difficult to change the habits of wildlife, but manmade hazards can be modified.

If you've been to Leroux Springs recently you've probably noticed the barbed wire fencing being removed from the historic NAU nursery located there. That's the work of FONAF, also. If you're a hiker and ever tangled with an unattached section of barbed wire or, worse, had some gobbled up by your spinning mountain bike wheel you know first hand the delights of being cuddled by that clinging mishmash.

Ever wonder where wildlife finds water during a drought? A "Trick Tank" is part of that solution and the Aspen Team of FONAF is now building them. You may have run across such a tank while on a backwoods adventure. They consist of a very large "apron" made of corrugated metal or concrete positioned on the ground so the structure catches rain or snow melt. The captured water is passed into a storage tank, which feeds the water into a large tub for the thirsty animals. These so-called "drinkers" are a real life-saver for wildlife populations.

FONAF is also responsible for building log worm fences, barrier protections for riparian meadows and the formation of the Preventive Search and Rescue (PSAR) team. These well-trained folks rove forest trails every Friday, Saturday and Sunday helping and educating hikers and bikers during the summer months. Bill Waters is the PSAR Volunteer Coordinator for this exceptional group.

To become a part of FONAF activities or to read more about them dial up Friends Of Northern Arizona Forests-Who We Are on the web and press the Newsletters button at the top of the page. Contacting Dave Downes at 928-522-9207 works well too.

And on another subject, please join my friend Karen Malis-Clark for a Flagstaff Watershed Protection Project progress report with a walk in a forest area currently being thinned. The date is Thursday, August 24th, and will start from the parking lot of behind Trinity Heights Church, which is located at the north end of Fourth Street. The walk starts at 9 a.m.
Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo has been handed over with a five-match ban following his red card in Monday night's Supercopa first-leg victory over Barcelona.

Ronaldo reacted angrily to being dismissed during the second half of a 3-1 victory for Real, pushing referee Ricardo de Burgos Bengoetxea as he left the field.

"On the first account, Real Madrid player Cristiano Ronaldo will be suspended for one game after receiving two yellow cards, the first for taking off his jersey while celebrating his goal and the second for simulation. The club have also been fined 350 and the player 800," Guardian quoted a statement from the RFEF as saying.

"On the second account, Cristiano Ronaldo has been banned for another four games for infraction of article 96 of the disciplinary code, with a 1,400 fine for the club and a 3,005 fine for the player," the statement added.

Ronaldo, who came off the bench, scored the third goal of the visitors at Camp Nou but earned a second yellow card for going to ground in the penalty area two minutes later, having earlier been booked for taking his shirt off in celebration.

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United Nations (UN) Secretary General Antonio Guterres is concerned over reports that Rohingya Muslim refugees, both legal and unregistered, are possibly facing deportation from India.

"Obviously, we have our concerns about the treatment of refugees," Guterres' Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq told during a regular briefing at UN Headquarters in New York. "Once refugees are registered, they are not to be returned back to countries where they fear persecution."

Tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims have fled from Myanmar, with many taking refuge in neighbouring Bangladesh since the early 1990s, and some of them then crossing over a porous border into Hindu-majority India.Myanmar denies citizenship to Rohingya and classified as illegal immigrants.

Guterres responded after India announced that it plans to deport an estimated 40,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees living illegally in India.The government said that even those registered with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees would be deported.

The spokesman said that the UNHCR office would take up the issue with the Indian government. He reminded India of UN's position against deporting refugees, the Dawn reported.

Guterres, who was the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) before his appointment as UN chief, is a staunch supporter of the cause of refugees.

"You are aware of our principle of non-refoulement," he said, referring to the doctrine in the UN Convention on the Status of Refugees.

"According to the principle, refugees cannot be returned to a place where their life or freedom would be threatened on account of their race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion," he said.

Meanwhile,Amnesty International has said deporting and abandoning the Rohingya would be "unconscionable".

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Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on Tuesday said Goa will be made garbage free by 2020.

He was speaking after hoisting the tri-colour at the state level celebrations of India's 71st Independence Day at Old Secretariat in Panaji.

"Management of waste is a critical issue because of its adverse effect on all sectors. It would therefore be the endeavour of Government to make Goa Garbage free by 2020," he said.

Parrikar added, "Government embarked on the 'Swachh Bharat, Nital Goem' mission with the sole intention of maintaining the cleanliness in the state and further educating the people to be cleanliness conscious therefore making Goa clean and presentable."

The Chief Minister further said that there are several issues including the question of employment, drug menace which needs to be addressed.

"There is need for sense of dignity of labour to tackle these issues. Necessary instructions have been issued to the Police force. The youths however need to be given proper education, awareness and right direction so that they are not diverted towards such habits," he said.

Parrikar also said the fruits of Independence should be tasted by all and sought peoples' cooperation towards improvements of quality of education at the primary level.

Chief Minister presented Presidents Police Medal for distinguished services to Umesh Gaonkar, Suprintendent of Police, Presidents Police medal for meritorious services to Bosco George, Superintendent of Police, Vishram U Borkar, Superintendent of Police, Mahesh Gaonkar, Dy. S.P./SDPO, Mapusa and to Sunita Sawant, Dy.S.P./SDPO, Ponda and Terezinha T. D'Souza, Retired Dy. S.P. on the occasion.

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Sales rise 1.27% to Rs 1681.22 crore

Net profit of Jain Irrigation Systems declined 23.68% to Rs 46.98 crore in the quarter ended June 2017 as against Rs 61.56 crore during the previous quarter ended June 2016. Sales rose 1.27% to Rs 1681.22 crore in the quarter ended June 2017 as against Rs 1660.09 crore during the previous quarter ended June 2016.1681.221660.0913.9414.32132.68138.6847.5969.9946.9861.56

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A young girl was killed and 13 others injured when a BMW car ploughed into a pizza restaurant near Paris late on Monday.

The car is reported to have crashed into the outdoor terrace of a pizzeria at Sept-Sorts in Paris, killing a 13-year-girl, Mirror.co.uk reported.

Among the injured, four were in serious condition.

The driver, who was soon arrested by the French police, is believed to have acted intentionally and is psychologically unstable, Xinhua reported.

Born in 1985, the man was believed to have tried to commit suicide last week.

French Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry said the tragedy was apparently suicidal and there was no direct evidence pointing to terror attack.

Police authorities said investigations are not searching for accomplices.

France has seen several attacks since last year. An Algerian man drove his car into a group of French soldiers last week.

A little over a year ago, a truck steered into a celebrating crowd in the French city of Nice, leaving 86 people dead.

--IANS

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To make Karnataka hunger-free and provide food at affordable rates to the labour class and poor migrants, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday announced that the state government would open Indira canteens across Bengaluru on Wednesday.

"I am happy to announce that we are opening on Wednesday Indira canteens across Bengaluru to feed every day the people from the labour class and poor migrants to the city," he said in his Independence Day speech here.

In the initial phase, 101 canteens will daily serve vegetarian tiffin (breakfast) at Rs 5 per plate and meals for lunch and dinner at Rs 10 each in 101 civic wards. More will be opened in the remaining 97 wards from October 2 to mark the 150th birthday of Mahatma Gandhi.

"We will also open similar canteens in other cities and towns across the state after studying their pros and cons and its benefit to the poor people in the city," he said.

The Chief Minister, who also holds the finance portfolio, provided Rs 100 crore in the state budget for this fiscal (2017-18) to run the canteens in all the 198 civic wards on the lines of the popular "Amma" canteens in neighbouring Tamil Nadu.

"As hunger-free Karnataka is our motto, 4 crore people are provided free 7 kg of rice for every below the poverty line (BPL) beneficiary every month across the state under our flagship 'Anna Bhagya Yojana' so that each of them has two meals daily."

Addressing a gathering of about 8,000 people at the Field Marshal Manekshaw parade ground, Siddaramaiah said pulses (tur dal) was also being supplied at a subsidised rate.

The efficacy of the Anna Bhagya Yojana is evident by the fact that despite the southern state reeling under drought over the last four years, no death occurred due to hunger and migration of labour as none of them went to sleep on an empty stomach.

"As our hearts beat for lactating mothers and pregnant women, we serve them mid-day meals daily free under the Mathru Poorna Yojana. It (scheme) will be extended to all child care centres (anganwadis) across the state from October 2 to cover 12 lakh of them," said Siddaramaiah.

Similarly, 1.08 crore school children are served free mid-day meals daily, with milk for five days a week and eggs twice a week to ensure their nutritional needs.

"Besides implementing the Right to Education Act to provide education for all children, we have given free text books to 62.50 lakh students, free uniform, shoes and socks to 47.5 lakh students, bicycles to five lakh boys and girls."

"Under the Kaushalya Karnataka Scheme, we propose to train five lakh youths with skills for employment. We are also providing free laptops to 1.5 lakh students pursuing medical, engineering, polytechnic courses to draw them to IT-based education," added Siddaramaiah.

--IANS

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More than 6.5 million people have been affected by floods in Bihar, that have claimed the lives of over 40 people so far, washed away thousands of huts, badly damaged buildings, roads, bridges and standing crops worth crores, officials said on Tuesday.

Bihar disaster management department officials said that 65.37 lakh people in 889 panchayats under 84 blocks in 13 districts have been affected by the floods. "So far 41 people have died in the floods," officials said, but unconfirmed reports put death toll at 85.

Nearly three million people were affected alone in the worst-hit districts of Kishanganj, Araria, Purnea and Katihar in last three days. "Thousands were displaced due to floods," an official said.

According to them, about 1.82 lakh people have been evacuated to safe places by the rescue teams in the last two days.

The state administration says at least five more districts including Samastipur, Khagaria and Sheohar face the threat of floods. "Flood waters have entered in some new areas and are likely to create panic among people," officials said.

Other affected districts are Darbhanga, Madhubani, Muzaffarpur, Sitamarhi, Madhepura, Saharsa, Supaul, East and West Champaran.

Reports reaching here suggest that thousands of people have been forced to flee from their homes after their villages were inundated. They have taken shelter in high rise areas, including national highways, schools and government buildings.

In view of the worsening flood situation, the state government has cancelled the leave of doctors and heath department officials in flood-hit districts.

The state disaster management department has asked people living in low lying areas to move to higher places as heavy rains continued.

"The flood situation in Bihar will continue to be grim following rising water levels of rivers and incessant rains," met department officials said.

Major rivers in the state including the Koshi, Mahananda, Gandak, Bagmati and Ganga are in spate and some rivers have breached their banks and embankments, officials said.

"With heavy rainfall in Bihar as well as in the catchment areas in Nepal, the water level of these rivers has been rising," an official told IANS.

The government has launched massive relief and rescue operations with help from the Army, Air Force as well as National Disaster Response Force and Bihar State Disaster Response Force teams.

"We have deployed four Army teams, 22 NDRF and 15 SDRF teams along with hundreds of our own officials in relief and rescue operations in flood-affected districts," Pratyaya Amrit, Principal Secretary in the Bihar Disaster Management Department, said.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday sought the help of the Army and Indian Air Force in relief and rescue operations. He also requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh to provide all possible aid. Both have assured him of help.

Nitish Kumar, after an aerial survey of the four worst hit flooded districts on Monday, said he had told officials to speed up rescue and relief work. He again spoke with Modi and requested assistance.

Railway stations in Kishanganj, Katihar and Jogbani in Araria were flooded, leaving scores of passengers stranded. Eighteen trains have been cancelled since Sunday.

According to officials, crops worth crores were damaged and road links to several places have been snapped. Reports reaching here said flood waters had submerged NH 104 in Sitamarhi, NH 31 in Kishanganj and NH 327 in Araria.

--IANS

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Six students were electrocuted during the Independence Day celebrations at a primary school in West Bengal on Tuesday, police said.

Six students of G.D. Siksha Kendra Primary School in Murshidabad district's Aurangabad got electrocuted and one of them is in critical condition, the officer in-charge of Suti police station told IANS.

The accident happened when a low tension electric supply line allegedly came in contact with the iron rod of the national flag while the Tricolour was being unfurled. The students were taken to a hospital.

According to reports, out of the six students, four have been admitted to the Jangipur Sub-divisional Hospital while one has been referred to the Berhampore Medical College in Murshidabad in critical condition, the officer added.

"The other student has been released after first aid."

The Independence Day celebrations at the school were temporarily halted following the incident.

--IANS

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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday sent an offering to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine here on a ceremony marking the 72nd anniversary of the country's surrender in the Second World War.

Abe sent a financial donation on behalf of the ruling Liberal Democrat Party (PLD) through an adviser, who told the local media that the prime minister was "unable to visit the shrine", reports Efe news.

The ceremony is attended by parliamentarians and ministers and honours all those who sacrificed their lives for Japan between the late 19th century and 1945, including 14 politicians and Imperial Japanese Army officers convicted as war criminals.

With his absence, Abe seeks to avoid sparking diplomatic tensions with Beijing and Seoul, whose leaders are preparing a trilateral summit this year in Tokyo, which will mark the first of such meeting since November 2015.

The last time Abe visited the Yasukuni Shrine as head of government was in December 2013, a move that triggered strong protests from these two countries and even prompted a response from Washington, which suggested the Japanese head of government not repeat such visits.

Since then, the Prime Minister has avoided going to Yasukuni Shrine himself, although he has occasionally sent offerings to the shrine, as well as for Tuesday's 72nd anniversary of the surrender, when much of the country celebrates the Buddhist Obon festival to honour their ancestors.

--IANS

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India's Independence Day was celebrated here on Tuesday, with residents underlining that the Taj Mahal town needed freedom from garbage and filth.

A number of flag hoisting functions were held in schools in Agra where eminent speakers focused on dirt, garbage, filth and degradation of environment and called for a concerted fight against pollution.

Gajendra Parmar and Mukesh Yadav, an ex-corporator, told a function at Shantanu Anglo-Vedic Inter College that society can no longer neglect the issue of general cleanliness.

"Children have to be taught from a very early age the need to keep our surroundings healthy and clean," he said.

Social activist Shravan Kumar Singh, speaking at a function held on the Yamuna bank, called for zero tolerance vis-a-vis dirt, "both mental and physical".

Flag hoisting ceremonies were also held at the Collectorate, Civil Court and the Divisional Commissioner's office.

Catholic educational institutions organised colourful parades and cultural functions. Private schools distributed sweets and balloons of various colours.

--IANS

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The following editorial appeared in the Chicago Tribune on Monday, Aug. 14:

What makes American democracy shine is not the absence of hate but the response. Repugnant ideas have always swirled in this country amid the legitimate: Racism, anti-Semitism and crackpot nationalism exist. Such ugliness is not outlawed. It is protected by the Constitution. It also is marginalized and rejected by the nation at large because discriminatory ideologies are empty of worth. Most everyone can see that.

And yet there was the disgraceful spectacle in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend: A ragtag group of hatemongers  neo-Nazis, Klan members and other rightists among them  showed up to strut their vapid values. They came to make noise and make asses of themselves, while ostensibly protesting the planned removal of a Confederate statue. Counterprotesters were on the scene to meet speech with speech. Here was democracy in action. It was certain to be a tense scene but still, this was our country for the better because even Nazis have the right to march. As do those who think Nazis are vile.

Virginia officials braced for trouble, and unfortunately it arrived. The two sides clashed, leading Gov. Terry McAuliffe to declare a state of emergency. After police and the National Guard moved in to disperse the crowds, a car rammed into the crowd, killing one person and injuring dozens. Soon after, a Virginia State Police helicopter crashed in the vicinity, killing two. The driver of the car was arrested and charged with second-degree murder.

The loss of life and the many injuries are tragic and regrettable. Violence is not an acceptable price to pay for expression. The First Amendment guarantees the right to peaceable assembly, and so the violence shouldnt have happened in Charlottesville. Anyone who was responsible, on either side, committed a wrong.

Perhaps this is what President Donald Trump was fumbling to express in the hours after the rioting when he said, We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides. Trump had more to say in the first hours after the incidents, including a plea for understanding. But conspicuous through its absence was a direct, immediate condemnation of the ideology of hate on display.

It wouldnt have been hard for the president to find the right words to name-check and reject the nasties. Virginias governor, even while dealing with catastrophe, immediately struck the right tone in his message to the white supremacists and Nazis who came to Charlottesville. Go home. You are not wanted in this great commonwealth, he told them. Shame on you. You pretend that youre patriots, but you are anything but a patriot. You want to talk about a patriot, talk about Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, who brought our country together.

Trump cant be blamed for the rioting in Virginia. But the haters and stooges of white nationalism see something in the president that gives them permission to act out. Trump is no oratory giant. Hes a sloppy speaker whose nasty streak on the campaign trail acted as a dog whistle to the ugly right. Whether by design or carelessness, Trump avoided calling out the haters by name Saturday. That omission hurts. A recovery effort Sunday by the White House to assert that of course Trump was referring to white supremacists and all extremist groups came up woefully short.

He got one thing right, though, by saying Saturdays tragedy should be seen as a starting point for reflection. We want to get the situation straightened out in Charlottesville, and we want to study it, he said. And we want to see what were doing wrong as a country, where things like this can happen.

Those words need to be taken to heart by the president. Hes got some studying to do about the consequence of language, and how to speak like a leader who wants to unite the country.

America does have a problem with racism, with anti-Semitism and many other forms of bigotry and intolerance. Thats no secret. The question Americans must confront every day is how will they respond.

Prevent suicides among service members

The following editorial appeared in The San Diego Union-Tribune on Thursday, Aug. 10:

A study released Monday by the Rand Corp. found that the U.S. military isnt doing enough to prevent suicides among service members.

The issue isnt unique to the military, of course. But the mental health of our young people, especially our military, should be paramount, especially since President Donald Trump pledged in his campaign that reducing military suicides would be a priority.

The whole mental health issue is going to be a very important issue when I take over and the (Department of Veterans Affairs) is going to be fixed in so many ways but thats going to be one of the ways, Trump told a veterans group. And thats in many respects going to be the No. 1 thing we have to do.

Rands new evaluation of the medical care provided to more than 38,000 U.S. troops with depression or post-traumatic stress disorder in 2013 and 2014 showed that the military health system excels at screening for suicide risk and substance use but doesnt provide adequate follow-up to troops with a suicide risk. It found most service members received at least some psychotherapy, but that less than half of the counseling was evidence-based.

Lets do better. Lets hold Trump to his pledge.

Campbell was part of the American soundtrack

The following editorial appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Thursday, Aug. 10:

America lost troubadour songster and movie and TV figure Glen Campbell Tuesday in Nashville at 81. Some of the songs that made Campbell famous constituted part of the soundtrack of Americans lives during his performance years, and long afterward. A number of them were in the category of music that when one heard the first, instrumental line, one knew and anticipated with pleasure what was coming.

His song Wichita Lineman caught deftly not only the sense but also the mentality of a mainstream American, what he wanted and needed, and how he approached life. The son of an Arkansas sharecropper, Campbell sang from his not-easy life experience, that included poverty, alcohol and drug abuse and three divorces, as well as performing success. It also included eight living children, many grandchildren and even great-great-grandchildren.

Campbell was a consummate musician. He played guitar, banjo, mandolin, and bass and apparently had perfect pitch, even though he couldnt read music.

In his final years, Campbell suffered from Alzheimers disease. But he turned that into a public service, continuing to perform and demonstrating full frankness about that awful disease. In the process, he called attention and research money to it.

Glen Campbell will remain gentle on our minds.

Steve Ballmer has a website that could change government

The following editorial appeared in The San Diego Union-Tribune on Wednesday, Aug. 9:

The productivity revolution that drove the U.S. economys surge in the late 1990s has never reached the public sector. Thirteen years ago, the McKinsey consulting group concluded that the opportunity to improve government productivity is huge (with) three classic management tools  organizational redesign, strategic procurement and operational redesign. Yet that never happened. This April, a new McKinsey report based on a study of 42 advanced nations concluded governments of the world could save a staggering $3.5 trillion a year if they adopted a best practices approach in areas like health care, education, public safety and tax collection. Yet no ones holding their breath.

This backdrop is what makes former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmers new big data project so intriguing. The tech billionaire and Los Angeles Clippers owner has created an interactive website  USAFacts.org  that provides statistics on local, state and federal governments, what they spend their money on and how efficient they are at helping the public. A column this week by Bloombergs Albert R. Hunt detailed how the website intends to compare how states handle the same problems.

This has potential to shake up a government status quo defined by inertia and resistance to significant change. Massachusetts has consistently been in the top three of rankings of state public education systems since it adopted comprehensive education reforms in 1993, which rigorously evaluate which programs actually improve student performance and use simple standards to assess how students, teachers, administrators and superintendents are handling their responsibilities. In the private sector, companies would eagerly follow the lead of a firm with such an exemplary record. But not in government.

If Ballmers initiative helps change this mindset, Americans will be hugely in his debt.

Speaking free: Congress shall make no law on campus speech

The following editorial appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Monday, Aug. 7:

Rep. Jim Jordan, a Republican from Ohio, recently led a hearing on Capitol Hill about free speech on American campuses. Freedom of speech and thought are at risk in colleges and universities. But congressional intervention is a nonstarter.

At the hearing, conservative commentator Ben Shapiro said that in speaking on college campuses, hes encountered anti-free-speech measures, administrative cowardice, even physical violence.

In just the past year, Americans have seen a scholar greeted with a riot at a prominent liberal-arts college and a professor warned to leave campus to keep himself safe. The disinvitation of controversial speakers is now commonplace, as is the restriction of free speech to designated areas on campuses. And in a 2016 survey, a majority of college students agreed that the culture on their campus stopped some people from speaking their minds, lest they offend others.

This is wrong, and for the university, tragic. Colleges that become hostile environments for unpopular ideas  or ideas that contradict a certain ideology  are betraying themselves and their students.

Its good to see that the problem of free speech on campus is getting attention. But federal intervention is decidedly not the answer, as the First Amendment to the Constitution makes clear.

A federal campus-speech law might, in the end, have a chilling effect on speech. Suppose, for example, that the law required colleges to punish students who shout down speakers.

The university must police itself. Free speech, and the open market of ideas, is all the regulation a free society requires, or should tolerate.
Islamist militant group Al-Shabaab on Tuesday killed five police officers and injured another during an ambush in Garissa County in Kenya, police said.

Police said an unknown number of Al-Shabaab militia ambushed seven police officers from Bothai Police Station who were on patrol at Alijize which is along Bothai-Ijara road, XInhua news agency reported.

"During the ambush, five police officers were killed, one injured and another one found safe. Their police land cruiser was burnt by the militants," said the officer who declined to be named.

Northeastern Regional Coordinator Mohammed Saleh who confirmed the attack said a combined contingent of security forces from Hulugho are at Alijize and pursuing the militants, while air surveillance has been requested to assist the combined forces.

"We are pursuing the attackers. No arrest has been made so far," said Saleh.

Several areas in the northeastern Kenya that borders Somalia have been the target of Al-Shabaab terrorists who kill innocent citizens, as well as security officers and other government officials, using either gunfire or grenades.

The region is also prone to attacks where police officers including civilians have lost their lives or sustained injuries when patrol cars run over landmines or grenade attack

The East African nation faces insecurity as bomb attacks using improvised explosive devices and grenades have been hurled in the coastal region of Lamu and Nairobi since Kenyan soldiers entered Somalia in 2011 to secure the shared border with Somalia.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu hoisted the national flag in this temple town on Tuesday to mark the 71st Independence Day celebrations.

At the main official function held at Tarakarama stadium, the Chief Minister reviewed the colourful parade.

He took the salute from 12 contingents of police forces including Andhra Pradesh Special Police, women's brigade of Prohibition and Excise Department, Police Band, Bharat Scouts and Guide and ex-servicemen.

Different departments presented their tableaux as part of the celebrations, attended by state ministers, senior officials and public representatives.

Accompanied by Director General of Police N. Sambasiva Rao, the Chief Minister reviewed the parade from a special open-top vehicle.

Police made elaborate security arrangements for the event. Since the bifurcation of united Andhra Pradesh in 2014, the government has been choosing different cities to celebrate the Independence Day every year. Last year, the event was held in Anantapur.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Independence Day celebrations took place across Assam on Tuesday amid the devastating floods that have claimed 20 lives in the past few days and affected over 30 lakh people in 25 districts of the state.

Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal unfurled the tricolour at the Veterinary College ground at Khanapara here, while his cabinet colleagues and senior officials hoisted the tricolour at celebration venues in different districts.

Sonowal reiterated the state government's commitment towards ensuring equal development of all the tribes and communities of Assam.

The Chief Minister said his government has adopted a zero tolerance policy against corruption which has led to transparency in functioning of the government machinery.

"Our government has been going all out against corruption and as a result lot of scams have been unearthed. The effort has reduced corruption in the government machinery and increased transparency," he said.

Sonowal also said that his administration was committed to implement the Assam Accord.

"While our government had already organised tripartite talks between the Centre, state and the All Assam Students' Union for timely implementation of the Assam Accord, the government has also been working actively to seal the Indo-Bangladesh border.

"Steps have been taken to update the National Register of Citizens (NRC) so that we can detect and deport the illegal foreigners living in the state," he added.

Referring to the devastating floods, Sonowal said that government has been trying to help the affected people in every flood-hit area.

"We have instructed the district administration to grant the ex-gratia payments to the victims' families within the next 48 hours. Our government is also undertaking rehabilitation works at a faster pace."

The Chief Minister also highlighted some of the achievements of the government in the past one year and said that the financial status of the state has become stable and that the revenue generation has increased to Rs 15,620 crore in 2016-17 which was little over Rs 12,000 crore in 2015-16.

"There were also investments worth Rs 6,500 crore in the state."

Meanwhile in Guwahati, thousands took to the streets riding on cycles, motorcycles and waving the flag.

The militant outfits of the region including the United Liberation Front of Asom's (ULFA) anti-talk faction, Meghalaya-based Garo National Liberation Army (GNLA) and Manipur's CorCom had called to boycott the celebrations.

--IANS

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The government of Australia faces losing its parliamentary majority after it was revealed the Deputy Prime Minister could be a citizen of New Zealand.

Barnaby Joyce, Deputy PM of Australia and an MP serving a rural electorate in New South Wales (NSW), on Monday referred himself to the country's High Court after receiving advice he could hold a New Zealand-Australian dual citizenship, Xinhua news agency reported.

Under section 44(i) of the constitution, anyone who is a citizen of a country other than Australia is ineligible to be elected to parliament.

If the High Court finds Joyce is ineligible to serve, he will be forced to resign from the lower house of Australian parliament, leaving the government with 75 of 150 total seats.

Constitutional law experts on Tuesday said Joyce was in "difficulty" after New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English confirmed "unwittingly or not" Joyce was a citizen of New Zealand.

George Williams, a law expert from the University of NSW, said the only way Joyce could win in the High Court was if it applied a "generous interpretation" of the constitutional requirements.

"On the face of it, (Joyce) is disqualified," Williams said.

Antony Green, Australia's leading election forecaster, said if he was disqualified, he could quickly renounce his New Zealand citizenship and run again in the New England by-election that would be called.

"You'd imagine the government would call that as quickly as possible after the court judgement, which would make it harder for anybody to run a campaign," Green said.

Joyce narrowly won the seat in the 2016 Australian election.

It was revealed on Tuesday the question over Joyce's eligibility came about after members of the opposition Australian Labor Party asked members of New Zealand Labor to investigate whether Joyce would be a citizen due to his father being born in New Zealand.

"Clearly the Labor Party are involved in a conspiracy using a foreign government, in this case New Zealand, to try and bring down the Australian government," Chris Pyne, Australia's Defence Industry Minister, said.

Pyne said the government would take action to refer any Labor MPs with questionable status to the High Court at the same time as Joyce.

"The Labor Party needs to produce the evidence or the government will obviously consider its options."

--IANS

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As the nation celebrates its 71st Independence Day, B-Town too shared its wishes to mark the occasion. From Amitabh Bachchan to Shah Rukh Khan, from Priyanka Chopra to Madhur Bhandarkar -- all took to their respective social media to express their pride in being an Indian, and wished their friends, fans and followers a Happy Independence Day on Tuesday.

Here's what B-Town celebrities tweeted:

Amitabh Bachchan: Jai Hind! Independence Day.

Shah Rukh Khan: Happy Independence Day to all of us.

Priyanka Chopra: Independence Day vibes. My heart belongs to India. Happy Independence Day India. Jai Hind.

Madhur Bhandarkar: May this Independence Day Fills your life with lots of happiness, peace, and prosperity. Happy Independence Day. Vande Mataram.

Ajay Devgn: Today I would like to thank our armed forces for retaining our independence and never letting us feel the price that they pay for it.

Kajol?: Let us make our Independence count as an example of democracy. To Indians all over. Happy Independence Day.

R. Madhavan: Wish you all a very very Happy Independence day. Jai Hind.

Boman Irani?: As I wished Mom, she said: 'Was a twenty year old girl when I woke up to freedom, seventy years ago. What a feeling!' Happy Independence Day.

Kirron Kher: Happy Independence Day.

Taapsee Pannu?: Let's not limit the resolution to New Years when it's our Independence Day which needs one. Take up a cause for India. Happy Independence Day.

Arjun Rampal: Freedom in the mind,faith in the words,pride in our souls,let's salute our nation on her Independence Day. Happy Independence Day. Jai Hind.

Tamannaah Bhatia: Freedom in the mind, Faith in the words, Pride in our souls, Let us salute the nation on this auspicious day. Happy Independence Day.

Sooraj Pancholi: Warriors are not born, they are made in the Indian army! A big salute to all the soldiers out there! Jai Hind. Happy Independence Day.

Baba Sehgal: Happy Independence Day India.

--IANS

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Supreme Court Chief Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar on Tuesday said every citizen should be proud of his or her religious and ethnic identify while being equally proud of their Indian identity.

"Everyone should be proud of his religion and ethnicity and this is what the Constitution is all about," the Chief Justice said, pointing out that he was "proud to be a Sikh by birth and religion".

Khehar said this while speaking at an Independence Day function organised by the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) here. He touched on various issues including widespread perception that the children of judges enjoyed edge over others in judicial appointments.

Describing as unfounded the media reports which said that his son has found place in the list of Punjab government lawyers, he said that "What (at times) appears to be the blatant misuse of authority, may not be so."

Khehar said this referring to SCBA president R.S. Suri who had said that the panels of government lawyers are full of sons and kins of judges and they had edge over others in judicial appointments.

Telling Suri, "Mr. President don't say that", Khehar said that there were "wise children of judges, Dalits, Brahmins and belonging to other communities and all are together for achieving what they want".

Speaking on the occasion, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said "India is secular not because of its secular Constitution but because of its secular heritage", while pointing out that "every faith needs to be protected".

Asking the audience to remember the unsung heroes of the freedom struggle who laid down their lives for the country's Independence, Prasad said there was "shortcoming and weakness" but he could see a new India emerging with self-confidence.

However, the Chief Justice said it is not only those who laid their lives who should be remembered but even others who had contributed to the cause of country's freedom and suffered at the hands of British colonialists.

On judicial appointment, Prasad said that as of now they have appointed 75 judges to various high courts in 2017 and hoped that in the remaining months they would appoint more. He said in 2016 they had cleared 126 names for appointment to high courts.

Complimenting all the three organs of state for the "dramatic achievements since independence", Attorney General K.K. Venugopal said it was incumbent on the three wings to extricate the country out of endemic poverty.

Describing poverty as the greatest challenge to human rights, Venugopal said: "If poverty is endemic then what is the purpose of human rights. Does right to free speech, free movement within the country have any meaning."

Quoting the incumbent Pope Francis, he said: "Human rights are not only violated by terrorism, repression or assassination, but also by unfair economic structures that creates huge inequalities."

He also quoted late South African President Nelson Mandela who had said, "Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life. While poverty persists, there is no true freedom."

Flagging the issue of children of judges enjoying edge over others for appointment to high court benches, SCBA President Suri said that more and more judges of high courts should be appointed from the Supreme court Bar as they have good exposure and would elevate the standards of high courts.

In his welcome address, SCBA Vice President Ajit Kumar Sinha called for "refining and rebuilding the national character".

--IANS

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(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Amid the ongoing border row, customary Border Personnel Meetings held between India and China every Independence Day were not held this time.

According to informed sources, the meetings could not be held as the PLA officials did not respond to communications from the Indian Army.

These meetings are held at five points -- Daulat Beg Oldie in northern Ladakh, Kibithoo in Arunachal Pradesh, Chushul in Ladakh, Bum-La near Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh and Nathu-La in Sikkim.

The meetings are held on the national days of both countries.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Massive floods following incessant rains in the past few days have claimed 91 lives in Nepal, while thousands of people have been displaced across the country, officials said on Monday.

Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba visited the flood-affected areas on Monday and assured that no stone will be left unturned in the government's search, rescue, rehabilitation and support efforts.

"The government has intensified the rescue and relief efforts by mobilizing 26,700 human resources, seven helicopters of Nepal Army, six helicopters of the private sector, motor boats and rubber boats," Xinhua quoted Ministry of Home Affairs as saying.

The monsoon havoc, which started on Friday, has affected the eastern, central and western regions of the country.

A total of 50,000 houses were inundated across the plains. More than 3,000 houses were destroyed in floods that killed an estimated 400 livestock. Over 22,000 people were displaced by the flood.

The ministry said the death toll is likely to rise, though according to the Department of Meteorology, cloud bursts have stopped since Monday afternoon.

Some media reports in Kathmandu suggested that seven bodies, swept away by the floods, have been found in India.

They were found near Jogbani Railway station on the Indian side of the border. According to police in Morang district, identities of three Nepali nationals, who were swept away by the flood near the Nepal-India border, has already been established .

Similarly in Parsa district, bodies of two Indians have been found and their identities have been established, said the police.

Meanwhile, due to the harrowing experience of distributing relief materials during the 2015 earthquake, the Home Ministry urged individuals and institutions eager to help the flood victims to follow the one-window system while distributing relief material.

The ministry has assigned some dedicated areas to collect relief materials from individuals and institutions for effective distribution, it said.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Calling every incident an eye-opener, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday sought to blame the deaths of over 60 children in Gorakhpur on encephalitis.

In his maiden Independence Day speech after assuming office, the Chief Minister, after unfurling the national flag at the Vidhan Sabha building, said that every incident was an eye-opener to realise that it should not be repeated.

In an obvious reference to the tragedy, widely blamed on lack of oxygen at the state-run hospital, Adityanath said that Uttar Pradesh was a big state and deaths were taking place due to diseases like encephalitis.

Such vector-borne diseases, he said, could be tackled with the Swacch Bharat mission "in which every citizen should participate".

He also urged the young to do their bit to weed out corruption.

The Chief Minister said his government was working towards providing 1.52 crore uniforms to students, had started Ram Katha in Ayodhya, was developing Mathura and promised to provide more jobs to youngsters.

More than 60 children have died in Gorakhpur, the Chief Minister's constituency, after the hospital where they were warded reportedly ran out of oxygen. But officials have been citing different reasons at different times for the deaths.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Supporters of a senior surgeon whose fast unto death seeking reforms in Nepals medical education system entered the 23rd day on Tuesday clashed with security personnel as his condition deteriorated.

Supporters of Dr Govinda K.C. scuffled with security personnel when they tried to enter into the prohibited zone outside Parliament Building in Baneshwor, Kathmandu, and were prevented from doing so.

The agitating supporters of the fasting doctor continued their protest here demanding the government address the demands raised by K.C. and take initiatives to end his fast, reported Kathmandu Post.

The Nepal Medical Association (NMA) has warned that it will resort to protests if the government fails to create an environment to end the hunger strike of the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital senior surgeon K.C. by holding decisive dialogue.

The fast-unto-death by K.C. is his 11th so far, seeking reforms in Nepal's medical education system. The fast entered the 23rd day - the longest so far by him.

Meanwhile, the fasting doctor fell unconscious twice on Tuesday.

His health condition deteriorated after his blood pressure went down suddenly, the Post reported.

The senior orthopaedic surgeon's pressure was brought to normal by using resuscitation technique.

The heartbeat of K.C. is also fluctuating, doctors said.

Physicians at the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital, where he is staging hunger strike, say he is in critical condition.

The NMA renewed its warning to the government.

"We will be forced to take stern steps to save the life of Dr KC," said NMA Chairman Mukti Ram Shrestha, "His health condition has worsened as the government failed to facilitate the talks in a decisive manner."

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The FBI has arrested a US man after he tried to detonate a truck-bomb outside a bank in Oklahoma on Sunday.

Jerry Drake Varnell, the bomber, is said to have taken his inspiration from the 1995 bomb attack in the city that killed 168 people, and wanted to express his hatred for the federal government, Efe reported on Monday.

Varnell initially had intended to attack the Federal Reserve Building in Washington with a device similar to the powerful homemade bomb used by Timothy McVeigh in 1995.

However, he ultimately decided to target the BancFirst offices in central Oklahoma.

According to court documents, when he was asked about why he had changed targets, the 23-year-old said he did not want to "kill a lot of people."

Just as his idol -- McVeigh -- had done, Varnell used a van to transport the bomb.

But the young man, a member of an anti-government ultrarightist group, did not know that the materials provided to him by a supposed expert to manufacture the bomb were fake and that that person was an undercover agent dispatched by the FBI when it received information about Varnell's plot.

The FBI had followed Varnell for months in a lengthy domestic terrorism investigation, according to testimony from judicial sources.

Varnell is facing charges of trying to use explosives to destroy a building and could be sentenced to up to 20 years behind bars.

He is scheduled to appear in federal court on Monday.

Varnell admitted to authorities his admiration for McVeigh, who parked a van carrying a huge homemade bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, left the scene and detonated it, killing 168 people, wounding 400 more and destroyed the building.

McVeigh, a decorated former US soldier in the Gulf War with ties to ultrarightist paramilitary groups, was sentenced to death and executed in June 2001.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Paris based luxury men's wear brand Cifonelli is marking its entry in India. The brand, known for its couture collection and elite clientele, will be available for the patrons at an exclusive on-invitation only trunk show here and in Mumbai.

The brand will be headed by Vault Luxury in the country.

"Cifonelli, with 137 years of expertise in superlative tailoring, brings in the perfect mix of English elegance, Italian style and Parisian chic. The Made to Measure and Ready to Wear offering will thrill the connoisseurs of luxury and fine clothing in India. Customers can avail Cifonelli's services by way of personal appointments, and by-invitation trunk shows," Shirrin Faarooq, Founder, Vault Luxury, said in a statement.

For the last 137 years, Cifonelli has been at the vanguard of the luxury tailoring establishing itself and representing the pinnacle in tailoring combining its technique, the high quality fabrics and the modern touch with its homogeneity between French tradition, Italian lightness and English structuralism.

The patrons will be attended by Creative Director of Cifonelli, John Vizzone and CEO, Erwan Camphius themselves at the trunk show offering its Made-to-measure and Ready-to-wear collection.

On its entry to India, Camphius said: "We are thrilled about our arrival to India, it is an exciting challenge. The luxury sector has a great strength, in recent years sales of luxury goods have grown faster in this country than anywhere else in the world, for what our project in India is promising.

"Our plans are to perform Trunk Shows in the most representative cities of the country, offering our Made-to-Measure service, as well open our permanent Lounge in 2018. "

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In a fresh onslaught on its former employer, James Damore, the engineer who was fired by Google over a memo criticising the company's diversity efforts, has said that the tech giant is discriminating in its hiring practices.



Damore on Monday told CNBC's TV programme "Closing Bell" that Google was "treating people differently based on race or gender".



"The company is pressing individual managers to increase diversity and is using race or gender to decide which workers are promoted and which teams job candidates are placed on," Damore was quoted as saying.



He also said that he was "pursuing legal remedies" against the company over his firing.



Earlier this week, Damore dubbed his former workplace a "cult".



In an op-ed titled "Why I Was Fired by Google" in the Wall Street Journal, Damore said: "Google is a particularly intense echo chamber because it is in the middle of Silicon Valley and is so life-encompassing as a place to work."



"Some even live on campus. For many, including myself, working at Google is a major part of their identity, almost 'like a cult' with its own leaders and saints, all believed to righteously uphold the sacred motto of 'Don't be evil'," he wrote.



Damore argued that this created an environment where only certain opinions could be voiced and slammed the tech giant in its attempt to "silence open and honest discussion".



"How did Google, the company that hires the smartest people in the world, become so ideologically driven and intolerant of scientific debate and reasoned argument," he wrote.



Last week, Google's Indian-born CEO Sundar Pichai addressed a coding event for women on the sprawling campus at Mountain View, California, after Damore's manifesto claimed that "the representation gap between men and women in software engineering persists because of biological differences between the two sexes".



"There's a place for you at Google. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. You belong here, and we need you," Pichai told woman innovators at the company.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday termed the Gorakhpur hospital tragedy as "irreversible" and said the lives lost can never be got back, in his address at the Independence Day function here on Tuesday.

Vijayan took the salute at an impressive parade in the Central Stadium and highlighted on various aspects - from nationalism, the Gorakhpur hospital deaths, safety of women, gender rights and also read out a pledge that highlights the urgent need for managing waste and keeping surroundings clean.

"The Gorakhpur incident is one which is irreversible, and we can never get back what has been lost," said Vijayan, referring to the deaths of over 60 children over five days in a hospital in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, last week that has shocked the nation.

He said there was need for maintaining the highest spirit of nationalism, and that any effort to dilute it in any form will have to be prevented at any cost.

Vijayan later read out a pledge which emphasises on the need for managing waste in the most scientific manner and sought the support of the people to join hands with the state government to tackle the issue.

He also distributed police medals on the occasion.

Similar parades were held in all the 13 other district headquarters, where cabinet colleagues of Vijayan took the salute.

At the Indian Naval Academy (INA), Ezhimala, near Kannur, the parade was reviewed by Vice Admiral S.V. Bhokare, Commandant, INA.

Likewise parades were held at all the defence establishments in the state.

RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat unfurled the Indian tricolour at a government-aided school here despite being told by authorities that political personalities are not allowed to do so.

This sparked criticism from the CPI-M and the Congress.

The District Collector and police had told the Karnakeyamen School management near here that since the school was state-supported, only people's representatives or the head of the institution could unfurl the flag.

The school reportedly belongs to RSS supporters and they had invited Bhagwat to be the chief guest on Independence Day.

The State Education department has initiated steps against the violation and a notice will be served to the school authorities on Wednesday.

At the Congress party headquarters, state party president M.M. Hassan launched a 24-hour fast to protest the attacks against Dalits and minority communities and also against the "fascist tendencies" of the BJP/RSS and other Hindutva forces which he said "has caused lot of discomfort" in the country.

The fast ends at 11 a.m. on Wednesday

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said the government would handhold farmers right from procurement of seeds to access to the markets in order to improve their lives.

"Unless we give them facilities from seed to the market, we cannot change their fate," Modi said in his speech here on the occasion of Independence Day.

Modi said the government had completed 21 irrigation schemes in the last three years and 50 more would be completed soon.

"I have taken a resolve for 99 such big schemes to ensure that water reaches the fields of the farmers and they will all be completed before 2019," he said.

Modi said there would be an India by 2022 where farmers would be able to sleep without any worry and earn double than what they earn now.

Modi added that lakhs of crores worth of vegetables, fruits and crops rot due to lack of storage facilities and to change that, the government is encouraging Foreign Direct Investment in food processing and infrastructure creation.

The Prime Minister added that the government in India never had a culture of buying pulses from the farmers.

"If at all, the government may have bought some thousands of tonnes of pulses in specific cases. But this time, when farmers produced record quantity if pulses, 16 lakh tonnes of it was bought by the government to encourage farmers to produce more," he said.

Modi added that number of farmers covered under crop insurance schemes had increased significantly in the last three years from 3.25 crore and would soon touch 5.75 crore figure.

The government will create facilities and infrastructure which will handhold farmers right from the seed to the market in order to bring change in their lives, he added.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said his government plans to invest Rs 1,000 crore to transform 20 universities into "world class" educational institutions.

In his Independence Day address from the ramparts of the historic Red Fort here, Modi said the government had taken an important step "to grant the universities freedom from restrictions to make them world class universities".

"We have asked 20 universities to decide their own destiny. The government will not interfere in their functioning. Besides, the government is willing to provide funds up to Rs 1,000 crore," Modi said.

"We have appealed to them and I am confident that the education institutions of our country will certainly come forward and make it a success."

He added that the government had set up six IITs, seven new IIMs and eight new IIITs over the last three years.

"We have also done the groundwork for linking education with job opportunities," he said.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
After a week of threats from North Korea aimed at Guam, the island's residents on Tuesday thought the worst had happened when two radio stations accidentally broadcast an emergency civil danger warning, the media reported.

The two stations, a music channel and a Christian network, alerted listeners at 12.25 a.m. (local time) of an unspecified danger near the US territory, reports the Guardian.

Civil danger broadcasts are rare and are used to warn civilians of an imminent threat, such as a military strike or terrorist attack.

The warning lasted only 15 minutes and officials later stressed that a real emergency message would describe the type of threat.

"The unauthorised test was not connected to any emergency, threat or warning," Guam's Homeland Security Office said in a statement, adding it had worked with the radio stations to "ensure human error will not occur again".

"Residents and visitors are reminded to remain calm," George Charfauros, Guam's homeland security adviser, said in a statement.

"There is no change in threat level, we continue business as usual.

"We continue communication with our federal and military partners and have not received official statement warranting any concern for imminent threat to Guam," he added.

Last week, North Korea detailed a specific plan to fire four missiles into the waters around the island which is home to 162,000 people and hosts two US military bases, the Guardian reported.

On Monday, US Defence Secretary James Mattis said any missile fired at Guam would be shot down, and warned that an attack "could escalate into war very quickly".

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Patriotic fervour gripped Haryana and Punjab on Tuesday as they marked the country's Independence Day.

From Gurugram in Haryana to Gurdaspur in Punjab, Independence Day celebrations including cultural programmes were held with the participation of thousands of people.

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar hoisted the national flag at Gurugram and highlighted the achievements and progress of the state.

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh unfurled the national flag in the relatively backward district of Gurdaspur, which borders Pakistan.

The Border Security Force (BSF) hoisted the flag at border outposts in Punjab along the 553-km long International Border with Pakistan.

The tallest tricolour in the country at the Attari border, 30 km from Amritsar, fluttered magnificently.

Reports of similar celebrations came from Jalandhar, Amritsar, Patiala, Bathinda, Ferozepur and other places in Punjab.

In Haryana, the celebrations were held in Hisar, Panipat, Sonipat, Karnal, Ambala, Rohtak, Sirsa and other places.

The Independence Day celebrations took place in Chandigarh at the Parade Ground in Sector 17.

--IANS

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Himachal Pradesh Governor Acharya Devvrat and Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh on Tuesday greeted the people on the occasion of Independence Day and Janmashtami.

In their felicitation message to mark India's Independence Day, they said the state has made unprecedented progress in all spheres and the credit goes to the hard work of the honest people.

Greeting the people on Janamashtami, the Governor said the teachings and philosophy of Lord Krishna are more relevant in the present context and "we all should follow them to lead a successful life".

--IANS

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On Tuesday morning, when thousands of people were waiting for Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's Independence Day address at the Chhatrasal Stadium here, suddenly a huge colourful message "Namaskar" appeared in the stands -- an artistic formation by 1,143 school girls, seated opposite to where Kejriwal was to speak.

Sitting close to each other, some girls held 25cm square red cloth pieces each, while others displayed yellow ones in a sequence to form the message "Namaskar" in red Hindi alphabets against a yellow background.

The message was not less than 10 metre long and spread across the rows of the stands.

As an overwhelmed crowd clapped and appreciated the children's effort, little did it realise that the message in Hindi had a strong Russian connection.

Sporting a new white shirt and skirt -- gifted by the government to all the 1,143 girls -- 12-year-old Anjali was one of the girls behind the 'Namaskar' formation.

Anjali, an eighth grader, told IANS that she had been practising for the event for a fortnight.

She showed a 25cm square yellow piece of cloth held on both sides with sticks, which was her tool for the day.

During the course of the hour-long programme, the girls also formed other words, including "Vande Mataram", "Award Ceremony", "CM Speech" and "Jai Hind", and, of course, the national tricolour -- all with the same small coloured pieces of cloth.

They raised and dropped their hands in unison while holding the cloth pieces, making the messages come alive amid the applause of audience.

Anjali's instructor, Pushpa Ratnam, 53, a physical education supervisor of the Delhi government, has been training students on how to display messages for Independence Day and Republic Day for the last 19 years.

Ratnam told IANS that the technique was taught to her by another instructor, and went on to trace its origin to Russia.

"During the Asian Games in 1982, Russians came to India and they taught the technique to a few instructors then. One of the instructors, who has since retired, taught me when I joined," Ratnam said.

The retired instructor, who was also around, told IANS: "Basically, it's a Russian drill that they taught a few of us when they came here."

They then travelled across the country to teach it to different people, he added.

As the celebrations came to an end, Anjali and her friends once again lifted the cloth pieces to form a huge "Thanks", their last message for the day, before lining up for the bus and heading back to their school.

(Nikhil M. Babu can be contacted at nikhil.b@ians.in)

--IANS

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The Indian Embassy here celebrated India's 71st Independence Day at a public ceremony on Tuesday.

Indian Ambassador Manjeev Singh Puri hoisted the national flag and read out the message of Indian President Ram Nath Kovind at the event attended by several embassy officials along with their families and members of the Indian community.

To mark the event, Puri distributed cheques worth Rs 57 million and blankets to 15 widows, next of kin and two wards of deceased soldiers of the Indian Armed Forces, according to the Indian Embassy's official statement.

Books were donated to 59 libraries, educational and training institutions in different regions of Nepal.

India gifted 30 ambulances and six buses to various hospitals, non-profit charitable organisations and educational institutions in Nepal to strengthen education and health services.

Students from Indian Culture Centre, Kendriya Vidyalaya and Modern Indian School sang patriotic songs along with a musical performance by Indian music band Astitva.

The ceremony concluded with a performance by the Nepal Army Band.

--IANS

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Iranian Deputy Defense Minister Amir Hatami announced on Monday that Iran has formed 10 quick-reaction brigades to intensify its fight against terror groups.

Five quick-reaction brigades have been formed by Iranian Army and another five have been formed by the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), Xinhua reported.

Warning of enemies' attempts to slow down Iran's progress in the missile industry, Hatami said the defense ministry's priority is strengthening the missile and naval industries, air force, air defense and ground force.

Iranian Deputy Commander of Khatam ol-Anbia Air Defense Base Mostafa Izadi said on Monday that Iran will continue to fight the Islamic State (IS) extremists in all fields.

"The most important issue is to cleanse the region from the terrorists who have been "nurtured by the world's arrogance, including the US and Israel," Izadi said.

Also, IRGC Ground Force Commander Mohammad Pakpour said that Iran's military presence in Iraq and Syria is aimed at providing their militaries with advisory assistance.

"We entered Iraq and Syria when the terrorists had approached our redlines," he said.

Pakpour said that had Iran not sent military advisors to Iraq and Syria, the security there would have been compromised given the presence of "Saudi spy agencies and terrorists."

--IANS

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Iraq's paramilitary Hashd Shaabi units foiled two suicide bomb attacks by Islamic State (IS) militants in Salahudin province, the media reported.

The attack took place in the early morning on Tuesday when a suicide car bomb and a suicide bomber wearing explosive vest attacked the Hashd Shaabi base on the main road linking Salahudin's provincial capital Tikrit to the province of Kirkuk, the units said in a statement.

The paramilitary members detonated the car bomb and killed the suicide bombers before they reached their targets in the military base, the statement said, adding that two of the Hashd Shaabi members were wounded by the blasts, Xinhua news agency reported.

In Salahudin province, IS is still in control of Makhoul mountain range and the villages between the range and the Tigris River.

Iraqi security forces and allied paramilitary Hashd Shaabi units have freed Tikrit, about 170 km north of Baghdad, and other key cities and towns in the predominately Sunni Arab province of Salahudin.

In a separate incident during the day, a man, his wife and three children were killed when a roadside bomb struck their truck near the town of Qara-Tapa, about 175 km from here.

--IANS

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Independence Day celebrations took place across Karnataka on Tuesday, with Chief Minister Siddaramaiah unfurling the tricolour and inspecting a guard of honour here.

About 6,000 people joined Siddaramaiah in singing the National Anthem at the Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw Parade Ground. He took the salute from the police and 40 other marching contingents.

Earlier, an Army helicopter hovered over the ground showering rose petals.

Inclement weather, heavy overnight rains and traffic snarls due to water-logging in several areas across the city forced many people to stay away from the main function.

After the Chief Minister delivered his speech in Kannada, about 2,700 students re-enacted historic events of the freedom struggle, including non-violent protests and clashes with colonial police.

About 100 young artists staged cultural programmes, including folk songs and dances, depicted the war of independence and the sacrifices of freedom fighters including Sangoli Rayanna and Kittur Rani Chennamma of Karnataka who fought the British Army in the 19th century.

Martial arts and acrobatics on motorcycles by the military as well as the state police teams kept the crowd spellbound.

Siddaramaiah presented gallantry medals and awards to police officers and distributed prizes to the participating organisations.

Governor Vajubhai Vala hoisted the national flag at the Raj Bhavan here. The event was also celebrated in hundreds of schools and colleges across the state.

--IANS

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Inflammation in the liver can play a key role in the development of fat accumulation in the arteries, cause blood clots as well as other cardiovascular conditions, researchers have found.

The study showed that the inflammatory processes in the liver can elevate cholesterol levels, which is associated with the increased risk of cardiovascular diseases.

Elevated cholesterol is an important risk factor for atherosclerosis, which refers to build up of fat on the artery wall, circulatory disorders, which include diseased vessels, structural problems and blood clots, as well as other vascular complications.

Cardiovascular diseases, which play a key role among the long-term complications in people with diabetes, accounts for 75 per cent of all hospitalisation incidences, and are also responsible for 50 per cent of all deaths.

"Even if blood glucose levels are well controlled, some people with diabetes have a higher risk of long-term complications. We wanted to understand the underlying cause for this," said Mauricio Berriel Diaz, Deputy Director at the Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen in Germany.

For the study, published in the journal Cell Reports, the team focused on inflammatory processes that are known to occur in many metabolic disorders such as Type 2 diabetes and obesity and contribute significantly to long-term complications.

The scientists demonstrated that reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the liver inactivates the transcription factor complex GAbp (GA-binding protein).

In experimental models, this loss in turn inhibited the protein AMPK -- an energy sensor of the cell.

As a result, excess cholesterol was produced, and typical atherosclerosis symptoms developed.

"GAbp appears to be a molecular regulator at the interface between inflammation, cholesterol homeostasis and atherosclerosis. Without its protective effect, this leads to hypercholesterolemia and increased lipid deposition in the arteries," said Katharina Niopek, researcher at the varsity.

--IANS

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Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has called for international support to deal with the "threat" of military action by his US counterpart Donald Trump.

Maduro made the request before the ambassadors of Spain, France, Japan, Syria, Vietnam and Guatemala, who presented their credentials to him on Monday at the Presidential Palace here, reports Efe news.

The Venezuelan leader asked the assembled envoys to relay to their governments his request for a presidential summit "behind closed doors to attend to the issue of peace in Venezuela and now to attend to the issue of the threat of military invasion by the government of Donald Trump against Venezuela".

He called Trump's threat the "most serious threat (Venezuela) has received" in its 200 years as a republic.

Maduro said that "the threat of war, the threat of violence can only be dissipated with dialogue, diplomacy, politics, union".

Last week, the White House said that Trump had refused to speak with Maduro by telephon.

The decision came shortly after Trump told reporters that "a military option" to the Venezuelan political and economic crisis was still possible, although the Pentagon confirmed that it had "not received any orders with regards to Venezuela".

--IANS

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Maharashtra celebrated the 71st Independence Day with patriotic fervour, though the celebrations on Tuesday were partly marred due to sudden heavy rains that lashed parts of the state, including Mumbai and coastal Konkan.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis unfurled the national tricolour at his residence and near Mantralaya and took the salute, while his ministerial colleagues attended flag-hoisting ceremonies in various districts across the state.

Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu Governor C.V. Rao this year spent the day in Chennai where he was scheduled to take part in various I-Day functions, a Raj Bhavan official said.

Solemn flag-hoisting functions were organised at the Bombay High Court, and headquarters of the Central Railway, Western Railway and the Konkan Railway.

Mumbai Mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwar hoisted the tricolor at the BMC headquarters in the presence of Municipal Commissioner Ajoy Mehta and other top officials and employees.

On the occasion, the Mayor inaugurated a special mural gifted by Argentina to adorn the entrance of the Humboldt Penguins enclosure. Acting Consul-General of Argentina Alejandra Zothner Meyer, Deputy Consul-General Andrea Alba Gonzalez and renowned mural artist Pablo Ramirez Arnol were present on the occasion.

There were colourful I-Day functions organised by the armed forces stationed in Mumbai, various airlines and the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport.

Abhinav Deshmukh, Superintendent of Police, Gadchiroli -- the hotbed of Maoist activities in the state -- paid homage to 191 police personnel who laid down their lives while protecting democracy in the Naxal-hit regions of eastern Maharashtra.

At the Gadchiroli Collectorate, Guardian Minister Raje A. Atram hoisted the tricolor and honoured brave police personnel fighting the Maoists in the district.

Maharashtra Congress President Ashok Chavan and Mumbai Congress President Sanjay Nirupam also hoisted the tricolour at functions in the city and the party organised I-Day functions in different parts of the state.

In a unique event, the Shanmukhananda Fine Arts Sabha honoured five war widows and father of one war hero from Maharashtra at the hands of Lt. Gen. Vishwambar Singh, GOC, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa and an exhibition was organised at Shanmukhananda Hall.

The widows -- Reshma Davale, Anjana Balaji, Sunita Shamrao Mane, Ujjwala Jadhav and Misha Ghadge -- and Savan Mane, father of a soldier killed in action, were presented with a shawl, a lamp, a statute of Goddess Mahalakshmi and a cheque of Rs 200,000 each.

Besides Mumbai, a variety of special events to mark I-Day were held all over the state, including Parivartak, a heritage walk organised by an NGO Awestrich's historian Siddhartha Fondekar, covering important landmarks linked with the independence struggle in south Mumbai, and a peace march to support transgenders' rights organised by Akhil Kinner Seva Samiti between Girgaum Chowpatty and August Kranti Maidan.

The national tricolour was also hoisted and the national anthem sung in schools, colleges, housing complexes, various state and central government offices, private companies, district collectorates, villages, social and cultural organisations, airlines, corporates and others.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Maharashtra on Tuesday celebrated the 71st Independence Day with patriotic fervor though the commemorations were marred due to heavy rains that lashed some parts of the state including Mumbai and the coastal Konkan region.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis unfurled the national flag at his residence and near Mantralaya, while his ministerial colleagues were scheduled to attend flag-hoisting ceremonies in districts.

Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu Governor C.V. Rao this year spent the day in Chennai where he would be taking part in various Independence Day functions, a Raj Bhavan official said.

There were solemn flag-hoisting functions organised at the Bombay High Court, headquarters of the Central Railway, Western Railway and Konkan Railway, civic headquarters and the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport.

The tricolour was also hoisted amid singing of the National Anthem in schools, colleges, housing complexes, various state and central government offices, private companies, district collectorates, villages, social and cultural organisations, corporate offices and others.

A variety of special events to mark Independence Day have been scheduled all over the state and Mumbai during the course of the day.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis has warned that if North Korea fires at the US, the situation could quickly escalate into war, the media reported on Tuesday.

"If they (North Korea) fire at the US, it could escalate into war very quickly," Xinhua news agency quoted Mattis as saying on Monday.

"If they shoot at the US, I'm assuming they hit the US. If they do that, it's game on," he added.

According to Mattis, the Pentagon would know "within moments" if a missile launched by North Korea was headed for US territory, including Guam.

He said the military would "take it out" if a missile was headed for any US territory.

If a missile is fired in the direction of Guam but not hit the US territory, Mattis said: "It becomes an issue we take up however the President chooses."

A North Korean military statement on Thursday said its plan to strike Guam with intermediate missiles would be ready by mid-August and its implementation would depend on a decision by the Communist nation's top leader Kim Jong Un.

It was a response to President Donald Trump's unusually stern warning to North Korea on Tuesday, when he said: "North Korea best not make any more threats to the US. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen."

--IANS

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Horrified by images of American students shouting down and physically attacking speakers on their campuses, some commentators have reasonably invoked memories of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. The problem with that analogy is that it is simply lost on most readers, including most younger than middle age.

So what exactly was this Cultural Revolution thing anyway? The U.S. media does a wonderful job of recalling atrocities that they can associate with the Right, while far worse horrors stemming from the Left vanish into oblivion. In reality, not only does the Cultural Revolution demand to be remembered and commemorated, it also offers precious lessons about the nature of violence, and the perils of mob rule.

In 2019, Communist China will celebrate its seventieth anniversary, and in that short time it has been responsible for no fewer than three of the worst acts of mass carnage in human history. These include the mass murders of perceived class enemies in the immediate aftermath of the revolution (several million dead), and the government-caused and -manipulated famine of the late 1950s, which probably killed some 40 million. Only when set aside these epochal precedents does the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76 seem like anything other than a unique cataclysm.

By the early 1960s, Chinas Communist elite hoped for an era of stability and growth, modeled on the then-apparently booming Soviet Union (remember, this was the immediate aftermath of Sputnik). The main obstacle to this scenario was the seventy year old leader Mao Zedong, whose apocalyptic visions held out hopes of revolutionary transformations almost overnight, of a near immediate move to perfect Communism. Mao himself loathed the post-Stalin regime in the Soviet Union, seeing it as a revisionist system little different from Western imperialism. In an ideal world, Mao would have been kicked upstairs to some symbolic role as national figurehead, but he proved a stubborn and resourceful foe. He outmaneuvered and defeated his revisionist Party rival Liu Shaoqi, who became a symbol of all that was reactionary, moderate, and imperialist. Brutally maltreated, Liu was hounded to death.

So far, the conflict was the bureaucratic backstabbing typical of Communist regimes, but Mao then escalated the affair to a totally different plane. From 1966 onwards, he deliberately incited and provoked mass movements to destroy the authority structures within China, within the Party itself, but also in all areas of government, education, and economic life. Mao held out a simple model, which perfectly prefigures modern campus theories of systematic oppression and intersectionality. Even in a Communist Chinese society, said Mao, there were privileged and underprivileged people, and those qualities were deeply rooted in ancestry and the legacies of history. Regardless of individual character or qualities, the child of a poor family was idealized as part of the masses that Communism was destined to liberate; the scion of a rich or middle class home was a class enemy.

The underprivileged  poor peasants, workers, and students  had an absolute right and duty to challenge and overthrow the powerful and the class enemies, not just as individuals, but in every aspect of the society and culture they ruled. In this struggle, there could be no restraint or limitation, no ethics or morality, beyond what served the good of the ultimate historical end, of perfect Communism. In a Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the oppressed need observe neither rules nor legality. Even to suggest such a constraint was bourgeois heresy.

What this all meant in practice is that over the following years, millions of uneducated and furious young thugs sought to destroy every form of authority structure or tradition in China. To understand the targets, it helps to think of the movement as a systematic inversion of Confucian values, which preached reverence to authority figures at all levels. In full blown Maoism, in contrast, all those figures were to be crushed and extirpated. Bureaucrats and Party officials were humiliated, beaten or killed, as was anyone associated (however implausibly) with The Past, or high culture, or foreign influence. Pianists and artists had their hands broken. Professors and teachers were special targets for vilification and violence, as the educational system altogether collapsed.

Anarchistic mobs replaced all authority with popular committees that inevitably became local juntas, each seeking to outdo the other in degrees of sadism. Some class enemies were beaten to death, others buried alive or mutilated. In parts of Guangxi province, the radicals pursued enemies beyond the grave, through a system of mass ritual cannibalism. Compared to such horrors, it seems almost trivial to record the mass destruction of books and manuscripts, artistic objects and cultural artifacts, historic sites and buildings. The radicals were seeking nothing less than the annihilation of Chinese culture. Within a few months of the coming of Revolution, local committees had degenerated into rival gangs and private armies, each claiming true ideological purity, and each at violent odds with the other. Such struggles tore apart cities and neighborhoods, villages and provincial towns.

Outside the military  and that is a crucial exception  the Chinese state ceased to function. The scale of the resulting anarchy is suggested by the controversy over the actual number of fatalities resulting from the crisis. Some say one million deaths over the full decade, some say ten million, with many estimates between those two extremes. Government was so absent that literally nobody in authority was available to count those few million missing bodies. China became a textbook example of the Hobbesian state of Nature  and a reasonable facsimile of Hell on Earth. Only gradually, during the early 1970s, were the Chinese armed forces able to intervene, sending the radicals off en masse into rural exile.

Chinas agony ended only after the death of the monster Mao, in 1976, and the trial of his leading associates. From 1979, the country re-entered the civilized world under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, who is today lionized as a great reformer. That portrayal is correct  but we should never forget that as an architect of the earlier Great Famine, Deng had almost as much blood on his hands as did Mao himself.

So extreme was the violence of the Cultural Revolution that we might reasonably ask whether any parallels exist with the contemporary U.S. However ghastly the suppression of free speech at Middlebury College and elsewhere, however unacceptable the rioting in Berkeley, nobody has as yet lost his life in the current wave of protests. But in so many ways, the analogies are there. As in the Cultural Revolution, American radicals are positing the existence of historically oppressed classes, races and social groups, who rebel against the unjust hegemony of others. In both cases, genetics is a critical means of identifying the two competing sides, the Children of Light and Children of Darkness. If you belong to a particular race, class or group, you hold privilege, whether you want to or not. Consistently, the radicals demonize their enemies, invoking every historical insult at their disposal, no matter how inapplicable: Berkeleys would- be revolutionaries describe themselves as Antifas, Anti-Fascists, as if any of their targets vaguely fit any conceivable definition of fascism.

For the oppressed and underprivileged, or those who arrogate those titles to themselves, resistance is a moral imperative, and only the oppressed can decide what means are necessary and appropriate in the struggle for liberation. The enemy, the oppressors, the hegemons, have no rights whatever, and certainly no right of speech. There can be no dialogue between truth and error. Violence is necessary and justified, and always framed in terms of self-defense against acts of oppression, current or historic.

Presently, our own neo-Cultural Revolutionaries are limited in what they can achieve, because even the most inept campus police forces enforce some restraints. If you want to see what those radicals could do, were those limitations ever removed, then you need only look at China half a century ago. And if anyone ever tells you what a wonderful system Communism could be were it not for the bureaucracies that smothered the effervescent will of an insurgent people, then just point them to that same awful era of Chinese history.

If, meanwhile, you want to ensure that nothing like the Cultural Revolution could ever occur again, then look to values of universally applicable human rights, which extend to all people, all classes. And above all, support the impartial rule of law and legality. The Cultural Revolution may be the best argument ever formulated for the value of classical theories of liberalism.

Philip Jenkins teaches at Baylor University. He is the author of Crucible of Faith: The Ancient Revolution That Made Our Modern Religious World (forthcoming Fall 2017).
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Tuesday welcomed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Independence Day remarks on Kashmir.

In his Red Fort speech Modi said neither bullets nor abuses would resolve the Kashmir issue, it can only be resolved by embracing the people with love.

In a statement Mufti said she has all along maintained that dialogue and peaceful means could alone resolve the issue as violence had only wrought more destruction in the state.

She said the slogan coined by her party 15 years back which said neither guns nor bullets, only dialogue would resolve the Kashmir issue was as relevant today as it was then.

Senior separatist leader Mirwaiz Umer Farooq also reacted to Modi's statement by posting on his Twitter handle "Welcome @narendramodi also believes Goli & Gaali will not help resolve Kashmir if insaniyat & Insaaf replace them re solution can become a reality".

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A minor girl was sexually assaulted by an unidentified man at knife-point when she was on way to her school for Independence Day function here on Tuesday, police said.

The victim, a 12-year-old Class VIII student, was sexually assaulted by the man, said to be aged around 40, at the Children's Traffic Park in Sector 23.

The girl was admitted at the Government Multi-Specialty Hospital for treatment even as Chandigarh Police registered a rape case on her complaint. No arrest has been made so far.

Chandigarh's officiating Senior Superintendent of Police Eish Singhal told the media in the evening that police had procured closed-circuit television footage from the area to identify the suspect.

SSP Singhal and other police officers, who were attending the main Independence Day function at the Parade Ground in nearby Sector 17, rushed to the spot after the crime was reported to police.

Singhal further clarified that the minor was in fact going to school to attend the I-Day function and not returning from there as reported earlier.

Police cited the girl as saying that the man dragged her near a 'nallah' (seasonal rivulet) passing through the traffic park and raped her at knife-point.

The crime occurred even as Chandigarh Police was put on high alert for the Independence Day celebrations.

Several government officers, some provided official security, live in residential area near the park's main gate.

The crime occurred just days after an attempted abduction and stalking case involving Vikas Barala, a son of Haryana Bharatiya Janata Party President Subhash Barala, and his friend Ashish Kumar.

--IANS

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The Congress on Tuesday described Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Independence Day speech as "most disappointing" and slammed him for being "insensitive" towards the deaths of over 60 children in a Gorakhpur hospital last week.

The party also said that Modi's promise of curbing black money "remains a sham".

"On Gorakhpur, he has not shown his sensitivity and has not actually registered the gravity of the situation that a large number of children, infants, have died because of callous neglect.

"He has just in a very trivial manner equated the Gorakhpur tragedy to the other natural calamities. He should have been careful," Congress leader Anand Sharma told reporters here.

"His (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) fight against black money was a sham and remains a sham," he added.

Sharma said the Modi government has "promoted black money hoarding" and promoted "crony capitalism".

Lashing out at the government, Sharma asked, "Why has this government not given an account of how much of black money is there in the money that has come back to the RBI vaults?"

Commenting on the Prime Minister's Independence Day address, he said: "After three years, it was time for him to give an account of the failures of his government to deliver on the promises, especially the betrayal of the youth, the farmers and the weaker sections."

Sharma said: "Now he is not talking about employment. India is losing jobs, not in lakhs but in millions, and particularly in the informal sector there have been heavy job losses, which has created a very difficult situation for the poor and vulnerable sections.

"Post-demonetisation jobs have been lost in tens of millions and similarly post GST," he added.

On Modi taking credit for GST, Sharma said: "While the Prime Minister is taking credit for GST and the fight against black money, it would have been better if he had shown some grace and humility to acknowledge the constructive cooperation of the opposition to make GST happen."

The party also hit out at Modi for not addressing "in all seriousness" the increasing attacks from across the borders on the security forces.

Sharma said: "Kashmir is a matter of national concern, but the situation has been allowed to drift and deteriorate.

"They are in government both in Delhi as well as in Srinagar. The country supports any initiative, which will help in normalising the situation in Jammu and Kashmir. There are many more things which he could have said," said Sharma.

He also slammed Modi for the non-appointment of a Lok Pal.

The Congress party accused Modi of being disrespectful towards his predecessors and former Prime Ministers of the country.

"He (Modi) thinks that it is not his duty to give respect and acknowledge the contribution of leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, the other Prime Ministers including Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

"His government is busy promoting personality cult of one individual," added Sharma.

--IANS

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Rabat, Aug 15 (IANS/MAP) Moroccan King Mohammed VI sent a message of congratulations to South Korean President Moon Jae-in on his countrys Liberation Day on Tuesday.

South Korea celebrated the 72nd anniversary of Korean liberation from Japanese colonial rule. In the message, the Moroccan King wished the Korean people further progress and prosperity.

"I should like Your Excellency to know... how satisfied I am with the relations rooted in close friendship, mutual esteem and fruitful cooperation between our countries," King Mohammed VI said.

He further said that his country "looks forward to continuing working with South Korea to further develop ties between the two countries".

--IANS/MAP

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Thousands of people across Nagaland on Tuesday celebrated India's Independence Day amidst a boycott call by the Myanmar-based NSCN-K.

Chief Minister Taditui Rangkau Zeliang unfurled the tricolour at the Secretariat Plaza and took salute from 27 marching contingents including paramilitary forces, Arunachal Pradesh Police, Nagaland police, NCC, Scouts and Guides besides school students.

Noting that Nagaland had made much progress in various sectors, Zeliang, however, said that the state had a long way to go to realize the vision for progress and development for all.

"It is true that our society is still faced with many problems which need to be overcome and resolved," the Chief Minister said.

Zeliang appealed to the people to make concerted efforts to spur economic growth to bring the state at par with other Indian states.

On the ongoing talks between the Indian government and the separatist NSCN-IM, he said broad-based consultations with all sections of society would facilitate a resolution to the decades-old separatist movement in Nagaland

The NSCN-K boycotted the Independence Day celebrations.

--IANS

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China has "responded positively" to an appeal by Nepal for immediate resumption of the Araniko Highway -- the main road that links Nepal with Tibet and China -- and, during talks between top Nepali leaders and visiting Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang, Beijing has also agreed in principle to upgrade the trade highway.

China has also announced a donation of $1 million as emergency fund to tackle the damage wrought by the recent floods in Nepal, the Kathmandu Post reported.

The Araniko Highway was hit badly in the 2015 earthquake and was also affected by landslides, leading to China closing down the route.

The road is of crucial importance to Nepal as it carries a very large amount of goods from China.

In March this year, China handed over the Araniko Highway to Nepal after completing repairs.

The 114-km highway from Kathmandu to Tatopani in Sindhupalchok district was damaged at five different places in the 2015 earthquakes, disrupting vehicular movement. The highway was repaired with Chinese grant assistance of Rs 760 million.

Chinese construction company China Railway Sisuju Group Corporation had repaired the damaged sections of the highway.

The Araniko Highway was constructed in 1960 with Chinese grant assistance. Nepal joined China's Belt Road Initiative (BRI) in May, and the Chinese have voiced interest in building a railway network up to Kathmandu.

Chinese Vice Premier Wang made the announcement of the flood aid during the Nepal-China Deputy Prime Minister-level meeting here on Tuesday. Deputy Prime Minister Bijay Kumar Gachhadar represented Nepal at the bilateral meeting.

The two countries have sealed three important agreements with long term impact on Nepal's socio-economic development.

The agreements were reached on three different domains -- Economic and Technological Cooperation, China-Aid Oil and Gas Resources Survey Project and Framework Agreement on Promotion of Investment and Economic Cooperation, the Kathmandu Post reported.

The agreements were inked in the presence of Wang, Deputy Prime Minister Gachhadar, DPM and Foreign Minister Krishna Bahadur Mahara, and Chinese Ambassador to Nepal Yu Hong.

Speaking to the Rastriya Samachar Samiti national news agency, Finance Secretary Shanta Raj Subedi said the agreements reached with China would make significant contributions in the country's socio-economic transformation.

The agreements straddle a wide range of projects including a feasibility study on natural gas and petroleum products in Nepal's mountainous, hilly and the plains of Terai region including its survey and excavation. The two countries have reached agreements on establishment of hydro power projects and transmission lines and necessary steps for the economic and technological development.

China has responded positively towards an appeal made by the Nepal Government on immediate resumption of the Araniko Highway -- an old route connecting the two countries -- following an obstruction in the aftermath of the earthquake. China has also agreed in principle to upgrade the highway, the Kathmandu Post said.

Though the meeting also discussed matters relating to the construction of physical infrastructure projects such as bridge construction at Timure (on the border with China) of Rasuwa and the Kerung (on the border)-Kathmandu-Lumbini Railway, no concrete decision was taken.

"The Chinese side is positive over the matter, but extensive talks and discussions are essential as a single round of talks is not enough to finalise all issues. They (the Chinese side) are positive towards our priorities of national development," Secretary Subedi added.

Deputy Prime Minister Gachhadar hosted a luncheon in honour of the Chinese delegation on Tuesday. Members of the Council of Ministers and other government secretaries also attended the meeting.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Hundreds of people gathered outside the Trump Tower here, waiting for President Donald Trump to arrive at his home, on what is his first overnight visit to his residence since he was sworn into office in January.

In the midst of heavy security measures, protesters on Monday held signs with messages such as "NO! In the Name of Humanity, We Refuse to Accept a Fascist America", "Black Lives Matter", "No to the Trump-Pence regime", "Not my president" and "No to war", reports Efe news.

The protests took place around Trump Tower, where the President had lived before moving to the White House.

Cleaning trucks and barriers have been deployed by police, who guard the building armed with weapons, together with Secret Service agents.

Although the President's arrival is not scheduled until late night, the protesters began to gather many hours in advance.

As part of the security measures, several streets around the building were closed, causing traffic congestion in the area.

In addition, the police have said that all buses passing through Fifth Avenue, where Trump Tower is situated, will be inspected.

The protest against the President's visit was expected since last week as repudiation of various measures implemented under his administration, in addition to the violent racist incidents in Virginia which killed one person and left about twenty wounded.

More protests against Trump are expected on Tuesday in New York, whilst he is scheduled to hold several meetings in the city.

--IANS

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Undeterred by the Maoists' threat, Odisha celebrated the 71st Independence Day amid gaiety and camaraderie with much patriotic fervour on Tuesday.

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik hoisted the national flag at the Mahatma Gandhi Marg here.

Around 54 troupes, including school and college students, participated in the march-past.

Besides, a police platoon of Telangana and the newly-formed Odisha Police troop -- the Swift Action Force - participated in the march-past.

Addressing the gathering, the Chief Minister recalled sacrifices of the freedom fighters and said: "Paika rebellion is the first War of Independence against the British rule."

Quoting a NITI Ayog report that stated Odisha has the fastest poverty reduction rate in the country, Patnaik said it has only been possible due to the welfare schemes implemented in the state.

By 2036, Odisha would completely eliminate poverty, the Chief Minister said.

Tight security arrangements have been made across the state. "Adequate security forces were deployed in the Maoist-infested areas of Odisha," Police Director General K.B. Singh said.

On Monday, Maoists put out posters in Nabarangpur district urging people to refrain from celebrating Independence Day.

--IANS

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Only love and not bullets or abuse can help resolve the dragging problem in Jammu and Kashmir, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday.

"We are committed for the development of Jammu and Kashmir and this is also the resolve of every Indian," the Prime Minister said in his Independence Day speech from the Red Fort here.

Modi said the separatist campaign in the state cannot be resolved by "gaali se" (abuse) or "goli se" (bullet) but by embracing every Kashmiri.

But Modi made it clear that there would be no let up while dealing with the separatists.

At the same, he appealed to the terrorists to join the mainstream. "You have every right to make your voices heard in Indian democracy."

--IANS

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South Korea has detected eggs contaminated with the pesticide fipronil and has momentarily banned egg products from all farms with over 3,000 hens, authorities announced on Tuesday.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs revealed that some eggs from a farm in Namyangju, east of Seoul, were found to contain the pesticide, reports Efe news.

It is unknown how many samples tested positive for the contamination. The farm, which has some 80,000 hens, produces about 25,000 eggs a day.

The ministry has prohibited farms with more than 3,000 hens from producing eggs until the authorities complete a thorough inspection on the matter, Yonhap news agency reported.

South Korea has already restricted the sale of eggs produced in the country due to the 2016 outbreak of bird flu, forcing the Asian country to import eggs from other countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, the Netherlands, Thailand and Spain.

At the moment, there are still no official reports on imported eggs containing the pesticide in South Korea.

Following the official announcement on Tuesday, three major South Korean retailers -- Homeplus, E-Mart and Lotte Mart -- announced they have suspended the sale of eggs until the government releases the results of their inspection.

The pesticide fipronil, a harmful substance banned for use in hens, has raised attention in Europe after Belgium and Holland were reported to have used the substance. Some eggs in 17 other countries were also found to contain the pesticide.

According to experts, fipronil has a very low risk of human intoxication, meaning that humans would have to consume eggs contaminated with a level of pesticide found in Belgium and the Netherlands throughout their entire lives to suffer its adverse effects.

--IANS

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When Dr. Chris Baumert was born, his mother was finishing training as family medicine physician. Her experience shaped his passion for medicine. But growing up with a doctor in the house also made him realize he would have to take out large loans for medical school and his residency training.

The mountain of debt might have pushed him to choose a higher-paying medical specialty. But Baumert saw the National Health Service Corps as a way to stick to primary care with fewer financial regrets.

The NHSC offers scholarships to students or loan repayment to primary care providers who agree to practice in areas where they are needed. In exchange for financial support, the medical professional agrees to work in an underserved community.

After graduating from medical school, Baumert spent three years completing his training through the Montana Family Medicine Residency at RiverStone Health, where he continues to practice family medicine.

The NHSC scholarship and loan repayment programs help RiverStone Health attract high-quality providers. This year, 11 doctors, physician assistants and behavioral health counselors at RiverStone Health Clinic, are in the NHSC. In all, 27 health professionals at RiverStone Health Clinic have participated in the NHSC.

Being a primary care provider  someone who takes care of patients of every age  is why many people go to medical school. Once the realities of student debt begin to sink in, many students opt for more lucrative medical specialties. The NHSC provides financial support that offsets some of the cost of medical school, encouraging students continued interest in primary care.

Since the NHSC began in the early 1970s, more than 50,000 primary care medical and dental providers along with mental and behavioral health professionals have benefited from the federal program. The real beneficiaries are patients in underserved communities across the country. More than 5,000 health care sites participate in the NHSC. Nurses can sign up for a similar scholarship and loan repayment program.

The NHSC scholarship pays tuition, fees, other educational costs and a stipend in return for a commitment to work at least two years at an NHSC-approved site in a medically underserved community. A student can receive up to four years of financial support, if the student agrees to serve more years.

The loan repayment program also requires an initial two-year commitment. Health professionals can apply to extend their service and receive additional loan repayment assistance. The amount of loan relief a provider receives depends on the length of their commitment and on where they serve. Service in higher-need areas yields greater loan payments.

The NHSC helps community health centers, like RiverStone Health Clinic, remain competitive in attracting talented health professionals. By growing the number of primary care providers, the NHSC helps ease the nations primary care shortage, which helps Montanans and other Americans lead healthier lives.

During National Community Health Center Week, Aug. 13-19, we salute all the dedicated primary care health professionals who work in underserved areas and provide care to those most in need.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday launched a website to honour all the gallantry award winners since Independence.

Announcing the launch of the website http://gallantryawards.gov.in in a series of tweets, Modi said "the portal will preserve and tell the stories of our bravest men and women, civilians as well as armed forces personnel".

"In remembrance of our heroes who have been awarded gallantry awards since Independence, launched the site http://gallantryawards.gov.in," the Prime Minister said.

He also welcomed citizens' participation in the process.

"If you have any information or photo that is missing and can be added to the portal, please share it through the feedback link on the site," Modi added.

--IANS

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday urged the nation, especially the youth, to adopt the digital platform for their money transactions.

"World's largest population of youth is in India... This is the age of Information Technology. So we should move ahead in the direction of digital transactions," Modi said addressing the nation on the occasion of the 71st Independence Day.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The police have been directed to launch a crackdown on rave parties and late night music events held in remote areas of Goa, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar said on Tuesday, adding that frustration and lack of direction among youth was leading to increasing drug proliferation in the state.

Parrikar, in his Independence Day speech here, also declared that Goa would be plastic-free by 2020 and asked citizens to co-operate with the drive to rid the state of the plastic menace.

"Late night rave parties are illegal and it is where drugs are consumed and distributed. Rave parties on beaches or remote areas should be totally stopped," he told the media on the sidelines of the Independence Day function here.

Parrikar's comments came after two youngsters from Kerala and Tamil Nadu, who were attending rave parties in North Goa's Anjuna village, died due to suspected drug overdose. The incident has triggered a crackdown on music events in the coastal state.

The Chief Minister also said that one of the reasons why it was difficult to eliminate drugs was the complexity posed by new age drugs, which can be easily camouflaged.

"There are many drugs which you cannot identify so easily including the soluble ones. But at the same time information-based action should be taken. If you know that there are such parties going on, the police should be immediately informed."

The former Defence Minister also said that drug use in Goa had increased because of frustration and lack of direction among youngsters.

"I am saying this because we are getting news from many quarters that drug proliferation has increased. I have given instructions to police, but I believe the reason for increase in drugs is frustration. If youth is direction-less they move in unwanted directions," Parrikar said.

The Chief Minister said that Goans either want desk jobs or clerical jobs.

"In a place like Goa, employment will always remain an issue, but one more question is added. Goans want white-collar jobs, we have forgotten the dignity of labour... Everyone wants desk and clerical jobs. If in the coming years, we have to rein in the monster of unemployment, then we will have to instil dignity in labour," Parrikar said.

The Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay alumnus also said the increasing use of technology, farming mechanisation and robotics technology was cutting down on jobs in various sectors, which have been traditionally linked to job-creation.

"With improvement in technology and farming mechanisation, in many areas there is robotics technology. Employment generation is becoming an issue, because sectors with employment today are no longer job providers, or employment capacities have decreased," Parrikar said expressing concern.

Urging the people to use re-usable cloth bags and not rely on plastic, he said the aim is to make Goa plastic-free by 2020.

"There are many advantages to make Goa plastic-free. There are health benefits and since Goa is a tourism centre, it will benefit tourism too. Garbage is dumped everywhere."

He said the government will arrange for everything, but it won't be possible without co-operation from people. "By 2020, we have resolved to make Goa plastic free."

The Chief Minister said that action would soon be taken against those who sell plastic bags below 50 microns.

--IANS

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Two suspected extremists were killed in a shootout with security forces in a desert area in southwestern Egypt, the interior ministry said.

According to the ministry on Tuesday, the two suspects were hiding in a mountainous area in al-Wadi al-Gadid province, Efe news reported.

When police approached the site, the radicals opened fire on the officers, who also responded with shots.

Police did not name the two individuals who perished, but said that at least one of them carried an explosive belt attached to his body that exploded due to the shooting.

The police also found two hand grenades, two automatic rifles and ammunition.

On the other hand, the army destroyed a car bomb and an extremist post in northern Sinai Peninsula in northeastern Egypt, with the support of the aviation.

Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi said in May that as a result of the Islamic State losing ground in Syria and Libya, the fighters of this group were entering Egypt through Sinai and the western border with Libya.

The government has declared that the North Sinai area a military zone, and prevents media access to the area.

--IANS

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The US on Tuesday greeted India on its Independence Day and said Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitious vision for India-US ties holds great promise for advancing their shared interests in the 21st century.

In a statement released by his office, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said: "On behalf of the government of the US, best wishes to the people of India as they celebrate their independence day and continue the journey we began together 70 years ago.

"The US is proud to stand with the people of India, the world's largest democracy, in the cause for freedom and prosperity around the globe.

"Prime Minister Modi's ambitious vision for the US-India relationship holds great promise for advancing our shared interests in the 21st century, and we look forward to the many years of friendship before us.".

--IANS

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Ousted Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday filed an appeal in the Supreme Court for review of the Panama Papers verdict that led to his disqualification.

The landmark order had disqualified Sharif for hiding his assets and UAE's Iqama (work permit) on which he was to receive payment.

Advocate Khuwaja Haris on behalf of Sharif filed three applications with the top court. In his application the ex-Prime Minister requested the Supreme Court to review its judgement.

He submitted that he had not concealed the documents in his nomination papers for the 2013 polls - the reason for which the court had disqualified him, terming him dishonest and untrustworthy.

In the application, Sharif said that under Article 188 of the Constitution, he cannot be disqualified without a trial.

In the July 28 landmark verdict, the apex court's five-judge larger bench unanimously disqualified Sharif due to his failure to disclose his "un-withdrawn receivables, constituting assets" in his nomination papers filed ahead of the 2013 general elections.

The bench had also directed the National Accountability Bureau to file cases against Sharif, his sons Hassan Nawaz, Hussain Nawaz, daughter Maryam Nawaz, son-in-law Muhammad Safdar and then Finance Minister Ishaq Dar.

--IANS

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A Singapore court on Tuesday sentenced three Britons to jail and caning for sexually assaulting a drunk and unconscious woman, the media reported.

Khong Tam Thanh, Vu Thai Son and Michael Le went on trial this week for assaulting the Malaysian woman in a hotel room in September last year, reports the BBC.

The three men, in their early 20s, pleaded guilty to reduced charges. They received sentences of up to six-and-a-half years in jail and eight strokes of the cane.

The men flew into Singapore last year with a group of friends for a stag party and to attend a music festival.

However, the case has generated some controversy in Singapore, with some on social media questioning how the Britons were able to get reduced charges. The penalty for rape and sexual abuse in Singapore is upto 20 years.

--IANS

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The surgical strike on terrorist launch pads in Pakistani territory proved to the world India's strength, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday.

Praising the armed forces on the occasion of Independence day, Modi said: "In free India it is very important to protect the country. The surgical strike was a proof to the world about India's strength."

Modi said every soldier, irrespective of whether he was in the Army, Navy or Air Force, was contributing to the country.

"Our soldiers have stood against everything that is against the country such as infiltrators, militants... The world has seen our strength."

--IANS

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Israel has expressed anger to the Swiss government after a hotel in Switzerland put up signs telling Jewish guests to shower before using the swimming pool.

The sign in English, at Apartmenthaus Paradies in the mountain resort of Arosa, triggered much criticism. Another sign told Jewish guests to use a refrigerator only at certain times, the BBC reported on Tuesday.

Israel's deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely called it "an anti-Semitic act of the worst and ugliest kind". The hotel removed the signs later, reports said.

A photo of the shower sign was tweeted, after an Orthodox Jewish guest spoke about it on Israel's Channel 2 TV.

The guest at the hotel said: "The staff were really very nice to us. But one morning I came down and saw this sign. I was shocked!"

"To our Jewish guests, women, men and children, please take a shower before you go swimming," it said, adding that "if you break the rules I'm forced to cloes [sic] the swimming pool for you".

Hotovely said she had discussed the "anti-Semitic" case with Israel's Ambassador to Switzerland, who told her the signs had now been removed. However, she said those responsible should be punished, as a deterrent.

The sign in the hotel kitchen said: "To our Jewish guests: You are allowed to approach the fridge between the hours: 10.00-11.00 in the morning and 16.30-17.30 in the evening. I hope you understand that our team does not like to be disturbed every time."

The hotel management was quoted as saying by the BBC that there was "no anti-Semitic intent" and "we have no problem with Jewish guests at the hotel".

Ruth Thomann, responsible for the shower sign, said her choice of words had been a mistake. She said some Jewish guests had gone swimming with clothes, such as T-shirts, on and had not showered first, the report said.

--IANS

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For the fourth consecutive year, Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao unfurled the national flag at the historic Golconda Fort to mark India's Independence Day.

The youngest state of India celebrated the day with gaiety and patriotic fervour, with Rao leading the celebrations at the main official function.

He reviewed a parade by contingents of Telangana State Special Police, State Armed Reserve and City Armed Reserve.

The number of policemen and students participating in the parade was limited due to space constraint. As in the previous three years, there were no tableaux.

After paying tributes to martyrs at a memorial at Parade Ground in Secunderabad, Rao drove to Golconda fort for the main event.

The fort wore a festive look as the celebrations highlighted the rich culture of the state.

Drummers, tribals and other artists performed on the ramparts to add colour to the festivities.

Ministers, Chief Secretary S.P. Singh, Director General of Police Anurag Sharma and other civil, police and military officials attended the ceremony.

After formation of the state in 2014, Rao had departed from the over five-decade-old tradition of Independence Day celebrations at the Parade Ground to choose the ancient fort as the venue to showcase the rich legacy of Telangana

--IANS

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A small brown-colored black bear that has been hanging around a neighborhood northeast of Lockwood should serve as a reminder for people to keep garbage and other attractants out of the reach of wildlife.

People in the neighborhood east of the intersections of Interstate 90 and 94 told law enforcement officers that the bear has not acted aggressively toward people, but it continues to frequent yards and trees around homes in the area.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks game wardens believe the bear found food in the area and will continue to hang around as long as attractants persist. When a bear becomes acclimated to human attractants, it generally ends badly for the animal, they said.

As summer winds down, bears eat anything they can to fatten up for winter hibernation. People should not be surprised to see black bears anywhere in south-central Montana.

To remain safe and prevent bears from getting in trouble, FWP is asking residents to remove any opportunity for bears to seek or find food in or around their homes, businesses and vehicles.

Residents should store all garbage, barbecue grills, pet food, horse pellets and livestock feed in a locked building. They should remove all bird feeders and clean up apples, berries and other potential food sources from their yard. Bear-proofing also includes thoroughly cleaning decks and patios around barbecue areas to remove odors from previous cooking.

If bears do not find food in one location, they will look elsewhere. Animals will not stay where they find only clean, bear-proofed homes, businesses and vehicles.

Berries and other natural foods are in ample supply this year, so bears will go looking elsewhere if they do not find attractants near towns.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said those who have looted the nation and the poor are now not able to sleep peacefully.

Addressing the nation from the Red Fort on Independence Day, he also said that those who own "benami" properties were facing difficult times.

"Soon after the Benami Act was implemented, the government has seized benami properties worth Rs 800 crore," he said.

He said his government had implemented the demand for One Rank One Pension (OROP) for military personnel after it had been kept pending for 30-40 years.

--IANS

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India's largest lender, State Bank of India (SBI), has rationalised 716 offices (594 branches and 122 administrative offices) and several thousands of employees have been transferred beginning this fiscal, but, strangely, there have been no major protests, top officials said.

Several hundreds of offices would be closed and thousands of staff would be moved in the coming months, officials added.

Strangely one does not hear any major complaints of vindictiveness or arbitrariness from the normally vociferous banking sector employees. This, at a time when leading software companies are arbitrarily firing people at day's notice.

Even the unions that strongly opposed the merger of six with SBI and were apprehensive about treatment of incoming staff by the SBI management agree that there is not much of vindictive or arbitrary movement of people till now, making one wonder as to how and why this happened.

Around 70,000 employees (around 40,000 Class III and IV and around 30,000 officers) were added to SBI's rolls following the merger of SBBJ (State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur), SBM (State Bank of Mysore), SBT (State Bank of Travancore), SBP (State Bank of Patiala) and SBH (State Bank of Hyderabad) and Bharatiya Mahila Bank.

"By and large, the staff redeployment in SBI has been smooth. However, there seems to be complaints of vindictive transfers in Kerala which the management must address satisfactorily," C H Venkatachalam, General Secretary, All India Bank Employees' Association (AIBEA), told IANS.

But how is it that SBI is managing the show without the flag of protest being raised by the usually vociferous unions?

"The management did not deviate from the transfer policies that were signed between the management and the unions," Sanjeev Kumar Bandlish, General Secretary, All India State Bank of India Staff Federation (AISBISF), told IANS.

"There are set transfer policies for officers and the award staff. We have told the management not to transfer employees on a large scale," D. Thomas Franco Rajendra Dev, President, All India State Bank Officers Federation (AIBOF), told IANS.

Union leaders said the employees were consulted and posting preferences were sought prior to their transfer.

"The employees were moved to other branches located in the close vicinity of their earlier offices. This reduced tension in the minds of incoming employees to a large extent," Neeraj Vyas, Deputy Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer, told IANS.

He said those who opted to take higher responsibility under the Career Progression Plan (CPP) were transferred to another location as per the existing policy.

"The reservation about the merger was only in the incoming employees' minds. Once the merger happened and the employees saw the systematic way the policies were followed, the mental block against the merger has melted," Vyas said.

"When the merger was proposed, integrating the officers of associate was not considered to be a problem. However, in the case of clerical cadres there was a crucial difference between SBI and the associate banks," Vyas added.

Vyas said that under the SBI's CPP for clerical staff, those who accept higher responsibility are given additional powers and allowances.

"But such schemes were not there in the associate and the major union there -- the AIBEA -- had opposed the scheme," Vyas said.

He said many employees of the erstwhile associate banks have now opted for the CPP.

According to Vyas, there were no mass scale transfers in the associate banks prior to the introduction of Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) before the merger.

A total of 3,569 employees opted for VRS.

"The VRS numbers were as per our initial expectations," Vyas said.

In the case of officers, they will be transferred on promotion or after completing three years at a location.

On the staff redeployment process, Vyas said the bank planned a mix of employees -- those who are originally from SBI and from associate banks -- so that they get culturally integrated with SBI.

According to SBI, the projected number of staff to be redeployed due to rationalisation of administrative offices and branches is around 10,616.

The bank has said that nearly 30 per cent of the 8,616 staff to be redeployed due to branch rationalisation will be posted in sales functions.

Questioned about the complaints on transfer in Kerala, Vyas replied: "Only 25 employees of erstwhile State Bank of Travancore (SBT) have complained out of 4,300 employees to whom the Career Progression Plan was offered."

He said the unions in SBT had vociferously opposed the career progression scheme prior to the merger.

According to Vyas, the acceptance of the career progression scheme amongst the erstwhile associate bank employees is around 80 per cent now, the same as in SBI.

Queried about the criteria for closure of banks, Vyas said it is based on factors like profitability, viability, period of lease, footfalls and others.

"We are not closing the branches of erstwhile associate banks. Even SBI branches will be closed if they do not fulfill the criteria. We move from rental premises to owned premises wherever possible," Vyas added.

According to Vyas, the total number of branches that would be rationalised will be around 1,400, of which 594 have been completed.

"The remaining will happen over a period of time. Further we will open new branches wherever needed," he added.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The toll in Nepal's floods soared to 120 as the disaster caused havoc mostly in the country's southern plains in the Terai, officials said on Tuesday.

According to Nepal's Ministry of Home Affairs, 35 people were still missing while 39 were injured in the floods.

As amny as 29 of the Himalayan nation's 75 districts were badly affected by the floods with 80 per cent lands having been affected while thousands of government establishments including schools, hospital buildings and pubic houses were damaged, Home Minister Janardan Sharma informed Nepal's Parliament on Tuesday.

Nepal has already started distributing relief materials to the affected families and distributing Rs 200,000 each to the next of kin of those killed and Rs 10,000 each to the family whose house has been destroyed.

Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba visited the flood-affected areas on Monday and assured that no stone will be left unturned in the government's search, rescue, rehabilitation and support efforts.

"The government has intensified the rescue and relief efforts by mobilising 26,700 personnel, seven helicopters of Nepal Army, six helicopters of the private sector, motor boats and rubber boats," Xinhua quoted the Ministry of Home Affairs as saying.

The monsoon havoc, which started on Friday, has affected the eastern, central and western regions of the country.

A total of 50,000 houses were inundated across the plains. More than 3,000 houses were destroyed in floods that killed an estimated 400 livestock. Over 22,000 people were displaced by the flood.

The ministry said the death toll was likely to rise, though according to the Department of Meteorology, cloud bursts have stopped since Monday afternoon.

Some media reports in Kathmandu suggested that seven bodies, swept away by the floods, have been found in India.

They were found near Jogbani Railway station on the Indian side of the border. According to police in Morang district, identities of three Nepali nationals, who were swept away by the flood near the Nepal-India border, have already been established.

The inundation in Nepal has adversely hit the Indian state of Bihar where more than 6.5 million people have been affected by floods, that have claimed the lives of over 40 people so far, washed away thousands of huts, badly damaged buildings, roads, bridges and standing crops worth crores of rupees, officials said in Patna on Tuesday.

In Nepal's Parsa district, bodies of two Indians have been found and their identities have been established, said the police.

Meanwhile, chastened by the harrowing experience of distributing relief materials during the 2015 earthquake, the Home Ministry urged individuals and institutions eager to help the flood victims to follow the one-window system while distributing relief material.

The ministry has assigned some dedicated areas to collect relief materials from individuals and institutions for effective distribution, it said.

--IANS

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US President Donald Trump spoke on the phone with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday and congratulated him on the occasion of Independence Day.

In a statement, the White House said: "President Donald J. Trump spoke with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to congratulate the 1.2 billion citizens of India, who will celebrate 70 years of freedom and independence on August 15."

"The leaders resolved to enhance peace and stability across the Indo-Pacific region by establishing a new 2-by-2 ministerial dialogue that will elevate their strategic consultations," the statement said.

The two leaders look forward to the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in India this November. Trump has asked Advisor to the President Ivanka Trump to lead the US summit delegation, the statement added.

Trump further welcomed the first ever shipment of American crude oil to India, which will occur from Texas this month, pledging that the US would continue to be a reliable, long-term supplier of energy.

Modi thanked President Trump for his strong leadership uniting the world against the North Korean menace, the White House statement said.
US President Donald Trump directed the US Trade Representative (USTR) Robert Lighthizer to examine China's intellectual property practices, despite worries about potential harm to China-US trade ties.

"Ambassador Lighthizer, you are empowered to consider all available options at your disposal," Xinhua news agency quoted Trump as saying at the White House before signing an executive memorandum authorising Lighthizer to examine the issue.

The USTR will determine "whether to investigate any of China's laws, policies, practices or actions" that "may be harming American intellectual property rights, innovation or technology development" under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, according to the memorandum.

If Lighthizer decides to go ahead with an investigation, the US would first consult with China and the investigation process could take as long as a year, senior administration officials told reporters.

"This will be one of USTR's highest priorities, and we will report back to the President as soon as possible," Lighthizer said on Monday.

While it's not clear whether or when Lighthizer would launch Section 301 investigation into alleged China's IP practices, the move has raised grave concerns about potential bigger trade conflict between the two largest economies of the world.

China's Ministry of Commerce on Tuesday expressed "grave concerns" about the memorandum.

"We hope the US trade representative respects facts and acts with prudence," a ministry statement said.

If the US side fails to respect basic facts and multilateral trade rules, and takes measures that harm bilateral economic and trade relations, "China will definitely not sit by, but take all appropriate measures to resolutely safeguard its legitimate rights and interests", it said.

China has urged the US to objectively evaluate Beijing's progress in protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) and resolve the differences with China through dialogue and consultation.

"With the increasingly interwoven interests between China and the US, a trade war will lead nowhere and neither side will win," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said on Monday.

China has always attached importance to protecting IPR by formulating laws and regulations, cracking down on violations and raising public awareness of IPR, Hua said.

Section 301, once heavily used in the 1980s and the early 1990s, allows Trump to unilaterally impose tariffs or other trade restrictions against foreign countries. But the US has rarely used the trade tool since the WTO came into being in 1995.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is concerned about India's plans to deport Rohingya refugees to Myanmar, his spokesperson Farhan Haq said.

"Obviously we have our concern about the treatment of refugees. Once refugees are registered they are not to be returned back to the countries where they fear persecution," Haq said while responding to a question about reports that India was going to send back Rohingyas.

Guterres, who was the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is deeply attached to the cause of refugees.

Haq said on Monday that the UNHCR office would take up the issue with the Indian government. He reminded India of a UN dictum against deporting refugees.

"You are aware of our principle of non refoulement," he said, referring to the doctrine in the UN Convention on the Status of Refugees.

According to the principle, refugees cannot be returned to a place where their life or freedom would be "threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion".

India has not signed the UN convention on refugees.

Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju told the Lok Sabha last week: "According to UNHCR there are 13,000 Rohingya migrants registered. But we have also got figures from IB (Intelligence Bureau) which show they have migrated to India in large numbers.

"Steps are being taken to ensure that we do not get uncontrolled influx of migrants in the country, which creates lots of social, political and cultural problems.

"At the same time we want to ensure the demographic pattern of India is not disturbed," Rijiju had said.

He said a "concentration camp of Rohingyas has come up" in Jammu and Kashmir and later clarified that it was only a detention camp and not a "concentration camp" like those in Nazi Germany.

Subsequently, a Home Ministry official was quoted as saying that India was in touch with Myanmar and Bangladesh to deport 40,000 Rohingyas illegally in India.

UNHCR office in India has reportedly issued refugee IDs to about 16,500 Rohingyas in India.

(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in)

--IANS

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(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has condemned the weekend racist violence and bigotry in the US state of Virginia which left a woman dead.

"We believe that there must be no place in our societies for the violent racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia and discrimination that we've seen in Charlottesville, Virginia," Xinhua news agency quoted a spokesman as saying.

The UN chief expressed his condolences to the families and loved ones of the victims and wished a speedy recovery to all those who were injured.

A 32-year-old woman, Heather Heyer, from Charlottesville was killed and nearly a score injured on Saturday when a car, allegedly driven by a white supremacist, hit a crowd.

The deceased was part of a group of people protesting violent demonstrations by neo-Nazis and white supremacists against the planned removal of a statue of Civil War Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, now associated with racism.

The driver, identified as 20-year-old James Alex Fields Jr, was being held without bail on murder charge.

US President Donald Trump came under considerable bipartisan criticism for not specifically denouncing the Ku Klux Klan sympathizers, neo-Nazis, anti-Semitics and xenophobes for touching off the violence.

He had denounced violence as "evil" and blamed "many sides" for the violence.

On Monday, Kenneth Frazier, chief executive of the major pharmaceutical company Merck, quit a Presidential business council in protest to Trump failing to specifically call out the racists in Charlottesville.

Less than an hour later, the New York Times reported, the US President criticised Frazier.

Later, according to a White House transcript, Trump described the violence as "horrific" and said the Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation into the deadly car attack.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday condemned the weekend violence and bigotry displayed in the US state of Virginia.

"We believe that there must be no place in our societies for the violent racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia and discrimination that we've seen in Charlottesville, Virginia in recent days," Xinhua quoted UN Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq as saying.

Haq expressed his condolences to the families and loved ones of the victims and wished a speedy recovery to all those who were injured.

A 32-year-old woman, Heather Heyer, of Charlottesville, was killed and nearly a score injured on Saturday when a car, allegedly driven by a white-supremacist.

The deceased was part of a group of people protesting violent demonstrations by neo-Nazis and white-supremacists against the planned removal of a statue of Civil War Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, now associated with racism.

The driver, identified as 20-year-old James Alex Fields Jr., from the US State of Ohio, was being held without bail on a murder charge.

Other victims included two Virginia troopers flying surveillance in connection with the violence who were killed when their helicopter crashed near Charlottesville Saturday.

The US President Donald Trump came under considerable bipartisan criticism for not specifically denouncing the Ku Klux Klan sympathizers, neo-Nazis, anti-Semitics and xenophobes for touching off the violence.

He had denounced violence as "evil" and blamed "many sides" for the violence.

On Monday, Kenneth Frazier, chief executive of the major pharmaceutical company Merck, quit a presidential business council in protest to Trump failing to specifically call out the racists in Charlottesville.

Less than an hour later, the New York Times reported, the US president criticised Frazier in a tweet.

Later, according to a White House transcript, Trump described the violence as "horrific" and said the Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation into the deadly car attack.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
63 attacks on Muslims since 2010, 97% attacks after Modi govt came to power. Photo: Reuters

The US State Department has highlighted attacks in India by groups against people accused of bovine trafficking or having beef in its annual report on religious freedom, while attempting a measure of balance by also including critical mention of practices by minority religions.

The International Religious Freedom Report for 2016 (IRFR) released on Tuesday by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said: "There was an increase (during 2016) in violent incidents by groups against mostly Muslim victims, including killings, mob violence, assaults, and intimidation."

The report also mentioned instances of attacks on people suspected of making what were claimed to be derogatory remarks against Islam, including the involvement of police in one incident in Madhya Pradesh, the denial of burial rights by Christian and Muslim institutions to inter-religious couples and the arrest of a Catholic priest in Maharashtra on complaints that he denigrated Islam and prevented a teacher trainee from wearing a burqa.

IRFR took note of some positive developments on the religious front in India. Jews were accorded minority status in Maharashtra making their community "eligible for several government assistance programs".

"There were reports of religiously motivated killings, assaults, riots, discrimination, vandalism, and actions restricting the right of individuals to practice their religious beliefs and proselytize," the report said. "The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) reported 751 conflicts between religious communities, which resulted in 97 deaths and 2,264 injuries in 2015."

The IRFR quoting a Christian fundamentalist organisation, the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI), said that there were "300 incidents of abuse targeting Christians during the year, compared with 177 in 2015" and that "incidents included assaults on missionaries, forced conversions of non-Hindus, and attacks on churches, schools, and private property".

"Members of civil society expressed concerns that, under the BJP government, religious minority communities felt vulnerable due to Hindu nationalist groups engaging in violence against non-Hindu individuals and places of worship," the IRFR said.

"Religious minority communities stated that, while the government sometimes spoke out against incidents of violence, local political leaders often did not, which left victims and minority religious communities feeling vulnerable."

The IRFR raised the case of Compassion International, a US-based Christian organisation backed by several members of Congress, whose partners in India were refused registration under the Foreign Contributions Registration Act to receive money from abroad.

It noted that activities disturbing "harmony between religious, racial, social, linguistic, regional groups, castes, or communities" can be reasons for denying the registrations.

"Some media and civil society representatives stated Compassion International's partner organisations were targeted because MHA (Ministry of Home Affairs) alleged they were involved in conversions or other religious activities," the report said.

But it added: "Some other foreign-funded religious NGOs did not report any FCRA-related issues with operations in India."

Most of the report was a compilation from news stories and reports by religious groups and NGOs.

While listing the various instances of attacks by cow vigilantes on people suspected of having or eating beef, the report also noted that the Bombay High Court decriminalised the possession of beef brought from outside Maharashtra saying "it violated a citizen's right to possess and consume food of his or her choice."

In dealing with housing discrimination, the IRFR also said that in police had arrested nine members of a housing association in the Mumbai suburb of Vasai after a Muslim complained about its policy of not selling to Muslima. He was then allowed to buy property there, it said.

The IRFR also mentioned the Human Rights Commission (NHRC) report cited harassment and threats of violence as the reasons for "a mass migration of Hindu families from the Muslim majority city of Kairana, Uttar Pradesh" where there was an inflow of Muslims who were displaced by anti-Muslim violence in Uttar Pradesh in 2013."

But it added that it was disputed by Harsh Mander, human rights activist and director of the Centre for Equity Studies, and some NGOs, who demanded its withdrawal.

"Prime Minister Modi stated there should be no discrimination against women on the basis of religion and the government had the responsibility to protect Muslim women's constitutional rights," IRFR added.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A woman was injured on Tuesday in firing by the Pakistan Army in violation of ceasefire along the Line of Control in Uri sector of Jammu and Kashmir, an official said.

"Pakistan Army indulged in unprovoked firing in violation of the ceasefire along the LoC in Nambla and Baaz areas of Uri sector," an army spokesperson said here.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Gov. Steve Bullock on Monday appointed two more members to the five-person Board of Pardons and Parole, leaving one position yet to be filled.

Renee Bauer of Helena and Kristina Lucero of Missoula joined the board Monday.

Bauer is the executive director of the Helena Business Improvement District and Downtown Helena Inc. and the former executive director of Prairie Gold Homes Inc, a nonprofit in Lincoln, Nebraska, that offers inmates job training building energy-efficient housing. Lucero is an assistant public defender in Missoula and a former tribal prosecutor for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.

They join Scott Cruse, a former FBI official, and Annette Carter, who managed re-entry programs for the Montana Department of Corrections. Mike Batista, former director of the DOC, is serving in a temporary role.

The Board of Pardons and Parole reviews requests by prison inmates for early release into parole or other community placements. The board typically approves parole for six of every 10 offenders who request release, according to the boards website.

In July the board switched from a volunteer board to a professional board, with the goal of speeding up the parole process and making decisions fairer and more consistent. Under the volunteer board, decisions were often made on a case-by-case basis and did not rely upon research or best practices, critics say.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday reiterated his commitment to good governance and battling corruption as he hoisted the national flag on Independence Day here on Tuesday.

The Janata Dal-United leader told people that Bihar was on the path of justice-laced development.

After unfurling the national flag at the Gandhi Maidan, Nitish Kumar said: "We will not compromise with corruption, governance and development."

He said his government had been fulfilling its "seven resolves" one after another.

He spoke about the 35 per cent reservation his government had provided for women in government jobs.

Nitish Kumar said his government's decision to ban liquor trade and consumption had brought about a social change.

"The liquor ban has helped to change village environs. It is a harbinger of social change and reform."

Nitish Kumar said his government had speeded up efforts to provide tap water and electricity to all households besides toilets.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday called for a collective war against fatal diseases such as encephalitis after the death of over 60 children in less than a week at the BRD Medical College in Gorakhpur.
At least 11 people were killed today when a 200-year-old oak tree fell and crushed them at a religious festival on the Portuguese island of Madeira, local media reported.

The public RTP television channel said at least 35 people were injured when the tree toppled into a crowd outside a church on the island's southern coast.

The Church of Our Lady of Monte, in a suburb of the capital Funchal, is the site of an annual religious gathering attended by faithful from across the island, according to Madeira's tourism website.

The church is surrounded by tall trees.

RTP said authorities would release an official toll later Tuesday, while the Diario de Noticias da Madeira daily said 10 people had been killed and 15 injured.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika sacked Prime Minister Abdelmajid Tebboune today, less than three months after appointing him, the presidency said, according to state media.

"President Abdelaziz Bouteflika today relieved Prime Minister Abdelmajid Tebboune of his duties and appointed Ahmed Ouyahia", the president's chief of staff, to replace him, said the official APS agency, quoting a statement from the presidency.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A massive operation has been launched by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), police and the administration to rescue a two-year-old boy who fell into an open borewell near Vinukonda in Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh today.

The boy, identified as Chandrasekhar, was playing near a cattle shed at Ummadivaram village when he accidentally fell into borewell at around three this afternoon, police said.

His mother, who was tending cattle nearby, did not notice that the boy was playing precariously close to the defunct borewell which had been left uncovered.

The boy was found trapped over 15 feet down in the borewell shaft, a police official told PTI over phone.

A crater is being dug parallel to the borewell to rescue the boy, while oxygen tubes have been lowered inside.

District Collector Kona Sasidhar has rushed to the village to oversee the rescue operation.

Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister N China Rajappa spoke to the district authorities and asked them to spare no effort to rescue the trapped child, officials said.

Health minister Kamineni Srinivas also spoke to the district medical and health officer, following which a medical team was rushed to the spot.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The main Independence Day function at the Bakshi stadium here saw most of the people in the general stands remain seated when the national anthem was played soon after Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti unfurled the tricolour.

However, people sitting in the VIP enclosure, including high court judges, MLAs, MLCs, bureaucrats and office bearers of political parties, stood up to pay their respect to the national anthem.

Mufti was then given a guard of honour.

Around 3,000 people were present in the stadium, which has a capacity of over 18,000.

The empty stands at the stadium came as a shock to the Uttar Pradesh Police contingent which was taking part in the celebrations for the first time in Kashmir.

UP Police contingent leader Deputy Superintendent of Police Sheodan Singh said it was a disappointing sight to see such a small gathering at the main venue of Independence Day celebrations.

"In our state, Independence Day is celebrated like a festival," Singh told reporters.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The flood situation remained grim in Bihar, while absence of major downpour during the day led to slight improvement in West Bengal, even as the inundation of railway tracks led to cancellation, diversion and short termination of trains to Assam.

The toll in Bihar floods has risen to 56, with 69.81 lakh people being hit by inundation in 13 districts of the state. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar made his second aerial survey of flood-hit areas today. He was accompanied by Chief Secretary Anjani Kumar Singh.

In north Bengal, where five districts have been affected by the deluge, the toll is seven. About a lakh people have been affected, 60,000 alone in worst-hit Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar districts.

Special secretary in Bihar disaster management department, Anirudh Kumar said Araria area in the state accounted for 20 flood-related deaths, West Champaran - 9, Kisanganj - 8, Sitamarhi - 5, Madhepura - 4, East Champaran, Darbhanga and Madhubani - 3 each and Sheohar - 1.

He said 69.81 lakh people are in the grip of floods which has engulfed 98 blocks and 1,070 panchayats in the eastern state.

Kumar added 1.61 lakh people have been taken to safer places. Out of them, 85,949 have been put up in 343 relief camps in different places.

Addressing the Independence Day programme in state capital Patna, Nitish Kumar expressed concern over the "grim flood situation" and said the flood was caused by incessant rains in Nepal.

The situation is grim in north Bihar, where rivers are flowing above the danger level and have caused immense loss and damage, he said.

In north Bengal, apart from the worst-hit Alipurduar and Jalpaiguri districts, North Dinajpur, Cooch Behar and Malda districts were also affected in the flood, sources in the district administrations said.

Many of the flood affected have taken shelter in relief camps, they said.

In the absence of major rains during the day, water levels of all major rivers in north Bengal which were flowing above the danger marks, have now come down to some extent.

The state administration is monitoring the relief and rescue operations round-the-clock as per the instructions by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Water discharge from Gajoldoba barrage on the Teesta river has flooded new areas of Mal block and worsened the situation in areas like Milanpalli, Basusuba and Champadanga, officials said.

Villages in Dhupguri and Moynaguri blocks of Jalpaiguri have been inundated and a large number of people have taken shelter in government relief camps, they said.

However, the overall situation in Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar districts was improving. If there was no rainfall in the next couple of days, water levels in all major rivers in north Bengal would recede and be below danger mark, the authorities said.

Eastern Railway chief Public Relations Officer R Mahapatra told PTI that a number of trains originating from the city were cancelled as flood water was flowing above rail tracks in areas under North East Frontier Railway (NFR) jurisdiction.

With railway tracks flooded at many places in Katihar and Alipurduar divisions of Northeast Frontier Railways, a number of long distance trains have either been cancelled, diverted and short terminated, a NFR release said in Guwahati.

The cancelled trains include the DEMU between Silghat Town to Guwahati, the Dibrigarh-Lalgarh Express, Kanchanjungha Express, Padatik Exp and Teesta Torsa Express, NFR chief Public Relations Officer Pranav Jyoti Sharma said.

The trains put under short termination and short origination are Seemanchal Exp at Arariya, Kolkata-Jogbani Express at Simraha, Kolkata-Balurghat Express at Malda Town and Howrah-Balurghat Express at Buniyadpur.

With track fit certificate with speed restrictions in Alipurduar-New Coochbehar section received, the trains which will resume are the Alipurduar Junction-Bamanhat-Alipurduar Junction passenger, Siliguri Junction-Bamanhat-Siliguri Junction passenger and Alipurduar Junction-Kamakhya-Alipurduar Junction Intercity Express, Sharma added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Madhya Pradesh government aims to make the state free of corruption and poverty by 2022, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said today



"We have resolved to make the state free of corruption and poverty by 2022," Chouhan said while underlining Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call for creating a country which is free of corruption, poverty, terrorism and casteism.

"Every poor in Madhya Pradesh will have a house of his own by 2022," Chouhan said addressing the Independence Day function here.

In this direction, the state government would build five lakh houses for urban poor and 15 lakh houses for rural poor by next year, he said.

Stressing the need to protect the environment, he said a mass movement called Narmada Seva Yatra was taken out earlier this year to revive the Narmada river -- considered as the lifeline of MP.

The chief minister said that Rs 8,500 crore would be invested to develop greenery on the sides of Narmada river and to treat its water in next three years.

The state has sufficient electricity, he said, adding that consumers were getting 24 hours power supply daily.

The farmers in the state were getting electricity for 10 hours daily for agricultural purposes, he said.

He also said that the state government has decided to set up a global skill park with the help of Singapore-based Institute of Technical Education in Bhopal.

"The park will generate employment by imparting world class training in skill development," Chouhan said.

According to reports from various other parts of the state, including major cities like Jabalpur, Indore and Gwalior, the Independence Day was celebrated there with traditional fervour and gaiety.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The European Union's foreign policy chief has called for "peaceful, not military" means to resolve the Korean peninsula crisis, urging Pyongyang to avoid any "further provocative action" that could stoke tensions.

"At such a critical juncture, the European Union supports diplomatic work with our partners aimed at the de-escalation of the situation and achieving the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula through peaceful, not military, means," Federica Mogherini said in a statement yesterday.

The statement was issued after a meeting of a key EU panel which agreed the bloc would reach out to North and South Korea, the United States, China, Russia and Japan.

"There is an urgent need for a de-escalation of tensions on the situation on the Korean Peninsula," Mogherini said.

"(...) We therefore call on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to refrain from any further provocative action that can only increase regional and global tensions."



North Korea's "continued acceleration" of its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes "constitutes serious and worrying violations" of its international obligations, Mogherini warned.

Tensions have been mounting since the North's two intercontinental ballistic missile tests last month, which appeared to bring much of the US within range.

Its military said last week that it would finalise by mid-August its detailed plan to test-fire four intermediate- range ballistic missiles in an "enveloping fire" around the US Pacific island of Guam.

Today, Pyongyang's state media said North Korean leader Kim Jong-un "examined the plan for a long time" and "discussed it" with commanding officers.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A Billings man charged with the years-long abuse of his young son has pleaded not guilty to felony charges.

Cornelius Mitchell, 49, appeared Tuesday in Yellowstone County District Court.

Mitchell is facing three counts of assault on a minor by accountability, two counts of aggravated assault by accountability and one count of assault with a weapon by accountability  all felonies. Mitchell also faces one misdemeanor count of endangering the welfare of children.

Court documents outlined an investigation into years of abuse. When Cornelius Mitchell took his 5-year-old son to the hospital in February, the child was hypothermic, appeared underweight and had fractured ribs.

Doctors in Salt Lake City, where the child was flown, determined the injuries resulted from "extreme force" that wouldn't have been caused by self-harm, charges state.

Other injuries indicated the child may have been tied up at times, court documents state.

Bond was continued Tuesday at $100,000.
A host of foreign leaders, including Canadian and Israeli prime ministers and the Emir of Qatar, today extended Independence Day greetings to India.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to Twitter to acknowledge the greetings and express gratitude.

"India and Canada enjoy a special relationship with so much in common. My best wishes for a happy Independence Day," Canadian PM Justin Trudeau said on Twitter.

"Our two countries share much in common, including our commitment to democracy, freedom, and the rule of law, and are linked by similar institutions and forms of government. Above all, the success of Canada and India demonstrate that we both prosper not in spite of our diversity, but because of it," the Canadian premier said in a statement.

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, who shares great personal rapport with PM Modi, also congratulated the people of India.

"Best wishes to my friend @narendramodi and all the people of India on the occasion of India's 71st Independence Day!" he posted on Twitter and shared a picture of himself with Modi.

In response to greetings from Qatar, PM Modi said on Twitter: "Thanked His Highness Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, for his congratulatory phone call this evening on our Independence Day."



Neighbouring countries Afghanistan, Bhutan and Sri Lanka too extended greetings to India on the occasion.

"I would like to congratulate PM. @narendramodi & the great people of India on their Independence Day. Our friendship 'll always remain firm," tweeted Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

In his response, Modi said, "Thank you my friend, President @ashrafghani for the wishes on India's Independence Day."



Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena tweeted, "Wishing our close friend and neighbour India a very happy #IndependenceDayIndia @narendramodi."



Modi responded, "Thank you President @MaithripalaS for the Independence Day greetings."



Bhutanese Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay posted on Twitter: "Wishing my Indian friends a Happy Independence Day. May the friendship between India and Bhutan continue to grow from strength to strength."



Responding to him, Modi wrote, "Appreciate the Independence Day wishes, PM @tsheringtobgay.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Netizens can now be a part of Mahatma Gandhi's historic Dandi March as tech giant Google recreates the journey digitally for the millennials who have only read about it in textbooks.

Google has added the Dandi March story to its Google Earth Voyager, which features map data, storytelling and archival photographs.

Google claimed that many of these have never been released.

The 24-day journey started on March 12, 1930 to protest against the tax levy on salt by the British. The march added huge momentum to India's independence movement.

While 78 people began the almost 400 km-march with Gandhi, many more joined along the way.

Users can now experience the emotion felt on that long trek towards independence, Google said in a statement. "The Voyager story takes you through a journey retracing the steps of Gandhi's Salt March from Sabarmati to Dandi in his campaign for India's freedom," it added.

The story is told in the words of Mahatma Gandhi's great-grandson Tushar Gandhi, based on his family knowledge and his own retracing of the march in 2005, the statement said.

Google has created a montage of 22 slides covering each key stage of the journey to specific locations along the way, recounting what happened at that location along with a photograph taken at the time.

The first stop in the journey is at the Gujarat Vidhyapeeth University, where viewers learn about the thatched hut built by the townspeople of Vasana, and about the boat owner who ferried almost 400 volunteers and villagers across the Narmada river free of charge.

At any time, users can zoom in, and pan around the scene.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Zimbabwe's first lady Grace Mugabe handed herself over to South African police and was due in court today, officials said, after allegedly assaulting a model who was at a Johannesburg hotel with her two sons.

During the incident, which occurred on Sunday, Mugabe, 52, allegedly attacked Gabriella Engels, 20, with an extension cord, leaving her with wounds on her forehead and the back of her head.

"She's not under arrest because she cooperated and handed herself over to the police," South African Police Minister Fikile Mbalula told reporters.

"In terms of foreign citizens, they must understand they have responsibilities -- especially those who hold diplomatic passports.

"I cannot just go to Zimbabwe and beat up people there and then the matter will disappear.

"From the police side, we have had to act in the interests of the victim, we have opened a case."



Pictures on social media appeared to show Engels with a bleeding head injury after the alleged incident in Capital 20 West Hotel in the upmarket Johannesburg district of Sandton.

Mugabe allegedly arrived with bodyguards and accused Engels of partying with her sons Robert and Chatunga, both in their 20s, who are based in the South African city.

"We were chilling in a hotel room, and (the sons) were in the room next door. She came in and started hitting us," Engels was quoted as saying by the TimesLIVE website on Monday.

"The front of my forehead is busted open. I'm a model and I make my money based on my looks."



Mugabe, who is 41 years younger than her husband Robert, has two sons and one daughter with the Zimbabwean president.

"There was a criminal case opened in Sandton at Morningside (station) yesterday, but I can not release any name. Right now we have not arrested anybody," national police spokesman Vish Naidoo told AFP.

Sizakele Nkosi-Malobane, a provincial minister in Gauteng province, told Jacaranda FM that the case should be pursued through the courts.

"We hope that it will send a strong message to all leaders who abuse their power and assault innocent people in our country," she said.

Grace Mugabe regularly speaks at rallies in Zimbabwe and is seen as one potential successor to take over from her increasingly frail husband.

Last month she urged her 93-year-old husband to name his chosen successor, fuelling renewed speculation about the race to take over from the world's oldest national leader.

The Zimbabwe government made no immediate comment.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The government has started weeding out Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) entities that have been inactive for long, as stepped up efforts continue against illicit fund flows.

LLPs are registered under the Limited Liability Partnership Act, 2008  which came into force in 2009  and the law is implemented by the corporate affairs ministry.

Along with clamping down on companies that have not been carrying out business activities for a long time, the ministry has started cracking the whip on similar LLPs across the country.

Nearly 200 LLPs that have been inactive for at least two straight financial years have come under the scanner of the ministry, according to communications sent out by it in the last two months.

Sending out a strong message, these entities are in the process of being struck off from the register for not carrying out any activities.

"(These) LLPs have not been carrying on any business or operation for a period of two immediately preceding financial years," according to similarly-worded communications issued by various Registrar of Companies (RoCs).

Subsequently, these entities have been asked to explain reason or face deregistration.

Among others, 81 such LLPs came under the scanner of RoC (Odisha) while the number was at least 70 in the case of RoC (Madhya Pradesh). Around 37 LLPs that have not been carrying out business came to the notice of RoC (Meghalaya).

More such LLPs are likely to face action from the ministry.

The LLP form of business organisation enables entrepreneurs, professionals and enterprises providing services of any kind or engaged in scientific and technical disciplines to form commercially efficient vehicles, as per the ministry.

"Owing to flexibility in its structure and operations, the LLP is [the] most suitable vehicle for small enterprises and for investment by venture capital," the ministry said in its recently published 'Strategy Document 2017'.

Official data showed that as many as 319 companies were converted into LLPs in the last financial year, which is higher than 258 seen in 2015-16. The number stood at 167 in 2014-15.

With the government cracking the whip on the black money menace, over 1.75 lakh companies have already been deregistered and more such action is expected in the coming weeks.

In his Independence Day speech on Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said more than 1.75 lakh have been deregistered.

Till July 12, over 1.62 lakh companies that were not carrying out business for long were deregistered, with Mumbai, Delhi and Hyderabad together accounting for nearly half of such firms, the government informed Parliament last week.

Last week, Corporate Affairs Minister Arun Jaitley told the Lok Sabha that the term 'shell company' is not defined under the Companies Act, 2013 and that the Act requires that a company may be set up for any lawful purpose only.

"Subsequent to incorporation, if a company is found to be formed for [the] fraudulent or unlawful purpose, it is liable for penal action, including for winding up under Section 271 of the Act," he had said.
Egypt supports India's Dalveer Bhandari as judge of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), while New Delhi will back Cairo's nominee to the UNESCO's Director-General post, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry has said.

In a statement, the ministry said Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry received a phone call on Sunday from his Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj and the two leaders discussed bilateral relations and means of international coordination.

During the call, Swaraj informed Soukry that India supports the Egyptian nominee Ambassador Moushira Khattab to the UNESCO's Director-General post, the statement said.

At the same time, Shoukry said that Egypt supports Bhandari, who has been nominated by India as its candidate for another nine-year term as judge of the ICJ, it added.

"India and Egypt have always had a very good cooperation in international fora," India's Ambassador to Egypt Sanjay Bhattacharyya told PTI today.

"We found that the candidature of Khattab is a very attractive one. Both, the candidature Khattab for the UNESCO and of Bhandari for the ICJ are having mutual support," the ambassador said.

The UNESCO and ICJ elections will be held in October and November respectively.

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India's struggle against colonialism and racial discrimination served as an inspiration for the countries across Africa, South African Minister of Post and Telecommunications Siyabonga Cwele has said.

He was speaking at a dinner hosted by Indian High Commissioner Ruchira Kamboj in Pretoria to mark the country's 71st Independence Day.

"India took up the cause of championing the struggle against colonialism and racial discrimination and served as a rock of support upon which South Africa could rely until our own date with destiny," Cwele said last night as he quoted from the famous speech by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

"South Africa and India share a strategic partnership that saw bilateral trade top the 93 billion mark in 2016, however the true potential of our trade, tourism and investment relations is yet to be fully realised," Cwele said as he called for a further deepening of these relations.

The minister said both India and South Africa had issued a ten-year business visa to facilitate trade relations.

"As South Africa assumes the chair of the Indian Ocean Rim Association, we look forward to collaborating with India in expanding in new areas of marketing efforts and intensified people-to-people contact.

"Cwele said 2017 was a special year for bilateral relations because it marked the 20th anniversary of the Red Fort Agreement signed by former President Nelson Mandela and Prime Minister Deve Gowda in New Delhi and reaffirmed the strategic partnership between the two countries.

"It set out the aspirations and ideas which we as members of the South strive for," Cwele concluded.

"The relationship between India and South Africa is truly special - it stands for peace in a time of turmoil; serves as a platform for collaboration in a time of chaos; and above all, is an alliance of trust and conviction," Kamboj reaffirmed.

On the occasion, violin maestro L Subramaniam played a piece specially composed and performed together with Lord Yehudi Menuhin for India's 40th Independence Day celebrations, this time with his son, Ambi Subramaniam.

They received a standing ovation from more than 300 guests who were present at the dinner.

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A 47-year-old Indian-origin Singaporean has received a hefty compensation of over 4 million Singaporean dollars from his previous employer after a scathing letter of reference by them cost him the chance to join another company.

Ramesh Krishnan, described as "one of AXA's best- compensated advisers", had accused the company of defaming him in 2012 when providing references on his work performance, The Straits Times reported.

Krishnan lost the defamation suit in the High Court in 2015, but the Court of Appeal later ruled that AXA had breached its duty of care to him, the report said.

When the company Krishnan had applied to asked AXA for the reference, it wrote back to say that he "showed a very poor 13th month persistency rate" - meaning that many of his clients did not stick with their policies - and "we are very concerned as to whether the clients have been provided with proper advice".

The Court of Appeal said this would have given the mistaken impression that Krishnan was not competent, and did not square with the evidence that he was one of AXA's best financial services directors and it had earlier persuaded him not to resign.

Justice George Wei noted yesterday that the stands of both parties had been "polar opposites" when it came to damages. Krishnan had sought 63 million Singaporean dollar, while AXA urged he should be awarded only a nominal sum of 1 Singaporean dollar.

Starting from April 2011, this included a commencement allowance of 675,000 Singaporean dollars, and an initial monthly salary of 65,625 Singaporean dollars for the first 12 months and 43,750 Singaporean dollars for the following months till July last year.

He also looked at loss of future earnings between August last year and July next year at a discounted rate.

An AXA Singapore spokesman said yesterday it is seeking legal advice on the judgment.

"Providing for and protecting our policyholders is our top priority and we remain committed to ensuring that our appointed representatives are fit and proper and meet the competency, financial soundness and integrity standards required by us and the MAS (Monetary Authority of Singapore)," the spokesman was quoted as saying.

Ramesh said: "People must know that justice is served. Somebody must go out there and make a point".

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Director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra believes Indian filmmakers should explore stories that are rooted in the country rather than presenting "American ideas" in local packaging.

Mehra, whose films "Rang De Basanti" and "Delhi 6" were lauded internationally, says it was the Indian connect in his stories that made them popular with the audiences abroad.

In an interview with PTI, Mehra says, "If we really want the world to see our cinema, we need to tell Indian stories. We need to show real India and not American ideas made in India. My endeavour is to change the western gaze at Indian cinema."



The director, however, is happy that the new generation in the industry is made of people from all strata of the society and they are keen to go beyond the cliches.

"Thankfully, we are discovering stories out of the so called cliched 'running around the trees' or a Switzerland visual. There are millions of stories to be told. Stories coming from the soil will have a social connect," he adds.

His next directorial venture is "Mere Pyaare Prime Minister". The movie raises the open defecation issue and sanitation problems in the country, a topic that was also the subject of Akshay Kumar's latest release "Toilet: Ek Prem Katha".

Mehra's film revolves around an eight-year-old boy, Kanu and his mother, who live in a Mumbai slum.

On the depiction of India's reality through slums, Mehra says even though for the "filmmakers have, in the longest time, tried to sell the poverty in the West", his aim is to focus on the problem that people face daily.

"We have to stop fooling ourselves and living in la la land. If not slums and these issues, what should we tell people about... Should we make movies on item songs or actors dancing in green beautiful lands with 'dupattas' flying in the wind?



"I am not getting too stressed about any criticism. The society is evolving and we need to recognise that. If the story is beautifully told and is inspirational, it will make a mark and do its job."



The protagonist of the movie, Kanu, is not happy that her mother has to go out as they don't have a toilet at home and decides to write a letter to the PM requesting him to get toilets build for them.

Mehra says the idea first came to him when he got attached to an NGO in Ahmedabad called Yuva Unstoppable. The director, along with the NGO started building toilets in municipal schools. They have built toilets in around more than 800 schools since then.

The filmmaker says it is "more important to build toilets than mosques and temples" and through his film, he wants to spread the message that maintaining cleanliness is not just the government's responsibility.

"I am happy that spotlight has turned towards cleanliness and sanitation, but the way I am looking at it, it is not just the job of the government. It needs to have a larger awareness in the society and people need to share the empathy or the difficulties of their fellow citizens," he says.

Mainly shot in Ghatkopar, the movie does not have any big stars, but Mehra says that has not affected the production quality of the movie.

"I wanted the story to be told in the best possible way. The movie is not a part of Bollywood or Hollywood. It belongs more to the category of world cinema.

"We haven't compromised on the production quality. The camera team is from Poland. The sound will be done outside the country. We have used the best cameras and top-of-the-line crew from Mumbai. It has to look better than any other film made in the world.

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A court here has sentenced a man to six months in prison for kidnapping his 17-year-old wife from her lawful guardianship.

Additional Sessions Judge Shivani Jaiswal awarded the jail term to Abdul Navi last week for kidnapping the minor from her lawful guardians, District Government Counsel Chaman Prakash Sharma said today.

The court, however, acquitted Navi of the charge of kidnapping the girl to compel her to marry him, he added.

According to the prosecution, the accused had married the girl in 2015 with her consent.

On February 3, 2015, a complaint was lodged at the Bisrakh police station by Ram Ratan, the father of the girl, alleging that his daughter had gone missing under mysterious circumstances.

On April 7, 2015, the police altered the charges in the FIR to IPC sections 363 (punishment for kidnapping) and 366 (kidnapping, abducting or inducing woman to compel her marriage).

On May 27 this year, the police recovered the girl and subsequently, the charge sheet in the case was submitted.

The counsel of the accused told the court that the girl had gone with him of her own will but admitted that she was below 18 years of age at that time.

The girl told the court that her date of birth, as per her high school records, was June 23, 1997 and hence, she was 17 years of age on February 1, 2015, when she had gone with the accused, who was known to her.

She added that she had gone from her house to the Sarai Kale Khan inter-state bus terminus in Delhi of her own will and called the accused, asking him to come there.

The accused took her to Harola village at Noida from the bus terminus, the girl told the court and added that subsequently, the two got married and were living as husband and wife since then.

Observing that the consent of a minor was immaterial, the court held the accused guilty under section 361, IPC (kidnapping a minor from lawful guardianship) and sentenced him to six months in prison.

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Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has warned that an attack by North Korea against the United States could quickly escalate into war, and said the military would try to shoot down any missile that threatened Guam.

North Korea last week said it was drawing up plans to test-fire four missiles that would fly toward Guam but splash into the sea before hitting the small US Pacific island territory, after President Donald Trump promised to meet ongoing threats from Pyongyang with "fire and fury."



"If they fire at the United States, it could escalate into war very quickly," Mattis told Pentagon reporters yesterday.

Mattis's comments came after he and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said America has "no interest" in regime change in Pyongyang or the accelerated reunification of the two Koreas, and stressed the importance of a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

The defense chief said the Pentagon is able to tell "within moments" where North Korea's missiles are headed, and said the United States would try to shoot down anything that threatened America.

"We will defend the country from any attack at any time from any quarter," he said.

If North Korea fires missiles deemed to be a threat to Guam, "then it's game on, and we will try and do our best to make sure it does not hit the United States," Mattis said.

When asked if he would order the shoot-down of missiles headed toward Guam -- but which would fall short of actually hitting the island -- Mattis said he did not want to signal whether the United States would still try to stop them.

"If it falls short of Guam, then it becomes an issue that we take up however the president chooses," Mattis said.

"I need a certain amount of ambiguity on this because I am not going to tell them what I'll do in each case.

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Hungarian Leader: 'It Is a Duty to Help Our Christian Brothers'
CMG Construction LLC, a Billings-based construction firm, will be opening offices in Bozeman and Texas as it continues to grow in Montana and across the country.

The privately owned company, which specializes in heavy development and structural work for commercial and civil infrastructure projects, announced the expansion on Monday in a news release.

The Bozeman office will house a new traveling heavy civil division for a growing market in major utility projects like dams, powerhouses, highways, bridges and treatment plants across Western Montana, Idaho and Wyoming.

A new office in Fort Worth, Texas, will be for a new structural drilling operation.

Among CMGs recent structural drilling projects was Windspeed II, a 126-mile overhead power line project under construction in Oklahoma where the company built concrete foundations.

CMG remains on track to meet or exceed its revenue goals for 2017, the company said. Some of CMGs Montana projects include Yellowstone Club at Big Sky, Dehler Park in Billings, Tippet Rise Art Center at Fishtail and the James F. Battin Federal Courthouse in Billings.

Oroco Capital, a Maryland-based private equity firm, bought CMG Construction in February after its previous owner and founder, Kevin McGovern, was convicted in a federal corruption case and sentenced to prison.
President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have agreed to enhance peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region by establishing a new two-by-two ministerial dialogue, which would elevate their strategic consultations, the White House said on Tuesday.

Trump spoke with Modi last night to greet him on the eve of India's Independence Day.

During the phone call, Trump welcomed the first-ever shipment of American crude oil to India, which will begin this month from Texas.

He pledged that the US would continue to be a reliable and long-term supplier of energy to India, the White House said in a readout of the phone call between the two leaders.

"The leaders resolved to enhance peace and stability across the Indo-Pacific region by establishing a new two-by- two ministerial dialogue that will elevate their strategic consultations," the White House said, without giving details of the mechanism.

As the leaders of two of the world's largest and fastest-growing major economies, Trump and Modi looked forward to the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in India this November, the White House said, adding that Trump has asked his daughter and advisor Ivanka Trump to lead the US summit delegation.

"Prime Minister Modi thanked President Trump for his strong leadership uniting the world against the North Korean menace," it added.

Trump had recently warned North Korea that it would face "fire and fury" if it attacked the United States, while the North threatened to test-fire its missiles over Japan and towards the US Pacific island of Guam.
President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have agreed to enhance peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region by establishing a new two-by-two ministerial dialogue, which would elevate their strategic consultations, the White House said today.

Trump spoke with Modi last night to greet him on the eve of India's Independence Day.

During the phone call, Trump welcomed the first-ever shipment of American crude oil to India, which will begin this month from Texas.

He pledged that the US would continue to be a reliable and long-term supplier of energy to India, the White House said in a readout of the phone call between the two leaders.

"The leaders resolved to enhance peace and stability across the Indo-Pacific region by establishing a new two-by- two ministerial dialogue that will elevate their strategic consultations," the White House said, without giving details of the mechanism.

As the leaders of two of the world's largest and fastest-growing major economies, Trump and Modi looked forward to the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in India this November, the White House said, adding that Trump has asked his daughter and advisor Ivanka Trump to lead the US summit delegation.

"Prime Minister Modi thanked President Trump for his strong leadership uniting the world against the North Korean menace," it added.

Trump had recently warned North Korea that it would face "fire and fury" if it attacked the United States, while the North threatened to test-fire its missiles over Japan and towards the US Pacific island of Guam.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson extended his best wishes to the people of India on the country's Independence Day today.

"The US is proud to stand with the people of India, the world's largest democracy, in the cause for freedom and prosperity around the globe," he said.

"Prime Minister Modi's ambitious vision for the US-India relationship holds great promise for advancing our shared interests in the 21st century, and we look forward to the many years of friendship before us," Tillerson added.

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Nepal and China on Tuesday signed three pacts to further boost their ties in power and energy sectors and undertake a feasibility study to excavate natural gas and petroleum in the Himalayan country, including in the southern Terai plains.

The pacts were signed after visiting Chinese vice premier Wang Yang held discussions with Nepal's deputy prime ministers Bijaya Kumar Gachhadar and Krishna Bahadur Mahara.

The agreements cover three different domains - economic and technological cooperation, China-aid oil and gas resources survey project and framework agreement on promotion of investment and economic cooperation, Nepal's state-run National News Agency reported.

They include a feasibility study for excavating natural gas and petroleum in mountain areas and plains of the Terai region.

The two countries agreed to establish hydropower projects and transmission lines and take steps for economic and technological development in Nepal, which suffers from acute shortage of electricity.

Finance Secretary Shanta Raj Subedi told the agency the pacts would make significant contributions in Nepal's socio- economic transformation.

He said China has responded positively on Nepal government's appeal to immediately reopen the 114-kilometre Araniko highway - an old route connecting the two countries. The highway damaged and subsequently closed after the massive earthquake in Nepal in 2015.

China has also agreed in principle to upgrade the highway, the report said.

The two countries, however, could not reach a concrete decision on developing other infrastructure projects such as constructing the Kerung-Kathmandu-Lumbini railway track and a bridge in Timure of Rasuwa district in northern Nepal.

"The Chinese side is positive over the matter, but extensive talks and discussions are essential as a single round of talks is not enough to finalise all issues. They are positive towards our priorities of national development," said Subedi.

Earlier today, the Chinese vice premier announced a $1 million assistance to Nepal, where more than 100 people have died in flooding and landslides.

China's vice premier Yang led the Chinese delegation while Deputy Prime Minister Krishna Bahadur Mahara led the Nepalese delegation during the talks.

Yang arrived in Kathmandu yesterday from Pakistan after attending the country's Independence Day celebrations as a "special guest".
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned "neo-Nazism and racism" today, but drew criticism for taking three days to speak out about a white supremacist rally in the United States that ended in bloodshed.

"Outraged by expressions of anti-Semitism, neo-Nazism and racism. Everyone should oppose this hatred," Netanyahu posted in English on his official Twitter account.

US President Donald Trump, who had been under pressure to issue a strong condemnation of the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, yesterday night denounced racism while calling the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis "repugnant".

Netanyahu broke his silence toay afternoon, hours after Trump's statement.

The right-wing Israeli leader welcomed Trump's Republican presidency after having had a testy relationship with his predecessor Barack Obama, a Democrat who often pressured him over settlement building in the occupied West Bank.

Netanyahu has appeared reluctant to be seen as criticising Trump.

"Guess which world leader took even longer than Trump to condemn neo-Nazism and even then couldn't even specify where he was referring to," Anshel Pfeffer of the left-wing Haaretz newspaper wrote on Twitter.

An Israeli official told AFP on condition of anonymity that although the premier did not name Charlottesville it was the violence there to which he was referring.

During the white supremacist rally there, marchers carried swastika banners and chanted Nazi-era slogans.

"Netanyahu's silence in the face of images that send chills down the spines of Jews worldwide has raised eyebrows among analysts and experts," the Times of Israel said in an analysis published shortly before Netanyahu's tweet.

"When it comes to Jew hatred, Netanyahu is not usually reserved, often condemning anti-Semitic incidents that occur in the Muslim world or in Europe," it wrote.

Other Israeli officials had issued condemnations earlier.

"The unhindered waving of Nazi flags and symbols in the US is not only offensive towards the Jewish community and other minorities," Education Minister Naftali Bennet, a Netanyahu rival, said on Sunday.

"It also disrespects the millions of American soldiers who sacrificed their lives in order to protect the US and entire world from the Nazis," he said in a statement.

Israel's ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, said yesterday that Netanyahu had asked him "to convey Israel's outrage over the attack and over the expressions of anti-Semitism and racism.

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Three women suicide bombers blew themselves up at the entrance to a camp for displaced people in northeast Nigeria, killing 28 people and wounding 82, local sources said.

The attack took place yesterday in the town of Mandarari, 25 kilometres (15 miles) from Maiduguri, the capital of restive Borno state, said Baba Kura, a member of a vigilante force set up to fight jihadists.

"Three female bombers triggered their explosive outside of the IDP (internally displaced persons) camp... Killing 28 people and wounding 82 others," Kura said.

The first assailant blew herself up, triggering panic, Kura said.

"People were trying to close their shops when two other female bombers triggered their explosives, causing most of the casualties," he said.

Ibrahim Liman, the head of a local anti-jihadist militia force, confirmed the details of the attack, and said that more than 80 injured had been taken to Maiduguri hospital.

A source at the hospital said a "huge number" of patients had arrived.

Northeast Nigeria is a hotbed of activity by the Boko Haram jihadist group, involving shootings, bombings and kidnappings.

It launched an insurgency in 2009 that has killed about 20,000 people and displaced around 2.6 million others.

On Saturday, Boko Haram killed four people and torched homes in a night-time raid on the village of Amarwa, about 20 kilometres from Maiduguri, according to local sources.

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Union minister Chaudhary Birender Singh today claimed that the people of Delhi were "disappointed" with the AAP government for its "misconduct".

He said this while campaigning for BJP candidate Ved Prakash in the August 23 by-poll in the Bawana Assembly constituency in north Delhi.

"The (Arvind) Kejriwal government has not only shamed the people of Delhi with its misconduct, but people across the country are disappointed with it, as was evident from his party losing the polls in Goa, Delhi and Punjab," Singh said.

He claimed that the scheduled caste communities were "disenchanted" with the Delhi government for "not doing anything" for them and "misusing" the SC funds.

"The SC communities are disenchanted. The Jats and other agricultural communities are tired of the corruption in releasing payments from the crop damage relief fund for 2015 and 2016 and also for being denied of good health and education facilities," said the Union Minister of Steel.

The by-poll in Bawana was necessitated after Prakash, then with the Aam Aadmi Party, quit as the local MLA and subsequently, from the party to join the BJP.

Singh said, "The long delay in approving the much-needed Land Pooling Policy, misuse of the SC funds, corruption in payment of crop damage compensation and absence of development are going to cost the Kejriwal government and his party heavily in the Bawana by-poll."



Accompanied by Prakash, the Union minister took part in a door-to-door campaigning, followed by a workers meeting at Manjra village.

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Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh today said Prime Minister Narendra Modi's statement on Jammu and Kashmir reflects the resolve of the nation and democratic values, as he urged separatists and militants to use the opportunity to return to the mainstream.

"Unnecessary criticism will not achieve anything. The prime minister has given a message (to militants and separatists) to leave bullets and abuse and take the right way wherein their grievances can be discussed and addressed in a democratic way," the Deputy CM and BJP leader said at a function here.

In his Independence Day address, Modi said "bullets or abuses will not help resolve their problems and a change can take place by embracing all Kashmiris".

Singh said the prime minister's message demonstrates the resolve of the nation.

"The idea is to involve everyone and has come in a democratic way...If you (separatists) continue with undemocratic ways, nothing will be achieved," Singh said.

He said India believes in democracy and talks but "if (militants) speak the language of guns, the response will be given in the same fashion".

"There will be no compromise on terrorism and separatism. If anyone is willing to come forward and talk within the framework of Constitution, we are ready to listen," he said.

On the comments of opposition National Conference leader Omar Abdullah about Modi's statement, Singh said it depends on his understanding.

"Omar is a former chief minister and if he does not understand, he is in some way supporting the separatists," he said.

"Actually he said the Kashmir issue will not be resolved by abuse & bullets. I guess that covers both sides - terrorists & security forces," Abdullah wrote on Twitter, reacting to the prime minister's speech.

Singh also took a dig at the opposition over "misleading" statements on Article 35A and said "We are ready for discussion and debate over the issue".

He said his party's stand on Article 35A and Article 370 of the Constitution is known but "We have formed the (J&K) government with PDP and reached an understanding in the shape of Agenda of Alliance which demands maintenance of status quo on certain contentious issues".

Asked about the BJP's stand on the issue if it gets a majority in the next Assembly polls, he said "the party's stand will be the same. We will take a call on the issue at that time".

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Police in Texas acting on a tip found 16 immigrants locked inside a tractor-trailer parked at a gas station about 20 miles (30 kilometers) from the border with Mexico, less than a month after 10 people died in the back of a hot truck in San Antonio.

Edinburg Assistant Police Chief Oscar Trevino says the immigrants may have been locked inside the 18-wheeler in Edinburg for at least eight hours before being freed by officers late Sunday morning. He had earlier said there were 17 immigrants locked in the tractor-trailer before correcting the number yesterday to 16.

Trevino said none of the people inside the tractor-trailer required medical attention. He said they were hungry and thirsty and were given food and water at the scene. Those found locked in the tractor-trailer included eight people from El Salvador, six from Mexico and two from Romania, said Manuel Padilla, US Customs and Border Protection's Border Patrol sector chief for the Rio Grande Valley at Texas' southernmost point.

A man and woman who Trevino said are Cuban nationals were in charge of the rig and have been detained.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Nina Pruneda said no one has been charged yet in connection with the case but that the agency is working with state and local officials and talking to witnesses.

The discovery comes three weeks after 10 people died in a sweltering rig parked at a Walmart in San Antonio. Immigration officials say survivors estimated 100 people had been packed into the back of the 18-wheeler at one point. Officials said 39 people were inside when rescuers arrived, and the rest either escaped or hitched rides to their next destination.

Nearly 20 of those rescued from the rig were hospitalized in dire condition, many suffering from extreme dehydration and heatstroke. The driver of that rig remains in federal custody, charged with illegally transporting immigrants for financial gain, resulting in death.

On Sunday, Edinburg police went to the gas station, a popular stopover for commercial truck drivers traveling through the region, after receiving an anonymous call from someone saying a relative was trapped inside the tractor-trailer.

Officers began knocking on the sides of trailers parked at the station and eventually received return knocks from the one holding the immigrants, police said.

The San Antonio incident demonstrated how smugglers regularly use big rigs in an elaborate network of foot guides, safe house operators and drivers. The immigrants discovered in San Antonio had been divided into groups and marked with color-coded tape. Six black SUVs were waiting at one transit point to take some to their destinations.

Authorities have not said if similar arrangements had been made for the immigrants found in Edinburg, about 230 miles (370 kilometers) south of San Antonio.

Trevino said that they discovered the immigrants after one of the people locked in the tractor-trailer called a relative in Mexico. The relative then called authorities.

Padilla declined to say if Sunday's incident was related to the San Antonio case, citing the ongoing investigation. But he said authorities had stopped more than 30 tractor-trailers since October in the Rio Grande Valley. That doesn't include Laredo, the Texas border city where authorities say the driver of the trailer in the San Antonio case said he stopped twice on his journey.

"You don't know how many you miss," Padilla told The Associated Press on yesterday. "But ... The use of tractor- trailers to smuggle people out of this area is higher in South Texas, to include Laredo, than any other area along the border. And it goes right back to a weak border."



Most people apprehended crossing the United States' southern border are caught in the Rio Grande Valley, which includes more than 300 miles (480 kilometers) of the Rio Grande, the river separating the United States and Mexico. Border apprehensions have risen each month since falling in April to a 17-year low.

Tractor-trailers emerged as a popular smuggling method in the early 1990s amid a surge in US border enforcement in San Diego and El Paso, Texas, which were then the busiest corridors for illegal crossings. Before that, people paid small fees to mom-and-pop operators to get them across a largely unguarded border.

As crossing became exponentially more difficult after the 2001 terror strikes in the US, migrants were led through more dangerous terrain and paid thousands of dollars more.

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Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad today lauded the Supreme Court's initiative to make trial court appointments more transparent and appealed to states, opposing the proposed centralised selection mechanism, to reconsider their stand.

Prasad, while addressing the Independence Day celebrations organised by the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) here, said that the Centre would not "impinge upon the rights of the high courts".

"Let me assure those who have concern that the government of India in no way would want to impinge upon the rights of the high courts. We are aware of the rights of the high courts and the Constitution but yes it is a fact that the subordinate judiciary needs to have better intake for good quality," he said.

"Why shouldn't we have a good intake by a more stricter selection process. I fully endorse that and I compliment the Supreme Court and would appeal to those high courts and the states which are opposing it to reconsider as this initiative is for the country," Prasad added.

The apex court had on August 4 indicated that it was inclined to go ahead with a proposal for a centralised selection mechanism for appointment of judicial officers in the subordinate judiciary even if there was no amicable consensus among the various high courts and the states.

Prasad also said that this year, till yesterday, 75 new appointments were made to various high courts across the nation.

However, a statement on appointments to the lower judiciary by SCBA president R S Suri in his address, did not go down well with Chief Justice J S Khehar.

Suri, in his address, mentioned that 33 per cent of parliamentarians have criminal cases against their names and that most of the judges are the children of senior judges of the higher judiciary.

"What appears to be a blatant misuse of authority may not truly be a blatant misuse of authority, Mr President," Justice Khehar said.

The CJI said that a few months ago he saw a report saying his son was appointed to a panel of Punjab government but it turned out to be some other Khehar and was a case of mistaken identity.

Justice Khehar also mentioned about a young "impressive" lawyer who never wanted to become a judge since he feared that people would say he became a judge because his father is one.

"So Mr President sir, please don't say that. There are many wise children in this country. They may be the children of judges, Dalits, Brahmins. In independent India, we stand together to achieve whatever we can achieve," Justice Khehar said.

The chief justice informed the gathering that the apex court has decided to upgrade and place on its website all the Supreme Court reports with head-notes.

He also asked the lawyers to be honest with their clients.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Sri Lanka today named Thilak Marapona, a former attorney general, as the country's new foreign minister following the resignation of Ravi Karunanayake amid a corruption scandal.

Marapona, a senior aide to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and a lawyer was briefly the country's attorney general in 1994.

He serves in the legal advisory team of Prime Minister Wickremesinghe and is a senior member of the United National Party (UNP), the ruling coalition's dominant party.

Marapana has been sworn in as the new Foreign Affairs Minister before President Maithripala Sirisena.

Ironically Marapona himself had to resign in 2015 over a conflict of interest case from his job as Law and Order Minister. His resignation came after it was pointed out that he was the legal defence of a firm accused of running an illegal floating armory in the southern port of Galle.

Civil society groups have therefore questioned Marapona's appointment as the court case on the floating armory is yet to be concluded.

Marapona served as a government back bencher from 2015 until this year's May when he was appointed the Special Assignments Minister.

Between 2001 to end of 2003 Marapona served as the Minister of Defence.

He fills the void created by Karunanayake in the foreign ministry when he resigned last week over his testimony at the presidential commission of inquiry on the alleged Central Bank of Sri Lanka Bond scam that caused millions of dollars of losses to the country's coffers.

Karunanayake was accused of occupying an apartment paid for by the firm linked to the Bond scam.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Members of the American Indian Caucus in the Montana Legislature are calling for the city of Helena to remove a Confederate memorial that sits in a city park.

The memorial to Confederate soldiers is a granite fountain in Hill Park. Though statues and memorials that honored controversial figures of the Civil War are being taken down in cities around the country, the Helena city commission is working to install a sign explaining the fountain's history. That sign has not yet been installed.

Over the weekend, three people were killed as white supremacists and neo-Nazis gathered for a "Unite the Right" march in Charlottesville, Virginia. President Donald Trump has come under fire for initially refusing to denounce the hate groups and later only doing so under pressure.

"Today, we must recognize the fact that the Confederacy and its symbolism has stood for segregation, secession, and slavery," reads a letter from state lawmakers Rep. Shane Morigeau, D-Missoula; Rep. Jonathan Windy Boy, D-Rocky Boy; Rep. Bridget Smith, D-Wolf Point; Rep. George Kipp III, D-Heart Butte; Rep. Susan Webber, D-Browning; Rep. Sharon Stewart-Peregoy, D-Crow Agency; Rep. Rae Peppers, D-Lame Deer, and Sen. Jason Small, R-Busby.

"The Confederate flag was even used by the Dixiecrats, a segregationist political party of the 1940s. The flag continues to serve as an emblem for racism and racial inequality for domestic terrorist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, and other white nationalist organizations."

The group is calling on the Helena City Commission and all statewide officials to remove the memorial.

Helena Mayor Jim Smith, who is seeking re-election, said the city commission will likely discuss the future of the fountain at an administrative meeting scheduled for 4 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 16, in room 326 of the City-County Building. There will be an opportunity for public comment, he said.

This is something we want to talk about and we want to hear from people about, Smith said.

Though he has previously said he was opposed to removing or altering the fountain, Smith said he is open to the idea now. He said he wants to discuss the issue with the community and the city commission before making a decision.

Im just deeply troubled by whats going on in the country today, and the fountains a part of it, so well have a discussion about the fountain, he said. But are we headed toward the second American Civil War? Theres larger questions that need to be discussed.

Commissioner Dan Ellison also said hed like to hear from the other commissioners before making a decision, though at least one commission member has already made up his mind.

After Charlottesville the only contemporary context is racial and political hate. Now the Memorial must be removed, Commissioner Ed Noonan said in an email.   I think that leaves it open to being treated as an artifact to be stored for future disposition.

In their letter, members of the American Indian Caucus said white nationalists, neo-Nazis, members of the alt-right and any other groups that propagate hate, discrimination, violence and bigotry have no place in this country.

"These groups dishonor the basic principles of equality on which this nation exists. Advocating hate through violence is terrorism and shouldnt be labeled as anything less. Generations of soldiers and civilians have given their lives fighting for equality. We are grateful to our veterans, our active military members, and those who lost their lives serving and defending our Constitution and country," the letter reads.

"Our ancestors fought and our family members still fight for our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Thousands of American Indian soldiers fought for the Union Army to end slavery, and thousands more fought fascism and genocide in World War II. American Indians will continue the fight against those who are misguided enough to perpetuate those beliefs.

"That is why we call upon the Helena City Commission and all of our statewide officials to step up and remove the Confederate Memorial Fountain from Helena, Montana, our capital city. The fountain was commissioned by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, an organization that openly supported the white supremacist views and mission of the early Ku Klux Klan. This is the only Confederate monument in the northwestern United States."

The letter calls out the commission for voting to add the sign, saying the fountain still has its roots in a racist movement.

"We ask that you all recognize the harmful message that this fountain sends to Indians, minorities, and all Montanans of this great state. Please take a stand and recognize that this fountain is a divisive symbol in Montana and represents a history that our country and citizens have repeatedly fought against. Public property in Montana should not be used to promote Nazism, fascism, totalitarianism, separatism, or racism. Please send a message that there is no hate in our state by removing this divisive memorabilia from the capital city."

The fountain was given to the city in 1916 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The memorial hardly drew a second glance before a 21-year-old man who had previously been photographed with the Confederate flag shot and killed nine people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Carolina in June 2015, which sparked a robust community discussion about what to do with the Confederate symbol in Helena.

Another state lawmaker, Rep. Mary Ann Dunwell, a Democrat from Helena, joined with the caucus to call for the fountain to come down.
Eminent historian and Professor of Harvard University Prof Sugata Bose today said his book 'The Nation as Mother' argues for a new India.

"Today, on the date of August 15 I read excerpts from my recently released book 'The Nation as Mother' which argues for a new India and contains the critique of that nationalism which is more propagatory," Bose, the Gardiner Professor of History at Harvard University told PTI over phone.

Bose, a Trinamool Congress MP and grand nephew of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, said "intolerance is bad and tolerating it is not good (either)."



"Netaji wanted a nation which will rise above differences among different groups," he observed.

Bose said he read excerpts from the book, which had been launched by former President Pranab Mukherjee on August 10 in New Delhi.

Tonight he read on the chapters on Rabindranath Tagore, nationalism and Mahatma Gandhi's stay in Kolkata on the day of August 15, 1947. The book has also references to the tumultuous days of August 1946 when Gandhiji was on fast at Beleghata during the riots in the city.

"I have emphasised history matters in contemporary debates on nationalism," Bose said emphasising the book explored the relationship among nation, reason and religion in Indian political thought and practice.

The British Deputy High Commissioner, Japanese Consul General, Vice Chancellor of Jadavpur University were among the dignitaries present on the occasion at Netaji Research Bureau.

Bose's mother and academician and former TMC MP Krishna Bose was also present.

"It is significant the British dignitary was present on such an occasion at Netaji Bhawan," Bose, the Director of Netaji Research Bureau, said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Unidentified persons today attacked Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi's car near Kala Pahar village in Vaishali district, but the BJP leader escaped unhurt.

Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo Lalu Prasad dismissed speculations that any of his partymen was behind the incident, which took place in an area known to be an RJD stronghold.

It also occurred minutes after Leader of Opposition in the Assembly and Lalu's son Tejaswi Prasad Yadav's motorcade had passed through the area.

According to Ritesh Mandal, the officer in-charge of the Bidupur police station, unidentified persons hurled stones at Modi's car when he was on his way to the village this evening.

Preliminary information suggests that the car received some damage but there was no injury to the deputy chief minister, who proceeded to attend the funeral ceremony of ex- BJP MLA Achutanand Singh's mother.

His escort party informed the police about the incident, Mandal said.

Vaishali Superintendent of Police (SP) Rakesh Kumar said Modi was being escorted back to Patna under heavy police protection.

He added that the police would lodge an FIR on the basis of a complaint from either the deputy chief minister himself or from someone from his escort party or anyone else.

The incident took place a few minutes after Tejaswi's motorcade passed through the area. The RJD leader was on his way to Samastipur to launch the second stage of his programme against the "disintegration" of the erstwhile Grand Alliance government in the state from tomorrow.

The area where Modi's car was attacked is known to be a stronghold of the RJD, the workers and supporters of which are particularly angry with the BJP leader for levelling a series of corruption allegations against Lalu and his family.

Lalu, however, denied an "RJD hand" in the incident and alleged that it was Modi who "orchestrated" it.

"RJD workers do not believe in violence...It (the attack) must have been orchestrated by Sushil Modi with the help of his supporters for political gains," he said.

The RJD chief alleged that the BJP leader was known for his "habit of enacting such dramas".

"Once he had alleged an attack on him by the RJD and put a bandage. When we insisted that he showed the injury by removing the bandage, he did not do as he would get exposed," he said.

Lalu also blamed the district administration for the incident.

"Why did they take Modi through the same place which was just crossed by Tejaswi Yadav? They could have taken him through an alternate route," he said.

The RJD supremo alleged that the BJP leader might have orchestrated the event to divert the attention of the people from his name cropping up in a scam related to swindling of government money by an NGO in Bhagalpur.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Swiss People's Party (SVP), a populist political party in Switzerland, has opposed automatic exchange of banking information with India and 10 other countries.

The opposition by SVP, which is known as a national- conservative and right-wing populist political party, is in sharp contrast to the official position of the Swiss government that has cited strong Indian data protection laws for agreeing to include India among jurisdictions for the automatic exchange of information (AEOI) on financial matters.

It is one of the largest parties in the Federal Assembly and late last year it had supported a campaign, 'Yes to protect bank secrecy in Switzerland'.

Earlier, some private bank groups in Switzerland had opposed the pact, but the government decided to go ahead with this framework after putting in place necessary data protection and confidentiality clauses.

A draft memorandum has been ratified by the Swiss Federal council for implementing the automatic information exchange framework with India, which is expected to come into force from next year. India has been pressing for long to have such a pact amid a widespread perception about Swiss banks being among the most-favoured for stashing of suspected black money.

In a statement posted on its website after a press conference on the issue, SVP said implementing automatic information exchange pact  which was signed by Switzerland and India last year under a global framework for fighting the black money menace  will have "serious consequences for foreigners who have protected their assets in Switzerland, as also for Swiss residents abroad".

Without giving any specific reason for opposing the pact with India, the party said it would press against automatic information exchange with 11 countries  Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Colombia, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates  in a meeting of the Economic Committee of the National Council.

The party said the pact should not be implemented with the countries with less than 45 points on the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, or those classified as "not free" on the Freedom House Democracy index.

The Freedom House index classifies India as one of the "free" democracies with a high score of 77/100, whereas the US has been given a score of 87. Switzerland has 96 points.

India is ranked 79th (out of 176 countries) on the Transparency index with a score of 40/100. Switzerland is ranked 5th with a score of 86 points.

On the Freedom House Democracy index, some of the countries named by SVP are however classified as 'not free' and these include China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and UAE.

"Despite constitutional reservations, the State Secretariat for International Financial Matters and the Swiss Federal Department of Finance plans to expand the AEOI network by at least 41 countries and territories. Among them are the authoritarian regimes of China and Russia, as well as countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico," it alleged.

The SVP also said the Federal Council and the Swiss Parliament need to take full responsibility for "possible reprisals such as expropriation and blackmail" of Swiss nationals living abroad and it will closely monitor the developments in this area.
: The following are PTI top



stories at 1700 hours:



DEL48 IDAY-LDALL PM



New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaches out to strife-hit Kashmiris, saying abuses and bullets will not resolve their problems but embracing them will, as he praises his government's economic reforms in a wide-ranging Independence Day speech.

DEL43 IDAY-PM-LD CHILDREN



New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi says sympathies of the entire nation are with the families who lost their children at a state-run hospital in Uttar Pradesh, and asserts that the Centre will leave no stone unturned to extend help to them.

DEL55 PM-KASHMIR-LD REAX



Srinagar: Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Kashmir outreach has been welcomed in Jammu and Kashmir with PDP chief and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti stressing only dialogue can resolve problems and NC leader Omar Abdullah saying it has been "very well received" by people in the state though there was need for action.

DEL57 IDAY-LD RSS BHAGWAT



Palakaad (Ker)/ New Delhi: Defying the CPI(M)-led government in Kerala, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat unfurls the national flag at a school here.

LGD1 IDAY-CJI



New Delhi: Indians cutting across faith and ethnicity should feel proud of who they are, this is what the Constitution is all about, Chief Justice of India Justice J S Khehar says.

DEL47 IDAY-JK-MEHBOOBA



Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti says that she has faith in institutions of the country and expresses confidence that the Supreme Court will dismiss a petition that challenges Article 35A of the Constitution.

DEL40 BIZ-BLUEWHALE



New Delhi: Government directs Internet majors - Google, Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram, Microsoft and Yahoo - to immediately remove the links of dangerous online game Blue Whale Challenge, which has led to suicide of children in India and other countries.

FGN20 TRUMP-MODI



Washington: President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have agreed to enhance peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region by establishing a new two-by-two ministerial dialogue, which would elevate their strategic consultations, says the White House. By Lalit K Jha



DEL52 DAY-LD STATES



New Delhi: Patriotic fervour grips the nation on the 71st Independence Day as people from across states and Union territories came together to celebrate the occasion underlining the spirit of unity in diversity.

DEL56 DAY-CRPF-DAUGHTER



Srinagar: The six-year-old daughter of slain CRPF Commandant Pramod Kumar and his wife unfurl the tricolour from the same battalion camp here, where exactly an year ago he hoisted the flag and was killed minutes later in a militant encounter.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson today called up Foreign Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif to extend his greetings on Pakistan's 70th Independence Day, an official statement said.

The Foreign Office said Tillerson conveyed the greetings on behalf of the US government and the American people to the government and people of Pakistan.

He also congratulated Asif for taking charge as Foreign Minister of Pakistan and expressed his desire to work with him towards achieving common objectives.

Asif said the call from Tillerson on the 70th anniversary of Pakistan's Independence Day was an apt reminder of the long history of relations between the two countries.

He said the US had been a partner in Pakistan's journey of development, both in the socio-economic and defence sector.

Noting that he would strive in his new capacity to strengthen partnership with the US, Asif said the current leadership of Pakistan was committed to establishing Pakistan's vital relations with America.

He underscored the need to build a dynamic and diverse relationship underpinned by mutual trust, sincerity and confidence, the statement said.

The Foreign Minister said that Pakistan would benefit the most if peace and stability were achieved in Afghanistan as the success and sustainability of Islamabad's economic reforms depended on peaceful and stable Afghanistan.

He expressed Pakistan's willingness to work with the US once the policy review on Afghanistan is unveiled.

Asif emphasised on the political settlement of the conflict in Afghanistan as common objective of Pakistan and the US.

Tillerson also extended an invitation to Asif for a visit the US. Asif also invited Tillerson to visit Pakistan and the the Secretary of State accepted the invitation, the statement said.

Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa today hoisted the largest flag in Pakistan's history at Attari-Wagah border near Lahore to mark the country's 70th Independence Day.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The top US military officer told a top Chinese general today that the US and China have "many difficult issues" to work through, but that he hoped meetings between the sides this week will lead to progress.

Marine Corps Gen Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made the remarks at the opening of a meeting with Fang Fenghui, chief of the People's Liberation Army's joint staff department.

US officials say Dunford's visit aims to create a mechanism for improving communication between the sides, especially on sensitive issues such as North Korea.

Dunford is visiting South Korea, Japan and China after a week in which President Donald Trump said he was ready to unleash "fire and fury" if North Korea continued to threaten the US.

Fang said Dunford's visit was a key part of efforts to expand dialogue between the US and China as agreed by Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping when they met earlier this year.

To that end, China has arranged a series of important meetings and visits to help Dunford "know more about our military, (boost) our cooperation and build up our friendship," Fang said.

Dunford responded that the US considered the meetings important to making progress on areas of disagreement, without citing any specific examples.

"I think here, we have to be honest - we have many, many difficult issues where we don't necessarily share the same perspective," Dunford said.

"I know we share one thing: We share a commitment to work through these difficult issues," he added, saying that with the guidance of political leaders "we are going to make some progress over the next few days."



While the sides agreed to establish a hotline between the Pentagon and China's defense ministry several years ago, that mechanism has never gone into operation. US officials say they've attempted to use it, but that the Chinese side has never answered their requests.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Union minister Dr Mahesh Sharma today hoisted the national flag on a 163-feet high pole here and said that people should contribute towards the sustainable development of Noida and Greater Noida.

India has a visionary Prime Minister who today has given the call for a clean and green, and terrorism-free India by 2022, he said on the occasion at the India-Expo Mart here.

"We all have to contribute towards realising this dream. This country, this state, this city belongs to each and every individual and we together should contribute towards its sustainable development," the minister said.

India is a rapidly developing nation with strong leadership. The whole world is looking towards the country, Sharma said in the presence of MLAs.

"A majority of the population is young and this is a very important strength of our country," the Union Minister of State for Tourism and Culture (Independent Charge) said.

He also said that a habitat centre is going to be developed in Noida and it will help boost art and culture in the region.

It took around six and a half minutes to hoist the flag that weighed 18 kg and measured 54-feet-by-36-feet, an official said.

Chairman of IEML Rakesh Sharma said the country is progressing in every field under the able leadership of the Prime Minister and Uttar Pradesh also has a dynamic leadership.

The event was also attended by representatives of 17 countries, including the USA. The mart's premises is used to host national and international events.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Urdu was not only the language of Muslims but of the entire country, former Vice President Hamid Ansari said today while asserting that now it was being spoken across the world.

There were about 180 million Muslims in the country whereas it was the language of only 85 million people as per the census of 2011, Ansari said.

He expressed disappointment that Urdu had become a politicised issue and said, "...An opinion was formed that Urdu belongs to Muslims."



He was speaking at the launch of the Urdu version of online portal 'The Wire'.

The former Rajya Sabha chairman further said one can easily find Urdu speaking people in south India, in West Bengal and in other parts of the country.

"It is the language of the entire country," he said, adding that nowadays there were Urdu speaking people in Canada, the US, Australia and other parts of the world.

When asked if Urdu could also be a means of livelihood, he said no but that did not mean one should not learn it.

He said it was the biggest shortcoming of Urdu but what one can say and describe in the language cannot be done in any other language.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
(Reuters) - Merck & Co Inc Chief Executive Kenneth Frazier resigned from U.S. President Donald Trump's American Manufacturing Council earlier on Monday, saying he was taking a stand against intolerance and extremism after a white-nationalist rally in Virginia turned deadly.

Trump in an early afternoon statement denounced white supremacists, including neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan, as "criminals and thugs," bowing to days of mounting political pressure to condemn such groups explicitly.

Frazier, who is African-American, is the first CEO to leave one of Trump's presidential advisory councils because of his reaction to the weekend of violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The AFL-CIO, an umbrella organization of unions representing an estimated 12.5 million workers, said it is evaluating its role on the manufacturing council, and that there are "real questions into the effectiveness of this council to deliver real policy that lifts working families."

The following are responses from companies and CEOs on Trump's manufacturing council to the recent events in Virginia and Frazier's resignation:

* Dow Chemical Co

"I condemn the violence this weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia," Chief Executive Andrew Liveris said in a statement.

* Dell Inc [DI.UL]

"There's no change in Dell engaging with the Trump administration and governments around the world to share our perspective on policy issues that affect our company, our customers and our employees," a Dell Inc spokeswoman said in a statement.

CEO Michael Dell plans to remain on the manufacturing council.

* General Electric Co

Jeff Immelt will remain on the council while he is the chairman of the company.

"GE has no tolerance for hate, bigotry or racism, and we strongly condemn the violent extremism in Charlottesville over the weekend," a company spokesperson said.

* Intel Corp

"There should be no hesitation in condemning hate speech or white supremacy by name. #Intel asks all our countries leadership to do the same," CEO Brian Krzanich said in a tweet.

* Under Armour Inc

"We are saddened by #Charlottesville. There is no place for racism or discrimination in this world. We choose love & unity," CEO Kevin Plank said in a tweet from the company's Twitter account.

* Whirlpool Corp

Whirlpool will stay on the council.

"Whirlpool Corp believes strongly in an open and inclusive culture that respects people of all races and backgrounds. Our company has long fostered an environment of acceptance and tolerance in the workplace," a company spokeswoman said.

* Campbell Soup Co

Chief Executive Denise Morrison will remain on the council.

"The reprehensible scenes of bigotry and hatred on display in Charlottesville over the weekend have no place in our society. Not simply because of the violence, but because the racist ideology at the centre of the protests is wrong and must be condemned in no uncertain terms," a company spokesman said in a statement.

* American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)

The AFL-CIO is assessing its role on President Trump's council.

"The AFL-CIO has unequivocally denounced the actions of bigoted domestic terrorists in Charlottesville and called on the president to do the same," AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a statement.

* International Paper Co

"International Paper strongly condemns the violence that took place in Charlottesville over the weekend - there is no place for hatred, bigotry and racism in our society," a company spokesman said in a statement.

* Boeing Co

Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg will stay on the manufacturing council.

* U.S. Steel Corp

A spokesperson referred queries related to the American Manufacturing Council back to the White House.

(Reporting by Sophia Kunthara in New York and Natalie Grover, Yashaswini Swamynathan, Uday Sampath Kumar and Rachit Vats in Bangalore; editing by G Crosse)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A Holocaust museum is coming to Montana.

In a video released Tuesday, the Holocaust Museum of Montana announced a Bozeman location.

"We want to preserve our past  not to dwell on it, but to propel ourselves and others into a promising future," said Chavie Bruk, executive director, in a press release. "There is value in reaching one person at a time through a museum like this. Even in our little corner of the world, there is huge potential to create a ripple effect."

In a video included in the release, Bruk said the organization already owns land to build on in Bozeman. The council for the museum is chaired by former U.S. Sen. Max Baucus and his wife, Melodee Hanes, former administrator of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention at the U.S. Department of Justice. The board includes well-known public figures such as Montana State University President Waded Cruzado, Carlson Duke Goes Ahead, the vice chairman of the Crow Tribal Council, former Billings mayor Chuck Tooley and others.

In a video announcing the museum, Rabbi Chaim Bruk, spiritual leader of The Shul of Bozeman, said that many people travel through Bozeman and could learn about the Holocaust there. The video includes news clips of when anti-Semitic leaflets were spread around Bozeman, as well as other national vandalism against Jewish cemeteries and synagogues. Anti-Jewish rhetoric has increased since the election of President Donald Trump, according to data from the Anti-Defamation League.

"The only way to make sure those dark elements don't get too comfortable is by shining light," Chaim Bruk said in the video. "We need to debunk the myth. Montana's not a place of haters, it's a place of wonderful loving people who would love to learn even more about other people's cultures and we would love to create that opportunity for them."

Georgette Cassen, a Holocaust survivor and Bozeman resident, says in the video: "You have to remember because it could happen again. There is enough hatred in this world it could happen again."

The museum organization is currently soliciting donations. Chavie Bruk said Tuesday it will be a multi-million dollar project, but it's hard to pin down an exact cost yet.

She said it's important to build the museum now because as the generation who experienced the Holocaust ages, it's important to preserve information they have to share. She also said more acts of discrimination show a need for education about the past and how it can inform future actions.

"The mood in this country, I think we got a little lost. We're starting to see a little bit more of that discrimination," Bruk said. "We need to remember those events. It's part of our history. But it's also about how does this propel us moving forward."
BERLIN (Reuters) - German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, a leading member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's government, on Tuesday called for stronger regulation of the country's auto industry, which is embroiled in a widening emissions scandal.

Schaeuble told an event hosted by the Handelsblatt newspaper that the industry had made serious mistakes and must accept the consequences.

The future of the auto sector, Germany's biggest exporter and provider of some 800,000 jobs, has become a hot election issue as politicians blame executives and each other for the sector's battered reputation after Volkswagen admitted to cheating U.S. emissions tests almost two years ago.

(Reporting by Joseph Nasr; Writing by Andrea Shalal)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
By Lesley Wroughton and David Ljunggren

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Negotiators from Canada, Mexico and the United States are aiming for an "ambitious" first round of trade talks, a senior U.S. official said on Tuesday, as the countries try to fast-track a deal to modernize the 23-year-old pact by early next year.

The United States Trade Representative official, speaking on a conference call with reporters, said the sides would begin to merge proposed texts during the first round of meetings in Washington.

The talks start on Wednesday led by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo.

"We are actually going to be quite ambitious in this first round," the USTR official said, without elaborating on specifics on any of the proposals.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the aim of the United States was to get a "more balanced, reciprocal trade agreement that supports high-paying jobs for Americans and grows the U.S. economy."

The talks follow threats by U.S. President Donald Trump during his presidential campaign to ditch the 1994 NAFTA agreement, which he said had hurt U.S. manufacturing and drained jobs to low-wage Mexico. Trump said later he had been convinced by Canada and Mexico to renegotiate the pact.

While U.S. administration officials have said there is no firm deadline to reach an agreement, Mexico is pushing for the sides to reach an agreement before its presidential campaign begins in earnest in February.

Speaking on the eve of the talks before a meeting with Guajardo at the Canadian embassy in Washington, Freeland said she looked forward to a "productive, constructive conversation" on Wednesday.

Guajardo struck a cautious note about the talks. ?"I have always said a negotiator cannot be an optimist. He has to be a realist with a positive approach," he told reporters.

In a statement, U.S. Senator John McCain cautioned the Trump administration not to impose "new barriers that could harm our ability to trade with our closest neighbours."

"I urge the administration to pursue an outcome that does not pick winners or losers, but further promotes the free flow of trade with Mexico and Canada that has and will continue to boost our economy," said McCain, a Republican from Arizona.

The United States has said its top objective for the talks is shrinking the $64 billion U.S. goods trade deficit with Mexico, as well as a much smaller $11 billion deficit with Canada.

It also wants to deter currency manipulation by trading partners, strengthen NAFTA rules of origin, and eliminate a trade dispute mechanism under so-called Chapter 19, which Canada wants to keep in the agreement.

Freeland suggested on Monday that Canada could walk away from the talks if Washington insisted on scrapping the mechanism to resolve trade disputes between the three NAFTA countries.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is considering a trip to Mexico in October in the midst of the talks, his office said.

The USTR official said alterations to NAFTA's rules of origin to ensure tariff-free benefits go to member states were a key objective of the talks. But he did not say whether the United States would seek U.S.-specific content rules or to increase the local content requirements for North American-produced cars and trucks.

Auto industry executives are opposed to the U.S. negotiating objectives to tighten the rules of origin, especially for vehicle parts.

"In terms of the rules of origin, the overall goal is to address concerns about doing more to incentivise and create more manufacturing and more manufacturing jobs in the United States," said the official. "I think each country expects benefits for itself from those rules of origin, and I think that's what you're seeing reflected in our objective statement."

(Additional reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Tom Brown)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer had its internet domain registration revoked twice in less than 24 hours in the wake of the weekend violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, part of a broad move by the tech industry in recent months to take a stronger hand in policing online hate-speech and incitements to violence.

Inc , which manages internet names and registrations, disclosed late on Sunday via Twitter that it had given Daily Stormer 24 hours to move its domain to another provider, saying it had violated GoDaddy's terms of service.

The white supremacist website helped organise the weekend rally in Charlottesville where a 32-year-old woman was killed and 19 people were injured when a man plowed a car into a crowd protesting the white nationalist rally.

After revoked Daily Stormer's registration, the website turned to Alphabet Inc's Google Domains. The Daily Stormer domain was registered with Google shortly before 8 a.m. Monday PDT (1500 GMT) and the company announced plans to revoke it at 10:56 a.m., according to a person familiar with the revocation.

As of late Monday the site was still running on a Google-registered domain. Google issued a statement but did not say when the site would be taken down.

Internet have increasingly found themselves in the crosshairs over hate speech and other volatile social issues, with politicians and others calling on them to do more to police their networks while civil libertarians worry about the firms suppressing free speech.

Twitter Inc , Facebook Inc , Google's YouTube and other platforms have ramped up efforts to combat the social media efforts of Islamic militant groups, largely in response to pressure from European governments. Now they are facing similar pressures in the United States over white supremacist and neo-Nazi content.

Facebook confirmed on Monday that it took down the event page that was used to promote and organise the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville.

Facebook allows people to organise peaceful protests or rallies, but the social network said it would remove such pages when a threat of real-world harm and affiliation with hate organizations becomes clear.

"Facebook does not allow hate speech or praise of terrorist acts or hate crimes, and we are actively removing any posts that glorify the horrendous act committed in Charlottesville," the company said in a statement.

Several other also took action. Canadian internet company Tucows Inc stopped hiding the domain registration information of Andrew Anglin, the founder of Daily Stormer. Tucows, which was previously providing the website with services masking Anglin's phone number and email address, said Daily Stormer had breached its terms of service.

"They are inciting violence," said Michael Goldstein, vice president for sales and marketing at Tucows, a Toronto-based company. "It's a dangerous site and people should know who it is coming from."

Anglin did not respond to a request for comment.

Discord, a 70-person San Francisco company that allows video gamers to communicate across the internet, did not mince words in its decision to shut down the server of Altright.com, an alt-right website, and the accounts of other white nationalists.

"We will continue to take action against white supremacy, Nazi ideology, and all forms of hate," the company said in a tweet Monday. Altright.com did not respond to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, Twilio Inc Chief Executive Jeff Lawson tweeted Sunday that the company would update its use policy to prohibit hate speech. Twilio's services allow and organizations, such as political groups or campaigns, to send text messages to their communities.

Internet companies, which enjoy broad protections under U.S. law for the activities of people using their services, have mostly tried to avoid being arbiters of what is acceptable speech.

But the ground is now shifting, said one executive at a major Silicon Valley firm. Twitter, for one, has moved sharply against harassment and hate speech after enduring years of criticism for not doing enough.

Facebook is beefing up its content monitoring teams. Google is pushing hard on new technology to help it monitor and delete YouTube videos that celebrate violence.

All this comes as an influential bloc of senators, including Republican Senator Rob Portman and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, is pushing legislation that would make it easier to penalize operators of websites that facilitate online sex trafficking of women and children.

That measure, despite the non-controversial nature of its espoused goal, was met with swift and coordinated opposition from tech firms and internet freedom groups, who fear that being legally liable for the postings of users would be a devastating blow to the internet industry.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
By Naomi Tajitsu and Maki Shiraki

KYOTO, Japan (Reuters) - The global push among carmakers to make ever lighter vehicles is leading some auto suppliers in Japan to turn to what seems like an unlikely substitute for steel - wood.

Japanese researchers and auto component makers say a material made from wood pulp weighs just one fifth of steel and can be five times stronger.

The material - cellulose nanofibres - could become a viable alternative to steel in the decades ahead, they say, although it faces competition from carbon-based materials, and remains a long way from being commercially viable.

Reducing the weight of a vehicle will be critical as manufacturers move to bring electric cars into the mainstream. Batteries are an expensive but vital component, so a reduction in car weight will mean fewer batteries will be needed to power the vehicle, saving on costs.

"Lightweighting is a constant issue for us," said Masanori Matsushiro, a project manager overseeing body design at Toyota Motor Corp.

"But we also have to resolve the issue of high manufacturing costs before we see an increased use of new, lighter-weight materials in mass-volume cars."

Researchers at Kyoto University and major parts suppliers such as Denso Corp <6902.T>, Toyota's biggest supplier, and DaikyoNishikawa Corp <4246.T>, are working with plastics incorporated with cellulose nanofibres - made by breaking down wood pulp fibres into several hundredths of a micron (one thousandth of a millimetre).

Cellulose nanofibres have been used in a variety of products ranging from ink to transparent displays, but their potential use in cars has been enabled by the "Kyoto Process", under which chemically treated wood fibres are kneaded into plastics while simultaneously being broken down into nanofibres, slashing the cost of production to roughly one-fifth that of other processes.

"This is the lowest-cost, highest-performance application for cellulose nanofibres, and that's why we're focussing on its use in auto and aircraft parts," Kyoto University Professor Hiroaki Yano, who is leading the research, told in an interview.

The university, along with auto parts suppliers, are currently developing a prototype car using cellulose nanofibre-based parts to be completed in 2020.

"We've been using plastics as a replacement for steel, and we're hoping that cellulose nanofibres will widen the possibilities towards that goal," said Yukihiko Ishino, a spokesman at DaikyoNishikawa, which counts Toyota Motor Corp <7203.T> and Mazda Motor Corp <7261.T> among its customers.

Automakers are also using other lightweight substitutes. BMW uses carbon fibre reinforced polymers (CFRPs) for its i3 compact electric car as well as for its 7 series, while high-tensile steel and aluminium alloys are currently the most widely used lightweight options because they are cheaper and recyclable.

"SPRUCE GOOSE"

Yano said he was inspired in his research by a photo of the "Spruce Goose", a cargo plane made almost entirely of wood in 1947 by U.S. billionaire entrepreneur Howard Hughes. At the time, it was the world's largest aircraft.

"I thought that if Howard Hughes could find a way to use wood to build a massive plane, why not use wood to make a material that was as strong as steel," he said.

The cost of mass producing a kilogramme of cellulose nanofibre is currently around 1,000 yen ($9).

Yano aims to halve that cost by 2030, which he says will make it an economically viable product, since it would be combined with plastic, and so competitive against high tensile steel and aluminium alloys, which currently cost around $2 per kg.

Industry experts anticipate that carbon fibre prices will fall to around $10 per kg by 2025.

Analysts say high-tensile steel and aluminium will be the more popular alternative for many years to come, considering parts makers would need to overhaul production lines and figure out ways to fasten new materials like cellulose nanofibre onto other car parts.

Anthony Vicari, an applied materials analyst at Lux Research in Boston, said it "would be a big deal" though if Yano's projections prove to be correct.

But for now, it remains "a very big 'if'", he said.

(Reporting by Naomi Tajitsu and Maki Shiraki: Additional reporting by Yuka Obayashi; Editing by Neil Fullick.)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
By Lesley Wroughton and Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Monday authorized an inquiry on whether to investigate China's alleged theft of intellectual property, the first direct action by the White House against a country Trump has painted as the U.S. chief trade villain.

Trump broke from his 17-day vacation in New Jersey to sign the memo in Washington at a time of heightened tensions between Washington and Beijing over North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

The investigation is likely to cast a shadow over relations with China, the largest U.S. trading partner, just as Trump is asking Beijing to step up pressure against Pyongyang.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer will have a year to look into whether to launch a formal investigation of China's trade policies on intellectual property, which the White House and U.S. industry lobby groups say are harming U.S. businesses and jobs.

Trump dubbed the inquiry "a very big move" and experts on China trade policy said the long lead time could allow Beijing to discuss some of the issues raised by Washington without being seen to cave to pressure under the threat of reprisals.

China repeatedly rebuffed attempts by previous U.S. administrations to take action.

"I'm sure they will formally reject this if an investigation is launched and there is an implication this is going to require negotiation to resolve it," said Matthew Goodman, a senior adviser for Asian economics at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Trump administration officials have estimated that theft of intellectual property by China could be as high as $600 billion.

China's policy of forcing foreign companies to turn over technology to Chinese joint venture partners and failure to crack down on intellectual property theft have been longstanding problems for several U.S. administrations.

The main trade group for U.S. technology giants, such as Microsoft, Apple and Google, said it hoped China would take the administration's announcement seriously.

"Both the United States and China should use the coming months to address the issues causing friction in the bilateral trade relationship before Presidents Trump and Xi have their anticipated meeting ahead of the November APEC leaders meeting," ITI President Dean Garfield said in a statement.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the largest business lobbying group, said China needed to end forced technology transfers and to protect foreign intellectual property rights.

TRUMP BLOWS COLD ON CHINA

Although Trump constantly criticized China's trade practices on the campaign trail, his administration has not taken direct action against Beijing. It declined to name China a currency manipulator and has delayed broader national security probes on imports of foreign steel and aluminium that could indirectly affect China.

In an editorial on Monday, the state-run China Daily said the investigation will "poison" relations and warned the Trump administration not to make a rash decision it could regret.

Trump had been expected to seek a so-called Section 301 investigation earlier this month, but an announcement was postponed as the White House pressed for China's cooperation on North Korea.

Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, a popular trade tool in the 1980s that has been rarely used in the past decade, allows the president to unilaterally impose tariffs or other trade restrictions to protect U.S. industries from "unfair trade practices" of foreign countries.

(Additional reporting by Ginger Gibson and David Lawder; Editing by Leslie Adler and dan Grebler)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today made his fourth Independence Day address from the ramparts of the Red Fort. While his most of the speech was a kind of report card as to what initiatives and reforms such as Demonetisation, GST, Benami Law, Crop Insurance and Labour Law - he brought in last three years, the Prime Minister also made a commitment build a 'New India by 2022' by making the country a corruption, casteism and communal free nation.

Violence in the name of 'Astha' is not something to be happy about, it will not be accepted in India: PM @narendramodi PMO India (@PMOIndia) August 15, 2017

During the speech, he said: "India is about Shanti, Ekta and Sadbhavana. Casteism and communalism will not help us."

India is about Shanti, Ekta and Sadbhavana. Casteism and communalism will not help us: PM @narendramodi PMO India (@PMOIndia) August 15, 2017

Here are some key takeaways from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's I-Day address to the nation.

New India by 2022: The Prime Minister today said that lets take a pledge to make New India by 2022 where everyone will have house, water and electricity. He further stressed on some of the pressing issue of our times such as corruption, communalism, casteism and terrorism.

We have to take the country ahead with the determination of creating a 'New India' : PM @narendramodi PMO India (@PMOIndia) August 15, 2017

PM Modi also talked about violence committed in the name of religion. He said: "Violence in the name of 'Astha' is not something to be happy about, it will not be accepted in India." PM Modi also elaborated as to what all New India will have for the people of the country, he said, in New India, men and women will have equal opportunity to realise their dreams. "There won't be any place for crony-capitalism in New India," he added.

The Prime Minister also talked about farmers and said: "We will together make a kind of New India where farmers will not have to worry but will sleep in comfort."



Gorakhpur child death tragedy at BRD Medical College: The Prime Minister today expressed his grief over the death of over 70 children at BRD Medical College in Gorakhpur (Uttar Pradesh). PM Modi said that he was committed to ensure that every innocents' lives were protected.

People of India stand shoulder to shoulder with those affected due to natural disasters & the tragedy in Gorakhpur: PM @narendramodi PMO India (@PMOIndia) August 15, 2017

The Prime Minister's response has come in the backdrop of massive public outrage after the death of nearly 70 children in state-run BRD Medical College Hospital in Gorakhpur.

Key Economic Policies: The Prime Minister today explained as to how some of the economic policies of the government have changed the country. He claimed that after demonetisation, the numbers of taxpayers have increased substantially.

Not only that, PM said, it has also brought a large section of people into formal banking. Prime Minister Modi during his hour-long speech also referred to newly-launched GST, Benami Law and the bankruptcy law in India. He said that the demonetisation helped the government to detect thousands of shell companies.

GST has shown the spirit of cooperative federalism. The nation has come together to support GST & the role of technology has also helped: PM PMO India (@PMOIndia) August 15, 2017

"In a country where people would make a big fuss when few companies were shut, but we have cancelled the registration of over 1 lakh shell companies after the demonetisation," the Prime Minister said. He also made a commitment that the government would continue to fight the corruption. "Those who have looted the nation and looted the poor are not able to sleep peacefully today," PM Modi said.

Those who have looted the nation and looted the poor are not able to sleep peacefully today: PM @narendramodi PMO India (@PMOIndia) August 15, 2017

Prime Minister today sent out a stern message making it clear that its neither abuse or nor bullets that can solve the Kashmir problem, it can be solved only by embracing people and by connecting them with mainstream.

"We have to work for the progress of Jammu and Kashmir," the Prime Minister said. He also took the opportunity to praise women from Muslim community who have challenged the Tripal-Talaq. He said: "I want to mention those women who have to suffer due to 'Tripe Talaq'- I admire their courage. We are with them in their struggles." Muslim women have challenged the validity of Triple-Talaq in the Supreme Court arguing that it discriminates against women.
Heidi Rutchey appears in 1st District Court in Logan to be sentenced for killing her 2-year-old son.

LOGAN  A judge has postponed his sentence for a River Heights mother, Heidi M. Rutchey, who previously pleaded guilty but mentally ill to killing her infant son in 2013. Judge Thomas Willmore stayed his order of one-to-15-years until September 6.

Rutchey appeared in 1st District Court Monday afternoon to be sentenced on one count of child abuse homicide, a second-degree felony.

Outside the courtroom, defense attorney David Perry said after the sentence was given, the judge realized Utah law requires Rutchey to be evaluated one final time.

The judge ordered her to the Utah State Hospital but then it was continued because the State Hospital gets to have their input, whether she should go there or not, explained Perry.

Prosecutors said Rutchey was being medicated for mental health issues in September 2013. Cache County Sheriffs deputies report she stopped taking her prescriptions and went into a delusional state of mind. During that time, she suffocated her two-year-old son Eli. Later in November 2016, she was found competent to stand trial after being treated at the state hospital for three-years.

State attorney Aaron Jossie said he didnt anticipate the sentence changing much after the state hospitals executive directors evaluation is completed.

I think people that remember this case at its inception four years ago, it was a very tragic situation, explained Jossie. Its a terrible thing to happen to anybody. A terrible thing to happen to a child, to a mother and I think ultimately, even despite Ms. Rutcheys mental condition even today, Im sure she is paying the price for what she has done. It is unfortunate but all we can do is move forward and hope for the best.

Rutchey spoke only briefly during sentencing. She told the court, she felt the state hospital would be the best place for her because of their structured treatment.

<hr /><p style=text-align: center;>will@cvradio.com
Glenda Nigbor, sitting in a recliner at Holy Rosary Medical Center in Miles City on Monday, appeared on the computer monitor, her voice coming through the speakers clear and crisp.

Her oncologist, Patrick Cobb, sitting in front of the monitor at St. Vincent Healthcare's Frontier Cancer Center in Billings, was trying to engage in her conversation, but she couldn't hear him.

He punched a button on the small control deck in front of him and suddenly Nigbor could hear his voice.

"I see the problem," he was saying with a laugh. "I was on mute."

Nigbor lives 50 miles outside Miles City on a ranch that sits at the end of a 22-mile dirt road.

To get anywhere involves a bit of driving; getting to Billings can take half a day. So when Nigbor was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in April, she knew it was going involve plenty of time in her truck.

But not as much as she thought. The video-conferencing program allows Nigbor to get the care and attention she needs without having to drive into Billings every month.

Instead, she makes the trip to Miles City and visits with Cobb by video, where he hears from her about how she's doing and can make recommendations or adjustments to her treatment.

Cobb also travels to Holy Rosary once a month to perform physical checkups with Nigbor and his other patients.

"It's good for both of us," he said.

This is Nigbor's first brush with cancer and as a result, she's decided to get involved with Relay for Life. She'll participate in events with weekend at the Relay for Life of Eastern Montana rally.

The telemedicine program allows patients to get their treatment closer to home, and it allows physicians to see them more often.

"It keeps us closer to these people," Cobb said.

It also allows the two to better connect. As soon as the audio was worked out, Cobb launched into his visit with Nigbor, asking her how she was responding to her medications and how she was holding up with chemotherapy treatments.

"Are you breathing OK?" he asked.

Nigbor talked about feeling a little better every day and how she's seen her functionality improve. On a second monitor Cobb was viewing Nigbor's chart and going over the most recent information from her checkups.

"You're doing fine," Cobb pronounced.

"I'm glad to hear that," Nigbor said with a chuckle.

She added that her health has improved enough that she's felt like cooking again and that she's getting around the house better.

"So what you're saying is I should expect cookies at our next visit," Cobb responded, eliciting a solid laugh from Nigbor.

The video chats have been a great experience for Nigbor. Traveling is hard enough, but with the pancreatic cancer and the chemo a trip to Billings would take a serious physical toll.

The ability to get care at Holy Rosary and to visit with Cobb by video has provided her with an important level of comfort.

"It's a very helpful thing," she said. "It's worth it."

Telemedicine is becoming a vital part of health care for rural Montana, particularly for a generation of stoic ranchers who are accustomed to going it alone when crises arise.

Nigbor laughed. "I get more attention than I really need."
(August 11, 2017, Macao) The Global Tourism Economy Forum (GTEF or the Forum), the leading international tourism platform designed to promote sustainable development of the global tourism industry with a focus on China, is scheduled to host its 6th annual event with the theme Regional Collaboration Towards a Better Future on October 16 and 17, 2017 in Macao.

As part of several year-round initiatives to facilitate exchange and cooperation in tourism and travel, GTEF held its latest roadshow August 11 in Beijing at the Peninsula Beijing. The gathering brought together the Forums collaborative partners, leaders of outbound tour operators and travel agencies, travel and trade executives in Beijing, leading MICE operators from Macao, and media. The luncheon successfully boosted tourism stakeholder participation at GTEF 2017 by signing on delegates and participants in the Forums business matching platform.

The luncheon was attended by various prominent guests including Ms. Li Yaying, Director General of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan Affairs Department of China National Tourism Administration (CNTA); Ms. Wang Ping, Chairman of China Chamber of Tourism and Vice Chairman of GTEF; Ms. Ma Jun, Minister of the All-China Federation of Industry & Commerce (ACFIC); and Mr. Li Baochun, Deputy Secretary-General, World Tourism Cities Federation (WTCF). All gave remarks on the key role regional collaboration plays in developing tourism opportunities alongside the Belt and Road Initiative.

Sharing her vision of tourism collaboration, Ms. Pansy Ho, Vice Chairman and Secretary-General of GTEF, stated, In the past five years, the Forum has capitalized on Macaus distinct advantages in east-west cultural fusion and interconnectivity and has successfully built a global tourism exchange and cooperation platform that is backed by China. This platform has created tremendous and invaluable collaboration opportunities for our partner countries, partner Chinese provinces, travel agencies and enterprises; assisted mainland enterprises to go global; introduced and promoted the Chinese market to foreign enterprises; and fostered innovation and sustainable development in the domestic and global tourism economies. This year, in support of the 16+1 cooperation initiative between China and the 16 Central and Eastern European countries, we will present these 16 countries as our Featured Partner Countries. In addition, we will present Guizhou Province as our Featured Partner Province. We will continue to support Chinas Belt and Road Initiative and promote regional collaboration to achieve strategic compatibility and complementary advantages along the Belt and Road regions, and to attain cooperation, common development, interconnection and interoperability around the world.

Mr. Jason Wang, Chief Operating Officer of GTEF, delivered a presentation on GTEF 2017 to further expand on the relevance of regional collaboration, and highlight the Forums unique panel sessions and speakers, trade exhibition offerings and business matching opportunities for attendees.

Leading MICE operators from Macao, including Galaxy Macau, MGM Macau, Sands China and SJM Holdings each gave presentations on industry updates. The presentations showcased Macaos world-class MICE offerings to prospective delegates, highlighting the excellent facilities that host GTEF and numerous other events every year.

Embracing Chinas 16+1 economic framework with the Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs), GTEF 2017 will present the 16 diverse and culturally rich CEECs (namely Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia) as Featured Partner Countries, and showcase the spectacular Guizhou Province as the Featured Chinese Province, bringing a truly promising tourism market mix to the Forum. In support of the 2017 International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development, GTEF 2017 will engage prominent leaders in the public and private sectors in a forward-thinking dialogue on regional collaboration and sustainable tourism development. GTEF will once again offer both rewarding programmes and unrivalled business networking and matching opportunities to delegates from China and around the world, so that they can capitalize on the momentum of tourism development and growth.

Stay tuned for more information at www.gte-forum.com and our social media channels:

https://www.facebook.com/gteforum

https://www.linkedin.com/company/global-tourism-economy-forum

https://twitter.com/gteforum

http://weibo.com/gteforum

wechat ID: GTEForum

 END 

About Global Tourism Economy Forum

The Global Tourism Economy Forum (GTEF) is hosted by the Secretariat for Social Affairs and Culture of the Macao SAR Government, co-organized by the China Chamber of Tourism under the authorization of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce (ACFIC), and coordinated by GTERC in collaboration with UNWTO. GTEFs supporting units include the Liaison Office of the Central Peoples Government in the Macao SAR, Office of the Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Peoples Republic of China in the Macao SAR, China National Tourism Administration (CNTA), World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), World Tourism Cities Federation (WTCF), European Travel Commission (ETC) and Macao Government Tourist Office (MGTO).

Since its inception in 2012, GTEF has successfully established itself as an influential high-level cooperation platform to promote sustainable development in the global tourism industry with a focus on China. To date, GTEF had received more than 7,000 participants from 63 countries and regions, including delegations from 54 provinces and cities of Mainland China; and more than 300 internationally renowned speakers.

From the GTEF Beijing Roadshow Luncheon, 11 August 2017





From left: Mr. Ge Yujing, Vice President of Tuniu; Mr. Wang Xinjun, CEO of IVY Alliance; Ms. Liu Ting, Chairwoman of CWCC; Ms. Ma Jun, Minister of All China Federation of Industry and Commerce; Madam Li Yaying, Director of China National Tourism Administration; Madam Wang Ping, , Chairman of China Chamber of Tourism and Vice Chairman of Global Tourism Economy Forum; Ms. Pansy Ho, Vice Chairman and Secretary General of Global Tourism Economy Forum; Ms. Chen Shiyou, Vice Chairman of China Chamber of Tourism; Mr. Li Baochun, Deputy Secretary General of the World Tourism Cities Federation; Mr. Liu Jinhu, Vice Chairman of China Chamber of Tourism; Mr. Mu Min, Vice Chairman of China Chamber of Tourism on stage at the GTEF Beijing Roadshow Luncheon.

For media inquiries, please contact Mazarine Asia Pacific:

Ms. Jade Zhu

Telephone+8621 5308 9680 ext.806 Ms. Avon Zhao

Telephone+8621 5308 9680 ext.805

E-mailjade.zhu@mazarineap.com E-mailavon.zhao@mazarineap.com
As President Donald Trump took recent criticism for equivocal statements condemning violence at a white supremacist rally in Virginia over the weekend, members of Wyomings congressional delegation took a variety of approaches in their own public comments about the event.

Wyomings U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, the first member of the delegation to comment, was forceful in her word choice.

Vile white supremacist/neo-Nazi hatred has no place in America, she wrote on Twitter Sunday.

Those comments came after her personal Twitter account retweeted several denunciations of white supremacy, including a quote from Ronald Reagan and a photo of American soldiers during World War II with a captured Nazi flag.

She also retweeted a comment from her father Dick Cheneys cardiologist, Jonathan Reiner, who co-wrote a book with the former vice president.

Lets see if any of these a------- will say Jew will not Cath me when they have their heart attack, Reiner wrote in reference to chants of Jew will not replace us during the rally.

In a statement on social media Monday morning, Wyomings senior U.S. senator, Mike Enzi, also condemned bigotry expressed at the rally.

White supremacist notions, hate & violence have no place in our society, Enzi wrote on Twitter. We should condemn those who use violence to propagate hatred, racism, or anti-Semitism in our country.

Sen. John Barrasso released a relatively tepid statement on Twitter on Saturday evening, several hours after one woman was killed and many others injured when someone drove a car into a crowd of counter-protesters. Police arrested and charged a participant in the white supremacist rally with the car ramming.

Saddened by the events in #Charlottesville. Violence and hatred are not the American way. Prayers for the victims, Barrasso wrote.

He elaborated on his tweet in a statement sent to the Star-Tribune on Monday.

"I'm extremely saddened by what happened in Charlottesville. These acts of violence and bigotry, fueled by this white supremacist group, are completely unacceptable. Our prayers are with the victims and their families," he said.

Trump received bipartisan criticism after condemning both sides for violence at the rally. Trump declined to answer questions from reporters over the weekend about whether he specifically condemned the white supremacists and neo-Nazis at the rally, many of whom have expressed support for the president.

On Monday afternoon, Trump strengthened his comments by condemning the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists as "criminals and thugs" and said "racism is evil."

Critics noted that Trump has more quickly denounced cable news hosts, department stores and other relatively minor entities over perceived slights.

Cheney's representative, Kara Ahern, affirmed Trump's statement Monday.

"Congressman Cheney welcomes President Trump's comments at the White House this morning, and his determination to ensure the perpetrators are brought to justice," she wrote in an email to the Star-Tribune.

Enzi elaborated on his social media comments in an email.

White supremacist notions, hate and violence have no place in our society, Enzi wrote. They run counter to our values that we all share as Americans. We as a nation have come so far, fighting wars at home and abroad, to protect the idea that all individuals are created equal.

Trump's attorney general, Jeff Sessions, said earlier Monday that the violence in which a car plowed into a group of counter-protesters, killing one person, "does meet the definition of domestic terrorism in our statute."

The Unite the Right event in Charlottesville was billed as a bridging of several alt-right groups, though it ended up taking a decidedly white supremacist turn as participants marched to a Confederate monument on Friday night in a torchlight parade and rallied on Saturday while waving Confederate and Nazi flags.

There were several violent clashes between the white supremacists and counter-protesters.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
| BY Ricki Green |

BWM has appointed Mark Watkin (left), ex-managing director of Whybin\TBWA Group Melbourne to the role of managing director of BWM in Melbourne.

Watkin brings over 17 years experience in marketing communications across advertising, digital and brand development working in Great Britain and Australia, for the last eight years, at top tier agencies. Hes worked with clients across a range of sectors from government, retail, FMCG, finance, sport, automotive, healthcare and more.

During his time as managing director of Whybin\TBWA Group Melbourne, he helped grow the agency as it almost doubled in size and won B&T National Agency of the Year in 2012.

Previous roles also include head of client services at George Patterson Y&R Melbourne and Saatchi & Saatchi in London where he started his career. Watkin also worked for four years at independent digital agency Hyperlink in London.

Says Paul Williams, CEO of BWM: We are looking forward to the breadth of knowledge and leadership experience that Mark will bring to BWM in Melbourne. He has a strong track record in developing agency / client relationships and delivering award-winning client campaigns.

Says Watkin: BWM has always been an entrepreneurial company and its something Ive admired. Im looking forward to joining and working with the agency team in a new chapter and building on the solid work to date.

Watkin takes the reins from Carl Ratcliff, who has overseen growth in BWMs Melbourne office with a string of client wins over the past 18 months, and is now making a move with his family to Sydney to pursue new ventures.
| BY Lynchy |

Coca-Cola South Pacific owned Barista Bros today launches its newest campaign  The Deliciousness is in the Detail via Ogilvy, Sydney, promoting its range of Iced Coffee, Iced Mochaccino, Iced Chocolate and Double Espresso.

The campaign will be fronted by a TVC that offers an insight into the unique approach to taste creation that sets Barista Bros apart, told in the brands playful tone.

The TVC tells the story of two baristas who take the viewer on a journey into their dedication to the quality and craft behind their cafe-inspired flavoured milk, showcasing their meticulous methodology in a tongue in cheek way. The TVC forms part of a wider integrated marketing campaign.

As part of a multi-million dollar media investment, the campaign spans TV, cinema and online. Displayed prominently across screens nationally until October, the TVC will air during primetime programs including The Bachelor, The Block, True Story with Hamish & Andy, This Time Next Year, The AFL Footy Show, Kath & Kim and Australian Survivor. It will also be featured online through Vevo, YouTube and Google Preferred.

Says Jason Wu, Brand Manager, Barista Bros: We know Australians love their coffee and are always on a quest for the best taste, which cafes cater to very well.

What we want to demonstrate with this campaign is that Barista Bros has that same level of dedication to taste and quality when it comes to iced coffee, with our quality ingredients and attention to detail creating the best tasting flavoured milk drink in market.

Creative Agency  Ogilvy Sydney

Shopper Agency  JPD

Digital Agency  Satellite NZ

Social Media: Coca-Cola Social Centre
| BY Ricki Green |

At AMIN Wordwides recent global conference in Marbella Spain, DPR&Cos role as the founding member agency for Asia Pacific was recognised by the appointment of agency principal, Philip Huzzard to the Networks Global Board.

AMIN Worldwide is the worlds largest network of independent agencies. It delivers to clients the power of the accumulated knowledge and experience of the thousands of people across the AMIN network and enables the deployment of global campaigns through independent partner agencies with local nuance and market insight. Founded in 1932 in North America, AMINs current membership consisting of almost 60 agency brands.

DPR&Co joined the network in 2015 as its founding Asia Pacific agency and has been joined by member agencies in member agencies in China and India. Agencies in Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Korea and Indonesia are currently being screened for membership.

Says Huzzard: We work with a number of global clients and this appointment will help to ensure that in this, the worlds fastest growing region, we have the ability to give our clients the presence they need.

This is equally the case for clients looking for growth in the region but also for APAC-based clients looking to create a larger global footprint in Europe, the Americas and Africa.
| BY Ricki Green |

Experimentation platform Optimizely, has today announced its expansion into the Asia Pacific region with the opening of its first Australian base and regional headquarters in Sydney. The new Sydney office, in the heart of the CBD on George Street, is Optimizelys fifth global location outside of the U.S.

Optimizely enables businesses, across sectors, to personalise websites, mobile apps and connected devices using statistically-significant data. With Optimizelys technology and platform customers can experiment at scale on all parts of their business including marketing, product, engineering and customer service leading to faster and better decisions.

The new APAC office will be led by managing director of Australia and New Zealand, Dan Ross (pictured above), who previously led the customer and sales operations for Optimizelys HQ in San Francisco. Ross will play a key role in continuing to drive the companys international growth. The company is actively hiring a full go-to-market team  with roles in Sydney and Melbourne  to support its push into the region and to better accommodate the needs of its growing customer base.

Optimizely, which has raised a total of USD$146 million from investors including Index Ventures, Benchmark Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, is seeing continued momentum with Australian customers including Atlassian, Optus, AGL Energy, Chemist Warehouse and Fox Sports. The company has experienced 257% year-on-year growth in product usage in Australia alone, improving customer experiences for more than 28 million users a month.

The new regional office and local team will further this momentum and empower more Australian businesses to adopt an experimentation culture to drive innovation and exceptional customers experiences across all their digital channels, both on and offline. Optimizelys first APAC office will allow the company to provide greater support to local customers, while also enhancing its 24/7 global customer support offering.

Ross said the company chose Australia to be its APAC home because of the increasing demand for innovation from business across sectors, strong organic growth in the market and talent density throughout the region.

Says Ross: We are thrilled to launch Optimizely in the APAC region, a market where we have already been active for several years. This new home brings us much closer to our growing customer base where we already have strong relationships with businesses in the retail, media and travel sectors. We are also seeing considerable uptake by businesses in industries with more traditional business models such as, utilities, superannuation, health insurance and telecommunications. These industries are under threat by increased competition from new and more agile players, which is why theyre turning to Optimizely in order to innovate at speed.

Increasingly, we are experiencing what we call, the Amazon effect, which is resulting in a sharp lift in the number of experiments being conducted by local retailers to strengthen their position ahead of Amazons arrival  a company whose culture is built on endless experimentation.

Optimizely is seeing an increasing number of businesses who are using its products to experiment in multi-channel environments. One such customer is Fox Sports, who turned to Optimizely to help manage the customer experience across 54 digital touch points.

Optimizelys expansion into the region further highlights the success of the last 12 months in which the company has launched its Optimizely X platform, acquired Experiment Engine to enable enterprises to manage experiments at scale and been recognised for its superior products on lists such as Forbes Cloud 100.

Optimizely was founded by Dan Siroker and Pete Koomen in 2010, who conceived the idea for the product while working as Obamas director of analytics on his successful 2008 presidential campaign. Mr. Siroker saw first hand the power of experimentation, when a simple experiment he conducted helped raise $60M in fundraising dollars.
| BY Ricki Green |

Media intelligence company, Isentia, has restructured the company under a new single brand, and invests in machine learning technologies to give clients more relevant and actionable insights from media sources.

These investments include the launch of Stories, an additional capability within its MediaPortal platform, which was recently upgraded. Stories summarises news trends and provides timely analysis to clients. Taking all the relevant content on a topic, presented in clusters, Stories give clients the insight into how themes are evolving through the day, and understand its reach and velocity.

Customers are given the option to probe into any story to uncover deeper insights, such as correlations between outlets, key influencers and any resulting amplification on social media. Rather than having to examine hundreds of media items, Stories provides customers with close to real-time intelligence that is invaluable in strategy planning and risk assessment.

Says John Croll (pictured above), chief executive officer and managing director, Isentia: The complexity and speed of todays media cycle, and the growth in social media, means our customers are finding it more and more difficult to trawl through the influx of data and make timely decisions. Theres information everywhere, but whats rare and whats valuable, is real insight.

Our priority is providing customers with those insights by enhancing our product offering. Our MediaPortal redesign earlier this year is a good example. And today, Stories will show our customers how a piece of news is evolving in real-time so they can make decisions faster. Were also improving our data intelligence platform, which will increase the speed, scalability and content sources for our clients in multiple languages.

Isentia is also introducing new back-end technologies so crawler cycle frequency is significantly improved, with a projection of approximately a million items per day across nine languages processed  providing even more valuable data that can help inform business decisions for clients throughout the Asia Pacific region.

More than 50 channels identified as key across the Asia-Pacific region will be crawled each day, including approximately 65,000 news websites covering content in English, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Tamil, Tagalog, Malay, Indonesian and Korean. Rich media items, such as online video and audio will also be captured, adding new content sources to the Isentia product offering.

New brand and restructure

Isentia has restructured the sales organisation in all markets and refreshed its brand as part of its growth strategy.

This includes the integration of the Brandtology and King Content brands into Isentia, so the core focus is on integrated media intelligence, research, insights and strategy content.

The new brand adopts the iconic mathematical three dots symbol for therefore. The dots are shorthand for the moment a problem moves to a solution, via an insight. This new graphic reflects the personality and nature of the Isentia business as a problem solver and highlights the positive outcomes the company creates for them.

Says Croll: Our commitment to our customers continues to fuel our quest to deliver the best in functionality and user experience theyve grown accustomed to. Weve adopted the dots in our brand design because it embodies our brand proposition of real data intelligence, and how this manifests as real-world problem solving.

The new brand, the new products and the re-organisation means we can focus our sales efforts on growth across the region and increase the penetration of both our Research & Insights as well as our Strategy & Content products.
Tuesday, August 15, 2017 at 9:57AM

If youre a fan of Game of Thrones, you would know who Peter Dinklage is. The GoT star has a new movie coming out soon and its first making its debut on Google Play Movies. And did we mention itll be released for free? Rememory which stars Dinklage, Julia Ormond, and the late Anton Yelchin, is set to hit Play Movies on August 24th and select US theatres starting September 8th.

The science fiction thriller has Dinklage playing Sam Bloom. He tries to uncover the mystery surrounding the death of an inventor by using his newest creation: a device that can extract and replay someones memories. If this seems interesting to you, you can catch it first on Google Play Movies.

Source: Engadget
Four NASA retirees will give an evening lecture and share their knowledge about the upcoming solar eclipse during a free lecture on Sunday, Aug. 20, at 5 p.m. in the Buffalo Bill Center of the West's Coe Auditorium.

The first speaker, Dr. Harold Doiron, made significant contributions to NASAs Apollo program. Doirons previous work involved developing the lunar landing procedure, which is designed to support safe landing techniques. He was also a key player in developing landing procedure software for the Mars rover.

Also scheduled to speak is climatologist Thomas Wysmuller. He worked as a meteorologist for the Royal Dutch Weather Bureau in Amsterdam and was an intern for NASA.

Also included in the lecture is mechanical engineer and retired aerospace engineer Jim Peacock. His past work involved spacecraft design and testing, as well as astronaut testing and operational mission support.

A special highlight of the evening event is the addition of John Creighton, astronaut, shuttle pilot, commander and test pilot for NASA as well as Boeing Airplane Co. He was selected as a pilot and commander of three shuttle missions.
"We'd stick it in a bucket of water, chuck a few bits of tinsel around the bottom and decorate it with the Christmas decorations we had. Mum was in charge of the drinks - dad would have a tea and I would have a cordial.
"It's amazing how many people got behind the charity. There's a few of these Fords around, but probably not many in the condition and appearance like that."
"We've got both under this trial and it gives us ability to look at a range of different technologies and make an assessment for us for the right mix of fuels going forward," Mr Matthews said.
It was revealed on Tuesday that an Australian Labor Party staffer suggested to NZ Labour frontbencher Chris Hipkins that he might like to ask the NZ Internal Affairs Minister whether a child born in Australia to a NZ father automatically had NZ citizenship - which he subsequently did.



New Zealand's Minister of Internal Affairs, Peter Dunne, confirmed it was a Fairfax Media investigation into Mr Joyce that led to the discovery of his dual citizenship but Ms Bishop highlighted contact between Australian Labor and the NZ Labour MP on the issue.
A man accused of dumping radioactive oilfield waste at an abandoned gas station in northwest North Dakota more than three years ago has been placed on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys list of criminal fugitives.

James Kenneth Ward, 55, faces federal fraud charges connected with illegally disposing waste known as filter socks in the small town of Noonan. Hundreds of filter socks, which contain radioactive oilfield waste, were stockpiled in the former gas station in Divide County.

The EPA said in a news release Tuesday that Ward is wanted by the agencys criminal investigation division and should be considered violent and dangerous.

Earlier this year, Ward was indicted in federal court for the district of Montana on two charges related to wire fraud connected to the illegal dumping in North Dakota.

A grand jury indictment says Ward and others conspired between April 2011 and February 2014 to defraud Zenith Produced Water by claiming to properly dispose of filter socks owned by the company but instead dumping them in the building. Checks from Zenith totaling nearly $10,000 were deposited into a bank account in Deer Lodge, Mont., in exchange for the disposal, the indictment states.

Ward has not been charged in North Dakota for illegal dumping of waste, but North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said Tuesday he could still be charged because the statute of limitations doesnt apply to fugitives.

The North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation was assisting the EPA in its investigation of Ward, Stenehjem said. The EPA took over the case in April of 2015 because the witnesses involved were no longer in North Dakota, but in Montana, Idaho and possibly Arizona, Stenehjem said.

The feds kind of took over the investigation and prosecution, he said. Thats not to say that he wont potentially face charges here in North Dakota as well, when hes located. Wed love to find him and deal with him.

A settlement agreement with Zenith Produced Water required the company to pay about $20,000 to the North Dakota Industrial Commission in fines and fees and required the company to cooperate with the criminal investigation.

Ward was last seen in March 2013 during a prison transport from Phoenix to Wyoming. The EPA said Ward was already a fugitive and returned to the United States from Mexico to face state larceny charges when he escaped in a Wyoming desert.

Anyone who sees Ward should not attempt to apprehend him, but contact the EPA criminal investigation division at (303) 312-6458. Sightings also can be reported through the EPA fugitive website, www.epa.gov/enforcement/epa-fugitives.
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 ...
Last week, the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction received a letter from the U.S. Department of Education that said the state's education plan needs work.

The DOE letter included a list of items needing more information, including how academic and non-academic factors are weighted and how the state will identify underperforming schools.

North Dakota is one 16 states and the District of Columbia that has submitted a plan to comply with a new federal education law called the Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA.

The state's ESSA planning team  a group of about 50 teachers, administrators and representatives from tribal schools  met on Monday to go over the recommendations and provide feedback. State Superintendent Kirsten Baesler said many of the proposed revisions to the state plan could be as simple as providing clearer, more detailed descriptions.

The meeting Monday went "really well," Baesler said, and she and the ESSA planning team applauded the DOE's response, which they felt stuck to the goal of state authority without too much federal overreach.

"Generally speaking, the stakeholders that met (Monday) morning did appreciate and understand the importance and the value of the recommendations from the Department of Education to truly clarify and articulate our intention and our purpose of this plan," she said. "Clearer articulation would provide more clarity for all of us, and all of those out in the field who are actually going to be responsible this upcoming year to implement this plan."

ESSA replaced No Child Left Behind and 2015 and gives states more freedom. In addition to the letter from the feds, the state also received 12 pages of feedback from peer reviewers.

An updated plan is due back to the Department of Education on Monday.
Gov. Doug Burgum is holding a series of meetings with North Dakota Native American leaders to introduce a new framework for state and tribal governments to work together.

Burgum and members of his Cabinet traveled to a meeting of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Council on Tuesday, the third such meeting with a tribal government in recent weeks.

Indian Affairs Commissioner Scott Davis, who was appointed in 2009, said the last time he recalls a governor holding a similar tribal engagement meeting was when former Gov. Ed Schafer brought his Cabinet to Standing Rock.

Considering whats happened in the past year, it was tough on everybody, we recognize that, Davis said, referring to the Dakota Access Pipeline protests. I think these are small steps of understanding, education, but also reconciliation.

Burgum said in an interview his goal is to meet with tribal leaders in advance of the first meeting of the new interim Tribal Taxation Issues Committee, set for Aug. 31 in Bismarck.

The committee is led by Burgum and includes state legislative leaders from both parties and other members of the governors Cabinet. Past interim committees on tribal relations did not include legislative leadership or the governor, Burgum said.

Its new and different and it represents some promise on our ability to have the government to government dialog with the tribal leadership, Burgum said.

At the first meeting, each tribe will have two hours to present to the committee, Burgum said. From there, the committee will develop an agenda of what to accomplish in advance of the 2019 legislative session.

Each tribe has got different issues relative to their economies, their issues, their assets, Burgum said. We want to make sure were approaching each of them individually.

Davis said he hopes tribal leaders take full advantage of the opportunity to present their priorities to North Dakotas top leaders.

This is a big deal, Davis said.

Although the committees name includes taxation, the group will have the latitude to explore other topics, such as human services, education, corrections, economic development and other issues.

During the meetings with tribal governments, several tribal leaders have raised concerns related to addiction, protecting historic sites and honoring veterans, Burgum said.

Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II said he was pleased with Tuesdays meeting with Burgum and other state leaders.

It strengthens the state and tribal relationships when we can work together and explore possible solutions to the many challenges we face, Archambault said.

Burgum and Archambault signed a memorandum of understanding that allows the state and tribal game and fish departments to work together to regulate an elk hunting season within the reservation.

Burgum and members of his team have also traveled to meet with leaders of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation and the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. A visit to the Spirit Lake Nation is in the works.

Continued efforts like this will make a significant difference in fostering a positive government-to-government relationship in the future, MHA Nation Chairman Mark Fox said in a statement.

Davis said its important that the state and tribal leaders are talking, even if they dont always agree.

Sometimes its uncomfortable. And thats OK, Davis said. But to get comfortable you need to be uncomfortable for a while to understand, especially how processes work.
FARGO  Peter Teffts voice was hoarse, the result, he said, of tear gas he breathed over the weekend in Charlottesville, Va., where white supremacists and counterprotesters clashed during demonstrations that turned deadly.

This is the beginning of the new civil rights era, said Tefft, a 30-year-old from Fargo who describes himself as a pro-white civil rights activist and whose family members announced on Monday, they were disowning him.

Asked how he felt about the estrangement, Tefft said he doesnt hold anything against his family and that he was angry that relatives, including a 13-year-old niece, were receiving threats.

Teffts father, Pearce Tefft, sent The Forum a letter to the editor condemning the involvement of his youngest child in the events that happened in Charlottesville.

In the letter, appearing on todays Forum Opinion page, Pearce Tefft described his son as an avowed white nationalist and said the rest of the Tefft family wants the world to know they reject the vile, hateful, and racist rhetoric his son has embraced.

In a Monday phone interview, Pearce Tefft said his son did not grow up learning such things, but began expressing extreme views on race about two years ago.

Tefft said hes not sure of the source of his sons involvement in the white nationalist movement, but he believes it is bolstered by praise from like-minded individuals whenever his son speaks out on the subject.

He got lost in getting kudos. I dont know for sure, Im speculating, Tefft said, adding that when his son returned to Fargo from Charlottesville, he handed his son a copy of the letter he wrote and let his son know he wasnt welcome at family functions until he distanced himself from groups that foment racial hatred.

I look at Peter as a prodigal son, Tefft said. I do pray that he will renounce all this stuff and come back.

He didnt grow up with it, and I do think he will change, Tefft said, adding: Maybe Im screaming at the wind, I dont know. I just hope he will.

During the weekend events in Charlottesville, Peter Tefft spoke to a number of media outlets and images of him were circulated on the internet.

Peter Tefft grew up in Fargo and works in construction as a drywaller and framer, according to his father, who said the attention his son has been getting has been hard on siblings and other relatives, some of whom, he said, have received hateful attention on social media sites because people think incorrectly that family members share his sons views.

Its just wrong, they said some terrible things, Pearce Tefft said, referring to comments directed toward his family.

In his letter to the public, Tefft said he is breaking his silence on his sons views because one reason Nazism took root in the world was because people hesitated to stand up against what they knew to be wrong.

It was the silence of good people that allowed the Nazis to flourish the first time around, and it is the silence of good people that is allowing them to flourish now, Tefft said.

Jacob Scott Wieber, Peter Teffts nephew, said in an interview with WDAY-TV that the majority of the Tefft family are progressive-minded people.

Our grandfather, Pearce, who is Peters father, taught us all to believe in the fundamental equality of all human beings, and we all believe in social justice and equality, Wieber said.

His (Peter Teffts) mind has been poisoned by stuff hes found on this crazy rabbit hole hes gone into, added Wieber, who cautioned people not to judge the rest of the family on the actions and beliefs of one member.

Its just been a great, big headache, Wieber said. I would say these people are motivated by the right motivations  Nazis should not have a welcome place in this country  but theyre targeting the wrong people. Its friendly fire, in a way.

Wieber said that if he could say one thing to his uncle, I would say if he has any love left in his little hateful heart for us, he should change his name.

Peter Tefft said he went to Charlottesville to hear speakers give talks, listen to music and to exercise the right to free speech.

Were not politically incorrect, were factually correct, he said, adding, Im certainly not a hateful person.

Labeled a Nazi by some, Peter Tefft said he feels the word is a racial slur against white people. I dont appreciate being called it, he said.

Tefft added that he doesnt hold anything against non-whites, and he said theres no objective way to weigh my race against another.

Tefft also said he is looking to organize a pro-white civil rights event in Fargo sometime in October. He said he expects 200 to 300 local residents would attend.
Our Promise: Welcome to Care2, the world's largest community for good. Here, you'll find over 45 million like-minded people working towards progress, kindness, and lasting impact.

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Iraqi Assyrians Are Racing Against Time

A damaged Assyrian home in Qaraqosh, Iraq. ( Aid to the Church in Need) Before Islamic State swept across the Nineveh Plains in the summer of 2014, driving more than 100,000 Christians into exile in Kurdistan, some 5,000 Syriac-Catholic families made their homes on ancient ancestral land in the town of Qaraqosh. More than half of those families have school-age children, and international agencies have repaired a significant amount of the damage done to schools during the Islamic State occupation. Schools are ready to welcome students to the new academic year. But the great challenge is that many of the families' homes still await repair or rebuilding. To date, only 600 out of the 5,000 families ousted from Qaraqosh have been able to move back into their homes there. Syriac-Catholic Father Georges Jahola, who represents his church on the Nineveh Reconstruction Committee and oversees reconstruction work in Qaraqosh, put it bluntly: "If their homes are not ready for families to move back in by September and the start of the school year, many of the Christians might well decide to go elsewhere--this time leaving Iraq for good." The enormous challenge at hand prompted the Catholic charity group Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) to establish a committee comprised of six members, each representing the three main churches whose faithful have roots in the Nineveh Plains: the Syriac-Catholic Church, the Syriac-Orthodox Church and the Chaldean Church, who are joining forces in a historic first. Funds raised by the committee will be distributed according to the needs of each of the particular communities. ACN has funded the repair of close to 160 homes to date. Overall numbers remain dangerously low. For example, in the town of Bartella, just 24 Syriac-Orthodox families have returned to their former homes, while more than 600 families have not been able or willing to move back to that community. Bartella was home to 3,400 families before the community was captured by Islamic State, which proceeded to completely destroy 90 of the homes, while another 360 houses suffered severe fire damage and 1,300 residences need various significant repairs. Not that there isn't optimism and passion on the part of many Christians. Nohe Ishaq Sliman, who just returned to his home in Bartella, said, "This is our city, our life, our history. In Kurdistan, we were confronted with very tough economic conditions; food and rent there are very expensive and I can no longer afford that cost while I have a home that I own here. I urge all families from Bartella to come home again." He continued, "I have drunk the water from the Tigris and worked here as a farmer. I built this house myself. How can I abandon it?" Yet close to 13,000 homes across the Nineveh Plains still need to be repaired or rebuilt, not to mention the major work needed throughout the region to restore the water and electricity supply. The Nineveh Reconstruction Committee has carefully assessed damages across the board and estimates that the repair and rebuilding of private homes alone requires some $250 million in funding. Property damage in Bartella, Iraq. ( Aid to the Church in Need) In addition, there are close to 350 churches and church properties--schools, convents, cemeteries--that require varying degrees of repair, rebuilding and refurbishing. In addition, there are 140 public properties--primarily schools and several hospitals--that require significant investment to become fully functional again. Meanwhile, some 90,000 Christians are still living in makeshift conditions, such as IDPs (internally displaced persons) in Kurdistan, a state of limbo that has lasted three years. ACN alone has spent more than $35 million in humanitarian aid for the IDPs there since the summer of 2014, and that flow of aid must somehow continue until the resettlement of the Nineveh Plains is complete. Beyond the work of reconstruction in the Nineveh Plains, there are significant security concerns. Islamic State may be largely ousted from Iraq, but Sunni-Shi'a tension remains and may burst into renewed violence, putting Christians and other minorities in harm's way once again. There is also the risk that Baghdad and Kurdistan may clash in the Nineveh Plains if the Kurdish regional government declares its dependence and secedes from Iraq. With the end of summer in sight, schools in the Nineveh Plains beckon families and their c
The U.S. Department of Justice awarded North Dakota $10 million to help cover the costs associated with the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, the states senators said Tuesday.

The $10 million represents only a portion of the $38 million the state and Morton County have incurred from the monthslong protests, during which some 1,400 law enforcement officers assisted. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., previously said the state shouldn't expect the federal government to cover the entire bill, and Gov. Doug Burgum's request to President Donald Trump for a major disaster declaration was denied earlier this year.

The state applied for almost $14 million through the DOJ's Emergency Federal Law Enforcement Assistance program in late June. Both Hoeven and Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., will pursue more funding, their offices said Tuesday.

"Ensuring the safety of everyone in the area during the protests was a tremendous undertaking for our law enforcement," Hoeven said in a statement. "Considering the protester camp was allowed to remain on federal land and the Obama administration's decision to prolong the situation and refusal to enforce the law, it only makes sense that the federal government should shoulder a share of the cost.

Heitkamp, like Hoeven, touted her efforts to secure money from a program that previously lacked sufficient funds. A government spending bill included $15 million for the EFLEA program earlier this year.

Its an encouraging step forward that our state is now getting much of what it is due so our law enforcement can continue to do their jobs and serve a critical public service, Heitkamp said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Hoeven signaled support for pipeline developer Energy Transfer Partners offer to help pay the states law enforcement costs, although he said theres no requirement that the company do so.

Im fine with them providing some reimbursement, he said. I think they will provide some reimbursement, but its just a matter of working through it, making sure its done in the right way.

An ETP spokeswoman didnt return an email by 5 p.m. Tuesday.

Burgum called the $10 million a good start.

We will continue to pursue all available avenues for reimbursing North Dakota taxpayers, he said in a statement.
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., criticized President Donald Trumps initial response to the weekends rally and violence in Virginia on Monday as woefully inadequate.

Her remarks join a chorus of voices from both parties saying Trump should have been clearer sooner about racists place in America.

Heitkamps remarks come after a Saturday demonstration in Charlottesville, where white supremacists clashed with counter-protesters. Dozens of people suffered injuries, including many inflicted when a man drove his car into a crowd, killing a protester.

On Saturday, Trump condemned an egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides. His statement failed to condemn white supremacy and left some critics wondering if the omission was made out of intentional deference to hate groups who have supported Trump.

Heitkamp did not speculate why Trump was not more precise, but said many senior Republicans quickly and specifically condemned white supremacy.

It was very much a missed opportunity to be unifying against right-wing hate groups, she said.

On Monday, Trump offered additional remarks in which he said that racism is evil and specifically condemned the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups,

Heitkamp called those comments better late than never.

Many North Dakota politicians have been unified in their rejection of the Charlottesville rally and the violence that followed. Over the weekend, Heitkamp issued a brief twitter statement condemning neo-Nazis and the KKK, adding that love is stronger & must persevere. Gov. Doug Burgum tweeted that hate is not an American value. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., and Rep. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., also spoke out against the rally and violence Saturday.

The rally among the white supremacist groups is wrong on every level, even if its legal and constitutional, Cramer said. Its rallying for the wrong things.

Minnesota politicians took the same stance. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., tweeted in opposition of the racism unfolding in Virginia on Saturday morning, while Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., called the scene vile.

Hatred and bigotry associated with the white supremacists, neo Nazis and the KKK has no place in our society, Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., said in a statement.

But the question of Trumps early remarks still appears unsettled.

It exhausts me that people would sort of parse and dissect Donald Trumps words and try to extrapolate his heart because he didnt say the exact thing he wanted them to say, Cramer said, responding to claims that the presidents Saturday statement was a calculated play for racists votes. His words, coming right out of the event were very, very strong.  This is a guy that has black people work for him, right next to him.

Hoeven was critical of the president. He said speculation that Trumps remarks were calculated show exactly why the president should have been clearer sooner.

Thats something he should have done right away, Hoeven said. He did come out today and denounce them, thats good -- clearly he should have done that on Saturday when he commented on the matter.

North Dakota Democratic-NPL Chairwoman Kylie Oversen criticized Cramer and Hoeven for not issuing public statement sooner. Both men called the comments a political ploy.

Its too bad shes always so anxious to play politics, Hoeven said. North Dakotans of both parties know we condemn this kind of bigotry.

Forum Communications Co. Reporter John Hageman contributed to this report.
Almost five months after it debuted at the Seoul Motor Show, the new generation SsangYong Rexton is getting ready to make its market launch in the United Kingdom.



Sales of the Korean SUV will commence this October, in Europes largest right-hand drive market, with prices starting from 27,500 ($35,705) for the EX with a six-speed manual transmission. If youre looking for the 7-speed automatic transmission, made by Mercedes-Benz, then get ready to add another 2,000 ($2,597).

Standard equipment includes 17-inch alloy wheels, front and rear parking sensors, automatic headlights and windscreen wipers, power folding side mirrors, manual air conditioning, and smart audio system with 8-inch display. The two additional seats in the boot, forward collision warning, autonomous emergency braking, lane departure warning, high beam assist, and traffic sign recognition are also offered at no extra cost.

Priced from 32,000 ($41,548) with a manual gearbox or 34,000 ($44,144) with an automatic, the ELX also comes with seven seats as standard, or five as optional, along with 18-inch alloy wheels, dual-zone air conditioning, TomTom navi with 9.2-inch screen, and Supervision instrument cluster, with 7-inch LCD display. The list of standard features also includes Nappa leather upholstery, heated and powered front seats, heated steering wheel, smart key, electrochromatic rearview mirror, rear privacy glass, and 9 airbags.

The range-topping 2018 SsangYong Rexton is the Ultimate, priced from 37,500 ($48,689). It gets standard 7-speed auto gearbox, 5 seats, HID headlights, LED fog lights with cornering function, 20-inch alloy wheels, smart electronic tailgate, 3D around-view monitoring, interior mood lighting, quilted Nappa leather, heated and ventilated memory power seats, blind-spot detection, and rear-cross traffic alert.

No matter what version of the Korean SUV ones looking at, they will have to settle for the 2.2-liter that feeds 181PS (178hp) and 420Nm (310lb-ft) of torque to the four-wheel drive system. In other markets, SsangYong also offers a 2.0-liter turbo petrol, married to a 6-speed automatic transmission, but theres no word about this unit becoming available in the United Kingdom, so far.

PHOTO GALLERY
And in the middle of it all exists Anibar, a growing festival that is embarking on its eighth edition. The story of how the festival came to be is almost as unlikely as its location.

Anibar was founded unofficially in the mid-2000s by a group of teenagers who were no more than 15 years old. We were trying to make our own animated films, festival co-founder Vullnet Sanaja told me. [We were] writing up stories and drawing storyboards, trying to set up scenes and doing some stop motion clay animation, however, we were never able to finish any of our films. We realized we need more people and more skills to finish a film, and a festival looked like the place to have them both.

Sanaja and festival co-founder Rron Bajri were unable to travel abroad due to the difficulty of obtaining visas, so they decided to bring the festival to them. They waited until they turned 18, at which time they started a non-profit organization. With just a few hundred euros and copies of films that they cobbled together from friends and acquaintances, Anibar officially came into existence in 2010.

Soon, other local teens, like Petrit Gora and Rozafa Imami, began to pitch in with organizational tasks, and the festival grew. Now, in 2017, it has turned into a full-fledged festival attracting important guests from across Europe, as well as Asia and North America.

Because of its location  in an economically-depressed country still not fully healed from the wounds of war  Anibar cannot help but be more than just a festival. Its very existence, and its birthing by a group of young local animation fans, has turned it into an important symbol of the cultural rebirth of Peja.

The festival took over the citys only movie theater  Jusuf Gervalla Cinema  which shut down after the war and lay dormant for over a decade. The idea is through the festival to help engage as many people to start caring for the commons: the public spaces and buildings, said Sanaja, who is the now the director of the festival.

This year, the festival pushed one step further, and proclaimed their theme to be Reclaiming the City. It comes at a time when Anibar is becoming more active in its advocacy efforts. We are mapping all of the empty public buildings around the city that can be used as art centers, Sanaja said, and then we are inviting the whole community at the cinema to show films on how public spaces are revitalized throughout the world and trying to animate our own community.

Empowering the community and having them engaged in cultural activities is not just an act of goodwill, its a necessity. It has become very difficult to organize the festival with the lack of public spaces, Sanaja said. We believe that when the communities become engaged, we can be able to start using the abandoned spaces and buildings for the benefit of the many.

And that necessity for civic engagement is backed by a sense of urgency. Following the war in Kosovo, many of the countrys state-owned enterprises have undergone privatization. A number of the cinemas in the country have been bought by businessmen, who have torn them down to build apartment blocks and parking lots.

Anibar is trying to prevent its precious Jusuf Gervalla Cinema, which opened in the 1950s, from suffering that same fate. Last January, the organization received a 15-year lease from the municipality of Peja that would allow them to revitalize the cinema and present year-round film screenings as well as workshops for young filmmakers. A key goal is to fundraise enough money to buy a digital projector so they can screen new Hollywood films.

However, a couple months later, the Privatization Agency of Kosovo (PAK) unexpectedly announced that the building would be liquidated and sold to the highest bidder. This was quite shocking, Sanaja told me, explaining that they had carefully followed all the procedures and filled out mountains of paperwork to receive a lease from the local government.

The festival organizers sprung into action, immediately launching a campaign to save the cinema from liquidation. They received a groundswell of support, including the mobilization of dozens of the countrys cultural groups and over 6,500 signatures on a petition to halt the liquidation.

Combined with extensive coverage in the media, the privatization agency was pressured to return to the negotiating table with the Peja municipality and work to find a solution that would prevent Pejas only cinema from being torn down. For now, the cinemas fate remains in limbo as it sits on the government agencys liquidation list.

In the meantime, the festival continues.

This year, Anibar received a record 2,700 film entries. They selected 213 films for competition, their biggest competition program yet. As in years past, some of the films are screened in an outdoor park, in improvised open-air cinemas; the festival makes good on its pledge to use public space for cultural enrichment.

Theres a diverse slate of programming beyond the competition programs as well. Those programs including a presentation by Swiss animation legend Georges Schwizgebel, a masterclass by Aya Suzuki (animator on The Illusionist, Ping Pong, and Wes Andersons upcoming Isle of Dogs), numerous multi-day animation workshops including a stop motion class by Eileen Kohlhepp (animator on Anomalisa and Robot Chicken), a presentation by TED-Ed producer Gerta Xhelo, a retrospective of Dutch studio Frame Order (whose film Golden Oldies appeared recently in CB Fest), and a screening of the Australian classic Grendel Grendel Grendel which will presented by Malcolm Turner, director of the Melbourne International Animation Festival.

Anibar recognizes that animation is still a foreign art to much of Pejas younger population, so they try to slip animation into more recognizable social evnents. Every night during the week of the festival, they put on an open-air concert headlined by a well known local DJ or band, and in between sets, the animated music videos in competition are screened for the attendees. Its a novel way of exposing the masses to animation art.

It is no secret that animation festivals bring together the global animation community, but Anibar shows that a festival can play a vital role locally as well. Anibar serves as a model for how an animation festival can revitalize a citys civic and cultural life, how a festival can mobilize a community to take back its public spaces, and how a festival can create opportunities for locals to experience culture that might not otherwise be available to them.

Anibar is an animation festival, but as it proves year after year, its also much, much more.
After Jason took the bar exam the first time in February, we were planning to book a trip for our wedding anniversary. Time got away from us, and we had a few other commitments already this spring, so we opted to put vacation off.

But do you know how many times weve put off a vacation as a couple in the last few years? SO many times. After we found out Jason didnt pass the first time (SO close), and then his car died, and he had to stop working to prepare for the exam all over again, I knew no matter what, WE needed a vacation post-exam.

So about a month before Jason was to re-take the bar, we decided to book a quick cruise to Mexico. That really is the beauty of living in Florida  and we dont take advantage enough. We originally thought about a few days in St. Augustine again (P.S. that was the last trip Jason and I took just the two of us), or Key West. But in the end, a cruise won out because it included EVERYTHING, we could uber to the Port of Tampa (which means no paying to park our car for four days), and it was fairly inexpensive.

We found a Carnival cruise that left Tampa the day after Jason took the bar, and came back on Monday morning. It was the only cruise we found that left on a Thursday. It was meant to be.

Our cruise to Cozumel, was the first time weve actually ever sailed out of Tampa Bay. Im always a little nervous before a trip, but I was impressed with the customer service, and staff at Carnival, out of Tampa. They put my mind at ease, and whatever nerves I had while waiting to board were gone pretty much immediately, which was a nice feeling. We have mainly sailed out of Miami or Port Canaveral, on both Carnival, and other cruise lines, and sometimes the local customer service isnt always the best.

We sailed on the Carnival Paradise. Ive had several friends sail this ship, and everyone has told us the ship is old. And while it is an older ship, honestly, I think cruising is what you make of it, no matter the size, as there are always a ton of activities to do once youre on-board. My only real complaint on the age, is that our room only had one outlet, so doing my hair was kind of annoying (which is why there is a lack of photos of yours truly, because my hair was pretty much up at all times), since we were sharing the one outlet with two phones to charge, and my hair tools  but if thats the worst of it, I think we were doing just fine. The Paradise now sails to Cuba, so theres a chance wed sail this ship again.

Our cruise to Cozumel, was the first cruise weve been on together since our honeymoon. Weve sailed with friends, and family since then, but not just the two of us since 2011. We ate, we drank, we napped, and read (I read this book  very good). We played Scrabble like old people in the library, live trivia, and had a blast just being together. We went to the gym, and played bingo; dorky couple stuff, but dorky stuff we love to do together, and never do much anymore.

While you can pay for wifi, or even just a few simple apps (Facebook, Insta, etc, etc), while on a Carnival ship, we did not do that. We wanted to truly check out, and connect with each other. It was ah-mazing.

We decided to attend the Chefs Table; a multi-course dinner with a tour of the galley, hosted by the ships Executive Chef. As a food blogger, I have been lucky enough to attend similar events in Tampa Bay. As wife to Jason, this was the first time weve done anything like this as a couple, and we both enjoyed it so much. It was worth the splurge, and attention we received (and food we ate!)

We also received a custom menu, and a group photo with the Executive Chef. They were small details, but nice touches. Ive always been a fan of the little details. I guess its the event planner in me.

Overall, I think a four-day cruise was exactly what we needed to reconnect as a couple. We came home to a Tropical Storm (Oh, Tampa), but the weather was perfect while we were away, at least.
Photo: CTV

Bystanders who rushed to the aid of a family involved in a fiery crash are being hailed as heroes.

The Good Samaritans pulled a family of five from a burning SUV on Lougheed Highway in Pitt Meadows, Saturday night.

Fire Chief Don Jolley said crews arrived to find the vehicle engulfed in flames, hung up on a concrete barrier.

"There were probably seven or eight bystanders who rolled the vehicle onto its wheels and pulled those people out," Jolley told CTV. "The vehicle was on fire when they did it."

"There's absolutely no question that this family's lives were saved by those people tonight," he said.

One of the occupants of the vehicle remains in hospital in serious condition.

 with files from CTV Vancouver
Photo: Dustin Abernethy Photography

A house fire claimed the life of a Campbell River woman, Monday.

Flames broke out at the Alder Street home about 6 a.m.

Witnesses say the victim was an older woman who didnt make it out of the house in time.

The home was fully engulfed, and the flames spread to vehicles on the property.

The cause of the blaze is not yet known.

 with files from CTV Vancouver Island
Photo: Kate Bouey Vernon RCMP Supt. Jim McNamara

Guns, drugs and explosives have been taken off Vernon streets.

During his quarterly report to city council, Vernon RCMP Supt. Jim McNamara said members conducted a traffic stop and arrested a male on outstanding warrants in April.

A search of the vehicle located a loaded handgun. The investigation resulted in a search warrant of a related storage locker in Vernon, where members seized over $20,000 in stolen property, additional firearms, a half ounce of fentanyl, and explosives, he said.

In May and June, officers investigated a suspected drug trafficking operation, resulting in the arrest of one man and the seizure of cocaine and suspected fentanyl. The individual has been charged with possession for the purpose of trafficking.

But police were doing more than fighting crime this year.

This spring, our officers were kept busy with the local flooding and activation of emergency operation centres throughout our area. Officers assisted with issuing evacuation notifications, established roadblocks in evacuated areas and pitched in as time permitted to help fill the hundreds of sandbags needed in Coldstream and the Okanagan Landing area, said McNamara.

Police work paid off with a 5.41 per cent decrease in criminal code cases from the previous year. However, property crime increased by 1.74 per cent.

Despite proactive public awareness campaigns warning of the dangers of leaving valuables in vehicles, theft from motor vehicles remains constant, and property crime is up, said McNamara.
Photo: BC Wildfire Service

Small businesses affected by devastating wildfires in British Columbia will be getting some financial relief from the provincial government.

Forests Minister Doug Donaldson says small businesses, First Nations whose livelihoods are based on cultural practices and not-for-profit organizations that have been under evacuation orders or alerts are eligible for a $1,500 emergency grant.

The funding also applies to small businesses operating in areas affected by closures along Highways 20, 97, 26 and the eastern Cariboo Regional District, an area hard hit by fires.

The money will be distributed by the Canadian Red Cross, which received $100 million from the province when a state of emergency was declared in early July.

Donaldson says small businesses are the lifeblood of rural communities and the government will be provide the necessary programs to support their recovery.

Executive director Claudia Blair of the Williams Lake Visitor Centre says businesses have already lost thousands of dollars after the area was evacuated last month, and the recent closure of the backcountry is expected to create more economic hardship.
Letter to Christy Clark and her Greedy Liberals re: ICBC A WRECK

I have a really good suggestion to you greedy Liberals: Put back all the millions you stole from the ICBC coffers! Problem solved!

We the public, do not deserve to have to continually pay increased costs of car insurance because of your lack of

governing this province in a sensible, honest way.

You got out at the right time, Christy, probably because you saw this coming and didnt want to take responsibility.

You got richer, we got poorer.

Lena Ross
Here are two joyful pit bulls trying to catch a balloon to help get you through the day! We shall call this 'Ballooping"

this is what u needed to see today pic.twitter.com/9vmk56eBkl  aaaaaaa aaaaa (@JP_1816) August 11, 2017
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp called North Korea the the single largest existential threat to our country on Monday.

The North Dakota Democrats remarks came during a lunch meeting of the Bismarck Lions Club, where she discussed health care, tax and regulatory reform, and offered her opinion of Republican President Donald Trump.

Heitkamp reiterated her call for Trump to appoint a special envoy to the Korean Peninsula after the Norths recent missile launches. Tensions over North Koreas nuclear weapons program have escalated in recent weeks, as has the rhetoric coming from both sides.

We need to prepare for all options, Heitkamp said before making an apparent reference to Trump. But we cannot do this by tweet.

Heitkamp advocated for boosting missile defenses and for talking seriously with our regional partners. She recounted a trip she took last year to examine defense systems in Alaska, South Korea, Japan, Guam and Hawaii.

We need to have a very, very strategic evaluation of what we can do in North Korea, but we also need to be very realistic about the threat North Korea presents and what we may need to do to defend this country against that threat, she said.

Asked by an attendee what grade she would give Trump, Heitkamp said, I once said incomplete, but I would tell you today I dont think Id be that generous. While she agrees with rolling back regulations like the Waters of the U.S. rule, she questioned whether we are doing enough internationally to maintain our strategic relationships.

We need a clear and more unified response to global threats, Heitkamp said in an interview after the event. And Im concerned about constantly giving Russia a pass, and also about the failure to have a unified message even within his administration on North Korea.

She said there will be some very high-profile hearings on health care when lawmakers return from their August recess. She criticized the process that led up to Republicans recent failure to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, but said the current law isnt perfect.

Are we going to go back to this hyper-partisan Republicans-only strategy, or are we going to sit down and do the hard work of rolling up our sleeves and fixing the Affordable Care Act? Heitkamp said before predicting Congress would choose the latter path.
Photo: Contributed The City of Vernon officially has a bylaw that will limit the hours people can camp in area parks.

The City of Vernon officially has a bylaw that will limit the hours people can camp in area parks.

On Monday, council passed a bylaw that would limit camping in the park from 9 p.m. to 9 a.m.

Those in violation of the bylaw would face a $100 fine.

However, some on council wondered what the point of giving a fine to someone who has no way of paying it.

Mayor Akbal Mund said by handing out fines, the city can keep a record to how many times a person violated the rules.

There has to be consequences. It doesn't matter what the fine is, you have to have a record, said Mund, adding with a record of violations the city would then have enough grounds to take other action, like banning that person from the park.

However, Mund admitted it is not clear exactly what that would look like.

You have to have a consequence. If you don't have a consequence and people know you don't have a consequence they will continue to do it.

Mund said if people are asked to leave an area and refuse, then the RCMP may be called in to remove that person.

Coun. Juliette Cunningham has long been an advocate for the homeless and said the bylaw is a Catch 22.

She said how can you fine someone $100 when they don't have any money in the first place.

It's a very complex issue. As a city we're trying to balance the rights of our general population and this marginalized population and it's a very fine balance, said Cunningham.

But the bylaw will not take effect immediately and those living in the park will receive plenty of notice of the new bylaw.

They will also be given several warnings before a fine is issued.

The City and North Okanagan Social Planning Council/Partners in Action will be working with the Camp Okanagan Outreach Liaison (COOL) Team to create awareness around the new bylaw and continue to provide support for homeless residents in Vernon. The COOL Team is comprised of members of Partners in Action, City bylaw compliance officers, RCMP and numerous outreach agencies that provide services to homeless people in Vernon.

Easy-to-read posters are being distributed that show the difference between a permitted temporary shelter and a more permanent structure that is not permitted.
Photo: BC Wildfire Service Red dots indicate new fire starts.

Two new human-caused fires are burning today in the Kamloops Fire Centre.

Both were discovered within the past 24 hours.

The Paul Lake Road fire is burning about 15 kilometres northeast of the city. It is measured at 0.10 hectares in size. A second fire, northeast of Sun Peaks, in the Blucher Hall area, is 0.01 hectares in size.

The BC Wildfire Service is aware of both small fires.

The latest fires bring the number of fires that have started in the Kamloops Fire Centre to 179 this season. More than 128,000 hectares of timber have been burned within the region.

Three lightning-caused fires have flared up in the Southeast Fire Centre, while a sixth fire, on Vancouver Island, was also human caused.

In all, 1,017 fires have started in the province since April 1, burning 729,672 hectares of forest.
Photo: File photo

All is quiet on the fire front.

The Township of Spallumcheen is reporting the interface wildfire is stable with BC Wildfire and the Armstrong/Spallumcheen Fire Department managing the continued monitoring and clean up of the area.

Hutley Road North and Head Road are open and Hutley Road South is open for resident traffic only.

The Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) at the Township of Spallumcheen Municipal Hall is open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. hours Monday through Friday, pending any changes in the status of the wildfire.

The fire started Aug. 10 the hillside east of Highway 97A, at around 2 p.m, but a massive response from several fire departments kept the flames at bay.

Fire crews from BX/Swan Lake, Enderby and Coldstream rushed to the aid of the Armstrong/Spallumcheen department. BC Wildfire crews were also quick to respond with ground personnel and aircraft.
Photo: The Canadian Press

Lawyers representing workers at Sears Canada and the company have reached a deal to create a hardship fund for former employees.

The $500,000 for the fund will come from money set aside to pay bonuses under a key employee retention plan.

Former employees who would have otherwise been eligible for severance payments when they lost their jobs at the retailer can apply to receive money from the fund provided that they meet certain hardship criteria.

Sears Canada was criticized last month when it received approval to pay millions in bonuses to keep key employees on board while not paying severance to laid-off workers during its court-supervised restructuring.

The retailer announced a plan in June to close 59 locations across the country and cut approximately 2,900 jobs, without severance, while under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act.

The hardship fund requires approval by the court overseeing the retailer's restructuring at a hearing set for Friday.
Photo: The Canadian Press

Monday's deadly crash on the set of Deadpool 2 in Vancouver was a rarity in an industry that takes extreme precautions, say stunt professionals, who nevertheless accept there is always an element of risk involved.

"Most of us know each other and everybody was shocked, because this stuff just doesn't really happen, in Canada, anyway," says Neven Pajkic, a 39-year-old Toronto-based stunt performer whose credits include Guillermo del Toro's upcoming film The Shape of Water and the TV series The Handmaid's Tale.

"It just doesn't happen, and it's heartbreaking."

Joi (SJ) Harris, a 40-year-old female stunt driver from New York, died after her motorcycle crashed into a window of a building during production. Details have not emerged as to exactly what happened, but some witnesses said she appeared to lose control of the vehicle.

The incident came about a month after the death of a stuntman on the set of The Walking Dead.

"It is a rarity, but the possibility exists that it can happen," says Rick Forsayeth, a Toronto-based stunt co-ordinator, noting in his 35 years in the industry  working on films including X-Men, Resident Evil: Extinction and AVP: Alien vs. Predator  there's never been a fatality on set.

Adam Winlove-Smith, a 34-year-old stunt performer from Toronto whose credits include the upcoming "Code 8" film starring Stephen Amell and Robbie Amell, agrees that catastrophic accidents "are super rare" but professionals accept there are risks.

"It is risky but everybody knows that going into the industry, so you have to have that personality to deal with that risk that may occur."

"Nobody's going to pick you to do a stunt if you don't have sufficient training," says Pajkic.

"You can't just go out there and pretend you're a stunt guy. That doesn't happen, ever."
If you have just started your journey in an online casino or are looking for a new site to play,...
WEST FARGO  As the U.S. Postal Services auxiliary facility here marked one year since its opening, officials said the 84,000 square foot facility with mostly automated machinery has improved the regions mail service without costing jobs.

The West Fargo facility opened in 2016 as an expansion of the downtown Fargo post office and has since sorted and mailed flat mail and parcels for more than 150 post offices with ZIP codes starting with 565, 580, 581 and 584 in eastern North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota.

Fargo plant manager Larry Michels said many of the plants 70 employees came from the downtown Fargo plant or were hired for the West Fargo site when it opened in 2016.

We didnt eliminate any jobs, said Fargo Postmaster Greg Johnson.

The Fargo mail facility was not large enough to efficiently handle the amount of mail coming in, so the West Fargo location was opened, Michels said.

The West Fargo facility at 1907 4th Ave. N.W. handles mostly packages and magazines, of which 15 million passed through the facilitys automated flat-sorting machine last year. The machine reads characters, bar codes and online video codes to sort mail in the right directions.

Michels said while the facilitys machines are mostly automated, about 2 percent of packages and parcels still need to be manually sorted. The facility has already processed more than 35 million pieces of mail on its equipment during the first year of operation.

U.S. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., toured the facility on Monday, saying it was needed to improve North Dakotas growing population.

As our state grows, its important for USPS to have infrastructure in place for long-term, efficient mail delivery, Hoeven said. This facility is an important part of that infrastructure and helps make processing mail for eastern North Dakota more efficient.
Rev. Ben Johnson, senior editor at the Acton Institute, writes at CapX that bishops should refrain from encouraging sin taxes.

Recently in Poland, a letter written by bishop Tadeusz Bronakowski was read aloud in many Catholic churches, stating that the state has a responsibility to pass laws limiting alcohols physical and economic availability, and to back them up with ruthless enforcement.' Johnson, however, asks bishops to take a look at historical records regarding sin taxes and reconsider their stance, because past and present sin taxes have resulted in a burgeoning black market.

His examples range from Prohibition to last weeks vote by the New York City Council to raise the price of cigarettes to $13 a pack. Research found that roughly half of all cigarettes, and one-quarter of all alcohol, consumed in New York City is bought on the black market, he wrote. Further, the illegal trade has financed terrorists, including al-Qaeda.

Johnson cited an alarming statistic regarding the sin tax on tobacco:

According to the Centre for the Analysis of Terrorism in France, 15 international terrorist organisations, including the IRA and FARC, benefit from illegal cigarettes: the smuggling accounts for 20 per cent of those groups revenues. Pakistani militants made more money from the illegal tobacco trade than any other source besides heroin.

Sin taxes are self-defeating. It is imperative that the coalition of bootleggers and Baptists of old doesnt give way to the less likely, more dangerous pairing of bishops and bombers today.

Johnsons article can be read here.
Mark your calendars and register now for Acton Institutes 27th annual dinner on October 18, held at the DeVos Place in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

This years annual dinner will feature remarks from Acton Institute president Rev. Robert Sirico and special guest Betsy DeVos, the United States Secretary of Education. DeVos is a Grand Rapids native and a leading innovator and advocate in education.

Before her confirmation, DeVos was a member of Acton Institutes board of directors from 1995 to 2005, and served local educational and philanthropic organizations. She was also a chairman of The Windquest Group for over twenty years. She is married to Dick DeVos, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and community activist in Grand Rapids.

Come and celebrate Actons 27th anniversary. For more information, please contact Nick Porter at [email protected] or call at 616.454.3080. We hope to see you there!

(Photo: By Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America (Betsy DeVos) [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons)
 The Washington Post and The Case of the Missing Abu Jihad | Main | Charlottesville Is the New Cudgel Against the Israeli PM 

August 15, 2017

Iran Increases Military Spending and the Media Fumbles



Iranian lawmakers voted to increase military spending, while chanting Death to America,? on Aug. 13, 2017. Many major U.S. news outlets ignored the event, while others offered incomplete reporting.

Irans parliament voted to increase funding for the countrys ballistic missile program and what The New York Times called foreign operations by the Revolutionary Guards (Iranian Parliament, Facing U.S. Sanctions, Votes to Raise Military Spending,? Aug. 13, 2017).?

Citing Irans state media, Times reporter Thomas Erdbrink said that Tehran would spend $260 million on its ballistic missile program and around $300 million on activities by the Quds brigade, the international arm of the Revolutionary Guards Corps.? Additional funds, approximately more than $200 million, will go to other defense and intelligence projects.?

Ali Larijiani, the speaker of the parliament, described the legislation as a first step,? The Times reported. Out of 247 legislators present, all but seven voted for the bill.

As CAMERA has noted, the U.S. State Department has designated Tehran as the leading state sponsor of terrorism. The parliament, which has erroneously been described by some media outlets as containing moderates,? is largely a rubber stamp for the theocratic dictatorship led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ("The Media and the Myth of the Moderate Mullahs," March 2, 2016).

The Times report omitted key information about Iran. The dispatch failed to mention that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps is actively involved in training U.S.-designated terrorist groups, including Hezbollah. As CAMERA has highlighted, the IRGC is supporting Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs) who are threatening U.S. troops and committing atrocities in Iraq and Syria ("Politico Whitewashes Iranian Militias," April 20, 2017). Instead, reporter Erdbrink simply stated that the IRGC is advising Iraq and Syria.?

The paper also treated Iranian claims with an uncritical eye. For example, it quoted the regimes' assertions that Iran says it does not want to make nuclear warheads, something the International Atomic Energy Agency verified during continuing inspections.? Yet, The Times failed to note that in every single instance in which an ICBM program was launched it was accompanied by an attempt to attach a nuclear payload to it. Similarly, the paper failed to note that the IAEA is only allowed access to sites that the Iranian government has declared ("Iran deal limits inspectors' access to suspicious sites," Bipartisan Policy Center, July 17, 2015).?

Indeed, on the same day that Erdbrink filed his dispatch, the deputy chief of the IRGC, Hossein Salami, rejected U.S. demands to inspect Iranian military sites, stating well not let them even watch the doors of the sites.? In a November 2016 speech covered by the Iranian state media that Erdbrink cites, Salami proclaimed that Iran is able to target the U.S. "anywhere in the world."

The Times failed to cover Salamis remarks. It also treated as credible Iranian claims that pressure from the Trump administrationspecifically the passage of recent U.S. sanctions aimed at Tehranwas responsible for the military increase. However, as CAMERA highlighted in January 2017, Iran voted on Jan. 9, 2017 to expand military spending?eleven days before Donald Trump was sworn in as President. That is: Iran was increasing military spending before U.S. sanctions were increaseda key fact omitted by the paper.

Major U.S. news outlets largely ignored that earlier increase, including Politico, The Baltimore Sun and USA Today, among others. And yet again, all three outlets omitted Iran's recent defense appropriation.

Posted by SD at August 15, 2017 03:29 PM

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The catastrophic major fire at Grenfell Tower in London led to a public discussion about the safety of insulation material. This is a great challenge for the producers. Energy efficiency and insulation material will continue to be a trending topic in many countries with various state regulations and funding programs. Ceresana analyzed the complete European market for insulation material already for the second time. The new study offers a complete overview on insulation materials used in the construction industry. Mineral wool (glass and stone wool), polystyrene-based insulation material (EPS and XPS) as well as polyurethane (PUR) are used for thermal and sound insulation in particular.

Save Energy, Save the Climate

Insulation material has a high potential on the European market: Analysts at Ceresana expect a total demand of more than 205 million cubic meters in 2024. Heating and cooling of buildings account for the majority of total energy consumption. This is why rising energy prices and state regulations to prevent climate-changing greenhouse gases or rather to save energy will lead companies and homeowners to demand more insulation materials in the upcoming years. While the striving for better energy efficiency has a positive influence on the demand for insulation material, discussions about fire safety and questions about the use of possibly harmful additives as well as environmentally compatible disposal after use have a rather negative influence on the insulation material market.

Different Countries, Different Facades

In terms of new buildings but also renovations and refurbishments, there have been regional differences in the past years. In countries hit hard by the economic crisis in 2008/09, e.g. Spain or Greece, the construction sector in particular suffered dramatic losses. Construction industries in countries like Turkey or Germany, on the other hand, experienced a much more positive development. In some countries, the construction of new buildings has slowed down significantly; this is where the main task is to energetically refurbish existing buildings. Further, specific demand for insulation material also depends on the economic situation of a country, i.e. factors such as unemployment rate of available income, and demographic development. The country-specific demand for insulation material depends on how fast and extensive each government turns EU-guidelines into national low - and whether or not the population also cares about better energy efficiency.

Mineral Wool is Number One

The most commonly used insulation material in Europe in 2016 was mineral wool, as this product can be used in a wide variety of applications. Glass and rock wool reached a combined demand of 56%, with glass wool being used more often. Polystyrene based insulation materials have also high market share, while consumption of insulation materials based on PUR is notably lower. However, consumption of individual types of insulation material may vary considerably in individual countries. Besides climatic factors and customer preferences, cost of acquisition, image and technical properties are influential factors.
A study led by scientists of the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) at the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science in Hamburg presents evidence of the coexistence of superconductivity and charge-density-waves in compounds of the poorly-studied family of bismuthates. This observation opens up new perspectives for a deeper understanding of the phenomenon of high-temperature superconductivity, a topic which is at the core of condensed matter research since more than 30 years.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, superconductivity had been observed in some metals at temperatures only a few degrees above the absolute zero (minus 273 degrees Celsius). Only in the 1980s, physicists managed to synthetize new classes of compounds, based on ceramic materials, which were able to conduct electricity without any losses at temperatures as high as 138 K (minus 135 degrees Celsius). These were named high temperature superconductors.

The best known and heavily studied family of high temperature superconductor is that of cuprates, which display by far the highest critical temperatures (i.e. the temperature below which superconductivity occurs), and are therefore the most promising for applications. However, a wide variety of other compounds exists, which also manifest superconductivity at fairly high temperatures, among them the recently discovered iron pnictides.

A universal picture able to describe the physics behind the phenomenon of high temperature superconductivity is still missing. However, an important commonality between almost all high temperature superconductors is the emergence of superconductivity in proximity of other exotic phases of matter, such as the charge-density-waves. All these materials can be typically tuned from one phase to another, possibly achieving superconductivity, by chemical doping, external pressure, or magnetic fields. However, the subtle inter-relation of these phases remains poorly understood, and in some case, there are evidences that charge-density-waves and superconductivity can even coexist microscopically in the very same compound.

In such circumstances, experiments performed by stimulating materials with ultrashort, intense laser pulses (as short as few hundreds of femtoseconds) have been shown in the past to provide new insights in the physics of these systems. For example, the group of Andrea Cavalleri at the MPSD in Hamburg has already successfully demonstrated that, in some cuprates compounds, such pulses can be used to remove charge-density-waves and promote superconductivity at higher temperatures, possibly even up to room temperature.

In the present work, Nicoletti, Cavalleri and coworkers focused on different compounds, belonging to the poorly studied family of bismuthates. These superconductors were discovered in the 1970s, even before the cuprates, but they attracted less attention due to their far lower critical temperatures (about 30 K). They share many commonalities, but also some differences with their better-known relatives. In particular, the so-called parent compound, BaBiO(3), has a robust charge-density-wave phase, from which superconductivity emerges by chemical substitution.

High quality crystals of BaPb(1-x)BixO(3), with different Pb concentrations x, were synthetized and characterized by Ian R. Fisher and P. Giraldo-Gallo at Stanford University, California. The Hamburg team performed a series of experiments on these crystals, in which they photo-excited the materials with very short and intense laser pulses and measured how their conductivity was transiently modified and relaxed back to the initial value within few picoseconds. By analysing the dependence of such signal on frequency, temperature, and Pb concentration, they could uniquely assign it to a modification of the charge-density-wave phase induced by the laser field.

Strikingly, says Nicoletti, we were able to measure this response not only in the parent compound BaBiO(3), for which a charge-density-wave is well known to exist, but also in a Pb-doped superconducting compound. This observation is an indirect demonstration of the coexistence of charge-density-waves and superconductivity in the very same material, something that has been discussed previously, but never definitely established in this class of materials.

The scientists were also able to exactly determine the energy scales associated with the modification of the charge-density-waves, thus providing new information on their dynamical interplay with superconductivity in bismuthates.

These results are especially timely given that charge-density-waves have recently been found in several cuprate superconductors, pointing towards a surprising commonality between some aspects of these materials. The present experiment is an additional example of how light can be employed to investigate, control, and manipulate complex materials. One of the ultimate goals of this line of research is to provide guidance for material engineering to develop new functionalities at increasingly higher temperatures.
Roads and bridges are in bad shape across America, and things aren't much better in Illinois. While the Trump administration has proposed a $1 trillion investment in repairs and modernization, even that won't be enough to bring things up to speed, civil engineers say.

Paula Wolff, director of the Illinois Justice Project and former Illinois State Toll Highway Authority chair, will be a panelist Tuesday at the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning's forum on doing more with less. It is CMAP's last Alternative Futures forum to gather public input as it prepares to develop its 2050 regional plan.

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Wolff, who between 2000 and 2014 helped lead Chicago Metropolis 2020, a project that helped create CMAP, told Blue Sky how new technologies play into those plans and how Chicago and its suburbs can spend wisely to bridge the infrastructure gaps by 2050.

Q: How would you prioritize how Illinois spends its time and money on infrastructure projects?

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A: Safety should be the critical component. The second priority would be to think about capital projects that reinforce economic growth and economic development.

The people of Illinois have to demand a plan that serves the overall interest of the state. Your representative may want to repair a particular bridge in his or her district. But if that bridge is safer than most bridges in the state, the immediate resources should go to fixing the more dangerous bridges.

Q: You've paid particular attention to a different kind of infrastructure  how justice, health, and human services entities treat people. What are your biggest concerns and priorities for that as we look to 2050?

A: I've long advocated something called a prevention budget where some agencies would have resources allocated to prevent bad outcomes, and the more successful an agency is in preventing bad outcomes, the more money they would get in subsequent years. Dealing with the consequences of bad outcomes is more expensive than paying for prevention.

An example is the Redeploy Illinois program to keep adults and children from going into prison. It costs between $4,000 and $12,000 to provide services to someone in the community  whether drug treatment, mental health or family support  to keep someone from behaving in a way that breaks the law. It has cost state taxpayers as much as $172,000 annually to incarcerate a youth in a juvenile state prison. In Illinois, we've shut three juvenile prisons. The population overall in the juvenile prisons five years ago was 1,200 kids, and it's now 400 because of investing in prevention programs like Redeploy Illinois.

Q: What is the biggest challenge in bringing Illinois' infrastructure to a healthy state?

A: The obstacles are a result of failure to enact a budget for almost three years and the absence of a sound long-term fiscal plan for the state. This budget is a very short-term fix. The reason we have so much debt is because of our failure to fully fund pensions and also the outstanding bills that have not been paid when there wasn't a budget. There is a longer-term set of problems that comes from the fact that our bond rating is so abysmal. The cost of doing capital projects, if they're done through bonding, will be much higher than it has been in the past.

The fact that there haven't been a lot of capital projects in a long time means pent-up demand will cause a lot of excessive competition if and when resources do become available. Because of all the pent-up demand, there will be interests from constituents all over the state to have their infrastructure repaired so that elected officials and policymakers will have to have either a very large capital plan to meet that demand or there will have to be a lot of compromises made to be able to distribute the money in a responsible way.

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Q: What lessons from your work on Chicago Metropolis 2020 can you share?

A: Metropolis helped to create CMAP, which led to CMAP's Go To 2040 plan. When I was chairing the Illinois Tollway board of directors, much of the information that was in the CMAP Go To 2040 plan was the basis for what the tollway developed and funded through the toll increase.

For example, the CMAP plan explained why it was important to rebuild the Jane Addams Tollway. It was 50 years old and was going to fall apart. There was a lot of congestion, so it needed another lane, and there was also interest in having some kind of mass transport on it.

We took the CMAP plan and had a series of public hearings to illustrate how the tollway plan was consistent with it. It brought the constituencies together by showing them how the overall plan would help the individual community. Now, there is capacity on the new Jane Addams to run buses on a separate lane, and technology to have variable pricing. We wouldn't have been able to do that without a toll increase.

Q: Do you see other options for creative solutions to finance long-term infrastructure?

A: One idea that's been around for a while but that I was trying to push at the tollway was something called "value capture." Communities always argue that infrastructure will help local economic development, and it's true. But that's an argument for the community sharing in the investment and infrastructure. They can use existing revenue or sell bonds to create new revenue, which they can pay off using the increase in the tax base from the new economic development.

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An example of that is the tollway has a policy on shared costs of interchanges. If you want a new interchange off the tollway to your community, and it's feasible, then the community would pay some share of the cost of building that entrance and exit because they get the benefit of the ease of travel and the economic growth.

Q-and-A's are edited for clarity and length.

Kate MacArthur is a freelance writer.

Twitter @KateMacArthur
Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner talks with members of the press at the James R. Thompson Center Monday, Aug. 7, 2017 in Chicago. (Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune)

The possibility of 4,000 well-paying jobs coming to Illinois should have the Rauner administration bursting with excitement, but instead the development is being greeted with a discouraging shrug.

Last week, the Tribune asked about Illinois' chances of winning a new U.S. factory being built by a Toyota-Mazda venture. The governor's spokeswoman declined to specifically comment on the factory but provided this disquieting response: "We should be an economic power, but unfortunately years of mismanagement, red tape and business taxes have hurt the state's business climate."

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Not exactly a winning endorsement that screams, "Wow, sign me up!"

Nor does it reflect some of Illinois' inherent and considerable commercial strengths as a transportation hub and automotive powerhouse.

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So here's hoping Gov. Bruce Rauner and his economic development team temper such critiques and start ginning up greater enthusiasm for wooing the Japanese automakers' project and other business.

Indeed, Rauner has an opportunity to show he's the real deal by approving new legislation for a revamped economic tax credit plan for companies known as EDGE  short for Economic Development for a Growing Economy  a program that has lapsed during his administration.

Without a blend of top-level government enthusiasm and EDGE credits, Illinois doesn't stand much of a chance against the 10 other states competing for the massive auto plant, a $1.6 billion investment that Toyota-Mazda expects to be up and running by 2021.

It would be a shame if Illinois failed to make a good faith attempt to lure this plant. The facility is expected to require at least 1,000 acres, making it a whopper of a site.

Already, some regional economic development groups in the western suburbs are in the hunt, and larger downstate areas are sure to follow.

Provided it's properly constructed and woven into the area selected, this factory promises to generate wads of new tax revenue and create economic opportunities for surrounding towns and communities.

Does Illinois have a chance with Toyota-Mazda? It should, provided its leaders get going.

One of the state's greatest strengths is its central location, which is money in the bank for these auto manufacturers that ship cars far and wide.

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Those regions that have enough land to accommodate this massive site also sit close to many crucial transportation arteries: air, rail and highways located within a Midwestern state that's already an established U.S. and international transportation nexus.

While neighboring Michigan is best known for its auto-making prowess, Illinois is no slouch when it comes to building cars and parts.

Fiat Chrysler's Belvidere plant is assembling Jeep Cherokees, after a recent $350 million retooling of that plant. Ford's factory on Chicago's Far South Side makes the Taurus and Explorer vehicles.

Northern Illinois is also home to hundreds of small and midsize auto aftermarket parts makers and suppliers.

Approving EDGE tax credits, which the General Assembly is sending to the governor's desk, would serve as a strong signal to Toyota-Mazda that Illinois is serious about them.

It won't go unnoticed by that carmaking duo that, between 2010 and 2015, Ford got at least $25 million from the EDGE program that recently expired. That EDGE effort allowed employers to keep a small portion of state taxes provided they hit benchmarks for facility improvements and retention or creation of jobs.

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Ford credited EDGE with helping to keep 2,600 workers at its Far South Side plant and adding a new shift of few thousand more employees.

The new EDGE bill is a bipartisan plan that lowers the tax credits but still offers incentives for worker training and new employment.

I circled back to the Rauner team to ask for a clarification of its initial reaction to the factory possibility. One reason for the team's reticence is Toyota-Mazda's insistence that the terms of any deal remain under wraps.

We'll see how that works out.

Gov. Rauner will coordinate with his commerce department and Intersect Illinois, a state-backed nonprofit economic development group, to market Illinois for any opportunity, said spokeswoman Laurel Patrick.

In an email to me, she added: "Keeping all that in mind, it also remains true we need fewer regulations, lower workers' compensation costs and lower property taxes in order to attract more jobs to our state."

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But isn't it also fair to say that Illinois' problems are pretty well-documented and it's highly unlikely that Toyota and Mazda aren't aware of our shortcomings?

For sure, the other states competing for this plant will do their share of Illinois bashing.

Look, I don't want Illinois to give away the store with incentives the way Wisconsin is poised to do with a $3 billion package for electronics giant Foxconn. What's more, I'm not suggesting Rauner & Co. lie or downplay the nagging political drama in Springfield.

Yet, an important part of the governor's mandate is to also highlight his state's commercial strengths, especially when a big hiring opportunity arises like the Toyota-Mazda project.

In this case, Rauner should focus on making the case for what Illinois' workforce and business base are capable of accomplishing.

He won't lose any political ground and may even gain some.

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But Gov. Rauner won't win this giant automotive factory, or much of anything else, by constantly positioning Illinois as a crummy place to do business.

roreed@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @reedtribbiz
Choice of sizes ranges from little to kahuna at Aloha Poke Co. in the Chicago French Market in Chicago. ( Nuccio DiNuzzo/Chicago Tribune )

Aloha Poke Co., the Chicago-based chain specializing in build-your-own fish salad bowls, is expanding its reach outside the Windy City.

The chain said it will soon open more locations across the West Coast, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Miami and Washington, D.C. Aloha Poke first opened in Chicago in March of last year. It now has four locations in the area, and six locations set to open, according to its website. The brand announced plans to expand to Denver earlier this year.

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Aloha Poke is planning four new restaurants in Southern California, specifically in Los Angeles, Marina Del Rey, Costa Mesa and San Diego.

"Los Angeles is actually where we first got the inspiration to bring poke to Chicago, so to be opening multiple West Coast locations is incredibly exciting. It feels very full circle," co-founder Zach Friedlander said in a news release.

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There are three locations set for Miami, and one in Washington.

In the Midwest, Aloha Poke Co. plans to open two additional restaurants: one in Milwaukee and one in Minneapolis.

sbomkamp@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @SamWillTravel
Takashi Yoshii, director of products for Bucketfeet, carries shoes at the footwear brand's headquarters in Chicago on Feb. 3, 2015. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

You're used to having dinner made to order. How about a new pair of sneakers?

Chicago-based footwear brand Bucketfeet says it can now produce its shoes on demand, waiting until a customer has placed an order and then manufacturing the pair and delivering it within 10 days.

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The company sells sneakers printed with designs submitted by its network of artists.

Producing shoes on demand will make Bucketfeet more efficient while letting the brand work with more designers and offer more styles, said co-founder and CEO Raaja Nemani, who credits advancing manufacturing technology for the move.

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Co-founder Raaja Nemani points out Bucketfeet shoes at the company's headquarters in Chicago on Feb. 3, 2015. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

Bucketfeet plans to keep its three stores but is still deciding how best to use them once it's no longer producing inventory. Stores might serve as showrooms where customers can try on pairs for size and browse designs to order, or hold more events where customers can meet artists behind popular designs, Nemani said.

Making shoes in bulk is generally cheaper than making them to order. But that requires placing bets in advance on which shoes will sell.

And it's getting harder to guess right, Nemani said. Social media give consumers more options than ever before, and trends seem to be moving faster, he said.

"It's almost crazy to think that one buyer at one big department store can say, 'This is what will sell in twelve months,'" he said.

Bucketfeet already tries to get a better sense of what customers want by letting them vote on designs, but "there's definitely a difference between what people say they like and what they actually spend money on," he said.

Bucketfeet used to sell most of its shoes through other retailers, including Nordstrom. But those retailers wanted seasonal collections that required advance planning and "really big bets" on a few styles, Nemani said. In a season, Bucketfeet would typically work with only about 50 of its roughly 40,000 artists.

Bucketfeet shoes hang from a ceiling display at the company's headquarters in Chicago on Feb. 3, 2015. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

Within the past two years, it switched to selling virtually all of its shoes through its own stores and website. That helped Bucketfeet learn more about its customers and make better decisions about which products to carry. But it didn't change the fact that most manufacturers required Bucketfeet order, at minimum, "thousands of pairs of a single shoe," according to Nemani  until it found a China-based factory willing to produce shoes on demand.

He declined to name the company for competitive reasons, but said it's invested in technology to rapidly print a design on the upper portion of a shoe, and operates like a sample factory that can quickly produce small numbers of frequently changing items.

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The made-to-order shoes will cost $85  in the middle of the $65 to $110 Bucketfeet used to charge. Bucketfeet will also pay artists $10 for each pair sold bearing their work, up from $1. Nemani said Bucketfeet can afford to keep its average price the same because it's selling directly to consumers and will no longer incur costs related to storing inventory.

"As long as we can continue to deliver the same quality of product to our customers, we think the inventory-light model is only advantageous," he said.

Because the people selling designs on Bucketfeet promote their own work, he also hopes a bigger pool of artists will help the brand grow and bring in new customers, including some overseas. The manufacturer will be able to ship to 30 countries.

Nemani declined to comment specifically on the company's growth but said Bucketfeet is "more profitable than ever before" since shifting away from its wholesale business. Bucketfeet has raised more than $28.5 million in funding since it was founded in 2011.

Bucketfeet isn't the first footwear-maker to go on-demand. Australian brand Shoes of Prey lets customers pick a basic design to customize by picking elements like toe shape, materials and colors.

"They were definitely an inspiration, but we were excited to brag to (Shoes of Prey's co-founder and CEO) that we're a little faster, and we're the only ones doing it with sneakers," he said.

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Bucketfeet is also planning to make it easier for people without design experience to submit artwork for a "true custom solution" in the next few months, and is working on rolling out a new product by the end of the year, he said.

lzumbach@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @laurenzumbach
McDonalds franchisee Nick Karavites, whose roughly two dozen franchises in Cook County were among the defendants, denied the allegations that the countys soda tax was wrongly applied to a customer. ( Charles Rex Arbogast/AP )

A lawsuit alleging that McDonald's bungled the rollout of Cook County's new penny-per-ounce sweetened beverage tax has been dismissed.

The lawsuit, which sought class-action status, was filed last week by a Chicago man and accused the fast-food chain of essentially taxing the tax by adding it to his order before calculating other sales taxes.

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In reality, McDonald's didn't mess up, according to documents filed in Cook County Circuit Court.

"After further investigation into the facts surrounding" the case, "in spite of plaintiff's initial good faith," it appears "sales tax was not applied to the amount charged to plaintiff under Cook County's new sweetened beverage tax," Cook County Circuit Judge Thomas Mulroy wrote in an order Tuesday.

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"Accordingly, and because plaintiff has no reason to believe that customers were 'double taxed' at any other McDonald's restaurant in Cook County, plaintiff voluntarily dismisses his lawsuit," the judge wrote.

Yvan Wojtecki alleged he bought food at a McDonald's franchise Aug. 8 and was overcharged by 2 cents because the so-called soda tax was applied to his order before other sales taxes.

Defendants included McDonald's Corp and most locations in the county.

Franchisee Nick Karavites, whose roughly two dozen McDonald's franchises in Cook County were among the defendants, denied the allegations last week, saying he understood "the inherent confusion this new tax has created for our customers."

Karavites said Tuesday that after "a walk-through of the receipt to demonstrate that double taxation had not occurred, this lawsuit was withdrawn."

Daniel Seidman, the lawyer who filed the suit against McDonald's, said Monday that his client's case had been voluntarily dismissed after they were convinced they were incorrect, but he declined to elaborate.

Besides McDonald's, Walgreens and 7-Eleven were also sued last week for allegedly wrongly applying the tax. The retailers are accused of applying the charge to unsweetened beverages. All the lawsuits sought class-action status.

Lead plaintiffs in class-action lawsuits aren't always what one might consider common folks raging against the machine. For example, one of the three plaintiffs has a connection to the law firm representing him and another is involved in public policy work.

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Wojtecki, who sued McDonald's, once worked full time as a clerk for the law firm that filed the suit against the fast-food chain on his behalf, his lawyer, Seidman, said last week.

Wojtecki has also been lead plaintiff in three other cases handled by Seidman's firm in Cook County.

Two were personal injury cases, initially filed in 2009, in which Wojtecki was bitten by a one-eyed male Neapolitan mastiff, court records show. A jury in 2015 awarded him a total of $56,000, records show.

Wojtecki couldn't be reached for comment.

It's not uncommon for law firms filing class-action lawsuits to have a "repeat plaintiff" as the lead plaintiff, said Chicago lawyer Andrew Stoltmann, who handles many class-action cases.

"Harmed consumers are often hard to find for these firms," he said. "That being said, the optics of it certainly aren't good."

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Defense lawyers often point out, including to the court and the media, that the plaintiffs' side doesn't have a harmed individual "but rather a serial litigator," Stoltmann said.

It's worrisome when plaintiffs have a pre-existing relationship with class counsel, including having a client as an employee, said Adam Hoeflich, a Northwestern University law professor whose areas of focus include class actions.

"Class representatives have obligations to the rest of the class, and if they're too close to their lawyer, there's a concern that they'll put the interests of the lawyers and of maintaining their relationship ahead of other class members," Hoeflich said. "There is also a concern that when class counsel chooses 'repeat players,' they may not have actually chosen an appropriate class representative but instead reached out to the easiest person to agree to be the face of the class."

Given the concern that many class actions are filed to enrich plaintiffs' lawyers rather than to remedy a genuine wrong, this is a practice class counsel should avoid, he said.

The lead plaintiff in the 7-Eleven lawsuit is Kelly Tarrant, an investigator at Project Six, which, according to its website, is "dedicated to investigating, exposing and ending government corruption in Chicago and across Illinois." Project Six, founded last year, is headed by Faisal Khan, Chicago's former legislative inspector general. Tarrant was a chief investigator under Khan during his time in that job.

Project Six spokesman Nathaniel Hamilton said Friday that Tarrant is a plaintiff against 7-Eleven as a private citizen. Tarrant declined to comment.

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Project Six has taken no position on her lawsuit specifically or the soda tax in general, but the group did oppose Cook County's move in court to seek nearly $17 million in damages from a group of retailers after a judge threw out the merchants' lawsuit challenging the tax.

Such efforts  "Cook County using the courts to issue a threat"  are an "abuse of power," said Hamilton, former communications manager for Illinois Policy Institute, a conservative think tank.

Cook County later backed down from seeking the damages from retailers in court.

The LinkedIn profile of Vincent De Leon, the lead plaintiff in the case against Walgreens, says he's a paralegal. He couldn't be reached for comment.

The soda tax also has come under criticism outside of the courts.

Several Illinois House Republicans have introduced legislation that would repeal the Cook County soda tax. Backers of the bill, which would immediately repeal the tax, include state Reps. Michael McAuliffe of Chicago, Christine Winger of Bloomingdale, Peter Breen of Lombard, Grant Wehrli of Naperville and Keith Wheeler of Oswego.

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"This pop tax is a repeated example of another financial burden being imposed upon the people of Cook County," McAuliffe said in a news release. "I spent this past weekend in my district, and the feedback against this tax was overwhelmingly negative."

Also last week, the sweetened beverage tax landed the state in hot water with the federal government, potentially causing the U.S. Department of Agriculture to withhold roughly $87 million in food stamp money.

Purchases made with federal food stamp benefits are exempt from the soda tax under federal law, but Cook County has allowed retailers to tax those purchases and provide refunds as a workaround for stores that haven't been able to program their point-of-sale systems.

USDA officials told the county the regulation was "unacceptable" in a phone call in late June, according to its memo to the state. The county has said it was unaware of the USDA's position following the phone call, but it promised to "work collaboratively with both the state and USDA to address USDA's concerns."

Meanwhile, the Illinois Liquor Control Commission wrote a letter June 30 to Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle expressing concerns about potential complications for beverage distributors  many of which handle both alcohol and nonalcoholic beverages subject to the county tax  in dealing with refunds for purchases made with food stamp benefits.

Preckwinkle spokesman Frank Shuftan said the county doesn't agree with the commission's assessment but plans to meet with representatives from the beverage industry to hear their concerns.

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byerak@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @beckyyerak
Spirit Airlines pilots are weighing whether to strike. The union contends Spirits pilots are compensated far less than their counterparts at other airlines flying similar routes and aircraft by as much as 40 percent. They say their pay remains below industry standards even as the airline makes significant profits. (Marsha Halper / MCT)

Miramar, Fla.  Unionized pilots at Spirit Airlines are gearing up for a key vote starting Aug. 21 that could pave the way for them to strike if contract negotiations with the low-cost carrier hit an impasse.

Leaders of Spirit's pilot group announced Monday they agreed unanimously to put the strike-authorization ballot before the 1,600 unionized pilots for voting through Sept. 8.

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If the measure passes, the pilots could only call for a strike if released from supervised talks by the National Mediation Board and following a 30-day cooling off-period.

Spirit and its pilots, represented by the Air Line Pilot Association International, have been in contract negotiations for more than two and a half years.

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"Spirit pilots are not looking to strike. We are looking for an industry-standard contract that brings our compensation in line with our fellow pilotsthat remains our main goal," said Capt. Stuart Morrison, chairman of the Spirit ALPA, in a statement. "However, we are willing to take any lawful steps necessary, including a legal strike, to achieve the contract every Spirit pilot has earned."

The union contends Spirit's pilots are compensated far less than their counterparts at other airlines flying similar routes and aircraft by as much as 40 percent. They say their pay remains below industry standards even as the airline makes significant profits.

"I have no doubt that the result of this vote will send a clear message to our management that our pilot group is unified and ready to take every lawful action necessary to reach the contract we deserve," Morrison added. "It's time for our management to come to the table prepared to negotiate a market-rate contract."

In a statement Monday, Spirit said the move by the unionized pilots' leadership to put the vote to the pilot ranks " will have no impact on our operation or ability to serve our customers."

"We continue to meet and make progress in collective bargaining sessions. In fact, the vast majority of the provisions have already been agreed to, thanks to the diligent work of the union and the company negotiating teams. We remain committed to reaching an agreement as quickly as possible," the statement said.

The parties met last week and will meet again at the bargaining table Aug. 22, Spirit spokesman Paul Berry confirmed.

During the second quarter, Spirit took a $45 million hit on its earnings due to an alleged work slowdown by the pilots that resulted in more than 850 flight cancellations. That included $25 million in lost revenue and $20 million in additional operating costs associated with re-booking passengers.

In May, during the height of the cancellations, Spirit was forced to sue the unionized pilots over the slowdown in an attempt to return operations to normal. At one point as tempers flared over the flight disruptions, a brawl ensued between passengers and airline employees at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and police were called to restore order.

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Chaos ensued at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport Monday night after flight cancellations by Spirit Airlines due to labor issues. (South Florida Sun-Sentinel)

Since then, flight operations have gradually returned to normal, but the upcoming strike-vote could be a harbinger of more troubled skies ahead for the low-cost carrier, based in Miramar.

In June 2010, the unionized pilots  then about 500-strong  went on a five-day strike after four years of talks failed to produce a new contract. The walkout left thousands of passengers stranded system-wide, and resulted in significant loss of revenue.

asatchell@sun-sentinel.com, 954-356-4209 or Twitter@TheSatchreport
Each year, thousands of tourists flock to British Columbia's lush forests to participate in grizzly-bear-viewing expeditions. The bear-viewing industry brings in 12 times more direct revenue to the province than trophy hunting. Photo by Tom Mangelsen/www.mangelsen.com

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This week, British Columbias newly formed government, responding to the will of an overwhelming majority of the provinces citizens and following through on its own campaign promise, announced a ban on all trophy hunting of grizzly bears there, starting in November.

Under the prior Liberal government, B.C. had become the worlds grizzly-bear-hunting hub, with trophy hunters killing 250 of the great bears a year, even within renowned provincial parks and protected areas and, most brazenly, in the Great Bear Rainforest, where Coastal First Nations have vehemently opposed trophy hunting of bears.

This is a signature win for animal protection groups (including Humane Society International/Canada, which worked for this outcome), and for the more than 90 percent of B.C. residents who opposed trophy hunting. Polling revealed that opponents of the practice include an overwhelming majority of residents of rural communities with strong hunting traditions. All of this is an emphatic reminder to the U.S. government and to our northern Rockies states not to proceed with a trophy hunt for grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem, which may be enabled with the recent delisting of bears there from the ranks of threatened and endangered species.

There is no justification for the cruelty of trophy hunting, and the utterly gratuitous nature of the killing. In 2015, the world watched in horror as a video showed a wounded grizzly bear thrashing in agony as she tumbles down a hill, her blood smearing the snow, while the men who shot her cheer the outcome. Other, similarly jarring videos, showing wounded bears suffering in agony while trophy hunters rejoice, live on YouTube for anyone to see.

Its not just a moral issue, its also an economic one. Each year, thousands flock to B.C.s lush forests to participate in grizzly-bear-viewing expeditions. The bear-viewing industry brings in 12 times more direct revenue to the province than trophy hunting. There are millions of people throughout North America and the world whod pay handsomely for an opportunity to see a grizzly in the wild, while only a few thousand people wish to slay these bears as a head-hunting exercise. The economic potential of an industry built around bear watching is vast, while the killing industry is small and receding and also a threat to the larger wildlife-watching enterprise.

HSI/Canada has worked for more than a decade to bring down the trophy hunting industry in British Columbia and other provinces. More than 10,000 supporters of HSI/Canada signed a letter to B.C. premier Christy Clark, asking her to ban the hunt, and HSI, with other partners, participated in the delivery of over 70,000 signatures to the B.C. legislature in April, calling for a ban on grizzly bear trophy hunting. While much remains to be clarified about the recent announcement, HSI is determined to work with the B.C. government to ensure that grizzlies are truly protected from all forms of trophy hunting.

This victory for grizzlies comes close on the heels of other notable wins wildlife in the past couple of weeks. Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that federal protections for wolves under the Endangered Species Act should be maintained for 4,000 or so wolves inhabiting the northern reaches of the boreal forests of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Also on Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that Endangered Species Act protections clearly extend to grizzly bears kept in captivity, even though those facilities also must meet the minimum standards of humane treatment set by the U.S. Department of Agriculture under the Animal Welfare Act, as advocated by HSUS attorneys in an amicus curiae brief. On Friday, Illinois became the first state in the United States to ban the use of elephants in circuses and other traveling acts, when Gov. Bruce Rauner signed a landmark bill prohibiting this practice. And on August 1, the Czech Republic became the latest country to ban fur farming, a policy that, when it takes effect, will spare 20,000 foxes and mink from being raised and killed for the fur trade.

These are all indicators that the world is waking up to the plight of animals. Our task is far from complete, but these wins should stir the hopes of all of us who imagine a day when we recognize the rightful place of other creatures on our planet and treat them with respect and dignity.
The duck liver tart has become one of the signature dishes at Elske, one of two Chicago restaurants to make Bon Appetit's annual list of the 10 best restaurants in the country. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)

Last week, we passed along the hint that two Chicago restaurants would make Bon Appetit's Hot 10: America's Best New Restaurants 2017.

This morning, the magazine revealed the names: Giant, the quirky Logan Square restaurant by Jason Vincent, Ben Lustbader and Josh Perlman; and Elske, David and Anna Posey's mashup of contemporary-American cuisine and Danish hospitality.

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The list ranked the restaurants in order. Elske was #2 on the national list, and Giant ranked #6.

"What makes this award so special," Vincent said, "is that it recognizes the restaurant as a whole. Each and every person who we work with has contributed to Giant's success, and I'm so proud of the team for making it happen."

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"We're kinda beyond words right now," said David Posey. "Super proud to get the recognition, and excited to see all the Chicago love."

Last week, Bon Appetit named Chicago 2017's Restaurant City of the Year.

Also in the running were Mi Tocaya Antojeria, Diana Davila's small-plates Mexican restaurant in Logan Square; and Smyth and The Loyalist, the sibling restaurants by John Shields and Karen Urie Shields. All were among Bon Appetit's 50 finalists for the Hot 10 recognition.

See Bon Appetit's complete Hot 10 list here.

Phil Vettel is a Tribune critic.

pvettel@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @philvettel






Jeff Tweedy, right, and Nels Cline lead Wilco in performance at the Chicago Theatre on Wednesday, February 22, 2017. (Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)

Chicago band Wilco released a new song Monday to raise money for the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that monitors hate groups.

Fans can download "All Lives, You Say?," a reference to the "all lives matter" response to the Black Lives Matter movement, for $1 at Wilco's Bandcamp page.

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The donations will be made in honor of Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy's father, Robert, who died Aug. 4 at 83 in downstate Belleville.

"My dad was named after a Civil War general, and he voted for Barack Obama twice. He used to say 'If you know better, you can do better.' America  we know better. We can do better," Tweedy said in a statement.

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The new music comes days after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., and nearly a year after Wilco dropped its most recent album "Schmilco." The band is in the middle of a fall tour that doesn't include any local dates. Tweedy is scheduled to play the Ellnora guitar festival in Urbana on Sept. 16.

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Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 122 Sophie Turner as Jean Grey, anger management student, in "Dark Phoenix." The film, the latest in the "X-Men" franchise, costars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jessica Chastain. Read the review. (Twentieth Century Fox)
In May, Chicago cultural commissioner Mark Kelly invited key players in the city's jazz scene to help him reshape the Chicago Jazz Festival.

"How do we make it stronger and better, so that it supports the jazz landscape of the city?" he asked the club owners, musicians, promoters and others he'd invited to his first Chicago Jazz Convening.

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It didn't take long before trumpeter-bandleader Orbert Davis and colleagues from his Chicago Jazz Philharmonic were making a pitch.

"I think Orbert was in my office within two weeks after the Convening, and sparks began to fly," recalls Kelly.

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That brainstorming session has led to one of CJP's most ambitious undertakings to date: a special concert at the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park on Aug. 23, which will launch a three-concert CJP series there in 2018. The last of these events will add a fifth night to the Chicago Jazz Festival in 2018, the fest's 40th anniversary year, a significant development for an event that long ago shrank from its original, seven-day span.

In all, Davis' CJP will present four thematically conceived programs featuring its full personnel of 55-plus musicians (as opposed to the smaller Chicago Jazz Philharmonic Chamber Ensemble that often is heard in concert).

"The idea started at that meeting," says Davis, referring to the Chicago Jazz Convening, which he attended with CJP Executive Director Birdie Soti.

"The things (Kelly) said about bringing the city together and Millennium Park being the park for all people, all Chicago  it was then that Birdie and I looked at each other and said: We need to be at Millennium Park."

The CJP, of course, had performed in Millennium Park from 2005 to 2008, but not since then, presenting instead ticketed concerts in Orchestra Hall, the Auditorium Theatre and elsewhere. These have been august events of considerable artistic ambition, Davis premiering original, multimovement orchestral suites addressing important themes, from the majesty of the Chicago River to the life's work of Nelson Mandela.

Such CJP epics, Davis says, were designed to "produce change: change in lives, change in communities, change in dialogue and change in creative practice. We produce change  but it costs $55 to come see us.

"So it only makes sense that in order to truly effect change in those four areas, we must do free concerts."

Certainly, the CJP can reach a wider and more diverse audience with free events in Millennium Park than with ticketed concerts elsewhere, thereby expanding its base while enriching the cultural life of Millennium Park. In effect, both institutions could benefit from this unprecedented series.

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"They had been performing in concert halls in Chicago for years," says commissioner Kelly. "But to be back in Millennium Park, and the accessibility  the fact that it's free, that it's our town square  will without question change the demographics, change the feel of the concerts.

"And then the importance of the three stories that will be told next year."

Indeed, though the Aug. 23 concert will be presented as a "Best of CJP" program looking back at highlights of its repertoire, each of the 2018 events will carry a specific message.

Exact dates have yet to be pinned down, but the June 2018 performance will revisit Davis' "Hope in Action," premiered in 2008 to mark Mandela's 90th birthday and next year to observe his centennial. The July 2018 concert will present the world premiere of Davis' "Chicago Immigrant Stories"; and the August 2018 event will kick off the Chicago Jazz Festival with a tribute to "Chicago Legends."

The "Chicago Immigrant Stories" project holds particular promise, for it will serve as the culmination of a project Davis will start in October, when he says he and colleagues will begin "collaborating with four neighborhoods  four immigrant communities  where we'll have jam sessions, discussions, miniconcerts" to harvest musical ideas and themes for his "Chicago Immigrant Stories" opus.

"We'll work with schools, we'll get youth involved," adds Davis, who hopes to bring the sounds of Chicago immigrants into his composition.

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Explains CJP Executive Director Soti, "We're looking to workshop full collaborations between the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic and other artists in the community.  It's putting our artists and other artists in the same room and having them create dialogue and share their backgrounds and their techniques and their aesthetics  and see what can be produced and innovated out of that context."

Considering the nature of our national political debate these days, the topic will be not only timely but also could serve to raise the level of discourse.

The entire series underscores the unique ways in which jazz is equipped to confront social justice, for the music indeed was born in response to the grave social injustice of slavery and its aftermath.

If all goes as planned, "The music will be probing, pushing, topical, filled with ideas," says Kelly.

"It's going to be engaging, not just entertaining, but something far more.

"Our goal now is to strengthen the jazz landscape, take a premiere jazz organization and partner with them and give them one of the greatest stages  not just in the city, but in the world. My hope is we strengthen not just the Jazz Philharmonic but also the jazz and musical community of the city.

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"And, by the way, this is a big, bold move for CJP and for Orbert."

True, for though the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events will underwrite production costs of CJP's four Millennium Park concerts, the CJP will have to come up with funding for hiring musicians, organizing rehearsals and related expenses.

"We definitely have much more money to raise around our concert programming than normal," Soti says.

But she believes that the prospect of these particular concerts could inspire new streams of funding.

"I think the appeal  especially to funders and potential corporate funders that we've been talking with to date  is that it is free and that it is intended for as wide an audience as possible, that there will be thousands upon thousands of attendees.

"The pitch is much different. It's more weighing on the social aspect of what we're trying to do, rather than (only) the artistic quality."

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At the very least, Chicagoans can look forward to hearing a unique American ensemble merging jazz, classical and music of far-flung immigrant cultures in a superb outdoor environment.

With this development, Davis sees the CJP as "a rocket that has just left the first stage," he says. "Now it's time to really take off."

Stage two begins next week.

"The Best of CJP" will begin at 6:30 p.m. Aug. 23 at the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park, 201 E. Randolph St.; free; visit www.chicagojazzphilharmonic.org.

Howard Reich is a Tribune critic.

hreich@chicagotribune.com

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Twitter @howardreich

[ RELATED: Cultural commissioner to reshape Jazz Festival  ]

[ Mark Kelly sets his tempo  ]

[ CJP and Cuban students make grand synergy  ]







Watch the latest movie trailers.

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 122 Sophie Turner as Jean Grey, anger management student, in "Dark Phoenix." The film, the latest in the "X-Men" franchise, costars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jessica Chastain. Read the review. (Twentieth Century Fox)
New Yorker Lacey Mark and Chicago CEO Iggy Rodriguez made a quick love connection on Monday's episode of "Bachelor in Paradise." (Paul Hebert / ABC)

Chicago consulting firm CEO Iggy Rodriguez didn't mess around trying to find a love connection on Monday's Season 4 premiere of "Bachelor in Paradise."

"I am like a puppy and there's a reason why I've only had a few relationships in my life. ... I don't have time to waste, right. If I like you I like you," Rodriguez told New York marketing and social media specialist Lacey Mark before informing her he was going to kiss her.

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The next morning, Mark broke the bad news to Rodriguez, 30, that she had to leave the Mexican resort because her grandfather died.

"Initially you're in shock, like that's possibly the worst news you can get. I'm not sure where I'm getting a rose from. That was someone that I saw myself connecting with," Rodriguez said.

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On "Bachelor in Paradise," former contestants from "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette" pair up at a Mexican resort. There were more men than women on Monday's episode and the women had the power to determine which guys stick around for another round. The first rose ceremony is expected to air during Tuesday's episode, which is scheduled for 7 p.m. on the ABC network.

On Monday's episode, Rodriguez and Groupon senior inventory analyst Kenneth "Diggy" Moreland, who didn't get much screen time, were shown making last-ditch efforts to get women to give them their roses. Both Chicagoans were contestants on Season 13 of "The Bachelorette," which finished airing last week.

Meanwhile, Monday's "Bachelor in Paradise" premiere only briefly touched on the temporary production shutdown that occurred after a sexual incident between two cast members. The drama is expected to unfold on Tuesday's episode.

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Watch the latest movie trailers.

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 122 Sophie Turner as Jean Grey, anger management student, in "Dark Phoenix." The film, the latest in the "X-Men" franchise, costars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jessica Chastain. Read the review. (Twentieth Century Fox)
If you believe a narrative that Americans are nihilistic ids who are test-piloting themselves toward their own inevitable doom, then there is probably hard evidence to be found at county fairs, like this one in rural Virginia, where a bunch of us are dangling in metal cages off a ride called the Zipper.

It's twilight. The air is dense with five kinds of funnel cake. Here, the top of the ride looks out over the Fredericksburg Agricultural Fair's petting zoos and farm-themed magicians ("Agri-cadabra") - and toward the muddy parking lot. We are waiting in our welded cages, ready to be spun and flung, because this is what late summer is in the various heartlands: pony rides, win-a-goldfish games, innovations in fried dough and August boredom jolted away by a carnival ride. We are waiting for the drop.

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Last month at the Ohio State Fair, 24 people boarded a ride called the Fireball. In the middle of one of its pendulum swings, a cluster of seats broke off and flew horribly through the air, passengers still inside. Someone put a video on YouTube. When news stations broadcast it later, they cut off the video before the inevitable crash, but viewers could still see the helplessness of flailing limbs, and people upside down where they shouldn't be. One person died, an 18-year-old bound for the Marines. Seven others were injured.

A week later, while officials were still mining the cause - "excessive corrosion," the eventual report said - thousands of people stood in line at carnivals around the country for all-you-can-ride wristbands.

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So we went to talk to some of them. And to think too much about mortality.

Here in Fredericksburg, each Zipper cage is required to have two passengers. The ride operator has paired me with Victoria Lynch.

"I've been on this ride at least 20 times," Victoria says as our cage ascends. "They have it at Funland, too. That's where I'm having my birthday next week. I'm turning 13 . . .

"Wait a minute, we're about to flip upside down, you might want to scream."

Our cage flips upside down. We pitch forward. We scream.

"Do you have any other interview questions?" she asks.

Victoria has been warned that these rides can be dangerous. "My dentist told me while I was getting my braces tightened earlier. I said, I'm going to a carnival tonight. She said, someone just died on one of those rides. I said, 'Thanks, Dr. Zello, but I'll be fine.' "

We flip upside down again. We scream.

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"I think these are actually safer than the ones at Kings Dominion," she says. "I'm probably going to go on it again right away."

We scream.

The horror of "excessive corrosion" is that it was apparently an internal problem. The Fireball ride had been manufactured in the Netherlands 18 years ago. It had been inspected at least three times since it was assembled in Columbus, officials said. Nobody could see that the internal beam was rusted out and useless until it snapped off.

It made the news because it was awful, and because it was awful in exactly the ways we have always feared. A thing the height of a four-story building should not be able to be assembled and disassembled overnight. There shouldn't be so much rattling when you climb into it. It shouldn't sound as if there's something loose inside.

"Do you just want to see it go?" Kati Kyler asks her boyfriend, Matt Harris, as they sit on a park bench in front of a ride called the Viper. "Maybe that would help."

"No, I've seen it. I've seen it." This is the problem for Matt. If he hadn't ever seen the Viper, then maybe it wouldn't seem horrible.

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"But not from the beginning," Kati insists. "Not the whole way through."

He sighs. "Okay."

"Do you want to watch it sitting or standing? Let's watch it standing. See? It looks fun."

Matt does not think this looks fun.

This is Matt's first carnival and he has not yet fully learned how to carnival, to lean into it as a verb. Corn dog? Yes. Glow-in-the-dark bubble maker? Yes. Spiral-cut fries, topped with ranch dressing and chili? Yes. Please. Put onions on them. Fun is in the eye of the beholder.

Retailers have made a whole industry of flower-crowned festival wear, but those of us out here riding the Zipper in the middle of tobacco fields have fair wear: cutoffs and old 5K-race shirts, Father's Day trucker caps. You can be a hundred miles from the nearest Sephora and meet a herd of beautiful, contoured 16-year-olds at a carnival, whose hi-lited faces are the result of Kylie Jenner YouTube tutorials.

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"Why does the floor drop out of this ride when it starts?" one asks her boyfriend as they wait for the operator to pull the start lever.

The boyfriend smiles: "Do you like having feet?"

"Jeremyyyy!" she howls.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission keeps a coded list of all injuries that lead to emergency room visits. In 2016, there were 30,000 injuries coded as "amusement park" (the CPSC's estimate for bicycle injuries: 460,000). Most of them are probably minor, but the ones that CNN compiles in its lists - a girl being scalped by a ride called King's Crown, a boy plummeting off a waterslide - are sickening. Earlier this summer, in June, another headline: a 14-year-old hanging off a Sky Ride gondola at an Upstate New York amusement park, while a crowd of terrified onlookers watched from 25 feet below.

She was saved by a man who encouraged her to let go and fall; he said he would catch her, and he did.

And amusement park season continued and people kept buying tickets, and going, and screaming on the rides.

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"It was fine, wasn't it?" a mother asks her daughter after they emerge from a whirling ride. "Oh, you're fine. Come on, Emily. It's fun to be scared."

Another day, another carnival. This one in Glen Burnie, Maryland. A group of teenage boys are standing in line for a ride called Street Fighter: a tall, parabolic pendulum that swings passengers in a near-360-degree swoop while simultaneously spinning them in circles.

The ride has begun to look familiar to Will McCauley, one of the boys, and his certainty grows as they move forward in line.

"I told you guys," Will says. "I saw that video. I saw that ride. I told you guys that this was that ride."

The Street Fighter might have a different name, and this carnival might be produced by a different company, but there's no question that this appears to be a mechanical cousin of the Ohio State Fair's Fireball.

"Naw, but these guys are straight up," Will's friend James Boonk tries to assure him. "They know what they're doing. They check the equipment and stuff."

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"They checked the other ride, too," Will protests.

Their friend Josh Michael stands on his toes and points at the ride. "Is that duct tape?"

"Where?" James asks.

"Holding that seat. It's a duct tape seat. I think."

"Now you're going to make me paranoid," James says.

"Well," Josh says reasonably, "just don't ride on Duct-Tape Seat."

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They go on the ride, and while they are swinging back and forth overhead, a group of girls in the next group are having a similar conversation about safety.

"It's not bad. It's not bad," Kadijah Calliste says. "I've been on it before, lots."

When her turn comes to board, Kadijah, in a maternal and self-assured way, ushers her friends ahead of her. She rolls her eyes at their anticipatory squealing. And then the ride starts, and within nine seconds she is safely buckled into her seat but yelling: "I'm about to fall out and die, do you hear me? I am falling out and we are all going to die."

To go to a carnival in the summer is to assess how fun one thinks it is to be scared. Carnival rides are supposed to be safe fears, like horror movies. Things that will jolt you but not harm you.

When you are confronted with actual danger, like horrible screams in a YouTube video shot in Ohio, theoretical panic creeps toward real panic. Someone died at the carnival. North Korea has put a warhead on a missile. Nuclear war isn't out of the question.

We wonder if we are all falling out and we are all going to die. We are waiting for the drop.

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"It's taking so long because those three seats at the end are broken," says the girl in the middle of the line for a ride called the Avalanche. It's near the end of the night at the Glen Burnie carnival. The line is moving slowly, and as people approach the front of it, they see the reason. "They're not letting anyone ride in those seats at the end."

"But I just rode on the seat on the end the other day," the girl's friend protests.

"I know. Me, too, but I guess I was taking my life in my hands."

The next group boards. After they have already handed over their tickets and buckled themselves in, the operator instructs everyone to buckle themselves out and get off the ride.

"He says he has to check something," one boy explains to his waiting father as he walks down the plank.

The operator says that as soon as he has checked the thing, everyone can get back on the ride. "I'm going to be honest," a de-boarding passenger says loudly and to nobody in particular. "If there is something wrong with the ride then I would just as soon not get on it."

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"What the f---" says a boy who appears to be about 11, not angry so much as enjoying cursing. "What the f--- is going on?"

The operator could be seen pulling on a pair of rubber gloves and reaching in between two of the seats with a roll of paper towels.

"I guess someone just peed on it?" the boy says. "Is that it? Just pee?" He turns to the rest of the line.

"It's probably just pee," he says confidently, and the next group gets on the ride.






Jennifer Kostoff had been in a heroin rehabilitation program for a little more than a week when a routine blood screen showed she was pregnant. Caregivers told her she would have to leave. She could be a liability.

The inpatient center near her Granite City, Illinois, home had prescribed her Suboxone - a drug often used to control cravings and drug withdrawal symptoms - but said last September that it could harm her unborn child. Kostoff worried that withdrawal wouldn't be safe for the baby, either. And would seeking treatment elsewhere lead her to trouble with law enforcement or losing custody of her baby?

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"Most people think, 'How could you not stop with a baby in your belly?' " Kostoff said. "But the physical cravings, the mental cravings, they take over despite what's going on with your body."

As the nation's opioid crisis has deepened, the number of drug treatment centers for pregnant women has grown. But experts and advocates say there aren't enough services for pregnant women to meet the demand, and many don't offer the drugs doctors would normally use to treat addiction because they are concerned about the effects they might have on a fetus. And some laws requiring that babies going through withdrawal be removed from their mother's care can be a deterrent to seeking help, they said.

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Nineteen states have either created or funded drug treatment programs for pregnant women; 24 states and the District of Columbia consider drug use during pregnancy to be child abuse under civil child-welfare statutes, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights research and advocacy organization.

Less than a quarter of the nation's substance abuse treatment centers offer services tailored to pregnant or postpartum women, according to the most recent survey from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration. Of those centers, a fraction offer recovery drugs to reduce cravings and withdrawal symptoms. Experts say that quitting drug use without the use of such medications has a higher incidence of relapse and can be stressful on a fetus.

"Oftentimes what I see is that we treat pregnant women even worse than we treat the general population with opioid use disorder," said Stephen Patrick, a neonatologist and assistant professor at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville. "We should be offering them more compassion."

But some doctors and caregivers are wary of pregnant women receiving opioid addiction treatment drugs, which have potential for abuse.

And child-welfare advocates and law enforcement officers are reeling from cases in which parents seem to choose drugs over their young children.

In April, a mother who was abusing pills and heroin in Utah crushed Suboxone pills and rubbed them onto her newborn daughter's gums while nurses were out of the room, hoping to mask the child's symptoms of drug withdrawal. She and the baby's father were later arrested.

Two people in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, were found dead in their home last October after their 7-year-old daughter told her bus driver that she couldn't wake her parents. Local police found three other children in the home - one of them was 9 months old.

Butler County, Ohio, Sheriff Richard K. Jones told The Washington Post in July that three babies were born in his jail within 18 months, and that "the judges, to save the babies" had sentenced the mothers to jail, only to find that the women "induce labor so they can get back out and do more heroin."

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Throughout periods of alarm regarding drug abuse, some state legislatures have passed laws directing pregnant women to seek treatment or face arrest. Such laws exist in Alabama and Wisconsin, and Missouri state Rep. Jered Taylor, a Republican, has introduced a bill that would make nonprescription drug use while pregnant a misdemeanor offense, which he said could encourage women to quit using.

"If they're able to successfully complete a treatment program, the sentence is dropped," Taylor said. "I'm open to changes, but this has been a huge problem and I don't think enough people realize it."

Doctors in many states are legally required to report cases involving newborn withdrawal symptoms directly to child-welfare agencies. It was estimated in 2012 that in the United States, a baby was born with withdrawal symptoms every 25 minutes. Babies exposed to drugs are also at higher risk for preterm birth and low birth weight, and studies show that they could have long-term behavioral problems.

Some advocacy groups worry that mandatory reporting regulations could make women fearful of coming forward for help.







"We have to ensure that people have access where there are medications like methadone, buprenorphine, Subutex, to those services, not only because it might benefit the future child but because it benefits the person herself," said Lynn Paltrow, executive director and founder of National Advocates for Pregnant Women.

Knowledge of the child-welfare reporting requirement in some states and a lack of information about its intentions can lead women to assume they'll immediately lose custody of their child if the baby tests positive for illicit drugs.

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That's what drove Desiree Richardson away from care.

In February 2016, Richardson went into labor on a snowy, residential road in Missouri while high on heroin. She panicked, knocked on the door of a nearby home, and gave birth to her son Da'Khorous in a stranger's bathroom.

Richardson never went to a doctor for prenatal care, and unsuccessfully tried to quit using heroin multiple times. She worried that if she told a doctor the truth about her addiction, she'd lose her four other children.

She was right: Richardson lost custody of all of her children and was sent to jail on a previous theft charge. She is now in recovery and has her children back at home, but she believes that if she had found and accepted a support system early on, it would have been easier.

"It's hard being a single mom and being in recovery. I was scared," Richardson said. "I am that person that nobody thought would get clean, but it's possible to change your life."

Kimberly Spence, a neonatologist at SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital in St. Louis, often cares for newborns who receive the withdrawal diagnosis, typically putting them on a tapering dose of morphine to reduce withdrawal symptoms. She suggests that allowing the babies to be close to their mothers - rather than taking them away - can be helpful.

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"These mothers will stay clean if we show them that they can bond with the baby, that they are successful," Spence said, noting that taking the baby away can exacerbate the mother's drug problem. "They no longer have a reason to want to stay clean."

Kostoff, 35, who was forced out of her drug treatment program in Illinois when it was discovered she was pregnant, ultimately found a doctor at the Women and Infant Substance Help (WISH) Center at SSM Health St. Mary's Hospital in St. Louis who would give her the drugs to stop her withdrawal symptoms. On April 5, she delivered a preterm baby girl - Rikki Lynn - who showed some symptoms of drug withdrawal but was otherwise healthy. Such withdrawal-like symptoms in newborns often include tremors, excessive crying and trouble sleeping, and in some states trigger a call to child-welfare agencies.

Kostoff took her home without child-welfare agents investigating her family.

The help she received during her pregnancy - combined with her determination to quit using drugs - made a significant difference for Kostoff. She found a doctor willing to treat her, received support from her husband and was committed to the treatment, even reading substance abuse recovery books while hospitalized with the baby.

"You may have all the willingness to stop because you want a healthy baby, you want to keep that baby," Kostoff said. "But without that help, you can't break that cycle."

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August 14, 2017

TEHRAN, Iran  Former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his inner circle have been at the center of a storm on the Iranian political stage in recent weeks, with senior aide Hamid Baghaei hurling brazen accusations of rights abuses at the judiciary.

Baghaei, a former vice president for executive affairs, made the accusations on July 26 after being released from 18 days in detention, his second imprisonment without any charge. Law enforcement officers first arrested him in June 2015, only freeing him after seven months.

Soon after Baghaeis latest detention, Ahmadinejad slammed the move as a grave injustice and called for his immediate release. In an open letter on July 9, the former president openly accused political rivals of deliberately targeting him and his aides, writing, They attack us when they quarrel with each other or make peace with each other  even if they cant settle their scores, again they come to settle their scores with us. In a second letter, Ahmadinejad wrote that Baghaei had gone on a hunger strike and warned that he would hold the judiciary responsible for any harm to his health.

Reacting on July 16, judiciary spokesman Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei, without naming Baghaei, threatened that Ahmadinejad could be charged for his letters. He also vaguely spoke of another defendant in a separate case who had confessed to giving 2 million euros [$2.3 million] to that person [Baghaei]. Without further elaboration, Ejei added, [Baghaei] is held in proper conditions. He signed a paper, admitting that he prefers to remain alone rather than going to the communal ward.

When Baghaei was hospitalized on July 25, Dolat-e Bahar, Ahmadinejads unofficial website, released footage of the ex-president and his inner circle standing behind the hospital gates, being denied a visit. In one video, Ahmadinejad complained, Who are the people who give these orders? In another video, he said, We couldnt see him and couldnt make a phone call to him. Nonetheless, we can stay in the hospitals yard until morning.

Baghaei was released on a bail of 200 billion rials ($6.1 million), which is said to have been raised by Ahmadinejad supporters. Immediately after his release, in a public gathering, he bluntly condemned the judiciary, accusing it of unlawful imprisonments.

Please go and see what is going on inside our prisons, Baghaei charged, saying, There was a guy in our cell who had been there for 13 months without any charge or trial, and he hadnt contacted even his family; he had a kid.  Lets assume that he is a criminal. Then you have to take him to court and punish him. Hed gone crazy, losing his mind.  Why? What for? When you then tell [the responsible official] that what he is doing is against the law, he says: Its my decision.  Did we have a revolution for this? Did our youth make sacrifices in the shahs jails and during the revolution to see a bunch of corrupt people come to power?

Baghaei also cited his interrogator, named Ghassemzadeh, as having told him, President [Hassan] Rouhani's brother Hossein Fereydoun had accepted a 600 billion rial [$18.3 million] bribe to find a position for an individual on Bank Mellats board of directors, and we will summon him soon. Of note, Fereydoun was arrested July 16 on financial crime charges and released a day later after posting 350 billion rials ($10.7 million) for bail amid hospitalization for high blood pressure.

Baghaei further rejected any financial misconduct among Ahmadinejad aides and directly denounced Ejei for stating that he didnt want to enter Evin prisons communal ward. He said, When did I say that? Why are you lying? He is a liar! Mr. Ejei is lying now, just as he used to lie when he was at the Intelligence Ministry.  Tell him to bring that paper [he claims I signed]. Ejei notably served as intelligence minister under Ahmadinejads first term (2005-2009) before being dismissed.

Within a day of Baghaeis remarks, Tehrans prosecutor general, Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, announced the filing of another complaint against him. Interrogator Bijan Ghassemzadeh also denied Baghaeis claims regarding Fereydoun.

Al-Monitor spoke with conservative political strategist Amir Mohebbian about what may be behind the public clash between Baghaei and the judiciary. He said, Although they [Ahmadinejads circle] act based on very complicated cult-like mechanisms and have their own view about political events, the current circumstances, particularly after their [Ahmadinejad and Baghaei's] failed presidential bid and the way they are treated [on the Iranian political stage], have forced them to react in this manner.

He added, Therefore, the judiciarys quick reaction raises eyebrows about the politicization of Baghaei's case. And it is what Ahmadinejad wants. When asked about the possible ramifications of Baghaeis accusations, Mohebbian told Al-Monitor, Baghaeis comments add pressures, as all political factions are unanimous when it comes to complaining about the judiciary.

Given Ahmadinejads strident anti-establishment rhetoric, Al-Monitor asked Mohebbian whether he thinks the former president is capable of capitalizing on dissenting voices to gradually become a new opposition leader. In Mohebbians view, that is an unlikely prospect. He said, Neither the Reformists nor the conservatives trust him, so he has very slim chances to become a new opposition pole.

Prominent Reformist politician Mohammad Ali Abtahi agrees, telling Al-Monitor, Mr. Ahmadinejad cannot stand as an opposition leader because he has lost all his social and human capital. I dont see any future for him. Abtahi, who served as vice president under Reformist Mohammad Khatami, elaborated, Mr. Ahmadinejad really wants to be seen as the leader of an alternative movement, but he has been unable to draw supporters. And by the way, I dont think our people and the entire leadership have forgotten his presidency and [will] allow his return [on the political stage].

Remaining silent for two weeks, Ejei on July 30 dismissed Baghaeis criticisms, saying, Those remarks are not true.  They see themselves as important people, but we shouldnt pay attention to them. I personally dont want to file a complaint against them. Yet he ominously added, Anyone from Ahmadinejads clan who acts against the law will be prosecuted.

In the view of Abtahi, who was imprisoned in connection with the unrest in the aftermath of Ahmadinejads disputed re-election in 2009, the judiciary has been tolerant toward the former president. He told Al-Monitor, The judiciary would have acted differently had Reformists behaved similarly. Mohebbian takes Ejeis warning more seriously, concluding, The Islamic Republic has proved time and again that it doesnt hesitate to confront political figures who go way beyond its security red lines.
The winery events season is about as cranked up at it will get, with all but a handful of producers having at least one event scheduled for this weekend. Some have as many as three or four.

There are festivals scheduled in Maryland, Virginia and New Jersey and other unique events planned across the region. Here's a glance at a handful that caught my eye.

Featured events

Vintage North Jersey will hold its fourth annual Wine and Food Festival from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at Four Sisters Winery in Belvidere, N.J. Taste wines from eight northern New Jersey wineries at an event that also will include live music, food trucks, crafters, specialty food and a wine cellar tour. Tickets are the gate are $25 for one day and $45 for both days. You can find more details by clicking here.

The Maryland Wineries Association will continue its festival schedule with the Easterns Bayside Blues & Wine Festival from 1 to 10 p.m. Saturday at the Eastern Yacht Club in Essex. Come enjoy exceptional blues musicians from the tri-state area and wines from more than a dozen Maryland producers. Tickets are $25 through Thursday and $30 at the gate. Click here for more.

The eighth annual Clover Hill Village Wine Festival will be held at Clover Hill Village in Appomattox, Va., on Saturday, from noon to 6 p.m. There will be 10 wineries and craft beer producers in addition to 40 various vendors who will provide everything from cigars & baskets, jams and jellies, wood crafting, fragrances, to clothing/accessories. This is a family event, so there will be activities for the kids to keep them busy. There will be live music, featuring the BRB Band, throughout the day, and plenty of food available for purchase. This event is held annually on the third Saturday in August as a benefit for the Clover Hill Village Living History Center. The proceeds from this event will help to repair, maintain & improve the Clover Hill Village. Need more info? Click here.

Finally, it's that time again in Gettysburg, as the Gettysburg Brewfest on Seminary Hill will run from 3:30 (VIP entry at 2:30) to 7 p.m. Saturday. More than 50 of the best regional producers of craft beer and cider will be represented. General admission is $45. Everything you want to know can be found at this site.

Other events

Fiore Winery in Pylesville, Md., a 20-minute drive from the Pennsylvania border, will hold its annual art, jazz and wine festival from noon to 7 p.m. Saturday. Bring a picnic basket and your blanket and chairs and spend the afternoon relaxing to live jazz music. Tastings will be available all day long and guided tours of the vineyard, winery & distillery will be given every hour. Tickets are $15. More to be found here.

Staying in Maryland, Crow Vineyard and Winery will continue its Sunday Brunch Series from 10 a.m. to noon this weekend. The buffet-style brunch will be prepared by Chefs Martha and Zack of Happy Chicken Bakery. Included is a variety of local meats, eggs, fruit and various pastries. Register online at the website and click on events. For more information call the tasting room at 302.304.0551.

Across the state, Knob Hall Winery in western Maryland will hold a cornhole tournament from 2 to 5 p.m. Sunday to benefit Pawssible Beginnings Rescue. For more, click here.

Jumping up to Pennsylvania, Spring Gate Vineyard outside Harrisburg will land on the blueberry as the theme this weekend. The festival will run Saturday and Sunday from noon to 10 p.m. Click here.

Down toward Chester and Delaware counties, Chaddsford Winery has a summer food truck competition planned from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and 11 to 6 Sunday. Admission is free and all wine and food purchases are pay as you go. Click on the website for more.

Right down the street, Penns Woods Winery will hold its seventh annual Cars, Wines & Vines event from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday. You can find everything you need to know about this classic car and wine festival at this link.

Pinnacle Ridge Winery in Berks County, right along Route 78 near Kutztown, will bring in the Oklahoma Dan Band from 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday. The Oklahoma Dan Band has been entertaining the Northeast since 1974 and has toured 48 of the 50 states, but it remains a local PA band. They are a diverse professional act playing Country Rock, Rock-a-billy & acoustic contemporary music. It's also a good chance to taste some of the best sparkling being made in the region, along with a mix of dry and sweet red and white wines. Click here for more.

We'll wrap up in northern New Jersey, where Alba Vineyard in Milford will combine with the world-renowned and Michelin starred Altamarea Restaurant Group for a night of Italian food, wine and dancing, from 7 to 10 p.m. Saturday. Enjoy food stations by Osteria Morini featuring cured meats and cheeses, pasta, freshly made wood-fired pizza, and more, plus two glasses of Alba wines. Tickets are $70/person (all inclusive). to reserve seats, click on the website and scroll to the events tab.

On the horizon

Finally, this event is a ways off, but wanted to put it on people's radar. The 10th anniversary of one of New England's grandest events, the Martha's Vineyard Food and Wine Festival, is set for Oct. 19-22. A celebration of the senses, it will bring together local farmers, fisherman, and restauranteurs with skilled-culinary professionals and winemakers from across the globe - all to benefit two local organizations, Island Grown Schools and the Agricultural Society's Farmers Program.

This year's festival is set to draw over 2,000 wine lovers and foodies from around the world to enjoy the tastes of both classic and new events, including the always popular Grand Tasting. The details can be found at this link.
In a sign-of-our-times script flip, comedians are laying off the jokes even as our leaders are needling us to lighten up.

I'm on board with serious comedians. Dodgy politicians are harder to stomach.

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On Monday night, Jimmy Fallon turned his "Tonight Show" opening monologue into an emotional condemnation of the weekend's white nationalist rally in Virginia, saying he has a responsibility to stand up against intolerance and extremism.

"What happened over the weekend in Charlottesville, Va., was just disgusting," he said. "I was watching the news like everyone else, and you're seeing Nazi flags and torches and white supremacists, and I was sick to my stomach."

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He talked about the importance of speaking out against racism, and he honored Heather Heyer, the 32-year-old woman who was killed Saturday when a car plowed into counterprotesters.

"We all need to stand against what is wrong, acknowledge that racism exists, and stand up for all that is right and civil and kind," Fallon said, fighting back tears. "And to show the next generation that we haven't forgot how hard people have fought for human rights. We cannot do this. We can't go back. We can't go back."

On "Late Night" Monday, Seth Meyers delivered a sharp rebuke to President Donald Trump's two-day delay in condemning white supremacists, after originally criticizing hatred and bigotry "on many sides."

"I'm sorry," Meyers said, "but pencils down on this subject was Saturday evening."

Over on Stephen Colbert's "Late Show," meanwhile, guest Anthony Scaramucci, Trump's short-lived communications director, made a crack about putting Colbert's writers on a "kill list."

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding," Scaramucci responded when Colbert didn't find the statement all that funny. "I'm not allowed to joke anymore. I've learned that."

When, exactly, was he joking? When he called up a New Yorker reporter and launched into a foul tirade? When he congratulated his wife via text on the birth of their child?

We're getting used to this drill. Someone in Washington says something stupid; someone else in Washington says it was all in jest.

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After Trump caught flak for encouraging a group of law enforcement officers to rough up suspects, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump was "making a joke."

When Trump invited Russia to hack Hillary Clinton's email server ("I will tell you this, Russia, if you're listening ...), then-press secretary Sean Spicer said, "He was joking at the time. We all know that."

When a private conversation revealed House Speaker Paul Ryan and two other congressional Republicans wondered whether Trump was receiving payments from Russia, Ryan's spokesman said, "This entire year-old exchange was clearly an attempt at humor."

Clearly.

It's an odd moment in time when late-night comedians handle matters of grave importance with more sobriety than our leaders, but here we are.

Humor is a powerful tool that can distill and illuminate even the most serious issues. But honesty has to be at the center of it.

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Our talk-show hosts seem to understand that. I hope we see more politicians follow their lead.

hstevens@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @heidistevens13

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Images of Heather Heyer, who was killed in Charlottesville, Va., on Aug. 12, 2017, were carried by protesters outside Trump Tower in Chicago on Aug. 13. (Nancy Stone / Chicago Tribune)

Let's not be afraid to call Heather Heyer what she was. On Saturday, she became a martyr.

I am sure she never set out to make a name for herself when she headed to Emancipation Park in Charlottesville, Va., to stand up against hatred. She had no reason to be there except that she felt she had to be. If she had stayed home, no one would have blamed her.

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Heyer was just a regular young white woman who lived a comfortable life in a picturesque, middle-class city in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

She never went to college, but that didn't stop the 32-year-old from landing a job as a paralegal at a law firm. Her life had not been idyllic, but she worked hard to better herself. She was privileged, though, and she knew it.

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She didn't have to give racism or bigotry a single thought. She was allowed to make mistakes and overcome them. In Charlottesville, where 65 percent of the residents are white, she never had to worry about being denied opportunities because of her skin color.

By most standards, Heyer had a pretty decent life. But that wasn't good enough for her. She cared too much about people who didn't have what she had. And she apparently loved her country too much to watch it crumble in the hands of bigots.

She began the day like the rest of us, spectators at a crucial juncture in history where our standards for tolerance will determine the direction our country goes in the future. But in her death, she became much more than that.

Heyer was killed when a man plowed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters who were opposing white nationalists and other supremacist groups at a "Unite the Right" rally. The suspect, a 20-year-old alleged Nazi sympathizer, also injured 19 others.

Now, she joins a long list of other martyrs, from all races and ethnic groups, who, over the course of time, have forfeited their lives while standing up to hatred.

I am especially grateful to Heyer, though, because she is white. She stands tall among other unselfish heroes who have chosen to fight for African-Americans and other groups that are under siege, as some of us have grown too tired to fight for ourselves.

Throughout history, every war against hatred has been waged by people of different races, religions and ethnic groups coming together. The civil rights battles of the 1960s could not have been fought, let alone won, without the fearless determination of white supporters.

African-Americans didn't have the financial resources, the political clout or the necessary manpower to do it alone. I will be eternally thankful that whites who already had more rights than minorities could ever have in America were willing to put their lives on the line for me.

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In nearly a half-century, many of their names have faded from memory. But we cannot allow ourselves to forget what they did.

Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, young civil rights workers from New York, were killed in Mississippi in 1963.The sheriff arrested them, along with African-American activist James Chaney, as they drove from a church meeting. A short time later, they were released to Klansmen and their bullet-riddled bodies were buried in an earthen dam.

William Lewis Moore was a Baltimore postman who was shot and killed in Alabama in 1963. At the time, he was attempting to walk alone from Chattanooga, Tenn., to Jackson, Miss., to deliver a letter to the governor, urging him to accept integration.

The Rev. Bruce Klunder, a Cleveland minister and Yale Divinity School graduate, died in 1964 while protesting the construction of a segregated school in his city, along with other civil rights activists. A bulldozer backed over Klunder and crushed him to death.

The Rev. James Reeb, a Unitarian minister from Boston, went to Selma, Ala., in 1965 to join the civil rights movement after state troopers attacked activists marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Reeb was beaten to death by a group of white men as he walked down a Selma street.

Viola Liuzzo, a housewife and mother from Detroit, drove to Alabama in 1965 to help with the Selma march after watching reports of Selma's Bloody Sunday on television. She was ferrying marchers between Selma and Montgomery when she was shot and killed by a Klansmen in a passing car.

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Jonathan Daniels, an Episcopal seminary student in Massachusetts, went to Alabama in 1965 to help with black voter registration. He was arrested at a demonstration, jailed and then suddenly released. Moments later, a deputy sheriff shot him to death.

According to a list compiled by the Southern Poverty Law Center, these were among some 40 people deemed martyrs of the turbulent civil rights era. Activists say there are many others whose deaths went unnoticed.

Like them, Heyer deserves to be recognized for her courage.

She had nothing personal to gain from placing herself in the midst of that cesspool of hatred on Saturday.

According to her friends, she always had felt compelled to do what was right when it came to racism or any kind of bigotry.

Her last public post on Facebook challenges us to do the same.

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"If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention," she wrote the day before she died.

Many Americans got your message, Heather. And if we weren't paying attention before, surely, we are now.

dglanton@chicagotribune.com

Twitter: @dahleeng
Nadiljko Babic, a member of St. Jerome Croatian Catholic Church, describes the process he and his crew go through to make sure the thousands of pounds of whole roasted pig and lamb are prepared for the annual Feast of Velika Gospa. (Alyssa Pointer/ Chicago Tribune) (Alyssa Pointer/ Chicago Tribune)

To be among the Croatian lamb roasters of St. Jerome, you must walk into a furnace, hours before dawn.

And in a low, brick building behind the church, the heat hits you. Then comes smoke and the ancient smell of meat over fire.

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Forty lambs turn on spits above beds of glowing coals, with sweating men tending the fires with shovels, telling stories, laughing, just as they've been doing for more than 100 years.

This is the way of the lamb roasters at St. Jerome Croatian Catholic Church in Chicago's Bridgeport neighborhood, as they prepared for their great August 15 feast of Velika Gospa.

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It is a brotherhood of old men and young men, and of boys, passing the tradition of the old country from generation to generation.

"Because on the morning of August 15 you'll see the people of the neighborhood line up at dawn for their lamb," said my friend John Kosic, one of the Croatian lamb roasters, who invited me to see this brotherhood at work. "But it gets hot in there. So wear barbecue clothes. And you will see the tradition right there in front of you."

There was lamb and roast pork, and later, delicious baked goods, and the church full at Mass, a parade and fireworks and dancing, the street outside crowded with parishioners, others from the neighborhood and Croatians driving in from far off.

August 15 is a holy day for the Croatian Roman Catholics of St. Jerome, and for those worshipping at Orthodox churches too, all celebrating the Assumption of the Virgin Mary.

"It is a special day, especially for us," said Father Ivica Majstorovic, pastor of St. Jerome. "Velika Gospa took place for us 300 years ago, when the faithful prayed to the Virgin Mary to save them, and she did."

In 1715, in the Dalmatian town of Sinj, the Christians sought refuge from a massive army of invading Turks. The people prayed before a painting of the Virgin Mary. As the story is told, some kind of illness and then fear spread through the Turkish army. The Turks retreated, never to return. And Sinj was saved.

Velika Gospa is a major holiday in Croatia. And in the early 1900s in Chicago, immigrants brought a replica of the "Our Lady of Sinj" portrait to St. Jerome, and the festival has been held there ever since.

Years ago, the spits were turned by hand.

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I did it once, too, turning spits with my brothers at a family picnic. It is hot, backbreaking work, and there is nothing nicer to a lamb roaster than a good electric motor.

"Now, we have these beautiful machines," said Neno Babic, who has been roasting lamb at St. Jerome for more than 20 years. "That's what God wants us to do. To eat lamb! That's why He gave lamb to us."

On Monday, the lamb roasters gathered at the church to begin preparations. They were organized into groups.

Some seasoned the lambs, others fixed them to spits, using clamps to hold the spines tight, so the shoulders and legs wouldn't move. Others tied the legs with butchers string, others sewed the chest cavity. Still other men piled the lambs high.

"Now what?" I asked.

"Now we drink something!" said a lamb salter, offering me a large shot of homemade Rakija, the strong Croatian liquor.

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We each raised our glasses. It went down just fine.

Many of the men, like Kosic, stayed to begin cooking. I went home and returned later, at 3 a.m. Tuesday, when another shift was busy. Vlado Mulc, Stipe Barnjak and Filip Filipovic and his son, 11- year-old Gabriel, were tending the fires.

We talked of how they grew up in Croatia, of their mothers taking lamb parts to wash them in the sea, of the music of their villages and towns, of their bad times and good.

Along one wall were bags of lump charcoal piled to the ceiling. With shovels and rakes, they touched the fires, the boy, Gabriel, too, the lambs turning, the coals radiating waves of heat in the narrow room.

There was a pile of roasted lambs on one table, and whole roast pork. Others were cooking hundreds of pork shish kebabs, whole chickens, and those tasty Croatian sausages, Cevapi. By the end of the day, 70 lambs would be roasted, and 10 whole pigs.

You think you have enough food?

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"Wait," Vlado told me. "We have crowds here. You haven't seen food yet. And the beer will be cold."

Croatians, like most Europeans, want their spit-roasted lamb well-done. There can't be a hint of pink in the meat, nor a speck of blood on bone. So they roast them to 175 degrees or more.

The others used thermometers. But not Babic.

He took a knife, stuck it in a lamb leg for a few seconds, then slapped the flat of the blade against his forearm.

"Perfect! It's done! See the temperature yourself."

And so we did. It was 176 degrees.

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Later that morning, the neighborhood people began lining up to purchase their platters of lamb, cold, fresh green onions and bread. I bought some too. It was some of the best I'd ever eaten.

The band-saws were singing and slicing. The women of the church were wrapping platters and plates in white butcher paper. And others were hurrying along the sidewalk to early Mass.

The church bells were ringing.

Listen to "The Chicago Way" podcast  with John Kass and Jeff Carlin  at http://wgnradio.com/category/ wgn-plus/thechicagoway/

jskass@chicagotribune.com
Alejandro Padilla Rodriguez, shown outside his Chicago home, has lived in the U.S. for decades, serving in the military and working as a janitor for Chicago Public Schools. The permanent U.S. resident, 78, has decided to pursue citizenship so he can vote. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune) (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)

When he moved to the United States from Mexico more than half a century ago, Alejandro Padilla Rodriguez felt he had two duties. The first was to serve his new country, so he enlisted in the Army. The second was to vote.

After two years of military service and decades of work ranging from making plastic molds at a Skokie factory to working as a janitor in a Chicago Public School, the 78-year-old finally has begun the process of applying for citizenship to be able to cast a ballot.

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"People ask me why it took so long," he said. "Because I'm working and working and working."

Rodriguez said he has been a permanent legal resident since he arrived in 1961 to join his father, who had emigrated from Monterrey, Mexico, to work at a factory. Together, father and son were able to earn enough to bring his mother and siblings to the U.S.

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While still in Mexico, Rodriguez read some information at a consulate about what life would be like in the United States. He recalled that it explained becoming a U.S. resident included rights as well as responsibilities, including the duty to serve. He enlisted in the Army in 1962, a year after arriving in Chicago, and was based at Fort Story in Virginia.

One night, he recalled, a superior called the soldiers together while they were serving on guard duty. President John F. Kennedy, the superior told them, had been shot. They should be extra-vigilant. The shock of learning the president had been killed was matched only by fear of war, recalled Rodriguez, whose service also coincided with the Cuban missile crisis, when the nation feared nuclear war.

Rodriguez was not deployed, instead working with a transportation unit that delivered supplies to various bases.

After leaving the Army in 1964, he returned to Chicago to make a life in America, working at a factory and later for a cleaning company. He now works full time as a janitor at Columbia Explorers Academy and lives with his sister in a brick home in Marquette Park. On Sundays, he drives a half mile to attend morning Mass at St. Nicholas of Tolentine Catholic Church, where booklets offer readings and prayers in English and Spanish. After the service, he often adds a stop at Sam's Club for groceries.

Rodriguez tried to apply for citizenship once before, but collecting documents and searching through memories became intimidating. But last year's presidential election, he said, reminded him he still had not completed what he feels is a final contribution to his country  voting.

He said the policies of President Donald Trump, who has vowed to crack down on immigration and build a wall on the southern border, did not affect his decision. What Rodriguez is doing is not about politics, he said. He is fulfilling a goal long considered. "I don't feel that young," said Rodriguez, as he approaches his ninth decade.

The country has challenges, he said, but he's confident they'll be fixed. "All the countries are the same," he said. "Problems."

He does not fill his nights with cable news. He does not worry the world is on the cusp of crumbling. After all, during his first decade here, America was roiled by a president's assassination and the threat of nuclear war. So to Rodriguez, who presents a Zen-like demeanor, this president is one of many presidents. Americans' disagreements are another chapter in a timeline full of them.

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In his renewed quest for citizenship, Rodriguez has found a cheerleader in Alma Teran. She helps run the citizenship services at the Instituto del Progreso Latino, providing help with green card renewals and citizenship applications.

Rodriguez stood out, Teran said. Part of the program's preparation for applicants is acknowledging that one might be called upon to serve the country. "How many people do you get (who) have done this already?" Teran said.

Ambrosio Martinez, the institute's citizenship program coordinator, said since December the group has seen an increase in requests for help from people hoping to become citizens. In the last fiscal year, he said, the institute helped file about 1,800 citizenship applications, and he expects to surpass that this year.

Teran helped Rodriguez collect paperwork, gently nudging him to request military records and reminding him about upcoming appointments.

Each piece of Rodriguez's life has become a leaf of paper in his application: military records so dated they were filed by typewriter, proof of a marriage and separation in his 30s, confirmation of his start date at Columbia Explorers Academy.

After his application is filed, the next step will be studying for the test. Rodriguez will need to answer six out of 10 questions correctly, such as: Who is the president of the United States? Why does the flag have 13 stripes?

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If he becomes a citizen, he said, he would feel freer. After struggling to describe this feeling in English and Spanish, he finally said in Spanish, "I don't have the words." Voting, he said, is a way to participate in the future of the nation.

Rodriguez carries a wallet with plastic inserts, each slot showcasing a different slice of his life. One holds a black-and-white photo, etched with wrinkles, of his family when Rodriguez was about 11. Others hold his permanent resident card and information for veterans resources.

Soon, he hopes to slide in one more: his voter registration card.

abowen@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @byalisonbowen
As the solar eclipse nears on Aug. 21, 2017, glasses to protect viewers' eys from the sun are selling out in stores around the area. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune) (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

Not long ago, it seemed to Melissa Larson that solar eclipse glasses were everywhere  at the Walmart, the Best Buy and all over the internet. Surely she could take her time before she and her husband left for Southern Illinois to catch a prime view of this rare cosmic phenomenon.

But a few weeks later, her confidence vanished. Store after store was sold out, and websites were demanding a pirate's ransom for the glasses  if they had them at all.

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So Larson, of Inverness, put a notice on Craigslist on Monday offering to buy two pairs for $20. As of late afternoon, she had no takers.

"The only thing I can find online are 10-packs," she said. "That's ridiculous. Who needs 10 of them?"

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Like fidget spinners or flu shots, solar eclipse glasses have become scarce just as demand has reached a frenzy less than a week from the Aug. 21 event. The Chicago Public Library announced it would give away 15,000 pairs, only to be greeted with lines Monday that stretched out the door at some branches.

"If they're not out already, they won't be around much longer," spokesman Patrick Molloy said. "We knew it would be popular, but we didn't know the demand would be that heavy."

In Naperville School District 203, the high schools sagely ordered their supply more than a year ago, but other schools are still scrambling to track down the gear. Spokeswoman Michelle Fregoso said administrators are planning to livestream video images of the celestial event for children who remain unequipped.

"No one's going to miss out on the eclipse," she said. "You may miss out on being outside to view it."

Eclipse glasses block ultraviolet, visible and infrared radiation, and, according to NASA, allow people to gaze at the sun for long durations without harming their vision. Taking a peek with the naked eye is a bad idea, said Dr. Felix Chau, an ophthalmologist with the Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

"With the eclipse, the danger is people are fooled, and since the sky will be much darker and part of the sun will be blocked, they'll think maybe it's safe," he said.

It's not. Chau cited a condition called solar retinopathy, in which light energy causes a permanent scar on the retina, leading to vision loss. He recommended using a pinhole camera or other indirect means to view the eclipse, concerned that the specialized glasses might not be safe.

"Who made those glasses and how protective are they really?" he said. "If there's damage to the retina, some people will have to deal with the injury for the rest of their lives."

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But Mike Kentrianakis of the American Astronomical Society said glasses that have the approval of the International Organization for Standardization, or ISO, have proven to be safe and effective. The problem is that some opportunists are selling counterfeit glasses, ISO logo and all.

He said the best way to be sure that eclipse glasses work properly is to try them on and look at a bright light  everything other than the light should be barely visible.

"If you can see faint florescent lights in your home or make out any details indoors, or even outdoors (in sunlight), they're no good," he said.

Researchers have gauged the toll of eye injuries from previous eclipses and reached varying conclusions. One study found that 1 in 7 people who sustained eye injuries during a 1999 eclipse claimed to have used safety glasses or welder's masks.

"No additional information about these devices was provided, so it is likely that some or all of them were homemade, not certified as safe, or otherwise deficient," the society said in a summation of the research. "In any case, all patients in this study recovered their vision after several weeks."

The demand for glasses has factories churning  one manufacturer, Tennessee-based American Paper Optics, has said it wants to crank out 100 million pairs  and prices spiking.

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A five-pack offered last week on Amazon for $19.95 was going for $39.95 Monday. On eBay, one vendor wanted $24.95 for a single pair  and within hours had sold more than 100.

One answer to the price gouging has been to buy in bulk. Rachel Hambleton of Evanston found a 25-pack that, with shipping, worked out to $6.50 a pair. She quickly rounded up other parents on Facebook who were eager to share in the haul, finding the response so great that she placed a second order.

"I'm still getting people asking me (for the glasses)," she said. "I say, 'You'll have to check with the other moms. I've already ordered 50.'"

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The Adler Planetarium has served as a major distributor of eclipse glasses after ordering 200,000 from American Astronomical Society-endorsed manufacturer Rainbow Symphony. It gave the Chicago Public Library part of the supply, and also is selling them in the gift shop for $2.50 a pair.

Other libraries have secured a cache of glasses through grants by a STEM-related organization. The Oak Lawn Public Library has already given out about 200 pairs, but is holding back about 800 for people who show up on eclipse day.

"Even if they come in droves, we'll have glasses for them," said Emily Kenny, the library's youth services associate. "We feel confident in that."

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In the end, supply and demand have a way of working out. By Monday evening, Larson finally got a response to her Craigslist ad: A seller offered her and her husband a five-pack of eclipse glasses for $30.

"Looks like we'll be the ones with extras," she said.

jkeilman@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @JohnKeilman
Alexis Byun, 31, lives in Chicago but grew up in Guam. Shes holding a Guam flag that she displays in her car. (Alexandra Wimley / Chicago Tribune )

Chicagoan Amiel Cabiling grew up in Guam, and he says it is truly an island paradise: White sand beaches. Crystal-clear water. Warm, carefree days that seem to stretch on forever.

"You're like a 12-year-old retired person," he says.

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But with Guam threatened by North Korea amid a war of words with the U.S., Cabiling says he is concerned  perhaps for the first time  about the safety of the tiny island in the Western Pacific and his relatives living there.

"This is something out of the ordinary and very new to my family and the people of Guam," said Cabiling, a 37-year-old information technology director. "We've been through 7.2-magnitude earthquakes. We've been through huge, huge typhoons. And we prepare for things like that. But how do you prepare for a missile that can essentially hit any part of the island?"

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The threat to the island seemed to ease somewhat Tuesday, when North Korean leader Kim Jong Un indicated he would stand down from his threat to Guam. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also sought to lower tensions, saying "we continue to be interested in finding a way to get to a dialogue."

Cabiling, who moved to the U.S. in 2002, said his parents and two sisters still live in Guam, and for now, they are taking a wait-and-see approach to the crisis. President Donald Trump has said if North Korean threats persist, they would be met by "fire and fury"; North Korea has said it might fire missiles into waters near Guam, an American territory and strategic base.

Cabiling said his mother thought about flying to the Philippines for safety but decided to stay put. Cabiling said he finds it increasingly difficult to watch the news. "I just don't like thinking about it," he said.

Illinois has only an estimated 1,716 Guamanian or Chamorro people in the state, which includes those who have a mixed heritage, according to the Census Bureau's 2011-15 American Community Survey.

"There aren't many of us here," said social worker Alexis Byun, 31, who was raised in Guam but has lived in Chicago for the past decade. While she does not feel part of a cohesive Guamanian community here, Byun said the new friends she has made "care about me enough to check in on me and worry about me. Most people have no idea what or where Guam is  for most people this is international news. But for me, I would say it's on my mind. And the concern is increasing."

While there have been threats from North Korea and tensions in the past, Byun said she is especially concerned now because of the heated rhetoric from Trump and Kim. "When you are from Guam, you get used to hearing North Korea's threats. But the words used by the president do concern me," she said.

Raised in Guam until she was 18, Byun talks regularly on the phone to her mother  who, like her, is a social worker there. "She says she is not worried, but I wonder if part of not sharing the worries is because she doesn't want me to worry about her."

In a phone call made public Saturday, Trump assured the island's governor, Eddie Calvo, that Guam is safe, and said North Korea's threat to create "an enveloping fire" around the tiny island would only boost tourism there "tenfold."

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"We are with you 1,000 percent," Trump said in the call, which was posted on Calvo's Facebook page and other social media accounts. "You are safe."

Chicago food and hospitality executive Aeron Lancero, 44, said his relatives on the island were heartened by Calvo's recent assurances. "Even though President Trump's verbiage is controversial, we do appreciate the fact that he reached out and that the American government has our back," Lancero said. "It is really clear that the government is trying to put people at ease."

With a population of about 160,000 people, the U.S. territory is roughly 2,200 miles southeast of North Korea in the Western Pacific.

Shop owner Gil Park, 41, said it annoys him that people take Kim's nuclear threat seriously. "All the media attention is just fueling his ego," said Park, who grew up in Guam but has lived in Chicago for a dozen years. "Next month, they'll be talking about something else."

Park said he talks regularly with relatives on the island and they also are jaded by the repeated threats from Kim in recent years. "I am used to him threatening us all the time," he said. "It's all talk. It's all rhetoric. I don't think anybody on the island really cares."

The Tribune's David Jackson and Tony Briscoe contributed.

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A longtime Cook County judge and a top prosecutor repeatedly shouted at each other Monday at a tense hearing over whether a pregnant woman should have been jailed without bail for more than a month this summer.

"I have every right to hold her," said Judge Nicholas Ford, a former prosecutor known for imposing tough sentences.

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"You do not!" countered First Assistant State's Attorney Eric Sussman, his voice raised.

At times, the argument grew so heated that the two talked over each other, making their comments nearly unintelligible, as Karen Padilla stood nearby with her 3-week-old daughter strapped on her chest in a carrier.

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Padilla, 25, was arrested in June when Chicago police pulled her over for a traffic violation and found she had a warrant for her arrest dating to February 2016 for allegedly violating probation and then failing to show up for court.

At a hearing in June in the Leighton Criminal Court Building, Ford ordered Padilla, then more than seven months pregnant, held without bail until her next court date two months later. Padilla gave birth while in custody  a "horrible, stressing" experience, she said.

On Monday, Sussman argued that the judge violated Illinois law when he did not grant her a hearing on the probation violation within two weeks.

Ford insisted he was within his rights, setting up an unusually combative confrontation between the old-guard judge and the second-in-command to State's Attorney Kim Foxx, who was elected last year on promises of reform.

Foxx has been openly skeptical of the cash-bail system, particularly when defendants charged with minor nonviolent offenses languish in jail because they can't afford to post as little as a few hundred dollars in cash. Her office has started allowing its prosecutors to recommend that some defendants be released on their own recognizance  a move that some judges have privately criticized as improper.

"Mr. Sussman, this is simple," Ford said.

"No, it's not," Sussman interjected, his voice raised, and the two again began to shout over each other.

"She had to give birth to her daughter in jail!" said Sussman, noting that Padilla couldn't afford to pay restitution or fees as she was ordered. "This is not a debtor's prison you're running, your honor ... and you illegally sentenced her to jail."

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"I didn't sentence her to anything," Ford shot back, and the two again began to argue back-and-forth until the judge threatened Sussman with contempt of court.

Underlying criminal offenses led him to jail Padilla without bail, the judge said, "whether the state wants to acknowledge it or not." Ford accused Sussman of not understanding the potential damage a felony conviction could have on Padilla's future.

Over the course of the debate, Ford alluded to a new probation violation, stemming from Padilla's June arrest.

That petition for violation of probation was filed Monday under Foxx's name, but the line where a prosecutor's signature should go was blank, records show. The only signature on the petition appears to be Ford's.

Padilla's case dates to October 2015, when she was arrested after her employer caught her pocketing cash from customers at the South Loop restaurant where she worked, according to police records.

Ford gave Padilla "second-chance probation," meaning her case would be dismissed entirely after two years if she met certain terms. But she was arrested a short time later by suburban Northfield police for speeding and driving without a license, court records show. Prosecutors filed a petition for violation of probation, and when she didn't show up at a February 2016 court date, Ford issued a no-bail warrant for her arrest.

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She was nowhere to be found for more than 500 days, Ford said, until her arrest this June.

"You were a fugitive," Ford told Padilla on Monday.

At that point, Padilla's infant daughter, Anayah, began to whimper. Padilla bounced up and down gently on her feet trying to soothe her.

The problems began when Padilla tried to change her address with the probation office, she told reporters after the hearing. Despite her attempts, probation still mailed notices to Padilla's mother's house, and she didn't know she had been summoned to court until she picked up her mail there, she said.

When she called her probation officer, Padilla said she was told a warrant had been issued and that she likely would be arrested if she came to court, she said.

"I was like, 'I'm not going back to jail, so I'm just not going to report,'" she said. "I guess I could have just turned myself in or something, but I didn't."

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Police pulled her over in the Heart of Chicago neighborhood on June 19 for having a cracked headlight, according to police records and the Cook County sheriff's office. Officers found the old warrant and brought her back in front of Ford that week.

While in custody, she gave birth  earlier than her due date, she suspects, because of the stress.

Sheriff authorities soon alerted authorities to Padilla's predicament. If she wasn't released on her own recognizance soon, the infant would have to be turned over to a relative or given to state child-welfare officials.

"It can't be the state of affairs in this county that if you miss a court date you lose your baby for a month," Cara Smith, chief policy officer for the sheriff's office, said Monday.

Before Padilla was released from the hospital, Smith said, the case needed to go before a judge and Ford was not available, so a different judge ordered Padilla released on her own recognizance.

At times during Monday's hearing, Ford seemed to hint that prosecutors were only paying such close attention to the case because of recent ABC-Ch. 7 coverage.

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"They didn't cry foul after two weeks, they didn't cry foul after three weeks," he raged from the bench.

Ford said when he watched the news report, he saw footage of Padilla driving  another potential crime, since she does not have a driver's license.

"I watched Channel 7 news. I watched you drive a car," Ford told her Monday. "That would be the fourth violation of probation. I saw it!"

Ford ordered prosecutors to subpoena the news footage to see if it indeed was Padilla driving.

Sussman bristled, saying that such an order may violate the principle of separation of powers.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do," Ford said. "I've never been a witness to the (probation) violation."

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"Maybe you should be recused," Sussman said.

Ford declined, then granted the request of both Sussman and Padilla's assistant public defender and released her again on her own recognizance, with a warning that her continued freedom would depend on her behavior.

Padilla said she has never had a driver's license, and while she admitted to reporters that it was her driving a car in the local news footage, she said she does not drive anymore. Instead, she said she stays in or uses ride-sharing services.

She said she may try to get a loan to pay off her outstanding restitution and probation fees. And if anything happens to her, her mother will take care of the baby, she said.

Padilla said she will be fine "as long as my baby's in good hands."

mcrepeau@chicagotribune.com

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Three men in a vehicle led police officers on a nearly 6-mile chase before crashing on Lake Shore Drive near the Kenwood neighborhood on Monday night, authorities said.

Officers were responding to a call of gunfire in the 7500 block of South Lafayette Avenue in the West Chatham neighborhood on the South Side just before 10 p.m. when the vehicle took off on them, police said.

Officers pursued the fleeing vehicle until it crashed into another vehicle in the 4700 block of South Lake Shore Drive near Kenwood.

Three male occupants were arrested, and a weapon was found, police said.
Tyrone Coleman, the mayor of downstate Cairo, has been selected by Democratic governor candidate Ameya Pawar to serve as his running mate. (Todd Panagopoulos / Chicago Tribune)

Democratic governor candidate Ameya Pawar has selected Tyrone Coleman, the mayor of downstate Cairo, to serve as his running mate in the campaign for the March primary nomination.

The Chicago alderman's choice of the little-known mayor of a financially troubled community at the state's southern point was emblematic of his "One Illinois" campaign theme, Pawar said.

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Coleman, a Cairo native, "embodies the struggle everybody in every town in Illinois is experiencing," Pawar said.

"For too long our state has been under the control of the plutocracy and big corporations that put profits over people and political insiders who enable them, leaving all the rest of us fighting over scraps," he said.

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"While (Republican Gov.) Bruce Rauner and (President) Donald Trump divide our country based on where they live and what they look like, Mayor Coleman and I will work to bring our state together and lead the fight to bring our state back from the plutocracy and special interests so everyone has a fair shake at the American Dream," he said.

Pawar is the second among the Democratic contenders for governor to pick a candidate for lieutenant governor. Businessman J.B. Pritzker last week picked first-term state Rep. Juliana Stratton of Chicago for his ticket.

Like Stratton, Coleman is African-American. His pairing with Pawar creates a diverse teaming of a candidate of Indian descent with a black running mate.

Coleman has been mayor of the community of about 2,400 people since 2011. He is a retired Marine, former pastor and radio host. While Coleman is joining a Democratic ticket, last year he endorsed the re-election of Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Bost of Murphysboro.

At the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, Cairo most recently has been plagued by a public housing scandal, with federal authorities setting up plans to relocate residents to other communities.

Pawar said Cairo was a "microcosm" of what is happening in many Illinois communities after years of disinvestment. "People are often portrayed as weak and broken, but the people there are strong and resilient and they're stitching things together to make it a better place," he said.

Pawar is scheduled to formally introduce his running mate via video on Tuesday, with the first public appearance of the two together at a 6 p.m. rally in his 47th Ward at DANK Haus German American Cultural Center.

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Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner on Aug. 15, 2017, accused Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan of raising uncertainty about whether schools would open in an effort to force legislators to buck his veto of an education funding bill. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune)

Welcome to Clout Street: Morning Spin, our weekday feature to catch you up with what's going on in government and politics from Chicago to Springfield. Subscribe here.

Topspin

Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner is repeating his charge that lower property assessments won by Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan's law firm take money away from Chicago Public Schools.

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Appearing on WGN Radio's "Steve Cochran Show" on Monday to try to pitch support for his veto rewrite of the school funding bill that the Senate overrode Sunday, Rauner again lashed out at his chief political nemesis Madigan on the property tax issue.

"Speaker Madigan is in Chicago cutting insider deals to reduce the property taxes on downtown office buildings. He's become a millionaire doing that and he's taking money away from Chicago Public Schools by his insider building evaluations and tax reductions he's been doing for years," the governor said.

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"Chicago students get less money because of those insider shenanigans," Rauner said.

The governor is wrong, however.

Madigan's law firm may help secure a reduction in property assessments, upon which property tax bills are based. But a reduction in a property assessment doesn't take money away from the schools.

CPS' levy of taxes to be collected remains the same. But when a property assessment is lowered, the burden for paying the property taxes is shifted onto other property taxpayers.

Rep. Lou Lang, a Democrat from Skokie who serves as a top deputy on Madigan's leadership team, called the allegation "a huge stretch."

"The levy is the levy. This does not take away a single dollar from the school district," Lang said. "It's just paid by different people. It's just ludicrous for him to sell this story to the people of Illinois."

Madigan spokesman Steve Brown also weighed in: "The governor has suffered a lot of setbacks. He's bungled a few things in the last few days, so maybe he should go back and focus on doing his job." (Rick Pearson and Monique Garcia)

What's on tap

*Mayor Rahm Emanuel will welcome a class of Chicago Police Department recruits in the morning.

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*Gov. Rauner is set to have five events at the Illinois State Fair in Springfield. In the morning, he'll speak at an agriculture breakfast and sign a bill related to police dogs. In the afternoon, he'll proclaim an Illinoisan of the day, sign agriculture bills into law and attend the Governor's Sale of Champions livestock auction.

*The City Club of Chicago will host an education funding panel featuring two Republican lawmakers and two Democrats.

*U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth will appear at Irene C. Hernandez Middle School in Chicago in the morning to talk about anti-hunger initiatives. Later, she will ride the CTA Blue Line to highlight accessibility issues and tour Union Station to hear about redevelopment plans. In the early afternoon, Duckworth will give remarks at the Industrial Council of Nearwest Chicago.

From the notebook

*IEA up with radio ads urging SB1 override: The Illinois Education Association, the union representing most teachers outside Chicago, is up with a new one-minute radio ad urging residents to ask their state House member to override Gov. Rauner's veto of the general state-aid funding plan.

"In August, there's always excitement as children get ready to return to school. But this year excitement has been replaced by anxiety.

Anxiety because Gov. Rauner vetoed the school funding bill," a female narrator says in the ad.

"Our schools need the funding SB1 provides. Gov. Rauner was elected to help kids, not act like one," the narrator says. "Please call Springfield and urge your state rep to override Gov. Rauner's veto of SB1."

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The Senate already has overridden Rauner's veto. Attention now turns to the House, which convenes to consider an override Tuesday. (Rick Pearson)

*Trump puts U. of C. prof on Council of Economic Advisers: Tomas J. Philipson, a University of Chicago economist, has been appointed a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, the White House announced Monday.

Philipson's specialty is health care economics, according to his U. of C. bio. He held federal government posts under President George W. Bush and was a senior health care adviser to Sen. John McCain during his 2008 unsuccessful campaign for the White House, the bio said. (Katherine Skiba)

*Krishnamoorthi wants commission to probe how to combat hate crimes: U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi on Monday said he is drafting a bill to create a bipartisan commission to report to Congress after examining what the freshman Democrat termed a "national surge" in hate crimes.

The lawmaker from Schaumburg made the announcement after Saturday's deadly protest in Charlottesville, Va., where a Nazi sympathizer from Ohio is in custody, accused of plowing his car into a crowd of counterprotesters and killing one.

"The events in Charlottesville and the hate-motivated crimes we've witnessed across the country demand a response, and this commission will report to Congress on the scale of the problem, the causes for the increase in hate crimes and how we may best combat it," he said.

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Congress is on its August break. A majority in the Republican-led House and Senate would need to agree for Krishnamoorthi's hoped-for commission to become a reality. (Katherine Skiba)

*New Durkin staffer: Eleni Demertzis is the new spokeswoman for House Republican leader Jim Durkin, fresh off leaving Gov. Rauner's office amid the staff shakeup last month. She has worked for the House Republicans previous, as well as with U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk and the Cook County sheriff's office. "Eleni's professionalism and experience working with media from all corners of the state will be an asset to me and to the communications efforts for our entire caucus," Durkin said in a memo to lawmakers.

What we're writing

*Rauner attacks Democrats a day after they moved to override his education veto.

*Rauner scrambles to call Charlottesville death 'domestic terrorism' after Democrats' criticism.

*Emanuel: 'Members of the neo-Nazi and the KKK think they have a friend in the Oval Office.'

*Federal judge orders Illinois to find way to pay for disability services program.

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*Former Miss America Erika Harold to mount Republican bid against Democratic Attorney General Lisa Madigan.

*Democratic governor hopeful Pawar picks Cairo mayor as running mate.

*Manager of U.K., Irish lotteries makes pitch to run Illinois Lottery.

What we're reading

*Chicago cop involved in off-duty shooting indefinitely put on desk duty.

*Mike Houlihan writes book about the 2015 mayoral election, calls the mayor a .little, nine-fingered ballerina.'

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*Chicago Tribune parent nears deal to move from Tribune Tower to south of river.

Follow the money

*Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle reported $57,500 in donations, including a $50,000 contribution from the Chicagoland Operators Joint Labor Management PAC.

*Track Illinois campaign contributions in real time here and here.

Beyond Chicago



*Trump says 'racism is evil.'

*White nationalists plan more events.

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*Trump considers pardon of Arpaio.

*North Korean missile test could be linked to Ukraine.
A former Miss America and unsuccessful congressional candidate on Tuesday announced a Republican bid for attorney general for the chance to challenge four-term Democrat Lisa Madigan.

"Today in Illinois, it's nearly impossible to find opportunity and live out your dreams. Instead, career politicians have made it a nightmare for too many families in our state," Erika Harold says in a two-minute video announcing her candidacy.

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"You deserve a state government that works for the people, not the powerful," says Harold, of Urbana. "Changing the status quo is never easy. And I need your help to do it. Together, let's defeat the special interests and send the politicians packing."

The 37-year-old Harold is an attorney at the Meyer Capel law firm in Champaign. She graduated from the University of Illinois in 2001 and received a law degree from Harvard Law School in 2007. A 2003 winner of the Miss America pageant, she used her platform to launch a program to combat bullying in schools.

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In 2004, Harold was a Republican National Convention delegate and spoke on stage on behalf of the faith-based initiatives of a re-election-seeking President George W. Bush.

A decade later, Harold lost a primary challenge to Republican U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis of Taylorville by about 7,000 votes in central Illinois' 13th Congressional District.

The video launching Harold's campaign, funded in part by the Illinois Republican Party, begins by showing a frequent target of both the state GOP and Gov. Bruce Rauner  Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan, the father of Lisa Madigan.

"Protecting the powerful. Squashing reform. Crushing the little guy to preserve the status quo. That's what Springfield does. The Madigan way," a narrator says in the video.

The state GOP, which is heavily subsidized by Rauner, is using a standard template of attacking Democrats across the ballot by attempting to link them to Speaker Madigan. That makes Attorney General Madigan an easy target.

Politically, Harold is a conservative with some views that stand in contrast to the attorney general, who lately has been using the office to join with other Democratic state prosecutors to try to block some of the more controversial moves of the Trump administration.

When she ran for Congress, Harold opposed abortion rights and same-sex marriage and supported gun-owner rights. She also has opposed legalization of marijuana and backed a repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

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NEW YORK  President Donald Trump on Tuesday revived his declaration that "both sides" were to blame for deadly violence at a white supremacist rally over the weekend in Charlottesville, abandoning his message from a day earlier that had emphasized the culpability of the groups that organized and participated in the event.

In a remarkable show of defiance, Trump insisted during a combative exchange with reporters at Trump Tower in Manhattan that there were "two sides to a story" just a day after he had belatedly condemned racist hate groups for the mayhem that left a woman dead and many other people injured.

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Trump - clearly chafing at the political backlash over his handling of the situation and his aides' attempts to rein him in - also appeared eager to cast aspersions on the counterprotesters, who he said acted "very, very violently" and "came charging with clubs in their hand" at the rally participants.

"Do they have any semblance of guilt?" he asked rhetorically. "Do they have any problem? I think they do."

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The president also made clear that he believes that many of the participants in the Unite the Right rally were taking part in a lawful demonstration against the Charlottesville city council's decision to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from a public square.

"You had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists, okay?" Trump said. "And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly."

There were some "fine people" among the counterprotesters, he added, but also "troublemakers" in "black outfits and with the helmets and with the baseball bats. . . . You had a lot of bad people in the other group."

Trump's remarks represented a rebuke of the broad array of political, civic and cultural leaders who had called on him over the past several days to clearly and firmly denounce the hate groups and offer support for the victims of the violence. Under mounting pressure to set a clear moral tone for the nation, he instead lashed out defensively against criticism that he had fanned the flames of racial divisions and, in doing so, failed a crucial test of his presidency.

During the remarks - which caught senior aides watching from the lobby by surprise - Trump appeared far more passionate in defending many of the rally participants than he had in his more muted denunciation of the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis a day earlier at the White House, where he read from prepared remarks. Visibly irritated, he parried with reporters and spoke over them, refusing several times to let them cut him off.

Speaking off the cuff, Trump compared Founding Fathers George Washington and Thomas Jefferson to Lee and Gen. Stonewall Jackson, Confederate commanders during the Civil War. He suggested that the former presidents might face the same fate and have their memorials removed because they owned slaves.

"You're changing history," Trump said. "You're changing culture."

Asked if he was putting the left-leaning counterprotesters on the same moral plane as the white supremacists, he replied: "I'm not putting anybody on a moral plane. . . . There was a group on this side, you can call them the left - you've just called them the left - that came violently attacking the other group. So you can say what you want, but that's the way it is."

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Lawmakers from both political parties quickly denounced the president's remarks, with Republicans growing more vocal in their criticism than they had been in recent days. In a six-part Twitter message, Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) declared the rally organizers to be "100% to blame," and he pleaded with Trump to hold them accountable.

"Mr. President, you can't allow #WhiteSupremacists to share only part of blame," he wrote. He added: "The #WhiteSupremacy groups will see being assigned only 50% of blame as a win. We can not allow this old evil to be resurrected."

But the president's performance also won raves from white nationalist leaders, some of whom had begun to criticize him after he called their groups "repugnant to all we hold dear as Americans" in a statement Monday.

Trump reiterated Tuesday that neo-Nazis and white nationalists should be "totally condemned." But he spent little time talking about those groups and instead pivoted repeatedly to defending the "alt-right," a loose coalition of conservative and fringe groups that back a nationalist agenda and have been widely criticized as racist and xenophobic.

"What about the alt-left that came charging at the alt-right?" Trump said.

David Duke, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, praised the president on Twitter for his "honesty & courage to tell the truth about #Charlottesville & condemn the leftist terrorists in BLM/Antifa" - using shorthand for the Black Lives Matter and anti-fascist movements.

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The result was that a president whose seven months on the job have been marked by scandal, West Wing infighting and a stalled legislative agenda found himself again on the defensive - at least in part because of his stubbornness and willingness to step on his intended message.

Trump had come down to the Trump Tower lobby to announce a new executive action on infrastructure, hoping to pressure lawmakers on a key agenda item.

The plan was for the president, flanked by Cabinet members, to make a brief announcement and display a complicated flow chart of regulatory requirements for builders that his administration hopes to streamline, said a person familiar with Trump's schedule. Then, the president would step aside and allow his deputies to answer reporters' questions about the specifics of the plan.

Instead, Trump began fielding questions. Chief of Staff John Kelly - a former homeland security secretary brought in two weeks ago to help bring order to a chaotic and undisciplined White House - stood on the side looking grim-faced, his head bowed and arms crossed during some of the question-and-answer session.

"People inside the White House are aware the press conference did not go well," said one Republican operative who is in frequent contact with senior West Wing officials. "Trump had a bad day here."

It is not clear whether the president would agree. As his approval ratings have plummeted to well below 40 percent, he has moved to appeal directly to his base of hardcore supporters.

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On Tuesday morning, he retweeted a doctored cartoon image of a Trump train running into an man with a CNN logo superimposed on his head. The tweet was soon deleted after criticism that it was insensitive in the wake of the death of Heather Heyer, 32, who was killed in Charlottesville when a car plowed into a group of counterprotesters. Prosecutors have charged James Alex Fields Jr., 20, of Ohio in the case.

In the Trump Tower lobby, Trump seized on a "beautiful" Monday statement from Heyer's mother, Susan Bro, who had thanked the president "for denouncing those who promote violence and hatred," to make the case that he has handled the situation with care.

"It was something I really appreciated," he said. "I thought it was terrific. And really, under the kind of stress that she's under and the heartache that she's under, I thought putting out that statement to me was really something I won't forget."

He promised to reach out to her but did not say when.

Nakamura reported from Washington.
Gunnar Birkerts was a professor at the University of Michigans architecture school and taught at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. ( Family photo )

Gunnar Birkerts, an acclaimed Detroit-area architect who designed major buildings throughout the Midwest, including the former Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and an addition to the University of Michigan Law Library, died Tuesday.

Birkerts, 92, died at home in the Boston suburb of Needham, Mass., where he had moved to be near family, according to his daughter-in-law, Alison Ranney of Chicago. The cause of death was congestive heart failure.

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Birkerts was best known for light-filled modernist buildings that reflected the Scandinavian architectural tradition that influenced him. Many were essays in bold curves or angular, irregular shapes.

"Straight-line geometry is very man-made," he said in a 2003 interview with the Detroit Free Press. "The angle is what we find in nature. And if I can work with a form that moves, I can express the nature of the building."

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Born in Riga, Latvia, in 1925, Birkerts escaped his native country during World War II and graduated from the Technische Hochschule in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1949. One of his influences was the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto. According to Birkerts' family, he arrived in the U.S. in 1949.

After a brief stint at the Chicago firm of Perkins and Will, Birkerts moved to the Detroit area in the early 1950s when that city's architectural scene was surging with energy.

He worked for Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., where his colleagues included such future stars as Cesar Pelli, Kevin Roche and Robert Venturi. He later became chief designer at the firm of architect Minoru Yamasaki, the architect of New York's World Trade Center. In 1963, he established his own firm, Gunnar Birkerts and Associates in the Detroit suburb of Birmingham.

One of Birkerts' major works, the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank of 1973, was among a series of projects around the nation that departed from the staid, neoclassical bank buildings of the past. It used suspension bridge technology, boldly expressed in an arch on its glass exterior. The bank later was converted into a commercial office building.

At the University of Michigan Law Library addition of 1981, Birkerts did not mimic the Collegiate Gothic architecture of the school's celebrated law quadrangle. Instead, he shaped an underground building that felt like anything but a basement. It used large "light wells" to bring in natural light from several directions, ingeniously directing it to three below-ground levels.

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Among Birkerts' other buildings are the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, N.Y., the south wing of the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Mo., the University of Iowa's Boyd Law Building and St. Peter's Lutheran Church in the small-town architectural mecca of Columbus, Ind.

In 2014, Birkerts realized a work of great personal meaning, the Latvian National Library in Riga. That design, inspired by the mythical Glass Mountain of Latvian folklore, is know known as "The Castle of Light."

Birkerts was a professor at the University of Michigan's architecture school and taught at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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His honors included a gold medal from the Michigan Society of Architects and awards from the American Institute of Architects.

Survivors include his wife of 67 years, Sylvia; three children, Sven, Andra and Erik; and 7 grandchildren.

bkamin@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @BlairKamin
Pakistani Nobel Peace Laureate Malala Yousafzai meets with students of the University in Arbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, on July 11, 2017. (Safin Hamed / AFP/Getty Images)

On July 7, Malala Yousafzai posted her first tweet. Within hours, she had earned several hundred thousand followers and a warm welcome from the Twittersphere. Over the next few days, as word emerged on social media that she had recently graduated from high school and celebrated her 20th birthday, she garnered effusive praise and hearty congratulations from scores of Twitter users, including philanthropists, politicians and entertainers.

The reaction seems only natural, given Malala's story  her journey from getting shot in the head as a schoolgirl by a Taliban gunman in 2012, to becoming a Nobel Prize-winning advocate for female education worldwide, working out of her home in the United Kingdom since 2013.

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And yet, as always, some of her fellow Pakistanis reacted in a starkly different fashion.

Many on Pakistani Twitter decried her as shameful and traitorous. When I posted a tweet lamenting such characterizations, Pakistanis responded with fresh torrents of opprobrium for their compatriot. The criticism boiled down to this: There's nothing special about Malala. Many Pakistani children suffer worse fates than Malala. What has Malala ever done for Pakistan? Why does the world love Malala so much? And if Malala really cares about Pakistan, why doesn't she come back? The vitriol also included a bizarre but common conspiracy theory: Her shooting was staged.

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To be sure, many Pakistanis admire and embrace Malala. Readers of the Herald, a Pakistani magazine, voted her person of the year for 2012. In 2014, a Pew survey found that 30 percent of respondents had a favorable view of her (a relatively low figure, but still higher than the 20 percent with unfavorable views).

But Malala is no national hero.

In media interviews over the past few years, Pakistanis of various stripes  students, traders, shop owners, journalists, housewives and even rights activists  have registered their disapproval of Malala. Such disapproval occasionally takes more organized form: In November 2014, just a month after she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the All Pakistan Private Schools' Federation  which claimed to represent 150,000 schools  announced an "I Am Not Malala" day and called for her memoir, "I Am Malala," to be banned. Enmity even emanates from her own community. In May, a Pakistani parliamentarian from Swat, Malala's home region, said the attack was preplanned and staged by a variety of players  and with official Pakistani government connivance no less.

The Robert De Niro story

On one level, such sentiment owes to the power of conspiracy theories. They're ubiquitous in Pakistan, where they're seen in school textbooks and heard in religious sermons and on prime-time television shows.

In 2013, the website of Dawn, a Pakistani newspaper that caters to the country's English-speaking, well-educated elite, published a savagely satirical blog post on Malala's shooting. It "revealed" how a CIA mission orchestrated the shooting. The triggerman? American actor Robert De Niro ("posing as an Uzbek homeopath"). Such are the depths of the power of conspiracy theories in Pakistan that some readers actually believed this absurd tale. Dawn had to add a caveat that the piece was fictitious.

Pakistan's middle class is the top conjurer and consumer of such conspiracies. But others embrace them too.

The implication is clear: If you believe the attack on Malala was staged, then you have no reason to respect her, much less revere her.

Conspiratorial thinking about Malala is strengthened by Pakistanis' deep mistrust of the West, where she is now based. Many suspect it of harboring designs on their country. Many Pakistanis contend that the West  through its strong embrace of Malala and the allegedly unlimited access it grants her to prominent platforms and top power corridors  is using her for its own purposes, whatever they may be.

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The disclosure in 2013 that Malala's family had retained Edelman, a top American public relations firm, to assist with her media management has only heightened these suspicions. So have the views of Malala and her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, which align with many in the West. Ziauddin has been associated with the Awami National Party, a leftist and secular political party in a conservative and deeply religious country.

Pakistanis' conspiratorial thinking is so powerful that Malala's actual work and messaging, much of which serves Pakistan in the most concrete and unglamorous of ways, is conveniently disregarded. The Malala Fund oversees several programs in Pakistan. According to the fund's website, these include providing educational opportunities to girls that had been domestic laborers; establishing educational programming for children fleeing conflict; and repairing classrooms and providing school supplies for girls' schools affected by flooding.

Jealousy and skepticism

And yet, there's more to this story than conspiracies. For all the talk of anti-Malala sentiment being the product of delusional thinking, such hostility can also be explained by a basic and ugly truth: Pakistan's lack of upward mobility and rigid class divides.

In Pakistan, upward mobility is a very tall order. The poor struggle mightily to escape to prosperity.

And yet Malala bucked the trend and rose to the very top, from schoolteacher's daughter to embodiment of the global elite. True, Malala was not living in abject poverty in her early years; her father owned a school and was an English-speaking activist. Still, she's in a far different place today  both literally and figuratively  than she was five years ago.

Pakistanis aren't used to seeing this type of transformation  and particularly one that happens so quickly. And so, this disorienting reality provokes a range of responses. For some, it's admiration. For others, it's jealousy. For still others, it's skepticism, suspicion, and outright hostility. As Aamer Raza, an assistant professor at the University of Peshawar, recently put it to me, "Maybe the perceived repeated failure of people to climb the social ladder ... make(s) people distrustful of people who become rich soon without visible reasons like a sporting or performing arts career."

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Additionally, in a deeply patriarchal society, Malala's gender raises even more suspicion about her transformation. A male Malala would be far more likely to be welcomed as a hero, not slated as a traitor.

Malala personifies what is admirable about Pakistan and its people: youth, resilience, bravery and patriotism. But her story also holds up a mirror to the country's dark side, not just in terms of terrorism, misogyny and conspiracy-mongering, but also its deep class divides and the sharply divergent worldviews generated by such fissures.

This is the Pakistan to which Malala hopes to one day return: a complex and divided nation where somebody's hero is often somebody else's villain.

Foreign Policy

Michael Kugelman is Asia Program deputy director and senior associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.
Washington  If there was one silver lining to President Donald Trump's election, it was supposed to be this: Those who voted for Trump because of, rather than despite, his demonization of Muslims and Hispanics; who fear a "majority minority" America; and who wax nostalgic for the Jim Crow era were mostly old white people.

Which meant they and their abhorrent prejudices would soon pass on  and be replaced by generations of younger, more racially enlightened Americans.

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The white nationalist rally this past weekend in Charlottesville, Va., shows that this is a myth. Racist grandpas may be dying out, but their bigotry is regenerating in today's youths.

Yes, there were swastika-tattooed, Ku Klux Klan-hooded 50-somethings on the streets of Charlottesville. The most chilling photos, however, show hordes of torch-bearing, fresh-faced, "fashy"-coiffed white men in their teens and 20s.

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Millennials overall are more racially tolerant than earlier generations  but that's because young people today are less likely to be white.

Some marchers in this youth brigade are still students, one the leader of his campus chapter of the College Republicans. And some did more than march.

The driver accused of murdering counterprotester Heather Heyer and injuring 19 is a 20-year-old white man.

He would of course not be the first radicalized young white man to commit an act of domestic terrorism. There was the then-21-year-old white male who murdered nine African-Americans at a Charleston, South Carolina, church in 2015, and the 28-year-old white Baltimore man who in March allegedly rode a bus to New York in search of black men to kill at random.

A recent Joint Intelligence Bulletin, obtained by Foreign Policy magazine, details plenty of other attacks perpetrated by young white-supremacist men.

The public faces of the white supremacist "alt-right" movement are likewise skewing younger. David Duke is still around, but as a charismatic figurehead he has mostly been displaced by the likes of 39-year-old Richard Spencer, 26-year-old Matthew Heimbach and 29-year-old Tim "Baked Alaska" Gionet.

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 40 People fly into the air as a vehicle drives into a group of protesters demonstrating against a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., on Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017. (Ryan M. Kelly/The Daily Progress)

These are not people whose backwardness we can write off as an unfortunate product of their time.

That is, we're not talking about young white Americans whose happy formative years took place in a world with (de jure) school segregation, redlining, anti-miscegenation laws and phrenology.

If any had family who fought for the Confederacy, they've been dead for at least a century. No one is telling them about the good ol' days on the plantation.

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If anything, parents of the Charlottesville rallygoers have professed ignorance or repudiation of their children's odious beliefs.

So why are millennials, of all people, at the forefront of the small but highly visible resurrection of neo-Nazism?

Some seem to be reactionaries, essentially trolls who may or may not truly believe the anti-Semitic and racist bile that they meme and share to get a rise out of the politically correct left. If youthful rebellion in the 1960s meant embracing free love, peace and equality, then today  at least for anti-anti-Trumpers  it is about promoting hatred and structural inequity.

Others may genuinely wish to burn the whole system down.

It is a flawed system, after all, one whose recent financial crisis irreparably scarred millennials' economic prospects. Most anti-establishment millennials have drifted toward leftist populist alternatives, but some have sorted into the opposite (and more violent) extreme. For right-wing populists, the key flaw with the system is not that it allows the rich to hoard all the money, but that it privileges undeserving minorities at innocent whites' expense.

We've already seen a version of this bifurcated youth populism take hold elsewhere. In France's first-round presidential election this year, more young voters chose the Communist-allied far-left candidate. But in second place was far-right ethno-nationalist Marine Le Pen.

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Here in the United States, extreme ideology and iconography may also no longer carry the same political baggage they once did. Just as "socialism" is not a toxic word to people who came of age after the Cold War, perhaps aligning with Nazis no longer seems as inherently, reflexively evil for those so far removed from World War II.

More significantly, the presumption that millennials are uniformly more progressive than earlier generations is false.

Millennials overall are more racially tolerant than earlier generations  but that's because young people today are less likely to be white. White millennials exhibit about as much racial prejudice, as measured by explicit bias, as white Gen Xers and boomers. Yet even young people know that overt racial animus is socially frowned upon, a deal-breaker for those seeking friends, spouses or gainful employment.

At least, they did, until the 2016 presidential campaign. Perhaps it's no wonder that some self-aggrandizing young white men heard a siren call in all those dog whistles: Tomorrow belongs to them.

Washington Post Writers Group

Catherine Rampell's email address is crampell@washpost.com.

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Twitter @crampell
Illinois Speaker of the House Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, talks on the floor of the Illinois House after they came to order and quickly adjourned during the second day of a special session on education funding at the Illinois State Capitol, Thursday, July 27, 2017, in Springfield, Ill./The State Journal-Register via AP) (Justin L. Fowler, The State Journal-Register via AP)

Members of the Illinois House are scheduled to be in Springfield on Wednesday, but don't expect a resolution to the school funding crisis  once again.

House Speaker Michael Madigan called the House back into session, but he reportedly plans to showboat instead of lead  once again. He should be scurrying to find common ground on a school funding compromise and not running down the clock  once again.

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But this is Illinois. Let schools and parents wait. Ratchet up the pressure. Govern via panic.

Madigan evidently doesn't yet have a compromise proposal to introduce, and it seems unlikely his chamber has the votes to override Gov. Bruce Rauner's changes to the bill  changes Rauner issued more than two weeks ago.

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So Madigan is calling House members to the Capitol for yet another hearing on education funding, and possibly to stage another stunt: File a separate bill containing the language of Rauner's veto, just so representatives can vote it down. That's pure politics. A gotcha moment for the speaker.

And it would still leave the fate of the school funding bill unresolved. Lawmakers have three choices: Override the governor's veto, so the bill becomes law despite his concerns. Take no action, which would kill the bill. Or come up with a compromise.

Wednesday's partisan theater, if it plays out as we suspect, comes at taxpayers' expense. Convening 118 House members in Springfield costs upward of $25,000 a day.

Not by accident, it's happening on Governor's Day at the Illinois State Fair. What would normally be a momentum-building, celebratory day for Rauner and Republicans will now be overshadowed by a gratuitous Democratic bashing  once again  of Rauner's changes to school funding legislation.

Here's what should be happening, nearly three months after lawmakers passed a school funding bill they knew the governor would amendatorily veto: legitimate talks on compromise. The House has roughly two weeks to act, following the Senate's Sunday override of Rauner's changes.

Maybe Republicans could support the Democrats' education funding bill if it included a tuition tax credit program for low- and middle-income families to attend private schools and public schools outside their districts. Even Madigan has signaled support for the idea.

Maybe Republicans would accept a compromise that included relief for school districts from redundant, annoying and expensive state mandates.

Democrats who don't like those proposals might be persuaded to stick with a compromise anyway if it includes the state, going forward, paying the annual costs of Chicago teachers' pensions. Rauner has suggested he would support that.

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But instead of urgently and genuinely carving out a compromise  and getting schools stabilized with funding for their school years that are fast approaching  the House is poised to do, well, next to nothing.

We hope we're wrong. We hope a compromise bubbles to the surface Wednesday. Or even Thursday.

But given the ego-driven nature of governance in Springfield, we won't hold our breath.

Join the discussion on Twitter @Trib_Ed_Board and on Facebook.

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Virginia State Police in riot gear stand in front of the statue of General Robert E. Lee before forcing white nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the "alt-right" out of Lee Park after the "Unite the Right" rally was declared an unlawful gathering August 12, 2017 in Charlottesville, Va. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

The odious spectacle in Virginia over the weekend ripped away the last fig leaves of "history," "education" and "heritage" that justified public statues, monuments and other glorified remembrances of leaders of the Confederacy.

The imperative to remove them  to remove all of them, quickly, dramatically, ostentatiously  has become urgent.

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The passion and hatred on display from the white nationalists, Klansmen and neo-Nazis who converged on Charlottesville to protest the town's plans to remove from a city park a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee astride his horse were unavoidably stark reminders that such memorials are (and always have been) monuments to treason, torture, racism and slavery.

Lee is one of the great villains of all time. He and Confederate President Jefferson Davis led a pro-slavery rebellion that resulted in the deaths of more than 600,000 people. When his Army of Northern Virginia invaded Pennsylvania, it captured free blacks and brought them back south into bondage. Lee's forces killed black Union soldiers who tried to surrender. And after his side lost, he argued forcefully against equal rights.

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Retelling this vile legacy as a noble defense of states' rights and regional prerogatives has been a goal of Southern defenders since Reconstruction. And up until recently, they more or less had their way. They normalized the Confederate battle flag, turning it into a mildly controversial symbol of Dixie and drawls. They transformed Lee into a courtly gentleman and master tactician who happened to pick the wrong side in the Civil War. And long after the war had ended, they used public property to advance their foul ends.

In 2016, the Southern Poverty Law Center identified more than 1,500 monuments, public schools, holidays, geographical place names and even U.S. military bases that honor the Confederacy.

Each one is its own little act of terrorism.

Each one sends a message to African-Americans that a segment of our population continues to celebrate the effort in the 1860s to preserve at all costs their legal status as subhuman. Each one indicates pride, not shame, at the depredations of the treasonous murderers who took up arms against their country to preserve the indefensible institution of slavery. Each one suggests a pernicious nostalgia for the bad old days and an upraised middle finger to those who believe in equality.

The argument that such honors are simply benign nods at what was good about the prebellum South, including the bravery of the men who fought for their home states, has vanished now that the white supremacists are so vehemently fighting  even killing for their preservation.

What, you think these Hitler sympathizers and race warriors are simply amateur historians? You think they're animated by a fondness for posterity?

No. With their torchlight parade, their sickening sloganeering and their hooting of monkey noises and ethnic slurs at blacks in Charlottesville they revealed their true motivation for wanting to preserve the statue of Robert E. Lee. The death of counter-demonstrator Heather Heyer, allegedly at the hands of one of their own, seared the linkage in the national consciousness.

No more denials. No more invocations of misty moonshine memories. The time is now for a national consensus to form on the iconography of hatred on government property.

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It's got to go.

All of it. Public officials must either destroy every Confederacy-puffing statue, bust, plaque or monument or place it in a museum context. They must rename every school, road, city or county whose name dignifies the deadly evil of secession.

Not to whitewash history, but to clarify it.

Some officials have already been prompted to act by what happened in Charlottesville.

The mayor of Lexington, Ky., said he plans to hasten the removal of two statues of Confederate leaders in his town.

The mayor of Baltimore said she'd taken steps to begin work on removing similar statues there.

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A top legislative leader in Maryland called for the removal from the state house of a statue of Supreme Court Justice Roger B. Taney, who wrote the majority opinion in the 1857 Dred Scott case that held the Constitution supports the idea that blacks are "beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far unfit that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."

And if Maryland's lawmakers won't get rid of the Taney statue, galvanized members of the public should topple it and beat it with their shoes, just as protesters in Durham, N.C., did Monday when they used a rope to pull down the Confederate Soldiers Monument  "In memory of the boys who wore the gray"  outside a county building.

Vandalism is bad, I know. Normally I'm not a fan. But far worse is continuing to perpetuate the idea that the poisonous ideology of the old South deserves commemorative respect in modern America.

Truth is, we'll build ourselves up when we tear these things down.

ericzorn@gmail.com

Twitter @EricZorn
Nothing pairs better with the sounds and smells of nature than a cold beeror room temperature brew, depending on the recommendations of the brewery at hand.

We picked out the best hiking paths in Illinois and paired them with a brewery close by to motivate you to get to the end of the trail. Grab your packs, your snacks and your hiking boots, and get out there to enjoy nature and the beer you'll reward yourself with after.

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Merwin Nature Preserve Trail and DESTIHL Microbrewery

Drive time from Chicago: 2.5 hours

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Beer to try: Amra Mango IPA

The skinny: This 2-mile trail near the Mackinaw River (25777 N. 1925 East Road, Lexington, Ill. 309-454-3169) is good for hikers of all skill levels. DESTIHL Brewery (1200 Greenrbiar Drive, Normal, Ill. 309-220-9902) is only a 15-minute drive away, so you're close enough to continue riding that post-exercise endorphin high when you roll up to replenish your energy. Their Amra Mango IPA is perfect for summer and cooling you down after spending some time in the great, humid outdoors.

Starved Rock and Tangled Roots Brewing Company

Drive time from Chicago: 2 hours

Beer to try: Kit Kupfer

The skinny: You're not a true Illinoisan until you make your way to Starved Rock (2668 E. 873 Road, Oglesby, Ill. 800-868-7625). Arguably the prettiest of Illinois' state parks, Starved Rock is home to many a canyon and Lover's Leapwith a beautiful view, dismal as it may sound. Once you get your fill of nature, check out nearby Tangled Roots Brewing Company (812 LaSalle St., Ottawa, Ill. 815-324-9549) and its adjacent brewpub, The Lone Buffalo. Sip on a Kit Kupfer, a peachy amber ale brewed specifically to be enjoyed as a complement to outdoorsy activities.

Rock Cut State Park and Pig Minds Brewing

Drive time from Chicago: 1.5 hours

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Beer to try: HappiDaze

The skinny: What has two lakes and 3,092 acres of wildlife to explore? Rock Cut State Park (7318 Harlem Road, Loves Park, Ill.). Take it easy on its titular trail path, or kick it up a notch with the Pierce Lake trail, and enjoy fishing, swimming or camping before heading out of the woods to Pig Minds Brewing (4080 Steele Drive, Machesney Park, Ill. 779-423-2147). Their HappiDaze brew features a California golden ale with hints of blueberries to round out a perfect summer sipper.

Seth Atwood Park and Granite City Food and Brewery

Drive time from Chicago: 2 hours

Beer to try: Prairie Vixen

The skinny: Lace up your boots or grab your canoe to spend a day on the Kishwaukee River in Atwood Park (7074 Rydberg Road, Rockford 815-966-8747). You can spend the afternoon walking this 5.3-mile trail, or enjoy smooth sailing down the Kishwaukee before heading to Granite City Food and Brewery (7140 Harrison Ave., Rockford 815-332-7070). Check out their Prairie Vixen Hefeweizen beer, with hints of banana, clove and bubble gum.

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Cavalier de LaSalle and Brickstone Brewery

Drive time from Chicago: 1.5 hours

Beer to try: Cherry Bomb

The skinny: This trail isn't very long (Percy Drive, Bourbonnais, Ill.), but it ends at a gorgeous cave, perfect for getting your exploring kicks without leaving the comfort of your home state. Bring the pup(s) alongbut keep 'em on a leashand make it a family affair. Head to nearby Brickstone Brewery (557 William R. Latham Senior Drive, Bourbonnais, Ill. 815-936-9277) to sample their award-winning craft beers, including the Cherry Bomb, a fruit ale made with Michigan cherries.

Waterfall Glen Forest Preserve and Skeleton Key Brewery

Drive time from Chicago: 45 minutes

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Beer to try: Migratory Coconut golden ale

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The skinny: The suburbs aren't all strip malls and Panera Bread. Waterfall Glen Forest Preserve (south of Interstate 55 between Lemont Road and Cass Avenue, Darien, Ill.) is home to a beautiful waterfall and nearly 11 miles of trail to peruse. Once you're done spending your day admiring the babbling brooks and flowing rivers, make your way to Skeleton Key Brewery's taproom (8102 Lemont Road, Woodridge, Ill. 630-395-9033). Check out the Migratory Coconut golden ale, a traditional ale infused with toasted coconut, or their Friends Don't Lie American pale ale with grapefruit.

Lincoln's New Salem State Historic Site and Hand of Fate Brewing

Drive time from Chicago: 3 hours, 45 minutes

Beer to try: Cucumber saison

The skinny: This trail accompanies the historical village built to mirror the one Abraham Lincoln lived in as a young man (15588 History Lane, Petersburg, Ill. 217-632-4010). The path follows the Rocky Branch trail and Cardinal Ridge along the Sangamon River. If you're lucky, you can catch some local theater stars at the Theatre in the Park. Once you're done kickin' it in the 1800s, check out Hand of Fate Brewing (107 E. Douglas St., Petersburg, Ill. 217-691-1098) to sip on their uber-refreshing summer brew, the Cucumber saison.

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Update: An earlier version of this story stated Lincoln's New Salem State Historic Site was built to mirror the one Abraham Lincoln lived in as a boy. He lived in the village during his early adulthood.

@shelbielbostedt | sbostedt@redeyechicago.com
Add two more plans for the Every Student Succeeds Act to the approved pile: Connecticut and Louisiana. The states become the fifth and sixth to be approved by the U.S. Department of Education.

Connecticuts plan was approved even though it didnt make some big changes that the feds wanted to see, including when it comes to calculating student achievement and measuring the performance of English-language learners.

Instead of making the revisions the department suggested, Connecticut provided long explanations of why the state thought its approach was permissible under ESSA.

For instance, the department told Connecticut, along with Massachusetts and Colorado, that average scale scores cant be used to demonstrate a schools academic achievement under ESSA. But Connecticut insisted that average scale scores are the best way to measure student progress.

In order to get the departments seal of approval, Louisiana decided to use social studies and science tests to measure school quality and student success. The Pelican State had originally wanted to use a brand new interest and opportunity indicator that would look at whether students are getting access to things like arts and physical education classes. The department, though, worried that the indicator wouldnt be ready for prime-time by the 2017-18 school year when ESSA is supposed to be fully in place. Louisiana will keep working on the new indicator, but has dropped it from its plan, for now. Louisiana also moved student growth for high schools to another part of its accountability system, and clarified how it will measure English-language proficiency.

Reminder: So far, 16 states and the District of Columbia have turned in plans to implement the Every Student Succeeds Act. All of those states have received feedback from the department, and six have been approved. The remaining 34 states will submit their plans next month.

Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12 .
With the recent departure of City Attorney Blanca Dominguez, the city's legal department office at Aurora City Hall is vacant.

And there has been no word yet from the Mayor's Office as to how or when the department would be filled.

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Dominguez recently left her position after more than five years in the city legal department to take a job with the Illinois Attorney General's office in Chicago.

At a recent meeting, Dominguez said her goodbyes to the City Council, thanking them for "the opportunity to work with all of you."

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"I had a blast," she said. "It feel like I've been here forever  in a good way."

Ald. Robert O'Connor, at large, said it was a pleasure to work with Dominguez, and remembered that when she first came to the city, she immediately had to work on "a little thing called redistricting" of the city's wards.

"Blanca did a fantastic job, and that was representative of everything she did for the city," O'Connor said.

Dominguez leaves almost four months after former Corporation Counsel Alayne Weingartz retired, leaving the two-person legal department vacant.

The city has also been utilizing Klein, Thorpe & Jenkins, Ltd., a Chicago-based municipal law firm. Right now the firm is acting as the city's Corporation Counsel.

Mayor Richard Irvin has not said yet how he would handle the legal department  if the Chicago firm would become the permanent legal department for the city, or if the city will do what is has done before and have a local legal department and retain Klein, Thorpe & Jenkins for litigations and other matters.

But O'Connor offered a clue recently when the Finance Committee he chairs discussed hiring another private law firm to handle drunken driving prosecutions. The discussion centered on who the firm would report to, and O'Connor said it would be the Corporation Counsel.

"Right now we don't have one, but we will," he said.

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slord@tribpub.com
Two men were injured Monday night in a possible drug-related shooting on Aurora's East Side, according to police.

Police spokesman Dan Ferrelli said both men shot are Aurora residents, but did not say why police believe the shooting at about 11:35 p.m. Monday was narcotics-related, saying they weren't elaborating on evidence.

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An 18-year-old woman with a 16-year-old girl passenger drove the two men, who are 18 and 20 years old, to a home on the 700 block of Jackson Street, police said in a statement via Facebook.

After the group pulled into the driveway, several men approached them and at least one started shooting, according to police.

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The 20-year-old ran from the vehicle and after the shooting, the group of men from which the shots were fired ran away in different directions, police said. Responding officers found the 20-year-old in the street with multiple gunshot wounds and paramedics took him to an Aurora hospital, according to police.

Meanwhile, the teenage women drove the younger man, who was also shot, to an Aurora hospital, police said.

Both men shot were treated and released, and neither female was injured, police said.

Police said the only description of the suspects is that they were men, and are asking anyone with information to call investigators at 630-256-5500 or Crime Stoppers at 630-892-1000, or to submit tips using the My PD app.

hleone@tribpub.com

Twitter @hannahmleone
A large storage barn was severely damaged by fire Monday in an unincorporated area near Geneva's west side.

The Geneva Fire Department was dispatched at about 9:06 p.m. for a reported structure fire on the 37W200 block of Kaneville Road, according to a press release from the department. The storage barn was unoccupied but did house a boat and pickup truck.

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First arriving companies found thick smoke coming from the east side of the structure with heavy flames visible from the interior, according to the release

The fire was brought under control in about 40 minutes. Two firefighters were treated for dehydration and released at the scene, department officials said.

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The cause of the fire is under investigation. Damage estimates still are being compiled, but the storage barn and contents sustained significant damage, according to the release.

Firefighters from Batavia, St. Charles, Elburn, West Chicago, Fermilab and the North Aurora fire departments assisted Geneva at the scene. The South Elgin and Winfield fire departments filled in at the Geneva fire stations during the call.
It's a date. Well, maybe. Hopefully.

After a very public  mostly social media  breakup between David Karademas and the city of Aurora, Mayor Richard Irvin on Tuesday personally called the downtown developer to invite him to attend his "100th Day Progress Report" event that will take place in grand style at 1 p.m. Friday at Aurora University's Crimi Auditorium.

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On behalf of the people who live and/or work in this city, I second that invitation.

No one who loves this community wants to see the relationship between Karademas and Aurora end  especially on a sour note. The likable and visionary Milwaukee-based developer is the real deal. And in the four years since he came into town, purchasing and restoring the historic Leland Tower, Graham Building and Elks Club building, he's pumped millions of dollars and new life into the downtown area.

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Karademas has the passion and bank account to take risks and think big. Or at least he did.

Make no mistake, the entrepreneur still loves this town and the people in it. But as he outlined briefly last week in a Facebook post, then again in much more detail in a social media post on Monday afternoon, "enough water has been thrown on my fire to extinguish my passion."

While he again wanted to make it clear he's not selling the three historic buildings he owns and plans to continue improving them, Karademas insists he won't pour any more money into Aurora, and he was just as adamant about where he places the blame in this once promising relationship: government and the roadblocks it threw in his path.

I can't begin to cover in this column space the details he spelled out in his lengthy post or the timeline he laid out covering his four years in Aurora that included the excitement he felt after discovering the "untapped" potential here and the hurt he felt at being "undercut" by City Hall.

Among his complaints: getting hit with a tax increase that "set my valuation drastically higher than all the apartment buildings around me on a per unit basis;" finding out the quality of the Elks Club building, that so far has cost him $4.7 million, was inferior to what he'd been promised; and nitpicking by the city that included an attempt to keep a hefty hunk of the half-million dollars in good-faith money he put down for the Elks Club building he renamed The Mayan.

The final straw, he reiterated again, was the city's intention to bring in a fine dining restaurant in the new Arts Center directly across from where he'd already started plans to build a similar venue on the second floor of the Leland Tower.

Because he's convinced neither restaurant can survive on a Paramount crowd alone, his Leland eatery, he said, would have been open only for special occasions and big downtown events, including Paramount shows. Why, he asked, "would they hijack" those plans by bringing in a similar restaurant right across the street? And why, he also wondered, would the letters of concern he wrote to several alderman not even get the courtesy of a response?

When a concerned citizen arranged a meeting with the mayor and a few city employees, Karademas said he was told there was plenty of room for two similar restaurants next to each other.

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"That moment was the death of my Aurora dream," he wrote. "Within 24 hours of that mayoral meeting, I had a verbal agreement to sell Leland Legends for $1 ... I am no longer willing to personally finance a renaissance with a city government that will not support me and constantly picks fights with me."

Here's the thing: both parties know this breakup is, indeed, a sad one. Aurora, which has had many developers come in and fail, needs visionaries like Karademas, who the city quickly agrees has "helped to breathe new life into downtown..." And Karademas, who fell in love from the get-go and still sees downtown's vast potential, needs cities like Aurora.

"I have never seen a town with more untapped talent and potential," he said, citing the architecture here and the popular and well-established Paramount and RiverEdge Park, not to mention the city's location on the river, with a train station and near Chicago.

"I was in love," he wrote of his feelings about Aurora. "But I was receiving nothing back except financial and emotional abuse. Can you blame me for walking away?"

When I spoke with Karademas on Tuesday, he insisted that, despite the disappointing meeting, he has no issues with this mayor. As both he and City Hall pointed out, the problems he ran into were with a different administration. Both the developer and the mayor had a good talk at the Karademas-sponsored Lelandfest Saturday night  which by the way, drew over 600 people and was considered a big success. And kudos to the mayor for picking up the phone on Tuesday morning to personally extend an invitation to the developer for his 100-day address on Friday. (It's open to the public but reservations are necessary by calling 630-256-3010 or emailing MayorsOffice@aurora-il.org).

"We all know the work David has done here in Aurora and the successes he's had," noted Aurora spokesman Clayton Muhammad. "The mayor would love for him to be there."

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As would anyone else who cares about the future of the city.

Which is why, despite the hard breakup and still hurt feelings, Karademas said he'll be in the audience. He was planing on being in Aurora anyway on Friday to meet with his architects on redesigning the second floor of the Leland. What was once going to be a fine-dining restaurant, complete with wrought iron balcony over the river and the restoration of the grand staircase, he told me, is now going to be apartment lofts.

"Not nearly as exciting," he said.

And I agree.

So, can this marriage be saved? Karademas knows that in any love affair, even those once filled with such promise, there comes a time when words said and actions taken keep things from going back to the way they were. But that doesn't mean some sort of positive relationship can't be salvaged.

Sitting down and talking again is a start. It always is.

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Twitter @dencrosby
Grassroots group, including the Coalition for a Better Illinois 6th, held a vigil outside of Barrington Village Hall on Sunday afternoon to show support for the counter-protestors at Charlottesville, Va. (Coalition for a Better Illinois 6th)

In response to a white supremacist rally that turned violent in Charlottesville, Va., residents in Lake County held impromptu rallies over the weekend in Barrington and Libertyville to denounce hate.

Grassroots groups, including the Coalition for a Better Illinois 6th, held a vigil outside of Barrington Village Hall on Sunday afternoon to show support for the counter-protesters at Charlottesville, including 32-year-old Heather Heyer who died after a man drove a car into the group.

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"It was a vigil to show solidarity with the Charlottesville situation and the death of Heather Heyer," said Eric Hochstein, co-chair for a Better Illinois 6th. "Hate has no place in Barrington or anywhere else."

Hochstein said about 200 people gathered in Barrington for the vigil, although Barrington police estimated the crowd to be less than 100. The coalition makes up a network of more than 25 grassroots organizations across Illinois' sixth congressional district in the northwest suburbs.

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Lake Zurich resident Carolynne Funk, a member of Indivisible Resist the 6th, a group associated with Coalition for a Better Illinois 6th, attended the vigil and watched her two daughters speak out against the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville.

"They told people to stand up against white nationalism in the face of horrific events in Charlottesville," she said.

Outside of the Libertyville Metra Station on Sunday, a small group of women wearing blue T-shirts with a heart-shaped American flag and the word "Indivisible" gathered just minutes before boarding a train to a march in Chicago at Millennium Park.

Those attending the impromptu downtown rally planned to march to the Trump Tower in response to the violence in Charlottesville.

The members of Indivisible Lake County, a group opposed to national problems that, they say, the Trump administration has incentivized, wanted to make their voices heard at the march, which they described as a peaceful way to show there are those who will stand against hateful oppression.

The goal is to "bring attention to the better side of humanity, which is love," said Mary Edly-Allen of Libertyville.

Edly-Allen held a sign that read on one side: "Dear Racist, Who taught you how to hate? Love, Humanity." The other side read: "United we stand in love. Divided we fall by hate."

Saying she felt traumatized by watching images on television of the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacist groups chanting racial slurs and defying counter-protesters, Edly-Allen said this is a moment that requires mobilization and action.

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"We're revisiting hate all over again. And, just like with any other disease, it cannot be healed unless it comes out to the surface," Edly-Allen said.

Libertyville resident Carol McKinny said she would march for all who are persecuted or belittled for the color of their skin, where they're from, what religion they practice, their sex or their sexual orientation.

McKinny said she was appalled that President Donald Trump didn't initially denounce the KKK, white supremacist and Neo-Nazi groups for their ideology after Saturday's violence. She blamed him for giving fuel to the groups' hateful message.

"What Trump said about all sides is crazy. There are just two sides  there's evil and there's good," McKinny said, referencing statements Trump made at a news briefing the day before in which he said, "We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides."

Edly-Allen said as her group walked to Millennium Park from the train station Sunday, they were met with people who gave them a thumbs up and cars that honked in support of their signs.

Todd Shields is a Pioneer Press reporter and Yadira Sanchez Olson is a freelance reporter for the Lake County News-Sun.
CORRECTED

A petition on change.org that has garnered 1,136 supporters calls for the suspension of San Diego school districts new sex education curriculum , arguing the content is too much, too soon.

Among the claims: the curriculum encourages early sexual curiosity and experimentation and encourages behaviors, including mutual masturbation. The petition cites this chart from the 6th grade curriculum as evidence:

Some who dont find the content age appropriate, its because they are uncomfortable with it and thats not what the ed code defines as age appropriate, program coordinator Rachel Miller told Education Week.

Miller said the district has trained 297 staff members in the curriculum and that a survey with a 70 percent response rate showed that 85 percent of teachers felt the content was age appropriate.

The new curriculum was adopted to comply with the California Healthy Youth Act , which came into effect in January 2016. Evie Blad reported in a 2015 Education Week article that the law requires secondary schools to offer sex education classes that include medically accurate teaching about human development and sexuality, including education on pregnancy, contraception, sexual orientation, and sexually transmitted infections. Parents can opt out their children if they desire.

Teachers began using the new curriculum, created by Advocates for Youth , in the 2016-2017 school year with an opt out rate of less than 1 percent, according to Miller. She pointed out that the curriculum is used in at least 100 big school districts including New York City, Boston, and Baltimore and that it was chosen by San Diego State professors, the states department of health and education as well as parent and faith-based groups. Students in 6th and 8th grades and high school are required to take the lessons.

Ashley Bever, the mother of an 11 and 12 year old, helped to start the petition against the curriculum, arguing the students are too young for the information taught. Both she and the petition cite a website that is not a part of the curriculum, but a supplemental resource for students to explore health topics on their own.

Its basically cartoon porn, Bever told ABC 10 News . You have depictions of cartoon characters disrobing, engaging in sexual acts.

The 2 to 4 minute animated videos from amaze.org explore sexual health topics like puberty, sexual orientation and healthy relationships for 10 to 14 year olds. In the personal safety section there is video called Porn: Fact or Fiction.

The videos message is that sometimes you might accidentally (or on purpose) find online pornography, and if you do, they dont represent relationships in reality or loving intimacy and theres exaggerated body parts and situations. And if you come across this imagery and are curious, you should talk to a parent or trusted adult, said Miller. Literally, thats the message.

The video does show cartoon images of exaggerated body parts, and those protesting the curriculum showed screen shots of them to make their case. The district cut the website from the supplemental resource list, but stressed that the video and the website are not the curriculum.

Miller further asserts that many signers of the petition to quash the curriculum are not from San Diego, and that many decrying the curriculum at board meetings are not parents of children in the district. After many conversations with Bever, Miller suspects the agenda is really to eliminate LGBTQ issues from the curriculum and any talk of sexuality outside of marriage.

We just cant do that, not just because of the law but based on best practices to support the reality of all of our kids, Miller said. The reality is that more than 50 percent of students have had sex by senior year. We have to make sure they are being healthy.

And the new curriculum, according to Miller, leads to students making healthier choices like delaying sex, picking more respectful partners, and practicing safe sex.

The petition suggests that the old sex ed curriculum be used until the current one can be revised with parental input, but the school board and superintendent have affirmed the continued use of the sex ed curriculum as is.

Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the number of staff members trained in the curriculum. The correct number is 297.

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A students tick bites while on a field trip to China, which led to debilitating injuries from encephalitis, could cost a prestigious Connecticut private school $41.5 million in damages.

The case involving the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Conn., has been working its way through the courts for several years. On Aug. 11, the Connecticut Supreme Court issued an opinion in answer to a request from a federal appeals court that makes it appear more likely that the New York student and her family will collect on the $41.5 million federal jury award to former student Cara L. Munn.

The state high court ruled unanimously in Munn v. The Hotchkiss School that Connecticut public and private schools have a duty of care to warn students on a field trip about potential insect-borne diseases and that the hefty jury award in the case fell within the just limits of state law, although one judge called the award disquietingly large.

We believe that the normal expectations of participants in a school sponsored educational trip abroad, involving minor children, are that the organizer of the trip would take reasonable measures to warn the participants and their parents about the serious insect-borne diseases that are present in the areas to be visited and to protect the children from those diseases.

Munn was a 15-year-old completing her freshman year at Hotchkiss in 2009 when she joined the schools educational trip to China. While the group was visiting Mount Panshan, near the city of Tianjin, Munn and a few other students descended the mountain by foot and became lost walking on trails and through brush before finding their way.

Munn suffered multiple insect bites and an itchy welt, court papers say, which within 10 days became encephalitis. She became partially paralyzed and semi-comatose in a Beijing hospital when her parents flew there and had her airlifted to a New York City hospital. Munns condition stabilized, but she has permanent disabilities, including an inability to speak, a loss of dexterity, and compromised brain functioning.

Munns family sued Hotchkiss alleging negligence. Munns lawyers presented evidence that a travel coordinator for the private school had learned of the dangers of tick-borne disease from a U.S. government advisory and had failed to warn students or parents about the risk or the need to be protected against it.

A jury awarded Munn $10 million in economic damages and $31.5 million for pain and suffering. Hotchkiss appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, in New York City, arguing that the school had no duty to warn Munn about the dangers of tick-borne encephalitis because the dangers could not have been foreseen.

In a 2015 ruling , a 2nd Circuit court panel agreed with the Munns that there was sufficient evidence for the jury to rule that the danger was foreseeable. But it certified two questions of Connecticut law to the states highest court: whether state public policy supports the imposition of a duty on a school to warn about or to protect against the foreseeable risk of a serious insect-borne disease when organizing a trip abroad; and, if so, whether the jurys damages award warranted a reduction.

The Connecticut Supreme Court answered yes to the first question. The courts opinion is noteworthy for the education law community because it includes a detailed discussion of schools duty to protect students in their care, weighing legal decisions from multiple states and across various factual situations.

What the duty schools owe to students and their parents quintessentially entails is to exercise reasonable care in ensuring that students are educated in a safe environment free from any unreasonable risks of harm, the Connecticut high court said.

As to the second question, the court said the jury award did not merit reduction because, although clearly generous, [it fell] within the acceptable range of just compensation.

The court quoted an observation by the federal district court that Munns emotional and physical suffering depict a miserable life.

Senior Justice Carmen E. Espinosa said in a concurrence that while she felt compelled to defer to the federal district courts findings and agree with her courts answers to the certified questions, she was dubious that Hotchkiss could truly have foreseen the danger to Munn.

The jury verdict in this case ... stands for the proposition that a school has a duty to warn and protect its students against any remotely foreseeable harm that might befall them while travelling abroad, Esponisa wrote. The range of such risks is virtually limitless. So too are the protective measures that might be taken to shield children from all those threats.

The case will now return to the 2nd Circuit court for that court to decide whether to finalize its initial inclination to uphold the $41.5 million jury award.
Long Beach to Pay $85K in Settlement After Police Forcibly Removed Woman's Hijab

How does an apparently routine traffic stop turn into an $85,000 settlement? When an arresting officer allegedly forcibly removes a Muslim woman's hijab, requiring her to have her head exposed overnight in a jail cell, in plain view of other male officers and dozens of inmates, and have her publicly available booking photo taken without her head covered.

"I would never want anyone to go through what I felt from this experience, it was horrible," Kirsty Powell said when she filed her lawsuit against the city of Long Beach, Police Chief Robert Luna, and six Long Beach Police officers. "I want my Muslim sisters to always feel comfortable and safe wearing a hijab and to stand up for what's right. We are all human, we all deserve justice."

Religious Freedom

The Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations filed the lawsuit on behalf of Powell, and announced the settlement last week. "We commend Kirsty Powell for choosing to defend her right to religious freedom and taking action," said CAIR-LA Civil Rights Attorney Marwa Rifahie in a statement. "In addition to compensating Kirsty for the humiliation and distress she suffered, this decision also prompted a city-wide policy change by the Long Beach Police Department to ban the practice of forcible removal of the hijab for female arrestees in custody."

The Long Beach Police Department amended its policy last November to accommodate religious head coverings for persons during arrest and detention. Female officers are now required to remove headscarves, away from male officers and inmates, and only "when necessary for officer safety."

Discriminatory Arrest

According to the arrest report, officers pulled over Powell and her husband in a "lowrider car," determining that the vehicle's hydraulic suspension made the passenger unsafe. Powell was the passenger, and officers discovered three outstanding misdemeanor warrants for her (for vehicle theft, petty theft and resisting arrest, all of which have since been cleared) leading to her arrest.

Powell's lawsuit claims that both she and her husband requested female officers handle her arrest, search, and detention, but those requests were denied, even though, she claims, there were several female officers present, including one that escorted Powell to her cell.

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Reportedly, the four agreed points were said to be from 1 to 4 and the points from 5 to 8 would be thrashed out in the upcoming September official seventh meeting after the Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs) and government have consulted their respective leadership in details.

Although there has been a little confusion as to whether the UNFC amendment proposal to the NCA is 8 or 9 points, the reality is just 8, as the point number 9 merely said that As soon as the above said points are in agreement, the NCA would be signed.

To refresh our memories let us again look at the said 8-point UNFC amendment proposal. They are:

Bilateral ceasefire agreement between the government-military and the UNFC;

To build a federal union with result achieved from 21st Century Panglong Conference (21CPC);

Agreement of tripartite dialogue composition;

Drafting and promulgation of constitutional law based on the outcome of 21CPC;

Advance agreement on Military Codes of Conduct (CoC) and monitoring on Terms of Reference (ToR);

Formation of military Joint Monitoring Committee (JMC) with representatives from government, EAOs and international figures acceptable to both parties;

Formation of a neutral, enforcement tribunal for NCA involving domestic and international law experts and judges that are acceptable to both parties; and

Developmental projects to be tackled according to Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), in cooperation with the public and the EAOs. (Source: UNFC Documentation)

Naturally, hopes were high for the government and as well the UNFC negotiators as half of the UNFC proposal could be agreed upon and that the enthusiastic optimism, especially from the governments side, that the other half would be easily overcome at the next meeting in September, should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Khu Oo Reh, head of the DPN at the end of the meeting said: I could say that we are getting extremely near to participate equally and seriously together in our works. As we are not in a position to decide all things on our own, we would like to request the citizens to have understanding on this.

He probably meant to say that that the DPN has to consult with its leadership and also, the cooperation of the Tatmadaw is needed to implement the agreed points.

He went on to explain the nature of the peace process has to go step-by-step and that they are hoping to achieve peace as soon as possible through mutual cooperation by all stakeholders.

Earlier on the eve of the sixth official meeting, Khu Oo Reh, regarding the UNFCs proposal that if some of the points are not in agreement, it should be construed as there is no agreement, stressed: We heard what the media are reporting. Some said there are two, three or one point left (to agree). No matter how points are left to be discussed, even if one is left it is like all the eight points are not in agreement.

It seems Khu Oo Reh has taken a leaf out of the Geneva Accords of 24 November 2013 between Iran and 5+1 Powers regarding the nuclear case of Iran, where the reference to the phrase Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, was made at the beginning and the end of the document and since then becoming a standard usage in all earnest treaty deliberations.

Tun Zaw, secretary of Arakan National Council (ANC) and member of the UNFCs DPN also echoed the same sentiment regarding the four points agreement of the UNFCs proposal, he said: Only if all eight points are thrashed out we could reach the stage of signing (the NCA) and still need to try and labor more on it, according to the interview by Mon News Agency of August 12.

He also make a point that the Tatmadaw or the Military has no interest, political will and advancing the closely connected trust-building whatsoever. He further said that the National League for Democracy (NLD) regime is enthusiastic and has full commitment for political settlement but the Tatmadaw is still clinging to the old institutional mechanism that it has represented for decades.

The government spokesperson Zaw Htay just merely confirmed the meetings progress saying: Half of the points were generally agreed upon as a result of the sixth round of talks. Discussion concerning the other half must be presented to the leaders of both sides for a final decision.

Chair of the governments National Reconciliation and Peace Center Tin Myo Win said he, hope[s] for a pathway through the peace process to appear, by fulfilling the points of the discussions with UNFC as much as we can after presenting to the government, reported The Irrawaddy on August 11.

If we can pass this point, the peace process will not stop or move backwards. It will keep going forward, toward peace, he added.

Outlook and Perspective

Regardless of the prevailing optimistic view that the remaining four points of UNFC proposal could be thrashed out leading to the signing of the NCA, lack of political will and trust-building from the part of the Tatmadaw might hinder real progress on the ground, as Tun Zaw has correctly pointed out.

With this in mind, let us look at the issues tied to the UNFCs NCA amendment proposal of bilateral ceasefire; establishment of a federal union; tripartite composition; constitutional amendment; international involvement in JMC; formation of a neutral, mediation and enforcement tribunal for dispute arising from NCA implementation; and resources management.

Bilateral ceasefire is, in fact, not just between the Tatmadaw and the UNFC, as the former meant to say that ceasefire with only the NCA signatory EAOs, while the latter understood it to be nationwide declaration of ceasefire, implying that every corner of the country must be covered by the ceasefire agreement.

Concerning the establishment of a federal union with the result or outcomes from 21CPC, the Tatmadaw notion of federalism is tied to its self-drawn 2008 constitution which is neither federal nor democratic.

The tripartite composition participation mode at all level of political negotiations, so far as the UNFC is concerned, would be: government, Tatmadaw, parliament; EAOs; and political parties. The previous participation in Union Peace Conference (UPC)  now renamed Union Peace Conference  21st Century Panglon (UPC-21CP)  were counted seven parties with 700 participants. It is still not clear if the Tatmadaw and the government have agreed to the UNFCs mode of composition.

Constitutional amendment, actually rewriting anew by making use of the outcomes from 21CPC, would be accepted by the Tatmadaw is unclear, as it always maintain that it would protect the military-drafted 2008 constitution, which is in no way a federalism, with all its might.

The CoC, ToR and troops relocation still could not be completed and some already formed state-level JMC were unable to stop the ceasefire breakdown happening very often between the NCA signatory Restoration Council of Shan State/Shan State Army (RCSS/SSA) and the Tatmadaw.

International involvement in the JMC and NCA mediation-enforcement roles have always been rejected by the Tatmadaw, arguing that it is a problem between brethren and outsiders should not be involved, and is highly unlikely this proposal could sail through easily, even though a clause in the NCA doesnt rule out such an arrangement.

Indeed, in the NCA a paragraph 12(c), signed between the 8 EAOs and the government on 15 October 2015, said: We shall jointly decide on the basis of mutual agreement, the role of representatives from foreign governments and international organizations that are involved in the ongoing peace process, either as observers, advisors or to provide necessary technical assistance at different levels of the Joint Ceasefire Monitoring Committee.

As for the resources management, including international humanitarian aids to be administered in cooperation between the concerned EAOs of the area and the government, with the consent of the people could be easily ironed out, if all the other proposal points could be worked out.

To sum up, the above mentioned points have to be adjusted and agreed upon if the UNFC is to sign the NCA and eventually participate in the next upcoming 21CPC. It wont do just to repeatedly push for the UNFC to sign the NCA without accommodating its proposal.

Thus, it would do all parties good if there could be a compromise on the UNFC proposal in the upcoming seventh official meeting, as this would demonstrate a desire to be equal and stimulate trust-building that has been in deficit all along. This, in turn, could even encourage the Panghsang alliance or Federal Political Negotiation and Consultative Committee (FPNCC) to rethink its policy of only to meet the government as a group and not separately.

At the end of the day, it will all depend on if the NLD and the Tatmadaw would be able to communicate on the same wavelength, especially where all-inclusiveness, national reconciliation, achieving and instilling peace for the benefit of the people and country are concerned.
Pueblo East, Pueblo West football teams knocked out of playoffs

Both Pueblo West and Pueblo East high schools had their faced stiff competition Friday night on the road.
Brown Girl Magazine recently featured the work of my friend Tasneem Nanji, whose photographs of Muslim women in London and New York illuminate the lives of individuals consistently portrayed as one-dimensional "others" in media.

Tasneem, whose creative work you can support here, says,

Last summer i traveled to London where i was drawn to photograph the Muslim women I saw there going about their daily lives. Of course over the years It dawned on me that Muslim women across the globe are seen as one dimensional. By now that notion is as loud as ever.

As i was exploring London i found myself in the midst of an existence that for these women was multi dimensional. Students, tourists, Shoppers, Teachers, women Listening to music, riding the train and ordering food. Muslim women in the media are often portrayed in war torn countries surrounded by violence they are shown most times grieving for the loss of someone, with their hijab being a central focal point instead of a just another personal choice that they have made for themselves. ( some Muslim women opt not to wear hijab ). We don't see Muslim women portrayed as ordinary women in the Western world doing ordinary things. So i set out to de-exoticize Muslim women via this series of photographs i ultimately ended up taking with my phone.

We are not a Monolith. We can wear hijab we can not wear hijab. We are from different cultures and backgrounds. We speak different languages and eat different foods.

The Muslim world is vast.

When i got home to LA I kept meeting so many interesting Muslim women and girls that i kept taking photos calling on friends to introduce me to people and the series continued. Once again Artists, Students, Teachers, Dancers, Women shopping, hanging out and Entrepreneurs.
President Donald Trump, whose father was reported to have marched "berobed" with the Ku Klux Klan in 1927, once again today bizarrely blamed "both sides" for violence in Charlottesville this past weekend. Alt-right, Nazi, and white supremacist terrorists met to protest the removal of a Confederate statue, and a woman was murdered.

Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth about #Charlottesville & condemn the leftist terrorists in BLM/Antifa https://t.co/tTESdV4LP0  David Duke (@DrDavidDuke) August 15, 2017

Noted white supremacist and KKK oldtimer David Duke's response to Trump's display of alliance clarifies matters.

Here were my live tweets watching the Trump press conference, below. Then, the freshly shocked responses of others.

Trump: "Excellent" that I made #Charlottesville statement when I did. I "didn't wait long" to condemn KKK, neo-nazis, et al.  Xeni Jardin (@xeni) August 15, 2017

"Excellent," said the President, rating his performance during a national disaster in which Nazis gathered and an American was murdered https://t.co/RTmZRLZds5  Xeni Jardin (@xeni) August 15, 2017

The President is looking particularly orange today  Xeni Jardin (@xeni) August 15, 2017

Trump tells reporters he never spoke to Bannon about #Charlottesville.  Xeni Jardin (@xeni) August 15, 2017

Trump now falsely claiming that counter-protesters defending #Charlottesville from nazis and KKK were "very violent."  Xeni Jardin (@xeni) August 15, 2017

"Not all of those people" in #Charlottesville "were neo-Nazis," the President says.  Xeni Jardin (@xeni) August 15, 2017

The answer to racial conflict in America is "millions of jobs," lied the President.  Xeni Jardin (@xeni) August 15, 2017

Trump: There is "blame on both sides" for violence in #Charlottesville at Nazi/KKK/altright rally in which a peaceful protester was murdered  Xeni Jardin (@xeni) August 15, 2017

Trump: In #Charlottesville, there were "very fine people on both sides." Some Nazis/KKK are "very fine people," according to the President.  Xeni Jardin (@xeni) August 15, 2017

Trump said removal of Confederate hero statues is "changing history." This is a shout-out to KKK fans like his dad https://t.co/3ZUKK6IIjJ  Xeni Jardin (@xeni) August 15, 2017

Fruit, meet Tree. President's father, Fred Trump, is reported to have attended a Nazi/KKK rally 'berobed' in 1927. https://t.co/3ZUKK6IIjJ  Xeni Jardin (@xeni) August 15, 2017

PHOTOS: Reuters

Pres. Trump on Charlottesville: "There's blame on both sidesyou also had people that were very fine people on both sides." pic.twitter.com/ayX9eHABsN  ABC News (@ABC) August 15, 2017

MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace on Trump comments: "Today he threw a stick of dynamite on the bridge that he laid down yesterday."  Brian Lowry (@blowryontv) August 15, 2017

"alt-right" was promoted by Richard Spencer and self-adopted by that sector of the right; "alt-left" was only invented as a pejorative https://t.co/07M8VuUmPu  Matt Pearce (@mattdpearce) August 15, 2017

#BREAKING: #Cville car suspect, #UniteTheRight rally organizer, & alt-right leaders face $3M lawsuit from 2 ppl injured in car attack pic.twitter.com/PH4fehgPiv  Matt Talhelm (@MattTalhelm) August 15, 2017

Who knew condemning neo-Nazis could be so complicated  andrew kaczynski ? (@KFILE) August 15, 2017

very strong words from a Democratic senator https://t.co/fp326yJS3Y  Kasie Hunt (@kasie) August 15, 2017

this will be the pro-Trump media takeaway. it will ultimately be emboldening to the group after feeling isolated by charlottesville pic.twitter.com/nsbonrb4Xy  Charlie Warzel (@cwarzel) August 15, 2017

"Is it murder? Is it terrorism?" asked the pres about Charlottesville? He said the driver of the car that plowed into crowd "is a murderer."  Mark Knoller (@markknoller) August 15, 2017

Twelve days ago https://t.co/p1KbmXvZL0  Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 15, 2017

Trump to reporter: "What about the alt-left that came charging at  the alt-right? Do they have any semblance of guilt?" https://t.co/eW30Vl1tGM  Veronica Rocha (@VeronicaRochaLA) August 15, 2017

Live look at White House communications department pic.twitter.com/ZFTFopZUec  Robert Maguire (@RobertMaguire_) August 15, 2017

It might get overshadowed by Trump equating white supremacists and counter-protesters but this really stuck with me https://t.co/smOnPxDrGx  Mark Berman (@markberman) August 15, 2017

The protest was organized by groups that do no pretend to be anything other than fascist: https://t.co/drvBtm1wfC  Michael Weiss (@michaeldweiss) August 15, 2017
Starting on Tuesday, China "completely prohibits" imports of coal, iron, iron ore, lead and seafood from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the Ministry of Commerce and General Administration of Customs said.

The joint announcement on Monday said Beijing issued the ban to fulfill United Nations Security Council Resolution 2371, which targets Pyongyang's intercontinental ballistic missile tests in July.

Observers noted that the ban has gone further than a February statement by the Ministry of Commerce, which responded to an earlier Security Council resolution on the DPRK and announced China's suspension of coal imports from the DPRK for the rest of this year.

China's total imports from the DPRK have seen a drastic drop from March to June, and the country "has strictly abided" by the past Security Council resolutions, General Administration of Customs spokesman Huang Songping said last month.

Zhang Liangui, an expert on Korean studies at the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, said it is natural to see China, a permanent member of the Security Council, honor the resolution in a substantial way after voting for it.

The ban could be viewed as a signal to urge Pyongyang to adjust its policies regarding its nuclear and missile programs, Zhang said.

Wang Junsheng, a researcher of Asia-Pacific studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, warned that the situation is "entering a bottleneck stage" as there is not enough readiness from either Washington or Pyongyang to tone down their rhetoric and barbs.

Beijing and Washington have remained in contact over the peninsula situation. A phone conversation on Saturday between President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump touched on the issue.

Joseph Dunford, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, is visiting the Republic of Korea, and his trip also includes Japan and China, the Associated Press reported on Monday.

"We are seeking a peaceful resolution to the crisis," said Dunford, who also met with ROK President Moon Jae-in.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Monday that it is hoped all parties concerned consider the constructive proposals made by China.

It further is hoped the parties seek a breakthrough and viable ways to resume dialogue on the issue, Hua said at a daily news conference in Beijing.

Earlier this month, Washington threatened potential retaliatory trade measures against China if the country failed to pressure Pyongyang.

In response, Hua said trade and the Korean Peninsula are two separate issues and the two countries should reinforce cooperation on them. "It's not appropriate to use one issue as a tool to keep pressure on the other issue," Hua said.

In another development, Assistant Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou has taken a concurrent post of China's special representative on Korean Peninsula affairs, according to Kong's updated profile on the foreign ministry's website.

Kong was to replace Wu Dawei, a former vice-foreign minister who served as the country's top envoy on the peninsula issue since 2010.

Before taking over Wu's job, Kong's areas of responsibility included Asia, treaty and law, boundary and ocean affairs as well as consular affairs.
During the heyday of the Standing Rock demonstrations, Republican state lawmakers across America introduced laws that would legalize murdering protesters with your car; now that a white supremacist terrorist has murdered an anti-Nazi protester with his car, these lawmakers are letting it be known that they won't back down from their proposals.



They are backed in this by police unions, who also want to ensure that people who murder protesters will be shielded from liability.



North Carolina's version of the immunity bill, HB 330, passed the lower chamber of the legislature in April. The text of the bill says that a "person driving an automobile who is exercising due care and injures another person who is participating in a protest or demonstration and is blocking traffic in a public right-of-way is immune from civil liability for the injury." The definition of "due care," of course, would be highly debatable. On Monday morning, the bill's co-sponsors, state Reps. Justin Burr and Chris Millis, released a joint statement defending their legislation and claiming it would not apply in the context of Charlottesville.

BACKED BY POLICE UNIONS, LEGISLATORS STAND BY LAWS TO PROTECT DRIVERS WHO KILL PROTESTERS

[Zaid Jilani and Lee Fang/The Intercept]
China's second biggest e-commerce player, JD.com Inc, reported its net revenues for the second quarter reached 93.2 billion yuan ($13.7 billion), an increase of 43.6 percent from the second quarter of last year.

Gross merchandise volume (GMV) for the second quarter of 2017 increased by 46 percent to 234.8 billion yuan from 160.4 billion yuan in the same period last year.

Annual active customer accounts increased by 37 percent to 258.3 million in the 12 months that ended June 30, 2017. And fulfilled orders reached 591.2 million, an increase of 41 percent from 418.9 million in the same period in 2016.

"As we broaden our range of offerings, including a rapidly growing roster of top international brands, our customer base continues to expand, with female shoppers becoming an increasingly active user base," said Richard Liu, chairman and CEO of JD.com.

During the second quarter, JD further expanded its product offerings through cooperation with multiple international brands, including Swiss luxury watch brand Zenith, Austrian brand Swarovski and Italian furniture designer Kartell.

In June, JD and Farfetch announced a strategic partnership for luxury e-commerce in China. The partnership leverages JD's logistics, internet finance and technology capabilities, and social media resources, with Farfetch's leadership in global luxury, to offer Chinese consumers a seamless brand experience.

JD has expanded its leadership position in fulfillment capabilities among China's e-commerce companies. As of June 30, the e-commerce giant operated 335 warehouses covering an aggregate gross floor area of approximately 7.1 million square meters in China.

"In the quarters ahead, we will continue to prioritize investment in our technology-focused initiatives, which are already redefining China's retail landscape," said Sidney Huang, JD.com's chief financial officer.
Both Chinese astronomers and the general public are interested in the development of the world's largest telescope. But controversy on social media over its design has delayed the progress.

Chen Jiansheng, a senior astronomer at Peking University, sent a mass email to China's leading astronomers last week, opposing the existing design of the telescope. Two academicians, Cui Xiangqun, the telescope's chief engineer, and Su Dingquang, an astronomer at Nanjing University, jointly responded to Chen on social media, openly defending the original plan.

The Chinese public has now been drawn into the scientific infrastructure development process and has shown interest in picking sides.

The 12-meter telescope, known as the Large Optical/Infrared Telescope (LOT), was included on the list of megascience facilities to be built during the 13th five-year-plan period (2016-2020) in March. The four-mirror plan was approved by the engineering team in July.

The government has required construction on the telescope to begin by the end of 2018. Any delays or controversies over its design would risk missing that target.

The project's engineering team, under Cui at the Nanjing Institute of Astronomical Optics and Technology, is in favor of the ambitious four-mirror plan. On the other side, many astronomers and astrophiles have called that too risky and want a simpler and more universal three-mirror plan.

"Though I have no understanding about the mirrors, I believe involving the public in the future of our country's scientific endeavors is progress," said Zhao Hang, an amateur stargazer.

Nearly 200 reports on the debate had been posted on news sites as of the weekend, including many of China's most prestigious media outlets, with some pieces exceeding 100,000 views.

"Fundamental science has a relatively high 'threshold'. But scientific findings have obviously drawn much more attention in recent years, which demonstrates rising scientific literacy among the public," said Cai Yifu with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"It is also the job of scientists to explain and promote their work to the public," Cai said, citing the world's highest altitude gravitational wave telescopes in Tibet, which welcomed public opinion from design to construction.

China's young astronomers, who don't usually have a say in state-level megascience projects like this, jointly released an open letter on social media which read: "As the main future users of the next-generation telescope, we sincerely and earnestly hope the debate over its design can be open and transparent."

The letter has received over 130 signatures placing their votes for the three-mirror plan.

Last week, overseas Chinese scientists also joined the debate. Shen Yue, assistant professor with the University of Illinois, said the generally accepted international method is to organize an expert panel to review all plans and gradually reach a consensus after several rounds of discussion.

"I hope both sides will find a solution soon based on mutual understanding and sufficient debate," a user named Zhang Dong commented online. "After all, none of us would like to see China miss this crucial opportunity in its astronomical development."
 Flash

China said Monday that a China-U.S. trade war would lead nowhere, as President Donald Trump is poised to begin a trade investigation into China.

Trump is reportedly expected to sign an executive order Monday asking his trade office to consider an investigation into China over alleged theft of American technology and intellectual property.

"With the increasingly interwoven interests between China and the United States, a trade war will lead nowhere and neither side will win," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said at a regular news briefing.

The China-U.S. trade relationship is win-win in nature. The two sides should resolve their concerns through dialogue and protect the healthy development of economic relations, Hua said.

China has always attached importance to protecting intellectual property rights by formulating laws and regulations, cracking down on violations and raising public awareness of intellectual property rights protection, she said.

The United States should objectively evaluate China's progress in this regard and China's economic achievement through homegrown innovation, Hua said.

She refuted any intention by the United States to use the trade issue in exchange for Chinese pressure on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, saying "the Korean Peninsula issue and trade fall into different spheres."

China and the United States should respect and cooperate with each other on the two separate issues, Hua said. "It would not be proper to use one as a tool to exert pressure on the other."
Over the past five years, the world has waited and hoped for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to acknowledge the truth in his perception of history. However, he has constantly let the world down.

He did so again on Tuesday, when, at a national memorial service to mark the 72nd anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II, he once again shied away from Japan's wartime atrocities and failed to mention that he had "reflected" on his country's past aggression that brought untold suffering to Asian countries such as China and the Republic of Korea. Neither did he pledge his country will not engage in war again.

The atrocities committed by the Japanese during their occupation of Asian countries are irrefutable. Much as they would like to bury them, the historical truths are well evidenced and documented. Any attempt by Japanese leaders to whitewash or even deny that part of history is an open defiance to peace-loving people around the world.

If Abe continues to pretend that Japan's past aggression never happened, he will only reinforce his image as a politician willing stoop to any level, no matter how low, to realize his ambitions for Japan to play a bigger role in regional and world affairs.

The deceitful paramnesia displayed by Abe and like-minded Japanese makes a mockery of this aspiration, and it is simply helping to cultivate a national image that is at odds with their assertions that Japan is a peace-loving country.

Abe and his right-wing followers in Japan know well their repeated denial of historical truths have reopened wounds that had begun to heal. Their unwillingness to face up to the truths of history has soured Japan's relations with China and the ROK, and is pulling Japan further apart from them.

It is no exaggeration to say the past five years have been among the darkest days in Sino-Japanese ties since the two established formal diplomatic ties.

And Abe is painting the picture even darker by stubbornly refusing to listen to reason and adamantly leading Japan in the wrong direction.

Abe has nothing to lose by changing tack and helping Japan lay down the burden of history; indeed, his country has much to gain as he would create the opportunity to reset Sino-Japanese ties.

The door for putting China-Japan relations back onto a normal track remains open, Japan has to reflect sincerely upon history and face up to its past.


Sen. John Cornyn [R-TX, @JohnCornyn, +1 202-224-2934] introduced the Building America's Trust Act as a "long-term border security and interior enforcement strategy" but refused to release the bill's text, which has now leaked.

Ars Technica has published the bill in full, revealing a disturbing plan to subject Americans, permanent residents and visitors to an unprecedented and invasive surveillance regime.



"This is a surveillance bill in pretty weak disguise. And it won't be limited to immigrants," Alvaro Bedoya, a law professor at Georgetown University, told Ars. "It would pave the way for more face scans of American citizens at airports. It would aggressively deploy drones at the 'border,' but [it] doesn't mention that DHS interprets its authority to operate at the 'border' to extend to any area within 100 miles of the actual legal border."

Just last month, Bedoya spoke out against a DHS expansion of facial recognition of outbound travelers at a handful of American airports.

Jake Laperruque, a lawyer with the Constitution Project, e-mailed Ars to say that the bill is a "mass surveillance expansion" that is "masquerading as border security."

"Controversial measureslike stockpiling biometric databases, using facial recognition on everyone at points of travel, and sending drones along the entire border zoneshould raise alarm bells," he e-mailed.

Similarly, Neema Singh Guliani, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, told Ars that the bill "includes an alarming amount of unnecessary surveillance that goes far beyond current practices."

"It proposes a host of privacy invasive technologies to track and surveil individuals in the USincluding iris scans, DNA, face recognition, and drones," she continued. "It proposes this surge in surveillance with virtually no regard to privacy or the legitimate Fourth Amendment interests at stake."
A gas station of Sinopec in Qingdao, East China's Shandong province, April 21, 2014. [Photo/VCG]

Refiner to create 20 smokeless cities by replacing coal with clean energy

State-owned China Petroleum & Chemical Corp, also known as Sinopec Corp, said it will further develop geothermal energy in Xiongxian county, Hebei province, as it seeks to make the region smokeless.

Sinopec Corp is also diversifying beyond oil and gas production.

The company said its geothermal energy heating capacity in Xiongxian has reached 4.5 million square meters by July.

It now plans to create 20 smokeless cities nationwide replacing coal with geothermal energy, covering 100 million sq m during the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20).

Geothermal energy is the heat from the Earth, which is considered sustainable and clean. Typically, such heat can be harnessed from hot water resources, shallow ground, underground hot rock and molten rock called magma.

"Geothermal energy has the capacity to partially replace coal-fired heat and reduce carbon footprint, especially in big cities," said Wang Zizong, deputy chief engineer of Sinopec Corp, Asia's largest refiner.

Xiongxian county is part of the Xiongan New Area, a zone located some 100 kilometers southwest of downtown Beijing.

The area was set up for coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, which also spans Rongcheng and Anxin counties in Hebei province.

According to Sinopec, up to 60 percent of the Xiongxian county is rich in geothermal energy resources, with its reserves of hydro-geologic water amounting to 82.1 billion cubic meters.

The local groundwater temperature exceeds 55 C, equivalent to 6.63 billion metric tons of standard coal.

Sinopec has cooperated with Iceland in geothermal energy development long ago. It signed a framework agreement on the expansion of geothermal development and cooperation with Orka Energy Holding Ehf in 2012 and formed a joint venture with the company in 2006.

The JV, Sinopec Green Energy, moved its headquarters to Xiongan in April, seeking to provide over 16 million sq m of heating area generated by clean energy.

According to Li Yangzhe, deputy director of the National Energy Administration, is taking energy transformation place at a rapid pace globally, and renewable energy will play an increasingly significant role in shaping the global energy system.

"The Chinese government is devoted to promoting energy transformation in the country, and has set a goal to raise the percentage of nonfossil energy consumption in primary energy consumption to 15 percent by 2020, which will rise to 20 percent by 2030," Li said.

China is rich in geothermal energy resources, with the Tibet autonomous region, and Yunnan and Sichuan provinces considered the best among them. The country plans to boost geothermal energy generation in these areas.

In 2016, to promote clean energy development and improve the environment, China launched the 13th Five-Year Plan for geothermal energy, the first such plan in this field.

During the 2016-2020 period, China plans to increase installed capacity in the geothermal segment by 500 gigawatts, attracting 40 billion yuan ($5.8 billion) in investment. Meanwhile, China will also enlarge the geothermal heating area by 1.1 billion sq m.

By 2020, China will have 530 million watts of installed capacity in geothermal power as well as 1.6 billion sq m geothermal heating area, according to the country's energy planner.

Zhang Jiehui, deputy governor of Hebei province, said the geothermal resource in Hebei province equals 5 billion tons of standard coal, ranking second in the country.

It is estimated that the total energy consumption of Hebei province this year will reach 350 million tons.
A worker from China National Petroleum Corp checks the figures on a gauge. ZHONG MIN / FOR CHINA DAILY

State-owned oil and gas producer and explorer China National Petroleum Corp vowed on Monday that it would complete important internal corporate reforms by November, which would make it more streamlined, efficient and market-focused.

The Beijing-headquartered national energy behemoth said in a statement that the process was being supervised by a specific team within the corporation, which had set forward areas of responsibility, as well as an operational program and schedule.

The CNPC changes are part of wider SOE reforms being directly administered by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, the country's top SOE regulator.

Xu Wenrong, deputy general manager of CNPC, said the reforms would be completed on schedule, adding that the new structure would help clear what he called institutional barriers and enhance the company's operational efficiency.

According to the oil giant, the reforms will help create effective corporate governance and an efficient management structure in the largest integrated energy company in China.

The State Council, China's cabinet, issued an action plan last month in which it ordered the country's major State-owned enterprises to complete corporate reforms by the end of 2017.

The reforms, targeting SOEs supervised by the central government, excluding financial and cultural enterprises, will separate the government from business operations by restructuring SOEs into limited liability companies or corporations.

Analysts said on Monday they believed that the initiative in the CNPC would see an improved market focus and a more flexible company, making it more vigorous and competitive in the global marketplace.

The Research Director of energy sector consultancy ICIS China, Li Li, said that the reforms would push the corporation into becoming more market-focused and flexible.

The energy giant has been speeding up company-level reforms in recent years in order to further open up the country's energy markets.

It vowed to achieve a market-based pricing system in three years and also said last year it would restructure its natural gas sales and pipeline side, to establish five individual natural gas sales companies responsible for all pipeline-related operations.

CNPC Chairman Wang Yilin said earlier that mixed ownership would be a significant breakthrough in the company.

"The reforms toward a market-oriented economy will help the company improve its products, pricing mechanisms and services," Wang added.

"We will establish a market and benefit-centered investment, budget and assessment system."
SHANGHAI  Chinese stocks added to early gains on Monday to end higher as investors looked for opportunities on the back of last Friday's losses.

The blue-chip CSI300 Index edged higher by 1.3 percent to 3,694.68, while the Shanghai Composite Index increased by 0.9 percent to 3,237.36 points.

Gains were led by high-tech, consumer and healthcare firms that had been hit by losses at the end of last week.

"The market has been in a rising period led by cyclical shares," said Huang Xiaobin, an analyst at Huaitai Securities in Shenzhen.

"In previous sessions, the enterprise board fell relatively steeply, so the opportunity for a rebound is very clear," Huang added.

Investors appeared unperturbed by data on Monday that showed China's factory output had slowed last month, along with investment and retail sales.

But economists quickly ruled out an economic hard landing. They pointed out that weakening economic indicators in July are only short-term fluctuations.

Overall, the trend is for stable growth in the second half of this year. The markets were certainly bullish with smartphone display company BOE Technology Group Co Ltd gaining 3.0 percent.

It was the most traded component of the CSI300 Index by volume.

But voice recognition software maker iFlytek Co Ltd gained the daily limit of 10 per-cent. Last week, the company reported that first-half revenue surged 43.79 percent year-on-year to more than 2.1 billion yuan ($315 million).

"As the company turns its technology into products, it will go on to greater achievements (of) economic scale growth," Southwest Securities analysts Xiong Li and Chang Xiaoya wrote about iFlytek in a note.

The tech-heavy ChiNext board gained 2.9 percent.

Liquor manufacturers also saw their share prices raise. Kweichow Moutai regained ground lost on Friday to jump 3.3 percent to a record-high close of 499.83 yuan.

China CSI300 Index futures for August rose 1.1 percent, to 3,681.4, 12.69 points below the current value of the underlying index.

Reuters - China Daily
Rival Chinese groups in the same sector line up to bid for same target

Outbound Chinese pharmaceutical companies are consolidating their deployment in overseas markets, with both Fosun Pharma and Shanghai Pharmaceuticals eyeing the same acquisition target.

According to the filings of the two companies respectively released on Monday, both Fosun Pharma and Shanghai Pharmaceuticals submitted non-binding proposals on July 19 to bid for stakes in US specialty pharmaceutical company Arbor Pharmaceuticals.

The transaction is still under non-exclusive bidding at present. Neither Fosun Pharma nor Shanghai Pharmaceuticals have disclosed any details as to the bidding amount or the financial standing of the target company due to the uncertainties about acquisition and confidentiality requirements.

According to Reuters, the potential deal could value Arbor at around $3 billion.

Arbor Pharmaceuticals, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, focuses on the cardiovascular, hospital and pediatric markets. New York-based private equity firm KKR agreed to buy more than 25 percent of Arbor in late December, which valued the privately held company at more than $1 billion, according to Reuters.

Fosun Pharma's wholly owned unit Fosun Pharma Industrial in Hong Kong will be responsible for the acquisition. Fosun Pharma said in a statement that its capability in manufacturing, as well as the research and development of pharmaceutical products, will be improved once the acquisition proves a success.

Shanghai Pharmaceuticals said in a separate statement that the acquisition of Arbor is in line with the company's international development strategy. It will continue to look for acquisition opportunities for high-quality overseas assets.

Zhou Jun, chairman of Shanghai Pharmaceuticals, said during the company's mid-term meeting that the company should maintain double-digit growth to reach its prospective earnings. To that end, acquisitions were one of the many means that would help it reach the goal, he said.

Shanghai Pharmaceuticals acquired Australian healthcare products maker Vitaco for 938 million yuan ($140 million) in August last year.

It is not the first time that Fosun Pharma and Shanghai Pharmaceuticals have eyed the same target. In March, both companies expressed a willingness to acquire German generic and over-the-counter drugs maker Stada Arzneimittel. The deal has not been completed yet.

Fosun Pharma saw its shares in Shanghai rise 2 percent to close at 29.57 yuan on Monday, and it rose 2.11 percent to close at HK$29.1($3.70) in Hong Kong. However, Shanghai Pharmaceuticals' price in Shanghai dropped 0.73 percent to close at 25.94 yuan per share while in Hong Kong its price climbed 1.49 percent to close at HK$20.5.

Chinese pharmaceutical companies have been quite active in terms of mergers and acquisitions both at home and abroad since 2012, according to Chongqing-based VC Beat Research, which tracks health-related investments and fundraising. Total M&A in the Chinese pharmaceutical industry amounted to 428 in 2016. The total value topped over 180 billion yuan, of which 20 billion yuan came from overseas mergers and acquisitions.
BEIJING - China said Monday that a China-US trade war would lead nowhere, as President Donald Trump is poised to begin a trade investigation into China.

Trump is reportedly expected to sign an executive order Monday asking his trade office to consider an investigation into China over alleged theft of American technology and intellectual property.

"With the increasingly interwoven interests between China and the United States, a trade war will lead nowhere and neither side will win," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said at a regular news briefing.

The China-US trade relationship is win-win in nature. The two sides should resolve their concerns through dialogue and protect the healthy development of economic relations, Hua said.

China has always attached importance to protecting intellectual property rights by formulating laws and regulations, cracking down on violations and raising public awareness of intellectual property rights protection, she said.

The United States should objectively evaluate China's progress in this regard and China's economic achievement through homegrown innovation, Hua said.

She refuted any intention by the United States to use the trade issue in exchange for Chinese pressure on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, saying "the Korean Peninsula issue and trade fall into different spheres."

China and the United States should respect and cooperate with each other on the two separate issues, Hua said. "It would not be proper to use one as a tool to exert pressure on the other."
British farmers will soon benefit from a major export deal with China as the United Kingdom's pork industry taps into growing demand in China for British produce.

Seven businesses in England and Northern Ireland will now export pork products to China, including three producers that will, in a UK first, trade trotters, which are a delicacy in China.

The deal for market access was made between the UK government and China's Certification and Accreditation Administration, as well as the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.

The UK's food and farming minister, George Eustice, said the deal means a 200 million pound ($259 million) boost for the UK's food industry and support for 1,500 jobs.

According to the UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), demand for British pork has doubled in value in the last three years. Nine producers already export to China, with pork products sold there worth 43 million pounds last year.

"China is a hugely important market for our world-class food industry and, by opening up access even further, more UK businesses can take advantage of the growing appetite for our food and drink," Eustice said.

The deal means Northern Ireland will, for the first time, be able to take advantage of the growing demand in China for British food and drink. The agreement includes approval to export from three sites in Suf olk, Lincolnshire, and Derbyshire.

With China's middle-income population on the rise, industry experts believe demand for beef, pork, and poultry from the world's second-largest economy will remain strong. Northern Ireland welcomed the new agreement, where the devolved administration worked alongside Defra and the local pork industry to gain access to China.

Robert Huey, Northern Ireland's chief veterinary officer, said: "This is very welcome news for the Northern Ireland pig sector and for our wider agri-food industry and I look forward to the commencement of exports to China. The deal represents a major boost, worth in excess of 10 million pounds for the local pork industry."

The announcement comes after it was revealed that UK food and drinks exports reached 10 billion pounds ($13 billion) in the first half of this year.

China is one of the key markets in the UK's International Action Plan for Food and Drink, which will see the British government and industry work together to boost food and drink exports during the coming five years.
Wang Xiaochuan, founder and CEO of Sougou, Lee Kai-fu, founder and CEO of Sinovation Ventures, and Zhang Hongjiang, head of Technical Strategy Research Center with ByteDance, pose for pictures at the launch ceremony of AI Challenger contest, in Beijing, Aug 14, 2017. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Three Chinese internet companies have rolled out a global artificial intelligence (AI) contest with what claims to be among the largest open datasets, enabling talents a data-rich environment to hone their research.

China's second-biggest search giant Sougou, Sinovation Ventures, a venture capital founded by former Google and Microsoft executive Lee Kai-fu, and internet firm ByteDance launched the "AI Challenger" in Beijing on Monday.

The three plan to invest tens of millions of yuan in the coming three years on the platform and invite more companies to expand open data and bring down research barriers.

"In the US, professors and researchers would complain falling behind big corps due to the lack of data. Here we hope to set up a longstanding contest and cultivate talents by providing them huge data pool," Wang Xiaochuan, CEO of Sougou, said.

Starting from next month, AI Challenger vows to release over 300,000 image-based as well as over 10 million text-based data entries to participants, of which research results can be applied to fields such as autonomous driving, human-computer interaction, image understanding, robotic vision and machine translation, according to the organizers.

"Compared to seven years ago when the cost of starting an internet-related business was record low, such cost under the age of AI is high," said Lee Kai-fu, adding that AI research should go beyond borders.

The launch of the platform comes one month after China released its national AI development plan. Under the roadmap, the country aims to grow the industry to 1 trillion yuan and become a global leader in AI by 2030.

"Chinese firms are striving to become major contributors to the advance of AI technology," Wang said.

AI Challenger competition opens through Dec 3, and winners will receive a total of 2 million yuan awards.
New center in Shanghai set to act as incubator for clean-energy startups

Chinese energy company Shenergy and partners in the United Kingdom have announced plans to build a new center in Shanghai dedicated to clean energy and"smart city" technology.

The Shanghai International Energy Innovation Center, which will also be known as SIEIC, is scheduled to open in mid-2018. Shenergy will partner on the project with Chinese fintech company BBD UK and Cambridge Technology Capital Partners(CTCP), a firm that specializes in UK and China cross-border transactions.

Alan Barrell, CTCP's chairman, said the center will provide financial, technical, and networking resources, and act as an incubator for startups involved in clean energy and smart-city technology.

"The internet of things and smart cities are big issues for China, as are clean cities and waste management," Barrell said. "In my view, China is on the fast track to becoming the leading innovation nation."

Smart cities are urban areas where technology and big data are used to improve urban planning. They were a focus of the government's 12th and 13th five-year plans. So far, 290 cities across the country are subject to technological upgrades. Among the most advanced is Yinchuan, a city of 2 million in the Ningxia Hui autonomous region.

Visitors to Yinchuan city hall are greeted by holograms, and local buses use facial recognition technology to identify and take fares from passengers, streamlining the boarding process. Other technology includes solar-powered public trashcans that compact garbage and alert disposal companies when full.

Barrell said the SIEIC will support companies that use technology to improve almost any aspect of urban living through low-carbon solutions.

"Controlling street lighting and traffic, controlling the water system, management of manhole covers and waste, all of these areas will be discussed," he said.

The center will also provide support for companies involved in wind, hydro and solar power. In 2015, China invested $102.9 billion in renewable power and fuels, which was more than a third of the global total of $265.8 billion.

The center will be supported by BBD UK, one of the first Chinese fintech companies to set up in Britain. It has a front office in London and a research and development center in Cambridge. BBD opened a startup accelerator in London in June, with the aim of helping British and Chinese fintech companies access each other's markets.

Barrell said Shenergy and CTCP intend to create a joint fund in the UK and China for investment in startups, and to help businesses from China establish themselves in the UK, and vice-versa.
A pet dog walks on a road in Xi'an, Shaanxi province. [Photo/VCG]

Dog owners in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, will be punished if their pets are found without registration or in violation of management rules, according to the city's police authority.

Public security, urban management, and industrial and commercial authorities in the city have launched a campaign against irresponsible dog ownership. The campaign, which is expected to last until the end of this year, aims to further regulate dog owners.

According to the police, owners will be warned if their pets are not registered, found without leads, or if their enclosures are not cleaned.

Owners will be further punished if they do not get their pets registered within three days after being found in violation of the rules, according to police.

The city's industrial and commercial department will also inspect pet markets, and punish traders without licenses or those running illegal businesses.

The campaign follows an increasing number of complaints filed recently regarding irresponsible pet owners.

According to local police, the registered number of dogs is not as high as expected because the city's regulations and rules for dog owners took effect in 2009. Under the regulations, an owner could be fined 2,000 yuan ($300) for having more than one dog. The city's dog registration fee is 500 yuan.

The city has dealt with more than 200 dog-related cases, 70 percent of which related to owners failing to fulfill their responsibilities, according to the police.

Dog owners are often found failing to clean up their pets' feces, failing to keep dogs on leads and failing to take measures to prevent barking in public places, the police said.

"Improper dog management has been blamed for the spread of diseases such as rabies, which breaks out frequently in the city," said Peng Peng, a researcher at the Guangzhou Academy of Social Sciences.

According to Peng, dog registrations could be effective in preventing dog-related diseases.

"It is of great importance to implement the regulations to keep the dog population at a realistic number, as they will pose threats to public security," Peng said.

Li Pan, a Guangzhou native, also supports the campaign, saying the rule will help better regulate dog ownership.

"After registration, the dogs will have identity cards. They will be easily found if they are lost," said Li, 35, who has kept a dog since 2015.

Liang Fengxin contributed to this story.
Man photographed touching young girl in waiting room at Nanjing rail station

Nanjing police detained a man on Monday who was photographed allegedly molesting a girl in public, angering millions of Chinese on the internet.

On Saturday evening, pictures showing a man about 20 years old putting his hands inside the girl's dress and on her breast in a crowded waiting room at Nanjing South Railway Station were uploaded online.

Many netizens were shocked as the girl, who a witness said was about 10 to 12 years old, showed no sign of struggle and called the man "brother".

According to the woman who took the pictures, surnamed Chen, the man's parents were sitting next to him, and other relatives were also nearby.

"First I heard the girl sitting opposite to me giggling on the man's lap and I thought he was tickling her," said Chen. "I was astonished when I noticed that his hands were not on her waist but on her breast.

"During the whole process, the girl just played with a cell phone and didn't struggle at all. The man's father finally noticed that people around were watching them and asked his son to stand up and leave the place."

Chen, a college student, said she did not report the incident to the police immediately because the relatives of the man outnumbered her. Though the man touched the girl for at least five minutes and some people took pictures of them, nobody at the scene stopped him and called the police, Chen said.

She sent the pictures to Chen Lan, a writer and NGO worker who has worked for years to protect abused children. The writer posted the pictures online and asked the police to help the girl.

According to Mo Jing, an officer with the Nanjing railway public security department, the police took immediate action after receiving the report, and officers were sent to the man's hometown to investigate.

"We have sent policewomen to talk to the girl to make her feel not too nervous," Mo said. "The results of the investigation will be released to the public on the internet as soon as possible."

She said to protect the privacy of the girl, who is under 14, the details of the case cannot not be revealed currently.

According to Modern Express, the detained man is from Henan province and is a college student in Nanjing.

Chen Lan, who founded the child-protection organization Home for Little Hope, said she was afraid the man might not be punished because of their relationship.

"The monitors may find many excuses and deny that it was molestation. They may even insist that it was normal touching among family members," she said.

She said she hopes the child-protection measures from some developed countries can be used for reference in China.

"Abused children should be isolated from family members immediately and be helped by professionals, including medical workers, psychological experts and social workers," she said.
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A well-known Chinese writer has been detained in connection with the brutal slaying of four people at a guesthouse in Zhejiang province 22 years ago.

ThePaper.cn identified the suspect as poet and novelist Liu Yongbiao, 53. Police identified him only by the surname Liu and said he was a writer. Another suspect was also detaineda man identified only as Wang, 64.

The detentions followed a new round of DNA analysis, the Huzhou public security bureau said on Monday.

The two men are accused of robbing a guest at a hostel and then bludgeoning him to death. They were also accused of beating to death the couple who operated the hostel and their 13-year-old grandson, according to Shen Lianjiang, the bureau's deputy director.

Shen said Liu and Wang were good friends, and the latter had been working in Zhili, a town in Huzhou, for two years.

When the two stayed in a hostel and tried to find targets to make some easy money, one guest, surnamed Yu, from Shandong province, attracted their attention, Shen said.

On Nov 29, 1995, Liu and Wang were caught by Yu as they were trying to steal his money, and they subsequently killed Yu and later beat the couple and their grandson to death to cover their crime, Shen said.

The lack of monitoring systems inside and outside the hostel, as well as the ID registration process, created difficulties for the investigation.

After inquiring with other guests, neighbors and passers-by, local police had two male criminal portraits, some used towels, fingerprints and shoe prints, but were unable to find the suspects in their database.

"We reopened the investigation several times over the years, there was no progress until we used new DNA technology when we reopened the case again in June," Shen said, adding that the police checked about 60,000 fingerprint files in 15 provinces and cities and finally found a match. They detained Liu at around 1 am on Friday in Nanling county, Anhui province.

Wang was caught on the same day at about 6 am in Shanghai, four hours away by car, based on information given by Liu, the police said.

Liu is chief editor of a school magazine and also a well-known writer in Anhui province. He is a member of the Chinese Writers Association, and has published some prose poems and novels.

"I lived in fear for 20 years. I knew the day would come," Liu wrote in a letter he left for his wife.

The special investigation team collected blood sample from Liu in July as they were following leads.

"I knew that I might not escape this time. I have been waiting at home since then," said Liu in a video provided by the police at a news conference.

Wang, who was caught in Shanghai, is the legal representative of an investment company.
BEIJING -- China will start a three-month crackdown on pyramid selling following the death of a university graduate who fell prey to a pyramid scheme.

From Tuesday, pyramid organizations disguised as recruitment agencies will be the main target, according to a notice released by four government agencies, including the State Administration for Industry & Commerce and the Ministry of Public Security.

The move came following the death of Li Wenxing, a 23-year-old university graduate who got involved in a pyramid scheme through an online recruitment site and was found drowned in Tianjin, sparking nationwide rage against pyramid sellers.

Pyramid schemes expanded widely through social networks in recent years. Police investigated 2,826 cases in 2016, 19.1 percent more than that in 2015.

From 2005 to 2015, 21,904 pyramid schemes were investigated and 990 million yuan ($148 million) recovered.
Classes at a center for autistic children in Beijing have been suspended after surveillance footage showed teachers physically abusing the students.

Two teachers at the Senxi Education center in Changping district have been fired due to "grave errors" and another are expected to follow after the police finish their investigation, the person in charge of the center, surnamed Han, told the Beijing News.

Footage from classroom surveillance cameras was made public last week at the request of parents after they found bruises on their children's bodies, according to the report.

The video shows one teacher forcing a child to squat by pressing a hand on the child's head and another teacher dragging a child around using a rope.

After watching the footage, parents reported the matter to the police and classes were suspended.

According to Senxi's website, it is a research institute that applies brain science research in its education practices for autistic children. The center enrolls children aged 2 to 6 with impaired perception and coordination abilities.

A teacher at the school told Beijing News that 10 of the 41 students have been removed from classes since the footage was released.

Han said the center would reflect on existing problems.

Li Lei contributed to this story
Lin Qiongmin and her husband hold their newborn baby in the hospital.[Photo by Wen Honglei/to chinadaily.com.cn]

A woman who lost her fingers and feet after developing a vascular disease as a child has given birth to a healthy baby boy, Chutian Metropolis Daily reported on Monday.

Lin Qiongmin, 34, from Wuhan in Hubei province was diagnosed with severe vascular disease when she was 7 and treated in a first-class hospital.

As her family could not afford the 100,000 yuan ($15,000) medical costs, Lin sustained permanent damage to her hands and feet.

However, she went on to gain a college degree in computer application and graphic design, and has been able to earn a living by running a computer shop.

Lin became pregnant soon after marrying her husband, Yuan Mingliang, in November.

Lying on a customized delivery bed at Wuhan Maternal and Child Health Hospital, she gave birth to a baby boy weighing 2.6 kilograms on Aug 8.

Cheng Si contributed to this story.
Top generals open communication channels, look to cooperate further

General Fang Fenghui, chief of the People's Liberation Army's Joint Staff Department, holds a welcoming ceremony for his US counterpart, Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, in Beijing on Tuesday. WANG ZHUANGFEI/CHINA DAILY

Top Chinese and US military officials agreed to further develop military relations and exchanges amid growing tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

The two militaries also signed the framework to build a new communication mechanism for their joint staff departments. Since the department plays a crucial role in actual combat operations, experts said the new mechanism would strengthen effective communication, reduce miscalculations and improve risk management in Asia's increasingly complex geopolitical climate.

General Fang Fenghui, chief of the People's Liberation Army's Joint Staff Department, met his US counterpart, Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, in Beijing on Tuesday. This is Dunford's first visit to China in his position and the highest-ranking military official to visit China since US President Donald Trump took office.

Dunford also will visit a military base in the PLA's Northern Theater Command on Wednesday to interact with Chinese soldiers and officers, as well as to observe a military exercise by the Chinese military.

During the meeting, Fang said that President Xi Jinping and Trump valued the friendly development of the two militaries and developed the blueprint and direction for its development. He said cooperation is the only right option for China and the US, and the two sides could be great partners.

The Chinese military is willing to work with its US counterpart to strengthen mutual understanding and trust, deepen cooperation and manage risks and differences in an appropriate and effective manner, Fang said.

Dunford said the US military will continue to develop Sino-US military relations and added both sides should take every opportunity to deepen communication and tackle current issues in a constructive way.

"Although we might not share the same perspective on many of the difficult issues," he said, "we do share the same commitment to solve them."

The two officials also exchanged opinions on Taiwan, the South China Sea and the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula and other issues of mutual concern.

Dunford's visit to China is the second of three stops in his trip to Asia. He visited the Republic of Korea on Sunday and travels to Japan later this week.

The two militaries already have dialogue mechanisms across many military ranks and services, including the Defense Policy Coordination Talks for senior military officials, and dialogue and cooperation mechanism for the armies and navies, said Senior Colonel Zhao Xiaozhuo, a researcher at the PLA Academy of Military Science.

"But most of those mechanisms typically focus on policies, military building or exchanges on a specific issue or a branch of military," Zhao said. "It is very important for joint staff departments, which encompass all military branches and serve as one of the backbones of military operations, to have regular exchanges. This is a very positive step in building mutual trust and cooperation."

Dunford's visit came on the heels of intense exchanges between President Trump and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. This month, China agreed to the toughest United Nations Security Council sanctions to date against the DPRK. China's Ministry of Commerce and customs administration enforced the sanction on Tuesday by fully banning imports of coal, iron, lead, ores, and seafood from the DPRK.

On Monday, the US staged joint military exercises with Japan and would also hold similar exercises with the Republic of Korea in the region next week, which may antagonize the DPRK and undermine regional peace.

"China and the US both have responsibility in maintaining regional peace in Asia," Senior Colonel Zhou Bo, a security expert, said. "The new mechanism will play a significant role in exchanging ideas for dealing with major military issues in the region, which in term will reduce the chance of miscalculation and improve risk management between the two militaries."
President Xi Jinping has encouraged college students to get to know their country and achieve their true value as the nation comes "closer than ever" to its goal of rejuvenation.

Xi made the remarks on Tuesday in a letter replying to college students who took part in the third China College Students' "Internet Plus" Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition.

The students wrote to Xi earlier this year about how they used business startup programs to address local need for development and help boost efforts in eradicating poverty in Yan'an, Shaanxi province.

Yan'an was once a home to China's revolutionary bases before the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, and it has been underdeveloped.

In April and July, around 100 groups taking part in the competition went to Yan'an to help local people eliminate poverty and live a well-off life.

In the reply to the students on Tuesday, Xi said he is glad to know that the students have achieved progress and received inspiration during their stay at the hometown of China's revolution.

The students have integrated their dreams of youth into the Chinese Dream, and have projected the upbeat look of the modern Chinese youth when they followed the paces of revolutionary predecessors there, Xi said.

"As long as the younger generation of the country have ideals, pursuits and shoulders, there will be endless power of youth supporting the Chinese nation's rejuvenation," Xi wrote.

It is hoped the students will improve their talent and abilities via innovation and entrepreneurial activities and strengthen their willpower through hard work, Xi said.

As the country has set the goal of eliminating poverty by 2020, Yan'an reduced its registered population of poor residents to 10,200 people as of the end of last year, according to the city's information office.
Events and stories coming up in the next few days

All systems go in Ordos as meeting focuses on AI game

The first World AI Go Open will kick off in Ordos, Inner Mongolia autonomous region, on Wednesday, attracting dozens of research teams from home and abroad. The event is organized by the International Go Federation and the Chinese Go Association. In May, AlphaGo, an artificial intelligence program developed by Google's DeepMind team, beat China's top Go player Ke Jie in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province.
China hopes to deepen Belt and Road cooperation with Nepal and reach more consensus with the country, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said on Monday while commenting on Vice-Premier Wang Yang's ongoing trip to South Asia.

Wang arrived in Kathmandu, the capital, on Monday evening after wrapping up his visit to Pakistan. He will meet with Nepalese President Bidhya Devi Bhandari and Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba during the visit, spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular news conference on Monday.

Noting that China and Nepal are friendly neighbors, Hua said that the visit is an important high-level interaction between the two countries.
MANILA - The fighting on the island of Mindanao in the southern Philippines between government-backed separatist rebels and pro-Islamic State militants has killed at least 25 people, the army said on Monday, as the military continues to battle to restore order.

Soldiers provided artillery support for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a Muslim rebel group with which the government has signed a peace agreement, to try to tackle Islamist extremists, spokesman Colonel Gerry Besana said.

The MILF and the government have agreed to work together to thwart several militant groups in Mindanao that have pledged allegiance to IS.

The island of 22 million people, which is roughly the size of South Korea, is under martial law at least until the end of the year, as President Rodrigo Duterte tries to extinguish the growing threat of radical Islam taking a hold and turning the southern Philippines into a magnet for foreign extremists.

The MILF is opposed to radical groups and sees them as undermining its legitimate quest for greater autonomy for Muslims in parts of Mindanao, to end the nearly 50 years of conflict that has killed more than 120,000 people and displaced 2 million.

"Based on reports from cease-fire monitors, the two sides suffered 25 casualties, including 20 from the IS-inspired group," Besana said.

He said 10 MILF fighters had been wounded and were being treated at a military hospital.

The conflict started on Aug 7 when extremists from Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters attacked two villages in Maguindanao and their homemade bombs killed five MILF fighters.

The MILF responded and clashes lasted six days, with the military firing howitzer cannons in support, Besana said.

The government and MILF have agreed on a Bangsamoro Basic Law, which needs legislative approval, to create an autonomous region for the Moro minority in the Philippines with its own executive, legislature and fiscal powers.

Breakaway faction

The BIFF is a breakaway faction of the MILF that disagrees with the peace process and wants an independent Islamic State in the south.

The military is concerned about the possibility that the BIFF, though smaller and less organized, could join forces with the larger, more powerful militant group, Dawla Islamiya, better known as the Maute group.

The Maute group, with the support of armed elements of another group, Abu Sayyaf, has held the commercial heart of Marawi City through more than 80 days of clashes and airstrikes by the military that have left 700 people dead and displaced some 600,000.

Army officials on Monday estimated about 20 to 40 militants were holed up in Marawi and are believed to be holding scores of hostages as human shields, complicating efforts for a military aided by US technical support to retake the city.

The rebels were running out of options and could strap explosives on hostages and detonate if soldiers encircled their positions, the military said.

Reuters

(China Daily 08/15/2017 page11)
The dance drama Kubuqi focuses on the theme of environment protection. [Photo provided to China Daily]

When the dance drama Kubuqi, which is named after a large desert in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region, was staged at the Tianqiao Performing Arts Center in Beijing on Thursday, the audience was introduced to a lesser-known fable of the Mongolian ethnic group through folk music.

The fable is about a magical flower, which can cure diseases among the residents of Kubuqi, a place in Ordos. But after being saved by the flower, a man takes it away out of greed, an act that turns the area's beautiful land into a desert. His mistake also brings him trouble but no one wants to help him except a girl who helps the man make amends and the flower bloom again.

Performed by the Ordos Singing and Dancing Troupe, the dance drama aims to raise environmental awareness. It has been staged 20 times, attracting nearly 20,000 viewers, since it premiered at the Ordos Grand Theater a year ago. Its recent show in Beijing was to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of autonomous region in August.
Visitors view frescos in Tholing Monastery in Tibet via digital technology. [Photo/zjol.com]

Paintings on the wall of Tholing Monastery in Tibet have come to East China's Suzhou city via digital technology.

Featuring two giant buddhas, the high-precision digitalized images reproduce the original work in vivid detail.

"The images present the authentic features of the wall paintings, with a color rendition of over 95 percent accuracy," said Li Zhirong of Zhejiang University.

Situated in Zanda county, Ngari prefecture, Tibet autonomous region, Tholing Monastery was built in 996, with many of its murals dating back to the late 15th and early 16th century.

The paintings, showing elements of Tibetan Buddhism and local culture, have been damaged by weather, religious activities and tourists.

To protect the murals, experts at Zhejiang University and local cultural bureaus have spent six months archiving parts of the paintings.

With the digital images, visitors to an exhibition hall in East China's Jiangsu province can "see" the frescos outside Tibet for the first time.

"By setting up the archive, we can restore the paintings even if they suffer further damage in the future," said Li.
A worker paints on an imitation of Tangsancai, a tri-colored glazed pottery of the Tang Dynasty (618-907), at a workshop in Nanshishan village, Chaoyang town, Mengjin county, Luoyang city, Central China's Henan province, on Aug 13. [Photo by Huang Zhengwei/Asianewsphoto]

The Nanshishan village is regarded as the No 1 village of China's Tangsancai culture. With support of the local government, a group of representative inheritors created the making technique of high-quality replicas of Tangsancai based on former imitations. The number of local manufacturing enterprises engaged in the industry is now more than 70, forming thousands of products on Tangsancai replicas and glazed pottery in new crafts.
An airview of Harbin, capital city of Heilongjiang province, Northeast China. [Photo/Xinhua]

Harbin, capital city of Heilongjiang province, was awarded with the 2018 Culture City of East Asia title, according to a national Ministry of Culture announcement on Aug 7.

Sanya and Xi'an were also honored and awarded with the Supporting City of the 2018 Culture City of East Asia title.

The awarding ceremony is set to take place at the 9th Korea-China-Japan Culture Ministers Meeting later this month.

Luo Shugang, Culture Minister of China, encouraged the city elected to fulfill its campaign promises and enhance culture development through communication and cooperation.

Jointly established by China, Japan and South Korea in 2014, the East Asian City of Culture campaign is an important cultural brand in the region.

The campaign aims to promote regional cultural diversity and increase mutual understandings among the three countries. Every year, the campaign selects one city from each of the participating countries to be the Culture City of East Asia.

With an expanded international fame, these cities will act as models for cultural relic preservation and proper urban construction, which in return will benefit the region and its people.
Veteran actor Wang Qianyuan (left) and Hong Kong superstar Aaron Kwok (right) attend a news conference for the premiere of their new film Peace Breaker on Monday, August 14, 2017 in Beijing. [Photo/mtime.com]

Veteran actor Wang Qianyuan has exposed "his nature of cruelty" again, but this time towards Hong Kong's 'heavenly king,' superstar Aaron Kwok.

In an upcoming film Peace Breaker, award-wining actors Aaron Kwok and Wang Qianyuan both act the role of police officer. But the cop Wang portrays is, in fact, a drug dealer.

The film is said to include brutal scenes showing the drug trafficker mercilessly beating Aaron Kwok's character.

Kwok disclosed at the film's premiere in Beijing that he didn't use a stuntman, saying he was beaten heavily in those scenes because they wanted to make it as realistic as possible.

Peace Breaker is another chance to play a cruel character following his role in the 2015 crime thriller Saving Mr. Wu.

Peace Breaker, a Chinese remake of the 2014 South Korean crime thriller A Hard Day, is due in Chinese theatres on August 17, 2017.
A video, The Jog, by Taiwan artist Musquiqui Chihying, shows a person running inside a supermarket.[Photo provided to China Daily]

They grew up with the internet, studied fine arts abroad and present at exhibitions around the worldincluding their motherland, where contemporary art and the market have both prospered.

A group show of dozens of works by young Chinese opened at the Tang Contemporary Art Beijing on Aug 5. Nine artists, many of whom were born in well-off families after the 1990s, are displaying installations, videos, paintings and photos.

The show's name, A Chemical Love Story, is borrowed from the title of a 1991 book about drugs by Alexander Shulgin and Ann Shulgin.

Bian Ka, who helped organize the show, says these young artists' pieces can produce "delusions like drugs can".

"They can access all the information they want through the internet and social media," Bian says.

"Their art comes from the virtual world and books, unlike the older generations whose works are often based on life experiences. This leads to delusions."

Qualifying artists had to be young, have studied abroad and have grown up in wealthy families.

"They're very international. Many resumes I received are in English. They even use English names," Bian says.

Chen Yimin signs her works as "Yorkson" rather than in her Chinese name. The 25-year-old, who recently graduated from London's Slade School of Fine Art, explains she uses her English name so audiences won't judge her by her gender or race.

Her mixed-media installation, Dear Job: Leave God Alone, was inspired by a Bible story and explores the dynamics of power and religion. Stained glass features two cartoons from pop culture, including the image of the French character Barbapapa, who appears as God.

"I think from a global perspective," Chen says, who lives in London.

The artist moved to Britain after high school.

She has staged two solo showsone in her hometown, Guangdong province's capital, Guangzhou, and the other in Londonand has displayed works in various cities in China and around the world.

"I prefer to do projects with different art institutions," Chen says of her future plans.

Bian says many of the young artists' works are "superficial and direct in expression"and insists he doesn't mean this in a negative way.

It's a reality that most young artists and curators face in this age of globalization and the internet, he explains.

New York-based artist Liu Zhangbolong's pieces, for instance, feature three photos of university laboratories.

A video titled The Jog by Taiwan artist Musquiqui Chihying, who studied at Berlin University of the Arts, shows a person running inside a supermarket.

Bian says: "These artists seeand learn and think aboutthe world via the internet. But the reality of what people really experience in China, for example, is different."

If you go

11 am-5:30 pm, through Sept 16. Tang Contemporary Art, No 2 Jiuxianqiao Road, Chaoyang district, Beijing. 01057623060.
A visitor views a wood carving called Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival, one of the most renowned pieces of art from ancient China, in Taiyuan on Aug 10. The 5.25-meter-long masterpiece by artist Zhang Zeduan, who lived during the Song Dynasty (960-1279), depicts the daily lives of people and the landscape of the capital, Bianjing, today's Kaifeng city in Henan province. [Photo/Xinhua]
More than 300 photographers from countries across the world climbed the historic Mount Tai in Tai'an, Shandong province on Aug 10 to capture the beautiful scenery on camera.

The photographers visited Tai'an as part of the Fifth FIAP Photo Meeting, one of the flagship events in world photography, which is being held in China for the first time this year.

The event organizers FIAP (International Federation of Photographic Art) and the Taishan Mountain Scenic Area Management Committee also signed a strategic cooperation agreement during the visit.

Officials from the FIAP and Tai'an announce that Mount Tai will become the world photography association's first officially recommended photography site. [Photo/WeChat account: Hi Taishan]

The FIAP has made Mount Tai its first ever officially recommended photography site as part of the agreement.

"We have members stretching out to 99 countries and we will arrange more photographic activities at Mount Tai. We will help to bring the beauty and majesty of Mount Tai to the whole world through our lenses," said the president of the FIAP, Riccardo Busi.

Ye Peng, a top official from the Mount Tai Scenic Area Management Committee, said that the cooperation with the FIAP will help to promote Tai'an's tourism industry and increase Mount Tai's profile around the world.

Renowned as one of China's "five sacred mountains", Mount Tai has been one of the symbols of China and Chinese culture since the time of the legendary Xia Dynasty (c. 21st century - 16th century BC). For more than 2,000 years, Chinese emperors climbed the mountain to offer sacrifices to heaven, one of the most important imperial rituals.

The visiting photographers were all fascinated by the magnificent view and unique cultural legacy on Mount Tai.

A foreign photographer is engrossed in shooting during his tour at Mount Tai on Aug 10. [Photo/WeChat account: Hi Taishan]

"I'm impressed with the mountain's majestic and precipitous appeal, and it offers limitless opportunities for photography," said Kurt Batschinski, a famous photographer from Austria.

"Though I've been to China many times, it's my first visit to Mount Tai and I have really enjoyed the trip. I will come here again when I get the chance," he added.

Morning at Taishan Mountain in Shandong province, Aug 10, 2017. As the sun emerges after a spattering of rain, the floating white clouds and thick mist makes the scenic spot look like a fairyland. [Photo by Ju Chuanjiang/China Daily]

"My camera has kept clicking and whirring since I arrived at Mount Tai. The mountain is so spectacular and I've got many good shots," said Irmeli Kauppinen, a photographer from Andorra.

The 2017 FIAP Photo Meeting is supported by UNESCO China, and jointly hosted by the FIAP, Shandong Tourism Development Committee, Shandong Provincial Department of Culture, and the Shandong International Culture Exchange Center.
Modern agricultural machinery farms success in Urumqi

By Sun Hui ( chinadaily.com.cn )

Updated: 2017-08-14

The 2017 China Xinjiang Agricultural Machinery Expo got underway at the Urumqi International Convention & Exhibition Center in Urumqi, capital city of Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, on Aug 13.

More than 300 companies from China and overseas attended the expo to showcase their advanced agricultural machinery. Over 10,000 agricultural machines used for crops planting, animal husbandry, fruit growing and agricultural product processing, were displayed during the three-day event.

A group of cotton planters admire the latest tech during the 2017 China Xinjiang Agricultural Machinery Expo on Aug 13. [Photo by Liu Xin/chinanews.com]

Unmanned tractors were a particular highlight at this year's expo, able to plow and harrow fields via GPS navigation.

John Deere, an American agricultural manufacturer, featured its latest corn picking machine.

Zhuang Yibin, product manager of John Deere's China branch, said the corn picker can pick up to 50 mu (3.3 hectares) of corn per hourworthy of its 2.8 million yuan ($420,000) price tag.

An exhibitor drives a new agricultural vehicle during the 2017 China Xinjiang Agricultural Machinery Expo on Aug 13. [Photo by Liu Xin/chinanews.com]

Mao Hong, chairman of the China Agricultural Machinery Distribution Association, said that it is a first for the expo to be held in Urumqi, but corresponds with the country's Belt and Road Initiative.

Mao added that most domestic agricultural machines and devices are exported to Central Asian countries through Xinjiang and that this year's expo will help domestic agricultural machinery companies expand their export channels.
Red flags on the Tian'anmen Square and atop the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. [Photo/Xinhua]

In the years immediately after the Cold War, Western scholars were quite confident that Western-style "democracy" would eventually triumph over all other political systems, with Francis Fukuyama's book, The End of History and The Last Man, being a case in point.

Yet the past decade has revealed many deficiencies in what the Western scholars claimed to be a faultless political system. Western-style democracy, in fact, has failed to solve the social, economic and political problems of even the Western countries.

In contrast, socialism with Chinese characteristics is propelling China toward realizing the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation.

China's democratic system under the leadership of the Communist Party of China is perfectly suited to the country's present conditions and cultural traditions. Unlike Western political parties that represent the interests of only part of the people, the CPC represents the working class along with the rest of the Chinese people.

China is the only ancient civilization that has continued to evolve without a break for more than 5,000 years. And the CPC has inheritedand has been promotingthe cultural traditions of that civilization with the aim of serving the nation and its people. And contrary to some Western scholars' prophecy during the Cold War, China is rising steadily while the West remains mired in all kinds of troubles.

Socialism with Chinese characteristics has succeeded in elevating China, economically, spiritually, culturally and strategically, for three main reasons.

First, socialism with Chinese characteristics has long-term construction goals. Western governments tend to implement short-term policies after assuming office, not because they are shortsighted, but because their political systems impose administrative limitations on them.

Since the introduction of the reform and opening-up policy in 1978, China has achieved unprecedented economic growth, greatly improved people's living standards and continued to modernize the country's infrastructure. In contrast, a majority of Western countries' economic growth and infrastructure development slowed down. This makes the comparative advantages of socialism with Chinese characteristics obvious.

Second, China's economic growth over the past decades has been the fastest in the world. As the architect of and the force behind socialism with Chinese characteristics, the CPC has made economic construction its priority while encouraging the entire society to work for economic development.

In Western countries, some farsighted politicians do draft good, beneficial policies, but these policies often face endless debates because they involve too many interests. In the United States, for example, the federal government was even shut down briefly during the Barack Obama presidency, because the Democratic and Republican parties could not reach a consensus on the budget. In such a situation, how can a government govern efficiently?

And third, the CPC can strike the right balance between the interests of the Chinese people and the people in the rest of the world. More than two and a half decades after the Cold War, the world continues to face threats, such as the widening North-South gap, the refugee problem and terrorism. In many Western countries, populism is so rampant that the people there have not only refused to allow refugees into their countries but are also demonizing them. And their politicians have failed to resolve the issue because they don't want to antagonize their voters.

The CPC has a long-term perspective on nation building. Instead of considering the narrow interests of only China, it balances national and international interests. President Xi Jinping's concept of a "community of shared destiny for humankind" has been incorporated in a United Nations resolution, while the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative offers a win-win solution to all. China has already become a major defender and promoter of globalization.

In other words, socialism with Chinese characteristics may not be a perfect system, but it has proved superior to other political systems, and has served the people much better than Western-style democracy.

The author is an associate professor of Marxism studies at Tsinghua University.
Members of white nationalists clash against a group of counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, US, August 12, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

For a long time, people in the United States took pride in the belief that one of the things that made their nation great was a system that was designed to encourage principled disagreements so that people could achieve consensus through reasoned debate.

"I disapprove of what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it," as French philosopher Voltaire put it.

Yet their faith in that system seems to have wavered in recent years amid the widening social, racial and political divides in the country.

Divides that fester with animosity, as shown by the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday, when a man plowed a car into a crowd of people protesting against a rally by white supremacists, killing one person and injuring 19, and bloody street brawls erupted injuring more.

While violence, bigotry and hatred in any form must be condemned, it is also imperative to identify the root cause of all these problems because they show something is wrong with US society.

Some people in the US have pointed an accusing finger at President Donald Trump, who they say is to blame for what they believe is his incitement of intolerance for his own political gains, citing his anti-immigrant and misogynist campaign rhetoric as proof.

That is why Trump has been widely criticized for his failure to explicitly condemn the white supremacists for their part in the weekend violence, unlike Vice-President Mike Pence, who stated bluntly that he had no tolerance for white supremacists or neo-Nazis or the Ku Klux Klan.

Yet it would be oversimplifying the facts to attribute all the social problems in the US to a single person or certain groups. US society was polarized before Trump took office.

This is a society where 1 percent of the people have nearly 40 percent of the national wealth, prompting the quip that it is "of the 1 percent, by the 1 percent and for the 1 percent".

The Virginia violence is just one symptom of a social system that is afflicted with a severe sickness.

People may differ over what has gone wrong in the system, but there is no denying that the strength on which the United States built its success, a widely shared belief in the American dream and what made it great, is no longer there.

There is no easy cure to remedy the wrongs in US society. But to start with, a little soul-searching may be a step in the right direction.
150817MINISTER RESPONDS

By Aloysius Laukai



The ABG Finance Minister and member for TERRA, ROBIN WILSON briefly met with the North Bougainville Ex Combatants this afternoon confirming the willingness of the ABG to listen to the former combatants.

MR. WILSON explained because the Chief Secretary JOSEPH NOBETAU was not in Buka they will meet with the Ex Combatants next Wednesday of which they agreed to.

The former Combatants said that they were happy to meet with the government and the Chief Secretary must be present.

They assured the Minister that they will not disturb the process and they want to maintain law and order and peace whilst they are waiting for their response.

Meanwhile, concerned service Providers to the ABG departments have supported the actions of the North Bougainville former combatants.

A vehicle owner told New Dawn FM that he has been frequenting the Finance office for his payment but the answer as been no money and yet the ABG is getting new vehicles for ministers.



Ends


Amid the ongoing standoff between Indian and Chinese soldiers in the Donglang area of the Sikkim sector of the China-India border, several ultranationalist Indian politicians of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and some right-wing Hindu organizations are trying to incite Indian citizens to boycott Chinese goods. The call to boycott Chinese goods is a frog-in-the-well kind of perspective, which will not help India but could deter Chinese enterprises from investing in India and thus harm bilateral cooperation.

On Aug 7, the BJP's Karnataka provincial general secretary called upon people to boycott Chinese goods such as toys and consumer durables, saying the ruling party "will create awareness among the people about the problems caused by China at the border and the need to boycott Chinese goods". Two days earlier, yoga guru Baba Ramdev, who is more like a televangelist and heads a multibillion-dollar business empire, had urged Indians to boycott Chinese products, in order to stir up Hindu nationalism.

Over the past two years, various Indian right-wing organizations have called for a boycott of Chinese goods to "teach China a lesson" for creating trouble by preventing the UN Security Council from declaring Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar a global terrorist and opposing India's membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

The ultra-nationalist elements' call to boycott Chinese products is an infantile move, simply because Chinese goods have become part and parcel of everyday life in India. Still, if they insist on boycotting Chinese goods, they will cause much greater harm to the Indian economy.

Nationalism and trade are two different things. They must never be mixed together. China is the world's largest trading country, with its volume of exports reaching 13.84 trillion yuan ($2.07 trillion) last year, of which only about 2.5 percent was to India. This means a boycott of Chinese products would have little effect on China but a major impact on India, as 17 percent of India's total imports comes from China.

In the two years since President Xi Jinping's visit to India, Chinese investment in India has increased, with $2.3 billion invested in the first three months of this year, compared with only $1.35 billion between 2000 and 2016. Besides, Chinese enterprises are strong participants in the Indian government's "Made in India" campaign, with a total investment of $5 billion so far.

Despite the calls for a boycott, companies of all sizes across India still seek Chinese investment. And it is no exaggeration to say that Chinese products have entered almost every middle-class living room in India. A recent survey conducted by Hindustan Times, a leading English-language newspaper, showed 83 percent of the respondents preferred Chinese goods over Indian ones because "they are cheaper".

Each year during the festival season, which generally starts in October and includes Dussehra, Diwali, Christmas and New Year, Chinese products including decorative lights and lamps, gift items and firecrackers worth tens of millions of dollars are sold across India. So, by boycotting Chinese goods, Indian citizens will end up hurting Indian traders, who buy from China and sell in India. They will also reduce the government's tax revenue, for many of the traders are also big taxpayers.

Moreover, Chinese goods have helped to keep prices low in the Indian market, thereby helping poor and low-income families.

More important, the call to boycott Chinese goods is not a solution to the border standoff. Such "nationalistic" calls are devoid of any logic, and a violation of World Trade Organization rules. Right-wing Indian politicians should realize that bans and boycotts would mar overall bilateral relations. Besides, they would do good to remember that "consumer is king" at all times.

The author is secretary of New Horizon Radio Listeners' Club, West Bengal, India.
Autumn reflection in Wuhuahai, a key scenic spot inside Jiuzhaigou.[Photo/VCG]

The magnitude-7 earthquake in Jiuzhaigou county, Southwest China's Sichuan province, dominated the news in the past week in China.

Jiuzhaigou has long been renowned for its scenic wonders, especially the high waterfalls, snow-covered peaks as well as lakes of varied colors. Tourism is a pillar industry in the region, with visitors from home and abroad visiting Jiuzhaigou every year.

Jiuzhougou was inscribed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1992.

After the earthquake struck the county, many scenic spots sustained serious damage, especially Nuorilang Waterfall, the widest waterfall of its kind in the country, which has almost "disappeared". While many people were distressed to learn that so many natural wonders were damaged, experts said patience is needed to let nature repair itself.

As we pray Jiuzhaigou to soon recover from the wounds, let's revisit the attractions to keep those beautiful moments alive in our memory for as long as possible.
Women sit by an impromptu memorial of flowers commemorating the victims at the scene of the car attack on a group of counter-protesters during the "Unite the Right" rally as people continue to react to the weekend violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, August 14, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

WASHINGTON - The United States is reeling after one woman died and several people were injured during the weekend's clashes between white power protesters and counter demonstrators. Experts fear such incidents could increase amid a recent jump in the number of white supremacy groups.

On Saturday, in the city of Charlottesville, Virginia, reports depicted a violent scene, in which white supremacists - and those demonstrating against them - threw fists, wielded sticks and shields and left each other bruised, bloodied and battered.

Suddenly and without warning, in the middle of the chaos, a driver plowed his car through a group of counter demonstrators, sending bodies flying into mid-air, killing one 32 year-old woman and wounding nearly two dozen more.

The weekend's violence underscores a growing white supremacy movement in the United States. While such groups remain on the fringe, some experts fear their numbers could grow.

"What happened in Charlottesville is the toxic outcome of a growing neo-Nazi, white nationalist movement that has felt emboldened partially by some of President Trump' s statements," Dan Mahaffee, senior vice president and director of policy at the Center for the Study of Congress and the Presidency, told Xinhua.

"And more significantly (the groups have been spurred on) by the growth of right wing movements that have found an echo chamber in which to grow and flourish on the Internet," Mahaffee said.

The liberal Southern Poverty Law Center, which keeps tabs on hate groups, said in a report published earlier this year that the number of US-based hate groups operating in 2016 rose to 917 - up from 892 in 2015, although the list included all hate groups, including anti-white hate groups comprising African Americans. The number is 101 shy of the all-time record set in 2011, but high by historic standards, the group said.

The organization said the radical right has been energized by US President Donald Trump. Some on the radical right perceive Trump to be on their side, on comments he made during his campaign, in which he compared Mexican illegal immigrants to rapists during a speech in which he promised to stem the massive tide of illegal immigration into the United States.

Trump was blasted over the weekend for what critics said was dragging his feet on condemning white hate groups such as the KKK and Neo Nazis, although on Monday Trump spoke from the White House on the issue, calling racism "evil" and lambasting Neo Nazis and KKK members as "criminals and thugs."

Chapters of the KKK - a racist, white power group that was once powerful in the American South but has lost much of its former influence -- grew from 72 in 2014 to 190 last year. The group was invigorated by the 364 pro-Confederate battle flag rallies that took place after South Carolina took down the flag from its Capitol grounds following the 2015 massacre of nine black churchgoers by a white supremacist flag enthusiast in Charleston, South Carolina, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Speaking of the weekend's protests, Mahaffee said: "Combined with other right wing militia movements, in the case of Charlottesville, they were better armed and better organized than the police," Mahaffee said.

Indeed, media reports said police failed to form a barricade between the two groups, which is standard police procedure in such cases, and seemed to be overwhelmed by the chaos.

"What is most concerning about Charlottesville is that at least one member appears to have adopted the car attack tactics that were utilized by ISIS, and the concern is that this will inspire copycats who want to carry out further acts of domestic terrorism," Mahaffee said, referring to a common method attack used by an Islamist terror group.
People inspect the damage after a mudslide in the mountain town of Regent, Sierra Leone August 14, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone  Mudslides and torrential flooding killed more than 300 people in and around Sierra Leone's capital early Monday following heavy rains, with many victims trapped in homes buried under tons of mud.

Survivors and volunteers dug through the mud and debris at times with their bare hands in a desperate search for missing relatives, and military personnel were deployed to help with the rescue operation in the West African nation.

Sierra Leone's national broadcaster announced late Monday that the death toll had risen above 300. Initial Red Cross estimates said as many as 3,000 people were left homeless by the disaster and that figure was expected to rise. Communications and electricity also were affected.

The mortuary at Connaught Hospital was overwhelmed by the number of dead, and bodies had to be spread out on the floor, coroner's technician Sinneh Kamara said.

The toll did not include the untold numbers buried alive in their homes as they slept. More bodies also were expected to be found as floodwaters receded.

In an interview with the Sierra Leone National Broadcasting Corp., Kamara urged the health department to deploy more ambulances to bolster the four belonging to the hospital.

The broadcaster interrupted regular programming to show scenes of people trying to retrieve the bodies of relatives, and some were shown carrying the dead to the morgue in rice sacks.

The president's office released a statement encouraging people to relocate to safer parts of Freetown and sign up at registration centers. The office made no mention of the death toll.
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One day before US President Donald Trump signed a presidential memorandum on Aug 14 allowing the US Trade Representative to consider launching an investigation into "unfair Chinese trade practices", National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster said China's help was vital to resolving the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue and the United States was not looking for a trade conflict.

Refusing to link trade with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's nuclear program, McMaster said the operative word is not "punish" but "to compete effectively", "to demand fair and reciprocal trade and economic relationships with not just China but with all countries".

The top US security advisor's remarks seem to be at odds with that of his president, who has time and again made that link. Briefing reporters last week, Trump murmured about losing "hundreds of billions of dollars" a year in trade with China, hinting that he would "feel a lot differently toward trade" if Beijing helped Washington in countering Pyongyang.

This is a poor yet unsurprising attempt to make China the scapegoat for the escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula, not least because President Xi Jinping called Trump over the phone on Saturday and reiterated that he hoped the peninsula is denuclearized. Perhaps Trump is using such ploys to distract public attention from the dramatic personnel changes in the top echelons of the US administration and the major policymaking setbacks he has suffered in fields as varied as healthcare and immigration.

In the face of mounting questions over his capability to govern, Trump has ramped up threats toward Pyongyang by not just criticizing the latter's progress in miniaturizing nuclear warheads to missiles but also whining about Beijing's "indifference".

Ironically, on the same day that Trump signed the memorandum allowing the US to use a statute, which has rarely been used since the 1990s and could lead to punitive tariffs on Chinese imports, China's Ministry of Commerce announced that it was placing "a full ban" on the import of iron ore, coal and marine products from the DPRK starting Aug 15.

Trade policy formed the bulk of Trump's rhetoric on his campaign trail last year, particularly his China-bashing rhetoric. He refrained from putting economic pressure on China during his first six months in office probably because he was biding his time. But interest groups, from which he benefited in the presidential election, now seem to be coercing him into fulfilling his campaign promises.

The possible use of Section 301 of the US Trade Act of 1974 marks a fresh attempt to make the complex regional security issue China's exclusive problem. It also indicates the US had "expected more" from the 100-Day Action Plan agreed at the Xi-Trump meeting at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, and the China-US Comprehensive Economic Dialogue in Washington last month.

There is no reason for Beijing to let retaliation get the better of its judgment, although it needs to oppose Washington's protectionist moves such as the 232 investigations into imports of aluminum and steel, which mainly target Chinese products. Of course, Beijing should demand clarification from the Trump administration and make clear that any rash action by the US in the name of "standing up for American businesses and workers" is bound to backfire.

Even if the Aug 14 initiative prompts an immediate probe into China's practices in the intellectual property sector, it is likely to take more than a year to complete and would include negotiations with Beijing. Besides, the results may not necessarily be against Beijing.

While China needs to exercise patience, it should demand convincing promises that the Trump administration will not link bilateral trade with the DPRK nuclear issue in practice.

Yu Xiang is the director of the department of American economic studies at the Institute of American Studies, China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations. The article is an excerpt from his interview with China Daily's Cui Shoufeng.
Guizhou province, which hopes to build itself into China's "Big Data Valley", is looking to link up with Silicon Valley.

"Silicon Valley is the heart of the world's innovation, so we attach great importance to cooperation with the US, especially Silicon Valley," said Qin Rupei, vice-governor of Guizhou, at a conference on Friday in San Jose, California.

The conference, which drew more than 200 participants from high-tech and entrepreneurial communities, was aimed at promoting China's first national Big Data pilot zone in the southwestern province.

In 2015, China adopted Big Data as a national development strategy and the efforts of Guizhou were recognized by the central government. In early 2016, the National Big Data Comprehensive Pilot Zone was established in Guizhou, with the goal of improving the government's administrative abilities, promoting industrial transformation and upgrading, as well as improving people's livelihood through Big Data services.

"While developing the Big Data industry, we have been emphasizing opening-up," said Qin. "Guizhou's rapid economic growth and increasing level of opening-up makes the province suitable for other countries to participate in developing a Big Data Valley', providing broader markets and more diverse business opportunities."

The province has begun building green data centers at 12 national pilot sites. The 12 centers can load 13,400 racks and support installation of 158,000 servers. By 2020, those centers are expected to load 2 million servers, with an industrial chain value of more than $15 billion, according to the Guizhou Provincial Leading Group for Big Data Development.

"Guizhou enjoys the advantages that the Big Data industry requires. It is one of the most suitable places for developing big data in China or in the world," Qin said.

The advantages include a favorable ecological environment with average annual temperatures of 59 degrees Fahrenheit, abundant hydropower and thermal-power resources, a stable underlying geologic structure far from seismic faults and supportive policies.

To attract enterprises to the pilot zone, the province has introduced favorable policies on taxes, land use, logistics, electricity prices, financial services and personnel training.

The province incorporates Big Data projects in urban planning and annual planning for land use, and offers broadband rent subsidies to Big Data companies, according to the provincial big data group.

Chinese tech companies like Alibaba, Baidu, Tencent and Huawei have set up research and development centers in the pilot zone.

Tencent has been working with Guizhou in such areas as smart city, poverty relief and chronic disease management. The company also plans to locate its data backup center for disaster recovery in the province. Foxconn has located a 4th-generation industrial park, green tunnel data center and R&D center in Guizhou.

Big international companies have also established partnerships with Guizhou.

Qualcomm, which set up regional headquarters for China in Guizhou, has invested in an integrated circuit industry to develop server chips for the Chinese market. Microsoft is working with the province to build a "bulk data" laboratory, education cloud and a cloud for middle- and small-sized enterprises. Google is developing international e-commerce projects for targeted marketing through global big data analysis.

Last month, Guizhou and Apple signed an iCloud strategic cooperation agreement, under which Guizhou-Cloud Big Data Industry Co will become the unique service provider of Apple to improve user experience. The two parties will collaborate to build a big data center in Guian New Area, a national-level new urban district in Guizhou.
Members of a Japanese delegation mourn outside the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders in Nanjing on Tuesday. YANG BO/CHINA NEWS SERVICE

China urged Japan to "face up to and deeply reflect upon its history of aggression" after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a monetary offering to the notorious Yasukuni Shrine on the 72nd anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II.

"We are firmly opposed to Japan's wrongdoings," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Tuesday at a daily news conference in Beijing.

The Yasukuni Shrine honors 14 Class-A war criminals from World War II and is regarded as a symbol of past Japanese militarism. It is the fifth consecutive year that Abe sent a ritual offering to the shrine.

"China urges the Japanese side to earnestly face up to and deeply reflect upon its history of aggression, draw a line with the militarism and win trust from its Asian neighbors and the global society with actual deeds," Hua said.

This year also marks the 80th anniversary of Lugou Bridge Incident, which triggered Japan's full-scale invasion of China in 1937; and the Nanjing Massacre, in which 300,000 Chinese were killed by Japanese soldiers.

A documentary aired by the Japanese broadcaster NHK on Sunday disclosed the atrocities of Japan's infamous Unit 731 in Northeast China's Heilongjiang province during World War II.

NHK uncovered a 20-plus-hour voice recording used in a trial, in which former members of the unit confessed to conducting human experiments on Chinese and Soviets to develop biochemical weapons.

"The historical evidence about the Japanese army's monstrous crimes in China are ironclad and undeniable," Hua said, adding that China appreciates the courage of people with vision in Japan to reveal the truth.

"We hope Japan could carefully listen to the cry for justice at home and abroad... and respect the feelings of people in China and other war victim countries in Asia," she said.

Lyu Yaodong, a researcher of Japanese foreign policy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that while NHK has done something meaningful, Abe's behavior is a sharp contrast to the documentary.

Zhou Jin contributed to the story.
150817NORTH BOUGAINVILLE EX COMBATANTS GIVE CHIEF SECRTARY 48 HOURS TO RESIGN

By Aloysius Laukai



North Bougainville Ex Combatants this afternoon closed the Bougainville administration office in Buka town and presented a petition for the Bougainville Chief Secretary JOSEPH NOBETAU to resign within the next 48 hours for what they called as Mismanaging the Bougainville administration since his appointment.

The petition highlighted five points to be addressed by the Chief Secretary.

The North Bougainville Ex-combatants also wanted the Chief Secretary to explain why he has been making biased decisions not in the best interest of Bougainville.

They also wanted the ABG Chief Auditor PETER TSIPERAU to produce overdue audited reports on th TWO POINT FOUR MILLION KINA funds paid to POGE LIMITED to get three bridges along the Siara- Koripovi road.

Reports of the THIRTEEN MILLION KINA paid to HAKAU Investments for the TOROKINA Oil palm feasibility studies.

SEVEN POINT 5 MILLION KINA paid to HAKAU investment LTD for the purchase of the MV CHEBU questioning if the ship has made any profit to date.

They demanded that these reports be presented to the public and the Ombudsman Commission by Friday 18th August, 2017.

The petition was signed by TOBBY BARNABAS,PETER MAUS,JOHN BOSCO,MICHAEL JIMMY, TANAHAN GETSI and KEREHANA ELIN.



Ends


News / Africa

by Stephen Jakes

Zimbabwean first Lady Grace Mugabe is reported to have gone into hiding after reports she was being hunted by the South African police for assaulting her son's girlfriend at a hotel in that country.Tajamuka/Sesjikile SA said they were efforts to institute Citizen Arrest for Grace Mugabe over the incident but they have failed to locate her. #Tajamuka /Sesjikile Campaign in SA is appealing to South African residents who might be aware of the whereabouts of Grace Mugabe. It is believed Grace is hiding somewhere in Santon South Africa," said Tajamuka in a statement."South African Police are looking for her after the assault of a 20 year old Chatunga girlfriend. Zimbos in SA help us to locate this criminal and we have dispatched a group of 10 people which include South Africans and the Indian community to search for Grace Mugabe."
After two years, six months, and nine days of absence, Rev. Hyeon Soo Lim returned to the pulpit of Light Presbyterian Church in Toronto during its Sunday service on August 13, and greeted the congregants. Lim then expressed gratitude toward Christians all over the world who had prayed fervently for his release, as well as toward the government leaders in Canada who had gathered their efforts to bring him home.

Though there were concerns for Lim's health, it appeared that his health was not significantly affected. His expressions and voice came out with strength, just as they had before.

"I believe that it was not by any human strength, but by God's extraordinary power that I was able to come out," said Lim. "During my detainment, I was faced with panic, fear, and many difficulties, but God gave me the strength to overcome each day's obstacles."

Lim, who was placed in solitary confinement when he was detained, said one of his greatest difficulties included the times that he was in isolation.

"After I was sentenced to life imprisonment, it was a war with loneliness," Lim said. "I ate alone 2,757 times, and it was particularly hard worshipping on Sundays on my own."

"It was a long, long time that seemed like it would never come to an end, but I was able to overcome as I spent time with the Lord, and while I was laboring I continued to pray," he continued.

Lim added he read the Bible five times in one year. His Sunday worships would begin at 7 AM with songs, and end around 8 PM.

As all information was blocked from reaching him, and as he himself was unable to record anything during his detainment, Lim said he focused on praise and Bible memorization.

"As I read the Bible and repeatedly memorized about 700 verses, I was able to organize them into different themes to preach on," said Lim. "Even the difficult times of labor, now that they have passed, turned out to be a time of refinement and repentance out of God's love."

"I discovered a new vision on training young people and young leaders, and awakening churches all over the world ... I don't want to waste the rest of my life, the time I have left. I want to work for God's kingdom and his mission."

This article has been translated. For the original in Korean, visit kr.christianitydaily.com.
I had the privilege or reading a pre-release version of "God Shines Forth: How the Nature of God Shapes and Drives the Mission of the Church." Here are 20 quotes from the book, which you should pick up.
News / National

by Staff Reporter

ZIFA and COSAFA president Philip Chiyangwa joined the nation in mourning the death of Masvingo Provincial Affairs Minister Shuvai Mahofa who died in the province early yesterday morning.Mahofa, who was also a zanu-pf Politburo member collapsed at her home around 3am and was rushed to hospital where she was pronounced dead upon arrival.Chiyangwa who worked with the veteran politician in the ruling party said he was deeply saddened and shocked by the death of Cde Mahofa."We are shocked beyond words to say the least. She was a giant in Zimbabwean politics, the party and indeed her family are poorer without her today."She contributed not only to the emancipation of women, but also in making sure that the gains of the liberation struggle were safeguarded. She also ensured that she remained faithful to the rules of the revolutionary party and in turn inculcated positive energy into everything she did for Zimbabwe, which is why she was eventually appointed Provincial Affairs Minister in Masvingo."As we mourn her sudden death, we will never forget the values she stood for and we salute her as a gallant daughter of the soil."On behalf of the ZIFA executive committee, the assembly, the secretariat, COSAFA and on my own behalf, I would like to express profound sadness to the President of Zimbabwe, Cde R.G Mugabe, the Mahofa family, the ruling Zanu PF party and Zimbabwe on the fall of a giant. May Her Dearest Soul Rest In Eternal Peace," Chiyangwa told ZIFA website www.zifa.org.zwMahofa's death comes as Zimbabwe is celebrating Heroes' Day today, and ZIFA lined up a hoist of matches across the country to commemorate the special day.
I have lived in Charlottesville, Virginia, for five years. I used to work along the citys Downtown Mall, the shop-lined pedestrian street where Heather Heyer was killed this weekend by a participant in a neo-Nazi rally.

The place I viewed as a microcosm of Charlottesvilles contented citizens and progressive politicspacked with townies in hiking gear or polo shirts and families making their way to the childrens museumturned into a landmark for racist violence.

Inspired by the legacy of its beloved founder, Thomas Jefferson, Charlottesville is a town enamored with its values. We pride ourselves on community, innovation, and progress. Yet, throughout the citys history, the economically secure white population has experienced a very different Charlottesville than the rest.

It took me a while to realize the extent of segregation in the city, but the signs were there. Beyond the racial segregation by neighborhood, theres the cultural divide between conservative Southerners and liberal-leaning University of Virginia (UVa) professors and grads. Heightened economic disparity and rising housing costs in this happiest town in the USA certainly arent helping. We are united by our bordering-on-idolatrous love for our city, but sometimes thats all that connects us.

Because of this demographic diversity, Charlottesville lives in the tension of its progressive values and its failure to live up to them. Nothing more effectively demonstrates this tension than the events of last weekend. While the majority of white supremacist protesters were not from here, notable UVa grads Jason Kessler, who initiated and organized the rally, and Richard Spencer, who popularized the ...

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In a unanimous closed session vote, the Houston ISD Board of Trustees decided Monday to appoint Jose Leal to the District III seat left vacant after the unexpected death earlier this month of long-time Trustee Manny Rodriguez Jr.

Leal launched his career in education at HISD in 1981. After getting a start in operations and maintenance, he worked as a bilingual teacher at Pugh Elementary, a counselor at Hamilton Middle, a Dean of Students at Johnston Middle and an assistant principal at Wheatley High and North Forest.
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WASHINGTON -- U.S. solar manufacturers and developers clashed in a hearing before the U.S. International Trade Commission Tuesday over whether solar panels from Asia represented an unlawful threat to domestic manufacturers.

Two U.S. solar manufacturers, Georgia-based Suniva and Oregon-based SolarWorld, are calling for the ITC to impose tariffs on foreign-made solar panels across the board, arguing that large manufacturers abroad are dumping their product onto the global market below cost, driving American competitors into bankruptcy.

"The U.S. is literally strewn with the carcasses of shuttered solar manufacturing facilities," said Matthew McConkey, an attorney representing Suniva. "Are we supposed to believe the almost 30 members of the domestic industry that have gone out of business over the last 5 years, all of them made bad decisions while companies in Korea [and other countries] were so brilliant? Please."

Suniva is petitioning the ITC for a four-year tariff on a type of solar panel most commonly sold around the world. But the Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade group backing solar developers, is fighting to stop them, arguing manufacturers' struggles stem from a failure to anticipate shifts in the market. The group estimates the tariffs would wipe out more than one-third of the industry's 250,000 jobs.

RELATED: Trump's solar plan has industry worried

Last year solar accounted for almost 40 percent of new generation on the U.S. power grid, more than any other source, according to data compiled by GTM Research. Solar capacity in Texas doubled last year to 1.2 gigawatts, enough to power more than 200,000 Texas homes.

"Whether that growth would continue if Suniva is successful, that is pretty questionable," said George Hershman, general manager of Swinerton Renewable Energy, which is building a 150 megawatt solar farm in West Texas for NRG Energy.

Driving the installation boom are solar prices that have plunged roughly 70 percent since 2010, the product of a global race to produce greater and greater quantities of panels to feed demands from governments worldwide for carbon-free forms of energy.

With countries including the United States pumping tens of billions of dollars into building up the supply chain, that has at times has resulted in a supply that far exceeds demand, said Tim Fox, vice president at the Washington research firm ClearView Energy Partners.

"It's a mature industry now and there's winners and losers," he said. "I think there may be a smaller U.S. manufacturing role than first envisioned, but I don't expect them to be entirely wiped out."

The prospect of an across the board tariff has raised protest from a diverse coalition of business and political groups - including everyone from the conservative Heritage Foundation to some of the nation's largest power companies, including Dallas-based Vistra.

"Over the last several years utilities and public power have increasingly diversified their portfolios," said Scott Segal, an attorney representing the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council. "Inappropriate imposition of trade remedies on solar technology can fundamentally change the landscape for renewables without any consequent social benefits."

Likewise lobbyists representing solar developers lined up seven elected officials from around the country to speak against the tariff at Tuesday's hearing. The lone public official who spoke in support of solar manufacturers was Bucky Johnson, mayor of Norcross, Ga., the 16,000 population town where Suniva's plant operated before shutting down earlier this year.

"Some might say protectionism. I say bunk, give us a fair shot at competing," he said.

The ITC is expected to issue a final ruling on a tariff by mid-November. Were it to rule in favor of Suniva, the ultimate decision on a broad solar tariff would lie with President Donald Trump.

The White House has offered little indication how it is leaning, but the president's tough-on-trade rhetoric and support for coal energy, a competitor of solar, has raised speculation he would be inclined to support the tariff.

"We believe the Suniva petition was drafted with President Trump's energy and economic policies in mind," Fox said.
Oil extended its decline after the U.S. forecast record shale output next month and the International Energy Agency said OPEC producers face a long battle with American rivals.

Futures slid 0.6 percent in New York after losing 2.5 percent Monday, the biggest drop in more than five weeks. Production at shale fields is forecast to expand to 6.15 million barrels a day in September, according to a report from the Energy Information Administration. EIA data Wednesday may show U.S. crude inventories declined again last week, according to a Bloomberg survey.
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Swiss offshore rig giant Transocean, which operates largely out of Houston, is set to buy Norway's Songa Offshore for $1.1 billion as Transocean seeks to grow its deepwater market share with an eye toward an eventual industry recovery.

The deal continues a burgeoning wave of consolidation in the struggling offshore drilling sector with London's Ensco already in the process of acquiring Houston's Atwood Oceanics for about $850 million. The onshore shale boom is continuing in West Texas, but that growth has not extended over water where projects are more expensive and take longer to execute.

But the offshore acquisitions are risky in a struggling industry, prompting mixed reactions from energy analysts on Transocean's latest move. Some called it a good strategic fit, while others like Raymond James' Praveen Narra warned it increases Transocean's debt load and risk in a "harsh environment."

Transocean's stock initially fell 10 percent to an all-time low Tuesday morning as investor sentiment proved wary, but the stock recovered somewhat, dropping nearly 6 percent on the day to close at $7.91 per share, down 48 cents. Of course, Transocean traded for about $45 a share in the summer of 2014 before the oil bust sunk in.

Transcoean said it is buying Songa primarily through a stock transaction that is valued at $3.4 billion when including the assumption of debt and bonds.

The deal, which could close by the end of the year, would give Transocean more than 50 combined floating offshore rigs, not counting those under construction. The combined company would be particularly well positioned in the North Sea. Songa works closely with Norway energy giant Statoil.

Transocean has pivoted of late to focus on deeper waters, selling its shallow water jack-up rig business earlier this year for $1.35 billion to Norwegian rival Borr Drilling. The world's largest oilfield services company, Schlumberger, recently bought a 20 percent stake in Borr.

Transocean, which was once headquartered in Houston, moved its legal domicile for tax reasons to the Cayman Islands nearly a decade ago, and then moved again to Switzerland.

Songa's chairman and largest shareholder Frederik Mohn would join the Transocean board. As a result of the deal, Mohn would become Transocean's largest shareholder.

He and Transocean CEO Jeremy Thigpen said the combined company would grow and gain market share just as the industry is showing early signs of recovery.

Transocean previously had to deal with the heavy hand of a shareholder through famed corporate raider Carl Icahn, who influenced cost cutting and a CEO change in 2015. However, Icahn opted to sell most of his Transocean shares last year.

Transocean still remains better positioned than many of its smaller rivals. Houston-based Hercules Offshore filed for bankruptcy twice. Paragon Offshore just emerged from a prolonged bankruptcy. Vantage Drilling filed as well but later emerged from it last year. Seadrill and Pacific Drilling are flirting with bankruptcy or some other restructuring.

And Houston's Rowan Cos. revealed Monday it's cutting more jobs in the struggling Gulf of Mexico. Rowan axed close to 150 deep-water Gulf jobs earlier this summer when it idled its Rowan Reliance drillship.

Now, Rowan is eliminating jobs in the shallow Gulf as contracts expire for its shallow water rigs, known as jack-ups. Rowan told the Texas Workforce Commissions it is cutting 60 to 85 jobs from its Rowan EXL III jack-up rig when its contract with The Woodlands-based Arena Energy expires at the end of September. Rowan also warned this month that its Gorilla IV jack-up rig in the shallow Gulf also will see its contract expire with Arena at the end of October, possibly triggering more layoffs at that time.
It's often men who dominate the FBI's most wanted fugitives, but these women have definitely earned a spot on the dubious list.

From allegedly torturing and killing people to forcing others into prostitution, the women being sought by the FBI have allegedly committed very heinous crimes.
Fast-casual restaurants aren't often associated with health-conscious dining. But Vitality Bowls, whose antioxidant-rich menu is built on organic acai bowls, is a notable exception.

The Northern California-based brand with more than 40 stores will open its first Houston-area shop (the fifth in Texas) on Aug. 16 at 1520 West Bay Area Blvd. in Friendswood. The store's franchisees, Jimmy and Jackie Thomas, plan to open three additional cafes in the Houston area.
Only a handful of days remain until thousands of students in Harris County are back in school, attending one of the dozens of school districts.

Despite following educational standards set in place by the state, not all of these school districts show the same level of success.
News / National

by Staff Reporter

A Harare Central Prison convict on the verge of finishing serving a 10-year jail term for rape, was on Friday slapped with two more years for sodomising a fellow inmate.Farai Makwiyana (48) appeared before Harare magistrate Ms Victoria Mashamba facing charges of aggravated indecent assault.He sodomised his cellmate. Makwiyana was only left with two and half years from the 10-year sentence he had been serving on his previous conviction of rape.In passing sentence, Ms Mashamba said the court was lenient in sentencing him since it had been proved that he did not penetrate the complainant.She further indicated that Makwiyana managed to go through the five years he was given on his previous conviction without committing the same offence, therefore he was given a shorter term.The prosecutor Ms Idah Maromo proved that on July 1 this year around 3am at Harare Central Prison, Makwiyana and the complainant were sleeping in the same cell and bed while nak*d.The complainant felt cold, woke up and saw Makwiyana covering his head with a blanket. He touched his buttocks and discovered that he had semen. At that moment, Makwiyana started apologising for soiling his buttocks.Makwiyana then wiped the semen and told the complainant not to disclose the matter to anyone. The complainant told the other inmates, despite Makwiyana's plea.In defence, Makwiyana denied the allegations saying that he did not commit the offence, because the complainant was sleeping on his back.He told the court that he woke up early that day to smoke and that's when he heard the complainant waking up the other inmates telling them that he had been sodomised.Makwiyana further indicated that he only apologised and also wiped the semen, because he had been thoroughly beaten by the other convicts who were in that cell.
The El Paso city council has added its disapproval to a growing list of opponents of a proposed rate increase that, the city says, would disproportionately affect rooftop solar customers.

El Paso Electric, the investor-owned utility that serves the far West Texas city and parts of New Mexico, has proposed a new rate structure that would separate thousands of rooftop solar panel owners into their own rate class. The proposal would also put additional charges on those customers' bills to help recoup losses resulting from less electricity moving through the company's power lines.
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He spent his last job rolling up in a fire truck or as a paramedic after law enforcement was securing a scene, but now he'll be the one leading the charge against criminals.

An imposing guy at 6-foot 1-inches, weighing a tight 240 pounds, Cadet Brad Taylor is certain to cause a few criminals to take a second glance.

The 37-year-old from Liberty resigned his job as a firefighter and paramedic for the city of Liberty to focus on his training at the Liberty County Sheriff's Academy. If he survives the remainder of the course, he will graduate with his class on Oct. 14 and fulfill his lifelong dream to be in law enforcement.

"I've really enjoyed the academy," he said. "I've always wanted to do this since I was in high school."

Taylor said he has really enjoyed the firearms portion of the class.

"I've hunted most of my life, but I'm learning to use my weapon to defend myself and developing better techniques to help my comrades," he said.

With a 52-inch chest and an imposing bodybuilder's physique, Taylor said it's a different world from firefighting.

"I really enjoy it," he said.

It's a significant career change but his family is behind him.

"My wife really supports me and she does worry, but that's only natural," he said.

Taylor joins 25 of his classmates in the academy every night from 6 to 10 p.m., Monday through Friday, in the classes that combine academic work with police training.

The classes are led by certified instructors and overseen by Academy Director Sgt. Josh Cummins of the Liberty County Sheriff's Office. The instructors are certified peace officers and still maintain a regular work shift on duty during the day.

Before the cadets are finished, they will spend at least 788 man hours of training mandated by the state over a nine-month period. Once they are finished, they will take the state licensing exam - the TCOLE (Texas Commission on Law Enforcement) exam. If they successfully pass the exam, they will earn their license to become a peace officer in the State of Texas.

"What we're doing here is giving them the information they will need to pass the exam and then get out into the street and begin the field training program where they will really develop their skills as a peace officer," he said.

That, Cummins said, is where they truly develop into an officer.

"Wherever they are employed, that agency will teach them how to interact with the public, how to conduct traffic stops. We'll give them the basics here, but wherever they are hired will go into much more depth," he said.

The application process opened last September beginning with filling out paperwork, followed by a psyche evaluation, drug screen, fingerprint check, a physical health assessment and many other items associated with the entry.

"Just because they're cleared with all of those will not guarantee them a spot in the academy," Cummins said.

"We are limited on spots, only 26 this year," he said. With 140-plus applications for this academy, the turndown ratio was significant.

"Once those slots were filled, we sat down with them and make sure they can follow through on the financial responsibility of the academy," he said.

The tuition of $1,525 is only the start. Cadets must also purchase their own firearms, their duty gear and equipment, their uniforms and various other smaller items. All totaled, cadets can expect to shell out between $2,200 and $2,500 for everything.

The tuition pays for ammunition used at the academy, instructor salaries, buying equipment and supplies.

The academy is run through the College of the Mainland (COTM) in Texas City, which is capable of accepting Montgomery GI bill, Pell Grants, scholarships, offering financial aid and much more. The credential part of the process is performed completely through COTM.

"We're very strict and so we try to provide the highest quality training that we possibly can. Depending on the topic, I find the most expert people in that field that we have to come and teach them," he said.

Cummins also said they also strive to make the training as realistic as possible so that it sinks in for them.

Some of the topics already covered include the law books, health and fitness, history of law enforcement and policing, penal code, traffic code, accident investigation, family violence, child abuse, defensive tactics, batons, taser course, OC spray certified, learning TCIC and NCIC state and national computer system programs, and then next week they go into intoxicated driver and standard field sobriety testing.

The cadets come from a range of ages from 21 to 63-year-old Rev. Ted Smith, pastor at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Liberty.

Smith was appointed by Sheriff Bobby Rader as the chaplain for the Liberty County Sheriff's Office three years ago.

"I'm always looking for ways to help and enhance what I can do for law enforcement," he said.

Smith has already obtained his basic law enforcement chaplain certification and Rader asked him to go through the academy.

"I will receive my TCOLE (Texas Commission on Law Enforcement), which will allow me to do more as a commissioned reserved officer than I can as a civilian," he said.

Smith said he will be able to understand their lingo and the stress officers deal with on a daily basis.

"Even the academy has shown me the stress they face. That alone will help me especially when I do a ride along," he said. "God forbid anything happens, I will be trained in what to do and assist them if it gets ugly, but mostly spiritual care because I'll be one of them now."

Smith said his focus is still on his ministry at the church, but has found that many of the classes he's taking marry up well with ministry.

"Health and fitness, crisis intervention all help enhance what I do for the sheriff's office, but also what I do for the parish as well," the priest said.

Cadets must maintain an 85 average in the class or risk expunction. They receive a warning, but if the grade doesn't come up, they are dismissed from the academy.

Cummins said this particular class of students has phenomenal grades and their discipline is squared away.

After speaking with the Sheriff, Cummins said they are planning on offering an academy every other year.

"It's a grueling schedule for our instructors and by the end of the academy, we're exhausted, but we love doing it and enjoy it," he said.

Cummins comes from a law enforcement heritage.

"This is the family business. My granddad was a cop and my dad was a cop," he said proudly. "I remember how much it meant to me when I went through the academy. For a lot of these cadets, this is their dream and we get to help them achieve that dream. That is the most awesome thing."

Bryant Kutra of Cleveland is another of those Cummins is helping to achieve his dream.

"I joined the Sheriff's Academy to help my community and become a law enforcement officer," Kutra said.

The 29-year-old is a graduate of Tarkington High School and grew up wanting to be an officer. He finally committed to it and is only a few months away from fulfilling his dream.

"I used to watch cop shows on television all the time when I was much younger," he smiled.

Kutra is in the real world now and has discovered the on-screen episodes that wrap up in 30 minutes to an hour are nothing like what he's experiencing at the academy, including the mounds of paperwork required.

"They say if you love what you do you never work a day in your life," he said.

It's not an all-male academy.

Katrena Johnston, a 21-year-old graduate from Crosby, is keeping up with the demands of the academy and couldn't be happier with her choice.

"Liberty County was one of the only opportunities where I could graduate turning 21 while going through the academy," she said.

She confessed she'd been waiting all her life to turn 21 just to become a police officer.

"I enjoy the community I feel here at the academy," she said. "You're never alone. There's always someone there behind you to support you."

She takes no flak from her male counterparts and is ready to serve.

"I'm looking forward to joining the brotherhood and sisterhood of law enforcement," she said.

This is the first academy held in Liberty in six years.

With no significant openings to fill, Rader said there really wasn't a need until now.

"I'm kind of selfishly picking cadets from there to fill some slots this fall if the commissioners give those to me in the new budget year," he said.

He pointed out that the academy is not funded by taxpayers, but is operated on the tuition paid by the students themselves for the classes.

"As certified instructors, they get paid by the College of the Mainland out of the fees and tuition from the students," Rader said. "Our students are going to earn their certifications."
SHEPHERD  A man believed to have taken a teenage girl at the center of an Amber Alert was arrested after a violent high-speed chase through Montgomery County early Tuesday.

Rudolfo Nuncio, 41, was arrested north of Shepherd and was found with Priscilla Martinez, 13, who was last seen on Aug. 9 in Donna, Texas.
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Friendswood police busted an alleged drug dealing operation in a Whataburger parking lot, arresting two suspects on felony charges and a third on a misdemeanor.

At about 1:13 p.m. on Aug. 10, an officer saw Christian Faustino Melchor, 21, of Pearland and Angel A. Navarro-Vega, 19, of Houston driving in the 400 block of E. Parkwood in a vehicle with expired temporary tags.

The officer recognized Melchor and followed the vehicle to the Whataburger at 200 E. Parkwood, police said in a report.

CRIME DOESN'T PAY: Friendswood teen's dad turns him in for burglary

There, the two suspects allegedly met with a woman, identified as Tristan Neann Webb, 20, of Friendswood, and conducted what appeared to be a drug transaction.

The officer then approached Melchor's vehicle and asked both men to get out. Melchor allegedly admitted to have taken Xanax, and when Navarro-Vega got out of the vehicle, the officer saw a pistol on the floorboard.

A subsequent search uncovered 7.4 grams of marijuana, 26.2 grams of Xanax, 1.8 grams of oxycodone and 19.5 grams of cocaine, police said.

WHATABURGER ROBBERY: Two arrested after stealing cash with tracking device

The officer also allegedly found notebooks with information on drug transactions and pricing, and a digital scale.

Melchor and Navarro-Vega were charged with manufacture/delivery of a controlled substance and unlawfully carrying weapons. Navarro-Vega was also charged with failure to identify, as he allegedly gave the officer a false name.

Other officers stopped Webb's vehicle, and she handed over her marijuana purchase, police said. Webb was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia. A mugshot for Webb was not immediately available.

Melchor's bond was set at $26,500. Navarr0-Vega's bond was set at $34,000.
Parents with questions after the birth of their first child will now have the opportunity to get answers.

Houston Methodist West Hospital will hold a free seminar and expo specifically for expecting and new parents to help answer a few of those questions.
Hey Class of 2018: If you haven't started the school year yet you will shortly. At the end of every school year, some class leader or featured speaker gives a speech retelling what was learned, laments losing friendships and looks toward the future.

But how about some advice going into one of the most important years of your lives?

Without further ado, here are some things you should consider going into your senior year.

Now that you have 11 years of schools under your belt (12 if you went to kindergarten), you cannot let up now. Study, pass tests, take care of business and have fun, in that order.

If you let up now, you will find yourself behind when you do graduate. You will behind if you go to college or if you get a job. That is not a good way to make it through life.

If you look around at the world right now, you will see that things are pretty screwed up.

Internationally, we have a tyrant itching to start a nuclear war in North Korea. There are groups of people hating pretty much everything we have and strive to instill fear in the western world through hatred and fear.

Nationally, we have groups of people striving to divide us through hatred of others based solely on the color of our skins. Look at this past weekend's events in Charlottesville, Va., as the latest example.

Be better.

When you go to school, recall what it was like when you walked through the doors the first time as a freshman. Remember how awkward and weird it felt. Remember how you wished you had someone to show you the ropes.

Do something to help one of those younger students. Do something to make it easier for them. This will set them up for success and perhaps make things easier for you the rest of the year.

Working well with others will only help set you up for life beyond graduation. It could be the difference between being a worker bee and a supervisor. You have the ability to make your own path, despite what is going on around you.

There are going to be people who try to bring you down. There are idiots in the world who will do whatever they can to make their situation better and your situation worse. You know what is the best thing you can do to those people? Ignore them.

Imagine if those idiots in Virginia were ignored. Imagine if no one showed up and didn't give them a platform to spread their hatred. If they didn't get any notice, they would have slipped away into nothingness.

That is not to say you should not ignore injustices in the world. But if someone is looking to create injustices, ignoring them is a great weapon.

Meanwhile, as members of the Class of 2018, you should strive for the greatness that is awaiting you. Every year there are new challenges to be met and new obstacles to overcome.

Beat the challenges and overcome the obstacles and the everyone will come out better in the end.

Good luck.
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Grocery options continue to expand for northwest Houston residents.

A new Kroger grocery store will be opening in October in the master-planned community of Springwoods Village.

H-E-B opened a new store this spring in Champion Forest off the Grand Parkway.

In addition, German-based grocer Aldi has expanded its presence in northwest Houston with a Tomball location.

Sprouts Farmers Market has expanded in northwest Houston with two locations, including one at Texas 249 and Spring Cypress Road and another at 20708 Kuykehdahl Road.

And soon area residents will be able to have groceries delivered to their doorsteps, through AmazonFresh, which is building a new warehouse in northwest Houston, according to Realty News Report.

The real estate news website posted in July that AmazonFresh, the e-commerce giant's grocery arm, was expected to occupy more than 100,000 square feet of warehouse space at the Fallbrook Pines Business Park in northwest Houston.

Amazon has not responded to requests for comment. Developers of Fallbrook Pines Business Park referred all questions to Amazon.

The news of a new AmazonFresh warehouse comes weeks after Amazon's almost $14 billion offer to acquire Whole Foods was widely interpreted as a push to expand its logistical operation into groceries.

Residential growth in the area remains robust as the last several years of business growth and mobility improvements have brought a population boom to the region.

That means more shoppers at local grocery stores and more grocery store choices for residents.

The Market at Springwoods Village, located at the southeast corner of Holzwarth Road and the Grand Parkway, will be anchored by Kroger.

The Market, under development by Regency Centers in a joint venture with CDC-Houston, Inc., is 86 percent leased, said Vanessa Barfuss, leasing agent for the project.

Many anchor tenants were interested in The Market, but the developers chose Kroger for its vision for the community.

Kroger "believed in the benefits of being in Springwoods and on Grand Parkway," said Abe Pacetti, vice president of Investments with Regency Centers. "Kroger is a best-in-class grocer and a catalyst to build our shopping center around," he said.

The new Aldi store in Tomball is located near Hufsmith and Kuykendahl roads. Aldi operates nearly 1,600 stores in the U.S., throughout 35 states, including six in northwest Houston.

The location was chosen, in part, based on population density, traffic patterns and proximity to competition, said Karla Waddleton, Aldi Rosenberg Division Vice President.

More than 90 percent of the items sold at Aldi are sold under its exclusive brands. The store offers fresh meat, bread, dairy, produce and household items. Aldi says it is growing because its prices are low and its quality is high.

Also, the retailer offers a different type of shopping. The store is smaller than a typical grocery store, with just a few aisles, she said.
Upidi Cafe opens in Katy

Upidi Cafe has opened a new location in Katy, at 2004 S. Mason Road. The restaurant features Indian vegetarian cuisine.

In addition to in-restaurant service, the cafe does all sorts of catering from corporate to weddings.

The newest Katy location joins existing restaurants in Sugar Land (3551 Highway 6 South), a location at 5959 Hillcroft off I-69 and a location in Dallas.

For more information on the Katy location, call 281-396-4822 or visit www.udipicafeusa.com.

Drilling Permits, Completions for July 2017

AUSTIN - The Railroad Commission of Texas issued a total of 1,011 original drilling permits in July 2017 compared to 631 in July 2016. The July total included 893 permits to drill new oil or gas wells, 10 to re-enter plugged well bores and 108 for re-completions of existing well bores. The breakdown of well types for those permits issued July 2017 included 273 oil, 77 gas, 601 oil or gas, 53 injection, zero service and seven other permits.

In July 2017, commission staff processed 437 oil, 50 gas, 27 injection and two other completions compared to 568 oil, 243 gas, 44 injection and one other completions in July 2016. Total well completions processed for 2017 year to date are 4,388; down from 7,285 recorded during the same period in 2016.

According to Baker Hughes Inc., the Texas rig count as of Aug. 4 was 466, representing about 49 percent of all active rigs in the United States.

News and notes

TierOne Development is building a 38,600-square-foot building targeting medical tenants at 7619 Branford Place in Sugar Land. Tim Gregory and Ashley Cassel of Transwestern's Healthcare Advisory Services are providing leasing services.

Affiliates of Austin-based F&B Capital have purchased the Muse at Museum District, a 270-unit apartment complex at 1301 Richmond, and Allusion West University, a 231-unit property at 3810 Law, from Monogram Residential Trust. F&B's Roscoe Properties affiliate will manage the apartments, which were developed in partnership with Trammell Crow Residential.

Core Midstream has subleased 13,783 square feet in Bank of America Center, 700 Louisiana. Alex Taghi of NAI Partners represented the sublessee.

Insite Commercial Real Estate has purchased Intellicenter, a 160,407-square-foot building at 4650 Westway Park in the Westway Park office campus. The 10-year-old building is fully leased to The Travelers Indemnity Co. and Cameron Village. Danny Miller and Trent Agnew of HFF represented the seller.

Aviation Laboratories renewed a lease for 10,808 square feet at 5401 Mitchelldale. Kacie Skeen represented the landlord, Hartman Income REIT.

University Co-op will close its 5,000-square-foot store in Uptown Park on Sept. 9. The 5,000-square-foot store, which opened 10 years ago selling University of Texas-branded apparel, gifts and souvenirs, was the first outside of Austin.

SusieCakes, a California bakery chain that expanded to Texas last year, has picked Rice Village for its Houston debut. The company has leased 1,800 square feet on Amherst near Kirby for a store to open this fall. Lunden McGill with Baker Katz represented the tenant. Kara Rafferty with Trademark Property represented the landlord.
Fewer than 5 percent of patients admitted to the Texas Children's Hospital campus in Katy will ever need to be taken to their sister hospital at the Texas Medical Center.

And now the hospital at 18200 Katy Freeway and Barker Cypress is continuing to increase its ability to provide complete medical care for its patients.

Dr. Jeanine Graf, chief medical officer at Texas Children's Hospital's Katy campus, said they are expanding their pediatric intensive care unit from 16 beds to 22 beds.

"Our demand has outstripped our capability," said Graf. "The construction is nearly complete."

Graf, also an associate professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine, said the hospital has expanded to serve the health needs of the public in such as fast-growing community.

The hospital currently treats more than 35,000 patients every year.

"We have struggled to meet that demand," Graf said. "We need to meet the needs of our patients where they are."

The hospital has been open for six years and the pediatric intensive care unit - known as a PICU - has been in operation for about half that time. The PICU had an eight bed capacity to start and that number quickly increased from 12 to 16.

"Last year, we said we needed more space," Graf said.

The PICU will expand onto an area of the fourth floor that hasn't been used yet.

Graf said the work to have it in operation should be completed in October 2017.

Each room will have a sleeper sofa and a full bath so the family can stay with the patient.

"It will really optimize the family's ability to participate in caring for the child," Graf said. "It's going to be gorgeous."

The average length of stay in the PICU is about five days but that could increase depending on the patient's medical needs.

She said the care a patient receive the same level of health care at the Katy campus as they would get at the Texas Medical Center.

"It is completely capable of managing almost every critical illness," Graf said. "All of the physicians who work in the west campus have worked or continue to work part time in the medical center."

Graf said having a hospital close to the patient's home makes it easier for families to take part in the healing process.

Also, patients and their families won't have to deal with traffic at the notoriously congested Texas Medical Center.

"The access to the west campus is so easy," she said. "And you don't have to worry about valet parking."
News / National

by Stephen Jakes

A Johannesburg mother has demanded that Zimbabwwe's first lady Grace Mugabe be thrown into jail for allegedly going berserk and beating up her 20-year-old daughter at a Sandton hotel at the weekend.An incensed Debbie Engels, the mother of Gabriella - who was allegedly assaulted by Zimbabwe's first lady - told The Star on Monday that her daughter was left shaken by the incident."We're at the police at the moment to open a case. But my daughter is shaken up by what happened," she said.Gabriella claimed to have been attacked by Mugabe on Sunday night while the latter was visiting her two sons, Robert jr and Chatunga Bellarmine Mugabe, at their upmarket hotel in Sandton."She was in pain and couldn't talk. She was only able to tell me what happened after she was given the medication for shock at the hospital," Debbie said."At the time I didn't know who attacked her, but like any mother, I was upset about it. Gabriella's friends told me what happened."Debbie said her daughter and two of her friends were sitting in a room adjacent to that of Mugabe's sons before the attack happened."I immediately took her to the police station but they said they wanted a medical form before opening a case," Debbie said.Mugabe allegedly used an extension cord to assault Gabriella and her two friends while the two sons and Mugabe's bodyguards stood idle.In a series of tweets detailing the incident, Gabriella questioned: "What is a girl compared to a woman beating you and 10+ bodyguards standing back, leaving her to do this s**t.""She split my head open in three places with an extension cord and used the plug to hit me."A Zimbabwean news outlet reported that Mugabe was in the country for a treatment following a "freak accident" in which she injured her right ankle when she made the impromptu visit to her son's hotel.Mugabe's spokesperson, George Charamba, could not be reached for comment after numerous phone calls were made, but Zimbabwe Embassy consul-general Henry Mukonoweshuro said he did not know about the incident.However, the Twitter account of Zimbabwe's ruling party, Zanu-PF, confirmed the incident and appeared to paint the 20-year-old young woman as the aggressor.The party said on Twitter it was the first lady who was the victim of an attempted assault "by a Johannesburg woman"."We can confirm that there was a minor altercation between agent provocateurs and comrade Grace Mugabe. No need to panic, she (Mugabe) is fine and safe."A picture of Engels with a gash to the head was posted by the party with the caption: "We can confirm this is one of the perpetrators who attacked comrade Grace Mugabe. Be careful, comrades."Zimbabwe's First Lady Grace Mugabe File picture: Philimon Bulawayo/ReutersGabriella later responded to the tweet saying: "Attacked her? With 10+ body guards watching how she was beating me? I did not lift a finger on the first lady."Police spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Lungelo Dlamini earlier in the day said they could not comment on the matter as a case had not been opened.Garnet Basson, the chief operating officer at Capital Hotel Group, where the alleged assault took place, said: "We cannot say what happened in the hotel room because the doors were closed and we can't reveal the identities of the guests."But after management was made aware of the noise, we had the guests removed from the hotel," Basson said.In a series of tweets, Zanu-PF accused Engels of being part of a group that sought to attack Mugabe.Picture: TwitterClayson Monyela, the spokesperson for the Department of International Relations and Co-operation, said Mugabe may not receive diplomatic immunity over the incident."Firstly for it to apply she needs to be here on official business."It won't apply if she's here on holiday or for something else" he said."Secondly as a first lady she's not part of the government or a government official. It doesn't apply just because she's the wife of a president" said Monyela.This incident comes weeks after Robert jr and his young brother, Chatunga Bellarmine, were allegedly involved in a brawl at a Rivonia flat that left a security guard with a broken arm.The management of the complex kicked them out after the incident.The Mugabe brothers are said to be studying in Joburg, but have made a name for themselves in Sandton's nightlife.
A $2.2 million grant from the federal government will give Katy officials sufficient funding to staff their planned fire station.

"This is a special day for the City of Katy," Mayor Chuck Brawner said. "With the explosive growth in the City of Katy, both in commercial and residential, we have to be proactive to keep our high standards of excellence in public safety."

The Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response - or SAFER - grant comes from FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The goal is to enhance the ability of agencies like the Katy Fire Department to comply with mandated firefighter levels. Katy Fire Chief Russell Wilson said the grant will allow his department to hire 16 new firefighters - enough to operate a KFD fire truck known as a Quint on a round-the-clock basis.

"We'll start acquiring the personnel now," Wilson said. "I have six months to fill those positions."

Brawner and Wilson both credited U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, with helping shepherd the grant application through the Washington, D.C., bureaucracy. McCaul is chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security.

"It's all about safety and it's all about protecting the citizens of Katy," McCaul said.

McCaul, whose committee has oversight over FEMA, said Katy's SAFER grant was the largest he has seen awarded to any of his constituents. Katy officials said thousands of cities and towns applied and only 163 nationwide were chosen to receive the windfall. He said Katy deserves the grant money for a variety of reasons, including the fact that Houston's hurricane evacuation route goes through the city. McCaul also pointed out that about 40 oil pipelines run beneath the area.

"God forbid one of those pipelines erupts. You can imagine what that would cause," McCaul said. "Having this extra fire department squad in place will help assist in that effort."

The new firefighters will be based in the Katy Fire Department's station to be located near Katy Mills Mall. It will take the place of Katy Fire Station No. 2's original planned site on the south side of Kingsland Boulevard and west of Pin Oak Road. The area flooded during an April 2016 deluge that sent 12-17 inches rain over the Katy area, swelling nearby bayous and creeks. The Katy Fire Department would not have been able to dispatch emergency vehicles out of that location if there had a fire station there, city officials said.

The city is using $5 million from a 2014 voter-approved bond mostly to pay for the construction of the new fire station. City officials used about $1 million to pay for the fire truck that will be housed in the Katy Mills Mall station.

Wilson said the city is still in the engineering phase of the fire station construction and expects to break ground "in the next few months."

The SAFER grant - which runs out in three years - can only be used to hire firefighters, officials said. It could be a year until the new fire station opens. By that time, the firefighters hired under the SAFER grant should be ready to work, Wilson said.

"There's a lot of training involved," he said. "We'll get them trained up to the level we need them to be."
Some of the community volunteers who put together a $609 million bond proposal for the Katy Independent School District have formed a political action committee to convince voters to support the measure at the ballot box.

The "All 4 Katy" PAC - announced April 7 - is designed to promote passage of the referendum they expect to be placed on the November ballot.

Jerry Kroll, co-treasurer of All 4 Katy, said they will be using the media - from television advertisements to billboards - to urge Katy voters to back the bond.

"That all depends on how much money we raise," Kroll said. "The PAC is designed to do what it can to make sure the district provides quality education for the kids."

The bond would result in the construction of six new schools - a high school; 2 junior highs and three elementary school - along with the infrastructure improvements for new and existing campuses. The campus constructions will take up the majority of the bond - more than $448 million. Katy ISD officials and supporters of the PAC say the new campuses are needed because of the burgeoning population in Katy.

"The demographer made it pretty clear. The growth of Katy is not going to slow down any time soon," Kroll said. "In the 2018-2019 school year, we're going to have almost 6,000 more kids than we have today."

Katy ISD officials said student enrollment has grown by 2,800 every year for the past five years. They said the passage of the proposed bond would not increase the school tax rate for Katy residents.

Within the southwest quadrant of Katy ISD, 15 of the 18 schools have student populations in excess of their design capacity, according to the PAC.

"If we're not going to provide quality education space - classroom space primarily - for those kids that are coming, we're not supporting the needs of the community," Kroll said.

The last opportunity for Katy ISD trustees to approve the bond - and call for the Nov. 7, 1017, election - will be during their working meeting on Aug. 21.

"All seven members of the board spoke in favor of it," Kroll said. "I'll be surprised if they don't call for the bond. They've got too much invested in it."
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The League City man who confessed to killing his ex-wife and stashing her body in the garage was released Monday afternoon on $1 million bond, according to online records.

Shaun Hardy admitted to killing Anne-Christine Johnson last December in a grisly slaying he described in detail for police during a recorded interview weeks after.

"He's not going to run, he's not a danger to anybody," his lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, said Monday evening.

But the victim's mother, Stephanie Johnson, felt differently.

"I'm scared to death," she said. "For the first ever in my entire life I'm even remotely considering owning a gun."

For weeks after Anne-Christine Johnson's disappearance, search crews combed fields and neighborhoods looking the mother of two, who vanished just before Christmas.

But then in early January, police showed up at Hardy's Chesterfield Lane home with a search warrant for cell phones possibly linked to the case.

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Hardy started sobbing as police ransacked the home. And when a detective neared the garage, he noticed a "strong odor of decaying flesh," according to a probable cause affidavit.

SOLD: Home where grisly League City killing took place sells 4 months later



Once inside the garage, the detective spotted an object the size of a human body, covered in dark plastic and duct tape, with scented candles arranged around it.



Later, Hardy told investigators he kicked a knife into Johnson's chest and then threw a Kroger bag over her head to put her "out of her misery."

When police finally found her body, Johnson was still wearing Christmas pajamas and had the plastic bag over her head.

After Hardy's arrest in early January, he was jailed and a judge later set bond at $500,000 on the murder charge and another $500,000 for a felony tampering with evidence charge.

BACKGROUND: League City man confesses to killing ex-wife to 'put her out of her misery'

While the accused killer waited behind bars, the home that was the scene of the gruesome slaying sold for somewhere between $185,000 and $215,000 in April, according to the Houston Association of Realtors.

Then over the weekend, Stephanie Johnson got word that Hardy might be released.

"It's just devastating," she said.

On Monday around 4 p.m. - the same day a judge signed an order modifying release conditions, which include wearing an ankle monitor - Hardy was released from custody, the Galveston County jail said.

Now, he's looking forward to reuniting with the autistic son he shared with his ex-wife.

"He's cared for (his son) for all the kid's life, and it's been very rough with him being locked up," DeGuerin said. "This is a really tough case."
Two teenagers are in custody after trying to ram Conroe police officers Tuesday morning, detectives said.

Conroe officers were called out to the Lowes home improvement store in the 1900 block of Westview Boulevard when a shopper noticed a stolen truck belonging to a friend was in the parking lot, according to Conroe Police Lt. Jon Buckholtz. The officers, once in the parking lot, tried to apprehend two teenagers with the vehicle, but one of the teens, a juvenile whom police did not identify, started driving the stolen truck erratically and hitting several parked cars, Buckholtz said.

Officers later found out the juvenile had several warrants for his arrest. He and his passenger, 17-year-old Noah Dennis, of Corpus Christi, eventually were arrested and face felony charges.

In the parking lot, the juvenile almost hit at least one of the officers with the stolen truck, Buckholtz said, at which point the officers started shooting at the truck to try and stop it. A nearby retired Harris County Sheriff's deputy then opened fire on the vehicle, striking Dennis.

Jimmy Anderson, 48, was with his wife, Wendy Anderson, 44, in the parking lot as the commotion erupted.

"As we come out, about to get in our car, we hear 'Crunch, bam, bam, bam of a vehicle," Jimmy Anderson said describing what he heard. "Then all of a sudden, I hear, 'tow, tow, tow, tow.' Same gun."

Anderson said there were about 20 people in the parking lot and expressed frustration about the officers opening fire, calling it a "waste of bullets." He said there was a vehicle that had its back window shattered from the shots that had two small children inside.

Wendy Anderson shared the same sentiment.

"That officer could have hit two, small, innocent children," she said. "That poor child didn't have anything to do with the stolen vehicle."

Shortly after the shooting, the two teenagers drove south on Interstate 45 to a restaurant near South Loop 336. The two suspects fled, Buckholtz said, but were arrested minutes later.

Dennis suffered non-life threatening injuries and is facing felony unauthorized use of a motor vehicle as well as a misdemeanor evading charges. The juvenile was placed in Montgomery County Juvenile Detention and probably will be charged with felony unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and felony evading.

Montgomery County District Attorney Brett Ligon responded, and his office is assisting in the investigation. The officer will be placed on administrative leave as standard practice until the investigation is completed.
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Yes Prep Northline Principal Brittany McGruder walked into her future school in January, puzzled by how it would be ready for students in just six months.

Renovations of the new campus, once home to a hospital, hadn't yet begun on Houston's north side. Classrooms looked like patient rooms. Fire-suppression systems and oxygen piping stuck out from the walls. The roof needed an overhaul after decades of neglect.

"We couldn't get pretty far into the building because it was basically in disarray," McGruder said.

Yet seven short months later, the Houston-based charter network debuted its 17th school Monday, welcoming its inaugural class of approximately 160 sixth-grade students.

The reconstructed campus remains a work in progress - the gym, permanent cafeteria and many rooms for future classes aren't open - but Yes Prep officials were enthusiastic.

"Even though it was a little nerve-wracking, here we are," McGruder said.

It took months of planning and half a year of construction to prepare the school, about three miles north of the I-45 and I-610 interchange.

When completed, the 101,000-square-foot campus will serve students in grades six through 12 in a diverse, lower-income area.

At neighboring Northline Elementary School, part of the Houston Independent School District, about 92 percent of students were deemed "economically disadvantaged" and 67 percent were English Language Learners in 2015-16, according to the Texas Education Agency.

Built in the early 1960s, the facility was long home to a single-story hospital, complete with patient and operating rooms.

In the foyer where students filed in Monday, greeted by a welcome sign held up with blue electrical tape, medics once rushed in patients needing life-saving procedures.

In the early 2000s, the nearby St. Stephens Baptist Church scooped up the facility, using the southern wing as an area for community and church gatherings.

Then, in 2016, Yes Prep homed in on the building as the network sought to expand in the area, where two of its nearby charter schools had hundreds of students on their waiting lists.

Although the facility needed extensive renovations, it checked off three primary needs for Yes Prep: a location in an area of need; building space exceeding 80,000 square feet, and land totaling at least two acres.

"We just took everything out and turned the demolition crew loose," said Keith Weaver, the managing director of operations. "Of course, the time line was a little short to turn it around that quick, but we opened up everything we needed to be able to start school on time."

The facility remains sparse. Classrooms walls and the blue-and-white halls are relatively bare. A well-lit trophy case sits empty.

The building's many courtyards - a remnant of the hospital's multiple expansions - need attention.

But for now, it's enough to get kids in the door and in front of a teacher.

"Due to the need in the area, I wouldn't have wanted to wait anymore," McGruder said. "I think we do have what we need to get started and we're excited to be here."
News / National

by Stephen Jakes

Today social media users wake up to the surprise over an audio circulating that the Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa who was airlifted to South Africa after vomiting blood at President Robert Mugabe's youth interface rally in Gwanda on Saturday in a suspected food poisoning assassination ploy has died.Three audios seeming of three various speakers heard by this reporter seemed to be conversing over the death of the politician in South Africa early this morning.The audios come after Health minister David Parirenyatwa yesterday evening was captured on TV telling the nation that Mnangwagwa was on stable condition after being attended by his doctors in SA.It could not be established if the claims by the audios were true, but state reports insists that Mnangagwa is safe and alive.
One man was killed Sunday in a three-car wreck in south Houston, according to police.

A black Nissan Altima was headed north in the 13300 block of Scott when the driver ran a red light and crashed into a Ford F-350 pickup headed east on Almeda Genoa.
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Mayor Sylvester Turner has asked city staff to assess Houston's public art collection and recommend future steps in light of requests for the city to remove a downtown Confederate monument.

Turner did not commit Tuesday to removing the Spirit of the Confederacy statue or others, instead saying the city would evaluate the appropriateness of each monument in its inventory.

"No one wants to erase history, just try to provide the proper context for the things that we do have," Turner told City Council during public session.

The mayor's comments came as an online petition asking the city to remove the Spirit of the Confederacy from Sam Houston Park gained traction, drawing more than 440 supporters in two days  just shy of its goal of 500.

The petition creators  Houston Young Communist League  say they started the petition to remove the Spirit of the Confederacy statute shortly after the events in Charlottesville, Va.

In its place, they are asking the city to erect a monument memorializing victims of slavery, President Abraham Lincoln or fallen soldiers of the Union during the Civil War.

The Spirit of the Confederacy is a bronze statue representing an angel with a sword and a palm branch.

According to the city, it was erected in the park by the Robert E. Lee Chapter No. 186 of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in January 1908.

Its dedication states To all heroes of the South who fought for the Principles of States Rights."



The sculptor, Louis Amateis, was a native of Italy.

The petition goes on to say that fascism and white nationalism are now not only mobilized forces in America but have ambiguous sympathy from President Donald Trump. They have used monuments to the Confederacy as rallying points to sow disunity and spread terror.

The group notes that they do not seek to erase this past  instead they want to erase any attempts to romanticize, praise and glorify what the Confederacy stood for.

All students should be taught the history of the confederacy and the crimes against humanity for which it stood. We should all be reminded of our past so that we can see the present in its full context, according to the petition.

This story is developing.
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In 2015, Harris County reported 149 deaths from impaired drivers who had a blood alcohol level of at least .08.

The county ranked among the highest alcohol-related driving deaths for 2015 in the state, but that doesn't mean it's the deadliest county in Texas.

DRUNK DRIVING IN EAST TEXAS: Jury issues sentence for woman convicted in Pearland officer's death

Based on statistics provided by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Harris County had a drunk driving related fatality rate of 3.28 for every 100,000 people. Given that the U.S. Census estimates Harris County had about 4.5 million people in 2015, 149 deaths represent a sliver of the population.

Loving County in West Texas only recorded one drunk-driving death for 2015. But with a population of 112 people, that one death impacted the county's population far more than 149 deaths in Houston.

Considering Loving County had zero drunk driving deaths from 2011 to 2014, the one death in 2015 made the county's drunk driving fatality rate jump from zero to 892 per 100,000 people.

FATAL DRIVING: Suspect in fatal wrong-way wreck was out on bond for drunk driving

Armstrong County in North Texas saw the biggest decrease in drunk driving deaths by population between 2011 and 2015.

One fatality in 2011 gave the county a 51.79 death rate per 100,000 people. With zero deaths from crashes involving alcohol in 2014 and 2015, the death rate dropped to zero. The county had a population size of 1,947 people in 2015.

Click through the slideshow above to see the counties that have been affected the most by drunk driving fatalities by population size between 2011 and 2015.
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The same day a white nationalist rammed his car into protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing one and injuring 19 others, a former Texas A&M student announced his plans for a White Lives Matter rally in College Station.

HOUSTON MOM: Family seeks help bringing daughter home after Charlottesville injury

Planned for Sept. 11, the rally is making national headlines due to fears that it may result in the same violence, described as "domestic terrorism" by Ted Cruz, that occurred in Charlottesville.

It's not the first time Texas A&M will host an Alt-Right event. In December, white nationalist Richard Spencer spoke on Campus in front of roughly 400 people with thousands of protesters outside A&M's Memorial Student Center.

Click through above to see things to know about the White Lives Matter rally at Texas A&M.
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White supremacist Richard Spencer is a man without a college to speak at after one cancelled his visit and a prominent professor at another declined his invitation after the weekend violence in Charlottesville, Va.

Texas A&M University cancelled a white supremacist rally planned for Sept. 11 by an outside organizer Monday evening. The university said it maintained the right to ax the event because organizer Preston Wiginton linked his plans to the 2017 Unite the Right rally this past weekend.

Spencer called the university's excuse a "heckler's veto."

NOT WELCOME: Texas A&M cancels white supremacist rally set for Sept. 11

"What this is based on is this notion is the antifa, or the counter-protest, might be violent," Spencer told Chron.com after learning of the university's decision from Twitter during dinner Monday night. "They are worried there will be violence associated with this. You cannot suppress free speech on that basis. This could get interesting. ... Their argument is very weak."

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Spencer, 39, referenced a federal lawsuit brought against Auburn University this spring by one of his supporters after the university canceled his event. The supporter, Cameron Padgett, sued Auburn in federal court to have Spencer speak at the public university in April and won.

U.S. District Judge W. Keith Watkins in Montgomery, Ala., prohibited Auburn from blocking Spencer, adding there was no evidence that he advocated violence, the Washington Post reported.

STANDING TOGETHER: Houston vigil held to support Charlottesville victims

"Discrimination on the basis of message content cannot be tolerated under the First Amendment," Watkins wrote in his ruling.

A similar First Amendment issue arose in December when Texas A&M President Michael Young told the Houston Chronicle that Spencer was welcome on campus.

Young said Spencer could "express odious, reprehensible ideas" so long as violence was not incited and university rules were followed.

"Texas A&M's support of the First Amendment and the freedom of speech cannot be questioned," Smith said in a statement Monday. "On December 6, 2016, the university and law enforcement allowed the same speaker the opportunity to share his views, taking all of the necessary precautions to ensure a peaceful event. However, in this case, circumstances and information relating to the event have changed and the risks of threat to life and safety compel us to cancel the event."

Spencer, who is the co-editor of altright.com and president of the National Policy Institute, challenged Young's assertion regarding the university's stance on the First Amendment.

RUMBLES IN HOUSTON: Armed protesters square off outside Houston City Hall

"We won a federal judgment and it might be fun to win another," Spencer told Chron.com. "Particularly against Greg Abbott. These conservatives really annoy me, much more than liberals, in a way."

Spencer's feelings were echoed by Kyle Bristow, a Detroit-based attorney with the Market Place of Ideas, a nonprofit organization that has represented alt-rights groups.

Bristow told Chron.com Monday night that Texas A&M administrators have "engaged in unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination in violation of the First Amendment."

"Being that our work has resulted in First Amendment legal victories in Alabama and Virginia, Texas A&M University is playing with fire and we will see to it that it gets burned if its administrators fail to honor the Constitution," Bristow said.

READ MORE: Dallas prep school disavows white nationalist alumnus Richard Spencer

Spencer's First Amendment right was further defended in April by Geoffrey R. Stone, a professor of law at the University of Chicago, in a New York Times op-ed.

Yet despite that support at the time, Stone penned another op-ed on the Huffington Post on Saturday declining to invite Spencer to campus while supporting "our students or faculty want to hear what he has to say, I will vehemently defend their right to do so."

The op-ed also included emails both men had exchanged. Spencer didn't know of Stone's Huffington Post article during his Chron.com interview Monday night.

"I'm a little miffed he published these emails," Spencer said.

Spencer believes it is going to become increasingly difficult for him to speak at universities following the violence in Charlottesville. These new challenges will not stop him, Spencer said.

"We crossed the Rubicon with Charlottesville," Spencer said. "I'm very flexible. There's many ways of skinning cats and you have to figure out the right model."
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Two years ago today, Julie Mott's remains disappeared from the Mission Park Funeral Chapel on San Antonio's North Side. The 25-year-old's strange disappearance captured the nation's attention, but the case remains unresolved to this day.

Now, new court documents examined by mySA.com reveal a previously undisclosed relationship between Mission Park and a third-party mortuary service whose employees had "unfettered" after-hours access to the funeral home. The same company was sued just months before Mott's disappearance for mishandling a body.

The documents are part of a civil lawsuit filed by Mott's family in January 2016 against Mission Park. The case is pending and though all parties to the lawsuit are under a gag order, the records help shed a new light on the case.

The newly uncovered business relationship is just the latest development in the strange, ongoing case of Mott's missing body.

Now Playing: Police say a U-Haul was parked overnight at a hotel with a casket and a body inside. The family members were shocked to find out it was missing the next morning. Video: KOAT

A strange disappearance

Mott died of complications from cystic fibrosis on Aug. 8, 2015. The following day Mott's father, Tim, signed a Mission Park burial contract, agreeing to pay almost $7,500 in exchange for a memorial service and the embalming and cremation of his daughter's remains, according to court records.

Mott's body was delivered to Mission Park North, at 3401 Cherry Ridge Drive, where her memorial service was held around noon on Aug. 15, the day she would have turned 26.

At roughly 1:30 p.m., everyone left the chapel, with the exception of Bill Wilburn, who was described as Mott's "obsessed" ex-boyfriend. At the time of her death, Wilburn and Mott had been separated for two years.

According to court documents, Wilburn remained in the chapel for an extra 10 to 15 minutes after everyone left and was then seen out by a Mission Park employee, who locked the door behind him.

Mott's casket was moved to a hallway to await transfer to a different Mission Park location for cremation, and around 4:30 p.m., Mission Park staff locked up the building and activated the building's ADT alarm system.

RELATED: Family of woman whose body was taken from casket sues funeral home in San Antonio

The next morning, an employee discovered Mott's casket was empty. One of the hinges on the casket had been damaged, and the bier on which it was resting was found in an "unnatural" position by an exit door, according to expert testimony given in the civil case. According to a police report, there were no signs of forced entry, and the building's security system was never triggered.

Police launched an investigation into the disappearance of Mott's body, and Wilburn was immediately named a person of interest in the case.

Mission Park Owner Robert "Dick" Tips, who had previously employed Mott's father as a pilot for his private aircraft and at one time rented a home to the Mott family, offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the people responsible for Mott's disappearance, and multiple search parties for the remains were conducted.

None were successful.

"We just want our daughter's remains returned so we can have some closure to our grief," Tim Mott told reporters a week after the disappearance.

The location of Mott's body remains unknown today.

A newly uncovered business relationship

At the heart of the new developments is a relationship between Mission Park Funeral Chapel & Cemeteries and a third-party mortuary service company, Beyer & Beitel.

Mott family attorneys say Tips and his wife Kristin Tips, the president of MPII, Inc., the parent company of Mission Park, either didn't know or deliberately "sought to conceal" the fact that Mission Park subcontracted services from Beyer & Beitel for years.

According to court records, Beyer & Beitel employees had "unfettered" after-hours access, exterior door keys and alarm codes to Mission Park facilities, including the location on Cherry Ridge Drive from which Mott's body disappeared.

"After initially denying the use of subcontractors to transport and embalm deceased loved ones, Mission Park now admits that they have used the subcontractor for many years, without any supervision to speak of, by Mission Park," Mott family attorneys allege.

According to court documents filed by Mott family attorneys in the civil case accusing Mission Park of gross negligence, Beyer & Beitel employees were tasked with performing "the vast majority, if not all, of the transportation and embalming" of bodies entrusted to Mission Park.

Bexar County property records show that MPII, Inc., even serves as Beyer & Beitel's landlord. The company is the listed owner of a building at 211 Brooklyn Avenue, where Beyer & Beitel conducts business.

The new development has placed increased scrutiny on the Tips and Mission Park's past security protocols, according to a source with knowledge of the trial.

RELATED: Everything we know about the theft of Julie Mott's body from a San Antonio funeral home

Neither the Tips nor the Motts were available for comment as the presiding judge in the case issued a gag order to both parties on June 30, 2016, barring them from speaking with members of the press.

"While the Tips would love to talk to you about Julie's case, they cannot," said Ted Eccles, a Tips family friend who said they asked him to respond to requests for comment from mySA.

A manager at Beyer & Beitel, who identified himself only as Allen, declined to comment on the company's relationship to Mission Park and Mott's disappearance.

The source said the contract between Mission Park and Beyer & Beitel was first discovered in February of this year and that the relationship was "kept from" the family and their attorneys.

According to court records, Kristin Tips testified on Feb. 28 that there was no possibility that someone other than a Mission Park employee was involved in the services provided to Julie Mott.

But her testimony appears to contradict three affidavits from former Beyer & Beitel employees who claimed they delivered bodies to Mission Park on a regular basis.

"If the delivery was after the funeral home business hours, I would use the key to enter the funeral home and the alarm code to disarm the alarm and deliver the body to the prep room," said Corina Barron Kaiser, a former Beyer & Beitel employee. "At Mission Park North (on Cherry Ridge Drive), I would enter the building after hours almost every other weekend to deliver bodies from Beyer & Beitel, I had the key and alarm code from the key ring that was in each Beyer & Beitel van and the prep room code I had memorized because I delivered there so often."

Kaiser also said that she began a job at Mission Park after she left Beyer & Beitel in May 2014. She was employed with Mission Park at the time of Mott's disappearance, and she said the following week, "Mission Park changed their policy of allowing Beyer & Beitel drivers to enter the funeral home after hours with a key and alarm code and required deliveries to be made during business hours."

Just months before Mott's disappearance, Beyer & Beitel was also sued for its role in mixing up the body of 73-year-old Beatrice Garza with that of another woman. The case was later settled.

Mission Park has had recent legal trouble as well. Online Bexar County District Court records indicate Mission Park and its parent company, MPII, Inc., have been sued for damages or breach of contract at least a dozen times since 2000.

A lawsuit filed against the company about a week after the Motts sued accuses Palm Heights Mortuary, which is owned by Mission Park, of confusing the body of Jose C. Perez with that of another man, according to mySA archives. Mission Park employees conducted a 2- to 3-hour search before Perez's body was found at another funeral home.

The police investigation

Jesse Salame, a spokesman for the San Antonio Police Department, said he couldn't confirm police have spoken with any Beyer & Beitel employees, but he said they've spoken to numerous persons of interest and witnesses, not all of whom are tied to Mission Park.

"We're following the leads as they come in," he said. "This case was handled in a way that a homicide would be investigated. We're not taking any evidence for granted, and we've been reexamining things. It's been a very comprehensive investigation."

Meanwhile, Wilburn, Mott's ex-boyfriend, who did not respond to multiple requests for comment, allegedly began harassing everyone connected to Mott's case to get information on her body's whereabouts after the disappearance. According to one police report, Wilburn called Mission Park staff over 200 times in one day, and police issued him a criminal trespass notice on Sept. 2, 2015, forbidding his entrance to Mission Park property.

The Mott family reported Wilburn to the Bexar County Sheriff's Office on Feb. 8, 2016, after he called them more than a dozen times between midnight and 4 a.m. over a two-week period to ask for information on the investigation.

He also violated Mission Park's trespass notice on June 26 and June 29, 2016, when he was spotted by employees and captured on security camera footage attempting to gain entrance to Mission Park North, according to police reports. He was later arrested on two charges of criminal trespassing and is awaiting trial.

RELATED: Relatives sue San Antonio funeral home over dressing wrong corpse in father's clothes, losing body

"In my opinion, [the security camera footage] demonstrates Wilburn's ongoing obsession with remaining at the center of his own narrative, repeatedly driving around the facility, looking in windows, shaking door handles, and staring straight into monitoring cameras," testified James D. Calder, a University of Texas-San Antonio professor specializing in crime and politics who was asked by attorneys for Mission Park to serve as an expert witness in the trial.

Wilburn's actions were "far outside the range of any normal person who would claim to police investigators that he had nothing to do with a crime, such as theft of human remains," Calder said.

A source close to the trial said Wilburn's actions, while strange and suspicious, don't have anything to do with Julie's disappearance.

"Julie having a crazy ex-boyfriend is the best thing that could have happened to [the Tips]," the source said.

The source said the Mott family began to get the feeling they were "being played" by the Tips and Mission Park shortly after Mott's disappearance. In January 2016, the Mott family, including Mott's father Tim, his wife, Sharlotte, and son, Jonathan, filed suit against Mission Park for gross negligence. The family is seeking $1 million in damages.

Salame said that if there is conclusive proof that anyone has deliberately withheld information regarding Mott's whereabouts or purposefully deceived investigators on the case, they could face criminal charges.

Both the civil and criminal cases are pending, and Salame said police are far from considering the investigation into Mott's disappearance "cold."

"A case isn't cold until you've exhausted every possible lead and explored every possibility, and I don't know that we're there yet."

cdowns@mysa.com

Twitter: @calebjdowns
Enjoy the first large-scale museum exhibition dedicated to tramp art since 1975. More than 150 examples of tramp art, concentrating on works from the United States, with additional international examples.

For Immediate Release: October 24, 2016 (Santa Fe, NM) The Museum of International Folk Art presents No Idle Hands: The Myths & Meanings of Tramp Art, the first large-scale museum exhibition dedicated to tramp art since 1975. The exhibition will present more than 150 examples of tramp art, concentrating on works from the United States, with additional examples from France, Germany, Switzerland, Scandinavia, Canada, Mexico and Brazil to demonstrate the far reach this art form has had. Additionally, the show will analyze and dismantle the myths and misperceptions about tramp art, particularly as they relate to assumptions related to class, quality, and the anonymity of the makers.

Tramp art describes a particular type of chip-carved woodwork that was practiced in Europe and the United States between the 1870s and 1940s, making use of discarded cigar boxes or crates that were then notch-carved along the edges and layered. Objects made were primarily boxes and frames, but other household objects such as small private altars, crosses, medicine cabinets, wall pockets, clock cases, plant stands, and even furniture can be found.

"Tramp art's place in art history has been troublesome. It has had detractorspeople who regard it as 'the ugly duckling' of folk artbut also numerous champions," said Laura Addison, Curator of North American & European Folk Art at the Museum of International Folk Art, and the show's curator. "This exhibition will erase any doubts about the quality and craftsmanship of the work and situate tramp art as a practice at the crossroads of cultural transformation at the turn of the 20th century," she said. Addison also pointed out that by juxtaposing historic pieces with those by contemporary artists working in the tramp art style, the exhibition frames this art form as an ongoing tradition that continues to capture the public's imaginationmyths and all.

"The ingenious objects in the Tramp Art exhibition use recycled or repurposed wood, and highlight a moment in time a century ago when artisans, many of them immigrants to the US, created a new variety of folk art," said Khristaan D. Villela, Director of the Museum of International Folk Art. "They are a testament to the ability of untrained artists to produce objects of immense beauty and complexity," he said.

For many years, tramp art was believed to have been made by itinerants and hobos, thus its name. It has been demonstrated, however, that this belief, first put in print by Frances Lichten in a 1959 Pennsylvania Folklife article, is erroneous. Nonetheless, the name "tramp art" has remained the only terminology used for this practice, and the paucity of scholarly studies to dispel the mistaken notions about tramp art have allowed the myths to persist.

Whittling objects such as wood chains and ball-in-cage whimsies was a common pastime, including among railriding "hobos," and some examples of tramp art were likely by the hand of itinerant laborers or artisans. However, this style of carving was more commonly the practice of family men and blue-collar factory workers making functional domestic objects or gifts for the women in their lives. Efforts have been made in recent years to identify makers by name and unearth their biographies; these personal narratives illustrate a very different story of the makers of tramp art. As these makers and their stories come to light, it has become obvious that home and family are central to an understanding of the practice of tramp art.

No Idle Hands will present tramp art objects according to four primary areas: Introduction/historical context, home & nation, frames & boxes and devotional objects. Works in the exhibition will come from the Museum of International Folk Art permanent collection as well as loans from a number of private and museum collections across the country. An exhibition publication will accompany the exhibition, with essays by Laura Addison, Curator of North American & European Folk Art, Museum of International Folk Art; Leslie Umberger, a curator in the area of folk art and self-taught art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum; and Eric Zafran, a retired curator of European art, most recently at the Wadsworth Atheneum.

The Museum of International Folk Art Museum Shop is located in the museum at 706 Camino Lejo (Museum Hill just off Old Santa Fe Trail). 505-982-5186.

MUSEUM OF INTERNATIONAL FOLK ART

The Museum of International Folk Art is a division of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs.

The Museum of International Folk Art's mission is "to enrich the human spirit by connecting people with the arts, traditions and cultures of the world." Founded in 1953 by Florence Dibell Bartlett, the museum holds the world's largest international folk art collection of more than 150,000 objects from six continents and over 150 nations.

The museum's collections represent a broad range of global artists whose artistic expressions make Santa Fe an international crossroads of culture. For many visitors, fascination with folk art begins upon seeing the whimsical toys and traditional objects within the Girard Collection. For others, the international textiles, ceramics, carvings and other cultural treasures in the Neutrogena Collection provide the allure. The museum's historic and contemporary Latino and Hispano folk art collections, spanning the Spanish Colonial period to modern-day New Mexico, reflect how artists respond to their time and place in ways both delightful and sobering. In 2010, the museum opened the Mark Naylor and Dale Gunn Gallery of Conscience, where exhibitions encourage visitors to exchange ideas on complex issues of human rights and social justice.

Over 90,000 national and international visitors visit the Museum International Folk Art every year. Through folk art, the museum encourages all to find a common ground upon which to craft better lives for all.

Museum exhibitions and programs are supported by donors to the Museum of New Mexico Foundation and its Director's Leadership Fund, Exhibitions Development Fund, and Fund for Museum Education, as well as by the International Folk Art Foundation, also established by museum founder Florence Dibell Bartlett.
News / National

by Staff reporter

President Robert Mugabe poured scorn at attempts by opposition parties to form a grand coalition yesterday, saying their efforts will not move his ruling Zanu-PF party, which has been in power for the past 37 years.Addressing thousands of party supporters in the Matabeleland South provincial capital, Mugabe rallied Zanu-PF supporters to pour out in their numbers come polling day to give the opposition a thorough hiding.Mugabe has been addressing well-attended youth interface rallies countrywide as Zanu-PF continues to demonstrate its mobilisation capacity.The 93-year-old veteran of Zimbabwe's liberation struggle, has so far covered six provinces, and is now left with only four - Harare, Mashonaland Central, Bulawayo and the Midlands.The Matabeleland South rally came exactly a week after Mugabe's bitter rival Morgan Tsvangirai of the MDC party had unveiled an alliance of seven opposition political parties to confront Mugabe and his ruling Zanu-PF party at the next polls.Mugabe thumped his nose at the coalition yesterday, saying Zanu-PF was unfazed by it."We are going to elections, 2018; if you come out in these numbers (the) MDC will not get anything. You will sweep everything - let us sweep everything this time and then see where they will go," he said."If they want to unite, there are putting patches, zvigamba hazviite VaTsvangirai (patches will not work out Tsvangirai). But we just laugh because we really need something to tickle us at times - let them try what they can do," said Mugabe.A fortnight ago, at the historic Zimbabwe Grounds, Tsvangirai sealed an electoral pact with seven political parties that include formations which sprung out of the MDC in 2005 and 2014, namely Welshman Ncube's MDC and Tendai Biti's People's Democratic Party (PDP).Before the ink had even dried on the pact document, there was trouble in the MDC Alliance with the PDP denying that they were now under Tsvangirai's party.Some of Tsvangirai's senior officials, among them his deputy for over a decade, Thokozani Khupe, and national chairperson Lovemore Moyo, are also digging their heels in, saying they do not agree with the terms of the agreement signed on August 5.Khupe and Moyo were conspicuous by their absence at the signing ceremony.Mugabe has hardly missed the opportunity to poke fun at his rivals, especially Tsvangirai, who has been his fiercest rival ever since he burst onto the political scene in 1999 from the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions where he was secretary-general.Only recently, he lampooned the alliance as a coalition of zeroes.Yesterday, Mugabe avoided touching on the emotive succession war in his Zanu-PF party.Instead, he spent the better part of his long and winding speech, dwelling on history.He heaped praises on the late vice president Joshua Nkomo whom he described as a man who was committed to unity.Mugabe then took a dig at Tsvangirai saying the MDC leader has always been opposed to the land reform programme, initiated by the war veterans in 2000."The leaders; some have 3 000 hectares or more when others have just 500 or less than that. That's not fair - we all want the land. You heard people talking about (the) Command Agriculture system: We said to ourselves, after we had been given the idea by the First Lady (Grace Mugabe), after they had discussed with Vice President (Emmerson) Mnangagwa (that) we were now being mocked with people saying our (reforms had caused more harm than good), but now that breadbasket issue is over. I heard Tsvangirai saying you are taking white farms and you will suffer because of hunger, but we took the farms all the same because the farms were all ours - we fought, suffered and died for them, so we don't expect a repeat of that again," said Mugabe.The increasingly frail Mugabe, who has been in power since the country attained its independence from the British in 1980, is currently struggling to keep his party united ahead of next year's elections.Despite the divisions in his party, which have manifested in the formation of two factions namely Team Lacoste and Generation 40, the Zanu-PF leader believes his party will emerge victorious at the polls apparently buoyed by the huge turnout at the youth interface rallies.He heaped praises on Zanu-PF youth league leader Kudzanai Chipanga saying the youth interface rallies, which were a brainchild of the youth wing, had rejuvenated Zanu-PF."Chipanga, you have demonstrated (what can be achieved) when your organisation is united - and thank God you have managed to unite the party. We thank you, you have done what the youth league was not able to do in the past," said Mugabe." . . . Youths must not give up, jobs will be there, don't get tired of learning, we need you all the time, anaTsvangirai vakungodauka dauka (Tsvangirai and his team are always splitting)," he added.Mugabe's rivals have, however, pledged to put their differences aside in time for the elections in order to end Zanu-PF's rule.Speaking at the National People's Party (NPP)'s inaugural convention last week, Tsvangirai said there were really no differences among the country's fragmented opposition parties in terms of their policies and thus uniting would be easy."I was listening to the proposals you make and I see that there is no conflict with our ideals and values so where is the problem? We can't be divided on the basis of personalities," Tsvangirai said to applause.He added: "If we are agreed on the direction that we need to take, why don't we put our differences aside and be united? We launched the MDC Alliance last week and we said we believe in the big tent and that 2018 is the only opportunity that we have as the opposition movement to defeat Mugabe . . . NPP is not our enemy and let me say atungamiri haatori nzira, (Being the first to take a certain route won't block others from following the same path)," said Tsvangirai.
AUSTIN -- People who live outside big cities like Houston now have a right to veto unwanted efforts by local lawmakers' to gobble up their communities in unwanted annexations, handing the governor a win in his special session push to curtail local control.

Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 6 into law Tuesday, championing the bill's passage after weeks of the Legislature slow-walking many of the governor's 20 priority issues.

"In Texas, of all places, property rights matter," Abbott said in a statement after signing the bill. "Residents from across the state that have expressed their concerns about feeling abused by the annexation process have had their voices heard."

Abbott, who signed the bill in private, said the bill would end "forced annexation" in communities outside big cities.

Sponsored by Humble Republican Rep. Dan Huberty and Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, the bill would trigger an automatic voter referendum in communities larger cities try to annex. The law would apply to unincorporated areas in counties with more than 500,000 people, such as Harris County.

Lawmakers who supported the bill say voters should have a voice to reject an unwanted annexation. They say residents worry their new city services after the annexation will pale to their new tax contribution to the city.

Opponents argue the law is an overreach and will kill cities' ability to manage growth and development in their bustling cities as their population continues to boom.

Houston has a long history of aggressively annexing adjoining property, growing to 667 miles in 175 years. However, annexations in the Bayou City have slowed in the last 20 years after the Legislature tightened up restrictions.

Mayor Sylvester Turner has pushed back against the governor's effort to push the annexation bill, telling the Senate State Affairs Committee that more than 600,000 people travel into the city for work and play without paying taxes there.

"Unless Houston increases taxes on existing residents and property owners, our city needs to retain the ability to grow through annexation to support these commuters," he said.

The measure is one of 20 the governor asked lawmakers to pass during a 30-day special session that concludes Wednesday. The idea is one of many on the governor's conservative agenda that seek to crack down on local government control, including restricting local tree ordinances and banning transactions between municipalities and groups affiliated with abortion providers.

Andrea Zelinski covers politics and education for the Chronicle. Follow her on Twitter and Facebook. Send her tips at andrea.zelinski@chron.com.
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.
News / National

by Staff reporter

The Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC property recently attached over a $108 000 debt owed to the party's former employee - Sally Dura - is set to be auctioned on Friday.Dura, along with 15 other ex-MDC staffers, won an arbitration award for $600 000 for unfair dismissal.Following the award, the MDC is said to have appealed at the Labour Court, but lost.The applicants then applied for the quantification of the award.Dura is owed up to 27 months' salary arrears, damages for 36 months, among other benefits.MDC, under case# HC 2411/17, will lose several pieces of furniture, including a four-piece maroon lounge suite.The labour-backed party has a series of disputes with its former employees.Last month, the MDC headquarters was left empty after the Deputy Sheriff pounced on the opposition party's offices.They disrupted a meeting that was being presided over by Tsvangirai, who ordered his lieutenants to allow the surrogate to do his job, peacefully.MDC supporters and officials heeded the long-time President Robert Mugabe rival's directive hence the exercise was done without incident.In 2015, the Deputy Sheriff raided Tsvangirai's residence in Highlands and the party headquarters but failed to attach any property.This was after the MDC reportedly terminated contracts of 13 security aides in August 2010, before the Labour Court reversed the decision and ordered the party to reinstate them with full benefits.Judge Justice Priscilla Chigumba ordered the party to pay a five percent interest on the varying amounts awarded to the employees in addition to the legal costs.The Deputy Sheriff left Tsvangirai's house and the party headquarters empty-handed after the MDC produced a court order staying the execution.Some MDC senior officials alleged that the development was the work of Zanu-PF."They (Zanu-PF) want to harass us ahead of the 2018 elections. We were having our meeting and they disrupted (it) . . . This is a small issue; they cannot stop us," MDC Gweru urban Member of Parliament Sessel Zvidzai said during the attachment of the property.
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All-Conference WEC teams The All-Conference teams for the War Eagle Conference have been announced with multiple MMCRU and South OBrien volleyball players making...

Crane signs off, for now I miss my ol' buddy, sportscaster Keith Crane on the sidelines. I miss his friendly smile, his dedication to his...
News / National

by Staff reporter

Woes continue to mount for activist cleric Phillip Mugadza - who prophesied that President Robert Mugabe would die on October 17 this year - as he has been evicted from his one-room lodgings in the high density suburb of Glen View.Following his controversial prophecy and consequent incarceration, the anti-Mugabe pastor has lurched from challenge to challenge, with his Kariba-based Remnant Church collapsing and marital problems escalating.The defiant Mugadza, who has staged one-man anti-government protests in the Harare CBD, accuses his landlady of being influenced by Zanu-PF elements to illegally evict him.Last week, he told the Daily News on Sunday that he was stranded following a seven-day notice from his landlady requesting him to vacate a room he was renting together with his wife and two-year-old son, early this month."I was evicted. She said her daughter was coming to use the room. We only realised that she never meant to have her daughter in the room and interestingly, a lady from the president's office who lived next door laughed when she saw us packing," Mugadza said."This is what I have been saying, that the regime really has a hand in my family's life, that they infiltrated my wife when they locked me away in remand prison that other time. I hope people will begin to notice what the regime is doing," he said.Mugadza, who had been occupying the Africa Unity Square park in the Harare CBD in protest, together with other activists between last Monday and Wednesday, had to prematurely abort the demonstration because he no longer had transport fares to continue getting into town.The controversial cleric, however, vowed to resume the demonstrations this week in the park, adjacent Parliament Building.He claimed that in one of his latest visions, 93-year-old Mugabe had died and resurrected twice."I have been in prayer and had some dreams of the president having died on two occasions but he woke up and came back to life."What I then remembered was that when the president is rumoured dead, he always says that he is more than Jesus Christ because he has died more than once and rose several times," Mugadza said.Meanwhile, Mugadza is answering to criminal charges case after he was arrested following a demonstration at Africa Unity Square.The criminal nuisance charges emanate from a November 22, 2016 incident when the clergyman padlocked himself to iron rails while protesting against long-ruling Mugabe's administration.
One of the coldest places on Earth is so hot its melting.

Glaciers, sea ice and a massive ice sheet in the Arctic are thawing from toasty air above and warm water below. The northern polar region is heating up twice as fast as the rest of the planet and thats setting off alarm bells.

The melting of the Arctic will come to haunt us all, said German climate scientist Stefan Rahmstorf.

While global leaders set a goal of preventing 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) of man-made warming since pre-industrial times, the Arctic has already hit that dangerous mark. Last year, the Arctic Circle was about 3.6 degrees (6.5 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than normal.

CAUSES OF WARMING

Earth is getting hotter because of the buildup of heat-trapping gases spewed into the air by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas, according to decades of peer-reviewed research. Scientists have long predicted the Arctic would warm first and faster than the rest of the globe. Real-time measurements are proving them right.

The Arctic is mostly ocean covered with a layer of ice; changes from ice to water often kick in a cycle that contributes to global warming.

Sea ice is white and it reflects the suns heat back into space. But when it melts, its replaced with dark ocean that strongly absorbs it, said former NASA chief scientist Waleed Abdalati, who heads the environmental research program at the University of Colorado.

That heat gets transferred back up to the atmosphere in the fall and winter. As that happens, water vapor  a greenhouse gas  hangs around, trapping more heat. More clouds form around that time, also acting as a blanket, said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.

ROLE OF WINTER

Winter is crucial. Three times in the past two cold seasons, air temperatures near the North Pole were near or even a shade above freezing. Thats about 50 degrees warmer than it should be. From last November through February, Barrow, Alaska  the northernmost U.S. city  was 7 degrees Celsius (13 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the 20th century average, and much of the Atlantic Arctic off Norway and Greenland was as hot.

Warm winters weaken sea ice, which floats on the ocean surface. Its supposed to recover, spread more across the Arctic and get thicker in the winter so it can withstand the warmth of the summer. But a warmer winter means less protection when the heat hits.

In September 2016, the time of year the spread of ice across the Arctic is at its lowest, Arctic sea ice was the second lowest day on record, about 40 percent below the lowest day measured in 1979 when satellite records started. Between those two days 37 years apart, the Arctic lost enough sea ice to cover Alaska, Texas and California combined.

Then it didnt grow back that much this winter, setting record low amounts from November through March, when sea ice reaches its peak spread.

BEYOND THE ARCTIC

Of all the global warming warning signs in the Arctic, it is the sea ice that is screaming the loudest, Serreze said.

Thats a problem because a growing body of studies connects dwindling sea ice to wild weather. The reduced winter sea ice interacts with warmer oceans to change conditions in the air that then triggers a potent noticeable shift in the jet stream, the giant atmospheric river that controls much of our weather, said Rutgers University climate scientist Jennifer Francis. This theory is still debated by scientists, but increasingly more researchers are agreeing with Francis.

Its not just sea ice on the decline. Glaciers in the Arctic are shrinking. And the massive Greenland ice sheet is slowly but steadily melting and that can add a big dose to sea level rise. Since 2002, it has lost 4,400 billion tons (4,000 billion metric tons) of ice.

Then theres the Arctic carbon bomb. Carbon dioxide and methane  which traps even more heat  are stuck in the permafrost in places like Alaska and Siberia.

Roast the Arctic and you create a mess everywhere on Earth, said Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer.

This Associated Press series was produced in partnership with the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
John Zakian is no stranger to the aftermath of natural disasters. Tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, wildfires  hes seen it all.

The manager of Minots National Disaster Resilience Program brings a familiarity with disaster recovery to a North Dakota community seeking to rebound from an epic flood in 2011, Minot Daily News reported.

Theres a natural and understandable tendency on the part of the community as a whole to want to quickly get back to normal and even better than normal, Zakian said. Clearly, Minot has that fighting spirit. It can be very frustrating when you begin to realize the disaster is so intense, it cant be done overnight. But I have also learned there has to be an understanding and patience for anyone like me who is trying to help.

While Zakians job wont be done overnight, it must be done in the next five and a half years to meet the time requirement for spending the $74.3 million Minot was awarded in the resilience competition. Although the visible progress has come slowly so far, theres much work being done behind the scenes.

In the next few months, the community will be seeing action on a family shelter and affordable housing, Zakian said. An environmental review on the Park South Apartments is to be completed Aug. 15, enabling that renovation to become the first affordable housing project to occur through the resilience program.

Meetings have been held with financial institutions and Realtors to talk about affordable housing and resilient neighborhoods, which could be existing neighborhoods. Using existing buildings and neighborhoods requires adapting the original program to meet the changing needs of the community, Zakian said.

We want to be careful. We dont want, with this funding, to in any way undermine the private sector, he said. We want to stay out of the way of whats good in the city. We want not to interfere with the solid private sector activities going on. We want to complement and to supplement it.

Another resilience program moving forward is a downtown gathering space.

Its not only going to be a new park area. It also could be, if done correctly, a stimulant for new investment. If you want to further stimulate the private sector, show them that you want to invest in your key areas. One of those is always the downtown, Zakian said.

As time goes on, Zakian expects to be out in the front of the public often. He sees a role for himself in articulating the logic of the program to the community and says there will be public meetings where the community can provide feedback.

The resilience program focuses on three areas: reducing flood risks and improving water management, $21 million; building affordable, resilient neighborhoods, $43 million; and fostering economic resilience and diversification, $5 million. Remaining funds are allocated to planning and administrative costs.

The challenge is there are a lot of moving pieces and there are a lot of projects and activities, Zakian said. I really look at my role as being the navigator  to take what was put in the plan and make it coordinated and coherent and meet the expectations of the community, the mayor and the city council, and when we are all said and done, in five and a half years or maybe sooner, to have made significant strides in not only rebuilding Minot from the flood but actually making it more resilient and more vibrant and a sustainable community.

Zakian joined the City of Minot June 1.

He has an extensive background in economic and housing development, finance, municipal services, and disaster recovery consulting. Before coming to Minot, he had been a contract consultant working for the New York City Office of Management and Budget, providing guidance in administering a $4.2 billion Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery plan, developed following Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Also among his disaster response activities, he spent a year with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate federal agencies in Birmingham, Alabama, following tornadoes in 2011.

Zakian earned a degree in government from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, in 1972. He completed his masters degree in public administration at New Yorks Pace University in 1985. Zakian is a certified economic developer through the International Economic Development Council. He also is certified in various FEMA programs.

I am constantly striving to learn. The certification process gives you an opportunity to continue to learn, he said.

In addition, he is a grant reader and peer reviewer for federal agencies. In that role, he sees firsthand where government agencies are choosing to put their funds.

The value has been phenomenal, he said. It allows me to see where the trends are in terms of best practices in all kinds of development.

It was while working with the CDBG-DR program in New York City that Zakian became aware of Minot. He noticed Minots efforts through the program were rising to the top of the competition.

It caught my attention, he said.

His interest in joining Minots effort, though, came about out of a desire to get involved with disaster recovery in a different way. Despite having worked as a consultant for a number of years, he admits there are times when he doesnt just want to give advice but itches to be involved in making things happen.

He now takes advice from Minots consultant, CDM Smith.

But at the end of the day, I get to make a lot of decisions and move projects forward, and thats what I want to do, he said.

The New York City native said hes adapted to wherever hes lived and likes Minot already.

Married for 28 years, he and his wife are both career oriented so are used to spending time apart due to their work. Their home is in Massachusetts, where his wife works as director of a human services agency.

Zakian said he gets back to Massachusetts about once a month, but hes also fully integrating himself into the Minot community. He hopes to get more involved in community affairs as time goes on. Getting up to speed on the resilience program is his first goal, though.

This is a considerable investment. My goal is to make it the wisest, smartest and most beneficial, Zakian said. One of my challenges is to take each of the pieces to make sure that its connected, that everything has logic and is part of a bigger vision that just moves Minot forward and allows it to continue to grow.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Geologists are studying a massive Florida sinkhole that destroyed two homes and rendered five others uninhabitable.

Experts might ever know exactly what caused Pasco Countys largest sinkhole in decades, but a team of University of South Florida researchers have descended upon Lake Padgett Estates to learn as much as they can about what happened.

The Tampa Bay Times writes that geologists want to know if anything might have predicted the devastation, such as way the lakefront neighborhood was developed.

If we can say where these things are likely to occur, said Lori Collins, an archaeologist leading the university team, smarter decisions and regulations may emerge from that.

The sinkhole opened July 14 in a suburb north of Tampa called Land OLakes. It now stretches about 260 feet (79 meters) at its widest point, and its estimated to be 50 feet (15 meters) deep.

There have been 336 reports of sinkhole activity in Land OLakes since the county started keeping track in 2003.

Lake Padgett Estates sits in the heart of a so-called sinkhole alley in central Florida. Like much of the state, the land sits atop porous limestone that groundwater flows through and over time can erode.

I dont want to sound alarming, but a lot of people who move here from up north may not be aware of this type of terrain, said Dave DeWitt, a chief geologist with the Southwest Florida Water Management District. And in this part of the state, you just dont know whats underneath you.

Collins team is studying the areas history, from its decades as an expansive orange grove to its conversion into a neighborhood. It grew from just 20 homes in 1967 to 300 in 1974, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, and building continued there until the 1990s.

Three instances of sinkhole activity were recorded by the Florida Geological Survey in the 1980s along Lake Saxons northern shore, not far from the current sinkhole. Both the homes it destroyed last month previously had been fortified after experiencing settling.

Sinkholes occur naturally in Florida. But they also can be provoked by human activity, including intensive groundwater pumping for irrigation or residential taps, or by work above ground that destabilizes the limestone below.

Geologists are calling the Land OLakes crater a cover-collapse sinkhole, which occurs when soil above a void in the limestone gives way. They tend to occur abruptly.

Sinkholes caused by human actions are most often the cover-collapse kind, according to a 1999 report from the U.S. Geological Survey.

Lake Padgett Estates sits between two large groundwater well fields. The day the sinkhole developed, groundwater levels recorded at the closest well to the neighborhood were within a normal range, according to water management district data. The agency said it was unlikely that pumping spurred the sinkhole, at least in the immediate sense.

But that doesnt mean water wasnt a factor: Florida had just emerged from a drought, and then welcomed consistent rainfall at the end of June. When water levels drop and then heavy rains suddenly pound the dry ground, the crust above a sinkhole is more likely to collapse, said DeWitt.

With its history of sinkholes, Pasco County passed an ordinance in 2008 requiring engineers to test for potential geological hazards before building new neighborhoods. If they detect a sinkhole risk, they make recommendations to avoid a problem.

County officials plan to revisit the ordinance after the Lake Padgett Estates sinkhole is emptied and stabilized, said Kevin Guthrie, assistant county administrator for public safety.

For now, he said, the county must clean up the hole and figure out what to do with prime real estate marked by a yawning chasm.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Deuce, a German Shepard with the Aurora Police Department, is sniffing around tables and a barbeque at a picnic area outside a police station. After a few minutes, he sits and fixes his gaze on a plastic trash can.

Deuces handler, Sgt. Brandon Samuels, removes a one-pound bag of marijuana he planted for the exercise.

Guh boy! Samuels said, tossing Deuce a rubber toy.

The Aurora Police Department is one of a number of Colorado law enforcement agencies that trains dogs on marijuana, a legal substance in Colorado. Canines at other agencies in the state ignore pot. A recent court decision has drawn attention to that wide range of policies  and left some wondering if pot-sniffing dogs, like Deuce, are overqualified for their jobs.

The core of the matter is Kilo, another pot-sniffing dog with the Moffat County Sheriffs Office. In 2015, officers deployed Kilo to inspect Kevin McKnights truck during a vehicle stop. Officers searched the truck following his alert and found a meth pipe containing white residue. Prosecutors used the evidence to convict McKnight on two counts related to drug possession.

The Colorado Court of Appeals recognized a problem. Like Deuce, Kilo can detect cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, methamphetamine and marijuana. Neither dog can indicate which substance it found or the amount.

Since certain amounts of marijuana are legal in Colorado, a three-judge panel ruled Kilos sniff an illegal search under state law. As a result, the court said the evidence should not have been admitted in the original trial. The decision overturned McKnights conviction.

It also established a new precedent: people in Colorado have a legitimate expectation of privacy when they possess something legal, like marijuana. Moffat County officers needed reason to suspect a crime before deploying Kilo.

This certainly doesnt prohibit the use of dogs, explained Jeff Wilson, a Denver-based defense attorney who specializes in cannabis issues. It just limits the ability of the dog to be a free-standing method of investigation.

In other words, a signal from a conventionally trained dog alone cannot justify a vehicle search. Deputies must first observe something else, like slurred speech or the sight of drugs.

So what does all that mean for dogs like Deuce? The dogs put prosecutors at risk of having evidence suppressed, even if that evidence has nothing to do with marijuana. Thats why some have speculated dogs might have to be retrained or retired. Samuels, who supervises Auroras K9 unit, said thats not the case.

For one, Samuels thinks the McKnight ruling fits with a 2016 Colorado Supreme Court decision. That case established a standard known as odor-plus. It means if a dog can detect pot, its alert can only be part of the reason for a vehicle search. The Aurora Police Department strictly follows that standard, Samuels said.

Especially since marijuana was legalized, we have not and would not use solely a dog alert as justification to search a vehicle.

The department follows that standard to uphold the Fourth Amendment, which protects people in the U.S. from unreasonable search and seizures. He has heard fears that police use dogs to justify a search when citizens wont consent.

People dont need to worry about having their basic freedoms violated. We are not going to search people just to search people, he said.

As for retraining Deuce, Samuels does not think it would work. K9 officers in Seattle, where marijuana is also legal, claim they successfully taught their dogs to ignore pot. Samuels is skeptical. He thinks once a dog learns a scent, it cannot forget it.

Retirement is also out of the question for Deuce. At three-years-old, Samuels hopes to get another 8 to 10 years of work from him.

If we were to retire him, we would be losing a very valuable asset that is very well trained, he said.

Other police departments in Colorado have phased out pot-sniffing dogs. All four of the canines working in the Loveland Police Department ignore pot, according to Sgt. Steve Colburn.

Thats no accident. After Colorado voted to legalize marijuana in 2012, the Loveland was unsure how courts would rule on evidence turned up by its dogs. The department started to replace retiring dogs with ones with no nose for marijuana. The Greeley Police Department has done the same. The Weld County Sheriffs Office is also in the process of replacing its dogs.

The Colorado State Patrol has changed directions on the issue. After Colorado legalized recreational marijuana, the agency decided to purchase canines not sensitive to the drug. Their calculus changed after the odor-plus ruling in 2016. Now, the agency trains some dogs on marijuana, according to State Patrol Sgt. Rob Madden.

Those dogs, along with others at local police departments, help combat black-market marijuana in Colorado.

Since the McKnight decision, Denver has planned to start using some dogs not trained to detect marijuana. Meanwhile, police in Pueblo have no plans to phase out their cannabis-capable canines. At the time of publication, police in Fort Collins, Thornton and Colorado Springs had not commented on their dog training policies and if they would change.

Aurora plans to keep training its dogs on marijuana, for now.

When we get new dogs, my personal recommendation will be that we do not train them on marijuana whatsoever and that they are never exposed to it, Samuels said.

Hes not quite ready to make that call though. The Colorado Attorney Generals Office is reviewing whether to appeal the McKnight decision to the Colorado Supreme Court. Without final clarity, Aurora police probably will not decide the future of its pot-sniffing companions.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
AKRON Ohio - Akron residents will gather at a candlelight vigil for Charlottesville, Virginia, victims at the corner of Main and Mill streets downtown at 8 p.m. Wednesday.

At a "Unite the Right" rally last weekend where white nationalists and counter-protesters clashed, Charlottesville resident Heather Heyer, 32, was killed and more than a dozen others were injured when a car slammed into protesters on Saturday. An Ohio man is charged in the attack.

"The people on both sides of the issues are equally vehement that they're right and that's the scary part," said vigil organizer Niki Leidner Sutcliffe. "As much hate as was there, I want to beat it with love."

Interest in the Akron vigil is escalating quickly, with the Facebook event shared more than 1,000 times, 170 people confirmed to attend and another 600 interested.

"There are many different ways to show our support and stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Charlottesville," Sutcliffe wrote on Facebook. "We ask anyone who intends to participate to bring only themselves and a candle. This is not the right place or time for chanting and signs but for peaceful introspection and connecting with like minded people in your community."

Sutcliffe and event organizers, Dan Woods, James Lloyd Davis and Christian Marinos, are members of the newly chartered Akron Democratic Socialists of America, which promotes power in the hands of the people, grass-roots organizing and anti-racism.

The event will feature speakers from the Democratic Socialists of America, as well as Akron Councilwoman Tara Mosley-Samples, Kenyona Sunny Mathews, a local political speaker, and Chris Coteat of the Akron Organizing Collective and the WOMB, a nonprofit social/cultural center in Middlebury.

"This is about Charlottesville but it's also about Akron," Sutcliffe said. "I hope we can come together as a community and help out our neighbors. Let's not be silent."

For more information about the vigil, visit the event's Facebook page.

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AKRON, Ohio -- The newly formed North Akron Community Development Corporation wants Akronites to help celebrate its birthday at a party complete with ice cream and cake.

The North Akron CDC, which will support the North Hill, Cascade Valley and Chapel Hill neighborhoods, is hosting the party on Friday, Aug. 18 from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Exchange House, 760 Elma St. in North Hill. The open-house bash is free and open to the public.

The Exchange House is an international community center and AirBnb that opened earlier this year with support from the Better Block Foundation and a Knight Foundation Cities Challenge grant.

The CDC relied on input from community and business leaders in the North Akron area to develop a strategic plan, but the group still wants to hear input at the party, said Executive Director John Ughrin.

According to North Akron CDC board member Chris Miller, since North Akron's population has risen with the influx of various refugee groups, the area could benefit from an organizing body.

"Especially small businesses and neighborhood-minded people," Miller said. "It's still a little disjointed. We need more businesses in Temple Square and we need to help cultivate some of these businesses."

North Akron also needs more inclusiveness between all the groups -- the U.S. born and foreign born, such as the Congolese and Bhutanese.

"We need to provide leadership training to some of the refugee groups who have their own associations," he said. "They need guidance on how to make them sustainable."

The North Akron CDC's main areas of focus include:

Business and economic development

Physical infrastructure and beautification

Social and informational events and programming

Rather than duplicate efforts across the areas of focus, the North Akron CDC will engage other area nonprofits and organizations to work with residents and businesses.

"We're hopeful that our ability to connect people and services will be a big benefit," Ughrin said.

In addition, with its nonprofit status soon to be finalized, the CDC wants to help smaller groups apply for various grants, such as Akron's Neighborhood Partnership Program, and assist in forming block watch groups.

The birthday party open house is located at the Exchange House, but the North Akron CDC plans to host programming all around North Akron, including the North Hill branch of the Akron-Summit County Public Library, Patterson Park and other public meeting places.

For more information, visit the North Akron CDC Birthday Party Facebook page.

Want more Akron news? Sign up for cleveland.com's Rubber City Daily, an email newsletter delivered at 5:30 a.m. Monday through Friday.
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Holy Rosary Church held it's 119th Annual Feast of the Assumption Procession in Cleveland's Little Italy neighborhood Tuesday. Processioners took part in the procession after a Mass celebrating the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the church.

The procession is an extension of the prayer during the Mass and began outside the church and continued throughout the entire Little Italy neighborhood before concluding at Holy Rosary Church.

The annual festival and procession draws thousands of visitors every year for the food, rides, games and more food. Hundreds of processioners took part in the annual trek through Cleveland's Little Italy neighborhood.
BEREA, Ohio - A Baldwin Wallace University freshman remains hospitalized today following an accident on a high ropes course at Hiram House Camp in Moreland Hills on Monday.

Brittney Bash from New Richmond, Ohio is in serious but stable condition, the university said.

Bash was among a group of about 80 freshmen honors students who arrived that day for a three-day retreat, said university spokeswoman Shawn Salamone. Members of the group split up to go to different activities.

The woman fell and became entangled in the ropes. She was transported to Hillcrest Hospital.

BW President Robert Helmer was with the family at the hospital last night.

"I assured them that the BW community will continue to keep our student and the family in our thoughts and prayers," he said in a statement on Tuesday.

The students returned to the BW campus Monday night, and counseling services are being made available. The final two days of their planned retreat will take place on campus.

Fall classes begin Monday.

A freshman was injured on a high ropes course during the Honors Retreat today. Please keep her in your prayers! https://t.co/otDdS6gNBk  Baldwin Wallace (@BaldwinWallace) August 14, 2017

Hiram House expanded the high ropes course in 2015.

The ropes course is available as part of Hiram House summer camp, school camp, group retreats, and teambuilding adventure programs.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- With two weeks to go, excitement is mounting for the installation of Nelson J. Perez as bishop of the Cleveland Catholic Diocese.

Pope Francis' announcement that Perez will become the 11th bishop of the diocese created a whirlwind of excitement in Catholic's Cleveland community, especially among Hispanics. The seat has been vacant since Bishop Richard Lennon's retirement in December.

Perez, who was serving as auxiliary bishop in New York state, will be Cleveland's first Hispanic bishop. In July he traveled to Cleveland to meet with media, give the homily at afternoon mass and meet parishioners in downtown Cleveland.

On Sept. 5, the diocese will livestream the invitation-only ceremony, which will be attended by 41 bishops. The church will be packed with priests and deacons from the Cleveland diocese.

The church will also livestream the vespers, or evening prayer on Labor Day.

The Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist holds just over 1,000 people. The Cleveland Catholic Diocese contains eight Northeast Ohio counties, which have a Catholic population of more than 675,000.

Here's what you need to know about the installation, and how you can watch:

What are vespers?

The vespers are evening prayers, and will happen at 5:30 p.m. on Sept. 4, Labor Day, the night before Perez's installation.

The prayers will be led by apostolic administrator Bishop Daniel E. Thomas, who led the diocese during the search for a new bishop. Perez will give the homily.

What is the "installation?"

The religious ceremony of installation will begin Perez's leadership and authority over the Cleveland diocese.

The installation will take place during a special Mass. Archbishop of Cincinnati Dennis Schnurr, who governs the archdiocese over all of Ohio and part of Michigan, will preside over the installation.

The ceremony will include a long procession of religious officials. When Lennon was installed the procession lasted more than a half hour.

Christophe Pierre, the apostolic pro-nuncio to the United States, will read Pope Francis's letter of appointment. An apostolic pro-nuncio is a representative of the Vatican.

Perez will officially become the bishop when he sits in the cathedra, a chair symbolizing his responsibility and authority. Cathedra is where the word "cathedral" came from.

Following that, Perez will receive his staff and headpiece. Then he will celebrate Mass.

Where can I watch?

The installation mass will take place at 2 p.m. Sept. 5.

The diocese will livestream the event on its website. You'll also be able to see a live stream on cleveland.com.

Several Catholic networks such as EWTN, CatholicTV from Boston and Telecare, a Catholic television network from New York, will also broadcast the event, along with some local television stations.

And many churches are holding watch parties.

Click here for more information.
News / National

by Staff reporter

Gauteng Community Safety MEC Sizakele Nkosi-Malobane has called on President Robert Mugabe's wife to hand herself over to local police after she allegedly assaulted a woman in Johannesburg.It's alleged that the Zimbabwean first lady Grace Mugabe attacked the woman at a Sandton hotel on Sunday night.The 20-year-old apparently sustained injuries to her face. It's unclear what sparked the incident.Nkosi-Malobane says Mugabe should hand herself over or face arrest."We are now requesting that the first lady come forward. If not, police will ensure that she's arrested and goes to court like any other person. We are also looking for her two sons."According to the Zimbabwe Mail, Mugabe was in South Africa to have her foot examined after a freak accident.Both the police and International Relations Department could not confirm allegations made by a Johannesburg woman that she had been assaulted by Mugabe.The alleged victim's mother, Debbie Engels, has told Eyewitness News that she was advised by the police not to speak to the media.Engels says that her daughter is convinced that she did not make a mistake and that it was Mugabe who assaulted her."She asked the security guy who the lady is and the security told her. I showed the photos."However, police refused to deal with any media inquiries, saying it's an international matter.Meanwhile, the International Relations Department says it's a police matter.The alleged victim says she has no case number yet and claims investigators at the Morningside Police Station are probing the allegations.
KENT, Ohio - Kent State University has created a School of Peace and Conflict Studies, transforming its existing Center for Applied Conflict Management within the political science department to a new school in the College of Arts and Sciences.

The change better reflects Kent State's reputation as a leading institution of research, teaching and practice in constructive conflict management, the college said in a statement.

The applied conflict management center, which was originally called the Center for Peaceful Change, was established in 1971 as the university's "living memorial" to the four Kent State students who were killed by the Ohio National Guard on May 4, 1970, during a demonstration against the U.S. war in Vietnam and Cambodia.

Throughout its history, the center's mission has been to promote constructive and peaceful mechanisms of social and political change.

The new school will have seven full-time faculty members, two of whom were recently hired.

Patrick Coy, a professor of political science and longtime director of the Center for Applied Conflict Management, will lead the school while a national search for a new director is conducted. The director will bring the faculty total to eight in 2018.

"Establishing a School of Peace and Conflict Studies is the logical next step for Kent State, which had the foresight to make a substantial leadership commitment to this field back in 1971," Coy said in a statement. "We have a vibrant, award-winning faculty researching and teaching about the critical issues facing our communities in the 21st century, including violence, conflicts and peace with justice. With the higher profile and increased resources of a school, even more can and will be done in these important areas, further cementing Kent State's leadership role."

Kent State's peace and conflict studies undergraduate program is one of the country's oldest and largest, enrolling more than 1,000 students in its classes each year.

The school also will promote working groups centered on constructive conflict themes that faculty and students can affiliate with. For example, a faculty research group on identity-based conflicts is already forming to spur research, external grant applications and publications.

For more information about the school visit kent.edu/cacm.
More on the suspect in the deadly car assault at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville. Petitions on The Q renovation finally get delivered to the elections board. And Democrats gear up for debates. All this in the Ohio Politics Roundup from Seth Richardson.

No bail for Fields: The Associated Press reports the Ohio man accused of ramming a car into a group of protesters, killing one and injuring more than a dozen more, during a white supremacist rally was denied bail.

A friend of James Alex Fields Jr. of Maumee told AP that Fields said he took a trip to Germany to "get to the Fatherland."

Fields' past: The AP also reports that Fields was previously accused of threatening his mother with a knife and beating her.

"The records from the Florence Police Department in Kentucky show the man's mother had called police in 2011. Fields' mother, Samantha Bloom, told police he stood behind her wielding a 12-inch knife. Bloom is disabled and uses a wheelchair."

"In another incident in 2010, Bloom said that Fields smacked her in the head and locked her in the bathroom after she told him to stop playing video games. Bloom told officers Fields was on medication to control his temper."

Hockingport victim: Bill Burke was one of those mowed down in the car attack during the Charlottesville white supremacist rally. Burke was counterprotesting the Nazis.

He suffered significant injuries, but The Columbus Dispatch reports Burke is back in Athens County recovering.

By the way: The Daily Stormer, the periodical of choice for many white supremacists, has an Ohio connection. Check out this February story from Columbus Alive.

Also, as the Dayton Daily News' Laura Bischoff reports, the Nazi-sympathizer website keeps getting booted by website hosts.

Cosgrove's sticking with Trump: Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier resigned from President Donald Trump's American Manufacturing Council over the president's initial unwillingness to specifically denounce the white supremacists in Charlottesville.

Cleveland Clinic CEO Toby Cosgrove won't follow suit and will remain an adviser to the president, The Plain Dealer's Ginger Christ reports.

Debate time: As I report, the Ohio Democratic Party announced the first Democratic gubernatorial debate of the election scheduled for Sept. 12 at Martins Ferry High School in Belmont County.

Party chairman David Pepper said they're hoping to hold six debates among the current contenders for the Democratic nomination: three to close out 2017 and three in 2018.

Notably missing from that group (as of now) is Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray.

"I think anyone looking to run for statewide office, there aren't that many months left before you really have to get going," Pepper said. "As you can see, we're moving forward."

Speaking of Cordray: This site is now up. The will-he-or-won't-he is probably going to last forever.

The Q: Activists hoping to block the taxpayer-funded expansion of the Quicken Loans Arena finally had their petitions delivered to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections on Monday, as cleveland.com's Robert Higgs reports.

The delivery marks the end of a months-long battle between community activists and the city, which eventually made its way to the Ohio Supreme Court, though it's unlikely the question will be on the ballot for the November municipal elections.

"Assuming enough signatures are deemed valid, the issue likely won't go before voters until a special election early next year," Higgs writes.

But...: That special election? Higgs reports it could cost taxpayers more than $750,000. Cleveland City Council must accept at least 6,013 petitions at least 60 days out from an election. The problem is the next council meeting is Monday and the following one is Sept. 18.

Four council members who opposed the expansion think they have a plan though: move the regularly scheduled Sept. 18 meeting up to Sept. 6 - 62 days before the election.

"Their theory is that moving the meeting would allow council to put the issue before voters in November and avoid the whopper of an election bill," Higgs writes.

Dog food billionaires for Husted: Secretary of State Jon Husted apparently locked down the dog-food billionaire vote on the Republican side of the 2018 gubernatorial race, according to The Columbus Dispatch's Randy Ludlow.

Clayton Mathile of the Dayton area sold Iams Pet Food for $2.3 billion in 1999 and just made a seven-figure donation to Ohio Conservatives for a Change, a political action committee supporting Husted, Ludow reports. That represents the bulk of the $1.3 million raised through four contributions in June.

His name's in the phone book: Disgraced Attorney General Marc Dann, who resigned in lieu of impeachment after a sexual harassment cover-up, described his short time in office bluntly on Monday to The Columbus Dispatch.

"I was a jerk," Dann told reporter Alan Johnson. "I had an arrogance about me. ... I wish I would have learned to keep my mouth shut."

Dann is back to practicing law and, as the Dispatch reports, won't rule out a future run for office, though he did say it was unlikely.

An interesting piece in this story is the comment from one of the whistleblowers, who at the time was 26 and accused one of her higher-ups of sexual harassment.

"I'm now a liability and non-hirable to any company. Best advice to give anyone going through a hostile work environment, just walk away! Not worth the pain and anguish to not be able to find a job to provide for your family. No heroes were made in 'the whistle blower' process."

Not a ringing endorsement for other women who are being sexually harassed to come forward...

The "Resistance": Want to protest President Donald Trump? As the Cincinnati Enquirer's Monroe Trombly reports, you probably don't have to look far.

"Just as a variety of formal and informal tea party groups sprang up on the right in the early days of the Barack Obama administration, organizations such as Indivisible, Together We Will, and Our Revolution have sprung up on the left," Trombly writes.

Overdose deaths decline: Montgomery County, which the opioid epidemic has ravaged, got some good news this week: the number of opioid deaths decreased drastically between May and July.

As Lynn Hulsey of the Dayton Daily News reports, the number of reported overdose deaths in May was 80. In July, it fell to 38.

Nixon lawyer teaches ethics: Former Nixon White House Counsel John Dean is coming to Ohio on Wednesday for a three-day tour with the Ohio Bar Association. Dean, along with Cleveland attorney James D. Robenalt, will be teaching a three-hour seminar on legal ethics.

Dean was White House counsel during the Watergate scandal and eventually pleaded guilty to a single felony count. He's become a staunch critic of the Republican Party in recent years.

Ryan backs Clyde: State Rep. Kathleen Clyde, a Democrat from Kent and candidate for secretary of state, got the backing from a prominent state Democrat on Monday when U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of the Youngstown area announced his endorsement.

"We need more leaders like Kathleen in Columbus, who will end the partisan games and put Ohioans first," Ryan said in a statement. "Once elected I know we will immediately get to work as she always has to ensure every Ohioan's voice is heard and every Ohioan's vote is counted."

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COLUMBUS, Ohio - The Ohio Senate will meet next Tuesday to attempt to override some of Gov. John Kasich's vetoes on the two-year budget adopted last month, a Senate GOP spokesman said.

Senate President Larry Obhof has told senators in recent weeks that he intended to schedule a session for veto overrides, said spokesman John Fortney.

"Our members still need to meet and have a thorough discussion regarding which of the vetoes of the House we need to take up," Fortney said. "I would expect a handful of those on Tuesday."

Kasich, a Republican, has been at odds with the GOP supermajority in the General Assembly over Medicaid expansion, with the governor arguing the state needs the program and many lawmakers wanting to dismantle the program.

On June 30, Kaisch vetoed 47 line items in the $133 billion, two-year budget, which went into effect July 1.

Five days later, the Ohio House met and overrode 11 of those vetoes. A Medicaid expansion enrollment freeze that Kaisch had vetoed never came up for vote.

Kasich, nevertheless, said many of the House's vetoes could weaken the state's Medicaid program. His budget director said lawmakers didn't properly fund Medicaid in the 2018-2019 budget and the Medicaid-related veto overrides worsen the situation.

The Senate can only override vetoes the House has already voted to override.

Veto overrides need the approval of three-fifths of each chamber. In the 30-member Senate, that means 20 votes.

Janetta King, president of progressive think tank Innovation Ohio, said no legislature has overridden a governor's budget vetoes in about 40 years.

"This is very telling of a toxic environment between the current legislature and the governor," she said.

Democrats do not yet know how they will vote on the veto overrides since they do not know which vetoes the GOP leadership wants to take on, said Mike Rowe, spokesman for the minority party in the Senate.

"As soon as we know what the list is going to be we are going to be talking as a caucus to figure out what we're going to do," he said.

Senators could look at the proposed Healthy Ohio program, which before Kasich's veto would have required Medicaid recipients make payments into health savings accounts or lose coverage, akin to paying a health insurance premium.

Greg Lawson, a research fellow with the Buckeye Institute, a conservative think tank, believes the Senate could have the votes to override the Healthy Ohio veto. King, of Innovation Ohio, hopes that's not the case, noting the federal government has rejected the proposal in the past.

King also hopes senators nix a governor's veto for additional funding to replace lost revenue from a sales tax on Medicaid managed care organizations.

"This really, unfortunately, is the track record of the Kasich administration, where he has left local communities really holding the bag through a lot of different types of cuts he has passed down to them," she said.

Cleveland.com reached out to the Kasich administration about the scheduled veto override session but never heard back.

Lawson, who opposes Medicaid expansion, hopes lawmakers override a veto and put limitations on the Ohio Controlling Board, a legislative and budget panel that oversees state spending. Kasich was able to expand Medicaid using the Controlling Board. Lawson doesn't believe a handful of people should enlist Ohio in large federal programs with complicated regulations without a vote of the full Legislature, and hopes lawmakers can override Kasich's veto. He said many senators feel the same.

"There's been some controversy because that's for example how Medicaid expansion transpired," he said.
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Due to construction projects on Cannon Drive, Ohio State will lose 2,100 parking spots for fans the week of the Buckeyes' Sept. 9 home opener vs. Oklahoma.

According to the university, the Dodd and Polo lots will close on Sept. 4 as part of the reconstruction of Cannon Drive. The road will be shut down between 12th Avenue and Medical Center Drive for the project, which is expected to run until 2019.

OSU has listed parking alternatives for fans traveling to Ohio Stadium either north or south on Route 315. The university recommends that fans who normally park at either the Dodd or Polo lots park either in the garages on 9th Avenue or in the parking lots on West Campus.
News / National

by Staff reporter

Minister of Police Fikile Mbalula says Zimbabwean first lady Grace Mugabe can be arrested for assaulting a woman at a Sandton hotel but there are conditions."She can be arrested but if she came here with her diplomatic passport she can have diplomatic immunity."Mbalula was talking about the Police Department's launch for a gender based crime plan.
Opinion / Columnist

A consumer, Emmerson Mnangagwa complained of abdominal cramps, vomiting and nausea after eating ice-cream produced by the Gushungu Dairy Enterprise owned by President Mugabe and his wife, Grace. Emmerson Mnangagwa was hastily air lifted to South Africa for specialist medical treatment with suspected ice-cream poisoning.The Gushungu dairy products by international standards are required to be withdrawn from the market following a report that a consumer (Mnangagwa) reacted badly after eating the Gushungu ice-cream served to him at the Gwanda youth interface rally. Until it is fully determined by the national food standards, national health standards authorities, national environmental health agency and the consumer council, the Gushungu dairy products remain a potential risk to its consumers and prospective customers.It was important to give a warning to the public as a matter of precaution to protect unsuspecting consumers from buying and eating Gushungu ice cream that may be contaminated and poisonous. It is further important to provide the public with information about the occurrence of the ice-cream contamination incident so that people are able to make informed decisions about the potential hazard of buying and eating Gushungu dairy products while the company seeks to get an official clearance that its products are free from contamination and steps are being made to safeguard their products from further contamination.This kind of information put in the public domain is intended to give the public the independence to make informed choices to buy or avoid buying those products for safety reasons. Gushungu management must recall all its dairy products from the market and from all its major outlets to conform to business ethics and standards, to show that they put the safety of their customers first before profits and to protect their company and product image. Recalling the Gushungu products will allow for thorough laboratory tests on the product; investigate product handling management and environmental production management.Gushungu enterprise should strive, for the purposes of survival of its business to determine whether the contamination was at the point of production; during transit to the Gwanda rally; or whether one particular ice cream was intended for Mnangagwa by someone deliberately spiking it with poison in an attempt to assassinate him using the product belonging to the president's company so that the general belief is framed around the president and his wife attempting to kill Mnangagwa if it is not them.Anyone buying and consuming the Gushungu dairy products is acting at their own risk. The Gushungu enterprise stands to lose its product market space and its market outlets which may be reluctant to place huge orders for the fear that the products won't sell because of the contamination scare. Gushungu management should not ignore this critical issue as it is important to give its customers assurances that their products are safe for consumption.
'Twas a time not so long ago when backing up an Android phone was a massive, migraine-inducing undertaking.

It's true: A mere matter of years back in our mobile device saga, a proper Android backup required physical computer connections, complicated third-party software and more than a few adult beverages.

But my, what a difference a few years makes. These days, backing up an Android device and keeping your data synced takes little to no actual effort. Most of the work happens seamlessly and automatically, behind the scenes  either without any involvement on your behalf or with a one-time opt-in when you first set your phone up. And restoring your data is typically as simple as signing into a device and letting Google's systems work their magic.

Still, your data is important, especially if you use your phone for business. With all the stuff we tend to have on our phones (or at least accessible from our phones), it's worthwhile to know where and how everything's being saved. That way, you can understand what's happening and confirm it's all functioning as intended  and the next time you need to move to a new device, you can rest easy knowing your data will be there and ready.

Here's a section-by-section breakdown of Android's backup systems and how they operate.

[ Further reading: 8 ways to turn Android into a productivity powerhouse ]

General settings and preferences

When you powered up your Android device for the first time, you probably signed in with your primary Google account. This is critical  because that same account is your key to the vast majority of your automatically backed up data.

On the system level, that includes most of your Android settings and preferences  everything from approved Wi-Fi networks and passwords to your language and input settings, date and time settings, and display preferences. You can confirm all of that's being backed up by going into the System section of your phone's settings, tapping "Advanced," and then tapping "Backup."

On Samsung phones, you'll instead tap the Accounts and Backup section and then select "Backup and restore" and look for the "Google account" area of the screen. Samsung confusingly offers the option to back up your data to its own service  via your Samsung account  in addition to backing it up with the standard Android backup system. Disregarding that and going with the standard, Google-associated setup is the most advisable option, as that'll allow you to restore your data to any phone you might use in the future, whereas Samsung's superfluous setup will work only with other Samsung-made phones.

You should see an active toggle next to "Back up to Google Drive" (or "Back up my data," on Samsung phones) at the top of that screen, and below that, you'll see the Google account that's associated with all of your system backups. Make sure you use that same account when signing into any devices in the future  and if you ever need to change which account is associated with your backups, just tap the line showing the account on this screen; that'll bring up a list of all the Google accounts connected to your phone, and you can select whichever one you want to take over.

If you tap the name of your phone (or the line labeled "Google account" on a Samsung device), meanwhile, you'll see a breakdown of the specific types of data connected to your device and when they were last backed up.

JR Raphael/IDG You can monitor and control your phone's system-level backups within the aptly named Backup section of your device's settings.

You can also look in the Backups section of Google Drive on the web to find this same information and see precisely how much space is being taken up by your backed up settings for any devices associated with your account.

Apps and app data

The list of apps you've installed from the Play Store is always synced with Google's servers, and when you first sign into any new Android device, you'll be given the opportunity to restore that complete set of applications or to cherry-pick certain titles from within the list. (That option typically comes up if you opt not to restore everything via a physical, USB-cable connection between your new and old phones.) If you've had more than one Android device active on your account recently, you'll be able to choose which device you want to use as the source.

Google also provides an expanded app backup system that saves and restores app-specific data  everything from sign-ins to preferences and any other relevant elements from within your actual apps. It's worth noting that this requires some level of integration and support on the developers' parts, however, so it works more effectively with some apps than others.

Calendar, contacts, and email

Backing up these business-critical areas is actually quite easy  because nowadays, almost all calendar, contact, and email data is inherently cloud-based (or at the very least cloud-connected). In other words, you don't have to back up your phone's email or calendar data because it's already stored in the cloud; you can simply open the email or calendar app from another device to retrieve it.

(Google's own email and calendar apps  Gmail and Google Calendar, respectively, both of which come preinstalled on many phones and are readily available for anyone to download  store data with Google's servers by default but can also work with Exchange and other third-party accounts. You can add third-party accounts directly into the Gmail app; with Exchange, once your account is added into Gmail, it should then show up in Google Calendar as well.)

The one asterisk worth mentioning is contacts, as some manufacturers and even carriers provide their own interfaces for organizing contact information  and those interfaces don't always sync with Google's Contacts system by default. Suffice it to say, this isn't ideal: If your data is set to sync with, say, Verizon's system instead of Google's, you'll be in a pickle if you ever try to sign into a non-Verizon phone in the future. Similarly, if your contact data is being stored only on the device's local storage or SIM card by default, you're asking for trouble down the line.

Go into your phone's Contacts app and look in its settings to see if there's any option for where your contacts are being synced or stored. The specifics vary from one device to the next, depending on the manufacturer and carrier  but often, when a company puts its own solution in place of Google's, it'll give you the ability to switch to Google's Contacts system if you want.

Some phones' Contacts apps may also ask where you want to store a contact every time you add someone new. Be sure to always select Google for maximum consistency and accessibility moving forward.

JR Raphael/IDG The Contacts app on many Samsung phones asks where you want to save a new contact every time you create one.

You can confirm that your contacts are, in fact, being synced with Google Contacts in that same aforementioned Backup section of your system settings (after you tap your phone's name  or tap "Google account" on Samsung devices). You can also always access Google Contacts via its dedicated website to see that your data is there.

Messaging

Backing up and saving your SMS data so you can restore it on a future phone is generally pretty painless on Android, but there are lots of layers involved  and it's a little confusing to figure out what exactly is backed up and how.

In a change from the recent past, Google now automatically backs up all SMS data from all Android devices. This happens regardless of who made your phone or what messaging app you're using.

That backup, however, is limited to 25MB of data and does not include MMS messages  things like photos and videos sent via text. If you want your multimedia messages to be saved, you'll need to sign up for a paid Google One plan. Those start as low as $2 per month and also include extra storage space that can be used across all Google services. Then, you'll need to install the Google One app onto your phone and look for the Device Backup section within the app to turn that option on. You'll need to be sure to repeat that process with any new phone you sign into in the future (or even with your existing phone, should you ever reset it and sign in anew).

Google says the MMS backups work best when you use its own Messages app. Google also notes that multimedia messages sent via the new chat-like RCS standard may or may not be backed up, depending on what phone and carrier you use. So, yeah: It's a bit of a convoluted mess at the moment  one that isn't aided by the presence of conflicting info within the company's official help documents (some of which still list SMS backups as being Pixel-exclusive features as of this writing). Sheesh!

If you want something a bit more straightforward and without any ongoing fees or limitations, the third-party Pulse SMS app is an excellent next-level option. In addition to providing its own universally available automatic backup and sync system, it offers plenty of opportunities for customization and also lets you send, receive, and manage messages in real time from multiple devices  including any combination of phones, tablets, and laptop or desktop computers. (The basic phone app is free to use, though the multi-device messaging capability requires a paid in-app upgrade of $11 for a lifetime subscription.)

There are also third-party utilities like SyncTech's free SMS Backup & Restore that can manually back up and restore SMS data, but using a messaging setup that handles that task continuously and seamlessly is the simpler and more effective way to go.

Files

The easiest way to keep files on your device backed up is to save them directly to a cloud-based storage service like Dropbox, Google Drive, or Microsoft OneDrive. All of those services provide a reasonable amount of free storage  with additional space available for a nominal monthly or annual fee  and all of them make it simple to access files from your device whether you're online or not.

If you'd rather store files locally on your Android phone, snag an app called Autosync, which is available for use with Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, and Box. It'll let you continuously sync folders on your phone with matching folders on whichever cloud storage service you choose  and once you set it up, you'll never have to think about it again.

JR Raphael/IDG AutoSync allows you to keep specific local folders continuously synced with cloud-based equivalents.

AutoSync is free for use with a single synced folder pair and with files smaller than 10MB in size. You can eliminate those restrictions (and also eliminate some irksome ads within the app's setup interface) by making a one-time $5 in-app upgrade.

Photos and music

OK, so they aren't technically work-related  but even if you use a business-connected phone, odds are you're taking some pictures and listening to the occasional hackle-soothing jam.

Thankfully, keeping your photos and music backed up is a fairly thought-free process at this point. On the photos front, Google's free Google Photos app will automatically sync every image and video you take and make it available on any other device  mobile or otherwise.

And for music, the free Google Play Music app lets you upload your entire personal MP3 collection  up to 50,000 songs, if you still own that much music  and then access it from any Android device or from any computer via a web browser. (The service is expected to be merged with the newer YouTube Music app eventually, but Google swears that won't happen until YouTube Music is able to support the same sort of storage-locker capability.)

If streaming's your thing, of course, just download the appropriate app for whatever service you prefer and listen away without worry.

This article was originally published in August 2017 and most recently updated in January 2020.
Its wonderful that organizations today have access to a treasure trove of powerful software tools designed to enhance, amplify and optimize benefits accruing from collaboration. But having access to, and even acquiring, such tools isnt sufficient to realize the benefits. Your organization will not unlock the full value of this treasure trove unless it makes collaboration a strategic priority.

From research I have done on the new collaboration space, I see three lessons for todays leaders.

Lesson 1: The power of collaboration cant be tapped absent a desire to collaborate

If collaboration is not within your repertoire of skills, how can you even know what you are missing?

Platos Allegory of the Cave has been used to illustrate many truths, so allow me to press it into service on behalf of collaboration. In The Republic, Plato depicts mankind as prisoners seated on a bench facing the wall of a cave. The people on the benches cant move their heads; they can only look forward. (There is no collaboration.) Behind them is a fire, and between the prisoners backs and the fire are people carrying around plaster images of things that cast shadows on the wall of the cave. All that the people on the benches can see are the shadows. Their conception of the world in which they live derives entirely from what they make of those shadows.

Only collaboration with someone who has a broader perspective would allow the prisoners on the bench to emerge from the shadows and become aware of what is really going on. But the bigger point is this: Workers in a 21st-century organization who have no real experience of collaboration are like those prisoners in that they dont even know that they are missing something  that the shadows they are seeing do not constitute all of reality.

The challenge for leaders is to bring this realization home to non-collaborators. They need to a) create awareness that collaboration has benefits, and b) engender a desire to collaborate on the part of the entire workforce.

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Lesson 2: Understand your collaboration tool

One of the hardest-to-learn strategic truths of our age of rapid and disruptive technology change is that buying technology does not produce strategic benefit. Applying technology is where the value lies. To apply technology and realize its full potential, you must understand the technology.

There are at least two components of understanding technology: how to use it, and where or when to use. In many cases (think Microsoft Office or SAP), the how-to-use component can be addressed with pre-deployment employee training. Such training ensures that employees dont neglect a technologys deep capabilities (so they dont use a powerful collaboration tool for instant messaging and little else).

There is the question of how long it takes someone new to a given collaboration technology to become facile in its use. This in turn gives rise to a second-order assessment: Is it more effective to train existing employees on how to use the technology or hire new employees who already know how to use the technology?

Gen. Black Jack Pershing, leader of American forces in Europe during World War I, faced this very question. To fight a modern war  and to manage all the materiel and human resources associated with fighting a modern war  Pershing needed telephone operators. In The Hello Girls: Americas First Women Soldiers, we learn that most telephone operators were women. Rather than training up existing personnel (in the U.S. Army of 1917, virtually all men), Pershing personally recruited 200 women who braved shot, shell and submarines to operate the armys vital communications systems overseas.

Hopefully, shot, shell and submarines arent hazards facing recruits to your organization, but if collaboration isnt part of your culture, you might need your own Hello Girls. To be clear, Im not talking about hiring more women (though if you do, that would be great) or replacing your staff with young people who collaborate naturally. Im talking about adding staff who understand collaboration and can impart its benefits to your experienced employees. Moving to a more collaborative style requires a cultural change; its not something that is absorbed in a quick training session.

Lesson 3: Listen to everyone in your collaboration network

Can there be such a thing as too much collaboration? Yes, and its called groupthink, a concept defined in the 1960s by Irving Janis, a Yale psychologist who needed to answer President Kennedys question following the Bay of Pigs fiasco: How could we have been so stupid?

Janis depicted groupthink as a pattern of concurrence-seeking, when members of a decision-making body adhered to group norms and pressures toward uniformity, even when their policy was working badly and had unintended consequences that disturbed the conscience of the members.  Members consider loyalty to the group the highest form of morality.

In environments suffering from groupthink, the desire to get along and be collegial gets in the way of critical thinking. Groupthink has the consequence of cutting decision-makers off from thinkers and from ideas that either are not consistent with or are threatening to group consensus. To overcome groupthink, group members have to recognize the Cassandras among them.

To return to ancient Greece, Cassandra, the daughter of the king of Troy, was given the gift of prophecy by Apollo in a failed act of seduction. When Cassandra didnt yield to the god, he took revenge. He couldnt withdraw his gift, but he ensured that her accurate prophecies would never be believed. Thus, when she warned, in Homers Iliad, of the danger of Greeks bearing gifts (the Trojan horse), she was ignored.

That brings us to Constructing Cassandra: Reframing Intelligence Failure at the CIA, 1947-2001, in which Milo Jones and Philippe Silberzahn look at four strategic surprises in the first decades of the CIAs existence, a strategic surprise being defined by them as the sudden realization that one has been operating on the basis of an erroneous threat assessment that results in a failure to anticipate a grave threat to vital national interests. The problem, in a way, was not that Cassandras were being ignored, as Cassandras are, but that the intelligence community was organized in a way that didnt allow Cassandras to have access to it.

In a review of the book in The U.S. Army War College Quarterly Parameters, Ross W. Clark wrote, Constructing Cassandra reveals that no matter how good an individuals starting qualifications, the on-the-job training by their colleagues and superiors usher in unexamined social practices, analytical methodologies, and cultural norms.

Lacking Cassandras, the intelligence community needs to construct one. It needs to ensure that alternative viewpoints are not filtered out by a sort of natural selection or drummed out by cultural pressure. Cassandras do not  like the broken clock that is accurate twice a day  randomly spew predictions. They collect and analyze diverse information streams and come to accurate forecasts, which  for a variety of reasons  are not believed by those in power.

Are there Cassandras on the outskirts of your collaboration network you should be listening to? And if there are not, that could be an even bigger worry.
The augmented human concept has become a reality. We carry health sensors on our wrist, and our Apple Watch is becoming our personal physician. These concepts are transforming the insurance industry.

Risk assessment

Life is a risky business. Insurance is the business of extracting profit through the process of underwriting such risk. And its changing right before our eyes.

You already pay less for insurance if you are a safe driver. In the future, autonomous vehicles will extend these benefits even further with collision detection and accident prevention systems, minimizing risk.

In theory, connected vehicle insurance should become cheaper than the fee you pay to drive a car yourself, reflecting the reduced risk.

Autonomous vehicles may be the future, but Apple is transforming the insurance industry in the here and now.

Cybersecurity insurance

Apple CEO Tim Cook joined Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins at Cisco Live to reveal the firms are working to deliver lower cost cybersecurity insurance to customers who choose to use Cisco equipment in combination with Apple kit.

"If your company is using Cisco and Apple, then the combination of these should make that insurance cost significantly less for you than it would if you were using some other personal network side and the other operating system in the mobile area," Cook said.

The idea is that insurers will be persuaded to deliver lower premiums to enterprises that standardize around Apple/Cisco solutions.

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Those who do will not be required to subsidize those who choose to use less-secure combinations.

Wear an Apple Watch, reduce health insurance costs

I predicted long ago that as Apple refined the capabilities of the Apple Watch, it would get to a position where insurers would want to provide the device to customers.

One of the first to do this was Vitality, which offered subscribers to its health or life insurance plans a discount Apple Watch. The watch works with the insurers tracking systems so that the more healthily active you are, the lower your insurance costs become.

Now it seems we are about to see a similar deal from U.S. health insurance giant Aetna. Aetna already offers Apple smartwatches to 50,000 employees within its corporate wellness scheme. It has allegedly been meeting with Apple and chief medical officers from hospitals to discuss giving an Apple Watch to 23 million health insurance customers.

Its a little like the cybersecurity and connected car insurance deals we looked at above: Those who maintain agreed health, fitness and activity levels as assessed by the watch will enjoy lower insurance costs. They will not be asked to subsidize other peoples bad habits.

Financial technology disruption

This looming disruption of the insurance industry is a prelude to the third wave of fintech disruption as connected devices, new payment systems, blockchain enhancements and so on create new opportunity for new companies and services in the space.

Even something as prosaic as contents insurance could benefit from smart devices  think about a HomeKit-based smarthome insurance package in which intruder detection systems connect with other smart objects in the home to alert authorities when a burglary, flood or other incident takes place.

Personal accident, travel, employment  almost any form of insurance in which a connected device may make a difference will eventually see similar deals.

It also seems inevitable that use of these solutions will slowly become mandatory.

Employers will look to such connected health insurance deals as a way to provide legally required employee health coverage at lower premiums, and they will demand employees wear these devices and adhere to certain fitness levels to keep their jobs.

Questions remain, though. At what point does the distinction between personal and professional life kick in? When can an employee take their smartwatch off? Who owns the data created by these systems? Who is at fault if such information leaks, or is sold, and this impacts the life of the user in a negative sense? Finding answers to questions like those should keep the lawyers busy for a while.

Google+? If you use social media and happen to be a Google+ user, why not join AppleHolic's Kool Aid Corner community and join the conversation as we pursue the spirit of the New Model Apple?

Got a story? Drop me a line via Twitter. I'd like it if you chose to follow me there so I can let you know when fresh items are published here first on Computerworld.
Opinion / Interviews

The twists and turns around President Robert Mugabe's succession have come at a huge cost to the country's economy because of its disruptive effects on government business. It's a subject that has also strained relations in his Zanu-PF party, ahead of crucial elections next year.In this Question and Answer, our news editor, Gift Phiri chats to Piers Pigou, a senior consultant at the International Crisis Group about the convoluted Zanu-PF line of succession. Find below excerpts of the interview.Q: The First Lady Grace Mugabe dropped a bombshell at a Zanu-PF women's league national assembly meeting in Harare recently, calling on her husband - for the first time in as many years - to anoint a successor. What do you read into her moves?A: This development reflects a distinct shift and sense of urgency in the political calculations of Grace and her inner circle regarding her husband's ability to play a functional political role and their desire to hold off (Vice President) Emmerson Mnangagwa's march on State House.Q: After the First Lady raised concern, as the secretary for women's affairs, that Zanu-PF should revert to its resolutions that one of the vice president's positions be reserved for women, Mugabe responded by seemingly suggesting tweaking with the constitution to create a third VP slot. Do you get a sense that Mugabe is moving to appoint his wife as one of his deputies?A: If accurate, and looked at in isolation, it reflects a direct challenge by Mugabe to Mnangagwa. As usual, the language is suggestive rather than definitive, and in theory keeps the president's options open.If this option is pursued and Zanu-PF amends its constitution, it is of course theoretically possible VP (Phelekezela) Mphoko could be pushed, but this would require putting a Zapu woman in to cover Unity Accord commitments.In this febrile political environment, a move to promote Grace to VP is certainly possible, but would be construed by many as a deliberately divisive move given the nature of her political posturing.It would be a highly risky move for Zanu-PF, but as we have seen it, Zanu-PF is a party that is not adverse to brinkmanship.Q: By suggesting three VPs, isn't the president saying in a way he is not willing to dispose of his long time ally Mnangagwa but is willing to accommodate his wife in the apex of government?A: This is classic Mugabe. Keeping his options open and avoiding laying out definitive preferences. In the past, he had simply created new positions to accommodate interests, even if it directly violates the rules.This was evident when he stacked his Cabinet in the Global Political Agreement. The rulebook is a moveable feast. Mugabe would have removed Mnangagwa if he felt it was both necessary and most importantly, secure in doing so.Neither position is clear, although his protection of those hurling provocations at VP Mnangagwa strongly suggests his failure to move against the VP is because of concerns that doing so would ultimately weaken his own position.He may well have checkmated himself in this process.Q: At the Chinhoyi youth interface rally, Grace told the crowd that the two vice-presidents and herself serve at the pleasure of Mugabe. What do you read into this?A: Grace is not a member of the presidium and appears to be trying to, at the very least, elevate herself in the Zanu-PF hierarchy.It is curious she makes no mention of the other key Zanu-PF structure, namely the youth league.Clearly, she is leveraging off her proximity to the president to promote herself as being at the very apex of the party and by extension political power in Zimbabwe.Q: Grace dressed down presidential spokesperson George Charamba at the Chinhoyi rally, accusing him of capturing the State-controlled Herald newspaper, fighting with ministers, ignoring her charity projects in Mazowe and portraying Team Lacoste in positive light in the listed State newspaper. Isn't this some conflation of State and party?A: Zanu-PF has successfully enmeshed party and State interests for over 36 years in power. The first lady refers to serving the president.In her capacity as chair of the women's league, her responsibilities are in relation to his role as First Secretary, in other words his functions as the head of the party, not the government.But we repeatedly see this critical distinction is not made. Grace technically has no jurisdiction over the presidential spokesperson, but evidently feels that she does.Q: Others in the youth league and women's league have suggested that Mugabe's wife must succeed him, perhaps to protect the first family's personal interests and security, a move vehemently opposed by war veterans and the opposition. What's your view into this suggested dynastic rule of sorts?A: A move in this direction would be deeply detrimental to Zimbabwe further diminishing is cachet in the region, continent and beyond. Such a move, if seriously considered, would be very damaging to Zanu-PF's longer term prospects and contrary to its revolutionary principles.Q: Others suggest this is all choreographed to get alleged Generation 40 (G40) candidate Sydney Sekeramayi to succeed Mugabe. Is this feasible, or it's all part of manoeuvring by Grace to get the top prize?A: There is some speculation that Sekeramayi's elevation is part of a longer term plan to facilitate Grace's political ambition.This seems an unlikely scenario. Indeed, her leverage will diminish considerably once her husband has left the political scene. It is difficult to see how any political force within Zanu-PF will see her as a significant asset once Mugabe is gone.Much depends on whether the political forces around her feel that a leadership role for the First Lady will translate into a strengthened position for themselves or whether they would see her as a liability.The question must be asked, what does she bring to the table?Q: With many expressing exasperation with Mugabe's feared declining health while Zimbabwe is falling deeper into economic crisis, he is digging in, claiming he is fine. Given his apparent advanced age and increasing frailty, doesn't this raise the spectre of the president's natural wastage while in office and the attendant risk of backward slippage towards political disorder and economic collapse?A: It is highly unusual for someone to retain this high office at such an advanced age. It is clear Mugabe no longer has the strength to provide the kind of leadership required given Zimbabwe's acute challenges; his frequent dozing off at public events, his struggling gait, slow and mumbling delivery are all signs that do not inspire confidence and strongly suggest his stubborn retention of office reflects an inability to face reality and let go.Q: Were Mugabe to be incapacitated, resign, removed from office or die, the new Constitution states that until 2023, the vice-president who last acted as president assumes office as president for the next 90 days until the party nominates a replacement for consideration by Parliament. Doesn't this raise the potential for chaos given that this may see someone from outside the party presidium leapfrogging into State House?A: It remains unclear exactly how Zanu-PF will make its selection as the modalities of the special congress that is tasked with making this decision are not explicitly set out in the party's constitution.A selection outside of the presidium is a possibility but will be contingent on dynamics both within and outside party's structure. It remains to be seen whether Zanu-PF will be able to demonstrate a credible internal democratic process.Q: The Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (Zacc) has waged an ambitious campaign against corruption since assuming power three years ago, in which dozens of senior officials have been arraigned but none jailed, including the powerful High and Tertiary Education minister Jonathan Moyo, whom the first lady exonerated in Chinhoyi claiming he is a victim of factional fights. In your view, is there sufficient political will in Zanu-PF to tackle graft? How can corruption be stemmed?A: The simple answer is no. Zanu-PF has an appalling history of addressing corruption and the Zacc and its institutional predecessors have been part of the problem given their selective engagement with a cancer that had become endemic in Zimbabwe. As we have seen, a culture of impunity continues.A: At the very highest levels of Zanu-PF, there is no longer even the pretence of party unity, with rival factions in a zero-sum game. So, what does the future hold for Zanu-PF?A: Zanu-PF will survive its current internal divisions. Notwithstanding the theatre of public discord playing out between some senior leaders of the party, fickleness will be the order of the day as the bulk of party functionaries align themselves with the dominant forces once it becomes clearer as to who these elements actually are.
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August Bank Holiday is tantalisingly on the horizon and if you're organised enough to be planning a family dinner to mark the occasion  Aldi may just have the best news for you.

The budget supermarket brand is proudly bringing back its huge 454g rump steak on Thursday, August 24, matured for 21 days it will tax you at just 4.99.

Yes, that's correct, 4.99. The steak is described as an 'extra thick' cut by the popular retailer that clearly knows how to push its customer's buttons when tempting them with a mega bargain.

The substantial steam is 100 per cent British beef and weighs as much as 100g more than its rival Tesco's rump.

The Aldi slab of meat is also a massive 42% cheaper per kg. This is surprisingly an even greater margin than when the German brand released the product for the first time back in June.

Aldi has also doubled its stock levels for this batch, given the fact the steak sold out in no time at all during the last promotion.

So hopefully, given that the company still insists that "once it's gone, it's gone", the in-demand meat should sell out in a greater amount of time  rather than hours, or perhaps minutes.

The supermarket has named the steak the 'Big Daddy'. Though reminds customers that the tasty rump is not just for dads.

"We just had to bring it back," said Aldi's Tony Baines. "The August Bank Holiday seemed like the perfect opportunity for this.

"This premium British rump steak is an example of Aldi's commitment to offering quality, locally-sourced product s at amazing low prices, once again allowing customers to make substantial savings on luxury products without compromise."
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Hundreds of kilos of deadly ghost nets have been removed from a shipwreck off the coast of Cornwall.

The James Eagan Layne sank in Whitsand Bay, South East Cornwall, during the Second World War.

In the decades since, she had become wreathed in nets lost from fishing boats. They are called "ghost nets" because they carry on their silent killing of marine life and are a hazard for divers.

Now divers have removed more than 100kg of deadly monofilament "ghost net" from the popular wreck.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation and the UN Environment Programme, an estimated 60,000 tonnes of fishing nets are left in the oceans each year, accounting for one-tenth of all marine litter.

(Image: Christine Grosart from Ghost Fishing UK)

The nets are often trapped on and around shipwrecks.

Ghost Fishing UK, an underwater conservation team, joined forces with by Healthy Seas, Milliken and Aquafil to clean up the James Eagan Lane last Saturday.

Dougie Allen, partner of Aquanauts Dive Centre and skipper of their boat Outcast, ferried the divers to the wreck site.

The divers worked in teams, in poor visibility. They made four dives to retrieve bags of ghost gear.

videoThe nets will be transformed into ECONYL yarn, a high-quality raw material which is then turned into brand new sustainable textiles such as Milliken carpets.

(Image: Christine Grosart)

Ghost Fishing UK secretary and team diver Christine Grosart told The Herald : "Ghost gear doesn't benefit anyone. It costs fishermen significant money whenever they lose nets and it is rarely a deliberate act.

"We want to work with the fishermen to find out where they lost their nets or pots so that we can retrieve them before they cause further harm to wildlife.

"We would also like scuba divers to contact us whenever they spot lost nets or pots on the wrecks or reefs where they dive.

"We are expanding and our goal is to train more divers to work safely in a fairly risky environment to remove more ghost gear."

The group's chairman, Richard Walker, said: "When marine life is caught by ghost fishing nets or pots it cannot be landed and dies in the lost gear, acting as bait for larger animals which in turn become trapped."

(Image: Christine Grosart)

The clean-up action is sponsored by "Healthy Seas, a Journey from Waste to Wear", an international initiative that recovers and recycles abandoned fishing nets.

Veronika Mikos, project coordinator of Healthy Seas, said: "Thanks to the support of partners like Milliken, the initiative has the possibility to grow and reach its goals such as raising awareness about the problem of marine litter and possible solutions."

Ghost Fishing chief executive and founder, Pascal Van Erp, who is also diving coordinator of Healthy Seas, travelled from the Netherlands to join the Whitsand Bay clean-up.

Ghost Fishing UK is an established, underwater conservation team of volunteers.

These experienced and dedicated scuba divers have been cleaning up the sea floor in Scapa Flow, Orkney since 2015 and have spread their nets wider to remove lost or abandoned ghost nets from popular wreck sites around Plymouth.
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A Liskeard woman is selling her belongings to pay for a piece of equipment that she hopes will improve her communication with her disabled husband.

Wendy Bassett's husband Nigel was involved in a near fatal crash at Trerulefoot roundabout on the A38 in 2014 which left him with a traumatic brain injury he has not yet recovered from.

His body mended but the effects of the injuries to his brain have left him unable to move, speak, smile or eat. He has no control over his life. Nigel's only means of communication is eye blinking.

Wendy said: "I'm hoping eye gaze technology will improve his quality of life and I'll be able to understand how he feels, what he's thinking and he'll be able to tell me what he wants. I'm trying to give him some of his life back. It will give him a bit of independence."

Since the accident, Nigel who previously worked in Devonport dockyard, has made improvements including moving his limbs, and is able to blink to Wendy to answer questions.

To help her husband, Wendy tracked down a company from Sweden which uses eye gaze technology to help non-verbal people communicate by focusing their eye on an image or a word.

But the gadget costs almost 10,000 and it is money the couple do not have.

Wendy has already sold her engagement ring to pay for physiotherapy. Now to raise money for the eye gaze technology Wendy, who has been married to Nigel for six years, is selling most of her personal belongings including her favourite chair and her dishwasher.

Wendy, who says neither of the couple are materialistic, has already collected 1,000 from bits and pieces sold from their home. An internet fundraising page Go Fund Me has raised 2,470.

To help Nigel and Wendy, you can donate at www.gofundme.com/power-to-communicate .

Since Nigel's accident, the couple have had to move from their home in Liskeard to a modified home in Wadebridge, where two health assistants help Nigel in the day, along with another nurse through the evenings.

He is now in rehab in Exeter receiving therapies to help with his movement and eating.

Wendy, has hired the technology for three months for her 48-year-old husband. "Nigel wasn't supposed to survive the journey to the hospital let alone through the night, but he did. They sent out a police liaison officer to me which only happens when someone has died or death is imminent.

"I was told that he was not going to make it, but I told him that he would, I believed in him. He was in a coma for 10 days, but he came through.

"The accident and the effects of it has devastated us. It's been some rollercoaster three years. An hospital eye test revealed that he could use his eyes to follow objects, which showed he understood what was being asked of him. I researched eye gaze technology with the hope that it would improve his communication.

"Nigel has lost control of his life and has to rely on others to do what he would prefer to do himself. Giving him a means to communicate would mean that he would at least have a say about how care is given and he can also make choices."
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The owner of a picturesque harbourside on the Lizard peninsula has been given a month to file the right highways application or remove his 'illegal' double yellow lines.

Cornwall Council has written to the Harbour and Dock Company, owned by businessman Trevor Osborne asking him to follow the due process.

It comes as the company has been in legal breach under Section 132 of the Highways Act 1980 over the painting of double-yellow lines in the centre of Porthleven last month.

The move angered residents who said the lines were illegal and had been causing severe traffic disruption along the village's main waterfront thoroughfare.

When the yellow lines on Porthleven's Commercial Road first appeared drivers were told they could ignore them because they are not enforceable.

They were put down by the Porthleven Harbour and Dock Company, which owns the private road, although it does have full public access.

At the time, Cornwall councillor Andrew Wallis said on his blog, which was shared on Facebook, that the company had failed to take advice from Cornwall Council's highways department, had not carried out public consultation, and had not applied for a traffic order.

He said: "In simple terms, the yellow lines on Commercial Rd are not legal and have no legal standing. No enforcement can take place by civil enforcement officers, police or anyone else."

However, Trevor Osborne, the man who owns the harbour and dock company, along with many of the principle buildings around the harbour, defended his decision and said the lines were needed to help protect pedestrians.

Now Cllr Wallis has blogged again to say that Cornwall Council had written to Mr Osborne's company offering him two options.

The first option is for Porthleven Harbour and Dock Company to apply for a Traffic Regulation Order application so the double yellow lines can be properly regulated and a public consultation can be launched.

The second option involves the Highways Authority removing the unauthorised lines and recovering the costs of doing so from the Harbour and Dock Company.

Cllr Wallis said: "Lets be clear, this is not about whether there should or should not be yellow lines on Commercial Road, Porthleven. This issue is about the a lawful process of placing parking restriction and a proper consultation via a Traffic Regulation Order.

"This would have given the public and official bodies such as Highways the ability of discussing the merits and disadvantage of placing lines along this stretch of road.

"From this, if there was a requirement of placing parking restrictions along this stretch of road, it would have been done legally and with the proper process and then enforceable.

"No-matter who you are, you have to follow the law and people do not have the right to just paint yellow lines wherever they think they can."

Cllr Wallis said the whole saga could easily have been avoided if the proper process had been followed.

The Trevor Osborne Property Group, which owns the Harbour and Dock Company, have been contacted for a comment on the latest development.

A spokeswoman for Cornwall Council said: "The road in question is a public highway, but one which is maintained by the owner rather than the highway authority.

"The newly painted yellow lines on Commercial Road in Porthleven are not legal, and have no legal standing and no enforcement can take place by official Civil Enforcement Officers, the Police, or anyone else.

"Please note that all of the other restrictions which are covered by the Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) for roads in Porthleven are fully enforceable.

"By painting unauthorised marks on the highway the Harbour and Dock Company is guilty of an offence under Section 132 of the Highways Act 1980 and in theory could be fined for doing so.

"In addition, the council could remove the lines under the same section of the Act and recover the costs. No decision has yet been made as to what action, if any, is going to be taken."
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St Austell residents have been asked to speak up and report anti-social behaviour rather than posting about it on social media, in an attempt to make people in the community feel safer.

According to a new report, in February this year a walkabout by partners of Safer St Austell found that of those who had seen or experienced anti-social behaviour, many hadnt reported it.

A spokesman for Safer St Austell said: "Sometimes people just post about incidents on social media rather than report it to organisations which can actually help.

"The partnership is responding to local concerns about anti-social behaviour, rough sleeping, drug use and street drinking in the town. However when compared to towns of a similar population St Austell has an average amount of recorded crime when looking the rate per population.

"Last week partners undertook another walkabout, talking to local businesses and residents, encouraging people to report incidents of anti-social behaviour and street drinking and providing a leaflet with contact details to make a report. Many businesses said theyd be happy to report incidents now they felt that something was being done.

"The partnership aims to help residents and visitors feel safer by addressing these concerns and providing further information on what to do."

Sarah Necke, community safety officer at Cornwall Council and representative for Safer Cornwall said: The walkabout was a really positive way for us to talk to people, understand their concerns and tell them about the work of Safer St Austell.

"Street drinking and anti-social behaviour, such as abusive language and offensive behaviour, happens in many UK towns. If people see an incident we really encourage them to report it using the contacts on the leaflet, so we can understand whats happening and decide how best to respond. 

David Pooley, St Austell town clerk, said: "The walkabout in St Austell last week was a great opportunity for partners to be seen out in the town and working together. It was good to talk to people, hand out the leaflet and explain how people can report incidents of anti-social behaviour and dangerous rubbish such as broken glass or needles.

"I hope that people will also help by contacting Streetlink if they see anyone sleeping rough.

Over the coming months the partnership will continue to work together on initiatives such as continuing to patrol St Austell, developing the work already being done to reduce the levels of high strength alcohol in the community and provide Substance Misuse and Retail Training (SMART) for licensees.

They will also continue to provide outreach work to help rough sleepers and those who require drug or alcohol treatment.
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This is the staggering mess left behind at this year's Boardmasters as thousands of revellers head home from the music festival at Newquay.

Hundreds of tents were left strewn across the fields by festival goers after the massive event at the weekend, which attracted thousands of people.

The clean-up operation has already begun but many people have expressed fury on social media, branding it "absolutely disgusting".

One person posted photos to Feeding Penzance Homeless Facebook page saying: "Look at all these tents left behind at Boardmasters. We need two-man tents and sleeping bags. Look how many are left behind here.

"And look at the mess people leave behind. Regardless of the waste what kind of people leave this for someone else to clean up?"

Another said: "It's a disposable and throw away world to da yoof (sic). We recycle 4 - 5 times a week but if it was up to the boys they wouldn't bother and it would all go in the bin.

"Sad really that we're doing what we can to look after the environment and so few of our children seem to care. I'll add that it's also something to do with being able to buy a tent for 10.00 (made with slave labour in China) that will only last being used once."

Several people suggested collecting the tents to reuse for charity, but it appears St Petrocs are already planning to do that today (Tuesday).

Volunteer Alison Meaton said the collection would be done once the litter had been cleared away, and that additional help would be appreciated.

Last year, the mess left at Boardmasters again provoked a huge reaction on social media, with one person branding it a "pathetic excuse for plain laziness and blatant disregard".

The organisers of Boardmasters said it was committed to creating a greener, cleaner festival and introduced a range of measures to try and combat litter and tents being left behind.

All tickets bought online included a 10 'litter bond' deposit which festival goers got back if they returned bin bags full of litter.

It also has a green team who deliver rubbish bags, and make even more positive connections with festival goers and litter antisocial behaviour order stickers as a fun way of raising awareness.

These were attached to tents of paricularly messy festival goers to 'encourage' them to recognise the impact they are having on the environment.

According to its website: "A massively accelerated initial clean-up operation means that Boardmasters have committed to removing the bulk of the refuse from the campsites by the end of Tuesday after the event."

And it told festival goers: "Your tent will miss you if you leave it behind, in fact it will wait for you for hundreds of years in a landfill. Look after your tent then take it home with you , ready to make more memories at future Boardmasters."

A company called Camplight pre-pitched tents was set up to reduce campsite waste and reuses tents left behind to rent out at the festival.

ON its website it states,"When you arrive a tent will be pre-erected in a great location leaving meaning you will be able to Travellight. Plus, when it's all over no pressure to pack down and take it all home, just leave all the camp equipment behind with the peace of mind that it will not go to waste.

"Many of the tents are different shapes and colours so not every 1 man 2 man 4 man is the same. This is characteristic of the fact that all our tents are saved after being left at previous events by festival goers who don't want to carry all their stuff home after a three day party.

"Please understand that tents are matched to orders at random and are always equal to or above specification. What this means is there is a small possibility that your tent may not be as fantastic as your neighbours."
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Residents of Par were furious last week to learn that Wainhomes had been successful in its application to build 103 new homes in the village.

The community battled the application for months, claiming that the infant school and GP surgery were already struggling with the amount of people.

Wainhomes was seeking permission to build approximately 103 dwellings, an extension to the parking for the Kingdom Hall, allotments, school drop-off facilities, footpath/cyclepath connection and associated works, and a detailed application for 86 dwellings with associated access roads, footways, parking, landscaping, drainage and open spaces.

Despite having been rejected once before, Wainhomes application was approved earlier this month but the Planning Inspectorate did list 18 conditions that Wainhomes will have to abide by.

These included managing drainage issues at the Par site, encouraging residents of the development to walk or cycle rather than drive and secure the proposed pedestrian and cycle link between Mountside Road and Lamellyn Road.

Cornwall Councillor for St Blazey, Pauline Giles, said she was "extremely disappointed" at the appeal decision and claimed it would bring "carnage" to the area.

She added: "I'm extremely disappointed that we are going to get another 103 homes because they will probably bring another 300 people, if you think about the number of people that will live there."

Many residents took to Facebook to share their concern over the additional households.

Writing on Cornwall Live's Facebook page, Lisa Gibbons said: "The builders don't actually stick by what they are told they need to stick to.

"They aren't going to encourage people who buy these houses to cycle as they want the sale, not risk pushing prospective buyers away.

"If the schools and doctors are already struggling then you definitely don't want more houses. Where I live my children's school was a good school, then they built more houses and the builders were meant to have built another school and shops.

"The school and shops weren't built and now my kids school has 40 children in a class. The children that struggle are just left to flounder."

Jess Carter added: "Wainhomes are already proven not to abide by Section 106 requirements and there is very little provision for enforcement."



Sarah Dubbare wrote: "I wouldn't hold out much hope that any of the stipulations will be adhered to.

"Go up to the schools at 8.45am and 3pm and see how bad the parking and congestion is already, there has been at least one child hit by a car every year on Lamellyn Road.





"Fat chance of getting a doctors appointment too, this is ridiculous."

Residents from other communities could relate to many feelings of concern.

Another resident voiced worry about second home owners buying the new properties.

Another man shared his concern over Wainhomes.

While Daniel Haines supported the decision.

He said: "If you voted remain in the referendum you have no right to complain. This is what's needed when you have a person from the EU walking into the UK EVERY MINUTE.

"We need to be building a house every four minutes to provide for the 333,000 migrants entering the UK every year. And don't forget the drain on schools/roads/dr's/hospitals/benefits/jobs.

"If you voted remain you can't criticise our government and councils for attempting to provide for what you voted for. And don't forget our children's needs on top."

Kerry Swiggs added: "This is terrible, it's already ridiculously busy and full of stressed out parents and children trying to reach the schools on time because there is nowhere to park.

"Imagine what it's going to be like when the stressed parents trying to get to school on time meet with the stressed people in the new houses trying to get to work on time, it's a recipe for disaster."

Last week a spokesman for Emery Planning, the agent for Wainhomes, said: "The detailed application proposal comprises 26 (30%) affordable homes and 60 open market homes. The dwelling types would range from two bedroom apartments and bungalows to four bedroom houses.

"Of the 26 affordable homes, 18 would be available to rent, while eight would be available for sale. The outline proposal comprises a further 103 dwellings, allotments and improvements to the Kingdom Hall parking and the school drop off provision and landscaping.

"The mix of house tenures and sizes is not specified at this stage. Public open space is proposed across both the detailed and outline elements. Extensive open space buffers are proposed adjacent to the eastern and southern boundaries, also incorporating SUDS measures including attenuation ponds."
ETATS-UNIS :: USA: A Cameroonian, Owner of Home Health Agency Sentenced to 75 Years in Prison for Involvement in $13 Million Medicare Fraud Conspiracy :: UNITED STATES

The owner and director of nursing of a Houston home health agency was sentenced today to 75 years in prison for her role in a $13 million Medicare fraud scheme.

Acting Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Blanco of the Justice Departments Criminal Division, Acting U.S. Attorney Abe Martinez of the Southern District of Texas, Special Agent in Charge Perrye K. Turner of the FBIs Houston Field Office, Special Agent in Charge C.J. Porter of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services-Office of Inspector Generals (HHS-OIG) Dallas Region and Special Agent in Charge D. Richard Goss of the Houston Field Office of IRS-Criminal Investigation Division (IRS-CI) made the announcement.

Marie Neba, 53, of Sugarland, Texas, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon of the Southern District of Texas. In November 2016, Neba was convicted after a two-week jury trial of one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, three counts of health care fraud, one count of conspiracy to pay and receive health care kickbacks, one count of payment and receipt of health care kickbacks, one count of conspiracy to launder monetary instruments and one count of making health care false statements.

According to the evidence presented at trial, from February 2006 through June 2015, Neba and others conspired to defraud Medicare by submitting over $10 million in false and fraudulent claims for home health services to Medicare through Fiango Home Healthcare Inc., owned by Neba and her husband, Ebong Tilong, 53, also of Sugarland, Texas. The trial evidence showed that using the money that Medicare paid for such fraudulent claims, Neba paid illegal kickbacks to patient recruiters for referring Medicare beneficiaries to Fiango for home health services. Neba also paid illegal kickbacks to Medicare beneficiaries for allowing Fiango to bill Medicare using beneficiaries Medicare information for home health services that were not medically necessary or not provided, the evidence showed. Neba falsified medical records to make it appear as though the Medicare beneficiaries qualified for and received home health services. Neba also attempted to suborn perjury from a co-defendant in the federal courthouse, the evidence showed.

According to the evidence presented at trial, from February 2006 to June 2015, Neba received more than $13 million from Medicare for home health services that were not medically necessary or not provided to Medicare beneficiaries.

To date, four others have pleaded guilty based on their roles in the fraudulent scheme at Fiango. Nirmal Mazumdar, M.D., the former medical director of Fiango, pleaded guilty to a scheme to commit health care fraud for his role at Fiango. Daisy Carter and Connie Ray Island, two patient recruiters for Fiango, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud for their roles at Fiango. On August 11, Island was sentenced to 33 months in prison. Mazumdar and Carter are awaiting sentencing. After the first week of trial, Tilong pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud, three counts of healthcare fraud, one count of conspiracy to pay and receive healthcare kickbacks, three counts of payment and receipt of healthcare kickbacks, and one count of conspiracy to launder monetary instruments. Tilong is scheduled to be sentenced on October 13.

The case was investigated by the IRS-CI, FBI and HHS-OIG under the supervision of the Fraud Section of the Justice Departments Criminal Division and the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Southern District of Texas. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney William S.W. Chang and Senior Trial Attorney Jonathan T. Baum of the Fraud Section.

The Fraud Section leads the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, which is part of a joint initiative between the Department of Justice and HHS to focus their efforts to prevent and deter fraud and enforce current anti-fraud laws around the country. The Medicare Fraud Strike Force operates in nine locations nationwide. Since its inception in March 2007, the Medicare Fraud Strike Force has charged over 3,500 defendants who collectively have falsely billed the Medicare program for over $12.5 billion.
CORNWALL, Ontario  Starting August 13, you can help support Osteoporosis Canada by donating at any of the 660 LCBO stores throughout Ontario until Sept. 9.

Established in 1982, Osteoporosis Canada helps people living with, or at risk of, osteoporosis. Following its vision of a country without osteoporotic fractures, the organization works to educate, empower and support individuals and communities on bone health by providing medically accurate information.

As a socially responsible community-minded retailer, LCBO is pleased to partner with Osteoporosis Canada and support a variety of other worthy causes through the Giving Back in Our Community fundraising program, said George Soleas, President & CEO of the LCBO. Through the generosity of LCBO customers and the support of our staff, we help improve the lives of countless Ontarians and make a difference in communities across the province.

Currently, 1 in 3 women and 1 in 5 men will break a bone due to osteoporosis in their lifetime. Additionally, 80% of Canadians who break a bone (fracture) due to osteoporosis, do not receive treatment for their underlying osteoporosis. Educating the public at better bone health and preventing new fractures for those who have already had an osteoporotic fracture is Osteoporosis Canadas top priority.

Funds raised through the LCBO donation box campaign help Osteoporosis Canada to continue to educate, empower and support Ontarians living with Osteoporosis through education programs, awareness campaigns, support groups and Stand Tall Canada events. These donations also help the organization reach caregivers and healthcare providers in the areas of post-fracture treatment and fracture risk reduction with information on diagnosis and best practices.

We want to thank the LCBO for their ongoing support of Osteoporosis Canada through their donation box program, the generous customers who make donations at the checkout counters and the supportive staff who, through their network of stores across the province, help to raise significant funds and increase public awareness of osteoporosis and its devastating consequences, said Dr. Famida Jiwa, President & CEO, Osteoporosis Canada.

Osteoporosis Canada is one of 28 provincial and numerous local charities that will benefit from LCBOs province-wide donation box program in 2017. In fiscal 2016-17, LCBO raised a total of $13.3 million for charities through in-store fundraising, special programs and initiatives.
United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit. WAYNE WALKER, as Administrator of the Successions of Arnette Calhoun Spells, Sr. and Arnette Calhoun Spells, Jr., Plaintiff - Appellant v. NEW ORLEANS CITY, Defendant - Appellee No. 16-31229 Decided: August 11, 2017

Before KING, DENNIS, and COSTA, Circuit Judges.

The opinion issued July 13, 2017 is withdrawn, and the following is substituted therefor:

PlaintiffAppellant Wayne Walker, as administrator of the successions of Arnette Calhoun Spells, Sr. and Arnette Calhoun Spells, Jr., appeals the district court's dismissal of his 42 U.S.C.  1983 claim for lack of standing. Walker sued the City of New Orleans after it imposed fines for code violations by a property owned by the Spellses and ordered the property demolished. We AFFIRM.

This dispute centers on property located on Baronne Street in New Orleans. The record owners of the property are Arnett Calhoun Spells, Sr. and Arnett Calhoun Spells, Jr., despite the fact that the Spellses died in 1998 and 2008, respectively. After an inspection of the property revealed numerous city code violations, the City scheduled an administrative hearing regarding the violations for August 14, 2014. The City sent notice of the hearing via certified mail to the Spellses, the owners of record, as required by city code, but the notice was returned as undeliverable (unsurprisingly, given that the Spellses were deceased). At the hearing, where no representatives of the property appeared, the City levied $3,300 in fines for the various code violations (with the possibility of additional fines of $500 per day for up to one year), along with $155 in fees. The hearing officer also ordered the property demolished.

A year later, on August 27, 2015, four individuals purporting to be the presumptive heirs of the Spellses filed this suit under  1983 against the City, claiming that the hearing judgment deprived them of property without due process, rendering the judgment an absolute nullity. Although the suit was initially brought in the names of these four individuals, they were later substituted by one plaintiff: Wayne Walker, in his capacity as Administrator of the Successions of Arnette Calhoun Spells, Sr. and Arnette Calhoun Spells, Jr. (the succession administrator).

On October 3, 2016, the district court granted the City's motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Procedure 12(b)(1) for lack of subject matter jurisdiction because it concluded that the succession administrator did not have standing to bring the  1983 claim. The succession administrator moved for reconsideration, which the district court also denied. The succession administrator timely appeals.

The succession administrator argues on appeal that he has standing, and thus, the district court erred in dismissing his claim. We review a district court's dismissal de novo and may affirm it on any basis supported by the record. Morris v. Thompson, 852 F.3d 416, 419 (5th Cir. 2017); Raj v. La. State Univ., 714 F.3d 322, 330 (5th Cir. 2013). The succession administrator brought this suit under  1983. Standing to bring a  1983 claim is guided by 42 U.S.C.  1988, which provides that state common law is used to fill the gaps in [ 1983's] administration. Pluet v. Frasier, 355 F.3d 381, 383 (5th Cir. 2004). Thus, in order to have statutory standing to bring a  1983 claim on behalf of another, a plaintiff must have standing under the state wrongful death or survival statutes. Id. If a plaintiff does not have statutory standing, he lacks a cause of action, see Malvin v. Dulluniversita, 840 F.3d 223, 22930 (5th Cir. 2016), and the action should be dismissed under Federal Rule of Procedure 12(b)(6), see Harold H. Huggins Realty, Inc. v. FNC, Inc., 634 F.3d 787, 795 n.2 (5th Cir. 2011) (Unlike a dismissal for lack of constitutional standing, which should be granted under Rule 12(b)(1), a dismissal for lack of  statutory standing is properly granted under Rule 12(b)(6).).

Applying these principles, the succession administrator does not have standing to bring this  1983 suit and thus lacks a cause of action. Under Louisiana law, a succession administrator lacks standing to bring a wrongful death action. See La. Civ. Code Ann. art. 2315.2 (listing the persons who may bring a wrongful death action, which does not include a succession administrator). Accordingly, the succession administrator lacks statutory standing to bring this  1983 action and thus does not have a cause of action. Although the district court dismissed on the basis of lack of subject matter jurisdiction, we affirm because dismissal was nevertheless proper under Rule 12(b)(6).

The succession administrator's arguments to the contrary are meritless because they overlook the fact that the sole named plaintiff in this case is the succession administrator. The succession administrator argues that the presumptive heirs need not rely on his standing to bring a wrongful death action because the presumptive heirs have standing in their own right, given that their property was taken. However, the individual presumptive heirs are no longer named as plaintiffs in this case; thus, whether they have standing to bring suit is not relevant. The succession administrator appears to argue that the succession administrator being the named plaintiff is a mere technicality because a judgment of possession has not yet been rendered, but we abide by the principle that the only parties to an action are those listed in the caption. See Fed R. Civ. P. 10(a) (requiring all parties' names to appear in caption). Because the sole plaintiff named in the caption, the succession administrator, lacks standing, this action was properly dismissed. The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.

FOOTNOTES

. We note that the succession administrator at no point moved to resubstitute the original four individual plaintiffs as the plaintiffs in this case.

. Because we affirm the district court's dismissal on this basis, we do not address the succession administrator's other arguments.

PER CURIAM:*
United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee v. Jade Shilo OLDROCK, Defendant-Appellant No. 16-2633 Decided: August 14, 2017

Before SMITH, Chief Judge, COLLOTON and KELLY, Circuit Judges. Counsel who presented argument on behalf of the appellant was Rachael Steenholdt, AFPD, of Fargo, ND. In addition to Ms. Steenholdt, the following attorney(s) appeared on the appellant brief; Christopher J. Lancaster, AFPD, of Fargo, ND. Counsel who presented argument on behalf of the appellee was Janice Mae Morley, AUSA, of Fargo, ND. The following attorney(s) appeared on the appellee brief; Matthew Greenley, AUSA, of Fargo, ND.

Jade Shilo Oldrock was convicted of the aggravated sexual abuse of a child and committing a felony sex offense as a registered sex offender, pursuant to 18 U.S.C.  1153, 2241(c), 2247, 3559(e), and  2260A. The district court sentenced Oldrock to the statutory mandatory minimum sentence for each offense, which amounted to a total of 40 years' imprisonment. Oldrock appeals his conviction, claiming that the district court abused its discretion by admitting unduly prejudicial testimony from two witnesses at trial and by denying his motion for mistrial. We affirm.

I. Background

H.L., a minor, stayed up late watching a movie at her home in Fort Totten, North Dakota. She fell asleep on the couch. Oldrock, H.L.'s relative, was homeless at the time and intermittently sleeping over at the family residence. H.L. awoke in the night to find her blue jeans unzipped and Oldrock lying next to her using his hand to reach inside her underwear and touch her genitals. She got up and rushed upstairs to her bedroom. H.L. attempted to barricade her bedroom door with books and anything else [she] could find because the lock was broken. H.L. changed into loose-fitting trunks and a tank top and bundled [herself] up in a blanket. She eventually fell back asleep.

H.L. awoke once again. Oldrock had gained entry to her bedroom and was sitting on her bed with his hand underneath her trunks. She sat up, and Oldrock got off the bed. He immediately went to a box of old phones on the night stand and began asking H.L. about them. H.L. sat in silence until Oldrock left the room. When she heard what sounded like Oldrock exit the front door, H.L. waited to make sure he was gone. She then left the house and walked to her older sister's homewhere she ordinarily got ready for school in the morning. H.L. quietly entered her nieces and nephews' bedroom and crawled into bed.

About four months later, H.L. told her older sister about Oldrock's actions. The two sisters notified their father, and the three of them went to the police station to make a report. Per protocol, law enforcement arranged for H.L. to be interviewed at the Red River Children's Advocacy Center (RRCAC) in Fargo, North Dakota. Jill Perez, the program coordinator and a forensic interviewer for RRCAC, interviewed H.L. The facts developed in this interview led to Oldrock's indictment. Investigators interviewed another minor, T.O., about an unrelated incident. During this interview, T.O. described a similar encounter with Oldrock. One night while staying at Oldrock's home, T.O. awakened to Oldrock's hand underneath her pajamas, touching her genitals.

Oldrock moved to exclude the testimony of T.O. and Perez. The district court denied Oldrock's motion as to T.O., subject to a judicial relevance finding, and granted Oldrock's motion as to Perez, except as to whether or not the techniques used [in the interview] were consistent with her training. At trial, T.O. and Perez generally testified within these parameters. On direct examination, however, the government elicited one response from Perez that went beyond the district court's limitations:

The recommendations that we had for [H.L.] that day were trauma counseling, no contact with Jade Shilo Oldrock, and a medical examination.

Defense counsel immediately moved to strike this statement, and the court granted the motion, instructing the jury to disregard the answer. Defense counsel subsequently moved for a mistrial based on this statement, which the court denied. After three days of trial, the jury convicted Oldrock.

II. Discussion

On appeal, Oldrock argues that the district court abused its discretion by admitting unduly prejudicial testimony from T.O. and Perez and for denying his motion for mistrial. We examine these arguments in turn.

A. T.O.'s Testimony

We review a district court's evidentiary rulings for abuse of discretion. United States v. Never Misses A Shot, 781 F.3d 1017, 1027 (8th Cir. 2015). Reversal is warranted only if the district court's evidentiary rulings constitute a clear and prejudicial abuse of discretion, id., or when the ruling affected substantial rights or had more than a slight influence on the verdict, United States v. Street, 548 F.3d 618, 624 (8th Cir. 2008) (quoting United States v. Gustafson, 528 F.3d 587, 590 (8th Cir. 2008)).

Evidence of prior bad acts is generally inadmissible to show a defendant's propensity to commit the charged crime. But, Congress adopted Federal Rule of Evidence 413 to allow such evidence in sex-offense cases. See United States v. Hollow Horn, 523 F.3d 882, 887 (8th Cir. 2008). Prior bad acts constituting sex offenses may be admitted to prove any relevant matter including the defendant's propensity to commit such offenses. Id. (quoting United States v. Gabe, 237 F.3d 954, 959 (8th Cir. 2001)). A relevant sexual assault is one committed in a manner similar to the charged offense. Never Misses A Shot, 781 F.3d at 1027 (quoting United States v. Rodriguez, 581 F.3d 775, 796 (8th Cir. 2009)). After the district court finds Rule 413 evidence relevant, admissibility hinges on whether the testimony's probative value is substantially outweighed by one or more of the factors enumerated in Rule 403. Id. This determination is accorded great deference. Id. (quoting United States v. Crow Eagle, 705 F.3d 325, 328 (8th Cir. 2013) (per curiam)).

Oldrock argues that the district court abused its discretion in determining whether T.O.'s testimony met the relevance test. Under Federal Rule of Evidence 104(b), [w]hen the relevance of evidence depends on whether a fact exists, proof must be introduced sufficient to support a finding that the fact does exist. Fed. R. Evid. 104(b); see also United States v. Armstrong, 782 F.3d 1028, 103435 (8th Cir. 2015) (explaining Rule 104(b)). In making this determination, the court does not weigh the evidence or make credibility determinations, but instead simply examines all the evidence in the case and decides whether the jury could reasonably find the conditional fact  by a preponderance of the evidence.  Armstrong, 782 F.3d at 103435 (quoting Huddleston v. United States, 485 U.S. 681, 690, 108 S.Ct. 1496, 99 L.Ed.2d 771 (1988)). Oldrock argues that T.O.'s testimony fails this relevancy test because it changed in two critical ways between her original forensic interview and her testimony at trial. Oldrock contends that T.O. (1) initially reported that Oldrock touched her upper thigh but later testified to him touching her genitals, and (2) initially suggested that the incident happened more than once but on the stand clarified that it was a single encounter.

The district court conducted a hearing on T.O.'s testimony to determine Rule 104 relevance. In that hearing, T.O. explained that during her initial forensic interview she was angry and hungry, and that this emotional state kept her from telling the full truth. Her parents had just been arrested and she felt like she had failed to care for her younger siblingsall of whom were taken into the custody of child protective services. In describing the interview, T.O. said that the interviewer kept asking about events that I never talk about and she kept asking me to say the words that I didn't want to say. In assessing this testimony, the district court made the following findings:

Now if you watch the video, the forensic interview video, and you watch it carefully I think what we're really dealing with here is an imprecision on the part of this child as to reporting her emotional state, right? She says angry and it's apparent that what she means to say is frustrated, all right? And her frustration is actually fairly apparent in the video. I mean, as a parent of young children when you do that deal where you lay down in the middle of the chair kind of demonstrating like this (indicating) that's a pretty clear indication of frustration, like they're sending a message: I'm [bored]. I'm tired of this. I don't want to talk to you.

* * *

It's also apparent that the focus of this interview was not to find out if Jade Shilo Oldrock had at any point had any inappropriate sexual contact with [T.O.] but to find out whether or not [T.O.'s] father was guilty of physical abuse against her and whether or not [T.O.] observed physical abuse of her siblings by her father.

* * *

By the time they finally get back to any discussion about Mr. Oldrock's involvement in the case [T.O.] is once again demonstrating signs that she's had enough of this discussion.

Combining T.O.'s explanation for her story change and the video of the forensic interview, the court determined that a preponderance of evidence established the foundation for T.O.'s testimony. We agree. T.O.'s testimony and subsequent explanation show the relevance of the prior bad act. The crux of Oldrock's claim is that T.O.'s changed story negates its credibility and thus its relevance to the current crime. If believed, T.O.'s testimony would render Oldrock's prior conduct relevant to the instant offense. The inconsistency in T.O.'s testimony may damage its credibility, but it does not negate its competence as the court found that a preponderance of the evidence supported the existence of the facts T.O. represented.

T.O.'s testimony met the relevance standard, and its probative value is not outweighed by unfair prejudice under Federal Rule of Evidence 403. Rule 413 evidence is always prejudicial, but Rule 403 only prevents unfairly prejudicial evidence. United States v. Strong, 826 F.3d 1109, 1114 (8th Cir. 2016), cert. denied,  U.S. , 137 S.Ct. 1578, 197 L.Ed.2d 710 (2017). The court found the evidence highly probative because of the similarity in age and similarity in the touching and found that any prejudice could be limited by a cautionary instruction to the jury. Noting that Congress had an intent to expand the admissibility of propensity evidence in drafting Rule 413, the court determined that T.O.'s testimony passed the Rule 403 balancing test. The district court did not abuse its discretion. T.O.'s testimony is prejudicial for the same reason that it is probative. It shows Oldrock's propensity to touch young females inappropriately while they sleep. See Hollow Horn, 523 F.3d at 888. Because this specific type of propensity evidence is admissible under Rule 413, [Oldrock] has not shown that its prejudice was unfair. See id.

B. Perez's Testimony

Oldrock raises two challenges to Perez's testimony. He argues that the district court abused its discretion in admitting her testimony because it lacked relevance and served as improper expert testimony. He also argues that Perez's improper statement regarding her recommendations for H.L. constituted prejudicial vouching. Oldrock contends that the district court abused its discretion by failing to grant a mistrial on this basis.

1. Relevance

Oldrock claims that Perez's testimony fails the relevance standard of Federal Rule of Evidence 401 because it lacks any tendency to make a fact more or less probable. Fed. R. Evid. 401(a). Perez's testimony, however, was presented to describe the process of the forensic interview, to explain the lack of physical evidence, to describe the investigative process, and, in the government's words, to help foreclose any argument that the forensic interview process itself influenced the victim's testimony. Oldrock claims that these reasons lack relevance to the main issue at trialhis guilt. This argument, however, misunderstands Rule 401, under which [t]he standard for relevancy is low. United States v. Holmes, 751 F.3d 846, 851 (8th Cir. 2014). If there is any tendency that evidence will make a consequential fact more or less probable, the [e]vidence should be admitted. Id.

In United States v. Littlewind, we affirmed the admission of similar testimony because it provided relevant information which helped the jury understand [the] investigative process. 680 Fed.Appx. 496, 498 (8th Cir. 2017) (per curiam). In this case, Perez's testimony was relevant to help the jury understand the process of the forensic interview and explain how the investigation proceededas [t]he drafters of the rule point out that [e]vidence which is essentially background in nature is often considered relevant and admitted as an aid to understanding the case. See id. (second alteration in original) (quoting Fed. R. Evid. 401 advisory committee's note to 1972 proposed rule). Perez's testimony meets the Rule 401 relevance standard.

2. Lay Testimony

Next Oldrock claims that Perez, testifying as a lay witness under Federal Rule of Evidence 701, offered impermissible expert testimony without being qualified as an expert under Federal Rule of Evidence 702, and that the district court abused its discretion by allowing this admission. Rule 701 provides that if a witness is not testifying as an expert, then any testimony by the witness expressing his or her opinion or inferences is limited to those that are rationally based on the witness's perception and helpful to understanding the witness's testimony or determining a fact in issue. United States v. Smith, 591 F.3d 974, 982 (8th Cir. 2010) (quoting U.S. Salt, Inc. v. Broken Arrow, Inc., 563 F.3d 687, 690 (8th Cir. 2009)). [P]erceptions based on industry experience [are] a sufficient foundation for lay opinion testimony. Id. (alterations in original) (quoting U.S. Salt, Inc., 563 F.3d at 690).

The district court granted Oldrock's motion to exclude expert testimony from Perez, but the court permitted Perez to testify to her lay perceptions of H.L.'s interview. In Smith, we determined that a forensic interviewer could give her lay opinion based on her personal knowledge and perception of a minor and describe her experience performing forensic interviews of allegedly abused children without offending Rule 702. Id. at 983. Because the interviewer relied exclusively on her experience observing other sexually abused children and her personal perception[s] and did not refer to any scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge in stating her opinion, we determined that the district court acted within its considerable discretion. Id. The same reasoning applies here. The district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing Perez to discuss the forensic process and her personal opinions of H.L.'s interview.

3. Denial of Mistrial

Finally, Oldrock claims that Perez impermissibly vouched for H.L. by mentioning her recommendations for H.L., and that the district court abused its discretion in denying his motion for mistrial. We review a motion for mistrial under an abuse of discretion standard. United States v. Espinosa, 585 F.3d 418, 428 (8th Cir. 2009). The district court has broad discretion to grant or deny a motion for mistrial because it is in a far better position to weigh the effect of improper testimony, and because less drastic measures such as a cautionary instruction are generally sufficient to alleviate prejudice flowing from improper testimony. Id. (quoting United States v. Davidson, 122 F.3d 531, 538 (8th Cir. 1997)). The normal cure for a witness's improper statement is the striking of the testimony with an instruction for the jury to disregard it. Id. We assume that the jury followed the district court's instruction. Id. (quoting United States v. Fletcher, 322 F.3d 508, 516 (8th Cir. 2003)).

Here, the district court immediately struck the offending statement and instructed the jury to disregard it. When Oldrock moved for a mistrial based on the statement, the court said:

I think that the Court has stricken the evidence. I don't see it as particularly prejudicial. It's slight in comparison to all the other evidence that's been received, if there's any prejudice at all. The jury I think is diligent, honest, and I believe that they will set it aside.

Despite the strike and the curative instruction, Oldrock argues that Perez's statement created incurable prejudice because it impermissibly vouched for H.L. by implying that Perez believed that (1) H.L. suffered a trauma; (2) Oldrock committed that trauma; and (3) the trauma was sexual in nature. Perez's statement, however, does not necessarily imply any such beliefs. She testified that the recommendation of a medical exam is typically scheduled for any allegation of skin-to-skin contact. Counseling is typical for children complaining of assault, and it is reasonable to tell a child to stay away from her alleged attacker, regardless of that person's guilt or innocence. Fundamentally, Oldrock argues that the statement provided impermissible vouching for H.L.'s credibility. See United States v. Roundtree, 534 F.3d 876, 880 (8th Cir. 2008) (Improper vouching may occur when the government expresses a personal opinion about credibility, implies a guarantee of truthfulness, or implies it knows something the jury does not.). Unlike a typical vouching case, here the government made no statements implying a guarantee of H.L.'s credibility. Rather, a witness incidentally named Oldrock when she discussed her treatment recommendations for the victim. This naming was immediately struck, which distinguishes Oldrock's case from the cases in which the district court improperly admitted impermissible hearsay from medical providers or social workers. See, e.g., United States v. Bercier, 506 F.3d 625, 633 (8th Cir. 2007) (rejecting as hearsay medical testimony unrelated to the diagnosis); United States v. Azure, 845 F.2d 1503, 1507 (8th Cir. 1988) (finding victim's out-of-court identification harmless). The record contains no basis to conclude that the jury did not follow the court's curative instruction to ignore this statement.

It is generally within the discretion of the district court to decide whether the fairness of a trial has been compromised by prejudicial testimony Espinosa, 585 F.3d at 428 (ellipsis in original) (quoting United States v. Brandon, 521 F.3d 1019, 1026 (8th Cir. 2008)). In Espinosa, we held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying a motion for mistrial after the court struck a similar statement by a witness who vouched for the credibility of a sexual assault victim. Id. at 429. In light of H.L.'s testimony and the other evidence presented at trial, we find that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Oldrock's motion for a mistrial.

III. Conclusion

Accordingly, we affirm the district court's judgment.

In my view, the district court abused its discretion by allowing Perez to testify about the forensic process and her opinions of H.L.'s interview. Perez' testimony presented a serious risk that the jury would believe she had special insight into the veracity of [H.L.]'s allegationsimproperly bolstering [H.L.]'s credibility. Littlewind, 680 Fed.Appx. at 499 (Kelly, J., dissenting). The admission of this testimony was not harmless error, because the jury's assessment of H.L.'s credibility was of paramount importance to the verdict. Id. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent from Part B of the court's opinion, and would reverse and remand for a new trial.

FOOTNOTES

. The Honorable Ralph R. Erickson, United State District Judge for the District of North Dakota.

. Oldrock also argues that T.O. committed perjury while testifying, but the record reflects T.O.'s confusion in answering some questions and her attempt to clarify her statements for truthfulness.

SMITH, Chief Judge.
CORRUPTION

You can bank on it

On August 3, the financial intelligence agency AUSTRAC announced that it was taking the Commonwealth Bank (CBA) to court for 53,700 breaches of money laundering and counter-terrorism financing laws. In the documents lodged with the Federal Court, AUSTRAC alleges that the CBA failed to act on suspicions that drug syndicates were using its network of Intelligent Deposit Machines (IDMs) to launder tens of millions of dollars.

A number of mind-boggling allegations were made in the document lodged by AUSTRAC (Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre) in the Federal Court, including serious allegations that CommBanks conduct has exposed the Australian community to serious and ongoing financial crime. AUSTRAC is seeking civil penalty orders against the CBA which could potentially run into billions of dollars if found guilty of all the breaches and the Court had the will to impose such fines.

Facilitating anonymity

Banks and other financial institutions are required by law to report cash transactions of $10,000 or more  referred to as threshold transactions  and any suspicious transactions to AUSTRAC. Suspicious transactions could, for example, be a large number of deposits just below the threshold.

CommBank IDMs can accept deposits by cash or cheques and up to 200 notes at a time  i.e. a limit of $20,000 per cash transaction. There is no limit on the number of such deposits in a day. The cash is deposited into a CommBank account using a card from any financial institution and being cash is credited instantly.

If the card was not issued by CommBank, then the cardholders details are not known to CommBank. There is no legal requirement for banks to report depositors details for threshold transaction reports for deposits made through an IDM  only the recipients of these deposits.

This cash can immediately be transferred to other domestic or offshore accounts thus facilitating anonymous transfers of very large sums. Other banks have IDMs but with a limit of $5,000 per transaction.

There was exponential growth in the use of IDMs. In the first six months of their roll-out in 2012, $89.1 million was deposited in CommBanks IDMs. In the first six months of 2016, cash deposits grew to $5.81 billion, with over $1 billion in each of May and June.

Such large sums should have raised suspicions.

Alleged breach of procedures

According to AUSTRACs court filing, the CommBank has a Joint Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Program as required by law but it did not comply with a number of procedures under that program.

Amongst these, AUSTRAC alleges that CommBank did not carry out a Money Laundering/Terrorism Financing (ML/TF) risk assessment prior to the launch of the IDMs or in response to the exponential rise in cash deposits through IDMs.

CommBank, like other institutions, is required to report threshold ($10,000 or more) and suspicious transactions within 10 business days of the transaction being made.

AUSTRAC alleges that 53,506 of such transactions processed through IDMs from November 5, 2012 to September 1, 2015 were reported late  two on August 24, 2015 and the remaining 53,504 on September 24, 2015.

Of these late notifications, it is alleged that 1,640, totalling $17.3 million, were related to transactions connected with money laundering syndicates being investigated and prosecuted by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) or accounts connected with those investigations.

Even more incredibly, according to AUSTRACs allegations, the bank failed to act after suspected money laundering was brought to its attention by the AFP or through its own internal analysis.

AUSTRAC presents the court with details of the operations of four money-laundering syndicates where it alleges CommBank has failed to report suspicious activities. In some instances convictions have already been obtained.

To give a few examples of the allegations against CommBank regarding money laundering syndicates:

By April 2015, CommBank had identified repeated, suspicious and connected patterns of structured cash deposits followed by international money transfers of 16 of these accounts (15 of which were in fake names). Not withstanding this suspicion, between April and 1 July 2015, CommBank permitted approximately $9.1 million to be transferred from these accounts to Hong Kong.

In another case, where the deposits were the proceeds of drug manufacture and importation, and one person has already been convicted and two others charged, AUSTRAC says:

Despite cash deposits under $10,000 being made into this account, no transaction monitoring alerts for structuring were ever raised. Very large cash deposits, up to $532,500 were also regularly being made at branches. Some alerts were raised for these large deposits, but were not reviewed in a timely manner, having regard to the ML/TF risks. By no later than 28 April 2015, CommBank considered the account to be high risk and suspicious. By this time, $14.7 million had already been sent offshore. However, CommBank did not monitor this customer having regard to the ML/TF risks and permitted the highly suspicious activity to continue, with $12.2 million in cash deposits received and $11.8 million remitted overseas after 28 April 2015 ...

AUSTRAC alleges a number of breaches of different sections of the Act in seeking a monetary penalty.

AUSTRAC alleges that by the banks failure to report on time or at all in accordance with the Act, AUSTRAC and other law enforcement agencies have been deprived of information, delays have resulted in lost intelligence and evidence (including CCTV footage), further money laundering and lost proceeds of crime.

Financial penalty inadequate

For years now Australias major banks and other financial institutions have been riddled with what seems a never-ending list of scandals involving hundreds of millions of dollars and untold suffering and hardship for their victims.

This latest in a litany of fraud and corruption allegations and failings of the financial system to act responsibly and according to the law has rocked the banking industry to its foundations and reinforced demands for a royal commission into the banking sector.

Tens or maybe even hundreds of millions of dollars were allegedly laundered over a period of several years through Australias largest and most profitable financial institution. Even when it was reported to the bank that its intelligent deposit machines were being used as conduits for this money, no action was taken.

The privatisation and deregulation of the Commonwealth Bank, which once operated under a social charter, has resulted in a monolithic and powerful financial institution driven by one motive  profit. And if facilitating money laundering adds to profits and draws customers away from other banks, so be it.

Very few heads have rolled. Perhaps a token financial planner or two, a lower level manager has taken the rap. The culture of profit first, second and always has not been challenged.

We can only hope that the Australian Federal Police are investigating the those behind the inaction and those with ultimate responsibility who always hide behind the veil of ignorance.

The case being taken to the Federal Court by AUSTRAC accuses an institution, not those at the helm, let alone the parasitic nature of the finance sector or corrupt nature of the system we live under  capitalism.

Bring on the Royal Commission!
Editorial

Hands off DPRK and Venezuela!

The Communist Party of Australia shares the sense of outrage felt by the people of the world about the recent statements and actions of the Trump administration directed at the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Trumps threats, particularly those directed towards the DPRK, carry the great danger of an escalating nuclear conflagration that could lead to the destruction of all life on earth. To this madness, the people must respond with a clear and unequivocal No!.

In the decades since the ceasefire declared in the Korean War, spokespersons for the US military industrial complex have backed up acts of extreme provocation against the DPRK including annual military exercises preparing for the invasion of that sovereign state. They have threatened to turn North Korea into a carpark. Trump is now claiming a preparedness to bring down fire and fury indiscriminately on the 25 million citizens of the DPRK. Meanwhile, the corporate media has sought to portray the leadership of the DPRK as mad. People are starting to make their own judgement on exactly which is the rogue state in international relations.

In Venezuela, the US President is refusing to rule out the military option in dealing with the troubled Latin American country. A US-directed campaign of sabotage and terrorism against the Bolivarian Revolution has caused the very difficult circumstances endured by the people of Venezuela. The outcome of the vote for the countrys Constituent Assembly, demonstrating support for the Bolivarian Revolution, has led to the morally indefensible threat of invasion by the US. A campaign of misrepresentation of the causes of the economic and other difficulties faced by the government has led some, normally on the progressive side of Australian politics, to blame the Venezuelan government for the situation.

Nobody should be fooled by Trumps claim that his actions are guided by concerns that the people are suffering. People are suffering hardship because of the meddling of successive US administrations. If the US were concerned about human suffering, there are many far more deserving recipients of assistance from the US than Venezuela. The truth is very different. Venezuela has the biggest oil reserves in the world and the example of the Bolivarian Revolution to the rest of Latin America and the world was never going to go unchallenged by even the most extreme means. Now the option of invasion and a massive loss of life is on the table.

In response to the recklessness of Trump, the government of Malcolm Turnbull says it is going to stand shoulder to shoulder with the US and is joined at the hip to its global military ambitions. Australians must stand in solidarity with the DPRK and Venezuela. The peace movement must be re-invigorated to meet the grave threat to the security of the people of the world with a mass mobilisation. In this most vital of all struggles, the Communist Party of Australia pledges to continue to play its part.
Marie Lean

Tireless battler for the working class

Comrades and friends were saddened to hear of the passing of Party stalwart Marie Lean, who passed away in Adelaide on 26 July. Marie was born at Katoomba in 1931. Her father was a member of the Communist Party and she followed first by joining and becoming an active member of the Eureka Youth League.

Marie at a May Day March.

She attended the World Youth Festival in 1946 held in Bucharest, she was part of the Australian dance group which performed at the festival.

Marie joined the Communist Party in 1951 at the age of 20 years a total of 66 years membership. She was also a founding member of the SPA and has been a SA State Committee member since 1971 until 2014. She was secretary of the SA State committee in 1993 to 2000.

Marie was elected to the Central Committee at the Partys 7th Congress in 1992 and a member of the CC Executive. She was a conscientious member of the CC and its Executive and made valuable contributions to the work of these two bodies.

An active member of the Union of Australian Women, Peace activist particularly in the Ban the Bomb Campaign, and Anti-Vietnam war Campaign.

Growing up in Sydney and her love of ballet she performed folk dances at factory gate meeting before party speakers addressed workers.

One of her first jobs was working at the Hotel and Restaurant Union Offices doing clerical work which allowed her time to do some party work. It was also a valuable area to get to know workers who had been exploited.

Arriving in Adelaide from Sydney, Marie quickly joined in party work, active member of the Western Branch, became secretary of the branch.

Marie put out party leaflets at the gates of two large factories in the Mile End area, Perry Engineering and Horward Bagshaws.

Among Maries responsibilities was to organise a Junior Eureka League (JELs) activity including monthly visits to interesting places where they could learn about the working class struggles and history. They visited the Acarlaide ship in Port Adelaide and were given a tour by the Seamens Union, visits to museums and art galleries and had annual Christmas beach camps which Dos Rooney had charge. Marie also attended the Eureka Youth League camps each year to ensure they ran smoothly with a mixture of political exercises and sporting activities. She also ensured the hungry participants were fed and retired at a reasonable hour.

Marie was an active member of the Union of Australian Women (UAW) became president when Beryl Miller left for Sydney and when Margaret Pamment became the new secretary, Marie gave great support to Margaret.

At demonstrations and marches such as the Trade Union Labour Day March (now defunct) May Day March, annual Womens Equal Pay march, and anti-Vietnam war marches Marie was conspicuous marching, with either one of her children  Michael being the first then David and finally Peter completed the picture.

Politically Marie never took a backward step, she did not know how. She was a good debater on working class affairs and on international events.

For a number of years Marie work in an early childhood centre doing clerical work. She represented the centre on a state government committee. She always had a Socialist working class opinion on issues and was selected by the committee to attend an international conference on early childhood development in Romania.

In later years Marie became a qualified fitness instructor for the elderly. She was a natural doing this activity with a background in ballet and even gymnastics. In Sydney, she was talked into the state gymnastic competition by friends and having no previous experience or background, she was put into the state B grade competition which she won, becoming the NSW B grade champion.

There were two types of classes for the elderly, water classes and chair classes for those less mobile. The charge for attending these weekly classes was a few dollars to cover the cost of hiring the pool and cover the cost of equipment she purchased such as flotation, beach balls ropes, etc. No money was ever made out of the endeavour: in fact it usually cost Marie money. Thats the sort of women she was.

Marie worked tirelessly for the Communist Party for 66 years for the benefit of all the working class.
Turnbull vs Trump:

The real significance of that phone call

Last week Iranian asylum seeker Hamed Shimshiripour died on Manus Island. He had left the foetid, notoriously dangerous asylum seeker camp and there are indications he was murdered. Mr Shimshiripour was suffering from mental illness, now common among Australias detainees on Manus Island and Nauru.

The recent phone conversation between Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and US President Donald Trump demonstrated that the outlook for detainees is very bleak indeed, as long as he and Turnbull retain office.

The conversation at times resembled a weird Clarke and Dawe satire, with Trump baffled by Australias asylum seeker policy and Turnbull struggling to persuade him the United States should accept for resettlement some asylum seekers currently held by Australia.

Turnbull and former President Obama had previously reached an agreement to that effect, on condition that Australia accepted a number of US prisoners from South America.

Trump, as always belligerent, protested that the deal would cause him political damage. In the ensuing discussion the two leaders treated the asylum seekers as pawns in a cynical contest for political advantage.

Trump protested that the deal certainly wouldnt benefit the US, and that the asylum seekers must be bad characters because they had, after all, been imprisoned on Manus and Nauru. At no stage did Turnbull contradict Trump when he referred to the detainees as prisoners.

Trump maintained that the asylum seekers were probably as bad as the gangsters whod been imprisoned in Cuba but were accepted into the US by the Carter administration and subsequently wrought havoc in Miami. He even compared the asylum seekers with those responsible for the World Trade Centre attack.

When Turnbull defended the character of the asylum seekers Trump asked: Why havent you let them out? Why havent you let them into your society?

Turnbulls phony argument that the asylum seekers had to be imprisoned because it was the only way to save the lives of others who might also try to arrive by boat was a key issue.

Turnbull replied:

 It is not because they are bad people. It is because in order to stop people smugglers, we had to deprive them of the product. So we said if you try to come to Australia by boat, even if we think you are the best person in the world, even if you are a Noble Prize winning genius, we will not let you in.

Trump expressed grudging admiration for the policy, declaring: That is a good idea, we should do that too. In a rare tacit admission of moral failure, he added You are worse than I am, to which Turnbull replied stiffly That is our experience.

Turnbull abandons detainees

At this point Turnbull abandoned Australias detainees to continued indefinite detention, declaring:

[The agreement] does not oblige you to take one person that you do not want. ... it is in the mutual interest of the United States to say: Yes, we can conform with that deal  we are not obliged to take anybody we do not want, we will go through extreme vetting, and that way you are seen to show the respect that a trusted ally expects and deserves.

We will then hold up our end of the bargain by taking in our country 31 [inaudible] that you need to move on from.

But Trump still insisted that by merely authorising the vetting of Australias detainees he would suffer irreparable political damage. He was particularly incensed about the numbers involved, stating:

Malcolm, why is this so important? I do not understand. This is going to kill me. I am the worlds greatest person who does not want to let people into the country. And now I am agreeing to take 2,000 people and I agree I can vet them, but that puts me in a bad position. It makes me look so bad and I have only been here for a week.

When Turnbull told him the number was only 1,250, Trump agreed with the utmost reluctance to abide by the deal, saying Look, I spoke to Putin, Merkel, Abe of Japan, to France today and this was my most unpleasant call because I will be honest with you, I hate taking these people. I guarantee they are bad. That is why they are in prison right now. They are not going to be wonderful people who will go out to work for the local milk people.

Brushing aside Turnbulls objections, he observed, Well, maybe you should let them out of prison. I am doing this because Obama made a bad deal. Adding an insult or two to bolster his case, he stated, ...You have brokered many a stupid deal in business and I respect you but I guarantee that you [brokered] many a stupid deal. This deal will make me look terrible.

Appearing to have misunderstood Turnbulls concession that the US need not take any of Australias asylum seekers if they didnt want to, Trump asked: Suppose I vet them closely and we do not agree to take any? His question sparked the following bizarre exchange.

Turnbull: That is the point I have been trying to make.

Trump: How does that help you?

Turnbull: Well, we assume we act in good faith.

Trump: Does anybody know who these people are? Who are they? Where do they come from? Are they going to become the Boston bomber in five years? Or two years? Who are these people?

Turnbull: Let me explain ... the only reason we cannot let them into Australia is because of our commitment to not allow people to come by boat. Otherwise we would have let them in. If they had arrived by airplane with a tourist visa then they would be here.

Trump: Malcolm, but they arrived on a boat?

Turnbull: Correct, we have stopped the boats.

Confused by the conversations absurdity, Trump then returned to familiar ground, protesting that the US was becoming a dumping ground for the worlds undesirables.

Well accept anyone

At that point, in an astonishing attempt to avoid total rejection of the deal, Turnbull implied that Australia would abandon its right to vet the character and status of prisoners held by the US, who were to be sent to settle in Australia as part of the deal. He declared that any prisoner would be accepted regardless of their character.

He stated: Basically, we are taking people from the previous administration that they were very keen on getting out of the United States. We will take more. We will take anyone that you want us to take. So we would rather take a not very attractive guy that helps you out than take a Nobel Peace Prize winner that comes by boat. That is the point.

Astonished, Trump asked: What is the thing with boats? Why do you discriminate against boats? No, I know, they come from certain regions. I get it.

Turnbull denied this and in a long discourse again attempted to explain the governments asylum seeker policy. But his efforts were in vain.

Wearied by the discussion, Trump attempted to finish it with a comparison that would have stung Turnbull. He remarked: As far as I am concerned, Malcolm, that is enough. I have had it. I have been making these calls all day and this is the most unpleasant call all day. Putin was a pleasant call. This is ridiculous.

Turnbull took the insult in servile silence. When Trump refused to discuss other matters, muttering This is crazy, Turnbull humbly declared: Thank you for your commitment. It is very important to us, and the discussion ended.

The conversation must surely be one of the most ignominious for any Prime Minister in Australias history.

Trump is generally regarded as bombastic, ignorant and block-headed, and Turnbull as sophisticated and wily. But Trump got an overwhelmingly favourable agreement because of Turnbulls dogmatic and often incoherent defence of an indefensible policy, under which the government punishes one group of innocent people in order (so it is said) to protect another group, rather than seeking to protect both.

As a result of the deal, Australia is now obliged to accept for resettlement as many prisoners as the US wants to send us, regardless of their character or intentions, in return for having the US merely vet the asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus Island without necessarily accepting any of them.

The conversation demonstrated that when the Coalitions asylum seeker policy is carried to its logical conclusion, it is as ludicrous as it is cruel. And in practice its very cruel indeed.

The UN has warned that the policy will deter other nations from accepting asylum seekers held by Australia. Like Trump, they will tend to assume that the asylum seekers are predominantly criminals or terrorists or even assume sub-human.

Its so easy to stigmatise a distinct group of people, and thats whats now happening with the desperate, terrified and innocent people weve dumped in the hell-hole detention centres on Manus Island and Nauru.
Negotiate, Dont Escalate

In yet another dangerous escalation of the tit for tat threats between US President Trump and the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK  North Korea), a spokesman for the Korean Peoples Army said it is carefully examining a plan to strike the Pacific island of Guam  indigenous name Guahan  with missiles, just hours after US President Trump declared that any threat to the United States would be met with fire and fury and frankly power.

The US has packed Guahan with nuclear powered and nuclear armed ships, submarines and planes and it is home to thousands of US marines and other military personnel.

Washington has warned it is ready to use force to stop North Koreas ballistic missile and nuclear programs. North Korea retorted that it was ready to give Washington a severe lesson with its strategic nuclear force in response to any US military action.

Consequences

The consequences of any US strike would be catastrophic not only for North Koreans but also South Korea, Japan and for any US, Australian or other people within range of any North Korean retaliatory strikes.

A US invasion of North Korea would incur massive retaliation across the 38th parallel and the death of hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of Korean civilians on both sides of the demilitarised zone.

On Guahan many of the population of 174,000 men, women and children would be killed or injured by a North Korean missile strike on their Pacific atoll.

Guahan

Guahan is a US territory in Micronesia, in the Western Pacific. The indigenous people, the Chamorro, have been fighting for their independence but the US ignores this and uses the island as a military base.

The US Department of Defence currently occupies one-third of Guahan and is seeking to increase their landholdings by an additional 8.9 square km on an island that is only 549 square km.

Guahan is often called the tip of the US spear pointing at China. The US has packed it with nuclear powered and nuclear armed ships, submarines and planes and it is home to thousands of US marines and other military personnel.

Now threatened by North Korea as part of the increasingly dangerous flow of threat and counter threat between the US and the DPRK, the people of Guahan already have a bitter history of suffering from militarisation.

At the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in 2015 Dakota Alcantara-Camacho, speaking for the Guahan Coalition for Peace and Justice, made a submission which pointed out in part that:

Militarisation impacts indigenous peoples in various ways leading to further infringements on our right to cultural and political self-determination.

In Guahan, the military hold behind their fence, our largest supply of fresh water that they now sell back to us, most recently issuing a proposal to increase prices by 800%.

On Guahans Andersen Air Force and naval bases alone, there were over 95 toxic sites that were identified.

In 2011, the US Obama Administration officially announced the Pacific Pivot strategy, a massive expansion of aggressive military posturing in the Pacific region.

The reason given for the hyper-militarisation of the Pacific region is the containment of China and North Korea. The Pivot involves bilateral agreements with Japan, which stipulates Guahan as the site of joint training exercises, without obtaining free, prior, or informed consent from the islands indigenous Chamorros.

There are solutions

James Goodby, a former US Ambassador and academic, has proposed a number of steps that could help resolve the current dangerous tensions on the Korean peninsula.

He stresses that it is for the two parts of divided Korea to manage North-South relations.

Dealing with issues arising from the Korean War means negotiating agreements to replace the 1953 armistice. Items on this agenda would include borders on land and at sea, establishing diplomatic relations, some measures to regulate military activities on and around the Korean Peninsula, and pledges to refrain from the use or threat of force to resolve differences.

One proposal for resolving the nuclear weapons issue is the idea of creating a nuclear weapon-free zone in a geographically defined area in Northeast Asia.

South and North Korea would join with Japan in pledging to renounce their possession of nuclear weapons. China, Russia, and the United States would pledge to support in concrete ways the decision of North and South Korea and Japan to renounce nuclear weapons.

To stabilise a nuclear/missile freeze while broader negotiations are proceeding, Goodby proposes confidence-building measures that could include measures like mutual security guarantees extended on a reciprocal basis by nations involved in any of these negotiations, suspending the US-South Korean annual military exercises, and steps by North Korea to prevent fast launch procedures in its missile forces.

Nuclear threat

The election of Donald Trump has blown away any illusions that existing nuclear weapons are in safe hands. And North Koreas missile tests are more evidence that there are no safe hands for the tools of massive nuclear violence

In July, 122 United Nations members, (not including the nuclear-weapon and nuclear-umbrella states which includes Australia), adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, lighting the pathway to achieve abolition.

A handful of states have been amassing huge stockpiles of nuclear weapons, many deployed on a hair trigger. And countries like Australia underpin this dangerous reality, basing their military policy on the destructive doctrine of extended nuclear deterrence.

The treaty opens for signing at the UN on September 20 but Australia still resists joining this global momentum towards a nuclear weapons-free world.

As our world is threatened by nuclear war, for the sake of the future of life on Earth, now is the time for de-escalation. Australia must sign and the treaty, reflecting the wishes of the Australian people, the overwhelming majority of whom want a world free of nuclear weapons.

US Militarism is a major cause of:
Culture & Life

Racism - a capitalist tool

Time was, if you felt strongly about some issue and wanted to make your views known to other people you had to type up a stencil and run off copies on a roneo-machine or pay someone with access to a printing press to print your views as a flyer to be handed out to people you hoped to influence.

Race Riots in Lewisham, UK in 1977. Police making an arrest. (Photo: Peter Marlow)

But that was then. Today, you simply post your views on Facebook or Twitter from the comfort of your computer at home and you can reach vast numbers at insignificant expense. However, just because a person knows how to talk doesnt mean they have anything to say that is worth hearing.

In fact, it might well be that, depending on their education, background, personal prejudices and similar influences, what they have to say is nothing more than a vicious, hate-filled tirade pandering to ignorance and fear. Just look at the utterances of almost any federal government back-bencher or the notorious Tweets of US President Donald Trump.

Or consider the phenomenon of cyber bullying, where the anonymity of modern technology platforms allows cowardly attacks on individuals to be perpetrated publicly with impunity. Clearly, technology alone is not enough. It must be accompanied by the simultaneous development of society to replace fear and suspicion with co-operation and friendship. That seismic shift in social relations comes  over time  with, and only with, the establishment of socialism.

Witness the experience of the people of the USSR or the GDR. Even the restoration of capitalism has not been able to wholly eradicate the lessons learned while living in a socialist society.

Capitalism, which is devoted to benefitting the individual at the expense of others, breeds fear and jealousy, hostility and hatred. People live in fear that what little they have may be taken away from them by business chicanery or ill health or government fiat. In fact, capitalism not only encourages  it positively revels in  greed and self-interest. Ignorance is its handmaiden and also one of its more powerful weapons. When that is combined with the powerlessness and frustration that is the unfortunate lot of ordinary people under capitalism, it is hardly surprising that so many are sucked in to giving credence to those who blame the ills of the system on racial or religious differences.

Those who are visibly different make a very convenient target for right-wing rabble rousers to point to in their efforts to divert popular attention away from real issues like de-industrialisation by capitalists whose pursuit of greater profits means they happily close down entire industries, throw whole cities out of work, while they shift production to low wage countries where they can extract greater surplus value from making the same object.

Hitler is usually held up as the epitome of the hate-speech maker, but there were and are many others. Anti-Semitism did not originate with Hitler. It was widespread among the upper classes in Britain and France in the 19th century. In Tsarist Russia there were frequent deadly pogroms against the Jews. It is no accident that so many of the immigrants who sought refuge in the USA before the First World War were Jewish.

After WW1, Clerical-Fascist Hungary continued the practice of using the Jewish minority as a scapegoat for the economic and social ills besetting society. Hitler merely adopted a tactic already tested elsewhere.

Capitalists have a permanent problem: if they come clean and admit to the people that as a system Capitalism exhausted its progressive phase (when it was taking over from feudalism) a couple of hundred years ago and that since then it has been nothing more than a drag on human progress, they are unlikely to emerge well from the ensuing bunfight. So instead they lie.

And finding scapegoats is still their preferred type of lie. You can sympathise in a way with bourgeois politicians: beating the racist drum or the anti-Muslim drum is a much easier thing to do than to try to analyse and explain to people the complexities of modern capitalist society. Especially when, if you did explain it, you would be the one who would come out with egg  or worse  all over your face!

So right-wingers spend a lot of their time (and money, lets not forget that vital ingredient) fostering, feeding, financing and generally promoting that most useful diversionary tool, racism. Laws intended to safeguard people from racist abuse are howled down as limiting free speech, as somehow curbing democracy itself.

In Germany recently, Facebook informed the government that it is deleting about 15,000 posts every month because they breech the companys guidelines on hate speech. Worldwide, according to vice president Richard Allan, Facebook deleted about 66,000 posts per week, over the last two months, for the same reason.

In the Australian Parliament, the Federal Attorney-General has lined up with those who would weaken our laws against racial vilification. On the grounds of safeguarding democratic rights, of course.

Free speech, like everything else, is a class question. Workers have a right  and a necessity  to be able to criticise capitalist (i.e. anti-worker) governments. Capitalists do not have a right to try to destabilise and overthrow a pro-worker government. Nor do they have a right to own all the daily newspapers and the TV and radio stations with which to propagandise their destabilisation message. If that seems unfair, it is because you are looking at it from the class standpoint of the bosses.

Try putting yourself in the position of the exploited workers. The reasoning becomes simple: if it is in the interests of the workers it is good, and is it is against their interests it is bad. Simples!, to borrow a slogan from those capitalist ads featuring a meerkat.
Before his death, Albert Einstein stated that he wished for his entire body to be cremated and scattered so that nerds couldn't use his grave as a shrine -- they have more important things to do. But for having been such a genius, he didn't foresee the lack of agency a corpse has when in the same room as a man with a scalpel. Because a brain like Einstein's is a terrible thing to waste, pathologist Thomas Stoltz Harvey removed his brain without permission, reasoning that future people could unlock what made him so smart. But while the wacky adventures of Einstein's brain have already been thoroughly logged, people tend to forget that that wasn't all that Harvey harvested. He also plucked the physicist's eyes right out of his head. Why? As a party favor for a colleague, of course.

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Einstein's eyes were gifted to Dr. Henry Abrams, the physicist's former family physician and eye doctor. It was in fact Einstein who had convinced Abrams to become an ophthalmologist in the first place, and the pair had grown quite close. Abrams wanting to keep the eyes of the man who nurtured his career was only natural ... if you accept that all doctors are potential serial killers with a support system. Abrams later said: "Having his eyes means the professor's life has not ended. A part of him is still with me." His eyes, to be specific.

Little is known about the fate of the eyes, besides that they are safely bobbing around in formaldehyde somewhere inside a New Jerseyan bank vault. Rumors once floated that none other than Michael Jackson offered Abrams $5 million to obtain the peepers. All Abrams wanted was to be left alone. For a man who kept Albert Einstein's eyes in a jar, the good doctor hated the attention of the media, which he called "sleazy" for being interested in a man who kept Albert Einstein's eyes in a jar. To Abrams, Einstein's eyes were a private and intimate affair. "When you look into his eyes, you're looking into the beauties and mysteries of the world," he said in a way that makes us suspect that he has done so many, many times.
PLEASE NOTE!

Due to the March 23, 2020 NM DOH Public Health Order, These Event Listings Are Not Accurate!

All non-essential businesses are closed, public gatherings are prohibited!

(One day some of these events will be rescheduled or will resume, but they are not happening now!)
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How do we improve public schools? Create a first class/second class structure! That was the idea proposed, and (allegedly accidentally) sent out to parents at a school in Florida. The school form offered a variety of rewards in return for donations, including a "front of the lunch line pass," allowing children of the more generous (cough-wealthy-cough) parents to skip ahead of those sad proles stuck waiting for their chicken nugz. But I think it's a shame the principal and PTSA retracted this idea. As we all know, public schools are in dire need of more cash. And what are we supposed to do, use our tax money to fund a bunch of stupid children who don't even have productive jobs? Did you know that children don't pay any taxes? So these money-grubbing little moochers expect big daddy government to take care of them while all they contribute to our GDP is hand turkeys?

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No. I will bravely stand in the face of these children and say no. No more free rides. If you want to be treated with respect in school, you've got to start paying. This will teach children how the real world operates, where wealthy people get to fly first class, and the cheapskate "economy" class gets physically beaten and violently removed from the plane. They have to be taught that being poor comes with consequences, otherwise where would their motivation be to become wealthy?

Time to pay up, children. Did you wet yourself and you'd like to avoid being publicly humiliated? A donation of $75 will get you a new pair of pants and a Sham-wow. No donation? No problem, but you know, it does get awfully...chatty in the teacher's lounge, just saying. Would you like to be popular? A one time installment of $4,000 will get you "called to the principal's office," whereupon you can review a variety of brochures detailing different acts of cool defiance that you'd like to get "suspended for." You'll be sent to the beautiful Cayman Islands for a week, and when you return, you'll be greeted as a hero by your peers for "setting fire to Mr. Albertson's mustache." Heck, if you've got enough dough you can get a voucher to bully a nerd for an hour consequence-free. The cow may say "moo," and the duck may say "quack," but money talks.
Channel programs News

Former Microsoft Channel Veteran Menzione: Great Partnerships Built On Commitment, Shared Vision And Adaptability

Alec Shirkey

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Rapid technology change and inconsistent communication can put tremendous strain on channel relationships, but solution providers can reap significant benefits through greater commitment and investment in their vendor partners.

Few individuals can discuss channel partnership with more authority than Cloud Wave Partners founder Vince Menzione, who spent nearly nine years as general manager of partner sales and strategy at Microsoft. There, he helped guide the Redmond, Wash.-based giant's government business into the cloud era and piloted the licensing programs that remain a part of the Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider program.

"[Solution providers] need a way to connect with the technology giants," said Menzione in a session at The Channel Company's XChange 2017 conference Monday. "They need a way to get information rapidly, persistently. And the tech giants need a way to deliver that message in a more rapid format."

[Related: Traditional Sales Strategies Are 'Under Siege,' But Brand Evangelism Can Help The Channel]

With solution providers in mind, Menzione highlighted several characteristics of partnerships that have thrived, as well as the factors behind ones that have failed, taken from podcast interviews he conducted with leaders across the channel.

Reinventing a business model is extraordinarily difficult for solution providers to do and requires true commitment at the leadership level to remain in lockstep with vendors. Some partnerships fail because solution providers weren't aggressive enough in buying into a vendor's larger vision  be it cloud transformation or another disruptive technology  or because partners didn't understand how to effectively market their unique value proposition to vendors.

Solution providers need to take a simple, aggressive approach to self-branding, he said.

In addition to being committed to making their own investments in marketing, solution providers need to develop their own pipelines and show independence in generating leads, Menzione said.

Commitment, from understanding the cadence of the vendor's sales strategy to embracing accreditation and training programs, also are key.

Solution providers that have proved themselves valuable to their vendor partners exhibited genuine investment by sales staff in the field, adaptability as vendors tweak program and even shift businesses, and the ability to clearly define the scope of their offerings and, if possible, develop a niche.

Menzione then took the discussion a step further by defining a few attributes of partnerships that cracked the top "1 percent" in terms of quality. Chief among them: shared purpose, organizationwide commitment sourced at the leadership level and, lastly, interdependence.

"The partner understands the vision at a very deep level and is committed to that vision all out," Menzione said.

Of interdependence, Menzione quoted a discussion he had with Jason Rook, vice president of market development at Chicago-based solution provider 10th Magnitude. "It's speaking the same way to the customer without the [vendor] partner present," he said. "If [customers] say they want to go with their competitors, I'm going to say, 'We'll stay connected, but I'm going to pick up my bags.'"

Arian Soheili, managing director at Surrey, British Columbia-based solution provider Cantatus Systems Group, said the dialogue emphasized a need for his company to foster additional relationships among vendor partners and place greater focus on promoting Cantatus' brand.

"This is a reality check in terms of what the relationship is like," Soheili told CRN. "It will enable me to build a practice with a checklist of activities I need to do."
Managed services News

XChange 2017: Emerging Technologies Present Massive Opportunity For Partners

Sarah Kuranda

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About 18 months ago, OST only had what it called two "true" Internet of Things projects. Today, the company's Director of Marketing and Communications Michael Lomonaco said the company had seen a massive acceleration, with 14 IoT projects in progress and two more contracts in the works.

"These are big projects and for us. It's taking our skill sets  and we're working with customers on some fantastic projects that are big opportunities," Lomonaco said. Grand Rapids, Mich.-based OST is using IoT to help its customers grow their businesses, run more efficiently and improve operations, he said.

OST isn't alone. A panel of top solution providers at XChange 2017, moderated by The Channel Company CEO Robert Faletra in Orlando, Fla. on Tuesday, said they are seeing an increasing opportunity for partners around emerging technology areas that offer higher margin services and the potential to work across more areas of a customer's business.

[Related: Fortinet Channel Chief: A New Wave Of Security Technology Is Needed For Today's Threats]

The partners said they see opportunities to help customers in several emerging tech areas, including the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, data and analytics, and the cloud. However, they said partners have to approach adopting these new technologies in the right way if they want to succeed. "Its fantastic," Lomonaco said. "The margins are awesome  But, it's not without a lot of pain."

John Head, chief evangelist and business development for Schaumburg, Ill.-based PSC Group, said his company, every quarter, takes five to eight of the company's 120 consultants and creates a technology labs team that works 16 hours a week in a new technology area. This helps PSC Group evaluate technologies early to see if they fit into customer environments, he said.

"We're already starting to see the effects of that," Head said. "It allows our staff to get involved early  The effects from that bubble up."

Michael Knight (pictured), president and CTO of Greenville, S.C.-based Encore Technology Group, said his company evaluates many "bleeding edge" technology areas and focuses on making sure the technology can fit within or be adapted to a customer's existing capabilities, instead of trying to "boil the ocean." For other areas, he said Encore Technology Group teams up with other ecosystem partners with strong skills in areas outside of its expertise.

John Shaw, CEO of Austin, Texas-based Digital Nebula, said that when embracing new fields like artificial intelligence, the partner's role is to help business leaders think differently about technology. "We get the business folks together and talk about how they can use AI to transform their businesses," Shaw said. "We try to teach businesses to start with the customer experience and work backward."

However, Shaw said embracing new technologies does mean customers need the ability to "throw away" technologies that don't fit their new way of doing business.

OST's Lomonaco said his company created an entirely new role around 24 months ago focused on "marketing insights." He said the role works across the organization, talk to customers about their needs, and ask tough questions of technology vendors. The goal, he said, is to find technologies that OST can build a business around, not just "one off" opportunities. Also, that role aims to help customers use new technologies to run their businesses more efficiently.

The panel of partners agreed that the transition to emerging technology areas isnt easy as new markets and use cases are still being defined. Also, adding capabilities to sell new tech means balancing the need for new staff and the early days of a new revenue stream.

OST's Lomonaco said his business experienced some growing pains as it looked to embrace several emerging technologies. He said his business saw three quarters of "rocket" growth, followed by a setback due to personnel expenses. He said OST is back on track, having resolved the issue and made sure the company's stakeholders are all working toward the same goals.
Weve written about the insider who wreaked havoc on a company after he resigned. We've also written about the executive who is recruited away by a competitor and is alleged to have taken his employers intellectual property (IP) with him on the way out the door.

But we havent discussed the former employee who resigns to create a company that competes against you and uses continued access to remain competitive  until now.

Jason Needham used to work at Allen & Hoshall, a design and engineering company located in Memphis, Tennessee. Needham resigned and co-founded a competing company, HNA-Engineering, but he didnt leave Allen & Hoshalls presence. No, he helped himself to the labors of his former employer, and he did it from afar.

According to the Department of Justice:

Needham admitted to repeatedly accessing, over a nearly two-year period, Allen & Hoshalls servers to download digitally rendered engineering schematics and more than 100 PDF documents containing project proposals and budgetary documents.

Needham also admitted to accessing, on hundreds of occasions, the email account of a former colleague at Allen & Hoshall, which provided Needham access to the firms marketing plans, project proposals, company fee structures and the rotating account credentials for the companys internal document-sharing system.

Needham used his unauthorized access to view, download and copy proprietary business information worth over $500,000.

Thats a mouthful. According to court documents, Needham left Allen & Hoshall in 2013 and co-founded HNA Engineering (HNA) in Arlington, Tennessee. The GovTribe listing for HNA identifies Needham as the point of contact for government business. Its important to note from the outset, that Needhams business partner at HNA warned Needham against taking these actions.

Needham had normal, authorized access to Allen & Hoshall's FTP servers during his period of employment. When he left Allen & Hoshall, his access credentials were revoked and terminated (2013). It is not explained in the court documents how, with his access credentials revoked, Needham managed to continually access the FTP servers from 2014 to 2016. According to Allen & Hoshall, those who had access were limited to people within Allen & Hoshall who had a need to know and the client. What is known is Needham downloaded a boatload of data (as detailed above).

Needham also accessed the email of a former Allen & Hoshall colleague. Again, the court documents do not reveal how Needham came to have the log-in credentials for the employees email. What is known is that via this individuals email account, Needham had access to the business side of Allen & Hoshall (as detailed above).

Strong off-boarding process needed

What could Allen & Hoshall have done better during the off-boarding of Needham to obviate the risk of his access? The court documents show us that Allen & Hoshall changed their FTP password credentials and that the defendant circumvented the change. One may speculate this access was made possible through his having compromised the email of his former colleague.

We dont know if Allen & Hoshall had data loss protection technologies in place that would have highlighted Needhams IP address as both unexpected and unauthorized. We do know that when the IP logs were inspected, Needham's IP address was noted as having accessed the email of his former colleague, thus there were logs present.

If the FTP servers and email access required multifactor authentication, would Needham been thwarted? And though malevolent in intent, would he have been denied access from the outset?

The bottom line: Your trusted insider is trustworthy  until they arent. When an employee leaves, make sure the off-boarding process is comprehensive. And let colleagues and customers know the employee has departed and that access control lists are being adjusted and credentials reissued. Greed is a primary motivator for individuals to bend the rules and purloin the IP of others for their own benefit

And yes, Needham was sentenced to 18 months in prison, with two years of supervised release, and ordered to repay Allen & Hoshall $173,393.71.
Ever swallowed a fly?

Inhaled a gnat?



Been bombarded by a whole family reunion of yellow jackets while mowing the lawn?



These insects swarm, pester, and sometimes sting. A lot like our thoughts. Those nagging, bothersome embarrassments that come like an unwanted case of shingles.



But most of us would not assume an inhaled gnat was now a part of who we are. Nor would we conclude, that a swallowed fly now constituted a vital aspect of our personality. And wed never presume that being stung by a yellow jacket would indicate we were somehow or another, now yellow-jackety.



Obtrusive Marauders That Are Not Us



In all these instances, we recognize there are obtrusive marauders forces from the outside that are acting on us, which are in no meaningful way a part of us.

Our pestering thoughts arent altogether different in effect from summers tiny swarming agitation crews. Unwanted indictments, unavoidable accusations, and inappropriate insinuations flood our minds like spam clogs our inbox.



Only it isnt uncommon for us to receive these unsolicited thoughts like unanticipated collect calls from unknown area codes and then to imagine they are our fault, or worse, that they are us.

A sinister suspicion, a darkly lustful imagining, a hateful passing notion of vengeancethese sneak in like thieves, and we suddenly imagine that they are revealing determinative opinions about us.



Dont Let Them Build Nests

Martin Luther once pithily suggested:

You cant stop birds from flying over head but you can keep them from building nests in your hair.



Luther had distressing familiarity with a bevy of unwanted thoughts. His PhD in unbidden obtrusions would have compelled him to reassure modern folks that its a horrendous practice to give too much credence to whatever comes into ones mind.



Of course, he, along with the Scriptures, believed we had a sinister enemy, a grim Prince of Darkness. (who seems to have made a shameless, destructive and dehumanizing appearance in Charlottesville this past weekend)



This enemy is a deceiver. The Father of lies who rather enjoys tricking us and wounding us with launches of his fiery darts. Those diseased thoughts he sends come with his interest in making sure we feel compelled to inspect, appraise, value and internalize all the takes up residence in our minds.



In that way we become entirely passive punching bags for our thoughts which force us, often unwittingly into assuming how we ought to act, feel, or be.



But in the same way that you would not cede authority to a swallowed gnat, nor to an ingested fly, you likewise dont have an obligation to all the special interest groups of assailing thoughts that bully their way into your mind.

Jesus once urged we exercise care lest our spiritual arteries get clogged with God-amnesia, anxiety, and drunkenness (or a way to medicate that intolerable inward static we sometimes feel). This was, of course, his way of highlighting that life comes from paying attention to Me and not merely to the long lines of rude thoughts pushing and shoving for your undivided attention.

Dispel the Fog

The other day a wise friend shared that when tempting thoughts bulldoze his mindthose aggravating inevitabilities that come from who knows where and over whose arrival none of us seem to have any powerI have just taken to speaking audibly the word, Jesus. It dispels the fog of that thought that is seeking to cover me up.

Of course wise spiritual practitioners throughout the ages have taken similar tacts to reorient themselves when they discover themselves trapped within a labyrinth of themselves. Thus the well-worn from use Jesus Prayer:



Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.



Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones famously noticed while traipsing through the Psalms that the pray-er in Psalm 42 actually seems to do a lot more talking to himself than listening to himself, thereby refusing to accept his own inner thoughts as the authoritative statement about his life. Lloyd-Jones instructs:

Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them but they are talking to you, they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc. Somebody is talking. Who is talking to you? Your self is talking to you. Now this mans treatment [in Psalm 42] was this: instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? he asks. His soul had been depressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says, Self, listen for moment, I will speak to you.

When you have an Attention Deficit Disordered heart you sometimes have to lead it by the nose right back to the reality of God for whom you were made.



And when assailing thoughts come your way, you simply dont have to listen to them. When they bang on your door, you don't have to open up to them, and should they bust into your living room, you don't have to offer them a drink!



Instead, you ignore them.



And you turn your attention to Christ.



You are one in whom Jesus has taken up residence.



Your enemy hates that. The world and its powers detest that. So there are going to be enemy attacks. You just dont have to pay attention to them. They may be powerful, but you neednt ascribe any authority to them.



Gk Chesterton once suggested, If a rhinoceros were to enter this restaurant now, there is no denying he would have great power here. But I should be the first to rise and assure him that he had no authority whatever.



Though the power of an obtrusive thought be rhino-fierce and strong, we must rise and assure ourselves that it has no authority in us whatever.



In a 2003 movie called Luther, a young Martin Luther is distressed before his spiritual confessor, Johann Stuapitz.



Stuapitz, trying to help Luther steward himself, assures him, Arguing with the devil never does any of us any good. He has had years of practice. He knows all the weak spots.



And as a frightened, bewildered, and desperate Luther, hankering for the solace of the mercy of God engages him in conversation, Stuapitz dispenses a simple yet powerful antibiotic for the raging virus of nasty, condemning, and frightening thoughts:



Bind yourself to Christ and you will know God's love. Say to Him, "I'm yours. Save me."

I am yours. Save me.



Give that a whirl the next time unwanted notions bully their way into your mind.



Offer yourself to Jesus who lives in you, will fight for you and wants to bear the fragrance of his life through yours.



Yield yourself to Him with confidence, and count on an answer each time you insist, I am yours. Save me.

---

Contact Eric Youngblood, pastor of Rock Creek Fellowship on Lookout Mountain, at eric@rockcreekfellowship.org




NEW HAVEN >> A tense, bilingual dialogue between city police and a distraught woman who was threatening to jump off a downtown high-rise prevented a tragic incident and culminated in an emotional reunion Monday.

New Haven Police spokesman Officer David Hartman detailed the events in a four-page release Monday, highlighting work between city and Yale University police in saving a 24-year-old woman who was threatening to leap off the 16-story Madison Towers. .

The woman was saved when officers grabbed her while offering ice that the woman had requested for her feet due to the heat. A body camera video released by New Haven police Monday shows officers rushing toward a single officer who grabbed the woman near the buildings ledge.

Hartman said the woman visited police headquarters Monday afternoon, arriving alone to meet Officer Elvin Rivera, who is among the officers credited for helping save the woman.

In the public lobby, they shared an emotional private moment. Theyd all been through a lot and were each thankful, Hartman said in the release.

Yale University police Sgt. Dan Rainville and Officer Alex Rivera were the first law enforcement officers to arrive at the scene on July 30 and were shortly followed by New Haven police Officers Yonick Crawford, Jason Jemiola and Paul Cavalier. The woman was standing behind a chain-link fence lining the perimeter of the buildings roof when officers arrived. Hartman said in the release the roofs ledge had just enough space for the woman to stand, leaving her heels perched at the edge while she faced the building. The woman was drinking Merlot and her bag was later allegedly found to contain PCP.

The woman, who does not live at the building, told officers she wanted to end her life and threatened to jump. Officers pleaded with the woman not to jump and told her they were there to listen to her.

Alex Rivera, a trained crisis negotiator, allowed the woman to talk. He learned she was there after going though a, difficult time, including arguing with her husband. Hartman said police later concluded the woman was meeting with a man she had met earlier on Derby Avenue and sneaked onto the roof. The woman said once there that she wanted to jump, prompting the man to head to the buildings lobby and have someone contact police.

Alex Rivera told the woman to think about those she cares about, the people who would suffer without her.

After several frightening stumbles, Officer Rivera persuaded her to hold on to the fence, Hartman said in the release.

New Haven Officer Elsa Berrios arrived at the scene and was the only woman on the roof beside the distressed person. After Jemiola asked the woman if she would feel more comfortable to have a woman speak to her, the woman agreed.

Berrios approached cautiously and quickly started a conversation, alternating between English and Spanish. Hartman said they spoke in whatever language seemed to comfort the woman, who threatened me brinco, Spanish for, Ill jump. She then finished the remainder of her wine bottle. The scene grew tenser when the woman reached into a bag she had and took out a beer bottle, which she fumbled and dropped, leading her to stumble on the ledge.

Berrios told the woman, Were sisters...hermanas, telling her, we all have bad days. At this point, Berrios husband, Officer Elvin Rivera, arrived on scene with a rookie officer he was training. Elvin Rivera engaged the woman in conversation  in English and Spanish, like his wife  speaking about religion and other topics.

After growing comfortable talking to Elvin Rivera, the woman said her feet were on fire due to the high temperatures the roof. By then, Hartman said officers had been speaking with the woman for more than hour. Officers were able to move the ice toward the woman in bucket-brigade fashion, Hartman said, afraid to move from their position on the roof.

Elvin Rivera took the ice and moved near the edge where the woman stood. He told the woman, Yo te quiero, y Dios te quieres, or I love you and God loves you, according to the release.

In front of Gods eyes, come to me, Elvin Rivera said with open arms.

The woman was holding on the fence but would lean back to allow a foot to dangle over the ledge. Rivera coaxed the woman into moving toward him, holding ice in hand.

As the woman grew closer, Rivera acted. Hartman said Rivera reached out and grabbed her, despite the womans pushing. Rivera was immediately supported by Rainville, Alex Rivera and Jemiola, who rushed over the fence to grab Rivera after he grabbed the woman by the arm.

Hartman said there is no blueprint for what assures success in saving a suicidal person from death. About 80 NHPD officers are Crisis Intervention Team-trained, while the department is hoping to make it a department-wide training in the future. The department partners with several local partners to develop their hostage negotiating techniques.

Whether influenced by drugs and alcohol, tormented by mental illness or trauma or those who suffer through immeasurable heartache, require unique approaches, Hartman said in the release.

Reach Esteban L. Hernandez at 203-680-9901.
DERBY >> A police officer is truly never off duty.

Just ask Officer Bruce Giovanelli, a member of the Derby Police Department, who is being hailed a hero for helping save the life of a child while vacationing in Florida last week.

Giovanelli was at his nephews 7th birthday party, where children were splashing around in Giovanellis brother in laws in-ground pool.

In the midst of the celebration, however, an 8-year-old boy fell into the pool and lost consciousness.

Giovanelli, 39, was in the kitchen when he said two mothers ran into the house, saying a boy had drowned and to call 911.

Giovanelli leapt into action.

I went running out to the pool and observed a boy, named Hudson, laying next to the pool ... and appeared to be lifeless, said Giovanelli, a father of two daughters. Thats when panic mode set in for all the parents. Parents were screaming, kids were crying.

Giovanelli noticed a man kneeling beside Hudson who said he was CPR certified. Giovanelli told the man he was a police officer and trained in CPR, too. He checked the boy for a pulse, but there was none.

I told the male to start compressions and I will administer breaths, Giovanelli added. As he began compressions, I had to inform parents to leave the area, as there were still parents in panic mode because they didnt know what to do.

Some four minutes later, which Giovanelli said felt more like four hours, he felt a pulse and Hudson began to choke and started to cry a little bit.

Before long, police and paramedics arrived and a LifeStar helicopter landed in the backyard to transport Hudson to Tampa General Hospital.

Giovanelli visited Hudson at the hospital the following day. He was overjoyed to learn that Hudson made a full recovery after the ordeal, and was released later that day.

Giovanelli, whos been on the Derby police force for seven years, said the moral of this story is to make sure everyone gets CPR certified.

If you have a wife, husband, family member or friend that is not CPR certified, tell them to do it, Giovanelli said. If I did not make the trip to Florida or if that male was not CPR certified, that boy would not be alive today.

Giovanelli went to Florida after being asked to be godfather to his niece. The baptism was celebrated the day before the birthday party.

As a father himself, Giovanelli said he knows how precious life is.

As always be safe and get home to your families and hug them, he said.

Police Chief Gerald Narowski wasnt surprised by Giovanellis heroic actions.

The fine police officers serving this community know that human life is precious; the life of a child even more so, said Narowski. First responders are never truly off duty. I have no doubt in my mind that Bruces training kicked in and he never once thought about giving up to save that child! We are very proud of him and his heroic actions. This is truly representative of the caliber of public servants we have in our community. We send our best wishes to the family and wish the child a speedy recovery.

Mayor Anita Dugatto said Derby is proud to have Giovanelli onboard.

Officer Bruce Giovanellis act shows that his heroism is not limited to his time in uniform, Dugatto said. We are incredibly proud to have someone so selfless and brave working as a police officer here in Derby.

Giovanellis mother, Karen, of West Haven, is grateful her son was in the right place at the right time.

I am so proud of him, she said. Bruce has always been so kind, and as he got older knew he wanted to be a police officer. These days I feel like police officers dont get the recognition they deserve ... and this is a story worth sharing about the good things police do, both on and off duty.
BRIDGEPORT - The city has continued to pay a police officer suspended following his arrest in 2016 for allegedly assaulting a man at a Fairfield motel and then driving drunk.

Officer Omar Jimenez, 34, was recently granted a diversionary program by a Superior Court judge that will result in the charges against him being dismissed on Feb. 1, 2018 if he commits no new crimes.

A diversionary program was granted after careful consideration by the court, said Jimenezs lawyer, John R. Gulash. Gulash would not comment further.

Jimenez was suspended with pay in September 2016 following his arrest by Fairfield police on the charges of second-degree assault, second-degree threatening, and disorderly conduct and by Bridgeport police for driving under the influence, evading responsibility and failure to drive right.

He is still suspended with pay pending the outcome of his assault and DUI charges. Once that legal situation is resolved, he will also face departmental discipline, said the Police Departments spokesman, Av Harris.

Police said in the early morning of Sept. 5, 2016, Jimenez went to the Fairfield Circle Inn and punched a friend in the face during an argument. Then, driving his own car, Jimenez allegedly struck a fire hydrant at Fairfield and Courtland avenues, knocked it off its base and fled the scene, returning to the Circle Inn, police said.

Bridgeport police went to the Circle Inn and located Jimenez in the hotel parking lot. Jimenez had bloodshot eyes, was unsteady on his feet and was swaying and there was an odor of alcohol. He failed field sobriety tests administered by Bridgeport officers, police said.

In 2015, Jimenez was suspended for 30 days and ordered to undergo counseling after he failed a department drug test.
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BRIDGEPORT  The father of Jayson Negron, the 15-year-old fatally shot by a rookie cop in May, has laid the groundwork for a lawsuit against the city.

Attorneys for Juan Negron filed, as required by state law, a short notice of intention to sue, offering nearly a dozen reasons why Negrons death occurred through the neglect and default of the city and/or its employees.

According to the document, Bridgeport police officers and their supervisors were poorly trained and poorly equipped to deal with the situation, Negron never should have been fired upon, and once mortally wounded, the cops failed to provide the teenager reasonable medical care.

Of course, that is all speculation. The case is still in the hands of the state police, which has maintained a strict silence over any new developments.

Michael Rosnick, an attorney for Juan Negron, noted that the father and his counsel are awaiting the results of that investigation before filing suit.

Negron, Bridgeport police have said, was at the wheel of a stolen vehicle when officers stopped him on Fairfield Avenue, between Park Avenue and the Route 8/25 overpass, around 5 p.m. May 9.

Police Chief Armando A.J. Perez has accused Negron of accelerating in reverse and striking at least one officer  James Boulay, 30, who had been sworn in last September. Boulay  fearing for his life, according to Perez  fired into the vehicle and struck Negron in the chest.

Negron was subsequently removed from the vehicle, his hands cuffed behind his back and, according to a one-minute amateur video of the scene, left face down on the street, still alive.

Asked to comment on Juan Negrons pending lawsuit, City Attorney R. Christopher Meyer on Tuesday first called Jayson Negrons death a very, very sad incident."

You hate to see any tragedy to any young man or any family, Meyer said. I dont think theres any real liability against the city or the officer. As unfortunate as the situation is, it wasnt created by us  by the city  or the officer. It became a very dangerous situation. And nobodys happy with the way it turned out.

The allegations leveled against the police department by Juan Negron and his lawyers are not unfamiliar. Congregations Organized for a new Connecticut (CONECT), a group of 25 churches, synagogues and mosques, has similarly claimed that Bridgeport cops are not well-trained in deescalation tactics, in avoiding use of their firearms and in patrolling such a diverse city.

Perez, who met privately with CONECT leaders last month, has stood behind the training his men and women receive.

The 1 minute footage showing an apparently still alive Negron, handcuffed and bleeding, also lead to questions about whether he could have received medical attention sooner, even if it had been from police as they awaited the emergency medical professionals.

The chief has said he got medical care quickly, David McGuire, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union-Connecticut, said in late May. But if there were really 20 minutes between the shooting and when the first aid came, that's a long time to have someone who has serious gunshot wounds who is essentially bleeding on the street to just be sitting there."

As for Boulay, Perez said the officer briefly returned to work  desk duty  but is out again.

Hes taking it really hard," Perez said. It has changed his life significantly. He's a caring person. A good guy. It's weighing very heavy on him.
STAMFORD  The 27-year-old woman killed by gunfire last weekend in Stratford was involved with city nonprofit Domus Kids, attending two of its charter schools and working briefly for the organization after her graduation.

Over the years, Raenetta Catchings had become a member of the Domus family, its leaders said. Domus operates Trailblazers Academy middle school and Stamford Academy high school, and other programs for struggling youth in the city.

Weve known her since she was 12, said Garland Walton, who worked for Domus for more than 15 years and is now a consultant to the nonprofit. She was like a lot of kids who are in our program for a while  they become like family. She was well-known for calling people on their birthdays and the holidays. There are a lot of us who were there the entire time she was with us, and Id like to think she trusted us and knew we were in her corner.

Police said Catchings was killed when gunfire erupted early Sunday morning at a 50th birthday party on North Avenue in Stratford. Catchings was shot twice, a source told Hearst Connecticut Media. She died from gunshot wounds after arriving at Bridgeport Hospital, police said.

Police have not made any arrests or disclosed a motive for the shooting, which also left a 24-year-old man critically injured as of Sunday.

Former Stamford Academy Principal Mike McGuire said Catchings, a cheerleader who often made the honor roll, was part of the schools first incoming freshman class in 2004.

She was affable, compassionate, caring and very bright, McGuire said. She had a radiant smile that was infectious, and she always put others before herself. She called me on my birthday every year for 15 years, including last year.

Her brothers and other family members also attended Domus schools, and her mother, Leona, did administrative work at Stamford Academy, McGuire said. Domuss Stamford Academy, which caters to students who are not thriving at public schools, has smaller class sizes and an enrollment of only about 150.

Catchings, a mother of two children, recently told McGuire she was planning to go back to college.

All of us in our community here are sad, said McGuire, who was Stamford Academys principal from 2004 to 2010, and is now its director of school support services. I heard from many of her classmates and friends who are in disbelief that someone as special as Raenetta has left us so early.

Domus leaders learned about the shooting just hours after it happened on Sunday.

Raenetta was a beautiful person, inside and out, Domus Executive Director Michael Duggan said. She was really smart, and Im happy and proud she worked for us long after going through both our Stamford schools. During her last visit to Domus, it was clear she was truly the mature, confident woman we all knew shed become. Were heartsick this has happened to this kind and joyous young mom who had so much love for her young children.

Staff writer Bill Cummings contributed to this story.

eskalka@stamfordadvocate.com
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STRATFORD  Police on Monday released the name of a local woman fatally shot early Sunday morning outside her home.

Raenetta Catchings, 27, was shot as she stood in the street in front of her home on North Avenue, police said. A 24-year-old man, who police have not identified, was also wounded and remains in critical condition.

Police said a party was held at Catchings home on Saturday for a friends 50th birthday. They said the party had been breaking up when the shooting took place, but had no known motive. Police said witnesses told them the two victims had been arguing in the street when the shots rang out.

Officers with dogs later searched the area for the murder weapon.

On Monday, friends of Catchings had set up a small memorial outside her home. There were a couple of bouquets of flowers, an empty bottle of Mikes Hard Lemonade and assorted religious candles.

A man who lives down the street from the crime scene said its a good neighborhood. But, he added, the house where the shootings occurred has been a problem since the family moved in three years ago.

More News Stratford woman dead from gun shots early Sunday morning

There has been trouble over there before, the man said, adding he was out of town at the time of the shootings. I heard about the commotion when I got back.

According to police, the family living in the North Ave. home  a large yellow house with a gabled roof line  and the family next door in a single-story white house are related.

A party Saturday night involved both homes, police said.

A large sign in the shape of Superman and displaying the words Happy 50th Birthday Henry was still posted outside Monday.
The National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Chattanooga Chapter, Inc. and the Mayors Council for Women are partnering to host the second annual Make It Matter! Make It Happen! Make It a Healthy Lifestyle! health and wellness financial conference for women and girls. This years event will be held at the Family Justice Center on Saturday, Sept. 16 from 7:30 a.m.-2 p.m."More than 200 women and girls, ranging in age from 12 to 90, attended last years inaugural health and wellness conference.This year, we are looking to have an even greater impact by expanding the dialogue to include financial matters. As well, the Mayors Council for Women is joining this effort as we all work to impact the lives of women and girls in our community."Topics include, but are not limited to, sex education, domestic violence, self-esteem, as well as the importance of living a healthy lifestyle. Because there are certain diseases that are predominate among females, it is important that a comfortable environment is cultivated that encourages women and girls to openly and honestly dialogue about their health concerns. For that reason, only female health care providers, speakers, and exhibitors have been invited to participate," officials said.The conference is free and limited to 225 participants. Pre-registration is required. Registration is open and ends Sept. 9. All interested women and girls may pre-register by calling 423-778 (LINK) or 423-778-5465. Walk-ins will be accommodated if space permits. Minors will require written permission from a parent or legal guardian to attend the conference.Front Porch Alliance is this years Platinum Sponsor. The luncheon sponsor is SunTrust Bank.
You might have heard that its really tough for millennials to buy a home these days. Theyre drowning in college debt, struggling with a small housing supply because boomers arent selling, and its all making them feel bummed about their homeownership prospects.

Now one report says they may never own a home if they keep attending bachelor parties in Instagram-worthy locations.

The real estate site Zillow found that the average cost of attending nine bachelor or bachelorette parties in a persons lifetime comes surprisingly close to the 20 percent down payment on a median-priced US home. Though, not so much if youre living in the Bay Area.

Zillow reached that conclusion by looking at bachelor party data from the wedding site The Knot. That surveys respondents, who were not all millennials, said they spend an average of $1,532 on bachelor parties and $1,106 on bachelorette parties  including travel and lodgings. The site found that one in five bachelor parties is a destination wedding, requiring travel.

Attend nine bachelor parties, which a person can easily do in their 20s and 30s, and youre looking at $13,788. Sure, that would buy a mountain of avocado toast, but thats also about one-third of the down payment on the price of the median US home: $200,000.

Thats also not including the added cost of attending the wedding itself  the Knot data says the average wedding attendee spends $888 including travel, lodgings, wedding attire, and gifts; people in the wedding party spend an average of $1,154.

Of course, for those of us in expensive metropolitan areas, theres a big caveat: Even if you save that amount of bachelor/bachelorette party money, you still may be way short of the dough needed to buy a home. The median-priced San Francisco-metro area home according to Zillow is $854,300, meaning if you attend no bachelor parties (think of the FOMO), youre only saving 8.1 percent of a 20 percent down payment. For bachelorettes, its 5.8 percent.

Within San Francisco itself, the median-priced home is over $1.2 million. And if you can afford a house at that price, you can probably afford to send off your friends.

In Seattle, which is rapidly getting expensive as well and has a median price of $447,100, nine bachelorette parties amount to 15.4 percent of the 20 percent down payment  for bachelorettes, 11.1 percent.

Save that party cash in Texas, on the other hand, and youre much closer to buying that home. The median price in Houston is $178,400, and nine bachelor parties equal 38.6 percent of your down payment  27.9 percent for bachelorettes.

And in San Antonio, where the median is $162,700, you could save a hefty 42.4 percent of your payment by not attending bachelor parties instead  30.6 percent for bachelorettes. Just stay away from your social-media feeds if you do.
A group of close to one hundred local real estate agents were training at the Keller Williams Greater Downtown office during the time of the 2016 Woodmore bus tragedy. After taking initiative to donate to the school, the agents raised eleven thousand dollarswith money contributed from as far as Keller Williams in Alaska.



During the training event, a group of agents decided to auction a teddy bear with proceeds to benefit the children of Woodmore Elementary. The bear sold for five hundred dollars. Soon all other participants contributed their previous bids, collectively raising nearly eight thousand dollars in minutes. Agents from Keller Williams continued to raise money throughout the year. Contributions came from all across the state of Tennessee and as far as Anchorage, Ak.



Team Leader, Nathan Brown, delivered the check to Principal Dionne Upton and Assistant Principal Talley Caldwell at Woodmore Elementary where it will be contributed to the Support, Create, Enrich Fund. The fund was launched in 2016 after the accident.



Part of the Mission of Keller Williams is to build lives worth living and legacies worth leaving, said Mr. Brown. Our agents at Keller Williams Greater Downtown strive to leave a legacy of giving in their community by making it a priority to give back.



"Keller Williams Chattanooga created a public charity called Greater Chattanooga Cares to support their own agents during hardship and other non-profits in the community. Since 2016, Greater Chattanooga Cares gave nearly $50,000 in grants to help associates and community programs," officials said.


When the Great Eclipse of 2017 takes place on Aug. 21, students in six area school systems will be able to remember the historic moment thanks to the donation of special eclipse viewing glasses.The Allan Jones Foundation announced this week that 43,000 special dark glasses were donated by Check Into Cash, Buy Here Pay Here USA and U.S. Money Shops  all businesses founded by Tennessee businessman Mr. Jones who considers the eclipse to be the educational opportunity of a lifetime  and a chance for some major fun.The school systems included are Bradley County, Cleveland, Dalton, Dayton, Rhea County, and Whitfield County.The glasses were made by American Paper Optics, one of the few companies approved by NASA as safe.The glasses are personalized with the date and a unique message for the school systems so that students would have a special historical keepsake that they could keep in their favorite drawer.There are people traveling to the United States from all over the world to see the only total eclipse of the sun in the last 26 years  its a major event that people will talk about for generations and no one is more excited than kids, said Mr. Jones. We wanted students to be able to have fun watching the eclipse without risking eye damage and that is why we considered only glasses that were NASA-approved.Mr. Jones recalled that as a child, he was always a big fan of astronomy and that fascination carried over into adulthood.I took an astronomy class at Cleveland State, but I only attended about half the classes, said Mr. Jones. My wife, Janie, kept telling me I was going to fail. However, I ended up making a 98.Mr. Jones  who later went to Barbados to see Haileys Comet - said he passed the class thanks to two magazine subscriptions  one to Sky magazine and another to a magazine called Astronomy.The businessman got the idea to purchase the glasses for this summers Aug. 21 eclipse after remembering how a partial eclipse back in the 80s went largely uncelebrated by the local schools.My daughter Courtney was in the fourth grade, so I went and got some welding glasses and used a machine to label them Courtneys welding glasses and I put the date on them, Mr. Jones said. When the eclipse came, I took her out of class and we went to the front lawn of the school and watched it and then I took her back to class. It was amazing to me that nobody else in the school was interested.During the Aug. 21 eclipse, the Moon's shadow will fly across the United States in about 90 minutes. The path of this shadow - or The Path of Totality - is where observers will see the Moon completely cover the Sun for about two and a half minutes. The Path of Totality is a relatively thin ribbon around 70 miles wide that will cross the U.S. from West to East.Along with Cleveland and Bradley County, four other school systems are also receiving the glasses - Rhea County, Dayton, Dalton, and Whitfield County. Rhea students are in the Path of Totality, although students in Whitfield County and Dalton will need to travel 45 minutes away to Blue Ridge, Ga. to place themselves in the path.We want our students to realize that some people are driving or flying thousands of miles just to get themselves into The Path, said Mr. Jones. And here it is, coming right to your neighborhood or very close to your neighborhood. Dont miss it, because if you do you will have to wait seven years for another one in 2024.
The Tennessee Physical Therapy Association presented the Outstanding Physical Therapist Assistant of the Year Award to Keith Myers, PTA, MBA, CEAS III, and CEFE, of BenchMark Physical Therapy. Mr. Myers, a 2004 graduate of Chattanooga States Physical Therapist Assistant program, also holds both a bachelors and masters degree in Business Administration from Bryan College.

TPTA presents this award annually to those individuals who have exemplified character traits of an outstanding PTA. Recipients are committed to the growth of the TPTA and to the profession of physical therapy, while receiving recognition from colleagues for exceptional service.

Mr. Myers has been employed at BenchMark Physical Therapy since February 2001. In 2008, he was named regional director. Currently, he oversees the day-to-day operations of 21 clinics in Tennessee and North Georgia, including the clinic budgets, acquisitions, case management, lease and contract negotiations, compliance and marketing, and hiring. Recently promoted to vice president of Industrial Services and Workers Compensation, Mr. Myers says, This is a national company position and I will oversee and sell our industrial services line which includes pre-employment, first aid, flex and stretch, wellness programs, etc., as well as workers compensation in all of BenchMark Rehab Partner clinics.

Mr. Myers believes that there is a clear difference in the caliber of clinician that Chattanooga State produces. Chattanooga State graduates have a much better understanding of exercise protocol and how to progress a patient under the established POC (Plan of Care). Their anatomy background is superior to other programs and they have a solid base when it comes to joint mobilizations and soft tissue. Caroline Rogers, director of Physical Therapy Assistant Program at Chattanooga State, is a great instructor as well as a great voice for PTAs within our profession. She pushes her students to be involved in their professional organization and to excel in the workforce, said Mr. Myers.

Ms. Rogers shares that opinion of her students. She says, The PTA program at Chattanooga State depends on dedicated PTAs who provide exemplary patient care, share their knowledge with students, maintain consistent mentoring relationships with graduates and serve our profession.

BenchMark also provides clinical rotations for current PTA students from Chattanooga State. Mr. Myers along with two other staff members, David Harris and Simon Ibrahim, have been guest lecturers for the colleges PTA program. Many of the staff serve as clinical instructors for the students.

BenchMark employs a total of 14 Chattanooga State PTA graduates including Amanda Myers, PTA, MBA: director of Marketing (2006); David Harris, PTA MBA, CIMT: assistant vice president of Acquisitions (1999); Tiffany Holt, PTA (2004); Simon Ibrahim, PTA, CIMT, CEAS, (2004); Rhonda Haley, PTA: clinic director (1996); Nick Holcomb, PTA, CLT, CAES: clinic director; Morgan Williams, PTA, BS: clinic director (2011); Kristie Kessler, PTA, CEAS (2007); Cindy Stanaway, PTA (2005); Rikki Heard (2013); Michelle Cash, PTA (2012); Chandra Campbell (2014); Caleb Capshaw (2016); and Kenneth Morgan (2009).

For more information about Chattanooga States Physical Therapist Assistant program, contact Caroline Rogers at 697-4730 or visit https://www.chattanoogastate.edu/physical-therapist-assistant-aas.






Great Allegheny Passage improvements coming

The bids were opened Nov. 1 and Adam Eidemiller's was the lower of two bids received. The project will take two weeks starting within the next week.
BenchMark Physical Therapy named Keith Myers, PTA, MBA, CEAS III. CEFE, as vice president of Industrial Services and Workers Compensation. This is a national role in which Mr. Myers will oversee and sell BenchMarks industrial services line which includes pre-employment, first aid, flex and stretch, and wellness programs, as well as workers compensation in all of BenchMark Rehab Partners clinics across 13 states.

Mr.

The Tennessee Physical Therapy Association (TPTA) recently presented the Outstanding Physical Therapist Assistant of the Year Award to Mr. Myers for his service to the physical therapy profession. In 2016, he was a keynote speaker at the National Workers Compensation and Disability conference in New Orleans where he presented his comprehensive program on safety, prevention, and wellness. He was awarded the Spirit of Service Award at BenchMark Physical Therapy in 2013 for his volunteer work in the community. He has served as legislative chair and SIG chair roles with the Tennessee Physical Therapy Association and has over six years of industrial rehabilitation and wellness in manufacturing settings.
Miller & Martin PLLC announced that nine of its attorneys were named Best Lawyers "Lawyer of the Year" for 2018 for their respective disciplinesin their cities. Only a single lawyer in each specialty, within a metropolitan area, is honored as "Lawyer of the Year."

Those recognized as "Lawyer of the Year" receive particularly impressive ratings in Best Lawyers surveys by earning a high level of respect among their peers for their abilities, professionalism and integrity.

Best Lawyers "Lawyer of the Year" for the Chattanooga Metropolitan Area:

 John R.

 William L. Brown - Arbitration

 Christie Kizer Burbank - Health Care Law

 James M. Haley IV - Securitization and Structured Finance Law

 Douglas T. Johnson - Trademark Law

 Hugh F. Sharber - Corporate Law

 C. Crews Townsend - Product Liability Litigation - Defendants

 W. Randall Wilson - Litigation  Construction

Best Lawyers "Lawyer of the Year" for the Nashville Metropolitan Area:

 Douglas Berry - Land Use and Zoning Law
Never mind the Whitehall department which convenes every Monday to give me something to write about. This week, the whole world has decided to get in on the act.

August is supposed to be what is known in the trade as the 'silly season', when 'real' news is in short supply and jobbing hacks like me have to scratch around to find something to fill our columns.

Not so today. It's difficult to know where to start. Some of the stories aren't so much silly as sufficiently certifiable to be sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

Should I kick off with the sheep race in Scotland which has been abandoned after a campaign by animal rights fundamentalists?

Campaigners have secured the scrapping of the race in Moffat, Scotland, after saying 'no one asks the sheep'

Or the council in Suffolk which has scrapped all road-signs referring to Cats' Eyes following complaints that they were glorifying cruelty to cats?

Maybe I should start with the Somerset carnival parade which has dropped its traditional carnival queen in favour of five 'carnival ambassadors'.

That's probably enough to be going on with, although there's more. Plenty more, some of which will have to wait.

So here goes. Are you sitting comfort-ably, children? Then I'll begin.

For the past five years, a sheep race has been held in the Scottish town of Moffat, in Dumfries and Galloway. The sheep run through the streets with knitted jockeys tied to their backs.

The event has attracted a growing number of people and firmly established itself as a local tradition.

Now, though, it has been scrapped after 83,000 people 'signed' an online petition. No, they didn't.

They pressed a button on their mobile phones, or retweeted, or texted, or whatever it is they do when they want to express their bogus moral superiority and confected outrage. Most of them would never even have heard of the race until it popped up in their inbox.

They certainly weren't locals. The population of Moffat is 2,500. Until recently, there had not been a single objection.

But the council responded to the online mob by demanding that the race should be properly licensed  something the organisers couldn't afford, so they had to call it off.

Needless to say, the killjoys were ecstatic. One of the campaigners said: 'No one asked the sheep.'

A council in Suffolk has scrapped all road-signs referring to Cats' Eyes following complaints that they were glorifying cruelty to animals

Of course not. They're sheep. They can't talk. But that's not the point. How do the protesters know the sheep weren't having the time of their lives? It can't be much fun being a sheep, standing around all day waiting to be turned into lamb chops and shepherd's pie.

If anyone could have asked the sheep  Dr Dolittle, for instance  they may well have said they loved taking part in the race.

How dare 83,000 people deny these animals a great day out.

Why the hell does anyone take the slightest bit of notice of online petitions? Or complaints about anything from interfering busybodies who are clearly unhinged.

Take the council in Suffolk which has withdrawn the Cats' Eyes notices because they could be 'misinterpreted' by children and foreign tourists.

Frances Knobel, a visitor from Florida, said: 'I had to stop the car and go back to see if I had read the sign correctly. It didn't make any sense and seemed very gruesome that people would boast that poor domestic animals were being so horribly mistreated.

'A local explained that it was the name that Brits gave to the light-reflecting rubber pads that reflect headlights.'

We knew that, pet. So what's the problem? British tourists in Florida are often aghast when they see 'dolphin' on the menu, until it's explained that dolphin is the local name for the fish also known as mahi-mahi.

As far as I'm aware, the governor of Florida hasn't ordered restaurants to stop using the term 'dolphin' just in case a few visitors get the impression they're serving up Flipper and chips.

But it turns out it's not just lassies from Tallahassee who are discombobulated by the term Cats' Eyes.

Rebecca Brewer, of Ipswich, said: 'I have a five-year-old daughter who was very upset the first time she saw the sign  she really thought cruel people were torturing cats. I had to explain to her what it meant  and that our pet cat was quite safe.'

And your point is?

Parents have been having that conversation with their kids ever since Cat's Eyes were invented 80-odd years ago.

So why has Suffolk council decided to waste time and money changing the name to 'road studs'? There is, of course, no accounting for the ocean-going stupidity of the Great British Jobsworth.

Some of the stories aren't so much silly as sufficiently certifiable to be sectioned under the Mental Health Act, writes Richard Littlejohn

But how long before some madwoman objects to 'studs' on the grounds that it celebrates male sexuality and encourages rapists?

Which brings us to Frome, in Somerset, where the carnival queen competition has been given the elbow because it is 'not in keeping with 21st-century values'.

Protesters claim the event gives men the opportunity to 'perve' at attractive young women.

Instead, the carnival procession will feature five 'carnival ambassadors'  two aged between seven and 12, two aged 13 and above and one with no upper age limit.

This, in itself, is fraught with opportunity for misinterpretation. No doubt child protection activists will object on the grounds that parading children through town on the back of a float will only pander to men of the Jimmy Savile persuasion.

Someone from Age Concern is bound to point out that scrapping the upper age limit will turn the celebration of innocent beauty into Grab A Granny Nite.

If they really want to reflect 21st-century values, they'll have to include at least one transgender ambassador and a woman in a burka, as a basis for negotiation.

Still, all contributions gratefully received. And far from scratching around, I've only scratched the surface. There's enough lunacy knocking about to keep Gary in cartoon material for the next few weeks.

And I haven't even mentioned the Welsh bee rustlers, or the bloke in Wiltshire who's adopted a muntjac  also known as the barking deer.

Still, there's always Friday. The committee which meets to give me something to write about can take the rest of the week off.

Lies, damn lies and diversity ads

When Transport for London (TfL) launched a road safety booklet for children, it was inevitable that it would include at least one Muslim girl in a headscarf.

Watch the BBC, or look at any official Government advertising campaign and you'd think that the hijab is part of our national costume.

So forgive me for falling about laughing at the news that TfL has had to pulp the booklet because it's been accused of sexualising children.

Apparently, in their desperation to be inclusive, the diversity tsars at TfL didn't realise that hijabs are only worn by girls who have reached puberty.

Cue outrage from Muslim women's groups. Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

Acampaign against forced marriage  by the NSPCC and the police, among others  features a blonde-haired white woman with a gag over her mouth

So far, so funny, so predictable. But behind the bigoted stereotypes of the diversity brigade, there's something else, far more sinister, going on.

The organisation formerly known as Dr Barnardo's has just launched a campaign against the vile practice of female genital mutilation (FGM), said to be widespread among Africans and Arabs living in Britain.

Yet the picture it has chosen to use for the posters is that of a young white girl. Elsewhere, a campaign against forced marriage  by the NSPCC and the police, among others  features a blonde-haired white woman with a gag over her mouth.

The same people who have refused to identify child rape gangs as Muslim are desperate to prove that FGM and forced marriage are endemic and not just confined to any particular 'community'.

These campaigns are not just misleading, they are downright lies. I suppose the only surprise about the TfL booklet is that not every single girl was wearing a hijab.

Footnote to Friday's mention of the Sussex police 'trans equality champion', Sgt Peter Allan, who had involved himself in a row about what kind of signs Marks & Spencer is allowed to put on the doors of its in-store customer toilets. Apparently, his latest campaign is aimed at forcing supermarkets to use 'gender-neutral' labelling on feminine hygiene products.

Forget about You Couldn't Make It Up. This is in a class of its own. Sgt Allan has invented a whole new sub-category  Mind How You Go meets Here We Go Looby Loo!
This Morning took a rather creepy turn today after viewers called in to share tales of their ghoulish encounters.

Paranormal show Most Haunted's presenter Yvette Fielding and her husband Karl Beattie joined Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford for the spooky segment, in which viewers were invited to ring in for advice about their haunted houses.

Among the callers was Lynne, who claimed her doorbell changed its tune when her children fell ill - replacing the ordinary chime with the tune of French nursery rhyme Frere Jacques.

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Ruth and Eamonn enjoyed a spine-chilling phone-in this morning after being joined by Most Haunted's Yvette Fielding and Karl Beattie

Ghoulish! Yvette Fielding offered advice on paranormal happenings during the ten-minute phone-in on today's show

Lynne explained: 'Our doorbell will occasionally play Frere Jacques when our children are not well or if theyre with their grandparents.'

She told a wide-eyed Eamonn and Ruth that she was unnerved because her doorbell wasn't actually supposed to be musical and had no pre-programmed tunes to it.

While Eamonn quipped: 'Did you pay extra for that?', ghostly expert Karl looked more than a little ill-at-ease.

He told Lynne: 'Ive never heard that in 17 years of doing this. I've never heard that at all.'

Eamonn then asked Lynne to ring the doorbell live on air in a bid to evoke the sinister nursery rhyme.

Alas, all that was encouraged was a rowdy round of dog barking as Lynne disturbed her pets.

A bemused-looking Ruth and Eamonn tried to find a logical explanation for Lynne's creepy doorbell, which, she says, plays Frere Jacques when her children are ill

Unnerved: The presenting duo then asked Lynne to ring her doorbell live on air

While there was no French nursery rhyme to be heard, Lynne's dogs did suddenly bark loudly

Yvette chuckles as Ruth is frightened by the sound of Lynne's barking dogs

On Twitter, viewers were cynical about Lynne's spine-tingling chime.

@daelkach wrote: 'This ghost phone in on This Morning. The 'haunted doorbell' that plays Frere Jaques, sorry but ours does too, it's just a fault.'

@snikrup added: 'My parents doorbell is standard ding dong yet when something bad happens in our family it plays the beginning of Big Ben charm.'

@FacileTalk, clearly not convinced, penned simply: 'Haunted doorbell! Hahahaha!'

Elsewhere, there was Ann-Marie, who rang in to say she firmly believes her house is haunted.

No joke: Karl Beattie said in his 17 years of investigating paranormal activity, he had never heard of a doorbell changing its chime

She said: 'For three years, this has been happening. Banging on bedroom walls. Dogs growling at nothing.

Anne-Marie added: 'I run in thinking it's the children and theyre fast asleep.'

Karl allayed her fears, saying: 'It could just be something roaming around the house. It could be something natural that the dog just doesn't know what it is.'

Eamonn helpfully suggested getting a priest in to rid the house of its apparent demons.

Anne-Marie said she was well placed to take his advice: 'My landlord's a vicar so I could do!'
A genderqueer activist has opened up about how the use of gender pronouns has harmed them throughout their entire life, detailing the negative, and potentially dangerous, baggage the words 'he' and 'she' can carry.

Jacob Tobia identifies as genderqueer and gender nonconforming, meaning they reject the idea of being identified as solely one gender and prefer the use of 'they', instead of gender-specific pronouns.

In a candid new video by Cosmopolitan.com they detail how gender pronouns stripped away their ability to choose 'what makes sense' for them, making them feel as though they were being forced into a 'box' or a 'trap'.

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Real Talk: Activist Jacob Tobia bares all about their feelings on gender identity in a new video

Opening up: Tobia, 25, who lives in LA, discsusses their traumatic childhood, recalling how they had to play with Barbies in secret and hide from their brother and neighbors

'I always say that my life was perfect for about three seconds until the nurse looked down and said "it's a boy," ' Tobia said.

Raised in Raleigh, North Carolina, Tobia revealed much of their childhood was lived in fear.

'Scared about oh, what happens if my true self just slips out for a second and everyone learns that I am this feminine person,' they said.

'What if people learn who I truly am, I don't think I can survive it.'

As a child, Tobia loved Barbies and hid it from the outside world in fear of letting everyone else see their true self.

'I always wanted to play with Barbies - I mean it's so classic. I tried to hide it and not let the kids in the neighborhood know that I had it and one day they found it,' they added.

'They cut off my Barbie's hair and pulled off her head.

'Oh my God, it was so traumatic because it was like we found out your secret, your secret is not okay, and you need to change who you are.'

Baby blues: Pictured holding a bouquet and wearing a tutu, Tobia shares childhood memories of fear that people might discover they're a feminine person

Modern Model: Tobia, pictured with winged liner and a bold red lip, works for Amazons comedy series Transparent

Loud and proud: Donning a shirt with the message that queerness does not equate invisibility, Tobia is well known for vocalizing his truths and passions

For Tobia, the pronouns 'he/she'' boxed them up, but 'they/them' were liberating.

'We don't even view [pronouns] as something that's hurtful or violent or mean to a child. I had so many feelings of my gender not working,' they said.

The ability to choose on the gender nonconforming spectrum is 'brilliant and unique' for Tobia.

Today Tobia is an LGBTQ rights activist and writer, and works on Amazon's comedy series Transparent. They are also writing a memoir, Sissy, on the gender identity journey, according to EW.

Tobia dedicates their time to raising awareness of LGBTQ issues and in 2012 raised $10,000 for homeless LGBTQ youth running across the Brooklyn Bridge in stilettos.

Strike a pose: Modelling is just one of the many professions Tobia pursues with the hope of breaking old norms

A lover and a fighter: Tobia rocks a rainbow frock and tan sandals for L.A. Trans Pride

Beauty and brains: Tobia juggles giving keynote speeches (left) and modelling gigs in addition to their activism career

They credit much of their journey to supportive adults in their life.

'If they were good to me, I knew my peers could figure it out. But the waiting for that moment was excruciating,' Tobia said.

But it wasn't until after graduating from Duke University and moving to Washington D.C. that they realized they were a part of something bigger.

'That's when I finally understood that being genderqueer and gender nonconforming did make me part and parcel of the trans community,' they added.

Now they are dedicated to helping others who struggled in similar ways.

'If I had to talk to my eight-year-old self, I would say you owe it to yourself to be patient with yourself and to be patient with people around you. Because as much as you want to, everything can't change overnight for you, but it's gonna get awesome,' Tobia said.

The video closes out with Tobia holding an 'I am beautiful' sign and a message for acceptance.
Two childhood friends are on a mission to photograph the bare backsides of 1,001 women to show that beauty comes in all shapes, sizes, and derrieres.

After exploring their own discomfort with their bodies, Montreal-based artists Emilie Mercier and Frederique Marseille created the '1,001 Fesses' or '1,001 Bums' project with the aim of easing other women's insecurities about their bottoms.

For nearly three years, Mercier and Marseille have been collecting images of anonymous women of various ages and shapes as a way to 'address a widespread obsession' of women 'hating [their] backsides'.

Bare: Montreal-based artists Emilie Mercier and Frederique Marseille are capturing photos of women's backsides for their '1001 Fesses ' or '1001 Bums' project

Finding the beauty: They created the project with the aim of easing other women's insecurities about their bottoms

Embracing self-love: The project was inspired by Mercier and Marseille's own struggles with body image

'We are trying to create a visual poem by taking pictures of all kind of womenand bums!' they explained on their site.

Mercier and Marseille have been best friends since they were 12 years old, and they recall watching their own bodies change from childhood to adulthood.

'We have seen our bodies change from childhood to adulthood and this intimacy in our friendship made us think: why not collect pictures of all kinds of bums?' they wrote.

'Maybe we would discover how crazy it is to hate our own bodies and simply see how unique each and every woman is. And, this way, start loving ourselves a little bit better.'

Ongoing: Mercier and Marseille have been collecting images of anonymous women of various ages and shapes for the past three years

From the beginning: Mercier and Marseille started the project in November 2014

Uniting women: 'We have been collecting the beauty of the female form in an attempt to address a widespread obsession: hating our backsides,' they explain on their website

Variety: The images are taken in a variety of settings, including in nature and inside the women's homes

Stunning: The women use a Mamiya 645 film camera to capture the shots, which are taken in daylight

The women, who use a Mamiya 645 film camera to capture the shots, never show their subjects faces or name or reveal their identities.

The anonymity allows them to focus on the 'beauty in every shape' and the 'beauty in female identity'.

As part of the campaign, they have featured over 600 volunteer models on the project's social media accounts, which include Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr.

Mercier and Marseille started the project in November 2014, and a little over a year later, in December 2015, they launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for them to travel around the world to capture more women's bare bottoms.

Anonymous: Mercier and Marseille never show their subjects faces or name or reveal their identities

Goals: They launched a crowdfunding campaign in December 2015 to raise money for them to travel around the world to capture more women's bare bottoms

International: Mercier and Marseille have photographed subjects in Quebec, France, Belgium and Switzerland, and they hope to make their way around the world

Looking to the future: The artists hope to one day have the images featured in a photography book based on their project

So far, they've photographed subjects in Quebec, France, Belgium and Switzerland, and they hope to make their way around the world.

However, the project hit a bump in the road when Facebook deleted the 1001 Fesses page in December 2016, citing 'pornographic content'.

'This page counted 6,500 followers, an important community taking part in the body-diversity movement and anti-censorship of female beauty,' they explained on their site. 'We are now trying to re-build this community, one open-minded follower at a time.'

Although they now have over 5,400 Facebook followers, they continue to battle the company's nudity policy.

Road block: The project hit a bump in the road when Facebook deleted the 1001 Fesses page in December 2016, citing 'pornographic content'

Struggle: 'It's so hard to create an online community around the subjects of body, self esteem, woman emancipation and desexualizing nudity,' they recently explained on Instagram

Participants needed: Mercier and Marseille are actively looking for new models on their private Facebook group

Mercier and Marseille revealed on Sunday that Facebook and Instagram have censored their posts and pages 'once again'.

'It's so hard to create an online community around the subjects of body, self esteem, woman emancipation and desexualizing nudity,' they wrote.

'We hope our pages won't be shut down the same way it happened 2 years ago,' the added, using the hastags '#nudityisnotporn #naturalizenudity #desexualization #artisnotporn #notobscene'.

Despite their struggles with censorship, the women are dedicated to growing their project with more photos, which they one day hope to use in a photography book.

Mercier and Marseille are actively looking for new models and encourage anyone who is interested to join their private group on Facebook.
Lara Trump is just weeks away from her due date, and the expectant mom's baby bump was on full display as she made her way to Trump Tower on Monday.

The 34-year-old, who is due to give birth in September, donned a figure-hugging black tank dress that showed off her growing stomach as she made her way through the New York City streets.

Lara paired her casual summer dress with what appeared to be a pair of black flats from her sister-in-law Ivanka Trump's fashion line, and an oversize red handbag that was slung over her right shoulder as she chatted on her cellphone.

Mom-to-be on the move! Lara Trump showed off her growing baby bump in a black tank dress on Monday afternoon

Friendly visit: The 34-year-old was photographed making her way to Trump Tower

President Donald Trump's daughter-in-law was joined by one of her Secret Service agents as she made her way to Trump Tower.

Lara ran her fingers through her long blonde hair, which was loose around her shoulders, as she waited to cross the street.

At one point, Lara placed one hand on her hip, above her baby bump, while deep in conversation on her phone.

While Lara was making her way to Trump Tower, her secret birth plan became very public after it was accidentally left on the dashboard of a black SUV parked outside the building.

Protected: Lara was chatting on her iPhone as her Secret Service agent stood close by her

Taking a breather: At one point, Lara rested her arm on her growing stomach while waiting to cross the street

Accessories: Lara had a large red bag slung over her right shoulder and two bangle bracelets on her left wrist

The handwritten note, titled 'Baby hospital info' reveals exactly which New York hospital the first-time mother is is planning to give birth at next month, as well as the address of the emergency entrance and the phone number for security.

It also lists the name of a contact who is to be called 'asap' after Lara goes into labor.

The note was spotted on the dashboard of Secret Service vehicle parked outside Trump Tower on Monday as it appears an agent may have left it in full view by mistake.

DailyMail.com has reached out to the Trumps for comment.

Baby on the way: Lara flashed her engagement ring as she stood with her hand on her hip

Whoops! Lara' secret birth plan has just become very public after it was accidentally left on the dashboard of a black SUV parked outside of Trump Tower on Monday

details: The handwritten note, titled 'Baby hospital info' reveals exactly which New York hospital the first-time mother is is planning to give birth next month

Lara and her husband Eric Trump are expecting their first child  a baby boy  in September, and the couple was spotted talking outside of their apartment after leaving Trump Tower on Thursday.

With just four weeks left in her pregnancy, Lara is holding tight in the city awaiting her little one's arrival and doing her best to keep cool in the high August temperatures.

Lara is splitting her time between New York City and Westchester, New York, for the remainder of her pregnancy, but that hasn't stopped her from hitting the gym with her personal trainer, Michael Maloney.

Last week, Lara took to Instagram to share a video of herself working out while 35-weeks pregnant, and aside from her growing stomach, the mom-to-be looks as trim and toned as ever, making it hard to believe she is over eight months pregnant.

Mistake: The note appears to have been left by an agent in a Secret Service vehicle parked outside Trump Tower

Growing family: Lara and Eric, who are pictured in July, are expecting their first child together in September

In the city: Eric and Lara were photographed outside of their New York City home on Thursday

Speaking exclusively to Daily Mail Online, Lara revealed that she has been 'blessed with an incredibly easy pregnancy' that has allowed her to remain fit and active throughout, admitting that she was 'worried' about the prospect of not being able to workout.

'I was always a little worried, because I had heard different things from different people about their pregnancies; some people have to stay in bed for months... you never know what you're going to get,' she said.

'I knew I needed to workout for my sanity, and I try and make it a daily habit if I can, so I count myself very lucky that I have been able to keep doing that while pregnant.'

Lara also admitted that she had heard staying fit and active can make delivering a baby easier  and helps to ensure that the recovery time after birth is as speedy as possible.

Feel the burn: Last Tuesday, the mom-to-be shared a video of herself working out with her trainer while nearly nine months pregnant

Final days: Earlier this month, Lara's sister-in-law Ivanka Trump took a photo of the mom-to-be cradling her baby bump during her last visit to the White House before she is set to give birth

'I know it can make the delivery easier, which would be great,' Lara said of her efforts to stay fit and healthy. 'And it means that the recovery time after birth is often shorter.'

But being able to stay active isn't the only thing that has helped Lara throughout her pregnancy. The expectant mother admitted that she has had a great deal of support from husband Eric, and both of their families, as she prepares to welcome her first child.

'The nursery is coming along nicely, we're nearly there with it, which is a huge weight off [my and Eric's] shoulders,' she explained. 'Eric actually built the crib himself, he's very handy!

With the help of her in-laws and her husband Eric, Lara said her main focus now is just taking care of the final preparations, including buying a stroller, and diapers, and getting her hospital bag ready.

'I spent most of the weekend in our laundry room washing, drying, and folding baby clothes,' she admitted, revealing that she and Eric have been given plenty of gifts for their newborn by friends and family.
For anyone who is struggling to get their interiors range off the ground, look away now.

Choe Brookman, 35, of Olli Ella, launched an interiors range in 2010 as a 'side project' with her sister, Olivia Brookman, while the two ran a small art gallery in London.

Six months later, the brand was scouted out and picked up by the iconic British department store, Harrods.

Chloe Brookman spoke to FEMAIL from her beautiful home in Byron Bay, detailing just how she did it and grew Olli Ella to where it is today - a multi-million-dollar business.

She also revealed what she's learned from eight years in business, sharing her tips.

Choe Brookman (pictured with her kids), 35, of Olli Ella , launched an interiors range in 2010 as a 'side project' with her sister, Olivia Brookman, while the two ran a small art gallery in London

Six months later, the brand was scouted out and picked up by the iconic British department store, Harrods - a multi-million-dollar business (pictured: the designs)

Chloe Brookman (pictured) spoke to FEMAIL from her beautiful home in Byron Bay, detailing just how she did it and grew Olli Ella to where it is today - she also shared her business tips

Chloe Brookman and her sister had both always been creative - but they never knew what kinds of business they wanted to launch

'By the time we'd figured out a business plan and bought a domain name, we realised they [the businesses] weren't necessarily viable,' Chloe told FEMAIL

Chloe said that when she and Olivia started Olli Ella, it was very much a 'side project' to their gallery in London:

'We had always both been creative, and had had countless business ideas. But by the time we'd figured out a business plan and bought a domain name, we realised they weren't necessarily viable,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

The ambitious pair landed on a decent idea when Chloe became pregnant with her first child in 2009.

'I was looking for a nursing chair for my son, and at that time all there was that was on the market was nursing chairs that looked like nursing chairs,' she said.

'And so, I decided to make my own.'

The ambitious pair landed on a decent idea when Chloe became pregnant with her first child in 2009 - she was looking for a nursing chair and couldn't find one

After friends started contacting them for one of their own, they launched a business - Olli Ella was contacted by Harrods six months later

Chloe Brookman now runs the Australian office from her home in Byron Bay; while her sister runs the European branch from London - both manage the US market

After painstakingly sourcing local materials and putting together a beautiful chair, it wasn't long before Chloe's friends all started asking for one of the sisters' pieces for their own home.

'That was when we thought the idea might have legs,' the 35-year-old explained - adding that they took their product to trade shows, where it swiftly sold out.

'When we started out, we had really limited investment - we were just two women in our early twenties, it was our own money,' she added.

'I remember when we saw our accountant they told us the idea was too niche, it wouldn't work.'

But the pair decided to continue on their business path anyway.

Among Chloe's tips for business success were that it's important to be fluid and adaptable at the start- she also said you need to know your numbers

Chloe said the most important thing is to be passionate about what you do

'We didn't start out with the mentality of "let's make this business big",' Chloe said. 'It wasn't about the bottom line, more about enjoying ourselves. I think that was really helpful at the start.'

CHLOE BROOKMAN'S BUSINESS TIPS * Learn to walk away from business ideas which won't work in practice. * Be adaptable and fluid at the beginning - things will change. * Know your numbers - it helps to be on top of these. * Be passionate about what you do - this will keep you going. * Test the product waters - via trade shows etc. Advertisement

Within six months, Olli Ella was approached by the British department store, Harrods, who wanted to stock their pretty, handmade wares.

Chloe told FEMAIL she still remembers that feeling to this day.

'I remember when we went into Harrods Olivia and I got all dressed up and wore high heels. It was such a validation for the business. I swear it wouldn't have come off if we'd approached them.'

From that point, the nursing chairs took off in a big way.

Within twelve months, Olli Ella were shipping around the world - and they soon opened offices in Sydney - where Chloe moved from London - and later, Los Angeles.

'Today, Olivia runs the London office and I run the Australian office. We both share the US. It is hard sometimes being on opposite sides of the world - but I speak to Olivia on Skype on and off every evening.'

Earlier this year, Chloe moved from Balmain in Sydney to Byron Bay with her partner and three children.

She explained that she is relishing the slower pace of life and running the business from Byron is a total pleasure:

'We'd always had this idea of moving out of the city, and suddenly just thought why don't we do it now while the kids are young?,' she said.

Chloe explained that she is relishing the slower pace of life and running the business from Byron is a total pleasure (pictured with her family)

The 35-year-old said she has always been interested in elevating the mundane into something beautiful - such as a handwoven laundry basket

Chloe concluded by saying that she still gets butterflies when someone buys one of the sisters' Olli Ella pieces

Speaking about her tips for businesswomen and entrepreneurs, Chloe said it's important to know when to walk away if an idea won't work:

'In the beginning, that was so important for us - to walk away from things which wouldn't work,' she explained.

'I also think it's a good idea to be fluid and adaptable at first. Our core has remained the same, but we've changed a lot over the years.'

She said - like many entrepreneurs - that you need to 'know your numbers':

'It took us a couple of years to get on top of that,' she said.

'But also be passionate about what you do, you need to love it. I have always been interested in elevating how we live our everyday lives, whether it's through a handwoven laundry basket or a wooden dish brush.

'That way of elevating the mundane to something a bit more beautiful. I've always been inspired by that.'

Today, Olli Ella turns millions of dollars, and it's stocked around the world in various stores, as well as online.

'I still get that butterflies feeling when I hear someone has bought one of our pieces,' Chloe said. 'That never goes away.'

To find out more about Olli Ella, visit the website here. You can also follow the brand on Instagram here.
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Starting school for the first time can be a daunting experience for any child - even if you are a prince.

Dressed in their uniform, Crown Princess Mary's six-year-old twins Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine arrived at Tranegard School in Hellerup, Denmark, to begin Grade 0.

The Australian-born royal and her husband Prince Frederik seemed proud as they embarked on the school run with their youngest children on Tuesday.

And while Princess Josephine was brimming with confidence, her brother Prince Vincent appeared to show a hint of nervousness ahead of his first day.

Smile! Princess Mary and Prince Frederik's twins Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine pose in uniform as they start their first day at school

Prince Vincent appeared to show a hint of nervousness ahead of his first day as his mother comforted him on Tuesday

Princess Josephine was brimming with confidence as she followed behind her father, alongside her mother and twin brother

The Danish Crown Princess was seen comforting her adoring son, who looked emotional - but eventually Prince Vincent broke out into a smile as posed in his school uniform, alongside his family.

Wearing a long-sleeve light blue shirt with a white collar and a pair of grey-coloured shorts, the youngster stepped out with a large blue backpack and sneakers.

His twin sister Princess Josephine had a red flower in her hair as she donned a light blue dress, featuring a Peter Pan collar, buttons, a bow around her waist and a navy strip around the hems of the skirt.

The twins now join their older siblings Prince Christian and Princess Isabella at the school.

Princess Josephine had a red flower in her hair as she donned a light blue dress as Prince Vincent wore a long-sleeve shirt

Princess Josephine smiling on her first day of school as her twin brother Prince Vincent seemed nervous ahead of class

Dressed for the momentous occasion, Princess Mary, who was born in Hobart, was glowing as she stepped out in a sophisticated dress.

She sported a pair of brown heels that perfectly matched her belt around the waist - and finishing off her look with gold earrings and bangles around her wrist.

Prince Frederik opted for a smart look, wearing a brown blazer over his collared shirt and dark blue trousers.

Off to class! The six-year-old twins now join their older siblings Prince Christian and Princess Isabella at the school

Unlike her brother, lively Princess Josephine seemed thrilled about starting big school and couldn't wipe the smile from her face

Prince Vincent was seen clinging to his mother as the group posed and waved to media

The first day of school comes just days after FEMAIL took a nostalgic look back at the twins' life in pictures, from family photo shoots to birthdays and trips to the snow

The first day of school comes just days after FEMAIL took a nostalgic look back at the twins' life in pictures, from family photo shoots to birthdays and trips to the snow.

Vincent Frederik Minik Alexander and Josephine Sophia Ivalo Mathilda were born on January 8, 2011 to Crown Princess Mary and her husband, Prince Frederik.

As the youngest members of the Danish Royal family, with two older siblings in Prince Christian and Princess Isabella, they've always been playful.

Princess Josephine has especially captured the eyes and hearts of the public, thanks to her ability to pull funny faces whenever there's a camera around. Prince Vincent, on the other hand, appears to be slightly more reserved.

Princess Josephine and Prince Vincent are pictured at Prince Henrik's 80th birthday celebrations

In honour of the momentous occasion for the Danish Royal family (pictured left), FEMAIL took a look back at some of the twins' scene-stealing moments (pictured right)

The family have enjoyed skiing holidays in Verbier since the twins' arrival (pictured)

Princess Josephine has made a name for herself for stealing the scene at various Royal photo calls, including the Hubertus Hunting Event in 2015 (pictured)

Vincent Frederik Minik Alexander and Josephine Sophia Ivalo Mathilda were born on January 8, 2011 to Crown Princess Mary and her husband, Prince Frederik (pictured)

As the youngest members of the Danish Royal family, with two older siblings in Prince Christian and Princess Isabella, they've always been playful (pictured with their parents at a photo call)

The family have enjoyed a four-day summer tour of Northern Denmark (pictured)

When the twins were born in 2011, a 21-gun salute was fired from the Naval Base in Copenhagen

When it comes to their life story, the young Royals have shared much of it together.

When they were born in 2011, a 21-gun salute was fired from the Naval Base in Copenhagen.

They were later christened on April 14 of the same year, at the Church of Holmen in Copenhagen.

Since then, the twins have enjoyed countless experiences children their age could only dream of. At seven months old, they were taken aboard the Royal yacht.

Just two months later they travelled to Australia, and were photographed at Admiralty House in Sydney.

The twins have, on occasions, been pictured out riding on the front of Princess Mary's bicycle

The twins are the youngest members of the Danish Royal family

They have enjoyed countless experiences children their age can only dream of (pictured in Verbier)

Josephine always manages to capture the limelight, thanks to her games and funny facial expressions (pictured)

Princess Mary is captured on her bike at the Palace in Copenhagen over the winter in 2016

The duo have also been on a ski holiday to Switzerland at age four, where photos showed them enjoying the snow and riding toboggans down the slopes with their parents.

During the Hubertus Hunting Event in 2015, Josephine was photographed pulling a series of hilarious facial expressions, playing with her Minion toy, and generally acting up.

She has since become known to steal the show at the family's annual photo calls, waving her hands in the air and grinning as the plays in front of the camera.

The Danish Royal family, pictured attending the Hubertus Hunting Event in Copenhagen

More recently, the twins helped to ring in Queen Margrethe's 77th birthday and Easter Sunday in April this year

More recently, the twins helped to ring in Queen Margrethe's 77th birthday and Easter Sunday in April this year.

The Royal family took to the balcony at Marselisborg Palace in Aarhus to wave to the crowds on the religious day in Denmark.

Again, it was Princess Josephine who stole the show, with Princess Josephine and Princess Athena reportedly impressing the crowds with a dance performance to the live music.

They have since enjoyed a summer holiday travelling around the Greek islands on a luxury yacht.
A woman who helped her husband plot his own death at Swiss suicide clinic Dignitas left This Morning viewers in tears today as she described his final moments.

Sara Starkey, 72, travelled to Switzerland with her husband Andrew Tyler, 70, who suffered from advanced Parkinson's Disease on April 26th this year. He died two days later with her by his side.

Speaking to presenters Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford, Starkey spoke honestly about her husband's last words, saying that he joked to the clinic's staff 'Are you trying to kill me?' before telling his wife 'You have been my world'.

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Sara Starkey travelled with her husband Andrew Tyler to the Swiss suicide clinic Dignitas where he ended his life on Friday April 28th

The emotional interview on This Morning today received a mountain of support for Sara Starkey on social media

Andrew Tyler, 70, pictured before his death in April travelled to Switzerland for a 'dignified death' after pleading for the British government to change the laws for those in his position

The emotional interview left viewers taking to Twitter to call Starkey 'brave' and to say hearing her speak was 'heart-wrenching'.

Tyler, a former NME music writer filmed his final week battling Parkinson's in a video blog calling for assisted dying to be legalised in Britain.

In the video, he can be seen telling viewers there was nothing 'noble' or 'heroic' about letting his illness render him 'a dribbling mess'.

His wife today revealed how his final moments played out, explaining that he had made the decision to die more than two years ago.

She said: 'We were having supper about two and a half years ago and he was nervous and slightly embarrassed. He said: "I've thought about all the ways to commit suicide but it can go horribly wrong - you can end up on life support and God knows what else. So I've downloaded everything from Dignitas."'

She added that the couple agreed: 'Life must be worth living. There's no point being alive if life isn't worth living.

Starkey recalled the journey to Switzerland, telling Eamonn and Ruth it was 'like being in a film' and saying that she has no regrets about the way her husband ended his life - except that she would have wished for him to have been in his own home

Anger: Starkey said: 'The God lobby, the ill-informed MPs, the unelected doctors have to change' their views on euthanasia

'We started the process and when he was ready you then get all the information you need from your doctor.'

Obtaining the necessary documents from medical professionals required some 'gravitas' and Tyler, who suffered from crippling back pain and couldn't sleep more than three hours a night, made the decision to lie to avoid being questioned or judged.

After being diagnosed with the incurable Parkinson's 10 years ago, his condition - more specifically his back pain - worsened and surgeons said there was nothing they could do to help

Starkey explains: 'You have to have presence to get this stuff out of people [medical records] - it took nearly nine months.'

She says there was no panic and no regret about the decision as the day of Andrew's death neared, saying: 'You're sort of like in a film. I think you just get on with it because that's the way humans are.

There was even black comedy, after Tyler suggested he might make a joke when handed the lethal mixture that would end his life.

Says Starkey: 'He had said to me: "'I've thought of something to say. I think I might say: 'This tastes awful, what are you trying to do, kill me?'"

ANDREW TYLER'S FINAL MESSAGE Its my last big adventure - if it comes off Ill be absolutely delighted. Emotions are deferred. I don't feel numb, I just don't feel emotional. I don't know if this is typical. Maybe once you get to the room and the moment you start sobbing or resisting or everything comes out. But at the moment it's not happening. In fact I was just trying to think of last words. I don't suppose people are that composed. Maybe shriek, or I was thinking perhaps 'the eagle has landed'. Or 'one small step for man', or something. Or perhaps I'll pick up my cup and taste it and it'll be disgusting and I'll say 'what are you trying to do, kill me with this stuff?' Advertisement

Despite telling him he shouldn't, Tyler proceeded to make the joke, before finally uttering the heartbreaking last words to his wife: ''You've been my world.'

Tyler took a dose of barbiturate at the clinic and lost consciousness in 15 minutes before being pronounced dead at 3.10pm.

Starkey described his death as 'peaceful' and said that she held his hand the whole way through.

Viewers listening at home said they were 'in tears', with Twitter awash with comments expressing support for the couple's decision.

@Honeypuss3 wrote: 'Nothing but admiration for Sara. What a wonderful lady. I will never understand this country, high time the law changed #DieWithDignity'.

@DianeDiholt added: 'Totally agree with Sara. Sorry for your loss, so very sad.'

@wee_ellster wrote: 'Reading reactions to Sara Starkey's story on @thismorning - overwhelmingly supportive, ppl wondering why #assisteddying isn't available here'

Starkey also launched a passionate attack on the UK's current approach to euthanasia, saying: 'This is what's so wicked about this country. If you can afford it, you can go to Switzerland, what about all the other people?

'The God lobby, the ill-informed MPs, the unelected doctors have to change - just as we've changed against homosexuality. It wasn't so long ago people were calling that a mental illness.'

She added that her wish for her husband was that he had been able to die at home with his family and dogs around him.

After being diagnosed with the incurable Parkinson's 10 years ago, his condition - more specifically his back pain - worsened and surgeons said there was nothing they could do to help.

He was forced to retire from Animal Aid after 22 years, in September 2016 and decided he wanted to die at Dignitas.

It was then he began recording a video diary in the lead up to his death.

During his last seven months Andrew wrote his memoir My Life As an Animal. It is due to be published later this year.
Town Mountain will perform at Revelry Room on Friday, Oct. 13, with Dead 27s. The doors open at 8 p.m. and the show is at 9 p.m. Tickets are $10 in advance and $12 at the door and available at http://revelryroom.co Revelry Room is at 41 Station St. Show is for 18+ and is standing room only.

Review for Town Mountain:

Raw, soulful, and with plenty of swagger, Town Mountain has earned raves for their hard-driving sound, their in-house songwriting and the honky-tonk edge that permeates their exhilarating live performances, whether in a packed club or at a sold-out festival. The hearty base of Town Mountain's music is the bluegrass triumvirate of Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. It's what else goes into the mix that brings it all to life both on stage and on record and reflects the group's wide-ranging influences  from the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia and the ethereal lyrics of Robert Hunter, to the honest, vintage country of Willie, Waylon and Merle.

Town Mountain features guitarist and vocalist Robert Greer, banjoist Jesse Langlais, mandolinist Phil Barker, fiddler Jack Devereux, and Zach Smith on bass.

They released their 5th studio album, Southern Crescent, on April 1, 2016 on LoHi Records and toured throughout the year with it. Produced and engineered by GRAMMY winner Dirk Powell, Southern Crescent was recorded in Powells studio The Cypress House in south-central Louisiana town of Breaux Bridge. Since its release the band debuted on the Grand Ole Opry and the Ryman Auditorium stages in 2016 bringing their sound to new audiences. Town Mountain returned to the Grand Ole Opry in July 2017. The critically acclaimed album debuted at #4 on the Billboard Bluegrass Chart while staying for 10 weeks on the Americana Music Association's radio charts Top 40.

Other efforts include Leave The Bottle (Pinecastle Records 2012), Steady Operator (Pinecastle Records 2011), and Heroes & Heretics (October 2008). They also independently released a LIVE album (2014 from a show at Isis Music Hall in Asheville) as well as a two-song EP (2015) of Grateful Dead tunes called The Dead Sessions. Their debut album (June 2008) is entitled Original Bluegrass and Roots Country.

What has become one of the groups more memorable live performance songs is their cover of Bruce Springsteens Im On Fire, which they first recorded in 2008s Heroes & Heretics, with Greers distinctive Southern drawl at the forefront. The track has reached over 2.6 million listens on Spotify and garnered over 1 million views on a YouTube video posted in 2012.

Another fan favorite is their Jimmy Martin-esque original Lawdog, penned by Barker in 2012. They recorded a live version of the song at WAMUs Bluegrass Country Radio in 2013 which has over 110,000 views and continues to be a barn burner to this day with the entire crowd singing along as Barker sings, I make my livin driving, Im a bluegrass music man Chasin the horizon, for another one night stand I got a lot of miles to travel, and Im runnin a little late And a no show gets me nothin, so dont you get in my way. I got no time for ya lawdog
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A Russian oligarch threw a lavish wedding reception for his stunning model new wife after finally tying the knot.

Aleksey Shapovalov officially married model Ksenia Tsaritsina, 27, in a luxury ceremony held at Barvikha Luxury Village hotel in Rublekva, in the Russian capital of Moscow.

Despite calling her his wife for the past five years, Shapovalov has only just sealed the deal with the mother of his two children.

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Aleksey Shapovalov officially married model Ksenia Tsaritsina, 27, in a luxury ceremony held at Barvikha Luxury Village hotel in Rublekva earlier this week

Photographs of the grand affair showcase the lavish details including performances from the couple's favourite popstar and rock band.

Ksenia looked stunning in her wedding gown, which featured intricate beading and a sweetheart neckline.

But this was not the only dress she wore on her big day. Ksenia was reported to have changed halfway through the night into another dress.

The second saw the Russian beauty draped in delicate lace and a sweeping veil which reached the floor of her pristine dance floor.

Not content with just one wedding dress Ksenia changed into a second during the evening featuring lace detailing and a sweeping veil

The model's first gown, which was worn for the ceremony, featured intricate beading and a sweetheart neckline, meanwhile Shapovalov looked dapper in a dinner suit and black bow tie

Guests of the newlyweds were entertained by a Eurovision runner-up Polina Gagarina, 30, and rock band Leningrad.

The band's frontman Sergey Shnurov, 44, was recently heralded as 'the most popular and the most controversial rock star'.

Their wedding cake was suspended as if it were floating in the air and featured eight tears of intricately decorated sponges with a beaded chandelier finish.

And the venue was decorated with hundreds of beautiful white flowers, complimenting the glittering chandeliers.

Shapovalov looked dapper in a dinner suit and black bow tie, as he was seen proudly embracing his new wife.

Their wedding cake was suspended as if it were floating in the air and featured eight tears of intricately decorated sponges with a beaded chandelier finish

Earlier this year she showed off a super bling 70-carat diamond ring estimated to be worth a whopping nine million EUR (7.7 million GBP)

Guests of the newlyweds were entertained by a Eurovision runner-up Polina Gagarina and rock band Leningrad (pictured)

Ksenia's guests were equally well dressed arriving in full-length bespoke ball gowns for the couple's nuptials

Ksenia said: 'It was unbelievable. Thank you to our friends for sharing this wonderful day with us. Thank you to your large and loving family.'

Earlier this year she showed off a super bling 70-carat diamond ring estimated to be worth a whopping nine million EUR (7.7 million GBP).

Elizabeth Taylor - a woman known for diamonds - had a famously large 30 carat diamond ring (which sold in 2011 for $8.8 million - 6.8 million) but according to Cosmopolitan Russia, Ksenia's husband thought that one like Elizabeth Taylor's was not big enough for his beloved wife.

She wrote: 'My husband is never too stingy to buy me presents. Now he made a decision that a 30-carat ring is not enough for me.'

The pair spend their time split between their native Russia and a luxurious life in Dubai, where she is often spotted cruising around in her super expensive Bentley car. They have two children together.

Ksenia, who splits her time between her native Russia and Dubai, can often be seen flaunting her enviable figure on Instagram where she boasts 254,000 followers

The couple (pictured) have been together for five years together and have two children together

Shapovolov is less forthcoming when it comes to his Instagram account but does occasionally share photos of his beautiful wife including this one where she was pregnant with their second child

Ksenia can often be spotted cruising around in her super expensive Bentley car while living the high life in Dubai

Ksenia (pictured standing before the Burj Al Arab hotel) has previously said of her style 'When it comes to my look, I am a perfectionist'
This adorable dog is now seeing happier days after eight dark years with a neglectful owner who hacked his ears off.

The Welsh corgi JoJo, 10, used to sleep in a cage in a windowless warehouse every night and had his ears severed by scissors, possibly to prepare him for dog fights.

JoJo was found and rescued last year by Animals R Family in the dark and damp building where he had stayed for the last nine years, and was later adopted by adoring parents Kevin and Leann Karcher who have created a loving home for him in their Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, house.

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It's a dog's world: JoJo laps up some sun, showing off his name tag collar in new family's yard

A happy family: JoJo is all smiles with his new parents Leann and Kevin (pictured above) who adopted him last year

Puppy Palace: What first made JoJo feel comfortable in his new home was a blue stuffed pig that has since joined a mountain of toys that JoJo snoozes next to in the Karcher home

The parents, both 59, have lavished JoJo with more love than he could have ever dreamed of.

His bed is smothered with more than 200 toys and every morning he wakes up to a new one added to his $1,000-value collection.

No price is too high for Leann and Kevin, a retired wine and spirits businessman.

'He has been through so much. We can't spoil him enough,' Kevin said.

However, assimilating into a family environment hasn't been easy for JoJo.

'When JoJo first came to us he was nervous and afraid. He was riddled with arthritis and his ears were cut off as a puppy,' Kevin said.

'The poor fella spent about six years in a cage by himself. He was like a prisoner of war.'

Rescuer Nicole Bruck, 48, found the pup in the cold, damp warehouse and discovered his hacked ears.

'As a puppy JoJo's 'family' had cut his ears off with scissors at home. We cannot even imagine the excruciating pain that must have caused him,' she said.

The neglect continued when they dumped him at the rural building when he was just seven-months old.

All smiles: Despite traumatic puppy days where JoJo (above) had his ears cut off with scissors by neglectful owners, the canine is comfortable and content in his adoptive home

Pups just wanna have fun! These little stuffed piggies (above) are the reason JoJo felt at home in his new environment. On his first night he picked up the blue piggy and trotted into bed

'Sadly, he languished there for the next eight years living in a cage in a windowless warehouse. There was no water in his cage, no blanket, no towel, nothing - just the cold, hard ground,' she said.

Nicole brought him to an adoption event to join nearly 500 other dogs looking for homes. Kevin and Leann's son Jordan, 30, happened to be working at the event as well.

Kevin and Leann came to visit their son's business Grounds & Hounds Coffee Co, which donates 20 per cent of its proceeds to rescue dogs from kill shelters.

What the couple didn't expect was to fall in love with JoJo and take home a new family member.

'My wife was walking around and she said, Do you think maybe we should do something?' Kevin said.

'I said, "Go and find the least likely dog to be adopted." She took me to this kennel and there was JoJo.'

JoJo needed a lot to recuperate his health. His new owners paid for acupuncture, cold laser therapy, dental work and arthritis treatment.

Sibling fun! JoJo plays with toys next to his adoptive siblings Molly (pictured left) and Charlie (right, front)

A sniff and a kiss: JoJo (left) spends time with dalmatian mix sister Molly (right) with several stuffed animals tossed to the side, undoubtedly a part of his 200 plus toy collection

When JoJo was first introduced to his new home he found a big blue rubber pig that made honking noises and trotted over to his new bed with it. It would be the first toy of many in the dog's new lavish life.

'After a couple of weeks he began to settle in and he has become really comfortable now. He has his toys all over his bed- he must have at least 200,' Kevin said.

'We think hes happy here and thats terrific. To think this poor little guy has been through so muchthat we are able to really make the rest of his life special is fantastic,' he added.

Today JoJo enjoys his mountain of toys and playing with his adoptive siblings Molly, a six-year-old dalmatian mix, and Charlie, a 10-year-old poodle, and cocker spaniel cross. Kevin said 'he has really settled into the family.'

For rescuer Nicole, JoJo's journey is a great success story.

'His eight years of harsh prison life did nothing to dent his personality or his charm. He is as perfect as they come.'

Perhaps now he is a little spoiled thanks to loving parents and more toys than a pet shop could offer.

'He is thriving and loving life,' Nicole added.
Two sisters who gave birth on the same day have celebrated their daughters' first birthdays by recreating their stunning maternity photoshoot  this time with their little girls.

Last year, a pregnant Corey Struve Talbott, 32, went to the Monterey, California, hospital where her sister, Katie Struve Morgan, 30, was about to give birth to document the moment and welcome her new niece.

Little did she know that destiny had another plan: Corey began going into labor herself as her sister was on the delivery table, and they ended up giving birth to their baby girls just 20 minutes apart.

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They're one! Sisters Corey Struve Talbott, 32, and Katie Struve Morgan, 30, celebrated their baby girls' first birthdays after giving birth just 20 minutes apart last year

Close as can be: The two recreated their joint maternity shoot from the year before with the help of their daughters

Best friends since birth: Ryatt and Indie, one, were born just 20 minutes apart in the same hospital in Monterrey, California, in 2016

That turned out well! Ryatt takes more after her soft-spoken aunt Katie and Indie is more outgoing like her aunt Corey

Now, a year later, the sisters are celebrating their daughters Ryatt and Indie's first birthdays with a photoshoot as adorable as their story.

The sisters found out they were both expecting around the holidays in 2015, and they proudly showed off their baby bumps in matching teal dresses and flower crowns for their joint maternity shoot.

However, they never thought they would actually be giving birth on the same day.

Corey was planning on having a C-section delivery and was waiting for the scheduled date when Katie went on to labor. However, she soon found herself in labor as well.

'Corey was on her way to [take] photos for me and I hadn't seen her and I'm like, "Where is she?" And she comes in fully gowned with her IV and she's like, "I'm sorry, I have to have Ryatt! She's coming!''' Katie told ABC News.

Sisters and best friends: Corey and Katie posed for a joint photoshoot while they were both expecting, but they had no idea they would give birth on the same day

A year later: The inseparable sisters live five minutes from each other in Salinas, California, and are raising their baby girls like sisters

The sisters' doctor and nurses had to keep running between their two rooms. Two minutes into Corey's C-section, the doctor had to run back to Katie to catch her baby.

This is crazy! Its like having twins with two separate people,' said one nurse as she ran between delivery rooms.

Cousins Ryatt Raegan Talbott and Indie Mae Morgan were born just 20 minutes apart on August 10th, 2016.

In honor of their little girls' birthdays, Corey and Katie put their teal dresses and flower crowns back on to recreate last year's shoot with their little ones.

The new photos see Ryatt and Indie donning matching polka dot dresses and flower crowns just like their mothers.

Matching bumps! The sisters found out they were both expecting around the holidays in 2015

Sisters who give birth together, stay together: Corey was in the hospital to document her niece's birth when she herself started going into labor

Busy day! Corey and Katie's doctor and nurses had to keep running between their rooms as they were in labor at the same time

Twin cousins: This is crazy! Its like having twins with two separate people,' said one of the nurses who helped deliver both Ryatt and Indie

In one shot, Corey and Katie are holding their daughters in one arm and balloons in the shape of the number one in the other.

Another picture sees the sisters holding hands while their daughters are balanced on their opposite hips.

The sisters, who live five minutes from each other in Salinas, California, are raising their daughters as sisters.

While Corey is the more outgoing sister, her daughter Ryatt takes after Katie and is soft-spoken. Katie's daughter Indie, on the other hand, is outspoken like her aunt Corey.

Corey and her husband Travis also have a two-year-old son, Tydus, and Katie and her husband Tim share two other girls, Olivia, seven, and Willow, four.
Doctors have been accused of accepting benefits to encourage women to have controversial vaginal mesh implants fitted.

The lives of thousands of women who have had the procedure on the NHS have been destroyed prompting calls for a public inquiry and ban.

Now it has emerged one manufacturer of the mesh paid doctors more than $4million in 2016 alone to fund their travels, consultancy fees, and even food and drink.

It has also been claimed that many of the studies that reveal a benefit from having an implant were sponsored by mesh manufacturers - leading to fears of a risk of bias and conflicts of interest.

In a case reported in 2014, Dr Aethele Khunda from South Tees Hospitals was given an educational trip to Rio de Janeiro for recruiting the most patients as a principle investigator into a vaginal mesh implant study.

Carl Heneghan, professor of evidence-based medicine at the University of Oxford, told MailOnline: 'Every doctor who has been paid says it doesn't affect their judgement but its blindly obvious to others that you see the benefits if you are being paid.'

Lead Urogynaecologist at the University of Glasgow Dr Wael Agur added: 'Evidence has shown the studies sponsored by industry are more likely to show favourable results towards mesh procedures.'

Vaginal mesh implants are offered to women suffering from stress urinary incontinence or pelvic organ prolapse, yet more than 800 are suing the NHS and the implants' manufacturers after suffering crippling pain that has left many unable to have sex or even walk.

The NHS has even been accused of sweeping such complications under the carpet in an effort to dodge media attention.

On the back of these conflict of interest allegations, Kath Sansom, who had the procedure in 2015 and leads 'Sling The Mesh', a campaign group seeking to have the implant banned in the UK, said: 'Doctors want the prestige of running the trial, manufacturers want profits and no one cares about women.'

Doctors supporting mesh implants have conflicts of interest, campaigner Kath Sansom warns

WHAT ARE VAGINAL MESH IMPLANTS? Vaginal mesh implants are devices used by surgeons to treat pelvic organ prolapse and urinary incontinence in women. Usually made from synthetic polypropylene, a type of plastic, the implants are intended to repair damaged or weakened tissue in the vagina wall. Other fabrics include polyester, human tissue and absorbable synthetic materials. Some women report severe and constant abdominal and vaginal pain after the surgery. In some, the pain is so severe they are unable to have sex. Infections, bleeding and even organ erosion has also been reported. Advertisement

Company paid more than $4million to doctors in 2016 alone

Mesh manufacturer Coloplast Corporation paid more than $4million in 2016 alone to US doctors and teaching hospitals, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' Open Payment database.

Of this, more than $700,000 was spent on travel and lodging, $608,000 on consultancy fees, and $338,000 on food and drink.

Coloplast declined to comment.

In 2016 alone, obstetrician-gynecologist Dr Vincent Lucente from the Institute of Pelvic Medicine & Reconstructive Surgery in North Wales, Pennsylvania, received more than $318,000 from six pharmaceutical companies. Of which, 85.7 per cent came from Coloplast.

Speaking to Minimally Invasive Surgery for Women, Dr Lucenete said vaginal mesh implant surgeries are 'really starting to show some promising results', adding 'the permanent materials are outperforming the traditional surgery without an implant by a significant margin.'

When asked about the complications of surgery, Dr Lucenete said they are 'the traditional ones that you have any time that you go and have a surgical intervention.'

Dr Lucente did not respond to a request for comment.

On the back of these conflicts of interest allegations, Ms Sansom told MailOnline: 'Mesh implant manufacturers take on surgeons to train others how to use the devices.

'These surgeons are often given education grants and travel scholarships. They're put up in hotels.

'Doctors build up a relationship with manufacturers and are then asked to carry out a study.

'Doctors want the prestige of running the trial, manufacturers want profits and no one cares about women.'

'Studies that show benefit were sponsored by mesh manufacturers '

THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF MESH Different types of mesh implants include: Mini-sling: This implant is embedded with a metallic inserter. It sits close to the mid-section of a woman's urethra. The use of an inserter is thought to lower the risk of cutting during the procedure.

This implant is embedded with a metallic inserter. It sits close to the mid-section of a woman's urethra. The use of an inserter is thought to lower the risk of cutting during the procedure. TVT sling : Such a sling is held in place by the patient's body. It is inserted with a plastic tape by cutting the vagina and making two incisions in the abdomen. The mesh sits beneath the urethra.

: Such a sling is held in place by the patient's body. It is inserted with a plastic tape by cutting the vagina and making two incisions in the abdomen. The mesh sits beneath the urethra. TVTO sling : Inserted through the groin and sits under the urethra. This sling was intended to prevent bladder perforation.

: Inserted through the groin and sits under the urethra. This sling was intended to prevent bladder perforation. TOT sling : Involves forming a 'hammock' of fibrous tissue in the urethra. Surgeons often claim this form of implant gives them the most control during implantation.

: Involves forming a 'hammock' of fibrous tissue in the urethra. Surgeons often claim this form of implant gives them the most control during implantation. Ventral mesh rectopexy : Releases the rectum from the back of the vagina or bladder. A mesh is then fitted to the back of the rectum to prevent prolapse. Advertisement

Dr Agur told MailOnline: 'Evidence has shown the studies sponsored by industry are more likely to show favourable results towards mesh procedures.'

He referred to the PROSPECT study, which is the largest vaginal mesh implant trial conducted on prolapse to date.

The study found no significant difference in pelvic organ prolapse symptoms between women who had artificial mesh implants fitted and those who had their vaginas surgically tightened or received a mesh made from animal tissue.

PROSPECT was funded by the Department of Health and received no sponsorship from mesh manufacturers.

Dr Agur added: 'Many of the studies that show benefit were sponsored by mesh manufacturers, where there is a risk of bias and conflicts of interest.'

Professor Heneghan added: 'Every doctor who has been paid says it doesn't affect their judgement but its blindly obvious to others that you see the benefits if you are being paid. Conflicts of interest distort medicine.

'Journals have a policy to declare conflicts of interest but no one polices that.'

A Cochrane report published in July 2015 said the TVT mesh is successful in eight out of 10 cases. Yet the report's authors admit 13 of the studies analysed are at high-risk for bias.

The report stated the procedure has a lower risk of immediate complications compared to other treatments. The team of eight researchers wrote in the journal: 'Our results support the use of mesh procedures for incontinence.'

'THE NHS IS FRIGHTENED OF OPENING UP THE FLOODGATES IF THEY ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY' Jill Lott, 57, believes the NHS will never accept responsibility for leaving women in crippling pain after having mesh implants Jill Lott, 57, a primary school teacher from Maidestone in Kent, believes the NHS will never accept responsibility for leaving women in crippling pain after having vaginal mesh implants fitted. The mother-of-two had a TVT implant fitted in March 2010 to treat her pelvic organ prolapse. Having since had the mesh removed, Ms Lott believes the life-changing complications of such implants has been deliberately swept under the carpet. She said: 'Its been under reported, we haven't been given the facts. 'Doctors do not have to report any side effects so the true extent of the damage is unknown. 'I feel angry on behalf of the women who have been disabled by this.' Despite the campaigns to have the implants banned in England, Ms Lott has prepared herself it may never happen. She said: 'We're up against big pharma, it's a huge battle. We want a suspension but lawyers have said to me 'pharma pours so much money into research in our country. The government doesn't want to upset them.' 'The NHS is frightened of opening up the floodgates if they hold their hands up and accept responsibility.' Despite paying to have the implant removed privately, Ms Lott still battles with daily discomfort. She said: 'Nerve damage to that area is still there, the implant is never designed to come out of you. 'I still have to take medication every day to control the pain.' An MHRA spokesperson said: 'Patient safety is our highest priority and we sympathise with women who have suffered complications after surgery. 'We are committed to helping address the serious concerns raised by some patients. We have undertaken work to assess the findings of studies undertaken by the clinical community over many years, as well as considering the feedback from all sources in that time. 'What we continue to see is that evidence supports the use of these devices in the UK for treatment of the distressing conditions of incontinence and organ prolapse in appropriate circumstances. This is supported by the greater proportion of the clinical community and patients. 'In common with other medical device regulators worldwide, none of whom have removed these devices from the market, we are not aware of a robust body of evidence which would lead to the conclusion these devices are unsafe if used as intended. 'We actively encourage patients and healthcare professionals to report complications associated with these implants through the Yellow Card scheme, or via https://www.gov.uk/report-problem-medicine-medical-device.' Advertisement

HOW MANY WOMEN SUFFER? According to the NHS and MHRA, the risk of vaginal mesh pain after an implant is between one and three per cent. Yet, a study by Case Western Reserve University found that up to 42 per cent of patients experience side effects. Of which, 77 per cent report severe pain and 30 per cent claim to have a lost or reduced sex life. Urinary infections have been reported in around 22 per cent of cases, while bladder perforation occurs in up to 31 per cent of incidences. Critics of the implants say trials confirming their supposed safety have been small or conducted in animals, who are unable to describe pain or a loss of sex life. According to Kath Sansom, head of the Sling The Mesh campaign, surgeons often refuse to accept vaginal mesh implants are causing recipient's pain, and are not obligated to report such complications anyway. She said: 'Less than 40 per cent of surgeons report vaginal mesh implant side effects. 'In last 10 years, 126,000 mesh and tape implants have been fitted in England alone. 'In that period around 7,800 women have gone into hospital with a mesh complication, but the number reported to the MHRA is just over 1,000. 'Many more women would have experienced pain but never gone to hospital.' Advertisement

Travel fellowships to Australia

Ms Samsom previously accused consultant gynaecologist and urogynaecologist Dr Mark Slack of having conflicts of interest when they appeared together on BBC Radio 4's flagship show Women's Hour.

Dr Slack's website states he received a travelling fellowship to Australia from Ethicon, which is owned by Johnson & Johnson.

Ethicon removed its mesh product Prosima from the market in 2012 after the FDA ordered it conduct a trial into the product's safety. Dr Slack was involved in collecting data supporting Prosima's approval.

Dr Slack told MailOnline: 'The Ethicon travelling fellowship is an annual award made by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to enable members of the college to undertake study in different institutions in other parts of the world.

'I participated in ethically approved peer-reviewed studies which were carried out under the principles of Good Clinical Practice in clinical trials.

'During this time I provided consultancy services to the company for which I received travel support and standard consultancy fees.

'Despite being a co-inventor of the vaginal support device I decided to waive any royalties as I believed that would have been a conflict of interest.

'Over a period of a few years I provided expert witness against certain defective mesh products in the Supreme court in the USA. I include this as evidence of my impartiality.'

An Ethicon spokesperson added: 'Prosima was adequately supported by clinical studies prior to marketing.

'In June 2012, Ethicon announced a business decision to discontinue the global commercialization of some of our pelvic-mesh products around the world, including Prosima, for reasons unrelated to the safety or efficacy of these products.

'It is customary for us to engage with leading physicians, researchers and medical societies. Ethicon's engagement with the medical community concerning our pelvic mesh products has been appropriate and responsible.'

Vaginal mesh implants (pictured) have left women wheelchair bound and unable to have sex

NHS DODGING MEDIA ATTENTION The NHS tried to dodge media attention over the vaginal mesh implants that left hundreds of women in agony, it was revealed back in April. The procedure cut into their vaginas and left many in discomfort so severe they have been left unable to work, walk or have sex. It emerged the NHS actively sought to avoid courting headlines over the matter after minutes from an NHS meeting in October were leaked. The minutes showed an agreement to 'take the press element out of' a campaign for women experiencing complications from the devices. Seen by the Press Association, the minutes outlined the Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency's (MHRA) yellow card campaign, which targets under-reporting of mesh complications. Officials said they should 'look into taking the press element out of the mesh yellow card campaign' and 'investigate whether there can be a general yellow card campaign, of which mesh is one element, to avoid media attention on mesh'. Advertisement

Trips to Rio

In December 2014, reports emerged that Dr Khunda from South Tees Hospitals was given a trip to Rio de Janeiro for recruiting the most patients into a vaginal mesh implant study.

Labour shadow health secretary Neil Findlay said: 'Given the hundreds of thousands of women who have reported horrific injuries caused by mesh implants, I am astonished this can happen in the NHS,' the Daily Record reported.

A South Tees Hospitals spokesperson told MailOnline: 'In 2014, the Trust was involved in a study by Aberdeen University comparing the efficacy of vaginal slings for certain women's health conditions.

'This trial was conducted throughout the UK, funded by the National Institute for Health Research portfolio.

'The full statement of December 2014, provided by Professor Andrew Owens, director of research and development, stated that as the centre with the highest recruitment in this period, consultant Aethele Khunda the local principal investigator, was offered and accepted an educational grant organised by the Scottish Pelvic Floor Network to attend the International Continence Society meeting which took place in Rio and where he and a colleague presented a paper.

'This has not and will not in any way compromise the integrity of the doctor or nurse who is duty bound to always act in the patient's best interest and provide unbiased information to them.'

Ethicon also came under fire when news emerged in October 2014 of two doctors on a UK Government panel assessing mesh implants having links to the pharmaceutical giant.

Dr Ash Monga, a consultant gynaecologist at University Hospital Southampton, described himself as a 'consultant for Gynecare', which is an Ethicon implant, in a 2009 research paper.

He told MailOnline: 'This consultancy refers to research project with Gynecare which involved the development of a patch for overactive bladder; it had nothing to do with meshes, prolapse or stress incontinence. It never came to market.'

Dr Karen Guerrero, a surgeon at Glasgow's Victoria Infirmary, received 'educational sponsorships'  including travel costs  from the company.

She told MailOnline: 'I was invited to the University of Oxford in September 2015 to teach UK surgeons on the subject of non-mesh alternative surgery, this being one of my areas of expertise.

'The course organisers covered my expenses only and I did not receive a fee for this.

'I can confirm that since I have been part of the Scottish Government panel assessing mesh implants, I have not received any monies from mesh companies.'
Women in the United States are twice as likely to use antidepressants as men, new data show.

The data, collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, show a significant increase in both genders taking the drugs over a 15-year span.

But while the percentage increase over time was similar among men and women, double the rate of females reported taking the medication at any time.

Antidepressants are one of the three most commonly used therapeutic drugs in the US, and while most are taken to treat depression it can also treat other conditions, such as anxiety.

Experts say that while depression rates may have risen, the data also suggest doctors have likely become better at recognizing and treating depression and anxiety disorders with medicine.

As for the gender gap, there is no clear reason that explains it, but many medical professionals warn there appears to be more of a stigma attached to men seeking mental health treatment than women.

Data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that antidepressant use has increased in the general population from 1999 to 2014, and that women are more than twice as likely to use the drug as their male counterparts

SUICIDE RATES HAVE DOUBLED SINCE 2007 Suicide rates among teenage girls reached a 40-year high in 2015, new data reveal. The research from the National Center for Health Statistics showed 524 girls aged between 15 and 19 years old took their own life two years ago. That is the highest figure ever since records began in 1975, when 305 girls committed suicide. But it has not been a steady increase; the report reveals a recent spike, with rates doubling between 2007 and 2015. The figures, released on Thursday, come amid controversy over the Netflix show 13 Reasons Why, which some experts believe could be driving interest in suicide among girls and young women. The report showed suicide rates among boys the same age have dropped far below the peak between the 80s and 90s. However, suicide remains four times more common among teenage boys than teenage girls, with 1,537 suicides among males aged between 15 and 19 in 2015. Meanwhile, suicidal thoughts and attempted suicides are more common among teenage girls, who tend to use pills, while boys tend to use guns. It is not clear what is driving the current increase in rates among girls - perhaps the current drug abuse and overdose epidemic, or internet bullying. The report did not specify the clinical background of those who committed suicide - whether they were in therapy, on medication, or went to hospital. Experts warn the figures, though lacking in detail, highlight the need to take delicate measures to treat mental illness in teenage girls. There were 1.5 million more suicide-related searches than expected during the 19 days following the series' release, according to a recent report by public health researchers at San Diego State University. The researchers said they believe this increase was triggered by the show 13 Reasons Why. Advertisement

Using the most recently available data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), researchers estimated recent US trends in the presence of antidepressants overall.

They also looked at these trends in relation to demographic characteristics such as age, race and gender.

Analysis was based on data for four three-year NHANES cycles beginning in 1999 and ending in 2014. In total 13,951 people answered survey questions about their medication use.

During the 2011-2014 cycle, 12.7 percent of people reported that they had taken antidepressant medication in the last month. By comparison, 7.7 percent took it in the cycle lasting from 1999 to 2002.

Dr Owen Muir, psychiatrist and Medical Director at Brooklyn Minds in New York told Daily Mail Online that the data didn't surprise him at all.

'As far as the number of people taking them increasing, there are two ways to think about it,' he explained.

'Either prevalence of the disorders requiring antidepressants has increased, or we're just better at recognizing them.'

He also said that women are more likely to be prescribed the drug because they are more likely to seek treatment for depression or anxiety.

'There aren't actually twice as many women with depression as there are men,' Dr Muir said.

'In reality it's more like a five percent difference between men and women, but really women are just more likely to seek treatment.'

Stigma, Dr Muir said, has a lot to do with that difference.

'There is a stigma attached to anyone seeking mental health care, but that definitely exists more for men than for women, and in part that's because women are more willing and likely to speak candidly about their experiences with it,' he explained.

'Men are more likely to avoid going to the doctor if they are feeling that way and are less likely to see a specialist.'

The data also show that racially, non-Hispanic white persons are more likely to take antidepressants than any other racial group.

Overall antidepressant use increased with age, and it occurred in both sexes and in all races.

Dr Muir said this is most likely explained by differences in access to healthcare in the United States.

'Healthcare in the United States is two tiered, there is public and there is private. Public doctors are overbooked and getting paid less per patient, so they don't have as much time to devote per individual,' he said.

'People of color, unfortunately, are more likely to receive poor healthcare in the United States because of the disparity in the country.'
A family from California is feeling hopeful for their four-year-old son who was born with the same rare disorder that killed their first-born.

Ely Bowman was born with Batten's Disease, a rare nerve disorder that typically causes seizures, speech loss, paralysis and eventually an early death.

His brother Titus died from the same condition when he was just six, and there is no known cure.

But in 2016, Ely was selected to participate in a groundbreaking drug trial in Ohio that will hopefully slow down the progression of the disease, if not stop it completely.

So on September 27, just 10 days after his older brother's death, Ely and his parents, Bekah and Danny, flew from their home in Irvine, California to Columbus to start treatment.

Ely Bowman, pictured, was born with Batten's Disease, a rare nerve disorder that typically causes seizures, speech loss, paralysis and eventually an early death. He is pictured in June once the Children's Hospital of Orange County started performing the transfusions

The same disorder resulted in his older brother Titus's death in September of 2016. Titus and Ely are pictured together left and right

WHAT IS BATTEN'S DISEASE?

Batten's disease is a type of lysosomal storage disorder, meaning that a genetic mutation disrupted the cells ability to dispose of wastes.

That disruption is caused by the lack of ability to create an enzyme that cleans up the 'waste', and buildup in the cells causes the symptoms.

There are 14 types Batten's disease - but all generally result in death by the time the sufferer reaches their early teens.

Common symptoms include:

Seizures

Visual Impairment or blindness

Personality and behavioral changes

Dementia

Loss of motor skills or clumsiness

Speech impairment or total loss of speech

When Titus, who is pictured with a family member, was two-and-a-half he started exhibiting symptoms, and before his fourth birthday he was having regular seizures

Titus and Ely were born with late infantile Batten's disease, meaning they had a normal birth and did not start displaying symptoms until they were between two and two-and-a-half years old.

At that age, Titus started having trouble speaking and became incredibly clumsy.

Then at three-and-a-half he started having seizures and eventually completely lost the ability to speak, to move and even to eat.

His parents said they took him to doctors and specialists for more than 14 months before finally reaching a conclusion.

'Once we found out and I looked up symptoms it clicked, he was textbook,' Bekah told Daily Mail Online.

'He'd been to so many doctors before that who told us first that he had epilepsy, that he was autistic, and other things. But this diagnosis made sense.'

The family was heartbroken, and learned that the disease was caused by a genetic mutation passed down by both parents.

'So it's rare that a child has it at all,' Bekah explained.

'But because we both had the mutation there was a 25 percent chance of passing it on, so we had Ely tested even though he wasn't showing any symptoms yet.'

The tests came back and confirmed that their second son had the same condition. When he reached two-and-a-half he started showing the signs.

Like his brother, Ely's speech started to become delayed and he started getting clumsier. Instead of walking flat, Ely walks on his toes.

'Doctors told us that a lot of times siblings with Batten's follow the same timeline, so we were expecting these things to come about when they did,' Bekah said.

DEATH OF THEIR FIRST SON AND HOPE FOR THEIR SECOND

WHAT IS BATTEN DISEASE? Batten disease, also known as Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinoses, is a rare genetically-inherited disease. It is caused by waste buildup in the cells which creates neurodegenerative effects including: Blindness

Seizures

Personality changes

Dementia

Loss of motor skills and the ability to walk, talk and communicate Because it is a rare disease, it is often difficult to diagnosed and untested at birth. Ways to diagnose: Blood or urine tests

Skin or tissue sampling

DNA analysis

Electrical studies of the eyes There are 14,000 children worldwide that are diagnosed with the disorder. There is currently no known cure or treatment available for Batten disease. Advertisement

On September 17, 2016, Titus died in his sleep from complications caused by Batten's disease.

Just 10 days later, the family had to get on a plane to head to Columbus, Ohio, because Ely had been accepted into a drug trial.

'It was a whirlwind. We were feeling hope and joy for Ely being accepted into the trial, but also pain and grief for the loss of our first child,' Bekah explained.

For the next six months the Bowmans traveled in between Irvine, California and Columbus, Ohio, every 14 days for enzyme transfusion therapy.

The treatment replaces some of the enzymes that Ely's body cannot produce and clean up the waste buildup in his cells.

Drugs are administer through a port in his brain, which was put in surgically.

Bekah said handing off one of their sons for brain surgery so soon after losing their first son was 'numbing'.

'We'd just lost Titus and were still dealing with that huge grief, but we also knew this was the only way to save Ely,' she explained.

And it seems to be working.

'Ely is four now and hasn't had a single seizure, which is almost unheard of. His brother had already started having them when he was at that age,' Bekah said.

'So far he isn't changing really. He's not getting better, but he's also not getting worse which I think is more notable.'

After the six months of traveling across the country twice a month for treatment, the family was relieved to hear that they wouldn't have to do that any longer.

The Children's Hospital of Orange County was picked as the second location in the country to start treating Batten's patients with enzyme transfusions.

'Ohio was amazing, but now we have an 18 minute commute between our front door and the hospital,' she said.

Ely will continue undergoing the enzyme transfusion treatment for the rest of his life unless doctors find a cure.

The drug is now out of its trial phase - which means it is covered by insurance - but even still it is expensive, so to raise money for the treatments Ely's family is crowdfunding.

THE HAPPY CHILD: ELY BRINGS JOY TO EVERYONE AROUND HIM DESPITE THE SCARY DISEASE

Even though Ely has some speech and learning delays, Bekah said he acts like a normal and happy child.

'He doesn't know, and he's incredibly joyful,' she explained.

'He just spreads joy wherever he goes, and his brother was the same way.'

Speaking about Titus's passing, Bekah said she isn't sure whether or not Ely fully understood his death.

'Before his brother died, they were best buddies. They did everything together,' she explained.

'So when Titus started to get really sick and couldn't really be a big brother anymore, Ely was frustrated at first, then eventually got used to it.

'He would get up in Titus's chair with him and bring toys so he could help him play. It was a very big boy thing to do for such a little boy,'

The Bowmans traveled between Columbus and Irvine for six months for Ely's treatment. He is pictured at the hospital in both photos, and left while he undergoing the enzyme transfusion in California, and right during his first visit to CHOC

The Bowman family is pictured together before Titus's death. Bekah, pictured far left, said Ely had a hard time understanding his older brother's passing, but that the bond between them is still strong

The night Titus died, Ely came back for one extra hug after he'd been put to bed, which his mother said he didn't normally do.

And the next morning, she said he looked for his brother all over the house, not fully understanding why he couldn't find him.

'We were easy with him, but also very frank, you know we told him Titus went to heaven and that we were very sad,' Bekah said.

Now it's been nearly a year since Titus's passing, and Bekah said there's still a strong bond between the brothers.

'He still watches videos on my phone of the two of them when they would play together, and he still looks at a book of photos we have of the two of them, so there's definitely still the memory there,' she explained.
Drinking a glass of wine or a bottle of beer a night could slash your risk of an early death by a fifth.

Moderate drinking  defined as up to seven drinks a week for women and 14 for men  significantly cuts the risk of dying from heart disease and other problems, a study has found.

The research, conducted among more than 300,000 Americans, directly contradicts official guidance published by the British chief medical officer.

Drinking a glass of wine or a bottle of beer a night could slash your risk of an early death by a fifth, it has been revealed

Dame Sally Davies has stated there is no safe level of drinking.

But while some evidence suggests drinking any amount may increase the risk of certain cancers, experts last night said the benefits to the heart clearly outweigh these risks, particularly among the elderly.

Scientists from the University of Texas and Shandong University in China tracked 333,247 Americans for an average of 8.2 years.

They defined a moderate drinker as a woman who drank up to seven standard drinks a week  equivalent to a 140ml glass of 12 per cent-strength wine or a 340ml bottle of 5 per cent beer  and a man who consumed 14 drinks.

Moderate drinkers were 22 per cent less likely to die over the study period than those who had abstained from alcohol all their lives. Moderate alcohol consumption seemed to be particularly protective of the heart, with deaths from cardiovascular disease slashed by 29 per cent.

Scientists from the University of Texas and Shandong University in China tracked 333,247 Americans for an average of 8.2 years

Researchers stressed there was a delicate balance between the benefits and dangers of alcohol, and if people regularly consumed too much, drinking could rapidly switch from benefiting health to damaging it. Those who consumed more than the moderate threshold were 11 per cent more likely to die than lifelong teetotallers.

Among heavy drinkers the risk of cancer was particularly pronounced, with an increased cancer death risk of 27 per cent compared to abstainers.

The study was published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Researchers suspect the benefits of moderate drinking are linked to the antioxidants in alcoholic drinks, an increase in good HDL cholesterol, and alcohols ability to reduce damaging inflammation in the body.

Lead author professor Bo Xi said: Light-to-moderate drinking might have some protective effects against cardiovascular disease, while heavy drinking can lead to death. A delicate balance exists between the beneficial and detrimental effects of alcohol consumption, which should be stressed to consumers and patients.

Previous studies with similar conclusions had been dismissed because other experts said they had been skewed by sick participants who had abstained from alcohol because of existing health conditions. Critics had also claimed middle-class people, who generally have better health, were more likely to drink moderately than the poor, again skewing the results of previous studies.

But the researchers behind the latest study claim to have dealt with these concerns by comparing drinkers only to people who were lifelong abstainers, and by adjusting for socio-economic factors.

British health authorities last night continued to warn against the risks of drinking. Rosanna OConnor, of Public Health England, said: Consuming alcohol excessively contributes to a vast number of other serious disease.
A dangerous Japanese fungus is spreading through British hospital wards, health officials warned.

More than 200 patients have been affected or found to carry the fungus, which is resistant to regular drugs.

Hospitals and nursing homes have been ordered to deep clean affected areas and isolate patients after it spread to at least 55 hospitals.

The fungus, Candida auris, has been resistant to all three main classes of anti-fungal drug treatment.

It was first identified in the ear canal of a 70-year-old woman in Japan and has been likened to a superbug.

The first case of Candida auris in the UK was in 2013.

File photo of a doctor and a surgeon push a patient on a hospital bed trolley through accident and emergency department of a UK hospital

If a person is healthy they are unlikely to be affected by the fungus, but may still carry it.

But if a patient has a damaged immune system, it can prove fatal and cause major disabilities.

Public Health England (PHE) said that since July, 20 NHS trusts and hospitals have found more than 200 cases of patients infected or carrying the fungus, the Daily Telegraph reported.

The guidance warns the three largest outbreaks have proved difficult to control, despite intensive infection prevention and control measures.

The worst affected trusts include Kings College Hospital Foundation trust, Oxford University Hospitals Foundation trust, the Royal Brompton Hospital and Harefield NHS Foundation trust have been the worst affected by the outbreak.

Infections forced the Royal Brompton hospital to close its intensive care unit for a fortnight last year.

These outbreaks have now been declared over, but the problem persists at many other hospitals.

No patients have died as a result fungus in the UK, but worldwide studies showed 60 per cent of those infected with the fungus die.

It has not been proved that the infection caused those deaths.

Prof Hugh Pennington, emeritus professor of bacteriology at Aberdeen University, said the outbreaks were a big challenge for hospitals.

Candida auris (pictured) has been resistant to all three main classes of anti-fungal drug treatment

He said: This situation is a nightmare for intensive care units in particular.

The kind of patient that gets infected by this will normally already be immunosuppressed - whether that is because of chemotherapy, tumours, or deliberately suppressed for medical reasons.

The pathogen is picked up from skin to skin contact or infected surfaces.

Symptons include bloodstream infections, wound infections and inflammation of the ear.

Dr Colin Brown, PHE consultant medical microbiologist said: PHE continues to provide ongoing expert support and advice on infection control measures to limit the spread of Candida auris in healthcare settings.

Our enhanced surveillance of this uncommon fungus shows that in the UK it has mostly been detected in colonised patients, with a quarter being clinical infections.

Control measures include screening patients for the fungus, isolating anyone affected, focusing on the importance of hand hygiene and deep cleaning all affected areas.

If a member of the public comes into contact with a patient who is carrying, or is infected with Candida auris, they should be protected by regular hand washing as a precautionary measure.
A little-known, painful condition can affect women's vaginas if they do not have enough sex, an expert warns.

Vaginal atrophy, or dryness, is a common disorder that affects most women at some stage in their lives. Symptoms include discharge, burning, itching, difficulty urinating and pain during sex.

Yet, regular orgasms help to keep vaginal tissue healthy, meaning it is less likely to become inflammed, thin or dry, according to London-based sex therapist Dr Louise Mazanti.

Sex - either with a partner or solo - also improves blood flow to the intimate area, resulting in more oxygen reaching the vagina, which strengthens its tissues, she adds.

Dr Mazanti also recommends women get intimate to boost their mental health.

A little-known condition can affect women's vaginas if they do not have enough sex (stock)

WHAT IS VAGINAL ATROPHY? Vaginal atrophy, or dryness, affects most women at some point in their lives. Those going through the, or post, menopause are more likely to suffer. Symptoms include vaginal irritation, discomfort during sex, needing to urinate more than normal and repeated urinary tract infections. Aside from the menopause, causes include childbirth, breastfeeding, lack of arousal, certain contraceptives and cancer therapies. Treatment includes lubricants and hormone replacement therapy in severe cases. Women should also ensure they are sufficiently sexually aroused before intercourse. Source: NHS Choices Advertisement

'Have a sexual relationship with yourself'

Dr Mazanti said: 'It is very important that we have a healthy sex life with a partner or with ourselves.

'People very often say, "I don't have a sex life because I don't have a partner".

'But forget about that and have a sexual relationship with yourself,' The Sun reported.

Dr Mazanti recommends women, or their partners, massage the vaginal tissue to improve blood flow and elasticity, leading to better genital health.

Increased blood flow also boosts oxygen in the intimate area, which helps to eliminate toxins associated with vaginal atrophy.

Orgasms boost mental health

Aside from physical health, regular orgasms also help to boost mental wellbeing by reducing the risk of depression and making women feel sexually attractive, Dr Mazanti adds.

This comes after research back in July revealed having sex once a week slows ageing in women, even if they do not enjoy it.

Researchers from the University of California in San Francisco found being active between the sheets increases the length of women's telomeres. These 'cap' the end of DNA strands, with longer lengths being associated with slower aging, longer lifespans and improved overall health.

Women's telomeres lengthen with regular love making regardless of whether they are sexually satisfied in their relationship, the research adds.
Forget face lifts - surgeons believe 'bone lifts' could be the future of age-defying cosmetic treatments.

As we get older, it's not just our skin that sags and wrinkles. Facial bones shift and droop with time, too.

Now for the first time, scientists have mapped these bony ageing changes in detail over the course of eight years.

Rutgers New Jersey Medical School researchers claim the findings could open a 'whole new paradigm' in facial ageing prevention.

They said osteoporosis drugs and mechanical devices used in craniofacial surgery could treat the symptoms of ageing.

As we get older, it's not just our skin that sags and wrinkles. Facial bones shift and droop with time, too, scientists have found

Lead researcher Boris Paskhover, of the university's department of head and neck surgery, studied a group of fourteen patients, aged between 40 and 55.

Over the course of the study, the patients underwent repeated facial imaging that included the entire mid-face and cranium.

Skeletal changes were found to occur in the exact regions where cosmetic surgery is popular - around the cheeks, eyebrows, eye socket and forehead.

Dr Paskhover also noted decreases in three important angles used to measure facial geometry as the facial bones appears to shift and tilt forwards.

'These bony changes likely contribute to the appearance of many common mid-face ageing changes,' he wrote in JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery.

He pointed to prominent nasolabial folds, facial hollowing, loss of dentition and the senile nose as results of such bone drooping.

Over the course of the study, the patients underwent repeated facial imaging that included the entire mid-face and cranium

Skeletal changes were found to occur in the exact regions where cosmetic surgery is popular - around the cheeks, eyebrows, eye socket and forehead

Dr Paskhover said that existing mechanical devices used in orthodontics may work in reversing the age-related bone changes.

He added: '[They] may allow us not only to treat but also to prevent these changes from occurring, opening up a whole new paradigm in facial ageing prevention.'

Currently, the most effective ways to restore youthful looks are properly performed facelifts, necklifts, browlifts and eyelifts, aka 'blepharoplasty'.

OSTEOPOROSIS DRUGS: THE RISKS Currently osteoporosis patients are given either hormone modulators, bisphosphonates and calcitonin to boost their bone density. But scientists have warned some of the drugs, which are used to strengthen bone, can actually have the opposite effect. Taking biphosphonates for more than five years alters the composition of bone - making it more brittle, Cornell University researchers found. Older women were found to be most at risk of taking the cheap pills, which include Fosamax, Boniva and Reclast, and are believed to protect millions of patients from fatal fractures. Last week's findings had potential implications for the treatment of the condition which affects more than three million Britons and 44 million in the US. Advertisement

But experts claim that drugs traditionally used to treat osteoporosis, which have been linked to having the opposite effect as to what they are designed for, may be used to build bone density in those looking to freshen-up their face.

Opening up new avenues of treatment

Leading British cosmetic surgeon Gary Ross, based in Manchester, welcomed the new research, saying it promised to open-up new avenues of treatment.

He told MailOnline: 'Certainly, we are aware of the ageing of the facial skeleton, the apparent growth of cartilage and the descent and reduction in volume of the soft tissues.

'Cosmetic orthodontics and manipulation of the bony skeleton is a rapidly expanding field in facial rejuvenation surgery.

'Having read this new paper, I would be particularly interested to look at facial ageing in patients already undergoing treatments for osteoporosis.

'This may give us some insight into whether these pharmacoligical treatments may open a new paradigm in facial ageing prevention.'

Face lifts: The facts

Figures from the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery show a 28 per cent increase in people undergoing face lifts between 1997 and 2015.

The procedure, known medically as a rhytidectomy, lifts up and pulls back the skin to help make the face appear tighter and smoother.

It can cost upwards of $12,900 (10,000), and side effects of the cosmetic surgery can include hair loss, thick scars and nerve injury.
Justin Park, Family Minister Director of Rock Point Church and Backpack Chattanooga volunteer delivers backpack to Melissa Fosters Kindergarten class at Hardy Elementary A backpack delivered by Backpack Chattanooga volunteers to 5,800 elementary students in Chattanooga Hardy Elementary Kindergarten Teacher, Melissa Foster, discusses the contents of the backpacks with her kindergarteners Members from Rock Point Church helps delivers backpacks to classrooms Kelley Andrews, Project Manager of Backpack Chattanooga, and Kenneth Simpson, Interim Executive Director of Front Porch Alliance, pause to take a photo with thankful students at Hardy Elementary Previous Next

More than 200 community leaders and volunteers devoted their Tuesday morning to personally deliver bright smiles and backpacks filled with school supplies to 5,800 students attending 10 Title 1 elementary schools located across Hamilton County.

The students that received backpacks and school supplies attended the following schools: Bess T. Shepherd Elementary, Clifton Hills Elementary, East Lake Elementary, Eastside Elementary, Hardy Elementary, Hillcrest Elementary, Hixson Elementary, Orchard Knob Elementary, Spring Creek Elementary and Woodmore Elementary.

The Back to School community outreach collaborative, The Nehemiah Project, is hosted by Front Porch Alliance. Since creating the project in 2000, the Front Porch Alliance, in partnership with a team of sponsors and volunteers, has equipped more than 85,000 Hamilton County Department of Education elementary students with the necessary supplies to start the new school year.

Community Partners of the 17th Annual Nehemiah Project: were City Church, Abba's House, Chick Fil A, J103, Anglican Church of the Redeemer, Salvation Army, Rock Point Church, New Monumental Baptist Church, Resurrected Baptist, Mt. Canaan Baptist Church, Dynamic Church, River Church, Catoosa Homeschool Co-op, Metropolitan Tabernacle, Covenant Transport, Net Specialties, Cop Church, Cadence Coffee, Office Depot, Walmart, Top Flight and The Gideons.








South Carolina has become the latest state to sue a major pharmaceutical company for deceptive branding of a highly addictive opioid.

The state's Attorney General filed a lawsuit accusing Purdue Pharma of unfair marketing of OxyContin today, amid a growing opioid epidemic that killed 33,000 in 2015, according to the CDC.

The lawsuit says Purdue told doctors that patients receiving prescriptions for opioids will not become addicted to the drug.

However, a growing swell of studies is showing that patients who use the drug over time are likely to become either mentally or physically dependent.

South Carolina's legal action comes on the heels of a similar lawsuit filed by New Hampshire last week, in which the state sued Purdue for downplaying the drug's risk of addiction.

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson stands next to Representative Eric Bedingfield, whose son died last year of a drug overdose

Purdue and other pharmaceutical companies have been sued over opioid products by Oklahoma, Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri, New Hampshire and cities and counties in California, Illinois, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee and New York.

In 2007, Purdue and three of its executives pleaded guilty to federal charges related to misbranding OxyContin. The company agreed to pay $634.5million to resolve a probe by the US Justice Department.

The same year the company also reached a settlement with the District of Columbia and 26 states, including South Carolina, in which it agreed to pay $19.5million.

THE EFFECTS OF FENTANYL Fentanyl is a man-made opioid that is very potent. While it is excellent for controlling serious pain, it comes with with huge abuse potential. It can be between 80 and 500 times stronger than morphine. Fentanyl is a drug that can be severely harmful, or even fatal, with death usually caused by respiratory failure. It can be taken as a patch, an oral or nasal spray, a lollipop (a lozenge with a stick handle), or via injection. The drug is often sold in place of high-grade heroin - referred to as 'China White' - or added to heroin to amplify the high. Short term effects: Reduced feelings of pain

Euphoria

Relaxtion Long-term effects: Increase your risk for anoxic injury (damage due to significantly decreased oxygen in the body tissues) and multiple organ system damage

Significantly increase your risk of overdose and death

Initiate or worsen pre-existing mental health conditions, including depression and/or frequently changing moods Advertisement

And in 2015 it agreed to pay $24million in a lawsuit brought against it by Kentucky.

But South Carolina argued today that the company has continued to falsely brand the drug since the settlement rather than conforming to the law.

Purdue denied the allegations in South Carolina's new lawsuit but said it shares the state's concern for the opioid crisis and is committed to finding solutions.

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said: 'While there is a time and a place for patients to receive opioids, Purdue prevented doctors and patients from receiving complete and accurate information about opioids in order to make informed choices about their treatment options.'

After New Hampshire sued Purdue for similar reasons last week, Senator Maggie Hassan said: 'Through improper marketing of prescription opioids, drug makers have long been running a campaign of deception to mask how addictive these products really are.'

Estimates said the death rate resulting from the opioid epidemic has risen since 2015 - which is the last year for which data is available.

Public health officials believe that this is happening in part because after patients get hooked on drugs they cannot afford, they start taking street versions of them.

The rate of people who died using synthetic opioids - other than methadone - such as fentanyl, increased about 72 percent from 2014 to 2015, according to the CDC.

This rate increased across all regions and demographics and in numerous states, including South Carolina.

Fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine.

The pharmaceutical version of fentanyl is prescribed to manage pain caused by advanced stages of cancer.

The illegally manufactured version of the drug is commonly mixed with heroin or cocaine to make it stronger.

The CDC said: 'Reports indicate that increases in synthetic opioid-involved deaths are being driven by increases in fentanyl-involved overdose deaths, which are likely illicitly-manufactured fentanyl.'
A 52-year-old man said he 'hardly noticed it' when a three-inch nail drove into his heart in a construction accident.

Doug Bergeson was building a frame for a fireplace at his home in Marinette, Wisconsin, on June 25 when the accident happened.

'I was standing in an awkward place and didn't have a great grip on the gun, so when I fired it one of the nails ricocheted and hit me,' Doug told Daily Mail Online.

But he didn't realize how severe the accident was until a few minutes later, once he'd already started co clean up.

'I thought it just nicked me, then I was feeling around on my chest and looked down and thought "Oh that's not good at all,"' he said.

'I knew I couldn't pull that out.'

Doug Bergeson was building a frame for a fireplace at his home in Marinette, Wisconsin, on June 25 when his nail gun slipped and the nail pierced him in the heart

Once realizing how deep the nail was into his chest, he quickly got in the car and drove himself the 12 miles to the emergency room at the Bay Area Medical Center.

'It started to get really painful around mile eight,' he said. 'I could tell it was in my heart because it kept twitching with my heartbeat.'

When Doug got to the hospital he was quickly taken into the back and a number of nurses surrounded him.

'I was kind of keeping one eye on them and trying to text my wife to say they'd ripped my shirt and I would need a new shirt, but auto-correct happened and the text made no sense,' he explained.

It started to get really painful around mile eight... it kept twitching with my heartbeat

'So when she got to the hospital and saw what it was she just fell over.'

After some testing and a tetanus shot Doug was brought to the BayCare Aurora Medical Center in Green Bay where he underwent open-heart surgery.

The surgery, which between an hour and an hour-and-a-half, removed the nail and made sure that no surrounding areas were seriously damaged.

He was operated on by Dr Alexander Roitstein, who told Daily Mail Online that he was incredibly fortunate.

Doctors said the three-and-a-half inch nail was less than millimeters away from hitting a major artery, which would've given Doug just three minutes to live

'The nail was about an eighth of an inch away from a major artery, and had he been leaning just so or had his heart been in a different part of the beating cycle we could've had a very different situation on our hands,' Dr Roitstein said.

Dr Roitstein said Doug said his reasoning for not pulling out the nail had to do with the death of Steve Irwin, who pulled a stingray's stinger out of his heart after being pierced and bled to death on camera

The heart surgeon also commended Doug's sensibility in the moment after the nail pierced his heart.

'It says a lot that he had the situational awareness not to pull the nail out of his chest,' he explained.

Dr Roitstein said Doug said his reasoning for not pulling out the nail had to do with the death of Steve Irwin, who pulled a stingray's stinger out of his heart after being pierced and bled to death on camera.

'I was lucky, Dr Roitstein told me that had the nail gone any further - not even a millimeter just the width of sheet of paper - I might've had three minutes to live,' Doug said to Daily Mail.

Now, about a month and a half after the incident, he said he's feeling much better and just about back to full health. He even got to keep the nail.

'I'm feeling good now, right after the surgery I had to be really careful,' he said.

'The doctors had to cut my chest completely open so they said if the stitches rip and I had to come back it would be twice as bad.

'Now I'm not on pain medication and I'm just on a 20 pound lifting restriction so I'm feeling much more normal.'
America's healthcare system is discriminatory against lesbians, particularly those in middle age, leading doctors warn in a new report.

Lesbians have higher rates of substance abuse, psychological disorders and suicide attempts than heterosexual women, studies show.

Experts with the Mayo Clinic say these statistics are clearly connected to access to care for homosexual women and how they are treated.

They are also less likely to receive imperative treatments such as cervical cancer screenings and mammograms.

The research authors say that lesbians would have better healthcare if clinicians were more accepting towards them and if they had better access to insurance.

Some ways to improve healthcare for lesbians is to not assume a patient is heterosexual during their first appointment and to regularly assess anxiety, depression and substance abuse.

Lesbians are more likely to suffer from substance abuse, psychological disorders or obesity than heterosexual women, according to new studies. Experts say that an improvement for lesbians with healthcare is needed to help make them feel more comfortable to go in

The essay focused on lesbians in middle age and what stressors they deal with in terms of their healthcare.

Dr Jordan E. Rullo and Dr Stephanie S. Faubion wrote in their essay: 'Clinicians who have an understanding of lesbian women and their unique stressors, who provide a welcoming and inclusive environment, and who provide cross-cultural care are well positioned to reduce healthcare stigma and improve clinical outcomes.'

The authors said that LGBT people have health and sexual relationship patterns like those in the general population but 'have higher rates of substance use, psychological disorders, and suicide attempts than their heterosexual counterparts.'

Lesbians have a higher chance of smoking and obesity than heterosexual women, according to new studies the authors analyzed.

The authors also found that lesbians are less likely to have had a recent mammogram or been screened for cervical cancer.

Dr. Lori R. Muskat, a psychology professor at Argosy University in Atlanta who was not an author on the opinion piece, said: 'This paper is particularly important regarding lesbians who are now in middle age.

How to make lesbian patients feel accepted and comfortable by healthcare providers 1. Don't assume the gender(s) of the people your patient is attracted to, or their sexual partners. 2. Consider that lesbians are at greater risk for coronary heart disease, diabetes, and potentially breast and cervical cancer and that they may have a higher prevalence of cervical cancer than heterosexual women. 3. Educate patients about the risks for bacterial vaginosis, HPV, and HIV, due to same-sex sexual behaviors and sharing of sexual devices - and encourage screening, prevention, and treatment. 4. Regularly assess anxiety, depression, and substance use. Sources: Dr. Rullo and Dr. Faubion Advertisement

'Most of these women grew up and 'came out' when being a lesbian was even more taboo than it is now.'

The 2015 Supreme Court decision to legalize gay marriage in the US led to more visibility for lesbians.

This visibility can help lead to an improved healthcare experience for lesbians now that it doesn't hold the same taboo.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends that providers don't assume that patients are heterosexual.

Providers should ask patients about marital and partnership status, sexual activity (or lack of it), and potential sexual interest in men, women, or both.

Dr Muskat believes 'culturally literate' clinicians are more likely to offer an environment that is 'emotionally safer' for middle-aged lesbians, 'resulting in a freer reporting of symptoms and concerns.'

Dr Valerie Fein-Zachary of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, also not an author on the paper, said: 'By learning about the specific health issues of lesbian, bisexual and transgender women, we as providers can better counsel them - including about screening exams for breast, cervical/ovarian or prostate cancer, depending on their individual needs; and about risk-reduction strategies.'

She also suggests asking patients if they feel safe at home, at work, and in the community.

She identified several barriers to care: 'lack of access to insurance, lack of knowledgeable providers, lack of culturally competent providers, and lack of institutional acceptance - including hospitals denying LGBT people basic rights such as visitation by family members (non-blood relatives)... Lack of insurance coverage may hamper access to healthcare because most insurance still relies on employment or spousal insurance through employment.'
The simmering issue of nepotism in the judiciary, with allegations of judges lobbying for children or relatives to get to the bench, suddenly bubbled up on Tuesday.

It happened at a most unlikely venue: the Independence Day function at the Supreme Court.

Chief Justice J S Khehar, who is set to retire in two weeks, rejected allegations that he had 'misused his authority' to promote his Chandigarh-based son.

Khehar rejected allegations that he had 'misused his authority' to promote his Chandigarh-based son

He chose to do this in the presence of other judges of the court, law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, attorney general KK Venugopal and a large number of advocates.

Nepotism is a very sensitive subject within the judiciary. There have been several reports of the Supreme Court receiving lists for appointments to several high courts with dozens of judges whose sons, daughters and relatives are also judges. There are also complaints that some of them do not fulfill many of the eligibility conditions.

It all began when Supreme Court Bar Association president RS Suri while listing 'issues of concern for the bar' said: 'Why are most of the judges who become HC judges sons of acting or previous judges? Why is it that 80 per cent of panels are filled with sons and daughters of the judges?

The topic came up after Supreme Court Bar Association president RS Suri (pictured) questioned the number of children of judges occupying judicial benches

'These things have to be explained logically so that we give some chance for other persons also to come up the ladder because they too are able and capable. We have excellent relationship with the judiciary but we have to be given our due.'

When his turn came, CJI Khehar termed Suri's comments as a 'left-handed compliment' and said, 'About a few months ago, I woke up one morning and read a newspaper which said, "Chief Justice's son appointed on a panel of government." I asked, "Son, are you on the government panel?"

'He said. "No father. I am not on any government panel." He said there is another Khehar on the panel and they assumed it is me. Then I asked, "Did you get a letter from the government appointing you?" He said, "No." I asked him if he takes occasional briefs from the government, he said, "no". So what appears as a misuse of authority may not be a misuse of authority, Mr President (looking at Suri).'

The CJI then narrated an incident where he met a bright young lawyer who did not want to become a judge as he felt everybody would say he was a judge because of his father.

'There was an international conference on arbitration I attended. There I met a young enthusiastic lawyer and I was told he practises in Delhi High Court. I was impressed with him and even judges of Delhi High Court there spoke highly of him. When I met him later I asked him "why don't you become a judge?"

'He said, "No, sir. Everybody will say I am a judge because of my father".'

'So, Mr President, please do not say that,' the CJI said again looking at Suri.

By drawing attention to that meeting, the CJI said there are very bright children of judges too and if they have the calibre, there is nothing wrong in them becoming judges and he said no aspersions should be cast on them.

'There are good, bright, able children. Whether they are children of judges or not, in independent India we stand together to achieve whatever we can achieve. Everybody should get a chance,' he said.

Was the Chief Justice angry after the SCBA president's comment as he left the venue without the customary tea with the members of the bar? 'No, there is no chance,' Suri told Mail Today. 'He and I merely stated the facts. He left without having tea saying it was already getting late for him.'
As we celebrate 70 years of India's Independence, it's time to evaluate what we have achieved in these seven decades in various sectors.

One area that stands out is science and technology. India's achievements in this sector are quite well recognised - from space technology to medical research.

These aren't just scientific or technological achievements but have also touched the lives of ordinary citizens in many ways. India began scientific research quite early and we are reaping the benefits of it now.

As India celebrates 70 years of independence from British rule, many are looking back on its achievements in science and technology

Take for instance space technology. While missions like those to the moon and Mars have captured the public's imagination, the contribution of space technology to our lives is huge.

Indian satellites are engaged in a variety of tasks - from broadcasting and communications to banking and national security. When Vikram Sarabhai conceived an Indian space programme in the 1960s, he had envisioned several such applications. This was much before the Indian Space Research Organisation came into existence.

The Green Revolution took shape in the same decade. The breeding of dwarf wheat varieties based on the Mexican variety developed by Norman Borlaug was a seminal turning point, which dramatically enhanced food production.

Among the key players has been Vikram Sarabhai (pictured) who conceived an Indian space programme in the 1960s

At the time of Independence, India was not only importing foodgrains, but also commodities like butter and baby food. India did not have a modern dairy industry despite possessing large cattle population.

Scandinavian dairy industry was keen on continuing imports and was not willing to part with the new technology. Once the farmers' cooperative was organised at Kaira in Gujarat, it faced the problem of surplus milk when production increased.

India didn't have the technology to convert milk into milk powder. Dairy giants also insisted that buffalo milk can't be converted into milk powder.

A PSLV rocket carrying an Earth observation satellite along with 30 other nano satellites launches from the Sathish Dawan Space Station at Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh in June

It was at this point that HM Dalaya and Verghese Kurien - who had just returned from the US - pitched in and developed a process to convert buffalo milk into milk powder. This laid the foundation of what came to be known as the White Revolution.

Yet another example is the development of the indigenous drug industry, which is today able to produce cheap drugs and vaccines for the world.

For a country which was dominated by multinational companies selling expensive formulations in the 1940s and 1950s to become the 'pharmacy of the world' is a remarkable feat.

It's possible due to a change in the patent law in 1970 that recognised only process patents. In this, Indian companies were legally allowed to make copies of available patented drugs.

The technical expertise for doing so came from state-funded labs like Central Drug Research Institute and National Chemical Laboratory. This combination spawned the Indian drug industry.

None of these achievements would have been possible without the strong political will, financial support from the government and sustained investments in scientific research.

Nehru had leading scientists like Bhabha, Bhatnagar and Mahalanobis as his advisors, while Indira Gandhi worked closely with Sarabhai and MGK Menon.

Public policies must support science and provide the right atmosphere for it to flourish so that it can contribute towards national development and economic growth.
As the death toll of children and babies rose at Gorakhpur's BRD Medical College, Dr Kafeel Khan was praised for his 'dauntless quick response to the disaster'.

But questions are now being raised after the findings of the initial investigation allege that Khan was 'stealing oxygen cylinders from the hospital for his private clinic'.

Khan, who was in charge of the encephalitis ward on the day of the disaster, is accused of successfully planting stories in the media that he stayed awake through the night (August 11-12) and even arranged for oxygen cylinders to be delivered at his own cost to save the kids.

Dr Kafeel Khan (right) was in charge of the encephalitis ward at BRD Medical College

However, things took a turn for the worst for Khan when the first report on the matter was submitted to the government.

According to the report and employees of the hospital, Khan was the head of the purchase department of the hospital and also runs his own nursing home.

The private nursing home run by Khan

A source in the local administration told Mail Today, 'It came to light that he stole cylinders (from the hospital) for his nursing home.

'However, on that night, when he realised that things were going out of hand, he immediately went to his nursing home and brought three cylinders in his vehicle'.

Khan's nursing home, Medispring Hospital and Research Centre, is located in a posh area and instructions on one of the pamphlets mention that he will be available from 9am to 9pm.

A father mourns the death of his child outside Baba Raghav Das Hospital in Gorakhpur amid allegations an upaid bill led to a disruption in oxygen supply

Relatives mourn the death of a child at Baba Raghav Das Hospital, where angry relatives have demanded answers

Though he is now underground (after being suspended following chief minister Yogi Adityanath's visit on August 13), he regularly interacted with the media (without authority) after 30 kids died.

Even during Yogi's visit to the hospital on August 9, he accompanied him everywhere and did not allow other staff to come near him.

Khan also has a criminal record. In 2009, he was arrested by Delhi Police along with a woman for impersonating for two medical aspirants in an entrance examination.

At that time, he was pursuing PG from Manipal University and was suspended for the offence.

During the Assembly polls, he openly supported Akhilesh Yadav and declared PM Modi a murderer on his Twitter account.

Though after his suspension, he deactivated all his social media accounts.

An Indian relative holds the body of a child while walking out of Baba Raghav Das Hospital in Gorakhpur, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh

In his defence

However, in the beleaguered doctor's defence, the Hindustan Times has reported on the fellow healthcare professionals at India's top hospital AIIMS have coming to Khan's side. One senior doctor has alleged that Dr Khan has been forced by the state government to carry the blame for the tragic incident.

'With great pain we have to say that once again a doctor has been made a scapegoat for the infrastructural lapse and failure of the government,' president of the resident doctors association at AIIMS, Dr Harjit Singh Bhatti, said in an open letter.

'If oxygen, gloves, surgical instruments and basic medicines are not available in the hospital, then who is responsible? According to the government, the doctor is responsible.

'I request politicians not to spoil this relationship between the patient and the doctor to hide their incompetency,' Bhatti argued.
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Narendra Modi urged people to help him build a prosperous and united India as he promised to wipe out corruption and protect the nation from threat in an impassioned Independence Day speech.

Thousands of people packed into the Red Fort in the heart of New Delhi on Tuesday to watch the Prime Minister address the nation on the 70th anniversary since the end of British rule.

In the stirring speech he underlined his vision for a New India by 2022 and asked people to adopt a 'can do' attitude to drive forward positive change.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses the nation on the country's Independence Day from the ramparts of the historical Red Fort in New Delhi

Modi greets the audience from the ramparts of Red Fort on Tuesday as India marked 70 years since the end of British rule

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi walks to inspect a guard of honour before addressing the nation on Independence Day

'People would be the driving force behind the establishment rather than the other way around', he said, lamenting that democracy has been confined to ballots.

'The nation had shown its collective strength between 1942 and 1947 culminating in India's Independence,' he said.

Modi also declared that India was strong enough to defend its borders against any threat, as the nation faces a frontier showdown with China and aggravated tensions with Pakistan.

'We may have grown up in despair, but now we have to move ahead with confidence,' he said as he addressed the nation from the Red Fort, a sprawling 17th century fortress in the heart of New Delhi.

India is commemorating its independence in 1947 from British colonial rule. In the background is Jama Masjid

Thousands packed into the historic Red Fort site to watch Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses the nation

The Prime Minister broke away from his security cover to meet children, many of whom were dressed as Krishna

'Security is our top priority,' Modi said. 'Be it the sea or the borders, cyber or space - in all spheres, India is capable and we are strong enough to overcome those who try to act against our country,' the Hindu nationalist leader declared.

Modi, who wore a Rajasthani turban with a long flowing orange train, toned down his comments from three previous Independence Day speeches and did not mention the targets of his warning.

But his remarks came as a dispute between India and China over a strategic Himalayan plateau enters a third month on Wednesday. Hundreds of soldiers are reported to be facing off against each other at Doklam.

A map showing the partition of the Indian subcontinent which happened 70 years ago

This year marks the 70th anniversary of India's independence from British colonial rule

The Gateway of India in Delhi is lit up in the colours of the Indian flag to celebrate the day

China's state-controlled media has repeatedly warned that a conflict could break out over Doklam. India has urged a diplomatic solution to the standoff.

India is also mired in conflict in the Himalayan region of Kashmir, where it has disputed sovereignty with Pakistan since their bitter split in 1947.

India accuses Pakistan of sending 'terrorists' across the border to fight security forces in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Modi, who said he spoke with US President Donald Trump on the eve of the speech, said: 'The concern for national security is a natural one in an independent India.

College students draped in the tricolour flag celebrate with selfies on Independence Day

College girls in Chennai paint their faces with tricolour as they celebrate the day

Raisina Hill was decked out with impressive lights on Independence Day on Tuesday

'Our security forces have always shown their capabilities whenever on duty. Whether it is terrorism or infiltrators, our security personnel have always been ready for sacrifice.'

India carried out what it called 'surgical strikes' in Pakistan in September last year after insurgents attacked an army base on the Indian side of the Kashmir border, killing 18 soldiers.

'When the surgical strike was carried out, the world came to know about the power that India possesses,' Modi said in his speech.

He added that 'bullets and abuses' cannot bring peace in Kashmir - where there are an estimated 500,000 Indian troops - but also accused Kashmiri separatists of 'scheming'.

Congress chief Sonia Gandhi hoists the national flag at the party headquarters

Youngsters flying kites on India's Independence Day at the lawn before India Gate

Even people in stricken flood areas in Assam found time to salute the tricolour flag on Tuesday

The PM did not mention the 1947 partition that saw the creation of Muslim-dominated Pakistan and Hindu-majority India; at least one million people died in the chaotic aftermath and 15 million were uprooted in the brutal mass migration.

Modi focused his comments on efforts to clamp down on corruption and his economic reforms. A year ago, a government move to cancel more than 85 percent of India's banknotes caused widespread chaos.

He said the move had brought $46 billion of currency into the legitimate banking system. More than 300,000 'shell companies' funded by undeclared finance had been uncovered through irregular transactions. The licenses of more than 100,000 of the firms have been cancelled, he added.

Mahatma Gandhi led India's independence movement with his policy of civil disobedience and non-violence. He is pictured here giving his famous Quit India speech in Mumbai, which was then known as Bombay, in 1942

Modi touched upon just about every burning topic and launched a bid for a 'New India' within the next five years

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses the nation on the country's Independence Day from the ramparts of the historical Red Fort in New Delhi, India, Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017. India is commemorating its independence in 1947 from British colonial rule. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

According to Modi, 1.8 million people have been found whose income outstrips their declared wealth. About 450,000 have admitted their 'mistakes,' he added.

'India is celebrating honesty today. The corrupt have no place to hide anymore,' Modi said.

Modi hailed his government efforts in recent months, including the surprise withdrawal of large currency notes and an overhaul of taxes on goods and services that he said had brought billions of dollars of unaccounted money into the mainstream economy.

Other topics he touched on included infant deaths at a Gorakhpur's BRD Medical College and said the 'sympathies' of the nation were with the families and victims.

He also hailed women in India fighting triple talaq, the ancient Islamic divorce practice in which a man can divorce his wife by saying 'I divorce you' three times over. I pay my regards to women who had to lead pitiable lives due to triple talaq and have started a movement that has created an environment in the entire country against the practice,' Modi said
Flooding and landslides that have devastated parts of northern India, southern Nepal and Bangladesh have killed 245 people and left 1.5 million more displaced.

At least 41 people have died in India's eastern states of Bihar and West Bengal over the last few days, a government official said on Tuesday as a worsening monsoon season claimed more lives.

Another 21 have died in the remote northeastern state of Assam, where soldiers raced to rescue people marooned on rooftops.

Flood affected villagers wait for relief material on a broken road washed away by floodwaters in the Morigaon district, east of Gauhati in the northeastern state of Assam on Tuesday

Deadly monsoon floods have devastated the region with flooding and landslides

Heavy monsoon rains have unleashed landslides and floods that killed dozens of people in recent days and displaced millions more across northern India, southern Nepal and Bangladesh. Pictured here is the scene of devastation in Gauhati

Forty-six people are also thought to have been killed in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh on Sunday when two buses were buried by a landslide in the Himalayan foothills.

Many others have either drowned or died after being caught in collapsed houses or under toppled trees.

Train services have been cut entirely to the northeast, and at least 200,000 people are living in emergency camps in more than 250 relief camps that the government has set up in school and government buildings

Flood affected people travel in a boat near partially submerged houses in Morigaon district east of Gauhati, Assam

Survivors carry relief material in Morigaon after monsoon floods leave devastation

Flood affected boys move on a banana raft near partially submerged houses in Morigaon district east of Gauhati, Assam

Indian soldiers in boats and helicopters helped distribute food packets, medicine and drinking water to people affected by the floods.

Meanwhile in neighbouring Nepal, authorities scrambled to send relief supplies to flood-hit areas where incessant rain has flooded hundreds of villages, killing 110 people.

With hundreds of thousands of people affected by the floods, the government was focusing on moving in relief supplies as soon as possible, said Ram Krishna Subedi, a home ministry spokesman.

Paddy fields are submerged in flood waters in Saptari district, Nepal

Bystanders look on as floodwaters rage near a house in Kurigram, northern Bangladesh

Nepal's home minister, Janardan Sharma, spent the morning at a relief distribution center at Kathmandu's airport to ensure that the aid was reaching all areas affected by the flooding. Nepal's government has been under criticism for not being able to reach people desperate for help.

In neighboring Bangladesh, at least 18 major rivers were flowing at dangerously high levels, according to the state-run Flood Forecasting and Warning Center.

Over the past two days, 27 people have died in the low-lying delta nation, while another 600,000 are marooned, Bangladesh's disaster management minister, Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury, said. Around 368,000 people have taken refuge in more than 970 makeshift government shelters, he said.

Deadly landslides and flooding are common across South Asia during the summer monsoon season that stretches from June to September.

Flood affected villagers travel by boat in floodwaters in Assam as the devastating monsoon rains kill more than 100 in India
In past visits to China going back to the early 1990s, India was mostly a peripheral issue, unless, the stay was part of a prime ministerial or presidential visit.

But this time around, things are different. For four consecutive days last week, China Daily, the country's only English-speaking broadsheet, carried articles on the Doklam issue, with two lead editorials, one of which carried the title 'New Delhi should come to its senses while it has time'.

As for the Global Times, its commentaries are too well known in India.

On Friday, the state-owned tabloid headlined 'Bhutan under India pressure'. The border dispute, the strap said, was 'proof of New Delhi's hegemony in South Asia.'

The ongoing stand-off between India and China at the Doklam plateau was triggered by a Chinese manoeuvre on the night of June 8

Nervousness showing

The journalistic tour, organised after the crisis had erupted was expected to have subtle messaging aimed at pushing China's point of view. But there was nothing subtle about the briefings from top foreign ministry and Ministry of Defence officials.

The briefings were harsh, and uncompromising, as the new chief spokesman Senior Colonel Ren Guoqing declared, that China had legal proof of its territory and to resolve the crisis, India needed 'to withdraw immediately and unconditionally'.

Perhaps there was a message hidden in the visit organised to the 3rd Garrison Force in the Huairou district of Beiing, where the crack division displayed its tactical skills with small arms in a range which was clearly aimed at impressing foreign audience.

It has been decades since China last fought a war and the country insists it has no hostile intent, and simply needs to defend itself

The message from a visit to the CNS Yulin, a 054 frigate at the headquarters of the South Sea Fleet at Zhangjiang, 2,500 miles to the south Beijing was vintage Chinese as Capt Liang Tiajun, an officer at the fleet headquarters blandly remarked that India and China could cooperate in Indian Ocean security.

It is no secret that the PLA (People's Liberation Army) Navy lacks the ability to take on the Indian Navy in the Indian Ocean Region.

More dramatic was a 'seminar' in which two top officers known to represent the PLA's point of view in international gatherings participated.

India has turned down China's demand that the Indian Army should immediately withdraw soldiers from Doklam near the Sikkim-China-Bhutan trijunction

The meeting was moderated by Senior Colonel Zhou Bo. The British-educated officer is well known to those who attend the Shangrila Dialogue.

The director of the Centre for Security Cooperation professed to be 'pained' by the developments since he had served in the border regions with India. He set the tone of the meeting by waxing indignant about India's allegedly changing stance, and attacked this writer for changing his positions 'perhaps under pressure'.

It was difficult to assure the Senior Colonel that positions evolve more and more as privileged information is divulged. For example, it was only on June 30, when the Indian press release came out that it was known that there was, to use a word often used by the Chinese, 'consensus' that the trijunctions be worked out in conjunction with all three countries.

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama said India and China must resolve their tense border standoff through talks

No clear border

Another Senior Colonel, Zhao Xiaozhuo, also a well-known face of the PLA, said he had served in the area and had no doubt that India had 'invaded' Chinese territory.

Zhao, who is at the Research Centre for China-US Defence Relations said the border was set by the Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1890 and claimed there was no dispute between China and Bhutan over Doklam.

There was little answer from the Chinese side that there had been no map attached to the 1890 Convention and hence the border was not even properly delimited, let alone demarcated.

The Chinese official position is that the border has been delimited, whereas India has maintained that as of now, there is only agreement on the 'basis of alignment' of the border, viz the watershed, and that further work is needed to translate it into a full fledged border.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has been unusually tough on India over Bhutan

Impressing the media

It was clear, however, that the discussion was aimed at the Chinese media, which was also present. Indeed, it is difficult to escape the feeling that the high-pitched campaign and the torrent of words are aimed at the Chinese audience primarily.

So, there is no hesitation in blandly asserting palpably false things, as China's top border official Wang Wenli did, that India was twice notified about the road construction, or that Bhutan had agreed that the Doklam region belongs to China.

Or, for that matter, the insistent claim that India had 'invaded' Chinese territory.

There are too many variables in play to predict how the Doklam issue will turn out. Clearly, it not about some piece of land 7x5 sq km.

For years the Chinese have patrolled the area, after parking their trucks in plain sight of the Indian positions in Doka La.

The decision to disturb the status quo, in violation of their solemn commitments to Bhutan, was done with particular end in view which has probably come unstuck by the Indian action.
At least 70 residential colonies and office buildings are sitting on what used to be graveyards, a new report has found.

The Delhi Minorities Commission (DMC) has completed a year-long study of Muslim burial grounds in the national Capital which revealed that many have been built on by people and even government agencies.

The Delhi Wakf Board, which is the custodian of these valuable sites for the minority community, just looked on, says the commission, which found the sites were mainly in the south, southeast, east and outer Delhi.

A burial ground near Nizamuddin Dargah: Muslim graveyards are under threat in Delhi

Several people have complained to the DMC, which looks after the affairs of Sikhs, Muslims, Christians and Buddhists, about the lack of entombment spaces for their dead, it said.

In the past few years, Muslims have had to 'reuse' graveyards because they have been filling up every two to three years.

Several insensitive but last resort practices such as 'advance booking' and 'bids' from Rs 50,000 to Rs lakh were also being made for two yards of burial space.

DMC officers said a study is ongoing regarding Christian cemeteries for which space is also fast shrinking.

DMC officers said a study is ongoing regarding Christian cemeteries for which space is also fast shrinking

Mail Today carried a report on how Delhi's dead can no more rest in peace due to urbanisation and population explosion in April 2016.

Dr Zafarul Islam, chairman of DMC, told Mail Today: 'We commissioned a study on the phenomenon through a third party and the report was submitted to us recently.

'It compared various land records from even pre-1947 to the current situation on-ground. These included reports by British and Indian district commissioners and more recently, DDA files.'

'We found that many graveyards had simply vanished. They were eaten up by colonies bit by bit. Now the community is having problems finding space to intern its dead.'

It's thought that at least 488 Muslim graveyards existed in Delhi post-partition but only 25 of those remain now

He pointed out that since most of these kuccha colonies became semi or fully authorised, they simply refuse to vacate.

Mail Today first revealed Delhi's shrinking burial space last year

'Litigation is a difficult option. The Waqf board should have prevented this from happening,' he said.

Many Muslim-dominated areas such as Jamia Nagar, Batla House, Shaheen Bagh, colonies in Okhla, Shahzada Bagh in Inderlok and old Delhi face an acute shortage of space for burials.

The report will now be submitted to the DDA, the National Commission for Minorities and the ministry of minority affairs for action, he said.

'We will ask the DDA to compensate us with adequate amount of land in different parts of Delhi,' senior officers in the DMC said.

In 1971, Muslims in Delhi formed just 6.5 per cent of the population. But, according to the 2011 census, they were 12.86 per cent of the city's 1.67 crore population with the count at 21,58,684. Christians form 0.87 per cent of Delhi's population, at 1,46,093.

According to the government gazette notification, 1970, at least 488 Muslim graveyards existed in Delhi post-partition. But only 25 burial grounds remain available.

Sufiyan, a caretaker at a graveyard near the Ghalib Academy in Nizamuddin Basti, said: 'Our burial ground kept reducing in size and the houses kept approaching our borderline and into it. Finally, we put up iron gates and that stopped them.'

In Delhi's Welcome colony, Abdul Qayoom, whose forefathers bought a plot of land for burying only their family members, said: 'Slowly and gradually, our Muslim neighbours started exerting pressure on us to allow them to use the burial ground as well. Since these are sensitive matters, we couldn't refuse. And now it is full. Not an inch is left for anyone.'
Flow Tribe, an indie funk outfit based in New Orleans, is headed to Chattanooga for a concert at The Revelry Room on Thursday, Sept. 14. The concert for 18+ begins at 8 p.m. Tickets are $12 in advance and $15 at the door. For more information visit http://www.flowtribe.com.

Review for Flow Tribe"

Few bands arouse a crowd into a collective shake like Flow Tribe. The six-member bands onstage chemistry reflects a seamless combination of soul and movement that hits the audience within the first few notes. Virgin listeners and avid fans alike are drawn in by the distinctive sound that feels both familiar and original. Outfitted for each performance in colorful, carefully selected suits, its clear their focus is sharp and the party has begun. This is the work of professional musicians whove found their passion, and are living a dream where everyone is welcome.

Second line brass and Cuban-Caribbean rhythms meld with R&B, soul, rock, and hip-hop beats in high-energy performances that turn every show into a celebration. New Orleans is influence itself, the unparalleled free and easy city weaving its way into track after track of original scores that make up a single definition of sound, which Flow Tribe has dubbed backbone-cracking music.

K.C. ORorke (vocals, trumpet), John-Michael Early (harmonica, washboard, vocals, keyboard), Russell Olschner (drums), Chad Penot (bass, vocals), Bryan Santos (guitar, timbales), and Mario Palmisano (guitar) are native New Orleanians and high school pals whove been writing music and playing live shows since the bands inception in 2004. Post graduation, they went their separate ways, but after Katrina, each returned to their hometown, inherently becoming active members in the rebuilding of a community thats stronger than ever. Flow Tribe may well be the citys next music ambassadors.

With two full-length albums and several EPs under their belt, the crew is currently building Downman Sounds, a studio in New Orleans East where they expect to cut their next record. The Tribe can be found crisscrossing the U.S. just about every week of the year, from Key West to California, including regular performances at the notable New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Fest and Voodoo Fest.


Vodafone has added a sneaky 1-a-month charge to more than one million customers' mobile phone contracts, we can reveal.

The new fee  which will net the telecoms giant millions of pounds a year  has been added to every new monthly contract taken out since February.

Vodafone says the service offers customers extra protection against any harmful websites users may visit while surfing the internet.

The so-called 'Secure Net' software is included on monthly contracts and is advertised as a 'free three-month trial' in Vodafone's promotional material.

Grab: Vodafone is charging customers 1-a-month for software to protect against any harmful websites users may visit while surfing the internet

But customers claim they are not told they have been opted in and will be charged 12 a year when the free trial ends. It is impossible to remove the extra software at the time of purchase and it cannot be cancelled until at least 24 hours later.

Money Mail has discovered that the cost is not included in its pricing small print if you take out the contract online. Even if you sign up in store, it is not always mentioned by staff and is glossed over on the agreement you sign.

Instead, customers are notified by text after signing their contract and it is then up to the customer to remember to cancel the add-on if they want to avoid the fee.

Last night the telecoms watchdog Ofcom said it would look into whether Vodafone was making the fees clear enough. And Vodafone responded by saying it would give staff extra training and review the wording on its website.

Martyn James, of complaints website Resolver, says: 'Automatically opting people in to services that cost money is an unethical and misleading practice. Industries from car hire companies to airlines have all had their knuckles rapped over automatically opting people in to things such as insurance.

'And given that none of the Vodafone customers we've spoken to were aware of this charge, it's likely that a large number of people are going to be very angry that they've been hit with such a sneaky charge.'

Money Mail receives a regular stream of complaints from customers of all mobile phone companies who have been signed up to monthly subscriptions without realising. Many then struggle to cancel and get a refund.

Vodafone insists staff are supposed to tell in-store customers about the fee when they take out a contract.

But when a reporter asked a London branch for a pay monthly deal it was not mentioned. When we raised the add-on after signing the contract, a sales assistant said they were not instructed to tell people about the charge.

The service is mentioned only in passing on the agreement in a line which reads: 'The monthly charge for your extras: 4G 0.00, Vodafone Secure Net 1.00, Vodafone Global Roaming 0.00.'

Vodafone, which has 18 million UK customers, said around one million customers now have the extra Secure Net software and that 70 per cent 'decide to retain Secure Net after the free trial'

If you buy your contract via the website, the 1 charge is not mentioned in the main pricing details or in its in-depth 'full list of prices'. Instead, when you click on the deal you want, you are told your offer includes a 'three-month free trial of Secure Net'.

To learn about the add-on charge you would then have to scroll down and seek out more details of Secure Net by clicking on a link about the software.

Vodafone says it sends a text message to customers one day after taking out the contract, offering the opportunity to opt out, and a further four during the trial. But angry customers say they were not aware of these 'hidden' charges.

One wrote on a forum: 'This is pretty cynical on the part of Vodafone. By all means enhance security, but if it's not going to be free after a trial they opted you in to, you should not need to have to cancel yourself.' Others have expressed confusion after the charges appeared on their bill.

Vodafone customers say they are not warned that they will be charged when the trial ends

One Twitter user wrote: 'What's this 1.00 Vodafone Secure Net charge showing on my bill?'

Financial adviser Al Rush, of Rutland, tweeted: 'Anyone else mysteriously being charged for Secure Net without giving Vodafone UK your express permission?'

Another customer named Dan, an analyst from Sheffield, tweeted: 'What is Vodafone Secure Net? Why do I have it without asking? How do I get rid of it?'

When Money Mail contacted Vodafone's customer services department about the unwanted add-on, staff revealed the firm immediately refunds customers who claim they were not told about the monthly fee.

He said: 'I am sorry it was not informed to you. If it gets charged without knowledge of the customer, we remove the charges.'

He insisted customers were usually notified by text about the charges when their three-month trial expired and it was 'very rare' to neither be told about it in store nor alerted via text.

Vodafone, which has 18 million UK customers, said around one million customers now have the extra Secure Net software and that 70 per cent 'decide to retain Secure Net after the free trial'.

Secure Net offers extra protection against viruses, malware and phishing sites, Vodafone says, to stop customers' phones becoming infected. 'If any online threats are detected they'll be stopped before they get anywhere near your device  and Secure Net will send you a text message to let you know,' it says.

A Vodafone spokesman says: 'Secure Net is listed where included in a plan and a [web] link provided for additional information. We will review this to see if there are ways we can improve the customer experience.

'As with any new service, we will continue to look to make improvements to the sales process and to the service itself.'

Vodafone says its 'Secure Net' service offers customers protection against harmful websites

He added: 'Stores have been trained to inform customers of the trial and the subsequent charge.

'We will provide them with a refresher to ensure that this happens in all cases.'

Vodafone says that employees in branches are expected to explain that the three-month trial is included. Rival firms O2, Three and EE said they did not apply any automatic charges for additional security features or software.

A spokesman for Ofcom says: 'We expect customers to be treated fairly, and any additional charges to be made clear at the point of sale  whether in store or online. We're discussing this process with Vodafone.

'If a customer was not made aware of the terms of the Secure Net trial at point of sale, or they did not receive the information in their Welcome Pack and text, they should complain directly to Vodafone.'

l.eccles@dailymail.co.uk
While Britain's diesel car owners wait to see if the Government will bring in a scrappage scheme, BMW has taken matters into its own hands

The German car gaint has launched a new 'Lower Emissions Allowance' incentive in the UK, offering a 2,000 discount on its greenest cars when you trade in a dirty diesel.

And a similar incentive is due to be launched by VW UK 'shortly', according to reports.

Diesel discount: BMW is offering a 2,000 saving on a range of almost 60 existing models if you trade in your old dirty diesel car before December 31

Owners of Euro 4 diesels and older - those registered before September 2009 - are eligible for the saving, but only if they choose a new BMW or Mini model with CO2 emissions outputs of 130g/km or lower.

Cars from any brand qualify for BMW's new scheme, though owners must have had their dirty diesel for a year or longer.

The 130g/km CO2 emissions restriction on the replacement vehicle means there are almost 80 BMW models you can get with the discount, and the deal also stretches to the Mini hatchback, Clubman, Convertible and Countryman that fall below the emissions threshold.

Graeme Grieve, CEO of BMW Group UK, said: 'We know in the early phases that people still need some incentive to make the jump to fully electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles and that is why we are delighted to announce this new allowance.

'For those who the alternative drivetrains do not suit their lifestyle we still offer allowance qualifying Euro-6 compliant petrol and diesel engine cars that are cleaner than ever.'

The offer is available now and will run until the end of the year.

The full list of 58 BMW model variants eligible for the car maker's new Lower Emissions Allowance incentive is below

BMW MODELS ELIGIBLE FOR THE LOWER EMISSIONS ALLOWANCE BMW 1 Series (118i, 116d, 118d, 120d, 125d) BMW 2 Series Coupe (218i, 218d, 220d, 225d) BMW 2 Series Convertible (218d, 220d, 225d) BMW 2 Series Active Tourer (218i, 220i, 225xe, 216d, 218d, 220d) BMW 2 Series Gran Tourer (218i, 216d, 218d, 220d) BMW 3 Series Saloon (318i, 320i, 330e, 316d, 318d, 320d) BMW 3 Series Touring (318i, 316d, 318d, 320d) BMW 3 Series Gran Turismo (318d, 320d) BMW 4 Series Coupe (420d) BMW 4 Series Convertible (420d) BMW 4 Series Gran Coupe (420d) BMW 5 Series Saloon (520i, 530e, 520d, 525d, 530d) BMW 5 Series Touring (520d, 525d) BMW 7 Series (740e, 725d, 730d, 740Le, 725Ld, 730Ld) BMW X1 (sDrive18i, sDrive18d, xDrive18d, xDrive20d) BMW X5 (xDrive40e) BMW i (i3, i3 with Range Extender, i8)

Meanwhile, the VW group has told Auto Express that it will also attempt to launch a diesel scrappage scheme in the UK after announcing it will offer trade-in savings on new models in Germany.

Owners of Euro 1 to 4 diesels - not just VW models - in Volkswagen's home nation are being offered trade-in bonuses for new cars, with discounts amounting to up to 10,000 (9,022) on a new Volkswagen Group car currently.

This news is likely to rile car owners in the UK, especially those driving Volkswagen models impacted by the diesel emissions-test cheating scandal who have been offered no compensation from the car maker and are - in some cases - suffering reliability issues following recalls to fix their polluting models.

The VW Group's incentive in Germany is also available on new Audi models purchased before the end of 2017.

A government-backed 'targeted' diesel scrappage scheme in the UK is currently under consultation this month, as confirmed in the DEFRA Air Quality Plan last month.
Britain's insouciance about overseas takeovers is legendary.

There is nothing in the UK not up for sale, from nuclear power stations to emblematic consumer brands and fintech pioneers like Worldpay.

No one wants Britain to be like France where yoghurt maker Danone was once labelled a strategic industry.

But it is hard not to sign up to the European Union's moves towards taking more powers to scrutinise the efforts by China and other foreign powers to win control of high-tech manufacturing, energy and infrastructure.

We are meant to be assured that despite being major financiers of Britain's vast new nuclear reactor at Hinkley Point in Somerset, Chinese engineers and investors will have no access to the advanced technologies used in the plant or communications traffic to and from it. So they shouldn't.

Prime Minister Theresa May meets Chinese President Xi Jinping in September last year. The EU wants more powers to scrutinise takeovers by China and other foreign powers

The Silicon Valley giants have been forced to severely curtail social media in the People's Republic of China, whose public relations might be smarter than Washington and led some commentators to suggests Beijing's leaders are worthy advocates of free markets.

Don't believe it.

As matters stand, some 13 of the EU's 28 countries have in place systems for scrutinising takeovers for national and economic security concerns. The US already has such measures in place through its Committee on Foreign Investment and is considering extending the reach to cover intellectual property.

Australia and Canada have frequently demonstrated willingness to challenge overseas takeovers of strategic assets even when the bidder, as in the case of the London Stock Exchange tilt at its Toronto counterpart, is a close ally, with a governor of the Bank of England imported from Canada.

One of the great strengths of the UK economy has been openness to foreign investment.

The recovery of the car industry is almost wholly down to the commitment of Tata, BMW, Nissan, Honda and now Peugeot to Britain.

What is acceptable in traditional manufacturing is unacceptable when it comes to high-tech and intellectual property.

Allowing companies like Worldpay to surrender to overseas ownership is a bit like drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline allowing new medicines, which take billions of pounds to develop, to be given free to generic rivals.

For once the EU is heading in the right direction and the Government must do the same.

Passive power

Barclays did several foolish things to avoid an injection of Government capital after the financial crisis, but among the most stupid and ethically flawed was the 8.2billion sale of Barclays Global Investors (BGI) to BlackRock in 2009.

It was bad business because BGI, as the inventor of iShares (the first exchange-traded funds) has turned out to be a goldmine.

Barclays crossed a governance barrier because the then president of the bank Bob Diamond was a personal shareholder in BGI and pocketed 20million from the sale, benefiting from an intra-company transaction generally viewed as a no-no.

BGI has been a good investment for BlackRock and its boss Larry Fink.

Indeed, it has arguably been the making of BlackRock, as in the years since the purchase savers have turned away from over-priced active managers in preference for low cost passive funds after active gains were gobbled up by management fees and charges.

Indeed, data shows that BlackRock iShares outpaced Vanguard, the granddaddy of low cost investment, over the last year attracting 122.2billion of new funds.

This at a time when traditional managers such as Aberdeen suffered four consecutive years of outflows.

Fund management fashions move in cycles and it may well be the craze for ETFs and iShares has reached its peak or will be undermined by financial stability concerns.

It is hard to escape the conclusion that Barclays panicked and transferred a huge amount of shareholder value to BlackRock. Then, after all, it made quite a few duff moves.

Standing up

No one could ever accuse Donald Trump of holding back.

Merck chief executive Ken Frazier, one of a handful of African-American CEOs, has quit a White House manufacturing advisory group over Trump's mealy mouthed response to the Charlottesville hate clashes.

Trump's riposte was to threaten Frazier over failure to 'Lower rip-off drug prices.' It would be nice to think that other CEOs drawn towards Trump, including JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon, would show some solidarity with a US corporate hero.

Why are they waiting?
Inspections: New boss Marco Gobbetti plans to visit each of Burberrys 498 retail stores

Burberry's boss has begun a secretive world tour of every single shop as rumours spread that he may be about to axe failing outposts.

Marco Gobbetti, who took over the fashion brand last month and has been chief executive for just 37 days, plans to visit each of Burberrys 498 retail stores to determine what changes are needed to revive its fortunes.

The little-known 57-year-old earned a reputation for being ruthless while at high-end rival Celine, where he closed more stores than he opened.

At Celine he focused on making each shop reflect Celines high standards. By contrast, in recent years Burberry has pushed ahead with store openings around the world to cater for Chinese demand.

Gobbetti is currently in America scoping out Burberrys 74 stores, according to a source.

The firms US business has been hit by a downturn in department stores  with the firm in May reporting that profits for the year to the end of March have fallen by 5 per cent amid weak wholesale trading in the region.

It is in the middle of a turnaround program in the US, and has refurbished stores, reduced its range from three labels to one and cut back discount sales.

Its not yet clear what Gobbettis plans for the stores are but at Celine he oversaw double digit sales growth.

He became Celines chief executive in 2008, and quickly revamped the brands product offering with the help of creative director Phoebe Philo.

A particular success had been Celines bags, which sell for 1,500. This area is considered a weakness at Burberry.

British style: Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and James Bay in Burberry. The firms US business has been hit by a downturn in department stores

Luxury fashion veteran Gobbetti holds a degree in business administration from the American University in Washington.

He was chief executive of quirky designer brand Moschino from 1993 to 2004 and then headed LVMH-owned fashion house Givenchy.

He has been at Burberry since the beginning of January  heading up the firms business in the Asia Pacific and the Middle East and reporting to outgoing chairman John Peace.

A further Burberry strategy which may be targeted is digital marketing and the internet. At Celine, these were shunned because Gobbetti believed it is important to touch clothes.

Much of what is special is lost in e-commerce, he has said.

But Burberry has been innovative in its use of social media in some regions  tapping particularly into popular social tools to boost popularity among young South Asian customers.

It has over 48million followers and is present on 20 social platforms.

Luca Solca, a luxury goods analyst at Exane BNP Paribas, said: Digital is the shape of things to come and I dont think Burberry will be making a U-turn on that.

Burberry shares crept up 0.6 per cent, or 10p, to 1747p.
Tom and Ruth Chapman founded Matches in 1987

A couple who launched a luxury fashion retailer from their boutique in Wimbledon could pocket 600million by selling the firm.

Private equity giants Apax Partners, KKR and Permira are expected to bid for Matches Fashion, the brainchild of Tom and Ruth Chapman who founded the firm in 1987.

The retailer reached sales of 204million and 587,000 orders last year, with the average customer spending 511.

The website had more than 55m visits during the 12 months to January 23.

The business, which sells more than 400 brands including Gucci and Burberry, is also planning to open a photo shoot and design studio in East London, creating 150 jobs.

Justine Simons, the Mayor of Londons head of culture and creative industries, said the investment showed that London is open to business, talent and creativity.
Oozi Cats yesterday resigned as the chief executive of Telit Communications

A chief executive ousted over allegations he was on the run from US law enforcement made 24.5million from the tech firm he founded.

Oozi Cats yesterday resigned as the boss of Telit Communications after he and wife Ruth were linked to a string of so-called 'land flip' scams carried out in Boston, Massachusetts, in the early 1990s by an Uzi and Ruth Katz.

The 56-year-old's resignation was announced to the stock market yesterday after a swift internal probe, with bosses claiming they knew nothing of historic allegations of fraud made against him.

The Mail can reveal that Cats took 24.5million pay and bonuses from Telit over 13 years. Over that same period Telit only made 65million profit.

The Cats were accused of trying to scam lenders with bogus mortgage applications which vastly overvalued properties, according to court documents.

HOW HE WAS RUMBLED Claims Oozi Cats was in fact 'Uzi Katz', a fugitive of the US justice system, first emerged in an Italian newspaper last week. The paper is thought to have been investigating Telit Communications and Cats due to an ongoing probe by Italian prosecutors into the collapse of electronics manufacturer Bames. It is thought this led to investigators digging in to Cats's past and discovered lawsuits filed in Boston in 1992 under the name Uzi Katz and his wife Ruth. The allegations linking the two names together sent Telit Communications's share price tumbling.

The alleged fraud in 1991 attracted the attention of special agents from the FBI and was due to be examined in a trial involving 20 witnesses.

But only Ruth Katz ever appeared in court  pleading not guilty  and the couple later fled the States.

Telit yesterday said solicitors had concluded Cats and Katz were the same person.

Cats' wife has the same birth date as the Ruth Katz named in court documents, the Mail understands, and he has not denied he is the person named in an indictment.

Professor Anne Hassett, who teaches law in New York and said she represented Katz, told the Mail the case ended because her client was 'no longer in the district'.

Cats has only spoken to Telit executives by phone in the past week.

He is understood to have returned to his home in Rome. He could not be reached for comment last night.
North Korea's recent rapid progress in developing a long-range missile appears to have come after it refurbished rocket engines procured from a plant in the former Soviet Union, according to an expert report published Monday.

According to Michael Elleman of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the missiles used in recent North Korean tests were based on the RD-250 engine once made at a plant in what is now an independent Ukraine.

These could have been bought from corrupt workers at arsenals in what are now the rival states of Russia and Ukraine and smuggled to North Korea by criminal networks - at some point between the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and Ukraine's current crisis.

North Korea has been testing missile technology since procuring a Soviet-designed Scud in the 1970s, but was until recently struggling to construct a working intercontinental missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to US targets.

The latest IISS report and others suggest that Kim Jong Un's regime has abandoned attempts to modify the Russian-built OKB-456 and has now switched to the once Ukrainian-made RD-250 - with spectacular and ominous results.

During the Soviet era, the RD-250 was produced at the Yuzhnoye design bureau's Yuzhmash plant in Dnipro, a city that is today in Kiev government-held central Ukraine, around 80 miles from an active frontline held by Russian-backed separatists.

A new report suggests that North Korea's latest missile advances, including its test launch last month of the Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile, may be due to use of Soviet-designed rocket engines

Ukraine reacted angrily to The New York Times' account of the IISS report - which emphasized the Ukrainian origin of the technology - insisting that Yuzhmash has not produced military rockets since Ukraine's independence and has no links to North Korea's nuclear missile program.

But the report itself does not contradict this, suggesting instead that the missile motors may have remained in storage, whether in what is now the Russian Federation or in independent Ukraine, after the Soviet Union broke up.

'A small team of disgruntled employees or underpaid guards at any one of the storage sites... could be enticed to steal a few dozen engines by one of the many illicit arms dealers, criminal networks, or transnational smugglers operating in the former Soviet Union,' it said.

'The engines (less than two meters tall and one meter wide) can be flown or, more likely, transported by train through Russia to North Korea.'

The report includes pictures issued by Kim's regime which appear to show similarities between the latest missiles to be tested and the RD-250 design for a liquid-fuelled rocket.

'This is not to suggest that the Ukrainian government was involved, and not necessarily Yuzhnoye executives,' Elleman wrote in the IISS report.

'Workers at Yuzhnoye facilities in Dnipropetrovsk and Pavlograd were likely the first ones to suffer the consequences of the economic misfortunes, leaving them susceptible to exploitation by unscrupulous traders, arms dealers and transnational criminals operating in Russia, Ukraine and elsewhere.'

The Yuzhmash plant's marketing department said the company 'has never before and does not have anything to do with North Korean missile programs of a space or defense nature.'

The report includes pictures issued by Kim's regime which appear to show similarities between the latest missiles to be tested and the RD-250 design for a liquid-fuelled rocket

And Oleksandr Turchynov, secretary of Ukraine's national security and defense council, seized on the report to attack Moscow, saying: 'We believe this anti-Ukrainian campaign was provoked by Russian special services to cover their participation in North Korean nuclear and missile programs.'

As the controversy erupted, Elleman took to Twitter to clarify his conclusions.

'Let me be clear about DPRK's source of ICBM engine: Yuzhnoye is one of several possible sources, there are other potentials in Russia,' he wrote, adding that he does not believe the current Kiev government condoned or even knew about the transfer.

And he noted - as had his original report - that Ukraine had in fact arrested two suspected North Korean agents in July 2012 as they tried to steal secrets from the Yuzhnoye design bureau in Dnipro.

Other outside experts have backed the conclusion that the latest round of North Korean missile tests, which have sharply raised tensions between Pyongyang and Washington, involved rockets using the RD-250 design.

Last week, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists published a report suggesting the switch to Yuzhnoye's design over another Soviet-era model that had failed in previous North Korean tests was cause for concern.

This, the academic authors said, 'raises new and potentially ominous questions about the variety and extent to which Soviet rocket motors might have been obtained by North Korea during the collapse of the Soviet Union.'
NSW Labor's deputy leader has admitted to using 'colourful language' to describe a respected party elder.

Johno Johnson, a former upper-house president and long-time Labor Party activist and devout Catholic, died last week at aged 87.

However Michael Daley, who also hails from Johno's right faction, has admitted using unsavoury terms on the party stalwart,The Daily Telegraph reported.

Michael Daley, who also hails from Johno's right faction, admitted using unsavoury terms on the party stalwart

Johno Johnson, a former upper-house president and long-time Labor Party activist and devout Catholic, died last week at aged 87

His position has since been called into question after admitting to claims he made the inappropriate comments about late party member in a Labor tactics meeting last Monday.

The senior Labor frontbencher in New South Wales reportedly remarked 'that c ***' upon hearing Mr Johnson was dying and said the late politician had been 'nothing but a c***' to him for 20 years.

Mr Daley also is believed to have said that it would be hypocritical if he was to attend Mr Johnson's funeral.

Fellow party member Jodi McKay was quick to call out Mr Daley and his capability to perform his job has since been discussed by other Labor figures.

When contacted by Newscorp, Mr Daley said the allegations around the remarks made were accurate.

'In a private conversation on Monday afternoon, August 7, prior to the passing of Johno Johnson, I made a comment that Mr Johnson had, in my opinion, behaved badly towards me over many, many years,' Mr Daley said.

Opposition Leader Luke Foley (pictured) cited that he preferred not to publicise private matters

'I did use colourful language. I then apologised to a female colleague for the use of that language. It is no secret within the Labor Party that Mr Johnson and I were far from friends. He is deceased now and out of respect for his family, I will not be making any further comment.'

Opposition Leader Luke Foley cited he preferred not to publicise private matters.

'I don't comment on private conversations with my colleagues. I loved Johno and I have never met any other person who is more loved by thousands of Labor Party members in this state,' Mr Foley said.

On Monday a senior Labor figure told Newscorp Mr Daley's comments were of bad taste.

The source, who was not named, said Mr Daley should really take a hard look at whether he was fit to be the deputy leader of the parliamentary Labor Party.
Joyce Mitchell, the prison tailor who had sex with with two murderers at an upstate New York maximum security prison in 2015 and was convicted of helping them escape , will have to stay locked up for at least another three months.

Mitchell was due to learn last week whether she could get out early on parole - but her hearing has been postponed until November, DailyMail.com has learned.

And her husband thinks she gt a raw deal and wants her home.

Lyle Mitchell, told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview that he cannot wait for his wife to return home following her time in the Bedford Hills Correctional Center, 300 miles away from their home in Dickinson Center, New York.

Lyle Mitchell told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview that he cannot wait for his wife Joyce to return home following her time in the Bedford Hills Correctional Center, 300 miles away from their home in Dickinson Center, New York

Joyce was sentenced for up to seven years in prison for her role in helping Richard Matt and David Sweat escape. Her husband Lyle, right, has stood by her even though she admitted to having sex with at least one of the prisoners

Lyle Mitchell said said he refused to cooperate with the Ben Stiller TV special now in production about the escape. They wanted to film here, he told DailyMail.com, referring to his three-bedroom turn-of-the-20th century home. 'I said no'

All I want is for my wife to be coming home, he said before launching into a tirade about the unfairness of her sentence.

She been inside for more than two years, but Palmer only got six months  and was out in four, he said, referring to Gene Palmer, the prison guard who was also convicted for his part in helping murderers Richard Matt and David Sweat escape.

The killers led cops on a weeks long hunt that kept northern New York State terrified before Matt, 59, was shot and killed, and Sweat, now 37, was shot and recaptured. He is now serving out the rest of his life sentence in the maximum security Five Points Prison.

Palmer knew everything that was going on, but it was easier for them to put all the blame on my wife not him, added Mitchell. What he did was ten times worse than what my wife did.

I just want her home where she belongs, added Mitchell. I just want for us to be left alone.

Palmer, now 59, admitted promoting prison contraband by bringing needle-nose pliers and a screwdriver into the prison in Dannemora, near the Canadian border, and smuggling in hamburger meat, which he said he did not know contained hacksaw blades that Joyce Mitchell had hidden inside.

Joyce worked in the tailor shop at the maximum security Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York where she met Matt and Sweat

Richard Matt (left) was shot dead three weeks after the escape by searchers in woods west of the prison. David Sweat was shot and captured two days later near the border

He also admitted giving Matt and Sweat access to a restricted catwalk but denied knowing they had planned to break out. He told police he provided the convicted killers with supplies and granted them special privileges in exchange for information about their fellow inmates' illegal activities.

Palmer had served 28 years as a guard at the prison. He was so highly regarded that after the escape he escorted New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on a tour of the facility.

Lyle Mitchell, 51, said he would not cooperate with the Ben Stiller TV special now in production about the escape. They wanted to film here, he said, referring to his three-bedroom turn-of-the-20th century home. I said no.

Joyce Mitchell, 53  known locally by her nickname Tillie  was refused parole at her first hearing in February. Last weeks hearing was her second attempt to get out of jail early.

When she was originally arrested in 2015 Lyles lawyer, Peter Dumas, said her husband would not be standing by her. 'He doesn't want to support her. He doesn't want to be in the public eye saying "oh my wife is innocent," Dumas told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview in June, 2015. 'He will not be that person.'

Lyle is livid because Gene Palmer, above, the prison guard who was also convicted for his part in helping the murders escape, only got six months and was out in four. Palmer toured the prison with Gov. Cuomo after the escape

But Lyle soon changed his mind and by the time Joyce was in court when she was sentenced to two-to-seven years, saying he would stand by her. On his Facebook page he has posted several pictures of the two of them together with different frames including one surrounded by hearts and another celebrating the New England Patriots fifth Super Bowl win in February.

The convicts used tools Joyce Mitchell arranged to be smuggled in using hamburger meat to cut their way out of their adjacent cells and get into the catwalk between the cell block walls.

They crawled through an underground steam pipe and reached a street near the prison walls through a manhole. Joyce was supposed to be their getaway driver but got cold feet and checked herself into a local hospital at the time she was due to help them escape.

Matt had been convicted of strangling his 72-year-old boss with his bare hands because he thought he had a large stash of money. After the murder he fled to Mexico where he stabbed another man to death. Sweat killed a cop who had been called to a report of a robbery at a fireworks factory.

The murderers allegedly planned to kill Lyle Mitchell and escape with his wife.

But after the escape, Sweat soon got fed up with his older escapees antics, which included getting drunk on booze found in remote cabins, and decided to dump him in a bid to make his way to Canada alone.

Matt was shot dead three weeks after the escape by searchers in woods west of the prison. Sweat was shot and captured two days later near the border.

Mitchell had supervised the two inmates in the prison's tailor shop and had sexual relations with them.

Joyce Mitchell appears in court with her lawyer Stephen Johnston to plead guilty at Clinton County court, in Plattsburgh, New York in 2015

She claims she only had oral sex with Matt and not Sweat and that there was never any consensual sex.

She said she only helped the pair escape because she feared they would hurt her family. The judge did not buy this excuse from Mitchell.

Mitchell pleaded guilty to providing hacksaw blades and other tools to Matt and Sweat, who broke out of the maximum-security prison on June 6, 2015.

Lyle told NBC in 2015: 'My wife has a heart of gold. Thats her biggest downfall.'

As she was led out of court on September 28, 2015, Mitchell appeared to mouth 'I love you' to her husband.

Joyce said she was going through a tough time in her marriage and the inmates made her feel special.

She told: 'I was going through a time where I didn't feel like my husband loved me anymore...I was going through depression, and I guess they saw my weakness and that's how it all started.

'Their attention made me feel good.'
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Kim Jong-Un is holding 'captive' a U.S. Navy vessel - almost 50 years since it was seized by his grandfather's Communist regime, precipitating a crisis with echoes of the current stand-off between Donald Trump and North Korea.

The USS Pueblo and its crew were captured by North Korea in 1968 and it is the only U.S. navy vessel still in active commission that is officially listed as 'captive'.

Now it is more than just a captive vessel - it is also being used by Kim's own regime as a 'museum' of anti-American propaganda on Potong River in the nation's showcase capital, Pyongyang.

Its existence has been documented by award-winning photojournalist, Mark Edward Harris, who has traveled to the Korean peninsula multiple times to capture the delicate balancing act between democratic South Korea and its authoritarian neighbor to the north.

The U.S.-North Korea impasse, which has simmered since the end of the Korean War in 1953, has grown more tense this month over fears that the North's nuclear weapons program is nearing the ability to target the U.S. mainland.

Pyongyang tested two intercontinental ballistic missiles last month and on Tuesday Kim announced he was standing back from his threat of an imminent attack on Guam - but the official state news agency said: 'He said that if the Yankees persist in their extremely dangerous reckless actions on the Korean peninsula and in its vicinity, testing the self-restraint of the DPRK, the latter will make an important decision as it already declared.'

Captive: The USS Pueblo remains a commissioned Navy ship - but is in a dock in Pyongyang being used as a museum to anti-American sentiment by Kim Jong-Un's secretive regime. His grandfather's forces captured it in 1968

Museum to the enemy: The North Koreans have turned the USS Pueblo into a showcase of its distrust for the West. On board North Koreans are shown photographs from the capture in 1968, and the original intelligence-gathering equipment

Evidence: The Pueblo, which is guarded by North Korean sailors in its dock in Pyongyang, has files on display which the North Koreans say are evidence of its involvement in clandestine activity. They have not been authenticated

View from the bridge: The USS Pueblo had been built as an Army supply freighter in 1944, and transferred to the Navy in 1966 where it was commissioned as an intelligence gathering ship a year later. The North Koreans have preserved it but it remains a commissioned Navy vessel

How they defied the Communists: Crew members of the Pueblo were photographed by North Korea for propaganda purposes - and appeared with their middle fingers extended, telling their captors it was a Hawaiian greeting. When they realized they were being mocked, the North Koreans imposed harsh captivity conditions

Crisis: Kim Il-Sung was photographed in September 1968 basking in applause from his followers. At the time his regime was deeply involved in negotiations over the Pueblo, with one senior Congressman calling for LBJ to threaten nuclear war

Reunion: The crew of the Pueblo were sent across the Bridge of No Return in the demilitarized zone between the two Koreas on December 23, 1968, after spending almost the whole year in captivity

Official record: The entire crew were photographed as a group at the Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego after their return. They had been flown to the U.S. for health checks after months of ill-treatment in North Korea

But in 1968, it came as close to boiling point as any time since the armistice which ended the war, in a stand-off which was known as the 'Pueblo Crisis', but which has received little attention thanks to an accident of timing.

The ship was seized in 1968 just a week before one of the largest military actions of the Vietnam War, the Tet Offensive.

Still commissioned: The Pueblo is the only Navy ship listed as 'captive' and remains a part of the fleet as a result

The Korean Peninsula had been divided by the Soviet Union and the U.S. into independent North and South at the end of the Second World War.

The North Korean Army, supported by the Soviets, invaded South Korea in June 1950. The U.S. stepped in to defend South Korea in a 'police action' and the conflict escalated as China and the Soviet Union became involved. The ultimate death toll is estimated at 2.5 million, the vast majority civilian.

An armistice was signed in 1953 to suspend combat and exchange prisoners of war but it was not a permanent peace treaty.

Nor did the agreement curb North Korea's aggression under the leadership of Kim Il-Sung, the grandfather of the current dictator, Kim Jong-Un. He turned to random acts of terrorism instead of all-out war.

These acts included the hijacking of a South Korean airliner while on approach to a Seoul airport by agents from the North in February 1958. The passengers and crew were released a month later.

On January 22, 1968, North Korean agents attempted to assassinate South Korean President Park Chung-hee.

That set off a chain of events - and the following day, the USS Pueblo, which was not aware of the assassination attempt, was intercepted by North Korea.

It was gathering signals intelligence on North Korea, but also looking for what Soviet submarines were up to in international waters nearby.

Trophy: The North Korean propaganda machine has preserved the Pueblo exactly as it was when they captured it in January 1968, and highlights the bullet holes for visitors. Something of the sailors' conditions are kept too in the bunks on show below deck

Part of history: The Pueblo 'museum' in Pyongyang shows photographs of the body of Fireman Duane Hodges, the sole casualty of the crisis, being repatriated from North Korea

Reunited: Surviving crew members, and Rose Bucher, the widow of Captain Lloyd Bucher, gathered for the 40th anniversary of the capture of the Pueblo on the Spirit of Eathan Allen, on Lake Champlain, Vermont. Next year will be the 50th anniversary.

STANDING PROUD: THE HEROES OF THE PUEBLO Mark Edward Harris photographed the surviving crew members of the Pueblo, and the widow of the captain. They are: Top row, left to right: Rose Bucher, widow of Captain Lloyd Bucher; Sergeant Robert Hammond, U.S. Marine Corps; Fireman Stephen Woelk; Ensign Timothy Harris; Petty Officer 1st Class Policarpo Polla 'PP' Garcia; Petty Officer 1st Norbert Klepac. Second row from top, left to right: Petty Officer 2nd Donald McClarren; Petty Officer 3rd Willie Bussell; Petty Officer 3rd Paul Brusnahan; Seaman Stephen Ellis; Seaman Edward Russell; Petty Officer 3rd Seaman, Charles H. Crandell. Third row from top, left to right: Seaman Robert Hill; Petty Officer 2nd Ronald Berens; Seaman Earl Phares; Petty Officer 1st Donald Peppard; Fireman Thomas Massie, Petty Officer 3rd Ralph Reed. Fourth row from top, left to right: Petty Officer 3rd Bradley Crowe; Petty Officer 3rd Darrell Wright; Petty Officer 1st Frank Ginther; Petty Officer 1st Michael Barrett; Petty Officer 1st Don E. Bailey; Lieutenant (junior grade) F. Carl Schumacher. Fifth row from top, left to right: Petty Officer 3rd John Grant; Sgt Robert Chicca, U.S.Marine Corps; Petty Officer 3rd Ralph McClintock;Lt Stephen Harris LT; Lt Edward Murphy LT; Petty Officer 3rd Alvin Plucker. Bottom row: Oceanographer Dunnie 'Friar' Tuck; Chief Petty Officer James Kell; Fireman Peter Bandera; Fireman Norman Spear; Oceanographer Harry Iredale; Seaman Richard Rogola. Ranks as held at time of becoming prisoners of war Advertisement

Propaganda tools: The North Koreans released details of what they claimed was the position of the Pueblo when it was taken captive and its crew held prisoner. They were in high spirits when they finally made it back to friendly soil, having been flown from the DMZ to Seoul, where they were greeted by senior officers

The Communists claimed the Americans had sailed into their territorial waters - and attacked with submarine chasers, torpedo boats and two MiG-21 fighter jets. One sub-chaser opened fire on the U.S. ship, killing Fireman Duane Hodges.

The U.S. Navy was adamant that the Pueblo, a Banner-class ship which had been attached to Navy intelligence for spying purposes, was in international waters, but, under threat and virtually unarmed compared to the forces she faced, the Pueblo surrendered, giving its crew time to attempt to destroy some of the high volumes of sensitive information on board.

Its captain, Lloyd Bucher, was ordered to shore by the North Koreans and the boat was seized in the port city of Wonsan, where the crew were tied up, blindfolded and beaten.

In Washington D.C., President Lyndon Johnson's White House and prominent members of Congress were at odds on what to do next.

The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Democrat Mendel Rivers, suggested that President Johnson threaten North Korea with nuclear attack if they did not return the boat. Others cautioned against aggravating the situation, fearing the Pueblo crew would be killed by the reclusive regime.

Johnson decided to damp down the crisis, and it was largely overshadowed by the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, which unfolded at the same time as negotiations over the Pueblo's crew.

North Korea released propaganda photographs and films of their American prisoners but the men undermined their captors by flicking 'the middle finger' - and then the servicemen were transported to prisoner-of-war camps where they were starved and tortured.

Theme park: The Pueblo is part of the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum in Pyongyang, an attempt to show the power of the isolated regime (left). Elsewhere in the city are other memorials, and anti-American postcards are widely available

Another artifact: This hatchet was used in the Panmunjom ax murders, when North Koreans in the DMZ murdered Amry Cap Arthur Bonifas and 1st Lt Mark Barrett as they led service workers trimming a tree. North Korea propaganda carefully preserves it

Portrayal: As well as the Pueblo, the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum includes representations of the war which ended with armistice in 1953 - with the North Koreans being portrayed as moving forward to victory

Indoctrination: Militarism is built into the North Korean culture from the earliest moments, with even a children's playground in Sonbong an opportunity to tell the regime's subjects of its 'might'. The Arirang Mass Games are another opportunity for military displays - with children holding up the placards to create a giant mural in the stands

Reality: The dilapidated state of North Korea is apparent in this image of a group of soldiers on Mount Baektu, which is sacred to all Koreans

Remembered: Kim Jong-Un exploits his grandfather's memory - such as that this military parade for Kim Il-Sung's Birthday Centennial in 2012 - as part of his grip on North Korean

Association: Kim Jong-Un's statue is placed beside that of his grandfather in central Pyongyang. Being associated with the founder of North Korea so strongly is part of his effort to prevent challenges to his power

Unusual sight: The Koryo Hotel, where foreigners are able to stay in Pyongyang, has limited access to the outside world's media. But North Koreans do not get to see their leader on western broadcasts

Modern image: Kim Jong-Un pushes his people to believe the country is modern, with himself at the head of it. His image is used by the regime, while museums like the Three-Revolution Exhibition portray North Korea as a cutting-edge country

Celebrations: Fireworks inevitably carried political overtones. In 2012, Kim Jong-Un's regime marked the 100th anniversary of the purported date of his grandfather's birth with coordinated displays in all the major cities including these in Kaesong

Applauded: As the supreme power in North Korea, Kim Jong-Un wants to be treated with deference by his people, even the highest-ranking military officers. The regime released this photograph on Tuesday after it was taken in Monday as Kim inspected the 'command of the strategic force' of the Korean People's Army

Reality of a divided peninsula: The Military Demarcation Line at Panmunjeom photographed from the North Korean side. On the other sides tourists are free to visit and its people to come and go but on the Northern side, life is very different

Cpt Bucher was psychologically tortured including being put before a fake firing squad. He finally agreed to confess under duress to spying when the North Koreans said they would execute his men in front of him.

But even then, in his handwritten confession he included an act of defiance against the regime. 'We paean the DPRK [North Korea]. We paean their great leader Kim Il-Sung,' he stated, the North Koreans being unaware that 'paean' is almost pronounced 'pee on' and that it is never used as a verb.

Eleven months after being taken prisoner, the crew were released following protracted negotiations between the two countries.

The release of the POWs was secured by an apology from the U.S. and a written statement that the USS Pueblo had been spying.

The Navy and Marine Corps servicemen walked from captivity on December 23, 1968, across the 'Bridge of No Return' to the Korean Demilitarized Zone on the border with South Korea, where they were

A recommendation was made by a Navy Court of Inquiry to court-martial Capt Bucher and the officer in charge of research, Lt. Steven Harris.

The Secretary of the Navy rejected the recommendation because the men had 'suffered enough'. Bucher continued his unblemished Naval career until retirement, when he left with the ranks of commander.

The surviving crew members of the USS Pueblo held a reunion aboard the Spirit of Ethan Allen on Lake Champlain, Vermont in 2008, to mark the 40th anniversary of their ship's capture. Next year will be the 50th anniversary of one of the less-told stories of U.S. history.

Ralph McClintock, who was a petty officer 3rd class on the USS Pueblo, shared his thoughts this month of the current crisis between North Korea and the U.S.

'The best thing the U.S. Administration could do is to shut the f*** up,' he said. 'Keep our President's mouth shut. I vote to completely ignore everything North Korea does. In other words, scare the bloody bejesus out of them with silence.'

Mark Edward Harris' latest book, The Travel Photo Essay: Describing A Journey Through Images will be published by Routledge in September and is available for pre-order on Amazon
The Surprising Link Between Crime, Quality Of Life & Trees. (Yes, Trees)

By Emma G. Gallegos in News on Aug 14, 2017 8:40PM



A map of the canopy in the Chicago region (Chicago Region Trees Initiative)

When discussing infrastructure and how it might impact, say, health, poverty or the economy, there's often a lot of attention paid to man-made things like streets, sidewalk, transportation or buildings. The Chicago Region Trees Initiative asks Chicagoans to look up and consider the vastly underrated role of trees.

There are some obvious ways that trees make life better: they offer shade (which reduces heating bills), they clean up the air and water, they prevent flooding and generally they just make an area feel nicer. That last one sounds a little touchy-feely, but there's research showing that trees can actually help to reduce crime and improve the quality of life for people who spend time around them, according to Atlas Obscura. That's why the Chicago Regional Tree Initiative and Morton Arboretum thought it was important to survey the canopy around the Chicago area. So while the federal government was counting the number of people in 2010, the CRTI was conducting a tree census.

They found that the Chicago area had over 157 million trees. Trees and shrubs cover 21 percent of the region, and those trees mostly included European buckthorn, green ash, box elder, black cherry, and American elm. They estimated the value of the trees at $51.2 billion. It's strange to think about trees in this way, but that takes into account the way they clean the air, reduce energy costs and raise property values.

The CRTI advocates for a healthier urban forest, and the census shows exactly where more trees could be planted. The census found that Cook County itself has 28 percent canopy cover and, based on the land available, could increase that up to 74 percent.

The canopy isn't distributed evenly, and the tree census revealed yet another way of looking at inequality in Chicago. The North Shore had a canopy cover that was over 40 percent in some places, while poorer communities of the South Side were as low as 7 percent. It can be tough to tease out causation and correlation but it turns out there is a connection between a lack of trees and crime.

"We started to look at where we have heavy crime, and whether there was a correlation with tree canopy, and often, there is," Lydia Scott, director of the CRTI, told Atlas Obscura. "Communities that have higher tree population have lower crime. Areas where trees are prevalent, people tend to be outside, mingling, enjoying their community."

One group based out of Woodlawn has already jumped on the tree bandwagon: BiG, which stands for Blacks in Green. Over the last few months, they've been hosting tree inventories in West Woodlawn, which is aiming to be "America's first certified African American community arboretum."

BiG hopes to provide horticulture scholarships and jobs to the local community. Caring for the trees will improve the neighborhood, bring the community together, help it withstand climate change and even provide food through fruit and nut trees.

BiG's founder Naomi Davis told Chicago Magazine, "The green movement is the closest thing to a silver bullet that the African American community is going to see in many lifetimes."
A paedophile will spend 15 years behind bars for breaking into a trailer in rural Western Australia and sexually assaulting a three-year-old girl in front of her brother.

Philip Arthur Dalton was sentenced in the District Court on Monday after a jury found the 44-year-old guilty of three child-sex offences, according to The West Australian.

Dalton broke into the temporary Bruce Rock home, often referred to as a donga, in May last year as the children slept.

The three-year old later told police Dalton offered the children sweets before telling her to shut up and repeatedly assaulting her.

Philip Arthur Dalton was sentenced to 15 years in jail on Monday for breaking into a rural Western Australian (pictured is Bruce Rock) trailer and sexually abusing a three-year-old girl in front of her brother

The children's parents, who were sleeping in an adjoining room, heard a commotion but believed the kids had just woken up early.

Their father thumped on the wall and told them to go back to sleep.

The couple noticed something was wrong at about 7.30am when they discovered sweets and a cigarette butt on the floor of the children's room, according to the publication.

Dalton admitted to police he stole food from a fridge nearby but claimed he didn't attack the girl.

The court heard Dalton was using ice and drinking in the hours before the attack and has a lengthy criminal record.

His defence lawyer Simon Freitag argued Dalton's sentence was too long because the assault was a crime of 'opportunity.'

Mr Freitag claimed Dalton was stumbling around in the area looking for items to steal.
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Protesters furious that Donald Trump took two days to denounce Saturday's white supremacist violence gathered in their thousands in New York as he headed back to Trump Tower for the first time since the inauguration.

Demonstrators holding signs saying 'Two days too late' and 'Refuse Fascism' stood in pens erected by police across the street from Trump Tower in Manhattan and lined nearby blocks of Fifth Avenue by early Monday evening, hours before his expected arrival.

Chants of 'Black lives matter' and 'Love, not hate - that's what makes America great' rose above traffic noise, while an inflatable, rat-like caricature of Trump stood by The Plaza hotel, two blocks from Trump Tower. Others were heard chanting 'New York hates you!'

But Trump, who arrived back at his beloved tower around 9:10pm, took a back route, allowing him to circumvent the protesters altogether.

Scroll down for video

An inflatable, rat-like Donald Trump watches over the thousands of protesters gathering near Trump Tower in Manhattan to protest the president after his muted response to white supremacist violence in Virginia on Saturday

Trump complained of violence from 'many sides' on Saturday, after 1 woman was killed and 19 injured by a neo-Nazi supporter who drove into a crowd. He amended that on Monday, openly denouncing racism, but it wasn't enough for these protesters

Many of the protesters in the famously liberal and diverse city suggested that Trump had made himself - at the very least - a frontman for fascism by his words and actions

Protesters gather ahead of Trump's return to Trump Tower. They held placards demanding Trump get out of office and stop 'supporting fascists;' some others held signs demanding an end to cutbacks in Congress

Protesters held up signs demand the end of the Trump administration and likening the president to a Nazi as they gathered on the road opposite the tower

This early arrival to the protest had a salty greeting ready and waiting for the president when he arrived. Trump is enormously proud of his New York heritage, so reactions like this may upset him

One woman was seen being arrested by police at the scene, although the circumstances surrounding her detainment were not immediately clear

She was then seen being hauled off by NYPD officers as the protesters continued to chant 'Black lives matter' and 'Love, not hate - that's what makes America great'

Trump did not look pleased to be leaving his plane in New York, even though he hasn't been back to his tower on Fifth Avenue since he took office. He said that he stayed away because the security surrounding the tower was too disruptive

After Trump got off in New York he was flown in Marine One (pictured) to the presidential limo (in the foreground) at the Downtown Manhattan/Wall Street Heliport

The presidential limo arrived at Trump Tower at around 9:20pm on Monday, as part of the presidential motorcade. Rather than driving up Fifth Avenue, where the protests were based, Trump drove the wrong way up a closed 56th St from Madison Ave

That allowed him to enter the building via this tent, which had been constructed on Saturday, away from the shouts and cries of the angry protesters

Trump's motorcade is seen here driving along 56th Street on its way towards Trump Tower's side entrance

Trump can be seen, apparently waving to police and security, in this close-up shot of the motorcade

After arriving back in New York, Trump tweeted: 'Feels good to be home after seven months, but the White House is very special, there is no place like it... and the US is really my home!'

Trump landed in New York on Air Force One, and was then carried by Marine One to a helicopter pad near Wall St, at the south end of Manhattan. There, he got into the Presidential limousine and was taken North to Trump Tower.

But rather than approach the tower's front entrance, Trump had 56th Street shut down between Fifth Avenue and the parallel Madison Avenue, then drove the wrong way down it - moving east to west, rather than the correct west to east - before pulling up in a tent.

That tent, erected Saturday, allowed him access to his beloved Trump Tower - while helping him avoid the furious protesters outside. He arrived at the building around 9.10pm.

After landing in New York, he tweeted: 'Feels good to be home after seven months, but the White House is very special, there is no place like it... and the U.S. is really my home!'

Two protesters were spotted inside Trump Tower prior to Trump's arrival, holding up signs reading 'Hate has no home here.'

A much smaller group of pro-Trump counter-protesters were seen holding up signs in support of the president; they were kept separate from the anti-Trump protesters.

And earlier in the afternoon, police were seen arresting a woman, although the reason for her detainment - and whether she was part of a protest or counter-protest - was not clear.

The Reverend Jan Powell, a retired minister of the United Church of Christ, carried a sign that read 'No justice, no peace' as she stood opposite Trump's signature tower.

She said she was bothered by the Republican president's delayed response to the violence seen at Saturday's Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, when one woman was killed and 19 others injured after a white supremacist drove a car into a group of antifascist protesters.

But 'what bothers me the most is when folks like Trump try to silence our First Amendment right to free speech, either with violence or "fake news" or hate speech,' she said.

Still, she added: 'I pray for him every day. We are both human beings.'

Trump did have some supporters among the thronging crowds, but they were vastly outnumbered by those opposing the president's return

Another pro-Trump counter-protester - along with a sign about orthodox Jews voting for Trump - is seen here shouting as people pass by during protests ahead of the president's arrival

Protesters spell out a message to Trump in inflatable balloons - 'F U TRUMP' - as the sun sets outside Trump Tower on Manhattan's famous Fifth Avenue

This protester painted stars and stripes teardrops on her cheeks as she professed to stand with the people she believes Trump hates - Jews, Muslims and black people

Placards reading 'White silence is violence' were also seen at various other protests on Sunday as people gathered in support of those killed and hurt on Saturday

Protesters gathered in their thousands throughout the day - although none of them were to see the president, who sneaked into Trump Tower in a side entrance

Protesters talk among themselves during the early stages of the protest on Monday afternoon

White dump trucks were parked opposite as part of a security measure. They were filled with sand and used to block the entrance from possible car threats

Meanwhile, police had stationed sand-filled sanitation trucks as barriers around Trump's signature skyscraper and layers of metal police barricades around the main entrance.

After Trump was elected president November 8, security around the tower ramped up dramatically, including the use of the sanitation trucks.

A maze of barricades and checkpoints were manned by scores of uniformed police officers under the supervision of a mobile command center.

The security precautions have been lessened somewhat in his absence but still have inconvenienced residents and business owners in the highly trafficked area, home to stores such as Tiffany and Louis Vuitton.

Trump, a native New Yorker who cherishes his namesake high-rise, said Friday that he had stayed away because he realized the impact of the street closings and other aspects of a presidential visit.

Trump Tower is located close to the corner at which Fifth Avenue - already a busy street famous for its big-name stores like jewelers Tiffany & Co - meets Central Park; an area popular with tourists.

'I would love to go to my home in Trump Tower, but it's very, very disruptive to do,' Trump said.

Protester Gabby Parra, however, said she was demonstrating to show Trump 'he's not welcome here.'

'We need to let him know that New Yorkers and people from around here are not going to accept his blatant idiocy,' said Parra, a 17-year-old high school senior from Teaneck, New Jersey.

She said she feels the president dehumanizes minorities, noting that he launched his campaign by portraying Mexico as a source of rapists and murderers coming into the US and that he initially failed to denounce white supremacists specifically after Saturday's violence.

City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, a Democrat, was among the protesters.

There were also anticapitalist protesters (seen at rear of photo) as well as those objecting to the president's perceived racism and white supremacist support

A speaker calls for people to put their fists in the air as people gather outside Trump Tower. Fifth Avenue, which houses the tower, also plays home to many major shops, including the famous Tiffany & Co jewelers

This protester said she was 'ashamed to be white' in the wake of the white supremacist rally held Saturday, and its support rallies on Sunday. Unite the Right had attracted members of the KKK and neo-Nazi groups

Security outside the tower was ramped up ahead of the president's return. It had been stepped down during his absence but returned to pre-inauguration highs on Monday

Demonstrator Natasha Beshenkovsky, 73, of Washington Heights, told Gothamist that she feared Trump would try to recreate the kind of authoritarian government she had fled to the US to escape.

'I was a political refugee from the Soviet Union 40 years ago,' he said. 'I came here because I am against the exact type of government they're trying to impose here. The secrecy, screaming about leaks, they admire strong arms.

'Our so-called president doesn't know how government works. He wouldn't pass a naturalization exam. I'm trying to enjoy the democracy while it lasts - nobody can say how long that will be.'

He added: 'All my friends were dissidents. We had no freedom of speech, no freedom to read the books we liked. If United States loses its role in world, there is nothing left.

'US was always a beacon. I looked at Americans as free people. I absolutely hate what's going on, it's crushing.'

Trump initially condemned the Saturday incident as an 'egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides - on many sides,' a phrase that led many, including those at neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer, to believe he was tacitly supporting racist whites.

On Monday, under pressure from critics Trump said that 'racism is evil' and described members of the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and white supremacists who take part in violence as 'criminals and thugs.'

But for some - including many of those gathered to protest in New York on Monday - it was not enough.

Trump later complained about that on Twitter, writing: 'Made additional remarks on Charlottesville and realize once again that the #Fake News Media will never be satisfied...truly bad people!'

Donald Trump complained that people were not happy that he took two days to condemn a neo-Nazi sympathizer fatally driving into a group of protesters, blaming 'Fake News Media' and calling journalists 'truly bad people'

Trucks full of sand acted as security barriers ahead of Trump's return; metal barriers were also erected to contain the furious crowds of protesters

This parody inflatable was erected near the Plaza Hotel, two blocks up from Trump Tower itself. Crowds lined the streets in order to await Trump's return

The fury at the president wasn't just contained to New York, however.

An effigy of Trump - with swastikas painted onto his trousers - was burned at a rally in Minneapolis held in solidarity with the victims of the Charlottesville violence.

The faux Trump was seen wearing a white shirt and khaki trousers, similar to the clothes he's frequently seen golfing in.

An estimated 1,000 protesters blocked streets and light rail during the action, which was also intended to protest against violence and racism in the US in general.

Many demonstrators gathered at a crossroads in front of the Minneapolis Republican Party office, holding signs that said 'Stop Hate' and 'No Racist USA.'

Also coming under fire was Johnny Isakson, a Republican senator for Georgia who was hit with cries of 'shame' during his town hall meeting at Kennesaw State University.

Isakson was pressed on issues over climate change and the proposed Obamacare repeal, and when pressed to say 'black lives matter' he would only say 'all lives matter'. He was booed and mocked as he left the stage.

The fury with Trump was also felt in Minneapolis, where this effigy of the president - in khakis and a white shirt - was set ablaze during a protest against the racism and violence seen over the weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia

Around 1,000 people are estimated to have gathered on streets and railroads, disrupting traffic - including at this junction outside the Minneapolis Republican Party office

Also under fire on Monday was Georgia senator Johnny Isakson (right) who was hit with cries of 'shame' from protesters (left) during his town hall meeting at Kennesaw State University
A thick haze is hanging over Sydney for a second day, with those with respiratory conditions being warned to remain safe.

Westerly winds pushed smoke over Sydney from hazard reduction burns carried out by the Rural Fire Service (RFS) in the Southern Highlands on Sunday.

Smoke plume modelling indicated inversion, which locks air over low-lying areas, would ease on Monday morning and the haze would dissipate soon after - but that didn't happen.

Those with breathing issues told to stay indoors on the second day of smog says NSW RFS

NSW Rural Fire Service spokesperson said the smog will disappear by the end of Tuesday

Air quality monitors reported high amounts of particles and low visibility in numerous suburbs, with 'poor' and 'very poor' air hanging around until late on Monday evening.

Hazard reduction burns continued through Monday as firefighters took advantage of still air and cool weather. That is expected to result in more smoke settling over the city until Tuesday afternoon.

The RFS said it was conducting the burns in anticipation of what is expected to be a very significant fire season.

NSW Health warned the particles in smoke could travel deep into people's lungs, and the elderly, children and people with heart and lung conditions were particularly at risk.

A NSW RFS spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia that the smog is expected to subside completely by the end of Tuesday.

'Some improvement and warmer temperature thanks to the westerly wind will result in a quick reduction (of smog).

'Visibility is still clear throughout the late morning till lunch time and will back to normal by the end of the day,' the spokesperson said.

Those with respiratory problems should decide for themselves if it was safe to go out on their own, said the spokesperson.

'We want people to live normal lives and for those with breathing problems take your medications or puffer with you when you leave your house,' the spokesperson said.

Those with breathing problems are advised to take their medication and puffers with them

Visibility in Sydney is expected to improve by leaps and bounds after lunch time on Tuesday




A young mother's family are praying she pulls through after she was found critically injured in a drain after a day at the races.

Claire Tucker, 36, remains in a critical condition in hospital after apparently falling around two metres into a concrete drain in Cairns on Saturday evening.

Her mother said she had spent the day at the Cairns Cup with her partner and friends, but became separated from the group when the event ended.

Claire Tucker (right) remains in a critical condition after being found on Saturday

Claire Tucker (right) remains in a critical condition in hospital after apparently falling around 2m into a concrete drain on Saturday evening

'I think she and everyone got separated and [she] tried to walk towards town to try and get a taxi at Earlville,' Lesley Hill-Allen told the Cairns Post.

'There's still a chance she could pull through  she's a huge fighter.'

In a post on a GoFundMe page for Ms Tucker, a friend wrote that her injuries were so severe that she will have some permanent brain damage.

'She has major brain trauma, broken bones in her neck, back and spine and is in a coma,' the post said.

It added that funds raised will go towards medical and day-to-day expenses for Ms Tucker, who has a five-year-old son.

'Our Claire is the most kind-hearted and generous person, all those that cross her path fall in love with her infectious and energetic nature,' the post continues.

Ms Tucker (above) had spent the day at the Cairns Cup with her partner and friends but became separated from the group when the event ended

'Regardless of her own situation she would always put others needs before her own.

'She lives an extremely healthy and active lifestyle and is involved in countless community events and is passionate about Netball and Touch Football.

'Claire's only income as a single mother to a amazing little boy, only 5 years of age, is a small business that she runs from home but due to her circumstances we have had to close the salon until further notice.

'Any money donated will help towards Claire's day-to-day bills, medical expenses, her long road to recovery and renovations to her highset house to accommodate her condition.'

A woman, aged in her 30s, was found under a bridge in Clarkes Creek on Sunday night

Police are appealing for information in a bid to solve the mystery of how Ms Tucker ended up in the drain.

Ms Tucker was last seen walking along Mulgrave Rd towards the Cairns CBD about 7.15pm, they said.

She was wearing a floral dress with a large pink hat and white-heeled shoes.

After falling into the drain, she was spotted by a passer-by.

Officers conducting roadside breath tests nearby were alerted to the fact there was a woman lying in the drain below the bridge near Clarkes Creek.

She was taken to Cairns Hospital with life-threatening injuries and remains in a critical condition.

Senior Constable Russell Parker said police were appealing for drivers with dashcams travelling along Mulgrave Rd at Earlville between 7pm and 9pm to come forward.

Woman is believed to have been separated from her friends after spending the day at the Cairns Cup racing carnival

He told AAP that several witnesses had come forward since Saturday's incident, but more information was needed.

'A man and his friends were walking home from the cinemas about 9pm,' he said on Monday.

'He thought he could see someone lying in the culvert.'

He said it appeared the woman had fallen over the low guard rail on the bridge and landed in the drain.

'But we just need to get as much detail as we can to ensure that there is no other party involved,' he said.

Anyone with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
With a belligerent giant panda in hot pursuit, a zookeeper flees an enclosure in the nick of time.

Had she been slower to spot that the bear had been mistakenly allowed in, the Edinburgh Zoo worker could have been seriously injured or even killed.

An extraordinary image capturing the security lapse was yesterday leaked by employees protesting against staff shortages at the zoo, which they say is in crisis.

The picture shows male giant panda Yang Guang only inches behind the keeper, who had been cleaning the animals enclosure.

A keeper was shown escaping from a pen at Edinburgh Zoo just inches away from a panda which was allowed in 'by mistake' and could have seriously injured her

Staff described the incident as a near miss  one which could have resulted in the panda attacking the keeper or the bear escaping into the zoos public area.

Yang Guang, which means Sunshine, and female giant panda Tian Tian (Sweetie) have been the zoos most famous residents since their arrival in 2011.

Despite pandas cuddly image, they can be ferocious. They are notoriously territorial, which is why they are removed from enclosures during cleaning sessions.

Edinburgh Zoo initially denied the incident but admitted it after the emergence of the picture, which is believed to have been captured by a security camera last year.

Edinburgh Zoo  owned by the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS)  is the second most popular paying visitor attraction in the country, although visitor numbers were down 10 per cent last year compared with 2015.

The email to bosses states morale has also plummeted  and the panda close-call is one of a long list of concerns.

It states: We got to hear about the near miss with the panda a while after it happened, through rumour at first and then the keeper who experienced it went off sick and never came back.

She heard it behind her just in time to be able to get out of the enclosure. If she hadnt she could have been mauled, seriously injured or even killed. We also know the panda could have escaped into the public area of the zoo.

Are we going to wait for a disaster to happen before things change at the zoo?

The email also complains about staff shortages, warning that keepers do not have enough time with the animals in their care, adding: There is a dreadful atmosphere around the zoo with staff morale the lowest we have ever known it. The email concludes by stating that staff have no confidence in senior management.

Edinburgh Zoo initially dismissed the claims as scurrilous and unfounded.

Male panda Yang Guang, pictured, could also have escaped into the public areas of the zoo, staff said

But yesterday a spokesman said: Staff reported a near miss within the panda enclosure last year. This was fully investigated and Edinburgh Council kept informed.

No staff or animals were harmed.

The zoo refused to comment on the rest of the email, saying it contained inaccuracies.

The spokesman said: The organisation takes staff welfare and morale extremely seriously and has a well-established Employee Consultation Board to draw upon the views and expertise of a broad cross-section of RZSS employees.

The City of Edinburgh Council said: The council was notified about the incident and as a result the zoo has reviewed and revised procedures.

Edinburgh Zoo is the city's second most popular attraction but staff say it is 'in crisis' and have a 'long list of concerns'

Elisa Allen, director of animal welfare charity PETA, said that even in the best zoos, pandas could be badly affected by the lack of mental and physical stimulation.

She said: When humans even those experienced with animals  find themselves in a cage with a wild animal, it is sheer luck if no serious or fatal injuries occur.

Miles Briggs, Scottish Tory MSP for Lothian, said: This appears to have been a worrying lapse in safety procedures.

However, Im glad to see the zoo and the council have taken steps to ensure staff safety remains paramount.

Three visitors to Beijing Zoo were mauled between 2006 and 2009 after falling into or entering panda enclosures.
Councils that threaten the integrity of Australia Day citizenship ceremonies by 'acknowledging the pain' of Indigenous people could be stripped of their powers to perform the ceremony altogether.

Victoria's Yarra Council claimed it would acknowledge the 'pain and disconnection' felt by Aborigines and make no mention of Australia Day in its citizenship ceremonies.

But Assistant Minister for Immigration and Border Protection Alex Hawke has warned the council will be punished if they deliberately politicise Australia Day citizenship ceremonies.

Victoria's Yarra Council suggested it would acknowledge the 'pain and disconnection' felt by Aborigines (citizenship ceremony on Australia Day in Brisbane this year pictured)

Assistant Minister for Immigration and Border Protection Alex Hawke said councils would be stripped of their right to practice citizenship ceremonies if they made it too politically correct.

'The Australian Government will not allow council to politicise and delegitimise citizenship ceremonies in a public attack on Australia Day being held on January 26,' Mr Hawke said.

'A citizenship ceremony must not be used as a forum to protest the practice of celebrating Australia Day on January 26,' he said.

The announcement comes after thousands of people, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, protested Australia Day celebrations on January 26 this year.

Protesters carrying flags and placards stand outside Flinders Street Station during an Invasion Day protest march in Melbourne, Thursday, January 26 this year

Aboriginal activists are seen during an Australia Day protest in Adelaide on Australia Day

Mr Hawke reminded councils they had a duty to abide by the Australian Citizenship Ceremonies Code

Protesters draped in Aboriginal flags marched through the streets of Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane on Australia Day, slamming the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788 as 'Invasion Day' and a 'day of killing'.

The event, which turned violent, was one of dozens of protests across the country.

Despite the protests, Mr Hawke refused lenience.

Mr Hawke reminded councils they had a duty to abide by the Australian Citizenship Ceremonies Code.

Indigenous protesters march through central Brisbane to protest what they call 'Invasion Day' on Australia Day in Brisbane

Aboriginal activists are seen during an Australia Day protest in Adelaide on January 26

He said councils' attempt to lobby against Australia Day on January 26 was a breach of the code.

Mr Hawke said the Turnbull Government would ensure the integrity of Australian Citizenship ceremonies was maintained.

'Local councils are now on notice that if they politicise Australian citizenship, the Government will see it as a breach of the code and take appropriate action,' he said.
As the 20th anniversary of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, looms ever closer, and fresh suggestions emerge that she might well have gone on to marry her Muslim boyfriend Dodi Fayed, a new film tells the story of a far more controversial love between a Muslim man and a very senior female member of the Royal Family.

Queen Victoria was almost 70 when she first set appreciative eyes on 24-year-old Abdul Karim, in her Golden Jubilee summer of 1887. It happened after she sent word that, as Empress of India and with various Jubilee celebrations planned, she wanted some young Indian men added to her retinue of servants.

Among those chosen was the lowly assistant clerk from his native Agra.

Victoria approved the choice of tall, slim, handsome Abdul the instant she saw him attending her dinner table, at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.

Victoria approved the choice of tall, slim, handsome Abdul the instant she saw him attending her dinner table, at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. The Queen is played by Judie Dench and Abdul Karim by Bollywood actor Ali Fazal

Their subsequent relationship is chronicled in the forthcoming film Victoria & Abdul, which stars Judi Dench as the Queen and comes 20 years after she played the same role in the acclaimed Mrs Brown. That, too, was the real-life tale of the mutual devotion between the Queen and a servant, in that case her cherished Scottish ghillie John Brown.

But Brown died in 1883 and evidently left a void in Victorias life, which Abdul enthusiastically filled. There was no physical relationship as there was between Diana and Dodi, but it was a form of love affair nonetheless. Besides, it was Abduls sleek, physical beauty that first attracted the ageing Queen.

Queen Victoria was not immune to good looks, says Michael Hunter, curator of Osborne House. She loved the company of attractive people. John Brown was a striking and very masculine man. And she was just as admiring of good-looking women. For example, Eugenie, Empress of France, a famous beauty and fashion icon, was a great friend.

The man the Queen knew as her beloved Munshi, or teacher, became the transcendent love of the latter years of her long life.

She even signed notes to him: Your loving mother. However, Victorias actual children, and senior courtiers, duly despised him. Where she saw a wise and loyal adviser, they saw an obsequious upstart who was determined to enrich himself.

Clearly, they were motivated in part by a poisonous cocktail of social snootiness and racial prejudice. But they were not all the ridiculous snobs they are made out to be in the new movie, which portrays the then Prince of Wales in particular (played by the comedian Eddie Izzard) to be almost sociopathically vindictive.

The man the Queen knew as her beloved Munshi, or teacher, became the transcendent love of the latter years of her long life

Nor does the film, while immensely enjoyable, quite tell the truth about Abdul (played by the Bollywood actor Ali Fazal).

For the fact is that the Munshi was far from the paragon of sweetness and decency he appears to be. Indeed, his growing arrogance and vaulting ambition troubled Indians in the Royal Household as much as it did the fustier British.

But it was the senior courtiers who grew so agitated by the rise and rise of the Munshi that a new word was coined: Munshimania.

Munshiphobia might have been more accurate.

But there were sound reasons for their antipathy.

It was ironic that despite her fascination for India, which she ruled, she had never seen the country.

Instead, at her Osborne home, she employed Rudyard Kiplings father, Lockwood Kipling, to design a richly ornate Indian-style dining-room, known as the Durbar Room, which is still impressively majestic and was where much of the filming for the new movie took place. For Victoria, the Munshi, even more than her Durbar Room, came to symbolise Indias most beguiling qualities.

She romanticised him just as she romanticised his country, and he was not slow to exploit the fact. He gave her lessons in Hindustani every day, and the list of phrases she had to learn included, The tea is always bad at Osborne and, shamelessly, You will miss the Munshi very much.

Senior courtiers grew so agitated by the rise and rise of the Munshi that a new word was coined: Munshimania

In 1889, she settled on awarding him the official title Munshi Hafiz Abdul Karim and gave him important secretarial duties, while ordering that all pictures of him waiting at table be destroyed. Victoria wanted no reminders of his humble beginnings. And yet, others were plotting to show exactly how humble he was.

The Munshi had always claimed that his father was a doctor back in India. But in 1894 the Queens own doctor, Sir James Reid, reported that this was a lie and that the Munshis father was a lowly apothecary in a prison.

Victoria was not amused. To make out that the poor good Munshi is low is really outrageous, she thundered, pointing out that she had known two archbishops who were, respectively, sons of a butcher and a grocer.

Despite the Queen being blindly gullible in the case of her Munshi, in this era she was unusually socially and racially enlightened.

Yet the anti-Munshi campaign didnt stop. Sir James told the Queen (truthfully, it seems) that the Munshi was riddled with the sexual disease gonorrhoea.

Then, during her 1894 visit to Florence, the Queens doctor compiled a long list of Munshi misdemeanours.

These included Munshis high-handed complaint that the newspapers covering the Queens holiday werent giving him enough attention. When this was passed on to Victoria, her response was swift and unequivocal.

She gave instructions that the Munshi was to be mentioned in the papers more often.

By 1897, the Munshi had grown even bigger for his boots.

He travelled in semi-regal style with his own Highland servant and two further companions, a cat and a canary. And he had even taken to bullying the Queen, demanding money and honours.

Still smitten, Victoria rewarded him with his own set of rooms in Osbornes main wing, as well as a cottage on the estate, and another at Windsor. In her own private sitting room at Osborne, she kept a miniature painting of him on the wall, above one of her beloved John Brown.

More than 120 years later, it is still there, as are two much bigger portraits of him, in pride of place outside the banqueting Durbar Room.

It is clear what Abdul got out of Victoria: not least, in the last year of her life, the staggeringly lavish salary of 922 (the equivalent of 113,000 today). Less clear is what she got from him.

We know that she was susceptible to clever flattery, that she was smitten by the notion of India, and that she liked a pretty face.

But, despite all his faults, he was also able to offer her simple friendship, which was something that the formidable Queen-Empress found hard to find.

Certainly, it was a sad day in more ways than one for him when she died, on January 22, 1901.

Munshi hadnt only lost his friend, confidante and benefactor but also his protector.

He was powerless when the new king, Edward VII, demanded within hours of Victorias funeral that all the Munshis many letters from his mother be found and burnt.

It was a holocaust of materials, says curator Michael Hunter, in view of the hoard of intimate details that was lost to future historians.

And Princess Beatrice, Victorias youngest daughter and literary executrix, spent decades rewriting her mothers diaries before they were published. So its reasonable to assume that certain references to the Munshi were removed.

The Munshi was removed bodily, too  sent back to India where he died eight years later, aged only 46.

But in 2010 his own long-lost journals surfaced, enabling author Shrabani Basu to update her book Victoria & Abdul, on which the film is based.

It might not be a balanced or especially accurate account of what happened, but it is fascinating, all the same.

It is directed by Stephen Frears, who in 2006 made The Queen (starring Helen Mirren), about a turbulent chapter in the life of another monarch, Victorias great-great granddaughter.

It was set in 1997 in the aftermath of the death of Diana and Dodi, whose relationship, even before the fatal crash in a Paris underpass, was causing great consternation in royal circles.

Of course, Diana was no Victoria, just as Dodi Fayed was no Abdul Karim. But there were striking parallels, all the same. In many ways, very little had changed in 100 years.
For generations, theyve been a smiling sight outside many schools, helping pupils to cross the road safely.

But the number of lollipop ladies has fallen by more than 1,000 in five years as councils cut costs, figures showed yesterday.

The number of crossing patrollers - to give them their official title - have dropped by 419 in the past year alone, a drop of seven per cent.

The number of lollipop ladies has fallen by more than 1,000 in five years as councils cut costs despite local newspapers and schools campaigning for their importance

In total, their number has fallen by 1,188 over the past five years - 19 per cent - leaving children vulnerable as they cross the road.

Road safety campaigners urged councils to keep lollipop ladies, warning that four children a day are seriously hurt or killed while walking in the UK.

According to the figures, some councils have cut the number of staffed school crossings by almost half in five years, including Bridgend, Redbridge and Wakefield.

Overall, there are now 975 fewer crossings staffed by lollipop ladies than there were in 2012.

This is mostly because a cost-cutting drive as local authorities try to save money.

The total amount spent by councils on the wages of crossing patrollers has been cut by almost 3million over five years (from 19.6m to 16.7million)

Though they earn very little - usually between 7.50-9 an hour during lunchtime term times - local authorities are under pressure to cut costs.

Britains longest-serving lollipop lady Margaret Cattle retired just before her 70th birthday earlier this year. She had spent 45 years helping children get to school

Schools and local newspapers across the country have run campaigns to save their lollipop ladies from the axe.

But these are the first figures to show the toll of local authority cuts on the number of crossing patrollers nationally.

In 2015, the Birmingham Mail newspaper launched a campaign to save the jobs of 200 school crossing wardens because of Birmingham City Council cuts.

The actual drop in the number of lollipop ladies is likely to be far higher as the data is based on responses from 103 councils.

The Liberal Democrats blamed local council cuts for the death of the lollipop ladies.

Earlier this year, Britains longest-serving lollipop lady Margaret Cattle retired just before her 70th birthday.

She had spent 45 years helping children get to school after starting the job as a 25-year-old in 1972 after a local policeman asked her if shed like the job.

Mrs Cattle, a grandmother-of-six who lives in Cottingham, East Yorkshire, estimated that shed crossed the road more than a million times.

Jason Wakeford, director of campaigns for Brake, the road safety charity, said: Four children are seriously hurt or killed while walking in the UK every day.

School crossing patrols are a vital service, highly valued by communities, ensuring children can cross roads near their schools safely.

While we appreciate councils have faced significant financial challenges in recent years, the safety of children should not be compromised as a result.

Brake urges local authorities to retain crossing patrols, and implement wider measures like 20mph speed limits, to help protect lives.
British officials need to step up efforts to root out fraud and corruption in a scheme distributing 420million of aid money in Pakistan, a Whitehall report has warned.

The Mail revealed earlier this year how hundreds of thousands of families are receiving cash handouts thanks to UK taxpayers.

But now a review by the Department for International Development has said more must be done to stop the money falling into the wrong hands.

The report also raised concerns that many recipients are unable to use cash machines to collect their money and are taken advantage of by others who take a cut to help them.

More than 1billion of our foreign aid budget has been given away in cash over the past five years. The Mail revealed earlier this year how hundreds of thousands of families are receiving cash handouts thanks to UK taxpayers

Under the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), households get 4,500 rupees (34.50) every three months, mostly via a cashpoint card.

DfIDs annual review into the costly project admitted that it needs to do more work with the Pakistani government to tackle problems with the scheme.

It said: BISP needs to keep on top of operational risks including its procedures for identifying, reporting and rooting out fraud and corruption.

DfID will need to step up engagement with the [Pakistani] ministry of finance and BISPs leadership for monitoring and managing these risks.

Spot checks carried out on behalf of DfID by the consultancy firm Mott MacDonald found that nearly a fifth of those receiving the handouts were paying fees for help withdrawing the money.

The report said: The findings have highlighted a number of issues such as the inability of female beneficiaries to use the debit card, loss of passcodes, overcrowding at the Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), lack of responsiveness from the staff of commercial banks, and multiple visits to withdraw cash.

The report added that a number of issues plagued the scheme, including female beneficiaries being unable to use the debit card

Under the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), households get 4,500 rupees (34.50) every three months, mostly via a cashpoint card

But now a review by the Department for International Development has said more must be done to stop the money falling into the wrong hands

'There is a lot of space for improving convenience with which beneficiaries can withdraw their payment.

It added: The low literacy level of the beneficiaries is a major challenge that restricts them from operating technology such as ATMs on their own. These issues suggest there is further space for improving efficiency.

Officials in Pakistan are currently testing a biometric verification system, which will use fingerprint recognition to make sure people collect their money in person so they are not ripped off by agents or fraudsters.

The report also raised concerns that many recipients are unable to use cash machines to collect their money and are taken advantage of by others who take a cut to help them

The introduction of biometrics will address concerns about self-withdrawal and payments to agents, the report said.

The Mail revealed yesterday that Commons Speaker John Bercow is throwing a dinner to honour the Pakistani politician in charge of the scheme, even though British taxpayers money is footing part of the bill for the handouts.

Marvi Memon, chairman of the BISP, will become the inaugural recipient of the Speakers Democracy Award at the taxpayer-funded event in the State Rooms of Speakers House on September 5.

A DfID spokesman said: We constantly review our programmes to ensure they are delivering value for money for the taxpayer, and this programme is no different.

The programme has achieved a reduction in malnutrition in girls and a 10 per cent increase in children enrolling in school.
The death of a Melbourne man may have been a case of mistaken identity as police believe there is nothing in his past to suggest he would be a murder target.

Bo Wang, 29, was found dead near a stairway at his apartment building in Notting Hill, south-east of the city's CBD, with injuries sustained by multiple weapons.

An investigation into his death has left detectives confused as to the motivation, the Herald Sun reported.

'It could have been mistaken identity or a random attack. There is nothing in Mr Wang's background that would make us think he would be a target for murder,' detective Senior Constable Luke Farrell said.

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Bo Wang, 29, was found dead near a stairway at his apartment building in Notting Hill, south-east of the city's CBD, with injuries sustained my multiple weapons

Police have released CCTV video and dashcam footage from a passing car that has captured three men and a blue Toyota Tarago van leaving the area where Mr Wang's body was discovered

Mr Wang was found at 9:30am on April 14 at his home on Rusden Place. He arrived home at 11pm the night before, and detectives say he could have been killed any time between then and when his body was found.

'He is spoken of very highly by everyone who knew him. His family are devastated,' Const. Farrell said.

Police have released CCTV video and dashcam footage from a passing car that has captured three men and a blue Toyota Tarago van leaving the area where Mr Wang's body was discovered.

One man, of Asian appearance, was walking down Rusden Place at 5am on the morning Mr Wang was found dead.

The Tarago was seen driving through the area just before 6:20am, while two other men, of Indian appearance, were caught leaving Rusden Place shortly after 6:20am.

'There is nothing in Mr Wang's background that would make us think he would be a target for murder,' detective Senior Constable Luke Farrell said

One man, of Asian appearance, was walking down Rusden Place at 5am on the morning Mr Wang was found dead

The blue Toyota Tarago was seen driving through the area just before 6:20am

Police are baffled by the circumstances of Mr Wang's death because 'he had no criminal background'.

'He was a quiet and gentle person and we can't detect any issues. He worked in accountancy and led a quiet and peaceful existence,' Const. Farrell said.

There is no suggestion the men who appear in the footage are involved in Mr Wang's death, but police are urging them to come forward with any information they may have that could lead to answers.

Anyone with any information should contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
Condemn Nazism Or You Can't Shop Here, Says Local Flower Business

By Emma G. Gallegos in News on Aug 14, 2017 9:42PM

It feels strange, sad and surreal to be having a national political conversation about Nazism in 2017. But when the president says there's bigotry and violence on both sides of this fight, telling neo-Nazis, white nationalists and other racists that you don't want their business qualifies as taking a stand.

Tiki Brand, a Wisconsin company, came out with a statement decrying the use of its torches by an angry mob of white men who donned khakis and polos in lieu of white hoods during a violent white supremacist march in Charlottesville, Virginia over the weekend. Some of the white nationalists have begun losing their jobs after being ID'd.

A little closer to home in Chicago, a flower delivery service, has decided to take a stand in its online shop. Log on to their homepage and you'll be asked right off the bat just what "side" you come down in this "debate":

If you're unwilling to take sides, we don't want your business. A post shared by Flowers for Dreams (@flowersfordreams) on Aug 14, 2017 at 7:03am PDT

If, like the president's initial statements, you can't bring yourself to clearly condemn these groups, Flower for Dreams announces that it's not interested in your business. Then it sends you on to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, so that you can learn about the horrors of hatred, ethnocentricity and fascism.

Steven Dyme, the CEO and founder of Flowers for Dreams, says that it's time for the business community to stand up against hate. He writes in Crain's, "The way I see it, our duty as business leaders is to set the tone. To be clear and up at the front, not hiding or cowering in the back."

Dyme praised Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier, who resigned from Trump's American Manufacturing Council today. Frazier's resignation prompted a quick Twitter insult from the presidentmuch quicker than a full rebuke of white supremacism.

Dyme says, "For us, standing idly by and pretending this hate and bigotry is isolated, or even temporary, was not an option. We've seen those mistakes made beforeover and over again throughout history."

You may be pleased to know that on the hellscape known as Twitter there was not (yet) a single account doing anything but praising the stance, like this:
Every job should be opened to part-time working, according to the Government equality agency.

Even the most demanding and highest-paid roles should be advertised as available for flexible working, the Equality and Human Rights Commission said.

It called for laws giving everyone who takes a new job the right to demand part-time working unless the employer shows a genuine business reason why not.

Yesterday an economist accused the commission of coming up with ideas that would make running a business impossible, while a Tory MP accused it of nanny-state nonsense.

The commission made its call as part of a string of demands for measures to reduce the gender pay gap and other differences in pay rates which it said affect ethnic minority staff and the disabled.

File photo of tech workers. The Equality and Human Rights Commission says all jobs should be available as part-time options

File photo of a young female cashier at a Lidl supermarket chain

It said men should be encouraged to care for children while women are given the opportunity to be engineers and construction workers, and that ministers should set a target to press employers to give half of all senior management and executive jobs to women.

Schools should encourage boys to consider qualifications and careers in occupations stereotypically viewed as female such as childcare and caring. Employers should report on pay by ethnicity and disability as well as gender.

The demands come at a time when the gender pay gap has shrunk by nearly two-thirds since the early 1990s and has almost entirely disappeared for women under the age of 40.

The commission also acknowledged that most ethnic minority women workers earn more than white women. Deputy chairman Caroline Waters said: We need to overhaul our culture and make flexible working the norm; looking beyond women as the primary caregivers and having tough conversations about the biases that are rife in our workforce and society.

The commission said in a report that part-time hours, job sharing and other flexible working schemes should be available at all levels of organisations and for the highest-paid jobs.

Conservative MP Philip Davies accused the commission of peddling Left-wing claptrap

It called for a new form of use it or lose it paternity leave offered for fathers to persuade them to ask for flexible working and to reduce the motherhood penalty that many women face after having children.

Tory MP Philip Davies, a member of the Commons women and equalities committee, accused the commission of peddling Left-wing claptrap. He said: This is nanny-state nonsense. They need to get out and visit the real world.

When these people came before our committee they didnt even know about the pay gaps in their own organisation. In 2010 the commission was found to be paying 9.66 per cent more to white staff than to ethnic minority staff; 8.9 per cent more to able-bodied than disabled employees; and 3.04 per cent more to men than women.

Economist Ruth Lea, of the Arbuthnot Banking Group, said we all condemn discrimination, but added: One has to ask how many of these people have ever tried to run their own business.

What they are asking is entirely unrealistic and would scupper any business before a day was out. It would make running a business impossible.
When Leyla Hutchings takes her three-year-old son Zeki to see his 'Auntie' Rachael, he's always excited to play with her three children, whom he treats as his cousins.

Yet their relationship is much more complex than that.

They're not genetically related, but Zeki has a lot in common with Daisy, nine, Jack, seven, and Max, five. For 'Auntie' Rachael is not a biological relation  she simply gave birth to him.

Zeki is a surrogate child, the result of a sympathetic mother's urge to help another woman have a child.

For Londoner Leyla Hutchings (pictured with surrogate mother Rachael Coleman and baby Zeki) doctors had told her she would risk her life by carrying a baby

Last year, 400 surrogate babies were registered in the UK  nearly four times as many as in 2011  due mainly to increased awareness that surrogacy is a possibility for childless couples.

According to the charity Surrogacy UK, common reasons for using a surrogate include repeated miscarriages, failed IVF treatments or early menopause, often as a result of cancer treatment. And one in 5,000 women has no womb or cervix.

But Leyla's case was different  it was not infertility that drove her to surrogacy, but the fact doctors had told her she would risk her life by carrying a baby.

At the age of 26, she was diagnosed with an aneurysm  a bulge in a major blood vessel, in her case in the leg, which, if it burst, could cause fatal internal bleeding.

Leyla was on the Tube on her way to work at a London law firm when she collapsed with sudden pain. Rushed to hospital, she was diagnosed with vascular Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS)  a rare genetic condition.

This occurs when the body gets wrong instructions about how to make collagen, the protein that holds skin and tissues together  including blood vessels.

Doctors warned Leyla that a pregnancy would put too great a stress on her blood vessels, and two years after her diagnosis, she had an aneurysm that burst in the blood vessel that supplied her spleen.

Her diagnosis ended the dream of a big family for Leyla and her barrister husband Richard, now both 39. After a few years, the couple began to look longingly at friends' babies, and started thinking of their options for a child.

Then Leyla stumbled on an article about Surrogacy UK, an organisation that emphasises the importance of a friendship between mother and surrogate.

This was how she met Rachael Coleman, 30, from Chatham, Kent, who'd go on to give birth to Zeki. 'Until then, I didn't believe anyone would want to do it out of the goodness of their heart,' says Leyla.

Rachael had three young children and felt her family was complete. Her motivation was generous: 'I know how devastated I would be if I'd never had children, and I'd hope someone would do the same for me. My husband, James, supported me all the way.'

The minimum age for surrogates, recommended by Surrogacy UK, is 21 and potential candidates must provide a GP referral letter stating they are physically and mentally fit for surrogacy.

The likelihood of having a successful birth from a surrogate mother is higher than when a natural mother gives birth through IVF  it's around 35 per cent for surrogate pregnancies, compared with 20.8 per cent for women in Leyla's age range undergoing IVF.

This is because the surrogate mothers who come forward have usually already found it easy to have children themselves.

In the UK, no fees can be charged  though reasonable expenses, usually between 9,000 and 15,000 for travel costs, childcare and maternity wear, are allowed.

Over four months, Leyla's eggs were extracted according to her natural menstrual cycle  injecting her with hormones might have prompted a vascular reaction.

The eggs were introduced to Richard's sperm in a laboratory and the embryos were tested to ensure Leyla's genetic condition was not passed on to her child.

In summer 2013, the first embryo was transferred into Rachael's womb and everyone was delighted to see a positive pregnancy test.

Both women attended all prenatal appointments together, and on May 10, 2014, both Richard and Leyla were present at the birth.

After a difficult delivery  Zeki weighed 10lb 7oz  Leyla finally held him in her arms. 'You could not get a baby that was more wanted. I could not thank Rachael enough,' she says.

From Rachael's perspective, she was always clear that the baby belonged to Leyla and Richard: 'I was just carrying him for them.'

Under British law, the woman giving birth is considered the mother, regardless of the origin of eggs or sperm.

The biological parents of any child born to a surrogate mother must apply for a parental order between six weeks and six months after the birth in order to become the legal parents on their child's birth certificate.

Such close bonds as those formed between Leyla, Richard and Rachael are far from unique.

Nick Raine-Fenning, an associate professor of reproductive medicine at Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham, says 70 to 80 per cent of couples he sees who elect surrogate mothers start out as strangers to them.

'The taboo is that people assume in order to go through being pregnant  and all the discomfort that goes with it  surrogates must be doing it for the money,' he says. 'But so often I am enormously moved by the selflessness I see in the women who come forward.'

That's a sentiment shared by Susan Smith, 38, and her husband, Mark, 33, who could only watch helplessly as their surrogate, Lianna Macfarlane, suffered severe morning sickness, then a difficult, 48-hour labour.

Last year, 400 surrogate babies (file pic) were registered in the UK due mainly to increased awareness that surrogacy is a possibility for childless couples

'I was torn between holding my baby, Dexter, for the first time and taking care of Lianna,' says Susan, an office administrator from Portsmouth. 'She'd done so much for us and I'd seen her go through so much.'

For Susan, the birth of Dexter, now two, was a day she never thought she'd see. At 17, having not begun to menstruate, she discovered she had no womb.

Her condition, Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser syndrome, is a random genetic mutation that means some women do not develop a normal reproductive system.

Susan had ovaries and was producing eggs  but had no uterus, so would never be able to give birth to her own child.

After she married Mark in 2009, she began to yearn for a family.

Researching her condition, she realised she could conceive a baby of her own  but needed a woman who could give birth for her.

The couple turned to Surrogacy UK's forum, where single mother Lianna, 29, from Cardiff, who has a daughter, Poppy, eight, was moved by their plight.

'I put myself forward for no other reason than I adore being a mum to Poppy,' she says. 'I couldn't imagine other people being deprived of the love you feel when you have a child.'

Dexter was born on March 20, 2015, and Mark, Susan and Lianna are discussing baby number two.

Lianna says: 'The pregnancy with Dexter was difficult, but it's worth considering another one. You get so much back from bringing joy to another couple.'
British nationals Khong Tam Thanh (pictured), 22, Le Michael, 24, and Vu Thai Son, 24, have been jailed for six and a half years in jail with caning

Three British men who sexually assaulted a drunk Malaysian woman during a stag do in Singapore have today been jailed for up to six and a half years with caning.

Khong Tam Thanh, 22, Le Michael, 24, and Vu Thai Son, 24, were all initially charged with raping the 23-year-old.

But the trio later admitted to the lesser offence of sexual assault following a four-day trial at the city-state's High Court.

The defendants  who are all British citizens of Vietnamese origin  were sentenced today.

Khong Tam Thanh, 22, was given six years' jail and eight strokes of the cane, Vu Thai Son, 24, was sentenced to six-and-a-half years' in jail and eight strokes of the cane and Michael Le, 24, was jailed for five-and-a-half years and given five strokes of the cane.

Judicial Commissioner Hoo Sheau Peng said their behaviour had been 'reprehensible'.

Sentencing them she said: 'While she was asleep, and quite unable to protect herself, they took advantage of her vulnerable state so as to commit these serious sexual crimes... In doing so, they showed no respect for her dignity and autonomy, and no regard for any harm and hurt they might cause to her'.

The assault took place after the three friends went out to celebrate Khong's brother's stag do, along with six others.

Le Michael (left), one of the three British men who was accused of gang raping an unconscious woman in a Singapore hotel, was pictured leaving the high court today. Le Michael is pictured right

Richard Ahn met the girl at the Zouk nightclub and brought her back to their room at the Carlton Hotel

As well as attending the electronic music festival Ultra Singapore, the group headed to the popular nightspot Zouk.

It was there where they met a 23-year-old woman who agreed to have sex with one of the trio's friends, Richard Ahn, also from Britain.

After she had agreed to have sex with one of their friends, a British citizen also of Vietnamese origin identified as Richard Ahn, he took her to his hotel room at the Carlton Hotel.

After the pair had sex in a room at the Carlton Hotel, Khong, Le and Vu took turns to enter the room and had sex with the woman as she lay drunk and unconscious, the court heard.

While the men took care to make as little noise as possible the woman woke up as Le was assaulting her.

Prosecutors asked for a prison sentence of between five and seven years.

'The offenders must pay for what he has done.

'They clearly exploited the victim,' said deputy public prosecutor G. Kannan.

Khong and Vu, who worked as beauticians in Britain, were convicted of an additional charge of sexual assault.

One of the men accused of sexually assaulting the woman claims he had spoken to her in Zouk nightclub (file photo) earlier in the night and that she consented to sex with him

The men's lawyers all read out letters from their clients in which they apologised to their victim.

'[Khong] was rash, he was reckless, and now he regrets it,' his lawyer Shashi Nathan told the court.

He also offered the victim Sg$5,000 ($3,700) in compensation, which prosecutors said the woman has accepted.
Ofsteds role as an independent regulator has been called into question after a controversial school overturned its own critical report in the High Court.

Durand Academy spent 300,000 fighting the schools watchdog after inspectors branded it inadequate over safeguarding concerns and said it needed to be put into special measures.

This would have involved sacking the head teacher and governors  but they will now remain in place after judges said Ofsted had been unfair.

Durand has previously prompted separate concerns over an inappropriate dating site run from its premises and a leisure centre hosting private clients on its grounds.

The school's former head teacher Sir Greg Martin still acts as board of governors and said the rating threatened the future of the school

Sir Greg Martin, the schools former head teacher, retired from the academy in 2015 following the furore but still acts as the chairman of its board of governors.

The case is part of a growing trend of schools challenging their Ofsted reports  raising serious questions over the power of the regulator to hold them to account.

Academies have more control over their own finances than the old-style local authority schools, meaning spending decisions on legal fees are often made at head teacher or governor level.

Last year, Al Hijrah school in Birmingham successfully overturned its Ofsted report in the High Court, although the case is still under consideration in the Court of Appeal.

Alan Smithers, professor of education at the University of Buckingham, said: I am surprised and disturbed at the judges ruling.

Ofsted has a well-established complaints procedure culminating in an independent adjudicator.

It seems wrong that the inspectors judgements about this particular school cannot see the light of day because of extensive litigation.

The government should act swiftly to guarantee the independence of the inspectorate by ensuring that the complaints procedure stands up to legal scrutiny.

Durand claimed Ofsteds report was strikingly at odds with reality, based on unfair and arbitrary evaluations and should not be allowed to be made public.

Yesterday, judges sided with the school  meaning parents will never be allowed to read the original report.

High Court judges found Ofsted had been unfair in rating the academy as inadequate

Ofsted intends to appeal the decision, but if they lose the inspectors will be forced to rewrite the report with the original criticisms omitted.

Durand, a state-funded academy for children aged three to 16, has three sites  two day schools in South London and a boarding school for older pupils in in Midhurst, West Sussex.

Following an inspection in September 2016, inspectors said safeguarding was not at the top of priorities for senior leaders.

Their report said: Leaders are not fulfilling their responsibilities to ensure pupils welfare.

They cannot account for the whereabouts of all pupils or ensure an appropriate education for everyone.

Teaching across the school is too variable. This means that pupils achievements are inconsistent.

However, in February this year the school launched a challenge, and judges ruled yesterday that the inspectorates complaints process was unfair because it did not take the schools concerns seriously enough.

In his judgment, Judge McKenna said yesterday: The absence of any ability effectively to challenge the report renders the complaints procedures unfair and, in my judgment, vitiates the report.

The Midhurst site of Durand Academy, which has fought off an Ofsted rating of 'inadequate'

In a statement, Sir Greg said: This report would have destroyed this school when it should have been held up as a beacon for what other inner city schools should be.

This years school results have been exemplary and have placed us in the top 2.1 per cent of primary schools in the country and yet Ofsted judged our school to be failing and wanted to sack the headteacher and the board of governors.

It has taken us six months and around 300,000 to fight this unfair school report through the courts, and when you include Ofsteds legal bill the amount of money wasted on this action is in excess of 500,000.

The money to pay for the legal action has come from revenue from the school and thankfully because we have won the case we should be able to claw back a large proportion of our legal costs.

He later branded Ofsted arrogant and complacent in an interview with the Evening Standard.

Margaret Hodge MP had branded the dating agency 'deeply inappropriate' after its Twitter account featured a semi-nude woman 'with all sorts of black underwear all over the place'

He added: We have been undone, vilified and attacked by the educational establishment which is meant to be safeguarding education, not just for the privileged few but for the under-privileged too.

It is an awful experience. You get people who can make judgments and you have no right of appeal. The fact that we have won, I think its good for education.

An Ofsted spokesman said: We are clearly disappointed in this ruling and have sought permission to appeal.

In January 2015, the public accounts committee (PAC) heard how Sir Greg earned 390,000 in 2012/13 - 229,000 of which was from his salary and pension.

In addition, he pocketed 161,000 as sole director of a leisure centre that operates on his schools site.

And bizarrely, the committee was told Sir Greg ran a dating website that has the same address as the school.

The dating business had a Twitter account featuring pictures of a woman in black underwear, the MPs were told.

The then committee chair Margaret Hodge told Sir Greg the agency was deeply inappropriate  especially since its Twitter account featured a semi-nude woman with all sorts of black underwear all over the place.

The school has an ongoing dispute with the Education Funding Agency (EFA) which announced in June that it intends to terminate Durands academy funding agreement, a move which would come in at the end of next academic year (2017/18)
A charity boss who paid herself 31,000 has become the first to receive an official warning from a watchdog under new powers.

Wendy Watson, 62, founded the National Hereditary Breast Cancer Helpline in 1996 after she underwent a pre-emptive double mastectomy four years earlier.

The procedure became more well-known after Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie had the operation to reduce her risk of developing breast cancer.

Wendy Watson (pictured) 62, founded the National Hereditary Breast Cancer Helpline in 1996. She paid herself more than 31,000 between 2014 and 2015

Mrs Watsons charity was set up to raise awareness and fund a phone line, through which people can speak to her for support and advice.

Operating a string of charity shops in Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Greater Manchester, Humberside and London, it had grown to the extent it was raising 1m a year by 2012.

Mrs Watson, who became a trustee and chairwoman, made the payments to herself in 2014-15 but charitable trustees cannot be paid without permission from regulatory body the Charity Commission.

Issuing its first warning under new powers granted by the government last year, the commission accused the National Hereditary Breast Cancer Helpline of a significant breach of trust.

But Mrs Watson, from Over Haddon, Derbyshire, yesterday insisted she had been badly advised.

She said: I have given all my time and energy to the charity. For just one year I was paid and it comes to less than 60p an hour. Otherwise I have worked for free as a volunteer.

Its an injustice. I have been paid around one year for the past five years. I do not make a living. We survive on my husbands pension.

Mrs Watson added that she has since changed her advisers.

She said: I have been misled. We do not use those people any more. They have charged thousands of pounds to give bad legal advice. All I have done is save the health service thousands.

Mrs Watson said that she was encouraged to become a trustee when she registered her helpline as a charity in 2012 without being told she would not be allowed to take a salary.

The National Hereditary Breast Cancer Helpline charity shops (pictured) are based in Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Greater Manchester, Humberside and London

She claimed she was offered different advice two years later and started taking payments.

She stopped being paid again in 2015 after she fell ill and was hospitalised for three weeks  before resigning as chairwoman and a trustee last year.

Mrs Watson said she had been working for nothing for 24 hours a day before being told she could be paid.

She said: The payments were made by the accountant. They were in error because they did not know I could not be paid.

The Charity Commission also raised concerns about high costs and failure to keep proper records of decision-making.

It found that the helplines accounts showed it was in financial distress  with just a fraction of its money spent on charitable activities such as running the telephone service.

In 2013, 2014 and 2015, the National Hereditary Breast Cancer Helpline spent 6 per cent, 3.4 per cent and 2.8 per cent of annual donations on charitable activities.

Charities spend an average of 83 per cent on their activities, the Charity Commission said.

In 2014/15 its total expenses were 909,634 - of which only 3 per cent, or 27,403, was listed as being spent on charitable activities, with 874,539 set down as fundraising expenses and other costs.

Total expenses for the National Hereditary Breast Cancer Helpline in 2015/16 were 947,824, of which 929,975 was spent on charitable activities.

Mrs Watson defended the costs, saying the charity had to pay 40 staff, most of whom work at its shops, and also had to cover the running costs of the branches as well as the helpline itself.

The Charity Commission said the helplines trustees committed a breach of trust or duty after making unauthorised payments to a connected person and entering into an informal loan agreement with a connected person.

After her resignation, the commission said the charity allowed Mrs Watson to make key decisions about the operation of the charity, despite having resigned.

Failures were first highlighted by the Charity Commission last year.

The commission said: Given the nature and seriousness of the issues, the trustees were given a chance to resolve them but failed to fully comply with the action plan to do so, the commission concluded it was appropriate and proportionate to issue the charity with an official warning to promote compliance.

The warning specifies the actions the commission considers the charity needs to take to resolve the outstanding and prevent further breaches.

Mrs Watson, who received an MBE in 2012 for services to people with breast cancer, will not be forced to return the 31,000 because the Charity Commission said it would be a disproportionate response.

She continues to run the helpline despite her resignation.

The official warning was issued after points raised in a previous inspection last year were not addressed.

The charitys accounts also showed the charity owed Mrs Watson 62,000 after she gave the money in an unsecured loan. Trustees later approved a repayment of 30,000
A man has revealed how he 'burst into laughter' after seeing Cassandra Sainsbury arrested for trying to smuggle cocaine out of Colombia - because she once called him a 'junkie' for smoking cannabis.

The Adelaide man, who doesn't wish to be identified, told Daily Mail Australia he had enjoyed his date with Sainsbury until she 'flipped out about drugs'.

'I pulled out my weed and bong and the date went from happy and casual to crazy and sort of abusive,' he said.

Cassandra Sainsbury, pictured in front of 18 packages allegedly containing cocaine, once 'abused' a man calling him a 'junkie' when she found out he smoked pot

The man told Daily Mail Australia he laughed after finding out the 22-year-old was accused of being a drug mule

The pair met online 'about four years ago' before Sainsbury met her now fiance Scott Broadbridge

'She called me a druggy liar and left in a taxi. She told me it wouldn't work out if I was a stoner.

'When I saw she had been arrested I laughed my head off, miss anti-weed turned out to be a coke mule,' he said.

'I guess weed wasn't okay but coke is.'

The man said he and Sainsbury had initially clicked, bonding over their fresh breakups - but the date was cut short when he reached for his bong.

'I have never had so much headache from a random hookup,' he said.

'We spent a few hours talking and swimming at the beach and ended up going back to my place.

'We watched a few movies, just the usual hookup, some cuddles and kissing then we started getting into it and she stripped off. She wasn't what I would call chubby back then.

The man described intimate details of the date labelling it 'amazing' before there was a sudden change.

'I pulled out my bong and bowl and that's when she flipped out,' he said.

'I guess weed wasn't okay but coke is,' the man said after reflecting on the date

Sainsbury is now in Bogota's notorious El Buen Pastor women's prison and faces up to 30 years behind bars

Sainsbury pictured here laughing with her mother shortly before her plea deal for a shortened sentence was rejected by a judge

The man decided to tell his story after Sainsbury's plea deal was rejected in front of a Colombian judge last week.

Sainsbury wanted a reduced sentence of just six years in exchange for the names of the people involved in the drug operation.

But when she continued to insist she only had the drugs because threats were made on her life the court rejected the deal.

Sainsbury was pictured laughing with her mother just moments before the plea was rejected. She burst into tears as she was led handcuffed out of the Bogota court by prison officers.

The 22-year-old now faces up to 30 years in Bogota's notorious El Buen Pastor women's prison if she is convicted of drug smuggling.

Sainsbury wanted a reduced sentence of just six years in exchange for the names of the people involved in the drug operation
David Davis (pictured) will ask Brussels to keep its custom rules to make the change a smooth transition

Britain will today demand that it is allowed to start striking trade deals the day after Brexit  while creating a temporary EU customs deal to prevent border chaos.

Brexit Secretary David Davis will set out plans to begin 'negotiating bold new trade relationships around the world' as soon as the country leaves the EU in March 2019.

But he will ask Brussels to keep in place current customs rules that prevent goods having to be checked as they go between Britain and the EU for an interim period, which could last up to two or three years.

Mr Davis will argue that such a deal, where the UK mimics the EU's tariffs and rules on customs, would give more time for a smooth switch to the new trading regime, which would benefit businesses on both sides of the Channel.

Ministers have been warned about the strain ports could be put under if they face a sudden increase in bureaucracy for dealing with goods entering and leaving the country.

Mr Davis will argue that while maintaining a temporary customs arrangement, the country must be allowed to begin developing a trade policy that makes it 'more outward-looking than ever before' as soon as possible.

'As we exit the EU, we must not only seek to secure our existing markets, but also to tap into new, growing markets across the globe', he will say.

Under EU rules, member states are forbidden from striking their own trade deals with other countries. The Government will insist that it is allowed to begin this work as soon as it leaves the EU, even if the current EU customs regime remains in place on a temporary basis. But Brussels may put ministers under pressure to promise that these new deals will only come into force at the end of the interim period.

In the longer term, Mr Davis will say he is seeking 'the most frictionless customs arrangement anywhere', with minimal checks and paperwork on goods going between the EU and UK.

One option being put forward by Mr Davis would see the UK manage a new customs border with administration streamlined to the 'fullest extent possible' using technology.

He will also float plans for a customs partnership with the EU that would negate the need for a customs border between the UK and the rest of the bloc.

Negotiations on future customs arrangements are not due to be discussed during the next round of Brexit talks to be held in Brussels at the end of this month.

The European Commission has said progress first needs to be made on agreeing the divorce bill before work can begin on the future relationship between the EU and UK.

But Downing Street said it was pushing forward with setting out its plans in order to help businesses both in Britain and across the continent.

Mr Davis (pictured with EU Chief Brexit Negotiator Michel Barnier) will argue Britain must be allowed to begin developing a trade policy that makes it 'more outward-looking than ever before'

The Prime Minister's spokesman said yesterday: 'We have had the first round of the negotiations and those talks have shown that many of the withdrawal questions can only be settled in light of the future partnership. So now is the time to set out our approach to that partnership to inform the negotiations and to provide citizens and business at home and across Europe with a deeper understanding of our thinking.'

Business leaders last night welcomed the Government's plan to minimise disruption to trade.

Josh Hardie, deputy director-general of the Confederation of British Industry, said he was encouraged that the papers propose a time-limited interim period and a customs system that is as barrier-free as possible.

He added: 'All efforts should be made to deliver a single-step transition, so that businesses don't have to adapt twice.'

But Labour MP Chris Leslie, a leading supporter of the Open Britain campaign group, accused ministers of 'wanting to have their cake and eat it'.

He said: 'It is a fantasy to pretend we can have the freest and most frictionless trade possible with our largest partner when the Government remain intent on pulling Britain out of the customs union.'

Downing Street last night announced that Theresa May will embark on a visit to Japan at the end of this month in a bid to boost Britain's post-Brexit trade.

The Prime Minister, who is currently in Switzerland on holiday, will be received by emperor Akihito and the Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe.

Mrs May will be accompanied on the trip by business leaders from a range of sectors.

Former Ukip donor Arron Banks has written to every voter in Philip Hammond and Amber Rudd's constituencies to try to get them deselected.

The Chancellor, MP for Runnymede and Weybridge, and the Home Secretary, MP for Hastings and Rye, favour a 'softer Brexit' than tycoon Mr Banks, chairman of the campaign group Leave.EU.
Myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) is a debilitating condition that can leave those affected bedridden for years. It's linked with as many as 60 symptoms, the most common being a feeling of constant exhaustion  'like a dead battery'.

The condition first reached mainstream consciousness in the Eighties following outbreaks in New York and Nevada. By then it was officially known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

For a time, it seemed everyone knew someone who was affected by it, and it was derisively dubbed 'yuppie flu' because it seemed typically to affect young professionals.

For years there's been a long-running and bitter debate between doctors and patients about its cause and how to treat it.

Myalgic encephalomyelitis can leave those affected bedridden for years. It's linked with as many as 60 symptoms, the most common being a feeling of constant exhaustion (file pic)

The lack of a clear physical cause meant many doctors dismissed it as all in the mind. This infuriated patient groups who insisted it was all too real and the result of an infection or immune system failure.

Even now, when it is generally accepted that ME/CFS is a genuine condition, it remains one of the most angrily contested areas of medicine. But the battle lines are no longer drawn just between patients and doctors: the medical community itself is at loggerheads.

The issue: the best way to treat ME. This has huge significance for the estimated 500,000 people in Britain affected by it. The official NHS treatment for their condition is delivered by psychologists and involves a combination of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and graded exercise therapy (GET) which involves doing a little more each day.

The idea is that doing regular aerobic exercise would help patients a lot, but that they are held back by 'fear' of activity: the CBT is meant to overcome this.

Many patients and doctors claimed this combination provided little if any benefit.

This dispute has now broken out into the public arena in an extraordinary fashion. Two weeks ago the Journal of Health Psychology published what was effectively an attack on the official NHS treatment.

INSULTS TRADED BY BOTH SIDES

Three editors resigned from the journal in protest at this stance. In a leaked email, one of the resigners was described as a 'disgusting old fat neo-liberal hypocrite' and an 'ol' sleazebag' by an editor who supported the journal's approach.

But the insults swing the other way, too  recently, a scientist described patients critical of the CBT approach as 'borderline psychopaths' and likened them to animal rights activists.

The row is about a trial published in The Lancet in 2011 that helped form the official guidelines on treating the condition. This was a large trial, called PACE, involving 641 patients, costing 5 million. It was paid for by the Government and carried out by psychologists at Queen Mary University in London.

For years there's been a long-running and bitter debate between doctors and patients about the cause of ME and how to treat it (file pic)

PACE found that patients being treated with the combination treatment  14 sessions with a therapist over a six-month period  improved by 60 per cent, while the 'recovery rate' (which implied a 'cure') was 20 per cent.

But a new analysis of the data has suggested that patients experience just a 20 per cent improvement, and only 5 per cent are classed as recovered.

'This has cast serious doubts on the recovery rates being claimed,' adds Dr Charles Shepherd, honorary medical adviser to the charity the ME Association (Dr Shepherd was also a member of the Chief Medical Officer's Working Group on ME/CFS and the Medical Research Council's Expert Group on ME/CFS research).

'The trust of patients has been lost. PACE needs to be withdrawn.'

In fact, patient campaigners have been claiming for years that the psychological approach is profoundly wrong because it implies the problem is the way the patient thinks about it. They consider that they're suffering from a physical disorder.

The re-analysis of the PACE data has set the cat among the pigeons. A challenge to evidence supporting a NICE-approved treatment is unusual, not least because the data was only made available after a protracted battle by patients.

Ever since its publication in The Lancet, the PACE trial had been questioned by patient groups. They wanted to see all the data the trial had gathered to check the statistics.

For five years patient advocates and some doctors sent letters and Freedom of Information requests to the researchers  Professor Peter White (of Queen Mary University of London), Professor Michael Sharpe (Oxford University) and Professor Trudie Chalder (King's College London)  without success.

Grounds for refusal included risk of revealing patient identities and claiming the demands to hand over the data were vexatious or a form of harassment.

Indeed, one expert witness for the researchers drew parallels between these ME/CFS 'activists' and animal rights groups, suggesting there was a serious risk of violence to researchers if the data was released. But then the Information Commissioner's Office became involved and the university was ordered to cough up the data. It refused and then spent more than 200,000 to have the order dismissed.

This was rejected by a tribunal (as for the claim of threats being made, under cross-questioning the expert witness admitted there hadn't been any).

When the trial data was finally re-analysed and checked by two independent academics, Philip Stark, a professor of statistics at the University of California, Berkeley and Professor Bruce Levine from the Department of Biostatistics at Columbia University, it 'revealed that the study contained little evidence that CBT and graded exercise add anything to standard medical care in terms of patient recovery', according to Professor Levin.

This was backed by Jonathan Edwards, an emeritus professor of connective tissue medicine at University College London.

'The results of the re-analysis shows that the call for access to the PACE data for independent analysis was justified,' he said. 'It confirms that this study failed to provide reliable evidence for useful, sustained benefit from either CBT or graded exercise therapy.'

Professor Edwards, a rheumatologist, has previously found that patients with ME/CFS as well as rheumatoid arthritis (file pic) reported great improvement when they were treated with the powerful anti-inflammatory drugs used for their arthritis. A trial of this is now under way

Sir Simon Wessely, Regius professor of psychiatry at King's College London, has long been identified with the psychological approach. When he was asked about the data re-analysis last year, he was quoted as saying: 'OK folks, nothing to see here, move along please.'

He added that patients did improve and that the treatments were moderately effective.

ARTHRITIS DRUGS MIGHT HELP

The Journal of Health Psychology gave the original researchers the right to respond to the criticisms  they said they stood firmly by their findings, and that 'the PACE trial... along with other studies provide patients, healthcare professionals and commissioners with the best evidence that both CBT and GET are safe and effective treatments'.

COULD IT BE CAUSED BY INFLAMMATION? At the heart of the issue is what causes ME. Patient activists and some doctors consider it a physical disorder. This 'biological' theory appeared to be reinforced by recent reseach from Stanford University in the U.S. that identified a new set of 'messenger' molecules in the blood that are part of the immune system and behave differently in ME/CFS patients. New, sophisticated equipment allowed a team to run a very detailed analysis of the blood of 192 patients, comparing it with nearly 400 healthy people. They found that immune system messenger molecules (cytokines) that trigger inflammation and produce flu-like symptoms were higher in patients with the most severe symptoms. An independent expert, Gordon Broderick, a systems biologist at Rochester General Hospital in New York, commented that it was a 'tremendous step forward'. Advertisement

But what about the 'biological' theories of ME/CFS and the new research published recently suggesting a link with raised levels of molecules linked to inflammation?

Commenting, Dr Alan Carson, reader in neuropsychiatry at the University of Edinburgh, said what wasn't clear is whether a higher level of these molecules 'necessarily make you feel worse'.

He added: 'It's highly unlikely it will lead to a blood test any time soon.'

Yet Professor Edwards, who has described the PACE trial as 'poorly designed, poorly executed and inappropriately interpreted' believes that studies are needed.

'Here in the UK we've spent far too much on the psychological aspect,' he says.

'Understanding the biology is what's going to lead to an effective treatment.

Professor Edwards, a rheumatologist, has previously found that patients with ME/CFS as well as rheumatoid arthritis reported great improvement when they were treated with the powerful anti-inflammatory drugs used for their arthritis. A trial of this is now under way.

Meanwhile, PACE continues to have support among psychiatrists and psychologists. It seems unlikely that it will be withdrawn, and so the struggle between the doctors and patients continues.
Tony Blair (pictured with his wife Cherie) has been exploiting the know-how and contacts he acquired during his ten-year stint as Prime Minister

The determination of Tony Blair and his wife Cherie to enrich themselves to the tune of tens of millions of pounds over the past decade has been one of the most unedifying spectacles of British public life.

In essence, Blair has been exploiting the know-how and contacts he acquired during his ten-year stint as Prime Minister to build up a fortune of a magnitude far beyond the wildest dreams of any normal, democratically elected politician.

It is true, of course, that to some degree most former British statesmen are involved in a similar racket  delivering tedious speeches to gullible foreign businessmen for six-figure sums, and offering exorbitant advice to financial companies which could be obtained far more cheaply elsewhere.

But Blair has uniquely plumbed the depths by earning stupendous amounts from the most unsavoury dictators. For example, he has pocketed millions from his consultancy work for President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, whose regime has been guilty of appalling human rights abuses.

A leak to a national newspaper now suggests that the avaricious former leader of the Labour Party has crossed a line which even he had previously respected. He really is a man without shame or sense of honour.

The nub of the case against him is that his work as an official Middle East peace envoy from 2007 was partly funded in secret by the oil-rich United Arab Emirates (UAE), which helped finance his London office.

Yet at the same time he received millions of pounds in consultancy fees from the state (an absolute monarchy, by the way, with a poor human rights record) and the sovereign wealth fund of its capital, Abu Dhabi.

In other words, while he was working on behalf of the so-called Quartet (the UN, EU, Russia and the U.S.) to try to sort out the Israeli-Palestinian imbroglio, he was enjoying a lucrative commercial relationship with the UAE, which was also partially funding his work as an envoy.

Tony Blair has pocketed millions from his consultancy work for President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan (pictured together in 2000)

Moreover, a senior foreign official seconded to help him in his official duties appears to have become involved in Blair's business activities. Michael Banner set up talks between a Korean oil company called UI Energy, which was being advised by the former Prime Minister, and the head of a state-run investment firm in Abu Dhabi.

If I mention that the chief executive of UI was a gentleman by the name of Kyu-Sun Choi, who had served a two-year prison sentence for bribery, you may get some sort of flavour of the kind of people with whom the former occupant of No 10 has been rubbing shoulders since he surrendered his seals of office.

Unsurprisingly, Blair's spokesman denied any jiggery-pokery when confronted by the Daily Telegraph. But if everything really was wholly above board, why were the United Arab Emirates' contributions to Blair's Quartet work not disclosed on the official website which did, however, declare sources of income from other countries, including the UK?

It is worth noting that UAE's formal relations with Israel are not friendly, though the two states share an antipathy towards Iran, and are believed to maintain covert contacts with each other. Blair may have wanted to conceal his financial connections with the UAE for diplomatic as well as private reasons.

All in all, this smells very fishy to me. In a properly regulated world, Blair wouldn't have had commercial dealings with any foreign countries while he was acting as an envoy. For him to have had hidden financial dealings with an important Middle East state offends against every notion of transparency.

Nor should we forget he failed totally in his mission as peacemaker, which he finally abandoned in 2015. It's true the Israel-Palestinian conflict is an intractable one, and the most committed envoy in the world could be forgiven for making little progress.

But Blair was hardly dedicated to the cause, visiting Jerusalem with his large entourage only about one week in four, so that for several years 15 rooms in a luxury hotel on the edge of the city (annual cost more than 1 million) lay empty for most of the time.

It's difficult to escape the conclusion that he regarded the important role of Middle East envoy as something of a sideline, which enabled him to make piles of cash from other sources  very possibly more than he otherwise would have done.

Do I think that these latest revelations, illuminating as they do Tony Blair's innate greed and underhand behaviour, will represent the fatal death knell for his already ruined reputation? I doubt it.

The Chilcot Report was critical of Blair's behaviour before the Iraq War, but it acquitted him of deliberately misleading the British public

Our political Establishment, though it has largely disowned him in private, is reluctant to concede in public that an ex-British Prime Minister could be remotely comparable in moral terms to dodgy European politicians such as Blair's old friend, the Italian leader Silvio Berlusconi, who was finally done for tax fraud.

The Chilcot Report was critical of Blair's behaviour before the Iraq War, but it acquitted him of deliberately misleading the British public.

Yet last month Sir John Chilcot seemed to go further in a BBC interview when, apparently caught on the hop, he said he didn't believe Tony Blair was 'straight with the nation' about his decisions in the run-up to the Iraq War.

But IF the Establishment (including many Tories) continue to find excuses for him, I don't think the British people are so indulgent. The disclosures about his commercial dealings with the UAE will be widely adduced as further proof that the man is not to be trusted.

Here is someone who, despite his loudly professed Christian convictions, seems almost sick with avarice. No one wants a former Prime Minister to starve, but the way in which he has built a fortune on the back of his time in office (at the latest count, the Blair family own 38 homes worth an estimated 33 million) is nauseating.

And this is the man who would like to put himself at the head of the Remain cause, gleefully announcing recently that 'it's possible now that Brexit does not happen'. Ten days ago he was hobnobbing with the Prime Minister of Malta, Joseph Muscat, an almost equally passionate anti-Brexiteer who, like Blair, has a long association with the corrupt and repressive dictatorship of Azerbaijan.

As someone who voted Leave, I suppose I should be glad that such a person should be offering himself as the standard bearer of a cause which, he hopes, will succeed in reversing a democratic vote. In a sense I am, since his leadership would inevitably be the kiss of death.

But looking at this morally bankrupt character, and considering the latest revelations, my feeling is that even dyed-in-the-wool Remainers deserve better than Tony Blair.
A Missouri couple who had been married for 77 years were buried in a single casket, holding each other's hands, after dying just hours apart.

Velva Breuer passed away 30 hours after her husband Raymond took his final breath on August 4.

It is believed to be the longest Velva, 96, and Raymond, 97, had been apart since they wed in 1940.

And now the beloved couple will be together for eternity, their hands clasped in the same casket at Oak Grove Cemetery in St Louis.

Raymond and Velva Breuer were buried together in the same casket after passing away just 30 hours apart. They had been married for 77 years

Their children said that the couple were laid to rest holding each other's hand. Velva's hand is pictured here grasping Raymond's before he died on August 4

It was originally Raymond's idea that the couple be buried together, although at first his son Bobby Breuer thought it was a joke.

'Dad told one of the nurses before he passed, that if they went close together, that they should just be buried together in the same casket,' Breuer told Columbia Daily Tribune.

'Jokingly, I think. But other people heard it and we asked the funeral director. Mother was a very small woman, and dad wasn't that big.'

Velva and Raymond's love story began when they first met at a one-room primary school in rural Dawson Township.

Raymond was in the fourth grade when he first tried to get Velva's attention, sticking her with a poker from the fireplace.

He didn't know it was hot, and Velva had the scar for most of her life.

'She married me to get even with me,' Raymond jokingly told a reporter during a celebration of their 77th anniversary.

Velva and Raymond's love story began at childhood, when they first met in a one-room primary school in rural Dawson Township. They married in 1940

The beloved couple celebrated their 77th anniversary in January at their retirement home

The couple raised six children together, three of whom were sent to Vietnam. They are pictured here with one of their daughters

The couple raised six children together, three of whom were sent to Vietnam.

Raymond worked for Ford while Velva, a homemaker for most of her life, took a job at a Ben Franklin store in 1960 while her sons served.

After Raymond retired in 1978, the couple moved to North Carolina for 16 years.

Raymond preached in the rural Warne community, served as a volunteer firefighter, taught at a local college and was president of a Gem and Mineral society.

They returned to Missouri in 1994, moving to Hallsville to be near one of their children.

The couple continued to go to church, where they would always sit hands and sit in the front row.

'They never left each other's side,' Hallsville State Rep. Cheri Reisch told the paper. 'It was true love.'

When they moved to a retirement community, Raymond began his own Thursday night class called 'Bible Study with Ray'.

'My grandfather was the sort of man who would do whatever needed to be done, no matter what,' Raymond's grandson Jason Hardin wrote on Facebook last week.

Raymond and Velva once told a reporter they had their disagreements, but always made sure to make up before going to bed

'If a preacher was needed, he would preach. If a handrail was needed to be installed, he would install it. He was a hard worker in so many ways, but gentle.'

Raymond and Velva once told a reporter they had their disagreements, but always made sure to make up before going to bed.

'I wouldn't trade him for anybody,' Velva said on the couple's 77th anniversary. 'He's so good.'

When Velva had to move to a different retirement center last year, Raymond slept on a cot in her room.

And when Raymond died on August 4, it was Velva's hand he was holding.

Their daughter Donna Hardin said she is thankful her parents never love their sharp minds as they went into their twilight years together.

'They were very blessed their entire lives,' Breuer added. 'They were blessed and we were blessed because they were so fortunate.'
White Supremacist Richard Spencer Tried To Speak At UChicago. He Was Refused.

By Stephen Gossett in News on Aug 15, 2017 6:10PM



Richard Spencer at the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville / Getty Images / Photo: Chip Somodevilla

White supremacist Richard Spencer has two alma maters. He received a B.A. at the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, the same place he helped organize last weekend's notorious "Unite the Right" rally. He also received a Master's degree from the University of Chicagoand he's apparently trying to return to UChicago, too, for a speaking engagement. But the professor to whom Spencer reached out had no interest int the alt-right figurehead's request.

Spencer emailed Professor Geoffrey R. Stone, a law professor and First Amendment scholar at the university, on Aug. 1 in an attempt to secure some manner of speaking appearance, saying he was "eager to return to campus, particularly [because the University has made clear that it] will not be a 'safe space.'" according to emails published by Stone on Huffington Post.

Spencer's "safe space" comment refers to a letter that was sent to incoming freshmen last year that stated the UChicago did not support so-called trigger warnings or "condone the creation of intellectual safe spaces"although neither were in fact banned.

Spencer expected that Stone might be sympathetic to his plight because the professor had penned an op-ed for the New York Times in April in which he defended Spencer's constitutional right to speak at Auburn University, in Alabama. (Auburn is a public university; the University of Chicago is not.)

But Stone was not swayed. He told Spencer that even though he'd defend others' right to bring Spencer to campus if such a situation arose, it wouldn't be him that lends any kind of welcoming hand to the "Hail Trump"-ing racial separatist.

Stone replied to Spencer, according to the Huffington Post:



"My strong support for the right of students and faculty to invite speakers to campus to address whatever views they think worth discussing does not mean that I personally think that all views are worth discussing. From what I have seen of your views, they do not seem to me at add anything of value to serious and reasoned discourse, which is of course the central goal of a university. Thus, although I would defend the right of others to invite you to speak, I dont see any reason for me to encourage or to endorse such an event."

The professor expounded on the email exchange in an accompanying essay on Huffington Post. Despite Stone's staunch First Amendment advocacy, welcoming Spencer would simply be a bad call. "No, I think I personally wont invite Spencer to speak on campus," he wrote. "And I hope others will have the good sense to recognize ugly, ignorant, vile, hatred when they see it."

The emails and Stone's essay were published on Huffington Post the day after the Charlottesville attack, in which one person was killed and 20 people were injured when a driver plowed into a group of counter-demonstrators. The alleged driver has long advocated Nazi views and sported white-supremacist regalia over the weekend, according to the Washington Post.

[H/T DNAinfo]
A teenage suspect has been tackled to the ground by bystanders and arrested after throwing a rock through the glass of Boston's Holocaust memorial.

It is the second time that the monument, the New England Holocaust Memorial, has been vandalized this summer.

Police said the 17-year-old from Malden, Massachusetts was detained by two bystanders until officers arrived on the scene at around 6.40pm on Monday.

He will be charged with willful and malicious destruction of property, cops said.

Police said their civil rights unit is also investigating the incident to determine if additional charges are pending.

Broken glass lies on the ground near police tape at the New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston on Monday. A 17-year-old suspect has been arrested in the case

A police officer and bystander survey the damage to the memorial on Monday. It is the second time this summer that the glass structure has been damaged

The police department's civil rights unit also is investigating to determine if additional charges are warranted.

In June, police said James Isaac used a rock to shatter a roughly 9-foot-tall glass panel on one of the memorial's six 54-foot-high towers. Isaac has pleaded not guilty to vandalism charges.

The six glass towers are lit internally and etched with millions of numbers that represent tattoos on the arms of many Jews sent to Nazi death camps.

The repaired memorial was rededicated in July.

Workers clean up broken glass at the New England Holocaust Memorial that was vandalized when a rock was thrown through a panel that was part of it on Monday

The Jewish Community Relations Council and Combined Jewish Philanthropies released a statement late Monday night saying that they are 'appalled and saddened' by the latest vandalism.

'We will remain resilient and will have a timeline for rebuilding the memorial once we have assessed the damage,' the statement said.

Democratic Mayor Marty Walsh wrote on Twitter that he was 'saddened to see such a despicable action.' He thanked the public and Boston police for the 'quick arrest' of a suspect.
The moment a motorcyclist flies off a cliff and survives has been caught on video.

Matthew Murray, 27, was riding through the Santa Monica Mountains on his way to work near Calabasas, California when a GoPro attached to his motorcycle filmed the horrific crash.

Murray was taking a turn at about 40mph on the winding mountain road when he says his steering locked up, and he hit the gravel shoulder.

'It processed immediately in my head that you're gonna die,' he recalled the moment he flew over the edge of the cliff in an interview with CBS Los Angeles.

Matthew Murray, 27, was riding through the Santa Monica Mountains on his way to work near Calabasas, California when his motorcycle flew off the side of a cliff

'I love taking corners and I was only doing 40 mph and I went to lean into this turn and this bike would not let lean,' he said.

Murray and the bike flew roughly 270 feet down the hill, and he was knocked unconscious.

The impact broke his back, hip, pelvis, collarbone, shoulder, sternum, ribs, tailbone, and sacrum, as well as puncturing both lungs.

Murray was out for about a minute and a half before he is heard on the video screaming for help.

The video shows Murray riding through the winding curves of the Santa Monica Mountains

'I love taking corners and I was only doing 40 mph and I went to lean into this turn and this bike would not let lean,' he said

Murray was out for about a minute and a half before he is heard screaming for help

'I tried to walk to my motorcycle to get to my phone and call 911 but I couldn't walk down hill,' he told the CBS affiliate.

Instead, he turned around and clawed his way back up the hill with his hands, knowing he'd die if he couldn't make it to assistance.

'They just said people have a fight or flight, or whatever it is, and I just decided to fight,' Murray said.

Despite his severe injuries, Murray was booted from the hospital in less than a week because his health insurance had recently lapsed

'Honestly my legs were done so I just kind of crawled up and once I made it to the top I just collapsed.'

A passing motorist saw him and pulled over to call for an ambulance.

Despite his severe injuries, Murray was booted from the hospital in less than a week because his health insurance had recently lapsed, his family said.

Murray's family has created a GoFundMe page to help fund the young man's treatment and rehabilitation.
An online fundraiser has raised an incredible $225,010 for the family of Heather Heyer, as they reportedly plan to lay her to rest on Wednesday.

The 32-year-old paralegal died on Saturday after she was struck by a car driven by accused white supremacist James Fields while she was protesting a white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The GoFundMe page created for her family is no longer active after it reached $225,010 in support of Heyer's mother.

'Heather Heyer was murdered while protesting against hate,' wrote the account creator Felicia Venita Correa.

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An online fundraiser for the family of Heather Heyer (pictured) has raised an incredible $225,010 - exceeding its original goal by four times

The GoFundMe page for Heyer is no longer active after it reached $225,010 in support of Heyer's mother

'We are raising money to give to her family for anything that they may need. The family is aware of this and is in complete charge of when and where the funds will be released.

'She is a Greene County native and graduated from William Monroe High School. Her mother (whom I will not name until she is ready) said 'She died doing what was right. My heart is broken, but I am forever proud of her. She will truly be missed.'

Her funeral arrangements are still being 'worked out', but the family plans to 'do something for her on Wednesday morning,' her stepdad, who declined to give his name, told the New York Daily News on Monday.

Heyers family requested mourners wear purple to the Wednesday service.

Natalie Romero, one of the dozens of people injured during the incident on Saturday, is currently recovering in a Virginia hospital after she suffered a skull fracture and multiple injuries to her face.

Horrifying images have emerged of the injuries suffered by a Houston woman, Natalie Romero (pictured), after she was one of several plowed into by a car at a white nationalist rally on Saturday. She suffered a skull fracture and multiple injuries to her face

Romero (pictured), a 20-year-old University of Virginia sophomore, was a counter-protester against the supremacist groups marching in Charlottesville against the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee

The 20-year-old sophomore student at the University of Virginia was a counter-protester against the supremacist groups marching in Charlottesville.

Her mother, Ericka Chaves, created a GoFundMe page to raise money that will be used to cover her daughter's medical expenses.

'At a counter-protest, a 20 year old (my daughter) was one of the people who got hit by a car,' Chaves wrote.

'She's in the hospital and we really will appriecate [sic] any help for the hospitals expences [sic]. Thank you and God bless you.'

The driver of the vehicle, James Alex Fields Jr. (above), was charged with second-degree murder and other counts

So far, $109,000 has been raised out of a $120,000 goal as of Monday evening.

Romero told KHOU11 that she was hit by the car as it drove into the crowd, killing one and injuring 35, including her.

She said she isn't sure if she will be able to attend the first day of classes when they begin later this month.

'A lot of back pain and neck pain. Just a lot of bruises. I think when fell, I bit my lip. And so my lip is really busted and my face looks pretty horrible right now,' she said.

Police said 20-year-old Fields took dead aim at the counter-protesters with his car, slamming into them.

The Ohio native was arrested a short time later and appeared in court by video monitor from the Albemarle Charlottesville regional jail on Monday.

Alleged car murderer James Fields, 20, appeared in court by video monitor from the Albermarle Charlottesville regional jail on Monday. He raised his hand and said 'yes, sir' when Judge Robert Downer asked him if everything he said was truthful

He wore prison stripes and looked downward and avoided eye contact with the camera for much of his appearance.

The judge charged him with one count of murder, for the death of Heyer, 32, and three counts of malicious wounding, as well as one charge of hit and run.

When he was asked by Judge Robert Downer if everything he said was truthful he raised his right hand and said: 'Yes, sir.'

Field spoke in short yes and no statements during the appearance. He quietly responded 'no, sir' when asked by the judge if he could afford an attorney.

He said he earned $650 every two weeks working for Securitas, the multinational security firm, in Ohio.

Fields told Judge Downer that he had no ties to Charlottesville and no family or friends in the city.

He was denied bail, and his next appearance was scheduled for August 25.
Bali prison escapee Shaun Davidson has taunted the authorities with another provocative Facebook post.

Shaun Edward Davidson, 33, broke out Bali's notorious Kerobokan prison on June 20 through a tunnel burrowed underneath the jail walls and has been on the run from authorities since.

Davidson, from Perth, has amassed a cult following on Facebook since his escape, where he taunts the police about his fugitive lifestyle.

'Run run as fast as you can, you can't catch me I'm the gingerbread man,' he posted on Tuesday.

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'Run run as fast as you can, you can't catch me I'm the gingerbread man,' he posted on Tuesday

Davidson, from Perth, has amassed somewhat of a cult following on Facebook since his escape, where he taunts the police about not having yet caught him

The post was met with an outpouring of support from his more than 6,000 followers.

'Keep 'em guessing mate,' one man said.

'Please don't get caught, I am your big fan,' another said.

Davidson tunnelled out of the overcrowded Bali prison with three other inmates in June.

Two escapees were caught within days, while Davidson and another man remain on the run.

Since his escape Davidson has continued to taunt the police with bizarre and provocative Facebook posts.

Since his escape Davidson has continued to taunt the police with bizarre and provocative Facebook posts

Davidson tunnelled out of the overcrowded Bali prison with three other inmates in June

Davidson also created his own 'wanted' posters offering a 'huge reward' award for his capture.

In the posters, which were met with a huge amount of support from his followers, he called himself a 'gangsta, hustler, outlaw, ladies' man and hide and seek champion'.

Davidson has also made a series of posts on Facebook claiming to be in various exotic locations across the globe.

'Living the dream,' he wrote in June, claiming to be in Amsterdam.

In the posters, which were met with a huge amount of support from his followers, he called himself a 'gangsta, hustler, outlaw, ladies' man and hide and seek champion'

'Straight outta Kerobokan': Davidson created fake 'wanted' posters claiming there was a 'huge reward' for his capture

Shaun Edward Davidson, 33, (pictured) broke out of the notorious Kerobokan prison on June 20 through a tunnel burrowed underneath the jail walls

He also went on a bizarre rant in early July.

'I'm a real life action movie star, nah I'm just normal b, there ain't no way a penitentiary is every holding me from Oz to Bali, Amsterdam to Germany, you better believe it when I say my life is no lie. I'm sipping on this cocktail on the beaches of Dubai [sic],' he said.

Balinese authorities said in July they were 'close' to finding the fugitive.

After the announcement, Davidson messaged Interpol, the world's largest police organisation, asking them how close they really were to catching him.

After the announcement, Davidson messaged Interpol, the world's largest police organisation, asking them how close they really were to catching him

Since his escape from Kerobokan prison (pictured) Davidson has continued to taunt the police with bizarre and provocative Facebook posts

Balinese authorities said in July they were 'close' to finding the fugitive (pictured)

Davidson and three other inmates escaped from Kerobokan prison through a muddy tunnel (pictured) on June 20

'How how's it going, just wondering, when you say close, how close are you really?' he wrote.

Davidson claimed he was not trying to taunt police with his Facebook activity, instead just 'having some fun and a laugh' with his life.

'I'm living my life just trying to make the best out of a bad situation,' he said.
Actress Amber Heard has jumped on the bandwagon and taken a swipe at Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce after it was revealed he was a New Zealand citizen.

With the news breaking yesterday Joyce was a Kiwi, the 50-year-old was the butt of a bucket-load of jokes doing the rounds across social media.

And now American star Heard has had her say on the matter, sharing a tongue-in-cheek post to Twitter, suggesting she's sent a box of the nation's 'finest kiwi fruit.'

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Actress Amber Heard has jumped on the bandwagon and taken a swipe at Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce after it was revealed he was a New Zealand citizen

The tweet appears to act revenge for Joyce's harsh stance after the actress and her husband Johnny Depp illegally brought her two dogs into Australia

The hilarious tweet followed up another post slamming Joyce for previous comments made

'To comfort Mr. Joyce in his hour need, I have sent him a box of New Zealand's finest kiwi fruit (assuming this passes his biosecurity laws),' the post read, accompanied by a box of the oval-shaped fruit.

The hilarious tweet followed up another post slamming Joyce for previous comments made.

'When @Barnaby_Joyce said "no one is above the law" I didn't realize he meant New Zealand law ... ', she shared to her 40,600 followers.

The tweet appears to act revenge for Joyce's harsh stance after the actress and her husband Johnny Depp illegally brought her two dogs into Australia.

Australia's deputy prime minister infamously threatened to kill Pistol and Boo if they did not 'bugger off back to the United States'.

Now it appears Heard has had the last laugh on the matter, trolling the New Zealander after his closely kept secret was revealed.

The tweet appears to act revenge for Joyce's harsh stance after the actress and her husband Johnny Depp illegally brought her two dogs into Australia

With the news breaking yesterday Joyce was a Kiwi, the 50-year-old was the butt of a bucket-load of jokes doing the rounds across social media
A 12-year-old boy was badly mauled by a family friend's dog he startled as it slept on its owner's bed.

Snowy, a two-year-old bull-mastiff cross, latched on to the child's face and bit him several times on the face and body in a Perth home on Sunday night.

He was rushed to hospital for surgery and given dozens of stitches, while rangers took the dog away to likely be put down.

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A 12-year-old Perth boy was badly mauled by a family friend's bull-mastiff named Snowy after the child startled the dog as it slept on its owner's bed

'The dog was asleep on my bed when my friend's son came in and sat on the bed,' Snowy's tearful owner Katrina Haywood told 9 News.

'He must have startled him and before I knew it he latched onto his face. I couldn't get him off.

'I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Her and her son told me that I saved his life but I don't feel like it. I don't feel like it at all.'

Ms Haywood believed Snowy thought he was protecting her and was heartbroken that she would likely never see her beloved pet again.

Snowy's tearful owner Katrina Haywood she the dog thought he was protecting her and was heartbroken that she would likely never see her beloved pet again

'He is my best friend. I don't think he should be punished for something he didn't deliberately do,' she said.

The Kenwick mother pleaded with rangers to at least find a home for Snowy on a farm with no children but was told that wouldn't be possible.

The attack was just two weeks after another bull-mastiff mauled a kennel owner to death in the same area of southeast Perth.
Businessman Dick Smith has called for immigration to be cut in half in a new $1 million 'disturbing' ad campaign blaming economic and population growth for famine, disaster and war.

The television advertisement, which aired for the first time on Tuesday, is based on the 1980s Grim Reaper AIDS campaign and features original actor John Stanton.

Paired with flashing images of poverty stricken children, war town countries and crowded cities, Mr Stanton's familiar voice warns 'endless growth' will destroy the world.

The Dick Smith Fair Go campaign ad aims at putting pressure on politicians to slash the number of immigrants accepted into Australia and to increase taxes for the wealthy.

Mr Smith held a red pitchfork at the campaign premier in Sydney this week as an ominous symbol for an 'impending violent revolution'.

Australian businessman Dick Smith has launched a $1 million 'disturbing' ad campaign blaming economic and population growth for famine, disaster and war

Paired with flashing images of poverty stricken children, war town countries and crowded cities, Mr Stanton's familiar voice warns 'endless growth' will destroy the world

'Were told that endless economic growth is the end to all our problems,' Mr Stanton says as clips of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, Foreign Affairs Mnister Julie Bishop repeating the word 'growth' flicker across the screen (pictured)

'Were told that endless economic growth is the end to all our problems,' Mr Stanton says as clips of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, Foreign Affairs Mnister Julie Bishop repeating the word 'growth' flicker across the screen.

'But what if growth is the problem?'

'Endless growth is the way of a cancer cell, growing forever until it kills the host that sustains it - that's the path we are on today,' the confronting advertisement warns.

'Our growth-addicted economic system will see our children living in a world of eleven billion people, consuming and polluting more than our finite planet can withstand.'

'It's a path to either more and more inequality, or famine, disaster, war and collapse. Are we that stupid?'

Mr Smith is appealing for politicians to cut the annual number of immigrants in half and offers to invest $2 million into marginal seats in the next election for the political party that drafts a population plan.

Mr Smith told Daily Mail Australia he is proud of of the ad and said it had been well received.

'I'm hoping it will completely undermine our politicians who speak of endless growth,' he said.

When asked why he compared growth to cancer, Mr Smith said: 'Politicians speak of perpetual growth  the only thing I know that has perpetual growth are cancer cells and they normally kill the host.'

The television advertisement, which will air on Tuesday, is based on the 1980s Grim Reaper AIDS campaign (pictured) and will feature original actor John Stanton

At the Dick Smith Fair Go campaign's launch in Sydney on Tuesday, Mr Smith held a red pitchfork as an ominous symbol for an 'impending violent revolution' (pictured)

'Endless growth is the way of a cancer cells, growing forever until it kills the host that sustains it - that's the path were on today,' the confronting advertisement warns (pictured)

The millionaire entrepreneur's campaign aims at putting pressure on politicians to slash the number of immigrants accepted into Australia and to increase taxes for the wealthy

The outspoken One Nation supporter is also calling to close the gap between Australia's wealthiest people and the poor.

'Australia's wealthiest 1 percent own more than the bottom 70 percent, that's 17 million Aussies,' he said.

Mr Smith said that as a member of that top tier, he knows the group can afford to pay.

A few of his own office staff members have called the ad 'disturbing,' Mr Smith told Daily Mail Australia.

'Some of my staff said they wouldnt want their children to see it, but every night the news has worse on it.'

'Endless growth will end up in revolution,' he said.

The $1 million ad will air daily for three weeks on television, radio and online starting at 2pm on Tuesday.
Anthony Scaramucci says if it were up to him, top adviser Steve Bannon would be gone from President Donald Trump's administration.

But the short-lived White House communications director notes, 'it's not up to me.'

The comments came in a Monday appearance on the CBS Late Show with Steven Colbert, a few weeks after 'The Mooch' made a spectacular flameout from his West Wing gig.

Asked if he believed Bannon was a white supremacist, Scaramucci replied: 'I don't think he's a white supremacist though I've never asked him.'

'What I don't like is the toleration of it, for me it's something that should not be tolerated,' Scaramucci continued.

Bannon, 63, has consistently denied harboring sympathies for white supremacists.

Anthony Scaramucci says if it were up to him, top adviser Steve Bannon (pictured) would be gone from President Donald Trump's administration

Scaramucci made the remarks in a Monday appearance on the CBS Late Show with Steven Colbert

Scaramucci is seen backstage shortly before his appearance on the Late Show Monday

Colbert has seen his ratings soar since Trump's inauguration, with his relentless comedic attacks on the president.

Colbert showed a picture of Scaramucci former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus glaring at each other.

Scaramucci said there was 'no love lost' between the two.

He said he and Priebus got along well when he was a donor writing checks to the Republican National Committee, which Priebus once led, but that things turned sour after he was offered a role in the White House.

The interview wasn't the first time the famously outspoken Scaramucci slammed Bannon.

Colbert showed a picture of Scaramucci former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus glaring at each other

Scaramucci (right) said there was 'no love lost' between himself and Priebus (left)

This weekend, Scaramucci, blamed Bannon's ideology for some of the president's recent missteps, including Trump's response to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday.

The president was criticized for seemingly equating white nationalists with the antifa and Black Lives Matter groups protesting their planned rally.

Scaramucci blamed Trump's tone deaf response on White House staffers being reluctant to tell him the truth.

'Maybe Ivanka would do that ... maybe Jared [Kushner] would do that, but you've also got this sort of Bannon-bart influence in there, which I think is a snag on the president,' Scaramucci said, mushing together Bannon's name with the publication, Breitbart, which the White House aide formerly ran.

'The Mooch' is seen by the backstage bathroom and in a hallway at the Late Show studio

Bannon has battled for West Wing influence with Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and another top advisor.

Also on Monday evening, the New York Times reported that media mogul Rupert Murdoch, a Kushner ally, had met with Trump and urged him to fire Bannon.

Murdoch made his plea during a White House dinner before Trump left for vacation in New Jersey on August 4, before the violence in Charlottesville, according to the Times' unnamed sources.

Trump did not strongly counter Murdoch's advice and expressed frustration with Bannon, the paper said.

Bannon, the former head of ultra conservative outlet Breitbart News, is described as being the nucleus of one of several competing power centers in what has been a chaotic White House.
The other shoe may be about to drop for Crocs.

The Colorado-based footwear maker lost the design patent to its distinctive plastic clogs on Friday, following over a decade of legal acrimony with rival shoe company USA Dawgs.

Crocs may still appeal the ruling, but the news comes in troubled times for the maker of the iconic shoes.

The company reported a three percent decline in revenue for the most recent quarter, and has said that slipping sales will force it to close 160 retail stores over the next two years.

Colorado-based Crocs lost the design patent to its distinctive plastic clogs (pictured) on Friday

Rival firm USA Dawgs, maker of a similar shoe (pictured) has battled Crocs in court for years

The US Patent and Trademark Office's final rejection of Crocs' 2006 design patent last week came after a decade of fierce legal battles with Dawgs, which claims the clog maker ruthlessly suppressed its competitors.

'We are very pleased with the decision,' said Steven Mann, Dawgs' CEO, in a statement.

'It is unfortunate that Crocs has been able to use this patent to suppress its competitors for so long. We have always been confident that, given a fair playing field, Dawgs would become a prominent competitor,' said Mann.

Fashion lawyer Elizabeth Kurpis told Footwear News that the Crocs design patent had been tossed out because it was substantially similar to a similar design published more than a year earlier.

'USPTO argued that Crocs' patent is invalid because the shoe design could be 'anticipated' from prior similar shoe designs,' Kurpis said.

Crocs said in a statement that it is confident it will win its appeal in the patent fight.

The 2006 design patent drawing for Crocs is seen. The USPTO tossed out the patent after deciding that the design could have been anticipated from previous shoe designs

While legal wrangling between Crocs and Dawgs dates back years, it has escalated in recent months.

In July, Dawgs filed a lawsuit claiming that Crocs had infringed the design of its Z-strap sandal, and alleging corporate sabotage.

The lawsuit claims that a Crocs employee illegally accessed internal networks at e-commerce platform Zulily and had a line of Dawgs shoes removed from a planned sale.

Crocs at the time called the suit 'frivolous' and an 'attempt to harass Crocs and disrupt its business.'
A woman and her two children, murdered in a house north of Adelaide, were strangled with cable ties, a court has been told.

At the start of a trial in the Supreme Court on Tuesday, Steven Graham Peet pleaded guilty to killing Adeline Yvette Wilson-Rigney, 28, but not her children, aged five and six, at a property at Hillier in May 2016.

A prosecutor told the court that all three of the deceased were found in different rooms in the property with cable ties around their necks.

Steven Graham Peet pleaded guilty to killing Adeline Yvette Wilson-Rigney, 28 (pictured)

Relatives of the victim seen departing the South Australian Supreme Court on Tuesday

The young girl had adhesive packing tape wrapped around her head and a sock had been stuffed in her mouth.

Her arms had been tied behind her back.

The young boy had parts of his body wrapped in packing tape and his hands and feet were tied behind his back in a hog-tied fashion.

Ms Wilson-Rigney was found in the laundry with cable ties around her neck and had also suffered severe head injuries consistent with being struck with the claw-end of a crowbar or a hammer, the court heard.

The detailing of the deaths prompted an angry outburst in court from the dead woman's family with her mother describing Peet as 'evil'.

'He's a dead man walking,' she said.

The court was told that the Crown's case would be part circumstantial and partly based on admissions Peet made, including an emergency phone call to police where he told the operator he had killed his partner and her children.

But the prosecutor said when he was interviewed later he claimed to have no memory of the events at the house and said he had been a victim of physical abuse at the hands of Ms Wilson-Rigney.

Relatives of the victim (pictured) seen leaving the South Australian Supreme Court on Tuesday

However, he did not plead guilty to killing her two children, aged five and six, (pictured) at a property at Hillier in May 2016

Defence counsel Bill Boucaut told the court that there would be no challenge to the 'objective background' in the case.

But he said a psychological diagnosis would be presented that fitted the profile of someone who had been a victim of domestic abuse and had acted in a disassociated state.

The trial is continuing.
This is the blog of China defense, where professional analysts and serious defense enthusiasts share findings on a rising military power.
A Sydney mother-of-five who took abortion pills to try to terminate her 28-week pregnancy has been convicted and placed on a three-year good behaviour bond.

Blacktown Local Court Magistrate Geoffrey Hiatt said he was satisfied the woman, who was 28 at the time, acted intentionally to illegally try to have a miscarriage by taking the abortion pills.

In a July judgment made public on Monday, Mr Hiatt said the woman - who had pleaded not guilty - had been about 19 weeks pregnant when her partner of three years told her he did not want her to have the child because they were not married.

'The accused did not act upon this and continued to attend medical check-ups,' Mr Hiatt said in his judgment.

A Sydney mother-of-five who took abortion pills to try to terminate her 28-week pregnancy has been convicted and placed on a three-year good behaviour bond. File photo

'At about 26 weeks into the pregnancy, her boyfriend again urged her to terminate the pregnancy.

'She told her boyfriend that it may be too late to have an abortion.

'She contacted a number of clinics in NSW and interstate and was refused from all of them on the basis that her pregnancy was past 20 weeks.'

Mr Hiatt said the woman, who had five children aged between four to nine, eventually found someone she believed was in Darwin, known as 'Patrick', who was prepared to facilitate an abortion when she was 28 weeks' pregnant.

After the woman took six pills, she became unwell and was taken by a friend to Blacktown Hospital (above, file photo)

Patrick told the woman it was possible to have a termination up to 30 weeks and he would send her abortion pills for $2000.

She received a package from South Africa in early September 2015 containing a pack of 10 pills each containing 200 milligrams of misoprostol, a hormone-type substance.

She took six pills the next day before becoming unwell and was taken by a friend to Blacktown Hospital.

An emergency caesarean section was performed and the child was born.

'The ongoing debate regarding pro- and anti-abortion is a polarising issue within the community,' Mr Hiatt said.

'In my view, the clear intent of the parliament was to enact provisions which would hold persons criminally responsible for unlawful acts towards a foetus causing either a miscarriage or an abortion to occur.

'In essence, protection for a foetus from the time of conception through all stages of pregnancy to the point of birth.'
Shares in Domino's Pizza have fallen dramatically after the fast food chain revealed it had failed to meet its own targets.

The company announced a $300 million share buyback after its shares slipped about 22 per cent in the past eight months.

On Monday, the stock closed at $51.11 a share and plummeted to $40.28 within minutes of trading on Tuesday  wiping nearly $1billion from the company's value, Fairfax reported.

By lunchtime, shares had recovered to $44.75  down 12.44 per cent from the market's open.

Shares in Domino's Pizza have fallen dramatically after the fast food chain revealed it had failed to meet its own targets

The tumble comes after allegations of staff underpayments, sparking fear among investors and analysts about franchisees' profitability.

The retailer's full-year net profit for the year until July 2 of $102.9 million was up 24.8 per cent on the previous 12 months, while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation grew 28.3 per cent to $230.9 million.

However, both missed Domino's upgraded guidance of 32.5 per cent profit and EBITDA growth that was given in February after a strong first-half performance.

Domino's had predicted same-store sales in Australia and New Zealand would go up by 14 to 16 per cent  but announced on Tuesday that they only grew 13.6 per cent.

The company announced a $300 million share buyback after its shares slipped about 22 per cent in the past eight months

The company's chief executive Don Meij blamed the missed projections largely on the group's French business.

'We had some addressing input issues with French abbreviations and slang so customers would be coming to our site and it'd be telling them that we weren't available to them,' he said.

Mr Meij also flagged wage increases, despite negotiations with the retail workers' union over a new agreement continuing.

Meanwhile, Domino's has plans to open up to 200 new stores and expects net profit to increase by around 20 per cent in 2017/18.
A father undressed his daughter and laid her on a church altar where paedophile priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale indecently assaulted her, a court has heard.

Ridsdale, 83, has pleaded guilty to 23 charges, mainly indecent assaults but including rape, involving offences committed against 11 boys and one girl between 1962 and 1988.

Crown prosecutor Jeremy McWilliams said on one occasion in 1974 the 10-year-old girl was woken up by her father, while Ridsdale waited in the hallway, and driven with the priest to the church.

Prolific paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale, 83, has pleaded guilty to even more charges

'(The girl's) father carried her to the confessional booth and took her clothes off her then carried her to the altar and lay her down,' Mr McWilliams told the Victorian County Court.

He then indecently assaulted her.

'Ridsdale told her: 'Jesus died for our sins so we could be forgiven and if I confess to this sin I might be forgiven.'

The former Catholic priest (left) admitted to sexually abusing a further 11 boys and one girl

'Then he kissed her on the cheek.'

Ridsdale told another of his victims that 'it's our little secret', Mr McWilliams said.

'Ridsdale told him: 'Don't tell your mum and dad or your dad could die'.'

Defence counsel Tim Marsh earlier said Ridsdale had a small fall and then fainted but said he is OK and insisted on going to court for his plea hearing on Tuesday.

The former Catholic priest has previously been convicted for sexually abusing 53 children between 1961, the year he was ordained, and the late 1980s.

This shocking photograph shows Ridsdale (right) with his victim 14-year-old Paul Levey
Two more business leaders have stepped down from Donald Trump's American Manufacturing Council in reaction to his Charlottesville response.

Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank revealed on Monday afternoon that he was stepping down from the council to 'focus on inspiring and uniting through power of sport'.

A few hours later, he was joined by Intel CEO Brian Krzanich.

Their resignations come less than a day after Merck pharmaceuticals CEO Kenneth Frazier announced he was leaving the group.

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich was one of three business leaders to resign from Trump's American Manufacturing Council in reaction to his Charlottesville response on Monday

Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank also revealed on Monday afternoon that he was stepping down from the council

Plank said in his statement that he joined the council because he wanted Under Armour to have an 'active seat at the table and represent our industry'.

'We remain resolute in our potential and ability to improve American manufacturing. However, Under Armour engages in innovation and sport, not politics,' he wrote.

'I love our country and our company and will continue to focus my efforts on inspiring every person that they can do anything through the power of sport which promotes unity, diversity and inclusion.'

Krzanich said he resigned to because he wanted to 'make progress', and found the government's leaders to be more focused on scoring political points.

'Politics and political agendas have sidelined the importance of rebuilding America's manufacturing based,' he wrote in a lengthy statement.

'I resigned to call attention to the serious harm our divided political climate is causing to critical issues, including the serious need to address the decline of American manufacturing.'

Plank said that he was resigning to 'focus on inspiring and uniting through power of sport'

Plank (pictured) said in his statement that he initially joined the council because he wanted Under Armour to have an 'active seat at the table and represent our industry'

Krzanich likewise mentioned the violence that broke out in Charlottesville on Saturday after white supremacists stormed the University of Virginia campus.

'I have already made clear my abhorrence at the recent hate-spawned violence in Charlottesville, and earlier today I called on leaders to condemn the white supremacists and their ilk who marched and committed violence,' he wrote.

'I resigned because I want to make progress, while many in Washington seem more concerned with attacking anyone who disagrees with them.'

Krzanich added that he hoped the country would once again honor those who 'stood up for equality and other cherished American values'.

'My requestmy pleato everyone involved in our political system is this: set scoring political points aside and focus on what is best for the nation as a whole.'

'The current environment must change, or else our nation will become a shadow of what it once was and what it still can and should be.'

Krzanich said he resigned to because he wanted to 'make progress', and found the government's leaders to be more focused on scoring political points

Frazier, the council's only black member, was the first to resign on Monday.

He called on American leaders to clearly reject 'expressions of hatred, bigotry, and group supremacy'.

'As CEO of Merck and as a matter of personal conscience, I feel a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism,' he wrote.

Trump was quick to attack Frazier following his resignation, tweeting that Frazier would now have 'more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES'.

'@Merck Pharma is a leader in higher & higher drug prices while at the same time taking jobs out of the U.S. Bring jobs back & LOWER PRICES!' Trump tweeted again as he left Washington for New York.

Trump has so far remained quiet on Plank and Krzanich's resignations, instead tweeting that it felt 'good to be home' in New York after seven months.

'But the White House is very special, there is no place like it...and the US is really my home!' he added.

Of the 21 members who remain on Trump's council, only one has said outwardly said they are reassessing their position.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, one of the top labor leaders in the country, called on Trump to 'unequivocally denounce the actions of bigoted domestic terrorists in Charlottesville'.

'We are aware of the decisions by other members of the President's Manufacturing Counil, which has yet to hold any real meeting, and are assessing our role,' he said in a widely-released statement.

'While the AFL-CIO will remain a powerful voice for the freedoms of working people, there are real questions into the effectiveness of this council to deliver real policy that lifts working families.'

Leaders for Campbell Soup, Dell, Dow Chemical, International Paper, Nucor, and Whirlpool all confirmed with Fortune that they will be staying on the council.

Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier was quit Trump's American Manufacturing Council over the president's lackluster response to the violence caused by white supremacist groups

Trump lashed out at Merck on Monday afternoon, calling it a price-hiking exporter or jobs

The president had already bashed Frazier by name on Monday morning after news broke that the only black member of his manufacturing council had quit

President Trump (left) is photographed with Kenneth Frazier (right) in July

On Monday morning, the official Merck Twitter account sent out CEO Kenneth Frazier's statement on why he decided to quit President Trump's American Manufacturing Council

Of that group, Campbell, Dow, International Paper, and Nucor explicitly condemned the violence in Charlottesville.

Leaders for Harris Corp, Alliance for American Manufacturing, and Lockheed Martin - the remaining companies on the council - either could not be reached or would not provide a comment.

Trump has been facing major backlash over his much-panned response to Charlottesville, in which one counter-protester was killed.

Nazi sympathizer James Fields, a 20-year-old from Ohio, used his Dodge Charger to run over counter-protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring 19 more.

He's been charged with second degree murder.

On Saturday, Trump made a statement from his Bedminster resort in New Jersey saying, 'We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides.'

Critics, including a handful of Congressional Republicans, suggested that Trump was falsely equating the neo-Nazis, KKK members and white supremacists protesting the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee with those marching against the hate groups.

It would be two days before Trump finally condemned the hate groups by name.

'Racism is evil. And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans,' he said at the White House.

Kenneth Frazier (left), the CEO of Merck, was the only black member of President Trump's American Manufacturing Council

Members of white supremacist groups are photographed gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia, Friday night

Members of hate groups including the KKK are escorted by police past a group of protesters

Counter-protesters and members of hate groups clash in Charlottesville. One counter-protester was killed, along with two police officers in a helicopter crash

'We are a nation founded on the truth that all of us are created equal. We are equal in the eyes of our creator. We are equal under the law. And we are equal under our Constitution. Those who spread violence in the name of bigotry strike at the very core of America.'

It took Trump under an hour to respond to Frazier's decision to quit the manufacturing board.

Six prominent CEOs have since walked away from one of Trump's White House boards.

On the heels of Trump exiting the Paris climate accord, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, also part of the American Manufacturing Council, threw in the towel.

Disney CEO Bob Iger, who served on the president's Strategic and Policy Forum exited over Paris too.

Now former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick left Trump's boards in February over the administration's travel ban, which targeted Muslim-majority countries.
The Philippines could become the 'new Syria' if Islamic State jihadis from the Middle East continue to flock to Southeast Asia, a counter-terror expert has revealed.

If the escalating IS uprising in Marawi, in the country's south, is not defeated soon, the war on terror could land on Australia's doorstep, American terror analyst Michael Smith II told 9News on Tuesday.

An estimated 700 people have been killed since battle-hardened IS militants stormed South East Asia in May in an effort to form a caliphate after losing ground in the Middle East.

The Philippines could become the 'new Syria' if Islamic State jihadis from the Middle East continue to flock to Southeast Asia, a counter-terror expert has revealed (pictured: smoke billows from a battle zone)

If the escalating IS uprising in Marawi, in the country's south, is not defeated soon, the war on terror could land on Australia's doorstep (pictured: ISIS media shows an extremist waving the ISIS flag in the region)

Australia flew a P-3 Orion aircraft (pictured) over the Mindanao region to back the war against pro-Islamic State fanatics

Marawi could become a 'vortex' for militants and supporters, including Australian terrorists, Mr Smith told the publication.

'It is very difficult to say how the situation in Marawi will play out over the next three to six months,' Smith said.

'There is a risk this situation could spiral into a scenario similar to what we have seen in Syria.

'Australia and Western nations should make it a priority to increase their roles in both enabling Filipino forces, and - to whatever extents necessary and possible - directly engaging Islamic State positions in the southern Philippines.'

Australian officials have announced it will back the Philippines in the violent battle by sending cutting-edge spy planes to the war-torn nation.

Although Mr Smith said support from Australia and other countries is needed, he claimed there is a risk of their intervention 'galvanizing support for Islamic State.'

Therea are fears IS militants are finding a foothold in South East Asia after losing ground in the Middle East (pictured: a soldier with an IS flag in Marawi city)

In June the Australian military flew a P-3 Orion aircraft was over the Mindanao region, where a bloody battle between the army and jihadists continues.

The use of the planes is classified, however they may pick up signals like mobile phone calls and take aerial images of battle zones to tip-off the Philippines military.

Also in June, an army of Islamists held 31 hostages captive - including 12 children - using some as human shields during a gun battle with troops in Pigcawayan town.

Defence Minister Marise Payne previously told The Sydney Morning Herald 'the regional threat from terrorism, in particular from Daesh [Islamic State] and foreign fighters, is a direct threat to Australia and our interests.'

'I recently spoke with my counterpart Secretary of Defence Delfin Lorenzana about how Australia can assist the Philippines in its fight against extremists. We agreed the best way to defeat terrorism in our region is for us to work together.'
A truck driver and pedestrian have been filmed brawling on a busy Melbourne street in yet another violent road rage attack.

Dash-cam footage, obtained by 9 News, shows the two men grappling and throwing punches on the intersection of Toorak Road and Chapel Street in South Yarra.

A bystander appears to try to break up the fight as one of the man is flung to the ground with traffic brought to a standstill on either side of him.

He springs up from the ground and starts hitting the other man, only to be kicked in the head and knocked out cold, collapsing on the concrete.

A truck driver and pedestrian have been filmed brawling on a busy Melbourne street

A bystander appears to try to break up the fight as one of the man is flung to the ground

Victoria Police said they were investigating the incident, which happened at about 10.45am on Tuesday.

'It is believed at about 10.45am an altercation has occurred between a pedestrian and a truck driver,' a spokesperson said in a statement.

'The pedestrian has been taken to hospital with minor injuries.'

The investigation is ongoing and police are urging anyone with information to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

The brawl is the latest incident in a spree of road rage incidents across Sydney and Melbourne.

Last week, an all-in brawl broke out at a set of traffic lights at Redfern, with two workers seen trading blows with two pedestrians.

In July, two tradesmen were filmed fighting at a set of traffic lights in Merrylands.

A day earlier, a man was filmed allegedly punching a woman in the face after an altercation. Two women and a man were charged over the incident.
A woman who went missing in the Albama wilderness has been found alive after a month.

Lisa Theris, 25, said she survived by eating berries and wild mushrooms while she was lost amid thousands of acres of dense forest in Midland, Alabama without shoes or shelter.

By the time she was found, Theris had lost 50 pounds and was covered in scratches and bug bites. She did not have a phone or purse on her.

Theris was finally reunited with her family after she made it to the wood line on Highway 82 and was spotted by a driver around 2pm on Saturday.

Lisa Theris, 25, stayed alive for nearly a month while lost amid thousands of acres of dense forest in Midland, Alabama by surviving on mushrooms and berries. Pictured left in hospital

Video courtesy WTVY

A woman saw 'something moving in the bushes' as she was driving along the highway, and turned around, Sheriff Raymond Rodgers told WFSA.

'She called us and told us she had located the missing person. Finally the young lady has been found and she's alive.'

It brought to an end a multi-county search for the radiologist student, who was reported missing on July 23.

Police discovered that Theris was with two men who broke into a hunting lodge in Midway before she disappeared.

They said Theris did not know the men were planning to break into the lodge and did not want to be a part of the robbery.

The two men, Manley Davis and Randall Oswald, were arrested and charged following the theft.

'She's not familiar with this area and apparently on the night she ran, she went into the woods at night and got lost,' Rodgers said.

By the time she was found, Theris had lost 50 pounds and was covered in scratches (pictured) and bug bites. She did not have a phone or purse on her

Theris told police that along with foraging for berries and mushrooms, she drank water from a brook and puddles

Davis, 31, and Oswald, 36, allegedly stole $40,000 worth of items that included four-wheelers, ATVS, and chainsaws.

They were both arrested and charged with burglary and were considered persons of interest in Theris' disappearance.

Theris told police that along with foraging for berries and mushrooms, she drank water from a brook and puddles.

She tried to keep moving but, deprived of food and hunger, she was often turning around in circles.

Police said their first focusing was making sure Theris got immediate treatment.

'We didn't ask her too many questions,' Rodgers said. 'We want to make sure her health is good so we got her on to the hospital. We did not interrogate her at that time.'

Police discovered that Theris was with Manley Davis, 31, (right) and Randall Oswald, 36, (left) who allegedly broke into a hunting lodge in Midway before she disappeared

'We don't have the total details on everything yet,' Sgt Chad Faulkner told the station.

'We wanted to make sure her health was in the best shape and in the days to come, we'll get some answers. She's alive and that's all that matters at this moment.'

Theris was back in her Louisville home on Monday, where her siblings said she has begun her slow road to recovery.

'She is severely weakened, she is in pain, she is emaciated,' Theris' sister Elizabeth said. 'There is not an inch of her that has not been affected.'

'We are lucky that she is alive, she is so strong and has made it through so much.'

Theris' brother Will said she is 'standing strong and full of jokes as ever'.

'The next few weeks will be rough, but she is handling it all like a trooper,' he added.

Faulkner said Theris' survival has been a 'relief' to the entire department.

'Her will to live was strong,' he said. 'When you have a will to live and survive, it's a miracle.'
Two young soldiers who were killed in Iraq during an artillery 'mishap' that injured five others have been identified by the Pentagon.

Sgt. Roshain Euvince Brooks, 30, and Spc. Allen Levi Stigler Jr, 22, were involved in a heated battle with ISIS fighters when the accident - details of which have not yet been released - occurred.

'There is no indication that ISIS had anything to do with this,' Pentagon spokesman Col. Rob Manning told Army Times. 'The injured soldiers were [evacuated by air] and two of the soldiers subsequently died.'

Sgt. Roshain Brooks (left), 30, and Spc. Allen Stigler Jr (right), 22, were both killed in Iraq due to an artillery 'mishap' while taking on an ISIS mortar position, the Pentagon has confirmed

Manning said that they had been running a counter-fire operation on an ISIS mortar position when they were killed.

He said he didn't know whether the accident was due to human error or a misfire in the artillery equipment.

The other five solders' injuries were not life-threatening, he said, adding that the incident is still under investigation.

Both soldiers were assigned to 2nd Battalion, 319th Airborne Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Stigler (pictured) received a posthumous promotion to sergeant; both men were awarded several medals after their deaths. Exactly what happened is being investigated

Brooks was from Brooklyn, New York, and was on his first deployment to Iraq after joining the army in 2012 and serving at Fort Hood, Texas, before joining the 82nd.

He had previously been deployed to Afghanistan from June-November 2014.

Stigler was from Arlington, Texas, and joined the Army in November 2013, serving in South Korea from May 2014-June 2015. This was his first combat deployment.

Stigler received a posthumous promotion to sergeant after his death, and both men were awarded the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Meritorious Service Medal and Combat Action Badge.

'Sergeants Brooks and Stigler were courageous patriots and paratroopers who served our coalition and the people of Iraq with extraordinary commitment,' said Col. Pat Work, 2nd BCT, 82nd Airborne Division's commander, in a statement.

'Our team extends its most sincere condolences to their families and friends. Their personal commitments to our campaign against ISIS were extraordinary, and we are incredibly proud to have served with them.'

An investigation into the incident is ongoing.

In the wake of the incident, Stigler's family responded to their loss online. Shonta Stigler, his cousin, posted up photos of him in uniform with the message 'Miss u cuzin.'

Another relative, Rosie Stigler, made the young man's photo into her cover photo, inviting messages of condolence from her friend.

Stigler's cousin posted this on her Facebook page. The Pentagon said that neither man had died directly as a result of ISIS

More than 5,000 US troops are taking part in the war against IS in Iraq, according the Pentagon.

The vast majority operate within heavily guarded bases, collecting and sharing intelligence with Iraqi forces and providing logistical support.

But as the fight has evolved over the past three years, more and more US troops are operating close to the front lines.

In addition to the two troops killed Sunday, five other U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq in the fight against IS, including two in the battle to retake the northern city of Mosul.

More than 1,200 Iraqi forces were killed in the battle for Mosul and more than 6,000 wounded, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said earlier this month.

Iraq's prime minister declared victory against IS in Mosul in July, and Iraqi forces are now preparing to retake the IS-held town of Tel Afar, to the west.
An Australian chef has been found dead from an apparent drug overdose in a Cambodian guesthouse.

Allain Homeshaw, who was born in the UK but now lives in Perth, had arrived in the country from Thailand on August 6.

But on Monday, the 40-year-old was found on the floor of a room in the guesthouse in Sihanoukville by its owner after he knocked on the door to collect a late payment, news.com.au reports.

Allain Homeshaw (above) was found dead in a Cambodia guesthouse by its owner on Monday

The landlord found Mr Homeshaw on the floor and called police.

His death appeared to have been caused by a drug-induced heart attack, local media reported.

It came just a few days after Mr Homeshaw wrote a post on Facebook saying he was travelling south from Phnom Penh after falling out with a Cambodian friend.

'Just leaving Phnom Penh heading Sth ... sinnokville [sic] beaches ... Let me say heads up about this maggot/rat/thief/scammer/b****,' he wrote alongside a picture of the man on Friday.

Mr Homeshaw trained at South Brisbane Culinary College and was working as a chef in Perth

'If I didn't feel at time so disappointed w(ith) you & myself for believing your S***E.'

Mr Homeshaw trained at South Brisbane Culinary College, according to his Facebook page, and was a fan of the North Queensland Cowboys and the Brisbane Broncos.

He has travelled to Cambodia previously with pictures on his Facebook page showing he spent New Years' Eve 2015 in the Phnom Penh.
One day after news of his dual-citizenship dropped, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has now confirmed he is no longer a New Zealander.

The Nationals leader told Parliament on Tuesday he was given verbal confirmation his application to renounce his New Zealand citizenship was accepted.

Mr Joyce was sensationally outed as a New Zealand citizen on Monday, putting his political career in jeopardy.

Mr Joyce (pictured) would be the third Member of Parliament ousted over dual citizenship issues, after Greens senators Larissa Waters and Scott Ludlum

Mr Joyce told Parliament he received verbal confirmation he was no longer a NZ citizen but still awaited official documentation.

NZ Prime Minister Bill English told a press conference Mr Joyce was automatically given citizenship via his father under a more than 50-year-old law.

The Deputy Prime Minister told the House of Representatives the New Zealand High Commission contacted him last Thursday to advise he may be a Kiwi citizen.

The 50-year-old said he was 'shocked' to receive the call but would stay in his position while the matter was referred to the High Court.

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce (pictured on Monday) told parliament the New Zealand High Consulate called him to advise he might be a dual citizen

NZ Internal Affairs Minister Peter Dunne's office said under NZ law, a child born to a Kiwi parent - in this case Mr Joyce's father - is automatically given citizenship without needing to apply.

'Under our law, as we understand, and it has been confirmed by crown law - they have had a look at it - yes, he is,' it said.

This was because the concept of separate Australian and NZ citizenship wasn't formal until 1948 - a year after Mr Joyce was born.

'If you were born overseas and at least one of your parents is a New Zealand citizen by birth or grant, you are an NZ citizen by descent,' the NZ citizenship website states.

The 50-year-old (pictured with his wife Natalie) said he was 'shocked' to receive the call but would stay in his position while the matter was referred to the High Court

Mr Dunne later told Sky News: 'The advice that I received was being checked by crown law. That was confirmed. At that point it was conveyed via the NZ high commissioner in Canberra to Mr Joyce directly.'

NZ Prime Minister Bill English then weighed in saying: 'Unwittingly or not he is a New Zealand citizen.'

'These things are almost always accidental. No one sets out to confuse the public with their citizenship.'

The High Court would still have to rule on whether the archaic law would make him ineligible under the Australian Constitution.

Labor frontbencher Tony Burke told parliament Mr Joyce should stand aside from the ministry and the government should not accept his vote.

'We've never before in this parliament... had to go to the High Court and say: 'Look, we're not really sure if there's a majority government in this country',' he said.

If he is found to be ineligible, the Turnbull Government - which holds a one-seat majority in the lower house - would be forced into a by-election.

The concept of separate Australian and NZ citizenship wasn't formal until 1948, which would make Mr Joyce a Kiwi citizen by descent automatically

Opposition leader Bill Shorten wasted no time bringing this up with his first point in Monday's Parliamentary Question Time.

'Can the Prime Minister confirm the Turnbull Government is the first government in Australian history to ask the High Court whether in fact it has a majority?' he said.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull replied that the government was 'very confident' the High court would not rule Mr Joyce ineligible.

He blamed NZ for 'imposing foreign citizenship' on him without his knowledge.

That didn't stop Labor members from bleating like sheep whenever Mr Joyce got up to speak during Question Time.

Mr Joyce would be the third Member of Parliament ousted over dual citizenship issues, after Greens senators Larissa Waters and Scott Ludlum.

'I was born in Tamworth, just as my mother and my great-grandmother was born there 100 years earlier,' he told parliament.

'Neither I, nor my parents have ever had any reason to believe I may be a citizen of any other country.

'I was born in Australia in 1967 to an Australian mother and think I am fifth-generation. My father was born in New Zealand and came to Australia in 1947 as a British subject. In fact we were all British subjects at that time.

'Neither I nor my parents have ever applied to register me as a NZ citizen, and the NZ Government has no register recognising me as a NZ citizen.'

On the basis of the solicitor-general's advice, the government is of the firm view that I would not be found to be disqualified by the operation of section 44 of the constitution,' he said

But Mr Joyce said government took legal advice from the solicitor-general and based on that was of the 'firm view' he would not be disqualified from serving under section 44(1) of the constitution.

'However, to provide clarification to this very important area of the law, for this and future parliaments, I have asked the government to refer the matter to the High Court,' he said.

'Given the strength of the legal advice the government has received, the Prime Minister has asked that I remain as Deputy Prime Minister and continue my ministerial duties.'

Mr Joyce's citizenship scare follows former Greens deputy leader Mr Ludlum resigning last month after discovering he 'forgot' to renounce his NZ citizenship.

If forced to resign, Mr Joyce would be the third Member of Parliament ousted over dual citizenship issues, after Greens senators Larissa Waters (L) and Scott Ludlum (R)

He was swiftly followed by the other Greens co-leader Ms Waters, who still has a Canadian citizenship.

Less than two weeks later, Resources Minister Matt Canavan quit cabinet after it was revealed he may have dual Italian citizenship.

He blamed his mother for applying on his behalf without telling him, was staying in parliament while the High Court investigated.

PARLIAMENT'S DUAL CITIZENSHIP FIASCO July 14: Greens senator Scott Ludlum resigns after discovering he is a New Zealand dual citizen July 17: Greens senator Larissa Waters quits as she was still a Canadian citizen July 25: Resources minister Matt Canavan steps down from cabinet as he may have dual Italian citizenship August 10: One Nation refers its own Senator Malcolm Roberts to High Court over possible UK dual citizenship August 14: Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce asks High Court to investigate if he has NZ citizenship Advertisement

One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts also faces the High Court over whether he was still a British citizen when he was elected last year, after party leader Pauline Hanson referred him herself.

Former PM Tony Abbott, who was born in Britain, produced a copy of his renunciation confirmation document to quiet rumours he too was a dual citizen.

Labor senator Sam Dastyari revealed he had to hire a team of lawyers and pay $25,000 to renounce his Iranian citizenship.

Just to be sure, he paid two Iranians to go into the embassy with his renunciation papers and take a selfie with his forms.

'It was difficult, expensive, lengthy and precarious for my family still living in Iran. Nonetheless the rules are the rules and I have met them to ensure I meet the requirements to be properly elected,' he said.
Food safety authority of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) decided on Monday to further enhance checks on eggs at import level and expand the measure to poultry eggs from all countries of the European Union (EU).

Since two egg samples imported from the Netherlands were found to contain excessive fipronil, a pesticide, earlier this month, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) of the HKSAR's Food and Environmental Hygiene Department has stepped up holding poultry eggs from the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and France for testing at import level.

"For the sake of prudence, the arrangement has been extended to cover other EU countries," a spokesman for the CFS said Monday. "The CFS will also hold poultry eggs from EU countries for testing at import level and they will only be released to the market for sale upon satisfactory test results."

The spokesman added that the CFS has also enhanced surveillance in the local market on eggs from EU countries.

Other than the unsatisfactory Dutch egg samples announced earlier this month, the CFS has not found any other unsatisfactory samples, it said, adding that based on the levels of the pesticide detected in the egg samples, adverse health effects will not be caused under usual consumption.

As for the affected batch of the Dutch eggs, the importer has recalled the eggs in accordance with the instructions of the CFS.

The CFS "has maintained liaison with the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) of the European Commission, the Dutch and Belgian authorities over the incident, and will continue to take appropriate follow-up action with regard to the information provided by the authorities concerned and latest developments of the incident," the spokesman said.

In the first six months of this year, poultry eggs imported from the EU countries were less than 2 percent of the total volume of poultry eggs imported to Hong Kong, according to the CFS.
Rev. Bill Shillady (above) has been Hillary Clinton's pastor for years

A Methodist pastor who has been Hillary Clintons minister for years plagiarized the writings of another minister in a new book, it was reported on Monday.

Rev. Bill Shillady is the author of a new book, Strong for a Moment Like This: The Daily Devotions of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The book is based on emails that Shillady wrote to Clinton during the presidential campaign.

Clinton even appears on the cover of the book and she even wrote a foreword praising the minister.

While the book includes 11 pages of end notes crediting source material, Shillady fails to credit another source, a blog post by Rev. Matthew Deuel, even though he borrowed heavily from it in his book, CNN reported.

The passage in question is a devotion that appears strikingly similar to the column written by Deuel, a pastor at Mission Point Community Church in Warsaw, Indiana.

Shillady said on Monday that he was stunned by the similarities between the email he wrote to Clinton and the blog post.

Deuel told CNN that he and Shillady talked and that he had accepted his apology.

Shillady is the author of a new book, Strong for a Moment Like This: The Daily Devotions of Hillary Rodham Clinton. The book is based on emails that Shillady wrote to Clinton during the presidential campaign. Shillady and Clinton are seen in the above undated file photo

The devotion is titled Sunday Is Coming. It was sent by Shillady to Clinton on November 9, the day after she lost the presidential election to Donald Trump.

When CNN published the email last week, it was widely shared on social media.

Deuel came across the post and noticed something unusual  some of the passages bore similarities to a blog post he wrote in March 2016.

"For the disciples and Christ followers in the first century, Good Friday represented the day that everything fell apart, Deuel wrote in his blog post.

All was lost. The momentum and hope of a man, claiming to be the Son of God, the Messiah who was supposed to change everything, had been executed.

Clinton even appears on the cover of the book (above) and she even wrote a foreword praising the minister

Compare the wording of that passage to the email that Shillady sent to Clinton and which appears in his upcoming book: For the disciples and Christ's followers in the first century, Good Friday represented the day that everything fell apart.

All was lost. The momentum and hope of a man claiming to be the Son of God, the Messiah who was supposed to change everything, had been executed.

Deuels post reads: Death will be shattered. Hope will be restored. Redemption is coming. But first, we must live through the darkness and seeming hopelessness of Friday.

Shilladys email to Clinton, which appears in the book, reads: Death will be shattered. Hope will be restored. But first, we must live through the darkness and seeming hopelessness of Friday.

Shillady told CNN that segments of the passages he sent to Clinton were taken from material he found on the Internet.

'I do not remember cutting and pasting from a particular column so much as bits and pieces from a variety of places on the Internet,' Shillady said.

The minister later released a statement saying: In preparing the devotional on the morning of November 9, I was determined to provide comfort with the familiar adage that It's Friday But Sunday is Coming.

I searched for passages that offered perspective of this theme.

I am now stunned to realize the similarity between Matt Deuel's blog sermon and my own.

Shillady fails to credit a source, a blog post by Rev. Matthew Deuel (above), even though he borrowed heavily from it in his book

Clearly, portions of my devotional that day incorporate his exact words. I apologize to Matt for not giving him the credit he deserves.

Shilladys book was published by Abingdon Press, the book publishing arm of the United Methodist Publishing House.

Abingdons editor-in-chief, Mary Catherine Dean, told CNN: Strong For A Moment Like This is a heavily annotated work, in which Rev. Shillady has credited more than 200 sources.

We worked with Rev. Shillady to faithfully cite all of the many contributors to the devotionals.

His failure to attribute portions of the November 9 devotional does not change the fact that the 365 passages in the book were sent to Hillary Clinton, are part of the historical record of her campaign, and gave her the inspiration to stay strong.

Deuel said that while he was shocked at seeing passages from his blog lifted without attribution, he is not interested in publicly pursuing anything.

The last thing the world needs right now is two pastors having a public dispute over a blog. The reality is, there's nothing new under the sun.

If my blog then, in turn, inspired Rev. Shillady and it was used to encourage Hillary Clinton, then praise God for that! Could it have been done differently? Probably, Deuel said.

But for me to fire back publicly would be inappropriate and out of line on my part.
A Philadelphia firefighter says he was drunk and making a 'dumb joke' about the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, when he posted a picture of himself holding a torch and wearing a Confederate flag hat on Facebook.

John Deluisi, 45, tells WTXF-TV he uploaded the picture, which he captioned 'Headed to VA,' in response to another post referencing the Charlottesville rally, where torch-carrying protesters decried the planned removal of a statue honoring Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. He also tagged a black co-worker in the post.

The post quickly garnered negative attention and Deluisi says he realized that he made a bad decision.

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Philadelphia firefighter John Deluisi, 45,came under fire this week for a post on Facebook making fun of the violence in Charlottesville (post above)

Deluisi said that the post was a bad joke written when he was drunk. He told a Fox 29 reporter that he is sorry and disappointed in himself

'I am very disappointed in myself and I'm very sorry,' Deluisi said.

'You know I was drinking way too much. It was on my back deck and me and we joke back and forth and it was just a stupid dumb joke.

'I am and idiot. I am very sorry. Maybe I get too carried away on Facebook and I put something up there that is stupid. I thought he would get a joke about it. I really did it was very stupid,' he added.

The post was a reference to the neo-Nazi white nationalists who marched in Charlottesville this weekend over the planned removal of Confederate statue (some of those protesters pictured last Friday)

Three people died amid the turmoil Saturday, including a 32-year-old woman who was part of a crowd of counter-protesters struck by a car driven by a man who had been marching with the white supremacists.

The Philadelphia Fire Department says it is investigating Deluisi's post and could take disciplinary action.

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney called the post 'deeply disturbing'.

Deluisi removed the picture. He said he's afraid the incident will taint his nearly 20 years as a career fireman.

The black co-worker who was tagged in the post said that it was just a joke between friends and that he was not offended.
The patriarch of a NSW greyhound racing dynasty has been banned from the sport for 15 years after it was found he systematically killed slow greyhounds and buried them in a mass grave on his Hunter Valley property.

Other family members have been banned for between two and four years for covering up the slaughter.

The woman who uncovered the graves two years ago - and faced a backlash from other trainers for going public with the gruesome discovery - is calling for criminal charges.

Thomas Pullman killed and buried a substantial number of the 99 dead greyhounds in 2015

Greyhound Racing NSW, the embattled industry's governing body, says Thomas Pullman killed and buried a substantial number of the 99 dead greyhounds found at his trial track near Cessnock in 2015.

'Mr Pullman engaged in a systematic process of killing greyhounds that were not performing,' GRNSW said in a report released on Tuesday.

The 'Pullman dynasty' was described as racing royalty in a 2013 GRNSW website article, noting Pullman's daughter Kayla Spliet worked as an official of the Greyhound Breeders Owners and Trainers Association at the nearby Maitland race track and his brother-in-law, Wayne Brown, was a GRNSW board member.

GRNSW also confirmed Spliet worked for them in a role focused on 'education and compliance' until 2015.

The governing body's inquiry also found Pullman's wife, Helen, daughter and her husband, Corey Spliet, along with track worker Wayne Weiss, were all aware of the burials taking place at Keinbah and had misled investigators.

The mass grave was only uncovered when the trial track's new owners, Natina and Robert Howard, unearthed bones and asbestos while fixing a fence at the rear of the property.

Ms Howard on Tuesday told AAP she felt vindicated by the bans after she faced a backlash from others in the sport for alerting the media to the cruelty in her own backyard.

The patriarch of New South Wales greyhound racing banned from the sport for 15 years

'I'm relieved but disappointed with the length of the bans they got,' she said.

'We'd have never have bought the property if we knew. The investigations have damaged our property and our reputation. We've lost so much business just by being good people.'

Investigators found it was likely the dogs were killed in small groups either being bludgeoned or shot in the head. Discharged gun cartridges were found in the graves.

Almost all the dogs showed no other sign of injury indicating it was not likely to be emergency euthanasia.

But Ms Howard says the bans don't go far enough. She wants the RSPCA to pursue criminal charges, saying 'rogues' like the Pullman and his family had damaged the entire sport and law-abiding trainers.

A GRNSW spokesman told AAP the behaviour was unacceptable and had tarnished the industry.
Iran could abandon its nuclear deal with world powers 'within hours', if the United States continues to impose new 'threats and sanctions', Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday.

President Rouhani's remarks to lawmakers were his most direct warning that the deal could fall apart, and risked ratcheting up tensions with the U.S.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he wants to scuttle the accord with Iran, a deal reached in 2015 under his predecessor President Obama, which limits Iran's ability to produce a nuclear weapon while ending most sanctions against it.

Earlier this week, Iran's parliament voted to increase spending on the country's ballistic missile program and the foreign operations of its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.

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Iran could abandon its nuclear deal with world powers 'within hours', if the U.S. continues to impose new 'threats and sanctions', Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday

The move came in response to U.S. legislation passed earlier this month imposing mandatory penalties on people involved in Iran's ballistic missile program and anyone who does business with them. The U.S. legislation also applies terrorism sanctions to the Guard and enforces an existing arms embargo.

If Washington continues with 'threats and sanctions' against Iran, Rouhani said in parliament on Tuesday, Tehran could easily ramp up its nuclear activities.

'In an hour and a day, Iran could return to a more advanced (nuclear) level than at the beginning of the negotiations' that preceded the 2015 deal, Rouhani said, though he underlined that Iran's preference is to remain in the accord.

The maneuvering around the Iran deal comes at a time when tensions have skyrocketed between the U.S and North Korea, which has tested nuclear weapons and threatened in recent weeks to fire a ballistic missile into the waters off the U.S. territory of Guam.

The agreement between Iran and world powers two years ago capped Iran's uranium enrichment levels in return for the lifting of international sanctions.

President Rouhani made the comments during an address to Iranian lawmakers on Tuesday

President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he wants to scuttle the accord with Iran, a deal reached in 2015 under his predecessor President Obama, which limits Iran's ability to produce a nuclear weapon while ending most sanctions against it. Above, Iran's parliament in Tehran on Tuesday

Earlier this week, Iran's parliament voted to increase spending on the country's ballistic missile program and the foreign operations of its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. Above, Rouhani speaking with lawmakers after his address

'In an hour and a day, Iran could return to a more advanced (nuclear) level than at the beginning of the negotiations' that preceded the 2015 deal, Rouhani said

The U.S. and other world powers fear Iran seeks the ability to produce atomic weapons. Iran has long denied that it seeks nuclear arms and says its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes.

It was not immediately clear what Rouhani was referring to - and whether he meant Iran could restart centrifuges enriching uranium to higher and more dangerous levels.

He also offered no evidence of Iran's capability to rapidly restart higher enrichment, though Iran still has its stock of centrifuges. Those devices now churn out uranium to low levels that can range from use as reactor fuel and for medical and research purposes, but could produce the much higher levels needed for a nuclear weapon.

In December, Rouhani ordered up plans to build nuclear-powered ships, something that appears to be allowed under the nuclear deal.

Rouhani's remarks were likely an attempt to appease hard-liners at home who have demanded a tougher stand against the United States. But they are also expected to ratchet up tensions further with the Trump administration.

Iran has said the new U.S. sanctions amount to a 'hostile' breach of the 2015 nuclear deal.

'The U.S. has shown that it is neither a good partner nor a trustable negotiator,' Rouhani added. 'Those who are trying to go back to the language of threats and sanctions are prisoners of their past hallucinations. They deprive themselves of the advantages of peace.'

But Rouhani also tempered his own threat, adding that Iran seeks to remain loyal to its commitments under the nuclear deal, which opened a 'path of cooperation and confidence-building' with the world.

'The deal was a model of the victory of peace and diplomacy over war and unilateralism,' said Rouhani. 'It was Iran's preference, but it was not and will not remain Iran's only option.'
A couple have made the shocking discovery of hidden cameras in their Airbnb apartment.

Zhang Zhen and his partner allegedly found the recording devices lodged in fire extinguishers in the Kaohsiung City, Taiwan, earlier this year.

The pair say they found two cameras - one in the bedroom and one in the bathroom.

A Taiwanese couple have made the shocking discovery of hidden cameras in their Airbnb apartment

Zhang Zhen and his partner allegedly found the recording devices lodged in fire extinguishers in the Kaohsiung City home earlier this year

Mr Zhen found the cameras on their first evening in the west Taiwan apartment after incredibly spotting a tiny flashing red light in a fire detector.

They immediately called police who seized the devices and alerted Airbnb.

Cameras appear to have been inserted through pinholes in the ceiling and footage captured show Mr Zhen in the bath and he and his partner watching television in bed.

Mr Zhen found the cameras on their first evening in the west Taiwan apartment after incredibly spotting a tiny flashing red light in a fire detector

Airbnb apologised through the company's Weibo page on Friday and say they have removed the man permanently from their registrar and promised a full refund.

'For all tenants of privacy protection Airbnb welcome the top priority,' the statement reads.

'For any violation of privacy, we are adopting a zero tolerance policy. I am sorry to see that our users on the platform are subject to privacy violations, we have immediately moved the landlord Airbnb love the community, and for the tenant to provide a full refund.'

'The landlord must fully inform the location of the camera or other surveillance equipment installed in or near the premises and seek the consent of the tenant. The camera installed in the bathroom or in the room is absolutely not allowed.'

A spokesperson for Airbnb told Daily Mail Australia: 'Our original handling of this incident fell below the high standards we set for ourselves. We have apologized to the guest for their experience and we are working with them to make things right.'

However, reports in China say the couple have not been personally contacted by Airbnb.

Mr Zhen and his partner have taken legal action against the owner for invasion of privacy.
Lynda Bellingham's sons have blasted her husband - claiming he was 'never part of the family' - as their bitter battles over he 5million estate rages on.

The late Oxo adverts actress' sons, Michael and Robbie Peluso, are fighting their stepfather Michael Pattemore over their mother's will.

The actresss family has been torn apart by a bitter rift, with her sons accusing her third husband of giving them only a derisory sum from her estimated 5m estate.

Michael and Robbie, Miss Bellinghams sons from her second marriage, say they will get just 50,000 each from their mothers millions after reaching a settlement with Mr Pattemore.

The brothers claim Mr Pattemore splurged their inheritance - an allegation which the 61-year-old denies.

The late Oxo adverts actress' sons, Michael and Robbie Peluso (left, with their mother in 1999 and, right, in 2014) are fighting their stepfather Michael Pattemore over their mother's will

Actress Lynda Bellingham holds her OBE with husband Michael Pattemore (2nd left) and sons Michael Peluzo and Robbie Peluzo with step-son Bradley at Buckingham Palace in 2014

Mr Pattemore, who has begun a new relationship with a woman named Pam (pictured), has branded the brothers stupid for contesting the will

Michael, 34, whose father is Lynda's second husband, Nunzio Peluso, told the Daily Mirror: 'Nothing you say or do will ever compare to the love my family had. You can't take that away from us. You never came close. Just a pretender. Someone to fill the gap. Someone to pass the time with.'

'You are lonely. We are love and beauty and dignity. You are nothing. Family is blood, family is forever. You are but a whisper in the wind.'

'A distant memory. Soon you will be forgotten, but our family bond goes on for an eternity. When all is said and done you won't be spoken of. No one will remember you.'

Mr Pattemore said last month he had given Michael, 34, and Robbie, 29, a 750,000 flat, claiming: They said they always wanted a roof over their heads. Ive given them that, but now they want it sold.

He added that the brothers also receive monthly income from the propertys rental.

But Michael said this is a distortion, telling the Mail On Sunday at the time: The flat has a 576,000 mortgage on it. Under the terms of the agreement, we have to sell it within two years. We arent allowed to live in it.

Michael and Robbie, Miss Bellinghams sons from her second marriage, say they will get just 50,000 each from their mothers millions after reaching a settlement with Mr Pattemore

Robbie (left) and Michael Peluso (right), Miss Bellinghams sons from her second marriage with their mother at Christmas time in their childhood

Michael Pattemore, reveals he has found love again, two years after actress died from cancer. He is pictured here with new love Pam, 54

It has tenants until next July and when we sell it, we have to pay Pattemores 30,000 capital gains tax. We owe our lawyers 60,000, so were looking at walking away with less than 50,000 each.

But this was never about the money  its about the fact that our mum trusted him to look after us, and that hasnt happened.

'At least were finally nearer to the point where we can have nothing more to do with him.

Lynda Bellingham and husband Michael Pattemore in 2014

For Michael, an actor, and Robbie, a manager at a New York hotel, it is an unsatisfactory ending to a feud triggered by their distress at Mr Pattemores behaviour following their mothers death. Within months, he had a hair transplant, took a round-the-world trip and bought a new Chevrolet Corvette.

In one notorious interview, he claimed he had made love to Miss Bellinghams ghost spirit.

In a television interview in July, Mr Pattemore wept as he described his 18 months of hell over the will and said he had been spat on by strangers.

He even claimed Miss Bellingham had left 50,000 in debts.

When Mr Pattemore shared the details of Miss Bellinghams will with her sons, they say they were shocked, but hoped he would help them with a deposit for a flat, which their mother always said she wanted to give them.

Almost a year later, after receiving just 750 each, they sought advice. Their recent settlement means Mr Pattemore no longer has to honour the 1 million promise.

The brothers believe their mother was under Mr Pattemores control.

Mr Pattemore, who has begun a new relationship with a woman named Pam, has branded the brothers stupid for contesting the will.

And he refuted their suggestion that they had been badly done by or that he had any influence over Miss Bellingham and her will.
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Western Sydney's first ever five-star hotel has opened.

Crown Group's Skye Hotel Suites is already doing business in Parramatta, the geographic heart of Australia's biggest city and a suburb that is being dubbed 'Sydney's second CBD'.

Western Sydney's economy is bigger than that of Adelaide or Tasmania.

The epicentre of that is Parramatta, a suburb once known more for its Auto Alley car dealerships on Church Street than high-end living.

The home of the Parramatta Eels is transforming, with a light rail and a fast-train link to Sydney's city centre planned.

Crown Group this month opened a new hotel and luxury apartment complex to capitalise on this transformation.

As construction across Sydney hits at an all time high, the Skye Hotel Suites landmark luxury accomodation is leading the way in one of the city's fastest growing suburbs

Crown Group's director of hotels Wayne Taranto says Parramatta will gentrify as more suburbs pop up in Sydney's west and businesses move their headquarters there.

'It's growing. The landscape is going to change both from a property development and an economic perspective over the next two to three years,' he told Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday.

'It's probably now close to the geographical centre of Sydney.

'The head offices of a lot of the financial institutions and as well as government are relocating out to Parramatta.'

Being dubbed 'Sydney's second CBD', the five-star hotel takes centre stage in an area that could soon be larger than Adelaide

The Skye Hotel Suites boasts 72 luxury suites as part of western Sydney's first five-star hotel development in Parramatta

The state-of-the-art complex has 72 luxury apartment-style suites with the finest bespoke furnishings and fittings, with added touches such as guests being able to choose the firmness of their bed - and on both sides.

The list of amenities available to guests is endless and includes a sundeck, outdoor pool, gymnasium, spa and a historic wine cellar preserved from a previous development for all to enjoy.

Crown Group's chief executive Iwan Sunito said there would be more demand for luxury living in Parramatta.

'Parramatta is a powerhouse for innovation and business and Skye Hotel Suites will be a stand-out, luxury addition to Sydney's up-and-coming west,' he said.

Luxury areas guests can indulge in include this rooftop bar with stunning panoramic views across Sydney and the CBD

At base level is its in-house restaurant Husk and Vine, complete with a renovated wine cellar, recovered from a past development for all to enjoy

The spacious bedrooms are decorated with a sleek, minimalist look, as guests can choose the firmness of their mattress, tailoring guests stay to every little detail

'Parramatta is a powerhouse for innovation and business and Skye Hotel Suites will be a stand-out, luxury addition to Sydney's up-and-coming West', Crown Group's chief executive Iwan Sunito said

Parramatta is now home to a five-star hotel and luxury apartment complex as major light rail and fast train links are planned
This is the moment a proud lioness watched its cub give a tiny cry after giving birth - just hours after being moved from a zoo in Syria.

Healthy cub Hajar was born shortly after its mother Dana had arrived in a sanctuary in Jordan following her rescue from the 'Magic World' amusement park in war-torn Aleppo.

Dana was among 13 animals rescued from the neglected zoo by Austria-based charity Four Paws.

Five lions, two tigers, two Asian black bears, two hyenas and two dogs have been transferred from Aleppo after a brief stopover in Bursa, Turkey.

Pictured: Lioness Dana with her cub Hajar. She gave birth to the healthy cub just hours after arriving in the animal sanctuary near Amman, Jordan

Pictured: Healthy Hajar. The charity's veterinarian said: 'The condition of the lioness and her cub is good considering the circumstances'

Behind them, in shattered cages and compounds, 140 creatures lie dead - killed by bombs, bullets, starvation or stress in the zoo that found itself on the front line of the Syrian civil war.

'The condition of the lioness and her cub is good considering the circumstances,' said the charity's veterinarian Amir Khalil.

An ultrasound carried out in Turkey shows the lioness was pregnant with two cubs, raising the prospect of a second birth.

'Chances are little that the second cub will be born alive,' said Khalil. 'It is important that Dana gets the medical attention and rest that she needs.'

After arriving, all thirteen animals were released from their transport cages for the first time since their rescue almost three weeks ago.

Pictured: Saeeda the tigress jumps and shows off her agility after being moved to a new home in Jordan

Pictured: One of the lions is moved in a Four Paws cage so it can begin its new life in Jordan. The international animal charity previously admitted it dealt with some 'very bad men' to negotiate the safe passage of the last nine animals out of the Aleppo zoo

Pictured: One of the lions walking around in his new home after being freed from Aleppo's 'Magic World' zoo

Most of the animals will now stay at the Jordanian animal sanctuary near Amman but both tigers will be taken to a specialised rescue centre in the Netherlands.

Meanwhile, the group is looking for a suitable home for the two dogs, who are husky-mix.

'Nothing stands between the animals from Syria and a better future,' said Heli Dungler, the founder and president of the Austria-based Four Paws.

Pictured: A scarred lion is seen in a cage in Bursa, Turkey last month after it was rescued from Magic World zoo in Syria

Pictured: A charity worker feeds one of the hyenas in its new home in Jordan

Pictured: Sultan, one of the tigers from the zoo in Aleppo, is shown being washed in a cage before being released into the Jordanian sanctuary in Jerash, near Amman

After the war began in 2011 and fighting intensified in Aleppo, the zoo's caretakers were forced to abandon its inhabitants.

Khalil, who led the dangerous mission to rescue them, said: 'The ongoing war has taken its toll on the animals.

'The lack of water, food, and veterinary care has left the animals physically and psychologically traumatized. Several animals were killed by severe bombings. There was no way for them to escape from this deadly trap.'
Gemmel Moore, 26, was found dead in West Hollywood, CA on July 27

Homicide detectives have re-opened an investigation into the overdose death of a man at a prominent Democrat donor's home after receiving 'additional information'.

Speaking on Monday, LA County Sheriff Jim McDonnell refused to comment on the nature of the new information in connection with the death of Gemmel Moore on July 27.

He was found dead at the West Hollywood home of prominent Democratic donor Ed Buck.

LA County Coroner's office said Moore's death, as a result of an overdose of methamphetamine.

According to the LA Times, the initial investigation into Moore's death seemed to support the theory is death was not suspicious.

However, Captain Chris Bergner said the new investigation was being conducted 'out of abundance of caution'.

Yet, Mr Buck's attorney Seymour Amster maintained his client had 'nothing to do with this young man's death'.

Moore's mother LaTisha Dixon said she wants to find out the truth behind her son's death, claiming he had been working as a sex worker for several years.

Ed Buck (Pictured) has been a high-profile Democratic donor for decades (Pictured June 2015)

Buck pictured with California Governor Jerry Brown (Pictured November 2010)

'I called one of my sons friends and was like, "who the hell is Edward Buck?'" Nixon said, speaking from her home in Spring Texas. 'And my sons friend was like, "oh my God, thats that white guy, that wealthy white politician guy he was like "oh my God

A one-time registered Republican, Buck began getting involved in Southern California politics in the early 1990s.

Buck became a successful businessman, pioneering in computer technology, specifically in electronic information services, in Arizona before moving to Los Angeles.
Theresa May has flown back to Britain after ending her summer holiday but has arrived to more Brexit chaos in the country with David Davis clashing with top Eurocrats over a trade deal.

The Brexit Secretary called for a temporary customs deal with the EU after the UK leaves the EU and said securing an interim customs arrangement, lasting for two to three years, would be 'in both sides' interest'.

He also unveiled government plans to create 'streamlined' borders between Britain and the EU in the long term with as little 'friction' on trade as possible.

But ministers warned that Britain could slap EU goods with customs duties and VAT if no trade deal is struck after we quit the bloc.

Mrs May, due to return to work on Thursday, is already under pressure to end Cabinet infighting over Brexit.

Theresa May has returned to Downing Street, pictured, following a three-week summer holiday and will be expected to deal with more Brexit chaos

Staff helped unload the Prime Minister's bags today, pictured, and she is set to return to work on Thursday and is under pressure to end Cabinet infighting on Brexit

Chancellor Philip Hammond and International Trade Secretary Liam Fox attempted to settle their differences yesterday by penning a joint article setting out the Brexit plan.

They agreed Britain would leave the EU single market and customs union immediately upon Brexit in March 2019, and that there would be no attempt to stay in the EU by the back door.

Crucially, they accepted that the length of any transition period would be limited and that Britain would be free to negotiate trade deals with third countries.

But Mr Hammond enraged Brexit-supporting MPs over the summer as he appeared to freelance over the terms of transition while Mrs May was away.

Mr Davis' threat was set out in a position paper published today which details Britain's negotiating stance on the question.

He also insisted there was no chance of the UK agreeing a 'number' for the Brexit divorce bill this autumn.

But the European Commission said it would not talk about future trade until progress had been made on the divorce deal, while a senior MEP branded the UK position 'fantasy'.

The government paper sets out three options for the UK's long-terms customs arrangements with the EU bloc.

Interviewed on ITV's Good Morning Britain today, the Brexit Secretary said securing an interim customs arrangement would be 'in both sides' interest'

Mr Davis denied that the negotiations with the EU were shaping up badly, saying they were going 'incredibly well'

EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier jibed that a 'quick' deal on citizen's rights and the divorce bill would allow the talks to move on to trade

Under the first 'highly streamlined' option, ministers hope to use technology to create a system which will allow customs checks to be carried out within seconds.

Under this option, businesses moving goods over the British border would have to pre-notify ports of their arrival and pay any customs duties ahead of time online.

Ports will need a new IT system which has number plate recognition so they can wave through lorries carrying these imports.

And spot checks will be carried out randomly to ensure no one is cheating the system.

A second 'new customs partnership' scenario is the most ambitious, and would remove the need for a UK-EU customs border.

WHAT ARE THE GOVERNMENT'S PROPOSALS? Option 1 - 'highly streamlined' Ministers hope to use technology to create a system which will allow customs checks to be carried out within seconds. Under this option, businesses moving goods over the British border would have to pre-notify ports of their arrival and pay any customs duties ahead of time online. Ports will need a new IT system which has number plate recognition so they can wave through lorries carrying these imports. Spot checks will be carried out randomly to ensure no one is cheating the system. Option 2 - 'new customs partnership' This is the more ambitious of the proposals and aims to remove the need for a UK-EU customs border. One way of doing this would be for the UK to replicate EU tariffs on goods destined for the bloc's member states. Meanwhile, separate tariffs will be imposed on goods staying in the UK. Importers would be asked to pay whichever tariff is higher and then be refunded if their goods were sold on to a customer in a country with a lower tariff. But the goods would need to be tracked so the authorities and the businesses know they had been given the right level of tariff. Option 3: 'No deal' Britain has warned it could slap customs duty and import VAT on EU goods coming into Britain after Brexit unless a trade deal is done. The Government will bring forward a Customs Bill in the Autumn giving UK ministers the powers to draw up our own customs arrangements after we quit the bloc. The legislation is required in any case to ensure a new customs regime is in place after the expected departure in March 2019 as the UK leaves the jurisdiction of EU law. Advertisement

One way of doing this would be for the UK to replicate EU tariffs on goods destined for the bloc's member states, while separate tariffs will be imposed on goods staying in the UK.

Importers would be asked to pay whichever tariff is higher and then be refunded if their goods were sold on to a customer in a country with a lower tariff.

The goods would need to be tracked so the authorities and the businesses know they had been given the right level of tariff.

But the UK has warned that if no trade deal is struck it could put customs duty and import VAT on EU goods coming into Britain after Brexit.

The Government will bring forward a Customs Bill in the Autumn giving UK ministers the powers to draw up our own customs arrangements after we quit the bloc.

Speaking this morning, Mr Davis denied the negotiations were shaping up badly, saying they were going 'incredibly well'.

Mr Davis told ITV's Good Morning Britain: 'We sell them, the Europeans, about 230 billion euro of goods and services a year. They sell us 290 billion euro. So there are a lot of things there.'

Asked whether Britain would have to pay to stay in the customs union, he said: 'Well, I don't think ... well, what happens in that sort of interim period you will have to leave me to negotiate, I'm afraid, how we do it, but the aim is to bring to an end these huge 10billion-a-year payments, bring that to an end now.

'We are still haggling with them over what we may owe them in the short term but we are going to bring the overall thing to an end.

'This is something that is in both sides' interest. Now you are right, there will be political pushback and that's what the negotiations will be about.'

Mr Davis told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the transition period could last 'something like two years', but would definitely by over by the scheduled time of the next general election in 2022.

Challenged that the negotiations seemed to be going badly, he replied that they thought they were going 'incredibly well'.

Responding to the proposals, the EU stuck to its line that future trade arrangements would not be addressed until enough progress had been made on the 'first phase' - the divorce deal.

A Commission spokesman said: 'We will only address them once we have made sufficient progress on the terms of the orderly withdrawal.

Guy Verhofstadt, a senior MEP and the EU parliament's chief negotiator, tweeted: 'To be in & out of the Customs Union & 'invisible borders' is a fantasy. First need to secure citizens rights & a financial settlement

The government plans would allow the UK to begin 'negotiating bold new trade relationships around the world' as soon as the country leaves the EU in March 2019.

But he is asking Brussels to keep in place current customs rules that prevent goods having to be checked as they go between Britain and the EU for an interim period, which could last up to two or three years.

Such a deal, where the UK mimics the EU's tariffs and rules on customs, would give more time for a smooth switch to the new trading regime, which would benefit businesses on both sides of the Channel.

Ministers have been warned about the strain ports could be put under if they face a sudden increase in bureaucracy for dealing with goods entering and leaving the country.

WHAT IS THE EU CUSTOMS UNION? The customs union is a key element of the EU architecture. It means states have free trade with each other, and apply the same tariffs to imports from outside the group. Not all countries in the customs union are in the EU, however. Turkey is within the group but is not a member of the Brussels club. Brexiteers view the customs union as too restrictive on the UK because it does not permit members to strike their own trade deals with other countries. Advertisement

Ministers say that during the temporary customs arrangement, the country must be allowed to begin developing a trade policy that makes it 'more outward-looking than ever before' as soon as possible.

But under EU rules, member states are forbidden from striking their own trade deals with other countries.

The Government will insist that it is allowed to begin this work as soon as it leaves the EU, even if the current EU customs regime remains in place on a temporary basis.

But Brussels may put ministers under pressure to promise that these new deals will only come into force at the end of the interim period.

In the longer term, the government says it is seeking 'the most frictionless customs arrangement anywhere', with minimal checks and paperwork on goods going between the EU and UK.

One option being put forward by Mr Davis would see the UK manage a new customs border with administration streamlined to the 'fullest extent possible' using technology.

He will also float plans for a customs partnership with the EU that would negate the need for a customs border between the UK and the rest of the bloc.

Negotiations on future customs arrangements are not due to be discussed during the next round of Brexit talks to be held in Brussels at the end of this month.

The European Commission has said progress first needs to be made on agreeing the divorce bill before work can begin on the future relationship between the EU and UK.

The EU parliament's chief negotiator Guy Verhofstadt said the UK's proposals were a 'fantasy'

Mr Davis, pictured leaving Millbank studios after interviews this morning, said the EU and UK could come to an arrangement that would benefit both sides

But Downing Street said it was pushing forward with setting out its plans in order to help businesses both in Britain and across the continent.

The Prime Minister's spokesman said yesterday: 'We have had the first round of the negotiations and those talks have shown that many of the withdrawal questions can only be settled in light of the future partnership.

'So now is the time to set out our approach to that partnership to inform the negotiations and to provide citizens and business at home and across Europe with a deeper understanding of our thinking.'

STURGEON BRANDS CUSTOMS PLAN 'DAFT' Nicola Sturgeon has attacked 'daft' plans for a temporary customs union with the EU after Brexit. The Scottish First Minister said the government should abandon the proposal for an interim deal and instead commit to staying in both the single market and the customs union. Miss Sturgeon wrote on Twitter: 'Seems UK gov is back to its daft 'have cake and eat it' approach to Brexit. They should commit to staying in single market and CU, period.' Stephen Gethins MP, the SNP's Europe spokesman, earlier told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme: 'What we're calling for is for continued membership of the single market and the customs union. 'What the UK seems to want here at the moment is to have its cake and eat it.' Advertisement

Business leaders last night welcomed the Government's plan to minimise disruption to trade.

Josh Hardie, deputy director-general of the Confederation of British Industry, said he was encouraged that the papers propose a time-limited interim period and a customs system that is as barrier-free as possible.

He added: 'All efforts should be made to deliver a single-step transition, so that businesses don't have to adapt twice.'

But Labour MP Chris Leslie, a leading supporter of the Open Britain campaign group, accused ministers of 'wanting to have their cake and eat it'.

He said: 'It is a fantasy to pretend we can have the freest and most frictionless trade possible with our largest partner when the Government remain intent on pulling Britain out of the customs union.'

Downing Street last night announced that Theresa May will embark on a visit to Japan at the end of this month in a bid to boost Britain's post-Brexit trade.

The Prime Minister, who is currently in Switzerland on holiday, will be received by emperor Akihito and the Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe.

Mrs May will be accompanied on the trip by business leaders from a range of sectors.
A murder trial has heard how a failed asylum seeker in Germany butchered his beautiful refugee helper girlfriend known as the 'Angel of Ahaus' after she broke off their relationship.

Nigerian Anthony I, 28, killed student Soopika Paramanathan, 22, out of jealousy, said prosecutors at a court in Muenster.

Anthony I bought a large suitcase in which he intended to stuff her body and dump it into a lake after he stabbed her repeatedly in the street.

Pictured: Soopika Paramanathan, 22, who a German court heard was murdered by ex-lover 'Anthony I' after he became jealous because she ended the relationship

The accused refused to speak at the first day of his trial yesterday where judges heard how he came to Germany in 2015 claiming to be a homosexual who had fought against the Boko Haram terror group in his homeland. Both claims were false.

In the town of Ahaus he met Soopika who spent all her spare time helping out refugees like him at a local asylum seekers' home.

They met in August last year and became lovers. But Soopika ended the relationship after just a few weeks - a rejection that Anthony I was unable to handle.

'He could not bear the thought of her going with another man,' said the prosecution.

Pictured: 'Anthony I', 28, who is accused of lying during his asylum application before killing his former girlfriend out of jealousy when she ended the relationship

He lay in wait for her in February this year after she visited a friend's house in Ahaus. With a long bladed knife he leapt upon her, stabbing her repeatedly in the head, neck and breasts.

She tried to fight back with a pepper spray that she aimed at her attacker's eyes - to no avail.

She was raced to the local hospital but died shortly after arrival from massive blood loss from over 50 stab wounds. Soopika, who had moved to Germany from Sri Lanka with her family, had lived in Ahaus for a number of years and wanted a career working with children.

According to reports, she was very popular, had many friends and loved playing the piano and violin in her spare time.

Police chief Herbert Mengelkamp quickly focused in on Anthony I, whose asylum application was in the process of being rejected by authorities.

Pictured: A still from a Boko Haram video showing the head of the group, Abubakr Shekau, in 2015. Anthony claimed to have fought against the dreaded organisation but prosecutors allege he was lying

Her father Sivasamboo, 53, said; 'She felt threatened by him and was fearful in the days before the attack.'

He tried to stuff her body into the blue suitcase at the crime scene but fled when passersby saw him. He fled to Switzerland but was caught two days later by police at Basel railway station.

He is facing life imprisonment when an expected guilty verdict is handed down on September 20.

Soopika's lawyer Hans-Peter Maas said; 'She was a good person. On her birthday she sent gifts to homeless people in Sri Lanka.'
An aide to Donald Trump repeatedly tried to set up meetings with the Russian leadership - including President Putin - during the campaign, according to newly seen emails.

George Papadopoulos, a self-described oil and gas consultant, was a volunteer and foreign policy adviser with the Trump campaign.

In March 2016, according to the Washington Post, he sent an email to seven officials in the campaign with the subject line: 'Meeting with Russian Leadership - Including Putin.'

An aide to Donald Trump repeatedly tried to set up meetings with the Russian leadership - including President Putin - during the campaign, according to newly seen emails

The adviser, who has a Masters degree from University College London on Middle Eastern politics, proposed arranging 'a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss US-Russia ties under President Trump.'

In a March 2016 interview Trump even described Papadopoulos, a former researcher at the conservative Hudson Institute, as an 'excellent guy'.

However, concerns were raised by senior campaign officials including co-chairman Sam Clovis, adviser Charles Kubic and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

Manafort forwarded the email to an associate saying: 'We need someone to communicate that DT is not doing these trips.'

In March 2016, the adviser sent an email to seven officials in the campaign with the subject line: 'Meeting with Russian Leadership - Including Putin'

A spokesman for Manafort, Jason Maloni, told MailOnline: 'Mr. Manafort's swift action reflects the attitude of the campaign  any invitation by Russia, directly or indirectly, would be rejected outright.

'His request that the response come from a low level staffer sent a clear signal that the invitation did not merit consideration. This is concrete evidence the Russia collusion narrative is fake news.'

In total, the adviser made at least six attempts to have Trump or campaign figures meet up with Moscow officials.

The emails are among more than 20,000 documents turned over to congressional committees by the Trump campaign.

Congressional committees and a special counsel are investigating the conclusions of US intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election campaign by hacking and other methods to help Mr Trump, a Republican.

George Papadopoulos (pictured), a self-described oil and gas consultant, was a volunteer and foreign policy adviser with the Trump campaign

They are also looking into possible collusion between the campaign and Russian officials.

Moscow has repeatedly denied meddling in the election and Mr Trump denies any campaign collusion.

US special prosecutor Robert Mueller's office is also currently in contact with the White House about interviewing former and current senior staff at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

However, concerns were raised by senior campaign officials including co-chairman Sam Clovis, adviser Charles Kubic and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort (pictured)

Mueller is looking to speak to officials who may provide information, transcripts, notes and testimony on a number of issues, including insight on President Donald Trump's decision to fire former FBI Director James Comey in May.

The discussions may prove crucial as Mueller continues to investigate whether Trump obstructed justice in firing Comey.

Indications of Mueller's investigation intensifying was evident when he executed a warrant to search the Alexandria, Va., home of Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign chairman.

Mueller is also investigating allegations that the Russian government interfered with the 2016 presidential election to sway the vote into Trump's favor.
A group of daredevil teens ended up in the back of a police van after they climbed to the top of the tallest rollercoaster in the UK and filmed the entire jaw-dropping incident.

Rikke Brewer, 18, scaled the 'Big One' in Blackpool Pleasure Beach on July 22 with four pals for his YouTube channel that is dedicated to dangerous escapades.

In the dizzying video, the youths - all aged 18-20 - climb up the 65m high ride without any safety equipment before balancing precariously on top of the precipitous tracks with the skyline stretching out around them.

However, near the end of the footage they are seen making a run for it when the police turn up and an officer can be heard telling them to get down or they would 'get bitten by a dog'.

Rikke, from Surrey, said: 'It was definitely palm sweating and very nerve-wracking but once we got the flow of climbing up we got into it and enjoyed the view.

'I felt gutted when the police turned up but I'm strong minded so I knew we would be okay. I wasn't scared or worried. It is average and expected to happen.

'We chose this one because it is the highest rollercoaster in the UK and it looked quite 'narley' [intense] from the bottom.

'I love the beautiful views that I get from being on the high structures. I wanted to share the view and show our lives to the public.'

Rikke Brewer, 18, scaled the Pepsi Max 'Big One' in Blackpool Pleasure Beach last month on July 22nd with four pals for his YouTube channel that is dedicated to dangerous escapades

Panoramic views: The youths filmed their daredevil escapades on the rollercoaster

Rikke Brewe, an urban explorer, has been scaling buildings for two years and claims the best climb he has done so far is The Leadenhall Building in London

The urban explorer has been scaling buildings for two years and claims the best climb he has done so far is The Leadenhall Building in London but admits he won't reveal where is next on his list.

The 18-year-old has been vlogging full-time for seven months and hopes to scale the Statue of Liberty in New York one day.

Rikke said: 'I used to climb small structures when I was younger. I was a very hyperactive kid and as my life went on I met some people who were into scaling really big structured buildings and bridges.

'I met with them and I carried on doing it with them for about two years.

Rikke has vlogged full-time for seven months and hopes to scale the Statue of Liberty

Dizzying sights: Rikke said he only used to climb small structures when he was younger

'I was a very hyperactive kid and as my life went on I met some people who were into scaling really big structured buildings and bridges,' he said after scaling this enormous rollercoaster

'I love the beautiful views that I get from being on the high structures. I wanted to share the view and show our lives to the public,' Rikke said

'I have had a good response from my video. People enjoyed watching it and I enjoyed making it.

'I have had negative comments from people who don't agree with it but that's usually from older people after seeing it on the news.

'I understand where they're coming from but I don't like when they say nasty comments. Not everyone is perfect.'

A spokesperson for Blackpool Pleasure Beach said: 'At approximately 9.30pm on Saturday 22nd July, Blackpool Pleasure Beach's uniformed security detained a group of criminal trespassers. The police were called immediately and they were then handed over to the Lancashire Constabulary.'

A spokesperson for Lancashire Constabulary said: 'We were called at half nine on the evening of the 22nd of July following a report that a group of males had climbed the big one on Blackpool Pleasure Beach.

'We attended and spoke to those involved and gave them words of advice.'
Holborn Underground station has been evacuated after a 'loud bang' and smoke filled the platform today.

Witnesses described people running in fear after hearing the 'bang' around 9am at the central London tube station.

The incident happened due to a 'faulty' Central Line train and emergency services were called to the scene.

An evacuation was ordered with a tannoy repeatedly stating: 'Would Inspector Sands please go to the operations room immediately'  the code phrase to alert staff that there is an emergency.

It comes just four days after two people were taken to hospital following a fire on a train at Oxford Circus.

Witnesses described people running in fear after hearing the 'bang' around 9am at the central London tube station

A passenger said: 'There was smoke at one end of the station, a high pitched bang and a smell'

The incident happened around 9am due to a 'faulty train' and emergency services were called to the scene

Al Gwatkin, 43, from Chelsea, was getting off the Piccadilly line to transfer on to the Central line at Holborn when the incident happened.

'All of a sudden everyone came running out saying 'they've evacuated the station'.

'You don't know if it's terrorist-related. You're just like 'oh my God, get out of here'. There was panic down there. People were screaming,' he said.

A member of staff outside the station said there had been a problem with a train and emergency services were investigating.

A spokesman for the London Fire Brigade told MailOnline that the incident was caused due to 'an overheated compressor underneath a carriage on the train'.

Two fire engines, a police van and an emergency response unit were parked outside the station.

Passenger Sarah Marshall told The Telegraph: 'There was smoke at one end of the station, a high pitched bang and a smell.

'Lots of people ran but others encouraged people to walk and situation was calm. I was towards back of crowd.'

Nigel Holness, London Underground's Director of Network Operations said: 'At around 9.10am our staff were alerted to reports of smoke under a Central line train at Holborn.

'Our staff immediately contacted the emergency services, who attended and investigated the incident. The cause of the smoke was a fault on one of our trains and it has now been taken out of service.

'I apologise for the concern this would have caused our customers at Holborn this morning and for the disruption. The station reopened at around 10.05am and trains have been stopping there since.'

A TfL spokesman said that Holborn station was 'closed while we respond to a fire alert'

Holborn Underground station has been evacuated after a 'loud bang' and smoke filled the platform today

An evacuation was ordered with a tannoy repeatedly stating: 'Would Inspector Sands please go to the operations room immediately'  the code phrase to alert staff that there is an emergency

Last week, two people were taken to hospital after a fire broke out on a train during rush hour.

An electrical fault caused grey smoke to billow from a Bakerloo line train as passengers stood in dark, covering their faces with items of clothing.

Passengers fled Oxford Circus in panic as the train pulled into the station, filling the underground passageway with smoke.

Panicked passengers fled Oxford Circus after a train filled with smoke due to an 'electrical fault' last week

Evacuated: London's fire service investigated the incident after closing Oxford Circus station last week

Witnesses in the area described an acrid and chemical smell coming from the train like 'burning plastic'.

Oxford Circus station, which services London's busiest shopping street and sees thousands of commuters pass through it during the rush-hour, was closed after the incident.

Transport for London confirmed the fire was caused by an electrical fault and said a 'comprehensive investigation' will take place.
The right-hand man of a one-eyed German Nazi who oversaw daily torture and abuse of child slaves over three decades in Chile has been given a five-year prison sentence in Germany.

A court in Krefeld upheld a Chilean prison sentence of five years and one day for Hartmut Hopp - a German in his 70s - over abuses committed at the notorious Colonia Dignidad commune.

Hopp, a doctor, was a close associate of convicted paedophile Paul Schaefer, a former Wehrmacht soldier who in 1961 founded the commune where residents were indoctrinated and kept as virtual slaves over three decades.

A court in Chile convicted Hopp in 2011 of crimes including complicity in the sexual abuse of 16 minors but he fled to Germany before the final court ruling was imposed.

Pictured right: Hartmut Hopp with his wife. He has been jailed for five years and one day after being the right-hand man of notorious Nazi paedophile Paul Schaefer

Pictured left in 2005: Paul Schaefer, a one-eyed former Nazi soldier who founded the commune in 1961. Pictured right: Former Nazi corporal Paul Schaefer in an undated image

But the latest German ruling is not yet final as his lawyer has announced plans to appeal.

As head of the Nazi paedophile sect, Schaefer collaborated with the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

His secret police used the colony, about 215 miles south of the capital Santiago, as a place to torture and 'disappear' his opponents.

Germany last year said it was declassifying its files on the sect, and the foreign minister at the time, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, admitted that the diplomatic service had failed to stop the abuses.

Pictured: The Colonia Dignidad commune in Chile, which was the scene of child sex abuse for over thirty years

The scale of the atrocities came to light only after the end of Pinochet's regime.

For decades, the residents of Villa Baviera, initially called Colonia Dignidad, submitted to the authoritarian whims of Schaefer, who banned almost all contact with the outside world at the commune 210 miles south of Santiago.

Under his rules, men and women lived separately, intimate contact was controlled and children were split from their parents.

In 2006, former members of the cult issued a public apology and asked for forgiveness for 40 years of sex and human rights abuses in their community, saying they were brainwashed by Schaefer, who many viewed as God.

Pictured:A woman hangs up posters of missing people on the fence surrounding the sect's compound

Schaefer was born in Troisdorf, Weimar Germany, and joined the Hitler Youth movement at a young age.

He served as a medic in the German Army during World War II, where he reached the rank of corporal.

Last year prosecutors in Krefeld requested that his right-hand man Hopp serve out the prison term in his country of origin, in line with a Chilean request, and the court has now agreed.

The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights greeted the ruling, calling it a long-overdue first step 'in the resolution of the crimes of Colonia Dignidad, in particular rape and sexual abuse of minors'.

It warned that Hopp had already fled Chilean justice once and said that authorities 'must prevent a possible escape of Hartmut Hopp'.

Pictures show the first German settlers in Villa Baviera or Bavaria Village, formerly known as Colonia Dignidad

Schaefer disappeared on May 20, 1997, fleeing child sex abuse charges, filed by Chilean authorities after 26 children who went to the commune's free clinic and school reported abuse.

He was tried in Chile in his absence, and found guilty in late 2004.

He was discovered on March 10, 2005, nearly eight years after his disappearance, hiding in a suburb known as Las Acacias, 30 miles from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Following two days of negotiations between Chilean and Argentine authorities, Schaefer was sent back to Chile to face a court hearing. There, he was charged with being involved in the 1976 disappearance of the political activist Juan Maino, and he remained in custody until his death.

On May 24, 2006, he was sentenced to 20 years in jail for sexually abusing 25 children and was ordered to pay 1million to 11 minors whose representatives established suits.

He died aged 89 in a Chilean jail in 2010 while serving his sentence.
A lorry driver following his sat-nav down a narrow town lane was left red-faced after he lodged his vehicle carrying 10 tonnes of sugar between two houses.

Gloucester police had to divert traffic around Butcher Hill's Lane in Nailsworth for three hours as rescue teams desperately tried to dislodge the HGV.

After letting down the tyres to reduce the height of the vehicle, the lorry was able to roll out from between the houses, but not before causing structural damage to the one of the homes.

Gary Raw, who has promised to lodge an insurance claim for the damage against his home, said: 'They let the tyres down to reduce the height of the lorry, which I was told came from Avonmouth.

A lorry travelling down Butcher Hill's Lane became lodged after the driver who did not know the local area began following his sat-nav

The lorry was stuck for three hours and had to have its tyres let down before it could eventually be rolled out

'But they brought it forward instead of backing it up the lane and it caused the damage.

'People rely on sat-navs and don't use their eyes these days as much as they should.

'Annoyingly it scraped the house and knocked the overflow pipe off.

'I think the driver was shocked and embarrassed more than anything.'

The cost of the damage is not yet known, but homes along the scenic country lane can fetch anywhere between 150,000 to 385,000.

According to police, the other house involved in the collision is empty, but the landlady has been informed.

Inspector Jay Tiernan, of Gloucestershire Police, confirmed the driver did not know the local area and was using his sat-nav when the collision took place.

He added: 'It has caused some structural damage to the property. Some masonry has been disturbed, tiling and guttering has been damaged.

'What has led to this incident is the driver has followed satellite navigation and has gone for the quickest route.

Gary Raw, whose house was damaged by the collision, has vowed to claim on his insurance

'The satellite will direct you down roads which really aren't suitable for the vehicles that are trying to use them, and the driver wasn't aware locally of how narrow and steep that road was.'

A police spokesman said: 'We were called just before 12.55pm to reports that a lorry had crashed into a house.

'There are no injuries but the caller said the lorry was stuck between two houses.'

'The truck was finally freed at 3.30pm.'
The mother of a newborn baby found covered in ants outside an apartment building now faces up to 20 years in prison after being charged with child abandonment.

Sidney Woytasczyk, 21, dumped her newborn outside an apartment complex in Houston, Texas, according to police investigators.

The infant was discovered in the bushes outside the building on Thursday morning by a resident who heard her crying as he walked by.

Sidney Woytasczyk, 21, (right with DeAndre Skillern, who says he is the father) dumped her newborn outside an apartment complex in Houston, Texas, according to police investigators. Here she is pictured on June 24 - thought to be at least seven months pregnant

A disturbing video has been released showing the moment the baby was discovered dumped in a bush, covered in bugs and crying with her umbilical cord still attached.

The mother told police she had no idea she was pregnant before unexpectedly giving birth in the kitchen of her apartment.

Woytasczyk now faces up to 20 years in prison after being charged with child abandonment

In a press conference, Assistant Chief Armando Tello of Harris County Sheriff's Office said: 'A felony charge of abandoning a child and causing serious bodily injury has been filed against Sidney Woytasczyk, aged 21, which carries a maximum possible punishment of 20 years in prison.'

He added: 'This is a case that has really touched the hearts of everyone here at the Sheriff's Office.'

Lead Investigator Kimberly Thomas said: '[Sidney Woytasczyk] was scared and she did not know she was pregnant. The father has not been charged and we do not expect more charges.

'It's more than likely the baby would have died if no-one had found her in time.'

Meanwhile, Sargent Matt Ferguson pleaded with mothers to be aware of the Baby Moses Law.

An incredible video shows a man discovering a newborn baby girl who was dumped in a bush, covered in ants with her umbilical cord still attached

He said: 'If you have a child or are an expectant mother and your child is 60 days old or younger you have the opportunity to take that child to a fire station, a hospital or an emergency facility.'

The baby was suffering from a bacterial infection and rapid heart rate. She is now being treated at the neonatal ICU at Texas Children's Hospital but is in a good condition.

Video released on Friday shows the moment the shocked man found the newborn, saying in amazement: 'Somebody left their baby out here. I need to call 911.'

Deandre Skillern came forward as the father when he appeared in court after cops tracked him and the mother to their home at Cypress Creek apartments after following a trail of blood.

Skillern claims she had no idea that she was pregnant, and it appears that Woytasczyk didn't tell anyone about the baby, before she was discovered.

Even Woytasczyk's mom Tina, who attended court on Friday, revealed she didn't know her daughter was pregnant.

The baby was suffering from a bacterial infection and rapid heart rate. She is now being treated at a local hospital but is in a good condition

Graphic evidence was also presented to the court that showed that the umbilical cord was ripped, not cut out, which likely caused the baby girl's bacterial infection.

According to police, the mother dumped the baby around 11.30pm on Wednesday night, nearly six hours before the child was discovered, reported Click2Houston.

Harris County Deputy Thomas Gilliland said to the station: 'Had this neighbor not been here, we'd be looking at a homicide. It's a miracle the child was found.'

Albert Peterson was walking out of the apartment complex when he heard the baby crying around 5am on Thursday morning.

He found her lying in the soil of a flower bed, covered in ants and other debris. Her umbilical cord was still attached.

Peterson lifted the baby off the ground, cleaned and swaddled her and called police.

'Because how the child was found, the child was found unprotected, exposed to, almost to the brink of possibly being deceased,' prosecutor Dan-Phi Nguyen, with the Harris County District Attorney's Office, told ABC 13.

The couple, who have been together for at least a year, said they didn't realize Woytasczyk was pregnant (here they are pictured together in 2016)

Speaking to Channel 2, Peterson said: 'I heard something like a cat. She was there on the ground in the flower bed with ants.

'She was covered from head to toe and all in her ears... She had a lot of strength too. She was fighting.'

John Baldwin, who recorded the shocking video, added to the news station: 'I was like 'Hey, there's a baby outside on the sidewalk.' I was like, 'Call 911!''

When Harris County Sheriff's Officers arrived, they spotted a trail of blood on the ground. They followed it to an apartment door at the complex. Its residents at first refused to answer.

When they did allow police inside, a 21-year-old woman denied having any knowledge of the infant but then confessed that she had given birth to her an hour earlier.

Local police tracked down the 21-year-old mother by following a trail of blood that led them to her apartment's door

Neighbors questioned why the mother had left the baby outside the apartments when there is a hospital less than a block away

Neighbors questioned why the mother had left the baby outside the apartments when there is a hospital less than a block away.

The baby girl was taken in to the custody of child protection services.

Deandre has now taken a DNA test and is awaiting the results. But he has told the court he is sure he is the father and hopes to get custody, as does the baby's maternal grandmother Tina.

The newborn will remain in the hospital's custody until custody proceedings are finished, Child Protective Services said on Friday.

Although people have begun contacting the agency wishing to adopt the little girl, the department is not at that point yet.

Parents who want to give up their babies in Texas can do so without fear of prosecution as long as they follow the Baby Moses Law.

The rules state the child must be under 60 days old, unharmed, and taken to a designated 'Safe Haven' which can be any hospital, fire station or emergency medical services station in Texas.

However, it is unlikely that Woytasczyk would be protected by this law after her baby was abandoned in a bush, and left to the elements.
U.S. President Donald Trump walks to his office from Marine One as he returns to the White House in Washington D.C., the United States, on Aug. 14, 2017. [Xinhua/Yin Bogu]

Are we facing a nuclear war in the Asia Pacific region? This is the question repeatedly being asked these days, and it's not surprising. The last few days have been most jarring, with bewildered experts trying to make sense of it all and wondering how things could get so bad.

To begin with, North Korea, facing overwhelming U.N. sanctions, universally condemned by the Security Council, even by its supposed allies Russia and China, now stands isolated in the world, which is only increasing its bellicosity and lead it to continue missile test launches.

Then President Donald Trump stepped up to declare: "North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury the like of which the world has never seen."

Even in the context of Trump Tweets, the words were extreme, and not the type of language one hear from a head state or in the diplomatic community at large. It later transpired that he'd made the statement without consulting any of his aides.

They caught everyone by surprise, with Senator John McCain saying in an interview: "The great leaders I've seen don't threaten unless they're ready to act and I'm not sure President Trump is ready to act."

Trump's words only incited further hostility from North, including a threat to launch missiles at the strategic American island of Guam in the mid-Pacific.

If you want an American voice of reason on North Korea, listen to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, or Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis. Consider carefully the latter's statement that "the DPRK must choose to stop isolating itself and stand down its pursuit of nuclear weapons.that would lead to the end of its regime and the destruction of its people."

He also said, "The DPRK regime's actions will continue to be grossly overmatched by ours and it would lose in any arms race or conflict it might initiate."

The two most important words are the last two, indicating three things.

First, the huge firepower of the United States is only for deterrent purposes. America has no interest in using military means to seek regime change, and it is ready for regime acceptance and wants to negotiate.

Second, that, in any material or territorial threat to America or its allies in the region, there will be overwhelming retaliation, regardless of the presence of any other great power in the region, such as China and Russia. The U.S. is still the biggest military giant in the region, dwarfing every other power in the theatre of conflict.

Third, conflict, can only be initiated by North Korea, as U.S. has no interest in such a course; should a conflict be initiated by the DPRK, it is doomed. Mattis and Tillerson are reading from the same page in this regard, showing the administration's adults are thinking.

They are also a hint, not just to North Korea, but to China.

These are trying times for everyone in the region, and that also includes Japan and the Republic of Korea, who both feel threatened.

The U.S. navy is involved in Freedom of Navigation Operational Patrols (FONOPs) in the Asia Pacific region. Amidst the unfolding multifaceted conflict, a bombastic leader like Trump is a liability, as words and miscommunication are the chief cause of conflict.

As the U.S. lacks a direct line of communication and channel to North Korea, reading between the lines has become necessary, and is the only way to soothe tensions in jingoistic times.

It is therefore imperative, to understand the meaning of threats. Trump, as everyone knows, speaks without thinking much. That's his style. What we have to pay heed to are the words of the actual adults under Trump such as Mattis and Tillerson.

Miscommunication leads to war. And war in Asia today will be a thousand times more catastrophic than all the conflicts in the last two decades combined.

Sumantra Maitra is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/SumantraMaitra.htm

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors only, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
Handfuls of blue dogs are turning heads on the streets of Mumbai, local animal protection officers report.

Their change in appearance has been linked to the pollution of a local river where the animals swim and look for food.

Industrial waste is being pumped into the Kasadi River in Navi Mumbai, next to the Maharashtra state capital in Western India, and the water has long been deemed unfit for human consumption.

Smurf dog: Several blue dogs have been spotted on the streets of Navi Mumbai and Mumbai in Western India following the pollution of a local river

Animal protection officers are now urging local officials to act on companies dumping waste in the river after an increase in reports of blue dogs.

'It was shocking to see how the dog's white fur had turned completely blue,' animal protection officer Arati Chauhan said.

'We have spotted almost five such dogs here and have asked the pollution control board to act against such industries.'

Officials have been made aware of the problem and a water quality test has since been carried out in the area, local news reports.

Dye job: The colour of the animals' fur has been blamed on untreated industrial waste being released into the Kasadi river nearby

Contaminated: The local pollution control board has ruled the waste treatment was 'inadequate', with high levels of toxic chloride in the Kasadi river

Bad drink: The water in the Kasadi River in Navi Mumbai, next to the Maharashtra state capital has long been deemed unfit for human consumption

Studies quoted in local newspapers have also showed that the overall pollution levels in the area had been raised by 13 times the 'safe limit'.

Yogesh Pagade, a local fisherman in the area said: 'After numerous complaints to MPCB over the years, only the stench at Kasadi has reduced. However, the pollution levels continue to be extremely high.'

A complaint has now been registered with the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) saying that animals in the area are suffering as a result of the waste.

MPCB officials have since replied saying they are investigating.

A spokesman said: 'Allowing the discharge of dye into any water body is illegal. We will take action against the polluters as they are destroying the environment. We have directed our sub-regional officer to investigate.'
A 12-year-old girl from China who gave birth to a baby in secret has abandoned the newborn girl in the bushes in the city of Yibin.

The baby, who was found last Friday, has been taken to the hospital and is healthy.

Local police has confirmed that the baby's mother is a primary school pupil and is one of the 'left-behind' children in China, whose parents have moved away from them in order to seek work in the cities.

The newborn girl was found deserted by the side of a road in Yibin, China, on Friday

The baby was taken to a hospital for health inspection (left) and is in a healthy condition (right)

The baby girl was confirmed to have no deformities or worrying signs of health

CHINA'S 'LEFT-BEHIND' CHILDREN More than nine million children have been 'left behind' in China's countryside by parents who have moved to its towns and cities to find work, according to figures released by Chinese authority in 2016. The plight of such children, who are usually looked after by grandparents but sometimes have no guardians at all, is one of the most emotive consequences of China's decades-long economic boom. Hundreds of millions of migrants have moved from rural areas to take jobs in urban centres, where their children would have limited access to schooling and healthcare under China's household registration system, forcing them to be left with relatives. They sometimes see their mother and father only once a year. Advertisement

According to Chinese news website The Paper, the baby girl was found in the Nanxi district of Yibin, a city in Sichuan Province, on the night of August 11.

She was spotted in the bushes by the side of a road under a highway bridge.

The baby was immediately taken to the Nanxi Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine for a health inspection.

Paediatricians said the girl had been born prematurely, but they were unable to take her body temperature because it appeared to be too low at the time.

She was given intravenous fluid and placed in an incubator to keep warm.

Other examination results of the baby showed no worrying signs of health.

Local Red Cross centre also sent volunteers to look after the baby girl.

The Nanxi police found the baby's mother on August 13, according to The Paper.

The police said the mother is a 12-year-old schoolgirl, nicknamed Xiao Min, who lives in a nearby village.

Volunteers and residents of the city came to see the baby as they wanted to offer help

Red Cross volunteers came to look after the little girl and gave the baby milk

Local officials told the reporter that Xiao Min was a 'left-behind' children whose parents live and work in another city.

Apparently, Xiao Min's parents brought her 13-year-old brother with them, but left her to live with the grandparents.

Xiao Min's class teacher and her grandparents were said to be unaware that the 12-year-old girl was pregnant.

In the past few days, the hospital has received donations from the public who learned the news through media and wanted to help the baby.

The public have donated money (left) and life necessities (right) to the baby girl

The baby's mother is a 12-year-old girl who lives in a nearby village, according to the police

Good Samaritans have given money and life necessities to the little girl.

The newborn girl was transferred from the Nanxi Hospital to the No. 2 People's Hospital of Yibin on August 14 and currently remains there.

It is believed that the hospital would send the baby to an orphanage when her health condition stablises.

Police officers are investigating how Xiao Min, a fifth-grade pupil, had become pregnant. The officers have not ruled out the possibility of raping.

The baby will be sent to an orphanage to be taken care of when her health condition stablises

The so-called left-behind children, such as Xiao Min, is a worrying social issue for China.

According to the Chinese authority, more than nine million children have been 'left behind' in the countryside by their parents who have moved to its towns and cities to find work.

The children are often brought up by their grandparents. Most of them only get to see their parents once a year, usually around the Lunar New Year.

Concern rises as such underage, left-behind children have been found involving in crime or committing suicide.

In 2015, four siblings aged between five and 14 who had been left unattended by their parents for months committed suicide by drinking pesticide in the remote southwestern province of Guizhou, reported Chinese media.
The former agent of the British model allegedly kidnapped in Italy today revealed the 'chilling' moment when he realised she had been taken in a fake photoshoot.

Phil Green received an email from Chloe Ayling's captors calling themselves the Black Death group saying that he would have to raise ransom money in four days.

And the agent told the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme how seeing a photo of her lying unconscious advertised for auction 'frightened the life' out of him.

Phil Green, the former agent of Chloe Ayling, told the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme that he received an email from her captors who called themselves the Black Death group

Miss Ayling is said to have been drugged and transported in a bag to a village near Turin, where she was held for six days as her captors tried to auction her online.

She was allegedly injected with ketamine after being lured to a fake shoot in Milan before being bundled into a car and told she was going to be sold as a sex slave.

Chloe Ayling was allegedly injected with ketamine after being lured to a fake shoot

Mr Green said he was initially contacted by Miss Ayling's mother who raised concerns that her 20-year-old daughter had not returned from the shoot in Milan.

The agent from Supermodel Agency said he thought her flight could have been delayed or she could have decided to fly on to another shoot she had in Ibiza.

He added: 'Then the next morning came and we checked - she actually wasn't on the flight, the phone was ringing still with an overseas ringing tone, and we kind of thought still that she could possibly be on her way to Ibiza.

'But I said to her mother 'look, I think you'd actually better inform the police'. She went to Croydon police station and told everybody there.

'It wasn't until just after 10am on July 12, the day after the shoot, when I opened my email inbox I found something incredibly sinister and worrying.

'It was the first email contact from someone on behalf of the Black Death group, saying to me, chillingly, that they'd taken Chloe and I was to find some ransom money for her.'

These pictures were emailed to her agent and used to advertise her for sale on the dark web

The email to Mr Green said who the group were and gave the names of three UK businessmen, and said he was to contact them to raise some ransom money.

Miss Ayling said she was bundled into a car and told she would be sold as a sex slave

He added: 'At that stage no figure was mentioned as to what they wanted. But there was a deadline - the deadline was four days later on the Sunday, when they were going to say if you don't pay any money by then we're going to offer Chloe to auction where she may be sold to Russian mafia.

'My first thought was to ring the police in Italy. I then rang the British consulate in Milan, because I knew there was a consulate there.

'They took it extremely seriously, rang the Foreign Office special crimes division who then contacted me to discuss the details of what had happened.

'And then I was contacted by my own force, special operations from East Midlands, where I'm based, who came to the office because this is the place where I'm receiving the emails, and they then took over the case.'

Miss Ayling, of South London, tearfully told of her experiences on ITV's This Morning yesterday

He continued: 'The very next day, more or less the same time, three emails came through simultaneously. They were just sort of ratcheting up the pressure.

Miss Ayling received 200,000 worth of offers of work when she returned to the UK, Mr Green said

'One email was from supposedly a different person saying 'are you aware Chloe's been taken?' The second email contained two attachments.

'In the attachment was a press release, saying 'this is Chloe Ayling, she is aged so and so, her measurements are blah, blah, blah, and she will be offered to auction this Sunday'  more or less saying 'express your interest in this now'.

'Then the other attachment, slightly more serious, was a photograph that had been taken of Chloe. I took a very brief look at, I must admit I didn't identify her from the brief look I had at the photograph.

'In fact, it frightened the life out of me  I didn't want to look at it any further. It turns out on that photograph was Chloe, she'd been photographed while unconscious. I was told later that it was at the studio when she was taken.'

Miss Ayling received 200,000 worth of offers of work when she returned to the UK but has since moved to a new modelling agency, according to Mr Green.
A stowaway survived almost two hours in sub-zero conditions after clambering aboard the front landing gear of a passenger jet about to fly from the Dominican Republic to Miami.

The Dominican national, who has not been named, was spotted climbing down the landing gear by police after the American Airways Airbus A321 landed in Miami on Saturday.

An investigation has been launched as to how the man was able to evade airport security at Las Americas International Airport and make his way airside to the parking stand.

The stowaway managed to survive for almost two hours at sub zero temperatures and low oxygen levels while the American Airline Airbus A321, pictured on an earlier flight, flew from the Dominican Republic to Miami after climbing up the aircraft's front landing gear, circled

The man managed to evade security at the Las Americas International Airport, pictured

The man avoided getting crushed by the aircraft's landing gear when it retracted moments after lifting off from the Dominican Republic.

Within 15 minutes, the aircraft was passing 22,000 feet and reached its cruising altitude of 34,000 feet within half an hour of departing. The aircraft spent an hour at its cruising altitude, where temperatures inside the wheel well would plummet while the level of oxygen would also fall to dangerously low levels.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Mike Silva said Monday the man was a Dominican national.

Silva said Miami-Dade Police spotted him exiting the wheel well after American Airlines flight 1026 from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, landed Saturday at Miami International Airport.

Police detained the man, whose name wasn't released. Silva said he was medically cleared, processed as a stowaway by federal authorities and returned to the Dominican Republic.

The man was spotted after arriving at Miami Airport by police as he climbed down the aircraft's landing gear and was arrested. He was assessed by medics before being returned home

The man spent more than an hour at 34,000 feet in sub zero temperatures with little oxygen

Silva said local and federal authorities searched the plane and cleared it to resume normal operations.

Airline spokesman Ross Feinstein said the airline was reviewing the incident with Las Americas International Airport officials.

According to research by the Federal Aviation Administration, people stowing away in the landing gear face temperatures of -65F.

One paper claimed: 'Despite the lack of pressurization, or personal O2 equipment, the presence of warm hydraulic lines in the wheel-well and the initially warm tires provided significant heat.

'The stable climb of the aircraft enabled hypoxia to lead to gradual unconsciousness. As the wheel-well environment slowly cooled, hypothermia accompanies the deep hypoxia, preserving nervous system viability.

'With descent, and warming, along with increasing atmospheric oxygen pressure, hypoxia and hypothermia slowly resolved.

'At the ramp, with individuals were found in a semi-conscious state, and, upon treatment, recovered.'

Hypoxia or oxygen deficiency normally sets in from about 10,000 feet and would quickly render a person unconscious.

An October 1996 report by the US Federal Aviation Administration, 'Survival at High Altitudes: Wheel-Well Passengers', documents five survivors between 1947 and 1993.

Three of them were teenagers, one aged 13 and two aged 17.

In April 2014, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation said a 16-year-old boy survived a five-and-a-half hour flight from California to Hawaii at altitudes of up to 38,000 feet.

In October 2007, a 27-year-old man was charged with entering Singapore without a valid pass or permit, after stowing away on a 35-minute flight from Kuala Lumpur.

American Airlines said it is reviewing the situation with the airport in Santo Domingo.
There are fears a serial animal killer may be on the loose in Sydney's west, with more than 20 beloved family pets being brutally murdered over the past month.

'Honey', a small Jack Russell Terrier, is just the animal latest to be savagely mutilated and tortured in the front yard of a home in Werrington, west of Sydney, last week.

With the brutal cuts leaving the dog's internal organs visible and her back leg barely hanging on, her long time owner Diane Newham was left understandably distraught.

And now, after taking to social media to plead for help to find those responsible, the Newham family have discovered dozens of other family pets have also been killed in similar acts of brutality.

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There are fears a serial animal killer may be on the loose in a western Sydney suburb with a pet dog called 'Honey' (pictured) just the most recent animal to be brutally tortured to death

Slipping out through the family's front gate, Ms Newham said she didn't know Honey was even missing until a screaming neighbour came running down the road.

Left shocked by the gruesome death of her beloved pet, she revealed the toll it had taken on her and her family.

'I can't sleep, I just keep thinking about what her last moments must have been like,' Ms Newham told Nine News.

'The vet said it was not a possum or any sort of animal attack... he was particularly interested in her back leg, where it looked like someone had tried to cut it off.

'He said the cut was too clean and too straight, he suggested something like a stanley knife would have done that.'

Ms Newham's daughter has taken to Change.org in the days since the dog's death to call for help in finding the pet's killer. And it turns out she's not the only one.

A fortnight ago a number of ducks were found decapitated on a roadside, while last Friday a total of 16 cats were drowned and dumped in bushland in a nearby suburb.

And in another sickening attack, a cat belonging to a Werrington local was tortured to death after being kidnapped from her owner's backyard.

CCTV footage captured the moment Honey left her owner's home out the front gate, minutes before meeting a grizzly death

The 14-year-old Jack Russell Terrier is believed to have been attacked with a knife that left her organs visible and her back leg barely hanging on. There have been reports of similar attacks

'Ginger', a much loved cat belonging to Lauren Sedaca, was discovered dumped and with stomach cut open on the side of the road 20 kilometres from home.

Taking to Change.org to also start a petition to find the brutal animal killers, she said her beloved family pet was just one of 'several dozen' to be attacked.

'She is only one of several dozen cats to recently be abducted, tortured and brutally murdered before being thrown from a car onto the roadside like she is nothing!' Ms Sedaca wrote.

'There have been reports of a man sighted attempting to abduct cats in our local area... this monster needs to be stopped!'

St Mary's police are investigating Honey's death, but said they were yet to receive word of any other animals being brutally murdered in the local area.
A 52-year-old man was bashed by a group of thugs at the front of his own home with metal poles.

Shocking footage reveals the moment three men try to break into Gary's home in Dundas Valley, west of Sydney, with one man throwing a steel grate through a living room window while another man tries to kick down the front door.

Shirtless Gary rushes out of his home, only to be brutally bashed by the gang armed with a metal pole.

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52-year-old man was bashed by group of thugs at front of his own home with metal poles (pictured)

One man threw a steel grate through the living room window of Gary's home in Dundas Valley, west of Sydney, before the three men brutally bashed him

Confronting footage shows the moment the three thugs beat the 52-year-old at his home

'I had ten staples in my head from when I got hit by the weapon ... it was scalloped,' Gary told 9NEWS

The 52-year-old can be seen trying to defend himself before he collapses onto the ground, where one of the thugs continue to beat him with a pole.

The confronting footage shows Gary was left lying on his front steps with blood pouring out of his smashed scalp.

'I had 10 staples in my head from when I got hit by the weapon... it was scalloped,' Gary told 9NEWS.

The 52-year-old received three fractured ribs, fractured neck, fractured shoulders and was stabbed in his right arm leaving him in Westmead Hospital for five days.

Parramatta District Court documents reveal the brutal attack came after an altercation earlier that day at a nearby building site.

The men involved are currently serving time behind bars.

Gary (pictured) received three fractured ribs, fractured neck, fractured shoulders and was stabbed in his right arm leaving him in Westmead Hospital for five days

One man, Hamza Maarabani, allegedly struck Gary 12 times with a metal pole while a second man, Zaid Tabeek, punched him in the head before they all fled.

The offenders are currently serving time in jail for the attack which took place on January 10, 2016.

Hamza Maarabani was sentenced to four years and seven months jail with no parole and Tabeek received three years.

The other two men involved, Zac Maarabani and El-Hasaan, received two years and one year and two months behind bars respectively.

Gary is wanting a review of the sentences.
Killed: Kanya Devi, 40, was murdered by her family who believed she was a 'witch'

An Indian woman has allegedly been tortured to death by members of her own family - including two teenage girls - because they believed her to be a 'witch'.

Kanya Devi, 40, was subjected to horrific abuse, which is said to have included her being stripped off her clothes, forced to eat faeces and burned on a firepit, before having her eyes gouged out with burning embers and a hot rod.

Ms Devi, a widow from the village of Kadera, Ajmer District, Rajasthan State, Northern India, died from her injuries, with the accused family members then burning her body to hide evidence, local police say.

Five people, including Ms Devi's niece and nephew, have now been arrested in connection with her death.

However, police say they have a tough burden of evidence as her remains have already been cremated.

Ms Devi's 15-year-old son is said to have witnessed the attack, but was ordered not to report it to the police by a village elder.

The village elders had allegedly 'absolved' the perpetrators by forcing them to take a 'holy dip' in a nearby river and be on cow-feeding duty, but had threatened outraged members of Ms Devi's family with social boycott if they reported the matter to police.

Horrifying: Her killers are said to have stripped off her clothes, forced her to eat faeces and burned her on a firepit, before having her eyes gouged out with burning embers and a hot rod

The matter came to police attention when Mahadev Regar, a relative and local activist, went to the funeral, and called police when he learned how Ms Devi had died.

A police spokesman said: 'On August 8, Mahadev lodged a complaint but we were waiting for a complaint by a close relative. After her 23-year-old daughter Maya Devi submitted a complaint, we lodged a report on Sunday.'

Police superintendent Rajendra Singh said: 'She was badly tortured. The accused have admitted to forcing her to eat faeces, lashing and burning her.

In custody: Two of the five people arrested are teenage girls - Ms Devi's niece and a neighbour

Arrested: Police say that while the accused claim they were rightfully ridding the community of a 'witch' their true reason was so they could get their hands on Ms Devi's property

'Five of the six accused, booked for murder and under relevant sections of the Rajasthan Prevention of Witch Hunting Act, have been arrested.'

The accused have been named by officers and include Kanya's niece Pinky, her nephew Mahaveer and neighbour Sonia.

An activist in the area, Tara Ahluwalia said: 'They claimed that they were asked to beat Kanya as she was a witch. But the real reason was property.

'Kanya's husband recently passed away and since her son is a minor, her husband's relatives conspired to get rid of her and grab her land.'

The accused have been arrested on suspicion of murder, causing the disappearance of evidence, two charges of witch hunting and causing the unnatural death of a woman.
A desperate Chinese father is begging the doctors and the public to help him save his critically ill baby.

Du Zhiying, 30, is pictured kneeling in front of his son's doctor to beg him not to stop the medication after he was no longer able to pay the medical bills.

Mr Du has run into heavy debts, including 50,000 yuan (5,800) from loan sharks, in order to save his seven-month-old child, Du Yiwei, who suffers from several severe brain diseases.

Heart-broken Du Zhiying begs a doctor not to give up treating his critically ill baby in Shanghai

Little Yiwei, who is seven months old, was diagnosed with Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy at birth, a type of brain damage caused by a lack of oxygen in the brain

Yiwei's mother breaks down in tears after knowing they couldn't afford the treatment for Yiwei

According to Chinese media, Mr Du comes from Fentai Town, Taihe County, in eastern China's Anhui Province. He used to be a farmer, and is now a migrant worker.

Mr Du and his wife welcomed their son Yiwei in January.

THE FACTS: WHAT IS HYPOXIC ISCHEMIC ENCEPHALOPATHY? Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy (HIE) is a condition that usually occurs when newborn's brain is starved of oxygen due to asphyxia. HIE can be fatal. Within as little as five minutes of oxygen deprivation, cerebral cells can begin to die which can seriously affect brain function. The disease can also cause long-term damage, including intellectual disability, delayed development, seizures, and cerebral palsy. While it is most commonly associated with newborn babies, it can, in some circumstances, affect adults as well. Causes can include complications at birth, Carbon monoxide or cyanide poisoning, drowning, drug overdose, smoke inhalation, high altitudes and heart attacks. Advertisement

However, the baby was diagnosed with Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy, a type of brain damage caused by a lack of oxygen in the brain.

After being treated for around two weeks, little Yiwei was discharged from the hospital and went back home with his parent.

Three months later, the baby's condition seemed to have worsened. Mr Du said he had serious diarrhoea and was constantly in a near-sleep state.

Mr Du and his wife took little Yiwei to several hospitals in Hefei, the provincial capital, and afterwards to metropolitan Shanghai to seek medical attention.

Doctors in Shanghai Children's Medical Centre claimed Yiwei suffered from several serious brain diseases, namely meningitis, brain herniation and hydrocephalus.

Dr Bao Nan, Yiwei's surgeon, suggested Yiwei undergo surgery immediately.

In order to afford the operation, Mr Du borrowed 80,000 yuan (9,250).

The operation appeared to be successful and Yiwei was taken back to Taihe County after two weeks.

But just a dozen days later, Yiwei had severe diarrhoea and high fever. His parents rushed him back to the hospital in Shanghai, a 400-mile trip from their hometown.

Mr Wu said he was being chased by loan sharks but he had to find more money to save his son

The 30-year-old migrant worker looks after his son in the hospital ward in Shanghai

The baby underwent two brain operations in the space of a month and is now in intensive care

The baby was given a second operation on August 2 and remains in intensive care.

Mr Du said in order to save his son, he had borrowed a total of 200,000 yuan (23,131) from various sources, including 50,000 yuan (5,782) from loan sharks.

Mr Du said he was being chased by loan sharks every day but he couldn't pay back the debts and had to look for more money to save his son.

On August 12, a desperate Mr Du went to beg his son's doctor to carry on treating his son so that the baby would have a chance to survive.

Dr Bao Nan said Yiwei would need several more operations and long-term medication. According to Mr Du, the doctor told him to prepare 50,000 yuan (57,827) for to cover the medical bills.

Yiwei's mother takes care of her baby boy who has several serious brain diseases

The public have stepped in to help Mr Wu and his family so little Yiwei could be saved

With no other choices, heart-broken Mr Du went to a charity organisation, China Charities Aid Foundation for Children, for help.

A volunteer helped the father set up an online fund-raising page (in Chinese) so that the public could save little Yiwei.

So far, the page has raised 214728.03 yuan (24,834), nearly half of the money required by the hospital.

According to the charity organisation, the donations would be spent on treating Yiwei and covering the baby's life necessities.
Craig Mackinlay, 50, arrived at Southwark Crown Court in London this morning with his wife Kati, as his trial date was set for next year

A Tory MP accused of fiddling his expenses in the 2015 General Election campaign is set to stand trial next May.

Craig Mackinlay and his team allegedly failed to declare expenses during the party's campaign to win the seat when he beat former Ukip leader Nigel Farage.

The 50-year-old politician secured a majority of nearly 3,000 in South Thanet, Kent, beating Mr Farage after a tense campaign with 38 per cent of the vote.

But Mackinlay and his team allegedly did not declare spending on hotel rooms and advertising materials for Tory party staff, activists and volunteers.

Mackinlay, from Ramsgate, arrived at Southwark Crown Court in London this morning with his wife Kati, wearing a grey suit, blue tie and white shirt.

He is yet to enter pleas to two counts of a candidate knowingly making a false declaration of his election expenses.

Mackinlay, from Ramsgate, Kent, is yet to enter pleas to two counts of a candidate knowingly making a false declaration of his election expenses

Mackinlay and his team allegedly failed to declare expenses during the party's campaign to win the seat when he beat former Ukip leader Nigel Farage

Nathan Gray, 28, is yet to enter a plea to one count in relation to his role as Mackinlay's election agent.

Senior Tory campaign director Marion Little, 62, is yet to enter pleas to three charges, two connected to aiding and abetting Mackinlay in his alleged wrongdoing, and one connected to Gray.

Mr Justice Anthony Edis said: 'I will fix the trial for M14 with an estimated length of six weeks.'

Mackinlay faces two counts of a candidate knowingly making a false declaration of his election expenses.

Mackinlay and his team allegedly did not declare spending on hotel rooms and advertising materials for Tory party staff, activists and volunteers

Mackinlay arrived at Southwark Crown Court wearing a grey suit, blue tie and white shirt

In 2015, Mackinlay (right) beat Nigel Farage (left) into second place with a majority of almost 3,000, taking 38 per cent of the vote. Comedian Al Murray (centre) also stood in the election

The first charge covers the period from December 19, 2014 to March 29, 2015. The second relates to spending between March 30 and May 7 in 2015.

Gray, of, Hawkhurst, Kent, faces one count over the same law in relation to his role as Mackinlay's agent.

Little, of, Ware, Hertfordshire, faces three charges, two connected to aiding and abetting Mackinlay in his alleged wrongdoing, and one connected to Gray.

All three were released on bail until a preliminary hearing at Southwark Crown Court on November 13.
Animal rights activists have reacted with horror after forest rangers killed a female bear that mauled a 70-year-old hiker in Italy's Dolomites mountains.

The bear - known as 'KJ2' - was shot dead in Trentino province on Sunday out of 'absolute necessity', according to the area's governor, who said it had also attacked people in 2015.

It badly mauled Angelo Metlicovec on July 22 last month after he encountered the bear with her cubs near Lamar Lakes.

Animal rights activists have reacted with horror after forest rangers killed a female bear that mauled a 70-year-old hiker in Italy 's Dolomites mountains. The animal - known as 'KJ2' - is shown earlier in August after it was tranquilized

The bear badly mauled Angelo Metlicovec (left) on July 22 last month after he encountered the animal with her cubs near Lamar Lakes

Ugo Rossi, the governor of the region, explained why he gave the order for the killing.

He was quoted in The Local as saying: 'When the danger rises beyond a certain threshold, we have to proceed in putting down the animal to ensure people's safety.'

But infuriated members of the the Italian Association for the Defence of Animals and the Environment (AIDAA) have begun a campaign to dissuade tourists from visiting the area, which is popular with European tourists for its ski resorts.

Pictured: KJ2 when she was captured in 2015

In a statement, the organisation said: 'So far we have hear of about 30 cancellations of houses and hotels affecting some 100 tourists who have decided not to pass their holidays in Trentino after the barbaric killing of the bear.'

Posters pushing for a boycott of the area have already begun to appear on road signs.

World Wildlife Foundation vice president Dante Caserta, meanwhile, said that the beat 'should not have to pay for human errors'.

He added: 'We encouraged the province not to proceed with the killing, because it is useless and without return, but obviously political pressures have been stronger than common sense.'

But Mr Rossi, quoted in The Telegraph, insisted the bear was 'very dangerous'.

He said: 'She had already attacked a day tripper two years ago. Better this way than having a child wounded.

'I don't want to gloat but big carnivores have to be put down, it happens all over the world.'

The victim of the bear attack - Mr Metlicovec - said that despite believing the bear wished to kill him after ripping a chunk out of his arm and attempting to rip open his throat, he was baffled as to why it wasn't merely 'taken away' rather than shot.

The bear population in the area is thought to be about 50 after a reintroduction plan in the early 2000s.

Pictured: A sign for Trentino featuring the posers urging tourists to avoid the area because of the bear's killing
Xiamen, a coastal city in East China's Fujian province, is China's most popular destination for graduates to visit in 2017, according to a ranking list released by biaozhun007.com, an evaluation institute, and travel platform Mafengwo.com.

Xi'an, capital city of Northwest China's Shaanxi province, and Sanya, South China's Hainan province, ranked at second and third respectively.

The list is based on popularity for graduates, number of hostels and scenic spots. The top 10 tourist destinations are as follows:

No 10 Dunhuang

For more than a millennium, Dunhuang in northwest China's Gansu Province has been a meeting point of East and West. Its special significance in the story of humanity lies in its position as a cosmopolitan hub where the four major cultural systems of China, India, Greece and India met and collided.
This is the moment a university student desperately begged paedophile hunters not to report him to police after being caught trying to meet an underage boy for a second time.

Cheuk Kiu Chan, 25, originally from Hong Kong but studying at Northumbria University, admitted two counts of attempting to meet a child following grooming but was still spared jail despite it being his second offence.

He thought he was meeting a 15-year-old boy he had met online at his university accommodation but it turned out to be members of Dark Justice, a group of vigilante paedophile hunters.

Dark Justice filmed Cheuk Kiu Chan, 25, attempting to meet a boy, 15, who he had met online

When Dark Justice confronted him outside his student accommodation in Gateshead on April 29 and said he would be arrested by police, Chan put his hands together and begged 'no please, please give me a chance'

Chan was filmed putting his hands together and begging 'no please, please give me a chance' after he was exposed on April 29 this year.

He also told the group on camera 'I really didn't want to do anything' and claimed he only wanted to 'chat' and 'meet friends'.

He was previously caught trying to meet another underage boy by a different paedophile hunting group, Guardians of the North, two weeks earlier at the same location.

Judge Robert Spragg sentenced Chan to a three year community order and ordered him to take part in a sex offenders programme.

He was also told to abide by a sexual harm prevention order and sign the sex offenders register, both for five years.

Chan was previously caught by Guardians of the North but carried on speaking to the fake account online

Chan admitted two counts of attempting to meet a child following grooming at Newcastle Crown Court

A spokesperson for Dark Justice said: 'He was caught twice, once by Guardians of the North and once by us.

'He was being cautious the second time and wanted videos from the decoy. He had already been under investigation.

'We are worried he will go somewhere else and do it again.

'A community order for a period of three years is nothing, it's not really punishment.'

A Guardians of the North spokesperson added: 'It's a damn disgrace. You can understand getting a community order for one offence but for two it's taking liberties.

'The judges at Newcastle Crown Court are playing russian roulette with our children. It's not on at all, it's a disappointing result.

'The fact he's still able to sit in university and continue with his studies, it's unbelievable.'

A Northumbria University spokesperson said: 'The University takes this matter extremely seriously and immediately put appropriate safeguarding measures in place in response to his initial arrest.

'The University is following its internal processes and taking appropriate action. No further comment will be made at this time.'
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From the Hawker Hunter to the Gloster Javelin, a series of fascinating photographs has revealed the previously top-secret evolution of British fighter jets since 1950.

Aviation expert Tony Buttler has chronicled the design and performance of the jets since the Cold War was at its peak, with the unusually shaped De Havilland Sea Vixen among the early designs pictured.

His book, British Secret Projects: Jet Fighters since 1950, is a follow-up to the 2000 release of the same name and shows planes such as the Bristol 188 supersonic research aircraft and the English Electric Lightning fighter.

Many of the designs included in Mr Buttler's book published in June were previously unseen before its release, because military plans remain top secret for at least 30 years before they can be released to the public.

Mr Buttler said: 'It has been a fascinating exercise to retrace my steps from 18 years ago, when I started work on the first edition, and bring it up to date. A huge number of fighter projects were drawn by British aircraft manufacturers across the period 1950 to 1990, in particular prior to the 1957 White Paper.

'But with few turned into hardware relatively little had been published about most of them until the arrival of the first edition of this book. One reason for this was that all the military brochures remained classified once a winner was chosen and many copies were destroyed as secret waste.

'Any survivors could not be released for public scrutiny until at least 30 years had passed. But I was delighted to find that my enthusiasm for these designs is as strong as ever, and I hope readers will also find them just as stimulating.'

The XF828 was a prototype of the DH110 Sea Vixen, a two-seat, twin-boom and radar-equipped fighter built three years after another model of the same aircraft crashed at the 1952 Farnborough Air Show, killing the flight crew and 29 spectators

The English Electric supersonic interceptor and jet fighter first flew in 1954 and its climb was likened to 'a pilot sitting on two rockets'. Model XA847, a P1B variant, is pictured. The planes saw service in the Cold War to defend the V-Force airfields

Hawker Hunter production aircraft WW593 was a tactical reconnaissance variant known as FR10, a model used during the Radfan Campaign during the 1964 Aden Emergency against insurgents trying to overthrow the Federation of South Arabia

The XF923 was the first rolled-out version of the Bristol 188, which carried out engine tests in April 1961. The tests highlighted problems with the intake and the afterburner, which resulted in a year of changes before the first flight was made

Another photo of the XF828 DH110 Sea Vixen, a model which carried out carrier flight deck suitability trials including catapult launches and arrester hook landings in June 1955. The first production aircraft flew nearly two years later in March 1957

An early production photo of a Hawker Hunter, the type of aircraft involved in the Shoreham Airshow crash in 2015. The transonic plane was first developed in the years after the Second World War. They have also been used by RAF display teams

The Supermarine type 562 pictured above was an interceptor and strike development in the mid-1950s of the Supermarine Scimitar, a fighter aircraft operated by the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm which was used in service from 1958 to 1969

A Gloster Javelin XJ125 soars above the skies. The FAW8 model of the twin-engined T-tailed delta-wing plane was used for missle trials and is known for having an improved, drooped, wing leading edge and autostabiliser to improve handling

The XA847 was the first P1B version of the English Electric Lightning. Aviation experts see this important because its shape was much closer to that of the final Lightning aircraft than the earlier P1As. The plane first attained a speed of Mach 2 in 1958

The ZF534 is significant for being the sole Experimental Aircraft Programme aircraft in the 1980s, as part of the development of a new agile air superiority fighter which formed the basis for the Eurofighter Tycoon. It first flew in August 1986

The Supermarine Swift prototype VV119 is famed for starring as the experimental Prometheus jet engine in the 1952 film Sound Barrier. Modifications after its testing in real life included creating a longer, pointed nose and larger fuselage diameter

A Saunders-Roe P121 hydro-ski Naval Fighter. The unusual aircraft was fitted with retractable skis which were said to be lighter than the undercarriage of a normal landplane fighter - but the concept was eventually rejected by officials in 1951

The Sea Vixen is a British twin-boom, twin-turbojet fighter that flew from Royal Navy aircraft carriers in the Sixties and Seventies. With a crew of two, it could manage a top speed of 690mph and had a range of 600 miles with a 48,000ft ceiling

The XF923 - the first Bristol 188 to fly - took to the air in 1962, which was eight years after it was first ordered. The plane was put into storage soon after to provide various parts that kept the second Bristol 188 aircraft, the XF926, flying
Pictured: Supermodel Shlomit Malka, who was in a serious condition after her accident

An Israeli supermodel and TV host has been left with serious injuries after falling off an electric scooter in Tel Aviv.

Shlomit Malka, 23, was given 'life-saving' treatment as she lay unconscious on the side of the road after her nightmare crash.

The model - who has done shoots for Ralph Lauren, Chanel and L'Oreal as well as hosting Israel's version of 'The Voice' - is now in a hospital after doctors rated her condition as non-life threatening.

But according to a paramedic quoted in the Jerusalem Post, she was 'urgently evacuated' to a hospital while in a 'critical and unstable' condition.

Ya'arit Oren, from the Magen David Adom service, said: 'We gave her life-saving medical treatment, including medication and anesthesia.'

It is unclear whether she was wearing a helmet at the time of her accident.

Police said they are investigating the cause of the crash but witnesses reportedly said she slipped on a wet path that had been sprinkled by an automatic grass-watering system.

Malka was sedated and put on a respirator before she was sent to Ichilov Hospital's Intensive Care Unit, police added.

The battery-powered scooter - or E-bike - on which she was riding is capable of reaching speeds of over 27mph.

Pictured left and right: Israeli supermodel Shlomit Malka, 23, who is in hospital after her crash in Tel Aviv
Six members of a people-smuggling gang are facing jail after attempting to smuggle Albanian stowaways into the UK in the boot of their cars.

Lee Anderson, 46, and Jason Cowley, 44, were caught with three people, one of who is a child, at the border in Coquelles, France, in March 2015.

Months later, a car driven by Gillian Barker, 47, was stopped at the same controls and Border Force officers found two Albanian men hidden in the boot.

A car driven by Gillian Barker, 47, was stopped at the same controls and Border Force officers found two Albanian men hidden in the boot

Immigration Enforcement's Criminal and Financial Investigation (CFI) team linked both smuggling attempts to three further individuals.

On October 13, 2015, officers searched the homes of Ilir Hani, 44, Eduart Karaj, 39, and Vullnet Karaj, 41, whose travel and telephone records connected them to the failed smuggling bids.

Investigations also showed that Eduart Karaj and Vullnet Karaj were following Anderson and Cowley in a separate car at the first detection to make sure it got through safely.

The car used by Barker had also previously been driven by Karaj and Karaj on March 12, 2015 when in convoy with Anderson and Cowley and was previously owned by Vullnet Karaj.

Hani, Karaj and Karaj were all arrested on suspicion of conspiring to facilitate illegal immigration.

Eduart Karaj, Jason Cowley, Lee Anderson and Gillian Barker all entered guilty pleas at the beginning of a trial Canterbury Crown Court in Kent on August 7 and 8.

Ilir Hani and Vullnet Karaj pleaded not guilty but were convicted on Monday following the five-day trial.

They will all be sentenced on September 18.

Lee Anderson, 46, and Jason Cowley, 44, were caught with three people, one of who is a child, at the border in Coquelles, France, in March 2015 (above is a stock image)

Assistant director David Fairclough from Immigration Enforcement Criminal and Financial Investigation said: 'It is clear that this gang tried to organise these smuggling attempts to line their own pockets and gave little or no thought to the safety of the people, including a child, crammed into a confined space.

'This was a coordinated effort by the gang but our officers worked tirelessly to sift through the evidence that uncovered their criminal enterprise.

'I hope that this case serves as a warning to anyone else contemplating this kind of criminality. We will catch you and bring you before the courts.'

Cameron Bryson, acting deputy director Border Force South East and Europe, said: 'Border Force officers are at the forefront of keeping our borders safe and secure. The detections by our officers in this case meant that they stopped this organised crime gang in their tracks.

'We will continue working with our CFI colleagues in the fight against organised criminal networks.'
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A mystery man as bought an 83,000 acre Colorado ranch which includes a 14,000 foot mountain and more than 100 miles of fisheries for $105 million.

The Ceilo Vista ranch - which is Spanish for View of Heaven - also includes eighteen peaks of at least 13,000 feet and thousands of elk, deer and a heard of Rocky Mountain Big Horn sheep.

According to details in the sales brochure, 80 per cent of the area is covered in forests.

The property includes a 14,000-ft mountain and 18 peaks in excess of 13,000 feet

The Cielo Vista ranch is one of the largest private properties in North America

The ranch is described as one of the largest private properties in north America

According to details in the sales brochure, 80 per cent of the area is covered in forests

According to the Denver Post, Jeff Hubbard, listing broker for the property released a statement claiming the new owner was 'absolutely ideal'

According to the Denver Post, Jeff Hubbard, listing broker for the property released a statement claiming the new owner was 'absolutely ideal'.

In a statement, he said: 'He is one who is a true conservationist and is deeply committed to preserving this national treasure and extraordinary resource. He truly appreciates and embraces the responsibility of ensuring this property remains a reflection of our states beautiful landscapes, diverse wildlife and heritage for decades to come.'

Ken Mirr, whose sale agency advertised the $105 million ranch said one-third of the land cannot be developed due to a conservation agreement.

He added: 'They certainly will not be developing it or anything else other than fixing it up and maintaining it and being very involved in stewarding that property.'

The property is home to a herd of Rocky Mountain Big Horn sheep, pictured

The property also offers some amazing hunting and fishing opportunities

The selling agent produced a video to market the magnificent property

According to the property's listing by the Mirr Ranch Group , the ranch 'is one of the largest, most pristine private properties in North America'

It adds: 'Alpine terrain gives way to large stands of pine, spruce, fir, aspens, and meadows'

According to the property's listing by the Mirr Ranch Group, the ranch 'is one of the largest, most pristine private properties in North America. Descriptions of Cielo Vista need not be laden with embellishments and hyperbole. This is, quite simply, an opportunity to own one of the most distinctive properties in the West.'

The 14,053-foot Culebra Peak is the highest privately owned mountain in the world.

It adds: 'Alpine terrain gives way to large stands of pine, spruce, fir, aspens, and meadows. The ranch is home to thousands of elk, and bighorn sheep roam the propertys high country peaks and glacial basins.

'Over 100 miles of creeks in multiple drainages provide habitat for several species of trout, including pure strains of the Rio Grande cutthroat. Resplendent with its beautiful forest canopy, miles of creeks, imposing peaks and ridgelines, meadows and aspen groves, it is impossible to fully convey the grandeur of this property.'

The listing says: 'Over 100 miles of creeks in multiple drainages provide habitat for several species of trout, including pure strains of the Rio Grande cutthroat'

It goes on: 'Resplendent with its beautiful forest canopy, miles of creeks, imposing peaks and ridgelines, meadows and aspen groves, it is impossible to fully convey the grandeur of this property'
A Flybe flight to Hamburg was forced to return to Birmingham Airport because of a suspected faulty landing gear.

The Germany-bound aircraft had taken off from the British airport on Monday afternoon but had to return when the suspected defect was spotted.

After the landing, the aeroplane - which was carrying 56 passengers - was towed from the runway.

A Flybe flight (pictured, file image) to Hamburg was forced to return to Birmingham Airport because of a suspected faulty landing gear

The BE7109 flight eventually landed in Hamburg just before 7pm, two hours after the planned arrival time.

A Flybe spokesperson confirmed: 'Flybe can confirm that the aircraft returned from airborne due to a suspected technical fault with the aircraft following a cockpit indication alert relating to the landing gear.

'The pilot carried out the necessary precautionary procedures and the aircraft landed safely without incident.

'As is standard procedure, the airport put its emergency vehicles on standby.

The Germany-bound aircraft had taken off from the British airport (pictured, file image) on Monday afternoon but had to return when the suspected defect was spotted

'As a precautionary measure, the aircraft was towed to stand where all 56 passengers disembarked as normal.'

The spokesman added: 'All passengers have now continued their flight on another aircraft.

'The safety of its passengers and crew is the airline's number one priority and Flybe apologises for any inconvenience experienced.'
A seven-month-old girl diagnosed with severe pneumonia is fighting for life in a Bali hospital.

Baby Almeera, from Perth, was rushed to hospital on Wednesday with a high fever and now she is unable to breath on her own.

The pneumonia has caused inflammation around her heart and possibly will need to be monitored with blood transfusions the rest of her life.

Baby Almeera (pictured) was rushed to hospital on Wednesday with a high fever and breathing complications

Her parents are facing huge costs to transport their daughter from Bali back to Perth

Her father, Daniel, and Indonesian mother Sonia, who live in Bali, were devastated to find her medical expenses were not covered under their insurance.

The baby girl's parents are also facing huge costs to transport their daughter from Bali back to Perth.

'She is unable to breath without oxygen and she stopped breathing three times in one night,' the GoFundMe page set up for her states.



'She has under gone a blood transfusion and they are doing further tests to investigate if she has a genetic blood disorder called Beta Thalassemia, which requires a specialist consultant.'

The pneumonia has caused inflammation around her heart and possibly will need to be monitored with blood transfusions the rest of her life

If Almeera needs testing and further medical help they will need to travel to Australia for the assistance which will put her family under immense financial strain.

The page urges donations to assist her parents, who run a bar and grill in Bali, as they do their best to help their daughter.

Any left over funds will be donated to the Princess Margaret Hospital for Children in Perth.
A 10-month-old baby suffered second-degree burns to about 40 per cent of his body after a Sydney man left him alone in a bath with the hot water running while he went to smoke a cigarette.

Atare Tepania then pushed a bottle with such force into the boy's mouth it bled, and struck him at least once, according to court documents.

The 24-year-old on Tuesday pleaded guilty in Penrith Local Court to reckless grievous bodily harm and assault occasioning actual bodily harm in November 2015.

Atare Tepania (pictured) on Tuesday pleaded guilty in Penrith Local Court to reckless grievous bodily harm and assault occasioning actual bodily harm in November 2015

A 10-month-old baby (pictured) suffered second-degree burns to about 40 per cent of his body after a Sydney man left him alone in a bath with the hot water running while he went to smoke a cigarette

According to the agreed facts, Tepania left the baby in an unplugged bath with the hot water running while he left the room to smoke a cigarette and check his mobile phone.

The boy's skin was peeling by the time he returned.

Tepania then grabbed him by one arm only and dropped him on the tiled floor.

He placed the screaming baby on a bed and poured cold water on him before trying to feed him a bottle of formula.

'The accused repeatedly pushed the bottle with sufficient force to cause injuries to the inside of the victim's mouth,' the court documents state.

'Upon doing so he saw blood coming from inside the victim's mouth.'

Atare Tepania (pictured) then pushed a bottle with such force into the boy's mouth it bled, and struck him at least once, according to court documents

The infant also suffered a fractured elbow and was hospitalised for 26 days (police pictured at the scene)

When the baby kept screaming Tepania struck him at least once causing injuries to his face and head.

The infant also suffered a fractured elbow and was hospitalised for 26 days.

Police later observed skin on the shower floor and bathroom door and blood stains on a bed, towel and carpet, the court papers reveal.

Tepania, who tested positive for methamphetamine, told officers he was 'hungover ... really bad' and had 'f***ed up'.

'I don't know what I was thinking, I don't know ... not thinking straight today,' he said.

A doctor said the boy's burns could have been fatal but he expected a good prognosis and no need for long-term follow-up.

Tepania is scheduled to face a sentence hearing on October 6.
Shadow trade minister Bill Esterson suggested that Britain could stay in the customs union in the long-term

Labour was today hit by fresh Brexit chaos after a shadow minister said Britain could stay in the EU customs union - contradicting his boss who described it as a 'disaster'.

Bill Esterson, shadow trade minister, said the issue would be up for negotiation in talks with Brussels.

But his suggestion flies in the face of remarks made by his boss, shadow international trade secretary Barry Gardiner, who said staying in would be a 'disaster'.

Tory MP for Lewes, Maria Caulfield, said Labour 'just don't have a clue' on one of the most important issue of our time.

The customs union is a trade agreement across the EU which allows companies to exchange goods freely without tariffs, while they agree to levy the same tariffs on goods coming in from outside the union.

In a paper published today, the Government said it wants to keep current customs rules that prevent goods having to be checked as they go between Britain and the EU for an interim period of up to three years.

But in a torturous interview this morning, Mr Esterson failed 11 times to precisely spell out what Labour's position on the issue is.

Asked on BBC Radio 4 Today programme what his party's position is, he said Britain will need 'access' to the customs union for a transitional period to 'keep the goods flowing across the border'.

Quizzed about whether this could be kept in the longer term, he said 'that's what we have got to negotiate, isn't it?'.

LABOUR'S CONFLICTING POSITIONS ON THE CUSTOMS UNION Jeremy Corbyn: 'We have to make a judgment, we haven't jumped on either side of the fence  Sir Keir Starmer: I think we should actually leave the option of the customs union on the table.' Barry Gardiner: 'I just want to point out the issues around the customs union, we leave the customs union because only member states of the European Union are members of the customs union.... 'It's a disaster.' Advertisement

He was given a grilling over his party's shambolic position on the crucial Brexit talks.

A number of Labour frontbenchers have given conflicting positions on the crunch talks.

Their Brexit chief Sir Keir Starmer said the option should be left 'on the table' while Jeremy Corbyn said the party has not 'jumped either side of the fence' yet.

Presenter Justin Webb said the party appears 'fundamentally split' on the Brexit talks.

But again Mr Esterson attempted to sidestep the question, and said: 'No Labour's position has been clear all along, we are committed to getting the best possible deal for the economy and for jobs.'

He was pressed again over who has won the argument inside Labour ranks - Sir Keir or Mr Gardiner.

The presenter, Justin Webb, asked: 'But does that mean being in the customs union or out of it, because Barry Gardiner says it would be a disaster to stay in it (and) Keir Starmer says we might stay in it. Which is it to be?

In a rambling answer, Mr Esterson tried to talk about Turkey's trade arrangements with the EU be fore finally turning to Britain.

Bill Esterson suffered a car crash interview in which he repeatedly failed to say if Labour would try to keep Britain in or out of the customs union. In a four minute exchange in which he was asked 'yes or no' if his party wants the UK to stay in or out he was left tongue-tied

He said: 'Well thats why you negotiate it, isnt it, and at the moment we have got a Conservative government, I mean, if they cant deal with it, perhaps they'll step aside and let us get on with it.'

In a later car crash interview with BBC Radio 5 Live, Mr Esterson was again left floundering when he was asked if Labour would leave the customs union or not.

The shadow minister repeatedly tried to dodge the question and just said Labour would try to keep the exact same relationship with the customs union as now  but refused to say if this would be membership.

The journalist, Emma Barnett, accused the Labour frontbencher of not understanding his own partys position over the issue.

She said: I dont understand, and I dont think you understand either.

I need a clear answer for listeners, if Labour were in power in March 2019, are we in or out of the customs union at the end of that month?

Mr Esterson replied: We will have the same relationship with the customs union and the single market to avoid disruption to business

Labour's position over Brexit has been chaotic. Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer (pictured left) has said the option of staying in the customs union should be kept on the table in Brexit talks. But shadow international trade secretary Barry Gardiner (pictured right) said staying in it would be a disaster

Ms Caulfield said: 'This is one of the biggest issues that our country faces and Labour just don't have a clue.

'The man that could be running our trade negotiations if Labour were in charge can't give people a straight answer - Labour simply aren't up to the job of getting the best deal for the UK.'

Meanwhile, Brexit Secretary David Davis today called for a temporary customs deal with the EU after Brexit - and refused to rule out paying into Brussels coffers in return.

The Brexit Secretary said securing an interim customs arrangement would be 'in both sides' interest'.

Mr Davis said the setup would 'probably' last two years.

He also insisted there was no chance of the UK agreeing a 'number' for the Brexit divorce bill this autumn.
President Trump began his Tuesday by retweeting  and then quickly deleting  a Twitter user calling Joe Arpaio a 'fascist,' as the president continued to show support for pardoning the controversial sheriff.

Trump briefly retweeted @MikeHolden42 who had commented, 'He's a fascist, so not unusual,' to a Fox & Friends report the president had also retweeted, linking to the Fox News exclusive in which the president said he might pardon Arpaio.

On Sunday, Trump had talked exclusively to the right-leaning television network  as other news reporters were being kept away  telling Fox, 'I am seriously considering a pardon for Sheriff Arpaio.'

'He has done a lot in the fight against illegal immigration,' Trump continued. 'He's a great American patriot and I hate to see what has happened to him.'

In late July, the former Maricopa County, Arizona, sheriff was found guilty of criminal contempt for violating a 2011 court order in a racial profiling case, brought to the courts by a group of Latinos, by continuing patrols that targeted immigrants.

President Trump bizarrely retweeted a Twitter user responding to the president and calling Sheriff Joe Arpaio a 'fascist.' He then quickly deleted it

Former Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio (left) could receive President Trump's (right) first presidential pardon, the POTUS told Fox News on Sunday

President Trump retweeted the report revealing he was contemplating pardoning the sheriff on Tuesday morning - and then retweeted a response calling Arpaio a 'fascist'

Joe Arpaio (left), who served as sheriff to the greater Phoenix area for more than two decades, supported President Trump (right) during the Republican primary, and they both claimed President Obama was born outside the United States

Judge Susan Bolton wrote in her decision that Arpaio knew of the court order, but showed a 'flagrant disregard' for it, according to CNN.

'Not only did defendant abdicate responsibility, he announced to the world and to his subordinates that he was going to continue business as usual no matter who said otherwise,' Bolton wrote.

Arpaio's defense attorney blamed his previous counsel saying the lawyer 'dropped the ball' by not explaining the order clearly to the sheriff, nor reaching out to the judge who ordered it for further explanation.

Federal prosecutors countered that Arpaio defied the order purposely, believing he could get away with it.

Arpaio will be sentenced on October 5 and could face up to six months in jail, unless Trump intervenes.

Trump told Fox that the pardon, if he decides to go through with it, could come over the next few days.

'I might do it right away, maybe early this week,' Trump said. 'I am seriously thinking about it.'

Arpaio appeared alongside Trump on the campaign trail last year, as they both moved to eradicate illegal immigration.

They also both prescribed to the 'birther' conspiracy theory, which suggested President Obama was born outside the United States.

Obama was born in Hawaii.

'Is there anyone in local law enforcement who has done more to crack down on illegal immigration than Sheriff Joe?' Trump mused to Fox News on Sunday, as other journalists covering the president were kept away.

The president was taking heat for not directly calling out the white supremacists who wreaked havoc on Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend, leaving one counter-protester dead.

On Sunday, the president stayed off Twitter and his pool of reporters was kept away.

Finally on Monday afternoon, Trump condemned the various hate groups who marched in the Virginia town.

'Racism is evil,' Trump said. 'And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.'

Trump critic Walter Shaub, the ex-director of the Office of Government Ethics, connected Trump's announcement of a potential Arpaio pardon with his sluggish response to condemn the white supremacists, according to the Hill.

'Scrambling to reassure the white supremacists and nazis that he didn't really mean what he said to the "normies" today...' Shaub tweeted, linking to Politico's story about the Arpaio pardon being in the works.

Arpaio was on the job for more than two decades, in the top law enforcement job in the county that includes Phoenix, Arizona.

He was known for constructing a tent city to house convicts, forcing them to wear underwear and bringing back chain gangs.

'He has protected people from crimes and saved lives,' Trump told Fox News of the former lawman.

While Trump was taking the White House, Arpaio lost his race last November to serve a seventh term.

Speaking to Fox about a potential pardon, Arpaio said he would welcome it.

'I am happy he understands the case,' the former sheriff said. 'I would accept the pardon because I am 100 percent not guilty.'
 Flash

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra filed a lawsuit Monday morning against the Trump Administration over its threats to withhold public safety funds from so-called "sanctuary" cities.

This suit answered U.S. Attorney General Jeff Session's threat to withhold appropriated 28.3 million U.S. dollars in law enforcement funding grants to California unless the Golden State police grant the federal government full access to their stations and arrest records.

Trump Administration took an "unconstitutional attempt to force California law enforcement officials to engage in federal immigration enforcement, rather than allow them to use their discretion to determine how best to keep their communities safe," a press release issued by California Attorney General Office read.

"By placing unconstitutional immigration enforcement conditions on public safety grants, the Trump Administration is threatening to harm a range of law enforcement initiatives across California" the press release cited Recerra's words, "We will fight these unlawful federal actions that would make California less safe."

"Sanctuary" is used for cities that do not permit police or municipal employees to inquire about one's immigration status, or for funds to be applied to enforce federal immigration laws.

U.S. President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order on Jan. 25 seeking to withhold federal funding for so-called "sanctuary jurisdictions". U.S. Department of Justice issued a directive last month warning nine local governments may lose federal funding because of their "sanctuary" policies.

The nine governments on the blacklist includes Chicago, the state of California, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, Clark County of Nevada, Cook County of Illinois, Miami-Dade County of Florida, and Milwaukee County of Wisconsin.

Both Trump' s Executive Order and Session's threat have been the subject of legal challenges. Chicago launched a suit over this issue last Monday, California and San Francisco followed the step.

Becerra and San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera, who filed a parallel lawsuit Monday on behalf of the city, announced the suits at a press conference together, arguing that "It's our right and it's our duty to fight to protect our law enforcement officers...and to protect the resources that they rely upon."

"We're in the public safety business," Becerra added, "We're not in the deportation business."

Political experts pointed out one of the reasons that these states and city governments being targeted by Trump administration because they are all Democratic stronghold places.

"Sanctuary cities are located in traditionally blue states," Californian Blogger Rick Gage told Xinhua earlier, "Maybe it is time for these blue states to start withholding tax dollars from a federal government which only seems to spend, foolishly, on walls and wars that guard against imaginary enemies."
A Swiss hotel that posted signs telling Jewish clients to shower before using the pool and restricting their access to the facility's freezer has unleashed outrage and official complaints from Israel.

The Paradies apartment hotel in the Alpine village of Arosa in eastern Switzerland is being accused of anti-Semitism after an outraged guest posted to Facebook a picture of a notice plastered outside the hotel pool.

'To our Jewish Guests, women, men and children, please take a shower before you go swimming,' it said, adding that 'If you break the rules I'm forced to (close) the swimming pool for you.'

A Swiss hotel is facing calls for a boycott after it asked Jewish guests to have a shower before and after going for a swim at a pool, claiming it will be closed if they fail abide by the rules

A Swiss hotel posted signs telling Jewish clients to shower before using the pool

A second notice, in the kitchen, meanwhile instructed 'Our Jewish guests' that they could only access the facility's freezer between 10 and 11 am and between 4:30 and 5:30 pm.

'I hope you understand that our team does not like being disturbed all the time,' it said.

The story quickly made the rounds on social media and was published by Israeli papers, prompting a harsh reaction from Israeli officials.

Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely described the incident as 'an anti-Semitic act of the worst and ugliest kind.'

Israel's ambassador to Switzerland, Jacob Keidar, reportedly contacted the hotel and informed Hotovely the signs had been removed.

But she was not satisfied and has reportedly demanded 'a formal condemnation' from Bern.

Swiss foreign ministry spokesman Tilman Renz told AFP in an email that the ministry had been in contact with Keidar and had 'outlined to him that Switzerland condemns racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination in any form.'

Paradies manager Ruth Thomann, who signed the notices, meanwhile insisted to Swiss daily 20Minutes that she was not an anti-Semite, and acknowledged that her 'choice of words was a mistake.'

She explained to the Blick daily that the apartment hotel currently had a lot of Jewish clients, and that other guests had complained that some of them did not shower before using the pool and had asked her to do something.

'I wrote something naive on that poster,' she was quoted as saying, admitting that it would have been better to simply address all guests with the same message.

The hotel is reportedly very popular with ultra-orthodox Jewish guests because it has been accommodating to their needs, including access to a freezer to store kosher food.

Thomann told Blick that the since the freezer was in the staff room, she had felt compelled to set times when the Jewish guests could access it to ensure staff could enjoy their 'lunch and dinner in peace.'

The prominent Jewish rights group, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, also voiced outrage at the incident, publishing a letter Tuesday demanding that Switzerland 'close hotel of hate and penalise its management.'

And it called on Booking.com to remove the hotel from its directory 'and explain the anti-Semitic cause of the removal on your website.'

The centre's head of international relations Shimon Samuels, pointed out that 'the reference to "showers" can be construed as a patently vicious reference to the fake shower hands in the gas chambers.'

A spokeswoman for Booking.com said: 'At Booking.com, we do not tolerate discrimination of any kind. We can confirm that the property in question is no longer available on Booking.com.'

9
Prominent ABC presenter Emma Alberici has been accused of bullying opponents of gay marriage.

Sky News journalist Caroline Marcus described the Lateline host in a newspaper column as 'one of the worst offenders' for using media interviews and Twitter to make the case for redefining marriage.

Last week, Alberici opened an interview with Acting Special Minister of State Mathias Cormann by mentioning a 15-year-old friend of her daughter who was kicked out of home when his parents discovered he was gay.

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Emma Alberici (left) told cabinet minister Mathias Cormann about a gay friend of her daughter

Former A Current Affair reporter Emma Alberici has tweeted arguments for gay marriage

Sassy in salmon: Caroline Marcus took exception to Emma Alberici's pink marriage views

'Now whilst you and your colleagues are bickering in your party room, aren't you concerned about the message you send to young, vulnerable gay and lesbian Australians that they don't deserve the same treatment as other Australians?',' she asked.

Marcus, who like Alberici is a former A Current Affair reporter, slammed that interview.

'While terribly sad, Alberici doesn't explain how legalising same-sex marriage will soften the hardened attitudes of those already so homophobic they can't accept their own gay children,' she said.

Since that column appeared in The Daily Telegraph on Tuesday, Alberici has engaged in a Twitter spat with Marcus.

Emma Alberici was defensive on Twitter following Caroline Marcus' column slamming her

Sky News journalist Caroline Marcus described the bullying accusation as 'disgusting'

'Asking a question about the vulnerability of young gay & lesbian Australians has seen me labelled an activist bully. Seriously,' Alberici tweeted.

Marcus replied on Twitter: 'Who have I bullied Emma? That's a disgusting accusation to make.'

Alberici has continued to champion gay marriage in a series of tweets, despite a staff directive last week from the ABC's editorial policy manager Mark Maley reminding employees to be 'circumspect' on social media as the federal government embarks on a same-sex marriage postal vote.

'Advocating for one side or the other will make it more difficult for the ABC to be seen as impartial. The more high-profile you are the more important discretion is,' his email said.

Emma Alberici had asked a senior minister if political bickering was harming young gays

Lateline presenter Emma Alberici tweeted in favour of gay marriage after ABC memo to staff

The ABC presenter tweeted 'no' case supporters were 'denying marriage' to a loving couple

However, Alberici has appeared to ignore this memo by publishing a series of tweets that appeared to favour changing the Marriage Act.

'I understand the arguments in favour of same-sex marriage. Please tweet me your reasons to deny marriage to a loving, same-sex couple,' she said.

Earlier, the she said Australia was lagging behind other first-world nations.

'Australia is the only English-speaking democracy not to have legislated same-sex marriage,' she said.

Mr Maley's staff memo pointed out that 40 per cent of Australians opposed gay marriage.

'It is very important that we are impartial and that all perspectives are given a fair hearing and treated with respect by the ABC,' his email said.
This is the bizarre moment when a male shopper bent down to take a look up the dress of another female shopper in just two seconds.

CCTV footage, reportedly taken at a Chinese supermarket, shows how the man pretended to be browsing goods before taking the action.

The woman did not appear to have noticed the man's movements.

A middle-aged man lowered his knees to take a look under the woman's dress at a store

The unusual incident took place at 10:22am on August 13, according to the CCTV footage.

A man can be seen staring at the woman while appearing to be looking for items from the shelves at a supermarket.

As the woman looked away, the man bent down suddenly and pressed his body close to the ground. He tilted his head up, trying to peek the woman's underwear.

Seconds after, he returned to his standing position and looked away.

He made his daring moves in just two seconds as he tilted his head up to see her underpants

The man quickly returned to a standing position and the woman did not seem to notice

The woman turned around and felt something touching her legs, but she did not appear to suspect the man.

Web users in China seemed to be impressed by the man's quick movements and his flexibility.

One of them said: 'He must have practised a lot of yoga.'

While another said: 'With that sort of flexibility, he should have done something more meaningful.'
Shocking pictures reveal the unguarded country track where the cars of holidaymakers are left by an airport 'meet and greet' service - some with their windows left open.

Air passengers who use Emirates Parking at Heathrow are told their vehicles will be kept in a 'fully secured, flood-lit premises' attended by a member of staff '24 hours a day'.

But pictures taken today show the cars are actually dumped in the corner of a Berkshire field which is open to the public with broken fences on three sides.

An airport meet and greet firm is leaving cars left by air passengers in this field-side track, despite telling customers their vehicles are secure

This 70,000 Porsche 911 was among the vehicles at the unsecured site this morning

Some of the cars left at the site, including this 4x4 even had their windows left open

At least three cars at the site, which was visited by MailOnline today, had their windows left open, while an open gate led onto a nearby road.

Emirates Parking, which is completely unconnected to the airline of the same name and is independent from Heathrow Airport, charges around 54-a-week to air passengers who want to leave their car with them.

Its website states: 'We offer the paramount and inexpensive parking deals. We give you a stress free, cheap and a luxurious parking experience.'

It adds: 'All our premises are fully secured. There is also always a member of staff present at our parking facility 24 hours a day.

'We like to provide all of our customers with peace of mind and give you one less thing to worry about whilst your away, with the facilitation of flood lights, all around security fences and single, guarded access point. We make sure your car is in safe hands.'

But there was nobody in sight today, with two drivers dropping off cars and quickly returning to the airport.

Another vehicle's front window was left open by drivers bringing it from Heathrow Airport

An abandoned cabin stands at the site, though it was unmanned when visited today

The firm's website boasts a 'fully-secured premises, though this flimsy fence was broken

One customer, Adrian Sawford, told The Sun: 'This company is a complete joke and should not be allowed to operate.'

MailOnline has contacted Emirates parking for a comment.

The pictures were taken on the same day that a teacher accused an unconnected meet-and-greet service at Stansted Airport of driving her car irresponsibly and writing it off.

Stephanie Bland drove her Mini to the official Stansted Airport parking and left it with attendants while she and her boyfriend Rich Robinson headed off for a break in Portugal.

But she was horrified to return and find the vehicle sitting on the back of an AA recovery truck a suspected seized engine.

Airport bosses say their investigations are ongoing but they have had the car independently inspected. They say any damage was caused by general 'wear and tear'.
President Trump retweeted an image Tuesday morning of 'CNN' being run over by 'the Trump train,' just three days after a woman was mowed down and killed in Charlottesville by a car driven by a white supremacist.

A Trump supporter had tweeted out the image of the CNN logo, attached to a set of legs, being crushed by a train, labeling it, 'Fake news can't stop the Trump train.'

The president briefly retweeted the image, but then deleted it shortly thereafter.

'It was inadvertently posted and as soon [as] it was noticed it was immediately deleted,' a White House official told reporters Tuesday.

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President Trump, seen listening to a question Monday posed by CNN's Jim Acosta, retweeted an image Tuesday of the network being run over by a train

President Trump briefly retweeted this image - and then deleted it - of 'CNN,' attached to a pair of human legs being crushed by the oncoming 'Trump train.' Twitter users connected the imagery with the woman killed by a white supremacist's car in Charlottesville

The optics of Trump's retweet prompted a quick outcry on the social medium, with many users connecting the visuals used in the image with the death of 32-year-old Heather Heyer in Charlottesville on Saturday.

Heyer had been demonstrating against the neo-Nazis, KKK members and white supremacists who had taken over the Virginia town to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

She was killed, while 19 others were injured, when 20-year-old Nazi sympathizer James Fields allegedly drove his Dodge Charger through the crowd, sending counter-protesters flying.

Fields has been charged with second degree murder.

Tuesday morning's retweet marks Trump's latest misstep in his handling of the Charlottesville situation.

Trump was widely criticized for not calling out KKK members, neo-Nazis and white supremacists by name, something he finally did yesterday, making a brief statement at the White House.

On Saturday, the president had initially condemned the violence 'on many sides,' which was interpreted to mean that he equated the white supremacists wreaking havoc on Charlottesville with those who came to the town to march against the hate groups.

President Trump was asked by CNN's Jim Acosta why it took so long for him to condemn the hate groups by name in the wake of the Charlottesville violence, which left one counter-protester dead. Trump then called CNN 'fake news'

By Sunday, the White House was forced to update the statement, using a quote from an unnamed White House spokesperson.

'The President said very strongly in his statement yesterday that he condemns all forms of violence, bigotry, and hatred,' the spokesperson said. 'Of course that includes white supremacists, KKK, Neo-Nazi and all extremist groups.'

CNN's Jim Acosta (pictured) tussled with the president on Monday, with the president calling Acosta's network 'fake news'

On Monday, Trump said the words himself.

'Racism is evil,' Trump said. 'And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.'

At a White House event later Wedneday afternoon, CNN's Jim Acosta confronted Trump and asked him what took so long.

'Can you explain why you did not condemn those hate groups by name over the weekend?' the reporter asked.

Trump looked directly into the camera and responded, 'They've been condemned. They have been condemned.'

Acosta followed up by asking why the president didn't have a press conference on Monday.

'You said on Friday that we'd have a press conference,' Acosta said.

Trump suggested that his brief statement to reporters, in which he took no questions, counted.

'We had a press conference. We just had a conference,' Trump replied.

Acosta then asked if the reporters in the room could ask the president more questions.

'Doesn't bother me at all,' Trump said, smiling. 'But you know, I like real news, not fake news. You're fake news.'

'Thank you everybody,' Trump said, cuing the reporters to vacate the room.

'Haven't you spread a lot of fake news yourself, sir?' Acosta muttered as he was being led out.
Police are hunting for a man seen urinating on a Philadelphia synagogue and giving the finger to the surveillance camera.

The man was seen in the disturbing footage approaching the front doors of Congregation Beth Solomon on the 100 block of Tomlinson Road, at around 12.30am on Sunday,Philly.com reports.

He spotted the camera, staring straight down the lens, before he flipped the bird.

Police are hunting for a man seen urinating on a Philadelphia synagogue and giving the finger to the surveillance camera (pictured)

The man was seen on the footage approaching the front doors of Congregation Beth Solomon on the 100 block of Tomlinson Road, at around 12.30am on Sunday

The suspect then turned around and urinated up the wall at the synagogue's entrance

The suspect then turned around and urinated up the wall at the synagogue's entrance, and 'continues to address the camera until finished,' police said in a news release.

He was then seen running down the house of worship's steps and climbing into a white sedan to flee the scene.

Philadelphia Police Lt. Dennis Rosenbaum told ABC 6 his department was not going to accept such an anti-Semitic attack.

'We believe the synagogue was targeted,' he said.

This is the latest in a series of attacks on the north Philadelphia synagogue in the past year.

He was then seen fleeing the scene and running down the house of worship's steps

He climbed into a white sedan which sped off after the early Sunday morning incident

In September, a menorah was stolen from outside the building, the synagogue's cameras have been shot out with paintballs, and in January, vandals spray painted graffiti where the synagogue's ritual bath is kept.

'We are revolted by this most recent display of anti-Semitism in Northeast Philadelphia,' Anti-Defamation League regional director Nancy K. Baron-Baer said in a statement.

'We've seen vandalism targeting Jewish institutions in the region before, but this latest incident turns the stomach. The amount of hate a person must feel to desecrate a house of worship in this way is incomprehensible and contemptible.'

The ADL said anti-Semitic incidents have been on the rise with 67 incidents in 2016, the most in nearly a decade.

Police are hunting the man in the latest incident, who is described as a male in his 20s with a thin build, light complexion, short beard and black hair. He can be seen wearing a white shirt and jeans.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Philly police at 216-686-8477.
Three puppies have been saved by firefighters after being trapped in a burning building in central China.

The rescuers pulled out the baby canines from under the debris after hearing them barking on August 13.

There were four puppies in the litter, but one of them had already been dead when the firefighters found them.

The fire occurred at the the Forestry Research Centre of Taiyuan, China, on August 13

The fire broke out at the Forestry Research Centre of Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, at around 10am, according to China's Fire-fighting Bureau.

A video posted by the bureau on its social media account shows how firefighters using their hands to dig into the debris in order to free the puppies.

The story was quickly re-posted by video-sharing platform Pear Video.

According to reports, the four dog had just been born and were stuck inside the research centre's warehouse when it caught fire.

One of the firefighters is seen in the video searching for the dogs from what appears to be a pile of paper when one of his colleagues poured cold water on the debris in a bid to cool it down.

He found two puppies, one appeared to be lifeless, but the other squirmed and squeaked.

One firefighters found two puppies in the debris, but only one of them survived the ordeal

A firefighter saved another puppy, which hit the ground running once being freed from the pile

A third firefighter found another live puppy, which hit the ground running after being rescued.

The firefighter quickly caught the puppy and took it to another colleague to be looked after.

The video of the rescue of the puppies have moved many web users in China.

People are praising the firefighters for respecting lives regardless of what they are.

One such user wrote: 'Thank you firefighters for not giving up saving them.'

Other uses applauded the rescuers for treating all lives with equal respect, such as this user who said 'every life is a miracle, and it was the puppies' fortune to have met these saviours'.
This is the terrifying moment a Southeastern commuter disappeared down the gap between a train and the platform, plunging onto the track.

CCTV footage shows frantic passengers leaping to rescue of the commuter who stepped off the train at Broadstairs station in Kent and fell backwards down the gap.

A woman who followed him off the train saw the man disappear under the train and raised the alarm.

Several quick-thinking passengers then held the doors open on the train, preventing it from moving away.

The commuter stepped off the train at Broadstairs station in Kent at around 8pm

CCTV shows the man falling backwards as he gets off the train and falling backwards down the gap

One got the attention of the driver who got off the train and helped pull the man back up onto the platform.

The accident happened on March 6, 2016 at about 8pm but the footage was first published earlier this month by the Association of British Commuters (ABC).

It was leaked by a former Southeastern employee and the company confirmed to MailOnline that there was a 'legal process' was ongoing regarding the release.

On the ABC YouTube account the video was captioned: 'A whistleblower from Southeastern has revealed a disturbing incident.

'So far, we have been told that the Rail Accident Investigation Branch will not be investigating this as the train was not moving at the time of the incident. Our investigation is underway.'

Southeastern said the passenger was not in any danger and was not seriously hurt during the fall.

A woman who followed him off the train saw the man disappear under the train and raised the alarm

A woman can be seen reaching under the train to try and pull the man back up

A spokesman for the company told MailOnline: 'Southeastern fully investigated the incident at Broadstairs, taking into account all the relevant circumstances.

'We concluded that the train driver (seen wearing a woolly hat and scarf in the CCTV footage) identified the incident quickly and reacted appropriately, leaving his cab and going to the aid of the passenger who had fallen on the track.

'No health and safety regulations or procedures were breached and there was no risk of the train moving off.

'We use this video as a resource for training drivers to highlight the importance of being vigilant to safety issues which can develop very quickly.

'We were very pleased that the passenger was not badly injured.'

A passenger got the attention of the driver who got off the train and helped pull the man back up onto the platform
Pictured: The front page of the Inspire magazine published by al-Qaeda

Propagandists for al-Qaeda have urged their followers in the West to commit mass murder by derailing 'vulnerable' trains with a homemade tool.

The Islamist terror group laid out its plan in an article titled 'Train Derail Operations', which was published in the latest issue of its magazine Inspire.

Would-be murderers are told: 'It is time we instill fear and make them impose strict security measure to trains as they did with their Air [sic] transportation.'

The elaborate 19-page tutorial uses the United States as an example target but stresses that the UK and France also have long stretches of unguarded railways.

In the article, the author explains that the motivation for targeting trains is so that Islamist terrorists might 'continue to bleed the American economy to more losses, increase the psychological warfare and make it worry, fear and weaken much more'.

An official US body is also cited after it highlighted more than 100,000 miles of vulnerable American railways and worries over hazardous materials being transported along them.

Included in the lengthy guide are step-by-step instructions on how to create a 'homemade derail tool' and where best to position it to cause maximum damage.

Followers of the group - al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula - are urged to study schedules and time the deployment of their obstacles to match certain trains.

In 2004, terrorists linked with al-Qaeda murdered 191 in Madrid, Spain after planting ten bombs on commuter trains. Pictured: The scene of the attack in Madrid

They even included a map of US railways and highlighted busy passenger routes.

Because it would not require the 'martyrdom' of the attacker, the Inspire article stresses that a single follower could derail several trains in repeated attacks.

The magazine also warns Muslims in the West to reject 'the message of solidarity' from political parties or other groups - and even from a 'kind neighbour or a nice co-worker'.

It adds: 'The West will eventually turn against its Muslim citizens'.

Just hours after the publication of the magazine online, the New York Police Department's counter-terrorism department responded on Twitter.

They said they were already aware of the threats from al-Qaeda before they released the issue and stressed that their 'robust' defence apparatus was designed to protect railways.

In 2004, terrorists linked with al-Qaeda murdered 191 in Madrid, Spain after planting ten bombs on commuter trains.
Alabama's Senate GOP primary is set to test the current strength of a Trump endorsement.

President Trump has tweeted his stamp of approval, several times, for sitting Alabama Sen. Luther Strange, who replaced Attorney General Jeff Sessions' in the upper chamber.

'Big day in Alabama. Vote for Luther Strange, he will be great!' Trump most recently wrote as the state's voters head to the polls Tuesday.

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President Trump (left) is backing current Alabama Sen. Luther Strange (right) in the GOP primary, happening today, though Strange is trailing former Alabama Supreme Court judge Roy Moore in the latest state poll

President Trump devoted two of his Tuesday morning tweets to Sen. Luther Strange, R-Ala., who is facing a tough three-way primary race against a former Alabama Supreme Court judge and a sitting GOP congressman

The GOP Senate primary has turned into a three-way race with former Alabama Supreme Court judge Roy Moore (left) leading in the most recent poll, and Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., (right) coming in third in the surveys

Vice President Mike Pence echoed the president in his support for Sen. Luther Strange, R-Ala., facing a tough primary Tuesday

Taking the cue, Vice President Mike Pence also chimed in: 'Luther Strange has stood shoulder-to-shoulder with President @realDonaldTrump and is supporting our agenda,' Pence wrote mid-day Tuesday, using the hashtag #MAGA for 'Make America Great Again.'

The latest poll shows Strange 14 points behind challenger Roy Moore, the former Alabama supreme court chief justice, according to a Trafalgar Group survey.

Stranger things have happened, however, as Strange is up by 3 points in another poll, this one conducted by Emerson College, though that's within the 3.9 percent margin of error.

In the Emerson poll, Moore is technically in a 'statistical dead heat' with Strange, at 29 percent support.

The two men also face Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., on the ballot.

If no candidate gets 50 percent of the vote, they'll be headed to a run-off scheduled for late September.

Because Alabama is a heavily red state, the Republican who wins the primary is extremely likely to breeze through the November general election.

While Moore, a candidate Trump is not supporting, is leading the race, that doesn't mean Moore is an anti-Trump candidate.

Sitting Sen. Luther Strange, R-Ala., is seen walking into his polling place on Tuesday in Homewood, Alabama, alongside his wife, Melissa

Sen. Luther Strange, R-Ala., speaks to reporters after casting his vote. Strange is facing tough competition to retain the Senate seat he was first appointed to in February, by a Republican

It's just the opposite as both he and Brooks, along with Strange, have courted voters by promising to further the president's agenda.

'I support President Trump's agenda of making America great again,' Moore said announcing his entry into the Senate race in May.

He added a caveat that 'we can only make America great again if we make America good,' blasting things like divorce, abortion and same-sex marriage.

Moore first came to prominence for refusing to take down a monument of the Ten Commandments and was stripped of his Alabama Supreme Court seat in 2003.

He rejoined the state's highest court in 2013, elected as chief justice, but was suspended from the post in 2016 for refusing to enforce the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that opened the door for same-sex marriage nationally.

Speaking to the Christian conservatives in Alabama's primary electorate, which is supposed to be small, he said that God put Trump in the White House.

'God puts people in positions in positions he wants,' Moore said, according to the Associated Press. 'I believe he sent Donald Trump in there to do what Donald Trump can do.'

Moore and Brooks have also teamed up against Strange, who also has the backing of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to cast the incumbent  who only entered the Senate in February, being appointed by now former Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley  as a swamp creature.

'Luther Strange and Mitch McConnell and K Street lobbyists and special interest groups  what we call the swamp  are spending $5 to $10 million in attack ads that are false and deceptive and slanderous, and we don't have the money to respond to the attack ads, much less promote ourselves as we should be, or reminding voters of the corruption that surrounded the process by which Luther Strange was appointed to the United States Senate,' Brooks charged in an interview with CNN.

Brooks was referring to the fact that Bentley, who resigned in May after having an alleged affair with a top aide, picked Strange, the state's attorney general who had asked the state legislature to pause an impeachment investigation into the now ex-Republican governor.

The New York Times pointed out that there is no evidence to suggest that what Strange did was improper, but it has tainted his reputation with the state's voters.

On an appearance on Fox Business Network Tuesday, Strange called Brooks' attempt to link him to McConnell and say he was part of the swamp 'a little bit desperate.'

Strange also went on Fox & Friends to plead his case Tuesday morning.

Trump had tweeted previewing Strange's appearance.

The sitting lawmaker expressed his disgust that an Obamacare repeal effort failed in the Senate, telling voters he 'absolutely' thought there was an opportunity to hold another health care reform vote.

Strange also said he thought Trump's endorsement would get him over the line  or, at least, prevent Moore from getting there first.

'Well, I hate to make predictions in elections,' he said, but did so anyway. 'I predict that President Trump's endorsement will be incredibly important because people want his agenda passed, I want his agenda passed and I couldn't be more honored he's given me his endorsement and full support.'

'I think that will make a difference today,' Strange said.
 Flash

The China-Africa Media Forum is held on Aug. 14, 2017, in Johannesburg, South Africa. [Photo/China.org.cn]

"There is a large room and potential for cooperation between Chinese and African media," said Guo Weimin, vice minister of the State Council Information Office of China, as he addressed the China-Africa Media Forum held on Aug. 14 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The forum was hosted by the State Council Information Office and co-organized by Xinhua News Agency and Independent Media Group of South Africa. It aimed to boost understanding and exchanges between Chinese and African media agencies and increase fair media coverage of both sides.

Guo Weimin, vice minister of the State Council Information Office of China, addresses the China-Africa Media Forum on Aug. 14, 2017, in Johannesburg, South Africa. [Photo/China.org.cn]

Guo said media agencies serve as an important bridge between China and African countries to promote their friendship and facilitate people-to-people exchanges.

In his speech, Guo encouraged Chinese and African media organizations to explore cooperation on news coverage, personnel training and cultivation, and urged the two sides to coordinate their reporting and agenda setting efforts in order to increase the voices of developing countries.

The minister also called on Chinese and African media organizations to counter balance Western media reporting, which has a tendency to label the continent as poor, disease-ridden and war-torn.
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A couple have blasted a developer after moving into their new 90,000 home with a parking space so narrow they cannot get out their car.

Paul and Zena Jones have said the parking spot is 'absolutely ridiculous' and they can't even open the doors of their Ford Fiesta, meaning they sometimes have to clamber out the boot.

They claim the driveway is 89 inches wide but is in fact only 86 inches because of the electricity box.

The couple first issued a complaint 144 days ago when they moved into their new home on the Fore Meadows estate in Great Barr, Birmingham.

Paul and Zena Jones have said the parking spot at their new home is 'absolutely ridiculous'

The Taylor Wimpey-run development replaced the former Great Barr driving range in 2015. They have apologised for the 'inconvenience' the tight space 'may have caused' the couple.

However the couple claim nothing has been done about it for five months.

An irate Mrs Jones, a mother-of-one, said: 'It's absolutely ridiculous. We moved in on February 17, and nothing has been done about it. When we first got into the house, we were ecstatic with it and the care that Taylor Wimpey were providing us.

'There was a barrier in front of the driveway originally, and when that was moved we were so excited to put the car on it for the first time.

'I turned round to Paul, and said "it looks a bit tight, that". He tried, and it was almost impossible. It took me standing on the busy road, making sure he didn't hit the fence for him to get it in OK.

'Then we realised that he wouldn't be able to get out. So the space, which we've paid all this money for, is unusable. Honestly, you can't fit anything in there.

'It's a silver Ford Fiesta, so it's not the biggest car in the world. It's ruining our social lives. We would normally have friends coming round to stay, but it's impossible now because they can't park anywhere.

'My pal has a Fiat Punto, and for a laugh we thought we'd see if that would get on there. It would, but again they couldn't open the door. The driveway is 7ft, and it's just not big enough.'

She added: 'I don't think they know what to do with it. You have to take three inches off because of the electricity box so, really, it is 86 inches wide.

'We've been measuring driveways on the estate, with next door's measuring 110 inches-wide.

'I know the government requirements now off by heart. At Asda and Tesco, for example, parking spaces must be at least 94 inches.'

Paul and Zena Jones say that even if they manage to drive into the space, they are unable to exit the car

The couple complained of not being able to open the doors of their vehicle

The former carer said she had been pushing Taylor Wimpey for months - but to no avail.

She said: 'We've been pushing and pushing them all the time for a solution. But they've passed us from person to person. We're on to our fourth different one now.

'It's been five months, and we're still having to put up with it. The response is they're looking into it, won't let us go any further than customer service, won't let us go any higher so we can get some sense out of them.

'If we're having to do this in the winter then it would be even more tricky, if it gets icy. I met the contractor a few months ago, and he said that he warned his colleagues that the space was too tight.

'So why on earth did they not listen?

'We've paid all of this money and we get nothing. We've got a driveway we can't even use.'

Mr Jones, a customer service agent at a car company, added: 'We've been constantly ignored. They won't engage with us at all. The only way that we can get through to them is through their Twitter account.

'I think the only reason they respond on there is because people retweet it and it's bad publicity for them. It's a disgrace, the way that we've been treated. Heaven forbid if we had a bigger car or were disabled. They have to do something, because this isn't the standards that we're paying for.'

A Taylor Wimpey spokesman said: 'We are in regular contact with the customer and are working collaboratively to resolve any issues.

'We apologise for any inconvenience which may have been caused, and hope to come to a mutually-agreeable conclusion at the soonest possibility.'

The couple have blasted the developer's parking spot in their new 90,000 home which means they have to get out the boot

The parking spot in their drive is so tight they can barely open the doors of their vehicle
Mark Spalding (pictured outside Hove Crown Court) molested schoolgirls as young as 13 while on duty

A predatory bus driver who molested schoolgirls as young as 13 while on duty has been jailed for nine years.

Mark Spalding sexually assaulted two girls in a sinister two-year grooming campaign which left one of his victims suicidal.

The 29-year-old, who was worked for Brighton and Hove buses, also assaulted two foreign students who used his bus, with one fearing she would be kidnapped.

Hove Crown Court heard Spalding would wait until a victim was alone on the bus before approaching her.

With the doors shut, he would leave his driver's seat and walk down the aisle towards them. He would then attempt to engage them in chat and make comments about their physical appearance and clothing.

Spalding then assaulted them, lifting the tops of two 'terrified' foreign students and remarking on their flat stomachs.

He also groomed two the teenage girls on his bus before contacting them on Facebook.

The court heard how Spalding would ask them what type of clothing they were wearing and request they roll their tops up.

He would then arrange to meet them outside work hours and would buy them alcohol from supermarkets, in a bid to encourage them to commit a sexual act on him.

One one occasion, he pushed the hand of one victim and another girl down his trousers.

Hove Crown Court was told the assaults had had a massive impact on all four victims.

One teenage victim had tried to commit suicide in the wake of the assaults while the other teenage girl had been left traumatised, scared and suffered constant nightmares.

In a victim impact statement, one teenage girl said she was now on drugs to treat anxiety.

She said: 'I wanted to kill myself. I am constantly on edge and I am very jumpy and sometimes feel physically sick. I have dreams about being on a bus and being dragged off.'

The second teenage girl said she had taken an overdose of pills but had been saved by her mother who forced her to be sick.

In statement she said she had turned to self-harming after the assaults, cutting herself with a razor.

The 29-year-old (pictured outside court with an unknown woman), who was worked for Brighton and Hove buses, also assaulted two foreign students who used his bus

She said: 'I feel like this has changed my life. I was outgoing and would have described myself as a girly girl.

'I cut myself with a razor blade and broken glass and burned myself with a lighter. I took drugs and my mother made me throw them up and I didn't have to go to hospital.'

One foreign student said he approached her when she was the only person on the bus and the doors were closed.

She said he then held the bottom of her jumper to expose her stomach leaving her 'frightened and shocked.'

She said: 'There was nobody to help. I was scared that if I cried out he might attack me.'

The second foreign student told police she thought she was going to be 'kidnapped' and was 'terrified.'

Spalding, from Brighton, initially denied multiple sexual abuse charges but changed his plea ahead of his trial.

He admitted two counts of sexual activity with a child aged between 13 and 14 and one count of causing or inciting that child to engage in sexual activity.

Spalding (pictured), from Brighton, initially denied multiple sexual abuse charges but changed his plea ahead of his trial

He also admitted the same three charges concerning a child aged between 14 and 15 and to two sexual assaults on women.

He was sentenced to a total of nine years but is expected to be released after four years.

Sentencing him Judge Shani Barnes said: 'You have traumatised four young women to such an extent one victim made a suicide attempt. The impact on the whole family should not be underestimated.'

She said that as a bus driver he had used his power and control to abuse his victims both on his vehicle and off it.

'It must have been absolutely terrifying,' she said. 'For the foreign students it extremely scary.'

She said parents who sent their children to this UK for education and to improge their English should be allowed confidence that they will be able to board a bus and get to college in safety.

Judge Barnes said Spalding had been 'predatory' and had 'systematically abused' his victims.

After the case the father of one teenage victim broken down as he described how he felt he had failed his daughter.

Fighting back tears, he said: 'I feel like I should have done more - like I failed her. It's a dreadful feeling.

'What he put those victims through doesn't bear thinking about. It must have been truly terrifying.'

Martin Harris, director of Brighton and Hove Buses, issued a statement after the court hearing. He said: 'We co-operated fully with the police investigation.

'Since then we have introduced a safeguarding policy and a number of safeguarding measures.'
Donald Trump has been criticized after retweeing a far-right activist just hours after denouncing racism.

The President used his Twitter account to highlight a post by Jack Posobiec which spoke about gun violence in Chicago on the same weekend as a protester was killed in Virginia.

Posobiec identifies as a new-right activist online and says he opposes the alt-right, but has links to prominent figures including Charlottesville organizer Richard Spencer.

Donald Trump has come under fire for retweeting a far-right activist's remarks about Chicago gun violence just hours after denouncing racists as 'evil' over Charlottesville violence

Posobiec has links to alt-right figurehead and Charlottesville organizer Richard Spencer, who were apparently pictured together in 2016. Posobiec called this image 'fake' online, and the two men have distanced themselves from each-other

Newsweek analysis shows the two men followed each other on Twitter until December 2016 and were pictured together at the Republican National Committee where Trump won the GOP's nomination in June the same year.

Posobiec also tweeted about attending an event that Spencer would be at in September, and praised him as 'indispensable' and someone 'the media can't get enough of'.

He has often also tweeted about 'white genocide,' Newsweek reported.

Posobiec has vehemently denied being on terms with Spencer, calling the picture of the two of them together 'fake', and adding that the 'alt-right hates me'.

Trump has been widely condemned for taking two days to call out white supremacist groups by name following the protests in Charlottesville which left one person dead

Spencer has also sought to distance himself from Posobiec, who he described as 'an outright liar' and a 'fake-news mongerer' over his support for the John Podesta Pizzagate conspiracy.

Whatever the exact relationship between the two men, Trump's retweet drew heavy condemnation on Twitter.

One tweeter, Vikki V, wrote: 'You REALLY just retweeted this, Trump? It took 2 days to half heartedly condemn white supremacists and immediately you are "Yea, but!"'

Meanwhile Stephan Keegan, a New York-based writer, added: 'What. The. F***. I didn't think I could be any more shocked and horrified.'

Musician Duncan Daniels said: 'You just had to...why can't you even pretend to be a good person?'
A wanted man remains in a 21-hour topless stand-off with police after climbing onto the roof of a house as he tries to dodge being arrested.

Kyle Ferguson, from Scunthorpe, is wanted for a string of alleged offences, including possession of a weapon and assault.

Humberside Police went to arrest Ferguson, who escaped and climbed onto the roof of a house on Salisbury Close.

He has been spotted on the roof in a navy hoodie and joggers, while also being seen with his top off.

Kyle Ferguson, from Scunthorpe, is wanted for a string of alleged offences including possession of a weapon and assault

Humberside Police went to arrest Ferguson, who escaped and climbed onto the roof of a house on Salisbury Close

Police have placed a cordon around the scene and closed several roads around West Common Lane

Police have placed a cordon around the scene and closed several roads around West Common Lane.

The road closures remain in place as police try to get Ferguson to come down.

A Humberside Police spokesman said: 'We are currently in the Salisbury Close area of Scunthorpe where wanted man, Kyle Ferguson, has taken to the roof of a house to evade capture.

'We can assure the public and residents that we have their safety first and foremost in our minds and as such have established a cordon which affects Plymouth Road, Bristol Road, West Common Lane and Salisbury Close.

'Extra police patrols are in the vicinity to provide reassurance to local residents and we would ask that if anyone has any concerns that they talk to any one of our officers, we are there to help you.

'We would like to extend our thanks for the support shown by the residents during this operation and that we fully understand the inconvenience this type of incident creates, we want to reassure the community that we intend to resolve this at the earliest and safest opportunity.

He has been spotted on the roof in a navy hoodie and joggers, while also being seen with his top off

Ferguson is wanted for alleged possession of an offensive weapon, affray, assault and causing a public nuisance

The road closures remain in place as police try to get Ferguson to come down

Police officers at the scene on Salisbury Close as Ferguson climbed on top of a roof

'We are meeting with local authority representatives and local community groups later today to provide further support and reassurance to the community.

'The cordon in place will cause travel disruption in the locality and would ask people to avoid the area.'

Ferguson is wanted for alleged possession of an offensive weapon, affray, assault and causing a public nuisance.

Police arrested two males in their 20's on suspicious of assisting an offender in relation to Ferguson yesterday.
Pictured: Christopher Clapp, 35, was shot and killed by an off-duty police officer in Maryland while trying to steal laundry detergent from a store

Prosecutors in Maryland have cleared an off-duty police officer in the fatal shooting of a suspected shoplifter, concluding that the use of deadly force was justified because the victim dragged the officer with his car.

Baltimore County prosecutors released their assessment Monday of the August 1 shooting of 35-year-old Christopher Clapp, along with surveillance video from the scene in Catonsville.

Authorities say the police officer, identified only as Officer 1st Class McCain, a 16-year veteran of the department, was working security at a Catonsville grocery store when he was alerted to a reported shoplifting.

McCain confronted Clapp in the parking lot and the alleged thief began to drive away, dragging the officer more than 100 feet with his car.

Caught on camera: Officer 1st Class McCain, a 16-year veteran of the department, is seen in this screenshot form a CCTV video confronting Clapp after the theft

McCain was dragged 108 feet by the driver as Clapp tried to flee, according to prosecutors

Justified: McCain opened fire on Clapp because he was in fear that he would be run over, officials have concluded. This screenshot shows the cop pointing his gun at the driver

Deputy State's Attorney Robin Coffin says the officer was 'reasonably in fear' that he would continue to be dragged or get run over by the car. Coffin says the officer 'was justified in shooting Mr. Clapp to save his own life.'

McCain was not injured. The officer's race has not been made public, but photos of Clapp reveal that he was an African-American man.

The fatal officer-involved shooting occurred at the Giant Food supermarket chain at US 40 and Rolling Road at around 4.00am on August 1 in Catonsville, according to CBS Baltimore.

Officer McCain, who was working on the side as a security guard, confronted Clapp in the parking lot after he was seen stealing laundry detergent.

Clapp's town car is pictured covered in tarp after the shooting outside the Giant Food supermarket at US 40 and Rolling Road in Catonsville

The officer confronted the suspected thief in the parking lot over stolenlaundry detergent

Prosecutors had reviewed CCTV footage and interviewed witnesses and the officer before ruling the shooting was justified

Clapp then got into the driver's seat of his car as the officer tried to stop him.

The vehicle drove off and dragged the officer 108 feet before he pulled out his weapon and shot the suspected thief, according the prosecutors.

Clapp died of his wounds at the scene. Another person sitting in the passenger seat of the car was taken to a nearby hospital and treated for shock.

According to a spokesperson with the Baltimore County police department, McCain said he used deadly force because he 'feared for his life,' the Baltimore Sun reported.

Deputy States Attorney Coffin wrote that McCain reached into Clapps car to arrest the suspect, at which time the man accelerated and began dragging the officer.

McCain repeatedly ordered Mr. Clapp to stop the car, she wrote. At this point, Officer McCain was reasonably in fear that he would be continually dragged by the car or run over by the car. Officer McCain was justified in shooting Mr. Clapp to save his own life.

Coffin made her assessment after reviewing surveillance footage from multiple cameras at the supermarket and reading statements from McCain and several witnesses.

McCain was not wearing a body camera at the time of the shooting - a fact that has raised some questions with Clapp's family, reported CBS Baltimore.

Clapp, pictured left with his rother Justin and right, was a North Carolina native who had relocated to Baltimore to study music at Towson University while working as an Uber driver

Clapp had been in the city for less than a year before he was shot and killed

The Baltimore Sun has reported that in 2006, McCain was involved in another shooting in which he and a fellow officer opened fire and injured a suspect in a carjacking who police said drove towards them. That shooting was ruled justified.

Clapp was a North Carolina native who had relocated to Baltimore to study music at Towson University while working as an Uber driver.

His brother, Justin, who is a well-known drag performer in Durham, North Carolina, said in an interview with the Herald-Sun last week: 'So many black men have been killed by police and they are always reduced to their race, their occupation, or their behavior in the moment.

'My brother was so much more. This has the potential to spin out of control and I just want him to be remembered by all of the good.'
One hundred and twenty outboard motors, 20 cars, food vans, tractors and boats, and 60 engine blocks.

It might sound like a second-hand yard sale, but it is the thing of nightmares for one young Victorian family with everything thing from washing machines to rotting timber swamping the Ansel's new dream home.

Rebecca and Jon Ansel bought their new Portarlington home, 104km south of Melbourne, in March and agreed to a five-month settlement, but it was pushed back four times until settlement this month.

Rebecca (pictured) and Jon Ansel bought what they thought could be their dream home, but six months later and the previous owners junk still swamps the property

Mr Ansel said there was one hundred and twenty outboard motors, 20 cars, food vans, tractors and boats, and 60 engine blocks when they bought the property (pictured)

But the young family still have not been able to move in.

'We're paying mortgage on [the new house] and still living in our current house, it's quite expensive being young family,' Mr Ansel told Daily Mail Australia.

Mr Ansel said they gave the previous owners, Susan and Gus Kacinskas who are in their 70s, half a year to move all their belongings and even helped move their furniture and gave them numbers of removalists.

'They're hoarders, they've got this emotional attachment to their stuff,' Mr Ansel said.

'They're an elderly couple, how much can you expect an elderly couple to do.

'They're really irrational and hard to deal with, we tried reasoning with them.'

The Ansels bought the house in March but still haven't moved in because of all the rubbish

Taking an understanding approach to moving all the junk, Mr Ansel said his mates and family had to lock themselves in the backyard to sort the rubbish otherwise they'd cope abuse from Mr Kacinskas.

'It's scary stuff when you have a young family,' Mr Ansel told Daily Mail.

Having outgrown their old house, their new coastal home equipped with block stretching more than 1000sq metres would be perfect for the Ansel's three boys, aged 13, 6 and 4.

However Mr and Mrs Kacinskas are living in a caravan out the front of their old house guarding their belongings, which Mr Ansel said was currently unsafe for children to be around.

'It's really hard to make any progress on the house,' he said. 'We can't take our children there.'

The Geelong Council has started to help the Ansel's with the situation of their rubbish-laden yard, but the Kacinaska's told 7News it was 'stealing'.

'It's junk to them maybe, I don't know, but it's his livelihood,' Ms Kacinskas said.
Minnesota investigators found nothing when they executed a search warrant at the home of an Australian yoga instructor shortly after she was shot dead by a police officer.

Justine Ruszczyk Damond, 40, called 911 on July 15 because she believed she had heard a sexual assault taking place in the alley behind her house.

Mohamed Noor, one of the two responding officers, shot her through the window of his patrol vehicle, killing her. He has declined to be interviewed by investigators.

Hours later, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension obtained a search warrant for Damond's home - a decision that later sparked outrage among the victim's neighbors and other members of the community.

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Minnesota investigators found nothing when they searched the home on Justine Ruszczyk Damond (left) after she was shot and killed by Minneapolis cop Mohamed Noor (right)

Agents searched the Minneapolis home on Washburn Avenue (pictured) for blood, hair, guns, ammunition, knives, drugs and 'writings,' but they took nothing from the home

Agents checked the residence on Washburn Avenue for blood, hair, guns, ammunition, knives, drugs and 'writings.' They took nothing from the home.

The Damond family attorney said the search was appropriate, but critics of the police department have raised questions about it.

During a community meeting on policing held earlier this month, community leaders wondered why the law enforcement agents decided to search Damond's home, even though the shooting had taken place outside the residence.

Others put it more bluntly, suggesting that had the officers found anything suspicious, they would have used it as an excuse to justify Damond's shooting.

Michael Quinn, a retired Minneapolis police sergeant who attended the August 2 meeting, dismissed the conspiracy theory but said he, too, was baffled by the search warrant.

Quinn floated the idea that perhaps the agents were looking to see if Damond had written down something about the rape she thought was taking place behind her house.

Damond (left), an Australian national, was killed just weeks before she was set to marry her fiance, Don Damond (center)

Bureau of Criminal Apprehension spokeswoman Jill Oliveira tells the Minneapolis Star Tribune investigators wanted to give prosecutors the most complete picture possible about what happened.

'At the time, investigators were unsure of the events leading up to her death,' Oliveira said. 'As stated in the warrant, MPD officers involved in the incident were not providing information to investigators at that time.'

The court documents pertaining to the search were released just days after Saturday's emotional memorial service for Damond, which drew hundreds of mourners.

Among the attendees were Damond's grieving father, John, and her fiance, 50-year-old Don Damond.

The couple had been planning to get married in a dream ceremony in Hawaii on the very weekend of her memorial service.

Don Damond hugs supporters and loved ones prior to a memorial service for his fiancee, whom he was supposed to marry last weekend

John Ruszczyk, the father of Justine Damond, fights back his emotions shortly after arriving at a memorial for his daughter Friday,

Sharon Wynne, of Minneapolis, writes a message on a wooden board during a memorial service for Damond at Lake Harriet in Minneapolis

'Justine was killed by a bullet fired by an agent of the state,' John Ruszczyk said in his eulogy, before invoking her uniformed killer. 'You have stolen my daughter and ripped her from our arms.'

Investigators have issued a warrant to look through officer Noor's phone, as well as the phone of his partner, Matthew Harrity, Newscorp reports.

Lawyers for the killer police officer, Noor, 36, claim he felt he was being ambushed when he pulled the trigger and shot Ms Damond.

His brother also claimed it to be an 'unfortunate' mistake, an 'honest and sincere' event.
A controversial Muslim leader has suggested bisexuals will lobby to be allowed a husband and a wife at the same time if gay marriage is legalised.

Keysar Trad made the extraordinary claim after One Nation leader Pauline Hanson slammed him in parliament for declaring Australian men should be allowed multiple wives.

'If the "B" in LGBTIQ lobby for marriage equality, they'd have a chance for plural relations to be recognised,' he told Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday.

'Pauline should forget about me and remember the "B" in 'LBGTIQ'.'

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Muslim leader Keysar Trad says bisexuals will push for polygamy if gay marriage is allowed

Mr Trad, the former president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, said Muslims were often condemned if they voiced support for polygamy.

'We, the Muslims, only talk in hypotheses or in theory because we know, the system is very resistant to what they can brush off as "Islamic" ideas,' he said, arguing the Koran had 'restricted' how men could take extra wives.

Gay marriage advocacy groups, including Australian Marriage Equality, have not campaigned for polygamy and neither have any politicians.

Alex Greenwich, AME's national convener, has also previously ruled out support for polygamy.

Still Senator Hanson is concerned a future government could legalise polygamy to appease Australia's Muslims.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson asked about a referendum on polygamy and child brides

Pauline Hanson is livid the government won't hold a referendum to ban polygamy in future

'As long as there is no definition of marriage enshrined in the Australian Constitution there is nothing to stop future governments pandering to minorities and helping Keysar Trad's dream become a reality,' Senator Hanson said.

Last week Mr Trad, the founder of the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia, described polygamy as a privilege reserved for women, even though only men are allowed multiple spouses under Islamic law.

'If public opinion was pushing for a change, that was consistent with my religion, I would not object to it,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

'In my humble opinion, the advantage is not so much to the man.

'It's always the prerogative of the woman. Any marriage in Islam requires consent and the most crucial consent is the consent of the woman.'

Attorney-General George Brandis described a referendum on polygamy as 'unnecessary'

Keysar Trad is upset Muslims do not have the same platform to campaign for Islamic marriage equality

On Monday, Attorney-General George Brandis told Senator Hanson the Federal Parliament already had the power to make laws on marriage, which made a constitutional referendum on banning polygamy 'entirely unnecessary'.

Mr Trad is taking a stand against gay marriage as the Turnbull Government proceeds with this postal vote.

'My personal view is that people of the same gender can be friends but they should not be encouraged to engage in sexual activity,' he said.

'Call it something else, a union. Call it whatever you want to call it.'

Ballots are being sent out to Australian households from September 12, with voters given until November 7 to return them.

The Islamic Friendship Association of Australia founder says polygamy is a female privilege

Keysar Trad says it is 'near impossible' for Muslims to lobby for change to suit their religion

Mr Trad said husbands could lightly beat their wives 'as a last resort' before explaining his comments were clumsy (pictured is a grab from a video made by the Women of Hizb ut-Tahrir)

In February, Mr Trad controversially said the Koran allowed husbands to lightly beat their wives 'as a last resort' before clarifying he was giving a clumsy interpretation of the religious text.

Two months later, Women of Hizb ut-Tahrir released a video saying husband could hit their wives with a small stick.

Where Islamic polygamy is allowed, women are not allowed multiple husbands.

Under Islamic law, a man can divorce a woman by saying 'I divorce you' three times but a woman does not have this same privilege.

Mr Trad has previously voiced support for Sharia divorce courts, which privileges the view of a man over a woman.
Parliament spent a record 130,000 trying to deal with mice and moths disturbed by building works last year - with MPs complaining that health and safety rules are preventing cats being deployed.

The bill for pest control on the estate soared by nearly a third amid fears that the infestation is spiralling out of control.

Mice are a perennial problem in the historic Westminster buildings, with the creatures often seen scurrying across desks and even in canteens.

The 132,000 spend last year covered employing a full time 'pest control technician' and laying more than 1,700 'bait stations', according to details disclosed by the Houses.

Mice are a perennial problem in the historic Westminster buildings, with the creatures often seen scurrying across desks and even in canteens

There are more than 1,700 'bait stations' for mice across the estate, according to details disclosed by the Houses. Downing Street has its own 'chief mouser' Larry (pictured right)

The renovation projects at parliament have been getting into full swing with officials warning that the historic buildings are crumbling

Labour MP Stella Creasy tweeted that she would be in favour of introducing cats on the parliamentary estate

But there were 411 sightings of mice in the year to June - compared to 313 in the previous 12 months. In 2015 the figure was 223.

Moth deterrents were 8,900, and hawk flying to control nuisance birds was 16,000.

A House of Commons spokesman said: 'The increase in pest control costs in 2016/17 is due to a higher number of maintenance projects across the estate which have disturbed pests and made them more visible, increasing the need for pest control, hawk flying and moth deterrents.

'Office renovations on the estate have also resulted in an increased requirement for pest control measures.'

Tory backbencher Pauline Latham told MailOnline: 'There are definitely more mice about. We see them all the time.

'Some rooms are worse than others. Even the Tea Room is bad.

'They are rife. You regularly see them running around.

'I have had mice on my computer. I have had them eating things in the office. I had biscuits in a plastic tub and they chewed through that. It is absolutely revolting.

'They are not nice sweet little things, they are absolutely disgusting.'

She added: 'If they are working on the Elizabeth Tower they might have disturbed some nests.'

Mrs Latham said the parliamentary authorities had raised health a safety concerns to prevent cats being brought on to the estate.

Minister Penny Mordaunt is among politicians who have been rebuked by officials for taking cats to their office.

Mrs Latham said: 'They say we can't have a cat because they would go on desks and be unhygienic. What do they think the mice do when we're not there?

'During recess they should have lots of cats. Maybe stray cats, borrow them from Battersea Cats' Home.

'They could feed them, but not too much, and have them with litter trays in each room.

Tory minister Penny Mordaunt is among politicians rebuked for bringing cats on to the estate, after she posted this tweet last year

The Treasury has Gladstone to help keep its mouse problems in check, but parliament has refused to follow suit

Palmerston is the resident cat at the Foreign Office, having been recruited from the Battersea Dos and Cats Home

'If they just did it during the recess it would give the cats something different to eat.'

'They are the best killers of mice, much better than traps or poison.

'They will do the job quickly and cleanly.'

Mrs Latham said it was ridiculous that Downing Street and the Treasury were able to have 'mousers', but parliament was refusing.

'Why don't we have them in the House of Commons?' she said.

One of the justifications cited for the massive 4billion restoration of the Palace of Westminster has been to deal with the vermin problem.

Tackling the mice is regarded as almost impossible without tearing up much of the fabric of the building.

In 2014 Tory backbencher Anne McIntosh complained that the mice population was 'spiralling out of control', particularly in kitchens posing a 'clear health hazard'.

Speaking in the Commons, she suggested that they follow the example of Downing Street - which has its own cat, Larry, a rescue cat from Battersea Dogs and Cats Home.

The charity had offered to provide the Palace of Westminster with cats.

But Lib Dem MP John Thurso, representing the ruling Commons Commission, said there 'clear practical and technical difficulties' and, instead, pest control had been called in to deal with the problem.

He added: 'Given the scale and size of the estate, it would be necessary to have a great number of cats to make any real impact and having a herd of cats on the parliamentary estate would present a number of difficulties.'

Larry is a familiar sight padding to and from the famous door of No10

He joked: 'I'm advised by my own chief whip that herding cats is quite difficult.'

The House of Commons has made clear that the 'only animals allowed in Parliament are guide dogs or security dogs' and anyone who brings in other animals are 'reminded of the policy and gently asked not to do it again'.

Last year the parliamentary authorities reportedly wrote to politicians complaining about an increase in the number of rule breaches.

In a message to the whips' office, the Serjeant at Arms said: 'This rule is in place because of the duty of care that would arise in relation to animal welfare and the health, safety and wellbeing of members, staff and visitors on the parliamentary estate.'
Ernest Milligan, 57, (pictured) killed himself one day after he shot 13 rounds into a car with three teenagers inside in Galveston, Texas, on Friday evening. He hit two teen boys, but the teen girl with them was not injured

A man killed himself one day after he shot 13 rounds into a car with three teenagers inside during a road rage incident.

Ernest Milligan, 57, shot two of the teens after he got into a shoving match with them because of a fender-bender in Galveston, Texas on Friday evening.

The next day, Milligan was found dead by police with a gunshot wound to his head in a parking garage of the hospital where the teens were recovering.

The teens, two male and one female, were driving a white Mazda when Milligan pulled in front of them in his green Plymouth and slammed on his brakes.

The girl, who was driving and not shot, accidentally rear-ended Milligan. After pulling over, all three teens and Milligan got out of their cars.

They quickly got into a verbal altercation before Milligan pushed the driver, witnesses told police.

The two boys then got into a 'shoving match' with Milligan, police said.

Eventually the teens all returned to their car while Milligan took out a .40 caliber Glock handgun from his car and shot 13 rounds into the windshield of the teens' Mazda at around 7.25pm.

He hit the two boys, one who is 16 years old. Both were taken to the University of Texas Medical Branch.

The driver, the sister of the 16-year-old, was uninjured.

Milligan was found dead by police with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head Saturday afternoon. His body was in his car in the parking garage of the University of Texas Medical Branch (pictured), where the two teens he hit were recovering

The 16-year-old, who had been hit twice, was in critical condition and the other, who had been hit once, was stable, police said.

The teen who was in stable condition has since been released from the hospital, KHOU reported. The 16-year-old is still recovering in the hospital, but is now in stable condition.

Milligan fled the scene, but a witness followed him and took a picture of his car and license plate. Using that picture, police were able to identify Milligan and request a warrant for his arrest.

On Saturday around 3pm, officials found Mulligan sitting in his Plymouth in the parking garage of the UTMB, where the teens were recovering.

He had a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head from a .40 caliber Glock pistol that was still in the car with him, police said.

The initial road rage incident happened on Friday around 7.25pm at this intersection in Galveston. Milligan pulled in front of the three teens' car and slammed on his brakes, causing the driver to hit him. When all four got out of their cars, they shouted and started shoving each other before Milligan took out his gun and shot the two teen boys, witnesses said

Officials are still investigating the incident to confirm that the gun in Milligan's car with him is the same one he used to shoot the teens.

The Galveston Police Department have said they are no longer looking for a suspect.

Police said Milligan did have a criminal record, but it was not a violent record, KHOU reported.

The mother of the 16-year-old boy and the driver told the outlet: 'Im so thankful that theyre alive. My kids were innocent in this.'
Shaun Hardy, 32, has been in custody since he allegedly admitted to police in January that he stabbed and suffocated 30-year-old Anne-Christine Johnson at his home in League City, Texas

A man who allegedly confessed to killing his ex-wife and stashing her body inside his Texas garage has been released from prison on a $1 million bond.

Shaun Hardy, 32, has been in custody since he admitted to police in January that he stabbed and suffocated 30-year-old Anne-Christine Johnson.

Hardy was released from Galveston Prison, south east of Houston, on Monday afternoon with a judge ordering him to wear an ankle monitor.

The victim's mother Stephanie Johnson told the Houston Chronicle she was 'scared to death' following Hardy's release.

'For the first ever in my entire life I'm even remotely considering owning a gun.

'It's just devastating.'

Following his release, Hardy's lawyer Dick DeGuerin said: 'He's not going to run, he's not a danger to anybody.

'He's cared for (his son) for all the kid's life, and it's been very rough with him being locked up. This is a really tough case.'

Johnson went missing on December 8 last year after visiting Hardy at his home in League City.

The mother-of-two's body was found in Hardy's home three weeks after she went missing in December last year. She had been wrapped in plastic after suffering stab wounds to her chest

Police spent three weeks scouring the area for any sign of Johnson. When she still hadn't returned home, authorities started questioning Hardy.

He confessed to her murder on December 30 in a recorded police interview after authorities traced her cell phone to his home.

They found the mother-of-two's corpse wrapped in plastic.

Police spent three weeks scouring the area for any sign of Johnson. When she still hadn't returned home, authorities started questioning Hardy

Hardy had allegedly placed scented candles around her body to try to mask the smell and used ammonia to try to wipe the floor of her blood.

He allegedly told officers that he 'wanted to watch her die' when she came to his house.

She is said to have held a knife to her own chest as if to kill herself when he kicked it into body, according to police reports.

Hardy told police he suffocated her with a plastic bag to 'put her out of her misery', before wrapping her body in duct tape and plastic sheets.

He was arrested and jailed back in January. The home where the alleged murder took place has since been sold.

The pair divorced in 2015 and were embroiled in a custody battle over their five-year-old son who is autistic.

The mother, who has another son from a previous relationship, already had a restraining order taken out against Hardy.

She told police that she feared for her life and said Hardy would kill her if it weren't for the order.

Johnson's distraught mother said police ignored her daughter's reports of domestic abuse.

A photograph shared online after her death shows Johnson with injuries across her neck and face, which were allegedly caused by her ex-husband.
A 16-year-old girl accused of hacking her Uber driver to death with a machete has attacked guards on multiple occasions since her arrest.

Eliza Wasni, of Norwood Park, Chicago, is charged with the first-degree murder over the death of Grand Nelson, 34, on May 30.

The teen was arrested and ordered to be held without bail in juvenile detention after allegedly stealing a knife and machete from Walmart, and launching into the frenzy stabbing attack.

On Monday, Wasni found herself in front of a judge again after prosecutors notified the court she'd had another 23 disciplinary infractions since her last hearing in July, the Chicago Tribune reports.

Eliza Wasni (left) is charged with the first-degree murder over the death of Grand Nelson, 34, (right) on May 30

Nelson fled his vehicle (above) and tried to get help, but later died at the hospital

Just last month, she was in court after prosecutors reported she had then been involved in 40 behavioral incidents including pushing, kicking and biting guards.

On Monday, Judge Lauren Gottainer Edidin warned Wasni that she could face additional charges related to her alleged attacks on the guards and said complying with the rules 'may make your situation better.'

Public defender, David McMahon, said his client was 'doing her best' to comply.

Wasni has also missed two court dates due to hospitalization for unspecified medical reasons.

Sixteen-year-old Eliza Wasni (left) was been charged as an adult with first-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of Uber driver Grant Nelson, 34 (right) whose family are now suing Walmart

The 16-year-old has been held in juvenile detention, despite being charged as an adult over the murder, since she was first arrested for stabbing Nelson in the crazed early morning attack.

Prosecutors said that Nelson, a resident of Wilmette, picked the girl up shortly after 3am on May 30 in Lincolnwood. It was her third ride in an Uber vehicle in the early hours of Tuesday.

Two minutes after he began driving, prosecutors said that Wasni began stabbing Nelson from the back seat. Nelson was able to pull over and ran into a nearby condominium building, where he screamed, 'Help me, help me! I'm going to die!' until residents called 911.

Wasni climbed into the front seat of Nelson's blood-splattered silver sedan and drove away, striking a median in the road. She jumped out of the vehicle and fled on foot.

When Lincolnwood police arrived, they found the vehicle with blood on both the inside and the outside, with Nelson's phone open to the Uber app. The app said that Nelson's passenger was someone named Eliza.

It's unclear what prompted the attack. Prosecutors say Wasni stole the car but abandoned it soon after striking a median

Officers followed the trial of blood and found Nelson lying in grass. He was bleeding profusely from several wounds, and was able to tell the officers what had happened. He died at a nearby hospital a few hours later.

Using the description given by Nelson, police found her nearby crouching behind an air conditioner - a machete in one hand and a knife in the other. Police warned her that she would be shot with a Taser if she did not drop the weapons, and when she did not comply an officer used the Taser. Wasni dropped the knives and was taken into custody. Police said she did not make a statement.

According to prosecutors, police recovered a shirt the girl could be seen wearing in the Walmart. The shirt had blood on it.

Prosecutors called the crime 'heinous' and Judge Michael Hood agreed that Nelson's murder was 'extremely violent'.

Prosecutors offered no reason for the attack as they read out a description in court in June, which portrayed Wasni as a calm girl who 'nonchalantly' was seen walking through Walmart earlier in the evening, with a knife and a machete in hand, before she walked outside without paying.

'We are heartbroken by the loss of one of our partners,' Uber said in a statement. 'Our deepest sympathies and prayers are with his family and loved ones during this incredibly difficult time.'

They also said that she appeared to be in violation of the company's rules, which states that riders must be 18 years or older.

The company spokesman said that a rider's access can be removed if they are found to be underage, and that there is a mechanism as well for drivers to report riders they suspect of being underage.

Nelson's sister told WMAQ-TV in Chicago that her brother was a good person.

'He was not a vindictive person,' Alex Nelson said. 'He was not a cruel person. He didn't deserve this fate.'

She added to the Chicago Tribune that she hopes 'justice will happen' in the 'horrifying and maddening murder'.

Brother Todd Nelson said that his bother was 'the most gentle, kind person. He never hurt anyone. He was good to animals, he was good to children'.

Nelson lived at home with their parents and worked as a waiter. He drove for Uber and Lyft after his shifts to make money.

'He was just trying to do the best he could in life,' Todd said.

Friends told ABC7 that Nelson was driving that night because he could get higher fares for the holiday.

'It was surging. He said it's just opportunity to make some more money,' a friend, Waqas Abbasi said.

It is the first homicide in Lincolnwood since 2006, police said.
The Queen was deliberately 'de-blinged' for her latest coin portrait after she had her diamond-encrusted necklace removed, it has been revealed.

Jody Clark, 36, has revealed the secret omission from his design that appears on every British coin minted since 2015.

His original portrait was eventually approved by the Queen and Mint officials - but not before the Coronation necklace was removed from around her neck.

The Queen was deliberately 'de-blinged' from her latest portrait (pictured right) on millions of British coins by removing her diamond encrusted necklace *shown left), it has been revealed

When the suggestion of a new portrait was suggested for 2015, Jody submitted his own drawing and was amazed when he was told his version had been chosen.

His original design included her crown, pearl drop earrings and Victorian necklace worn for official state functions.

But he was told to axe the necklace from his final design. He revealed: 'I got to dress her up in what I thought would work best.

'I researched what she wears and when she wears it and decided to go for the crown she generally wears to state openings and state visits, as I thought that was quite appropriate.

'It took me about a week to sketch the design and put it on the computer, and another week and a bit for the 3D model.'

It was sent to the Queen and Chancellor of the Exchequer before going back to the Royal Mint Advisory committee - a panel of experts from sculpture, architecture, history and art.

And after crowning his design the winner, they suggested some changes including removing the necklace.

Jody, based at the Royal Mint in Llantrisant, South Wales, is only the fifth coin designer since the Queen took to the throne in 1952

He said: 'I agreed with taking the necklace off, it makes for a neater design.'

The necklace first worn by Queen Victoria contains 26 giant diamonds set in silver, gold and platinum.

Queen Elizabeth II received the coronation necklace when she came to the throne and can be seen in photos adorned with the 11.25 carat jewels on her neck.

The 26th diamond sits on a pedant suspended from the necklace and is 22.48 carats.

Jody, who is the youngest ever to design the effigy, won a competition just one year after starting work at the Royal Mint.

Jody, based at the Royal Mint in Llantrisant, South Wales, is only the fifth coin designer since the Queen took to the throne in 1952.

The artist, of Bowness on Windermere in the Lake District, said: 'The Queen had to face a certain way, generally in profile because that works best.

'I also looked online to find pictures of her in a more natural setting. I wanted to add just a little bit of warmth to her expression, not quite smiling, but just a subtle upturn of the lips.'

Father-of-one Jody said: 'I got an email through from the Royal Office which just said 'Design H has been approved', so I think that means she liked it.

'To this day, I don't introduce myself as the man who designed the Queen's head, although my friends or family normally jump in and say it now to embarrass me.'
Brian Wills-Pope was found not guilty of trying to kiss the boy on the neck during an event at the Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, Devon

A wing commander has been cleared of kissing a teenage air cadet on the neck after his case was dramatically thrown out.

Brian Wills-Pope was found not guilty of trying to kiss the boy on the neck during an event at the Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, Devon, where Princes Philip, Charles and Andrew trained.

The case at Taunton Crown Court was stopped at the end of the prosecution hearing, when it was ruled there was no case to answer.

Mr Wills-Pope, 64, from Torquay, denied sexual assault.

The case was stopped before he was required to explain his version of events.

He is a successful florist, the holder of the MBE and a governor of Torquay Boys Grammar School as well as a Wing Commander in the RAF Air Cadet force, in command of its activities in Devon and Somerset.

The 64-year-old was responsible as Commanding Officer for 1,000 air cadets, 250 voluntary staff and 30 different military bases in Devon and Somerset.

His trial at Taunton was stopped early on the second day.

The prosecution alleged he tried to kiss a male air cadet in a bedroom at Dartmouth BRNC.

The teenage youth had also alleged married Mr Wills-Pope had made inappropriate comments to him, including an attempt to get him to put on a mankini.

The cadet joined the RAF when he was 14 and he and his family became friendly with Mr Wills-Pope.

The 64-year-old (pictured) was responsible as Commanding Officer for 1,000 air cadets, 250 voluntary staff and 30 different military bases in Devon and Somerset

The cadet joined the RAF when he was 14 and he and his family became friendly with Mr Wills-Pope (pictured)

The boy claimed Mr Wills-Pope (pictured leaving court yesterday) ran his hand inside his shirt and had kissed his neck, but the former wing commander told the police the kissing incident 'simply did not happen'

The prosecution had alleged the kissing incident occurred when they were both attending a band camp in Dartmouth in 2015.

The boy claimed Mr Wills-Pope ran his hand inside his shirt and had kissed his neck, but the former wing commander told the police the kissing incident 'simply did not happen'.

The case was dismissed today at the end of the Crown's case.
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This elephant calf seems desperate to go for a piggy back - as he dunks his friend right under the water while playfully climbing on his back.

As the baby elephant came across a pool with its herd in the midday sun, they all decided to stop and cool off.

But while the adults took the opportunity to relax, this excitable baby wanted to play.

The playful elephant can be seen trying to catch a piggyback while crossing the muddy pool in a Sri Lankan national park

Australian photographer Inger Vandyke, 47, captured the amazing images while on tour in the Yala National Park

Mr Vandyke said the smaller elephant tried to grab a slightly larger member of the herd to stay above the water

Using its little trunk as a snorkel the youngster went swimming between the other elephants.

It then took to jumping on the back of a slightly older member of the pride and trying to hitch a ride.

Eventually the play came to an end and the elephants headed off to take shelter in the shade at the Yala National Park in Sri Lanka.

The pictures were taken by Australian photographer Inger Vandyke, 47, who currently lives in Clitheroe, Lancashire.

Inger said: 'Over the years I've seen some very funny things in baby elephants but I rank this experience as one of the funniest. That little elephant was like everyone's naughty baby brother or sister.

He said his group almost missed the scene as they were about to leave the area after a morning in the park

He said the temperature was very hot when the group of elephants decided to cool down and wallow in the pool

He said the ten minutes in the pool were the funniest he witnessed while in the park and never wanted it to end

'We were on our way out of Yala after an early morning safari in the park when we saw a small herd of elephants.

'They were approaching a waterhole right next to our car so we thought they were thirsty and merely wanted to drink.

'Instead, all of them decided to go for a swim to cool off. After all it was the heat of the day and the water hole was full.

'We watched the entire group enter the water but the baby was the funniest to watch.

'At first it was getting squashed in amongst the other elephants so it would jostle its way around them using its trunk as a snorkel each time they pushed it underwater.

'It finally broke free from the group and started to play with some slightly older young elephants.

'It continuously jumped on the back of the others and they often tried to throw him off. It even tried to piggy back on one of them, anchoring itself by trying to wrap its trunk around the other elephant's head.

'Although the whole swim only lasted around 10 minutes, it was the funniest thing we watched all trip and we never wanted it to end.

'Sadly they emerged from the water hole in a group and went to rest under the shade of a large tree nearby.'
A newborn baby girl survived being thrown into a thorny bush in what is suspected to be a case of parents abandoning a female child because they wanted a boy.

The little girl was found lying under the bush, covered in scratches, in the city of Una in western India's Gujurat state.

It is believed that the case is the latest tragic example of baby girls being rejected by their families in India.

The newborn baby was rescued after her cries were overheard by a passerby who went to investigate.

Pictured: The helpless little girl lying in a bush in India before being rescued when she was overheard crying

Pictured: The newborn baby girl, whose face is still bloody, after being rescued from a thorny bush in India's Gujarat state

The little girl was found lying on the ground at the foot of the bush, bleeding from several places where the thorns had pierced her tender skin.

The passerby alerted emergency services and an ambulance quickly arrived on the scene to take the baby to a hospital to be checked over by doctors.

Doctors said the baby would have died had she not been found by the passerby.

Medics carefully pulled the thorns from her body before cleaning her up and making sure that she was fed.

Police have launched a search for the baby's parents who they believe deliberately dumped her in the bushes. Pictured: The little girl, whose condition is now described as stable

They later said that she was recovering from her injuries and described her condition as stable.

Police have launched a search for the baby's parents who they believe deliberately dumped her in the bushes.

Baby girls are considered a curse and a financial burden in many poor areas of India.

Families fear having to pay expensive dowries for their weddings, while boys are usually counted upon to take care of their parents in their old age.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimates up to 50 million girls and women are missing in India's population as a result of infanticide and sex selective abortions.
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HMS Queen Elizabeth will arrive at her home dock in Portsmouth tomorrow, with onlookers trying to catch a glimpse of the Royal Navy's 3billion flagship aircraft carrier as it passes along the south coast.

Britain's newest aircraft carrier will arrive in her home dock after completing the latest round of sea trials - a day earlier than previously expected, after weather conditions had formerly prevented the exact date from being set.

The 65,000-tonne carrier, the largest warship ever to be built in Britain, is expected to be the Navy's flagship craft for at least 50 years - and people have been trying to spot her today as she sails off the Jurassic coast of Dorset.

The huge shape of the HMS Queen Elizabeth passes Dorset's Jurassic Coast today en route to her new home at Portsmouth

The 3billion flagship aircraft carrier has recently completed a series of sea trials and returns to the UK a day earlier than previously expected

The aircraft carrier, pictured off Dorset today, will become the latest in a long line of prestigious ships to be docked in the port

The 65,000-tonne carrier, set to arrive in Portsmouth, is expected to be the Navy's flagship craft for at least 50 years

The 919ft vessel was previously forecast to reach its base in the Hampshire port town between August 17 and 22, after setting out from Scotland's Rosyth dockyard in June.

More than 60 Royal Navy sailors and Royal Marines took part in a training exercise aboard the American USS George HW Bush earlier this month, in preparation for the ship's entry into service.

The carrier will remain without aircraft until flying trials are conducted in the United States next year, with 10 F-35 Lightning II jets and 120 aircrew expected to take part.

Preparations for the ship's arrival, along with her 700 staff, saw more than 3.2 million cubic metres of sediment removed from Portsmouth harbour to enable her to reach her future docking at Portsmouth Naval Base.

HMS Queen Elizabeth makes its way into the port of Invergordon while taking part in sea trials off the Scottish Coast on July 8

The 3billion aircraft carrier will remain without aircraft until flying trials are conducted in the United States next year

Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon has heralded the HMS Queen Elizabeth's impending arrival, and declared last week that she would be deployed 'across the seven seas, using her strike power to deter our enemies'.

HMS Queen Elizabeth Weight: 65,000 tonnes

Length: 920 feet

Top speed: Upwards of 25 knots

Flight deck size: 230ft by 920ft - the equivalent of three football pitches

Keeps 45 days worth of food onboard

Is made up of 17 million parts

28 million hours have been spent designing and building the carrier

More than a million feet of pipes inside the ship Advertisement

Sir Michael visited the craft for the first time last month, when he hailed the return of 'big decks and fast jets', and described the large-scale engineering project as 'great for British industry'.

The warship is expected to arrive in Portsmouth shortly after 7am tomorrow, where it will become the latest in a long line of prestigious ships to be docked in the historic port.

Last week it was revealed a drone pilot had landed his unmanned aircraft on the HMS Queen Elizabeth in high winds, after zooming it past armed police patrol boats and dropped it unchallenged onto the four-acre deck.

Concerned about the flight on to HMS Queen Elizabeth, the drones pilot later approached security personnel - but said no-one was concerned that he had touched down on the recently launched ship.

As HMS Queen Elizabeth is currently on sea trials it is not yet under Royal Navy control. A spokesman for BAE and the Aircraft Carrier Alliance, the consortium that built the ship, said they would investigate the drone flyers claims.
This is the trail of destruction a landlord claims was left by the 'tenant from hell'.

Shocking photos show doors smashed in, piles of rubbish, cupboards torn off and a ceiling that collapsed after a flood in the bathroom.

Steve Parry, 55, had hoped the two properties he bought in Wavertree, Liverpool would help give him a comfortable retirement.

But the surveyor said he was left out of pocket after 'the living nightmare' he claims he has been through with a recent tenant.

Cupboard doors hang from the hinges in the kitchen of Steve Parry's home, which he rented out to what he described as the 'tenant from hell'

This photograph shows the damage done to the ceiling below the upstairs bathroom, which was flooded in what Mr Parry described as a deliberate act

He says they refused to leave for months on end, and claimed he ended up losing more than 2,000 in unpaid rent, 1,500 in court fees and a 6,000 clean-up bill.

Mr Parry decided to evict the tenant and her children in 2015 after she had fallen behind on rent, only to discover the devastation caused to the house.

He said: 'The house was wrecked - it's shocking. She had failed to sort the rent out despite numerous promises, so I gave her two months' notice to quit.

'I was then forced to serve two notice on her, which cost 200 each and she ignored. I had to get an order for possession in court, which I only got in the November.

'She was supposed to vacate by December 13, but despite everything I let her remain on agreement she would leave after the New Year.

'But she refused to move - saying she was looking for a new house. I had no choice but to pay for court bailiffs. She was finally removed this April.'

Mr Parry decided to evict the tenant and her children in 2015 after she had fallen behind on rent, only to discover the devastation caused to the house.

Mr Parry (right) claims he ended up losing more than 2,000 in unpaid rent, 1,500 in court fees and a 6,000 clean-up bill. Shown left, a door hangs from one of its hinges

It was then that he said he discovered his property had been wrecked.

He said the experience had put him off taking on tenants reliant on benefits to pay rent, though he admitted it was unfair on most decent tenants.

Mr Parry claimed several other landlords were also turning such tenants down, partly as the income is less reliable after welfare reforms put tenants in charge of managing their money.

He added: 'Most people are good people, but you get a few rotten apples. I can see it causing problems for 99 per cent of people who aren't like that.

'People assume you're loaded as a landlord, but I haven't made a bean I've had that many problems.

'All I'm hoping is the house value will be more than I bought them for.'
A federal judge on Monday said Tiffany & Co may recover at least $19.4 million in damages from Costco over the chain's illegal sale of counterfeit diamond engagement rings bearing the 'Tiffany' name.

U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain said Tiffany deserves $11.1 million, plus interest, plus the $8.25 million in punitive damages awarded by a jury last October.

The Manhattan judge also permanently barred Costco from selling anything that Tiffany did not make as 'Tiffany' products, unless it uses modifiers suggesting that the products have, for example, a Tiffany 'setting,' 'set' or 'style.'

A federal judge on Monday said Tiffany & Co may recover at least $19.4 million in damages from Costco over the chain's illegal sale of counterfeit diamond engagement rings bearing the 'Tiffany' name

Costco said it intends to appeal, calling the decision 'a product of multiple errors'.

'This was not a case about counterfeiting in the common understanding of that word - Costco was not selling imitation Tiffany & Co rings,' Costco said.

Tiffany had sued Costco on Valentine's Day in 2013.

While the case concerned only about 2,500 rings, Tiffany sued to protect its brand and cachet as one of the world's best-known luxury retailers.

U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain said Tiffany deserves $11.1 million, plus interest, plus the $8.25 million in punitive damages awarded by a jury last October. Pictured, an authentic Tiffany diamond ring

Costco had argued that 'Tiffany' had become a generic term, excusing its use on a standalone basis.

But the judge found Costco's defenses 'not credible,' given evidence that displays of fine jewelry were a key part of the Issaquah, Washington-based company's marketing strategy.

Salespeople 'described such rings as "Tiffany" rings in response to customer inquiries, and were not perturbed when customers who then realized that the rings were not actually manufactured by Tiffany expressed anger or upset,' Swain wrote.

While the case concerned only about 2,500 rings, Tiffany sued to protect its brand and cachet as one of the world's best-known luxury retailers

Costco's upper management, meanwhile, 'displayed at best a cavalier attitude toward Costco's use of the Tiffany name in conjunction with ring sales and marketing,' the judge added.

The jury had awarded Tiffany $5.5 million rather than $3.7 million for lost profit. Swain found the lower sum sufficient.

Leigh Harlan, Tiffany's general counsel, in a statement said the decision 'sends a clear and powerful message' to anyone seeking to infringe the New York-based company's trademark.

'We brought this case because we felt a responsibility to protect the value of our customers' purchases and to ensure that Costco's customers were not misled,' she said.
Two 19-year-old women died over the weekend after falling 150-feet off the Pacific Crest Trail cliff while attempting to climb Mount Hood in Oregon.

The bodies of Emma Place and Emily Lang were found on rocks at the base of a waterfall six miles from the Timberline Lodge on Saturday.

'It looked like a freak accident,' Steve Rollins, rescue leader of Portland Mountain Rescue told Oregon Live.

Authorities said the women had set up camp at the top of a waterfall and it appeared they lost their footing on the slippery rocks and fell.

Emma Place (left) and Emily Lang (right, pictured in 2013), both 19, died after falling 150-feet off a Pacific Crest Trail cliff while trying to climb Mount Hood in Oregon. Police said they lost their footing on slippery rocks and fell

Their bodies were found on rocks at the base of a waterfall six miles from the Timberline Lodge on Saturday. 'It looked like a freak accident,' Steve Rollins, rescue leader of Portland Mountain Rescue said. Emily Lang is pictured last year

Authorities said Monday other hikers in the area saw the women's bodies and called 911.

Clackamas County Sheriff's Sgt Brian Jensen said officials have not been able to find anyone who saw the women fall.

'All evidence points toward the possibility of an accidental fall or something along those lines,' Jensen told KOIN. 'There was no evidence of a jump or a push.'

The Portland women were pronounced dead at the scene after a rescue team reached them around 11.50pm Saturday night.

Their bodies were carried out of the area separately.

Rollins said the six-mile hike to Timberline Lodge is a difficult one with 'a lot of twists and turns' and plenty of switchbacks.

Search crews located two cellphones, but have been unable to get any information from them. It's still unclear exactly when the women fell.

Crews also said their biggest challenge was finding the location because the women were off the trail.

'Communication was tough when you're up at Mount Hood with all the mountains and ravines and the canyons they had to go into,' Chris Schloe, a volunteer with Mountain Wave Search and Rescue told KATU. 'They had to go down into this waterfall. It's tough,' he added.

Both women graduated from St Mary's Academy in Portland in 2016. The school issued a statement on Facebook on Monday.

'Our hearts are heavy today as we mourn the recent loss of two St. Mary's students. Emily Lang '16 and Emma Place '16 were hiking together Saturday, August 12 and experienced a tragic accident.

'Our prayers, blessings and deepest condolences are with the family and friends of Emily and Emma,' the statement read.

Authorities said the women had set up camp at the top of a waterfall and it appeared they lost their footing on the slippery rocks and fell. The women are believed to have left the Timberline Lodge and hiked along the Pacific Crest Trail. They were found dead six miles from the lodge

Rollins said the six-mile hike from Timberline Lodge to where the bodies were found is a difficult one with 'a lot of twists and turns' and plenty of switchbacks. Search crews (pictured) located two cellphones, but have been unable to get any information from them

School officials said there will be a prayer held on Tuesday evening for the two women in the school's auditorium.

Place and Lang were also attending college and had completed their first year.

Lang attended Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington, and Place studied at Gonzaga University in Spokane.

The pair have been good friends for quite some time. Lang's Facebook page shows a 2013 photo of the young women at the beach sitting on a red-and-white-checked blanket with their arms slung around each other.

Place's father is a pastor at a local church, according to KATU.

'She was full of life and joy,' Rob Mohrweis, the associate director of a local camp, told the station. 'She always had a smile on her face.

'We're grieving together today as a community and mourning her loss. Comprehending that it's even real,' he added. 'I distinctly remember her on her last day coming up to me giving me a big hug, telling me how much she loved serving with us this summer and how excited she was to be back.'

Just last week, search crews expanded their efforts to find Irish hiker, David O'Sullivan, who was also trekking along the Pacific Crest Trail.

The 25-year-old was last spotted between April 10th and 15th along the trail in California's Riverside County.

Two other people have died this year on Mount Hood. One was climbing the mountain and the other was skiing.

Authorities are asking anyone who has information, or was around the trail between Timberline Lodge and Paradise Park before early Saturday evening, to call the agency's tip line, 503-723-4949.
A stampede broke out in a subway station in China after commuters saw one male passenger running out of a train in a hurry and started panicking.

The male passenger was in a hurry, so he dashed out of his carriage, according to staff at the station.

However, other commuters thought something terrible had happened, so they followed the male passenger and fled towards the exit in hysteria.

No injuries have been reported as a result of the incident.

A male passenger (circled) was in a hurry, so he ran out of the rain at a station in Shenzhen

After seeing the man running, other passengers panicked and swarmed towards the exit

CCTV footage posted by People's Daily China claimed the incident took place on No. 1 subway line in Shenzhen last Sunday.

As the train came to a spot at the Science Museum station, a man carrying a black backpack can be seen starting to dash out of the carriage.

Soon afterwards, other passengers panicked. They followed the man and pushed each other as they attempted to escape.

Another surveillance camera at the subway platform has captured the moment when a couple walking in the station got frightened by the dozens of people running towards them. They quickly turned back and ran towards the exit too.

A man, who was sitting on the bench, also stood up and rushed to the exit.

Panicked commuters joined in and rushed towards the exit after seeing the others running

Station staff urged the public to remain calm as they investigated into the cause of the matter

There were no injuries reported in related to the incident that happened on August 13

Shen Huan, the chief operating officer at Science Museum station, spoke to a reporter from the Pear Video.

Ms Shen said staff members tried to calm the passengers and send some of them onto the next train.

'We have investigated and there were no suspicious items or person found from CCTV footage,' explained Ms Shen.

It's believed that the young man, reported in his 20s, was not aware that his running out of the train could trigger a stampede.

Ms Shen urged passengers to stay calm if similar incidents happen in the future.

'If there are indeed incident happened on the train, they should contact staff member immediately through the radio,' she added.

Just three weeks ago also in Shenzhen, a passenger who fainted on a subway carriage triggered a stampede during the rush hours.

At least 15 people were injured and nine were taken to hospital for treatment as a result of the incident.
The families of the 22 people killed in the Manchester Arena bombing are set to each receive 250,000 from money donated by the public.

Those bereaved have already been able to claim 70,000 from the We Love Manchester Emergency Fund, set up in the wake of the attack at the Ariana Grande concert on May 22.

The charity's trustees have now announced they will be eligible for a further 180,000, which they should receive in the coming weeks.

The latest round of payments from the fund will mean more than half of the 18m raised will have been distributed, including 3.5m to those injured in the atrocity.

Trustees of the fund, which has provided access to free financial counselling for the bereaved families, will next decide how and when to distribute the rest of the money.

Of the money raised, more than 215,000 was from generous Daily Mail readers.

The families of the 22 people killed in the Manchester Arena bombing are set to each receive 250,000 from money donated by the public

This is in contrast to the families of the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire disaster.

Only a portion of the 18.9million raised for survivors has been distributed so far, according to Charity Commission figures.

Councillor Sue Murphy, chair of the trustees of the We Love Manchester Emergency Fund, said: 'The city and the world responded with such extreme kindness, generosity and solidarity in the aftermath of the Manchester Arena attack.

'Thanks to this we have raised more than 18m and we were conscious that we had to get some of swiftly this to those with immediate needs.

'We have therefore given a around third of the total to the bereaved families and 3.5m to those who were hospitalised after the attack.

Twenty-two people were killed and hundreds injured during the attack at the teen concert

MAIL READERS RAISE 215,000 FOR VICTIMS Generous Daily Mail readers raised more than 215,000 to help the victims of the Manchester terror attack. Thousands of readers donated phones and gave money to our Mobiles for Manchester appeal, launched after the horrific suicide bombing which killed 22 people and left more than 100 injured. Some 11,400 mobile phone handsets were donated to be re-used or recycled at branches of Carphone Warehouse, raising around 160,000 for the appeal. Readers sent cheques and donations worth a further 30,920, and Carphone Warehouse donated 1,000 phones, worth 25,000. All of the money raised will go to charity, with the bulk going to the We Love Manchester Emergency Fund to support the injured and bereaved. The rest of the money raised will be sent to interfaith charities to help communities unite against terror and tackle prejudice and hatred. Advertisement

'In total this means we have allocated over half of the existing money already. We will now spend some time looking at how we will distribute the rest of the funds.

'This will be a complex and sensitive process as we will need to assess the long-term impacts of the attack. We will issue an update as soon as we know more.'

Eleven people are still in hospital following the arena attack and the fund has yet to decide whether those injured should receive more money to cope with life-changing injuries.

Any payments from the We Love Manchester fund are separate from compensation from the governments Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme.

Ms Murphy said the Department for Work and Pensions had assured her anyone in receipt of money from the Manchester fund would not have their benefits cut.

A charitable fund  entirely separate and distinct from the We Love Manchester Emergency Fund but complementary to it - will be set up to hold funds to help pay for a memorial, or memorials, for the attack.

The government has also given 2.6m for the establishment of the Manchester Resilience Hub.

This will co-ordinate the care and support for children, young people and adults whose mental health and/or emotional well-being has been affected by the atrocity on May 22.

Those bereaved have already been able to claim 70,000 from the We Love Manchester Emergency Fund and they will now get another 150,000 in the coming weeks
A terminally ill teenager whose meet-and-greet with WWE superstar John Cena made headlines last month has died after a long battle with illness.

Bryce McKiernan was left speechless after his dying wish to meet Cena came true in July, with footage of him giving his American hero an emotional hug later going viral.

Cena, one of the biggest stars in world wrestling, had been touched by Bryce's long battle with the excruciating kabuki syndrome and promised to meet him on his tour of Australia.

But just weeks after his dream came true, the 15-year-old's family took to Facebook on Tuesday to share the sad news that he had become the 'brightest star in the sky'.

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Bryce McKiernan (right), the terminally ill teenager whose meet-and-greet with WWE star John Cena (left) made headlines last month, has passed away after a long battle with illness

Bryce was left speechless after his dying wish to meet Cena came true in July, with footage of him giving the American an emotional hug later going viral

Taking to the 'Bryce's Beat' page on Tuesday evening, the teenager's family posted a statement.

'In the early hours of this morning our beautiful Bryce became the brightest star in the sky,' the post read.

'He is now resting peacefully with no pain.Please respect our privacy during this extremely difficult time while our family comes to terms with our loss.'

Just weeks earlier the teen was left lost for words when he ran into the arms of Cena for a loving embrace before the WWE star went on stage for a show.

'Very nice to meet you. You know I've heard a lot about you especially in the last few weeks,' Cena said to one of his biggest fans.

Clearly starstruck, young Bryce couldn't get a word out when the Hollywood star started a conversation with him.

Just weeks after his dream came true, the 15-year-old's family took to Facebook on Tuesday to share the sad news that he had gone to become the 'brightest star in the sky' (pictured)

The teenager was lost for words when he ran into the arms of the WWE star for a big hug

Clearly starstruck, young Bryce couldn't get a word out when he met with the Hollywood star

The American wrestler fulfilled the sick boy's final wish by meeting him before his show

Mother Stacey McKiernan (second from left) was moved to tears as she watched her son meet his long-time idol

WHAT IS KABUKI SYNDROME? Kabuki syndrome is a rare genetic disorder with a range of characteristics, including intellectual disability, distinctive facial features and skeletal abnormalities. There is no cure  treatment aims to reduce the risk of complications and improve quality of life. Source: Better Health Advertisement

'I saw how excited you were. I was already excited but then I saw you were excited so I got like super excited,' Cena continued.

Bryce couldn't contain his excitement as Cena signed his shirt and hat.

And the teenager certainly stole the show when the wrestler introduced him up on stage in front of a packed Melbourne Convention Centre

'He's a stronger man than I'll ever be,' Cena said to the cheering crowd, The Geelong Advertiser reported.

The 15-year-old Geelong boy had been battling kabuki syndrome for most of his life

Meeting his idols: Bryce with My Kitchen Rules judges Manu Feildel and George Calombaris

'He fights everyday and he does it all with a smile.'

Mother Stacey McKiernan was moved to tears as she watched her adoring son meet his long-time idol.

'Even in the last week, he'd deteriorated in his health so this is everything because it makes him smile and it makes us smile,' she told Sunrise after the meet-and-greet.

'So seeing his face lost for words and... it was beautiful. He was happy and I love it.'
David Trainer, 63, has been sent back to jail after admitting historic sex offences on children (He is pictured outside court in March)

A paedophile who was likened to 'the pied piper' by one of his victims has been sent back to jail after admitting more historic sex attacks on children in the 80s and 90s.

David Trainer, 63, carried out a 'campaign of predatory sexual abuse' on children as young as five during the 1980s and 1990s.

He was originally jailed for seven years in 2011 after being convicted of 10 counts of indecent assault.

Trainer, who worked as a puppeteer in the musical 'Little Shop of Horrors', admitted eight counts of indecent assault and six counts of indecency with a child.

The victims, two boys and two girls, were between the ages of seven and 13.

Trainer, a former TV and film special effects artist, babysat the children at his previous home in the Loughborough Estate, Brixton, London, and abused them while under his care.

Another was abused when he was on holiday at the victim's home in Cornwall.

Judge Owen Davies QC made Trainer a 'prisoner of particular concern', which allows parole services to extend his custody term beyond half his sentence.

Jailing Trainer for eight years and one month today at Inner London Crown Court, the judge said: 'There's no doubt that your abuse has had an effect on their lives and blighted their lives.

'Not all misfortune of a person are attributable to sexual abuse, but all the signs are there.

'You had a considerable and malign effect.

'It's clear to me that our understanding of the detrimental impacts have improved.

'In all cases the harm I have identified is severe, there's a serious, enduring psychological impact on the victims.

'There was grooming involved, and the abuse of positions of trust.

'On on occasion you were asked to look after a child and you abused that trust by sexually abusing them.'

Trainer built up a reputation as a photographer and his documentary portrayal of London life featured in a Tate Britain exhibition in 2007 when his work showed alongside names such as William Henry Fox Talbot, Lewis Carroll, Bill Brandt and David Bailey.

Among the photographer's famous subjects are Bob Hoskins, Jerry Hall, John Hurt, Richard Attenborough and Jim Broadbent.

Many of his exhibited photographs, which sell at up to 500 a print, are portraits of children.

In 2009, when the first of his many young victims - by then an adult - reported him to the NSPCC.

Trainer's latest victims came forward following media reports of his first trial in 2011 for sexually abusing four girls - one just six years old - between 1989 and 1993.

Trainer's latest victims came forward following media reports of his first trial in 2011 for sexually abusing four girls - one just six years old - between 1989 and 1993

During the trial, also held at Inner London Crown Court, it emerged he would show the girls slasher movies from the Halloween series of films during their regular visits before assaulting them.

Trainer targeted one girl when she was six by stripping naked and performing a sex act on her.

Prosecutor Benedict Kelleher said at the time that Trainer, who worked in a puppet theatre, would 'entertain them with games related to his interests in theatre and photography'.

He would host sleepovers for young girls in his Brixton flat, and one recalled waking up on the sofa to find Trainer naked behind her.

Trainer also forced himself on the girl and the other youngsters during visits to a swimming pool, the court heard.

He would take the opportunity to assault her while 'drying her' in the family changing room.

Varinder Hayre from the CPS said: 'David Trainer was a man who had worked on well-known films and children's programmes, and as a photographer, when he manipulated these children into gratifying his sexual desires.

'He abused the trust of these children and their parents to damage lives.

'These guilty pleas will spare those victims from having to attend a trial and we thank them for supporting this prosecution.'

An NSPCC spokesperson said: 'Trainer's victims have had to live with the consequences of his crimes against them for decades and it is right that he is now facing justice for the lasting damage he has caused.'

'They must be commended for their bravery in coming forward and we hope they have received support to overcome what has happened to them.

'As this case shows it's never too late for survivors of abuse to seek justice, no matter how much time has passed.'
Hero: Rafi Hottak is appealing for funding from the public to gain sanctuary in the UK

Two former Afghan translators who risked their lives with the British military are appealing to the public to help fund a legal action to allow a new challenge of the governments refusal to give interpreters threatened by the Taliban sanctuary in the UK.

The unprecedented move by the translators  one living in Britain and one in Afghanistan  comes after they were controversially denied Legal Aid to bring the case that has implications for more than 100 interpreters, who claim they have been abandoned to the Taliban and Islamic State in Afghanistan and others facing deportation from the UK.

The men hope to raise enough money via the CrowdJustice platform so their lawyers can challenge a court ruling preventing them from taking the case to the Supreme Court.

Lawyers say the ex-frontline interpreters are heroes who have been discriminated against and want to ask the court to overturn the governments decision not to allow the men to escape Taliban death threats and come to Britain.

But a legal ruling from an earlier hearing currently prevents the case being taken to the Supreme Court.

Rafi Hottak, 30, one of the translators, said : We are appealing to the British public to help us find justice for the men who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with their sons, daughters and husbands for many years when their lives were in danger on the frontlines.

'Their loved ones are home but their eyes and ears who were the translators have been left behind to the terrorists.

The government and military had a moral responsibility to protect us  and a moral responsibility to let us seek justice in the Supreme Court.

It is crucial to the lives of interpreters that we are granted permission to bring this case.

Taliban attack: This picture shows the spot where an Afghan translator was killed by an anti-tank mine planted by Taliban in November 2007. Another Royal Marine who was driving the Pinzgauer (pictured right) alongside the explosion was hospitalized

Fallen hero: Marine Commando Matt Girling from 'C' Company 40 Commando scanned the ground for I.E.Ds at the spot where an Afghan translator was killed by an anti-tank mine in November 2007

Mr Hottak, who was blown-up by a Taliban bomb while on patrol  a British officer was killed in the blast  continued: It is disappointing and frustrating that we are being denied the chance to fight for those facing the threat of the Taliban and other terrorist groups in Afghanistan by the refusal to back us and we very much hope the public will help us raise this money.

The lives of brave men who helped save the lives of British soldiers depends on it.

Former Lib Dem leader Tim Farron said: 'These men have put their lives on the line serving our troops and keeping them safe. They should be entitled to legal aid.

'But the government shouldn't have to be dragged through the courts to do the right thing and offer them sanctuary here.

'It sends completely the wrong message that these courageous men are abandoned by Britain to their fate.'

He added: 'We did it for translators from Iraq, why not for those from Afghanistan?'

Lawyers argue that the translators should be treated in the same way as those who worked with the UK military in Iraq and were granted sanctuary after death threats from militiamen.

Under fire on the front line: A 29-year-old Afghan translator, Khan, pictured above, was shot by a sniper in 2010 while working for the British on the frontline in Helmand, and lost two inches of his arm during operations to save his life

Rosa Curling, a human rights specialist at the law firm Leigh Day which represent Mr Hottak and the second translator known by the initials AL, said : Our clients joined in the fight against the Taliban, working side by side with the British Forces in Afghanistan, risking their own lives for the safety of our soldiers.

As a result of their work, they and their families now face serious risks and the UK government is failing to help them. It is crucial that the Supreme Court hears our clients appeal, which simply seek equal treatment.

Former interpreters from Iraq were offered an ex gratia scheme by which they were entitled to resettle in the UK. Former interpreters from Afghanistan should be offered the same.

Leigh Day, who say the Taliban regards the two men as infidel spies, have argued for several years that the current scheme offered to those who have risked their lives for the British, and now face violence and death threats, is unfair and unlawful.

Beheaded victim: A journalist holds slogans and a picture of beheaded Afghan translator Ajmal Naqshbandi during a demonstration outside the Afghan Parliament in Kabul, Afghanistan in April 2007, to highlight the risks the former translators face

They contend the assistance provided to former Afghan interpreters is far less favourable than the one offered to former Iraqi interpreters and the men are being discriminated against and treated differently because of their nationality.

The Daily Mails Betrayal of the Brave campaign has highlighted the claims of the men who were vital to front line troops. They say they are being targeted by the Taliban and other extremist groups who brand them traitors because of their work with UK troops.

One was shot dead on the doorstep of his family more, another was shot and injured together with his young son while family members have been killed and kidnapped.

Nearly 180,000 people, including former generals, military commanders, MPs, soldiers and members of the public have signed a petition calling for the interpreters to be given sanctuary in the UK.

If all of those people were to give just 30p each then we would have more than enough to bring this legal action which could ultimately save the lives of those who served Britain, Mr Hottak said.

It is not a lot of money to save a life and give hope to men who saved many, many British lives.

Seen as infidels: Two Afghan interpreters who worked alongside British troops in Afghanistan have been killed by the Taliban who view them as 'infidels' (file picture)

Earlier this year Mr Hottak, who came to Britain with people smugglers after receiving death threats, spoke of the dangers of those still in Afghanistan when he told MPs two interpreters who worked alongside UK troops have been murdered by the Taliban in the past few months.

Giving evidence to the Defence Select Committee, he said one was dragged from his car and shot twice by insurgents after being branded a spy.

Speaking from the Afghan capital Kabul last night, AL, 33, who worked for nearly six years for British and US forces, including the SAS, said her was living in hiding, moving addresses regularly because of Taliban death threats.

Last year bullets were fired into his family home. I feel betrayed by those I helped, he said, I continually risked my life for the British to help them against the Taliban and now I live in the shadows.

'Betrayed heroes': MPs have previously been told that the UK is 'not as generous' towards its interpreters as the US is. Pictured is a masked interpreter with Prince Harry in Afghanistan

It is a disgrace that we have been refused official financial support and I would ask the people of Britain to help us right this wrong before more families suffer.

Translators believe Britain has a moral duty to help those who helped them fight the Taliban and contrast how other countries have treated them.

The Daily Mail can reveal that earlier this week France granted sanctuary to a former UK military translator shot by the Taliban whose pleas to come to UK were rejected. Two other translators have this year been given residency in France while nine men who worked with UK forces have been granted help in Germany.

Joanna Sidhu at CrowdJustice said : CrowdJustice is committed to increasing access to justice wherever a case is  from the County Courts and tribunals to the Supreme Court. This campaign gives people the opportunity to come together and support the brave interpreters who risked their lives helping the British Armed Forces in Afghanistan.

Lawyers say Legal Aid was denied because the chances of the case being successful were low, a claim they strongly dispute. A Legal Aid Agency spokesperson said: 'We are only able to fund cases that meet all the relevant criteria under the legal aid regulations.

'On the basis of the current information and circumstances, these criteria were not met for the review of this application.'

Those wishing to make a donation can do so via www.crowdjustice.com/case/afghan-interpreters or crowdfunding campaign on CrowdJustice.
Egypt's health ministry has punished six medics who took selfies in front of a deadly train wreck by transferring them to a remote part of the country, it said Saturday, following an online uproar.

Two trains collided Friday near the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, killing 41 people in one of the deadliest such accidents in the North African country.

Pictures of an ambulance crew taking selfie pictures in front the wreckage sparked anger on social media, with one Twitter user posting a photograph with a hashtag reading: 'conscience in a coma.'

Medics at the scene of a fatal train crash in Alexandria, Egypt have been punished for taking selfies at the scene of the disaster according to the nation's Health Ministry

Social media dubbed the emergency workers 'The Selfie Medics' after the pictures went viral

The crash claimed the lives of 41 people in one of the worst train disasters ever in Egypt

Dubbed the 'Selfie Medics' by Twitter users, they faced calls for punishment on social media.

The health ministry's director of emergency services Ahmed al-Ansari told AFP six members of the ambulance crew have been transferred to the western Siwa oasis as punishment.

It was 'inappropriate conduct,' he said.

Egypt's ambulance services had been hailed in the country in the past for their often dangerous jobs tending to demonstrators during the Arab Spring protests of 2011 and their violent aftermath.

The drivers of the two trains that collided on Friday have been held for questioning and four railway officials suspended pending the results of a probe into its causes, Transportation Minister Hisham Arafat told an Egyptian broadcaster.

A further 123 people were injured as the two trains collided outside Alexandria

Transport ministry officials, quoted on state television, have said the crash in farmland on the outskirts of Alexandria was probably caused by a malfunction in one train that brought it to a halt.

The other train then crashed into it.

Arafat had told reporters at the scene of the accident that it was not yet clear why the train had stopped, but suggested old traffic signals were to blame.

He said: 'We have a big problem we had already announced, which is old traffic signals. We are completely overhauling them. This section here is being developed.'

An injured passenger who was on the stationary train said its departure had been delayed and that it kept stopping en route.

Investigators believe one of the trains malfunctioned before the other crashed into it

He said: 'It stopped every now and then between stations or before stations for five minutes, I don't know why," the man told Dream television station from his hospital bed.

'Everyone was scattered (by the collision), bodies were flung around.'

One train had been heading to Alexandria from Cairo and the other from Port Said, east along the coast.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has sent his condolences to the victims' families and ordered a probe to "hold accountable" those responsible for the disaster.

It was the deadliest train accident in the North African country since a train ploughed into a bus carrying schoolchildren in November 2012, killing 47 people.

That accident jolted the government which ordered an investigation and sacked the transport minister and the head of the railway authority.

Transport officials blamed that accident on a train signal operator who allegedly fell asleep on the job.

Both trains were heading to Alexandria, one from Port Said and the other from Cairo

The probe, however, did not prevent further accidents. Just months later, a train carrying military conscripts derailed, killing 17 people.

Around a year later, a collision between a train and a bus killed 27 people south of the capital.

They had been returning from a wedding when the train ploughed into their bus and a truck at a railway crossing.

Egyptians have long complained that the government has failed to deal with chronic transport problems, with roads as poorly maintained as railway lines.

There have been many other fatal crashes on Egypt's heavily-used rail network.

In July 2008, at least 44 people died near Marsa Matruh in northwestern Egypt when a runaway truck hurtled into a bus, a lorry and several cars waiting at a level crossing, shunting the vehicles into the path of a train.

At least 58 Egyptians were killed and 144 injured in August 2006 in a collision between two trains travelling on the same track.

In the wake of that crash, a court sentenced 14 railway employees to one year in prison for neglect.

The deadliest accident on Egypt's railways dates back to 2002 when 373 people died as a fire ripped through a crowded train south of the capital.
Pictured: Tammy Chen Fenaiche with her husband Mehsen Fenaiche. Both were killed in a terrorist attack in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso on Sunday

A six-months pregnant Cambridge University student has been killed in a terror attack with her husband in Burkina Faso, West Africa.

Gonville and Caius PhD student Tammy Chen Fenaiche, 34, and husband Mehsen Fenaiche were two of at least 18 people murdered when a restaurant popular with tourists was attacked in capital city Ouagadougou on Sunday.

A former school teacher from Toronto, Canada, Ms Chen and Mr Fenaiche got married last month and she was expecting a baby.

The suspected Islamist militant gunmen arrived at the packed Turkish restaurant on motorbikes at around 9pm and opened fired on the crowd of diners.

It took more than seven hours for the country's special forces to halt the attack, leaving the two assailants dead.

There has so far been no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

Her grandmother, Doris Mackay, told the Toronto Star: 'She was going to have my first great grandchild, a grandson. She was six months (pregnant).'

Ms Chen was finishing a PhD in international development, focusing on poverty, gender and women's empowerment.

Gonville and Caius college released a statement this morning saying 'the Master of Caius, Professor Sir Alan Fersht, and the entire Caius community are shocked and devastated at the news, and send deepest sympathy to Tammy's family and many friends'.

Pictured left: Tammy with her husband, Mehsen. Right: Tammy, who was studying for a PhD in international development, focusing on poverty, gender and women's empowerment

The college flag is flying at half mast today to mark her death.

Professor Fersht has paid tribute to her as 'an exceptional woman, very active in the Caius graduate community and passionate about her research and helping people. She had so much to offer the world and it is a tragedy for her to be lost so young'.

From 2011, Tammy co-founded and ran a Canadian-registered charity called Bright Futures of Burkina Faso, which sought to extend both education and microcredits to women in some of the poorest parts of the world.

During her time at Caius, she gave a memorable and inspiring talk to graduates and Fellows on how the shea butter industry was empowering women in Burkina Faso.

Burkina Faso gendarmes and army forces on patrol when soldiers launched an operation against the suspected jihadists

A wounded restaurant customer sits on the ground following an attack by gunmen on the restaurant in Ouagadougou

Burkina Faso gendarmes and army forces patrol on Sunday as soldiers launch an operation against suspected jihadists in Burkina Faso after gunmen attacked a cafe in the capital Ouagadougou

Caius MCR President Hugo Larose said: 'I was devastated to hear about Tammy's loss.

'All of Tammy's friends echo that she was extraordinarily kind and caring, that she was the sort of person that the world sorely needs in times such as these, who would have made a real difference in this world, and whose loss will be sorely felt.

'Though many academics dedicate their life to improving the human condition, Tammy went many steps further, working tirelessly in the some of the poorest parts of the world.

'She was the heart and soul of our MCR during her years in Cambridge, and had many close friends here at Caius. We are all in shock.'

A new Caius studentship will be launched to honour Tammy Chen Fenaiche's memory.
This is the incredible moment a pair of married Connecticut police officers helped save a suicidal woman from leaping 200ft to her death.

Officer Elvin Rivera and his wife, Elsa Berrios, were called to the top of a 16-story New Haven building on July 30, after a friend of the 24-year-old called 911.

The woman had been drinking heavily and had told the friend that she was going to jump.

Unfolding over the space of 17-seconds the video shows the pivotal moment that the two police veterans managed to physically pull her off the ledge with the help of other officers after an hour of negotiations.

They distracted her with the promise of ice for her bare feet - which had been burning on the hot roof.

After she was taken into protective custody, the officers discovered her backpack contained PCP, a bottle of Merlot, and a can of beer.

The woman (obscured by two officers - including officer Rivera) had been drinking heavily and told her friend she was going to kill herself

The drama began after the unidentified 24-year-old began drinking heavily and began telling her friend she was going to end her life.

Her friend immediately called 911 and officers rushed to the scene.

They begged the woman not to jump as she clung to a chain-link fence that surrounded the roof. The fence separated the woman from the officers.

The dramatic intervention was captured on Officer Elsa Berrios' bodycam as she observed the pivotal moment that her husband and colleagues distracted the suicidal woman

Officer Berrios rushed to Rivera's aid and was able to pull the woman from the side of the building

The entire scene unfolded in the space of seconds and came after an hour of negotiations with the woman in English and Spanish

'How are you going to help me?' she says. 'You're never going to help me.'

She was nearly 200 feet above the ground and standing unsteadily due to inebriation.

After nearly an hour of standing on the pavement, the woman complained that the hot concrete was burning her feet. An officer volunteered to go get her ice.

Officer Rivera then saw his chance to rescue the woman.

When he went to offer her the ice, he reached and grabbed hold of her arm. She tried to push him away and struggled.

His wife, Officer Elsa Berrios, and other officers rushed forward to help him bring the woman to safety.

'I'm very thankful that you guys were there and you were working together because you guys are a great team,' the woman said to the husband and wife officers, according to FOX 61.

The woman has thanked the officers for saving her life and has said she is going through a hard time.

The woman, who has not been named, thanked the police officers for saving her life later on
A 29-year-old Chinese man is about to transform two luxurious Sydney mansions, making it one of the greatest estates in Australia.

Shangjin 'Jin' Lin, heir to a billion-dollar Chinese property empire, bought two neighbouring properties in Sydney's exclusive eastern suburb of Vaucluse and is planning to create one mega property.

The two luxurious mansions on Queens Avenue were bought for a combined $52 million on New Year's Eve in 2015.

29-year-old Chinese man will transform two luxurious Sydney mansions in Vaucluse (pictured)

The two properties with harbour views (pictured) on Queens Avenue were bought on New Years Eve in 2015

Shangjin 'Jin' Lin, heir to a billion-dollar Chinese property empire, bough two neighbouring properties in Sydney's exclusive suburb

Mr Lin is planning to demolish one property and rebuild a three storey mansion

Mr Lin's renovations of the properties will cost $22 million and should take two years

Although the properties are in his mother's name, Mr Lin's grand plans would include a $22 million renovation to create 14 bedrooms, 18 bathrooms and possibly employing 100 people.

The historic Villa Igiea was bought for $47 million and sits on 2,133 sqm and boasts seven bedrooms and five bathrooms, which would be restored to their 1906 charm.

The neighbouring property was bought for $5 million and features six bedrooms and three bathrooms on 806sqm, but the publication reports Mr Lin is planning to destroy the property and rebuild a three-storey home.

The extravagant mansions would then be connected by a basement and a shared carpark.

Estimated to take about two years, living like royalty with Sydney Harbour views, the mega property would include an infinity spa and 20-seat cinema.

The extraordinary renovations is even estimated to use 355 truckloads of excavations.

The mega-mansion will be connected by an underground basement and connecting carpark

The new property is set to include an infinity spa and cinema to seat 20 people

The extraordinary renovations is even estimated to use 355 truckloads of excavations

The new renovations will create 14 bedrooms, 18 bathrooms and possibly employ 100 people
Sam Clancy, pictured with fiancee Rebecca Sweeney, was knocked down and killed

Hen and stag parties have been urged to cut back on excessive drinking after a 24-year-old drunken British father was knocked down and killed on a busy main road during a stag party in Budapest.

Sam Clancy, who was also due to marry, was hit by two vehicles after looking the wrong way when stepping into a six-lane carriageway next to the River Danube.

The factory worker from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, had been 'nine out of ten' drunk after the party of 22 knocked back lager, sambuca and Jagerbomb drinks, an inquest heard.

In the minutes before the tragedy he and a friend who became separated from the group had been ordered out of a taxi for spilling takeaway food over the back seat and were walking back to their hotel.

The friend made it across the road but when he saw Mr Clancy was not behind him, he mistakenly thought he had gone to another bar and went to bed. He reported him missing the next morning.

Mr Clancy's family flew out to Hungary to search for him but were only made aware of the tragedy by local police 72 hours after the impact, when officers showed them pictures of his body at the crash scene.

Mr Clancy's family were only made aware of the tragedy by local police 72 hours after the impact, when officers showed them pictures of his body at the crash scene

At an inquest, Coroner Michael Salt urged hen and stag parties to cut down on their excessive drinking.

He recorded a conclusion of death by road traffic collision, saying: 'It seems that what should have been a happy weekend has turned into a complete disaster.

'Too much drink was taken but whilst I do not mean this to be critical, I do believe it is a factor which must be considered. Evidence shows a very sad traffic accident involving a father of a young child who will now miss him dearly.

'This was a hard working young family man in a stable relationship with much to look forward to. Young lads are going to drink on a stag do and ultimately this is a very tragic case.

'But one word of caution I would like to issue is that people should be more aware of excessive alcohol consumption during stag and hen weekends.

'I don't want to be a party pooper but being more aware of your intake could prevent such horrific tragedies.'

The tragedy occurred on the first night when Mr Clancy - who had a two-year-old daughter - and his friends arrived at the four-star Hotel Hungaria on April 28.

The factory worker from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, had been 'nine out of ten' drunk after the party of 22 knocked back lager, sambuca and Jagerbomb drinks, an inquest heard

Joshua Garvey, 24, told the hearing in Heywood: 'We must have had about three pints of lager at Manchester Airport whilst waiting to board the plane and he was in good spirits. We had breakfast on the flight and another drink of lager.

Mr Clancy died after being knocked down on a main road during a stag party in Budapest

'We arrived in Budapest at about 12.30pm and had another drink whilst we waited for our transfer to the hotel. After we dropped our bags we went out to explore the city and went into the first bar we could find.

'We had another pint of lager and moved on to explore other bars and somebody started buying in Jagerbombs.

'At about 5.15pm some of the lads went back to the room and got showered but about 15 of them including Sam and I stayed out drinking until about 7pm.

'We then went back out again and went to a bar for a pint and a shot of sambuca and afterwards we went to about five more bars. We were drinking sambuca and lemonade and then shots of sambuca.

'We left at about 9.15pm and at this point Sam was about nine on the drunk scale. He was drunk but still coherent and walking and we each got a kebab.

'We found a taxi and asked the driver to take us back to the hotel but the driver pulled over and complained about Sam's mess. I gave the driver extra money for the mess and we got out but he said 'go away now' so we did.

Mr Clancy's fiancee Miss Sweeney told how he was 'a kind, funny and family oriented man'

'I saw a busy, well lit road so we walked towards it hoping to flag down another cab - but Sam was walking very slowly behind me. When I got to the road I realised it was more like a motorway so ran across when I saw a gap in the traffic.

Factory worker Mr Clancy was said to have been 'so excited to go on his friends stag do'

'When I turned around I couldn't see Sam. I just thought he must have gone for a cigarette or a wee or even to another bar and I walked the rest of the way back to the hotel.

'I tried calling but the call went straight to voicemail and I assumed he must have met up with the others and stayed out. We had breakfast at 9am but nobody had seen him either and we spent the day checking hospitals, police stations and bars but found him nowhere. It wasn't like him. It was so out of character.'

Mr Clancy's fiancee Rebecca Sweeney told the inquest: 'Sam was a kind, funny and family oriented man. He idolised his daughter and doted on her.

'He went on an occasional night out, but he was a family man and a hard worker. He was so excited to go on his friends stag do.

'He was excited and in good spirits and I'd already had a message to say he'd landed safely but the next day I had a text from Josh to tell me he had been walking and texting his ex girlfriend when he turned around and Sam was nowhere to be seen.

'Josh said he thought Sam had gone to meet the rest of the lads. I began to phone everywhere, police stations and hospitals but nobody was helpful. Nobody wanted to help me and myself Sam's dad Carl flew out to Budapest to join in with the search party.

Mr Clancy occasionally went out, 'but he was a family man and a hard worker', his fiancee said

'We went everywhere handing out flyers and pictures but nobody had seen Sam. On May 2 we were told to go to the British Embassy in Budapest. We were taken to a room and told there had been an accident and we went to a police station and we were shown pictures of Sam deceased. We were devastated.

'It was barbaric how they dealt with us and with Sam's death. We were shown no care or compassion. We should never have been shown those pictures.'

Mr Clancy 'stepped into a busy road described more like a motorway with six carriages, three in each direction'

Detective Inspector Chris Mannion of Greater Manchester Police said in the minutes before the tragedy Mr Clancy had tried to get into the Morrison 2 nightclub complex on Szent Istvan Boulevard in District 6 of the city but had been refused entry.

He added: 'When the news of Sam's death was confirmed I was made aware identification had taken place by way of scene pictures being shown to the family. This was unorthodox to say the least and not the way things would be done here in the UK.

'An investigation showed Sam had stepped into a busy road described more like a motorway with six carriages, three in each direction and had been hit by a driver who had been unable to avoid him.

'He fell into the outside lane where he was hit by a second motorist, although both remained on the scene. We confirmed nobody was at fault, there was no foul play or third party involvement.

'Being unused to the road layout Sam had stepped across three lanes of the motorway when he looked the wrong way and was knocked down. This is a very tragic and truly awful case.'

After the inquest, Sam's father Carl said: 'I am heartbroken but I just hope somebody leans from this tragic story.'

Miss Sweeney added: 'I just hope in future more people will familiarise themselves with their surroundings in foreign countries and maybe be a bit more careful with how much they drink.

'You can't tell somebody on a stag do not to drink, but being more sensible could prevent somebody experiencing the heartache I have. Nobody should go through what we have as a family and I wouldn't wish this heartache and pain on anybody.'
Saffie (pictured) was the youngest of the 22 victims of Salman Abedi when he blew himself up outside a Ariana Grande concert

The parents of the youngest Manchester Bomb victim are reluctantly selling their fish-and-chip shop - after spending so much time in hospital.

But the heartbroken family of Saffie Rose Roussos, 8, hope whoever buys The Plaice, in Leyland, Lancs, will rename it 'Saffie's Plaice' after her.

Saffie was the youngest of the 22 victims of terrorist Salman Abedi when he blew himself up outside the Ariana Grande concert in May.

Last month at Manchester Cathedral, mother Lisa Roussos, 48, father Andrew, 43, brother Xander, 10 and Saffie's step-sister Ashlee Bromwich, 23, all said their final goodbye to the primary schoolgirl.

Now wheelchair-bound Lisa's non-stop hospital treatment is taking up so much of their time that the family unable to run the chippy any longer.

Family friend Mike Swanson, 38, revealed on Facebook: 'This is a hard post to write. I've been asked by my friend to help sell his business The Plaice.

'It's in the centre of Leyland surrounded by many pubs, businesses and a very popular. It comes with three bedroom flat.

'Hopefully the new occupier's will keep it a chip shop and give it the name it deserves 'Saffies Plaice'.

The heartbroken family of Saffie Rose Roussos, 8, hope whoever buys The Plaice, in Leyland, Lancs, will rename it 'Saffie's Plaice' after her

Wheelchair-bound Lisa's non-stop hospital treatment is taking up so much of their time that the family unable to run the chippy any longer (pictured: Lisa and Saffie together)

'It's the end of an era. We want it to go to someone who will maintain it in its current format. So many people will tell you it's the best chippy in town.'

The announcement was greeted with shock and understanding by locals on the Leyland Memories community Facebook site.

The Roussos family's wish is for the chippy to renamed Saffie's Plaice, cementing the legacy of their daughter in the local community.

The youngster was a well-known and popular figure around the shop where her parents worked.

Andrew Roussos, father of Manchester attack victim Saffie Roussos with his son Xander, 11 (right) and Ashlee Bromwich (left), Saffie's step-sister

To mark what would have been Saffie's ninth birthday last July 4th, family and friends gathered outside the family's chip shop, releasing balloons in her memory.

Last month mourners all came clutching a single rose as they packed Manchester Cathedral, just a few hundred yards from where Abedi, 22, detonated his suicide bomb.

A letter written by Miss Bromwich to Saffie was read aloud, where she said: 'I wish I could do justice with my words.

'But how can it be enough to describe the way you lit up our lives. The greatest gift.

'Nothing more, nothing less than I could ever have wanted in a little sister.

'You gave love and life a whole different meaning. Everything I do from this day forward will be all for you.'

Last month at Manchester Cathedral, Saffie's family all said their final goodbye to the primary schoolgirl
A world famous clown has been found guilty of engaging in sexual acts with a child and has been sentenced to a fine and deportation.

David Larible, who won the Golden Clown at the International Circus Festival of Monte-Carlo in 1999 was arrested and bailed after being accused of assaulting a young fan in November last year.

Larible, 60, who denied the claims, was banned from Switzerland for five years and fined 15,000 by a court in Zurich after being found guilty of assaulting the 14-year-old girl.

Zurich prosecutor Francoise Stadelmann accused him of sexual acts with a 14-year-old fan.

Award-winning Italian clown David Larible, pictured, was banned from Switzerland for five years after he was found guilty of engaging in sexual acts with a 14-year-old girl

Larible, pictured with his lawyer Valentin Landmann denied the claims but was found guilty of the attack which is alleged to have taken place in a Zurich hotel on October 24, 2016

Stadelmann told the court, the clown who at the time performed as a member of the large Swiss circus 'Knie', forcefully kissed his victim and stroked the schoolgirl's back. He is even said to have given her a kiss on her cleavage.

The girl claims that the circus clown forced himself on her with three French kisses in his hotel room at Zurich's Hotel Central on October 24, 2016.

Larible vehemently denied in court this ever happened.

The clown said: 'These tongue kisses never took place.'

Larible explained that the girl told him she never kissed someone properly before.

Larible said: 'I told her that this would happen one day automatically with a friend.'

The clown's lawyer Valentin Landmann said that 'Mr Larible embraced the girl only in greeting and farewell.'

In his final statement, Larible admitted that he exchanged lots of text messages with the girl, but said they were not of a sexual nature.

Larible was found guilty of forcibly kissing the youngster in the hotel late last year

As well as the ban, Larible was fined 15,000 and ordered to pay his victim 2,700

Larible said: 'And if you take these statements individually, one can interpret them differently.

'A hug is nothing sexual. Doctors have proven that hugs help sick people. That is why there are extra people in clinics who embrace people. It's nothing sexual.

'I am 60 years old, I worked all my life to become what I am. One thing is clear: I am not a paedophile. On the contrary, I am horrified by such people.'

Since his arrest he has not been hired for a single gig in German-speaking Europe and also his reputation in Italy was tarnished.

Landmann explained that 'no one wanted anything to do with a paedo clown.'

The clown's lawyer said the charges of the schoolgirl were 'the ravings of a girl in puberty' as he argued that his client did nothing wrong.

The presiding judge agreed however with Stadelmann and found the clown guilty of charges of sexual activities with a child.

He was banned for five years from Switzerland and was given a conditional fine of 15,328.

Larible was also ordered to pay the victim 2,700 in damages.
Labor frontbencher Penny Wong's office discovered Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce's Kiwi citizenship by contacting a New Zealand Labour MP.

The senator's chief-of-staff Marcus Ganley, himself from New Zealand, spoke to Labour MP Chris Hipkins, Fairfax Media reported.

That conversation has plunged Mr Hipkins into the middle of a trans-Tasman political scandal.

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Australian Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce discovered he is a dual New Zealand citizen

Labor foreign affairs frontbencher Penny Wong's office contacted a New Zealand Labour MP

Senator Wong, who is also Labor's foreign affairs frontbencher, has confirmed it was one of her staff who had an 'informal discussion' with Mr Hipkins.

Mr Hipkins had put in written questions that were linked to Mr Joyce's parliamentary eligibility, and he's been blasted by his party leader in New Zealand for his lack of judgement.

The High Court will determine later this month if Mr Joyce, a New Zealand citizen by descent through his father, is in breach of the Australian Constitution's section 44 ban on dual citizens being members of parliament.

The New Zealand High Commission and Department of Internal Affairs notified Mr Joyce of his citizenship last week, after inquiries from Fairfax Media in Australia and Mr Hipkins on Monday and Wednesday respectively.

Penny Wong's chief-of-staff Marcus Ganley contacted a New Zealand Labour politician

New Zealand Labour MP Chris Hipkins made enquiries about Barnaby Joyce's citizenship

New Zealand Labour has tried to downplay Mr Hipkins' involvement, saying the media enquiries uncovered Mr Joyce's citizenship, a claim backed up by Internal Affairs Minster Peter Dunne.

But Mr Hipkins has admitted an Australian Labor Party friend and associate raised the citizenship question 'a couple of weeks ago'.

Labour leader Jacinda Ardern confirmed that person was an ALP staff member.

'I know they were a staffer. To be honest I do not know their exact role but I don't believe they work for (Labor leader) Bill Shorten,' she said.

The ALP's involvement has angered Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, who said she would have trouble trusting a New Zealand Labour should they form government.

Australia's Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says she would struggling trusting NZ Labour

'New Zealand's facing an election. Should there be a change of government, I would find it very hard to build trust with those involved in allegations designed to undermine the government of Australia,' she told reporters on Tuesday.

Her cabinet minister, Christopher Pyne, accused the Labor opposition of stooping to new lows.

'Clearly the Labor Party are involved in a conspiracy using a foreign government, in this case New Zealand, to try and bring down the Australian Government,' he told Sky News.

NZ First leader Winston Peters described the contact between the ALP and Labour distasteful collusion on a 'political hit job'.

He also took aim at New Zealand's Minister for Internal Affairs Peter Dunne for 'corroborating information that had obvious political intent'.

Mr Hipkins claims he didn't know whether the staffer's question related to a specific person.

NZ Prime Minister Bill English also criticised Mr Hipkins judgement, saying he couldn't remember a time before that a New Zealand MP had involved themselves in another country's politics.
An anti-Trump activist has been accused of executing his neighbor who was a prominent Republican supporter.

Clayton Carter allegedly shot George Jennings, both 51, twice in the head outside his home in Pennsylvania in the early hours of August 8.

The men had already been arguing the previous night and police were called after Carter pulled a gun, but managed to diffuse the situation.

Clayton Carter, 51 (left), is accused of shooting neighbor George Jennings, also 51 (right), twice in the head outside his home in Pennsylvania last week

However, officers were called back just a few hours later to reports of a fatal attack, ABC 6 News reports.

The pair had been feuding for some time, neighbors said, adding that they were afraid of Carter's unpredictable nature.

ABC reports that his yard was covered with hand-painted anti-Trump signs and was often filled with cars.

Jennings, meanwhile, was a member of the Chester County Republican Committee, though it is not thought their beliefs were directly responsible for the shooting.

Investigators were first called to the address around 8pm on August 7 because the two men were fighting about cursing and video recording in a back yard.

Officers resolved that dispute, but at 1am on August 8 they were called back to another argument, this time involving lights.

Jennings was a prominent Republican supporter while Carter had a lawn littered with anti-Trump signs (pictured). Neighbors said the men had been involved in a long-running dispute but the shooting was not directly related to their political beliefs

Carter accused Jennings of shining a light into his eyes as he was returning home, and went inside to fetch a .380-caliber Ruger semi-automatic handgun.

Carter went back outside and parked his car up on Jennings' lawn with his lights on full beam, according to a criminal complaint seen by Philly.com.

A heated argument then started and Carter shot Jennings in the head, knocking him to the ground, the complaint says.

Carter then shot Jennings in the head a second time while standing over his body, as his distraught wife watched from inside the house, it is alleged.

Carter admitted shooting Jennings but says he acted in self defense after Jennings advanced on him with a knife.

Police say they recovered two shell casings from the scene - one from Carter's yard, and one from beside Jennings' body.

They also recovered a knife, though it is not clear where the weapon was found.
A police officer wrestled a woman to the ground after she put her hand in his face and refused to leave the car she was travelling in after he pulled it over on suspicion of drink-driving.

Footage of the standoff has been released online and shows the woman, who has not been named, fighting desperately to free herself from the grip of the unnamed officer.

The bizarre incident took place in the city of Kemerovo in Russia's south-central Kemerovo Oblast region and was captured by the police officer's colleague, who was also on the scene.

The footage shows the woman in the driver's seat of a small vehicle after it was stopped by police who believed the driver, reportedly the woman's husband, was drunk while behind the wheel.

Russian laws dictate that if a driver is deemed to be drunk behind the wheel that police can confiscate the car and have it towed.

But the woman obviously did not want this to happen so she locked herself in the vehicle and put up a fight when the officer eventually managed to open the door.

The officer is seen dragging the woman from the car as his police partner asks in the background if he needs assistance and whether the woman scratched him.

The woman reaches out and appears to strike the police officer who asked her to leave the car

The officer manages to get the woman, who is still resisting, on the ground where she then kicks out using her legs.

They can be heard repeatedly asking her to 'calm down' but it does not work.

It is since reported that the fracas cost the family. The husband is likely to lose his driver's licence as a result, while his wife has been arrested on suspicion of attacking a police officer. It is not believed that she has appeared in court yet.

Russian laws dictate that if a driver is deemed to be drunk behind the wheel that police can confiscate the car and have it towed and the car was pulled on suspicion of drink driving

And netizens did not have much sympathy for the pair.

One, named 'Pavel Nikolaevich' said: 'She might get put in jail for this kick... She is sooo stupid.'

While another identified as 'Evgen Kuznetsov' added: 'Amazing. They should get their vehicle confiscated and get locked behind bars.'
A jury has ordered a female blogger to pay an Army colonel she accused of rape a total of $8.4million in damages.

Susan Shannon, 52, who now lives in Everett, Washington, first alleged that she was sexually assaulted by Army Colonel David 'Wil' Riggins in 1986, while they were both cadets, on her blog in 2013.

She said she waited three decades to come forward about her experience because of the army's 'code of silence'.

But Riggins, also 52, who vehemently denied the claims, said the 'false' allegations had cost him a sparkling military career.

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Army Colonel Wil Riggins (right) sued his former West Point classmate Susan Shannon (left) after he says her claims that he raped her 30 years ago cost him a promotion

The combat veteran from Alexandria had been on the cusp of being appointed to general in 2013, when Army leaders saw Shannon's rape allegation on her blog.

His promotion was snatched away and Riggins says his name was dragged through the mud after 'Susan Shannon decided to play judge and jury on her own.'

The decorated colonel denied all claims, telling ABC 7 On Your Side at the time: 'I did not rape Susan Shannon. I did not sexually assault Susan Shannon. Every aspect of (her) story is verifiably false.'

The jury has now ordered Shannon to pay $3.4 million in compensatory damages for injury to his reputation and lost wages, and $5 million in punitive damages, 'to make sure nothing like this will ever happen again,' according to the Washington Post.

Susan Shannon (left, as a cadet) alleged that she was sexually assaulted by Army Colonel Wil Riggins (right, as a cadet) in 1986 while they were both cadets at West Point

Shannon said at the time she had finally been inspired to speak about her alleged experience after reading about several high profile convictions for sexual assaults in the military.

Shannon alleged she was raped by her former cadet classmate at the United States Military Academy in New York in 1986. She dropped out shortly afterwards.

Now a jewelry designer and a mother living on the West Coast, she added that the pressure in the army to keep quiet and not turn in her peers meant that she did not even report the alleged rape at her exit interview.

She made the claims on her blog Short Little Rebel in 2013 - which followed the announcement that Colonel Riggins had been nominated for general.

Shannon denied having any knowledge of his nomination until she was contacted by Army officials investigating her blog post.
President Trump claimed the CEOs who quit his manufacturing board over his response to the violence in Charlottesville really did so because they were embarrassed their products weren't made in the USA.

'Because they are not taking their job seriously as it pertains to this country,' Trump blasted when asked by a reporter why four CEOs had dropped out since Monday morning, starting with the only African-American member of the group, Kenneth Frazier of Merck.

Shortly after Trump's messy Trump Tower press conference, the AFL-CIO's Richard Trumka resigned 'effective immediately,' he tweeted.

'I have to tell you that some of the people who will leave, they're leaving out of embarrassment because they make their products outside and I've been lecturing them,' Trump said of the fleeing CEOs.

He also criticized Walmart's Doug McMillon for a statement the retailer's head put that said, 'We too felt that he missed a critical opportunity to help bring our country together by unequivocally rejecting the appalling actions of white supremacists.'

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President Trump suggested that the CEOs who fled his manufacturing council over his response to Charlottesville were actually embarrassed because their products weren't made in the United States

The president of the AFL-CIO Richard Trumka became the fifth member of Trump's manufacturing council to resign after hearing Trump's comments at a press conference Tuesday at Trump Tower

The AFl-CIO's Richard Trumka also resigned from President Trump's manufacturing council on the heels of the president's free-wheeling press conference where he assigned some blame for the violence in Charlottesville to those protesting the hate groups

Noting that he knew him and he was a 'very nice guy,' Trump charged McMillon with making a 'political statement.'

When Trump was asked if he did miss an opportunity to bring the country together, the president's answer was 'not at all.'

During President Trump's wild press conference Tuesday, the president slammed Walmart CEO Doug McMillon (pictured) for speaking out against him

Earlier on Tuesday, Trump had chided the three CEOs who abandoned him on Twitter, saying they could easily be replaced.

'For every CEO that drops out of the Manufacturing Council, I have many to take their place. Grandstanders should not have gone on. JOBS!' Trump wrote.

With that, a fourth CEO dropped out.

'I'm resigning from the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative because it's the right thing for me to do,' Scott Paul, the president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, tweeted Tuesday.

It's unclear how Trump will replace Paul.

Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank revealed on Monday afternoon that he was stepping down from the council to 'focus on inspiring and uniting through power of sport.'

A few hours later, he was joined by Intel CEO Brian Krzanich.

Their resignations came less than a day after Merck's head Frazier announced he was leaving the group.

Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, was the fourth executive to quit President Donald Trump's American Manufacturing Council

Trump tweeted on Tuesday that he would easily replace CEOs who quit on him

Paul announced his decision shortly after Trump drew his line in the sand

Walmart's CEO Doug McMillon released a statement Monday saying the company felt Trump 'missed a critical opportunity to help bring out country together,' on Tuesday Trump said he disagreed, calling McMillon's statement 'political'

WALMART'S CEO DOUG MCMILLON COMES OUT AGAINST TRUMP'S RESPONSE TO CHARLOTTESVILLE VIOLENCE Respect for the individual is one of our core beliefs at Walmart. And the role we play in communities around the country to build a more diverse and inclusive society is more critical than ever as the tragic events in Charlottesville over the weekend painfully reminded us. Our prayers are with the victims and their families. As we watched the events and the response from President Trump over the weekend, we too felt that he missed a critical opportunity to help bring our country together by unequivocally rejecting the appalling actions of white supremacists. His remarks today were a step in the right direction and we need that clarity and consistency in the future. Our country is facing some very difficult issues that require our elected officials, business leaders and community-based organizations to work together. Representing a company with the largest and one of the most diverse groups of associates in the U.S., and an even more diverse customer base of tens of millions of customers, we believe we should stay engaged to try to influence decisions in a positive way and help bring people together. I will continue to strongly advocate on behalf of our associates and customers, and urge our elected officials to do their part to promote a more just, tolerant and diverse society. Thank you for representing Walmart and our values today  and every day. Advertisement

Plank said in his statement that he joined the council because he wanted Under Armour to have an 'active seat at the table and represent our industry'.

'We remain resolute in our potential and ability to improve American manufacturing. However, Under Armour engages in innovation and sport, not politics,' he wrote.

'I love our country and our company and will continue to focus my efforts on inspiring every person that they can do anything through the power of sport which promotes unity, diversity and inclusion.'

The president has been feeling an intense backlash following the weekend's white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, since he was slow to condemn the responsible groups by name

Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank also revealed on Monday afternoon that he was stepping down from the council

Krzanich said he resigned to because he wanted to 'make progress', and found the government's leaders to be more focused on scoring political points.

'Politics and political agendas have sidelined the importance of rebuilding America's manufacturing based,' he wrote in a lengthy statement.

'I resigned to call attention to the serious harm our divided political climate is causing to critical issues, including the serious need to address the decline of American manufacturing.'

Plank said that he was resigning to 'focus on inspiring and uniting through power of sport'

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich was one of three business leaders to resign from Trump's American Manufacturing Council in reaction to his Charlottesville response on Monday

Plank (pictured) said in his statement that he initially joined the council because he wanted Under Armour to have an 'active seat at the table and represent our industry'

Krzanich likewise mentioned the violence that broke out in Charlottesville on Saturday after white supremacists stormed the University of Virginia campus.

'I have already made clear my abhorrence at the recent hate-spawned violence in Charlottesville, and earlier today I called on leaders to condemn the white supremacists and their ilk who marched and committed violence,' he wrote.

'I resigned because I want to make progress, while many in Washington seem more concerned with attacking anyone who disagrees with them.'

Krzanich added that he hoped the country would once again honor those who 'stood up for equality and other cherished American values'.

'My requestmy pleato everyone involved in our political system is this: set scoring political points aside and focus on what is best for the nation as a whole.'

'The current environment must change, or else our nation will become a shadow of what it once was and what it still can and should be.'

Krzanich said he resigned to because he wanted to 'make progress', and found the government's leaders to be more focused on scoring political points

Frazier, the council's only black member, was the first to resign on Monday.

He called on American leaders to clearly reject 'expressions of hatred, bigotry, and group supremacy'.

'As CEO of Merck and as a matter of personal conscience, I feel a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism,' he wrote.

Trump was quick to attack Frazier following his resignation, tweeting that Frazier would now have 'more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES'.

'@Merck Pharma is a leader in higher & higher drug prices while at the same time taking jobs out of the U.S. Bring jobs back & LOWER PRICES!' Trump tweeted again as he left Washington for New York.

Trump has so far remained quiet on Plank and Krzanich's resignations, instead tweeting that it felt 'good to be home' in New York after seven months.

'But the White House is very special, there is no place like it...and the US is really my home!' he added.

Of the 21 members who remain on Trump's council, only one has said outwardly said they are reassessing their position.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, one of the top labor leaders in the country, called on Trump to 'unequivocally denounce the actions of bigoted domestic terrorists in Charlottesville'.

'We are aware of the decisions by other members of the President's Manufacturing Counil, which has yet to hold any real meeting, and are assessing our role,' he said in a widely-released statement.

'While the AFL-CIO will remain a powerful voice for the freedoms of working people, there are real questions into the effectiveness of this council to deliver real policy that lifts working families.'

Trumka resigned Tuesday evening, after Trump's presser.

Leaders for Campbell Soup, Dell, Dow Chemical, International Paper, Nucor, and Whirlpool all confirmed with Fortune that they will be staying on the council.

Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier was quit Trump's American Manufacturing Council over the president's lackluster response to the violence caused by white supremacist groups

Trump lashed out at Merck on Monday afternoon, calling it a price-hiking exporter or jobs

The president had already bashed Frazier by name on Monday morning after news broke that the only black member of his manufacturing council had quit

President Trump (left) is photographed with Kenneth Frazier (right) in July

On Monday morning, the official Merck Twitter account sent out CEO Kenneth Frazier's statement on why he decided to quit President Trump's American Manufacturing Council

Of that group, Campbell, Dow, International Paper, and Nucor explicitly condemned the violence in Charlottesville.

Leaders for Harris Corp, Alliance for American Manufacturing, and Lockheed Martin - the remaining companies on the council - either could not be reached or would not provide a comment.

Trump has been facing major backlash over his much-panned response to Charlottesville, in which one counter-protester was killed.

Nazi sympathizer James Fields, a 20-year-old from Ohio, used his Dodge Charger to run over counter-protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring 19 more.

He's been charged with second degree murder.

On Saturday, Trump made a statement from his Bedminster resort in New Jersey saying, 'We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides.'

Critics, including a handful of Congressional Republicans, suggested that Trump was falsely equating the neo-Nazis, KKK members and white supremacists protesting the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee with those marching against the hate groups.

It would be two days before Trump finally condemned the hate groups by name.

'Racism is evil. And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans,' he said at the White House.

Kenneth Frazier (left), the CEO of Merck, was the only black member of President Trump's American Manufacturing Council

Members of white supremacist groups are photographed gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia, Friday night

Members of hate groups including the KKK are escorted by police past a group of protesters

Counter-protesters and members of hate groups clash in Charlottesville. One counter-protester was killed, along with two police officers in a helicopter crash

'We are a nation founded on the truth that all of us are created equal. We are equal in the eyes of our creator. We are equal under the law. And we are equal under our Constitution. Those who spread violence in the name of bigotry strike at the very core of America.'

It took Trump under an hour to respond to Frazier's decision to quit the manufacturing board.

And it took Trump a little more than 24 hours to stick his foot in his mouth again on matters of race, suggesting at Trump Tower that the 'alt-left'  the name he labeled protesters in Charlottesville on hand to condemn white supremacy  were partially at fault for the violence too.

'What about the alt-left that came charging at the, as you say, the alt-right? Do they have any semblance of guilt?' Trump asked reporters who were peppering him with questions about the weekend's events. 'Let me ask you this, what about the fact that they came charging with clubs in their hands, swinging clubs, do they have any problem? I think they do.'

In the lobby of Trump Tower, the president said he was watching the events more closely than the media.

'And you had a group on one side that was bad and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent,' Trump said. 'And nobody wants to say that.'

'But I'll say it right now,' the president added.

Six prominent CEOs have since walked away from one of Trump's White House boards.

On the heels of Trump exiting the Paris climate accord, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, also part of the American Manufacturing Council, threw in the towel.

Disney CEO Bob Iger, who served on the president's Strategic and Policy Forum exited over Paris too.

Now former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick left Trump's boards in February over the administration's travel ban, which targeted Muslim-majority countries.
Surveillance footage shows the shocking moment a guest assaulted an employee at a Motel 6 in Tempe, Arizona.

The two were arguing in a second floor hallway over a hotel room prior to the attack, which took place on July 10.

The brutal video shows the unidentified man repeatedly kicking and punching the employee, leaving him on the ground with serious injuries.

Tempe police are still searching for the attacker who fled from the scene on foot.

He is described as a black male, approximately 30 years old with short dark hair and a goatee.

Anyone with information can call Tempe police at 480-350-8311.

A Motel 6 employee is pictured arguing with a guest over a room on July 10

The guest repeatedly punches and kicks the employee, leaving him with serious injuries
The Swedish journalist who disappeared on Thursday night after travelling with a Danish inventor on his home-made submarine is still missing, and police are now expanding the search.

The wreckage of Peter Madsen's submarine which sunk in Copenhagen harbour on Friday, was raised on Sunday, but the remains of 30-year-old Kim Wall was not on board.

The search for Miss Wall has now been extended to Swedish waters, with Danish police saying Madsen, 46, may have taken her to Germany.

Missing: Kim Wall, 30, (left) had gone along for the submarine's maiden voyage to report on Peter Madsen (right), who built it himself. He is under investigation for negligent manslaughter

Mystery: Danish police have now enlisted the help of their Swedish counterparts, but say it is possible that Madsen transported Miss Wall as far as Germany

Extended search: A Swedish Sea Rescue Society unit searches for the missing journalist Kim Wall at Lundakra Bay between Barseback and Landskrona, in Sweden

Anything is possible,' a spokesman for the Danish police said Tuesday.

'We are not ruling out that she may have been taken to Germany.'

Madsen, an amateur enthusiast who had built the UC3 Nautilus himself, has a history of lashing out at journalists who gave his project bad press, his biographer has said today.

He often ends up in conflicts, and has a lot of enemies,' says Thomas Djursing, a journalist who has written a book about Madsen.

'He can throw tools at you. But at the same time, he's not a violent person. I've never been afraid of him,' he told Aftonbladet.

Mr Djursing adds that Madsen would often become angry with journalists who wrote about his ambitious projects in a negative way, and says 'I don't know a journalist who has not been in conflict with him'.

'Hot-tempered': Peter Madsen, pictured with fellow enthusiast Kristian von Bengtson and one of their rocket prototypes in 2010, allegedly has a history of lashing out at journalists

Passionate: Madsen's biographer has revealed that the hobby rocket builder has made enemies of the people he has worked with , and that his temper can flare unexpectantly

Police have raised the wreckage of Danish sub UC3 Nautilus which sank in Copenhagen on Friday, but failed to find the body of journalist Kim Wall, 30

A new image has also emerged which Swedish media claims shows Miss Wall on board the sub alongside Madsen on Friday, after he claimed she had disembarked

In Mr Djursing's book 'Rocket Madsen', the inventor describes himself as a 'nerd with few friends' who grew up with his elderly father after the parents separation.

Early on, he joined several rocket and space travel clubs, but his lack of patience and short fuse saw him excluded from the societies in his teens.

'The past few years, he has been driven by a kind of vengeance. To show those he has worked with in the past, but who has since become his adversaries, that he can beat them,' Mr Djursing toldExpressen.

'He is a crazy person,' photographer Bo Tornvig tells the newspaper.

'I mean, making space rockets and sailing around in home-made submarines is not normal behaviour. But I've never seen him lay a hand on anyone. This whole story really stinks.'

Miss Wall was last seen on board the vessel with amateur builder Madsen who is now being held on suspicion of negligent manslaughter.

A picture of the pair standing in the sub's tower emerged on Sunday, Aftonbladet reported, marking the last time Miss Wall was seen before vanishing.

Danish investigators say they have found evidence the Nautilus was sunk deliberately as they continue land and sea searches for any sign of Miss Wall.

Miss Wall's family and boyfriend have not heard from her since she boarded the submarine and police have been unable to contact her

The UC3 Nautilus was raised from the bottom of Copenhagen harbour on Saturday night where it had been under 8m (24ft) of water since sinking on Friday morning

Despite not finding Miss Wall's body, Danish investigators are continuing to search in water and on land for any sign of her

The freelance reporter boarded the sub, which was built by Madsen, on Thursday night in order to write a story about it.

On Friday morning the Danish Navy were scrambled to help the stricken sub, before reporting it sunk at 10.45am.

Madsen claims he was the only one on board at the time, and that he dropped Miss Wall off at the mouth of the harbour shortly after 10pm the previous night.

But Danish police on Sunday said he has given them several conflicting accounts of what had happened, without elaborating further.

Miss Wall's family and boyfriend have not heard from her since she boarded the submarine and police have been unable to contact her.

Around the time he claimed to have dropped Miss Wall off, Madsen sent a mysterious text to a friend saying she had left the vessel and cancelling a trip he was supposed to be taking on the submarine the following day, according to local reports.

He did not respond to questions from the friend about why he had dropped Miss Wall off or why the trip was being cancelled.

Madsen was arrested on manslaughter charges on Saturday before a judge ordered that he be held in custody while investigations are carried out.

He is charged with having killed Miss Wall 'in an unknown way and in an unknown place sometime after 5pm on Thursday.'

Police technicians are pictured investigating the rescued private owned submarine UC3 Nautilus today

Madsen claims he dropped Miss Wall off at the mouth of the harbour and was the only one on board when his craft (pictured right) sank

The privately owned submarine, Nautilus, arriving in Copenhagen harbour today. Danish investigators say they have found evidence the Nautilus was sunk deliberately as they continue land and sea searches for any sign of Miss Wall

The 40-ton, 18-meter long Nautilus, one of three subs built by Madsen, was found by divers under 7m (24ft) of water, though they were unable to enter it safely

Speaking to reporters at court, Madsen said 'there is something I really want to tell you later', without elaborating any further.

Before the two-hour hearing, which was held in private and attended by his relatives, Madsen smiles, chatted with his lawyer and told reporters: 'I would very much like to express myself'.

The prosecutor asked for doors to the hearing to be closed as information likely to distress Miss Wall's family was about to be heard.

If convicted, Madsen faces between five years and life in prison.

The 40-ton, 18-meter long Nautilus, one of three subs built by Madsen, was found by divers under 7m (24ft) of water, though they were unable to enter it safely.

A salvage ship, the Vina, has now raised the sub from the sea bed close to Copenhagen's south island of Dragoer and brought it back to shore to be inspected.

Authorities were alerted that something had gone wrong with the submarine by Miss Wall's boyfriend after she failed to return home, prompting a major search operation involving two helicopters, three ships and several private boats.

Kristian Isbak, who had responded to the Navy's call to help locate the ship, sailed out immediately Friday and saw Madsen standing wearing his trademark military fatigues in the submarine's tower while it was still afloat.

Divers had located the submarine underwater on Friday but were unable to enter it safely

The submarine was reported missing early on Friday by Miss Wall's boyfriend after she failed to return home, prompting a major search operation by the Danish Navy

'He then climbed down inside the submarine and there was then some kind of air flow coming up and the submarine started to sink,' Isbak told The Associated Press.

'(He) came up again and stayed in the tower until water came into it' before swimming to a nearby boat as the submarine sank, he added.

Madsen said there was a valve error that became serious when he tried to repair it.

Footage aired on Denmark's TV2 channel showed Madsen, 46, getting off what seemed to be a private boat and making a thumbs up sign as he walked away.

Upon his rescue from Kge Bay, Madsen said: 'I'm fine. But I'm sorry because 'Nautilus' has gone down.'

Miss Wall is a freelance journalist who graduated with a masters from Columbia University before going on to write about identity, gender, pop-culture, social justice and foreign policy.

Madsen, pictured above in 2008 in front of his submarine, was seen standing the tower of the still-floating submarine moments before it sank, according to a rescuer

Peter Madsen, who built the submarine himself before inviting Miss Wall along for the maiden voyage, is still under investigation for negligent manslaughter as investigators say there is evidence it was wrecked deliberately

She is from Sweden but spent time living in New York and Beijing. Her writing has appeared in Harpers, The Guardian, New York Times, Foreign Policy, Vice Magazine, Slate, South China Morning Post, The Atlantic, Roads & Kingdoms, and TIME.

The submarine was Madsen's third attempt at building such a structure and was the largest privately built submarine in the world at the time of its launch.

The Nautilus was a diesel-electric submarine. The diesel engine is uses when sailing or propelling just below the surface, while the electrical engine is used when the submarine is deep below the water's surface.

It was built like a post-World War II submarine, with a galley, crew bunks, officer's mass, bridge and engine room.

It's named after the famed submarine manned by Jules Verne's Captain Nemo character in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
A British tourist died during a holiday to India and was flung from a window when a speeding train derailed because it was travelling too fast, an inquest has heard.

Retired civil servant Loraine Tonner, 55, was thrown from the train while sight-seeing northern India as part of a 10-day holiday organised by York-based Great Railway Journeys.

A coroner heard the train set out despite having a broken speedometer and an alternative process of measuring the speed using telegraph poles was not used.

The train derailed on a tight bend two miles into its 55-mile journey on a narrow-guage railway between Kalka and the Himalayan town of Shimla, the summertime capital of the British Raj, on September 12, 2015.

It was travelling at 25 mph when the section of track had a 15mph speed limit.

Had the timetable been followed, the train's speed would have been even slower, at 10.5mph.

Retired civil servant Loraine Tonner, 55, was thrown from the train while sight-seeing northern India as part of a 10-day holiday organised by York-based Great Railway Journeys

Mrs Tonner, a mother-of-two, from Sheffield, South Yorkshire, was flung from the train window.

An inquest at Sheffield's Medico Legal Centre heard her husband Robert Payne, now 66, knew 'instinctively' the train would derail on the bend.

He told the inquest the front carriage appeared to be leaning to the right just seconds before the train crashed into an embankment at around 12.51pm.

Mr Payne said while he was thrown across the carriage and suffered head-injuries, his Glasgow-born wife was instead 'catapulted' out of the window and died at the scene.

Mr Payne added that he was left 'coming in and out of consciousness'.

Paying tribute to her after the hearing Mr Payne said: 'She was a bold, adventurous, positive Glaswegian with a sharp sense of humour.'

Joan Nichols, 60, of South Shields, Tyneside, was another tourist who died as a result of the crash.

She had been travelling with her husband of 52 years, John, when the tragedy struck.

Giving evidence at the hearing, other train passengers on the trip described the train's speed as 'surprising'.

Ian Calder said: 'We quickly became concerned at the speed it was travelling at.

'The train continued to gather speed as we got to the corner - we heard a screeching noise, and it derailed.'

The railway to Shimla, known as the Toy Train, opened in 1903 and climbs more than 4,000ft through the Himalayan foothills. It is renowned for its bridges, tunnels and panoramic views.

In an interim safety report, Indian rail authorities found the train had travelled about two miles before it derailed on a tight bend.

Officials calculated that the train must have been travelling at speeds in excess of 25 mph an hour when it came off the tracks - despite the legal limit for the area being 15.5 mph.

The report also stated train's speedometer had stopped working before the journey began and an alternative method for measuring speed, using the distance between telegraph poles as an indicator was not used.

Sheffield Coroner Christopher Dorries delivered a narrative verdict that both women died when the train exceeded the permitted speed limit.

The Great Railway Journeys group on the train included 36 passengers and one tour manager.

Their itinerary included India's famous 'golden triangle' of cities  the capital Delhi, Agra, famous for the Taj Mahal, and Jaipur.

Great Railway Journeys have been approached for comment.
Police in New York are looking for a man who they say bit an officer on the arm after being stopped for driving an ATV on a Manhattan sidewalk this weekend.

The 28-year-old traffic enforcement officer was on duty shortly before 7 pm on Saturday when he saw the man riding the ATV on the sidewalk down West 206th Street.

As the officer went to stop the rider, he was bitten on the forearm before he sped off down 10th Avenue.

Surveillance video captured a rogue ATV rider speeding down a sidewalk in northern Manhattan on Saturday

The bite was so forceful it broke the officer's skin, forcing him to undergo HIV-preventative shots, a law enforcement source said.

The police officer was taken to a hospital in stable condition.

The suspect was described as a man in his 20s, standing about 5-foot-11 and weighing 260 pounds, police said.

Surveillance footage of the man riding the ATV and ask anyone with information to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS.
Keith Allen and Tamzin Malleson

Keith Allen's wife Tamzin Malleson endured a 'dramatic day' today after a fire broke out the couple's new restaurant.

Firefighters rushed to the Diner in Stroud, Gloucestershire at 11.30am to douse a blaze on the roof.

Ex-Midsomer Murders actress Malleson, who opened the American-style diner with her husband in July, told her fans about the drama on Facebook.

She wrote: 'A dramatic day today with a fire on the roof at the Marshall Rooms. Brilliant response from emergency services.

'There's been no serious injuries. Hope to be open as usual tomorrow, if not we'll let you know, currently drinking tea - thank you.'

Opening the restaurant for the first time, she said: 'The great thing about this project is that it gives me an excuse to do lots and lots of research which means I may look rather large by the end of it.

'Dirty Burger in London does it brilliantly well. That's the plan for this  simple but done really well, using as much local produce as we can.'

Burgers, vegetarian burgers, ice cream sundaes, and filter coffee will feature strongly. I'm totally about good food.'
Donald Trump's bid to build what would have been Sydney's first casino in 1987 was reportedly blocked by the New South Wales government, who feared his alleged links to mafia.

The now US President had planned a joint venture with the Queensland-based Kern Corporation, one which the NSW Police Board dubbed at the time to be 'dangerous', according to a secret report obtained by The Australian.

And at a cabinet meeting of the then Barrie Unsworth-led Labor government in 1987 it was reportedly decided to shun the bid led by Trump - who also had casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Documents from the cabinet meeting show that Trump's consortium had overstated their potential revenue income and that the government was also concerned about the billionaire's 'mafia connections', the newspaper reports.

Donald Trump's bid to build what would have been Sydney's first casino in 1987 was reportedly blocked by the New South Wales government, who feared his alleged links to mafia. Mr Trump is pictured in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in 1989

At a cabinet meeting of the then Barrie Unsworth-led Labor government in 1987 it was reportedly decided to shun the bid led by Trump. Barrie Unsworth is pictured

While the documents backed the proposal as being 'rich' and 'attractive', the cabinet ultimately ruled against Trump and Kern Corporation's bid.

'Atlantic City would be a dubious model for Sydney and in our judgment, the Trump mafia connections should exclude the Kern/Trump consortium,' cabinet documents obtained by The Australian read.

But on the eve of the decision about the winning bid in 1987, Trump reportedly had a change of heart and lost enthusiasm about owning the property in Australia.

'Eventually I decided it was just a long trip. So I don't know whether my enthusiasm level can be very high for that particular job,' he told the New Jersey Casino Control Commission.

'It's just a long, long trip away. I believe in very hands-on management.'

But Trump later changed his mind again, backing the joint venture by him and Kern Corporation which was up against bids from three other companies.

In a report to cabinet, the Police Board labelled just one - Malaysia's Genting Berhad with Civil and Civic bid - as being a potential suitor for the casino at Darling Harbour.

They reportedly labelled ventures by Trump and Kern, Australian Federal Hotels and Sabemo, and Hong Kong Macau Sydney consortium as being unacceptable.

'The board is firmly of the view that on tests of sound repute, probity and integrity, none of the three consortia discussed above can be considered acceptable,' their report obtained by The Australian read.

'Indeed each would be dangerous,' the report adds.

Trump - who owned casinos in Atlantic City at the time of his Darling Harbour bid - joined with Queensland-based company Kern Corporation in an effort to build and operate the Sydney casino

The NSW Police Board which was led by John Avery (pictured) told cabinet that Trump's bid 'would be dangerous' if chosen, according to the report. The entire casino project was later abandoned.

Cabinet minutes also showed a report had been tabled from the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, which cast doubt over the revenue projected by Trump's bid.

'The projected casino revenue estimates are not soundly based and the quantum of the potential overstatement is so material that the tender is not financially viable,' it read.

While favoured, the venture from Genting Berhad with Civil and Civic was eventually also eliminated, before the entire casino project was later abandoned.

It wasn't until September 1995 that a temporary casino was opened on the wharf at Darling Harbour. A permanent building known as 'Star Casino' was opened in 1997.
An autopsy showed that a 13-year-old New Jersey boy found dead in his bedroom died after ingesting a lethal dose of heroin and fentanyl.

A grandparent discovered Vincent Weiner, 13, of Middle Township, New Jersey, dead in his bedroom, lying in bed, in his mother's house on June 4 at 10am.

According to the Cape May County District Attorney's Office, toxicology reports indicated that Weiner's death was caused by a mix of the opioids heroin and fentanyl.

Vincent Weiner, 13 (pictured with his mother, Jamie Lund) was found dead in his bed on June 4. Toxicology results showed that he died from a lethal mix of heroin and fentanyl

Authorities said that Weiner had been actively taking the drugs, but Lund said there were no signs that he had been taking them. Weeks before he died, she learned that he was being bullied in school

On Monday, Cape May County Chief Detective Paul Skill told The Press of Atlantic City that 'There was more fentanyl in his system than heroin' and that he died of 'acute intoxication.'

Detectives said that the teen had been actively taking the drugs, according to NBC Phildelphia.

It is not clear what method Weiner was using to take the drugs or where he had gotten them from.

Lund described Weiner as being a happy kid

Weiner's mother, Jamie Lund, revealed the news of the coroner's results in a Facebook post, stating that the findings indicated an accidental death.

Lund then begged for anyone to come forward with any information about where Weiner might've procured the drugs.

'Whoever is supplying these babies with drugs, needs to be stopped! My heart is broken, shattered into a million pieces,' she wrote.

Lund told NBC Philadelphia that she was surprised by news that her son, who she described as being a happy kid, had been using drugs, noting 'there were no signs of anything.'

However, she did note that she had recently learned that Weiner was being bullied at school shortly before he died in June.

In the two weeks prior to his death, she said that he had started to display 'unusual behavior at school,' which lead to the discovery that he had been cutting himself. That's also when 'stories of bullying in school began to surface.'

Lund took to Facebook to tell family and friends that Weiner died of an overdose and pleaded for people to come forward if they knew where Weiner had gotten the drugs that killed him

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Cape May County prosecutor Bob Taylor told NJ.com that fentanyl, a prescription painkiller, is 100 times more potent than heroin. When sold on the street, it is turned into powder and mixed with heroin.

Chief Detective Skill noted that 'Fentanyl is far deadlier than heroin' and that heroin users are sometimes unaware that they are being sold heroin cut with fentanyl, among other substances.
A woman has been sentenced to life in prison for murdering a love rival and then posing as her for years to try and cover up the crime.

A Nebraska judge sentenced Shanna Golyar, 42, to life in prison on Tuesday, three months after she was found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of 37-year-old Cari Farver, who has been missing since 2012.

Prosecutors said Golyar murdered Farver when she found the woman leaving the apartment of the man she was dating.

Shanna Golyar, 42 (left), was sentenced to life in prison by a Nebraska judge on Tuesday for the murder of her love rival Cari Farver, 37 (right)

'What some people are capable of has always astounded and mystified this court,' Douglas County District Judge Timothy Burns said Tuesday, according to the Omaha World-Herald.

Chief Deputy Douglas County Attorney Brenda Beadle called it 'one of the most calculated and bizarre cases I've ever seen' in her more than 20 years working as a prosecutor.

Farver's family members told WOWT that they were relived by the sentence.

While Farver's body was never found, prosecutors believe the murder happened at an Omaha apartment on November 13, 2012. Investigators didn't find a murder weapon either, or any witnesses.

Much of the case was based on circumstantial evidence tying Golyar to Farver, including her fingerprints on a pack of gum in her love rival's car and a photo taken by Golyar allegedly showing Farver's decomposing foot.

They said they also found Farver's blood in the man's apartment.

Golyar was found guilty of first-degree murder in May (above)

Prosecutors say she murdered Farver when she learned they were dating the same man (Golyar pictured in handcuffs in an undated photo)

In the years after the crime, prosecutors say Golyar posed as Farver online to try to throw investigators off her trail.

'Cari Farver did not voluntarily disappear and drop off the face of the earth,' Burns said when he issued his guilty verdict in May. 'Very sadly, she was murdered.'

In May, Burns said that Golyar spun a 'twisted plot of lies, deceit and impersonations through digital messaging' to make it seem as if Farver was still alive.

While Farver's (pictured) body was never found, they believe she was murdered in November 2012

Authorities say that Golyar has a history of impersonating women on social media with whom she shares a love interest.

In 2015, Golyar filed a complaint with police in Council Bluffs, Iowa, claiming that she was shot in her left thigh.

She said the shooter was a woman who was seeing her love interest, but investigators doubted the claims.

After investigating, they concluded that Golyar concocted the claims and had shot herself.

In June 2016, Golyar pled guilty to breaking a window at the other women's apartment.

Authorities began to suspect that Golyar might harm the other woman due to the suspicions related to the Farver case.

They also discovered that Golyar had set up an email account posing as the other woman.

Golyar was also sentenced on Tuesday to 18 to 20 years in prison on a second-degree arson charge, related to Golyar burning down her house in August 2013.

That sentence will be served consecutively with the life sentence. So far, she's already spent 237 days in jail.
A Buffalo Wild Wings waitress with a rainbow tattoo was denied a tip by an Illinois family because 'she doesn't love Jesus'.

Samantha Heaton, 20, was waiting on a family-of-five on August 5 when the incident took place.

'Can't tip someone who doesn't love Jesus! Bad tatoo (sic)', the family wrote on the $60.55 check.

Heaton said she was shocked by the entire thing because she made friendly conversation with the family, kept their beverages full and inquired about their experience. She also said the family never asked for a different server.

A Buffalo Wild Wings waitress with a rainbow tattoo (pictured) was denied a tip by an Illinois family because 'she doesn't love Jesus'. 'Can't tip someone who doesn't love Jesus! Bad tatoo (sic)', the family wrote on the $60.55 check

Samantha Heaton (right), 20, was waiting on a family-of-five on August 5 when the incident took place. She said she was shocked by their actions because she made friendly conversation with them and they didn't ask for another server. She's pictured with girlfriend Alyssa Christina

Heaton's outraged co-worker, Joelle Maish, took a photo of the tattoo and the family's check and posted it to Facebook. Maish also pointed out that the family even spelled tattoo wrong

'I went above and beyond for this couple, and for them to leave that (note) kind of hurt,' Heaton told the Rock River Times. 'Like, I have bills to pay too.'

She should have receieved between $6-12 for the tip on a customary 10 to 20 per cent tipping scale.

Instead, she was left with the customer's note pointing out her tattoo, a rainbow-colored equality sign on her arm.

Heaton's outraged co-worker, Joelle Maish, took a photo of the tattoo and the family's check and posted it to Facebook.

'I would just like to say that being gay does NOT MEAN you don't believe in God or Jesus.

'And people who are "religious" should not disrespect or act in such ways to other people,' Maish wrote in the post's caption.

Maish also pointed out that the family even spelled tattoo wrong.

Heaton's girlfriend, Alyssa Christina, also took to Facebook condemning the family's act.

She should have receieved between $6-12 for the tip on a customary 10 to 20 per cent tipping scale. Instead, she was left with the customer's note pointing out her tattoo, a rainbow-colored equality sign on her arm. Heaton (left) and her girlfriend Alyssa (right)

Heaton's girlfriend, Alyssa Christina (right), took to Facebook condemning the family's act. 'My girlfriend is so much more than a tattoo. I bet she went above and beyond for you just for you to stiff her,' she wrote

'My girlfriend is so much more than a tattoo. I bet she went above and beyond for you just for you to stiff her.

'I'm sure you seen her tattoo as she introduced herself, why not just ask for another server?' Christina wrote.

'Instead you let her serve you so that you could leave this ugly comment. No need to be rude because she is who she is. You believe in God? I couldn't tell,' Christina added, also noting that the couple misspelled the word tattoo.

Heaton said the whole time she was waiting on the family, the subject of religion never came up and neither did the fact that she's openly gay.

'I do believe in Jesus and God. I myself am a Christian,' she said. 'And, as a Christian, thou shall not judge. No matter how someone looks, you should love them for what's in their heart and how they treat younot for what is on the outside,' she added.

Heaton told the River Times that what was more infuriating was the parent's behavior in front of their two children who appeared no older than 10.

'The kids are going to be under the impression that it will be OK to discriminate against anybody,' Heaton said.

Heaton said the couple left before she was given the opportunity to talk to them openly about her spiritual life.
Residents of a building owned by the Kushner Cos. filed a lawsuit Tuesday alleging the business once run by Jared Kushner is charging too much rent in violation of state regulations.

The lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court in Brooklyn alleges that the Kushner Cos. is charging nine residents at 89 Hicks Street in Brooklyn much higher free-market rents than the rent-stabilized ones they are entitled to under state rent rules.

The suit says it's likely that more than 100 current and former residents of the 48-unit building have also been overcharged, and so it is seeking class-action status.

'Greed colored the owner's decision-making process, and clearly blinded its judgment,' said plaintiff's lawyer Lucas A. Ferrara, senior partner at Newman Ferrara. 'It's inexcusable for any landlord to sidestep New York's rent law.'

A spokesman for the Kushner Cos., James Yolles, said they were reviewing the lawsuit and had no immediate comment.

Several residents of 89 Hicks Street in Brooklyn (right), a building owned by the Kushner Cos., filed a lawsuit alleging the business once run by Jared Kushner (left) is charging too much rent in violation of state regulations.

The suit against Kushner Cos. (file above) says it's likely that more than 100 current and former residents of the 48-unit building have also been overcharged, and so it is seeking class-action status

Apartments in the building had been temporarily exempt from rent stabilization laws under its two previous owners, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York and Brooklyn Law School, according to the lawsuit.

Under state rules, certain landlords who don't rent to the public but use units to house employees or students can apply for exemptions.

The Kushners bought the building from Brooklyn Law School in 2014 and listed units to rent by the public, but they failed to inform tenants that they were entitled to lower rent-stabilization rents, the lawsuit alleges.

The real estate website Streeteasy.com lists nine two-room apartments currently available to rent in the building for $2,600 per month or more.

The Kushners bought the building from Brooklyn Law School in 2014 and listed units to rent by the public, but they failed to inform tenants that they were entitled to lower rent-stabilization rents, the lawsuit alleges. Pictured above is a current apartment for rent in the building

The real estate website Streeteasy.com lists nine two-room apartments currently available to rent in the building for $2,600 per month or more. Pictured above is the floor plan of one of the apartments currently for rent in the building

Aaron Carr, founder of a nonprofit that investigates violations in rent-stabilized buildings, said some residents are being overcharged $1,000 or more.

He said the practice of charging more than permissible appeared deliberate.

'If it was just one or two residents who didn't get rent-stabilized leases, I would say it was an accident,' said Carr, founder of Housing Rights Initiative.

In this case, the Kushner Cos. 'failed to provide rent stabilization for 90 percent of the building.'

Jared Kushner stepped down as CEO for the Kushner Cos. earlier this year before becoming a senior adviser to his father-in-law, President Donald Trump. Kushner is married to Trump's daughter Ivanka.

Kushner (second left) stepped down as CEO for the Kushner Cos. earlier this year before becoming a senior adviser to his father-in-law, President Donald Trump. But he still owns the building at the cent of the lawsuit

Kushner has sold many properties owned by the family business, and he retains substantial holdings.

He still owns the building at the center of the lawsuit, according to his latest financial disclosure documents.

Kushner Cos. has been on a buying spree in Brooklyn in recent years.

The company and some partners bought a group of buildings from the Jehovah's Witnesses in 2013 near the Brooklyn Bridge.

Last year, it bought a parking lot nearby that it hopes to use for a possible future building.
A cannabis-smoking security guard was today identified as the would-be mass murderer who drove his car into a packed restaurant terrace near Paris.

David Patterson, 32, faces life in prison after killing a 12-year-old girl, and leaving 13 other people severely injured.

One of them  an unidentified 44-year-old woman  remains in intensive care and her condition was tonight described as 'extremely serious'.

David Patterson, 32, faces life in prison after killing a 12-year-old girl, and leaving 13 other people severely injured

Patterson, who is thought to have British links, has meanwhile told police he was a 'manic depressive' who 'simply wanted to commit suicide.'

It was just after 8pm on Monday that his grey BMW mounted the pavement in Sept-Sorts, which is around 40 miles east of the French capital, and headed straight for the terrace of the Cesena Pizzeria.

The car ended up smashed against the restaurant bar, having killed the so far unnamed schoolgirl instantly.

Patterson was arrested by police in the seconds after the atrocity, which followed similar attacks by French nationals claiming allegiance to Islamic State.

While a terrorist motive has been thrown out, Patterson faces trial for attempted mass murder, and driving under the influence of drugs.

Prosecutor Eric de Valroger, who is leading the enquiry, said: 'He has a persecution complex, says he thought he was being followed, and that the police were investigating him.

'One of the reasons he put forward for the attack was that he would be arrested, and so be safe in prison.'

Arrested: The 32-year-old suspect is pictured being led away from the scene, seemingly uninjured, following the crash which killed a 13-year-old girl

Patterson originally told officers that he had a Kalashnikov and other weapons in the boot of his car, but this turned out to be false.

Today police including forensics specialists carried out a search of Patterson's family home in nearby Ferte-sous-Jouarre, in the Seine-et-Marne department of France.

Patterson, who is single, was living in his parents' house after losing his last job as a security guard following an accident at work.

He claims to have tried to kill himself last week, and had been taking illegal drugs, mainly cannabis, since he was nine.

Patterson's profile was posted on a number of dating sites, and he was said to be infatuated by the Hollywood star Marion Cotillard.

The younger brother of the girl who died is among four people who received serious injuries  a further eight sustained minor injuries.

French officials have said the driver 'clearly acted with intention but we have no reasons so far to suspect a terrorist motive'

The pizzeria is in an industrial zone, surrounded by other restaurants. It is particularly popular with young families on warm summer evenings like tonight

A source close to the case said 'there were quite a lot of people on the terrace' and that 'the man was arrested and is now with the police'

The horrific incident took place in the town of Sept-Sorts, which is around 40 miles east of the French capital

After the crash, roads into the village were being closed off by police and residents were instructed to remain indoors.

The pizzeria is in an industrial zone, surrounded by other restaurants. It is particularly popular with young families on warm summer evenings like tonight.

Last week an illegal immigrant to France was shot by police five times after running down six soldiers with a hired BMW in a Paris suburb.

The terrorist suspect, identified as Hamou Bachir, a 36-year-old Algerian, was caught after initially escaping the scene of the crime at Levallois-Perret.

Bachir - who also uses the name Benlatreche  ploughed into a uniformed and heavily armed unit of the 35th Infantry Regiment as they took part in Operation Sentinel.

The security initiative was set up in 2015 following a series of atrocities in Paris carried out by Islamic State and Al-Qaeda operatives.

Bachir was lurking as two three-man patrols swapped shifts, and then he approached them slowly 'before speeding up,' said local mayor Patrick Balkany.

One Twitter user posted a picture of the car, adding: @BFMTV Car in the pizzeria to Sept-Sorts

There are 10,000 soldiers patrolling France as part of Operation Sentinel, and 4,700 police and gendarmes.

France remains under a State of Emergency following a long string of attacks, including an attempt to kill a soldier at the Eiffel Tower earlier this month.

The 19-year-old psychiatric patient is in custody after he brandished a knife and pledged allegiance to Isis.

In April, 39-year-old police officers Xavier Jugele was shot dead while on duty on the Champs Elysee just days before the French presidential election.

Isis claimed the killing by Karim Cheurfi, also 39, who was shot dead by police in a gun battle. Two other officers were injured in the attack.

In June an Algerian student shouted 'This is for Syria' as he tried to attack a policeman with a hammer outside Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. He was shot and ended up in custody in hospital.

And in March a convicted criminal with links to radical Islam shouted 'I am here to die for Allah, there will be deaths' seconds before he was shot dead during an attack at Paris Orly airport.

Ziyed Ben Belgacem, a 39-year-old career criminal, was killed after wrestling a soldier's gun from her and fleeing into a McDonald's restaurant.

It followed the shooting in February of a man outside the Louvre museum in the heart of Paris after he attempted to storm the historic art gallery.

Anti-terrorism prosecutors have opened an enquiry into today's attack. The assailant will be questioned at length 'when his condition allows', said an Interior Ministry spokesman.
Wading back into the Russia scandal waters, President Trump tried to blame his predecessor on Tuesday for the Kremlin's election year meddling.

'According to report just out, President Obama knew about Russian interference 3 years ago but he didn't want to anger Russia!' Trump tweeted.

The president was likely referring to a story Politico broke Monday that said the Obama administration was warned multiple times, starting in 2014, of Russia's plans to disrupt the United States' political system.

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President Trump, photographed taking questions from the press at Trump Tower on Tuesday, blamed President Obama earlier in the morning for not doing anything to combat Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election

President Trump dashed off this tweet, where he was likely referring to a Politico story that discusses the early warnings the Obama administration received on Russia's plans

Trump was especially focused on one quote from an intelligence official, who had suggested the Obama administration could have done more.

Intelligence officials, one of Politico's intelligence sources said, 'had a list of things they could never get the signoffs on,' to combat the Russia's intrusions.

'The truth is, nobody wanted to piss of the Russians,' the source told the online publication.

The first warning of Russian meddling came in the spring of 2014, but made no mention of plans to tamper with a future U.S. election.

The Politico story quotes a Russian source from the first report telling U.S. officials that were in Moscow, 'You have no idea how extensive these networks are in Europe ... and the U.S.'

'Russia has penetrated media organizations, lobbying firms, political parties, governments and militaries in all of these places,' the Russian source goes on.

That initial warning was circulated to officials in the National Security Council, the State Department and American intelligence agencies as part of a larger warning about Russia's intentions in Ukraine, a source told Politico, with Moscow-based national security experts worried that the Obama administration was too quick to dismiss the threat.

'Even if the Russians and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin had these ambitions, they were doubtful of their capacity to execute them,' the official told Politico of the Obama administration's sentiment.

In the story experts were split on whether Obama's team could have done more, but ideas including closing two Russians dachas in Maryland in New York, which were suspected to be housing Russian intelligence resources.

There was also talk of expelling Russian diplomats from the US and engaging in counterintelligence operations that would serve as a warning to Putin.

There were often clashes between the intelligence agencies and the State Department and the Pentagon, who viewed the Russia threat through different lenses.

As of late, Trump's Russia problems have been eclipsed by the president's response to violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend, which left one woman dead at the hands of a Nazi sympathizer.

Trump dug the hole deeper late Tuesday when he assigned some blame to those protesting against the neo-Nazis, KKK members and white supremacists that showed up for a rally in the Virginia town.

'What about the alt-left that came charging at the, as you say, the alt-right?' he asked reporters on hand at Trump Tower. 'Do they have any semblance of guilt?'

'Let me ask you this: What about the fact that they came charging with clubs in their hands, swinging clubs. Do they have any problem? I think they do.'

'And you had a group on one side that was bad and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent,' Trump said. 'And nobody wants to say that.'

'But I'll say it right now.'
A violent, schizophrenic drug addict has admitted robbing a 92-year-old woman after he was filmed dragging her along the floor as she clung to her belongings.

Sanchez Edwards attacked her from behind outside a medical centre after following her into an alleyway in Hackney, east London.

The elderly woman suffered cracked and bruised ribs as well as and extensive bruising all over her body after being dragged along the floor while her attacker tried to grab her bag.

Refusing to let go of the bag, she screamed and shouted until she was in such pain from being dragged along that she let go.

The 28-year-old, of no fixed address, made off with the bag down the alleyway.

The robbery took place in daylight at 2.40pm shortly after his victim posted a letter.

Edwards pleaded guilty to robbery at Wood Green Crown Court, where he was remanded in custody today.

He will be sentenced at the same court on Tuesday, October 10.

On Friday police released footage of the attack as well as images of the injuries Edwards inflicted on his victim, who has been left limping.

Sanchez Edwards had a history of illegal drug use and schizophrenia, robbing his victim after he failed to return his psychiatric unit

Officers launched a manhunt for Edwards after several people identified him.

Enquiries revealed the paranoid schizophrenic was a patient at Hackney's John Howard Centre.

Edwards can be seen dragging his elderly victim along the floor as she tried to keep hold of her bag

Edwards, who has a history of illegal drug use, failed to return to the medium-secure psychiatric facility after going on unescorted leave on May 17.

He was tracked travelling on buses and through London Underground stations after police circulated his picture with warnings not to approach him and a 5,000 Crimestoppers reward for information.

On Monday July 17 officers saw Edwards in Bethnal Green, east London.

He ran away after seeing the officers, who pursued and arrested him.

Edwards refused to answer any questions in custody and was charged with robbery the same day.

The 78-year-old suffered bruising all over her body and has been left scared to leave her house

Detective Inspector Paul Ridley, from Hackney CID, said the attack had left the 92-year-old terrified.

'Edwards's attack has had a harrowing effect on his victim. In addition to the physical injuries she suffered, there is also the emotional impact and she still suffers from anxiety, re-occurring nightmares and remains terrified of leaving her home, the attack stripping her of her independence.

The pensioner was mentally scarred and physically injured after she tried to stop Edwards snatching her bag

'To compound the devastating consequences of this crime, this lady was married for more than sixty years and her husband recently died. She misses him dearly and was his carer for the last decade.

'I would like to thank the public for all the assistance they provided throughout this case and the heartfelt messages of support for the victim.

'The excellent quality of the CCTV footage assisted us in making the vital breakthrough and identifying Edwards as the robber.

'I truly hope this conviction offers a degree of closure for the victim and she is able to re-build her life.'
In July, the legislative committee of Dunn County approved a referendum question that is unprecedented in rural America. The question asked Congress and the U.S. president to nationalize health care.

Its chances of success looked good ahead of the Nov. 8 referendum. Results of this referendum could make waves in Wisconsin.
A female middle school gym teacher has been arrested for an alleged sex romp with a 15-year-old boy.

Shawnetta D. Reece, 40, is accused of molesting the boy while she was teaching at Union County Middle School in Georgia in 2013.

She was arrested on Monday after the Union County Sheriff's Office recently received information about the alleged relationship.

Shawnetta D. Reece, 40, is accused of molesting the 15-year-old boy while she was teaching at Union County Middle School in Georgia in 2013

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation was brought in to help with the investigation.

Reece allegedly molested the boy when he was moving from eighth grade into the ninth grade, according to authorities.

The 40-year-old reportedly no longer works at the middle school.

Reece was arrested on Monday after the Union County Sheriff's Office recently received information about the alleged relationship

Prior to her arrest, Reece had been tweeting about Union County High's track and field team as she congratulated several students on recent meets.

She has since deleted the Twitter account.

Reece was arrested for child molestation and sexual assault by persons with supervisory or disciplinary authority.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation say they will hand over their investigation to the Enotah Judicial Circuit District Attorney for prosecution.
Secretary of Defense James Mattis praised a group of sailors last week by telling them they'll never regret military service because it's a sign they're 'not some p--y sitting on the sidelines.'

The Pentagon's official transcript of Mattis' August 9 remarks includes the line, which went unnoticed at the time.

'Thanks for sticking with the Navy,' he said at the Naval Base Kitsap in the state of Washington, adding that the experience would change them 'for the better for the rest of your life.'

'So you'll never regret, but you will have some of the best days of your life and some of the worst days of your life in the U.S. Navy, you know what I mean? That says  that means you're living. That means you're living.'

'That means you're not some p***y sitting on the sidelines, you know what I mean, kind of sitting there saying, "Well, I should have done something with my life",' he said.

'You're not some p***y sitting on the sidelines!' Secretary of Defense James Mattis praised the crew of a nuclear submarine last week in his typical salty language

'Because of what you're doing now, you're not going to be laying on a shrink's couch when you're 45 years old, say "What the hell did I do with my life?" Why? Because you served others; you served something bigger than you.'

It's unclear if any women were among the sailors in Mattis' audience, who were all crew serving on the USS Kentucky nuclear missile submarine.

The U.S. Navy has allowed females to serve on submarines since 2010. A Pentagon spokesman did not have information available about whether any women are among the sub's crew members.

Mattis referred to his audience last week as 'guys' and 'fine young men.'

The retired Marine Corps general, is known for his salty language.

In a quotation widely attributed to him, he supposedly advised servicemen about how to handle anti-military activists on American soil.

'When you men get home and face an anti-war protester, look at him in the eyes and shake his hand,' Mattis reportedly said. 'Then, wink at his girlfriend because she knows she's dating a p***y.'

And Mattis once recalled telling Iraqi military leaders in 2003 that 'I come in peace. I didn't bring artillery. But I'm pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: If you fuck with me, Ill kill you all.'

His latest invocation of the 'p' word comes at a time when America's military is puffing out its chest in a standoff with North Korea, and with gender politics occupying some headlines.

President Donald Trump said last month that he would ban transgender Americans from serving in uniform.

But on Monday Mattis said the issue was far from decided.

'We are going to study the issue,' he told reporters at the Pentagon. 'The policy is going to address whether or not transgenders can serve under what conditions, what medical support they require, how much time would they be perhaps non-deployable, leaving others to pick up their share of everything.'

'There's a host of issues and I'm learning more about this than I ever thought I would and it's obviously very complex to include the privacy issues which we respect.'
Derrick Cruit, 23, was sentenced to 14 years in prison after taking nude photos and sexually assaulting a 8-year-old girl

A man was sentenced to 14 years in prison for taking nude photos and sexually assaulting an eight-year-old girl on Monday.

On July 8 of this year, a friend of Derrick Cruit, 23, found inappropriate videos and photos of the victim on his phone.

The friend immediately notified the victim's parents who then contacted police.

Cruit plead guilty to two counts of illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material and gross sexual imposition, a third-degree felony.

He also rejected his pre-sentence investigation which looks into the history of a criminal to see if there is any information that could make the sentence worse or better for the defendant and his right to be indicted by a grand jury.

Before his sentence he had no excuses for his actions and stated that there was nothing he could say in regard to sexually assaulting an eight-year-old girl.

Judge Kelly Cottrill agreed to Cruit's defense attorney's sentence time suggestion but banned him from participating in any early release programs

Cruit's defense attorney, Keith Edwards, who defended a man sentenced to serve more than ten years in prison for raping a 13-year-old girl in June came to an agreement with the state.

The agreement recommended Cruit serve 14 years in prison, according to the Zanesville Times Recorder.

Judge Kelly Cottrill heeded the suggestion but banned Cruit from early release programs because of the severity of the crime.

Cottrill told Cruit in court that society must protect children such as the eight-year-old victim he sexually assaulted, according to the Zanesville Times Recorder.

The victim's parents expressed their sadness over the situation in a letter to the court and hoped that prison would be used as a time for Cruit to 'fix himself'.
A former Trump aide has opened up about her 'love child' with a fellow adviser - and revealed how their months-long relationship ended when he said his wife was pregnant the moment after she revealed she herself was expecting.

Trump transition adviser A.J. Delgado, 40, announced the birth of her baby boy William on July 10, after her two-month affair with Jason Miller, 41, who was initially announced as the White House communications director for the new administration before turning it down when their relationship became public.

In a lengthy interview with The Atlantic, Delgado said she and Miller began dating while working together in Trump Tower last October during the campaign.

A.J. Delgado, pictured right in Las Vegas, a few days after the last presidential debate in October 2016, has opened up about her 'love child' with fellow adviser Jason Miller, 41, (left)

Delgado (pictured) said she and Miller began dating while working together in Trump Tower last October during the campaign

Delgado, who says Miller told her he was separated from his wife Kelly at the time, says she was first attracted the aide after becoming 'drawn to his talent.

After Trump's election victory, both joined the transition team where they carried on their relationship. But everything changed after Delgado told him she was pregnant.

When she broke the happy news to Miller, he had a surprise of his own.

'Well this is going to be extra awkward for me to handle,' she says he told her, 'because my wife is expecting.'

'Obviously that floored me,' Delgado said. 'It was a very rough thing to hear.' Miller's wife Kelly gave birth a few weeks later.

Meanwhile, Miller and Delgado's relationship rapidly deteriorated after that bombshell.

And when Miller was announced as White House communications director, she responded by tweeting: 'Congratulations to the baby-daddy on being named WH Comms Director,' she wrote, adding, 'The 2016 version of John Edwards.'

Edwards was John Kerry's vice-presidential nominee, who famously fathered a child with mistress Rielle Hunter.

He turned down the position a short time later, saying he wanted to focus on his family.

Yet Miller appears to have bounced back from the scandal, and still lives with his wife and child, appearing as a political analyst on CNN and working at a respected consulting firm. He reportedly also has the president's ear and connections to his inner circle.

While Delgado, who had also looked poised to join the high flying political elite, has moved back in with her mother in Miami, and is unemployed and has fallen out of the political sphere as she raises their son on her own.

The mother-of-one insists that until it crumbled, they'd had a loving relationship, where they would text to make dinner plans, calling each other 'babe' and 'bae'.

She also dismisses rumors they had a torrid affair or that her son was 'conceived in some Vegas nightclub bathroom'.

'He came out of what was a really nice, sweet relationship between two people who met on the campaign trail and liked each other a lot,' she said.

Delgado explained that she did not want her son to read about his conception as an adult, and get the wrong idea.

She may have been facing life as a single mom, but Delgado said she never once considered an abortion, saying she felt like her baby boy was a 'wonderful gift' from God.

But it's not been easy. Delgado claims that when she first told Miller about the pregnancy, he asked her on two occasions if 'there was any chance I'd terminate the pregnancy' - something Miller denies.

Just weeks after Delgado learned she was pregnant, Miller's wife Kelly (pictured with him) - who is still married to the former Trump aide - gave birth to their second child in January

And some of her former friends, colleagues and political associates have also been less supportive than she'd hoped.

'There were some  very high-profile people who are supposedly pro-life, who knew me and heard about what happened, and who didn't reach out,' she said 'I thought it was very telling.'

Delgado added that Trump's campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, who she'd worked with closely in the past, and who has previously said that people should reach out to women facing unplanned pregnancies to let them 'know they are not alone', hadn't been in touch.

The long-time Trump supporter, who became a regular face on TV networks during the election campaign, admitted she struggled with loneliness during her pregnancy - made worse by the 'haters' on social media who attacked her over her affair.

But what hurt the most, was the lack of contact from the baby daddy.

Trump transition adviser A.J. Delgado, (pictured with Donald Trump) announced the birth of her baby boy William on July 10, after her alleged two-month affair with ex-White House communications director Jason Miller

Trump transition adviser Delgado (with Trump during the campaign trail) reportedly hasn't spoken to Miller since announcing her pregnancy

Delgado is pictured above taking a selfie with Eric Trump, President Trump's second oldest son

She says she hasn't heard from directly Miller since December.

'Jason Miller disappeared on the pregnancy, on his child, until June,' Delgado said, adding that he'd never asked about her health, or the baby's or even inquired if there was a baby registry to send something for his boy.

She did, however, hear from his lawyers when they demanded a paternity test, which she accepted.

Yet in the media, Miller has been welcoming of his new child.

Miller told Page Six that he and his wife wanted to welcome the boy into their family.

'My wife and I, along with our two daughters, are excited to welcome William into the world and into our family, and we appreciate the well wishes we've received from so many.'

Delgado pictured above at a Miami, Florida rally in September 2016

Since Miller released his statement, Delgado tweeted, saying: 'I'm not sure what Jason means that he and his wife are excited to welcome Will. Really? News to me. Let me shut up before I say more...'

Miller's attorney, Ana Martin-Lavielle, released a statement, which said: 'Jason's sole desire and focus, which has been repeatedly expressed to Ms. Delgado and to her attorneys, even prior to William's birth, is to be involved in all aspects of his son's life.

'This includes being supportive of William emotionally and financially, as well as sharing time with William and jointly making decisions for his health and well-being. Jason remains ready and willing to provide financial support for his son, and, in the absence of any cooperation from Ms. Delgado, has offered to do so through the appropriate legal channels.'

Miller is the daughter of Cuban immigrants and a graduate of Harvard Law School. After graduation, she worked as a litigator for a Fortune 500 company before becoming a conservative commentator.
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The creator of Watership Down left his wartime girlfriend heartbroken after he dumped her for another woman, never-before-seen letters have revealed.

Years before he wrote the best-selling children's novel about adventurous rabbits, Richard Adams played out a real-life love story with Jennifer Tomkinson who he met at Oxford University.

The couple remained together for five years until they split up in May 1945, while he was serving with the Parachute Regiment in Europe during the Second World War.

A lost letter written by Watership Down author Richard Adams, pictured, has revealed how he ended a five-year relationship with Jennifer Tomkinson by post, admitting he had fallen for another woman

The letter, written in 1945 while Mr Adams was in Europe during the Second World War, apologised for the 'distress' the break-up would cause and revealed he had found love with a doctor in the Royal Army Medical Corps

In his autobiography published 45 years later, the successful author described of how he was 'hit hard' when the relationship came to an end because he didn't have enough money to marry Jennifer.

But in one of 90 'lost' love letters he wrote that have now emerged, Adams was the one who broke it off because he had found someone else.

To add insult to injury to his long-term girlfriend, who had yearned to be his wife, Adams also proposed marriage to the other woman.

Jennifer was clearly devastated by the news as she ripped the letter up.

The pages were later salvaged and stuck back together again. It makes up part of a fascinating archive of letters Adams sent to Jennifer between 1940 and 1945 that have now been put up for auction for 6,000.

The would-be author was clearly besotted with Jennifer to start with and wrote her poems and sonnets as well as letters that ran to 20 pages. He often referred to her as 'my beautiful darling'.

But he again contradicted himself in his 1990 autobiography, 'The Day Gone By', when he described her as 'not conventionally pretty.'

In his wartime love letters he discussed Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde and Mozart and described a train journey through the countryside where 'you might expect to see Pooh stumping along on his way to drop in at Rabbit's.'

The letter, part of a collection, was found ripped up, suggesting it had devastated Miss Tomkinson, but was pieced back together and has since been put up for auction with the others for 6,000

Mr Adams was very apologetic throughout the break-up letter and even makes an excuse about not being able to see her because of a parachute jump, claiming he cannot get leave because 'it isn't done'

Richard Davie, of Nottingham-based International Autograph Auctions, said: 'These letters chronical the relationship between Adams and his lover and the correspondence naturally takes a largely romantic theme.

'The writer was clearly besotted with his lover. In addition to the letters, there are also a small number of original poems and sonnets by Adams.

'But perhaps the most interesting aspect of the archive is the interesting contradictions and apparent omissions it provides in comparison to the contents of Adams's autobiography published years later.

'Despite Adams pondering in his autobiography as to how he could possibly marry his lover and this seemingly being a reason for their separation which hit him hard, the present letters paint a different story.

'In the final two letters of the correspondence Adams informs Jennifer that he has a new lover, whom he names and identifies as a female doctor in a military hospital and further insinuates that he has proposed marriage to her but she refused on the grounds of not knowing Adams we enough.

There are 90 letters in the collection running to a total of 550 pages and they were posted from a range of locations including Oxford University, Bournemouth, Ireland and France

Mr Adams went on to write children's classic Watership Down, which was later transformed into an animated film, pictured, in 1978

'Maybe he was being economical with the truth to protect his wife and family, thinking these letters were lost.

'They were found by her son in the back of a cupboard and are now being sold at auction for the first time.'

Adams studied modern history at Oxford but had to break off from his studies to join the army after war broke out.

He returned to Oxford after the war and graduated in 1948. He went in to work for the civil service.

Adams published Watership Down in 1972. It was his story about a colony of rabbits travelling across the country in search of a better home in the Berkshire Downs. It has sold more than 50 million copies worldwide.

He married wife Elizabeth in 1949 and they had two daughters, Juliet and Rosamond. He died last December aged 96.

In all the 90 letters run to 550 pages. They were posted from addresses at Oxford University, Newbury, Aldershot, Bournemouth, Ireland, France, Belgium.

They are being sold tomorrow.
A suspected thief tried to charm his way out of punishment by performing a bizarre dance for the police who caught him.

The video shows the alleged thief, from Jhansi, Northern India, dancing in the middle of the street.

Rinku Bhadauria, 28, is the alleged leader of a gang known for pick-pocketing.

According to police, the gang snatch gold chains from unsuspecting people in the area.

Bhadauria is reported to have allegedly stolen more than 100 chain necklaces.

He is also a dance teacher and performed a show for police after being arrested alongside two other suspected thieves.

Rinku Bhadauria (pictured) is the alleged leader of a gang known for pick pocketing

In the clip, a police man is heard mentioning Michael Jackson as Bhadauria begins to show off his moves.

He moves his legs and arms, dancing in the middle of the road.

He was arrested alongside two other men.

It was reported that Bhadauri continued to entertain cops by dancing at the local police station.

Under Indian law, he could be jailed for up to three years for theft, if found guilty.

He dances in the street to try and get out of punishment
A trial date has been set for an 18-year-old Ohio cheerleader who is accused of killing her newborn baby daughter, burning her body and burying he remains in her backyard last spring.

Brooke Skylar Richardson appeared in Warren County Court on Tuesday for a pre-trial conference, during which Judge Donald Oda II announced that her trial will begin on November 6.

Last week, Richardson pleaded not guilty to charges of aggravated murder, child endangerment, tampering with evidence and gross abuse of a corpse in connection to the May death of her baby.

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Brooke Skylar Richardson, second from left, an 18-year-old Ohio woman charged in the death of her newborn infant found buried outside her home Carlisle, arrives with her family for a pretrial hearing in Warren County Court Tuesday in Lebanon, Ohio

A judge on Tuesday scheduled Richardson's murder trial to get under way on November 6

The recent high school graduate was released on house arrest after posting $50,000 bond and agreeing to wear an ankle monitoring device, which sparked an uproar in the community and prompted some critics to accuse the judge of being too lenient towards Richardson.

'She needs to be sitting in jail until she is sentenced for this,' protester Cherie Young told WLWT.

On Tuesday, a stone-faced Richardson, dressed in a collared white blouse, black slacks and matching flats, was greeted by a small group of protesters carrying signs, 'Abortion is legal, murder is not,' when she arrived in court with her parents.

Richardson is due back in court on Thursday, at which time the judge will hear arguments about a gag order he has imposed to prevent both sides from publicly discussing the case.

Before the five-day trial gets under way, three additional hearings will be held on August 25, September 27 and October 3. Judge Oda promised the trial will be open.

The charred remains of Richardson's child were found buried at the teenager's home in Carlisle, Ohio, on July 14 after police received a tip from a concerned OB/GYN who said she may have delivered a stillborn baby.

Courtesy of FOX19

Richardson's defense attorney Charles Rittgers (pictured right) has said she did not kill her baby. He described the teen as a 'good girl'

Richardson wore a blouse buttoned to the neck and a tiny pearl rosary for the the Tuesday hearing

After unearthing the remains, experts have concluded that the baby had been born alive in May but killed before it was buried.

Prosecutors blamed Brooke for the death and said she and her parents was concerned with 'appearances,' despite the fact that half the town knew she was pregnant.

Last week, her defense attorney Charlie Rittgers told the court she did not kill the infant.

Authorities said that while they know who the father of the dead infant is, they will not share his identity.

After police discovered the baby's remains in July, they took weeks processing evidence before bringing charges against Richardson. She was indicted on August 4.

In charging documents, Warren County Prosecutor David Fornshell said she had likely given birth on or around May 7 and that she 'purposefully caused' the baby's death immediately afterwards.

Brooke Skylar Richardson, 18, denied aggravated murder at Franklin Municipal Court in Ohio on August 7 (above). She is accused of murdering the baby and burying its remains in her backyard in May (picture courtesy ofWCPO)

Brooke's attorney told the court last week that she did not kill the infant. She was granted house arrest and bond was set at $50,000

The teenager was charged with murder in July (left) after police discovered the remains. She is seen (right) after being indicted on August 4

Police found the baby's remains in the backyard of the teenager's home in Carlisle, Ohio, (above) in July

Without explicitly providing a motive, he said: 'It was a perception issue and the teen's mother was concerned about appearances and how things appear to the outside world.'

The teenager's lawyer previously said she was a 'good girl' who was 'good with children' and volunteered at the YMCA, reported Fox19.

'She didn't drink. She wasn't a partier or a smoker. By all measures a very good girl who helped children She's by all means a very good person,' he told Dayton Daily News.

The teenager recently graduated high school and was due to attend the University of Cincinnati in the fall.
Rorn Sorn is a known member of the Asian Pride Gang. He has prior felony convictions for burglary and attempted first-degree murder, making it illegal for him to carry a firearm

A Florida man has been sentenced to six years and five months in prison for accidentally firing a gun while taking a selfie in a strip club restroom.

Rorn Sorn, 34, was at Club Lust in St. Petersburg, Florida, in December when his gun went off.

The bullet went through the mirror and into the adjacent women's restroom. No injuries were reported.

A security guard approached Sorn as he was leaving, and Sorn reportedly told the guard that it was an accident and that he 'was just trying to take a selfie.'

Officers found a .40 caliber firearm, a gun magazine, marijuana and Xanax pills on him when he was arrested.

The Asian Pride Gang member pleaded guilty in April to possessing a firearm as a convicted felon.

Sorn has prior felony convictions for burglary and attempted first-degree murder.
South African Gabriella Engels, 20, described the terrifying minutes she spent cowering on her knees in a hotel in Johannesburg

A model has re-lived the moment when she feared 'it was the end of me' during a savage beating at the hands of Zimbabwe's first lady Grace Mugabe, who is facing GBH charges over the attack.

South African Gabriella Engels, 20, described the terrifying minutes she spent cowering on her knees, blood streaming down her face, as despot Robert Mugabe's second wife viciously struck her with a weighty electrical plug and chord 'with such force and energy that I never thought she was going to stop'.

The cover girl needed 14 stitches for gashes to her face and many more to her scalp after Mrs Mugabe's 'vicious unprovoked attack' in a hotel room in Johannesburg on Sunday night as she hunted for her playboy sons.

On Tuesday night it was reported that the tyrant's wife had fled justice and crossed the border back to her mansion in Harare despite her lawyers assuring South African police that she was prepared to answer questions about the assault.

A senior Zimbabwean government official said: 'Yes, she is back in the country. We don't know where this issue of assault charges is coming from.'

Devastated Gabriella, from Johannesburg, told MailOnline she was 'furious' at the thought that her attacker might never be held to account.

Eyewitnesses in the Zimbabwe capital reported seeing Mrs Mugabe's motorcade speeding from the airport a few hours after she had been due to surrender to police.

'I am scared she will never be held to account for what she did to me,' Gabriella told MailOnline from the home she shares with her mother, Debbie.

The 20-year-old (pictured) had been partying with Robert Mugabe Jr, 25, and Chatunga Mugabe, 21

Alleged attack: Gabriella Engels claims Grace Mugabe beat her in a hotel room after she found the model in the company of her sons

Mrs Mugabe (pictured) 52, who is First Lady of Zimbabwe, allegedly attacked the model at a South African hotel

'She beat me so badly, with all her power and might, I honestly thought it was the end of me.

'Her security guards and bodyguards just stood and watched that happen, I was pleading with her for mercy, I was crying out for help at the top of my voice,' she revealed.

Gabriella explained how she had been briefly introduced to one of the first lady's playboy sons by a mutual friend at the weekend, without knowing who he was.

She said: 'I had been introduced to Chatunga Mugabe, but I wasn't told his last name so had no idea who he was and barely spoke to the guy.

'On Sunday night, me and two other friends were with this mutual friend, who is also from Zimbabwe, and had not even seen the Mugabe brothers that evening, let alone been in the same room as them when this woman came in and just started attacking us.

'I had no idea who she was. She was shouting at us to tell her where her sons were, we just kept repeating that we didn't know them, that we hadn't seen them.

'But she did not listen to that and picked up an electrical cable and just started hitting us with it, including with the plug.

'One of my friends managed to run away, but me and my other friend were just pinned up against the side of the room, I was on my knees and she beat me until blood was running down my face, I could taste it.

'I thought I would fall unconscious. The power of the first blow to my head was just brutal. I thought she was never going to stop, she just kept going and going.

'The room was full of security guys, including her bodyguards. They just stood there, in silence, watching it all happen. Eventually, I managed to get out of the room and run for help.'

Injured: The model uploaded an image of her injuries to her social media accounts

Accusations: The model accuses Mrs Mugabe of beating her with an extension cord and leaving her with a head wound

Claims: The hotel confirmed guests had been asked to leave but would not confirm whether they were Mrs Mugabe, pictured with husband Robert, and her sons

It was only later that Gabriella learned the true identity of her notorious attacker, whose reputation for ruthless political ambition, violent outbursts and lavish spending habits as earned her the nicknames 'DisGrace' and 'the First Shopper' of Zimbabwe.

Following the alleged attack, Miss Engels tweeted a picture of a wound on her head.

She wrote on Twitter: 'What is a girl compared to a women beating you and 10+ body guards standing back leaving her to do this s***.

'She split my head open in 3 places with an extension cord and used the plug to hit me.'

Gabriella's mother, Debbie, told MailOnline: 'I am so proud of her for standing up for herself against such a powerful person.

'I am going to feel very let down if it turns out that Grace Mugabe does not face justice over what she did. When I first saw my girl covered in blood after that beating, I almost collapsed.'

Vish Naidoo, spokesman for the South African Police Service, confirmed to MailOnline that 'a female suspect' in the case made by Gabriella had been due to present herself to police for questioning at 10am this morning, after her lawyer contacted the authorities to make arrangements.

Tonight 52 year-old Mrs Mugabe's whereabouts remain unknown, although her lawyer has reportedly told police that she had not left South Africa.

'An investigation into the case will continue,' Mr Naidoo said, 'and the findings will be presented to the Senior Public Prosecutor in due course.

The Johannesburg-born model (pictured) is now taking legal action against Grace Mugabe

Ms Engels (pictured) claim Mrs Mugabe beat her in front of more than ten bodyguards

The assault on the young model is he latest in a string of violence incidents linked to Mrs Mugabe's conduct at home and abroad.

Earlier this month, she was reportedly held briefly in Singapore after attempting to destroy camera equipment belonging to two journalists. In 2009 she was accused by British photographer Richard Jones of punching him in the face repeatedly while her bodyguards pinned him to the ground, outside a hotel in Hong Kong. On both occasions, her diplomatic immunity protected her from further investigation or criminal charges.

In Zimbabwe, which descended into political chaos under the rule of her 93 year old husband, she was accused by Human Rights Watch in May this year of ordering the harassment, assault and violent eviction of 200 families.

She is a leading candidate to succeed her ageing husband as both leader of the ruling party and head of state in Zimbabwe.
A homeless man who was hailed a hero for helping the Manchester bombing victims has been arrested for stealing a woman's credit cards as she lay injured after the devastating explosion.

Chris Parker, 33, nursed a young girl who lost both her legs and cradled a seriously hurt woman in his arms after Salman Abedi detonated a nail bomb, killing 22.

Grateful well-wishes raised more than 50,000 to help Parker turn his life around as a thank you for his 'heroic' actions.

But Parker has now been charged with two counts of theft for stealing from Pauline Healey as she lay injured after the blast.

Fall from grace: Parker has now been arrested for stealing from a victim on the night of the attack

Victims: Pauline Healey (left) was injured while her grandaughter Sorrell Leczkowski (right) died in the attack

Mrs Healey, who survived after being in a coma for days, lost her 14-year-old granddaughter Sorrell Leczkowski to the attack. Her daughter Samantha was seriously injured.

Parker has been remanded to appear at Manchester and Salford Magistrates' Court tomorrow.

Police said: 'The charges relate to a bank card being stolen from the Manchester Arena on the evening of 22 May 2017.'

Parker had been in the foyer of the arena - where he was said to regularly beg for money at the end of concerts - when the huge blast ripped through the crowd.

He said he was knocked to the floor by the explosion but immediately got back up to help the injured, gaining worldwide attention for his actions.

Speaking a fortnight after the attack, Parker said: 'I'm supposed to be a hero but I'm not a hero, just a normal guy, a normal regular guy.

'I ran into that Arena that night because I heard kids screaming. I had no choice.'

Parker (pictured with a well-wisher) has been remanded to appear at Manchester and Salford Magistrates' Court tomorrow

Referring to the moment he tended to a victim, Parker said: 'She was in her 60s and said she had been with her family.

'I haven't stopped crying. The most shocking part of it is that it was a kids' concert.

'There were nuts and bolts all over the floor. I don't think anything has sunk in yet. It's just shock.'

Some 3,799 people pledged 52,589 for Parker in response to a GoFundMe campaign by Michael Johns, but he is yet to receive the money.

Mr Johns tonight posted on his fundraising page: 'In the event it becomes clearly inappropriate for this money to be released to Chris, all funds will be refunded with the support of GoFundMe.'

The 25-year-old told MailOnline: 'I don't want to prejudice any ongoing legal process so will not be making any comment until that process is over.'

A spokesperson for JustGiving said: 'We're monitoring the situation closely.

'We are in full control of the funds and all donors are completely protected by the GoFundMe Guarantee. Anyone concerned about their donation should contact us at gofundme.com/guarantee.'

As a result of his fame and exposure in the media, Parker was reunited with his mother Jessica (pictured)

Chris Parker, pictured as a boy, described cradling a young girl who had lost both of her legs as he waited for paramedics to arrive

As a result of his fame and exposure in the media, Parker was reunited with his mother - who he had not seen for five years - and, after talks with council officers, was found a home.

The attack injured 250 people, and many were left with life-changing injuries after murderer Salman Abedi detonated a nail bomb just after 10.30pm on Monday 22 May at the end of an Ariana Grande concert.

Another rough sleeper, Stephen Jones, revealed how he pulled nails out of a little girl's face after the bomb went off at the end of the Ariana Grande concert.

Mr Jones recalled watching in horror as children covered in blood began pouring out of the arena, leaving behind 'lifeless' bodies surrounded by 'hysterical' mothers.

The usually bustling St Ann's Square in Manchester has become a sombre focal point for outpourings of grief

A policewoman comforted a young girl following the terrorist attack at Manchester Arena last Monday night. Her mother was later found to have died in the attack

Casualties were stretchered out of the concert on after the terror attack at Manchester Arena

He said: 'I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if I'd just walked away. Just because I'm homeless, it doesn't mean I haven't got a heart.'

West Ham's owner David Sullivan and his son vowed to pay for Mr Jones's rent for six months to thank him for helping the victims of the Manchester suicide bombing.

Just a few hours later and with the help of social media and Manchester's Booth Centre, a day centre which helps the city's homeless, the pair managed to successfully track Mr Jones down.
The Holcombe area may soon be equipped with broadband internet access.

Cornell-based Chippewa Valley Electric Cooperative and New Auburn IT service provider Citizens Connected announced a joint business venture on Tuesday: a company called Ntera that will develop fiber optic internet access for underserved areas throughout the Chippewa Valley, according to a company press release.

Right now, were looking at the southern shores of Lake Holcombe as the area were venturing into first, said Jill Petska, a spokeswoman for Citizens Connected. Were very excited to be bringing this to an underserved area.

Holcombe was found to be one of the Chippewa Valleys spottiest areas in terms of internet access, according to CVEC and Citizens Connected surveys, said the press release.

Ntera is focusing exclusively on the Holcombe area to begin, Petska said, with construction planned to begin in the fall of 2017.

We havent really looked farther than the Holcombe area at this time, Petska said. But we will definitely go where the Chippewa Valley Electric Cooperative members are. We ask that they help us determine where to go next.

Ntera is not looking to hire in the area at this time, as it will employ current staff from its two parent companies.

Petska said the project will not be receiving state funding for the project.

Nteras debut comes almost two weeks after Gov. Scott Walker and the state Public Service Commission announced $1.5 million in grants for 13 underserved Wisconsin areas to develop broadband internet access.

One of the grant recipients was 24-7 Telcom of Menomonie.
US Army Staff Sgt. William Turner's remains were flown back to Nashville Airport on Tuesday after his bomber was shot down 74 years ago in a World War II raid in Amsterdam

A solider who was missing for nearly 74 years after his 'Hell's Fury' plane was shot down in World War II is now returning home to Tennessee after his remains were recently identified.

US Army Staff Sgt. William Turner's remains were flown back to Nashville Airport on Tuesday.

Turner was an aerial engineer and crew member of the 'Hell's Fury' B-26 bomber during World War II.

He and the rest of his crew were aboard the bomber when they flew from Essex, England to Amsterdam for a bombing raid on December 13, 1943.

They were due to bomb a German-controlled airport in Amsterdam when Hell's Fury was struck by anti-aircraft artillery and crashed in Schiphol near Amsterdam.

Turner was 20 years old at the time.

An account of the crash, which was published on B26, says an aerial photographer captured the moment Hell's Fury was hit.

It showed the plane splitting in two before blowing up seconds later.

Pilot Roy Voorhees, who was in a nearby bomber, described the ordeal as 'by far our toughest raid'.

Turner was flying on the 'Hell's Fury' B-26 bomber when it was struck by anti-aircraft artillery on December 13, 1943. An aerial photographer captured the moment Hell's Fury was hit and split in two before it exploded seconds later

Turner's remains were flown back to Nashville Airport on Tuesday. His body was only recently identified through DNA testing after more remains were found at the crash site in 2007

'I'd never seen such flak before. Ray Sanford got hit and exploded. We were on his left wing, he almost cart-wheeled into us,' he said.

'We had quite a few holes in our ship. I've never been so scared, and will always be able to see Sandford's airplane. It was hell.'

Six bodies were recovered from the Hell's Fury wreckage, but only two crew members were identified between 1946 an 1949.

The unidentified remains from the crash were buried at Arlington National Cemetery in 1951.

Decades later, the Royal Netherlands Army Recovery and Identification Unit recovered more remains during a 2007 excavation of the crash site.

The American Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used DNA and anthropology analysis to identify the remains as Turner.

Turner is survived by his cousins Linda Tinsley of Murfreesboro, Jeff Kemper of Smithville, and Rita Williams of Cottontown (pictured above waiting for Turner's remains to arrive on Tuesday)

Members of Turner's family watched on as his coffin was removed from a plane at Nashville airport on Tuesday

The Tennessee Department of Veterans Services will be holding a graveside service for Turner at the Nashville National Cemetery on August 22.

Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam has declared it as a day of mourning in Turner's honor with flags to be flown at half-mast.

'William Turner was among the bravest American heroes to fight for our country in World War II,' Haslam said.

'We are grateful that he will be laid to rest on Tennessee soil and his family will have the closure and certainty of truly knowing his final resting place.'

Department of Veterans Services Commissioner Many-Bears Grinder said: 'It is encouraging to see so many unanswered questions finally resolved to the benefit of surviving family members.

'We applaud the efforts of all of the federal experts working to identify and bring our service members home.'

Turner is survived by his cousins Linda Tinsley of Murfreesboro, Jeff Kemper of Smithville, and Rita Williams of Cottontown - all in Tennessee.
Judge Jim Hinkle in Gwinnett County, Georgia, has been suspended after calling counter-protesters snowflakes with no sense of history

A judge and long time politician in Gwinnett County, Georgia, was suspended after making controversial posts on Facebook about the the Charlottesville protests and Confederate monuments.

On Facebook Saturday, about an hour before a counter-protester was killed, Judge Jim Hinkle labeled the Charlottesville protesters concerned about Confederate monuments 'snowflakes' and said they had 'no concept of history.'

Tuesday morning he posted: 'The nut cases tearing down Confederate monuments are equivalent to ISIS destroying history.'

He was mayor of Grayson, Georgia, a town of about 3,700 people, for more than 20 years.

Shortly after the post on Tuesday Gwinnett County Chief Magistrate Judge Kristina Hammer Blum said she has suspended Hinkle.

Hinkle's post said, in part: 'In Charlottesville everyone is upset over Robert E. Lee statute (sic). It looks like all of the snowflakes have no concept of history. It is what it is. Get over it and move on. Leave history alone - those who ignore history are deemed (sic) to repeat the mistake of the past.'

Hinkle is a Marine Corp veteran and appears to voice his support for the Confederacy in this statement.

'In Richmond VA all of the Confederate monuments on Monument Ave. have people on horses whose asses face North. PERFECT!' he wrote.

Hinkle said he didn't 'see anything controversial' about the posts.

'But you know, with the way things are going in the world today, I guess everything's controversial,' he said.

Blum had been unaware of the posts until the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reached out to her for comment.

'As the Chief Magistrate Judge, I have made it clear to all of our Judges that the Judicial Canons, as well as our internal policies, require Judges to conduct themselves in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity, impartiality, and fairness of the judiciary,' Blum said to the AJC.

'I consider any violation of those principles and policies to be a matter of utmost concern, and will certainly take any action necessary to enforce compliance and to maintain the integrity of this Court,' Blum said.

Hinkle deactivated his Facebook at around 11.30am on Tuesday.

Hinkle posted about the Charlottesville protests less than an hour before a suspected white supremacist drove into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one and injuring 19

In April 2016, the same day the United States Treasury announced that Underground Railroad leader would be on the $20 bill, Hinkle wrote : 'Well, the U.S. Treasury has just announced the ugliest $20 bill, or any money ever.'

In a January post, the judge declared himself 'proud to be a deplorable infidel.'

In March, Hinkle posted a link to a story with the headline 'U.S. Marine Dad Makes School PAY After Pushing Muslim Propaganda On Little Girl.'

32-year-old Heather Heyer was killed when suspected white supremacist James Alex Fields Jr drove into the crowd. Hinkle had called the counter-protesters 'snowflakes' less than an hour before she died

HInkle was suspended just days after 32-year-old Heather Heyer was killed and 19 others injured during a rally in Charlottesville when suspected white supremacist James Alex Fields Jr drove into a crowd of counter-protesters.

Trump initially condemned the Saturday incident as an 'egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides - on many sides,' a phrase that led many, including those at neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer, to believe he was tacitly supporting racist whites.

On Monday, under pressure from critics Trump said that 'racism is evil' and described members of the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and white supremacists who take part in violence as 'criminals and thugs.'

On Tuesday, Trump once again defended elements of the far-right protest, claiming some were 'fine people' protesting against the removal of Confederate symbols in an angry defense of his response to the Charlottesville riots at press conference at Trump Tower.
Stripper, Justin Calhoun (pictured), 24, was charged with attempted murder after he allegedly stabbed his partner in both eyes and shoved a piece of wood down his throat

A male stripper was arrested and charged with attempted murder after he allegedly stabbed his partner in both eyes and shoved a piece of wood down his throat after an argument.

Justin Calhoun, 24, was taken into custody on Monday in Key West, Florida, after he admitted to attacking his partner, Mark Brann, according to WPLG.

Brann was flown to Jackson Memorial Hospital's Ryder Trauma Center in Miami, where he is still listed in critical condition.

They were involved in a sexual relationship and Calhoun said he often stayed at Brann's home, where the attack occurred.

Calhoun reportedly told Detective Jeff Dean that an argument between the two men ensued after Calhoun accused Brann of being a 'cannibal'.

Brann got angry about the accusation and picked up a gun that was on a bed where they were laying, Dean wrote in the police report.

One shot was fired off by Brann, but no one was shot. When Calhoun got the gun to shoot Brann, the weapon jammed.

That's when Calhoun allegedly grabbed a pen and stabbed Brann in both eyes, according to WPLG.

Calhoun told police that he shoved a piece of wood from a broken dresser into Brann's mouth 'to silence him'.

He then 'stomped' on the piece of wood to lodge it further into Brann's mouth, grabbed a drawer from the broken dresser and used it to hit Brann, the report said.

Calhoun said he locked the door to keep Brann's roommate from entering, grabbed his money and backpack and jumped out of the bedroom window while naked. Calhoun is being held at the Monroe County Sheriff's Office jail without bond. Pictured is Brann's home

Calhoun said he locked the door to keep Brann's roommate from entering, grabbed his money and backpack and jumped out of the bedroom window while naked, according to the station.

Authorities caught up to him several hours after he fled the scene and evaded police by jumping fences and climbing on rooftops.

Police wrote in the report that Calhoun admitted to his actions going beyond self-defense.

Calhoun is being held at the Monroe County Sheriff's Office jail without bond.
Paris Hilton has slammed the 'opportunists' who accused Donald Trump of sexual harassment.

The 36-year-old, who is not exactly camera-shy herself, revealed that she believes those accusing the president are just vying for 'attention and fame'.

'I think that they are just trying to get attention and fame,' she told Marie Claire.

'I feel like, a lot of people, when something happens, all these opportunists will come out. They want to get money or get paid to not say anything or get a settlement when nothing really happened. So I don't believe any of that.'

Paris Hilton (left at a film screening in Santa Monica in June) has slammed the women who accused Donald Trump (pictured at the White House on Monday) of sexual harassment

Hilton refutes reports she voted for Trump, saying she didn't vote for anyone during the last election.

But she admits she thinks the president, an old family friend, is 'charming' and 'good looking' - and thinks his accusers thought so too.

'I'm sure that they were trying to be with him, too,' Hilton said. 'Because a lot of women, I've seen, like him because he's wealthy and he's charming and good-looking so I feel like a lot of these girls just made the story up.'

Multiple women have come forward to accuse Trump of sexual harassment in the past year.

Zervos (above) was a former contestant on the fifth season of The Apprentice. She accused Donald Trump of sexual assault prior to the election saying he kissed her and groped her

Zervos, (center left), who filed a defamation lawsuit against Trump, cries as she marches with her attorney Gloria Allred (left) and fellow sexual misconduct accuser and Former Miss Utah Temple Taggart (center right) at the Women's March on Washington in January

Former Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos filed a lawsuit in January that alleged Trump used his platform to falsely denigrate her and other women who accused him of 'unwanted sexual touching'.

Prior to the election, she accused the billionaire of inappropriate sexual advances, including groping her, when she met with him to seek career advice during a meeting at the Beverly Hills Hotel. However, she didn't file a lawsuit at the time of making the accusations.

Other accusers included a pageant queen who claims Trump groped her in 2006, and a People reporter who claims Trump forcibly kissed her without her consent during an interview at Mar-a-Lago in 2005.

Zervos attorney Gloria Allred stated that after Trump was accused by several women of sexual misconduct, he 'knowingly, intentionally, and maliciously threw each of these women under the bus', and repeatedly called them 'liars'.

The 36-year-old, who is not exactly camera-shy herself, revealed that she believes those accusing the president are just vying for 'attention and fame'

Zervos added that the reason she came forward with her accusations against Trump in October was due to the release of the outtake of a 2005 Access Hollywood tape where Trump can be heard bragging to Billy Bush about grabbing women by their sexual organs.

'Grab them by the p***y,' he told Bush, 'You can do anything. When you're a star, they let you do it.'

The businessman later claimed that the conversation with Bush was 'locker room talk' and denied actual sexual misconduct.

Hilton also brushed it off as typical guy talk.

'I've heard guys say some pretty crazy things. Like, worse than that,' she said. 'I think it was kind of just one of those things where you're with someone  I've heard guys say the craziest things ever 'cuz I'm always around guys and I listen to them speak. So I definitely don't think he would just say that.'

Hilton, who rather surprisingly described herself as a feminist, has a history with Trump, an old family friend, whom she calls 'an incredible businessman' and a good president.

The 70-year-old has previously admitted watching Hilton's notorious sex tape, and once described the first time he met a then 12-year-old Paris who he thought was 'beautiful.'

'I've known Paris Hilton from the time she's 12,' Trump told Howard Stern when he appeared on his radio show. 'Her parents are friends of mine, and the first time I saw her, she walked into the room and I said, 'Who the hell is that?'

'At 12, I wasn't interested. I've never been into that  but she was beautiful.'

When confronted whether such revelations 'creeped' her out, Hilton blamed Trump's answers on Stern.

'I feel that anyone that's on that show, Howard just loves to say weird things and people say things that they normally wouldn't say,' she said. 'It wasn't creepy at all. He's not like that at all, he's always been so respectful.'

Hilton did not respond to reporter's request for comment.
Travellers are being warned to prepare for more flight chaos at Melbourne Airport, where angry taxi drivers are planning another day of protests against Uber drivers being able to operate there.

Around 150 blockaded the roads leading to the domestic and international terminals of the airport from 9.30pm on Tuesday.

Their outrage stems from an announcement less than 12 hours earlier that UberX drivers would be able to operate inside Melbourne Airport from Wednesday - a move taxi drivers have long pushed against.

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Hundreds of angry taxi drivers have blockaded roads into Melbourne Airport in protest over Uber drivers being able to pick up and drop off passengers from Wednesday (pictured)

The protest by cab drivers caused major delays for commuters, many of who were desperate to catch flights out of the airport

In a statement released on Tuesday night, Melbourne Airport confirmed the protest and urged those travelling to allow extra time.

'Taxis have blockaded Melbourne Airport's main forecourt. This is having an impact on vehicle movements through the forecourt,' the statement read.

'Any passengers catching a departing flight tonight, we're recommending you head to the airport earlier than you might have been planning to.'

But despite the intentions of the aggrieved taxi drivers, it seems their protest might not work in their favour.

Angry commuters who found themselves caught up in the incident took to social media to slam the cab drivers and pledge their allegiance to Uber (pictured)

Angry commuters who found themselves caught up in the incident took to social media to slam the cab drivers and pledge their allegiance to Uber.

'Taxi drivers at Melbourne airport protesting Uber access just pi**ed off a lot of people who probably now want to try the alternative,' one Twitter user wrote.

'Oh dear Melbourne taxis! You have now officially lost all remaining passengers to Uber!' another wrote.

'It's a game of Taxi Roulette at Melbourne Airport tonight with protest against Uber - always the innocent travellers affected!' one woman posted.

'Ban taxis from the airport. They can't be trusted to conduct themselves reasonably,' said one man on Twitter.

But despite the intentions of aggrieved taxi drivers, it seems their protest might not work out in their favour with a number slamming them on social media and pledging allegiance to Uber
Today Show host Karl Stefanovic has called for Australia Day to be moved from January 26 to New Year's Day out of respect for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

Stefanovic addressed the controversial topic on Wednesday morning with an impassioned speech, arguing that a date change is necessary if the country wants to move forward and heal from it's past.

If we are to truly follow through with the apology and move forward together, hand in hand, arm in arm, then I believe it must change. So let's do it together, certainly lets debate it together,' he said.

'On a much lighter note, the 26th is a rubbish day for a party anyway  whoever had a party on the 26th of anything? So, my suggestion is move Australia Day to the 1st of January. That way, we get to combine New Years with another party.'

Stefanovic said his initial response was to leave the date as is, but that after speaking to members of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities he 'changed [his] mind.'

Today Show host Karl Stefanovic (pictured) has called for Australia Day to be moved from January 26 to New Year's Day out of respect for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities

Stefanovic said his initial response was to leave the date as is, but that after speaking to members of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities he 'changed [his] mind' (pictured are Koomurri representatives performing a smoking ceremony on January 26)

'The 26th is a rubbish day for a party anyway  whoever had a party on the 26th of anything? So, my suggestion is move Australia Day to the 1st of January,' he said (pictured are Australia Day celebrations in Sydney this year)

Australia Day is often referred to as 'Invasion Day' by many Indigenous people, who say it is not a day of celebration but of mourning.

The date when the First Fleet arrived to colonise Australia in 1788, January 26 has in recent years caused widespread controversy amid calls to 'change the date'.

'As hard as some want to ignore it, January 26 marks the day this land changed forever for one of the oldest and most beautiful cultures in the world,' Stefanovic said.

In a dramatic meting on Tuesday, Yarra City Council, a Melbourne municipality of about 80,000 people, voted to no longer acknowledge the national public holiday.

Under the motions unanimously approved by the council, citizenship ceremonies or Australia Day celebrations will no longer be held on January 26.

In its place Yarra City's nine councillors - of which four are Greens members - instead chose to hold a number of Indigenous-themed events, with the decision made in the wake of a recent survey of just 300 people which 'showed strong support' locally.

In a statement released onto the council website moments after the vote, Yarra City mayor Amanda Stone said the decision was about being 'culturally sensitive'.

'The overwhelming sentiment from our Aboriginal community is that January 26 is a date of sadness, trauma and distress,' Cr Stone said.

'They have told us that this is not a day of celebration, but a day of mourning.'

Yarra City Council, a municipality of around 80,000 people in central Melbourne, has voted to stop referring to January 26 as 'Australia Day' (Stock image)

The decision was made after a recent survey of just 300 locals 'showed strong support' for the change. During a dramatic meeting on Tuesday the council voted to implement a number of changes to the national day

While the council refuses to call it 'Australia Day', they are yet to pick another name for the celebrations that meets their criteria nationally.

Until then Yarra City Council has pledged to lobby the Federal Government to mirror its decision and move Australia Day from January 26 nationally.

'People can still have their barbecues and parties on the January 26 public holiday,' Cr Stone said.

'But I hope our stance encourages people to stop and think about what this date really means in the history of our nation.'

Mischa Coleman, a Greens member of the council, tweeted that Yarra City had taken the 'first step for big change'

Protesters hit the streets on Australia Day last year to call on the government to 'change the date'. January 26, the day when the First Fleet landed in Australia in 1788, has been labelled 'Invasion Day'

Yarra City Council mayor Amanda Stone said the decision was about being 'culturally sensitive'

The move by Yarra City Council follows an equally controversial one by the City of Fremantle in 2016, which moved the date of Australia Day to January 28.

Like the Melbourne municipality, the council cited cultural sensitivities and calls from local Aboriginal elders that t was not a day for celebration.

In June, a meeting of the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) voted 64-62 to lobby the government for a date change because January 26 is 'racist'.
MPs are set to review plans to silence Big Ben in a refurbishment of the Elizabeth Tower at Parliament, pictured, after a public outcry

MPs are set to review the bonkers Big Ben plan after claiming they didnt know the famous bell would be silenced for four years.

Three Parliamentary committees are said to have agreed on the work before it was given final approval by the House of Commons Commission, chaired by Speaker John Bercow.

But last night MPs insisted they had no idea they were signing off on a plan that would silence the Great Bells bongs for four years because of health and safety concerns.

They expressed anger at the length of time allocated to refurbish the Elizabeth Tower, which will silence the bells to protect workers from hearing damage, with Tory MP Nicholas Soames saying: Tell those poor little darlings to put headphones on.

Brexit Secretary David Davis also waded into the row, saying that stopping the chimes was mad and urging the Parliamentary estates authorities to just get on with it.

In the face of the growing revolt, Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake, the spokesman for the Commons Commission, said he would ask for the plans to be reviewed.

Following representations that have been made, I will ask the commission whether it will look again at whether more extended bell-ringing is an option that is both mechanically and financially viable.

Clearly there is a means of doing it (having the bells ring more often) because there is a commitment to ensuring the bells ring on New Years Eve.

Mr Brake insisted that while the refurbishment plans had been brought before the commission, the specifics  such as Big Ben being silenced for four years  had not been discussed or signed off.

The plans to silence Big Ben, which has rung out reassuringly for more than 150 years, even during times of war, sparked an outcry when they were revealed on Monday.

Politicians on the committee that signed off on the plan said they 'did not realise' the bell would be silenced for four years

The initial plan would have seen Big Ben muted from next Monday but was described as 'bonkers' inside Parliament

The 29 million, four-year facelift will repair cracked masonry in the Elizabeth Tower that houses Big Ben, while the clock mechanism will also be serviced.

The bells will sound only on occasions such as New Years Eve and Remembrance Day.

The Parliamentary authorities said it would be unacceptable to expose workers on scaffolding surrounding the tower to the noise of the chimes  and also unacceptable for them to wear ear defenders.

EU health and safety rules dictate that ear defenders can be used only as a last resort in the workplace.

But Mr Davis dismissed the health and safety concerns, telling LBC Radio: I think its mad.

Theres a sort of rude phrase which I will shorten to just get on with it. When I was in business, it was my standard line  just get on, just do it, dont faff.

Mr Soames, the grandson of war-time prime minister Winston Churchill, added: It is a tremendously defeatist decision in an age where the technology exists to recreate the sound of Big Ben completely authentically and on time.

Following the public outcry yesterday, the authorities issued another defence, saying workers hearing would be put at serious risk.

They said workers could be startled by the sudden loud noise, with consequences for their own safety and those of other people in and around the tower, adding: The only way to ensure peoples safety is to temporarily stop the bell.

MPs last night suggested solutions to allow both the bells to chime and the workers to be safe.

One option would be supplying workers with specialist ear defenders which would block out the 118-decibel sound, and enable them to communicate with colleagues at the same time.

On Monday the Parliamentary authorities claimed the project was agreed on by three committees.

It said the Commons administration committee agreed to it in October 2015, the administration and works committee in November 2015 and the finance committee during two meetings in October and November 2015.

500 EAR DEFENDERS TO STOP FOUR-YEAR SILENCE Officials have claimed Big Bens chimes must be stopped to protect workers hearing, but here are some solutions that would allow the bells to chime while keeping them safe: 1. The builders could be issued with 500 3M Peltor LiteCom ear defenders, pictured, which manufacturers say defend your ear from the high-pitched sound but you can actually hear someone who is next to you speaking. 2. Record Big Bens chimes and play them via loudspeakers in Parliament Square. The concentrated noise level would be lower but the sound of the bells would continue. 3. Make the bells chime at an interval other than every 15 minutes, reducing the builders exposure to the sound. One of the alternative suggestions to silencing Big Ben is to give workers 500 3M Peltor LiteCom ear defenders, pictured 4. The bells could ring when the builders are not on site, allowing the public to hear the bells between 5pm and 9am. 5. Similar to workers who carry out road maintenance and upgrades to the Tube, builders could work at night to ensure minimal disruption to the bell-ringing. 6. The builders could work day and night, in shifts, to get the work finished in a shorter time period. This would mean the bells would be silent for only two years, instead of four. Advertisement

But Tory MP James Gray, who sat on the administration committee, said he was not aware of the details and called for a re-examination of the plans.

He said: I do not remember any mention of the bells being silent for four years, nor any health and safety reasons arising.

'I dont believe it was really discussed properly  had it been so I think most MPs would think it seemed ridiculous and excessive. I think it should be re-examined.

He added: I sympathise with the workers but why cant they wear ear protectors? Or why cant it be turned on at certain times?

Weve got to protect the workers but to stop it for four years is an over-reaction, its bonkers.

Despite Mr Brake confirming the project had been brought before the Commons Commission, a spokesman for Mr Bercows office denied reports it had signed off the project.

The TUC union supported the decision to silence Big Ben. Its health and safety expert Hugh Robertson said: Protecting workers hearing is far from health and safety gone mad. Its just plain common sense.

Labour MP Chris Bryant added: I would not want to put people at risk just because people are sounding off about it.
A third woman has come forward to accuse director Roman Polanski of sexually assaulting her when she was a minor.

Gloria Allred, the powerhouse civil rights lawyer, held a news conference Tuesday in Los Angeles alongside a woman who only identified herself as Robin.

Robin, who is now 59, told reporters that the director of such hits as Rosemarys Baby and Chinatown partook in a sexual act with her in 1973, when she was just 16 years old.

'The day after it happened, I did tell one friend that Mr Polanski had done that to me,' she said, reading from a prepared statement.

'The reason, with this exception, that I kept it to myself is that I didn't want my father to do something that might cause him to go to prison for the rest of his life.'

Robin and Allred both refused to discuss specifics about the exact nature of the sexual encounter.

In 1979, Polanski pleaded guilty to raping Samantha Geimer, who was 13 years old when the assault took place two years prior.

Civil rights attorney Gloria Allred (left) and her client, who only identified herself as Robin (right), speak to reporters in Los Angeles on Tuesday

Robin, 59, accused Polanski on Tuesday of sexually assaulting her when she was just 16 years old in 1973

In 1979, Polanski pleaded guilty to raping Samantha Geimer, who was 13 years old when the assault took place two years prior

The director spent 42 days in jail and was released prior to his sentencing, but he managed to flee the country.

The 83-year-old Polanski has since been living in Europe as a fugitive.

Robin said on Tuesday that she felt compelled to come forward and speak out after learning that Geimer asked a Los Angeles Superior Court judge in June to close the 40-year-old case against Polanski so that she could move on with her life.

'I would implore you to do this for me, out of mercy for myself,' she told Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Scott Gordon on June 9.

Robin said on Tuesday that she felt compelled to come forward and speak out after learning that Geimer (above) asked a Los Angeles Superior Court judge in June to close the 40-year-old case against Polanski so that she could move on with her life

Polanski (seen above in a Santa Monica courthouse in 1977) attacked Geimer, whose surname at the time was Gailey, back in 1977 when she was just 13 years old. The rape occurred at Jack Nicholson's Mulholland Drive home during a photo shoot

'I am not speaking on behalf of Roman, but justice,' she added, reading from a statement.

'I implore you to consider to resolve this matter without incarcerating an 83-year-old man.'

Robin said she was infuriated by Geimers pleas for mercy on behalf of Polanski.

Geimer and Polanski have lobbied the California courts to allow the director to be tried in absentia and to have his sentence reduced to time already served.

Recently I saw Samantha Geimer on the news appearing to support Mr. Polanski and stating that he has done everything he needed to do, Robin said.

This infuriated me.

I am speaking out now so that Samantha and the world will know that she is not the only minor Roman Polanski victimized.

I am not over it and I certainly believe that Roman Polanski should he held accountable for his criminal conduct with Samantha Geimer. He fled the country. Years have passed and he is famous, but that does not excuse his criminal conduct of sexually victimizing minors.

A third woman, Charlotte Lewis, who is also represented by Allred, accused Polanski earlier this year of sexually assaulting her when she was 16 years old

Allred also spoke at the news conference. She echoed Robins sentiments that Polanski needs to appear in court for sentencing.

While we understand that Ms. Geimer would like this case to end, Robin and I feel that it is very important that Mr. Polanski returns to court in California to be sentenced, said Allred.

Any other defendant who is not rich and famous would be required to be present for a sentencing proceeding on a conviction for a felony committed against a child.

An exception should not be made for a Hollywood film director and it would be wrong for the court to appear to give special treatment to Mr. Polanski.

Polanski attacked Geimer, whose surname at the time was Gailey, back in 1977 when she was just 13 years old.

The rape occurred at Jack Nicholson's Mulholland Drive home during a photo shoot. Polanski had picked the then-13-year-old schoolgirl up, plied her with champagne and drugs after photographing her and forced himself on her.

He makes no denial of it, accepting it was 'morally and legally wrong', according to his lawyer.

Geimer has long supported Polanski's bid to end the case and has forgiven the director. However, she has never appeared on his behalf in court.

His lawyers have been fighting for years to end the case and lift an international arrest warrant that confined him to his native France, Switzerland and Poland, where he fled the Holocaust.

The warrant prevented Polanski from collecting his Academy Award for best director for his 2002 film The Pianist.

He was also nominated for 1974's Chinatown and 1979's Tess.

Polanski, 83, is trying to get the Interpol warrant lifted so he can move freely among nearly 190 countries in the global policing network.

If that happened, the California warrant would still be valid.

The actress, Lewis, is seen above with Polanski prior to the presentation of the film Pirates during the Cannes Film Festival in 1986

Polanski contends he is the victim of judicial misconduct because the now-deceased judge who handled the case suggested in private remarks that he would not honor a plea bargain agreement.

It called for no more time behind bars for the director after he spent 42 days in a prison undergoing a diagnostic screening.

A third woman, Charlotte Lewis, who is also represented by Allred, accused Polanski earlier this year of sexually assaulting her when she was 16 years old before working with him on the 1986 film Pirates.
Silent Witness actress Liz Carr (pictured) was stabbed in the head by a man in his 20s

Silent Witness actress Liz Carr has thanked friends for their support after she was stabbed in the head by an attacker armed with a pair of scissors in each hand.

The man, who is in his 20s, attacked the 45-year-old wheelchair user while she was with her carer near London's Euston station.

Ms Carr, who plays scientist Clarissa Mullery in the BBC crime drama series, was rushed to hospital and she is currently recovering from a slash wound.

A man was arrested at the scene on suspicion of GBH and was later detained under the Mental Health Act.

Co-star Emilia Fox sent Ms Carr a message of support two days after the attack.

In response to a fan posting a photo of the pair, Ms Fox tweeted: 'Big love to @thelizcarr, one of the most phenomenal women alive, thank goodness!xx'

Ms Fox replied: 'Thank you for all the love today and always xxx'

A friend of Ms Carr said that the actress joked about the attack, saying that it was like 'being attacked by Edward Scissorhands'.

The actress, who plays Clarissa Mullery in the BBC crime drama series Silent Witness, was with her carer near Euston station

Co-star Emilia Fox posted this message online two days after the attack, calling Ms Carr one of the most phenomenal women alive 'thank goodness'

Tweeting two days after the attack. Ms Carr responded saying thanks to Ms Fox and her fans

Earlier this week, Ms Carr also thanked comedian Suzy Bennett for her words of support

A friend told The Sun: 'It was a terrifying experience for Liz. She was being pushed in her wheelchair when this young man armed with two pairs of scissors suddenly headed towards her.

'There was blood everywhere but she was very lucky that the wound grazed her head and she was not more seriously injured.

'Typically, Liz is putting a brave face on it - joking that it was like being attacked by Edward Scissorhands.'

Her carer suffered a broken finger and minor cuts was also taken to hospital after the attack. Ms Carr had never seen the man before and has no idea who he was.

Ms Carr, who is also a stand-up comedian, has been in a wheelchair since she was seven after she was diagnosed with the rare condition, arthrogryposis multiplex congenita.

She tweeted: 'Big love to @thelizcarr, one of the most phenomenal women alive, thank goodness!xx'

In 2010, she entered into a civil partnership with her partner Jo, who is looking after her while she recovers.

The attack happened near Euston Station last Thursday evening. A man has been arrested

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: 'Police were called at 8.21pm on Thursday, August 10, to Euston Road, near to Euston station, to a reports of man attacking two women with scissors.

'One of the victims was in a wheelchair. She was with her carer who was the second victim.

'Officers and the London Ambulance Service attended the location. The two women were taken to hospital suffering minor cuts and subsequently discharged.

'A man - aged in his 20s - was arrested at the scene on suspicion of GBH.

'He was taken into custody at a north London police station. He was subsequently detained under the Mental Health Act. Enquiries continue.'

Police are not currently treating this as a hate crime, but will continue to speak to the victims.
Big Ben is the most striking symbol of Britain, the mighty bell which has resonated from the Mother of Parliaments during the reigns of six monarchs, sounding the chimes of freedom not just at home but around the world.

Throughout the darkest days of World War II, the familiar peal broadcast on the BBCs Overseas Service gave comfort to the resistance movements across Europe and reminded our troops overseas of the democracy for which they were fighting.

Like the ravens in the Tower of London, and the Royal Standard flying over Buckingham Palace, Big Ben has been a steadfast monument to our liberty and independence.

It has been used by news bulletins to introduce solemn announcements on matters of state, from the death of kings to the declaration of war and the proclamation of victory.

Bong!

Big Ben is to fall silent not through revolution or invasion but due to 'elf'n'safety', writes Richard Littlejohn

And now the great bell is to fall silent. Not through bloody revolution, or foreign invasion, but victim of one of the greatest tyrannies of our age: elfnsafety.

From Monday, the bell will be mothballed while renovation work takes place on the structure which houses it  renamed the Elizabeth Tower to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee of our beloved Queen.

We all accept that a temporary hiatus may be necessary to maintain a vital part of the fabric of our nation. It has happened before for a short while, most recently in 2007.

But this time, Big Ben is scheduled to remain silent for four years. Apart from Remembrance Sunday and New Years Eve, the chimes will not be heard again until 2021.

It will be the longest period in which the bell has not rung since it was installed on May 31, 1859.

The Blitz could not silence Big Ben, but the Little Hitlers of elfnsafety have succeeded where the Fuhrer failed.

Their entirely predictable excuse is that the precaution is necessary to protect the hearing of building workers.

Fair enough, but surely issuing noise-cancelling headsets would be sufficient. Bose will sell you a top-of-the-range number for a couple of hundred quid.

After all, such devices are deemed appropriate for staff working in equally noisy conditions which produce potentially deafening levels of decibels, such as on airport runways and operating pneumatic drills.

I cant believe that the din in the Elizabeth Tower during renovation will be much worse than in the average foundry, or any other construction site for that matter.

So why is it deemed essential to shut down the bell for four whole years?

Come to that, why the hell is it going to take four years to carry out the repairs? It didnt take that long to build the tower in the first place.

The Blitz could not silence Big Ben, but the Little Hitlers of elfnsafety have succeeded where the Fuhrer failed

Still, its what we have come to expect. Endless delays and interminable public works are par for the course these days.

While other countries rebuild damaged infrastructure in a matter of weeks, repairing anything in modern Britain seems to take an eternity.

After the most recent Japanese earthquake, roads which had subsided and collapsed were reopened again within days.

Yet at the same time, some minor repairs to a bridge on Londons North Circular Road dragged on for more than two years.

When it comes to public projects, time and money appear to be no object. Nothing ever comes in on schedule or under budget.

The fact that these works regularly cause the maximum possible inconvenience to the public who are paying for it through their taxes is of no consequence.

Even before a hole is dug, the area is closed for weeks in advance while concrete safety barriers, CCTV cameras and a whole panoply of hazard warning signs are installed, all to protect employees who will spend the next few months drinking tea and leaning on their shovels.

No one wants a return to the days when workers were routinely killed undertaking hazardous construction work.

I cut my teeth as an industrial correspondent and Im well aware that safety standards on building sites in the Seventies and Eighties left much to be desired.

But thats no excuse for the overkill which has come since, especially after successive governments started signing us up to arbitrary safety directives generated by the EU in Brussels.

Often these have been drawn up with the most noble of motives, but once they arrive in Britain they are seized upon and amplified by the power-crazed, empire-building descendants of Dads Armys officious Warden Hodges, who are determined to ban even the most innocuous of pursuits.

You cant imagine the Vatican, Sacre Coeur or the Eiffel Tower being shut down for four years. Pictured is the Elizabeth Tower at Parliament in London

Perfectly sensible measures to protect life and limb are to be welcomed. But thats no excuse for the petty prohibitions and punishments inflicted upon us with such relish by the burgeoning health and safety behemoth.

As the columnist who first put the conjoined phrase elfnsafety into the language, Ive made a good living documenting this madness over the past quarter of a century.

Its led to everything from the proscription of medium-rare hamburgers and wooden chopping boards to banning the sale of knitting needles to elderly matrons who cant prove they are over 21.

No aspect of human activity is safe from interference.

It has spawned a ridiculous hi-viz culture, in which it is deemed unsafe for anyone to leave home without a luminous vest.

Theres no more daft sight on TV than a reporter doing a piece to camera standing in an empty field, dressed like Bob The Builder in hi-viz jacket and hard hat.

Theyve even banned window cleaners from using ladders, just in case they fall off.

So I wasnt surprised to read that one of the reasons given for not providing ear protectors to those working in the Elizabeth Tower was that they are unsuitable for people working at heights.

In many ways, the silencing of Big Ben is a metaphor for the lunacy of modern Britains risk-averse culture, not just the legions of elfnsafety, but the unreasonable demands of the insurance companies  seeking any loophole to prevent paying out on policies.

It has also created a goldmine for those no-win, no-fee, Blame Direct spiv law firms who advertise on daytime TV.

Watching this years blockbuster movie, Dunkirk, I couldnt help speculating that we wouldnt be able to pull off such a daring evacuation these days.

Never mind the fact that weve sacrificed our fishing fleet on the altar of European unity. None of the small boats would have been allowed to set sail.

And even if they had, elfnsafety would not have permitted that number of people to board a single vessel.

The mole which led out to sea would never have been built  too dangerous  and the Kenneth Branagh character would have been forced to wear a hi-viz jacket, making him an easier target for any passing Messerschmitt.

Other countries supposedly bound by European safety directives dont appear to take it to such extremes.

You cant imagine the Vatican, Sacre Coeur or the Eiffel Tower being shut down for four years on the orders of elfnsafety.

The refurbishment of the tower was approved by a Commons committee chaired by John Bercow, who is supposed to uphold the dignity and traditions of our democracy

Yet this was approved by a Commons committee chaired by John Bercow, the pipsqueak Speaker, who is supposed to uphold the dignity and traditions of our democracy but so often seems to embody the petty and ridiculous face of Parliament.

Theres still a chance that some kind of compromise can be reached. MPs have woken up to the absurdity of Big Ben being silenced for four years, describing it variously as mad and bonkers, and a review has been ordered.

But if they were doing their job properly, it would never have happened in the first place. They only take notice when something directly affects them.

Shamefully, they have sat back for years and nodded thousands of daft elfnsafety directives into British law, without any proper scrutiny whatsoever.

Lets hope common sense prevails and Big Ben is able to sound, if not every hour, then at least a couple of times a day.

Still, common sense is not something we associate with elfnsafety or most members of Parliament.

This craven aversion to risk even seems to have infected those who voted to stay in the EU, scared rigid that Britain would be unable to prosper as a free-booting, independent nation without the bureaucrats of Brussels to hold our hand and tell us what to do.

Im only surprised that some die-hard Remainer hasnt come forward to blame the silencing of Big Ben on Brexit.
U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan will hold a televised town hall meeting with constituents live from Racine next week on CNN, his office has announced.

The town hall will be at 8 p.m. Monday, Aug. 21, according to a release from Ryan's office. It will be hosted by CNN's Jake Tapper and held at the Racine Theater Guild.

A CNN press release says Ryan is expected "to outline House Republicans priorities for the fall." It notes the event comes amid "looming deadlines on the 2018 federal budget and the need to address the debt ceiling."

Ryan's critics have pressed him, especially in 2017, to hold town hall meetings in his district that are open to the public.

For this event, CNN "will be in charge of attendance ... and is inviting people of Wisconsin's First District to fill the audience," Ryan's release says.

It will be Ryan's second independently moderated town hall this year; the other was in January and also moderated and televised by CNN.

Ryan, R-Janesville, represents the 1st District, which runs along the Illinois border from Lake Michigan, including Racine and Kenosha, west through southern suburban Milwaukee and on to Janesville.
This is the incredible moment a Coastguard helicopter winchman risked his life as he was battered by waves whilst trying to winch three casualties to safety in Bude.

The footage shows the daring rescue helicopter in action after the trio got cut off by the tide on the Cornish coast.

One casualty was described as being in serious danger on a rock at Northcott Beach near Bude, Cornwall, that was being battered by waves.

Two further casualties also needed saving, one of whom had attempted a rescue themselves but got stuck in a nearby cove.

The UK Coastguard was dispatched following reports that a person was stuck on the rocks.

The helicopter was flown by Captain Graham FInn and Co-Pilot Captain Dave Crimmen.

Mark Hughes risks his life to save three casualties in dramatic scenes

The coastguard winchman Mark Spike Hughes was shown in the footage being battered by waves during the challenging rescue.

After he successfully winched all three casualties aboard the helicopter, the person who had attempted a rescue was reunited with his partner.

He rushes to the rocks on Bude in Cornwall to save two victims that were clinging to the rocks

The other two casualties were flown directly to Derriford hospital suffering from mild hypothermia.

Captain Finn said: This video clearly shows what can happen when people are cut off by the tide but also the sterling job Spike the winchman did in the harsh conditions and rapidly changing situation to successfully rescue the casualties.

Speaking after the incident Alan Pickersgill, of the UK Coastguard said: This incident could so easily have turned into a really tragic one.
A 46-year-old Sydney man has been convicted of animal cruelty after he was captured on graphic CCTV footage repeatedly kicking and punching his dog, a Staffordshire Terrier named Arian.

Grant Haggart was absent from the Waverley Local Court when Honour Magistrate Stapleton LCM found him guilty of an act of cruelty and fined him $5,500, according to RSPCA NSW.

He was also banned from owning any animals for 10 years.

Haggart was walking Arian off his leash in March last year when the Staffordshire tried to steal a child's ice-cream before running away from his owner.

A 46-year-old Sydney man has been convicted of animal cruelty after he was captured on graphic CCTV footage repeatedly kicking and punching his dog, a Staffordshire Terrier named Arian (pictured)

Haggart chased Arian and ended up cornering him in the elevator of a nearby building, where he was filmed punching the dog with his right hand nine times.

CCTV footage shows the 46-year-old kicking Arian in his side before lifting the dog by his choker chain and swinging him in the air.

'Mr Haggart then swung the Arian over his back before dropping him to the ground. The dog can be seen trying to escape, before Mr Haggart kicks him again, and drags him by the choker chain around his neck, before hitting him twice more,' the RSPCA said in a release.

RSPCA inspectors identified Haggart and interviewed him.

Haggart said he was violent with Arian because he was upset with his behaviour and that he had to search for him.

The 46-year-old 'has a lengthy criminal history with numerous offences of violence towards people and police officers, but not previously towards animals,' the RSPCA said.

Grant Haggart (pictured) was absent from the Waverley Local Court when Honour Magistrate Stapleton LCM found him guilty of an act of cruelty, fined him $5,500 and banned him from owning any animals for 10 years

CCTV footage shows the 46-year-old kicking Arian in his side before lifting the dog by his choker chain and swinging him in the air (pictured)

Arian was adopted from a council pound after the incident but the family surrendered the dog to RSPCA NSW because he had 'unpredictable behaviour issues.'

Despite undergoing behavioural rehabilitation, Arian was deemed a safety risk for staff and potential adopters and had to be euthanized.

'RSPCA NSW works hard to ensure all abuse victims have the best chance at life after assault. Unfortunately the sad reality is, that is not always possible, which makes our job really difficult and often a heartbreaking one' RSPCA NSW Chief Inspector David OShannessy said.
The deadly prescription drug that's responsible for a recent surge of overdose deaths in the United States  including pop star Prince  is being sold to Australians on the dark web.

Hundreds of sellers are offering to ship Fentanyl to Australia on the illicit online marketplace, including one offering 100 patches for $500, the Daily Telegraph reports.

The synthetic opioid, which is 50 times more potent than heroin, can be prescribed by doctors as a painkiller to some cancer patients.

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The deadly prescription drug that's responsible for a recent surge of overdose deaths in the United States is being sold to Australians on the dark web, it has been revealed

But some pharmaceutical Fentanyl is illegally diverted to the black market.

Data shows Australian customers now account for about 72,000 darknet drug sales each year  with prescription drugs being the second-most popular drug sold.

NSW Police said officers are working with federal authorities in a bid to crack down on Fentanyl being sold illegally.

Drug Squad Commander detective superintendent Tony Cooke told the Telegraph that users shouldn't consider Fentanyl a safe drug because it can be legally prescribed.

He described it as 'extraordinary dangerous and every bit as dangerous as smoking ice.'

The drug made international headlines only after Prince's death in April last year of an accidental overdose of fentanyl

The synthetic opioid, which is 50 times more potent than heroin, can be prescribed by doctors as a painkiller to some cancer patients

In the United States, the Drug Enforcement Administration issued a nationwide alert about fentanyl overdoses in March 2015.

More than 700 fentanyl-related overdose deaths were reported to the DEA in late 2013 and 2014  but since many coroners and state crime labs do not routinely test for it, the actual number could be much higher.

Prescription opioid overdoses reached nearly 19,000 in 2014  the highest number on record.

But the drug made international headlines only after Prince's death in April last year of an accidental overdose of fentanyl.
Deliveries of amphetamines is now cheaper and easier to order than pizza according to users.

Hospital staff say they are treating more and more people for ice addiction and the availability of the drug is getting out of control, the Sunshine Daily reported.

'Ice is very cheap and very accessible. It comes a lot through the post and through deliveries. 'For a night out it's more affordable to get ice then alcohol,' psychologist Emily W said.

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Deliveries of amphetamines is now cheaper and easier to order than pizza according to users

Police seized nearly 5,000 kilograms of amphetamines in the past year, with Victoria the biggest offender with a 400 per cent increase in arrests on the previous year.

Detective Senior Sargent Daren Edwards said the Sunshine Coast is also experiencing increasing issues with ice due to the rise of imported drugs.

'Ice is still pretty predominant here,' he said.

Despite the affordability and accessibility, many addicts being treated are people with high income jobs including doctors, lawyers and surgeons.

Hospital staff say they are treating more and more people for ice addiction and the availability of the drug is getting out of control

Healthcare professionals believe theses high pressure jobs are making people use drugs as a coping mechanism.

'It's amazing, you would think it's just the lower socio-economic people that take these drugs,' Emily W said.

In total, police seized 21 tonnes of illicit drugs in the past financial year. This equates to the fourth-largest collected in Australian history.

Australia as a whole experienced a 15.4 per cent increase on drug-related arrests on the previous year, with a total of 154,538.
Bosses can use software that scans changes to your LinkedIn profile to check if you're planning to quit your job, thanks to a new court ruling.

A US federal judge has ruled that the Microsoft owned careers site cannot use protective measures to stop third-parties accessing people's public profiles.

District Judge Edward Chen yesterday granted a preliminary injunction request brought by hiQ Labs in San Francisco.

It ordered LinkedIn to remove technology preventing hiQ from accessing public profiles within 24 hours.

Bosses can use software that scans changes to your LinkedIn profile to check if you're planning to quit your job, thanks to a new court ruling that prohibits the careers site using protective measures to stop third-parties accessing people's public profiles (stock image)

The startup firm uses LinkedIn data to build algorithms capable of predicting employee behaviours, such as when they might quit.

Trouble began in May when LinkedIn sent hiQ Labs a cease and desist letter ordering them to stop 'scraping' the site's public data.

This happens every two weeks, according to their website.

LinkedIn argues that using its data to help employers work out when their staff might leave is in breach of its terms and conditions.

But Judge Chen rejected this argument, claiming that LinkedIn's actions could place undue restrictions on an open internet.

The case is considered to have implications beyond LinkedIn and hiQ Labs.

It could dictate just how much control companies have over publicly available data that is hosted on their services.

'To the extent LinkedIn has already put in place technology to prevent hiQ from accessing these public profiles, it is ordered to remove any such barriers,' Chen's order reads.

LinkedIn plans to challenge the decision, company spokeswoman Nicole Leverich said.

'Were disappointed in the courts ruling,' she said.

'This case is not over. We will continue to fight to protect our members ability to control the information they make available on LinkedIn.'

LinkedIn (logo pictured) argues that using its data to help employers work out when their staff might leave is in breach of its terms and conditions. But Judge Chen rejected this argument, claiming that LinkedIn's actions could place undue restrictions on an open internet.

HiQ Labs (services pictured) called the decision an important victory for companies that rely on publicly available data for their businesses

HiQ Labs called the decision an important victory for companies that rely on publicly available data for their businesses.

'HiQ believes that public data must remain public, and innovation on the internet should not be stifled by legal bullying or the anti-competitive hoarding of public data by a small group of powerful companies,' the company said in a statement.

That sentiment was echoed by Falon Fatemi, chief executive of Node, a San Francisco startup that uses publicly available data and artificial intelligence to help companies identify potential customers.

'If LinkedIn is going to allow profiles to be indexed by search engines to benefit their platform then why shouldn't the rest of the internet benefit from that as well?', she said.

The dispute between the two tech companies has been going on since May, when LinkedIn issued a letter to hiQ Labs instructing the startup to stop scraping data from its service.

HiQ Labs responded by filing a lawsuit against LinkedIn in June, alleging that the Microsoft-owned social network was in violation of antitrust laws.
Egypt archaeologists discovered three ancient tombs containing sarcophagi in a cemetery dating back about 2,000 years, the antiquities ministry said on Tuesday.

The tombs excavated in the Al-Kamin al-Sahrawi area in Minya province south of Cairo were in burial grounds constructed some time between the 27th Dynasty and the Greco-Roman period.

The team found 'a collection of sarcophagi of different shapes and sizes, as well as clay fragments,' Ayman Ashmawy, head of the ministry's Ancient Egyptian Antiquities Sector, said.

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Egypt archaeologists discovered three ancient tombs containing sarcophagi in the south of the country. One of the tombs, which was reached through a shaft carved in rock, contained four sarcophagi each sculpted to depict a human face

THE DISCOVERY At the Al-Kamin al-Sahrawi site south of Cairo, archaeologists discovered three ancient tombs containing 2,000-year-old sarcophagi. The first contained four sarcophagi each sculpted to depict a human face. The second tomb held the remains of two sarcophagi and six burial holes, including one for 'the burial of a small child.' This marks the first find of a child burial at the site. The third tomb is still be excavated. The discovery 'suggests that the area was a great cemetery for a long span of time,' Ashmawy said. Advertisement

In one of the three tombs, excavators found bones believed to be the remains of 'men, women and children of different ages', Ali al-Bakry, head of the mission, said.

This shows that 'these tombs were part of a large cemetery for a large city and not a military garrisons as some suggest,' he said.

'Works are underway in order to reveal more secrets.'

One of the tombs, which was reached through a shaft carved in rock, contained four sarcophagi each sculpted to depict a human face.

A second tomb held the remains of two sarcophagi and six burial holes, including one for 'the burial of a small child'.

'This was the first time to find a burial of a child in kamin Al-Sahrawi site,' al-Bakry said, adding that the second room is located at the end of the shaft and does not contain anything except of remains of a wooden coffin.

The tombs are located in the Al-Kamin al-Sahrawi area in theMinya province south of Cairo. It's believed they were constructed some time between the 27th Dynasty and the Greco-Roman period

One of the tombs, which was reached through a shaft carved in rock, contained four sarcophagi each sculpted to depict a human face

Clay fragments found at the site date the tombs between the 27th Dynasty (founded in 525 BC) and the Greco-Roman era (between 332 BC and the fourth century).

The discovery 'suggests that the area was a great cemetery for a long span of time,' Ashmawy said.

He described the discovery as 'very important' because it reveals more secrets of Al-Kamil Al-Sahrawi archaeological site.

This work follows a previous excavation at the site, which began in 2015.

During that mission, the team succeeded to uncover about 20 tombs designed in Catacombs architecture, which was wide spread during the 27th dynasty and the Greaco-Roman time.

The team found 'a collection of sarcophagi of different shapes and sizes, as well as clay fragments. 'Works are underway in order to reveal more secrets, Ali al-Bakry, head of the mission, said

In one of the three tombs, excavators found bones believed to be the remains of 'men, women and children of different ages.' 'This was the first time to find a burial of a child in kamin Al-Sahrawi site,' al-Bakry said

During a previous excavation of the are, the mission succeeded to uncover about 20 tombs designed in Catacombs architecture, which was wide spread during the 27th dynasty and the Greaco-Roman time

Al-Bakry said the three newly discovered tombs have a different architecture design than the previously discovered ones.

The first tomb, located to the north, is composed of a perpendicular burial shaft engraved in the rock and leads to a burial chamber containing four sarcophagi with anthropoid lids.

The second consists of a perpendicular burial shaft and two burial chambers, while excavation of the third tomb is not yet completed.

In May, the antiquities ministry announced the discovery of 17 mummies in desert catacombs in the Minya province, calling it an 'unprecedented' find for the area. They also found a golden sheet, two papyri, animal coffins, and a number of sarcophogi made of limestone and clay

In May, the antiquities ministry announced the discovery of 17 mummies in desert catacombs in the Minya province, calling it an 'unprecedented' find for the area.

Along with the mummies - which have not been dated - they found a golden sheet and two papyri in Demotic, an ancient Egyptian script, as well as a number of sarcophogi made of limestone and clay.

There were also animal and bird coffins, the ministry said.
The crisp, juicy apple in your shopping basket originated in a mountainous region of Kazakhstan around 10,000 years ago, scientists have discovered.

DNA analysis has pinpointed where the first wild apples grew  and uncovered the remarkable story of how apples first reached these shores, a journey of around 4,500 miles (7,200 km).

Traders travelling west on the Silk Road, the fabled caravan trail from China to Europe, would munch on large, bland wild apples, in an area west of Tian Shan mountain in Kazakhstan.

As they tossed aside their well-gnawed apple cores on their westward journey, the pips would sprout and grow into apple trees.

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DNA analysis has pinpointed where the first wild apples grew  and uncovered the remarkable story of how apples first reached Europe, a journey of around 4,500 miles (7,200 km). This is a map depicting apple's ancient journey along the Silk Road

THE STUDY The researchers said that they believe the apples left Kazakhstan between 4,000 and 10,000 years ago. They were taken along the Silk Road, a route along which goods ranging from textiles, horses and spices were traded. The researchers came to their conclusions by sequencing and comparing the DNA of 117 Types of apple, including M. domestica and 23 wild species from North America, Europe, and East and central Asia. Previous studies have shown that the common apple, Malus domestica, arose from the central Asian wild apple, Malus sieversii, with contributions from crabapples along the Silk Road as it was brought west to Europe. The latest study has pinpointed where the first apple trees sprouted to a mountainous area of Khazakstan. Advertisement

The breakthrough happened when the Kazakh apple crossbred with the sour crab apples growing in western Europe, Siberia and the Caucasus mountains.

While crab apples are extremely bitter, they became cross-bred with their more edible cousins, a process that may first have happened accidentally.

And it was this that led to the familiar fruits we know and love  and the 7,500 different varieties of apples grown today.

Researchers at BTI, Cornell University and Shandong Agricultural University in China have attempted to discover how the apple evolved.

Writing in Nature Communications, the researchers reveal surprising insights into the genetic exchange that brought us today's modern, domesticated apple, 'Malus domestica'.

First author Dr Yang Bai, of New Yorks Boyce Thompson Institute, said: For the ancestral species, Malus sieversii, the fruits are generally much larger than other wild apples.

'They are also soft and have a very plain flavour that people don't like much.

The hybridization between ancient cultivated apples and M. sylvestris, followed by extensive human selection, gave us new apples that are larger and fuller in flavour, and with a crispy firmness that gives them a longer shelf life.

Dr Bai added that the sourness introduced by the crabapple made the kind of apple we know today.

Traders travelling west on a trail from China to Europe would eat large, bland wild apples, in an area in Kazakhstan. As they tossed aside their well-gnawed apple cores on their westward journey, the pips would sprout and grow into apple trees (stock image)

She said: 'The modern domesticated apples have higher and well-balanced sugar and organic acid contents.

'That is how the apple started to become a popular and favoured fruit.'

The researchers said that they believe the apples left Kazakhstan between 4,000 and 10,000 years ago, where they were taken along the Silk Road, a route along which goods ranging from textiles, horses and spices were traded.

The researchers came to their conclusions by sequencing and comparing the DNA of 117 Types of apple, including M. domestica and 23 wild species from North America, Europe, and East and central Asia.

Previous studies have shown that the common apple, Malus domestica, arose from the central Asian wild apple, Malus sieversii, with contributions from crabapples along the Silk Road as it was brought west to Europe.

The latest study has pinpointed where the first apple trees sprouted.

Zhangjun Fei, BTI professor and lead author said: We narrowed down the origin of domesticated apple from very broad central Asia to Kazakhstan [in an] area west of Tian Shan Mountain.

As well as travelling west, the first domesticated apple had travelled to the east, hybridising with wild apples on the way to China, creating varieties of apple.

He added: We pointed out two major evolutionary routes, west and east, along the Silk Road, revealing fruit quality changes in every step along the way.

Although wild M. sieversii grows east of Tian Shan Mountain, in the Xinjiang region of China, these apples were never cultivated, and has remained isolated for centuries.

This pool of genetic diversity is as yet untapped by human selection.

Dr Bai said: 'It is a hidden jewel for apple breeders to explore further.'

The untapped wild apples in China could be used to grow much bigger apples.

Dr Bai said: It has great potential for further enlarging fruit size in breeding programs.

She added: 'Well, in my wild imagination, maybe one day it can be as big as a watermelon.'
Researchers have launched an online experiment to investigate whether humans can understand the meaning of ape gestures.

After studying wild African great apes for more than a decade, the scientists have been able to decode the meanings of many of their gestures, and now they're curious if people who aren't professionals can understand the motions as well.

If the volunteers are successfully able to understand the gestures, the researchers say it could mean humans overall have an intuitive sense for how apes communicate.

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After studying great apes including chimpanzees (pictured) for more than a decade, scientists have decoded the meanings their gestures. Now they're curious if non-professionals can as well, which could mean humans have an intuitive sense for understanding apes

APE GESTURES Through analyzing thousands of hours of footage of wild chimpanzees and bonobos, researchers have discovered 66 different gestures they use to communicate with each other. These gestures cover 19 different meanings and include hugs, bites, pokes, pushes, hitting and more. The team even discovered headstands, somersaults and pirouettes. Many of the gestures are the same for the two closely related species. Recently, they created a visual great ape 'dictionary' of videos depicting footage of various motions performed by wild chimpanzees and bonobos, also describing what each means. They published a subset of the 'dictionary' online along with a test that allows anyone to participate in the open experiment. They curious if people who aren't professionals can understand the motions as well, which could mean humans can intuitively understand apes. Advertisement

'We have found that different species of ape use many of the same gestures  but at the moment there's one ape missing from the picture - us,' Catherine Hobaiter, of the School of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of St Andrews, said.

'We might not use our ape gestures to communicate every day any more, but perhaps we still understand what some of them mean.'

Hobaiter along with colleague Kirsty Graham created a visual great ape 'dictionary' of videos depicting footage of various motions performed by wild chimpanzees and bonobos, also describing what each means.

Their analysis of thousands of hours of film taken in the wild has shown that chimpanzees and bonobos have 66 different gestures they use to communicate with each other, with many of them being the same for the two closely related species.

These gestures cover 19 different meanings and include hugs, bites, pokes, pushes, hitting and more - the team even discovered headstands, somersaults and ballerina-style pirouettes.

Recently, they published a subset of the 'dictionary' online along with a test that allows anyone to participate in the open experiment.

Some of the 66 documented gestures. From right to left: arm raise, arm shake, arm wave, arm wave with object, beckon, big loud scratch, bipedal stance and clap

The test - which is hosted on a new online platform called Gorilla - includes 20 gestures in total and has each participant observe videos that show each gesture in real time and then again in slow motion.

The videos are also accompanied by illustrations - which Graham calls 'Bonobots' - that are meant to help depict the gestures.

For each, the participant is then prompted to choose from four possible interpretations and to rate how confident they are in their guess.

The test - which is hosted on a new online platform called Gorilla - includes 20 gestures in total and has each participant observe videos that show each gesture in real time and then again in slow motion

For each, the participant is then prompted to choose from four possible interpretations and to rate how confident they are in their guess. Among the options are gestures such as 'climb on my back,' 'follow me,' 'let's be friendly,' and 'let's have sex'

Among the options are gestures such as 'climb on my back,' 'follow me,' 'let's be friendly,' and 'let's have sex.'

At the end, a score is given showing how many out of the 20 scenarios the user guessed correctly.

So far, 7,000 people have already participated in the open study, with around half of them rating all of the 20 videos.

Hobaiter told The Atlantic this is a 'mind-blowing sample size' after spending years getting a few hundred cases.

They also discovered that while orangutans and gorillas have very different hands and styles of moving, they seem to share a common set of gestures resembling those of chimps and bonobos (pictured) as well. It's likely they gestures are inherited from their common ancestor

CHIMPANZEES AND BONOBOS: KISSING COUSINS The latest findings show that modern apes have had an interesting evolutionary past. Just like our closest cousins, human DNA is peppered with the remnants of other long-gone hominids, from our ancestors hooking up with Neanderthals and Denisovians. Humans, chimps and bonobos all sprouted from the same branch of the evolutionary tree, with a last common ancestor perhaps as far back as 13 million years ago. Genetic data have shown that chimps and bonobos diverged from one another later, forming two separate groups around 2 million years ago. Today, they are separated by a geographical barrier - the Congo River. While chimps and bonobos are distinct enough to be classed as different species, they can and have interbred. The latest study reveals a number of interbreeding events in the past which have left their genetic trace in the animals' genomes today. Some chimps may inherit as much as 1% of their genes from bonobos. Advertisement

'Citizen science projects like ours are great at getting large, diverse groups of people to answer the big questions,' Graham said.

'You don't have to feel guilty about using our experiment to procrastinate  it's for science.'

The acts of ascribing human characteristics to other animals- called Anthropomorphism - is difficult and chimp gestures are complicated, but the researchers have had a lot of luck with Apes.

'You try to keep your objective scientist hat on,' Graham told The Atlantic.

'But when you see a group of chimps and see what they do, you click straight into it.'

They've also discovered that while orangutans and gorillas have very different hands and styles of moving, they seem to share a common set of gestures resembling those of chimps and bonobos as well.

It's likely they gestures are inherited from their common ancestor, which lends to the idea humans could intuitively understand how they communicate as well.

Scientists began studying ape gestures in the 1980's by documenting chimps in zoos; however, they quickly discovered chimps in captivity had a limited motion vocabulary.

Hobaiter demonstrated this by tracking wild chimps in Ugandas Budongo Forest Reserve before moving to capturing footage through the trees in the wild.
Scientists have developed a new method to 3D print laboratory-grown cells to form living structures.

The approach - out of the University of Oxford - could revolutionize regenerative medicine and enable the production of complex tissues and cartilage.

Living tissue printed with the new method could potentially support, repair, or augment diseased and damaged areas of the body.

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Scientists have developed a method to 3D print lab-grown cells to form living structures. A confocal micrograph of an artificial tissue containing two populations human embryonic kidney cells (HEK-293T) printed in the form of an arborized structure within a cube is shown

THE NEW METHOD The challenge with 3D printing living tissue has been in controlling the cells' positions. They would move, and the soft scaffolding printed to support the cells would often collapse on itself. The researchers have found a solution in a technique for developing tissues in self-contained cells that support the structures to keep their shape. For this method, the cells are contained within protective nanolitre droplets wrapped in a lipid coating. The is enables the fabrication of patterned cellular constructs, which, once fully grown, mimic or potentially enhance natural tissues. Advertisement

An interdisciplinary team from the school's departments of Chemistry and Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics and the Centre for Molecular Medicine at Bristol demonstrated how a range of human and animal cells can be printed into high-resolution tissue constructs.

Specifically, they worked with human embryonic kidney (HEK) cells and ovine mesenchymal stem cells (oMSCs).

'The versatility and robust nature of our approach provides a new set of tools for bottom-up tissue engineering at a low cost,' reads the paper on the research, which was published in Scientific Reports.

While interest in 3D printing living tissue has grown, it's been difficult to implement because an effective was to use the technology hasn't been found.

In 3D, the positions of the cells is difficult to control, as they often move within printed structure and the soft scaffolding printed to support the cells can collapse on itself.

The researchers have found a solution in a technique for developing tissues in self-contained cells that support the structures to keep their shape.

'We were aiming to fabricate 3D living tissues that could display the basic behaviors and physiology found in natural organisms,' Alexander Graham, lead author and 3D Bioprinting Scientist at OxSyBio (Oxford Synthetic Biology), said.

'To date, there are limited examples of printed tissues, which have the complex cellular architecture of native tissues.'

'Hence, we focused on designing a high-resolution cell printing platform, from relatively inexpensive components, that could be used to reproducibly produce artificial tissues with appropriate complexity from a range of cells including stem cells.'

The 3-D droplet bioprinter. This method helps cells keep their shapes by containing them within protective nanolitre droplets wrapped in a lipid coating that could be assembled, layer-by-layer, into living structures

A zoomed in look at the 3-D droplet bioprinter, developed by the Bayley Research Group at Oxford

For this method, the cells are contained within protective nanolitre droplets wrapped in a lipid coating that could be assembled, layer-by-layer, into living structures.

The is enables the fabrication of patterned cellular constructs, which, once fully grown, mimic or potentially enhance natural tissues.

Phase transfer and culture of printed constructs containing human embryonic kidney

This is useful because to be useful, artificial tissue needs to mimic functions and behavior of the human body.

The method was shown to improve the survival rate of the individual cells, which showed a high viability average of 90 percent.

It allowed the team to improve on current techniques by building each tissue one drop at a time to a more favorable resolution.

'The bioprinting approach developed with Oxford University is very exciting, as the cellular constructs can be printed efficiently at extremely high resolution with very little waste,' Adam Perriman, from the University of Bristol's School of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, said.

'The ability to 3D print with adult stem cells and still have them differentiate was remarkable, and really shows the potential of this new methodology to impact regenerative medicine globally.'

The team completed their research last year and have been looking to make the technique more widely available by commercializing it for industrial and biomedical purposes.

This involves working to develop complementary printing techniques that allow the use of a wider range of living and hybrid materials that can produce tissues on a wider scale.

The researchers hope that, with further development, the materials could have a wide impact on healthcare worldwide and pointed to shaping reproducible human tissue models that could take away the need for clinical animal testing as a possible use.

'There are many potential applications for bioprinting and we believe it will be possible to create personalized treatments by using cells sourced from patients to mimic or enhance natural tissue function,' said Sam Olof, Chief Technology Officer at OxSyBio.

'In the future, 3D bio-printed tissues maybe also be used for diagnostic applications - for example, for drug or toxin screening.'

Scientists all over the world have been working on 3D printing living tissues.

Researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Centre created a 3D-printed nose and ear with blood vessels and cartilage.

Others from the Cardiovascular Innovation Institute in Louisville, Kentucky discovered how to print parts of the heart, also saying the entire heart will be able to be printed in just three to five years.

Even L'Oreal has been involved with 3D-printed hair follicles that grow new strands.
New details have emerged on the doomed voyage of Royal Navy officer, Sir John Franklin, in 1845.

Sir Franklin led two British ships, HMS Terror and HMS Erebus, in search of the last section of the Northwest Passage.

When both ships became stuck in ice, Sir Franklin and all 129 crew members tragically died - but exactly how they met their end has long been a mystery.

While researches have speculated on several causes of death over the decades, including exposure, lead poisoning, and starvation, a new study suggests tuberculosis, resulting in Addison's disease, also led to the death of the crew.

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The expedition, consisting of two ships led by British Royal Navy captain Sir John Franklin, aimed to find a sea route linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. But the crew was condemned to an icy death after their two ships got jammed in thick sea ice in the Canadian Arctic in 1846

The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan and led by University of Michigan dentistry professor Dr Russell Taichman.

Dr Taichman, who's held a lifelong love of the Arctic, drew on his expertise in oral health to develop a new theory to help explain the deaths of the crew.

He said that for decades, historians and researchers have speculated on several generally accepted causes of death: exposure, scurvy, lead poisoning, botulism, tuberculosis and starvation.

But now, Dr Taichman and his colleagues that tuberculosis, which resulted in adrenal insufficiency (Addison's disease), led to the deaths of some of the crew.

During the Franklin expedition, the ships became trapped in ice pack in 1846 near King William Island, which is above the Arctic Circle in what is now northern Canada.

THE DOOMED FRANKLIN EXPEDITION In command of the doomed was the 59-year-old Sir John Franklin (pictured) who sailed the Arctic three times before The expedition, consisting of two ships led by British Royal Navy captain Sir John Franklin, aimed to find a sea route linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. But the crew was condemned to an icy death after their two ships got jammed in thick sea ice in the Canadian Arctic in 1846. The crew's final message before they were wiped out - sent April 25, 1848 - indicated that the survivors were abandoning their ships. They left the two vessels, the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, north of King William Island and set out on a harsh journey south toward a mainland trading post. Judging by the bodies found so far, none of the remaining crew made it even a fifth of the way to safety. HMS Erebus and HMS Terror were sent out in the summer of 1845 to find the Northwest Passage but they took a crucial wrong turn and ended up stranded and surrounded by pack ice Advertisement

The ship was well-stocked with canned food, and the crew spent two years on and around the remote island waiting in hard conditions for the ice to melt and free their ships.

Some of the clues left behind included Inuit accounts of emaciated crew members with 'hard, dry and black' mouths.

With this account in mind, Dr Taichman, also a cancer researcher, decided to look more closely at the various cause-of-death theories and how each condition impacts the mouth.

Scientists have taken the DNA from the skeletal remains of several sailors who died after getting stuck in Arctic ice on a doomed 1845 expedition. This image shows the mummified remains of one of the expedition's doomed crew members

To conduct the research, Dr Taichman and Mark MacEachern, a librarian at U-M's Health Science Library, cross-referenced the crew's physical symptoms with known disease and analyzed 1,718 medical citations.

Marc-Andre Bernier setting a marine biology sampling quadrant on the port side hull of the Erebus

Dr Taichman was surprised when Addison's disease, which wasn't one of the generally accepted causes of death, kept coming up during the analysis.

'In the old days, the most common reason for Addison's in this country was TB,' Dr Taichman said.

'In this country now, it's immune suppression that leads to Addison's.'

People with Addison's disease have trouble regulating sodium and can become dehydrated, and they can't maintain their weight even when food is available - two conditions of the crew as observed by the Inuit.

Addison's disease also leads to darkening of the skin, which could explain the Inuit accounts of the dark mouths.

While the idea of scurvy among the crew falls in line with the fact that sailors of that time had the disease, that alone does not explain the deaths.

A stronger clue than this was evidence of tuberculosis that was discovered during autopsies of three sailors who died and were buried on a nearby island before the ships were marooned.

WHAT IS ADDISON'S DISEASE People with Addison's disease have trouble regulating sodium and can become dehydrated, and they can't maintain their weight even when food is available - two condition of the crew as observed by the Inuit when the Franklin expedition became stranded. The symptoms usually develop slowly, often over several months, and may include: Extreme fatigue

Weight loss and decreased appetite

Darkening of the skin (hyperpigmentation)

Low blood pressure, even fainting

Salt craving

Low blood sugar (hypoglycemia)

Nausea, diarrhea or vomiting

Abdominal pain

Muscle or joint pains

Irritability

Depression

Body hair loss or sexual dysfunction in women Source: The Mayo Clinic Advertisement

Lead poisoning, which was confirmed to a degree by an analysis of recovered bones, could have come from lead solder used fork the food cans and from lead pipes that distilled water for the crew.

'Scurvy and lead exposure may have contributed to the pathogenesis of Addison's disease, but the hypothesis is not wholly dependent on these conditions,' Dr Taichman said.

Stranded: In 1837 the HMS Terror became trapped by ice (pictured) while under the command of Admiral George Back. The ship remained stuck for 10 months. Eight years later it returned to the Canadian Arctic and this time it failed to escape the icy clutches of the Northwest Passage

'The tuberculosis-Addison's hypothesis results in a deeper understanding of one of the greatest mysteries of Arctic exploration.'

Dr Taichman's fascination with the Arctic began as a child in his native Toronto, when his father told him stories about the early explorers.

Dr Taichman has visited the Arctic 16 times, where he's led hiking trips and kayaked among the icebergs and proposed to his wife.
Extracting more money from evil, exploitative capitalists has become a rallying cry for much of the grass-roots left. In the meantime, though, its largely ignoring other important policies for lifting Americans out of poverty.

In a recent column, I urged progressives to more seriously grapple with the cumulative effects of policies that make workers more expensive to hire. More than doubling the federal minimum wage to $15, for example, would risk pricing a lot of people out of work. Especially in low-cost-of-living areas such as Mississippi, where half of all jobs pay less than $14.22.

In other words, well-intended, feel-good policies can sometimes backfire, hurting the people youre trying to help.

This humble suggestion generated a lot (like, a lot) of hate mail, along with a good follow-up question: What, then, should progressives who want to help the working poor devote their energy to?

Regarding the minimum wage, there are useful tools available to help set pay according to local costs of living. MITs Living Wage Calculator is used by some public officials and companies to determine reasonable wage floors. (The average living wage for a single person in Mississippi, for instance, is $10.30.)

More important, lots of the other anti-poverty tools deserve more love from the left  in particular what might be called post-tax policies.

Pre-tax policies  such as the minimum wage, overtime and fringe-benefit requirements  help increase workers paychecks, with employers (and sometimes workers themselves) generally footing the bill.

Post-tax policies, by contrast, involve redistribution of income and wealth through the tax code and social safety net. Think: the earned-income tax credit (EITC), food stamps, housing vouchers, health insurance subsidies. They are about boosting living standards on the back-end, with the taxpayers paying.

Relative to other rich countries, the United States relies very little on these post-tax tools.

If you look at Americas income inequality before taxes and transfers, its not great  but its still about on par with France, Germany and Finland. If you look at income distribution after taking into account tax and transfer payments, we suddenly become the second-most-unequal developed economy in the world, behind Mexico.

In other words, high inequality in the United States says more about our taxing and spending choices than our paychecks.

There have been quiet efforts to expand some of these post-tax anti-poverty policies. This year alone, EITCs have been added or expanded in six states, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. But all these changes were done legislatively, rather than through well-advertised ballot initiatives. They get much less press coverage and popular organizing relative to, say, the Fight for 15.

At a conference last fall, I asked Jason Furman, then chair of President Barack Obamas Council of Economic Advisers, about the countrys reliance on pre-tax vs. post-tax measures to help boost economic security. He said he favored using both kinds of tools (as do I). But he also noted a remarkable disparity in progressive enthusiasm for the two approaches, especially relative to payoffs.

During Obamas tenure, the White House oversaw an expansion of overtime protections that was expected to put an extra $1.2 billion into workers pockets. It also helped pass tax-code changes that put an additional $28 billion in the pockets of low- and moderate-income families. Guess which inspired more attaboys?

The amount of the incoming we got on the overtime rule in the White House was I would say about 10,000 times as much as the amount of incoming we got on the earned-income tax credit and the refundability of the child tax credit, Furman said.

Maybe boosting paychecks is just inherently easier to understand than complicated tax-code changes.

Or maybe extracting more money from Big Business has greater political appeal to an increasingly anti-corporate base than does extracting more money from taxpayers.

Whatever the reason, the dearth of excitement for these post-tax policies is a strategic mistake. Programs such as the EITC and food stamps, if well-designed, complement the minimum wage. They can do things that the minimum wage cant, such as grow more generous for larger families. Critically, they also dont raise the cost of employees, which means the well-heeled business lobby is less likely to fight them.

Post-tax policies can distort labor markets too, of course  especially if they result in benefit cliffs that discourage people from working more. Thats where smart design comes into play.

But every policy has limitations, which is why those on the left would do well to consider every tool at their disposal.

Bleeding hearts are often helped by hard heads.
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Croissants, as any French person will tell you, are hard to get right.

But the ones served for breakfast at The Peninsula Paris, my French girlfriend tells me, are simply perfect. Not too buttery, with just the right level of crispness.

Im not surprised, though, because just about everything about The Peninsula Paris is perfect.

The Peninsula Paris affords guests wonderful views of the French capital's skyline from its roof terrace - and a certain metallic tower

If there were Oscars for hotel lobbies, this would be in the running. Its a grand entrance containing a wonderful hand-made chandelier  resembling glass snowflakes  that hangs over three huge flat rocks

The level of finery in the Peninsula's bedrooms is frankly astounding - they really are fit for royalty

Id actually go so far as to say that anyone wanting to be a success in the hospitality business would do well to spend a night here, or even just have lunch or a coffee, and take notes.

Or if really pushed for time  just walk into the lobby, because that alone will take your breath away.

If there were Oscars for hotel lobbies, this would be in the running.

The hotel is a 19th-century classic French building that has been, Im told, meticulously restored by some of Frances finest craftsmen.

The lobby is the first indication that the hotels PR department is not using hyperbole.

Its a grand entrance containing a wonderful hand-made chandelier  resembling glass snowflakes  that hangs over three huge flat rocks.

The hotel is a 19th-century classic French building that has been meticulously restored by some of Frances finest craftsmen

The hotel features a stunning basement swimming pool, with twin hot tubs and loungers

The floor is pristine fine marble and the ceiling boasts some fine flourishes.

Its quite beautiful  and so is the rest of the hotel.

To stay here is to feel like a guest in the Versailles Palace, enveloped in a symphony of elegance.

The aforementioned croissant is munched in The Lobby restaurant, a room of regal splendour that boasts multiple, exquisite, chandeliers.

Our room continues the wow-this-is-just-utterly-splendid theme.

An exterior shot of the hotel as the gloaming approaches. Guests will find that Paris's hot spots are all nearby

Planely exquisite: The L'Oiseau Blanc rooftop restaurant - fine dining with an aeronautical theme

Ted's bedroom featured a king-sized bed and a very accomplished lighting system

The terrace affords a perfect view of the Eiffel Tower, and, as the clock moves past midnight Ted sips a glass of perfectly chilled Puligny-Montrachet as the landmark puts on a breath-taking light display

As breakfast rooms go, the Peninsula's isn't too shabby. It's here that Ted and his girlfriend experienced 'perfect' croissants

ALL ABOARD THE NEW EUROSTAR LOUNGE Eurostar has recently introduced a revamped Eurostar Business Premier lounge at Gare du Nord - and it's a stylish affair. Stylish: The new Eurostar lounge in Paris Situated on the top floor of the original 19th century building it features high ceilings, marble fireplaces, a cocktail bar and intimate snug spaces, which, train spotters will be pleased to hear, overlook the platforms. We found it fascinating watching the to-ing and fro-ing of high-speed trains and throngs of passengers threading through the concourse from this vantage point. It was exciting wondering where everyone was going - and where they'd been. Advertisement

Though here the interior designers have mixed splashes of art deco aesthetics and functionality to the regal vibe.

The lighting for example, is highly customisable in every zone and is all controlled by bedside tablets and wall-mounted screens that even your grandparents could work, with dimming achieved at the touch of a button.

A sumptuous bed and luxurious bathroom with a deep tub and rain shower complete the picture.

The bed, however, shouldnt be tested out before a nightcap on the LOiseau Blanc rooftop terrace.

Here I experience one of my favourite moments in 30 years of French holidays.

The terrace affords a perfect view of the Eiffel Tower, and, as the clock moves past midnight I sip a glass of perfectly chilled Puligny-Montrachet as the landmark puts on a breath-taking light display.

So life really can feel like the movies after all, it turns out.

The staff at the Peninsula play their part, too. Their courteousness is simply impeccable.

So youve read this far and might well be wondering if its all sounds too good to be true.

Honestly, it isnt. But there is one downside to the hotel  youll need to be well off to be able to afford a night here, with rooms starting at 750 euros (679) a night.

If thats beyond your means, put a smaller lump aside next time youre in Paris and drop in for a brunch or lunch.

And if you work in hotels, dont forget a pen and paper.
A hotel in Italy has caused uproar by displaying a toilet icon for a gay men.

The sign was labelled by an LGBT campaign group in Italy as shocking.

It appeared in a hotel in Cavallino, near the southern Italian city of Lecce  but the owner claims the sign had been covered up.

A hotel in Italy has caused uproar by displaying a toilet icon for a gay man

He told Il Quotidiano the word had been covered up but somebody decided to uncover it and make it visible again, according to The Local.

He added that the sign had been put up by a previous owner.

The Associazione LeA (Liberamente e Apertamente), an Italian LGBT rights lobby, issued strong criticism of the sign.

It said: It is frankly shocking that in 2017 there are still cases of this kind. It humiliates and hurts people.

Last year An Italian priest has blamed the country's earthquakes, which have killed hundreds and left thousands homeless, on gay civil partnerships.

Father Giovanni Cavalcoli said the seismic shocks were 'divine punishment' for same-sex civil unions 'offending the family' and the 'dignity of marriage'.

He made the comments on the day central Italy was struck by a 6.6-magnitude quake - the most powerful to hit the country in 36 years.

Last year An Italian priest has blamed the country's earthquakes, which have killed hundreds and left thousands homeless, on gay civil partnerships

It was the third major quake in the same region in just over two months.

The radio station he aired the controversial views on, Radio Maria, distanced itself from the comments.

The Vatican hit out at the views at the time, saying the idea of a vengeful God was 'a pagan vision' dating from 'the pre-Christian era'.

Archbishop Angelo Becciu, number two in the Vatican's powerful Secretariat of State, said Cavalcoli's comments were 'offensive to believers and disgraceful for non-believers'.
She gave birth to her second child in March.

So Billie Faiers is perfectly placed to give her close pregnant pal Ferne McCann, also 27, parenting tips.

Speaking to the Mailonline the mother-of-two revealed she has been advising the expectant mum, who is due in December, 'not to worry'.

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'I've told her not to put pressure on herself': Having given birth to her second child in March, Billie Faiers is perfectly placed to give her pregnant pal Ferne McCann, also 27, parenting tips

Opening up about motherhood, Billie, who has mastered the art of juggling 3-year-old daughter Nelly and five-month-old son Arthur with her busy lifestyle, revealed: 'I've told her not to put pressure on herself.

'You hear all these horror stories about labour but I've told her not to worry and just to relax.'

And the former TOWIE star's advice seems to have worked, as she admits Fearne is in high spirits.

Expert yummy mummy: Speaking to the Mailonline the mother-of-two (pictured) revealed she has been advising the expectant mum, who is due in December, 'not to worry'

'She's really excited! It's her first baby, everything's new and she cant wait to meet the little one.'

Ferne, who split with the father of her baby Arthur Collins after he was charged in connection with a London acid attack, will need all the support she can get as she prepares to become a single mother.

And Billie, who has been regularly spotted with the mum-to-be plans to be with her every step of the way: 'Well all support her', she added.

'She's really excited! It's her first baby, everything's new and she cant wait to meet the little one.' Billie said of Ferne

'You hear all these horror stories but I've told her not to worry and just to relax,' Billie said of Ferne

The former reality star, who is releasing the AW17 collection of her InTheStyle range on Thursday, has a wealth of experience to share with her pal.

Snapping back into incredible shape just months after giving birth to her second child, Billie admitted that she has life as a busy mum to thank for losing her baby weight.

But it hasn't all been smooth sailing, as little Arthur was diagnosed with a dairy and lactose intolerance at just seven weeks old, meaning she had to stop breastfeeding him.

'The other day I took my eyes off them for 40 seconds away and I came back to find Nelly riding him like a horse! Billie said of 3-year-old daughter Nelly and five-month-old son Arthur

'Hes on a special soya formula as dairy and lactose was making him ill, so I'm starting to ween him. Hes not feeding through the night but I think hes getting there.'

And 3-year-old Nelly is delighted at being an older sister, though her attempts at assisting her mum aren't always as helpful as she intends.

'She loves being an older sister and wants to do everything, but anyone with a toddler and baby will know how hard it is to juggle both.

Feminine: Despite her busy life as a mum, Billie has managed to put out a new autumnal collection, and admits Khloe Kardashian is her style idol

'My upcoming range is transitional, it features loads of jumpsuits, two piece suedette coords': The former reality star is releasing the AW17 collection of her InTheStyle range on Thursday

'The other day I took my eyes off them for 40 seconds away and I came back to find Nelly riding him like a horse! He was laughing but I was horrified. You cant take your eyes off them hes at that danger stage she thinks shes helping him'.

And Billie credits running around after the little ones for her incredible waist snapping back into shape.

'I like to eat healthily but I don't restrict my carb intake. I run around after the kids, drink lots of water and try and do home workouts like squats and twists.'

'There's something for every shape, the colour pallet is lots of nudes, blush, and burgundy': She said of the glam range modelled by Love Island stat Olivia Attwood

'My favourite is a suedette military style dress with a chunky belt and a trousers and bardot top ensemble.' she admitted

Despite her busy life as a mum, Billie has managed to put out a new autumnal collection, and admits Khloe Kardashian is her style idol.

'I love how she wears fitted clothes to suit and flatter her curves and really mixes it up,' she admits.

'My upcoming range is transitional, it features loads of jumpsuits, two piece suedette coords, and is very glam.

'I love how Khloe Kardashian wears fitted clothes to suit and flatter her curves and really mixes it up,' she admits of her inspiration

'There's something for every shape, the colour pallet is lots of nudes, blush, and burgundy. My favourite is a suedette military style dress with a chunky belt and a trousers and bardot top ensemble.'

With her latest seasonal range out of the way, Billie will turn her attention back to finalising wedding plans with fiance Greg Shepherd.

'We want do it abroad, hopefully at the end of next year.

Hot stuff: The mum-of-two slipped her enviable figure into an array of sizzling ensembles

'Nelly will be a bridesmaid and Arthur will be Page Boy, but we havent set a final date.'

And speaking about expanding her family, she revealed: 'Ideally we'd like to wait before we have a third child, and leave it one or two years after marrying. We don't mind what we have now that we have one of each, Greg has three sisters!'

But despite finding fame on TOWIE, she doesn't plan to return to the show.

'I hardly recognise anyone on it now, but I'll watch it when it returns. I reckon Megan McKenna and Pete Wicks will last, they seem to love each other a lot,' she concluded.

Billie's new InTheStyle is available from Thursday 10th August.

Bridal inspired? With her latest seasonal range out of the way, Billie will turn her attention back to finalising wedding plans with fiance Greg Shepherd
She's the Gold Coast model whose racy bikini photos have earned her a cult following on Instagram.

But when photos from Pia Muehlenbeck's early modelling career recently surfaced, fans began to question whether the blogger had achieved her good looks via surgery.

Now, leading cosmetic surgeon Dr Jeremy Hunt has weighed in on the debate and given his expert opinion on what work she may have had to achieve her new look.

My how you've changed! Celebrity cosmetic surgeon Dr Jeremy Hunt has revealed the procedures Pia Muehlenbeck may have undergone to achieve her look

Speaking exclusively to Daily Mail Australia, he said: 'Her appearance is highly suggestive of rhinoplasty, as the nasal bones in the upper part of the nose are narrowed.'

'The tip of her nose appears smaller and the bridge seems narrower.'

A rhinoplasty would have set Pia back a cool $15,000, with recovery time extending to around two weeks.

Just the tip? 'The tip of her nose appears smaller and the bridge seems narrower,' Dr Hunt said

Costly: A rhinoplasty would have set Pia back a cool $15,000, with recovery time extending to around two weeks

Lip service: Dr Hunt also revealed that Pia appears to have had lip fillers in both the upper and lower lip, both of which look fuller compared to older photos

Dr Hunt also revealed that Pia appears to have had lip fillers in both the upper and lower lip, both of which look fuller compared to older photos.

'The natural proportion of the lips has been lost and the upper lip is too large compared to the lower lip resulting in the 'trout pout',' Dr Hunt said.

This procedure would cost $1,000 with two days of down-time.

Cheeky: Pia may have had fillers in her cheeks, a procedure that costs $2,000 and requires two days of down-time as her 'upper cheeks appear fuller with more volume,' the doctor said

Brows: Pia's eyebrows appear much fuller these days

Pia may have had fillers in her cheeks, a procedure that costs $2,000 and requires two days of down-time as her 'upper cheeks appear fuller with more volume,' the doctor said.

The celebrity surgeon also revealed that Pia's changing face shape may be the result of a Buccal fat pad removal, which costs $5,000 with three days down-time, he explained.

'The lower cheek is hollower with less volume, leading to a more heart-shaped face,' Dr Hunt noted.

Her breast assets? Dr Hunt also weighed in on Pia's prodigious chest size, explaining that he believes she may have had breast implants

Dr Hunt also weighed in on Pia's prodigious chest size, explaining that he believes she may have had breast implants.

'[Her breasts] keeps getting bigger,' he explained, adding that a breast augmentation can cost up to $15,000.

A revision breast augmentation can also cost another $15,000.
Former Triple J radio host and comedian Matt Okine has ventured into the world of autobiography with his new series The Other Guy.

And on Monday night's episode of The Project, the 32-year-old divulged just how awkward getting naked and filming sex scenes for the hit comedy was.

'You have to stuff your bits into this bag. Like an earring bag,' Matt explained to hosts.

Spilling the beans! Comedian Matt Okine, 32, told The Project he had to stuff his 'bits' into a bag while filming The Other Guy, which made filming more intimate scenes very 'unsexy'

Matt was asked by guest panelist, Steve Price, if stripping down for the cameras to film intimate scenes was something he felt comfortable doing.

'I've never had to do nude scenes before,' he confessed, asking, 'have you ever had to do it?'

Host Peter Helliar joked that in fact he did have experience, but it was 'just for fun at home.'

'You have to stuff your bits into this bag. Like an earring bag' Matt explained the mechanics involved in filming sex scenes

'We see your backside; comfortable with that?' Steve inquired.

Matt insisted that baring his private parts was anything but a natural experience.

'It's so weird because you're having a sex scene and you're making out, in this passionate moment, you're tearing each other's clothes off and pull your pants down...'

Cringeworthy! 'I've never had to do nude scenes before,' Matt admitted, insisting that baring his privates for the camera was awkward at best

'And your d**k is just in a bag. It's really unsexy, I've got to tell ya. Sorry,' Matt revealed to the highly amused panelists.

The series is a semi-autobiographical account of the breakdown of a longterm relationship that ended when his girlfriend cheated on him with his best friend.

It follows Matt's 'character' AJ, as he deals with the fall out of his decade-long relationship ending.

'And your d**k is just in a bag. It's really unsexy, I've got to tell ya. Sorry,' Matt revealed to the highly amused panelists

AJ is then encouraged by his radio co-host Sam, played by Michael Hing, to get back into the world of dating.

The six-part series, which will stream on Stan from August 17, also features comedian Christiaan Van Vuuren, Irish actress Valene Kane and rapper Briggs.

Brisbane-born Matt hosted Triple J's breakfast show alongside Alex Dyson for three years before both quit the station at the end of last year.

During the announcement, the pair insisted their departure from the radio broadcaster was 'absolutely amicable.'
He joins Neve Campbell in Frank Coracis indie film Hot Air, set for release next year.

But Steve Coogan was shooting scenes without his female co-star in New York City on Monday afternoon.

He wasn't without company, however; surrounding him on set was a mob of protesters, swarming him with placards and banners as he tried to navigate through them.

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In a spot of bother? Steve Coogan shot scenes in New York City for new political comedy indie film Hot Air

Crowded: He wasn't without company; surrounding him on set was a mob of protesters, swarming him with placards and banners as he tried to navigate through them

Dressed in a sharp black suit and tie, the Alan Partridge actor, 51, looked deeply concerned in the scene, that saw him trying to get to a building, swamped by the crowds.

Also with him was actress Taylor Russell, who trailed behind Coogan as she portrayed the part of Tess.

His character - Lionel Macomb - is a conservative talk radio host who finds his world turned upside down when his 16-year-old niece (Russell) comes crashing into his life, prompting a relationship that changes them both drastically.

The film is being produced by director Coraci, as well as Aimee Keen and Susan Leber.

Co-star: Also with him was actress Taylor Russell [L], who trailed behind Coogan as she portrayed the part of Tess

New project: Coogan also joins Neve Campbell in Frank Coracis indie film Hot Air, set for release next year

The big apple: Coogan was shooting scenes in New York City on Monday afternoon

Coming through: Dressed in a sharp black suit and tie, the Alan Partridge actor, 51, looked deeply concerned in the scene, that saw him trying to get to a building, swamped by the crowds

New role: His character - Lionel Macomb - is a conservative talk radio host who finds his world turned upside down when his 16-year-old niece (Russell) comes crashing into his life, prompting a relationship that changes them both drastically

Coogan himself will executive produce, alongside Robert Halmi, Jim Reeve, Will Reichel, Eric Robinson and Ellen Goldsmith-Vein.

'I am so excited to reteam with Steve Coogan to make a film that comments on the state of our media through such an emotionally riveting story,' Coraci said of the project.

'I can't wait to bring Will Reichel's compelling script to life with this incredible cast,' he added.

Coogan and Coraci worked together last in 2004 - on Around The World In 80 Days.

Tense: The film is being produced by director Coraci, as well as Aimee Keen and Susan Leber

Mob: Coogan himself will executive produce, alongside Robert Halmi, Jim Reeve, Will Reichel, Eric Robinson and Ellen Goldsmith-Vein

Fraught scenes: 'I am so excited to reteam with Steve Coogan to make a film that comments on the state of our media through such an emotionally riveting story,' Coraci said of the project

Starlet: Scream 1-4 actress Campbell, 43, is currently a series regular on Netflixs House of Cards and is soon to be seen in Skyscraper, with Dwayne Johnson

The actor has been busy, as is the norm; he will star in romantic drama Irreplaceable You with Christopher Walken and Michiel Huisman, and then Stan and Ollie opposite John C. Reilly, about Laurel and Hardy.

He is currently the voice of Silas Ramsbottom in Despicable Me 3.

Meanwhile, up-and-comer Russell, 23, has been shooting the TV series version of Lost In Space, where she stars as Judy Robinson.

Scream 1-4 actress Campbell, 43, is currently a series regular on Netflixs House of Cards and is soon to be seen in Skyscraper, with Dwayne Johnson.
She's the model who's known for being linked to Justin Bieber and her raunchy social media posts.

And on Tuesday Sahara Ray, 24, flaunted her freshly plumped pout in her latest Insta stories.

Leaning in to kiss a horse at her local stables, Sahara's lips looked noticeably larger than usual.

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Getting lippy! Justin Bieber's 'ex-fling' Sahara Ray flaunts plumper pout in social media post

Red hot! Sahara also disrobed once again to model a set of cherry-red PVC lingerie on Instagram this Tuesday

The daughter of surf legend Tony Ray is known for her surgically-enhanced look.

Most recently, the busty glamazon was seen posing proactively in front of a bedroom setting.

Her outfit was completed with a pair of white fishnet stockings and a slick of fire engine-red lipstick.

In addition to stripping off on Instagram and rubbing shoulders with famous fellas, Sahara Ray also has her own range of skimpy swimwear.

Pouty: Her outfit was completed with a pair of white fishnet stockings and a slick of fire engine-red lipstick

Glamazon: On Sunday, Sahara took to social media to share photos of the pop culture icon wearing a custom-made swimsuit from the line

Fans of the brand include Kim Kardashian, who donned several skin-revealing pieces designed by Sahara last week.

Sharing photos of the voluptuous Kardashian clad in her swimmers, the 24-year-old wrote: 'Custom made for queen K.'

Kardashian kash! Sahara can probably expect sales of her line to skyrocket now that Kim, one of the world's leading style icons, has worn her attire

'Custom made for queen K,' wrote Sahara, referring to the reality TV royal

Sahara can probably expect sales of her line to skyrocket now that Kim, one of the world's leading style icons, has worn her attire.

In June, Kim wore a necklace from Australian jewellery line BabyAnything on Instagram, and instantly sent sales of the necklace through the roof.

Much like Kim, Sahara is known for getting naked on social media.

Is it really you? The artificially-enhanced Australian has undergone quite the transformation over the years

Claim to fame: The 24-year-old is best known for her famous flings and X-rated Instagram pics

Sahara was born in the Australian coastal town of Torquay, but was raised in Santa Cruz, California.

She found herself in the spotlight last year after she was spotted skinny dipping in Hawaii with Justin Bieber - whose impressive manhood was revealed to the world through some racy paparazzi photos.

The artificially-enhanced Australian has since made a name for herself thanks to her X-rated Instagram profile and rumoured flings with celebrities.

She's also received attention for her ever-changing appearance, which has left her looking virtually unrecognisable compared to her younger self.
Her modelling career is certainly on fire.

And Gigi Hadid looked red hot as she graced the cover of Vogue Korea.

The 22-year-old flashed her flat belly as she rocked a sheer crimson turtleneck and black underwear for the publication's September issue.

Playing with fire! Gigi Hadid rocked a sheer red turtleneck and black underwear in one of Vogue Korea's two September covers

Gigi actually starred in two covers for the publication, and in the second she was styled in a vintage-inspired Rolling Stones T-shirt layered underneath a grunge jean jacket.

The Los Angeles native tucked in her top into a pair of distressed jeans.

The final touch was a tan trench thrown over her full ensemble, followed by layered necklaces and large earrings.

The model wished a 'BIG LOVE and thanks' to her glam team in the photo's caption on Instagram.

Ready for fall: On Monday, Hadid, 22, graced the front of Vogue Korea's September issue, clad in a double denim look

'Trying to stay in character': On June 15, Gigi shared this behind-the-scenes look from her cover shoot

Also celebrating Gigi's cover was boyfriend Zayn Malik and mother Yolanda, 53.

The former One Direction star, 24, shared another cover of his ladylove, dressed in layered red sweaters and bikini bottoms. For the photo's caption, he posted a simple heart emoji.

Yolanda was in full mommy mode, sharing how 'proud' she was of her eldest child.

'Proud of all that you do and all that you are my love...... @voguekorea #KeepShining #ProudMommy #Vogue,' she wrote.

Happy for her: Also celebrating Gigi's cover was boyfriend of nearly two years, Zayn Malik, 24, and mother Yolanda, 53

Last month, Yolanda Hadid responded to rumors that her daughter was expecting a child.

A fan tweeted the Real Houswives star asking if an Instagram post that appeared to be written by the star was true.

'I will be a proud grandma in eight months....Life is a blessing.' read the alleged post.

Yolanda responded to the fan's inquiry over the original post.

'No of course not, if my daughter was pregnant she would be the one to announce it not me,' she said.
She's had a pop career, an acting career, two marriages and two children.

Yet Billie Piper has expressed her frustrations at the world for making her feel like she should have achieved these things, despite the fact that she's actually achieved them.

Speaking to the latest edition of Stylist magazine, the former Penny Dreadful star, 34, said: 'It feels like you have to be fully established by your 30s. But now the worlds not interested, because youre not 20 anymore.

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'I feel f**ked by this pressure!' Billie Piper finds it 'unnatural' that she is expected to 'have it all' as a 30-something woman... and pines for her first love - a scaffolder from Swindon

'I just think some of this new-age female emancipation can often land us in that place in our 30s where we feel, Im supposed to have this, this and this... Im supposed to be successful and business-savvy and coquettish and making cash and a slag in the bedroom and well-read and Im supposed to be on top of all of these things, because its my time.

'I just feel f**ked by this amount of pressure! It feels like it is unnatural to be able to do all of those things.'

She also revealed that she sometimes sees herself in a parallel, alternate reality, in which she married her first love (a scaffolder from Swindon) and stayed with him forever.

Pressure: She's had a pop career, an acting career, two marriages and two children. Yet Billie Piper has expressed her frustrations at the world for making her feel like she should have achieved these things, despite the fact that she's actually achieved them

Having it all: Speaking to the latest edition of Stylist magazine, the former Penny Dreadful star, 34, said: 'It feels like you have to be fully established by your 30s. But now the worlds not interested, because youre not 20 anymore.'

The full interview appears in this weeks issue of Stylist, out Tuesday 15th August 2017

'I often think about what wouldve happened if we were still together and I think we would probably have had a 30-year relationship,' she said.

But with a scaffolder she is not; in fact Billie only recently publicly acknowledged her current relationship with boyfriend Johnny Lloyd for the first time in a supportive social media post, shared with Instagram followers, a few weeks ago.

The musician was at the time gearing up for the first of eight shows with American rock band Mystery Jets over the course of the summer; and the blonde beauty took to social media to share a natural selfie of her in a grungy Mystery Jets tee, which she posted with a caption that sent her love to her rocker beau, ahead of his first concert with the band.

'It feels like it is unnatural to be able to do all of those things' Billie says she feels the pressure of being a 30-something

Posing with an enthused expression on her face, Billie mirrored her excitement in the caption, which saw her wish the Tribes frontman luck with his live appearance.

She wrote to her fans: 'Good luck tonight @johnny_s_lloyd @mysteryjets (really strong merch ) and @themaccabees. Hope it's a beautiful night.'

After little more than a string of dates in London over the past year, Billie was seen sporting a sparkling ring on her wedding finger earlier in the summer.

The beauty caused a stir with the accessory sparking rumours she and Johnny were engaged.

Alternate universe: She also revealed that she sometimes sees herself in a parallel, alternate reality, in which she married her first love (a scaffolder from Swindon) and stayed with him forever

What could have been? 'I often think about what wouldve happened if we were still together and I think we would probably have had a 30-year relationship,' she said

Sources inside the event told MailOnline: 'She was wearing a huge rock on her ring finger. It was a real sparkler!'

However a representative for Billie told MailOnline: 'Billie and Johnny are definitely not engaged.'

Their relationship comes one year after Billie split from fellow actor Laurence Fox, and just months after she began covering the 'FOX' inking on her engagement finger.

After the divorce in May last year, Billie began masking the letters on her finger with make-up, and now she has taken the step of having the letters blacked out.

Billie and Laurence married in December 2007 in a romantic ceremony in West Sussex, but parted ways after eight years of marriage.

The former lovers raise their two children together - Winston James, aged eight, and Eugene Pip, aged five.

The full interview appears in this weeks issue of Stylist, out Tuesday 15th August 2017.
She's the Australian-born model who has embraced motherhood since welcoming sons Rocket Zot, two, and Racer, 10 months, into the world.

And Lara Worthington (nee Bingle) was very much a hands-on mother during a family outing in Los Angeles on Sunday.

The 30-year-old and her actor husband Sam Worthington, 41, coordinated with their offspring, with most of the family sporting black rock T-shirts.

Doting: Lara Worthington (nee Bingle), 30, was very much a hands-on mother during a family outing in Los Angeles on Sunday

Lara cut a casual figure, wearing a Bob Dylan concert shirt and leggings that clung to her trim pins.

The beauty entrepreneur teamed the look with black sandals and designer sunglasses.

Styling her signature blonde locks in a half-up half-down hairstyle, Lara appeared to sport a minimal makeup palette, allowing her natural beauty to shine through.

Pushing little Racer in a stroller, the personality's son looked cute-as-a-button in a white patterned onesie.

Family affair: The beauty entrepreneur was joined by actor husband Sam Worthington, 41, the parents keeping a close eye on their children Rocket Zot, two, and Racer, ten months

Hands-on: The Avatar star kept a close eye on the couple's firstborn, son Rocket Zot

Lara's husband Sam followed behind, keeping a close eye on the couple's firstborn, son Rocket Zot.

The Avatar star donned a slim-fitting black Soundgarden T-shirt, loose-fitting trousers and coordinating sneakers.

Black sunglasses and a bracelet rounded out Sam's casual attire.

Casual: The Avatar star donned a slim-fitting black Soundgarden T-shirt, loose-fitting trousers and coordinating sneakers

Day out: The family appeared to have done a spot of shopping, picking up a bag full of toys, which Sam carried in one hand

Too cute: Rocket Zot was seen indulging in an ice cream as he held tightly onto his famous father's hand

Meanwhile, Rocket coordinated with his famous parents, wearing a black Thrasher T-shirt and striped pants.

A pair of black and white Adidas trainers finished off the youngster's look.

The family appeared to have done a spot of shopping, picking up a bag full of toys, which Sam carried in one hand.

The foursome stopped to enjoy an ice cream and seated themselves outside of a Los Angeles cafe.

Precious: Rocket Zot looked adorable in his fashionable gear as he enjoyed a family day out

Working up an appetite: The foursome stopped to enjoy an ice cream and seated themselves outside of a Los Angeles cafe

Captured: In a rather precious moment, Sam was seen assisting Rocket Zot with his ice cream cone

Attentive: Lara looked on, giving her firstborn her full attention

In a rather precious moment, Sam was seen assisting Rocket Zot with his ice cream cone.

Meanwhile, in February this year, Lara told the Sydney Morning Herald that she felt incredibly fulfilled as a wife and mother.

'It's amazing. Two children under the age of two definitely keeps us busy, but it's the most rewarding thing ever,' she said.

Relaxed: The family appeared carefree and relaxed, with model Lara sporting a content expression

Indulging: The mother-of-two looked to be enjoying the sweet treat

On-the-go: The famous family strolled the streets of Los Angeles

Youngest son: Little Racer looked adorable in a white patterned onesie

Relocating from Sydney to New York, Lara said she was happy to lead a low-key life that revolves around her family.

'Being able to raise the boys here, I haven't had as much scrutiny as I probably would back home,' she previously told Australian Harper's Bazaar.

Lara married Sam in 2014, and gave birth to their first child Rocketthe following year.

In October 2016, the couple welcomed boy number two, keeping with the 'R' name theme by calling him Racer.

Fulfilled: Lara told the Sydney Morning Herald this year that she felt incredibly fulfilled as a wife and mother
Women of Grace Takes Catholic Women's Leadership Education to New Levels

Contact: Sue Brinkmann, Women of Grace, 813-983-9701

CLEARWATER, Fla., Aug. 15, 2017 /Christian Newswire/ -- Women of Grace, a pioneer in Catholic Women's Leadership education, has entered into a partnership with historic Holy Apostles College & Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut to offer certification, undergraduate and graduate credit hours in Catholic Women's Leadership in an online format.

Benedicta Women's Leadership Studies is a first-of-its-kind program that offers graduate credit hours that can be applied toward a Master of Arts in Pastoral Studies (MAPS) with a concentration in Catholic Women's Leadership Studies. Courses include an exploration of Catholic Social Doctrine, the anthropology of the female person in light of her innate authority in Scripture and Church history, the words and wisdom of holy women, and more.

Formerly based out of St. Cyril and Methodius Seminary in Orchard Lakes, Michigan, the program transitioned to Holy Apostles in order to expand the curriculum and accommodate women who were looking for an on-line option.

"We looked for a partner that would provide a solid theological education that was efficient and affordable for women at all stages in life. Holy Apostles College and Seminary was the perfect fit," said Father Joshua D. Genig, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Church History and Benedicta Leadership Institute Studies Chair of the Women's Leadership Studies Concentration (MAPS Program).

"The women in this program are busy. So, with the coursework being offered online, they can study at any time, from any place in the entire world. They will also have opportunities for face-to-face formation experiences so as not to lose the personal touch," Father added.

Holy Apostles is offering a full MAPS degree with a concentration in Women's Leadership Studies as well as certification with undergraduate or graduate credits in Women's Leadership Studies or certification without credit in Women's Leadership Studies (issued by the Benedicta Leadership Institute). Associates as well as Bachelor of Arts degrees with a focus in Women's Leadership Studies are available. The Institute is also offering dual enrollment for high school women interested in beginning college course work early.

"No matter which level of endeavor a woman desires, this program will help her attain her goal, and assist her to help transform the world one woman at a time," said Johnnette Benkovic, founder of Women of Grace and pioneer of Benedicta Women's Leadership Studies.

The first course offering in Women's Leadership Studies begins August 28. Visit www.benedicta.womenofgrace.com or click here for more information.
Diane Keaton looked much younger than her 71 years as she was spotted filming a new project alongside Alicia Silverstone and Katie Aselton.

The iconic actress was seen talking and laughing during the scene in Los Angeles on Monday alongside the two actresses.

Diane looked youthful in a striped button-up shirt by KULE along with a small scarf tied tightly around her neck.

Youthful! Diane Keaton looked much younger than her 71 years as she was spotted filming a new project alongside Alicia Silverstone and Katie Aselton

She paired the collared KULE shirt with dark blue pants that showed off her trim figure.

The veteran actress wore her natural grey hair down around her shoulders for a youthful look and opted for little makeup on her face.

She finished off the look with leather ankle boots that featured a bit of a heel.

Alicia was all smiles in a floral maxi dress that she paired with metallic flip flops.

The 71-year-old actress was seen talking and laughing during the scene in Los Angeles on Monday alongside the two actresses

She wore her caramel blonde hair straight around her shoulders and had on natural makeup that highlighted her pretty features.

The most noticeable costume change was Kate, who was sporting a fake baby bump for the unknown project, but appeared unfazed by her large belly.

She wore jeans and dark blue ballet slippers paired with a light green patterned maternity top.

The actress, who is marred to famed director Mark Duplass, wore her brunette hair down around her shoulders and had it styled with cute bangs for the film.

Fakin' it! The most noticeable costume change was Kate, who was sporting a fake baby bump for the unknown project, but appeared unfazed by her large belly

Diane was recently presented with the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award for her long and illustrious Hollywood career.

Former boyfriend and director Woody Allen, who helmed one of Keaton's most famous films, Annie Hall, presented the actress with the award in June.

The 81-year-old director first compared Keaton, 71, to ambitious actress Eve Harrington from the 1950 Hollywood classic All About Eve.

'This is not to suggest that Diane when I met her was ruthlessly ambitious, but she did make an interesting Freudian slip,' Allen told the star-studded audience at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.

Close friends: Woody directed Keaton in eight films including the 1977 romantic comedy Annie Hall that won four Oscars including Best Picture, Best Actress and Best Director

'When we started going out she meant to refer to me as a talented young director, but instead called me a stepping stone. So, it was a red flag,' Allen quipped as Keaton laughed from the dais.

Allen also praised Keaton's writing ability and singled out her 2011 memoir Then Again in which she wrote about suffering from bulimia and her love for the director.

He then turned serious and called Keaton who he directed in eight films a 'great inspiration'.
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Home And Away actress Pia Miller's character Katarina Chapman is believed to have been laid to rest last week after shooting a fatal car crash scene for the soap.

And on Monday, the cast gathered for what appeared to be a wake for the policeman in Sydney's Palm Beach, following an intimate, solemn funeral service on set.

At a venue close to the beach, the soap stars looked on from a balcony as a large group of mourning locals approached to pay their respects.

SPOILER ALERT! Summer Bay crowd descends on dramatic beachside wake for Pia Millers Home And Away character Kat Chapman during Sydney filming on Monday... after Bachelorette Sam Frost makes series debut by 'killing' off the policewoman

The end of an era: Pia Miller starred as policewoman Kat Chapman on Home And Away since 2015

The pictures follow footage that showed The Bachelorette's Sam Frost running Pia's character off the road in a dramatic car crash.

Shane Withington's character John Palmer, Emily Symons (who plays Marilyn Chambers), Georgie Parker (who plays Roo Stewart) and Alf Stewart (played by Ray Meagher) stood on a balcony facing the ocean at the wake.

Attracting their attention, it appeared they were initially perplexed and worried about the large group approaching the solemn event.

Emotional scene: Shane Withington's character John Palmer, Emily Symons (who plays Marilyn Chambers), Georgie Parker (who plays Roo Stewart) and Alf Stewart (played by Ray Meagher) stood on a balcony facing the ocean at the wake

A sad day: The cast gathered for what appeared to be a wake for the policeman on Sydney's Palm Beach set, following an intimate, solemn funeral service that was filmed last week

Pleasant surprise: Attracting their attention, it appeared they were initially perplexed and worried about the large group approaching the solemn event, but their downcast expressions soon turned to smiles when they could determine the nature of the group's visit

However, their downcast expressions soon turned to smiles when they could determine the nature of their visit.

It's believed they realised they were intending to pay their respects and not start further drama as they slowly grew closer.

The group of more than 15 males were noticeably dressed down in comparison to the funeral guests.

Paying their respects? The group of more than 15 males were noticeably dressed down in comparison to the funeral guests

Supporting their mate? Clearly invited to the wake, the group was led up the sandy path by Pia's bad boy love interest and the father of her character's unborn child Martin 'Ash' Ashford (played by actor George Mason)

Casual change: Martin had taken off his suit jacket and tie and unbuttoned his collared white shirt for the relaxed wake

Clearly invited to the wake, the group was led up the sandy path by Pia's bad boy love interest and the father of her character's unborn child Martin 'Ash' Ashford (played by actor George Mason).

Martin had taken off his suit jacket and tie and unbuttoned his collared white shirt for the relaxed wake.

The men behind him cut casual figures in muscle T-shirts and singlets, shorts and flip-flops.

Some of the group even attended shirtless, baring their tattoos.

What are they talking about? A pal of Martin's appeared to have a secretive conversation with Kat's former love interest during the wake

Serious: Away from other guests, the pair acted with stern faces during the serious chat

Dressed down: The men, including Martin's friend, cut casual figures in muscle T-shirts and singlets, shorts, lace-up shoes and flip-flops

A pal of Martin's appeared to have a secretive conversation with Kat's former love interest during the wake.

Away from other guests, the pair acted with stern faces during the serious chat.

They appeared to shake on something in agreement as they returned to the vigil.

Making a deal? They appeared to shake on something in agreement as they returned to the vigil

Will they see him? While Pia's other love interest Jake Ryan's character was seen keeping his distance at the funeral, it appears he didn't appear in the scene for her wake

Pia appeared to play dead in a totaled car, with actor Jake Ryan in the passenger seat next to her.

Her character Kat emerges from the car looking scratched and bruised, but it appears her injuries were life-threatening.

A source on set previously told Daily Mail Australia that Kat is understood to be injured in the crash and dies.

Two coffins were used during the scene, suggesting that both Kat and her unborn child died after the accident.

During the funeral, Kat's coffin was unloaded from the hearse and carried by Alf, Justin Morgan (played by James Stewart) and two police officers.

The children's casket was carried by Pia's bad boy love interest and the father of her character's unborn child Martin.

It appears an officer send off for Pia's character was organised, as she has starred as a policewoman on the series since 2015.

While Pia's other love interest Jake Ryan's character was seen keeping his distance at the funeral, it appears he didn't appear in the scene for her wake.

Home And Away airs on Channel Seven weeknights from 7pm.

It's believed the wake will immediately follow Kat's funeral as the cast members are wearing the same outfits as the previously shot funeral scenes
Not even Game Of Thrones could compete with last weeks Game Of Thrones. To be fair, sensibly it didnt try.

The showdown at the heart of the action was such sensational television, many fans had described it as GoTs best ever episode (until the next one at least).

Certainly the image of Daenerys swooping out of the sky on her dragon and torching Jaime Lannisters army was one of its all-time most iconic, Apocalyptic, moments.

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Snow metls the heart: Games Of Thrones' Daenerys was seen finally falling for Jon Snow on the latest episode of Game Of Thrones

All it needed was for her to shout: I love the smell of napalm in the morning!

So compared to The Spoils Of War, Eastwatch was relatively muted, although inevitably it still had contained several dramatic developments.

It was virtually confirmed that Jon Snow was the rightful heir to the Iron Throne. Not a real bastard at all.

Cersei Lannister, meanwhile, revealed that she was pregnant  with her brother Jaimes baby naturally (or unnaturally).

Standing their ground: Rickon Tarly and his father Randyll refused to side with a Targaryen as Dany demanded that they 'bend the knee'

Even more shocking than this was the disturbing sight of several scenes showing peace and unity breaking out  an unwarranted spectacle none of us thought wed ever be subjected to in a show renowned for mindless violence and pathological hatred.

Suddenly people were working together rather than chopping each others limbs off in a frenzy - even sworn enemies from rival families. At least they were ostensibly anyway. Temporarily.

After years of brutal battles and betrayals, an alarmingly sensible plan fell into place with improbable pace, with an alliance involving various warring factions across the Seven Kingdoms mobilised to produce a gang of moody men looking for a fight with their common foe: the White Walkers.

Making a fiery exit: As the result of their refusal, the pair ended up chargrilled by Drogon

Brandon Stark had started it when he had the bright idea of sending a flock of ravens on surveillance, like drones, over the massed ranks of Walkers.

Bran then reached out to Tyrion Lannister (also by raven), which led to Daenerys finally capitulating to Jon Snows endless droning on about the impending invasion.

Before you could say Darcarys! Jon Snow was crossing over The Wall through the Eastwatch gate into the white wastelands, accompanied by Ser Davos, Ser Jorah, Gendry, Tormund Giantsbane, The Hound, Thoros of Myr, and Lord of the Light disciple Beric Donarrion.

Elementary: Arya Stark was seen getting set up by a cunning Littlefinger as she fell for a trap

Basically, they were The Magnificent Seven only colder and with an extra man.

Here we all are - at the edge of the world, at the same moment, heading in the same direction for the same reasons, Beric told his fellow warriors when their old family feuds began to surface.

He's right, sighed Jon Snow. We're all on the same side - we're all breathing.

As rallying cries go, it wasnt exactly well fight them on the beaches, but this was about as positive as Jon Snow, or Game Of Thrones, get.

Trapped: Reading a note written by her sister Sansa under duress, Arya fell right into his trap

The purpose of the mission was to capture a wight to convince the Lannisters to fight with them.

Cersei had surprised Jaime (and us) by admitting an accommodation with the Dragon Queen could be in our interest.

Eventually, inevitably, though it emerged her motives were not as placatory as everyone thought.

Just after she had told Jaime she was having his baby and slowly stroking her stomach, she vowed: Dead men, dragons, or Dragon Queens... Whatever stands in our way we will defeat it. For ourselves, our house, and this.

Adoration: Danys adoration of a returning Ser Jorah was slightly creepy, to say the least

Clearly the prospect of becoming a mother again wasnt going to soften her.

Here are 20 other things we learnt from this weeks episode.

1. Wearing a suit of armour sinking slowly to the bottom of a lake didnt necessarily mean you would drown  at least not if you were one of the shows most popular characters How this could happen, though, wasnt explained.

2. Jaime Lannister was not dead

The suspense over whether the Kingslayer had perished in last weeks closing shot didnt last long. Two seconds in fact. Bronn had rescued him from the lake hed pushed Lannister into as he also saved Jaime from being barbequed by Drogon. Not exactly a surprise and, for this show, pretty lame.

Hello and goodbye: No sooner had the pair been reunited, they were parting ways once again

3. Daenerys was still telling herself she was the Peoples Princess' (or the Peoples Dragon Queen), like a better-looking version of Jeremy Corbyn

All I want is to destroy the wheel that has rolled over rich and poor to the benefit of the Cersei Lannisters of this world.

4. Daenerys is still obsessed with everyone agreeing to bend the knee, taking refusal rather badly

I offer you a choice! she continued. Bend the knee and together we will make the world a better place than we found it. Or refuse, and die.

Not much of a choice you might think, particularly when her dragon flexed its flamethrower to encourage them not so much to bend the knee but lay prostrate before her.

The all-seeing eye: Bran Stark used his powers to observe the White Walkers from afar

5. Tyrion isnt as persuasive as he used to be

You are the future of your house! Bend the knee! Tyrion pleaded with Rickon Tarly when the knight followed his father Randyll in refusing to side with a Targaryen, opting to be chargrilled by Drogon instead.

Theyll change their minds after a few weeks in a dark cell,' he attempted to appease Khaleesi, again to no avail again when she prioritised living up to her title as The Breaker of Chains over frying the Tarlys.

'I'm not here to put men in chains, she sniffed. I gave them a choice. They made it.

6. Varys was also quickly going off Daenerys

Acquainted: Jon Snow was seen getting nervously acquainted with one of Dany's dragons

Thats what I used to tell myself about her father (The Mad King). Im not the one doing it. When the pitch of the screams rose higher  Im not the one doing it. When the hair caught fire and the smell of the burning flesh filled the thrones room  Im not the one doing it.

Yes, we get the picture. The Spider was going to switch sides.

7. Daenerys was a sucker for a man who was nice to animals  to dragons mainly

Viewers hopes for the long-awaited romance (or panting sex scene) between the shows pin-ups Daenerys and Jon Snow had been frustrated last week by Snows annoying refusal to (youve guessed it) bend the knee. (Not metaphorically.) Watching a trembling Snow softly stroke Drogons snout was the moment her heart melted though.

Big news: Cersei revealed to her brother Jaime that she was expecting their baby

8. Dany also found it a turn on when a man stood up to her  if he looked like Jon Snow that is, not Rickon Tarly

I havent give you permission to leave, she reminded him icily.

With respect, your grace, I dont need your permission, he growled. I am a king. If I dont return, at least you wont have to deal with the King of the North anymore.

Ive grown used to him, she purred.

9. Sansa and Aryas joy at being reunited hadnt lasted long  one episode in fact

You always did like nice things. It made you feel better than everyone else, Arya sniped to her sister, suspecting that Sansa was developing a taste for power in her putative position as Queen of the North.

Youre thinking it now. You dont want to but the thought just wont go away.

Ouch. A case of back in the knife drawer Miss Sharp! if ever there was one.

10. Sansa had Aryas number too

Im sure cutting off heads is very satisfying but thats not the way you get people to work together, Sansa practically sneered.

Stumbling block: Dany's insistence that poytential subjects bend the knee or face death could well be her undoing

11. Littlefinger was still the Master of Deception and made Arya look like an amateur

Considering shed been trained as a Faceless Ninja, Aryas attempts to counteract Littlefingers clandestine manipulation were embarrassing. He was playing the Starks like a violin. The fact that he had hidden the compromising scroll Sansa had written to Robb Stark back in Season One under his mattress was a giveaway that it was a ploy to set Arya against her sister. Arya had no idea Sansa had penned the letter (implored Robb to swear fealty to King Joffrey) under duress - from Cersei and Littlefinger himself, who had presented it as a chance for Sansa to prove her loyalty to the Lannisters.

Coming to a wall near you: The White Walkers have become a force that warring factions are now united against

12. Brandon Stark wasnt really helping

Considering he was the three-eyed raven who saw everything everyone did ever etc, why Bran didnt just step in and help Arya and Sansa stop Littlefinger wasnt clear.

13. Gendry really isnt that interesting

Having a big hammer just didnt cut it.

14. Danys adoration of Ser Jorah was slightly creepy

I will return to your service my queen if you would have me, he growled.

It would be my honour, she simpered bizarrely.

15. Jon Snow was the rightful heir to the Iron Throne after all

We basically already knew this.

16. Samwells run of key interventions came to a halt mainly because, like most of the men in GoT, he was a sexist and didnt really take Gilly seriously

Sam had discovered the stash of Dragonglass in the first book he read in the Citadel and found a cure for Greyscale immediately afterwards. But when Gilly wittered on about a document in the archives he missed its significance because he wasnt really listening.

Daenerys brother Rhaegar annulled his marriage to his first wife in order to marry Jon Snows mother, Lyanna Stark - meaning Jon was not a bastard after all but the legitimate heir.

(If youve only just started watching GoT its a long story.)

17. Cerseis hair was growing back very slowly

Cersei was still rocking a Joan Of Arc hairdo even though it had been months since the Sparrows had shaved her head in Season Six. Since then several wars had been fought, Daenerys had reached Dragonstone, and Jon Snow had travelled from Winterfell to Kings Landing and back. Perhaps she kept cutting it.

Ravens: Bran sent ravens to observe their movements in the barren white wastelands

18. Jaime Lannister may be known as the Kingslayer but Cersei was even tougher

This isnt a war we can win, Lannister concluded to his sister reporting back after last weeks battle, advocating they do a deal with Daenerys. The Dothraki will beat any mercenary army. Theyll beat any army Ive ever seen.

Cersei was unimpressed though.

So we fight and die, or we submit and die? I know my choice. A soldier should know his, she tutted.

19. When Cersei heard Olenna Tyrell had killed Joffrey and Tyrion was actually innocent her reaction was immediately one of regret. But not about the way she had treated Tyrion

Still tough: Expectant Cersei showed that pregnancy is in now way going to soften her

I shouldnt have listened to you. She shouldve died screaming! she snapped at Jaime, referring to him persuading her to allow Lady Tyrell a peaceful death.

20. Tyrion wasnt the only one that Cersei might yet target

Are you going to punish Bronn? she asked Jaime eagerly after Bronn deceived him into meeting Tyrion without telling her.

Never betray me again, she whispered as she hugged Jaime - proof that no one, not even her beloved brother, is safe from Cersei.

But then we knew that.
It was revealed earlier this month that Pia Miller's character is killed off in upcoming episodes of popular soap, Home And Away.

But it seems a new babe is set to take her place, in the form of brunette beauty Sarah Roberts.

The young actress, who looks a little bit like Chilean-born Pia, flaunted her bikini body on the set of the show on Monday.

Goodbye Pia, hello Sarah! Home And Away newcomer and Miller lookalike stuns in a bikini and tiny shorts as she shoot scenes for popular soap

Wearing a pink triangle top and denim cut off shorts, she flashed the flesh while posing for a photographer.

Wearing minimal makeup and her long dark locks out and tumbling around her shoulders, Sarah appeared to be a natural in front on the camera.

Meanwhile, in other scenes she appeared to be flirting with a male cast member over smoothies.

Flashing the flesh: The beauty, who looks a little bit like Chilean-born Pia, flaunted her bikini body on the set of the show on Monday

Quick adjustment: Sarah was seen adjusting her bikini top between takes

This isn't the first acting gig for Sarah, who once starred in Neighbours and has played roles in Never Tear Us Apart: The Untold Story of INXS and Wolf Creek 2.

Sarah, whose exotic looks are the result of her Austrian and Sri Lankan descent, previously worked as a professional dancer in Japan before moving into the music industry as a DJ.

She has joined the show after Pia Miller's character Katarina Chapman was killed off following a car accident.

Filming for Katarina's funeral took place last week.

Big smile: The young star flashed her pearly whites as a photographer took some portrait shots

Joining Sarah on Home And Away is fellow newcomer Sam Frost, who is known for her role on Channel 10's reality dating shows The Bachelor and The Bachelorette.

While Sarah's CV boasts a wealth of acting experience, Sam's new placement on the show will serve as her first ever acting role.

Following the announcement of her casting, many industry figures called the decision 'disappointing' and a 'publicity stunt'.

New romance? Meanwhile, in other scenes she appeared to be flirting with a male cast member over smoothies

Not her first rodeo! This isn't the first acting gig for Sarah, who once starred in Neighbours and has played roles in Never Tear Us Apart: The Untold Story of INXS and Wolf Creek 2
He shocked fans when he announced he had to undergo emergency surgery to remove a brain tumour, last week.

And now former Home And Away star Johnny Ruffo has provided his fans with an update on his health.

Taking to Instagram, he shared a picture of him and his 'mums' going to the doctor for a check-up.

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On the mend! Former Home And Away star Johnny Ruffo goes to the doctor for a check-up after undergoing emergency surgery to remove a brain tumour

'Thank to to everyone for all the support over the last week,' he captioned he post. 'Off to the docs with my mums. Keeping positive.'

In under 20 minutes after posting the photo, Johnny's Instagram feed was awash with supportive comments from fans.

'Hope you're on the mend,' one fan said, while another offered a similar and simple 'you got this.'

Emergency surgery: Johnny shocked fans when he announced he had to undergo emergency surgery to remove a brain tumour, last week

Others were quick to point out how well Johnny was looking despite his recent surgery with: 'looking so much better Johnny. Speedy recovery!'

Johnny, who rose to fame on The X Factor Australia, told Daily Mail Australia last week he went to hospital with a migraine before being rushed into surgery.

'On Sunday I went into hospital with a migraine. I had to have emergency surgery to have a brain tumour removed,' he explained.

Unexpected: Johnny, who rose to fame on The X Factor Australia, told Daily Mail Australia last week he went to hospital with a migraine before being rushed into surgery

He continued: 'I am on the mend and feeling positive. Keep me in your thoughts.'

Johnny's Home And Away co-star Lynne McGranger told the Daily Telegraph that the entire cast had their fingers crossed for a speedy recovery.

'All of us in the Bay are shocked to hear of of his sudden illness,' she told the publication.

'It goes without saying that he is so loved and we wish him a speedy and complete recovery and can't wait to see him tearing up the stage again soon'.
She adores sharing pictures of herself online.

And on Monday, Emily Ratajkowski took to Instagram for a mini photo shoot.

The model, 26, posed in a black L*SPACE bikini for the popular social network platform.

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Posing: On Monday, Emily Ratajkowski took to Instagram for a mini photo shoot while clad in a black L*SPACE bikini

In the snap, the UK native turned her head to one side as if to run her fingers through her hair.

'Magic hour,' read Emily's caption.

The stars words referred to the popular time of day, typically called 'golden hour' when the sun is about to set. It is at that time that many attempt to get the perfect picture.



Social media fan: The 26-year-old actress adores sharing pictures of herself in hopes to advance her brand

With her many shoots and work as a model, she does her best to remain slim. During an interview with Jimmy Kimmel, Emily admitted that she actually 'eats a lot.'

'I'm not someone who cooks. I'm someone who eats...alot,' she began.

'You should see my refrigerator. It's pretty insane. I have a relationship with Postmates. It's basically Indian food, Thai food, and preferably when I'm horizontal in bed.'

I've had people come over and watch me eat and then say, like, "I've lost all respect for you."'

'I have a relationship with Postmates': With her many shoots and work as a model, she does her best to remain slim. During an interview with Jimmy Kimmel , Emily admitted that she actually 'eats a lot'

Up until next year, Emily will star in four films.

She'll join Natalie Dormer in the thriller In Darkness, and take the lead in the romance flick, Cruise.

In 2018, she, along with Amy Schumer and Michelle Williams, will join forces for the comedy, I Feel Pretty.

Additionally, Emily will join Aaron Paul for the drama, Welcome Home, about a couple who's getaway trip turns into a nightmare.
She's set to make a splash at Summer Bay, when her character is introduced on the long-running soap.

And Sarah Roberts gave fans a preview of what's to come, while filming scenes for the show at Sydney's Palm Beach on Tuesday.

The bikini-clad actress showed off her fit and flexible frame, while doing a series of stretches and later jogging in the sand.

Sizzling hot: Sarah Roberts showed off her stunning frame in a pink bikini while filming Home and Away scenes at Sydney's Palm Beach on Tuesday

Beach babe: Flaunting her slender thighs and flat torso, the stunning brunette confidently strutted along the beach

Flaunting her slender thighs and flat torso, the stunning brunette confidently strutted along the beach and frolicked in the shallow water.

She appeared to be in high spirits as she frolicked in the sand and giggled between takes.

Her luscious brunette locks were worn loosely and neatly framed her flawless visage.

Glamorous: The Sri Lankan-Australian star wore her lucious brunette locks loosely and minimal makeup for filming

Stunning: The bikini-clad actress showed off her fit and flexible frame, while doing a series of stretches and later jogging in the sand

Glowing: Sarah looked radiant and focused as the camera rolled

Playful: She appeared to be in high spirits as she frolicked in the sand and giggled between takes

The Australian and Sri Lankan former Neighbours star filmed scenes alongside a mystery hunk, who displayed a 'blood and sand' back tattoo while clutching a surfboard.

The beach babe, who resembles Pia Miller, will do doubt set pulses racing, when she makes her debut on Home and Away.

It comes after it was revealed that Pia's Home and Away character Kat Chapman will be killed off the show.

Style: She wore a number of bold rings on her fingers, which added glamour to her beach look

Stretch: The actress performed a series of poses in the sand

Break time: The star chatted to crew members between takes

Love interest? Sarah filmed scenes alongside a mystery hunk

Beach body: He displayed a 'blood and sand' back tattoo while clutching a surfboard

Prior to becoming an actress, Melbourne-born Sarah was a member of DJ group VAMP before getting discovered in 2012, by casting director, Gregory Apps.

The beauty moved to Japan when she was just 18, where she pursued a career in dance.

Sarah joins the likes of James Stewart and Ada Nicodemou on Home and Away.
Victoria's Secret model Lais Ribeiro put on a very cheeky display during their latest campaign in Aspen.

As the Angels were spotted shooting a Western-themed pictorial on Monday, one production worker on the set got dealt the task of applying lotion to the brunette beauty's pert derriere.

Lais, 27, pulled up her skimpy lingerie bottoms as the production assistant carefully dispensed the moisturizer evenly on her behind.

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Best job ever: A production staffer applied lotion to Lais Ribeiro's backside as she shot a Victoria's Secret ad campaign with Stella Maxwell and Lily Aldridge in Aspen, Colorado

The stunning model wore a tiny white bikini top and a matching cowboy hat as she got to work on set.

Unfazed by the rubdown going on nearby, fellow model Stella Maxwell chatted with another staffer whilst Lily Aldridge got her make-up done.

The shoot has taken place over multiple days in Aspen with Michael Bay capturing the action as director.

Thorough: The production assistant carefully dispensed the moisturizer evenly on Lais' behind as Maxwell looked unfazed by her surroundings

Hey, cowgirl: The stunning model wore a tiny white bikini top and a matching cowboy hat as she got to work on set

Edward Razek, senior creative at Victoria's Secret, described the shoot in a picture he posted saying: '13 Angels, 2 photographers, a crew of 100+, one big time director, and an $80 million ranch - no one does Holiday like Victoria's Secret does Holiday!'

The brand is clearly not afraid of spoilers, as all of its stars have been snap-happy, posting shots to Instagram well before the final product even wrapped for the day.

In addition to Maxwell, Aldridge and Ribeiro, Candice Swanepoel, Taylor Hill, Elsa Hosk, Jasmine Tookes and Sara Sampaio have also been posting pics in the wild, wild west.

Yee-haw! The ladies of Victoria's Secret are often photographed on the beach in Florida, but this month the beauties went Western

Many of the women are longtime VS vets who have also walked in the runway shows.

All involved took incredible selfies and portraits that looked perfect for the annual VS lingerie catalog.

Hill looked stunning in her ripped jeans paired with a silk bra and a cowboy hat with a bolero necktie for jewelry.

Girls will be girls: Stella Maxwell put her legs around Elsa Hosk as they posed on a wall

Watch out for splinters! The 28-year-old Swedish delight writhed around on the floor and posed with her legs out

The 21-year-old Illinois native also posed with Strijd, a 22-year-old looker from the Netherlands.

Stridj wore a pair of lace chaps and a very small pair of undies in her images shared to Instagram.

Hosk put on a sensational display in a white leather jacket, white boots and a matching white cowboy hat.

Bare butt rider: Candice Swanepoel showed off her beautiful booty in cowboy chaps and skimpy undies

Easy on the eyes: Swanepoel stood against a log cabin as she tried on this outfit

Round her up! Jasmine Tookes stood out in a black outfit that consisted of a bra and skirt with boots and hat to match

The 28-year-old Swedish delight writhed around on the floor and posed with her legs out.

Tookes stood out in a black outfit that consisted of a bra and skirt with boots and hat to match.

Ribeiro was more adventurous with leather chaps and worn-in cowboy boots as she helped sell a satin mauve bra.

On the range: Taylor Hill struck a pose in the middle of a grassy field, covered by a blanket

Swanepoel showed off her virtually bare behind in fringed leather chaps.

The mother-of-one also had on skimpy panties and a bra as she channeled her inner cowgirl.

The beautiful 28-year-old blonde completed her look with boots, of course, and a cream cowboy hat.

Ride it: The Angel straddled a horse in her skivvies, covered by another brown blanket

Rightly proud of her toned behind she posted an Instagram clip of herself jiggling her cheeks that she captioned, '#giddyup, #bumbumtamtam' with three horse emojis.

In a second video clip, she posed from left to right, looking over her shoulder.

Candice captioned it: 'Wild Wild West out here.'
Angelina Jolie's relationship with father Jon Voight was mended, behind the scenes, by her now-estranged husband Brad Pitt.

And it seems the healing has persisted despite her marital drama as the actress was seen with her movie star dad on a sweet outing in Los Angeles Saturday, following one of Hollywood's most bitter family feuds.

The 42-year-old and her father, 78, took the UN ambassador's daughter Vivienne, nine, to a Color Me Mine class in the Sherman Oaks neighborhood of LA.

Fun day out! Angelina Jolie, 42, and her dad, 78, took the UN ambassador's daughter Vivienne, nine, to a Color Me Mine class in the Sherman Oaks neighborhood of LA

It is still rare that the 78-year-old is seen with his grandchildren, following the end of his six-and-a-half year estrangement from Angelina.

However, the trio looked thick as thieves as they laughed and chatted on the way to the class.

At the end of their outing Jon leaned in and gave his smiling daughter an affectionate peck.

The Salt star wore a black dress and minimal makeup while her father sported a button down shirt and Nike sneakers.

Things look civil: It is still rare that the 78-year-old is seen with his grandchildren, following the end of his six-and-a-half year estrangement from Angelina

Loving kiss on the cheek: The Salt star wore a black dress and minimal makeup while her father sported a button down shirt and Nike sneakers

The father and daughter, who reconciled in 200 after a bitter and long-running feud, have been making up for lost time and bonding as a family.

'He's been very good at understanding they needed their grandfather at this time,' Angelina told Vanity Fair in July.

'I had to do a therapy meeting last night and he was just around. He knows kind of the ruledon't make them play with you. Just be a cool grandpa who's creative, and hang out and tell stories and read a book in the library.'

Jon, who is still best known for his appearance in the 1969 movie Midnight Cowboy, split from wife Marcheline Bertrand when their daughter was only an infant, with the two divorcing by the time Angelina turned four.

Jon and Angelina had only sporadic contact during her childhood, yet in her early TV and film work she still used her full name of Angelina Jolie Voight.

Mended fences? Jon and Angelina had only sporadic contact during her childhood, yet in her early TV and film work she still used her full name of Angelina Jolie Voight

Mystery: It is not known what caused her to fall out with Voight, who played her father Lord Croft in her film Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

Having fun: The trio looked thick as thieves as they laughed and chatted on the way to the class

Avoiding contact: By July 2002, however, she was applying to have her non-acting name legally changed to Angelina Jolie, losing the Voight

Family affair: The relationship appears to have mended since then with Jon spending time with his grandchildren

But, perhaps because she did not want to be seen as trading on her father's fame, she had dropped the Voight in favour of her middle name by the time she appeared as Lara Croft, a female version of Indiana Jones.

It is not known what caused her to fall out with Voight, who played her father Lord Croft in the movie.

By July 2002, however, she was applying to have her non-acting name legally changed to Angelina Jolie, losing the Voight.

The following month, Voight gave an interview on U.S. television in which he claimed his daughter, who had just adopted a Cambodian boy named Maddox, had 'serious mental problems'.

'I'm broken-hearted... because I've been trying to reach my daughter and get her help, and I have failed and I'm sorry,' he said.

Building bridges: Voight repeatedly tried to regain contact with his daughter, particularly after her mother's death from cancer in 2007

Reaching out: It was husband Brad Pitt who is said to have encouraged Jolie to reach out to her father in 2009

'Really I haven't come forward and addressed the serious mental problems she has spoken about so candidly to the press over the years, but I've tried behind the scenes in every way.'

Angelina responded by cutting off her father completely, saying that, as a new mother, she did not think it was healthy to associate with him.

In an interview a year later, she said Voight's comments were damaging because they could have affected her relationship with Maddox.

Reconciled: To the surprise of many, Jon and Angelina were first pictured together in 2010, when he visited her on the Venice, Italy, set of The Tourist

In great spirits: Jon and Vivienne seem comfortable with each other since the actress has reestablished her relationship with the veteran actor

Bonding time: They all got together for an art day with Vivienne at Color Me Mine

'They could have decided he's right, she's crazy, let's remove that child from her custody, and that's unforgivable.

'My father and I don't speak. I don't believe that somebody's family becomes their blood. Because my son's adopted, and families are earned.'

Voight repeatedly tried to regain contact with his daughter, particularly after her mother's death from cancer in 2007.

And finally, with Pitt's blessing, she is said to have responded in 2009. To the surprise of many, Jon and Angelina were first pictured together in 2010, when he visited her on the Venice, Italy, set of The Tourist.

Mended fences: The duo appear close as Jon reached out to kiss his daughter on the cheek

Going their separate ways? They appeared to leave each other after the fun day

A friend of the actress told the Daily Mail at the time: 'Angie made the initial contact. Brad has been supportive - a key factor in her reaching out.'

Following news that Angelina had filed for divorce from Brad late last year, Jon spoke out in her support.

'Angelina's OK. She's holding on,' he said, adding that he planned to spend the festive season with his grandchildren.

Supportive: Following news that Angelina had filed for divorce from Brad late last year, Jon spoke out in her support

New life: Now, as Angelina begins her new life as a single mother, it seems she has forged a closer bond with the father she once despised

Now, as Angelina begins her new life as a single mother, it seems she has forged a closer bond with the father she once despised.

Meanwhile, divorce proceedings have stalled for Jolie and Pitt, friends of the stars claim.

A new report by Us Weekly sees multiple sources claiming the former power couple, who had a very public and very bitter split in September 2016, have not moved forward with proceedings to end their marriage.

Did Jon have anything to do with it? Meanwhile, divorce proceedings have stalled for Jolie and Pitt, friends of the stars claim

One insider told the publication: 'The divorce is off. They haven't done anything to move it forward in several months and no one thinks they are ever going to.'

The reason given for the alleged stall is Brad coming clean about his boozing in an interview with GQ this past May.

A friend of Jolie, 42, told Us Weekly that the commitment to self-improvement has struck a chord with the actress, who reportedly previously claimed she would consider taking Brad back 'if he showed he was committed to raising a family'.

The source went on to add that Brad had 'got sober to try and win her back' and that the move to quit drinking was 'all she ever wanted'.

All is forgiven? The reason given for the alleged stall is Brad coming clean about his boozing in an interview with GQ this past May

Where's Brad? The insider claimed that the former couple are getting along for the sake of their children.

Meanwhile, the insider claims: 'Everyone thinks they are going to get back together.

'It wouldn't be surprising if they announced that they're calling [the split] off and trying to work things out.'

A source told DailyMail.com that the divorce process has significantly slowed down but there has been no real change.

The insider claimed that the former couple are getting along for the sake of their children.

They have six kids together: Maddox, 15; Pax, 13; Shiloh, 11; Zahara, 12; and twins Vivienne and Knox, nine.

Like mother, like daughter: Angelina and Vivienne have been seen out without any of the other kids quite a bit recently

Happy family! The trio appeared to be enjoying each other's company

After filing for divorce, Angelina took the kids and stayed in a rental before purchasing a $25 million mansion in Los Feliz, California.

The Lara Croft: Tomb Raider star said the new house was 'a big jump forward for us, and we're all trying to do our best to heal as a family.'

The Salt star and Brad were together for 12 years before they announced their split in September; the divorce has not yet been finalized.

Big family: They have six kids together: Maddox, 15; Pax, 13; Shiloh, 11; Zahara, 12; and twins Vivienne and Knox, nine

Moving on: She is seeking sole custody of their children in the divorce from Brad Pitt

She is seeking sole custody of their children.

In September 2016, there was an alleged 'altercation' that involved Brad and Maddox aboard a private jet that was heading from Nice, France to Los Angeles, California; after they landed, Angelina 'kicked him out,' according to Vanity Fair.

Brad was cleared of any wrongdoing.

Angelina and Brad, who became known as 'Brangelina,' met on the set of their film Mr. And Mrs. Smith in 2004 when Brad was still married to Jennifer Aniston.

They married in an intimate ceremony on August 23, 2014 in Correns, France.

Together for more than 10 years: Angelina and Brad, who became known as 'Brangelina,' met on the set of their film Mr. And Mrs. Smith in 2004 when Brad was still married to Jennifer Aniston
Kathy Griffin showed off her shaved head in a group shot on Monday in which she was posed alongside some high-profile pals in a belated celebration of Melanie Griffith's 60th birthday.

The 56-year-old comedian shaved her head last month as a sign of solidarity with her sister Joyce, who's battling cancer.

In the group shot, she had a mischievous look on her face while holding a red wig that looked conspicuously like her old coif.

The gang's all here! Kathy Griffin was at the center of a belated bash for pal Melanie Griffith's 60th birthday Monday, showing off her shorn locks. She posed with (L-R) Jeff Leatham, Colton Haynes, Kris Jenner and Melanie Griffith

Griffin posted a black-and-white shot to Instagram with the caption 'WHAT?!?!,' adding the hashtags, '#MondayMotivation,' '#love,' '#photooftheday,' '#lgbt,' '#laugh,' and '#gayicons.'

The Emmy-winning comic also tagged in her pals in the pic. She was seated alongside the Oscar-nominated Working Girl actress Griffith, whose actual birthday is August 8; Arrow actor Colton Haynes and his fiance, Jeff Leatham, a florist-to-the-stars; and the reality TV matriarch Kris Jenner, who wore a bob weave that had her looking a lot like Selma Blair (who played her in last year's The People v. O.J. Simpson).

Griffin also posted the shot to her Twitter page, writing, 'Quick Sillyness break in case you needed a laugh today.'

The Oak Park, Illinois native - whose brother Gary died at 63 in 2014 amid a battle with esophageal cancer - was lauded by her mother Maggie amid the symbolic gesture, as the proud parent called her daughter 'a wonderful human being' after the bold gesture.

Big wig: The veteran performer held a red wig that looked similar to her hairdo prior to the cut

Monday Funday: The comic and reality TV matriarch Kris Jenner clowned around at the bash

So fresh and so clean: The entertainer took to social media last month to reveal her new look, a show of support for her sibling who's battling cancer

The My Life on the D-List star made huge headlines in May after posing for an artsy photo by photographer Tyler Shields in which she held a mask of a severed head resembling President Donald Trump.

In the fallout, she lost a gig with CNN, had multiple comedy shows cancelled, and was investigated - and later cleared - by federal authorities in connection with the image, which she said was inspired by Trump's previous blood-related quips about journalist Megyn Kelly.

Worth a thousand words: Griffin claimed her career was derailed after releasing the shocking photo, which was taken by photographer Tyler Shields

Fighting back: Griffin pulled no punches in replying to a Twitter user who dubbed her a terrorist over the shocking photo

Trump himself took to Twitter to denounce Griffin, saying she 'should be ashamed of herself' over the image, which he claimed traumatized his 11-year-old son, Barron.

Griffin - who said she didn't think she would 'have a career after' the scandal - has remained an outspoken critic of the controversial commander-in-chief, and the ongoing social issues linked to his administration.

Late Monday, she took to Twitter to retweet tweets intended to spread awareness toward identifying the white supremacists involved in the deadly protests in Charlottesville, Virginia over the weekend, who she dubbed 'murderers.'
Nikki Gogan's move to Perth has rumours flying that The Bachelor runner-up is sharing more than just a post code with Richie Strahan.

For the first time since the split between Alex Nation and Richie was confirmed, Nikki, 30, was seen working the real estate rounds over the weekend.

It comes amid reports The Bachelor hunk broke it off with Alex six months ago and has since set his sights on the second place stunner.

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Off the market? For the first time since the split between Alex Nation and Richie was confirmed, runner-up Nikki Gogan was seen working in Richie's hometown of Perth

On Saturday, Nikki cut a stylish figure in a black pant-suit with a tight polka dot button-up shirt.

She looked to be almost makeup free, flaunting her natural complexion with a beaming smile.

Despite being on house inspection duty, the beauty wore elegant stiletto heels and reading glasses while she kept her blonde locks tied up a ponytail.

Stylish! On Saturday, Nikki cut a chic figure in a black pant-suit with a polka dot button-up shirt

She's got them sold! In June Nikki move from the rural town of Northam to Perth, around the same time Richie's relationship with Alex appeared to be winding-down

The personality, who moved closer to the CBD in June to 'chase her dreams,' walked along a tree-lined path, carrying black signage and a notebook.

Nikki crossed the road and stood outside the property she was showing, smiling and greeting prospective buyers.

At the end of June, her move from the rural town of Northam to Perth was confirmed, around the same time Richie's relationship with Alex appeared to be winding-down.

Moved on? It comes amid reports The Bachelor hunk broke it off with Alex six months ago and has since set his sights on the second place stunner

Close: Alex's Reported new girlfriend, Maegan Luxa (far right) was by Alex's side when she was injured during a football match earlier this year

On Monday it was revealed that their romance had officially come to an end.

That same day pictures of Alex kissing her alleged 'new girlfriend' Maegan Luxa surfaced in New Idea magazine and it was reported that Richie had yet to learn of their 'relationship.'

Interestingly, Alex recently started commenting on Nikki's Instagram page.

Yet to learn? Pictures of Alex kissing her alleged 'new girlfriend' Maegan Luxa surfaced in New Idea magazine and it was reported that Richie had yet to learn of their 'relationship'

The 30-year-old shared a photo of herself in a daring halterneck dress and Alex was quick to comment.

'You gorgeous thing,' she wrote, adding two love hearts.

Alex rarely comments on her former The Bachelor rival's Instagram posts, perhaps out of respect for the fact Nikki was rejected on the show.

Bizarre? Interestingly, Alex recently started commenting on Nikki's Instagram page

'You gorgeous thing': The 30-year-old shared a photo of herself in a daring halterneck dress and Alex was quick to comment

Elsewhere on Tuesday, Alex was spotted for the first time since the news of her split with Richie broke.

The former reality star looked happy and relaxed, smiling widely as she picked up her son Elijah, six, from school.

It comes as it is revealed her alleged new girlfriend Maegan has recently quit her job as a chef, with a former colleague claiming she doesnt want to cook anymore.

Beaming! Elsewhere on Tuesday, Alex was spotted for the first time since the news of her split with Richie broke
She's Home And Away's newest rebellious teen, Ziggy Astoni.

And on Tuesday the character, played by Sophie Dillman, didn't look like she was having a very good day.

Shooting outdoors at Sydney's Palm Beach, the 24-year-old actress was spotted caught in an argument with co-star Scott Lee, who plays Hunter King.

Not happy: On Tuesday, Sophie Dillman was seen in an arguement with co-star Scott Lee

Sophie was seen wearing a black statement t-shirt that read 'Canyon's Caravans' over a fuchsia-coloured bikini for the scene.

Braving the Sydney cold, she paired her look with distressed tie-dyed pink daisy duke shorts.

Sporting a fresh complexion and rocking pink lipstick, her blonde locks were left out and messily styled into loose, beachy waves.

Stunner! Sophie was seen wearing a black statement t-shirt that read 'Canyon's Caravans' over a fuchsia-coloured bikini for the scene

Stylish: Braving the Sydney cold, she paired her look with distressed tie-dyed pink shorts

Beach babe: Sporting a fresh complexion and rocking pink lipstick, her blonde locks were left out and messily styled into loose, beachy waves

Carrying a striped beach bag, Sophie was seen deep in an argument with Scott, who plays angst-ridden Hunter King.

Scott was shirtless in the scene with only a towel around his shoulders.

The star also wore a pair of board shorts and looked as though he had just returned from having a surf.

Gloomy day: Carrying around a striped beach bag, Sophie was seen deep in an argument with Scott, who plays Hunter King

And it seems as though the actors were time conscious as they were seen running out of the water and onto the sand together.

The weather didn't seem to be making it easy for the young actors on the 'always summer' show.

Braving the low winter temperatures, Scott was seen being warmed up by a producer while he held onto an umbrella to shield himself from the rain.

Leaving: Last year it was announced that Scott would be leaving the long-running soap some time this year

Freezing: Braving the low winter temperatures, Scott was seen being warmed up by a producer while he held onto an umbrella to shield himself from the rain

Anything to keep warm: In another scene, he was also spotted using his beach towel to conserve his warmth

In another scene, he was also spotted using his beach towel to conserve his warmth.

Last year it was announced that Scott would be leaving the long-running soap some time this year.
It was rumoured back in May that she will be making a comeback to the soap, after departing her nine-year stint in 2016.

And Coronation Street producer Kate Oates has now confirmed that Alison King will be returning to the cobbles as her famous Carla Connor character.

In an interview with the Radio Times the 44-year-old, who quit the soap last year, was announced to be returning at Christmas - with Kate planning to 'break new ground' with the comeback of her character.

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She's back: Coronation Street producer Kate Oates has now confirmed that Alison King (above) will be returning to the cobbles as her famous Carla Connor character

Rumours emerged in May that Alison will be returning, and producer Kate has now revealed them to be true - although she claims the speculation was ahead of its time, as she has only just agreed to the deal.

She explained: 'It's been rumoured that Carla's coming back. But it was never true. Even the latest indications of it.'

Kate then went on to reveal her character is set for an explosive return in the winter months, adding: 'Ali has only just signed her contract and she'll be back around Christmas.'

Exciting: The 44-year-old was announced to be returning at Christmas - with Kate planning to 'break new ground' with her character (pictured on the soap in 2015)

Carla braved a dramatic time on the show - enduring a battle with alcoholism, a horrific rape and a kidnap over her nine years on the soap.

However, the new producer admitted that things would be different this time round, and Alison would instead bring a 'refreshing dynamic' to the beloved ITV series.

'It's time to break new ground with Carla,' she revealed. 'I didn't want to put her on that familiar cycle of self-destruction, recovery, followed by more self-destruction.

Shake up: Kate said of Carla's revamp: 'I didn't want her on that cycle of self-destruction, recovery, followed by more self-destruction. It'll be a refreshing dynamic for us to see'

'What we'll have instead are these two strong Connor women  Carla and Michelle  on opposing sides and in conflict for a change. It'll be a refreshing dynamic for us to see.'

Carla left in May 2016 to embark on a new life in Devon - with the actress departing to pursue other projects, and spend more time with her daughter Daisy.

Alison first arrived at the Rovers Return Inn in December 2006, when Carla was planning to open a clothing business.

Moving on: Carla left in May 2016 to embark on a new life in Devon - with the actress (above) departing to pursue other projects, and spend more time with her daughter Daisy

Her character was married to Paul when she made her first appearance on the show, but he died in a car crash nine months after starting on the soap.

After Paul's death, Carla started a relationship with Scottish businessman Tony Gordon, who later kidnapped her and held her hostage in a factory.

Carla later developed a problem with alcoholism and made a recovery thanks to her relationship with Peter Barlow.

Tough time: Carla braved a dramatic time on the show - enduring a battle with alcoholism, a horrific rape and a kidnap over her nine years on the soap

She was raped by Frank Foster in 2011 and was saved by Peter when she attempted to kill herself.

Carla's last marriage took place days before Alison left the show and her nuptials to flame Nick Tilsey ended in annulment.

The new interview sees the leading ladies of the ITV soap come together to celebrate their empowering alter-egos, who despite their woes, always appear to come out stronger on the other side.

Behind the camera: Producer Kate Oates revealed the news in a shoot with the Radio Times, which saw Corrie's leading ladies come together to celebrate their empowering alter-egos

In the glamorous photo-shoot, Catherine Tyldesley, Kym Marsh and Sally Dynevor sizzle as they assert their dominance and sass while striking up a series of poses together.

Catherine, who stars as Eva Price on Coronation Street, has seen her character left heartbroken by her cheating beau Aidan Connor, thanks to his affair with her best friend Maria.

Eva is now seeking revenge on Aidan, pretending that she is in love with him and expecting his baby, and certainly portraying her onscreen character's no-nonsense attitude, Catherine cuts a fiery figure in the magazine spread.

Girl power: In the glamorous photo-shoot, the stars sizzle as they assert their dominance and sass while striking up a series of poses together

The actress is seen donning a plunging tailored jumpsuit boasting leather lapels and a vampy smokey-eye to channel her inner vixen.

Her blonde locks are scraped back into a tousled up do and standing firmly with her hand in her pocket, she completes her look with a dark red lip.

Kym Marsh, meanwhile, cuts a sultry figure in a floor-length embellished gown that steals a look at her bust, thanks to its plunging neckline.

Smouldering! Catherine Tyldesley joined a slew of her female co-stars to celebrate their fiery onscreen characters on the soap in a steamy shoot for Radio Times

Sultry: Kym Marsh (Michelle Connor) looked sensational in a floor-length embellished gown that steals a look at her bust, thanks to its plunging neckline

The elegant number sheaths the star's slender frame and Kym looks just sensational, wearing her brunette tresses in soft glamorous curls and a subtle make-up look.

Leaning on the set's shooting equipment, she puts on a dominant display outside of the Rovers Return and is provocatively posing with her hand on her hip.

Kym won high praise at the beginning of this year for her harrowing storyline that saw her character Michelle Connor suffer a still birth. She later went on to find out that her partner Steve McDonald had fathered another baby and has found herself caught up in another terrifying ordeal, after being kidnapped and stalked.

No nonsense: Sally Dynevor, meanwhile, certainly means business in a tailored two-piece suit and dramatic eye make-up - looking worlds away from her onscreen character Sally Webster.

Glamorous: Jane Danson, who plays Leanne Battersby, dazzles in an ornate bandeau dress that draws attention to her slender pins, thanks to its daringly cut thigh-high split

Pleased to see that the soap's female characters are taking centre stage, Kym said on the shoot: 'Growing up, Coronation Street for me was all about the feisty women. It's great to see that strength returning.'

Sally Dynevor, meanwhile, certainly means business in a tailored two-piece suit and dramatic eye make-up - looking worlds away from her onscreen character Sally Webster.

Jane Danson, who plays Leanne Battersby, dazzles in an ornate bandeau dress that draws attention to her slender pins, thanks to its daringly cut thigh-high split and Tina O'Brien (Sarah Platt) oozes sass in a slinky off-the-shoulder number and barley-there heels.

Stunning: Tina O'Brien (Sarah Platt) oozes sass in a slinky off-the-shoulder number and barley-there heels

Praising Coronation Street for championing its female characters, Tina says: 'I think this show is incredible at doing that. On some other TV dramas, women don't always get the top roles, but Coronation Street isn't shy of showing off its female characters.'

Empowering: Corrie's leading ladies came together for the new issue of Radio Times

She was joined on the shoot by her onscreen daughter Bethany Platt, played by Lucy Fallon. Viewers are finally starting to see Bethany come out on the other side of her hard-hitting grooming storyline, as she found the strength to escape from the clutches of her manipulative fiance and expose her abusers.

Lucy looked simply stunning in a demure lace dress and court heels and cut a sultry figure as she posed by the camera lighting.

Despite her sensitive storyline being hit with Ofcom complaints, Corrie producer Kate Oates stood defiant against criticism and insisted Bethany's story was one about 'feminism', as it sees her 'taking the power back' as she stands up for herself.

Addressing the challenges the female characters face on the show, Kate - who previously worked on Emmerdale - added: 'On Emmerdale, I was uncomfortably aware that I'd been responsible for the deaths of a number of women characters and I didn't want to repeat that.

'I did feel like I was punishing the women. I wanted to see the characters face trauma, but to come out the other end. There had to be journeys of triumph and strength.'
There was bad news for anyone fond of visiting Spain to enjoy a taste of the Balearics or for viewers stuck at home watching Made In Chelsea: Ibiza.

Their summers had already been ruined but they suffered another setback with the arrival of Louise Thompson.

Louise turned up straight from what she called the hair-port to join the rest of the cast on her whore-lid-air.

Luckily E4 had hired a translator  not because she was speaking the local lingo but so we could understand what she was saying when she tried to sound as posh as the other gals.

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Furious: Alex Mytton praised Olivia Bentley (L) for her nice SET of boobs while Toff (R) told her Gran shed slept in Sam Princes sex sheets on Monday's Made In Chelsea: Ibiza

In fact (to be fair) the way Louise spoke wasnt as ridiculous as usual, although (to be unfair) she made up for it by looking ridiculous instead. She lounged around on the beach wearing a bikini and so many heavy necklaces she resembled a doll that the Aztecs had used to ward off evil spirits.

Above all, Louise had of course travelled to Ibiza to see her brother/best bud/homeboy Little Sammy T Thompson and even more that because her contract entitled her to yet another free holiday. She was duly accompanied by her life-sized doll Ryan, whose rubber face seemed to be slowly melting in the heat.

Louises appearance in Ibiza was a grim development for Mimi the Easy Canadian. (Yes, even more than for us or the good folk who lived there.)

Support: Louise Thompson arrived during the episode to see her brother Sam

Tense: Louises appearance in Ibiza was a grim development for Mimi the Easy Canadian (above), as she is a friend of Sam's ex Tiff - who is currently flirting with Mimi

Louise is close to Sams girlfriend Lucy Watsons Sister, Toff warned Mimi. And shes not backwards in coming forwards. Shes a real firecracker (i.e. she was small, cylindrical, and orange).

Rarely had a man been so thrilled to see his sister as Sam was.

YAY ! he kept saying, jumping around with his arms in the air like a toddler. Im so happy !

Louise tried bouncing up and down too, but only looked like a little human space-hopper who needed a good pump (for some air).

Delighted: Rarely had a man been so thrilled to see his sister as Sam was. YAY ! he kept saying, jumping around with his arms in the air like a toddler. Im so happy!

Its true. I have hooked up with someone, Sam announced in case his sister hadnt heard or seen it on television. Ive been seeing Mimi The Easy Canadian.

You have to be spectacularly thick to find Made In Chelsea too complicated but impressively Louise managed it.

How-now-brown-cow did this happen so fast? she asked. Im rilly rilly conf-ewwwww-sed.

When Sam tried to explain Louise just looked at him vacantly. Mind you, this was her expression for most things.

Sealed with a kiss: Its true. I have hooked up with someone, Sam announced in case his sister hadnt heard or seen it on television. Ive been seeing Mimi The Easy Canadian' (above)

So you kissed when you were doing yo-gair? she summarised.

After that it gradually grew and grew ! Sam enthused.

I bet it did.

We did it for the first time last night, Mimi later confirmed to the girls. It was good.

Not for us...

Part of Mimis appeal for Sam was she made him look intellectual. His holiday reading was clearly one of those books to help you learn one new word every day - judging by the way hed started casually dropping words like impervious and pensive into his conversation.

Hotting up: She later confirmed the pair had sex, confirming to the girls: We did it for the first time last night. It was good'

In contrast, Mimi was the kind of girl who thought astrology was meaningful. She was Cancer she told Sam for example  so Im like a crab. Hard on the outside, soft in the inside.

Pretty deep.

Ive actually never had a boyfriend, she claimed only to shatter the illusion somewhat when she added: Ive dated a lot of men but its never lasted more than a few...months.

Louise remained unconvinced by the prospect of Sams new lover.

Not happy: Louise remained unconvinced by Sams new lover, telling him: 'Obviously youve been swept away by the whole situation. New relationships are exciting at the beginning'

Obviousl-air youve been swept a-wair by the whole situation, she empathised. New relationships are exciting at the beginning.

Yours arent, we thought. Weve seen them.

Here are the 8 worst moments from the rest of this weeks episode.

1. Alex Myttons assessment of Sam Prince confessing to Toff that shed slept in his sex sheets

He did the good thing. He came clean.

An unfortunate phrase in the circumstances, but probably accurate...

Furious: The 8 worst moments from the rest of this weeks episode - 1. Alex Myttons (above) assessment of Sam Prince confessing to Toff that shed slept in his sex sheets

2. Victorias response to hearing about Sam Princes sex sheets

Toff ! What sort of self-respecting human would ever be friends with someone like that again? she demanded. Answer? Toff would.

3. Sam Prince and Toff revealing they had both told their families about The Sex Sheets Incident

I told my mother, Sam confided sheepishly.

Ive told my mother too, admitted Toff. And my grandmother.

Was that something she needed to hear?

Excuse me? 2. Victorias response to hearing about Sam Princes sex sheets Toff! What sort of self-respecting human would ever be friends with someone like that again?

Awkward: 3. Sam Prince (L) and Toff (R) revealing they had both told their families about The Sex Sheets Incident

4. Daisys dim-witted reaction to Emily telling Frankie she wouldnt trust her alone with Harry

Thats ridiculous ! Daisy protested. Youve got a boyfriend !

She may be ON Made In Chelsea but shes obviously never watched it.

5. Alex Mytton pimping out Olivia Bentley more than the producers

I might put out an advert or something, Mytton told Olivia  his solution to finding a man she could go on a date with. If only there was an app for that kind of thing.

6. Alex Mytton bumping into just the right chap as he ran past him on the beach

Hola Signor ! shouted Mytton  a shocking case of someone from the MIC cast actually speaking Spanish. Sorry to stop you, I know its a bit random.

'That's ridiculous, you've got a boyfriend!': 4. Daisys dim-witted reaction (L) to Emily telling Frankie (R) she wouldnt trust her alone with Harry

Doing his best: 5. Alex Mytton pimping out Olivia Bentley more than the producers - 'I might put out an advert or something, he said, in an attempt to find her a man

'Hola signor!': 6. Alex Mytton bumping into JUST the right chap as he ran past him on the beach

Not really random, it was in the script.

7. Alex Mytton describing Olivia Bentley as having a nice SET of boobs

Any women who thought they only had a pair stands corrected. According to Mytton, theyve got the whole collection.

8. Emilys summary of her relationship with Harry

When its good its really good and when its bad its really bad, she said.

A bit like Made In Chelsea: Ibiza.

Except without the first part...

Horrified: 7. Alex Mytton describing Olivia Bentley as having a nice SET of boobs (above)
She accepted a proposal from Hugo Taylor during a romantic break in Mykonos this summer.

And Millie Mackintosh flashed her engagement ring on Tuesday's edition of Lorraine, blushing as host Christine Lampard forced her to show off her sizable rock for the first time.

The former Made In Chelsea beauty was putting in an appearance to present the show's fashion segment, but was unfortunately savaged by viewers on Twitter.

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Newly-engaged: Millie Mackintosh flashed her engagement ring on Tuesday's edition of Lorraine, blushing as host Christine Lampard forced her to show off her sizable rock for the first time

Christine enthused, 'Congrats', and Millie replied, 'Thank you. It was a surprise. I'm very, very happy.'

The Irish TV host pointed at her ring, which Millie was trying to conceal on her lap.

'I'm really sorry but thats blinging at me!', Christine joked.

A bashful Millie said, 'I'm hiding it', prompting Christine to ask, 'Why are you hiding it?', as the camera zoomed in on the sparkler.

Bling: A bashful Millie said, 'I'm hiding it' as the camera zoomed in on the sparkler

Christine enthused: 'Congrats', to which Millie replied, 'Thank you. It was a surprise. I'm very, very happy'

Show us the ring! The Irish TV host pointed at her ring, which Millie was trying to conceal on her lap

'Its beautiful!': Christine gushed over Millie's ring before letting her take the reins

'Its beautiful!', Christine enthused. 'Thank you. Hes a keeper', Millie said.

Top Hatton Garden jewellers have estimated that Millie's ring could be worth as much as 40,000.

Brett Afshar, of Queensmith Master Jewellers, commented: The understated simplicity of Millie's vintage flower halo engagement ring makes it a very popular choice amongst stylish women.

'The size of the rock suggests the centre diamond is upwards of 1.5ct in size, meaning it will definitely be seen across a crowded room.

'Because diamonds vary substantially in quality and rarity it can have a dramatic impact in value, however based on the sparkle factor Id be surprised if there was much change from 30-40k for this impressive ring.

Smitten: 'Hes a keeper', Millie said of her fiance Hugo Taylor

Fashionista: Later in the show, the glamorous brunette presented the fashion segment

Harsh: Fans didn't seem too impressed with her efforts, taking to Twitter to criticise her 'monotone' and 'dull' presenting skills

Later in the show, the glamorous brunette was given the reins to present the fashion segment.

She cooed: 'We've got lots of festival fashion to show you. It's really about showing that it is for all ages, and you can have fun with it.'

Things didn't go quite to plan however, since the star got one of the models' names wrong while introducing them and appeared a tad uncomfortable.

Awkward: Things didn't go quite to plan since the star got one of the models' names wrong while introducing them

Stripe sensation: Millie showed off her svelte figure in her high waisted trousers

Uh oh: Things didn't go quite to plan however, since the star got one of the models' names wrong while introducing them

Style crush: Millie's loyal fans were quick to rush to her defence, praising her fashion sense and sending her words of encouragement

Fans didn't seem too impressed with her efforts, taking to Twitter to criticise her 'monotone' and 'dull' presenting skills.

One viewer posted, '@ITVLorraine @millsmackintosh couldn't be more miserable and monotone if she tried! Please don't have her back', with another writing, 'Millie Mackintosh is making me wanna go back to sleep. #Lorraine'.

Another shared, '@millsmackintosh don't give up your day job holidaying, as your presenting skills are dull !!', while another tweet read, 'I've never seen her outside of Instagram before but my word Millie Mackintosh is entirely devoid of charisma... #Lorraine'.

She cooed: 'We've got lots of festival fashion to show you. It's really about showing that it is for all ages, and you can have fun with it'

Stylish: Millie sported a simple, lace-trimmed vest top and smart trousers

Another viewer tweeted: 'This has got to be the most cringeworthy thing of all time. Millie Mackintosh stumbling over names, forgetting prices etc #Lorraine'.

However, Millie's loyal fans were quick to rush to her defence, praising her fashion sense and sending her words of encouragement.'

'If you haven't got anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Well done @millsmackintosh , my ultimate style crush #lorraine', one posted.

Touch of bling: Millie accessorised with a pair of gold hoop earrings

Looking good: Millie stunned in a pair of high-waisted, military inspired trousers
This week, it was reported that she was unceremoniously booted from The Bachelor by Matty J after revealing her past as a topless waitress.

And on Sunday, contestant Leah Costa was spotted out shopping in Melbourne, trying on a range of skin-tight dresses.

The 24-year-old blonde was seen flaunting her enviable figure as she looked for the perfect outfit.

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Showing Matty J what he's missing? Bachelor's Leah Costa flaunts her trim figure in skin tight dresses after being unceremoniously booted from the show

The architecture student tried on one very revealing dress, which was nude in colour and showed off ample sideboob.

The halterneck mini dress also flaunted her long, trim pins.

The stunner also tried on a nude longsleeve dress, which featured a high neck.

She was accompanied by a mystery male on her shopping trip who helped her pick and choose outfits.

What's the occasion? The stunner also tried on a longsleeve dress, which featured a high neck

Rumours: According to New Idea this week, Leah was unceremoniously booted from The Bachelor after revealing her topless waitressing past to Matty J

According to New Idea this week, Leah was unceremoniously booted from The Bachelor after she revealed she used to work as a topless waitress to Matty J.

A source claims that Leah was shown the door after opening up about her old job but insists she wanted to leave anyway.

'Eventually she realised the only way out of the show was to open up about her work as a topless waitress and reveal her past to Matty,' a source told the magazine.

'The producers made her go over it again and again. Then she had to tell Matty about it... it was degrading really.

No love? A source claims that Leah was shown the door after opening up about the topless scandal but insists she wanted to leave anyway (pictured is leading man, Matty J)

The insider continued: 'Matty asks to see her and tells her she is in the middle of all the drama and he is fed up with it - Then he asks her to leave and makes it look like it was all his idea.'

Leah reportedly wanted to leave the show because she felt no spark with The Bachelor hunk.

After revealing the topless drama, she was confronted by both Matty and his sister Kate Clifton about her 'mean girl' antics on the show and was then asked to leave.

No chemistry: Leah reportedly wanted to leave the show because there was no spark with The Bachelor hunk

Last month, the stunning blonde set tongues wagging after she found herself at the centre of a semi-nude scandal.

Footage believed to have been taken in December last year showed her wearing only a plaid miniskirt and a smile while vigorously whipping a mystery man's bare bottom.

In a statement to Daily Mail Australia, Leah previously confirmed that she once worked as a topless entertainer and said she is not ashamed of her past.
They recently announced that they were expecting their third child together.

And James Corden, 38, looked more loved up than ever as he enjoyed a date night with his pregnant wife Julie Carey, in West Hollywood on Monday.

Leaving the exclusive Italian restaurant, Madeo, the couple went for matching looks as they both sported dark tops and denim jeans.

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Matching: James Corden, 38, and his pregnant wife Julia Carey matched their outfits on date night at Madeo restaurant in West Hollywood on Monday

Julia wore a pair of light wash denim skinny jeans, which clung to her slim pins, and teamed them with tan peep toe sandals.

She slipped into a black scoop neck blouse, but the svelte television producer, who is in the earlier stages of her pregnancy, showed just a hint of her blossoming baby bump.

Julia sported a golden Los Angeles glow, and styled her blonde tresses into a sleek side parting.

Blossoming: Julia slipped into a black scoop neck blouse, but the svelte television producer, who is in the earlier stages of her pregnancy, showed just a hint of her blossoming baby bump

Julia announced that she was expecting for a third time last month, adding to their brood of two; son Max, six, and daughter Carey, two. The happy couple married in 2012.

Meanwhile, James displayed his trim figure in a similar ensemble; wearing a navy long sleeved jumper, smart denim jeans and trendy leather trainers.

Back in 2016, he talked to Rolling Stone about finding love and falling for his wife.

'I could never understand when I watch romantic comedies the notion that for some reason unattractive or heavy people don't fall in love. If they do, it's in some odd, kooky, roundabout wayand it's not. It's exactly the same,' he told the publication.

Trendy: Meanwhile, James displayed his trim figure in a navy long sleeved jumper, smart denim jeans and trendy leather trainers

He went on to give an example: 'I met my wife; she barely owned a television and worked for Save the Children. We sat down one night and we fell in love and that was it.'

The Late Late Show host first rose to fame in the U.K. thanks to his hit television program Gavin and Stacey, which debuted in 2007.

He remained relatively unknown in America however, until he won a Tony award for his part in One Man, Two Guvnors in 2012 and then got a role in the film version of Into the Woods in 2014.

Adding to the brood: Julia announced that she was expecting for a third time last month, adding to their brood of two; son Max, six, and daughter Carey, two. The happy couple married in 2012

He took the reigns for The Late Late Show in March 2015, replacing stalwart Craig Ferguson, and still maintained a relatively low-key presence.

It wasn't until he introduced his hilarious Carpool Karaoke segment that he saw his star soar. The now wildly popular segment has been taken over by Apple Music for a spin off series.

Carpool Karaoke launched in 2015, opening with triple A-list pop diva Mariah Carey. The pop diva was perhaps one of the most memorable guests on the segment.

Legend: James' Carpool Karaoke launched in 2015, opening with triple A-list pop diva Mariah Carey. The pop diva was perhaps one of the most memorable guests on the segment

She called James out for his 'act', looked bored throughout the entire clip, warned James 'I'm not singing today, I've been up all night', before belting out an incredible rendition of Vision Of Love.

Appearing on the series in 2017, Harry Styles also had a hilarious feature, crooning his hit Sign Of The Times before re-enacting famous romantic scenes with the former Gavin and Stacey star.

He is widely expected to host 60th Grammy Awards Ceremony in January 2018, as he already hosted the 2017 iteration and the 2016 Tonys, which both received many accolades.

Hilarious: Appearing on the series in 2017, Harry Styles also had a hilarious feature, crooning his hit Sign Of The Times before re-enacting famous romantic scenes with the former Gavin and Stacey star




She's one of Australia's top modelling exports who has worked across the entire world.

But on Tuesday Elyse Knowles proved that geography isn't her strong suit, as she and her boyfriend Josh Barker failed miserably at a capital city challenge.

When the couple had to match the names of capital cities to the country they are located in, Elyse thought 'schnitzel' was the capital of Austria.

'Babe I don't know!' Elyse Knowles says schnitzel is the capital of Austria as the model and her boyfriend Josh Barker fail miserably at a geography challenge on The Block

With a precious three-hour time limit on the clock for them to paint and style a cubby house, the race was on for teams to correctly match 10 countries with their capital cities for class to be dismissed.

Initially, they had to search a 1.2 kilometre maze for their building instructions and later were held up by a geography quiz hosted by former Block contestants and school teachers Ben and Andy.

'It's not so long ago that Elyse and Josh were at school - they should be all over this,' host Scotty Cam remarked.

Georgraphy test: The race was on for teams to correctly match 10 countries with their capital cities for class to be dismissed

'It's not so long ago that Elyse and Josh were at school - they should be all over this': Scotty Cam was initially confident in the couple's ability

But Scotty was wrong in his prediction as the young couple struggled to make any headway in matching capital cities with their countries.

'Holy geez ... I honestly have got not one idea about any of them,' Josh confessed, scratching his head in bewilderment as he surveyed the cities.

Elyse was no better informed, also adding: 'Babe I don't know.'

Helping hand: Elyse and Josh were doing so badly that former flight attendant Hannah took pity on the pair and helped them with a few matches

Despite the tight competition Elyse and Josh were doing so badly that former flight attendant Hannah took pity on the pair and helped them with a few matches.

'You can figure out the last one,' Hannah said after assisting them with several cities.

'We won't get it for an hour now!' Elyse joked.

In the end, the couple had to rely on Scotty Cam's heavy-handed hints to figure out what was the capital of Austria.

'I love my Vienna schnitzel,' Scotty remarked.

'I love my Vienna schnitzel,'The couple had to rely on Scotty Cam's heavy-handed hints to figure out what was the capital of Austria was, finally getting to decorate their cubby

Misconstruing his hint, Elyse looked around frantically, asking: 'Where is schnitzel? I can't find it.'

'No Vienna schnitzel,' he corrected, then Elyse understood Scotty Cam's hint and was able to move on to the final stage of the challenge.

'That took a long time,' Scotty Cam joked.

In the end, Sticks and Wombat were awarded for having the best-looking cubby house and won $5,000.
Her romance with Geordie lad Alex Beattie was short-lived, as the pair decided to split after their stint on Love Island finished.

But Montana Brown, 21, did not seem to be thinking about her new single status, as she showed her former flame exactly what he was missing with her sultry ensembles while she enjoyed her Los Angeles adventure on Monday.

The reality star, who came in fourth place on the ITV2 show, sported a plunging yellow dress which teased at her ample cleavage as she went shopping on Melrose Avenue, before uploading a sexy shot of her derriere to her Instagram page.

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Plunging frock: Montana Brown, 21, showed her former flame Alex Beattie exactly what he was missing with her sultry ensembles while she enjoyed her Los Angeles adventure on Monday

Montana's frock featured a nipped in middle, which emphasised her petite waist, and a flowing skirt trimmed with lace which fell to her mid thigh.

She lengthened her lean legs with a pair of strappy studded heels, and carried her belongings in a grey Michael Kors handbag.

The beauty styled her brunette tresses into a straight centre-parting, and sported pretty eye make up and groomed brows for her swanky trip.

Clearly keen to show Alex what he is missing after their break up, Montana uploaded her incredibly sexy bikini shot shortly after her dazzling outing.

The snap shows the starlet gazing wistfully over her balcony at SIXTY hotel in Beverly Hills, wearing a Brazilian brief style bikini that she became known for on Love Island.

Sultry: Montana uploaded a sexy snap of herself gazing wistfully over her balcony at SIXTY hotel in Beverly Hills, wearing a Brazilian brief style bikini which emphasised her rounded rear

Her electric blue bikini perfectly accentuates her rounded rear in the sultry shot, with her toned back also taking centre stage.

The beauty announced the demise of her relationship with the personal trainer last week, two weeks after the ITV2 show ended.

Taking to Twitter, Montana announced that she and her onscreen beau had broken-up, writing: 'Alex and I have decided to split.

'Making our relationship work on the outside has been hard. He hasn't been the same since coming out of the villa. Despite this we are still close and I will always support him.'

Lovely in lemon: Montana's frock featured a nipped in middle, which emphasised her petite waist, and a flowing skirt trimmed with lace which fell to her mid thigh

Alex, meanwhile, had revealed that the pair had met in person to discuss their future as a couple, deciding that it would be best for them to instead part ways.

While the London beauty alluded that hunky Geordie Alex was at fault, while discussing their break up, he had shared his own emotional statement about the split, in which he promised to remain supportive to Montana.

He shared on his Instagram story: 'Me and Montana met yesterday and have decided that it's best to call it a day with relationship with each other.

'It's been very hard on the outside to make us work how we desired. I still have strong feelings towards her and will be remaining close friends and supporting her throughout everything.'

Loving life: The beauty announced the demise of her relationship with the personal trainer last week, two weeks after the ITV2 show ended, and has been enjoying an adventure in Los Angeles ever since

It was previously claimed that Montana faked her feelings in the villa as part of a game plan to scoop the 50,000 prize fund.

The couple were said to be at odds when the brunette beauty refused to post a picture of them together on social media, according to The Sun.

A source told the publication: 'Montana had everyone fooled. She played a game in the villa and Alex is only beginning to realise that now.

'He watched all the other couples happily post on Instagram and begged Montana to do the same so he knew her heart was in the right place but she refused.'
She recently denied claims she is expecting a baby with her new fiance Alan Thomason.

And Danniella Westbrook, 43, seemed unfazed by the pregnancy rumours on Tuesday, as she stepped out with her 34-year-old beau at an airport in London.

The actress flashed a hint of her tummy while sharing a steamy kiss with her toyboy partner as they prepared to jet off on holiday to a mystery location.

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Pucker up: DaNniella Westbrook, 43, seemed unfazed by the pregnancy rumours as she stepped out with new fiance Alan Thomason, 34, on Tuesday at an airport in London

The former EastEnders actress looked casual in a light pink sweatshirt and grey jogging bottoms.

Hinting that she may be in for a long-haul flight, the mother-of-two rocked a pair of simple white trainers.

Meanwhile, Alan mirrored Danniella's casual vibe in a grey tracksuit teamed with trainers.

The couple seemed keen to flaunt their new romance, and happily packed on the PDA as they arrived at the airport.

Jetsetter chic: The former EastEnders actress looked casual in a light pink sweatshirt and grey jogging bottoms

Lip-locking: The couple seemed keen to flaunt their new romance, and happily packed on the PDA as they arrived at the airport

Having a whale of a time: The couple, who got engaged after just weeks of dating, appeared to be in great spirits as they beamed and chatted away happily

Their outing comes as Daniella refuted the pregnancy rumours on Good Morning Britain on Monday, after The Sun reported friends had alleged she was carrying a child following a whirlwind romance with Alan.

Speaking on the show, she said: 'If you believe everything you read in the papers, apparently today I'm pregnant', before adding, 'I'm just fat at the moment... because I'm happy.'

Probing further, Jeremy bluntly asked her, 'Are you pregnant?' to which she replied, 'Not the last time I looked, no!'

Where are you going? Hinting that she may be in for a long-haul flight, the mother-of-two rocked a pair of simple white trainers

The couple who dress together: Meanwhile, Alan mirrored Danniella's casual vibe in a grey tracksuit teamed with trainers

Asking her how it felt to be plagued by constant rumours about her personal life, Danniella insisted she brushes it off, saying, 'My agent was laughing [about the pregnancy claims] last night.'

Danniella stopped off the Good Morning Britain studios to discuss her recovery from addiction, her recent stint in rehab and her surgery.

She flew to Poland earlier this year, enduring six hours of surgery to stop her face from collapsing after years of drug abuse.

'I'm just fat!': Danniella Westbrook has denied claims she is expecting a baby with her new fiance Alan Thomason's child during an interview with Jeremy Kyle and Kate Garraway on Monday's edition of Good Morning Britain

Meanwhile, Danniella and Alan are fresh from a romantic holiday to Spain, where they were seen packing on the PDA in the sea.

Alan popped the question after just weeks of dating, with fans left shocked when she hinted at the new engagement on Twitter this week.

Seemingly alluding to her news, Danniella took to Twitter for the first time in a month to pen a delighted message reading: 'I'm in the best place of my life and so happy I can't stop smiling'.

Danniella later sent a message reading: 'Sorry for my absence from social media but love does that to a girl but I'm back and happiest I've ever been in my life'.

With a 10 year age gap, Alan is Danniella's second toyboy lover since she dated George Arnold last year, who is 18 years her junior.

Speaking on the show, she said: 'If you believe everything you read in the papers, apparently today I'm pregnant', before adding, 'I'm just fat at the moment... because I'm happy'
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She never puts a foot wrong when it comes to the red carpet.

And on Tuesday night, Home and Away star Pia Miller certainly turned heads at the 2017 Prix De Marie Claire Awards in Sydney.

The 33-year-old model and actress put on a very busty display in a strapless frock, and gave a hint of leg on the night.

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Still sizzling away from Summer Bay! Home and Away's Pia Miller flashes a bit of cheeky leg and impressive cleavage in a strapless gown at the 2017 Prix De Marie Claire Awards

The Chilean-born personality showcased a golden tan on the evening.

Her patterned frock was from AJE, and featured a bustier-style top and a thigh split, with layers of material.

The mother of two completed her look by wearing her hair pulled back and off her face into a low bun, with her makeup featuring dewy foundation and a nude lip.

Flawless: The mother of two completed her look by wearing her hair pulled back and off her face into a low bun, with her makeup featuring dewy foundation and a nude lip

Hot to trot! Her patterned frock was from AJE, and featured a bustier-style top and a thigh split, with layers of material

Pia also shared a snap to Instagram from the awards, where she sits down and looks off camera.

On the night, she joined the likes of Dannii Minogue, Tegan Martin and Asher Keddie at the event.

Her outing comes as it's believed her Home and Away character, policewoman Katarina Chapman, was laid to rest last week, after shooting a fatal car crash scene for the soap.

In good company! On the night, she joined the likes of Dannii Minogue, Tegan Martin and Asher Keddie at the event

This week, some of the Home and Away cast were spotted filming what appeared to be a wake for pregnant Katarina at Palm Beach.

Bachelorette star-turned actress Sam Frost, was pictured running Pia's character off the road in a dramatic crash.

Pia joined the long-running soap Home and Away in August 2014, with her character first appearing on screen in early 2015.
She is currently enjoying a sun-kissed getaway with her two children.

And Amanda Holden, 42, couldn't resist sharing a number of sizzling snaps on her Instagram platform - which sent her followers wild as they praised her age-defying physique.

In one image, the TV flaunted her bronzed decolletage in skimpy swimwear, before stripping off her bikini top for an artsy snap.

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'Like fine wine!' Amanda Holden, 42, couldn't resist sharing a number of sizzling snap on her Instagram platform - which sent her followers wild as they praised her age-defying physique

Stripping off: While she proved to ever inch the doting mum in the snap, another image saw her enjoying the peace and tranquillity as she went topless

Amanda looked absolutely sensational in the plunging white swimwear which had the brand name Coca Cola etched on the front in red lettering.

The snap was taken from above as she knelt down to hold her youngest daughter's hand - putting her focus on her ample assets and toned legs.

The beauty, who threw her tresses into a chic bun and wore a pair of shades, flaunted her topped up tan.

While she proved to every inch the doting mum in the snap, another image saw her enjoying the peace and tranquillity as she went topless.

A new chapter: In a similar snap, she proved to be loving life as she read a book poolside

Taken from behind, Amanda showed off her sculpted back as she felt the need to shed her top.

In a similar snap, the Britain's Got Talent judge proved to be loving life as she read a book poolside.

Amanda's Instagram followers were clearly impressed as they commended her immaculate figure which has been the result of many sessions in the gym.

'Shut the front door! Wow Mrs, what a bod!!! I've just pressed my golden buzzer '

'You look amazing': Amanda's Instagram followers were clearly impressed as they commended her immaculate figure

Transformation: Amanda has undergone quite the image overhaul over the years and looks better than ever (pictured in 1999)

'Amanda you look amazing. You are dab.'

'Seriously you are like a fine wine.... getting better with age xx'

'EXTREME BODY GOALS. My flawless Queen '

'Wow there's no need Hun you look like a bay watch babemove over pammy.'

'Wow! You are stunning' while another noted 'a perfect woman.'

Amanda has been married to her husband Chris Hughes, 43, since 2008 and they have two children  daughters Alexa, 11, and five-year old Hollie.

Family gal: Amanda has been married to her husband Chris Hughes, 43, since 2008 and they have two children  daughters Alexa, 11, and five-year old Hollie




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He recently hit headlines after doctors diagnosed him with pneumonia in the midst of his summer getaway to the Balearic island of Majorca.

But on Monday, Jeremy Clarkson appeared to be bouncing back from his health woes as he was spotted basking in the glorious Spanish sunshine aboard a luxury yacht, days after being discharged from a local hospital.

Most notably of all, the 57-year-old Grand Tour host appeared to make it through much of the day without puffing on any cigarettes - a habit he has proudly upheld for several years, despite previous warnings from doctors.

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Hello sunshine: Jeremy Clarkson was spotted sunning himself aboard a luxury yacht off the shores of Majorca on Monday

Looking casually cool in a light blue T-shirt and a pair of patterned swimming shorts, he instead busied himself mingling with a group of relatives and close pals that included radio personality Johnny Vaughan.

The former Top Gear host ensured that his day was a relaxed one, enjoying some drinks and relaxing on board reading a book, in between socialising with his intimate group of fellow holidaymakers.

Johnny Vaughn, 51, opted to go shirtless as he strolled the deck with a book under his arm, before engaging Jeremy in a long chat in the midst of his reading session.

Doncaster native Jeremy's cool and upbeat demeanour comes days after he revealed that he thought about killing himself while battling pneumonia that was so severe doctors told him he could have died.

Leisurely: The former Top Gear host was joined by radio personality Johnny Vaughan (centre) on his leisurely day in the sun

Easy does it: The 57-year-old Grand Tour presenter was seen holding onto the handrails as he carefully navigated the stairs

Health struggle: TV star Jeremy was recently discharged from a local hospital, where he had been diagnosed with pneumonia

Reading: At one point, Doncaster native Johnny was seen reading a book as he enjoyed a relaxing day aboard the sea vessel

Woes: Jeremy, seen chatting with a shirtless Johnny, recently revealed that he considered killing himself amid health woes

Cooling off: Jeremy enjoyed a refreshing cold beverage as he took a brief break from the intense Mediterranean sunshine

Alone time: As well as mingling with the intimate group of holidaymakers, Jeremy enjoyed some much-needed alone time

Jeremy fell ill earlier this month while on the Spanish island of Majorca and has opened up about his time in hospital in his Sunday Times column.

He wrote that he had spent 'three nights spent spasming in my bed' before a doctor sent him for tests at the hospital.

He was then told he would have to be admitted 'for at least a week', which he called 'impossible'.

The doctor added: 'If you don't do as I say you will die', writes Clarkson.

Casual: Looking casually cool in a light blue polo shirt and a pair of patterned swimming shorts, teamed with black shoes

Shuttled over: Jeremy's stomach protruded from his top as he made his way onto a speedboat to be shuttled over to the yacht

Dressed up: After pacing aboard the yacht shirtless, Johnny threw on a navy button-down shirt to match his patterned shorts

Getting much support: While Jeremy appeared to be enjoying his leisurely day, he was seen using the railings for support

Your ride awaits: The popular broadcasters waited to board a small boat to take them from land to the waiting luxury yacht

Ill: Jeremy fell ill earlier this month while on Majorca and opened up about his time in hospital in his Sunday Times column

Spasms: He wrote that he had spent 'three nights spent spasming in my bed' before a doctor sent him for tests at the hospital

The TV presenter described his boredom in the hospital as 'so bad I thought often about killing myself'.

He writes: 'I'm sure many of you will have found yourself in hospital, not having planned to be there.

'But for me it was a new experience. And a weird one. Because I was in a room with nothing on the walls except wallpaper, and most of that was coming off.'

The outspoken TV personality has now left hospital, but faces two months of recuperation.

He added: 'This is the problem with hospitals. People who stay in them become institutionalised and incapable of speaking about anything other than what nurse brought what drug at what time.

Dark thoughts: The veteran TV presenter described his boredom in the hospital as 'so bad I thought often about killing myself'

Tough recuperation: While the outspoken TV personality has now left hospital, he faces a tough two months of recuperation

Letting himself go: In December 2014, TV personality Jeremy admitted that he had let himself go and put on a lot of weight

Unfit: The star admitted that he'd become so complacent about his health that a doctor branded his fitness level as atrocious

Hard work: Displaying his sense of humour, Jeremy had recently described his ample stomach as the product of hard work

Pour it up: Former Big Breakfast presenter Johnny enjoyed an ice cold beverage as he relaxed in the back of the small boat

Plaster: A plaster was visible on Jeremy's upper arm - a remnant of his time in hospital, where he'd been fitted with a drip

'Boredom turns them into bores. And when they get out, as I have, and there is nothing to do for two whole months apart from get better, things are even worse, because all I can talk about is my illness.'

Jeremy announced news of his illness last week, posting on Drive Tribe he would be 'out of action for quite some time'. 'It's really really annoying because I've never had one day off work since I started in 1978,' he added.

The illness comes two months after his co-host Richard Hammond was airlifted to hospital when his car crashed while filming The Grand Tour.

In December 2014, Jeremy admitted that he had let himself go and put on a lot of weight  and that a doctor had branded his fitness level as atrocious.

A man of great indulgence: The father-of-three has previously painted himself as a man unable to shy away from indulgence

Liquid courage: Jeremy has claimed he cannot write his scripts without ample supplies of alcohol, cigarettes and caffeine

Great efforts: The star event admitted that he sometimes struggled with such low-energy tasks as pulling his socks up

Accident: The illness comes two months after his co-host Richard Hammond was airlifted to hospital when his car crashed while filming The Grand Tour

Former job: Jeremy became a host on The Grand Tour after being axed from his longtime job on Top Gear amid controversy

Take a look at that: Jeremy flashed a hint of momentary excitement as he pointed out a sight to his group of fellow travellers

The presenter, who regularly makes headlines for his on-air remarks, spoke on The Chris Evans Breakfast Show.

During the interview, it was pointed out to him that, even with his usual paunch, he appeared to have to be a bit fatter on a Top Gear DVD that had just been released at the time.

Jeremy immediately corrected TV-turned-radio presenter Chris Evans, saying: Not a bit  a lot fatter.

Describing his ample stomach as the product of hard work, he added: I eat a lot but mostly Ive cultivated it by sitting down all the time. Literally all the time, Im now exhausted.

Barefoot: The 57-year-old carried his soft leather black shoes in his hand as he prepared to disembark from the small boat

Climbing: In line with his careful movements throughout the day, Jeremy watched his steps as he made his way onto land

Leading: Johnny led the way off the boat as the gang prepared for the next fun-filled stage of their day out in the sunshine

Watch your step: Father-of-two Johnny appeared to struggle to keep his balance as he took a big stride onto a concrete step

Cheeky display! As Jeremy made his way to his destination, he failed to bat an eyelid while strolling past a nude sunbather

'Getting to your studio this morning I had to have a 15-minute rest. He added: I had to go for a medical the other week. They put me on a treadmill and described my fitness as atrocious.

The father-of-three has previously painted himself as a man unable to shy away from indulgence.

He has claimed he cannot write his scripts without ample supplies of alcohol, cigarettes and caffeine, adding: The amount you drink when youre writing, thats the thing that worries me.

And in a newspaper column back in 2014, he wrote: I get tired pulling on my socks these days. So, if I want to live much past the end of next weekend [my doctor] says I must give up smoking, drink less, walk more, lose weight.

But in typical nonchalant style, he said of his role on Top Gear: If somebody decides one day that actually you really have got too fat or you really are awful then you do something else.

Holiday: After the major health scare put a dent on his holiday, Jeremy appeared to be back on track to having a good time

Centre of attention: Those who spent the day with Jeremy - including Johnny - were seen giving the TV star a helping hand

Hospital: The TV personality, pictured drinking on holiday in July, was rushed to hospital with severe pneumonia while on holiday with family in Majorca
Mindy Kaling has confirmed she is pregnant with her first child.

The comedienne spoke to the Sunday Today show in an interview that will air on September 10.

The 38-year-old actress, who has yet to reveal who the father is, also said that she is not sure what to expect. 'Its so unknown to me. I have a lot of control over a lot of aspects of my life, and this is one where Im like, "OK, its out of my hands," which is kind of a fun feeling,' she said.

She said it: Mindy Kaling has confirmed she is pregnant with her first child. The comedienne spoke to the Sunday Today show in an interview that will air on September 10

Her words: The 38-year-old actress, who has yet to reveal who the father is, also said that she is not sure what to expect. 'Its so unknown to me. I have a lot of control over a lot of aspects of my life, and this is one where Im like, "OK, its out of my hands," which is kind of a fun feeling,' she said

And the Mindy Kaling Project star said her late mother is giving her inspiration.

'My mom was incredibly fierce and so devoted to us, just loved us and really wanted us to be happy no matter what we did,' said the beauty.

'My career choice was not something that she was familiar with and she was just so supportive of that. And if I could give that to my child, just that open-mindedness, Id be so happy.'

Mama: And the Mindy Kaling Project star said their her late mother is giving her inspiration. 'My mom was incredibly fierce and so devoted to us, just loved us and really wanted us to be happy no matter what we did,' said the beauty

Hee hee: And Mindy managed to fit in a joke about what she will be like as a parent. 'Its so easy to criticize parenting until youre a parent, so one of the nice things about becoming a parent is that Ill be able to openly criticize other parenting because I will have a child'

And Mindy managed to fit in a joke about what she will be like as a parent.

'Its so easy to criticize parenting until youre a parent, so one of the nice things about becoming a parent is that Ill be able to openly criticize other parenting because I will have a child.'

Uh=oh: In mid July E! News reported she was pregnant with her first child. A source told the site it was 'an unexpected surprise' for her to be with child

The star is returning to The Mindy Project for its sixth and final season on Hulu on September 12.

In mid July E! News reported she was pregnant with her first child. A source told the site it was 'an unexpected surprise' for her to be with child.

It was noted her pregnancy will not affect her work schedule.

With child: Here she showed off her baby bump last week in West Hollywood

In late July Oprah Winfrey told People at the Disney D23 Expo that she was far along.

'Thats when she told me. My mouth dropped,' said Winfrey. 'What did you just say?"Oh, Oprah, I dont think you know. Im 5 months pregnant." And I said, "WHAAAAT?!"'

Not only is the father not named, but it's not clear who the beauty is dating at the moment.

Kaling dated her Office co-star BJ Novak from 2005 to 2007 and then Benjamin Nugent from 2008 to 2012.

On stage: The Mindy Kaling Project actress (L) in a fitted dress at the A Wrinkle In Time premiere in late July in Anaheim, California with Reese Witherspoon (R)

In April she agreed to go on a date with Senator Cory Booker after a flirty Twitter exchange, but it is not known if they got romantic.

'I just think shes a really wonderful person, thats it,' he said at the time.

Several years ago she said she did see children in her future.

'I think I've decided that unlike everything else in my life, I'm going to be fast and loose about kids,' she told Yahoo! Style.

'I'm going to not actively plan, but if it happens, it would happen.'

With O: In late July Oprah Winfrey told People at the Disney D23 Expo that she was far along. 'Thats when she told me. My mouth dropped,' said Winfrey. 'What did you just say?"Oh, Oprah, I dont think you know. Im 5 months pregnant." And I said, "WHAAAAT?!"'

It looks as if Mindy is already nesting.

In early July she revealed she had bought a home in the exclusive Hancock Park neighborhood of Los Angeles.

The comedy writer calls a 1920 two-story mansion home and has shown it off to the current issue of Architectural Digest.

Kaling spent 10 months having the property renovated and redecorated. She moved in six weeks ago.

'I was specific about Hancock Park,' she explained to AD. 'I fell in love with three houses, but I kept losing to these Chinese billionaires who were paying in all cash. I wish I were an Indian billionaire.

'Finally, I found a house that wasn't listeda pocket listingand I came in over asking.'

The property built in the 1920s features several bedrooms, a dining table that seats 12, an original fireplace, lawns and a large pool and spa.

'Ive lived in L.A. for 15 years and Ive never had a second floor. Now I do and its a little frightening,' Kaling joked. 'Ill watch a murder documentary on Netflix, and then Im too afraid to go upstairs. There have been two nights that Ive slept on the couch downstairs.'

The ex files: Kaling dated her Office co-star BJ Novak (left) from 2005 to 2007 and then Benjamin Nugent (right) from 2008 to 2012
She married the love of her life last December.

And now Margot Robbie is fighting for all Australians to have the right to wed, showing her support for the campaign to legalise same-sex marriage.

On Tuesday the 26-year-old took to Instagram and urged her fans to register to vote in the forthcoming marriage equality plebiscite.

'Love is love': Margot Robbie throws her support behind marriage equality and urges Australian fans to register to vote in postal plebiscite

In September, a non-compulsory postal vote will be conducted in Australia on whether the country should allow LGBTIQ to legally wed.

Depending on the results, federal politicians will then vote on whether or not to legalise same-sex marriage in Australia.

Taking to social media, the Suicide Squad star shared a snap of herself wearing heart-shaped sunglasses.

Supporter: Margot has lent her voice to the popular campaign in favour of marriage equality

Lending her support to the popular campaign for marriage equality, Margot wore a rainbow-coloured sweater as she pouted for the camera.

In the caption, Margot urged her fans to check they were registered to vote in the postal vote before registration closed on August 24.

'LOVE IS LOVE any Aussie's living overseas like me, register to vote here,' she wrote, adding a web link to the Australian Electoral Commission's website.

Speak up: Margot urged her fans to check they were registered to vote in the postal vote before registration closed on August 24

Last December, Margot married her longtime beau, director Tom Ackerley, in a secret Byron Bay ceremony.

The Gold Coast-born blonde beauty wore a bohemian lace off the shoulder wedding dress.

Margot confirmed she had married Tom by posting a photo to Instagram of the couple kissing, holding up her wedding ring to the camera.
Ashley Tisdale and her husband Christopher French worked out together at a gym in Studio City on Monday.

The 32-year-old Daytime Emmy nominee and the 35-year-old musician-composer were both dressed for action in their respective athleisure gear.

The High School Musical alum - who relies on stylist Dani Michelle - scraped her ombre locks into a messy top bun and sported a red cropped hoodie over black capri leggings and sneakers.

Thirsty? Ashley Tisdale and her husband Christopher French worked out together at a gym in Studio City on Monday

French has collaborated with Tisdale on her Music Sessions webisodes as well as her long-delayed third studio album.

Ashley and Christopher will celebrate their third wedding anniversary on September 8.

That same day, BeautyCon shared an Instagram video of the Charming actress showing off her dance moves in their 'Halo Room' on Saturday.

Exercising: The 32-year-old Daytime Emmy nominee and the 35-year-old musician-composer were both dressed for action in their respective athleisure gear

Tattooed sleeves: French has collaborated with Tisdale on her Music Sessions webisodes as well as her long-delayed third studio album

Large shades: The High School Musical alum scraped her ombre locks into a messy top bun and sported a red cropped hoodie over black capri leggings and sneakers

'This is us': Ashley and Christopher will celebrate their third wedding anniversary on September 8

The Skylanders Academy stunner was at the Los Angeles Convention Center promoting her Illuminate Cosmetics collection at booth #1455.

Tisdale was one of many celebs weighing in on Saturday's alt-right terrorist attack in Charlottesville, which killed three and injured 34 more over the removal of a Confederate general statue.

'I'm sorry how many sides are there? There's only ONE side that is full of hate, bigotry, and fear. Horrible speech, who r u trying to protect?' Ashley asked President Donald Trump over Twitter.

'Killed it!' That same day, BeautyCon shared a video of the Charming actress showing off her dance moves in their 'Halo Room' on Saturday

Shake it! The Skylanders Academy stunner was at the Los Angeles Convention Center promoting her Illuminate Cosmetics collection at booth #1455

'We must all stand up and support each other in this time. Racism and hate are not welcome here. #charlottsville.'

The Amateur Night actress continued: 'Have a voice. Speak up. Educate yourself. If you're so lucky to have "followers" on any platform stand up for what you believe in. I will not let fear, discrimination, racism, or hate be louder.'

Fans can catch the New Jersey-born vlogger - who boasts 43.9M social media followers - on her weekly #tizzietuesday advice videos on YouTube.
He rose to fame playing Nathan Rafter on the popular drama Packed to The Rafters.

And four years after saying goodbye to the small screen Angus McLaren will be back on our TVs in a plum new role.

The 28-year-old will play ex-army medic Dr Toke on Channel Nine's Doctor Doctor, The Daily Telegraph reports.

Back on the small screen! Packed To The Rafters star Angus McLaren returns to TV on Channel Nine hit drama Doctor Doctor

Speaking to the publication, the Australian actor gushed about how he was excited to be a part of the popular Channel Nine drama.

'I'm pretty thrilled to be on the show,' Angus said.

According to TV Tonight, Angus will play former army medic Dr Toke, who will reportedly set his sights on wooing Penny, played by Hayley McElhinney.

Packed to The Rafters: He starred in the show alongside Hugh Sheridan and Jessica Marais, who played his siblings

Popular: Angus became a household name in 2008, playing beloved Nathan Rafter on Packed to The Rafters until 2013

Angus became a household name in 2008, playing beloved Nathan Rafter on Packed to The Rafters until 2013.

He starred in the show alongside Hugh Sheridan and Jessica Marais, who played his siblings.

After leaving the series, Angus landed a role in forthcoming feature film Hotel Mumbai alongside Dev Patel.

Studied: The actor also completed a bachelor of acting at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts

The actor also completed a bachelor of acting at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.

Prior to appearing on Packed to The Rafters, Angus played Lewis McCartney on H2O: Just Add Water.

The TV actor was previously in a long term relationship with former Home and Away star Indiana Evans.
He's known for making women go weak-at-the-knees with his good looks and gym-sculpted body.

But on Wednesday, Kris Smith revealed he's the one with wobbly legs and shared that he will soon undergo a full, double knee replacement.

Speaking to Confidential the 38-year-old Myer ambassador, who suffers from early onset osteoarthritis, said it would be his 12th knee operation.

Weak in the knees? He's known for making women go weak-at-the-knees but Kris Smith revealed he's the one with wobbly legs and will soon undergo a full, double knee replacement

'The surgeon I spoke to told me I've got knees of an 80 year old man,' he told the newspaper.

And although the medical professional advised him to get the replacements as soon as possible, the star is trying to live with the pain as long as he can before going under the knife.

'I don't know how much longer I can do it but I keep finding little methods like these braces and other things,' he said.

Suffering: 'I don't know how much longer I can do it but I keep finding little methods like these braces and other things'

Pushing on: Revealing his first surgery was at the ripe age of 17 the stud, pictured here with 'Fit Dan' from Geordie Shore, has continued with his gruelling workout regimen despite his pain

'I wake up every morning, especially in winter time, and it is cold and my knees are aching. It takes me an hour or so to get them warmed up.'

Revealing he had his first surgery was at the ripe old age of 17, the stud has continued with his gruelling workout regime despite his pain.

And although he looks to be in peak condition, Kris won't be on the catwalk at Thursday night's annual Myer Spring/Summer 17 fashion launch.

Daily grind: 'I wake up every morning, especially in winter time, and it is cold and my knees are aching. It takes me an hour or so to get them warmed up'

Taking a step back: And although he looks to be in peak condition, Kris won't be on the catwalk at Thursday night's nnual Myer Spring/Summer 17 fashion launch

Instead Kris will be a guest at the show, which will be headlined by the retail giant's ambassador Jennifer Hawkins and Australian US-based model, Chantal Monaghan.

The event will be held at a private home in Coogee Beach and will showcase both international and Australian designers including Alex Perry, Maticevski and Roksanda.

But Kris won't be the only ambassador watching from the sidelines, with Jodi Anasta and Rachael Finch also joining him.

The single father, who shares son Ethan with Dannii Minogue, is expected to model at next month's Telstra Perth Fashion Festival and is tipped to do the same at Melbourne's Spring Racing Fashion launch.
Some of the top models in the world flocked to Aspen, Colorado over the weekend for a Victoria's Secret photo shoot with photographer Jerome Duran and director Michael Bay.

The theme was cowgirl cool.

And two of the brand's vets - Candice Swanepoel and Alessandra Ambrosio - proved they are still very much favorites as they shared some sexy images from the lush outdoor set.

Rolling! Candice Swanepoel leaned on Alessandra Ambrosio as Michael Bay walked in the background during a shoot for Victoria's Secret in Aspen, Colorado this week. Jerome Duran was the photographer

Brazilian bombshell Ambrosio, 36, proved her 5ft9in frame is still as toned as ever as she wore a bra and undies in a pale mauve color.

The mother-of-two added a leather jacket with fringe and over-the-knee boots.

The Vogue favorite held a hand on her belt buckle and the other on her beige cowboy hat.

Howdy partner: Ambrosio (far right) also shared a photo where she was with two other models

Coming to a theater near you? The images were black-and-white and looked like a copy of the poster for the movie The Magnificent Seven

She was posing with Swanepoel, a Swedish looker.

The cover girl wore a black bustier and lace thigh highs with a black cowboy hat and a belt.

In the background was Bay who seemed to be directing a commercial for the brand.

A tip of the hat: Candice swapped her chaps for teeny black lace panties, a black leather jacket and matching black hat for the shoot

Easy on the eyes: Swanepoel stood against a log cabin as she tried on this outfit

He is best known for his movies Pearl Harbor and Transformers.

Ambrosio also shared a photo where she was with two other models.

The images were black-and-white and looked like a copy of the poster for the movie The Magnificent Seven.

Bevy of beauty: Director Bay is surrounded by Angels in this snap posted by Edward Razek, senior creative at Victoria's Secret. Michael is capturing the action in Aspen

There were several other cover girls in Colorado for the shoot.

Taylor Hill, Lais Ribeiro, Elsa Hosk and Jasmine Tookes all stepped into chaps, Daisy Dukes shorts and cowboy hats to model the brand's latest lingerie designs.

Also there was Kristen Stewart's rumoured girlfriend Stella Maxwell, who has also been linked to Miley Cyrus.

Yee-haw! The ladies of Victoria's Secret are often photographed on the beach in Florida. But this month the beauties went Western for a cowgirl-themed photo shoot in the mountains of Aspen, Colorado

The internationally famous stars of the shoot took to Instagram to share their favorite looks.

Many of the women were longtime VS vets who also walked in the runway shows.

All involved took incredible selfies and portraits that looked perfect for the annual VS lingerie catalog.

Girls will be girls: Stella Maxwell put her legs around Hosk as they posed on a wall

A new look: Rimee Strijd wore a pair of lace chaps and a very small pair of undies in her images shared to Instagram

Moody: The star also pouted when wearing these leather jackets

Hill looked stunning in her ripped jeans paired with a silk bra and a cowboy hat with a bolero necktie for jewelry.

The 21-year-old Illinois native also posed with Strijd, a 22-year-old looker from the Netherlands.

Strijd wore a pair of lace chaps and a very small pair of undies in her images shared to Instagram.

Hosk looked sensational in a white leather jacket, white boots and a matching white cowboy hat.

Chilly? Hosk looked sensational in a white leather jacket, white boots and a matching white cowboy hat

Watch out for splinters! The 28-year-old Swedish delight writhed around on the floor and posed with her legs out

She knows how to look leggy: Here the cover girl put her white boots up as she touched her hair

The 28-year-old Swedish delight writhed around on the floor and posed with her legs out.

Tookes stood out in a black outfit that consisted of a bra and skirt with boots and hat to match.

Ribeiro was more adventurous with leather chaps and worn-in cowboy boots as she helped sell a satin mauve bra.

Chaps: Fellow angel Taylor Hill shared her own photos from the shoot, including this woodsy shot

Arty: Hill, 21, posted a few previews from the upcoming shoot on Instagram with different filters

Round her up! Tookes stood out in a black outfit that consisted of a bra and skirt with boots and hat to match

Matching: Here she posed with another model who seemed to have on three belts

Swanepoel also showed off her virtually bare behind in fringed leather chaps.

The Elle magazine favorite also had on skimpy panties and a bra as she channeled her inner cowgirl.

The beautiful 28-year-old blonde completed her look with boots, of course, and a cream cowboy hat.

Off-duty chic: Ambrosio was seen back in New York City by Monday

Model behaviour: The brunette beauty, 36, kept things casual in a white T-shirt and jogging bottoms

Rightly proud of her toned behind she posted an Instagram clip of herself jiggling her cheeks that she captioned, '#giddyup, #bumbumtamtam' with three horse emojis.

In a second video clip, she posed from left to right, looking over her shoulder.

Candice captioned it: 'Wild Wild West out here.'

Stunner on the loose: Here Candice wore a mauve bra and matching undies with leather chaps

Bare butt rider: Candice showed off her beautiful booty in cowboy chaps and skimpy undies

A black and white video showed her strolling across a meadow in her revealing outfit as Josephine Skiver, also scantily clad, rode a horse behind her.

Edward Razek, senior creative at Victoria's Secret, described the shoot in a picture he posted saying: '13 Angels, 2 photographers, a crew of 100+, one big time director, and an $80 million ranch - no one does Holiday like Victoria's Secret does Holiday!'

The 'big-time director' is Transformers' Michael Bay, seen with seven Angels in Ed's snap.

Sitting pretty: Here Lais sat in a chair; she added the caption: 'Ainda da tempo de entrar no #regimefechado? @simoneesimaria'

A tummy to die for: Ribeiro looked like she was gym toned in this image with a breathtaking background

Like a Western Charlie's Angels: These three models looked like they got into their roles

Also at the shoot were Sara Sampaio, Martha Hunt, Adriana Lima, Niki Baratta, Jen King, Lily Aldridge and Behati Prinsloo.

Candice appears to be in Aspen with fiance and long-time love Hermann Nicoli, a Brazilian model.

The South African native posted an adorable Snapchat photo of the 35-year-old holding their excited 10-month-old son Anaca on his lap as he tried to eat his lunch in a cafe. She captioned it: ' Feliz dai papai!'

Ride it: The Angel straddled a horse in her skivvies, covered by a large brown blanket
She had her E-cup breast implants removed earlier this month, after complaining about her 'droopy' chest.

But Imogen Thomas, 34, uploaded a racy bikini-clad Instagram snap on Tuesday as she promoted her swimwear range, Chasing Summer.

Leaning forward to emphasise her impressive bosom, the glamour model flaunted her incredible curves as she explained in her picture caption that she was 'throwing it back'.

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'Throwing it back to last month': Imogen Thomas, 34, appeared to reminisce over her bustier days as she uploaded a racy bikini-clad Instagram snap, before undergoing a breast reduction earlier this month

The mother-of-two wrote: Finding lots of old pics on my phone... throwing it back to last month wearing the Tropicana.'

Whilst she is often seen in a bikini to model her swimwear line, Imogen - who has two children with partner Adam Horsely - previously revealed that she 'hated' her breasts after she had a boob job.

She told new! magazine: 'I just hate my boobs. I get really bad lower back pain. When I take my bra off theyre droopy and so heavy!

'Id like to be a B cup, probably. Ive decided to have a lift as well because after having kids my boobs have gone south.

'Some women lose their boobs completely and dont have any after breastfeeding, but Ive still got mine and obviously theyre massive  and I wish they would just reduce naturally but that havent.'

Hot stuff: Imogen continued to flaunt her figure during her recent trip to Spain, as she set pulses racing in another saucy ensemble

Although it's been an ordeal, Imogen revealed she has now learnt a valuable lesson to distill onto her daughters Ariana, four, and Siera, 20 months.

She explained: 'Thats the one thing Im going to be strict about  they are not getting their boobs done.'

The brunette is thought to have gone down to a C-cup during the operation at London's St John & Queen Elizabeth hospital.

Imogen certainly showed no signs of stopping during her recent trip to Spain, as she set pulses racing in another saucy ensemble.

Confidence is key: Imogen underwent a breast reduction earlier this month, after admitting she had been unhappy about her 'droopy' E-cup chest

The 34-year-old looked every inch the beach babe in a plunging coral swimsuit, as she enjoyed a thrilling ride around the harbour on a jet ski.

The mother-of-two showed off her envy-inducing figure in the one-piece, which tightly hugged her slender frame all the way down.

The striking coral swimsuit plunged into a deep V neckline, secured with a ribbon tie at her cleavage, to leave her famously ample assets on show.

Cutting off at a daring height at her thigh, the swimwear then drew attention to her long and lean legs as she posed glamorously for cameras.

The former Miss Wales could not stop herself from beaming as she cruised around the shore, proving to be completely relaxed while away.
They were announced to be joining TOWIE last month, and have since jetted to Spain to film the new series with the rest of the cast.

And Ruby Lacey and Maddie Hopper ensured they were more than ready for the screen on Tuesday, as they indulged in a day of pampering in Marbella.

The stunning duo looked effortlessly glamorous in their summery ensembles, as they spent an afternoon getting their hair and make-up done at the famous Golden Tarts salon.

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Ready for my close up: TOWIE newbies Ruby Lacey and Maddie Hopper (L-R) ensured they were ready for the screen on Tuesday, as they indulged in a day of pampering in Marbella

Glam: The stunning duo looked effortlessly glamorous in their summery white ensembles, as they spent an afternoon getting their hair and make-up done at the famous Golden Tarts salon

The girls certainly proved they belonged amidst the glitz and glamour of TOWIE, as they arrived at the salon in equally chic looks.

Hairdresser Ruby flaunted her enviable womanly curves in a chic bardot crop top and knit shorts combo.

The top pulled straight across her neck to accentuate her busty frame, before falling to at her petite waist to give a flash of her toned stomach underneath.

A bit of all-white: The girls certainly proved they belonged amidst the glitz and glamour of TOWIE, as they arrived at the salon in equally chic looks

Trendy: Hairdresser Ruby flaunted her enviable womanly curves in a chic bardot crop top and knit shorts combo

Twice as nice: Getting dolled up with her was best pal Maddie, who slipped her svelte frame into a delicate playsuit in the blazing Spanish sunshine

Maintaining both a summery and sexy feel, her ribbed shorts then cut off at a daring height at her thigh, to leave her impressively long and lean legs on show.

Ruby added casual flip flops to her feet for practicality ahead of her pampering session, and tied her look together with a stylish quilted handbag, on a silver chain.

Getting dolled up with her was best pal Maddie, who slipped her svelte frame into a delicate playsuit in the blazing Spanish sunshine.

Leggy lady: Maintaining both a summery and sexy feel, Ruby's ribbed shorts then cut off at a daring height at her thigh, to leave her impressively long and lean legs on show

Tres chic: Meanwhile Maddie's one-piece, made of broderie anglaise, skimmed her slim figure to its daring thigh-high hem as she strutted to the salon with her pal

Flash of skin: The top fell to her petite waist to give a glimpse of her toned stomach underneath

Fit to bust! The crop top also pulled straight across her neck to accentuate her busty frame

Make me pretty! After getting her hair washed, Ruby happily chatted to her hairdresser as she treated herself to a blow dry

Catching up: Ruby appeared deep in thought as she caught up with her stylish

The one-piece, formed of broderie anglaise, scooped into a wide neckline, and plunged slightly at the chest to reveal a hint of cleavage and plenty of sun-kissed skin.

Nipping in at her middle, the ensemble skimmed her slim figure to its daring thigh-high hem as she strutted to the salon with her pal.

The girls appeared in good spirits as they arrived at the famous beauty venue - and relaxed in their seats as they treated themselves to bouncy blow dries.

Also having their make-up done, sporting bronzed eyeshadow looks and thick false lashes, the girls looked more glamorous than ever as they left the venue later on, ahead of another night out in the hot spot.

Taking a break: Ruby treated herself to a blow dry, as a hairdresser herself

Looking good: Ruby could not help but smile as she was transformed for her night out

New kids on the block: Ruby was no doubt wanting to glam up ahead of another stint of filming, in her first ever series of TOWIE

Exciting: Ruby looked equally as delighted as she was glammed up for the evening

Pensive: The lash technician took time to relax as she had her hair styled

Dolled up: The pair later had their make-up done by professionals in the salon

New arrivals: It is believed Ruby and Maddie were sought out by TOWIE producers as best friends of Georgia Kousoulou

It is believed Ruby and Maddie were sought out by TOWIE producers, thanks to Georgia's popularity with TOWIE viewers.

A source told The Sun: 'Georgia has become one of the most popular TOWIE girls ever - she is well-loved with TOWIE fans and bosses wanted to bring her some mates onto the show.

'Viewers can look forward to seeing a lot more of Georgia and her friends this series.'

The pair have been seen on numerous nights out with the rest of the cast in Marbella, implying they will be heavily present on the series, expected to air this autumn.

Following suit: A source said of the pair: 'Georgia has become one of the most popular TOWIE girls - she is well-loved with TOWIE fans and bosses wanted to bring her mates onto the show'

Say cheese! Maddie was sure to get a few snaps of her make-up look for Instagram

Tease: Hinting at their arrival, the source added: 'Viewers can look forward to seeing a lot more of Georgia and her friends this series'

Glitz and glamour: The pair have been seen on numerous nights out with the rest of the cast in Marbella
Jessica Cunningham's sister Emma Deeks (right, with Ms Cunningham) says the Apprentice star is 'devastated' over the death of her ex-partner Alistair Eccles

Jessica Cunningham's sister says the Apprentice star is 'devastated' over the death of her ex-partner and has taken their three children away to grieve.

Emma Deeks said she was supporting her 30-year-old sister after the 'shock' of Alistair Eccles, 35, being found hanged in his home in Burnley.

Speaking to MailOnline, beautician Ms Deeks said the family were trying to 'absorb' what had happened.

'Me and my sister are very close and I'm trying to support her through this,' she said. 'It's devastating for all our family.

'She's taken the kids away for a few days. They know what has happened and are heartbroken.'

The mother-of-two said her sister, who split from Mr Eccles in 2013, had been 'rebuilding her life' after starting a relationship with Alex Daw.

The couple, who have been dating since March, went public with their relationship in May with Miss Cunningham often posting pictures on social media of the pair.

Ms Deeks, 33 - who runs an online fashion business with Ms Cunningham - said she had no idea what had been troubling Mr Eccles, adding: 'We just don't know but my sister was rebuilding her life and was really happy and now this. It's so sad.'

Mr Eccles was found hanged last week and died later in hospital. His death is not being treated as suspicious.

A spokesman for Ms Cunningham, who also took part in Celebrity Big Brother last year, said: 'Despite their break up, Alistair was a really good father to their children.'

Lat week, Ms Cunningham posted this picture of herself and her daughters with Alex Daw, writing how he was helping her face the challenges of being a single parent

Alistair Eccles, pictured, the ex boyfriend of Ms Cunningham, was found hanged in Burnley, Lancashire. Police say his death is not being treated as suspicious

Ms Cunningham (pictured at events earlier this year) had three daughters with Mr Eccles. A spokesman said she is concentrating on supporting them

The spokesman added: 'Jessica is politely asking for some privacy at this devastating time so that she can protect their three girls.'

The reality TV star has recently spoken of how happy she was to have found love again with new boyfriend Alex Daw.

Last week, Ms Cunningham posted a picture on Facebook of herself and her new partner with her daughters.

In the post, she wrote about the challenges she has faced as a single mother and how her new partner was helping her overcome them.

Speaking to MailOnline, beautician Ms Deeks (pictured) said the family were trying to 'absorb' what had happened

She wrote: 'This picture makes me feel so bloody happy. For all the single parents out there... DO NOT SETTLE.

'I always said the right person will come along at the right time and he did.

'Being a single mum can come with insecurities and questions such as 'am I good enough', 'will someone accept me and my children' 'will I be in the same situation again' - I had loads of questions, so I decided not to worry about finding love, but to work harder, be the best version of myself for my children and to give my all in every possible situation.

'Once I started to do that, magic happened, doors opened, opportunities came and the right person came at the right time.

'Whenever you feel scared for the future, feel grateful for whatever goodness you have in the present and concentrate on how to make things better. Know your worth.'

In a statement about Mr Eccles's death, a spokesman for Lancashire Police said: 'We were called shortly before 3am on August 11 following a report that a 35-year-old man had been taken to Royal Blackburn Hospital after he had been found hanging at an address in Burnley.

It is believed Ms Cunningham and Mr Daw, pictured with her daughters, have been seeing each other since March

Ms Cunningham paid tribute to Mr Eccles today, saying he was a great father to her daughters

More pictures of Ms Cunningham and her new partner playing around at home with the three children

Ms Cunningham, who describes herself as a 'mother of 3 maniacs' on Twitter, regularly posted pictures of herself and her daughters online

'He was sadly pronounced deceased at hospital. His death is not being treated as suspicious and a file will be passed to the coroner.'

Friends posted tributes to him online, with one writing to his brother: 'There are no words! Just heartbreaking thoughts and prayers with yours n Alistair's friends family and loved ones tonight xx'

The tragic news came just three months after the former Apprentice star announced she had found a new man, with whom she is now in a relationship

Jess and her new boyfriend have been busy on social media, with the former regularly sharing pictures of the two of them together

This picture shows the two of them messing around on a balcony. Their relationship was made public in May

Ms Cunningham has appeared on two of the UK's biggest TV shows, Celebrity Big Brother (left) and The Apprentice (right)

Another friend wrote to his family: 'So sorry to hear of your loss thinking of you all and his precious girls x'

Mr Eccles and Ms Cunningham ran the Apprentice star's first fashion business Famous Frocks together before it went out of business in 2015.

Ms Cunningham went to school in Blackburn, Lancashire and lived in Colne and Burnley before founding a fashion firm in Sheffield.

She appeared on The Apprentice last year, but went out at the semi-final stage.

She previously spoke about the pressures of dating as a single mother and calls her daughters her 'three queens'.

Jessica (fourth from right dressed in green) rose to fame after appearing in the Apprentice with tycoon Sir Alan Sugar

She was running a fashion firm at the time and went out of the show at the semi-final stage

Mr Eccles was found dead at a house in this Burnley street. Police say the death is not being treated as suspicious

Mr Eccles was previously found guilty of being part of a crime scam in 2013 and admitted money laundering, receiving a 15-month suspended jail sentence.

The publishing scam, which dated back to 2011, saw victims across Britain conned out of 740,000.

Ms Cunningham was said to have ended their relationship shortly after his conviction and went on to TV stardom and business success.her children.

She recently revealed she had been hired to design a range of summer wear for online fashion brand Little Black Dress.

And, last week, she announced she was planning a collaboration with business forum Mumpreneurs Online.
Brad Pitt is on the set of his new movie Ad Astra amid reports that his divorce from Angelina Jolie is very much still on.

The 53-year-old actor was pictured hopping out of his trailer in Los Angeles wearing a green military shirt and tie preparing to film the futuristic sci-fi, which also stars Tommy Lee Jones.

Brad was back to work as it was claimed last week's reports that the former Hollywood power couple have called off their divorce are false and that the duo are 'at the point of no return'.

Getting to work: Brad Pitt is pictured on the set of his new movie Ad Astra in Los Angeles on Monday amid claims that his divorce from Angelina Jolie is still on

In character: The 53-year-old hopped out of his trailer wearing a green shirt and tie as he filmed the futuristic sci-fi epic, which also stars Tommy Lee Jones

On TuesdayTMZ insisted that the actors are 'deep' in divorce negotiations.

It was added that the 42-year-old Oscar winner and the 53-year-old Allied star will never get back together after allegations of abuse over one of their six kids - Maddox, 15; Pax, 13; Shiloh, 11; Zahara, 12; and twins Vivienne and Knox, nine - were made public.

'Both sides are hashing out both child custody and property settlements, and the divorce is full steam ahead,' a source told the site.

It's claimed that Brad and Angie can't go back after abuse allegations that emerged last year shortly after the couple split in September 2016

No way back: Brad and Angelina will not reconcile and are 'deep' in divorce talk, according to a Tuesday report from TMZ; here they are seen in 2014

The way they were: It was added the stars will never get back together after allegations of abuse over one of their six kids - Maddox, 15 (pictured with his parents in 2013); Pax, 13; Shiloh, 11; Zahara, 12; and twins Vivienne and Knox, nine - were made public

And a reunion is not going to happen because 'Angelina made extremely damaging allegations against Brad, claiming he was abusive to their kids,' added the insider.

She talked to Vanity Fair this month

In September 2016, there was an alleged 'altercation' that involved Brad and Maddox aboard a private jet that was heading from Nice, France to Los Angeles, California; after they landed, Angelina 'kicked him out,' according to Vanity Fair.

Brad has since been cleared of any wrongdoing, but that was only after the FBI and DCFS were involved.

They have not been photographed together in a year.

Last week Us Weekly claimed the former couple have not moved forward with proceedings to end their marriage.

One insider told the publication: 'The divorce is off. They haven't done anything to move it forward in several months and no one thinks they are ever going to.'

They used to go everywhere together: Brad and Angie with all six kids in 2011

The reason given for the alleged stall is Brad coming clean about his boozing in an interview with GQ this past May.

A friend of Jolie told Us Weekly that the commitment to self-improvement has struck a chord with the actress, who reportedly previously claimed she would consider taking Brad back 'if he showed he was committed to raising a family.'

The source went on to add that Brad had 'got sober to try and win her back' and that the move to quit drinking was 'all she ever wanted.'

Meanwhile, the insider claims: 'Everyone thinks they are going to get back together.

'It wouldn't be surprising if they announced that they're calling [the split] off and trying to work things out.'

Happier times: The Maleficent star and Brad were together for 12 years before they announced their split; pictured in November 2015 at the By The Sea premiere

A source told DailyMail.com that the divorce process has significantly slowed down but there has been no real change.'

Brad came clean about his boozing in an interview with GQ this past May

The insider claimed that the former couple are getting along for the sake of their children.'

The actor claimed to have gone cold turkey from alcohol and now sticks to sipping on cranberry juice and carbonated water in his GQ interview.

He admitted his drinking had been a problem and that his parenting style needed amending.

The movie star confessed to entering therapy and has also been seen turning to art for healing, holing up in an LA studio to make sculptures.

While partying at Glastonbury Festival in Somerset, south-west England, in June, Brad didn't touch a drop of alcohol because he was facing weekly testing by his legal counsel.

Tough relationship: The A list actors are seen here in November 2015 in NYC

A source told DailyMail.com: 'Brad didn't touch a drop of alcohol all weekend and stuck to drinking English breakfast tea.

'He said he was being tested on a weekly basis by his legal counsel and didn't want to f**k up being able to see his children.'

Reps for both Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have been contacted by DailyMail.com in regards to the claims.

Angelina gave her first interview since separating from husband Brad in September 2016 to Vanity Fair for its September issue.

The Maleficent star addressed the split revealing that 'things got bad' between the two by summer of 2016, adding that 'It's just been the hardest time, and we're just kind of coming up for air.'

After filing for divorce, Angelina took the kids and stayed in a rental before purchasing a $25 million mansion in Los Feliz, California.

The Lara Croft: Tomb Raider star said the new house was 'a big jump forward for us, and we're all trying to do our best to heal as a family.'

The Salt star and Brad were together for 12 years before they announced their split in September; the divorce has not yet been finalized.

She is seeking sole custody of their children.

Angelina and Brad, who became known as 'Brangelina,' met on the set of their film Mr. And Mrs. Smith in 2004 when Brad was still married to Jennifer Aniston.

They married in an intimate ceremony on August 23, 2014 in Correns, France.

She told the magazine that her and her estranged husband 'care for each other and care for our family, and we are both working towards the same goal.'
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He looked to be thrilled when with old flame Katy Perry at the Ed Sheeran concert in Los Angeles on Saturday evening, even driving away from the venue with the Roar hitmaker on the back of his BMW motorcycle.

But the next day, Orlando Bloom was in the company of another blonde beauty.

The Pirates Of The Caribbean vet was seen splashing around on the shores of Malibu with a pretty mystery woman who nicely showed off her toned and tanned body in a little black bikini.

New pretty pal: Orlando Bloom was seen with a blonde mystery woman on the beach in Malibu on Sunday

Interesting company: Also with the two was a dog that looked exactly like his ex Katy Perry's poodle Nugget

Chit chat: The Three Musketeers actor and the curvy woman looked to be deep in conversation as they stood on the shore

Also present was Katy's small brown poodle Nugget who stuck close to the Lord Of The Rings actor.

The pair looked to be having a nice afternoon in the sunshine as they walked on the pristine shores of Malibu, a small Southern California town where the star resides.

Bloom wore long board shorts in blue and no shirt, flashing his muscular physique.

Close in the water: It looked as if the Kingdom Of Heaven star got very close to the fetching blonde, who kept her sunglasses on while swimming inches from the hunk

A rare smile: Though they seemed to be in serious talks most of the time they were on the beach, at one point the lady cracked a warm smile

His female friend was also toned as she showed off sculpted arms, muscular legs and impressive abs in a fashionable two piece that had a bandeau top and small briefs with gold straps.

The lady also wore sunglasses, a watch, layers of bracelets and earrings for the dip in the chilly waters.

The two appeared to be having a serious conversation as they did not smile or laugh much.

Gym rat? His female friend was also toned as she showed off sculpted arms, muscular legs and impressive abs

Good look: The woman was in a fashionable two piece that had a bandeau top and small briefs with gold straps

Accessorized: The lady also wore sunglasses, a watch, layers of bracelets and earrings for the dip in the chilly waters

Fixing her bottoms: At one point the looker pulled up her briefs as she stared the New York, I Love You actor in the eyes

The day before, Perry was seen leaving Ed Sheeran's concert at Staples Center in Los Angeles with Bloom

Perry and Bloom called time on their relationship six months ago.

But they looked close as they left an Ed Sheeran concert at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on Saturday night.

They reportedly spent the evening 'kissing and cuddling.'

And the pop siren, 32, and the actor, 40, appeared to be very much on-again as they hopped on the British hunk's G5 BMW motorcycle to ride home after the gig.

Katy sat on the back of the black-and-silver two wheeler as she clung to the The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies star.

The Santa Barbara, California, native wore a helmet that matched her beau's.

Bloom looked to be in a serious mood as he used all his strength to hold up the large bike and his lady love.

He also held on to a cell phone.

Before the pair got on the German bike they flashed grins that meant the date had gone well.

Katy held a lit cigarette in her hand, which could have been her on-again beau's, and also a helmet.

They both wore caps.

Inside the packed concert, a fan managed to grab a few photos of Katy and Orly in their floor seats and posted them on Instagram.

Don't tell Katy! Perry's frisky pooch kept a close eye on the pair, that may have been only friends

He looks up to the woman! Bloom looked up to the pinup as he crouched down on his knees with hands folded

They both wore black caps with Katy's covering her pixie-cut blonde hair, as she leaned back into Orlando's arms.

'They definitely seemed like they're back together,' an eyewitness told E! News.

'They cuddled most of the night. She sat on his lap most of the night and shared kisses. They looked like they were having the time of their lives,' the person continued.

Tell me what you really think: Bloom and the babe seemed to be having a frank heart-to-heart

All wet all over: The pair were dripping in ocean water as they walked up the shore in search of a towel

'People didn't really bug her. I don't really think people knew it was them because they had hats on and stuff.'

It is unclear if the two arrived at the concert together and their reps had no immediate comment about their reunion, according to E! News.

If they are an item again it won't be the first time they have appeared to reunite.

Katy and Orlando went to a birthday party at a Hollywood club in April, just two months after announcing their split.

More talk: The fetching blonde seem to have a lot to say to the star whose next movies are Romans and S.M.A.R.T. Chase

Hats off to her: The siren plunked on a straw hat as she walked with the friend of Johnny Depp

A source told E! News back in February that 'Katy pulled the plug,' and that 'they both still love each other very much, and getting back together could happen once they have some space.'

The couple said in a joint statement at the time: 'Before rumours or falsifications get out of hand we can confirm that Orlando and Katy are taking respectful, loving space at this time.'

Katy and Orlando dated for a year after first being seen flirting at a Golden Globes party back in January 2016.

Katy previously dated John Mayer, rapper Travie McCoy and was married to Russell Brand from 2010 to 2012.

Orlando was married to Australian supermodel Miranda Kerr from 2010 to 2013, and they have one child together; son Flynn, six.

On September 7 Perry will begin her Wintess tour in Columbus, Ohio. She has several dates booked until her tour takes a break in February in Canada.

In May she starts up her tour again with dates in Germany.

Before the split: The blonde beauty and the charmer were seen at the 2017 Vanity Fair Oscar Party hosted by Graydon Carter in late February

Back in LA! The actor was spotted jetting into Los Angeles on Tuesday in black jeans and a T-shirt

Off he goes: The star stepped outside with his belongings in hand

Fashion statement: The actor's T-shirt appeared to read, 'No Smile, No Service'
Victoria's Secret model Candice Swanepoel was no angel on Monday as she played the part of a sexy cowgirl for a photo shoot in Aspen, Colorado.

The model dropped jaws in leather chaps and satin purple lingerie that showed off every inch her pert behind.

Candice, 28, looked in high spirits as she strutted around the lush set and fawned over a horse alongside her scantily-clad co-star, Josephine Skriver, 24.

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Yee-haw! Victoria's Secret Angel Candice Swanepoel traded in her wings for a cowgirl hat as she starred in an extra sexy photo shoot in Aspen, Colorado on Monday

Giddy up! Candice, 28, looked in high spirits as she strutted around the lush set and fawned over a horse alongside her scantily-clad co-star, Josephine Skriver

The model gently tinkered with the reigns of the horse as she posed seductively towards the camera with her gym-honed abs on full show.

Candice's long blonde hair was styled into flowing style with loose and dreamy waves.

No question all eyes were the stunning ladies as they showed off their physiques for the camera.

Josephine sat atop the horse in black lingerie, a matching cowgirl hat, and long chaps.

No horsing around: The model gently tinkered with the reigns of the horse as she posed seductively towards the camera with her gym-honed abs on full show

Putting on a show: No question all eyes were on Candice as she flaunted her physique for the camera

Her brunette locks cascaded down in loose waves beneath her stylish hat.

Though the ladies were sharing the spotlight at that moment, Josephine looked to have gotten her very own solo photo-op as well.

The starlet struck an eye-catching pose alongside a tree as snow powder sprinkled around her.

Follow the leader: Josephine looked a natural atop the horse

Winter wonderland: Though the ladies were sharing the spotlight at that moment, Josephine looked to have gotten her very own solo photo-op as well

Josephine and Candice were not the only VS models to star in the show either, with the likes of Alessandra Ambrosio, Lily Aldridge, and Jasmine Tookes on set.

The photo shoot featured photographer Jerome Duran and director Michael Bay.

Edward Razek, senior creative at Victoria's Secret, described the shoot in a picture he posted saying: '13 Angels, 2 photographers, a crew of 100+, one big time director, and an $80 million ranch - no one does Holiday like Victoria's Secret does Holiday!'

All hands on deck! The photo shoot featured photographer Jerome Duran and director Michael Bay
The subject of his return to Bond has been widely-discussed.

And Daniel Craig was once again giving nothing away on Tuesday as he appeared on US radio show Morning Magic 106.7, where he left fans in further limbo when he revealed nothing had been confirmed as it was all up to 'personal decisions'.

The 49-year-old actor, who is the seventh Bond and has starred in four movies thus far, insisted the hold-ups were nothing to do with pay as he admitted, undoubtedly to fan's delight, that he would 'love to do it'.

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The name's Bond: Daniel Craig was once again giving nothing away on Tuesday as he appeared on US radio show Morning Magic 106.7, where he left fans in further limbo when he revealed nothing had been confirmed as it was all up to 'personal decisions'

Earlier this year, it was reported he was poised to make his fifth appearance as Bond following talks with franchise producer Barbara Broccoli.

He prompted speculation over the identity of his successor by insisting he would prefer to slash his own wrists rather than reprise the role after completing work on his last appearance as the secret agent in 2015 blockbuster Spectre.

But Page Six reported his potential replacement Tom Hiddleston, once a front runner for the coveted role, has effectively been ruled out by Broccoli following a series of encouraging talks with Daniel.

Yet things remain as up in the air as ever, as he revealed on Tuesday: 'Id hate to burst the bubble, but no decision has been made at the moment.

On his way: Daniel was seen heading into The Late Show on Tuesday as he looked like Bond himself in a slick leather jacket

Comeback? The 49-year-old actor, who is the seventh Bond and has starred in four movies thus far, insisted the hold-ups were nothing to do with pay as he admitted, undoubtedly to fan's delight, that he would 'love to do it'

Star of the show: 'Its just all very personal decisions to be made at the moment. I know theyre desperate to get going and I would in theory love to do it, but there is no decision just yet'

Happy days: 'Its just all very personal decisions to be made at the moment. I know theyre desperate to get going and I would in theory love to do it, but there is no decision just yet'

Here we go! The happy star was headed out after his appearance on the show

'Theres a lot of noise out there and nothing official has been confirmed and Im not, like, holding out for more money or doing anything like that.

'Its just all very personal decisions to be made at the moment. I know theyre desperate to get going and I would in theory love to do it, but there is no decision just yet.'

Sources claim Hiddleston's high profile romance with American pop star Taylor Swift, coupled with a bizarre acceptance speech at the 74th annual Golden Globes, during which he relayed an awkwardly expressed anecdote about aid workers in impoverished south Sudan warmly greeting him after watching his TV drama The Night Manager, also failed to impress Broccoli.

Craig enjoyed enormous success in the years following his first appearance as Bond in 2005 hit Casino Royale.

Headed back: 'Its just all very personal decisions to be made at the moment. I know theyre desperate to get going and I would in theory love to do it, but there is no decision just yet'

Serious times: Craig enjoyed enormous success in the years following his first appearance as Bond in 2005 hit Casino Royale

Comeback? 'Its just all very personal decisions to be made at the moment. I know theyre desperate to get going and I would in theory love to do it, but there is no decision just yet.'

The actor has played 007 on three further occasions, but he appeared adamant that the Sam Mendes directed Spectre, in which all four of Craig's Bond film's are neatly tied together, would be his last during an interview with Time Out.

'Id rather break this glass and slash my wrists,' he told the magazine in 2015. 'Were done. All I want to do is move on,'

He added that if he did another movie, 'it would only be for the money.

Craig was paid $10.7 million for 2012 smash Skyfall, making him the highest-paid Bond actor ever; the film was the first Bond movie to break the one billion dollar mark.

Its enormous success led to Craig reportedly brokering a deal to be paid 31 million for his next two 007 films, including Spectre, the 24th film in the franchise. Im contracted for one more but Im not going to make predictions,' he told Event in September 2014.

Off we go: Craig was paid $10.7 million for 2012 smash Skyfall, making him the highest-paid Bond actor ever; the film was the first Bond movie to break the one billion dollar mark
Jordan Davies has become the third celebrity to be evicted from the Celebrity Big Brother house.

The 25-year-old Ex On The Beach and Ibiza Weekender star was booted out on Tuesday evening's eviction show, following a head-to-head with his best pal in the house Sam Thompson.

He wasn't backwards in coming forwards when it came to dishing his thoughts on his fellow housemates.

Speaking to Emma Willis after he left the house, he said of Sarah Harding: 'She is literally a nightmare. I used to love Girls Aloud but I actually hate her. She is meant to be a role model and she's smoking fags, kicking off. She's 35, she should act her age, I felt older than her.'

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'I used to love Girls Aloud, but I actually HATE her!' Jordan Davies SLAMMED Sarah Harding as he became the third housemate to be evicted from Celebrity Big Brother

Not a fan: 'She is meant to be a role model and she's smoking fags, kicking off. She's 35, she should act her age, I felt older than her,' Jordan said

He added: 'And the whole Chad [Johnson] thing is bulls**t!'

Of his eviction, he said: 'I thought I'd be gutted, but it's nice to see people again. But I am devastated and gutted. It feels weird.'

'Jemma's always kicking off, Sam has the Amelia [Lily] thing going on and Helen is a legend,' he said of his fellow nominees, which also included Jemma Lucy and Helen Lederer.

He blamed his lack of 'romantic connection' with anyone in the house for one of the reasons he was voted out.

'You're not f**king leaving!' Jordan Davies became the third housemate to be evicted from Celebrity Big Brother... and Sam Thompson couldn't handle it

The end of JAM: Of his 'bromance' with Made In Chelsea's Sam Thompson, he said that they simply 'clicked' and could just 'bounce off each other'

'Jemma's always kicking off, Sam has the Amelia [Lily] thing going on and Helen is a legend,' he said of his fellow nominees, which also included Jemma Lucy and Helen Lederer

Out: He blamed his lack of 'romantic connection' with anyone in the house for one of the reasons he was voted out

'I wanted to show that there was more to me than just getting with women,' he then told Emma, somewhat backtracking.

Of his potential 'showmance' with first evictee Marissa Jade, Jordan said: 'When she was flirting she was keeping it back a bit, so I thought she was definitely playing a game here.

'I was gutted when Marissa left and she was ridiculously good looking! When she left I had no girl to flirt with.'

Of Jemma, who has been at the centre of many of the arguments in the house, Jordan said: 'She speaks her mind. She wouldn't leave me and Sam alone.'

Debrief: Emma Willis was sure to probe Jordan on his time in the house

Outta there: Jordan became third out of CBB's current summer season

He's out: Jordan was greeted by the host of the show, Emma Willis, as he exited

Showmance: Of Marissa Jade, Jordan said 'When she was flirting she was keeping it back a bit, so I thought she was definitely playing a game here'

Of his 'bromance' with Made In Chelsea's Sam Thompson, he said that they simply 'clicked' and could just 'bounce off each other'.

He said: 'He might struggle without me, but he'll be alright. He's got Paul [Danan].'

As Jordan was evicted, Sam was seen hugging him, refusing to let him go, yelling 'you're not f**king leaving!'

Jordan was also left red-faced when Emma uncovered that he had the words 'There is only one winner of CBB 2017 Jordan Davies' sewn into his jacket, clearly preempting a win - that was not to be.

Controversial: Of Jemma, who has been at the centre of many of the arguments in the house, Jordan said: 'She speaks her mind. She wouldn't leave me and Sam alone'

'I was gutted when Marissa left and she was ridiculously good looking! When she left I had no girl to flirt with,' he added

Jordan's slamming of Sarah comes just days after the pair clashed in the house, with him admitting during their heated row: 'You don't know what s*** I've been through.'

Speaking to The Sun following his eviction, the Welsh star went on to reveal his dad had abandoned the family when he was just 18-months-old, and has given them 'nothing' since, leaving them to resort to council housing.

He revealed: 'He went to have a kid with another woman in another country. So he was looking after other kids and not giving us anything.

'So when Sarah was trying to make out that Im positive, Ive had some f****d up s*** in my life.'

Admitting his past was the reason behind his fight with the singer, he added: 'Just because I dont air it by crying, Ive been hurt in the past, I just try to stay positive because thats who I am. Theres no point airing my s*** 24/7.'
Home Alone star John Heard passed away at the age of 71 from a heart attack brought on by heart disease.

Citing officials, TMZ reported on Tuesday that an autopsy conducted by the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner's Office concluded Heard died from a 'sudden cardiac death due to atheroscerotic and hypertensive heart disease.'

Heard died on Friday, July 22, and his representative told TMZ at the time that the actor had minor back surgery two days prior and he was at the hotel to recover.

Officials have since told TMZ the back surgery 'did not play a role in his death.'

Cause of death: John Heard passed away at the age of 71 from a heart attack brought on by heart disease (pictured 2016)

A toxicology report has yet to be publicly released.

John was found dead in a hotel in Palo Alto, California on Friday, July 22.

The Washington DC native was reportedly discovered by the maid service and was pronounced dead on the scene.

A Palo Alto Police Department spokesman told People on July 22: 'I can confirm that our officers responded with the Fire Department to a hotel in our city yesterday on a report of a person in need of medical aid.

'The person was determined to be deceased. While still under investigation, the death is not considered suspicious at this time.'

John Heard is best known for playing the father in the Home Alone movies

Heard played Peter McCallister - Macaulay Culkin's character's father (pictured together) - in the Home Alone movies

Heard played Peter McCallister - Macaulay Culkin's character's father - in the Home Alone movies.

He also starred in Big with Tom Hanks, Gladiator, The Sopranos and Battlestar Galactica.

Heard had been married three times and is survived by three children.

In 1991 he was arrested and charged with third-degree assault for allegedly slapping his former partner Melissa Leo, according to Fox News. Then in 1997, he was found guilty of trespassing at her Baltimore home.
TOWIE star Amber Dowding has been vomiting 'uncontrollably' for the past four weeks after being struck with a horrific mystery illness.

The 24-year-old revealed she has been in and out of hospital for a month after she fell ill while holidaying in Bali - but doctors can't work out what's wrong with her.

The hairdresser, who has been suffering from waves of nausea, fears the illness could be Irritable Bowel Syndrome and that she may need to get a colostomy bag fitted like her father.

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Recovering: TOWIE star Amber Dowding has been vomiting 'uncontrollably' for the past four weeks after being struck with a horrific mystery illness

'I don't feel sick all the time, it comes on in waves. I start gagging and heaving and then I'm sick,' she told The Sun.

Amber left boyfriend Chris Clark concerned after she was struck ill in Marbella, while filming new scenes for the reality show.

'When I flew out to Marbella for 'TOWIE' I got sick again which was horrible. I didn't eat much and I didn't drink any alcohol because it would make me vomit.'

She revealed that she has had tests done at the hospital and given blood and urine samples which didn't signify that anything was wrong.

Dramatic: The 24-year-old reality star reportedly left boyfriend Chris Clark concerned after she was struck ill in Marbella, while filming new scenes for the reality show - during which she admitted alcohol was making her vomit

Concerned: Amber's illness was first reported when the cast touched down in the Costa Del Sol for filming, with fans initially believing she had picked up a bug during her romantic trip to Antigua with her adoring beau

Amber admitted that she isolated herself from the rest of her co-stars and crew as she felt so 'horrible'.

'I felt anxious because being away from home when you're ill is horrible. I stayed in the hotel a lot but it wasn't my own home,' she said.

Amber first fell unwell in Bali and when she touched back down in the UK, she went straight to the hospital in the hope of bagging some answers from the doctors.

But after the tests came back negative, Amber agreed to fly out to Marbella with the 'TOWIE' cast and her boyfriend Chris Clark to shoot the summer special.

Amber is now waiting to see a specialist as there's history of IBS in her family and her father - who had a perforated bowel - had a colostomy bag fitted.

'Production rushed her to hospital after seeing the state she was in during filming in Marbella and she was hospitalised for a few days, which was really worrying for Chris.'

'Thankfully she's on the mend now but is having to take tablets everyday to keep the sickness at bay.'

Amber and Chris have faced their fair share of strife - having split and reunited in the space of a year with many dramatic twists and turns.

Long-term couple Amber and Chris took a break for six months, during which time he hooked up briefly with Little Mix star Jesy Nelson, before they suffered an acrimonious break-up - leading to Chris and Amber's reunion.

As the last season of TOWIE came to a close, the couple were seen to start flirting again but they are now ready to return as a fully fledged couple - a point they were keen to display during Wednesday night's filming.

Back on: Amber and Chris have faced their fair share of strife - having split and reunited in the space of a year with many dramatic twists and turns

Going strong: Long-term couple Amber and Chris took a break for six months before reuniting

Cosy couple: Amber cosied up to her beau as they enjoyed a mini photoashoot in the sun

Bikini babe: The blonde bombshell showed off her sensational figure in a floral bikini

Life's a peach! Amber showed off her pert derriere in a pair of scanty tie side briefs

Pucker up: The duo shared a kiss as they cuddled up together in the Spanish sunshine

All over each other: The duo shared a cuddle as they packed on the PDA outside their hotel

Chris was also in the market for showing off his tan, so opted for a white T-shirt with a logo emblazoned across the front paired with charcoal-coloured shorts.

In June, Amber insisted she wasn't fussed when he moved on so quickly during their time apart. Speaking to New! Magazine, she said: 'Seeing an ex with someone new is always hard.

'You think to yourself 'Oh God, they've moved on!' It was all over social media too. But I just didn't look at it. It wasn't something I lost sleep over.'

Blonde bombshell: Amber was a vision of beauty as she flicked her hair over one shoulder and posed up a storm for the cameras

Pucker up: Chris wrapped Amber under her arm as they shared a smooch in the sunshine

Two of a kind: The duo looked in good spirits as they cosied up to one another in Marbella

Snap happy: Chris pulled out a camera as he snapped his own pictures from the sunny break

She went on to say that, because of her and Jesy's differences, she finds it pointless to compare them. 'We are completely different! Our styles and our looks are so different. How can you compare?' she said.

Amber retains that the split did her and Chris some good.

'We've been with other people and we've grown up a bit. I think our break was the best thing that ever happened. It's done us wonders and we're happier than ever.'

Amber also admitted that she and Chris have already talked about marriage and children and, when asked what she'd like to say to Jesy if she could, shied away the question.

Happy days: Amber and Chris have faced their fair share of strife - having split and reunited in the space of a year with many dramatic twists and turns- but looked stronger than ever as they partied in Marbella for new TOWIE scenes this week

Way back when: Long-term couple Amber and Chris took a break for six months, during which time he hooked up briefly with Little Mix star Jesy Nelson, before they suffered an acrimonious break-up - leading to Chris and Amber's reunion

It helped... Amber retains that the split did her and Chris some good

After admitting to OK! magazine that he 'always felt second best' to his former flame, Little Mix pop-star Jessy, Chris has been putting on a happily coupled up display with Amber since.

It's thought that he has spent considerable time with each other's families since their reconciliation, too.

Chris and Jesy first confirmed their romance with a loved-up snap at the BRIT Awards in February, but had broken up by April - with Chris reportedly initiating the split over the phone.

Kiss, kiss: She went on to say that, because of her and Jesy's differences, she finds it pointless to compare them. 'We are completely different! Our styles and our looks are so different. How can you compare?' she said
They're the genetically-blessed couple, who often impress both on and off the screen.

And Chris Hemsworth, 34, has revealed the secret to his 41-year-old wife Elsa Pataky's youthful complexion in an interview with Elle magazine this week.

The Hollywood hunk was asked whether he notices signs of aging onscreen and he replied: 'as she begins to look younger... I look older.'

Hollywood hunk! Chris Hemsworth, 34, has revealed the secret to his 41-year-old wife Elsa Pataky's youthful complexion while posing for an ELLE magazine photo shoot

'No. I see more the signs of, 'We stayed out a bit late that night. Or had a bit too much to drink,' he said.

'[Elsa] has La Mer moisturizer. She's always like, 'You gotta put this on.' As she begins to look younger and I look older, I'm starting to think she's got a point.'

The $665 Creme de la Mer moisturizer is said to be a go-to favourite among Hollywood stars including Kim Kardashian and Jennifer Lopez.

'As she begins to look younger, I look older': Chris explained, '[Elsa] has La Mer moisturizer. She's always like, 'You gotta put this on.' As she begins to look younger and I look older, I'm starting to think she's got a point'

Natural beauty: Elsa previously told WHO magazine that hubby chris prefers her natural, without any makeup. Pictured in Madrid, Spain on April 25, 2017

Stunning! Elsa is often hailed for her ageless appearance and natural glow. Pictured at Vertice Studios in madrid on April 26, 2017

The Thor star showed off his handsome looks while posing for a photo shoot in the latest issue of ELLE.

Sporting a blue jacket atop a black shirt, the Melbourne-native looked dapper with styled locks and a stubble beard.

Last year, Fast & Furious star Elsa, who shares three children with the Aussie hunk, revealed that her burly husband prefers her natural.

Elsa's go-to skincare: The $665 Creme de la Mer is said to be popular in Hollywood

'Like most men, (Chris) likes me with no makeup and in the moments you think you're not that glamorous,' she previously told WHO magazine.

'It's nice for someone to tell you because sometimes you forget.'

Earlier this year, Chris explained why he and Elsa left Hollywood to raise their family in Australia.

Hollywood secret: The moisturizer is said to be a go-to favourite among various stars including Jennifer Lopez (L) and Kim Kardashian (R)

'We can walk straight down to the beach, we can have a normal existence and the kids have a hell of a lot more fun than they did back in the States,' he told Woman's Day.

Elsa was born in Madrid, and after spending the first few years of married life with Chris in Los Angeles, the pair permanently relocated to Australia in 2015 with their children India Rose, five, and three-year-old twin sons, Tristan and Sasha.

They now spend their time in Byron Bay, with the couple expressing their desires to raise their children in the beachside town.

Genetically-blessed: The smitten couple often share envy-inducing snaps of their fit physiques and luxury holidays on social media

Family first: Elsa was born in Madrid, and after spending the first few years of married life with Chris in Los Angeles, the pair permanently relocated to Australia in 2015 with their children India Rose, five, and three-year-old twin sons, Tristan and Sasha

In a blog post for Spain's Glamour magazine, Elsa said their new home on the east coast of Australia is 'special' and that her style has been influenced by her new surroundings.

'As there is a tropical climate and a hippie lifestyle, you often see people walking barefoot on the street. 'I was quite surprised at first, but now even I walk barefoot sometimes!'

Elsa wed Australian actor Chris in a private ceremony in 2010.
Paris Hilton says she could have been like the late Princess Diana - if it wasn't for her sex tape.

Hilton says the infamous tape - filmed with ex-boyfriend Rick Saloman in 2001 and released in 2004 - robbed her of the type of life and image the royal favorite had.

Speaking to Marie Claire for its September issue, the 36-year-old explained: 'It's really hurtful, because my whole life I really looked up to Princess Diana, all these elegant, amazing women, and I feel like [Salomon] just took that all away from me,

Regrets: Paris Hilton says she feels like she could have been like Princess Diana had it not been for her sex tape

'I could have been like that, but because of that tape, I will always be judged and thought of as whatever they say about me because of a private moment between my boyfriend and me.'

She continued: 'I wish I had never met him. That is actually the one regret in my life. I wish that I had never met that guy. I could not leave my house for months. I was so depressed, humiliated. I didn't want to be seen in public.'

Saloman released the tape online shortly before Hilton's TV series The Simple Life debuted in 2004.

'My whole life I really looked up to Princess Diana': Hilton revealed her sadness that the opportunity to be like late Princess Diana was taken away from her

'All these elegant, amazing women, and I feel like [Salomon] just took that all away from me,' Hilton, 36, said of her ex-boyfriend Rick who released the sex tape online

At the time Hilton said she was 'out of it', didn't know what she was doing did not approve of the tape's public release. Saloman sued Hilton for defamation and she counter-sued over the release of the tape.

They settled out of court in 2005 but details weren't made public.

Hilton reveals that the incident affected her so much it changed the way she views men in general.

When she was younger Hilton said she would always 'need a boyfriend' and 'just felt like I needed to be with someone.'

But it eventually wore down on her, as she explained: 'I feel like I cannot trust anyone. As soon as I start dating a guy, all of a sudden they become this guy that all the girls want.'

'I wish I had never met him. That is actually the one regret in my life': Hilton says of Saloman, who was 33-years-old when the tape was filmed, while Paris was only 18

The interview took place shortly before Hilton made it Instagram official with Leftovers star Chris Zylka.

The couple are still going strong and were pictured looking loved up in Spain last week.

Meanwhile Hilton also reveals her admiration for Donald Trump, despite not voting in the 2016 election.

The socialite said of Trump: 'Ive known him since I was a little girl. And he's always been so nice, so respectful and sweet,

Hilton also said she wasn't fazed by Trump's 'grab them by the pu**y' line that surfaced during his election campaign.

Paris, pictured in Spain last week, is now loved up with Leftovers actor Chris Zylka

The 71-year-old uttered the unpleasant words during a conversation with Billy Bush which was picked up on a hot mic.

Hilton explained: 'I've heard guys say the craziest things ever, because I'm always around guys, and I listen to them speak.'

As for the women who accused The Apprentice of sexual assault, Hilton thinks they just want to make a name for themselves.

'Ive known him since I was a little girl. And he's always been so nice, so respectful and sweet,' Hilton said of Donald Trump

'I think that they are just trying to get attention and get fame'.

Reflecting on the public's image of her, Hilton said she doesn't care as much as she used to.

'People love to talk s**t, I'm used to it, over the years. I love how, anyone I meet, I always change their mind right away. I'm not what people think. It's fun to kind of laugh with it and say I'm in on the joke.'
Indian medical staff attend to a child admitted in the Encephalitis ward at The Baba Raghav Das Hospital in Gorakhpur, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, on August 12, 2017

Mohammad Zahid battled exhaustion to keep a manual pump pushing air into his five-year-old daughter but slowly the life went out of Khushi, one of dozens of children who died at a Gorakhpur hospital that ran out of oxygen.

While a major controversy has erupted in India over more than 60 deaths at the Baba Raghav Das Hospital, Zahid told AFP in an interview of grief and anger that he did not believe the truth would ever come out.

"Not everything that happened there is being reported," the 34-year-old said, shaking his head in disbelief at official denials in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh that lack of oxygen caused any of the deaths.

A demonstration was held outside the Uttar Pradesh offices in New Delhi on Monday in a sign that others support Zahid, while India's National Human Rights Commission demanded a report on the cases from the state government.

Khushi, whose name means 'happiness' in Hindi, was taken to Baba Raghav with a high fever that quickly worsened. Hospital doctors said it was encephalitis, which is endemic in the region.

She was one of about 30 children who died after oxygen supplies ran out. Allegations have been made that the state-run hospital had not paid its bills.

"We didn't use the pumps for just two hours, as some reports suggest. We used them all through Friday," said Zahid, stood next to his son outside the family home in a rural zone of Gorakhpur. He held up a picture of Khushi.

Zahid said that he and a 17-year-old nephew took turns to use a manual pump in a desperate bid to keep the girl breathing.

"They told us to keep pressing to make sure my daughter keeps breathing."

- Search for the truth -

"It was exhausting. Our hands were in agony, but we could not stop. We had not eaten before going to the hospital and we were tired with all the stress and standing there.

"I did not move from my daughter's bedside from the time she was admitted until the doctors gave me the bad news."

Khushi was pronounced dead late Friday and buried the next day in line with Muslim rituals.

Indian medical staff attend to a child admitted in the Encephalitis ward at The Baba Raghav Das Hospital in Gorakhpur, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, on August 12, 2017

"An older man next to a one-year-old girl in the ward asked me to check if she was still breathing. She died only a few hours before my daughter," Zahid said.

At least 64 children, some newborns, died over a six-day period last week at the hospital.

More than 30 of the deaths occured after oxygen supplies ended on Thursday and Friday.

While the hospital superintendent has been suspended, authorities have insisted lack of oxygen was not a cause of death.

"How can they say that a supply disruption did not have a role in the deaths," said Zahid.

"My daughter could still move her body till the oxygen supply stopped. Her condition deteriorated as we used those manual air pumps," he added.

State chief minister Yogi Adityanath, a firebrand Hindu priest from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party, has vowed to punish anyone found to have been negligent. "He will not be spared at any cost," Adityanath said after the visiting the hospital on Sunday.

The chief minister blamed the deaths on encephalitis -- a mosquito-borne virus that every year ravages poorer eastern Uttar Pradesh, India's largest state with more than 200 million people.

But students hurled eggs and tomatoes at the home of the Uttar Pradesh health minister on Sunday. The opposition Congress party has said the children were victims of "murder".

Zahid, who does odd-jobs at a local market, was typical of the mainly poor families who use the state-run hospital.

"Of course I would like to know what happened to my child. But will they tell us? They never do, and does it even matter as my daughter is dead" said Zahid.
Egyptian security forces stand guard as Palestinian pilgrims arrive at the Rafah border crossing on August 14, 2017 to travel to Mecca for the hajj

Egypt reopened its border with the Gaza Strip Monday for the first time in months to allow Muslims from the blockaded Palestinian enclave to travel to Mecca for the hajj pilgrimage, authorities said.

"The crossing was reopened this morning for four days in one direction for 2,500 pilgrims," Hisham Adwan, director of information at the crossings authority of the Hamas-run interior ministry, said.

"About 800 pilgrims will leave the strip today," he added, saying they had all already received Saudi visas.

The Rafah crossing with Egypt has been largely closed in recent years apart from occasional openings.

Israel has also maintained a crippling blockade on Gaza for a decade that it says is necessary to stop Islamist movement Hamas, which rules the strip, from obtaining weapons or materials that could be used to make them.

Egypt is the only other country with which the strip has a land border. Egyptian authorities accuse Hamas of supporting Islamist factions in the country.

But Hamas has moved closer to the Egyptian government in recent months and officials privately hope the Rafah crossing will be at least partially reopened from next month.

One pilgrim who was waiting to cross the border told AFP he had been trying to travel to Mecca since 2014.
Demonstrators march past the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC in response to deadly violence sparked by a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia

A suspected white supremacist's attack on a crowd of protesters using his car as a battering ram fits the definition of domestic terrorism, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Monday.

A woman was killed and 19 people were injured when the car plowed into a crowd of people Saturday in Charlottesville, Virginia after a violent rally by neo-Nazis and white supremacists protesting the removal of a Confederate statue.

The vehicle attack "does meet the definition of domestic terrorism in our statute," Sessions said in an interview on ABC's Good Morning America program.

"We are pursuing it in the Department of Justice in every way that we can make a case."

"You can be sure we will charge and advance the investigation towards the most serious charges that can be brought because this is unequivocally an unacceptable, evil attack," he told ABC.

The FBI and federal prosecutors have opened a civil rights investigation into the circumstances surrounding the incident, which took place soon after police dispersed a white nationalist rally that erupted into violent clashes with counter-protesters.

The alleged driver, a 20-year-old Ohio man who was said to have had a history of neo-Nazi beliefs, was arrested and faces charges of second-degree murder in the incident.

Of the 19 people injured, 10 remained hospitalized in good condition and nine had been released, the University of Virginia Health System said.
Israeli diamond magnate Beny Steinmetz arrives at a court in Rishon Lezion near Tel Aviv on August 14, 2017

Israeli police on Monday detained diamond magnate Beny Steinmetz and four others as part of an international money laundering investigation, authorities said.

Tal Silberstein, an adviser to Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern, was also among those detained, as was the acting chairman of Israeli telecommunications firm Bezeq.

It was the second time Steinmetz had been detained by Israeli authorities since December, when he was placed under house arrest as part of a corruption probe involving mining deals in the African nation of Guinea.

Besides the Guinea investigation, the Israeli billionaire was charged in Romania last year with forming an organised criminal group and money laundering in a property-related case that cost the state $145 million.

Israeli police said five suspects had been detained on Monday morning for questioning on suspicions including money laundering, fraud, forgery, obstruction of justice and bribery.

Homes and offices were also searched.

The suspects were not named in the statement, nor were details provided on where the alleged offences may have occurred.

However, police later said those detained included Steinmetz and Silberstein.

Both men appeared in a magistrates court later Monday in Rishon Lezion near Tel Aviv and had their remands extended until Thursday.

Kern's Social Democrats issued a statement saying they will no longer work with Silberstein "after the legal accusations that have emerged out of Israel today".

Silberstein has also worked as an adviser to former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert.

Bezeq said its interim chairman David Granot was also detained for questioning, but added that the investigation did not involve the company.

Israeli police said they were "investigating a number of suspects since the morning on suspicion that they worked systematically with the main suspect in order to produce and present fictitious contracts and transactions, including in the field of real estate in a foreign country, for the purpose of money transfers and money laundering".

The investigation was being conducted with "international cooperation", they said.

Steinmetz controls mining firm BSG Resources and has a net worth estimated by Forbes of $1.02 billion, making him the 17th-richest person in Israel.

In December, he was ordered to remain under house arrest until January 2.

At the time, BSG Resources issued a statement calling the allegations against Steinmetz "baseless".

burs-mjs/dr
A Texas university canceled Monday a planned white supremacist rally on its campus next month, citing safety concerns following the deadly violence at a rally in Virginia at the weekend.

Texas A&M University, one of the most prestigious public colleges in the United States, scrapped a September 11 'White Lives Matter' rally at which known white supremacist leader Richard Spencer was scheduled to speak.

Spencer was one of the leading figures in a rally that saw hundreds of white supremacists gather Saturday in the town of Charlottesville, triggering violence that left one person dead and 19 others injured.

Texas A&M has cancelled a planned white supremacist rally at the university scheduled for next month, where white supremacist leader Richard Spencer (pictured above) was scheduled to speak

Above, a picture of the Texas A&M campus in College Station, Texas

The university's decision to cancel the event came after it emerged that organizers were billing the event as 'Today Charlottesville, Tomorrow Texas A&M.'

'Linking the tragedy of Charlottesville with the Texas A&M event creates a major security risk on our campus,' the university said in a statement.

Spencer has asked sympathizers to invite him to speak on campuses, and he has been invited to speak at the University of Florida on September 12, although authorities have yet to give their approval.

In an open letter to students, University of Florida president Kent Fuchs indicated how the college was torn over whether to give the event the green light.

'For many in our community, including myself, this speaker's presence would be deeply disturbing,' Fuchs wrote, before adding that 'we must follow the law, upholding the First Amendment not to discriminate based on content and provide access to a public space.'
Strategist Steve Bannon, the former head of ultra conservative outlet Breitbart News, is described as being the nucleus of one of several competing power centers in what has been a chaotic White House

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch recently urged President Donald Trump to sack his far-right chief strategist Steve Bannon, The New York Times reported late Monday.

Murdoch made his plea during a White House dinner before Trump left for vacation in New Jersey on August 4, the Times said.

The timing means it preceded the violence that broke out over the weekend at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, leaving one dead and 19 wounded.

Bannon's critics label him a white supremacist.

The dinner was also attended by Jared Kushner, one of Trump's closest advisers and the husband of his daughter Ivanka, and Trump's new chief of staff John Kelly, the paper said, quoting a person familiar with the conversation.

Trump did not strongly counter Murdoch's advice and expressed frustration with Bannon, the paper said.

CBS News also said Bannon's job is in jeopardy after Trump failed to speak out immediately against white supremacists after the violence in Virginia. Bannon could be gone by the end of the week, CBS said, quoting a source it did not identify.

Bannon, the former head of ultra conservative outlet Breitbart News, is described as being the nucleus of one of several competing power centers in what has been a chaotic White House.

The Times said Kelly has warned he will not tolerate what he sees as Bannon's behind the scenes maneuvering in the West Wing.

The paper quoted a dozen current and former Trump aides and associates who have knowledge of the situation.

Murdoch, a founder of Fox News, which Trump is said to watch assiduously and often praises as he criticizes other mainstream media as sources of fake news, is close to Kushner, the Times said.

And Kushner does not get along well with Bannon, it added.

The Times said Bannon is in disfavor for allegedly leaking stories about White House colleagues who he feels do not sufficiently adhere to Bannon's populist agenda, fighting nastily with Kushner and creating a unit that operates outside the chain of command in the White House.
Migrants sleep on the beach in Ventimiglia, near the French border, trying to cross. Since the start of 2017, over 117,000 have crossed the Mediterranean to Europe from north Africa -- more than 96,000 of them arriving in Italy

Italy has seen a sharp fall in the number of migrants arriving on its shores, a decline that has left experts scrambling for an explanation.

Summer is traditionally the peak season for migrants attempting the hazardous crossing of the Mediterranean from North Africa to Europe.

But, to much surprise, only 13,500 have arrived in Italy since July 1, compared to 30,500 over the same period in 2016 -- a year-on-year fall of more than 55 percent.

Many migrants are from poor sub-Saharan Africa, fleeing violence in their home country or desperate for a better life in prosperous Europe.

"It's still too early to talk of a real trend," cautions Barbara Molinario, a spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

One mooted reason for the fall is tougher action by the Libyan coastguard. The force which has been strengthened by help from the European Union (EU), which trained about 100 personnel over the winter, while Italy has provided patrol vessels, recently supported by Italian warships in Libyan waters.

Migration across the Mediterranean

But according to figures from UN's International Office of Migration (IOM), the Libyan coastguard have intercepted fewer than 2,000 migrants since early July, compared to more than 4,000 in May.

Another reason put forward to explain the decline is tougher action by NGOs who have been accused by critics of colluding with smugglers to pick up migrants at sea to prevent them from drowning.

But these organisations have been involved in only a fraction of migrant rescues -- and three NGO vessels are still operating in the hope of picking up those in need.

- Blocked routes -

For Mussie Zerai, an Eritrean priest who campaigns for migrants in distress, the likelier cause for the decline lies inland.

Agreements between the EU and transiting countries mean "the routes are blocked, the crossing points are more monitored," Zerai told AFP.

In Sudan, the authorities have said they have beefed up border patrols, but deny reports from humanitarian organisations that they have been using violent militia which have been fighting rebels in Darfur.

"In Libya, the tribes in the south have also sign agreements. The migrants are thrown into nightmarish detention centres in the desert or are turned back," Zerai said.

In West Africa, awareness campaigns have been launched to try to dissuade young people from making the hazardous trip to Libya, where violence and exploitation await, before they even try the perilous sea crossing.

"We are working very hard back home to discourage our youngsters from trying to cross to Europe by sea," a Ghanaian community chief who has been in Libya for 26 years said.

"We dont want them to perish for a dream that may not come true. We talk to them, explain how things really are and let the elders in the villages and the bishops and priests in churches make them promise to be careful if they decide to go to Libya."

He added: "There are still a lot of Ghanaians in Libya. They are here for work and to send money back home for their families. Many of them decided to return, especially the young ones, with the help of the embassy and the Libyan authorities."

Fears of the risks in Libya may explain why the number of migrants arriving in Spain, via Morocco, has tripled since the start of the year to 8,200, according to IOM figures.

Molinario said that an EU ban on selling inflatable boats to Libya may also have made life a bit more uncomfortable for smugglers.

Even so, demand is likely to remain high, given that there are still hundreds of thousands of migrants in Libya, who find themselves in a war-torn country and at risk of violence and abduction.

OIM spokesman Flavio di Giacomo suggested that one reason could be conflict between rival smuggling rings, or perhaps a shift in strategy by smugglers to take into account tougher conditions.

But, he acknowledges, "we don't really know what's happening".

The decline in numbers has eased the political pressure resulting from the inflow -- but only temporarily.

- Migrant conditions -

Since 2014, 600,000 migrants have landed in Italy, but more than 14,000 have died.

Italian newspapers which, just a few weeks ago, were accusing NGOs of abetting an influx that seemed uncontrollable have now switched to reports on the terrifying conditions faced by migrants in Libya.

"Sending them back to Libya right now means sending than back to Hell," the deputy foreign minister, Mario Giro, said earlier this month.

Italy is pushing for centres for refugees to be set up in Libya that could provide safety.

"We are working on it, but it's difficult," said Molinario. "We need funds, agreements with the authorities and access to the country," she said. The UNHCR itself had had to withdraw its foreign staff from Libya in 2014.
Indian Railway Protection Force personnel march during Independence Day celebrations in Secunderabad

India is strong enough to defend its borders against any threat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in an Independence Day speech as the nation faces a frontier showdown with China and aggravated tensions with Pakistan.

"Security is our top priority," Modi told thousands packed into the landmark Red Fort in New Delhi on Tuesday as India marked the 70th anniversary of the end of British colonial rule.

"Be it the sea or the borders, cyber or space -- in all spheres, India is capable and we are strong enough to overcome those who try to act against our country," the Hindu nationalist leader declared.

Modi, who wore a Rajasthani turban with a long flowing orange train, toned down his comments from three previous Independence Day speeches and did not mention the targets of his warning.

But his remarks came as a dispute between India and China over a strategic Himalayan plateau enters a third month on Wednesday. Hundreds of soldiers are reported to be facing off against each other at Doklam.

The partition of the Indian subcontinent

The giant neighbours share a long history of mistrust and went to war in 1962 over the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh.

China's state-controlled media has repeatedly warned that a conflict could break out over Doklam.

India has urged a diplomatic solution to the standoff. The dispute started on June 16 when Chinese troops started to build a road on territory that it disputes with Bhutan. India troops moved in to stop the construction as India is a close ally of Bhutan.

India is also mired in conflict in the Himalayan region of Kashmir, where it has disputed sovereignty with Pakistan since their bitter split in 1947.

India accuses Pakistan of sending "terrorists" across the border to fight security forces in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Modi, who said he spoke with US President Donald Trump on the eve of the speech, said: "The concern for national security is a natural one in an independent India.

- 'Surgical' power -

"Our security forces have always shown their capabilities whenever on duty. Whether it is terrorism or infiltrators, our security personnel have always been ready for sacrifice."

India carried out what it called "surgical strikes" in Pakistan in September last year after insurgents attacked an army base on the Indian side of the Kashmir border, killing 18 soldiers.

The dispute between India and China over a strategic Himalayan plateau has entered a third month

"When the surgical strike was carried out, the world came to know about the power that India possesses," Modi said in his speech.

He added that "bullets and abuses" cannot bring peace in Kashmir -- where there are an estimated 500,000 Indian troops -- but also accused Kashmiri separatists of "scheming".

The prime minister did not mention the 1947 partition that saw the creation of Muslim-dominated Pakistan and Hindu-majority India. At least one million people died in the chaotic aftermath of the split and 15 million were uprooted in the brutal mass migration.

Modi focused his comments on efforts to clamp down on corruption and his economic reforms. A year ago, a government move to cancel more than 85 percent of India's banknotes caused widespread chaos.

He said the move had brought $46 billion of currency into the legitimate banking system.

This year marks the 70th anniversary of India's independence

More than 300,000 "shell companies" funded by undeclared finance had been uncovered through irregular transactions. The licenses of more than 100,000 of the firms have been cancelled, he added.

According to Modi, 1.8 million people have been found whose income outstrips their declared wealth. About 450,000 have admitted their "mistakes," the prime minister added.

"India is celebrating honesty today. The corrupt have no place to hide anymore," Modi said.
People visit controversial Yasukuni shrine on the 72nd anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II, in Tokyo

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday sent a cash donation to a controversial war shrine as the country marked the anniversary of its defeat in World War II.

Yasukuni Shrine honours about 2.5 million dead, mostly Japanese, who perished in the country's wars since the late 19th century.

But it is contentious for also commemorating senior military and political figures convicted of war crimes by an international tribunal.

The indigenous Shinto religious shrine has for decades been a flashpoint for criticism by countries that suffered from Japan's colonialism and aggression in the first half of the 20th century.

Abe, a staunch nationalist who wants to see Japan's pacifist constitution amended, visited the shrine in December 2013, but has stayed away since.

His only visit as prime minister sparked fury in China and South Korea, and even earned a diplomatic rebuke from close ally the United States.

A member of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) said Abe had sent the monetary offering this year in his capacity as president of the party, not as prime minister. He made a similar donation last year.

People make a wish as they hold doves before releasing them into the air during a ceremony at controversial Yasukuni shrine

His decision not to attend the shrine again this year comes as Tokyo has sought cooperation with Beijing and Seoul over North Korea's nuclear and missile programmes.

Pyongyang last week threatened to test-fire missiles toward the US Pacific island territory of Guam, after US President Donald Trump warned North Korea of "fire and fury".

Kim Jong-Un, the North Korean leader, said early Tuesday he would hold off on the planned missile launch.

Masahiko Shibayama, a party aide to Abe who made the donation on his behalf, said at the shrine that it came from Abe's personal funds.

Men dressed in period Japanese Imperial Army uniforms visit controversial Yasukuni shrine

"Upon direction from LDP President Abe, I offered my condolences to the ancestors who sacrificed their lives in the war and reaffirmed my commitment to eternal peace," Shibayama told reporters.

- Painful reminders -

"President Abe said he's sorry for not visiting the shrine," Shibayama said.

Lawmakers, mostly conservative, say pilgrimages to Yasukuni are a chance to console the spirits of the dead and pray for peace. But North and South Korea and China consider them painful reminders of Japanese colonialism and invasion.

Though some lawmakers visited the shrine Tuesday, Jiji Press reported that no members of Abe's cabinet went there, the first time that has happened on the anniversary day since he took power in late 2012.

Among members of parliament who prayed at Yasukuni were LDP member and former defence minister Tomomi Inada, noted for her nationalist views. The close Abe ally and onetime protege resigned as defence minister late last month over a scandal at the ministry.

In Beijing, China repeated its longstanding opposition to Yasukuni.

"Yasukuni Shrine enshrines and worships Class A war criminals from World War II who have direct responsibility with the war of invasion," Hua Chunying, a foreign ministry spokeswoman, told reporters at a regular briefing.

"We firmly oppose the erroneous actions of the Japanese side," she said.

Japan's Emperor Akihito (R) and Empress Michiko (L) bow to people as they leave the official annual memorial service for war victims in Tokyo

Tuesday marks the 72nd anniversary of Japan's surrender on August 15, 1945.

An official annual ceremony commemorating the end of the war was also held Tuesday inside a Tokyo arena and was attended by Abe as well as Emperor Akihito.

"Our country has consistently hated war and cherished peace after the war," Abe said at the sombre ceremony.

"We will maintain this firm policy at all times by humbly facing history," he said.

The 83-year-old emperor, whose plan to abdicate within three years was approved by parliament earlier this year, expressed "deep remorse", saying he hopes the tragedy of war will not be repeated.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un hinted that he would hold off on plans to test-fire missiles towards Guam

China and Russia pushed Tuesday for talks to defuse the "confrontational spiral" between the US and North Korea after Kim Jong-Un stepped back from a planned missile strike near Guam.

The North Korean leader said he would wait and see how the United States behaved before deciding whether to execute the planned launch of four missiles over Japan towards the tiny US territory in the Pacific.

Some analysts suggested Kim was opening a possible path to de-escalating tensions, which spiked dramatically with recent bellicose exchanges between US President Donald Trump and Pyongyang.

The North's official KCNA news agency said Kim was briefed on the "plan for an enveloping fire at Guam" during an inspection on Monday of the Strategic Force command in charge of the nuclear-armed state's missile units.

Some analysts suggested Kim was opening a possible path to de-escalating tensions, which spiked dramatically with recent bellicose exchanges between US President Donald Trump and Pyongyang

But it said Kim would "watch a little more the foolish and stupid conduct of the Yankees" before executing any order.

"In order to defuse the tensions and prevent the dangerous military conflict on the Korean peninsula, it is necessary for the US to make a proper option first," he added.

His remarks prompted joy in Guam, where officials described themselves as "almost ecstatic that Kim Jong-Un has backed off".

China said Tuesday that the North Korean nuclear crisis had reached a "turning point" and it was time to enter peace talks.

Beijing, which is Pyongyang's main diplomatic ally, has repeatedly called on the United States and North Korea to tone down their rhetoric in recent days.

"We now hope that all the concerned parties, in what they say and what they do, can contribute to extinguishing the fire, rather than adding fuel to the fire," foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi spoke to his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday in a telephone conversation focused on "ways to get out of the confrontational spiral on the Korean peninsula", according to the Russian foreign ministry.

A ministry statement said both countries had "stressed the lack of any alternative to a political and diplomatic resolution" and called for "all the sides involved -- with the support of the global community -- to move towards setting up dialogue".

- 'De-escalating' -

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Washington was "interested in finding ways to get to dialogue" but stressed the ball was in Kim's court.

The US has long maintained that the North must show some tangible commitment to denuclearisation before official talks can begin -- a pre-condition rejected by Pyongyang.

Kim's remarks about future US conduct were seen as a clear reference to large-scale military exercises held every year by South Korea and the United States that are expected to kick off later this month.

The North has always denounced the drills as provocative rehearsals for invasion and has in the past offered a moratorium on further nuclear and missile testing in exchange for their cancellation -- a trade-off promoted by Beijing, but repeatedly rejected by Washington and Seoul.

Some analysts said Kim was seeking a similar quid-pro-quo this time around, using the Guam missile threat as leverage.

"This is a direct invitation to talk reciprocal constraints on exercises and missile launches," said Adam Mount, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

John Delury of Yonsei University in Seoul said Kim was "de-escalating, putting Guam plan on ice" -- at least for now.

The United States and South Korea insist their annual joint exercises are purely defensive, and cannot be linked to the North's missile programme, which violates a host of UN resolutions.

- 'Fire and fury' -

Tensions have been mounting since the North tested two intercontinental ballistic missiles last month, which appeared to bring much of the US within range.

Focus on Guam

Responding to the tests, President Trump warned Pyongyang of "fire and fury like the world has never seen", while the North responded with the Guam threat.

South Korean President Moon Jae-In weighed in on Tuesday, saying Seoul would avoid a second Korean War at all costs and stressing that "no one may decide to take military action without the consent of the Republic of Korea".
Australia's Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce (R) has renounced his accidental New Zealand citizenship after its revelation sparked calls for him to step down

Australia's "accidental Kiwi" deputy prime minister renounced his New Zealand citizenship Tuesday amid sheep jokes, Hollywood taunts and conspiracy theories about a left-wing plot to topple Canberra's conservative government.

Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce revealed his New Zealand connection on Monday, sparking calls for him to stand down as it is illegal for dual citizens to sit in the Australian parliament.

By Tuesday afternoon, Joyce told parliament that authorities in Wellington had agreed he could renounce the New Zealand citizenship unknowingly acquired from his Dunedin-born father.

"We received verbal communication from New Zealand before question time that that has now been accepted and we're looking forward to the written advice turning up pronto," he said.

The development does not mean the end of the bizarre affair, which threatens Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's one-seat majority in parliament.

But Joyce will hope it bolsters the case to remain in his job, preserving the government's wafer-thin buffer, until the High Court determines if he is eligible to sit as an elected official.

- Kiwi fruit -

The 50-year-old is best known internationally for threatening to euthanise Johnny Depp's dogs Pistol and Boo when they were brought into the country illegally.

Depp's ex-wife Amber Heard, who kept the dogs after they split, was revelling in his discomfort, tweeting Tuesday "when Barnaby Joyce said 'no one is above the law', I didn't realise he meant New Zealand law'."

"To comfort Mr. Joyce in his hour (of) need, I have sent him a box of New Zealand's finest kiwi fruit (assuming this passes his biosecurity laws)," she added.

Johnny Depp and then-wife Amber Heard had to go to court in Australia after bringing their pet dogs into the country, in a case that saw Joyce threaten to have the creatures put down

Joyce, who Depp once said "looks somehow inbred with a tomato", has long cultivated an image as a straight-talking Aussie bushman, usually sporting a wide-brimmed Akubra hat and elastic-sided farm boots.

The deputy Australian leader was "shellshocked" to learn last week of automatically qualifying as a New Zealander even though he had never applied for citizenship.

New Zealand officials said queries from Australian journalists prompted last week's discovery about Joyce's status.

However, Turnbull said it was "outrageous and improper" that a New Zealand Labour MP, Chris Hipkins, also admitted asking questions about the issue last week after talks with someone from the Australian Labor Party.

Assistant Treasurer Michael Sukkar alleged a conspiracy between the Australian and New Zealand centre-left parties, likening it to Cold War espionage.

"Not since the old days of worrying about Soviet Russia, that is how long since we have had to worry about these sort of things," he told Sky News.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop went further, casting doubt on whether Canberra could work with New Zealand Labour if it won a general election scheduled for next month.

"I would find it very hard to build trust with those involved in allegations designed to undermine the government of Australia," she told reporters.

Her remarks were labelled "false claims" by NZ Labour leader Jacinda Ardern, who lodged a formal complaint with the Australian High Commission in Wellington.

- 'Baa-naby' -

The turmoil saw the Sydney Morning Herald label Turnbull's centre-right coalition government as "on the brink", while The Australian opined "PM under a long white cloud", referencing the Maori name for New Zealand.

Australians like to characterise their Trans-Tasman neighbours as simple rural folk, emphasising the large number of sheep that live in the country

Other newspapers chose to ramp up the trans-Tasman rivalry with New Zealanders, who Australians like to characterise as sheep-loving country bumpkins.

"Ewe have got to be joking... it could be haka-la-vista for Barnaby," headlined Brisbane's Courier Mail, with Melbourne's Herald Sun chipping in "All Black for Baa-naby".

The Adelaide Advertiser asked "Why so sheepish Barnaby?", while Sydney's Daily Telegraph dubbed Joyce "Barnaby choice, bro" -- a play on the politician's name and a popular Kiwi phrase.

A tweet from the Northern Territory News harked back to the long list of Kiwi icons claimed by Australia.

"Still shocked about this Barnaby Joyce controversy. We always considered him as Aussie as Russell Crowe, Phar Lap and Split Enz," it said.
Elvis tribute artist Matthew Boyce performs during the preliminary round of the "Images of the King" contest at the New Daisy Theatre in Memphis, Tennessee

Matthew Boyce feels like a superhero when he zips himself into a spangly Elvis Presley jumpsuit and sprints on stage to blast through a hip-thrusting, pulsating track by the King.

"I just think if you're going to play a character, it might as well be your inspiration," he says, perfecting his hair, make-up and sideburns in an hour-plus transformation from 21st century teen about to go to college to 35-year-old superstar at the prime of his life in the 1960s.

Matthew is one of thousands of Elvis Tribute Artists or ETAs who bring to life on stage the icon that was Presley's 1954-77 career, either as full-time professionals or enthusiastic amateurs.

At 18 he is younger than the Rock 'n' Roll legend was when he cut his first record, but Matthew says he was "bit by the bug early," under the influence of his grandmother and aunt who were huge Elvis fans.

He started performing at seven, did his first paid performance aged eight and has been singing with a band since he was 13 or 14.

Now to mark the 40th anniversary of Presley's death, he's taking part in an ETA contest in Memphis where prizes range from $50 to $5,000 across three divisions: youth, non-professional and professional.

On stage at the New Daisy Theatre on Beale Street in downtown Memphis, he wows an enthusiastic crowd of older women with his pelvic contortions and dashing performance in a tiger-embellished jumpsuit.

But it's an obsession that has not always endeared him to his peers. While close to younger brother Spencer, 12, who performs on stage with him, Matthew says he was "severely bullied" from sixth to ninth grade.

- Superhero -

Elvis tribute artist Matthew Boyce puts on sideburns in his hotel room as he prepares to perform as "the King"

"That was a low point," he says. "I'd come home and the Elvis records would always be there to help me feel better."

The ETA world is a tight-knit support group, or "family," as Matthew likes to put it. But so great is their admiration for Presley, they never use the word "impersonator," believing no one can ever fully recreate the unique magic that was his looks, voice and presence.

Some of the best tribute artists have become famous in their own right in the Presley fan world. Some even conduct weddings. The best tribute concerts are serious affairs, undertaken with reverence.

But it's also an expensive business. Matthew flew to Memphis from his home in upstate New York with his parents and brother. Gigs can earn him $300 to $5,000, but the jumpsuits alone can cost up to $5,000.

"You feel like a superhero when you're wearing them," he enthuses showing off a matching, embellished cape.

Many of his competitors are considerably older -- men in their 50s, even 70s paying tribute to a legend who died at just 42 in August 1977.

Matthew can zip around stage the way those battling middle-age spread or cranky joints cannot. Going to college in the fall to study music industry and education, he dreams of a full-time career.

"I've still got a good 15 years left," he reckons.

- Hugs and kisses -

Elvis tribute artist Matthew Boyce adjusts his costume backstage as he completes his transformation

"I mean you can't do Elvis forever. There's a time when you've got to stop, and there's a time when the moves are just going to hurt too much and I'm just not going to look the part anymore."

Unlike Matthew, Ron Tutor, an ETA who owns a hair salon in the Chicago area, started late. He's 52 and has been doing Presley part-time for four years, for the fun of it and to meet the fans.

"They know that we're not Elvis, but they treat us like that. It's just amazing -- the hugs and giving us kisses and asking for autographs," Tutor says with a smile as he prepares to go on stage.

He does two shows a year and the non-professional competition circuit. Tutor might make some "gas money" but that's about it.

For the competition he's braving stultifying Tennessee heat in signature neck-to-toe Presley tight black leather. In buff shape, he concedes that his face still needs "a little bit of make-up."

"It's an illusion on the stage and I always joke with my wife 'you know what, I look better from 20 feet away so don't zoom in on me'."

But fans love it.

"They're making sure that the legacy continues," says die-hard Presley admirer Angela Todd from Michigan, in Memphis for the anniversary. "They're honoring his legacy."
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi says his shock decision to devalue India's largest banknotes has paid dividends

Prime Minister Narendra Modi marked 70 years of Indian independence Tuesday with an impassioned defence of his war on corruption, declaring a controversial move to flush out tax cheats a huge success that netted billions.

In a major address from the ramparts of Delhi's Red Fort, Modi said his shock decision to devalue India's largest banknotes had paid dividends, bringing $46 billion in undeclared wealth back into state coffers.

The sudden removal all 500 (around $7.50) and 1,000 rupee notes from circulation compelled millions to join the formal banking sector for the first time, but triggered a painful cash shortage in the world's fastest-growing major economy.

Previously, around 90 percent of everyday transactions in India were in cash.

But Modi, who has stood by the controversial policy even as economists have blamed it for curtailing growth, said trillions of rupees had returned to India under his administration's crackdown on tax dodgers.

"India is celebrating honesty today. The corrupt have no place to hide anymore," he said.

More than 300,000 shell companies associated with so-called "black money" had been red-flagged and over 100,000 trading licences revoked under a sweeping clean-out of India's graft-riddled economy, Modi added.

He used independence day to urge his countrymen to embrace a "New India" where the "poor shall have concrete houses, where farmer income shall double, where youth and women will get ample opportunities".

"An India which is free of casteism, terrorism, corruption, nepotism. A clean India," he said.

He also hailed the introduction of a nationwide goods and services tax in July as a success that had doubled the number of new taxpayers this year to 5.6 million -- a tiny fraction of India's 1.3 billion.
The entrance to Andersen air force base in the town of Yigo on Guam island - Guam is home to two large US military installations and more than 6,000 military personnel

Guam officials were "ecstatic" Tuesday as North Korea appeared to back away from its threat to fire four missiles towards the US territory in the western Pacific.

"There doesn't appear to be any indication, based on what we're hearing, that there will be any missiles attacking in the near future or in the distant future," lieutenant governor Ray Tonorio said.

Guam Homeland Security adviser George Charfauros dismissed reports that satellite images showed North Korea moving a missile into place for a possible launch, saying it was likely "just a ruse".

"It is their Liberation Day... North Korea tends to use symbolism as part of their decision making," he said after CNN reported on the US spy satellite pictures.

"We are almost ecstatic that Kim Jong Un has backed off," he added.

Focus on Guam

Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that Kim had examined plans to fire missiles near Guam, but made no move towards an immediate strike.

Instead he hinted he would hold off, saying he would "watch a little more the foolish and stupid conduct of the Yankees spending a hard time of every minute of their miserable lot".

Tensions have been mounting since North Korea last month conducted two intercontinental ballistic missile tests, which appeared to bring much of the US within range.

President Donald Trump responded by warning Pyongyang of "fire and fury like the world has never seen".

The North replied by setting a mid-August deadline to finalise plans to test-fire its missiles towards Guam, a US territory in the Pacific.

- False alarm -

As Guam residents waited anxiously for the deadline, they were woken just after midnight Tuesday by a "civil danger warning" that was accidentally broadcast by a radio station.

Guam Lieutenant Governor Ray Tonorio (2nd L) and Homeland Security advisor George Charfauros (C) attend a press conference

A statement from the Guam Homeland Security and Civil Defense office said the "unauthorised test was not connected to any emergency, threat or warning" and it was working to ensure "human error will not occur again".

Tonorio said Kim appeared to have "calmed down" some of his rhetoric. "We're happy that he has taken a look at their plans and will be holding off on, at least it appears, the imminent threats to Guam," he said.

"At this point, our government is operating, our tourism is continuing to grow, there have been no major changes in our forecast."

Guam's citizens have been stoic through the crisis, with many saying they fear the looming typhoon season more than aggression from North Korea which has threatened the island several times in recent years.

"It doesnt change the way I feel. At the height of the threats, I was not worried. I have faith in the Lord," 58-year-old accountant Adoracion Manibusan said after Pyongyang took a step back from the brink.

"Besides, there is really nothing we can do if we get attacked. Theres no place to hide," she said.

Despite the cooler language from North Korea, Tonorio said there was no change to the threat level in Guam, which is home to two large US military installations and more than 6,000 military personnel.

"I think the rhetoric is one thing but if we have any belief, as a country or as an island, that there is going to be a threat, we are going to be prepared. We are going to be ready for it," he said.
Activists standing behind makeshift bars wearing masks of Thai human rights activist Jatupat "Pai" Boonpattararaksa, who was arrested in early December 2016

A prominent student leader on Tuesday pleaded guilty to defaming Thailand's royal family by sharing a news story about the kingdom's new monarch on Facebook, his lawyer said.

Jatupat "Pai Dao Din" Boonpatararaksa, 25, is the latest anti-junta activist to be hit with the country's draconian lese majeste law which bans any criticism of the monarchy.

The law, which carries up to 15 years in jail per charge, has been wielded with increased ferocity under Thailand's military rulers.

He has been held in custody since his arrest in December for sharing a profile of King Maha Vajiralongkorn written by the BBC's Thai-language service in London.

On Tuesday he changed his plea to guilty, his legal team said, a stance that usually trims the sentence of alleged offenders.

"After Jatupat consulted with his family, he pleaded guilty this morning before the court for committing the alleged wrongdoing as charged," Krisadang Nootjaras, one of his lawyers, told AFP.

The court in northeastern Khon Kaen province is expected to sentence him later on Tuesday, he added.

Those charged with lese majeste in Thailand are almost always convicted, often behind closed doors.

Many people arrested for the crime plead guilty hoping for a reduced sentence.

The severity of the charge makes real scrutiny of the wealthy and powerful royal family all but impossible inside the kingdom -- including by the media.

Use of the lese majeste law has generated widespread international criticism, including from the United Nations.

A UN report earlier this year noted that the conviction rate under the law had gone from 75 percent before the 2014 coup to 96 percent last year.

Many of those jailed have been handed record-breaking sentences as long as 30 years, often for comments made on social media.

Jatupat hails from Thailand's northeast, a poor and rural region where anti-military sentiment runs high.

He was awarded a prominent human rights award in South Korea earlier this year.

Vajiralongkorn ascended the throne after the death in October of his father, Bhumibol Adulyadej, who reigned for seven decades.

He has yet to attain his father's widespread popularity.
Australia's Royal Commission proposed making failure to report child sexual abuse a criminal offence even when the information was revealed during confession, prompting criticism from top Australian Catholics

Priests should not be forced to report child sexual abuse revealed in the confessional, top Australian Catholics said Tuesday, adding they would rather risk jail than break the sacramental seal.

The comments follow a national inquiry set up by the government into institutional child sexual abuse, which is in its final phase after more than four years of hearings.

The Royal Commission released 85 proposed reforms Monday, including a law making failure to report such abuse a criminal offence even when the information was revealed during confession.

"There (should) be no exemption, excuse, protection or privilege from the offence granted to clergy," it said.

One of Australia's leading Catholic clerics, Archbishop of MelbourneAust Denis Hart, said that confession was a fundamental part of religious freedom.

Asked if priests would go to jail rather than breach the seal of confession, Hart told ABC radio: "I've said that I would."

"I believe that this is an absolute sacrosanct communication of a higher order which priests by nature respect," he added.

"They (priests) don't ever want to do anything that would hurt children. But because of the nature of that encounter, they are bound by what the church sees as that encounter, and they've got to be faithful to that."

Hart was backed by other high-profile clerics, including his Brisbane counterpart Mark Coleridge and Jesuit priest and lawyer Father Frank Brennan.

"If there is a law that says that I have to disclose it, then yes, I will conscientiously refuse to comply with the law," Brennan told The Australian Tuesday.

"All I can say is that in 32 years no one has ever come near me and confessed anything like that.

"And instituting such a law, I say, simply reduces rather than increases the prospect that anyone ever will come and confess that to me."

The Royal Commission said it made the recommendation after hearing cases "where perpetrators who made a religious confession to sexually abusing children went on to reoffend and seek forgiveness".

Attorney-General George Brandis told public radio Australian law had always protected certain professional relationships including confessions.

While exceptions were possible, this was "by no means a simple, straight-forward issue", he said, adding that there were "important issues of religious freedom" to consider as well.

Australia ordered the Royal Commission in 2012 after a decade of growing pressure to investigate allegations of child abuse across the country.
Jordanian Islamists carry a portrait of Arab-Israeli cleric Raed Salah during a protest in Amman on July 21, 2017 against new Israeli security measures, since removed, at Jerusalem's Al-Aqa mosque compound

Israeli police arrested on Tuesday a firebrand Islamic cleric accused of inciting violence in connection with deadly tensions last month at a Jerusalem holy site.

Arab-Israeli Raed Salah was arrested at his home in the town of Umm al-Fahm, seven months after he was released from prison where he served nine months on similar charges.

On Tuesday police said in a statement Salah was accused of inciting violence and terrorism as well as support for and participation in an illegal organisation.

His group, the radical northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, was outlawed in 2015 for incitement linked to Jerusalem's Haram al-Sharif mosque compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount.

Salah, 58, is also accused of having publicly supported violent acts against the country on several occasions following the ban on his organisation, police said.

After his arrest he appeared at magistrate's court in Rishon Lezion near Tel Aviv and was remanded into custody until Thursday.

Violence erupted in and around Haram al-Sharif last month after three Arab Israelis shot dead two policemen on July 14 before being killed by security forces.

Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported police allegations that Salah gave a sermon during the funerals in Umm al-Fahm for the three assailants, praising their actions.

They also accuse him of previously inciting violence by "calling on people to fight on the Temple Mount," the paper said.

Israel responded to the July 14 deadly shootings by installing metal detectors at the entrance to the holy site, used as a staging point for the attack.

For nearly two weeks, worshippers refused to submit to the checks and staged mass prayers in surrounding streets.

Ensuing protests and clashes left seven Palestinians dead, while three Israelis were fatally stabbed by a Palestinian assailant.

The crisis abated when Israel removed the detectors.

- 'Political intimidation' -

Salah served a nine-month prison term after being convicted of fomenting violent protests over the holy site.

Arab-Israeli cleric Raed Salah (C), leader of the radical northern branch of the Islamic Movement, arrives at the Rishon Lezion Justice court on August 15, 2017 following his arrest for incitment

He was convicted of having incited violence in a 2007 speech. He was found guilty in 2014 and his appeals were later denied.

Israeli Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said in a statement following Salah's Tuesday arrest that he hoped "this time justice will be done and he will be sent behind bars for a long time."

Salah's lawyer Khaled Zabarka told journalists at the court his client "doesn't break the law" and that his speeches were always within the bounds of free speech.

A prominent committee representing Arabs in Israel called the arrest "political intimidation" intended to silence dissent, while an Arab member of Israel's parliament said Salah "stands against the murder of innocents."

"He participated in the funeral (of the Al-Aqsa attackers) as many thousands participated in the funeral of his neighbours who are residents of Umm al-Fahm," Osama Saadi said.

"So what, would they arrest 10,000 people who participated in the funeral of the guys from Umm al-Fahm?"

The Jerusalem holy site, which includes the revered Al-Aqsa mosque and the golden-topped Dome of the Rock, is the third-holiest in Islam and the most sacred for Jews.

Central to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the compound is located in east Jerusalem, occupied by Israel in 1967 and later annexed in a move never recognised by the international community.

Palestinians fear Israel will gradually seek to assert further control over it, though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said repeatedly he is committed to the status quo.

Arab-Israelis are descendants of Palestinians who remained on their land following the creation of Israel in 1948.

They account for some 17.5 percent of the eight million population and largely sympathise with the Palestinian cause.

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Newly re-elected Iranian President Hassan Rouhani gestures after delivering a televised speech in the capital Tehran on May 20, 2017

President Hassan Rouhani warned Tuesday that Iran could abandon its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers within hours if the United States keeps on imposing new sanctions.

In a speech to parliament outlining plans for his new term, Rouhani also hit out at US counterpart Donald Trump, saying he had shown the world that Washington was "not a good partner."

Rouhani's comments come with the nuclear deal under mounting pressure after Tehran carried out missile tests and strikes, and Washington imposed new sanctions -- with each accusing the other of violating the spirit of the agreement.

Rouhani warned that Iran was ready to walk out of the deal -- which saw the lifting of most international sanctions in return for curbs on its nuclear programme -- if Washington persisted.

"Those who try to return to the language of threats and sanctions are prisoners of their past delusions," he said in the televised address.

"If they want to go back to that experience, definitely in a short time -- not weeks or months, but in the scale of hours and days -- we will return to our previous situation very much stronger."

He said Iran did prefer to stick with the nuclear deal, which he called "a model of victory for peace and diplomacy over war and unilateralism" but that this was not the "only option."

Rouhani said Trump had shown he was an unreliable partner not just for Iran but for US allies as well.

"In recent months, the world has witnessed that the US, in addition to its constant and repetitive breaking of its promises in the JCPOA (nuclear deal), has ignored several other global agreements and shown its allies that the US is neither a good partner nor a reliable negotiating party," he said.

He highlighted Trump's decisions to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement and international trade deals.

- 'Too big to fail?' -

"Iran cannot be allowed to use the nuclear deal to hold the world hostage," Washington's United Nations envoy Nikki Haley said in a statement.

"Iran, under no circumstances, can ever be allowed to have nuclear weapons... The nuclear deal must not become 'too big to fail.'"

US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert insisted Washington was in full compliance with its side of the JCPOA.

But she confirmed the US administration was reviewing its policy toward Iran and that it believes the nuclear deal did not put an end to Tehran's other "destabilising activities" in its region.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps launches a missile towards an Islamic State group target in Syria in this picture released by the state broadcaster on June 18, 2017

Iran's parliament approved Sunday more than half a billion dollars in funding for the country's missile programme and foreign operations of the elite Revolutionary Guards in response to the new US sanctions.

In talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Rouhani vowed to build on their joint military efforts across the region.

"Tehran welcomes the active presence of Russia's investors... in major infrastructure projects including in the fields of industry and energy," his office said.

- 'Wanted to nominate women' -

Rouhani was addressing lawmakers as deliberations start over his new ministerial lineup, which must be approved by lawmakers in the coming days.

The president started his second term a fortnight ago under fire from reformists over his elderly and all-male cabinet.

"I wanted to nominate three women ministers but it did not happen," he said, without explaining why.

"All ministers must use women in high-ranking positions... and especially female advisers and deputies."

An Iranian woman queues to vote in the presidential election on May 19, 2017

Rouhani, a 68-year-old moderate cleric, won a resounding re-election victory in May in large part due to the backing of reformists who supported his message of greater civil liberties and equality.

Many felt let down by the lack of women ministers, saying he had bowed to pressure from the conservative religious establishment, although he did appoint two female vice presidents and a senior aide -- positions that do not require parliamentary approval.

He defended his cabinet selections on Tuesday, and pointed to his pick for telecoms minister, 35-year-old Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, as "our first experience in choosing from the youth, someone who has grown up after the revolution."

- Structural reforms -

Rouhani promised a more targeted approach to social welfare and job creation, responding to attacks during the campaign that his neoliberal agenda was mostly benefiting the rich.

He promised to eradicate absolute poverty and improve the conditions of the poorest "by five times" by the end of his term in 2021.

"The government is determined to carry out structural reforms. It sees the all-out fight against corruption as an absolute prerequisite for progress and social justice," he said.

He also detailed a range of economic challenges, particularly the need to clean up the banking system, which is riven with toxic debt, and reform taxation to end the country's reliance on unstable oil revenues.
An Iraqi woman carrying a child walks by the destroyed Al-Nuri Mosque as she flees the Old City of Mosul on July 5, 2017

Despite the recapture of swathes of territory from the Islamic State group, the conflicts in Iraq and Syria are far from over as their governments face major political challenges, experts warn.

In July the jihadists lost control of Iraq's second city Mosul in a major setback three years after declaring a "caliphate" straddling the two countries.

Across the border around half of IS's de facto Syrian capital Raqa has been retaken by US-backed fighters.

But divisions across political, religious and ethnic lines will again rise to the surface in Iraq after the extremist group is driven out of its last bastions, said Mathieu Guidere, an expert on jihadist organisations.

A month before Iraq declared the liberation of Mosul, the country's autonomous Kurdish region announced plans to proceed with a referendum on statehood in September.

The idea was not new but its timing was criticised by Baghdad, which opposes Kurdish independence, and by Washington, coming as it did with the anti-IS campaign still unfinished.

Analysts said the referendum is one of the many challenges facing the Iraq government along with the presence of a Shiite paramilitary force in Sunni-majority areas and the fate of minorities such as the Yazidis.

How the government deals with these thorny issues will determine whether it succeeds in a post-IS era, experts said.

The jihadist group "is the illustration -- violent, long and complex -- of the dystrophy that reigns in Iraq", said Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou, professor of international history at Geneva's Graduate Institue.

- New Iraq 'covenant' -

Ould Mohamedou advocates a "new national covenant" for Iraq that would allow the Shiite-dominated government to gain the trust of the Sunni population and other minorities, particularly in the northern Mosul region.

At the same time the government will also have to skilfully deal with the paramilitary Hashed al-Shaabi umbrella organisation which is dominated by Iran-backed Shiite militias.

Some of the components within Hashed al-Shaabi, which battled IS in Iraq, have for years been sending fighters to support the Syrian regime in its conflict with various rebel groups.

Even as leaders in both Iraq and Syria savour the setbacks inflicted by their forces on IS, they still need to examine the reasons that led to the formidable rise of the jihadist group.

After declaring "victory over brutality and terrorism" in Mosul, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said there were "lessons to be learned" to ensure his country never again falls into the grip of IS.

"Huge mistakes have been made," he said.

- 'Reorganisation, redeployment' -

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad also faces huge challenges in the country's multi-sided war, despite his forces being backed by allies Russia, Iran and the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah in the battle against jihadists and rebels.

Members of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces drive on the western front in Raqa on July 19, 2017

IS fighters are steadily losing chunks of Raqa to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a US-backed Arab-Kurdish alliance which broke into the northern city in June.

A Russian-backed government offensive has also targeted IS forces in the central Syrian desert.

Analysts said that if Raqa falls, the Kurdish fighters that dominate the SDF could clash with regime troops.

Assad "does not want an autonomous administration" taking control of Raqa, said Syria expert and geographer Fabrice Balanche.

Ould Mohamedou said the war in Syria "goes beyond the question of IS," having erupted six years ago with peaceful anti-government protests that were brutally put down by the regime.

"In the name of the fight against Islamist terrorism, more and more Western governments have closed their eyes to the massacres perpetrated by the Syrian regime," he said.

The war in Syria has killed hundreds of thousands of people while millions more have been displaced in the two countries.

Rebuilding infrastructure and restoring stability to allow the displaced to return home will be a massive challenge.

The United Nations has said the level of destruction in Mosul alone is one of the largest and most complex challenges it has faced.

Unless all these challenges are tackled, IS jihadists driven out of territory in Syria and Iraq could re-emerge as a more brutal and formidable force.

For IS "the key words now are reorganisation and redeployment", said Guidere.

Ould Mohamedou said that even if IS is defeated in Syria and Iraq "it will bounce back elsewhere and... with a new look".
Otto Warmbier died shortly after being sent home to the US in a coma after spending over a year in North Korean custody. Pyongyang appeared Tuesday to link the fate of three other Americans it is holding to the current tensions with Washington

North Korea appeared to link the fate of its US prisoners to ongoing tensions on Tuesday, saying now is not the right time to discuss their release.

Three Americans, accused of various crimes against the state, are behind bars in the hermit nation, which is engaged in a tense standoff with the administration of US President Donald Trump over its banned missile and nuclear weapons programs.

"The issue of detained Americans is not a subject of discussion given the current state of... relations," a spokesman for the North's foreign ministry was quoted as saying by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

Pyongyang has arrested and jailed several US citizens in the past decade, often releasing them only after high-profile visits by US officials or former presidents.

In June, student Otto Warmbier -- who was sentenced to 15 years hard labour for allegedly stealing a political poster while visiting Pyongyang as a tourist -- was sent home in a coma. He died a week later.

His release was secured through back channel negotiations with Pyongyang led by the US envoy for North Korea policy Joseph Yun. Media reports over the weekend suggested similar talks have continued.

Last week, the North released a Canadian pastor on medical parole after having held him for more than two years.

Tensions have been mounting between Washington and Pyongyang since the North's testing of two intercontinental ballistic missiles that appeared to bring much of the US within range.

Responding to the tests, Trump warned the North of "fire and fury like the world has never seen", while Pyongyang threatened to fire missiles close to the US territory of Guam.

On Tuesday, leader Kim Jong-Un said he would hold off the planned missile strike, but warned the highly provocative move would go ahead in the event of further "reckless actions" by Washington.
The government of Sierra Leone has promised relief to the more than 3,000 people left homeless by flooding and mudslides in the capital Freetown

Sierra Leone's president issued a desperate appeal for help, a day after flooding ravaged the country's capital, killing more than 300 people and leaving hundreds more missing.

President Ernest Bai Koroma fought back tears and said the devastation was "overwhelming us", as he toured Regent, one of the worst-hit areas.

"Entire communities have been wiped out," Koroma said Tuesday. "We need urgent support now."

As the city began to bury its dead, foreign governments began mobilising aid, with Israel pledging to provide clean water, medicines, blankets and other essentials.

The UN said it was evaluating humanitarian needs in the country and that "contingency plans are being put in place to mitigate any potential outbreak of waterborne diseases such as cholera, typhoid and diarrhea", according to spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

He noted that the International Organization for Migration had released $150,000 in emergency funds.

Heavy rains streaming down a hill in Regent triggered a landslide that engulfed homes three or four storeys high, many of them built illegally.

Koroma toured Regent's Connaught hospital and central morgue, which has been overwhelmed by bodies.

The government of Sierra Leone, one of the poorest countries in the world, has promised relief to more than 3,000 people left homeless, opening an emergency response centre in Regent.

Updated close-up map of Freetown, hit by massive flooding which has left hundreds of people dead

The Red Cross said 600 people were still missing.

Red Cross official Nasir Khan told AFP the death toll was around 300 on Tuesday evening, but a separate morgue assessment put the figure at 400.

Sulaiman Zaino Parker, an official with Freetown's city council, said 150 burials took place on Tuesday evening and that many would be laid to rest in graves alongside victims of the country's last humanitarian disaster, the Ebola crisis, in nearby Waterloo.

"We have started burying some of the mutilated and decomposed bodies. All the corpses will be given a dignified burial with Muslim and Christian prayers," Parker said.

The graves would be specially marked for future identification, he added.

- 'Sprawling shacks all gone' -

The Red Cross said it was struggling to excavate families buried deep in the mud that engulfed their homes, though several bodies were pulled up by diggers in Regent on Tuesday, according to an AFP journalist at the scene.

The Red Cross said it was struggling to excavate families buried deep in the mud that engulfed their homes

"We are racing against time, more flooding and the risk of disease to help these affected communities survive and cope with their loss," said Abu Bakarr Tarawallie, another Red Cross official.

Regent residents told AFP that boulders and rocks had killed many in their homes, while a hill partially collapsed as floodwaters streamed down the slopes.

One resident, Abubakar Mansaray, said it took just two minutes for the mudslide to suffocate families in the darkness.

"Many unfinished buildings were at the hilltop, with those sprawling shacks all gone," he told AFP.

Dozens of injured survivors were receiving treatment, the Red Cross's Tarawallie said, but some residents said they had received no assistance by Tuesday morning.

- Stagnant water -

Three days of torrential rain culminated on Monday in the Regent mudslide and massive flooding elsewhere in the city, one of the world's wettest urban areas.

The city's drainage system was quickly overwhelmed, leaving stagnant water pooling in some areas while creating dangerous waterways that churned down steep streets.

Society 4 Climate Change Communication (S4CCC), a local environment group, called the tragedy a "wake-up call".

"Man-made activity meets climate-change head on, a predictable event now made tragically real," the group said in a widely shared blog post.

Deforestation, a lack of urban planning and vulnerability to climate change had all played a part, they said.

Sierra Leone's meteorological department issued no warning ahead of the torrential rains -- which might have allowed for swifter evacuations from the disaster zones.

At the city's military hospital, community health officer Wilberforce Mohammed Rogers said he had treated several children with multiple injuries, including a six-month-old baby. Many had lost their parents, Rogers said.

Deputy health minister Madina Rahman said contaminated water meant the city was now bracing for a possible cholera outbreak.

- Annual ordeal -

Freetown is hit each year by flooding during several months of rain, and in 2015 bad weather killed 10 people and left thousands homeless.

Sierra Leone was one of three west African nations hit by an outbreak of Ebola virus in 2014 that left more than 4,000 people dead in the country, and it has struggled to revive its economy since the crisis.

The country ranked 179th out of 188 countries on the UN Development Programme's 2016 Human Development Index, a basket of data combining life expectancy, education and income and other factors.
A picture released by the Iraqi Federal Police on August 15, 2017 shows armoured units headed for the jihadist-held town of Tal Afar

Iraqi warplanes carried out air strikes Tuesday against Islamic State group positions in Tal Afar in preparation for a ground assault to retake the town near the Syrian border, the military said.

Tal Afar is the main remaining IS stronghold in northern Iraq, after the capture by Iraqi forces in July of second city Mosul further east in a major blow to the jihadists.

"Preparations are under way pending instructions from the commander in chief (Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi)" for the launch of the assault, said a spokesman for Iraq's Joint Operation Command (JOC).

The spokesman, Yahiya Rassul, said that although the main offensive to retake Tal Afar had not yet begun, the air force was pounding jihadist positions in the town.

Plans to retake Tal Afar were announced on Monday by federal police chief Lieutenant General Raed Shakir Jawdat, who said "armoured and elite units" were headed for the town.

The units, whose number has not been specified, were "regrouping in combat positions in preparation for the next battle," he said in a statement.

Joining them is the Hashed al-Shaabi, a Shiite-dominated coalition of paramilitary units deployed since 2014 to halt the jihadist advance.

"Hashed al-Shaabi commanders met Saturday with army and police commanders to decide on the plan to free Tal Afar," spokesman Ahmed al-Assadi said.

Abadi is expected to announce the launch of the ground assault but there are no indications on when it is due to start.

JOC said the defence minister on Tuesday sacked his official spokesman, Brigadier Genereal Mohammed al-Khodari, for having erroneously announced the start of the operation.

Khodari had told a local television by telephone that the ground assault on Tal Afar had been launched but his remarks were quickly denied by several military officials.

IS jihadists overran Tal Afar in June 2014, when it had a population of around 200,000.
Displaced Syrians are seen on August 13, 2017 at a desert camp in Hasakeh province dominated by young men fleeing Islamic State group conscription

The Islamic State group order that prompted Mahmud al-Ali to flee his town was simple: "All young men aged 20 to 30 years old must enlist to fight throughout Syria."

As the jihadist group loses territory across the country, it has begun to impose forced enlistment on men in Deir Ezzor, the last Syrian province that remains nearly completely under IS control.

The measure has prompted many residents of villages and towns in the eastern province, like 26-year-old Ali, to flee en masse.

Many of them have sought refuge in makeshift camps for the displaced in the neighbouring province of Hasakeh, including one seven kilometres from the town of Arisha.

In the middle of the desert, the camp is a sea of tents with the logo of the UN refugee agency UNHCR.

Here and there, women and children sit on the ground under the blistering heat, but the camp is dominated by young men fleeing conscription.

"IS told us that jihad was now a duty," said Ali, who left his town of Al-Eshara, southeast of Deir Ezzor city, along with his family.

"But the majority of the young men refused and thousands of us fled," added Ali, wearing a traditional robe and the long beard mandated by IS.

Displaced Syrians fill a container with water at a makeshift camp in Hasakeh province on August 13, 2017

Residents and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group report that the jihadists announced via Friday sermons, loudspeakers and leaflets that residents had a week to register their names at recruitment offices.

"The situation became critical," said 28-year-old Salah.

"They carried out raids in houses searching for young men to conscript into their forces," added Salah, who fled Mayadeen, Deir Ezzor's second largest city.

He said the raids netted many.

- 'Nobody wanted to join' -

According to Ahmed al-Abed, also from Mayadeen, those forced by the jihadists to enlist "have to undergo a month of training and then they fight for them for four months."

Many have not been able to escape, and remain trapped in the oil-rich province which has been largely under the control of IS since 2014.

"There are people still trapped who can't get out. We paid (smugglers) two million Syrian pounds (nearly $4,000) for 15 members of our family," said Abed.

But even with the guidance of a smuggler, escaping the clutches of IS remains a dangerous affair, especially after the group boosted security to stem the flow of fleeing residents.

IS has suffered a slew of defeats in recent months.

Russian-backed Syrian government forces are advancing towards Deir Ezzor from several directions

After being pushed out of Aleppo province in northern Syria, it has lost half its de facto Syrian capital Raqa city to US-backed fighters.

It is on the verge of being completely expelled from Homs province by Russian-backed Syrian government forces, who are now advancing towards Deir Ezzor from several directions.

Under pressure, it appears to be mobilising all available resources to defend the eastern province.

The recapture of Deir Ezzor "would largely -- if not completely -- mark the end of the fight against IS," Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Sunday.

The jihadists told young men "we want you to support us in the battle for Deir Ezzor," said Hazem al-Satem, also from Al-Eshara.

"But nobody wanted to join them," the 25-year-old said.

- 'Impossible to escape' -

For those who have escaped, the relief at their freedom is tempered by the miserable conditions they now face in camps for the displaced, including shortages of food, water and medicine.

Arisha camp was established two months ago on the edge of a makeshift oil refinery.

It hosts more than 7,000 people, but has just 400 tents.

On Monday, the International Committee of the Red Cross warned that displaced civilians faced "terrible, terrible conditions".

Displaced Syrian children from Deir Ezzor are seen at a desert camp in neighbouring Hasakeh province on August 13, 2017

"These tents are literally in the middle of the desert. You have snakes and scorpions that are a daily threat for people," ICRC spokeswoman Ingy Sedky told AFP after visiting the area.

"You see children playing in toxic waste, drinking and bathing in contaminated water."

Despite the conditions, 28-year-old Ibrahim Khaled is grateful to have escaped.

"We were able to save our lives," he told AFP.

"I'm sure that for those who stay it is almost impossible to escape."
China, which is Pyongyang's main diplomatic ally, has repeatedly called on the United States and North Korea to tone down their bellicose rhetoric in recent days

China said Tuesday that the North Korean nuclear crisis had reached a "turning point" and it was time to enter peace talks.

The comments by foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying came as the verbal sparring between the United States and North Korea took a less bellicose tone on Tuesday.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un said he would hold off on a threatened missile strike near Guam, though he warned the highly provocative move would go ahead in the event of further "reckless actions" by Washington.

Top US officials, meanwhile, said Washington was not interested in regime change in Pyongyang, and South Korean President Moon Jae-In warned that there could be no war without his country's consent.

"It's the turning point to make a resolute decision and return to peace talks," Hua said when asked about Moon's comments at a regular news briefing.

China, which is Pyongyang's main diplomatic ally, has repeatedly called on the United States and North Korea to tone down their bellicose rhetoric in recent days.

"We now hope that all the concerned parties, in what they say and what they do, can contribute to extinguishing the fire (of the tense situation), rather than adding fuel to the fire," Hua said.

Beijing has also pressed for a return of six-nation talks that have been dormant since 2009.

Hua applauded the "positive" article written by US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in the The Wall Street Journal in which they say that America has "no interest" in regime change in Pyongyang.

"We hope the US can translate this positive statement into concrete DPRK-related policies," Hua said, using the initials of North Korea's official name. "At the same time, we call on the DPRK to respond" to the positive statement.
Zimbabwe's first lady Grace Mugabe is seen as one potential successor to take over from her increasingly frail husband

Zimbabwe's first lady Grace Mugabe was under investigation by South African police Tuesday after she allegedly used an extension cord to assault a model in a Johannesburg hotel.

The alleged attack threatened to spark a major diplomatic incident between the two countries, which have strong political and economic ties.

The 52-year-old wife of President Robert Mugabe is accused of beating Gabriella Engels, 20, on Sunday evening at the hotel where her two sons were staying, leaving the victim with injuries to her forehead and the back of her head.

"She hasn't handed herself over yet. We do not know her whereabouts at this stage," police spokesman Vishnu Naidoo told AFP.

South Africa's main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, said Mugabe had returned hurriedly to Zimbabwe late Tuesday, without citing its source.

Mugabe allegedly arrived at the hotel with bodyguards and accused Engels of partying with her sons Robert and Chatunga, who are both in their 20s and live in Johannesburg.

South African Police Minister Fikile Mbalula had earlier said Mugabe had turned herself in to officers, but Naidoo said this "just didn't materialise as it was supposed to".

"As long as we don't have a suspect in custody, we cannot say when they will appear in court," he added.

Pictures on social media appeared to show Engels bleeding from her head after the alleged assault at the Capital 20 West Hotel, in the upmarket Johannesburg district of Sandton.

"We were chilling in a hotel room, and (Mugabe's sons) were in the room next door. She came in and started hitting us," Engels told the Times Live website.

"The front of my forehead is busted open. I'm a model and I make my money based on my looks."

Police Minister Mbalula told reporters: "In terms of foreign citizens, they must understand they have responsibilities, especially those who hold diplomatic passports.

"I cannot just go to Zimbabwe and beat up people there and then the matter will disappear. We have had to act in the interests of the victim."

- A future president? -

On Monday, Engels registered a case with the police alleging assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm.

Sizakele Nkosi-Malobane, a provincial minister in South Africa's Gauteng province, told Jacaranda FM radio that the case must be pursued fully through the courts.

"We hope that it will send a strong message to all leaders who abuse their power and assault innocent people in our country," she said.

Grace Mugabe is 41 years younger than her 93-year-old husband and has two sons and a daughter with the Zimbabwean president.

She regularly speaks at rallies in Zimbabwe and is seen as one possible contender to take over from her increasingly frail husband.

Last month she urged her husband to name his chosen successor, reviving speculation about the race to take over from the world's oldest national leader.

President Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from British colonial rule in 1980.

The succession battle is widely expected to pit Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa against a group called "Generation 40" or "G40" because its members are generally younger, and which reportedly has Grace's backing.

While Grace Mugabe has in the past denied harbouring ambitions to take over from her husband, at other times she has said she would be prepared to serve in any political position.

She has taken on a larger public role in recent years, speaking regularly at meetings to drum up support for her husband and heading the women's league of the ruling ZANU-PF party.

President Robert Mugabe and first lady Grace Mugabe have two sons and a daughter together

In speeches this year the president has often slurred his words, mumbled and paused for lengthy periods.

His reign has been marked by brutal repression of dissent, mass emigration, vote-rigging and a sharp economic decline since land reforms in 2000.

The Zimbabwe government has so far made no comment on Grace Mugabe's case.
Beijing sent its only aircraft carrier, the Liaoning (r), through the Taiwan Strait in January during a drill and also in July when it was en route to Hong Kong

Taiwan on Tuesday urged Beijing to exercise restraint after a Chinese military aircraft entered its air defence identification zone (ADIZ) following a recent spate of drills that have ratcheted up cross-strait tensions.

The Chinese military plane was spotted in the ADIZ on Sunday, according to the defence ministry.

Chinese military aircraft have flown near the zone on seven other occasions since July.

The ADIZ stretches beyond Taiwan's airspace and is used to give an early warning of possible incursions.

Taiwan has scrambled aircraft to monitor the Chinese planes each time they have flown near the island.

"We keep on high alert to prevent unidentified or Chinese planes and ships from entering our air and sea space. We urge restraint to maintain peace in the Taiwan Strait," said ministry spokesman Chen Chung-chi.

Relations with Beijing have rapidly deteriorated since the inauguration of President Tsai Ing-wen last year who refuses to acknowledge both sides are part of "one China".

Beijing considers Taiwan part of its territory to be brought back into the fold and has said it would respond with force if the island ever announced a formal breakaway.

Although Taiwan is a self-ruling democracy, it has never declared independence.

Beijing has cut all official communication with Taipei and stepped up pressure on Tsai's government, including staging a string of naval and air drills near Taiwan since last year.

China sent its only aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, through the Taiwan Strait in January during a drill and in July when it was en route to Hong Kong.

The Mainland Affairs Council, Taiwan's top China policy-making body, also urged restraint on Tuesday and protested Beijing's moves saying they heightened regional tensions.

"China's provocation and intimidation is unhelpful for long-term development in cross-strait relations," said spokesman Chiu Chui-cheng.

In 2014, two Chinese Y-8 aircraft also entered Taiwan's ADIZ on their way to a disputed area in the South China Sea under Tsai's Beijing-friendly predecessor Ma Ying-jeou.
Aircraft carrier the USS Nimitz, now on patrol in the Gulf, takes part in an exercise in the Bay of Bengal in July 2017

Iran's Revolutionary Guards on Tuesday rejected claims that one of its drones had flown close to an American aircraft without its lights on, blaming poor US identification systems.

It was the latest in a spate of close encounters between US and Iranian aircraft or warships in the waters of the Gulf in recent weeks that have sparked recriminations as relations sour.

"The Guards' drone patrols... will continue in the Persian Gulf with precision, constantly and in the framework of protecting the borders of the Islamic republic of Iran and regardless of the psychological atmosphere created by alien forces," the Guards drone unit said in a statement carried by the official IRNA news agency.

It added that the US claims of "unsafe and unprofessional" conduct were perhaps the result of "a weakness in their identification and recognition systems".

The US Navy said on Monday that an Iranian QOM-1 drone had flown within 300 metres (1,000 feet) of an aircraft based on the carrier USS Nimitz operating in international waters in the Gulf the previous night.

"Despite repeated radio calls to establish communications and remain clear, the QOM-1's controlling station was unresponsive and the (drone) did not use any aircraft navigation lights while it made several passes in close proximity to Nimitz and its escort ships during active flight operations, coming within 1,000 feet of US aircraft," Navy spokesman Lieutenant Ian McConnaughey said.

The incident followed an August 8 encounter between an Iranian drone and an F/A-18E Super Hornet.

Washington said the US jet was forced to manoeuvre to avoid a collision, with the drone passing just 30 metres (100 feet) away at its closest point.

On July 28, the USS Nimitz was involved in an incident with Guards naval vessels that culminated in it scrambling a helicopter to fire warning flares.

On July 26, a US Navy patrol ship fired warning shorts at a Guards vessel after the two came within (137 metres) (150 yards) of each other in disputed circumstances.
Senegal's President Macky Sall

Senegal's constitutional council has confirmed a widely expected landslide for the coalition of President Macky Sall in legislative elections, bolstering his image ahead of a 2019 re-election bid.

The constitutional council confirmed that presidential coalition Benno Bokk Yaakaar (BBY) would take 125 of the Senegalese parliament's 165 seats, in results were published via the public APS news agency.

The coalitions of ex-president Abdoulaye Wade and Dakar Mayor Khalifa Sall took 19 and seven seats respectively.

The decision is the final approval required for the results of the July 30 vote to be definitive.

The election had a turnout of 53.66 percent among Senegal's 6.2 million registered voters, though many complained on the day of organisational problems.

Fourteen parties will be represented in the national parliament, where for the first time half a million Senegalese living abroad will be represented by 15 "diaspora" lawmakers.

There were a record 47 lists of candidates contesting the election, and clashes between supporters of President Sall, Wade and Mayor Sall led to several arrests during the campaign.

Wade has said his coalition will not participate in future elections organised by Sall's government, describing the July vote as a "masquerade", though he won a seat in the vote.

Mayor Sall is currently in jail awaiting trial for embezzling state funds -- charges his supporters say are politically motivated -- but also won a seat. It is not clear if he will be able to take it up.
Kenya's Raila Odinga says he was cheated out of last week's presidential election

Kenya's Raila Odinga pushed back plans Tuesday to announce his next move on a disputed election, leaving Kenyans in suspense over a political crisis that has already sparked deadly protests.

Speaking at the weekend, Odinga promised to advise supporters Tuesday of "the next course of action" but his eagerly awaited appearance failed to transpire.

"We regret that the consultations are taking longer than anticipated and NASA will therefore not address Kenyans as projected today," said a statement signed by Musalia Mudavadi, one of the leaders of the National Super Alliance (NASA) opposition coalition.

"NASA will issue a comprehensive statement to the nation tomorrow (Wednesday)," he said, adding "our consultations are ongoing and progressing well."

Odinga, 72, insists he is the rightful winner of a "stolen" election which took place on August 8 and handed victory to the incumbent, Uhuru Kenyatta.

The claims sparked a wave of protests in his strongholds which left at least 16 dead and 177 injured, but these quickly abated as his supporters -- and the country -- await his decision on his next move.
US President Donald Trump's administration is currently finalising a new policy for Afghanistan almost 16 years after the US invasion to topple the Taliban regime

The Taliban published an open letter to US President Donald Trump on Tuesday warning him against sending more American forces to Afghanistan.

The statement called for the complete withdrawal of foreign forces from the war-torn country and comes as Trump weighs increasing the number of American troops there.

"Previous experiences have shown that sending more troops to Afghanistan will not result in anything other than further destruction of American military and economical might.

"Therefore it would be wise if you adopt the strategy of a complete withdrawal from Afghanistan instead of a troops increase," said the English-language letter, which was sent to the media.

US troops in Afghanistan now number about 8,400, a far cry from the US presence of more than 100,000 six years ago. They mainly serve as trainers and advisers to Afghan forces.

Trump's administration is currently finalising a new policy for Afghanistan almost 16 years after the US invasion to topple the Taliban regime.

American military commanders in Afghanistan have requested thousands of extra boots on the ground to help combat a resurgent Taliban.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is believed to be close to presenting the new US military strategy to Trump, with an announcement potentially coming in weeks.

The Taliban, which ruled Afghanistan from 1996-2001, also slammed the Afghan government in the letter and warned the United States that it could never defeat the insurgent group.

"It is entirely possible that you are being provided rosy pictures about Afghanistan by the stooges you have installed," it said.

"You must realize that these repulsive sellouts neither care about your interests nor that of their own nation," the statement added.

The letter described foreign occupation as the "main driver of war" in Afghanistan and ended by making reference to reports that Trump may be considering outsourcing operations to private contractors.

In recent months, Erik Prince -- founder of the private security company Blackwater -- has resurfaced with an offer to send a private army of around 5,500 contractors to replace the US troops.

"If you failed to win the Afghan war with disciplined US and NATO troops... you shall never be able to win it with mercenaries, notorious contractor firms and immoral stooges," it said.
Mexican farm workers in California, which is suiing the Trump administration over plans to cut funds to "sanctuary cities"

California, the most populous US state, is suing President Donald Trump's administration over plans to cut funds to "sanctuary cities" that fail to cooperate with federal efforts cracking down on undocumented immigrants

The lawsuit, along with one from the city of San Francisco, follow the lead of Chicago in arguing that the administration's move is unconstitutional.

The Trump administration "cannot manipulate federal grant fund requirements to pressure states, counties or municipalities to enforce federal immigration laws," Attorney General Xavier Becerra said at a press conference Monday.

"This is pure intimidation intended to force our law enforcement into changing the policies and practices that they have determined promote public safety," he said.

The California lawsuit will be coordinated with a similar lawsuit filed by San Francisco on Friday, Becerra said.

California, and several US cities including New York and Philadelphia, have said they will not actively pursue illegal immigrants who have not committed any crimes.

They argue that communities must decide for themselves how to keep their residents safe -- and that heavy handed enforcement of federal immigration law alienates immigrants whose cooperation police rely on in fighting crime.

The US Justice Department "placed unlawful and inappropriate immigration enforcement conditions on certain public safety grants for law enforcement," Becerra's office said.

"More than $28 million in federal funds that California uses for programs supporting law enforcement, recidivism prevention, crime victims and witnesses, and at-risk youth are at issue."

Last week Chicago sued the Trump administration for threatening to withhold federal funds on the same grounds.

Trump has targeted sanctuary cities as part of his promised crackdown on illegal immigration, and the Department of Justice implemented the new funding requirements last month.
A Kenyan police officer walks past a burning tyre in the Kawangware slum in Nairobi on August 12, 2017, after a night of unrest

The Kenyan government has moved to shut down two rights organisations, one of which said Tuesday that it was contemplating court action over last week's disputed presidential election.

Kenyan Human Rights Commission (KHRC) board member Maina Kiai said it was "no secret" the organisation had been mulling whether to lodge a complaint at the Supreme Court over "inconsistencies" in the election process.

On Monday night the interior ministry's NGO Board said it was withdrawing the KHRC'S registration over alleged irregularities including unpaid taxes, a lack of work permits for foreign staff, and illegal bank accounts.

Then on Tuesday morning, the NGO Board asked police to shut down the Africa Centre for Open Governance (AfriCOG) and arrest its members, claiming that it was not properly registered as an NGO and was instead illegally operating as a "charitable organisation".

AfriCOG had filed several court petitions challenging the electoral commission ahead of the election.

According to Kenya's electoral laws, complaints about the election must be submitted to the Supreme Court by Friday.

The National Super Alliance (NASA), an opposition group led by Raila Odinga, has said it will not do so, and is expected to announce its next move Wednesday.

But civil society organisations can also file legal petitions challenging the results or conduct of the vote.

"These people who may go to court are being de-registered," Kiai said.

"There has been a lot of emphasis across the country urging people to go to court if they have any grievances. We have been meeting here... there is no secret about it... there is thinking about whether we should or should not" go to court, he added.

"Once you close off avenues for legal, nonviolent peaceful redress, you open up a can of worms, and the state needs to be very clear about what it wants to do."

Odinga has claimed he was the rightful winner and not President Uhuru Kenyatta, and NASA said a major hacking attack manipulated electronic results sent in from polling stations.

It said the electoral commission has yet to provide them with all the scanned forms backing up the electronic results.

The KHRC has also complained that the electoral commission streamed provisional results before backing them up with the scanned forms.

The disputed election sparked protests that at times turned violent over the weekend, leaving at least 16 people dead and 177 injured.
A web hosting firm is fighting a demand by US prosecutors for data on visitors to a site organizing a protest during the inauguration of President Donald Trump in a fresh clash over digital privacy rights.

The firm DreamHost said it was challenging a warrant seeking to identify the visitors of the protest site DisruptJ20, which organized a demonstration against Trump at the time of his swearing-in on January 20.

DreamHost said in a statement Monday that US Justice Department was asking for more than 1.3 million visitor IP addresses, along with email addresses and other data 'in an effort to determine who simply visited the website.'

DreamHost said the government's request violated the principle of free speech and other rights.

Violence: Demonstrations turned ugly in Washington D.C. and elsewhere as the president was inaugurated. Now feds are going after one site which was used to organize protests

Facing demands: Federal prosecutors have issued a warrant telling DreamHost to turn over the IP and email addresses of visitors to DisruptJ20. The hosting firm says the warrant is an overreach

'That information could be used to identify any individuals who used this site to exercise and express political speech protected under the Constitution's First Amendment,' the statement said.

'That should be enough to set alarm bells off in anyone's mind.'

The clash is the latest between US tech firms and law enforcement over user data, and comes one year after a showdown between Apple and the US government over efforts to access the iPhone of the assailant in the San Bernardino attacks.

Civil liberties and digital rights groups rose to defend DreamHost's stand.

Mark Rumold of the Electronic Frontier Foundation warned in a blog post of the 'staggering overbreadth of the search warrant,' and called the move an unconstitutional effort to prosecute Trump's political opponents.

'No plausible explanation exists for a search warrant of this breadth, other than to cast a digital dragnet as broadly as possible,' Rumold said.

'But the (constitution) was designed to prohibit fishing expeditions like this.'

DreamHost's legal brief said the company previously turned over data in response to a subpoena on the organizer of the website, but that the additional information sought would 'endanger the First Amendment interests of the innocent third parties who viewed or communicated with the website.'

The case is due to have a hearing on Friday.
A young woman is killed and 19 are injured when a man seen at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, rams his car into a crowd of counter-protesters

A family in a rural US state has renounced one of its own, after he participated in a violent white supremacist rally over the weekend.

Peter Tefft was identified on Twitter through photographs taken at the rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a woman was killed and 19 others injured.

His family reported that it has since been threatened and harassed, according to the North Dakota newspaper The Forum.

In an open letter Monday to the newspaper, the man's father, Pearce Tefft, said his son would no longer be welcome until he renounces his beliefs.

"I, along with all of his siblings and his entire family, wish to loudly repudiate my son's vile, hateful and racist rhetoric and actions," Tefft wrote.

"We do not know specifically where he learned these beliefs. He did not learn them at home."

Another member of the family went further, telling the newspaper that they were afraid of the avowed white nationalist.

"We don't feel safe around him, and we don't know how he came to be this way. My grandfather feels especially grieved, as though he has failed as a father," Jacob Scott told The Forum in a statement.

Peter Tefft had previously been the target of a campaign by some in his hometown of Fargo to publicly shame him for his beliefs, according to the newspaper.

"I'm a white Christian and 100 percent pro-white," he told The Forum in February.
Denis Sassou Nguesso, who has led Congo for over 30 years, stressed the importance of peace, which has been tested by violence in parts of the southern region of Pool since April 2016

Congo's President Denis Sassou Nguesso admitted Monday that his oil-rich country was facing a serious economic crisis, though he said it was not an "irreparable disaster".

He notably called on former rebel chief Frederic Bitsamou, leader of the so-called Ninja rebel group and accused of violence against communities in the south of the country, to turn himself in to the authorities.

The public debt of Congo, a small central African country of 4.5 million people, represents 117 percent of its GDP, according to the International Monetary Fund, which recently said that Brazzaville had hidden part of its debt from the IMF.

"Our country has real difficulties, nobody should hide them," Sassou Nguesso said in a speech broadcast on the 57th anniversary of the country's independence.

"These difficulties started out as financial. Today they have spread into the economic and general areas," he added.

"The crisis into which Congo has been plunged since 2014, with all of the exporters of commodities, notably oil, continues to generate harmful effects."

"Budgetary receipts and public investments are falling constantly. Almost all sectors of the national economy are effected by the recession."

But while the country's situation is "worrying... we are not in an irreparable disaster," he said, adding: "We are neither insolvent, nor bankrupt. The crisis will be overcome."

In his message to the nation Sassou Nguesso, who has led Congo for over 30 years, stressed the importance of peace, which has been tested by violence in parts of the southern region of Pool since April 2016.

Bitsamou, alias Pasteur Ntumi, and the former fighters of his Ninja rebels fought two civil wars against the government in the 1990s, and were seen as having disbanded after agreeing to a peace deal in 2003.

"Once again, I ask Frederic Bitsamou to hand himself in to our country's judicial authorities, to cut short the suffering of innocent communities," the Congolese president said.

According to Congo's government and the UN, at least 138,000 people have been affected by fighting and insecurity in the Pool region.

The 73-year-old Sassou Nguesso, a former paratrooper, served as president from 1979 to 1992, and then returned to power in 1997 following a civil war. He won two successive terms in elections in 2002 and 2009, both of which were disputed by opposition parties.
Abdelmadjid Tebboune attends a meeting of Algeria's ruling National Liberation Front (FLN) on February 2, 2016

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika sacked Prime Minister Abdelmadjid Tebboune on Tuesday, less than three months after appointing him, according to a presidential statement carried by state media.

"President Abdelaziz Bouteflika on Tuesday relieved Prime Minister Abdelmadjid Tebboune of his duties and appointed Ahmed Ouyahia", the president's chief of staff, in his place, the presidency said in a statement published by the official APS news agency.

Bouteflika's National Liberation Front (FLN) and the Rally for National Democracy (RND) headed by Ouyahia together enjoy an absolute majority in parliament after winning re-election on May 4.

In a surprise move three weeks after the vote, the president named Tebboune, who had been housing minister, to the post of prime minister in place of Bouteflika's ally Abdelmalek Sellal.

According to a government source who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity, 71-year-old Tebboune was dismissed because his "vision was not in line" with that of the president.

The source also cited communication problems between them.

The sacking came days after reports that Bouteflika had sent a strongly worded letter to the premier, demanding he adjust his policies and criticising a decision to restrict imports of many products.

But political analyst Rachid Tlemcani said Tebboune had been seeking to appease "certain oligarchs who belong to the presidential faction" and was the victim of a struggle in the leadership.

Fellow analyst Rachid Grim said "Tebboune made the mistake of thinking he was protected" by Bouteflika, suggesting that other decision-makers may have pulled strings behind the scenes.

Critics have questioned Bouteflika's ability to govern since a 2013 stroke, but the president's inner circle has insisted he has fully exercised his powers.

Tebboune's successor, 65-year-old Ouyahia, has been a major figure in Algerian politics over the past two decades and has served the president zealously despite sometimes complicated relations.

Algerians have nicknamed him "Mr Dirty Work", after he said he had been given the thankless task of carrying out tough economic reforms demanded by the International Monetary Fund during the country's decade-long civil war.

The North African country weathered the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings with massive spending on wages and subsidies that depleted government coffers.

But a 2014 slump in crude oil prices forced the government to raise taxes and mothball many public projects.

Today, in a country of 40 million where half the population is under 30, one young person in three is unemployed.

The May 4 poll was marred by low turnout amid voter disillusionment over what many see as broken government promises and a political system tainted by corruption.
Cars zip by a statue of a Confederate soldier in Alexandria, Virginia -- one of many Confederate monuments now being considered for removal

He stands in the middle of the street, his back to the nation's capital, his gaze southwards towards the battlefields of the Civil War where his comrades fell.

Erected nearly 130 years ago, the bronze statue of an unarmed Confederate soldier sits at a busy intersection in Alexandria, Virginia, just across the Potomac River from Washington.

The statue, named "Appomattox" for the site of the rebel surrender in 1865 after a devastating four-year conflict, is one of hundreds of similar monuments across the American South honoring the Confederate dead.

Debate over what to do with these controversial symbols of the pro-slavery Confederacy has been simmering for years and is intensifying after boiling over into bloodshed at the weekend.

Three people died on Saturday in Charlottesville, Virginia, following a rally called by white supremacists to protest plans to remove a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee from a public park.

A woman was killed and 19 other people injured when a man suspected of being a white nationalist drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters. Two police officers died in a helicopter crash while surveying the situation.

Efforts to remove the Charlottesville and Alexandria statues are tied up in the courts and state legislature, but other Confederate monuments and symbols have been coming down as the United States confronts its complicated racial legacy.

Demonstrators in the North Carolina city of Durham took matters into their own hands on Monday and pulled down a statue of a Confederate soldier that had been erected outside the old county courthouse in 1924.

In Gainesville, Florida, a Confederate statue known as "Old Joe" that had been standing outside a county building since 1904 was taken down Monday and carted away to a private cemetery.

On Saturday, the same day as the bloodshed in Charlottesville, the mayor of Lexington, Kentucky announced plans to relocate two Confederate statues.

"The Civil War was a dark and tragic time in our nation's history and yes, we need to remember it," Mayor Jim Gray said. "But we also need to explain it accurately and truthfully.

"Lexington was one of America's largest slave markets," Gray said.

"It's just not right that we would continue to honor these Confederate men who fought to preserve slavery on the same ground where men, women and even children were sold into a life of slavery."

In Nashville, Tennessee, dozens of activists staged a protest at the state capitol on Monday to demand the removal of a bust on display there of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and founder of the Ku Klux Klan.

- 1,500 Confederate symbols on public land -

In a report published in April 2016, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) -- a civil rights advocacy group -- found that more than 1,500 symbols of the Confederacy are located on US public lands, mostly in the South.

They include more than 700 monuments and statues and more than 100 public schools named for Confederate military or political figures.

Defenders of preserving the Confederate symbols argue that they serve as a reminder of a proud Southern heritage, and that removing them is effectively a way of erasing history.

According to historians and the SPLC report, however, most Confederate monuments were erected during the Jim Crow era of racial segregation and in response to the civil rights movement.

Protestors receive first aid after a car driven by a suspected white supremacist drove into a crowd in Charlottesville, Virginia

"In many cases, preserving history was not the true goal of these displays," SPLC president Richard Cohen said in a statement accompanying the report.

"Rather, many of them were part of an effort to glorify a cause that was manifestly unjust," Cohen said.

"Other displays were intended as acts of defiance by white supremacists opposed to equality for African Americans.

"The argument that these tributes represent Southern 'heritage' ignores the heritage of African Americans whose ancestors were enslaved by the millions and later subjected to decades of oppression," Cohen said.

The Charlottesville violence has given new life to a campaign to remove Confederate symbols, which first gained momentum following the June 2015 murders in South Carolina of nine black churchgoers by an avowed white supremacist.

The divisive Confederate battle flag was taken down from outside the state's legislature following the massacre and Confederate flags also came down in Alabama, another bastion of the self-proclaimed Civil War-era republic.

One of the most notable recent removals of Confederate symbols was in New Orleans, where statues of Lee, Confederate president Jefferson Davis, and another general, P.G.T. Beauregard, came down under heavy security.

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, speaking in May when the last of the statues was pulled down, said they are "not just innocent remembrances of a benign history.

"The Confederacy was on the wrong side of history and humanity," Landrieu said. "It sought to tear apart our nation and subjugate our fellow Americans to slavery.

"This is the history we should never forget and one that we should never again put on a pedestal to be revered."
Aid groups have called on the United Nations to take "immediate action" in the Central African Republic, where the UN has said renewed clashes are showing "early warning signs of genocide"

Aid groups have called on the United Nations to take "immediate action" in the Central African Republic, saying the conflict-wracked nation is "teetering on the brink of catastrophe".

In a letter addressed to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and published Tuesday, six humanitarian organisations expressed their "grave concern about the rapid deterioration of the security situation" in the country.

We "request your office take immediate action to prevent the country collapsing into another full-blown conflict", the letter said, adding that "at least 821 civilians have been killed since the start of the year."

The aid groups -- ACTED, Action Contre la Faim (Action Against Hunger), the Danish Refugee Council, Premiere Urgence, the International Rescue Committee and the Norwegian Refugee Council -- said the conflict had exacerbated an already tenuous humanitarian situation in the nation, where more than two million people are going hungry.

"These figures paint a bleak picture of a nation teetering on the brink of catastrophe," the groups said.

They called on the UN to ensure that the MINUSCA peacekeeping mission "has the financial and humanitarian resources" needed to operate in the country and that it "supports Central Africans and their representatives in the implementation of political conflict resolution and peacebuilding processes."

One of the world's poorest nations, CAR was pitched into a war between Muslim and Christian militias in 2013, unleashed when President Francois Bozize, a Christian, was overthrown by a coalition of Muslim-majority rebel groups called the Seleka.

They in turn were ousted by a military intervention led by France, the country's former colonial ruler, which in turn sparked some of the bloodiest sectarian violence in the country's history as mainly Christian militias sought revenge.

Groups on both sides are now fighting for control of natural resources, including gold and diamonds, as well as regional influence after a conflict that saw half a million people flee the country of 4.5 million.

UN aid chief Stephen O'Brien warned last week that renewed clashes showed "early warning signs of genocide" and also urged immediate action to contain the crisis.

In recent weeks, at least 60 people have been killed -- including at least six aid workers from a local branch of the Red Cross -- in fighting between armed groups in Ngaoundaye and Batangafo in the north, Kaga-Bandoro in the centre and Alindao and Gambo to the south, witnesses told AFP.

Aid workers have also been targeted in the fighting, which could force them to withdraw from especially violent areas, the groups said.

"We are painfully aware that any long-term withdrawal would increase the vulnerability of those very people whose survival depends exclusively on our presence and proximity", the letter said.

"But we cannot operate in a country where we are the target, where our staff are continuously under fire."

The United Nations has 12,350 troops and police on the ground to help protect civilians and support the government of President Faustin-Archange Touadera, who was elected last year.
North Korea's military displays ballistic missiles during a parade in Pyongyang

Ukraine's space agency said Tuesday that an engine type reportedly used in North Korean missiles was made at a Ukrainian factory, but solely for use in space rockets supplied to Russia.

The development came after an expert report published Monday said Pyongyang's recent rapid progress in developing a long-range missile appeared to have come after it refurbished rocket engines procured from a plant in the former Soviet Union.

These could have been bought from corrupt workers at arsenals in Russia or Ukraine and smuggled to North Korea by criminal networks at some point between the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and Ukraine's current crisis, the International Institute for Strategic Studies said.

"Such engines were made up to 2001 by Ukraine's Yuzhmash (plant),", Ukraine's acting space agency chief Yuriy Radchenko told journalists. He said the RD-250 engines were used in Cyclone-2 and Cyclone-3 space rockets supplied to Russia.

Both the engines and the space carrier rockets "were made at Yuzhmash in the interests of Russia," Radchenko said. In total, 233 such rockets were produced, used in space launches.

The space agency chief said that according to Ukrainian information, "Russia today has between 7 and 20" of the Cyclone rockets and could do whatever it wanted with the engines and blueprints.

"They have these engines, they have the documentation. They can supply these engines from the finished rockets to whoever they want."

- Questions over rocket fuel -

The IISS report suggests Kim Jong-Un's regime, which successfully tested intercontinental ballistic missiles in July that are believed to have brought the US mainland within reach, has abandoned attempts to modify the Russian-built OKB-456 rocket engine and has now switched to the once Ukrainian-made RD-250.

During the Soviet era, the RD-250 was produced at the Yuzhmash plant in Dnipro, a city that is today in Kiev government-held central Ukraine, around 150 kilometers (80 miles) from an active frontline held by Russian-backed separatists.

Ukraine did not act as a supplier of the engines to any other country, Radchenko said.

"Ukraine did not carry out any supplies of engines during the whole period of its independence (from the USSR), since it started producing the technology."

Radchenko also said that in his view, it was only possible to use these engines with technology for producing rocket fuel that only Russia and China have at their disposal.

"In order to use these engines and a missile properly, you need to have access to technology to produce rocket fuel. North Korea doesn't have such technology and basically only two countries have this: Russia and China."

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said it was not possible for North Korea to have copied such engines without help from Ukrainian specialists and smuggled engines or blueprints.

"In order to make a copy, you need to have either the original engine or detailed blueprints," he wrote on Facebook.

"And you can't manage without the Ukrainian specialists capable of and ready to set up production.

"So in one way or another, we are talking about smuggled supplies, evading all the current extremely harsh international bans," he concluded.
"Qatar has always been one of the founders of the GCC organisation and we still consider that this has a great importance for all of us in the region," Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said

Qatar's foreign minister said Tuesday it will take a "lot of time" to rebuild any trust between sparring Gulf countries because of the region's continuing diplomatic crisis.

As the impasse between Doha and four Arab states led by Saudi Arabia entered its 11th week, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said regional relations had been transformed by the dispute.

"Qatar has always been one of the founders of the GCC organisation and we still consider that this has a great importance for all of us in the region," he told reporters.

Created in 1981, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is a political and economic union comprised of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

"This organisation has been built on a strategical security and been built on trust.

"Unfortunately, what happened lately with this crisis, this factor is missing now and needs a lot of time to rebuild the trust again.

"We hope that it's restored."

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt cut ties with Qatar on June 5 -- accusing it of backing extremism and fostering ties with Iran -- triggering the biggest political crisis in the Gulf for several years.

Doha denies the claims and accuses the other countries of an attack on its sovereignty.

The Saudi-led countries have also imposed sanctions including restrictions on Qatari aircraft using their airspace.

The foreign minister added that the conflict was unnecessary.

"Such a crisis is not needed in our region, we have enough problems and enough conflict.

"A region like the Gulf region, which was considered the most stable region in the Arab world is now destabilised because... of a crisis without a solid foundation."

However, he added that diplomatic efforts led by regional mediator Kuwait were continuing.

"We have received a letter from the Emir of Kuwait a few days ago. And this letter is a continuous effort... to encourage the parties to engage in dialogue."

Despite this, Sheikh Mohammed said Qatar was still waiting to hear from its rivals.

"Put up your claims and put up your evidence. We told them (Saudi-led countries) anywhere you want, whatever evidence you have, just put it on the table.

"Now its been 72 days since the first day of their measures and we have not been provided with a single document."

Experts have speculated that the diplomatic uncertainty in the region will lead to the demise of the GCC.

One, Andreas Krieg, a political risk analyst at King's College London, told AFP that the GCC was "dying by the day".

"The Kuwaiti emir is a great believer in the GCC and will do everything he can to resolve the crisis to save the GCC.

"However, realistically, the GCC cannot survive this crisis," he said.
In February, US President Donald Trump (2nd L) and Intel CEO Brian Krzanich (L) met in the Oval Office -- this week, Krzanich left his advisory panel on manufacturing

The honeymoon is definitely over.

When US President Donald Trump was elected last November, big business rejoiced.

In June, optimism among American CEOs was at a three-year high on hopes that Trump would succeed in implementing his pro-growth agenda, including tax cuts.

But Trump has now lost support from several executives who left an advisory panel on manufacturing over his response to a violent white supremacist rally in Virginia -- a sign that big business is disenchanted with the billionaire leader.

The head of the powerful AFL-CIO union, Richard Trumka, added his name to the list of defectors that also includes the heads of Merck Pharmaceutical, Under Armour and Intel, as well as the Alliance for American Manufacturing.

"We cannot sit on a council for a president who tolerates bigotry and domestic terrorism," Trumka said in a statement.

"We must resign on behalf of America's working people, who reject all notions of legitimacy of these bigoted groups."

Trump, never one to shy away from controversy, fired back.

"For every CEO that drops out of the Manufacturing Council, I have many to take their place," he tweeted.

"Grandstanders should not have gone on. JOBS!"

But there was a definite feeling that other shoes were ready to drop.

"CEOs quit Trump's Panel: Who's Next?" asked a headline on Bloomberg News television.

Economist Joel Naroff said he suspected more would like to protest, but are "caught in a bind."

"On one side, their job is to maximize the return to the shareholder. On the other side, they can't be blind to the social implications of their companies' actions," Naroff said.

- To leave or not to leave? -

In the early days of Trump's presidency, which began in January, most of the signs from big business were positive.

The Manhattan real estate tycoon-turned-world leader ran as a friend of the business community who pledged to enact tax cuts, streamline regulations and take other steps to boost growth in the world's biggest economy.

But discontent first surfaced in January, when Apple chief Tim Cook and other criticized Trump's controversial travel ban.

Then in June, Tesla's Elon Musk and Disney's Bob Iger removed themselves from White House advisory panels over Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate deal.

US executives are facing a tough choice on whether to stay in the camp of a president who has overall low approval ratings -- but also has both a passionate following among a majority of Republican voters and tax plans they favor

Nevertheless, the Business Roundtable's CEO Economic Outlook Index published in June, which measures corporate spending and hiring plans over the next six months, rose to 93.9 for the second quarter, the highest since the same period of 2014.

"I know the vast majority of (CEOs) believe that really positive tax reform remains more than possible," Business Roundtable president Joshua Bolten told reporters.

Of course, Trump's business agenda has faced other obstacles during his six months in office, and it was not clear that a downward turn in his popularity among blue-chip industry leaders would hinder his progress.

But executives are certainly facing a tough choice on whether to stay in the camp of a president who has overall low approval ratings -- but also has both a passionate following among a majority of Republican voters and tax plans they favor.

For some, the choice was clear.

"After this weekend, I am not sure what it would take to get these CEOs to resign," former Treasury secretary Lawrence Summers, a Democrat, wrote in a Washington Post commentary.

"Demonizing ethnic groups? That has happened. Renouncing international agreements that have supported business interests? That has happened. Personal profiteering from the presidency? Also happened. Failure to deliver on ballyhooed promises? That has happened as well."

- 'Stay engaged' -

Activists are aggressive on both sides on the issue.

The anti-Trump Grabyourwallet -- which boycotts companies that sell Trump products -- regularly prods its 62,300 Twitter followers to email companies that still have CEOs on White House panels.

Jamie Dimon (C), President and CEO of JPMorgan Chase -- shown here on Capitol Hill -- criticized the violence in Charlottesville, but signaled no plans to exit White House advisory panels

On the conservative side, groups like the National Center for Public Policy have lambasted executives for criticizing Trump.

Last year, PepsiCo faced a brief boycott after chief executive Indra Nooyi publicly rued the election result shortly after Trump won last November. She later joined a White House advisory panel.

This week, Nooyi and other several prominent executives, including JPMorgan Chase chief Jamie Dimon, condemned the racism in Charlottesville -- but signaled no plans to exit White House advisory panels.

Doug McMillon, chief executive of retail behemoth Wal-Mart Stores, joined their camp on Tuesday.

"He missed a critical opportunity to help bring our country together by unequivocally rejecting the appalling actions of white supremacists," McMillon said.

But he added: "We believe we should stay engaged to try to influence decisions in a positive way and help bring people together."

Charles Elson, an expert at the University of Delaware in corporate governance, said those who stay on as White House advisors would likely benefit.

Those who leave Trump's informal circle of advisors are "making a non-partisan group more partisan," said Elson.

"By stepping down, they lose the influence they could have," he said.
US Vice President Mike Pence (R), seen here in Buenos Aires with Argentina's President Mauricio Macri, heard warnings that "force is not the way" to deal with the crisis in Venezuela

US Vice President Mike Pence heard more complaints from Latin American allies Tuesday about President Donald Trump's warning of a possible US military option to deal with the crisis in Venezuela.

"The use of force is not the way," but rather political pressure, Argentine President Mauricio Macri said at a news conference alongside Mike Pence, who is on a tour of Latin American countries.

Trump warned on Friday that he was considering various possible means to resolve the Venezuela crisis, "including a possible military option if necessary."

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro responded by ordering his armed forces to carry out a national exercise next week.

The United States along with Argentina and other regional allies have joined in international calls for Maduro to respect democracy.

He has been tightening his grip on power in response to economic chaos and angry street protests by opponents demanding elections. Nearly 130 people have died in recent months of unrest.

Pence in Buenos Aires reiterated his earlier assurance that the United States preferred diplomatic steps and economic sanctions to pressure Maduro.

The US vice president was on the second stop in a tour of Latin America to rally the region over the Venezuela crisis.

He earlier visited Colombia and is due to travel next to Chile and Panama.

Pence said a million Venezuelans had fled to Colombia and more than 60,000 to Argentina to escape the chaos in their country.
Some 5,000 South Sudanese have taken refuge at the Al-Nimir camp in East Darfur

The UN's refugee chief said Tuesday a long period of exile lies ahead for South Sudanese refugees fleeing the war that erupted in their country after it split from the north.

Tens of thousands of South Sudanese have been killed and millions displaced since the world's youngest country fell into a civil war less than three years after it seceded in 2011.

Urging crowds of refugees at Al-Nimir camp in the Sudanese state of East Darfur to "be strong and hopeful", Filippo Grandi said it was about time leaders of South Sudan ended a war that continues to rage on.

"I must confess that I think it may be a long-term exile" for the refugees who continue to flee from their country every day, Grandi told AFP as he toured the camp, where about 5,000 South Sudanese have taken refuge.

Given the bloodshed in South Sudan, he said, many refugees would "think twice" before returning to their homes.

Grandi said the refugees had to remain hopeful of returning to their country, but a lot depended on when South Sudan becomes stable.

"That hope depends on the action first and foremost of the leadership of South Sudan and of the opposition," he said.

"They have to start behaving responsibly and thinking of their own people and not only of themselves."

South Sudan's civil war began in December 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy, Riek Machar, of plotting a coup. Since then the war has spread across the country, sweeping up ethnic groups and local grievances.

Overall the refugee population from South Sudan has reached about two million, of whom more than 430,000 have taken refuge in Sudan, the United Nations says.

Grandi praised Khartoum for opening "human corridors" to deliver aid directly from Sudan to areas of South Sudan, and for hosting hundreds of thousands of refugees.

The refugee population from South Sudan has reached about two million

"Sudan has kept its doors open at a time when so many countries have closed their doors," he said, addressing hundreds of refugees gathered to meet him in the sprawling camp of thatched huts and brick homes.

- 'Respect the law' -

Grandi said it was time to develop "new models" for aiding refugees, rather than just keeping them in camps.

"For how long can you support these camps?" he said as aid agencies face increasing financial struggles.

It would be better to support the local economy, he said, as that would "benefit the refugees also".

While touring the camp, Grandi visited a newly built school as well as some refugee families in their huts, where women described how they fled the war at home.

"We will now return only when there is peace in our country," one woman, who came to Al Nimir in May, told Grandi.

"Don't lose hope," Grandi told her, as behind him groups of refugees performed traditional dances to mark his visit.

Urging Khartoum to continue supporting the refugees, Grandi said the occupants of camps should also "respect the law" of the land.

Earlier this month a mob of South Sudanese refugees went on a rampage at the Al Waral camp in Sudan's southern White Nile state after reports that a refugee youth had died in police custody.

UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi said South Sudanese refugees could face 'a long-term exile'

The mob burned down the camp's administrative buildings and looted warehouses, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said.

Khartoum now plans to split the Al Waral camp, which has more than 50,000 South Sudanese refugees, into three separate units.

"It worries me if the law is broken, and it worries me that this may open up a feeling of hostility to the refugees," said Grandi when asked about the unrest.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas expressed his thanks for North Korea's "firm solidarity in support of the rights of our people and the just struggle to end the (Israeli) occupation"

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas congratulated North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un Tuesday on the anniversary of independence from Japan's 1910-45 occupation, amid a US standoff with the rogue state.

"The Korean people offered the most precious sacrifices for their freedom and dignity," Abbas said in a message to Kim that was also published by the Palestinian state news agency Wafa.

Abbas expressed his thanks for North Korea's "firm solidarity in support of the rights of our people and the just struggle to end the (Israeli) occupation," it added.

In a separate message also carried by Wafa, Abbas congratulated South Korean President Moon Jae-In on the anniversary.

After a week of soaring tensions between the United States and North Korea, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Tuesday Washington was ready for talks with Kim.

Earlier this week Kim postponed a threat to fire missiles towards the US territory of Guam, after US President Donald Trump said a military option against North Korea was "locked and loaded".
The scene of an attack in Burkina Faso in which 18 people were killed, one of a series in the Sahel region raising concerns about security

Hit by several attacks on UN camps, Mali on Tuesday called on the international community to provide military material and financial aid from a new joint force being set up by five countries of the Sahel region.

Speaking before the UN Security Council, Mali's ambassador to the United Nations, Issa Konfourou, said Monday's attacks in Mali, which left nine dead, and an attack in Burkina Faso on Sunday, in which 18 people were killed, underscored the urgency of setting up the force.

He said progress had been made since the joint force was formally constituted in early July but Mali called "on all friendly countries and partner international organizations to help us to complete the budget."

The 5,000-strong force is to be made up of troops from Niger, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Burkina Faso.

It has an annual budget of about $496 million (423 million euros) a year but so far only about $127 million (108 million euros) has been pledged.

A Malian diplomat said equipment was needed for the force's five battalions. Also required is a communications systems linking them to headquarters and an emergency medical evacuation unit.

Plans call for deploying the first units in October and for the battalions to be operational by March, with priority placed on cross-border military operations.

Speaking at a UN Security Council debate on security in Africa, France's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations Anne Gueguen stressed the need for an "urgent response" to armed jihadist groups destabilizing the Sahel region, the semi-arid region in north central Africa that extends from Senegal to Sudan.

"The security situation in the Sahel is directly linked to the situation in Mali," she said.

Her American counterpart, Michele Sison, insisted that deeper cooperation between the five participating countries could help improve regional security and compliment the work of an existing UN peacekeeping force in Mali.

"Toward that end, the United States will continue its longstanding bilateral support to develop and build the capacity of G5 members security forces," she said.

Konfourou and Niger's Ambassador Abdallah Wafy said after the Security Council meeting that the United States had not refused to contribute financially to the force -- even though unlike the European Union and France it has not announced a pledge of financial support.

They told reporters that Washington intends to participate in international donor conferences later this year to raise funds for the force, the ambassadors said.
Attorney Gloria Allred (left) and a woman who gave her name only as Robin accuse Roman Polanski of having sexually assaulted Robin when she was a minor

A third woman came forward Tuesday to accuse Roman Polanski of sexual assault when she was a minor, four decades after he went on the run for raping another girl.

The woman, identified only as Robin, told a news conference in Los Angeles she was "sexually victimized" by the legendary French-Polish film director when she was just 16, in 1973.

"The day after it happened, I did tell one friend that Mr Polanski had done that to me," she said, reading from a prepared statement.

"The reason, with this exception, that I kept it to myself is that I didn't want my father to do something that might cause him to go to prison for the rest of his life."

Robin said she was prompted to come forward after the victim at the center of a rape case against the famed director recently urged authorities to put the case to rest.

Lawyer Gloria Allred, who is representing the latest alleged victim, said the incident happened in southern California but added that her client would not be going into any further detail.

Although the statute of limitations has expired on her case, she could be called to testify in a future trial, the lawyer said.

The director of "Rosemary's Baby" and "Chinatown," who turns 84 on Friday, was accused of drugging Samantha Geimer when she was 13 before raping her at Jack Nicholson's house in Los Angeles in 1977 while the film star was away.

Polanski admitted statutory rape after a number of more serious charges were dropped, and spent 48 days in custody to undergo psychiatric evaluation before being released.

According to court documents filed by his lawyer Harland Braun, Polanski was promised by the judge overseeing the case that the seven weeks he spent in custody would be the only time he would serve.

- 'Infuriated' -

But in 1978, convinced the judge was going to scrap his plea deal and send him to prison -- possibly for decades -- he left for France.

The director -- who is married to French actress Emmanuelle Seigner, with whom he has two children -- has since refused to return without assurances that he would not serve additional time in prison.

Robin said she was "infuriated" when Geimer appeared in Los Angeles Superior Court in June to buttress the filmmaker's case that he had served his time and that the matter should be settled once and for all.

"I'm speaking out now so that Samantha and the world will know that she is not the only minor Roman Polanski victimized," Robin said.

"I'm not over it and I certainly believe that Roman Polanski should be held accountable for his criminal conduct with Samantha Geimer."

Allred said Polanski was free to withdraw his guilty plea in the Geimer case and seek a new trial for the charges on which he was originally indicted.

Robin will not be filing a civil complaint but is willing to testify under oath if there were ever a criminal trial, according to Allred.

Polanski's film career has continued to flourish since he fled to France, where many consider him an icon. He has eight Cesars -- the French equivalent of the Oscars -- and a best director Academy Award for Holocaust drama "The Pianist."

While living in the United States, he was married to the actress Sharon Tate, who was murdered in 1969 by members of the Charles Manson family when she was eight months pregnant.

Polanski's attorney could not immediately be reached for comment.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) - Clergy in robes. A woman handing out flowers. Black Lives Matter activists. Armed militia members. Students. Angry anti-fascist protesters.

The diverse group of people who came to oppose a weekend gathering of white nationalists in this Virginia college town seemed to outnumber the rally-goers. The counter-protesting groups didn't organize collectively. Instead, it was a largely organic effort among groups who shared the same mission: showing that hate wasn't welcome.

"They just wanted to come out and say no. They wanted to come out and show a robust love for community and what America is meant to stand for," said Lisa Woolfork, a University of Virginia professor and 17-year Charlottesville resident. "And I find that very heartening, very encouraging."

A counter demonstrator gets a splash of water after being hit by pepper spray at the entrance to Lee Park in Charlottesville, Va., Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017. Gov. Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency and police dressed in riot gear ordered people to disperse after chaotic violent clashes between white nationalists and counter protestors. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

Officials have not provided a crowd estimate, but there appeared to be at least 500 people supporting the rally sparked by Charlottesville's decision to remove a Confederate monument. At least twice as many appeared to be there to oppose them.

The violence between the groups erupted well before the event was supposed to start.

Neo-Nazis, skinheads, Ku Klux Klan members other white supremacists made their way to the park at the same time as counter-protesters, and the two sides clashed. People threw punches, screamed, set off smoke bombs, hurled water bottles and unleashed chemical sprays. Some came prepared for a fight, with body armor and helmets. Others darted around, trying to avoid the chaos.

"I've never seen that kind of hatred up front. It was pretty raw, pretty coarse," scholar and activist Cornel West, one of the most high-profile counter-protesters, told The Associated Press in an interview Sunday.

There were pockets of peaceful resistance, too. One woman quietly handed out flowers. A group stood in a circle, hands uplifted, singing hymns. One man toted a tuba.

Volunteer medics bobbed in and out of the fray, helping people who had been sprayed with chemicals, and others passed out water and snacks.

Walt Heinecke, another University of Virginia professor, obtained city permits for events in two nearby parks, and counter-protesters used the sites as a place of respite.

Heinecke said he was surprised to see members of an armed leftist group who stationed themselves nearby, providing protection for people there.

Meanwhile, many of the rally attendees stood behind barriers officials had put up, waiting for the event to get underway. But the speakers never got the chance.

As the chaos grew, authorities declared it an unlawful assembly and forced the crowd to disperse. The rally leaders, including organizer Jason Kessler - a local right-wing blogger and activist - urged supporters to go home.

Kessler blamed the violence on police, saying they didn't do enough to maintain order and protect his group's right to free speech.

About two hours later, pockets of counter-protesters who had been marching through town converged on a downtown street. Hundreds were streaming along, cheering, and waving flags.

"There was a real feeling like we had driven them out of the town," said Ross Mittiga, a UVA researcher who recently ran an unsuccessful campaign for the state House of Delegates.

That was quickly shattered when a car plowed into the crowd, hurling people into the air. Heather Heyer, 32, was killed and 19 others were injured. Just hours later, a state police helicopter that had been deployed as part of the response crashed in a field outside of town, killing two.

In blog posts after the violence, the Daily Stormer, a leading white nationalist website that promoted the Charlottesville event, pledged to hold more events "soon."

Opponents said they'd be ready.

"We have got to keep fighting, keep the love in it, keep sacrificing for justice," West said. "We have no choice at this point."

___

Associated Press reporter Josh Replogle contributed to this report.

A white nationalist demonstrator, bloodied after a clash with a counter demonstrator, talks on the radio receiver at the entrance to Lee Park in Charlottesville, Va., Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017. Gov. Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency and police dressed in riot gear ordered people to disperse after chaotic violent clashes between white nationalists and counter protestors. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

A Black Lives Matter New York demonstrator holds a sign to counter white nationalist demonstrators at the entrance to Lee Park in Charlottesville, Va., Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017. Gov. Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency and police dressed in riot gear ordered people to disperse after chaotic violent clashes between white nationalists and counter protestors. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

A counter demonstrator is splashed with water after he was hit by pepper spray from an white nationalist demonstrator after he threw a water bottle at the entrance to Lee Park in Charlottesville, Va., Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017. Gov. Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency and police dressed in riot gear ordered people to disperse after chaotic violent clashes between white nationalists and counter protestors. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

A counter demonstrator throws a water bottle at an white nationalist demonstrator at the entrance to Lee Park in Charlottesville, Va., Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017. Gov. Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency and police dressed in riot gear ordered people to disperse after chaotic violent clashes between white nationalists and counter protestors. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
BAGHDAD (AP) - Iraq's Shiite militias announced on Monday they will participate in the next major battle against the Islamic State group after the Iraqi forces' victory in Mosul last month.

The Shite militias did not fight in the urban part of Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, but were key in clearing far-flung villages of IS and capturing supply lines in the desert west of Mosul toward Iraq's border with Syria.

The spokesman for the government-sanctioned umbrella - known as the Popular Mobilization Forces or PMF and mostly made up of Shiite militias - says the participation of the militiamen is "essential" in the upcoming fight for the town of Tal Afar, west of Mosul. About 150 kilometers (93 miles) east of the Syrian border, Tal Afar was once home to both Shiites and Sunni ethnic Turkmen.

"Today we want to speak loud and clear that (the PMF) are actively involved in Tal Afar military operations and will participate in all areas where operations are taking place," Ahmed al-Asadi told reporters in Baghdad.

In past fights against IS in Iraq, including the battles for the cities of Tikrit and Fallujah, the Shiite militias were accused of sectarian killings and other abuses against minority Sunnis. They acknowledge some abuses may have occurred but say those responsible have been disciplined.

Monday's announcement may increase tensions between Iraq and neighboring Turkey.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim has repeatedly warned that military operations in and around Mosul should not lead to any demographic changes on the ground, reflecting concerns that once territory is liberated from IS, Iraqi Kurdish or Shiite forces may push out Sunni Arabs or ethnic Turkmen.
MOSCOW (AP) - Russia's main intelligence agency said on Monday it has foiled a plot led by two Soviet-born militants fighting for the Islamic State group in Syria.

Four people have been arrested on suspicion of plotting a series of attacks, the FSB said in a statement. That includes two would-be suicide bombers who were supposed to blow themselves up on Moscow's transit system and in a shop. The FSB said they discovered a lab outside Moscow where improvised explosive devices were made.

The intelligence agency said the attacks were directed by two senior militants who fight on the side of IS in Syria and hail from the former Soviet Union.

The suspects arrested outside Moscow were not identified, but the FSB said one of them is a Russian national and three others are from Central Asia. The FSB did not say when the arrests took place.

More than 4,000 Russian nationals, mostly from predominantly Muslim regions, are estimated to fight alongside IS militants in Syria. When Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2015 launched a military operation there to provide air cover for the government's offensive against the IS, he said Russia's involvement was necessary to deter Russians fighting there from coming back home.
PARIS, Wis. (AP) - The Latest on the shooting at a southern Wisconsin race track that left three men dead (all times local):

3:10 p.m.

Authorities have identified three Illinois men they say were gang members who were fatally shot at a southern Wisconsin race track.

Emergency response vehicles gather at Great Lakes Dragaway on Sunday, Aug. 13, 2017, near Union Grove, Wis. Three men were shot and killed during an auto racing event at the facility, a Wisconsin sheriff said. Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth said authorities responded around 7 p.m. after receiving reports about shots being fired. The three men were shot by another man at point-blank range near a food vendor, Beth said at a news conference Sunday night. No suspects were arrested and no one else was injured. (Terry Flores/Kenosha News via AP)

The Kenosha County Sheriff's Office said Monday the victims of Sunday night's shooting were 30-year-old David L. Watson of Oswego, 30-year-old Khalid R. Howard or Aurora, and 26-year-old Derek K. Edwards of North Aurora.

Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth said Monday the man who killed the three Sunday night is still at large. Beth says investigators have identified the victims as gang members but officials have not determined a motive for the shooting.

The three men were shot point-blank in a concession area in the parking lot of the raceway where some 15,000 people had gathered for a car show and drag race.

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1:45 p.m.

The sheriff heading the investigation into the slayings of three Illinois men at a southern Wisconsin race track says a gunman shot two of the victims, followed the third as he tried to run away and shot him, then returned to the other two and shot them a second time.

At a news conference outside the Great Lakes Dragaway near Union Grove, Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth said Monday the man who killed the three Sunday night is still at large.

Beth says the three victims are gang members from in and around Aurora, Illinois. Beth says he doesn't yet know what motivated the shooting, which were done point blank at close range in a concession area in the parking lot of the raceway where some 15,000 people had gathered for a car show and drag race.

The sheriff says a pistol was used in the shooting, which has not been recovered.

Union Grove is about 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of Milwaukee.

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11:50 a.m.

The sheriff heading the investigation into the fatal shooting of three Illinois men at a southern Wisconsin race track says detectives are being stymied by a lack of cooperation from family members and others involved in the case.

Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth, speaking on WTMJ-AM Monday, says that's making it more difficult to find the person responsible for the slayings. Beth says the shooter approached the men near a food vendor in the parking lot of the Great Lakes Dragaway Sunday about 7 p.m., identified them as the people that he was looking for, then shot them each at point blank range and took off running.

As many as 5,000 people were attending Larry's Fun Fest at the raceway when the shots were fired. Authorities have not identified the victims, but say they are known gang members from in and around Aurora, Illinois.

The sheriff planned a news conference for 1 p.m. Monday.

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8:50 a.m.

Sheriff's officials investigating the fatal shooting of three Illinois men at a southern Wisconsin race track say the slayings may have been gang related.

Kenosha County sheriff's Sgt. Mark Malecki said Monday that the victims were known gang members from the Aurora area. He says the man shot them at point-blank range at the Great Lakes Dragaway near Union Grove Sunday night.

Malecki says investigators are looking into the possibility that the shooter is from a rival gang.

The shootings happened near a concession stand in a parking lot about 7 p.m. As many as 5,000 people had gathered at the speedway for Larry's Fun Fest, a car show and drag race.

Two of the men died at the scene and the third died on the way to the hospital.

Union Grove is about 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of Milwaukee.

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7 a.m.

Sheriff's officials are encouraging anyone who witnessed the fatal shooting of three men at a southern Wisconsin race track to contact authorities.

Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth says there may be witnesses who initially hesitated to talk to deputies at the Great Lakes Dragaway in Union Grove Sunday night, but now may be willing to share information.

Authorities say the man who shot the three men at point-blank range is still at large. Beth says the shooting happened in a parking lot concession area about 7 p.m. Two men died at the scene, and the third died en route to a hospital. The sheriff says at least two of the men were from Aurora, Illinois.

Union Grove is about 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of Milwaukee.

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12:41 a.m.

A Wisconsin sheriff says three men were shot and killed during an auto racing event.

Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth says authorities responded to the Great Lakes Dragaway in Union Grove around 7 p.m. Sunday after receiving reports about shots being fired.

Beth says the three men were shot by another man at point-blank range near a food vendor. No suspects have been arrested.

Two men died at the scene, and the third died while being transported to a hospital. The sheriff says at least two of the men were from Aurora, Illinois.

The sheriff's office estimated that more than 5,000 people were at the raceway for an event known as "Larry's Fun Fest."

Union Grove is about 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of Milwaukee.
WARSAW, Poland (AP) - A renowned Arabian horse breeding program in Poland has held a disappointing auction, selling fewer horses and raising less money than in the past, after a political purge of its managers by the country's conservative ruling party.

The yearly Pride of Poland auction at a stud farm in Janow Podlaski, in eastern Poland, was world-renowned, drawing horse breeders from around the world.

But the 200-year-old state program suffered a heavy blow to its prestige in 2015 when the newly elected Law and Justice party fired its top breeders and replaced them with party loyalists with less experience.

FILE - In this Aug. 14, 2016 file photo mare Sefora is presented at the yearly Arabian horse auction "Pride of Poland", in Janow Podlaski, Poland. A renowned Arabian horse breeding program in Poland has held a disappointing auction this year, selling fewer horses and raising less money than in the past, after a political purge of its managers by the country's conservative ruling party. (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz, file)

Government critics on Monday described this year's auction on Sunday as a fiasco. Of 25 horses, only six were sold and 410,000 euros raised. The last auction before the 2015 purge raised 4.5 million euros.

The 2015 power shift in Poland brought changes across all of Poland's state enterprises, but the changes in the Arabian breeding program got more attention than the others because it hit professionals who had built up international relationships over many years with celebrities, Arab sheikhs and other millionaires.

Some of those people are now boycotting the Polish stud farms in solidarity with the former managers.

Two out of four mares on loan to Poland from British breeder Shirley Watts, wife of Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts, died after the management change.

A further setback occurred at last year's auction due to suspicions that there were fake bidders who drove up prices artificially, something that the state managers denied.

Slawomir Pietrzak, the manager at Janow Podlaski, brushed off the result of this year's auction, saying there were also auctions in the past that did not have great results and that the international market is changing.

"There is an overproduction of Arabian horses, and there are more and more auctions," Pietrzak said. "That's the market situation."
ISTANBUL (AP) - Turkey's state news agency says that Turkish authorities have arrested and charged a suspected Islamic State group member with killing two Syrian journalists in Turkey in 2015.

Anadolu Agency said Monday that a Turkish court charged Muaz El Ahsin with murder for allegedly slitting the throats of Ibrahim Abdul-Qadir and Fares Hamadi. Both were journalists for the "Raqqa is being slaughtered silently" collective, a group publicizing atrocities in the Syrian city under IS rule.

Police detained Ahsin on Aug. 11 while he was trying to cross into Turkey illegally, according to Anadolu. A court later ordered him officially arrested on murder charges.

Anadolu said that Ahsin fled to Syria after the killings on Oct. 29, 2015. Anadolu said that police were still searching for other suspects.
CARTAGENA, Colombia (AP) - The Latest on Vice President Mike Pence's trip to Latin America (all times local):

10:20 a.m.

Vice President Mike Pence is seeking to highlight the growing plight of Venezuelans with a visit with people who've fled the country to neighboring Colombia. Pence is visiting the Calvary Chapel in Cartagena.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence speaks during a joint press conference with Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos at the presidential guesthouse in Cartagena, Colombia, Sunday, Aug. 13, 2017. Cartagena is the first stop of Pence's weeklong trip to Latin America, that will also take him to Argentina, Chile and Panama. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

He's praying with faith leaders and Venezuelan families before departing to Buenos Aires, Argentina later Monday.

Pence's visit comes as he tries to rally the region against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's attempts to consolidate power.

Pence on Sunday evening denounced Maduro's tactics and said the U.S. will not stand by as the country "crumbles."

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, right, and Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos, arrive to give a joint press conference at the presidential guesthouse in Cartagena, Colombia, Sunday, Aug. 13, 2017. Cartagena is the first stop of Pence's weeklong trip to Latin America, that will also take him to Argentina, Chile and Panama. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara).

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, right, is welcomed by Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos at the presidential guesthouse in Cartagena, Colombia, Sunday, Aug. 13, 2017. Cartagena is the first stop of Pence's weeklong trip to Latin America, that will also take him to Argentina, Chile and Panama. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence is welcomed by Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos, left, at the presidential guesthouse in Cartagena, Colombia, Sunday, Aug. 13, 2017. Cartagena is the first stop of Pence's weeklong trip to Latin America, that will also take him to Argentina, Chile and Panama. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Kenyan media say a boat carrying a local politician and his family capsized in the Indian Ocean and that many of the dozen occupants are missing.

Rescuers on Monday searched for the vessel, which sank off coastal Lamu County amid reports of high tides.

The Standard newspaper quotes county commissioner Joseph Kanyiri as saying one body was found.

Some Kenyan media outlets say Shekuwe Kahale, a politician affiliated with Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga, was on the boat but survived.

Odinga said last week's presidential election, won by President Uhuru Kenyatta, was rigged. Kenyan election officials and international observers say the vote was free and fair.
For nearly a century, American Indian jewelers, potters and other artists have been gathering in the heart of northern New Mexico to show off their creations at one of the nation's most prestigious art markets.

The annual Santa Fe Indian Market begins Saturday as organizers push ahead with raising the bar for showcasing what they say are the best examples of art that has evolved from centuries-old traditions.

Some artists and their families have participated for years, but this marks the first time organizers have shifted entirely to a juried application process that has resulted in fierce competition.

Organizers say the result is more fair than the system that used to exist, said Dallin Maybee, chief operating officer of the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts, which presents the market each year.

"The process allows us to jury and select people simply based on the weight and competitiveness of their work. Tribal affiliation, age, medium - it doesn't factor in anymore," he said.

About 935 artists were selected this year. Many are from pueblos throughout New Mexico and the Navajo Nation while others are traveling from as far as Alaska, Montana, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

Events related to Native film, literature and fashion are scheduled throughout the week leading up to the market. Here are some more things to know:

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TRADITION

While much of the art showcased at the market is based on methods and styles used by tribes for generations, more modern narratives have been finding their way into the pieces and the work has been evolving. Maybee pointed to pottery designs and changes in textiles.

"I think the perception was that we were always a traditional show and that's just not the case," he said. "We do have art forms that are very old in terms of techniques and materials but for decades and decades our artists have been exploring new ways of presenting those things."

In 2015, the market started the Edge Contemporary Show for those Native artists focused on fine art with a more modern flair.

Acknowledging the popularity of the contemporary work, he said: "We'll keep moving in those directions. I think there's room and space for all the different types of art forms to find a place at Indian Market."

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FILM AND FASHION

In conjunction with the market, the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian will present its annual Native Cinema Showcase throughout the week, highlighting more than 50 feature-length and short films created by Native artists.

The Haute Couture Fashion Show on Saturday will include work inspired by the diverse backgrounds of designers across Indian Country. That will be followed Sunday by a clothing competition in which models will show off traditional and contemporary styles.

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THE DRAW

The festivities typically attract about 100,000 people to Santa Fe for the week, resulting in an estimated economic impact of about $80 million.

Through the juried process, Maybee says visitors get to see a level of fine art beyond craft fairs and powwows. And with so many accomplished artists applying each year, space simply runs out.

For casual collectors, Maybee says they buy what speaks to them and aren't too concerned about the backstory. For others, it can be a cultural education.

"That's one of the best things about Indian Market, they can engage directly with these artists and talk to them about their culture, about their identity and where they found these narratives and how they're interpreting them. It's really a beautiful process," he said.

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If You Go...

SANTA FE INDIAN MARKET: Related events are planned throughout Santa Fe. Here is a link to the schedule and ticketing information: http://swaia.org/Indian_Market/2017_Schedule_and_Tickets/index.html
WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States would "take out" any North Korean missile seen to be heading for American soil, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Monday.

He declared that any such North Korean attack could lead to war.

Responding to reporters' questions about North Korea's assertion that it might soon fire four ballistic missiles into the waters off Guam, a U.S. territory in the Pacific, Mattis made clear he did not want to be seen as escalating the tensions.

FILE - In this Aug. 10, 2017, file photo, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis answers questions while speaking at the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental in Mountain View, Calif. Mattis says the U.S. will "take out" any North Korean missile it detects is heading for American soil, including the Pacific island of Guam. Mattis says a North Korean missile strike on the U.S. would mean war. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

"If they fire at the United States, it could escalate into war very quickly," he said. "Yes, that's called war, if they shoot at us."

Later he said, "If they shoot at the United States, I'm assuming they hit the United States. If they do that, it's game on."

Mattis said U.S. missile detection and tracking systems can determine swiftly whether a missile launched from North Korea is headed for U.S. soil. North Korea said last week it is considering launching four missiles to land just short of Guam.

If a missile is judged to be headed for the island, Mattis said: "We'll take it out."

If the U.S. determines the missile would fall into the sea short of Guam, he said "it becomes an issue we take up however the president chooses."

The U.S. has missile defenses on Guam, at sea and in the continental U.S. that are designed to shoot down ballistic missiles.

Mattis was asked whether decisions had already been made about how to respond in the event a North Korean missile lands in the waters off Guam.

"You can't make all those kinds of decision in advance," he said. "There's a host of things going on. There's allies that we consult with."

Mattis was reluctant to speak in detail about how the Trump administration will handle future North Korean missile launches.

"I need a certain amount of ambiguity on this" to prevent North Korea from knowing too much about U.S. planning, he said.
FORT DODGE, Iowa (AP) - Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst expressed frustration Monday that it took President Donald Trump two days to specifically condemn white supremacy after deadly violence at a rally in Virginia.

"Finally!" the Iowa Republican told reporters, referencing Trump's condemnation of white nationalist groups - including the Ku Klux Klan - two days after a woman protesting the groups was killed in Charlottesville.

Speaking to about 100 people at a middle school in northwest Iowa, Ernst called Trump's latest statement "strong" but added, "I wish he would have been right out of the game with that."

Republican senator Joni Ernst holds a town hall meeting in Fort Dodge, Iowa, Monday, Aug. 14, 2017. (Rodney White/The Des Moines Register via AP)

The freshman Republican, a rising national figure in the party, said Trump has been quick to voice his opinions on Twitter but shouldn't have taken so long to denounce what the Justice Department is investigating as an act of domestic terrorism.

"We do want a quick response," said Ernst, whom Trump met with in 2016 as he was weighing his choice of running mate. "I'm hopeful that - should anything like that ever occur again - that the president would be right out there saying, 'this is not OK.'"

Ernst followed fellow Republican senators, including Colorado's Cory Gardner, who implored Trump for a direct denunciation of white supremacist groups Sunday. But Ernst's political course is trickier than Gardner's because she represents a state Trump carried last year by a healthy margin.

However, the Des Moines Register's July Iowa Poll showed a majority of Iowans disapproving of the president's performance, due mostly to a spike in dissatisfaction from independent voters.

Ernst has been a loyal supporter of most of Trump's agenda, though she was quick to point out times when she has disagreed with the president.

This month, she opposed Trump's decision to bar transgender Americans from serving in the military. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, she also has urged Trump to take a tougher stance on Russia's military and cyber interference in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Still, she supported the president's withdrawal from the Paris climate accord in June, and has said she wants the Senate to continue to pursue repeal of the 2010 Affordable Care Act. Trump had expressed that desire too, despite Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's decision to move on after the GOP-controlled Senate failed to advance such legislation last month.

"It is imperative we not simply walk away from our effort to repeal and replace ObamaCare," Ernst wrote to McConnell this month, echoing Trump's public pronouncements toward the Kentucky Republican.

And yet, Ernst told the audience the fate of the United States rests with the success of the president, like him or not.

"I may not support everything that Donald Trump says, but he is my president and he is your president," she said.

Republican senator Joni Ernst holds a town hall meeting in Fort Dodge, Iowa, Monday, Aug. 14, 2017. (Rodney White/The Des Moines Register via AP)

Republican senator Joni Ernst holds a town hall meeting in Fort Dodge, Iowa, Monday, Aug. 14, 2017. (Rodney White/The Des Moines Register via AP)
HIGASHISHIRAKAWA, Japan (AP) - The former U.S. Marine knew the calligraphy-covered flag he took from a fallen Japanese soldier 73 years ago was more than a keepsake of World War II. When Marvin Strombo finally handed the flag back to Sadao Yasue's younger brother and sisters Tuesday, he understood what it really meant to them.

Tatsuya Yasue buried his face into the flag and smelled it, then he held Strombo's hands and kissed them. His elder sister Sayoko Furuta, 93, sitting in her wheelchair, covered her face with both hands and wept silently as Tatsuya placed the flag on her lap.

Strombo said their reaction struck him. He reached out to Yasue's elder sister and gently rubbed her shoulder.

WWII veteran Marvin Strombo, right, and Tatsuya Yasue, 89-year-old farmer, hold a Japanese flag with autographed messages which was owned by his brother Sadao Yasue, who was killed in the Pacific during World Work II, during a ceremony in Higashishirakawa, in central Japan's Gifu prefecture Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017. Strombo has returned to the fallen soldier's family the calligraphy-covered flag he took from the man's body 73 years ago. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

"I was so happy that I returned the flag," Strombo said. "I can see how much the flag meant to her. That almost made me cry ... It meant everything in the world to her."

The flag is a treasure that will fill a deep void for Yasue's family. It is the first trace of their brother. The Japanese authorities only gave them a wooden box containing a few rocks, a substitution for the remains that have never been found.

The flag's white background is filled with signatures of 180 friends and neighbors in this tea-growing mountain village of Higashishirakawa, wishing Yasue's safe return. "Good luck forever at the battlefield," a message on it reads. Looking at the names and their handwriting, Tatsuya Yasue clearly recalls their faces and friendship with his brother.

The smell of the flag immediately brought back childhood memories to the soldier's younger brother.

"It smelled like my good old big brother, and it smelled like our mother's home cooking we ate together," Tatsuya Yasue said. "The flag will be our treasure."

The return of the flag brings closure, the 89-year-old farmer and a younger brother of the fallen soldier, told The Associated Press at his 400-year-old house on Monday. "It's like the war has finally ended and my brother can come out of the limbo."

Yasue last saw his older brother alive the day before he left for the South Pacific in 1943. Tatsuya and two siblings had a small send-off picnic for the oldest brother outside his military unit over sushi and Japanese sweet mochi, which became their last meal together. At the end of the meeting, his brother whispered to Tatsuya, asking him to take good care of their parents, as he would be sent to the Pacific islands, harsh battlegrounds where chances of survival were low.

A year later, the wooden box containing the stones arrived. Months after the war ended, the authorities told Yasue that his brother died somewhere in the Marianas presumably on July 18, 1944, the day Saipan fell, at age 25.

"That's all we were told about my brother. We never knew exactly when, where or how he died," he said. Yasue and his relatives wondered Sadao might have died at sea off Saipan. About 20 years ago, Yasue visited Saipan with his younger brother, imagining what their older brother might have gone through.

The only person who can provide some of those answers, Strombo said he found Yasue's body on the outskirts of Garapan when he got lost and ended up near the Japanese frontline. He told Yasue's siblings their brother likely died of a concussion from a mortar round. He told them that Sadao was lying on the ground, his leftside down, looking peacefully as if he was sleeping and without severe wounds.

At least the flag and his story suggest Yasue died on the ground, which also raises hopes of retrieving his remains.

The remains of nearly half of 2.4 million Japanese war-dead overseas have yet to be found 72 years after the World War II ended. It's a pressing issue as the bereaved families reach old age and memories fade.

Allied troops frequently took the flags from the bodies of their enemies as souvenirs, as Japanese flags were quite popular and fetched good price when auctioned, Strombo said. But to the Japanese bereaved families, they have a much deeper meaning, especially those, like Yasue, who never learned how their loved ones died and never received remains. Japanese government has requested auction sites to stop trading wartime signed flags.

Strombo said Tuesday that he originally wanted the flag as a souvenir from the war, but felt guilty just taking it, and that's why he never sold it and committed himself to a lifelong journey to return the flag to its real home.

He had the flag hung in a glass-fronted gun cabinet in his home in Montana for years, a topic of conversation for visitors. He was in the battles of Saipan, Tarawa and Tinian, which chipped away at Japan's control of islands in the Pacific and paved the way for U.S. victory.

In 2012, he was connected to an Oregon-based nonprofit Obon Society that helps U.S. veterans and their descendants return Japanese flags to the families of fallen soldiers. The group's research traced it to the tea-growing village of 2,300 people in central Japan by analyzing family names.

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WWII veteran Marvin Strombo, center, returns Tatsuya Yasue, left, a Japanese flag with autographed messages which was owned by his brother Sadao Yasue, who was killed in the Pacific during World Work II, during a ceremony in Higashishirakawa, in central Japan's Gifu prefecture Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017. Strombo has returned to the fallen soldier's family the calligraphy-covered flag he took from the man's body 73 years ago. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

WWII veteran Marvin Strombo, right, and Tatsuya Yasue, 89-year-old farmer, hold a Japanese flag with autographed messages which was owned by his brother Sadao Yasue, who was killed in the Pacific during World Work II, during a ceremony in Higashishirakawa, in central Japan's Gifu prefecture Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017. Strombo has returned to the fallen soldier's family the calligraphy-covered flag he took from the man's body 73 years ago. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

Tatsuya Yasue, left, kisses the hands of WWII veteran Marvin Strombo during a ceremony in Higashishirakawa, in central Japan's Gifu prefecture Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017. Strombo returned a Japanese flag with autographed messages which was owned by Tatsuya's brother Sadao Yasue, who was killed in the Pacific during World Work II. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

In this Aug. 14, 2017 photo, Tatsuya Yasue, 89-year-old farmer, shows a photo of his brother Sadao Yasue, who fell in battle during the war in Pacific more than 70 years ago, in Higashishirakawa, in central Japan's Gifu prefecture. Former U.S. Marine Marvin Strombo will returns Sadao's calligraphy-covered flag he took from the fallen Japanese soldier 73 years ago. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

Tatsuya Yasue, left, and WWII veteran Marvin Strombo shake hands prior to a ceremony in Higashishirakawa, in central Japan's Gifu prefecture Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017. Strombo returned a Japanese flag with autographed messages which was owned by Tatsuya's brother Sadao Yasue, who was killed in the Pacific during World Work II. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

In this Aug. 14, 2017 photo, Tatsuya Yasue, 89-year-old farmer, wipes his tears while taking about his brother Sadao Yasue, who fell in battle during the war in Pacific more than 70 years ago, in Higashishirakawa, in central Japan's Gifu prefecture. Former U.S. Marine Marvin Strombo will returns Sadao's calligraphy-covered flag he took from the fallen Japanese soldier 73 years ago. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

In this Aug. 13, 2017 photo, former U.S. Marine Marvin Strombo speaks during a press conference in Tokyo. Strombo is in Japan to return the calligraphy-covered flag he took from a fallen Japanese soldier 73 years ago. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi)

In this Aug. 13, 2017 photo, former U.S. Marine Marvin Strombo, right, holds a Japan's national flag during a press conference in Tokyo. Strombo is in Japan to return the calligraphy-covered flag he took from a fallen Japanese soldier 73 years ago. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi)
Defiant Trump insists anew: Blame both sides for violence

NEW YORK (AP) - Combative and insistent, President Donald Trump declared anew Tuesday "there is blame on both sides" for the deadly violence last weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia, appearing to once again equate the actions of white supremacist groups and those protesting them. He showed sympathy for the fringe groups' efforts to preserve Confederate monuments.

The president's comments effectively wiped away the more conventional statement he delivered at the White House a day earlier when he branded members of the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists who take part in violence as "criminals and thugs."

Trump's advisers had hoped those remarks might quell a crush of criticism from Republicans, Democrats and business leaders. But the president's retorts Tuesday suggested he had been a reluctant participant in that cleanup effort and renewed questions about why he seems to struggle to unequivocally condemn white nationalists.

The blowback was swift, including from fellow Republicans. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said Trump should not allow white supremacists "to share only part of the blame." House Speaker Paul Ryan declared in a tweet that "white supremacy is repulsive" and there should be "no moral ambiguity," though he did not specifically address the president.

Trump's remarks were welcomed by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, who tweeted, "Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth."

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Racial politics haunt GOP in the Trump era

NEW YORK (AP) - The statue of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia, was the focus of an emotional debate in the state's Republican primary election weeks before it became a flashpoint in the nation's struggle over race.

Corey Stewart, an outsider candidate for governor sometimes compared to President Donald Trump, seized on possible removal of the Confederate general's memorial as an "attempt to destroy traditional America." Stewart, who said in an interview Tuesday that such an action "hits people in the gut," found unexpectedly strong support, forced his main opponent to defend the statue and almost won.

Now the fight over "traditional America" is throwing a spotlight on the Republican Party's struggle with race in the age of Trump. The deadly white supremacist rally against removal of the Lee statue served as a painful example of the uncomfortable alignment between some in the party's base and the far-right fringe. But despite the party's talk of inclusiveness and minority outreach, it's clear white fears continue to resonate with many in the GOP base. Politicians willing to exploit those issues are often rewarded with support. One big beneficiary, critics say, has been the president himself.

For those critics, on both the left and right, Trump's response to Charlottesville was a glaring example. On Saturday, he denounced hatred and violence on "many sides," seeming to assign blame equally to counterdemonstrators as well as hate groups protesting the proposed removal of the statue. He waited until Monday to specifically name the groups he was condemning - the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists.

On Tuesday, he was back to assigning partial blame to those protesting the white supremacists.

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10 Things to Know for Wednesday

Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about Wednesday:

1. TRUMP INSISTS 'BOTH SIDES' TO BLAME FOR VIOLENCE THAT KILLED ANTI-RACISM PROTESTER

He appeared to once again equate the actions of white supremacist groups and those protesting them, drawing swift rebukes from some fellow Republicans.

2. AFL-CIO LEADER IS LATEST TO WITHDRAW FROM WHITE HOUSE JOBS PANEL

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said he could not "sit on a council for a president who tolerates bigotry and domestic terrorism."

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Violence adds momentum to removal of Confederate statues

Cities and states accelerated their plans to remove Confederate monuments from public property Tuesday as the violence over a Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, moved leaders across the country to plan to wipe away much of the remaining Old South imagery.

Only two statues were taken down immediately, in Gainesville, Florida, where the Daughters of the Confederacy removed a statue of a Confederate soldier known as "Ole Joe," and in Durham, North Carolina, where protesters used a rope to pull down a Confederate monument dedicated in 1924.

But the anti-Confederate momentum seemed to ensure that other memorials would come down soon. Many local and state governments announced that they would remove statues and other imagery from public land, or consider doing so, in the aftermath of Saturday's white nationalist rally that killed one person and injured dozens more.

The changes were publicized as President Donald Trump defended Confederate statues in wide-ranging remarks.

"This week it's Robert E. Lee. I notice that Stonewall Jackson's coming down," Trump said during a visit to Trump Tower in New York. "I wonder, is it George Washington next week, and is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You know you really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop?"

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Moore, Strange in GOP runoff in Alabama Senate race

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - Sen. Luther Strange and former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore are headed to a Republican primary runoff to fill the U.S. Senate seat previously held by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

The two men, who represent different factions within the Alabama Republican Party, will face off in a Sept. 26 runoff after neither captured more than 50 percent of the vote.

Strange was forced into a runoff with the firebrand jurist despite an endorsement from President Donald Trump and heavy investment by a super political action committee tied to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The winner will face Democratic nominee Doug Jones in a December election

Moore, who was twice removed from his duties as chief justice for his stances supporting the public display of the Ten Commandments and against gay marriage. Moore expressed optimism Tuesday after a horseback ride to his polling place, an election day tradition of his.

"We look forward to registering our vote to make this country great again, to make it good again. And we're looking forward to voting and hope we have a good turnout today, because I know there's a lot of motivation out there to change Washington," Moore said.

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3 Republicans face off in Utah primary for vacant House seat

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Three GOP candidates hoping to replace former Rep. Jason Chaffetz in Congress faced off Tuesday in a primary election after weeks trying to burnish their conservative credentials and fend off attack ads from deep-pocketed outside groups.

Chaffetz abruptly stepped down from his seat in June after making a name for himself as the Republican who relentlessly investigated Hillary Clinton and her emails while he was chairman of the House Oversight Committee.

His departure opened up a congressional seat in a district where Republicans outnumber Democrats five-to-one, offering voters and donors a choice between three candidates emblematic of the divisions roiling the GOP under President Donald Trump.

Utah's special election is one of seven this year to fill vacancies in the U.S. House and Senate, five of which opened up when elected officials took posts in President Donald Trump's administration. Voters in Alabama were also voting Tuesday in primaries to select party nominees for the U.S. Senate seat that previously belonged to Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Moderate Utah Republicans have backed the popular mayor of Provo, John Curtis, who was once a Democrat and said he had strong moral concerns that kept him from voting for Trump.

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Indonesia clinic gives relief to Muslims with tattoo regrets

TANGERANG, Indonesia (AP) - Each staccato rat-a-tat-tat of the laser firing an intense beam at the elaborate red, green and black dragon on Taufiq Hidayat's arm is, he prays, bringing him closer to God.

The shirtless, slender 30-year-old says he got his back, an arm and a leg tattooed to "look cool" back in the day when "I was a gang member, a thug at the market."

These days, Hidayat has a newfound zeal for Islam that includes the conviction that Muslims should not alter the body that God gave them. He became so desperate to remove the tattoos that he once applied caustic soda, scarring his arm.

Laser removal, which takes repeated treatment and may not be completely successful but is safer than other methods, was out of the question because it costs thousands of dollars for tattoos as extensive as Hidayat's.

Since his self-mutilation, Hidayat has chanced upon a clinic west of the capital, Jakarta, that is offering laser removal for free, on one condition: While being zapped, patients must read and learn by heart Surah Ar-Rahman, the 55th chapter of the Quran about God's gifts to man.

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DJ in Taylor Swift case wasn't interested in backing down

DENVER (AP) - The former radio host who lost a groping lawsuit to Taylor Swift in federal court this week said Tuesday he realizes the case was in the pop star's favor, but he had no interest in backing down.

David Mueller told The Associated Press someone he knew suggested he pull out of the case early, but he refused.

"I knew that I couldn't go on with my life without representing myself," he said. "I'm never going to back down."

A six-woman, two-man jury determined Monday that Mueller groped Swift during a photo op before a concert in Denver in 2013. In keeping with Swift's request, they awarded her $1 in damages - an amount her attorney, Douglas Baldridge, called "a single symbolic dollar, the value of which is immeasurable to all women in this situation."

Mueller said he is thinking of giving Swift a Sacagawea dollar because the Native American is a prominent female.

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Strange bedfellows: The ACLU, free speech and Neo-Nazis

The violent clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, have turned a spotlight on the freedom of speech - one of the first rights enumerated in the U.S. Constitution, and one of the messiest.

In Charlottesville, white nationalists and other extremist groups including neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan rallied - but only after a federal judge ruled they had the right to gather at Emancipation Park and protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Their rights were defended by the American Civil Liberties Union, despised by many conservatives as a liberal bastion. The ACLU deplored the "voices of white supremacy," and condemned the violence that killed a 32-year-old woman and injured dozens of others. But the ACLU made no apologies for its defense of speech that many find distasteful or even dangerous.

"The First Amendment is a critical part of our democracy and it protects vile, hateful, and ignorant speech," the organization said.

So what are the boundaries of free speech? And how is it playing out in this politically charged landscape?

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AP Fact Check: What Trump said about Virginia protesters

NEW YORK (AP) - President Donald Trump on Tuesday defended his response to Saturday's racially-charged protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, in a winding, combative exchange with reporters that at times mischaracterized the message and purpose of event.

In his remarks, Trump described the rally as largely over the removal of a Confederate monument, although an organizer billed it as pushback against the "anti-white climate."

Trump also misstated his levels of political support in the 2016 election.

A look at Trump's claims and the facts:

TRUMP: "But not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists, by any stretch. Those people were also there because they wanted to protest the taking down of a statue, Robert E. Lee."
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - If, after all the fanfare, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un doesn't actually launch missiles toward Guam, many may write the whole episode off as another of the North's seemingly endless bluffs. But from Pyongyang's perspective and in the eyes of some U.S. military experts, Kim and his generals have already won this round.

Launch or not, Pyongyang has caused great drama and angst, riled U.S. President Donald Trump and alarmed America's allies in Tokyo and Seoul. It could also set a precedent for more aggressive brinkmanship ahead.

It comes as no surprise then that on Tuesday, as North Korea's state media released photos of Kim and his military officers examining the launch plan, replete with photos of the missiles' flight path and a big satellite image of the U.S. territory's Andersen Air Force Base, it also offered a seeming out.

In this Aug. 10, 2017, file photo, a man watches a TV screen showing a local news program reporting on North Korea's threats to strike Guam with ballistic missiles, at the Seoul Train Station in Seoul, South Korea. If, after all the fanfare, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un doesn't actually launch missiles toward Guam, many may write the whole episode off as another of the North's seemingly endless bluffs. But from Pyongyang's perspective and in the eyes of some U.S. military experts, Kim and his generals have already won this round. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-Joon, File)

Kim, it said, wants to "watch a little more" before making a decision.

The North's plan is to launch four missiles into the waters around the U.S. Pacific territory: one to the north, one to the south, and one each east and west. Pyongyang is calling it an "enveloping fire" demonstration, but in military jargon it's more commonly called "bracketing." It was calculated to touch off a storm of anxiety region-wide.

But firing missiles into Guam's exclusive economic zone, as the North threatened, would be an extremely risky move. "If they fire at the United States, it could escalate into war very quickly," U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis said Monday. "Yes, that's called war, if they shoot at us."

So, from the start, Pyongyang gave itself big exit ramps.

The North has never said it would attack Guam itself. To make its intentions crystal clear, it provided an extremely detailed account of the planned trajectory of the launch, which Japanese prefectures it would go over, the duration of the flight - right down to the second - and the distance of the "splash areas" from Guam's coast.

More importantly, it never committed to a launch date. Or, for that matter, to launching the missiles at all.

"The regime composed the threat in such a way as to allow Kim to back down without losing face," said Adam Mount, a nuclear strategy specialist with the Center for American Progress. "North Korea's Guam threat was more sophisticated, credible, and coercive than any of the vague warnings Trump made last week."

Of course, Pyongyang could blow past its own fail-safes.

It may still want to try its missiles out at an angle closer to the "battle trajectory" they would fly in a real attack, rather than the "lofted" trajectories they've been using to avoid flying over neighboring countries. If pushed further, or possibly as a high-profile protest to U.S.-South Korean military exercises that will begin next week, it could also want to use the launch to show the world what it can do and see what it can get away with.

But many experts who follow North Korea think Kim isn't in any big hurry.

"It seems to me they plan to draw this out, perhaps expecting Trump to lose interest," said Jeffrey Lewis, an arms control expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California. "It's not an empty threat, but it's also fairly high stakes. I imagine that the North Koreans would skip it if the rhetoric was toned down."

Pyongyang has suggested Kim's decision is contingent on B-1B bomber flights from Guam to Korean airspace. The B-1B, though no longer capable of carrying nuclear weapons, is one of the most advanced bombers in the Air Force and Washington has frequently ordered such missions - over South Korea but near the DMZ - as a show of force against Pyongyang.

If Washington were to halt the flights, Kim could claim a victory. If it were to order the B-1Bs into the air, Pyongyang would have an excuse to launch. Or it could claim it magnanimously refrained from doing so, while reserving the right to do so at a later date.

For Kim, in the convoluted world of military deterrence, that's a win-win.

"I think at some point they're going to say, 'Look, this is not anything different than your flying B-1 bombers over Korea,'" said Robert Carlin, a contributor to the respected 38 North website and former State Department and CIA analyst.

"We're going to put our missiles 25 or 30 kilometers offshore. Your bombers come within tens of kilometers of the Demilitarized Zone. If you can 'reach out and touch' us, we can 'reach out and touch' you."

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Talmadge has been the AP's Pyongyang bureau chief since 2013. Follow him on Twitter at EricTalmadge or on Instagram @erictalmadge.

A woman walks by a TV screen showing a local news program reporting about North Korean military's plans to launch missiles into waters near Guam, with an image of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, at Seoul Train Station in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017. If, after all the fanfare, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un doesn't actually launch missiles toward Guam, many may write the whole episode off as another of the North's seemingly endless bluffs. But from Pyongyang's perspective and in the eyes of some U.S. military experts, Kim and his generals have already won this round. The part of letters at the bottom "Korean Central News Agency, Kim Jong Un visits the army's Strategic Forces." (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man, File)

FILE - In this Sept. 13, 2016, file photo, a U.S. B-1B bomber flies over Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea. Pyongyang has suggested North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's decision to launch four missiles into the waters around the U.S. Pacific territory is contingent on B-1B bomber flights from Guam to Korean airspace. The B-1B, though no longer capable of carrying nuclear weapons, is one of the most advanced bombers in the Air Force and Washington has ordered such missions over Korea frequently as a show of force against Pyongyang. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man, File)

FILE - This image made from video of a news bulletin aired by North Korea's KRT on Tuesday, July 4, 2017, shows what was said to be North Korea leader Kim Jung Un, center, applauding after the launch of a Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile, ICBM, in North Korea's northwest. Pyongyang has suggested Kim Jong Un's decision to launch four missiles into the waters around the U.S. Pacific territory is contingent on B-1B bomber flights from Guam to Korean airspace. The B-1B, though no longer capable of carrying nuclear weapons, is one of the most advanced bombers in the Air Force and Washington has ordered such missions over Korea frequently as a show of force against Pyongyang. (KRT via AP Video, File)
HIGASHISHIRAKAWA, Japan (AP) - Tatsuya Yasue buried his face into the flag and smelled it. Then he held the 93-year-old hands that brought this treasure home, and kissed them.

Marvin Strombo, who had taken the calligraphy-covered Japanese flag from a dead soldier on a World War II island battlefield 73 years ago, returned it Tuesday to the family of Sadao Yasue. They had never received any of his remains or belongings - until that moment.

The soldier's sister, Sayoko Furuta, 93, sitting in her wheelchair, covered her face with both hands and wept silently as Tatsuya placed the flag on her lap. Strombo reached out and gently rubbed her shoulder.

Sayoko Furuta, center, 93, is comforted by WWII veteran Marvin Strombo, right, after a Japanese flag with autographed messages which was owned by her brother Sadao Yasue is returned during a ceremony in Higashishirakawa, in central Japan's Gifu prefecture Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017. Strombo returned the calligraphy-covered flag he took from the fallen Japanese soldier 73 years ago. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

"I was so happy that I returned the flag," Strombo said. "I can see how much the flag meant to her. That almost made me cry ... It meant everything in the world to her."

The flag's white background is filled with signatures of 180 friends and neighbors in this tea-growing mountain village of Higashishirakawa, wishing for Yasue's safe return. The signatures helped Strombo find the flag's rightful owners.

"Good luck forever at the battlefield," a message on it reads. Looking at the names and their handwriting, Tatsuya Yasue clearly recalls their faces and friendship with his older brother.

The smell of the flag immediately brought back childhood memories. "It smelled like my good old big brother, and it smelled like our mother's home cooking we ate together," Tatsuya Yasue said. "The flag will be our treasure."

The return of the flag brings closure, the 89-year-old farmer told The Associated Press at his 400-year-old house. "It's like the war has finally ended and my brother can come out of limbo."

The return of the flag Tuesday came on the anniversary of the end of World War II when Japan prays for its war dead. It also comes during the Japanese "obon" week when the spirits of the dead are believed to visit their families. Yasue said he hoped the flag's return conveys the message of peace and reconciliation and that he wants to keep telling younger generations his story so the tragedy should never be repeated.

Tatsuya Yasue last saw his brother alive the day before he left for the South Pacific in 1943. He and two siblings had a small send-off picnic for the oldest brother outside his military unit over sushi and Japanese sweet mochi. At the end of the meeting, Sadao whispered to Tatsuya, asking him to take good care of their parents, as he would be sent to the Pacific islands, harsh battlegrounds where chances of survival were low.

A year later, Japanese authorities sent the family a wooden box with a few stones at the bottom - a substitute for his body. They knew no details of Sadeo's death until months after the war ended, when they were told he died somewhere in the Mariana Islands presumably on July 18, 1944, the day Saipan fell, at age 25.

"That's all we were told about my brother. We never knew exactly when, where or how he died," he said. The family had wondered whether he might have died at sea. About 20 years ago, Tatsuya Yasue visited Saipan with his younger brother, trying to imagine what their older brother might have experienced.

So Strombo was able to give Yasue's family not just a flag, but also some answers.

He said he found Sadao Yasue's body on the outskirts of Garapan, a village in Saipan, when he got lost and ended up near the Japanese frontline. He told Yasue's siblings their brother likely died of a concussion from a mortar round. He told them that Sadao was lying on the ground on his left side, looking peacefully as if he was sleeping and without severe wounds.

Strombo also delivered a little hope that Sadao Yasue's body might one day be recovered, given that he remembered those details and the location was on land rather than at sea.

The remains of nearly half of the 2.4 million Japanese war dead overseas have yet to be found. It's a pressing issue as the bereaved families reach old age and memories fade.

Allied troops frequently took the flags from the bodies of their enemies as souvenirs, as Japanese flags were quite popular and fetched good prices when auctioned, Strombo said. But to the Japanese bereaved families, they have a much deeper meaning, especially those, like Yasue, who never learned how their loved ones died and never received remains. Japan's government has asked auction sites to stop trading wartime signed flags.

Strombo said he originally wanted the flag as a souvenir from the war, but he felt guilty taking it, so he never sold it and vowed to one day return it.

He had the flag hung in a glass-fronted gun cabinet in his home in Montana for years, a topic of conversation for visitors. A U.S. Marine, he was in the battles of Saipan, Tarawa and Tinian, which chipped away at Japan's control of islands in the Pacific and paved the way for U.S. victory.

In 2012, he was connected to the Obon Society, an Oregon-based nonprofit that helps U.S. veterans and their descendants return Japanese flags to the families of fallen soldiers. The group's research traced it to the village of 2,300 people in central Japan by analyzing family names.

Tuesday's handover meant a closure for Strombo too. "It means so much to me and the family to get the flag back and move on," he said.

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This story has been corrected to say the Japanese soldier's first name in 8th paragraph is Sadao, not Sadeo.

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Follow Mari Yamaguchi on Twitter at https://www.twitter.com/mariyamaguchi

Her work can be found at APNews at https://www.apnews.com/search/mari%20yamaguchi

WWII veteran Marvin Strombo, right, and Tatsuya Yasue, 89-year-old farmer, hold a Japanese flag with autographed messages which was owned by his brother Sadao Yasue, who was killed in the Pacific during World Work II, during a ceremony in Higashishirakawa, in central Japan's Gifu prefecture Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017. Strombo has returned to the fallen soldier's family the calligraphy-covered flag he took from the man's body 73 years ago. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

WWII veteran Marvin Strombo, left, is escorted by Tatsuya Yasue, 89-year-old farmer, shake hands in front of a Japanese flag with autographed messages which was owned by his brother Sadao Yasue, during a press conference after a ceremony in Higashishirakawa, in central Japan's Gifu prefecture Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017. Strombo returned the calligraphy-covered flag he took from the fallen Japanese soldier 73 years ago to Sadao Yasue's younger brother and sisters Tuesday. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

Tatsuya Yasue, right, and WWII veteran Marvin Strombo walk together out from a village's war memorial prior to a ceremony in Higashishirakawa, in central Japan's Gifu prefecture Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017. Strombo returned a Japanese flag with autographed messages which was owned by Tatsuya's brother Sadao Yasue, who was killed in the Pacific during World Work II. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

WWII veteran Marvin Strombo, center, returns Tatsuya Yasue, left, a Japanese flag with autographed messages which was owned by his brother Sadao Yasue, who was killed in the Pacific during World Work II, during a ceremony in Higashishirakawa, in central Japan's Gifu prefecture Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017. Strombo has returned to the fallen soldier's family the calligraphy-covered flag he took from the man's body 73 years ago. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

WWII veteran Marvin Strombo, right, and Tatsuya Yasue, 89-year-old farmer, hold a Japanese flag with autographed messages which was owned by his brother Sadao Yasue, who was killed in the Pacific during World Work II, during a ceremony in Higashishirakawa, in central Japan's Gifu prefecture Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017. Strombo has returned to the fallen soldier's family the calligraphy-covered flag he took from the man's body 73 years ago. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

Tatsuya Yasue, left, kisses the hands of WWII veteran Marvin Strombo during a ceremony in Higashishirakawa, in central Japan's Gifu prefecture Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017. Strombo returned a Japanese flag with autographed messages which was owned by Tatsuya's brother Sadao Yasue, who was killed in the Pacific during World Work II. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

In this Aug. 14, 2017 photo, Tatsuya Yasue, 89-year-old farmer, shows a photo of his brother Sadao Yasue, who fell in battle during the war in Pacific more than 70 years ago, in Higashishirakawa, in central Japan's Gifu prefecture. Former U.S. Marine Marvin Strombo will returns Sadao's calligraphy-covered flag he took from the fallen Japanese soldier 73 years ago. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

In this Aug. 14, 2017 photo, Tatsuya Yasue, 89-year-old farmer, wipes his tears while taking about his brother Sadao Yasue, who fell in battle during the war in Pacific more than 70 years ago, in Higashishirakawa, in central Japan's Gifu prefecture. Former U.S. Marine Marvin Strombo will returns Sadao's calligraphy-covered flag he took from the fallen Japanese soldier 73 years ago. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

WWII veteran Marvin Strombo, second right, and Tatsuya Yasue, left, holds a Japanese flag with autographed messages which was owned by his brother Sadao Yasue, who was killed in the Pacific during World Work II, during a ceremony in Higashishirakawa, in central Japan's Gifu prefecture Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

WWII veteran Marvin Strombo, center right, and Tatsuya Yasue, center left, pose with their relatives for photographers in front of a Japanese flag with autographed messages which was owned by his brother Sadao Yasue, who was killed in the Pacific during World Work II, during a press conference after a ceremony in Higashishirakawa, in central Japan's Gifu prefecture Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
NEW DELHI (AP) - A suspected Islamist militant was killed in an explosion inside a hotel in Bangladesh's capital during a raid Tuesday on an alleged hideout.

Police chief A.K.M. Shahidul Hoque said that the man died in the explosion during the raid that began early Tuesday.

Police identified the man as Saiful Islam, a college student. Details of his allegiance to any Islamist groups were not immediately clear.

Bangladeshi policemen take cover following a blast as they try to flush out suspected Islamist radicals who have holed up in a building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017. (AP Photo)

Some officials said a portion of the wall of the hotel fell from the force of the blasts.

It was not immediately clear if any other suspects were in the Hotel Olio International in downtown Dhaka.

The police chief said they would examine whether the suspect was a member of Jumatul Mujahedin Bangladesh, or JMB, a banned group responsible for many attacks in recent years.

Bangladesh has been experiencing a rise in Islamic militancy in recent years. Banned Islamist groups have targeted liberals, atheists and foreigners.

Hoque said it appeared the suspect had been planning an attack as the country was mourning the death anniversary of its independence leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who was assassinated in a military coup in 1975 along with most of his family. The day is a national holiday in Bangladesh.

Hundreds of people placed wreaths at a portrait of Rahman in front of his home-turned-museum, where the assassination took place. The museum is close to the hotel where Tuesday's raid occurred.

Last year, in a major attack, suspected JMB members killed 20 hostages, including 17 foreigners, in a restaurant in Dhaka. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack but authorities have rejected the claim and blamed the JMB.

Since the 2016 assault, authorities have reinforced a crackdown on militants and killed more than 50 suspects.

Bangladesh is a Muslim-majority nation that is ruled by largely secular laws based on British common law.

Bangladesh fire brigade personnel rush an injured man to hospital after a blast, as Bangladeshi policemen try to flush out suspected Islamist radicals who have holed up in a building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017. (AP Photo)
BERLIN (AP) - Germany's top court has declined to hear a series of challenges to the European Central Bank's bond-buying stimulus program, referring them instead to the European Court of Justice.

The dpa news agency reports Tuesday that those against the program claimed it constituted illegal budget financing and that Germany's central bank should not be participating.

The Federal Constitutional Court ruled that because the challenge was about European Union regulations, it was up to the European court to decide.

The ECB's 2.28 trillion euro ($2.7 trillion) bond-purchasing program is only due to run through 2017, raising the question of whether the case can be heard before the program has already ended.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - A Taliban suicide bomber detonated his explosives-packed vehicle near an Afghan military checkpoint in the country's northeastern Kunduz province on Tuesday, killing at least one person, a security official said.

Two other people were wounded in the noon-time attack in the province's Chardara district, said Mufoz Akbari, spokesman for the regional police chief. The bomber likely planned to enter the provincial capital, Kunduz, but got detained at the checkpoint where he then carried out the attack, Akbari added.

Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement sent to the media.

Over the past two years and after the withdrawal of most foreign combat troops, the Taliban have stepped up attacks and spread from their southern heartland across the country. Attacks in the north have also increased.

During that time, the city of Kunduz twice fell into the hands of the Taliban before Afghan forces retook it. Since then, there have been scores of attacks.

Separately, the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan on Tuesday claimed responsibility for killing 54 Shiite civilians last week in the Mirzawalang area in northern Sari Pul province. The Sunni extremist group considers Shiites as apostates and frequently targets them.

The Taliban and IS are both active across much of Afghanistan and are mostly rivals. There have been several reports of firefights between the two insurgent groups in different parts of the country.

But in the case of the attack in Mirzawalang, the two appeared to have joined forces and put rivalries aside. Local media and residents recounted seeing both the Taliban white banner and the Islamic State group's black flag flying together during the attack. At one point during the attack, the Taliban released 235 villagers following mediation by tribal elders.

Zabi Amani, spokesman for the Sari Pul governor, said Afghan security forces managed to retake control of Mirzawalang from the insurgents.

"Right now people are trying to identify the bodies scattered all over the area," he said, adding that many of the bodies have been beheaded and are difficult to identify.

Earlier, the Taliban also claimed responsibility for the attack in Mirzawalang but denied the killing of locals.

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Associated Press writer Maamoun Youssef in Cairo contributed to this report.
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - Lawyers for Louisiana's governor and attorney general sparred Tuesday over the scope of the elected officials' authority and whether an executive order aimed at protecting LGBT rights in state government crossed a constitutional line.

Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, is asking an appeals court to reinstate his April 2016 order banning discrimination in government and state contracts based on sexual orientation and gender identity. A district court judge blocked enforcement in December in response to a lawsuit from Attorney General Jeff Landry, a Republican.

A three-judge panel of a Louisiana appeals court heard arguments Tuesday, but did not immediately issue a decision.

FILE - In this Friday, Sept. 9, 2016, file photo, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards testifies in on Capitol Hill in Washington, before the House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee on Transportation and Public Assets hearing on FEMA's response to the flooding in Baton Rouge, La. Lawyers for Louisiana's governor and attorney general are heading back to court to argue the constitutionality of an order aimed at protecting LGBT rights in state government. Edwards is hoping an appeals court will reinstate his executive order banning discrimination in government and state contracts based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Arguments are set for Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017. (AP Photo/Molly Riley, File)

Edwards' attorney Matthew Block said District Court Judge Todd Hernandez "just got it wrong" when he ruled the Edwards order violated Louisiana's constitutional separation of powers.

Hernandez agreed with Landry that Edwards' order was executive overreach, unconstitutionally seeking to create state law and trying to circumvent Louisiana lawmakers who have refused to write such LGBT-rights protections into statute.

"The executive order is not law," Block said. "It is internal policy to the executive branch about employment and about contracting standards."

Landry's lawyer Elizabeth Murrill said Edwards is claiming authority Louisiana's governor isn't granted in the state constitution, trying to enact hiring and contracting requirements for other elected officials in the government's executive branch.

"There are a number of other statewide elected officials who are not under the direction of the governor, and you have seen in the briefs I think that the governor believes that they are," Murrill said. "And that, I would submit to you, is a rewriting of the constitution."

Edwards and Landry have clashed repeatedly since taking office in 2016. Landry is considered a possible challenger to Edwards in the 2019 governor's race. Landry attended Tuesday's court hearing, while Edwards was meeting with U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson in New Orleans.

Appeals Court Judge Guy Holdridge asked Block what would happen to someone who doesn't follow the executive order if it was in force, questioning how strict the enforcement would be or if the order was an "aspirational goal."

Block said someone who works for the governor could be removed for not adhering to policy and someone with a state contract could be found in breach of the agreement.

After the hearing, Block added, however, that the governor would have limited ways to enforce the LGBT-rights policy on other statewide elected officials. He couldn't force those officials to following the hiring guidance, Block said, and could only mandate the anti-discrimination language in contracts over which the Edwards administration has review.

Holdridge asked Murrill if part of the governor's executive order could be upheld, as it relates to Edwards' own employees.

"Could we find his order constitutional on a limited basis?" Holdridge asked.

Murrill replied: "I don't think you can partially uphold the executive order."

The Edwards administration claims the order is consistent with directives issued by previous Louisiana governors Edwin Edwards and Kathleen Blanco.

But Edwards' order goes further than that issued by the two prior Democratic leaders. He added language protecting against discrimination based on gender identity, a provision that protects transgender people. Landry's attorneys have said that term isn't defined and could create legal problems and ambiguity for employers.

When Edwards issued his order last year, Landry blocked dozens of legal services contracts that contained the anti-discrimination language. After Hernandez declared the order invalid, the LGBT protections were stripped from the contracts, and that stalemate ended.

As part of the lawsuit, the two statewide elected officials also are disputing the scope of the attorney general's authority over legal contracts.

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Follow Melinda Deslatte on Twitter at http://twitter.com/melindadeslatte
MEAUX, France (AP) - A security guard who deliberately rammed his car into a crowded pizzeria in France told investigators he was a suicidal habitual drug user and had consumed "a large quantity" of painkillers the day before the act that killed an adolescent girl, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

Eric de Valroger, a prosecutor in the town of Meaux east of Paris, described the suspect as "incoherent" and said his interrogation was proving "very complicated" and confusing.

The prosecutor reiterated that he had "totally" ruled out terrorism as a motive for the driver's as-yet unexplained actions Monday night.

This photo provided Tuesday Aug. 15 2017 shows rescue workers evacuating a victim in a helicopter after a man deliberately rammed his car into a pizzeria in Sept-Sorts, east of Paris, Monday Aug. 14, 2017. Paris hospital authorities say five people were gravely injured. (Leonardo Ortuso/SDIS77 via AP)

De Valroger said it remains unclear if the 32-year-old man intended to kill when he rammed his BMW into the restaurant that had about 30 people inside and on a terrace outside.

The prosecutor said the security guard simply described the restaurant in the village of Sept-Sorts as an easy, unprotected target.

The suspect - who faces aggravated murder and other charges - told investigators he had no beef with the pizzeria's owner and that he didn't know his victims, de Valroger said.

The driver showed signs of paranoia, "saying repeatedly that he felt as though as he was being followed, that the police were investigating him," he said.

"He describes himself as being out of control at the time of the incident. He is very confused about the motives. He says that if he commits an act that sends him to prison, he will be safe," the prosecutor said.

The driver was quickly arrested in what was the latest of several attacks in France and elsewhere using a vehicle as a weapon. De Valroger says the investigation promises to be long.

The prosecutor said the man had a 2010 conviction for drunken driving and told investigators he had abused drugs since he was 9 years old.

The driver also told investigators that he consumed large doses of mild painkillers on Sunday but gave conflicting explanations for why.

"He said initially that he aimed to kill himself, knowing full well that these medicines couldn't end his life," the prosecutor said. "He later eventually said that it was to help him sleep."

Tests showed that the driver had consumed drugs but not alcohol before he accelerated into the restaurant, travelling so fast that the car lodged inside.

He tried reversing out, but several restaurant patrons blocked his path and tried to pull him from the BMW before police arrived, the prosecutor said.

Of the five people most seriously injured, a 44-year-old woman remains in danger, the prosecutor said. The others, including a 3-year-old boy who was flown by helicopter to a Paris children's hospital, are out of immediate danger, he added.

Seven other people with lesser injuries remain hospitalized, he said.

The 3-year-old boy's adolescent sister was the person killed. The prosecutor said the children's father also was injured.

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Leicester reported from Paris.

Police officers block a road approaching the town of Sept-Sorts, about 65 kilometers (40 miles) east of Paris, France after an incident when a driver slammed his car into the sidewalk cafe of a pizza restaurant, Monday, Aug. 14, 2017.(AP Photo/Kamil Zihnioglu)

Police officers block a road approaching the town of Sept-Sorts, about 65 kilometers (40 miles) east of Paris, France after an incident when a driver slammed his car into the sidewalk cafe of a pizza restaurant, Monday, Aug. 14, 2017.(AP Photo/Kamil Zihnioglu)
BANGKOK (AP) - A court in Thailand on Tuesday sentenced a student activist to 2 1/2 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to the charge of lese majeste - or insulting the monarchy - for sharing a BBC article about the country's new king on Facebook.

Jatupat "Pai Dao Din" Boonpattararaksa was initially sentenced to five years by the court in the northeastern province of Khon Kaen, but had his sentence halved because he pleaded guilty, a standard practice in Thai courts, said Poonsuk Poonsukcharoen of Thai Lawyers for Human Rights.

Jatupat was arrested in December for sharing a profile of King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun that was posted online by the BBC's Thai-language service. It included mentions of the king's personal life when he was crown prince, including details of three marriages that ended in divorce and other material Thai news media can publish only at their own peril.

The verdict was issued after a closed trial that barred reporters and the defendant's relatives from the courtroom.

Poonsuk said Jatupat's lawyers advised him to plead guilty to the charge because his requests for bail had repeatedly been denied. Jatupat's father, Viboon Boonpattaraksa, said on the first day of the trial that Jatupat has been denied bail 12 times. With no guarantee that an appeal would be successful, he could gain his freedom sooner by serving time and then getting parole or a pardon.

"If we could have posted bail our legal fight would not be going in this direction," Poonsuk said, adding that defendants in lese majeste cases are rarely granted bail after being been arrested.

Jatupat is a prominent member of Dao Din, a small student organization that has protested against Thailand's military government. He was presented the Gwangju Prize, a human rights award from The May 18 Memorial Foundation in South Korea, in May while he was in detention.

He was put under close watch by Thai authorities after November 2014, when he and several other Dao Din members held up a three-fingered salute, a resistance gesture borrowed from "The Hunger Games" movies, during a speech by Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, chief of the military junta that had taken power in a coup six months earlier. He was also among about a dozen students arrested in June 2015 for participating in anti-government protests.

His arrest was the first under Thailand's strict lese majeste law since King Maha Vajiralongkorn succeeded his late father last November, sparking criticism from international rights groups that urged authorities to drop the charge and release Jatupat.

Critics of the lese majeste law, which carries a punishment of three to 15 years' imprisonment, say it is used to silence political dissidents. The military regime that took power in 2014 has especially cracked down on commentary on the internet. According to iLaw, a group that tracks royal defamation cases, 82 people have been charged under the lese majeste law since the coup three years ago.
GENEVA (AP) - Switzerland's tourism office on Tuesday decried an "unfortunate" incident in which a small Alpine hotel posted a sign asking "Jewish guests" to shower before swimming in the hotel pool.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center demanded the closure of the Paradies Arosa hotel, and issued a statement calling on "the broader Jewish community and their Gentile friends to blacklist this horrific hotel." On Twitter, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely called for "justice" against the hotel's management.

Officials said the hotel in the eastern town of Arosa had apologized for the incident and taken the sign down. Hotel management didn't immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Swiss Tourism spokesman Markus Berger called the sign unacceptable, adding: "It always needs to stay in perspective: This is one unfortunate incident."

Under the headline "To our Jewish Guests," the sign read: "Please take a shower before you go swimming. If you break the rules, I am forced to cloes (sic) the swimming pool for you. Thank you for your understanding."

Tzipi Livni, a former Israeli foreign minister, posted an image of the sign on her Facebook page and wrote that "there can be no tolerance and no indifference" to anti-Semitism and racism, in comments that also alluded also to violence around a white supremacist rally in Virginia in the United States.

We "must not let there be a place in the free world for Nazi flags or Ku Klux Klan masks or ugly signs in hotels directed at Jews only," she wrote. "We cannot allow acts of hate against Jews around the world to become normal."

The secretary-general of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities said it was "really a dumb thing" to do, but he called for calm.

"It's somebody who really didn't think a lot," Jonathan Kreutner said in a phone interview.

He said that calls to close the hotel were "very exaggerated," Kreutner said. "This is the most important thing now: To stay cool. Things happened that are not good. I don't want to reduce the problem behind this, but it is very important to stay cool."

Kreutner said that most of the Jews who visit the area are from Belgium, Britain, Israel, Switzerland and the U.S.

Berger, the tourism spokesman, cited a recent trend of Orthodox and other Jews traveling to four Alpine villages in the area in the summertime, including Davos of World Economic Forum fame. He said didn't know the origin of the trend, but that numbers "definitely in the thousands" have grown in recent years. He said many area hotels serve kosher food, and that Jewish guests "feel well-treated" there.

"It's just this one lady at this one hotel who was not on top of the situation," Berger said. "It's an isolated incident that doesn't need for greater action to be taken."

Switzerland's foreign ministry, responding to a request for comment from The Associated Press, said that it has been in touch with the Israeli ambassador and "outlined to him that Switzerland condemns racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination in any form. Switzerland has been strongly committed for years - as it is at the moment, for example, within its presidency for the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance - to raise awareness to the dangers of racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination."
ISLAMABAD (AP) - A Pakistani official says former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has filed petitions with the Supreme Court to challenge his disqualification and removal from office.

Environment Minister Mushahidullah Khan, who is in Sharif's party, said Tuesday that the former prime minister's lawyers filed three petitions to review the verdict.

The court disqualified Sharif after documents leaked from a Panama-based law firm showed that his family held previously undisclosed overseas assets. A five-judge panel last month disqualified Sharif, accusing him of concealing assets.

Last week Sharif held a series of rallies across the country, criticizing the court ruling and seeking to whip up popular support.

The Lahore High Court meanwhile summoned Sharif and 13 aides, including Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif and Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal, for contempt proceedings to be held Aug. 25.

The order came after a petition was filed accusing them of defaming the judiciary during speeches at the rallies, said Azhar Siddiq, a lawyer involved in the petition.
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - Five researchers will share a $500,000 medical prize for their roles in developing a groundbreaking gene-editing tool that lets scientists alter the DNA of living cells.

The recipients of the annual Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research were announced Tuesday. They are being recognized for their contributions related to the development of the tool, called CRISPR-Cas9.

The faster, cheaper and simpler gene-editing tool has sparked a boom in research over the past five years. Researchers using the technology recently edited the genes of piglets to rid them of viruses harmful to humans, a step that could lead to viable organ transplants from animals.

The recipients are: Emmanuelle Charpentier of the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, Germany; Jennifer Doudna, University of California, Berkeley; Luciano Marraffini, The Rockefeller University, New York City; Francisco J.M. Mojica, University of Alicante, Spain; Feng Zhang, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"The Albany Prize recognizes that such a significant development in science is brought forth by a community of scientists, and, therefore, we felt it was appropriate to name a larger number of recipients than in the past," said Vincent Verdile, dean of Albany Medical College.

The five researchers will receive the award at a ceremony Sept. 27 in Albany, New York.
LONDON (AP) - Some British politicians are criticizing plans to silence Big Ben for four years during repairs to Britain's Parliament.

The bell has sounded the time from Parliament's clock tower since 1859, but on Monday it's due to fall silent while repair work is carried out on the Victorian clock and the tower.

It will not sound again until 2021, apart from special occasions such as New Year's Eve.

A general view of the Queen Elizabeth Tower, which hold the bell known as 'Big Ben" in London, Monday, Aug. 14, 2017. Big Ben will fall silent next week in London as a major restoration project gets underway. The bongs of the iconic bell will be stopped on Aug. 21 to protect workers during a four-year, 29-million-pound ($38 million) conservation project that includes repair of the Queen Elizabeth Tower, which houses Big Ben and its clock. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

Parliamentary officials say the bell, whose bongs resound across a swath of central London, will stop striking "to ensure the safety of those working in the tower."

Cabinet minister David Davis says the long silence is "mad." Davis told LBC radio on Tuesday that "there's hardly a health and safety argument, it's replacing a bell."

Conservative lawmaker James Gray called the decision "bonkers."

The statue of former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George is silhouetted against the Queen Elizabeth Tower which holds the bell known as 'Big Ben' in London, Monday, Aug. 14, 2017. Big Ben will fall silent next week in London as a major restoration project gets underway. The bongs of the iconic bell will be stopped on Aug. 21 to protect workers during a four-year, 29-million-pound ($38 million) conservation project that includes repair of the Queen Elizabeth Tower, which houses Big Ben and its clock. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
University of Rhode Island and Harvard University professors are collaborating through a new research center to study chemicals that have contaminated water at sites nationwide.

The chemicals, called perfluorinated chemicals, have been linked to cancer and other illnesses but aren't regulated in drinking water.

Water has been contaminated near sites of industrial facilities and U.S. military bases.

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Researchers are collaborating to study chemicals that have contaminated water at sites nationwide. The chemicals, called perfluorinated chemicals, have been linked to cancer and other illnesses but aren't regulated in drinking water. Stock image

THE US 'WATER CRISIS' A report released this past May revealed America may be facing a water crisis, as it found nearly 30 million people have been drinking contaminated tap water. Every state in the nation has breached the Safe Drinking Water Act combining in 80,000 safety violations affecting 77 million people's drinking water. The report by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) found that 15 percent of those offenses were health-based contamination, including lead, copper, arsenic or cancer-causing poisons. These pollutants can lead to liver and kidney damage, cancer and birth defects. Lead exposure is especially detrimental to children with possible learning disabilities and damage to the central nervous system. The states with the most water violations were: 1. Texas 2. Florida 3. Pennsylvania 4. New Jersey 5. Georgia 6. Washington 7. Ohio 8. California 9. Arizona 10. Kentucky 11. Wisconsin 12. Maryland Advertisement

URI announced Tuesday that it received a five-year, $8 million grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to establish a center focused on gaining a better understanding of how these chemicals make their way into water, through the food chain, and affect people and animals.

They will work with communities in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where contamination has been an issue.

They also want to develop new detection tools.

They chemicals are found in many household products and in firefighting foam used by the U.S. military.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued stricter guidelines last year regarding human exposure to perfluorooctane sulfonate and perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOS and PFOA, which are currently unregulated in drinking water.

'So frustratingly little has been done on the regulatory side, I thought a center like this could help,' said professor Rainer Lohmann of the URI Graduate School of Oceanography.

Lohmann, an environmental chemist, said he wants to give regulators the information they need to help communities dealing with contamination.

He's trying to devise a better way to sample and measure water for perfluorinated chemicals.

Lohmann applied for the funding to start the research center with his URI colleagues, experts at Harvard and at the nonprofit Silent Spring Institute in Massachusetts.

Philippe Grandjean, who leads a research group at Harvard's School of Public Health, has done studies suggesting that breast milk is a major source of exposure during infancy and that these chemicals may adversely affect immune system development, thereby reducing the effectives of vaccines in children.

Grandjean will contribute research to the center.

Many of his studies are focused on the Faroe Islands, a country between Norway and Iceland, where the homogeneous population makes it easier to measure the effects of chemical exposure from marine food contaminants.

Elsie Sunderland, who teaches at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, is trying to understand how the geochemistry of an area affects how far the chemicals will travel and enter into drinking water.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued stricter guidelines last year regarding human exposure to perfluorooctane sulfonate and perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOS and PFOA, which are currently unregulated in drinking water. Stock image

She's also figuring out how to better discern the source of the chemicals and how fish respond once exposed to contaminated water.

'For the compounds we've already released into the environment, we have to figure out how to assess risk from their exposure and where action needs to be taken,' she said.

'More broadly, we want to raise awareness about these compounds so we don't make any more mistakes about their release or use in ways that have unanticipated health effects down the line.

'The effects we're seeing are alarming.'

Sunderland is looking at sites around Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Elevated levels of perfluorinated chemicals have been found near Joint Base Cape Cod.

Firefighting foam containing these compounds was used during training exercises at the base, she said.
HAMBURG, N.Y. (AP) - In a story Aug. 14 about a Georgia man who won a New York county fair's kale-eating contest, The Associated Press erroneously reported the town where the winner lives. Gideon Oji lives in Morrow, Georgia, not Marrow, Georgia.

A corrected version of the story is below:

Going green: Georgia man repeats as kale-eating champ

When it comes to chowing down on kale, a Georgia man is once again the top dog, beating back a challenge from hot dog-eating champ Joey Chestnut

HAMBURG, N.Y. (AP) - When it comes to chowing down on kale, Gideon Oji is once again the top dog, beating back a challenge from hot-dog-eating champ Joey Chestnut.

Oji gulped down 22 16-ounce bowls of the leafy green vegetable in eight minutes during Sunday's Kale Yeah! Competition at the Erie County Fair in New York. The kale was served raw with oil and vinegar.

The contest is billed as the world's healthiest eating competition.

Chestnut, of San Jose, California, consumed 20 kale servings. He is the reigning hot dog-eating champion at the Nathan's Famous in New York City.

Oji is Nigerian and now lives in Morrow, Georgia. He took the inaugural kale-eating title last year, consuming 25 servings.

Sunday's event was an unlikely partnership between the Independent Health Foundation and Major League Eating.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on Vice President Mike Pence's trip to Latin America (all times local):

12:50 p.m.

Vice President Mike Pence is dodging questions about whether continued criticism of President Donald Trump's national security adviser is undermining U.S. security and whether Pence believes additional staffing changes are needed at the White House.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence talks during a press conference at the government residence in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017. Pence is on a official visit to Argentina until Wednesday, when he will be heading to Chile on a week-long visit to Latin America. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Conservative groups and a website formerly run by Trump adviser Steve Bannon have targeted Army Lt. H.R. McMaster as insufficiently supportive of Israel and insufficiently tough toward Iran.

The questions came up at a joint news conference with Pence and Argentine President Mauricio Macri (MAH'-cree).

Instead, Pence spoke about Trump's job creation and praised Trump's "strong leadership" on the international stage.

The vice president also defended Trump's "America first" strategy, saying the Republican has "brought the kind of broad-shouldered leadership to the world stage" that had been lacking under past presidents.

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12:25 p.m.

Argentine President Mauricio Macri (MAH'-cree) is advising against military action in Venezuela, saying "the way to go is not the use of force." Macri is speaking at joint press conference with Vice President Mike Pence in the Buenos Aires suburbs.

Pence's visit to Latin America comes amid unrest in Venezuela and concern by its neighbors about a possible American military role.

At a news conference in Colombia earlier this week, Pence declined to rule out possible military action by the U.S. against Venezuela. President Donald Trump on Friday has refused to rule out the option.

Pence's visit to Argentina is part of a six-day trip to Latin America.

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12:10 p.m.

Vice President Mike Pence is praising Argentina's "bold reform agenda" and describing the country as an "inspiration" for the hemisphere and the world.

Pence is speaking during a joint press conference with Argentine President Mauricio Macri (MAH'-cree). Macri has put into place a series of pro-business economic changes.

Pence tells Macri, "We applaud your political and economic reforms."

Pence is also thanking Macri for his opposition to the breakdown of democracy in Venezuela and calling on Latin America to do more to oppose the political changes in Venezuela.

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11:10 a.m.

Argentina's President Mauricio Macri (MAH'-cree) is meeting with Vice President Mike Pence at Macri's presidential residence in the Buenos Aires suburbs.

Pence was greeted warmly by Macri on his arrival. Macri said it was good to see the vice president again.

The two posed for an official photo before sitting down for a joint meeting with their staffs.

Macri and Pence will also be delivering statements and answering questions from reporters as Pence seeks to highlight economic reforms in Argentina and ramp up pressure against Venezuela.

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10:30 a.m.

Vice President Mike Pence has participated in a wreath-laying ceremony to commemorate Jose de San Martin, an Argentine general who helped lead the revolution against Spanish rule in Argentina, Chile and Peru.

The ceremony was part of the vice president's visit to the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral, where he bowed his head at the altar and then participated in the commemoration. Pence also spent time at a memorial for Jews who died in the Holocaust and in a pair of deadly attacks on the Israeli Embassy and a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in the 1990s.

Pence is to meet with Argentina's president after the tour.

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10:10 a.m.

Vice President Mike Pence is to honor the liberator of Argentina, Peru and Chile from Spain at the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral.

Pence will commemorate Jose de San Martin in a wreath-laying ceremony at the cathedral, the first event in a busy day that includes meetings, a joint press conference with Argentina's president and a speech at the city's stock exchange.

Pence has been traveling through Latin America on a trip aimed at boosting economic ties. The cathedral was the church of Pope Francis during his tenure as the archbishop of Buenos Aires.

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8 a.m.

Vice President Mike Pence is in Argentina, where he's expected to praise President Mauricio Macri's economic reforms days after local midterm elections that were seen as a boost for Macri's pro-business agenda.

Pence is expected to meet with local officials, hold a joint press conference with Macri and deliver a speech as the Buenos Aires stock exchange focused on economic ties between the two countries. Pence is on a week-long visit to Latin America.

Investors have praised Macri's decision to cut government spending, reduce taxes on exports and end economic distortions that led to years of high consumer prices under his predecessor.

Macri and President Donald Trump enjoy a personal relationship dating back years from their days as businessmen. Both hope to leverage those ties to boost U.S.-Argentina relations.

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This story corrects the pronouncer on Mauricio Macri's last name to MAH'-cree, not mah-CREE'.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, right, shakes hands with Argentina's President Mauricio Macri at the government residence in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017. Pence is on a official visit to Argentina until Wednesday, when he will be heading to Chile on a week-long visit to Latin America. (Juan Mabromata/POOL photo via AP)

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, left, and Argentina's Foreign Minister Jorge Faurie, right, arrive at Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral, Argentina, Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017. Pence participated in a wreath-laying ceremony to commemorate Jose de San Martin, an Argentine general who helped lead the revolution against Spanish rule in Argentina, Chile and Peru. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and his wife Karen Pence arrive in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Monday, Aug. 14, 2017. Pence will be in Argentina for a official visit until Wednesday, when he will be heading to Santiago, Chile. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and his wife Karen Pence arrive in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Monday, Aug. 14, 2017. Pence arrived from Colombia and will be in Argentina until Wednesday when he heads to Santiago, Chile. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
FARGO, N.D. (AP) - A North Dakota family has disowned an adult son who attended a gathering of white supremacists that turned violent over the weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Pearce Tefft says in a letter to The Forum newspaper of Fargo that he and his family "loudly repudiate" the "vile, hateful and racist rhetoric and actions" of his 30-year-old son, Peter Tefft. He says his son isn't welcome at family gatherings until he renounces his "hateful beliefs."

The son, Peter Tefft, told KVLY-TV in Fargo on Monday that he didn't want to say much about his family's denunciation.

While he denied his father's account about him once joking about fascists throwing people into ovens, he acknowledged that he did make a joke about ovens. He called it "a way to get under people's skin."
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - A Kenyan government official says suspected al-Shabab extremists have killed five police officers in an ambush in the country's east.

Northeastern regional coordinator Mohamud Saleh on Tuesday said fighters with the al-Qaida-linked group planted a mine that blew up a patrol car carrying seven officers in Garissa county. Saleh says an unknown number of gunmen then attacked the vehicle.

One officer was wounded and another escaped to safety, according to a police report seen by The Associated Press.

At least 45 Kenyan policemen have been killed in such attacks by al-Shabab since May.

The group based in neighboring Somalia has vowed retribution on Kenya for sending troops to Somalia in 2011 to fight the extremists. Al-Shabab has carried out more than 100 attacks inside Kenya.
COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) - A man who pleaded guilty to murder and 11 other counts for killing a western Iowa sheriff's deputy and wounding another during a jail escape was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison without parole.

The sentence came after Wesley Correa-Carmenaty, 24, changed his pleas to guilty to first-degree murder, attempted murder, escape, kidnapping and other crimes. His trial had been set to begin Tuesday, but his attorney informed authorities last week that Correa-Carmenaty would change his plea in Pottawattamie County District Court in Council Bluffs.

Correa-Carmenaty, who used a Spanish interpreter, showed little emotion throughout the hearing, smiling and nodding as he entered pleas to each count.

Wesley Correa-Carmenaty, 24, who pleaded guilty to murder and 11 other counts for killing a western Iowa sheriff's deputy and wounding another during a jail escape, addresses the court and family of the victim after he was sentenced to life in prison without parole during a court hearing in Council Bluffs, Iowa, Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)

Prosecutors noted that he was offered no plea agreement. Iowa has no death penalty.

The judge ordered Correa-Carmenaty's life sentence to be served after he finishes a 45-year sentence he received earlier this year for a separate murder. The judge also issued sentences totaling 175 years for other counts ranging from attempted murder and kidnapping to robbery and weapons counts as part of the jail escape.

"The reason for the sentence is pretty simple - to guarantee that the defendant will spend the rest of his life in prison," Judge James Heckerman said. "It's clear... that he's an extreme threat to society."

Correa-Carmenaty had just been sentenced on May 1 in the unrelated murder case and was being taken from the courthouse to the Pottawattamie County Jail when the fatal assault occurred, officials have said.

Authorities say Correa-Carmenaty was in handcuffs and leg shackles as he was being transported in a jail van, but managed to unlock them by the time the van reached the jail.

Pottawattamie County Attorney Matthew Wilber explained publicly for the first time during court Tuesday that Correa-Carmenaty had managed to unlock the shackles by hiding a handcuff key obtained from another inmate in his hair. He was also armed with two handmade shanks, at least one fashioned from a toothbrush, which he used to slash Deputy Mark Burbridge in the face, neck and arms during the attack, as seen on surveillance video from the jail sally port where the attack occurred. Correa-Carmenaty managed to get into the cab of the van and grab a service weapon, shooting Burbridge in the head, then Deputy Pat Morgan in the abdomen once before the gun jammed, Wilber said. Burbridge died and Morgan survived.

Wilber said Correa-Carmenaty took both deputies' guns, ammunition and the keys to the van, then drove the transport van through a jail garage door, abandoning it a few blocks away. Authorities say he tried to carjack a truck using the gun, which he did not know how to operate, accidentally ejecting the weapon's 15-round clip. With one round left in the chamber, he shot and wounded a man inside the truck, which sped off. A few minutes later, he carjacked a woman and drove across the state border into Omaha, Nebraska, where he let her go. He was arrested there a short time later after crashing during a high-speed chase with police.

"But for an issue with the first gun he had and his inability to use the second, this could be a case where four, five or even more were killed," Wilber told the judge.

Three of Burbridge's children spoke at the hearing, each of them labeling Correa-Carmenaty "a monster," and fighting tears as they described their father as a loving parent.

Kelsey Brant, Burbridge's stepdaughter, openly cried as she described getting the frantic call from her mother the day Burbridge was shot.

"You're a monster," she said. "I know you have no remorse for anything you've done or the pain you've caused."

Correa-Carmenaty apologized to Burbridge's family, saying he had liked Burbridge.

"In reality, I liked him. He was one of the people who would ask you, 'How is your case going?'" he said through the interpreter, who appeared to be fighting her own emotions as she relayed Correa-Carmenaty's words. "It was not intentional. I was trying to escape."

This undated photo provided by the Woodbury County Jail in Sioux City, Iowa, shows Wesley Correa-Carmenaty, who is charged with killing a sheriff's deputy and wounding another while escaping from an Iowa jail on May 1, 2017. Correa-Carmenaty entered guilty pleas Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017, to murder, attempted murder, escape, kidnapping and other crimes. His trial was set to begin Tuesday, but his attorney informed authorities last week that Correa-Carmenaty would change his plea in Pottawattamie County District Court in Council Bluffs. (Woodbury County Jail via AP)

FILE - In this May 10, 2017, file photo, Wesley Correa-Carmenaty is led into the Woodbury County Jail in Sioux City, Iowa. Correa-Carmenaty, who is charged with killing a sheriff's deputy and wounding another while escaping from an Iowa jail, entered guilty pleas Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017, to murder, attempted murder, escape, kidnapping and other crimes. His trial was set to begin Tuesday, but his attorney informed authorities last week that Correa-Carmenaty would change his plea in Pottawattamie County District Court in Council Bluffs. (Tim Hynds/Sioux City Journal via AP)

Wesley Correa-Carmenaty listens to fallen deputy Mark Burbridge's step-daughter, Kelsey make a statement to him during a sentencing hearing Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017, in Council Bluffs, Iowa. (Kent Sievers/The World-Herald via AP)

Kelsey Brant, stepdaughter of western Iowa sheriff's deputy Mark Burbridge, is teary-eyed after addressing her father's killer, Wesley Correa-Carmenaty, during a court hearing in Council Bluffs, Iowa, Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017. Correa-Carmenaty pleaded guilty to murder and 11 other counts for killing Mark Burbridge, and wounding another during a jail escape. He had been sentenced to life in prison without parole. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)

24-year-old Wesley Correa-Carmenaty, who pleaded guilty to murder and 11 other counts for killing Mark Burbridge, a western Iowa sheriff's deputy, and wounding another during a jail escape, is led out of the courtroom past the wife and daughter of the victim. Correa-Carmenaty was sentenced to life in prison without parole during the court hearing in Council Bluffs, Iowa, Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)
LISBON, Portugal (AP) - The Latest on the fallen tree on Portuguese island of Madeira (all times local):

6:15 p.m.

Portugal's president says he will travel to the island where a falling tree killed 12 people and injured dozens more at a popular religious festival.

A body lies on the covered on the ground after a falling tree killed people near Funchal on the island of Madeira Portugal in this image taken from video Tuesday Aug.15, 2017. Portuguese media has reported that people died when they were crushed by a falling tree during at a popular religious festival on the island of Madeira. (TVI via AP)

In a message posted on the president's official website, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa expressed his condolences for the victims of the accident on the island of Madeira.

Regional authorities said they are investigating what caused the large tree to come crashing down on Tuesday at the Nossa Senhora do Monte festival outside Madeira's capital, Funchal.

De Sousa said: "I will go to Funchal today to learn more about what has happened, and, of course, to bring words of encouragement and comfort to those who have lost their loved ones."

Local media reported that the downed tree was an oak over 200 years old.

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5:40 p.m.

A regional health official on the Portuguese island of Madeira says 10 of the 12 people killed when a large tree crashed down at a religious festival died at the scene.

Regional health chief Pedro Ramos said a child also died while being transported to a hospital and a woman died at the hospital.

Ramos says seven of the 52 people hurt in in the accident near the island capital of Funchal had serious injuries.

Local media reported that the downed tree was an oak over 200 years old.

Miguel Albuquerque, the head of the regional government of Madeira, declared three days of mourning for the victims.

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4:40 p.m.

Portuguese authorities say the tree that fell during a popular religious festival on the island of Madeira killed at least 12 people.

Government official Pedro Ramos said 52 others were injured in the accident Tuesday near the island capital of Funchal.

The tree fell while a large crowd was gathered as part of a traditional religious festival. The Nossa Senhora do Monte festival is the island's biggest annual festivity.

Held Aug. 14-15, it draws large crowds to a church on the outskirts of Funchal.

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4:20 p.m.

Portugal's prime minister has expressed his condolences for the victims of a falling tree on the island of Madeira.

Portuguese media were giving different death tolls. RTP public television reported that up to 11 people have died and 35 injured when the tree fell during an annual religious festival near the city of Funchal. TSF radio says there are two fatalities and 10 injured.

Prime Minister Antonio Costa tweeted that "I express my condolences for the victims of the accident in Madeira."

He added that his "thoughts are with the family and friends of the victims."

Costa said that the central government has made contact with local authorities on the island to offer its support. He said that "the government has provided medical support given the high number of victims."

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2:10 p.m.

Portuguese media has reported that several people have died when they were crushed by a falling tree on the island of Madeira.

RTP public television has shown images of emergency workers gathered under a group of tall trees near Funchal on the Atlantic island.

Portuguese media are giving different death counts. RTP says 10 people have perished, while TSF radio says there are two fatalities.

The tree apparently fell while a large crowd was gathered as part of a traditional religious festival.

Emergency services move an injured person to an ambulance after a tree fell on a a large crowd gathered as part of a traditional religious festival in the outskirts of Funchal, the capital of Madeira island, Portugal. Portuguese media has reported that several people have died crushed by the falling tree. (Catarina Nunes/Diario de Noticias da Madeira, via AP)

A fallen tree is seen at the scene where the tree fell on a a large crowd gathered as part of a traditional religious festival in the outskirts of Funchal, the capital of Madeira island, Portugal. Portuguese media has reported that several people have died crushed by the falling tree. (Catarina Nunes/Diario de Noticias da Madeira, via AP)

An ambulance attends the scene after a tree fell on a large crowd gathered as part of a traditional religious festival in the outskirts of Funchal, the capital of Madeira island, Portugal. Portuguese media has reported that several people have died crushed by the falling tree. (Catarina Nunes/Diario de Noticias da Madeira, via AP)

Firefighters hold a blanket as bodies are removed from the scene where a tree fell on a large crowd on the outskirts of Funchal, the capital of Madeira island, Portugal, Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017. Portuguese authorities say a tree that fell during a popular religious festival on the island of Madeira killed at least 12 people and more than 50 others were injured in the accident near the island capital of Funchal. The tree fell while a large crowd was gathered as part of a Nossa Senhora do Monte festival. (ASPRESS via AP)

Firefighters stand next to bodies covered with plastic sheets, on the ground, at the scene where a tree fell on a large crowd on the outskirts of Funchal, the capital of Madeira island, Portugal, Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017. Portuguese authorities say a tree that fell during a popular religious festival on the island of Madeira killed at least 12 people and more than 50 others were injured in the accident near the island capital of Funchal. The tree fell while a large crowd was gathered as part of a Nossa Senhora do Monte festival. (ASPRESS via AP)

People attend to an injured person at the scene where a tree fell on a large crowd on the outskirts of Funchal, the capital of Madeira island, Portugal, Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017. Portuguese authorities say a tree that fell during a popular religious festival on the island of Madeira killed at least 12 people and more than 50 others were injured in the accident near the island capital of Funchal. The tree fell while a large crowd was gathered as part of a Nossa Senhora do Monte festival. (ASPRESS via AP)
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - A World War II soldier who was missing for nearly 74 years is returning home to Tennessee after his remains were recently identified.

The Tennessee Department of Veterans Services announced Monday that the remains of U.S. Army Staff Sgt. William Turner, of Nashville, will arrive at Nashville International Airport on Tuesday, The Tennessean reported . A graveside service at the Nashville National Cemetery is scheduled for Aug. 22

The 20-year-old Turner was an aerial engineer assigned to the 555th Bomb Squadron, 386th Bomb Group and crew member of the "Hell's Fury" B-26 bomber. He was aboard "Hell's Fury" when it was shot down by anti-aircraft artillery during a 219-bomber-strong air raid targeting the German-controlled Schiphol Aerodrome in Amsterdam on Dec. 13, 1943.

Six bodies were recovered, but only two crew members were identified between 1946 and 1949. Unidentified remains from that crash and another were buried at Arlington National Cemetery in 1951. Decades later, the Royal Netherlands Army Recovery and Identification Unit recovered more remains during a 2007 excavation of the crash site.

American agencies used DNA and anthropological analysis to identify the remains.

Gov. Bill Haslam declared Aug. 22 as a day of mourning in Turner's honor, with flags to be flown at half-mast from sunrise to sunset.

"William Turner was among the bravest American heroes to fight for our country in World War II," Haslam said in a release. "We are grateful that he will be laid to rest on Tennessee soil and his family will have the closure and certainty of truly knowing his final resting place."

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Information from: The Tennessean, http://www.tennessean.com
NEW YORK (AP) - "Populist Pictures" reads the buzzer to Steven Soderbergh's Tribeca office. You might easily mistake it as ironic. It's a grand title for a little nameplate on an otherwise nondescript Manhattan building.

But he means it.

Four years after dramatically quitting moviemaking, Soderbergh is back with "Logan Lucky." His hiatus - in the end so abbreviated as to be nonexistent - hasn't been spent toying with a Major Artistic Statement to be showered in Oscar buzz. (He long ago lost his taste for self-serious prestige films.) Nor has he drastically remade himself as a filmmaker. "Logan Lucky" is a heist movie so similar to his "Ocean's Eleven" films that the more down-and-out West Virginia characters of his caper even refer to their plot as "Ocean's 7-11."

This image released by Bleecker Street shows director Steven Soderbergh, left, and actor Daniel Craig on the set of their film "Logan Lucky." (Claudette Barius/Fingerprint Releasing/Bleecker Street via AP)

"I thought the first line of every review would be, 'He came out of retirement for this?'" said Soderbergh in a recent interview at his modest office. "Of course my answer to that would have been: The only thing I would have come out of retirement for is to make something like this. I wasn't going to come out of retirement and not make something fun. Why would I do that?"

Instead, Soderbergh wants to prove a point. When he said goodbye to the movie business four years ago (and went off, in a filmmaking marathon, to direct every episode of the acclaimed Showtime series "The Knick"), he exited fed up with a risk-adverse Hollywood unwilling to innovate, to problem solve, to shake up anything.

"Logan Lucky" isn't just a comeback movie, it's a grand experiment. Soderbergh independently financed the film, selling distribution rights to foreign territories to pay for the budget and then making ancillary deals (like Amazon) to pay for prints and ads. While ballooning marketing costs have made little beside franchise films appealing to major studios, Soderbergh believes he can put out "Logan Lucky" with a more modest marketing approach centered on the 10 days before release and the social-media followings of its stars - notably Channing Tatum.

It's a way to prove that the broad-appeal movie can be made by a filmmaker with a plan, without committee or corporation

"I've been very vocal about my issues and it's an opportunity to learn some stuff. And I'm prepared for any scenario. But at least we got to do it the way we wanted to do it," says Soderbergh. "And that's a win. We're going to learn something. We may learn a lot. I'm hoping it works so I can continue to put my work through this system and have other like-minded filmmakers put their work through this system."

"We don't need another boutique distributor," he adds. "This is designed for wide-release movies. This isn't an art-house proposition."

Movie financing arrangements are infamously byzantine, but Soderbergh has set up an account that anyone who has put money into the movie can log on to and check to see the movie's expenses, grosses and their cut. The whole scheme is more than a little like the plot of "Logan Lucky," in which an out-of-work miner (Tatum) rallies a team to rip off a NASCAR track. A tongue-in-cheek line at the end of the credits reads: "No one was robbed during the making of this film except you."

"We don't know whether it's going to work or not. We certainly hope like hell it does. We'll know after a couple weeks. One way or another, we'll get to prove our point," said executive producer Dan Fellman, Warner Bros.' former distribution chief. He anticipates the film will be in 2,800 theaters, with many in the industry keenly following the results.

"There's a lot of people watching, I can tell you that," says Fellman.

Ahead of the big theft - er, release date - Soderbergh has less the fidgety energy of someone about to rob a bank than the calmness of a mastermind. "Everything's gone right so far," he says.

He has other innovations planned, too. "Mosaic," his interactive movie for HBO, is coming in November. And with a number of other projects he's producing, Soderbergh sometimes seems like he's become his own studio head.

Soderbergh says he's considered it. Three or four years ago, he spent a year researching how to put a subscription-based platform together. "I really got pretty granular with it," he says, but he ultimately said it would only work if he had a back catalog to give subscribers enough content.

But Soderbergh's way of doing things - fast, instinctual, efficient - has many people lining up behind him.

"He found a way to do it where it's on his terms and he has the control that he wants," says Adam Driver, who plays Tatum's brother. "His setups move so fast that there's no momentum lost. He's very economical about how he shoots. It's freeing for us as actors. There's no bulls---, no time wasted, so it almost feels like a protest."

There are still unsolved mysteries. The first-timer credited with the script, Rebecca Blunt, is unknown and may be a pseudonym. Soderbergh will only say, despite conjecture, that it's not him but a friend's wife.

And then there's the question of why anyone who loves moviemaking so much ever wanted to quit. Soderbergh shoots his own films (under the name Peter Andrews) and, during production, considers editing a day's shooting his nightly reward. (A few years ago, as an editing exercise, he recut films like "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "Blow-Up." For fun.)

When he retired, Soderbergh had designs on dedicating himself to painting, but he acknowledges, "I didn't get very far in my second career."

"When I got back to the set of 'The Knick,' it definitely had the sense of: This is your job. This is what you should be doing.' That was a good thing to feel," says Soderbergh. "There are very few things you can do repeatedly that give you the same pleasure as they did the very first time. Figuring something out on set is always a great feeling. That never gets old, when it finally reveals itself to you. When you know how you're going to do this scene. That's hard to walk away from. I don't feel like that's a bad addiction to have."

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Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

This image released by Bleecker Street shows Adam Driver, left, and Channing Tatum in "Logan Lucky." (Claudette Barius/Fingerprint Releasing/Bleecker Street via AP)
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) - The parents of a Kansas child missing for nearly 30 years are suing authorities to release investigative records from the case.

Harold and Alberta Leach filed the lawsuit Monday in Leavenworth County District Court, the Lawrence Journal-World reports. The Leaches' son, then 17-year-old Randy Leach, was last seen April 16, 1988, at a party in Leavenworth County. The case of his disappearance has never been solved, and his parents have sought the investigative records for years.

The lawsuit, filed by Lawrence attorney Max Kautsch, argues the records should be released under a provision of the Kansas Open Records Act that allows for criminal investigation records to be made public when the records are in the public interest.

"The requested records are indeed in the public interest because the media's extensive reporting of the matter reveals a plethora of controversies related to the investigation conducted by the Leavenworth County Sheriff's Office," Kautsch said in a written statement. "The requested records would help the Leaches and the public investigate and resolve those controversies."

The Leavenworth county counselor didn't immediately return a phone message from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Law enforcement officials generally have broad latitude under the law to not release criminal investigation records, upon the premise that the release could interfere with future law enforcement actions. Kautsch argues that isn't an issue in this case.

"The Leaches fail to see how records in a public agency's possession before 1993 has any bearing on any 'prospective law enforcement action' when no one has ever been charged in connection with Randy's disappearance and likely death," Kautsch said in a written statement.

The Leaches learned in 2014 that law enforcement officials had a suspect in the case in the 1990s. The suspect, Eric Montgomery, also had been a suspect in two 1990 homicides that occurred 7 miles (11.26 kilometers) from the Leaches' home. Montgomery died in prison in 2010.

"We just want to see what's been done," Alberta Leach told the Journal-World in 2014. "We have done a lot of stuff to find Randy, and we just want to make sure they did, too. We know they didn't do some of the things they said they were going to do."

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Information from: Lawrence (Kan.) Journal-World, http://www.ljworld.com
BOSTON (AP) - A business executive with experience in corporate turnarounds but none in transportation was hired Tuesday as the head of the Boston area's troubled public transit system.

Luis Manuel Ramirez takes over as the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's general manager/chief executive on Sept. 12, state Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack said. His lack of experience running a transit agency is not a detriment, she said.

"With the support he'll have from the strong operational and other leadership already at the T, Luis will get up to speed very quickly," she said.

Ramirez, who is the son of a Cuban refugee and was raised in Florida, said the agency, which runs subway, commuter rail, bus and ferry service, is already on solid footing.

"My job is to build upon the solid foundation of the people standing here and help create a long-term roadmap and plan to fully transform the T into what it needs to be: a world class transportation system serving the people of a world class city and commonwealth," he said.

The MBTA has been under intense scrutiny since operations were crippled during the winter of 2015. In response, Republican Gov. Charlie Baker created a fiscal control board to oversee the agency.

The MBTA is also deep in debt, is plagued by service delays, has an underfunded pension system and faces union resistance to privatization efforts.

The president of the Boston Carmen's Union Local 589, James O'Brien, said the MBTA needs "real investments in the system's infrastructure - vehicles of all types, signals and tracks."

The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, an independent watchdog group, welcomed the appointment of Ramirez.

"Mr. Ramirez's business background and expertise in complex turnarounds makes him the ideal person to lead the authority forward," President Eileen McAnneny said.

Ramirez has worked at Unisys Corp., Siemens AG and General Electric Corp., where he rose to CEO of its Energy Industrial Solutions business during his 12 years there. He more recently ran his own turnaround business consulting firm.

Ramirez will be paid $320,000 a year, with the possibility of bonuses, under a three-year contract.
CHAGRIN FALLS, Ohio (AP) - Officials say a college student attending a retreat at a suburban Cleveland camp fell on an elevated ropes course, became entangled and is hospitalized with unspecified injuries.

Baldwin Wallace University said in a statement Tuesday that freshman Brittney Bash, of New Richmond, is in serious, but stable, condition. She was hurt Monday during a retreat meant to build camaraderie among students in the university's honors program.

Hiram House Camp in Chagrin Falls says in a statement that it prioritizes safety and cooperated with emergency responders who took the student to a hospital.

The school has canceled the remaining days of the retreat. Administrators say they're keeping the student and her family in their thoughts and prayers.
DURHAM, N.C. (AP) - North Carolina's governor said Tuesday that he wants to bring down Confederate monuments around the state, thrusting himself into a debate stoked by violence in Virginia and the toppling of a statue in his own state.

Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper's call to remove the monuments from public property came as a sheriff began arresting people responsible for tearing down a nearly century-old Confederate statue in Durham on Monday night.

North Carolina is among three states with the most Confederate monuments, but the Republican-controlled General Assembly passed a law in 2015 preventing their removal without legislative approval. Cooper is likely to face an uphill battle against legislative leaders, who hold veto-proof majorities.

A protester kicks the toppled statue of a Confederate soldier after it was pulled down in Durham, N.C. Monday, Aug. 14, 2017. Activists on Monday evening used a rope to pull down the monument outside a Durham courthouse. The Durham protest was in response to a white nationalist rally held in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend. (Casey Toth/The Herald-Sun via AP)

"We cannot continue to glorify a war against the United States of America fought in the defense of slavery," Cooper said in a statement. "These monuments should come down."

Around the time of Cooper's announcement, deputies were arresting the woman who climbed the statue in Durham and attached the rope that was used to tear it down.

During a news conference Tuesday held by protest organizers, Takiyah Thompson identified herself as the woman who climbed the statue. She said her actions were a justified response to white supremacists.

"The statue had to go, and it's linked to white supremacy that we see today," said the 22-year-old college student.

After the news conference, sheriff's deputies arrived and took her away in handcuffs. The sheriff's office said she's charged with two felonies related to inciting and participating in a riot that damaged property, along with two misdemeanors. Investigators said late Tuesday that they expect to make other arrests.

The 2015 law prohibits the removal of Confederate monuments without General Assembly approval. The governor said legislators need to repeal the law. Spokespeople for GOP House and Senate leaders didn't immediately respond to emails seeking comment.

Cooper also directed state officials to study the cost and logistics of removing Confederate monuments from state property and moving them to historical sites or museums. There are three on the old Capitol grounds in Raleigh and one at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the state Department of Natural and Cultural Resources said.

The governor said he was moved to act by the violence at the Charlottesville, Virginia, rally, as well as the protest in Durham that toppled the statue. The Virginia rally was organized by people who disagree with efforts to remove a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee from a downtown park.

North Carolina is one of only three states - along with Virginia and Georgia - that have 90 or more Confederate monuments, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. A state tally shows at least 120 Civil War monuments around North Carolina, with the vast majority dedicated to the Confederacy. Around 50 are located at contemporary or historic courthouses.

Durham's Confederate Soldiers Monument, dedicated in 1924, stood in front of an old courthouse building that serves as local government offices.

The statue came down Monday night after Thompson climbed a ladder and attached the rope. Demonstrators on the ground then used the rope to pull the bronze Confederate soldier from its pedestal as a crowd cheered. After it fell, some began kicking the statue, while others took photos standing or sitting on it. Organizers said the protest was in response to the Charlottesville violence.

Law enforcement officers took video throughout the protest but didn't intervene. Durham County Sheriff Mike Andrews said he was aware of the potential for vandalism, but used restraint because of the risk of injuries if deputies moved in.

"Had I ordered my deputies to engage a hostile crowd, there would have been serious injuries," Andrews said. "Statues can be replaced. Lives cannot."

Still, he said he would pursue felony charges against the protesters responsible for bringing the statue down: "Let me be clear. No one is getting away with what happened yesterday."

Some people who passed by the empty pedestal on Tuesday expressed mixed feelings about the statue and its fate.

"I've walked by this statue several times in the last few weeks. And I've wondered, if it is appropriate," said Emily Yeatts, an attorney in Durham. "If there IS a way to remember and honor, as it says, 'The boys who wore the gray,' without also lending some legitimacy to the cause for which they fought. This statue has struck me as out of place in Durham, for some time. And while I was surprised to see the news footage last night, it seemed right."

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Robertson reported from Raleigh. Associated Press National writer Allen G. Breed also contributed to this report.

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Follow Drew at www.twitter.com/jonldrew

A damaged nearly century-old Confederate statue lies on a pallet in a warehouse in Durham, N.C. on Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017. Investigators are working to identify and charge protesters who toppled the Confederate statue in front of a North Carolina government building, the sheriff said Tuesday. The Confederate Soldiers Monument, dedicated in 1924, stood in front of an old courthouse building that serves as local government offices. (AP Photo/Allen Breed)

Protesters celebrate after toppling a statue of a Confederate solder in Durham, N.C. Monday, Aug. 14, 2017. Activists on Monday evening used a rope to pull down the monument outside a Durham courthouse. The Durham protest was in response to a white nationalist rally held in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend. (Casey Toth/The Herald-Sun via AP)

A toppled Confederate statue lies on the ground on Monday, Aug. 14, 2017, in Durham, N.C. Activists on Monday evening used a rope to pull down the monument outside a Durham courthouse. The Durham protest was in response to a white nationalist rally held in Charlottesville, Va, over the weekend. Authorities say one woman was killed Saturday after one of the white nationalists drove his car into a group of counterprotesters. (AP Photo/Jonathan Drew)

A toppled Confederate statue lies on the ground on Monday, Aug. 14, 2017, in Durham, N.C. Activists on Monday evening used a rope to pull down the monument outside a Durham courthouse. The Durham protest was in response to a white nationalist rally held in Charlottesville, Va, over the weekend. Authorities say one woman was killed Saturday after one of the white nationalists drove his car into a group of counterprotesters. (AP Photo/Jonathan Drew)
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) - Authorities in Colorado say a police officer shot and killed a person suspected of shoplifting at a Walmart.

A spokeswoman for the El Paso County Sheriff's office, Jacqueline Kirby, says Colorado Springs police were called to the store Monday night. She says the suspect was identified and shot after a chase.

Kirby said it's not clear yet whether the suspect was armed.

The officer is currently on paid leave. No further details on the officer or suspect were immediately available.

Colorado Springs police spokesman Lt. Howard Black says the officer won't be identified until after his or her family is notified and a psychiatric evaluation is completed, likely within 72 hours.

The sheriff's office is investigating under a 2015 state law that requires police to get outside help reviewing officer shootings.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) - It started with threats, taunting and racial slurs, and escalated to total pandemonium - hand-to-hand combat in the streets of Charlottesville.

White nationalists and counter-demonstrators threw punches, screamed, set off smoke bombs. They hurled water bottles, balloons of paint, containers full of urine. They unleashed chemical sprays. Some waved Confederate flags. Others burned them.

I watched, notebook in hand, as people gasped for breath and clutched at their swollen eyes, burning from pepper spray or mace.

A counter demonstrator uses a lighted spray can against a white nationalist demonstrator at the entrance to Lee Park in Charlottesville, Va., Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

The throngs of Ku Klux Klan members, skinheads and various white nationalist factions came to town ostensibly to protest the taking down of a statue of Robert E. Lee in Emancipation Park, as President Donald Trump emphasized Tuesday. But the event was about much more than that, as exposed the night before when angry white men marched with torches across the University of Virginia chanting "Blood and Soil" and "Jews will not replace us."

During Saturday's march, many were heavily armed. Some flew Nazi flags. They hurled racial slurs at counter-demonstrators and gave Nazi salutes.

White nationalist Richard Spencer - who popularized the term "alt-right" to describe the fringe movement mixing white supremacy, white nationalism, anti-Semitism and anti-immigration populism - told The Associated Press that the Confederate monuments are "a metaphor for something much bigger, and that is white dispossession and the de-legitimization of white people in this country and around the world."

On Saturday, State Police officers lined the edges of the one-square-block park near downtown where hundreds of nationalists gathered waiting for the event to start. Counter protesters and rally attendees converged around an intersection that remained unblocked by barriers or police tape. As the crowd size grew, so did the hostility.

AP photographer Steve Helber and I saw pockets of fighting break out in the chaotic tangle of bodies. People on both sides crashed into on another, threw punches, beat each other with clubs, only to be pulled apart by their comrades - not police. Independent militia groups backing the supremacists stood sentry in their camo gear, holding long guns and staying clear of the fray near the park.

At one point, a group of white nationalists huddled together, brandishing shields like Roman soldiers as they marched toward a throng of counter-protesters. Police did not intervene.

Screams for help echoed throughout the crowd as volunteer medics bobbed in and out, rushing people to tents at another nearby park where they'd set up a makeshift clinic.

Despite the extended, violent skirmishes, Steve and I never witnessed an officer step in. State police, however, said they made three arrests.

Around 11:30 a.m., the governor declared a state of emergency, the city declared the gathering an unlawful assembly and bullhorn-wielding officers ordered the crowd to disperse.

State troopers donned riot gear and formed a line blocking the park. Inside, officers herded the rally-goers out.

From there, though, we watched confusion take hold.

Rally organizers told attendees to go home, but bands of people on both sides still roamed through the city. At one point, a rumor spread that the nationalists planned to attack a housing project, so some counter-protesters took off in that direction.

Chief Al Thomas told reporters it took an hour to "secure the streets." But it's not clear what "secure" meant on Saturday.

About 1:30 p.m., on a main street south of the park, bands of counter-demonstrators converged for what felt like a victory march. No police were visible to direct traffic or accompany the crowd.

The counter-demonstrators cheered, waved flags and banners, snapped photos and smiled, perhaps for the first time all day.

"Whose streets? Our streets!" they bellowed.

Then I heard the sound of squealing tires - and screams.

A car had plowed into the group, hurling bodies in the air, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others. All of us nearby scrambled backward for safety or ran to help the injured.

Asked later why the street crossing was open, Thomas said he wasn't sure if it was.

After the shocking violence, people on both sides and some former law enforcement officials have questioned why police didn't do more.

Officials, including Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, have defended law enforcement's response, saying they faced a difficult situation and had to show restraint because the crowd was so highly armed.

But that doesn't mean the police chief doesn't have regrets.

"It was a tragic, tragic weekend," he said.

A white nationalist demonstrator walks into Lee Park in Charlottesville, Va., Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017. Hundreds of people chanted, threw punches, hurled water bottles and unleashed chemical sprays on each other Saturday after violence erupted at a white nationalist rally in Virginia. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

White nationalist demonstrators use shields as they guard the entrance to Lee Park in Charlottesville, Va., Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

White nationalist demonstrators clash with counter demonstrators at the entrance to Lee Park in Charlottesville, Va., Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017. Gov. Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency and police dressed in riot gear ordered people to disperse after chaotic violent clashes between white nationalists and counter protestors. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

White nationalist demonstrators clash with a counter demonstrator as he throws a newspaper box at the entrance to Lee Park in Charlottesville, Va., Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the state's child welfare agency cannot vaccinate children placed temporarily in its custody when the parents object.

Justices said in the 7-0 decision that state law allows the Department of Children and Families to provide medical treatment to children in temporary state custody, but ruled that immunizing them against diseases does not constitute medical treatment.

The ruling overturned a lower court decision that allowed DCF to vaccinate two young children in its care. The lower court ruling was put on hold pending the appeal to the Supreme Court.

The case involved a couple, whose names were not disclosed, who oppose vaccinations on religious grounds.

The parents lost custody of the children after Rocky Hill police arrested them for fighting last year. Police said they learned the parents and the children, who were 1 and 2 years old at the time, had been living out of a minivan for several months as they moved from Florida to Connecticut.

A DCF social worker who met the children at the police station said they smelled of urine, were filthy and had multiple bruises. The agency filed neglect allegations against the parents, and a judge granted DCF temporary custody of the children.

The parents pleaded no contest to the neglect charges, but sought to prevent the department from vaccinating their children, which led to the court fight, according to court records.

The children remain in temporary state custody.

Connecticut Chief Justice Chase T. Rogers noted in a concurring opinion that state law allows parents to opt not to vaccinate their children on religious grounds.

"The Connecticut legislature has already concluded as a matter of public policy that the interest of parents in opting not to vaccinate their children on religious grounds outweighs the child's interest in being immune from certain diseases and the state's ... interest in ensuring the well-being of the child and the public at large," she wrote.

Benjamin Wattenmaker, a lawyer for the father of the two Connecticut children, said Tuesday's ruling was important for both clarifying DCF's authority in making medical decisions and bolstering the state's public policy exemptions for childhood immunizations.

"It's important principally because it makes clear that the statute which was at issue in this case only allows DCF to seek emergency medical treatment for children who are in temporary custody," he said.

Laws on vaccinating children in temporary state custody vary around the country.

The Texas House of Representatives in May passed a bill that would restrict emergency immunizations given to children removed from troubled homes. Maine's highest court ruled in 2015 that the state could order immunizations for children in its custody against the parents' wishes - a ruling similar to a 2014 Oregon Supreme Court decision that also allowed such immunizations.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) - The Latest on a report regarding law enforcement response to last January's mass shooting at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (all times local):

4:15 p.m.

A Florida sheriff is disputing a consultant's report that says no one from law enforcement took charge after last January's deadly shooting at an airport.

Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said Tuesday that he and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport manager Mark Gale took charge shortly after the Jan. 6 shooting that left five people dead and six wounded. He said any impression that no one was in charge was likely caused by the police radio system being overwhelmed by all of the responding deputies and officers.

The report released Tuesday was prepared by outside consultants for the county. The report says the lack of having anyone in charge led to confusion among the 2,600 officers who responded. It also acknowledged that the radio system was overwhelmed.

Authorities say Esteban Santiago flew from Alaska to Fort Lauderdale and opened fire in a crowded baggage claim area.

His trial has been delayed until at least January as prosecutors decide whether to seek the death penalty.

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2 p.m.

A report shows that there was a command and communications breakdown among law enforcement during January's deadly shooting at a Florida airport.

The report released Tuesday by Broward County showed that no one from law enforcement took charge after the Jan. 6 shooting at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. Five people died and six were wounded.

The report says the lack of having anyone in charge led to confusion among officers who responded. The hundreds of officers on scene eventually overwhelmed the radio system, causing problems with communication.

Authorities say Esteban Santiago flew from Alaska to Fort Lauderdale and opened fire in a crowded baggage claim area.

His trial has been delayed until at least January as prosecutors decide whether to seek the death penalty.
The violent clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, have turned a spotlight on the freedom of speech - one of the first rights enumerated in the U.S. Constitution, and one of the messiest.

In Charlottesville, white nationalists and other extremist groups including neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan rallied - but only after a federal judge ruled they had the right to gather at Emancipation Park and protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Their rights were defended by the American Civil Liberties Union, despised by many conservatives as a liberal bastion. The ACLU deplored the "voices of white supremacy," and condemned the violence that killed a 32-year-old woman and injured dozens of others. But the ACLU made no apologies for its defense of speech that many find distasteful or even dangerous.

Alissa Ellis chants while blocking an intersection during a rally Monday, Aug. 14, 2017, in Durham, N.C. Protesters toppled a nearly century-old statue of a Confederate soldier Monday at the rally against racism. The Durham protest was in response to a white nationalist rally held in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend. (Casey Toth/The Herald-Sun via AP)

"The First Amendment is a critical part of our democracy and it protects vile, hateful, and ignorant speech," the organization said.

So what are the boundaries of free speech? And how is it playing out in this politically charged landscape?

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FREE SPEECH RIGHTS

"Even groups that have hateful messages still have a right under the First Amendment to express those positions, whether it's in rallies or protests or gatherings or writing," says Roy Gutterman, a First Amendment expert at Syracuse University.

But free speech does have boundaries. "You have no right to incite violence, you have no right to defame someone or disseminate child pornography," he says. "There are limits and some of the limits are easier to define than others. Even the concept of inciting a riot can get into some subjective and nebulous standards."

The limits of free speech were recognized in a 1919 Supreme Court decision in which the justices said the First Amendment could be restricted if the words represented a "clear and present danger." In that ruling, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said "the most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic."

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STRANGE BEDFELLOWS

The ACLU has a long history of defending free speech rights, at times on behalf of bigoted groups with offensive messages. In one of its most controversial cases, the ACLU in the late 1970s argued that a neo-Nazi group should be allowed to march in the Chicago suburb of Skokie, which was home to thousands of Holocaust survivors. The demonstrators planned to wear Nazi uniforms with swastika armbands. Attorneys for Skokie argued that would be traumatic for many residents. The neo-Nazis ultimately won the legal battle as a free speech argument, but didn't follow through with the march. Instead, they held a rally in a federal plaza in downtown Chicago.

In a recent case the ACLU said it was defending right-wing writer Milo Yiannopoulos in a free speech lawsuit even though it disagrees with his positions, saying he has fostered "anti-Muslim views and disdain for women" and has compared Black Lives Matter activists to the Klan.

"We understand the pain caused by Mr. Yiannopoulos' views," James Esseks, director of the ACLU's LGBT and HIV Project wrote last week. "We also understand the importance of the principles we seek to defend. The constitutional principle here, of course, is that government can't censor our speech just because it doesn't like what we say."

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TOLERANCE ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES

The debate over political expression and free speech has roiled college campuses in recent years, most notably at the University of California-Berkeley. An appearance by Yiannopoulos last winter was canceled after demonstrators dressed in black, broke windows, hurled rocks at police and set fires on the campus. A speech by conservative commentator Ann Coulter at Berkeley was later canceled because of safety concerns. And in Middlebury College, a small liberal arts campus in Vermont, scores of students shouted down political scientist Charles Murray, the author of "The Bell Curve," a controversial book that deals with race and intelligence.

Syracuse's Gutterman says what's happening now is a dramatic shift from the era between the 1940s and 1960s when people on college campuses who were being punished, censored and kicked out of school were on the political left. "Fast forward to today," he says. "It's people on the right or the far right who feel they're not getting a chance to articulate their viewpoint."

"'I think college campuses are a pretty precarious place for the free exchange of information," he says. "Berkeley is the birthplace of the Free Speech movement in the '60s. There's a huge irony there. College campuses have become kind of soft places because of speech codes, codes of conduct and things like that that tend to over-insulate people."

But Fanta Aw, interim vice president of campus life at American University in Washington, D.C., told the Senate Judiciary Committee in June: "As an institution, we draw the line when expression has the potential to incite violence and/or is a direct threat to members of our community."

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THE VIEW FROM ABROAD

Many other democracies do not share America's broad protections of speech.

After World War II, several European countries enacted laws that were designed to curb religious and racial hatred. The punishment can range from fines to prison. In 2006, British historian David Irving was sentenced to prison in Austria for denying the Holocaust and gas chambers at Auschwitz. In 2011, a French court found the flamboyant fashion designer John Galliano guilty of making anti-Semitic comments at a Paris bistro.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - The Mormon church is specifically condemning white supremacist attitudes in its strongest statement since a Virginia rally over a Confederate War monument descended into deadly violence.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said Tuesday that any members who promote white-supremacist views aren't adhering to its teachings.

Leaders say that some in white supremacist communities assert the Mormon church is neutral or even supportive of their views, but "nothing could be further from the truth."

Leaders say such views are morally wrong and sinful.

A church spokesman declined further comment.

The condemnation comes two days after church leaders issued a more general statement against growing intolerance after one woman was killed and others injured when a car rammed into a crowd of anti-white nationalist protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) - Law enforcement command and communication systems broke down following last January's deadly shooting at a Florida airport, leading to confusion and eventually panic as a false report of a second gunman spread among officers, passengers and employees, a report released Tuesday says.

The Broward County report, prepared by an outside consulting firm, shows the extent of the chaos that reigned at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in the minutes and hours after the Jan. 6 shooting that left five people dead and six wounded. About 2,600 law enforcement officers from throughout South Florida rushed to the airport, but the Broward Sheriff's Office didn't take adequate control of the response, the 82-page report says. Without a plan or system to deploy them, most deputies and officers were stranded outside the airport and their presence overwhelmed the radio and cellphone systems.

"Most of the law enforcement personnel who responded lacked clear instructions, objectives and roles," the report says. It also said there was initial confusion about what role the FBI played in the investigation -- shootings at airports are a federal crime.

FILE - In this Jan. 30, 2017 file photo, Esteban Santiago, center, is led from the Broward County jail for an arraignment in federal court in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. A report released Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017, by Broward County showed that no one from law enforcement took charge after the Jan. 6 shooting at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. Five people died and six were wounded. Authorities say Esteban Santiago flew from Alaska to Fort Lauderdale and opened fire in a crowded baggage claim area. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel strongly disputed the report, saying he, airport manager Mark Gale and the FBI agent in charge quickly took command of the situation shortly after the shooting. He conceded he hadn't read the report, saying he had received it Monday night.

"It's just not accurate," Israel told a press conference Tuesday. "Critics are going to criticize, but I was out there." He admitted there was no plan for staging and deploying that many officers at the airport, but said a lot of the confusion and perceived lack of command was caused by the overwhelmed radio system. He said staging plans are being improved and a new radio system is being purchased.

"Command was unified, we knew what was going on (but) it wasn't perfect," he said.

Authorities say Esteban Santiago, an Iraq war veteran from Anchorage, Alaska, flew to Fort Lauderdale with a 9mm handgun in a box he put in checked luggage. After landing he retrieved the weapon, loaded it in a bathroom and came out firing randomly in a crowded baggage claim area until he exhausted his ammunition. He surrendered 85 seconds after the first shot was fired. The report praises the initial response and capture of Santiago, who admitted the shooting to investigators.

But chaos broke out again 90 minutes after Santiago's barrage when false reports of a second shooter sent people stampeding, injuring 40. The report says that could have been largely avoided if police officers had earphones to listen to their radios without civilians overhearing them.

More than 12,000 passengers were at the airport during the shooting. Many of them ran out through emergency exits onto the airfield after the false second report. There was also terror caused by plainclothes police and deputies, some wearing masks to protect their identities, running through the airport with their guns drawn as they responded to the false report. That could have resulted in uniformed officers accidentally shooting them.

Overall, Israel, Gale and county officials said they are proud of the response but will implement the report's 132 recommended changes as needed.

"It is clear we have some work to do," Gale said. "That is not to say we performed poorly that day, not by a long shot. But we do recognize that as professionals we need to continually improve our performance."

The FBI says Santiago admitted committing the shootings in recorded interviews with agents. His federal trial has been delayed until at least January as prosecutors decide whether to seek the death penalty. Santiago, a diagnosed schizophrenic, told FBI agents he acted under government mind control and then claimed inspiration by the Islamic State extremist group. No terrorism links have been found.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - A judge overseeing a civil lawsuit in northeast Arkansas on Monday awarded $150 million to the families of five people who were fatally shot outside an Arkansas school in 1998.

Andrew Golden and Mitchell Johnson set off a fire alarm at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro and shot at people as they evacuated the school.

Twelve-year-olds Paige Herring and Stephanie Johnson and 11-year-olds Brittney Varner and Natalie Brooks were killed, along with teacher Shannon Wright.

Golden and Johnson were 11 and 13 when the shooting happened, and were expected to stay imprisoned until the age of 21 according to Arkansas law at the time. Johnson was released in 2005, and Golden was released in 2007.

The families' attorney, Bobby McDaniel, said they probably won't ever see the money, but hopes the Monday ruling will prevent Golden, also known as Drew Grant, and Johnson from profiting from the shooting.

"If either of them tries to sell their story for a book or a movie deal, or wins the lottery, this judgment means they can't get rich without paying these families first," McDaniel said.

Each of the families was awarded $20 million in damages against Johnson, and $10 million in damages against Golden.

Neither Golden nor Johnson was present for the court hearing, but Golden's attorneys had signed a consent judgment form on their client's behalf to avoid a trial.

In a news release, McDaniel said Johnson spent time in federal prison after completing his sentence for the shootings, and was located in Texas this year.

Golden has been living in Missouri under the assumed name of Drew Grant, according to McDaniel.

The attorney said another reason for filing the lawsuit was so a judge could release sealed depositions taken under oath by attorneys in the case.

"The parents and spouses wanted to know what happened," McDaniel said.

McDaniel said the depositions could maybe reveal if there were any warning signs before the shooting.
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) - While Illinois schoolchildren romp the neighborhood grasping at summer vacation's final hours, political leaders in Springfield are locked in a showdown over paying for their education.

A landmark school-funding revamp that Gov. Bruce Rauner rejected with an amendatory veto this month lands in the Illinois House on Wednesday. There, Democrats who control the chamber will put the Republican governor's changes into a new piece of legislation and call it for a vote - sending it to almost certain defeat.

The action would allow Democrats to showcase a lack of support for Rauner's expansive edits and give them time to gather votes necessary to follow the Senate's lead in overriding the veto, making the original plan law over the governor's opposition.

FILE - In this July 24, 2017 file photo, State Senate Republic Leader Bill Brady, left, listens as Gov. Bruce Rauner discusses school funding in the state during a news conference in Chicago. A landmark Illinois school-funding revamp which Gov. Bruce Rauner rejected in an amendatory veto this month lands in the Illinois House on Wednesday Aug. 16, 2017. (Ashlee Rezin/Chicago Sun-Times via AP File)

Here's a look at how the issue reached this point:

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FAIR FUNDING

The Democratic-controlled Legislature this year revamped the long-derided formula Illinois uses to pay for its public schools.

The former model aimed state money at schools with the least local property wealth, but opponents said it was outdated and underfunded. The new "evidence-based" model generally aims to funnel new school funding to the neediest districts first, based on statistical factors like local property wealth and the number of students in poverty or with limited English proficiency.

A key to the new plan was ensuring that no district would receive less money than it did last school year. Dubbed the "hold harmless" provision, the change would allow Chicago Public Schools to keep a $250 million-a-year grant that legislators put into law two decades ago to cover extra-educational expenses, such as bus transportation and special education.

Another provision in the legislation would require the state to pick up the employer's portion of Chicago teacher pensions, like it does for every other school district. Chicago Public Schools is the nation's third-largest school district.

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NO 'BAILOUT'

Rauner calls the legislation, known as Senate Bill 1 , a Chicago schools "bailout." He insists the annual grant was intended to make up for Chicago schools paying their own pension portion.

Rauner used his amendatory veto power, available to only seven governors in the U.S., to rewrite the legislation. He stripped more than $450 million in funding for Chicago schools and redistributed it to other districts. He touted the changes as providing millions of dollars more for schools outside Chicago, which he claimed this week has been a patronage-hiring haven for decades.

His rewrite ventured far into other areas as well. Rauner's action would limit the district-based "hold harmless" guarantee to three years, applying it thereafter to individual students - meaning the money would follow students if they leave one school district for another.

The governor also factored in the calculations of an individual school district's potential wealth. One example involves school districts in counties that imposed property tax caps, which limit the amount of tax dollars that can be collected even if property values increase. A district in such a county wouldn't fully benefit from the higher property values, but Rauner's veto would add that additional wealth to the local district's calculation - and drive down state funding for the schools.

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SILENT SCHOOL BELLS?

Democratic lawmakers have fought with Rauner over spending since the first-term governor took office in 2015. The state endured a two-year stalemate over a state budget, the longest of any state since at least the Great Depression, before the Legislature finally adopting one in July over Rauner's objections.

That spending plan included a school-funding twist: No state aid could be distributed unless through an evidence-based model, which wasn't part of the budget legislation. It was later proposed in Senate Bill 1, spearheaded by Democratic Sen. Andy Manar of Bunker Hill, a central Illinois town about 40 miles (64 kilometers) north of St. Louis.

That pumped up pressure on Rauner to sign the bill but also delayed state money getting to schools, the first installment of which as due Aug. 10.

No school district has reported being unable to open, but few have indicated they can go longer than a semester without state aid.

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THE NEXT VOLLEY

The Senate endorsed Manar's school-funding bill in May with 35 votes, and the chamber put up 38 'yes' votes on Sunday to get a three-fifth majority needed to reverse Rauner's veto. An override is less certain in the House, where it would require 71 votes from a body with 67 Democrats.

That's in part why House Democrats plan to offer new legislation - with the Rauner veto language - for a vote Wednesday. They want to gauge how some Republicans may vote. Defeat for the plan would open the door for a veto override. The House deadline for an override is Aug. 28.

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Contact Political Writer John O'Connor at https://twitter.com/apoconnor . His work can be found at https://apnews.com/search/john%20o'connor

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Diego Costa and Chelsea are in dispute over the strikers future. Here Press Association Sport asks some of the most pressing questions about the situation.

What a win!!! Great team work and great atmosphere from our fans! Thank you all! #CapitalOneCupFinal pic.twitter.com/8lSh2oFm2j  Diego Costa (@diegocosta) March 1, 2015

Costa signed for Chelsea from Atletico Madrid for 32million on a five-year contract in July 2014, but there have been continual reports of a move back to the Spanish capital ever since. Hamstring problems plagued his first season but the striker still scored 20 goals in Chelseas 2014-15 title-winning campaign. There were also on-field disciplinary issues accompanied by retrospective suspensions which led Costa to consider leaving England. Some Chelsea supporters also blamed him for Jose Mourinhos departure in December 2015. He reestablished their faith and scored 20 goals in a second Premier League title success last season.

Jose Mourinho signed Costa (Adam Davy/PA)

Costa was integral to Jose Mourinhos Chelsea, leading the forward line with a snarl as arch-antagonist and chief goalscorer. His importance was similar to Contes Chelsea side last season, with some suggesting the Blues would not have won the title if they had let Costa leave in January. That was when the major fissures occurred as Costa was left out of the team for the win at Leicester following reports of a behind-the-scenes row over a mega-money move to China. Publicly Conte insisted it was because of a back injury.

Costa kissed the Premier League trophy (Nick Potts/Empics)

Conte may have decided Costa was not worth the trouble. The celebrations after the title-clinching win at West Brom in May included Costa, perhaps jokingly, brandishing a fire extinguisher while Conte spoke to a group of journalists. It was a tiny snippet of what it might be like to manage Costa on a daily basis. Plus, if he has agitated for a move, the strikers loyalty may be in question. Costa is also 29 in October, so Conte may want a younger man to lead his team. He has now got Alvaro Morata.

Diego Costa and Antonio Conte

Yes - and this is where there is some dispute. Chelsea and Conte say Costa and his agent, Jorge Mendes, knew in January that the striker would be leaving this summer. Costa claims he was informed by text message in June and has engaged his lawyers. He was expected to return to London in the last two weeks, but remains in exile in Brazil saying Chelsea are fining him for not returning to the club. He is under contract for two more years, but the fact the row has become public - and Costas determination to rejoin Atletico, rather than go elsewhere - significantly reduces his value.

Toda honra e toda gloria seja dada a Deus! Parabens rapaziada!!!!! Come on Chelsea!!! pic.twitter.com/uLtvPjrLAs  Diego Costa (@diegocosta) May 12, 2017

There are a number of possible scenarios. Chelsea could agree a deal for Costa to join Atletico, who cannot register new players until January due to a transfer embargo, so they may loan him out elsewhere. With no deal with Atletico agreed, Costa could also remain in Brazil, effectively on strike while the lawyers continue to negotiate. Alternatively, Costa may return to London, training with the Chelsea reserves or on his own, winding down his contract and waiting for a transfer to Atletico. The most unlikely scenario would see a reconciliation with Conte and Chelsea, which would allow for Costas return.
A 16-year-old boy accused of carrying out a string of acid attacks on moped riders has appeared in court charged with offences under a Victorian law.

The teenager allegedly targeted six men on bikes in less than 90 minutes on July 13, spraying them in the face with a noxious liquid.

The offences, which left one victim with life-changing injuries, are said to have taken place in the evening in north and east London.

The defendant, from Croydon, south London, is further accused of a separate moped robbery on June 25.

London acid attacks

The youth, who cannot be named because of his age, appeared at Wood Green Crown Court by video-link from Feltham Young Offenders Institution on Monday, wearing light-coloured tracksuit bottoms and a grey T-shirt, while his parents sat in court.

The boy is charged with 13 offences, including six counts of throwing a corrosive liquid with intent to disable, injure, disfigure, maim, or cause grievous bodily harm under Section 29 of the Offences Against The Person Act 1861.

The offence carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

He is also charged with two counts of robbery and four counts of attempted robbery.

The teenager spoke to confirm his name during the brief hearing, where he was due to enter pleas.

But Judge Noel Lucas QC adjourned the case until Thursday.

The judge said: This court is acutely aware of the huge destructive effect of corrosive substances being thrown at innocent members of the public, and it is a practice that must stop.
Theresa May is expected to arrive back in Downing Street on Thursday as ministers spend the week fleshing out details of their hopes for Britains future with the EU after Brexit.

The Government will spell out its aims for new customs arrangements after the UK has quit the bloc in documents released by Brexit Secretary David Davis.

A position paper on the fraught issue of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic is also due to be published later this week.

EU chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier visits the Irish border (PA)

It comes as Mrs May is expected to be back at her desk on Thursday after holidays in Europe totalling around three weeks.

The Prime Minister enjoyed a break in Italy lasting nearly a week at the end of July and is now away with husband Philip in Switzerland.

The Government has faced complaints from Brussels over a lack of clarity on the British negotiating position on Brexit.

Downing Street said it was clear the talks had shown that the divorce could only be settled with in light of the future relationship with the EU.

One year since @dexeugov was established, here's how we've been working to form a deep and special partnership with the EU pic.twitter.com/wn9j7IdL5e  Department for Exiting the EU (@DExEUgov) July 13, 2017

The Prime Ministers official spokesman said: We had the first rounds of the negotiation and those talks have shown that many of the withdrawal questions can only be settled in light of the future partnership, so now is the time to set out our approach to that partnership to inform the upcoming negotiations and to provide citizens and businesses at home and across Europe with a deeper understanding of our thinking.

EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier is reported to have warned his first two rounds of talks with Mr Davis, covering the opening issues of the Irish border, the rights of EU citizens in the UK, and Britains divorce bill, had made limited progress.

"This week shows that we progress better when our respective positions are clear" @MichelBarnier after the 2nd round of #Brexit negotiations pic.twitter.com/1lQte3wROT  European Commission  (@EU_Commission) July 20, 2017

Meanwhile, The Times said the slow progress so far had led to complaints in Whitehall that senior officials were now trying to rush through decisions in an attempt to break the policy logjam.

There were said to be concerns that Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood and the Permanent Secretary at the Department for Exiting the EU were railroading issues through at a time when many ministers were away, leading to poor decision-making.

But following a summer marked by speculation over a possible leadership challenge and jostling for position among senior ministers over Brexit, there was some respite for the Prime Minister with an apparent truce between two of the leading protagonists.

The Chancellor signed up to a joint statement with Liam Fox (PA)

Chancellor Philip Hammond, who favours a soft, pro-business Brexit, and the Brexiteer International Development Secretary Liam Fox signed up to a joint statement at the weekend agreeing that there would have to be a transition period after Britain has left the EU.

They agreed that while the measure was necessary to ensure there was no cliff-edge break for businesses, it would be time-limited and that Britain would leave the EU single market and the customs union when it left the bloc.

Senior Conservative MP Bernard Jenkin welcomed unity in the Cabinet and questioned why the EU would not treat the UK the same as other countries who have no free trade deal with the bloc but have agreements over aviation services, customs facilitation and product recognition.

Mr Jenkin, chairman of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, told BBC Radio 4s Today programme: Why wouldnt they afford us the same kind of reasonable arrangements unless they want to punish us?

And if they want to punish us, should we be intimidated by their determination to punish us? Are they such a dysfunctional and destructive organisation that they would punish themselves as well as us by imposing such a ridiculous scenario  and of course they wont.
Police in Denmark have intensified their hunt for a missing Swedish journalist who allegedly disembarked from a home-built submarine a day before the vessel sank.

Copenhagen police are searching on land and at sea for 30-year-old freelance journalist Kim Wall. The search also will cover parts of Swedish territorial waters.

Swedish journalist Kim Wall is being searched for (Tom Wall via AP)

Ms Wall was on a reporting assignment aboard the UC3 Nautilus submarine owned by 46-year-old Danish inventor Peter Madsen.

He made a last-minute escape from the sinking vessel on Friday and has denied any responsibility for Ms Walls fate.

Madsen was arrested on preliminary manslaughter charges.

The turret of the sunken privately built and owned submarine (Jacob Ehrbahn/Ritzau Foto via AP)

Copenhagen police suspect that Madsen deliberately sank the submarine, though he initially blamed technical problems.

Ms Wall was not found inside the submarine after it was raised and transported for investigation on Saturday.
Manchester City received an unexpected boost at the start of the new Premier League season after their kit was hailed as the most fashionable of the title contenders.

YouTube vlogger Dina Tokio says the lovely baby blue colour, comfortable-looking fit, nice collar and tastefully-printed sponsor means City have stolen a march on their rivals in the fashion stakes.

Press Association Sport asked Dina, who has more than 650,000 people subscribed to her YouTube channel and 1.3million followers on Instagram, to rate the new kits brought out by the Premier Leagues big six  City, Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham and Liverpool  as well as Barcelona and Real Madrid purely from a fashion perspective.

And the sartorially-sharp Cristiano Ronaldo and his Real Madrid team-mates could be forgiven for feeling sheepish when they step out at the Bernabeu after their shirt was branded the least stylish because of its really tacky turquoise trim.

City fans can afford to be extra smug in the knowledge that Uniteds kit was rated the worst of the Premier League challengers because of its v-neck.

Arsenal's kit came highly recommended ( Joe Giddens/Empics)

Arsenal slipped out of the top four last season, but under-fire boss Arsene Wenger can take heart from the fact they are already back in it, of sorts, in second place in the fashion standings.

Arsenal will be pleased to see north London rivals Tottenham back in sixth place, with their famous cockerel logo condemned as very GCSE textiles, while Chelsea were awarded the third best kit because of its strong blue colour and stylish badge.

How they ranked:

8. Real Madrid

I am not a fan of turquoise, I think turquoise is so tacky in clothing. If it (the trim) was black instead of turquoise this would be my number one, thats how much I dislike turquoise.

7. Manchester United

Although I do have lovely memories supporting Manchester United, just look at that V neck, not feeling that, no.

Our new home shirt for the 2017/18 season is out now. Get yours today: https://t.co/VqQ3dta5DS pic.twitter.com/lJVepI45IQ  Manchester United (@ManUtd) July 4, 2017

6. Tottenham

Its all right, it will go with most things, but theres not much too it. The Spurs logo is very GCSE textiles.

5. Liverpool

The only thing thats going for it is the V neck, its a very strong collar and its a very good red, thats the kind of red Id choose for my red lipstick.

Here it is  our 2017/18 home kit.



Secure yours for Friday 19 May: https://t.co/lcgZri2EPQ pic.twitter.com/PrK5AuI9uz  Liverpool FC (@LFC) April 27, 2017

4. Barcelona

I feel like Barcelona really took into the contours of a female figure. Theres a lot of stripes, I like a bit of stripes.

The new @FCBarcelona kit for the 2017/18 season pic.twitter.com/1A9faSlViX  FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) May 29, 2017

3. Chelsea

They have kept it quite minimal and stuck with their colour, this gorgeous blue. Very, very strong and I do like the logo.

2. Arsenal

These guys look like they mean business, look at the collar. Red, white with a bit of gold, classic colour combo. I feel like its more of the over-sized look which I do prefer.

1. Manchester City

The baby blue colour is lovely, the sponsor is probably printed in the most pleasant way out of all of them, It looks very comfortable, Im liking the collar on it. I can basically imagine me wearing this out.
A proposed change to the summer transfer window for Premier League clubs could see an end to the mad dash for signings with the new season already under way.

With Englands top-flight clubs reportedly pushing for the window to be shut before the campaign starts, Press Association Sport casts an eye back to consider some of the biggest moves which would not have gone through had the new proposals been in place 12 months ago.

Shkodran Mustafi

Shkodran Mustafi (Steven Paston/PA)

Germany defender Mustafi joined Arsenal in a 35million switch from Valencia on August 29, on the same day that Deportivo la Coruna striker Lucas Perez headed for the Emirates Stadium. Mustafi made his Premier League debut in a 2-1 home victory over Southampton on September 10, the first of 37 appearances last season.

David Luiz

David Luiz (Nick Potts/PA)

Brazilian Luiz completed a shock 34million return to former club Chelsea from Paris St Germain as the Blues splashed out the best part of 60million on defenders  Marcos Alonso arrived as well  on August 31. Luiz, who had left Stamford Bridge for PSG in a 50million switch in June 2014, was a mainstay in last terms title-winning side.

Christian Benteke

Christian Benteke (Andrew Matthews/PA)

Crystal Palace did not wait long to re-invest the proceeds of Yannick Bolasies move to Everton, committing up to 32million to lure Benteke from Liverpool to Selhurst Park on August 20. The breakthrough followed weeks of negotiations, although the manager who signed him, Alan Pardew, witnessed only eight of the 17 goals he scored last season before losing his job in December.

Moussa Sissoko

Moussa Sissoko ( Nick Potts/PA)

Sissoko was another who had to wait until the death for his move, eventually leaving Newcastle for Tottenham on August 31 in exchange for 30million. The midfielder had enjoyed a fine Euro 2016 finals campaign with France, but eyebrows were raised on Tyneside when Spurs agreed to pay big money for a man whose inconsistency over the previous three and a half years had been a source of huge frustration.

Islam Slimani

Islam Slimani (Mike Egerton/PA)

Shock 2015/16 champions Leicester also left their business late when they made a 29million swoop for Algerian striker Slimani from Sporting Lisbon. Another deadline-day arrival, he was signed to spearhead the clubs Champions League campaign and defence of their title, although he made just 16 starts in all competitions last season.
The wife of Zimbabwes president has been accused of assaulting a young woman at a hotel in South Africa.

It was not immediately clear where Grace Mugabe was. Minister of police Fikile Mbalula said in a video posted by local broadcaster eNCA that she had handed herself over to police.

But a police spokesman, Vishnu Naidoo, later said no arrest had been made and police were talking with the suspects lawyers. He would not name the suspect.

Grace Mugabe is accused of assaulting 20-year-old model Gabriella Engels

Grace Mugabe, Zimbabwes first lady, has handed herself over to police in South Africa after being accused of attacking a 20-year-old model. pic.twitter.com/Sva2DPmqWK  AJ+ (@ajplus) August 15, 2017

The case draws yet more attention to the increasingly outspoken wife of the worlds oldest head of state, 93-year-old President Robert Mugabe.

Last month she challenged her husband publicly for the first time to name a successor, positioning herself as a possibility as his advanced age takes a toll ahead of next years election.

Twenty-year-old model Gabriella Engels has accused Mrs Mugabe of assaulting her on Sunday night while she was visiting mutual friends of Mugabes sons at a hotel room in an upscale Johannesburg suburb. She claims the first ladys bodyguards stood by and watched as Mrs Mugabe attacked her.

Ms Engels posted several photos on social media showing a gash in her forehead, which she claimed was a result of the alleged encounter.

She flipped and just kept beating me with the plug. Over and over, Ms Engels told local news channel News24. I had no idea what was going on. I was surprised. I needed to crawl out of the room before I could run away.

Police confirmed that a 20-year-old woman registered a case of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm on Monday, but said the suspect could not be named as she had not yet appeared in court.

Hotel CEO where alleged(Grace/Gabriella Engels)assault took place says an incident prompted staff to evict guests https://t.co/HPvStDZU1t  Violet Gonda (@violetgonda) August 14, 2017

The investigation into this case has already reached an advanced stage, a police statement on Tuesday said.

It was unclear whether Mrs Mugabe would qualify for diplomatic immunity if charges are brought against her. There was no immediate comment by Zimbabwes government or ruling party.

It was not clear on Tuesday night whether Mrs Mugabe was still in South Africa or had returned to Zimbabwe.

If she went back, I just hope the police can do something to get her back, Ms Engels said. I dont want her to get away with this.

She said she had recently met the Mugabe brothers and that mutual friends invited her to hang out at the hotel. She said the brothers were not in the room the night of the alleged assault.

I dont know how she got into the hotel room. We didnt know she was Robert Mugabes wife, Ms Engels said. I only found out outside when blood was rushing down my face and back.
By Ross Kerber

BOSTON, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Vanguard Group on Monday said it has urged companies to disclose how climate change could affect their business and asset valuations, reflecting how the environment has become a priority for the investment industry.

Under pressure from investors, Vanguard and other fund companies have pushed to pass several high-profile shareholder resolutions on climate risk at big energy firms like Exxon Mobil Corp and Occidental Petroleum Corp during the spring proxy season.

Vanguard manages about $4 trillion and is often the top shareholder in big U.S. corporations through its massive index funds - giving it a major voice in setting corporate agendas.

Vanguard, the biggest U.S. mutual fund firm by assets, had not supported climate activists on similar measures. But Glenn Booraem, Vanguard's investment stewardship officer, said in a telephone interview on Monday the issue as well as shareholder proposals have evolved.

"Our support for these proposals is not a matter of ideology, it's a matter of economics," he said. "To the extent there are significant risks to a company's long-term value proposition, we want to make sure there is long-term disclosure of those risks to the market."

Vanguard earlier this year changed its proxy voting policies to give more leeway to support resolutions tied to climate risk, but until now it has given few details about its thinking unlike rivals State Street Corp or BlackRock Inc.

Vanguard also plans to disclose more details about its talks with companies on issues such as gender diversity on corporate boards.

Booraem said Vanguard does not hear from many of its 20 million investors on governance. He said their views on the environment and diversity, run "along the entire spectrum. That's why we want to approach it from the economic perspective."

Booraem now oversees a staff of more than 20 people focused on governance matters, and said company executives are generally forthcoming about the subjects that once received little corporate attention. "Companies are increasingly receptive to the outreach," he said.

Booraem declined to discuss the reasoning behind Vanguard's votes at Exxon and elsewhere until the tallies are made public in filings due later this month.

He cautioned that upcoming filings detailing Vanguard's overall voting during the spring proxy season would not show much change compared to past years, and declined to discuss future votes it might cast. The firm previously did not support any climate proposals that were opposed by management, and only backed a few this year. Funds run by State Street backed climate resolutions about half the time last year, according to researcher Proxy Insight.

Vanguard's stance and promise of more disclosures prompted activist fund firm Walden Asset Management of Boston to withdraw a shareholder proposal for its upcoming fund meetings, requesting a review of Vanguard's proxy voting.

Walden is "pleased" with the changes, but they have not gone far enough, said Tim Smith, the firm's director of shareowner engagement. Walden will continue to press Vanguard and other fund managers on climate change and other issues, he said. (Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Phil Berlowitz)
By Jane Chung

SEOUL, Aug 15 (Reuters) - South Korea's crude oil imports from Iran rose 26.5 percent in July from a year ago, driven by Seoul's strong appetite for competitively priced Iranian light oil as Tehran looks to boost market share.

Korea, one of Iran's major Asian customers, shipped in 1.40 million tonnes of crude from Tehran in July, or 330,151 barrels per day (bpd), up from 1.10 million tonnes last year, customs data showed on Tuesday.

The worlds' fifth-biggest crude importer brought in 10.67 million tonnes of Iranian crude in the first seven months of this year, or 368,952 bpd, up 47.7 percent from 7.22 million tonnes over the same period last year, the data showed.

South Korea mainly imports Iranian condensate, an ultra-light oil used to produce more expensive fuels like naphtha. No breakdown of imports was available.

Iran, a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is exempt from the oil cartel's deal to limit production to drain a global supply glut. The country is seeking to regain market share lost during the years it was under western sanctions over its nuclear programme.

In July, the Middle Eastern country exported 2.2 million bpd of oil to Asian and European markets, with its exports to Asia up by 100,000 bpd.

South Korea's intake of crude oil from top exporter Saudi Arabia fell 9.3 percent to 3.69 million tonnes, or 873,656 bpd, a year ago.

OPEC's July oil production rose further by 173,000 bpd to 32.87 million bpd, in the latest sign the oil producer club's joint efforts to cap output are weak.

Overall, South Korea's total July crude imports increased 3.2 percent to 12.44 million tonnes, or 2.94 million bpd, from a year ago, the data showed.

In the January-July of 2017, South Korea imported 84.68 million tonnes of crude, or 2.93 million bpd, up 2.0 percent from 83.04 million tonnes in the same period last year.

South Korea's final data for July crude oil imports by state-run Korea National Oil Corp (KNOC) is due later this month. (Reporting by Jane Chung; Editing by Richard Pullin)
LONDON, Aug 15 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May will visit Japan this month for talks with her Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe to discuss Brexit, trade and defence, her office said on Tuesday.

May will lead a business delegation drawn from a range of different sectors on the trip, which comes as her government looks to strengthen its relationship with key international investors ahead of Britain's exit from the European Union.

"The delegation will showcase the strength of British business, the shared confidence in the UK-Japan economic relationship as we leave the EU, and the potential for future growth," a spokesman from May's office said.

The three-day trip begins on Aug. 30.

Japanese companies including carmaker Nissan and conglomerate Hitachi have invested more than 40 billion pounds ($52 billion) in Britain, and Japanese companies employ a total of 140,000 people in the country.

May's office did not give details of which businesses would be travelling to Japan. May will also meet Emperor Akihito, the spokesman said.

Since voting to leave the EU last June Britain has trumpeted decisions by Japanese carmakers Nissan and Toyota to continue production in the country as a sign that Brexit will not scare off international investors.

But both those investments came after the government wrote letters to ease the firms' concerns, drawing criticism that May was making secret deals and giving firms privileged information on Brexit. Britain said the letters were commercially sensitive.

May and Abe, leaders of the world's fifth and third largest economies, met last month on the sidelines of an international summit in Germany, and in April she hosted him at her English country residence.

After Abe's April visit, he expressed concerns about possible overnight changes in regulations when Britain withdraws from the EU in March 2019 - the latest in a series of unusually strong declarations about the risks of Brexit from Tokyo. (Reporting by William James; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
By Florence Tan and Marianna Parraga

SINGAPORE/HOUSTON, Aug 15 (Reuters) - Asia would be the biggest beneficiary of any potential sanctions by the United States on Venezuela's oil sector, said traders and analysts, as exports from the South American OPEC member could be redirected to the region, filling a vacuum left by producer supply cuts.

Washington is considering sanctions on Venezuela's oil industry in response to the ruling Socialist Party's crackdown on officials and parties opposed to the government. An embargo against Venezuelan crude could block imports of about 740,000 barrels per day to the U.S.

Asian refiners would welcome the so-called heavy, or higher density, crude since production cuts by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) have mainly curtailed this type of oil. At the same time, the start-up of new refining capacity is boosting demand.

China and India, the two biggest buyers of Venezuelan crude after the United States, have room to increase imports while other north Asian refiners, with equipment sophisticated enough to handle heavy Venezuelan oil, are seeking opportunities to tap this supply, analysts and traders said.

"Whatever oil that the United States doesn't want will find its way into the global market," a trader with a north Asian refiner said, adding that Venezuelan oil could be a good fit for the company's plant.

A trader with another north Asian refiner said he is also looking for opportunities to import Venezuelan crude if the U.S. imposes sanctions. The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media.

Venezuela's main creditors China and Russia will have first priority to its oil if sanctions are imposed, the sources and analysts said, and the countries would likely make the surplus cargoes available in the spot market.

In the first quarter of 2017, Venezuela delivered to Chinese companies about 485,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude and oil products to repay loans extended since 2007, according to internal documents from state-run oil company PDVSA reviewed by Reuters.

Russian oil firms Rosneft and Lukoil are also receiving about 250,000 bpd to repay loans, according to the PDVSA reports.

PDVSA has cut sales to U.S. refining unit Citgo Petroleum since May to increase its supply to Rosneft in order to catch up on overdue Russian deliveries.

Rosneft may ship Venezuelan crude to its newly acquired Essar Oil refinery in India, said one trader based in Asia who deals with Venezuelan crude, adding any surplus could be re-sold by Russian companies to other Asian buyers.

"The realignment of trade flows to push Venezuelan crude to Asia...would entail substantial logistical challenges that would on the margin be bullish (for) sour crude markets, but not necessarily sustainably bullish (for) crude prices," RBC Capital analyst Mike Tran wrote in a note last month.

(Reporting by Florence Tan in SINGAPORE and Marianna Parraga in HOUSTON; Additional reporting by Chen Aizhu in BEIJING and Andrew Cawthorne in CARACAS; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)
By Manuel Mogato

MANILA, Aug 15 (Reuters) - China has assured the Philippines it will not occupy new features or territory in the South China Sea, under a new status quo brokered by Manila as both sides try to strengthen their relations, the Philippine defence minister said.

The minister, Delfin Lorenzana, told a congressional hearing that the Philippines and China had reached a "modus vivendi", or a way to get along, in the South China Sea that prohibits new occupation of islands.

"There is status quo now that is happening in the South China Sea brokered by the secretary of Foreign Affairs," he told lawmakers late on Monday.

"According to him, the Chinese will not occupy new features in the South China Sea nor they are going to build structures in Scarborough Shoal," he said, referring to a prime fishing ground close to the Philippines that China blockaded from 2012 to 2016.

"It would be a very serious thing if China will occupy any of the islands."

Lorenzana did not comment when lawmakers, citing reports from the military, told him five Chinese ships had showed up almost 5 km off the Philippine-held Thitu Island in the Spratly archipelago on Saturday.

Congressman Gary Alejano told Reuters that Chinese fishing boats had blocked a Philippine marine surveillance ship in the area two days ago.

Thitu Island is the largest of nine reefs and shoals the Philippines occupies in the Spratlys.

The military's public affairs chief, Colonel Edgard Arevalo, declined to comment until the armed forces had the "whole picture on the current situation".

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has berated traditional ally the United States over several issues since he took office just over a year ago, while courting China for its business and investment and avoiding the rows over maritime sovereignty that dogged his predecessors.

China claims almost the entire South China Sea, a waterway through which about $3 trillion worth of sea-borne trade passes every year. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have conflicting claims in the area.

China has built seven islands upon reefs in disputed areas, three of which, experts say, are capable of accommodating fighter jets. They have runways, radars and surface-to-air missiles which China says are for defence.

One of the manmade islands is Subi Reef, visible some 24 km away by the small community of Filipinos who since the 1970s have lived on Thitu.

Alejano, a former Marine Corps officer who led a failed coup against the government of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in 2003, urged the government to lodge a diplomatic protest and tell China to leave Philippine territory in the Spratlys. ($1 = 51.3390 Philippine pesos)

(Editing by Martin Petty, Robert Birsel)
RIGA, Aug 15 (Reuters) - Shareholders in Latvian gas utility Latvijas Gaze voted on Tuesday to separate its gas distribution business from gas sales to comply with European Union competition rules.

The move also follows Latvia's gas market liberalisation in April that will end the monopoly on supply in the country held for decades by Russian oil and gas giant Gazprom, the biggest shareholder in Latvijas Gaze.

Shareholders voted to spin off the natural gas distribution business, which will be called Gaso, from Latvijas Gaze by the end of this year.

"It's a gas supply system operator, so it (Gaso) will deliver gas to specific consumers over distribution networks," Aigars Kalvitis, Latvijas Gaze's chief executive told Reuters after the shareholders' meeting.

"At the moment we plan to found it (Gaso) at the end of November, so that we can put it (the company) to action in this year ... and it will begin to work fully from ... January," Kalvitis said.

Latvijas Gaze, currently a listed company, will become a holding company and retain its listing on the Latvian stock exchange, he said.

Late last year, Latvijas Gaze split off a natural gas transmission and storage operator, Conexus Baltic Grid, ahead of the market liberalisation in April. (Reporting by Gederts Gelzis; editing by Nina Chestney and Jane Merriman)
By Josh Smith and Mirwais Harooni

KABUL, Aug 15 (Reuters) - Three Afghan aid workers employed by Catholic Relief Services were gunned down and killed in central Afghanistan, officials said on Tuesday.

The attack happened on Monday near the capital city of Ghor province, an area once relatively peaceful but now home to active Taliban and Islamic State militants.

The attack also wounded two employees, but the identity of the gunmen was unknown, said Iqbal Nezami, a spokesman for the provincial police.

Afghanistan, where the Taliban are seeking to restore Islamic rule after their 2001 ouster, is consistently considered one of the deadliest countries in the world for aid workers.

So far this year at least 12 have died in Afghanistan, compared to 15 in all of 2016, according to the United Nations.

"I call on all parties to ensure that those providing humanitarian assistance have safe access to the most vulnerable and can carry out their lifesaving work unhindered," U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Afghanistan Richard Peeperkorn said in a statement about the CRS attack.

CRS, which could not immediately confirm the report, provides humanitarian aid to more than 200,000 Afghans, with a focus on agriculture, education, and disaster response, according to its website.

Besides Ghor, CRS also operates in Afghanistan's Herat, Bamiyan, Daykundi, and Kabul provinces. (Reporting by Josh Smith; Editing by Nick Macfie)
By Manuel Mogato

MANILA, Aug 15 (Reuters) - China has assured the Philippines it will not occupy new features or territory in the South China Sea, under a new "status quo" brokered by Manila as both sides try to strengthen their relations, the Philippine defence minister said.

Philippine Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano also said the Philippines was working on a "commercial deal" with China to explore and exploit oil and gas resources in disputed areas of the South China Sea with an aim to begin drilling within a year.

The defence minister, Delfin Lorenzana, told a congressional hearing the Philippines and China had reached a "modus vivendi", or a way to get along, in the South China Sea that prohibits new occupation of islands.

"The Chinese will not occupy new features in the South China Sea nor they are going to build structures in Scarborough Shoal," Lorenzana told lawmakers late on Monday, referring to a prime fishing ground close to the Philippines that China blockaded from 2012 to 2016.

China claims almost the entire South China Sea, a waterway through which about $3 trillion worth of sea-borne trade passes every year. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have conflicting claims in the area.

Asked about the Philippine comments, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China had sovereignty over the Spratly Islands and their nearby waters, and China would continue to dedicate itself to peacefully resolving the dispute through talks with the parties directly involved.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who took office in June last year, has courted China and avoided rows over maritime sovereignty that dogged his predecessors, while berating traditional ally the United States over several issues.

China has built seven islands upon reefs in disputed areas, three of which, experts say, are capable of accommodating fighter jets. They have runways, radars and surface-to-air missiles which China says are for defence.

Lorenzana did not comment when lawmakers, citing reports from the military, told him five Chinese ships had showed up almost 5 km off the Philippine-held Thitu Island in the Spratly archipelago on Saturday.

The military's public affairs chief, Colonel Edgard Arevalo, declined to comment until the armed forces had the "whole picture on the current situation".

'CONTRARY TO CONSTITUTION'

Cayetano assured lawmakers on Tuesday any energy deal with China would not violate the constitution and would conform to a 60-40 percent revenue sharing, weighted towards the Philippines.

"We can come up with a commercial deal that is better than Malampaya in the disputed areas," Cayetano said, referring to an existing natural gas project off Palawan island between the government and Chevron, a resource which is due to be depleted by 2024.

"How can any Filipino argue with that? ... It cannot violate the constitution."

But such an arrangement could be complex and sensitive as both countries claim the oil and gas reserves. Sharing them could be construed as legitimising the other's claim, or even ceding sovereignty.

The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague invalidated China's claim over most of the South China Sea in July last year. China has refused to recognise the ruling, which clarified Philippine sovereign rights to energy reserves within its 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

The Philippine energy department last month said it may resume drilling for oil and gas on the Reed Bank, which is within the Philippine EEZ, before the end of the year, offering new blocks to investors in a bidding in December.

The Philippines suspended exploration in the Reed Bank in late 2014 as it pursued the international arbitration.

Minority lawmakers Gary Alejano and Edcel Lagman opposed the plan for an energy deal saying it would be illegal.

"This is contrary to our constitution because these areas should be exclusively for Filipinos," Lagman said.

Cayetano declined to give details of the talks and requested an executive session of congress to divulge information about the venture with a Chinese energy company, which he did not identify.

Manuel Pangilinan, chairman of Philippine oil and gas firm PXP Energy Corp, said this month any joint venture would likely be with "a company like CNOOC", referring to the China National Offshore Oil Corp

Officials from the foreign and energy ministries have said privately any deal would likely be commercial only and both sides would keep the issue of sovereignty out of the equation to avoid complications.

(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Martin Petty, Robert Birsel)
By Mukhammadsharif Mamatkulov

TASHKENT, Aug 15 (Reuters) - Uzbek authorities are removing large numbers of people from its blacklist of potential militants and political dissidents, state officials and media said, in a move likely to raise hopes for a more liberal climate in the ultra-secretive ex-Soviet republic.

Western countries and rights activists have long criticised Uzbekistan's record on democracy and human rights and have accused it of using the blacklist indiscriminately to stifle political and religious dissent in the mainly Muslim nation.

Uzbekistan says it faces serious security threats, including from militant Islamists, but President Shavkat Mirziyoyev also needs to attract more foreign investment to help modernise the creaking economy and create sorely needed jobs.

He has recently made some tentative steps towards liberalising rules on foreign exchange and exit visas and has spoken of the need to rehabilitate those who have been "misled" by radical groups.

The government has never said how many people are on its blacklist and has not publicly announced any reduction in the numbers, but state media have been running reports on the process, which in some cases has included public ceremonies.

Media said the process was the personal initiative of Mirziyoyev, who took control of Central Asia's most populous nation last September after the death of veteran strongman ruler Islam Karimov. Mirziyoyev was elected president last December.

Two state bodies - the Committee on Religious Affairs (CRA) and the Muslim Board of Uzbekistan - both confirmed the process, though neither said how many people were involved nationwide.

"CASE-BY-CASE BASIS"

The decisions are made on a case-by-case basis by special commissions that include officials and Muslim clerics, a member of one such commission told Reuters.

"There were around 650 people on the list in our district and 570 of them were pardoned and excluded from the list," said the commission member, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"Many of them once were indeed members of banned extremist groups, jailed and later freed after serving prison terms or amnestied," the commission member added.

One young man removed from the list had travelled to Turkey to study Islam, the official said. A charity there gave him shelter and food, but he later found out it was a recruiting centre for Islamic State and returned home.

The figures cited by the official indicate that nationwide the numbers removed from the blacklist could reach into the thousands. They could also suggest a reining in of the powers of the SNB state security service, whose head Rustam Inoyatov was close to the late Karimov.

Under Karimov, who ruled Uzbekistan with an iron hand for 27 years till his death, anybody ending up on the blacklist would likely face social ostracism even without any criminal charges. Blacklisted people usually have to report their whereabouts to authorities and seek permission to leave their town or village.

This month several Uzbek dissidents announced via social media networks that they had been removed from the blacklist.

Nurulloh Muhammad Raufkhon, an Uzbek writer living in Turkey and blacklisted last year after he published a book critical of Karimov's policies, said his wife, who remained in Uzbekistan, told him on August 8 he had been dropped from the list along with 59 other people.

After his book was published, Raufkhon said, security services had raided his home in Tashkent but he was already in Turkey at the time.

"They searched the house, took my manuscripts and books without issuing any documents," he said, adding that he now planned to return home.

Raufkhon also urged Mirziyoyev's government to take a step further and release "thousands of wrongly imprisoned inmates" from jail, saying "justice would then be fully restored". (Writing by Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Gareth Jones)
The political world is like a burning inferno. These comments were made by Minister of Justice and Buddha Sasana Wijeyadasa Rajapaksha during an interview with Sunday Lankadeepa where he commented on the present situation of the Government. He is one of the political leaders who took great pains to establish the Yahapalana Government.

There is a limit to what the Minister who is in charge of the Police can do

The postponement of the Provincial Council Elections will create a terrible situation in the country

There will be a big conflict in world politics against Chinas domination. We will be destroyed first in this conflict

Q What will happen to the Government if it continues this way?

Governments come and go within the frame of democracy. Situations have always changed. The only difference is in the time frame thats required for change to take place.

Q That means this Government came. Should it go now?

I mean things should happen within the frame work of democracy.

Q Are you satisfied with the Yahapalana Government?

I am satisfied with some facts. I am not satisfied with some. But I am satisfied with the subjects that come under my purview.

Q But Deputy Minister Ajith P. Perera says though you said so, its difficult to catch thieves.

Kewattayans (Cunning people) are talking unnecessarily. All this talk is to enhance their popularity. It looks like they dont possess the knowledge of how the law is practiced in the country. I dont catch thieves. Even the President cant do that. The Police must catch the thieves. That power is vested with the Police. Investigations are carried out by the Police. There is a limit to what the Minister who is in charge of the Police can do. Its the duty of the Police to intervene in such matters. Ministers cant instruct the police who to arrest.

Q Then, Why are there accusations against you?

That is why I said earlier that this just shows how aware they are. To establish Yahapalanaya, institutions should be independent. There is the Police Commission, Judicial Service Commission, Elections Commission and Public Service Commission. If there is a complaint action will be taken in keeping the evidence available. What is the mechanism available for this? If the politicians interfere in these matters is it good governance? We have prepared a mechanism to expedite the hearing of cases. We have taken steps to shorten this process by 50% within these two years. Arrangements have been made for that. But the Minister of Justice, the President nor the Chief Justice has the power to expedite the hearings against the thieves of the past government and delay the cases against the thieves in the present government.

Q Is it true that you are influencing the Attorney General Department?

What is the influence exerted by me?

Q Those who are in your Government are making this accusation?

I dont have to tell these foolish politicians that the Attorney Generals Department is an independent body. Mahinda Rajapaksha went home two years earlier than scheduled by acting like this. I know the subject area. I know the areas which wield power and the areas which I can handle or not. Therefore I have never told to put the files of the opponents on top and act accordingly. However I have never opposed what they are doing.

Q The bond issue has become a bomb for the Government?

Yes its correct.

Q Why did it happen like that?

Even if you dont ask me, its clear you and the others in the country. That type of thing took place then the people formed their own opinion. The media began to question. Ultimately the President understood that the case wouldnt expedite under normal circumstances, because there is a barrier against it. There are facts that cant be revealed by police investigations. Then he requested to appoint a Special Presidential Commission and it was established thereafter. As a result, all the information is being revealed now. The suitable legal course of action is being taken now.

Q President Maithripala Sirisena asked Minister Ravi Karunanayake to Resign?

I dont know about that. He (Ravi) denies this. They are saying so. But I dont know the truth.

Q Some Ministers in the UNP said that the Minister Ravi should resign.

Given this situation, the opinion of the majority was for him to resign.

Q There was a precedent for such resignations. Minister Tilak Marapana resigned from his portfolio.

Yes he resigned. But he hadnt done anything wrong.

We have prepared a mechanism to expedite the hearing of cases

I know everything about the construction of the Hambantota Port

Q According to Minister Rajitha Senaratna, when compared to the thefts during the past Government, this is a trivial thing.

May be. Those who were in the former Government know about the thefts of that Government.

Q Minister Sarath Fonseka says that Ravi, who pioneered to establish this Government, should be protected.

Can you write that I am laughing.

Q The Presidential Commission has been appointed to investigate the bond scam. But Minister Karunanayeke was asked to resign on charges that he received a house.

That issue is also linked with this bond scam isnt it? Investigations are being carried out regarding the bond scam. All these incidents are connected to the bond scam. These investigations are conducted to find out whether he has taken undue advantage of these bonds.

Q The bond issue is connected to the Central Bank. Ravi said that it did not come within his jurisdiction.

Everything belongs to the Government. That is the crux of the question. Although the Central Bank is gazetted under the Prime Minister, Ravi Karunanayake is authorized by the rules and regulations to intervene in the affairs of the Central Bank.

Q But Minister Karunanayake says that some seniors in the party are behind this.

If he says so, he knows the facts. We accept them.

Q The Joint Opposition say, they will not stop with Ravi until they catch the top brass thieves. It will be decided by the Special Presidential Commission. The next steps will be taken keeping with their recommendations.

Q The Joint Opposition says, that the housing complexes have been given to the foot note cliques too.

I also saw that news in the media.

Q What do think about this?

I will form my opinion when the relevant information is ready.

Q At this moment why are some sections in the government launching attack against you? What do you think about that?

There may be some reasons for that.

Q Among those reasons, One of the main reasons may be because you opposed the lease of the Hambantota Port to China.

You are right. I took a fervent stand against this. Still maintain that position.

Q The Prime Minister including the Government says, that there is nothing else to do others than give the Hambantota Port to China. You are also in same Cabinet, but why do you take a different stand?

Yes. I have a different opinion. I say, that I know everything about the construction of the Hambantota Port, from the time of its commencement. It was commenced during Chandrikas Government. I and Anura Bandaranaike went to participate in the discussions involving China. The China Company said they will help us make Hambantota the biggest Fisheries Harbor was the biggest bunkering port. The estimated cost for this was $ 310 M.

Q But during the Mahinda Rajapaksha regime, it was said, that $ 580 M would be spent for that?

Yes. They constructed the port by digging the land. When it finished $ 1500 M had been spent on construction. China imprisoned us in a debt trap. China knows that we can never settle this loan.

Q Why did they give the loan?

It was done by squeezing our neck as there was no option. They gave this loan in order to target and obtain this port. This is not a commercial transaction. This is a political transaction.

Q You mean a political transaction?

Its a world political transaction. By giving this port to China, our loan has been deducted by only one billion. But we have to pay 78 billion. How can we pay the remainder of the loan? Do we have a plan to settle this? Then the Chinese are bringing only $ 400 m to this project. We can make some use of the port if we complete it with this $ 400 m.

Q The Government has said that this a white elephant. Ships arent coming. But you say, this can be developed.

Well no need of talking about whether this can be developed or not. Now this has already been completed. There is no other option. Now this should be developed.

Q Why do you oppose it?

There are a few serious problems. The first problem is very serious. 85% of the ships are coming to the port in Colombo for re-exporting. Will they come to Colombo when the same facilities are being provided at the Hambantota Port for which they have to pass an additional 400 nautical miles? Do all 85% of these ships stop in Hambantota then? Now do you say to convert the Colombo Port into a swimming pool? How much money have we invested on the Colombo Port? When all the ships come to the Hambantota Port, all the income goes to the China Company. The other thing is that China is going back after constructing the Colombo South Port.

Q But it was given on lease for 99 years?

Then the problem is the Hambantota Port we have built. They will earn income by operating this for 99 years. There is a paradox in that isnt it? That is why I say there was a Commercial transaction in Colombo. There was a World Political transaction in Hambantota. That is why India is asking for Trincomalee. In this regard, America, India, Japan and Europe have got together. There will be a big conflict in world politics against Chinas domination. We will be destroyed first in this conflict.

Q When you raised this in the Cabinet, there was a big protest against you.

Yes. There was a big protest. When we speak the truth, it will remain the same everyday.

Q Why dont the President and the Prime Minister understandthis situation?

Its not correct to ask me that. Ask it from the cabinet.

Q Do you think that this is a coalition Government?

Yes to some extent.

Q Can you go forward in this way?

Its difficult.

Q If it is difficult what can be done?

Let us see.

Q This government doesnt hold elections. Does it?

Yes. It is a terrible thing. Madam Sirimavo postponed the elections under the cover of 1972 constitution. As a result there was a curse for 17 years. That party couldnt assume power. J.R. postponed the elections for 6 years. Its curse is still felt. UNP couldnt form a government even after 20 years. Today the government isnt formed alone.

Q This Government has postponed the elections.

Those who postponed the elections would have to face that curse for 40.

Q According to you, why do they postpone the elections?

Its not done by me. So, I cant give you a correct answer. There was a reasonable force behind the postponing of the Provincial Council elections for a reasonable period of time. But its wrong when its done for an unlimited period. The postponement of the Provincial Council Elections will create a terrible situation in the country.

Q There are people who make allegations that you have a  deal with the Rajapaksas as you are also a Rajapaksa.

But when Rajapaksa was in the pinnacle of power during his government, not even a dog barked at the Rajapaksas.No media man wrote a word against him.That was the time when I challenged the Rajapaksas and came out. Army security was given to our house.When I gave the COPE report, my house was surrounded by the army. In spite of such a situation, I didnt bow my head. If so, why should I do it now? Am I afraid when they are powerless? Remember that those who make allegations, joined the government at that time to strengthen the Rajapaksas. Are these people who level allegations against me?

Q According to the present situation, dont you feel differently when compared to the time you left the government then?

Well. Today, some people raise a big hue and cry against corruption at the top of their voice. Tell me the action taken by them to stop so-called corruption? You may think that I am boasting. I do not want any self appreciation. But I should tell the truth to the people. I am speaking today taking this stance having talked about corruption and as a person who got more than 1000 billion on behalf of the people in this country.

Q How did you do it?

You may remember the year 2003.

Q That was during UNP Government?

Yes. CTB was sold. Western, Sabaragamuwa, Central Province were sold at 860 million. Who raised a voice for them? They filed action in the court. But it was discarded. At last, I came forward voluntarily and argued that it was illegal in the supreme court. Then, there was a cluster of lawyers working against me. The former chief Justice told that all of them appeared for money, but the lawyer Wijeyadasa Rajapaksa appeared on behalf of the country. After making that statement the agreement for selling CTB was canceled. Would there be a CTB if there was no such judgment?

Q You had become the Chairman of COPE committee.

Yes. At that time I had death threats. The Government exerted influence on me.They said not to question about such and such a transaction. But did I stop it? Ultimately we asked them to nationalize the Insurance Corporation. The Insurance Corporation which had an asset of 125 billion was given at 60 billion.That was during the UNP regime. Milinda Moragoda was a pioneer in this regard. I was attacked when I said to nationalize them. What is the result of it? The 18 persons including those who were involved with corruption joined with Mahinda.

Q Then you made an uproarious statement?

I said that those who should be in the prison are in the kings house. Then on, they brainwashed Mahinda against me. They began to attack me. Then I came out. However I came to the Parliament also from the other side. I havent stopped my journey. I revested with the public Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation, Appolo hospital, Litro Gas company, from 3% to 10% of the shares of all private banks and 8 acres belong to the harbor. I can say clearly that I fought alone battle and revested more the Rs.1000 billion. I wont stop this struggle.

Q That means you have more struggles.

You of course. I dont reverse my attempt without getting back the Hambantota Harbor.

Q Can you do it?

Yes I will take it back anyhow.

Q Can you remain in the Government after doing so?

A: Whether I remain in the government or not, I will do it. That type of things I did in the past as well. Hambantota Harbor cant be taken back forcibly, can they? But I wont withdraw without taking it back by some legal means.

Q Leasing Hambantota harbor is a duty of the Prime Minister.

Whatever duty it is, is a public property. Here there is a question of sovereignty. What is done by China was the things done by the Europeans with the gun in the past. This is the new imperialist system today. If America has done it,then our socialists would have shouted. When China is doing it, there is no agitation. China is the worst capitalist country in the world today.

Q Are there any other ministers who support your struggle?

I have doubts about it.

Q That means there is none?

None to my knowledge. But Minister Arjuna had presented 6 cabinet papers against it.

Q Can a Government go on like this?

It is not necessary to be shocked by them. That is the way of democracy.The people should have a right to propose another group if one group is not good. But it should be done democratically.
Aiming to make its voice typing technology more inclusive, Google has added 30 new languages to voice search including Sinhala and Tamil, bringing the total number of languages supported by speech recognition via Gboard on Android to 119.

Included among the languages are Bengali, Lao, Sundanese, Urdu and two of the most popular African languages  Swahili and Amharic. It has also added Georgian, an ancient language that dates back to the 10th century.

The full list of languages listed as follows: Amharic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bengali, English (Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania), Georgian, Gujarati, Javanese, Kannada, Khmer, Lao, Latvian, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Sinhala, Sundanese, Swahili, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. In total, this brings the grand total of Gboard's voice recognition to 119 languages.

Google is also adding the new languages to its Cloud Speech API and says it is working to integrate them into other apps like Google Translate.

In addition to adding more languages, US users can also search for emojis using voice typing.

You can now say something like winky face emoji to express yourself. Or, even Colbert emoji to your friends when the occasion calls, writes Daan Van Esch, Googles technical program manager for speech who penned the announcement on Googles Search blog. (searchengineland)
The Judiciary and the Attorney General's Department should be independent and should be allowed to function as such without interference from anyone, the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) group claimed today.

Addressing the media at the BBS Headquarters in Rajagiriya, Sinhala Ravaya General Secretary Magalkande Sudaththa Thera said no Parliamentarian should be allowed to interfere in cases filed at the Attorney Generals Department or with the Judiciary.

The President, the Prime Minister, ministers and MPs are known to interfere in the justice system, he pointed out, adding No one has the authority to delay or hasten court cases. Justice should be meted out in an impartial manner, Ven. Sudaththa Thera said.

Even in Parliament ministers are known to issue challenges to the Attorney Generals Department, Judges and the Judiciary, which has left the public disillusioned with the Judiciary, he said.

Therefore, the President and the Prime Minister should act immediately to bring disobedient ministers to book inside and outside Parliament, he said. (Chaturanga Pradeep)

Video by IndikaSri Aravinda
A pedestrian was injured when police in a car chase fired at a suspected luxury vehicle at the entrance to the overhead bridge in Gampaha at about 6.00 pm today, Veyangoda Police said.

The vehicle escaped the shooting but two persons travelling in it were taken into custody when it met an accident later.

The injured man has been admitted to the Wathupitiwala hospital.

The police had been chasing after the luxury vehicle for some distance in which a suspect had been travelling according to the police.

The suspect and a woman were arrested by the police with the support of the resident of the area when they attempted to flee after leaving the vehicle when it collided with a motorcycle at the Naranwattha area along the Veyangoda - Banduragoda road.

The police officials attached the the Kalmunai Police had chased after the vehicle and opened fire, Veyangoda Police said.

Under the instructions of the Gampaha Division Senior DIG Muditha Pussella, the Veyangoda Police are conducting further investigations. (Tony Karunanayaka)
Commemorating the past is great if it brings sweet memories, but not if it brings dark moments like the Rathupaswala incident. The shooting at innocent civilians in Rathupaswala took place on August 01, 2013. People have spent a four-year wait awaiting justice.

The incident put a black mark on Sri Lankas history because it defamed the much adored Sri Lankan Army. The protesting public was shot at and were injured. Loved ones were lost, but a battle was won. When people in power do nothing to solve the severe problems faced by the public, they themselves stand up against the violation of their basic human rights. The legal proceedings regarding the incident began in court after many years. Court proceedings have been slow.

The CID noticed the courts on August 9 that some evidence related to the shooting scene had been destroyed

As many as 30 were injured. Some were disabled as a result of the shooting

The Police, Divisional Secretariesand local politicians werent involved insolving the issue

Army officers involved in the Rathupaswala incident in 2013 were arrested by the CID and produced in Gampaha Magistrate Court on March 24, 2017. The hearing continued till April 07 and the accused were remanded till the next hearing, which took place on April 26. The case was taken up again on May 03 and May 17 and the CID informed the courts to obtain the testimonies of the Judicial Medical Officers (JMO) who conducted the postmortem of the deceased. On May 17 the hearing was postponed to May 31. Meanwhile, the CID questioned the victims- who were attacked- again and searched for remaining bullets from the scene of shooting.

When people in power do nothing to solve the severe problems faced by the public, they themselves stand up against the violation of their basic human rights

The period of remand for Brigadier Anura Deshapriya Gunawardena and the three others arrested were extended from June 14 to June 28 and then again to July 12 by the Chief Magistrate D.A Ruwan Pathirana at Gampaha Magistrate Court. Brigadier Deshapriya was arrested on May 25 by the CID for ordering the shooting of unarmed civilians who protested at Rathupaswala.

The CID noticed the courts on August 9 that some evidence related to the shooting scene had been destroyed due to the neglect of then Gampaha Police Commissioner Ranjith Masinghe. The next hearing is scheduled for August 23.

As those responsible didnt care to solve the water crisis, they (Villagers) themselves took the initiative to obtain a solution

The weapons possessed by the three suspects have matched the description of the bullets found at the scene of the crime. Its questionable how only three soldiers were arrested when there were more than 200 armed security personnel engaged in the shooting. The two people shot dead were students and they were identified as K.A.D. Akila Dinesh (17) and H.S. Ravishan Perera (18). The other victim, 29-year-old Nilantha Pushpakumara, died due to a blow on the head where his assailants had used a blunt weapon. As many as 30 were injured. Some were disabled as a result of the shooting while private and public property was also damaged.

The protest was held with the hope of obtaining a solution to the issue regarding drinking water in the area. The villagers were protesting because a factory in the area was releasing harmful chemical filled waste-water into paddy fields. The fields- situated in the proximity of the factory premises- became unsafe for agriculture. The villagers experienced severe problems regarding drinking water. This happened because the PH levels in the water exceeded the specified healthy limit. The Police, Divisional Secretaries and local politicians werent involved in solving the issue.

As those responsible didnt care to solve the water crisis, they (Villagers) themselves took the initiative to obtain a solution. Residents of Rathupaswala, Weliweriya, Nedungamuwa and those living in adjoining villagers held peaceful protests where over 5000 protesters participated. The protests continued until they were attacked by the army troops-commanded by Brigadier Deshapriya Gunawardena-on August 01. The villagers, who ran for their lives, were chased, attacked and fired at. Many were injured. The remanded security personnel were accused of murder, attempting murder and severely injuring people according to sentences 300 and 296 of the Sri Lankan Penal Code.

I tried to stop the shooting -

Melan Perera Retired Army sergeant in Weliweriya

I was given seven hundred and fifty thousand rupees on April 08, 2016 as compensation. But nobody can undo the things that happened to me and others. I cant accuse the army or the police even though its true that I acted on behalf of the villagers in their struggle during the incident. They gave me what they promised. The former Government gave one million rupees for every dead person and balanced it somehow, he said.

Many people are afraid to speak out. I am a former Army Sergeant and I tried to stop the shooting during the incident. I turned away some soldiers advising them not to shoot

Many people are afraid to speak out. I am a former Army Sergeant and I tried to stop the shooting during the incident. I turned away some soldiers advising them not to shoot. Some of them shot me too. Unfortunately, the bullet meant to hit my knee struck my right hip bone because I bent down to protect myself. While I was in hospital for four months my three wheeler was seized by the leasing company. Anyway, I had to mortgage my wifes jewellery to save it. And after that the monies I received as compensation were used to bail out the my guarantors who were jailed.

I am now 48 years old and they have recommended a hip plate that can be used for a period of 15 years. But I am unable to replace it in the future due to the financial state I am in,he said.

An attacked family tells their tale

Preethika Nilanthi, Rohan Patrick and their three sons who were in the thick of things at Weliweriya

We were told to request for compensation, but we were unable to do so because we didnt have medical reports to prove the damages to us during the attack carried out by the army inside the church. My husband had a severe headache for around three months due to blows to his head with a baton. He couldnt work for some time. Meanwhile, we survived with our sisters help. My sons right arm was cracked in three places because he tried to save his younger brother, aged 9. Our three sons and two sisters were also there and all of us were attacked.

There were over 70 armed men engaged in the shooting at the church. But why are they punishing only four of them? We request justice from the responsible people to punish the guilty, Prithika and her husband opined.

There were over 70 armed men engaged in the shooting at the church. But why are they punishing only four of them? We request justice from the responsible people to punish the guilty, Prithika and her husband opined

When the Daily Mirror checked the houses of the two students who died in the attack, it seemed that many people were attacked had left the area.

Rathupaswala villagers were first fighting for their right to have clean water and now they are waiting for justice. It seems they will have to wait a lifetime.

CID Special Branch OIC Chief Inspector Ranjith Munasinghe and Sub Inspector Upali Bandara are carrying out investigations following instructions of ASP B.S. Thissera, Deputy Director SSP Shani Abeysekera, under the guidance of CID Director Sudath Nagahamulla and the DIG Ravi Senevirathna.

Punish all who participated in the shooting and those who ordered the shooting

- Suresh Perera Chief organizer of Siyane Environment Conservation Association

A prominent individual among the protests who initiated the protests from the beginning, Suresh Perera, emphasized on the present situation regarding the supply of water to the villagers. The Water Board doesnt provide enough water for everybody to fulfil their needs. Even the Water Board itself has admitted that 28 areas coming under the purview of the Grama Niladhari Administration have been destroyed due to the water being polluted.

Colonel Solangarachchi first began attacking with a baton and soon the shooting followed. It wasnt just one shot, complete magazines were used to shoot at poor civilians who were requesting for pure water. Three people died and a lot more were injured. The shooting continued till midnight. The helpless people, who ran for mercy to the church, were also attacked, he said.

The Water Board doesnt provide enough water for everybody to fulfill their needs. Even the Water Board itself has admitted that 28 areas coming under the purview of the Grama Niladhari Administration have been destroyed due to the water being polluted.

Its said that the villagers had several dialogues with Gotabaya Rajapaksa to solve the problem. However a political bigwig didnt want Rajapaksa to solve the issue fearing he will gain political mileage. Brigadier Deshapriya Gunawardena came here without a request from anybody and his sole purpose was to attack people. He was there from the beginning. The Geneva reports have given directions to punish those guilty. But the government hasnt punished them yet.

Even the Central Environment Authority doesnt admit that the pollution of water was caused by this. They are bound to find out what happened here and provide solutions. Individuals holding high positions in government institutions are responsible for the destruction that takes place in the country. The nitrate level recorded in the water is more than 197%, when the permitted amount is 10%. The CEA should find out how this happened.

The factory was completely shifted by February 2014. We were offered compensation on April 08, 2016. We think we were compensated fairly, Suresh noted.

We request the authorities to punish the persons who ordered the shooting to the ones involved in the shooting to ensure that this kind of thing doesnt happen again. Its now more than three years. Its only now that they have remanded the shooters, he said.
By Chandeepa Wettasinghe

Sri Lankas likelihood of experiencing a debt shock via state-owned enterprise (SOE) contingent debt may remain high until at least September 2018 due to delays in implementing energy sector cost-reflective pricing formulae, an International Monetary Fund (IMF) country report said last week.

If contingent SOE debt is included, total public debt would rise to 94 percent of GDP (considered as a shock scenario in debt sustainability analysis) and decline below 90 percent of GDP by 2020. The likelihood of such a scenario has increased due to delays in energy pricing reform, the IMF said.

The IMF is expecting Sri Lankas debt to GDP to be 85 percent this year, and if a SOE debt shock occurs, it would fall back to such a level (84 percent of GDP) by 2022.



A letter from the Sri Lankan government, attached to the report, outlined that the pricing formulae, which were supposed to be in effect by December 2016 as a structural benchmark of the IMF programme, have been readjusted to next year and that further research will be conducted

until implementation.



Building on access to greater information and after further consultation with stakeholders, the cabinet will approve automatic pricing mechanisms for fuel and electricity by March 2018 and September 2018, respectively, the government said.



According to the IMF, the Sri Lankan budgets primary balanceexpected to reach a 1 percent of GDP surplus in 2018 under the current scenariocould reach an 8.9 percent deficit instead if a SOE debt shock is delivered.



The timing of the debt shock would be of concern due to increased borrowing needs to settle the SOE debt and given the stress on the balance of payments that would materialize in 2019 when bunched up central government debt will begin maturing.

The contingent liabilities of the loss-making Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC), Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), SriLankan Airlines and the Sri Lanka Port Authority add up to Rs.1.2 trillion. The government had discovered this in late-2015 with technical assistance from the IMF.



Mismanagement, corruption and nepotism had racked up Rs.123.27 billion in losses for the national carrier between 2009 and 2015, while the next two years saw approximately Rs. 40 billion in losses adding up to this. The airline had borrowed to purchase unnecessary aircraft until 2015.



CPC and CEB had accumulated debt during the past administration in order to provide fuel and electricity at subsidized prices, at a loss. The current government is continuing subsidies.



CEB, which made a Rs. 28.85 billion profit in 2015, posted a Rs. 14.5 billion loss in 2016 due to the government not approving a price increase to avoid losses. CEBs projected loss for 2017 is Rs. 28 billion.



Meanwhile, CPC, which had accumulated approximately Rs. 245 billion in losses by end-2014, saw Rs. 19.47 billion in losses added in 2015, before making a Rs. 69.62 billion profit in 2016. CPC losses for the first four months of this year stood at Rs. 3.85 billion.



Sri Lankans are happy to accept subsidized fuel and energy prices, forgetting that the losses and debt incurred by the SOEs will have to be recouped by the government through taxes in the future.

Starting this year, the financial performances of CPC, CEB and SriLankan will be subjected to quarterly monitoring.



The United National Party, the leading force in the unity government, is currently in a precarious political position, and may have to fight tooth and nail for votes in the run up to long-overdue local government elections, which could in turn influence the momentum of the 2020 general elections.

The implementation of higher taxation in late 2016 may have been one reason for delaying the implementation of automated cost-reflective energy formulae until 2018, when the base effect of higher taxation will have subsided.



The government said that the 2018 timelines were chosen in order to reduce an ad-hoc increase in prices, and to educate and consult with the public. It added that time is needed to evaluate subsidies, and in the case of electricity, to set up a bulk supply transmission account.



The IMF noted that there was difficulty in forging political consensus within the coalition government to implement the pricing mechanisms.
India keen to run Mattala airport; holding 70% equity for 40 years

This govt has no vision of real economic growth and development

The weekly evidence of the unprecedentedly dependent, servile character of the Yahapalana administration came in the form of a report in the prestigious Hindu by its smart, Colombo based correspondent Meera Srinivasan. Captioned India keen to run Sri Lanka airport, it says:

India has expressed interest to operate Sri Lankas second international airport situated in Mattala, about 40 km from the southern town of Hambantota, where China has a majority stake in a strategic port it built. The Sri Lankan govt earlier this week cleared Civil Aviation Minister Nimal Siripala de Silvas request for a committee to study the Indian governments proposal. India proposes to operate, manage, maintain and develop the airport through a joint venture, holding 70% of the equity for 40 years... (The Hindu, August 12th 2017)

Not even during the period of the IPKF did our huge neighbour, which has Tamil Nadu as a significant shareholder, get to run a Sri Lankan airport deep in the interior of the country, in the Sinhala heartland. Nor did any Ceylonese/Sri Lankan govt ever think of giving India a 70% share for 40 years in any venture as strategic as an airport.

This is in addition to the two stories in the sister paper of the Daily Mirror, which says that the Survey Department which is over a century old, is to be virtually handed over to a US firm named Trimble so as to work on an island-wide Land Registry, while the countrys labour laws are to be revised under the guidance and with the financial assistance of the USAID.

That is not the fault of the UNP proper, it is the fault of those who occupy the UNPs penthouse. The man who best knows the philosophy of development of the UNP has been exiled as Ambassador, Prof. Karunasena Kodituwakku, groomed by former PM, late Dudley Senanayaka, as a future leader of the party

If this doesnt add up to a project of re-colonization or neo-colonization, then what does?

Surely the problem of financial viability of a state enterprise should be solved by giving first preference and a larger role to Sri Lankan capitalists than to foreign ones, in seeking investment? Algeria for instance has a constitutional red-line that rules out anything above a 49% share for foreign capital in any enterprise or property whatsoever in that country, leave alone something as strategic as a port or airport!

So why does the government de-nationalize and foreignize national assets, including strategic ones?

One reason is obviously money. I dont mean money as in the money needed to run the country, because Mahinda Rajapaksa ran it with a higher rate of growth in wartime, and a much higher one in peacetime, without auctioning the family silver and the store! I mean money as in massive pay offs.

The other reason is chronic, perhaps congenital inability. This government has no vision of real economic growth and development. That is not the fault of the UNP proper, it is the fault of those who occupy the UNPs penthouse. The man who best knows the philosophy of development of the UNP has been exiled as Ambassador, Prof. Karunasena Kodituwakku, groomed by former PM, late Dudley Senanayaka, as a future leader of the party.

There is a third reason which makes the UNP dominated government behave the way it does. The current leaders of the UNP belong ideologically to that stratum which has a long history on this islandthat of collaborators who see no future for themselves apart from service to and as beneficiaries of their Western patrons. They are the islands equivalent of the type that Malcolm X so indelibly caricatured as House Niggers. They do not see any role for this island except as strategic real estate for the declining Western empire, its allies and its competitors to own or rent.

The PM and his ideological followers in the corporate community and the upper bureaucracy are striving to recreate what they see as the golden age of Ceylon - not its true Golden Age of the first decade after Independence, but precisely the pre-Independence period of colonial servitude and limited autonomy; the Donoughmore period. The paradigm is of a throwback to conformist cosmopolitan colonial modernity.

During the UNP-led 7 party coalition govt of 1965-70 officially titled the National Government but colloquially dubbed the Hath Havula, Esmond Wickremesinghe was the key advisor and supporter of Minister of State JR Jayewardenes attempt to dominate the economic policy agenda, outflanking and overshadowing from the Right, the more moderate, liberal, pro-agriculture PM Dudley Senanayaka. Today, with the drive to abolish the Executive Presidency and project the PM as the countrys de facto leader or future leader while celebrating his 40 years in politics (a celebration in Parliament from which the President absented himself), the UNP is perceived as attempting the same Esmondian putsch in relation to President Sirisena. There is a gaping trust deficit.

This is the most dysfunctional Lankan govt I have seen in all the decades I have been acquainted with politics, which I first saw as a school-kid in 1964.

This is currently a country without a Foreign Minister though there are at least three instant options: Dr. Sarath Amunugama, the obvious successor to Lakshman Kadirgamar; Wasantha Senanayaka, the smart and personable young State Minister for External Affairs (and acting FM); and Mahinda Samarasinghe, the experienced former Minister of Human Rights. The govt is cracking up in both senses of the term: it is fissuring as well as going gaga in a politically suicidal way.

The UNP in government is attacking the state. Within the state it is attacking precisely the most credible and admired platform, process and personnel, namely the Presidential Commission into the bond-scam and the independent minded officials of the Attorney-Generals Department.

The UNP is also attacking one of its own, Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, who is far less conspicuous a dissident than Opposition parliamentarian R. Premadasa was with his Puravesi Peramuna (Citizens Front) faction in the early 1970s and Prime Minister Premadasa was in the 1980s with regard to the Indo-Lanka Accord and the IPKF. The patriotic populist dissident Premadasa turned out to be the UNPs saviour in 1988-89. By attacking Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, the UNP is busily perforating the only populist lifeboat it has when the ship hits the rocks.

I dont mean money as in the money needed to run the country, because Mahinda Rajapaksa ran it with a higher rate of growth in wartime, and a much higher one in peacetime, without auctioning the family silver and the store!

The UNP is also attacking its SLFP partner in the coalition govt at a time when it needs the latters support for the Constitution-making process, and the SLFP is itself reconsidering its continued presence in the coalition. The UNP has failed to obtain the support of its formal ally the SLFP, and its closest comrade-in-arms the TNA, in the venture to introduce a 20th Amendment and postpone Provincial Council elections.

Furthermore, the UNPs political behaviour has antagonized the JVP which has (partially) pivoted against the Govt in and out of parliament.

If this isnt a crack up of the Jan 8, 2015 Yahapalana coalition, the beginning of the disintegration of the unity govt, and a display of soft anarchy, what is? And if this isnt a collective psychological crack-up of the UNP, manifesting a pronounced propensity for political suicide, what is?

The UNPs political behaviour has antagonized the JVP which has (partially) pivoted against the Govt in and out of parliament

Comparing the Yahapalana administration with the Rajapaksa one, and concluding that the present administration is not yet as bad as the former but is on the wrong road or moving too slowly on the right one, is either moronic or knavish, not only because there was nothing of the magnitude of the bond scam and gigantic divestitures of strategic national assets under the previous regime, but also because MR did something positive of huge historic and human import which no one else did and from which all the positives of today were made possible - he won the 30-Year War and then gave the economy the highest growth rate in Asia outside of China.

It can be said of MR that his achievements dwarfed his errors; his positives surpassed his negatives. Can the same be said of the present administration? Not even the UNP believes that. If it did, would the PM seek to postpone elections?
As India turns 70, it's time for some serious introspection than celebrations. The Indian democracy is at a crossroads, as under Prime Minister Narendra Modis stewardship a secular India is now veering towards a Hindu India.

Plurality has been the hallmark of India. This is a land of bewildering diversity. India is home to many ethnic groups, with distinct religious, linguistic and cultural identities.

The Indian system, with its secular and democratic character, has managed to maintain this diversity for the past seven decades and provided a space for each group to compete and cooperate.

The democratic pluralism in India has given all socio-religious groups a place at the table, thereby maintaining the unity and integrity of the country.

India has been able to survive and thrive as a state and a democracy due to its willingness to accommodate varying groups and their interests. This has been a key in maintaining the principles of democracy despite the deep religious and ethnic divisions within the society.

The rise of the BJP has threatened the secular character of the country and with that has brought serious dangers to democracy itself.

While the country has been successful in maintaining a working peace among various religious and ethnic groups for seven decades despite hostilities, there is a serious lack of effort to analyse the reasons behind it. Why has India been different than her sisters in South Asia, and her cousins in Asia, Africa and Latin America? Here, the contribution of the Congress party in India needs serious attention. These days, of course, the shortest and surest way to commit intellectual suicide is to praise the Congress party in India.

However, there is a need to acknowledge the contribution of the party in bringing and nurturing democracy in a developing and divided society like India. It has been providential for India to be governed by a mass-based political organisation like the Congress party in its post-independence period.

This well-spread, mass-supported organisation, not only drove out the British peacefully, but it also took collaborative control of the country which provided possibilities for various religious and ethnic groups to share the power. Transcending region, religion and caste, the Congress party was successful in uniting the country and providing a platform of power-sharing, the cornerstone of success in any democracy.

The worst suffering inflicted on India due to the loss of Congress domination since late 1980s is the rise of the BJP. From nowhere in the mid-1980s, this Hindu chauvinist political outfit became a major force in Indian politics. Its spectacular ascendance to power under its charismatic but controversial leader, Narendra Modi, in 2014 has posed serious challenges to the concept of informal power-sharing among religious groups within the Indian democracy.

The rise of the BJP has threatened the secular character of the country and with that has brought serious dangers to democracy itself.

As Donald E Smith, who wrote a pioneering book on Indian secularism in 1963, rightly argues, Democracy and secularism are tightly held together by logic. If India abandons one, the other will go.

Hinduism, as an unorganised religion, has been conducive in establishing and promoting secular institutions in India. But, the rise of organised Hindutva is threatening to change that altogether, and instead promotes the opposite of secularism - religious fundamentalism - in the country.

A country cannot be democratic without being secular. Democracy as an idea grew out of the concept of secularism in the 17th century Europe. The idea that the society is made by human beings, and not by a religious authority is the key for democracy to survive and grow.

Many countries that are now democratic could not have become so without going through the process of secularisation. But, fundamentalist forces consider secularism as a threat to their survival and always work against it.

The Sangh Parivar is doing all it can to make India a Hindu country. The RSS does not miss any opportunity to declare India as a Hindu Rashtra. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has declared himself as a Hindu nationalist. The chief minister of UP, Yogi Adityanath, is openly endorsing the idea of India for Hindus only.

Government policies dealing with religious diversity in the Indian democracy as well as its established institutions that enforce those policies have increasingly come under pressure.

Non-Hindus are more than 20 per cent of Indias total population. This large minority population seriously challenges the BJPs narrative of social cohesion and homogeneity. The BJP never misses any chance of spreading misinformation among Hindus to contribute to its own fantasies and desires to purify the country by getting rid of the minority.

For the past three years, serious attempts have been made to do away with the secular legacies of independent India. Hindutva forces are continuously belittling Jawaharlal Nehru and his idea of celebrating diversity of India. Not only continuous attacks are taking place on the secular foundation of the country, on which the pillars of Indian democracy are standing, there are also direct assaults on various democratic institutions.

The "Congress-mukt Bharat" slogan of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah is in reality a call for "Opposition-mukt Bharat". The Modi government though has come to power in a multi-party electoral competition, due to lack of a significant parliamentary opposition it has fashioned itself into a hegemonic electoral authoritarian regime. It does not hesitate to openly manipulate elections and sufficiently use threat to suppress any socio-political activism. It is using coercive powers to curb any dissenting voice in the pretext of national security, national identity and nation building.

While India was celebrating the 10th anniversary of its independence in 1957, famous American journalist-scholar Selig S Harrison had raised doubts about the survival of the Indian state. The Indian project, thanks to its secular democratic character, has proved these prophecies wrong for long.

However, the powerful attempts of Hindutva forces to turn India into a "Hindu Rashtra" has revived the danger once again.

India is not shinning anymore. The push for "Hindu Rashtra" is sinking the idea of India. In the absence of secularism, democracy will disappear and without secularism and democracy, the idea of India will cease to exist.
GENOA  Last year's Genoa Indian Industrial School annual reunion included 97-year-old alumnus Sid Byrd, who was a young boy when the school closed in 1937.

Byrd regaled the audience of local residents and descendants of the school's alumni with stories about his life at the boarding school and later as a Native American man.

Its likely that was the last time a former student of the school will speak at the reunion.

Nancy Carlson, whos been involved with the Genoa Indian School Museum and reunions since their inception, said Byrd died last winter. Odds are he was one of the last living alumni.

Carlson said the reunion, which was held again Saturday, has gradually changed as organizers realized there were fewer alumni still living.

I think its more for descendants to find out what their ancestors went through and how it affected their lives, she said.

That's the case for Sarah Zavala of Sioux City, Iowa, a descendant of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska. Her great-grandmother and great-grandfather attended the Genoa Indian School and her grandmother and mother attended other boarding schools, but no one in the family spoke about their experiences.

They were negative experiences, she said. So they didnt talk about it.

Zavala said seeing and learning about the place where her ancestors were forced to attend school was meaningful. She saw old newspaper articles about her great-grandfather, who was an athlete, and learned about a relative the family was previously unaware of.

Just got a little bit more connected with what has happened here and what is still happening with cultural assimilation. All of the trauma that happened, she said. Its a feeling that I finally came here and Ive seen it.

Marshall and Jaci Gover, who are descended from the Pawnee tribe, have been attending the reunion for over a decade to participate and sell Marshalls Santo Domingo Pueblo silverwork. Theyve seen the dwindling number of alumni and Jaci said she hopes the event becomes an opportunity to educate everyone about what the Native American population has endured.

Theres boarding schools all across the country and we werent sent for high education, said Jaci. We were sent to be assimilated into white culture.

Genoa was the site of the last Pawnee reservation before the tribe was forced to relocate to Oklahoma by the U.S. government. According to the tribes website, there were 60,000 Pawnee living along the North Platte River at the turn of the 18th century.

By the time they were forced to Oklahoma, Marshall said that number had dropped to 5,000 or 6,000. Within 25 years, the figure fell to around 1,000.

It was almost a complete genocide, said Marshall.

The boarding schools were formed to wipe out indigenous culture and languages and force students to assimilate, which Jaci said the tribes are still recovering from.

All these years, were still fighting to reconnect with our culture, she said.

There were some silver linings to the boarding schools  children from different tribes connected and formed bonds. They also learned skills they could use to build a livelihood.

From that came pride in workmanship and dedication to succeed, said Marshall.

However the reunion moves forward, the Govers said they'll keep returning to connect with their native homeland.

Its like coming back home, its a feeling of returning home, said Jaci. Returning to the motherland, you might say.
SCHUYLER  Wachiska Audubon Society completed its purchase Friday of the Clarence and Ruth Fertig Prairie located southwest of Schuyler.

The 45-acre property consists of virgin tallgrass prairie near the Platte River.

The purchase is part of our chapters 25-year program to protect native tallgrass prairies in each county in southeastern Nebraska," said Gary Fehr, president of the Lincoln-based group. This prairie is a valuable one due to the stewardship of the Fertig family over many years. It has a wide variety of tallgrass plant species as well as insects and other animals. We plan to continue to make prairies like this one available for education as the Fertig family has done."

Wachiska Audubon Society received grant funding from the Nebraska Environmental Trust, Woollam Foundation, Cooper Foundation and Lower Platte North Natural Resources District to assist with the purchase.

"As with the other prairies that they own, Wachiska will leave Fertig Prairie open all year for students, hikers, researchers and birdwatchers. Visitors are welcome," Fehr said.

Wachiska holds half-day educational events, called Prairie Discovery Days, on their prairies each September for fourth-grade classes from nearby schools.

Fertig Prairie, which is located about 5 miles west of Schuyler on U.S. Highway 30 and 2 1/2 miles south, is home to some rare plant and animal species.

More information about Wachiska Audubon Society can be found at www.WachiskaAudubon.org.
According to state law, fines, penalties, and license money shall be appropriated exclusively to the use and support of the common schools ... . An exception is fines for overloaded vehicles. Seventy-five percent of those funds go to state highways; 25 percent go to the county general fund where the fine or penalty is paid. Fifty percent of money forfeited or seized in enforcing drug laws goes to counties for drug enforcement. Vehicles seized in drug law cases may be used by law enforcement agencies or sold with the proceeds going to schools.
Detention Center

The inmate count at the Platte County Detention Facility Friday was 51, with 45 from Platte County and six from out of county.

Police

Aug. 11

12:25 p.m. - Theft from a vehicle at 958 13th Ave., No. 2, wallet stolen, no loss amount.

Aug. 12

9:05 a.m. - Burglary at 1356 35th Ave., no loss amount.

Sheriff

July 27

6 a.m. - In the 2000 block of 10th Avenue, an unknown vehicle struck a parked vehicle owned by Connie Jarecki, 61, Genoa, and left the scene.

July 31

11 p.m. - On U.S. Highway 81, six miles south of Humphrey, a vehicle driven by Nina Zimmerer, 17, 2953 31st Ave., lost control and struck a tree.

Aug. 9

11:49 p.m.  Traffic violation in the 700 block of 23rd Street, Jesy Milla Sanchez of Las Vegas, Nevada, cited for no operators license.

Aug. 10

4:09 p.m.  Traffic violation at the intersection of 14th Avenue and 23rd Street, Shelby Glaser of Columbus cited for following too close.

10:54 p.m.  Traffic violation at the intersection of 460th Street and 250th Avenue, Melvin Harper of Humphrey jailed for driving under the influence.

Aug. 11

10:41 a.m. - Wanted person at 2904 Sixth St., No. 3, John Homolka of Columbus jailed on a Platte County warrant.

10:55 a.m. - Wanted person at the Platte County Courthouse, 2610 14th St., Greg Tift of Creston jailed on a Dodge County warrant.

Aug. 12

12:10 a.m. - Traffic violation in Platte Center, Mark Gronenthal of Columbus cited for an all-terrain vehicle violation.

8:44 a.m. - Theft at 4820 Copperhead Road, tools stolen and trailer damaged, $3,000 loss.

6:25 p.m. - Traffic violation on Highway 81 near the crossing with Shell Creek, Angela Watts of Lincoln cited for speeding.

Aug. 13

3:07 a.m. - In the 1100 block of East 23rd Street, Tyler Johnson of Columbus cited for possession of marijuana-one ounce or less and possession of drug paraphernalia.

4:45 am. - Wanted person at the Platte County Detention Facility, 1125 E. 17th St., Omar Perez of Rogers jailed on a Platte County warrant.

8:43 p.m. - Traffic violation at the intersection of Ash and Pine streets in Lindsay - Alejandro Alatriste Ramirez of Grand Island jailed for no operator's license and criminal impersonation, and cited for speeding.

Fire

Aug. 9

1:24 p.m.  In the 1200 block of 30th Avenue, medical.

4:06 p.m.  In the 8100 block of 39th Avenue, medical.

9:14 p.m.  In the 3000 block of 15th Street, medical.

Aug. 10

4:10 p.m.  In the 3200 block of 29th Avenue, medical.

4:21 p.m.  In the 800 block of Second Street, medical.

5:17 p.m.  In the 4000 block of 12th Street, medical.

Aug. 11

12:16 p.m. - In the 26000 block of 265th Street, no patient contact.

5:34 p.m. - Accident at the intersection of 265th Street and Highway 81, no patient transport.

8:44 p.m. - Car and motorcycle accident at the viaduct on 33rd Avenue, two patients transported.

9:20 p.m. - Accident at the junction of Highways 81 and 22, no patient transport.

Aug. 12

3:44 p.m. - In the 2900 block of East Country Mobile Home Villa, medical.

3:55 p.m. - In the 1500 block of 36th Avenue, medical.

10:40 p.m. - In the 3900 block of 12th Street, medical.

Aug. 13

3:38 a.m. - In the 4500 block of 38th Street, medical.

9:28 a.m. - At Heritage House on North Road, medical.

7:34 p.m. - In the 4300 block of 31st Street, medical.

9:07 p.m. - In the 300 block of East 23rd Street, medical.
COLUMBUS  Joe Massman toed a very faded spot of blue paint on the playground at North Park Elementary School.

The slab of concrete used to feature a map of the United States, something the 17-year-old high school senior barely recalls from when he went to school there.

I vaguely remember one in kindergarten, he said.

Years of wear and tear left a barely-there bit of color.

That recently changed, though, as Massman created a new map for his project to earn the rank of Eagle Scout.

Measuring about 500 square feet, including Hawaii and Alaska, a colorful United States map is displayed on the concrete on the north side of the school. Massman, with help from family members and other Boy Scouts, worked on the project over the weekend.

They laid out stencils purchased from Peaceful Playgrounds, outlined all 50 states in black, then used an array of colors to fill in each state. Nebraska was colored red, with the rest painted pink, green, yellow, orange and blue. The map is geographically and proportionately correct.

Massman said he hopes the map will last at least 15 to 20 years and be used by teachers and students.

Separate from the main map is another stencil of Nebraska. Massman plans to mark North Park Elementary's location.

It will give the elementary schoolers an idea where it is, he said.

Massman, the son of Mark and Rebecca Massman, has been in Boy Scouts for seven years and always aimed to become an Eagle Scout, the highest ranking a Scout can earn.

Thats always the end goal of every Scout, to become an Eagle Scout, he said.

To reach that rank, Scouts must meet certain requirements, including earning merit badges and completing a service project. Coming up with the project was the difficult part for Massman.

I had been thinking of different ones and I couldnt find one that I liked. My mom brought this up and I thought it sounded like a cool thing to do, he said.

Massman said he has a couple of merit badges left to earn and must turn in a lot of paperwork for his project before he's presented with the badge of an Eagle Scout.

Massman said he has learned countless lessons" through Boy Scouts, the biggest one being leadership.

He, along with his parents, grandfather and other members of Troop 276, worked on the project Friday and Saturday.

Massman wants students to learn from the maps.

Im hoping they are going to love it, he said.
LINCOLN  The state has temporarily suspended the medical license of Dr. Reginald Burton, former medical director of trauma at Bryan Health, saying his "continued practice at this time would constitute an imminent danger to public health and safety."

In a statement Sunday, his attorney, Wayne Waite of Dayton, Ohio, called Burton "a respected and talented trauma surgeon recognized throughout the country for his expertise and life-saving skills."

Waite said the complaint was fueled by innuendo and gossip from a group trying to drive Burton out of Lincoln.

A hearing has been set for Tuesday on the petition, which spells out a laundry list of allegations by Burton's former co-workers at Bryan  many dealing with a pattern of alleged unprofessional, negligent conduct involving young adult male patients and "fuzzy" prescribing practices.

Burton was escorted out of the hospital Oct. 5 and placed on a leave of absence, though neither he nor the hospital would say why.

Two months later, he resigned from Bryan, saying he'd made the decision to relocate his practice.

But new details have emerged in a petition for disciplinary action and temporary license suspension filed earlier this month on the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services Division of Public Health website.

In it, Assistant Attorney General Mindy Lester said the hospital had placed Burton's privileges on "precautionary suspension" last October because he allegedly had failed to follow a requirement that another health care provider be in the room during patient exams; had failed to maintain appropriate professional boundaries; and for possible narcotic prescription issues.

Burton was evaluated and admitted for intensive residential-based professional program at Lawrence, Kansas, where he stayed from Oct. 15 to Jan. 19.

Meanwhile, the investigation continued.

In the 15-page petition, Lester outlined 20 concerns reported by his co-workers at Bryan.

Among them, that Burton:

 Performed genital exams when there was no injury to the area and performed more lower abdomen/pelvic exams than medically necessary.

 "Flicked" a patient's penis to check the patient's nervous system while the patient was unconscious and on a breathing tube.

 Frequently and repeatedly insisted on personally inserting a Foley catheter in young adult male patients, regardless of a medical need for a catheter.

 Assisted young adult male patients with urination, often asking other staff to leave the room first.

 Performed a digital rectal exam on an unconscious head injury patient, which was not medically indicated.

 Intentionally touched a patient's penis with his ungloved hand while removing a blood clot from an unconscious patient's leg.

 Provided sex toys to patients with spinal cord injuries.

 Entered a surgical suite during a patient surgery during a hip or pelvis repair being performed by another surgeon and announced he was "stamping out STDs" before cauterizing suspected genital warts on the patient's penis.

 Frequently used his cell phone to take pictures of the genitalia of young adult males without consent.

 Saved photos on his hospital computer network of young adult males without shirts on, some of which were taken in his home, and of male genitalia, including at least one of a male performing a sexual act on himself.

Lester detailed another 16 patients, all young adult males but one, whom he had provided prescriptions for that were not documented.

During an interview with an HHS investigator in April, she said, Burton had said his "fuzzy" prescribing practices were due to "wanting to help these patients."

Waite, Burton's attorney, said the complaint does not contain a single allegation of patient injury or complaint.

"Rather, the complaint is based almost entirely on the fear of working with someone with a different sexual orientation," he said.

Burton is gay.

Waite said Burton looks forward to the opportunity to address the allegations with HHS.

The Bryan Trauma Program grew from 500 admissions a year to nearly 2,000 under Burton's 14 years of leadership, Waite said. In 2016, 97 percent of the critically ill or injured adults and 99 percent of pediatric trauma patients who arrived there survived.
A Charlottesville defense attorney assigned to represent the man accused of murder in the death of an Albemarle County woman by ramming his car into a crowd protesting Saturdays white nationalist rally is a former Republican candidate for the City Council and a plaintiff in the lawsuit against the city regarding the removal of Confederate statues.

James Alex Fields Jr., 20, of Maumee, Ohio, is being held at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail without bond until he can meet with an attorney.

Fields is charged with second-degree murder in the death of Heather Heyer, 32, three counts of malicious wounding and one count of hit-and-run resulting in death.

Charlottesville General District Judge Robert H. Downer Jr. appointed Charles L. Buddy Weber to represent Fields, who said he made about $1,300 a month as a security guard and could not afford an attorney.

You have no ties to the community, so at this time you will not have bond until you have an attorney and they can come to this court regarding a bond, Downer told Fields, who appeared via video feed from jail.

Downer indicated that Weber was unaware of the appointment.

I do not know if Mr. Weber has a conflict or if he is willing to represent you.

Will Lyster, a friend of Weber, said the attorney is on a hiking trip and does not have cellphone service. He is expected to return next week.

Downer said a member of the Charlottesville Public Defenders Office has a conflict of interest with Fields regarding the incident and that the office could not represent Fields. He then appointed Weber, a local defense attorney who is on a list of local public defenders, to represent Fields.

Downer set the next bond hearing for Fields for Aug. 25.

Weber, a former chairman of the city Republican Party, is one of 13 plaintiffs who have sued the Charlottesville City Council for its decision to remove the statue of Robert E. Lee from the park that once bore the Confederate generals name. The park has since been renamed Emancipation Park.

The park was the site of Saturdays Unite the Right rally, which brought several white supremacist and white nationalist groups to the park, as well large crowds of counter-protesters. The rally erupted in violence between the groups before it could start, however. Police declared an unlawful assembly and cleared the park after hundreds of people beat each other with sticks and fists, sprayed each other with pepper spray and hurled makeshift missiles.

After the rally, a car plowed into a crowd of about 100 counter-protesters marching down a Downtown Mall cross street and slammed into other cars that had stopped for the protesters. Heyer was killed in the crash, and 19 others were injured.

The car backed up on Fourth Street and sped away. Fields was later arrested.

As Fields Monday hearing was ending, Matthew Heimbach, leader of the white nationalist Traditionalist Worker Party, began shouting accusations that counter-protesters caused Saturdays violence. He was quickly surrounded by television crews and news reporters who were milling about the courthouse, awaiting Downers ruling.

Bystanders then joined the throng, drowning the mans words by chanting Nazi go home until police whisked him safely away from the growing crowd.

The Associated Press on Monday reported that police records from Florence, Kentucky, show Fields mother had called police in 2011, reporting that Fields stood behind her wheelchair wielding a 12-inch knife.

In a 2010 incident, his mother reported that Fields struck her on the head and locked her in the bathroom after she told him to stop playing video games. She told officers Fields was on medication to control his temper.

A former teacher told The Washington Post that Fields espoused Nazi ideals in high school.
An Albemarle County emergency management employee warned Charlottesvilles City Council in April that the Downtown Malls vehicle crossovers posed an immediate danger to public safety.

Months before a car plowed into a group of anti-racist demonstrators, killing one and injuring 19 others, the county employee penned a letter to the city imploring officials to install collapsible traffic bollards at certain access points on the Downtown Mall. He noted that driving a large vehicle into pedestrian groups at tourist destinations had become the new terrorist trend, and he warned that the Downtown Mall could be an immediate threat.

The sole response to the employees April 10 missive was a four-sentence email from Councilor Bob Fenwick that did not address the crossovers, the Downtown Mall or any substantive portion of the original email.

Thank you for the email. Many of us are working on how to best protect our families, friends and neighbors, not just in the outside areas but the inside areas as well. This is a real challenge when we live in an open society but we will address it as appropriately as possible. I would not want to publicize our efforts for obvious reasons, reads Fenwicks response in its entirety.

The concerned employee, who told The Daily Progress his letter represented his own views and was not sent on behalf of Albemarle County or his department, asked to remain anonymous.

Police chief: Ralliers didnt follow safety plans Chief Al Thomas said the violence was initiated by mutually engaged combatants at an alt-right rally that was met with large numbers of counter-protesters.

The employee wrote that there are hundreds of types of traffic bollards on the market that are relatively cheap, and that certain types still would permit access to the mall for emergency personnel when necessary.

I know that these access points exist for public safety vehicles to enter the mall for emergency situations, therefore a collapsible type that can be quickly unlocked when needed would be best to explore, he wrote.

Heyer remembered as service is set for Wednesday James Alex Fields Jr., 20, a security guard from Maumee, Ohio, is charged with second-degree murder in Heyer's death.

When reached by email, Fenwick recalled reading the email and said that past efforts to install traffic bollards never had enough support.

If I remember correctly the last time this came up, the fire department and first responders were very concerned about possible delays in immediately locating a key or a passcode, and to address this concern, I noticed more frequent training drills in moving the large safety vehicles around and down the mall, Fenwick wrote. Perhaps this time that will change.

He added that in the wake of the tragedy, the city would take renewed looks at security improvements.

When asked, Mayor Mike Signer was unclear about whether hed seen the email.

I mean, we get thousands of emails, Signer said. The city manager receives all the emails that are sent to council  I think the question would be what really could stop somebody determined to use a car as a weapon?

I think its something we should look at with our professional staff who received that email, Signer continued. My initial inclination is we should keep striking a balance between public safety in our civic spaces with an eye toward having an open society rather than a closed one.

Legal groups defend decision to represent Kessler Both the ACLU of Virginia and the Rutherford Institute received blame from some for the turn of events Saturday because of their representation.

City Manager Maurice Jones said he had seen the email in question, and that it had sparked a discussion about safety in Charlottesville.

I shared those concerns especially after the incidents in Berlin, Nice and Stockholm, Jones wrote in an email. We have been discussing these types of bollards as part of a more comprehensive look at safety.

In his original email, the county employee warned that there were four locations on the mall that could be targeted for a vehicular attack, including the Fourth Street crossover where James Alex Fields Jr. is accused of driving his gray Dodge Challenger into a crowd of people during Saturdays white nationalist rally. Fields faces a second-degree murder charge, among others.

Continuing developments following Saturday's violence in Charlottesville This roundup of news and developments nationwide related to the Unite the Right rally will be updated continuously.

During a news conference Monday, Charlottesville Police Chief Al Thomas said that, like other streets crossing the Downtown Mall, Fourth Street was not supposed to be open to traffic during the rally, which saw thousands of white nationalist demonstrators and anti-racist protesters inundating the heart of the city.

When asked why Fields vehicle and two other cars were able to access Fourth Street, Thomas replied, Im not sure.

A city official later confirmed that Fourth Street was supposed to be closed as part of the events traffic plan, and that authorities still were investigating how Fields vehicle and two others were able to access the street.

Attorney assigned to represent Fields is plaintiff in statue removal suit White nationalist leader Matthew Heimbach drew a crowd outside the court-house but was shouted down.

More than a decade ago, the Fourth Street crossing was a hot-button issue for the City Council. After the crossing at Second Street was opened in 1994 despite widespread public opposition, the idea of opening another crossover was floated to the council by downtown business owners.

Those owners claimed the then-recent closures of Sixth and Seventh streets for the construction of what is now known as the Sprint Pavilion had impacted their sales, and that a new crossover could ease traffic congestion and parking difficulties.

The notion faced adamant opposition from pedestrians and city residents who want[ed] the mall to remain as car-free as possible, according to a 2006 Daily Progress report, and the Charlottesville Planning Commission voted against the crossover earlier that year, though the council was not bound to the recommendation.

In April 2006, the council voted to open the Fourth Street crossing for a one-year trial run, which started on May 1, 2006. The following year, the city voted to make the crossover permanent, saying it had made it easier for drivers to navigate around downtown and access shops without burdening pedestrians.

A majority of the councilors concluded that the one-year trial of the Fourth Street East crossing, which ended last month, had benefited the business community and should become an enduring fixture on the commercial strip, reads a 2007 Daily Progress article.
Attendees of the Unite the Right rally Saturday failed to follow previously arranged safety plans, Charlottesville Police Chief Al Thomas said at a news conference Monday.

Two hours before the rally was scheduled to begin, groups flying the flags of extremist movements and armed with homemade shields and myriad weapons started marching down Market Street toward the park.

Thomas said the violence was initiated by mutually engaged combatants at an alt-right rally that was met with large numbers of counter-protesters.

We made attempts to keep the two sides separate; however, we cant control which side someone enters the park, Thomas said, saying that previous arrangements had been made with rally organizers.

They decided to change the plan and entered the park in different directions, he said.

Attorney assigned to represent Fields is plaintiff in statue removal suit White nationalist leader Matthew Heimbach drew a crowd outside the court-house but was shouted down.

By noon Saturday, local and state officials made emergency declarations that led to police in riot gear clearing the park. Some people who refused to leave the park were pepper-sprayed by state police, Thomas said. Tear gas was not used by authorities.

We were hoping for a peaceful event, Thomas said. We urged leaders from both sides to engage in a nonviolent demonstration.

The police chief said it took an hour to clear Market Street after the park was cleared. At approximately 1:45 p.m. Saturday, a car barreled into a crowd of protesters. The crash killed 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injured 19 others. James A. Fields Jr., 20, has been charged with second-degree murder.

The city had planned to keep the Fourth Street crossing on the Downtown Mall, where the crashed occurred, closed until 7 p.m. Saturday. Thomas said that he was unsure whether authorities had officially opened the crossing to traffic. The car that crashed into the crowd rear-ended a car that had crossed the pedestrian mall.

Legal groups defend decision to represent Kessler Both the ACLU of Virginia and the Rutherford Institute received blame from some for the turn of events Saturday because of their representation.

Im not sure whether or not the Fourth Street crossing was open. I dont have the action plan with me currently, but I am certain the action plan called for the street to be closed, Thomas said.

Two state troopers, H. Jay Cullen and Berke M.M. Bates, died in a helicopter crash in Albemarle County later Saturday. They were involved in police operations for the rally that day.

Helicopter in fatal crash was heavily damaged in 2010 Two Virginia State Police pilots were killed Saturday when their Bell 407 helicopter crashed and burned in Albemarle County.

The images and videos of violence, as well as first-hand accounts from the event, have led to accusations that police failed to intervene in numerous brawls that took place on the street throughout Saturday morning and early afternoon.

Once the crowds were dispersed, they went to many locations throughout the city. At that time, we had to send our forces to multiple locations to deal with a number of disturbances in and around the downtown area, Thomas said.

We were following a number of groups, ensuring they were being peaceful. But it was a challenge. We were spread thin after the groups dispersed.

Thomas said there were approximately 250 calls for service, and that some reports have yet to be investigated. A tipline, (434) 566-1455, and email account, cvillerally@charlottesville.org, have been created to let anyone provide information about any relevant incidents that took place during the rally.

Continuing developments following Saturday's violence in Charlottesville This roundup of news and developments nationwide related to the Unite the Right rally will be updated continuously.

Asked whether he had any regrets about their preparedness for the violence that ensued, Thomas said he regretted the loss of life.

We lost three lives this weekend: A local citizen and two fellow officers, he said.

The outcome of the day has led to finger-pointing in all directions.

At a news conference filmed and posted online, Richard Spencer, a leader of the alt-right movement who was expected to appear at the rally, blamed the government and anti-fascist counter-protesters for the violence.

What happened in Charlottesville this weekend was absolutely unacceptable and undeniably tragic, he said. We need to get beyond a kind of vague happy-talk about how racism caused this or something  We need to look at who is truly responsible for this and who is truly policing Charlottesville.

Heyer remembered as service is set for Wednesday James Alex Fields Jr., 20, a security guard from Maumee, Ohio, is charged with second-degree murder in Heyer's death.

Jason Kessler, the blogger-turned-political activist who organized Saturdays rally, said over Twitter on Monday evening that Thomas lied about the security plans. Kessler said the police were supposed to provide an escort for the ralliers as they entered the park.

In an interview Monday afternoon following the news conference, Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer said the alt-right movement, and the various white nationalist groups that are associated with it, are responsible.

I hold the alt-right, and these bigots, and literal Nazis and KKK members and all the rest of these haters responsible for what happened this weekend.
Dear Charlottesville,

Take a deep breath.

Once again, a fool thought he could prove to the world his superiority through violence.

The person who murdered Heather Heyer while injuring others has proven only that his so-called beliefs are the epitome of cowardice.

There are, to put it in the simplest terms possible, no degrees of imperfection.

This idea some human beings are superior to others stands not as a bastion of strength, but as a beacon for the reason we must always hold every individual and group accountable for their choices. For truly, if we are as a species superior to the other occupants of this planet, we must admit human choice is our failing, not human nature.

While we posses and often are possessed by a primal nature, it is our willingness to bear responsibility that sets us apart. Though we must note that in allowing our government  most especially our criminal justice system  to be corrupted makes us too often the opposite of the superior species.

Its not that violence is anything new. Its not that the world hasnt always had people willing to do violence to prove the superiority they claim is based on everything but physical force. Indeed, we can always expect those who choose an ignorant world view to immediately jump to physical violence when verbal assault doesnt work.

Bullies only speak to dissuade the idea that genocide  no matter the number of intended victims  is their ultimate goal. But thats what superior means to such people: That they possess not blame, but rather the unadulterated ability to hurt others. What else could drive the delusions expressed by hateful people than inhumanity toward others?

In todays America we state very clearly, You cannot do whatever you want, because everyone else has the same rights as you.

Its past time for good people to either stand up and prove this an absolute truth, or to surrender forever to the worst our species has to offer.

Kenneth Deome

Cottonwood, California
Under the heavily light polluted skies of city lights in Singapore, narrowband filters provide an avenue to capture the rich detail of celestial objects bearing discrete emission lines. While often photographed, this image of M8, M20 and NGC 6559 features the iconic trio in a literally different light using a custom narrowband colour scheme based on the Hubble Palette.
Forensic anthropologist Elizabeth DiGangi recalled a difficult afternoon at the Carlisle Barracks last week when she and an assistant examined the remains of a young Native American.

We looked at the remains and we just knew. We just knew, DiGangi said.

What they knew was that the remains were not those of Little Plume, one of three Northern Arapaho children whose remains were disinterred last week by a team of archaeologists and forensic anthropologists.

Sixteen family members of the Northern Arapaho tribe were at the cemetery this week for the endeavor, and a tribal member observed the disinterment procedure.

Two of the three children were found as anticipated in the graves identified by headstones and historical records. They were Little Chief, also known as Dickens Nor, and Horse, also known as Horace Washington.

But in the grave marked for Little Plume, the team found two sets of remains. One set was from a 16- to 19-year-old male and the other from an adolescent or adult, whose gender could not be determined.

Neither of these people were biologically consistent with Little Plume. The skeleton associated with the gravesite of Little Chief was biologically consistent with his sex and his age, as was the skeleton associated with the gravesite of Horse, DiGangi said.

A report on the teams findings is expected to be written within the next two to three weeks.

The remains of Little Chief and Horse were transferred to tribal members Monday morning, and will be re-interred on the Wind River Reservation, Wyoming. The unidentified remains will be re-interred at the Carlisle Barracks.

Art Smith, team leader for the Army National Military Cemeteries, said the team did not delve into the question of where Little Plume is actually buried.

Thats something that we didnt get into this week. We were focused on the task at hand, he said.

The children had originally been buried at a different location on the grounds of the Carlisle Indian School, but had been moved to the cemetery along Claremont Road in 1927.

To find Little Plume, a lot more research is going to need to be done, said Michael Trimble, chief archaeologist for the Army Corps of Engineers.

The detailed record keeping to which we are accustomed today didnt exist back then. If it had, the team would have had a much better chance at finding Little Plume.

Similarly, Trimble declined to speculate on how the remains of two other people came to be in the grave marked for Little Plume. What the team had discovered over the past week was that the reburial of the children had been done with great care, which gives him high confidence that future requests for disinterment will yield positive results for the tribes.

The Army has been in consultation with other tribes about remains at the cemetery, but there are no pending requests for disinterment.

If we receive formal requests for disinterment, they will be reviewed and approved or disapproved by our director, Smith said.

Trimble declined to go into detail about the private conversation in which the family members were informed about the two unidentified bodies, but said they sat under a tree in the center of the cemetery and talked for over an hour.

It wasnt a comfortable conversation, he said.

Trimble said he respected the Northern Arapaho people before he met them, and respects them even more now.

All of us are deeply grateful to have served the Northern Arapaho nation in the dignified recovery of their family members, Trimble said.

That sentiment was echoed by other members of the team. Even as she analyzed the remains, DiGangi kept in mind the love the families had for these children than had endured over thousands of miles and more than a century.

These were kids who went very far away from home and died thousands of miles from home, and their families never saw them again. We have to think about how we would feel if that were our teenage son or our teenage daughter, DiGangi said. Each one of those kids was the most-loved person in the entire world for someone else.
Senior Spotlight on Claire Koile of Elkhorn brought to you by United Republic Bank Free Access To read the Senior Spotlight Claire Koile of Elkhorn brought to you by United Republic Bank click the PDF link below. dc_split_014.pdf

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The Mount Holly Springs Borough Council may consider a proposed ordinance that would establish a rental property inspection program.

Council has scheduled a public presentation on the proposal for 6 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 24, in the lower-level banquet room of the Holly Inn, 31 S. Baltimore Ave.

The presentation will include a PowerPoint overview of the measure and the work done so far by councils Health, Safety and Welfare Committee and downtown manager Rebecca Yearick.

The ordinance would set up a program where all 628 rental units within the borough would be inspected over a three-year cycle, committee chairwoman Deborah Halpin-Brophy said.

The borough has been divided into three sections, one for each year in the cycle. The first inspections could occur in January and would involve the borough bringing in a third-party contractor to check one-third of the rental units for such safety features as working smoke detectors and fire extinguishers, Halpin-Brophy said.

She said landlords with properties that fail inspection would have 30 days to correct deficiencies or face a possible enforcement action and penalties. The proposal includes regulations for the issuance and renewal of an occupancy license, which the landlord needs to rent out a unit.

Mount Holly based its draft ordinance on model ordinances that have passed muster in other Pennsylvania municipalities such as Hazleton, Halpin-Brophy said. They have been through the court systems.

The Mount Holly ordinance would include the establishment of a three-member panel to hear appeals from landlords, she said. We have to determine who will make up the panel. Borough solicitor Mark Allshouse is reviewing the language.

Councilwoman Pam Still said the number of rental units within Mount Holly may exceed the 628 already on the borough registry. There is going to be more going forward, said Still, adding the inspection cycle may uncover units that have fallen through the cracks. The ordinance would give the borough the legal backing it needs to go after landlords who rent unsafe properties.

Work on the rental inspection program ordinance began after council received complaints from tenants about unsafe living conditions. We had a tenant fall through a deck, Still said. We didnt have any teeth to deal with those concerns.

The ordinance would require all landlords to either live within a 30-mile radius of the borough or to have a property manager or agent live within a 30-mile radius. If there is an issue with a property, the borough wants to be able to get hold of the landlord, Still said.
Vowing to continue the crackdown on black money, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said Rs 1.75 lakh crore (Rs 1.75 trillion) deposits in banks post note-ban as well as 18 lakh people with income beyond known means are under scrutiny.

New Delhi: Vowing to continue the crackdown on black money, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said Rs 1.75 lakh crore (Rs 1.75 trillion) deposits in banks post note-ban as well as 18 lakh people with income beyond known means are under scrutiny. Addressing the nation on the 71st Independence Day, Mr Modi said demonetisation of old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes last November led to at least Rs 2 lakh crore of undeclared income coming into the banking system.

Besides, Mr Modi said, it led to doubling of income tax filers to 56 lakh and detection of over 3 lakh shell or paper companies that were used for money laundering. After withdrawing the legal tender status of high denomination currency, the government had given 50-day window for depositing the junked currency in bank accounts. Demonetisation, according to independent research, helped bring Rs 3 lakh crore of unaccounted wealth into the banking system, Mr Modi said in his fourth address to the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort.

Mr Modi, who devoted biggest chunk of his nearly an hour-long speech to black money, said that out of the money deposited in banks post note ban, over Rs 1.75 lakh crore is under scrutiny. More than Rs 2 lakh crore black money has reached banks and now people depositing such money are being made to answer questions. The move, he said, has checked generation of new black money.

We will continue our fight against black money and corruption. And slowly by using technology and connecting (biometric identification) Aadhaar (with several items including bank accounts and income tax return filing) we have made successful efforts, he added.
At present, there is a 10 per cent import duty on gold. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: India's gold imports more than doubled to USD 13.35 billion during the April-July period of the current fiscal, according to the data of the commerce

ministry. Gold imports, which has bearing on the country's current account deficit (CAD), stood at USD 4.97 billion in April-July 2016-17.

In July this year, imports of the precious metal rose to USD 2.10 billion from USD 1.07 billion in the same month of the previous year. Surge in gold imports in July contributed to the widening of trade deficit to USD 11.44 billion as against USD 7.76 billion in July 2016.

The rise in imports assumes significance as India is recording surge in the inbound shipments of the precious metal from South Korea, with which India has implemented a free trade agreement since 2010.

Officials have stated that the government is contemplating steps to check the surge in imports from that country. Gold imports from South Korea has jumped to USD 338.6 million during July 1-August 3 this year. The import in 2016-17 stood at 470.46 million.

Under the free trade pact between India and South Korea, basic customs duty on gold was eliminated. Further, the 12.5 per cent countervailing duty on gold

imports has been subsumed in the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

Accordingly, imports now attract only 3 per cent integrated GST. Under the FTA with South Korea, the government has recently notified rules.
New Delhi: Shares of small and medium companies of BSE have given returns of up to 28 per cent to investors this year so far, outperforming their bigger peers. While the BSE small-cap index surged 3,363.07 points or 27.91 per cent in 2017 so far, the mid-cap index soared 25.44 per cent or 3,061.28 points, as per an analysis.

On the other hand, the benchmark BSE Sensex rose by 18.11 per cent or 4,822.57 points in 2017 so far. The 30-share index has touched its all-time high of 32,686.48 on August 2.

The mid-cap index scaled its lifetime high of 15,642.07 on August 8, while the small-cap index hit its all-time peak of 16,186.13 on July 26. Last week, both Sensex and NSE Nifty recorded their first fall in six weeks.

The Sensex plunged by 1,111.82 points, or 3.43 per cent, and the Nifty by 355.60 points, or 3.53 per cent last week. The losses in BSE small-cap index and mid-cap index, however, were steeper at 5.59 per cent and 4.60 per cent, respectively, last week.

"In the week gone by, our market had posted the biggest weekly fall in this calendar year. Everyone was so exuberant a week ago celebrating the five-digit milestone for the Nifty but, finally the market has surprised and before anyone could realise it, we are back to 9,700. The entire rally in previous three weeks has now been completely snapped," Angel Broking said in a report.

"Yes, one would say, it has come on the back of geopolitical concerns between the US and North Korea. But, historically speaking, the market would always find its own reason to correct and this is what we witnessed during the week," it added.

Market players say smaller stocks are generally bought by local investors, while overseas investors focus on blue-chips. The mid-cap index tracks companies with a market value that is on an average one-fifth of blue-chips or large firms. Small-cap firms are almost a tenth of that.
Mumbai: Recently, superstar Kamal Haasan compiled a list of 70 films that had a major impact in his life for a leading newspaper and, with each movie that was part of his listicle, the National Award winner wrote a personal note describing the reason behind it being so special to him.

In one of his notes, for the 1994 film Mahanadi, which the veteran wrote himself, he revealed the shocking source of inspiration behind the film: his domestic help plotting to kidnap his daughters for extracting money. He wrote, I have never spoken of what prompted me to write Mahanadi. Now my daughters are old enough to understand the ways of this world I can I guess. My household help, all of them, conspired to kidnap my daughter for ransom. They even did a dry run. By accident I discovered their plan. I was angry, unnerved and ready to kill for my babys safety. But I saw sense in time. I was to write a new script and I kept delaying it for a month. Later when I sat down to write, the script wrote itself .maybe assisted by my fear, apprehension and paranoia.

The film revolved around the life of a man whose family go off track after he gets framed and put behind bars and his daughters are kidnapped and forced into prostitution.

Haasan also said the list is a recommendation list of any sort because different people react different to certain situations. Im not trying to recommend movies, or impose my choices on other people. Films are my profession, my life. The way I react to a film will be different from the way other people would. Im sure I will probably notice nuances other people may not. Finally, its like falling in love! Why do you fall in love with someone? Who knows? Its the same with movies, he clarified.

Earlier this month, Kamal Haasans younger daughter Akshara Haasan had stirred a major controversy on social media when news of her converting to Buddhism started making the rounds. The liberal father that he is, he asked her on Twitter if the news is true.

He tweeted: Hi. Akshu. Have you changed your religeon? Love you, even if you have. Love unlike religeon is unconditional. Enjoy life . Love- Your Bapu

Hi. Akshu. Have you changed your religeon? Love you, even if you have. Love unlike religeon is unconditional. Enjoy life . Love- Your Bapu  Kamal Haasan (@ikamalhaasan) July 28, 2017

To which, Akshara replied, Hi bapuji. No, still an atheist. Although i agree with budhism as it is a way of life and in an individuals way of life. Love from your daughter akshu.

Hi bapuji. No, still an atheist. Although i agree with budhism as it is a way of life and in an individuals way of life.  Kutty Haasan (@aksharahaasan1) July 28, 2017
It would be interesting to see how the chemistry between Prabhas and Shraddha Kapoor comes across on screen.

Mumbai: The teaser of Prabhas Saaho, featuring some high-octane stunt sequences and a bloodied Prabhas, was released even before the blockbuster success of his film Baahubali: The Conclusion, but the lead actress was not yet finalised.

The leading lady of the film has been a subject to several reports and conjectures over the last few months.

While it was earlier reported that Katrina Kaif and Pooia Hegde were being considered for the film, Prabhas Baahubali co-star Anushka Shetty was also reportedly in contention.

However, reports claimed Anushkas weight issues were the reason she was dropped from the project.

The next actress whose name got linked to the proiect was Shraddha Kapoor. We had exclusively reported that the Haseena Parkar actress had agreed personal terms with the makers but was yet to sign on the dotted line.

It can now be announced that the actress has indeed been cast as the leading lady in the film.

Shraddha is the perfect choice for the role. We are excited to have her on board with us. Saaho is Prabhas's first film in Hindi and so it is very special for all of us. It is an ambitious project and will have some really high-octane action scenes, the producer of the film told Mumbai Mirror.

While the news of Shraddha being finalised for the role is delightful enough, news of the film being termed Prabhas first film in Hindi indicates the film wont be dubbed in Hindi, but be shot in Hindi, along with Telugu and Tamil.

Saaho will be Shraddhas first South film, if we could call that.

Neil Nitin Mukesh has been signed on for the project as an antagonist, with reports of Chunky Panday being cast also doing the rounds.

The film, produced by Pramod of UV Creations and directed Sujeeth, will have music composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and lyrics penned by Amitabh Bhattacharya.
Prasoon Joshi is the new chairman of Central Board of Film Certification now.

Mumbai: Known to speak her mind, Bollywood actor Richa Chadha has joined the league of actors, who have hailed the central government's decision of appointing Prasoon Joshi as the new chairman of Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC).

Talking exclusively to ANI, Richa, who was in the national capital to launch the teaser of her upcoming film 'Jia Aur Jia,' said that there was a lot of dissatisfaction with the Pahlaj Nihalani-led CBFC and hoped that films will now evolve and stay liberal.

"I hope they change the rules not just the members. There was lot of dissatisfaction with the previous person (Nihalani). So, I feel this is the right step taken in the right direction. I hope films evolve now and stay liberal because there is no point in censoring it," she said.

A host of B-Town celebrities including filmmaker Shyam Benegal, Shoojit Sircar, Madhur Bhandarkar and Rahul Dholakia have welcomed the new CBFC chief and reckon that a filmmaker's freedom of expression will now be protected.

For the unversed, Nihalani was sacked as the CBFC chief on August 11 .
Last weekend, Bihars world-renowned math maverick, Anand Kumar, paid a visit to Bollywood star Hritik Roshan, who will play him in a biopic to be directed by Vikas Bahl.

Anand has now returned to Patna raving about Hrithik. He is such a big star and so handsome. But there is not an iota of vanity in him. When I agreed to visit Hrithik ji at his residence, I was unsure of how Id be welcomed. But the minute I walked into his beautiful house, I was made to feel comfortable. He is humble, attentive and warm. Expressing his fondness for Hrithiks work, Anand says, I dont get time to watch too many films. But Ive seen Krissh and KoiMil Gaya and I was very impressed by Hrithik.

Although the film producers, Phantom Films, have asked Anand not to reveal the details of the meeting, sources tell us that Hritik was keen on learning the way Anand spoke, walked and carried himself. I am aware that Hrithik doesnt look anything like me. But I dont think the physical resemblance is as important as understanding my personality. And I feel Hrithik, with his sensitive approach to characters, will be able to project my thoughts, opinions and world-views much better than any other actor. Talking about meeting with Rakesh Roshan, he adds, Ive watched his films in my college days. I loved Khubsoorat and Khatta Meetha. In fact, Rakeshjis favourite song Thoda hai thode ki zaroorat hai from Khatta Meetha is also my favourite song. Every time I feel inadequate and dissatisfied with life, I hum that song and I feel okay.

Anand will now actively collaborate on his biopic. I will be giving the director Vikas Bahl my suggestions. They will keep me in the loop throughout. Anand will be back in Mumbai soon for a second meeting with Hrithik. My students in Patna want Hrithik to come here, says Anand. Their wish might be granted soon as part of the film will be shot in Patna.
Chennai: It is a monthly affair for C. Thamarai Kannan (name changed), a 48-year-old farmer from Kizhakalpoondi village of Cuddalore district to administer the energy drug to his cow, in order to gain extra yield of milk.

The compounder who used to work in a private veterinary hospital helps the farmer by injecting it on the animals shoulder. The drug, which Thamarai Kannan believes to have been increasing the energy levels of his cow, is Oxytocin, is banned by the central government in 2014, due to its perilous effects to both the animal and the milk consumer.

Anyone possessing or administering the drug can be punishable with six months rigorous imprisonment and `10,000 fine.

Oxytoxin, which is used during child labour to relax the uterus muscles, also boosts lactation. However, frequent usage of the drug decreases the lifespan of the cattle, besides causing health hazards to consumers, advise veterinarians.

It is an energy drug which is good for the cattle. We have been injecting our cow since two years, said an ignorant Thamarai Kannan. He was in a shock when this correspondent explained the adverse effects of the drug.

The information about the ban remains oblivious to many farmers in rural Tamil Nadu, who use the sorrapu oosi when the calf dies. Admitting it, a farmer from Adigathur in Tiruvallur district said, The calf has died. How else can we get the milk? After injecting the drug, the animal gets the stimuli to lactate.

In a reply to the Right to Information petition filed by a research scholar and activist, R. Natarajan, the animal husbandry department submitted about the lack of awareness camps on the dangers of oxytocin, which is a schedule-H drug. There are no bill boards outside the veterinary hospitals and police stations about the ban. Nor did they advertise in vernacular media, which would reach rural sections. If people were sensitized, a layman would be able to complain when witnessed the usage of the drug, Natarajan told DC.

It is a fact that many cattle rearers maintain a nexus with the medical shops to purchase the drug, which otherwise would not be given without a medical prescription. A farmer from Mudichur admitted to this paper that he injects the drug an hour before milking his cow every day. I get 12 litres of milk if I inject the animal, rather than the usual of ten litres, he said.

However, the RTI petition by the activist has been a start to the change, as the animal husbandry department has requested the state government to sanction the funds to the tune of Rs 12.22 lakh, in order to take up various awareness campaigns. The proposal includes a short film on the misuse of oxytocin, advertisement in Tamil Papers and pamphlet distribution.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses the nation on the country's Independence Day from the ramparts of the historical Red Fort in New Delhi, India, Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017. (Photo: AP)

New Delhi: August, 1947 was the month that changed every Indian's destiny forever - it was the time of glory, of courage; when India won its freedom.

In 2017, we are celebrating 70th Independence Day, and it's time we go down in history and instill patriotism in us.

Paytm Travel brings you top destinations in India and helps you learn about their relevance in Indian History.

1. Delhi

Celebrate being an Indian by visiting the capital city, Delhi. Delhi is India's powerhouse and it has a significant relevance in Indian history. Attend the most important event that takes place this day - the flag hoisting and parade at Red Fort. While in Delhi, also pay a visit to the innumerable monuments and heritage sites that give Delhi its cultural identity.

How to reach: Indira Gandhi International Airport is the main airport for Delhi and NCR. The city is well-connected to all major cities and town by air, rail and road.

A post shared by The Quint (@thequint) on Aug 14, 2017 at 9:24pm PDT

2. Sabarmati Ashram, Gujarat

Pay tribute to Mahatma Gandhi and know more about his role in Indian history by visiting the Sabarmati Ashram in Gujarat. Located on the bank of the Sabarmati River, this place was the epicentre for Indian Freedom Movement such as Civil Disobedience, Non Violent Movement, Swadeshi Movement, etc. Gandhi Ji lived here for about 12 years. The ashram also has a museum that has Gandhi Ji's relics, and it is a must visit for every Indian.

How to reach: The nearest international airport to Sabarmati Ashram is Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, Ahmedabad. There are regular buses and trains from all major cities to Sabarmati Ashram.

A post shared by Bhakti Bathia (@bhaktibathia) on Aug 13, 2017 at 10:52pm PDT

3. Jodhpur, Rajasthan

If you want to experience the grandeur and glory of India, Jodhpur is a must visit. This beautiful blue city will leave you enamoured. The narrow lanes, medieval streets & massive forts are what Jodhpur is made of. Don't miss the magnificent fort of Mehrangarh when here!

How to reach: Jodhpur has got an airport, and is well-connected by rail and road as well.

A post shared by Sweet Udaipur (@sweetudaipur) on Aug 15, 2017 at 12:20am PDT

4. Cellular Jail, Port Blair

Located in Port Blair, the Cellular Jail is a reminiscence of the sacrifices that our heroes of the National Freedom Movement made, and the confinement that they suffered over the years during the colonial rule. When here, do watch the sound and light show, which encapsulates nerve-wracking stories from the past. When in Port Blair, you must visit the silver sandy Andaman beaches to relax and rejuvenate.

How to reach: Veer Savarkar International Airport also known as Port Blair Airport, is a customs airport located 2 km south of Port Blair and is the main airport for Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

A post shared by Sushant Russo (@chivalrousgentlemann) on Aug 14, 2017 at 6:33am PDT

5. Agra, Uttar Pradesh

Agra is popular for its prized possession - the Taj Mahal, one among the Seven Wonders of the World. Visit this magnificent town to get a glimpse of the Taj Mahal and also, the Agra Fort, an integral part of the British history of India. The Fort was the site of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, and today, it's one of the world heritage sites recognized by UNESCO. Located by the Yamuna River, this incredibly beautiful fort features a unique blend of Hindu and Islamic architecture.

How to reach: Agra is well-connected to all major cities in India by air, rail and road.

A post shared by Peter Phillips (@born_for_the_airtime) on Aug 15, 2017 at 12:56am PDT

6. Dalhousie, Himachal Pradesh

If you want to escape from the hustle and bustle of the cities and enjoy the true sense of freedom, visit Dalhousie. A quaint little hill station where the most famous spot is Khajjiar. Imagine lush green meadows, the clouds coming down to greet you & the beautiful hills. What more could one want?

How to Reach: The nearest domestic airport is Pathankot, approximately 78 kilometres away from the city.

7. Hampi, Karnataka

Situated on the banks of Tungbhadra River, Hampi is an extremely significant place in terms of history and architecture. This beautiful village, marked as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is home to a plethora of ruins and an intriguing mythological past. Hampi was the capital of Vijayanagara Empire from 1343 to 1565. Hampi Festival, held for 3 days in November, is the most important festival celebrated here, and it attracts many people from around the globe. It is organized by the Government of Karnataka with dance, music, drama and processions.

How to reach: The nearest international airport to Hampi is Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru, and the nearest domestic airport is at Hubli, about 143 kilometres away. There are regular buses and trains from all major cities to Hampi.

A post shared by Travel Karnataka Official (@travel_karnataka) on Aug 13, 2017 at 3:53am PDT

8. Alleppey, Kerala

If you want to take advantage of the long weekend and set off for a family vacation, visit Alleppey. Alleppey backwaters are famous for their amazing houseboats and boat rides. You can easily book a boathouse for an entire day, which can be a completely different adventure altogether. In addition to this, you can also take your kids canoeing in the exotic canals amidst the rice fields.

How to get there: The Cochin International Airport, located at a distance of 75 kilometres, is the nearest airport to Alleppey.

A post shared by Dinesh Mulki (@dineshmulki) on Aug 14, 2017 at 9:52pm PDT

9. Sikkim

The beautiful states in the northeast are pride of India, and most of these states are very little-explored. Celebrate India's beauty at the enchanting land of Sikkim: mesmerizing waterfalls, Buddhist monasteries, snow-capped mountains, and wildlife sanctuaries make this misty and quaint state of Sikkim, a prime destination. Travellers vouch for Sikkim as being one of the most serene and humbling choices for a peaceful family vacation.

How to reach: The nearest airport is in Bagdogra in West Bengal, around 124 km from Gangtok. You can take a taxi or bus from Bagdogra to Gangtok.

A post shared by Himparadise (@himparadiseofficial) on Aug 14, 2017 at 8:58pm PDT

10. Udaipur, Rajasthan

Udaipur is a fortress of luxury. Visit this magical town to experience India at its glorious best. Udaipur with its unique architecture and opulent grandeur, gives you a sneak peek into royalty. Also known as City of Lakes, Udaipur offers variety of activities for your family. Do visit Lake Pichola for a memorable boating experience.

How to reach: The nearest airport is the Maharana Pratap Airport, situated about 20 kilometres away from the city. It is well-connected by air to all major cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chandigarh, and Jaipur.
The doodle has been created by Mumbai-based artist Sabeena Karnik (Photo: Google)

Google has come up with a beautiful doodle celebrating Indias 71st Independence Day. The search engine giant has designed a unique Google Doodle that depicts the parliament house in a beautiful manner amidst the motif of a symbolic wheel for the Ashok Chakra and the countrys national bird, the peacock.

The entire creation has been made to come alive in hues of saffron, blue, white and green.

A Google Doodle is a temporary alteration of the logo on the homepage to celebrate holidays, events, achievements and people.

According to Google, the doodle has been created by Mumbai-based artist Sabeena Karnik.

To honour the anniversary, Mumbai-based artist Sabeena Karnik used a unique paper-cut art style to create a Doodle fit for the bold and colorful celebration of todays events. The Parliament House depicted in her work commemorates this day, this movement, and this triumph of independence, writes their Doodle Archive page.

The page further adds, The 90-year independence movement was a campaign marked by both peaceful endurance and unwavering patriotism, shaping a strong sense of national identity for the people of India that lives on today.

It was on this day 70 years ago that Jawaharlal Nehru first raised the national flag at Red Fort as a declaration of Indias independence.

Check out pictures of how the doodle was created



The initial sketch by Sabeena (Photo: Google)

The artwork as originally created by Sabeena (Photo: Google)

Sabeena painstakingly created the 3D masterpiece with paper first (Photo: Google)

The doodle uses shades of saffron, white, green and blue (Photo: Google)

The Ashok Chakra forms an integral part of the doodle as the Indian Parliament stands in the background (Photo: Google)
Many Congressmen and Arya Samaj leaders tried to hoist the Tricolour at Secunderabad, Gowliguda and Sultan Bazaar. The Nizams forces foiled the attempt. On August 17, 1947. Several religious leaders including those from the Christian community gathered at the Nampally exhibition grounds, to hoist the Asif Jahi flag. The gesture was made in support of the Nizams rule. During this period, India was already a free country. The religious leaders in Hyderabad wanted an Independent Hyderabad. (Photo: Mohd Safiullah, Historian)

Hyderabad: On the midnight of August 14, 1947, section 144 was imposed on Secunderabad, Gowliguda and Sultan Bazaar in the then princely state of Hyderabad, in an attempt to clamp down on those who wanted the state to join the Union of India.

Hyderabad was a separate state and its ruler, Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan chose to be independent rather than accede to India or Pakistan. It was a Hindu-dominant state with a Muslim ruler.

The agitation was carried out mainly by Congressmen and many from the Arya Samaj. Taking advantage of the situation, Kasam Razzi, leader of the Razakars, gave the call of Azad Hyderabad.

Law and order were totally broken. The government of India advised Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan to ban the Razakars (a private militant organisation).

The army was sent in and thus it came to be known as police action, that took place from September 13 to 17, 1948, explained Professor M. Sadanandam, former head of the History department of Osmania University.

Captain Pandu Ranga Reddy, a member of the Royal Historical Society, London, said that August 15, 1947, is equally significant for Hyderabadis.

Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan declared that he would associate with India not accede to India. This caused much consternation.

On August 15, 1947, many Congress men and Arya Samajis not only protested but also unfurled the tricolour at Sultan Bazar, Gowliguda and Secunderabad. The police resorted to a lathi charge and removed the flag, recalls Captain Reddy.

There were demonstrations in Warangal and Nalgonda districts too. On November 29, 1947, the government of India concluded a standstill agreement with the Nizam for one year to maintain the status quo.

Seventy years ago, the transfer of power took place at midnight of August 14, 1947, with Jawaharlal Nehrus famous Tryst with destiny speech. Nowhere else in the world has a transfer of power taken place at midnight and the reason was that Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India, did not want to lower the Union Jack and unfurl the Indian tricolour.
The children are unfazed despite being surrounded by water (Photo: Facebook)

As the rest of the country is celebrating 70 years of independence, several parts of Assam are still being ravaged by floods. As children in other parts of India headed to school dressed as national icon, those in Assams flood hit Dhubri district did their bit.

A heart wrenching image shared on social media by an assistant teacher of the Naskara LP school shows children hoisting a flag while standing in knee deep water. The love for nation against all odds is visible as the children and a staff member salute the flag unfazed by their difficult condition.

The moving image has gone viral and has been shared thousands of times so far.
India gained independence from the British Raj after 200 years of colonial rule. On 15 August 1947, the UK Parliament passed the Indian Independence Act 1947 transferring legislative sovereignty to the Indian Constituent Assembly.

And Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India, delivered his famous "Tryst with Destiny" speech in The Parliament, on the eve of India's Independence, towards midnight on 15 August 1947. But while we read a lot about our struggle towards Independence there are still more that remain to be known.

We list 11 such facts about our Independence Day that you probably did not know about.

Independence before Independence Day: At the 1929 Lahore session of the Indian National Congress, the Purna Swaraj declaration, or "Declaration of the Independence of India" was promulgated, and 26 January was declared as Independence Day

Indian national flag: The Indian national flag initially comprised of just two colours, saffron and green. It was Mahatma Gandhi who gave the idea of introducing the Ashoka Chakra on it. According to him, the wheel would symbolise progress. Saffron signifies courage and sacrifice whereas green represents faith and chivalry. The version that is prevalent today was made by Pingali Venkayya at Bezwada in 1921. In fact the authority of making and supplying national flag only rests with Khadi Development and village industries.

No national anthem on first Independence Day: Interestingly, the first Independence Day was celebrated without any national anthem and did not have Mahatma Gandhi participating as well. While Gandhi was away, busy protesting Hindu-Muslim riots, Rabindranath Tagores Jana Gana Mana written in 1911 was adopted as the countrys national anthem only in 1950.

Reason Pakistan celebrates their independence a day earlier: History says that Lord Mountbatten was pressurised into being a part of Independence Day ceremonies for both India and Pakistan. That is the reason Pakistan brought forward the date of their Independence Day to August 14.

Reason 15th August chosen as Independence Day: Lord Mountbatten had been given a mandate by the British parliament to transfer the power by June 30, 1948. Based on Mountbattens inputs the Indian Independence Bill was introduced in the British House of Commons on July 4, 1947 and passed within a fortnight. It provided for the end of the British rule in India, on August 15, 1947. Mountbatten later claimed that the date came out of the blue in reply to a question. He was determined to show that he was master of the whole event and chose the date because it was the second anniversary of Japans surrender.

Countries that share their Independence Day date with India: Liechtenstein, Republic of Congo and South Korea.

Goa remained a part of Portugal even when India was independent: At the time of independence, Goa was in fact a Portuguese state. It was not before 1961, that the state became a part of Indian union, in the year 1961.

There were 560 princely that joined India when it became independent: Once India got independence, Indian union was joined by more than 560 princely states. Last state that joined the Indian union was Hyderabad.

Our first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was a style icon: It is good to know that the first prime minister of India was indeed a fashion icon and was even featured in a famous magazine- Vogue.

British lawyer was the one who drew the border between India and Pakistan: Sir Cyrill Radcliffe- a famous British lawyer was the one to draw the border between India and Pakistan.

Sikkim joined India much later: In 1975, Sikkim became the final and 22nd state to join the Indian union. Before that, Sikkim was an Indian protectorate.
MaryKay to Twitter to reveal that she wore the voters choice of saree while attending Independence Day celebrations in the capital (Photo: Twitter)

New Delhi: MaryKay Carlson, the Charge d'Affaires of the US Embassy in New Delhi was facing a tough challenge. She was perplexed as to which saree to wear to celebrate Indias 71st Independence Day.

In fact she decided to turn to social media for others to help her decide what to wear.

The Charge d'Affaires at the US Embassy in New Delhi has now taken to Twitter to reveal that she wore the voters choice of saree while attending Independence Day celebrations in the capital and tweeted a picture of herself in the winning saree.

Over the last one month, Mary had used the hashtag #SareeSearch and had tweeted a series of photos and videos to help in her quest for the perfect six-yards. When she finally narrowed it down to four sarees (Jamdani, Dupion, Kanjeevaram and Tussar) she created a Twitter poll which saw nearly 2,000 Twitter users vote for their preferred saree to help her decide what to wear.

Mary wrapped up her #SareeSearch by tweeting a picture of her wearing the winning saree.

She tweeted, "#SareeSearch success! Excited to attend #IndependenceDayIndia celebration wearing the voters' choice - Kanjeevaram. #WeWearCulture.
Chennai: In a tragic incident, a 30-year-old man was electrocuted when he rushed to alert a truck driver after the truck brushed dangerously against a transformer near Gummidipoondi on the outskirts of the city on Monday. The deceased has been identified as Subburaj (35), also a truck driver from Tuticorin.

Police said that the truck loaded with iron roads had come to a scrap melting unit in Kavarapet. The truck was driven by 51-year-old man, Samson.

While parking the vehicle, Samson miscalculated the distance of the transformer and drove dangerously close to it.

Subburaj who was watching the scenes unfolding realised the imminent danger the truck driver was in and rushed with the intent to help him, police said. However, he was not aware that the truck driver, Samson had already jumped out of the vehicle, a police officer said.

Subburaj kept banging on the back of the vehicle and ran up front to alert the driver when he got electrocuted. Electricity from a high-tension wire spread through the iron body of the vehicle, police said. He was thrown several feet away in the impact.

Passerby rushed the man to the Ponneri Government Hospital where he was declared brought dead. Kavarapet Police registered a case and are investigating.
Hyderabad: Eight foreigners who were found overstaying were deported by Rachakonda police. Police said the deporting process of four more foreigners is in process. The 12 foreigners who were overstaying were found during a recent survey.

During the survey police found 560 foreigners staying in Rachakonda. 155 of them were not staying at the address given by them. Police said that they could have moved out for education but the house owners were not aware of their whereabouts.

Police also found that owners who rented them houses did not inform the Foreigner Regional Registration Office.

Benarad Njalale of Tanzania, Arnold Dumba of DR Congo, Ace Ozazuwa Urhobo of South Africa, Cheruoa Amani of Congo, Asamu Al Amin Kabir of Nigeria, Maureen Jacksun of Tanzania, Mutuyimana Jean Paul of Rwanda and Christina Jonathan Kigodi of Tanzania have been deported, while the deportation of Altayeb Ibrahem Altayib Doj of Sudan, Samuel Akpan and Akotgam Senam Androw of Nigeria and Yousuf Salman of Sudan is in process.

Police commissioner Mahesh Bhagwat said that owners who rent out houses to foreigners should verify documents and get them registered with the Foreigner Regional Registration Office. We are sensitising house owners and there is a change now. But If owners still do not follow this process they will face action, he said. He added that they are coordinating with FRRO and other agencies involved.
SRINAGAR: Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister and opposition National Conference (NC) working president, Omar Abdullah, on Monday accused the BJP of stirring up regional passions over Article 35A of the Constitution in the State.

The BJP is trying to engineer a regional divide in Jammu and Kashmir over Article 35A of the Constitution, he alleged. He said if the reported assurance of Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, to Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti, that there would be no fiddling with the special status of the State was true why then a counter affidavit has not been presented before the Supreme Court (SC) by the Centre to defend Article 35A, he asked.

Abdullah who was speaking at a daylong convention of the NCs functionaries in Jammu said, "Instead of defending it, the Attorney General pitched for a larger debate on Article 35A. He asked, Why isn't the Central government formally defending Article 35A in the SC as per the wishes of the people of Jammu and Kashmir and as a custodian of the Constitution of India?

Article 35A empowers the J&K Legislature to define permanent residents of the State and provide special rights and privileges to those permanent residents.
Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Tuesday said that she had full faith in the Supreme Court of India and hoped it will dismiss the plea challenging Article 35A of the Constitution.

Ive full confidence that our Supreme Court will again dismiss this plea challenging Article 35A of the Constitution in the same way as it has done in these 70 years, she said while speaking at the Independence Day ceremonial parade at Srinagars Bakshi Stadium.

She said that she was quite confident that the countrys institutions would continue to deliver justice to the people of Jammu and Kashmir, in the historic perspective of the state as they have done in the past.

She said that when the people of the State decided to accede to the country on the basis of shared ideals of democracy and tolerance these were the institutions like Parliament which responded positively to this thinking and Jammu and Kashmir was accorded a special status within the countrys constitutional structure.

The judiciary, fully endorsing the spirit of this relation, put its foot down and upheld the special status when the matter of its scraping was brought before it, she said.

She added, I hope that in future also these institutions would uphold this relation of mutual respect, cooperation and trust between the people of the state and rest of the country.

The Chief Minister said the entire political class of Jammu and Kashmir is united in defending and preserving the special status of the state. She said that she recently met leaders of all political parties in this regard and she was happy to note that there was an overwhelming consensus on the issue among all of them.

She once again pitched for dialogue and good India-Pakistan relations saying the dialogue was the only way ahead to sort out issues.

She asked, If peaceful negotiations can resolve all other issues in the country why cant these help in redressing issues in Jammu and Kashmir?

She said she was pleased to see Minister for External Affairs, Sushma Swaraj, saying that dialogue is the only way ahead in resolving border disputes with China.

She hoped Pakistan would also understand the need for peaceful engagement with India and the Central Government would also undertake a broad based outreach treating the issues within the ambit of humanity as initiated by former Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee.

She said the Agenda of Alliance of the PDP-BJP government in the state has also declared that dialogue with all stakeholders in the state is the way forward.

Mufti said good neighbourly relations between India and Pakistan are crucial for the people of the state who bear the brunt of any bitterness in relations between the two countries.

She said that due to the recent tensions along the Line of Control, hundreds of people living close to the divide line had to migrate to safer places.

Many of them lost their lives, the schools in these areas had to be shut and a lot of people were rendered homeless. For how long would it continue, she asked.

In an obvious reference to the stone-pelting pastime of the Kashmiri youth and many of them picking up the gun, she said she had a word of advice for the parents.

Please, guide your wards to take up pens instead of stones and guns. Let us ponder, how is it that the guns manufactured somewhere far off find their use in every Muslim society. Why should it happen? Why cant our youngsters be put in productive, creative streams rather than in this confusion, she said.

She said Jammu and Kashmir is the land of saints and sages and that it was Mir Sayyid Ali (a Muslim preacher from Hamadan in Persia popularly known as Shah-e-Hamadan in Kashmir) who brought along hundreds of artisans who trained the people here in skill development in various fields.

She said Kashmirs patron indigenous saint Sheikh Nooruddin Wali taught and practiced brotherhood, amity and harmony to its people.

The nature has bestowed the state with huge natural resources in the form of water, forests and scenic beauty which once harnessed optimally would not only usher in a developmental revolution in the state but also suffice the needs of country in terms of power, irrigation and other sectors, she said.
Pakistan on Tuesday violated ceasefire in Baaz and Nambla areas of Uri Sector. (Representational Image)

Srinagar: Pakistan on Tuesday violated ceasefire in Baaz and Nambla areas of Uri Sector in Baramulla District of Jammu and Kashmir.

Indian defence forces are heavily retaliating and a major gunbattle is underway.

According to reports, a woman has been injured in the firing. This is the first case of cross border firing that has been reported on Tuesday on the occasion of India's 71st Independence Day.

More details to follow.
Prime Minister Modi, who is well known for his ethnic headgear makes sure that he impresses his audience not only with his oratory skills but also with mix and match of clothing. (Photo: pmindia.gov.in)

New Delhi: Narendra Modi's Independence Day turbans have proved that he is the most fashionable Prime Minister the country has got.

His ethnic avatars and attire have always been a subject of interest for fashionistas and have caught the eyeballs of common people.

Prime Minister Modi, who is well known for his ethnic headgear makes sure that he impresses his audience not only with his oratory skills but also with mix and match of clothing.

Here is a pictorial journey of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Independence Day attire.

2017

What all were waiting when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was heading to deliver his fourth Independence Day speech from Red Fort, was his unusual attire. Like every time, Modi impressed the onlookers with his off-white and yellow-red turban with a long trail.

2016

On the 69th Independence Day, PM Modi adorned a plain white kurta but what added cherry on the cake was his red-pink-yellow coloured Rajasthani safa which was much longer than the ones he wore in his first and second Independence Day parades.

2015

Widely acclaimed as one of the most well-dressed world leaders, Modi sported a cream coloured kurta along with a beige colour Nehru jacket. His turban had red and green tripes with a long safa.

2014

Giving his maiden Independence Day address as the Prime Minister after coming to power in 2014, Narendra Modi wore a half-sleeve cream coloured khadi kurta with an orange and green coloured Jodhpuri bandhej safa. This type of turban is commonly seen in Western India, particularly Rajasthan.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has always been in the news for his traditional costumes during his foreign trips too. Internet has gone gaga over the way the Indian Prime Minister has been the man of the moment during his trips.

Modi's sense of dressing proves that he is not only a man of responsibilities but also has a strong nose for style and elegance.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacting with the school children after addressing the nation on the occasion of 71st Independence Day in New Delhi on Tuesday. (Photo: PTI)

Mumbai: We all have either seen or heard stories about Jawaharlal Nehru's love for children. And, every year on November 14, we remember him for his fondness for the youngsters.

Incidentally, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reminds us of Chacha Nehru, as children love to call the first prime minister of India, every time he breaks the security protocol to meet children waiting to greet him.

After concluding his Independence Day speech on Tuesday, Modi interacted with the school children, some of whom were dressed as Lord Krishna on the occasion of Janmashtami, and also shook hands with them.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets children after concluding his speech on the 71st Independence Day. (Photo: DC/Pritam Bandyopadhyay)

The first time he broke the security cover to meet the children, joyously waiting for him, was in 2014, when he first addressed the nation from the ramparts of Red Fort in New Delhi after being elected as the prime minister.

As Modi proceeded to leave the 17th century monument after concluding his Independence Day address in 2014, he stopped his motorcade midway and reached out to the children.

As Modi proceeded to leave the 17th century monument after concluding his Independence Day address in 2014, he stopped his motorcade midway and reached out to the children. (Photo: AP)

And, ever since, he has ensured not to disappoint the young ones, who eagerly wait to shake hands with the Prime Minister before participating in the parade. Year after year, he has spent a few moments with them before witnessing the parade.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi began his Independence address from Red Fort. Addressing the nation, Narendra Modi remembered the contributions of martyrs who laid down their lives for the country.

A great sense of patriotism grips the country as India celebrates it's 70th anniversary of Independence.

This will be Modi's fourth Independence Day address.

Dressed in off-white kurta and crimson turban, Modi first paid tributes to the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat on Tuesday morning before heading to the Red Fort where he will unfurl the Tricolour.

Narendra Modi had invited constructive ideas from citizens to address this Independence Day and has received at least 8,000.

Security has been tightened across the country to ensure a seamless feat of celebration for its countrymen.

The Chief Guest this year is Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Mohammad bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Independence Day speech:
Retired Indian Army Major General Gagandeep Bakshi pointed out that the Indian Army needs to modernise its equipment, especially Medium Artillery and Light Helicopters with night fighting capabilities. (Photo: EPIC Channel)

Mumbai: 70 years ago, on this day, India had its tryst with destiny when it attained its Independence from the shackles of the British Raj. The day is special for all Indians and it also gives a sense of pride to fellow countrymen.

As citizens remember the contributions of those, who laid down their lives for the freedom struggle, and also for the ones, who are at the war footing to ensure we are safe, Deccan Chronicle spoke to retired Indian Army Major General Gagandeep Bakshi.

GD Bakshi is from the Jammu and Kashmir Rifles.

Sharing his message for the nation on the 70th Independence Day, Bakshi said, The nation must remember those who laid down their lives and gave their today for our tomorrow.

When asked about his first major on-battle experience at Kargil in 1999, Bakshi said the war was thrilling as well as transformative. Our greatest moment was when we were having massive fire exchange with the 29 Baluch Regiment of Pakistan Army in the area of Kaksar, he added.

We used our Artillery Regiments' 175/24 Gun in direct shooting role, along with 2 x Anti-tank Guns and 2 x Anti-aircraft (AAC) Guns. The Pakistani posts were downed and we forced Pakistanis to show white flags - begging for ceasefire. They never misbehaved thereafter. We were on Cloud Nine thereafter, Bakshi said further.

Giving his opinion on the incessant ceasefire violations along the Line of Control (LoC), Bakshi  a veteran of many skirmishes on the border and of counter-terrorist operations in Jammu and Kashmir, and Punjab  said, Pakistan needs to be taught a lesson that it will not forget in a hurry.

Retired Indian Army Major General Gagandeep Bakshi

General Bakshi also lauded the government for the recent surgical strike and said, This (surgical strike) was long overdue and must not be a one-off. This must be continued.

Commenting on the ongoing Sikkim standoff, the Army veteran said, The Doklam plateau is of core strategic interest for India as well as Bhutan. Should China complete its road construction there, they can bring up Artillery Guns that can target the Siliguri corridor, the Bhutanese capital city of Thimpu and the airport of Paro. This is non-negotiable.

When asked if the Army is prepared for a war with China, as the neighbouring country is unwilling to back-off, General Bakshi said, We do not want war, but if forced, we can give the Chinese a bloody nose. There is no need for us therefore, to back down or be diffident.

Retired Indian Army Major General Gagandeep Bakshi

General Bakshi also pointed out that the Indian Army needs to modernise its equipment, especially Medium Artillery and Light Helicopters with night fighting capabilities.

However, the Army veteran concluded, War is not the solution to all problems.

Major Bakshi is presenting a documentary on the occasion of Independence Day on EPIC channel and said it is vital for him as it reminds us of the super sacrifice of super heroes.
While some activists were detained on Monday night, several others were taken into custody Tuesday morning from Abi Guzar in Srinagar. (Representational Image)

Srinagar: Over 200 activists of Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) youthwing, who were on a 'Tiranga yatra' to hoist the national flag at the Lal Chowk in Srinagar, have been detained as a precautionary measure, the police said on Tuesday.

They have been taken to different police stations of the summer state capital, a police official said.

While some activists were detained on Monday night, several others were taken into custody Tuesday morning from Abi Guzar in Srinagar.

They were at Lal Chowk to hoist the national flag at the Lal Chowk, the official said.

Sources said the activists will remain in detention till the official function at Bakshi Stadium here concludes.

Meanwhile, former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah termed the detention of the activists as a "fixed match" by the government in which the BJP is a coalition partner.

"True definition of a fixed match. BJP government in Jammu and Kashmir detains BJP office-bearers going out to hoist the National Flag," he said in a tweet.
BJP challenged District Collector's decision of barring RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat from hoisting the national flag in a school. (Photo: File)

Palakkad (Kerala): After a major setback, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Chief Mohan Bhagwat finally hoisted the national flag in Karnakkiyamman School at Palakkad in Kerala, on Tuesday, to mark the Independence Day of India.

Earlier on Tuesday, he was detained from hoisting the tri-colour, after the District collector issued a memo to the school, categorically stating that it was inappropriate for a political leader to hoist the national flag in an aided school.

The District collector added that only a teacher or elected representative of the people was allowed to do so.

However, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) challenged the Collector's decision; standing affirmative that Bhagwat would hoist the flag.

Meanwhile, in his Independence Day address, Prime Minister Narendra Modi opined that the country, in unison, can bring a positive change.

"Everybody is equal in our nation, no one big or small. We together can bring a positive change in the nation," he said.
29-year-old Kundu likes to refer to herself as the 'daughter of a supportive father' rather than a 'daughter of an IAS officer'. (Photo: Vanika Kundu)

Mumbai: "It's a weird misconception that women who walk the streets of gedi route imply that they want to be stalked," says Varnika Kundu in an agitated tone.

Varnika was allegedly stalked and harassed by Haryana Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief's son, Vikas Barala, in the early hours of August 5 on sector 8-sector 7 (well-known as 'gedi' routes) in Chandigarh.

Gedi routes in Chandigarh are a set of roads spanning from sectors 8, 9, 10 and 11 with the core being around DAV College. The word gedi means "rounds" and that's how the name of the place was derived since people make "rounds" through the route.

"Historically, gedi routes were places where people would meet and socialise. We went there to chill because one knows that you could meet at least 25 people you know," Kundu adds.

However, over the years, the definition of the word changed to what now designates stalking women. It also includes the youth, mostly students, driving around in cars and motorbikes, performing stunts.

"I am not sure how it changed, but the men  not all men  now think that a girl walking alone or wearing certain kind of clothes is giving him a signal to stalk her," Kundu says.

Kundu, a disc jockey by profession, was driving home when Barala and his friend Ashish, in a white SUV pulled up, started driving alongside her car and even tried to block her car from moving ahead.

"My hands shaking, my back spasming from fear, half in tears, half bewildered, because I didn't know if I'd make it home tonight," Kundu said in her Facebook post describing her horrific experience.

On the day, Kundu, along with her father, lodged a complaint against the two men. The accused were arrested the same day, but released on bail soon after.

Kundu went on to share her experience on Facebook as "a sign of warning to other women that Chandigarh was not as safe as they thought it to be." Little did she know that this would turn out to be a larger fight and would make her the face of women empowerment.

"The case is happening and I will fight till the end. This is much bigger than just my case. It is about all those women who have been in worse situations than me," she says.

Overwhelmed by the online support, she says that she is proud to be a catalyst for women who take charge of their own lives. "My aim of fighting this case is to encourage women to speak for themselves and I already see it happening," Kundu adds.

A few days after the incident, Haryana BJP Vice-President Ramveer Bhatti blamed Kundu for being out late in the night.

"Why was she driving so late in the night? The atmosphere is not right. We need to take care of ourselves, Bhatti said.

Following his comments, dozens of women condemned Bhatti's remarks and took to social media to creatively shut down the minister. They posted photos of themselves, out in the night with the hashtag 'Ain't No Cinderalla'.

Daughter of former President of India, Pranab Mukherjee, Sharmistha Mukherjee also posted her pictures encouraging women of all age groups.

If I'm out at 12am, it DOES NOT mean I'm to be raped, molested, chased. My dignity is my right 24X7 #AintNoCinderella pic.twitter.com/6SN0I5NbSN  Sharmistha Mukherjee (@Sharmistha_GK) August 7, 2017

29-year-old Kundu likes to refer to herself as the "daughter of a supportive father" rather than a "daughter of an IAS officer".

"I am not special. This comes naturally to me. I will fight till the end. I want to make other women aware that they too can be this way," she says.

Seventy years of Independence and India still remains a majorly male-dominated society, but women today are not giving up, and fighting the misogyny.

Incidents of stalking are not new in Chandigarh. According to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) in 2015, 13 victims in Chandigarh had reported incidents of stalking.

Stalking was declared a criminal offence in 2013 after former President Pranab Mukherjee signed an ordinance to help laws dealing with sexual violence against women.

Kundu, a woman of confidence, is still as fearless as she was. "I am not scared of stepping out in the night because of certain thoughts of men. It would be ironic if I tell everyone to be fearless and I sit at home," she says.

Barala and his friend were produced in court on Saturday and were sent to judicial custody for 14 days.
About 500 tonnes of Vietnam pepper exported to Nepal through Kolkata port was diverted to Wayanad and resold in the North Indian market as Wayanad pepper.

KOZHIKODE: The low-priced pepper from Vietnam with high pesticide content, smuggled into the country either as Sri Lankan pepper or pepper to Nepal, through free trade channels is posing a threat to the quality and price of Wayanad pepper, lament traders.

The duty for spices import to India from Sri Lanka is only 8.5 percent while the same to Nepal is duty-free. India has entered into an agreement with Sri Lanka for importing 2,500 tonnes of pepper per year.

Recently about 500 tonnes of pepper from Vietnam exported to Nepal through Kolkata port was diverted to various parts of Wayanad, Coorg and Nilgiris in the Western Ghats region and resold in the North Indian market as Wayanad pepper, said Anil Kottaram, a trader in Wayanad.

While the price of Wayanad pepper is around Rs 490, the imported pepper is available for North Indian traders for Rs 475, he said, adding that the import cost of the pepper is around Rs 425 only as the pepper failed to meet the Western parameters of pesticide monitoring tests.

The importer gets a profit of Rs 50 per kilogram, he said.

The spice traders demanded that it is high time the country should insist on strict pesticide residue tests for pepper imports though it is bound to neighbouring countries like Nepal and Bhutan. Kolkata port has become a hub of this illegal deal as it is the port from where it is transported the freight to Nepal by the road.

There were much hue and cry from farmers organisations and traders on the unbridled import of pepper from neighbouring countries, as the import caused a crash of pepper prices in local markets.

The price of pepper which was Rs 610 to Rs 620 a kg in February, before the harvest in South India, nosedived to Rs 500 in May.
Narendra Modi interacts with children after addressing the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort in New Delhi on Tuesday. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: Toeing Vajpayees Kashmir doctrine of Kashmiriyat, Jamhoori-yat aur Insaniyat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi from the ramparts of Red Fort held out some hope for the strife-ridden Kashmir valley as he called for compassion and not coercion.

Addressing the nation on 71st Independence Day, the Prime Minister said: Na gaali se, na goli se, parivartan hoga gale lagaane se... samasya suljhegi har Kashmiri ko gale lagane se (Kashmir problem cannot be resolved by either bullets or by abuses. It can be resolved by embracing Kashmiris).

Making it clear that his government would not be soft on terrorism, Mr Modi also slammed violence in the name of faith, saying it was not acceptable and that communalism and casteism were a poison that would do no good to the country.

Wearing his trademark half-sleeve kurta and a Rajasthani turban, in his 56-minute speech, the shortest of all the four speeches since 2014, he assured that the government was committed to making Kashmir a paradise once again.

PM gives call for good governance

He said that a handful of separatists were resorting to various tactics to create problems in the state. Mr Modi also asked the countrymen to shed the chalta hai attitude and instead adopt an approach of badal sakta hai (can change) for positive change.

Invoking Bal Gangadhar Tilaks slogan of swaraj (self-rule), he said now their motto should be suraj (good governance) as he underlined his vision for a new India by 2022.

In New India, he said, Tantra se lok nahin, lok se tantra chalega (people would be the driving force behind the establishment rather than the other way around). He lamented that democracy has been confined to ballots.

The nation had shown its collective strength between 1942 and 1947 culminating in India's Independence, he said, asking people to show the same resolve to create a new India by 2022.

Most of his speech, however, focussed on the economy, as he pointed out the various reforms carried out by his government, including demonetisation, the implementation of GST and the crackdown on black money.

Those who have looted the nation and looted the poor are not able to sleep peacefully today, the PM said, vowing to continue the crackdown. He said over Rs 1.75 lakh crore has been deposited in banks since the note-ban, and more than 18 lakh people with disproportionate income are under scrutiny.

He said demonetisation of old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes last year had helped bring over Rs 3 lakh crore of unaccounted wealth into the banking system.
Hyderabad: Farmers and cattle traders no longer have to take their animals to the weekly bazaar to sell them. The Telangana government has launched a website through which farmers and animal traders can sell animals online instead of physically going to the marketplace. This way, the farmer can hope to sell directly without the additional cost of taking the animal to the bazaar and losing valuable work time. If the animal is not sold, then the farmer has to take back the animal incurring further cost. With online selling, the farmer can hope to get a better price too.

The website is called pashubazar.telangana.gov. in. and has been developed by the Animal Husbandry department of the Telangana government. The sellers can post a picture of the animal along with basic details. A maximum of five animals can be registered for sale at any given time. If he wants to add another, he has to cancel one registration.

The site will keep each registration for 30 days after which the registration will be removed automatically.

The online website provides a wider choice for the prospective buyers. The farmers have the option of selling buffaloes, bullocks, cows, dogs, goats and sheep. Animal husbandry officials aaid that the new cattle rules issued by the Central government are applicable to the online sale of animals as well. To prevent the inter-state and inter-country smuggling of cattle, the Central government has proposed to start a unique identity system for the cattle. This will consist of all the identification details such as age, sex, breed, location, height and others.
CHENNAI: During his first Independence Day celebration as Chief Minister, Edappadi K. Palaniswami on Tuesday sent a strong message to his adversaries that his governments sole aim is to serve people of Tamil Nadu overcoming all hurdles before it.

Addressing the state after unfurling the national flag at Fort St George here he said, Ammas rule (as shown by her) and development in all spheres is our taraka mantram. We are working only with the sole aim of serving people of Tamil Nadu by overcoming all hurdles before us.

The priorities of his government, he said, were education, healthcare, agriculture and industrial growth. During 2017-18 fiscal, about Rs 26,932 crore has been allocated for school education. While about 20.19 lakh persons benefited through the state health insurance scheme, the government has ordered compensation of Rs 2,247 crore to farmers, who suffered losses due to drought.

So far, we have attracted foreign direct investment to the tune of Rs 26,019 crore, the Chief Minister said and added that it has been decided to set up industrial parks in Ramanathapuram, Sivagangai, Pudukottai, Dindigul, Theni, Virudhunagar, Tuticoirn and Tirunelveli districts.

Earlier, Mr. Palaniswami accepted a guard of honour by the police and armed forces and presented medals to police personnel at a separate function in the city.

His government would follow in the footsteps of the late J. Jayalalithaa to implement various welfare measures initiated by her, he said and stressed that the extent of nations development has been measured by the development of every individual.
Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan salutes the Tricolour after unfurling it, in the Hyderabad High Court premises on Tuesday.

Hyderabad: Recalling the services of Freedom Fighters, Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan of the Hyderabad High Court on Tuesday said that many of those at the forefront of Indias freedom struggle were lawyers.

Justice Ranganathan was addressing the gathering after hoisting the National Flag to start the Independence Day celebrations in the court premises.

He said that while most of the people fondly remember Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Mahatma Gandhi, Lala Lajpat Rai, B.R. Ambedkar, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, C. Rajagopala Chari and Babu Rajendra Prasad, all eminent lawyers, there was a need to recall the quiet yet equally significant contribution of three others  Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Bhulabhai Desai, two of whom were lawyers of repute, and Rai Bahadur V.P. Menon, the Constitutional adviser to three Viceroys, who played important roles in the freedom struggle.

The Acting Chief Justice said that the latter three had not only played a key role in the countrys struggle for independence, but also guided its integration into a united and independent nation.

Let us pay our respectful homage to those great lawyers who sacrificed their career, some of them their entire life, to secure Independence and provide us, our children and grandchildren, the freedom that they were denied by the British, Justice Ranganathan said.
The report said due to lack of supervision by the food safety department and interference of political leaders, officials were unable to conduct raids on the illegal units.

Hyderabad: Thousands of so-called mineral water plants are being run in the state without much supervision. The intelligence department has reported to the government that the composite Warangal district had 1,500 such water units, of which 1,484 were being run illegally. This has caused a huge loss to the state exchequer, it said.

The report said supervisory officials were accepting bribes to ignore the illegal plants. It said the units were thriving because of the increasing demand for clean water. According to the norms, a water unit needs a minimum space of 1,000 square feet and a borewell. The owner should take permission from the local urban body or gram panchayat and get it registered with the district industries centre.

The owner should obtain a labour department certificate and the ISI certification from the Bureau of Indian Standards. The unit should engage a well-trained microbiologist, and the staff to maintain hygienic condition and qualitative production. The intelligence report said no unit had a chemical lab and microbiologist to test the water purity in Warangal district. Only 16 of the 1,500 water units in the composite district had clearance certificate from the food safety authority and only one plant had the BIS certification.

Another 15 plants had obtained certificates from a body called International Herbal Water Foundation (IHWF), Chennai, which is not recognised by the government. The owners were printing the IHWF hallmark that they secured by paying Rs 50,000 per year on the bottles.

The report said due to lack of supervision by the food safety department and interference of political leaders, officials were unable to conduct raids on illegal units. The intelligence report suggested that the government bring these units under the Essential Commodities Act to regulate licencing, make BIS certification mandatory and empower the district food safety inspector to seize illegal units. Director of municipal administration T.K. Sreedevi said the government did not have a clear policy on mineral water plants, and would bring out one soon.

Former MLA K. Laxma Reddy, who encouraged the growth of these water units, said they were like cottage industries and did not need a licence. He set up about 300 units plants in Ranga Reddy district. He said that water unit owners were doing a a social service by supplying clean water. Introducing a licencing system would lead to corruption and an increase in the cost of water. He said food safety authorities could check quality of water supplied.
Lucknow: The Yogi Adityanath government has asked all schools in the state not to hold morning assemblies from Wednesday in order to check the spread of swine flu.

Principal secretary, health and family welfare, Prashant Trivedi told reporters on Tuesday that an advisory had been sent to all the district magistrates and commissioners in the state asking them to put on hold morning assembly prayers in all private and government schools in view of the swine flu scare.

The decision has been taken to check the spread of the disease and ensure that school children do not catch the infection, he said. The schools have also been asked to ask children showing symptoms of swine flu to stay at home.

Official sources said that 21 deaths had taken place due to swine flu. The state government has already formed district-level rapid response teams, which will consist of a public health specialist, a physician, an epidemiologist, a pathologist and lab technician

In all the district hospitals of the state, a 10-bed isolation ward has been set up and the surveillance units are continuously monitoring the swine flu situation. Instructions have also been issued to combat any emergency-like situation, Mr Trivedi said.
5. 20 marks will be allotted for the project and final marks scored by each student will be included in the final exam scores including theory.

Hyderabad: The green thumb will get a thumbs up. Telangana state-run schools have introduced 20 additional marks for a plant project in an effort to increase the students interest in environment and the need to care for it.

Every student has to adopt a sapling and plant it in their respective schools or residences.

The state education department has targeted planting 50 lakh saplings during the third phase of the Telanganaku Haritha Haram.

Planting, watering and caring for saplings planted during the Haritha Haram campaign is part of the project. Twenty marks are allotted for the plant project and final marks scored by each student, which will also include theory, will be included in the final exams scores.

Every school has formed a green core student committee consisting of 12 members along with a teacher. The green core will conduct monthly checks to assess the condition of the plants.

The Green-day was observed by the state education department on July 15 when all the students planted saplings in their respective schools.

Panugothu Lakhpathi, headmaster government high school in Suryapet district, said, According to the space available in the school campus we have taken saplings and provided them to students of class 7th, 8th and 9th for adoption. We have also formed a green-core committee comprising 10-12 children with a teacher in-charge who will assess and monitor the plants progress.

He added, Committee members not only monitor the plants but also create awareness amongst the other students who have not adopted a sapling. We have a target of protecting 3,800 plants in our mandal. And have also deployed a guard to watch the plants. It is a very good initiative as its motivating other villagers too. Also it is very nice to see students taking such good care of the plants and pampering them.

A view of the marks awarded to a student from the zilla parishad high school Odyaram in Karimnagar district for planting, watering and caring for plants.

Swaraj Kumar, headmaster, government high school Amberpet mandal said, With this initiative, awareness has increased among students as well as their parents. Earlier students were not much interested in taking care of the plants and the environment. But now with them getting marks for taking take of the plant, the interest has increased.

Many schools do not have the space for planting. In such cases, the children are allowed to take the plant home and care for it there.

Said Mr Kumar, Not many schools have enough space. So the students take their adopted plant home where they water it regularly and take care of it.

Lack of tree guards defeats purpose

Merely planting saplings during Telangana Haritha Haram drive will not help the environment, especially if the plants do not survive. Though the governments initiative of involving students and making them responsible for caring for one plant each is commendable, the lack of safeguards to protect the saplings will defeat the whole purpose, said Telangana Teachers Associations.

The finance and civil supplies minister Etala Rajender had directed officials last month to purchase sufficient tree guards to protect saplings planted in Haritha Haram project. But most of the plants planted in the state-run schools do not have any tree guards. Moreover some of the state-run schools do not have compound walls or security. Together, all these issues might make the survival of saplings a little difficult.

Gaddam Rajashekhar, state executive member, of the Telangana State United Teachers Federation said, It is the responsibility of the government to build compound walls in all the schools and deploy guards in each of them. Most of the schools dont have proper compound walls and security to safeguard the plants due to which many plants get destroyed almost as soon as they are planted making the whole exercise futile and pointless.

He adds, Though students take care of the plants during school time, once they leave for home, it is not possible to check the plants. And with no wall or tree guard, the sapling may not survive. Considering that the student will also be assessed for the care he gives to the plant, it is imperative that protection is organised. Otherwise the child will also lose out on the marks and the green drive will also be unsuccessful.

M. Ravindar, president, Telangana Progressive Teachers Federation said, There are enough officials in the state government to protect plants. Why does the government want to give this responsibility to children when they already have responsibilities of their studies and extracurricular activities?
Bengaluru: Lambasting the Congress government on the last day of his three-day visit to Karnataka, BJP president Amit Shah on Monday charged that it was the most corrupt dispensation since independence with Central funds, which were pocketed by ministers, showing up during IT raids.

Reeling off statistics to buttress his allegations against the state government, Mr Shah told the media the government headed by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had launched a disinformation campaign against the BJP-led NDA government in New Delhi though over Rs 2 lakh crore was released to Karnataka. I would like to know where did these funds go? Accounts of these funds come out when IT raids happen. But ministers are not asked to resign after that. Since independence, I have not seen such a corrupt government. Appeasement has been unleashed and over 30 Sangh activists were murdered. Why did the government drop cases against SDPI? The Congress government only panders to the vote bank, he added.

Mr Shah charged that the state government had raked issues concerning the language, a separate flag, and separate religion tag for Lingayats merely to divert the attention of people, and wondered why central leaders of Congress were not commenting on such issues. Why are these issues coming up before polls? He (Mr Siddaramaiah) is nervous. He is raking up these issue. Once the ballot boxes are sealed these issues would subside, he added.

Exuding confidence that a government headed by state BJP president B.S. Yeddyurappa would assume office next year, Mr Shah, however, declined to spell out the strategy for next years polls on grounds that it would not be made public at a media conference.

He spoke on a plethora of issues at the media conference: from changes brought in political funding to Swachh Bharat, Ujjwala, and the countrys role in study of the impact of climate change.

Excerpts:

What about double standards on corruption? The Kerala unit of BJP faces charges of corruption?

We ordered a probe and we suspended two leaders. We do not tolerate corruption. Mr Siddaramaiahs double speak on commitment to OBCs. The OBC bill was not passed. I would like to ask Mr Siddaramaiah who claims to champion the cause of OBCs as to why the Congress adopted double standards?.I want to assure that we reintroduce the bill for the welfare of OBCs.

Why are Central agencies unleashing probes/raids on opposition legislators?

Is it fair to lock MLAs from Gujarat when the state is reeling under unprecedented floods? The agencies do their home work before conducting IT raids.

Will a strategy employed in UP work here?

When I went to UP from Gujarat, people said Gujarat is different from UP. When I went to Meghalaya, they said the local politics is different from UP. It is quite natural that Karnataka politics is different.

Any plans for simultaneous elections across the country?

All political parties and the Election Commission have to debate and take a decision on this.

You visited a Vokkaliga Mutt?

It is unfair to call such an institution a Vokkaliga math. An institution which feeds and provides education to over a lakh and half students, cannot be a community institution. I am sure there are students from other communities as well.

Will corruption charges against Mr Yeddyurappa prove a hurdle?

No. The cases are there for over years. Has any charge been proved? No. Then how can you call him corrupt.

BJPs strategy to win the elections in Karnataka?

Focus on corruption, minority appeasement and farmers woes will be part of the BJPs campaign.

The BJP does not have candidates for all 224 Assembly seats?

You will see when we announce the list

What is the BJPs stand on Mahadayi row?

Before the Bharatiya Janata Party was voted to power in 2014, the Congress party was in office in New Delhi and Maharashtra. What did it do? These issues can be resolved through dialogue.
Bengaluru: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah hurled the ball right back into BJP national president Amit Shah's court on Tuesday and made it amply clear that he was in no mood to give up his confrontation with the NDA government at the Centre on the language question or other crucial issues, ahead of the Assembly polls in 2018.

Delivering his Independence Day speech here on Tuesday, the CM said an "imposition" of any language on a state, which has its own official language, is unconstitutional. The statement comes against the backdrop of protests by pro-Kannada outfits against use of Hindi on Namma Metro signboards. Siddaramaiah had written to the Centre stating the state government was compelled to ask Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation to temporarily re-design signboards in stations without the Hindi language.

Also, the Kannada Development Authority had asked all nationalised, scheduled and rural banks in the state to ensure that all non-Kannada speaking staff learn the language in six months. "Every state has its own official language and our Constitution recognises the primacy of that language in the state to the exclusion of other languages. Hence imposition of any other language in a state is unconstitutional and it is against the spirit of formation of states on linguistic basis," Siddaramaiah said in his address. He is sure to rake in support from pro-Kannada outfits and the general population with his unequivocal stance on the primacy of Kannada even as the BJP vacillates on the issue.

In an indirect attack on the BJP, the CM regretted that casteism and religious issues were being raked up by fascist forces, and described it as a matter of concern for all right thinking people. "Religion is a personal matter and it is sacrilegious to derive political mileage from dividing communities. The time has come to annihilate the forces responsible for this anti-national practice," he added.

Eulogizing the services of the armed forces, he promised a government job to those dependent on soldiers from Karnataka, who were either martyred or permanently disabled in a war or war like situation. People today were able to sleep peacefully at night owing to the sacrifices of its armed forces, he added
Travelling can work in opposite ways. It can come as wanderlust that gives one a feel of new horizons. Or it can be a temptation to contaminate new climes with hidebound habits. Mirza Ghalib prescribed the first route in the 19th century. The second has been popularised by Narendra Modi.

Hasad se dil agar afsurda hai, garm-i-tamasha ho/ Ke chashm-i-tang shaayad kasrat-i-nazara se va ho. That was Ghalibs prescription. A good antidote to suffocating ennui or chashm-i-tang, he said, could be kasrat-i-nazara, the expansiveness of new things to see. Marco Polo and Ibne Batuta would have warmed the cockles of Ghalibs heart. T.S. Eliot captured the Urdu poets advice succinctly: Oh, do not ask, What is it?/ Let us go and make our visit. The lines from Eliots much-critiqued poem  The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock  have nudged many to nirvana.

Modis apparent insecurities with his identity can be seen in loudly choreographed cultural assertions. This obviously was not the case with Nehru and others who preceded him.

Modis avoidable complexes have found him distributing copies of the Bhagvad Gita to visitors even as he makes bold claims to insights into Indias hoary past. Come to think of it, the Pope, whose job it is to proselytise, doesnt offer free copies of the Bible. If anything, world leaders who come to the Vatican to confer with him would not miss the opportunity to visit the Sistine Chapel. Modi, though, would derive greater pleasure from securing an easy sanction from the ruler of Abu Dhabi to build a temple in the emirate.

Would Modi visit the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village in New York, a catalyst for the gay rights movement in the US? Ghalib, to return to the master of cultural assimilation, memorably set off on a journey to colonial Calcutta from his modest perch in Delhi. En route, he composed an amazing tribute to the majesty of Benares and its Hindu populace. Savour an excerpt from Qurratulain Hyders translation of Chiragh-i-Dair or ((temple lamps):

May Heaven keep/ The grandeur of Benares/ Arbour of bliss, meadow of joy,/ For oft-returning souls/ Their journeys end./ In this weary Temple-land of the world/ Safe from the whirlwind of Time,/ Benaras is forever spring,/ Where autumn turns/ Into the touch of sandal on their foreheads/ Springtime wears the sacred thread/ Of flower-waves/ And the splash of twilight/ Is the crimson mark of Kashis/ Dust on heavens brow.

Weve seen snapshots of Modis engagements with his Indian fans abroad. Had he gone to New York to gain first-hand knowledge about a multicultural city instead, the PM would have visited the streets of Harlem with Savona Bailey-McClain. The African-American art curator and historian would have walked him through the evolution of the district. Ghalib described British vengeance when they flattened the old city of Delhi after 1857. Modi would now learn that the British also burnt down the district of Manhattan in their pursuit of George Washingtons militia.

Would Modi visit the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village in New York, a catalyst for the gay rights movement in the United States? Maries Crisis is a piano bar in the vicinity. All the men and women of varied sexual orientations can be found in the evenings.

The inimitable pamphleteer and documentary-maker Michael Moore is currently appearing on Broadway in a play about himself. It is called The Terms of My Surrender, a 90-minute one-man show mostly about how to get even with Donald Trumps ideology of hate. Moore announces to each packed show how he keeps a seat in the balcony for the president of the US. We recommend he keep a place for Mr Modi too.

How the hell did this happen? Moores opening gambit sets the tempo for the monologue. The audience goes into raptures. Moore reasons how things may not be as bad as they look. The president, the vice president, the supreme court, both houses of Congress belong to rivals. But we have the majority. Moores optimism flows from the actual headcount, which gave the Democrats a majority of the votes while the electoral college robbed them of victory  a message for the needlessly disheartened.

Ghalib would enjoy the planetarium in New York. Our sun is an ordinary star, just one among hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy, a plaque reminds us tersely. As the only star we can observe in detail, it provides a basis for our understanding of all stars.

The message unwittingly summarises Ghalibs own fulminations: Hasti ke mat fareb mein aajaaiyo Asad/ Aalam tamaam halqa-i-daam-i-khayaal hai. The universe deceptively fits into a single hole of the fishermans net that resembles the mind, said the poet. The Big Bang occurred 13 billion years ago. And 3.8bn years ago, life took root on Earth. How ancient is religion or any nation, including Mr Modis?

By arrangement with Dawn
Earlier, Prime Minister-aspirant Narendra Modi sought to beguile Indians with the slogan of Achche Din, and followed this up in his addresses to the nation from the Red Fort with details of policies like Swachch Bharat, Stand Up India, Skill India, Make in India, a longish list of aims which have produced little on the outcomes side. On Tuesday, speaking on the 70th anniversary of Independence, Mr Modi pushed a new slogan  New India, intended to induce hope, which he may seek to turn to his advantage at the hustings in 2019.

The question is: Can hope be injected in the absence of a platform of proven performance? The PM obviously thinks it can be  given his communication skills, his vigorous personal style and the radical vision of a Hindu India sought to be sold to a Hindu-majority notion. Of course, the people will be required to judge for themselves, and ask if their conditions of life are now better. New India is to be achieved rather quickly  by 2022  in the underlying expectation that Mr Modi will return in 2019. The definition of the concept is set out only rhetorically. Even so, there was no mention in the PMs hour-long peroration at Red Fort of education and health, although Mr Modi did refer in passing to the hospital tragedy in UP.

It appears that President Ram Nath Kovind can read the PMs mind. He spoke of New India in his address to the nation on the eve of Independence Day  equating it with compassion and equality, placing these in the framework of the idea of so-called integral humanism of the RSS-Jan Sangh leader Deen Dayal Upadhyay. Breaking protocol for the occasion, the President also applauded government policies  GST and withdrawal of cooking gas subsidy for the rich. Last month. in his acceptance speech too, he had endorsed Swachch Bharat. Lets hope South Block is not wagging Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Mr Modi knows it is stock-taking time for voters and the failed promise of creating two crore jobs per year may mock him. Thus, from the Red Fort the PM spoke in an exalting way of the young Indian turning job creator instead of being a job seeker, and left it there. An unprecedented feature of the PMs I-Day speech this year was lack of any mention of foreign policy. He chose not to mention even Pakistan and China, with whom friction is high.

There was a new slogan on Kashmir  to suggest that the solution lies in embracing Kashmiris, and not through bullets. Its to be seen where this goes in practical terms. On the whole, a flaccid speech relying on doleful recounting.
As the Trump administration moves closer to instructing the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to eliminate the Obama-era rule that bailed Congress out of paying its own Obamacare premiums, the pushback from congressional leadership has been ferocious. But if GOP leaders on the Hill think through the implications, they should see that it is actually in their strategic interests to welcome a move by President Trump to force them and their staff to live with the Obamacare law  until it can be changed.

Why? Because the hit to members and their staff of around $12,000 per family would create enormous pressure to pass at least a so-called staff fix restoring employer contributions for staff. But the American people would demand any such fix be paired with relief from Obamacare for millions of other Americans  jump-starting the overall repeal and replace effort and infusing personal urgency for everyone involved.

Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell would also be able, by welcoming the move by President Trump, to establish themselves as different, more honest leaders who are making a sharp break from the backroom deal cut by their predecessors with Barack Obama.

Quite simply, that deal was dirty.

The Obamacare law terminated the employer coverage members of Congress previously had, required them to sign up on the Obamacare exchanges, and provided no employer contribution. It would have put them in the exact same situation as the people most severely financially squeezed by Obamacare: people who dont have employer coverage and make too much money to qualify for subsidies. But it never happened.

After a too-little-noticed meeting with Senate Democrats in March 2013, Obama personally bailed Congress out of paying their own Obamacare premiums, and he delivered via an OPM rule purporting that Congress is a small business; the House and Senate then each filed a false document claiming to have less than 50 employees  before signing up 12,000 people.

This fraud of instructing Congress to masquerade as a small business was the key to the bailout scheme, because Obamacare effectively prohibits employer contributions for non-group coverage.

By reversing the OPM rule, President Trump could end an act of interbranch collusion whose sole purpose was to allow Congress to avoid the pain of a law they passed without the political consequences of actually changing that law.

And Congress would be back in the position they faced in 2013 before the dirty deal was done, with a bipartisan staff revolt and potential exodus of some key senior staffers under family financial pressure  but this time the only solution would be new legislation.

President Trump should make clear that he will only sign a staff fix as part of a broader package of health care reform that provides relief to all Americans  not tucked into some other unrelated bill.

The most equitable (and perhaps the only politically defensible!) fix would be for Congress to authorize employer contributions towards individual coverage not just for members of Congress and their staff, but for all employers. That reform is already included in the Graham-Cassidy-Heller bill that could serve as a template for a revived Senate health care bill that could provide meaningful relief from Obamacares mandates and regulations for all Americans.

The bottom line is that health reform has stalled and the best option the president has to jump-start it is to rescind the OPM rule. If GOP leaders in Congress want to deliver on their promise to provide relief from Obamacare, they should welcome such a game-changer.
India has achieved a lot in the last 70 years, theres still a lot more left to be done. Nation-building is really an ongoing project, and India remains a work-in-progress.

Seventy years ago, India made its tryst with destiny, but it came at the cost of the countrys Partition. Twenty-four years later, in 1971, the former East Pakistan broke away and formed the sovereign nation state of Bangladesh. The history of 70 years of the Indian subcontinent saw the birth of three nations. Though sharing a common history, common legacies and regional cultural identities, the three nations had different and distinctive narratives in politics, economic and socio-cultural developments in the post-colonial history of the subcontinent.

In India, democracy has taken deep roots over the last 70 years. The establishment of democratic institutions like Parliament and the state legislatures, supremacy of the Constitution, an independent judiciary; and democratic processes like holding regular elections are taken for granted by generations born in post-Independent India. In Pakistan, overwhelmingly rich and powerful feudal landlords, often overlapping and having common interests with an equally powerful military, resulted in Army coups subverting the democratic processes. The periodic attempts to establish and return to the democratic political process have been rather shaky, with military establishments having an overpowering influence over successive civilian governments.

Pakistan was created on religious grounds. But religion alone could not be a cementing factor to keep the two factions of West and East Pakistan together. The unfair distribution of power and resources between West and East Pakistan, the assertion of regional and linguistic identity of the people of East Pakistan and the atrocities meted out to East Pakistani citizens by the West Pakistan army further divided the subcontinent, resulting in the creation of Bangladesh.

Bangladesh also has its history of bloody Army coups. The assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the driving force behind the Bangladesh independence movement and the first President of the country, by the Army would always remain a shame in the history of Bangladesh. Sheikh Mujibs death followed by a series of counter-coups and political assassinations plunged the country into decades of turmoil. From the 1990s onwards, the process of restoration of democracy started in Bangladesh. The current Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina Wajed, daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, faces the challenge of rapid radicalisation of certain sections of society.

The past 70 years have witnessed four full-fledged wars in the subcontinent, three between India and Pakistan, the last one in 1971 being the Bangladesh war of independence, and one between India and China. There have been innumerable political assassinations, specially in Pakistan and Bangladesh. India lost Mahatma Gandhi to the forces of hate, and two Prime Ministers to the forces of terrorism. In Pakistan, hanging of democratically-elected Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto by President Zia-ul Haq spelt the death of democracy. Destiny did not spare Gen. Zia either. He died in a plane crash thats largely believed to be engineered. Bhuttos daughter, former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated by terrorists while on a campaign tour.

Any assessment of Indias achievements in the past 70 years should be seen in the context of this bloody and turbulent history of the Indian subcontinent. The biggest achievement of India has definitely been the establishment of democracy. There have been 16 general elections and innumerable state and local body elections in India since Independence. Unlike our neighboring countries, the elections have generally been peaceful, and transition from one government to another, despite a change in the ruling party, has always been smooth. In the last Lok Sabha elections, 55.38 crore people voted, making it the largest election in the world in terms of participation of voters electing their representatives.

India is the sixth largest economy in the world in terms of GDP, and the third largest by purchasing power parity. Its not a mean achievement given the fact that during colonial rule India suffered from a massive drainage of wealth. In 1947, 75 per cent of Indias population had been below the poverty line, coupled with a literacy rate of only 18 per cent. By 2012, the percentage of the population below the poverty line reduced to 22 per cent, and the literacy rate increased to 74 per cent according to the 2011 census. In 1947-48, the revenue receipts in the Central Budget was a mere Rs 171 crores. In 2017-18, it is estimated to be Rs 15,15,771.08 crores.

What is remarkable about Indias growth story is that most of it has been achieved through the generation of indigenous resources. Unlike many other developing countries that depend primarily on international funding and loans, Indias development model is focused on self-reliance.

One of our biggest success stories has been to achieve self-sufficiency in food production to feed an expanding population, and thus ensuring food security. The task of feeding 1.25 billion people is daunting for any nation, and without ensuring food security of such a vast number of population, any nation could be held hostage to the mercy of others. One of the most notable measures in this direction was the Green Revolution, at the end of which India transformed from a food-importing to a food-exporting nation. A self-reliant economic growth model has helped India to maintain independence in its foreign policies.

Whether spearheading the Nonaligned Movement during the Cold War, or the refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which India sees as unequal and unfair, India has always been able to withstand international pressures due to its resilient economy and the sound policies of its governments.

On the flip side, we need to achieve far more in the social sectors, primarily in health and education. Though the percentage of the population below the poverty line has reduced drastically, in terms of sheer numbers its still huge. The glaring gender disparity and the unequal distribution of wealth remain major impediments towards creating an egalitarian society. The management of internal security and balancing conflicting interests arising out of the diversity of ethnic groups and communities will always remain a challenge for any government. Finally, any ideology that propagates divisive politics is like a time-bomb that could destroy the social fabric of India.

While 70 years is a long time in human life, its not really much in the life of a nation. India has achieved a lot in the last 70 years, theres still a lot more left to be done. Nation-building is really an ongoing project, and India remains a work-in-progress.
There is a certain India in India and there is another type of India existing in the West.Travelling to USA and other Western countries, one comes across a unique type of India which is spiritual in its own way. It does feel good to see it and experience it. There are Western people who seem to be more enthusiastically involved in yoga and meditation than in Indians in India. It is not just yoga and meditation, there are other spiritual aspects which are also very popular, such as kirtans and bhajans professionally sung and composed by the local Western vocalists and musicians such as Krishna Das, Joshua and many more artists.

The mantra chants sung by British Miten and German Deva Premal are equally enchanting the Western seekers. The Tibetan chanting of Om Mani Padme Hum and other songs are also enjoyed everywhere. Meeting such people and listening to their visits to temples of Rishikesh, Varanasi and Khajuraho, monatries near Dharmashala, Ayurveda resorts of South India is really delightful. They describe aarti in Rishikesh as very enchanting and hypnotic. You can hear them with deep sigh exclaiming: Oh I would love to go to Rishikesh as soon as I can manage it, Oh I am dying to visit Lumbini again.

To the sincere seekers and meditators coming from the West, India does leave an indelible impression on their psyche. I do not see them talking about filth and garbage around the temples, which was also mentioned earlier. They are not complaining any more about the poor infrastructure of our tourist places. The Western young generation is ever happy to come to India and nourish their soul. Deep within their heart they feel that India has so much to offer, which our young generation does not seem to be interested. Our young boys and girls are interested to go to the West to find IT jobs and make their life prosperous. They even think of learning yoga in India quickly and have a Yoga Alliance ( Based in USA) certificate to be able to teach Yoga to the health conscious people of the Western world, which has now yoga centers in every part of the Western cities. It is a purely commercial interest. And the West does not mind buying it.

Beyond the selling and buying, it would be nice to look at India with a fresh perspective given by Osho. He says: India is not just geography or history. It is not only a nation, a country, a mere piece of land. It is something more: it is a metaphor, poetry, something invisible but very tangible. It is vibrating with certain energy fields which no other country can claim.

For almost ten thousand years, thousands of people have reached to the ultimate explosion of consciousness. Their vibration is still alive, their impact is in the very air; you just need a certain perceptivity, a certain capacity to receive the invisible that surrounds this strange land.

It is strange because it has renounced everything for a single search, the search for the truth. It has not produced great philosophers - you will be surprised to know it - no Plato, no Aristotle, no Thomas Aquinas, no Kant, no Hegel, no Bradley, no Bertrand Russell. The whole history of India has not produced a single philosopher - and they have been searching for truth!
Scientists will focus on the sun, but they will also examine what happens to Earths weather, to space weather, and to animals and plants on Earth as the moon totally blocks out the sun.

The sun is about to spill some of its secrets, maybe even reveal a few hidden truths of the cosmos. And you can get in on the act next week if you are in the right place for the best solar eclipse in the U.S. in nearly a century.

Astronomers are going full blast to pry even more science from the mysterious ball of gas thats vital to Earth. Theyll look from the ground, using telescopes, cameras, binoculars and whatever else works. Theyll look from the International Space Station and a fleet of 11 satellites in space. And in between, theyll fly three planes and launch more than 70 high-altitude balloons .

We expect a boatload of science from this one, said Jay Pasachoff, a Williams College astronomer who has traveled to 65 eclipses of all kinds.

Scientists will focus on the sun, but they will also examine what happens to Earths weather, to space weather, and to animals and plants on Earth as the moon totally blocks out the sun. The moons shadow will sweep along a narrow path, from Oregon to South Carolina.

Between NASA and the National Science Foundation, the federal government is spending about $7.7 million on next Mondays eclipse. One of the NASA projects has students launching the high-altitude balloons to provide live footage from the edge of space during the eclipse.

But its not just the professionals or students. NASA has a list of various experiments everyday people can do.

Millions of people can walk out on their porch in their slippers and collect world-class data, said Matt Penn, an astronomer at the National Solar Observatory in Tucson, Arizona.

Penn is chief scientist for a National Science Foundation-funded movie project nicknamed Citizen CATE. More than 200 volunteers have been trained and given special small telescopes and tripods to observe the sun at 68 locations in the exact same way. The thousands of images from the citizen-scientists will be combined for a movie of the usually hard-to-see suns edge.

Mike Conley, a Salem, Oregon, stock trader whose backyard is studded with telescopes, jumped at the chance to be part of the science team.

Who knows? Maybe a great secret will come of this, the mysteries of the sun will be revealed, because were doing something thats never been done before and were getting data thats never been seen before, he said. A big discovery will come and everybody will say, Hey, we were part of that!

You dont need to have telescopes to help out. You can use the iNaturalist app via the California Academy of Sciences and note the reaction of animals and plants around you. You can go to a zoo, like the Nashville Zoo, where they are asking people to keep track of what the animals are doing. The University of California, Berkeley, is seeking photos and video for its Eclipse Megamovie 2017, hoping to get more than 1,000 volunteers.

Even with all the high-tech, high-flying instruments now available, when it comes to understanding much of the suns mysteries, nothing beats an eclipse, said Williams Colleges Pasachoff. Thats because the sun is so bright that even satellites and special probes cant gaze straight at the sun just to glimpse the outer crown, or corona. Satellites create artificial eclipses to blot out the sun, but they cant do it as well as the moon, he said.

The corona is what astronomers really focus on during an eclipse. Its the suns outer atmosphere where space weather originates, where jutting loops of red glowing plasma lash out and where the magnetic field shows fluctuations. The temperature in the outer atmosphere is more than 1 million degrees hotter than it is on the surface of the sun and scientists want to figure out why. Its ironic that weve learned most about the sun when its disk is hidden from view, said Fred Mr. Eclipse  Espenak, a retired NASA astronomer who specialized in eclipses for the space agency.

And they learn other things, too. Helium  the second most abundant element in the universe  wasnt discovered on Earth until its chemical spectrum was spotted during an eclipse in 1868, Espenak said.

But that discovery is eclipsed by what an eclipse did for Albert Einstein and physics.

Einstein was a little known scientist in 1915 when he proposed his general theory of relativity, a milestone in physics that says what we perceive as the force of gravity is actually from the curvature of space and time. It explains the motion of planets, black holes and the bending of light from distant galaxies.

Einstein couldnt prove it but said one way to do so was to show that light from a distant star bends during an eclipse. During a 1919 eclipse, Arthur Eddington observed the right amount of bending, something that couldnt be done without the moons shadow eclipsing the sun.

It marked a complete change in the understanding of the universe, said Mark Littmann of the University of Tennessee, a former planetarium director. Bang. Right there.

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Prosecutors allege that before Hutchins won acclaim he created and distributed a malicious software called Kronos to steal banking passwords from unsuspecting computer users. (Image: Marcus Hutchins/AP)

A British cybersecurity researcher credited with helping curb a recent worldwide ransomware attack pleaded not guilty Monday to federal charges accusing him of creating malicious software to steal banking information three years ago.

Marcus Hutchins entered his plea in Wisconsin federal court, where prosecutors charged him and an unnamed co-defendant with conspiring to commit computer fraud in the state and elsewhere. Authorities arrested the 23-year-old man on Aug. 2 at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, where he was going to board a flight to his home in Ilfracombe, England. He had been in Las Vegas for a cybersecurity convention.

Hutchins attorney, Marcia Hofmann, said after Mondays brief hearing that Hutchins will fight the charges and that when the evidence comes to light, we are confident he will be fully vindicated.

Marcus Hutchins is a brilliant young man and a hero, Hofmann said.

Hutchins left afterward in a white SUV with tinted windows and did not talk to reporters. During the hearing, he only spoke to say I do, when Magistrate Judge William E. Duffin asked him if he understood his rights.

Hutchins is free on $30,000 bail, but with strict conditions. His bond has been modified so that he can stay in Los Angeles near his attorney and travel anywhere in the U.S., but he cannot leave the country. He was also granted access to use a computer for work, a change from an earlier judges order barring him from using any device with access to the internet. Hutchins has been working for a network security company, according to prosecutors, who did not oppose allowing him access to a computer for work.

Hutchins is required to wear a GPS monitor, but Duffin said the court will consider removing that requirement once Hutchins has found a home in Los Angeles and is complying with the terms of his bond.

The next hearing in the case was set for Oct. 17, with an Oct. 23 trial date, though the latter was expected to change due to the cases complexity.

The legal troubles Hutchins faces are a dramatic turnaround from the status of cybercrime-fighting hero he enjoyed four months ago when he found a kill switch to slow the outbreak of the WannaCry virus. It crippled computers worldwide, encrypting files and making them inaccessible unless people paid a ransom ranging from $300 to $600.

Prosecutors allege that before Hutchins won acclaim he created and distributed a malicious software called Kronos to steal banking passwords from unsuspecting computer users. In addition to computer fraud, the indictment lists five other charges, including attempting to intercept electronic communications and trying to access a computer without authorisation.

The indictment says the crimes happened between July 2014 and July 2015, but the court document doesnt offer any details about the number of victims. Prosecutors have not said why the case was filed in Wisconsin. The name of Hutchins co-defendant is redacted from the indictment.

Hutchins faces decades in prison if convicted on all the charges.

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Apple's dual sourcing does not impact the licensing revenue since licensing revenue from Apple products are not dependent upon whether such products include Qualcomm's chipsets, the company said in a regulatory filing.

Chipmaker Qualcomm Inc on Monday disclosed further details about the impact of an ongoing dispute with Apple Inc, responding to questions from the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Qualcomm, the largest maker of chips used in smartphones, said revenue in its CDMA technology business from modem sales for iPhones may continue to decline, in part depending on the extent of Apple's utilization of rivals' modems and the mix of the various versions that are sold.

Apple's dual sourcing does not impact the licensing revenue since licensing revenue from Apple products are not dependent upon whether such products include Qualcomm's chipsets, the company said in a regulatory filing.

Qualcomm said it would give further details on the impact of Apple's dual-sourcing model on product revenue, licensing revenue and profitability in its upcoming quarterly filing.

Apple, which is using Intel Corp's broadband modem chips in the iPhone 7, and Qualcomm are locked in a sprawling legal battle, with the iPad maker objecting to Qualcomm's business model of requiring customers to sign patent license agreements before buying chips.

Apple and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd together accounted for 40 percent of Qualcomm's revenue in fiscal 2016.

The US International Trade Commission agreed in August to look into a patent infringement complaint filed against Apple by Qualcomm in July, where it sought a bar on Apple selling some iPhones and iPads in the United States.

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If you have installed any one of the mentioned apps on your smartphone, it would be wise to uninstall them as soon as possible.

Google is taking app security on the Google PlayStore pretty seriously and is busy flagging off malicious apps from its collection. In the midst of this cleaning drive, cyber security agency Lookout has found out a new malware (public release) that can cause substantial damage to user data. Known as SonicSpy, this dangerous malware has been found attached to certain messenger app available for download in the PlayStore.

The SonicSpy malware was found to be attached with the following third-party apps on the PlayStore  Soniac Messenger, Troy Chat and Hulk Messenger. The Soniac Messenger is actually a customised version of the popular Russian messenger app  Telegram. The SonicSpy malware can use these apps to silently record audio, make calls, retrieve call logs and take photographs. The malware then sends the data to the attackers who then use this for negative intentions.

Apart from the PlayStore, Lookout has also found the malware to affect over 1000 apps hosted on other third-party app stores. Therefore it is advisable to download verified apps only from the Google PlayStore and avoid other third-party APK depositories. Also, if you have installed any one of the mentioned apps on your smartphone, it would be wise to uninstall them as soon as possible.

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Compared to the Bluetooth 4.0, the bandwidth speed is double at 2.1Mbps, the range improved by four times and enhanced support for long-range Bluetooth low energy devices like smartwatches and fitness bands.

A few days ago, rumours of the HTC U11 (review) tasting Bluetooth 5.0 surfaced into the limelight. It was known that the U11s hardware is capable of utilising the faster Bluetooth standard but had been limited by the software. Now, HTC has confirmed the same in an official statement, however with a catch.

HTC claims that the U11s hardware has the capability to utilise the latest Bluetooth 5.0 standard. Therefore, all it would need users to enjoy faster device-to-device transferring speeds is wait for an update from HTC. The Taiwanese smartphone giant will release the Bluetooth 5.0 update along with the Android 8.0 update, which is scheduled to hit the U11 sometime later in the U11s lifecycle.

HTC says that U11 wont even need a firmware update for Bluetooth 5.0. However, the company hasnt given out any details on the rollout of the next Android update. Compared to the Bluetooth 4.0, the bandwidth speed is double at 2.1Mbps, the range improved by four times and enhanced support for long-range Bluetooth low energy devices like smartwatches and fitness bands.

With this update, the U11 will join the exclusive Bluetooth 5.0 club of the Samsung Galaxy S8 (review), OnePlus 5 (review), Sony Xperia XZ Premium and Xiaomi Mi 6. If you own an HTC U11, then keep looking for HTCs announcement for the Android 8.0 update.

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The Note 8 has been known as SM-N950F in the world of smartphone rumours and the leak shows a device with the code name of SM-N950F/DS.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 is destined to be unveiled to the world on 23rd August and leaks of the device are now releasing realistic information. The latest of the leaks tell us that the Note 8 is bound to come with Dual-SIM functionality for the European models.

A report from the Galaxy Club suggests that Samsung had accidentally unveiled some details about the upcoming Note 8 phablet on their website. The Note 8 has been known as SM-N950F in the world of smartphone rumours and the leak shows a device with the code name of SM-N950F/DS. Now you dont need to be a rocket scientist to decipher the fact that DS stands for Dual-SIM.

Samsungs flagship offerings have been coming with all the amenities that a smartphone user expects from a smartphone, i.e. features like a 3.5mm headphone jack and a separate microSD card slot. With Note 8 having a Dual-SIM functionality, consumers will be getting a complete smartphone package.

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Alissa Ellis speaks to a crowd of protesters gathered in front of a Confederate statue at the old Durham County Courthouse, Monday, Aug. 14, 2017, in Durham, N.C. Protesters in North Carolina toppled a nearly century-old statue of a Confederate soldier Monday at the rally against racism. (Photo: AP)

Charlottesville: The driver charged with killing a woman at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville was previously accused of beating his mother and threatening her with a knife, according to police records released Monday.

Samantha Bloom, who is disabled and uses a wheelchair, repeatedly called police about her son, James Alex Fields Jr., in 2010 and 2011, telling officers he was on medication to control his temper, transcripts from 911 calls show.

Fields, 20, is accused of ramming his car into a crowd of counter-protesters on Saturday in Charlottesville, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer. Fields, described by a former high school teacher as an admirer of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, was charged with second-degree murder.

A judge denied him bail Monday after the public defenders office said it couldnt represent him because a relative of someone in the office was injured in Saturdays protest. Fields was assigned a local attorney, and another hearing was set for Aug. 25.

Records show that Fields was arrested and put in juvenile detention after his mother reported in 2011 that he stood behind her wielding a 12-inch knife.

In another incident in 2010, she said her son smacked her in the head and locked her in the bathroom after she told him to stop playing video games. There was no indication in the records that he was arrested.

Also Monday, a former classmate told The Associated Press that on a school trip to Europe in 2015, a teenage Fields couldnt stand the French and said he only went on the trip so that he could visit the Fatherland Germany. He just really laid on about the French being lower than us and inferior to us, said Keegan McGrath.

McGrath, now 18, said he challenged Fields on his beliefs, and the animosity between them grew so heated that it came to a boil at dinner on their second day. He said he went home after three or four days because he couldnt handle being in a room with Fields.

The incident shocked McGrath because he had been in German class with Fields for two unremarkable years.

He was just a normal dude most of the time, though he occasionally made dark jokes that put his class on edge, including one offhand joke about the Holocaust, McGrath said. McGrath said Fields was no outcast: He had friends. He had people who would chat with him.

Meanwhile, under pressure to speak out more forcefully, President Donald Trump condemned Ku Klux Klan members, neo-Nazis and white supremacists who take part in violence as criminals and thugs and declared that racism is evil.

Trumps initial failure on Saturday to denounce the groups by name, and his blaming of the violence on many sides, prompted criticism from fellow Republicans as well as Democrats.

A teacher who taught Fields in high school said Sunday that Fields was fascinated with Nazism, idolized Hitler, and had been singled out in the ninth grade by officials at Randall K. Cooper High School in Union, Kentucky, for his deeply held, radical convictions on race.

Fields also confided that he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was younger and had been prescribed an anti-psychotic medication, according to the teacher, Derek Weimer.

Fields later enlisted in the Army and reported for basic training in 2015 but was released from active duty four months later because of what military described only as a failure to meet training standards.

The violence in Charlottesville also was blamed for the deaths of two Virginia State Police officers in a helicopter crash.

Fields had been photographed hours before the attack with a shield bearing the emblem of Vanguard America, one of the hate groups that took part in the protest against the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. The group on Sunday denied any association with Fields.
New Delhi/Washington: United States President Donald Trump on Monday evening called Prime Minister Narendra Modi to extend his wishes on 70th Independence Day of India.

PM Modi thanking US president for his gratitude wrote on his twitter, Appreciate the warm felicitations from @POTUS, who called this evening to convey Independence Day greetings. Thank you @realDonaldTrump.

Modi mentioned Trumps both personal and professional account in his tweet.

Trumps greetings on Indias Independence come months after he hosted Modi at the White House. This was the first official meeting between Modi and Trump, after latter being inaugurated as US president, earlier this year.

United States and India has been in cordial relation from Trumps predecessor and has been sharing military, cyber intelligence including other sector information to each other.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister making his fourth Independence Day address to nation from Red Fort had said, A great sense of patriotism grips the country as India celebrates its 70th anniversary of Independence.

Dressed in off-white kurta and crimson turban, Modi first paid tributes to the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat on Tuesday morning before heading to the Red Fort where he will unfurl the Tricolour.
DEAR HARRIETTE: I have a client who has very little regard for the people she works with. She says that she wants all hands on deck to help her with whatever big project she is working on, but then she doesn't set herself or the project up for success. Most recently, she sent an email for a mandatory meeting at 11 a.m. on Sunday -- church time. And the request (or demand) was sent at 11 p.m. the night before. I was headed out when I noticed the invitation, so I canceled my plans and stayed in, which made me resentful of her and unhappy not to be able to go to church. When we got on the call, she didn't even bother to acknowledge that she had inconvenienced us, because she doesn't care.

I need this gig, which, by the way, is freelance, so I don't even get paid for these extra meetings. How can I have a better attitude while working with this woman? -- Undone, Cincinnati

DEAR UNDONE: What's good about your question is that you aren't asking how to change your client, as that is not possible. Changing your attitude -- and sometimes your actions -- is wise for your own well-being and mental and spiritual health. You could have apologized profusely and said that you could not attend the Sunday meeting because you would be in church. That could be followed up by an email or call asking for the notes so you could stay updated. You can take care of yourself by putting yourself first, remembering the value of the project for your own well-being and choosing to stay positive no matter what your client requests -- even when you have to say no.

DEAR HARRIETTE: I have been volunteering for a company for two years in order to gain experience. The company is small, and it focuses on exactly the type of work I want to do. My problem is that I realize that other people have come in as unpaid interns and have been hired in paying roles. Nobody in the company has ever told me, not even once, that there were any openings available. I have donated my time for these months in hopes that one day they might consider me for a position. Now I feel like a dunce for not pushing for it all along. What can I do to change my employment status? -- Losing Step, New Orleans

DEAR LOSING STEP: You have taken your future for granted, in the sense that you expected someone else to push you along. That's not how it works. You must show initiative. Start by revising your resume. Include on it the skills and responsibilities that you have gained in your role at this company. Name the role based on what you do, rather than calling it "volunteer" or "intern." Next, go to your supervisor and pitch yourself for a paid role at the company. Point out all that you have learned and are applying to the job. Don't stop there. Look more broadly in your field, and send your resume to competitors. You may just be ready to be hired somewhere else.

DEAR HARRIETTE: I recently ran into one of my neighbors, who used to invite me over to his house for drinks and social events with some regularity. I realize he doesn't invite me anymore. When I saw him, he casually said to me that he looks forward to me inviting him over for drinks sometime. Naturally, reciprocating is what I should be doing, but I can't. My house looks like it should be featured on that show "Hoarders." I'm serious. I can't seem to get it under control. I constantly work on sorting through things and throwing stuff away, but without success. When my neighbor asked me to invite him over, I thought I would die. How can I climb out of the mess? -- In Hiding, Minneapolis

DEAR IN HIDING: Get help. If you have been trying for years to clean up without accomplishing your goal, you need professional support. Contact a company in your area that helps hoarders clear out their homes. It is not an easy process, but you can get there with the right help. Keep thinking of being able to invite your neighbor over as motivation to take action!

DEAR HARRIETTE: Every summer for the past 15 years, my family and I have gone on vacation to the beach. This year has been difficult. I lost my job a few months ago, and we have had to cut back on our activities a lot. We managed to scrape together enough money to send our son to the camp he has attended for the past few years, but that meant that there was no money left for my husband and me to do anything more than whatever we can do locally. Friends keep asking us what's up, why we aren't heading to the sun like usual. Do I tell the truth -- we just can't afford it this year? Or do I say we decided to stay home and work on our house, which is also true? I'm not sure how forthcoming is appropriate. -- No Sun, No Fun, Dayton, Ohio

DEAR NO SUN, NO FUN: Think about the friends who are asking, how close you are to them and how much you want them to know. Since you are out of work, you may want to let people know so that if they have any leads, they can share them with you. Keeping your state of employment to yourself does not necessarily help you, even though it can be tough and feel embarrassing to talk about it. For the friends that you feel comfortable talking to, tell the truth -- all of it. It is a blessing that your son is able to enjoy the summer in his normal way. You are making the best of your situation, but these are lean times. Opening up allows you to think out loud with loved ones. Maybe you will find a path to abundance in this way.

DEAR HARRIETTE: I read one of your recent columns, and I wonder: Did anyone entertain the possibility that "Alex," the hungry teenager who eats constantly without any regard for his family, has an eating disorder and needs help? I know that it's more common in girls, but the fact that he doesn't make any specific requests but gorges on everything in sight sounds like compulsive eating. He's a teenager, and teenagers are under stress and often have emotional problems. Please suggest to his mother that she check it out. -- Concerned, Memphis, Tennessee

DEAR CONCERNED: Thank you for your suggestion. You are smart to point out that boys, too, can suffer from eating disorders. I did some research to be able to share more here. It turns out that teenage boys (and men) nationwide do wrestle with anorexia, bulimia and binge eating. Any parent who suspects his or her child of eating in an unhealthy way should investigate the possibility of an eating disorder. Get a complete physical for your child so that you gain an assessment of his or her health, and take the necessary steps to get your child healthy. This website has some good information specific to eating disorders and males: nationaleatingdisorders.org/males-and-eating-disorders. For anyone else who may be facing an eating disorder, do not suffer alone. Get help.

Harriette Cole is a lifestylist and founder of DREAMLEAPERS, an initiative to help people access and activate their dreams. You can send questions to askharriette@harriettecole.com or c/o Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106
Pyongyang has suggested North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's decision to launch four missiles into the waters around the U.S. Pacific territory is contingent on B-1B bomber flights from Guam to Korean airspace. The B-1B, though no longer capable of carrying nuclear weapons, is one of the most advanced bombers in the Air Force and Washington has ordered such missions over Korea frequently as a show of force against Pyongyang. (Photo: AP)

Hagatna: Guam officials were "ecstatic" Tuesday as North Korea appeared to back away from its threat to fire four missiles towards the US territory in the western Pacific.

"There doesn't appear to be any indication, based on what we're hearing, that there will be any missiles attacking in the near future or in the distant future," lieutenant governor Ray Tonorio said.

Guam Homeland Security adviser George Charfauros dismissed reports that satellite images showed North Korea moving a missile into place for a possible launch, saying it was likely "just a ruse".

"It is their Liberation Day North Korea tends to use symbolism as part of their decision making," he said after CNN reported on the US spy satellite pictures.

"We are almost ecstatic that Kim Jong Un has backed off," he added.

Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that Kim had examined plans to fire missiles near Guam, but made no move towards an immediate strike.

Instead he hinted he would hold off, saying he would "watch a little more the foolish and stupid conduct of the Yankees spending a hard time of every minute of their miserable lot".

Tensions have been mounting since North Korea last month conducted two intercontinental ballistic missile tests, which appeared to bring much of the US within range.

President Donald Trump responded by warning Pyongyang of "fire and fury like the world has never seen". The North replied by setting a mid-August deadline to finalise plans to test-fire its missiles towards Guam, a US territory in the Pacific.

As Guam residents waited anxiously for the deadline, they were woken just after midnight Tuesday by a "civil danger warning" that was accidentally broadcast by a radio station.

A statement from the Guam Homeland Security and Civil Defense office said the "unauthorised test was not connected to any emergency, threat or warning" and it was working to ensure "human error will not occur again".

Tonorio said Kim appeared to have "calmed down" some of his rhetoric. "We're happy that he has taken a look at their plans and will be holding off on, at least it appears, the imminent threats to Guam," he said.

"At this point, our government is operating, our tourism is continuing to grow, there have been no major changes in our forecast." Guam's citizens have been stoic through the crisis, with many saying they fear the looming typhoon season more than aggression from North Korea which has threatened the island several times in recent years.

"It doesn't change the way I feel. At the height of the threats, I was not worried. I have faith in the Lord," 58-year-old accountant Adoracion Manibusan said after Pyongyang took a step back from the brink.

"Besides, there is really nothing we can do if we get attacked. There's no place to hide," she said. Despite the cooler language from North Korea, Tonorio said there was no change to the threat level in Guam, which is home to two large US military installations and more than 6,000 military personnel.

"I think the rhetoric is one thing but if we have any belief, as a country or as an island, that there is going to be a threat, we are going to be prepared. We are going to be ready for it," he said.
Khong Tam Thanh, 22, is one of the three men accused of gang rape. (Photo: AFP)

Singapore: Three young British men were sentenced Tuesday to jail time and caning for sexually assaulting a Malaysian woman during a stag party in Singapore.

Khong Tam Thanh, Le Michael and Vu Thai Son, in their 20s, were originally accused of rape but pleaded guilty on Monday to a lesser charge of aggravated outrage of modesty after a four-day trial.

High Court Judge Hoo Sheau Peng slammed their reprehensible conduct and sentenced the trio, British citizens of Vietnamese origin, to jail terms of between five and a half years to six and a half years. They were also sentenced to between five and eight strokes of the cane each.

Caning is a punishment dating back to British colonial rule in Singapore and involves being flogged with a rattan stick. The attack happened in Singapore in September last year, when the trio travelled to the city-state for a bachelor party. The groom, the brother of Khong, was also on the trip.

After attending an electronic music festival, the men met the 23-year-old victim at a popular nightspot, and she went back to a hotel with one of their friends.

Later, Khong, 22, Le and Vu both 24 took turns to enter the room where she lay drunk and unconscious and have sex with her, with the woman waking up as Le assaulted her.

As well as outrage of modesty, Khong and Vu, who worked as beauticians in Britain, were also convicted of an additional charge of sexual assault.
In his closely-watched New Year speech, Kim Jong-Un said North Korea was in the final stages of developing an ICBM. (Photo: AP)

Seoul: North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has been briefed on a plan to fire missiles near Guam but hinted that he would hold off on the launch, Pyongyang's state media said Tuesday.

Kim "examined the plan for a long time" and "discussed it" with commanding officers on Monday during his inspection of the command of the Strategic Force in charge of the North's missile units, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

He said that "the US imperialists caught the noose around their necks due to their reckless military confrontation racket".

But Kim hinted he would hold off on the plan to test-fire missiles towards the US Pacific island territory, saying he would "watch a little more the foolish and stupid conduct of the Yankees spending a hard time of every minute of their miserable lot".

"In order to defuse the tensions and prevent the dangerous military conflict on the Korean peninsula, it is necessary for the US to make a proper option first and show it through action, as it committed provocations after introducing huge nuclear strategic equipment into the vicinity of the peninsula", he was quoted as saying by KCNA.

He urged the US to "stop at once arrogant provocations" against the North and not provoke it any longer.

- War of words -

North Korea's military said last week that it would finalise by mid-August its detailed plan to test-fire four intermediate-range ballistic missiles in an "enveloping fire" around Guam and report it to its leader for approval.

Tensions have been mounting since the North tested two intercontinental ballistic missile tests last month, which appeared to bring much of the US within range.

Responding to the tests, US President Donald Trump warned Pyongyang of "fire and fury like the world has never seen".

The North in turn threatened to test-fire its missiles towards the US Pacific island of Guam.

The war of words has sparked global alarm, with world leaders including Chinese President Xi Jinping urging calm on both sides.

South Korean President Moon Jae-In also waded in on Monday, calling for calm in the standoff with North Korea, saying there should never be another war on the peninsula.

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis warned Monday that an attack against the United States could quickly escalate into war, as he and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson moved to dial down tensions.

Mattis's comments came after they said in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal that America has "no interest" in regime change in Pyongyang or the accelerated reunification of the two Koreas, and stressed the importance of a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

The two statesmen decided to write the piece a couple of weeks ago, and it had not been in response to last week's heated rhetoric, Mattis said.

Mattis and Tillerson said the United States favors a diplomatic solution to the nuclear stand-off, especially with help from China, though they stressed diplomacy is "backed by military options."
London: A road safety campaign in the UK that uses images of a young cartoon character wearing a hijab has dropped the pictures after it was accused of sexualising children. The 2 million campaign, promoted by Transport for London (TfL), includes childrens books distributed in nurseries as well as an interactive website. The stories are illustrated with characters from ethnically diverse backgrounds.

The Muslim girl, aged three or four, is called Razmi and always shown wearing a religious headscarf. Razmi is seen indoors in the home of a Chinese girl and that childs grandmother and on outings, The Times reported. TfL, which is chaired by Sadiq Khan, the capitals Labour mayor, has apologised and said that it would stop using the images, the report said.

Gina Khan, an advocate of Islamic womens equality, was quoted as saying, You are sexualising a four-year-old girl. It is as simple as that. Aisha Ali-Khan, a Muslim feminist campaigner, said the publishers of the book need diversity training.
Erdogan has sometimes lashed out at the rise of "Persian nationalism" in the region, especially in Iraq. (Photo: File)

Ankara: Iran's chief of staff arrived in Ankara Tuesday for "unprecedented" talks with Turkey's leadership reportedly aimed at narrowing differences on the Syria crisis and coordinating policy on Iraq.

General Mohammad Hossein Bagheri is due to meet Defence Minister Nurettin Canikli and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during his three-day visit. He kicked off the visit by meeting his Turkish counterpart Hulusi Akar, the state-run Anadolu news agency said.

Pro-government Turkish Daily Sabah quoted diplomatic sources as saying the visit was a "milestone" and would not have been possible unless both sides were willing to make deals on both Syria and Iraq. Iran's official IRNA news agency meanwhile described the visit as "unprecedented" in the history of bilateral relations. "This trip was necessary for better consultation and cooperation on various military and regional issues," Bagheri said in a statement to state Iranian broadcaster IRIB, citing border security and the fight against terror.

Yet relations between overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim Turkey, a secular state, and the mainly Shiite Islamic Republic of Iran have on occasion been tense in the last years.

Erdogan has sometimes lashed out at the rise of "Persian nationalism" in the region, especially in Iraq. Turkey and Iran lie on opposing sides of the Syrian conflict, with Erdogan seeking the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad to end the war and Tehran, along with Moscow, his key remaining ally and backer.

But Turkey and Russia have been cooperating more over Syria in recent months, helping to extract civilians from Aleppo and then co-sponsoring peace talks in the Kazakh capital Astana. But with its anti-Assad rhetoric toned down, Ankara now appears especially concerned about the presence of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in the border area.

Although an ally of the United States, the YPG is considered by Turkey as terror group and the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which has waged a deadly three decade insurgency in the Turkish southeast.

The rise of jihadists in the province of Idlib, neighbouring Turkey, has also alarmed Ankara, Moscow and Tehran. Both Turkey and Iran have substantial Kurdish minorities and they vehemently oppose a plan by Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region to organise a vote on independence later this year.

Turkey has begun building a "security wall" along part of its border with Iran, regional officials said this month, along the lines of a similar barrier on the Syrian border.
The drone fly within 1,000 feet of aircraft based on the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier. (Photo: Representational/

Dubai: An unarmed Iranian drone shadowed a US aircraft carrier at night and came close enough to F-18 fighter jets to put the lives of American pilots at risk, the Navy said Tuesday, reporting the second such tense encounter within a week.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard said the US safety concerns were unfounded. The Iranian Sadegh drone flew without any warning lights Sunday night while shadowing the USS Nimitz, said Lt. Ian McConnaughey, a spokesman for the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet.

The drone did not respond to repeated radio calls and came within 1,000 feet (300 meters) of US fighters, he said. That "created a dangerous situation with the potential for collision and is not in keeping with international maritime customs and laws," McConnaughey said in a statement.

The drone was unarmed, the lieutenant said, though that model can carry missiles. Iran's Revolutionary Guard issued a statement early Tuesday saying their drones are guided "accurately and professionally," dismissing the US Navy's concerns as "unfounded."

In a similar encounter Aug. 8, the Navy said an Iranian drone came within 100 feet (30 meters) of an F-18 preparing to land on the Nimitz. Iranian vessels and US warships have also had tense encounters in recent months.

President Donald Trump has threatened to renegotiate the nuclear deal struck by his predecessor amid new sanctions targeting Iran over its ballistic missile tests.

So far this year, the Navy has recorded 14 instances of what it describes as "unsafe and/or unprofessional" interactions with Iranians forces. It recorded 35 in 2016 and 23 in 2015.

The incidents at sea almost always involved the Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary force that reports only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Some analysts believe the incidents are meant in part to squeeze moderate President Hassan Rouhani's administration after the 2015 nuclear deal.

Of the incidents at sea last year, the worst involved Iranian forces capturing and holding overnight 10 US sailors who strayed into the Islamic Republic's territorial waters.

Iranian forces in turn accuse the US Navy of unprofessional behavior, especially in the Strait of Hormuz, the mouth of the Persian Gulf, through which a third of all oil traded by sea passes.
Islamabad: The Afghan Taliban on Tuesday released an "open letter" to President Donald Trump, reiterating their calls for the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan after 16 years of war.

In a long and rambling note in English that was sent to journalists by Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, the insurgents said Trump has recognized the errors of his predecessors by seeking a review of the US strategy for Afghanistan.

However, Mujahid said Trump should not hand control of the US Afghan policy to the military but rather announce the withdrawal of US forces - and not an increase in troops as the administration has planned.

The 1,600-word note said a US withdrawal would "truly deliver American troops from harm's way" and bring about "an end to an inherited war." The United States now has about 8,400 troops in Afghanistan.

Trump has so far resisted the Pentagon's recommendations to send almost 4,000 more to expand training of Afghan military forces and bolster U.S. counterterrorism operations.

The deployment has been held up amid broader strategy questions, including how to engage regional powers in an effort to stabilize Afghanistan.

What is evident is that the Afghan government has struggled to halt Taliban advances on its own and is now also battling an Islamic State affiliate that has carved out a foothold mostly in eastern Afghanistan.

In its most recent report, the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction said the Taliban hold sway in nearly 50 percent of the country.

The Taliban letter sought to flatter Trump for initiating the Afghan policy review while warning against handing it to "warmongering generals."

"We have noticed that you have understood the errors of your predecessors and have resolved to thoroughly rethinking your new strategy in Afghanistan," it said, addressing Trump.

"You must also not hand over the Afghan issue to warmongering generals, but must make a decision where history shall remember you as an advocate of peace."

The letter also offered a long list of complaints against Afghanistan's US-orchestrated unity government and referenced a newly formed coalition of disgruntled warlords formed at a meeting last month in Turkey as an opposition bloc to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

Ghani has been under pressure from critics who have described him as divisive and accused him of stoking ethnic rivalries.

The opposition bloc includes Uzbek warlord and Afghanistan's first vice president, Rashid Dostum, who has been criticized by the U.S. for human rights abuses and is currently living in Turkey.

Atta Mohammed Noor, a Tajik warlord and governor of northern Balkh province and Mohammed Mohaqiq, an ethnic Hazara lawmaker are also in the bloc.
Beijing: Trade tensions between the United States and China heated up on Tuesday as Beijing warned that it "will not sit idle" if a US probe into its intellectual property practices leads to sanctions.

President Donald Trump's decision to order the investigation comes on top of strains between the two nations over how to handle Beijing's ally North Korea.

Trump on Monday signed a memorandum directing US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to determine whether Chinese policies hurt American investors or companies -- with retaliatory measures a possible outcome.

"We will stand up to any country that unlawfully forces American companies to transfer their valuable technology as a condition of market access. We will combat the counterfeiting and piracy that destroys American jobs," Trump said.

"We will safeguard the copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets and other intellectual property that is so vital to our security and to our prosperity.

"Washington will turn a blind eye no longer," Trump insisted.

The president said the US would no longer tolerate Beijing's "theft" of US industrial secrets, long a concern of major foreign corporations seeking a share of the huge Chinese market.

"We will engage in a thorough investigation and, if needed, take action to preserve the future of US industry," Lighthizer said.

China's commerce ministry issued a statement voicing "serious concern" and warning that any US trade protectionism "will definitely harm bilateral trade relations".

"If the US side take actions that impair the mutual trade relations, disregarding the facts and disrespecting multilateral trade rules, China will not sit idle," the statement said.

The ministry said the country "is definitely going to adopt all appropriate measures to vigorously defend the lawful rights and interest of China."

The United States is China's second-largest trading partner after the European Union, but Washington and Beijing have seen their relations grow increasingly fraught since a promising summit between Trump and China's Xi Jinping in April.

- Multiple trade disputes -

The new intellectual property inquiry joins numerous investigations launched by Washington into Chinese trade practices, notably those concerning steel and aluminum and their national security consequences, which the Trump administration began earlier this year.

However, the start of a US inquiry will not immediately result in open confrontation.

Lighthizer will first need to reach a preliminary finding of unfair practices by China before opening a formal investigation, which could take as much as a year, administration officials said.

The Chinese commerce ministry said the country has "always been paying high attention to intellectual property right protection, continuously perfecting the legislation", and that the progress it has made on that front is "obvious to all".

Since launching his successful run for the White House and then taking office, Trump has frequently accused China of undermining the US economy.

The bilateral US trade deficit with China approached $350 billion in 2016, and Trump has repeatedly blamed Chinese imports for gutting employment in US sectors such as steel.

Last week, Washington announced preliminary sanctions against Chinese imports of aluminium foil. But so far, the US has not imposed heavier trade measures on Chinese goods.

- North Korea a bargaining chip? -

On Thursday, Trump reiterated the suggestion that he could soften his position on trade if Beijing were to do more to help rein in nuclear-armed North Korea.

"If China helps us, I feel a lot differently toward trade," he said.

China said it would halt iron, iron ore and seafood imports from North Korea starting Tuesday, in accordance with new UN sanctions that Beijing voted to approve.

US administration officials, however, have denied any link between the latest trade action and Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.

Beijing echoed this view Monday, with the foreign ministry saying the two matters were "totally different."

Despite Monday's expected action, Trump has so far refrained from making good on threats of retaliatory trade measures against China.

This includes in particular concerns over Beijing's requirement that foreign companies establish local joint ventures. According to Washington, this can mean surrendering technological know-how to Chinese partners.
The recent flood that devastated Assam was the worst natural catastrophe in several years, according to the Assam State Disaster Management Authority. The mighty Brahmaputra, a trans-boundary river, is braided and unstable in its entire reach in Assam and annually floods the state. These floods also affect the neighbouring states of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Manipur.



The Brahmaputra Board, established in 1980, is a central government body that is tasked to carry out surveys and investigations in the Brahmaputra Valley and prepare a masterplan for the control of floods, bank erosion and improvement of drainage. Its responsibilities are related to the development and management of the Brahmaputra and Barak basins, but the implementation of all programmes is still far from satisfactory. But is the governments responsibility solely limited to constructing embankments to prevent floods?



Assam is a classic case of such a piecemeal, temporary solution through a lengthy chain of embankments. Assam has 423 embankments with a total length of 4,474.42 km and 295 embankments which, along 3,998 km, have outlived their lifespan. Clearly, this increases the scope for breaches, resulting in floods that affect almost 40% of Assam in terms of territory and population.



In July 2017, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India submitted its report to Parliament on Schemes for Flood Control and Flood Forecasting. It highlighted a huge discrepancy in the execution of work and grant of funds for flood-affected areas both by the central and state governments. Flood management programmes were not taken up in an integrated manner. Even recommendations of the National Flood Commission, New Delhi, related to Identification of Area affected by Flood in Country remains unfulfilled, according to the CAG report.



Therefore, a clear identification of flood-prone areas, periodic maintenance of embankments, and proper and accurate flood forecasting data is the need of hour. Rather than a temporary solution, the government should look into a comprehensive and holistic approach to flood management. Integrated Flood Management, within the framework of Integrated Water Resource Management, is a paradigm shift from flood control to flood management. It has its genesis in the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg, South Africa. Its main aim is to maximise the net benefits of flood plain and at the same time reduce loss of life. It also looks at the river basin as a dynamic system, where there is continuous interaction between land and water resources.



While natural topography and heavy rainfall are obvious causes, floods also result from human interventions like encroachments in flood plain areas, lack of drainage, faulty agricultural practices and hill-cutting, which further increase flood frequency and intensity. Central and state government strategy involving flood control measures, based on engineering solutions such as construction of embankments, are ad hoc in nature and provide only uni-dimensional solutions.



Such structural measures have only heightened the level of ecological imbalance, which limits the spread of river water, and in turn increases the thickness of the river bed. Over time, with continuous flow of water, embankments are weakened which eventually get breached and result in heavy floods along adjoining areas. To some extent, such an engineering approach, which amounts to flood control only, prolongs the next round of floods. But it is not flood management in the true sense.



Flood control is a short-term approach to ensure that dayto-day living of people resident along the river are not affected; on the other hand, flood management is a comprehensive strategy that involves management of the ecology. There are many plans and programmes to reduce flood hazards. So, the main concern is to prepare a time-bound action plan to accelerate the completion of all the long-term river management projects. Strong political will at both national and state level, besides active participation of all stakeholders, is necessary to accomplish these objectives.



Floods always have a severe impact on the lower basin. Brahmaputra floods have a devastating effect on the lower river streams, particularly in Bangladesh, which is highly vulnerable to flood hazards, being a lower riparian state. Uncoordinated flood management policies in an identical and geographically integrated region are not effective solutions. Therefore, along with the national and regional action plan, India should also play the role of a responsible upper riparian neighbour.



Civilisations have historically prospered on flood plains that support agriculture and allied livelihood activities for which rivers provide the water for human settlements. Floods are therefore an integral part of nature, which is essential for creation and maintenance of an ecosystem. It helps to reinvigorate the farm lands, enhance fertility and increase agricultural productivity. Also, flooded areas ensure maintenance of ground water levels. How have such natural phenomena come to be perceived as natural disasters in most parts of the country?



(The writer is an Assistant Professor with the Department of International Studies and History at Christ University, Bengaluru)
The civil services preliminary examination to select IAS and IPS officers among others has been scheduled to be held on June 3 next year, the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) has said.

Except for this year's test, which was held on June 18, the preliminary tests for 2016, 2015 and 2014 were held during the month of August, as per UPSC records.



The preliminary exam for 2013 was held on May 26. The civil services preliminary examination, 2018, is scheduled to be held on June 3, as per the UPSC's programme of examinations for 2018.



The notification for next year's exam will be issued on February 7. The last date for receipt of applications would be March 6, 2018, it said.



The civil services examination is conducted annually by the UPSC in three stages -- preliminary, main and interview -- to select officers for Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and Indian Police Service (IPS), among others.



The number of vacancies to be filled on the result of the 2017 civil services examination is expected to be approximately 980 which include 27 vacancies reserved for those in physically handicapped category. The result of civil services preliminary examination 2017 was declared on July 27.
"Please, don't tell me more." It's become a common plea from people choosing to disengage from the seemingly constant car crash that is our politics and culture. Apparently, presidential tweets about war and jokes about mushroom clouds and North Korean Pokemon armies aren't their cup of tea. Imagine that.

When Fr. Gerard Hammond thinks of the prospect of any kind of military escalation, the word "catastrophe" is the first that comes to his mind.

The Philadelphia native says this as someone who's been to North Korea delivering medicine more than 50 times since he was first sent as a missionary to South Korea in 1960, where he lived and worked for 30 years. Among things he learned there that he never learned in his years of seminary studies: "When you're hungry, drink water. It will trick your body into thinking you're full." That pointer came from a miner, and Hammond has had plenty of occasions to put it to good use.

Fr. Hammond was recently in St. Louis, Missouri, receiving an award from the Knights of Columbus, the Catholic men's fraternal organization -- an award previously given to Mother Teresa, among others.

The priest describes how in his first years, he didn't know the language of his Korean flock. But he wanted to teach -- scripture, the catechism, the meaning of the sacraments -- and he learned quickly that action was the way to go. "'They'll know you are Christians by your love' is a real thing," he says. "I've baptized a lot of people. And you can tell they really want to be Christian because they have seen joy in another Christian," he explains.

He describes being "overwhelmed" himself, by receiving the KOC award the night before we talked. He said, "at 84 years old," it is giving him energy ... "because I see people here with deeply committed faith ... that helps me to realize maybe I should do a little more."

That, of course, is an interview-stopper. When a man who has devoted his life to others, shipped off in the prime of his career, so to speak, to a land completely unknown to him, when a man who has regularly gone on covert missionary trips that put his life in danger tells you he should be doing more! But this, he says, is "the joy of the Gospel" that Pope Francis talks about.

When I protest that I should be doing more -- many who will read this column may feel prompted to consider the same question themselves -- he said: "Well, isn't that it? We should all do more. But know that you can do more where you are. You don't have to go overseas to do more." At another point, he emphasizes how living our lives according to our own vocations, our own roles, faithfully and fully with love, helps people in ways we may never know.

As far as North and South Korea and the prospects of reconciliation between the two countries, his piece of the work is "people-to-people encounter." Finding out about cousins split by the border who haven't seen each other in decades, or ever. He has been able to get into North Korea with an American passport because "they know we're trying to help people that they are unable to take care of."

He talks about the humbling reality of his work: "People come to you ... and you realize there are problems you have no solution to, but we should listen. At least listen. And maybe that's all that the person wants you to do, because the problem remains, but at least they were able to have the consolation of talking to you; you were able to bless them and tell them to come back."

"We're on this journey together," Fr. Hammond says, "no matter what. Because the best is yet to come. That's what we believe. All of us believe the same thing: The best is yet to come."

And you can hear the assurance in his voice -- he knows this message is not only worth repeating, but needs repeating, because it needs to be heeded. Whether in North Korea or North Dakota, or wherever the latest presidential tweet comes from. Whatever our circumstances, we have in common our hunger for hope.

Kathryn Jean Lopez is senior fellow at the National Review Institute, editor-at-large of National Review Online and founding director of Catholic Voices USA. She can be contacted at klopez@nationalreview.com
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today asserted that violence in the name of faith is "not acceptable" and described casteism and communalism as "poison" for the country.



The comments assume significance in the backdrop of incidents of lynchings by cow vigilantes. "Violence in the name of faith is not acceptable in the country," Modi said in his Independence Day speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort.



Pitching for harmony and peace, he said "Bharat Jodo" (connect India) should be the slogan like "Bharat chhodo" (Quit India) was during the freedom struggle.



Describing casteism and communalism as "poison" in the society, Modi said such problems cannot benefit the country in any way.



Underlining that India is the land of Mahatma Gandhi and Lord Buddha, he said the culture of the country is to take everyone along on the path of development. "Therefore, violence cannot be emphasised in the name of faith," he said.
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah today said "imposition" of any language on a state, which has its own official language, is unconstitutional.



The statement comes against the backdrop of protests by pro-Kannada outfits against use of Hindi on Namma Metro signboards. Siddaramaiah had written to the Centre stating the state government was compelled to ask the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation to temporarily re-design signboards in stations without the Hindi language.



Also, the Kannada Development Authority had asked all nationalised, scheduled and rural banks in the state to ensure that all non-Kannada speaking staff learn the language in six months.



"Every state has its own official language and our Constitution recognises the primacy of that language in the state to the exclusion of other languages. Hence imposition of any other language in a state is unconstitutional and it is against the spirit of Formation of States on Linguistic basis," Siddaramaiah said in his address on 71st Independence Day here.



He said the strength of the nation lies in the fact that all languages and communities not only co-exist, but also flourish by retaining their respective identities within the democratic set-up as ordained by our constitution.



Asserting that people are witnessing the phenomena of communalism and casteism "raising their ugly heads all around, joined by fascist forces", the chief minister said, "This is a very dangerous development about which all right thinking citizens are concerned."



Siddaramaiah asked people to take a pledge to annihilate divisive forces actively promoting communalism and casteism, "which are nothing but anti-national".



The government was planning the third phase of the Metro, which is likely to add another 92 km to the existing network, he said, adding, "Together with all the phases, Bengaluru will have a total metro line of 250 km by the year 2022."



In the last four years, 1.16 lakh small-scale and micro industrial units with Rs 22,175 crore of investment has been registered and 10.3 lakh jobs created, the chief minister said.



By December this year, 2,500 Gram Panchayats would have Wifi and remaining 3,500 would get it by 2018, making Karnataka a completely wifi-enabled state, he added.
Independence Day celebrations in Kerala came with a political twist after RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat hoisted the national flag at a government-aided school in Palakkad, defying a directive from the district administration.



The RSS chief unfurled the tricolour at the Karnakayamman Higher Secondary School at Moothanthara in Palakkad district at about 9 am on Tuesday. The school management, reported as close to the Sangh Parivar, is likely to face action for defying District Collector P Marykuttys order which stipulated that organisational leaders could not hoist the national flag at a government-aided school.



The RSS chief is in Kerala on a two-day visit as the ruling CPM and the RSS-BJP are in an uneasy truce following an intense political war of words over last months killing of an RSS karyavahak, S N Rajesh, in Thiruvananthapuram.



The Collectors directive was sent late Monday night to the school management, the district police chief, Tahsildar and Deputy Director of Education, pointing out that only school administrators or elected peoples representatives should hoist the national flag at schools. The directive was sent in the wake of a message from the ADGP, Intelligence, regarding possible violation of government directions at the event.



The RSS slammed what it called a political move and said interpretations of the law were invoked in an effort to stop Bhagwat from unfurling the tricolour. The programme was finalised and announced well in advance. When they decide to send a memo restricting it like this, the agenda is clear. Well legally face any action in connection with the incident, P Gopalankutty, RSS prantkaryavahak, told Deccan Herald.



The CPM said the RSS decision to defy the district administrations order was part of efforts to reignite political violence. Law Minister A K Balan criticised the RSS decision to go ahead with the event despite the district administrations order. Bhagwat, after unfurling the tricolour, addressed a gathering at the school.
India is capable of tackling any kind of security challenge, be it the sea or borders, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today asserted amid the standoff with China in Doklam.



Without naming China or the two-month-long Doklam standoff, he said the country's security is a priority for his government and that soldiers are deployed to protect the borders effectively.



In his Independence Day speech from the ramparts of the historic Red Fort, Modi referred to last year's surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC) and said the world has realised the mettle of India's security forces.



"It is clear that security of our country is our priority. Internal security is our priority. Be it sea or borders, be it cyber or space, India is capable of tackling every security challenge," he said.



"Our army, our bravehearts, every personnel in uniform and not only the Army, Navy, the IAF, have shown their capability and grit whenever there was a situation. Our heroes never shied away from sacrifices," he said.



The prime minister said the personnel in uniform were always ready to combat any kind of challenges facing the country -- be it Left-wing extremism, terrorism, infiltration or tackling those trying to foment trouble inside the country.



"Be it Left-wing extremism, terrorism, be it infiltration or be it tackling the forces trying to foment trouble inside, our people in uniform have always given sacrifices," he said.



He asserted that there will be no soft approach towards terrorism or terrorists and the government is determined to rid the country of this menace.



At the same time, he said the government has given an opportunity to the terrorists to join the national mainstream.



"We have told terrorists 'you come to the mainstream, you have right to talk inside the country's democratic system'. Only the mainstream can fill the energy in every one's life," he said.



The prime minister said that in its fight against terrorism, India is getting support from other countries. "You will be happy to know that we are not alone in fight against terrorism. So many countries have been actively helping us. If there is hawala transaction, the world is giving us information, the world is giving us details about movement of terrorists," he said.



"I want thank all those countries which are cooperating with India in fighting the menace and this cooperation is giving strength in ensuring overall peace and security," Modi said.



Due to efforts of the security forces, particularly in areas under Left-wing extremism, a large number of youth have surrendered and made efforts to come to the mainstream, he said.



"India's stature in the world is rising. The world is with us in fight against terror. I thank all nations helping us doing so," he said.



Modi said a website is being launched to give information about security personnel who have contributed significantly towards the country.



The prime minister also referred to implementation of one-rank, one-pension scheme for defence personnel.



"For last 30, 40 years, the issue of 'one-rank, one- pension' was pending. When the government fulfils the demand, when the government heeds to wishes of the armed forces, then their resolve to give sacrifices for the country increases," he said.
Congress on Tuesday trashed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Independence Day adress as the most disappointing and his war against black money a sham.



The main opposition party also took objection to the trivial manner in which the Prime Minister clubbed the Gorakhpur tragedy, that saw 30 infants die over a period of two days, with natural calamities.



The Prime Minister's Independence Day address has been most disappointing. After three years, it was time for him to give an account of the failure of his government in fulfilling its promises to the people, especially the youth, farmers and weaker sections, senior Congress spokesperson Anand Sharma told reporters here.



The Congress also launched a broadside against Modi on social media accusing him of peddling lies from the Red Fort. Unlike a PM who fills the Lal Qila with his lies, today we remember former PMs who stood by their words at the Red Fort, the Congress said on its Twitter handle and posted short videos of former prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, P V Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh.



Hitting out at Modi's claims of fighting black money, Sharma accused the NDA government of promoting black money hoarding and crony capitalism.



Why has this government not given an account of how much of black money is there in the money that has come back to the RBI vaults, the former Union Commerce Minister asked.



Referring to the Gorakhpur deaths, Sharma said Modi did not reflect the gravity of the situation. He has in a very trivial manner equated the Gorakhpur tragedy to national calamities, the Congress leader said.



On Modi's assertions against casteism and communalism, Sharma wondered what had prevented the prime minister or home minister from taking action against those who had created an atmosphere of fear.



Sharma also pointed out that Modi's promise of creating two crore jobs every year but was not talking about employment any more.



The Congress leaders said while the prime minister was taking the credit for GST and the fight against black money, he should have shown some grace and humility to acknowledge the constructive cooperation of the opposition.




Party sources from the ruling AIADMK on Tuesday said it was ready to offer deputy chief minister post and party general secretary position to OPS faction. However, the offer was rejected by rebel group, sources added.



"At present, there are some minior issues. A formula is being worked out to remove all the differences", finance minister D Jayakumar, one of the top honchos ruling

AIADMK, said.



Though the minister refused to answer about the fresh demands made by OPS group, Jayakumar said there is a positive signal for the merger very soon.



With Dhinakaran, who launched his state-wide tour to get the support of the cadres, attracted huge crowd at Madurai, both OPS and Palaniswami's faction were keen for the patchup talks very soon.

The merger between two AIADMK factions in Tamil Nadu hits another road block with rebel group led by O Panneerselvam (OPS) demanding chief minister post as well as two ministerial berths to its leaders.As per the earlier demand by OPS faction, the ruling AIADMK led by chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami officially sidelined jailed V K Sasikala's nephew TTV Dhinakaran from the party.With stage was all set for merger talks between two groups, the OPS camp launched its fresh demand for getting chief minister post besides asking two ministerial berths.
Infosys Co-founder N R Narayana Murthy on Wednesday said companies should focus on three mantras of how to reduce cost, time and improve quality to bring a culture of innovation.



Speaking at the inauguration of Synergetic Security Operation Centre of SISA on the outskirts of Bengaluru, Murthy said organisations should concentrate on these three attributes and leverage the power of innovation.



As long as everybody in your organisation asks these three fundamental questions like how can I reduce the cost of what I'm doing? how can I reduce the time of what I'm doing? and how can I do whatever I'm doing with a better quality today than I'm doing yesterday, then it will bring in innovation, he said.



Murthy said whether you are the janitor or the CEO of the company, everyone in the company will have a very clear roadmap towards bringing the power of innovation, increase their value addition to the corporation. This can be done by people in finance, HR, technology, physical infra, tech infra, security guards, etc, he pointed out.



Commenting on employees to bring in greater innovation every day, Murthy said the job of the management of the company is to create an environment where openness to ideas, humility, meritocracy, justice, speed, imagination and excellence in execution and it should be revered by everybody in the organisation.



Once you create an environment where these attributes are practised by everybody in every transaction, you would have created an environment which is most conducive to free thinking, more conducive to new ideas coming to the table, he said.



Infosys founder said organisations would have created an environment of the leadership of ideas rather than the leadership of hierarchy and their confidence of every individual will be very very high because he or she knows "I will be respected for what I bring to the table".




President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have agreed to enhance peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region by establishing a new two-by-two ministerial dialogue, which would elevate their strategic consultations, the White House said today.



Trump spoke with Modi last night to greet him on the eve of India's Independence Day.



During the phone call, Trump welcomed the first-ever shipment of American crude oil to India, which will begin this month from Texas.



He pledged that the US would continue to be a reliable and long-term supplier of energy to India, the White House said in a readout of the phone call between the two leaders.



"The leaders resolved to enhance peace and stability across the Indo-Pacific region by establishing a new two-by- two ministerial dialogue that will elevate their strategic consultations," the White House said, without giving details of the mechanism.



As the leaders of two of the world's largest and fastest-growing major economies, Trump and Modi looked forward to the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in India this November, the White House said, adding that Trump has asked his daughter and advisor Ivanka Trump to lead the US summit delegation.



"Prime Minister Modi thanked President Trump for his strong leadership uniting the world against the North Korean menace," it added.



Trump had recently warned North Korea that it would face "fire and fury" if it attacked the United States, while the North threatened to test-fire its missiles over Japan and towards the US Pacific island of Guam.



Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson extended his best wishes to the people of India on the country's Independence Day today.



"The US is proud to stand with the people of India, the worlds largest democracy, in the cause for freedom and prosperity around the globe," he said.



"Prime Minister Modi's ambitious vision for the US-India relationship holds great promise for advancing our shared interests in the 21st century, and we look forward to the many years of friendship before us," Tillerson added.
George W. Bush was a frenetic reader -- 95 books one year as president. Impressive, until you consider what Theodore Roosevelt read in the White House in 1902 and 1903, which included portions of Dante's "Inferno," Milton's "Paradise Lost," "Beowulf," Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Aristotle and histories of the early Syrian, Chaldean and Egyptian civilizations, along with five Shakespeare plays -- and tales from Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm.

But he was not alone. "Not all readers are leaders," said Harry Truman, whose home library of 1,100 books in Independence, Missouri, included Sandburg's life of Lincoln and biographies of Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren and both James and (surprise!) Marilyn Monroe, "but all leaders are readers."

Bush and Bill Clinton had little in common except one big thing: They both spent their White House years reading as many presidential biographies as they could get their hands on. In contrast, Donald J. Trump, who, unlike Franklin Roosevelt, Richard Nixon and the younger Bush, was not a history major, said a year ago that he hadn't read any presidential biographies.

The president's summer vacation has been interrupted by the North Korea crisis, but he still might have time for some valuable reading. Here's a presidential reading list, for Trump or for any of his 320 million fellow Americans:

-- "His Excellency: George Washington" by Joseph J. Ellis (2004). There are scores of superb biographies of the first president, but perhaps the most approachable is this volume, by the Mount Holyoke professor who has written several biographies of early American leaders. His Washington "managed to levitate above the political landscape," in part because the Virginia general transformed "his natural aloofness into an asset."

-- "William Henry Harrison" by Gail Collins (2012). This New York Times columnist may not be Trump's favorite writer, and President Harrison, who lasted in office merely a month, may not on the surface offer many lessons for the current president, but this book is a masterpiece of perspective and a glimpse of an America long forgotten.

-- "Lincoln" by David Herbert Donald (1995). Clinton rated this book one of his favorites, and there is much to commend it. Learned but not forbidding, it is, as Donald writes in the outset, "a biography written from Lincoln's point of view," one of those rare presidential biographies that "seeks to explain rather than to judge."

-- "Wilson" by A. Scott Berg (2013) or "Woodrow Wilson" by John Milton Cooper Jr. (2009). Our only scholar-president, Wilson offers important lessons in the power of rhetoric in politics and, it must be said, the futility of idealism in politics. Wilson discovered that, in the White House, book learning was no assistance in the presidency -- a notion that Trump might find comforting. It was Wilson whose intervention in World War I exactly a century ago set America on the path to world power it enjoys, or suffers, today.

-- "Coolidge" by Amity Shlaes (2013). Some biographies affirm the public view of a president, others alter it, and this volume falls firmly in the latter category. In public image, Coolidge was conservative, taciturn, uninspiring. In these pages he is smart, crafty, articulate. The 30th president has long been a caricature, but Shlaes brings him alive and brings out his attachment to principle and his instinct for integrity.

-- "Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom" by James MacGregor Burns (1970). The great Williams College student of leadership made FDR a cottage industry, and this volume is perhaps his best -- a Pulitzer Prize-winner that argues that the 32nd president "could be bold or cautious, informal or dignified, cruel or kind, intolerant or long-suffering, urbane or almost rustic, impetuous or temporizing, Machiavellian or moralistic."

-- "Truman" by David McCullough (1992). No single book has transformed the image of an American president as profoundly as McCullough's 2001 biography of John Adams, but his earlier work on Truman comes close. In these pages, FDR's successor may emerge as an accident but a fortunate one. McCullough speaks of Truman's "native-born optimism and large faith in progress," but at base the president was, as Truman wrote his wife, "just a common everyday man whose instincts are to be ornery, who's anxious to be right." He was, in McCullough's telling as in history's verdict, both, most of the time.

-- "Eisenhower in War and Peace" by Jean Edward Smith (2012). Eisenhower, too, is enjoying a surprising revisionism, and he is portrayed in these pages as sagacious and self-confident, much like the country he governed in those years. "Ike had no need to prove himself," Smith wrote, which was proof itself that he was a more successful president than contemporaries believed.

-- "The Years of Lyndon Johnson" by Robert A. Caro (1982, 1990, 2002, 2012). In these four volumes, with a fifth to come, Johnson's life and times are laid bare, often mercilessly, sometimes with great mercy. A set of books as complex as the president whom Caro seeks to explain, we see the Johnson of surpassing vulgarity and of profound values. Caro's life of Johnson is a magnificent obsession, producing a series of magnificent books that explain the peculiar political culture of Texas and the factors that combine to produce the peculiar political culture of our time.

-- "Richard Nixon" by John A. Farrell (2017). The author, a former Boston Globe Washington bureau colleague of mine, has written a fair-minded biography of Nixon, portraying him as both tenacious and tortured. The volume, published this March and coming only two years after estimable Nixon biographies by Tim Weiner and Evan Thomas, was an instant best-seller and may be destined to be regarded as the best one-volume biography of the man who saw triumph in China and tragedy at Watergate.

-- "Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush" by Jon Meacham (2015). This is an insightful look at a one-term president who has emerged as an avatar of grace, even if his years in the White House were full of tumult. The lesson from this volume is that an even temper, an approach to politics that stresses service rather than ideology, and an instinct for the prudent rather than for the showy can pay dividends.

David M. Shribman is executive editor of the Post-Gazette (dshribman@post-gazette.com, 412 263-1890). Follow him on Twitter at ShribmanPG.
An official probe into the death of 30 children owing to alleged shortage of oxygen at the BRD Medical College in Gorakhpur has found that laxity on the part of the doctors and hospital authorities was behind the tragedy.



The probe, which was conducted by the district magistrate of Gorakhpur, also revealed that the lives of the children could have been saved had the doctors been more careful and there was better coordination among them.



The report, which was submitted to the state government, on Monday, also found fault with the suspended principal of the medical college Dr. Rajiv Kumar Mishra and another senior doctor both of whom had left the hospital at a time, when there already was a shortage of liquid oxygen.



According to the sources here the report clearly admitted that the stock of liquid oxygen had been alarmingly low for the past couple of days before the tragedy.



It said that senior officials of the hospital should have made arrangements to ensure adequate supply of the life saving gas before leaving the premises.



The report also said that there was a complete lack of coordination between the doctors of different departments, which impacted efforts to tackle the crisis.



The report has also apprehended financial irregularities in the purchase of oxygen gas and recommended a high level inquiry into the matter.



30 children, mostly new born, had died allegedly owing to shortage of oxygen at the hospital in a period of 36-hours between Thursday and Friday.



UP government has suspended Dr. Mishra and shunted out the in-charge of the Encephalitis ward Dr. Kafeel Khan on charges of laxity. A high level probe was also ordered into the tragedy.



Chief minister Yogi Adityanath, who visited the hospital after the deaths, rejected charges that lack of oxygen had caused death of the children. He attributed the deaths to Encephalitis.
The main Independence Day function at the Bakshi stadium here saw most of the people in the general stands remain seated when the national anthem was played soon after Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti unfurled the tricolour.



However, people sitting in the VIP enclosure, including high court judges, MLAs, MLCs, bureaucrats and office bearers of political parties, stood up to pay their respect to the national anthem.

Mufti was then given a guard of honour.



Around 3,000 people were present in the stadium, which has a capacity of over 18,000.

The empty stands at the stadium came as a shock to the Uttar Pradesh Police contingent which was taking part in the celebrations for the first time in Kashmir.



UP Police contingent leader Deputy Superintendent of Police Sheodan Singh said it was a disappointing sight to see such a small gathering at the main venue of Independence Day celebrations.



"In our state, Independence Day is celebrated like a festival," Singh told reporters.
Amid speculation that he would take a political plunge, actor Kamal Haasan on Tuesday said that the DMK and AIDMK parties in Tamil Nadu were the tools to help him for strengthening his voice.



In his latest tweet Kamal said My aim is a better Tamilnadu. Who dares to strengthen my voice? DMK AIADMK & parties R tools to help. If those tools R blunt findothers.



Continuing further in another tweet, the actor said "If one state's CM (Chief Minister) should resign for a mishap & corruption under his govt. How come no party calls forresignation in TN. Enough crimes done.



However Kamal did not mention the name of the chief minister under whose tenure mishaps and corruption occurred.



"Those who have the guts come together for new freedom struggle. We are still slaves is there is no freedom from the corruption", Kamal said.



In recent times, Kamal, who is being criticizing the State in various fronts through social media, attended 75th anniversary celebrations of DMK mouthpiece Tamil daily Murasoli. The actor also shared the dias with DMK working president M K Stalin.
Indian Army's day-long wait for a last-minute miracle on the ceremonial border personnel meeting with the Chinese Army remained futile as the People's Liberation Army officials did not turn up at any of BPM points along the Sino-Indian border on Tuesday.



The Army had invited the PLA commanders to participate at the border personnel meeting on the occasion of the Independence Day.



Even though the Chinese didn't respond till Monday, the Indian Army officials were keeping their fingers crossed hoping for a last minute miracle. But at the end of the day, Chinese officials did not turn up at any of the BPM points.



These meetings are to be held at Bum La and Kibithu in Arunachal Pradesh, Daulat Beg Oldi and Chushul in Ladakh and Nathu La in Sikkim on five days in a year including the national days of the both countries and some other culturally-important days.



The ceremonial BPMs - large social gatherings - are considered as one of the means to defuse tensions along the 3,488 km long Line of Actual Control.



The cold shouldering from the Chinese on the ceremonial BPM comes at a time when troops from the two neighbours are locked in a stand-off at Doklam in Bhutan, a strategically important area near the India-Bhutan-China tri-junction.



The previous such ceremonial meeting, which China was to host on August 1 did not materialise. However, the commanders from two sides held a flag meeting on August 11 at Nathu La to find out a way to end the Doklam crisis. The flag meeting ended in a stalemate with both sides sticking to their guns.




Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a promise late last month and he lived up to his words too.



Modi made his shortest Independence Day speech on Monday as he concluded his address to the nation on Independence Day in 56 minutes from the imposing 17th century Mughal marvel the Red Fort, exactly an year after he made the longest one at 96 minutes.



His first speech in 2014 lasted 65 minutes and the next year saw an increase to 86 minutes. This when his predecessor Manmohan Singh used to conclude his address in 32-50 minutes while A B Vajpayee used between 25-35 minutes in his speeches. The first

Independence Day speech by Jawharlal Nehru lasted 72 minutes.



Modi had said in his radio programme 'Mann ki Baat' in July that he had received letters from people complaining that his Independence Day speeches were "a little too long" while promising to cut short his address.



**

If the length of the speech was less, the Prime Minister did not leave without giving slogans to ponder like 'Bharat Jodo' (Unite India) and 'Badal Sakta Hei' (We can change) instead of 'Chalta Hei' attitude. He then goes on to call the youth 'Bhagya Vidhatas' (fortune makers) of the country.



**

Modi did not leave the school children gathered at Red Fort unhappy as he walked up to them after his speech. Some of the children were dressed like Lord Krishna as the city is celebrating Janmashatami, the birthday of Lord Krishna. Some of them had also taken positions to form the word 'Bharat'.



**

Wearing his trademark kurta and a Rajasthani headgear, Modi was received with a thunderous applause by those gathered at the Red Fort when he arrived there. Modi got down from his black Range Rover and waved to the crowd. Soon he unfurled the tricolour, which was synchronised with a 21-gun salute. The Air Force Band played the National Anthem when the National Guard presented a "Rashtriya Salute".



**

Present on the occasion were former prime ministers Manmohan Singh and H D Deve Gowda, Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan, Congress President Sonia Gandhi, BJP National president Amit Shah and Union Ministers Rajnath Singh and J P Nadda, among others.



Independence Day Speeches



Narendra Modi



2017 -- 56 minutes

2016 -- 96 minutes

2015 -- 86 minutes

2014 -- 65 minutes

Manmohan Singh



2004-13 -- Between 32-50 minutes



AB Vajpayee



1998-2003 -- Between 25-35 minutes



Jawaharlal Nehru

1947 -- 72 minutes
One Govinda suffered a seizure, collapsed and died at Palghar district of Maharashtra, nearly 100 km's from downtown Mumbai, on Tuesday, during the Dahi-Handi celebrations organized to mark the birth of Lord Krishna.



According to reports reaching here, in the entire Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) comprising Mumbai and parts of adjoining districts of Thane, Raigad and Palghar, nearly 70 to 80 persons were injured when human pyramids crashed. Only two are in hospital with fractures while others have been discharged after primary medication.



The maximum number of injuries were reported from Mumbai, where more than 50 persons were injured in different incidents.



Reports from Palghar said that the Rohan Gopinath Kini (21) died after they formed the human pyramid. When he came down after the successful game, he collapsed. He was rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, a police official said, adding that youth used to suffer seizures and fits.


Infosys Co-founder N R Narayana Murthy on Tuesday said companies should focus on three mantras of how to reduce cost, time and improve quality to bring a culture of innovation.



Speaking at the inauguration of Synergetic Security Operation Centre of SISA on the outskirts of Bengaluru, Murthy said organisations should concentrate on these three attributes and leverage the power of innovation.



As long as everybody in your organisation asks these three fundamental questions like how can I reduce the cost of what Im doing? how can I reduce the time of what Im doing? and how can I do whatever Im doing with a better quality today than Im doing yesterday, then it will bring in innovation, he said.



Murthy said whether you are the janitor or the CEO of the company, everyone in the company will have a very clear roadmap towards bringing the power of innovation, increase their value addition to the corporation. This can be done by people in finance, HR, technology, physical infra, tech infra, security guards, etc, he pointed out.



Commenting on employees to bring in greater innovation every day, Murthy said the job of the management of the company is to create an environment where openness to ideas, humility, meritocracy, justice, speed, imagination and excellence in execution and it should be revered by everybody in the organisation.



Once you create an environment where these attributes are practised by everybody in every transaction, you would have created an environment which is most conducive to free thinking, more conducive to new ideas coming to the table, he said.



Infosys founder said organisations would have created an environment of the leadership of ideas rather than the leadership of hierarchy and their confidence of every individual will be very very high because he or she knows I will be respected for what I bring to the table.



Lauds Modi

Murthy also lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi for announcing the new slogan Competitive Co-operative Federalism. It is a brilliant idea, he said.



Whenever Prime Minister speaks he brings out lots of wisdom. I am so happy that he has used competitive cooperative federalism. It is a brilliant idea, he said.



Murthy said the competitive aspect of the slogan will make each state compete with each other for attracting investors and thereby create more employment.

DH News Service
Even as border skirmishes are taking a toll on bilateral relations, the bilateral business and technology partnership between India and China is growing as Guizhou province in China is gearing up to welcome Indian IT companies by the end of August.



Earlier, in May 2017, Nasscom took a delegation of Indian SME companies to Guizhou to promote partnership between India and Chinese companies on the Big Data theme. The Guizhou International Investment Corporation (GIIC) and Guizhou provincial government played host to this delegation.



According to GIIC officials, these companies are a mix of startups, mid-size and large companies. We have startups like CriedWatch and OneGlobe and IT major HCL also in the group who will revisit Guizhou to start their exploration journey in August, said an official.



Officials from Guizhou, a province specialising on big data technology development, visited Bengaluru last month and held meetings with Nasscom for deeper relation in big data R&D and investment initiatives.










Members of the Rotary Club of Hassan Royal celebrated the countrys 71st Independence Day by taking out a procession with a 1,750-ft long national flag in Hassan on Tuesday.



District in-charge Minister A Manju flagged off the procession. The flag, which has been brought from Andhra Pradesh, was taken out in a procession by school and college students.



The procession was held to spread the message of patriotism.



A large number of people gathered on both sides of the roads to catch a glimpse of the flag and also take selfies on their mobile phones.





MLA H S Prakash, Deputy Commissioner Rohini Sindhuri and club president H J Balaji were present.
The biggest house in a nearby town is a huge white Victorian that looks like a wedding cake. It has a wide front porch that runs the length of the house, three-story turrets with curved glass windows topped with witches' hat roofs. It has gables and wings and filigree and shutters and shingles. It's as if the architect thought they gave a prize for putting the most frippery on one single house. It looks as if it might be the starring attraction in Stephen King's next novel. It is bigger than Perkins' Funeral Home and the Falling Leaves Home for Seniors combined, the other two large houses on Main Street.

A young couple, Ann and Chad, bought the Wedding Cake about two years ago. I ran into Ann mowing the lawn and she told me they were going to turn it into a bed and breakfast. She went on and on about how wonderful it was going to be, that their only worry was that they wouldn't have enough room for all the guests who would want to stay here.

"This is the most perfect, quaint little town," she said. "It's not spoiled with a bunch of tourist traps and souvenir shops and outlet malls. It's like a movie set. You could shoot a movie here. Like 'The Music Man.'"

Ann and Chad, it goes without saying, were from the city. They loved staying in B&Bs. They enjoyed getting up at 10 in the morning and walking down to a dining room that looked the way it did in the 1880s, with crystal chandeliers and wall sconces and sepia pictures of the owner's relatives on the wall. They enjoyed lolling around until noon reading the paper, strolling through the local antique shops. They loved sitting in big, overstuffed chairs after dinner drinking fine wine and chatting with the other guests.

"And that's just what they tell you to do in the entrepreneur class we took at night school in the city. They say, 'Do what you know, do what you love.' So Chad and I quit our jobs and took the plunge."

Today I drove past the Wedding Cake and there was a big red "For Sale" sign staked in the lawn. It turns out that Ann and Chad did what they knew and did what they loved. And while Ann and Chad loved getting out of bed at 10 in the morning and reading the paper until noon, their guests, who got up at 7, did not. It seems they ran a very fine "B" by all reports, but they failed at "&B" miserably. Even that might have worked had there been any other place to eat in town.

The diner in town closes Friday night and doesn't open until Monday morning. Mrs. Reticule, who lives next door, said that Ann and Chad's guests were so desperate, they would see the lights on in her kitchen and walk over to her back door and beg her for coffee. She finally started putting a large coffee urn out on her back porch with stacks of Styrofoam cups and a tip jar. But she stopped doing that when she found a note in the jar one morning that said, "You call this coffee? Would it kill you to put out some freshly ground French roast? Maybe some hazelnut?"

Not that there were ever many guests to disappoint. Once you have walked around town, there is not much left to do with the remaining 23 1/2 hours in your day. Ann was right -- you could film "The Music Man" here. But you'd have to go to some other town to watch it, as the town had no movie theater.

So now a real estate agent is doing what he knows and what he loves -- selling the Wedding Cake to the next dreamer for whatever the market will bear.

Contact Jim Mullen at mullen.jim@gmail.com
District in-charge minister H C Mahadevappa said, at a time when the nation is facing various challenges, even as we celebrate the 71st Independence Day, the principles propounded by our freedom fighters would serve as a guiding light for achieving development.



He was speaking after hoisting the National Flag at the Torch Light Parade Grounds in Bannimantap, here, on Tuesday. If we strive unitedly, by following the principles of our freedom fighters, days are not far when we become the most developed nation in the world.



Our aim is to build a strong nation, which can withstand the threat of any nation, he said.

Recalling the history of the freedom movement, Mahadevappa said, it is important to recall the sacrifice of our forefathers, who have laid down their lives and those who had spent most of their lifetime inside jails.



Our freedom movement was a long struggle from the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny, up to 1947. Starting from Mangal Pande, thousands of people have laid their lives to realise the dream of India.



There have been difference of opinion about the ideologies and the means of struggle. However, everybodys concerted efforts were to break away from the colonial rulers, he said.



People of all age, caste, creed and faith have fought for freedom. With Mahatma Gandhi taking the centre-stage, the struggle of Congress got a new lease of life. The movement gave a new weapon to the world, Ahimsa or non-violence. The Constitution has played a major role in keeping the spirit of democracy alive for these 70 long years and further. Having seen the collapse of various democracies across the globe, we should be thankful to the foresight of the framers of our Constitution, Mahadevappa said.
District Minister T B Jayachandra said a project to modernise the canal supplying water from the Hemavathi reservoir to the district was on the anvil to prevent any breach in the future.



Addressing a press meet after the flag hoisting on the Independence Day on Tuesday, Jayachandra said the canals in Hassan developed breach every year, whenever the water was let into them. "But the works taken up at a cost of Rs 625 crore have addressed the problem. Similarly, the Tumakuru Branch Canal needs modernisation. The canal developed breach near Tiptur was because it is old and lack modernisation. Nobody can be held responsible for the breach."



The minister said a plan to supply Tungabhadra back waters to Molakalmur, Challakere and Pavagad at a cost of Rs 2,200 crore was readied and was awaiting the Cabinet's approval.



On lawyers' strike

Jayachandra said the lawyers in the district were requested to withdraw their strike. "Lawyers are like officials of the Court of Law. They should not protest. The Supreme Court has also directed the lawyers not to go on strikes in the interests of the clients. Many clients would not have money to buy bus tickets. The interests of the clients should be of the utmost importance to lawyers."



He said the government was committed to providing basic facilities to lawyers. "Our government has given Rs 2 crore each to Mysuru and Bengaluru bar association and Rs 1.5 crore to Tumakuru association. They are demanding more grants. The government will respond to their demands depending on the state's financial limitations."



Jayachandra said the matter of granting reservation to Scheduled Castes and Tribes in promotions was pending with the governor and expressed confidence over the bill getting the his consent.
JD(S) councillors staged a dharna in front of the office of the city municipality on Tuesday alleging that the local body had failed in addressing water scarcity.



The CMC members, who staged the protest wearing black bands, said that the district administration has registered cases against private tankers under Essential Services Maintenance Act. As a result, water scarcity in the city has worsened.



The municipality has not taken any alternative steps to supply water, they alleged.



Councillor Ravindra said that the municipal president and the officials were well aware of the problem, but were not taking any steps to address the issue.



"People are not getting water in the city though they are ready to pay for it. They are facing difficulty to to lead life. Residents of several layouts have staged protest seeking redress of their grievance. But, the municipality has not taken any steps to ameliorate their plight," he said.




A murder taint on a policewoman in state is set to haunt her for the rest of her life. Though she was acquitted of her husbands murder, the Supreme Court has refused to reinstate her. Mahadevi Mule, 48, was accused of squeezing the testicles of her second husband before strangling him in a fit of rage on November 22, 2006.



According to the prosecution, the woman had lent money to her husband, also a police constable, but he failed to repay it. He was also pressuring Mahadevi to send her son from the previous marriage to live with her first husband.



A trial court in Belagavi did not believe the prosecutions story and acquitted her on January 30, 2010. The High Court of Karnataka upheld the trial courts order on December 16, 2011. On March 27, 2008, Mahadevi was dismissed from service as police constable through an ex parte order. She moved the Karnataka Administrative Tribunal but did not get any relief. The high court also declined to come to her rescue. She then approached the SC.



The petitioner has been acquitted honourably in a full-fledged trial. Therefore, the order passed in the departmental enquiry is contrary to the law, Mules counsel H Chandra Sekhar argued before a bench of Justices Adarsh K Goel and U U Lalit. The disciplinary proceedings initiated on the same set of facts ought to have been dropped, the counsel said. Mahadevi said her false implication could not be ruled out as the trial court did not find even an iota of evidence to connect her with the offence. The SC, however, rejected her petition, saying the acquittal could have been for various reasons. Her second husbands body was found below the cot in the police quarters where she lived. Among others, this was sufficient for termination of her job, the court ruled.




Liquor shops in Bengaluru city and other parts of Karnataka, which are close to highways, may not reopen in the near future.



A source said the Centre is not keen on denotifying the roads, with Assembly elections in the state being less than a year away. A senior official in the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, seeking anonymity, told DH that the Centre did not want to send out a message that it had succumbed to pressure from the liquor lobby. The ministry fears that denotification of highways could be perceived as a favour to the liquor lobby and could be used by NGOs and political rivals during the elections, the officials said.



Our minister (Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari) has been aggressively campaigning for closure of bars and liquor shops close to the highways to curb road accidents. The ministry is not keen on denotifying highways as district roads or municipal roads to circumvent the apex court order, the official said, adding that several officials from the Karnataka government had been meeting the ministry officials for the past one month to press their demand.



The ministry appears to be following the wait and watch policy as none of the affected states, barring Karnataka, is pressuring it to denotify highways. Karnataka could promulgate an ordinance to denotify highways.



We want to wait and if there is consensus among all the affected states, then the Centre might frame a policy, he said.



Karnataka has written to the ministry seeking denotification of 858-km stretch of the total 6,578 km of national highways as district or city municipal council roads. The government said it will provide relief to 5,960 liquor licence holders out of 10,149 licencees, including several shops in Bengaluru city. The Supreme Court had ordered closure of all bars, liquor shops, hotels selling liquor and restaurants up to 500 metres on either side of national and state highways. The state can denotify state highways as district roads to avoid closure of liquor shops, but the road transport ministry has to denotify the national highways.



DH News Service




Medical scientists have collected more evidence favouring scrub typhus as the killer pathogen behind Gorakhpurs Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) cases that lead to the death of hundreds of children each year.



Even though the disease has been around since 1978, researchers were unable to identify the exact causative agent, compelling doctors to treat the symptoms.



Studies in the last two years seem to suggest that a large number of AES cases are caused by scrub typhus (also known as bush typhus), which is a form of the disease caused by the parasite Orientia tsutsugamush.



A group 10 Indian researchers have now provided additional evidence to establish the role of this dangerous parasite in perpetuating the AES.



They examined the blood samples of 46 AES-affected kids between the age of 3 and 9, and compared the results with another 151 samples. An overwhelming majority of the children carry the antibody against scrub typhus.



The tests were for two types of antibodies -- proteins released by the body to fight foreign pathogens. In one case, 63% of the infected kids had the antibody, compared to the control group, in which only 4.6% had it. In the second case, 82.6% infected children carried the antibody against the 42.4% in the control group.



Six out of eight

In six out of eight fatal cases, the children had the antibodies against scrub typhus, research team reported in the journal Emerging Infectious Disease, published by the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, USA.



The team consists of researchers from BRD Medical College, Gorakhpur, National Institute of Epidemiology, Chennai, Christian Medical College, Vellore, National Institute of Virology, Gorakhpur and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).



Doctors and scientists have blamed Japanese encephalitis and enterovirus as the culprit in the deaths in the past.



Not concrete

However, even the new research findings do not provide all the required proof. If it is scrub typhus, then azithromycin would have worked. But that was not the case. There are questions on whether enough cases are reaching hospitals and whether they are detected early enough, Vipin Vashishtha, a Bijnor-based paediatrician, who closely follows the AES cases told DH.



The ICMR had recommended the use of the antibiotic doxycycline, but it is not clear at the moment whether the recommendation has been put to use by the state government.
The security guard, who was believed to have been charred to death in a bus in Ranebennur, Haveri district, and reappeared on Monday in Hubballi, is actually a murderer, police now say.



Ningaraj, 40, had strangulated his uncle Channappa Basavaneppa Belagutti to death with a lungi on December 31, tied up the limbs of the body, doused it with diesel and set it on fire, Superintendent of Police K Parashuram told a press conference on Tuesday.



The guard murdered his uncle as the latter had an illicit relationship with one of his (Ningarajs) relatives and had behaved indecently with his wife. He had later fled to Goa and Mumbai.



Divisional controller of NWKRTC Jagadish V S told DH that they would take back the compensation of Rs 5.15 lakh to the family of the deceased.



DH News Service
On the occasion of the Independence Day, New Delhi has decided to issue visas to all Pakistanis, who applied for the travel document to undergo medical treatment in India.



New Delhi has been very restrictive over the past few months in granting visas to Pakistanis seeking to undergo medical treatment in India. But External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Tuesday announced that India would grant the visas to all Pakistanis, who had already applied for the travel documents to come for medical treatment, but had not yet been issued the same.



On the auspicious occasion of Indias Independence day, we will grant medical visa in all bonafide cases pending with us, Swaraj posted on Twitter.



New Delhi has of late been insisting that all applications for visas for citizens of Pakistan to come to India to undergo medical treatment must be accompanied by a recommendation from Swarajs counterpart in the neighbouring countrys Government, the Foreign Minister.



The restrictive arrangement has been put in place after a military court in the neighbouring country sentenced Kulbhushan Jadhav, a former Indian Navy officer, to death.



Swarajs erstwhile counterpart Sartaj Aziz, who was the advisor to the former Pakistan Prime Minister M Nawaz Sharif, however, did not issue any letter of recommendation to Pakistanis seeking medical visas to travel to India.



Some letters recommending issue of medical visas were issued by the officials in charge of the South Asia division of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan Government, but those were rejected by the High Commission of India in Islamabad.
A total of 101 Indira Canteens, the subsidised eateries, will open on Wednesday. The first canteen will be inaugurated by Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Kanakanapalya Main Road in Jayanagar. He will also be among the first to taste the food.



Bengaluru Development Minister KJ George inaugurated the first Indira kitchen, next to Manipal Hospital on Old Airport Road in Konena Agrahara (ward 113) on Tuesday afternoon. Six Indira kitchens will open by Wednesday.



George also launched the Indira Canteen app which helps people to locate the nearest canteen. Speaking to journalists, he hailed the project as a unique initiative of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and said 101 canteens had been readied in just 60 days. We could have opened all the 198 canteens (one in each ward) on August 16 but we are facing space problems in some wards as people are opposing the identified place. But we are confident of opening the remaining canteens on October 2, he said. At Tuesdays event, a standard operating procedure listing the quality aspects of food and the responsibilities of the caterer was released. As per the SOP, to maintain the quality of food, the caterer must conduct periodic evaluation of the canteens and submit weekly reports to the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP).



At each canteen, people can buy tokens to take combo meals. Similar to McDonalds and Dominos, we have introduced the token system for combo meals. A combo is available both for breakfast and lunch where you get a combination of food. Idlis along with a rice meal such as vangi bath will serve as breakfast combo while rice sambar along with pulao or what is special on that day will serve as lunch combo, Manoj Rajan, special commissioner, Indira Canteen, said.



People can eat for free at all the canteens on Wednesday. We expect about 5,000 people to visit each canteen on the first day, said Rajan.




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Residents of several low-lying areas in South Bengaluru woke up to a nightmare on Tuesday as the early morning rain, combined with blocked drains, had flooded the streets and their homes.



Nearly 300 houses in ST Bed, Koramangala 4th Block, Ejipura and Srinivagilu had to face flood situation, which persisted till afternoon.



In ST Bed area, residents of Dega Enclave stood with Fire and Emergency Services personnel watching a huge pump drawing out the floodwater from the basement of the building.



Prashant K Rao, a resident of the area, said it may take till evening to drain the basement with four feet of water. The whole area is flooded and we are facing a difficult situation. Parents are scared to send their children out as open manholes can pose a danger, he said, adding that there have been two snake-bite incidents in ST Bed area since morning.



In Ejipura and Srinivagilu, residents were seen carrying water out of their houses. Madan Gowda said his wife and children have been working from since morning to clear water.

I didnt send my son and daughter to the school today though they said attending Independence Day celebration was compulsory. All roads are flooded and we decided not to take a risk. They have been helping us, he said.



The BMTCs Koramangala bus terminal was flooded with 20 bikes and 18 cars completely submerged in the basement.




Residents of Indiranagar on Tuesday woke up to flooded roads and parking lots accompanied by power outages and tree falls.



Heavy downpour in the early hours of Tuesday brought life to a standstill. People could not step outside their houses as their houses were flooded. Many cars parked near the houses were also submerged. Residents complained of flooding of drains, which led to filthy water entering their homes.



We really struggled to clear water from our house. Water entered even the wardrobe and the furniture is also damaged, said Gayathri Pai, resident of HAL 2nd Stage. She added that they expect such situations every year when there is a downpour, but this scale of damage was unexpected.



The roads and alleys leading to houses had dead rats and garbage from drains. Residents complained that drains were only dug up the previous day for cleaning.



Dirt that was dug up from drains the previous day entered our house with the water. The authority starts cleaning all the drains just a week before the rains. This has led to trouble this time, said Shreyas Shastri, a resident of Indiranagar.



Residents of Indiranagar 1st Stage, 2nd Stage and various other low-lying parts said they were unable to use the toilets as water from the drains entered their houses through the toilets.



There were power cuts in various parts of HAL 2nd Stage with power lines snapped by fallen trees.





We woke up hearing a big sound. A huge tree had fallen on the wires. There was no power for about four hours, said S M Kale, resident of HAL 2nd Stage. Another resident who did not wished to be named said he had to cancel his vacation due to the havoc.




Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday said his government has started preparations for taking up Phase III of the Metro project with an aim of providing a total of 250 km of Metro lines in Bengaluru in the next five years.



In his address on the occasion of 71st Independent Day at Manekshaw Parade ground, he said Metro Phase III is proposed to be of 92 km. Work on 72 km of Metro Phase II is going on a brisk pace and it is likely to be completed by 2020. Phase II (A)  from Silk Board junction to KR Puram  is at the tendering stage, while phase II (B)  Nagawara to Kempegowda International Airport  has received in-principle clearance, he added.



The city needs world class infrastructure to match its status as a knowledge and an innovation hub. In the last four years, we have made consistent efforts to build infrastructure of the city and I am glad to say that the results are showing (sic), he stated, noting that 42 km of Metro Phase I was recently inaugurated.



Besides, Siddaramaiah promised to completely stop the flow of sewage water into lakes in Bengaluru by 2020. Bengaluru has been a city of lakes. Fast pace of growth in the city has resulted in the lakes coming under pressure. Flow of untreated sewage into the lakes is also contributing to the problems of our lakes. BWSSB has taken up projects, which when completed in the year 2020, will treat one hundred percent of the citys sewage. This would go a long way in conserving our lakes (sic), he said.



Primacy for Kannada

The chief minister reiterated that imposition of any other language in the state is unconstitutional and against the spirit of formation of states on linguistic basis.



He said the Constitution recognises primacy of the language of every state. The concept of co-operative federalism mandates that primacy of the local language cannot be compromised, but opportunities could be given to learn other languages, he said.



He said communalism and casteism raising their ugly heads is a dangerous development. These are nothing but anti-national activities.





People should take a pledge to stop divisive forces that are indulging in such activities, he added, indirectly referring to the recent incidents of communal unrest in Dakshina Kannada district.



Siddaramaiah also said the Karnataka Land Reforms (Amendment) Ordinance has been promulgated to convert 58,000 habitations into revenue villages and to give ownership rights to those who are in occupying those places.




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A drugs gang known as The Chyna Crew were allegedly caught on grainy CCTV footage as they attacked a rival dealer.

The jury at Exeter Crown Court have been shown a series of CCTV clips from around Exeter which the prosecution say show the four defendants taking part in a kidnapping and a stabbing.

Much of the footage comes from a camera at the Maplins shop on Haven Road in Exeter, which captured movements to and from a nearby flat where three alleged gang members are said to have raped a woman.

The footage allegedly shows her being led into flats at Ashmore Court from a van by one of the men and the others arriving at around the same time.

The prosecution say the Maplins CCTV also shows the Chyna Crew members leaving the flat on their way to attack rival dealer Joseph Kelly, who suffered stab wounds to his chest, legs and buttocks.

Different footage taken from a private garage in Oxford Road is said to show the attack taking place at the junction with York Road.

This footage was taken from some distance away and has been enhanced to show three men apparently chasing and attacking a fourth.

The jury heard that the alleged attack was part of a turf war between the Somalian Chyna Crew and local drug dealers.

Three alleged members on the gang are on trial for kidnapping and raping a woman who they believed had worked for a rival dealer.

They are also accused of stabbing Joseph Kelly in an attack near the Duke of York pub on the same night.

Abdirahman Abukar, aged 19, of Alum Rock Road, Birmingham, Abdirahman Kadir, aged 21, of no fixed address, and Ibrahim Mohammed, aged 18, all deny rape, false imprisonment and kidnap.

They also deny assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. Abukar and Kadir deny possession of a shotgun with intent to endanger life or cause fear of violence.

Amber Olivia, aged 22, formerly of Laburnum Road, Exeter, denies conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm and possession of heroin with intent to supply.

The victim of the alleged rape has told the jury how she feared for her life after being held at gunpoint and subjected to a humiliating series of ordeals, which included being forced to have full sex with Abukar and oral sex with the others.

The prosecution say the three men broke off their assault on the woman to go out in search of Mr Kelly, who was located with the help of Olivia.

Detective Constable Ben Gainford played the jury a compilation of CCTV clips from different parts of Exeter.

He said a distinctive yellow car with one black wing was seen in the footage from Haven Road at the time when Abukar, Kadir and Mohammed left the flat and shortly afterwards in CCTV taken from St Sidwell's School in York Road.

The trail continues
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A RAF chief and former deputy Lord Lieutenant sexually assaulted a teenage air cadet in the Royal Navy college where members of the Royal family trained, a court heard.

Brian Wills-Pope was the Wing Commander in charge of all the Devon and Somerset air cadets, a jury was told.

The 64-year-old was responsible as Commanding Officer for 1,000 air cadets, 250 voluntary staff and 30 different military bases in Devon and Somerset.

(Image: PA)

The prosecution claimed that on one occasion Wills-Pope wanted the youth to try on a mankini  a piece of swimwear made famous in the Borat film.

The jury heard the sexual assault was when Wills-Pope suddenly kissed the youth on his neck in his bedroom at the naval college where Princes Philip, Charles and Andrew all trained.

Prosecutor Sean Brunton told the Taunton Crown Court jury:You should know that Mr Wills-Pope is also the holder of an MBE.

He had been deputy Lord Lieutenant of Devon and held the position as chairman of the governors of Torquay Boys Grammar School.

The jury was told Wills-Pope was a highly respected and well regarded man who held a considerable responsibility in society.

The alleged victim of the sex attack joined the air cadets in 2013 aged 14 years and he and his family looked up to Mr Wills-Pope who was a man of considerable seniority.

The court heard married Wills-Pope, from Torquay, Devon, was a very friendly and active man who would fraternise all various RAF functions.

The court was told that the teenage victim was an outstanding cadet and Wills-Pope and the victim and his family became friends and socialised and visited each others homes.

The court heard on one occasion Wills-Pope was staying overnight and suggested he could sleep top to tail in the teenagers bed  after the teens mother had said Wills-Pope could have her bedroom and she would sleep on a sofa  which is what happened.

The jury heard she thought the remark was just banter.

But on another occasion when he came around, Wills-Pope had downed a few drinks and said he wanted to see the youth to try on the mankini.

The guest had seen a photo of the lad wearing one for a joke.

Wills-Pope wanted to see him put it on  but the lad refused.

But the court was told he thought the request was inappropriate.

As part of his duties the teenager had to accompany Wills-Pope to various functions acting as his bagman or aide de camp  and Wills-Pope made increasingly inappropriate remarks to him.

Mr Brunton said:He had suggested sharing a bedroom on one occasion and said things which made him uncomfortable.

In August 2015, they attended an overnight Band camp at the Britannia Royal Naval College at Dartmouth, Devon.

Mr Brunton said the victim was hanging up Wills-Popes suit in his bedroom and when he turned around, the commander was standing very closed behind him.

Rather unexpectedly this defendant leant forward and kissed the victim on the neck and then put his hand under his shirt, running it over his back, skin on skin.

He told the jury nothing was said and there was a rather awkward silence as the teen stepped back.

The youth kept it to himself for several weeks and only revealed what had happened to his mother when Wills-Pope had organised another overnight hotel stay at Hartland, North Devon sharing a room.

Mr Brunton said the young air cadet had been left embarrassed, confused and with a conflict of interest and put it to one side.

The victim said on another occasion he and a colleague stayed at Wills-Popes home for a Lord Lieutenants do in Plymouth.

Mr Brunton said:The defendant got him to share his bathroom. When the lad was showering Wills-Pope would come in and out of the bathroom to brush his teeth.

The victim claimed he was still making inappropriate comments which left the teenager feeling anxious.

The police were contacted and Wills-Pope was interviewed and said the kissing incident simply did not happen.

Mr Brunton said it was the jury to decide did it happen or not.

He said in isolation it is not the most serious incident to come before the courts and could be regarded as trivial or a momentary aberration.

But he said it was not a trivial allegation for either the victim and his family or for Wills-Pope.

Wills-Pope denies one charge of sexual assault in August 2015 and his trial continues.
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Villagers are fighting to rescue and save once and for all one of Devons most historic pubs.

The Yarcombe Inn, on the A30 between Honiton and Chard, dates back almost a thousand years, and once belonged to the monks from Mont St Michel in France, and along with the rest of Yarcombe was later owned by Sir Francis Drake.

The Grade II listed pub has embedded in its earliest foundations an architectural feature that distinguishes it as a landmark in medieval construction and a building of national heritage status.

The Yarcombe Inn at Yarcombe, near Honiton, dates back to the ninth century.

The pub has been closed since August 2014 and the current owners, who live in Cornwall, failed in a bid last year to obtain planning permission for the ancient building to be converted into housing.

The Yarcombe Inn has now been formally nominated as an Asset of Community Value, which means that under the Asset of Community Value rules, villagers have six months to try and come up with the 385,000 that the pub is on the market for.

The Parish Council have unanimously been granted a mandate from the village to try and participate in the bidding process for the ancient and historic pub.

A steering group, headed up by Parish Council Chairman, Nick Randle, have now started fundraising and they have invoked a big thinking ambitious strategy to reverse the steady decline and loss of community spirit and cohesion in Yarcombe and instead turn it around and add a new sense of purpose and belief injected into the village and surrounding parish.

Cllr Randle said: "We want everyone to become truly excited by what we are trying to do with the site because that indicates belief and hope in what we are trying to achieve. Ideas are our lifeblood for successfully taking this massive venture forward.

It is a veritable treasure both historically and archaeologically and, indeed, a key feature in the historic and cultural fabric of both our region and nationally. We simply cannot afford to lose such important treasures.

Already significant progress has been achieved on fund raising, he said, and negotiations have started for grants from The Plunkett Foundation, the Heritage Lottery Fund and East Devon District Council whilst a Friends of the Yarcombe Inn campaign has been set up and over 200 registered who will hopefully make 20 donations to help with kick-starting the fight.

Cllr Randle added: "It is amazing how rapidly some of the most prestigious and heavyweight organisations and national charitable bodies have thrown their weight behind our campaign  it is as if they have all heard of The Yarcombe Inn and why it is so important locally, regionally and nationally for us to save it

It doesnt matter if people can manage only 1 or 2, every penny counts.

The Campaign intends to seek support from every possible source to ensure that the funding is available to complete the project.
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Every month Tom Garner, wildlife ranger for Clinton Devon Estates, sets up a stall at Budleigh Salterton Farmers Market and sells the venison he culls a few miles up the road.

The 40-year-old is responsible for the roe deer management programme over 18,000 acres of nearby Estate land as well as the butchery and creation of burgers, sausages and other venison products which, such is their popularity, typically sell out within an hour at the event.

Tom is also the event organiser, but he is now appealing for more stallholders to join the market and for more visitors to come along and take the opportunity to buy the fresh locally produced or sourced products available there.

Plans are in place for a re-launch event of the market which was established 10 years ago to give the community the opportunity to buy directly from producers, therefore reducing food miles and the impact the transportation of food has on the environment.

The market, which has built up a good reputation and loyal following of customers, currently has around 10 stalls, including Toms roe deer venison, goat meat, pork, lamb, beef, honey, eggs and cakes.

And the hope is that rather than draw attention away from established businesses in the town, the event will help to boost trade by attracting more people to the town centre.

The call for more support for the market comes shortly after the closure of Exmouth Farmers Market in June, after 17 years.

Tom said: The market is all about buying local, quality produce, directly from the producer. People can come to the market and buy staple items but also niche produce such as goat meat, curry paste and honey.

We are keen to attract more stallholders and more customers, but its a chicken and an egg scenario  to encourage more visitors, we need more stallholders, but to encourage more stallholders we need more footfall, so were hoping to attract both.

We hope the market attracts visitors to Budleigh who wander into town to browse the shops as well, therefore boosting trade.

Farmers markets are as likely to be found in our urban jungles as they are our rural market towns, but it is thought that austerity measures and the perception that markets are pricier than supermarkets, has put them at risk and they are in need of support if they are to survive.

Markets are struggling in general, Tom continued. It seemed to start when austerity kicked several years ago. People have the perception that farmers markets are more expensive than the supermarkets when actually theyre not because youre missing out the middle man.

Exmouth sadly hasnt survived, but Budleigh has everything going for it, but we need people to come along and support it.

Tom, a former Royal Marine, has been the wildlife ranger for the Estate for 12 years.

There is a large population of roe deer on the Estate, he added. And they have to be managed. When theyve been culled were left with a great product, wild venison, which is fairly unique because its impossible to farm.

People often dont realise there are six species of deer in the UK which vary in size and in taste, for example the roe deer has a subtler flavour and isnt as gamey as red deer.

People love it and the market is the only place people can buy it  I have as much on the back table and the front table at the market because I get so many pre-orders!

Budleigh Salterton Farmers Market is held on the last Friday of every month at Rolle Mews car park on Fore Street, from 9am until 1pm. The next event is on Friday, August 25.

Prospective stallholders should contact Tom on 07815 090684 or Tom.garner@clintondevon.com
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Here are the latest aerial pictures of construction work to build the new IKEA store on the edge of Exeter.

Work is taking place around the clock at Newcourt Way in Exeter to meet the scheduled opening date of early summer 2018.

The pictures were taken by pilot Neale Abbot, who runs an aerial photography business aeroplaneviews.co.uk

(Image: aeroplaneviews.co.uk)

One of the pictures shows a blue panel being fitted on the steel skeleton on the building.

Ikea will employ 350 people, recruited locally who will all be paid at least the real living wage - and the manager, Nicholas Earle, has strong family links to North Devon.

It will be the UK's first sustainably built IKEA, meaning it will harvest rainwater and comply to strict environment regulations. The store will be 28,000 square metres large over two floors and will sell the full IKEA range.

(Image: aeroplaneviews.co.uk)

IKEA Exeter will have a green room - a large greenhouse displaying IKEA's full outdoor range - as well as a restaurant, creche and space for 1,000 vehicles in the car park. There will be four order collection points.

The company is already looking to fill various posts based in Exeter - offering up to 33,000 a year for some roles.

Jobs include HR administrator, sales department managers, HR business partner, kitchen production manager, customer restaurant manager and Swedish food market and bistro manager.
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A former deputy Lord Lieutenant of Devon has been cleared of sexually assaulting a teenaged air cadet after a Judge threw out the case against him.

Brian Wills-Pope was found not guilty of trying to kiss the boy on the neck during an event at the Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth.

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The case at Taunton Crown Court was stopped at the end of the prosecution case when Judge David Ticehurst ruled there was no case to answer.

Married Wills-Pope, aged 64, from Torbay, denied sexual assault. The case was stopped before he was required to explain his version of events.

He is a successful florist, the holder of the MBE and a governor of Torquay Boys Grammar School as well as a Wing Commander in the RAF Air Cadet force, in command of its activities in Devon and Somerset.

His trial at Taunton was stopped early on the second day. The prosecution alleged he tried to kiss a male air cadet in a bedroom at Dartmouth BRNC.

The boy and his mother also alleged Wills-Pope had made sexually suggestive comments to the boy, including an attempt to get him to put on a mankini.

The cadet joined the RAF when he was 14 and he and his family became friendly with Wills-Pope, who appointed him as an aide-de-camp.

The prosecution said the kissing incident allegedly occurred when they were both attending a band camp in Dartmouth in 2015. The boy said Wills-Pope ran his hand inside his shirt and tried to kiss his neck.

Wills-Pope told the police the kissing incident 'simply did not happen'

Mr Nicolas Gerasimidis, defending, said the case should be thrown out because of inconsistencies in the prosecution evidence and lack of clarity about the timing of events.
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Defendants in the South West charged with weapons possession and sexual offences are increasingly likely to miss their day in court.

Crown courts in the region issued 30 warrants in 2016 as a result of defendants in sexual offences cases failing to appear, up from 13 in 2015 and 25 in 2014.

The number of warrants issued in cases of possession of weapons was up from 20 in 2015 to 22 in 2016.

Overall, 350 warrants were issued by crown courts in the South West in 2016, down 6 per cent from 371 in 2015.

Crown courts in the region received 6,907 cases in 2016, based on this, one warrant was issued for every 20 cases on average.

Defendants in drug offences cases were the most likely to fail to turn up, with one warrant issued for every 14 cases received, followed by theft cases, one in 15 receipts.

In possession of weapons cases, a warrant was issued for every 16 cases received, and it was one in 29 for sexual offences.

In magistrates courts, warrants were issued in 9,399 cases in 2016, up 1 per cent from 9,344 in 2015. With 623,960 defendants in 2016, this equated to around one warrant for every 66 defendants.

Across England and Wales, crown courts issued 296 warrants for defendants who failed to appear in sexual offences cases, up by 29 per cent from 230 in 2015, and up from 196 in 2014.

Crown courts in England and Wales received 9,316 sexual offences cases in 2016, based on this one warrant was issued for every 31 cases on average.

Overall, there were also 3,701 warrants issued by crown courts in 2016, which was down from 4,049 in 2015, according to figures from Case Management Systems supplied by the Ministry of Justice following a Freedom of Information request.

This works out as one warrant for every 20 cases received by crown courts in 2016.

The Ministry of Justice said, in crown court, unless there are particular mitigating circumstances, a warrant will almost always be issued following non-appearance of the defendant.

Magistrates courts issued warrants in 87,854 cases in 2016 as a result of defendants failing to turn up for a court hearing.

This was up by 3 per cent from 85,236 issued in 2015, and up from 84,890 in 2014.

With 7.2m defendants in magistrates courts in 2016, the number of warrants issued works out as around one for every 82 defendants.

Not all defendants are required to attend hearings in magistrates courts as they are entitled to plead in absence for summary matters such as speeding, TV Licensing, Vehicle Excise licence offences etc.

However, where a defendant is required to appear at a magistrates court and does not, the court may decide to proceed in their absence to issue a warrant for arrest. This will depend on issues such as the age of the defendant, the seriousness of the offence and the likelihood of imprisonment and or/a driving disqualification being imposed.
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Further details for Exeter's new Harry Potter themed restaurant and bar has been revealed ahead of its opening this week.

The Cauldron Inn, inspired by Exeter's medieval and magical history, will open in Gandy Street on Friday, August 25.

Last week the restaurant revealed its new menu which includes hot oven baked cauldron cobs, pizzas with gluten-free options and starters such as Wings of Fire and soup served in a cauldron.

The bar and restaurant is replacing restaurant Cuba Cantina and will cover four floors. The owners claim it will be the world's first Augmented Reality Pub.

Gandy Street is widely rumoured to have been JK Rowlings inspiration behind Diagon Alley from the world famous Harry Potter books and films. And Exeter company Novelty Bars Ltd believe there can be no better spiritual home for The Cauldron Inn.

And now the new addition to Gandy Street has revealed its cocktail menu - and it looks amazing.

The menu includes Unicorn Blood, I can't believe it's not Butterbeer, First Year Experiment, Full Moon Potion, Luna's Love Juice, Polyjuice and the Amortentia punch bowl.

All cocktails will cost 6 and 3/4 and a punch bowl will cost 49.

What else can I expect?

With moving paintings, floating candles, themed rooms, riddles, selfie mirrors, witches as waiters and even an escape room there is plenty on offer to delight wizarding folk and muggles alike

The theme is further bought to life with the magic of technology.

A specially designed augmented reality app will have you solving escape room styled clues to earn a discount off your drinks order, meeting witches, wizards, dragons, house elves, sorcerers and casting spells.

The 3D renders will be gamified in a way akin to Pokemon Go with over 50 clues to solve.

Half of these clues will be based in The Cauldron Inn with half being hidden around Exeter forming part of a unique magically inspired virtual tour.

Should a guest solve all 50 clues a key to the escape room perched at the top of The Cauldron lies in wait as the ultimate reward. Hitting other milestones along the way will unlock discounts on food and even freebies.

What's inside?

The ground floor forms The Inn with moving paintings, chandeliers and an incredible magic mirror which takes selfies and prints pictures for guests. The first floor features The Library with over a thousand books, The Potion Room with over 500 potions and The Common Room.

The Common Room will be a lounge based area with sofas and designed with comfort being the essence of this room.

The second floor hosts The Dragon Room with dragon skulls and knights of the round table, alongside The Astronomy Room inspired with star signs, crystal balls and magic lights.

The top floor will host an escape room. The key for this room can only be accessed by successfully collecting all 50 badges awardable in the augmented reality app.

Badges are awarded for successfully solving riddles around the bar and hidden around Exeter's town centre. There are 40 riddles in the bar with a further 10 at relevant locations in the town centre such as The Cathedral, Rougement Gardens and The Guildhall.

A spokesperson for Novelty Bars Ltd said: "It is amazing to open a bar with such a quirky and inspired theme. People love magic and we love people. It is the most exciting project I have worked on.

"It's not every day you purchase 1000 books or 500 potion jars or hire a green screen to film moving paintings. If our guests enjoy coming to The Cauldron Inn as much as we've enjoyed developing it, we would have done something right"
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Two women have been jailed for 32 months each for an attempted robbery at a which left the shop worker "emotionally and psychologically" distraught.

Nikki Blank, 34, from Biggin Hill, and Stefanie Lake, 31, from Flora Court, appeared at Plymouth Crown Court having both pleaded guilty to the charge of attempting to rob the Premier Store, in Marlborough Street.

Prosecutors explained how Blank had entered the store on July 29 and had made a purchase from the lone shop-worker, who she knew.

Moments later Lake entered with a weapon which the shop assistant believed to be a screwdriver.

Judge Ian Lawrie said at a previous hearing that Lake's claim that it was just a set of keys was not accepted by the Crown Prosecution Service, although it was recognised that whatever the item actually was, it was intended to be some form of weapon to frighten the shop worker.

The only reason the robbery was unsuccessful was because the shop worker hit a panic button, the Plymouth Herald reports.

The two women  both of whom have a number of convictions between them  appeared at court sitting side by side.

The court heard Blank had nine convictions from 13 offences while Lake had nine convictions from 19 offences, although it was agreed that there had been a number of years since their last sentences.

Judge Lawrie, responding to mitigation from the pair, noted how corner shops such as the one in Marlborough Street were "vulnerable" because they were considered "easy targets" by criminals.

The court heard how Blank had been battling a heroin addiction for a decade and the vast majority of her offending had been acquisitive crime.

Her advocate told the court Blank recognised she had made a "stupid decision" not least because she knew the shop assistant behind the counter.

She had two children, aged 16 and five who were being cared for by her mother and feared that as her eldest was about to join the army she would not be able to say goodbye to him.

Ali Rafati, defending Lake, said the 31-year-old was a mother of a seven year old who suffered autism and ADHD. He was living with her mother and had been for some time as she recognised her own addiction to heroin.

Mr Rafati said he could not go into great detail in open court, but noted papers which explained that Lake had experienced "the most horrific experience a person can go through" earlier in her life. As a result she had set about "consoling [her] pain through drugs2.

At its height he had a 80 a day heroin habit and while in the past had shoplifted to acquire the funds, had chosen to carry out a robbery to raise the cash, which Judge Ian Lawrie described as a "quantum leap" in offending.

In sentencing, Judge Lawrie noted how the pair had effectively stayed out of trouble for the past five years, but had "jumped off the deep end" in going from shoplifting to armed robbery.

He accepted their offence was "not very sophisticated" but that it involved a "vulnerable cornershop, a single female worker, it was intimidating".

He noted how they had clearly planned the crime and acted "in unison" to "instil terror into the victim".

He noted the shop worker's victim impact statement which revealed "long term effect on her  emotionally and psychologically".

He added: "Don't think likely on your crime. Your crime has marked her [the victim] and has marked her for some time."

He urged the pair to read the victim impact statement for themselves to understand the "enormity of your actions".

He also urged the pair to engage with all the courses and support on offer in prison and afterwards with the probation service, warning them that "your futures are looking spectacularly grim if you don't resolve your drug problems".

He sentenced each woman to 32 months custody at HMP Eastwood Park, noting they would be released at the halfway point. He also ordered them to each pay a victim surcharge of 170.

First reported by Plymouth Herald
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The project needs a waiver but no official who can grant it has been appointed.



JUNEAU, Alaska (AP)  The design and funding for a new Alaska ferry are ready to go, but the federal government is not.

Alaska Department of Transportation Commissioner Marc Luiken Friday warned members of the state Marine Transportation Advisory Board that an effort to build a new oceangoing ferry may run into trouble with the federal government.





. . .
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By DAVID KLEPPER

Associated Press

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP)  Critics are throwing shade at Gov. Andrew Cuomo's pricey plan to install high-tech, color-changing lights on New York City's bridges, questioning whether the investment is the best use of public money.

Republican lawmakers and Mayor Bill de Blasio say the money should instead go toward fixing the city's troubled subways. A government watchdog group this month called for a state probe into what it says are conflicting explanations for how much the lights cost and where that money will come from. Estimates have ranged from $216 million to $350 million. Administration officials say the details are still being worked out.





. . .
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KIRKLAND  The Yarrow Bay Marina, at 5207 Lake Washington Blvd. N.E., has sold for $10.8 million, according to King County records. The seller was Yarrow Bay Yacht Basin and Marina LLC, which has owned the property for decades. The business was founded in 1967.

The buyer was FAE Holdings 481843R LLC, a title exchange agent in Salt Lake City.





. . .
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP)  Following the lead of several other states, Florida Gov. Rick Scott wants to make it harder for state legislators to raise taxes or fees.

Scott on Monday said he wants to put a constitutional amendment on next year's ballot that would require any tax or fee hikes to be approved by a supermajority of the Florida Legislature.

Scott, who will be forced out of office by term limits before the amendment would take effect, said he's pushing for the amendment to protect "future economic growth." During his time as governor, Scott has pushed for a line of tax cuts, although he has also relied on property tax hikes to help pay for increased school funding.

Florida must prevent "unfair tax increases in the future so our progress is not undone," Scott said in a statement announcing the proposal. "It is my goal to make it harder for politicians to raise taxes on Florida families and businesses - and that can be achieved with an amendment to our state's constitution."

It is not clear how much impact Scott's proposal would actually have, especially since the governor did not outline many details, including what exactly would be considered a tax or fee hike.

Scott also did not say what type of supermajority would be required. More than a dozen states have similar restrictions according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, including California, but in some states the restriction is limited to a type of tax such as property taxes. The supermajority also varies from a two-thirds vote to a three-fourths vote.

Florida's last major tax increases were enacted in 2009 when legislators were struggling to balance the budget due to the Great Recession. The GOP-controlled Legislature raised cigarette taxes as well as fees for motorist registration and drivers' licenses, although lawmakers rolled back the fees a few years later.

The governor - who is expected to challenge incumbent U.S. Sen Bill Nelson next year - said he wants the Legislature to place the amendment on the 2018 ballot. That would require a supermajority vote in both the House and Senate. Top House Republicans, including House Speaker Jeff Clemens, said Monday they will back Scott.

"It's anti-government waste, anti-politician, and anti-pork barrel spending," said Corcoran, who is considering a run for governor next year. "I'm proud to offer my support to Governor Scott on this bold initiative and will do all I can to see that it is successful."

Sen. Jack Latvala, a top Senate Republican who jumped into the race for governor last week, said he will look at Scott's proposal when "specific language" is ready. Latvala said his top priorities right now are having the state respond to opioid overdose deaths and the lack of job growth in rural areas around the state.

Sen. Jeff Clemens, a Lake Worth Democrat, said a supermajority vote should be required for all tax changes, including tax cuts.

"The governor should have the guts to structure his proposed amendment to affect all tax changes," said Clemens. "Folks have had enough of his tax cuts for the wealthy and privileged. He should have to justify his corporate handouts disguised as tax relief."
Patterson Street Freewill Baptist Church, 406 Patterson St., Dothan, will hold Revive Us Again on Aug. 16-18 with services at 7 p.m. nightly. Guest evangelist will be Apostle Dennis Durry, pastor and founder of New Life Ministry. Call 334-793-7681 for more information.

The Dothan Evening Community Lighthouse of Aglow International will meet at Shoney's Restaurant, 3054 Ross Clark Circle, in Dothan on Thursday, Aug. 17, at 5:30 p.m. The guest speaker is Evangelist Blanche Siler. All are invited to attend.

The Dothan-Eufaula District of the AME Church will hold an awards and appreciation banquet at Lake Point Resort in Eufaula on Saturday, Aug. 19, at 6 p.m. Tickets are $20 each. Call 334-308-1400 or 334-347-8360 for more information.

Grimes Gospel Lighthouse, 1512 County Road 25, Grimes, will host local talent, Aug. 19, and Gerry Koch of Dothan, Aug. 26. Music starts at 7 p.m. A love offering will be taken. Call 334-983-4654 or 334-714-4658 for more information.

Klondyke Gospel Music Center, located between Newton and Ozark at 3885 Highway 123 S., will host Byrd Family Bluegrass of Newville, Aug. 19, and the Dale Giles Family of Ozark, Aug. 26. Music starts at 7 p.m. Admission is free. For more information, contact Ron Jeffers, president and concert coordinator, at 334-797-9862.

The St. Peter Missionary Baptist Church will hold its annual Mens Day Celebration on Sunday, Aug. 20, beginning with an all-men staff teaching and reviewing the Sunday school lesson at 9:30 a.m. The 11 a.m. morning worship service will include the ordination of Ronnie Frank Dennis as deacon. Pastor Pierre Harvey will preach. Special guests for the 2:30 p.m. Mens Day program will be the Rev. Kummel Fleming and the Center Baptist Church family. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Grant Chapel AME Church will host its annual Womens Day service on Sunday, Aug. 20, at 3 p.m. Guest preacher will be the Rev. Sherita Moon Seawright, Womens Missionary Society supervisor for the Ninth Episcopal District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. For additional information, contact Naomi Reeves at 334-791-1351.

Balkum Chapel Missionary Baptist Church will hold its annual revival Aug. 23-25 with services at 7 p.m. nightly. Evangelist for the week will be the Rev. C.A. Hammond, pastor of Greater New Life Missionary Baptist Church in Enterprise. All churches, pastors and choirs are invited.

Lively Stones Ministries Worship Center and Multi-Cultural Center in Ozark will host Impact 2017 conference, Gathering of the Churches, Aug. 24-26. An awards banquet will be held Aug. 24 at 6:30 p.m.; workshops will be held Aug. 25, 4:30-6:15 p.m. with evening services at 7:15 p.m.; and additional sessions will be held Aug. 26, 8:15 a.m.-2:45 p.m. Registration for the conference is free, however, tickets for the Aug. 24 banquet are $20. Call 334-774-1039 to purchase banquet tickets.

Faith Full Gospel Church, 12642 E. Highway 52, Hartford, will hold a fish fry on Saturday, Aug. 26, 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Cost is $8 at the church the day of the fish fry and $7 if tickets are purchased in advance. For tickets, call 334-726-0220 or 334-258-6576. Dine-in or carry-out. Drink provided for those dining at the church. Delivery may be possible for orders of 10 or more plates. All proceeds benefit the churchs youth department.

The Annual School Prayer Walk sponsored by Coffee Baptist Women will be held Sunday, Aug. 27, at 4 p.m. Everyone is invited to attend at any school in the Enterprise City School System, Coffee County School System, and Elba City School System and pray for children, teachers, support workers and administration. A leader is assigned to each school. For more information, call the Coffee Baptist Association office at 334-894-6411.

Emmanuel Holiness Church, 3502 Sandridge Church Road, Sneads, Florida, will be hosting a sing on Aug. 27, at 11 a.m. featuring Kay Armour from Dothan.

Piney Grove Missionary Baptist Church, 5 Piney Grove Church Road, Webb, will celebrate the 142nd Church Anniversary with a service on Sunday, Aug. 27, at 2:30 p.m. Guest speaker will be the Rev. Rayford Malone, pastor of Greater Beulah Baptist Church in Dothan.

Park Avenue Baptist Church, 300 E. Park Ave., Enterprise, will hold a revival Aug. 27-30. Services will be held on Sunday at 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. and Monday-Wednesday at 7 p.m. Guest speaker will be Dr. Bill Montgomery. Music leader will be Mark Donaldson. Everyone is invited. For more information, call 334-347-8264.

New Bethel Missionary Baptist Church in Dothan will celebrate their 113th church anniversary on Aug. 27 at 2:30 p.m. Guest minister will be the Rev. Ronnie Porchia, pastor of New Hope Missionary Baptist Church in Bellwood. The church will hold revival services Aug. 28-30 at 6:45 p.m. each day. The guest revival evangelist will be the Rev. Leonard T. Evans, pastor of First Missionary Baptist Church in Ozark. The public is invited to attend.

Shady Grove Missionary Baptist Church II, 1547 Lucy Grade Road, Dothan, will hold a Pastor Appreciation service for Minister Gamaska Vickers on Sept. 3 at 2:30 p.m. Guest pastor will be Dr. S.C. Hudson of Greater Sardis Missionary Baptist Church in Ozark.

Mount Sinai Missionary Baptist Church, 4850 County Road 73, Newville, will host a luncheon honoring pastors and ministers wives on Saturday, Sept. 9, at noon. For more information, call Annie Morris at 334-693-3048; Doris Lewis at 334-441-5601; or Mary Kincey at 334-632-0184.

New Maranda Baptist Church, 1221 WAGF Road, Dothan, will celebrate its 125th anniversary with a service on Sunday, Sept. 10, at 2:30 p.m. Guest speaker will be the Rev. Leroy McLeroy, pastor of St. Peter Community Church in Bay Springs.

All Tribes Assembly of God, 1566 Alpha St., Midland City, will be hosting a benefit spaghetti luncheon on Sept. 8, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Plates will include spaghetti with meat sauce, coleslaw, garlic bread and cake. The price is $7. Plates can be picked up at the church or deliveries will be available for orders of more than 10 plates. Tickets on sale now. For more information or directions, contact Loretta Turner at 334-405-1500.

A Living Proof Live Simulcast will be held Sept. 16 at Memphis Baptist Church, 4595 Eddins Road, in Dothan. A light breakfast will be served at 8 a.m. and the simulcast will begin at 8:30 a.m. The simulcast will feature worship led by Travis Cottrell and teachings from Beth Moore. Cost for the event is $20 and includes conference materials, breakfast, snacks and lunch. To buy tickets online, visit www.eventbrite.com and search for the Living Proof simulcast in Dothan or visit the Columbia Baptist Associations website, www.cbadothan.com for a link. Child care will be available by request only for children ages 6 and younger. Contact Becky Abraham at rambec@aol.com or 334-796-8806 for more information and to register your child.
Members of the National Guard are often referred to as weekend warriors because of their regularly scheduled weekend duty. Its long past time to retire that moniker, as it doesnt now  nor, for that matter, has it ever  given due respect to the gravity of the duty these men and women perform for our nation.

Citizen soldiers, is more apt, but even that falls short, as National Guard forces are different in many ways from full-time military personnel. Perhaps the greatest difference is that they live civilian lives until theyre called upon, and then they drop everything to step into full-time service to our country.

This week, area families gathered to send off 160 area members of the Alabama Army National Guards 186th Engineer Company on a mission to Kuwait. The group will undergo training at a mobilization station, and then deploy to perform work that utilizes its specialty  clearing land, constructing roads and airfields, and other sorts of ground work.

We applaud these dedicated Americans, not only for their contributions while deployed, but for their willingness to be part of a ready force willing to leave civilian lives, and their families and friends to perform whatever task our nation asks.

Those families and friends, too, sacrifice greatly while their loved ones are away; they deserve the publics gratitude as well.
A Dothan police lieutenant got to say his piece Monday about what he felt was an unfair personnel move by the department.

The Dothan Personnel Board on Monday allowed Lt. Mark Nelms to offer his account of actions he felt were unfair concerning his employment with the police department.

Nelms said he had a running dispute with his captain, Will Benny, concerning what he felt were actions that circumvented the chain of command regarding Nelms subordinates. Nelms said the matter came to a head when Benny initiated a complaint against one of Nelms officers. Nelms complained to Police Chief Steve Parrish, who told the two men to work out their differences.

Nelms said a discussion between himself and Benny did not go well, and that Nelms later sent a memo detailing his concerns to Parrish. Nelms was soon after transferred from the vice division to the city jail.

Nelms said he felt his transfer was unfair and motivated by a desire on Parrishs part to placate Benny.

Benny was not at the personnel board meeting to offer his version of events.

The board heard Nelms grievance, but took no further action. Nelms himself said he did not wish to be transferred back to vice, and that because he had already been in his position at the jail for several months, moving him now would be disruptive. Nelms said he did want his former captain to learn something from what happened, however.

During the board meeting, Parrish said Nelms transfer was not an instance of retaliation, but was a move made based on the personnel needs of the department.

It was strictly a business decision, Parrish said. They are both good commanders.
Most Dothan residents responding to a recent survey have a sense of pride about living in Dothan and believe Dothan is a safe place to live and a good place to raise a family.

The survey also indicated residents' opinions vary on several issues based on race, income level and education level.

The Dothan Quality of Life Survey was administered by Troy University and conducted in a partnership with the City of Dothan, the Dothan Police Department, and The Dothan Community Relations Group (DCRG).

Its really a tale of two Dothans, said Troy University professor Dr. Christopher Bradley, who spearheaded the survey, to a group of residents and officials at the Westgate Branch of the Dothan Houston County Library. The trends were not surprising  but we still wanted to be as comprehensive as possible. Our role was to provide as objective information as possible. What you do with the numbers is up to you.

Read the full study and report here.

In the executive summary, analysts determined three of every four Dothan residents feel pride in living in the city, that healthcare options are good, and that it is a good place to raise a family. Nine out of 10 residents feel safe in their homes, while shopping, or in their neighborhoods during the day.

However, the survey  based on 930 responses obtained between March 15 to May 25  highlighted that those who were young, African American, had lower levels of education and/or lower levels of income were less likely to agree that their quality of life was good.

The Dothan Police Department serves as one dividing point. While half of all respondents believe DPD treats minorities with respect, two-fifths of African Americans stated this was the case compared to two-thirds of white responses.

The survey noted residents who were white, older, and who had high levels of education and/or high levels of income were more likely to positively view the DPD than those who were African American, younger, and with lower levels of education and/or income.

Dothan Police Chief Steve Parrish, who attended the meeting, said he takes pride in some of the results and acknowledges more work can be done to improve perceptions.

What were most excited about the survey is the percentage that feels safe in the city, he said. Of course, the police departments No. 1 concern is that we create a healthy environment to thrive and their families are safe.

I think with any survey, it always shows there is more room for improvement on the part of everybody. I think that dialogue can be established.

Results on race relations were also somewhat mixed, according to the survey. While only one of every five residents believe the criminal justice system contains biases against blacks and half believe that all races have equal opportunities for jobs, about 5 percent of whites replied they have experienced discrimination in Dothan compared to about 33 percent of African Americans.

Additionally only about 40 percent of residents believe race relations have improved in the past generation.

Bradley noted the survey did have a few handicaps.

The 930 responses, being much smaller than Dothans population, created about a margin of error of about 3.2 percent. Bradley noted that small samples, as long as it is a truly random selection like the survey used, can provide a fairly accurate representation of opinion.

Bradley also noted while the survey administrators made every effort to get a balanced representation among each of Dothans districts, responses were lower in Districts 1 and 2 (lower-income areas ) than they were in Districts 5 and 6 , home to more affluent neighborhoods. The surveys numbers were weighted with regard to district response and Census data to give the most accurate reflection of Dothan residents opinions, he added.

DCRG president Precious Freeman said her group will now study the findings and contemplate ways to improve everyones experience.

Were gonna find gaps in here  and thats where the work is, she said. We can reach the end goals of equality. Theres so many things you can do with the data.

Were a sphere of influence, DCRG member Mark Freeman (no relation) added. This is invaluable information. This is what we need.
American brand's Jeep and Ram could soon be in Chinese hands.

A Chinese automaker reportedly made a quiet bid to acquire Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, raising the distinct possibility that the traditional member of the Detroit Three that was bailed out by US taxpayers could wind up with Chinese ownership.

After years of pursuing a deal to gain greater global scale, the Italian-American automaker recently rejected an acquisition bid by an unidentified Chinese company, according to Automotive News.

The publication also reported that multiple Chinese automakers are weighing a similar bid for the maker of the Jeep, Ram, Chrysler and Dodge brands.

A Fiat Chrysler spokeswoman declined to comment Monday morning.

But investors were heartened by the prospect of a deal. Fiat Chrysler shares traded in New York rose 8.2 per cent to $12.56.

The US government bailed out Chrysler in late 2008 and 2009, funding the company's bankruptcy and helping to negotiate Italian automaker Fiat's deal to gain control of the brand. Several years later, Fiat gained full ownership of Chrysler.

A deal would almost certainly raise political hackles in the US over the possibility that a company rescued by taxpayers could yield to Chinese ownership amid consternation over the future of American manufacturing.

Any Chinese deal to acquire Fiat Chrysler would likely be predicated on a global growth plan, including access to the company's established network of dealerships.

The Jeep brand, in particular, is highly lucrative because of its popular sport-utility vehicles and crossovers. The Ram brand's pickup trucks and vans are also popular.

Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne has argued for years that industry consolidation is necessary to help automakers meet global fuel economy standards and demands for investments in electric cars and self-driving technology.

He briefly pursued a tie-up with cross-town rival General Motors but was rebuffed. And speculation that Fiat Chrysler could sell out to the world's largest automaker, Volkswagen Group, has also fizzled out.

The identity of the Chinese automaker reportedly pursuing Fiat Chrysler is a mystery, although Automotive News noted that representatives of Great Wall recently met with the company at its headquarters in Michigan.

Another possibility is Fiat Chrysler's joint venture partner in China, Guangzhou Automobile.

A Guangzhou executive told USA TODAY in January that the company was considering plans to expand its ties to Fiat Chrysler in the US.

Fiat Chrysler's ties to China have been growing in recent years after the company made an effort to re-enter the market and try to catch up to other global rivals that had zoomed past the Auburn Hills automaker in Asian.

After establishing a joint venture with Guangzhou in 2010 the automaker finally began building the Jeep Cherokee in China in 2015 at a plant in the south central province of Hunan.

In April 2016, Fiat Chrysler began building the Jeep Renegade at a second plant in China, also through a joint venture with Guangzhou.

In May 2016, Hu Chunhua, a high-level member of the Chinese Communist Party, led a delegation visit to Fiat Chrysler's headquarters.

At the time, Fiat Chrysler said the visit reinforced the strong relationship with Hu's Guangdong province. Marchionne has also emphasized that, in addition to Jeep, there are two other brands that have great potential in China and globally: Maserati and Alfa Romeo.

However, according to Automotive News reports that Marchionne wouldn't sell Maserati and Alfa Romeo. Instead, the Italian brands would be spun off as seperate entities, as FCA has previously done with Ferrari, and be retained by Exor; the holding company of FCA run by the Agnelli family.

- USA Today with Drive staff.
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The total solar eclipse on Aug. 21 is predicted to bring 1 million people to Oregon and anywhere from 11,000 to 45,000 people to Albany, said Chuck Perino, city of Albany emergency manager.

But the number of tourists in Linn and Benton counties could increase greatly at the last moment, thanks to fog on the coast or smoky conditions in Central Oregon.

Madras is expecting 100,000 people for a massive eclipse jubilee, but smoke from wildfires nearby could push those visitors west of the Cascade Mountains, according to officials at a Linn County Solar Eclipse Planning Team meeting on Monday morning.

Theres an added possibility of more people coming this way, said Steve Parker, Linn Countys GIS manager.

Ricky Love, Oregon Department of Transportation emergency services manager, said that if the Lincoln County coast is covered in fog, visitors will flee for a better viewing area.

Theyre going to come inland. How far, we dont know, he added. The fog sometimes breaks at Toledo, just east of Newport. Or sometime it lifts far closer to Corvallis.

Regardless, in a worst case scenario, the mid-Willamette Valley could get pinched by an influx of eclipse viewers from both the east and west.

A lot of these eclipse people are professional, Perino said. Theyre mobile and going to where the best location is. Theyre going to be aware and ready to be in the right place.

Parker noted that current weather forecasts for the coast and Madras are suggesting that visibility will be good on the morning of the eclipse. But he added: We just dont know what will happen."

About 25 officials from local cities, Linn County and state agencies attended the eclipse planning session, held at Albany City Hall.

During the meeting, Perino acknowledged that visitor estimates were a guessing game.

And, to be sure, there are doubts about whether traffic jams and other problems will manifest.

You still have a segment that thinks its going to be Y2K all over again, said Janet Steele, president of the Albany Area Chamber of Commerce.

But Steele thinks the concerns are valid and there will be a huge amount of tourists.

She said she met with Albany hoteliers recently and learned that the closest available hotel or motel room is in Jantzen Beach in Portland.

Campgrounds also are seeing an influx in overnight guests.

Linn County parks are essentially full, Linn-Benton Community College is expecting nearly 375 campers and the Linn County Fair & Expo Center has 50 of roughly 65 RV spots reserved, officials said.

Chris Bailey, public works operations director for the city of Albany, said that the Albany Municipal Airport, as well as the Corvallis airport, has fielded numerous calls from people wanting to fly into the area for the eclipse. Many people will want to observe it in the air, she added.
Oregon is at the height of its fire season, and firefighters already have spent weeks battling wildfires throughout the state.

So federal, state and local officials are working to try to make sure that the visitors expected for the Aug. 21 eclipse don't add to the burden firefighters already are shouldering.

A burn ban is in effect in Benton County, and officials will be patrolling forests to ensure campers are being safe with fire.

The Corvallis Fire Department also is boosting its staff throughout the event.

No recreational fires are allowed in Benton County, including campfires. Fireworks are also not permitted. People who smoke cigarettes are required to place butts in an ashtray and not dispose of them outside.

Deputies from the Benton County Sheriff's Office will have a heavy presence in forest areas, said Sheriff Scott Jackson.

Were planning for the worst but hoping for the best, Jackson said.

The Forest Service will have four law enforcement officers and multiple forest protection officers in the Siuslaw National Forest, said Lisa Romano, a spokeswoman for the forest. An interagency fire prevention team will work with local agencies in Western Oregon to identify how fires are being started in order to share fire prevention messages with residents, she said.

The Forest Service will have at least six engines available to fight fires, as well as a helicopter on standby at the Corvallis Municipal Airport, Romano said.

Dozens of Forest Service staff members also will be stationed in popular areas, such as Marys Peak, to direct people and answer questions, she said.

Campfires are allowed in the Siuslaw National Forest but only in established campfire rings in developed campgrounds, Romano said. Campers outside of developed campgrounds should use a stove with gas or liquid fuel to cook, she said.
This started, as these things often do, with one person asking a question.

In the case of the Albany Historic Carousel & Museum, the question dates back to May 2002, when Wendy Kirbey of Albany traveled to Missoula, Montana for an Altrusa conference.

During her time in Missoula, Kirbey had occasion to ride on a carousel there. At the time, the Missoula carousel (which actually is named A Carousel for Missoula) had been open for about seven years, and Kirbey was enthralled. As she remembered in an article in Sunday's newspaper, she rode on it four or five times and came away with four brass rings  an accomplishment that, as we can testify from experience, is more difficult than you might think.

At some point, this was the question that Kirbey started to ponder: Why can't we build something like this in Albany?

Well, 15 years later, thanks to Kirbey and to a not-so-small army of volunteers, here's the answer: We can.

Albany's carousel opens this morning, with free rides for all comers today.

The structure on First Avenue is more than just an answer to a question, however: It is a testament to the power of dreaming big and, in a very real way, to perseverance.

Even by the standards of these volunteer-driven projects, it has been a long road for Albany's carousel. (The Missoula project took about five years, although the idea was stewing in the mind of the carousel's creator for years before that.)

In the 15 years that have passed since 2002, Kirbey and her crew have had a number of opportunities to give up on the dream.

In fact, Kirbey could have folded her tent just a few months after that momentous ride in Missoula: When she returned to the mid-valley and started pitching the idea of building a carousel in Albany, she was told that, well, Salem had just opened a carousel of its own. Surely, the reasoning went, there was no need for another carousel in the area. Also, Albany is considerably smaller than either Salem or Missoula, so it was easier to raise money in those two cities than it would be in the mid-valley.

As it turned out, that last point had a measure of truth: Fundraising for the $6.5 million project did turn out to be a challenge, but a $3 million anonymous donation in August 2014 and three timely infusions of cash from the Central Albany Revitalization Area proved to be critical for the project. (It is worth noting that the urban revitalization agency in Missoula also was a vital partner for that city's carousel.)

Other donations were critical as well: The mechanism that drives the Albany carousel dates back to 1909 and was given to the effort by descendants of famed carousel maker Gustav Dentzel. Having that in hand was a big lift for the carousel, although volunteers still faced plenty of work getting the mechanism ready to go.

Volunteers also faced plenty of work when it came to the painstaking labor of handcarving each of the carousel animals. A unique feature of the Albany carousel is that it is home to more than just horses: It features a veritable menagerie of creatures. Salmon, bears, dogs and cats: All have a place on the carousel. But that meant that the volunteers who were creating the beasts often had to carve out new territory.

The lengthy journey between that first question and opening day likely just makes today sweeter for the people who believed in this project from the start and the people who came on board during the trip. They all deserve to take a bow today.

For the rest of us, the carousel serves as a reminder about the power of dreaming big. Go ahead and reach out for a brass ring of your own. (mm)
(Reuters/Danish Siddiqui)Christian Indians protest against religious attacks.

From the beginning of their independence from Britain, both Pakistan and India have promised to respect the rights of religious minorities, and recognize the equal citizenship of the believers of all faiths.

The Catholic publication Crux says that after 70 years, both countries have struggled to fulfill that promise, but Christians living on the subcontinent take pride in their contributions to their societies.

On August 25, 1947 British India became two different countries: India and Pakistan.

India is a predominantly Hindu nation, while Pakistan is overwhelmingly a Muslim country,

Nirmala Carvalho writes in Crux, "The awkwardness of their birth - with Muslim-majority Pakistan comprising Western and Eastern halves carved out of the Hindu-majority subcontinent - means their birthdays are celebrated on either side of midnight: August 14 in Pakistan, and August 15 in India. (East Pakistan became the independent Bangladesh after a short war in 1971, and observes its independence day on March 26.)"

Carvalho notes that after independence, both countries had significant religious minorities/

Christians in Pakistan represent just two percent of the population in the overwhelmingly Muslim nation, and one gripped for the last 30 years by a rising tide of extremism.

In Pakistan Christians are often poor and members of ethnic and linguistic minorities, "so they're doubly or triply at risk., and promised to respect the freedom to worship of their citizens."

Speaking about the anniversary, Bishop Joseph Arshad of the Diocese of Faisalabad spoke to Crux about the words of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founding father of Pakistan/

Jinnah said, "You are free to go to your temple; You are free to go to your mosque or any other place of worship in this state of Pakistan. To whatever religion, caste or faith to which you belong, there will be no discrimination or distinction. We are all citizens with equal rights."

Arshad said he wanted to tell young Catholics of the nation to work together to build a society that honestly reflects those ideals, and to promote peace.

"We are all equal citizens, and it is essential that our youth must work together for brotherhood and solidarity, justice and equality and work for religious tolerance and mutual respect," the bishop told Crux. "I strongly believe that together with one thought, we can achieve a prosperous, peaceful and an advanced country."

However, Arshad said the presence of Christians in Pakistan is like the "salt of the earth and light to the world," despite the many challenges.

"Pakistani Christians have played a significant role in the formation and development of the country," he said. "Our people stand firm in their faith and also foster a culture of dialogue with our Pakistani brothers and sisters of other faiths."

The bishop said the path of inter religious dialogue is the only way to peaceful coexistence.

Dominican Father James Channan, the Director of the Peace Center Lahore, said that Christians believe in the dream of Jinnah, which is a Pakistan where members of all faiths are equal citizens.

"Our country is faced with both internal and external threats," Channan said. "Most of the people still remain poor and there is a great lack of security, basic health and shelter facilities. The extremism and fundamentalism is a great threat to our nation."

The priest said one of the biggest problems is political instability and corruption in government.

"In spite of all that, this day reminds us to play our full role for the development and prosperity of our country," Channan said.

He said there were several interfaith conferences organized to celebrate Pakistan's independence, and churches across the country held prayer services and offered Masses for the country and its stability.

RISING EXTREMISM IN INDIA

Across the border, India has also been experiencing a rise in extremism, but promoted by Hindu nationalists.

Since 2014, India has been ruled by the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has strong links to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a militant Hindu nationalist organization.

Crux wrote that incidents of harassment have increased over the past few months, with various Christians being detained or arrested for "attempted conversion," and places of worship being vandalized.

More recently, a spate of killings related to "cow vigilantism" have happened around the country.

For India's Hindus cows are sacred and the slaughter of cows is illegal in most parts of India, although beef is often eaten by some Dalits (low-caste Hindus previously called "untouchables") and members of some religious minorities, such as Muslims and Christians.

Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas, the secretary general of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India, said despite this, India is a "very tolerant community" which has given space for the Catholic Church over the past 70 years.

"Our hopes and aspirations for this country are that this tolerant spirit, peace and traditional harmony we have been enjoying, continue, so that we can continue contributing to nation-building and to the good of this country," he told Vatican Radio.

"We also hope and pray that this country might go forward with inclusive development for all its people, taking in the poor, the marginalized, the tribals, the Dalits and the poor, with whom our hearts are always there as Catholics and as the Catholic Church," Mascarenhas said.
(UN Photo/ Eskinder Debebe)United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks at the launch of the Plan of Action for Religious Leaders and Actors to Prevent Incitement to Violence that Could Lead to Atrocity Crimes on July 14, 2017 in New York.

Some United Nations agencies have long avoided mention of the world of faith and religion except when cooperating on matters such as refugee assistance, but a new initiative may change that.

But U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, a practicing Roman Catholic with a deep Christian faith, has addressed the faith community in New York on how it can help in combatting the violent extremism of groups claiming religion is their motivation.

"I firmly believe in the power of faith leaders to shape our world for good," he said.

Guterres spoke at the launch of the Plan of Action for Religious Leaders and Actors to Prevent Incitement to Violence that Could Lead to Atrocity Crimes throught the initiative known as the Fez Plan on July 14.

"The Fez Plan of Action is the product of two years of consultations, led by my Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide. It involved religious leaders representing different faiths around the world, as well as faith based organizations and many others," said Guterres.

"I would like to pay tribute to the critical role of many partners, and in particular KAICIID, the Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers and the World Council of Churches."

At the launch the U.N. head voiced concern at the abuse of religion to justify incitement to violence, while stressing the importance of religious leaders in preventing violence and contributing to peace and stability.

"Around the world, we see how religion is being twisted [and] cynically manipulated," he stressed, launching the action plan to prevent atrocity crimes, which include genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.

Guterres cautioned against the proliferation of online and offline hate speech.

"Hate speech sows the seeds of suspicion, mistrust and intolerance [and] over time, it can play an important role in convincing people that violence is logical, justifiable, even necessary," he noted.

PLAN OF ACTION

The Plan of Action was developed over two years of intensive consultations at the global and regional levels organized by the U.N. Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect, with the support of the World Council of Churches, the International Dialogue Centre (KAICIID), and the Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers.

A total of 232 religious leaders and actors from 77 countries took part in the consultations. Participants included Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews, Muslims and Sikhs from different groups and denominations, as well as representatives from various religious minorities, including Baha'i, Candomble, Kakai, Yazidi and humanists.

It is the first action plan specifically designed to enable religious leaders to prevent incitement to violence and at least 30 percent of participants at all meetings were women.

Guterres was joined by U.N. Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng, and a number of religious leaders from around the world.

Hate speech is one of the most common warning signs of atrocity crimes, Guterres said, noting that early action can be taken to prevent them from occurring and that religious leaders are key actors in that warning process.

He highlighted the commitment expressed in the Plan of Action for Religious Leaders and Actors to Prevent Incitement to Violence that Could Lead to Atrocity Crimes to promote peace, understanding, mutual respect and the fundamental rights of all people.

The UN head said the Plan lays out ways in which religious leaders can prevent incitement to violence and contribute to peace and stability.

"These principles summon us to show respect for all human beings, even those with whom we might profoundly disagree or whose cultures might seem alien," he said, calling for the widest possible dissemination and implementation of the Plan of Action.

"Let us work together to prevent and end atrocity crimes and all affronts to human rights and dignity," he stated.

The scheme is known as the "Fez Plan of Action" for the city in Morocco where it was drafted in 2015, the Plan called for monitoring of incitement and the development of alternative messages as well as engagement in dialogue.

It includes efforts to develop and revise education to include better mainstreaming of appreciation of all cultures, engaging in and strengthening inter-religious and intra-religious dialogue and activities.

In doing so it seeks to ensure understanding, respect and communication, engaging in dialogue on grievances, strengthening clarity of message and engaging with political leaders.

Dr. Isabel Apawo Phiri, Deputy General Secretary of the World Council of Churches said it is an "important project, which engages a critical and often previously ignored constituency for a more peaceful world.

"We live in a time when some groups boldly and shamelessly advance religious justifications for the inhuman violence they perpetrate.

"While acknowledging the need for each of us to interrogate our own traditions and interpretations for sources of violence against others, it is of vital importance that the much vaster religious resources for peace and justice do not remain untapped," she said.

Faisal Bin Muaammar, Secretary General of the International Dialogue Centre (KAICIID) said, "In our work with leaders of religious communities, we have seen an alarming spike in recent times of incitement to violence against people based on their religion, and in the misuse of religion to justify violence.

"Religious leaders are keen to work together to find solutions to these pressing challenges. Attempts to find solutions to these challenges have tended to exclude religious leaders. A 360-degree approach which brings religious leaders, policymakers, and civil society to the dialogue table is the only way to build solutions that work."


The NSW Teachers Federation (NSWTF) has sought legal advice after the states teachers were asked to sign a controversial non-disclosure agreement covering question testing for NAPLAN online.



The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) and the NSW Education Department say the agreement is to ensure the security of potential test content, so that no student has any unfair advantage when taking the test.



However, the NSWTF says its members were told they cannot retain a copy of the document, which they worry could leave teachers legally vulnerable if they breach the agreement.



The Federation does not accept that individual teachers can be asked to sign an agreement with a third party in order to perform their duties as an employee, particularly when the full nature and consequences for a breach of that agreement are unknown, read a statement from the NSWTF.



At the very least, people should be entitled to keep a copy of any document they are asked to sign. The Federation is seeking further legal advice and will provide an update to members as soon as possible.



ACARA and the Department say the request is nothing new as teachers involved in trialling NAPLAN test items have been asked to sign confidentiality agreements since 2008.



However, NSW Teachers Federation (NSWTF) president, Maurie Mulheron, said he was not aware of teachers being asked to sign a similar agreement in past years.



It's an individual, personal agreement signed with a third party, and the third party is not your employer, the NSW Department of Education, Mulheron said.



There's no information on what would happen if you breached the agreement.



The NSWTF says the situation ignited after staff at a high school in Illawarra reported that they were asked by a Pearson invigilator to leave a briefing about the NAPLAN online test when they refused to sign the agreement.



NSW Secondary Principals' Council (NSWSPC) president, Chris Presland, told The Educator that in previous years, teachers had signed similar agreements, but it had never been at the request of a third party.



The biggest issue is the lack of clarity around what it is that teachers will be agreeing to. Prior to this request, there wasnt any advice provided by our employer  and this has caused confusion, he said.



It would be very unusual for teachers to sign an agreement of this nature with a third party without some advice or direction from the Department.



Presland said clarification about the document from the Department would have prevented the current issue from snowballing.



When you see this agreement, there is almost nothing on it, which raised more concerns. Its such a broad blanket statement with no indication of consequences, he said.




President Donald Trumps vocal support for charter schools and private-school vouchers has had some school choice supporters wringing their hands over whether it will have a negative impact on the policies they champion. This is particularly true for charter school backers who, over time, have built up bipartisan support.

Now a new public opinion poll from Education Next , a journal published by Stanford Universitys Hoover Institution, is providing insights into whether the presidentas well as the broader political dynamics in playhave swayed the publics views on school choice.

Support for charter schools has fallen 12 percent from last year, the largest change in opinion that EdNext saw on any single policy from last year. The steepest drop-off came from white participants. At the same time, the survey found that opposition toward school vouchers and other similar policies that direct public aid toward private schools has softened.

But the researchers who conducted the poll dont think the big dip in support for charters is linked to Trumps enthusiasm for them.

If the decline in support were related to Trumps support of the concept, I would have expected it to occur primarily among Democrats, and thats not what we see, said Martin West, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and one of the authors of the report that accompanies the poll. I would also expect there to be similar changes in opinion about other policies that the president has embraced especially other school choice policies, which is not what we see.

Support for Charter Schools Is Eroding

The report posits several reasons why support for charter schools has plummeted.

President Barack Obama, one of the most high-profile champions of charters, is out of office, and, write the reports authors, some of the most prominent liberal voices on the national stageSen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Independent, have voiced opposition to charters. (While Warren opposed an effort to expand charter schools in Massachusetts and has expressed strong concern over for-profit charter schools, she has also said that charters producing extraordinary results should be celebrated. Sanders came out against privately-controlled charters during the 2016 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination and also opposed the expansion initiative in Massachusetts.)

National civil rights leadersincluding the NAACP and the Movement for Black Livesalso have taken a harsh stance toward charters recently, with the NAACP calling for a ban on any new charters opening .

Finally, expensive and high-profile political battles over charter schools, such as the failed effort last fall to raise the cap on the number of schools allowed to open in Massachusetts, may also contribute to the eroding of support beyond the Democratic party, said West.

In the new nationally representative survey of more than 4,200 respondents, only 39 percent said they supported charter schools, down from 51 percent in 2016. However, thats still more than the percentage of respondents who oppose charters, 36 percent. A quarter of respondents said they had no opinion of charter schools one way or the other.

The drop spans both major political parties. Support among Republican respondents fell 13 percent compared to 11 percent in Democrats.

But those numbers change based on how the question was asked. Respondents were divided into two groups. One was informed that Trump favors charter schools. Within that group, support among Republicans significantly increased, and only slightly eroded among Democratic respondents. This has the net effect of boosting support for charter schools to 45 percent.

What may be most worrisome to charter school supporters is the drop in support among blacks and Hispanics. Support among African-American respondents fell from 46 percent to 37 percent, and from 44 percent to 39 percent among Hispanics. A visible segment of the charter sector devotes itself to serving low-income black and Latino students.

Public Opinion on Vouchers

On the topic of private school choice, the EdNext poll queried respondents on both school vouchers and tax-credit scholarships. School vouchers provide public money to eligible families to spend on private school tuition. Tax-credit scholarship programs provide tax-credits to businesses and individuals who donate money to organizations that grant need-based scholarships to students for use at private schools.

Opposition to tax-credit scholarships for low-income students has fallen from 29 percent last year to 24 percent this year. Support for the policywhich is most popular among the various types of private-school choice programs according to the pollremained essentially flat at 54 percent.

The same trend was seen on the question of allowing all families to use vouchers: Opposition fell while support went unchanged.

But how the question is phrased affects the answer. When pollsters asked survey participants whether they supported government funds being used for private school tuitionversus giving families wider choicevouchers received less support.

Although Trumps backing of a particular policy would generally increase support among Republicans while raising opposition among Democrats, the net effect often remained the same, causing no meaningful change in the overall popularity of a policy.

EdNext asked participants this same question in 2009, during President Barack Obamas first year in office, and found that the presidents position on a policy shifted public opinion toward his stanceregardless of party affiliation.

This was a boon for charter schools at the time, which saw an 11 percent bump in support, but less so for school vouchers which saw an 11 percent drop.

Views on Common Core

EdNext polled respondents between May 5 and June 7 on a number of other education topics such as testing, merit pay for teachers, and the Common Core State Standards .

Support for the standards had been in a downward spiral since 2013. And theyve been a favorite punching bag among some members of the GOP , including Trump, who decried the standards as a total disaster during the election.

But the downward trend has suddenly come to a halt, according to the poll. Forty-one percent of respondents support the standards, while 38 percent opposelevels that are virtually unchanged from last year. While Republicans tend to oppose the standards and Democrats generally support them, teachers are evenly divided on the policy.

But as the researchers point out in their report, those numbers only capture opposition to the name common core. When using a simple description of the common core instead of its name, support for the standards is significantly higher at 61 percent.

Testing and holding schools accountable for student performance continues to have broad support across members of both parties. About two-thirds of respondents agree with the federal requirements to test students in math and reading every year from the latter elementary grades through middle school and once in high school.

In general, public opinion has shifted in the last year toward a preference for a smaller role for the federal government in education policy.

On the topic of union dues, an issue that the U.S. Supreme Court could soon address , 44 percent of survey participants said they were against requiring teachers to pay fees to unions even if they are not members. But more surprisingly, the reports authors said, teachers are slightly more likely to oppose union dues than support them by 47 to 44 percent.
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South Africa: conquering hero

South Africa secured a resounding victory when DRN recently polled 200 independent merchants in a bid to find which countries wines are performing best in the sector. It finished ahead of Italy, Argentina and Spain as the country growing sales in the strongest fashion and it is easy to see why. Quality has improved drastically in recent years. Classics from well-established regions are winning plaudits, a dynamic new wave of winemakers is pushing boundaries and producing intriguing offerings and at the very top end scores from critics speak for themselves.

But perhaps the finest praise it can get is that South African MW Greg Sherwood has started drinking it at home again. For years he turned to Burgundy, Bordeaux and Italy for his evening tipple, but now he is returning once more to his motherland. I find myself drinking so much more South African wine again, says Sherwood, of London indie Handford Fine Wines. They are so affordable, at high quality, with such diversity.

Diversity is what springs to mind the most when you consider South Africa  it is hard to think of a New World country that offers such a wide array of styles and unique selling points. Australia, Chile, Argentina  its difficult for these countries to compete when they dont have the diversity and USPs of South Africa, says Sherwood.

But it is not just indies that are revelling in the price-to-quality ratio being offered by South Africa nowadays. Nielsen figures covering the multiples show that year-on-year sales are flat at 468 million (year to July 2017), which is an improvement after a couple of years of decline.

South Africa is a fascinating country from a wine perspective, says Gyles Walker, senior wine buyer at The Co-op. It can basically produce anything you want as a customer. If you want varietal-led, great value, quality products then fantastic South Africa is your first stop. You can get entry-level Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon at really good quality, all the way up to the top icon brands that have been around for a number of years, and all the ladders in between.

There are really exciting areas where winemakers are being unleashed. They know the farmers and the old vines and the quality of the grapes and they are so excited about what they can turn these grapes into. This whole generation is very confident and wants to try something different, but not in a scary way 

the wines they produce can still be understood by customers.

Areas of excellence

South African government figures show that exports to the UK are up 1% in value, driven by bottled exports as bulk declines. This shows that the work being done by the likes of Handford, Hallgarten, Farr Vintners, Berry Bros and Fine & Rare at the fine wine end of the market is driving growth in the category.

Sherwood points to a few key areas in which South Africa is really excelling  white blends, trendy calling cards such as Chenin Blanc and Cinsault, and alternative warm climate varieties finding a great home in areas such as Swartland. No one can do white blends like South Africa, he says. They have a classic flavour, good concentration and acidity. Its like a white Burgundy alternative, but impossible to replicate anywhere else in the world. Nobody can challenge them.

The Cape white blend in all its forms remains a very special category because the greatest expressions are not just conjured up creations. They are formidable, thoughtful wines with a sense of confidence, terroir, balance and delicious, synergistic flavours. Varieties youd expect to be incongruous marry seamlessly and genuinely create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. This synergy factor is the Holy Grail that other international producers have found almost impossible to replicate. The South African wine industry is truly blessed to have this joker in its marketing hand.

People in our store are just as happy to pick up a 25-30 Chenin as they are to pick up a 30 white Burgundy or Italian, which is great.

Sherwood has a particular soft spot for Duncan Savages wines and points to the new 2016 Are We There Yet? Touriga Nacional as showcasing the potential of warm-climate varieties in South Africa. He also highlights Eben Sadie as a great pioneer in this field. He says his private clients are piling into top-end South Africa in a big way and his main challenge is securing a large enough allocation as demand is so high among London merchants.

It all bodes well for the broader industry because it has a trickle-down effect, says Sherwood. If the top guys are doing well the more modest wines will do well. I try to communicate to all South African producers that they should work together and not criticise each other. Working in co-operation and making the cake bigger works better than trying to steal other peoples pieces of cake.

There is a lot of excitement from the new wave and the old school producers are realising they need to shout about their wines. There is a place for all these wines. These young guys all grew up drinking Stellenbosch classics and they have a soft spot for these wines, so theres no point in criticising them when they get 95 points for an old vine Cinsault and saying Stellenbosch Cabernet is better. Theres a place for everyone.

But Sherwood believes South Africa should not be competing at entry level. At the middle to top end the quality gets better every year, he says. South Africa is revolving around the premium segment. Its not sunshine, its terroir-driven fine wine. We have to focus on regionality.

Lower-end wine is a difficult area because other countries do it better than South Africa, such as Chile, Australia and Spain. I dont think we have the raw materials and structure of industry to hit those really entry-level price points with the quality those guys have.

I have seen and tasted some interesting stuff, more in the high-street area. Its the 10-plus retail level, like Majestic and Oddbins, and some quite good wines at 7-10. But 5-6 is not a market where exciting things are happening and are going to happen going forwards. Nobody can make any money selling 5 wines in supermarkets. Theres a place for those wines, but not from South Africa.

Some would beg to differ. Walker at The Co-op has been impressed with the offerings at lower price points, which allow its customers to enjoy interesting wines during an era when disposable income is shrinking. South Africa can produce a distinctive style of wine that our customers love, he says. The market is dominated by Australia and the majority of people enjoy those clean, fruit-forward wines, which South Africa can do.

Better value

Walker continues: South Africa still offers better value than most New World countries. Its where we source some great value wines. The interesting area is that 6-8 area, which is a gap one or two countries used to dominate and are moving away from. It can offer lower price points for people finding themselves struggling to buy Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. The majority of our customers are facing real budgetary issues and spending money on luxuries like wine [can be a challenge], so we want to offer constant value and not price our customers out of exciting products. South Africa can help us in that way.

Of course, South Africa also aligns well with The Co-ops championing of Fairtrade products, and Walker says the quality here is strong. We have talked to brand owners about why we support Fairtrade and many of them have come with us on a journey, sourced quality wines from Fairtrade farms and produced exclusive wines and blends of fantastic quality for us, he says. Kleine Zalze produced a Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve for 8.99, which is stunning and stacks up with everything else we have in the range. Kumala is the main brand for South Africa in UK retail and we worked with it for two years on producing a wine for us. Its the first Fairtrade wine it has done.

Anthony Van Schalkwyk, sales and marketing manager at Kleine Zalze, says: I definitely think the demand for South African wine will increase due to Brexit and the weak pound. The stronger euro, US and Australian dollars will dramatically increase prices of wines from those countries and consumers and buyers will start looking for alternatives.

South African wines are well-priced in general and provide amazing value. It is also time for brand South Africa to premiumise as we have always undersold ourselves, which might have worked when the rand was weak but, unfortunately, that is not the case anymore.

Walker suggests that could come naturally to South Africa due to the improvement in winemaking ability. Winemaking processes in South Africa have changed dramatically, he says. The grapes are fantastic quality and the winemakers have learned so much. This has convinced The Co-op to champion the much maligned Pinotage again and it blew the retailers forecasts out of the water as it was embraced by a new generation that did not have old prejudices. South Africa now gives reassurance to customers and I dont think that consumer confidence was there five years ago, says Walker.

Suppliers are confident that the next year will see South Africa continue its upward trajectory among UK retailers in the independent and multiple arenas. Andrew Steel, owner of Connoisseur Estates, says: We have seen strong demand over the past 12 months from our independent retail customers for the Oldenburg Vineyards wines from Stellenbosch.

They recognise the premium quality South Africa has to offer at competitive prices, with many expanding their South African range due to consumer demand.

Alex Tilling, marketing manager at Armit Wines, says: Innovation in winemaking and viticulture has had a massive impact on improving the quality of South African wines, which has really helped them to gain international recognition and popularity, notably in the UK, which has traditionally viewed South African wines as forming the lower end of the market with cheap brands.

South African wines offer fantastic value for money, with the majority of the exceptional quality, high-end, small-production wines on the shelves at 30-50 max, offering more opportunity for consumers to experiment at a high level.

A new generation of winemakers has brought international experience and exposure, as well as a more fun, informal, knowledgeable and engaging approach to promoting themselves and their regions. This has captured the imagination of the UK wine trade, which of course filters down to consumers, through events such as the New Wave tasting, the Swartland Revolution, the Young Guns movement and creative and funky labels.

It would not be a surprise, then, if South Africa finishes top of the pile in next years indies poll, returns to growth in the Nielsen figures and holds down its coveted spot at Sherwoods dinner table.

Related articles:
Cyprus leadership is willing to go back to the talks over the Cyprus issue after the negotiations failed last month but the islands President Nicos Anastasiades emphasized that the new talks should be within the boundaries laid down by UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres. He, however, also stressed that Ankara was not looking into finding a solution within the UNs parameters and prefers to act outside the UN parameters. Mr. Anastasiades also encouraged all parties interested in finding a solution to the Cyprus problem to take this into account.

Ankara announced in July that the failure of the talks demonstrated the impossibility of a solution within the parameters of the UN Good Offices Mission. There is no meaning left in continuing within these parameters. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu also added that the Turkish government would continue to look for another solution under different parameters.

However, Greek Minister of Foreign Affairs Nikos Kotzias pointed out that Ankara has yet to specify what it means by looking for a solution outside the UN. I think that any solution to the Cyprus problem must be within the framework of the UN and more generally, within the framework of international law. There can be no solution to the Cyprus problem by imposing mechanisms and procedures that are outside the international context, he said.

The Cyprus dispute is the ongoing issue of continuing Turkish occupation since 1974 of the northern part of the island. The Republic of Cyprus is recognized as the sole legitimate state, sovereign over the whole island, but the northern third part is de facto under the administration of the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is guarded by Turkish Armed Forces. Currently, Turkey is the only country that recognizes the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
The European Union has responded to the results of an 8-month investigation into Chinese corrosion-resistant steels by imposing provisional import duties of as much as 28.5%. The investigation found that Chinese steel products benefited from unfair subsidies. The decision was made by the European Commission in response to a complaint made by steel association Eurofer whose members include prominent steel companies such as ThyssenKrupp, Tata Steel Europe and ArcelorMittal.

Investment bank Jefferies commented that imports of Chinese corrosion-resistant steel soared by 45% last year and currently make up more than half of all EU imports of steel. With Voestalpine, Thyssenkrupp and ArcelorMittal leading exposure to galvanized (corrosion resistant) steel, todays news is a positive catalyst for boosting domestic market share and margins, the banks analysts added.

Brussels has imposed anti-dumping duties on a number of steel products saying that the duties were necessary to help producers in at least 15 EU countries. It was provisionally concluded that the imposition of measures would contribute to the recovery of the Union industry by allowing price increases enabling the industry as a whole to return to a profitable situation, the Commission said in a statement. The EU import duties range from 17.2% to 28.5% and will affect Chinas steel giants.

Earlier in June, the EU set duties of up to 35.9% on Chinese imports of hot-rolled flat steel to also address what it says are unfair subsidies in a finding challenged by Beijing. EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom then commented that the EU was continuing to act against unfair foreign dumping. She said that the EU hoped that international discussions on steel overcapacity would eventually convince Beijing to end this practice. Chinas Commerce Ministry then commented that it had strongly questioned the legitimacy of the EU decision.
Algeria continues to struggle with its numerous terrorist groups that have emerged since the 1990s and gradually developed alongside the international trends with the ISIS being the most recent terrorist organization to start its operations in the country. According to the London-based risk analysis publication, the Global Risk Insight, there are ongoing recurrent attacks on Algerian law enforcement authorities by armed men linked to terrorist groups. The latest one took place last June in the capital Algiers.

Other high profile attacks claimed by the (Islamic State) include a thwarted suicide attack by two men in the city of Constantine in April, and two months before this, a jihadist tried to enter a police station in the center of the city. On this occasion, a police man on duty succeeded to disarm the bombers suicide device by firing on it and the perpetrator was shot, commented Emily Boutler the author of the article Algerias Battle Against Terror that was published in the report.

Mrs. Boutler explains that there are a few terrorist groups currently operating in Algeria, most notably Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the Mali-based organization Movement for United and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), al-Murabitoun, which claimed responsibility for the 2013 attack on the In Amenas gas facility in the south of the country, and Jund al-Khilafa (Soldiers of the Caliphate), which has declared its allegiance to the Islamic State. She also said that in Algeria, those who have opted for aligning themselves with the Islamic State often went fighting in the field for years. The country has had difficulties in dissuading young Algerian men from joining extremist organizations in the environment of high unemployment and social inequity that have been troubling the North African country for many years.
The Japanese investors are hoarding bitcoin as the geopolitical tension between the US and North Korea increase. The bitcoin trade in Japanese yen increased from about 33% to 46%, according to CryptoCompare.

"Bitcoin is benefitting from geopolitical tensions - trading in Japan and Korea has increased significantly over the last few months," Brian Kelly, a CNBC contributor and head of BKCM, which runs a digital asset strategy, said in an email to CNBC.

Bitcoin has easily outperformed gold as a safe haven asset in times of a risk-off trade in stocks.

Traders hopeful of faster bitcoin transactions

Along with the geopolitical tensions, the optimism of faster transaction times has also boosted demand.

Up until now a lot of people didnt really believe bitcoin could go any higher until the scaling issue is resolved, said Arthur Hayes, Hong Kong-based founder of bitcoin exchange BitMEX. With this actually being implemented on protocol, theoretically the amount of transactions that can be processed at a reasonable speed is going to be much higher, so a lot of people are very bullish about bitcoin now, reports Bloomberg.

The previous two weekends have been particularly good for bitcoin as shown in the chart below.

With the latest surge in prices, bitcoins market capitalization has risen above $66 billion, further consolidating its position as the leader. Ethereum follows the leader with a market capitalization of $28 billion. Pulled by bitcoin, the market capitalization of the whole cryptocurrency universe has increased to more than $136 billion, according to coinmarketcap.

Meanwhile, the new cryptocurrency bitcoin cash that was spun off on August 1 from bitcoin continues to trade in a range.

Chris Burniske, author of the upcoming book, "Cryptoassets: The Innovative Investor's Guide to Bitcoin and Beyond," warns investors that a pullback in bitcoin is possible. He tweeted: The 3 peaks in @Google Search trends were accompanied by 3 of #bitcoins 6 price bubbles.

Therefore, traders should be careful at the current levels and book partial profits on existing positions.
Traceymw50 said: Hi im a 51 year old mum who has decided on a contractual posting in Dubai/Abu Dhabi. I've had 4 replies.. I need any hrlp/advice I can get please . Many thanks in advance Click to expand...

Do you mean that you are trying to find a job as a nurse in Abu Dhabi ?Have you tried reading the 'how to get a job' thread in the Dubai forum as that has more hints and helpful suggestions than the Abu Dhabi forum.
The key thing is that you need to contact the CCI (Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie) in the departement where you are planning to buy/settle. They have a number of programs designed to help folks looking to start their own business in the area. Just be aware that running a business in France is considerably more bureaucratic and subject to rules and regulations than you are probably used to in the UK.



Now, whether the local CCI has some available who can speak English with you while you learn is an open question - but you'll never find out until you go in and ask the question! The main thing is going to be figuring out what business form you need or want to use. There are single person entities (EIRL, EURL) and there are entities you can set up so that you and your wife can be partners in whatever you do. The main thing with the business entity is to make sure that you are properly registered for taxes and "cotisations" (social insurances), but don't forget that for anything other than an "auto-entrepreneur" status (limited as to turnover, but as simplified as they come), you'll need to maintain a formal set of books and may want to consider having an accountant (expert comptable) for that side of the business.

Cheers,

Bev
bidrod said: If I can provide any further info feel free to ask.



Chuck Click to expand...

Great advice on this site, especially now with the 6 month 9a visa waiver instead of traipsing into BI every 59 days, sounds simple but many things to consider within your research, and search we should valid to your particular circumstances, as all will agree ones hope is, the more delving the more educated we become.1/ Buying/leasing property has many different scenarios depending on firstly marital status, trying to purchase freehold title in your wife's name/buildings in yours or jointly on the title and as others have rightly stated your rights in the event of outlasting your wife could be slim. Perhaps 25%, but while all is rosy does it matter? Something to ponder after 22 years of marriage, for me and the eventual outcome.2/Buying a condo, easy if that's what you are looking for, generally more expensive and with corp fees, watch out for those. You will generally be in the crux of high rise, pollution and suburbia. From new 40 to 60 year life span then demolished, not sure if any or no compensation for your investment, perhaps others can elaborate or or would care to after potentially doing their dollars. If you just want an apartment and the conveniences of living in a concrete block/jungle and then security/sense of what your dollars are going into? Rent, cheaper by far at the end of the day.3/ 9a/13a etc. As stated by others can be good or opening a can of worms, just a point to you the OP, after what was it 7, 8 or 9 years or was it 6? Or 2. Regardless as your title states, "newbie" do yourself a favour and justice by actually trawling like we all do for many many years, all or most answers can be found in here and many other sites, one only needs to look.4/SRRV and also SIRV, both have benefits and limitations and a little delving will reveal what suits your scenario. Both have generous sales pitches but are totally useless to many, and lucrative to others, depends on ones circumstances and ability to read between the lines/future or lack of in PH given antiquated laws. SRIV that certainly requires copious amounts of reading and proffers to a wealthy investor that may receive returns or no, suits their tax scenario or ego while the SRRV opens doors for Mr. you and me and offers opportunities to live/convert investments into tangible assets as a retiree and controlled. The benefits are many fold but won't suit all and I have to admit that after al lmy time here am little the wiser to correct/fixers/bribery, that's how we do it here sir,,,,,,,, yeah sure. Now that we PH has a new leader things at the corruption level are changing and about time.Hope it works in my/your favour as our beloved do also. Read, read again and then learn ones options and lack of rights. Honestly your little or zilch opportunities are administered by an or set of antiquated laws that all Newbies as we all were once and personally still hold the title; Well I do as I am still here;If we had the answers we would not be here.Yes I could go on as we do well me sorry,,,,,, well sorry me. But/and (never start a sentence with but/and) after having e few drinks? Should we split the topic or simply ask the OP to research on this and other sites? The answers are there 10 fold and require committed "expats or those who are considering" to do their home work as we do, guilty as charged sir.No easy answers.Cheers Steve.
Mark Lennihan /AP

The New York Stock Exchange notified San Antonio-based Harte Hanks that its no longer in compliance with its trading rules as the companys 30-day average stock price dipped below $1, according to an SEC filing.

The global marketing company had a 30-day average price of 99 cents as of August 7, falling just below the minimum of $1 required under the NYSEs rules. Harte Hanks has six months to bring its stock back above $1 a share.
On Wednesday, U.S., Canadian and Mexican trade officials formally begin renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, a pact between the three nations credited with quadrupling trade since it took effect in 1994.

President Donald Trump originally threatened to abandon NAFTA, calling it economic undevelopment and one of the worst deals ever. Since then, agricultural and industrial trade groups as well as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have been on a loud defensive, stressing that trade under NAFTA has ballooned to $1.3 trillion annually within the bloc.

Since Mexico accounts for 40 percent of Texas exports, the state has more at stake than any other. But as Russell Green, an international economist at Rice Universitys Baker Institute for Public Policy, noted, Texans carry a lot of weight in the Trump administration.

Heres a primer on all you need to know going into the talks:

The chief negotiators

U.S.: John Melle, assistant U.S. trade representative for the Western Hemisphere, will be responsible for the day-to-day negotiations. Melle has been with the agency since 1988 and has held a number of positions covering Mexico, Canada, the Caribbean and Central America.

Mexico: Kenneth Smith Ramos, director of the Trade and North American Free Trade agreement office at the Mexican Embassy in Washington, is a veteran trade expert who started his career working on Mexicos negotiating team for the original North American Free Trade Agreement.

Canada: Steve Verheul, Canadas chief trade negotiator since 2009, led Canadas dialogue during talks for the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between the European Union and Canada, which was signed Oct. 30, 2016. His previous work in international trade policy at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada involved him in the original NAFTA negotiations as well as the Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations  one of the largest trade deals in history involving 123 countries.

Some key issues affecting Texas

Trade deficit: U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer touts the Trump administration as being the first to include reducing the trade deficit  the amount by which imports exceed exports  as a key objective for renegotiating a free trade agreement.

Since NAFTAs implementation, the goods balance with Mexico has gone from a $1.3 billion surplus to a $64 billion deficit. The deficit with Canada is $11 billion.

Kenneth Smith Ramos, who will be leading the negotiations for Mexico, argues that the deficit is modest considering the overall trade volume and integration of U.S.-Mexico production chains. Texas could have been hit hard with import tariffs floated early on as a way to tackle the deficit, but the tariff talk seems to have gone away. So is the deficit stress all bark? Its hard to see where the bite comes from, Green said.

Agriculture: Agricultural trade between the three NAFTA countries now totals about $85 billion a year. According to Texas A&M University, Texas in 2016 exported $833.5 million in plant and animal products to Mexico and $875.1 million to Canada.

Provisions for sanitary and phytosanitary measures, included in Lighthizers July 17 summary of negotiating objectives, would prevent NAFTA partners from using food safety and disease scares to gain market advantage by shutting down imports. China for example continued to use the 2003 mad cow disease scare to keep its markets closed to U.S. beef for 14 years. U.S. potato growers say Mexico has similar barriers against U.S. spuds.

Beef: Mexico is the second largest market for U.S. beef in terms of volume, Canada is the fourth. The cattle trade under NAFTA has gotten very fluid, with U.S. beef producers often sourcing young animals north and south of the border to save on grazing costs.

Corn: As Mexico raises production of cattle and pork, its importing more U.S. grain as feed. While Texas is outside the U.S. corn belt, corn is still one of the states top five agricultural products, with 323 million bushels produced in 2016. U.S. corn producers last year sent more than $2.5 billion in corn exports to Mexico, about 28 percent of total corn exports. Its no wonder farmers were alarmed when Mexico said it was in talks to buy corn from Argentina and Brazil. Still, economists note it would take a lot to match U.S. rail and barge shipping routes to Mexico.

Dairy: Trump has been on the attack against what U.S. producers say are unfair protections for the Canadian dairy industry. Canadas national ingredients strategy set low prices on domestic ultra-filtered milk, a product used in cheese and yogurt production that unlike other U.S. dairy products was not subject to Canadian tariffs. U.S. producers, now practically drowning in over supply, blame Canada for pricing them out of the Canadian market. Texas ranks seventh in terms of U.S. dairy production.

Lumber/coal: The U.S. and Canada have been sparring over softwood lumber, with Canada threatening to ban U.S. shipments of thermal coal through Canadian ports after Trump put tariffs on Canadian wood to offset Canadian subsidies. That hits Texas booming home construction industry hard, as a lot of their lumber comes from Canadian forests.

Voter Guide: What to know for the midterm election Your guide to the Texas and San Antonio races and candidates on the Nov. 8 ballot.

Cotton: Texas leads the nation in cotton production, and amid subsidized competition from China, India and other nations relies on NAFTA trade for stability. Between 2014 and 2016, the North American market accounted for about $2 billion in annual U.S. exports of raw cotton fiber and cotton textile products. Texas exports made up about $540 million of that.

Energy: Since NAFTA 1.0, Mexico has opened up its largely untapped oil and gas deposits to foreign exploration and investment. Green said the big win for U.S. companies would be in having NAFTA terms that would supersede political uncertainty in Mexico. Thats particularly true for U.S. natural gas exports that already power more than a quarter of Mexicos electricity. Its perfectly legal to export natural gas to Mexico today, Green said. The only problem is the federal government could deny your permit at any moment if they decided to. Whereas if you incorporate it as part of the agreement then you dont even have to get the federal permits to begin with  Businesses hate uncertainty.

Manufacturing: Automotive and electronic are the Texas manufacturing sectors with the most to lose, Green said, primarily because of the supply chains that have been built up. But Green thinks those supply chains would have happened regardless of NAFTA due to proximity to lower labor costs, much as Japan sent work to Korea, Malaysia, Vietnam and China.

While rules of origin, which dictate the percentage of a product that must come from NAFTA countries, are part of the negotiating priorities, Green called the category a tough one.

If you tighten up the rules at some point it gets cheaper for you to just ignore the treaty completely, pay the higher tariff and be able to source wherever you want, he said.

Texas takeaway: A lot of what the U.S. aims to negotiate had already been hammered out in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation pact that Trump withdrew from his first week of office. For Mexico, the TPP would have brought access to the Japanese market. With that gone as a selling point, it might be harder to find a deal on difficult items, Green said.

If you think that the entire trade relationship is at risk, youre overstating it, because so much trade happens organically, he said. It still remains the case that Texas is the most exposed state to these negotiations. They matter much more for Texas than for any other state.

LBrezosky@express-news.net
The profile of the U.S. immigrant farm worker is changing, with fewer chancing an illegal crossing of the U.S.-Mexico border to follow harvests and more settling in with the same employers and establishing roots here, a new study by the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute found.

The August issue brief, which analyzes data from the U.S. Department of Labors National Agricultural Worker Survey, found that the percentage of undocumented agricultural workers dropped from 55 percent in 2000 to 47 percent in 2014.

Study author Philip Martin of the University of California, Davis attributes the decline to the Great Recession in 2008-09, stepped up border enforcement and better economic conditions in Mexico where about two-thirds of U.S. farm workers were born.

Some three-fourths of the nations U.S. farm workers are foreign-born, and about half arent authorized to work in the U.S. Farm and ranch employers are responding to the decline in undocumented workers with increased use of harvesting automation, incentives to retain workers and a sharp rise in using the once-unpopular H-2A visa for temporary agricultural workers. The H2-A visa program has increased twelvefold over the past two decades, from 11,000 visas issued in 1996 to more than 134,000 in 2016. Martin attributes the rise to producers need to guarantee a workforce amid the slowdown in Mexican migration.

Right now there is more or less a race between machines and migrant guest workers, Martin said in an interview. Which will come faster? The machine that can shake the apples off the tree or the migrant guest workers who will be willing to pick them? I dont know the answer. I dont know that anyone knows the answer.

About a third of U.S. farm labor is in California, which is the nations leading agricultural state and specializes in labor intensive crops such as tree fruits and berries that are too delicate for machine harvesting. Washington State, Florida, Texas and Oregon follow in the rankings, with hired-hand farm work making up between 3 percent and 8 percent of overall employment for each of the four states.

Farmers have long relied on undocumented workers, as their numbers have been plentiful and the H-2A program is seen as cumbersome. To qualify, farmers must prove that U.S. workers have declined the work, provide free housing for the workers and pay above the minimum wage.

Whats slowly emerging, Martin said, is a portrait of an older worker who had an average of 14 years of experience on the farm in 2014 as opposed to eight years in 2000. Median household income has risen from between $15,000 and $17,500 to between $20,000 and $25,000, thanks to both rising pay and dual-income families. As of 2013-14, 48 percent or crop workers were married parents, compared with just over 40 percent in 2000.

In the year 2000, one out of four workers on U.S. crop farms had been in the U.S. less than one year, Martin said. They were typically 25-year-old, unauthorized, what the government calls newcomers  They were willing by and large because they were here without families to go just about anywhere. It made the farm labor force very flexible.

Todays average immigrant farmworker is almost 40.

Still unauthorized, but most have families with U.S.-born children, he said.

As couples give birth to U.S. citizen children, a rising number of families  about half in 2014  are eligible for federal assistance programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which make them more able to stay put. They are also more likely to speak English well.

In 2000, less than a fifth were proficient English speakers, compared with about a third as of 2014. And they are more likely to hold semi-skilled jobs such as equipment operator than harvesting jobs in vineyards or lettuce fields.

Workers also are less likely to be migrants who follow the crop, moving from south to north along with the harvests. In 1991, 14 percent of the crop workforce were follow-the-crop migrants. By 2000, the percentage had declined to 10 percent. As of 2014, it was just 4 percent.

Of those who migrate 75 miles or more for farm jobs, 23 percent have two or more farm jobs 75 miles apart, and 37 percent are green card commuters shuttling to farms from homes in Mexico. Newcomers  workers in the U.S. less than a year before being surveyed  comprised 22 percent of crop workers in 2000 but less than 2 percent in 2014.

Voter Guide: What to know for the midterm election Your guide to the Texas and San Antonio races and candidates on the Nov. 8 ballot.

Farm employers are responding with what Martin terms a 4-S approach: satisfying current workers to retain them, stretching output with aids such as conveyer belts that make labor less back-breaking, substituting workers with machines such as harvesting combines and robotic milking systems, and supplementing the workforce with the temporary visa holders.

Immigration policy, he said, will dictate which strategy dominates going forward. Under the current trend, employers are likely to continue offering incentives like bonuses and health care and introducing mechanical aids to boost production.

But substituting machinery for labor  already the norm for row crops like cotton and corn  can involve significant investment and changes to the plant itself, such as keeping trees shorter. An easing of the H2-A policy requirements will likely push usage up even higher.

In the short term, farmers are trying to keep those 40-year-old workers from moving on by making their work easier in some ways. But if you look out 5 to 10 years, those workers will now be 50 and that will be harder, he said. Thats why in the sort of medium term of 5 to 10 years, its likely a question of how fast will the machines get. And the second part of that is what will the government do on a guest worker program?

LBrezosky@express-news.net
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AUSTIN - Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar is giving lawmakers a little help as they negotiate funding issues, upping his revenue estimate by $196 million to give them a total of $237 million in available state money.

I felt like it was important to make sure that the policy makers had the most up-to-date information, the best that we can do with all this complex array of economic factors that comes into the 10th largest economy, Hegar said. It was just important to at least get that to them before the close of session tomorrow so they have one more tool in the toolbox.

Members of the House and Senate have discussed using the money to reduce the costs for retired teachers in their health care system, a Capitol source said. Lawmakers want to address changes that were made to the system in the regular session that are meant to keep the system solvent but will lead to hardship for some retirees.

A bill scheduled to be considered by the House Tuesday would dip into the states rainy day fund to pay for the change. The state savings account is expected to contain nearly $12 billion by the end of the next two-year fiscal cycle.

But Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Republicans in the Senate, over which Patrick presides, dont want to dip into rainy day money for what they consider ongoing expenses.

They have proposed slightly delaying a payment to Medicaid managed care organizations, pushing that expense into the next fiscal cycle, to free up money for the proposal.

As lawmakers and leaders grapple with that funding issue and a proposal to add more money to school finance, Hegar said there was no pressure at all for us, really from the officials to raise the revenue estimate.

The comptroller said he asked his staff to take a look at the numbers closely after a credit rating meeting in New York, when his office made the point that its revenue estimate would be slightly better than earlier cash-flow projections.

Hegar cited strong fiscal growth as reported by the Bureau of Economic Analysis and signs of strength in the labor market in revising his estimate.

Normally we would not make an adjustment in the comptrollers office for a couple hundred million dollars or less, Hegar told the San Antonio Express-News.

While a significant amount of money, he pointed out, its a tiny piece of a two-year state budget thats nearly $217 billion in state and federal funds combined.

I wanted to be as close and precise as we could, Hegar said, since lawmakers are grappling with items including the Teacher Retirement System health plan known as TRS-Care. I just wanted to make sure that we did our due diligence and gave them the best economic data.

Asked how likely it is that hell find more money for lawmakers to allocate, Hegar said thats not likely, although he pointed out the revenue estimate will be updated again before the end of the year.

Im at the end of the rainbow for this special sessions, he said. Im sitting on the ground. Im laying down. Were at literally the very end of the rainbow.

pfikac@express-news.net

Twitter: @pfikac
AUSTIN  Texas A&M University canceled a White Lives Matter gathering at its College Station campus planned for Sept. 11 due to the risks of threat to life and safety, the university said Monday after lawmakers denounced the planned event.

After consultation with law enforcement and considerable study, Texas A&M is cancelling the event scheduled by Preston Wiginton at Rudder Plaza on campus on September 11 because of concerns about the safety of its students, faculty, staff, and the public, said the statement.

House members had asked Texas A&M officials to fight the event, citing the terrible nature of the Charlottesville, Va. white supremacist riot over the weekend.

I am standing to denounce hatred, bigotry and terrorism, said Rep. Helen Giddings, D-DeSoto, as fellow House members stood with her at the front of the chamber. She said that the eyes of the world are now on Texas with the rally planned on one of the most solemn days of our nation, Sept. 11.

Senators also expressed their dismay about what happened in Charlottesville, saying racist, white supremacist views are not welcome in Texas.

We are going to stand as one, one body, to say to those in this state who share these thoughts, to those who would come to this state  Not here, not now, not ever. We stand and condem this together, the state of Texas and the Texas Senate, said Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who presides over the Senate.

Both the House and Senate remembered the families of Heather Heyer, who was killed while protesting the Charlottesville rally, and of two Virginia troopers who died when their helicopter crashed, Lt. H. Jay Cullen and Trooper-Pilot Berke MM Bates.

Texas A&M also said that the thoughts and prayers of Aggies here on campus and around the world are with those individuals affected by the tragedy in Charlottesville.

In announcing the cancelation, the university said the notification of the event by Wiginton, a white nationalist organizer, was headlined, Today Charlottesville, Tomorrow Texas A&M.

Linking the tragedy of Charlottesville with the Texas A&M event creates a major security risk on our campus. Additionally, the daylong event would provide disruption to our class schedules and to student, faculty and staff movement (both bus system and pedestrian), said the statement.

The university said it had changed its policy after protests that occurred in December, and that it now allows no outside person or group to reserve campus facilities unless the event is sponsored by a university-sanctioned group. It said none of Texas A&Ms groups had agreed to sponsor Wigintons event.

Wiginton, who coordinated a December visit to campus by white nationalist Richard Spencer, had planned an outdoors event for Sept. 11 at Rudder Plaza, in the middle of campus.

Texas A&Ms support of the First Amendment and the freedom of speech cannot be questioned, said the universitys statement. On December 6, 2016 the university and law enforcement allowed the same speaker the opportunity to share his views, taking all of the necessary precautions to ensure a peaceful event. However, in this case, circumstances and information relating to the event have changed and the risks of threat to life and safety compel us to cancel the event.

pfikac@express-news.net
No one was manning the metal detector Monday morning at the Bexar County Precinct 2 Office of the Constable and Justice of the Peace. The alarm sounded as I passed through, but with no deputy there, I simply continued to the constables office.

Things got weirder from there.

Inside, Constable Michelle Barrientes Vela, who had summoned me with a promise of a story, unleashed a litany of accusations against the other elected official in the building, Justice of the Peace Roberto Vazquez. The most inflammatory charge  one that would prove misleading  was that Vazquez had threatened to hold her deputies in contempt of court if they executed any warrants.

Barrientes Vela ordered her own deputies last week to stop performing their constitutionally mandated duty, she told me, in order to protect my officers.

Thats ironic for a constable who had unplugged the metal detector.

This is a big pissing match between the justice of the peace and the constable in Precinct 2, County Commissioner Kevin Wolff told me. Apparently, theyve been at each other since they got in office.

Barrientes Vela took office in January. Thats when her deputies began executing warrants improperly, collecting money from people without bringing them before a court, Vazquez said. Deputies would do this even to those who came to the court building to pay their fines, he said.

They were shaken down for money, and that is a situation that is illegal, said Vazquez, who has been in office since 2013. She doesnt understand the law.

Precinct 3 Justice of the Peace Jeff Wentworth, a former state senator, echoed Vazquez.

Thats not appropriate or legal, Wentworth said. The defendant has to be adjudicated by a judge. Shes not a judge.

Late Monday, Barrientes Vela denied Vazquezs accusations: We did not do that at all, period.

In March, Vazquez emailed Barrientes Vela about her improper actions and what appear to be transgressions of law.

He wrote, There are no provisions in the law that allow a constables office to arrest a defendant and collect any fines and court costs/fees on behalf of a Justice Court. This includes peace officers directing defendants to pay in lieu of being arrested. All defendants arrested should have properly filled Arrest Warrant Returns and brought before the Justice Court or downtown magistrate.

Vazquez threatened to hold the constables deputies in contempt of court if the actions didnt stop. By the time they did, about 100 people had been affected, he said.

We are in the process of identifying all of those people, he said. We are going to be refunding all of that money and then summoning them back into court.

The constable also was improperly arresting those who came to the court building to deal with warrants, Wolff told me.

Instead of directing the person that was coming in to pay their bill, responding to their warrant, to the justice of the peace clerks, they were being directed to the constables office so the constable could take more credit on their numbers, Wolff said.

They were actually arresting people at the front door, Vazquez told me. Thats an abhorrent public policy.

To stop this, Vazquez and three other justices of the peace  Robert Tejeda, William Donovan and Rogelio Lopez  signed a joint order Aug. 5 that reads, in part: Defendants voluntarily seeking to establish or re-establish compliance at the court building shall not be arrested at the court building.

Three days after the order was signed, Barrientes Vela stopped providing security in the lobby of the court building  hence the unmanned metal detector.

It has been a hard decision to make, but at this time we can only provide a bailiff for Judge Vasquez, Barrientes Vela wrote to a court manager in an Aug. 8 email.

(Late Monday, Barrientes Vela told me she had sent a deputy back to the metal detector.)

Wentworth found the situation troubling.

Apparently  the constable went out and had her deputies unplug the metal detector, he said. Its just a little crazy over there.

Vazquez agreed.

Shes scatter-shooting, the judge said. Just buckshots going everywhere. Its almost like she believes that if the court does something, its a retaliation against her office, not understanding that there are areas where we have to work hand in hand.

The community should be very afraid that that law enforcement entity does not know what it is doing.
KUTZTOWN, Pa.  Rodale Institute, the nations leading organic farming research institution, has started a new industrial hemp research project focused on examining the crops role in soil health and regenerative organic agriculture.

The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture Industrial Hemp Pilot Project granted 16 permits for research  Rodale Institute was one of the permit recipients.

It is the first time in 80 years that hemp will be grown legally in Pennsylvania.

Hemp history

Industrial hemp, a versatile plant grown for its fiber, seed or oil, was a valuable cash crop and a major industry in Pennsylvania for more than 260 years.

Due to its close relationship to the marijuana plant, hemp production was included in a 1933 law banning marijuana and was later named a Schedule 1 drug by the Controlled Substances Act of 1970.

However, changes made to the 2014 farm bill now allow for hemp to be grown for research purposes by departments of agriculture or institutions of higher education.

Funding

Rodale Institutes multi-year hemp research project is being partially funded by a contribution of $100,000 from Dr. Bronners. The overall cost of the project is projected at $75,000-100,000 per year.

The Rodale Institutes research on hemp will reveal important data about the crops role in the sustainable agriculture systems, providing evidence that hemp should be legalized said David Bronner, CEO of Dr. Bronners.

An additional $5,000 pledge of support was made by Nutivas CEO and founder John Roulac.

Research

Rodale Institute is conducting a four-year research project focusing on utilizing Industrial Hemp as a cash or cover crop to address weed pest issues and enhance soil health in organic agriculture.

They are conducting two field trials (a variety trial and weed suppression trial) and one greenhouse study.

The variety trial will test several varieties of hemp that have been bred to produce higher yields and higher quality of fiber and/or seeds.

This trial focuses on finding which types of hemp will grow best in a Mid-Atlantic climate and produce the most amount of fiber.

The Weed Suppression Trial will use hemp as a rotational crop in an organic system.

The main weed pressure in this study comes from yellow foxtail and red root pigweed.

Hemp fits well into a diverse organic crop rotation and its high biomass and canopy production has the potential to shade out weeds resulting in lower weed seed germination and growth.

This trial will analyze how farmers can best compete against weeds by utilizing a crop rather than tillage.

Tillage can destroy microbial communities in the soil environment and can result in a loss of organic matter.

For more information and updates about the research, visit RodaleInstitute.org/industrialhemp.
Researchers from the University of Guelph developed the tool

By Diego Flammini

Assistant Editor, North American Content

Farms.com

A hand-held device capable of quickly identifying livestock diseases could be in the hands of Ontario producers next year, according to one of the instruments creators.

Weve been negotiating with some manufacturing companies who are major players in this area, Suresh Neethirajan, a University of Guelph engineering professor and director of the schools BioNano Laboratory, told Farms.com. Hopefully in a year or so farmers can see the product available.

In May, his team received a US$125,000 award to conduct field trials with the device, which is an improvement on current livestock testing methods.

And field tests showed farmers are encouraged by the tools potential.

It drastically brings down the time and cost to receive results, he said. Right now, multiple vials of blood (each containing between 5 and 10 mL) need to be shipped from farms to a centralized lab. There are also shipping costs and refrigeration costs involved.

And if the farm is in northern Ontario, there can be an even further delay to finding out the results.



Prof. Suresh Neethirajan, left, and researcher Xuan Weng with the allergen detector.

Photo: University of Guelph

The device detects ketosis and other metabolic diseases in cows. It works similarly to how people with diabetes check their blood sugar levels, Neethirajan said.

A droplet of blood is placed on a cartridge and, after about 15 seconds, the cartridge is placed in a reader. Farmers can have results in around two minutes. The reader can identify specific biomarkers within the animal.

And more optimization will help farmers and their livestock teams manage herd health in a timelier manner.

Were looking at if we can identify multiple diseases from one droplet of blood, Neethirajan said. Were also looking at if we can send the data in real time and incorporating Bluetooth technology so that a veterinarian can receive the information instantly.

Further plans for optimization include sending the data to feeding systems to allow feed intake to be tailored for the animals specific needs and improving the device to detect bovine respiratory illnesses.
Once we sold them to IGA in Moora we could see that they could quite easily take a lot more and then we went over to Foodworks and then we thought we needed to get more chickens, so we just kept getting more.
Mr Anderson said he enjoyed hearing from other farmers about their ideas and said it was important to be open to ideas because there might be something he could try for better results.
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Beny Steinmetz, detained Monday for questioning Beny Steinmetz was detained Monday in Israel for a second time for questioning in connection with bribery of high ranking foreign officials in Guinea.

The police action was part of a joint investigation by the Israeli Police and authorities from Switzerland, the United States and Romania.

The Rishon Letzion Magistrates Court remanded him to custody for four days.

Steinmetz had been detained in Israel last December as part of the investigation of the BSRG matter. He was released then under restrictive conditions and hadnt been indicted.

Police said Monday that additional evidence focused on suspicion of obstruction of justice, according to press reports.

Together with Steinmetz, authorities detained Tal Silberstein, a political consultant, who has acted as a consultant to the Austrian chancellor and prominent Israeli politicians. The court remanded him to custody for four days as well.

David Granot, acting chairman of Bezeq, Israels telecom giant (he was appointed as acting chairman after the previous chairman had to step down due to a security law violation investigation) was also detained and later released to house arrest.

Other businessmen were detained as well.

In an initial statement after the arrests, police said five suspects were held for questioning under caution on suspicion of money laundering, fraudulent filing of corporate documents, fraud and corporate breach of trust, obstruction of justice and bribery, according to Reuters.

Lawyers for Steinmetz and Silberstein both denied wrongdoing by their clients.

Steinmetzs lawyer, Ronen Rosenbloom, said: Mr. Steinmetz is determined to continue the fight in any legal arena in Israel and abroad  No charges have been brought against him in any (previous) investigations and we are certain that this will be the case here, too.

Steinmetz is also under indictment in Romania as part of an investigation there into money laundering and real estate, the New York Times said.

____

Chaim Gelfand is a Partner at Shibolet and Co. and head of its Anti-Corruption Compliance Practice  one of the first (if not the first) dedicated anti-corruption compliance practices in any of Israels first tier law firms. He has been dealing with anti-corruption compliance in large multinational companies for almost a decade. He can be contacted here.
I was a romantic girl, who loved to read but my fathers idea of raising me was to build my confidence by taking me on real-life adventures to faraway places that were not even on the map. When I was fourteen, I walked six weeks in Lapland, encountering only gold prospectors and reindeer. We got lost and our food supply ran out. I wrote a book about this vacation that, miraculously, had a happy ending.

Pia De Jong

Im intensely curious. There are so many things I know that I dont know. I gulp in experiences of every kind. I live by what Robert Louis Stevenson told children: The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.

I never was much interested in writing  ...until right after my daughter Charlotte went into remission from the leukemia she was born with. I sat down one night and took a pen and wrote her name. Then I wrote mine. I have never stopped writing since then.

I am married to the Herald of the King My husband Robbert Dijkgraaf is a theoretical physicist and science communicator who every year does a high-rated TV special in the Netherlands. When Willem-Alexander was inaugurated king in 2013, Robbert announced it to the crowds assembled in front of the Nieuw Kerk on Dam Square.

When I was pregnant with my oldest, I signed him up for full-time daycare. I naively thought that I would not let my child interfere with my career. How wrong I was! When he arrived, I was completely overcome by emotions, hormones and love. Let alone lack of sleep. Motherhood was completely different than I expected.

I lived in Amsterdam on the posh Herengracht canal. But in the alley next door to us a hooker worked in a brothel. She was young and blond and always wore the same pink bra when she paraded in front of her window. She knitted hats and sweaters for my children. She lit a candle for Charlotte when she was sick. We became friends.

Five years ago, after I left my beloved Amsterdam to live in America, I struggled with the English language. And I am a word person! That I am now able to tell my story in English means the world to me.

I always was a city girl. In Amsterdam, it did not matter that I had no yard, not even a balcony. But then I moved to a house in the American suburbs surrounded by woods filled with squirrels and deer. It took a while to get used to it. Now I love how calm it makes me feel. There is something healing about being in nature.

Before I was a writer, I worked as an imagination therapist. I loved helping people to connect with their deepest feelings and find their True North. And now I finally have found my own.

Writing my memoir changed me. Before my daughter was sick, I was outgoing and fun-loving. But to heal her I turned into a self-protective introvert. Now, with the release of my book, I am ready to be out there again. World, here I come!

Bonus:

Every week I write a column about my life in America for a leading Dutch newspaper. The U.S. is country that never fails to surprise me, full of contradictions. And I only once wrote about Trump!

Saving Charlotte is published by W.W. Norton & Company, 12.99, http://wwnorton.co.uk/books/9780393609158-saving-charlotte.
Tom Cruise broke two bones in his ankle when a stunt went wrong on 'Mission: Impossible 6'.

Tom Cruise

The Hollywood icon has reprised the part of IMF agent Ethan Hunt for the latest movie in the money-spinning franchise and while Tom is renowned for doing his own stunts, an accident on the set of the new movie has left him injured.

The Sun reports that Tom, 55, broke two bones in his ankle after he attempted to jump from a rigging to a building but appeared to miss his mark and hit the side of the structure.

He was seen limping after the incident and it is now believed that filming could be delayed for months while he recovers.

An insider said: "The injury is worse than was at first feared. Tom did serious damage and will need months to recover.

"He is the film's biggest star and everything revolves around him. The movie's bosses had no choice other than to postpone the filming."

Meanwhile, it was previously revealed that Jeremy Renner will not appear in 'Mission: Impossible 6' due to a scheduling clash with 'Avengers: Infinity War'.

The 46-year-old actor - who starred in earlier movies in the money-spinning series - had been in talks about a return, but a scheduling conflict with the Marvel film means he cannot return to the role of William Brandt.

However, the likes of Rebecca Ferguson, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Alec Baldwin and Sean Harris are all returning for the latest instalment in the franchise, which had been slated for release in July 2018.

by Charlotte Hough for www.femalefirst.co.uk


I couldnt understand it.

Jekyll and Hyde

Id read RL Stevensons short story, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde as a teenager and thoroughly enjoyed it, and yet, when I was first commissioned to adapt it for the stage and revisited the text, something was missing.

Admittedly Stevensons work has always been light on strong female characters  his most well-known works (aside from the one I was preparing to adapt), Treasure Island and Kidnapped, are archetypes of what has become known as the boys own adventure.

But why? Why shouldnt girls  or women for that matter  be invited along for the ride? It really puzzled me, especially when learning of the relationship Stevenson had with his wife, Fanny.

Fanny Vandegrift was born in Indianapolis in 1840. She was married at seventeen to Samuel Osbourne, a Lieutenant in the Unionist Army with whom she had three children. Osbournes unrepentant philandering naturally created difficulties for Fanny, and she left him  and America  in 1875, bound for Europe. She met Stevenson in Paris, recognised his talent almost immediately and they became friends. A year later, grief-stricken over the death of her youngest child, Fanny returned to her native country. Stevenson saved for three years to follow her across the Atlantic, and they married in 1880.

They were only married for fourteen years  the last of Stevensons life in fact, and yet Fannys encouragement and the inspiration he drew from her was vital to any and all of the success he found as a writer. All of the works mentioned above, plus other novels, collections of short stories and volumes of poetry were penned during this period of his life; Fanny was his harshest critic, his fiercest advocate and most ruthless editor. And, more pertinent to my endeavour, she was the reason The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde turned out the way it did.

The story goes that Stevenson, at the time not in the best of health, had all but finished his story of the Doctor so fascinated with the different facets of human personality that he was prepared to become someone else. As was his custom, he showed it first to Fanny one dark and windy night. Her reaction and feedback being less than positive, he threw that draft on the fire and started again, writing through the night and penning the tale we now know in one sitting  presumably before he forgot the notes his wife had offered!

Given all that, then, it astonished me that the only women even mentioned in the book are either servants, prostitutes, victims or quivering witnesses to Hydes heinous crimes. For Fannys sake, I thought, I must redress the balance.

All right; not just for Fanny. For me too.

Theres so much more at stake for men when women enter their world. What I wanted to do was create a character who was more than some wide-eyed sidekick  I wanted an intellectual equal, a catalyst; an inspiration. An outsider. Fanny Stevenson was described regularly as an Adventuress, and thats what I felt my take on the story needed.

And so it was that I came to create Eleanor ODonnell, an impoverished immigrant from the west coast of Ireland. Initially we meet her as a rather celebrated Music Hall performer  indeed, thats where Hastings Lanyon (Jekylls friend and rival in the novel) first falls in love with her and proposes.

Jekylls first encounter with The Irish Songbird is less than cordial  he underestimates her, as Id imagine was fairly common at the tail-end of the nineteenth century. Hell, women are still being underestimated today but Jekyll soon learns that Eleanor is probably the smartest person hes ever met. Together, they form an alliance that shifts from intellectually satisfying to something far more dangerous

To say too much more would be to give away the plot  its touring nationwide from September, and I hope youll all come and see it. Any die-hard Stevenson fans can rest easy  the main body of the story Ive loved for years is still very much intact. Like Jekyll himself, looking for his formula, Ive simply happened upon the secret, hidden ingredient.

I hope Fanny would be proud.
Strong protectionism features prominently in US President Donald Trumps America First and Make America Great Again themes.

At the last G-20 Summit, he indicated that he believes global trade to be a zero-sum game and that the current world trade order is very unfair to the US. He seems strongly against free trade and intends to reverse the long-term US trade deficit through trade protectionism, contrasting with the supportive free trade positions of the other 19 members of the G-20. Prior to the G-20 Summit, Trump also declared his intention to impose higher tariffs or quotas on imported steel, triggering tension between the US and its allies, including the EU, Canada, Japan, and South Korea. This could, potentially, further evolve into a global trade war.

As an export-oriented country, Taiwan maintains a close trade relationship with the US. However, the USs future trade policies are full of uncertainty given Trump's protectionist, anti-globalisation, and anti-free trade stances, and his inclination to play against the rules.

How should the Taiwan government brace for changes and mitigate the potential impact of American protectionism? As part of the global supply chain, faced with rapid change, intense industry competition, as well as the accelerating consolidation and solidification of the regional economy, how should the Taiwan government seek opportunities?

Electronics overreliance, sluggish upgrade

Trade-oriented export policies have been at the core of Taiwans industrial development since the 1960s. Boosted by the trend of globalisation, Taiwan has built up its presence in the global industry supply chain through the international division of labor and vertical integration between upstream and downstream.

However, Taiwans industry structure is over-reliant on the electronics sector, with its focus on downstream component Original Design Manufacturer/Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM/ODM) business, which has left exports extremely vulnerable to the cyclical swings of the global economy.

In addition, Chinese competitors are replacing Taiwanese vendors due to the rapid development of localised manufacturing in recent years.

Although the Taiwanese government enacted the Statute for Industrial Innovation following the 2008 financial crisis, to encourage industry to restructure and upgrade, the pace of transformation and adjustment remains unsatisfactory.

Figure 1: Breakdown of Taiwans principal export destinations Figure 2: Breakdown of Taiwans major exports Source: The Ministry of Finance; Yuanta Investment Consulting Source: The Ministry of Finance; Yuanta Investment Consulting

Hamstrung by China

The trade patterns led by developed countries are facing disruption from the rise of emerging markets, while the WTO Framework, underpinned by multilateral agreements, has made limited progress, especially after the Doha Round of negotiations hit a setback.

Regional integration and bilateral free trade have become mainstream trends, with the robust development of free trade agreements and economic cooperation agreements.

The well-established North American Free Trade Agreement, European Union, Association of Southeast Asian Nations  with the Asean Economic Community officially set up on Jan 1, 2016  and Mercosur have been joined more recently by the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, and the One Belt One Road initiative advocated by China.

Due to unsettled cross-strait relations, China has suppressed Taiwan on the international stage in a myriad of ways, prohibiting Taiwan from signing any bilateral free trade agreements with major countries, not to mention participating in any regional integration organisations.

As vendors in competing countries receive trade benefits in export markets, such as tariff reductions, and thus enjoy competitive advantages, Taiwan faces tougher challenges to increase exports and economic growth.

New direction, offsetting stimulation

Despite the setbacks in its bid to join regional economic cooperation organisations, Taiwans government, instead of remaining passive, has been actively seeking to break current constraints and adjust its international relations strategy, so as to expand Taiwans economic scale and diversity while fostering better trade relations with other countries.

In August 2016, it passed guidelines on a new Southbound policy. In September, it officially announced the New Southbound Policy Action Plan to enhance cooperation with a dozen or so countries, including members of Asean, South Asian countries, New Zealand, and Australia, in four major areas  namely economic collaboration, talent exchange, resource sharing, and regional links. This initiative will not only create opportunities to expand exports as Taiwanese vendors look to secure bigger markets, but also support the governments endeavors to rebuild external economic links by breaking the old pattern of over-reliance on a single market.

Trump has been opposed to free trade since his inauguration and plans to support domestic industrial development by imposing more tariffs or raising various punitive ones.

As a safeguard against such protectionism, other countries have stepped up economic collaboration and expansionary fiscal policies to boost domestic demand and economic growth. Exemplifying this trend, the European Parliament in February passed the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, while Japan and the EU reached consensus on a Japan-EU Economic Partnership Agreement in early July. To stimulate domestic demand, the Japanese government also allocated additional budgets in December 2016 and July this year to increase pension allowances and expand infrastructure.

The Korean government, seeking to create more job opportunities, also declared it would increase its budget by KRW11.2 trillion (around US$10 billion) in June after newly elected President Moon Jae-in assumed office.

Even in Germany, which has been advocating cost-saving measures, Chancellor Angela Merkel proposed larger tax cuts and government spending to target full employment in her election programme, with a cut of over 15 billion to the countrys yearly tax intake.

The aforementioned measures are some of the policy tools available to effectively address the threat of trade protectionism by boosting domestic demand and promoting continued economic growth.

New Taiwan economy

Faced with greater external uncertainty, the ruling party in Taiwan has put forward a number of measures to boost its economy and promote economic transformation. The Forward-Looking Infrastructure Development Program bill, which passed the third reading on July 5, is a government investment project that comprises two four-year stages, with a budget limit for each stage of roughly NT$420 billion (US$14.00 billion).

The programme aims to fund five major areas of infrastructure: Green Energy and Digital (to facilitate the transformation of industry); Urban-Rural and Water Environment (to enhance living conditions); and Railway (to construct green transportation systems).

Such government funding should drive NT$1.78 trillion (US$59.33 billion) in additional investments by government-run and private enterprises over the next eight years (2017-24) and is expected to raise real GDP by NT$975.9 billion on a cumulative basis while creating 40-50,000 job opportunities.

The government is also launching a five plus two innovative industries programme to promote the transformation of Taiwanese industry from the traditional OEM/ODM services model to a new solution-oriented business model with higher added value. The programme aims to ignite innovation, create job opportunities, and balance regional development on the island.

The five innovative industries targeted cover the Internet of Things, biomedicine, green energy technology, smart machinery, and national defense, plus the two of new agriculture and the circular economy.

These sectors will represent the vanguard of industrial development going forward and are expected to help restructure Taiwan's economy and differentiate its industries.

Taiwan will remain under the cloud of Trumps trade protectionism for at least the next four years. Furthermore, the likelihood of the country joining organisations for regional economic cooperation seems low. However, if Taiwan can step up efforts to restructure industry and move up the value chain, and the government can continue to improve infrastructure and create a more attractive investment environment, we believe Taiwan will be able to avert a crisis and seize the moment to break through strong headwinds amid fierce global competition.
Hoya Corporation (TOKYO: 7741) today announced financial results for the second quarter ended September 30, 2017.

During the quarter, revenue of the HOYA Group increased 18.2% year on year, reaching 135,772 million yen. Pre-tax profit amounted to 32,868 million yen with 26,767 million yen in profit, representing increases of 3.9% and 7.9%, respectively.

In the Life Care segment, sales of eyeglass lenses rose, mainly overseas and in response to business acquisitions. Medical endoscopes experienced improved sales, pushed mainly by performance in Europe and Asia. New products drove sales of intraocular lenses as well. As a result, the Life Care segment as a whole reported higher sales year on year.

The Information Technology segment also reported higher revenues year on year, driven by stronger demands in semiconductor devices and glass substrates for hard disk drives. Imaging-related product sales increased as well due to an expansion of new applications.

For the six months ended September 30, 2017, HOYA posted record revenues of 262,930 million yen and record profit for the term of 51,960 million yen, representing increases of 14.3% and 21.4%, respectively.

"The Life Care segment delivered sales increase of 9.4% without exchange gain this quarter," said Hiroshi Suzuki, president and chief executive officer of HOYA. "We expect the segment profitability to improve in the second half as post-merger integration completes."

HOYA also announced the interim dividends of 30 yen per share of common stock.

Summary of Consolidated Financial Statement (Millions of Yen: Rounded to the nearest million) Three months ended Variance Six months ended Variance Sept./16 Sept./17 Sept./16 Sept./17 Revenue 114,865 135,772 18.2 230,030 262,930 14.3 Profit before tax 31,637 32,868 3.9 53,911 63,416 17.6 Profit for the term 24,819 26,767 7.9 42,797 51,960 21.4 Basic earnings per share(yen) 63.42 70.11 108.62 134.81 *Results are preliminary and unaudited.

The full reports are available at: www.hoya.com

About HOYA

Founded in 1941 in Tokyo, Japan, Hoya is a global med-tech company and the leading supplier of innovative high-tech and medical products. Hoya is active in the fields of healthcare and information technology providing eyeglasses, medical endoscopes, intraocular lenses, optical lenses as well as key components for semiconductor devices, LCD panels and HDDs. With over 150 offices and subsidiaries worldwide, Hoya currently employs a multinational workforce of 36,000 people. For more information, please visit http://www.hoya.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171027005295/en/

Contacts:

Hoya Group

Akiko Chiba, +81-3-6911-4824

Public Relation

HOYA-pr@hoya.com
BEIJING, Jan, 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ZTE Mobile Devices officially launched the Axon M today in China at the Olympic Tower, the highest central point in Beijing,at a symbolic ceremony to mark the arrival of a transformational user experience for Chinese consumers. The Axon M is a category defining, foldable smartphone with dual screens that delivers a revolutionary smartphone experience to enable consumers to multitask and enjoy content in a better way. Beginning on January 20, the Axon M will be available on the online channels of JD.com, MyZTE.com, and offline channels of China Telecom.

The Axon M was announced on October 17, 2017 in New York City with AT&T. The next day in Tokyo, Japan, the M was announced in the winter press conference held by NTT DOCOMO. Today, it waslaunched in China, and in Q1 2018, ZTE will be launching the Axon M with leading carriers in Europe such asTIM and Vodafone. This will mark the completion of a global launch and will enable consumers around the world to experience the unlimited potential that Axon M offers.

"Consumers are looking for inspirations. They want to have more options, but they also want to experience the world around them more fully and in different ways," said Lixin Cheng, CEO of ZTE Mobile Devices. "The Axon M is our answer and it has been well-received by consumers in markets around the world. We will continue to develop and lead the industry in the foldable smartphone category to provide meaningful innovation to consumers."

The Axon M was an honoree recipient of the CES 2018 Innovation Award. The CES Innovation Awards is an annual competition honoring outstanding design and engineering in consumer technology products.
NEW TAIPEI CITY, Taiwan, Sept. 26, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Infortrend Technology, Inc. (TWSE: 2495) has launched their new EonStor GSe Pro 1000 series with a small 4 or 8-bay rackmount design. Even with such a small space, it fully supports data storage, file sharing, cloud integration, and all RAID functions to easily run local SAN/NAS applications. SMBs and SMEs that want entry level storage systems now have a complete product line to choose from.

The new EonStor GSe Pro 1000 series provides a compact 1U 4-bay or 2U 8-bay NAS system with a quad-core processor and four embedded 1GbE ports to boost productivity. It also supports AES-NI hardware encryption engine to lower CPU loading, maintain system performance and security, while redundant power supplies increase service continuity, making it the ideal choice for surveillance, backup, file sharing, and email servers.

The EonStor GSe Pro family features two rackmount series, and is designed for SMBs with easy storage management and complete data services. The small rackmount designed EonStor GSe Pro 1000 series is an entry level storage, while the EonStor GSe Pro 3000 series offers higher performance and a capacity of up to 436 drives.

"We are pleased to launch the new small rackmount EonStor GSe Pro series to further complement our product line. With its compact design and affordable price, the EonStor GSe Pro is the ideal storage choice for SMBs with budget and space concerns," said Thomas Kao, Senior Director of Product Planning at Infortrend.

The high speed 2U 8-bay EonStor GSe Pro 3008 is available for those that demand faster performance. For more information about the EonStor GSe Pro 1000 series, click here. For the EonStor GSe Pro 3000 series, click here.

About Infortrend

Infortrend (TWSE: 2495) has been developing and manufacturing storage solutions since 1993. With a strong emphasis on in-house design, testing, and manufacturing, Infortrend storage delivers performance and scalability with the latest standards, user friendly data services, personal after-sales support, and unrivaled value. For more Information, please visit www.infortrend.com

Infortrend and EonStor are trademarks or registered trademarks of Infortrend Technology, Inc., other trademarks property of their respective owners.

Media Contact:

Infortrend Europe Ltd.

Alex Young

Tel:+44-1256-305-220

E-mail:marketing.eu@infortrend.com
The IoT Segment Generated Revenues of Approximately $15 Million in the First Half of 2017; IoT Segment alone projected to Generate Between $30 Million and $32 Million for FY2017 (unaudited)

WISeKey International Holding Ltd ("WISeKey") announced today that it has completed the integration of VaultIC, the IoT and integrated circuit solutions and semiconductor business acquired in September 2016, into the WISeKey Vertical Platform.

Through the acquisition of VaultIC from INSIDE Secure, WISeKey added a team of 70 people at its Aix-en-Provence (France) Semiconductors facility, in areas such as R&D, sales, marketing and support to its overall staff amounting to a total of over 140 people, including staff in Switzerland, Vietnam, USA, Japan, Taiwan and Singapore, giving WISeKey a global reach.

The vertical integration of WISeKey's unique Root of Trust and Identity technology with VaultIC's hardware software, system certification, provisioning and up to management services, created the first ever comprehensive trusted end-to-end cybersecurity platform for people and objects (IoT) and gave WISeKey the unique ability to deliver the most secure Platform to its customers.

The integration included the transfer of products, technology, customer agreements, and certain patents from INSIDE Secure to WISeKey including the development and sale of secure integrated circuits designed to secure and power the strongly growing IoT market. Thus, WISeKey is generating strong sales in new areas such as chip based IoT, anti-counterfeiting, brand protection, EMV payment card and secure access to building IT equipment. For the first half of 2017, the IoT segment generated revenues of approximately $15 million (unaudited), and it is expected to add approximately $30 million to 32 million (unaudited) to WISeKey's total revenue for FY2017.

As we move forward, the Internet of Things it will quickly become the Internet of Everything (IoE), with more devices and objects connected and able to collect and transmit data over the internet, the WISeKey Vertical Platform potential for monetizing services, blockchain, AI and the data produced by these connected devices continues to grow. The total number of IoT connections is expected to grow from $6 billion in 2015 to $27 billion in 2025 all of them requiring the type of chips and software offered by WISeKey. Global spending on IoT/IoE technology-based services, is now expected to reach $3 trillion by 2025.

In addition, the integration of QuoVadis, a Managed PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) business acquired by WISeKey in April 2017, is expected to add an extra $20 million to WISeKey's total revenue for FY2017.

Since the beginning of the year, WISeKey has already realized synergistic cross-selling opportunities for the combined company integrating chips, smart metering and identification token technology (clients include world leaders in IT infrastructure), by using the chips to secure the hardware.

This type of IoT revenue generated by WISeKey is premium revenue as many organizations that have invested in similar projects have yet to derive any significant revenue from their solutions. Business models are changing from transactional to collaborative, transactions are evolving from simple one-off payments to complex variants of usage-based billing. WISeKey's success is built on a clear vision and business strategy that allows us to generate revenue from IoT devices, cybersecurity services, data and more importantly our Trusted Ecosystem and Vertical Platform.

Additionally, the integrated circuit solutions and semiconductor technology offered by WISeKey and QuoVadis (clients include as car and watch manufacturers) has the ability to authenticate and remotely manage millions of networked, automated devices and equipment; this technology is gaining traction as everything, from refrigerators, watches, wearables to wine bottles, are connecting and will be communicating via the Internet.

Carlos Moreira, WISeKey CEO noted, "While the IoT security landscape is still evolving and the IoT adoption is expected to revolutionize how enterprises do business. Early movers in this space, such as WISeKey, stand to gain substantial market share, since Root of Trust ("RoT") is required for secure communication over IoT. This is a key differentiator for WISeKey vis-a-vis its competitors. WISeKey RoT serves as a common trust anchor, which is recognized by operating systems (OS) and IoT applications to ensure the authenticity, confidentiality and integrity of on-line transactions. We believe these features could be vital in creating significant business opportunities with various governments, international bodies, industrial entities which are wary of foreign government oversight and centralization of data on servers outside their jurisdiction."

Also, multinational corporations that need to comply with International Standards on the deployment of their IoT infrastructural are ideal candidates for WISeKey Trust Model. Amidst the threat of increasingly sophisticated data and online identity thefts, WISeKey's robust solutions should ensure data protection for its customers including individuals, enterprises their IoT objects and government organizations. Since early 2016, WISeKey has been increasing its focus on the IoT segment, and it is currently offering various solutions (both hardware and software) supporting customers using IoT-based systems, while is also working on a future wave of WISeKey IoT implementations.

About WISeKey:

WISeKey (SIX Swiss Exchange: WIHN) is a leading global cybersecurity company currently deploying large scale digital identity ecosystems with a patented process. WISeKey's Swiss based cryptographic Root of Trust ("RoT") provides secure authentication and identification, in both physical and virtual environments, for the Internet of Things, Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence. The WISeKey RoT serves as a common trust anchor to ensure the integrity of online transactions among objects and between objects and people. For more information, visit www.wisekey.com.

To receive WISeKey's latest news, subscribe to our Newsletter or visit the WISeKey Investors Corner.

Disclaimer:

This communication expressly or implicitly contains certain forward-looking statements concerning WISeKey International Holding Ltd and its business. Such statements involve certain known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which could cause the actual results, financial condition, performance or achievements of WISeKey International Holding Ltd to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. WISeKey International Holding Ltd is providing this communication as of this date and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities, and it does not constitute an offering prospectus within the meaning of article 652a or article 1156 of the Swiss Code of Obligations or a listing prospectus within the meaning of the listing rules of the SIX Swiss Exchange. Investors must rely on their own evaluation of WISeKey and its securities, including the merits and risks involved. Nothing contained herein is, or shall be relied on as, a promise or representation as to the future performance of WISeKey.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170814006037/en/

Contacts:

Press and investors:

WISeKey International Holding Ltd

Carlos Moreira, +41 22 594 3000

Chairman CEO

info@wisekey.com

or

WISeKey Investor Relations (US)

The Equity Group Inc.

Lena Cati, +1 212-836-9611

lcati@equityny.com
Alvogen announced today that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Omega Bittner, a Russia-based pharmaceutical firm owned by Perrigo Company plc. Working with well-established and recognized brands in Russia including LactacydTM, AflubinTM and ParanitTM, the firm focuses on a targeted portfolio of over-the-counter drugs in categories such as women's healthcare and cough cold.

Hacho Hatchikian, Executive Vice President of Alvogen CEE, commented: "This acquisition supports our strategy to gain more exposure to Russia's high growth market. It will create greater scale and diversity across our portfolio and sales channels, while increasing market share in women's healthcare and cough cold.

"I would like to welcome Omega Bittner's talented and dedicated workforce to the Alvogen family and look forward to their contributions, as we strive to provide patients in the region with highest quality products and services."

These products will complement, as well as significantly strengthen, Alvogen's existing portfolio in the region.

The transaction is expected to close by the end of Q3 2017, subject to customary approvals.

About Alvogen

Alvogen is a global, privately owned pharmaceutical company focused on developing, manufacturing and selling generic, brand, over-the-counter brands (OTC) and biosimilar products for patients around the world.

The company has commercial operations in 35 countries with 2,800 employees and operates four manufacturing and development hubs in the US, Romania, Korea and Taiwan. North America is Alvogen's single largest market and other key markets include: South Korea, Taiwan, Russia, West Balkan, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Thailand, Ukraine, Japan and China.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170815005108/en/

Contacts:

Alvogen

Halldor Kristmannsson, (+354) 522 2900

Global Corporate Marketing Communications

halldor.kristmannsson@alvogen.com
CHELTENHAM,England, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --SATO, a leading global provider of Auto-ID solutions that empower workforces and streamline operations, has collaborated with enterprise output & print management software provider Levi, Ray & Shoup, Inc. (LRS) to develop a new application that eliminates the likelihood of duplicate or unprinted labels following an interruption to the print process.

The new app improves efficiency and reduces labelling errors by enabling VPSX bi-directional PJL controlled delivery of data to SATO CLNX series label printers. This capability enables the printer to pick up precisely where it left off if the process is unexpectedly interrupted, without the need for human intervention.

From hospitals to logistics, labels are crucial to business processes. They enable vital information to be transferred through the supply chain, enabling tracking and tracing of everything from essential medicines to automotive parts. Duplicate labels or unprinted labels therefore represent a major cause of inefficiency that can have severe and expensive consequences.

Using the new SATO app and LRS VPSX Bi-directional PJL delivery will give customers unprecedented control and assurance over their label printing; both preventing problems and providing automatic recovery following an interruption. VPSX Bi-Directional PJL facilitates guaranteed delivery of print data to devices and monitors on a page by page basis, allowing the device to notify VPSX when a print job has physically been printed. In the case of device failure, the print run can automatically be restarted from the page where the failure occurred, eliminating duplicate labels.

The app is fully compatible with SATO's unique AEP (Application Enabled Printing) technology. It is easily installed directly onto the printer via USB or internal network and takes complete care of all communication in PJL using the LRS solution. This app does not interfere with any other printer functions, so the printer can be used within the customer's environment with confidence. Updates and additions can also be incorporated into the app and then rolled out from a central environment control centre, making the print function flexible and responsive to evolving customer requirements.

Furthermore, additional apps can be generated using AEP technology in order to enhance the tasks the printer can undertake. These might include polling additional data for other purposes or using the printer's display to relay additional commands to the operator.

For more information about LRS, visit www.lrsoutputmanagement.com.

For more information about SATO, visit the company website at www.satoeurope.com.

About LRS

Levi, Ray & Shoup, Inc. (LRS) is a privately-held U.S. company with corporate headquarters located in Springfield, Illinois, USA. Remote offices are located throughout the United States and in key geographic regions around the world including Cheltenham, UK. More than half of the Fortune 500 and Fortune 500 Service companies rely on industry-leading LRS solutions, with products in use in over 30 countries. LRS keeps their businesses running with robust, highly scalable software that captures, stores and controls the huge volumes of document output they generate and reliably delivers it to hundreds of distributed locations regardless of format. With a ROI of less than 12 months, a 30-year track record of success and global sales and support organization-LRS is the market leader. Industry analyst groups recognize LRS as a global IT leader and Software Magazine consistently ranks LRS as one of the top software companies in the world.

About SATO

SATO (TOKYO:6287) bridges the last inch of the last mile for customers by integrating Auto-ID technologies and revolutionary materials to tag and track items, ensuring inventory visibility for improved user experience and business results. Engineering solutions that unleash the power of IoT, it provides value to customers in the form of accuracy, sustainability, labor and resource savings, reassurance and emotional connections. For the fiscal year ended March 31, 2017, it reported revenues of JPY 106,302 million (Euro 900 million*). More information about SATO can be found at www.satoworldwide.com or on linkedin and twitter.

*Conversion is based on an average exchange rate of 1 Euro = 118.74 Japanese Yen

 2017 Levi, Ray & Shoup, Inc. All rights reserved. LRS is a registered trademark of Levi, Ray & Shoup, Inc. and the LRS chevron is a trademark of Levi, Ray & Shoup, Inc. SATO is a registered trademark of SATO Holdings Kabushiki Kaisha Corporation.

Levi, Ray & Shoup, Inc.

Regent House

Rodney Road

Cheltenham

Gloucestershire, GL50 1HX UK

www.lrs.com

LOUISE BARTLETT

+44(0)1242 537 500

LRSUK@LRS.com
Cloud Management Leader Builds Out Operations and Establishes UK-based Development Team

BOSTON and LONDON, April 19, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- CloudHealth Technologies, the cloud management leader, is experiencing unprecedented growth in EMEA and is making significant investments in the region. Not only is the company expanding its employee, customer and partner base, but it is forming a new development team to support the rapid adoption of its market-leading platform. Marking its fifth year in business, CloudHealth Technologies grew its London employee base by 300 percent and achieved 83 percent revenue growth in EMEA.

"London is the perfect location to expand and headquarter our EMEA operations," said Tom Axbey, President and CEO of CloudHealth Technologies. "The talent we have in place today is unparalleled. As we broaden every operational function to better serve our EMEA clients and partner ecosystem, we continue to recruit the best in the industry."

Business Highlights

CloudHealth Technologies increased its annual global revenue by more than 80 percent for the second straight year, posting strong growth surges, both in the U.S. and internationally, with notable growth in EMEA. The company attracted a record number of new customers, both midmarket and large enterprise companies, and added organic growth opportunities with existing customers. In addition, CloudHealth Technologies opened offices in Tel Aviv and Amsterdam, and plans to open offices in France and Germany.

Key EMEA company highlights contributing to this momentum include:

Talent Acquisition - Over the past 12 months, CloudHealth Technologies brought on 14 new employees and plans to grow to 25 employees by end of the year. Strategic hires include:





Over the past 12 months, CloudHealth Technologies brought on 14 new employees and plans to grow to 25 employees by end of the year. Strategic hires include: Marcus Chambers , VP EMEA Sales. Prior to CloudHealth Technologies, Chambers held senior executive roles at EMC, Cisco and Riverbed.

, VP EMEA Sales. Prior to CloudHealth Technologies, Chambers held senior executive roles at EMC, Cisco and Riverbed.

Sheldon Lachambre , Director of Engineering, previously from Citrix.

, Director of Engineering, previously from Citrix.

Richard Brown , EMEA Channel Sales Director, previously from Arbor Networks and Riverbed.





, EMEA Channel Sales Director, previously from Arbor Networks and Riverbed. Client Growth - CloudHealth Technologies experienced more than 50 percent client growth in EMEA since the end of 2016, bringing on clients spanning a variety of vertical industries. New customers came from financial services, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, manufacturing, retail and public sector. Notably, new customers brought on last quarter include Funding Circle, StepStone and Skyscanner.





CloudHealth Technologies experienced more than 50 percent client growth in EMEA since the end of 2016, bringing on clients spanning a variety of vertical industries. New customers came from financial services, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, manufacturing, retail and public sector. Notably, new customers brought on last quarter include Funding Circle, StepStone and Skyscanner. Industry-Leading Partnerships - To further build on CloudHealth Technologies' valued partnerships in EMEA, the company experienced over 100 percent growth of its EMEA partner ecosystem, enabling even greater support for regional clients. New EMEA partners include Vodafone, Softcat, CDW and KCOM.

In 2018, the team will continue to build its ecosystem of clients and partners within EMEA through engagement at local events, such as AWS Paris, Transformation Day London and Transformation Day Cologne. In addition, on April 26, CloudHealth Technologies will be sponsoring a webinar focused on findings from its recent global survey, "Secrets of the Cloud Leaders". Not only will it offer insight into cloud trends specific to the EMEA region, but it will feature commentary from CloudHealth Technologies' customer StepStone. Register to attend here.

About CloudHealth Technologies

CloudHealth is the trusted cloud management software platform used to accelerate business transformation in the cloud. CloudHealth solutions and services help organizations drive efficiency through a cohesive cloud strategy based on integrated reporting, active policy management and strategic recommendations. The platform's insightful analytics empower operational and technical teams to have more meaningful cloud conversations that simplify the way business gets done. CloudHealth helps customers such as Amtrak, Cox Automotive, News Corp, Zendesk, Suncorp and Sumo Logic harness the full power of their cloud environments. With offices around the globe, the company is backed by Kleiner Perkins, Meritech, Sapphire Ventures, Scale Venture Partners, .406 Ventures and Sigma Prime Ventures.

For more information, visit us at www.cloudhealthtech.com or follow us @cloudhealthtech.

Contact

Lauren Palazzo, Text100 for CloudHealth

Lauren.Palazzo@text100.com

(617) 399-4909
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The world leading security, fire and safety event portfolio, IFSEC in its Southeast Asia edition will take place at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre (KLCC) this coming 6-8 September 2017. The fifth edition is a must-attend event for players in the entire industry, which include buyers and other visitors such as architects, business owners, contractors, engineers, facility managers, finance professionals, human resources, IT professionals, procurements, property developers, senior management and more.

The three-day event will feature more than 350 world-leading brands showcasing cutting-edge products in access controls and biometrics, CCTV and surveillance, cybersecurity, drones, fire alarms, fire detection, fire protection, gates and doors, home automation, intelligent buildings, intruder alarms, network security, personal protection equipment, physical security, perimeter protection, x-ray equipment and many other latest technologies in security, fire and safety. This is the best opportunity for visitors to meet directly with experts representing global brands such as Entrypass, Seagate, Dahua, Comnet, Nemtek, Nocturna, Hikvision, BFT, Falcon Safe, FAAC, Alarms and Automation, Golmar, Entrasys, Magnetic Control, Mobotix, MicroEngine, Propel Network, Senzo, Smartstripe, Ozak, Stratel, Union Light, Videx and many more.

IFSEC Southeast Asia received strong support from Malaysia's Ministry of Home Affairs, Royal Malaysia Police, CyberSecurity Malaysia, Asian Professional Security Association (APSA) Malaysia Chapter, British Security Industry Association (BSIA) and ASIS International (Malaysia Chapter).

For the fifth edition this year, IFSEC Southeast Asia will include a few new features on the show floor, which will attract more than 10,000 visitors. For the first time, there will be a drone zone, where drone companies and operators will showcase their drone's capabilities and its integration into the security, fire and safety industry. Another new feature is the business matching service, which visitors could select their preferred product to source. This service was created to help visitors find the best solutions or products for their needs, directly with the manufacturers or distributors.

The Malaysia's Ministry of Home Affairs (MOHA), PPKKM, APSA and IFSEC Southeast Asia is organising Conference Perdana, where the conference will feature a panel discussion, dialogues with MOHA and a keynote address from the invited guest of honour, YAB Dato' Seri Dr. Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia.

"We expect more than 2,000 security companies to join Conference Perdana, the first-ever conference specific for the security industry players and operators,"said Dato' Seri Haji Mustapa Bin Haji Ali, President of APSA (Malaysia Chapter). "The conference is set to be the best platform for the industry players to gather and obtain the latest information and gain new knowledge that will benefit their businesses."

IFSEC Southeast Asia 2017 is organising a three-day seminar on the show floor, where there will be more than 10 hot topics to be presented by experts. The seminar is free for all visitors. Be sure not to miss these seminars and listen directly from industry experts at IFSEC Southeast Asia 2017.

IFSEC Southeast Asia 2017 is a free-to-attend exhibition and seminar for all industry players and visitors. Come on 6-7 September at 10:00am-5:30pm and on 8 September at 10:00am-4:00pm.

For more information on IFSEC Southeast Asia, please log on to www.ifsecsea.com or contact the organiser at +60321768788.

About UBM Asia (www.ubmasia.com)

Owned by UBM plc listed on the London Stock Exchange, UBM Asia is the largest trade show organiser in Asia and the largest event organisers in China, India and Malaysia. Established with its headquarters in Hong Kong and subsidiary companies across Asia and in the US, UBM Asia has a strong global presence in 25 major cities with 36 offices and over 1,600 employee.

With a track record spanning over 30 years, UBM Asia operates in 11 market sectors with over 290 events, 28 targeted trade publications, 18 round-the-clock online products for over 2,000,000 quality exhibitors, visitors, conference delegates, advertisers and subscribers from all over the world. We provide a one-stop diversified global service for high-value business matching, quality market news and online trading networks.

Photo -https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/545168/IFSEC_Southeast_Asia_2017.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/495130/UBM_Logo.jpg
BERLIN, August 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The DOC Research Institute ("DOC"), an independent international think tank, has published its first annual report covering the first full year of operations since its launch in July 2016.

To download the full text of the report click here.

Global leaders from the worlds of politics, business, and academia convened in Berlin for the international launch of the DOC on 1 July 2016. The DOC developed out of the WPF Dialogue of Civilizations, which over its 15-year history amassed substantial expertise in creating a space in which people of different faiths, backgrounds, and positions could come together to work to solve some of the world's most pressing problems.

DOC's research activities are built on firm foundations that are designed to ensure and enhance quality, comprising a Programme Council, Expert Committee, Internal and External Researchers, and Joint Research. Full details on structure and approach can be found in the Annual Report.

A central element in the DOC's governance structure is the Supervisory Board. Headed by Dr. Vladimir Yakunin, the Supervisory Board comprises senior advisers and major donors and consists of 12 members.

Key operational highlights from 2016-2017 include:

Held a series of round-table events, conferences, and lectures, in total taking part in and held over 40 events, attracting over 2,000 people, including the two highest-profile events : its July Berlin DOC Launch and the Rhodes Forum 2016 ;

and ; Successfully launched two Calls for Papers, resulting in the publication of 26 Expert Comments, 18 Articles, 13 blogs and opinion pieces, and 1 Special Report in 2016 and Q1 2017;

Launched three new content sections on the DOC RI website - Chairman's Voice, DOC CEO Series and the E-library, and started distributing a monthly newsletter to subscribers;

Launched DOC TV as a developing DOC media brand that offers a platform for interviews with key voices on topical issues via its YouTube channel;

Built up a multinational team of highly qualified staff working out of its Berlin headquarters;

headquarters; Concluded two book agreements in Q1 2017 slated for publication in Q3 2017:

Peter W. Schulze (Ed.). (2017). Core Europe and Greater Eurasia: A Roadmap for the Future. Published by Campus.

Raffaele Marchetti (Ed.). (2017). Migration to Europe: For and Against. Published by Routledge.

A central part of DOC's operation involves building on existing and developing new partnership agreements with international institutions active in similar areas. The DOC has built the following partnerships in this period: Chong Yang Financial Institute, Renmin University, China; School of Governance, PKU, China; Soong Ching Ling Foundation, China; ACC ltd, India; Lomonosov Moscow State University and the Berlin State Opera.

The DOC has concluded Memorandums of Understanding with high-profile international institutions including: Friends of Europe (Brussels), Institute for Political and International Studies of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (IPIS, Iran), SKOLKOVO Moscow School of Management (Moscow), The Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (China), and the Shanghai Institute for International Studies (SIIS, China).

Vladimir Yakunin, Chairman of the Board of DOC Research Institute, said:

"This past year has been one of transformation and opportunity. In an extremely challenging environment, we have demonstrated agility and flexibility while showcasing the talents and commitment of our members.

"The DOC has a crucial role to play in providing: a platform for all people to come together and share their experiences; conduct rigorous research and analysis of current events and trends with a sharp focus on policy development and practical solutions; and adopt a powerful and adaptable approach to conflict resolution.

Pooran Chandra Pandey, CEO of DOC Research Institute, said:

"Through its varied activities this past year, the DOC has grown and developed as an institution committed to engaging in open and vigorous discussion with policy makers, decision makers, and the expert community. We have developed our website and research capabilities to ensure that our mission statement finds clear expression in our day-today activities."

The Annual Report for 2016 includes details on funding and expenditure. It notes that DOC receives funding from an endowment fund registered in Geneva, Switzerland, and will continue to do so while it is

developing its own revenue streams through fundraising activity, membership fees, E-library fees, conference fees, and sponsorship.

The DOC is an independent, non-partisan think tank, and receives no government funding.

Note for the media:

The Annual Report covers a full year of operations for the DOC Research Institute, which comprises the DOC headquarters in Berlin, Germany; a former World Public Forum "Dialogue of Civilizations" office in Vienna, Austria; and a DOC branch in Moscow, Russia. The report covers DOC operations for the whole of 2016 (financial statements), as well as research and event activities predominantly between the establishment in Berlin in July 2016 and the end of June 2017.

About DOC

The Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute ("the DOC" or "the DOC RI") is an international think tank that researches and develops proposals to address key challenges faced by the international community today.

Committed to seeking dialogue-based solutions to humankind's most pressing issues, the DOC builds on the World Public Forum Dialogue of Civilizations' legacy and expertise. We bring together global thought leaders from academia, public policy, business, and civil society in order to foster debate, share experiences, and develop sound policy recommendations. The idea of a public forum that would promote dialogue as a means of easing and preventing conflicts, contrary to the theory of an imminent clash of civilizations, followed the adoption of key documents by the UN. On 9 November 2001, UNESCO Member States unanimously adopted the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, and the UN General Assembly presented its Global Agenda for Dialogue Among Civilizations. These resolutions laid out principles of intercultural dialogue and laid the basis of the DOC. The World Public Forum Dialogue of Civilizations (WPF), the predecessor of DOC, was founded to advocate for this initiative and help implement its objectives. The WPF was founded in 2002 by Indian entrepreneur and visionary the late Jagdish Kapur, business leader and philanthropist Dr. Vladimir Yakunin, and the businessman Nicholas F.S. Papanicolaou. WPF has enjoyed UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Special Consultative Status and regularly collaborates with UNESCO.

Media Contacts

Grigory Levchenko: Director, Corporate Communications, Member of Executive Board DOC Research Institute

Agnieszka Rzepka:

PressOfficer

+49-30-209677900

media@doc-research.org


Former Cisco Executive Joins Leading Video Communications Provider to Build Scalable Processes to Support Next-Phase of Growth





SAN JOSE, CA--(Marketwired - November 07, 2017) - Zoom Video Communications (https://zoom.us/) today announced that it has appointed Kelly Steckelberg as Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Formerly the CEO of Zoosk and CFO of Cisco's WebEx Division, Steckelberg brings considerable expertise in the video and web communications industry, financial governance and management, and scaling start-ups for success.

Steckelberg will be responsible for developing and growing the financial infrastructure, teams, and processes that the communications company needs to continue its growth trajectory.

"I'm incredibly excited to be joining Team Zoom. I've had the pleasure of working with Eric and several other members of Zoom's leadership in the past, and am thrilled to join them in continuing the amazing success story that is Zoom. Zoom has shown incredible growth over the past couple of years. I look forward to leveraging the building blocks their financial organization has put in place to take it to the next level and to help Zoom thrive in its rapid expansion," said Steckelberg.

"I was so pleased when Kelly agreed to join the Zoom leadership team as our CFO," said Eric S. Yuan, founder and CEO of Zoom. "Kelly has deep knowledge of our space and is simply a wonderful person to work with. She has demonstrated the ability to lead and make the right decisions, and will be a major asset to our organization as we expand."

Steckelberg joins Zoom at a pivotal point in its growth. The company announced a string of major milestones this year, starting in January with a $100M Series D funding round from Sequoia, and the addition of Sequoia partner Carl Eschenbach to its board of directors. In August, Zoom announced year-over-year revenue growth of 150 percent and a customer base increase of 100 percent. At Zoomtopia, the company's inaugural user conference in September, Zoom introduced impressive product enhancements, including the addition of smart recording transcripts, digital signage, and augmented reality. In October, Zoom named Jonathan Chadwick to its board; he serves as audit committee chair. Zoom has also expanded its international footprint in the past year, opening London and Sydney offices, and building additional international data centers.Steckelberg brings to Zoom extensive leadership and finance experience. Most recently, she was CEO of Zoosk, where she previously held positions of CFO and COO. Prior to Zoosk, Steckelberg was the Sr. Director of Consumer Segment Finance of Cisco. Steckelberg has also held various roles in finance at Cisco WebEx, Epiphany, PeopleSoft, and KPMG. She has a MA in accounting from The University of Texas at Austin. Steckelberg is a board member of the Episcopal Community Services of San Francisco and loves to travel, having been to over 60 countries.Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise video communications, with a secure, easy cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, messaging, and webinars across mobile, desktop, and room systems. Zoom Rooms is the original software-based conference room solution used around the world in board, conference, huddle, and training rooms, as well as executive offices and classrooms. Founded in 2011, Zoom helps businesses and organizations bring their teams together in a frictionless environment to get more done. Zoom is a private company headquartered in San Jose, CA. Visit zoom.us (https://zoom.us/) and follow @zoom_us (https://twitter.com/zoom_us)

Press Contact

Audrey Webb for Zoom

408-472-2603

audrey.webb@verizon.net (mailto:audrey.webb@verizon.net)

This announcement is distributed by Nasdaq Corporate Solutions on behalf of Nasdaq Corporate Solutions clients.

The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein.

Source: Zoom Video Communications via Globenewswire


IRW-PRESS: Guyana Goldstrike Inc.: Guyana Goldstrike Inc. meldet strategische Investition in Hohe von CAD 3,2 Millionen von Zijin Global Fund und Zijin Midas Exploration Fund LLC

Guyana Goldstrike Inc. meldet strategische Investition in Hohe von CAD 3,2 Millionen von Zijin Global Fund und Zijin Midas Exploration Fund LLC

16. Februar 2018 - Vancouver, Kanada - Guyana Goldstrike Inc. (TSXV: GYA, OTC: GYNAF, FSE: 1ZT) freut sich, bekannt zu geben, dass Gold Mountains Asset Management Limited (GMA), eine hundertprozentige Tochtergesellschaft von Zijin Mining Group (Zijin), sich zu einer strategischen Investition in das Unternehmen bereit erklart hat. Die Investition wird uber Zijin Global Fund und Zijin Midas Exploration Fund LLC ausgefuhrt, die beide von GMA verwaltet werden.

Zijin ist eine borsennotierte Gesellschaft, die an den Aktienborsen Shanghai und Hongkong gehandelt wird; ihre Marktkapitalisierung liegt derzeit bei CAD 18 Milliarden. Mit umfangreichen Beteiligungen in einem breiten Spektrum von Rohstoffen ist sie der grote Goldproduzent Chinas und ein kapitalkraftiges, erfahrenes und erfolgreiches Bergbauunternehmen.

Der Erlos aus der Investition wird zur Weiterentwicklung des Referenzprojekts des Unternehmens, des Goldprojekts Marudi in Guyana, Sudamerika, verwendet. Durch die Investition ist das Unternehmen in der Lage, sein laufendes, mehrere Phasen umfassendes Explorationsprogramm in Marudi mit Diamantbohrungen uber bis zu 10.000 Meter und Schurfgrabungen uber 12.000 Meter zu finanzieren.

Herr Peter Berdusco, der President und CEO, merkte dazu an: Es ist eine Ehre und ein Privileg fur uns, dass wir GMA als wichtigen Aktionar und als Partner gewonnen haben. Die strategische Investition ist fur alle Interessengruppen von GMA, Guyana Goldstrike und die Einwohner von Guyana von groem Vorteil. Da die Explorationsphase des Projekts nunmehr finanziert ist, konnen wir uns auf die Erschlieung neuer Mineralisierungszonen konzentrieren mit dem Ziel, die vor kurzem fur das Projekt gemeldete 43-101-konforme Mineralressourcenschatzung weiter aufzustocken.

Das Unternehmen hat zugesagt, im Wege einer Privatplatzierung 12.800.000 Einheiten des Unternehmens zu einem Preis von $ 0,25 pro Einheit an Zijin Global Fund und Zijin Midas Exploration Fund LLC auszugeben; der Bruttoerlos soll $ 3.200.000 betragen. Jede Einheit besteht aus einer Stammaktie des Unternehmens und einem Warrant zum Kauf einer Stammaktie, mit dem wahrend eines Zeitraums von 24 Monaten eine weitere Stammaktie zu einem Preis von $ 0,35 erworben werden kann. Alle Wertpapiere, die im Zusammenhang mit der Investition ausgegeben werden, unterliegen einer gesetzlichen Haltefrist von vier Monaten und einem Tag.

Der Abschluss der Investition kann fur das Unternehmen zu einer Anderung der Beherrschungsverhaltnisse (change of control) im Sinne der Richtlinien der TSX Venture Exchange fuhren. Falls die Investition tatsachlich zu einer Anderung der Beherrschungsverhaltnisse fuhrt, unterliegt sie einer Genehmigung durch die Aktionare des Unternehmens. Das Unternehmen hat die Absicht, die erforderliche Genehmigung durch die schriftliche Zustimmung der Mehrheit der Aktionare einzuholen. Die Investition kann erst abgeschlossen werden, wenn die erforderliche Genehmigung der Aktionare sowie die Genehmigung der TSX Venture Exchange vorliegen.

Explorationsprogramm: Phase 1 - derzeit im Gange

In Marudi wird derzeit die Phase 1 eines mehrere Phasen umfassenden Explorationsprogramms durchgefuhrt. Mit dieser ersten Phase werden folgende Ziele verfolgt: 1) weitere Freilegung von mineralisiertem Hartgestein an neu entdeckten Standorten, 2) Verfolgung und Erweiterung der Zonen, die von fruheren Betreibern in Graben identifiziert wurden, und 3) Prufung von Gebieten, in denen Gold in Saprolitmaterial und einem noch nicht identifizierten Muttergestein vorhanden ist. Die Erkundung durch Schurfgrabungen und Probenahmen ist eine wichtige, kosteneffiziente Methode zur Identifizierung von Bohrzielen in Saprolit-Formationen.

Das Gebiet, auf das der unmittelbare Fokus gelegt wird, umfasst weniger als funf Prozent des Konzessionsgebiets. In diesem Gebiet sind die folgenden neuen Standorte von Interesse: Kimberley Ridge, Marudi North (westliche und ostliche Erweiterungen), Marudi Spur Ridge, Toucan North, Pancake Creek, Mariwa und Success Creek.

Die Arbeiten werden unter der Aufsicht von Herrn Locke Goldsmith, M.Sc., P. Eng, P. Geo, Chefgeologe und Explorationsmanager des Unternehmens, durchgefuhrt. Das geologische Personal vor Ort wird durch die voll ausgestattete Bergbausiedlung mit Mitarbeitern und Servicegebauden unterstutzt. Wenn Phase 1 abgeschlossen ist, werden die gesammelten Daten gepruft, analysiert und fur die Planung des Diamantbohrprogramms des Unternehmens verwendet.

Das Unternehmen ladt alle Interessenten ein, die Website das Unternehmens zu besuchen: www.guyanagoldstrike.com.

Uber das Goldprojekt Marudi

Das Konzessionsgebiet liegt in Guyana, Sudamerika, und ist einzigartig, da es uber eine Abbaulizenz mit voller Berechtigung, einen Zugang uber eine Allwetterstrae, vorhandene Infrastruktur und eine gut eingerichtete Bergbausiedlung mit Mitarbeitern, Servicegebauden und einen in Vollzeit tatigen Bergbaumanager verfugt. Das Konzessionsgebiet umfasst drei bekannte goldhaltige Gebiete, insbesondere die alluvialen Bereiche, das Saprolit-Deckgebirge und das darunter liegende Hartgestein. In dem Projekt wurden durch fruhere Betreiber historische Diamantbohrungen uber 42.000 Meter (141 Bohrlocher) durchgefuhrt. Das Unternehmen hat vor kurzem eine Mineralressourcenschatzung zur Zone Mazoa Hill vorgenommen; diese ergab 259.100 Unzen Gold in der Kategorie Angezeigt innerhalb von 4.428.000 Tonnen mit einem Gehalt von 1,80 Gramm/Tonne (g/t) und 86.200 Unzen Gold in der Kategorie Abgeleitet innerhalb von 1.653.000 Tonnen mit einem Gehalt von 1,60 Gramm/Tonne (g/t). Es besteht ausgezeichnetes Explorationspotenzial durch die Erschlieung von bereits identifizierten, sehr viel versprechenden mineralisierten Zielen in dem Projekt.

Uber Guyana

Die Republik Guyana liegt zwischen Venezuela und Surinam in Sudamerika. Amtssprache ist Englisch. Das Land untersteht dem britischen Common Law und hat eine demokratisch gewahlte Regierung. Es verfugt uber ein Bergbaugesetz und eine umfangreiche Geschichte der Goldproduktion. Im Jahr 2016 wurden in dem Land 690.000 Unzen Gold durch Betreiber gefordert. Das Fraser Institute fuhrte Guyana in seinem Annual Survey of Mining von 2016 als drittbestes Rechtssystem fur Bergbau im Hinblick auf die Attraktivitat von Investitionen in der Untergruppe Lateinamerika und Karibisches Becken auf. Guiana Shield ist die geografische Region, in der Gold lagert. Sie ist weltweit als Goldregion ersten Ranges anerkannt, hochgradig hoffig, noch wenig erkundet und weist eine geologische Kontinuitat mit Westafrika auf.* Im Jahr 2016 erklarten zwei Minen in Guyana den Beginn der kommerziellen Produktion: die Lagerstatte Aurora (Guyana Goldfields) und die Lagerstatte Karouni (Troy Resources).

* Independent Technical and Environmental Review Karouni Gold Project - Guyana (Unabhangige technische und okologische Prufung des Goldprojekts Karouni - Guyana), Behre Dolbear Australia Pty Ltd, 29. April 2016

Qualifizierter Sachverstandiger

Locke Goldsmith, M.Sc., P. Eng, P. Geo, Chefgeologe und Explorationsmanager des Unternehmens, ist ein qualifizierter Sachverstandiger im Sinne des National Instrument 43-101 - Offenlegungsstandards fur Mineralprojekte. Locke Goldsmith hat die technischen und wissenschaftlichen Inhalte dieser Pressemitteilung gepruft und genehmigt.

David Joseph 604-569-1801 davidjosephmarketing@telus.net GUYANA GOLDSTRIKE INC. Suite 510, 580 Hornby Street Vancouver, British Columbia V6C 3B6

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AXC0209 2018-02-21/15:55
PRESS RELEASE

TiGenix to present positive 52-week Phase III Cx601 data at EHA-SWG Scientific Meeting

Leuven (BELGIUM) - November 20, 2017, 07:00h CET - TiGenix NV (Euronext Brussels and NASDAQ: TIG), an advanced biopharmaceutical company focused on exploiting the anti-inflammatory properties of allogeneic, or donor-derived, stem cells to develop novel therapies for serious medical conditions, today announces that the positive 52-week results from its ADMIRE-CD Phase III clinical trial of Cx601 for the treatment of complex perianal fistulas in patients with Crohn's disease will be presented at the EHA-SWG Scientific Meeting on Shaping the Future of Mesenchymal Stromal Cells Therapy taking place from November 23-25, 2017 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. TiGenix is a contributor of the meeting.

Presentation Title:

Allogeneic adipose-derived MSC for complex perianal fistulas in Crohn's disease

Session Date:

Friday, November 24, 2017

Session Time:

13:30 - 15:30 Scientific session: Clinical Trials

Presenter:

Pr. Damian Garcia Olmo, MD

"We are looking forward to presenting positive 52-week results from the ADMIRE-CD Phase III trial demonstrating the long-term efficacy and safety of Cx601 for complex perianal fistulas in Crohn's disease patients at this key scientific meeting," said Dr. Mary Carmen Diez, Vice President, Medical Affairs and Commercialisation at TiGenix. "These data have been used to support our marketing authorisation application for Cx601, for which we anticipate a CHMP opinion in 2017. TiGenix is proud to support this exciting meeting, which brings together science and clinical research for novel advanced therapy medicinal products."

For more information please contact:

TiGenix

Claudia Jimenez

Senior Director Investor Relations and Communications

Tel: +34918049264

Claudia.jimenez@tigenix.com (mailto:Claudia.jimenez@tigenix.com)

PR Enquiries

Consilium Strategic Communications

Chris Gardner, Sukaina Virji, Melissa Gardiner

Tel: +44 (0)20 3709 5700

TiGenix@consilium-comms.com (mailto:TiGenix@consilium-comms.com)

About TiGenix

TiGenix NV (Euronext Brussels and NASDAQ: TIG) is an advanced biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapies for serious medical conditions by exploiting the anti-inflammatory properties of allogeneic, or donor-derived, stem cells.

TiGenix lead product, Cx601, has successfully completed a European Phase III clinical trial for the treatment of complex perianal fistulas - a severe, debilitating complication of Crohn's disease. Cx601 has been filed for regulatory approval in Europe and a global Phase III trial intended to support a future U.S. Biologic License Application (BLA) started in 2017. TiGenix has entered into a licensing agreement with Takeda, a global pharmaceutical company active in gastroenterology, under which Takeda acquired the exclusive right to develop and commercialize Cx601 for complex perianal fistulas outside the U.S. TiGenix' second adipose-derived product, Cx611, is undergoing a Phase I/II trial in severe sepsis - a major cause of mortality in the developed world. Finally, AlloCSC-01, targeting acute ischemic heart disease, has demonstrated positive results in a Phase I/II trial in acute myocardial infarction (AMI). TiGenix is headquartered in Leuven (Belgium) and has operations in Madrid (Spain) and Cambridge, MA (USA). For more information, please visit http://www.tigenix.com (http://www.tigenix.com/) .

About Cx601

Cx601 is a local administration of allogeneic (or donor derived) expanded adipose-derived stem cells (eASCs) for the treatment of complex perianal fistulas in Crohn's disease patients that have previously failed conventional therapy. Crohn's disease is a chronic inflammatory disease of the intestine and complex perianal fistulas are a severe and debilitating complication for which there is currently no effective treatment. Cx601 was granted orphan drug designation by the European Commission in 2009 and by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2017. TiGenix completed a European Phase III clinical trial (ADMIRE-CD) in August 2015 in which both the primary endpoint and the safety and efficacy profile were met, with patients receiving Cx601 showing a 44% greater probability of achieving combined remission compared to control (placebo). A follow-up analysis was completed at 52 weeks and 104 weeks post-treatment, confirming the sustained efficacy and safety profile of the product[i]. The 24-week results of the Phase III ADMIRE-CD trial were published in The Lancet in July 2016[ii]. Based on the positive 24 weeks Phase III study results, TiGenix submitted a Marketing Authorization Application to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and a CHMP opinion is expected in 2017. A global Phase III clinical trial (ADMIRE-CD II) intended to support a future U.S. Biologic License Application (BLA) started in 2017, based on a trial protocol that has been agreed with the FDA through a special protocol assessment procedure (SPA) (clinicaltrials.gov (https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03279081?cond=complex+perianal+fistulas&draw=1&rank=5); NCT03279081). ADMIRE-CD II is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study designed to confirm the efficacy and safety of a single administration of Cx601 for the treatment of complex perianal fistulas in Crohn's disease patients. In July 2016, TiGenix entered into a licensing agreement with Takeda, a global pharmaceutical company active in gastroenterology, under which Takeda acquired exclusive rights to develop and commercialize Cx601 for complex perianal fistulas in Crohn's patients outside of the U.S.



[i] Panes, J. et al. OP009 Long-term efficacy and safety of Cx601, allogeneic expanded adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells, for complex perianal fistulas in Crohn's disease: 52-week results of a phase III randomised controlled trial. J Crohn's Colitis. 2017; 11: S5-S5. [ii] Panes J, Garcia-Olmo D, Van Assche G et al., Expanded allogeneic adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (Cx601) for complex perianal fistulas in Crohn's disease: a phase 3 randomized, double-blind controlled trial. The Lancet. 2016; 388(10051):1281-90.

This announcement is distributed by Nasdaq Corporate Solutions on behalf of Nasdaq Corporate Solutions clients.

The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein.

Source: TiGenix via Globenewswire


PRESTWICK, Scotland and WINCHESTER, England, August 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

A group of entrepreneurial UK engineers has plans to build a mid-mass logistics drone for global markets. The system will be aimed initially at remote and isolated communities, but is planned to be fully capable of near urban operations in due course.

(Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/545195/Sky_Hopper_Logo.jpg )

(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/545194/Sky_Hopper_Multi_Hop.jpg )

(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/545193/Sky_Hopper_Hopping_Highlands.jpg )

The UAV system, called Sky Hopper, is an electrically powered tri fan design to be constructed at Prestwick in the West of Scotland. Its avionics are being developed in Hampshire in South Central England. Cargo mass load is 100 kilograms.

The Sky Hopper team brings together aeronautical engineers, certification and design specialists, electric machine designers, and advanced battery developers. Its promotors stress that the project will follow a carefully managed step-by-step approach.

"Civil UAV development is still in early days," says project leader Eben Wilson. "We want to engineer a pathway to a commercial future; and we have the strong team to work through the certification requirements alongside the technical issues. It's a challenge, but it really is time we did this."

"Taking a step upwards to an industrial vehicle demands that we innovate across all our disciplines," says Dr Richard Brown, the project's aerodynamicist. "We plan to build a series of demonstrators, resolving structural, power and flight control needs. We have some of the best skills available, and we are a small agile team."

Pushing the envelope of unmanned aerial capabilities demands close co-ordination with the regulators to devise safe operating methods and procedures.

"The regulators want a civil UAV industry to develop in the UK," says Fred Gorrie, technical lead in design certification and regulation, "but they also want safety equal to normal aerospace industry competences. That's where we want to go too, and we think Scotland gives us the space to do that."

With its thinly inhabited landscape and coast, the West of Scotland offers a unique territory to develop beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) potential, while testing autonomous flight capabilities.

"The commercial potential for UAV operations is huge globally. We're talking re-supply, infrastructure support and other as yet unanticipated logistical operations," says project lead Eben Wilson who is an economist by training as well as being a forward-looking industrialist. "We've got to grasp the future and believe in our engineering expertise."

The Sky Hopper project commercial plan includes unmanned delivery networks that set up local communities as franchisees for aero-parks; locally owned assets through which multiple Sky Hopper missions are flown, creating revenue for local communities.

The end-to-end innovation for the project extends to its funding methods. So far, early prototyping has been privately funded; the founders have invested their own money along with some initial sponsorship funding. A sequenced campaign of further donations, crowd funding via Indiegogo and a follow up Enterprise Investment Scheme is underway.

"We may sound like evangelists, saying that we want the funding to be based on a shared interest in inspired innovation, but we really mean it," says Eben Wilson, "in today's global markets we can stand on the side lines and wait for the big corporates to come along and feed us with their trinkets; allowing us only to become their shopkeepers. But that's not what we British have been in the past, and certainly in the West of Scotland we feel firmly entrenched in our historic industrial traditions. We like building stuff, and Sky Hopper contains the stuff of the future."

Indiegogo funding campaign is at http://bit.ly/skyhopper

Or visit http://www.skyhopper.co.uk
POMPANO BEACH, FL -- (Marketwired) -- 08/15/17 -- Cyclone Power Technologies (OTC PINK: CYPW), developer of the all-fuel, clean-tech Cyclone Engine, announced today that it has signed an agreement with Q2Power Technologies and Phoenix Power Group, based in West Palm Beach, Florida and Memphis, Tennessee, respectively, allowing for Q2Power to transfer their exclusive license agreement from Cyclone Power to Phoenix Power Group. On the transfer, the license transforms from an exclusive to a non-exclusive license and allows Phoenix and Cyclone with advantageous modifications and payments for Cyclone. Phoenix will then be authorized to produce the Waste Heat Engine.

The transfer of the license of Q2 Power (formerly WHE Generation) will allow Phoenix Power Group to continue its manufacturing and development of their engine based on Cyclone Technology and integrates it into the Phoenix proprietary waste fuel steam generating furnace. Cyclone will now also have the right to manufacture engines for the waste fuel and waste heat markets. Phoenix Power had a license agreement with Cyclone prior to the WHE spin off. Because of the nature of waste oil the license was transferred with the spinoff of WHE from Cyclone. Q2Power has transitioned its business to the manufacturing of compost and sustainable soils.

Frankie Fruge, President of Cyclone, commented, "This is a great move for all parties, including our shareholders. Cyclone is looking forward to working with the Phoenix team again. Phoenix and their waste oil fired fueled furnace has a product that will be a critical component in meeting many challenges of waste fuels. It can also provide heat energy to operate water purification and refrigeration systems, thus offering access to 21st century standards of living to those who have missed out. We are passionate about our products and the impact they can affect globally."

"This agreement with Phoenix also provides them with ability to use fuels in their systems that are not labeled as waste fuels and it allows Cyclone to use waste fuels and waste heat in their systems. We both agree that this is the best method to get all of our products to market without micro managing the fuel sources. This puts both Companies into one of the fastest growing energy markets in the world. The heat and electrical 'CHP' market is expected to experience exponential growth over the next five years," continued Frankie Fruge. "We think that partnering with this team again of distinguished leaders in their unique equipment operating fields presents a great commercial opportunity for Cyclone. We look forward to the beginning of what we expect to be strong and mutually beneficial relationship with Phoenix. We all wish Chris Nelson and Q2 a successful future."

Update on Cyclone

Cyclone has completed their 2 Q and will file this week staying in compliance with the SEC filing. Soles, Heyn & Co. Auditors, Bruce Schames, CFO and Lawrence Bornstein, Cyclone Consultant have all done an excellent job at getting us up to date on all of our filings. We all appreciate their hard and diligent work.

Cyclone is moving forward with the OEM's (Original Equipment Manufacturer) and Distributor giving us the base of our first units that will be delivered to them. Cyclone welcomes Altris Thermal of Utah as a solar/thermal OEM. Republic Energy of Alabama as an OEM for their bio-fuel systems to run off the non-condensables. And we welcome Solar-Masters of California as an OEM for portable lighting generator systems.

About Cyclone Power Technologies

Cyclone Power Technologies is the developer of the award-winning Cyclone Engine -- an all-fuel, clean-tech engine with the power and versatility to run everything from waste energy electric generators and solar thermal systems to cars, trucks and locomotives. Invented by company founder and CEO Harry Schoell, the patented Cyclone Engine is a eco-friendly external combustion engine, ingeniously designed to achieve high thermal efficiencies through a compact heat-regenerative process, and to run on virtually any fuel -- including bio-diesels, syngas or solar -- while emitting fewer greenhouse gases and irritating pollutants into the air. The Cyclone Engine was recognized by Popular Science Magazine as the Invention of the Year for 2008, and was presented with the Society of Automotive Engineers' AEI Tech Award in 2006 and 2008. Additionally, Cyclone was recently named Environmental Business of the Year by the Broward County Environmental Protection Department. For more information, visit www.cyclonepower.com.

Safe Harbor Statement

Certain statements in this news release may contain forward-looking information within the meaning of Rule 175 under the Securities Act of 1933 and Rule 3b-6 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and are subject to the safe harbor created by those rules. All statements, other than statements of fact, included in this release, including, without limitation, statements regarding potential future plans and objectives of the company, are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. The company cautions that these forward-looking statements are further qualified by other factors. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any statements in this release, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Company Contact

Frankie Fruge, President

Tel: 954-943-8721

Frankie@cyclonepower.com

Investor@cyclonepower.com



Phoenix Power Group LLC

Phoenixpowergroup.com




GRAND JUNCTION, CO -- (Marketwired) -- 08/15/17 --Bullfrog Gold Corp (OTCQB: BFGC) (the "Company" or "BFGC") is pleased to announce that Tetra Tech Inc.'s NI 43-101 resource report on the Bullfrog Gold Project (Project) has been posted on the website www.bullfroggold.com. The results of this report were released on June 27, 2017 and included measured and indicated (M&I) resource estimates of 525,000 ounces averaging 1.02 g/t using a gold price of $1200/oz and a base case cutoff grade of 0.36 g/t. Inferred resources were estimated at 120,000 ounces of gold averaging 1.20 g/t. These estimates are supported by a data base that includes 1,262 holes containing 155 miles of coring and drilling.

Extensive metallurgical test work has demonstrated that heap leach gold recoveries of more than 72% are achievable for a crush size of 80% minus 3/8-inch. As a 49% gold recovery from simulated run-of-mine mineral has also been achieved, an additional 99,000 ounces of M&I resources averaging 0.26 g/t and using a 0.2 g/t cutoff grade may be leached without crushing.

About Bullfrog Gold Corp.

Bullfrog Gold Corp. is a Delaware corporation that initially acquired a strategic land position in the Bullfrog Mining District in 2011 and subsequently acquired from Barrick Bullfrog Inc. and others additional lands that have established resources and good exploration potential. The Bullfrog Project is located 120 miles NW of Las Vegas, Nevada.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements and information within the meaning of applicable Canadian and US securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein including, without limitation, statements regarding the anticipated content, commencement and cost of exploration programs, anticipated exploration program results and the timing thereof, the discovery and delineation of mineral deposits/resources/reserves, the potential for the identification of multiple deposits in the Project area, the potential for a low capex and/or opex heap leach mine operation, the potential for a production decision to be made, the potential commencement of any development of a mine following a production decision, the potential for any mining or production, the potential for additional resources to be located between certain of the existing deposits, business and financing plans and business trends, are forward-looking statements. Information concerning mineral resource estimates are 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 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 Company's inability to obtain any necessary permits, consents or authorizations required for its activities, significant increases in the cost of labor, materials, equipment and supplies required to develop and operate any mine, the Company's inability to produce minerals from its properties successfully or profitably, to continue its projected growth, to raise the necessary capital or to be fully able to implement its business strategies, and other risks and uncertainties disclosed in the Company's latest filings with the SEC. All of the Company's public disclosure filings may be accessed via www.sec.gov and readers are urged to review these materials with respect to the Company's mineral properties.

Cautionary Note Regarding References to Resources and Reserves

National Instrument 43 101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101") is a rule developed by the Canadian Securities Administrators which establishes standards for all public disclosure an issuer makes of scientific and technical information concerning mineral projects. Unless otherwise indicated, all resource estimates contained in or incorporated by reference in this press release have been prepared in accordance with NI 43-101 and the guidelines set out in the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (the "CIM") Standards on Mineral Resource and Mineral Reserves, adopted by the CIM Council on November 14, 2004 (the "CIM Standards") as they may be amended from time to time by the CIM. United States shareholders are cautioned that the requirements and terminology of NI 43-101 and the CIM Standards differ significantly from the requirements and terminology of the SEC set forth in the SEC's Industry Guide 7 ("SEC Industry Guide 7"). Accordingly, the Company's disclosures regarding mineralization may not be comparable to similar information disclosed by companies subject to SEC Industry Guide 7. Without limiting the foregoing, while the terms "mineral resources", "inferred mineral resources", "indicated mineral resources" and "measured mineral resources" are recognized and required by NI 43-101 and the CIM Standards, they are not recognized by the SEC and are not permitted to be used in documents filed with the SEC by companies subject to SEC Industry Guide 7. Mineral resources which are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability, and US investors are cautioned not to assume that all or any part of a mineral resource will ever be converted into reserves. Further, inferred resources have a great amount of uncertainty as to their existence and as to whether they can be mined legally or economically. It cannot be assumed that all or any part of the inferred resources will ever be upgraded to a higher resource category. Under Canadian rules, estimates of inferred mineral resources may not form the basis of a feasibility study or prefeasibility study, except in rare cases. The SEC normally only permits issuers to report mineralization that does not constitute SEC Industry Guide 7 compliant "reserves" as in-place tonnage and grade without reference to unit amounts. The term "contained ounces" is not permitted under the rules of SEC Industry Guide 7. In addition, the NI 43-101 and CIM Standards definition of a "reserve" differs from the definition in SEC Industry Guide 7. In SEC Industry Guide 7, a mineral reserve is defined as a part of a mineral deposit which could be economically and legally extracted or produced at the time the mineral reserve determination is made, and a "final" or "bankable" feasibility study is required to report reserves, the three-year historical price is used in any reserve or cash flow analysis of designated reserves and the primary environmental analysis or report must be filed with the appropriate governmental authority.

Contact Information:

David Beling

PE, President, CEO & Director

(970) 628-1670




THORNTON, CO -- (Marketwired) -- 08/15/17 -- Ascent Solar Technologies, Inc. (OTCBB: ASTI), a developer and manufacturer of state-of-the-art, lightweight, and flexible thin-film photovoltaic (PV) solutions, reported results for the quarter ended June 30, 2017.

Q2 2017 Financial Results:

The Company posted net revenue of $25K for Q2 2017 due to some contras and a $110K deferment of revenue recognition booked against gross shipment of $205K. The deferment of revenue is mainly a timing issue relating to customer's inspection & testing of the product shipped, and is confirmed to be added into the upcoming quarter's net revenue. The contras, which are mainly one-off items, are a direct result of the Company's previous announcement with regards to the disposal of the EnerPlex branded consumer business, which was primarily distributed through traditional brick and mortar retail outlets. We do not expect recurring contras going forward since the discontinuation of the traditional retail channels are now completed. As noted in a previous announcement, the Company will be limiting its consumer business going forward to only e-commerce platform, OEM and private labeling model, and instead focus more on the specialty PV market such as defense, drones, aerospace and satellite markets.

Notwithstanding the marginal net revenue, the loss from operations narrowed significantly by about 54% from ($7.14M) in the second quarter of 2016 to ($3.25M) this quarter. The sharp improvement was due to the corresponding reduction in expenses resulting from the Company's exit from the brick and mortar consumer channels, lower depreciation and amortization as well as continuous cost reduction initiatives in both R&D and manufacturing operations. The Company will continue to restructure and streamline its operations further to achieve better operational efficiency and further cost reduction.

The net loss for the quarter also narrowed to ($4.72M), a sharp improvement of about 57% from ($11.17M) in corresponding quarter in 2016. The substantial reduction in net loss was due in part to improved operational loss indicated earlier, as well as a positive swing of $3.58M from a non-cash loss of $2.7M in the same period in 2016 to a non-cash gain of $0.93M on extinguishment of liabilities associated with the outstanding convertible notes and convertible preferred stock.

Current liabilities were also reduced from $19.45M as of the period ended December 31, 2016 to $15.35M as of second quarter ended June 30, 2017 as the Company continues to improve its cash flow and the account payables and creditors are being paid down.

Management Comments:

"The disposal of the EnerPlex consumer brand is now completed, hence reducing the consumer business concentration. We will now be able to streamline our business model and to better allocate our resources to focus on our core strength; developing specialty PV markets with high entry barriers like the military, first responders, emergency power, aviation (drones), and space and near-space applications" commented Victor Lee, President and CEO of Ascent Solar Technologies, Inc. "The Company has made significant progress in these developing high-value markets, and we will continue to sharpen our focus in such areas where Ascent is truly at the forefront of the competition."

"The most recent announcements of the successful delivery of the superlight and high-voltage modules, as well as our participation in the US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) Exclusive TE 17-3 event in Washington DC, are strong testimonies to our progress in these focus markets. We believe our earlier achievement in January 2017 of being the first and only flexible CIGS manufacturer to achieve ISO 9001:2015 certification, will help to speed up our sales velocity and enable us to better serve those premium market customers who demand highly robust and failure-proof products that are manufactured under a superlative Quality Management System."

Mr. Lee concluded, "We have a good start in 3rd quarter and are optimistic to look forward to a stronger second half of 2017, as our high-value PV market focus begins to take shape. We look forward to updating our shareholders as we make continued progress."

ABOUT ASCENT SOLAR TECHNOLOGIES, INC:

Ascent Solar Technologies, Inc., an ISO 9001-2015 certified company, is a developer of thin-film photovoltaic modules using flexible substrate materials that are more versatile and rugged than traditional solar panels. Ascent Solar modules were named as one of the top 100 technologies in both 2010 and 2015 by R&D Magazine, and one of TIME Magazine's 50 best inventions for 2011. The technology described above represents the cutting edge of flexible power and can be directly integrated into consumer products and off-grid applications, as well as other aerospace applications. Ascent Solar is headquartered in Thornton, Colorado, where the company's quality management system has achieved ISO 9001:2015 certification. More information can be found at www.AscentSolar.com.

Forward-Looking Statements:

Statements in this press release that are not statements of historical or current fact constitute "forward-looking statements." Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other unknown factors that could cause the Company's actual operating results to be materially different from any historical results or from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. In addition to statements that explicitly describe these risks and uncertainties, readers are urged to consider statements that contain terms such as "believes," "belief," "expects," "expect," "intends," "intend," "anticipate," "anticipates," "plans," "plan," to be uncertain and forward-looking. The forward-looking statements contained herein are also subject generally to other risks and uncertainties that are described from time to time in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Ascent Solar Technologies

Investor Relations:

PCG Advisory Group Media Relations

Adam Holdsworth

adamh@pcgadvisory.com

+1-646-862-4607




Growing Need for More Secure Transport Networks Reinforces Critical Role of Leading Industry Initiative Driving Record-Setting Achievements and Cutting-Edge Innovations

Coriant, a leading supplier of packet optical, IP, and SDN solutions to Tier 1 global service providers and web-scale Internet operators, today announced that it has been awarded this year's Celtic-Plus Innovation Award for its contributions to the Safe and Secure European Routing (SASER) project. The Innovation Award, presented at the Celtic-Plus event held earlier this year in Barcelona, is important as it recognizes the impact and commercial success of the project. Coriant was recognized for demonstrated achievements and its successful role as head of workgroup 3 "Safe and Secure Networks by Reliable Transport Technology" in the SASER-SIEGFRIED sub-project.

The goal of the SASER research program was to provide the scientific, technical, and technological concepts and solutions for secure, reliable, and scalable transport networks at sustainable costs and energy. This Celtic-Plus Innovation Award follows collaboration between Coriant and Orange and the successful demonstration of record-setting multi-terabit transmission across a 762 kilometer link in the Orange optical transport network, a field trial conducted in cooperation with the Celtic-Plus SASER project.

"Celtic-Plus has been an important force in the European industry by stimulating innovation and tackling tough network challenges, including demand for greater efficiencies at the transport layer," said Uwe Fischer, Executive Vice President of R&D/PLM, and Chief Technology Officer, Coriant. "We were pleased to support the Celtic-Plus SASER project and to collaborate with industry leaders like Orange to help advance the state of transport network architectures and technologies."

Coriant has contributed 55 technical publications as part of its leadership role in the Celtic-Plus SASER project, and the knowledge garnered and technology achievements demonstrated through the course of the project have been incorporated into many of its market-leading solutions, including Coriant CloudWave Optics, the Coriant Groove G30 Network Disaggregation Platform, and the Coriant hiT 7300 Multi-Haul Transport Platform.

The work of Coriant within the project was partially funded by the Bundesministerium fur Bildung und Forschung (German Federal Ministry for Education and Research).

About Celtic-Plus

Celtic-Plus is an industry-driven European research initiative to define, perform and finance through public and private funding, common R&D projects in the area of telecommunications, new media, future Internet, and applications services focusing on a new "Smart Connected World" paradigm.

About Coriant

Coriant delivers innovative and dynamic networking solutions for a fast-changing and cloud-centric business world. The Coriant portfolio of SDN-enabled, edge-to-core packet optical networking and DCI solutions enables network operators to cost-efficiently scale network capacity, reduce operational complexity, and create the resilient foundation for a new generation of mobile, video, and cloud services. Coriant serves leading network operators around the world, including mobile and fixed line service providers, cloud and data center operators, Web 2.0 content providers, cable MSOs, government agencies, and large enterprises. With a distinguished heritage of technology innovation and service excellence, Coriant is helping its global customers maximize the value of their network infrastructure as demand for bandwidth explodes and the communications needs of businesses and consumers continue to evolve. Learn more at www.coriant.com and follow us on Twitter for the latest @Coriant news and information.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170815005153/en/

Contacts:

Coriant

Scott Larson, +1.978.250.3433

scott.larson@coriant.com
CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 08/15/17 -- Genoil Inc. (OTCQB: GNOLF), the publicly traded clean technology engineering company for the petroleum industry, today announced the appointment of Dr Victor Solovyev, a catalyst expert, as Project Manager for its engineering team. The expansion comes as interest in Genoil's desulphurisation technology is increasing rapidly with the global demand for cleaner energy.

Dr Solovyev's appointment to Genoil's engineering team comes at a time of real growth and opportunity for the company. This is in line with global demand for cleaner energy and low sulphur products, with a particular focus on the marine market, when the global sulphur cap is implemented in 2020 requiring all commercial vessels to burn fuels with a sulphur content of less than 0.5%.

In May 2017, the company announced compelling economics for its proprietary technology, the Genoil Hydroconversion Upgrader (GHU), for installations alongside refinery infrastructure in major bunkering hubs at a significantly reduced cost. The GHU, which converts heavy crude oils and refinery residual products into cleaner, lower-emission fuels, can produce one million tonnes per year of compliant low sulphur fuel oil, and provide a return-on-investment in as little as three months.

Bruce Abbott, COO of Genoil, commented: "As the 2020 global sulphur cap looms, the level of interest in Genoil's Hydroconversion Unit has risen markedly. As an accomplished engineer, Dr Solovyev brings a great depth of knowledge and experience in catalyst design that is critical to the continued development and implementation of our GHU technology. His expertise further strengthens our engineering team and provides real strategic value for Genoil, as we deliver against our growth plans."

Dr. Solovyev has extensive knowledge and experience in the field of petrochemicals and refining process operations. Prior to joining Genoil, he worked with organisations including Shell Global Solutions, where he was the Technical and Commercial Manager of CRI Catalyst in Moscow. Dr. Solovyev also worked for JSC "ASTERIA", as the Technical and Commercial Director in Petrochemicals, and JSC "VNII NP" (All Russian Research Institute of Oil Refining), where he was the Head of Petrochemicals Laboratory. In his most recent role, Dr. Solovyev served as Project Manager for petrochemical & refining processes with LLC Energy and Engineering.

With a PhD in chemistry from the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Solovyev has authored over thirty technical and scientific papers in key industry journals including "Petrochemistry" and "Kinetics and Catalysts".

About Genoil Inc.:

Genoil is a publicly traded Canadian clean technology engineering company for the petroleum industries. Genoil is headquartered in Edmonton Alberta, with offices in Calgary, Sherwood Park, New York City, Constanta Romania, and Dubai & Abu Dhabi. Genoil's has developed its proprietary technology, the Hydroconversion Upgrader (GHU), which converts heavy crude oils and refinery bottoms into clean burning fuels for transportation industries including shipping. The GHU can be placed in remote locations, including receiving terminals, pipelines and ports. The company operates one of the largest and most advanced pilot & design test facilities in the world, from its 147-acre site in Alberta, Canada.

About The Genoil Hydroconversion Upgrader:

The Genoil Hydroconversion Upgrader (GHU), is an advanced upgrading and desulfurization technology, which converts heavy or sour crude oil into much more valuable light low sulphur oil for a very low cost. The Genoil GHU was designed to be versatile, can be placed at many different locations, either upstream at oil fields, or downstream at refineries, in a standalone form at ports and other logistical locations.

The GHU achieves 96% pitch conversion and 95% desulfurization with an operating cost of up to 75% less than the competition. For Conoco Canada Ltd, Genoil converted their bitumen of 6-8.5 API and converted it to 24.5 API. We also removed 92% of the sulphur reducing the amount from 5.14 % to below 0.24%. These results were taken by Conoco Canada Ltd, who had them analysed by Core Laboratories, one of the largest service providers of core and fluid analysis in the petroleum industry.

Contacts:

BLUE Communications

Georgey Routen

01865 514214

georgina.routen@blue-comms.com




LONDON, September 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Mathieu Gorge, CEO and Founder of IT security firm VigiTrust has been named a double winner in this year's Business Worldwide Magazine (BWM) CEO awards.

Gorge was praised for both his personal and corporate achievements when he was named winner of the international business publication's IT/Technology CEO of the Year (Ireland), as well as the country's Most Innovative CEO of the Year.

The Dublin-based GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance) SaaS service provider helps companies ensure they are within the law when it comes to key legal aspects of corporate security such as Vendor Risk Management and Third Party Assurance. At the same time, they also offer dedicated e-learning programmes.

Such is their influence and success that the company, formed in 2003, now also boasts offices in New York and France. Today they provide SaaS GRC platforms, eLearning and strategic services to a host of different sectors in up to 100 countries around the world. These include healthcare, financial services and government.

Congratulating Gorge on his accomplishments over the past 14 years, a spokesman for BWM said: "VigiTrust's rise to success has been really quite phenomenal. We were all impressed with Mathieu's commitment and enthusiasm for what must be one of the most important industries for business around the globe."

Another offshoot for the French-born bilingual entrepreneur is his journalism and lecturing. His columns appear in IT security journals and magazines while he has lectured at international security conferences around the world.

Thanking BWM for his award, Gorge said: "I'm grateful for the panel for choosing me for the award and, of course, also to all those colleagues and clients who took time out of their own busy work schedules to vote for me.

"It is absolutely essential for every line of business to be up to date with both cyber security initiatives and the legal implications surrounding the industry. Data breaches are not only increasing in number, but also becoming far more sophisticated - just look at recent hacking attacks with the NHS system, as well as the politicians' emails at the Houses of Parliament.

"Understandably, many companies are so busy getting on with the day to day running of their business that they just don't have the time to keep checking that their IT systems are secure and complaint with new government initiatives. That's where we can help."

You can find further details about BWM Awards and this year's CEO winners here: http://www.bwmonline.com/awards/ceo-awards-winners-2017/

More information about the work of VigiTrust, its services and products, can be found at the website www.Vigitrust.com

An article on the company can also be found on BWM website http://www.bwmonline.com/2017/08/19/vigitrust-vigilance-in-a-cyber-threatened-world/

About Business Worldwide Magazine

Business Worldwide Magazine is the leading source of business and dealmaker intelligence throughout the world. Our quarterly magazine and online news portal enables an established audience of corporate dealmakers to track the latest news, stories and developments affecting the international markets, corporate finance, business strategy and changes in legislation. This readership includes of CEO/CFO - Banks, Corporate Lawyers and Venture Capital/Private Equity Companies to name a few.

www.bwmonline.com

Contact

David Jones

Awards Department

E:david.jones@bwmonline.com



W:www.bwmonline.com
VANCOUVER, BC--(Marketwired - August 24, 2017) - Arizona Mining Inc. (TSX: AZ) ("Arizona Mining" or the "Company") is pleased to report results from water well WW-1 drilled on its patented ground as part of the water supply testing program (the "Program") on the Hermosa Project (the "Project") in Santa Cruz County, Arizona.

The 14-inch diameter well was completed on June 29, 2017 to a final depth of 1,326 feet. After hole conditioning, a pumping test was completed at a rate of 1,100 gallons of water per minute (gpm) to determine the potential capacity of the well and supporting aquifer. After 72 hours of pumping at the 1,100 gpm rate, it was apparent that the aquifer should be more than sufficient to supply the estimated 650 gpm water requirement for the proposed 10,000 ton per day Taylor Sulfide and Taylor Deeps mining operation outlined in the Preliminary Economic Assessment. The pattern and small degree of drawdown suggests the bedrock aquifer is extensive and contains a significant amount of groundwater. Monitor wells around the proposed operation were largely unaffected by the pumping, indicating the large capacity of the aquifer.

Jim Gowans, President and CEO commented: "We are very pleased with the results of WW-1. This well, along with other sources of ground water on our private lands, should be ample to supply the water required for the operation for the life of mine. This is an important facet of the project and gaining certainty for the supply water is a key milestone in its development."

Additional testing is ongoing to complete the project's hydrology evaluation. In addition to the WW-1 well, other sources of supply water for the proposed operation are being investigated, including a second deep well on the patented claims and the historic, existing underground workings located on the Trench patented mining claim.

Qualified Person

The results of the Arizona Mining Inc. groundwater supply investigation have been reviewed, verified and compiled by R. Douglas Bartlett, CPG, CHG, President and Principal Hydrogeologist of Clear Creek Associates, a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 (NI 43-101). Mr. Bartlett has 40 years of geologic and hydrogeologic experience, and is a Registered Professional Geologist in Arizona (#25059), California (#8809), Oregon (#2305), Washington (#2879), and Pennsylvania (#4995).

About Arizona Mining

Arizona Mining Inc. (an augustagroup company) is a mineral exploration and development company focused on the exploration and development of its 100%-owned Hermosa Project located in Santa Cruz County, Arizona. The Taylor Deposit, a zinc-lead-silver carbonate replacement deposit, has a resource of 8.6 million tons in the Measured Mineral Resource category grading 4.2% zinc, 4.0% lead and 1.6 opt silver, or 9.7% ZnEq, plus 63.8 million tons in the Indicated Mineral Resource category grading 4.5% zinc, 4.4% lead and 1.9 opt silver, or 10.6% ZnEq, and 38.6 million tons of Inferred Mineral Resources grading 4.4% zinc, 4.2% lead and 3.1 opt silver or 11.6% ZnEq, all reported in accordance with NI 43-101 guidelines utilizing a 4% ZnEq cutoff grade. The Taylor Deposit remains open to the north, west and south over land controlled by the Company and will be aggressively drilled to test the limits of the resource. The Company's other project on the Hermosa property is the Central Deposit, a silver-manganese manto oxide project.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information

Certain information contained in this press release constitutes forward-looking statements. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, are forward looking statements including statements with respect to the Company's intentions for its Hermosa Project in Arizona, including, without limitation, performing additional drilling, a resource update, permitting and a feasibility study on the Taylor Deposit. Forward-looking statements are often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as may, will, seek, anticipate, believe, plan, estimate, budget, schedule, forecast, project, expect, intend, or similar expressions.

The forward-looking statements are based on a number of assumptions which, while considered reasonable by Arizona Mining, are subject to risks and uncertainties. In addition to the assumptions herein, these assumptions include the assumptions described in Arizona Mining's management's discussion and analysis for the year ended December 31, 2016 ("MD&A"). Arizona Mining cautions readers that forward-looking statements involve and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by such forward-looking statements and forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results, performance or achievement. These risks, uncertainties and factors include general business, economic, competitive, political, regulatory and social uncertainties; actual results of exploration activities and economic evaluations; fluctuations in currency exchange rates; changes in project parameters; changes in costs, including labour, infrastructure, operating and production costs; future prices of zinc, lead, silver and other minerals; variations of mineral grade or recovery rates; operating or technical difficulties in connection with exploration, development or mining activities, including the failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; delays in completion of exploration, development or construction activities; changes in government legislation and regulation; the ability to maintain and renew existing licenses and permits or obtain required licenses and permits in a timely manner; the ability to obtain financing on acceptable terms in a timely manner; contests over title to properties; employee relations and shortages of skilled personnel and contractors; the speculative nature of, and the risks involved in, the exploration, development and mining business; and the factors discussed in the section entitled "Risks and Uncertainties" in the MD&A.

Although Arizona Mining has attempted to identify important risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual performance, achievements, actions, events, results or conditions to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by the forward-looking information, there may be other risks, uncertainties and other factors that cause performance, achievements, actions, events, results or conditions to differ from those anticipated, estimated or intended. Unless otherwise indicated, forward-looking statements contained herein are as of the date hereof and Arizona Mining disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise, except as required by applicable law.

For additional information please contact:



Susan Muir

Vice-President, Investor Relations & Corporate Communications

Telephone: 416-366-5678 ext. 202

Email: smuir@arizonamining.com
The report provides an in-depth analysis of the EU market for Polyethylene. It presents the latest data of the market size and volume, domestic production, exports and imports, price dynamics and turnover in the industry. The report shows the sales data, allowing you to identify the key drivers and restraints. You can find here a strategic analysis of key factors influencing the market. Forecasts illustrate how the market will be transformed in the medium term. Profiles of the leading companies and brands are also included.

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.


COBB COUNTY (dpa-AFX) - Home Depot Inc. (HD), the world's largest home improvement retailer, on Tuesday lifted its fiscal 2017 earnings and sales forecast after reporting higher second-quarter results with strong comparable sales growth. Both earnings per share and top line beat market estimates.



In pre-market activity, Home Depot shares were gaining 1.8 percent to $156.97.



Craig Menear, chairman, CEO and president, said, 'We were pleased with our results this quarter as our customers rewarded us with the highest quarterly sales in company history. We also achieved the highest quarterly net earnings in company history.'



For fiscal 2017, the company now expects earnings-per-share growth of approximately 13.0 percent from fiscal 2016 to $7.29. The company previously expected earnings-per-share growth of approximately 11 percent. The guidance includes the impact of $7 billion of share repurchases for fiscal 2017.



On average, 32 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect earnings of $7.25 per share for the year. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.



Based on its year-to-date performance, the company now expects full-year sales will be up approximately 5.3 percent and comp sales will be up approximately 5.5 percent.



Previously, the company expected sales to be up approximately 4.6 percent and comp sales to be up approximately 4.6 percent.



For the second quarter, net earnings increased 9.5 percent to $2.67 billion from $2.44 billion last year. Earnings per share grew 14.2 percent to $2.25 from $1.97 last year, reflecting a 4.1 percent drop in share count.



Net sales increased 6.2 percent to $28.11 billion from $26.47 billion a year ago. Comparable store sales were positive 6.3 percent, and comp sales for U.S. stores were positive 6.6 percent.



Analysts were looking for earnings of $2.21 per share on sales of $27.82 billion for the quarter.



Gross profit increased 6 percent from last year to $9.46 billion, and operating income grew 8.8 percent to $4.46 billion.



In the quarter, number of customer transactions increased 2.8 percent, average ticket increased 3.6 percent and sales per square foot grew 5.9 percent.



At the end of the second quarter, the company operated a total of 2,282 retail stores in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, 10 Canadian provinces and Mexico.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
At the extraordinary meeting held on August 15, 2017, the shareholders adopted the reorganisation decision whereby there shall be a distribution service operator JSC "Gaso" spun off from Latvijas Gaze as its subsidiary. The JSC "Gaso" will be founded at the end of the year. Latvijas Gaze as the founder will acquaint its shareholders with the Articles of Association of the JSC "Gaso" at least month before foundation. The meeting also saw the re-election of the Council of Latvijas Gaze with two members who were not part of the previous Council - Matthias Kohlenbach and Viktor Valov. Vinsents Makaris Head of Investor Relations Phone: + (371) 67 369 144 E-mail: IR@lg.lv Attachment: https://cns.omxgroup.com/cds/DisclosureAttachmentServlet?messageAttachmentId=641284

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
VANCOUVER, BC--(Marketwired - August 15, 2017) -Endeavour Silver Corp. (NYSE: EXK) (TSX: EDR) announces that exploration drilling on the Terronera property in Jalisco State, Mexico continues to intersect high-grade, gold-silver mineralization at shallow depths within the La Luz vein.

Recent holes were drilled to test the boundaries of the current resource area (dated December 31, 2016) and successfully expanded the mineralization over a 600 metre (m) length by 250 m depth (view long section here).

Drilling highlights include two vein splays in Hole LL23 which assayed as follows:

La Luz vein - 45 grams per tonne (gpt) silver and 16.2 gpt gold (1,180 gpt AgEq) over 1.7 m true width (34.4 opT AgEq over 5.6 feet (ft)), with an internal interval assaying 171 gpt silver and 45.2 gpt gold (3,335 gpt AgEq) over 0.2 m true width (97.2 opT AgEq over 0.7 ft); and

La Luz HW vein - 25 gpt silver and 20.9 gpt gold (1,485 gpt AgEq) over 1.3 m true width (43.3 opT AgEq over 4.3 ft), with an internal interval assaying 44 gpt silver and 31.6 gpt gold (2,256 gpt AgEq) over 0.3 m true width (65.8 opT AgEq over 1.0 ft);

Results for seven new drill holes are summarized in the table below.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hole Structure From True width Au Ag Cu Pb Zn AgEq (m) (m) (gpt) (gpt) (%) (%) (%) (gpt) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LL-23 La Luz 145.20 1.7 16.22 45 0.005 0.007 0.021 1,180 -------------------------------------------------------- Including 147.05 0.2 45.20 171 0.002 0.029 0.080 3,335 -------------------------------------------------------- Hw La Luz 154.50 1.3 20.86 25 0.002 0.005 0.017 1,485 -------------------------------------------------------- Including 154.50 0.3 31.60 44 0.002 0.008 0.024 2,256 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LL-25 La Luz 214.65 1.4 0.25 419 0.039 0.026 0.032 436 -------------------------------------------------------- Including 216.20 0.3 1.05 1,830 0.152 0.097 0.103 1,904 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LL-27 La Luz 173.35 1.0 2.29 73 0.017 0.033 0.063 234 -------------------------------------------------------- Including 173.35 0.5 4.66 128 0.030 0.056 0.102 454 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LL-32 La Luz 196.30 1.1 2.69 91 0.073 0.088 0.148 279 -------------------------------------------------------- Including 197.00 0.6 4.71 95 0.022 0.052 0.092 425 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LL-35 La Luz 105.20 1.1 20.27 384 0.018 0.015 0.029 1,803 -------------------------------------------------------- Including 106.65 0.1 123.50 2,600 0.032 0.086 0.150 11,245 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LL-36 La Luz 57.40 1.2 16.47 38 0.018 0.007 0.022 1,191 -------------------------------------------------------- Including 58.15 0.5 34.00 14 0.019 0.001 0.011 2,394 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LL-39 La Luz 146.05 1.2 7.58 12 0.032 0.002 0.003 542 -------------------------------------------------------- Including 146.05 0.2 26.90 25 0.003 0.006 0.006 1,908 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Silver equivalents are calculated at a ratio of 70:1 silver:gold.

Bradford Cooke, CEO of Endeavour Silver, commented, "We continue to intersect encouraging results in the La Luz vein on the Terronera property. Although narrower than the Terronera vein, mineralization in the La Luz vein is much higher grade, more gold rich, and shallower in depth compared to the Terronera vein, which was the basis for the recent pre-feasibility study. Several other veins hosting surface high-grade mineralization at Terronera are also scheduled for drilling over the next two years."

Godfrey Walton, M.Sc., P.Geo., Endeavour's President and COO, is the Qualified Person who reviewed and approved this news release and supervised the drilling programs in Mexico. A Quality Control sampling program of reference standards, blanks and duplicates has been instituted to monitor the integrity of all assay results. All samples are split at the local field office and shipped to ALS-Chemex Labs, where they are dried, crushed, split and 50 gram pulp samples are prepared for analysis. Gold and silver are determined by fire assay with an atomic absorption (AA) finish.

About Endeavour Silver - Endeavour Silver is a mid-tier precious metals mining company that owns three high grade, underground, silver-gold mines in Mexico. Since start-up in 2004, Endeavour has grown its mining operations organically to produce 9.7 million ounces of silver and equivalents in 2016. We find, build and operate quality silver mines in a sustainable way to create real value for all stakeholders. Endeavour Silver's shares trade on the TSX (EDR) and the NYSE (EXK).

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the United States private securities litigation reform act of 1995 and "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Such forward-looking statements and information herein include but are not limited to statements regarding Endeavour's anticipated performance in 2017 including changes in mining and operations and the timing and results of various activities. The Company does not intend to, and does not assume any obligation to update such forward-looking statements or information, other than as required by applicable law.

Forward-looking statements or information involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of Endeavour and its operations to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such statements. Such factors include but are not limited to changes in national and local governments, legislation, taxation, controls, regulations and political or economic developments in Canada and Mexico; financial risks due to precious metals prices, operating or technical difficulties in mineral exploration, development and mining activities; risks and hazards of mineral exploration, development and mining; the speculative nature of mineral exploration and development, risks in obtaining necessary licenses and permits, and challenges to the Company's title to properties; as well as those factors described in the section "risk factors" contained in the Company's most recent form 40F/Annual Information Form filed with the S.E.C. and Canadian securities regulatory authorities.

Forward-looking statements are based on assumptions management believes to be reasonable, including but not limited to: the continued operation of the Company's mining operations, no material adverse change in the market price of commodities, mining operations will operate and the mining products will be completed in accordance with management's expectations and achieve their stated production outcomes, and such other assumptions and factors as set out herein. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements or information, there may be other factors that cause results to be materially different from those anticipated, described, estimated, assessed or intended. There can be no assurance that any forward-looking statements or information will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements or information. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements or information.

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2017/8/14/11G144178/Images/TR_Longitudinal_La_Luz-051d83ecd66f98b0a78615b5b7edcc5d.jpg

Contact Information - For more information, please contact:

Meghan Brown

Director Investor Relations

Toll free: (877) 685-9775

Tel: (604) 640-4804

Fax: (604) 685-9744

Email: mbrown@edrsilver.com

Website: www.edrsilver.com
OXFORD, England, August 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Elsevier, the information analytics business specializing in science and health, and the International Solar Energy Society (ISES), today announced Dr. Sebastian Groh of ME SOLshare Ltd. as the winner of the inaugural Renewable Transformation Challenge.

Dr. Groh wins the award for the project The Energiewende 3.0 - Smart P2P Solar Grids. In short, a SOLshare grid is created when rural households or SMEs agree on setting up a "swarm network" that consists of existing and new solar home systems (SHSs) and storage devices and enables the interconnection of larger loads. ME SOLshare provides a peer-to-peer solar energy trading platform empowering individuals and SMEs to become solar entrepreneurs offering pay-as-you-go and cash-in-as-you-go electricity solutions to low-income households. ME SOLshare therefore has potential to play a crucial role in supporting rural development and providing a means of direct income to rural communities.

The Renewable Transformation Challenge, launched in February, aims to honor and showcase outstanding work that supports the transformation to a world powered by renewable energy and has potential to widen access to energy, particularly in developing countries. The challenge was open to individuals and organizations in both not-for-profit and commercial sectors worldwide. Over 200 entries were received which were scored in terms of applicability, impact, sustainability and scalability in two stages: first by the Juror Panel, and then by the Elsevier-ISES Award Committee who selected the final winner from the ten shortlisted applications.

"Elsevier were impressed by the project's potential to positively impact people and the planet - reducing the cost of energy access; supporting women who are the main energy consumers during trading hours; creating solar entrepreneurs and social empowerment; and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from energy generation by increasing use of renewables and reducing reliance on unsustainable energy sources such as kerosene and diesel," said Katherine Eve, Executive Publisher of Elsevier's renewable and sustainable energy journal portfolio. "By backing community projects like SOLshare, Elsevier, in collaboration with our partners such as ISES, continues to play a significant role in supporting the UN Sustainability Development Goals."

"ISES is very excited about this award, and the groundbreaking work being undertaken by ME SOLshare. A major key toward achieving 100% renewable energy globally is for there to be effective business models that provide reliable and clean energy access for all, including the 1.2 billion people around the world who currently do not have access to electrification services," added Dr. David Renne, President of ISES. "We are confident that ME SOLshare's efforts will make major strides toward achieving clean energy goals in off-grid regions."

Dr. Groh, on behalf of ME SOLshare, will receive a monetary prize of 20,000, one ISES Gold membership and one free registration to the Solar World Congress 2017 in Abu Dhabi where he will be presented with the Award during the conference dinner on 1 November 2017.

The winner explained "ME SOLshare plans to use the Renewable Transformation Challenge award fund to kick-start a new pilot project to support clean energy transportation. By upgrading the existing SOLshare swarm grids to create a multiplier effect, SOLshare will offer free solar charging for the over 800,000 battery rickshaw drivers of rural Bangladesh. The equivalent of the charging cost will be credited to the SHS owners in the SOLshare grids who will jointly provide the charging and receive the financial return."

Read more about the award on the Renewable Transformation Challenge homepage, the Solar Energy journal homepage and on the ISES website.

About the International Solar Energy Society

The International Solar Energy Society (ISES) was founded in 1954 and is now incorporated as a UN-accredited, non-profit membership organization with members in over 100 countries. ISES serves as a center for information on research and development in solar energy utilization. Through its publications and conferences, the Society provides a global forum for the science and advancement of solar energy.

About Elsevier

Elsevier is a global information analytics business that helps institutions and professionals progress science, advance healthcare and improve performance for the benefit of humanity. Elsevier provides digital solutions and tools in the areas of strategic research management, R&D performance, clinical decision support, and professional education; including ScienceDirect, Scopus, ClinicalKey and Sherpath. Elsevier publishes over 2,500 digitized journals, including The Lancet and Cell, more than 35,000 e-book titles and many iconic reference works, including Gray's Anatomy. Elsevier is part of RELX Group, a global provider of information and analytics for professionals and business customers across industries.www.elsevier.com

Media contact

Katherine Eve

Elsevier

+44-(0)-1865-843171

k.eve@elsevier.com


LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM and SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 08/15/17 -- StaffConnect, provider of the world's leading enterprise mobile employee engagement platform, today announced the availability of a new eBook entitled, "How to Solve the Employee Engagement Crisis for Not-for-Profit Organizations." The new eBook explains why employee engagement is critical for today's nonprofit organizations and what issues stand in its way. It goes on to offer immediately actionable advice for how today's nonprofits can inspire the highest levels of employee and volunteer engagement. In doing so, a nonprofit can reach its full potential, including raising increased funding and donations, and attracting the ideal new employees and volunteers, while retaining and improving the productivity and results of its current workforce.

Key to enabling this shift for nonprofits, the eBook explains, is technology. To be successful and drive engagement, nonprofits must embrace new mobile-enabled technology that facilitates adoption across the entire, distributed workforce via personalization, an engaging user experience, and a strong feature set that promotes feedback and supports getting the job done faster and smarter. But more than this, nonprofits need to employ technology platforms that allow them to effectively measure engagement, so that they can use this information to make important cultural advances toward improving their workers' experience of the organization.

"Today's nonprofits are recognizing that regardless of their 'bottom-line' goals, in many areas they still need to be run like a for-profit business organization if they hope to compete, thrive and survive. For a nonprofit, they are of course competing for funding and donations, to raise visibility in a crowded space, and to attract and retain employees and volunteers. And, once they have their employee and volunteer base in place, they need to ensure optimum engagement, in order to ensure strong retention, productivity and results," said Geraldine Osman, Vice President of Marketing, StaffConnect. "And for nonprofits, just like for-profits, it is absolutely essential to leverage technology as the #1 enabler to make this goal a reality."

To learn more and read "How to Solve the Employee Engagement Crisis for Not-for-Profit Organizations" please visit: https://www.staffconnectapp.com/how-to-solve-the-employee-engagement-crisis-for-not-for-profit-2/?preview=true.

Tweet this: EmployeeEngagement Isn't Just for "For-Profits" Anymore, Nonprofits Must Hone Capability to Thrive & Survive https://goo.gl/uX9Rwh

About StaffConnect

StaffConnect delivers the world's leading mobile employee engagement platform. The StaffConnect solution transforms the employee experience by enabling large enterprises to connect, communicate and engage their entire workforce, especially remote, non-desk employees. The customer-branded mobile app gives employees 'a voice' - with access to company and user-generated content to increase loyalty and productivity. The cloud-hosted platform empowers employers to target that content, with analytics, to deepen engagement with everyone. From offices in London and San Francisco, StaffConnect's platform and domain expertise are supporting large businesses around the world to inspire their workforces to deliver better performance, improved customer experiences and greater shareholder value. For further information, please visit: www.staffconnectapp.com.

PR Contacts:

Sabrina Sanchez

The Ventana Group for StaffConnect

(925) 785-3014

Email Contact



Nicole Gorman

The Ventana Group for StaffConnect

(508) 397-0131

Email Contact




IRVINE, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 08/15/17 -- Gold Mining USA, Inc. (OTC PINK: GMUI) announced it has acquired MR Processing, LLC (dba VITA Mobile Systems), a privately held internet marketing and technology company based in Irvine, California. The company intends to change its name to VITA Mobile Systems, Inc. Over the years, VITA Mobile Systems has developed many proprietary algorithms and tools, which gather, categorize, analyze and augment digital content. VITA Mobile Systems has used these proprietary marketing, social media, and data collection tools to generate significant amounts of internet traffic for advertising networks.

The Company will be led by an innovative executive team of serial entrepreneurs with 10 plus years each of successful venture experience in the internet space including Sean Guerrero (CEO) and Kyle Kohler (CTO). This team will also be supported by a strong board of directors including Martin R. Wade, III (Board Chairman), Sean Guerrero, Colin Walker and Dr. Son Pham, PhD.

About VITA Mobile Systems:

VITA Mobile Systems is an app company focusing on digital imaging and technology in mobile devices. Their first app release, called VITA, makes it easy to illustrate, record and share life's events creating an immersive crowd-sourced view of everyday life. The VITA community empowers it's users to experience an event or view a location from a multitude of perspectives. By using a familiar and user friendly map to locate images & videos, users can easily view content as soon as it is created and also share their favorites on their regular social media networks. VITA makes viewing life's moments easier, faster, and more engaging.

For more information about GMUI and VITA please visit:

www.vitamobilesystems.com

Cautionary Language Concerning Forward-Looking Statements:

This press release contains forward-looking statements. The words or phrases "would be," "will allow," "intends to," "will likely result," "are expected to," "will continue," "is anticipated," "estimate," "project," or similar expressions are intended to identify "forward-looking statements." Actual results could differ materially from those projected by VITA. The public filings, if any, of GMUI may be accessed at www.otcmarkets.com. Statements made herein are as of the date of this press release and should not be relied upon as of any subsequent date. VITA cautions readers not to place reliance on such statements. Unless otherwise required by applicable law, VITA does not undertake, and VITA specifically disclaims any obligation, to update any forward-looking statements to reflect occurrences, developments, unanticipated events or circumstances after the date of such statement.

Gold Mining USA, Inc.

2640 Main St,

Irvine, CA 92614

+1 (949) 864-6902

info@vitamobilesystems.com




VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 08/15/17 -- Columbus Gold Corp. (TSX: CGT)(OTCQX: CBGDF) ("Columbus") is pleased to announce the results from the recently completed exploration drilling program at the Montagne d'Or Gold deposit in French Guiana. The drilling program, which consisted of 31 diamond drill holes, totaling 5,280 metres, was designed to test the potential to increase the size of the Montagne d'Or deposit to depth and along strike.

Highlights:

-- Drill hole MO-17-295 confirms the potential to increase the size of Montagne d'Or deposit at depth. Drill Hole MO-17-295 returned 0.92 g/t Au over 41.2 metres, including 1.92 g/t Au over 17.7 metres, and was intercepted 175 metres vertically below the deepest hole previously drilled in the principal upper felsic zone ("UFZ"), the secondary lower favourable zone ("LFZ"), and the footwall zone ("FWZ"). -- Drill hole MO-17-304 confirms the potential to increase size of Montagne d'Or along strike. Drill hole MO-17-304 returned 0.56 g/t Au over 58.1 metres, including 2.32 g/t Au over 9.0 metres, 400 metres to the west of the Montagne d'Or gold deposit. -- Drill hole MO-17-311 confirms the potential for new discoveries in and around the Montagne d'Or Gold deposit. Drill hole MO-17-311 returned 5.53 g/t Au over 8.0 metres, including 8.96 g/t Au over 4.7 metres and is located to the north of the Montagne d'Or deposit.

"We're extremely pleased with the drill results," said Robert Giustra, President and CEO of Columbus Gold. "The holes which were widely spaced and up to 1,250 meters away from the deposit, confirm the potential to materially increase the size of Montage d'Or along strike, and at depth."

Highlights of the exploration drilling program are as follows:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Drill Hole Intercept (m) Grade Length True Width Zone ---------------------------------------------------------- From To (g/t Gold) (m) (m) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- MO-17-295 524.0 569.1 0.92 45.1 41.2 UFZ ---------------------------------------------------------- incl. 549.6 567.3 1.92 17.7 16.2 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- MO-17-297 41.1 78.4 0.48 37.4 36.3 UFZ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- MO-17-303 7.0 38.5 0.47 31.5 28.1 UFZ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- MO-17-304 70.5 128.6 0.56 58.1 52.7 UFZ ---------------------------------------------------------- incl. 119.6 128.6 2.32 9.0 8.2 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- MO-17-311 29.0 37.0 5.53 8.0 7.4 New ---------------------------------------------------------- incl. 29.0 33.7 8.96 4.7 4.3 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- MO-17-325 191.0 200.5 1.82 9.5 8.1 UFZ ---------------------------------------------------------- 238.8 248.5 2.22 9.7 8.4 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

A drill hole location map and a complete list of results are available at the following links:

www.columbusgold.com/i/nr/2017-08-15-map-dh.pdf

www.columbusgold.com/i/nr/2017-08-15-table.pdf

Depth extension of the Montagne d'Or deposit

One drill hole (MO-17-295), tested the down-dip (depth) extension of the principal UFZ and secondary LFZ and FWZ mineralized zones on drill section 2890mE, within the west-central segment of the deposit. The deepest intersection to date along this segment of the deposit returned a cut of 2.88 g/t gold over 67.0 metres at -235 metres vertical depth from surface (0m ASL elevation) in hole MO-12-72 drilled on section 3010mE (120 meters east).

The down-dip extent of the UFZ in new hole MO-17-295 returned an intersection 0.92 g/t Au over 41.2 metres, including 1.92 g/t Au over 17.7 metres at -175m ASL elevation. The gold mineralization on the principle UFZ zone has now been extended at depth by 175 metres vertical in the west-central segment of the deposit.

The down-dip extent of the LFZ and FWZ returned intersections 0.32 g/t Au over 23.0 metres, including 0.81 g/t Au over 5.6 metres, and 1.75 g/t Au over 6.5 metres, including 12.10 g/t Au over 0.8 metres, respectively. The LFZ and FWZ are partially assimilated by granodiorite and felsic porphyry intrusive rocks at depth.

A cross-section is available at the following link:

www.columbusgold.com/i/nr/2017-08-15-xs2890.pdf

Western extension of the Montagne d'Or deposit

Magnetic, electromagnetic and radiometric airborne geophysical survey data has traced the prospective volcano-sedimentary sequence hosting the Montagne d'Or gold deposit for up to 5 km to the west. Twenty-one (21) drill holes on four (4) fences, located on sections 2200mE, 2000mE, 1600mE and 1150mE, were drilled to test the soil-gold anomaly and rock chip gold values obtained along the western projection of the drill-defined Mineral Reserves. The planned drill fences represent 200, 400, 800 and 1,250 metre step-outs from the western limit of the Mineral Reserves at 2400mE. Drill hole fences 1600mE and 1150mE are located on an exclusive exploration permit ("PER") recently granted to Columbus Gold in July 2016.

The principal UFZ zone was extended 400 metres to the west with near surface intersections of 0.48 g/t Au over 37.4 metres (MO-17-297, section 2200mE), 0.47 g/t Au over 31.5 metres (MO-17-303, section 2000mE), 0.56 g/t Au over 58.1 metres, including 2.32 g/t Au over 9.0 metres (MO-17-304, section 2000mE), and 1.82 g/t Au over 9.5 metres and 2.22 g/t Au over 9.7 metres (MO-17-325, section 2000mE).

A map and cross-section are available at the following links:

www.columbusgold.com/i/nr/2017-08-15-map-fences.pdf

www.columbusgold.com/i/nr/2017-08-15-xs2000.pdf

Further to the west, on section 1600mE and 1150mE, granodiorite intrusive is found to be the dominant rock type, most likely representing the magma chamber to the felsic volcanics and heat source to the hydrothermal alteration and mineralizing events. Gold values were obtained in remnant slivers of felsic volcanics. An exploration target lies westward of section 1150mE on the interpreted west flank of the felsic volcanic center, as illustrated on the following link:

www.columbusgold.com/i/nr/2017-08-15-geo-model.pdf

Surface auger grid sampling over this target area is planned in late 2017.

A gold mineralized interval was cut in the saprolite zone in hole MO-17-311 on section 1600mE grading 5.53 g/t Au over 8.0 metres, including 8.96 g/t Au over 4.7 metres. This new mineralized zone is located to the north of the general Montagne d'Or mineralized trend, hosted within a mixed volcano-sedimentary sequence. A cross-section is available at the following link:

www.columbusgold.com/i/nr/2017-08-15-xs1600.pdf

East extension of the FWZ

Two drill holes (MO-17-323 and -324) were drilled to test the east continuity of the FWZ along the north contact of felsic volcanics and a wedge of mafic volcanics. This zone is untested east of section 3825mE and presents an excellent target for near surface resource development within the current footprint of the Montagne d'Or deposit.

Hole MO-17-323 was collared on section 3925mE, a 100-meter step out from hole MO-14-185 drilled on section 3825mE (1.47 g/t Au over 37.6 metres). The FWZ intersected in hole 323 is characterized by multiple sulfide mineralized intervals from 48 to 68 metres hole depth (20 metres) and from 85 to 126 metres (41 metres). The best gold interval, 0.90 g/t Au over 11.4 metres, was returned at 85.2 metres in hole depth.

Hole MO-17-324 was collared on section 4325mE, a 500-metre step out from hole MO-14-185, and intersected multiple sulfide mineralized intervals from 95 to 150 metres in hole depth. The best gold interval, 0.85 g/t Au over 10.0 metres, was returned at surface within the saprolite zone. This hole may have been collared within the FWZ.

Gustave geochemical anomaly

Six (6) drill holes (MO-17-317 to -322) investigated a broad northwesterly-aligned soil-gold anomaly. The geochemical anomaly, located 500 metres to the east of the eastern limit of the Montagne d'Or deposit, straddles the boundary between mining concession C02/46 and an exclusive exploration permits ("PER") granted to Columbus Gold in July 2016. The highest values within the Gustave soil-gold anomaly are centered on a quartz vein uncovered at the southwest limit of the trend, referred to as the "Gustave" vein. The Gustave vein, oriented N40 degrees W and dipping 60 degrees to the NE, was tested with two core holes in 1997 (MO-97-47 and -48). An intersection of 31.94 g/t gold over 3.5 metres, in hole MO-97-48, was returned within the immediate wall of the vein.

No significant gold mineralization was encountered in this exploration drilling program. The source of the broad soil-gold has not yet been identified.

About Columbus Gold Corp

Columbus is a leading gold exploration and development company operating in French Guiana, France, and in Nevada. Columbus holds a major interest in the Montagne d'Or project in French Guiana, which hosts a world-class gold deposit with a recently completed Feasibility Study. Columbus is presently evaluating a number of mine construction financing options. In Nevada, Columbus is advancing its Eastside gold discovery. Eastside has outstanding infrastructure for mining and processing, and metallurgical testing indicates that gold and silver at Eastside are amenable to cyanide leaching, whether oxide or sulphide. Columbus recently announced plans to spin out its US property portfolio, including Eastside, into a new company called Allegiant Gold Ltd.

Qualified Person, Technical Info and QA/QC

Columbus Gold obtained all authorized permits to conduct drilling operations. A mining work declaration ("DOTM") and a mining work authorization ("AOTM") to conduct the drilling program on concession C02/46 (Montagne d'Or) and the adjoining Bernard and Cigaline exclusive exploration permits ("PER") were submitted to the Regional Directorate for the Environment, Development and Housing ("DEAL"), which regulates mining and exploration activities in French Guiana.

Diamond drill holes were bored with HQ-size core in the upper oxidized saprolitic zone and NQ-size core in fresh rock. The core was placed in heavy PVC plastic core boxes with covers and transported by Columbus Gold personnel to camp Citron logging facilities, located 5 km from Montagne d'Or. Columbus personnel are present on site at all times during the drilling program.

The core was photographed for reference and logged by Columbus Gold geologists who also identified the sampling intervals. Samples were collected by sawing the core in half; sample lengths vary between 0.5 and 1.3 meters. Individual half-core samples were sealed in heavy duty cellophane plastic bags and placed by batch of 9 samples in sealed polypropylene bags for air transport to Cayenne and subsequent trucking to Filab Amsud laboratory in Paramaribo, Suriname, an ISO 9001 and ISO / IEC 17025 accredited laboratory. The remaining half-core is stored in sturdy core racks on site at camp Citron for reference. Samples were assayed for gold by the fire-assay method using an atomic absorption finish on a 50-gram pulp split, and ICP-MS multi-element analysis, including copper, for samples within gold mineralized intervals.

A quality assurance and quality control program (QA/QC) was implemented by Columbus and Filab Amsud to ensure the accuracy and reproducibility of the analytical method and results. The QA/QC program includes the insertion of gold and copper standards, blanks and field duplicates in each laboratory assay batch and systematic re-assaying of samples returning values above 5 g/t Au by the fire-assay method using a gravimetric finish on a 50-gram pulp split.

The drilling program was conducted under the supervision of Rock Lefrancois, Chief Operating Officer for Columbus Gold and Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101, who has reviewed this news release and is responsible for the technical information reported herein, including verification of the data disclosed.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD,

Robert F. Giustra, Chairman & CEO

This release contains forward-looking information and statements, as defined by law including without limitation Canadian securities laws and the "safe harbor" provisions of the US Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 ("forward-looking statements"), respecting Columbus' plans to spin-out its American assets into a separate publicly traded company called Allegiant Gold Ltd., to undertake a private placement in connection with a spin-out, and to undertake drilling programs at its projects in the United States in 2017 and 2018 Forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to materially differ from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements, including: that the spin-out may not be completed as planned due to failure to obtain shareholder or regulatory approval, that the private placement may not be completed in full or at all due to market malaise, that drilling programs may not be completed as planned; factors include the ability to acquire any necessary permits and third party authorizations; environmental compliance; cost increases; availability of qualified workers and drill equipment; risks associated with exploration projects including, without limitation, the accuracy of interpretations; mineral reserve and resource estimates (including the risk of assumption and methodology errors and inability to complete the intended drilling program); dependence on third parties for services; non-performance by contractual counterparties; title risks; and general economic conditions. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management at the date the statements are made and a number of assumptions that may prove to be incorrect, including, without limitation, assumptions about: market prices, exploitation and exploration success; the timing and content of upcoming work programs; general business and economic conditions; the timing and receipt of required approvals; continued availability of capital and financing; power prices; the ability to procure equipment and supplies including, without limitation, drill rigs; and ongoing relations with employees, partners, optionees and joint venturers. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements contained herein. The foregoing list is not exhaustive and Columbus undertakes no obligation to update any of the foregoing except as required by law.

Contacts:

Columbus Gold Corp.

Investor Relations

(604) 634-0970 or

1-888-818-1364

info@columbusgold.com

www.columbusgold.com




WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Crude oil futures continued to drop Wednesday morning amid fears that refinery operations along the Texas-Louisiana coast will be interrupted for some time. Hurricane Harvey blasted the Gulf region and caused historic flooding. WTI light sweet crude oil was down 34 cents at $46.10 a barrel, the lowest in almost two months. While the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported a major draw of 5.78 million barrels in United States crude oil inventories for last week, most analysts downplayed the data in light of the current situation. The Energy Information Administration (EIA)'s Petroleum Status Report for the week will be issued at 10.30 am ET. In the previous week, the crude oil inventories were down 3.3 million barrels and Gasoline inventories were down 1.2 million barrels. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Deal Builds on Engine Shop's Momentum by Adding Comprehensive Esports Strategy, Tournament Management, Live Broadcast Production, Digital Distribution, and Management Expertise to its Services Portfolio

NEW YORK, Dec. 11, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --Engine Shop, the award-winning lifestyle, and marketing agency, today announced the acquisition of The Gamer Agency (TGA), a preeminent esports strategy, event production, and development company. TGA's live events and digital broadcast productions have reached millions of fans worldwide, and its team boasts decades of collective experience in gaming and entertainment. For Engine Shop, a Bruin Sports Capital company, the acquisition putsit at the forefront of this exploding genre where, according to the latest Newzoo research, advertising investment in esports is expected to surpass $1bn by 2020.

TGA operates exclusively in esports specializing in strategy, tournament and event production, and broadcast production. Among its work, the agency designed and continues to operate the state-of-the-art Mixer NYC Studio digital production facility at the flagship Microsoft Store in New York. This year alone, the studio will produce and broadcast approximately 100 esports and other gaming events across various titles. Through these activations, Microsoft Store and TGA have mobilized the NYC esports and gaming communities at the flagship Microsoft Store.

Engine Shop, the 2017 winner of Best Sports Event & Experiential Marketing Agency from Sports Business Journal, acquired TGA from GameCo, Inc. and will integrate the company into the business immediately. TGA was founded by GameCo, whose business is attracting esports enthusiasts and video gamers to casinos and is the inventor of the Video Game Gambling Machine (VGM').

Said Brian Gordon, Engine Shop, CEO: "By acquiring TGA, we are adding a team with profound expertise and connections in esports to our existing consumer engagement business model. Itwill enable usto create and activate esports solutions for brands looking to tap in to this passionate community of fans and endemics seeking to broaden their offering and expand their fan base."

Said, Blaine Graboyes, GameCo CEO "We are very proud of the growth and development of TGA which has become among the foremost authorities bridging marketers into esports. Engine Shop's expertise in Engagement and Experiential marketing will enhance its offering to the market. We look forward to continuing to collaborate with them to meet the needs of the global esports marketplace."

Said George Pyne, Founder & CEO of Bruin Sports Capital, "This is a very strategic acquisition for Engine Shop and continues to fulfill their promise of staying at the leading edge as an agency. It smartly positions the company to be the go-to resource for marketers, leagues, team owners, publishers and producers looking to maximize the opportunity to engage esports' very impressive and growing fan base."

About Engine Shop

Engine Shop, the 2017 Sports Business Journal Best in Sports Event & Experiential, is an industry-leading engagement marketing company focusing on passion points to create authentic connections between brands and consumers. The agency uses its access to sports, entertainment and lifestyle verticals to amplify our strategic, creative solutions. The agency's clients include American Family Insurance, Anheuser-Busch, Dave and Busters, ESPN, Greyhound, Johnson & Johnson, Mercedes-Benz, Moet Hennessy, Tiffany & Co. and Under Armour, among others. Engine Shop is headquartered in New York City with offices in Beverly Hills, Atlanta, and Miami.

About GameCo, Inc.

GameCo, Inc. is a pioneering company uniting the experience of playing video games with the excitement of gambling by creating the world's first Video Game Gambling Machines (VGM'). GameCo's patented VGM proprietary arcade-style cabinets allow a player's skill to determine the payout and winnings while maintaining the same casino-based economics as slot machines. GameCo is developing VGM games under license from major game developers and entertainment IP companies, including Steve Aoki from DJ Kid Millionaire LTD., "SOULCALIBUR' II" with BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment, Inc., and "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" from Studiocanal S.A.S. GameCo is privately held and headquartered in New York City with additional offices in Las Vegas.

Media Contact:

For Bruin Sports Capital/Engine Shop: Scott Novak snovak@bruinsc.com; 914 849-0921, 917 699-4142

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DENVER, CO -- (Marketwired) -- 08/15/17 -- American Cannabis Company, Inc. (OTCQB: AMMJ) ("ACC"), a full-service business-to-business consulting solutions provider, and seller of ancillary products to the cannabis industry, today announced it has secured a client in the state of California. This client seeks to acquire a license that will permit them to dispense medical cannabis to patients. ACC has been contracted to complete operational planning activities, to provide conceptual design work for a retail dispensary location, to assist with 2017 city permitting, and to help with 2018 state application completion. Upon the client being awarded a city permit, ACC will be further retained in the dispensary deployment process where the consulting firm will provide facility staffing solutions, a customized set of operational workflow procedures, and remote operational monitoring support. ACC expects to leverage this contract to secure additional revenues through long-term consulting agreements and future sales of ancillary products, as this client is looking to seek licensure for the California recreational/adult-use cannabis program in the near future.

Terry Buffalo, CEO of American Cannabis Company, commented: "We are glad to be engaged with this client in the state of California. This state, while deeper than most states in its cannabis industry history and tenure, continues to present vast amounts of opportunity within the marketplace. As a company, ACC is actively seeking to align itself with strong clients who have an understanding of what it takes to achieve success. Needless to say, we are confident that our new client in California is equipped with the right tools to be competitive, and we will strive to make this client more and more competitive within the marketplace as we seek to be a long-term consulting solution for this group."

About American Cannabis Company, Inc.

American Cannabis Company, Inc. offers end-to-end solutions to existing and aspiring participants in the cannabis industry. We utilize our industry expertise to provide business planning and market assessment services, assist state licensing procurement, create business infrastructure and operational best practices. American Cannabis Company also developed and owns a portfolio of branded products including: The Satchel, SoHum Living Soils, The Cultivation Cube and The High Density Cultivation System. We also design and provide other industry specific custom product solutions. The building and development of our brands and product suite is based on our Geoponics Philosophy, "the art and science of agriculture in soil."

For more information, please visit:

www.americancannabisconsulting.com

www.americancannabiscompanyinc.com

www.sohumsoils.com

Forward Looking Statements

This news release contains "forward-looking statements" which are not purely historical and may include any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions regarding the future. Such forward-looking statements include, among other things, the development, costs and results of new business opportunities and words such as "anticipate", "seek", intend", "believe", "estimate", "expect", "project", "plan", or similar phrases may be deemed "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results could differ from those projected in any forward-looking statements due to numerous factors. Such factors include, among others, the inherent uncertainties associated with new projects, the future U.S. and global economies, the impact of competition, and the Company's reliance on existing regulations regarding the use and development of cannabis-based drugs. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release, and we assume no obligation to update the forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Although we believe that any beliefs, plans, expectations and intentions contained in this press release are reasonable, there can be no assurance that any such beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions will prove to be accurate. Investors should consult all of the information set forth herein and should also refer to the risk factors disclosure outlined in our annual report on Form 10-K for the most recent fiscal year, our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and other periodic reports filed from time-to-time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. For more information, please visit www.sec.gov.

Contact:

Steven Lico

Marketing Manager

IR@americancannabisconsulting.com

303-974-4770




VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 08/15/17 -- Power Metals Corp. ("Power Metals Corp." or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: PWM)(FRANKFURT: OAA1) is very pleased to announce that it has entered into an agreement (the "Agreement") to acquire the MMJ Zeolite Project, situated in Nova Scotia, Canada.

The MMJ Zeolite Project represents the inauguration of the company's strategy to pursue a leading zeolite market position in Canada.

"We believe Power Metals can add significant shareholder value for investors in the fast-growing zeolite marketplace, which displays robust demand from new agricultural and clean-technology sectors. With today's announcement, Power Metals becomes one of Canada's premier zeolite project proponents as reflected by our capitalization and financial resources. This drill-ready zeolite asset fits nicely into our advanced project portfolio, which also includes lithium brines in Alberta and our hard-rock Case Lake lithium project in Ontario.

Nova Scotia's zeolites are world-renowned and Power Metals is most pleased to have acquired an advanced-stage zeolite asset in such close proximity to the large population and manufacturing bases of North America's east-coast. Historic zeolite exploration in Nova Scotia pre-dates the emergence of new prospective agricultural markets which makes this zeolite asset acquisition extraordinarily exciting for our company.

We have also been reviewing further zeolite projects and it is our intention to capitalize on additional zeolite opportunities in the near-future which should help position Power Metals as a premier publicly-traded company for zeolite assets. We look forward to scaling up our zeolite asset base, zeolite exploration plans and zeolite marketing efforts," stated Johnathan More, Director of Power Metals.

About the MMJ Zeolite Project

The MMJ Zeolite Project consists of five contiguous mineral claims comprising 437 ha of tenure, (or approximately 1,079 acres) and is located near road and powerline access.

Importantly, and for the first-time, the MMJ Zeolite Project brings together the contiguous tenure of two historic zeolite projects from two different operators who independently identified highly-prospective zeolite projects.

The southern-half of the MMJ Zeolite Project covers and expands on tenure previously diamond-drilled and advanced by C2C Mining Corporation, and is referred to as the Brow of Mountain area.

The northern-half of the MMJ Zeolite Project covers and expands on tenure previously advanced by Ian Booth, a zeolite pioneer in Nova Scotia, and is referred to as the Crown Land area.

The Company believes the combined historic target areas provide a significant zeolite opportunity by way of an advanced, drill-ready zeolite project with the potential for a large-scale, shallow zeolite deposit model.

Interested parties are encouraged to review the applicable publicly-filed, third-party assessment reports made available by the Government of Nova Scotia and accessible through the following links:

https://www.novascotia.ca/natr/meb/data/ar/1998/AR_ME_1998-081.pdf

https://www.novascotia.ca/natr/meb/data/ar/1997/AR_ME_1997-084.pdf

The Company cautions that any historic work or estimates associated with the MMJ Zeolite Project and its tenure should not be relied upon.

Terms of the Acquisition

The MMJ Zeolite Project was acquired from an arm's-length party in exchange for 1,558,767 common shares, and the granting of a 2% royalty. Shares issued pursuant to the Agreement are subject to a four-month hold period.

The transaction is subject to regulatory approval, including approval by the TSX Venture Exchange.

About Power Metals Corp.

Power Metals Corp. is a diversified Canadian mining company with a mandate to explore, develop and acquire high quality mining projects for minerals contributing to power. We are committed to building an arsenal of projects in both lithium other and clean power fuels. We see an unprecedented opportunity to supply the staggering growth of the lithium battery industry. Learn more at www.powermetalscorp.com.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD,

Johnathan More, Director

None of the TSX Venture Exchange, the CSE nor their Regulation Service Providers (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This press release contains projections and forward-looking information that involve various risks and uncertainties regarding future events. Such forward-looking information can include without limitation statements based on current expectations involving a number of risks and uncertainties and are not guarantees of future performance of Power Metals. There are numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and Power Metals' plans and objectives to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking information, including other factors beyond Power Metals' control. Actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. These and all subsequent written and oral forward-looking information are based on estimates and opinions of management on the dates they are made and are expressly qualified in their entirety by this notice. Except as required by law, Power Metals assumes no obligation to update forward-looking information should circumstances or management's estimates or opinions change.

Contacts:

Power Metals Corp.

Johnathan More

646-661-0409

info@powermetalscorp.com




IPOH, Malaysia, Aug 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --UBM Malaysia, organiser of ASIAWATER 2018-- 'The largest water and wastewater event for developing Asia' organised a site visit to the Ulu Kinta Water Treatment Plant and Sultan Azlan Shah Dam in Ulu Kinta with the support of Lembaga Air Perak (LAP) today. The site visit is part of the ASIAWATER 2018 media tour and marketing campaign in promoting awareness on conserving and managing water resources for adequate, safe and affordable water services and preserving the surrounding environment. The initiative reflects on one of the Malaysia's water vision 2020 towards achieving developed nation status by 2020.

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The Ulu Kinta Water Treatment Plant obtained the raw water supply from the catchment area upstream of Ulu Kinta River. The Water Treatment Plant is fully equipped with the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) System that provides an integrated, real time data acquisition and monitoring system for the production and distribution activities of treated water. The water supply production from the Ulu Kinta Water Treatment Plant is monitored by Ministry of Health with samples analysed by Chemistry Department and overseen by the National Water Services Commission (SPAN), as the industry regulator. The Sultan Azlan Shah Dam was officially opened in 2007 with the aim of increasing the water supply in Kinta Valley to 639 million litres per day in order to meet the water demand until 2020.

Ms. Eliane Van Doorn, Director of Business Development, UBM ASEAN said, "For the 10th edition of ASIAWATER 2018, we have chosen to visit the Ulu Kinta Water Treatment Plant and Sultan Azlan Shah Dam which are both managed by Lembaga Air Perak (LAP). LAP has successfully implemented an effective planning system to ensure sufficient water resources to meet the growing demand for treated water in Perak. The success of LAP is also attributable to the Asset-light structure adopted by the Board with the support of the Federal Government. To date, the board has effectively laid out 10,792 km of piping which contributed clean water supply to 100% of the urban locations and 98% of rural areas in Perak."

The ASIAWATER 2018 central theme 'Partnership for Growth and a Sustainable Water Future' is to promote public, private and community partnership (PPCP) and showcasing the latest technologies and effective solutions in water management and water security.

The event continues to have the support from water management central agencies which includes the Ministry of Energy, Green Technology and Water (KeTTHA), Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (NRE), National Water Services Commission (SPAN) and Department of Drainage and Irrigation (DID).

The 10th edition of ASIAWATER 2018, co-located with the 5th edition of Asia Water Resource Expo (AWARE'18) will be held from 10-12 April at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, Malaysia.

With more than 1,000 exhibiting companies and international pavilions from Austria, China, Denmark, EU, Korea, Singapore, Switzerland, Taiwan, Germany and Water Environment Federation (WEF), the event is expected to welcome over 19,000 delegates and visitors from 48 countries/regions. ASIAWATER 2018 will be accompanied with free-to-attend sessions and technology seminars from local and international experts addressing the opportunities, latest technologies and challenges within the water and wastewater industry.

With over 80 percent of space has already been booked by exhibitors, ASIAWATER 2018 is on track for another success with an excellent turnout. Amongst the exhibiting companies include Ebara Pumps, CNP, Molecor (SEA), Tsurumi Pump, Xylem, Salcon, Prominent, Greendex, Solidium, Arachem, George Fisher and many more.

Notes to Editor

ASIAWATER Expo & Forum is the longest running and leading trade event for water and wastewater industry in Asia. The event is held biennial in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and has continues to be the one-stop regional hub for water experts, industry professionals and major investors from all over the world. The event offers a stream of business opportunities as well as developing Asia's water management and infrastructure.

www.asiawater.org
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., 2017-08-15 14:30 CEST (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Vascular Dynamics, Inc., (VDI) a privately held medical device company developing novel solutions for the treatment of hypertension, today announces that the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the company's Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) application to initiate its pivotal trial for its MobiusHD System for the treatment of resistant hypertension.



The CALM (Controlling and Lowering Blood Pressure with MobiusHD) 2 trial is a multi-center, prospective, randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled pivotal study designed to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of the MobiusHD System. The company will evaluate patients from select locations throughout the United States whose hypertension remains uncontrolled despite using three or more anti-hypertensive pharmacologic therapies. VDI also intends to conduct the CALM 2 trial in certain European countries following appropriate regulatory authorization.



"The rigor and scientific focus of the Calm 2 trial has been crafted and improved from much of what we learned from prior studies. Calm 2 will offer patients a therapeutic alternative and a level of medical monitoring to which they otherwise would never have access outside of a clinical trial," said Bryan Williams co-Principal Investigator of the Calm 2 trial and Chair of Medicine at University College London and Director of the NIHR UCLH/UCL Biomedical Research Centre and Director of Research at UCL Hospitals. He is Chairman-Elect of the European Council on Hypertension of the European Society of Cardiology.



"In clinical practice, we are regularly faced with those hypertension patients who simply do not respond to medication or lifestyle changes. Initiating this trial is an important step toward identifying additional viable treatments to help this large population of patients," said Gregg Stone, MD, Co-Principal Investigator of the CALM 2 trial and director of cardiovascular research and education for Columbia University Medical Center/New York-Presbyterian Hospital and co-director of medical research and education at the Cardiovascular Research Foundation.



The company has been chosen as a participant in the FDA's Expedited Access Pathway (EAP) program, a focused initiative to significantly accelerate access for US patients and their physicians to innovative medical treatments. VDI is also one of only nine companies chosen for the FDA's Early Feasibility Study Investigational Device Exemptions (IDE) Pilot Program, which enables companies to conduct smaller-scale studies under the guidance of the Agency in the United States in order to meet the requirements for an earlier pathway toward approval.



"Initiating the CALM 2 trial is an important milestone for Vascular Dynamics as it allows us the opportunity to demonstrate the potential utility of our technology in a significant patient population," said Robert Stern, president and CEO of Vascular Dynamics. "With our participation in both the EAP and IDE programs, we also have the unique opportunity to work closely with the FDA to ensure a more rapid start to the trial while still maintaining the high standards of safety, efficacy and scientific validity required by the program."



The MobiusHD System, a minimally-invasive system, capitalizes on the ability of the body's baroreceptor mechanism to regulate blood pressure. Baroreceptors are receptors located in the carotid artery that sense blood pressure and relay that information to the brain. The MobiusHD implant is designed to amplify the signals received by the surrounding arterial baroreceptors, and thereby increase the body's natural response to lower blood pressure through vasodilation.



About Resistant Hypertension Hypertension, or elevated blood pressure, is a common medical condition that currently affects one billion people worldwide.1 If left untreated, hypertension can cause life-threatening problems, including heart attack, aneurysm, stroke or kidney failure. Patients with hypertension can often reduce their risk factors by making lifestyle changes such as losing weight, quitting smoking, and increased exercise. In cases with advanced hypertension, medical therapies may be prescribed. Resistant hypertension cannot be controlled with medical therapies. Patients experiencing resistant hypertension are at four times greater risk of cardiovascular events compared with hypertensive patients achieving blood pressure targets.2 The American Heart Association (AHA) estimates that high blood pressure costs the U.S. $46 billion each year, including the cost of healthcare services, medications to treat high blood pressure, and lost productivity.



About Vascular Dynamics, Inc. Vascular Dynamics develops catheter-delivered technologies to bring a better quality of life to patients who are resistant to conventional treatments for hypertension. The device is covered by seven issued and pending U.S. and international patents. The MobiusHD system has received a CE Mark for the treatment of hypertension in the European Union. However, the MobiusHD system is not commercially available in the United States. More information is available at www.vasculardynamics.com.



CAUTION: In the United States, the MobiusHD Device is limited by law to investigational use only. 1 Kearney PM, et al. Global burden of hypertension: Analysis of worldwide data. Lancet. 2005;365(9455):217-23 2 Pierdomenico SD, Lapenna D, Bucci A, et al. Cardiovascular outcome in treated hypertensive patients with responder, masked, false resistant, and true resistant hypertension. Am J Hypertens. 2005;18: 1422-8.



Contact: Jules Abraham 917-885-7378 jabraham@vasculardynamics.com

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Stuart Wood joins as Operations Director and Jason McClounan as Finance Manager and Company Secretary

Sales Managers, Application Scientists and Service Engineer appointed across Europe and North America

Applied Photophysics, a leading provider of systems for biophysical characterization of biomolecules, today announced that it has appointed Stuart Wood as Operations Director and Jason McClounan as Finance Manager and Company Secretary. The Company has also expanded its sales and scientific support teams across the US, UK and Germany with the addition of four Sales Managers and two more Application Scientists. A US-based Service Engineer joins the global service team.

The appointments demonstrate Applied Photophysics' commitment to expanding its position in the biophysical characterization market. The company's current portfolio includes the Chirascan platform, which uses circular dichroism (CD) to detect changes in the higher order structure and stability of proteins, and its SX-range of stopped-flow spectrometers for kinetic studies.

Stuart Wood has over 20 years of experience in a variety of senior operations roles, consultancy, production and engineering. He was previously Head of Business Excellence at Oxford Instruments where he led the development and implementation of a continuous improvement programme throughout Europe, Asia and North America. Stuart was also recognized in the 'Lean Top 25' report, which celebrates outstanding individuals in lean and continuous improvement.

Jason McClounan brings over 15 years' experience, from transactional accounting to leading a team of accountants within an operational finance function. He has a wealth of knowledge of working within PLCs and LTD companies during mergers, acquisitions and other periods of substantial growth.

In the US, Keith R. Solomon, PhD,joins as Application Scientist. Keith previously held senior appointments at Harvard Medical School, Boston Children's Hospital, and the Proteomics Center at BCH. Deb Litman and Jeff Club join as East- and West-Coast Sales Manager, respectively. Deb brings more than 15 years of experience in capital equipment sales and applications support roles. Jeff joins Applied Photophysics from Molecular Devices (a Danaher company) and brings over a decade of diverse experience from both the clinical and research arms of life science. Eric Beauregard,an experienced electrician, joins the Company as Service Engineer, having recently graduated from the University of Hartford with a B.S. in Chemistry.

In Europe and the UK, Martin Textor, PhD joins as Application Scientist. A molecular biologist by training, Martin specializes in biophysics with a focus on membrane protein research and has used CD on a regular basis during his work. Tony Lester and Sven Langner join Applied Photophysics as UK- and German-based Sales Manager, respectively. Tony brings over 25 years of experience in consultative sales. Sven joins the Company from his role as Account Manager with Bio-Rad Clinical Diagnostics.

Commenting on the appointments, Louise Madden, CEO, said: "We have ambitious plans for Applied Photophysics and as we look to grow significantly over the next few years, we have started by expanding operations and scaling up the business. Welcoming such a talented group of individuals, we are now able to offer unprecedented levels of service and scientific support to our customers across North America and Europe."

For more information about Applied Photophysics, visit https://www.photophysics.com/

ENDS

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171128005801/en/

Contacts:

Notes for Editors:

For high-resolution images please contact:

Zyme Communications

Lorna Cuddon

Tel: +44 (0)7811 996 942

Email: lorna.cuddon@zymecommunications.com
TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - August 15, 2017) - NewCastle Gold Ltd. (TSX: NCA) ("NewCastle Gold" or the "Company") is pleased to report the preliminary results from the second water well drilled as part of the water supply drilling program (the "Program") on its Castle Mountain gold project (the "Project"), located in San Bernardino County, California.

The second well was completed on August 4th, 2017, with another 12-inch diameter hole. The Program forms part of the ongoing hydrogeological investigations aimed at identifying additional sources of water as part of the pre-feasibility study scheduled for release at the end of 2017, and in support of potentially restarting the Run of Mine (ROM), operation in 2018.

Water well CMM-W-01, located 1.6 km north of CMM-W-02 (preliminary results reported on July 25, 2017) was completed to a total depth of 1,586 feet below ground surface, and intersected the water table at a depth of 570 feet. The target for this well was a deeply fractured area of bedrock identified by our geological team and tested in the previous program of April 2017. CMM-W-01 showed an average pumping rate of 169 gallons per minute ("gpm") during the drilling of the last 250 feet of the hole, and up to 236 gpm locally during the drilling of the well using the 'airlift' capacity of the drill rig. As with CMM-W-02, the pumping rate was limited by the compressor capacity of the drill, rather than the potential yield of the well, which indicates that the ultimate long-term capacity of the well has the potential to be higher. Additionally, during this preliminary evaluation, the water level in the well showed negligible drawdown. The well location can be seen on the attached map and cross-section (Figures 1 and 2).

Gerald Panneton, President and CEO commented: "We have now been able to demonstrate with two (2) large diameter potential production wells, that are 1.6 km apart, excellent airlift pumping capacity averaging 169 gpm, in each well. Both holes have also achieved an average of more than 200 gpm and up to 236 gpm over a vertical section of 300 feet in the second hole W-01. With the completion of this well, we have now moved immediately onto the pump testing phase of the Program, where we will determine the long-term sustainable yield of our new wells over a period of 5 days. These two (2) new wells, along with our existing wells, could potentially provide us with enough water for the ROM restart project in 2018."

Both water wells CMM-W-01 and CMM-W-02 were drilled along a 10 km, north-south trending regional structure identified through satellite imagery, gravity surveys and surface geological mapping. Areas of highest groundwater water flow appear to coincide with this deep-seated feature. CMM-W-01 is located on northeast side of the JSLA backfilled open pit, approximately 5,300 feet (1,600 m) (Figure 2) from CMM-W-02 at South Domes, which returned initial water flow rates exceeding 200 gpm, with an airlift average of 169 gpm during the final five (5) hour development test.

Well CMM-W-01 was drilled using a truck-mounted drill rig, and reverse circulation drilling techniques. The diameter of the hole was 12 inches, and the hole was drilled vertically to a maximum depth of over 1,612 feet with the ultimate completion of the casing and screen to 1,586 feet. Water flow rates were measured by performing industry standard "airlift" tests by injecting air from the rig's compressor. Discharge water from the well head was measured by timing the flow of air/water discharge as it exited the rig's cyclone into a 55-gallon barrel. Hydrological consulting is provided by Geo-Logic Associates based in Tucson, Arizona and representatives were present on site for the drilling and testing of the well.

Following a full analysis of the pump test results, the Company will be in a position to forecast the long-term productive capacity of these wells. The goal of the Program is to find new wells that will meet the needs for the restart of the Project. The Company currently maintains ten active water rights with three production water wells on the Project. Total production from wells W-14, W-18 and W-45 located in the NW Wellfield is approximately 150 gpm.

Qualified Person

Marc Leduc, P. Eng., the Company's Chief Operating Officer, is the designated Qualified Person for this news release within the meaning of NI 43-101. He has reviewed and verified that the technical information contained in this release is accurate and has approved of the written disclosure of the same.

About NewCastle Gold

NewCastle Gold (an Augusta Group company) has a 100% interest in the Castle Mountain property in San Bernardino County, California. The Castle Mountain heap leach gold mine produced over one million ounces of gold from 1991 to 2004. The Mine and Reclamation Plan, under which the mine operated, was authorized by the County of San Bernardino as the Lead Agency and remains in effect. Water for the drill programs was accessed from existing patented wells on the Project.

An updated NI 43-101 resource for the Project was announced December 2, 2015 which includes Measured Mineral Resources of 17.4 million tonnes grading 0.86 g/t gold containing 0.48 million gold ounces, Indicated Mineral Resources of 202.5 million tonnes grading 0.57 g/t gold containing 3.71 million gold ounces along with Inferred Mineral Resources of 40.8 million tonnes grading 0.58 g/t gold and containing 0.76 million gold ounces. The Project hosts a disseminated low sulphidation epithermal system. Gold is primarily hosted by late-stage rhyolite volcanic units within zones of silicification and brecciation associated with northeast-southwest trending/southeast dipping fault structures which are interpreted to have developed within a collapsed caldera environment. Eleven gold domains are represented by both steeply dipping high grade and stratabound hosted mineralization orientations.

Neither the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX), nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Toronto Stock Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains "forward-looking statements" and "forward-looking information" (collectively, "forward-looking information") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes information that relates to, among other things, statements with respect to the drill program at Castle Mountain (including water supply drilling), the mineral resource expansion at Castle Mountain, the identification of future expansion targets at Castle Mountain and the restart of operation using Run of Mine (ROM) material from the JSLA pit. Forward-looking information is not, and cannot be, a guarantee of future results or events.

Forward-looking information is based on, among other things, opinions, assumptions, estimates and analyses that, while considered reasonable by us at the date the forward-looking information is provided, inherently are subject to significant risks, uncertainties, contingencies and other factors that may cause actual results and events to be materially different from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. The material factors or assumptions that we identified and were applied by us in drawing conclusions or making forecasts or projections set out in the forward looking information include, but are not limited to that the Company is able to procure personnel, equipment and supplies required for its exploration and development activities in sufficient quantities and on a timely basis and that actual results will be consistent with management's expectations.

The risks, uncertainties, contingencies and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking information may include, but are not limited to, the risks discussed under the heading "Risks" in general to the business of NewCastle in documents filed (or to be filed) with Canadian regulatory authorities. Should one or more risk, uncertainty, contingency or other factor materialize or should any factor or assumption prove incorrect, actual results could vary materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking information. Accordingly, the reader should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. NewCastle does not assume any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information after the date of this news release or to explain any material difference between subsequent actual events and any forward-looking information, except as required by applicable law.

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2017/8/15/11G144193/Images/Map_1-0367e3e49fdc81aea45c205b8a1989c8.jpg

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2017/8/15/11G144193/Images/NCA_2017-08-11th_Figure2_for_PR-Final-mpl-ab022da6ccaa9d9f9ccc7c1e79916602.jpg

For further information, please contact:



NewCastle Gold Ltd.

Gerald Panneton

President & CEO

Telephone: 416 366 5678

Email: gpanneton@newcastlegold.ca
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RESTON, VA -- (Marketwired) -- 08/15/17 -- Cloudistics, an enterprise hybrid cloud computing company, announced it has signed a distribution agreement with Ingram Micro Inc., a technology distributor and a leading technology sales, marketing and logistics company. As part of Ingram Micro's Advanced Solutions Emerging Vendor Initiative (EVI) Program, Ingram Micro will extend Cloudistics' reach into the Managed Service Provider market and help the company target key legal, healthcare, finance, manufacturing and federal vertical markets in the U.S.

The Ingram Micro EVI Program began in 2012, and is designed to help new and emerging vendors maximize success with Ingram Micro and its channel partners.

Under the terms of the agreement, Ingram Micro's Advanced Solutions team will market, sell and support Cloudistics' enterprise cloud solutions. Ingram Micro will also provide Cloudistics market development expertise and access to Ingram Micro vendor licensing to help support and manage price quoting, pipeline management, order fulfillment and customer support.

"Ingram Micro channel partners want innovative technology solutions that meet the needs of a changing technology landscape," said Scott Zahl, vice president, Advanced Solutions, Ingram Micro. "Infrastructure-as-a-Service is a growing opportunity for channel partners and we're pleased to welcome Cloudistics' cost-effective and scalable solutions to our growing portfolio."

The Cloudistics platform is a complete high performance on-premises cloud solution. With Cloudistics, network, storage, compute resources, and cloud controller work seamlessly to bring the cloud to on-premises applications in a fraction of the time and at a third of the cost of the public cloud.

Additionally, the platform is completely modular. Each Cloudistics platform is sized to meet the customer's needs and performance profiles. Cloudistics can independently hot scale compute, storage, and network up and out as needed. Customers can also hot add more storage, compute, or network as needed.

"Everything is included, all software and all hardware to run your cloud -- add your applications and go. Create your own application templates or download pre-configured ones for quick and simple deployments of your most complex applications," noted Steve Conner, VP of Sales for Cloudistics.

In highlighting the platform capabilities of Cloudistics, Conner added, "Ingram Micro is a trusted name that provides further validation of Cloudistics, our technology and our offerings for customers of all sizes, in every vertical market. This agreement represents an important additional way that Cloudistics is working to reach and serve the various channel partners across North America and in a range of industries."

To learn more about Cloudistics, visit www.cloudistis.com.

About Cloudistics

Cloudistics, an enterprise hybrid cloud computing company, delivers a complete public cloud experience with composable on-premises infrastructures to medium and large enterprises. Its software-defined technology natively converges network, storage, compute, virtualization, and management into a single platform to drive unprecedented simplicity in the datacenter. Customers can start with a base infrastructure and scale to multi-site and multi-geo infrastructures with predictable economics and performance. With open and secure virtual networking, elastic storage, application orchestration and SaaS management, Cloudistics is the blueprint for application-optimized on-premises cloud infrastructures. Learn more at www.cloudistics.com or follow @cloudistics on Twitter.

About Ingram Micro

Ingram Micro helps businesses Realize the Promise of Technology. It delivers a full spectrum of global technology and supply chain services to businesses around the world. Deep expertise in technology solutions, mobility, cloud, and supply chain solutions enables its business partners to operate efficiently and successfully in the markets they serve. Unrivaled agility, deep market insights and the trust and dependability that come from decades of proven relationships, set Ingram Micro apart and ahead. More at www.ingrammicro.com.

Contacts:

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Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - August 15, 2017) - Bayhorse Silver Inc., (TSXV: BHS) ("Bayhorse" or the "Company") has signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) with Minerals Solutions LLC (Minerals) of Coeur D Alene Idaho, a Joint Venture between Liberty Refiners LLC (Liberty) of Hayden, Idaho and Irish Metals LLC (Irish) of Coeur D' Alene, Idaho.

Under the LOI Bayhorse undertakes to provide to Minerals direct shipping material from the Bayhorse Silver Mine, Oregon, USA. Minerals will concentrate, process, refine and sell, or return refined silver to Bayhorse.

Bayhorse has undertaken to provide direct shipping material, at a minimum 3,000 g/t Ag to Minerals, commencing October 1, 2017. Under the terms of the LOI, Bayhorse will provide Minerals with a minimum 1,000 kg direct shipping sample to establish the cost of processing that will form the basis for a formal processing agreement.

Liberty has refined precious metals since 2008 and is currently the exclusive refiner for the Sunshine Mint. Michael Irish, of Irish Metals LLC, has been a consultant to the mining and recycle industries since 2014 and was the principal metallurgist at the development of the "Sunshine Refinery part of Sunshine Mine Complex" in Idaho's highly prolific "Silver Valley" and as such was instrumental in designing the silver recovery circuit.

Together, they have developed a proven hydro-metallurgical process (the "Process") that recovers refined silver of .999 fineness from mill flotation, gravity, or direct shipping concentrate, eliminating the need for the smelter step. The process is particularly suited to tetrahedrite, the main silver bearing mineral prominent at the Bayhorse Silver Mine. Minerals is currently expanding its operation to increase the volume of concentrate it can process daily.

Upon installation of the Steinert "Ore-Sorter" at the Bayhorse Mine, the Company will be producing two products. A direct shipping grade material of 3,000 g/t or better, and a lower grade flotation grade material. Minerals is evaluating processing options for the Bayhorse lesser grade material.

Mr. Rick Hurt, of Liberty Refiners LLC has stated "this process provides producers an alternative processing solution to offset the reduction in smelter capacity in the United States. This reduction has forced many silver mining operations to either export their concentrates offshore, where the high costs of shipping, smelting and refining is at significant cost, reducing profitability, or due to the high costs, making many silver mines uneconomic" He also states that "with the increasing concern about the jurisdictions where metals come from, especially the focus by buyers on avoiding conflict minerals, we can guarantee the source of the refined products we produce".

Bayhorse CEO, Graeme O'Neill comments "our agreement with Minerals Solutions LLC for processing the Bayhorse direct shipping material allows us refining options that were not formerly available to us, and we look forward to working in close association with Minerals Solutions."

The Company advises it is not basing any decision to produce on a feasibility study of mineral reserves demonstrating economic and technical viability and also advises there is increased uncertainty and specific economic and technical risks of failure associated with any production decision.

This News Release has been prepared on behalf of the Bayhorse Silver Inc. Board of Directors, which accepts full responsibility for its contents. Dr. Clay Conway, P.Geol., a Qualified Person and Director of Bayhorse has prepared, supervised the preparation of, or approved the technical content of this press release.

On Behalf of the Board.

Graeme O'Neill, President

604-684-3394

Bayhorse Silver Inc., a junior exploration company, has earned an 80% interest in the historic Bayhorse Silver Mine, Oregon, USA. Bayhorse is also earning a 75% interest in the past producing Bridging the Gap Project, consisting of ASARCO's historic Crown Point, Silver King, Ranger, Wyoming, Curlew, and Blackhawk silver/lead/zinc mines in Idaho's Silver Valley. The Company has an experienced management and technical team with extensive exploration and mining expertise.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
VANCOUVER, BC--(Marketwired - August 15, 2017) - Solar Alliance Energy Inc. ('Solar Alliance') or (the 'Company') (TSX VENTURE: SAN) (OTC: SAENF) is pleased to announce it has signed an agreement (the "Agreement") for the design and construction of an approximately US$3,500,000 commercial solar project in Los Angeles. The project, which marks the second commercial-scale solar project for Solar Alliance, consists of a rooftop solar installation and a carport solar installation at a Los Angeles mid-rise, multi-tenant office building. The Solar Alliance team analyzed the building owner's needs, operational requirements and utility usage to develop a custom solar system that will offset more than 75% of their annual electricity requirements.

"Solar Alliance has taken a prudent, professional approach to the development of our commercial division and this agreement is the result of many months of work," said Chairman and CEO Jason Bak. "We are committed to building relationships with commercial property owners and developers in order to illustrate the financial benefits of solar. This project will save the building owners an estimated US$20,000,000 in electricity costs over the life of the system and it illustrates the exciting growth prospects for Solar Alliance in the virtually untapped commercial solar sector."

The next stage in the project's development is to complete a final feasibility study and grid connection application. Solar Alliance expects all necessary agreements and financing options to be completed by the end of September with construction commencing before the end of 2017. The US$3,500,000 capital cost is an estimate that will be refined after the feasibility study.

"The signing of this commercial solar project agreement comes at a perfect time, as we work our way through the acquisition of Aries Solar, LLC," concluded Bak. "Aries is an established turn-key commercial solar energy solution provider with industry experts that focus on engineering, procurement, and construction needs. This commercial project in L.A. and the Aries acquisition set the stage for increasing growth in commercial solar sales."

The building owner is a large developer and owner of several similar properties in the Los Angeles area. Solar Alliance is committed to developing a long-term relationship with the owner and as part of the Agreement, the Company will issue 250,000 warrants exercisable at a price of $0.18 per share for a period of two years. The warrants are subject to the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange.

Jason Bak, Chairman and CEO

About Solar Alliance Energy Inc. (www.solaralliance.com)

Solar Alliance is a sales, marketing and development company focused on residential, commercial and industrial solar installations. Since we were founded in 2003, we have developed wind and solar projects that provide enough electricity to power 150,000 homes. Solar Alliance is committed to an exceptional customer experience, effective marketing campaigns and superior lead generation in order to drive sales and generate value for shareholders. Our passion is improving life through ingenuity, simplicity and freedom of choice. We make solar simple and our goal is to install solar on every available rooftop in America.

Statements in this news release, other than purely historical information, including statements relating to the Company's future plans and objectives or expected results, constitute Forward-looking statements. The words "would", "will", "expected" and "estimated" or other similar words and phrases are intended to identify forward-looking information. Forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the Company's actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different than those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Such factors include, but are not limited to: uncertainties related to the ability to raise sufficient capital, changes in economic conditions or financial markets, litigation, legislative or other judicial, regulatory and political competitive developments and technological or operational difficulties. Consequently, actual results may vary materially from those described in the forward-looking statements.

"Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release."

For more information:

Solar Alliance Investor Relations

Spyros Karellas

Pinnacle Capital Markets

(416) 433-5696

spyros@pinnaclecapitalmarkets.ca
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - A report released by the Commerce Department on Wednesday showed business inventories in the U.S. rose by slightly more than anticipated in the month of December. The Commerce Department said business inventories climbed by 0.4 percent in December, matching the increase seen in November. Economists had expected inventories to rise by 0.3 percent. The bigger than expected increase in business inventories came as manufacturing inventories grew by 0.5 percent for the second consecutive month. The report said wholesale inventories also rose by 0.4 percent during the month, while retail inventories edged up by 0.2 percent. Additionally, the Commerce Department said business sales increased by 0.6 percent in December after jumping by 1.4 percent in November. Wholesale sales surged up by 1.2 percent and manufacturing sales climbed by 0.6 percent, while retail sales edged down by 0.1 percent. With inventories and sales both rising, the total business inventories/sales ratio was unchanged from the previous month at 1.33 in December. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
KENILWORTH (NJ) (dpa-AFX) - The chief executives of Merck & Co Inc (MRK) and Under Armour Inc resigned from U.S. President Donald Trump's American Manufacturing Council on Monday in the wake of Trump's heavily-criticized response to this weekend's violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. Under Armour Inc. UA, CEO Kevin Plank announced that he was leaving the council. While not explicitly mentioning the events in Charlottesville, Plank stressed the importance of 'unity, diversity and inclusion.' 'Under Armour engages in innovation and sports, not politics,' Plank said in a statement. 'I love our country and our company and will continue to focus my efforts on inspiring every person that they can do anything through the power of sport which promotes unity, diversity and inclusion.' Earlier in the day, Merck & Co. CEO Kenneth Frazier quit 'as a matter of personal conscience' and as a stand 'against intolerance and extremism' after Trump waited two days to specifically condemn white supremacy. Trump later attacked Plank and Merck in a pair of tweets, saying now 'he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!' Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Intelsat S.A. (NYSE: I), operator of the world's first Globalized Network and leader in integrated satellite communications, confirmed a multi-year satellite services agreement on Intelsat 19 with TV Plus, a Direct-to-Home television provider servicing diverse communities in Australia.

Under the previously referenced renewal agreement, TV Plus will use Ku-band satellite services on Intelsat 19 to deliver global content to local viewers in Australia and New Zealand. Located at 166 East, Intelsat 19 is a premier video neighborhood, reaching more than 37 million pay-tv subscribers. Intelsat is a leading DTH provider in the Asia-Pacific region, distributing content for media customers in Australia, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, French Polynesia and New Caledonia.

"Intelsat's satellite services give us the foundation we need to innovate and stay ahead of our competitors by using the latest technologies to deliver the best viewing experience for our customers," said John Jeremic, Director at TV Plus. "We have worked with Intelsat for more than 10 years and have seen firsthand how its world-class video neighborhood has helped expand our audience reach. We're able to cost-efficiently add more channels to the platform and deliver more programming to our viewers while maintaining the same amount of satellite bandwidth."

"There is a lot of opportunity for diverse programming in the Asia-Pacific region, and consumers are demanding quicker access and more viewing options," said Terry Bleakley, Intelsat's Managing Director, Asia-Pacific Sales. "Working with TV Plus and building upon the strong relationship we've established over the past several years has given us a greater understanding of the demand and the type of cost-effective satellite services it needs to reach a broader audience, with more high-quality programming options."

Supporting Resources:

Intelsat Media Services: http://www.intelsat.com/solutions/media

About Intelsat

Intelsat S.A. (NYSE: I) operates the world's first Globalized Network, delivering high-quality, cost-effective video and broadband services anywhere in the world. Intelsat's Globalized Network combines the world's largest satellite backbone with terrestrial infrastructure, managed services, and an open, interoperable architecture to enable customers to drive revenue and reach through a new generation of network services. Thousands of organizations serving billions of people worldwide rely on Intelsat to provide ubiquitous broadband connectivity, multi-format video broadcasting, secure satellite communications and seamless mobility services. The end result is an entirely new world, one that allows us to envision the impossible, connect without boundaries and transform the ways in which we live. For more information, visit www.intelsat.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171119005018/en/

Contacts:

Intelsat

Shannon N. Booker, +1-703-559-7536

Corporate Communications Manager

shannon.booker@intelsat.com


MONTREAL, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 08/15/17 -- The government of British Columbia has prohibited the trophy hunting of grizzly bears throughout the province and all hunting of grizzlies within the Great Bear Rainforest. The announcement, made Monday, follows a commitment by the BC New Democratic Party late last year to stop all trophy hunting of grizzlies if elected.

Rebecca Aldworth, executive director of Humane Society International/Canada, issued the following statement applauding the ban:

"Trophy hunting is a disgraceful blood sport that flies in the face of Canadian values. Monday's announcement that the BC government has prohibited trophy hunting of grizzlies is a crucial step forward in protecting these majestic animals from senseless cruelty. The decision is also in line with the views of the overwhelming majority of BC residents, including Coastal First Nations. Much remains to be clarified about the measure, and we welcome the opportunity to work with the provincial government to ensure grizzlies are truly protected from all forms of trophy hunting. The pending fall hunting season speaks to the urgency of enacting this prohibition swiftly."

HSI/Canada has campaigned to end the trophy hunt for grizzlies in BC for more than a decade. Globally, HSI has been at the forefront of a powerful movement to stop trophy hunting for good by blocking the trade in wildlife trophies, strengthening legal protections for wild animals and educating the public about the devastating impacts of trophy hunting.

Facts:

-- Trophy hunters kill hundreds of grizzlies each year in British Columbia. -- Trophy hunting results in high wounding rates, with wild animals routinely left to suffer for extended periods of time before hunters retrieve them. -- Public opinion polling reveals that more than 90 percent of BC residents oppose trophy hunting. -- Grizzlies are listed as a species of "Special Concern" by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada. -- A 2013 study published in the Public Library of Science found that trophy hunting may be causing declines in bear populations, and that hunters were exceeding government quotas in half of the populations studied. -- Further independent studies have found that former government estimates of bear populations in BC are inaccurately high and, in reality, populations are too low to sustain current hunting levels. -- A 2012 study by the Center for Responsible Travel and Stanford University found that bear-viewing businesses in BC's Great Bear Rainforest generated 12 times more visitor spending than bear hunting.

Humane Society International/Canada is a leading force for animal protection, with active programs in companion animals, wildlife and habitat protection, marine mammal preservation, farm animal welfare and animals in research. HSI/Canada is proud to be a part of Humane Society International which, together with its partners, constitutes one of the world's largest animal protection organizations. Celebrating animals and confronting cruelty worldwide - on the Web at www.hsicanada.ca

Contacts:

Media Contact:

Christopher Pare

Office: 514 395-2914 x 206

Cell: 438 402-0643

cpare@hsi.org




MONTREAL, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 08/15/17 -- Note to editors: A map is included with this press release on Marketwired's website.

HPQ Silicon Resources Inc ("HPQ") (TSX VENTURE: HPQ)(FRANKFURT: UGE)(OTC PINK: URAGF) is pleased to announce that its 100% own subsidiary, Beauce Gold Fields Inc ("BGF"), will immediately start a geophysics program in order to further delineate the boundaries of the company's recently discovered major fault that rises beneath the historical placer gold deposit, (HPQ Press release May 11, 2017) on BGF 100% owned Beauce Gold Fields property located in the municipality of St-Simon-Les-Mines in the Beauce region of Quebec.

The work program will consists of two lines audio-magnetotelluric (AMT) surveys, 2 lines of Electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) surveys and multiple gravimetric surveys, and will be done under the supervision of Professor Marc Richer-LaFleche, Ph.D. Geo of the INRS.

Patrick Levasseur, President and COO of HPQ Silicon stated, "This is an important follow-up to the discovery of the major fault line as this will narrow our search of the hard rock source of the St-Simon-Les-Mines gold placers, and since the equipment and the INRS technical team was already mobilized in the area, we just could not pass on this opportunity and wait until next year to have this important work done." Mr. Levasseur also stated, "Also exciting is the addition of ERT surveys over an unexplored area of the old gold mines along the Giroux creek were some of the largest nuggets were found in the past."

Audio-magnetotelluric (AMT) surveys of high vertical penetration will be conducted parallel to the east along Rang 6 road and along Rang Chaussegros road to the west of the previous survey that was carried out along a 5.6 km section along the St-Gustave road. This path crosses perpendicularly the stratigraphy of the Beauceville Formation and its main regional structures. Results will be used to to locate the direction of the major fault identified from the survey conducted on the St-Gustave Road. The survey will also be used to document the presence of conductors that may be associated with massive polymetallic sulphides deposits as suggested in the last survey.

Electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) surveys will be made on both sides of the Giroux Creek extending past its confluence at the Gilbert river to end on lot #, on realestate owned by the Company. (southwestern part of the map in Figure 1). This area was mined in the nineteenth and early twentieth century (shafts and tunnels) and two of the largest gold nuggets discovered in the Beauce come from this sector. Geophysical imagery should allow visualization of the geometry of the quaternary units and detect electrically polarizable zones located in the bedrock (sulphide zones).

Gravimetric survey: Given the presence of volcaniclastic rocks and graphitic shales (electrically conductive), gravimetry is the best method for detecting the presence of massive sulphides of the Champagne type (VMS, Sedex) in the St-Simon- the mines.

Mr. Benoit Violette, P. Geo is the Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 that supervised the preparation of the information in this news release.

Beauce Gold Fields Spinout to be done by Plan of Arrangement

The Company is proceeding with the spinout of its Beauce Gold Fields Inc subsidiary via a listing on the TSX-Venture exchange by way of a court-approved statutory Plan of Arrangement. Legal counsel is finalizing the Plan that will be submitted to the court, once the plan has been pre-approved by the TSX-V.

This step is required in order to obtain an interim order from the court of the Plan, so that thereafter the Plan of Arrangement can be subject to the approval of the company's shareholders at a special shareholder meeting to be called for the purpose of seeking such approval.

After having received approval of the Plan the Company will petition the court for a definitive approval of the spinout. Only upon reception of the definitive approval by the court can the Board of HPQ elect a date of record, after consultation with the TSX-V.

Further details and updates will be provided to shareholders and other stakeholders via news releases only.

Other Corporate subjects

Shares For Services Program: In accordance with the agreement between HPQ-Silicon and AGORACOM (see Uragold press release July 18, 2014), extended by both Parties from July 15, 2016 to July 15, 2017 under the same terms and conditions (see HPQ press release September 16, 2016), is extended by both Parties for an additional year, from July 15, 2017 to July 15, 2018 under the same terms and conditions.

In accordance with the shares for services agreement between HPQ and AGORACOM on August 10, 2017, HPQ Board approved the issuance of 78,470 common shares at a deemed price of $0.18 per share to pay $14,125 for services rendered during the period from January 16, 2017, ending April 15, 2017. Furthermore, today, HPQ Board has approved the issuance of 113,000 common shares at a deemed price of $0.125 per share to pay $14,125 for services rendered during the period from April 16, 2017, ending July 15, 2017.

About Beauce Gold Fields

Beauce Gold Fields Inc (BGF) is a wholly owned subsidiary of HPQ Silicon. HPQ is in the process of "Spinning Out" Beauce Gold Fields into a new publicly trading junior gold company.

The Beauce Gold Fields project is a unique, historically prolific gold property located in the municipality of Saint-Simon-les-Mines in the Beauce region of Southern Quebec. Comprising of a block of 152 claims 100% owned by HPQ, the project area hosts a six kilometer long unconsolidated gold-bearing sedimentary unit (a lower saprolite and an upper brown diamictite).

The gold in saprolite indicates a close proximity to a bedrock source of gold, providing possible further exploration discoveries. The property was also hosts numerous historical gold mines that were active from 1860s to the 1960s.

A Beauce Gold Fields presentation is available. It can be downloaded via link below

http://www.hpqsilicon.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/BGF-Presentation-V-Jul-2017.pdf

About HPQ Silicon

HPQ Silicon Resources Inc is a TSX-V listed junior exploration company planning to become a vertically integrated and diversified High Value Silicon Metal (99.9+% Si), and Solar Grade Silicon Metal (99.999+% Si) producer.

Our business model is focused on developing a disruptive High Purity and Solar Grade Silicon Metal manufacturing process (patent pending) and becoming a vertically - integrated High Value Silicon Metal and Solar Grade Silicon producer that can generate high yield returns and significant free cash flow within a relatively short time line.

Disclaimers:

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements containing the words "may", "plan", "will", "estimate", "continue", "anticipate", "intend", "expect", "in the process" and other similar expressions which constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements reflect the Company's current expectation and assumptions, and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties including, but not limited to, our expectations regarding the acceptance of our products by the market, our strategy to develop new products and enhance the capabilities of existing products, our strategy with respect to research and development, the impact of competitive products and pricing, new product development, and uncertainties related to the regulatory approval process. Such statements reflect the current views of the Company with respect to future events and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties and other risks detailed from time-to-time in the Company's on-going filings with the securities regulatory authorities, which filings can be found at www.sedar.com. Actual results, events, and performance may differ materially. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements either as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

To view the photo associated with this press release, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1100909_HPQSt-Simon-les-Mines_Geophysics.jpg

Contacts:

Patrick Levasseur

President and COO

(514) 262-9239



Bernard J. Tourillon

Chairman and CEO

(514) 907-1011

www.HPQSilicon.com




SAN JOSE, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 08/15/17 -- CloudGenix, Inc. the software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) leader, today announced it will attend VMworld 2017 in Las Vegas. The company will be demonstrating the benefits provided by its leading software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) solution with AppFabric technology. CloudGenix AppFabric helps businesses redefine their WAN using business policies for applications and sites, including performance, security, and compliance, rather than disjointed networking rules. With CloudGenix, businesses enjoy the freedom to incorporate any WAN transport, improve performance of applications in the cloud or data center, gain granular and actionable insights into how their applications and WAN links are performing, and reduce remote office hardware and operational cost. Additionally, CloudGenix will be highlighting their interoperability and support of VMware virtualized and data center cloud environments including VMware ESXi 5.5+, vSphere, and VMWare NSX.

Businesses interested in improving application performance, incorporating broadband into their WAN architecture, and reducing WAN hardware and operational costs should visit the CloudGenix booth, no. 117 to see live demonstrations of the CloudGenix solution. Further, value added resellers, master agents, and managed service providers (MSPs) that are looking to extend their portfolio to include SD-WAN should attend.

When: VMworld 2017 is August 27th through August 31st, 2017

Where: VMworld will be held at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Convention Center, 3950 South Las Vegas Blvd, Las Vegas, NV 89119 USA. CloudGenix will be in booth 117.

Registration: Registration for VMworld can be found online at https://www.vmworld.com/myvmworld.jspa

About CloudGenix

CloudGenix (www.cloudgenix.com) is the software-defined wide-area network (SD-WAN) leader, revolutionizing networking by transforming legacy WANs into a radically simplified, secure, application-defined fabric and unified hybrid WAN. Enabling application-specific, service-level agreements (SLAs), CloudGenix controls network application performance based upon application-performance SLAs and business priority. CloudGenix ION (Instant-On Network) simplifies how WANs are designed and managed, enabling customers to build "networks without networking," and achieve more than twice the performance at less than half the cost while extending data center-class security to the network edge. Founded in 2013 by a team that has delivered industry-leading products in networking, SDN, cloud, security and web-scale applications, CloudGenix serves world-class financial services, legal, retail and technology organizations.

Contact



CloudGenix

pr@cloudgenix.com




Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 12, 2018) - Abattis Bioceuticals Corp. (CSE: ATT) (OTCQB: ATTBF) (the "Company" or "Abattis") is pleased to announce that, along with Northern Vine Labs, it will be attending the Lift Cannabis Expo, Canada's largest and best-attended cannabis tradeshow, from January 12 to 14 at the Vancouver Convention Centre. This year's Lift Expo will feature nearly 200 exhibitors from across North America and will host talks by cannabis thought leaders, live cooking and growing demos, a vape lounge and a cannabis career fair. For more information about the Lift Expo, see www.liftexpo.ca. Northern Vine Labs is a subsidiary of Abattis and Emerald Health Therapeutics Inc.

Dr. David Galvez, Abattis's senior scientific advisor and a seasoned expert on the formulation and commercialization of botanical-based products, will be participating on the Lift Expo panel on "Ancillary Services in the Cannabis Space: Overlooked Opportunities and Next Steps" and Abattis will be manning a booth at the Lift Expo. We welcome shareholders and attendees to come by and chat with us.

Abattis also announces that, further to its news release dated December 12, 2017, it is anticipated that Frank Zhu will be engaged as technology advisor to Abattis. Mr. Zhu has been instrumental in the development of Abattis's column chromatography extraction technology, which is capable of extraction on an industrial scale, delivers significant cost advantages, separates cannabinoids on a molecular level and extracts pure isolates such as CBD and THCA while separating pesticides from biomass. We look forward to working more closely with Mr. Zhu, as the industry tends towards a commoditization of marijuana and hemp and downstream services such as extraction become an increasingly important focus.

Abattis also announces the resignation of Dr. Shuang Xie as chief technology officer and a director of the Company. We thank Dr. Xie for her contributions to the Company and wish her all the best in her future endeavours.

About Abattis Bioceuticals Corp.

Abattis is a life sciences and biotechnology company which aggregates, integrates, and invests in cannabis technologies and biotechnology services for the legal cannabis industry developing in Canada. The Company has successfully developed and licensed natural health products, medicines, extractions, and ingredients for the biologics, nutraceutical, bioceutical, and cosmetic markets. The Company is also seeking to acquire exclusive intellectual property rights to agricultural technologies to be employed in extraction and processing of botanical ingredients and compounds. The Company follows strict standard operating protocols, and adheres to the applicable laws of Canada and foreign jurisdictions.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD,

ABATTIS BIOCEUTICALS CORP,

"Rob Abenante"

Robert Abenante, President & CEO

For more information, please visit the Company's website at: www.abattis.com or www.northernvinelabs.com

For inquiries, please contact the Company at (604) 336-0881 or at news@abattis.com.

FORWARD LOOKING INFORMATION

This press release contains forward-looking statements. The use of any of the words "anticipate", "continue", "estimate", "expect", "may", "will", "project", "intends", "should", "believe" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements in this press release include statements regarding: the benefits of Abattis's column chromatography extraction technology and Mr. Zhu's engagement by the Company. Although the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which the forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements because the Company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. Since forward-looking statements address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties, including: that the development Abattis's column chromatography extraction technology will not progress as expected; that Mr. Zhu will not be engaged by the Company or that such engagement will not benefit the Company as expected; that the Company will not be able to execute its proposed business plan in the time required or at all due to regulatory, financial or other issues; that the Company's competitors may develop competing technologies; changes in regulatory requirements; and other factors beyond the Company's control. Additional risk factors are included in the Company's Management's Discussion and Analysis, available under the Company's profile on www.sedar.com. The forward-looking statements are made as at the date hereof and the Company disclaims any intent or obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements, where because of new information, future events or results, or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws.
According to the latest market study released by Technavio, the global urodynamic devices market is expected to grow at a CAGR of close to 6% during the forecast period.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170815005075/en/

Technavio has published a new report on the global urodynamic devices market from 2017-2021. (Graphic: Business Wire)

This research report titled 'Global Urodynamic Devices Market 2017-2021' provides an in-depth analysis of the market in terms of revenue and emerging market trends. This report also includes an up to date analysis and forecasts for various market segments and all geographical regions.

According to Barath Palada, a lead analyst at Technavio forurology devices research, "The demand for urodynamic testing is increasing at a significant rate in emerging countries due to growing awareness towards early diagnosis and preventive medicine. The shift towards early diagnosis and increasing awareness regarding the availability of invasive and non-invasive diagnostic techniques in these regions has given vendors an opportunity to increase their presence in these fast-growing markets."

This report is available at a USD 1,000 discount for a limited time only: View market snapshot before purchasing

Buy 1 Technavio report and get the second for 50% off. Buy 2 Technavio reports and get the third for free

The market research analysis categorizes the global urodynamic devices market into three major product segments. They are:

Hospitals

Diagnostic labs

Others

Looking for more information on this market? Request a free sample report

Technavio's sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report including the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more.

Hospitals

Hospitals form a key end-user category and have a major impact on the market growth of Urodynamic devices. There are multi-specialty hospitals and hospitals which work under government sponsorship or through private entities. These hospitals have more than 500 hospital beds with outpatient and inpatient accommodation of people and generate more revenue. Hospitals have state of the art infrastructure to fulfill the needs of the patients. They have facilities for diagnosis, monitoring the chronic diseases, highly equipped special operating rooms.

Hospitals engage closely with many suppliers in the market, to procure medicinal products and consumables in bulk. They also tie up with reimbursement authorities and government organizations. In a medium sized hospital of 200-300 beds where the administration is often decentralized, such hospitals require support of third party laboratory testing and medical equipment for their healthcare services. Hospitals are key end-users that will influence the market growth of urodynamic procedures and devices.

Diagnostic labs

A diagnostic laboratory or medical laboratory is the place where tests are being carried out to obtain information about health of patients. Some of these laboratories are attached to the hospital while some are privately held. Urodynamic labs diagnose and calculate the flow rate of urine. Urodynamic procedures such as Uroflowmetry, cystometry, EMG, VLPP, UPP and video urodynamics test are carried out in these diagnostic labs. A certified lab technician will diagnose stress urinary continence, urge urinary continence and many other complications of lower urinary tract in these labs.

"The number of diagnostic labs has been increasing gradually with the increase in disorders. These diagnostic labs are highly equipped with advanced software to analyze and evaluate patient data, therefore, the increase in demand for diagnostic labs will fuel the growth of urodynamic devices market," says Barath.

Others

This segment includes physician offices, private clinics, and healthcare centers. Many people are undergoing treatments due to improved patient care, presence of favorable reimbursement processing and availability of easy appointment. As per CDC report in 2016, around 125.7 million people visited out-patient settings, while visit to physicians' offices were 922.6 million in the US in 2014. The number of patients visiting physician's office is increasing gradually which will lead hospitals to implement business models that involve their collaboration with physicians' offices for conversion into hospital-based providers.

The top vendors highlighted by Technavio's market research analysts in this report are:

LABORIE

CooperSurgical

Verathon

Albyn Medical

Browse Related Reports:

Global Urology Guidewires Market 2017-2021

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About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions.

With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 10,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com.

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Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - August 15, 2017) - Opawica Explorations Inc. (TSXV: OPW) (the "Company") announces that the Company has commenced mobilization of an initial Phase I drill program of up to four holes at its 100% owned Bazooka gold property located near Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec.

The drill program will consist of one deep hole of approximately 1,000 metres to test for gold mineralization at depth associated with the Cadillac Larder Lake Break and related stratigraphy. The hole will also serve as a platform to conduct down hole geophysics.

Three holes are planned to be drilled to fill in certain areas between past drilling at depths of up to 200 metres. Following this drilling, the Company will be in the position to proceed with a further Phase II drilling program that will include a resource calculation on the eastern 300 metre portion of the Bazooka property.

The initial 1,000 metre hole will be drilled first and is expected to commence drilling in the next two weeks and should be completed within 30 days.

ABOUT THE BAZOOKA PROPERTY

The Company's Bazooka property adjoins the Yorbeau Resources Inc. ("Yorbeau") - Kinross Gold Corporation ("Kinross") optioned Rouyn property where up to 22,000 metres of drilling has been completed by Kinross as operator along certain sections of the 9 kilometre strike length of the Rouyn property. Some of this drilling has been completed within a few hundred metres of Opawica's eastern boundary near the Augmitto shaft on the Rouyn property.

The Bazooka property hosts significant gold mineralization starting at the eastern border of the Yorbeau-Kinross Rouyn ground to at least 800 metres to the west on Bazooka. The Bazooka property is open on strike for seven kilometres to the west and is open at depth. Of the seven kilometres of strike length on the Bazooka property, only 800 metres have been tested within 300 metres of surface.

Past holes drilled by previous operators and current holes drilled by Opawica in 2017 have returned holes, such as and ranging between, 54.8 metres at 0.65 g/t Au (Opawica-2017), 48 metres at 1.38 g/t Au (uncut -2017 restated from Lake Shore Gold ("LSG", 2003); 17 metres at 7.86 g/t Au as well as 3.20 metres @ 12.49 g/t Au (RT Minerals Corp 2011); and 94 g/t Au over 1.25 metres (LSG 2004) as well as other gold bearing intercepts. All of the above intercepts are estimated at 80 to 85% true widths and all of the above gold mineralization is within 300 metres of surface.

Mr. Yvan Bussieres, P.Eng., is the Qualified Person who has prepared or supervised the preparation of the information that forms the basis for the scientific and technical disclosure in this news release.

PRIVATE PLACEMENT

The Company proposes to undertake a private placement to raise gross proceeds of up to $1,200,000 (the "Offering"). The Company proposes to raise up to $400,000 through the sale of up to 8,000,000 non flow-through units priced at $0.05 (the "NFT Units") and up to $800,000 through the sale of up to 10,000,000 flow-through units priced at $0.08 (the "FT Units"). Each NFT Unit consists of one common share and one half of a share purchase warrant, with each whole warrant (the "Warrant") exercisable into one further common share at a price of $0.10 for a term of one year. Each FT Unit consists of one flow-through common share and one half of a share purchase warrant, with each whole Warrant exercisable into one further common share at a price of $0.10 for a term of one year.

The Warrants will contain an accelerated expiry clause such that, in circumstances where the closing price of the shares of the Company on the TSX Venture Exchange is $0.15 or greater for a 20 day consecutive trading period, they will expire if not exercised 14 days following the 20 day trading period.

The Offering will be conducted under available exemptions from the prospectus requirements of applicable securities legislation and participation in the Offering will be available to existing shareholders in qualifying jurisdictions in Canada in accordance with the provisions of BC Instrument 45-354 (the "Existing Shareholder Exemption") and similar provisions in other jurisdictions' securities legislation and will be available to persons in qualifying jurisdictions in Canada who have obtained advice as to the suitability of the investment from a person registered as an investment dealer in accordance with the provisions of BC Instrument 45-536 and similar provisions in other jurisdictions' securities legislation.

The Company has set August 11, 2017 as the record date for the purpose of determining shareholders entitled to participate in the Offering in reliance on the Existing Shareholder Exemption. Qualifying shareholders who wish to participate in the Offering should contact the Company as detailed below. If the Offering is oversubscribed, units will be allocated pro rata amongst all subscribers.

The proceeds from the sale of the flow-through portion of the Offering will be used for exploration activity on the Company's 100% owned Bazooka gold property. The proceeds from the sale of the non flow-through portion of the Offering will be used for general working capital.

A finder's and/or administrative fee of up to 10% may be paid to registered representatives in connection with the Offering. The fee will be comprised of 50% cash and 50% common shares at $0.05 per share.

The Offering is subject to the acceptance of the TSX Venture Exchange.

For more information, please visit the Company's website at www.opawica.com.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Paul Antoniazzi

Managing Director

Opawica Explorations Inc.

Telephone: 604-681-3170

Fax: 604-681-3552

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider (as the term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy of accuracy of this news release.

Forward-looking Statements

Certain statements in this press release relating to the Company's exploration activities, project expenditures and business plans are approximate and are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of securities legislation. The Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update these forward-looking statements. These forward looking statements represent management's best judgment based on current facts and assumptions that management considers reasonable, including that operating and capital plans will not be disrupted by issues such as adverse market conditions, mechanical failure, unavailability of parts, labor disturbances, interruption in transportation or utilities, or adverse weather conditions, that there are no material unanticipated variations in budgeted costs, that contractors will complete projects according to schedule, and that actual mineralization on properties may not achieve any category of resource(s). The Company makes no representation that reasonable business people in possession of the same information would reach the same conclusions. 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 expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. In particular, fluctuations in the price of gold, equity markets or in currency markets could prevent the Company from achieving its targets. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. There is no guarantee that drill results reported in this news release or future releases will lead to the identification of a deposit that can be mined economically, and further work is required to identify resources and reserves. We seek safe harbour.
VistaJet invites customers to fly in parallel with an astronomical anomaly



NEW YORK, 2017-08-15 18:22 CEST (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- VistaJet, the first and only global aviation company, will be offering customers the opportunity to experience and chase the American Solar Eclipse, appearing for the first time in 99 years on August 21, 2017.



A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/c0c41d7d-7ad9-4a46-9d2d-dcc11 48b4772



The coast-to-coast National Eclipse and astronomical phenomenon will be visible in the United States from approximately 10:15AM PST, with the sun disappearing behind the moon from the Oregon coast, passing through 14 states to South Carolina. Without being in this 70-mile strip, Americans will not be able to see the sun eclipsed in totality.



With unparalleled experience flying into and out of the hardest to reach destinations, VistaJet is offering its customers the opportunity to witness the phenomenon, flying straight through the strip to experience the eclipse as it journeys across the country for the first time in almost a century - unrivalled views with the best in class on-board experience



"Our customers expect the most unique opportunities and the highest level of service, and the chance to chase this once in a lifetime happening on one of our jets is truly an experience to remember, " said Thomas Flohr, Founder and Chairman of VistaJet. "It's important to provide the extraordinary for our clients, and this opportunity amplifies optimal viewing potential of the spectacle up in the sky."



This rare sight is best viewed from destinations including: Salem OR, Madras OR, Idaho Falls ID, Jackson WY, Casper WY, Lincoln NE, Jefferson City MO, Carbondale IL, Paducah KY, Madisonville TN, Nashville TN, Clayton GA, Columbia SC and Charleston, all reachable on a VistaJet aircraft.



VistaJet offers global flying services unlike any other company in business aviation, which has lead to a 91% client retention rate. Unlike business jet charter, VistaJet owns every one of the over 70 silver and red aircraft in its fleet, so customers know what will greet them on the tarmac anytime, anywhere in the world. The company has created an innovative infrastructure with the capacity to manage global flights 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. To date, VistaJet has arranged for heads of state, corporate leaders, entrepreneurs and private individuals to fly to over 1,600 airports in 187 countries.



About VistaJet



VistaJet is the first and only global aviation company. On its fleet of silver and red business jets, VistaJet has flown corporations, governments and private clients to 187 countries worldwide. Founded in 2004 by Thomas Flohr, the company pioneered an innovative business model where customers pay only for the hours they fly, free of the responsibilities and asset risks linked to aircraft ownership. VistaJet's signature Program service offers customers a bespoke subscription of flight hours on its fleet of mid and long range jets, to fly them anywhere and at any time.



VistaJet owned and U.S. registered aircraft are operated by duly licensed U.S. air carriers. VistaJet and its U.S. subsidiary, VistaJet US, Inc., are not U.S. direct or indirect air carriers. Any reference to 'the fleet' or 'aircraft' include own-operated or partner operated aircraft. VistaJet US Inc. acts as agent of the client or as sourcing agent for duly licensed U.S. air carriers depending on the selected services.



More VistaJet information and news at vistajet.com.



Information Jennifer Tyler VistaJet International T: +44 203 617 3077 M: +44 7834 335505 jennifer.tyler@vistajet.com Liz Anklow DKC T: (212)981-5103 VistaJet@dkcnews.com

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
DUBLIN, August 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The "Coconut Water Market in Europe 2017-2021" report has been added to Research and Markets' offering.

The coconut water market in Europe to grow at a CAGR of 25.03% during the period 2017-2021

The report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the coconut water market in Europe for 2017-2021. To calculate the market size, the report considers the retail selling price as the average selling price of the product. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.

The growth of the packaged coconut water market in Brazil suggests that major opportunities exist in other tropical countries (like Indonesia, India, Malaysia, and Ecuador), even though fresh coconut water is highly preferred. However, as the trend of packaged food and beverages is gradually gaining prominence in these countries, it is expected that consumers will eventually switch to packaged healthy beverages owing to factors like portability, convenience, and hygiene, especially for consumption in schools and offices.

According to the report, one of the major drivers for this market is Nutritional benefits of coconut water. Coconut water is becoming popular in Europe owing to its numerous health benefits, which is resulting in an increase in the sales of packaged coconut water in the region. Consumers who have busy lifestyles are looking for ways to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Thus, they have started deviating from carbonated drinks and other sugar-laden drinks such as juices and nectars to healthy beverages like coconut water. This natural beverage is rich in sodium, potassium, and other essential electrolytes.

The latest trend gaining momentum in the market is Growing trend for organic coconut water. The popularity of organic coconut water is increasing as consumers are opting for healthy, natural, and safe food products. In addition to this, many consumers in the region trust and perceive organic food to be healthy as they are concerned about the origin and quality of the ingredients that are used in the preparation of products.

Further, the report states that one of the major factors hindering the growth of this market is Product consistency and reliability issue in supply chain. One of the major challenges that the regional coconut water market is currently facing is product consistency. This is because each coconut is different and all coconuts do not taste the same. The coconut trees that grow closer to coasts have a salty taste, while those which are grown inland usually have a bland taste. Thus, it becomes difficult for the players to have consistency in all the packaged coconut water, especially for 100% coconut water.

Key Vendors

CHi

Coca-Cola

GraceKennedy

green coco europe

PepsiCo

Vaivai

Vita Coco

Other Prominent Vendors

Cocofina - The Coconut Experts

COCOWELL

Dharma By Kova Kft .

. Freedom Brands ( GO COCO )

) Genuine Coconut

Goya Foods

Happy Coco

INVO Coconut Water

Kulau

MightyBee

Pearl Royal

RiRi Coconut Water

Rubicon Exotic

Stur

TIANA Fair Trade Organics

TROPICAL SUN

UFC Coconut Water

Key Topics Covered:







Part 01: Executive Summary



Part 02: Scope Of The Report



Part 03: Research Methodology



Part 04: Introduction



Part 05: Market Landscape



Part 06: Market Segmentation By Product



Part 07: Market Segmentation By Distribution Channel



Part 08: Key Leading Countries



Part 09: Decision Framework



Part 10: Drivers And Challenges



Part 11: Market Trends



Part 12: Vendor Landscape



Part 13: Key Vendor Analysis



Part 14: Appendix





For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/plnbm9/coconut_water





Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com



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The global float switch market is expected to grow at a CAGR of more than 3% during the forecast period, according to Technavio's latest market research.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170815005791/en/

Technavio has published a new report on the global float switch market from 2017-2021. (Graphic: Business Wire)

In this market research report, Technaviocovers the market outlook and growth prospects of the globalfloat switchmarketfor 2017-2021. The market is further categorized into two product segments comprising of horizontally mountable and vertically mountable float switches, of which the horizontally mountable float switches accounted for more than 62% of the market share in 2016.

"The demand for these products is expected to continue throughout the forecast period mainly due to the demand from the oil and gas, water and wastewater, chemicals, and automotive industries. There are many investments in these industrial sectors for process automation and to meet the government regulations on workplace safety. This will have a positive impact on the global float switch market as many end-users use these switches for liquid level measurement," says Bharath Kanniappan, a lead automation research expert from Technavio.

Technavio's research analysts segment the global float switch market into the following regions:

Americas

APAC

EMEA

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Float switch market in the Americas

The Americas was the leading revenue generator for the global float switch market in the past year, and this is expected to continue throughout the forecast period due to the demand from chemicals, automotive, and power industries. The US, Mexico, and Brazil are the major revenue generating countries in the Americas. There are many investments in this region, which are expected to have a positive impact on the float switch market in the Americas.

The chemical industry in the region has benefitted due to the recent decline in the crude oil prices and shale gas exploration in the US. This acts as a feedstock for chemical manufacturers, and there are strict government regulations in countries like the US due to which many chemical manufacturers are upgrading their facilities to meet the regulations. This will lead to an increase in demand for float switches in the region.

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Float switch market in APAC

APAC is expected to be the fastest growing market for float switches during the forecast period, mainly due to the increased investments in water and wastewater, oil and gas, and food and beverages industries. The major factors for the increased investment are the lower labor wages, abundant availability of natural resources, and favorable government policies in the region.

"The growing need for potable water in countries like Singapore, India, and China has led to increased investments to improve the efficiency of the water treatment plants and water supply systems. Singapore is importing water from Malaysia to meet its demand, which is forcing the Singapore government to invest in water treatment and desalination plants. These developments will have a positive impact the float switch market in APAC," says Bharath.

Float switch market in EMEA

The revenue from the EMEA market is expected to rise at a slow rate mainly due to the recent decline in the crude oil prices. This has affected the revenue from the Middle Eastern countries. However, there are many investments, which will have a positive impact on the float switch market in the region during the second half of the forecast period.

Due to the strict government regulations on workplace safety, many manufacturing facilities across Europe are upgrading their machinery. This will create demand for float switches in EMEA during the forecast period.

The top vendors in the global float switch market as highlighted in this market research analysis are:

Baumer

Emerson

OMEGA Engineering

SMD Fluid Controls

WIKA

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About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions.

With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 10,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com.

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Award-Winning Wedding Dress Designer Invites Brides to Connect

SALT LAKE CITY, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --Maggie Sottero Designs (www.maggiesottero.com) celebrates its 20th year as a leading wedding dress designer this fall. Established in 1997, the company revolutionized the industry with its signature corset closure. The debut Maggie Sottero collectionsolidified the Sottero family's multigenerational involvement in the bridalwear industry as one of the most respected bridal gown manufacturers in the world.

Video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXB6-DmPJm0

View the company's 20th anniversary legacy video at https://www.maggiesottero.com/about.

"In 1997, Maggie Sottero offered a product unlike anything on the market: elegant and affordable gowns with a couture edge," says Kelly Midgley, lead designer at Maggie Sottero Designs. "Today, in an era of ever-increasing wedding costs, Maggie Sottero Designs upholds its commitment to innovative bridalwear at attainable price points. From initial concept to final touches, each gown embodies the pursuit of perfection."

Today, the award-winning wedding dress designer features:

Authorized retailers in over 70 countries

Trend-setting bridalwear at attainable prices

Innovative construction for optimized fit

To date, millions of brides have chosen a Maggie Sottero Designs gown for their wedding day. To commemorate, the company launched a social media campaign inviting brides from the last twenty years to share images from their weddings using the hashtag MaggieBridesForever. Brides who have worn a Maggie Sottero, Sottero and Midgley, or Rebecca Ingram gown are invited to participate in the campaign.

Maggie Sottero Designs' twentieth anniversary gown collections will be unveiled on runways in Las Vegas, Chicago, New York, and England in September, and on the website in October. Brides interested in the designer's three labels can find a store on the company website.

Maggie Sottero Designs Resources:

Collections: https://www.maggiesottero.com/

Retailers: http://retailers.maggiesottero.com/

Blog: https://www.maggiesottero.com/blog/

About Maggie Sottero Designs:

For twenty years, Maggie Sottero Designs has been one of the most recognized and sought after bridal gown manufacturers in the world, with design studios in Sydney, Australia, and Salt Lake City, Utah. Brides know Maggie Sottero Designs for its inspiring collections and meticulous attention to detail. The couture designer's mission is to make dreams a reality for brides by delivering innovative styles, superior quality, and best-in-class service through win-win relationships with its retailers, supply chain partners, and service providers.

Logo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/399080/Maggie_Sottero_Designs___Logo.jpg
The global stethoscopes market is expected to grow at a CAGR of close to 5% during the forecast period, according to Technavio's latest market research.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170815005873/en/

Technavio has published a new report on the global stethoscopes market from 2017-2021. (Graphic: Business Wire)

In this market research report, Technaviocovers the market outlook and growth prospects of the globalstethoscopesmarketfor 2017-2021. The market is further categorized into three product segments, comprising of electronic/digital stethoscopes, manual and mechanical stethoscopes, and other stethoscopes.

Technavio's research analysts segment the global stethoscopes market into the following regions:

Americas

EMEA

APAC

Looking for more information on this market? Request a free sample report

Technavio's sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report including the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more.

Stethoscopes market in the Americas

In 2016, the Americas dominated the global stethoscopes market, accounting for more than 46% of the market. North America was the largest revenue contributor to the stethoscopes market. The market is expected to witness slow growth rate during the forecast period as most of the healthcare facilities already possess stethoscopes, hence the market is moving toward maturity. However, increasing advancements in stethoscopes and growing awareness among physicians, nurses, and individuals related to improved healthcare facilities will contribute to the growth of the market.

The scope of market growth in this region is limited as the market is becoming mature. However, increasing R&D and the US FDA approval for wireless stethoscopes compatible with visual monitors to read the vital signs of the individuals will contribute to the growth of this market during the forecast period.

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Stethoscopes market in EMEA

In 2016, EMEA accounted for close to 34% of the total market share of the global stethoscopes market, which is expected to decrease by 2021 slightly. Countries such as Germany, Italy, Spain, France, and the UK contributed significantly to the growth of stethoscopes market in this region.

According to Neha Noopur, a lead analyst at Technavio for orthopedics and medical devices research, "Growing awareness with respect to the benefits of using stethoscopes with advanced technological features such as ultrasonic sound wave will contribute to the growth of this market. Moreover, the increasing demand for electronic/digital stethoscopes in EMEA is expected to have a positive impact on the market during the forecast period."

Stethoscopes market in APAC

In 2016, APAC accounted for the share of 20.1% of the global stethoscopes market. Japan and China significantly contributed to the growth of this market due to better healthcare infrastructure and availability of many stethoscopes manufacturers in these regions.

"The development of new hospitals and diagnostic centers, increasing healthcare expenditure and continuously improving healthcare infrastructure in developing economies such as Japan, China, and India are some of the major factors that will influence the growth of the stethoscopes market in APAC," says Neha.

Moreover, more than 50% of the total world's population resides in this region. Hence, there is an immense opportunity for manufacturers of stethoscopes to expand their sales and distribution channels in this region. The leading manufacturers can collaborate with the local manufacturers in this region to expand their market share and geographical footprint.

The top vendors in the global stethoscopes market as highlighted in this market research analysis are:

3M

American Diagnostic Corporation

GF Health Products

Medline Industries

Rudolf Riester

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About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions.

With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 10,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170815005873/en/

Contacts:

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Jesse Maida

Media Marketing Executive

US: +1 630 333 9501

UK: +44 208 123 1770

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Regulatory News:

Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd. (LN:PSH) (NA:PSH) today announces that it has purchased, through PSH's agent, Jefferies International Limited ("Jefferies"), the following number of PSH's ordinary shares of no par value (ISIN Code: GG00BPFJTF46) (the "Shares"):

Date of purchase: 15 August 2017 Number of Shares purchased: 35,263 Shares Highest price paid per Share: 1,109 pence 14.26 USD Lowest price paid per Share: 1,102 pence 14.17 USD Average price paid per Share: 1,103.56 pence 14.19 USD

PSH intends to cancel these Shares. The net asset value per Share related to this Share buyback is USD 17.75 GBP 13.66 which was calculated as of 8 August 2017. After giving effect to the above Share buyback, PSH has 238,352,753 outstanding Shares. The prices per share in USD were calculated by Jefferies.

The number of PSH Management Shares and the 1 special voting share (held by PS Holdings Independent Voting Company Limited) has not been affected.

About Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd.:

Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd. (LN:PSH) (NA:PSH) is an investment holding company structured as a closed-ended fund that makes concentrated investments principally in North American companies.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170815006121/en/

Contacts:

Media:

Maitland

James Devas, +44 20 7379 5151

Media-pershingsquareholdings@maitland.co.uk
DENVER, CO / ACCESSWIRE / August 15, 2017 / United Cannabis Corporation (OTCQB: CNAB) (the "Company" or "United Cannabis") today announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued US Patent #9730911 (the "Patent"), granting exclusive rights to its proprietary formulations based on compounds extracted from cannabis plant materials; more specifically, the composition of matter pertaining to the use of phytocannabinoids, cannabinoids, and specific terpene profiles in liquid form. This composition of matter patent provides protection for United Cannabis' proprietary formulations.

Earnest Blackmon, United Cannabis' Chief Executive Officer, commented on the approval, "This is a significant milestone for United Cannabis. Our primary objective has always been to develop unique and effective cannabinoid based products. This Patent is one the cornerstones of our business plan for obtaining FDA approval."

Tony Verzura, the Company's Chief Technology Officer, added, "I have spent the last 20 years working with cannabis as a patient, activist, caregiver, and innovator. Our patented innovations enabled our team to utilize chemical-free extractions and infusion methodologies for a wide range of accurately dosed products. These advances have helped us provide relief for thousands of patients suffering from a variety of ailments."

The patent protects the use of suspending both phytocannabinoids and cannabinoids with specific combinations of cannabis derived terpenes in liquid forms with an array of delivery methods including capsule, sublingual, topical, oral, suppository, and vaporization. Cannabinoids referenced in the application include ratios of tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THCa), cannabidiolic acid (CBDa), tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), cannabinol (CBN), cannabidiol (CBD), cannabichromenic acid (CBCa), and cannabichromene (CBC).

About United Cannabis Corporation

United Cannabis Corporation is a biotechnology company dedicated to the development of phyto-therapeutic based products supported by patented technologies for the pharmaceutical, medical, and industrial markets. The Company has long advocated the application of cannabinoids for medical applications and is building a platform for designing targeted therapies to increase the quality of life for patients around the world. The Company's products are patent protected, first in class medicines with applications to a global market. United Cannabis trades on the OTCQB under the symbol CNAB.

For further information, please visit www.unitedcannabis.us.

Contact:

Staff@UnitedCannabis.us

Phone: 303-386-7321

Certain statements in this news release may contain forward-looking information within the meaning of Rule 175 under the Securities Act of 1933, and are subject to Rule 3b-6 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and are subject to the safe harbors, created by those rules. All statements, other than statements of fact, included in this release, including, without limitation, statements regarding potential future plans and objectives of the company, are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and other results and further events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Future events and actual results could differ materially from those set forth in, contemplated by, or underlying the forward-looking statements.

SOURCE: United Cannabis Corporation
Regulatory News:

In connection with AP Alternative Assets, L.P.'s ("AAA"; Euronext Amsterdam: AAA) equity investment in Athene Holding Ltd. ("Athene"; NYSE: ATH), AAA, the largest shareholder of Athene, informs its investors that Athene announced today it will release its financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2017 after the market close on February 21, 2018, and it will host a conference call and live webcast to discuss these results on February 22, 2018 at 9:00 am ET. In addition, Athene plans to post a presentation to its website prior to the market open on February 22, 2018 that will be discussed during the conference call. For additional details regarding the earnings release and conference call, please visit the investor relations section of Athene's website at ir.athene.com.

About AP Alternative Assets

AP Alternative Assets was established by Apollo Global Management, LLC and its subsidiaries ("Apollo") and is a closed-end limited partnership established under the laws of Guernsey. Apollo is a leading global alternative investment manager with 27 years of experience investing across the capital structure of leveraged companies. AAA is managed by Apollo Alternative Assets, L.P. For more information about AP Alternative Assets, please visit www.apolloalternativeassets.com.

This announcement does not constitute or form part of an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to purchase or subscribe for securities in the United States or in any other jurisdiction.

This press release contains forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties because they relate to future events and circumstances. Such statements are based on currently available operating, financial and competitive information and are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from the historical experience and expressed or implied expectations of AAA. Undue reliance should not be placed on such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made and AAA does not undertake to update its forward-looking statements unless required by law.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180212006326/en/

Contacts:

AP Alternative Assets, L.P.

Gary Stein (New York), +1-212-822 0467
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - August 15, 2017) - RT Minerals Corp. (TSXV: RTM) (OTC Pink: RTMFF) (the "Company") announces that it has secured DTC eligibility for its shares traded in the United States under the symbol "RTMFF" effective August 15, 2017.

The Depository Trust Company (DTC) is a subsidiary of The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation DTCC, and manages the electronic clearing and settlement of publicly traded companies. Securities that are eligible to be electronically cleared and settled through the DTC are considered "DTC eligible". This electronic method of clearing securities speeds up the receipt of stock and cash, and thus accelerates the settlement process for investors trading the Company's shares on the OTC Pink Market.

ABOUT RT MINERALS CORP.

RT Minerals Corp. is a junior resource company engaged in the acquisition, exploration and evaluation of primarily gold and diamond properties in Canada. The Company's common shares are listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol "RTM" and on the OTC Pink Market under the symbol "RTMFF". The Company's principal mineral properties in Canada include:

Ballard Lake Property - 366 square kilometre (~141 square mile) diamond and gold property located approximately 50 kilometres northeast of Wawa, Ontario, in which the Company owns a 100% interest, subject to a 2% net smelter royalty; and

Norwalk Property - Gold property located approximately 6 kilometres south of Wawa, Ontario, in which the Company has an option to earn a 100% interest, subject to a 2% net smelter royalty.

For more information on the Company and its properties, please visit the Company's website at www.rtmcorp.com.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Paul Antoniazzi

President and Chief Executive Officer

RT Minerals Corp.

Telephone: 604-681-3170

Fax: 604-681-3552

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider (as the term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy of accuracy of this news release.

Forward-looking Statements

Certain statements in this press release relating to the Company's exploration activities, project expenditures and business plans are approximate and are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of securities legislation. The Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update these forward-looking statements. These forward looking statements represent management's best judgment based on current facts and assumptions that management considers reasonable, including that operating and capital plans will not be disrupted by issues such as adverse market conditions, mechanical failure, unavailability of parts, labor disturbances, interruption in transportation or utilities, or adverse weather conditions, that there are no material unanticipated variations in budgeted costs, that contractors will complete projects according to schedule, and that actual mineralization on properties may not achieve any category of resource(s). The Company makes no representation that reasonable business people in possession of the same information would reach the same conclusions. 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 expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. In particular, fluctuations in the price of gold, equity markets or in currency markets could prevent the Company from achieving its targets. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. There is no guarantee that drill results reported in this news release or future releases will lead to the identification of a deposit that can be mined economically, and further work is required to identify resources and reserves.We seek safe harbour.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 08/15/17 -- Columbus Gold Corp. (TSX: CGT)(OTCQX: CBGDF) ("Columbus") announces that it has granted incentive stock options to Blaine Monaghan in connection with his appointment to the position of Vice President, Corporate Development. Mr. Monaghan has been granted the right to purchase up to 250,000 common shares, at an exercise at a price of $0.75 per share, for a period of five years. Half of the stock options will vest on February 1st, 2018, with the remainder vesting on July 31st, 2018.

ABOUT COLUMBUS GOLD CORP.

Columbus is a leading gold exploration and development company operating in French Guiana, France, and in Nevada. Columbus holds a major interest in the Montagne d'Or project in French Guiana, which hosts a world-class gold deposit with a recently completed Feasibility Study. Columbus is presently evaluating a number of mine construction financing options. In Nevada, Columbus is advancing its Eastside gold discovery. Eastside has outstanding infrastructure for mining and processing, and metallurgical testing indicates that gold and silver at Eastside are amenable to cyanide leaching, whether oxide or sulphide. Columbus recently announced plans to spin out its US property portfolio, including Eastside, into a new company called Allegiant Gold Ltd.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD,

Robert F. Giustra, Chairman & CEO

This release contains forward-looking information and statements, as defined by law including without limitation Canadian securities laws and the "safe harbor" provisions of the US Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 ("forward-looking statements"), respecting Columbus' plans to spin-out its American assets into a separate publicly traded company called Allegiant Gold Ltd., to undertake a private placement in connection with a spin-out, and to undertake drilling programs at its projects in the United States in 2017 and 2018 Forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to materially differ from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements, including: that the spin-out may not be completed as planned due to failure to obtain shareholder or regulatory approval, that the private placement may not be completed in full or at all due to market malaise, that drilling programs may not be completed as planned; factors include the ability to acquire any necessary permits and third party authorizations; environmental compliance; cost increases; availability of qualified workers and drill equipment; risks associated with exploration projects including, without limitation, the accuracy of interpretations; mineral reserve and resource estimates (including the risk of assumption and methodology errors and inability to complete the intended drilling program); dependence on third parties for services; non-performance by contractual counterparties; title risks; and general economic conditions. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management at the date the statements are made and a number of assumptions that may prove to be incorrect, including, without limitation, assumptions about: market prices, exploitation and exploration success; the timing and content of upcoming work programs; general business and economic conditions; the timing and receipt of required approvals; continued availability of capital and financing; power prices; the ability to procure equipment and supplies including, without limitation, drill rigs; and ongoing relations with employees, partners, optionees and joint venturers. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements contained herein. The foregoing list is not exhaustive and Columbus undertakes no obligation to update any of the foregoing except as required by law.

Contacts:

Investor Relations

(604) 634-0970

1-888-818-1364

info@columbusgold.com




VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 08/15/17 -- Select Sands Corp. ("Select Sands" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: SNS)(OTCQX: SLSDF) today announced financial and operational results for the second quarter of 2017 and the filing of its 2017 second quarter financial statements and associated management's discussion and analysis on www.sedar.com. All results are stated in Canadian dollars (CAD) unless noted otherwise as US dollars (USD). The average currency conversion used for the second quarter was $1 USD = $1.3432 CAD.

Second Quarter 2017 Financial Highlights

-- Revenue more than doubled to $3.1 million from $1.5 million in the first quarter 2017. Second quarter revenue would have been greater, except for lost sales volumes of 8,000 to 12,000 tons due to a pause in shipping during the May flood in Arkansas, and the installation of a vertical shaft impact crusher at the Freeze Farm Wet Processing Facility. -- Gross margin for the Company's Sand Operations was $0.8 million, a substantial improvement over the gross margin loss of $0.4 million during this year's first quarter. -- Comprehensive loss decreased more than 75% to $0.8 million, or $0.01 basic and diluted loss per common share, as compared to a first quarter 2017 comprehensive loss of $3.4 million, or $0.04 basic and diluted loss per common share. These results included non-cash share-based compensation of $0.6 million and $2.2 million for the second and first quarters, respectively. -- Adjusted EBITDA(1) loss totaled $254,000 compared to a $771,000 loss for first quarter 2017 - a 67% improvement quarter-over-quarter. -- Capital expenditures were approximately $0.8 million as compared to $3.2 million for the first quarter 2017. Included in first quarter capital spending was $1.3 million for the purchase of the Bell Farm Property. -- As of June 30, 2017, cash and cash equivalents were $3.4 million, inventory on hand was $2.3 million, and accounts receivable was $3.1 million. The primary driver of the $1.7 million increase in accounts receivable from the $1.4 million balance as of March 31, 2017 was the rapid growth in sales in the latter part of the second quarter. (1) Adjusted EBITDA is a non-IFRS financial measure and is described and reconciled to net loss in the table under "Non-IFRS Financial Measures".

Zig Vitols, President and Chief Executive Officer, commented, "Considering that we only began commercial production at the beginning of this year and the impact of flooding during May, I am extremely pleased with our results for the second quarter. Driving our results was the hard work of our employees and I want to personally thank all of them for their continued dedication and efforts."

Second Quarter 2017 Operational Highlights

-- Select Sands continues to see strong demand for its Northern White frac sand product due to its premium quality and the strategic location of the Company's operations relatively close to the oil and gas basins in Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Louisiana (SCOOP/STACK/Woodford, Haynesville, Fayetteville, Permian, DJ Basin and Eagle Ford). The enhanced economics provided by improving technologies for drilling and completing horizontal wells (more wells drilled per rig, longer lateral lengths, more frac stages per foot, and more sand per frac stage) is driving increased use of frac sand and the Company anticipates frac sand intensity and demand will continue to grow. -- Second quarter 2017 sales volumes for total frac and industrial sand increased 136% from the first quarter: Percent Q2 2017 Q1 2017 Change ------------------------------- ------------------------------- Frac sand 52,480 19,968 163% Industrial sand 466 2,459 -81% ------------------------------- Frac and Industrial sand 52,946 22,427 136% Other sand and gravel 4,146 6,801 -39% ------------------------------- 57,092 29,228 95% -- Reconfiguration of operations processes were completed during the second quarter and the processing facility now has the capability to produce at a rate of 600,000 tons per year. To ensure optimal inventory management, Select Sands is producing at levels consistent with its ability to deliver product, which is primarily by rail. -- Efforts continue to assemble rail car sets to meet the strong demand for product. The Company is also pursuing opportunities for securing additional rail cars for product shipments through new and broadened customer relationships. -- At the end of the second quarter, more than 300 rail cars were in- service. Select Sands is working closely with interstate and short-line railroads to enhance service through efficiencies and increased loading capabilities. Complementing these efforts, the Company has secured additional rail car storage to improve sequencing of trains servicing its facility. -- To support Select Sand's plans for further capacity expansion of its processing facility, certain long lead time equipment has been purchased and is anticipated to be installed along with other components later this year once enhanced logistics capabilities are in place.

Financial Summary

The following table includes summarized financial results for the three months ended June 30, 2017 and March 31, 2017:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Select Sands Corp. Summarized Consolidated Interim Statements of Operations and Comprehensive Loss (Expressed in Canadian Dollars) (Unaudited) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Three Months Three Months Ended Ended June 30, 2017 March 31, 2017 ------------------------------- Revenue $ 3,083,192 $ 1,458,553 Cost of Goods Sold 2,116,518 1,766,126 Depreciation and Depletion 189,126 121,289 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Income from Sand Operations $ 777,548 $ (428,862) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- General and Administrative ("G&A") Expenses (1) 1,173,682 2,684,280 Depreciation in G&A Expenses 320 -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operating Loss $ (396,454) $ (3,113,142) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Interest income 8,045 10,424 Foreign exchange (loss) gain (631,708) 170,999 Gain on sale of equipment 1,596 -- Loss from flooding at plant (76,737) -- Share of loss in equity investee (57,554) (157,059) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Net Loss $ (1,152,812) $ (3,088,778) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Foreign currency translation adjustment 356,876 (308,736) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Comprehensive Loss $ (795,936) $ (3,397,514) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Basic and Diluted Loss Per Common Share $ (0.01) $ (0.04) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Weighted Average Number of Shares Outstanding 86,959,360 85,484,729 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Adjusted EBITDA (2) $ (254,316) $ (771,071) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- (1) Excludes depreciation. Includes non-cash share-based compensation of $633,910 and $2,196,418 for the second and first quarters, respectively. (2) Excludes depreciation, depletion and amortization; non-cash share-based compensation; gain on sale of fixed assets; and, loss from flooding at plant. See table under "Non-IFRS Financial Measures" for reconciliation to net loss.

Outlook

"In preparation for improved rail movements, we increased our inventory levels during the second quarter," concluded Mr. Vitols. "This benefitted us significantly in July, as we sold our highest monthly level of product tons to date. We believe this bodes well for another quarter of solid growth in deliveries to our customers and increased revenue for Select Sands. We continue to make substantial progress on multiple fronts, with our primary focus remaining on further enhancing our logistics capabilities so as to reach our maximum production rate in the second half of the year. This will allow us to further capitalize on the strong demand for our frac sand products, including increased deliveries under our long-term one million-ton per year supply agreement for 2018 and 2019."

Elliott A. Mallard, PG of Kleinfelder is the qualified person as per the NI-43-101 and has reviewed and approved the technical contents of this news release.

Conference Call Information

The Company will host a conference call on Wednesday, August 16, 2017, at 11:00 a.m. Eastern to discuss its second quarter 2017 results. To access the conference call, U.S. callers may dial toll free 1-844-419-5430 and international callers may dial 1-216-562-0476. The conference call access code is 70093150. Please call ten minutes ahead of the scheduled start time to ensure a proper connection. The conference call will also be available for playback by telephone for one week beginning shortly after the call. To access the telephone playback, dial 1-855-859-2056 or 1-404-537-3406 for international calls. The replay conference call access code is 70093150.

About Select Sands Corp.

Select Sands Corp. is an industrial Silica Product company developing its 100% owned, 520-acre Northern White, Tier-1, silica sands project located in Arkansas, U.S.A. Select Sands' Arkansas property has a logistical advantage of being significantly closer to oil and gas markets located in Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado and Louisiana than Wisconsin sources. The Tier-1 reference above is a classification of frac sand developed by PropTester, Inc., an independent laboratory specializing in the research and testing of products utilized in hydraulic fracturing & cement operations, following ISO 13503-2:2006/API RP19C:2008 standards.

Select Sands' Sandtown project has NI 43-101 compliant Indicated Mineral Resources of 42.0MM tons (TetraTech Report; February, 2016) and Bell Farm has Inferred Mineral Resources of 49.6MM tons (Kleinfelder Report; April, 2017). Both deposits are considered Northern White finer-grade sand deposits of 40-70 Mesh and 100 Mesh.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release includes forward-looking information and statements, which may include, but are not limited to, information and statements regarding or inferring the future business, operations, financial performance, prospects, and other plans, intentions, expectations, estimates, and beliefs of the Company. Information and statements which are not purely historical fact are forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements in this press release relate to the continued escalation of rail car count, third quarter 2017 frac and industrial sand sales volumes, and further capacity expansion. Forward-looking information and statements involve and are subject to assumptions and known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause actual events, results, performance, or achievements of the Company to be materially different from future events, results, performance, and achievements expressed or implied by forward-looking information and statements herein. Although the Company believes that any forward-looking information and statements herein are reasonable, in light of the use of assumptions and the significant risks and uncertainties inherent in such information and statements, there can be no assurance that any such forward-looking information and statements will prove to be accurate, and accordingly readers are advised to rely on their own evaluation of such risks and uncertainties and should not place undue reliance upon such forward-looking information and statements. Any forward-looking information and statements herein are made as of the date hereof, and except as required by applicable laws, the Company assumes no obligation and disclaims any intention to update or revise any forward-looking information and statements herein or to update the reasons that actual events or results could or do differ from those projected in any forward-looking information and statements herein, whether as a result of new information, future events or results, or otherwise, except as required by applicable laws.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Select Sands Corp. Consolidated Interim Statements of Financial Position (Expressed in Canadian Dollars) (Unaudited) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- As at June 30, December 31, 2017 2016 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ASSETS Current Cash and cash equivalents $ 3,397,380 $ 11,776,321 Amounts receivable 3,143,933 133,688 Inventory 2,336,696 - Prepaid expenses 55,034 47,779 ------------------------------ Total Current Assets 8,933,043 11,957,788 Deposits 431,460 153,021 Investment in Affiliate 2,785,387 3,000,000 Property, Plant and Equipment 14,640,813 6,763,193 Exploration and Evaluation Assets - 2,142,986 ------------------------------ Total Assets $ 26,790,703 $ 24,016,988 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LIABILITIES Current Accounts payable and accrued liabilities $ 1,111,557 $ 417,210 Current portion of long-term debt 502,859 - ------------------------------ Total Current Liabilities 1,614,416 417,210 ------------------------------ Long-term Debt 1,508,576 - ------------------------------ Total Liabilities 3,122,992 417,210 ------------------------------ EQUITY Share Capital 40,985,314 39,388,462 Share-based Payment Reserve 6,014,048 3,349,517 Accumulated Other Comprehensive Income (Loss) 39,661 (8,479) Deficit (23,371,312) (19,129,722) ------------------------------ Total Equity 23,667,711 23,599,778 ------------------------------ Total Liabilities and Equity $ 26,790,703 $ 24,016,988 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Select Sands Corp. Consolidated Interim Statements of Cash Flows (Expressed in Canadian Dollars) (Unaudited) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Six Months Six Months Ended Ended June 30, 2017 June 30, 2016 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operating Activities Net loss for the period $ (4,241,590) $ (749,611) Adjustments for non-cash items: Depreciation and depletion in cost of goods sold 310,415 - Depreciation 320 - Share-based compensation 2,830,328 238,847 Foreign exchange 48,140 6,490 Gain on sale of equipment (1,596) - Share of loss in equity investee 214,613 - Changes in non-cash operating assets and liabilities: Amounts receivable (3,010,245) (22,472) Inventory (2,336,696) - Prepaid expenses (7,255) 22,171 Accounts payable and accrued liabilities 694,347 (23,604) ------------------------------ Total Cash Used in Operating Activities (5,499,219) (528,179) ------------------------------ Investing Activities Property, plant and equipment (4,040,124) - Proceeds from disposal of equipment 7,786 - Exploration and evaluation assets - (314,741) Deposits (278,439) - ------------------------------ Total Cash Used in Investing Activities (4,310,777) (314,741) ------------------------------ Financing Activities Warrants exercised 1,041,705 43,555 Options exercised 389,350 - Share issue costs - (5,000) ------------------------------ Total Cash Provided by Financing Activities 1,431,055 38,555 ------------------------------ Decrease in Cash and Cash Equivalents (8,378,941) (804,365) Cash and Cash Equivalents, Beginning of Period 11,776,321 3,172,051 ------------------------------ Cash and Cash Equivalents, End of Period $ 3,397,380 $ 2,367,686 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Supplementary Cash Flow Information and Non- Cash Investing and Financing Transactions: Cash received for interest $ 18,469 $ 7,186 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cash paid for interest $ - $ - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cash paid for taxes $ - $ - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Issue of vendor debt for assets acquired $ 2,011,435 $ - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Issue of shares on exercise of warrants and options $ 165,797 $ 19,034 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Issuance of shares for convertible debenture $ - $ 218,000 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Issuance of shares for interest on convertible debenture $ - $ 53,885 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Debenture interest accrued $ - $ 9,589 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Non-IFRS Financial Measures

The following information is included for convenience only. Generally, a non-IFRS financial measure is a numerical measure of a company's performance, cash flows or financial position that either excludes or includes amounts that are not normally excluded or included in the most directly comparable measure calculated and presented in accordance with IFRS. Adjusted EBITDA is not a measure of financial performance (nor does it have a standardized meanings) under IFRS. In evaluating non-IFRS financial measures, investors should consider that the methodology applied in calculating such measures may differ among companies and analysts.

The Company uses both IFRS and certain non-IFRS measures to assess operational performance and as a component of employee remuneration. Management believes certain non-IFRS measures provide useful supplemental information to investors in order that they may evaluate Select Sand's financial performance using the same measures as management. Management believes that, as a result, the investor is afforded greater transparency in assessing the financial performance of the Company. These non-IFRS financial measures should not be considered as a substitute for, nor superior to, measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with IFRS.

Reconciliation of Net Loss to EBITDA to Adjusted EBITDA:

Three Months Three Months Ended Ended June 30, 2017 March 31, 2017 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Net Loss $ (1,512,812) $ (3,088,778) Add Back Depreciation and depletion 189,446 121,289 Share-based compensation 633,910 2,196,418 ------------------------------------ EBITDA $ (329,456) $ (771,071) Add Back Loss from flooding at plant 76,737 - Deduct For Gain on sale of equipment (1,596) - ------------------------------------ Adjusted EBITDA $ (254,315) $ (771,071)

The Company defines Adjusted EBITDA as net income (loss) before finance costs, income taxes, depreciation and amortization, non-cash share-based compensation, loss from flooding at its plant, and gain on sale of fixed assets. Select Sands uses Adjusted EBITDA as a supplemental financial measure of its operational performance. Management believes Adjusted EBITDA to be an important measure as they exclude the effects of items that primarily reflect the impact of long-term investment and financing decisions, rather than the performance of the Company's day-to-day operations. As compared to net income according to IFRS, this measure is limited in that it does not reflect the periodic costs of certain capitalized tangible and intangible assets used in generating revenues in the Company's business, the charges associated with impairments, termination costs or Proposed Transaction costs. Management evaluates such items through other financial measures such as capital expenditures and cash flow provided by operating activities. The Company believes that these measurements are useful to measure a company's ability to service debt and to meet other payment obligations or as a valuation measurement.

Indicated Resources Disclosure

The Company advises that the production decision on the Sandtown deposit (the Company's current "Sand Operations") was not based on a Feasibility Study of mineral reserves, demonstrating economic and technical viability, and, as a result, there may be an increased uncertainty of achieving any level of recovery of minerals or the cost of such recovery, including increased risks associated with developing a commercially mineable deposit. Historically, such projects have a much higher risk of economic and technical failure. There is no guarantee that production will occur as anticipated or that anticipated production costs will be achieved.

Contacts:

Select Sands Corp.

Zigurds Vitols

President & CEO

(604) 639-4533

www.selectsandscorp.com




VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 08/21/17 -- Atico Mining Corporation (the "Company" or "Atico") (TSX VENTURE: ATY)(OTC PINK: ATCMF) is pleased to report that further to the news release announced August 15, 2017, the final inspection by provincial authorities concluded successfully and the operations at El Roble mine have resumed as of August 18, 2017.

About Atico Mining Corporation

Atico is a growth-oriented Company, focused on exploring, developing and mining copper and gold projects in Latin America. The Company operates the El Roble mine and is pursuing additional acquisition opportunities. For more information, please visit www.aticomining.com.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

Fernando E. Ganoza, CEO

Atico Mining Corporation

Trading symbols: (TSX VENTURE: ATY)(OTC PINK: ATCMF)

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

No securities regulatory authority has either approved or disapproved of the contents of this news release. The securities being offered have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or any state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold in the United States, or to, or for the account or benefit of, a "U.S. person" (as defined in Regulation S of the U.S. Securities Act) unless pursuant to an exemption therefrom. This press release is for information purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any securities of the Company in any jurisdiction.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward Looking Statements

This announcement includes certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein, without limitation the use of net proceeds, are forward-looking statements. Forward- looking statements involve various risks and uncertainties and are based on certain factors and assumptions. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's expectations include uncertainties relating to interpretation of drill results and the geology, continuity and grade of mineral deposits; uncertainty of estimates of capital and operating costs; the need to obtain additional financing to maintain its interest in and/or explore and develop the Company's mineral projects; uncertainty of meeting anticipated program milestones for the Company's mineral projects; and other risks and uncertainties disclosed under the heading "Risk Factors" in the prospectus of the Company dated March 2, 2012 filed with the Canadian securities regulatory authorities on the SEDAR website at www.sedar.com

The Company has not based its production decisions and ongoing mine production on mineral reserve estimates, preliminary economic assessments or feasibility studies, and historically such projects have increased uncertainty and risk of failure. Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

The items marked with a "(1)" are alternative performance measures and readers should refer to Non-GAAP Financial Measures in the Company's Management's Discussion and Analysis for the nine months ended September 30, 2016 as filed on SEDAR and as available on the Company's website for further details.

Contacts:

Investor Relations

Igor Dutina

+1.604.633.9022




DUBLIN, Feb. 1, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

The "Global Anti-Obesity Drugs Market Trends and Drivers, Restraints, and Opportunities 2017-2023" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The Global Anti-Obesity Drugs Market is estimated to witness a CAGR of 20.9% during the forecast period 2017-2023 by namely top FDA approved drugs, types of anti-obesity drugs, and regions.

Globally, obesity has nearly tripled since 1975. In 2016, more than 1.9 billion adults, who were 18 years and older were overweight. Of these over 650 million were obese. An obese individual is at a higher risk of developing chronic diseases such as breast cancer, endometrial cancer, colon cancer, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and musculoskeletal disorders.



Anti-obesity drugs help in reducing body mass either by dipping the hunger or increasing the consumption of calories. The increasing prevalence of obesity globally is a major factor driving the market. It is principally because of wrong eating habits and swiftly varying regime of people. The increasing ingestion of unhealthy food along with the lack of exercises is intensifying the incidence rate of obesity globally.



Basic activities like reducing the intake of unhealthy diet and inculcating workout are not highly effective, and the medical devices like intragastric balloon and bariatric surgery are highly expensive and has high complications. This shows that there is a wide gap for the treatment of obesity. This unmet need is driving the market for anti-obesity drugs market.



Ill effects, such as the risk of mental illness, suicidal symptoms, stroke, are natively impacting the anti-obesity drugs market. Many drugs that were approved previously were withdrawn because of their side effects. Due to these factors healthcare specialists have an undesirable insight and do not recommend them to their clients.

Regional Analysis:

The regions covered in the report are North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World (RoW). North America is the leading region for the anti-obesity drugs market growth followed by Europe. Asia Pacific and RoW are set to be the emerging regions. India and China are set to be the most attractive destinations due to the large untapped market.



Types Analysis:

The top FDA approved anti-obesity drugs are Xenical, Saxenda, Contrave, Belviq, and Qsymia. Xenical was the largest selling drug in the market until 2012, but saw a dip in its revenue over the years. However, recently approved Saxenda by Novo Nordisk is gaining large interest among obese people and is growing at a fast growth rate.



Key Players:

F. Hoffmann La Roche, GlaxoSmith Kline, Orexigen Therapeutics, Vivus Therapeutics, and Eisai Co, Ltd. are the key players in the market. Boehringer Ingelheim, Merck & Co, Nova Nordisk, Pfizer, Rhythm Pharmaceuticals, Zafgan, and Takeda Pharmaceuticals are the other prominent vendors.



Competitive Analysis:

Novo Nordisk, an innovator of drugs in the obesity market, launched Saxenda in all the major markets with a higher dose of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist, liraglutide, which was first launched for type 2 diabetes as Victoza. Dual therapy for obesity and type 2 diabetes is the latest trend in the market. Therefore, big pharmaceutical companies, such as AstraZeneca, J&J, and Sanofi, are adopting low-risk strategy of using diabetes drugs to treat the obesity related problem. This helps the diabetes market players to enter the obesity market. J&J is intended to enter the market for prescription anti-oobesity drugs without further investing in the development of novel molecules.



Key Topics Covered:



1 Industry Outlook

1.1 Industry Overview

1.2 Industry Trends



2 Report Outline

2.1 Report Scope

2.2 Report Summary

2.3 Research Methodology

2.4 Report Assumptions



3 Market Snapshot

3.1 Market Definition

3.2 Total Addressable Market

3.3 Segmented Addressable Market

3.4 Related Markets

3.4.1 Diabetes Drugs

3.4.2 Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients

3.4.3 Intragastric Balloon

3.4.4 Oncology (Cancer) Drugs



4 Market Outlook

4.1 Overview

4.2 Market Segmentation

4.3 Porter 5(Five) Forces

4.4 PEST Analysis



5 Market Characteristics

5.1 Market Evolution

5.2 Market Dynamics

5.2.1 Drivers

5.2.1.1 High prevalence of obesity

5.2.1.2 Unhealthy lifestyle

5.2.1.3 Chronic nature of obesity

5.2.2 Opportunities

5.2.2.1 Growing awareness of fitness

5.2.2.2 Large untapped market

5.2.3 Restraints

5.2.3.1 Side effects related to anti-obesity drugs

5.2.3.2 Availability of alternative treatment options

5.3 DRO - Impact Analysis

5.4 Key Stakeholders



6 Drug Details: Market Size and Analysis

6.1 Overview

6.2 Orlistat

6.3 Phentermine/Topiramate ER

6.4 Lorcaserin

6.5 Naltrexone SR/Bupropion SR

6.6 Liraglutide 3.0 mg



7 Types: Market Size and Analysis

7.1 Overview

7.2 Prescription Drugs (Rx)

7.3 OTC Drugs



8 Regions: Market Size and Analysis



9 Competitive Landscape



10 Vendors Profiles

10.1 F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd.

10.2 GlaxoSmithKline plc

10.3 Vivus, Inc.

10.4 Orexigen Therapeutics, Inc.

10.5 Eisai Co., Ltd.



11 Companies to Watch for

11.1 Pfizer, Inc.

11.2 Nova Nordisk A/S

11.3 Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH

11.4 Rhythm Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

11.5 Zafgen, Inc.

11.6 Norgine B.V.

11.7 Merck & Co.

11.8 Takeda Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/8vkn27/global?w=5



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Research and Markets

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press@researchandmarkets.com



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Engage Ventures, an Atlanta, GA-based independent venture capital fund, has selected eight companies to participate in its inaugural program, which kicks off today.

The firms inaugural portfolio includes:

Bee Downtown (Durham, NC): which aims to rebuild the vital bee population with a sustainability and employee engagement solution for enterprises;

(Durham, NC): which aims to rebuild the vital bee population with a sustainability and employee engagement solution for enterprises; Cyrano (Atlanta, GA): a leadership communications platform using video to better connect and engage employees;

(Atlanta, GA): a leadership communications platform using video to better connect and engage employees; EmployUs (Raleigh, NC): a platform for companies to hire more referrals by automating the employee referral process;

(Raleigh, NC): a platform for companies to hire more referrals by automating the employee referral process; Fast Radius (Chicago, IL / Atlanta, GA): an on-demand additive manufacturing and production solution for enterprises;

(Chicago, IL / Atlanta, GA): an on-demand additive manufacturing and production solution for enterprises; Gauge Insights (Atlanta, GA): a consumer insights platform for companies to obtain feedback from customers in minutes;

(Atlanta, GA): a consumer insights platform for companies to obtain feedback from customers in minutes; Sudu (Atlanta, GA): an on-demand and scheduled trucking service that connects companies that ship freight with a network of trucks and diverse carriers;

(Atlanta, GA): an on-demand and scheduled trucking service that connects companies that ship freight with a network of trucks and diverse carriers; The Mom Project (Chicago, IL): a marketplace and community that connects enterprises with diverse female talent; and

(Chicago, IL): a marketplace and community that connects enterprises with diverse female talent; and TransRisk (Chattanooga, TN): a financial instruments and market data platform for the trucking and logistics industry.

Headquartered in Georgia Techs Technology Square and led by Thiago Olson, Managing Director, Engage Ventures is an independent, early-stage venture capital fund and program that gives entrepreneurs customers and market access. Engage companies work with top executives from leading brands, including AT&T, Chick-fil-A, Cox Enterprises, Delta Air Lines, Georgia-Pacific, Georgia Power Foundation, Inc., Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), Invesco Ltd., The Home Depot and UPS. These corporate partners, along with the Georgia Institute of Technologys Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) and Tech Square Ventures, provide tools, hands-on support and resources for companies to develop go-to-market strategies, and transform their strategies into action.

FinSMEs

15/08/2017
Geoffrey Jones, Isidor Straus Professor of Business History and Faculty Chair of Harvard Business School's Business History Initiative, was in Mumbai recently. As part of Godrej Archives annual lecture series, Jones spoke on What Business History Tells Us about the Future of Globalisation.

Launched in 2006, the Godrej Archives Lecture Series aims at popularizing business history and encouraging the development of business archive.

In a conversation with Firstpost, Jones spoke about the 'great deal of uncertainty' in business, how moments of transition and turbulence inevitably reinforce the relevance of business history, how history can provide some sort of certainty and importance of looking back at business history in order to interpret the present.

Here are the five lessons distilled from the conversation:

1) There is nothing linear about globalization: We think it is, we can think it is a linear process. However, there is no evidence it has been, maybe will be, maybe never will be. I doubt it. Globalization is a secular process and its a secular process for particular reasons.

2) Globalization almost by definition rewards winners. If it rewards winners, there are going to be losers. The losers know they are losing and thats a huge issue. The problem, the key thing is the sentiments, how people feel about globalization. So in the inter-war years and through the 50s and 60s there was a massive sentiment change. People basically believed globalization was bad and alternatives were better.

3) De-globalization occurs when sentiments shift: It is when people start saying we are going to build walls or we are going to stop restrictions, or we are going to renegotiate trade negotiations. So, when the sentiment changes we know that there is a paradigm shift and you know that much more than any other, any more things.

4) De-globalization is good or bad depends on what lens you are looking at: De-globalization in the 20th century brought many benefits to many people. It is also unfortunately extremely dangerous because the same sentiments which close down a system are likely to cause political turmoil.

5) Business leaders must take up greater responsibility: There is my own institution and Dean Dornum from the 1920s. Thats Harvard Business School being built in 1927 by the way. By the 1920s Dornum was extremely concerned about inequality in the United States, about the responsibility of business. He said business has grown very big and has to recognise its responsibilities for the future of civilisation. What was motivating him was the huge concern that if business didnt do that, governments will intervene and do it for them and that's because too many people resent business.

There is a guy called Shivsola Ichee who is one of the most important Japanese business leaders in the late 19th century. He is an amazing venture capitalist. He founded 600 companies. He also very articulately makes the case, which we now call stakeholder capitalism. He says very clearly in a case called Shapansuki, if you know Japanese, that business has a responsibility for society, for stakeholders. He is not talking about corporate social responsibility. He is talking about how every single thing a business person does should be contributing to society.

Nobody listens to Dean Dornum or Shivsola Ichee and the world does in fact de-globalise. We see a sentiment shift whereby people believe that the state is the instrument to create social justice. And everywhere across systems from India to United States, the states in various ways take over the issues of education, distribution, everything else. We see massive restrictions on capital flows, people flows and trade flows. Thats what drives all those collapse in trade and of capital movement. Governments shut them out. They say, no way guys, you are not going to do it, you are not going to invest. Thus policy drives de-globalisation. So, it is the responsibility of business leaders to bear Dornums words in mind and think about ways where we can create more winners than losers.
Panaji, Goa: Indian traders are likely to import 25 tonnes of gold from South Korea in July and August, taking advantage of a recent tax change that allows importers to ship in gold without paying a 10 percent customs duty, industry said.

The cheap imports are putting pressure on local refiners and banks who cannot match the steep discounts being offered on bullion sales from the duty-free gold from South Korea.

"Already 12 tonnes have been landed from South Korea since the implementation of GST (Goods and Services Tax) . By the end of this month imports could be around 25 tonnes," James Jose, secretary of the Association of Gold Refineries and Mints said.

India, the world's second biggest gold consumer after China, imposes a 10 percent import duty on gold, but this does not apply to countries with which it has signed Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), like South Korea.

To avoid duty free imports from those countries, India previously imposed a 12.5 percent excise duty. However, this was scrapped along with other local taxes when a GST was introduced from 1 July.

"Those who are importing from South Korea are reaping windfall gains," said Rajesh Khosla, managing director of MMTC-PAMP India, the country's biggest refinery.

"They are saving the 10 percent import duty. So they can give a $10 or $15 discount. Refiners are operating with a 0.65 percent margin. We cannot compete with someone who is giving a 1 percent discount," Khosla said on the sidelines of the International Gold Convention in Panaji, capital of India's western resort state of Goa.

South Korea is favoured for importing gold over other countries that India has FTAs with because of its ability to deliver bullion in the form of coins or other articles, which do not attract the import duty.

Gold discounts in India widened earlier this month to $11 an ounce, the highest in more than 10 months.

"The government is aware of the issue and we have asked industry associations to provide more data," said a government official, who declined to be named.

The government has asked traders who are importing gold under free trade agreements to fill in a questionnaire that asks them to specify whether the goods are manufactured in those countries, the official said.

"Very soon this issue will be resolved by putting on a countervailing duty," he said.

In the first seven months of the 2017, gold imports more than doubled from a year ago to 550 tonnes, according to provisional data from consultancy GFMS.
On the occasion of celebrating 70 years of Indian independence, I got thinking about freedom and what it means. It started off with the generic definition of the word tinged with a patriotic tone, owing to the occasion. However, the longer I mused, the more kaleidoscopic the meaning became. Because freedom means so many things. What makes the word even more versatile is how each interpretation of this concept is individualistic.

Freedom to me is to be unshackled. By society, by family, by relationships. To not be held back by anyone else's thoughts and opinions. A complete autonomy of the soul.

The next obvious step in my musings was to co-relate freedom to cinema. Movies that have depicted a complete disregard for norms, and what's considered right or wrong, good or bad, acceptable or unacceptable.

So here is a list of films that I thought took the concept of freedom and independence, and translated it onto the silver screen leaving the viewers inspired and motivated. Movies that had a huge impact on one's very being, and left the audience feeling like they could summit the highest mountain that there is. Cinema that left me feeling unapologetic. Some films on this list tackle serious issues, while some come from a lighter space and a more casual setting.

All of them however, show you what it truly means to just not give a f*ck and do what works for you.

Queen

If ever there was a contemporary film that described liberation, it would be this soul stirring Kangana Ranaut-starrer. With Ranaut being the powerhouse that she is, Queen, directed by Vikas Bahl is a balm to the self-doubting self. Rani, after being left at the altar  desi style (Man: I have lived e-broad, cennot marry traditional mentality simple gal, sowwz) goes on her pre-booked honeymoon to Paris and Amsterdam, alone. Over there she makes lifelong friends who impact her in unimaginable ways. The simple girl from Rajouri, New Delhi finds a new lease of life as she lives like a free spirit for the very first time. Rani also travels solo  dealing with all the intricacies and complications that come along with that (accommodation, transport, unknown places and faces). However, it is this very journey that she embarks upon alone in which she regains her self-confidence, no longer needing validation from her almost husband Vijay (Rajkummar Rao). Truly a queen, Kangana is unapologetic as she rejects Vijay's re-proposal of sorts, and thanks him instead  for he is the reason she finally learnt how to live life, queen size.



Zindagi Na Milegi Dobaara

So many kinds of freedom in this Zoya Akthar directed movie, where should I start from? Hrithik Roshan, Farhan Akhtar, Abhay Deol and Katrina Kaif take us on the ride of our lives  one that we haven't recovered from even six years after the film's release. We have Abhay Deol, who freed himself from a suffocating relationship (almost turned into marriage) that was doing nothing but restricting him and taking away from his life, rather than adding to it. Next we have Hrithik Roshan who was a slave to his job. A man who had it in his heart to live as carefree as a bird, but somehow found himself shackled to laptops, conference calls and money. Roshan found a way to break these shackles  both from his mind, and his life  with the help of Katrina Kaif in her diving instructor avatar. Kaif proved to be the foil for Roshan's tightly wound up character, as she taught him how to just let go. Then we have Farhan Akhtar, the creative soul who was heavily into poetry and eventually wanted to make a career out of writing and being true to his thoughts. Akhtar should have technically been the one character who was not bound by anything, by virtue of being the artist in the group, but he was haunted. By a father he had never met, and the ghost of the relationship they never had. Through the course of the movie and a couple of meetings with his father, Akhtar's poetic yet anguished soul made peace with the fact that some people just aren't cut out for the rules and relationships that are expected of them. His father was on his own journey, one that Akhtar could not be a part of, and eventually he accepted that, freed himself from his expectations, and set off on a journey of his own.



Highway

A groundbreaking performance by Alia Bhatt, and a stellar script by Imtiaz Ali, Highway brought to us the story of a woman who was kidnapped a night before her wedding, and who eventually falls in love with her kidnapper (a case of Stockholm Syndrome), something that would be massively frowned upon and not accepted by the society that we live in. Her kidnapper, the brilliant Randeep Hooda, and the journey that they embark upon set her free from the horrors of her childhood. Bhatt's character is shown to be abused as a nine-year-old by her uncle, something that she has had to live with all her life and which has left a deep and damaging effect on her psyche. Her abduction and the subsequent travelling with her abductors take Bhatt on an emotional journey by the end of which she finds peace (even after the man she loves is killed). Her famous monologue towards the end of the movie will be remembered and lauded for years to come, as will this story that in my opinion, shows freedom from the demons of one's past.



Shudh Desi Romance

Marriage is one of those age old social constructs that runs deep in India's veins. While it may suit some people, for others, it's just not their cup of tea. Shudh Desi Romance with its multi-star cast comprising Sushant Singh Rajput, Pareeniti Chopra and Vaani Kapoor and directed by Maneesh Sharma took the bull (marriage) by its horns, and rode it like a pro. With many promises of marriage (none of which are followed all the way through) forming the foundation of this movie, this light-hearted romantic comedy taught us that it's okay not to cave into societal pressure and follow the norms and rules set forth by our society. It is expected of you to get married; however if that doesn't work for you, then to hell with it  which is exactly what Singh and Chopra's characters did in the end. They decided that they loved each other, but didn't feel it necessary to be bound by law in their relationship. They chose to live-in together and keep their love as it is  because why fix it what ain't broke? The movie gave courage to its audience, to do what they feel is right and what works for them, without bending to the pressure that is put on them by their surroundings.



English Vinglish

This Sridevi-lead movie raised a big middle finger at all those people so influenced by western culture that they have forgotten their roots. Playing a woman who is often ridiculed by her English speaking family members, it stars Sridevi in the role of the bada** that she is, who goes out and learns the English language all on her own, passing her course with distinction, and blowing away the minds of all her friends and relatives as she delivers a flawless speech in English at her niece's wedding. Sridevi liberates herself in this movie, which has a much deeper message than one would think at first glance. As she tackles the big bad city of New York along with its English speaking residents on her own, Sridevi's character finds solace in a group of non-English speaking individuals who are struggling with the language themselves but find support and comfort in each other. Directed by Gauri Shinde, this movie touched a chord somewhere deep within the corners of my (cold, cold) heart.



Bonus

Dil Chahta Hai

It would be almost criminal to leave this movie from my list. Dil Chahta Hai, directed by Farhan Akhtar was the first time that Indian audiences got the taste of what it's like to actually live a life that's worth looking back on. Immortalising friendships forever, this Aamir Khan-Saif Ali Khan-Akshaye Khanna starrer redefined bromance, and also gave us the idea of freedom-signifying road-trips to Goa.


Salman Khan's 2017 venture Tubelight, helmed by Kabir Khan, didn't perform on par with the superstar's other releases at the box-office. As a consequence, the film distributors incurred some losses as well.

Tubelight's makers managed to make Rs 105.86 crore from India alone. However, the figure was supplemented by its satellite rights, sold for Rs 60 crore, and music rights, sold for Rs 20 crore, which added up to over Rs 185 crore. That was just Rs 15 crore more than its budget of Rs 170 crore. These figures didn't match up to the money that a Salman Khan-starrer usually makes.

It was earlier reported that Khan would pay the distributors a refund for whatever losses they had incurred.

Salman's father and veteran writer Salim Khan also confirmed the development. He told Mid-Day, "When a distributor suffers a loss, the producer needs to show some responsibility and share the burden. We, too, have done the same thing. We met a few of them and are trying to find a middle ground. We will pay back the distributors."

However, the official figure was not available, although a report by Bollywood Hungama stated that Khan would reportedly pay 50 percent of the total losses incurred.

Now, Mumbai Mirror has reported that the Khans paid distributors a sum of Rs 31 crore as compensation. An additional Rs 1.50 crore would be paid to exhibitors as a refund, the report added.

Whenever theres a problem or a discussion, the final decision is mine. Even when I was working, after Javed (former scriptwriting partner Javed Akhtar) and I parted ways, I returned my share of the signing amount of all the films we had signed together. Some films work, some dont, but in this case the losses were comparatively higher. Even though Tubelight did a business of over Rs 100 crore, it did not justify the price for which it was bought. This way, a large part of the losses will be covered, and from the distributors to the exhibitors, everyone down to the last person in the chain, has been compensated, Salim Khan told a Mumbai Mirror correspondent.

He had earlier promised to pay the refund by the end of July. But the actor was out of the city for quite a while now, as he was shooting for his upcoming Tiger Zinda Hai with Katrina Kaif.

Trade experts said they were anticipating a similar move from Shah Rukh Khan, for Jab Harry Met Sejal.
New Delhi: A kurta with a bomber jacket  that's the fusion style that veteran Indian designer Neeta Lulla is planning to create for the widely popular American DJs The Chainsmokers, who are set to debut in India next month.

Lulla is hoping to create an edgy yet casual ensemble for Andrew Taggart and Alex Pall, who make up The Chainsmokers.

"It is a very young band and it has a very edgy kind of look towards dressing. It's edgy, but casual (the designs I am making). Keeping in mind that they are coming into India, I wanted to give something that would give them an Indian flavour and at the same time it should have that casualness and edginess that they have," Neeta told IANS over phone from Mumbai.

"We are giving them a kurta that is going to be of lycra. Then there will be a bomber jacket, giving it a fusion look which will be worn over the kurta," she added.

While the outfit will also have a bit of the Warli tribal art form on them, the jacket will have Lulla's trademark stamp of an abstract Ganpati in bright and electric colours.

Talking about it, she said: "I kind of relate to Ganpati. I think all idols can be seen on T-shirts today. You see quirky T-shirts  be it Shiva, Om, Ganpati and even Laxmi. It is very relative to every person. Moreover, when I paint, I make a lot of abstract painting of Ganpati. So, it's like my mark on their outfit."

This will not be the first time Lulla will be associating with a global artist. In the past, she has designed for actors Steven Seagal and Tyra Banks.

The Chainsmokers, who have won the Grammy Award, will be headlining the Indian leg of ULTRA Worldwide, an independent festival brand, which will be making its foray into the country with two Road To ULTRA Shows in Mumbai and Delhi, on September 7 and 8, in association with Percept Live.

The duo shot to fame with their tracks like '#Selfie', 'Kanye', 'Closer', 'Don't Let Me Down' and 'Paris'.

Road To ULTRA will be held at Mahalaxmi Race Course in Mumbai, and at India Exposition Mart in Greater Noida. The Chainsmokers will be accompanied by dance music stars, including Slushii, Rezz, Getter, Sam Feldt and Mykris.
NRIs, as is their habit, will celebrate the Independence Day with fervour, arrive in droves at various embassies and consulates and join in the flag raising ceremony. Of course, it is exactly the same event each year and is punctuated by amateur cultural presentations that remain static and force fed. For some reason having fun on this day is frowned upon, and it is all very solemn and dreary.

In the Gulf, they dish out copies of the presidents speech and then proceed to read out every word.

So, it is an annual indulgence in vanity that we hop around on 15 August and engage in self-congratulations. But this day was dedicated to the elimination of not just the common enemies of mankind like poverty, injustice, and disease but also to homegrown viruses of caste, corruption and an absence of hope against sexist prejudice, infanticide, and greed.

The NRI community has served its country reasonably well this year even though there has been a 5 percent drop in remittances, the total over the past 40 months is a sizeable $235 billion. Indians are also ecstatic about e-voting rights for the 16 million eligible citizens living abroad but are chary of whether there will be enough transparency to ensure the proxy ballots would get to where they should.

The 32 million Indians abroad have been a conduit for the best of our arts and sciences. From being the Indian frontlines in the Silicon Valley, medical practitioners in Europe, business tycoons in the Gulf and Hong Kong, Wall Street analysts to being crowned international beauty queens, Indian acumen and expertise have become marketable commodities.

Indian music has made its mark on the world stage. Indian food is cultural given. Indian fashion now competes at the level of haute couture even as Indian fabrics are in demand in both the East and the West. Indian novelists writing in English have hit the literary scene with force. Indian professionalism in media, law, accountancy and engineering and information technology has formed a swathe and Indian business' know-how is cutting edge. Bollywoods attraction has been strengthened by the offerings of the south, and Bahubali reigns supreme.

However, there's little to celebrate. We allowed ourselves to be ruled for 200 years by a foreign power, and this year too, we had a slew of negatives and how they are perceived by the outside world.

Among them, the killings over beef eating make us look savage and primitive. The refusal by the Parliament to revoke Article 377 against the LBGT community, a vicious law imposed on India by the same foreign yoke which ironically has no such law in its own country. A Supreme Court verdict disallowing a ten-year-old rape victim from aborting the fetus on the grounds that it had developed into a sustainable life form is a stark testament to the failure of the system, our poor child healthcare, and the unbelievable fact that for 28 weeks no one thought to alleviate this poor childs agony. This proves that men still decide what women can do with their bodies.

The Big Brother manifested itself by way of linking Aadhar cards with PAN cards and no one quite knows why. For NRIs, it's another hill to climb. Just as there was confusion about demonetisation  rumours of another one are on the way  the public is unclear how GST will play out even as retailers pull back on several items till there is clarity.

The seven sisters in the North East were hit by floods and we took far too long to react, an acid commentary on our levels of awareness of an integral part of India. A dangerous ignorance that China will exploit as she has spent the past two months trying to hector us on the borders of Bhutan and Sikkim. There are fears that a conflict is possible.

The tension in Jammu and Kashmir does not seem to be lessening and unless a hardcore decision to void Article 370 is made and the state is brought on par with the rest of the country, the issue will never be resolved. All we will do is confront civilians with guns and widen the chasm. The incessant appeasement as a policy only breeds contempt.

The call for Gorkhaland in the east needs to be resolved swiftly. With 29 states and seven union territories what are a few more if a sense of identity is assuaged.

In 2016, we were hit by terror attacks in Uri which led to surgical strikes. But did we stop prematurely with Pakistan? There's also a fear that we have left naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav to the caprice of Islamabad and its generals. Last November, demonetisation was welcomed by NRIs but there is still a lingering suspicion that the truly rich got away.

What scares us this 15 August? Even as our top echelons go through the paces of saluting the unknown soldiers memorial and laying wreaths against a backdrop where armed forces personnel in peaceful areas are having their free rations stopped, we do wonder if this is the right time.... The dragon in the north threatens to belch fire, and keeping our troops morale high should be of utmost importance.
Jammu: Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh on Tuesday appealed to Opposition parties to join hands with the government to work for Jammu and Kashmir instead of "misleading" people over an issue which is before the Supreme Court, a reference to the Article 35A case.

The senior BJP leader also criticised Pakistan and China and said the country would not be cowed down by border skirmishes as nobody should have any misconception about India's ability to defend its borders.

He was addressing a gathering after unfurling the national flag at the Independence day celebrations at the mini-stadium.

"Some people are trying to mislead the people of Jammu and Kashmir and the people of the country by politicising issues. I would like to appeal to them to come forward and join hands with us to address the problems of Jammu and Kashmir. There should be no politics over the issue and we should have full faith in the Supreme Court," he said.

Though Singh did not name any political party, he was apparently referring to the National Conference which has kick started an awareness campaign to defend Article 35A of the Constitution which is being challenged by an NGO in the Supreme Court.

Article 35A, which was added to the Constitution by a presidential order in 1954, empowers the state legislature to define permanent citizens and grant them special privileges.

Singh said that when the BJP formed the government with PDP, it was decided that the partners will maintain status quo on certain contentious political issues due to the difference of opinion.

"We have accepted the agenda of alliance and we being part of the government will maintain that status quo (on these issues), irrespective of our party line," he said.

Singh also said that China and Pakistan were conspiring against India.

"After failed Pakistani attempts, China is trying to encircle us, but India, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, left the country isolated at the global level. India now is not the same as it was in 1962. It is 2017 and if China makes a mistake and steps on our land, it will taste a bitter defeat," he said.

Singh said that Pakistan was not learning any lessons and is continuing with its "nefarious" activities.

"Whatever is going on is at the behest of Pakistan which is responsible for the bloodshed of thousands of innocents in the state. Security personnel and local policemen are rendering sacrifices to defeat the nefarious designs of Pakistan," he said.

India is a powerful country and we will not be cowed down by nefarious and cowardly acts.

Our people are being killed at the borders but we have made a resolve to weed out separatism and terrorism from the state, he said.

The deputy chief minister paid rich tributes to the father of nation Mahatma Gandhi, Baghat Singh, Raj Guru, Chandra Shekhar Azad, Ashfaqullah Khan and other martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the freedom of the country.

"After a long drawn battle, the country achieved freedom and it is now our responsibility to safeguard that freedom. If achieving freedom was difficult, to maintain it is a bigger challenge," he said.

Singh hailed the contribution of Kashmiri service personnel and said that DSP Ayoub Pandit, SHO Feroz Ahmad, and Lieutenant Umar sacrificed their lives like many others from Jammu and other parts of the country to safeguard our nation.

We salute their sacrifice, he said.

He also remembered Shyama Prasad Mukherjee.

Rejecting the opposition criticism related to governance, Singh said the development of the state especially Jammu region has gathered pace since the formation of the PDP-BJP government and will be further improved in the coming years.

"We got two smart cities  one each for Srinagar and Jammu, an IIT and an IIM. The prime minister had given us an economic package of Rs 80,000 crore. We will ensure holistic development of the state," he said.

He also assured round-the-clock power supply in Jammu region from next year.
On the 71st Independence Day, a teacher in Assam uploaded a photograph of hoisting a flag in the flooded school premises in Dhubri district's Fakirganj on social media on Tuesday reflecting the plight of the people reeling under floods. There are also photos of students saluting the flags standing in boats doing the rounds.

Mizanur Rahman, assistant teacher of 1185 No. Naskara LP school under Fakirganj police station in Dhubri wrote, "No need to tell how we are right now, pic will tell all the stories...I did not expect this kind of support....thank you all for sharing this picture."

With the flood situation in Assam deteriorating, on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to Chief Minister Sarbanand Sonowal for the second time in as many days and said all possible support is being provided to the state.

The prime minister said the Central government has been closely and constantly monitoring the flood situation in Assam.

"PM @narendramodi spoke to Assam CM @sarbanandsonwal on Sunday and Monday regarding the flood situation in the state," the PMO tweeted.

"All possible support is being provided to Assam for overcoming the flood situation prevailing in parts of the state," Modi said.

According to IANS, over 30 lakh people in Assam have been affected by the devastating wave of floods that affected the state in the last few days leading to the death of over 20 people and inundating over 3,000 villages in 25 districts even as the entire North East remained cut off from other parts of the country due to snapped rail lines.

Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) officials said that 31,59,029 people have been affected by the floods in 3,192 villages in the affected districts. The floods have also submerged close to two lakh hectares of agricultural lands in different districts.

The Railway Board has decided to cancel inbound trains from other parts of the country to the northeastern region as rail links have been snapped in different places due to heavy rains in Assam, West Bengal and in Bihar in the last 72 hours.

With inputs from agencies
Raipur: Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh on Tuesday said the battle against Naxals in the state has been yielding "comprehensive" results with the guidance and cooperation from the Union government.

"The anti-national and anti-development activities carried out by the Naxals to harm internal security and democracy in India is being fought by security forces and local people with determination," Singh said while addressing the IndependenceDay function at the police parade ground.

"I once again extend my gratitude to the Centre for their guidance and cooperation in the anti-Maoist operation which is yielding comprehensive results," he said.

"In 2017, so far, 599 Maoists have been arrested and 299 surrendered. Today, I especially bow my head before security forces who sacrificed their lives fighting the Maoist menace. The state and the country will always remain indebted to these martyrs," he said.

Describing the security of people as the topmost priority, the chief minister said the state government has approved 1,175 new posts in police force after which the total sanctioned strength of the state forces has reached to 75,000. He further listed out achievements under various schemes of his government citing its benefits.

As many as 81 new branches or ATMs of the banks have been opened in the Naxal-affected areas, which will help in triggering development activities of those regions, he said.

Chhattisgarh is the first state to provide free medical treatment facility to each family of the state through 'smart cards', he added.

In the memory of freedom fighters and pride of tribal community Amar Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh and Veer Gundadhur, a grand memorial and museum will be constructed in Raipur and Jagdalpur respectively, so that the coming generations may take inspiration from their stories and sacrifices, he said.

"For the first time in the country, a time-bound roadmap has been created for doubling the income of farmers by the year 2022, under which more than 43 lakh farmers have been provided 'soil health card' for testing of the soil samples,"

"Five districts and one development block in each 22 districts have been selected for organic farming," he said. The state government has decided to merge District Cooperative banks with Chhattisgarh State Cooperative Bank to provide benefits of modern banking services to the farmers, he added.

As many as 14,805 villages, 8,454 panchayats, 100 janpad panchayats, 78 urban bodies have been declared 'open-defecation free' in the state. Ambikapur's Public Participation Model for Cleanliness has won a national award, he said.

"We will achieve the goal of complete cleanliness by October 2, 2018, one year earlier than other states," he asserted.

For quality testing of materials and equipment used in power sector, a Central Power Research Institute will be set at Naya Raipur, he said.

To promote green energy, at least 1,827 villages were electrified through solar energy. Solar drinking pumps have been installed in more than 4000 hamlets, said Singh.

A new solar power policy has been enacted under which promotion of roof-top solar power plant is being done, the CM said.

Under the 'Bastar Net' scheme, optical fibre network is being laid in the tribal dominated region and so far 125 kilometres have been covered which will connect this region to the entire state, country and world, he added.

Similarly, under the 'Suchna Kranti Yojna' (SKY), 45 lakh smartphones will be provided to families living below poverty line (BPL) and college students, he added.

Earlier, the CM unfurled the tricolour and received a guard of honour from the joint parade of the state police, Special Task Force, women squad of state police, National Cadet Corps, National Service Scheme, Scout and Guide students.
At least five labourers were killed and two injured when a coal heap caved in at Dhamra Port Company Ltd (DPCL) premises leading to arson and violence at the Dhamra port in Bhadrak district of Odisha on Tuesday, officials said.

Odisha: 5 labourers dead, another 2 seriously injured & one missing in a mishap while loading coal in a goods train at Bhadrak's Dhamra Port pic.twitter.com/6GDXl3lO4V  ANI (@ANI) August 15, 2017

Odisha : Angry labourers burnt the port's main gate, three offices, an oil tanker and vehicles, police at the spot. pic.twitter.com/kKpipCxcBW  ANI (@ANI) August 15, 2017

As the news spread, hundreds of people including some labourers went on a rampage ransacking the office, torched the main gate and even heckled CEO Subrat Tripathy. According to ANI, angry labourers burnt the port's main gate, three offices, an oil tanker and vehicles at the site.

The incident took place this afternoon when the labourers were engaged in covering the heap of coal at the port's coal stockyard during rains.

The high-quality coking coal had been imported from Australia and the labourers were covering the heap as there was no shade over it.

"So far three bodies have been recovered and three others were rescued in critical condition," a DPCL official said after three bodies were recovered initially.

The critically injured workers were taken to the district headquarters hospital at Bhadrak.

District collector GR Das said, "We have information regarding some workers being trapped in the coal heap. We will inquire how the labourers were engaged in work on Independence Day."

Senior police officials have gone to Dhamra to take stock of the situation.

With inputs from PTI
His name is Kafeel Ahmed Khan. So, how could he have been a hero?

The sustained attack on Khan, hailed as a hero by the media for trying to save lives of children at Gorakhpur's BRD Medical College, once again underlines the bigotry burning the soul of India. It tells us how the battle for imagined grievances, settling communal scores has numbed our senses. We have come to a point where, for some, the sound of applause for an Indian Muslim is so unbearable that it immediately needs to be buried under louder chants of "traitor, thief, and criminal".

We will look at some of the baseless and fictitious charges hurled at Khan later; dissect them on the basis of evidence on record. But, first, the demands for Khan's evisceration and public shaming need to be understood for what they are: a diseased section's refusal  verging on hysteria  to let anything counter the propaganda that India's religious minorities are incapable of being conscientious citizens of India (or anywhere in the world).

For some, it is not important what people do, but who they are. It shows, on the eve of 70th anniversary of our Independence, heroism is not earned by karma, but bestowed  and denied  on the basis of religious identity.

It is, of course, a classic red-herring, a diversionary tactic. The Gorakhpur tragedy is a blot on India. More than 70 (and counting) infants died within a week because the Uttar Pradesh government and BRD Medical College administration allowed it to turn into a death trap by not paying in time for maintaining the supply of oxygen. In any other country with a conscience, morals and a rule of law, this would have been unequivocally called murder by dereliction of duty. Instead, its aftermath tells us, as Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes, we have become a nation without common decency, common practicality and basic compassion.

The reaction of the government has been both appalling and mind-boggling. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, known for timely tweets on tragedies even in Europe, has been unusually silent. In April 2016, when a fire had engulfed a temple in Kollum, the prime minister had personally led a team of doctors to the site. But, Gorakhpur has so far have been deprived of even a sympathetic tweet. Perhaps, nothing focuses the mind better than an impending election.

Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath has been a study in irony. Just a few days ago, he had personally visited the hospital in Gorakhpur, which was his constituency for nearly two decades. But somehow he didn't learn of the unfolding tragedy. When deaths were reported in the media, Adityanath refused to accept shortage of oxygen was the reason behind the disaster. He, instead, blamed it on poor hygiene and lack of sanitation, ironically, in his own constituency for almost two decades, in the age of Swacch Bharat.

Other reactions have been equally confounding. The state's health minister Siddharth Nath Singh claimed such deaths are common in August. And BJP president Amit Shah argued that such things happen in a country like India, that they have been happening in Congress-ruled states too.

When feet are being put in mouths, reputations are at stake, and Hindutva icons are in the dock, what better way to divert attention than target a Muslim hailed for heroism? Why not do a Navika Kumar and turn the debate on "real" issues like if Khan is really the hero, instead of talking about the villains of the tragedy? Why not replay Peepli Live?

The case against Khan, of course, is shallow. On the day of the tragedy, he was hailed for trying to arrange oxygen cylinders with his own money to save the infants in the hospital. But, within hours rumour-mongers, fact-distorters and haters began a smear campaign against Khan on social media platforms like Twitter and on WhatsApp.

This is the age of post-truths and post-lies. In deference to the trend, the crux of this smear campaign is the allegation that Khan was accused of rape. Now, if accusations were the measure of a person's morality, half of Indian politicians should have been banished from public life. Many stalwarts of BJP and Congress have been accused of murder, rape, graft and other serious crimes. Some of them have a history of being jailed and were even externed.

Khan, in contrast, was given a clean chit by the police. In its final report dated 3 April, 2015, on the FIR (see below) against Khan, the Gorakhpur police said the charges against him are baseless. That the investigations reveal the charges against Khan were part of some conspiracy against him.

Khan has also been accused of stealing oxygen from the BRD Medical College. But, where is the proof? Where is the complaint? Did the hospital discover this theft only after he was hailed as a hero? Also, how does a doctor steal liquid oxygen flowing through the ducts in a hospital? Does he fill it up in bottles like water from a tap and take it back home? Or, did he take oxygen cylinders from the hospital to his clinic 15 kilometres away? Did nobody notice for all these years? Did the theft come to light only after the incident?

Khan has also been accused of running private practice. This is laughable. Almost every government doctor in India has a private practice. And, it is allowed under the country's law. In August 2011, the Supreme Court had ruled that private practice by government doctors is no crime. It said, government doctors defying the ban on running private practice and charging consultation fee from patients in a clinic during spare time could neither be accused of indulging in trade nor be booked under the anti-corruption law. So, what exactly is Khan's crime even if he had a private practice?

There are other unsubstantiated accusations dug up from the past to tarnish his image, including an outlandish allegation that he was part of a conspiracy to defame the Adityanath government. Only in the imagination of bigots could such malign fantasies have existed.

Even if Khan had skeletons in his cupboard, does it take away from what he did that day? Can a sinner not be a hero? Is the legend of Ashoka, the fable of Angulimaal not based on the premise that compassion has the power to change each one of us?

A report in News18.com quotes eyewitnesses that Khan indeed tried his best to arrange oxygen cylinders for the hospital. News18.com now has enough proof to question the government's action against Khan. This proof has come from the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), one of the central armed forces of India.

According to OP Sahu, public relations offficer, SSB, It was an unprecedented crisis situation at the BRD Medical College on 10 August. Khan came to DIG SSB and requested for a truck so that oxygen cylinders could be collected from various locations and be taken to the medical college."

The DIG also provided 11 jawans of the medical wing to assist the staff at BRD Medical College. For hours, our truck collected oxygen cylinders from various locations, including a godown in Khalilabad and ferried them to the medical college where it was a situation of acute crisis, Sahu said.

It is a disgrace that Khan is being shamed and his image is being tarnished. In any other country, he would have been hailed as a role model. But the attack on him shows the mighty keyboard warriors of Hindutva are so insecure that they just can't stand up to the fact that when their heroes failed, a Muslim proved that he is a doctor and an Indian first.

A society reflects its ideals and morals through its attitude towards children and heroes. Gorakhpur has shown us the mirror.
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the nation on Independence Day, he conveyed his sympathies to the families affected by the Gorakhpur tragedy. The prime minister said that the sympathies of 125 crore Indians were with the families and that the government would extend all possible help to them.

"I assure the people that with all sensitivity in mind, the government will ensure the well-being and safety of people and will leave no stone unturned to help them," he said.

The Congress had on Monday demanded an apology from Modi to the country over the deaths. It had also attacked the prime minister for staying silent on the issue. Other political parties too had criticised the prime minister as AAP leader Sanjay Singh had said, "The prime minister has all the time to tweet about happenings around the world, but he has no time to spare a word on the Gorakhpur tragedy."

The tragedy was addressed by BJP national president Amit Shah on Monday. Shah had spoken at a press conference where he said, "The incident is an accident. The Uttar Pradesh government is currently investigating it. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has ordered a time-bound probe as well." He had also said that those responsible for the tragedy will be brought to book. "We won't spare the guilty. We will fix accountability," he said.

The judiciary also weighed in on Monday as the Supreme Court refused to take suo motu cognisance of the matter. The bench comprising Chief Justice JS Khehar and Justice DY Chandrachud asked the lawyer, who mentioned the issue before it, to approach the Allahabad High Court with his grievances. The court observed that the authorities were handling the situation and the grievances, if any, have to be raised before the high court concerned.

Over 70 children have reportedly died at Baba Raghav Das (BRD) Medical College Hospital in Gorakhpur since 7 August. Many of the victims were infants who perished in the neonatal intensive care unit. It was alleged that the disruption in oxygen supply to the hospital due to the non-payment of bills could be the cause of several of the reported deaths.

The state government had ruled out lack of oxygen as the cause behind the deaths. State health minister Siddharth Nath Singh had said, "After the first level of investigation, we can claim that the deaths did not take place due to disruption of gas supply."

The oxygen vendor too has said that it never stopped the supply despite outstanding dues of Rs 69 lakh, according to The Times of India. The company, Pushpa Sales Pvt Ltd, said that the college was defaulting on the payment for liquid oxygen supply which was a violation of the contract but despite that, the company never interrupted the supply.

The government had also ordered an official inquiry led by the chief secretary and suspended the principal of the Medical College Hospital Rajiv Mishra. Mishra had later resigned to take "moral responsibility" for the incident.

The government also received a notice from the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), which said that it indicated "gross callousness" on part of the health administration. The NHRC asked the state's chief secretary for a detailed report in four weeks on the steps it has taken for relief and rehabilitation of the affected families as well as the action taken against those guilty.

Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath was further criticised for ordering the state police to celebrate Krishna Janmashtami on a grand scale even as the state mourned the deaths.

Amid the tragedy, it was reported that a doctor's quick thinking saved many lives, according to DNA. Dr Kafeel Khan, the head of encephalitis ward at the hospital, thought on his feet and arranged oxygen cylinders with the help of his friends and private vendors. But a day after the tragedy, Khan was terminated from his services by the hospital.

In the last three decades, Japanese Encephalitis and Acute Encephalitis Syndrome have claimed over 50,000 lives in eastern Uttar Pradesh, mostly in Gorakhpur.

With inputs from agencies
The company involved in the supply of liquid oxygen at Baba Raghav Das (BRD) Hospital in Gorakhpur has claimed that it never stopped the supply despite outstanding dues of Rs 69 lakh, The Times of India has reported. The company, Pushpa Sales Pvt Ltd, has said that the college was defaulting on the payment for liquid oxygen supply which was a violation of the contract but despite that the company never interrupted the supply.

Meenu Walia of Pushpa Sales told the newspaper, "Liquid oxygen supply by Pushpa Sales to BRD hospital, irrespective of overdue payment, was duly maintained. First supply for this month was made on 4 August and the next intimation for refilling request from the BRD hospital came on 11 August, which was fulfilled on 12 August.". She added that the company had also issued a legal notice to the hospital but had never stopped supply.

The MD of the company Manish Bhandari suspected that a big oxygen cylinder theft led to the depleted supply. He was quoted by The Times of India as saying, "Since April, this problem of delay in payment by the hospital had compounded. There were three conditions as part of our contract, according to which liquid oxygen, oxygen cylinders and Ambu bags were to be present at the BRD in abundance. But the hospital became too dependent on us while not refilling their cylinders. The government must find why there were just around 50 cylinders instead of 400 on that particular day when deaths took place. I suspect a big oxygen cylinder theft or racket, which they must find it out."

It had earlier been reported that the vendor had stopped supplying oxygen due to non-payment of Rs 70 lakh. This had been confirmed by Gorakhpur district magistrate Rajeev Rautela. However he said that the college principal had informed him that alternative arrangements were available for emergency use. Rautela also said that a payment of Rs 35 lakh has been made to the vendor, and that he had been requested not to disrupt the oxygen supply.

A letter addressed to the hospital chief and written by the vendor had suggested that an outstanding payment of Rs 63,65,702 was the reason behind the disruption of the oxygen supply.

"We are informing you beforehand that the INOX company (the manufacturer of the oxygen cylinders) has informed us (it) will not supply gas for the cylinders in the future to avoid financial losses," the letter read.

Over 60 children have reportedly died at BRD Hospital since 7 August. At least 30 children were reported dead in the last two days alone. Many of the victims were infants who perished in the neonatal intensive care unit.

The state government had ruled out lack of oxygen as the cause behind the deaths. State health minister Siddharth Nath Singh said, After the first level of investigation, we can claim that the deaths did not take place due to disruption of gas supply. The discussions happened in detail, but issue of gas supply that shouldve come to light didnt come up, said Singh.

With inputs from agencies
Members of a Dalit family were beaten up for skinning dead cattle in Gujarat's Anand on Saturday night, according to media reports.

This incident comes a year after seven Dalits in Una were thrashed by cow vigilantes for skinning a dead cow.

Shailesh Rohit, 21, and his mother Maniben, 45, in Kasor village were first subjected to verbal abuse and then thrashed with sticks by nearly 20 people, according to a report in The Times of India.

Subsequently, Sojitra police booked five persons under Sections 323, 506 (2) of the Indian Penal Code and under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocity) Act, the report added.

On 12 July, a 'Freedom March' was taken out from Mehsana town to commemorate the first anniversary of the Una Dalit flogging incident.

A day before the march, Dalit activists as well as the victims of atrocities from across India, including the Una incident victims, gathered in Ahmedabad to participate in a conclave where they highlighted their demands.

On 11 July, 2016, seven Dalits of Mota Samadhiyala village of Una taluka in Gir-Somnath district were allegedly thrashed when they were skinning dead cattle.

Later, four of these Dalit youths were taken to Una, tied to a vehicle and allegedly thrashed by the gau rakshaks.

The matter came to light after a video of the incident, allegedly made by the vigilantes, went viral on social media and created a huge uproar.
New Delhi: Indians cutting across faith and ethnicity should feel proud of who they are, this is what the Constitution is all about, Chief Justice of India Justice JS Khehar said on Tuesday.

"Whether it is Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Zoroastrians, Muslims or Jains, everybody should be proud of his own religion to be an Indian. Everybody should be proud of his own ethnicity. Proud of being an Indian and that is what the Constitution is all about," he said.

Addressing the Independence Day celebrations organised by the Supreme Court Bar Association here, the CJI said even though he was not born as a citizen of India, he got equal status and opportunity like anyone else.

"After being a citizen, you are neither inferior nor superior to anyone. You are no less or more than anyone else," he said.

Justice Khehar said the country has a president, who is a Dalit and spent his childhood in a mud hut.

"We have an agriculturalist as our vice-president who started his political career by pasting party posters. We have a prime minister who used to be a tea vendor at one point.

"The Chief Justice of India was not a citizen of this country to start with, but when he became the citizen of this country, he was equal to everybody else and had equal opportunities. This is what citizenship or independence is. The freedom to all to achieve their hopes, ambitions, desires," he said.

The CJI told the gathering that he was born as a citizen of Kenya.

Law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, who was also present at the event, said one of the major achievements of India's independence was that it did not become a theocracy.

He added that the country became secular because of its heritage.

"I hold a very firm view that India is not secular because the Constitution says so. The word 'secularism' was added to the Preamble only during Emergency. India is secular because India's heritage is secular. That flows from the great Rig Veda. Truth is wise men interpret it in different manners," he said.

The minister also called for remembering and celebrating the unsung heroes of the freedom movement.

Prasad mentioned about his visit to a village in Assam where nine professors were killed by the British. He also lamented the 'poor condition' of the family of Batukeshwar Dutt, who along with Bhagat Singh, threw a bomb in the Central Legislative Assembly of New Delhi during the freedom struggle.

"I would advice you to take a holiday in Andaman along with your children. Go to the Cellular Jail where you can find a lot of names who have spend 10, 15 to 20 years there.

"(Veer) Savarkar, I always visit his cell. His brother died there. Do you know where their family is? If you remember them, it will be the best way of showing respect to their contribution," he told the gathering.

Remembering the 'unsung heroes' of the freedom movement, Justice Khehar talked about Abdulla, who killed Calcutta judge JP Norman in 1871 and Sher Ali Afridi, who assassinated Lord Mayo, Viceroy of India on 8 February, 1872.

"These people did not run away from the scene. They did not tender any defence. They were put to gallows in Andaman," he said.

Attorney General KK Venugopal also spoke on the occasion.

"Independence is not merely for the well to do. It is also meant for the poor and deprived," he said.
Panchkula: Haryana Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki on Tuesday cautioned people against the threats of terrorism and called for united efforts by every citizen to defeat anti-national forces.

The people in the country celebrate various festivals in their own way, but Independence Day is celebrated without any discrimination of religion, caste, creed, and language, he said after unfurling the national flag at a state-level function at Panchkula.

Recalling the supreme sacrifices made by freedom fighters, martyrs, and soldiers, he said it is our duty to give due respect to their families.

The state government is giving many special benefits to the families of martyrs and their dependents so that they can lead a respectable life.

The governor said it has also been decided that like the freedom fighters, the last rites of their wives will also be performed with full state honor.

The government has also raised the financial assistance being given to the family members of the armed forces personnel who sacrifice their lives in the line of duty to Rs 50 lakh, Solanki said.

"Today (Tuesday), we can face the challenges of the era of globalisation only if we are united and engaged in protecting the nation," the governor said.

It is a matter of pride that campaigns like Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, Swachh Bharat, Ek Bharat-Shresth Bharat, Make in India, Skill India, Digital India, Stand Up India is going on to enable the country face new challenges, he said and called upon the people to contribute to making India a superpower of the 21st century.

Solanki said Haryana has become the leading state in per capita income, industrial production, foreign investment, education, sports, agriculture, and transport.

"Growth rate of GDP in the state is higher than the national average. It is growing at a rate of more than seven percent every year. Here, 33 percent of the country's two-wheelers, 50 percent cars, and 52 percent cranes are manufactured. The government's enterprise promotion policy is an attempt to make the prime minister's 'Make in India' campaign successful," he said.

The governor also highlighted various achievements of the state government in the field of sports, education, skill development and other schemes being implemented for the welfare of all sections of the society.

Earlier, he released the 'Sankalp Se Siddhi' vision 2022 document of Panchkula district administration and also honored freedom fighters, widows of freedom fighters, war widows and some officials of district administration.
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 It will be interesting to see whether the prime minister, in his Independence Day speech, talks about the death of 72 children in the Gorakhpur hospital.

"There are times when conditions in nature become problematic. In the last few days, some of our innocent children died in a hospital," said Modi. "All the countrymen stand together at this time."

"After the surgical strike, the entire world had to acknowledge India's strength," said the prime minister.

"The concern for national security is a natural one in an independent India," said Modi. "Our security forces have always shown their capabilities whenever on duty. Whether it is terrorism or infiltrators, our security personnel have always been ready for sacrifice."

After the surgical strike, the entire world had to acknowledge India's strength: Modi

"But there will be no leniency for terrorism. I have told many people to become a part of democracy," said the prime minister.

"A lot happens in Kashmir. A lot of claims are made. A lot of people abuse each other. There are a lot of separatists," said Modi.

"The development of Jammu and Kashmir is also a sankalp of the people and the government there," said the prime minister.

"I believe India will fully support the women in their struggle," he added.

"The women of this country created a revolution against triple talaq. There was an atmosphere against triple talaq in the country with even the media supporting the women," he said.

"The contribution of our mothers and sisters is very important. We have worked towards extending maternity leave from 12 weeks to 26 weeks," he said.

"The businessmen with black money used to run shell companies. After demonetisation, 3 lakh shell companies were found. And out of that, we cancelled the registration of 1.75 lakh companies," said the prime minister.

Internet facilities and services of all other mobile phone operators were suspended as a precautionary measure on the 71st Independence Day, the officials said.  PTI

Only BSNL landline service was functional in the Valley.

Internet and mobile phone services were suspended in Kashmir Valley as a precautionary measure on Independence Day, officials said.

In his radio address 'Mann Ki Baat' last month, Modi said said he had received letters from people complaining that his Independence Day speeches were "a little too long" and promised to make a shorter speech.  PTI

India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru spoke for 72 minutes in 1947 which was till 2015 the longest ever speech from the Red Fort.

Last year, he had spoken for 96 minutes, the longest ever Independence Day address by an Indian prime minister.

Modi spoke for 57 minutes, his shortest Independence Day speech in four years.

Having made a record of delivering the longest Independence Day speech last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered his shortest speech from the ramparts of the historic Red Fort this year.

"In the last three years, more than Rs 1,25,000 crore of black money has been caught...the culprits have been forced to surrender this money," Modi said in his speech here on the occasion of Independence Day.

Listing the achievements of the NDA government in curbing black money, including demonetisation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said that authorities had confiscated black money worth over Rs 1 lakh crore and around Rs 3 lakh crore had been brought into the banking system.

Over Rs 3 lakh cr came into system after note ban: Narendra Modi

She said steps were being taken to boost investment in the state, Raje said. "We organised Resurgent Rajasthan in 2015... which was very positive."

Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje unfurled the national flag at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium here and highlighted the policies of her government in a speech. Cultural programmes and other events were also organised across the state.

Modi's remarks that the Kashmir problem cannot be resolved by "goli se" (bullets) or "gaali se" (abuse) came in his Independence Day speech from the Red Fort.

"Actually he (Modi) said the Kashmir issue will not be resolved by abuse and bullets. I guess that covers both sides - terrorists and security forces," the former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister tweeted.

Omar Abdullah hoped that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's assertion that the Kashmir problem cannot be resolved by "abuse" and "bullets" will be applicable to security forces too.

They are held on the national days of both countries.

These meetings are held at five points - Daulat Beg Oldie in northern Ladakh, Kibithoo in Arunachal Pradesh, Chushul in Ladakh, Bum-La near Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh and Nathu-La in Sikkim.

Amid a border row, a customary Border Personnel Meeting held between India and China on India's Independence Day is unlikely as Beijing has not responded to communications from New Delhi.

The comments, made by Kejriwal in a televised Independence Day speech, came against the backdrop of the Chandigarh stalking case involving the son of Haryana BJP chief Subhash Barala.

Justice has to be certain and swift in order to tackle crime against women, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said today, deploring "tendencies to shield" sons of politicians involved in such cases. Kejriwal said governments should ensure freedom for women instead of imposing restrictions on them. A politician's son, guilty of such crimes, should be awarded double the punishment as stipulated in statute books, he said.

"This is what I can say. I need not say anything else. Let today be an auspicious day for all. God's blessings continue to be upon you all the time," he said.

Asked what expectations he has from Modi, Advani said his "best wishes were with all and all should attain success in their lives".

"My good wishes to all. On this day, I wish all of you attain greatest success in life," he told reporters after hoisting the national flag at his official residence.

BJP veteran LK Advani today extended greetings to all countrymen, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on the occasion of 71st Independence Day.

In his Independence Day speech from the ramparts of the historic Red Fort, Modi referred to last year's surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC) and said the world has realised the mettle of India's security forces.

Without naming China or the two-month-long Doklam standoff, he said the country's security is a priority for his government and that soldiers are deployed to protect the borders effectively.

India is capable of tackling any kind of security challenge, be it the sea or borders, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today asserted amid the standoff with China in Doklam.

Amid tensed relations with China, Pakistan, PM Modi asserts India capable of tackling any kind of challenge

The Madhya Pradesh government aims to make the state free of corruption and poverty by 2022, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said today. Resounding a similar sentiment, Uttarakhand chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat also promised to honour the huge mandate given by the people by wiping out graft from the state.

The runners, sporting 'India@70' T-shirts and waving tricolour glow sticks, kick-started a one-mile journey from the statue of Mahatma Gandhi at the historic square in the heart of the British capital to India Place at the Indian High Commission in London.

Hundreds of members of the Indian diaspora in the UK took part in the first-ever Freedom Run to mark India's 70th Independence Day with the one-mile journey beginning from the historic Parliament Square.

"It is now time to end 'chalta hai' attitude of complacency, and its replacement with an attitude of 'badal sakta hai' (needed) for positive change," the Prime Minister said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday called for an end to the 'Chalta hai' attitude of complacency and adopt a 'Badal sakta hai' attitude to bring about positive change.

"The world is looking with amazement at how, in such a short time, so many people have been brought into the system...this shows the capability of India," the Prime Minister said.

"GST (Goods and Services Tax) has shown that the spirit of cooperative-competitive federalism has gained strength. Crores of people in the country have come together to support GST and the role of technology has also helped," Modi said in his speech here on Independence Day.

The implementation of GST from last month is testimony to the strength of the spirit of "cooperative and competitive federalism" in the country and has immediately resulted in a 30 per cent increase in efficiency in the transportation sector, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday.

"A bunch of scientists and engineers from ISRO came together to make their first ever music video ahead of India's 70th Independence Day. The patriotic song which is mostly in Malayalam also talks about building a new nation and seeks to put an end to violence," News 18 reported.

But what has raised eyebrows is that the madrasas have been asked to show proof of the activities by videotaping everything.

The Yogi Adityanath-led UP government has directed madrasas across the state to hoist the national flag, recite the national anthem, sing patriotic songs, organise cultural and sport-related programmes, and pay tribute to freedom fighters on Independence Day," DNA reported.

When every Indian is willingly celebrating 70 years of Independance from a crushing colonial rule, tokenism in the name of Independence day celebrations was once again thrust Muslims in Uttar Pradesh.

Meanwhile... UP Muslims must prove patriotism as Yogi govt issues I-day diktat for madrasas

They have been taken to different police stations of the summer state capital, a police official said.

Over 200 activists of BJP's youth wing, who were on a 'Tiranga yatra' to hoist the national flag at the Lal Chowk here, have been detained as a precautionary measure, the police said today.

In Kashmir, over 200 BJP activists held to foil Tiranga Yatra as preventive measure

Modi got down from his black Range Rover and waved to the crowd, which included hundreds of schoolchildren. He was received by Union minister Arun Jaitley, Minister of State for Defence Subhash Bhamre and defence secretary Sanjay Mitra. - PTI

The prime minister, who unfurled the national flag at the historic Red Fort on the 70th anniversary of India's independence, was dressed in his trademark half-sleeved kurta and sported a turban.

Thunderous applause greeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi as his motorcade arrived at the Red Fort at 7.23 am on Tuesday, with thousands of people who had assembled there rising to catch a glimpse of him.

Dressed in his trademark half-sleeved kurta, Narendra Modi was greeted with thunderous applause

The Congress described Narendra Modi's Independence Day speech as "most disappointing" and said his promise of curbing black money "remains a sham". "His fight against black money was a sham and remains a sham," Congress leader Anand Sharma told reporters. Sharma said the Modi government has "promoted black money hoarding" and promoted "crony capitalism".

Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday suddenly felt unwell while addressing the people at the Independence Day function, but recovered soon. "The chief minister suddenly did not feel well due to humidity. Now he is completely OK and at Naveen Nivas (his residence)," an official of the chief minister's office said.

India's Ambassador to Nepal Manjeev Singh Puri handed over the keys of the vehicles to the representatives of various organisations at a function in the premises of Indian Embassy in Kathmandu. - PTI

India on Tuesday gifted 30 ambulances and six buses to Nepalese hospitals, charitable organisations and educational institutions on the occasion of its 71st Independence Day.

The National Flag was first hoisted at the Sangh headquarters on August 15, 1947 and then on January 26, 1950. The Tiranga was seen flying next time at the RSS premises in 2002, when it was hoisted at the HQ and Smruti Bhawan, the building that houses the memorials of its founder Hedgewar and Guru Golwalkar.

The RSS and the Tricolour have had a fascinating history of resistance, rejection and acceptance. It may come as a rude surprise to neo recruits like Sharma that the RSS  not the Congis+Commies+Left-- did not hoist the National Flag at its headquarters for 52 years.

Why did the RSS not fly Tricolour for 52 years?

Consumer inflation declined, defence pensioners were granted One Rank One Pension and pension for freedom fighters were increased but economic growth faltered, area under pulses cultivation did not increase as claimed and the promise to build separate toilets for girls in government schools is marginally short of target as per the promises made by Modi during his three independence day speeches.

According to an IndiaSpend report, Of eight claims made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in three independence day speeches from 2014 to 2016, three have been kept and five have been partially kept.

In New Delhi, where law and order had almost completely broken down, tens of thousands of Muslims sheltered behind the 16th-century walls of Humayun's Tomb waiting for safe passage to Pakistan. Tents were erected in the fine gardens surrounding the spectacular mausoleum  the inspiration for the Taj Mahal  and spilled over to encircle the smaller tombs dotting the Mughal-era complex. - AFP

The Partition of India sparked one of the greatest mass migrations in modern history, with millions seeking sanctuary from the violence inside ancient tombs and forts  transforming them into sprawling refugee camps.

Bits from history: Ancient sites were turned into refugee camps as people fled partition

In a statement released by his office, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said: "On behalf of the government of the US, best wishes to the people of India as they celebrate their independence day and continue the journey we began together 70 years ago."

The United States on Tuesday greeted India on its Independence Day and said Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitious vision for India-United States ties holds great promise for advancing their shared interests in the 21st century.

15 million: The number who migrated, often by foot, during Partition

40: The number of days British judge Cyril Radcliffe was given to draw the new boundaries that would divide the subcontinent into India and Pakistan

190: The number of years the British ruled in India, first through the East India Company and then the Crown

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday promised to open more than 25 skill development centres and fight dengue and chikungunya in the national capital. "Within one year, we will open 25-30 centres (for skill development) in Delhi," the chief minister said in his Independence Day address at the Chhatrasal Stadium.

In a statement released by his office, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said: "On behalf of the government of the US, best wishes to the people of India as they celebrate their independence day and continue the journey we began together 70 years ago."

The United States on Tuesday greeted India on its Independence Day and said Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitious vision for India-United States ties holds great promise for advancing their shared interests in the 21st century.

Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday termed the Gorakhpur hospital tragedy as "irreversible" and said the lives lost can never be got back, in his address at the Independence Day function. "The Gorakhpur incident is one which is irreversible, and we can never get back what has been lost," said Vijayan.

Ladakh-MoS I&B RS Rathore unfurled tricolor in presence of group of 50women bikers,who reached Khardung La pass to promote women empowerment pic.twitter.com/2cqol7LZxd

15 million: The number who migrated, often by foot, during Partition

40: The number of days British judge Cyril Radcliffe was given to draw the new boundaries that would divide the subcontinent into India and Pakistan

190: The number of years the British ruled in India, first through the East India Company and then the Crown

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee unfurled the tricolour and inspected a colourful parade on Tuesday as the state joined the nation in celebrating the 71st Independence Day. The main function at the arterial Indira Gandhi Sarani (erstwhile Red Road) was attended by Banerjee, her ministers, senior bureaucrats and members of the diplomatic corps. Banerjee hoisted the national flag and inspected a guard of honour given by the state and city police

In his Independence Day speech, Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah said "imposition" of any language on a state, which has its own official language, is unconstitutional. The statement comes against the backdrop of protests by pro-Kannada outfits against use of Hindi on Namma Metro signboards.

In a statement Mufti said she has all along maintained that dialogue and peaceful means could alone resolve the issue as violence had only wrought more destruction in the state.

Mehbooba Mufti on Tuesday welcomed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Independence Day remarks on Kashmir. In his Red Fort speech Modi said neither bullets nor abuses would resolve the Kashmir issue, it can only be resolved by embracing the people with love.

Amid intelligence alerts about possible terror attacks, security was beefed up in the national capital on Monday, with around 47,000 personnel deployed ahead of Independence Day celebrations, officials said.

Around 25,000 security personnel will be deployed in and around New Delhi, north Delhi and major central Delhi areas, a police official said.

The Red Fort and its surrounding areas within a five-km radius will be taken care of by about 90 companies of security forces (over 9,000 men).

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the nation from the ramparts of Red Fort on the 71st Independence Day on Tuesday.

Officials said anti-aircraft and anti-drone guns have been deployed in and around Red Fort. An additional 500 closed-circuit television and high-resolution cameras have been placed in and around Red Fort.

"Anti-social elements or terrorists could pose a threat to the safety of people and vital installations by using unconventional aerial platforms. All neighbouring states have also been alerted and security beefed up on Delhi's borders," an official said.

Besides Delhi Police, personnel of paramilitary forces and National Security Guard will be on duty.

The official said that after the killing of several top-rung militants in Jammu and Kashmir, there are also reports that outfits in that state could be looking at carrying out terror attacks.

Delhi Police spokesperson Madhur Verma told IANS, "Security personnel will look out for flying objects like para-motors, hang-gliders, unmanned aerial vehicles, microlight aircraft, and remotely-piloted and small-powered aircraft."

Flying of aerial vehicles like quadcopters, paragliders, and hot-air balloons has been banned in Delhi in the run-up to the Indpendence Day.

Police officials said Metro rail services on the Blue Line will be run as usual. However, boarding and de-boarding at the Red Fort and Jama Masjid stations on the Violet Line will not be allowed after 6.30 am till the Independence Day function at Red Fort ends.

Officials said security personnel in plain-clothes will be deployed in several areas. NSG snipers too have been deployed on rooftops and strategically important points.

Police have carried out security checks at hotels and guesthouses, specially in areas around Red Fort.

Roads leading to Red Fort  Netaji Subhash Marg, SP Mukherjee Marg, Chandni Chowk Road, Nishad Raj Marg and Link Road  will be out of bounds for traffic for four hours from 5 am on Tuesday.

Joint commissioner of police (Traffic) Garima Bhatnagar told IANS that people can use the Delhi Metro and alight at Delhi Gate, Chandni Chowk, or Kashmere Gate stations to reach Red Fort.

She appealed to the public not to touch any suspicious object and report any unidentified/suspicious object or individual or vehicle to the nearest security personnel.

With inputs from IANS
Bhopal: The Madhya Pradesh government aims to make the state free of corruption and poverty by 2022, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said on Tuesday. "We have resolved to make the state free of corruption and poverty by 2022," Chouhan said while underlining Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call for creating a country which is free of corruption, poverty, terrorism and casteism.

"Every poor in Madhya Pradesh will have a house of his own by 2022," Chouhan said addressing the Independence Day function.

In this direction, the state government would build five lakh houses for urban poor and 15 lakh houses for rural poor by next year, he said.

Stressing the need to protect the environment, he said a mass movement called Narmada Seva Yatra was taken out earlier this year to revive the Narmada river  considered as the lifeline of Madhya Pradesh.

The chief minister said that Rs 8,500 crore would be invested to develop greenery on the sides of Narmada river and to treat its water in next three years.

The state has sufficient electricity, he said, adding that consumers were getting 24 hours power supply daily.

The farmers in the state were getting electricity for 10 hours daily for agricultural purposes, he said.

He also said that the state government has decided to set up a global skill park with the help of Singapore-based Institute of Technical Education in Bhopal.

"The park will generate employment by imparting world class training in skill development," Chouhan said.

According to reports from various other parts of the state, including major cities like Jabalpur, Indore and Gwalior, the Independence Day was celebrated there with traditional fervour and gaiety.
Hyderabad: The Telangana government would soon take steps to fill up about 85,000 government jobs, Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao said in his Independence Day address on Tuesday.

"On this happy and auspicious occasion of the Independence Day, I would like to give good news to the unemployed youth. I am happy to announce that besides 27,660 appointments so far we made, measures are being taken to make appointments for another 84,876 jobs shortly," he said.

It was promised during separate Telangana agitation that about one lakh jobs would be provided in the new state, but more than 1.12 lakh recruitments are being made now, he said.

"With this, 1,12,536 posts have been created which are over and above the one lakh figure that has been promised," he said.

Rao unfurled the national flag at the historic Golconda Fort on the occasion of Independence Day.

He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump would attend the World Industrialists Forum meeting to be held from 28 to 30 November.

"All of us should feel happy that the state is going to be a venue for the 'World Industrialists Forum' which will take place in Hyderabad from 28 to 30 November.

"For this conference, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, US President Donald Trumps daughter, and US Government advisor Ivanka Trump are participating," he said.

The conference would be an occasion for industrialists all over the world to exchange their views and offer help to aspiring entrepreneurs, he said.

The government is making all efforts to make the conference a grand success so that the name and fame of Telangana will spread all over, he said.

The state stood first in the ease of doing business rankings (along with Andhra Pradesh), he said.

"So far, with Rs. 1,01,722 crores of investment have come to the state. 4,118 new industries were given industrial clearances and licenses providing employment to 2.90 lakh people," he said.

For the benefit of farmers, the state government would launch a scheme for providing Rs 8,000 per acre towards input costs from next year, Rao said.

"Farmers often end in debt trap unable to pay back the loan. To overcome this problem, the government has decided to offer financial assistance for their agriculture inputs. From the next year onwards, the government will give Rs 8,000 per acre to farmers in the year for two crops," he said.

The state government is conducting a comprehensive land survey in the state, he said.

"The land survey was done way back in 1936 under the then Nizam and so far, no other survey ever conducted. After a gap of 81 years, the government is now conducting the survey," he said.

He also explained the numerous welfare and development initiatives of the state government for the benefit of various sections and communities.

The Independence Day was celebrated in the offices of Congress, TDP, BJP, and others.
Lucknow: Calling every incident an eye-opener, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday sought to blame the deaths of over 60 children in Gorakhpur on encephalitis.

In his maiden Independence Day speech after assuming office, the Chief Minister, after unfurling the national flag at the Vidhan Sabha building, said that every incident was an eye-opener to realise that it should not be repeated.

In an obvious reference to the tragedy, widely blamed on lack of oxygen at the state-run hospital, Adityanath said that Uttar Pradesh was a big state and deaths were taking place due to diseases like encephalitis.

Such vector-borne diseases, he said, could be tackled with the Swacch Bharat mission "in which every citizen should participate".

He also urged the young to do their bit to weed out corruption.

The chief minister said his government was working towards providing 1.52 crore uniforms to students, had started Ram Katha in Ayodhya, was developing Mathura and promised to provide more jobs to youngsters.

More than 60 children have died in Gorakhpur, the chief minister's former constituency, after the hospital where they were warded reportedly ran out of oxygen. But officials have been citing different reasons at different times for the deaths.
Srinagar: Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Monday called for protecting and strengthening the constitutional position enjoyed by Jammu and Kashmir, saying it provided a sound base for trust and tolerance between the people of the state and rest of the country.

In her message to the people of the state on the eve of Independence Day, she said the position was a result of reciprocity of sentiments of the people of the state and rest of the country following the accession of 1947.

"When the situation in the entire sub-continent was very bad, people of the state, by acceding to the union, chose a democratic system based on shared ideals of democracy, tolerance and mutual trust.

"The constitutional status enjoyed by Jammu and Kashmir in the Union is unparallelled and protecting and strengthening it is our collective responsibility," Mufti said.

The chief minister said the extensive legislative powers of the state Assembly, which were comparable to none in the country, were exemplified recently during the GST Act formulation.

"The House debated the issues and the Presidential Order on the subject also ratified the legislative competence and authority of our assembly," she said in her address.

The chief minister said it was her firm belief that dialogue always gives the best solution to any problem.

"The Agenda of Alliance (common minimum programme between PDP and BJP) of the present government has also declared that dialogue with all stakeholders in the state is the way forward.

"Democracy is the battle of ideas and ideas can't be jailed. A better idea only can defeat another idea," she said.

Terming Indo-Pak friendship in the best interests of the state, Mufti said it was the people who bore the brunt of bitterness in relations between the two countries.

"Due to the recent tension along the Line of Control, hundreds of people living close to the borders had to migrate.

Many of them lost their lives, schools in these areas were closed and many of them were rendered homeless," she said.

She, however, said despite having lost a lot to the violence and uncertainty of the past three decades, people had held high the values and principles the state was known for.

She said the way in which people of the state stood up against the killing of Amarnath yatris was a case example.

Describing youth as hope for the future, Mufti said in her interactions she had seen the dreams of a better future. "A future where there is development, respect, guarantee for identity and definitely peace also. We owe it to them," she said, appealing for working unitedly to realise the dreams of the future generation.

She said the execution of Rs 80,000 crore Prime Minister's Development Package had started taking place in the state.

Mufti said the state government had formulated an ambitious plan under which not only the state would be connected to rest of the country through improved road networks but all regions of the state would also be connected to each other.

"Recently Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) inaugurated Chennai-Nashri tunnel on Srinagar-Jammu national highway. With the completion of another tunnel at Qazigund, the distance on the highway would greatly decrease, ensuring state's improved connectivity with rest of the country," she said.

The chief minister said peace and people's support were the two crucial components without which the developmental objective could not be achieved.

She credited the youth for their contribution in maintaining peace, saying with further improvement the developmental process in the state would take a bigger push, tourism would pick up leading to more jobs, thus realising the dreams of the youth.
For past four weeks, villagers visiting the tehsildars office at Selu Taluka in the Parbhani district of Maharashtra have been stopping at the doorway, unsure about how to enter the office without stepping over the ashes spread all over. Most of them scurry away from the entrance on overhearing conversations of a person being cremated there on 19 July. This is an unusual situation and villagers are both bemused and worried about the dead being brought to the administrative office for cremation. What transpired on 19 July was a spontaneous act of protest against the unavailability of a crematorium in the project-affected and recently resettled village of Devla in Parbhani district.

After a prolonged illness, 72-year-old Asruba Pandure died on 18 July. His family along with other villagers visited the earmarked space in the village for cremation, only to find the land was no more available to carry out the final rites. "The land, we were told (to be used as a cremation ground), was given away to a private builder, without our knowledge or consent and we were prevented from entering the space," said Pandures 35-year-old son Vithal.

The Pandures are the only family in the village belonging to the Koli community. Almost all 450 families living in Selu, including the Pandures, are landless. While the Pandure family lives off fishing, other families, mostly belonging to Dalit, Muslim and other backward communities work as daily wage labourers.



With no place to carry out the cremation, around 250 people including women, children and the old visited the tehsildar early 19 July.

"It was already several hours since my father had died. His body had slowly begun to decay. We approached the tehsildar hoping he would intervene and make immediate arrangements. But he turned us down," Vithal claimed.

The villagers said they tried to reason with Tehsildar Swarup Kankal for over nine hours before unanimously deciding to cremate the body right outside his office.

"Where else could we go? So, we got the firewood, rested the body on it and lit the pyre. No one intervened or tried to stop us," said Madan Choubhe.

When this reporter met Kankal, he said, the issue had already gone out of his control and any kind of intervention would have only aggravated the situation. I took charge just a few days before the incident. I did not know the depth of the issue. Emotions were running high and no one was in the mood to discuss," said Kankal.

Although, the initial reaction was to proceed with legal action against the villagers, Kankal said, "We decided against it later."

A tehsildar is a fiscal and administrative head of the villages under his jurisdiction.

Devla is one of the 22 villages of Jalna and Parbhani districts to be affected by the lower Dudhana irrigation project, initiated in 1984. As part of the displacement and rehabilitation process, the village was shifted from Jalna district to Selu Taluka in Parbhani district in 2007. Although a patch of land had been earmarked and the villagers had carried out final rites in as many as 22 deaths in the past, they alleged that the land was recently sold to a private builder. This land, the villagers pointed out, was already acquired from its old owner under Section 4 of the (old) Land Acquisition Act, 1894, only after which the state can take any land under its possession.

"Selling it to a third party is unlawful. And more so, the villagers were kept in the dark. No alternative arrangements were made for them either," said Ashok Uphade, a land rights activist working in the Marathwada region.

Kankal, however, said he was not aware of the transactions and that his predecessors could be in the know of the decision. "I am not aware of the legal proceedings in the case. I will have to study the case closely to be able to comment on it," he added.

Even ten years after the displacement, the villagers in Devla continue to struggle for access to basic amenities.

Road, water, electricity, toilets, rationing office, nothing has reached the village yet. We are dependent on the neighbouring villages even for our daily needs," said Indubai Bobade, 40, an OBC woman who has been at the forefront of the struggle.

Most families in Devla live in thatched roof houses built out of a meager sum received as relief package.

The deal was land for land and a house for a house. Since we did not own any land, we were only given money to build a house here," said Pandurang Kamble, a member of the rehabilitation committee of the village.

Most houses in Devla are half or poorly built.

"The compensation paid was between Rs 30,000 to Rs 60,000. What can one build with that amount?" asked Sulabai Kamble, another villager.

The larger issue: crematorium and Dalits struggle for dignity

The incident that transpired at Devla is only symptomatic of the struggles that over 17,000 villages of Maharashtra face due to lack of burial or cremation grounds. And, in addition to the governments apathy, caste conflicts make things even worse, especially for the marginalised communities. Unlike the urban areas, where burial or cremation ground is accessible within the city limits and is mostly allotted as per religion, in rural parts, it is the caste identity that defines its accessibility.

Land rights activist and Lal Sena (a left-leaning political outfit) leader Ganpat Bhise, says, in his over a decade-long work, he has come across several cases of caste atrocities inflicted on the landless while carrying out the final rites.

"The dominant landed communities in the village are not impacted. They use their own land for this purpose. Even if one does not have any land, his caste members in the village would generously make land available. But it is the landless Dalit families which suffer deeply," Bhise adds.

Desecration of a dead body, disallowing usage of grazing land to carry out the rituals and violent attacks on the marginalised communities are commonly reported from rural Maharashtra.

While cremation ground remains a problem across Maharashtra, Bhise says, it is worse in the Marathwada region. Marathwada's eight districts  Jalna, Aurangabad, Parbhani, Hingoli, Nanded, Latur, Osmanabad and Beed accounts for 16.84 percent of the state's population. Among them, 14.96 percent belong to Scheduled Caste and nearly 4.01 percent are from the Scheduled Tribe category. Over 30 percent of Maharashtra's Below Poverty Line (BPL) families live in this region.

"Abject poverty and caste violence have made lives of Dalits very difficult here," Bhise adds.

This reporter also visited few other villages in Selu Taluka and found that the situation was no different. The problems stood out starkly in villages which had a considerable number of land-owning dominant caste houses.

At Hissi village, the Buddhist, Matang and Waddar communities were dependent on the land-owning OBC or Maratha families' benevolence for some space to be made available to carry out the final rites. These landless families are settled on the eastern side, at the periphery of the village.

"Even the Gharkul Yojana (states housing scheme) ensured we were allotted houses outside the village," said Mukta Shinde.

One Mali (OBC caste) family has provided us 7x4 square feet space at the corner of their field, adjoining the mud road. The sludge that gathers here during the rains makes it difficult to burn the pyre. But we have to make do with it, said Dinkar Shinde, a villager who recently cremated his brother at that spot.

As for villages were a cremation ground exists, they are in the control of the upper and the intermediate castes.

Any space frequented by the upper castes invariably gets controlled by them, Bhise says.

Santosh Mekhale, a research scholar from the Tata Insitute of Social Sciences, who recently completed his study on the conditions of crematoriums in the Marathwarda region, blames state apathy for the situation.

"Caste discrimination and untouchability prevail because the state machinery does not adequately work in the villages. Life in villages is already challenging for the landless. The non-implementation of government policies makes it even worse," says Mekhale.

Bhise believes that unless a radical change in attitude is brought out, things will remain the same. "Since 1985, several notifications and ordinances have been issued. The recent one was in 2010. Each notification points at the lack of implementation of the earlier notification," says Bhise, adding that unless a separate space is earmarked for Dalits and an active interest is shown in building an equitable, democratic culture in the villages, Dalits would be denied dignity even in their death.
A fresh bout of heavy rains that hit South Asia this week has led to flash floods in several countries, with the death toll rising over 175 in Nepal, India and Bangladesh, according to media reports. In India, scores have died and thousands have fled their homes as monsoon floods swept across Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Bihar and multiple states in the North East.

In Uttarakhand, six persons were killed and one army jawan went missing in two separate cloudbursts in Dharchula sub-division in the early hours of Monday. However, Hindustan Times reported that the death toll in the landslides that followed the cloudbursts might be as high as 28. Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat flew to the rain-hit areas in Pithoragarh district later in the day.

Rawat said there was no need for panic as the administration was prepared to tackle the situation. Relief and rescue operations have been launched on war footing in the affected areas by the army, NDRF and SDRF personnel, and people in areas prone to landslides were being evacuated to safety, he said.

In Bihar, 41 people have died and 65.37 lakh people have been affected after heavy rains triggered flash floods in the last three days. Twenty people have died in Araria, six in Sitamarhi, five in Kisanganj, three each in East Champaran, West Champaran and Darbhanga districts, and one in Madhubani, an official told PTI. Flood waters have also engulfed areas in Kisanganj, three blocks of Purnea and one block of Katihar, damaging roads severely.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar conducted an aerial survey of the 12 affected districts in Bihar, and blamed the extreme weather in Nepal for the situation in his state. He said besides the army column which was sent to Purnea, four teams of NDRF had arrived on Monday and six more NDRF teams landed in the state on Tuesday.

Assam is one of the worst-hit states as 32 lakh people in 25 districts have been affected and three more persons lost their lives taking the toll in the second wave of the deluge to 18. According to Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) the toll in this year's flood-related incidents in the state climbed to 102. Till Sunday, 22.5 lakh people were hit by the latest wave of flood across 21 districts.

Dhubri is the worst-affected district with 7.79 lakh people displaced by the incessant rains, followed by Morigaon where 3.83 lakh people have been hit. Currently, the Brahmaputra is flowing above the danger mark at Guwahati, Jorhat, Tezpur, Goalpara and Dhubri.

The second wave of floods in Assam has submerged rhino habitats in Kaziranga National Park (KNP) and Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary, forcing animals to take shelter on highlands. According to a KNP official, over 85 percent of the national park, a UNESCO World Heritage site, was inundated.

PTI reported that Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to the chief ministers of Bihar and Assam and assured them of all support from the Centre to mitigate the floods.

In Arunachal Pradesh too, the flood situation continued to be grim in several districts with recurring landslides disrupting road traffic. Major portions of Anjaw, East Siang and Namsai districts were affected by the flood while Papum Pare, East Kameng and West Siang were partly hit. A food crisis looms large in the districts bordering China. Deputy Commissioner Mamata Riba says he requested the government to facilitate air dropping of food packets if the road remains blocked for two more days.

Train services to the North East have also been disrupted following the rains. All incoming trains from various parts of the country towards the North East, which were to reach either Katihar or Malda town till 10 am on Tuesday, have been cancelled, an official told PTI.

In West Bengal, around 60,000 people in Alipurduar and Jalpaiguri districts have been affected by floods with all major rivers in north Bengal flowing above danger marks. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said, "We are concerned about the flood situation across the country. Earlier floods had affected south Bengal. Now north Bengal is also affected. We are monitoring the situation round-the-clock for relief and rescue operations."

Many places in Odisha also received heavy rains with Malkangiri and Mandira Dam in Sundargarh district gauging 11 cm each, followed by Rayagada.

Heavy rains occurred at isolated places in Chhattisgarh while parts of Vidarbha region and Madhya Pradesh witnessing moderate rainfall, but there was no significant change in maximum and minimum temperatures.

In Uttar Pradesh, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath took an aerial survey of the flood-affected Gonda, Shrawasti, Balrampur and Bahraich districts and said district administrations have been directed to ensure proper arrangement of relief material.

With inputs from PTI
The fate of lakhs of students in Mumbai is still hanging in the air, with the Mumbai University missing yet another deadline to announce results of its recently conducted board examinations. The varsity, which had already missed two earlier deadlines  on 31 July and 5 August  has now missed its third deadline, of 15 August as well. Out of a total of 4.77 lakh students, only 3.31 lakh results had been announced by 14 August, meaning 1.46 lakh students are still in the dark.

As per sources within the Mumbai University, checking of the remaining exam papers will take another two weeks. Maharashtra governor C Vidyasagar Rao had set the initial 31 July deadline, following which the university claimed they will declare all results by 5 August.

Following this delay, the governor sent a showcause notice to the then vice-chancellor of the varsity, Dr Sanjay Deshmukh, demanding reasons for the delay. Deshmukh had assured the governor of speedy evaluation of the pending exam papers. But, on 9 August, Deshmukh sought to go on leave, which was approved by Rao, fuelling speculation that he would be asked to resign.

Dr Devanand Shinde of Shivaji University, who was the vice-chancellor of Shivaji University in Kolhapur, was given additional charge of MU. But change in personnel has clearly not helped expedite the moderation process, as even after a month-long delay, lakhs of papers are to be corrected.

Results are usually declared in the last week of June or the first weeks of July. But this year, a large number of students, especially in Commerce, Taxation and Law courses, are in the dark. What's making matters worse is a lack of clarity regarding information, with the varsity neither giving out reasons for the delay nor mentioning dates on which they are likely to be announced.

Speaking to Firstpost, Shinde said the varsity has formed a taskforce to speed up the process. Since joining as acting vice-chancellor on 9 August, Shinde said he's been conducting meetings and discussions with teachers, and also with Merit Track, the company managing the online assessment process.

However, this will come as scant consolation for the students who have waited over a month for their results.

Some also fear a spate of festivals in this week, with Janmashtami, Independence Day and Parsi New Year all designated as holidays, may further impact announcement of results. "We are trying hard to ensure results are declared as soon as possible," Shinde said.

Firstpost has also learnt that Rao is seeking legal opinion about the removal of Deshmukh from his post. Deshmukh's response to Rao's showcause notice, in which he had alleged sabotage and technical glitches for the delays, didn't cut much ice with the governor. It remains to be seen what action Rao takes ultimately.

In 160 years of the Mumbai University, this is the first time a vice-chancellor has been issued a showcause notice for delays in announcement of exam results.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said that those born in the 21st century will decide the future of the nation and the year 2018 would be crucial for them in that quest.

"The year 2018 is significant for those born in the 21st century," Modi said in his speech on the occasion of Independence Day.

He said that from 1 January, 2018, the millenials would start turning 18 and will then decide the future of the 21st century and shape the vision of a "new India".

"So I invite them to take this opportunity to shape the future of the nation and participate in India's development."

The Prime Minister added that through collective efforts, sacrifice and commitment of 125 crore Indians, especially the younger generation, a new India would be created which is secure, prosperous and powerful, and where all Indians are equal.

"With firm commitment towards a better and brighter India, we have to move on from disappointment. We have to move on from 'chalta hai' attitude towards 'badal raha hai' and 'badal sakta hai' attitude," Modi said.

He said with that confidence, the 125 crore Indians will collectively change the nation for the better.

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In his fourth Independence Day speech at the Red Fort on Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke on varied issues, ranging from farmers' issues, GST, demonetisation, terrorism and triple talaq. Here are 10 points of his speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort:

Gorakhpur tragedy

The prime minister was being criticised for not talking about the Gorakhpur hospital tragedy which has killed over 70 children so far. However, Modi broke his silence on Tuesday. The prime minister said, "In the last few days, some of our innocent children died in a hospital. All the countrymen stand together at this time," he said.

Pitch for New India

During the course of his speech, Modi said that India should create a New India before 2022, the year when it celebrates 75th year of Independence. "We have to take the country ahead with the determination of creating a 'New India'," Modi said.

Let us come together to create an India free of corruption, nepotism, casteism, communalism and terrorism. Let us build a country which is clean, healthy and is self-determined," he said.

Invoking Quit India Movement

Modi had previously spoken on the Quit India Movement during his monthly Mann ki Baat address as well as the special session of the Parliament to commomerate the event. During his Independence Day speech, he once again invoked the historic event.

Asking Indians to take inspiration from the 1942 movement, Modi said, "Within five years, the British had left the country because of our unity," he said. "We have to take a sankalp of new India and take the country forward."

Remembering the contribtion of Mahatma Gandhi to the freedom movement,"There was a Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi once. People with cotton in their hands support Gandhi and eventually, the country got freedom," he added.

Prime minister says 2018 crucial year for India

Modi put special emphasis on the New Years' Day 2018, telling Indians that the year will mark the comming of age of a whole generation which will steer India forward.

"The upcoming 1 January on 2018 will not be standard. The people who were born in the 21st century will find that this date will decide a lot in their lives," he said.

"I welcome all the youths who will turn 18 in 2018. Now, you are getting an opportunity to be a part of the force which develops India," said the prime minister.

Modi invoked surgical strikes and national security

Modi hailed the surgical strikes, that took place on 29 November, 2016 and reiterated that his government is serious about tackling various national security issues. "After the surgical strike, the entire world had to acknowledge India's strength," the prime minister said.

"The concern for national security is a natural one in an independent India," Modi said.

"Our security forces have always shown their capabilities whenever on duty. Whether it is terrorism or infiltrators, our security personnel have always been ready for sacrifice," Modi added.

People are celebrating mahotsav of honesty today

Modi hailed his government for several breakthrough measures like One Rank One Pension, GST and demonetisation.

Taking a jibe at black money holders, Modi said, "The people who stole from the poor are still uncomfortable.Today, people are celebrating a mahotsav of honesty," said the prime minister.

Reiterating the government's committment to the armed forces, Modi said, "For 30 or 40 years, the matter of One Rank One Pension was stuck. But our government took steps to fulfil the demand of our security personnel."

On government's other development measures, he said,"Today, roads and railway tracks are being constructed twice as fast. Today, over 14,000 villages have got electricity."

Focussing on financial inclusion of the weaker sections of the society, Modi said, "29 crore people have got bank accounts now."

Kashmir issue can be solved peacefully

Militancy in Kashmir was another major highlight of the speech. Taking a conciliatory approach towards Kashmiris, Modi reiterated that the Kashmir issue can be solved only through peaceful means. "Parivartan hoga Kashmiri ko gale lagake (There can be a chnage only by taking Kashmiris together)," Modi said.

Promising to bring prosperity to the militancy-infested state, he said: "The development of Jammu and Kashmir is also a committment of the people and the government there."

Tough stance on militancy

However, while the prime minister spoke of involving common Kashmiris in India's growth story, he said that militancy will not be treated leniently.

"A lot happens in Kashmir. A lot of claims have been made. A lot of people abuse each other. There are a lot of separatists. But there will be no leniency for terrorism. I have told many to become a part of democracy," said the prime minister.

Modi backs Triple Talaq

The Triple Talaq issue found a notable mention in the speech. Reiterating his government's support to the movement against Triple Talaq, ,Modi added that India will also support Muslim women in their struggle.

"I believe India will fully support the women in their struggle. The women of this country created a revolution against Triple Talaq. There was an atmosphere against Triple Talaq in the country with even the media supporting the women,"he said.

Modi hits out at communalism and casteism

Modi asserted that violence in the name of faith is "not acceptable" and described casteism and communalism as "poison" for the country. The comments assume significance in the backdrop of incidents of lynchings by cow vigilantes.

"Violence in the name of faith is not acceptable in the country," Modi said.

Pitching for harmony and peace, he said "Bharat Jodo" (connect India) should be the slogan like "Bharat chhodo" (Quit India) was during the freedom struggle. Modi said that problems like communalism and casteism cannot benefit the country in any way. "Therefore, violence cannot be emphasised in the name of faith," he said.

Modi hails GST reform

Calling GST as an example of co-operative federalism, Modi said that the reform will help the nation achieve higher growth without losing any momentum. "Through GST the nation gave new direction to competitive federalism," he said. "Technology is a miracle. People wondered how GST was rolled so fast across the country," Modi said.

"After GST enrolment, our truck drivers save 30 percent of their time in travel now," he added.

Demonetisation - the biggest measure to fight corruption

Modi termed the move to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes as a fight against black money. "Today, I want to proudly tell people that within just three years, we have recovered Rs 1.25 lakh crore black money," he said.

"Through note ban, the black money came out. It was our endeavour to recover black money and then make it a constructive part of the economy," Modi said.

Last year, India had 22 lakh tax payers. However, Modi said that between 1 April and 5 August this year, the number went up to 56 lakh.

Thanking the citizens for their patience during the note ban, Modi said, "After demonetisation, many people are saying that my political career is over," said Modi. "But due to the patience and sacrifice of the people, we are becoming successful in the fight against corruption."

Modi said that after demonetisation, the government cracked down over shell companies, which were acting as a front for hawala transactions.

"The businessmen with black money used to run shell companies. After demonetisation, three lakh shell companies were found. And out of that, we cancelled the registration of 1.75 lakh companies," said the prime minister.

With inputs from PTI
Patna: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday reiterated his commitment to good governance and battling corruption as he hoisted the national flag on Independence Day in Patna on Tuesday.

The Janata Dal-United leader told people that Bihar was on the path of justice-laced development.

After unfurling the national flag at the Gandhi Maidan, Nitish Kumar said, "We will not compromise with efforts on corruption, governance and development."

He said his government had been fulfilling its "seven resolves" one after another.

He spoke about the 35 percent reservation his government had provided for women in government jobs.

Nitish Kumar said his government's decision to ban liquor trade and consumption had brought about a social change.

"The liquor ban has helped to change village environs. It is a harbinger of social change and reform."

Nitish Kumar said his government had speeded up efforts to provide tap water and electricity to all households besides toilets.
Srinagar: Opposition National Conference (NC) working president Omar Abdullah said Prime Minister Narendra Modi's words for Kashmir in his Independence Day speech have been received very well by the people in the Valley, but they need to be followed by action.

"Modi's words for Kashmir have been very well received by the people here but everyone here is weary of yet more talk and (and) no concrete action," he said.

"The proof of the pudding is in the eating. We look forward to being embraced in the warm grip of understanding, acceptance and respect," the former J-K chief minister said.

"That respect must include respect for the unique status Jammu and Kashmir enjoys within the Constitution of India, that sets it apart from all other states," he said, referring to the row over Article 35A, which provides special rights to the citizens of Jammu and Kashmir, of the Constitution.

Abdullah also took a dig at news channels, asking that without the goli (bullets) and the gaali (abuses), what would happen to the TV news studios that specialise in deploying these weapons against all Kashmiris?

Without the golli & the galli what happens to the TV news studios that specialise in deploying these weapons against all Kashmiris?  Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) August 15, 2017

Meanwhile, Moderate Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq also joined the Kashmir-based parties in welcoming Modi's statement, saying if humanity and justice replace bullets and abuses, resolution of Kashmir issue can become a reality.
New Delhi: Justice has to be certain and swift in order to tackle crime against women, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Tuesday, deploring "tendencies to shield" sons of politicians involved in such cases.

Kejriwal said governments should ensure freedom for women instead of imposing restrictions on them. A politician's son, guilty of such crimes, should be awarded double the punishment as stipulated in statute books, he said.

The comments, made by Kejriwal in a televised Independence Day speech, came against the backdrop of the Chandigarh stalking case involving the son of Haryana BJP chief Subhash Barala.

"The most important thing in such cases is deterrence. There should be certainty and swiftness when it comes to punishment. Now when a politician's son commits any such crime, the entire system comes together to shield him," he said.

In his 14-minute-long address, Kejriwal said many countries, which got independence after India, have raced ahead in terms of development as they invested more in education.

"We have been in government for the last two years. I derive the greatest satisfaction from our work in the education sector. We are in a way bringing revolution in the education sector. Poverty can be eliminated if we sincerely educate a generation," he said.
Editor's note: This article was originally published on 22 February, 2016. It is being republished as RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat defied orders of the Palakkad district administration and hoisted the flag at a government school. The Palakkad district collector had objected to it saying it was inappropriate for a political leader to hoist the National Flag in an aided school and only a teacher or elected representative of the people was allowed to do so.

Those who do not want to respect the jhanda should get the danda, warned the twitterati on Thursday after imagining resistance to the BJP government's decision to fly the Tiranga at all central universities.

On Arnab Goswami's show, as the nation cheered the HRD ministry's decision taken on Thursday, General GD Bakshi was moved to tears. Moved by the spirit of the occasion, firebrand BJP leader Nupur Sharma immediately tweeted out character certificates, "Veteran (General GD Bakshi) made to cry on TV (Times Now) defending the Tricolour! Horrible scenes! The Cong+Commie+Left opportunists should be ashamed."

Here is a true story about the jhanda and the danda.

On 26 January, 2001, three activists of an organisation called Rashtrapremi Yuva Dal entered the premises of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) at Nagpur to pay homage to its founder Dr Keshav Hedgewar.

After a few minutes, the three activists  Baba Mendhe, Ramesh Kalambe and Dilip Chattani--started chanting patriotic slogans and took out the Tiranga. Guess what happened next?

First, the in charge of the RSS premises Sunil Kathle tried to prevent the activists from hoisting the national flag. But, when they succeeded in unfurling the Tiranga, the RSS took them to court for it.

For 12 long years, the three Rashtrapremis (those who love their country) were tried by a Nagpur court for hoisting the national flag in the Sangh premises under relevant sections of the Bombay Police Act and the IPC. They were set free just in time for Independence day in 2013 by the court of RR Lohia for lack of evidence.

In short, the Rashtrapremis got the danda for hoisting the jhanda.

RSS and the National Flag

The RSS and the Tricolour have had a fascinating history of resistance, rejection and acceptance. It may come as a rude surprise to neo recruits like Sharma that the RSS  not the Congis+Commies+Left-- did not hoist the National Flag at its headquarters for 52 years.

The National Flag was first hoisted at the Sangh headquarters on August 15, 1947 and then on January 26, 1950. The Tiranga was seen flying next time at the RSS premises in 2002, when it was hoisted at the HQ and Smruti Bhawan, the building that houses the memorials of its founder Hedgewar and Guru Golwalkar.

According to The Times of India, Chotu Bhaiyya Dhakras, nagar sangh chalak of Mohite Vibhagh and Shriramji Joshi of Dr Hedgewar Smarak Samiti hoisted the flags respectively at the HQ and Smruti Bhawan, according to RSS office. The National Flag was hoisted on previous occasions on 15 August, 1947 and on 26 January, 1950 and stopped since then, RSS sources said.

So, why was the Sangh averse to hoisting the Tiranga at its headquarters and shakhas? In 2002, when the Sangh decided to hoist the National Flag at its headquarters, its national executive member K Suryanarayana Rao told reporters in Bangalore the RSS did not biannually hoist the flag because till a few days ago, there were stringent rules restricting the hoisting of the flag only on government buildings. "Now that the rules have been relaxed, we will also hoist the flag," he said. Rao said the RSS had also been reluctant to hoist the flag at their shakas because the swayamsevaks wanted to participate in the general Republic Day and Independence Day functions with the mainstream. "If we hold the function at the shakas, naturally all of them have to be present there and will miss out the functions at schools and offices,'' he pointed out, according to The Times of India.

Sardar Patel, Sangh and Tiranga

In 1948, the RSS was banned by the government for its alleged role in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. When its leaders approached the then home minister Sardar Patel for revoking the ban, he put forward several conditions. One of them: the RSS accept the Tricolor as the National Flag.

His stand is outlined in the Collected Works of Sardar Patel (Volume XIII), edited by PN Chopra and Prabha Chopra.

According to this collection, Patel said at a Congress meet on 17 December, 1949, in Jaipur that any organisation seeking to supplant the National Flag by another would be sternly dealt with.

"Sardar Patel, who vehemently condemned the activities of the RSS, was loudly cheered at the conclusion of his speech," says a newspaper report of the event, reproduced in this collection.

Patel told Congressmen he had made his view very clear to M S Golwalkar, the leader of the banned RSS, when the latter met him, " The National Flag must be universally accepted, and if anyone thought of having an alternative to the National Flag, there must be a fight. But that fight must be open and constitutional."

Home Secretary H V R Iyengar had written to Golwalkar in May 1949, stating, "An explicit acceptance of the National Flag (with the Bhagwa Dhwaj as the organisational flag of the Sangh) would be necessary for satisfying the country that there are no reservations in regard to allegiance to the State".

The RSS has disputed this. It claims that there was never any conflict between the bhagwa dhwaj, which it considers the organisation's Guru, and the tricolour. On August 22, 2000, when Prakash Ambedkar, grandson of BR Ambedkar, argued in Parliament that the RSS had signed an agreement with the government in 1949 for hoisting the tricolour at its headquarter, its leaders challenged the Parliamentarian to produce the agreement.

According to the Organiser (3 September, 2000), MG Vaidya, member of the national executive of the RSS, "marshalled facts to nail the canards being spread to malign the Sangh on the question of the National Flag."

Vaidya pointed out that on August 16, 2000, Shri Prakash Ambedkar, MP, while speaking in the Lok Sabha had stated that according to the Home Ministry's resolution dated 26 November, 1949, "There was an agreement between the RSS and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel which clearly states that RSS will hoist the National Flag on 26 January, 1950 at its Nagpur headquarters."

Vaidya said: "We will like to ask Shri Ambedkar to produce a copy of that agreement. He should not abuse MP's privileges to malign the RSS."

According to historian Ramachandra Guha, during the thirties and forties, few, if any, RSS workers were seen saluting the National Flag. Their allegiances were sectarian rather than national-indeed, they chose to elevate their own bhagwa dhwaj above the tiranga jhanda. Shortly after Mahatma Gandhi's assassination, there were widespread reports of RSS activists trampling upon the tricolour. This greatly upset the Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. In a speech on the 24th of February 1948, Nehru spoke sorrowfully of how 'at some places members of the RSS dishonoured the National Flag. They know well that by disgracing the flag they are proving themselves as traitors'.

It is good to know that the BJP wants the tricolor to fly at every central university and the country is celebrating, as it should.

Let us hope the Sangh is equally gung-ho about the decision. And the wise men resting in Nagpur's Smruti Bhawan are happy that Smriti Irani has achieved what Patel couldn't.

Because, exactly a year ago, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had this to say about the Tricolour. "BR Ambedkar was also (emphasis added) of the view that bhagwa (the saffron flag of the RSS) should be adopted as the National Flag and Sanskrit should become the national language. Unfortunately, we couldn't propagate his views," the RSS chief said at a meeting in Kanpur.
By Shruti Sunderraman

When I first joined Twitter in 2014, ask.fm was floating all over my timeline. People would post questions on your profile and you could choose to answer them. I received some rather interesting ones, ranging from "What is the name of your tooth fairy?" to "What is your bra size?". All these questions were anonymous. Early this year, the anonymous feedback site sayat.me started doing the rounds amongst teenagers in the United States. Schools warned parents about letting their kids use the app because it became a medium for uncontrolled online abuse.

But since last week, another anonymous 'feedback' website called Sarahah has taken over the internet. What is so different about this? It's aimed at providing 'constructive feedback' from friends and co-workers. Within a few hours, people started posting their profile links on Twitter and Facebook, inviting people to give them the said feedback. Sounds pretty straightforward, but as with all things internet, nothing really is.

Sarahah (Arabic for 'honesty') slowly turned out to be a double-edged sword. As with ask.fm and sayat.me, Sarahah, too, rushed gradually to abusive shores. Many commenters went down the misogyny hole and stayed there, anonymously.

I too signed up for Sarahah (as a social experiment) and deleted the app within 48 hours. Here's why: One of the first messages I received was this:

Omg guys. So people DO read my stories. :') pic.twitter.com/NuD31sk83h  Shruti Sunderraman (@sundermanbegins) August 10, 2017

Either this is a highly elaborate joke or a massive bullying tactic. Since I wasn't taking this experiment too seriously, this had zero impact on me. But that's not to say similar messages wouldn't affect others.

And yet, I waited to get more messages, to hear what things people have to say about me. You know, like looking up what the horoscope has to say about the fault in my Virgo stars today even though I don't believe in astrology. Good ol' self-indulgence.

The app does have its fun moments though. I received a message saying,"I wanted to ask you out but now I'm not sure." Umm, and anonymously sending me this message is going to clear my doubts how? Two of my friends, Chennai-based model Vaishnavi Prasad and Mumbai-based journalist Almas Khateeb, received messages with heavy innuendos, that they both laughed off.

While these naughty-nice messages elicit a laugh (or a barrage of them), some messages have genuinely been encouraging for Prasad and I. Appreciation of work, improvements on achieving better tone in writing were some of my mission-accomplished moments on Sarahah. And like me, Prasad looked forward to hearing more from people  the good, the bad, the downright fetish-y.

But feedback isn't the only reason people use Sarahah. They'd display screenshots of the feedback they received anonymously. Naturally, non-users started their chee-chee thoo-thoos self-righteously about users trying to validate how "cool" their lives were by displaying the number of messages they seemed to received. All of which would hold ground only if you took yourself too seriously.

Online abuse is a massive reality and women particularly face the brunt of it. Sneha*, a software professional in Pune, was fat-shamed with the message "you should be not be allowed to wear nice clothes for your fat ass body" on Sarahah. While she did not let the comment get the better of her, it propelled her to delete the app.

Sarahah does have a blocking mechanism, through which you could filter out messages you don't want to see. But you'll have to read those messages before you can block them. If it's an abusive one, the damage is already done.

Naturally, male users didn't face as much trouble as female users did. In the case of Shibesh Mehrotra, a Delhi-based writer, even the negative comments he received were largely directed at his female friends. He says, "Abuse exists, yes. But for me, with my all my privilege, it's kinda limited. Almost all the abuse/harassment I got was directed towards my friends, a lot of whom happen to be successful women who often voice their opinions on Twitter."

Oh man, I love this person. pic.twitter.com/EUz3vwGwgO  Valia Babycats (@livetimefe) August 13, 2017

An article argues that Sarahah has become a self-esteem mechanism, citing a flurry of uplifting messages that users have received. But for every 10 positive messages, there could be four that deserve trigger warnings. But for the curious, like me, it's best to get out of the app early.

Because it's not just about a harmless participation in flattery or introspection, it's an active participation in an online culture of cyber bullying. Even if we've not been at the receiving end of abuse through Sarahah, the fact that we actively use it sends a message that we support all the anonymous bullying it becomes an easy home to.

Abroad too, teenagers have started extensively using Sarahah. But it has cause for concern among teachers and parents. What does this popularity mean? That cyber-bullying starts early. Teenagers who are bullied in school often take to online platforms to vent but with integration of Sarahah with other popular apps like Instagram and Snapchat, their timelines are filled with their friends' screenshots of either sexist, racist or extremely flattering messages  the former feeds into the fear of the bullied while the latter isolates them. No win-win.

The realisation of possible participation in an abusive culture did it for Prasad. She's done with the app and said her goodbyes. But many still continue with the app in spite of being 'woke'. For some friends, it's just for kicks  they continue to not take themselves seriously. For some, especially those with lesser negative feedback, it's the joy of receiving more messages from random people. For the ones who receive messages of 'crush confessions', it is the joy of hearing someone express secret affection (this was one of the only tolerable parts of high school slam books).

It might be all fun and games in the beginning and we're all happy to share a few good giggles. But the platform encourages a cavalier attitude about online abuse  if not for you, at least for those around you. As the waves of anonymous sexism hit, we won't be able to Sarahahahahaha much longer.

*name changed upon request

The Ladies Finger (TLF) is a leading online womens magazine delivering fresh and witty perspectives on politics, culture, health, sex, work and everything in between.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court was categorical on Monday that Karti Chidambaram, son of Congress leader and former Union Minister P Chidambaram, would not be allowed to leave India without subjecting himself to investigation in a corruption case.

The apex court, which stayed the Madras High Court order putting on hold the look out circular (LOC) issued by the Centre against Karti, repeatedly sought to know when he would make his appearance for questioning before investigating agency CBI.

"We are only on one limited issue. Has he participated and cooperated in the investigation? The answer is 'no'," a bench comprising Chief Justice JS Khehar and Justice DY Chandrachud said, adding, "you (Karti) must show your bonafide."

"They must show up to investigation by going to the investigating agency. We are not on whether he is guilty or not. We are on a very small issue. They asked you to appear for investigation and you did not appear. First, you said you are abroad, but on coming, you did not appear," it said.

The bench, which wanted to know from senior advocate and Karti's counsel Gopal Subramaniam when would Chidmabaram's son report for investigation, also said there was neither any order for his arrest, nor was there any intention to arrest him, but he had kept himself away from questioning.

It also said that he was not worried about approaching the courts with a plea for anticipatory bail.

"You are not worried about your arrest. There is nothing on anticipatory bail and only you have sought quashing of the FIR. You are not worried about the arrest which is when an accused thinks and files for anticipatory bail. Why have you not done (that)," the bench said.

The apex court, which issued notice to Karti and four others in the case and posted the matter for hearing on 18 August, asked Subramaniam that he should "give a date and appear for questioning".

Subramaniam, on his part, said he would take instructions from his client (Karti), but wanted an assurance from the apex court that there should be some protection.

However, the bench said it has had a "very bad experience" of granting liberty to "reputed people" to go abroad as they never come back and referred to some high-profile cases.

"These Malaysian people did not come back," it said in reference to the others accused in the Aircel-Maixis case.

The bench said there was an order of the High Court against which the petition has been filed and an order has to be passed.

"We will say nothing but stay the high court order," the bench said and accordingly passed the order staying the High Court's decision to put on hold the LOC against Karti and others.

It also asked the High Court to decide another plea of Karti seeking quashing of the FIR "in consonance with law".

Before passing the order, the bench said that there was another option for Karti that he should pursue the petition for quashing the FIR and get a final order on it.

"If you succeed, it is another matter, if you do not succeed, you go for investigation. But till then don't go abroad.

"If you succeed in quashing the plea, we will defer the investigation, but don't go abroad. Our business is only one, you must go for investigation," the bench observed.

Subramaniam's argument that Karti has been present alongside CBI's IO in the proceedings before the High Court did not impress the bench which asked whether he went to the investigating officer and said that he would join the investigation.

Additional Solictor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Centre, mentioned the appeal in the forenoon for urgent hearing saying that the accused may leave the country if the High Court, passed on 10 August, was not stayed.

He said the Madras High Court lacked the territorial jurisdiciton to hear the issue as the FIR was registerd at New Delhi by the CBI.

The High Court stayed the LOCs issued on 16 June and 18 July, without even considering that it lacked territorial jurisdiction to entertain the petition, Mehta said.

The case lodged by CBI in Delhi is related to alleged irregularities in the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance to INX Media for receiving overseas funds to the tune of almost Rs 305 crore in 2007 when Karti's father was the Union Finance Minister.

The CBI had claimed that the FDI proposal of the media house, cleared by Chidambaram, was "fallacious".

The FIR was registered on 15 May before the special CBI judge here and the registration of the case was followed by searches at the residences and offices of Karti and his friends on 16 May.
Editor's note: Its ironic that 70 years after India became an Independent country and a democracy, the invocation of aazadi evokes bitter conflicts. Whether it is on university campuses or in the midst of the conflict in the Kashmir Valley  both calling for aazadi and challenging that call as anti-national arouses mighty passions. By comparison, swaraj is hardly ever invoked in the public discourse. It almost seems like a historical artefact, a fragment of fading memories of the Freedom Struggle. This is the second part of a series titled Swaraj at 70 that seeks to take a closer look at this dichotomy.

When communal violence ripped through Mumbai in December 1992 and January 1993, Sushboha Barve led groups of citizens into the strife torn areas to try and restore peace. Subsequently, she went on to co-found the Mohalla Committees through which representatives of Mumbai Police still collaborate with members of Hindu and Muslim communities, in order to build bridges and prevent conflicts.

Barve, 68, is an Ashoka Fellow and the founder of the Centre for Dialogue and Reconciliation (CDR) in New Delhi, to build an academic base for the methods she has developed through her extensive work in conflict areas. Over the last 20 years, through the CDR, Barve has done extensive ground work for peace and justice in the Kashmir Valley.

She has also led Track III Dialogues on peace and stability between India and Pakistan. Last year, Barve was part of the Concerned Citizens Committee, led by BJP leader Yashwant Sinha, which visited the Kashmir Valley and made recommendations to the government on how to address the turmoil there.

Firstpost spoke to Sushobha about the situation in Kashmir, the recent spate of mob-lynchings and the meaning of Swaraj in present day India. Edited excerpts follow:

What feeling or associations does Swaraj have for you in 2017 India?

Over the years, one has grown to be proud of India and its Independence. The fact is that despite many turbulent periods we have survived, unlike other countries who got their Independence in a similar period. But I must confess that I am at times quite fearful of our Swaraj, whether it will remain, as it has been, in the future.

There are stresses and cleavages that have appeared and one should not be unduly complacent based on the past. We have many areas of the country where young people have had no experience of feeling the pride in India like we did.

Why is that so?

Because they have grown up in strife and poverty, they have not found good role models as far as political leaders are concerned or other social leaders that they could look up to.

Can you map which particular parts of India are more acutely affected by this?

Certainly the border areas. Assam is a tinder box. It started in the late 1970s with the Assam Students Union taking up the issue of foreign nationals which had a huge public support in Assam. It was largely non-violent. Some kind of accord was signed but it didnt really, as far as the Assamese are concerned, answer the foreign national issue. So, there was a public perception that you are always deceived and then the violent phases began  Assamese vs Bengali, migrants vs tribals.

And now, look at what is happening in the Bodo areas. We have not learnt to successfully deal with issues which were simmering since the 1960s and 1970s and deal with them when they would have been perhaps easier to handle. Now they have become so complicated. Three or four generations have lived there, how can you say they are illegal migrants.

It's the same thing in Kashmir  Delhi has often mocked their issue. Last year, many Kashmiris kept saying we just want this Kashmir dispute to be settled. How would you like it to be settled? Whichever way (they said), settle it once and for all so we don't have this sword hanging over us.

How much of the current unrest, whether it is Kashmir or on the eastern side is to do with people not experiencing an individual or collective sense of agency, and thus feeling helpless, frustrated and therefore fearful?

As far as the collective agency is concerned, young people in Kashmir ask a simple question. Why is it that in rest of India citizens have a right to protest but the same right does not apply to Kashmir? Even if you are protesting against ration cards not being given or some social issue like a road not being built. Ive often seen these protests in Srinagar and they are so forcibly stopped.

How did the protests in 2010 (in the Valley) begin? The protests started because the army had killed five innocent civilians from a village. Initially, they said they were militants, then the truth came out and it was discovered that they had killed these innocent people.

All that the people were initially demanding was to get the army to admit this and have FIRs registered. They wanted the police to take over because they had no faith in the army as there had been a series of such cases. Those protests were brutally put down.

I had two Kashmiri young men working with me, one of them had done his law degree and he said "Everywhere else protests are allowed, why are we not allowed to protest. Was this a wrong cause for us to protest? Why is the gun used against us?"

Pellets guns are not used anywhere else. There was a far greater destruction of property in Haryana during the Jat agitation, and in the Cauvery agitation, but no pellets were used. Only in Kashmir, they are used.

Are you saying that when people don't feel either heard or seen, they cannot experience a sense of Swaraj?

Not just heard or seen, there is a grievance that the rights which are given to the citizens of this Republic under the Constitution of India are not equal for all citizens. What is left for them than to feel attached to this Swaraj you are talking about?

(The people in the Valley often say) "We want our Swaraj... we want to have our independent Kashmir, long before you started talking about independence, we had our independence movement from the Maharaja since 1930s. Why cant we have our struggle to get independence?"

So, if you are saying that they are a part of us, then surely something is going wrong for them to feel they are not. You can't just say they have a wrong idea, they are misled, they are wayward... you can't dismiss it like that. What I held dear of our Swaraj, I feel that in the areas where I have worked, I cant hold that ideal before those people... they dont see evidence of it in present day India in their experience.

Here Swaraj is being equated with Independence and freedom but in the Gandhian use of the word, Swaraj was an inward process

But who is reading Gandhi, please tell me. Leave Kashmir, but here in Mumbai, how many are reading Gandhi today, how many can see Gandhi's meaning of Swaraj as an inward self-reflection... is there a self-reflection? Do we encourage young people to have self-reflection to correct themselves, to treat everyone as equal  that is Gandhi's philosophy.

Nevertheless, in spite of this darkness, there are creative endeavours on the ground in Kashmir. Do you think there is something in that which still gives you hope?

Human beings have an inherent sense of hopelessness, but that's no reason to give up. We must continue to work to preserve this Swaraj which we got, which others got for us, to endure and we must preserve it for future generations. We have made progress on so many fronts. I see in the slums of Mumbai, where people have got higher education, they have become doctors or are working with IT companies.

A friend of mine, now is in his early 40s, runs a roaring business selling equipment made in his workshop through e-commerce, selling it outside India as well. He proudly told me that he has now handed his business over to his son, aged 25. This is all in Dharavi.

I see those young people who never thought that they could make such economic and social progress but they have done it. And this man, who is otherwise quite conservative, has raised his children as liberals. I can feel very proud that in conservative pockets of Bhendi Bazaar, there are young people that have grown up with a good education. Even in health and Space, there has been a lot of progress. In environmental sciences, we have done a lot of progress as well.

A young man I've worked with in Kashmir has done his PhD from Beijing University, there are many others who are now going to Japan. So it is not just to the West but young people are going all over. India will be richer through their experiences, their education in countries of Asia. But the real challenge is how to hold on to their human values.

What are the essential values that you see as the foundation of Swaraj?

Equality for all in all spheres of life, justice for all without any prejudice, no hunger, no poverty and no conflicts which have sapped so much of our national energy and resources form the foundation of Swaraj. Once these are achieved, then only can we really feel the same pride in our Swaraj which we felt at the time of Independence, that sense of Indianness.

Are we indeed in a situation when the society is getting more and more polarised? Or, is there a deeper resilience in society to resist the forces of divisiveness?

What we have not learnt to do is to have difficult conversations about our differences. Having prejudices, having differences is not a problem. Being able to talk about the other and knowing the art of talking about our differences and our prejudices against the other is what we have to do. In a civilised discussion, we can say I differ from you. However, we are not able to say I differ from you without causing a huge social upheaval and I see that as a danger. We have developed the attitude of skirting around issues.

How do you view the current mob-lynching phenomenon?

It is all because of the atmosphere, so even if you didnt have a prejudice. seeds of suspicion have been planted in your mind which make you believe anything can happen. Otherwise, why would a white man drive his truck into the Muslims coming out of the mosque in London? Why would there be white people involved in attacks on Sikhs who look like Muslims in the US?

Do you see lynching as a global phenomenon then?

The global phenomenon is against Muslims. When an atmosphere in any country is created, others take up sides. I can understand the Sikh and Hindu families, who were refugees from the time of Partition, and the Muslims who went from here to there having bitterness, a deep sense of grief and hatred of the other because they suffered. It's a painful past for them.

But thousands have come out of that experience without passing on that pain to their children and their grand children. So, human beings do have a capacity to deal with their pain on their own and move on and are in a position to tell the suffering along with good things (memories of) to their neighbours and friends. And, it is these people who visit their villages (across the border) where their ancestors lived and come back feeling healed with something being restored.

Therefore, I know that if in a certain kind of atmosphere which has been created, these kind of tragedies do happen and are inflicted on minorities. There is also, on the other side, the capacity of the victim to heal and be restored and still have faith in humanity. Thats the only hope on which I feel our Swaraj will survive.

Can this outlook be fostered through civil society interventions?

Of course, civil society must be engaged. Just having protests is not enough. But this particular protest at the moment (Not In My Name) was important because I always feel that if the silent majority remains concerned about their own security  they are guilty because they don't want to be exposed. They also have this false pride that if somebody from my own community has done something which I know is wrong then I have to overlook that.

These are the sort of difficult conversations I am saying, in which we must be engaged. A majority of people have a deep conscience and it is to that conscience we must appeal.

In what ways do we sometimes inadvertently cause that conscience to be torn down? What is the critique of liberal, progressive activism?

A group of concerned citizens, including Yashwant Sinha, went to Kashmir last year. We issued a statement appealing for a peaceful Ramadan, with a ceasefire during Ramadan. And, this led some left leaning secular groups to say we should not get into religious things. However, the majority of Indians, whichever community they belong to, are religious people.

They are not fanatically religious so you must learn how to communicate with them. But if you think that calling for a peaceful Ramadan is also a religious appeal, then I am sorry to say liberal secularists are not going to go anywhere. And, we were appealing to the government, to the security forces in Kashmir, militant groups as well as to Pakistan  body criticised us. The least we could have expected was support from liberal groups.

So, the willingness to listen to whoever is deemed to be the 'other' and listen empathically is the essence of Swaraj?

Yes. Our Indian tradition, the subcontinental tradition has been this  we hear of Gargi sitting with all these men in intellectual discussions. How did they manage to have these discussions? They must have listened to one another because the discussions went on for hours and hours and days on end.

But in the contemporary context, the listening has to be followed by action.

Even if there isn't action, even if you just listen with empathy, half of people's grievances are addressed. People are not fools, they know that a lot of their grievances cannot be addressed. Hamari sunvai nahi hoti (no one listens to us), I kept hearing this repeatedly from Bhagalpur to Bombay during the riots. For the last 30 years, people have been saying this. Do we think that only a certain people in academia have all the wisdom and the rest dont?

Then how could we act on this?

We must learn to listen so that people can express what they want in terms of personal, social and economic development. If we think that some ministry in Delhi has all the wisdom to make one policy, which is suitable for tribals in eastern India, Bodos in Assam, Nagas in Nagaland and Kashmiris in Kashmir  I'm afraid that it's not going to work. We must be in a conversation to ask them for ideas and how they want to shape their destiny.

Swaraj at 70: The concept of aazadi is no longer enough

Part 1: Past 25 years are a matter of pride, but there's a long way to go, says Baijayant 'Jay' Panda

Part 3: Alternative brand of politics has disappeared from India, says Piyush Mishra

Part 4: Youth can play a significant role in solving farm crisis, says Kavitha Kuruganti

Part 5: For true freedom, we need to end oppression of handouts and subsidies, says Arun Maira

Part 6: People's aspirations are no longer limited by age and class, says Ashni Biyani

Part 7: India needs a more inclusive model of development, says Vijay Mahajan

Part 8: Politicising of human rights issues has pushed liberal discourse into corner, says Kalyani Menon-Sen

Part 9: Technology has the potential to redefine social fabric of India, says Siddharth Sthalekar




Two jawans were injured in a blast triggered by the Naxals in Sukma district of Chhattisgarh on Tuesday, ANI said.

#UPDATE Two more jawans injured in an IED blast by Naxals in Sukma district  ANI (@ANI) August 15, 2017

The incident took place at around 3 pm in the forests under Fulbagdi police station limits when a joint team of security forces was returning after an anti-Maoist operation, a senior police official told PTI.

Separate teams of security forces, comprising CRPF, Special Task Force (STF), DRG (District Reserve Guard) and district force, had launched the operation since Monday in the interior forests of Sukma, around 400 kilometres from Raipur, the official said. The operation was undertaken in view of the Independence Day today during which maoists try to create disturbances, he said.

On way back, when one of the patrolling teams reached near Pariya village, Naxals triggered the blast from inside the forest that left three injured, he said. The injured belong to the state's counter insurgency force STF.

"A constable identified as Kattam Rama was seriously injured in the explosion, while two others sustained minor injuries," the official said.

Soon after getting information of the incident, reinforcements were rushed to the spot and the injured were shifted from the forests and admitted to a local hospital, he said.

Of them, Rama was airlifted to Raipur for further treatment, he added.

Meanwhile, in Rajanandgaon district, security personnel had a narrow escape when the Maoist triggered an improvised explosive device (IED) blast while the police team was returning from an Independence Day function.

No casualty was reported in the blast which took place at around 11 am near Jamdi village, a senior police official told PTI.

A joint team of Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and District Force had organised a flag hoisting programme at Koracha village, located around four kilometres deep in the forest under Kohka police station area (which is around 200 kilometres away from the state capital), to celebrate Independence Day with the villagers, Rajnandgaon's Superintendent of Police Prashant Agrawal said.

On way back from the programme, the ITBP team was passing through Jamdi village when the rebels detonated the IED near a field, he said.

"No one was harmed in the blast as it occurred at some distance away from the security personnel," the SP said.

Following the incident, a combing operation was launched in the region to trace the attackers during which another IED was recovered from the area, he added.

On Independence Day morning, Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh had said that the battle against Naxals in the state has been yielding "comprehensive" results with guidance and cooperation from the Union government.

"The anti-national and anti-development activities carried out by the Naxals to harm internal security and democracy in India is being fought by security forces and local people with determination," Singh said while addressing the Independence Day function at the police parade ground.

With inputs from agencies
United Nations: The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is concerned about India's plans to deport Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, according to his spokesperson Farhan Haq.

Responding to a question on Monday about reports that India was going to send back Rohingyas, Haq said, "Obviously we have our concern about the treatment of refugees. Once refugees are registered they are not to be returned back to the countries where they fear persecution."

Guterres, who was the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is deeply attached to the cause of refugees.

Haq said the office of the UNHCR will take up the issue with the Indian government. He reminded India of a UN dictum against deporting refugees.

"You are aware of our principle of non refoulement," he said referring to the doctrine in the UN Convention on the Status of Refugees.

That principle lays down that a refugee cannot be returned to a place where the person's life or freedom would be "threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion."

India has not signed the UN refugees convention.

Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju told the Lok Sabha last week, "According to UNHCR there are 13,000 Rohingya migrants registered. But we have also got figures from IB (Intelligence Bureau), which shows they have migrated to India in large numbers."

"Steps are being taken to ensure that we do not get uncontrolled influx of migrants in the country, which creates lots of problem related to social, political, cultural.

"And at the same time we want to ensure that the demographic pattern of India is not disturbed," Rijiju added.

He said that a "concentration camp of Rohingyas has come up" in Jammu and Kashmir and later clarified that it was only a detention camp and not a "concentration camp" like those in Nazi Germany.

Subsequently, a Home Ministry official was quoted in media reports as saying that India was in touch with Myanmar and Bangladesh to deport 40,000 Rohingyas illegally in India.

UNHCR office in India has reportedly issued refugee IDs to about 16,500 Rohingyas in India.
As India develops hunger for new things, its rich forget how to discriminate between the good the West has to offer and its garbage. Smelly cigars, strange and viciously cruel foods, enormously crowded and smoky rooms that pass for clubsthese are some of the strange imported hunger that bring nothing but disease in their wake.

Nothing could be stranger than the recent crops of articles in consumer and womens magazines on the way to eat caviar. Caviar is nothing but the unborn eggs of a fish. They smell bad, they taste so bad that they have to be drenched with lime, butter, biscuits, toast  its aficionados say it is an acquired taste which means they spent months gagging over it before their taste buds were so dulled that they could eat it. It is so salty that you have to drown it with alcohol to quench your thirst. It cost more than an average persons monthly salary. It is acquired in the most wicked manner.

But before I continue, let me tell you why caviar originally became a party offering. In the United States at the turn of the century, caviar was offered at taverns and saloons for the same reason that peanuts are offered today: the saltiness encourages more drinking. In 1899, one kilogramme of French caviar cost a mere 20 centimes. Just before World War-I, 40 centimes bought the same kilogramme, putting the price of caviar just slightly higher than that of bread. It was the cheapest way to dupe the customer at the pub: so it was put free in all drinking houses. Now the rich think it is classy to eat something that they were fooled into eating so that pub owners could earn more through liquor.

Is there still a single creature on earth that dates back to prehistoric times? The sturgeon is a fish that swam the seas in an age when dinosaurs roamed the earth and survived what those giants could not. And do you know that these remarkable 120 million years old species are now facing extinction? We may never know what really killed off the dinosaurs, but we do know for sure, that what is destroying these fish is the demand for their eggs as a cocktail snack. Imagine losing an entire species for a titbit topping!

As more and more of the educated world realizes that elegant dining means ethical eating, let us examine the true costs of caviar. The barbaric practice of eating sturgeon eggs first began in West Asia, in fact, the word caviar comes from the Turkish word khavyah which means roe or fish eggs. Except for the numbers which have increased dangerously, the killing method remains as primitive and brutal as one hundred years ago. Few who relish the caviar could stomach the way it is obtained.

The sturgeon is a grand fish that can live 150 years, grow 19 feet long and weigh over 500 kg. It is the very first of the cartilaginous fishes. The female of the species is larger than the male. She takes 16-20 years to mature and begin producing roe. At this poin, she leaves the sea and heads upstream to river spawning grounds to lay her eggs.

Around 80 to 90 percent of the worlds sturgeon live within the Caspian Sea, the worlds largest lake with a surface area of 3,74,000 square kilometre and they swim upstream to the Danube or Volga rivers to spawn. It is at the mouth of these rivers that they are caught.

What fishermen do is stretch a stout line across the river from which they suspend short lines with large pointed hooks just a few inches apart. The points where these hanging lines are attached, are marked by small clusters of reeds. On her way to or from the river, the fish runs into these lethal barriers. She grazes against the hooks or may even swallow one. Once the fish has snapped her mouth shut on a hook, there is no escape. In her panic to get away, however, she often rips herself to pieces on the other hooks. To the watching fisherman on shore, the shaking of the reeds indicates when a fish is entangled. Immediately they set off in canoes, harpoon the wounded, frightened creature and haul her in. But the worst is yet to come.

For the highest quality caviar, the fish must be alive when the eggs are removed. So the fish is stilled with a blow or several to the head, her tender belly is sliced open and the eggs plucked out. Only then is she allowed to die. Every time you partake of caviar, this is the cruelty you condone. Even worse you become part of the malignant trade that is pushing a critically endangered species over the brink.

In the Volga river delta, an area about the size of Switzerland, officials have recently found 5,000 bottom lines with 80 to 100 hooks each, which means half a million hooks trapping several times that number of fish. Even worse than killing young females on their way to spawn, are the boats that use nets in the Caspian. Here catching is indiscriminate with 90 percent of the fish caught having no eggs and simply having their bellies slit and slung back into the sea for nothing.

Just recently, 2,000 large mesh nets spanning an area of 60 kilometres were found with 70 tonnes of sturgeon entangled dead and dying in them. In 1998, nets spanning 30 times that area (1,4002,100 kilometre) were laid so you can imagine how many fish were snared.

As it is the Sturgeon has to cope with pervasive pollution, bad weather and development projects that have dammed up the rivers. The rush to exploit the Caspian's massive oil reserves has put all the areas marine life under growing threat. Sloppy drilling has resulted in the formation of a quarter-inch thick film of oil on some parts of the once pristine lake. Just recently an epidemic wiped out over 3,000 seals in the area. Hydroelectric dams crisscross the Volga blocking access to her upper reaches. Plus, newly arrived in the Caspian is an alien species, the comb jellyfish Mnemiopsis leidyi, which competes for food with the sprats (kilka) on which the sturgeon depends.

But even all these factors combined cannot account for the sturgeons alarming decline. If today, experts give the fish just two to three years more, there is only one culprit, the increasing demand for caviar.

The high value of caviar abroad makes it an extremely lucrative item to trade as well as smuggle. This in turn results in both poaching and dangerous overfishing. Previously, caviar supply was monopolised by the Soviets and Iran, the only two countries that touched the Caspian and which cooperated to limit the supply of caviar and thus protect its price and image. Now with the break-up of the Soviet Union, the entrance of new nations Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan has thrown the caviar trade wide open.

For these cash-starved countries, the sturgeon is simply hard currency with fins". Formerly, the entire annual caviar export of the Soviet Union used to be 150 tons. Now, Azerbaijan, alone, aims to sell 100 tons a year. So, money for arms and armies is coming from reckless plundering of the Caspian with no thought for the future. Unlike diamonds, however, caviar comes from a living source which is in imminent danger of disappearing altogether.

In the absence of any quotas, catch limits or regulations, sturgeons are now being caught even before they have a chance to spawn. The result is less and less fish to repopulate the waters. Between the combined countries fishermen, an estimated 90 percent of sturgeons are killed before they are matured enough to reproduce. Not surprisingly, the number of sturgeons returning to the Volga River each year has, reportedly, declined three-fold since 1991.

In the last five years, WWF figures put sturgeon catches in the Caspian down to three percent of their levels 25 years ago. There are simply no more fish in the sea. It has taken us just one century to destroy a species hundreds of millions years old. As a result, even rebreeding is impossible.

To encourage the fish to breed, they are given hormone injections. But now there arent enough sturgeon to even provide these hormones, so hormones from other species are being used. It's the same with sperm: the fish are inseminated using different sorts of sperm producing hybrids rather than real sturgeon. So what youre getting is not even pure sturgeon or real caviar. For example, where an adult Beluga Sturgeon commonly weighed 900 pounds, now the average weight of the Caspian Beluga is 77 pounds, or less than a tenth of her earlier size.

Not only that, with upto 90 percent of the catch from the Caspian being poached, chances are you are buying smuggled goods. In Astrakhan, the Russian city just north of the Volga delta, you seldom see caviars openly on sale. But taxi drivers are quick to ask whether you would like to buy a kilo of the country's most famous food product, packed into copper-coloured containers which look like soup dishes.

Some years ago, the Soviet deputy minister of Fisheries was executed for smuggling out caviar in tins marked salted herring. So the rot goes right to the top with a large and greedy mafia controlling the trade. With one kg of top-quality caviar fetching about 2,000 pounds, the illegal export of caviar is reckoned to be worth $170m to $200m a year. This money funds the Mafia's other criminal operations like drugs and arms dealing.

Today, many varieties of caviar are priced at $100 per ounce, Taking 80 percent of the supply, America is the worlds largest eater of caviar  eating 33,000 kilos in 2000.

But is caviar really worth its exorbitant price tag, or are its patrons simply fools whose IQs are inversely proportional to their bank balances? And apart from the money, what about the costs to our health and environment. Did you know that Borax, which is a banned food additive, is added to caviar along with the salt to give it a softer, sweeter finish? And finally what about the sturgeon who our greed and short-sightedness are killing. Already some rare species of sturgeon are considered extinct including the sterlet.

There is actually nothing fashionable about caviar. Just as it is considered crass to buy carpets or crackers made with child labour or shahtoosh from the fleece of an imperilled antelope, it is equally insensitive to buy or promote something that will signal the end of a species that predates the dinosaurs and has outlived them. Let us not be remembered as the generation that destroyed these remarkable fish.

Remember there is no way to remove the eggs without killing the sturgeon. And whether or not their contents are smuggled or legal, caviar tins will never qualify for a cruelty-free or eco-friendly label. Fishing and killing of the sturgeon will stop only when consumer demand for caviar stops. You can help. Do not eat or buy caviar, and discourage others from doing so. In this fish story, the only happy ending for the sturgeon is, well, no ending.

To join the animal welfare movement contact gandhim@nic.in, www.peopleforanimalsindia.org
Ahmedabad: Congress veteran Ahmed Patel has admitted he learnt "bitter lessons" in his Rajya Sabha election when a battery of legislators openly tried to sabotage his winning prospects but asserted it ended up helping the party separate the wheat from the chaff.

In a candid interview to IANS where he spoke about issues afflicting the party, Patel, political secretary to Congress President Sonia Gandhi, said: "We will need to be careful in future, keep a close watch and look into individual grievances of party leaders and MLAs."

Asked if this meant rebel leader Shankersinh Vaghela was correct in his claims that the problems and aspirations of MLAs were ignored, he said: "Well, not exactly. But we will look into the details and the genuineness of the grievances for sure. But that is no justification for stabbing the party in the back like this."

"It was the toughest electoral battle of my career. I have fought five Lok Sabha elections and four Rajya Sabha, but this was the toughest," the 67-year-old Patel admitted.

"We learnt bitter lessons but we have emerged stronger. This entire episode (of sabotage) has automatically led to purging of people whom we could not trust. We know who is ours and who is not, and who was never," said the Congress leader, who won his fifth term after two votes against him by rebel MLAs got invalidated.

Good riddance of bad rubbish? "No, no, no, don't use such words; not bad rubbish, but those who were not the party's well-wishers have left," said Patel, who belongs to south Gujarat's Bharuch district.

Six Congress MLAs resigned in the run-up to the Rajya Sabha election on 8 August, and eight others, including rebel leader Vaghela, openly cross-voted against the party's official nominee Patel in an election which turned into a battleground with four candidates in the fray for three seats.

Two of them, BJP President Amit Shah and Patel, were the most powerful leaders in their respective parties and the Bharatiya Janata Party was bent upon seeing Patel out  also to snub Sonia Gandhi.

Within 24 hours of Patel's victory, reportedly with the support of the lone Janata Dal-United legislator Chhotubhai Vasava, the eight Congress rebels were sacked, and the party also issued sack letters to the six who had resigned because they had done so after a whip to vote for Patel.

Patel added: "The first and the most important outcome of this election is that there is new spirit and sense of determination, which had dissipated and given way to inertia."

"The mood has changed now. Sometimes it is the will to win alone that overrides and takes care of several issues."

What was in this victory that has sent a current of energy through the party, something that did not happen even after the Congress lost all 26 Lok Sabha seats in 2014?

"When you pull life out of the jaws of death, you don't want it to happen again. All our people, the entire party was made to feel completely helpless by the enemies very much within us. This was not the case in 2014, though it was a humiliating defeat," pointed out Patel, whom Vaghela had promised to vote for, only to take a U-turn at the eleventh hour.

Asked if he was now going to take active charge of the Gujarat Congress and lead from the front, given that he has set the party rank and file a target of 125 seats (in a House of 182), he said an emphatic "No."

"I will be a facilitator, I will keep a much closer watch and do my best possible to meet this target. I am not for Chief Ministership, if you are suggesting even something remotely like that."

So who is going to channelise this new energy in the party since every leader in the Congress seems to be a Chief Ministerial candidate, the key party strategist laughs, but admits: "This is a big challenge for us, the tendency to count the eggs even before they are hatched."

So, what do you do with this? "We will sort it out. See, sometimes small distractions and minor tussles blur the big picture, the bottomline. This episode has come as a blessing in disguise. There is a realisation that a victory is now a necessity for survival."

"Once the bottomline becomes your goal, other things start falling in place."

Gujarat is expected to go to the polls in December this year.

With Vaghela gone, does the Congress have a Chief Ministerial candidate with state-level stature?

"I won't like to go into Vaghela's claims, but I would say your ability to fetch victory on a tough ground has to be demonstrated through adequate evidence," Patel said, tacitly referring to Vaghela's erstwhile Rashtriya Janata Party's ability to win only four seats.

"We have not thought of a Chief Ministerial candidate, we will do so when the need arises. Right now, the immediate priority is put our house in order," he said.
Madurai: AIADMK (Amma) deputy chief TTV Dinakaran on Friday accused the party faction, led by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami, of focusing on ousting him and "usurping" the party even as he vowed to work for its unity and secure its 'Two Leaves' symbol. Addressing a massive rally, the first in a series of rallies announced by him to mark the birth centenary of late chief minister and party founder MG Ramachandran (MGR), Dhinakaran launched a scathing attack on Palaniswami, saying he got the top post only because party chief VK Sasikala

chose him.

Days after he announced the MGR birth centenary celebrations and appointed some office-bearers after returning to active party work on 4 August, following a two-month hiatus, the Palaniswami camp had held a meeting on 10 August and passed a resolution, declaring that Dinakaran's appointment as deputy general secretary was against the party bye-laws.

This was seen as a step towards a merger of the factions led by Palaniswami and former chief minister O Panneerselvam, whose main demands included expulsion of Dinakaran and his aunt VK Sasikala from the party. However, Dinakaran had dismissed the resolution and asserted that he continued to be in control of the AIADMK. Monday's rally at Madurai, which is being seen as a show of strength by the Dinakaran camp, was attended by six AIADMK MPs, 19 MLAs and a huge number of party workers. Stating that it was the cadre who made the party and not only the MLAs, Dinakaran said those who had passed the resolution against him should come out and see the crowd.

"The AIADMK is a cadre-based party and those who respect the cadre and their wishes alone would survive. They (the Palaniswami camp) cannot survive by removing me or my banners from the party headquarters," he added. In a veiled attack on Panneerselvam over his demand for a probe into former chief minister J Jayalalithaa's death, Dinakaran said let there be a judicial inquiry.

"The people know who was in power throughout the period when Puratchi Thalaivi Amma (Jayalalithaa) was in hospital. Let there be a judicial probe...the truth will come out," he said addressing the huge crowd, which stayed put braving rains.

Dinakaran urged Palaniswami and his cabinet colleagues to forge a "good relationship" with the Centre and try to get the "maximum" for the development of Tamil Nadu and its people, "instead of focussing on removing certain leaders".

He asserted that the people had elected the AIADMK government so that the good works of MGR and Jayalalithaa, who had toiled to protect the party to fight against the "evil and corrupt forces" (a veiled reference to the DMK), would continue.

"Instead of continuing with the good work of Amma, they (the government) are now focussing on removing me from the party post and using power to prevent the workers, including the MLAs, from attending this rally," alleged Dinakaran. He claimed that the "hearts of the MLAs" in the Palaniswami camp, were with the "real AIADMK", led by him. Seeking to invoke the legacy of MGR, he said, "Is it wrong to celebrate MGR's birthday? Now, an AIADMK government is in power and it is working against the AIADMK."

Dinakaran claimed that Palaniswami had become the chief minister only because "Chinnamma (Sasikala) pointed her finger at him." Had Sasikala wanted, she could have made any of her family members the chief minister, but that was not her wish, he said, adding that she only wanted the government and theparty to be protected for the welfare of the people. "If the MLAs were not at the Kuvathoor resort, could Palaniswami have dreamt of becoming the chief minister," asked Dinakaran, in an apparent reference to the efforts of Sasikala to keep the AIADMK flock together after Panneerselvam revolted against the party leadership in February.

He claimed that Palaniswami had become chief minister "by accident" and due to various circumstances, including Sasikala's incarceration in a Bengaluru jail in a corruption case.

"Those who claimed that they were waging a dharma yudhha (battle for justice), are actually fighting against dharma," Dinakaran said.

He vowed to get the party's 'Two Leaves' poll symbol, which had been frozen by the Election Commission (EC) after the Panneerselvam faction staked claim to it, before the 2019 Lok Sabha election. Dinakaran claimed he had been in the party since 1987 and had worked closely with Jayalalithaa, whom he described as his mentor.

Earlier, talking to reporters, he questioned the Palaniswami camp's move to adopt the resolution, questioning his appointment as the party's deputy general secretary. Stating that the Palaniswami camp had earlier submitted affidavits before the EC, supporting the appointment of him and Sasikala, he sought to know whether challenging the same later did not amount to cheating.

"They have passed a resolution, as per which the appointments made by me are null and void. Is this not 420 (cheating)? If 27 ministers, including the chief minister, have signed the resolution nullifying the appointments made by me, it is cheating," Dinakaran said. He added that he was not scared of anyone as he had faced "a lot of opposition" since 1987.

Dinakaran alleged that there were reports of corruption against a state minister in implementing a marriage assistance scheme of the government.
Kochi: Indira Gandhi had the capacity to carry three generations of Congress workers and leaders with her, senior party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said on Monday, lamenting none of its present day protagonists could that now.

"I can say only this... she (Indira Gandhi) had the capacity to carry three generations with her. None of us have the capacity to carry even one generation with us," he said.

Recalling his association with Gandhi as a Youth Congress leader and a minister, and referring to her contributions to the country and the Congress party, he asked the "demoralised" party workers and leaders to seek inspiration from the remarkable life of the former prime minister.

Azad's remarks came close on the heels of another senior leader Jairam Ramesh saying Congress was facing an "existential crisis".

"Old slogans don't work, old formulas don't work, old mantras don't work. India has changed, the Congress party has to change," Ramesh had told PTI in a recent interview.

Azad said Congress was now in opposition at the Centre and in many states, and unlike Kerala, most places he visited he found them "very demoralised, very upset". The leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha said he urged them to seek inspiration from the life of Indira Gandhi.

"She had the capacity of working with three generations. None of us have that capacity," Azad told a function organised by Ernakulam District Congress Committee to mark the birth centenary celebrations of Gandhi.

Azad said Gandhi had worked with her father, his ministerial colleagues and party office bearers before working with her own generation and the then the younger generation comprising youth Congress leaders like him.

He praised Congress workers and leaders in Kerala for their role in building the organisation.

"We in Delhi always see Congress in Kerala as an exception. The organisation (in Kerala) cannot be compared to (any other unit), the leaders cannot be compared to those in the rest of the country," he said.
Mohan Bhagwat was prohibited from hoisting the National flag at a school in Palakkad in Kerala on Independence day, however, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief went ahead with the programme defying the the district administration's order.

#BREAKING -- RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat defies order, hoists flag in Kerala's Palakkad School | @Neethureghu with the report pic.twitter.com/8hRnatcfuw  News18 (@CNNnews18) August 15, 2017

According to a report in Manorama, Bhagwat was scheduled to hoist the flag at Karnakiyamman school in Palakkad, which is run by RSS supporters. However, Palakkad's district collector issued a statement adding that it was inappropriate for a political leader to hoist the national flag in an aided school. He added that only a teacher or elected representative of the people was allowed to do so, ANI reported.

District Collector says inappropriate for a political leader to hoist national flag in school, a teacher or elected representative can do so  ANI (@ANI) August 15, 2017

"The order is very clear on what can be done. We have abided by the rules. Let the government tell us whether we have violated any rule or law," VK Mani, a school official said.

A statement issued by Dr Manmohan Vaidya, RSS Akhil Bharatiya Prachar Pramukh on Tuesday with regard to the restriction read, "Dr Mohanji Bhagwat was invited by the management of Karnakayamman Higher Secondary school, Palakkad, Kerala, to participate in the golden jubilee celebrations of the school and Independence Day celebrations. At 11 pm on 14th August, 2017, the headmaster of the school received a notice from the district collector stating that only the institutional heads or an elected representative can unfurl the national flag in the school. It is however, learnt that no other school had been given similar information."

He added, "After due consultations, the school authorities decided that they will proceed as planned and that Sarsanghchalakji must exercise his constitutional rights. Dr Mohanji Bhagwat hoisted the flag along with other institutional heads of the school. We condemn such brazen attempts by the CPM led government of Kerala to deny the basic citizen rights of celebrating Independence Day and their continuous attempts to poison the state of Kerala with divisive politics."

As per India Today, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has challenged the collector's decision, affirming that there is nothing wrong in Bhagwat hoisting the flag.

The News Minute quoted Advocate E Krishnadas, BJP's Palakkad district president as saying, "The collector is acting like the branch secretary of Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) that is why such a circular was sent at 11 pm last night. There is no such rule that only the headmaster can hoist the flag. So no circular can be issued based on a rule which doesn't exist. We are going ahead with the plan, why should we follow a rule which doesn't exist."

Speaking about the incident, Palakkad Lok Sabha member and CPI(M) leader MB Rajesh has accused the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) of trying to incite trouble in Kerala.

"This is a brazen violation of the law of the land. This is a school funded and supported by the Kerala government. The rules and regulations have to be followed. Today this did not happen," said Rajesh.

The decision is likely to spark debate in the state, which has already seen palpable tension between the BJP and the Left cadres.

Recently, E Rajesh, a RSS office-bearer was hacked to death in Thiruananthapuram. The BJP had alleged that CPM was behind the murder, however, the charge was vehemently denied by the ruling party. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley paid a condolence visit to the slain activist's house. "This kind of violence will neither suppress our ideology in Kerala nor it will be able to scare our workers", Jaitley said.

To up the ante, BJP will hold a "mega roadshow" in the state after Onam, which is likely to be attended by top leaders including president Amit Shah and chief ministers of BJP-ruled states early next month.

The RSS-BJP combine has claimed that 14 of its members had been killed by the Left cadres in past one year, while the CPM has alleged that 13 of workers lost their lives in violence perpetuated by the saffron organisations. Both sides have blamed each other for the "political killings".

With inputs from IANS
Bengaluru: After being reportedly pulled up by party president Amit Shah, the Karnataka BJP announced a week-long agitation against the state government on Monday, particularly against power minister DK Shivakumar, over "corruption".

Various properties linked to Shivakumar were raided by the Income Tax department for three consecutive days earlier this month.

"The BJP will launch a week-long statewide agitation from Wednesday against the Congress government in general and DK Shivakumar in particular on the issue of corruption," state party chief BS Yeddyurappa said in a statement.

He added that the saffron party had taken a serious note of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah not taking any action against the minister in the wake of the IT raids.

"The government has always been tolerant towards corruption and corrupt people," Yeddyurappa said.

Shah, who is on a three-day visit to Karnataka which concludes today, has reportedly expressed his disappointment with the state BJP leaders over their silence on the "failures" of the state government and on the IT raids.

Asserting that the BJP had always been a party committed to probity in public life and which believed in providing a corruption-free administration, Yeddyurappa said Karnataka had unfortunately become "synonymous with corrupt administration" and earned the epithet of being the "most corrupt government" in the country.

Pointing out that Siddaramaiah had not removed any of his ministers, who had become "tainted" due to corruption charges, the state BJP chief said the agitation would take the form of dharnas, rallies, torch-light processions (by the BJP Yuva Morcha) and silent-protest marches (by the Mahila Morcha).

These would be held at the state, district and taluk levels and a memorandum would also be submitted to the governor, deputy commissioners and tahsildars, he said.

In a swoop down that stirred a huge political controversy, the IT department, on 2 August, began raiding various properties linked to Shivakumar, who hosted 44 Gujarat Congress MLAs at a resort on the city outskirts, reportedly to forestall alleged "poaching" attempts by the BJP in the run-up to the Rajya Sabha polls in that state.

IT officials said they had seized cash and jewellery worth over Rs 15 crore during the raids at about 66 places across the country.

The department is yet to issue an official statement on the outcome of the raids.
Mumbai: The Maharashtra government aims to make farmers of the state debt-free, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Tuesday said.

He said this after unfurling the tricolour at the state secretariat 'Mantralaya' to mark the 71st Independence Day, which was celebrated with fervour across the state.

The chief minister also announced that the homeless would be provided houses by 2019 and construction of three lakh houses in the state under 'houses for all' scheme has begun.

Every citizen should contribute to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's mission of creating a 'Nav Bharat' (New India), he said.

The Independence Day celebrations at some places in Maharashtra were marred by protests by farmers who sought to disrupt flag hoisting by district guardian ministers.

Members of the steering committee comprising representatives of various farmer groups had on Saturday said that guardian ministers will not be allowed to unfurl the national flag at district headquarters on 15 August if the government fails to announce an unconditional loan-waiver.

"The loan-waiver announced by the BJP-led government in the state is full of flaws and riders. Those should be done away with," said Raghunanthdada Patil, a member of the committee.

"There should be a total loan-waiver for farmers. Only then will we allow ministers to unfurl the national flag," Patil had said.

The state government had on 24 June announced a Rs 34,000 -crore crop loan-waiver scheme for the state's marginal farmers.

Named as 'Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Krushi Sanman Yojana', the scheme is designed to benefit about 89 lakh farmers.

Under the scheme, farmers having outstanding loans between 1 April 2012 and 30 June 2016, would be entitled for the waiver.

Loans up to Rs 1.5 lakh would be written off immediately, making some 35 lakh farmers instantly debt-free. A one-time settlement scheme was offered to nine lakh farmers with debts of over Rs 1.5 lakh.

They would be eligible for a waiver of 25 percent of the outstanding amount or Rs 1.5 lakh, whichever was less, Fadnavis had said.
Taking a dig at RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar quoted Mahatma Gandhi on Tuesday and said that nature had enough to fulfil needs but not greed, reported India Today. "It is important that people get rid of their greed," he was quoted as saying.

Nitish, who was commenting on the "fund transfer scam" expose in Bhagalpur, said that those responsible in the scam would not go unpunished, according to the India Today report. The Bihar chief minister was speaking at the historic Gandhi Maidan in Patna on the occasion of the 71st Independence Day on Tuesday.

After unfurling the national flag, Nitish vowed to stick to his commitment to good governance and battling corruption. "We will not compromise with efforts on corruption, governance and development," the Janata Dal-United (JD(U)) leader said.

Since his split from the Grand Alliance in Bihar, Nitish has been vocal about his stand against corruption.

Defending his move of joining ranks with BJP, Kumar had said in the past that he couldn't "tolerate the corruption" in the RJD.

"I tolerated a lot, but I couldn't tolerate corruption in RJD. I just couldn't stay in the alliance with RJD any longer when raids started taking place," Nitish had said.

CBI had conducted several raids on Lalu Pasad Yadav's properties on 7 July in connection with corruption charges against the RJD chief, his wife Rabri Devi and son Tejashwi Yadav, who was also the deputy chief minister in Nitish Kumar's Cabinet before the Mahagathbandhan split.

On 8 August, Lalu attacked Nitish for breaking the Grand Alliance and claimed that the JD(U) leader committed "political suicide" by joining hands with the BJP in Bihar.
New Delhi: Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday said that the no-detention policy has ruined the education system and assured that 60,000 students who failed in class 10 this year will be readmitted.

"Previous governments introduced no-detention policy till class eighth. It ruined the education system. When students took their first exam in class ninth, they failed enmass,"

"They appeared through open school in class 10 and 60,000 students failed," he said, while addressing the gathering at Chattarsal Stadium on the occasion of Independence Day.

"I assure all 60,000 students who failed in class 10 that they will be readmitted and special classes will be held for them," he added.

The Union Cabinet had earlier this month approved the scrapping of the no-detention policy in schools till Class eighth. An enabling provision will be made in the Right of Children for Free and Compulsory Education Amendment Bill which will allow states to detain students in Class fifth and Class eighth if they fail in the year-end exam.

However, the students will have to be given a second chance to improve via an examination before they are detained. The bill will now be placed in Parliament for approval.

Under the present provision of RTE Act, students are promoted automatically to higher classes till class eighth. This is one of the key components of the RTE Act which came into force on 1 April, 2010.
Allahabad: Uttar Pradesh deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya hit out at Mayawati, claiming that she had considered entering the Lok Sabha by contesting bypoll from Phulpur but later developed cold feet.

The beleaguered BSP supremo had recently resigned from Rajya Sabha after being allegedly prevented from speaking on issues concerning Dalits by members of the ruling BJP.

Speculations was rife that Mayawati might consider contesting bypoll in Phulpur which is at present held by Maurya.

"Mayawati had fancied entering the Lok Sabha by contesting by-election from Phulpur. But then she recalled the 2014 general election results when the BJP had polled more votes than the SP and the BSP combined. So she has chickened out," he told reporters in Soraon, about 40 kilometres from the city.

After taking over as the deputy chief minister in March, Maurya would be required to get elected to the state Assembly or legislative council within six months of assuming charge.

This would also entail his vacating the Lok Sabha seat from where he had made a sensational debut in the last general elections when he defeated his nearest Samajwadi Party rival by a margin of more than three lakh votes.

Mocking the SP and the BSP, Maurya said, "Mayawati may even try convincing her bhatija (nephew) Akhilesh (former chief minister and SP chief). The seat will still be retained by the BJP."

Maurya, who is also the BJP's state unit chief, said, "I was in Soraon to attend a party workers' meeting. I asked our party men to keep a close watch on implementation of schemes launched by the Centre as well as the state governments. This will keep corruption at bay."
tech2 News Staff

India is celebrating the completion of 70 years of Independence and to commemorate the occasion, Google has come out with a colourful doodle.

The Google Doodle showcases the Indian Parliament building in orange hues with an Ashoka Chakra in the foreground. Peacock motifs surround the two corners of the doodle and the Google logo has been painted in the tri-colour. The use of colours in this doodle is quite impressive as it uses all the colours present on the national flag  saffron, green, white and blue  in an artistic way.

The doodle has been created by Mumbai-based artist Sabeena Karnik. According to Google, "To honour the anniversary, Mumbai-based artist Sabeena Karnik used a unique paper-cut art style to create a Doodle fit for the bold and colourful celebration of todays events. The Parliament House depicted in her work commemorates this day, this movement, and this triumph of independence."

This page shows the whole process of how the doodle was made using paper-cut art style.

It was on 15 August 1947 that India got complete independence from the British rule. Jawaharlal Nehru made his famous 'Tryst with Destiny' speech at the stroke of midnight on this day.

In the past, Google has tried out different themes to celebrate Independence Day. In 2015 for instance, Google Doodle had a Dandi march theme. Last year there was a doodle themed around Nehru's 'Tryst with Destiny' speech.
India Science Wire

Shedding its hesitant and cautious approach of the past with regard to participating in global mega science projects, India has taken bold steps in recent years to join international scientific quests.

The Science Technology and Innovation policy of 2013 envisages positioning India among the top five global scientific powers by 2020. In addition to home-grown science and engineering projects, the policy advocated participation in global science projects arguing that as a civilised country we must also participate in global mega science projects aiming to find out, for example, the ultimate structure of matter or the origin of the universe.

Here are some of Indias Big Science initiatives:

Feeling the fabric of space-time: The detection of gravitational waves for the first time in February 2016 after a century of speculation and decades of tenacious attempts to improve sensitivity of instruments to detect these elusive waves, was hailed as the discovery of the century. Of over 1000 scientists from 15 countries who jointly made this discovery, 39 were from India. Indian scientists made direct contributions  ranging from designing algorithms used to analyse signals registered by detectors to ascertain those from a gravitational wave to working out parameters like estimating energy and power radiated during merger, orbital eccentricity and estimating the mass and spin of the final black hole and so on. Currently, there are only two detectors in operation, both in America. Building on their strength, Indian astronomers are proposing to build the third detector somewhere in Maharashtra. Called Indian LIGO (IndiGO), the instrument matching the two LIGO observatories in the US would enable scientists to pinpoint the source of gravitational waves.

Big Bang: India became a full Associate Member of God particle fame CERN on 16 January 2017, thereby getting full access to data generated at the worlds largest particle physics laboratory. Currently, CERN has 22 member states. Indian scientists have helped build the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the most powerful particle collider in the world as well as the construction of two significant CERN experiments, CMS and ALICE. Incidentally, CMS is one of the two experiments that discovered the Higgs Boson, popularly called as God particle and ALICE creates conditions that existed at the time of big bang.

Digging deep: Shivajisagar lake was impounded in the Koyna region in Maharashtra to create an artificial reservoir in 1962. The massive earthquake of magnitude 6.3 that occurred in 1967 brought to light dangers of Reservoir Triggered Seismicity (RTS). Since its construction, the region has witnessed 22 earthquakes exceeding magnitude 5, 200 exceeding magnitude 4 and several thousand smaller earthquakes. Indian geophysicists have drilled a seven-km deep borehole in this earthquake zone and have established an on-the-spot observatory to study earthquakes. The observatory is studying physical and mechanical properties of rocks before, during and after a quake; physical and chemical changes in the earth's crust that occur during an earthquake; and temperature change that impels melting of rocks. Geologists are hopeful that the knowledge garnered from the web of 15 earthquake sensors and the on-spot data collection, has potential for making earthquake forecasts possible in future.

Making of atoms: India is part of the international Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) coming up at Darmstadt, Germany for studying the building blocks of matter and the evolution of the Universe. This sophisticated accelerator complex will use high-energy, precisely-tailored ion beams to mimic the conditions inside the core of stars and early phase of the universe.

The 1.2-billion euro facility will study the structure of matter and the evolution of the universe since the Big Bang. While the Helium and hydrogen were formed in the early universe, rest of the elements it is postulated were cooked inside the stars. The facility would also shed light on the creation of heavy elements in stars and also the interiors of planets. Indian institutions will be engaged in building NUSTAR (Nuclear Structure, Astrophysics and Reactions), CBM (Compressed Baryonic Matter) and PANDA (Antiproton Annihilation at Darmstadt) in addition to building equipment to be used at the heart of the FAIR accelerator.

Looking back in time: India has joined nine other nations to build the worlds largest and most sensitive radio telescope  Square Kilometre Array (SKA). It will combine signals received from thousands of small parabolic and dipole antennas spread over a distance of several thousand kilometres across Africa and Australia. Karoo desert in South Africa will host the core of the 350 MHz to 14 GHz mid-frequency dish array while the Australian telescope will observe lower-frequency scale, from 50 to 350 MHz and the total detection area of the receiver dishes would exceed 1 square kilometre. A large number of dipole antennas are capable of receiving very low frequencies while the 3000 odd parabolic antennas operate at higher frequencies. Combining signals from all these thousands of antennas would simulate a single giant radio telescope with extremely high sensitivity. The sensitivity of this radio telescope would be fifty times more than any other radio telescope and it will be able to survey the sky 10,000 times faster enabling astronomers to even capture faint radio signals emitted by cosmic sources billions of light years away from Earth. With such a powerful telescope, astronomers could peer deep into the universe, way back in time when the first stars were emerging.

Shining like Sun: The International-Thermonuclear-Experimental-Reactor (ITER) has embarked upon an ambitious project to build a little bit of Sun in laboratory conduction. While the conventional nuclear reactor breaks a heavy atom like plutonium to gather the binding energy, the fusion reactor will fuse two light elements like say hydrogen into helium to harness the energy. As fusion reactors will not use any radioactive materials, yet generate immense energy, it is considered as a clean-green source of energy. The high temperature in the core of the stars results in light elements becoming highly ionised and attain plasma state. It is in this plasma state that two or more light elements could fuse. If we have to re-create such a condition on Earth, then we need to make a small amount of hydrogen into plasma before we can achieve fusion. One of the challenges is to contain high-temperature plasma in a confinement to achieve the fusion. The experimental nuclear fusion reactor being built at Cadarache in the south of France hopes to harness fusion reaction to generate energy. European Union, United States, Japan, China, Russia, South Korea and India are jointly building and operating this test facility. Institute for Plasma Research, Ahmedabad is contributing crucial parts of the tokamak reactors gigantic cryostat.

Predicting rain: The India Meteorological Department (IMD) is developing a dynamic weather prediction model involving 3D mathematical simulation of the atmosphere on the computer and to test variations of dynamic models to ferret out the best ones for an operational forecast of rainfall. While the ultimate goal is to get operational weather forecasts at a horizontal resolution of 12 km, by 2019 National Monsoon Mission will provide block level weather forecast. With the improvements in forecast, 24-hour track and intensity forecast error of the tropical cyclones reduced from 141 km to 97 km and landfall error from 99 km to 56 km during 2006 to 2015. The accurate forecast of the recent cyclones, Phailin, HudHud and Vardah saved thousands of human lives.

Churning the Sea: Using research vessel, Gaveshani, Indian researchers had collected samples of poly metallic nodules from the Arabian Sea in 1981 and India was given a pioneer area for exploration of deep sea minerals in the Central Indian Ocean Basin in 1987. Subsequently, extensive surveys were carried out leading to allocation of an area of 150,000 sq km with exclusive rights under the UN Law of the sea. India has access to an area of 75,000 sq km with an estimated resource of about 100 million tons of strategic metals such copper, nickel, cobalt besides manganese and iron. As various national institutions have developed technologies for the extraction of metals from the minerals, soon India would establish First Generation Mine-site (FGM) with an area of 18,000 sq km and harvest natural resources from the sea-bed. The multi-purpose deep ocean mission would also try to harness deep ocean energy, deep sea fishing along with deep sea mining. Further technologies for sea water desalination to obtain potable water would also be undertaken.

Looking deep: The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), worlds advanced ground based telescope, is expected to outsmart all ground-based telescopes once it is operational. Made of 492 individual segments, the telescope mirror would have a reflective diameter of 30 meters and would be 81 times more powerful than any other telescope. It a partnership project involving CalTech, Universities of California, Canada, Japan, China and India. While initial location chosen was Hawaii, Hanle in Ladakh was also considered as an alternative. However, it may perhaps be finally located in Chile. The building of such a massive telescope is a technological challenge. The mirror segments have to be aligned precisely with each other and the adaptive optics proposed would eliminate the twinkling effect caused by atmospheric thermal disturbances. India will develop and manufacture 15 percent of the mirror segments and assembly.

Reaching for stars: India had dazzled the world by reaching Mars in very first attempt. Indian spacecraft reached the moon before that. Currently AstroSAT a multi wavelength space telescope is operational. ISRO in coming years would add many more deep space missions to its credit. Chandrayan 2- with a lander and rover is proposed to be launched some time in 2018-19. A mission to study the Sun  Aditya, is in the offing. Building upon the success of the Mars Orbiter Mission, ISRO is planning to send yet another spacecraft to study Mars. Indian space programme in addition to providing telecom, weather, navigational services, would also take a pride of place among the spacefaring nations of the world.

Technological spinoffs of mega projects such as LHC or FAIR are immense. Technology developed in CERN went into making mammograms used for breast cancer detection, while the positron used in particle physics experiments gave us PET (Positron Emission Tomography). The study of fundamental particles is sure to yield newer imaging technologies. Thats why it is important to invest in mega science projects.

By Dr T V Venkateswaran
Reuters

Chinese drone maker SZ DJI Technology Co Ltd is tightening data security on its drones after the US Army ordered its members to stop using DJI drones because of "cyber vulnerabilities," a company official told Reuters on Monday.

The privately held Shenzhen-based company is speeding deployment of a system that allows users to disconnect from the internet during flights, making it impossible for flight logs, photos or videos to reach DJI's computer servers, Brendan Schulman, vice president of policy and legal affairs at DJI, said in an interview.

The security measure had been in the works for several months but DJI said it is bringing it out sooner than planned because of an Army memo earlier this month that barred service members from using DJI drones.

DJI said it has not had any communication with the Army about the issue. The Army had no immediate comment. The other branches of the military have not banned the use of drones by DJI, the largest consumer drone maker with millions of the devices sold.

"The Army memo caused customers to express renewed concern about data security" and prompted DJI to speed up data security changes, Schulman said.

Some drone pilots choose to share images and video with DJI, which makes them visible on its SkyPixel website. But many businesses and government customers have raised concerns about sensitive video and pictures - such as movie footage or images of critical infrastructure - and want to ensure it is never sent to DJI, he said.

DJI said it does not collect images, video or flight logs from users unless they share them. But turning on the new "local data mode" will prevent accidental syncing with DJI's servers. Its drones do not rely on an internet connection to fly.

Cutting the link between the internet and DJI's controller apps that run on tablets and mobile phones will disable updates of maps, flight restrictions and other data that the controller application receives from the internet while the drone is in use, he said.

Schulman said DJI plans to make updates to its controller applications available by the end of September, earlier than previously planned. The new apps with local data mode may not be available in all countries if there are regulations that require pilots to have the most updated maps and information.

DJI had about 70 percent share of the global commercial and consumer drone market, analysts at Goldman Sachs and Oppenheimer estimated in 2016.

Goldman analysts estimated the market, including military, to be worth more than $100 billion over the next five years.
IANS

In a fresh onslaught on its former employer, James Damore, the engineer who was fired by Google over a memo criticising the company's diversity efforts, has said that the tech giant is discriminating in its hiring practices.

Damore on Monday told CNBC's TV programme "Closing Bell" that Google was "treating people differently based on race or gender".

"The company is pressing individual managers to increase diversity and is using race or gender to decide which workers are promoted and which teams job candidates are placed on," Damore was quoted as saying.

He also said that he was "pursuing legal remedies" against the company over his firing.

Earlier this week, Damore dubbed his former workplace a "cult".

In an op-ed titled "Why I Was Fired by Google" in the Wall Street Journal, Damore said: "Google is a particularly intense echo chamber because it is in the middle of Silicon Valley and is so life-encompassing as a place to work."

"Some even live on campus. For many, including myself, working at Google is a major part of their identity, almost 'like a cult' with its own leaders and saints, all believed to righteously uphold the sacred motto of 'Don't be evil'," he wrote.

Damore argued that this created an environment where only certain opinions could be voiced and slammed the tech giant in its attempt to "silence open and honest discussion".

"How did Google, the company that hires the smartest people in the world, become so ideologically driven and intolerant of scientific debate and reasoned argument," he wrote.

Last week, Google's Indian-born CEO Sundar Pichai addressed a coding event for women on the sprawling campus at Mountain View, California, after Damore's manifesto claimed that "the representation gap between men and women in software engineering persists because of biological differences between the two sexes".

"There's a place for you at Google. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. You belong here, and we need you," Pichai told woman innovators at the company.
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Bangalore: US space agency NASA and India's premier space agency ISRO are in talks for jointly building a satellite for the first time.

"Now, there is a feasibility study going on whether we can jointly make a satellite, with synthetic aperture radar (SAR) payloads working on two frequency bands - L-band and S-band", Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) K Radhakrishnan told PTI here.

Charles F Bolden Jr, Administrator of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of United States, visited the Space Applications Centre (SAC) of ISRO in Ahmedabad on June 25.

He had a meeting with Radhakrishnan, also Secretary, Department of Space, along with senior officials of ISRO to discuss the ongoing cooperative activities between ISRO and NASA and also the potential areas of future cooperation.

"...the joint satellite mission is an important step. It's not making an instrument and plugging it actually. It's working together. That's what we are discussing. It (working together) should happen in the next few months", Radhakrishnan said.

"Both organisations are coming together and saying let's develop it together...use your strength, use my strength. That's a good way of working", he said.

"It (the proposed satellite) is interesting from scientific point of view, it's interesting from normal resource management point of view," he said.

Radhakrishnan said NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory would make the radar system "if it (in case of NASA, ISRO deciding to work together on the mission) is getting through".

On ISRO's role, he said, "We will be working together. Some will be built by us, some will be built by them. So, this (work-sharing) has to be finalised", adding, data generated by the mission would be used by both ISRO and NASA.

Radhakrishnan hinted at the possibility of ISRO making the satellite for the joint mission, with launch from Indian soil.

In this context, he pointed to the Indo-French joint satellite missions Megha-Tropiques and Saral, with Paris opting for Indian satellites for the ventures with 'desi' rockets.

India's 2008 Chandrayaan-1 mission had two instruments from USA.

Mini Synthetic Aperture Radar (MiniSAR) was from Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory and Naval Air Warfare Centre, USA through NASA. MiniSAR was mainly intended for detecting water ice in the permanently shadowed regions of the lunar poles up to a depth of a few meters.

Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3), an imaging spectrometer from Brown University and JPL through NASA, was intended to assess and map lunar mineral resources at high spatial and spectral resolution.

M3 aboard Chandrayaan-1 helped to find the existence of water molecules on the lunar surface.

"They (NASA) had two instruments (on Chandrayaan-1). It worked and they got good return out of it", Radhakrishnan said, noting the finding.

He also hinted that ISRO might contribute to NASA's new asteroid initiative, which includes work to identify and characterise asteroids of all types and a mission to capture and redirect an asteroid into an orbit closer to Earth so that astronauts can visit it.

Radhakrishnan said NASA is looking at international space community regarding its perception on the subject (asteroids).

"Maybe some joint work will emerge at a later stage. But it's in a very nascent stage", he hastened to add. "NASA has a plan to see how they can manage asteroids, and whether they can do some manipulation of its orbit, etc".

ISRO officials noted that India and United States pursue active civil space cooperation mainly in the areas of earth sciences, space exploration, satellite navigation and professional exchange.

Last month's visit was the first by Charles F. Bolden Jr. to any ISRO Centre after he took over as NASA Administrator in July 2009. Bolden is only the third NASA chief to visit ISRO in the past four decades.

PTI
It took President Donald Trump two days to do what both Republicans and Democrats said should have come fast and easy. In a carefully worded statement on Monday, Trump condemned members of the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and white supremacists, calling them "repugnant".

He vowed that his administration would crack down on those who perpetrate "racist violence". He called for national unity.

It was the type of statement Americans have come to expect from their presidents after racially charged incidents, like the deadly violence that erupted on Saturday in Charlottesville, Virginia. But Trump struggled to meet the moment, glaringly omitting any direct condemnation of white supremacists in his initial comments on the incident and decrying bigotry "on many sides".

As the most unconventional president in modern American history, Trump has at times thrived off low expectations. He is often cheered by Republicans when he fulfills basic functions of the office. And GOP lawmakers in particular have often tried to explain his missteps as a function of his lack of experience in Washington and politics.

But he has found himself with few allies after his botched handling of the Charlottesville violence. Several Republicans challenged Trump to be more strident in calling out white nationalists and neo-Nazis. Colorado senator Cory Gardner said the president needed to "step up" and call the groups "evil".

The president finally got there on Monday, declaring that "racism is evil, and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs".

It's unclear whether his cleanup efforts will ease the political pressure he has faced in recent days. In addition to the disapproval from his own party, three members of a White House advisory council  Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier, Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank and Intel CEO Brian Krzanich  announced they were resigning from the panel in protest.

Later on Monday, Trump tried to pin the blame for the controversy on one of his favorite targets: The media. He tweeted that the media "will never be satisfied... truly bad people".

The trouble for Trump is that his struggle in responding to the incident seems to fit a pattern of uncharacteristic caution when it comes to handling racial tension and condemning fringe groups that have rallied around his candidacy.

Indeed, it was striking that one of the few signs of support for Trump after his comments Saturday came from the white supremacist website Daily Stormer. The website noted that Trump avoided reporters' questions about whether he condemned the groups leading the protests. "Really, really good. God bless him," the website wrote.

Trump denies that he's racist or sympathetic towards the groups. Son-in-law Jared Kushner, himself a grandson of Holocaust survivors, and daughter Ivanka, who converted to Judaism, are among those who have defended the president against those charges. But he still has a history of engaging in high-profile, racially fraught battles.

Early in his career as a developer, Trump fought charges of bias against African-Americans, seeking to rent at his family-owned apartment complexes. He long promoted the lie that the nation's first black president, Barack Obama, was not born in the US. As a candidate, he proposed temporarily banning Muslims from the US. He retweeted a post from accounts that appeared to have ties to white nationalist groups. And he was slow to reject the endorsement of former KKK leader David Duke.

Some of the president's friends and advisers have argued that Trump is simply refusing to bend to liberals' desire for political correctness. A boastful, proudly disruptive politician, Trump often has been rewarded for saying impolite and impolitic things. Some supporters cheer him for being someone who says what they cannot.

Democrats frequently assert that Trump sees a political advantage in courting the support of the far-Right. Indeed, he has benefited politically from the backing of media outlets such as Breitbart or InfoWars. They have consistently promoted Trump and torn down his opponents, sometimes with biased or inaccurate reports.

Charlottesville mayor, Democrat Mike Signer, said on Sunday that Trump made a choice during his campaign to "go right to the gutter, to play on our worst prejudices". "I think you are seeing a direct line from what happened here this weekend to those choices," Signer said on CBS' news show Face the Nation.

White House senior adviser Steve Bannon ran Breitbart before joining Trump's campaign, and several of the president's other aides believe Bannon continues to have influence over the website. In Devil's Bargain, a new book about his role in the Trump campaign, Bannon is quoted as saying that attempts by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton to tie Trump to the alt-Right and nationalists did not move voters.

"We polled the race stuff and it doesn't matter," Bannon said, according to the book.
Washington: President Donald Trump on Monday authorised an inquiry into China's alleged theft of intellectual property in the first direct trade measure by his administration against Beijing, but one that is unlikely to prompt near-term change.

Trump broke from his 17-day vacation in New Jersey to sign the memo in the White House at a time of heightened tensions between Washington and Beijing over North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

The investigation is likely to cast a shadow over relations with China, the largest US trading partner, just as Trump is asking Beijing to step up pressure against Pyongyang.

US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer will have a year to look into whether to launch a formal investigation of China's trade policies on intellectual property, which the White House and US industry lobby groups say are harming U.S. businesses and jobs.

Trump administration officials have estimated that theft of intellectual property by China could be as high as $600 billion.

Experts on China trade policy said the long lead time could allow Beijing to discuss some of the issues raised by Washington without being seen to cave to pressure under the threat of reprisals.

Although Trump repeatedly criticized China's trade practices on the campaign trail, his administration has not taken any significant action. Despite threats to do so, it has declined to name China a currency manipulator and delayed broader national security probes into imports of foreign steel and aluminum that could indirectly affect China.

China repeatedly rebuffed attempts by previous US administrations to take action on its IP practices.

"I'm sure they will formally reject this if an investigation is launched and there is an implication this is going to require negotiation to resolve it", said Matthew Goodman, a senior adviser for Asian economics at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Jonathan Fenby, an analyst at the TS Lombard consultancy, said China was not interested in a short-term trade fix with the United States and will resist "attempts to tie it down".

China's policy of forcing foreign companies to turn over technology to Chinese joint venture partners and failure to crack down on intellectual property theft have been longstanding problems for several US administrations.

The Information Technology Industry Council, the main trade group for U.S. technology giants, such as Microsoft, Apple and Google, said it hoped China would take the administration's announcement seriously.

"Both the United States and China should use the coming months to address the issues causing friction in the bilateral trade relationship before Presidents Trump and Xi have their anticipated meeting ahead of the November APEC leaders meeting", ITI President Dean Garfield said in a statement.

In an editorial on Monday, the state-run China Daily newspaper said the investigation will "poison" relations and warned the Trump administration not to make a rash decision it could regret.

Trump had been expected to seek a so-called Section 301 investigation earlier this month, but an announcement was postponed as the White House pressed for China's cooperation on North Korea.

Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, a popular trade tool in the 1980s that has been rarely used in the past decade, allows the president to unilaterally impose tariffs or other trade restrictions to protect U.S. industries from "unfair trade practices" of foreign countries.
Protesters in North Carolina have toppled a long-standing statue of a Confederate soldier.

Activists on Monday evening used a rope to pull down the monument outside a Durham courthouse. Video footage posted online shows protesters  some white, some black  kicking the crumpled bronze statue as dozens of people in the crowd cheered and chanted.

The Durham protest was in response to a white nationalist rally held in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend. Authorities say one woman was killed Saturday after one of the white nationalists drove his car into a group of peaceful counter-protesters.

A United Daughters of the Confederacy website says the Confederate Soldiers Monument was erected in 1924.

On Monday, bowing to pressure from all sides, President Donald Trump condemned white supremacist groups by name, declaring "racism is evil" after two days of public equivocation and internal White House debate over the deadly race-fuelled clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia.

In a hastily arranged statement at the White House, Trump branded members of the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists who take part in violence as "criminals and thugs." The groups are "repugnant to everything that we hold dear as Americans," he said.

In his initial remarks on the violence on Saturday, Trump did not single out the groups and instead bemoaned violence on "many sides." Those remarks prompted stern criticism from fellow Republicans as well as Democrats, who urged him to seize the moral authority of his office to condemn hate groups.

Trump, as a presidential candidate, frequently came under scrutiny for being slow to offer his condemnation of white supremacists.

His strongest denunciation of the movement has not come voluntarily, only when asked, and he occasionally trafficked in retweets of racist social media posts during his campaign.

His chief strategist, Steve Bannon, once declared that his former news site, Breitbart, was "the platform for the alt-right."

White nationalists had assembled in Charlottesville to vent their frustration against the city's plans to take down a statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee. Counter-protesters massed in opposition.

Alt-right leader Richard Spencer and former Ku Klux Klan member David Duke attended the demonstrations. Duke told reporters that the white nationalists were working to "fulfil the promises of Donald Trump."

With inputs from AP
Bamako: Gunmen attacked two United Nations bases in Mali, killing a peacekeeper, a contractor and seven Malians, the UN said, in the latest attacks on its presence in the country.

The peacekeeper and a Malian soldier were killed in an attack in the early morning in Douentza, in the central region of Mopti, according to a statement from the UN mission in the

country, known by the acronym MINUSMA.

Hours later, six men toting guns and grenades drove up to the entrance of the UN mission's camp in Timbuktu in northwestern Mali, the UN announced in a separate statement. They opened fire on Malian UN security guards, killing five of them, as well as a policeman and a civilian contractor whose nationality was not specified, the UN said in a separate statement.

A UN source told AFP six guards had been killed, but the statement said one was wounded but had not died. Two suspected jihadists were killed in the Douentza attack and six in Timbuktu. The assault underlines the scale of the UN's struggles to contain a death toll among its peacekeepers that has already earned its Mali mission the unwelcome title of the world's deadliest active UN deployment.

Another peacekeeper was lightly wounded in Douentza and six others, as well as a Malian security guard, suffered injuries in Timbuktu, according to the UN statements. "I don't have enough words to condemn this cowardly and ignoble act a few hours after the terrorist attack we endured in Douentza," said UN special representative for Mali Mahamat Saleh Saleh Annadif in a statement on the Timbuktu attack sent to AFP.

"We must combine all our efforts in order to identify and apprehend those responsible for these terrorist acts so that they can answer to their crimes in court," Annadif added. A Malian security source meanwhile told AFP that the Timbuktu security guards were "killed on the spot," though the attack soon attracted the attention of Malian forces and French helicopters stationed in the area, who fired on the attackers.

Last night, reinforcements were deployed to both bases and in the city of Timbuktu itself. Active in Mali since 2013, the UN mission, known as MINUSMA, is constantly targeted by jihadists that roam northern and central Mali, and has also been beset by operational difficulties including a lack of helicopters and allegations of abuse lodged by the population.

Last week, UN peacekeepers accused former rebel fighters and a rival pro-government militia in the north of the country of having used child soldiers in recent clashes. In 2012, key cities in northern Mali fell under the control of jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda, who exploited an ethnic Tuareg-led rebel uprising, leading to a French-led military intervention and the eventual deployment of MINUSMA. Although the Islamists were largely ousted, attacks have continued on UN and French forces, civilians and the Malian army.

Yesterday's attacks in Mali came hours after an assault in Ouagadougou, the capital of the neighbouring Sahel state of Burkina Faso, where 18 people were gunned down at a restaurant

popular with foreigners. France is pushing for five countries in the western-central Sahara region to form a joint "G5" force to combat jihadism.

It would comprise 5,000 men drawn from Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger. But the plan has met with worries over funding, with an estimated 400 million euros ($471 million) required to make it operational.
Kathmandu: China on Tuesday announced USD 1 million assistance to flood-hit Nepal as the country's Vice Premier Wang Yang held talks with his Nepalese counterpart on ways to enhance bilateral ties.

Wang made the announcement during the Nepal-China deputy prime minister-level meeting he jointly chaired with Nepal's Deputy Prime Minister Bijay Kumar Gachchhadar.

Another Deputy Prime Minister Krishna Bahadur Mahara, health minister Girirajmani Pokharel, secretaries of Nepal's ministries of finance, health and tourism and chiefs of Nepal's Investment Board, National Planning Commission and National Reconstruction Authority also took part in the meeting.

Over 115 people have been killed in rain-triggered flood and landslides in Nepal with over six million people affected by natural calamity.

Meanwhile, the reconstruction of the historic nine-store palace at the Hanuman Dhoka Durbar Square, a world heritage site, that was damaged two years ago in a devastating earthquake began on Tuesday with Mahara and Wang jointly inaugurating the re-building works of the 17th-century structure.

The reconstruction effort is being undertaken with economic and technical support from the Chinese government.

The Chinese government will complete the reconstruction of the palace in five years at a cost of Rs 150 million, Bhes Narayan Dahal, chief of Archaeology Department, said.
Seoul/Washington: North Korea's leader has delayed a decision on firing missiles towards the US territory of Guam while he watches the actions of the United States a little longer, the North's state media said on Tuesday, as Washington warned it would take out any missile heading for the Pacific island.

Pyongyang's detailed plans to land four missiles near Guam prompted a surge in tensions in the region last week, with US president Donald Trump warning he would unleash "fire and fury" on North Korea if it threatened the United States.

In his first public appearance in about two weeks, Kim Jong Un inspected the command of the North's army on Monday, examining the plan for a long time and discussing it with army officers, the official KCNA said in a report.

"He said that if the Yankees persist in their extremely dangerous reckless actions on the Korean peninsula and in its vicinity, testing the self-restraint of the DPRK, the latter will make an important decision as it already declared," the report said.

The DPRK stands for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"The United States, which was the first to bring numerous strategic nuclear equipment near us, should first make the right decision and show through actions if they wish to ease tensions on the Korean peninsula and prevent a dangerous military clash," Kim was cited as saying in the report by KCNA.

US officials and South Korea's president in recent days have played down the risk of an imminent conflict while stressing their preparedness to respond militarily to any attack from North Korea.

Defense secretary Jim Mattis said on Monday that the US military would intercept a missile fired by North Korea if it was headed to Guam.

Mattis told reporters that the US military would know the trajectory of a missile within moments and would "take it out" if it looked like it would hit the US Pacific territory.

"The bottom line is, we will defend the country from an attack; for us (US military) that is war," Mattis said.

South Korea says no more war

Concern that North Korea is close to achieving its goal of putting the mainland United States within range of a nuclear weapon has ratcheted up global concerns in recent months.

The European Unions top diplomat, Federica Mogherini, said the EU would intensify its diplomatic efforts with North Korea, the United States, South Korea, China, Russia and Japan.

Mogherini called on North Korea "to refrain from any further provocative action that can only increase regional and global tensions."

Tension on the Korean peninsula had eased slightly earlier on Monday as South Korea's president said resolving North Korea's nuclear ambitions must be done peacefully.

World stocks rose on Monday along with US Treasury yields and the US dollar as investors regained an appetite for riskier investments.

"There must be no more war on the Korean peninsula. Whatever ups and downs we face, the North Korean nuclear situation must be resolved peacefully," President Moon Jae-in told a meeting with senior aides and advisers.

"I am certain the United States will respond to the current situation calmly and responsibly in a stance that is equal to ours," he said.

Tuesday marks the anniversary of Japan's expulsion from the Korean peninsula, a rare holiday celebrated by both the North and the South. Moon and Kim are both expected to make addresses on their respective sides of the heavily militarised border.

The United States and South Korea remain technically still at war with North Korea after the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended with a truce, not a peace treaty.
Pakistan prime minister Shahid Khaqqan Abbasi on Monday trained his guns on India over its "expansionist designs" in South Asia, and said that New Delhi was the "main hurdle" in constructive relations between the two neighbours. Abbasi's remarks came during his Independence Day address in Islamabad. While criticising India's stance on the Kashmir issue, Abbasi hailed the "all-weather" relationship between China and Pakistan. Notably, Chinese vice premier Wang Yang, who arrived in Islamabad on Monday, was the chief guest for the 71st Independence Day celebrations.

Here is the full text of the prime minister's message to the nation on Monday:

The independence that we achieved seventy years ago was an outcome of the unparalleled sacrifices made by our ancestors. Millions of Muslims rendered sacrifices for our as well as the future of the posterity. Today we are treading the path of prosperity and progress in a peaceful and dignified country because of those sacrifices. We are greatly indebted to our ancestors for their sacrifices and we can repay that debt only by making Pakistan a free and independent country.

We may belong to different tribes, fraternities and ethnicities; we may be working in different spheres of national life; our political vision and thinking can be different and our economic vision may have different perspectives but ascendency of national interests and invincible defence are common objectives of the entire nation, for which we have to make collective endeavours.

Quaid-e-Azam had envisioned Pakistan as a modern democratic entity. This dream faces myriad of challenges and the PML (N) government notwithstanding the confronting difficulties has made the realization of Quaids dream as its abiding mission. The recent transition of power through a democratic process was quintessential of the accelerated strengthening of democratic values in the country.

We have to strengthen and reinforce the state institutions so that they can play their prescribed role within the limits of law and the constitution. Only a strong economy can ensure strong defence. A moderate society guarantees stability of the state, where people enjoy all their fundamental rights and national resources are equitably and judicious distributed.

Pakistan desires positive and constructive relations with all the countries of the world, especially with its neighbours on the basis of sovereign equality. The people of South Asia have suffered enormously in the last fifty years due to the festering conflicts. Until and unless those conflicts are resolved amicably the people of the region cannot achieve prosperity and progress.

Our government has invariably made efforts to initiate the process of meaningful dialogue and adoption of peaceful means to resolve the issues but unfortunately the expansionist designs of India have remained the main hurdle in this regard. It is incumbent upon the international community to play its role in the resolution of the regional conflicts, particularly the Kashmir dispute in conformity with the UN Resolutions on the subject with a view to ensuring durable peace in the region.

Terrorism is the biggest challenge confronting the world in the twenty first century. Pakistan has rendered unparalleled sacrifices in the fight against this menace as well as for the world peace. Our armed forces, law enforcing agencies and the people have written imperishable stories of sacrifices in this regard. Now the time has come for the international community not only to acknowledge those sacrifices by rising above their interests in the region but also to fully support Pakistan in taking the fight against terrorism to its logical conclusion.

The younger generation of Pakistan is endowed with exceptional talent and has a burning desire for advancement. They are making admirable contribution in the fields of Information Technology, Engineering, Medical and Management all over the world, in a distinct manner. My government has a vision of accelerating the pace of development and prosperity in Pakistan so that all those professionals can return to contribute to this national effort.

I assure the Pakistani youth that tomorrows Pakistan will ensure the implementation of guiding principles of rule of law and ascendency of merit. On the seventieth independence day of the country, I make a solemn pledge that we will not relent until the achievement of those objectives.
Islamabad: A powerful road side bomb blast targeting security forces killed at least six paramilitary troops and injured three others in Pakistan's southwestern restive Balochistan province on Monday.

The vehicle of the Frontier Corps was on a routine patrol in Khost area of Harnai district when the bomb exploded.

Security official said that the bomb was planted on the side of the road and badly damaged the vehicle.

"Six soldiers were killed and three other injured," the officials said.

It was second attack on the security forces in the last two days after a suicide bomber rammed his motorbike into an army truck on Saturday, killing 15 people including 8 soldiers.

Chief Minister of Balochistan Nawab Sanaullah Zehri strongly condemned the blast and directed the officers to bring the perpetrators to book.

"We will not spare the elements involved in this act," he said in statement.

The attack came on a day when Pakistan celebrates its 71st Independence Day.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility of the blast but Taliban and Islamic State militants have carried out attacks in Balochistan.

Balochistan has oil and gas resources but has witnessed several terrorist attacks recently by militants and separatists while banned outfits have also carried out sectarian killings in the province.
Editor's Note: Refugee crisis is an oft-heard term in regular parlance these days. Ever since German chancellor Angela Merkel's famous 2015 "Wir schaffen das!" (We'll manage it) speech, Germany has emerged as a European nation taking in the most number of refugees. Firstpost's Nimish Sawant travelled to its capital Berlin, as part of the Robert Bosch Foundation's India - Germany Media Ambassadors program, to see how refugees are trying to integrate into the German society. This process goes much beyond just learning the language and knowing the customs and traditions. While some are trying to keep their culture alive in a foreign land, others are building a case for talented migrants in a society that is ageing fast. While some hope to go back home when the situation improves, others prefer building their lives anew in Germany. This article is Part Two of the five-part series which will explore the stories of refugees living in Berlin. Read Part I of the series here

Theres only one thing I want to say at the end of our tour. Dont let fear control you. Dont let fear rule you, said Iliyas, as he concluded the walking tour, standing in the middle of the Gendarmenmarkt in downtown Berlin.

This square in Berlin, apart from being architecturally marvellous, is also symbolic of the German attitude of letting in outsiders and making them feel at home. The imposing French cathedral on the northern end of the Gendarmenmarkt, was built in the 1700s, by the immigrant community from France - the Huguenots. And it stood right opposite a Lutheran Protestant cathedral of the German natives. The Edict of Potsdam had ensured the protection of the Huguenots religious freedom and civil rights, according to the official Gendarmenmarkt website.

And that was in the year 1701.

It is no wonder then why Iliyas and Mohammed, two Syrian refugees living in Berlin, decided to end their walking tour at this spot. Whether it's 1701 or 2017, being open to outsiders has been in the DNA of this German city for a very long time.

Did I just say, walking tour, Berlin and Syrian refugees in the same sentence?

Walking tours are generally meant to give you an overview of a city, and are most likely conducted by locals or someone who has lived long enough in a place to know it like the back of their hand. But here I was, being shown around Berlin, by two Syrian refugees.

Iliyas and Mohammed have been living in Berlin since 2016 and 2014 respectively. Mohammed is one of founders of the Refugee Voices Tours, a walking tour company which shows you Berlin through the eyes of the refugees. In this case, Syrian refugees. But the thought of two Syrian refugees giving a walking tour of Berlin had me confounded still. How does that work out?

So, on a sunny summer afternoon, just outside the Mohrenstrasse U-Bahn metro station, I met Iliyas and Mohammed along with a bunch of native Germans and foreigners from the US and the UK. Dressed in a dark gray T-shirt and black jeans, Mohammed informed us off the bat that it would not be a regular walking tour but one that would try to give us a bit of both, the German history and the Syrian history.

The four stops would be: the Federal Ministry of Finance building, Check Point Charlie, Topography of Terror open air museum and Gendarmenmarkt. If one goes purely by timelines, you are criss-crossing between the 1940s and the 1990s as well as going all the way back to the 1700s. That was unconventional to begin with.

After the first stop, the format of the tour became more pronounced. Iliyas and Mohammed would be drawing parallels from Syrian history, at these points of interests in Berlin.

Berlin: 17 June 1953 | Syria: mid-70s onwards

Incidentally, the tour was on 17 June - a date that is so important in the history of Berlin, that they have one of their main streets and a square named after the date.

On 17 June, 1953, the working class population of the erstwhile East Germany collected in groups all across the country demanding freedom of speech and better economic policies. It was a peaceful protest movement, and at least 40,000 protesters gathered in front of the Federal Ministry of Finance building, which used to be the headquarters of the former East German government before reunification.

Things came to such a blow that people started demanding resignation of the East German government, in effect the Socialist Union Party or the SED. In response, the SED took the help of Soviet tanks to quell the uprising. It led to the death of at least 40 peaceful protesters, at least 400 more were injured, and by the evening of the same day, at least 700 others were arrested.

Till date, there isnt any legal closure to the case nor any definite idea of the number of casualties.

A blown up photo of the protesters laid in the courtyard, and surrounded by memorial wreaths on the day, was in stark contrast to the East German propaganda mural plastered on the wall of this Communist-era building - a mural which showcased working class utopia.

"The message from the government was clear: If you protest against us, we will use the most violent means to shut you down. Something similar happened in Syria in the late 70s when Hafez al Assad (father of Bashar al Assad, the current President of Syria) came into power," said Iliyas. According to Iliyas, in the late 70s Syria witnessed a similar civil uprising against Assad's anti-people policies.

In 1982, a town called Hama was the location of mass killings by al-Assads army. This was to contain the uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood, against the government. My family escaped the town, and when they returned after things had settled down, they noticed their entire neighbourhood had been destroyed, said Iliyas. There are conflicting reports on the death count citing it around 30,000 to 40,000 civilians. Just like the 17 June, 1953 riots in Berlin, there is no clear resolution to the 1982 Hama massacre as well.

After the military coup, which put Assad in power, he quickly started taking measures and making changes in the constitution which would ensure that he was the supreme leader of the country with unchecked powers.

"It started with banning newspapers, banning opposition parties and shutting down all civil organisations. When people started protesting against atrocities the government started arresting protesters and tortured them to send across a message," Iliyas added.

Al-Assad even made an addition to the Syrian constitution - Law 49 - which stated that anyone belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood would be executed without a trial.

The parallels are pretty telling.

Berlin: Migration from East to West | Syria: Migration to any country which would accept them

Check Point Charlie, the famous wall-crossing between the erstwhile East and West Berlin, is a standing symbol of the Cold War. It was also the spot where Soviet and American tanks faced off in 1961 in what has now come to be known as the Berlin Crisis of 1961. The border in a way also represented movement or a more appropriate term - migrations.

Syria is surrounded by Lebanon, Turkey, Israel, Jordan and Iraq, and once domestic matters started escalating, several Syrians escaped the country through open borders.

To give a perspective through numbers, Syria had a population of 25 million. As of today, only 7 million people remain and only 60 percent of them are displaced Syrians - people who have fled their place of birth in Syria. Majority of the population has fled the country," said Mohammed. He fled to Egypt, and then to Libya where he was worked for an internet company.

But situation in Libya's Benghazi forced Mohammed to come to Europe and eventually to Germany.

On being asked why one only heard of young male demographic leaving Syria, Mohammed said that the main reason was the compulsory military service.

"Every Syrian male, once he is 18 years of age, has to undergo a compulsory 2-year military stint. There are exceptions made if you are studying at the university or in other special cases. But after a point, you have to serve two years. And young Syrians know that means fighting against your own countrymen. It is not an idea that appeals to many young people, said Mohammed.

Mohammad added that another reason to leave the country was the money. As job prospects back home are dismal, Syrians leave the country to earn enough so that they can send some back home. The families then elect one person as the breadwinner and do everything in their power to send him abroad.

Berlin: Topography of Terror | Syria: The ongoing terror

Topography of Terror is a mix of an indoor and outdoor museum located on the sites where former Nazi governments secret police - the Gestapo - and its paramiltary action force - the SchutzStaffel or SS - had their headquarters.

While most of the buildings were destroyed after the second World War, the foundations of these buildings were excavated. This 200-metre stretch acts as a backdrop for the information panels and photographs displaying some of the most heinous crimes committed in human history.

Iliyas used this location to remind us of the timeline of atrocities that continue in modern Syrian history. Starting from the late 70s and coming all the way to 2016, Iliyas gave a rundown of how the civil strife came about in Syria, the atrocities carried out by the Assad family, the rise and fall of the Free Syrian Army, the rise of the Islamic State which took over Raqqa and Mosul, the chemical attacks by the Assad regime and more.

"The regime didnt even spare 9-15 year old boys, who had painted a grafitti, Your turn, Doctor, as a prank on their school walls, says Mohammed. He was referring to an incident in a small town called Daraa in Syria which would spark off the current day conflict that has disrupted life in Syria.

#Syria's civil war has reached the 6-year mark. Here is the 14-yo's graffiti in #Daraa that began it. Says only, "It's your turn, doctor." pic.twitter.com/3v0PFWBWuY  Daniel Pipes (@DanielPipes) March 16, 2017

In 2011, post the Arab revolution which led to the stepping down of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Ben Ali in Tunisia, a group of boys from the age group of 9 to 15 decided to paint grafitti as an act of rebellion. Inspired by their compatriots in neighbouring countries, these schoolchildren sprayed the phrase Your Turn, Doctor in Arabic. It was a dig at Bashar al Assad, the ruling president who also happens to be a trained opthamologist, and meant to imply that it was his turn to step down. There was a crackdown the next day and the security forces threw these "rebels" in jail.

The parents of these children approached the head of security forces of Daraa, Atef Najib (a cousin of Bashar al Assad), to plead for their wards release. Najib is alleged to have responded to the parents thus: Forget that you had any children. Go on and make new ones. If you cant, then send your wives to the security forces office, says Iliyas.

This, and more interactions with the regime, sent a message that the government didnt care about its citizens. The protests just kept getting bigger. And the Syrian unrest continues to this day.

We were told about the elections in Syria and how they became a joke after the Assad family kept making random additions and subtractions, as if it were an editable document. Iliyas calls them a referendum, more than an election, as there is practically no opposition.

"Theres a black joke which is quite popular in Syria. During the last referendum, a man voted NO for Assad. After realising his folly as he was walking out of the polling booth, the man returned to change his vote, calling it a mistake. Dont worry, we have already changed the vote on your behalf, he heard from the booth guard." Ironically, that brought a smile on all our faces.

Interestingly, a former Nazi war criminal had fled to Syria in 1953. Alois Brunner, an Austrian ShutzStaffel (SS) commander who had devised mobile gas vans which led to the death of many innocent Jews. The Assad regime kept him under house arrest, in exchange of learning the Nazi torture techniques and clandestine police work. He died in 2001 in squalor, feeding off Army rations.

Berlin: A land of hope!

Mohamed and Iliyas spoke at length about their personal histories, involving many days and weeks of uncertainty, till they finally achieved a Recognised Refugee status.

While Iliyas has succeeded in getting his immediate family out of Syria, Mohammed has plans to get his parents to Germany soon. His student status is a limiting factor. It is also a reason why he shies away from being photographed while he is conducting these tours. The sword of government repressions against his family hangs over his head. But Mohammed is optimistic.

I would call my boat journey from Libya to Italy, a five star journey as there were only 300 other adults on my boat with 50 children. Also, the weather was good when I was travelling. A few weeks after I came to Europe, my friend who arrived in the same boat told me that he travelled with 700 other refugees. I couldnt even imagine how they could fit that many people, said Mohammed.

Iliyas and Mohammed's tour of Berlin might not teach you much about Germany, but it will make you think about conflicts and how history teaches us nothing. As a parting shot, Mohammed said, "I once had an English lady as a guest. After the tour, I asked her what was her takeaway and she said I will look at the news of the refugee crisis with a fresh eye going forward she said. It may not mean much to you, but was one of my most treasured feedback, smiled Mohammed.

Refugee Voices Tours take place in Berlin every Saturday at 3PM outside the Mohrenstrasse U-Bahn metro station

Read Part-I of the series here
Juice wholesaler Flevosap has launched a campaign targeting the sugar tax on soft drinks in the Netherlands, which is likely to be introduced in January 2023. The... Read More
South Carolina sued Purdue Pharma LP on Tuesday, becoming the latest state or local government to accuse the OxyContin maker of deceptive marketing practices that have contributed to a national opioid addiction epidemic.

The lawsuit by South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, filed in Richland County Court of Common Pleas in Columbia, accuses the company of the unfair and deceptive marketing of opioid painkillers.

Wilson claimed Purdue has told doctors that patients who receive prescriptions for opioids generally will not become addicted and those who appeared to be were only "pseudoaddicted" and needed more of the drugs.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, opioids were involved in over 33,000 deaths in 2015, the latest year for which data is available, and the death rate has continued rising, according to estimates.

Since a 2007 settlement with South Carolina, Purdue has continued to downplay the addictiveness of its opioid products and overstated the benefits compared to other pain management treatments, according to the lawsuit.

"While there is a time and place for patients to receive opioids, Purdue prevented doctors and patients from receiving complete and accurate information about opioids in order to make informed choices about their treatment options," Wilson said in a statement.

A pharmacist holds prescription painkiller OxyContin, 40mg pills, made by Purdue Pharma L.D. at a local pharmacy, in Provo, Utah, U.S., April 25, 2017. George Frey Stamford, Connecticut-based Purdue denied the allegations and said it shares the concerns of South Carolina officials about the crisis and is committed to finding solutions.

Purdue and other drugmakers have been sued over opioid products by Oklahoma, Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri and New Hampshire as well as cities and counties in California, Illinois, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee and New York.

A group of state attorneys general in June announced an investigation into the role played by pharmaceutical manufacturers in the opioid epidemic.

Purdue and three executives pleaded guilty in 2007 to federal charges related to the misbranding of OxyContin, which is used to relieve pain, and agreed to pay a total of $634.5 million to resolve a U.S. Justice Department probe.

That year, the privately held company also reached a $19.5 million settlement with 26 states including South Carolina as well as the District of Columbia. It agreed in 2015 to pay $24 million to resolve a lawsuit by Kentucky.

In Tuesday's lawsuit, South Carolina claimed that since the 2007 settlement, Purdue has continued to engage in misleading opioid marketing practices rather than reforming them to conform with the law.

Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe
A business executive with experience in corporate turnarounds but none in transportation was hired Tuesday as the head of the Boston area's troubled public transit system.

Luis Manuel Ramirez takes over as the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's general manager/chief executive on Sept. 12, state Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack said. His lack of experience running a transit agency is not a detriment, she said.

"With the support he'll have from the strong operational and other leadership already at the T, Luis will get up to speed very quickly," she said.

Ramirez, who is the son of a Cuban refugee and was raised in Florida, said the agency, which runs subway, commuter rail, bus and ferry service, is already on solid footing.

"My job is to build upon the solid foundation of the people standing here and help create a long-term roadmap and plan to fully transform the T into what it needs to be: a world class transportation system serving the people of a world class city and commonwealth," he said.

The MBTA has been under intense scrutiny since operations were crippled during the winter of 2015. In response, Republican Gov. Charlie Baker created a fiscal control board to oversee the agency.

The MBTA is also deep in debt, is plagued by service delays, has an underfunded pension system and faces union resistance to privatization efforts.

The president of the Boston Carmen's Union Local 589, James O'Brien, said the MBTA needs "real investments in the system's infrastructure  vehicles of all types, signals and tracks."

The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, an independent watchdog group, welcomed the appointment of Ramirez.

"Mr. Ramirez's business background and expertise in complex turnarounds makes him the ideal person to lead the authority forward," President Eileen McAnneny said.

Ramirez has worked at Unisys Corp., Siemens AG and General Electric Corp., where he rose to CEO of its Energy Industrial Solutions business during his 12 years there. He more recently ran his own turnaround business consulting firm.

Ramirez will be paid $320,000 a year, with the possibility of bonuses, under a three-year contract.
Facebook plans to invest $750 million in a new data center in central Ohio, marking another boost for the state's growing technology sector.

The world's biggest social media company announced Tuesday that its 10th data center will be on a 345-acre site in New Albany, just northeast of Columbus.

The center is expected to employ 100 people and begin providing services around 2019. The 900,000-square-foot facility will be powered exclusively with renewable energy.

Republican Gov. John Kasich (KAY'-sik) and other dignitaries were on hand to celebrate the announcement.

Facebook has been adding data centers in the U.S. and internationally to handle the growing number of photos, videos and additional digital content from its 2 billion users.

E-commerce giant Amazon launched three cloud-computing data center sites in Ohio last year.
U.S. Sen. Jack Reed says the passage of bipartisan legislation to expand college aid for military veterans is a remarkable example of the good Congress can do when its members work together.

"We have to do much more of that, frankly," Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, said Tuesday.

Reed discussed the bill's benefits with veterans and education leaders attending a conference in Providence on Tuesday for the National Association of State Approving Agencies. The association advocates for quality education and training programs for veterans.

"It truly is a new day for veterans' education in this nation and a new era for veterans and their families, and we're excited about that," said Joseph Wescott, the association's legislative director.

Congress sent President Donald Trump legislation earlier this month that would remove a 15-year time limit to tap into GI benefits and increases money for thousands in the National Guard and Reserve. The bill also would restore benefits if a college closed in the middle of the semester.

Veterans would get additional payments if they complete science, technology and engineering courses. Lawmakers of both parties have praised the bill as better preparing veterans for a rapidly changing job market.

Reed expects the Republican president to sign it soon. Reed said that providing college aid for veterans "not only gives people a chance, but it makes our country stronger and better."

Tristan Hood, a 28-year-old senior at Brown University who served in the U.S. Air Force, plans to use his GI benefits to go to law school next year. He said he's pleased that the bill removes the 15-year time limit because some veterans aren't ready to go to school soon after leaving the service and need time to figure out what they want to do for their career.

Hood said he can't wait to see the bill signed.

"Watching other veterans step forward and improve themselves, that's the best thing," he said.
Boeingas Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg will not be stepping down from President Donald Trumpas American Manufacturing Council, FOX Business has learned.

aHe [Muilenburg] remains on the presidentas manufacturing council,a John Dern, a spokesperson for Boeing, said in a statement to FOX Business.

When asked if the airplane manufacturer had a comment about the violent protests that took place in Charlottesville, Va., Dern referred FOX Business to a statement by the Business Roundtable, which Muilenburg is a member of.

aThe CEOs of Business Roundtable will never accept such intolerance and hate. We will continue to build our companies around the principles of respect, trust and equal opportunity to all our employees,a the statement said.

Earlier Monday, Merck (NYSE:MRK) CEO Kenneth Frazier, one of the most prominent African-American business executives, resigned from Trumpas business council, in apparent protest of the presidentas response to violent clashes in Virginia, saying he was doing so aas a matter of personal consciencea and that he felt aa responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism.a

The vicious attacks that took place on Saturday by members of white nationalist, Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi groups, left three dead, including a young woman who was killed when a Dodge Challenger plowed into a crowd of counter-protesters.

Muilenburg is one of a handful of other CEOs who have not resigned from Trumpas advisory groups after the president failed to mention white nationalist groups specifically in his remarks following the incidents in Charlottesville.

Steve Schwarzman, CEO of private equity group Blackstone and leader of Trumpas Strategic and Policy Forum, condemned the events in Charlottesville but said he would remain on the forum.

aAs the president said today, I believe we need to find a path to heal the wounds left by this tragedy and address its underlying causes. Encouraging tolerance and understanding must be a core national imperative and I will work to further that goal,a Schwarzman said in a statement.

Jeff Immelt, current chairman of General Electric, will stay on the Manufacturing Council, even though his company said in a statement they have ano tolerance for hate, bigotry or racism.a

Two days after the incidents in Charlottesville, Trump issued another statement, this time singling out the groups by name.

"Racism is evil, and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists,a Trump said.

While Muilenburg may be staying on board, Trump and the Boeing CEO also have a muddied history of their own. In December, then President-elect Trump, publicly attacked Boeing in a tweet for what he called aout of controla costs.

aBoeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!a Trump said.
U.S. President Donald Trump denounced neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan as criminals and thugs on Monday, bowing to mounting political pressure after initially saying many sides were to blame after a white-nationalist rally turned deadly in Virginia.

Trump had been assailed by Republicans and Democrats alike for failing to respond more forcefully to Saturday's violence in Charlottesville, in which a woman was killed when a man crashed his car into a group of counter-protesters.

Critics said the president had waited too long to address the bloodshed, and slammed him for initially saying that "many sides" were involved, rather than explicitly condemning white supremacists widely seen as sparking the melee.

"Racism is evil and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans," Trump said in a statement to reporters at the White House.

Trump said America showed its true character in such times, responding to hate with love and to division with unity.

"We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence," he said.

"It has no place in America ... No matter the color of our skin, we all live under the same laws. We all salute the same great flag. And we are all made by the same almighty God."

A 20-year-old man said to have harbored Nazi sympathies as a teenager was facing charges he plowed his car into protesters opposing the white nationalists, killing Heather Heyer and injuring 19 people. The accused, James Alex Fields, was denied bail at an initial court hearing on Monday.

Trump said anyone who engaged in criminal behavior over the weekend in Virginia will be held accountable. "Justice will be delivered," the president said in his address.

"I wish that he would have said those same words on Saturday," responded Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia on MSNBC. "I'm disappointed it took him a couple of days."

Activist Al Sharpton echoed that. "It took 48 hours ... It was clearly a statement based on the pressure that he had been given over the weekend," he said on MSNBC.

Earlier on Monday, in a strong rebuke to Trump, the chief executive of one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, Merck & Co Inc, resigned from a business panel led by the president, citing a need for leadership countering bigotry.

CEO Kenneth Frazier, who is black, did not name Trump in his statement, but the rebuke was implicit. "America's leaders must honor our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy," said Frazier.

DRIVER IN COURT

The outrage over Trump's reaction to the violence added to a litany of problems for the president.

Opponents have attacked him for his explosive rhetoric toward North Korea and he is publicly fuming with fellow Republicans in Congress over their failure to notch up any major legislative wins during his first six months in office.

Authorities said Heyer, 32, was killed when Fields' car slammed into a crowd of anti-racism activists, capping a day of bloody street brawls between the two sides.

Fields appeared on Monday in Charlottesville General District Court by video link from Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail, where is was being held on a second-degree murder charge, three counts of malicious wounding and a single count of leaving the scene of a fatal accident. His next court date was set for Aug. 25.

The U.S. Justice Department was pressing its own federal investigation of the incident as a hate crime.

Derek Weimer, a history teacher at Fields' high school in Kentucky, told Cincinnati television station WCPO-TV he recalled Fields harboring "some very radical views on race" as a student and was "very infatuated with the Nazis, with Adolf Hitler."

A small group of people clashed outside the courthouse after the hearing, with two men blaming those who protested against the white nationalist rally with sparking the violence.

"The police department did not do anything to protect us," said Matthew Heimbach, one of the men. "Radical leftists are the ones that brought the violence. They are the ones that tried to kill us."

A women yelled "Nazis go home!" over and over at Heimbach until police ushered him away. The Southern Poverty Law Center says Heimbach is considered to be the face of a new generation of white nationalists.

The weekend disturbances began when white nationalists converged to protest at against plans to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, the commander of rebel forces during the U.S. Civil War.

The violence prompted vigils and protests from Miami to Seattle on Sunday, including some targeting other Confederate statues. Such monuments have been flashpoints in the United States, viewed by many Americans as symbols of racism because of the Confederate defense of slavery in the Civil War.

(Reporting by Scott Malone in Charlottesville and Jeff Mason in Washington; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Timothy Ahmann and Mohammad Zargham in Washington, Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Writing by Frances Kerry and Daniel Wallis; Editing by Bill Rigby)
Under Armour (NYSE:UAA) founder and CEO Kevin Plank announced late Monday evening he will step down from President Donald Trumpas American Manufacturing Council a becoming the second CEO to leave the council that day.

aI love our country and our company and will continue to focus my efforts on inspiring every person that they can do anything through the power of sport which promotes unity, diversity and inclusion,a Plank said in a statement.

I love our country & company. I am stepping down from the council to focus on inspiring & uniting through power of sport. - CEO Kevin Plank pic.twitter.com/8YvndJMjj1  Under Armour (@UnderArmour) August 15, 2017

Plank, who did not say exactly why he was stepping down, joined Merck (NYSE:MRK) CEO Kenneth Frazier, who also announced he was leaving the presidentas business council on Monday.

The resignations of both Plank and Frazier come in the wake of what critics have called a weak response by Trump to violent clashes at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., on Saturday, which left one woman dead and more than a dozen other people injured.

Frazier, one of the most prominent African-American business executives, did not give a specific reason for stepping down either, but said he was doing so aas a matter of personal consciencea and that he felt aa responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism.a

In response to the Merck CEOas decision to quit the council, Trump lashed out at Frazier on Twitter.

aKen Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President's Manufacturing Council, he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!" he tweeted.

Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President's Manufacturing Council,he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 14, 2017

Hours later, Trump continued his attack, tweeting: aMerck Pharma is a leader in higher & higher drug prices while at the same time taking jobs out of the U.S. Bring jobs back & LOWER PRICES!a

.@Merck Pharma is a leader in higher & higher drug prices while at the same time taking jobs out of the U.S. Bring jobs back & LOWER PRICES!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 14, 2017

The president condemned the violent events in Charlottesville for a second time, during a statement at the White House Monday afternoon.

aRacism is evil,a Trump said. aAnd those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.a
In the wake of the recent violence in Charlottesville, some groups supportive of President Trump have been painted with the same brush as the white supremacists who gathered in the Virginia city. Bikers for Trump founder Chris Cox told the FOX Business Networks Stuart Varney, of Varney & Co., Thats just the same narrative thats been coming out of the left for some time now. We have nothing in common with these groups, we measure our members by their level of patriotism, love for our country and the support of our president.

Cox explained that his group is made up of upstanding citizens, telling Varney, We spend a lot of time policing our members, we dont have felons that are serving in leadership positions, we have community leaders out there, we have blue-collar guys, we have evangelical bikers for Christ, we have veterans and combat veterans in front of our group.

According to Cox, when the group attends events, they go to support President Trump, not to scare or bully anyone.

Were not there to intimidate, were there to give our president some support.

On the other hand, groups like those protesting in Charlottesville are attempting to spread fear in America.

These groups like antifa, the white supremacists, KKK, Black Lives Matter, these are bottom-dwelling scumbags that are trying to perpetuate fear in this country and we certainly have nothing in common with them.
As the administration weighs whether to continue funding key ObamaCare subsidies for 2018, the Congressional Budget Office said on Tuesday that failure to do so could scare more insurers off of the federal exchanges and increase costs over the near-term.

According to a new report, the CBO estimates that if the administration eliminates cost-sharing reduction subsidies, or reimbursements for discounted care provided to low-income individuals, more individuals would be left with no marketplace options over the next two years. Five percent of Americans would live in an area that does not have an insurer in the individual market in 2018.

Next year, the number of uninsured Americans would increase marginally, though by 2020 it says that number would be slightly lower.

Additionally, the nonpartisan office forecasts that without CSR payments, premiums for middle-priced silver plans offered on the exchanges would rise 20% next year and 25% by 2020, which would result in a concordant increase in premium tax credits available. That would cause the federal deficit to surge $194 billion over the next decade. The CBO says most Americans would pay net premiums for nongroup insurance that are similar or somewhat less than what they would otherwise pay, while noting that some would face slight increases through 2020.

Trump threatened to let ObamaCare implode by eliminating funding for the key payments after Republicans in the Senate failed to pass a measure to repeal parts of President Barack Obamas signature health care law late last month.

On Tuesday, the White House reiterated that the administration had yet to make a decision on the continuation of the payments.

Regardless of what this flawed [CBO] report says, Obamacare will continue to fail with or without a federal bailout ... No final decisions have been made about the CSR payments. We continue to evaluate the issues," a White House spokesperson said in a statement.

Insurers are scheduled to receive their next round of subsidy payments on August 21 and have asked the federal government for $8 billion in cost-sharing reduction payments for the coming year.

Cost-sharing reduction subsidies have been a big focal point for insurers looking to gauge costs and ObamaCare participation levels for the coming year. One of the nations largest insurers, Anthem (NYSE:ANTM), warned late last month that without certainty regarding these payments, it could be forced to narrow its participation on the exchanges even further. In the weeks since Anthem issued that warning, it announced its withdrawal from the ObamaCare marketplace in Nevada and a dramatic reduction of participation in Georgia.

Insurers now have until September 5 to submit their final premium requests and until September 27 to sign final contracts for next years plans.
As Wisconsin state legislators prepare to vote on Gov. Scott Walkers (R-Wis.) $13 billion incentives package for Taiwanese manufacturing giant Foxconns first U.S. manufacturing plant this week, the state immediately needs to address a dilemma troubling workers and employers across the country: the skills gap.

The Foxconn plant is expected to bring as many as 13,000 direct jobs to Wisconsin, according to Walker, with starting salaries of $53,000 plus benefits. The Foxconn plant could also potentially create 22,000 indirect positions within Wisconsin. It would be a substantial gain for a state that currently has 472,000 manufacturing jobs and is still recovering from factory layoffs.

Walker said he has already begun discussions with colleges about training opportunities to prepare graduates for work at the plant. But the need for high-skilled employees at the new manufacturing plant highlights the paradox of manufacturing jobs in 2017.

Donald Trump won the presidency in great measure because he pledged to stop American jobs and manufacturing from going overseas, winning Rust Belt votes from blue-collar voters.

It's true that many jobs have gone overseas, to lower-wage workers.

But at the same time, American manufacturers have actually added nearly a million jobs in the past seven years. Labor statistics show nearly 390,000 such jobs open.

The problem? Many of these are not the same jobs that for decades sustained the working class. More and more factory jobs now demand education, technical know-how or specialized skills. And many of the workers set adrift from low-tech factories lack such qualifications.

Factories will need to fill 2 million jobs over the next decade, according to a forecast by Deloitte Consulting and the American Manufacturing Institute. Workers are needed to run, operate and troubleshoot computer-directed machinery, including robots, and to maintain complex websites

Last year, software developer was the second-most-common job advertised by manufacturing companies, behind only sales, according to data provided by Burning Glass Technologies, a company that analyzes labor market data.

Yet the United States for now remains a follower, not a leader, of the trend. Workers in many European and Asian countries are more likely to be working with robots than U.S. workers, studies show. In such countries as Japan and Denmark, robotics and advanced automation have created solid jobs while increasing efficiencies for manufacturers.

Sen. Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican and a former U.S. trade representative, conceded in an interview: "We're not going to see the kind of manufacturing renaissance that we all want in this country unless we focus on skills training."

Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, in a visit to a Detroit factory in June, acknowledged the need to address the skills gap by developing advanced computing skills. And when Trump visited Pewaukee, Wisconsin, in June, he touted the value of training while doing.

"Apprenticeships teach striving Americans the skills they need to operate incredible machines," Trump said. "This is not the old days. This is new and computerized and complicated."

Of the 146 million jobs in the United States, only about 0.35 percent were filled by active apprentices in 2016. Filling millions of open jobs through apprenticeships would require a substantial increase in government resources. So far, the Trump administration has called for more funding but hasn't made any progress securing the funding from Congress.

Still, some business leaders view Trumps emphasis on vocational training as a step in the right direction. Judith Marks of Siemens  which operates an extensive apprenticeship program in Germany  told FOX Business in June that meetings with the president had been very productive for both businesses and the administration.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
It sure seems like everything is political these days. Case in point: the president's manufacturing advisory council.

It was established to give advice to the president. Twenty-eight CEOs and union leaders brought together to work on bringing jobs to America. Surely, its an economic institution.

But it now reflects politics.

Kenneth Frazier, the CEO of Merck, has resigned from the council. He did not approve of the president's statements about the events in Charlottesville. He resigned "as a matter of personal conscience". Mr. Frazier has put his personal politics, ahead of his responsibilities as CEO of (the) giant drug maker.

The owners of Merck, the shareholders, may not approve. A CEO runs the company on behalf of shareholders, not to push forward his or her personal political beliefs.

Merck no longer has a seat at the president's table. It is not in the jobs loop. Worse, it has drawn the anger of the president, who has issued two tweets on this. Both threaten to go after Merck's drug pricing policies.

Perhaps Mr. Frazier believes that Merck's best interest lies in separating the company he runs from this presidency. In which case he should say so. And, remove Merck from the list of companies which favor tax cuts and de-regulation.

Five CEOs have now left the council, over the last few months. Politics, and anti-Trump feeling is at the heart of all these departures.

Not good.....
In the fallout from the violent and deadly protests in Charlottesville, Virginia over the weekend, one company is desperately seeking to distance itself from the movement: the manufacturer of the Tiki torches carried by white nationalists.

The head of a Georgia-based company that makes Tiki torches says he was offended by images of white supremacists marching through Charlottesville, Virginia, using his company's products.

W.C. Bradley Co. President and CEO Marc Olivie told the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer on Monday that the Columbus-based company's staff was "appalled and saddened" that the torches were "used by people who promote bigotry and hatred."

Many of the protesters who marched Friday carried Tiki torches. The Tiki brand is a product of Lamplight, a Wisconsin company that is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Bradley company. Lamplight made a Facebook post Saturday saying, in part, "TIKI Brand is not associated in any way with the events that took place in Charlottesville and are deeply saddened and disappointed ... Our products are designed to enhance backyard gatherings and to help family and friends connect with each other at home in their yard."

Other companies have also sought to dismiss any association with the white nationalists whose clashes with counter-protestors on Saturday resulted in the death of a woman who was struck by a car.

Internet domain registrar and web hosting company GoDaddy booted a white supremacist site  The Daily Stormer  for violating its terms of service. On Monday, Google announced it was canceling the domain name registrar from The Daily Stormer for the same reason.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The media is consumed with Charlottesville.

Investors are not.

The timing of the president's statements are not an issue.

It is North Korea that is giving stock prices a boost today....

In short, Kim Jong Un has backed down. Two days ago, he threatened to fire missiles at Guam, a U.S. territory. Defense Secretary Mathis said very clearly: don't do it: fire off those missiles, and your regime is done.

President Trump's policy is clear: "tell 'em you can take 'em. Convince 'em you will do it". It worked. The NoKo's blinked.

In the long history of threats and escalation, and the endless retreat of American presidents, North Korea has never backed down. And they did it on August 15th. A special day in Korea.....both North and South celebrate this day, when in 1945 they were liberated from Japanese occupation. Its often the day when the North rattles its rockets, but not this time.....

This is a Trump win. It may not last, but as of now, Donald J. Trump has become the first president to successfully face down the lunatic with a nuke.....and that is a very good thing....
President Donald Trump on Tuesday took the offensive against the CEOs who exited his manufacturing council in response to how he handled the Charlottesville, Virginia white nationalist protests, indicating on Twitter he would have no problem replacing them.

For every CEO that drops out of the Manufacturing Council, I have many to take their place. Grandstanders should not have gone on. JOBS!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 15, 2017

The president had four open spots to fill as of Tuesday morning, after some of Americas manufacturing executives perceived his initial response to the white nationalist protests in Virginia as unfitting.

On Tuesday, Scott Paul, president of the American Alliance for Manufacturing, announced his resignation from the manufacturing council on Twitter.

I'm resigning from the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative because it's the right thing for me to do.  Scott Paul (@ScottPaulAAM) August 15, 2017

Merck (NYSE:MRK) CEO Kenneth Frazier was the first U.S. CEO to announce his resignation from the presidents manufacturing advisory council on Monday. In a statement disseminated through social media, Frazier said as a matter of personal conscience he felt a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism.

Following Fraziers exit, Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) CEO Brian Krzanich tendered his resignation from the group, pointing to the unnecessary politicization of issues in the nations capital.

I am not a politician. I am an engineer who has spent most of his career working in factories that manufacture the worlds most advanced devices. Yet, it is clear even to me that nearly every issue is now politicized to the point where significant progress is impossible. Promoting American manufacturing should not be a political issue, Krzanich said.

On Monday night, Under Armour (NYSE:UAA) CEO Kevin Plank resigned from his position on the council, stating that while his company is committed to improving the American manufacturing sector, Under Armour engages in innovation and sports, not politics."

These arent the first CEOs to leave their posts on White House councils over political issues. In February, former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick left an economic council over the presidents travel ban. Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, along with Disney (NYSE:DIS) CEO Bob Iger, left the Strategic Policy Forum following the administrations decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord.
Since Monday, four CEOs have resigned from President Donald Trumps American Manufacturing Council.

Equity Group Investments founder Sam Zell believes President Trump should eliminate committees such as the manufacturing council.

I think all of these committees are ways of rewarding people by allowing them to be part of the presidents committee. President doesnt need these committees. President of the United States can get the opinion of anybody he wants to and at any moment and he does. These are all show associations, I think were better off without them, he said.

Among those who have left the manufacturing council are Merck & Co. CEO Kenneth Frazier, Intel Corp. CEO Brian Krzanich, Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank and Alliance for American Manufacturing President Scott Paul resigned in lieu of Trumps reaction to the deadly rallies in Charlottesville, Va.

President Trump responded to Fraziers resignation via Twitter on Monday: Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from Presidents Manufacturing Council, he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!

.@Merck Pharma is a leader in higher & higher drug prices while at the same time taking jobs out of the U.S. Bring jobs back & LOWER PRICES!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 14, 2017

Former White House deputy Chief of Staff to President George W. Bush, Karl Rove, explained why Trumps tweet may not incite other companies to join his manufacturing council.

The CEOs like to have a voice in public policy, but they dont like to be seen as being closely identified with a White House. In a moment like Charlottesville and particularly after the President treated the resignation of Mr. Frazier of Merck by blasting him, I think it probably unsettled a couple of these other executives, said Rove.
Delegates at the event (Photo: daidoanket.vn)

The donation showed the spirit of solidarity and a heart for the domestic people, contributing to helping people in Northern mountainous provinces impacted by natural disasters and floods to overcome the consequences and stabilize their lives.

Nguyen Thanh Tung, Minister Counsellor of the Vietnamese Embassy to Laos, said that this was a noble gesture of Vietnamese people, a sentiment of people who have the same blood lineage.

On behalf of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Central Committee and people in the northern mountainous provinces damaged by natural calamities and floods, Mr. Tran Thanh Man, President of the Vietnam Fatherland Front, appreciated the heart of officials and staff of the embassy and other agencies next to the Vietnamese Embassy in Laos.

He said that the recent floods have caused great damage to human and assets of people in the northern mountainous provinces. It takes a lot of time for the provinces to overcome the consequences and stabilize life.

In addition to the sum of money, the Vietnamese community in Laos is also carrying out donation activities to support the flood victims to overcome the consequences and soon stabilize their lives./.
Helen Mirren isnt a fan of the current presidential administration, and she recently spoke out against the women in President Trumps life.

Speaking in the upcoming September issue of Allure magazine, Mirren refers to the current administration as a car crash and commented on the presidents background. However, when she was asked about Trumps wife and daughter, Melania and Ivanka, she was at her most biting.

She began by admitting that she hopes the First Lady will be able to take the president down a few pegs, arguing that shes already begun.

You look at old Mel there, and she is one of the most powerful women in the world because she could take him down. She almost did that with the hand, she said, referencing the viral moment from May in which the first lady appeared to swat her husbands hand away from her.

While her tone with regards to Melania was jovial, she had significantly sharper words for the presidents adviser and daughter.

[Ivanka] talks a good game, but theres no substance. Her book is so ignorant about how the majority of women live, talking about Make time for yourself to have a massage. Puh-lease.

The London-born star goes on to voice broader complaints about both the presidential administration in general and her views on American politics and the Republican Party.

The issue hits newsstands in September.
Kelsey Grammer has zero plans to slow down anytime soon.

The 62-year-old actor is starring in a new series on Amazon titled The Last Tycoon, a drama based on F. Scott Fitzgeralds final unfinished novel, as movie studio boss Pat Brady, who was modeled after real-life ruthless mogul Louis B. Mayer.

And while stepping back in time to the 1930s alongside co-stars Matt Bomer and Lily Collins should keep Grammar busy, hes also embarking on making his London stage debut later this year, performing at LA Opera early next year and launching his own brewery within two months. If thats not enough, the proud parent welcomed his seventh child in 2016.

Fox News spoke with Grammer about The Last Tycoon, his lasting success, and whether fans can expect a "Frasier" reunion:

Fox News: What was it about The Last Tycoon and your character Pat Brady that drew you in as an actor?

Kelsey Grammer: The first thing that always draws me in is when somebody offers me a job. Then, I take the time to actually read the script. Which, after upon reading it, I actually thought it was pretty good. I thought that Pat showed real potential in terms of where he might go.

I liked what seemed to be this guy whos struggling with who he is at his core and who he has to be in order to survive. Billy and I talked about where the character might be headed and the sort of thing that was going to be happening. And I thought this is something I can play. Something exactly I havent played before, which is always part of my criteria in choosing a role.

Fox News: How was it working with Lily Collins?

Grammer: Oh, shes great! I love Lily. Shes wonderful, available, shes got the chops. Shes a young woman with substance. I enjoyed working with her. And its fun for her to play my daughter.

Fox News: In one interview, you said that while the both of you were getting ready to shoot, her fathers [Phil Collins] music would suddenly play in your mind.

Grammer: Yeah, I told her that about a couple of shows in. I said, You know, its funny. Whenever you sit down, I can hear one of your dads tunes. And they vary! His contributions to music is so substantial. So its hard not to think of something I fell in love with that I listened to in the last 20-30 years. Hes just fantastic.

Fox News: Youve had lasting success in television. How does it feel to embark on a new show?

Grammer: Well, you know, Ive had some luck with a couple. Ive had less luck with others. Writers strikes, networks have their own ideas -- that sort of thing has happened a few times. I just like working, you know? I like trying new stuff. Thats what keeps me going, really. I like to work. And I need to work. Ive got a big family. But other than that, its what I do. So it feels great.

Fox News: Does it ever get tiring for you to still be recognized as Dr. Frasier Crane?

Grammer: No, no. Listen, I would be a fool if I took umbrage with that. He was a wonderful character. Frasier Crane is a wonderful character. He was fun to play, brought me great success, brought me great financial reward, and honestly, an enormous amount of satisfaction in having helped so many people.

The number of people that come up to me are never aggressive or unhappy. Theyre always smiling and thankful and grateful for the work. And then of course, there are others who paid more attention to the show and had a little more understanding on some of the drama. So, its just a career. Ive been at it for a long time. And it would be indecorous of me to take issue with the fact that Im recognized for Frasier. Its a great character.

Fox News: Do you stay in touch with your former cast mates?

Grammer: You know, I see them when I can. I see Jane [Leeves] and Peri [Gilpin] quite a bit. John and I havent been in touch lately, but you know, we try to connect as often as we can. And David [Hyde Pierce], of course, is in New York. If I get a chance, Ill go see him in Hello, Dolly! But we do stay in touch when we can.

Fox News: In this era of reboots, can we expect a Frasier reunion in the future?

Grammer: No chance yet. But you never know!

Fox News: Youre also going to be making your London stage debut and then later join the Los Angeles Opera. What keeps you going as such a busy actor?

Grammer: ...I just love to try some new stuff. I mean, when people come and say, Would you like to go be on stage, be in the LA opera and maybe just make a quick trip to the moon? Im ready and available!

Fox News: With so many projects keeping you busy, how do you find that balance of being an on-the-go actor, all while being a hands-on father?

Grammer: The kids come first. Thats all. I mean, with the job I have to make sure I fulfil my obligations, but whenever I have any kind of break whatsoever, Im with the kids. Thats just the way it is. They trump everything. I do have to work and theyre aware of that, but I try to keep them as involved as possible and with me wherever I go. Thats just the way it is. Thats my priority.

Fox News: Youre also launching your own brewery.

Grammer: Yes! Thats really been a passion for me over the last 25 years up here in upstate New York, in the Catskills. Ive always wanted to see this land make a comeback and return to prosperity. I thought this was the best way to do it. Im not a dairy farmer I think I can manage a brewery. And thats what were working on. Were very excited about it and the beer is very wonderful. Im very happy.

Fox News: When did you originally come up with the idea?

Grammer: Well, several years ago. Ive been sort of circling this property for a long time and I just wanted to make it useful again. We decided on the brewery and [working with] people who are as equally passionate about it and its a very cool thing. Were turning an old dairy farm into the brewery. We had a lot of hoops to go through but its worth the fight. Faith American Ale will be out in the next two months. So we got that coming. And its really good so were rooting for it.

Fox News: And just to be clear, no sherry, right?

Grammer: No sherry. Thats very cute! "Sherry, Niles?"
Patricia Heaton is outraged by a recent CBS report about Iceland.

CBS reported Sunday that the majority of expecting mothers in the country or close to 100 percent who received a positive test for Down syndrome terminated their pregnancy.

The network tweeted on Sunday, "Iceland is on pace to virtually eliminate Down syndrome through abortion. #CBSNOA learns more, tonight at 10pm ET/PT."

The 59-year-old actress took to Twitter with a heated reply, taking aim at the wording of the CBS tweet and Iceland in the process.

"Iceland isn't actually eliminating Down Syndrome. They're just killing everybody that has it. Big difference," she wrote.

Heaton wasnt the only one who was angry over the claim. Many viewers also used social media to share their frustration:

This isnt the first time the Emmy award-winning star voiced her political beliefs.

Back in 2014, Heaton admitted to TheBlaze that her pro-life stance is not a popular one in Hollywood.

Many of the celebrities on the list are my friends, but when it comes to championing abortion, we go our separate ways, she said. In the Hollywood community, Im the only one I know who says anything about it. I feel like Im supposed to.

She added, I find it impossible to subscribe to a philosophy that believes that the destruction of human life is a legitimate solution to a problem that is mostly social, economic and psychological.

In 2016, Heaton shared a link to a crisis pregnancy center and maternity home called Northwest Center, a D.C.-based organization that provides women with pro-life alternatives to abortion.
A Chick-fil-A customer only realized she got more than she ordered after she bit into her chicken sandwich and found a dead rodent.

Ellen Manfalouti, 46, took legal action last week against the fast food restaurant after she found a small rodent baked into her sandwich in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, according to Philly.com.

The Holland resident is seeking $50,000 for the Nov. 25 incident.

Manfalouti said that a co-worker brought the meal back to their workplace after picking it up from the Chick-fil-A drive-thru.

While eating in a conference room, Manfalouti said that she noticed there was something off about the sandwich.

I felt something funny on the bottom of the bun, she told Philly.com. I turned it over. I said to [my co-worker], They burned my roll really bad.

Her colleague Cara Phelan, who watched Manfalouti sample the stomach-churning meal, said she noticed immediately that the contents included a rodent.

I realized it was a small rodent of some sort, Phelan said. I could see the whiskers and the tail.

Manfaloutis lawyer Bill Davis said that laboratory testing confirmed the bun contained a small rat or mouse.

The lawsuit, which was filed in Bucks County Court, claimed that the Langhorne franchise was negligent.

It alleged the restaurant failed to supervise employees who intentionally and/or knowingly served a sandwich to a customer with a dead rodent baked into the bun.

Dave Heffernan, who owns the franchise, refused to comment on the lawsuit.

Were not going to make any comment about any allegations, he said in a statement to Philly.com. Its an ongoing allegation and investigation.

This article was originally from the New York Post.
As celebrity chef Anne Burrell says, Its pretty easy to be cheesy  especially when it comes to her new restaurant.

Burrells first pop-up restaurant, The Spotted Cheetah, opens to the public Tuesday night in New York City with a one-of-a-kind menu featuring Cheetos in every dish.

I love Cheetos, and I love food so I wanted to come up with a clear vision of food that was  undeniably cheesy Cheetos, but then also what was true to me, Burrell told Fox News on the opening morning of the new restaurant.

Its real food that is delicious but also has the huge flavor bump of Cheetos, Burrell, 47, said of her menu. The spiky-haired Food Network television host added that its very reflective of the dishes she normally makes.

TACO BELL TESTING FIRECRACKER BURRITOS SPRINKLED WITH POPPING CANDIES

The Spotted Cheetahs eclectic menu includes: Cheetos Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup, Flamin Hot and White Cheddar Mac n Cheetos, Cheetos Sweetos Crusted Cheesecake, Spicy Cheetos Nachos, Cheetos Crusted Fried Pickles, Flamin Hot Limon Chicken Tacos, Cheetos Sweetos Sweet and Salty Cookies, and Purrfectly Fried Green Tomatoes.

We had a lot of fun in a kind of whimsy way in creating this whole thing and testing the recipes, Burrell said.

I always have one foot in the How can I be creative and clever? category, but also be like, 'OK, how do we make food that isnt a joke, she added. How this has been received, the outrageous positive response has been delightful.

Menu items range in price from $8 to $22, according to a press release.

Burrell credited her mothers imaginative style in the kitchen growing up as inspiration for her own creative cooking.

Im excited to see how people receive the food, Burrell said.

WOULD YOU TRY A SPICY SEAFOOD-FLAVORED CHEESE BALL?

The Spotted Cheetah is only open in Tribeca for three days  and already the reservations are filled up. A spokesperson said Tuesday that she hopes they will be able to add more tables to accommodate additional diners this week.

"It's pretty easy to be cheesy!"  Anne Burrell

Cant make it to the restaurant? Burrell said all the recipes will be published on The Spotted Cheetahs website.

For those who want another taste of Burrells cooking, she opened Phil & Annes Good Time Lounge earlier this summer in Brooklyn.

And Burrell said shes absolutely open to creating another pop-up restaurant in the future.
A Kentucky woman was in for quite a surprise when she bit into her McDonalds hamburger and reportedly found a needle.

Erin Spellman  who posted a photo of the needle on her Facebook page  says her son, step-mom and father were eating at McDonalds in Hamburg, Kentucky when her step-mom bit into something hard, Lex 18 news reports.

In her post, Spellman warns others about the incident. Just thought Id scare everyone with something that personally happened to my family today  my dad and stepmom were eating at the McDonalds in Hamburg and found a NEEDLE in her hamburger. Health dept has been called but fair warning....do NOT go there!!!

CHICK-FIL-A CUSTOMER CLAIMS DEAD RODENT WAS IN CHICKEN SANDWICH

Spellman said at first her step-mom thought it was a cap, but discovered it was actually a needle. She also pricked her finger on it.

Her step-mom spent several hours in the emergency room being treated with hepatitis b vaccinations and antibiotics, according to the Lexington Herald Leader.

Kevin Hall, a spokesperson for the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department told the Lexington Herald Leader that the situation was being investigated.

A health inspector visited the restaurant, surveyed the ingredients used to make the burger and found no evidence of contamination, Hall said. He also spoke with the restaurants managers, who reported that they and their staff had no idea how the needle could have been found in the burger.



FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS

While the restaurant currently remains open, Denise Long, the owner and operator told the Lexington Herald Leader that they are working with the Health Department to verify the facts. We take this allegation very seriously, as food safety is a top priority, she said.

Spellman's step-mom declined to comment.
Captain Hap Farrell says Saturdays fishing trip was nothing special, but the footage he captured from his boat is going viral nonetheless.

Farrell, who charters a fishing vessel out of Cape Cod, Mass., took two groups of clients out for fishing expeditions near Orleans, and both of them were thwarted by hungry great white sharks. During the latter trip, one of the sharks even leapt from the water  quite dramatically, too  to snag a striped bass off the fishing line.

'MONSTER' CATFISH REELED IN BY CALIFORNIA FISHERMAN

Its not an unusual occurrence, but the fact that I had a video camera at the time, I was able to get the shot, Farrell told The Boston Globe. You cant plan something like that.

Farrell later shared the footage of the days events on Facebook, where theyve been viewed more than 200,000 times as of Tuesday morning.

In the first part of the clip, Farrell explains that one of his clients can be seen reeling in a striped bass when a shark chomps it off the line from underwaterprivacy. At Farrells urging, the group proceeds to reel in whats left of their catch: the head of what was once a decent-sized fish.

He chomped your fish! said one of the young clients to the woman holding the line.

BALD EAGLE SWIPES SALMON FROM FISHING BOAT

But during Farrells second trip of the day, the captain calmly says he had another surprise, and this one wasnt content to hide beneath the surface of the water.

As seen in the latter portion of the clip, Farrells charter group is seen sitting on the stern of the boat, reeling in another fish. But just before they can yank it in, a great white breaches from the water, trapping their catch in mid-air before ripping it off the line and disappearing back beneath the water.

Whoa! Farrell hollers as the rest of the group jumps backward at the awesome sight.

However, Farrell later revealed to CBS Boston that the trip wasnt all that noteworthy for a boat captain such as himself.

Remember Ive caught sharks before, so it was nothing special for me, said the fisherman of 37 years.

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS

Furthermore, Farrell says he isnt all that frightened by his close encounters out on the Cape Cod Bay.

Its funny about nature, he added to CBS Boston. If you dont play around with it or act scared of it or anything like that, you can pretty much get along with anything.
A four-month-old boy is recovering after undergoing surgery on Tuesday to treat second- and third-degree burns on his face and body while the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) continues to probe the cause. Maddox Lee, of Carroll County, Tennessee, was under the care of an adult-aged babysitter while his mother, Danielle Stover, was at work on July 27.

Stover, who also has a 2-year-old daughter, said she received a call from the babysitter, who reportedly was a family friend, and was told to meet at the hospital.

MOM SHARES PHOTO OF DYING DAUGHTER AFTER FATAL OVERDOSE

He was barely breathing when she handed him to me, Stover told Fox 17. What happened to cause this? Why does my baby have to go through something like this? Why does he have to suffer? My 4-month-old  why?

Maddox was taken to Baptist Memorial Hospital before being transferred to Le Bonheur Childrens Hospital in Memphis, and is now at Shriner Hospital in Cincinnati where he has been outfitted with a feeding tube and undergone skin grafts.

The boys grandmother, Tracy Stover, said she does not believe the babysitters account that Maddox was injured during a bath, and wants justice for her grandson.

How does a baby get second and third degree burns on just the front side of his body from a bath? she said, according to Fox 17. I want to take all the pain away from him and make him better. I want to take all the pain off our daughter. No mother should have gone through this. And for an innocent child to have this done to him, its wrong.

FLEAS TEST POSITIVE FOR PLAGUE BACTERIA IN PARTS OF ARIZONA

According to a post on the Team Maddox Facebook page, doctors took skin from the boys left thigh and stomach. They expect all areas to heal. On August 12, a post indicated that Tuesdays surgery was the second to occur in two days, with the first meant to address skin that was not properly healing and to control the bleeding.

They came in and told us he will have a surgery Monday morning to remove all of the skin that isnt healing, and he will be wrapped all day Monday to control the bleeding. Tuesday morning they will do another skin graft using the skin form his back, the post read. This week will be tough. Little man is definitely going to have to fight hard this week! Please continue to pray for him and strength for his Mama and family as they go through this.

A GoFundMe page was set up to help the family cover the cost of treatments.
In recent years, people have embraced the fact that they can change their bodies through surgery. In fact, millions of Americans undergo cosmetic surgery every year, some for medical reasons and others for purely personal gain.

To reconstruct their bodies, though, some surgeons perform fat transfers, taking fat from one area of the body and injecting it into another. These fat injections come with multiple risks, and patients should fully research them before making a decision.

FLEAS TEST POSITIVE FOR PLAGUE BACTERIA IN PARTS OF ARIZONA

In one mans case, the cosmetic surgery did not go as he had planned and, in fact, turned unexpectedly deadly. According to a recent report in the Journal of Forensic Sciences, a 30-year-old Swedish man went in for a two-part surgery to enhance his penis.

During the procedure, the doctors were supposed to remove fat from one area of the mans body and transfer it for penis enlargement. Unfortunately, the surgery took a turn for the worse. Once the doctors injected the fat, this relatively healthy man went into cardiac arrest and died one hour later.

Upon further investigation, officials discovered that the man had suffered a pulmonary fat embolism. The injected fat had traveled through his bloodstream to the lungs where it ruptured the mans blood vessels. Though unintentional, this healthy man had shortened his life through a dangerous elective procedure.

Fat Embolism

While fat embolisms can occur in other scenarios, such as in trauma cases, they are a real risk in cosmetic surgeries. Several cosmetic surgeries use these fat injections to enhance or plump various parts of a persons body.

IS THERE A MARATHON IN YOUR FUTURE?

For example, a Brazilian butt lift has grown in popularity recently, but several surgeries have ended in fat embolism. It can happen easily. If the injection gets into a persons blood vessel, the surgery can turn life-threatening quickly.

If this complication occurs, the patient may experience an onset of symptoms quite suddenly. These include irregular heartbeat, trouble breathing, and fever.

A blood test may also show low iron and platelet counts. In addition, small hemorrhages may occur in the neck, shoulders, or armpits since the fat may be blocking blood vessels in these areas.

In another case of an elective plastic surgery gone awry, a 29-year-old woman from West Virginia died during her surgery for a Brazilian butt lift. In May 2016, Heather Meadows had driven with a friend to Encore Plastic Surgery in Florida to undergo the surgery. During the procedure, however, Meadows went into cardiac arrest.

Although the doctors reacted quickly to the situation, rushing her to the hospital, Meadows was pronounced dead when she arrived. Officials reported later that she had died because of a fat embolism coupled with an underlying heart defect.

Risks of Fat Injections

While these cases are worst-case situations, cosmetic surgeries in which the surgeon performs a fat injection do have multiple risks. According to one plastic surgery site, fat transfer for Brazilian butt lifts can result in excessive loss of blood, blood clots, deep vein thrombosis, infection, necrosis (death of fat tissue), and other serious risks.

As if this list werent enough, patients also risk dissatisfaction with the surgerys results. In this particular surgery, patients might get more cellulite or an asymmetrical look, negating the reason for the procedure in the first place. They may even need a reparative surgery later on.

ADOPTION: WHERE TO START?

In the case of male enhancement surgery, patients are taking multiple risks. Theyre essentially allowing a surgeon to perform a major invasive surgery on their genitals. If the surgery doesnt go as planned, men may find themselves battling erectile dysfunction and dissatisfaction with the way they look.

Mayo Clinic urologist Tobia Kohler told USA Today, Its a completely useless procedure that never works and disfigures men, and could kill you.

Then, referring to the 30-year-old Swedish mans death Kohler said, This is the worst case, but there are lots of other horrible consequences, from disfigurement to permanent erectile dysfunction to even worse.

While people may dream about the satisfaction they would get from enhancing part of their body, they should do all their research ahead of time. Generally, if they can avoid surgery, they should since all surgeries come with risks. In cosmetic surgeries that use fat injections, the stakes may rise a little higher than expected. Even if only minor complications happen, patients may not like the results they get. Some things are just better left alone.

This article first appeared on AskDrManny.com.
Even though pain and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are among the most common reasons people use medical marijuana in the U.S., there isn't much proof cannabis works for either one of these conditions, two research reviews suggest.

That's because there hasn't been enough high-quality research to produce conclusive evidence of the benefits or harms of cannabis for pain or PTSD, the two studies found.

POLICE TRY OUT NEW DATABASE FOR DOCUMENTING OPIOID OVERDOSES

Both studies were conducted by a team of researchers at the Veterans Health Administration and published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

"The current studies highlight the real and urgent need for high-quality clinical trials in both of these areas," said Dr. Sachin Patel, a psychiatry researcher at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.

"If cannabis is being considered for medical use, it should certainly be after all well-established treatments have failed," Patel said by email.

One in 10 U.S. adults use cannabis, the researchers note. Medical marijuana is legal in 28 states and the District of Columbia even though it is illegal under federal law.

Between 45 and 85 percent of people seeking medical marijuana in the U.S. do so for pain management, according to the researchers. But when they examined 27 previously published studies on this topic, they found too little information to determine whether the drug helps most types of pain.

They found only low-quality evidence that cannabis may help nerve pain, and this wasn't for smoking pot, it was for what's known as nabiximols, or oral mixtures sprayed into the mouth.

FLEAS TEST POSITIVE FOR PLAGUE BACTERIA IN PARTS OF ARIZONA

A separate analysis of five previous studies of cannabis for PTSD found too little data to determine whether this would help relieve symptoms.

One of the studies in the analysis focused on veterans with PTSD and found a small but statistically meaningful decline in symptoms for patients who started using cannabis, however, compared with people who never tried it or quit.

Among the general population, not just people with pain or PTSD, the researchers concluded cannabis may carry harms including an increased risk of car crashes, psychotic episodes and cognitive impairments.

Both studies were commissioned and funded by the Veterans Health Administration.

Curt Cashour, press secretary for the Department of Veterans Affairs, declined to make the lead study authors available for comment on their research.

In a statement about cannabis earlier this year, Dr. David Shulkin, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, said "there may be some evidence that this is beginning to be helpful."

PTSD: WHAT IT IS AND HOW TO SPOT IT

"And we're interested in looking at that and learning from that," Shulkin said in the May 2017 statement. "But until the time that federal law changes, we are not able to be able to prescribe medical marijuana for conditions that may be helpful."

One area researchers are exploring is the use of cannabis to help ease mental health problems that can lead to suicide among veterans. Other conditions cannabis is used for include nausea, epilepsy, and traumatic brain injury.

Several countries, but not the U.S., have approved a cannabis-based drug to treat painful muscle spasms from multiple sclerosis.

It's possible one group of cannabinoids, or groups of molecules in cannabis plants, may be responsible for both the high experienced by recreational users and the pain relief seen in some studies, said Dr. Winfried Hauser, a pain specialist at Klinikum Saarbrucken in Germany who wasn't involved in the current studies.

The cannabinoid tetrahydrocannabiol (THC) affects regions of the brain involved in regulating pain, emotion, stress, and memory, Hauser said by email.

Even though cannabis is legal for medical use in Germany, Hauser said many doctors hesitate to prescribe it because there aren't well-defined recommended doses available. Vaporizers are difficult for many patients, and cannabis smoked in combination with tobacco can have dangerous side effects, Hauser added.

"Medical cannabis is no magic pill," Hauser said.
Martin Shkreli, the embattled pharmaceutical CEO, was sentenced to seven years in prison for securities fraud.

The so-called Pharma Bro was convicted last year on charges that he deceived investors through failed hedge funds. Weeks later, he had his $5 million bail revoked when he posted what was a considered a threat to Hillary Clinton.

The 34-year-old, who is probably best known for hiking up the price of a life-saving drug, was charged with securities fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud; a jury found him guilty on three of eight counts.

From his social media presence to his leadership of pharmaceutical companies, heres a look at Shkrelis life and controversies.

March 2018

A federal judge sentenced Shkreli to seven years in prison on March 9 for for defrauding investors in two failed hedge funds.

Shkreli, in a break from his usual assured persona, cried as he told U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto he made many mistakes and apologized to investors.

"I want the people who came here today to support me to understand one thing, the only person to blame for me being here today is me," he said. "I took down Martin Shkreli."

He was also fined $75,000 and received credit for the roughly six months he has been in prison.

September 2017

Shkrelis bail was revoked and he was sent to prison the night of Sept. 13 because of what was perceived as a threat to a former presidential nominee he posted on social media.

Shkreli offered on Facebook $5,000 to anyone who could grab Hillary Clintons hair while she was on her book tour. U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto said the post could be seen as a solicitation of an assault as she revoked his $5 million bail.

The Clinton Foundation is willing to KILL to protect its secrets. So on HRCs book tour, try to grab a hair from her. I must confirm the sequences I have. Will pay $5,000 per hair obtained from Hillary Clinton, his post said.

Shkrelis defense argued that the post was simply political satire, but the judge didnt buy it.

The government told the judge that the message alarmed the Secret Service detail that protects Clinton, a former Democratic presidential candidate and first lady. It also argued that it fit a pattern of veiled threats against female journalists who rebuffed Shkreli's social media advances and of taunts aimed at prosecutors in his case.

Shkreli will now await his sentencing at a federal jail in Brooklyn instead of his Manhattan apartment where he would often live stream parts of his day. He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years.

August 2017

A Brooklyn jury found Shkreli guilty on three counts on August 4.

The jury deliberated for five days before reaching a verdict.

June 2017

Shkrelis trial began on June 26, and he faces up to 20 years in prison.

Several potential jurors told the New York judge they couldn't be fair toward Shkreli.

One woman said that she knew the former executive as "the most hated man in America" for his price gouging. The judge dismissed her and several other potential jurors after they made negative comments about Shkreli during jury selection.

Shkreli "travels to the beat of a very unique drummer."  Defense attorney Benjamin Brafman

Despite advice from his lawyers, Shkreli didnt lay low ahead of the trial. He was active on social media, particularly on YouTube and Facebook.

Shkreli "travels to the beat of a very unique drummer," his defense attorney said.

April 2017

Brooklyn U.S. District Court Judge Kiyo Matsumoto ruled that Shkreli and his former lawyer be granted separate trials.

Both Evan Greebel and Shkreli requested separate trials and both have pleaded not guilty. Greebel is charged with one count of conspiracy for allegedly helping Shkreli. He would later be found guilty of conspiring to commit securities fraud and wire fraud.

As Greebel has called Shkreli a serial liar, Matsumoto said trying the two men together would present a serious risk that Shkreli will not receive a constitutionally fair trial.

January 2017

After consistently harassing a female journalist on Twitter, Shkreli was eventually banned from the social media site.

Shkreli changed his Twitter page background to images of freelance journalist Lauren Duca and photo-shopped himself over her husband in one photo.

How is this allowed, Duca tweeted along with a screenshot of Shkrelis account.

However, Shkreli made additional accounts since his ban.

September 2016

After Hillary Clinton left a 9/11 memorial service due to illness, Shkreli tracked down the presidential candidate to shout at her a question.

Why are you so sick? Shkreli shouted at Clinton as she left her daughters apartment.

I enjoyed screaming 'why are you so sick' and 'go trump' at @HillaryClinton. Get well soon bae! he tweeted later.

This same month, Shkreli raffled off a chance to punch him in the face.

February 2016

Shkreli refused to testify in front of Congress  instead invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination while smirking at lawmakers who peppered him with questions about why he so drastically raised the price of Daraprim.

"It's not funny, Mr. Shkreli. People are dying and they're getting sicker and sicker."  Rep. Elijah Cummings

"Drug company executives are lining their pockets at the expense of some of the most vulnerable families in our nation," Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said during the hearing. "It's not funny, Mr. Shkreli. People are dying and they're getting sicker and sicker."

Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Ga., a pharmacist, said he was disgusted by price-hiking drug companies.

December 2015

Shkreli was arrested on securities fraud and wire fraud charges  unrelated to the rising drug price while he headed Turing Pharmaceuticals  in December 2015.

Prosecutors said when Shkreli ran a different pharmaceutical company, Retrophin, he would use the companys cash and stock to pay back hedge fund investors for money that Shkreli lost. These actions allegedly took place between 2009 and 2014, according to court documents.

Shkreli engaged in multiple schemes to ensnare investors through a web of lies and deceit, U.S. Attorney Robert Capers said at the time of Shkrelis arrest.

Shkreli was released on a $5 million bail.

The day of his arrest, KaloBios Pharmaceuticals terminated Shkreli as its CEO. The company announced that the young pharmaceutical executive also had resigned from its board of directors.

September 2015

Shkreli first became a contentious household name at the end of 2015 when he was chief executive of Turing Pharmaceuticals.

His company drastically jacked up the price of a potentially lifesaving drug, Daraprim, from $13.50 to $750 per pill. Turing acquired Daraprim in August 2015.

The drug is the only approved treatment for toxoplasmosis, an infection which is especially risky for pregnant women, people with AIDS and cancer patients.

Shkreli defended the price hike, saying it was necessary in order for his pharmaceutical company to make a profit, spend money on research and keep up with operational costs.

If there was a company that was selling an Aston Martin at the price of a bicycle, and we buy that company and we ask to charge Toyota prices, I dont think that should be a crime, Shkreli told CBS This Morning.

Then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton encouraged Shkreli to do the right thing and lower the cost of the drug to its original price.

Clinton also promised to hold accountable anyone who is price gouging American families and jacking up costs for no good reason.

Donald Trump, also a candidate at the time, called Shkreli a "spoiled brat."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A Massachusetts police chief ordered hazmat-like gear for his officers to help protect them from dangerously powerful drugs that could cause an overdose simply by touching the substance. Each Walpole Police Department patrol car will now be equipped with two hazmat suits, gloves, goggles and respirators to be used when responding to an overdose call, Boston 25 News reported.

Chief John Carmichael placed the order after three officers in Chelsea became lightheaded while responding to a car crash earlier this month. The officers were exposed to an unknown substance after entering the vehicle to help extract three unresponsive victims.

MOM SHARES PHOTO OF DYING DAUGHTER AFTER FATAL OVERDOSE

This was unknown to them, so they go inside and start to have the same signs and symptoms of an overdose, which is very concerning, Carmichael told Boston 25 News.

Though the substance in the case Carmichael is referring to was not identified, officers around the country have been on high-alert for powerful drugs that could be dangerous to touch even with gloves on. One drug, dubbed grey death by authorities in Georgia, is believed to contain heroin, fentanyl and a synthetic opioid called U-47700 and can kill users with a single dose.

Law enforcement officials believe a price drop led users to switch from prescription painkillers to heroin, which is often cut with fentanyl. Most alarming to officials it that users do not have a way of telling if heroin is pure or laced with other drugs before its used.

Theyre our first responders, theyre our first line of police officers that are going to these calls, and a lot of times they dont know what theyre getting into, Carmichael said of his department. They are the person that is arriving on scene thats going to be able to render aid and to help that person.

Elsewhere in Massachusetts police are testing a new database for documenting opioid overdoses that they hope will help departments share information in real time and get people into treatment. It was developed by criminal justice experts at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island and Kelley Research Associates in Massachusetts.

POLICE TRY OUT NEW DATABASE FOR DOCUMENTING OPIOID OVERDOSES

The system is designed so that when a department responds to an overdose it is recorded into a system, which then alerts the corresponding department in which the victim lives to do a follow-up outreach visit.

We know people suffering from the crisis dont just overdose in their town, East Bridgewater Police Chief Scott Allen, whose department is one of 27 in Plymouth Count using the system, told the Associated Press.
Born with only one foot and two disfigured hands, 21-year-old model Lyric Mariah Heard is determined to make waves beyond the fashion industry by inspiring others to live the fullest life possible.

The Illinois native was born with Amniotic Band Syndrome, a random, non-genetic birth defect thats caused in-utero. Today, she wants to be an exemplary role model, "a voice, a go-to when people need a reminder on self-love, she told Yahoo Style.

Bullied in childhood, Heards confidence has blossomed with time, as she recounted the damage that cruel words caused her.

FITNESS BLOGGER DEFENDS SPORTS BRAS AS ACCEPTABLE GYM ATTIRE

I was judged and humiliated all the time for something that I had absolutely no control over, she said. I didnt understand that, because its not like they were the ones who had to walk around with a four-pound leg and their hands hidden in their pockets  that was me.

Once the model hit high school, she rose above the bullies and embraced self-acceptance.

My appearance gave me a purpose and my modeling gave me a platform, Heard said. Society has a way of making people feel lost and invisible, and unfortunately many people never shake that. Own what makes you different  no one can be like you."

WOMEN PHOTOGRAPH 1,001 BARE BUTTS TO PROMOTE BODY ACCEPTANCE

Giving advice to anyone feeling ostracized, Heard emphasized the importance of surrounding yourself with positivity whenever possible.

Likewise, the model noted that she's inspired by others with disabilities who work to achieve their dreams.

One example can be found in the latest Nordstrom campaign, which recently featured models with disabilities in its Anniversary Sale Catalog. Since 1991, disabled individuals have graced fashion campaigns for the luxury retailer.

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At the end of the day, Heard notes that it doesnt matter whether or not the cameras love you, but that you respect and champion yourself, first and foremost.

Self-love is the most important kind of love  all of your passions, all of your dreams, all of your aspirations will flourish when you truly love yourself, because then and only then can you succeed, she said.
Its not the number on the scale that should worry you: its your potbelly.

Even people who arent considered overweight can still be labeled overfat, a new term highlighted in a recent Frontiers in Public Health report.

For years, doctors have been classifying people as obese based on their body mass index, which is determined by weight and height. But as many as half of patients with normal BMIs might still be overfat, meaning they have excess body fat thats detrimental to their health  especially when its in the abdominal region.

You might be overfat if the circumference of your belly is larger than your hip circumference, the report states.

According to the research, being overfat is riskier than being merely overweight, because abdominal fat can lead to chronic illnesses such as diabetes, stroke, cancer, heart disease and inflammation.

A whopping 76 percent of the worlds population is overfat, according to the report. And that should be a huge wake-up call, says Louis Aronne, director of the Comprehensive Weight Control Center at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian on the Upper East Side.

We know that 11 cancers are related to obesity and 50 illnesses are a direct result of an increase in body fat, says Aronne, who isnt connected to the report. So this is an obvious target for chronic disease management.

Even dropping just 5 percent of your body weight will significantly reduce your risk of developing complications like diabetes, Aronne says.

But he says the best way to lose troubling belly fat is to cut back on sugar and starches, since those are prime culprits in stimulating insulin production, which can lead to more fat storage. Focus instead on consuming mostly vegetables and proteins.

Aronne also says that changing the order in which you consume foods  for instance, eating carbohydrates after protein and vegetables, instead of the other way around  can help your body metabolize food better.

And its best to adopt lifestyle habits that lower stress  and thus the hormone cortisol, which promotes fat storage in our abdomens as well, Aronne says.

This article originally appeared in the New York Post.
British model Chloe Ayling says she was drugged and kidnapped in Milan, Italy, last month by the human trafficking organization Black Death, but the outlaws abandoned their plans to sell her as a sex slave and ship her to the Middle East when they discovered the 20-year-old was the mother of a son  a violation of the groups rules.

Ayling was much luckier than most victims.

An estimated 20.9 million people are currently trapped in jobs into which they were coerced or deceived and which they cannot leave, according to the International Labor Organizations Global Estimate of Forced Labor.

INSTAGRAM MODEL ARRESTED FOR ATTACKING POLICE DURING NUDE ROMP AT FLORIDA HOTEL

And, sadly, predators of young women are finding it easier than ever to capture their prey, thanks to social media apps like Instagram that models use to promote their careers.

While the incident with Chloe Ayling is deeply troubling, its unfortunately part of a growing trend, aided by social medias accessibility to models, said music video director Chris Applebaum, who has worked with notable models and celebrities such as Selena Gomez and Kate Upton.

I dont think groups like Black Death pose as photographers as much as they are event organizers or brands offering to pay influencers to attend events.

Applebaum, in an interview with Fox News, recalled a recent disturbing event.

I was approached by one of these groups looking to get in contact with a well-known model. They wanted her cellphone number. After a day of explaining I cant do that without her permission, they grew more anxious, offering me a commission of 8,000 euros ($9,425) to help connect them.

The group explained the model would have all her expenses paid and first-class airfare to the Middle East for a weekend party with some high-profile guests.

The host was willing to pay the models 80-90,000 euros ($94,000 to $106,000) for a night of fun.

Before I blocked this predator from my Instagram, Applebaum continued, I remember their chilling parting message. I explained that none of the high-profile models would care to attend these types of events or parties, as I knew them personally and thats not what these girls are like.

The party responded by saying, Youd be surprised how common this is.

MODEL CLAPS BACK AT BODY-SHAMERS BY POSTING A BIKINI PIC

Its not just common, its easy  because models today use social media to book legitimate work, which makes them more accessible to predators.

Its easier because the perpetrator can profile their victim, study them and select their choice of captive, said Richard Schoeberl, U.S. team leader for Hope for Justice, a nonprofit that aimsto bring an end to modern slavery by rescuing victims, restoring lives, and reforming society.

So often, said Brian Pacheco, a spokesman for Safe Horizon, which runs the largest anti-trafficking program on the East Coast, it is months or years of exploitation, abuse and being forced into acts they do not want and certainly do not deserve. And for those that can escape or find safety, they are forever changed due to the trauma they experienced.

Modeling industry experts offered safety tips for models to avoid danger.

Be more selective before [accepting] people on all social media platforms, and when traveling to areas of the world that are known to be dangerous, make sure you are not alone, and that there is ample security, said Craig Lawrence, president of ONE Management.

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Robert Casey, President of Maggie, Inc., said models need to speak up if something seems off.

If the environment or people seem irregular, call the modeling agency immediately, he said. The agency should do their due diligence to thoroughly check out the people we are working with, but at the end of the day, we are not physically on-site with the model and depend on the model to communicate if any of the circumstances are off.

Ive seen several cases where the model has gotten into sticky situations, because they are so anxious to impress and please the people they are working with that they sacrifice common sense.
What will you do when the race war starts? A question I have often heard in times of increased racial tension amongst friends. I too have inelegantly floated the query while bantering with the white parents of biracial children.

It is a question used as a show of solidarity with those who know the truth: even in light of all the formidable progress we have made against it, racism is still too pervasive in our society.

While though-provoking, it is also inaccurate. Not only have we been fighting the so-called race war since our founding, we have been winning it.

Americans of every color, gender, and generation have lifted our voices and shed countless amounts of blood, sweat and tears, to root out the racial intolerance embedded in the founding fabric of our nation.

Using constitutional amendments, legislation, and the courts -- the tools our founding fathers gave us with the specific intent that they be used for progress -- Americans have clawed our way through state houses, the halls of Congress and Republican and Democratic administrations to seek out and ensure inalienable rights applied to all.

These are the last kicks of a dying hog. They dont stand a chance against a movement for civil rights and justice that has been resisting, persisting, and winning from day one of our democracy.

For 241 years, we have inched our way closer to the egalitarian society that the overwhelming majority of Americans believe in.

With the despicable display of hate and bigotry and the tragic loss of life in Charlottesville this past weekend, President Trump had a tailor-made opportunity to do his job: comfort a confused and frightened nation. He failed.

Martin Luther Kings description of Barry Goldwater easily applies to Mr. Trumps presidential campaign and his brief seven months in office. He regularly articulates a philosophy that gives aid and comfort to the racist.

White supremacists are the people candidate Trump knowingly and specifically spoke of during the campaign, the cohort of American voters that would still support him if he shot an innocent person on the street. They are not real Americans. Real Americans are not domestic terrorists.

The initial defense offered by the White House as to why the president of the United States was loathe to directly condemn white supremacy and Nazism, guaranteed this delayed declaration by Mr. Trump be appropriately deciphered as forced pandering. Caving to pressure is a far cry from rising to the occasion. His strong words on Monday  though lackluster in performance  were necessary but late.

The ones most affected by the reverberations of Mr. Trumps initial decision to falsely equate people trying to end oppression with white supremacists will be our nations youngest citizens.

The president deprived an entire generation of an opportunity to see firsthand the true greatness of America. With the entire nation and the rest of the world watching, the president was impotent in his leadership.

Having hired a chief strategist who described the media property he used to run as a platform for the alt-right  the alt-right being, in my view, a euphemism for white nationalists  and other White House advisors such as Seb Gorka and Stephen Miller who regularly mirror the rhetoric of white supremacists, it should come as no surprise that President Trump first deliberately chose to not use his communication prowess to call out the proud racists who voted for him.

Like yeast, his words  or lack thereof  have fueled the rising usage of swastikas and the resurfacing of the KKK and neo-Nazi groups all over America.

Consequently, it is understandable why many Americans wake up feeling like the progress achieved over generations is being erased with each passing day of Mr. Trumps presidency.

However, we have to remember that brick-by-brick, generation by generation, we have built our own wall. A firewall against hate and bigotry that simply cannot be dismantled despite Mr. Trumps best and sometimes successful attempts to rewind the clock on progress and pervert much of what makes America great.

One reason our country is great is because even a powerful president lacking a moral compass has no chance of breaking us. We are just too resilient.

Long before Colin Kaepernick adeptly used his on-field interaction with the national anthem to call attention to the unfair treatment of people of color in our criminal justice system, I was mocked for standing hand over heart whenever I heard it playing. Whenever and wherever. Even if it meant missing a flight.

One reason I proudly stand for the national anthem and look forward to the Fourth of July as my favorite holiday is because both are inspirational reminders that our founders gave us everything we need to defeat injustice. Everything.

The moral arc of the universe bends toward justice through our actions in times of crisis and in times of prosperity.

The president abdicated his duty to be a moral authority and represent all Americans  not just the ones that elected him  from day one of his presidency. We  the people  cannot.

We all have a greater responsibility to move our activism offline and out of the streets and into our homes, places of worship, classrooms, and workplaces. Those of us blessed with amplified platforms of influence can do a better job of holding each other accountable, not just the president.

While there is absolutely no excuse for bigotry, understanding that hate is a learned behavior, and that hate and racism are byproducts of fear of survival, are key to our ultimate victory. Continuing to embrace solely nonviolent activism and the idea that love trumps hate will only accelerate it.

There are still battles left to fight in the centuries-old race war  with criminal justice reform at the top of the list. While our nations long winning streak against injustice theoretically came to an end with the election of Donald Trump it is a momentary victory for bigotry.

These are the last kicks of a dying hog. They dont stand a chance against a movement for civil rights and justice that has been resisting, persisting, and winning from day one of our democracy.
Preparations are well underway in the liberal media to make August 18 a milestone in the history of climate policy. That is the date when a special U.S. government report on the state of climate science by authors from 13 federal agencies, known as the U.S. Global Change Research Program, is due to be released.

But if August 18 does become a day to be remembered, it will be as a much-hyped political event, not a scientific one. The substance of the USGCRP report apparently only rehashes, at great length, research that was assessed even more exhaustively in the Fifth Assessment Report or FAR, published in 2013 by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The reports claim of progress is supported by lists of advances in climate science since 2013, but the major conclusions of the report are no different from the FAR and are based on the same materials. Over and over, the report states that support for its conclusions comes from the FAR.

What is different is that the well-known research findings--well known to experts, anyway-- are summarized in the USGCRP document in a way that makes them appear newer, stronger and more alarmist than they really are.

The New York Times stoked the hype by claiming on August 7 that it had unearthed the report from where it was being hidden by Trump Administration doubters, when in truth drafts of the report were readily available and posted for public comment.

In summary, there is little new about climate science in the report, and nothing at all new about attribution of past warming and extreme weather events to human activity, projections of future warming and its effects, or potential for catastrophic changes.

Then the Times became excited about how the report would finally force the administration to admit the reality of climate change. The Times even embedded a video of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt in one article, with the heading A draft report by scientists from 13 federal agencies directly contradicts statements by Scott Pruitt, the E.P.A. administrator, that human contribution to climate change is uncertain. But the USGCRP report itself recognizes and describes the uncertainty of climate science, which all involved except the Times editors understand.

The headline and editorial writers are having a wonderful time inventing claims about how novel and definitive the report will be. They are aided and abetted by selective summarizing of key sections of the report.

For example: Attribution is the term applied to efforts to determine how much of the observed increase in global average temperature since 1950 is caused by human activity, principally carbon dioxide emissions and land use change.

The upcoming report claims there has been substantial progress in attribution research since the IPCC covered this topic extensively in 2013. At that time, the IPCC declined to give a single number for the share attributable to human activity. The definitive statement of the IPCC was that more than half of observed warming was attributable to human activity.

In contrast, the USGCRP report claims that human activity was responsible for 100 percent of observed warming.

This major rewording comes despite the fact that the USGCRP report relies exclusively on the FAR for its calculations of the human share of warming. Nor does the report cite new evidence that would justify its shock-value conclusion.

The new summary judgments are made subjectively by the authors of the report, who are all government employees working on climate research or academics supported by government climate funding. I question why these authors chose to make the scarier statement when they could have relied on the IPCC report to settle the attribution question.

This pattern is repeated through the major findings. Summary statements are phrased to give the impression of greater certainty and larger impacts than either the text of the report or the earlier FAR support.

For example, the report highlights a statement about decreases in surface soil moisture in the United States but leaves for the reader to unearth the statement that Little evidence is found for a human influence on observed precipitation deficits.

In other words, the report admits that there is low confidence in attribution of drought on a global scale to human influence on climate.

As another example, the report discusses how changes in the El Nino weather phenomenon and in ocean currents have contributed to recent extreme weather events. But then the USGCRP report admits that there is little evidence of human influence on past changes in either El Nino or ocean currents.

The discussion of projected impacts of warming is wide open to selective quotation because it frequently starts with a broad statement of a tendency and then admits that it is impossible to say how large the effect will be. For example, the statement that sea level rise will increase flooding due to coastal storms is later qualified by the statement that there is low confidence in the magnitude of the increase in flood risk.

Likewise, the upcoming report highlights a statement that extreme temperatures in the U.S. are likely to increase even more than average temperatures, but a description of the beneficial effect of fewer severely cold days and fewer cold waves is left hidden in the text.

The agencies report also gives emphasis to the possibility of unanticipated and impossible-to-manage changes in the climate system in the next century. This is a topic likely to attract editorial attention, but a closer reading of the text reveals that highlighted risk is only speculation about a physical possibility.

In its discussion of specific examples, such as a catastrophic change in ocean circulation patterns, the report emphasizes predicted risks that the FAR concluded were minimal through the rest of the century.

Given the uproar over President Trumps decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, statements in the report about that topic are also likely to be widely quoted. Here the report is subtle in how it summarizes findings about the importance of that agreement.

It states that successful implementation of the first round of Nationally Determined Contributions associated with the Paris Agreement will provide some likelihood of meeting the long-term temperature goal [of] 2oC.

That could suggest to a reader that the Paris Agreement was well on its way to achieving the goal, but the study cited in the report concludes that the Paris Agreement only increases the probability of achieving the target from zero to eight percent.

In other words, the odds of global temperature increases staying below 2oC remain at 12 to 1 against, even with the Paris Agreement.

The report raises the stakes for the Paris Agreement by describing the 2oC goal as what scientists have referred to as the guardrail beyond which changes become catastrophic.

Nothing in the USGCRP report or the FAR supports calling 2oC a guarantee of no harmful effects or a trigger that ensures catastrophe if it is exceeded. Moreover, the very study cited in the discussion of the Paris Agreement found that there was no scenario for the Paris Agreement that gave better than a 50-50 chance of staying below 2oC.

One claim in the USGCRP report is not about climate but about research activities, and it is quite understandable. It is that there have been major advances in climate science since 2013. The USGCRP is a target in the 2018 budget, and reporting recent achievements sends the message that cutting the USGCRP budget will shut off the progress.

There has been considerable interesting work on climate change in the past four years, but the progress of climate science has been fitful. FAR revealed, for example, that on the most important indicator of uncertainty in climate science--the likely range of warming for a given increase in carbon dioxide emissions--progress was actually retrograde.

Indeed, the FAR widened the likely range of temperature increase for a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from the previous assessment, indicating greater uncertainty, not less, about this issue.

In summary, there is little new about climate science in the report, and nothing at all new about attribution of past warming and extreme weather events to human activity, projections of future warming and its effects, or potential for catastrophic changes.

Thus as far as the science goes, there is little to advance the case of any side in the debate over climate policy. That makes the publication of the report more a hook for stories that one side or another wants to tell than an actual item of news in itself.

Despite its claims to make no policy recommendations, the USGCRP report does its best to make the Paris climate agreement appear more important than it is.

There is also evidence of selective summarizing, to make statements about possible harmful effects of climate change easy to find and quote while leaving it to the reader to unearth statements about the potentially small magnitude of those effects.

Any quotation from the report, especially of statements that some bad effect will increase without specifics of how much and whether there is human influence, should be checked against the full text.

Or, if there is no time for that, it should be taken with a large dose of salt.
Feminists went all-out Mean Girls on Melania and Ivanka Trump, when a Newsweek piece called them out for  wait for it  wearing high heels.

I love a good pair of stilettos, block heels, wedge, you name it, but according to Nina Burleigh over at Newsweek, heels symbolize everything that is wrong with the Trump women. Thats quite a bridge to cross following any kind of logic, none of which exists in the piece.

In fact, its downright legit shoe shaming.

According to Ms. Burleigh, whom I picture as a sensible shoes kind of girl, stilettos are not in fashion. Thats probably news to Jimmy Choo, Christian Louboutin, or any of the other top designers on 5th Avenue. But so what either way? If the Trump women enjoy wearing shoes that make them feel good, why berate them for their choices?

As much as Ms. Burleigh wants stilettos to reflect character, they do not, but being nasty about those wearing them does.

High heels were around long before Ms. Burleigh decided to go all puritanical on us. Her article suggested that those dirty shoes appeared earliest on the feet of Italian prostitutes in the 17th century. Actually, no, Persian horseback riders first used high heels in the ninth century to help keep their feet from slipping out of the stirrups. The Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto even showcases a 17th century Persian high heel.

And in the 1600s, King Louis XVI decided that red high heels would be a status symbol of nobility (plus, he was on the shorter side so the height helped him out).

While stiletto pumps are not for everyone and do require a certain amount of grace and stability on behalf of the women who dare to don a pair, many women wear them because they make women feel good and look good. They can bring a certain air of power to women. While the famous stiletto designer Christian Louboutin has been quoted saying that his work is geared towards pleasing men, women adore those red-soled heels. Why? Because they look good, and women feel dressed up wearing them. In fact, according to the Huffington Post, historically, in times of economic downturn, sales of both lipstick and high heels go up.

So why does any of this have to be political in nature? Imagine if a conservative writer wrote this piece about any shoe choice of Michelle Obama. It would be the front-page headline. Do feminists truly have nothing else to write about these days?

Even liberal women like Hillary Clinton, Cecile Richards, and Nancy Pelosi all wear high heels. Ms. Burleigh would not dare to casually mention them in the same article as Italian prostitutes. As much as Ms. Burleigh wants stilettos to reflect character, they do not, but being nasty about those wearing them does.

This is just a catty way for a liberal woman to take a swipe at women who not only wear, but profit from, high heels. Maybe she would change her mind if she tried on a lovely pair of Ivanka Trump shoes. They not only look nice but are actually pretty comfortable.

Ironically, I first read the Newsweek piece while sitting in my podiatrists office. I wasnt there because of my stiletto habit, but rather one that stemmed from running (in running shoes). Left-leaning women and women right of center have serious policy conflicts. Fashion, Tom Ford aside, is wonderfully neutral. Lets keep it that way.
Perhaps no one knows the joy of coming to the United States and becoming an American citizen like those of us who came here from oppressive socialist regimes.

As a legal immigrant from Egypt, I am immensely grateful to have been able to come to America and participate in all of its blessings and responsibilities. Most of us legal immigrants have lined up and waited our turn.

Im aware of the fact that many Christians are divided on the issue of illegal immigration, and I do not want to add to the confusion. But I hope and trust that I can help with some clarifications on the issue. My thoughts are especially pertinent today with the news of Senators Tom Cotton and David Perdues introduction of the Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy Act (RAISE) Act, which is supported by President Trump.

Most of the thinking from todays secular media is being done between the noses and the chins, hence the confusion. Many of the liberal politicians from both parties used some characteristic of God to push their misguided policies. In the case of illegal immigration, its either kindness or mercy. But they conveniently bypass the fact that there are two sides of Gods character: mercy and justice.

God does not offer us a smorgasbord of choices. His two-sided character of mercy and justice either stands together or falls together. My hope is that the passing and execution of the RAISE Act will introduce positive next steps for legal immigration and our economy.

What justice is it for law-abiding qualified individuals to wait their turn to immigrate to the U.Supward of ten years in some situationswhile law breakers cross the border illegally and move forward in the immigration process in only a few months?

Senators Cotton and Perdue are proposing to inject some logic, along with much-needed economic benefits for our nation and its citizens, into our immigration system with the RAISE Act. The proposed legislation would reward high-skilled, work-ready immigrants with priority for entry into the United States. The act would reportedly lower overall immigration by one half and help prevent current U.S. citizens from losing lower-skilled job opportunities to illegal immigrants. This would also help increase wages for our citizens.

Unlike Cotton and Perdue in this case, many American politicians try to use half-truths to drum up support for their policies, something the RAISE Act aims to correct.

For instance, is it right for a Muslim terrorist or a drug dealer, who could not get into the U.S. legally, to jump the fence and take the place of a persecuted Christian at the front of the line who is waiting his or her turn in an immigration office? And is it right for fellow tax-paying Americans to lose jobs to illegal immigrants who arent supporting the building and protecting of our countrys infrastructure?

What justice is it for law-abiding qualified individuals to wait their turn to immigrate to the U.Supward of ten years in some situationswhile law breakers cross the border illegally and move forward in the immigration process in only a few months? Perhaps the RAISE Act will usher in a sane system for managing our countrys immigration crisis.

Mercy and justice are a two-sided coin. Split it and it ceases to be legal tender. The coin becomes counterfeit.

"For decades our immigration system has been completely divorced from the needs of our economy, and working Americans' wages have suffered as a result. Our legislation will set things right." - Senator Cotton

I pray that Senator Cotton is right. I challenge you to pray for increasing justice and effectiveness in our countrys immigration policies.
President Trump should be taking a victory lap. In recent days, Kim Jung Un has backed away from his earlier threat to bomb Guam, according to Pyongyang's state-run media.

At the same time, China has (finally) leveled extremely damaging sanctions against North Korea, banning imports of coal, iron and seafood.

Are these positive developments an accident? No, it appears that the Trump White House has changed the calculus by the leaders of those two countries, and that the president has had a plan for confronting the hermit kingdom, after all.

Unfortunately, as has happened all too often, the White House, offering initially only a tepid condemnation of the racist attack in Charlottesville, has stepped on its own good news.

Obama knew that Pyongyang had moved faster and farther towards nuclear capability than generally known. He just didnt want to deal with it. His diplomatic priority with China was to get them to sign onto the Paris Climate Accord.

President Trump shocked the world by warning that military aggression by North Korea would be met with fire, fury and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before." Critics have called his bold threats against the hermit nation undisciplined and dangerous. They have accused the Trump White House as uncoordinated, and lacking a strategy.

Could they be wrong? Yes.

Trumps aggressive remarks appear consistent with a multi-step strategy that has been in the works for months. The president has not laid out his plan, because, as he has argued on numerous occasions, doing so can undermine any programs effectiveness. Announcing that we would attack Mosul in several months time, as President Obama did, only allowed ISIS fighters to dig in, stockpile supplies and bolster their defenses. In war and in diplomacy, the element of surprise can be critical.

Trumps team may have decided, as others have, that the only path to changing North Koreas provocative behavior was through China. Beijing has until now paid only lip service to reining in their belligerent neighbor. China is guided exclusively by their own self-interest; it has been convenient and fruitful to have the West begging for their help.

How to engage China in a more serious and effective manner?

The first step in the plan was to convince Beijing that President Trump is as unpredictable and potentially dangerous as Kim Jung Un, and would not hesitate to use force if provoked.

This important first step was accomplished during President Xi Jinpings visit to Mar-al-Lago in April. That was the first meeting for the two heads of state, the critical first read. The two leaders enjoyed a dinner and conversation with wives and associates, which was abruptly interrupted when President Trump excused himself to meet with his security advisors.

The United States had just bombed Syria, in retaliation for the Bashar Al-Assads use of chemical weapons on his own people. The strike was unexpected, targeted and it sent an unequivocal message to President Xi: there is a new Commander in Chief in town who, unlike Obama, would use military force to back up his threats. No more meaningless red lines; if Trump promised retaliation, as he did when he warned the Syrian regime not to poison its own people, he would follow through.

That the Trump team gave the Chinese no advance warning of the strike was entirely intentional. It was meant to rattle President Xi and his foreign policy henchmen, and set them to recalibrating what the United States might do next.

The next step in the program was to spotlight Chinas hypocrisy, and to reaffirm its responsibility for enabling North Koreas march to nuclear capability. At the Mar-al-Lago summit, President Trump backed down from earlier threats to label China a currency manipulator in exchange for Xis promises to help rein in Kim Jung Un, following the playbook of prior administrations.

Three months later, however, Trump tweeted that he was very disappointed in China. They do NOTHING for us with North Koreajust talk. In interviews he called out Chinas cheating, noting that its trade with North Korea had jumped 34 percent in the first quarter  hardly indicative of economic pressure. Stories appeared in the New York Times and elsewhere chronicling how Chinese companies, with full knowledge of the government, had circumvented sanctions against Pyongyang, enabling their weapons programs.

Having spotlighted Chinas treachery, the United States began to press for broader sanctions on North Korea. Ambassador Nikki Haley scored a major foreign policy win when the UN Security Council unanimously agreed to meaningful and damaging sanctions against Pyongyang. Its duplicity exposed, China was in no position to object.

Sanctions, however, may not stop North Koreas march towards nuclear capability. It may also require fear.

Hence, President Trump has undertaken step three  threatening North Koreas very existence. Kim Jung Un is ruthless but not a madman, nor is he stupid. He would not have risen to the top of his nation without cunning and an excellent survival instinct. He understands that the United States has the military capability to destroy his country; but he has never imagined it would come to that.

Kim has also long understood that his nuclear weapons program gave him standing on the world stage. He will not give that up unless he is afraid for his life, or his regime. He may not do so even then; we will soon find out.

The foreign policy establishment is aghast at Trumps belligerence. Tranquilized by decades of strategic patience, they have no new ideas, in fact no ideas at all. Learned papers have asserted that there are no good options in dealing with North Korea, even with all options on the table. The defeatism, from the worlds most powerful nation, is embarrassing.

President Trump is trying something new. When he met with his predecessor before taking office, President Obama warned him about North Korea. Obama knew that Pyongyang had moved faster and farther towards nuclear capability than generally known; he knew they had miniaturized weapons that fit on the nose of a ballistic missile. He just didnt want to deal with it. His diplomatic priority with China was to get them to sign onto the Paris Climate Accord.

So warned, President Trump has had many months to map out a new approach to North Korea with his security team. Standing alongside his impressive team of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster and Nikki Haley the other day in Bedminster, he seemed in command and confidant.

Will his gamble work? We dont know, but if I were Kim Jung Un, or President Xi, I would not underestimate this president.
Jehmu Greene serves as a contributor for FOX News Channel (FNC) and FOX Business Network (FBN). She joined the network in November 2010 and splits her time between New York City and Austin, Texas. Read More

Since joining FNC, Greene has provided the network with integral analysis on social justice and politics. Additionally, she is a Distinguished Fellow at Barnard College's Athena Center for Leadership and Board Chair of VoteRunLead. Most recently, she ran for Chair of the Democratic National Committee in 2017.

In 2010, Greene was appointed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to serve on the U.S. National Commission for United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization(UNESCO). Also, she served as the first African-American president of the Rock the Vote organization from 2000-2005.

Greene has held various positions throughout her career, including president of WakaWaka; president of the Women's Media Center; director of women's outreach and Southern political director at the Democratic National Committee, National Direction of Project Vote and Executive Director of Texas Young Democrats. She also co-founded Define America, an initiative that uses media and culture to elevate the immigration reform conversation.

Greene began her career working in local Texas politics. Since then, she has worked on more than twenty political campaigns at the local, state and national level, and served as an advisor and national surrogate for Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign.

Greene was recognized by Essence Magazine for being both one of the 40 Women Under 40 Shaping the World and one of the 35 Most Beautiful and Remarkable Women in the World. Additionally, she received the National Conference for Community and Justice's Community Service Award, American Association of University Women's Women of Distinction Award and National Council for Research on Women - Women Making a Difference Award.

Jehmu Greene was born in Washington, D.C. and grew up in Austin, Texas.
A new report detailing attempted communications between the Trump campaign and Russia is concrete evidence the Russia collusion narrative is fake news, a spokesman for former campaign chairman Paul Manafort said Monday.

An adviser on Trumps team, George Papadopoulos, offered to set up a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss US-Russia ties under President Trump, during the 2016 campaign season, The Washington Post reported. That offer came via an email Papadopoulos allegedly sent to seven campaign officials.

It wasnt clear if Papadopoulos was acting as an intermediary for the Russian government, but he reportedly told officials with the Trump campaign that he was.

The requests to coordinate the meetings were among more than 20,000 pages of documents submitted to congressional committees this month by the Trump campaign following a review by the White House.

Papadopoulos emails were read to The Post by a person with access to them, the paper reported.

According to the Post, Papadopoulos sent at least six requests for Trump or team members to meet with Russian officials. But Manafort, who had his home raided by the FBI last month, allegedly rejected in May 2016 a proposal from the adviser to have Trump partake in the meetings.

In response to the requests, Manafort allegedly forwarded the email to an associate, with a note: We need someone to communicate that DT is not doing these trips.

"Mr. Manaforts swift action reflects the attitude of the campaign  any invitation by Russia, directly or indirectly, would be rejected outright, Jason Maloni, Manaforts spokesman, said. His request that the response come from a low level staffer sent a clear signal that the invitation did not merit consideration. This is concrete evidence the Russia collusion narrative is fake news."

Manaforts Virginia home was raided by the FBI in late July. Documents and other materials related to the probe into Russias alleged involvement in the 2016 campaign were taken in the raid.

Fox News' Jake Gibson contributed to this report.
China seems to be not backing down from President Trumps recent promise of a trade investigation of Beijings technology policies defiantly saying that they will resolutely safeguard their countrys interests.

Trade groups for technology companies welcomed Trump's order Monday but the Chinese Commerce Ministry said it violated the spirit of international trade and Washington's World Trade Organization commitments. The ministry said Beijing will take "all appropriate measures" if Chinese companies are hurt but gave no details.

Trump told U.S. trade officials to look into whether to launch a formal investigation into whether Beijing improperly requires foreign companies to hand over technology in exchange for market access.

"If the U.S. side disregards the fact it does not respect multilateral trade rules and takes action to damage the economic and trade relations between the two sides, then the Chinese side will never sit back and will take all appropriate measures to resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the Chinese side," said a Commerce Ministry statement.

The Commerce Ministry complained Trump's order was "strong unilateralism" that violated the spirit of multinational trade agreements.

"We believe the U.S. side should strictly adhere to commitments and should not become the destroyer of multilateral rules," said the statement.

Beijing requires automakers and other foreign companies in China to work through joint ventures, usually with state-owned partners. They often are required to give technology to partners that might become competitors.

Over 20 companies that responded to a survey from industry group, the U.S.-China Business Council said that they were asked to transfer technology within the past three years as part of a condition for market access.

"We don't believe market access should be contingent on transferring technology. It goes counter to China's WTO commitments," said Jake Parker, the group's vice president for China operations.

It was in April when Trump said he was setting aside trade disputes while Washington and Beijing worked together to persuade North Korea to give up nuclear weapons development. But American officials have resumed criticizing Chinese policy in recent weeks.

"The White House is right to make clear all options are on the table," said Robert D. Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, an industry group in Washington, in a statement.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.
With a wide, yellow nylon strap roped around the neck of a 15-foot monument of a Confederate soldier, 100 protesters in Durham, N.C., spat, kicked and cheered Monday night as they toppled the rifle-toting statue that had been in place for nearly a century.

Durham County Sheriff Mike Andrews and other local authorities knew it was going to happen  and were even on the scene  but didnt step in to stop it.

County leaders were aware of the risk of damage to the Confederate statue, as well as the potential risk of injury to the public and officers should deputies attempt to control the crowd, Andrews said in a statement Tuesday. Collectively, we decided that restraint and public safety would be our priority.

The Durham incident is now raising questions about how other cities will handle the next wave of protests over Confederate monuments, in the wake of last weekend's violence in Charlottesville.

Officials in cities across the South have renewed calls to remove these symbols. But this is normally done at the official level, and the prospect of mobs forcibly removing statues is sure to put pressure on local authorities to make a decision: Will they let protesters vandalize and destroy the symbols some see as hateful, or will they secure them and prosecute those trying to tear them down?

In the case in Durham, the answer seems to be a combination of both.

Andrews said that even though his deputies didnt prevent Mondays incident, he would not turn a blind eye to the criminal conduct and vowed to bring charges against those responsible.

The Durham incident was in response to Saturdays rally-turned-riot in Charlottesville, Va. In that case, white supremacist groups protested the removal of a 1924 statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and the renaming of a park.

The rally unfolded into a horrific scene of violence. One counter-protester was killed in a car attack, 19 were injured and two state police officers died in a chopper crash. The events in Charlottesville prompted pop-up protests from coast to coast.

In Atlantas Piedmont Park, there was virtually no police presence when protesters on Sunday climbed a statue of a winged angel standing over a Confederate solider  and defaced it. Tension escalated as the only officer at the scene was surrounded by protesters shouting pig in his direction.

The city has strongly condemned the action, and law enforcement say theyll go after violators.

We will not tolerate acts of vandalism or destruction of property and well work to identify and arrest those who engage in these unlawful activities, Atlanta Police Department spokesman Carlos Campos told Fox News.

Across the country, 718 Confederate monuments and statues remain, with nearly 300 of them in Georgia, Virginia and North Carolina. There are also 109 public schools named after Gen. Robert E. Lee, Confederate President Jefferson Davis and other historical figures from the Civil War-era, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

From a tactical standpoint, putting law enforcement in riot-like situations with few resources can spell disaster. In some cases, sheriffs argue, the smartest and safest option would be to let protesters destroy artifacts and later pursue criminal charges.

In Baltimore, a monument of a dying Confederate soldier was drenched in red paint over the weekend. City Mayor Catherine Pugh said in a statement shes moving forward on a plan to remove several Confederate city statues, including ones of Lee and Stonewall Jackson, but did not say whether violators who jump the gun would be held criminally responsible.

Confederate symbols have been the topic of heated debate ever since June 17, 2015, when 21-year-old Dylann Roof opened fire in a historically black church in Charleston, S.C.  murdering nine people who were there for a bible study. Roof confessed he committed the crime in hopes of igniting a race war.

Video and pictures surfaced of Roof spitting on and burning the American flag while posing proudly for pictures and waving the Confederate flag.

Since then, there has been a nationwide push to remove Confederate symbols from public places but its also been met with strong resistance.

In April, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu ordered the removal of multiple Confederate statues and faced a stiff backlash. He was forced to have heavy police presence in place when the nighttime removals began.
Marylands Republican governor is seeking the removal from state capital grounds of a statue of the author of the infamous Dred Scott decision upholding slavery.

Gov. Larry Hogan announced his stance on the statue of former Supreme Court Justice Roger B. Taney in a statement Tuesday afternoon, joining the push in multiple states and cities to remove symbols tied to the Confederacy.

I believe removing the Justice Roger B. Taney statue from the State House grounds is the right thing to do, and we will ask the State House Trust to take that action immediately," Hogan said in the statement.

Taney wrote the 1857 Dred Scott opinion, which held that people of African descent could not be U.S. citizens and slaves could not sue for their freedom.

Efforts to remove Confederate statues in cities across the country have been reignited in the wake of the deadly clashes between white supremacists and counter-protesters in Charlottesville last weekend.

CHARLOTTESVILLE VIOLENCE FUELS NEW PUSH TO REMOVE CONFEDERATE STATUES, SYMBOLS

Taney, who served as chief justice of the Supreme Court from 1836 to 1864, was from Maryland. His statue stands in Annapolis outside the State House.

While we cannot hide from our history  nor should we  the time has come to make clear the difference between properly acknowledging our past and glorifying the darkest chapters of our history, Hogan said.

Fox News Alex Pappas, Barnini Chakraborty and Wes Barrett contributed to this report.


Hassan Rouhani, the president of Iran, said Tuesday that Tehran could abandon the 2015 nuclear deal "within hours" if new sanctions from the U.S. are imposed.

Rouhani claimed that the new sanctions would be a breach of the agreement made between Iran and other countries, including the U.S. and China.

Iran's president claimed that his country is capable of restarting its nuclear program within hours -- and quickly bring it to even more advanced levels than in 2015, when Iran signed the nuclear deal with world powers.

"If America wants to go back to the experience (of imposing sanctions), Iran would certainly return in a short time -- not a week or a month but within hours -- to conditions more advanced than before the start of negotiations," Rouhani told a session of parliament broadcast live on state television.

In late July, the U.S. treasury imposed new sanctions on six Iranian firms for having a hand in the development of a ballistic missile program after Tehran launched a rocket capable of putting a satellite into orbit, according to Reuters.

Earlier this month, President Trump signed into law new sanctions on Iran, Russia and North Korea, which passed by Congress. The sanctions also targeted Iran's missile programs as well as human rights abuses.

The U.S. imposed unilateral sanctions after saying that the ballistic missile tests violated a U.N. resolution, which endorsed the nuclear deal and called upon Tehran not to undertake activities related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

Iran has denied that their missile development violates the sanctions because they are not designed to carry nukes.

"The world has clearly seen that under Trump, America has ignored international agreements and, in addition to undermining the (nuclear deal), has broken its word on the Paris agreement and the Cuba accord...and that the United States is not a good partner or a reliable negotiator," Rouhani said.

Trump commented last week that he does not believe that Iran is living up to the spirit of the nuclear deal.

The Associated Press contributed to this report
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi is asking the National Park Service to reconsider a permit for what she called a white supremacist rally set for late August in San Francisco, in the wake of last weekends clashes in Charlottesville, Va.

The NPS should reevaluate its decision and its capacity to protect the public during such a toxic rally, Pelosi said in a statement.

A report in the San Francisco Examiner said the rally by the pro-Trump group Patriot Prayer is slated for Aug. 26 at San Franciscos Crissy Field. The leader of that group has held other rallies and recently spoken out against white supremacy views, though critics like Pelosi have linked the group to white nationalists.

Pelosi, well before Tuesdays statement, has been harshly critical of the Trump administrations response to Charlottesville, where a protester demonstrating against a white supremacist rally was killed in a car attack. President Trump took heat for initially faulting violence on many sides though he specifically condemned white supremacists and neo-Nazis on Monday.

Pelosi, in her statement, questioned whether the permit decision for the rally in San Francisco was made with input from the White House  without offering any proof to back up the suggestion.

Fox News has reached out to the NPS for comment.

The Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which oversees the parkland, reportedly said Patriot Prayer has obtained permits.

The San Francisco Examiner report said counter-protests are being organized, as officials voiced concerns U.S. Park Police might not have enough staff to handle clashes at Crissy Field.

San Francisco takes great pride in being a city of peace which cherishes free speech and the right to public dissent, Pelosi said. However, the National Park Services decision to permit a white supremacist rally at Crissy Field raises grave and ongoing concerns about public safety.
Alabamans head to the voting booth today and will come one step closer to electing a new U.S. senator.

Republican Jeff Sessions vacated his seat in February after he was confirmed as the U.S. attorney general. Former state Attorney General Luther Strange was picked by the governor to finish Sessions' term.

The special election primary was scheduled for Aug. 15. However, if no candidate gets 50 percent of the vote, a runoff election will occur at the end of September.

The general election is set for Dec. 12.

Heres a look at the nine Republicans and seven Democrats who are running to become the next U.S. senator from Alabama.

James Beretta, Republican

Dr. James Beretta, a pain management specialist just south of Birmingham, moved to Alabama 25 years ago to raise his family in a community-oriented area, according to AL.com.

Beretta said he is disillusioned with Washington  which is why he is running for office.

"I'm tired of the corruption," he told AL.com. "I'm tired of the purpose of me being in office is to promote my own ideology and not what's being voted on and passed."

Beretta said he would like to see immigration reform done correctly and thinks there should be a law against texting and driving, AL.com reported. He also thinks the state of health care today is another disaster and said former Gov. Robert Bentley should have expanded Medicaid in Alabama.

Beretta supports President Donald Trump and thinks Trump presents himself to the world in a much better light than the previous administration.

Will Boyd, Democrat

The Rev. Will Boyd is a Democrat, but he doesnt support gun control or abortion.

Im not somebody who wants to take guns away. Im not somebody who wants to kill babies, Boyd told AL.com.

He said he grew up in South Carolina around guns and would just want to enforce existing laws regarding who can purchase a firearm. As for abortion, Boyd described himself as a man of the cloth and emphasized the importance of adoption.

As a U.S. senator, Boyd would support a realistic path to citizenship plan for undocumented immigrants who are living and working peaceably in the U.S., according to his campaign website.

He also opposes the privatization of Social Security, supports legislation that helps fill the health care/Medicaid coverage gap that exists for women in Alabama, opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership and wishes to increase the minimum wage to $14 by 2018.

Joseph Breault, Republican

Despite running for office, Joseph Breault is keeping a low profile. So low, in fact, that the Alabama GOP wasnt even aware of who he is, according to AL.com.

And as the newspaper discovered, Breault doesnt like to speak to reporters, either.

Breault, a chaplain based at the Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, was also the Republican nominee in a Utah House race last year, his LinkedIn page says.

He previously served as chaplain at a VA hospital in Salt Lake City and at the Buckley Air Force base in Aurora, Colo.

Randy Brinson, Republican

A lay minister and former university trustee, Randy Brinson also received a medical degree from the Medical College of Georgia and served as the chief of gastroenterology at Maxwell Air Force Base.

Aside from his professional accomplishments, Brinson also notes his Christian activism on his campaign website. He said he brought WAY-FM, a Christian music station, to Montgomery and headed the nonprofit Christian Coalition of Alabama.

He also founded the conservative organization Redeem the Vote, which seeks to increase voter registration and participation of Christians. Brinson stepped down from the organization to run for Senate, AL.com reported.

Now, Randy continues to advocate strongly for America and Israels interests across the globe, and he values to protect us from the threat of radical jihadists and historical adversaries such as China and Russia, as they seek world domination and threaten our way of life, his website states.

As a senator, Brinson would push to end Common Core, repeal and replace ObamaCare and protect gun rights and the freedom of religion.

Mo Brooks, Republican

Like some of his opponents, U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., was born in South Carolina but moved to Alabama as a child.

But in Alabama, Brooks has been influential in politics and law. He graduated from the University of Alabama Law School, worked as a prosecutor in the Tuscaloosa District Attorneys office and clerked for Circuit Court Judge John David Snodgrass, according to his campaign website.

He was elected to the Alabama House of Representatives in 1982, appointed Madison County district attorney in 1991 and served as the special assistant attorney general for Sessions in 1995 when Sessions was the states attorney general.

Brooks became a U.S. congressman in 2011 and is a member of the House Armed Services Committee.

As a senator, Brooks said he would defend gun rights, support Trumps promise to build a border wall and push for sanctions against hostile nations.

With growing tension between Sessions and Trump  and rumors that Sessions could be next to leave the administration  Brooks offered to band together with the other GOP Senate candidates and drop out of the race to allow Sessions to have his seat back.

Brooks said last month that while he supports Trumps policies, he does not support the public waterboarding of Sessions.

I recognize that President Trump is popular in Alabama. My closest friends and political advisers have told me to not side with Jeff Sessions, that it will cost me politically to do so, Brooks said. My response is simple: I dont care. If this costs me politically, thats fine but I am going to do the right thing for Alabama and America. I stand with Jeff Sessions.

Strange, one of Brooks Republican opponents, said Brooks plan proved he is desperate to get attention.

The pair has also reportedly clashed over whether to keep the filibuster in the Senate.

Vann Caldwell, Democrat

Vann Caldwell is the constable in Talladega County  near the center of the state.

He has worked on a farm and for the public safety division of the University of Alabama, according to his website. After that, he developed his own security business.

"I have experience with working with a diversity of people. Caldwell, 33, told AL.com. I have developed [an] understanding as well as a plan for all of the people. I will give my [very] best in the betterment and growth of this state and nation. It's not magic; it will take hard work and passion, which I have.

He said that as a senator, he would focus on the economy, which in turn would help other issues  education, the military and homeland security.

As for health care policy, Caldwell told AL.com that by virtue of the Democratic beliefs and by virtue of the Republicans beliefs, only Democrats can make a health care law.

Republicans can only outlaw a health care law, he said.

Jason Fisher, Democrat

Jason Fisher is a longtime resident of Alabamas Gulf Coast, but the 45-year-old Democrat grew up working on farms in Eastern Iowa, according to his campaign website.

For Fisher, health care is a top issue  and it hits close to home for him.

Fishers wife unexpectedly died from a blood clot just before her 31st birthday, AL.com reported. He is now the single father of a 2-year-old girl who has special needs, the report said.

"I have had no shortage of bad luck over the last six or seven years when it comes to my personal life," Fisher said. "But there is a gift that comes from that and it is the perspective of understanding what is truly important and how to work with people in a different way to get a better result.

He said he hopes Congress would work to improve the current health care law to make it better for Americans.

Fisher is a vice president and senior consultant at a marketing firm, but he has worked as a business manager, consultant and nonprofit executive, his website states.

Michael Hansen, Democrat

Michael Hansen, 35, said his Senate bid is a long shot  but its a shot hes willing to take anyway.

Hansen, executive director of the health advocacy group Gasp, is openly gay and a Democrat.

In a Medium blog post announcing his run, Hansen noted that folks are sick and tired. He specifically noted the stereotypes that liberals, conservatives, Christians, people of color, men and white people face.

Our list of grievances with one another goes on and on, and its unsustainable, he said.

In the Senate, Hansen said he would fight for a federal law to protect LGBTQ people from discrimination, fight against policies that would systematically oppress people of color and advocate for funding family planning services, including Planned Parenthood.

Doug Jones, Democrat

A former federal prosecutor, Doug Jones said he hope[s] to return to public office.

On his campaign website, Jones criticized Trump for withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris climate change agreement. He also said he supports a womans right to choose and supports Planned Parenthood.

The shenanigans around the 2016 campaign must be pushed aside and full equality for women made the law and the norm in America, he said.

Former Vice President Joe Biden endorsed the candidate this week and joined in on a robocall to voters.

Doug Jones will make a great U.S. Senator so please make sure you get out and vote on Tuesday - and Im hoping youll vote for my friend, Doug Jones, Biden said.

Thus far, Jones has raised more than $158,000 for his campaign, AL.com reported. Thats only about half as much as some of the top GOP candidates, but its most likely more than any of his fellow Democrats, according to the newspaper.

Robert Kennedy Jr., Democrat

No, hes not related to the famous political family. But Robert Kennedy Jr., does hope to become a lawmaker.

Kennedy attended Duke Universitys Fuqua School of Business and was stationed in Japan with the Navy. He spent nine years on active duty.

AL.com reported that Kennedy, 47, remained fairly private during an interview and declined to reveal certain personal details about his life, including his job.

His campaign website simply said Kennedy launched his civilian career in the casino industry, and subsequently transitioned into retail.

Im a fiscally responsible Democrat who leads with faith, Kennedy said on his website. He told AL.com that he considers himself to be a conservative Democrat who supports gun rights.

But he also supports keeping and fixing ObamaCare and abortion rights, according to his website.

Despite staying fairly private about certain details, Kennedy led the field of Democrats in a recent WBRC-TV poll with 49 percent. Jones trailed with 28 percent.

Mary Maxwell, Republican

Mary Maxwell specifically moved to Alabama to run for the open Senate seat  all the way from Australia.

She told AL.com that she learned about the election from a Yahoo News article and decided that, after spending several decades in Australia, it was time for a move. In June, Maxwell became an Alabama resident.

Maxwell, 70, is a unique candidate  she travels the state by Greyhound bus because she doesnt want to drive on the right-hand side of the road, shes written about mind control and teen etiquette and she sued former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney over the administration attacking Iran and Syria without a declaration of war.

Maxwell was born in Massachusetts where she lived until she moved to Australia with her late-husband in 1980.

"I don't mind admitting that as a Northerner, the South wasn't there for me," she told AL.com. "We don't see it, we don't think about it. I was never thinking about Alabama, I'll admit."

Maxwell said she hang[s] out in front of Walmarts when [she] can, distributing copies of the Bill of Rights, usually warmly received, according to her campaign website.

She said she is against war, mandatory vaccinations and privatizing prisons. She also would like to audit the Federal Reserve System and would look into government bullying as a senator.

Roy Moore, Republican

If Chuck Norris had his way, Judge Roy Moore would be the next senator.

The "Walker, Texas Ranger" star endorsed Moore as he is "the real deal," Norris said.

Alabama needs Judge Moore there doing what hes always done: fighting to protect our constitutional rights to life, religious liberty and the freedom to protect ourselves and our families. And he will always put principle over politics, Norris said.

Moore recently served as the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court but was suspended in September 2016 from chief justice for violating the canons of judicial ethics.

Prosecutors said Moore told probate judges to defy the Supreme Court ruling that legalized gay marriage nationwide. Moore said on his Senate campaign website that he retired to seek the office in 2017 and addressed the controversy by saying that he was suspended for upholding the sanctity of marriage as between one man and one woman.

Moore advocated for using the military to protect the countrys southern border, immediately repealing ObamaCare and making homosexuality against military policy on his campaign website.

He is also opposed to abortion, federal funding to Planned Parenthood, same-sex marriage, civil unions and all other threats to the traditional family order.

Bryan Peeples, Republican

Bryan Peeples is young, has never held an elected office and doesnt have a campaign chairman, according to AL.com.

Im doing this by myself, the 37-year-old said.

As a consultant for small- and medium-sized hotels and restaurants, Peeples is focused on middle-income families and mid-sized businesses, he told AL.com.

He is also focused on tax reform and term limits. He would like to donate a portion of his Senate salary to charity, according to a contract on his campaign website states.

Trip Pittman, Republican

State Sen. Trip Pittman is the natural successor to Jeff Sessions in the U.S. Senate, his campaign website states. He would also be the first non-lawyer in more than 100 years to represent Alabama in the Senate, it said.

Pittman ran for state Senate after he survived a plane crash in 2007, according to his campaign website.

Pittman is anti-abortion and supports Trumps call for a border wall. He also supports Trumps call to drain the swamp in Washington, D.C.

Luther Strange, Republican

Strange currently holds Sessions old seat, as he was appointed by the governor to finish out Sessions' term. But Strange hopes to keep the office he was given.

Before his Senate appointment, Strange was Alabamas attorney general and joined a lawsuit against the Obama administration that challenged Obama's executive order on amnesty for undocumented immigrants.

Strange said he stands with President Trump and looks forward to working with the new administration to achieve landmark conservative success, on his campaign website. He also supports repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act and calls for immediate deportation of criminal undocumented immigrants and the construction of a border wall.

And his loyalty to Trump appears to have paid off. The president endorsed Strange in a tweet on August 8.

Senator Luther Strange has done a great job representing the people of the Great State of Alabama. He has my complete and total endorsement! Trump said.

Strange said he was honored to receive the endorsement.

Strange raised $1.8 million in just three months, AL.com reported in July. Hes endorsed by the National Rifle Association and Perry Hooper Jr., the Alabama Trump Victory chairman.

Charles Nana, Democrat

Businessman Charles Nana immigrated to the U.S. from Cameroon in West Africa, and he splits his time between his job in Nashville and his home in Birmingham, AL.com reported.

He unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for Senate last year.

[Nana] is deeply troubled by the way faith is being used by some to serve hate, racism and greed, his campaign website states.

Nana advocates for a new fresh wind, which includes free education through college.

If we can contemplate building a wall with Mexico, we can surely afford giving our children free education from Pre-K to college, he said on his website.

Nana considers himself a Berniecrat and a conservative Democrat, according to AL.com.

Withdrew

- Dominic Gentile, Republican

- Ed Henry, Republican

- Karen Jackson, Republican

- Brian McGee, Democrat
The Trump administration denounced the Islamic State group on Tuesday for carrying out "genocide" against Christians and other religious minorities in areas under its control.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the group is "clearly responsible for genocide" against Christians and Yazidis in Iraq and Shiite Muslims in Syria and elsewhere. His comments were made as the State Department released its annual report on international religious freedom.

Tillerson said he was making the pronouncement to "remove any ambiguity" about previous genocide assertions made by his predecessor, John Kerry, who in March 2016, determined that genocide was occurring in Islamic State-held areas but was criticized by lawmakers and religious groups for not declaring genocide was taking place earlier. Neither administration's genocide determination carries with it any legal obligation for the U.S. or others.

"ISIS has and continues to target members of multiple religions and ethnicities for rape, kidnapping, enslavement and death," Tillerson told reporters in presenting the report.

"ISIS is clearly responsible for genocide against Yazidis, Christians and Shia Muslims in areas it controlled. ISIS is also responsible for crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing directed at these same groups, and in some cases against Sunni Muslims, Kurds and other minorities," Tillerson said. "The protection of these groups -- and others who are targets of violent extremism -- remains a human-rights priority for the Trump administration."

The religious freedom report, which is mandated by Congress, covers 2016 and does not address the Trump administration's decision to temporarily halt the admission of all refugees, many of whom are fleeing religious persecution. The administration has appealed challenges to the suspension of those admissions to the Supreme Court.

An appendix to the report covering refugees said admissions are "a vital tool" in addressing religious persecution and other human rights abuses. It said more than 70 percent of the nearly 85,000 refugees admitted to the U.S. in 2016 came from five nations -- Congo, Syria, Burma, Iraq and Somalia -- where the report itself said that freedom to worship is under threat. Syria and Somalia are among the six mainly Muslim nations that are also included in the administration's visa ban that is also before the Supreme Court.

Michael Kozak, the acting assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, said the administration is concentrating on trying to alleviate repressive conditions to reduce the need for people to flee their homes. He noted that many who have fled would prefer to return to their homes than move abroad. And, he noted that in Iraq and Syria specifically, it was preferable not to disturb millennia-old religious minorities.

"We don't want to uproot communities that have been there for thousands of years and take them elsewhere," he said.

In addition to the Islamic State, Tillerson and the report called out Bahrain, China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Turkey for persecuting, stigmatizing or otherwise restricting the rights of religious minorities.

"Religious persecution and intolerance remains far too prevalent," Tillerson said, noting that some 80 percent of the world's population live "with persecution or limits on their ability to worship."

"We cannot ignore these conditions," he said.
President Trumps Twitter feed briefly featured a cartoon image Tuesday morning of a Trump Train smashing into a person with a CNN logo for a face.

The president, though, was evidently having a difficult morning on Twitter  he soon deleted the retweet, along with another from someone who called him a fascist.

A White House official said the CNN image retweet was "inadvertently posted and as soon it was noticed it was immediately deleted." But the president was swiftly criticized in the media for sharing the cartoon just days after a protester at a white nationalist rally was killed by a car attack in Virginia.

The cartoon itself was similar in nature to the GIF he shared in July which essentially showed him wrestling a CNN logo. The image that was retweeted and later deleted Tuesday said, FAKE NEWS CANT STOP THE TRUMP TRAIN.

The headline tracked with Trumps message a day earlier, when he sparred at the White House with CNNs Jim Acosta and traded charges of fake news at the end of a brief appearance focused on Chinas trade practices.

TRUMP TRADES BARBS WITH CNN STAR JIM ACOSTA

Acosta had asked why Trump wasnt holding a press conference despite indications to the contrary, to which Trump responded he just had a press conference. But Acosta wanted to know if the media could ask more questions.

Trump responded, It doesn't bother me at all, but you know, I like real news, not fake news. You're fake news.

Acosta later said on Twitter, The president said we just had a press conference. We did not. That's fake news.

The CNN image wasnt the only deleted retweet on Trumps account Tuesday morning. He also briefly retweeted somebody who said, hes a fascist.

The Twitter user, @MikeHolden42, later tweeted, I'm announcing my retirement from Twitter. I'll never top this RT.

Trump deleted the retweet.

The exchange was apparently in reference to Trumps retweet of a Fox News article about the possibility he could pardon former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio. The Twitter user seemed to subsequently suggest his fascist comment was directed at Trump.

On Monday, Trump also retweeted, Jack Posobiec, a conservative who has promoted the pizzagate conspiracy theory. This particular tweet was in reference to Chicago violence.
President Trump sought to turn the tables on the Obama administration Tuesday morning on the heels of a report saying they received multiple warnings as far back as 2014 about the Moscow meddling threat, suggesting his predecessor kept it under wraps because he didnt want to anger Russia.

According to report just out, President Obama knew about Russian interference 3 years ago but he didn't want to anger Russia! Trump tweeted.

Politico reported that the Obama administration was warned between 2014 and 2016 that the Kremlin was building networks and operations that could be used to disrupt the U.S. political system.

One Russian source reportedly was quoted in a report saying Russia was operating in the U.S. and Europe and had penetrated media organizations, lobbying firms, political parties, governments and militaries in all of these places.

According to Politico, this report went to the National Security Council as well as intelligence agencies and the State Department in the spring of 2014.

While it did not specifically warn of a threat to American elections, one official told Politico that some felt the administration was quick to dismiss the possibility of Kremlin interference.

The report is sure to fuel Trumps complaints about the way the Obama administration handled concerns about Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign.

Trump previously has accused his predecessor of failing to act last year, as the president now faces numerous investigations  most prominently, a special counsel probe  into the meddling and allegations of collusion with his own associates.

He has long denied those claims.

Former Obama NSC spokesman Ned Price, though, pushed back on the notion the Obama administration stood idly by in the face of Russia warnings.

The Obama administration was nothing but proactive in responding to Russian aggression in all of its forms, he told Politico.
Paul Sutter is an astrophysicist at The Ohio State University and the chief scientist at COSI science center . Sutter leads science-themed tours around the world at AstroTouring.com . Sutter contributed this article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights .

I suppose there is a small chance you'll miss the upcoming total solar eclipse as it crosses the United States on Aug. 21. Maybe you didn't hear about it. Maybe you forgot. Maybe you couldn't figure out how to travel to the line of totality. Maybe you couldn't be bothered to look outside. I won't judge  it's not the first solar eclipse in history, and it won't be the last.

We would ideally get solar eclipses every month during the new moon, when the Earth, moon and sun form a nice, straight line. Unfortunately, however, the orbit of the moon is tilted with respect to the Earth-sun line, so we get these fantastic natural shows only every few years or so.

The next corona show to grace the United States isn't that far off, coming April 8, 2024. That one will come up from Mexico via Texas, track along the Ohio River, and exit via Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. Some folks are already dubbing that one the "Great North American Eclipse." If you live in New England, while you may have one of the worst spots for the 2017 eclipse, you have to wait only seven years for a decent view. [Total Solar Eclipse 2017: When, Where and How to See It (Safely)]

After that, we'll wait until mid-century for another cluster of eclipses, with one in 2044 barely grazing Montana and one on Aug. 12, 2045, following a similar cross-country trek as 2017's. That one will give the southern half of the U.S. a better show, however.

We then have to wait a few more decades until anything substantial occurs. The southeast will get a double dose in 2052 and 2078, and the northeast will get clipped again in 2079. Alaska gets a couple eclipses to enjoy by itself in 2033 and 2097.

The last eclipse of the century, on Sept. 14, 2099, will be a half-hearted cross-country tour, entering through North Dakota, traveling just south of the Great Lakes and exiting via the mid-Atlantic.

Here's the lesson: While there will be plenty of chances to catch a total solar eclipse in your own backyard in the coming century, a century is a very long time  at least in human terms. This year will be one of the best chances for the entire country to enjoy the show, with a large fraction of Americans within a day's drive of totality.

Don't wait!

Follow Paul @PaulMattSutter and facebook.com/PaulMattSutter . Follow us @Spacedotcom , Facebook or Google+ . Originally published on Space.com .
A supersecret sonic weapon being used to attack diplomats in a foreign country may sound like the start of a sci-fi novel, but that's exactly what several U.S. diplomats in Cuba may have been exposed to, the U.S. State Department recently announced.

The physical symptoms, which the State Department would not confirm, but which some news reports have suggested included hearing loss, got so bad that some of these officials had to be recalled from their duties in Havana.

"Some U.S. government personnel who were working at our embassy in Havana, Cuba, on official duties  so they were there working on behalf of the U.S. embassy there  they've reported some incidents which have caused a variety of physical symptoms," Heather Nauert, a spokeswoman for the State Department, said in a news briefing Aug. 9.

After an extensive investigation, U.S. officials determined that a secret sonic weapon was to blame. [Mind Controlled Cats?? 6 Incredible Spy Technologies]

But what exactly could that weapon be, and how could it cause hearing loss without any of the people involved noticing a painful audible sound?

While the mysterious story has a lot of holes, one possibility is that the workers were exposed to infrasound, or low-frequency sound waves that are below the audible hearing range, said Charles Liberman, a hearing loss researcher at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Eye and Ear in Boston.

What we know

The strange symptoms emerged in the fall of 2016, when several employees at the U.S. embassy in Havana began complaining of physical symptoms. Many of the individuals were new to the embassy and some had to return to the United States because of the severity of their symptoms  the details of which have yet to be disclosed. An investigation by the U.S. government concluded that the symptoms could be attributed to a device that operated outside the audible hearing range and was used somewhere, possibly in their houses, Time magazine reported. Right now, there's no word on whether these devices were deliberately used. [Flying Saucers to Mind Control: 22 Declassified Military & CIA Secrets]

In retaliation, the U.S. government expelled two Cuban diplomats on May 23, Nauert said.

Cuba denied any involvement in the bizarre scenario.

"Cuba has never permitted, nor will permit, that Cuban territory be used for any action against accredited diplomatic officials or their families, with no exception," according to a statement from the Cuban government.

Another possibility is that some other hostile group (such as Russian agents) may have initiated the attack, Time reported.

Hard of hearing

There are so many details missing in this story that it's hard to explain exactly what the device could be, Liberman said. However, sound-induced hearing loss requires that the mechanical part of the ear that senses audible sound be overloaded.

"You overstimulate the part of the ear that's mechanically tuned to those frequencies and it falls apart," Liberman.

If the people in the embassy didn't hear anything, that suggests the weapon probably didn't operate in the normal hearing range, or else it would have caused pain and been distracting, Liberman said. (Human audible hearing range is typically between 20 hertz, or cycles per second, and 20 kilohertz). If so, there's little possibility for it to damage the mechanical parts of the ear that are tuned to those frequencies, he said.

Infrasound

However, it's possible the devices somehow generate infrasound  the type of low-frequency sound given off by windmills or wind generators with the beating of the blades. Infrasound is below the human hearing range.

And yet, many people claim these machines are making them sick, and there are several lawsuits from people who live or work near wind farms, claiming they make them sick, according to Liberman.

"There is a growing controversy about people who live near these windmills who start feeling bad," Liberman told Live Science. "They get headaches, they get dizzy, they get nausea." [10 Odd Causes of Headaches]

For instance, a 2014 study in the journal Royal Society Open Science found that low-frequency sounds below the audible range could disrupt little whistles made by the ear, called spontaneous optoacoustic emissions, in response to noise. (How that mapped to symptoms, however, wasn't clear.)

In this instance, one possibility is that the infrasound stimulated the part of the ear not dedicated to hearing  the vestibular system that controls balance, Liberman said. In that instance, the symptoms wouldn't appear immediately.

"You could imagine them being very slow onset and very persistent," Liberman said. "It might take days before you even notice any funny sensations."

That may explain why the State Department refused to describe the symptoms experienced by their employees as including hearing loss, Liberman said.

High-frequency ultrasound

The other type of sound humans can't hear is ultrasound, which is above 20 khz. That's a less likely possibility because high-frequency sound dissipates quickly with distance and in tissue such as the ear. However, high-intensity, focused ultrasound has been used for everything from breaking kidney stones to cauterizing tissues in the body.

But the fact that it doesn't work well across long distances means it's tough to imagine a device could get close enough to the people to work, without them suspecting, Liberman said.

What's more, if a covert acoustic device using ultrasound produced enough energy to permeate and damage the ear from far away, it would probably heat the head up, too, Liberman said.

However, it's theoretically possible that high-frequency ultrasound may have somehow damaged the blood vessels in the ear canal, thereby leading to damage, he said. That seems less likely, but "I've been in science long enough to not discount as impossible things that seem improbable," Liberman said.

Sonic weapons

While the idea of a silent sonic weapon sounds like something out of James Bond, Inspector Gadget or the reject pile of DARPA, the idea of using sound as a weapon has a long history.

For instance, studies show that animals exposed to high-intensity, focused ultrasound can experience lung and brain damage. And a cruise line circling the pirate-infested waters off the Somali coast has taken to using a military-grade "sonic weapon" to deter would-be hijackers, the BBC reported. This long-range device, also known as a sound cannon, can cause permanent hearing loss at distances of up to 984 feet (300 meters), according to the BBC. Other companies have developed a magnetic acoustic device, commonly referred to as a sound laser , that deploys incredibly painful, focused beams of sound to deter people from an area, NPR reported. The Israeli army has also used a device known as "The Scream," which damages the inner ear, causing nausea and dizziness, Wired reported.

Originally published on Live Science .
On August 21, skywatchers in the U.S. will gather to observe a total solar eclipse, a memorable event in which the Moon will gradually cover 100 percent of the Sun.

Thanks to modern science, the reason for an eclipse and its pathway are common knowledge and towns in the eclipses path, from South Carolina to Oregon, are preparing for viewing events.

However, this is a far cry from prior superstitions and myths that kept people indoors and cowering in fear as the Sun disappeared.

2017 TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE WILL BE ONE OF THE EVENTS OF THE CENTURY

There are many reasons that cultures responded to an eclipse with fright rather than with celebration. Chief among them was the sentiment that somehow, there was a conflict between the celestial bodies.

Livescience writes that during a 16th-century eclipse, ancient Aztecs reacted to an eclipse in what was described as tumult and disorder. The detailed account, taken by the missionary Fray Bernardino de Sahagun, goes on to describe shouting and sacrifices of lighter-skinned people alongside general panic that the Sun might disappear forever, and demons of darkness would come down and eat people.

Time has shown that this panic was unfounded, but myths continue be part of the folklore.

From dangers to pregnant women to colorful flowers, these are the 5 of the top solar eclipse superstitions.

Origins.

It might be hard to picture panic ensuing during an eclipse in modern day North America, but according to Livescience, ancient peoples sought to explain an eclipse the best way they could.

Some cultures believed gods and demons were involved, while others cited dragons. The Shan people, (located in present-day Vietnam) thought it was an evil spirit that took the form of a toad.

Hide your kids! Hide your wife!

It is unclear where this wives tale (pardon the pun) originates, but it persists. In the cultures where this myth is believed, women and small children are advised to stay indoors during an eclipse.

According to Space.com, some cultures also believed that children born during an eclipse would turn into mice.

REVEALED: WHAT THE SUNS OUTER ATMOSPHERE WILL LOOK LIKE DURING THE TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE



Dont eat that!

In India, some cultures opt to fast during an eclipse. This is done because it is believed that any food cooked during an eclipse is impure, or worse, poisonous.

Plant something.

Italians have long believed that if flowers are planted during an eclipse, they will be more colorful when its time to bloom.

Settle your differences.

The Batammaliba of Togo and Benin believe an eclipse happens because the Sun and Moon are fighting one another. In order to get the Sun back, people on Earth are advised to settle their differences and make peace.

According to NASA, the last total solar eclipse taking place over contiguous United States occurred on Feb. 26, 1979.

There will be an annular solar eclipse that will take place on October 14, 2023 and there will be another total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024.
The Daily Stormer website is offline after domain providers GoDaddy and Google expelled the white supremacist site.

Visitors to the Daily Stormer site are now greeted with a message explaining that the site is experiencing an outage. It'll be a minute, it adds.

The message directs people to Daily Stormers channel on Discord, a voice and text app designed for gamers.

GODADDY EXPELS WHITE SUPREMACIST SITE DAILY STORMER AFTER ARTICLE ON CHARLOTTESVILLE VICTIM

Although it did not mention Daily Stormer specifically, Discord tweeted Monday that it had shut down the altright.com server and a number of accounts associated with the events in Charlottesville. We will continue to take action against white supremacy, Nazi ideology, and all forms of hate, it said.

Daily Stormer also directed people to its Internet Relay Chat (IRC) network. However, Metro reports that Daily Stormer has also been kicked off that network, citing messages on Daily Stormer forums.

Motherboard reported Monday that users of the Daily Stormer website are moving to a dark web version of the site.

TWITTER USERS IDENTIFY WHITE SUPREMACISTS AT CHARLOTTESVILLE PROTESTS

The dark web, or darknet, refers to private networks built from connections between trusted peers using unconventional protocols. Dark web is just one part of what is known as deep web  a vast network that is not indexed by search engines such as Google and Bing.

Domain provider GoDaddy booted Daily Stormer Monday after an online post disparaging Heather Heyer, who was killed during protests in Charlottesville Saturday.

Heyer was killed when police say a man plowed his car into a group of demonstrators protesting a white nationalist rally. James Alex Fields Jr. has been charged with second-degree murder, as well as three counts of malicious wrongdoing and one count of failing to stop at an accident that resulted in a death.

TECH EXECS CONDEMN CHARLOTTESVILLE VIOLENCE AS TRUMP DENOUNCES KKK, WHITE SUPREMACISTS

Daily Stormer registered its domain with Google Domains Monday, but was promptly expelled by the tech giant. We are cancelling Daily Stormers registration with Google Domains for violating our terms of service, explained Google, in a statement emailed to Fox News on Monday afternoon.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella condemned the attacks in Charlottesville, VA., calling them "horrific" in an email to employees.

In the email, obtained by Quartz, Nadella expanded on his dismay for the attacks, which ended in tragic violence, saying, "There is no place in our society for the bias, bigotry and senseless violence we witnessed this weekend in Virginia provoked by white nationalists."

MICROSOFT STRONGLY DEFENDS THE SURFACE AGAINST CONSUMER REPORTS

Here is the email in its entirety:

This past week and in particular this weekends events in Charlottesville have been horrific. What Ive seen and read has had a profound impact on me and I am sure for many of you as well. In these times, to me only two things really matter as a leader.

The first is that we stand for our timeless values, which include diversity and inclusion. There is no place in our society for the bias, bigotry and senseless violence we witnessed this weekend in Virginia provoked by white nationalists. Our hearts go out to the families and everyone impacted by the Charlottesville tragedy.

The second is that we empathize with the hurt happening around us. At Microsoft, we strive to seek out differences, celebrate them and invite them in. As a leader, a key part of your role is creating a culture where every person can do their best work, which requires more than tolerance for diverse perspectives. Our growth mindset culture requires us to truly understand and share the feelings of another person. It is an especially important time to continue to be connected with people, and listen and learn from each others experiences.

As Ive said, across Microsoft, we will stand together with those who are standing for positive change in the communities where we live, work and serve. Together, we must embrace our shared humanity, and aspire to create a society that is filled with respect, empathy and opportunity for all.

Feel free to share with your teams.

Satya

Nadella's comments come on the heels of other tech executives, including Apple CEO Tim Cook and Intel CEO Brian Krzanich expressing their frustration over the violence.

TECH EXECS CONDEMN CHARLOTTESVILLE VIOLENCE AS TRUMP DENOUNCES KKK, WHITE SUPREMACISTS

Late Monday evening, Krzanich left President Donald Trump's American Manaufacturing Council, becoming the latest CEO to do so after Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier and Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank.

On Tuesday, Scott Paul, the president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, added his name to the growing list of executives leaving the council.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk had left the council earlier this year after Trump said he would pull out of the Paris climate agreement.

Follow Chris Ciaccia on Twitter @chris_ciaccia
Former President Obama tweeted for the first time in weeks in response to the violence in Charlottesvilleand it rapidly became one of the most popular tweets in history.

"No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion..." tweeted Obama on Saturday, quoting Nelson Mandela's autobiography Long Walk to Freedom.

With more than 2.4 million likes as of Tuesday morning, the tweet has now passed Ellen DeGeneres' Oscar selfie to become the second most popular tweet in Twitter's history.

Ariana Grande's response to the Manchester concert attack is the most popular tweet ever, with more than 2.7 million likes. Obama followed the tweet up with more words from Mandela, USA Today reports.

"People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love," he tweeted. "For love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite." According to FavStar, Obama also has the fourth most-liked tweet of all time, written on Jan. 10 of this year: "Thank you for everything. My last ask is the same as my first. I'm asking you to believenot in my ability to create change, but in yours." (This tweet holds the retweet record.)

This article originally appeared on Newser: Obama Charlottesville Tweet Is 2nd Most Popular Ever
Budget Irish airline, Ryanair, has requested that UK airports limit customers to two-drinks before boarding flights, and to not serve alcohol in the airport before 10 am.

This appeal comes after a report from BBC Panorama Investigation shows that arrests of drunken passengers had risen 50 percent in a year.

SPIRIT AIRLINES SUED AFTER DEATH OF 90-YEAR-OLD BAGGAGE HANDLER

Now the airline, which has banned customers from drinking duty-free alcohol aboard flights, is calling for a change in the way airports serve alcohol to people preparing to board planes.

To BBC, Ryanairs Kenny Jacobs said: We are calling for significant changes to prohibit the sale of alcohol at airports, particularly with early morning flights and when flights are delayed.

According to a survey of cabin crew members, more than half of those who responded said they had witnessed disruptive drunken passenger behavior at UK airports. A Virgin airlines cabin crew manager quit her job after 14 years and told Panorama:

People just see us as barmaids in the sky. They would touch your breasts, or theyd touch your bum or your legs. Ive had hands going up my skirt before.

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS

While airlines may limit the amount of alcohol a passenger can drink inflight, they do not have control over how much the airport serves.

Arrest figures from the BBC Panorama Investigation say 255 more people were arrested between February 2016 and February 2017 than the year prior, bringing the year's total to 387 people arrested. The statistics were received from 18 police forces with a major airport in their immediate area.

One airline, Jet2, has already banned the sale of alcohol on flights before 8 am, and Ryanair is pushing for more people to follow suit in creating stricter regulations.
What was supposed to be a short trip for English businessman Samuel Janowsky instead turned into a cross-continental odyssey that left him stranded in Las Vegas, thousands of miles apart from his home and his pregnant wife. Janowskywho was on his way to Essex, England, from Cologne, Germanywas somehow granted access to a flight that was headed nowhere near his intended destination. It wasn't until he woke up from an in-flight nap and saw the plane's live tracking system that he realized he'd blown past England altogether.

Once he discovered the mistake, he was at least able to call his wife and tell her that he wouldn't be getting home any time soon. Indeed, when he actually landed in the United States, things somehow only got worse. From there, he says that he was threatened by United States officials with detainment.

RELATED: HOW TO SCORE THE BEST DEAL FOR YOUR NEXT FLIGHT

"I was treated like a person who tried to enter the U.S. without a visa," he told the Daily Mail. "They seemed to think I had sneaked onto the plane to get a flight to Vegas on the cheap. They even put me in a little cell and completely searched me. I was supervised the whole time I was there."

He was eventually allowed back onto a plane, but had to travel back to Germany instead of going straight to England. Then, after traveling by plane, train, and automobile, Janowsky was finally able to get onto a flight home, two days later than his original arrival date. Now, he's blaming the airline, Eurowings, for putting him through this ordeal in the first place.

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"The whole experience not only cost me time but also I am [$1,034.75] out of pocket for the food, hotel and flight home," he said. "How could I have boarded the aircraft without a valid boarding pass for that flight? Staff checked my boarding pass three times. It shows the ineptitude of Eurowings staff."

Sounds like a nightmare, right?

This article originally appeared on Mens Health
This here is a little story about a boy and his cow.

They may not have won a ribbon at the Iowa State Fair, but Mitchell Miner and his heifer Audri won the internet after a photo of them taking a nap together went viral.

"She likes to lay down quite a bit," Miner told the Des Moines Register on Monday. "I don't really understand the bond with my animal either. She just enjoys my company."

DELICIOUS DEEP-FRIED TREATS FROM THIS YEAR'S STATE FAIRS

Miner, 15, of Williamsburg, Iowa and Audri entered the Iowa State Fair's youth dairy cattle show. They prepared for weeks with Miner leading, clipping, walking and bathing Audri nonstop up to the competition. On the day of the show, Miner woke up at 3 a.m.  his third straight early-morning rise  putting the final touches on Audri.

The heifer ended up placing fifth out of seven contestants, but after hard-fought competition, the two took a nap together. Miners father, Jeremey snapped a few photos of the two and posted them on Facebook the next day.

By early afternoon, the photo racked up over 15,000 interactions and nearly 800 shares.

"I was asleep. I think she was, too," Mitchell said to the Register.

Miner's mother, Laura, told the newspaper that she believes people are usually won over when they see a bond between a kid and their animal.

"I think it's just when you spend that much time with them, they get really comfortable with you," she said.

Laura Miner added that the family borrows most of these animals for the summer. Audri will be heading back to a dairy farm in Blairstown later this fall  after the family's final showing in September.

Click here for more from the Des Moines Register
A man who hurled his dog to its death from a New York City balcony has pleaded guilty to felony animal cruelty.

Yuk Cheung is expecting a sentence of 45 days in jail and five years of probation. He also will have to register on a city animal-abuser list.

Court records show the 35-year-old Cheung entered the plea last week. His lawyer hasn't returned a phone call placed Monday seeking comment.

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown says Cheung threw the 12-year-old pug from a seventh-floor balcony in March while arguing with his ex-girlfriend about the dog. Cheung had left the dog with her.

Prosecutors say Cheung claimed the dog leaped out of his arms but investigators determined it had been thrown.
Stand clear of the dead bodies.

Leaking corpses of people killed by subway trains are often brought to employee lunch rooms and other break areas inside stations, disgusted union officials and sources said on Monday.

In an effort to restore service quickly, bodies are simply carted off to whatever room happens to be nearest, a union source told The Post.

If a lunch room is the nearest, theyll put it in the lunch room, the source said.

And thats enough to make transit workers lose their lunch.

LaShawn Jones, 52, who has been a station agent for 18 years, said she was coming into work at the 103rd Street 1 train station about five years ago  and made a quick stop in the employee bathroom when she saw some NYPD Emergency Service Unit officers handling a body inside.

They werent aware that I was coming in and I wasnt aware that they were in there, Jones told The Post. All I remember seeing was a black bag with purplish stuff.

An MTA source said that bodies are temporarily kept in non-public areas by the NYPD while they wait for the Medical Examiner to show up.

In a statement, an MTA spokesperson said that its of the utmost importance that anyone who dies in the subway system is removed from the tracks and platforms as fast as possible to restore service quickly and to give humane treatment to the deceased and their family.

A City Hall spokeswoman said in a statement that the MEs office and the NYPD, are committed to reducing our response times even further to ensure both the humane treatment of the deceased and the health of subway workers and straphangers.

Click for more from The New York Post.
Thousands of angry protesters took to Trump Tower in New York City as the president arrived Monday night.

President Trump's motorcade managed to take a route that left him out of sight of most protesters.

Police have arrested at least two people: one for disorderly conduct and one for resisting arrest. Aside from that, the protests have been described as largely peaceful. Trumps visit marks his first stop at Trump Tower since he took office in January.

Protesters outside the tower on Fifth Avenue were shouting chants such as "New York hates you" and "love, not hate -- that's what makes America great."

There were also signs that carried messages such as "impeach" and "the White House is no place for white supremacy."

Police reportedly stationed sand-filled sanitation trucks to use as barriers around Trump Tower, in addition to barricades around the main entrance.

Among the protesters: John Post Lee, a New York artist who created an inflatable Trump rat. Lee, who put the rat on display in front of the Plaza Hotel on Tuesday, said he modeled his inflatable figure after the blow-up rats labor unions often use to protest businesses.

Meanwhile, about two dozen Trump supporters were in a seperate pen nearby The Plaza, chanting "God bless President Trump" and carrying American flags, while holding signs that said "now is not the time for divisiveness."

With supporters and anti-Trump demonstrators penned across the sidewalk, both sides yelled at each other, "Go home!"

Trump's homecoming comes two days after a deadly attack unfolded at a rally of white nationalists in Charlottesville, Va.

The president has come under fire for his response to Saturday's attack, which left one woman dead and 19 other people injured.

"To anyone who acted criminally in this weekend's racist violence, you will be held fully accountable. Justice will be delivered. As I said on Saturday, we condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence. It has no place in America," Trump said Monday in Washington.

He denounced that those who incite violence "including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans."

Fox News' Patrick Manning and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Two 19-year-old Oregon women died in an apparent fall from a trail at Mount Hood, officials said Monday.

The bodies of Emma C. Place and Emily D. Lang, both from Portland, were found Saturday around 150 feet below a cliff that was about six miles northwest of Timberline Lodge on the Pacific Crest Trail, according to the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office.

Authorities said the women's bodies were on the rocks at the base of a waterfall.

"It looked like a freak accident," Steve Rollins, rescue leader of Portland Mountain Rescue, told The Oregonian. "A really sad freak accident."

"It looked like a freak accident. A really sad freak accident."  Steve Rollins

The pair had set up camp at the top of the waterfall, with a tent and backpacks, and it appeared they lost their footing on the slippery rocks and fell, according to Rollins.

Deputies have been unable to locate any witnesses, only the hikers who located the bodies of the two, FOX12 Oregon reported.

Both teenagers went to St. Mary's Academy in Portland, The Oregonian reported.

"May the peace of the Lord be with us all and especially bless the families of Emily and Emma with courage and grace," the school wrote in a Facebook post.

Lang had attended Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash., while Place studied at Gonzaga University in Spokane, according to the Oregonian.

Two other people have died this year on Mount Hood, one climbing the mountain and the other in a ski accident.
The murder epidemic in Chicago extended to a house of worship on Sunday, as two parishioners were shot and killed outside a church as a service was about to begin.

Emmanuel Fleming, 34, and Michael Swift, 46, were shot and killed walking up the stairs to the Friendship Baptist Church in South Austin, Chicago CBS reported.

Fleming, a church usher who was entering the church with his three young children, yelled at his kids to take cover when the shooting began, according to the Chicago Tribune.

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The three children made it safely into the church, but Fleming and Swift were shot and killed by two men who had bandannas covering their faces.

They were on their way up the steps to the church, and two gentlemen ran up from Jackson [Boulevard] and basically unloaded on them, Rev. Reginald Bachus told the Chicago Tribune. Its just hard for me to believe that something like this could happen on a Sunday morning."

He added: Two young men on their way to church...I think thats the hardest part for me to grasp.

"Its a shame the kids know how to hit the floor like that, but its a good thing they did.  Witness at Friendship Baptist Church

The murders of Fleming and Swift come as Chicago is on pace to surpass its record 2016 total of 781 homicides. The city had already passed 400 homicides with a week to go in July.

Witnesses said the service was beginning when Fleming's children burst into the church and yelled: I want my dad!

The pastor was just about to get up and we heard about seven shots  bang-bang-bang bang, a church member, who did not want to be identified, told the Chicago Tribune. Everyone hit the floor, even the kids. Its a shame the kids know how to hit the floor like that, but its a good thing they did.

The two gunmen, who witnesses said emerged from a gas station across the street from the church before opening fire, escaped in a gray or silver SUV.

Deputy Al Nagode of the Chicago Police Department said authorities were investigating. The police did not immediately say what the motive may have been.

$393 MEGA MILLIONS WINNING TICKET SOLD IN CHICAGO SUBURB

We are extremely close with our faith-based organizations over there, Nagode said. It certainly is a troubled area, and we dedicate a tremendous amount of resources to it...in an attempt to help the community out in any way we can.
Three more protesters were arrested Wednesday for participating in the toppling of a nearly century-old statue of a Confederate soldier in North Carolina.

Dante Strobino, 35, and Ngoc Loan Tran, 24, were arrested when they attended a court hearing for another woman who was charged Tuesday for climbing a ladder to attach a rope to the bronze soldier. Peter Gilbert, 39, was arrested later Wednesday afternoon.

The Durham County Sheriffs office said the three arrested Wednesday were charged with two felonies related to inciting and participating in a riot that damaged property.

The woman who climbed the ladder, Takiyah Thompson, was charged with the same counts a day before. She is a student at historically black North Carolina Central University.

WARNING: ARREST VIDEO CONTAINS PROFANITY

The three are affiliated with the Workers World Party, which helped organize the Durham protest in response to deadly violence over the weekend during a white nationalist rally Charlottesville, Virginia.

The North Carolina statue, which was dedicated in 1924, was brought down after Thompson allegedly climbed up and attached a rope. Demonstrators then pulled down it down.

Seconds after the monument fell, protesters began kicking the crumpled bronze monument.

Im tired of white supremacy keeping its foot on my neck and the necks of people who look like me, Thompson said at a news conference. That statue glorifies the conditions that oppressed people live in, and it had to go.

The Durham protest was in response to a white nationalist rally held in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend, which lead to three deaths. Although the violence in Virginia has prompted fresh talk by government officials about bringing down symbols of the Confederacy around the South, North Carolina has a law protecting them, according to The Associated Press. The 2015 law prevents removing such monuments on public property without permission from state officials.

Durham County Sheriff Mike Andrews said Tuesday that his deputies were working to identify others involved in the incident and plan to pursue felony charges against them.

Late Tuesday, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper called for the removal of any remaining Confederate monuments on state property, directing state officials to study the cost and logistics of moving them to historical sites or museums.

"We cannot continue to glorify a war against the United States of America fought in the defense of slavery," Cooper said in a statement. "These monuments should come down."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
When protesters, angry over the deadly incidents in Virginia this weekend, decided to take down a nearly century-old statue of a Confederate soldier in North Carolina on Monday, law enforcement stood back and watched.

At no time did officers with the Durham Police Department or deputies with the Durham County Sheriffs Office intervene as activists brought a ladder up to the statue and used a rope to pull it down, according to multiple media reports.

No one was arrested Monday, however, a day later, Durham County Sheriff Mike Andrews announced investigators were working to identify the protesters and planned to bring criminal charges against them.

We decided that restraint and public safety would be our priority, Andrews said in a statement posted on his agency's website. As the Sheriff, I am not blind to the offensive conduct of some demonstrators nor will I ignore their criminal conduct.

He continued: My deputies showed great restraint and respect for the constitutional rights of the group expressing their anger and disgust for recent events in our country. Racism and incivility have no place in our country or Durham.

Calls seeking additional comment were not immediately returned Tuesday.

The Confederate Soldiers Monument in Durham was dedicated in 1924 and shows a soldier holding a rifle. After it came down, a diverse crowd of dozens cheered, and some even began kicking the crumpled bronze monument.

Some took pictures standing or sitting on the toppled soldier, in front of a pedestal inscribed with the words: "In Memory of the Boys Who Wore The Gray.

The Durham demonstration followed a white nationalist rally held in Charlottesville, Virginia, during the weekend. One woman was killed Saturday after a man, who police believe was one of the white nationalists, drove his car into a group of peaceful counter-protesters.

Although the violence in Virginia has prompted fresh talk by government officials about bringing down symbols of the Confederacy around the South, North Carolina has a law protecting the statues. The 2015 law prevents removing such monuments on public property without permission from state officials.

In response to the statue in Durham being torn down, Democratic North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper tweeted: "The racism and deadly violence in Charlottesville is unacceptable but there is a better way to remove these monuments."

After the statue fell, several dozen protesters congregated on the street in front of the old courthouse as police cruisers blocked off the street, and officers looked on  some filming the events.

The Durham Police Department said in a statement Monday that officers monitored the protests that occurred throughout the city to ensure the protests were conducted in a safe manner and that no infractions occurred within city jurisdiction.

In the statement, police said because the Confederate monument was located on county property, no arrests were made by DPD officers, as the county sheriffs office has jurisdiction over all county buildings and landmarks.

Its unclear if the statue will be repaired and replaced. Calls to county officials were not immediately returned.

In his statement Tuesday, Andrews said he is asking city and county officials to establish guidelines and safe spaces for protesters to prevent demonstrations from becoming disruptive and as we witnessed in Charlottesville, dangerous.

My Agency has been the focus of demonstrations for more than a year, most of them peaceful, Andrews continued. However, now may be the time for Durham to consider what is the best way to respond to continued protests while respecting every residents right to voice their opinion.

Laura Ingraham, founder and editor-in-chief of Lifezette, told Fox and Friends on Tuesday that protesters who tear down Confederate monuments are eradicating American history.

When you see bands of criminals, which is what they were yesterday, ripping down public property and being celebrated in the American media for doing so, we have a real problem on our hands, she said. This is not about racial healing or racial unity when you see property being destroyed. That's not what it's about. It's about the eradication of history and acknowledgment that we had really difficult, horrible moments in our country's history that we were able to overcome.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A soldier at Fort Campbell was hailed as a hero Sunday after he dove into a river to save an autistic teen from drowning when the teenager became separated from his family during a tubing trip.

Martie Weeks told FOX17 News she was floating down the Red River in Clarksville, Tenn. with her three sons and some friends when the group came across a fallen tree that created a strong current, knocking her 17-year-old autistic son, Ronnie Harris, over.

"The current picked up, and the tree, along with the rocks at the bottom of the river, create a kind of rip tide," Weeks said.

Weeks tried to paddle to her son, who was trying to stand but kept being knocked over in the current, struggling to keep his head above the water.

"I was thinking I don't want to drown right here. I don't want to drown today," Harris said. "I don't want to die today."

The mother said she watched as her son slowly stopped struggling, and ended up face down in the river.

"I just kept praying, 'God please don't take this child from me, please, somebody hear me,'" she told FOX17. "I just kept praying."

Her prayers were answered when a good Samaritan, U.S. Army staff sergeant Timothy Hansen, dove into the river and rushed to her son's aid, picking him up and doing chest compressions until he was able to spit out the river water and breathe again.

"I turn around and I see somebody go under a tree, and I dropped my phone and everything I had in my hands and I took off running to go help and assist," Hansen said.

After rescuing the 17 year old, Hansen was able to reunite the family, pulling the mother and son down the river by a rope to a spot where they could get on land.

"It was just get him out of the situation so we can get him to make sure he's still breathing," Hansen told FOX17. "At that point I started moving back toward the shore and that's when I saw his face, and he was spitting up a lot of water and I was like, 'at least he's breathing, that's good.'"

Weeks said she wanted to share the news of Hansen's heroic actions, which gave her a "renewed sense of humanity."

"There were other people in the water in kayaks who just watched, taking out their phones and recording it all," she said. "They didn't help, but he did."

Weeks added that Hansen is "definitely our hero."

"That's not an easy title to earn," said Hansen, who has been in the Army for 10 years and served in Iraq and Afghanistan. "I'm just glad I could help."
Just two days after a white nationalist rally in Virginia turned deadly, a 17-year-old vandal in Boston allegedly hurled a rock through one of the panels at the New England Holocaust Memorial  shattering the glass and raising concerns of more violent hate crimes in the wake of the chaos in Charlottesville.

Both officials in Boston and civil rights advocates said that an investigation needs to be completed, but this is the second time this summer that a glass panel at the memorial has been vandalized and comes as minority groups are reporting a sharp uptick in hate crimes across the country.

The Anti-Defamation League noted that anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S. jumped 86 percent in the first quarter of 2017 compared to same period last year. Other minority groups, from the Latinos and Asians to Muslims and the LGBT community, have also reported a spike in hate crimes directed at them over the last year and a half.

The threat is not over, Jonathan A. Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League said in a statement. The hate groups are feeling emboldened and are already organizing a number of other rallies.

While the reasons that hate crimes are on the rise is debatable, what is not is that white nationalist and white supremacist groups have recently become more encouraged and more public in their views.

They are in a stronger position than they have been in decades, Steven Hahn, a Pulitzer Prize winning historian at New York University, told Fox News. The feel energized by Charlottesville and by the presidential election last year. I think we are in for an extended period of incidents like we saw in Virginia.

Hahn noted that while endemic racism and hate crimes are nothing new in the United States, the growth in far right groups like Vanguard America, Identity Evropa and the League of the South really started to pick up steam following the election of Barack Obama in 2008.

Obamas presidency paired with the emergence the Black Lives Matter movement, the increasing diversification of the country and a decline in blue collar careers left some white Americans feeling marginalized and became prime fodder for the white nationalist movement, he said. The number of hate groups as designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center topped 1,000 for the first time ever in 2011 and while that number of groups dropped to 912 last year that likely understates the growing level of white nationalists in the country.

Its like in the 1920s with the Ku Klux Klan, Hahn said. What was striking was not that number of KKK members but the number of people who were allies of the group. Today the number of white nationalists dont actually reveal the range of people who also sympathize with them.

Experts and civil rights advocates contend that the campaign and subsequent election of Donald Trump only further vitalized these groups as the presidents call for stricter immigration controls and a ban on Muslims entering the country resonated with white nationalists.

Corey Saylor, the director of the department to monitor and combat Islamophobia at CAIR, said that while the U.S. Muslim community saw spikes in hate crimes following the terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, his organization has noticed an unprecedented spike in incidents since the start of 2017. CAIR recently reported a 91 percent jump in hate crimes directed at Muslims for the second quarter of 2017 compared to the same period in 2016.

In the time we have taken statistics, this is largest jump we have ever seen, Saylor said. Trump creates an atmosphere of anger and people feel emboldened to go out to commit these crimes without repercussions.

Trump did condemn white supremacist groups  declaring racism is evil  but only after two days of public equivocation and internal White House debate that infuriated many citizens and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

The heads of the black, Hispanic, Asian and progressive caucuses are calling in a letter for the firings of White House staff aides Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller and Sebastian Gorka. The letter asserts their continuing presence in the White House is emboldening a resurgent white supremacist movement in America.

Despite the widespread condemnation of white nationalist groups, however, experts contend that their influence and the subsequent hate crimes will never disappear in the U.S.

At this particular moment in the U.S., the white nationalist right see the green light and see the election in 2016 as a sign that they are on the rise, Hahn said. People who think this is going to fade away have no sense of American history.
The husband of Joyce Mitchell, a former employee at a New York prison who helped two inmates escape in June 2015, said he was angry his wifes parole hearing was delayed and wants her home.

Lyle Mitchell told the Daily Mail that he believes his wife got a raw deal compared to Gene Palmer, a former guard at the Clinton Correctional Facility, who was also found guilty of aiding the escape of inmates Richard Matt and David Sweat.

All I want is for my wife to be coming home, Mitchell told the Daily Mail.

MASSIVE TREE FALLS IN NEW YORKS CENTRAL PARK, INJURING 3 KIDS, ADULT

Shes been inside for more than two years, but Palmer only got six months -- and was out in four, Mitchell said.

Palmer knew everything that was going on, but it was easier for them to put all the blame on my wife, not him, Mitchell said. What he did was ten times worse than what my wife did.

Palmer admitted to granting the two inmates special privileges in exchange for information regarding other prisoners. He also admitted to giving the two prisoners frozen hamburger meat that Mitchell used to smuggle hacksaw blades to Matt and Sweat.

I just want her home where she belongs, Mitchell said. I just want for us to be left alone.

Joyce Mitchell, who worked as a tailor at the prison, admitted to becoming close with Matt and Sweat.

Mitchell, who admitted to having sexual relations with the two men, agreed to be their escape driver but checked herself into a hospital the day of their escape after suffering a panic attack.

The two men were reportedly planning on killing Mitchells husband after they escaped.

Matt and Sweat escaped Clinton Correctional Facility on June 6, 2015, prompting a weeks-long statewide manhunt. Matt was killed by a U.S. Customs and Border patrol agent on June 26. Sweat was wounded and captured by a trooper two days later. The manhunt cost New York's state police and Department of Corrections $23 million in overtime.

Mitchell was sentenced to 2 1/3 to seven years in prison. She remains behind bars at the Bedford Hills Correctional Center in Westchester County.

NYC TEEN CHOKES MOMS EX-BOYFRIEND AFTER WITNESSING HIM ASSAULT HER, COPS SAY

Mitchell, 53, known by her nickname Tillie, had her first parole hearing in February but was denied. Her hearing that was scheduled for last week was her second attempt for parole, but she will now have to wait until November due to the delay.

Mitchell said she helped the two inmates because they made her feel special.

I was going through a time where I didn't feel like my husband loved me anymore. . . I was going through depression, and I guess they saw my weakness and that's how it all started, Mitchell said.

Their attention made me feel good.
An illegal immigrant who returned to the country after being deported to Mexico is accused of raping a 7-year-old girl thousands of times.

Victor Francisco Michel-Lara, 32, of Cedar City, Utah was arrested Sunday and faces first-degree felony charges of rape of a child, according to his arrest report. He was also placed on an immigration detainer.

OHIO WOMAN POSTS SNAPCHAT VIDEO OF ALLEGED RAPE BY STEPGRANDFATHER, COPS SAY

The girl told investigators that Michel-Lara molested her many times in the last six months and had raped her thousands of times, the St. George Daily Spectrum reported.

He admitted to inappropriately touching the girl, but said it happened accidentally when he rubbed lotion on her, the newspaper said. He also allegedly said the rape accidentally happened when the two were rough housing.

PENNSYLVANIA MAN CONVICTED OF ATTEMPTED RAPE WROTE DESCRIPTIONS OF HIS 'PERFECT' VICTIMS

"He stated that she moves around a lot with the lotion making his fingers slippery (and) they accidentally slipped into her vagina," an investigator wrote in a police report, the newspaper reported.

Michel-Lara has been deported from the U.S. twice, Immigration and Customs Enforcement told Fox News -- once in December 2005, through San Ysidro, Calif., and another time in July 2013 through El Paso, Tx.

He is being held on $200,000 bail at the Iron County Jail.
Arkansas' capital city is on pace for its deadliest year in decades after a string of recent murders shook Little Rock.

Little Rock police said the city's 42nd homicide victim was reported Monday, a man who was found face down 10 feet off a frontage road near Interstate 30. The city's 42 homicides so far this year are a stark increase from the 19 total killings in 2016.

Police spokesman Lt. Steve McClanahan told the Associated Press a passer-by called to report seeing a body about three blocks away from where shots had been reported overnight.

"He's far enough off the roadway that I guarantee you hundreds of vehicles drove past him this morning before this person saw him. No doubt," McClanahan said.

Antwon Bryant, 28, of Little Rock, had been shot multiple times, and an autopsy was ordered, a police statement said.

The death, plus two others since Friday, puts Little Rock on a pace to approach an annual total not seen since the city's gang wars of the early 1990s -- a conflict so bad HBO aired a documentary about it: "Gang War: Bangin' in Little Rock."

Justice Department figures showed 68 deaths in 1993 attributed to murder or manslaughter, but McClanahan told the AP other killings, such as justifiable homicide, pushed the total to 78 that year.

Mayor Mark Stodola, who was the local prosecutor during the height of Little Rock's gang wars, said the prevalence of drugs -- plus people wanting to take the law into their own hands -- was driving a general crime rate increase. The gang wars in 1993 were largely about territory.

"We went the month of June without a homicide, and now we've equaled what we had last year and we have four-and-a-half months left in the year," Stodola said. "I'm hoping and praying that these people who are using violence to settle their differences will come to their senses."

He said the city is offering $10,000 rewards for information leading to a homicide conviction.

The uptick in violence made national headlines in June, when 25 people were shot after gunfire rang out at a rap show at a downtown nightclub.

After the shooting, the mayor announced a series of initiatives to address crime in the city, in addition to the creation of an FBI-lead task force to target violent crime, Arkansas Online reported.

"It's not good for residents, it's not good for business, it's not good for visitors, it's not good for day-to-day going about our lives," Police Chief Kenton Buckner told the newspaper Monday at the scene of a triple shooting. "So it's frustrating to everyone who has any kind of vested interest in the city of Little Rock."

Community activists are also trying to combat the crime spike by telling witnesses they should not be afraid to come forward.

"You've got to keep this on people's minds: We've got to turn these people in," Rev. Benny Johnson, a longtime leader of the Stop the Violence movement, told the AP. "It used to be your neighbor would get on you if they saw you do something. Now people don't even know who their neighbors are."
A North Carolina department store is trying to figure out how several mannequins were posed to look as if they were making Nazi salutes  just one day after the deadly clashes between white nationalists and counter-protesters in Virginia.

A customer inside a Belk department store in Cary spotted the unusual arm positioning of at least three mannequins sometime after 4:30 p.m. Sunday and posted a photo Facebook, WTVD reports.

How many people walked by this and didnt notice, oblivious, or saw it and did nothing? the customer wrote, according to The News & Observer. Awestruck, I watched about twenty before I couldnt take it. Its about action, and when it comes to racism and inequality, no act of defending love and equality is small. You better believe Im not letting this or any other grotesque act of hate creep in or stand. These arms are coming down.

The shopper, who asked to remain anonymous, said she contacted the stores corporate offices over the incident, which came just one day after a group of white nationalists clashed with counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Va., where a man plowed his car into a group of people, killing Heather Heyer, 32, and injuring 19 others.

A spokesman for the department store said an investigation is ongoing. A statement will be released once the internal probe is complete, spokesman Andy Izquierdo said.

CLICK TO READ MORE FROM THE NEW YORK POST.
An off-duty Maryland state trooper was arrested after a DUI-related crash that injured a New Jersey woman and child, officials said.

Trooper First Class Tanner Nickerson was driving in Cecil County, Md., on Sunday evening with the emergency lights on in a marked Maryland State Police Chevrolet Tahoe when he rear-ended a Mercedes driving in the same direction, Maryland State Police stated in a news release.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT IN UTAH WHO WAS DEPORTED RAPED 7-YEAR-OLD GIRL 'THOUSANDS OF TIMES,' POLICE SAY

The driver of the Mercedes, a 49-year-old woman from Cherry Hill, N.J., and her 10-year-old passenger, were taken to a nearby hospital and treated for minor injuries.

Nickerson, who has been with the state police force for six years, has been charged with driving under the influence, driving while impaired, failure to control speed to avoid a collision, reckless driving and negligent driving.

He has been suspended with pay.
A former Union County middle school gym teacher was arrested Monday for a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old student, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said Monday.

Shawnetta D. Reece, 40, of Blairsville, was sexually involved with the student in 2013, the agency said in a news release.

Reece was arrested after the Union County Sheriffs Office received information on the alleged relationship, and asked the GBI to assist with the investigation.

OKLAHOMA TEACHER, 31, WHO HAD SEX WITH STUDENT, 15, ORDERED TO PAY $1 MILLION

"The student was moving from the 8th grade into the 9th grade during this time," the news release stated. "As a result of the investigation, Reece has been arrested for child molestation and sexual assault by persons with supervisory or disciplinary authority."

Officials said once the investigation is completed, the case will be presented to the Enotah Judicial Circuit District Attorney for prosecution.
A 25-year-old Alabama woman reported missing has been found alive after telling deputies she had been lost in the woods for 28 days.

Lisa Theris lost 50 pounds during her ordeal, authorities said.

She had no shelter, no shoes, no phone, no purse and was all by herself in thousands of acres of isolated, dense forest, WSFA-TV reported.

She said she was drinking water out of a brook and eating berries and mushrooms, Bullock County Sheriff Raymond Rogers told the station.

The bugs had really been on her and she had a lot of scratch marks, he said. We didnt ask her too many questions. We want to make sure her health is good.

The station reported going to her home. She declined to comment.

A passing motorist found her Saturday and called authorities, WTVY reported.

Ive been doing this now going on 15 years and Ive never seen anything like it, Sgt. Chad Faulkner of the Bullock County Sheriffs Office told the station. Her will to live is incredible. I hate to classify it as a miracle, but its a miracle.

Will Theris posted a photo of his sister after she was found.

28 days stranded out in the wilderness and Lisa is still standing, strongest person i know, he said on Facebook.

She is severly weakened, she is in pain, she is emaciated, her sister Elizabeth Theris told WSFA.

Lisa Theris was last seen July 18. The missing persons report said she is 5-feet-5, and 145 pounds.

She was with two men when she disappeared, the Troy Messenger reported.

The pair have been charged with breaking into a hunting camp and stealing $40,000 worth of property, including ATVs, the paper reported.

Investigators said she was with them when they broke into the camp, the paper reported.

WSFA reported that according to investigators Theris didnt know that the men were planning to burglarize the camp and didnt want to have anything to do with that.
The Mormon church is specifically condemning white supremacist attitudes in its strongest statement since a Virginia rally over a Confederate War monument descended into deadly violence.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said Tuesday that any members who promote white-supremacist views aren't adhering to its teachings.

Leaders say that some in white supremacist communities assert the Mormon church is neutral or even supportive of their views, but "nothing could be further from the truth."

Leaders say such views are morally wrong and sinful.

A church spokesman declined further comment.

The condemnation comes two days after church leaders issued a more general statement against growing intolerance after one woman was killed and others injured when a car rammed into a crowd of anti-white nationalist protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The mother of a newborn girl -- who was found last week abandoned and covered in ant bites outside a Texas apartment building -- is facing up to 20 years in prison for felony child abandonment, police said.

The Harris County Sheriffs Office announced Monday the charges against Sidney Woytascxky, 21, who admitted to being the mother, but claimed she didnt know she was pregnant until she gave birth to the baby at home.

Investigators said they believe that Woytasczyk did in fact know she was pregnant but wanted to hide the pregnancy, KHOU reported.

The baby was discovered last Thursday after a passer-by heard her crying outside the Houston apartment complex. Police said the baby had her umbilical cord ripped out.

Albert Peterson, who found the baby, told Channel 2 he was walking outside when he heard something like a cat.

She was there on the ground in the flower bed with ants, he said. She was covered from head to toe and all in her ears...She had a lot of strength, too. She was fighting.

A video has been released showing the moment the baby was discovered.

Click here to see video. WARNING: Graphic images.

Were talking about a newborn child that was exposed to the outside for, like, six hours unattended, without even a blanket  so, thats, thats what Im concerned about, CPS Attorney Dan Phi Nguyen told KHOU.

Woytasczyk was arrested after police found a trail of blood that led to her apartment.

The baby girl on Tuesday remained in the neonatal ICU at Texas Childrens Hospital, where she is being treated for a bacterial infection and rapid heartbeat.

Lead investigator Kimberly Thomas said the girl's father has not been charged and no other charges are expected.

Deandre Skillern has claimed to be the babys father. He and the babys maternal grandmother are now reportedly fighting for custody.

Skillern said he had no idea Woytasczky was pregnant and only found out when the baby was discovered, the Daily Mail reported.

Im in shock," neighbor Roger Coreas said. "Theres a hospital not even a block down the road, and if the mother was so worried about the infants safety she couldve easily gone to drop off the baby.
Stand clear of the dead bodies.

Leaking corpses of people killed by subway trains are often brought to employee lunch rooms and other break areas inside stations, disgusted union officials and sources said Monday.

In an effort to restore service quickly, bodies are simply carted off to whatever room happens to be nearest, a union source told The Post.

If a lunch room is the nearest, theyll put it in the lunch room, the source said.

And thats enough to make transit workers lose their lunch.

LaShawn Jones, 52, who has been a station agent for 18 years, said she was coming into work at the 103rd Street 1 train station about five years ago  and made a quick stop in the employee bathroom when she saw some NYPD Emergency Service Unit officers handling a body inside.

They werent aware that I was coming in and I wasnt aware that they were in there, Jones told The Post. All I remember seeing was a black bag with purplish stuff.

Jones returned to the bathroom on her lunch break  and though the body was gone, she saw some hair and scalp and basically body parts in the sink, she said.

Read more from The New York Post.
The country should be careful with the privatization of Turboatom (Kharkiv), the largest turbine manufacturer in Ukraine, taking into account the large interest of Russian companies in it, acting Head of the State Property Fund of Ukraine (SPF) Dmytro Parfenenko has said.

"The large question arouses: should we speed up the privatization of this enterprise, as the key interested entities are Russian companies, which cannot be buyers under Ukrainian law," he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.

He said that the risk that if Turboatom is put up for sale Russian companies will try to buy it via other structures is high.

"In the current situation this privatization should be moved carefully," Parfenenko said.

Commenting on meeting the privatization target of the 2017 national budget in the amount of UAH 17.1 billion, which was met only by UAH 110 million in H1 2017, he said that the indicator of the first six months could be significantly improved only thanks to the sale of blocking stakes in eight energy companies and maybe Odesa Port-Side Plant at the end of this year, as the privatization of controlling stakes in six regional supply companies and Centrenergo could be held no earlier than in 2018.

He said that these auctions are delayed, as the market is waiting for the new legislative base, in particular, RAB tariffs.

As for 78% of shares in Centrenergo, he said that the SPF recently finished selecting advisors and a consortium headed by E&Y won the tender. The Cabinet of Ministers is to finally approve the advisor. The draft resolution has been submitted to the Cabinet, he said.
The leader of a Ku Klux Klan group based in North Carolina said he was glad that a woman died and others were injured after a man allegedly drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters Saturday at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va.

James Alex Fields Jr., 20, of Ohio, has been charged with second-degree murder, three counts of malicious wrongdoing and one count of failing to stop at an accident that resulted in death. Heather Heyer, 32, a Virginia paralegal, was killed in the incident and at least 19 other people were injured.

Justin Moore, the leader of the Grand Dragon for the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, told WBTVs Steve Crump in a voicemail that he was glad Heyer was killed and others were injured in the vehicle attack.

"I'm sorta glad that them people got hit and I'm glad that girl died," Moore said. "They were a bunch of communists out there protesting against somebody's freedom of speech, so it doesn't bother me that they got hurt at all."

"I think we're going to see more stuff like this happening at white nationalist events," Moore added.

CHARLOTTESVILLE SUSPECT ACCUSED OF BEATING HIS DISABLED MOTHER, THREATENING HER WITH KNIFE, 911 CALLS SHOW

The KKK group is based in Pelham, N.C., and some members were in Charlottesville on the day of the protests.

"We were out there and I seen a lot of communist flags and anti-fascist and we're going to see more stuff like this," Moore said. "White people are getting fed up with the double-standard setup in America today by the controlled press."

"We should have been able to go out there and have our protest and it should have been peaceful but it's the anti-fascist and the communists continuing to try and stop us," Moore said. "So I think there will be more violence like this in the future to come."

Moore applauded Fields actions and called the suspect a white patriot.

"Nothing makes us more proud at the KKK than we see white patriots such as James Fields Jr., age 20, taking his car and running over nine communist anti-fascist, killing one [expletive] lover named Heather Heyer," Moore said in the voicemail. "James Fields hail victory. It's men like you that have made the great white race strong and will be strong again."

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe called Heyer brave and tweeted: She died standing up against hate & bigotry. Her bravery should inspire all to come together.

INTEL CEO IS THIRD TO EXIT TRUMPS MANUFACTURING COUNCIL AFTER CHARLOTTESVILLE

On Saturday, white nationalists  including neo-Nazis, skinheads and Ku Klux Klan members  descended on the city to rally against plans to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from a city park. Hundreds of other people came out to protest against them.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
PHILADELPHIA (WTXF) - A picture taken of a Philadelphia firefighter is causing controversy. Tonight, while some are calling the photo insensitive and racist the firefighter himself is apologizing for what he calls a very bad joke.

"I am very disappointed in myself and I'm very sorry."

John Deluisi says he was drunk when he snapped a photo and tagged an African American co-worker at the Philadelphia Fire Department. The photo shows Deluisi with a burning tiki torch, wearing confederate flag hat and a caption saying headed to Virginia.

The post comes just days after images of Charlottesville as the city erupted in violence between neo-Nazi white nationalists and protesters.

"You know I was drinking way too much. It was on my back deck and me and we joke back and forth and it was just a stupid dumb joke," Deluisi told FOX 29.

Deluisi says the picture was all a bad joke. He says he was responding to another post referencing Charlottesville. He also admits it went too far. It has since been taken down. But not before offending many residents who pay Deluisi's salary.

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney calls the post "deeply disturbing."

The Philadelphia Fire Department tell us it's launched an investigation that could result in disciplinary action. As for Deluisi, he's afraid the post will effect his nearly 20 years as a career firefighter.

"I am and idiot. I am very sorry. Maybe I get too carried away on Facebook and I put something up there that is stupid. I thought he would get a joke about it. I really did it was very stupid," Deluisi said.
A World War II soldier from Tennessee is finally coming home nearly 74 years after his death.

The remains of U.S. Army Staff Sgt. William Turner, of Nashville, were due to arrive Tuesday morning at the Nashville Airport, according to a press release from the Tennessee Department of Veterans Services.

Turners Hells Fury B-26 bomber was shot down on a bombing mission targeting a German airport in Amsterdam on Dec. 13, 1943.

Five other crew members were also killed. The pilot survived and was taken prisoner.

Turner was just 20 at the time of the mission, an aerial engineer assigned to the 555th Bomb Squadron, 386th Bomb Group, according to the press release.

He's set to be buried Aug. 22. Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam has declared a day of mourning and ordered flags at state buildings to be flown at half-staff.

William Turner was among the bravest American heroes to fight for our country in World War II, Haslam said. We are grateful that he will be laid to rest on Tennessee soil and his family will have the closure and certainty of truly knowing his final resting place.

An account of the mission on the B26.com website says an aerial photographer caught sight of Hells Fury as it was going down and got off two snaps.

The doomed planes pilot, Ray Sanford ,told the website the flak "was so thick you could have walked on it!

All I really remember was the hit and immediate loss of control, he said. I think I radioed, Were going down, but Im not sure, it all happened so fast.

According to the press release, the remains of the six crew members were recovered but only two crew members were able to be identified between 1946 and 1949.

The unidentifiable remains were buried at Arlington National Cemetery in 1951.

Ten years ago, the Royal Netherlands Army Recovery and Identification Unit excavated the crash site and recovered more human remains.

The Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used DNA and anthropology analysis to identify the remains as Staff Sgt. Turner, according to the press release.
A South Carolina county administrator resigned Monday after he reportedly told dissatisfied employees to kill yourself or leave.

Kevin Bronson, an assistant county administrator for Richland County, came under fire for remarks he reportedly made during a staff meeting on Thursday morning, CBS News reported.

Bronson was addressing a group of some 100 Richland County EMS workers regarding a list of employee complaints he had received.

So Im looking through this list with 50 different problems, and if its really that bad, you can just kill yourself or leave, Bronson said, according to a witness.

NORTH CAROLINA BOY, 13, BITTEN BY SHARK AT SOUTH CAROLINA ISLAND

"The room erupted in emotion, an employee told WSOCTV. People were crying. People were yelling at him. One, we just lost a deputy because of suicide. Two, I don't think he understands the gravity of the situation. We're not here for the money; we're here because we love what we do."

Bronson said in his resignation letter that his comments were horrible.

"My disrespectful words hurt and offended many people in the Richland County Government, especially the EMS workers, EMS workers across this country and surviving friends and families of loved ones of suicide," Bronson wrote. "I am sorry."

Bronson also wrote in the letter that while he hoped the controversy would settle down he felt he couldn't remain in his position.

"While I wanted to right the ship by staying on board in my job, that is not appropriate," Bronson wrote.

BOY, 14, ACCUSED OF KILLING 2 LAST MONTH IN SOUTH CAROLINA

Richland County Administrator Gerald Seals said in a statement to CBS News that Bronsons comments were mischaracterized but would not be tolerated.

"On behalf of Richland County, I also apologize for what happened and regret that an employee in the Administrator's Office spoke in such a manner. I am committed to ensuring all County employees know they are valued and respected," Seals said.
New York City police are looking for a 25-year-old man who was seen fleeing the scene of a fatal shooting involving the son of a former Fox News employee last week in the Bronx.

The man, identified by police as Elijah Smith, fled in a gray sedan with a Connecticut license plate after shooting 34-year-old Duro Akil on Aug. 7, police said. Akils family ended up experiencing a double heartbreak after his father, Okera Ras, a former Fox News web video producer, apparently died in his sleep several days later shortly after his sons death.

Akil was shot after he opened the door of his apartment because he heard commotion in the hallway. The shooter apparently had been involved in a dispute with Akils upstairs neighbor.

Akil lived in the apartment with his father. Ras was found dead in the apartment on Aug. 9, just hours after his son died. It is believed that Ras died in his sleep, possibly of a heart attack. Family members say the tragedy surrounding his son was too much for Ras to handle, and they believe he died of a broken heart.

Police are asking the publics help in finding Smith, who is 6-foot-1 and weighs about 290 pounds.

They are offering a reward up to $2,500 payable by Crime Stoppers for information leading to an arrest or indictment in this incident.

The New York City Police Department could not confirm details about what led to the shooting.

Ras, who received a masters degree in communication from New York University, was remembered in the Fox News newsroom as a diligent worker who had a warm smile for colleagues and a contagious laugh. He recently left Fox News to pursue his own business ventures.

Ras was a family man who was planning a family reunion that is taking place in Virginia Beach, Va., next week.

A GoFundMePage for the family said he was a cultural custodian of Afrocentric traditions, including Kwanzaa, Khamitic and natural healing practices.

Anyone with information is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782), by visiting the Crime stoppers website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM or by texting their tips to 274637 (CRIMES) then enter TIP577. All calls are strictly confidential.
The Trump administration denounced the Islamic State group on Tuesday for carrying out "genocide" against Christians and other religious minorities in areas under its control.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the group is "clearly responsible for genocide" against Christians and Yazidis in Iraq and Shiite Muslims in Syria and elsewhere. His comments were made as the State Department released its annual report on international religious freedom.

Tillerson said he was making the pronouncement to "remove any ambiguity" about previous genocide assertions made by his predecessor, John Kerry, who in March 2016, determined that genocide was occurring in Islamic State-held areas but was criticized by lawmakers and religious groups for not declaring genocide was taking place earlier. Neither administration's genocide determination carries with it any legal obligation for the U.S. or others.

"ISIS has and continues to target members of multiple religions and ethnicities for rape, kidnapping, enslavement and death," Tillerson told reporters in presenting the report.

"ISIS is clearly responsible for genocide against Yazidis, Christians and Shia Muslims in areas it controlled. ISIS is also responsible for crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing directed at these same groups, and in some cases against Sunni Muslims, Kurds and other minorities," Tillerson said. "The protection of these groups  and others who are targets of violent extremism  remains a human-rights priority for the Trump administration."

The religious freedom report, which is mandated by Congress, covers 2016 and does not address the Trump administration's decision to temporarily halt the admission of all refugees, many of whom are fleeing religious persecution. The administration has appealed challenges to the suspension of those admissions to the Supreme Court.

An appendix to the report covering refugees said admissions are "a vital tool" in addressing religious persecution and other human rights abuses. It said more than 70 percent of the nearly 85,000 refugees admitted to the U.S. in 2016 came from five nations  Congo, Syria, Myanmar, Iraq and Somalia  where the report itself said that freedom to worship is under threat. Syria and Somalia are among the six mainly Muslim nations that are also included in the administration's visa ban that is also before the Supreme Court.

Michael Kozak, the acting assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, said the administration is concentrating on trying to alleviate repressive conditions to reduce the need for people to flee their homes. He noted that many who have fled would prefer to return to their homes than move abroad. And, he noted that in Iraq and Syria specifically, it was preferable not to disturb millennia-old religious minorities.

"We don't want to uproot communities that have been there for thousands of years and take them elsewhere," he said.

In addition to the Islamic State, Tillerson and the report called out Bahrain, China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Turkey for persecuting, stigmatizing or otherwise restricting the rights of religious minorities.

"Religious persecution and intolerance remains far too prevalent," Tillerson said, noting that some 80 percent of the world's population live "with persecution or limits on their ability to worship."

"We cannot ignore these conditions," he said.
An Illinois teen accused of stabbing an Uber driver to death with a knife and a machete reportedly has been out of control at a juvenile detention facility, recording dozens of behavioral incidents, including pushing, biting and kicking guards.

Eliza Wasni, 16, was charged as an adult with first-degree murder in the killing of 34-year-old Uber driver Grant Nelson, of Wilmette.

Authorities told the Chicago Tribune that Wasni stole a knife and machete from a Walmart in Skokie, outside of Chicago, and hailed the driver before attacking him on May 30. Nelson was able to escape but bled to death later.

A Cook County judge criticized Wasni in court Monday after prosecutors told her that the 16-year-old has racked up 23 disciplinary actions since her last hearing around a month ago, a state attorney spokeswoman told the newspaper.

In the prior hearing, prosecutors said Wasni had been involved in 40 behavioral incidents in juvenile detention, such as biting, pushing and kicking guards.

Judge Lauren Gottainer Edidin told Wasni last month that she could face additional charges related to the alleged outbursts and that working with the guards may make your situation better.

Her public defender, David McMahon, told the court that she was "doing her best" to comply.

Click for more from the Chicago Tribune.


A Wisconsin couple whose son died in Rome last year is suing the university he planned to attend in Italy, alleging it didn't warn students about previous deaths near campus.

Nick and Jodi Solomon filed a federal lawsuit against John Cabot University, the Wisconsin State Journal reported . The lawsuit alleges the American university was negligent and reckless when it didn't warn students about four deaths that occurred near its campus in Rome between 2014 and 2015.

"The Solomon family is contending that when foreign universities recruit our students to study abroad under their wing, they have a duty to warn them of known criminal elements and prior deaths that are occurring right next to their campus," said Bob Gingras, the family's attorney.

The Solomons' 19-year-old son, Beau Solomon, was robbed, assaulted and then drowned in the Tiber River shortly after arriving to take summer classes in Rome in June 2016.

A university employee who picked him and two other students up from the airport had recommended following the Tiber River back to campus if they ever get lost. The staff member didn't mention that the area was dangerous.

Beau Solomon's death resembles the circumstances around an Iowa student's death in January 2015, according to the lawsuit. The Iowa student was also robbed during his first night in the city, and his body was found near the river.

In both cases the students were wearing yellow orientation bracelets that identified them as John Cabot students. The lawsuit alleges the bracelets may have caused the students to be targeted because they're American.

John Cabot University has since hired a guard to monitor the campus entrance. It also established a curfew and created a safety session for new students.

An email sent by The Associated Press late Tuesday evening seeking comment from the university wasn't immediately returned.
A prominent German politician railed against the increased use of English in the Fatherland  declaring that this sort of lunacy would never be tolerated in other countries, such as France.

Co-existence can only work in Germany if we all speak German, Jens Spahn, considered a potential successor to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, told The Telegraph. We can and should expect this from every immigrant.

He unleashed his harshest criticism on those who work in the German capital.

It drives me up the wall the way waiters in Berlin restaurants only speak English, he told the German newspaper Neue Osnabrucker Zeitung. You would never find this kind of lunacy in Paris.

German children often learn English in their early years of school, many American expatriates reside in the countrys fashionable districts  and many restaurants and bars in the country have recruited staff from all across Europe, The Telegraph reported.

Under Merkels administration, all asylum seekers who have arrived in the country since 2015 must learn German  or risk losing their benefits and the possibility of permanent residence, according to the report.

Click for more from the New York Post.
The State Property Fund of Ukraine (SPF) despite two failures to privatize public joint-stock company Odesa Port-Side Plant in 2016 is preparing for a new tender to sell the plant at the end of 2017, acting SPF Head Dmytro Parfenenko has said.

"We are still optimistic. We are working on the plant to sell it I think that by November we will reach the Cabinet of Ministers with a draft resolution approving the conditions of the plant's sale," he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.

He said that at present a tender to select appraisers of the plant is being held.

"I dont know what the figure will be. The main problem is toxic debts to Group DF," he said.

"Anyway, if things shape up in our favor, the privatization of Odesa Port-Side Plant could give no more than $250 million (UAH 6.4 billion at the current exchange rate)," he said, adding that it would not be enough to meet the target of the 2017 budget of UAH 17.1 billion.
Residents and officials in this U.S. territory greeted news that North Korea was stepping back from a planned missile strike on the island with some relief and tepid celebration.

After threatening to strike the island with four medium-range ballistic missiles, North Korea officials toned down their warning on Tuesday and said they would watch a little more the foolish and stupid conduct of the Yankees.

This information at least gives us reason to believe that Kim Jong Un has kinda paused his intention of shooting anything in our direction, Lt. Gov. Ray Tenorio told reporters. So we find the silver lining around the cloud and hope that thats an indication that he is pushing off his intention of firing four missiles in Guams direction.

WHERE IS GUAM AND WHY WOULD NORTH KOREA ATTACK IT?

Still, residents on the island remained on edge. At about midnight, a radio station mistakenly issued a civil danger warning in Guam  which turned out to be a false alarm that officials blamed on human error.

In response to Trump's threat of "fire and fury" comment, North Korea dictator Kim Jong Un ordered his military to prepare a response by targeting Guam. On Monday, military leaders presented Kim with maps and photos of potential flights paths aiming for Guam.

Obviously it is something we need to pay attention to, said ship captain Eric Lewis. Theyre serious and if [President Donald] Trump gets serious, then we will have some real trouble out here.

AFTER NORTH KOREA NUCLEAR THREAT, GUAM RESIDENTS PREPARE FOR POSSIBLE MISSILE STRIKE

Ground zero for Korean missiles is 18 miles off shore, about an hour by boat. An unarmed missile could splash here and no one on Guam would even know it was fired. But the U.S. military, which has two bases on the island, is not taking the threat lightly.

On Monday, Defense Secretary James Mattis told reporters a North Korean attack on Guam could escalate into war very quickly, adding it's game on" should the hostile country try to fire missiles in that direction.

"The bottom line is we will defend the country and for us (the military) that's war," said Mattis.

On Guam, where $7 out of every $10 is generated by tourism, those remarks are comforting.

The ocean is our railway, our roadway to the Pacific, so we are concerned about what impact (a missile) would have with cargo coming in and out of Guam, said port director Joann Brown.

The Commonwealth of Micronesia, which represents dozens of islands and roughly 500,000 residents, depends on the port in Guam for 90 percent of its goods. The port unloads huge cargo ships from China and the U.S. on a daily basis, suppling the islands with everything from cars to paper. Guam is the largest island between Hawaii and the Philippines, site of a former U.S. naval base.

We sell two things, said George Charfauros, Guams Homeland Security advisor. We sell paradisebeaches, clean water, sunshine. And then we also sell strategic location. Theres a delicate balance in that.

The U.S. military occupies about one-third of the island. The rest supports tourism, but remains largely rural. With clear waters in the 80s, and a coral reef surrounding the island, Guam is popular with divers. Marine biologist Ashton Williams worries about an armed missile strike.

First, the fish would be killed by that, along with marine mammals and the turtles we love so much  not to mention damage to the coral reef, Williams said as she prepared to jump off a Micronesian Dive Association boat. Once the corals break, they take years, even decades to build back up. We also have fish who live in the coral reefs and if we dont have corals, we dont have fish, and if we dont have fish that is going to bring down our tourism industry.

Tourism, however, is up 7 percent over last year, according to officials, as Japanese and Korean tourists learned long ago to dismiss the idle threat of North Koreas supreme leader.

It is a crisis, said Leo, a vacationer from Japan. But I think, to many of us, we all realize that theres very little that we can do thats within our control, right?

Paradise in the crosshairs. Up to 15,000 tourist a day on Guam decided thats OK, dismissing fears of a North Korean missile attack.

Kim said he would step back from the planned missile strike on the condition the U.S. military stop or temper maneuvers on the Korean Peninsula, including a joint exercise with South Korea beginning August 21.

The U.S. said it has no plans to postpone those exercises, putting the ball back in Kims court.

But experts say the conditional tone coming out of the hermit kingdom is encouraging  providing a diplomatic window for the two powers to open peace talks.

The decision is to live life, said Tim, a Guam resident. As for the tourists, they're already here. They're going to enjoy it.
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Some British politicians are criticizing plans to silence Big Ben for four years during repairs to Britain's Parliament.

The bell has sounded the time from Parliament's clock tower since 1859, but on Monday it's due to fall silent while repair work is carried out on the Victorian clock and the tower.

It will not sound again until 2021, apart from special occasions such as New Year's Eve.

Parliamentary officials say the bell, whose bongs resound across a swath of central London, will stop striking "to ensure the safety of those working in the tower."

Cabinet minister David Davis says the long silence is "mad." Davis told LBC radio on Tuesday that "there's hardly a health and safety argument, it's replacing a bell."

Conservative lawmaker James Gray called the decision "bonkers."
Kim Jong Un appeared to blink first, with North Korean media reporting Tuesday the dictator had delayed a decision about whether to fire missiles toward Guam  a pronouncement that came hours after a particularly stark warning from Defense Secretary James Mattis promised further escalation would mean game on.

Kim Jong Uns remarks came as he made his first public appearance in nearly two weeks, inspecting his army and examining missile plans, the official state media arm, KCNA, reported, according to Reuters. But the leader also tempered his recent fiery rhetoric, appearing to step back from the brink in an intensifying war of words between United States and North Korean leaders.

He said that if the Yankees persist in their extremely dangerous reckless actions on the Korean peninsula and in its vicinity, testing the self-restraint of the DPRK, the latter will make an important decision as it already declared, KCNA reported.

Kim Jong Un's statement followed President Trump's promise of fire and fury if North Korea continued to threaten the U.S. and, on Monday, Mattis saying any sign North Korea was attempting to fire a missile at the U.S. territory of Guam would amount to game on.

It could escalate into war very quickly, Mattis said. Yes, thats called war, if they shoot at us.

The Tuesday statement is a long way from previous declarations, in which Kim Jong Un went so far as to circle a date for his plan to fire a missile at Guam.

The latest uproar between Pyongyang and the rest of the world began following a stunning acceleration in North Koreas nuke program. North Korea twice successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile in July, and dual reports last week  out of Japan and the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency  suggested North Korea had acquired the technology to miniaturize a nuclear weapon to fit on a missile. While Pyongyang still has hurdles to cross in developing a reliable nuclear ICBM delivery vehicle, the rogue regimes rapid progress shocked the world.
A Nigerian man who sought asylum in Germany under false pretenses is on trial in Muenster for stabbing and killing his girlfriend earlier this year.

Prosecutors say Anthony I., 28, brutally murdered Soopika Paramanathan, a 22-year-old German student known locally as the Angel of Ahaus for her volunteer work with refugees, the Daily Mail reported. German police have not released Anthony I.s full last name.

Anthony I. attacked Paramanathan on Feb. 11 after she ended their relationship, prosecutors say, allegedly stabbing her repeatedly with a long-bladed knife in her head, neck and breasts. She sprayed his face with pepper spray in defense and was raced to a local hospital but later died after suffering substantial blood loss.

NORTHWESTERN PROFESSOR, OXFORD STAFFER JAILED IN STABBING

Anthony I. was stuffing Paramanathans body into a large suitcase on the street when witnesses said they spotted him. He escaped from the crime scene and was caught by police in Switzerland two days later.

Paramanathans father, Sivasamboo, said his daughter felt threatened by him in the days leading up to the attack and was afraid, according to German tabloid Bild.

MIAMI OFFICER FATALLY SHOOTS MAN WHO HAD STABBED A WOMAN

The couple met in 2016 at a local refugee home in Ahaus, Germany, where Anthony I. was living and Paramanathan volunteered. Anthony I. came to Germany in 2015, writing in his asylum application that he was forced to leave his country for being homosexual and he had fought against the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram in Nigeria. The application was in the process of being rejected.

A verdict is expected on Sept. 20, and Anthony I. could face life in prison in connection with the homicide.
The North Korean regime has continued to position itself as one of the worlds worst persecutors of the religious, torturing and killing people who practice their faith, according to a State Department report released Tuesday.

The 2016 Annual Report on International Religious Freedom determined that the government led by dictator Kim Jong Un continues to delineate brutal punishments for those who engage in faith-bound acts outside of worshipping the countrys leadership. The punishment includes executions, torture, beatings and arrests.

An estimated 80,000 to 120,000 political prisoners, some imprisoned for religious reasons, were believed to be held in the political prison camp system in remote areas under horrific conditions, the report stated.

NORTH KOREA NUCLEAR ACCELERATION PROMPTS CHURCH INTERVENTION

A 2016 census released by the Korea Statistical Information Service estimates that 16 percent of the countrys population is Buddhist, 20 percent Protestant and 8 percent Roman Catholic. Some 56 percent claims no religious adherence.

Ironically however, the North Korean constitution states that all citizens have freedom of religion and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic, social or cultural life on account of religion.

TRUMP'S TOUGH TALK PROMPTED NORTH KOREA TO STAND DOWN, EXPERTS SAY

The U.S. has designated North Korea as a Country of Particular Concern under the International Religious Freedom Act. The latest report comes at a time when relations between the United States and the hermit country have reached an all-time boiling point, with threats of nuclear conflict escalating sharply last week as leaders for the two governments traded barbs.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says the Trump administration remains interested in a dialogue with Kim but is waiting for some sign of interest from Pyongyang. Speaking to reporters at the State Department on Tuesday, Tillerson said he had no comment on North Korea's latest pronouncement that it had completed plans to test ballistic missiles near the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam but would not immediately carry it out.
Rescuers desperately searched Tuesday for survivors on the outskirts of Sierra Leone's capital for survivors that might be buried underneath debris, after massive mudslides killed at least 300 people. The Red Cross estimated that 600 people were still missing.

Government spokesman Cornelius Deveaux said rescue operations began early Tuesday, with heavy equipment deployed to dig into the piles of red mud around Freetown, the Associated Press reported.

Deveaux said definitive death figures were unknown "as the mortuary is overwhelmed with corpses  men, women and children."

Many bodies were in a horrible state, missing arms, heads or legs, Deveaux said, adding that proper burials will be vital in keeping disease at bay. "Contingency plans are being put in place to mitigate the outbreak of disease like cholera," he told a local radio station, FM 98.1.

Heavy rains Monday around the capital sent tons of mud into residental areas, trapping people as they slept.

The Connaught Hospital mortuary in central Freetown was overwhelmed on Tuesday with more than 300 bodies, many spread on the floor.

"The magnitude of the destruction as a result of the disaster is such that the number of victims in the community who may not come out alive may likely exceed the number of dead bodies already recovered," said Charles Mambu, a civil society activist and resident of one affected area, Mount Sugar Loaf.

Mambu added that "two bodies were brought out alive from the debris last evening."

Sierra Red Cross Society spokesman Abu Bakarr Tarawallie told Reuters he estimated that at least 3,000 people were homeless and in need of shelter, medical assistance and food.

"We are also fearful of outbreaks of diseases such as cholera and typhoid," he said. "We can only hope that this does not happen."

Some rescue workers and volunteers dug overnight through the mud and debris with their bare hands in a desperate search for missing relatives. Military personnel have been deployed to help with the operation in the impoverished West African nation.

"I have never seen anything like it," said Abdul Nasir, program coordinator for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. "A river of mud came out of nowhere and swallowed entire communities, just wiped them away. We are racing against time, more flooding and the risk of disease to help these affected communities survive and cope with their loss."

The Sierra Leone National Broadcasting Corp. showed people carrying the dead to the morgue in rice sacks.

Many of the impoverished areas of Sierra Leone's capital are close to sea level and have poor drainage systems, exacerbating flooding during the rainy season. Freetown also is plagued by unregulated building of large residential houses in hilltop areas.

Thousands of makeshift settlements in and around the capital were severely affected.

"The government has been warning people not to construct houses in these areas. When they do this, there are risks," Nasir said. "People don't follow the standard construction rules, and that is another reason that many of these houses have been affected."

Deforestation for firewood and charcoal is one of the leading factors of worsening flooding and mudslides.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Switzerland's tourism office is expressing regret over an "unfortunate" incident in which a small Swiss Alpine hotel posted a sign asking "Jewish guests" to shower before swimming in the hotel pool.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center demanded the closure of the Paradies Arosa hotel in eastern Arosa. On Twitter, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely called for "justice."

Swiss Tourism spokesman Markus Berger on Tuesday called the sign "unacceptable," adding it has been removed and hotel management has apologized.

Under "To our Jewish Guests," the sign read: "Please take a shower before you go swimming. If you break the rules, I am forced to cloes (sic) the swimming pool for you. Thank you for your understanding."

Berger cited a trend among some Orthodox Jews of summer travel to the area.
An official says a suspected Islamist militant has died in an explosion inside a hotel in Bangladesh's capital during a raid on an alleged hideout.

Police chief A.K.M. Shahidul Hoque said that the man died in the explosion during the raid that began early Tuesday.

Police identified the man as Saiful Islam, a college student. Details of his allegiance to any Islamist groups were not immediately clear.

Some officials said a portion of the wall of the hotel fell from the force of the blasts.

It was not immediately clear if any other suspects were in the Hotel Olio International in downtown Dhaka.

Bangladesh has been experiencing a rise in Islamic militancy in recent years. Banned Islamist groups have targeted liberals, atheists and foreigners.
Tensions between U.S. and North Korea seem to have eased  at least for the moment.

Leader Kim Jong Un was quoted as saying in state media he will watch a little more the foolish and stupid conduct of the Yankees before deciding whether to send missiles against U.S. Pacific island territory of Guam.

Some foreign policy experts say the tough talk from President Trump in the past week resulted in this, at least temporary, win.

KIM JONG UN APPEARS TO BACK DOWN AFTER MATtis, Trump warnings

The administration is doing all the right things, David Hemmings of the Henry Jackson Society told Fox News, President Trump actually caught the regime off balance by using the same sort of rhetoric against them.

Others, however, say it was the tamping down of the rhetoric and the push for diplomacy and economic measures by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and others that headed off the trouble.

I expect its more of a diplomatic and political move by the regime, said Michael Elleman of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

TRUMP'S STEALTH NORTH KOREA STRATEGY

But he and others say it also came down to North Korea being uncertain it could actually deliver on its threat to send those four missiles over Japan to a precise spot off of Guam. The risk of over-shooting and actually hitting Guam would trigger an instant war that Mattis warned of.

They have no idea of the reliability of these missiles, David Wright of the Union of Concerned Scientists told Fox News.

Many see gains made to get China on board as significant.

One expert thought that China actually told North Korea to back off the Guam plan. Others see the countrys agreement to cut off key imports following the UN Security Council Resolution as important.

China has never agreed to these kinds of sanctions, Hemmings said.

Experts say this is only a pause in the tensions. State media quotes Kim as saying that a decision to launch the missiles could be made if the U.S. persists with its reckless actions.

I think he will wait to see how the exercises go, Elleman told Fox News, referring to U.S.-South Korea joint maneuvers set to begin next week.

Experts agreed, however, that the risk of miscalculation remains high with the amount of rhetoric that has been thrown around in the last week from both sides. As Kim builds up his arsenal of missiles and nukes, a serious strategic misstep could result from such an error.

I hope cooler heads will prevail, Wright said.

A lot of folks do.
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Tatsuya Yasue buried his face into the flag and smelled it. Then he held the 93-year-old hands that brought this treasure home, and kissed them.

Marvin Strombo, who had taken the calligraphy-covered Japanese flag from a dead soldier at World War II island battlefield 73 years ago, returned it Tuesday to the family of Sadao Yasue. They had never gotten his body or  until that moment  anything else of his.

Yasue and Tatsuya's sister Sayoko Furuta, 93, sitting in her wheelchair, covered her face with both hands and wept silently as Tatsuya placed the flag on her lap. Strombo reached out and gently rubbed her shoulder.

"I was so happy that I returned the flag," Strombo said. "I can see how much the flag meant to her. That almost made me cry ... It meant everything in the world to her."

The flag's white background is filled with signatures of 180 friends and neighbors in this tea-growing mountain village of Higashishirakawa, wishing Yasue's safe return. The signatures helped Strombo find its rightful owners.

"Good luck forever at the battlefield," a message on it reads. Looking at the names and their handwriting, Tatsuya Yasue clearly recalls their faces and friendship with his brother.

The smell of the flag immediately brought back childhood memories. "It smelled like my good old big brother, and it smelled like our mother's home cooking we ate together," Tatsuya Yasue said. "The flag will be our treasure."

The return of the flag brings closure, the 89-year-old farmer and younger brother of Sadeo Yasue told The Associated Press at his 400-year-old house on Monday. "It's like the war has finally ended and my brother can come out of limbo."

Tatsuya Yasue last saw his older brother alive the day before he left for the South Pacific in 1943. He and two siblings had a small send-off picnic for the oldest brother outside his military unit over sushi and Japanese sweet mochi. At the end of the meeting, his brother whispered to Tatsuya, asking him to take good care of their parents, as he would be sent to the Pacific islands, harsh battlegrounds where chances of survival were low.

A year later, Japanese authorities sent the family a wooden box with a few stones at the bottom  a substitute for his body. They knew no details of Sadeo's death until months after the war ended, when they were told he died somewhere in the Mariana Islands presumably on July 18, 1944, the day Saipan fell, at age 25.

"That's all we were told about my brother. We never knew exactly when, where or how he died," he said. The family had wondered whether he might have died at sea. About 20 years ago, Tatsuya Yasue visited Saipan with his younger brother, trying to imagine what their older brother might have gone through.

So Strombo was able to give Yasue's family not just a flag, but also some answers.

He said he found Sadeo Yasue's body on the outskirts of Garapan, a village in Saipan, when he got lost and ended up near the Japanese frontline. He told Yasue's siblings their brother likely died of a concussion from a mortar round. He told them that Sadao was lying on the ground on his left side, looking peacefully as if he was sleeping and without severe wounds.

And there is one more thing Strombo delivered: a little hope that Yasue's remains might one day be recovered, given the details about where he found the body.

The remains of nearly half of the 2.4 million Japanese war dead overseas have yet to be found. It's a pressing issue as the bereaved families reach old age and memories fade.

Allied troops frequently took the flags from the bodies of their enemies as souvenirs, as Japanese flags were quite popular and fetched good prices when auctioned, Strombo said. But to the Japanese bereaved families, they have a much deeper meaning, especially those, like Yasue, who never learned how their loved ones died and never received remains. Japanese government has requested auction sites to stop trading wartime signed flags.

Strombo said Tuesday that he originally wanted the flag as a souvenir from the war, but he felt guilty taking it, so he never sold it and vowed to one day return it.

He had the flag hung in a glass-fronted gun cabinet in his home in Montana for years, a topic of conversation for visitors. He was in the battles of Saipan, Tarawa and Tinian, which chipped away at Japan's control of islands in the Pacific and paved the way for U.S. victory.

In 2012, he was connected to the Obon Society, an Oregon-based nonprofit that helps U.S. veterans and their descendants return Japanese flags to the families of fallen soldiers. The group's research traced it to the village of 2,300 people in central Japan by analyzing family names.

___

Follow Mari Yamaguchi on Twitter at https://www.twitter.com/mariyamaguchi

Her work can be found at APNews at https://www.apnews.com/search/mari%20yamaguchi
Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman has said that Ukraine intends to continue reforms in the spheres of decentralization and public administration with the support of international partners, in particular, Germany.

Groysman had a meeting with the special envoy of the German government on reforms in the field of governance and decentralization, Georg Milbradt, the press service of the Cabinet of Ministers said on Monday.

According to the prime minister, decentralization and one of the components of the reform - the union of the communities - have already proved their effectiveness due to the growth of local budgets. "Now the main focus of the reform is to ensure transparency in the use of funds and to involve the public in discussing initiatives that are relevant to a specific area. Special attention is given to the sectoral promotion of change, namely, education, medicine, administrative services, land relations, road infrastructure, the sphere of territorial planning," Groysman said.

Speaking about the renewal of the civil service, the prime minister recalled that in the autumn of this year, during open tenders, 1,000 specialists will be attracted to the authorities, who will be able to deepen the implementation of reforms.

The press service says that the government of Ukraine, within the framework of the radical reform of the state, will continue the reform launched three years ago on decentralization, the reform of public administration, especially the renewal of the personnel of government bodies, and will rely in these processes in support of international partners - in particular, the government of Germany.

"We deeply appreciate the level of our cooperation with the German government, and we are grateful for the full support of Ukraine to the government and directly to Chancellor Angela Merkel. The fact that, according to the decision of the government [of Germany], a special envoy for reform issues [Georg Milbradt] was assigned, is of great importance to us," Groysman said.

As reported, the special envoy of the German government on reforms in the field of governance and decentralization, Georg Milbradt, is in Ukraine on a visit from August 14 to August 19.
CHARLOTTESVILLE  Jamie Dyer had been on the fence about whether a large statue of Robert E. Lee that looms over a small city square in the center of downtown should be removed.

By Monday, all doubt had evaporated. Dyer and a half-dozen city activists circled the bronze likeness of the Confederate Civil War general, pondering how they might tear down the memorial themselves.

They considered hitching burly ropes and chains and using a vehicle  a bulldozer, perhaps?  to pull it down or at least badly damage it. A few paces later, they wondered whether they could melt parts of it with welding torches. Then they discussed whether some kind of acid might be able to melt it away.

Its going to happen, promised Dyer, an artist. This is a beautiful equestrian statue, and I dont want to be like the Taliban or the Bolsheviks, but this has got to go. If the city does not move it, we will. Lickity-split.

For Dyer and many around the country, the statues presence as a rallying point for white supremacists immediately heightened the urgency with which they felt Confederate memorials needed to be taken down. The reaction, however, is anything but unanimous.

A spokesman for the Virginia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans condemned the attacks and stressed that his group had no affiliation with the racists who protested. But he said the blame for the weekends events rested squarely with Charlottesville officials.

It is a completely self-inflicted wound by the city of Charlottesville, B. Frank Earnest Sr. said in a telephone interview. The group has also been active in opposing Richmond Mayor Levar Stoneys plan to add context to the Richmond memorials. They started this in the first place. Because all the cities in Virginia that had not brought up any issues over their monuments have not had any of this going on in their cities.

During a small prayer circle taking place just across the park for Heather Heyer, the counterprotester who died, an older woman who declined to give her name complained about the efforts to take down the statue, also suggesting that the city had brought the violence on itself.

How is this statue harming anyone? she said.

The group responded politely but firmly. Its a symbol of white supremacy, answered Kella Cappa, a local real estate agent.

City Councilman Wes Bellamy, the councils only black representative who spearheaded the push to remove the statue, brushed off the criticism.

This has become a gathering place for hateful people, he said. It needs to be removed expeditiously.

Us having a dialogue and opening up some of the deeper wounds and talking about ways to heal has only moved this community forward. And I firmly believe that in order to get to the clear water, youve got to get through the mud. Were in a muddy place now, but we are not going to remain there.
Those who are destined to be play the part of jolly old St. Nicholas dont pick their paths.

They get chosen, said Jan Male of Spotsylvania County. Somebody always asks them to be Santa.

On Saturday, she sat in a room filled with men whove answered the calling. The Colonial chapter of the International Brotherhood of Real Bearded Santas met for the first time in Fredericksburg, and about 40 Santas and their wivessome who prefer to be called Mrs. Clausgathered for fellowship and food at the Great American Buffet in Central Park.

No one wore the full coat, pants and boots that Santa is famous for, but red definitely was the dominant color. It was followed closely by white, as in real white beards, ranging from those trimmed close to the chin to ones that billowed to the breastbone.

You get it too long, the kids sit on it, and thatll bring tears to your eyes, said Michael Chapman of Newport News.

Hes the official Santa at Bass Pro Shops in Hampton and fills the bill. His smile is warm, his cheeks are rosy and his belly, tucked into a set of red bib overalls, looks like it belongs to a jolly old elf.

But when he first donned the Santa suit, he didnt have any of the physical attributes. He was in his early 20s, wanting to bring some holiday joy to children whose father was in Vietnam. He liked it so much, hes played Santa for 45 years since then.

He takes his Santa duties seriously.

All of us try to set a positive example in the community, he said, adding that no one would want to give any appearances that reflect badly on the name of Santa.

Indeed, the Santas in the group seemed to realize that theyre not the only ones watching the behavior of others. Kids seem to have their eyes on the men with white beards as well.

Christian Morgan, 8, of Chester heard as soon as he walked into the restaurant that there were a lot of Santas in the back room. With eyes wide opened, he sneaked a peek.

He was like, Wow. Just so excited, said his mother, Felicia Morgan.

Even if hes the only man with white hair and beard in a place, children will wave or acknowledge him, said Randy Thomas of Colonial Heights.

And one word to youngsters about watching their behavior seems to speak volumes, said Rich Male of Spotsylvania. When he spoke with a family at a restaurant one time, he hadnt seen any indication that the boy and girl didnt get along.

But he went out on a limb and told the boy to stop picking on his little sister. Eyes opened in amazement and the mother whispered: I told you hes watching.

Male, who worked as the Santa at Spotsylvania Towne Centre, has witnessed the gamut, from overstressed parents who waited until the last minute to bring their children to see him to a girl of about 8, who asked only that her mother get better.

He told her he didnt have the power to make that wish come true, but said they could consult a higher authority, if she wanted. The Santa then prayed with the girland has often wondered, over the years, what happened with her and her family.

Its those interactions that make the Santa role priceless, Male said.

I just love children, I love the reactions from them, he said.

Tom Bailey of Arlington, who organized the meeting, said there are thousands of people nationwide who perform in the spirit of Christmas. Local gatherings allow Santas to network, share information about events and places that need the guy in red and help them find someone to fill in, in the event of sickness or emergency.

They talk about where to find suppliesincluding the fact that a really good wig, made from yak and human hair, can cost more than $5,000. And they discuss how to avoid picking up the many germs children can bring with them.

Bailey and his wife, Marlo, a liberated Mrs. Claus who uses her own last name of Ivey, said flu shots are a must, along with lots of water, zinc and immune system supplements. He also changes gloves regularly to keep the germs away.

Bailey, who lists sleigh in front of his phone number, also likes to come up with stories about the reindeer and their magic ride as well as life in the North Pole. He likes to share them with inquisitive kids, to keep them guessing.

It keeps the magic alive, he said.
The little lot and building across the street seemed like the perfect solution for Chuck Shymanskys parentsuntil the quest to help them turned into a two-year struggle with King George County officials.

Shymansky and his wife, Kim, have a folder filled with communication with county staff as theyve tried to navigate the complicated world of codes, permits and grandfathered clauses. Theyve been told to pay a water connection fee that costs more than half as much as the new property did, and theyve gotten notices threatening eviction.

In the midst of the meetings and phone calls, Kim Shymansky has buried both her parentsand she just moved her brother, whos dying of lung cancer, from Delaware to Dahlgren so she can care for him.

She said shes faced a similar roller coaster of emotions, trying to figure out the correct recourse with the county over the property for her in-laws.

Someone in one department tells her one thing, she said, followed by someone in another department with a different report. She went back and forth with Community Development Director Jack Green, who retired in July, over a zoning detail for a solid 12 months until he agreed that she was right.

At this point, King George officials have said the little house wont get water until an $8,662 fee is paidand that Chuck Shymanskys parents shouldnt be living in the building because a certificate of occupancy hasnt been issued.

This has been a nightmare for two years, Kim Shymansky said.

Things got so bad, the Shymanskys appeared before the King George Board of Supervisors recently, asking for their help. Supervisors wanted more information, which will be presented at Tuesdays meeting, starting at 6:30 p.m. in the board room of the Revercomb Administration Center.

Chuck Shymanskys father, Harry, was diagnosed with chronic lung disease in spring 2015, and Shymansky regularly made the hour-long trip to Maryland to check on him and do chores around the house. If he could move his parents into his King George County neighborhood, he thought it would be easier for him and his wife, Kim, to provide the help they needed.

When the lot and building across Rosedale Drive became available, Chuck Shymansky bought the -acre property from King George County for $15,000. The odd-shaped property had housed the Dahlgren Sanitary District Office back in the day when many small, separate water and sewer systems operated in King George.

The Shymanskys said they checked in with county officials after the purchasejust as they sought the necessary permits when they added a pool, deck and fence to their home or did work on the basement. They said they were told they didnt need any building permits because they planned to renovate the structure, not enlarge it.

His mother, Debbie, took money from her retirement fund to cover repairs, including new heating and air conditioning systems, appliances and adding a shower to the existing bathroom.

Almost $20,000 later, the parents got ready to move into the little cottage that looks like similar structures in any waterside town. It consists of a living room, fully furnished kitchen, bathroom and bedroom, decorated with sailboats, lighthouses and other seaside decor.

Debbie Shymansky was thrilled, and relieved.

It took a lot of pressure off me, not having to worry about him, she said about her husband, adding she still works full time in Maryland to provide health insurance. But now, with whats happening to us, its just made it a nightmare and not the beautiful thing [Chuck] did for us.

NO CONNECTION

Officials with the King George County Service Authority told the Shymanskys they couldnt simply turn on the utilities because there was no water connection to the property. They said there wasnt a bathroom on the property there, either.

The Shymanskys were given an application for utility service, which stated the fee to begin initial connection for both utilities would be $19,845.

When the Shymanskys showed a photo of the old bathroom in the former office, the Service Authority bypassed the sewer connection fee and let them set up a sewer account. The water connection fee, at $8,662, still stood, however.

General Manager Chris Thomas explained in a May 9, 2017, letter to the Shymanskys that the structure is not physically connected to the county system. There are water meters on the property, but they were for a flow chart recorder, which was connected to a county water tower that has long since been removed.

There never was a connection for water consumption, Thomas wrote.

Thats why the county believes the Shymanskys should pay the $8,662 fee, just as any developer or homeowner setting up a water connection fee the first time would have to do.

But why do we have to pay the connection fee when we didnt build the property? Kim Shymansky wondered. She and her family believe the county should cover the cost.

WE NEED TO HELP

In the midst of the water debate, a more serious issue emerged. Starting in May 2016, the Shymanskys got notices from the county saying the building should be vacated because it hasnt been inspected, and therefore, no certificate of occupancy has been granted.

The latest came more than three weeks ago. When the Shymanskys mentioned it at the King George meeting, Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Ruby Brabo was upset at the notion the county is passing out eviction notices.

I thought we had moved beyond evicting people from their homes, she said.

While we have a fiduciary responsibility, it should not be to the detriment of the customers of the Service Authority.

She asked Brad Hudson, interim director of Community Development, to give a report on Tuesday. Christopher Werle, chairman of the King George Service Authority Board of Directors, will do the same.

Supervisor Cedell Brooks Jr. was sympathetic to the families plight, saying we need to do help these people. Supervisor Jim Howard asked for more information and Supervisor Richard Granger wondered if the county would face any legal responsibility if it suspended the eviction notice.

Thats when County Attorney Eric Gregory filled in a couple of blanks.

Its a garage, it was never constructed for the purpose of human habitation, he said. We dont know whats in there. We dont believe the water is potable. If something were to happen, could that be problematic? I dont know. We dont want anyone hurt.

CANT TAKE ALL THIS

All the homes in the Dahlgren area where the Shymanskys live are on county water and sewer. When the problem first arose with getting water to the elder couples property, Chuck and Kim Shymansky put up potable water containers behind the small structure. Every two weeks, they fill them up with water from a hose thats stretched across Rosedale Drive, from Chuck and Kim Shymanskys house to that of his parents.

They shower and wash dishes with that water, but drink bottled water.

There are other improvements the couples would like to make to the house, to make Harry and Debbie Shymansky more comfortable. Hes 66 and served in the Army for two years.

Two days after he carried his oxygen tank to the microphone, to speak to county officials and ask for some peace, he ended up in the hospital.

If they dont get all this straight, he said, Im putting myself in a VA home. I cant take all this.
Statements on deliveries of Ukrainian rocket technologies to DPRK based on evidence made by expert with close Russia ties

Deputy Ministry of Ukraine's Information Policy Ministry Dmytro Zolotukhin has said the specialist cited in the article appearing in The New York Times on August 14, titled "North Koreas Missile Success Is Linked to Ukrainian Plant, Investigators Say," Michael Elleman, a missile expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, has close ties with Russia. Elleman from 1995 to 2001 headed the Cooperative Threat Reduction program in Russia, aimed at dismantling obsolete long-range missiles.

"It's interesting the article appearing in this always worded-up publication is based in large measure on the remarks of one rocket expert, who from 1995 to 2001 headed the program in Russia to dismantle rockets. This is not included in his LinkedIn profile," Zolotukhin said on his Facebook page on Monday, adding a link to Elleman's LinkedIn profile.

"It turns out that the majority of "western experts," who criticize Ukraine have former ties with Russia. This is not conspiracy theory, but it's interesting, nonetheless," the deputy minister said.

Zolotukhin said Ukraine is typically accused at a minimum once a year of illegally exporting weapons.

Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council Head Oleksandr Turchynov and the Dnipro-based Pivdenmash rocket factory on August 14 flatly denied manufacturing military missiles or missile systems in the years of [Ukraine's] independence.

Pivdenmash officials said the only serial engine that had been exported in the past several years - the RD-843 shipped to Italy for the European launch vehicle Vega - is designed to operate in outer space, and its features, including its thrust, makes it unsuitable for use in military ballistic missiles.

"The information presented in the report is not consistent with reality: in particular, Pivdenmash is far from being a primary producer of missiles for Russia, and it also does not supply Russia with any missiles or its components or elements, including rocket engines," a statement from Pivdenmash says.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak and Polish National Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz have discussed the situation in Donbas and threats from the Russian side at the talks in Warsaw.

"During the meeting, Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak informed about the situation in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, about the threats that exist on the part of the Russian Federation ... Macierewicz said that news about the situation in the east of Ukraine indicates that Russia continues ignoring the Minsk agreements. He expressed concern about the danger of aggravation of the situation in connection with the West-2017 drills, the press service of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said on the results of the talks.

The sides also discussed the issue of strengthening cooperation between the Armed Forces of Ukraine and Poland in the field of military and technical cooperation, further development and training of the Lithuanian-Polish-Ukrainian brigade (LitPolUkrBrig).

"I highly appreciate the results of this meeting, which once again proves that Poland was, is and will be a strategic partner for Ukraine," Poltorak said.
A Confederate heritage advocate who wants to hold a rally on Sept. 16 at the Robert E. Lee statue on Monument Avenue in Richmond said Monday that he doesnt want violent people or members of the KKK showing up  and if police cant ensure that a monument-protection rally would be safe, he would consider withdrawing his request.

Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney said he was aware of a pending application with the state for the rally.

The city will be prepared for whatever may happen, but the decision on whether a rally will take place lies with the Virginia Department of General Services, Stoney said.

I would make the request that in light of the events that happened in Charlottesville that we take a deep look at whether or not this is something that should go forward on Sept. 16, Stoney said.

Bragdon Bowling, who is asking the state for permission to hold the monument-heritage rally, said that things have changed somewhat thanks to the Charlottesville problems, so were kind of reviewing.

Im not saying well call it off. I kind of have to watch and see what goes on, he said. I dont want to see David Duke at this rally, I dont want to see Antifa, I dont want to see Black Lives Matter. I dont want them there.

If the rally does happen, Bowling said, Id want police to separate the crowd, which they didnt do very well in Charlottesville.

The last thing we ever would want would be any of these nuts  right or left  coming to Richmond causing trouble, he said.

According to Bowlings application, he has invited Corey Stewart, the chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, who made protection of Confederate monuments and the Confederate flag a central issue in his campaign this year in the GOP primary for governor. Stewart narrowly lost the June primary to Ed Gillespie. He is now seeking the Republican nomination to run against U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., in 2018.

Stewart has ties to Jason Kessler, who coordinated the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville on Saturday; Stewart appeared at a news conference with Kessler in Charlottesville in February.

Sadly, pundits and academics in media will use the events in Charlottesville as yet another excuse to silence and punish the speech of those with whom they disagree, Stewart said in a statement Sunday.

We can expect to see more bans of opposing thought, labeling of conservative ideas as bigoted, and limited government initiatives scapegoated as the cause of further destruction of U.S. history.

Stewart said in an interview Monday that should the rally happen, he hasnt decided if hed attend.

We dont know yet. Frankly, I dont trust (Gov. Terry) McAuliffe to order an adequate amount of protection. He never condemned the violence that was perpetrated by Antifa. ... His condemnation was one-sided, Stewart said. And to that extent I think hes kind of emboldened these far-left-wing groups to continue to attack conservatives.

When asked what he thought of neo-Nazis and members of the Klan who went to Charlottesville, Stewart replied, I detest them.

He added: All violence should be condemned. All political violence should be condemned.

Bowling said Stoney is being divisive.

If Richmond adds context to the monuments, its like opening the door to removal of the statues, he said. Stoneys viewpoint that these people were white supremacists or whatever, a few years later youll have the black people in the city saying, Why do we have these monuments to these racists, and ... theyre going to want the whole thing down after looking at those tablets for a couple of years.

Bowling clarified that he meant both black and white people who support relocation of Confederate monuments.

Bowling was among many who opposed the placement of a statue of Abraham Lincoln and his son Tad at Tredegar Iron Works in 2003. The statue was controversial for many in the former Confederate capital.

They have no concept of history and how it might be the wrong place to put the statue, Bowling, then the Virginia division commander of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, told The New York Times. As a Southerner, Im offended. You wouldnt put a statue of Winston Churchill in downtown Berlin, would you? Whats next, a statue of Sherman in Atlanta?

U.S. Rep. A. Donald McEachin, D-4th, said he doesnt want violence and hate in Richmond.

We are a society governed by the First Amendment. They have a right to march but what they dont have a right to do is to incite violence, so well be prayerful that wont happen in Richmond, he said.

Richmond Police Chief Alfred Durham said in a statement Monday that his department has already begun planning for the potential rally at the Lee monument, and for counterprotests.

We will be prepared, he said.
Facing a wave of criticism, Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security Brian J. Moran defended how police handled Saturdays white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, which was marked by vicious street fights and a car plowing into a group of counterprotesters, killing one and injuring 19 people.

Two state troopers also died when a Virginia State Police helicopter monitoring the scene crashed, the denouement of a dark day that thrust the college town into the national spotlight.

Moran and McAuliffe pointed instead at a judges decision that prevented city officials from moving the rally from Emancipation Park in downtown Charlottesville  the site of the statute of Confederate General Robert E. Lee that the city wants to remove  to McIntire Park about a mile and a half away.

We did not want to engage the rally attendees or others in an urban environment, Moran said, adding that the park was too small for the number of expected attendees at the Unite the Right rally of white nationalists and others associated with the so-called alt-right. Locating this type of demonstration in the center of town posed significant public safety risks.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia joined a request for an injunction filed by Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler, whose permit to conduct the demonstration was revoked by the city government. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Glen E. Conrad granted the injunction allowing the rally to go forward at the Emancipation Park location.

We were unfortunately sued by the ACLU, and the judge ruled against us. That rally should not have been in the middle of downtown: to disperse all those people from the park where they dispersed all over the city streets and it became a powder keg, McAuliffe said in an interview Monday with National Public Radio.

He said police did a magnificent job.

We have to do a better job working with the judiciary. They need to listen to local city officials, McAuliffe said. The judiciary needs to do better job working with us. ... I am angry that this was not moved to McIntire Park where the city of Charlottesville requested.

Claire Gastanaga, executive director of the Virginia ACLU, fired back Monday.

The situation that occurred was preventable and our lawsuit challenging the city to act constitutionally did not cause it, she said in a statement, adding that the city failed to present evidence justifying its imposition of prior restraint on free speech.

The ACLU added that is was horrified by the violence in Charlottesville.

We do not support Nazis. We support the Constitution and laws of the United States, the group said. We would be eager to work with the governor and the attorney general on efforts to ensure that public officials understand their rights and obligations under the law.

***

Gastanaga, who was in Charlottesville on Saturday, said the policing was not designed to be or effective in preventing violence and expressed those concerns to Moran and the head of the Virginia State Police at the scene.

The lack of any physical separation of the protesters and counterprotesters on the street was contributing to the potential of violence, she wrote. They did not respond. In fact, law enforcement was standing passively by, waiting for violence to take place, so that they would have grounds to declare an emergency, declare an unlawful assembly and clear the area.

Moran pushed back against the contention, as observed by journalists, rally organizers and counterprotesters, that police stood by while people, many of whom were carrying homemade shields and makeshift clubs, beat each other bloody in the streets.

Whatever decisions law enforcement made were based on public safety concerns of the demonstrators as well as law enforcement officers, said Moran, who also got a glimpse of the ugly scene firsthand. Ive never seen anything like that and I hope to never see it again.

The white nationalist rally was supposed to start at noon, but police on the scene declared an unlawful assembly before it began.

We provided demonstrators time to disperse, Moran said. Then we moved in with a tactical unit sufficiently protected with riot gear to clear the park.

Moran said Charlottesville police were in charge of the event, but noted that the state response involved hundreds of police and National Guard members, though he would not provide specific numbers because of security concerns.

He noted some irony in the fact that activists, including the ACLU, criticized police for heavy-handedness during a July Ku Klux Klan rally in Charlottesville, but he added that the plan for last weekend was developed based on its own unique circumstances, not past criticism.

The fact is we proceeded in the best interest of the citizens of the commonwealth and law enforcement. Thats what we did on both occasions, Moran said. We did everything we could. The plan was executed very well. You would hope that the death of a young woman and two state troopers will lead to nonviolent expression of opinion in the future.

***

Charlottesville Police Chief Al Thomas told reporters at a Monday news conference that his officers went out to police the rally in their usual uniforms but had to put on protective gear after the violence erupted.

We were hoping for a peaceful event, Thomas said, denying the police were intimidated by rifle-toting militia members who attended. We urged leaders from both sides to engage in a nonviolent demonstration.

Thomas said officers endeavored to keep the battling sides separate but were unable to do so, partly because the Unite the Right attendees did not follow the proscribed police plan for entering the park. Police broke up fights throughout the weekend, he said.

Absolutely I have regrets, Thomas said, though he did not elaborate on what police might have done differently. We lost three lives this weekend.

He was asked by a reporter whether, at a planning meeting for the rally, officers were instructed not to make arrests without the permission of Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer.

That is simply not true, Thomas said.

Moran said he could not comment on that allegation.

Signer called that contention ridiculous.

It represents the same conspiracy thinking and fact-free zone that we see in the alt-right everywhere, he said. The mayor in Charlottesville has no operational authority over the police department, has no operational authority at all over the police department. This is a city manager form of government.

***

Richmond could be bracing for a similar spectacle, with a Confederate heritage group petitioning to hold a rally here next month in response to Mayor Levar Stoneys move to empanel a commission tasked with adding context to Monument Avenues string of rebel leaders.

Rather than seeking to scapegoat the ACLU of Virginia and the Rutherford Institute for the devastating events on Saturday, it is my firm hope and desire that the governor and other state and local officials will learn from this past weekend how constitutionally to prevent events like the horror we saw in Charlottesville from ever happening again, Gastanaga said.

Moran said Charlottesville will inform how the state prepares for the rally in Richmond if it happens.

We will be in communication with the city, Moran said. It should be a very collaborative process.

McAuliffe said he convened an emergency cabinet meeting Monday to discuss the next steps we, as a commonwealth, must take in order to begin the arduous process of healing our community and confronting the racism that stubbornly remains in our nation.

The governor says he has called for a commission with members from community organizations, law enforcement and religious groups to make actionable recommendations for executive and legislative solutions to advance our mission of reconciliation, unity and public safety.

He also directed his staff to conduct an extensive review on how rally permits are issued, law enforcement preparation and response and coordination between local, state and federal authorities.

Finally, I commend our Virginia State Police and National Guard personnel, who worked in support of the city of Charlottesville, for their tireless work this weekend under very challenging and volatile circumstances. Without their extensive preparations and measured actions, we would be facing a far more grave situation today, McAuliffe said.
The GSK grant funding to undertake mutational profiling of breast cancer in Uganda allows us to describe the biology of our cancers and to take advantage of advancements in therapeutics of breast cancer and improve survival in our patients, said the UCIs Orem.

In the U.S. and other high-income countries, for example, breast tumors are analyzed to see whether they express certain receptors for the hormones estrogen and progesterone and for human epidermal growth factor. Targeted therapies (in addition to surgery, chemotherapy and radiation) are available for tumors that express those receptors.

Tumors that express none of those receptors are called triple negative. In the U.S., African-American women are more likely to be diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer and have a 40 percent higher death rate than European-American women. Triple negative breast cancer is particularly aggressive and has a poorer prognosis than other breast cancers, in part because there are no targeted therapies, underscoring the need for more research into this type of cancer and the importance of including different races and ethnicities in clinical trials.

No one now knows which tumor receptors are prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa because in most countries, reliable analysis is not done. Two small studies in Uganda have shown conflicting results.

Theres something different

Part of the problem is a lack of resources and training to do the analysis. The gold standard for determining receptor status, at least in developed countries, is known as an immunohistochemistry test. However, barriers to testing include costs, inexperience in preparing specimens properly and a dearth of pathologists trained to reliably interpret the results.

The UCI-Fred Hutch study will test an alternative diagnostic tool  reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, or RT-PCR  which already is used throughout the continent as part of international and regional efforts to test and treat HIV. Smaller studies have compared RT-PCR testing against immunohistochemistry to test for breast cancer receptor status. The two tests resulted in identical results about 90 percent of the time.

The study will enroll 100 Ugandan women with newly diagnosed breast cancer to undergo additional analysis of receptor status. Their tumor samples will be processed in the laboratories of the UCI-Fred Hutch Cancer Centre in Kampala, a state-of-the-art facility that opened in 2015 with outpatient clinics, laboratories and classrooms for training researchers and clinicians. The Kampala lab will ship frozen tissue samples to Seattle, and the study will compare the results of samples tested in Kampala using RT-PCR and in Seattle using immunohistochemistry.

In addition, the next-generation sequencing done at Kings Seattle laboratory by study co-investigator Dr. Eric Konnick  also using samples processed by the UCI-Fred Hutch laboratories in Kampala  will seek to understand at the molecular level why breast cancer in Uganda is so aggressive and why it so often affects young women. Konnick will focus on the exome, or the small percentage of the billions of nucleotides in the human genome that have the potential to be expressed, or translated into proteins.

We do know that breast cancer tends to be more aggressive in Uganda, Menon said. But there are other differences too. The average age of a breast cancer patient at UCI is in the 40s, where in the U.S., it is 61. Theres likely something different in the pathogenesis of the disease. Hopefully this study will help to clarify some of the differences.

Testing an oral chemotherapy regimen

In addition to establishing whether RT-PCR is an effective alternative to immunohistochemistry, the study will also test the feasibility of a chemotherapy regimen already shown to be effective for estrogen-positive breast cancers. Of the 100 women enrolled in the trial, 25 with receptor-positive early or locally advanced stage breast cancer will be invited to participate in this part of the study.
First-term Irmo Mayor Barry Walker announced Sept. 26 that he had tested positive for the coronavirus. The mayors wife, Susan, also got COVD-19, Walker said on social media. As you know Im a kidney patient and require weekly dialysis, Walker wrote. This virus compromises my immune syste Read moreWhat You Missed: Irmo Mayor Barry Walker gets COVID-19
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The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine expresses its protest and outrage over the new wave of persecution by Russia of ethnic Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars in Crimea and demands to immediately release them.

"The Russian occupation authorities continue discrimination on ethnic and religious grounds in the occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol, persecuting ethnic Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars. Despite numerous calls from Ukraine and the international community to immediately release all illegally detained and convicted Ukrainians, the Russian leadership continues the shameful practice of using Ukrainian citizens as hostages of their aggressive policies against our state, putting forward fabricated accusations," the Foreign Ministry said in connection with the political repressions of the Russian Federation against Ukrainian citizens.

The Foreign Ministry recalled that during the last month, at least five politically motivated sentences related to imprisonment were rendered, seven people were arrested or fined. Over the past week there were at least three searches at homes of Crimean Tatars.

"The cynical mass searches, tried and tested by the NKVD, as well as a series of detentions of those who supported the arrested 76-year-old Server Karametov for picket, are evidence of the continuation of the impudent offensive of the Kremlin regime against all those who disagree with the occupation," the statement says.

In addition, the foreign policy department expresses concern about the deteriorating health condition of the illegally sentenced Russian citizen Ruslan Zeitullayev who, on July 27, started another hunger strike to protest the groundless verdict of 15 years of imprisonment and demand that the Russian side urgently resolve the examination of Zeytullaev by Ukrainian doctors.

"Ukraine demands from the Russian Federation immediately and without any additional conditions to release all illegally detained citizens of Ukraine, to stop the practice of political persecution and repressions against our compatriots," the Foreign Ministry said.
Ukrainian detainee in Crimea served in contract army, dismissed in May 2017 for misbehaviour

Ukrainian citizen Hennadiy Lemeshko, who was detained in the occupied Crimea, served in the Armed Forces of Ukraine under a contract and was dismissed in May 2017, the Public Relations Department of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported.

"This person served in the Armed Forces of Ukraine under a contract from November 2016 to May 2017. He was dismissed under the article 'inaptitude'," the General Staff's representative Yuzef Venskovych told Interfax-Ukraine on Tuesday.

Venskovych said that Lemeshko served in a unit of the Land Forces of Ukraine and dismissed for constant disciplinary violations.

As reported, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) announced on Tuesday morning it prevented acts of sabotage against Crimean infrastructure and crucial utilities and detained 'an agent of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU)'. The Kyivsky District Court in Simferopol ordered a two-month arrest of Ukrainian citizen Hennadiy Lemeshko until September 13, 2017.

The SBU said the detention of the so-called agent is another provocation and a fake peace of news created by Russia to intimidate Crimeans.
A Wiltshire farming couple has described the stress and anguish caused by the appearance of a spectacular crop circle on the land they farm near Swindon.

Shelley and Hardy Klindt manage 283ha of arable and livestock land, plus livery stables, for a landowner at Bydemill Farm, Hannington.

The first we knew of it was when I noticed a gate was open into one of our wheat fields on 4 August, Mrs Klindt told Farmers Weekly.

We usually use a hole in the hedge about 800 yards further on to access the field, so we knew we had been broken into.

See also: FW Academy on lodging in cereals

The Klindts are convinced the creation, which has attracted hundreds of visitors, is manmade.

We have spoken to our local policeman at the rural crime department. We had actually caught a guy near the circle soon after we had discovered it, filming it with a drone and the policeman said he knew the man and it is a scam.

They do it in an area that cant be seen from the road, so they can get there first and take the drone images which they then sell and put on their websites.

Going viral

Mrs Klindt said they had hoped to keep the crop circle secret, but then it went viral online and there were lots of people coming.

Our first idea was to mow it, as wed had enough. We had drones flying over our house and helicopters scaring the horses.

But we decided not to as they would only go and make another circle in a neighbouring field.

So in the end weve organised family and volunteers to go and sit in the field and put up signs to make sure people walk down the tramlines and not across the rest of the crop.

The crop circle is about 60m wide and covers about two acres of quality milling wheat. It was a perfect crop, but were told thats what they look for as any weeds stand up and ruin their patterns.

Mr Klindt estimates the crop loss will come to about 1,000, but says he wont know for sure until the field has been combined and the yield is calculated.

Loonies

As well as signs urging people to avoid causing further damage, the Klindts have put a bucket in the field, asking for donations to help offset some of the crop loss. Money has also been left in the centre of the circle.

Mrs Klindt says it has attracted all sorts of loonies. Weve had white witches burying crystals in the ground and last Saturday night we had 12 people sleeping in the circle believing it was connected to a meteor shower.

Overall, the Klindts say the circle has caused a lot of stress. We dont really need this at harvest. Were it not for the volunteers, wed have been running around like lunatics.

The crop is due to be harvested on Friday (18 August).

Police view Rural crime officer Marc Jackson of Wiltshire Police acknowledged the huge negative impact on hardworking landowners and farmers and reiterated that creating a crop circle is criminal damage and an offence. The damage caused means a loss in revenue to the farmer and landowner. They also have to deal with civil trespass issues on their land after a crop circle has been created. He urged affected farmers to report any crop circles via 101. If you witness someone making the circle, this can be reported via 999 as a crime in progress, he added. And if you do not wish to have visitors to the crop circle, you can cut out the circle or register that no permission has been given.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman has said that the information about the alleged sale of missile engines by the Pivdenmash (Yuzhmash) state enterprise to North Korea is a provocation.

"The information on Pivdenmash is clearly a provocation against Ukraine. I fully rely on the statement of the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council and Pivdenmash itself that there was no such thing," the prime minister said at a briefing in Dnipro on Tuesday.

According to him, such sales could have never happened.

On August 14, The New York Times claimed in its article "North Korea's Missile Success Is Linked to Ukrainian Plant, Investigators Say" that powerful rocket engines for North Korean missiles had been purchased on the black market, most likely from a Ukrainian plant "with historical ties to Russia's missile program."

The NSDC Secretary Oleksandr Turchynov said that the Ukrainian defense and aerospace complexes hadn't supplied weapons and military technology to North Korea, and false information disseminated by some foreign media about the alleged transfer of missile technology by Pivdenmash to the DPRK is most likely triggered by Russian special services

Pivdenmash dismissed the allegations aired by The New York Times and described them as an attempt to discredit the plant and Ukraine.
Dan Arp, dean of Oregon State University's College of Agricultural Sciences, and Mark Zabriskie, dean of OSU's College of Pharmacy, will step down from their leadership roles effective June 30, 2018.

Arp, who has been dean since May 2012 and also serves as director of the Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station, will retire. Zabriskie, dean since September 2010, will return to his faculty position.

Both Dan and Mark have had many outstanding accomplishments in these important leadership roles  not just at OSU but in the agriculture and health care industries respectively, Ed Feser, OSU provost and executive vice president, said in a news release.

Arp joined OSUs colleges of agricultural sciences and science in 1990 in a joint botany and plant pathology position that was split between the two units. He eventually headed the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, where he earned the honor of distinguished professor. In 2008, Arp was named dean of the University Honors College. Four years later, he was appointed as the Reub Long Dean of Agricultural Sciences and director of the Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station at OSU.

I have tremendously enjoyed my five years of service as dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences, and I look forward to doing all I can during my sixth and final year as dean, Arp said.

Zabriskie joined the faculty of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at OSU in 1992.

The opportunity seven years ago to serve at the helm of the college turned into one of the most rewarding times of my career, Zabriskie said. Nothing has made the job more fulfilling to me than the support of the outstanding faculty and staff I had the good fortune to serve, and Im extremely proud of the accomplishments weve made together.

Zabriskie has maintained an active research program while serving as dean and will return to the faculty as a professor of pharmaceutical sciences next July. His research involves the discovery, biosynthesis and development of natural product antimicrobial agents.

Feser will launch national searches for both dean positions.
The National Police of Ukraine are investigating 14 criminal cases involving violations of procedure in funding political parties. Some 70 persons have received administrative penalties, National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) Chief Natalia Korchak has said.

"Active work is underway to abide by the legal principles for financing political parties. The NACP has discovered violations linked to failure to comply."

"There are two ways to finance parties: government finance and party dues by legal organizations or individuals" Korchak said on Tuesday during a briefing in Kyiv.

She said the NACP had discovered many violations which constitute criminal offenses.

"As of today, the police have opened 14 criminal cases. Some 38 administrative offenses have been registered and 70 people have been fined," Korchak said. She added that on September 4 a court hearing involving the Svoboda political party would be heard. The party allegedly received a UAH 2 million cash contribution.

"We will have an opportunity to see whether the court is ready to confront this issue in our new way of addressing violations," the NACP chief said.
Welcome to my genealogy blog. Genea-Musings features genealogy research tips and techniques, genealogy news items and commentary, genealogy humor, San Diego genealogy society news, family history research and some family history stories from the keyboard of Randy Seaver (of Chula Vista CA), who thinks that Genealogy Research Is really FUN! Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2006-2021.
Uncertain police presence : St Martins Parades in Bonn could be cancelled

Bonn The police need all available manpower for the Climate Conference and cannot assign any officers to traditional events in Bonn, causing a huge problem for organisers.

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What do the St Martins Parades have to do with the World Climate Conference taking place at the same time in Bonn? Actually, quite a lot, as the police said on Monday that they need all available manpower for the Climate Conference, making their presence at St Martins Parades more difficult if not impossible.

Christoph Schada, who organises the Lengsdorf St Martins Parade, is angry. Only the police, and not the fire brigade or private security services, can control traffic. The Lengsdorf St Martins Parade may therefore have to be cancelled because the organisers could be made personally liable for any accident.

We will fight against this with all means at our disposal, said Schada. It would be excessive to have to cancel a parade at the cost of tradition, custom and not least the children.

Availability of policing will first be clarified in October

At the very least, organisers are faced with great uncertainty. The police are not yet able to say which parades they can and cannot accompany. It will first become clear in October, on which days and to what extent district officers are needed at the Climate Conference.

Beuels district mayor, Guido Deus, and Christian Siegberg, head of the Beuel district administration office, are meeting police president Ursula Brohl-Sowa this Thursday, 17 August. At this meeting, we will clarify, whether and how St Martins Parades can take place, if necessary without police security, said Siegberg on Monday.

Elfi Brach-Stein, a member of the team that organises the Kessenich St Martins Parade, was also surprised by the polices announcement. The St Martins Parade has around 2000 participants who cross two major intersections on their way through Kessenich. Previously, two police on motorbikes have always driven ahead to secure Hausdorffstrae and Markusstrae.

No problems in Bad Godesberg

There is no central St Martins Parade in Bad Godesberg. The numerous parades are organised by kindergartens, schools and clubs. We will also manage without police, said Willi Linden, organiser of the Schweinheim Bachelors Club parade. His parade goes mainly along side streets, as does the Rungsdorf parade.
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.




Some of the most abandoned places in the world are mining towns that tapped out the resources and moved on, towns hit by natural disasters, and ones in the most extreme climates. Here are some examples of what Alaska has left behind, beautiful and sometimes quite mysterious!

Kiska





In 1943, allied forces landed on an island off of Alaska which the Japanese had held since 1942. When they landed, they found the Japanese had abandoned it two weeks earlier.





Wikipedia: On August 15, 1943, the 7th Division (U.S.) and the 13th Infantry Brigade (Canada), landed on opposite shores of Kiska. Both U.S. and Canadian forces mistook each other as the Japanese and, as a result of friendly fire, 28 Americans were killed and 54 Canadians either killed or wounded. A stray Japanese mine caused the USS Abner Read (DD-526) to lose a large chunk of its stern. The blast killed 71 and wounded 47. 191 troops went missing during the two-day stay on the island and presumably also died from friendly fire, booby traps, or environmental causes. Four other troops had also been killed by landmines or other traps.




Former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych's request to Russian President Vladimir Putin to use the Russian Armed Forces on the territory of Ukraine dated March 1, 2014 was necessary for the Russia to justify its aggression in Crimea, former permanent representative of Ukraine to the United Nations UN Yuriy Serheyev has said.

"The Russian Federation needed this appeal to justify its intervention. This appeal complicated our work in the line of defense of Ukraine's interests," he said appearing on Tuesday as a witness at a sitting of Kyiv's Obolonsky District Court in the treason case against Yanukovych.

Serheyev noted it was Russia that initiated a meeting of the UN Security Council on March 3, 2014, where this letter was read out by Viktor Yanukovych. He believes that this appeal was necessary for the Russian side to confirm its line that there was a coup d'etat in Ukraine that threatened Russians and the Russian-speaking population of Crimea, as well as the Russian Black Sea Fleet base on the peninsula.

According to the former permanent representative of Ukraine in the United Nations, Yanukovych's appeal to Putin worked to disorient the public "about who is who and what happened, giving a kind of legitimacy to those actions."

Answering a question of the defense counsel of the ex-president on whether Yanukovych's appeal to Putin had legal significance for Ukraine, Serheyev said: "It terms of harm it did, this later resulted in concrete actions, it legitimized the actions of the Russian Federation... Though they were unlawful by nature, it was used to justify these actions within the UN."
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President proposes Alavi as Intelligence Minister

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, Aug 14, IRNA -- Iranian President Hassan Rouhani picked Mahmoud Alavi for Intelligence Ministry in 12th government.

Majlis (Parliament) is to hold a session to give vote of confidence to proposed ministers on Tuesday.

Part of Alavi's qualifications is listed below:

1. MA in Private Law

2. Head of President's Special Inspectorate Office

3. Thirty-nine years experience in legal and judiciary affairs

4. Member of Iranian Association of Fundamental Legal Studies.

Alavi has also outlined his main plans as follows

1. Reinforcing ties between executive and judicial branches

2. Promoting quantitative and qualitative indexes of Tazirat (reprimand) Organization

3. Trying to change law abidance to social norms and public values

4. Re-defining Justice Ministry responsibilities

9376**2050

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German prosecutors begin probe against Swiss financial spies

Iran Press TV

Mon Aug 14, 2017 1:46PM

Four Swiss spies who allegedly reported on German tax investigators are now under official probe in Germany, local media say, in what could really affect relations between the two neighbors.

German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung said in a report on Monday that the new investigation by federal prosecutors came after the arrest five months ago of a Swiss man, identified as Daniel M., 54, who had reportedly spied since 2012 on German authorities hunting tax cheats.

There was no official confirmation of the report, which was compiled in cooperation with public broadcasters NDR and WDR.

The report said the current investigation was launched in August and prosecutors had charged Daniel M. with spying for Switzerland's NDB intelligence service on German financial inspectors hunting alleged tax evasion by German citizens in Switzerland. Germany bans its residents from stashing their money in Swiss banks to evade paying taxes at home.

Local German media said Daniel M., along with the three unidentified NDB recruits, was tasked with identifying those German inspectors who had coordinated the purchase of stolen data on German tax dodgers in Switzerland.

Several German states have admitted that they have bought CDs or USB sticks containing stolen data on German citizens stashing money in Swiss banks since early 2006. The move has forced many of Germany's rich, powerful and famous to publicly apologize and pay back the incurred taxes and fines.

Switzerland, which routinely boasts of the confidentiality of its banking data, has called Germany's purchase of the stolen data outrageous.

The new probe in Germany could further complicate ties with Switzerland.

After Daniel M. was arrested in April, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel rebuked Switzerland for the "incredible" espionage case, which he said could "wreck" the countries' good relationship.

Gabriel's Swiss counterpart Didier Burkhalter assured the top German diplomat in discussions at the time that the monitoring of German tax inspectors had stopped in 2014.

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F-35As fly in weapons evaluation

By Paul Holcomb, 75th Air Base Wing Public Affairs / Published August 14, 2017

HILL AIR FORCE BASE. Utah -- Airmen from the 388th and 419th Fighter Wings supported and flew F-35A Lightning II aircraft during Combat Hammer, the first operational air-to-ground weapons evaluation for the Air Force's newest fighter jets.

Combat Hammer is one phase of the Weapons System Evaluation Program, or WSEP, and tests and validates the performance of crews, pilots and their technology while deploying air-to-ground precision-guided munitions for the F-35A.

The weeklong evaluation exercise concluded Aug. 11, 2017 and Lt. Col. Timothy Smith, the 86th Fighter Weapons Squadron detachment commander who oversaw Combat Hammer, said he received positive feedback regarding above-average mission and sortie rates.

"Overall, everything went as planned and all participating units performed very well, including the 34th Fighter Squadron's F-35s," he said.

Smith also praised the team effort involving corporate partners, the 388th and 419th FWs, pilots, munitions and maintenance personnel and the 86th FWS evaluators for making Combat Hammer a success.

The 53rd Wing is the operational test wing for the Air Force. They develop, test, evaluate and deliver effective and sustainable combat capabilities to perfect lethality and survivability of our nation's combat forces. Teams from the 53rd Wing, the parent command of the 86th FWS, have been integral in the operational testing and evaluation of the F-35A that supported last year's Initial Operational Capability declaration and now continue marching toward full operational capability for the Joint Strike Fighter.

Col. Dave Abba, the 53rd Wing commander at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, visited Hill AFB to observe Combat Hammer and meet with 86th FWS Airmen, operations crews and evaluation participants.

"It's obvious to me that the active-duty and Reserve leadership chain at Hill (AFB) have completely jumped on board with bringing this airplane up to speed, getting it to FOC, and getting it ready to participate on a global scale," said Abba. "They're passionate to learn more about the weapon system and everybody is concerned with providing effective capability for the warfighter."

Abba stated Combat Hammer was absolutely essential to ensuring that our (weapons) systems continue to work as they were designed to work. The emphasis is on finding potential issues in a controlled environment, with the ability to assess the weapons in real time to ensure that we don't get surprised in combat.

Statistical data derived from Combat Hammer assists leaders at the highest Air Force levels in making resourcing decisions; it also provides contingency planners with a solid understanding on weapons systems performance and the effects they'll achieve.

"What air-to-air (Combat Archer) and air-to-ground WSEP bring to the fight is statistical confidence," said Abba. "So that's really the key to this: it's not simply subjective opinions about whether these things work or whether they don't work, we bring the numbers to back it up so we can tell our senior leadership with a certain degree of confidence that this airplane with this munition against this sort of a target is going to have this probability of success."

Abba is confident the F-35A will be a critical system in ensuring national security.

"It's going to be the cornerstone of our fighting force for a long time and from what we've seen so far, it's living up to the challenge and meeting our expectations, and in several areas exceeding it," he said.

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Mobility Air Forces, Combat Air Forces operate together during Mobility Guardian

By Airman 1st Class Erin McClellan / Published August 14, 2017

JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. (AFNS) -- Exercise Mobility Guardian highlighted the close relationship between Mobility and Combat Air Forces, who teamed up to execute approximately 90 sorties together, July 31 to Aug. 12, 2017.

The exercise provided the MAF and CAF opportunities to integrate combat capabilities in a dynamic, highly contested environment to help ensure future mission success at both the tactical and strategic level.

"Everything that Air Combat Command does, we do on the back of mobility forces," said Gen. Mike Holmes, the ACC commander. "We're a global Air Force, and we're a global Air Force because we can pick up and move wherever we need to and know that we can be there quickly with everything we need to operate. Without (Air Mobility Command), we'd be a regional Air Force."

Mobility Guardian enabled personnel to interact and train together in realistic scenarios. Royal Australian Air Force Flight Lt. William Powell, a 389th Fighter Squadron weapons and tactics assistant chief at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, acted as the F-15E Strike Eagle liaison officer during Mobility Guardian. Powell is currently serving a three-year exchange assignment between the RAAF and the U.S. Air Force, giving him a unique perspective on the exercise.

"For the missions being undertaken by AMC during Mobility Guardian, reliable fighter support is critical to ensure force survival and mission success," Powell said. "Mobility Guardian has been a great opportunity for our F-15E crews to plan and execute missions with AMC. We rarely have the opportunity to train together tactically, so we have learned some great lessons, and it has provided valuable experience for our aircrew."

Earlier this year, Atlantic Trident, a CAF exercise, was hosted at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia. It hosted modern fighter aircraft from three nations. Holmes stressed the importance of having these types of exercises to learn how to best operate with international partners.

"We're fortunate to have really capable international partners that we can rely on to work together," said Holmes. "The mobility equivalent of (Atlantic Trident) is to bring our modern airlifters (and tankers) together and see how we operate. If we're going to partner our air forces, we need to be interoperable, and an exercise like this is a great opportunity to learn about that and get better at it. It's great to have that partnership, and it means I can rely on not just our mobility assets, but the worldwide partners' mobility assets."

In addition to ACC and AMC assets working together, international and sister services also partnered for Mobility Guardian.

One such example involved RAAF Airbus A330 MRTT boom operators becoming certified on refueling fighter aircraft. This will enable them to do so in deployed locations and further enhance coalition forces' warfighting capabilities.

Aircraft involved in the exercise included A-10 Warthogs assigned to the 124th Fighter Wing, Gowen Field Air National Guard Base, Idaho; U.S. Navy EA-18G Growlers assigned to Electronic Attack Squadron 129, Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Puget Sound, Wash.; F-15C Eagles assigned to the 142nd Fighter Wing, Portland ANGB, Oregon; F-16C Fighting Falcons and F-35 Lightning IIs assigned to Hill AFB, Utah; F-15E Strike Eagles assigned to Mountain Home AFB, Idaho and Air Force Global Strike Command B-2 Stealth Bombers and B-52 Stratofortresses.

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Strikes Continue Against ISIS in Syria, Iraq

From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release

SOUTHWEST ASIA, Aug. 14, 2017  U.S. and coalition military forces continued to attack the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria yesterday, conducting 25 strikes consisting of 31 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 17 strikes consisting of 19 engagements against ISIS targets:

-- Near Dayr Az Zawr, a strike destroyed an ISIS well-head.

-- Near Raqqah, 16 strikes engaged 11 ISIS tactical units and destroyed three fighting positions, an anti-aircraft artillery system, a logistics node, a heavy machine gun, a vehicle and an improvised explosive device.

Strikes in Iraq

In Iraq, coalition military forces conducted eight strikes consisting of 12 engagements against ISIS targets:

-- Near Bashir, a strike destroyed a vehicle and an IED.

-- Near Beiji, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed three staging areas, two storage areas and a mortar system.

-- Near Huwayjah, three strikes destroyed three ISIS oil stills and two weapons caches.

-- Near Kisik, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed an ISIS-held building.

-- Near Qaim, a strike destroyed a vehicle-borne-bomb facility, an ISIS headquarters and an ISIS checkpoint.

-- Near Tal Afar, a strike destroyed an ISIS staging area.

Previous Strikes

Additionally, 26 strikes consisting of 42 engagements were conducted in Syria and Iraq on Aug. 11-12 that closed within the last 24 hours.

-- On Aug. 11, near Abu Kamal, Syria, a strike destroyed a weapons cache.

-- On Aug. 12, near Raqqa, Syria, 21 strikes engaged 16 ISIS tactical units and destroyed a fighting position, an anti-aircraft artillery system and a mortar system.

-- On Aug. 12, near Kisik, Iraq, a strike suppressed a mortar team.

-- On Aug. 12, near Tal Afar, Iraq, three strikes engaged an ISIS tactical unit; destroyed a rocket system, a staging area, a vehicle-borne-bomb facility, a vehicle-borne bomb, a storage area and a supply cache; and suppressed a mortar team.

Part of Operation Inherent Resolve

These strikes were conducted as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the operation to destroy ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The destruction of ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria also further limits the group's ability to project terror and conduct external operations throughout the region and the rest of the world, task force officials said.

The list above contains all strikes conducted by fighter, attack, bomber, rotary-wing or remotely piloted aircraft; rocket-propelled artillery; and some ground-based tactical artillery when fired on planned targets, officials noted.

Ground-based artillery fired in counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a strike, they added. A strike, as defined by the coalition, refers to one or more kinetic engagements that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single or cumulative effect.

For example, task force officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIS vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against a group of ISIS-held buildings and weapon systems in a compound, having the cumulative effect of making that facility harder or impossible to use. Strike assessments are based on initial reports and may be refined, officials said.

The task force does not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target.

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U.S., Afghan Forces Confirm Death of ISIS-Affiliated Terrorist

By Cheryl Pellerin DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, Aug. 14, 2017  U.S. and Afghan forces have confirmed the Aug. 10 death of Abdul Rahman, a provincial emir in Afghanistan's Kunar province for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria affiliate ISIS-Khorasan, or ISIS-K, Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Rob Manning said here today.

In an operational update for Pentagon reporters, Manning said Rahman was killed in an airstrike along with three other ISIS-K members in Kunar's Dara-e-Pech district in northeastern Afghanistan.

Rahman was a primary candidate to become the ISIS-K emir after the death of Abu Sayed in a July 11 strike on the group's headquarters in Kunar province.

"The death of Abdul Rahman deals yet another blow to the senior leadership of ISIS-K, showing there are no safe havens in Afghanistan," Manning added, noting that U.S. and Afghan forces are keeping pressure on ISIS-K to disrupt their expansion plans -- part of ongoing operations to defeat the group in Afghanistan.

Iraq Operations

In northern Iraq this weekend, two U.S. soldiers were killed and five others were injured, Manning said, as an Army artillery section conducted a counterfire mission against an ISIS mortar site when an incident occurred.

"There is no indication that ISIS had anything to do with this," Manning said, noting that the injured soldiers were evacuated by air and that two eventually lost their lives. The other five soldiers did not suffer life-threatening injuries.

The incident is now under investigation, and the unit will release information as appropriate, he added.

Also in Iraq, in eastern and western Mosul, the colonel said holding forces consisting of federal police continue to conduct security operations and assess security requirements.

"To the west of Mosul, the 9th and 15th [Iraqi Army Divisions] maintain defensive positions on the western forward line of troops near Tel Afar," Manning said, "and the coalition continues to support the [Iraqis] as they reset and prepare for follow-on operations in the western Ninevah province.

Syria Operations

In Syria, today is day 71 of operations to defeat ISIS in Raqqa, Manning said.

"Yesterday the [Syrian Democratic Forces] liberated about [.4 square miles] in Raqqa and about 55 percent of the total area of Raqqa has been cleared," he said.

On the western axis, the SDF maintained the forward line of troops despite ISIS sniper activity, and on the eastern axis, the SDF maintained incremental gains in the Old City north of the main supply route, Manning added.

On the southern forward line of troops south of the Euphrates River, the SDF maintained their defensive positions, he said, and the east-west deconfliction line south of the Euphrates is holding as regime forces remain south and SDF forces remain north of the agreed-upon line.

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Dunford: U.S.-South Korean Alliance Ready to Defend Against North Korean Threat

By Jim Garamone DoD News, Defense Media Activity

SEOUL, South Korea, Aug. 14, 2017  The U.S.-South Korean alliance can defend South Korea, Pacific allies and the American homeland from nuclear and missile threats emanating from North Korea, two top American military officials said here today.

Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Army Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, the alliance commander in Korea, said the capabilities already in South Korea are enough to defend against a strike from Kim Jong Un, the North Korean dictator.

Both men told reporters at the headquarters for Combined Forces Command that U.S. and South Korean officials will continue to examine the threats from North Korea and make adjustments to the force as they are needed and agreed upon.

The men spoke after meetings with senior Korean leaders, including President Moon Jae-in, Defense Minister Song Young-moo and Korean Defense Chief Army Gen. Lee Sun-jin. "The message today was the ironclad commitment to the alliance," Dunford said at the press conference.

The U.S. and South Korea each want a peaceful solution, he said. "What I would like to see is Kim Jong Un to commit to ceasing the development of nuclear weapons and ceasing the testing of ballistic missiles," Dunford said.

The chairman said the men shared some thoughts about the common challenges facing their nations, but focused mostly on North Korea. He said he also spoke to Korean leaders about his trip to China, "and the messages we would be delivering when we met with our Chinese counterparts."

The meeting follows passage of a resolution in the United Nations Security Council that imposed severe sanctions on North Korea for its continued efforts to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. The world is uniting against the North Korean threat, and even China -- North Korea's only ally -- voted for the resolution. China announced today that it would implement an import ban tomorrow on North Korean iron ore, lead and coal as part of the sanctions.

Guam

In response to questions about the U.S. response if North Korea were to launch missiles against Guam, Dunford asked reporters to not confuse military action with policy. "What we would do in the event of an attack on Guam -- or missiles being launched towards Guam -- is a decision that will  be made by the president of the United States and he will make that in the context of our alliance," the chairman said. "Our job -- General Brooks and I -- is to make sure our leadership has options available to them to properly respond.

The men have two priorities, he explained. The first is to defend against an attack and the second is to ensure the alliance has a decisive response in the event of an attack.

But discussions of a preemptive attack are premature, to say the least, Dunford said. The United States is fully committed to the current policy of applying diplomatic and economic pressure to address North Korea's malign intentions. "The military dimension today is directly in support of that diplomatic and economic effort," he said. "We are seeking peaceful resolution to the crisis right now."

The chairman stressed that all the decisions being made now and all the discussions the United States is having are in the context of the alliance. "We listen very carefully to Kim Jong Un's rhetoric and we can't afford to be complacent.  We have to take it seriously in regards to our defensive measures, and with regard to the development of military options in the event we are called upon to do that," Dunford said.

He added that any changes to the U.S. posture in the region will be made in consultation with the Japanese government -- who are also under threat from North Korea.

Strong, Prepared

Brooks said the alliance is strong and is prepared to face the threat from North Korea. There are 28,500 U.S. service members on the peninsula and that number fluctuates from time to time due to exercises and new capabilities. But not enough has been said about the South Korean military and its contributions, the general said. "There are 660,000 South Koreans who are on active duty at any given time in defense of South Korea, and we are their partner, their ally," he said. "We don't defend by ourselves and we don't defend ourselves. We defend one another in an integrated way.

The Combined Forces Command is truly a combined command, Brooks said -- U.S. and South Korean forces are integrated in a manner not seen anywhere else in the world. "So I hear the voices not just of the Americans who are here, but the voices of the South Koreans," he said. "[Troops from both nations] tell me that they want to be ready. They want to make sure they can do all they can to be prepared. They want to know if they have reason to be concerned, and in the meantime we tell them to continue their mission, and they do it very, very well every single day."

Brooks noted the role played by the combined exercises in which the United States and South Korean forces take part. The annual exercise Ulchi Freedom Guardian begins next week and, he said, as a matter of course it draws condemnation from North Korea. "This is why our exercises are so important -- we have to have a credible deterrent," the general said. "This is why we have military capability that undergirds our diplomatic activities. These threats are serious to us, and thus we have to be prepared."

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U.S., Japanese Troops Team Up for Northern Viper Exercise

By Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Andy Martinez III Marine Expeditionary Force

HOKKAIDO, Japan, Aug. 14, 2017  More than 2,000 U.S. Marines have joined with about 1,500 Japan Self-Defense Force troops to support the first iteration of exercise Northern Viper 2017 at Misawa Air Base, Japan, and on the nearby island of Hokkaido.

Northern Viper, which runs Aug. 10-28, is a joint contingency exercise that tests the interoperability and bilateral capability of the JSDF and U.S. Marines. Together, the troops will address challenges across a variety of areas, including peacekeeping operations and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.

The exercise enhances and improves interoperability at the tactical level between the Marines and JSDF to keep the forces formidable and adaptive. The exercise showcases a highly capable, forward-deployed U.S. military presence positioned with their Japanese partners to directly support the security of the Indo-Asia-Pacific region.

"We have Marines with 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, Marines with 3rd Marine Division and the JSDF all currently together to train here," said Marine Corps Col. James F. Harp, the commanding officer of Marine Aircraft Group 36. "This exercise is strategically shaping our relationship with Japan."

U.S. Marines with Marine Aircraft Group 36 will provide direct aerial support to the Marines of 3rd Marine Division and JSDF with a variety of aircraft.

"The mission for 1st [Marine Aircraft Wing] Marines here is to have the opportunity to train outside of Okinawa," said Marine Corps Maj. Eric M. Landblom, the exercise operations officer for Marine Aircraft Group 36. "The government of Japan allows us the freedom to come and train in other locations. We also have good partnerships with the Air Force and Navy installations to allow us to do this type of training."

According to Landblom, the squadrons attached to 1st Marine Aircraft Wing will conduct training operations, such as assault support missions, simulated offensive air support and simulated casualty evacuations in Hokkaido.

"We have ranges here that we don't have in Okinawa," said Marine Corps Sgt. Maj. Marvin M. Magcale, the sergeant major for Marine Aircraft Group 36. "We can utilize the ranges in Hokkaido in ways we couldn't back in Okinawa. There are ranges nearby for our aircraft to train and conduct live fires by air."

During the exercise, 3rd Marine Division's mission will be on Hokkaido as the bilateral partner with JSDF's Northern Army 11th Brigade, Landblom said.

"They will do functional training where they train to learn from each other," he said. "After, they will do comprehensive training, which we will take what they learned from each other and conduct a force on force operation where they work together to defeat a common enemy."

Designed to integrate the Marine Corps with the JSDF, Northern Viper allows Marines to identify their weaknesses in order to avoid them in the future, making this exercise a valuable asset to maintaining readiness in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region.

"This exercise is extremely important because we have very limited opportunities to come together with our Japanese counterparts in a large scale to conduct this type of training," Harp said. "We need to continue training like this to better protect the region from its adversaries."

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U.S. Army Africa conducts exercise Judicious Activation in Gabon

By Sgt. 1st Class Alexandra Hays August 14, 2017

LIBREVILLE, Gabon -- Members of the 13th Expeditionary Sustainment Command (ESC), 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), and 79th Sustainment Command (Support) joined U.S. Army Africa (USARAF) exercise planners to conduct Judicious Activation 17-2, by setting up an Early Entry Command Post (EECP), July 24-30, 2017, in Libreville, Gabon.

Judicious Activation, a quarterly exercise run by U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), is in its first year of existence. During this iteration, it was the Army's responsibility to run the exercise-the responsibility will fall to other military components during other cycles.

"This exercise is short in duration, but I think it packs a good punch," said Maj. Benjamin C. Tumlinson, the lead planner for Judicious Activation 17-2 (J-ACT-17-2), and USARAF's exercise deputy. "There's great lessons to be learned from this exercise and that's what it's for."

The focus of this exercise was to test an expeditionary sustainment command's ability to deploy to a forward location and set up an early entry command post-a forward location capable of managing logistics for troops before the main element deploys and long-term structures are in place.

"It's a small piece of the ESC designed to go forward as a tactical command post to set the theater as folks flow in," said Lt. Col. Dennis Bowers, the support operations officer for the 13th ESC. "This gave us an opportunity to get after training."

About 35 members of the 13th ESC arrived in Gabon at a small, contained location and within four hours set up tents for their center of operations. The location, called a Cooperative Security Location (CSL), included two pre-existing hard structures that were used as the dining facility and a meeting area-all other life support items were brought in.

"We get to come down and test out the systems in place for the CSL-in this particular location, the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) portion of has never been activated," Tumlinson explained.

According to Tumlinson, putting the LOGCAP, or contracting portion of the exercise, to the test is important, as often the military relies on local contractors in deployed locations to supply some goods and services that would otherwise be very costly to transport.

"Everything that you see here (life support), minus the military equipment-it's all LOGCAP," Tumlinson said. LOGCAP provided tents for lodging, a wooden shower structure, Porta Potties, and two hot meals per day.

Part of what makes J-ACT-17-2 unique, is that it is one of the 13th ESC's last exercises acting as USARAF's regionally-aligned sustainment force, while the 79th SSC, an Army Reserve unit, stands ready to transition into a Theater Sustainment Command (TSC) in September take over the USARAF sustainment mission in December.

"What we really gain out of this is getting an opportunity to integrate directly with USARAF," said Capt. Valentin J. Boza, a support operations plans officer with the 79th SSC.

Boza and three other members of the 79th SSC attended J-ACT-17-2 in an observational capacity, and to facilitate the exercise's after action review. Boza explained that it is critical for the 79th to have a presence on the African continent during USARAF exercises, because in the near future, it will be the 79th supporting them.

"Africa is a very challenging continent logistically-it's unlike any other geographic combatant command's area of responsibility," Boza said. "And as USARAF gains the operational capabilities of a TSC, it gives USARAF the opportunity to expand its logistics infrastructure across the continent."

Boza expounded that the continent of Africa really tests logisticians' capabilities-as each country has different contracting capabilities, laws, and governments. He added that because of the challenges of operating on the African continent, exercises like these meet Chief of the Army Reserve Lt. Gen. Charles Luckey's guidance on showcasing the ability of the Army Reserve as the most capable, combat-ready, and lethal federal Reserve force in the history of the nation.

"The added benefit of this exercise is that we've been able to have Army units engage directly with multinational partners and that's a success story, not just for the Army, but for the U.S. as a whole," Boza said.

Concurrently while the 13th ESC exercised its ability to set up and run an EECP, a platoon of 101st Soldiers integrated with and conducted training alongside Gabonese troops from 1st Regiment Parachute Gabon. Training the platoons conducted together included physical fitness, a terrain walk, and situational training.

Troops from the 101st experienced a range of training locations including rainforest in Libreville's jungle warfare center, and more urban conditions training on a Gabonese Armed Forces base.

"Overall it's been a very good experience, a very eye-opening experience," said Capt. Calvin L. Torbert, commander of A Company, 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault).

"The first thing that stands out about the Gabonese is how generous they are-how kind they are," Torbert said. "You expect it from your brothers in arms to look out for you and help you out, and they've treated us like that."

Torbert's platoon culminated the three days of training by hosting a small, informal ceremony where troops from both units traded patches and unit insignia.

"Despite the fact that we grew up on different sides of the world-very different cultures-we still have a lot in common," Torbert said." With the right mindset and the right attitude, you can find common ground with anyone."

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John S. McCain Maintains Condition Readiness Underway

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS170814-06

Release Date: 8/14/2017 11:46:00 AM

By Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Joshua Mortensen, USS John S. McCain (DDG 56) Public Affairs

YELLOW SEA (NNS) -- The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain (DDG 56), nicknamed the "Big Bad John," continues to maintain material readiness while out at sea.

The crew has continued to maintain and improve the material condition of the ship since completing, and scoring above average on the Type Commander Mid-Cycle Inspection (MCI) earlier this year. The ship plans to return to Yokosuka, Japan later this year in a better state of material readiness than when it departed.

"We are not letting this deployment eat away at our material readiness," said Cmdr. Jessie Sanchez, the executive officer of McCain. "We continue to maintain our upkeep, so that when we come back, we are just as good if not better than when we left."

Since getting underway, Big Bad John has closed over 350 maintenance and repair jobs with at least 100 of those jobs being classified as "depot-level" jobs. Depot-level jobs are maintenance jobs that are considered beyond the capability of ship's forces, and, are typically conducted in the ship-yard or by contractors. The repairs included 403 discrepancies discovered during the MCI.

"In the past month, from the beginning of June to the first of July, we have completed over 204 jobs," said Chief Warrant Officer Joshua Patat, a maintenance material officer aboard McCain. "Over 40 percent of the jobs were depot-level jobs and yet our guys completed them. These jobs are normally done in port, yet, we are finding ways to overcome this and be self-sufficient."

McCain's Repair Division conducts on average 180 hours of preventative maintenance a week on all their equipment.

"This is the fifth ship I've been on," said Chief (Select) Gas Turbine Systems Technician (Mechanical) Matthew Squazza. "It is the most ship-shape ship I've been on and it's because of the crew onboard always pushing to get the job done. Coming to a ship this old and in this good of a condition speaks for itself."

McCain's readiness continues with daily maintenance that in turn brings the crew closer to the goal of returning in better shape than before.

McCain, assigned to Destroyer Squadron (DESRON) 15, is forward deployed to Yokosuka, Japan in support of security and stability in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region.

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America Arrives In Malaysia

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS170814-01

Release Date: 8/14/2017 9:42:00 AM

By Mass Communication Specialist 2ndd Class Kristina Young, USS America (LHA 6) Public Affairs

MALAYSIA (NNS) -- The amphibious assault ship USS America (LHA 6) arrived in Sepanger, Malaysia for a port visit to Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Malaysia's Sabah state, Aug. 14.

Since America departed her homeport of San Diego in early July, she has steamed more than 9,500 miles across the Pacific, already making one scheduled port call in Singapore.

During the ship's transit, the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit's Air Combat Element and Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 23 flew 168 sorties to accomplish nearly 500 flight hours in just over a month's time.

While in Kota Kinabalu, America Sailors and embarked 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) Marines will have the opportunity to experience the culture, sightsee and take part in Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) events.

"This port visit gives America an opportunity to experience Malaysia's culture, make new friends and build on our existing partnership," said Capt. Joseph Olson, America's commanding officer. "Our Sailors look forward to participating in good-will activities and experiencing the local culture."

After visiting Malaysia, America will continue training with allies and partners in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations.

"We have been working really hard to ensure we are a ready crisis response team for our nation, partners and allies," said Col. Joseph Clearfield, the 15th MEU commanding officer. "Our time in Malaysia is exciting for us as it provides an opportunity for the Landing Force to conduct more training, time to rest, relax, and enjoy the rich history and culture of Malaysia."

America, part of the America Amphibious Ready Group, with embarked 15th MEU, is operating in the Indo-Asia Pacific region to strengthen partnerships and serve as a ready-response force for any type of contingency.

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Over half million Yemenis infected with cholera since April: WHO

Iran Press TV

Mon Aug 14, 2017 2:28PM

The World Health Organization (WHO) says more than 500,000 people have been affected by cholera in war-torn Yemen since the epidemic broke out in late April, as the waterborne disease has killed nearly 2,000 others in the impoverished nation during the past four months.

According to a statement released by the United Nation health agency on Monday, a total of 503,484 cases, suspected to be infected with cholera, and 1,975 deaths, attributable to the outbreak, were documented during the period in Yemen.

Caused by ingestion of food or water contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholerae, cholera infection first became epidemic last October and spread until December when it dwindled, but only to worryingly resurface again in late April.

The statement added that the overall caseload had decreased considerably since July, but warned that the disease was still infecting an estimated 5,000 people each day.

"The spread of cholera has slowed significantly in some areas compared to peak levels but the disease is still spreading fast in more recently affected districts, which are recording large numbers of cases," it further said, adding that more than 14 million Yemenis remain cut off from clean water and sanitation, and waste collection has no longer been carried out in major cities.

The agency went on to say that around 30,000 critical health workers had not been paid salaries during the past year and critical medicines were lacking.

"These doctors and nurses are the backbone of the health response  without them we can do nothing in Yemen. They must be paid their wages so that they can continue to save lives," said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General.

Since March 2015, Yemen has came under heavy airstrikes by Saudi Arabia's fighter jets as part of a brutal campaign against the Arabian Peninsula country in an attempt to crush the popular Houthi Ansarullah movement and reinstall the former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh. More than 12,000 people have been killed since the onset of the invasion and much of the country's infrastructure has been ravaged in the Saudi airstrikes.

The relentless aerial aggression has put well more than half of all health facilities in Yemen in a state of complete or partial shutdown. Furthermore, there are critical shortages in medical staff in over 40 percent of all districts, according to Yemen's Health Ministry.

Last year, Hadi, who has occupied Yemen's southwestern port city of Aden with the help of Riyadh, his loyalists and militia, moved the country's central bank from Sana'a to Aden, creating a growing economic crisis in the country.

Hadi claimed that Houthis, who are in control of large swaths of Yemen, including the capital, looted the bank; an allegation that was categorically rejected by the Houthis, who have been running state affairs and defending the nation against the Saudi military campaign over the past two years.

The US and the UK have been providing the bulk of the military ordnance used by Saudi Arabia in the war. London has licensed 3.3 billion pounds worth of weapons since the beginning of the Saudi war on Yemen.

Washington also sealed a multibillion arms deal with Riyadh when US President Donald Trump made his maiden visit abroad in May. The deal, which is worth $350 billion over 10 years and $110 billion that will take effect immediately, was hailed by the White House as a significant expansion of the security relationship between the two countries.

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Japan, US begin 18-day joint naval maneuvers amid tensions

Iran Press TV

Mon Aug 14, 2017 7:3AM

Tokyo and Washington have launched joint live fire drills on a northern Japanese island, at a time of escalating tensions in Southeast Asia and amid rising fears of a potential conflict between the US and North Korea.

More than 2,000 US Marines plus some 1,500 Japanese troops are joining the 18-day maneuvers, which kicked off in the Eniwa area on Hokkaido Island on Monday.

The live fire drills are part of the so-called Northern Viper 17 military exercises regularly conducted by Japanese and American forces.

"This exercise is extremely important because we have very limited opportunities to come together with our Japanese counterparts in a large scale to conduct this type of training," said the US commanding officer, James Harp.

"We need to continue training like this to better protect the region from its adversaries," he added.

The wargames are taking place amid concerns over an imminent confrontation between the US and North Korea after the two sides traded a new barrage of military threats.

US President Donald Trump threatened last week to unleash America's "fire and fury like the world has never seen" on North Korea if Pyongyang continued its missile and nuclear programs.

Trump renewed his threats in a tweet days later, saying "military solutions" were "locked and loaded" for use against Pyongyang.

His aggressive remarks prompted Pyongyang to hit back and announce plans to launch missile strikes on an area near the US Pacific territory of Guam.

The plan to fire "four Hwasong-12 intermediate-range strategic ballistic rockets" would be ready by "mid-August," said commander of the Strategic Force of the Korean People's Army Kim Rak-gyom.

The tiny island is home to major US air and naval facilities. Authorities warned residents on Saturday to prepare "for an imminent missile threat."

Japan on Saturday deployed some of its land-based missile interceptors known as Aegis at its Self Defense Forces (SDF) bases in three of the four prefectures, over which any North Korean missiles would likely fly en route to Guam.

A Japanese military spokesman said the missiles were being deployed not to intercept missiles, but rather "just in case."

The missile system is said to be able to track 100 missiles simultaneously and fire interceptors to take out the enemy's ballistic projectiles.

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Venezuela's opposition rejects Trump's military intervention remarks

Iran Press TV

Mon Aug 14, 2017 12:5AM

Venezuela's opposition coalition has rejected any manner of foreign military intervention, two days after US President Donald Trump said Washington was considering such actions in the crisis-ridden country.

On Sunday, the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) released a statement without directly referring to Trump's remarks.

The MUD rejects "the use of force, or the threat of applying such force, by whatever country against Venezuela." "The only path to peace is the restoration of democracy. Venezuelans demand free elections be held at all levels," added the statement.

On Friday, Trump's said that his administration was considering many options, "including a possible military option if necessary" to repair the "dangerous mess" in Venezuela.

Apart from being rejected by the government in Caracas, the statement was also rejected by all Latin American countries  not only allies to President Nicolas Maduro such as Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua, but even those strongly opposed to Maduro, including Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Chile.

Senior Venezuelan officials have also responded to Trump's threat. Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino denounced the threat as "an act of craziness," and Communications Minister Ernesto Villegas described it as "an unprecedented threat to national sovereignty."

Also, Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza has rejected the threat as "hostile," and called on Latin America to unite against Washington.

Trump's threat came as the oil-rich but impoverished country has been convulsed by months of deadly protests against the government in Caracas.

Political tensions in Venezuela rose recently after Caracas announced plans to establish a Constituent Assembly to take over the opposition-controlled parliament and rewrite the constitution. The opposition saw the move as an overt attempt by President Maduro to accumulate power.

Protests erupted on the streets, and clashes led to the death of at least 120 people from the two sides.

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Despite Russian Allegations, Moldova's Dodon Finds No Fault With Training Base

Eugen Tomiuc August 14, 2017

Moldovan President Igor Dodon says he discovered nothing "dubious" during an inspection of a Moldovan Army training base that a Russian media report claimed would house U.S.-funded "military facilities."

Dodon, who has courted Russia and is at odds with his country's pro-European Union government, spoke after an August 14 visit to the Bulboaca training base in southeastern Moldova.

A report published on state-backed Russian channel RT's website on August 7 said that the U.S. Navy would fund work on eight military facilities at Bulboaca, which is located some 30 kilometers from Tiraspol, capital of the breakaway Transdniester region. The Moldovan Defense Ministry dismissed the article as disinformation.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who was declared persona non grata by Moldova's government earlier this month following controversial statements about the country, subsequently shared the RT article on Facebook and wrote that "the Americans are beginning to train saboteurs and special forces of the Republic of Moldova in the event of a new armed conflict with Transdniester."

Following the RT article and Rogozin's statement, Dodon announced last week that he would go to Bulboaca himself to make sure no Moldovan soldiers would become "part or pieces in the mechanism of a military bloc, be it Eastern or Western."

But after his visit to Bulboaca, Dodon said at a news conference and later on his Facebook page that all activities at the training ground were following a normal schedule.

"Repair work is under way to fix some barracks and some infrastructure on the shooting range," Dodon said.

"I did not detect any dubious military works that could lead to the destabilization of the situation in the security zone [between Transdniester and the rest of Moldova] or to the involvement of foreign militaries in the area, as has been speculated in the media in the past several days," Dodon said.

Dodon said that he planned to inspect all of Moldova's military installations by the end of August, and to convene the country's Supreme Security Council to discuss the state of the those installations. His goal, he said, was to ensure that Moldova's neutrality is respected and Moldova won't be dragged into any regional conflict.

Since 2012, Moldova has been benefiting from a $1.6 million grant to modernize the Bulboaca base as a partner within the U.S.-funded Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI) -- part of a broader action plan adopted in 2004 by what was then the Group of Eight leading industrialized countries to improve international and regional peacekeeping operations.

The Defense Ministry has clarified that the funds from the GPOI were used to improve the training of a Moldovan peacekeeping battalion involved in UN peacekeeping missions that do not affect Moldova's neutrality.

U.S. Ambassador to Moldova James Pettit visited Bulboaca on August 10 to check how GPOI funds are being used. The U.S. Embassy in Chisinau says the United States has invested $1.1 million to improve training areas and roads at Bulboaca, and anticipates investing a further $1.2 million to train Moldovan peacekeepers.

But Pettit on August 10 clarified that a separate type of U.S. military aid under the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program was on a temporary "break."

Pettit's statement came after former Moldovan Defense Minister Anatol Salaru said Washington had suspended $12.7 million in military aid because Dodon blocked Moldova's participation in international military exercises.

In February, Dodon refused to sign a decree allowing Moldovan troops to attend the Platinum Eagle 2017 exercise in Romania together with several NATO and non-NATO states.

He argued at the time that there was no clear motivation for Moldova to attend.

With reporting by Diana Raileanu of RFE/RL's Moldovan Service

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/moldova- dodon-refutes-russia-rt-allegations- military-base/28676040.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Georgian Leaders Voice Hope For Reconciliation On 25th Anniversary Of Abkhazia War

RFE/RL's Georgian Service August 14, 2017

TBILISI -- Georgia's president and prime minister have issued separate statements voicing hope for reconciliation on the 25th anniversary of the outbreak of war over the breakaway Abkhazia region.

In his statement on August 14, Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili called the start of the military conflict in 1992 "a huge mistake" and said it was "a tragic day."

He expressed confidence that Georgia will be able "to return the hearts of our Abkhaz brothers and continue our coexistence with centuries-old love and mutual respect behind us."

"The history of our coexistence is exemplary and we have no right to live in such a reality -- an external force should not stand between us," Kvirikashvili stressed, referring to Russia and the presence of Russian troops in Abkhazia.

President Giorgi Margvelashvili took a more accusatory tone toward Moscow, saying "Russian state policy nurtured by Soviet imperialism played an important role in the fratricidal war."

Referring to Abkhazia and another breakaway region, South Ossetia, Margvelashvili said that the only way to restore Georgia's territorial integrity was through "steadfast observance of peace, as well as the principled international and neighborhood policy, restoration of trust and cooperation with [Abkhaz and South Ossetian] compatriots, and the overall development of the country."

The 1992-93 war in Abkhazia ended with withdrawal of Georgian forces from the region. More than 12,000 people died during the 13-month conflict, and about 300,000 remain displaced.

Russia recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states following a five-day war with Georgia in August 2008, but almost all other countries in the world consider them part of Georgia.

Russia maintains thousands of troops in the two regions, and Georgian authorities have accused Moscow and the separatists of taking control of additional territory in recent months.

With reporting by Civil.ge

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/georgia-abkhazia -south-ossetia-war-anniversary-hope- reconciliation/28676140.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Serbian Foreign Minister Says Partition Could End Dispute With Kosovo

RFE/RL's Balkan Service August 14, 2017

Serbia's foreign minister has put forward a compromise to resolve the country's differences with its former province of Kosovo, as Belgrade looks to gain traction in its drive toward European Union membership.

Ivica Dacic, a strong ally of President Aleksandar Vucic, wrote in an opinion article published on August 14 in the daily newspaper Vecernje Novosti that the drawing of boundaries between Serbs and Albanians, the largest ethnic group in Kosovo, would be a way to end what he called Serbia's "centennial problem."

In return, Serbia would give up its claim to all of Kosovo, he added.

"Everyone needs a lasting solution of the Serbian-Albanian conflict, which can be reached only through an agreement...where everyone will win something and lose something," Dacic, who is also first deputy prime minister, wrote.

He added that Serbia should seek autonomy for Serbian enclaves in Kosovo, a protected status for Orthodox monasteries, and financial compensation for what Serbia claims as its property, including industrial and energy facilities.

Kosovo's Foreign Minister Enver Hoxhaj rejected the idea, writing on Twitter that his country was a "multiethnic democracy" with "internationally recognized borders."

He added that "Serbia's renewed ideas 4 border change are dangerous & unacceptable."

Most Kosovar Albanians oppose greater autonomy for Serb-dominated municipalities, saying that would give Belgrade more influence.

The country of 1.8 million people declared independence from Serbia in 2008 and is recognized by 115 countries but not by Belgrade. Currently there are around 120,000 Serbs in Kosovo and most of them, mainly in the north, oppose the Pristina authorities.

Kosovo, which has an ethnic Albanian majority, is supported by the West. Serbia is a traditional ally of Russia, but Vucic has attempted to balance relations between Moscow, the European Union, and the United States.

Kosovo and Serbia have both expressed hopes of joining the EU and have agreed to talks sponsored by the bloc on normalizing ties. However, many Serbian nationalists oppose EU membership and are pushing for closer ties to Russia and do not want to recognize Kosovo as independent.

With reporting by Reuters, Bloomberg, and B92

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/serbia- kosovo-dacic-partition-could-end- dispute/28676209.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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US Delivers First Batch of 32 Bradley Combat Vehicles to Lebanon - Ambassador

Sputnik News

18:20 14.08.2017

The US delivered first eight out of 32 Bradley Fighting Vehicles to Lebanon.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  The arrival of eight Bradley Fighting Vehicles at the Port of Beirut will help Lebanon battle terrorists and guard its borders, US Ambassador Elizabeth Richard said during a ceremony in welcoming the first shipment of 32 Bradleys on Monday.

"This contribution to the Lebanese Armed Forces represents an investment of over $100 million," Richard stated. "It will provide the Lebanese Armed Forces with new capabilities to protect Lebanon, to protect its borders, and to fight terrorists."

In the coming months, the Lebanese Army will undergo intensive training on how to operate and maintain this new, very sophisticated combat system, Richard explained.

Richard noted that US weapons sales to the Lebanese armed forces is intended to maintain the nation's army as the sole provider of security and stability.

 Sputnik

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India Denies Chinese Intrusion in Ladakh, no Thaw in Doklam Standoff

Sputnik News

16:22 14.08.2017

Indian government on Sunday rejected reports of China building a bridge in Ladakh - a region in Jammu and Kashmir even as the Doklam standoff entered its eighth week with no signs of thaw.

New Delhi (Sputnik)  India has denied any fresh aggression from China notwithstanding the continuing standoff at Doklam tri-junction. Some news reports on Sunday said China was building a bridge in the no man's land in Ladakh.

The Press Trust of India (PTI), quoting official sources, said there has been no increase in troops or any movement on the Chinese side that may indicate a possible conflict. But, Indian soldiers have been asked to be on high alert, and artillery guns have been moved to different points.

Meanwhile, status quo remains in Doklam with both India and China refusing to retract their forces. India has reportedly reinforced troops along the eastern border, close to the India-China-Bhutan tri-junction. At Doklam, the point of the stand-off, there are around 350 troops on the Indian side and around the same number of soldiers on the other side of the border.

International experts have been suggesting a third-party mediation to end the protracted standoff that has pushed relation between the two Asian neighbors to a new low.

"It is tempting to call for international mediation, perhaps a visit by the United Nations Secretary-General to both capitals. But Mr Antonio Guterres has shown no appetite for Asian affairs. Mr Trump's attention is torn between his crumbling administration, North Korea and his Twitter handle. The only world leader who has the ear of both Mr Xi and India's Mr Narendra Modi is perhaps Russia's Mr Vladimir Putin," Ravi Velloor, writes in the Straits Times, in an op-ed article.

Meanwhile, Indian experts maintain that India is not at fault but it was China which tried to alter the status quo at the disputed Doklam  a territory claimed by China and Bhutan backed by India.

"India is not wrong on the Doklam issue and the government has said it very categorically that we are ready for talks. It is China which is not ready for talks and puts its own conditions," Nandan Unnikrishnan, Vice-President, at the Observer Research Foundation, told Sputnik.

Can Russia under President Vladimir Putin mediate on the Doklam standoff? Not really, says Unnikrishnan.

"No one can mediate on the Doklam standoff because no country will appear to be objective to the other side. It is for only India and China to resolve it amicably," Nandan Unnikrishnan added.

The standoff close to the tri-junction of India-China-Bhutan started on June 16, after a construction party from China's People's Liberation Army entered the Doklam area and attempted to construct a road, forcing the Indian and Bhutanese troops to stop them. India says its friendship treaty with Bhutan allows India to guard the latter's territorial sovereignty.

 Sputnik

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Pence, Santos at Odds Over Trump's Threat to Use Military Action in Venezuela

By VOA News August 14, 2017

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence encountered resistance from Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos Sunday over President Donald Trump's threat to use military action in Venezuela.

Speaking at a joint news conference with Santos in Cartagena, Pence did not rule out using military force, but he did not directly talk about it either.

Pence, however, told the Colombian president that the US would much prefer what he called a "peaceable" solution for Venezuela.

He said there are many options available to pressure the Maduro regime in Venezuela, including increasing economic and diplomatic pressure. Pence assured Santos that the U.S. will not stand by as Venezuela "crumbles" and slides into dictatorship.

He said a failed state in Venezuela endangers the entire continent. Pence said Trump sent him to Latin America to marshal and consolidate regional support for the need to help the Venezuelan people.

Santos said no Latin America country would accept any form of U.S. military intervention in Venezuela and that it should never even be considered. Recalling more than a century of U.S. military action throughout Latin America, Santos said no Latin leader wants "that phantom" to reappear.

He said an illegal constituent assembly is killing democratic institutions in Venezuela, "it is the coup de grace we support all the measures adopted by the U.S. government, and we will support additional measures," adding that "we always look for a negotiated solution and, above all, a peaceful solution."

Santos said "America is a continent of peace. It is the land of peace. Let us preserve it as such."

Two days after U.S. administration imposed sanctions on Venezuela, Trump said Friday that a military option against Venezuela was on the table, describing the situation there as a "dangerous mess." Venezuela called Trump's threat "reckless."

Earlier Sunday, CIA Director Mike Pompeo told Fox News Sunday that Trump talked about the possibility of military action to "give the Venezuelan people hope and opportunity to create a situation where democracy can be restored.

Pence and Santos also discussed drug and cocaine trafficking and Colombia's so far successful peace agreement ending 50 years of war with FARC rebels.

Pence's week-long trip to Latin America, with the first stop in Colombia, includes visits to Argentina, Chile, and Panama.

In Chile, Pence will face questions over the U.S. withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, Chile's U.S. ambassador Juan Gabriel Valdes told the VOA Spanish service. "With or without the U.S., we will continue working in the Asia Pacific to push for an agreement that results in clear rules for everyone," Valdes said.

He added that his nation hopes the United States does not follow through on the threat to leave the Paris climate agreement because Chile believes that climate change is real.

U.S. trading partner Panama, home to the Panama Canal, established diplomatic ties with China in June, and Pence's upcoming visit comes against the backdrop of a growing Chinese trade role in the region.

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Kenya's Opposition Leader Calls for People to Continue Election Protest

By Mohammed Yusuf August 14, 2017

Kenya's opposition leader called on people to stay home Monday to protest the results of last week's election. Some have heeded the call, but many others returned to work, despite uncertainty about what the opposition will do next.

After a week of mostly empty streets, Kenya's capital city is coming back to normal. Traffic is flowing, and people are going back to work.

That does not mean the dispute over the August 8th presidential election is over. The opposition says the election was rigged and has refused to concede defeat after incumbent Uhuru Kenyatta was declared the winner with 54 percent of the vote.

The announcement of the presidential results was followed by a protest in some parts of Nairobi and western regions that are strongholds of Kenyatta's main challenger, opposition leader Raila Odinga.

Slum areas in Nairobi like Mathare have witnessed much of the violence.

Some youth gather in groups to discuss the election and the future of the opposition.

Odinga visited the neighborhood on Sunday and called on his supporters to stay away from work in protest.

Thirty-five-year old John Mark has refused to open his welding business.

"I want to know what he will tell us tomorrow, if Raila tells me to open my business I will do so, but also I would like him to tell me where my vote is and what he intends to do," he said.

Tense situation

Unlike Mark, Steven Odhiambo has opened his food kiosk in Mathare.

He says business has not been good since Uhuru was announced [the] winner and his customers are afraid to come. He adds there are those who come in, but will run again because of continuing battles between the police and demonstrators, and if they go out they are beaten by police.

The opposition says more than 100 protesters have been killed by the police across the country since the election. The security agencies have denied the accusations, and the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights said 24 people had been killed.

President-elect Kenyatta said the election is over and the majority of Kenyans have returned to work. He called for his opponents to accept the outcome and for the aggrieved to pursue their cases in legal ways.

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Zambian Opposition Leader Pleads Not Guilty to Treason Charges

By Anita Powell August 14, 2017

Zambia's top opposition leader pleaded not guilty to treason charges in court Monday, disappointing those who had hoped the prosecution would drop the charges to make way for talks between Hakainde Hichilema and his arch-rival, President Edgar Lungu.

The case has intensified the African nation's deepening political crisis and prompted international mediators to intervene.

Hichlema's lawyer was tight-lipped about what he plans to say when the opposition leader appears in court later this week.

"They have pleaded not guilty to the charge," Keith Wemba told VOA from Lusaka, the capital. "And the matter has been adjourned for trial Wednesday."

The long saga

The political impasse started when Hichilema cried foul after losing last year's election to President Edgar Lungu, and has intensified since Hichilema's arrest.

Last month, Lungu asked parliament to declare a 90 day state of emergency, after a fire destroyed the capital's main market. He said the fire was an act of arson intended to destabilize the country.

Lungu's spokesman said the state of emergency was not meant to stifle Zambians' freedoms, as critics have claimed, but to keep citizens safe.

Hichilema was arrested after an April incident in which his convoy refused to yield to the president's motorcade on a narrow country road.

Journalists were barred from the courtroom on Monday. The day before, several media outlets had reported Hichilema's charges were to be dropped and he was to be released.

Those rumors swirled around the court Monday as a triumphant, but visibly leaner Hichilema waved from outside.

But the charges were not dropped. Analyst Nicole Beardsworth says it's not known why prosecutors didn't enter a "nolle prosequi," a Latin legal term that means "unwilling to pursue."

"Speculation is that the reason for this is that because of all the media coverage of the intention to enter a nolle, that actually, the UPND (Hichilema's party) was going to use it as sort of a photo opportunity, that that some prominent politicians from around the region were in the courtroom, and so the government, or the prosecutor, decided not to enter the nolle today," she told VOA.

"So it's very much on the cards of Wednesday, and we can expect that on Wednesday the nolle will be entered into the court papers and hopefully that Hichilema will be freed on Wednesday."

What next?

Neither the nation's justice minister, information minister or ruling party spokesman answered numerous calls seeking comment.

But no one thinks the end of this trial will bring the political impasse to an end. Last week, the secretary-general of the Commonwealth group of former British colonies led a delegation to launch talks between Hichilema and Lungu.

Hichilema released a statement saying, "We discussed a wide range of issues regarding the governance and economic development of our country, Zambia."

Analyst Ryan Cummings says the talks will be lengthy, "I think it's going to be quite a consultative process, first and foremost, and definitely something that will continuously play out over the coming months, weeks, months and possibly years as we move into the next election."

Zambia, he notes, has also suffered from a harsh drought and slumping prices of its main export, copper. He says these talks must also address how to rescue the ailing economy.

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USS Oscar Austin Arrives in Theoule Sur Mer, France

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS170815-07

Release Date: 8/15/2017 9:30:00 AM

By Lt. j.g. Spenser T Smith, Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe and Africa/U.S. 6th Fleet Public Affairs

THEOULE SUR MER, France (NNS) -- The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Oscar Austin (DDG 79), along with embarked Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 46, arrived in Theoule Sur Mer, France, Aug. 14, 2017, for a scheduled port visit.

During Oscar Austin's first time in Theoule Sur Mer, the crew will participate in events commemorating the liberation of southern France by allied forces during World War II. Port visits such as these not only serve to commemorate our combined heritage and the defeat of tyranny in Europe, but also enhance U.S.-France relations as the two nations work together for a stable, secure, and prosperous region.

"Our crew looks forward to this port visit and the enduring relationships we expect to build," said Cmdr. Janice G. Smith, commanding officer of Oscar Austin "These types of visits allow us to enhance ties with our partners and allow our crew to experience the rich history and culture of France."

The ship's presence in the Mediterranean Sea is a demonstration of our continued commitment to the collective security of the European region.

Oscar Austin is on a routine deployment supporting U.S. national security interests in Europe, and increasing theater security cooperation and forward naval presence in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations.

U.S. 6th Fleet, headquartered in Naples, Italy, conducts the full spectrum of joint and naval operations, often in concert with allied, joint, and interagency partners, in order to advance U.S. national interests and security and stability in Europe and Africa.

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3 aid workers gunned down in Afghanistan's Ghor

Iran Press TV

Tue Aug 15, 2017 1:39PM

Authorities in the central Afghan province of Ghor have reported the killing of three aid workers, the latest to afflict providers of humanitarian assistance in the war-torn country.

Iqbal Nezami, a spokesman for the provincial police, said on Tuesday the three aid workers were gunned down and killed near Firuzkoh, formerly known as Chaghcharan, the capital of Ghor.

He said all the three were Afghan nationals and operated for the Catholic Relief Services (CRS), adding that two other employees of the humanitarian group were wounded in the attack. Nezami said the identity of the gunmen was unknown.

Richard Peeperkorn, United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Afghanistan, condemned the attack on CRS staff and called for more protection for the humanitarian workers.

"I call on all parties to ensure that those providing humanitarian assistance have safe access to the most vulnerable and can carry out their lifesaving work unhindered," said Peeperkorn.

A total of 12 aid workers have been killed in Afghanistan since the start of this year, a significant increase compared to the entire 2016 which saw some 15 deaths among humanitarian staff. That has made Afghanistan one of the deadliest countries in the world for aid workers.

The CRS has operatives in Ghor as well as Herat, Bamiyan, Daykundi, and Kabul provinces. It provides aid to more than 200,000 people in Afghanistan and its focus is on agriculture, education, and disaster response. The group has yet to confirm the deaths among its workers in Ghor.

Ghor, once a relatively peaceful area, has now become a sanctuary for active militants of Taliban and Daesh. The Taliban, which was toppled in 2001 following a US-led invasion, has intensified its attacks in recent years while Daesh, which mainly operates in Iraq and Syria, is recruiting Taliban defectors to spread its militancy across Afghanistan.

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Taliban's 'Open Letter' To Trump Urges U.S. To Leave Afghanistan

August 15, 2017

The Taliban militant group has sent an "open letter" to U.S. President Donald Trump, calling for the United States to leave Afghanistan rather than increase the number of troops after 16 years of conflict.

"Previous experiences have shown that sending more troops to Afghanistan will not result in anything other than further destruction of American military and economical might," the letter sent to journalists on August 15 said in English.

The 1,600-word note sent by Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid also said a U.S. withdrawal would "truly deliver American troops from harm's way" and bring about "an end to an inherited war."

Mujahid asserted that Trump recognized what the Taliban spokesman called the errors of his predecessors by seeking a review of the U.S. strategy for Afghanistan.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on August 14 that the Trump administration was very close to announcing its new military strategy for Afghanistan.

Since peaking at about 100,000 troops in 2010-11, the U.S. force has diminished. Some 8,400 U.S. service members remain in Afghanistan after most NATO forces pulled out in 2014.

About 5,000 non-U.S. NATO forces are still in the country.

Media reports say Mattis has recommended a 4,000-troop increase, but nothing has as yet been approved by Trump.

Based on reporting by AP and dpa

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/taliban-afghanistan- open-letter-trump-withdrawal/28677578.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Army, FEMA prepare for disaster relief in southwest US in Vigilant Guard exercise

By Staff Sgt. Tomora NanceAugust 14, 2017

SANTA FE, N.M. -- Whether stemming from manmade or natural causes, a disaster can strike at any time -- and the best way to mitigate the resulting fallout is through preparedness and extensive training.

The Army and the Department of Defense are at the forefront of preparing for any potential disasters in the southwestern United States. Soldiers and DOD employees with U.S. Army North's Task Force 51 participated in exercise Vigilant Guard 17-04 from August 3 - 11 at the Ornate Military Complex in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The exercise simulated possible real-world, catastrophic disasters to help local, state and federal agencies collaborate emergency relief efforts through preparation and coordinate response and recovery management to the effected populace.

"Vigilant Guard is an annual exercise that takes place all over the county," said Col. Berry Graham, Region VI Deputy Coordinating Officer. "It is a joint response that is sponsored by Northern Command and the National Guard Bureau for the purpose of readying the National Guard forces for responding to catastrophic, domestic disasters."

For this exercise, the scenario that sparked the emergency response was a 7.0 magnitude earthquake.

"This exercise was based off of the Rio Grande Rift scenario, which is a [Federal Emergency Management Agency] study," said Graham.

According to the FEMA website, the Rio Grande Rift is a geologic break in the Earth's crust that is approximately five miles deep and filled with volcanic residue, that bisects New Mexico. Any potential trouble with the rift could possibly affect over one million people in 11 counties.

The U.S. is divided into ten FEMA regions. Each region analyzes threats to its areas and conducts training to provide support to the citizens affected. Not only does FEMA train to help those affected, but they also train to build relationships with various echelons of government, including the military. FEMA Region VI encompasses five states to include New Mexico.

"New Mexico National Guard was one of many emergency relief participants for this exercise," said Col. Emily Perry, the New Mexico Army Emergency Preparedness Liaison Officer assigned to ARNORTH. "And, as part of the exercise, they wanted to use their various capabilities to assist in disaster relief with one main goal -- helping the citizens effected."

If an actual emergency transpired, how do all of the different entities receive the call to action?

Graham explained the systematic chain of assistance following a catastrophic event.

"If there is a no-notice event such as an earthquake, we are completely in response mode at that point. The first responders to an event are local fire fighters, police and medical personnel. Once it reaches beyond the local level's capacity and capabilities, it goes up to the county. Once the county reaches their capacity, then they turn to the state authorities," he explained.

Once the state reaches beyond their capacity, then the federal government is called in for assistance. We as [Department of Defense] are apart of that federal government footprint and are notified as an integral part of the FEMA's alert roster," he said.

Not only was there a seismic earthquake that devastated New Mexico during the exercise's scenario, there was also a train derailment that caused a hazardous chemical spill in Lamy, New Mexico, and a riot in Albuquerque.

"There were secondary incidents that resulted from the earthquake. So, the exercise had a very complex environment. It was a multi-echelon event, which made for great training of all agencies involved," Graham said.

"The various events were spread out over the state to encompass a larger footprint and make the training more realistic," he added.

Perry said the New Mexico National Guard was able to train in the emergency relief efforts through rebuilding infrastructure, providing medical support and assisting with search and rescue through unique aviation support elements.

As for the outcome of the exercise, both Graham and Perry agreed that the training was a success.

"We learned a lot during this exercise about working together and rehearsing our capabilities with local, state and federal assets to show a united effort in supporting the affected citizens," said Perry.

Graham added, "I've been working with New Mexico officials on this exercise for two years and each time we conduct this exercise we hone our skills using this as a baseline for future exercises. I think it has been a great exercise and everyone has gotten something out of this training. New Mexico is very prepared because of this exercise."

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Russian FSB Detains Daesh-Linked Terrorists Plotting Suicide Attacks in Moscow

Sputnik News

13:03 14.08.2017(updated 21:43 14.08.2017)

The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has detained members of a terrorist group who have been plotting suicide bomber attacks in Moscow.

According to the FSB, the terrorist attacks were being prepared under the guidance of a Daesh emissary from Syria.

In the course of an initial investigation it was established that "terrorist attacks' plots were organized by the leaders and emissaries of Daesh terrorist group in Syria."

Those detained plotted terrorist attacks on Moscow's transport infrastructure and large marketplaces, the FSB said.

"Members of the terrorist group were detained, including the curator of the preparation of the crime  an emissary of Daesh, an explosive device maker and two would-be suicide bombers."

"The actions of a terrorist group which intended to carry out a series of terrorist attacks in crowded places, including on transport objects and large shopping areas of Moscow with the use of terrorist suicide attackers and powerful explosives were foiled in the Moscow region."

A laboratory for the production of explosives, IEDs have been found and neutralized on Moscow's outskirts during a special operation.

The group of terrorists detained in the Moscow region comprises 3 nationals of Central Asian states and 1 Russian national.

Later in the day, it became known thar the group included one Russian citizen and three Tajik nationals. A Moscow court has so far authorized arrests for three of the four suspects, all of whom will remain in custody until October 11. All of those three suspects are from Tajikistan. Two of them have admitted their guilt. The FSB has not released any information about the fourth suspect.

Last week, Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Alexander Bortnikov, who chairs Russia's National Antiterrorism Committee (NAC) said that the threat from international terrorist groups, including Daesh, and North Caucasus armed gangs, remains in crowded places. Bortnikov made the statement at a meeting of the committee on counterterrorism protection of facilities and crowded places, facilities of Russian transport infrastructure and measures to improve it.

 Sputnik

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UN chief Guterres condemns terrorist attack in Burkina Faso

14 August 2017  United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has condemned the terrorist attack carried out yesterday in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso.

"The Secretary-General stresses that there can be no justification for such acts of indiscriminate violence," said his Deputy Spokesperson, Farhan Haq, in a statement.

Further to the statement, Mr. Guterres extended his heartfelt condolences to the Government and people of Burkina Faso and wished a speedy recovery to the injured."

Media reports suggest that gunmen killed nearly 20 people and wounded several others during an overnight attack on a restaurant in Burkina Faso's capital.

The Secretary-General reiterated the UN's support to Burkina Faso in its fight against violent extremism and terrorism.

"He also reaffirms the Organization's commitment to the countries of the G5 Sahel as they scale up efforts to tackle multiple security challenges in order to promote peace and development in the sub-region," concluded the statement, referring to the so-called Group of Five (G5) countries  Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger  that have deployed a joint force to tackle the threat of terrorism, as well as the serious challenges posed by transnational organized crime in Africa's restive Sahel region.

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Pentagon Completes Largest-Ever Patriot Missile Defense Upgrade in S Korea

Sputnik News

18:35 14.08.2017(updated 21:17 14.08.2017)

The US 35th Air Defense Artillery Brigade in South Korea and engineers from defense contractor Raytheon have completed the largest Patriot missile defense modernization project ever conducted outside a US facility amid the escalation on the Korean peninsula, the Department of Defense said.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  The eight-month effort included networking the Patriot missile batteries from geographically dispersed locations around the Korean peninsula and mock air battles. Each battery crew was required to complete a series of competency tests to demonstrate proficiency.

"The purpose of the battalion netted exercise was two-fold," 35th Air Defense Artillery Brigade Patriot modernization project officer Tara Gibbs stated. "First, it was to validate the systems to ensure everything worked.  The second was to qualify the soldiers and crews on the new equipment."

The Patriot upgrade coincided with warnings from President Donald Trump this month that the United States is prepared to attack North Korea if Pyongyang carries out its threat to fire missiles on the US territory of Guam in the western Pacific. Numerous defense analysts have warned that an attack on North Korea can prompt a retaliatory attack against South Korea.

Earlier, media reports suggested that the Pentagon had prepared a contingency plan to launch a preemptive strike against North Korea, which may involve US fighters on Guam. A strike could also come from sea, land or cyberspace  if ordered by US President Donald Trump.

The United States has recently intensified training flights of B-1B bombers stationed at the Andersen air base in Guam after tensions rised over North Korean increased missile tests.

The tensions around North Korea have been high over the recent months and they have escalated further after the tightening of the economic sanctions against North Korea by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Saturday in response to July's launches of ballistic missiles by Pyongyang.

 Sputnik

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Chinese military aircraft again fly near eastern Taiwan

Central News Agency

2017/08/14 15:55:07

Taipei, Aug. 14 (CNA) Chinese military aircraft were observed close to Taiwan's airspace in the east of the country on Monday, the third time in as many days, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said in a statement.

The two Y-8 military transport aircraft were returning to their base in China after a far-sea flight training mission, the ministry said.

One of the aircraft first skirted Taiwan's airspace in southern Taiwan as it passed through the Bashi Channel before turning northeast on a flight path that took it close to Japan's Miyako Islands, while the other aircraft turned southeast after passing through Bashi Channel, according to the ministry.

Chinese military aircraft have flown close to Taiwan's airspace in the east of the country three days in a row since Saturday and four times since the start of August.

The MND said it monitors all maneuvers by Chinese military planes to ensure they pose no threat to the national security of Taiwan.

(By Claudia Liu and Y.F. Low

Enditem/AW

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US military ready to use 'full range' of capabilities against N Korea: Dunford

Iran Press TV

Mon Aug 14, 2017 1:35PM

The American military is prepared to use the "full range" of its capabilities to defend the United States and its allies from a possible North Korean attack, US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Joseph Dunford has said.

Dunford made the remarks on Monday during a visit to South Korea where he met senior South Korean military officials and President Moon Jae-in, days after President Donald Trump threatened North Korea with war.

Dunford "stressed that North Korea's ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs threaten the entire global community," according to US military spokesman Capt. Darryn James.

"He conveyed America's readiness to use the full range of military capabilities to defend our allies and the US homeland," James said.

Trump said last week the US would rain "fire and fury" on North Korea, which some interpreted as threatening the country with a preemptive nuclear attack. A day later, he doubled down on his threat saying a military option against North Korea is "locked and loaded."

In response to Trump's dire warnings, North Korea said it was "carefully examining" a plan to strike the American Pacific territory of Guam with missiles. Guam is about 3,200 kilometers (2,000 miles) from Pyongyang, North Korea's capital.

The North Korean military said it could carry out a preemptive strike if there were signs of an American provocation.

Trump was criticized by both Democrats and Republicans for issuing a threat of launching a nuclear strike against North Korea with which the US has been in conflict since the start of the Korean War in 1950.

'There must not be another war on the Korean Peninsula'

Meanwhile, South Korean President Moon called Monday for a peaceful solution to the nuclear standoff, saying "there must not be another war on the Korean Peninsula," according to her office.

South Korean president's office spokesman Park Su-hyun told reporters that Dunford assured Moon during the 50-minute meeting at the presidential Blue House in the capital Seoul that US military options being prepared against North Korea would be for when diplomatic and economic sanctions failed.

Moon said South Korea would work to safeguard peace on the Korean Peninsula in cooperation with the United States and other countries, but called on North Korea to refrain from issuing threatening statements.

The Korean Peninsula has been locked in a cycle of military tensions since the 1950-1953 Korean War, which ended in an armistice. No peace deal has been signed, meaning the two Koreas remain technically at war. The US was an ally of South Korea during the war.

The US is against North Korea's nuclear weapons but Pyongyang says it will not give up on its nuclear deterrence unless Washington ends its hostile policy toward the country and dissolves the US-led UN command in South Korea. Thousands of US soldiers are stationed in South Korea and Japan.

The US has imposed sanctions against North Korea but they have failed to dissuade the country from pursuing its ballistic missile and nuclear programs.

North Korea continued its tough stance on Monday, saying the United States has mobilized a large number of weapons and troops for annual military drills with South Korea. The drills will begin later this month.

"What matters is that if a second conflict (on the peninsula) erupts, that cannot help but lead to a nuclear war," the North's official Korean Central News Agency said in a commentary. "We are closely monitoring every move by the United States."

Dunford earlier told correspondents traveling with him that he aims to "sense what the temperature is in the region."

"We're all looking to get out of this situation without a war," he claimed.

Dunford also met with South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo on Monday.

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Mattis, Tillerson make US stance on North Korea more confusing

Iran Press TV

Mon Aug 14, 2017 10:29AM

The heads of US State and Defense Departments, Rex Tillerson and James Mattis, say they are pushing for a "peaceful pressure campaign" on North Korea, breaking with President Donald Trump who has warned Pyongyang of "fire and fury" amid an ongoing standoff.

"The US is willing to negotiate with Pyongyang," the two secretaries wrote in a Wall Street Journal article published Sunday.

Titled We're Holding Pyongyang to Account, the article described Washington's priorities in tackling North Korea's ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs.

Mattis and Tillerson, however, failed to clarify the Trump administration's stance and rather added more spins to an already complicated situation.

The two officials called their approach "strategic accountability" and touted it as a replacement for past administrations' "failed policy of 'strategic patience,' which expedited the North Korean threat."

Mattis and Tillerson also spoke of a peaceful pressure campaign, seeking the "denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula" without harming the people living there.

"We do not seek an excuse to garrison US troops north of the Demilitarized Zone. We have no desire to inflict harm on the long-suffering North Korean people, who are distinct from the hostile regime in Pyongyang," they wrote.

However, in the same article, Mattis and Tillerson noted that the diplomatic process was backed up by a range of military scenarios.

"While diplomacy is our preferred means of changing North Korea's course of action, it is backed by military options," they added.

They did not clarify how Trump's last week remark that North Korea "will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen" fits Washington's seemingly peaceful agenda.

Many politicians have already advised Trump against resorting to military action, warning of disastrous consequences.

Tillerson and Mattis named China as one of the "many nations" that supported the diplomatic push by the US.

"Our diplomatic approach is shared by many nations supporting our goals, including China, which has dominant economic leverage over Pyongyang," according to the op-ed. "This affords China an unparalleled opportunity to assert its influence with the regime."

Trump had previously said that he was "disappointed" with China lack of action on North Korea and urged the country to do more as the North's main trade ally.

Tensions between the two sides skyrocketed after the United Nations Security Council- unanimously, with support from China - adopted new sanctions against North Korea last week.

"The region and world need and expect China to do more," Mattis and Tillerson wrote in their op-ed.

Following Trump's inflammatory remarks last week, Pyongyang said it was "carefully examining" a plan to strike the American Pacific territory of Guam with its array of advanced ballistic missiles.

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China to halt iron, seafood imports from North Korea as part of UN bans

Iran Press TV

Mon Aug 14, 2017 10:12AM

China is set to stop importing iron and seafood from North Korea as it moves to implement the new sanctions imposed by the United Nations on Pyongyang over its missile and nuclear programs.

The Chinese Commerce Ministry said in a statement on Monday that all imports of coal, iron, iron ore and seafood from the North will be "completely prohibited" from Tuesday.

The new punitive measures, approved earlier this month by the UN Security Council including permanent members China and the United States, could cost Pyongyang $1 billion a year.

North Korea has been under UN sanctions since 2006. The measures are meant to stop Pyongyang from persuing its ballistic missile and nuclear programs, which it views as a deterrent against possible military action by the US and its regional allies.

China, Pyongyang's longtime ally and largest trade partner, has previously defended such imports from North Korea.

Beijing, however, agreed to the sanctions amid pressure by US President Donald Trump, who accused Beijing of making "hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade (with Washington), yet they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk."

China has repeatedly said it is not Beijing's responsibility to resolve the North's issue. It has urged both Pyongyang and Washington to take steps to calm tensions and address each other's concerns.

Trump has intensified threats against Pyongyang by saying he would unleash America's "fire and fury like the world has never seen" on North Korea if Pyongyang continued its missile and nuclear programs.

His aggressive remarks prompted Pyongyang to hit back and announce plans to launch missile strikes on an area near the US Pacific territory of Guam.

On Saturday, Chinese President Xi Jinping urged Trump in a phone discussion to avoid rhetoric or any action that would worsen tensions on the Korean peninsula.

Earlier this month, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned against any move which could escalate the crisis further, urging diplomatic and peaceful means to avoid tensions.

He called on all parties involved to seriously consider China's dual suspension proposal, whereby North Korea halts its nuclear and missile tests, while South Korea and the United States stop joint military drills.

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U.S. Ready To Use 'Full Range' Of Capabilities Against North Korea, If Needed

RFE/RL August 14, 2017

The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff has told South Korea's president that the United States is prepared to use all of the military capabilities it possesses to defend against North Korea, a spokesman said.

General Joseph Dunford met in Seoul with South Korean military officials and President Moon Jae-in on August 14.

Dunford "stressed that North Korea's ballistic-missile and nuclear weapons programs threaten the entire global community," U.S. military spokesman Captain Darryn James said.

He said that Dunford "conveyed America's readiness to use the full range of military capabilities to defend our allies and the U.S. homeland."

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Moon told reporters that Dunford said the U.S. military options being prepared against North Korea would be for when diplomatic and economic sanctions failed.

Dunford is also to visit China and Japan this week, amid tension over an exchange of fiery warnings between North Korea and the United States.

He told reporters on August 13 that during his Asia trip he would discuss military options in the event that the "diplomatic and economic pressurization campaign" fails.

"We're all looking to get out of this situation without a war," Dunford said.

Moon called on August 14 for calm in the standoff with the North, saying there should never be another war on the peninsula.

"We cannot have a war on the Korean Peninsula ever again," Moon said. The 1950-53 conflict cost more than 1 million lives and perpetuated the division of the peninsula.

Tensions have increased since U.S. President Donald Trump, responding to the North's latest missile tests, warned that the United states would respond to further threats with "fire and fury like the world has never seen."

The North, in turn, threatened to fire missiles toward the U.S. Pacific island of Guam, and Trump subsequently said that a U.S. military response was "locked and loaded" -- meaning ready to be put in place at any time.

The war of words has sparked global alarm, with world leaders including Chinese President Xi Jinping urging calm on both sides. China is the North's most important ally and trade partner.

However, Beijing is increasingly frustrated with Pyongyang and joined in approving UN Security Council sanctions on August 5 over the North's nuclear program.

In line with the new sanctions, China on August 14 announced it will stop importing North Korean iron ore, coal, fish, and other goods in three weeks.

With tension high, two leading U.S. national security officials suggested on August 13 that a military confrontation with North Korea is not imminent but that the possibility of war still looms.

"We're not closer to war than a week ago, but we are closer to war than we were a decade ago," H.R. McMaster, Trump's national security adviser, told ABC television's This Week program.

McMaster said the United States continues to pursue "a very determined diplomatic effort," led by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, along with new financial sanctions, to discourage North Korean leader Kim Jong Un from making further provocative moves.

Speaking on the Fox News Sunday program, CIA Director Mike Pompeo said that "there's nothing imminent today" but that it was important to make clear to North Korea that U.S. patience has worn out.

Pompeo said that the United States wants North Korea to understand "that America is no longer going to have the strategic patience that it's had that has permitted him to continue to develop his weapons program. It's that straightforward."

With reporting by Reuters, AP, AFP, and dpa

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/trump-north-korea- mcmaster-pompeo-war/28675125.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Nobody Wants War With North Korea, But Military Stands Ready  US Joint Chiefs

Sputnik News

22:01 14.08.2017(updated 22:28 14.08.2017)

Speaking from the capital of South Korea, US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs Gen. Joe Dunford said that despite the fact some 28,000 US troops stationed in South Korea are prepared for combat at a moment's notice, "it would be a horrible thing were a war to be conducted here on the [Korean] peninsula."

The military adviser said the US is "focused on coming up with a peaceful way ahead," after he met with first-term South Korean President Moon Jae-in in Seoul on Sunday, but made it clear that Washington's military apparatus would work in unison with economic and diplomatic efforts instead of as a single force on its own.

"The military dimension today is directly in support of that diplomatic and economic effort" to push Pyongyang into slowing down and ending its nuclear and ballistic missile development efforts.

The incidence of saber-rattling and belligerent rhetorical exchanges has escalated significantly in recent weeks between the North Korea and the US, Japan and South Korea. North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un is reportedly contemplating whether to strike the US territory of Guam, which the US-led coalition has sworn to defend.

If threats of force combined with economic measures do not deter Pyongyang from nuclear weapons development, the US military will consider a "full range" of offensive measures, Dunford said.

Speaking with US President Donald Trump over the weekend, Guam Governor Eddie Baza Calvo said "as the governor of Guam representing the people of Guam, and as an American citizen, I have never felt more safe or more confident than with you at the helm." Guam has been threatened at least three times since 2013, Calvo said August 10 on Fox News.

US National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster estimated that "we're not closer to war than a week ago but we are closer to war than we were a decade ago."Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said "The risks are very high, especially regarding the rhetoric," adding "of course, this concerns us very much."

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will initiate "a very determined diplomatic effort" to keep tensions from manifesting into armed conflict, McMaster told reporters over the weekend in Washington. Meanwhile, Dunford noted that he will stop in China and Japan during his Asia trip to "sense what the temperature is in the region" as "we're all looking to get out of this situation without a war."

 Sputnik

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S Korea Says Pyongyang Unlikely to Strike Guam, But It's Technically Possible

Sputnik News

12:56 14.08.2017(updated 15:30 14.08.2017)

North Korea is extremely unlikely to implement its threats to fire four intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) into waters off of the island of Guam, even though Pyongyang is technically capable of conducting such an attack, South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo said Monday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The minister explained that the basis of his judgment came from close consultations between top South Korean and US military officials.

"The possibility of implementation [of threats] is extremely low," Song said at the meeting of parliamentary defense committee, as quoted by the Yonhap news agency.

When asked whether Pyongyang could still carry out the attack, Song emphasized that it could happen only in the "extreme" case.

"I do not take [North Korea's threats] at its face value, but it is technically possible from the standpoint of distance," Song added.

Song also told the committee that the South Korean army doubts both Pyongyang's ICBM atmospheric re-entry capabilities and the claims that it has developed nuclear warhead miniaturization technology.

The tensions around North Korea have been high over the recent months and they have escalated further after the tightening of economic sanctions against North Korea by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) earlier this month in response to July's launches of ballistic missiles by Pyongyang.

The move prompted harsh criticism from Pyongyang which subsequently vowed to use any means possible to retaliate against the United States after the UNSC approved the new US-drafted sanctions. Trump in turn, warned, that North Korea's possible actions would be met with "fire and fury" from the United States. Following the statement, Pyongyang said it is considering an attack near the Pacific island of Guam where several US military bases were located.

On Friday, Trump said that US military solutions are "fully in place, locked and loaded" should North Korea "act unwisely."

 Sputnik

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India to Use Bio Fuel for Its Warships

Sputnik News

12:47 14.08.2017

India has embarked on an ambitious plan to make bio-fuel powered warships the new normal. State owned manufacturers have been directed to study the compatibility of natural gas in warship engines without compromising the efficiency of the ships.

NEW DELHI (Sputnik)  The Narendra Modi led Indian government has prepared a roadmap to replace conventional fuel with bio-fuel in ships used by its defense forces. The roadmap also lays out a plan to use methanol for propelling barges. By doing so, India will not only be able to cut the import of crude oil by at least ten percent in the next five years, the country will also be able to save approximately $15 billion a year.

"It will be good to have a pilot study to examine whether we can use CNG or LNG as fuel for vessels which could be cheaper and cleaner as compared to the other fuels being used for the vessels," Dharmendra Pradhan, India's Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas said.

An understanding is expected to be signed between government run Goa Shipyard limited, the Indian Coast Guard and energy producer Gas India Limited (GAIL) for conducting the study. GAIL will be manufacturing new kind of fuels that would help propel the ship without compromising the thrust.

"The new fuels could be used for high speed and low-speed boats as surveillance boats require huge amount of high speed diesel," Pradhan added.

India's crude oil import bill is expected to increase 23% from $70 billion in 2016-17 to $86 billion in 2017-18. Transportation and domestic consumption accounts for 80 percent import of crude. The government also expects to soon come out with a policy to increase production of bio fuels. State owned companies have planned an investment of approximately $2 billion on research and development for second generation bio-fuel refineries across the country.

 Sputnik

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Top commander: Daesh to receive Iran's firm response

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, Aug 14, IRNA -- Iran is to give crushing response to takfiri terrorist group Daesh, Commander of the Ground Force of Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Brigadier General Mohammad Pakpour said.

General Pakpour made the remarks Monday in a ceremony held to commemorate martyred defenders of the Holy Shrine.

He pointed to beheading of military advisor Mohsen Hojajji by Daesh in Syria as a sensitive era in Islamic Revolution.

Today Iran has extended its border to outside the country, General Pakpour said.

Despite many threats by enemies supported by Saudis and the global arrogance, Iran is enjoying good security, he added.

Unlike US, Iran entered Iran and Syria for advisory purposes and the the permit of both countries, General Pakpour said.

The commemoration ceremony was held with the attendance of top Iranian military and political

officials in Tehran.

Following a US strike against the Iraqi Popular Forces (Hashd al-Shaabi), Daesh (ISIS terrorist group) seized the opportunity to attack the Syrian troops deployed along the borders with Iraq in which Mohsen Hojajji, an Iranian military advisor was taken hostage by the terrorist group elements and beheaded later on camera.

9376**2050

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Daesh, allies will receive Iran's firm response: IRGC commander

Iran Press TV

Mon Aug 14, 2017 2:45PM

A senior commander of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) says the country's Armed Forces will certainly give a severe response to the Daesh Takfiri terrorists and their allies.

"The kind of response is up to us and we will determine its type ourselves, but we will definitely do it," Commander of IRGC's Ground Force Brigadier General Mohammad Pakpour told IRNA on Monday.

He added that the IRGC Ground Forces have been engaged in battles with terrorists backed by the hegemonic powers and Al Saud in southeastern, western, northwestern and southwestern parts of Iran during the recent years, but the country is currently in peace and enjoys "acceptable security."

He emphasized that the Daesh Takfiri terrorists attacked Iraq and Syria in recent years with the support of the hegemonic powers and Saudi Arabia, adding, "If they (terrorists) had not been stopped, there would have been no sign of Damascus, Karbala, Najaf and Shiism."

The IRGC commander said Iran only had an advisory presence in Syria and Iraq at the request of their governments, stressing, "We did not enter these countries without permission like the Americans and others [did]."

Iran has been lending military advisory support to Damascus and Baghdad. Both Arab states have, time and again, lauded the contribution made by the Islamic Republic.

On Sunday, The commander of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) says Daesh terrorist forces make up the front-line soldiers of the Zionist regime and the global arrogance has created this Takfiri group to counter the Islamic Revolution.

Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari said, "Enemies regard the Islamic Iran as the focal point of the Muslim movement and have targeted its revolutionary forces, soldiers and the Armed Forces."

Last Friday, the commander of IRGC's Quds Force said Iranian forces would not rest until they had taken out every last terrorist from the face of the Muslim world.

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Rohani Says Iran Can Quit Nuclear Deal 'In Hours' If U.S. Continues 'Coercion'

RFE/RL August 15, 2017

Iran could easily abandon its nuclear deal with world powers within hours if the United States continues with its policies of "sanctions and coercion," President Hassan Rohani said on August 15.

Rohani told lawmakers in a televised speech that "the failed experience of sanctions and coercion brought their previous administrations to the negotiating table."

"If they want to go back to that experience, definitely in a short time -- not weeks or months, but in the scale of hours and days -- we will return to our previous situation very much more stronger," he said.

Rohani also said that the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump had shown the world it was "not a good partner" by threatening to tear up the landmark 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

"In recent months, the world has witnessed that the U.S., in addition to its constant and repetitive breaking of its promises in the JCPOA, has ignored several other global agreements and shown its allies that the U.S. is neither a good partner nor a reliable negotiating party," Rohani told parliament.

Trump once again asserted earlier this month that Iran is not "living up to the spirit" of the nuclear deal, which he described as a "horrible agreement."

The accord with world powers gave Iran relief from international sanctions in exchange for curbing its nuclear activities.

U.S. and UN watchdogs monitoring compliance with the agreement have found Iran has adhered to the deal.

However, the Trump administration has frequently charged that Tehran breaks the "spirit" of the agreement by continuing to test-launch ballistic missiles and rockets capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

The United States has imposed several rounds of sanctions over the missile and rocket launches.

Iran maintains those launches are for self-defense and do not violate the deal.

With additional reporting by AFP and IRNA

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/rohani-iran-nuclear-deal- united-states-coercion/28677206.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Iran's Top General Makes Rare Visit to Ankara

By Dorian Jones August 15, 2017

In a rare visit, the head of Iran's armed forces is in Turkey. The two neighbors have found themselves increasing rivals in Iraq and Syria, but both sides are trying to find common ground.

The chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces, Major General Mohammad-Hossein Baqeri, arrived in Ankara, leading a high-ranking military and political delegation, for three days of talks. It is the first visit by Iran's chief of staff since the 1979 Iranian revolution.

Regional rivalries

Former Turkish ambassador to Iraq Unal Cevikoz now heads the Ankara Policy Forum. He says conflicts in Iraq and Syria have exacerbated regional rivalries.

"Iran is becoming a very important actor in the region, particularly in Iraq and Syria," he said. "It seems Iran has certain intentions. And when we look at the Turkish Iranian relations pertaining to the situation in Iraq and Syria, it is obvious Turkey and Iran are not on the same page."

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has positioned himself as an advocate of Sunni Muslim rights in the region and has been in the forefront of criticizing Tehran's policy in Iraq and Syria.

Erdogan has strongly criticized the treatment of Sunnis by Iraqi militia backed by Tehran. Ankara is one of the main supporters of Syrian rebels fighting the Damascus government supported by Iran.

The Iranian general's visit comes as Tehran, Ankara and Moscow are cooperating in what is called the Astana process to resolve the Syrian civil war. The conflict is expected to be discussed during the visit.

Idlib enclave

Political columnist Semih Idiz of the Al Monitor website says talks will include the Syrian enclave of Idlib, one of the last areas the rebel forces control.

"Idlib is a potential hornets nest. There is infighting there between two radical Islamist groups," said Idiz. "One is considered nominally more moderate and supported by Turkey and the other one more close to ISIS in sentiment. It is not clear how that is going to play out in Idlib and [Syrian President] Assad is going to take advantage of that."

Idlib borders Turkey, and there are growing concerns in Ankara that if it is overrun by Syrian government forces Turkey could experience a major refugee influx, which could include many radical jihadists. Last week Ankara closed its border crossing into Idlib due to security concerns.

The aspirations of the region's Kurds is also expected to be on the Iranian general's agenda in Ankara, with both countries having large and restive Kurdish minorities. Next month's independence referendum by Iraqi Kurds will provide common ground, with Tehran and Ankara strongly opposing the vote.

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Hashd Sha'abi to actively participate in Tal Afar liberation op: Official

Iran Press TV

Mon Aug 14, 2017 1:28PM

A high-ranking official of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) says the pro-government fighters will actively participate alongside security forces in the forthcoming operation to liberate the northern city of Tal Afar from the Daesh Takfiri terrorists.

"Today we want to speak loud and clear that PMU is actively involved in Tal Afar military operation and will participate in all areas, where operation is taking place," Ahmed al-Asadi, the spokesman for the volunteer forces, commonly known by the Arabic name Hashd al-Sha'abi, told reporters during a news conference in the Iraqi capital city of Baghdad on Monday.

Asadi also described the participation of Hashd al-Sha'abi fighters in the upcoming battle for Tal Afar, located 63 kilometers west of Mosul, as "essential", stating, "Our forces will participate actively in the liberation of Tal Afar and from all sides."

The senior Hashd al-Sha'abi official went on to say that commanders of the pro-government force have already held detailed meetings with their counterparts in the Iraqi army, and exchanged viewpoints concerning the plan for the liberation of Tal Afar.

"We have set an initial date and time for these operations, which will be announced at the zero hour by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi once all involved units are properly prepared," Asadi pointed out.

The remarks came on the same day that Lieutenant Faraj Hamed of Hashd al-Sha'abi said Abbas Brigade, Ali Akbar Brigade, Badr Organization, Imam Ali Brigade, Imam Hussein Brigade, and Hezbollah Battalions would participate in the fight to dislodge the Daesh terrorist group from Tal Afar.

Speaking at a youth meeting on July 29, Abadi said Hashd al-Sha'abi fighters would take part in the offensive to win back Tal Afar.

He said the army and security commanders had devised a plan to dislodge Daesh from Tal Afar, which required the participation of security personnel as well as Hashd al-Sha'abi and tribal fighters.

Iraqi forces find Daesh tunnels in northwestern Mosul

Meanwhile, Iraqi army forces have discovered three tunnels used by members of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group during a mop-up operation in Mosul.

Lieutenant Colonel Sallam al-Khaffaf told Basnews news agency that government troops found the tunnels in the northern Qairawan district of the city, located some 400 kilometers (250 miles) north of Baghdad, as they were combing the liberated area of hidden ordnance and improvised explosive devices.

Khaffaf added that the tunnels contained communication kits, many cell phones that Daesh militants had confiscated from civilians and lists with names of civilians whom the Takfiris had executed.

Iraqi army gets ready to retake Tal Afar

In a related development, the Iraqi officials said on Monday that the country's military was getting prepared for the battle to retake Tal Afar.

Accoding to AFP, Federal Police Chief Lieutenant General Raed Shakir Jawdat said in a statement that "armored and elite units are headed for Tal Afar," which is considered as the main remaining stronghold of Daesh in northern Iraq, located 70 kilometers (43.5 miles) west of Mosul.

The official did not give details on the number of military units involved in the operation, but added that they were "regrouping in combat positions in preparation for the next battle."

Daesh captured Tal Afar in June 2014 with a population of around 200,000.

Tal Afar is currently surrounded by Iraq's popular mobilization forces, who have cut it off from Mosul in the east and the Syrian border to the north and west.

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Russia to Boost Iraqi Army Potential With Upcoming Supplies of T-90 Battle Tanks

Sputnik News

14:18 14.08.2017(updated 15:26 14.08.2017)

Russia will begin the supplies of T-90 tanks to Iraq shortly, Russian ambassador to Iraq Maksim Maksimov told Sputnik.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  In late July, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iraqi Vice President Nouri Maliki discussed the issue of supplying Russian T-90 tanks to Iraq.

"The deliveries of T-90 tanks to Iraq will begin soon in accordance with the previously signed contract. Negotiations on other sectors of defense industry cooperation are underway," Maksimov said.

Russia is ready to provide comprehensive support for Iraq in boosting its military potential and equipping its army with the latest military equipment, he said, adding that Russia hopes to reach an agreement with Iraq shortly on new joint projects in the defense industry cooperation sector.

"We always said on all levels that we are ready to provide comprehensive support to our Iraqi friends in boosting the military potential of the Iraqi army and security agencies, equipping them with the latest military equipment."

Maksimov added that Iraq had been an important partner for Russia in the Middle East in the fight against Daesh.

"Iraq has been making a significant contribution to the elimination of Daesh terrorist group. Carrying out a large-scale counter-terrorism operation in Iraqi territory, the authorities create the conditions for the eradication of the terrorists' bases in Iraq and for the weakening the capacity of Daesh in Syria," Maksimov added.

T-90 is the third generation Russian tank known for its fire power. Its export version includes fragmentation projectile with remote detonation to cause further havoc in adversary's ranks.

The tank is a third-generation Russian battle tank that entered service in 1993. It has its origins in a Soviet-era program aimed at developing a singular replacement for the T-64, T-72 and T-80 series of main battle tanks. The T-72 platform was selected as the basis for the new generation of tank due to its cost-effectiveness, simplicity and automotive qualities. The tank was chosen to protect Russia's airbase in Syria as it is ideal for defending a stationary object in a desert environment.

 Sputnik

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Libyan National Army Head Discussed Possible Russian Military Aid With Lavrov

Sputnik News

15:57 14.08.2017

Libyan National Army Commander Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar said Monday he raised the issue of Russia providing military help to Libya during his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Haftar and Lavrov met earlier in the day in Moscow.

"Yes, we discussed it [the issue of military aid]. I am sure Russia remains a good friend of ours and will not refuse to help," Haftar told reporters.

It is the third visit of the Libyan National Army commander to Moscow. He held a meeting with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in June 2016 and a meeting with Lavrov in November 2016, during which Haftar already asked Russia for military aid supplies in order to fight against the Islamists.

Libya has been in turmoil since the 2011 civil war that resulted in the overthrow of country's longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi.

The eastern part of the crisis-torn state is governed by a parliament with headquarters in the city of Tobruk. The parliament is backed by the Libyan National Army headed by Haftar. At the same time, the Government of National Accord, headed by Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj and backed by the United Nations and the European Union, operates in the country's west and is headquartered in Tripoli.

Moscow has been providing support for the regulation of the crisis in Libya and has repeatedly said it was ready to cooperate with all the interested Libyan parties.

 Sputnik

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Libyan National Army to Keep Fighting Terrorists to Liberate Country - Haftar

Sputnik News

13:03 14.08.2017(updated 15:54 14.08.2017)

The commander of the Libyan National Army said that his forces would continue fighting terrorists until taking full control of the country.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The Libyan National Army (LNA) will continue fighting terrorists until its forces take full control of the country, Khalifa Haftar, the LNA commander, said Monday.

"We will continue our fights against terrorists until me manage to liberate all territory of Libya," Haftar said during a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow.

The military commander noted that as a result of three months of non-stop battles the LNA managed to take about 90 percent of the nation's territory under control.

"You probably know the huge costs that the Libyan National Army is taking to destroy terrorism. Fierce fighting has been underway without stopping for more than three months, all this in the conditions of the ongoing arms embargo and unlimited support of terrorists with finances and weapons," Haftar said at a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

"All this fighting ended with the announcement of the liberation of Benghazi and the taking under the control by the Libyan National Army of all oil fields, oil ports and military bases in the country. So at least 90 percent of the country was liberated," he said.

Haftar said he was determined to enhance cooperation with Russia in various areas.

"We confirm our desire to continue building our friendship with Russia as well as continue building cooperation with your country in all spheres," Haftar said during a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow.

According to the military commander, he was planning to discuss the developments in Libya during the meeting.

"Our countries have a history of strong relation and we expect to continue building partnership with you," Haftar said, thanking Lavrov for the position, Russia took regarding Libya, on the international level.

Libya has been suffering from a civil war since 2011 when long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown. The country's eastern regions are governed by the elected parliament backed by the LNA, and headquartered in the city of Tobruk. Besides, the Government of National Accord, formed with the support from the United Nations and Europe and headed by Fayez Sarraj, operates in the country's west, including the Libyan capital of Tripoli.

Moscow has been providing support for the regulation of the crisis in Libya and has repeatedly said it was ready to cooperate with all the interested Libyan parties.

 Sputnik

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Libya's General Haftar meets Russian ministers, demands military help

Iran Press TV

Tue Aug 15, 2017 7:3AM

Powerful Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar has met Russian foreign and defense ministers during a visit to Moscow.

Haftar held separate talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Monday.

Following his meeting with Lavrov, the Libyan commander told reporters that he asked Russia for military aid.

"I am sure Russia remains a good friend of ours and will not refuse to help," Haftar said, without disclosing what kind of assistance he had specifically asked for.

Haftar described the outcome of his meeting with Lavrov as "very positive."

"We briefed [Lavrov] on our problems, described the picture in whole. Naturally, the Russian side considers how it can participate in the search for the required decisions. We'd be delighted if Russia continues to participate in this work," he said, without explaining.

Reports said that Haftar referred to the role of his self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) in fighting terrorism in Libya during the meeting with the Russian foreign minister.

Lavrov reportedly told Haftar at the start of the meeting that, "The situation in Libya remains complicated, the extremism threat in your motherland is still not overcome."

The top Russian diplomat also underlined the significance of seeking a political solution to the political and military conflicts in Libya.

"However, we are aware of the steps being undertaken and actively support the tendency for political reconciliation, full restoration of statehood in your country," Lavrov said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a separate statement on the meeting that Russia had stressed the importance of inclusive dialog involving "all major political forces, tribes and regions" in the north African country.

"It was also confirmed that Russia is ready to provide further assistance in promoting the political process, in contact with all Libyan parties," the ministry added.

Haftar also held a meeting with Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu following his talks with Lavrov.

The Russian Defense Ministry said in a brief statement that the "basic attention [of the meeting] was focused on the developments in North Africa with a focus on the situation in Libya," adding that the two sides had stressed the importance of continued bilateral consultations.

Haftar's visit to Russia, which started on Saturday, was his third. He had last visited the Russian capital in November 2016.

Libya has faced chaos since an uprising and a US-led military intervention resulted in the downfall of long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The country has been grappling with insecurity and the emergence of numerous militant groups, including Daesh, since then.

Libya now has two governments, the Government of National Accord (GNA), which is based in Tripoli and is led by Fayez al-Sarraj, and the other being centered in the far east, in the city of Tobruk.

Haftar's LNA is loyal to the government in Tobruk.

The two governments have been involved in negotiations, including most recently in France, to come to an agreement.

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India set to deport all Rohingya Muslims regardless of UN registration: Official

Iran Press TV

Mon Aug 14, 2017 1:21PM

A senior Indian official has described thousands of Myanmar's persecuted Rohingya Muslims living in India as illegal refugees, saying the New Delhi government aims to deport them.

Kiren Rijiju, a high-profile minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, said in an interview on the weekend that all of an estimated 40,000 Rohingya Muslims are illegal refugees even those registered with the UN refugee agency.

The junior interior minister stressed that a registration process by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was irrelevant.

"They are doing it, we can't stop them from registering. But we are not signatory to the accord on refugees," the Indian official said, adding, "As far as we are concerned they are all illegal immigrants. They have no basis to live here. Anybody who is illegal migrant will be deported."

Rijiju, however, declined to comment on the deportation process.

"There's a procedure, there is a rule of law," Rijiju pointed out, stressing, "We can't throw them out just like that. We can't dump them in the Bay of Bengal."

The UNHCR has issued identity cards to about 16,500 Rohingya Muslims in India that it says help them "prevent harassment, arbitrary arrests, detention and deportation."

Reacting to the remarks, the UNHCR's India office said on Monday that the principle of non-refoulement  or not sending back refugees to a place where they face danger  was considered binding on all states whether they had signed the Refugee Convention or not.

The office said it had not received any official word about a plan to deport Rohingya refugees, and had not got any reports deportations were taking place.

Human rights activists have also questioned the practicality of rounding up and expelling thousands of people scattered across the country.

Rijiju told parliament last week that the central government in New Delhi had directed state authorities to identify and deport illegal refugees as well as Rohingya Muslims.

India said on Friday it was in talks with Bangladesh and Myanmar about the deportation plan.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims have fled from Myanmar, with many taking refuge in Bangladesh, and some then crossing a porous border into Hindu-majority India.

Many have also headed to Southeast Asia, often on rickety boats run by people-smuggling gangs.

Some 75,000 people have fled from the Muslim-majority northern part of Rakhine state to Bangladesh since Myanmar's military launched the crackdown, according to a UN report.

Numerous accounts have already been provided by eyewitnesses of summary executions, rapes and arson attacks against Muslims since the crackdown began. The military has blocked access to Rakhine and banned journalists and aid workers from entering the zone.

The treatment of the roughly one million Rohingya in Myanmar has emerged as the country's most contentious human rights issue.

Myanmar has long faced international criticism for its treatment of Rohingya Muslims, who are denied citizenship and live in conditions rights groups have compared to those of the Blacks under the former apartheid regime in South Africa.

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Report Suggests Seoul Might Use German Cruise Missiles in Case of N Korea Attack

Sputnik News

16:17 14.08.2017(updated 16:20 14.08.2017)

South Korea may use German-supplied Taurus KEPD 350 cruise missiles against Pyongyang in case of military conflict with North Korea in the first combat mission of one of the world's strongest weapons, German newspaper Die Welt reported, citing military sources.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The missiles may be released by F-15K Korean fighters to hit reinforced targets hundreds of kilometers away, such as bunkers in the vicinity of North Korea's capital, Pyongyang, Die Welt newspaper claimed.

The Taurus KEPD 350 is an air-launched cruise missile used by Germany, Spain and South Korea.

South Korea officially received its first Taurus KEPD 350 missiles in October 2016. South Korea has so far ordered 170 missiles worth 270 million euros, and the higher price is due to the fact that it is an improved model against the Bundeswehr version. According to consistent reports, Seoul wants to order another 90 of the bunker crackers in Germany.

Earlier, Pyongyang called on Germany not to supply the powerful weapon to South Korea, saying that the delivery is "an act that violates the peace and that ignores even its national legislation banning the export of weapons to regions of conflict."

The Taurus KEPD weighs 1,400 kilograms (3,086 pounds), has a 5.1-meter (16.7-feet) length and 1.08-meter (3.5-feet) diameter. It has range of up to 500 kilometers (311 miles) and costs about 1 million euro ($1.18 million) on average. The missile's bouncing head provides the missile with an opportunity to penetrate concrete walls up to 4 meters (13 feet) thick.

The missile is produced by Taurus Systems, a joint venture of Germany's between MBDA Deutschland GmbH and Sweden's Saab Bofors Dynamics.

 Sputnik

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S Korea, US to Continue Defending Peace on Peninsula As War Unacceptable - Seoul

Sputnik News

12:51 14.08.2017

The South Korean president said Monday that a new war on the Korean Peninsula would be unacceptable.

TOKYO (Sputnik)  South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Monday that a new war on the Korean Peninsula would be unacceptable, stressing that the alliance between Seoul and Washington was aimed foremost at defending peace in the region.

"I say this again with a strong emphasis. The national interest of the Republic of Korea comes before anything else. The national interest of the Republic of Korea is peace We cannot have a war on the Korean Peninsula ever again," Moon was quoted as saying by the Yonhap news agency.

The president stressed that the South Korea-US alliance was based on "defending peace," adding that both countries agree that the North Korean nuclear and missile issues should be resolved peacefully under all circumstances.

"The government will cooperate with the United States and other key countries and make every effort in order to ensure that this situation does not develop into a serious crisis. We will safeguard peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula If North Korea makes the right decision, we will work together [with Pyongyang] to ensure the bright future of our nation by significantly expanding and improving inter-Korean exchanges," Moon said, stressing that peace on the Korean Peninsula could be achieved only through negotiations, and not by force.

The South Korean leader also warned the North against escalating the situation by making further provocations and threats.

Tensions with North Korea have escalated after the tightening of the economic sanctions against the country by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on August 5 in response to Pyongyang's July launches of ballistic missiles.

The North Korean leadership vowed to use any means possible to retaliate against the United States after the UNSC approved the new US-drafted sanctions. President Donald Trump, in turn, warned, that further threats or action by North Korea would be met with "fire and fury" from the United States. Following the statement, Pyongyang said it is considering an attack near the Pacific island of Guam, where several US military bases are located.

 Sputnik

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Saudi razes hundreds of houses in Shia-majority town

Iran Press TV

Mon Aug 14, 2017 6:55AM

Saudi Arabia has reportedly laid waste to at least 320 houses in an eastern Shia-majority town, which it has placed under siege for about three months.

Local activists reported the figure on Monday, saying the structures in Awamiyah had mostly been populated by Shia Muslims.

They said Saudi forces also flattened four mosques and three Husainiyahs -- centers for Shia mourning rituals.

Awamiyah is located in the Qatif region of Saudi Arabia's Shia-populated Eastern Province. Since 2011, the small town of 30,000 has served as the epicenter of anti-regime rallies, with the protesters calling for an end to the kingdom's discriminatory policies against the country's Shia minority.

The region has witnessed sporadic deaths of Saudi forces at the hands of unknown gunmen. Riyadh blames the Shia population for such assaults.

Since May, Riyadh has imposed a siege on Awamiyah in what it calls a "security campaign" against the gunmen there, launching almost daily attacks against the town, destroying residential areas, setting fire to buildings, and reportedly threatening the residents to either leave or face potentially deadly swoops.

New York-based organization Human Rights Watch cited Awamiyah's residents and activists as saying on Sunday that Saudi forces had encircled the town and sealed it off since July.

The al-Musawara neighborhood, Awamiyah's old quarter, has been the hardest hit area in the crackdown. Also on Monday, local sources said a Saudi security personnel member was killed in the neighborhood.

The regime claims the security raids are meant to pave the way for a wholesale "renovation" project aimed at boosting tourism and commerce in the town.

However, a Saudi trooper was filmed walking amid the ruins in al-Musawara pointing to the aftermath of the destruction and admitting that the operations were meant to obliterate the cradle of the anti-regime activism in the country.

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Militants begin evacuating from Lebanon's Arsal to Syria

Iran Press TV

Mon Aug 14, 2017 8:11AM

Hundreds of Syrian militants have started evacuating from an enclave in Lebanon on the border with Syria after the defeat of Takfiri terrorists during a Hezbollah offensive.

Buses carrying 300 Saraya Ahl al-Sham militants and 3,000 Syrian refugees left eastern Arsal on Monday at 10:00 a.m. local time, the Lebanon-based Arabic-language al-Manar television network reported.

The departure comes as part of an agreement that followed a July's offensive by the Lebanese resistance movement and the Syrian army to drive out militants from their last stronghold in the border area between Lebanon and Syria.

Earlier this month, the Lebanese resistance movement said its fighters had regained control over all areas in Arsal, which lies about 124 kilometers northeast of Beirut.

Al-Nusra Front terrorists, now known as Fateh al-Sham, withdrew following a series of consecutive defeats that forced them to agree to a ceasefire.

Under the truce deal, the Syrian government will shuttle the militants and their families to Idlib Province and some other areas.

The Lebanese security official overseeing the arrangements, General Abbas Ibrahim, said on Friday that a group of the refugees would go to the government-held area of Assal al-Ward along the Syrian-Lebanese border.

He said the militants and their families will be headed to another part of Syria, without elaborating.

However, a military media unit run by the resistance movement said last week that they would go to the al-Ruhaiba town in the Eastern Qalamoun region, which is held by the Takfiri militants.

Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah stressed on Sunday that the areas liberated from the control of the militants would be handed over to the Lebanese army.

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It is possibly one of the highest makerspaces in the world.

(Photo/Thepaper.cn)

Sitting on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Lulang Makerspace Park covers an area of over 20,324 square meters. With a total investment of 130 million yuan, the park marked the first makerspace in Linzhi City of Tibet Autonomous Region.

Launched in June 2016, the makerspace is no different than others in China. The co-working space boasts free coffee and desserts for companies in the park. The whole park is also equipped with oxygen and heat supplies.

(Photo/Thepaper.cn)

According to Qin Lei, head of the park, the 65-million-yuan first phase aims to provide high-end services and facilities to attract more companies to work in Lulang.

More than 10 companies, including China COSCO Shipping Corporation and China Telecom, have signed cooperation deals with the park. It will also serve as an internship center for students at several universities in Tibet and from other provincial regions, such as Sun Yat-sen University, Tongji University, and Tibet University.

We will provide cheaper accommodation for interns to attract more fresh talent to Tibet, especially tech talents and those in finance, law, and IT. In this way, we can also help boost local tourism through their personal connections, Qin noted.

Apart from working space for big companies, the park has a special exhibition zone for local farmers, which comes with an online sales platform. It is expected that local agricultural products will help residents alleviate poverty, Thepaper.cn reported.
More than 600,000 displaced Syrians return home, says IOM

Iran Press TV

Mon Aug 14, 2017 4:3PM

More than 600,000 displaced Syrians have returned to their homes since the beginning of the year, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) says.

IOM said in a statement on Monday that 602,759 displaced Syrians had returned to their homes between January and the end of July.

"From January to July 2017, an estimated 808,661 people were displaced, many for the second or third time, and over six million in total currently remain displaced within the country," the statement added.

According to the figures from IOM, Aleppo Governorate had received 67 percent of all returnees so far this year. And within the governorate, Aleppo city, which was recaptured by the Syrian army last December, has received most returnees.

Many of the returnees have cited an improved economic and security situation in the areas they had fled from.

More than a quarter of returnees said they did so to protect their assets and properties. This is while nearly the same number referred to the improved economic situation in their place of origin, and 11 percent cited the improved security situation there.

Fourteen percent meanwhile pointed to the worsening economic situation in their place of refuge.

Many of those returning must struggle to get bare necessities, with only 41 percent having access to clean water and 39 percent with access to health services.

This "is dangerously low as the country's infrastructure has been extremely damaged by the conflict," the agency warned.

Figures show a total of 84 percent of those who have returned had taken refuge elsewhere within the war-ravaged country. This is while the remaining 16 percent returned from neighboring countries Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq.

And even as returns from within Syria especially appear to be on the rise, IOM has warned that the militant-riddled country is still seeing high rates of fresh displacement.

International organizations have warned about the "desperate" plight of millions of people displaced in the aftermath of the six-year-long Syrian crisis.

The United Nations says the militancy, which has escalated due to operations by Takfiri terrorists groups such as Daesh, has displaced more than 7.2 million Syrians internally, and compelled over four million others to take refuge in neighboring countries.

The Daesh terrorist group has also been carrying out different types of gruesome crimes against various religious and ethnic groups in Syria, forcing Syrians to flee their homes for their lives.

The Damascus government has repeatedly blamed certain foreign countries for the spread of the devastating militancy.

Over the past few months, Syrian forces have made sweeping gains against the Takfiri elements, which have in turn increased their acts of violence across the country.

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PKK blast kills two civilians in Turkey's southeast

Iran Press TV

Mon Aug 14, 2017 4:21PM

A bomb blast blamed on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has claimed the lives of two Turkish civilians in the country's restive southeast.

Turkey's official Anadolu news agency said the incident took place on Monday, when a PKK roadside bomb struck the vehicle of two workers at a construction site in the Semdinli district of Hakkari Province near the Iraqi border.

"Two civilians have been killed after the detonation of an improvised explosive device (IED). An investigation into the attack has been launched and is ongoing," a statement released by the Hakkari governor's office noted.

In a similar incident on Saturday, two Turkish soldiers were fatally injured after their military convoy was targeted by the militant group in the southeastern province of Batman. The soldiers succumbed to their wounds after being moved to a local hospital.

Turkey has banned the PKK as a terrorist organization. The militant group has been calling for an autonomous Kurdish region since 1984. The conflict has left more than 40,000 people, mostly Kurds, dead.

A shaky ceasefire between Ankara and the PKK that had stood since 2013 was declared null and void by the militants in 2015 in the wake of a large-scale Turkish military campaign against the group.

The Turkish air force has been carrying out operations against the PKK positions in the country's troubled southeastern border region as well as in northern Iraq and neighboring Syria.

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Turkish Police Arrest 34 PKK Suspects Across Country

Sputnik News

18:19 15.08.2017

34 people were detained in three Turkey's provinces over suspicion of having links to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), according to local media.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Turkey's counter-terrorism police arrested 34 people over suspicion of having links to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, in three provinces of the country, local media reported Tuesday, citing a police source.

According to the Anadolu news agency, 24 suspects were arrested in Turkey's southern province of Mersin. The suspects were charged with several crimes, namely recruiting members for a terrorist organization and "organizing provocative street protests."

At the same time, the counter-terrorism forces arrested six people in western Manisa province, claiming that they were behind disseminating PKK propaganda via social media. Other four alleged PKK supporters were arrested during raids in southeastern Diyarbakir province.

The media outlet added that several regional leaders of opposition Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) were among those arrested in Mersin.

In Diyarbakir, police also seized some 500 kilograms (1,102 ponds) of chemicals, particularly ammonium nitrate, which could be used for manufacturing explosive devices.

Tensions between Ankara and the Kurds escalated in July 2015 when a ceasefire between Turkey and the PKK collapsed over a series of terror attacks allegedly committed by PKK members. The Turkish forces are currently involved in anti-PKK raids across the country.

 Sputnik

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Ukraine denies supplying missile technology to North Korea

Iran Press TV

Mon Aug 14, 2017 5:53PM

Ukraine says it has never supplied defense technology to North Korea as tensions have increasingly ratcheted up between the North and the US in recent weeks.

The secretary of the Ukrainian Security and Defense Council, Oleksandr Turchynov, said on Monday that Kiev "has never supplied rocket engines or any kind of missile technology to North Korea."

In a statement published on their company's website, state-owned Ukrainian factory Yuzhmash also said that it had not produced military-grade ballistic missiles since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

"In the years of independence, Yuzhmash has not produced, and is not producing, missiles and military missile systems," the statement read.

The remarks came in response to an article in the New York Times that said North Korea may have purchased rocket engines from Ukraine, a close US ally.

Tensions over North Korea escalated in July, when Pyongyang twice successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of targeting the US mainland.

US President Donald Trump said last week the US would rain "fire and fury" on North Korea, which some interpreted as threatening the country with a preemptive nuclear attack. A day later, he doubled down on his threat, saying a military option against North Korea is "locked and loaded."

In response to Trump's dire warnings, North Korea said it was "carefully examining" a plan to strike the American Pacific territory of Guam with missiles. Guam is about 3,200 kilometers from Pyongyang, North Korea's capital.

The North Korean military said it could carry out a preemptive strike if there were signs of an American provocation.

Trump was criticized by both Democrats and Republicans for issuing a threat of launching a nuclear strike against North Korea with which the US has been in conflict since the start of the Korean War in 1950.

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.

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Ukraine Denies Supplying North Korea With Missile Technology, Alleges Russia To Blame

Christopher Miller August 14, 2017

KYIV -- An anxious Kyiv has denied a story in The New York Times quoting an expert as saying North Korea may have obtained rocket engines from a Ukrainian state-run factory known as Yuzhmash, and instead alleges Russia is to blame.

Citing a report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) and classified assessments by U.S. intelligence agencies, the Times on August 14 reported that Pyongyang's recent progress in its long-range missile program may be due to it having obtained advanced engine technology from Ukraine or Russia.

But the secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council (NSDC), Oleksandr Turchynov, insisted that could not be the case.

"Ukraine has never supplied rocket engines or any kind of missile technology to North Korea," he said in a strongly worded statement published on the council's website. "We believe that this anti-Ukrainian campaign was triggered by Russian secret services to cover their participation in the North Korean nuclear and missile programs."

Moscow has not commented on the report or Ukraine's allegations.

In its own statement, Yuzhmash said it "has never before and does not have anything to do with North Korean missile programs of a space or defense nature." The company also said the Times' report was "provocative" and "based on an incompetent expert opinion."

Michael Elleman, the expert and author of the report for the London-based IISS, told The New York Times that he believed the Yuzhmash missile factory, located in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro, was "the most likely source of the engines" that powered North Korea's two intercontinental ballistic missiles in July.

As part of his analysis, Elleman speculated that Yuzhmash employees might have been motivated to send the rocket technology to Pyongyang because the plant had "fallen on hard times" financially amid political upheaval and conflict in recent years.

However, Elleman conceded that the North Koreans could have gotten the technology from Russia's state-run rocket company, Energomash, as well, something he reiterated on Twitter following publication of the report and a wave of public scrutiny.

As the report notes, the Yuzhmash factory is located near territory controlled by Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. It is also not far from the border with Russia, and amid the chaos of war, Ukraine's east has become a haven for illicit trade.

A Ukrainian security official who asked not to be named because of the sensitive nature of the issue said Ukraine had had success in tackling smuggling recently but had in the past struggled with keeping secrets from the rocket factory from leaking outside the country.

The Kyiv Post, citing local and international reports, said that North Korean spies had attempted to steal rocket technology from Ukraine in June 2012 and December 2015, in both cases from Yuzhmash. In 2015, the paper reported, Ukraine claimed to have detained and sentenced two North Korean diplomats from Belarus who had tried to photograph secret Yuzhmash documents relating to the construction of liquid-fuel rocket engines.

Elleman, speaking to the Times, suggested that could be the case here, saying, "It's likely that these engines came from Ukraine -- probably illicitly."

He added about the North Koreans and possible Ukrainian state involvement: "The big question is how many they have and whether the Ukrainians are helping them now. I'm very worried."

'It's A Russian Psyop'

The allegations of Ukraine's possible involvement in supplying Pyongyang with missile technology come at a particularly crucial moment for the country. U.S. President Donald Trump's administration is currently weighing whether to provide Kyiv with lethal weapons, including Javelin antitank missiles, to better defend against the Russia-backed forces it has been fighting in its east for more than three years.

That's one reason why Ukraine's security apparatus is "working to correct this information as fast as possible, based on facts," NSDC Deputy Secretary Oleksandr Lytvynenko told RFE/RL by phone.

Lytvynenko claimed Russian "psyops" -- or psychological operations, a term used to describe noncombative military operations -- played a role in the delivery of rocket technology to Pyongyang in order to cover the country's own participation in North Korea's missile program in a manner that could frame Ukraine, and possibly even in the dissemination of the IISS report itself.

He also pointed to Elleman's past work in Russia from 1995 to 2001, when he led a program aimed at dismantling obsolete long-range missiles, according to his biography on IISSs website, as what he said was evidence of "ties" to Moscow. Lytvynenko provided nothing else as evidence for his claims. Elleman and IISS could not immediately be reached for comment.

Asked if the NSDC or any other security body would be investigating whether the rocket technology could have been obtained illegally from someone in Ukraine and smuggled to Pyongyang, Lytvynenko said that "could not happen," suggesting there would be no inquiry.

"I do not believe there are stupid Ukrainians who can sell the engine to North Korea. Russia played with [the] Kims," he said, referring to the family of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Moscow's backing in some cases of the tightly controlled state.

Speaking to RFE/RL by phone from Washington, Elleman said he expected some to disagree with his report, but he was "shocked" by the Ukrainian response and allegations of working for Moscow.

"I dont have any direct ties to the Russian government," Elleman said. "I've done work with Russians in the past. Im no fan of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, thats for sure. He's a dictator and authoritarian and a destabilizing force throughout Europe and Asia and the Middle East.

It is "disappointing" that Ukraine didn't respond to the report by initiating an investigation to determine whether it is in fact a Yuzhmash engine that was obtained by North Korea, Elleman added.

Some Experts Not Convinced

It is not only the Ukrainians denying the findings in Elleman's report. Joshua Pollack, editor of The Nonproliferation Review and a senior research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, California, told RFE/RL via direct message on Twitter that he believed "the report is bogus."

"The [U.S. government] is convinced that [North Korea] makes its own rocket engines. It has sanctioned Iran for participating in the development of the 80-ton engine that Elleman and others link to the Soviet RD-250," he said, referring to the specific technology alleged to have come from Ukraine or Russia in the IISS report.

Moreover, Pollack said, that engine was not used in the North Korean Hwasong-12 and Hwasong-14 rockets launched this summer. "They use a different, smaller main engine, and also have four small steering engines around it," he added.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine -denies-supply-north-korea-missile- technology/28675992.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Kiev in immediate denial of reports that N. Korea used Ukrainian engines for missile 'success'

Published time: 14 Aug, 2017 20:38

Western experts have suggested that Pyongyang's "astounding progress" with its missile program might be directly linked to an illegal acquisition of engines produced by a Ukrainian factory. Kiev appeared to be extremely infuriated with the reports, with top officials and agencies releasing official disclaimers.

"No other country has transitioned from a medium-range capability to an ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] in such a short time. What explains this rapid progression? The answer is simple. North Korea has acquired a high-performance liquid-propellant engine (LPE) from a foreign source," a report published by a London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Monday, claimed.

The publication titled "The secret to North Korea's ICBM success" was quickly picked up by the New York Times, who also cited "classified assessments by American intelligence agencies" to support the claims of Pyongyang's possible links with Ukrainian producers.

The man behind the study, IISS expert on missile defense, Michael Elleman came up with "the first solid evidence" that North Korea's "astounding progress with its long-range missile program over the last two years" is the result of Pyongyang having put its hands on a Soviet-era LPE

A modified version of an engine, the RD-250 once produced "by KB Yuzhnoye of Ukraine," has been used to supplement North Korea's latest two missiles, "the intermediate-range Hwasong-12 and the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), Hwasong-14," Elleman claimed.

In his reference to the latest launch, the expert cited claims by the Pentagon and South Korean military, who believed what Pyongyang tested in late July was an intercontinental ballistic missile. However, Russia's Defense Ministry has said that according to data from its missile warning system, the missile launched by North Korea was an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM).

The assessments have been apparently made based on "dimensions and visible features" of the missiles, which the author acquired from a Pyongyang-released launch video.

The expert went on to say that "available evidence clearly indicates" that "the modified engines were made" for Pyongyang by the original manufacturers, as North Koreans are unlikely "to make the modifications themselves."

"Combined with a second stage... the single-chamber RD-250 engine is powerful enough to send an ICBM to cities on the American West Coast at least," he warned.

The Ukrainian factory, KB Yuzhnoye "has been near financial collapse since roughly 2015," the IISS expert said, suggesting that some of its workers might have been lured by the financial benefits of illegal trade.

"Workers at Yuzhnoye facilities in Dnipropetrovsk and Pavlograd were likely the first ones to suffer the consequences of the economic misfortunes, leaving them susceptible to exploitation by unscrupulous traders, arms dealers and transnational criminals operating in Russia, Ukraine and elsewhere," the author of the report said.

He mentioned other possible transits of the Soviet-era engines to North Korea.

There might be "hundreds" of spare parts stored "at warehouses in Russia," Elleman alleged, suggesting that while those "are probably loosely guarded," the engines might have been stolen "by one of the many illicit arms dealers, criminal networks, or transnational smugglers operating in the former Soviet Union."

Having further commented on his report for the New York Times, the missile defense expert said that while "it's likely that these engines came from Ukraine... the big question is how many they [North Koreans] have and whether the Ukrainians are helping them now."

Despite the researcher's remark that "this is not to suggest that the Ukrainian government was involved, and not necessarily Yuzhnoye executives," Kiev officials were nevertheless fast to react and denied the report.

"Ukraine has not supplied rocket engines or any missile technologies to North Korea," Secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, Aleksandr Turchinov said in a statement Monday. Kiev "always abides by its international commitments," he added, claiming that none of the country's manufacturers have been involved in arms deals with Pyongyang.

The report has also caught the attention of Ukrainian State Space Agency, which released a statement saying that "any accusations" of Ukrainian agencies' contributing to North Korea's ballistic missile programs are "groundless."

Yuzhmash  the Ukrainian factory directly mentioned in the western report (as "KB Yuzhnoye") published a statement on its official website.

"The assumption of the authors of the publication and the 'expert' cited by them regarding the possible connection of Ukraine with the progress of the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] in the development of missile technologies are not relevanting[sic] to reality," it said, adding that it "expresses sincere regret" over the New York Times "provocative" article "based on an incompetent 'expert' opinion."

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Report on Ukraine Military Supplies to DPRK 'Does Not Suggest Kiev Involvement'

Sputnik News

21:05 14.08.2017(updated 21:08 14.08.2017)

The report claiming that North Korea acquired military technology from Ukraine does not suggest that the government in Kiev or KB Yuzhnoye executives were involved, a representative from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) press office told Sputnik on Monday.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  Earlier in the day, the IISS released a report alleging that North Korea's successes in testing an intercontinental ballistic missile may be attributed to purchases of military supplies including rocket engines from Ukraine.

"This is not to suggest that the Ukrainian government was involved, and not necessarily Yuzhnoye executives," the IISS representative said.

The report argues for the source of the RD-250 engine, the representative added, and does not identify specific individuals or organisations linked to how it came into North Korea's possession.

Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Secretary denied the report. Ukraine's Yuzhmash aerospace equipment manufacturer, in its turn, said in a statement that the organization had nothing to do with North Korea's space or defense-related missile programs.

The NYT cited a study by Michael Elleman, a senior fellow for missile defense with the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank, published earlier in the day, which suggested that North Korea is unlikely to have designed and manufactured the engines for its newest missiles Hwasong-12 and Hwasong-14, since the country has no track record in developing similar engines. The study suggested that Pyongyang must have acquired high-performance liquid-propellant engine (LPE) from abroad.

The IISS report said that the engine did not physically resemble any LPE manufactured in China, France, India, Iran, Japan or the United States, which left the former Soviet Union states as the most likely source. The study concluded that the expertise necessary for building the engines, identified as modified RD-250, was "available at Russia's Energomash concern and Ukraine's KB [State Design Office] Yuzhnoye." The missiles used by North Korea could reportedly be designed in Yuzhnoye and produced by Yuzhmash manufacturer.

According to the report, North Korean operatives were known to be seeking missiles in Ukraine. The study cited the example of two North Korean nationals arrested and convicted in Ukraine in 2012 for attempts to acquire missile hardware developed by Yuzhnoye.

 Sputnik

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Pentagon Declines to Comment on Reports of Ukraine Selling Arms to N Korea

Sputnik News

19:49 14.08.2017

The US Department of Defense declined to comment on reports of Ukraine selling military technology to North Korea.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  The US Department of Defense declined to comment on reports of Ukraine selling military technology to North Korea and referred to the Intelligence Community to respond, Department spokesman Col. Rob Manning said during a press briefing.

"I am familiar with the article. What I have to do is refer you to the intelligence community," Manning stated on Monday.

Earlier in the day, The New York Times newspaper reported citing an expert analysis and classified assessments by US intelligence agencies, North Korea's successes in testing an intercontinental ballistic missile may be attributed to purchases of rocket engines from Ukraine.

Following the article, Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksandr Turchynov denied the allegations, saying the information "was probably instigated by Russian security services."

Ukraine's Yuzhmash aerospace equipment manufacturer, in its turn, said in a statement that the organization had nothing to do with North Korea's space or defense-related missile programs.

 Sputnik

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Ukraine Security Council Denies Reports of Arms Supplies to N Korea

Sputnik News

16:28 14.08.2017(updated 21:02 14.08.2017)

Ukraine's military and industrial sector did not supply North Korea with arms and military technologies, Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksandr Turchynov said Monday.

KIEV (Sputnik)  Earlier in the day, The New York Times newspaper reported citing an expert analysis and classified assessments by US intelligence agencies, North Korea's successes in testing an intercontinental ballistic missile may be attributed to purchases of rocket engines from Ukraine.

"Ukraine always adheres to the international obligations it took upon itself, therefore enterprises of Ukraine's defense and aerospace sector did not supply weapons or military technologies to North Korea," Turchynov said as quoted by his press service.

According to him, Ukraine considers North Korea's authorities "totalitarian, unpredictable and dangerous, and supports all sanctions against this country."

"This information is groundless, is provocative in nature and was probably instigated by Russian security services to cover up their own crimes," the Ukrainian official said commenting on the media report.

Ukraine's Yuzhmash aerospace equipment manufacturer, in its turn, said in a statement that the organization had nothing to do with North Korea's space or defense-related missile programs.

"The assumption of the publication's authors and the 'expert' cited by them regarding the possible connection of Ukraine with the progress of the DPRK in the development of missile technologies has nothing to do with reality. Yuzhmash has never before and does not have anything to do with North Korean space or defense missile programs," Yuzhmash said.

"YUZHMASH expresses sincere regret over the article, which was published by The New York Times provocative nature, based on an incompetent 'expert' opinion," the statement added.

The NYT cited a study by Michael Elleman, a senior fellow for missile defense with the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank, published earlier in the day, which suggested that North Korea is unlikely to have designed and manufactured the engines for its newest missiles Hwasong-12 and Hwasong-14, since the country has no track record in developing similar engines. The study suggested that Pyongyang must have acquired high-performance liquid-propellant engine (LPE) from abroad.

The IISS report said that the engine did not physically resemble any LPE manufactured in China, France, India, Iran, Japan or the United States, which left the former Soviet Union states as the most likely source. The study concluded that the expertise necessary for building the engines, identified as modified RD-250, was "available at Russia's Energomash concern and Ukraine's KB [State Design Office] Yuzhnoye." The missiles used by North Korea could reportedly be designed in Yuzhnoye and produced by Yuzhmash manufacturer.

According to the report, North Korean operatives were known to be seeking missiles in Ukraine. The study cited the example of two North Korean nationals arrested and convicted in Ukraine in 2012 for attempts to acquire missile hardware developed by Yuzhnoye.

Elleman told The New York Times that the engines likely came from Ukraine, probably through illegal channels, but it was unclear how many Pyongyang had and "whether the Ukrainians are helping them now."

 Sputnik

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Russia Claims Ukrainian Reconnaissance Officer Detained In Crimea

August 15, 2017

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) says it has detained a senior reconnaissance officer from a Ukrainian military unit and claims he was planning acts of sabotage in Crimea.

The FSB said on August 15 that Hennadiy Limeshko was detained on August 12 while attempting to disrupt power lines on the Russian-controlled peninsula. He was placed under pretrial arrest.

According to the FSB, the suspect had explosive devices in his possession.

A spokesman for Ukraine's armed forces, Yuzef Venskovych, said on August 15 that Limeshko is not an active-duty serviceman.

Limeshko served in the Ukrainian Army between November 2016 and May 2017, Venskovych said, adding: "He was discharged in May this year due to incompatibility with service."

The announcement came days after a Russian court sentenced two Ukrainian nationals in separate cases to lengthy prison terms on terrorism charges.

Rights activists say Russia has jailed several Ukrainians on trumped-up, politically motivated charges since Moscow seized Ukraine's Crimea region in March 2014.

In March, the European Parliament called on Russia to free more than 30 Ukrainian citizens who are in prison or who have had their freedom of movement restricted in Russia, Crimea, and parts of eastern Ukraine that are controlled by Russia-backed separatists.

With reporting by Unian, RIA Novosti and Interfax

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia- ukraine-detained-reconnaissance- officer-crimea/28677320.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Ukrainian PM Says Transfers of Missile Technology to North Korea 'Impossible'

Sputnik News

16:14 15.08.2017

Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman denied on Tuesday reports suggesting a possible transfer of Ukraine's military technologies for ballistic missiles to North Korea.

KIEV (Sputnik)  The New York Times newspaper reported on Monday that Pyongyang could be using for a modified RD-250 high-performance liquid-propellant engine (LPE) its latest missiles, the kind that used to be developed at Ukraine's state-owned Yuzhmash and Russia's Energomash company.

The article, citing classified assessments by US intelligence agencies and a study by Michael Elleman, senior fellow for missile defense with the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) think tank, read that the engines for North Korean missiles likely came from Ukraine, "probably illicitly."

"Regarding a scandal with Yuzhmash, this is a clear provocation against Ukraine. This is nonsense and something like this is impossible. I rely on the statements by Yuzhmash and the National Security and Defense Council," Groysman said on Twitter.

Yuzhmash on Monday denied any involvement in North Korea's space or defense-related missile programs. The plant also pointed out that it had produced neither missiles nor missile systems since Ukraine became an independent state after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, whereas its only exported serially-produced engine was designed for use in space and was not suitable for ballistic missiles.

Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksandr Turchynov also said on Monday that Ukraine defense and aerospace companies did not supply any weapons or military technologies to North Korea.

The IISS on its part said its report did not suggest that the government in Kiev or Yuzhmash leadership executives were involved in this affair. Alexander Degtyarev, the general designer at Ukraine's Yuzhnoye State Design Office, said that some country might have been able to copy the designs of missile engines developed in Ukraine.

 Sputnik

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A 36-year-old Providence, North Carolina, man was arrested last week suspected in three convenience store break-ins over the past month throughout Caswell County, North Carolina, according to authorities.

Caswell County Sheriff's Office office announced Tuesday morning that deputies arrested Jason Todd Richardson of N.C. 86 in Providence, North Carolina, on Aug. 9.

The suspect is charged in connection with the break-ins at 86 Convenience Mart, Three Points #2 and Yanceyville Pawn Shop. The break-ins occurred over the past month, a news release stated.

Richardson is being held in the Caswell County Detention Facility under a $150,000 secured bond, authorities said.

His first court appearance is set for Wednesday in Caswell County District Court.
DURHAM, N.C. (AP)  Protesters in North Carolina toppled a nearly century-old statue of a Confederate soldier on Monday at a rally against racism.

Activists in Durham brought a ladder up to the statue and used a rope to pull down the Confederate Soldiers Monument that was dedicated in 1924. A diverse crowd of dozens cheered as the statue of a soldier holding a rifle fell to the ground in front of an old courthouse building that now houses local government offices.

Seconds after the monument fell, protesters began kicking the crumpled bronze monument.

"I was a little bit shocked people could come here and come together like that," said Isaiah Wallace, who is black.

Wallace said he watched as others toppled the statue. He hopes other Confederate symbols elsewhere will follow.

"I feel like this is going to send shockwaves through the country and hopefully they can bring down other racist symbols," he said.

The Durham protest was in response to a white nationalist rally held in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend. Authorities say one woman was killed Saturday after one of the white nationalists drove his car into a group of peaceful counter-protesters.

While the violence in Virginia has prompted fresh talk by government officials about bringing down symbols of the Confederacy around the South, North Carolina has a law protecting them. The 2015 law prevents removing such monuments on public property without permission from state officials.

After the Durham statue fell, several dozen protesters congregated on the street in front of the old courthouse. Some took pictures standing or sitting on the toppled soldier, in front of a pedestal inscribed with the words "In Memory of the Boys Who Wore The Gray." Police cruisers blocked off the street, and officers looked on  some filming. As it got dark, rally participants began to peacefully disperse.

Robin Williamson, who works downtown, arrived in the area about an hour after the statue came down. Williamson, who is black, said he can sympathize with people who are upset with the state of racial discourse in the country.

"People feel that with Donald Trump as leader, racists can be vocal," he said.

He said that while Confederate monuments have been defaced in other cities, it was surprising to see an entire statue brought down by protesters.

"This is a little bit more intense because they took the whole statue down," he said.
WENTWORTH, N.C.  A Reidsville man who allegedly shot into the car of a Rockingham County social worker has filed a $23 million federal lawsuit against Sheriff Sam Page, the sheriffs department and department of social services.

Christopher Lee Neal, 42, mailed the filing to the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina from the Alamance County Detention Center on July 12. The verified complaint and swearing of obligations was signed on June 30.

The complaint states that the suit was filed in accordance to Section 1983  a federal law that allows lawsuits for the violation of constitutional rights.

Neal alleged in the complaint that his children were unlawfully placed with the foster care system and that law enforcement entered his home without a search warrant or proper documentation, causing mental and emotional distress.

He is seeking $14 million for violation of his and his childrens constitutional rights. He is also asking for $5 million in punitive damages for the intentional infliction of emotional distress and $4 million for the mental and emotional damages caused in their removal from their home.

Neal was arrested on June 15 in North Myrtle Beach, three days after allegedly firing a gun at the car of a Rockingham County social worker in Burlington.

He was charged with one count of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill and one count of shooting into an occupied vehicle after he apparently targeted social worker Carlietha Rosanna Glover following an investigation by child protective services that led to children being removed from his home.

Earlier that evening, sheriff's deputies escorted Glover, who lives outside of the county, to the Rockingham County line on N.C. 87, heading toward Burlington.

Heading home, Glover was driving her vehicle south on West Webb Avenue in Burlington at about 11:30 p.m. June 12 when she reached the intersection of Webb Avenue and Glen Raven Road. Once stopped, a navy blue BMW sports-utility vehicle drove alongside her vehicle and fired a gunshot into the drivers side of Glovers car.

Glover, who was not injured by the gunfire, notified Burlington police of the incident and drove about 2 miles to the police station, where she was met by officers.

According to the court document, Neal received a call on his cell phone from agents working on behalf of the Rockingham County Department of Social Services on June 13  prior to the shooting incident. He brushed the call off as some sort of prank call and asked the caller not to play about his kids.

The document states that after an interview with the staff later in the day, it was determined that the mother of Neals children tested positive for THC marijuana even though his newborn child, born six days earlier, did not.

Neals handwritten complaint says he then questioned what the DSSs involvement had to do with his two older children. It also states that a social worker replied by saying, We just want to make sure that theyre fine.

An agreement was reached of a time for social workers to meet with him and his children the next day at his fathers house on Brooks Road in Reidsville. Later that day, the suit states, sheriffs deputies kicked in the door and unlawfully seized two of his small children from a property on Knowles Road, owned by Neal.

Its unclear who was staying with the children at the time of the incident, but the case file states that Neal was warned about the situation by a telephone call from his childrens mother, Latanya Whetsell.

Once apprised of the situation, Neal wrote that he immediately left his fathers home to address the incident.

The lawsuit says that upon arrival, he asked officials on the property for proper documentation and that neither produced any documents for the invasion and that defendants were asked for a search warrant and each defendant produced nothing signed by an Article III Judge, not even an affidavit of probable cause.

The final statement of fact in the complaint states that the defendants that responded to Knowles Road had violated every aspect of [the] plaintiffs constitutional rights in the highest regards and the rights of his children. This arbitrary abuse of power is exactly what the framers of the constitution had imagined and feared from government defendants.

Neal, who was extradited back to Alamance County on July 3, is set to appear in Alamance County Superior Court for criminal proceedings on Oct. 11.

The civil case is still pending.
The photo released by SpaceX on Aug. 14, 2017 shows Falcon 9 rocket, with the Dragon spacecraft sitting on the top, launching at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the United States. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Florida on Monday, sending the U.S. space firm's last new first-generation Dragon cargo ship to the International Space Station. The Falcon 9 rocket, with the Dragon spacecraft sitting on the top, blasted off from a launch pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center at 12:31 p.m. EDT (1631 GMT), according to a live webcast by the U.S. space agency NASA. (Xinhua)

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Florida on Monday, sending the U.S. space firm's last new first-generation Dragon cargo ship to the International Space Station.

The Falcon 9 rocket, with the Dragon spacecraft sitting on the top, blasted off from a launch pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center at 12:31 p.m. EDT (1631 GMT), according to a live webcast by the U.S. space agency NASA.

About eight minutes later, SpaceX successfully landed the rocket's first stage at the company's Landing Zone 1, just south of the launch site at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, as part of its effort to develop fully reusable rockets.

Previously, SpaceX has successfully recovered 13 first stages, five on land and eight at sea.

Monday's flight was the 12th of up to 20 missions to the space station that SpaceX will fly for NASA under a multi-year commercial resupply services (CRS) contract.

And it also marked the last time SpaceX launches a brand-new Dragon 1 vehicle and the remaining CRS missions will fly only reused ones, an official from SpaceX said at a pre-launched news conference on Sunday.

A variant of the Dragon spacecraft, called Dragon 2, is currying being developed for U.S.-based crew transport to and from the space station, the company said.

For this mission, Dragon was filled with over 6,400 pounds (2,900 kilograms) of supplies and payloads, including critical materials to directly support dozens of the more than 250 science and research investigations that will occur during the next six months.

"I'm happy to say 75 percent of that total mass is headed toward our research community," Dan Hartman, deputy manager of NASA's space station program, said at Sunday's news conference "It sets a new bar for the amount of research that we've been able to get on the flight."

A biology experiment will use the orbiting laboratory's microgravity environment to grow an important protein, LRRK2, which is believed to be greatest genetic contributor to Parkinson's disease.

Another experiment will test strategies for growing new lung tissue from stem cells, with the ultimate goal of producing bioengineered human lung tissue to help better understand organ rejection.

Also aboard the Dragon was an investigation that aims to validate the concept of using microsatellites in low-Earth orbit to support critical operations, such as providing lower-cost Earth imagery in situations such as tracking severe weather and detecting natural disasters.

In addition, the cargo included a Hewlett Packard Enterprise supercomputer, which is part of a year-long experiment to test how a system like this would operate in deep space for about a year, which is roughly the length of time needed to travel to Mars.

If everything goes well, the Dragon spacecraft will arrive at the space station Wednesday, where it is expected to stay for about one month.

Then, in mid-September, the spacecraft will return to Earth with results of earlier experiments, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California.
Musical endeavors as diverse as the Midwest dad-rock of Wilco, noiseniks Wolf Eyes and an indie imprint based in Philadelphia are angling at raising funds for nonprofits, legal and medical bills following the events that occurred in Charlottesville on Friday and Saturday.

Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy, who wrote on Bandcamp that his father was named after a Confederate general, posted a no-frills country cut titled "All Lives, You Say?" Proceeds from the $1 download are to benefit the Southern Poverty Law Center.

In the song, which sounds like an extension of "John Wesley Harding" simplicity, Tweedy ruminates on his perception of the thin-skinned alt-right during a time that he said counts as its final moments.

No credits accompany the recording, but "All Lives" represents a stripped-down version of the ensemble.

In Philadelphia, Get Better Records honcho Alex Licktenhour is working to put together a compilation to help offset medical costs individuals might have incurred following last weekend's violence.

"This is a direct target on fascism and racism," Licktenhour, who started the label in 2010, said over the phone Monday. "It's important to fight back against any sort of oppression."

In the past, he said, the genre-agnostic label's worked with a number of trans and queer musicians, as well as contributing funds to local organizations raised at festivals and through other digital compilations.

The compilation to benefit Charlottesville is still in the works, and those interested in contributing music can contact Licktenhour at getbetterrecords@gmail.com.

The most musically radical conglomerate looking to provide some sort of aid in the aftermath of the Unite the Right rally, Michigan's Wolf Eyes posted the six-track "No Hate" to Bandcamp. It's free to download and currently links to the completed "Our Sister's Keeper #HeatherHeyer" Go Fund Me campaign.

In keeping with this year's "Undertow," a few of the "No Hate" cuts get into avant-jazz territory, but nothing approaches the spun-out rock theatrics of 2015's "I Am a Problem: Mind in Pieces."

Charlottesville-based efforts to raise funds are in the works, according to a handful of arts and music organizations, but nothing yet has been solidified.
CONTINUING TO GENERATE FREE CASH - $15.4 MILLION IN FIRST NINE MONTHS OF OPERATION

(In US Dollars unless otherwise stated)

TORONTO, Aug. 14, 2017 /CNW/ - Superior Gold Inc. ("Superior Gold" or the "Company") (TSX.V:SGI) announced today its financial and operating results for the second quarter of 2017. This release should be read in conjunction with the Company's Management Discussion and Analysis (MD&A) and unaudited condensed consolidated interim financial statements for the second quarter ended June 30, 2017. These documents will be posted on the Company's website at www.superior-gold.com and SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Operational Highlights (for the three months ended June 30, 2017):

Produced 17,556 ounces of gold

Sold 19,353 ounces of gold at an average realized price 1 of $1,254 per ounce

of $1,254 per ounce Total cash costs1 were $970 per ounce and all-in sustaining costs1 were $1,078 per ounce

Financial Highlights (for the three months ended June 30, 2017):

Revenue totaled $24.3 million

Generated cash from operations of $3.6 million

Generated $2.6 million in free cash 2

Cost of sales was $23.6 million, including $4.2 million of depreciation

Cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash increased to $30.3 million at the end of the quarter

Additional Highlights:

Received regulatory approval to commence development of the Hermes Project

Began mobilizing personnel and equipment to site to begin construction of the haul road as part of the first stage of development of the Hermes Project

Undertook negotiations to acquire approximately 155,000 tonnes of gold-bearing oxide material from Sandfire Resources NL's (ASX:SFR) neighbouring DeGrussa Copper Mine, with an agreement finalized in July 2017

Chris Bradbrook, President and CEO of Superior Gold stated: "We are pleased to announce our second full quarter of results since our initial public offering completed in February 2017, and our third strong operational quarter since the acquisition of the Plutonic Gold Operations in October 2016. For the first six months of 2017 we have produced 38,325 ounces of gold and are on track to meet our targeted production level of between 75-80,000 ounces of gold for 2017. The increases in total cash costs1 and all-in sustaining costs1 in the second quarter, compared to the first quarter, were largely the result of lower production levels at the Plutonic Gold Mine due to operating in a lower grade area with expected slightly lower recovery levels. Additionally, during the quarter, a mill reline and a tailings facility lift were completed.

The Company continues to generate free cash and increase our cash position, and has the liquidity available to fund the development of our near term projects and exploration program. During the quarter, we received approval to begin development of the Hermes Project beginning on or after July 1, 2017 and we commenced construction of the haul road in mid July.

We look forward to continuing to build on these positive results we have achieved to date, with a continued focus on cost control and building shareholder value. All future capital and exploration expenditures will be aimed at supporting the long-term generation of free cash."

Summary of Financial and Operational Results:



Three months

ended June 30, 2017 Six months ended

June 30, 2017 All amounts in $ millions except where noted



Financial



Revenue 24.3 51.0 Cost of sales 23.6 45.7 Operating income (loss) (0.22) 3.5 Net income (loss) (0.08) (3.1) Net income (loss) per share ($/share) (0.00) (0.04) Adjusted net income (loss) 1 (0.21) 1.9 Adjusted net income (loss) ($/share)1 (0.00) 0.02 Cash from operating activities 3.6 10.9 Weighted number of common shares outstanding 95,669,140 80,140,200





Operational



Gold produced (ounces) 17,556 38,325 Gold sold (ounces) 19,353 41,154 Average realized price1 ($/ounce) 1,254 1,236 Total cash costs ($/ounce)1 970 879 All-in sustaining costs ($/ounce)1 1,078 994 Total material mined (tonnes) 206,363 407,149 Total material milled (tonnes) 308,824 641,229 Grade Milled (g/tonne)3 2.3 2.4 Recovery (%) 76 77

Plutonic Gold Mine

The Plutonic Gold Mine produced 17,556 ounces of gold in the three month period ending June 30, 2017 compared to 20,769 ounces of gold in the three month period ending March 31, 2017 as a result of lower grade material milled with expected slightly lower recovery levels. Total cash costs1 and all in sustaining costs1 of $970 per ounce and $1,078 per ounce respectively, were below the realized gold price1 of $1,254 for the three-month period ending June 30, 2017. The Plutonic Gold Mine and the regional administrative office generated net cash from operations after working capital changes of $5.1 million for the three-month period ending June 30, 2017.

For the six months ended June 30, 2017 The Plutonic Gold Mine produced and sold 38,325 and 41,154 ounces of gold, respectively. Total cash costs1 and all-in sustaining costs1 of $879/ounce and $994/ounce were below the realized gold price1 of $1,236/ounce for the six month period ending June 30, 2017. The Plutonic Gold Mine and the regional administrative office generated net cash from operations after working capital changes of $13.1 million for the six month period ending June 30, 2017.

Development Activities

The Hermes Project received final environmental approval, including the Clearing Permit, in June 2017, which allowed for ground disturbance/clearing beginning on July 1, 2017 and onwards. The initial development of the haul road began in mid-July 2017, with pre-stripping operations at Hermes to follow in the latter half of the year. The Hermes Deposit is expected to be mined as a conventional open pit contractor operated mining operation with ore being trucked for processing at the Plutonic Gold Mine mill. Additional information regarding the Hermes development project can be found in the Company's Technical Report (effective date September 30, 2016) which was filed on SEDAR (www.sedar.com) on February 15, 2017.

Exploration Activities

During the second quarter, the Company's ongoing underground diamond drilling program focused on five zones at its wholly-owned Plutonic Gold Mine: Baltic; Caribbean; Caspian; Cortez; and Indian. Significant intersections were encountered in all zones. Results were released for 112 drill holes for a total of more than 8,000 metres. The drill holes were primarily completed for resource definition and grade control purposes. One of these holes was conducted as part of the underground exploration program testing areas outside of the known resources. Resource definition was designed to increase the confidence level of the resource in areas where drilling was limited. Grade control drilling was completed to provide additional information for stope design ahead of mining. The exploration hole was completed to test previously undrilled areas in the search for possible extensions of mineralization to potentially expand the overall resource.

The following key findings were noted:

112 intersections encountered more than 5g Au/t

51 intersections encountered more than 10g Au/t

19 intersections encountered more than 20g Au/t

Exploration intersections of up to 38.3g Au/t over 2.05 metres and 17.8g Au/t over 5.10 metres were obtained, approximately 200 metres laterally from known mineralization in the Indian Zone.

Oxide Material

The Company undertook negotiations and finalized an agreement in July of 2017, to acquire approximately 155,000 tonnes of gold-bearing oxide material from Sandfire Resources NL's (ASX:SFR  "Sandfire") DeGrussa Copper Mine. The material ("Sandfire Material") is stockpiled approximately 30 kilometres south of the Plutonic Gold Mine. Historic samples taken from this material have provided gold grades of between 0.6 gAu/t and 1.5 gAu/t. The Company will pay Sandfire $7.80 (A$10) per tonne of material removed from the DeGrussa Mine. The plan is to process the material at the Plutonic Gold Mine at the rate of approximately 30,000 tonnes per month.

Outlook and Strategy

In the near term, the Company is focused on re-establishing the Plutonic Gold Operations as a stable gold producer capable of producing at least 100,000 ounces of gold annually. To achieve this goal, the Company intends to focus on its growth strategy which includes:

Focusing on quality high-grade ounces

Optimizing recoveries

Increasing incremental production from underground and open pit sources

Resource and reserve additions through property wide exploration

Leveraging the excess mill capacity

With the proceeds raised from the completion of the initial public offering, and the cash generated from the Plutonic Gold Mine, the Company has the liquidity available to execute on its near-term growth and exploration strategy.

_______________________________________

(1) This is a Non-IFRS measure. Refer to Non-IFRS measures section of the MD&A for a description of these measures. (2) Free cash is defined as Cash from operating activities less Expenditures on mineral interests and property, plant and equipment. (3) The grade milled is a combination of underground stoped ore, underground development ore, and low grade surface material.

Qualified Person

Scientific and technical information in this press release has been reviewed and approved by Simon Lawson who is a member of the AusIMM and a "qualified person" within the meaning of NI 43-101. Mr. Lawson is an employee of the Company and serves as the Chief Geologist.

About Superior Gold

Superior Gold is a Canadian based gold producer that owns 100% of the Plutonic Gold Operations located in Western Australia. The Plutonic Gold Operations include the Plutonic Gold Mine, which is a producing underground operation with a central mill, the Hermes open pit development project and an interest in the Bryah Basin joint venture. Superior Gold is focused on expanding production at the Plutonic Gold Operations and building an intermediate gold producer with superior returns for shareholders.

Forward Looking Information

This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws that is intended to be covered by the safe harbours created by those laws. "Forward-looking information" includes statements that use forward-looking terminology such as "may", "will", "expect", "anticipate", "believe", "continue", "potential" or the negative thereof or other variations thereof or comparable terminology. Forward looking information in this news release includes, but is not limited to, the Company's objectives, goals or future plans, and statements regarding exploration results and exploration plans.

Forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and is based upon a number of estimates and assumptions of management at the date the statements are made. Furthermore, such forward-looking information involves a variety of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual plans, intentions, activities, results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future plans, intentions, activities, results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. See "Risk Factors" in the Company's prospectus dated February 15, 2017 filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com for a discussion of these risks.

The Company cautions that there can be no assurance that forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. Accordingly, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Except as required by law, the Company does not assume any obligation to release publicly any revisions to forward-looking information contained in this press release to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE Superior Gold
VANCOUVER, Aug. 15, 2017 /CNW/ - Kootenay Silver Inc. (TSXV: KTN) (the "Company" or "Kootenay") is pleased to announce the discovery of a substantial new mineralized silver zone within the Las Venadas target area of its La Cigarra silver project in Chihuahua State, Mexico. The strength and intensity of brecciation, veining and alteration is much stronger than anything observed within the La Cigarra resource itself.

Kootenay President and CEO James McDonald states, "The discovery of a mineralized zone of this magnitude and strength of veining in the world-class Parral mining district is a highly significant development for the company. The large-scale nature and intensity of the mineralized zone offers exceptional future growth potential and is characteristic of other major silver deposits in the district such as the San Francisco Del Oro and Santa Barbara mines located closely to the immediate south."

Management believes this new area of mineralization holds outstanding potential to add significant new resources to the La Cigarra deposit, which remains open along strike and to depth, and currently stands at 18.5 million tonnes grading 86.3 gpt containing 51.5 million ounces in the Measured and Indicated category, and an Inferred silver resource of 4.45 million tonnes grading 80.0 gpt containing 11.4 million ounces (Click to view: La Cigarra Resource or NI 43-101 technical report on La Cigarra updated resource estimate).

This discovery area is blind to surface and lies approximately 1,000 meters south of the edge of the La Cigarra resource as defined to date. More than 250 meters in core length of quartz-calcite and quartz vein breccia and veining within altered sediments was intercepted in hole CC-17-26 which bottomed in veining. Textures are indicative of a variant of an epithermal hydrothermal breccia complex.

The zone is anomalous throughout. Individual samples grade as high as 799 gpt silver over 1.1 meters and 692 gpt silver over 1 meter in two different zones indicating excellent grade potential. The best weighted average intervals are:

Hole CC-17-26

91.32 gpt silver over 29.5 meters, including

123.24 gpt silver over 19.25 meters, with

435.36 gpt silver over 2.5 meters, and

113.78 gpt silver over 10.75 meters

All intervals are core length as the strike, dip and shape of the zone and thus true widths are unknown at this time.

A second hole, CC-17-28 stepped out 100 meters to the northeast of the CC-17-26 intercept to test the strike extent of the new zone. The hole was lost in a fault zone but not before entering a zone of veining believed to be the start of the new mineralized zone. Assays are pending and will be reported once received.

The remainder of the holes tested various other targets in Las Venadas. The best intercept to date elsewhere in the Las Venadas area is CC-17-27 which returned 107.15 gpt silver over 9.5 meters. Full results from the first 10 holes in Las Venadas are shown in the following table. To view a set of maps click on the following link: Las Venadas Plan and Cross Sections Maps.

Hole ID From

(meters) To

(meters) Interval

(meters)(1) Silver

gpt Pb

% Zn

% CC-17-19 6.00 52.00 46.00 8.23 0.159 0.187 Including 33.00 36.00 3.00 15.66 0.387 0.187













CC-17-20 33.00 37.00 4.00 27.00 0.036 0.078

84.00 89.00 5.00 27.00 0.023 0.08













CC-17-21 9.00 19.00 10.00 19.50 0.279 0.332 Including 9.00 16.00 7.00 24.85 0.344 0.337

66.00 69.00 3.00 35.00 0.114 0.229

77.00 79.00 2.00 166.00 0.063 0.205













CC-17-22 8.00 20.00 12.00 73.50 0.304 1.22 Including 12.00 15.00 3.00 189.33 0.336 3.29

31 36 5.00 16.6 0.334 0.288

57 60 3.00 26.33 0.318 0.067













CC-17-23 7.50 32.00 24.50 24.38 0.336 0.643

127.00 134.50 7.50 22.62 0.364 0.076













CC-17-24 174.00 184.00 10.00 47.50 0.129 0.13

190.00 192.00 2.00 31.50 0.022 0.08













CC-17-25 54 73 19.00 20.76 0.382 0.151

146 156 10.00 17.70 0.008 0.209

201 205 4.00 58.75 0.034 0.088













CC-17-26 33 43.5 10.50 17.76 0.272 0.923

60.00 75.00 15.00 15.80 0.276 0.208

246 282 36.00 26.59 0.014 0.031

297 301.5 4.50 105.44 0.146 0.428 Including 298 301.5 3.5 135.57 0.169 0.478

342 348 6 31.25 0.177 0.459

387.5 417 29.5 91.32 0.224 0.162 Including 387.5 406.75 19.25 123.24 0.254 0.23 Including 387.5 390 2.5 435.36 0.553 0.991 Including 396 406.75 10.75 113.78 0.318 0.164

456 462 6 43.25 0.003 0.007

487.5 491 3.5 72.71 0.113 0.259

499 501 2 169.00 0.281 0.325













CC-17-27 48 64 16.00 14.50 0.582 0.073

136.5 146 9.50 107.15 0.028 0.098 Including 143 146 3.00 281.00 0.054 0.139

(1) True widths cannot be accurately determined from the information available at this time therefore core lengths are reported.

New Discovery Zone Proximity

The new discovery zone is contained within La Cigarra's Las Venadas target, which comprises a broad area of alteration and mineralization containing various different structures with vein-breccia, veins and veinlets, over an area measuring 500 by 800 meters. It is part of a trend of distinct mineralized structures, extending from La Borracha to the southward through the La Cigarra deposit (which includes the San Gregorio and Las Carolinas zones) into Las Venadas and further into Soledad and Las Chinas, over a distance of six kilometers.

Upcoming Drilling and Development

Drilling will now shift to testing the new zone at a shallower depth from the collar at CC-17-26 to help determine the trend of the zone. It will then move to the La Borracha and Navidad areas and then continue on the new discovery once compilation and interpretation is complete. There are two rigs available on site with one operating so both areas can be drilled at the same time.

Further results from the 7,500-meter drilling on the La Cigarra will be announced as soon as assays received from the program are compiled and interpreted by the Company.

Sampling and QA/QC

All technical information for the La Cigarra exploration program is obtained and reported under a formal quality assurance and quality control ("QA/QC") program. Samples are taken from core cut in half with a diamond saw under the direction of qualified geologists. Samples are then labeled placed in plastic bags, sealed and with interval and sample numbers recorded. Samples are delivered by the Company via courier to ALS Minerals ("ALS") in Chihuahua. The samples are dried, crushed and pulverized with the pulps being sent airfreight for analysis by ALS in Vancouver, B.C. Systematic assaying of standards, blanks and duplicates is performed for precision and accuracy. Analysis for silver, zinc, lead and copper and related trace elements was done by ICP four acid digestion, with gold analysis by 30-gram fire assay with an AA finish. All drilling will be with HQ core and has been contracted to BD Drilling from Guadalajara, Mexico.

Qualified Persons

The Kootenay technical information in this news release has been prepared in accordance with the Canadian regulatory requirements set out in National Instrument 43-101 (Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects) and reviewed on behalf Kootenay by James McDonald, P.Geo, President, CEO & Director for Kootenay, a Qualified Person.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

About Kootenay Silver Inc.

Kootenay Silver Inc. is an exploration company actively engaged in the discovery and development of mineral projects in the Sierra Madre Region of Mexico and in British Columbia, Canada. Supported by one of the largest portfolios of silver assets in Mexico, Kootenay continues to provide its shareholders with significant leverage to silver prices. The Company remains focused on the expansion of its current silver resources, new discoveries and the near-term economic development of two of its priority silver projects located in prolific mining districts in Sonora, State and Chihuahua, State, Mexico, respectively.

CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS:

The information in this news release has been prepared as at August 14, 2017. Certain statements in this news release, referred to herein as "forward-looking statements", constitute "forward-looking statements" under the provisions of Canadian provincial securities laws. These statements can be identified by the use of words such as "expected", "may", "will" or similar terms.

Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of factors and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by Kootenay as of the date of such statements, are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies. Many factors, known and unknown, could cause actual results to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. Except as otherwise required by law, Kootenay expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any such statements to reflect any change in Kootenay's expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based.

Cautionary Note to US Investors: This news release may contain information about adjacent properties on which we have no right to explore or mine. We advise U.S. investors that the SEC's mining guidelines strictly prohibit information of this type in documents filed with the SEC. U.S. investors are cautioned that mineral deposits on adjacent properties are not indicative of mineral deposits on our properties. This news release may contain forward-looking statements including but not limited to comments regarding the timing and content of upcoming work programs, geological interpretations, receipt of property titles, potential mineral recovery processes, etc. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements.

This press release uses the terms "Measured", "Indicated", and "Inferred" resources. United States investors are advised that while such terms are recognized and required by Canadian regulations, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission does not recognize them. "Inferred Mineral Resources" have a great amount of uncertainty as to their existence, and as to their economic and legal feasibility. It cannot be assumed that all or any part of an Inferred Mineral Resource will ever be upgraded to a higher category. Under Canadian rules, estimates of Inferred Mineral Resources may not form the basis of feasibility or other economic studies. United States investors are cautioned not to assume that all or any part of Measured or Indicated Mineral Resources will ever be converted into Mineral Reserves. United States investors are also cautioned not to assume that all or any part of a Mineral Resource is economically or legally mineable.

SOURCE Kootenay Silver Inc.
Vancouver, August 15, 2017 - Bayhorse Silver Inc. , (TSXV: BHS) ("Bayhorse" or the "Company") has signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) with Minerals Solutions LLC (Minerals) of Coeur D Alene Idaho, a Joint Venture between Liberty Refiners LLC (Liberty) of Hayden, Idaho and Irish Metals LLC (Irish) of Coeur D' Alene, Idaho.

Under the LOI Bayhorse undertakes to provide to Minerals direct shipping material from the Bayhorse Silver Mine, Oregon, USA. Minerals will concentrate, process, refine and sell, or return refined silver to Bayhorse.

Bayhorse has undertaken to provide direct shipping material, at a minimum 3,000 g/t Ag to Minerals, commencing October 1, 2017. Under the terms of the LOI, Bayhorse will provide Minerals with a minimum 1,000 kg direct shipping sample to establish the cost of processing that will form the basis for a formal processing agreement.

Liberty has refined precious metals since 2008 and is currently the exclusive refiner for the Sunshine Mint. Michael Irish, of Irish Metals LLC, has been a consultant to the mining and recycle industries since 2014 and was the principal metallurgist at the development of the "Sunshine Refinery part of Sunshine Mine Complex" in Idaho's highly prolific "Silver Valley" and as such was instrumental in designing the silver recovery circuit.

Together, they have developed a proven hydro-metallurgical process (the "Process") that recovers refined silver of .999 fineness from mill flotation, gravity, or direct shipping concentrate, eliminating the need for the smelter step. The process is particularly suited to tetrahedrite, the main silver bearing mineral prominent at the Bayhorse Silver Mine. Minerals is currently expanding its operation to increase the volume of concentrate it can process daily.

Upon installation of the Steinert "Ore-Sorter" at the Bayhorse Mine, the Company will be producing two products. A direct shipping grade material of 3,000 g/t or better, and a lower grade flotation grade material. Minerals is evaluating processing options for the Bayhorse lesser grade material.

Mr. Rick Hurt, of Liberty Refiners LLC has stated "this process provides producers an alternative processing solution to offset the reduction in smelter capacity in the United States. This reduction has forced many silver mining operations to either export their concentrates offshore, where the high costs of shipping, smelting and refining is at significant cost, reducing profitability, or due to the high costs, making many silver mines uneconomic" He also states that "with the increasing concern about the jurisdictions where metals come from, especially the focus by buyers on avoiding conflict minerals, we can guarantee the source of the refined products we produce".

Bayhorse CEO, Graeme O'Neill comments "our agreement with Minerals Solutions LLC for processing the Bayhorse direct shipping material allows us refining options that were not formerly available to us, and we look forward to working in close association with Minerals Solutions."

The Company advises it is not basing any decision to produce on a feasibility study of mineral reserves demonstrating economic and technical viability and also advises there is increased uncertainty and specific economic and technical risks of failure associated with any production decision.

This News Release has been prepared on behalf of the Bayhorse Silver Inc. Board of Directors, which accepts full responsibility for its contents. Dr. Clay Conway, P.Geol., a Qualified Person and Director of Bayhorse has prepared, supervised the preparation of, or approved the technical content of this press release.

On Behalf of the Board.

Graeme O'Neill, President

604-684-3394

Bayhorse Silver Inc., a junior exploration company, has earned an 80% interest in the historic Bayhorse Silver Mine, Oregon, USA. Bayhorse is also earning a 75% interest in the past producing Bridging the Gap Project, consisting of ASARCO's historic Crown Point, Silver King, Ranger, Wyoming, Curlew, and Blackhawk silver/lead/zinc mines in Idaho's Silver Valley. The Company has an experienced management and technical team with extensive exploration and mining expertise.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.


Almonty Industries Inc. (Almonty or the Company) (TSXV:AII):

NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES

Almonty Industries Inc. (Almonty or the Company) (TSXV:AII) announces that it has closed the first tranche of its previously announced financing (see press release dated August 11, 2017).

The first tranche was a subscription for 16,000,000 common shares (Common Shares) of the Company at a price of $0.30 for aggregate gross proceeds of $4,800,000.00 pursuant to a subscription agreement the Company entered into with Mr. Lewis Black, Almontys Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President.

The second tranche, consisting of 5,175,000 Common Shares for $1,552,500, will close upon either: (i) the Company receiving the written consent of shareholders of the Company holding more than 50% of the issued and outstanding Common Shares (excluding any Common Shares beneficially owned, or controlled or directed, directly or indirectly, by Mr. Black) to the creation of Mr. Black as a Control Person of the Company for purposes of the TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV), or (ii) the issuance of such second tranche shares to Mr. Black, when added to the Common Shares then beneficially owned, or controlled or directed, directly or indirectly, by Mr. Black, not resulting in Mr. Black becoming a Control Person as defined in the Corporate Finance Manual of the TSXV.

With the closing of the first tranche, Mr. Black now beneficially owns or controls or directs the voting rights in respect of 31,334,420 Common Shares, representing approximately 19.99% of the issued and outstanding Common Shares on a partially diluted basis. Assuming no further issuances of Common Shares prior to the closing of the second tranche, upon closing of such second tranche Mr. Black will hold 36,509,420 Common Shares on a partially diluted basis, representing approximately 22.55% of the issued and outstanding Common Shares.

The Common Shares issued on the first tranche are subject to a four-month hold period until December 15, 2017 as prescribed by the TSXV and applicable securities laws.

Almonty intends to use the proceeds of the Private Placement for the equity portion of the development financing necessary for the Sangdong Project and for general working capital purposes.

About Almonty

The principal business of Almonty is the mining, processing and shipping of tungsten concentrate from its Los Santos Mine in western Spain, its Wolfram Camp Mine in north Queensland, Australia and its Panasqueira mine in Portugal as well as the development of the Sangdong tungsten mine in Gangwon Province, Korea and the Valtreixal tin/tungsten project in north western Spain. The Los Santos Mine was acquired by Almonty in September 2011 and is located approximately 50 kilometres from Salamanca in western Spain and produces tungsten concentrate. The Wolfram Camp Mine was acquired by Almonty in September 2014 and is located approximately 130 kilometres west of Cairns in northern Queensland, Australia and produces tungsten and molybdenum concentrate. The Panasqueira mine, which has been in production since 1896, is located approximately 260 kilometres northeast of Lisbon, Portugal, was acquired in January 2016 and produces tungsten concentrate. The Sangdong mine, which was historically one of the largest tungsten mines in the world and one of the few long-life, high-grade tungsten deposits outside of China, was acquired in September 2015 through the acquisition of a 100% interest in Woulfe Mining Corp. Almonty owns 100% of the Valtreixal tin-tungsten project in northwestern Spain. Further information about Almontys activities may be found at www.almonty.com and under Almontys profile at www.sedar.com.

Legal Notice

The release, publication or distribution of this announcement in certain jurisdictions may be restricted by law and therefore persons in such jurisdictions into which this announcement is released, published or distributed should inform themselves about and observe such restrictions.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Disclaimer for Forward-Looking Information

When used in this press release, the words estimate, project, belief, anticipate, intend, expect, plan, predict, may or should and the negative of these words or such variations thereon or comparable terminology are intended to identify forward-looking statements and information. This press release contains forward-looking statements. These statements and information are based on managements beliefs, estimates and opinions on the date that statements are made and reflect Almontys current expectations.

Forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of Almonty to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including but not limited to: any specific risks relating to fluctuations in the price of ammonium para tungstate from which the sale price of Almontys tungsten concentrate is derived, actual results of mining and exploration activities, environmental, economic and political risks of the jurisdictions in which Almontys operations are located and changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined, forecasts and assessments relating to Almontys business, credit and liquidity risks, hedging risk, competition in the mining industry, risks related to the market price of Almontys shares, the ability of Almonty to retain key management employees or procure the services of skilled and experienced personnel, risks related to claims and legal proceedings against Almonty and any of its operating mines, risks relating to unknown defects and impairments, risks related to the adequacy of internal control over financial reporting, risks related to governmental regulations, including environmental regulations, risks related to international operations of Almonty, risks relating to exploration, development and operations at Almontys tungsten mines, the ability of Almonty to obtain and maintain necessary permits, the ability of Almonty to comply with applicable laws, regulations and permitting requirements, lack of suitable infrastructure and employees to support Almontys mining operations, uncertainty in the accuracy of mineral reserves and mineral resources estimates, production estimates from Almontys mining operations, inability to replace and expand mineral reserves, uncertainties related to title and indigenous rights with respect to mineral properties owned directly or indirectly by Almonty, the ability of Almonty to obtain adequate financing, the ability of Almonty to complete permitting, construction, development and expansion, challenges related to global financial conditions, risks related to future sales or issuance of equity securities, differences in the interpretation or application of tax laws and regulations or accounting policies and rules and acceptance of the TSX-V of the listing of Almonty shares on the TSX-V.

Forward-looking statements are based on assumptions management believes to be reasonable, including but not limited to, no material adverse change in the market price of ammonium para tungstate, the continuing ability to fund or obtain funding for outstanding commitments, expectations regarding the resolution of legal and tax matters, no negative change to applicable laws, the ability to secure local contractors, employees and assistance as and when required and on reasonable terms, and such other assumptions and factors as are set out herein. Although Almonty has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results, level of activity, performance or achievements not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate and even if events or results described in the forward-looking statements are realized or substantially realized, there can be no assurance that they will have the expected consequences to, or effects on, Almonty. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and are cautioned that actual outcomes may vary.

Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements. Almonty cautions that the foregoing list of material factors is not exhaustive. When relying on Almontys forward-looking statements and information to make decisions, investors and others should carefully consider the foregoing factors and other uncertainties and potential events.

Almonty has also assumed that material factors will not cause any forward-looking statements and information to differ materially from actual results or events. However, the list of these factors is not exhaustive and is subject to change and there can be no assurance that such assumptions will reflect the actual outcome of such items or factors.

THE FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS PRESS RELEASE REPRESENTS THE EXPECTATIONS OF ALMONTY AS OF THE DATE OF THIS PRESS RELEASE AND, ACCORDINGLY, IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE AFTER SUCH DATE. READERS SHOULD NOT PLACE UNDUE IMPORTANCE ON FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION AND SHOULD NOT RELY UPON THIS INFORMATION AS OF ANY OTHER DATE. WHILE ALMONTY MAY ELECT TO, IT DOES NOT UNDERTAKE TO UPDATE THIS INFORMATION AT ANY PARTICULAR TIME EXCEPT AS REQUIRED IN ACCORDANCE WITH APPLICABLE LAWS.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170815005452/en/

Contact

For further information, please contact:

Almonty

Lewis Black, +1 647-438-9766

Chairman, President and CEO

lewis.black@almonty.com
Vancouver - Far Resources Ltd. (CSE:FAT) (FSE:F0R) (OTC:FRRSF) (www.farresources.com) (Far Resources or the Company) is pleased to announce that in the US markets, the Companys common shares will now be quoted under the symbol FRRSF. The CUSIP number is the same for both the US and Canada: 30734R100.

The Company has applied for Depository Trust Company eligibility for its common shares to facilitate settlement of transfers of Far Resources common shares in the United States. The Company will provide updates on the status of the application as information becomes available.

About the Company

Far Resources Ltd. is an exploration company, publicly traded on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the symbol FAT, focused on the identification and development of high potential mineral opportunities in stable jurisdictions. Far Resources may acquire or option properties of merit to meet its ongoing goal to locate, advance and unlock the potential of these mineral opportunities. Far Resources currently has two mineral projects in place. The Zoro Lithium project covers a number of known lithium pegmatite occurrences and is located near Snow Lake, MB. Manitoba has been ranked as the worlds second best jurisdiction for mining investment by the Fraser Institute. The second project is the Winston project in New Mexico, USA, another historic mining property with potential for silver and gold; New Mexico is also listed by the Fraser Institute, ranking in the top 25 mining jurisdictions in the world. Please visit our updated website at www.farresources.com for full details on our current projects. Far Resources has optioned its wholly owned Tchentlo Lake Property in British Columbia, Canada to Alchemist Mining Inc.

###

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF

Far Resources Ltd.

Keith C. Anderson, President

604-805-5035

The Canadian Securities Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release and accepts no responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy hereof.

This news release contains forward-looking statements, which relate to future events or future performance and reflect managements current expectations and assumptions. Such forward-looking statements reflect managements current beliefs and are based on assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company. Readers are cautioned that these forward looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ materially from those expected. All of the forward-looking statements made in this news release are qualified by these cautionary statements and those in our continuous disclosure filings available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances save as required under applicable securities legislation. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell securities and the Company is not soliciting an offer to buy securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of such jurisdiction.

This news release does not constitute an offer of securities for sale in the United States. These securities have not and will not be registered under United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to a U.S. Person unless so registered, or an exemption from registration is relied upon.



Source: Far Resources Ltd. (CSE:FAT, FWB:F0R)


Vancouver, August 15, 2017 - American CuMo Mining Corp. (TSXV: MLY) (OTC Pink: MLYCF) ("CuMoCo or the "Company") announces that it is arranging a non-brokered private placement of up to 15,000,000 units (the "Units") at a price of CAD$0.25 per Unit to raise gross proceeds of up to CAD$3,750,000 (the "Private Placement").

Each Unit consists of one common share of the Company (a "Share") and one common share purchase warrant (a "Warrant") exercisable to purchase an additional common share of the Company (a "Warrant Share") at a price of CAD$0.45 per Warrant Share for a period of two years from the date of issue, subject to an acceleration provision whereby the term of the Warrants may be accelerated if the Company's common shares trade at or above a price of CAD$0.60 per share for a period of 10 consecutive trading days. In such case, the Company may give notice to the holders of Warrants that the Warrants will expire 20 days from the date of providing such notice and the Warrants. The Private Placement is subject to TSX Venture Exchange ("TSXV") approval. In connection with the Private Placement and in accordance with TSXV policy, the Company may pay to certain eligible finders a finder's fee for Units sold in the Private Placement.

The Private Placement is to replace the previously proposed sale of 11,000,000 common shares of the Company to Millennia Minerals Pte Ltd. ("Millennia") announced on August 1, 2017.

"Due to the length of time it is taking to complete negotiations of our strategic partnership agreements with Millennia because of the complexities involved in a deal of this magnitude between parties from different jurisdictions, we believe that the Private Placement will provide us with the necessary time to complete the deal without affecting the Company's ability to move forward," said Shaun Dykes, President and CEO of CuMoCo. "Instead of extending only Millennia the opportunity to subscribe for common shares of the Company, we are now providing eligible shareholders and investors with the ability to participate in the Private Placement, on a first come, first served basis."

The securities offered pursuant to the Private Placement have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any United States state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, U.S. persons absent registration or any applicable exemption from the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act and applicable U.S. state securities laws. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy securities in the United States, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.

The proceeds of the Private Placement are to be used to repay the principal outstanding under two secured convertible debentures (the "Convertible Debentures") held by International Energy & Mineral Resources Investment (Hong Kong) Limited ("IEMR HK") and to provide funding for the on-going work at the CuMo and Calida projects in Idaho, until such time as negotiations in respect of the strategic financial partnership with Millennia Minerals Pte. Ltd. have been completed and definitive agreements executed. One of the Convertible Debentures in the principal amount of CAD$1,500,000 is due to be repaid on October 25, 2017, and is convertible into common shares of the Company, at IEMR (HK)'s discretion, at a price of CAD$0.28 per share. The second Convertible Debenture in the principal amount of US$1,500,000 is due to be repaid on November 25, 2017, and is convertible into common shares of the Company, at IEMR (HK)'s discretion, at a price of US$0.28 per share. Under the terms of the Convertible Debentures, the Company has the right to prepay the principal amount owing thereunder at any time without penalty.

In other news, drilling at the Company's Calida Gold project in Eastern Idaho is proceeding faster than excepted with ten holes now completed. Thick intercepts of copper-bearing mineralization have been intercepted in all holes. Copper is a signature of the gold-copper-silver bearing zones that were present in the historic drilling on the project. The drill holes completed cover a strike length of 610 meters (2000 feet) along the main vein. The Company intends to mobilise a second drill to Calida Gold if and when the Private Placement closes.

The following table lists each hole information and visual mineralized intercepts (containing quartz veins with visible copper):

Hole Information Mineralized intercepts Hole Pad azimuth dip length length start end length start end length meters feet meters meters meters feet feet feet C17-1 W3 180 -45 172.4 565.5 50.6 71.0 20.4 166 233 67.0 C17-2 W3 180 -60 110.3 361.8 93.6 105.2 11.6 307 345 38.0 C17-3 W3 210 -45 185.6 609.0 3.0 15.2 12.2 10 50 40.0 26.8 51.8 25.0 88 170 82.0 C17-4 W3 210 -60 101.3 332.5 18.0 25.0 7.0 59 82 23.0 28.7 40.8 12.2 94 134 40.0 C17-5 M1 180 -45 142.3 467.0 32.3 37.5 5.2 106 123 17.0 C17-6 M1 210 -50 144.9 475.5 4.9 15.2 10.4 16 50 34.0 74.1 95.7 21.6 243 314 71.0 C17-7 M1 210 -65 130.9 429.5 7.0 27.4 20.4 23 90 67.0 C17-8 M3 200 -50 111.3 365.0 21.9 52.4 30.5 72 172 100.0 92.4 94.5 2.1 303 310 7.0 C17-9 M3 200 -65 74.1 243.0 10.1 35.7 25.6 33 117 84.0 48.5 56.4 7.9 159 185 26.0 C17-10 M3 170 -50 36.6 120.0 10.1 36.6 26.5 33 120 87.0 Hole abandoned due to stuck rods

Mr. Shaun M. Dykes, M.Sc. (Eng), P.Geo., President and CEO of the Company, is the designated qualified person for the CuMo Project and the Calida Gold project and he prepared the technical information contained in this news release.

About CuMoCo

CuMoCo is focused on advancing its CuMo Project towards feasibility. CuMoCo is also advancing its newly-acquired Calida Gold project. Management is continuing to build an even stronger foundation from which to move the Company and its projects forward. For more information, please visit www.cumoco.com, www.idahocumo.com and www.cumoproject.com.

For further information, please contact:

American CuMo Mining Corporation

Shaun Dykes, President and Chief Executive Officer

Tel: (604) 689-7902

Email: info@cumoco.com

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this new release.

Forward-looking information

This news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation including, but not limited to, statements that address activities, events or developments that the Company expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future, such as the Company's plan to drill 60 to 70 holes at the Calida Gold project this year and the Company's advancement of its CuMo Project to feasibility. Forward-looking information is based on a number of material factors and assumptions, including the result of exploration activities, the ability of CuMoCo to raise additional funds to complete the proposed drill program at Calida and for a feasibility study, that no labour shortages or delays are experienced, that plant and equipment function as specified, that a Court will not intervene with the Company's proposed exploration activities at the Calida Gold project, and the ability of the Company to obtain all requisite permits and licenses to advance the CuMo Project. Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, future events, conditions, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future prediction, projection or forecast expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. Such factors include, among others, the interpretation and actual results of current exploration activities; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; future prices of gold, molybdenum, silver and copper; possible variations in grade or recovery rates; labour disputes and other risks of the mining industry; delays in obtaining governmental approvals or financing, as well as those factors disclosed in the Company's publicly filed documents, including the Company's Management's Discussion and Analysis for the period ended March 31, 2017. There may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Except as required under applicable securities legislation, the Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking information.


Vancouver, August 15, 2017 - Opawica Explorations Inc. (TSXV: OPW) (the "Company") announces that the Company has commenced mobilization of an initial Phase I drill program of up to four holes at its 100% owned Bazooka gold property located near Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec.

The drill program will consist of one deep hole of approximately 1,000 metres to test for gold mineralization at depth associated with the Cadillac Larder Lake Break and related stratigraphy. The hole will also serve as a platform to conduct down hole geophysics.

Three holes are planned to be drilled to fill in certain areas between past drilling at depths of up to 200 metres. Following this drilling, the Company will be in the position to proceed with a further Phase II drilling program that will include a resource calculation on the eastern 300 metre portion of the Bazooka property.

The initial 1,000 metre hole will be drilled first and is expected to commence drilling in the next two weeks and should be completed within 30 days.

ABOUT THE BAZOOKA PROPERTY

The Company's Bazooka property adjoins the Yorbeau Resources Inc. ("Yorbeau") - Kinross Gold Corp. ("Kinross") optioned Rouyn property where up to 22,000 metres of drilling has been completed by Kinross as operator along certain sections of the 9 kilometre strike length of the Rouyn property. Some of this drilling has been completed within a few hundred metres of Opawica's eastern boundary near the Augmitto shaft on the Rouyn property.

The Bazooka property hosts significant gold mineralization starting at the eastern border of the Yorbeau-Kinross Rouyn ground to at least 800 metres to the west on Bazooka. The Bazooka property is open on strike for seven kilometres to the west and is open at depth. Of the seven kilometres of strike length on the Bazooka property, only 800 metres have been tested within 300 metres of surface.

Past holes drilled by previous operators and current holes drilled by Opawica in 2017 have returned holes, such as and ranging between, 54.8 metres at 0.65 g/t Au (Opawica-2017), 48 metres at 1.38 g/t Au (uncut -2017 restated from Lake Shore Gold ("LSG", 2003); 17 metres at 7.86 g/t Au as well as 3.20 metres @ 12.49 g/t Au (RT Minerals Corp. 2011); and 94 g/t Au over 1.25 metres (LSG 2004) as well as other gold bearing intercepts. All of the above intercepts are estimated at 80 to 85% true widths and all of the above gold mineralization is within 300 metres of surface.

Mr. Yvan Bussieres, P.Eng., is the Qualified Person who has prepared or supervised the preparation of the information that forms the basis for the scientific and technical disclosure in this news release.

PRIVATE PLACEMENT

The Company proposes to undertake a private placement to raise gross proceeds of up to $1,200,000 (the "Offering"). The Company proposes to raise up to $400,000 through the sale of up to 8,000,000 non flow-through units priced at $0.05 (the "NFT Units") and up to $800,000 through the sale of up to 10,000,000 flow-through units priced at $0.08 (the "FT Units"). Each NFT Unit consists of one common share and one half of a share purchase warrant, with each whole warrant (the "Warrant") exercisable into one further common share at a price of $0.10 for a term of one year. Each FT Unit consists of one flow-through common share and one half of a share purchase warrant, with each whole Warrant exercisable into one further common share at a price of $0.10 for a term of one year.

The Warrants will contain an accelerated expiry clause such that, in circumstances where the closing price of the shares of the Company on the TSX Venture Exchange is $0.15 or greater for a 20 day consecutive trading period, they will expire if not exercised 14 days following the 20 day trading period.

The Offering will be conducted under available exemptions from the prospectus requirements of applicable securities legislation and participation in the Offering will be available to existing shareholders in qualifying jurisdictions in Canada in accordance with the provisions of BC Instrument 45-354 (the "Existing Shareholder Exemption") and similar provisions in other jurisdictions' securities legislation and will be available to persons in qualifying jurisdictions in Canada who have obtained advice as to the suitability of the investment from a person registered as an investment dealer in accordance with the provisions of BC Instrument 45-536 and similar provisions in other jurisdictions' securities legislation.

The Company has set August 11, 2017 as the record date for the purpose of determining shareholders entitled to participate in the Offering in reliance on the Existing Shareholder Exemption. Qualifying shareholders who wish to participate in the Offering should contact the Company as detailed below. If the Offering is oversubscribed, units will be allocated pro rata amongst all subscribers.

The proceeds from the sale of the flow-through portion of the Offering will be used for exploration activity on the Company's 100% owned Bazooka gold property. The proceeds from the sale of the non flow-through portion of the Offering will be used for general working capital.

A finder's and/or administrative fee of up to 10% may be paid to registered representatives in connection with the Offering. The fee will be comprised of 50% cash and 50% common shares at $0.05 per share.

The Offering is subject to the acceptance of the TSX Venture Exchange.

For more information, please visit the Company's website at www.opawica.com.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Paul Antoniazzi

Managing Director

Opawica Explorations Inc.

Telephone: 604-681-3170

Fax: 604-681-3552

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider (as the term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy of accuracy of this news release.

Forward-looking Statements

Certain statements in this press release relating to the Company's exploration activities, project expenditures and business plans are approximate and are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of securities legislation. The Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update these forward-looking statements. These forward looking statements represent management's best judgment based on current facts and assumptions that management considers reasonable, including that operating and capital plans will not be disrupted by issues such as adverse market conditions, mechanical failure, unavailability of parts, labor disturbances, interruption in transportation or utilities, or adverse weather conditions, that there are no material unanticipated variations in budgeted costs, that contractors will complete projects according to schedule, and that actual mineralization on properties may not achieve any category of resource(s). The Company makes no representation that reasonable business people in possession of the same information would reach the same conclusions. 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 expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. In particular, fluctuations in the price of gold, equity markets or in currency markets could prevent the Company from achieving its targets. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. There is no guarantee that drill results reported in this news release or future releases will lead to the identification of a deposit that can be mined economically, and further work is required to identify resources and reserves. We seek safe harbour.


Vancouver, August 15, 2017 - RT Minerals Corp. (TSXV: RTM) (OTC Pink: RTMFF) (the "Company") announces that it has secured DTC eligibility for its shares traded in the United States under the symbol "RTMFF" effective August 15, 2017.

The Depository Trust Company (DTC) is a subsidiary of The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation DTCC, and manages the electronic clearing and settlement of publicly traded companies. Securities that are eligible to be electronically cleared and settled through the DTC are considered "DTC eligible". This electronic method of clearing securities speeds up the receipt of stock and cash, and thus accelerates the settlement process for investors trading the Company's shares on the OTC Pink Market.

ABOUT RT MINERALS CORP.

RT Minerals Corp. is a junior resource company engaged in the acquisition, exploration and evaluation of primarily gold and diamond properties in Canada. The Company's common shares are listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol "RTM" and on the OTC Pink Market under the symbol "RTMFF". The Company's principal mineral properties in Canada include:

Ballard Lake Property  366 square kilometre (~141 square mile) diamond and gold property located approximately 50 kilometres northeast of Wawa, Ontario, in which the Company owns a 100% interest, subject to a 2% net smelter royalty; and

Norwalk Property - Gold property located approximately 6 kilometres south of Wawa, Ontario, in which the Company has an option to earn a 100% interest, subject to a 2% net smelter royalty.

For more information on the Company and its properties, please visit the Company's website at www.rtmcorp.com.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Paul Antoniazzi

President and Chief Executive Officer

RT Minerals Corp.

Telephone: 604-681-3170

Fax: 604-681-3552

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider (as the term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy of accuracy of this news release.

Forward-looking Statements

Certain statements in this press release relating to the Company's exploration activities, project expenditures and business plans are approximate and are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of securities legislation. The Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update these forward-looking statements. These forward looking statements represent management's best judgment based on current facts and assumptions that management considers reasonable, including that operating and capital plans will not be disrupted by issues such as adverse market conditions, mechanical failure, unavailability of parts, labor disturbances, interruption in transportation or utilities, or adverse weather conditions, that there are no material unanticipated variations in budgeted costs, that contractors will complete projects according to schedule, and that actual mineralization on properties may not achieve any category of resource(s). The Company makes no representation that reasonable business people in possession of the same information would reach the same conclusions. 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 expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. In particular, fluctuations in the price of gold, equity markets or in currency markets could prevent the Company from achieving its targets. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. There is no guarantee that drill results reported in this news release or future releases will lead to the identification of a deposit that can be mined economically, and further work is required to identify resources and reserves. We seek safe harbour.


(File photo)

Africa is one of hottest destinations for Chinese tourists this summer.

With a video of an African man saying the temperature in China was too high and that he wanted to go back to his hometown to "bishu" (means run away from heat wave) going viral, the topic of "go to Africa to bishu" is buzzing.

Some Chinese said they were considering going to Africa to run away from the scorching sun.

During this year's summer holiday, the number of people who pre-booked travel to Africa nearly doubled from a year earlier, according to online travel agency lvmama.com.

Chinese tourists aged between 25 and 40 and earning well are the main visitors to the continent.

Mauritius, Kenya, Morocco, South Africa and Tunisia are the most popular African countries among Chinese tourists.

This summer, many Chinese cities' temperature hit or exceeded 35 degrees Celsius.

However, because some African countries are in the Southern Hemisphere, and eastern and southern African countries are at an altitude of over 1,000 meters, the temperature there is lower than in China in summer.

Thanks to the Belt and Road Initiative, the air routes between China and African countries are increasing, and some African nations have eased the visa policy to attract more Chinese tourists.

In 2008, the number of Chinese tourists visiting Africa only accounted for 3 percent of total outbound tourists, but last year, the figure rose to 10 percent with 11.3 million Chinese traveling to Africa, news website Cankaoxiaoxi.com said citing data from World Tourism Organization.

The website citing African media said the spending power of Chinese tourists is 40 percent higher than that of European visitors.
Public pension plans are reporting double-digit investment returns, and some are even finishing with record highs this year.The high earnings are due to a robust stock market and are welcome news after two straight years of below-average returns for most pension plans. But finance experts say the investment boost likely wont translate into an equally impressive reduction in pension debt because of the increasing cost of pensions."Government contributions tend to be insufficient to reduce unfunded liabilities -- even if the plans meet their target," says Tom Aaron, vice president and senior analyst at Moody's Investors Service.Pension plans rely heavily on investment earnings because annual payments from current employees and governments arent enough to cover yearly payouts to retirees. As it stands, roughly 80 cents on every dollar paid out to retirees comes from investment income.The average annual investment earnings target for pension plans is 7.4 percent. By Aaron's calculations, pension plans would need investment returns of nearly 11 percent to prevent unfunded liabilities from growing.Many plans are actually on track to beat that lofty figure this year, reporting returns between 10 and 14 percent, according to aanalysis. But it's becoming much harder for pension plans to gain ground than to lose it.For example in 2016, low investment earnings prompted the average funding ratio of pension plans -- which refers to how much money is set aside to meet obligations to retirees -- to slide down 5 points to 68 percent funded, according to Boston Colleges Center for Retirement Research. Meanwhile, the positive returns this year have the center projecting an average funding increase of only 3 percentage points.Aaron and the center attribute this difficulty to the fact that governments are not paying enough into pensions in the first place.Obviously, a plan's fiscal health can make it even more difficult to play catch-up.That's been the case in Chicago. Its municipal employees $4.3 billion pension fund last year had just 19 percent of the assets it needed to meet all its liabilities. It reported an impressive 12.4 percent investment gain, but those earnings werent nearly enough to make up for the pension payments going out of the fund. In the end, its asset level actually dropped by about $31 million, which means its funded status likely wont improve.It doesn't help, Aaron says, that Chicago retirees nearly outnumber the active workers still paying into their pensions. Thats the absolute worst time to be underfunded because you have this negative cash flow dynamic going on, he says, so that makes the plan even more susceptible to volatility.On the other hand, New York states pension fund, which is nearly 94 percent funded and earned an 11.4 percent return on investments, saw its total assets increase to a record high $192 billion -- a boost of more than $13 billion over the prior years balance even after making payouts.Many pension systems are seeking to remedy their funding issues by lowering their investment targets. In the short-term, that would increase a plans overall liability, which would make them appear worse off -- even after a year of good returns.But over time, that would increase governments annual pension payments, which is better for a systems long-term fiscal health.
After at least six states declared the opioid epidemic an emergency in their states as opioid deaths continue to rise, President Donald Trump declared it a "national emergency" on Thursday. But what does that mean for governors and mayors who have been grappling with opioid abuse for years?Nothing -- at least not yet.First, the White House has to decide what kind of emergency the opioid epidemic is, exactly. There are several different kinds of emergency declarations. While they accomplish similar things, they serve different purposes.The Presidents Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis recommends that the disaster be declared through either the Stafford Act or the Public Health Service Act. The Stafford Act is usually initiated for natural disasters, such as hurricanes and tornadoes, and normally requires a request from a governor. It would trigger the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to dole out financial and technical assistance to states and cities.The Public Health Service Act, on the other hand, allows the secretary of health and human services -- not the president -- to declare a public health emergency and deploy medical staff to areas in need. This was used for the outbreak of the Zika virus and the H1N1 virus, for example.No matter which route White House officials decide to take, a whole set of tools kick in, says Jay Butler, medical director of Alaska and president of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. Either way, states would essentially receive extra grants and manpower to start new programs and aid existing ones. It would also ease bureaucratic rules so states can enact programs and policies more easily.Its possible that the Trump administration could invoke both the Stafford Act and the Public Health Service Act -- something that has usually been reserved for the most serious disasters like Hurricane Sandy and Hurricane Katrina. This would allow the federal government to relax certain Medicaid, Medicare or Childrens Health Insurance Program requirements to get more people care (and make sure more providers get reimbursed).Trump's commission recommended several actions that many states and cities have already undertaken. The group proposed increasing access to naloxone, the drug that reverses opioid overdoses, as well as medication-assisted treatment and strengthening prescription drug monitoring programs, which have beenThere are some things, however, that only the feds can do.Its possible, for instance, the federal government could decide to fast track the Food and Drug Administration's review to make naloxone available over the counter nationwide. Right now, some states have more or less achieved that goal.As public health officials wait to see Trump's plan of action, they hope he doesnt single-mindedly focus on the law and order aspect of the crisis.That is very important, but I hope theres an emphasis on the public health and treatment aspect of this. I want the White House to not lose track of that, says Geoffrey Mwaungulu, senior program analyst of public health preparedness and law at the National Association of County and City Health Officials.In the meantime, the opioid crisis is continually top-of-mind for governors and mayors. Six states -- Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts and Virginia -- have already declared a state of emergency. Some cities, like Baltimore, have issued standing orders to make naloxone available to anyone.States know whats best for them, says Jim Blumenstock, chief of health security for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. While state and local officials wait for federal guidance, he says now is the time to review their state of play, and move forward as appropriate."Butler agrees that states and cities should be proactive at this time."We do have to ask ourselves how we want to proceed with this because we have a limited amount of time to talk."
Description

GIS - 15 August 2017: Government is determined to safeguard the future of youngsters and is totally committed to the education sector, hence its high priority on Government agenda.

This statement was made by the Prime Minister, Minister of Home Affairs, External Communications and National Development Unit, Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Mr Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, on 12 August 2017 at the inaugural ceremony of the Rodrigues Student House (RSH) in Vacoas.

In his address, the Prime Minister highlighted that the setting up of the RSH, to the tune of Rs 50 million, will enable Rodriguan students to evolve in a better environment. The RSH will thus encourage more Rodriguan students to pursue their tertiary studies in Mauritius at affordable and reasonable costs, he added.

Students are already benefitting from 100% subsidy for the School Certificate (SC) and Higher School Certificate (HSC) examination fees, Prime Minister Jugnauth recalled. On this score, he urged students to attend school regularly to continue benefitting from same.

The Prime Minister also outlined key projects in Rodrigues namely: the development of the digital sector, that is, increasing Internet connection from 200 Mb to 500 Mb; the construction works of the new airport terminal which are due to start shortly and expected to end in July 2018; and the development of the Port.

Also present at the ceremony, the Minister Mentor, Minister of Defence, Minister for Rodrigues, Sir Anerood Jugnauth, highlighted that the RSH is a necessity and that the number of tertiary students from Rodrigues is increasing year by year.

Referring to the statistical data of Rodrigues education sector, he observed that for the past five years, the success rate for SC examinations is 73.4%, whilst for HSC the figure stands at 75%. In an effort to keep up the positive trend, more scholarships are being awarded to Rodriguan students so as to provide them with more educational opportunities, he emphasised.

For his part, the Chief Commissioner of Rodrigues Regional Assembly, Mr Louis Serge Clair, expressed his pride and satisfaction regarding the accomplishment of the RSH project. He emphasised that Rodriguan students will gain more exposure by coming to Mauritius and they will be able to share and learn from other cultures by participating in various activities.

The foundation of the RSH was laid on 28 September 2015. It is a modern building, comprising all necessary facilities with 45 rooms to accommodate full-time Rodriguan students. Each year, some 200 students from Rodrigues come to Mauritius for their studies and now they will be able to benefit from the student house.
Amazon has become the perpetual pariah of government technology. Public-sector chief information officers, startup founders and investors alike all point the finger at the e-commerce giant again and again, blaming it for high expectations from the average citizen. If they can order dog booties online with one click and have it shipped to their house in two days, with what measure of rage might they react when they must physically appear at the Department of Motor Vehicles for a drivers license?A whole host of companies have sprung up to make government a bit more Amazon-like. Among them are a bevy of firms all seeking to make it easier to pay the government for all the various things citizens need to pay for: parking tickets, permits and licenses, utility bills, and so on.There are, of course, some giant players already in the marketplace. These include companies like Visa, MasterCard and American Express, which all have government business segments. These firms, however, occupy a very specialized place in payment processing: acting as a clearinghouse to facilitate connections between banks acting on behalf of payers and payees.For this list, we are narrowing in on more software-focused payment processors that have been working specifically with state and local government to enable digital payments.The companies on this list  which is not necessarily comprehensive  tend to offer a variety of services to government. Some, like Heartland and Vantiv, process payments directly. Others focus on user interfaces, systems integration and back-end process automation and leave the actual handling of payments to third-party partners.Many on the list, such as NIC, PayIt and US Merchant Systems, take the approach of offering services such as website setup to government for no up-front cash, instead opting to collect revenue by attaching convenience fees to customer transactions.Everyone on the list takes card transactions, but a few provide some more specialized services  Creditron, for example, lets governments send images of checks in for processing instead of having to physically send checks to banks. Paymentus offers payment through text. Some on the list, like Heartland and Stripe, give users the ability to accept newer payment methods like Apple Pay.Many on the list also put a premium on integration. Stripe is the engine that powers ProudCitys new payment tool, while Accela builds its payment tool into its Civic Platform.
Startup hopes

(TNS) -- Over the last decade, Grand Forks has become increasingly tied to the drone industry, so much so that a drone has appeared in the official logo of Grand Forks County, a spot previously reserved for the Red River.The state of North Dakota has invested $17 million of public money into infrastructure at Grand Sky technology park at Grand Forks Air Force Base in the hopes of attracting high-paying jobs and industry to the region.This year, the state Legislature approved $3 million in new money to be invested into the drone business, according to the North Dakota Department of Commerce, bringing the state's investment in the industry to $38.1 million since 2005.After years of investment, leaders say jobs are starting to come.On Aug. 3, defense contractor and aerospace giant Northrop Grumman announced the construction of a second hangar at Grand Sky Business park, officially moving into phase two of its Grand Forks operation.Grand Sky president Tom Swoyer said the millions of public dollars poured into the drone industry, referred to as unmanned aircraft systems or UAS by insiders, are paying off."I believe the state is absolutely getting a return on investment here at Grand Sky," Swoyer said.Northrop Grumman has 29 full-time employees in Grand Forks, Swoyer said, and has 30 current job openings. Per the firm's new and expanding business agreement with Grand Forks County, it must have 100 full-time employees by the end of 2017 in exchange for getting a steep discount on its leasehold interest for the next five years.Northrop Grumman and General Atomics pay the county via leasehold interest and not property taxes, as Grand Sky park sits on federal land owned by the Air Force, according to county director of tax equalization Amber Gudajtes. Northrop Grumman will pay no leasehold interest on its buildings for the first three years, running through 2019, and will have an 80 percent discount on the payments for the following two years. The company did pay $9,250 in leasehold interest on the land in 2016, Gudajtes said.General Atomics did not request such a deal, and paid $28,000 to the county in 2016.Keith Reitmeier, eastern region director for Job Service North Dakota, said he met this week with Northrop Grumman about advertising new jobs for their Grand Forks site. The company is currently advertising 12 jobs through Job Service."We've been waiting for these jobs, and now they're starting to be posted," Reitmeier said.Tom Ford, government relations administrator for Grand Forks County, said the park is generating a $2.96 return for every $1 of public money invested into Grand Sky. That number is calculated based on capital investment and employee salaries and benefits, Ford said. It would mean the $17 million in public money is generating more than $50 million in economic activity.The 50-year lease at Grand Sky is between the county and the Air Force, but Grand Sky is also involved as a third party and has a concurrent 50-year sublease with the county. Ford said the arrangement protects the county in the event businesses leave Grand Sky or stop coming.Ford believes more companies are considering moving into the park and said some are likely waiting for beyond-visual-line-of-sight flights to begin.The Federal Aviation Administration approved the Northern Plains UAS Test Site at Grand Sky to begin beyond-line-of-sight operations in December. It is the first site in the nation to receive the authorization. That means test site staff can fly UAS without using a chase plane, currently used to maintain sightlines between the drone and a person to avoid midair collisions. The move will greatly reduce the cost and increase the frequency of test flights, which local leaders hope will attract other large companies to Grand Sky.Swoyer said corporations such as defense contractor Raytheon and engineering manufacturer Rolls-Royce have expressed interest in Grand Sky. If enough smaller companies have a desire to move into the park, he said Grand Sky would be interested in building a multi-tenant facility.While major defense manufacturers are making additions in Grand Forks, the road to success for the drone startup companies housed at the UND Center for Innovation is less clear.Grand Forks UAS company SkySkopes is in the process of expanding into Minot, but dealt with financial hardships in recent months, including falling behind on rent.Last month, SkySkopes was significantly behind on rent payments to the UND Center of Innovation. The company entered into an agreement to bring the account current with UND after being in arrears $27,113 as of July 17, according to documents obtained by the Herald from UND."That's why we went to the Center for Innovation in the first place," SkySkopes CEO and President Matt Dunlevy said. "They're understanding of startups and I can't thank UND enough, and I can't thank the Center for Innovation enough for believing in us."Under the agreement, the company has through December to get their account current. UND told the Herald the company is now up-to-date on its payments. Dunlevy said SkySkopes is up-to-date with its employees, too."Our employees are well aware of the difficulties of a startup, and we are in good standing with all our employees," Dunlevy said.SkySkopes received a $375,000 forgivable loan from the city of Minot from its Magic Fund in exchange for committing to 15 full-time jobs within the city in the next three years. The company's Chief Financial Officer Dan Daffinrud is now based in Minot, as are three other full-time employees."The aviation community here has also spawned some serious heavyweight subject matter experts in UAS we never expected to encounter when we moved here," Dunlevy said.He said Grand Forks is still the heart of SkySkopes, but the company feels there is potential for growth in the western Oil Patch.SkySkopes has seven full-time employees in Grand Forks and recently graduated a group of interns here, Dunlevy said. He said SkySkopes would be interested in a multitenant building at Grand Sky, noting the company needs to find a place where it can conduct flight operations on a daily basis."We're out here because we are going to break into the oil and gas industry for UAS services," Dunlevy said of the Minot expansion.He said the company is now having success in getting contracts to service energy and utility businesses."The pilots that we have and the gravitas they bring with their education from UND's UAS program makes finding contracts that much easier, but it's not like they come to us," Dunlevy said.
Seattle is upping its financial contribution to a program that for the past 20 years has helped community groups provide technology, as well as the skills needed to use technology, to residents who are traditionally underserved and often left behind.

The program is called the Technology Matching Fund , and the Seattle City Council recently voted to award $430,000 through it to 15 local groups. This year the fund is expected to help more than 6,000 residents of Seattle in underserved or underrepresented communities, including those of immigrants and refugees, seniors, at-risk youths, and people with disabilities. The resources will help these residents by being put to use through a wide range of social groups, including the Boys and Girls Club, LaunchCode, the West African Community Council and many others.

The matching facet of this program is a simple one: For every dollar the city gives, an organization will match it with 50 cents of its own money then being put toward tech. What the money is used for varies from organization to organization, but in a broad sense it all will go to one of the three priorities that have been established by Seattles digital inclusion planning: increasing connectivity throughout the city; fostering better digital skills among residents; and providing devices and other technology to those who do not presently have access to it.

Although the fund has grown slowly over the years  it started out at $100,000 and has only just this year reached $430,000  the citys commitment has been steadfast. Over the lifespan of the initiative, 300 projects have been funded by more than $4 million in grants.

City officials involved with the fund and with Seattles larger digital equity work say one of the benefits of distributing the money this way is that it reaches residents whom the municipal government often struggles to engage. When deciding which groups will receive the grants, Seattles technologists spend time interacting with the groups and the communities, giving them a window into the city.

Seattle  probably because of the kind of companies that have been there for a very long time  has been on the leading edge within city government for creating opportunities for people to engage with government online, said Chance Hunt, a community technology manager with Seattle. So, with that comes the realization that we need to do more to then help our community get involved.

Seattle is home to Microsoft and Amazon, among other tech companies, and, as Hunt notes, has long been in the vanguard for gov tech. Seattle has also been out ahead on digital inclusion work, as evidenced by its 20-year commitment to the Technology Matching Fund. Still, that doesnt mean it has digital equity all figured out. City officials are well aware that there is still work to be done, and that being such a technologically advanced city means they are perhaps at an even greater risk than other major local governments of leaving some residents behind.

Jim Loter, Seattles director of digital engagement, is very much aware of all of this. He uses an experience he recently had as a reminder and example of the challenges that citizens who arent in possession of or savvy with technology face around town.

Loter said he recently went to see a movie on a typical Seattle afternoon, when it was already dark and already raining. To get to the theater, he had to use a parking garage nearby, and that parking garage had a payment system that required an app. There was no kiosk, and seemingly no way to pay with cash money. To go to a movie, Loter had to have a smartphone with a data plan, he had to download the app, and he had to connect a credit card for payment. Thats fine for him, but what if someone was missing any one of those three things? Parking their car to go to a movie would have then been problematic.

Although it was a privately owned garage, Loter said he often keeps the experience in mind in his work.

[Digital equity] is something were acutely aware of here in Seattle, because you cant turn around and not see evidence of the high-tech presence here, Loter said. Theres Amazon and Microsoft, and Google and Facebook are growing here. We have a rich and robust startup and small business community in the tech sector as well. Theres probably even a greater risk in a high-tech city like Seattle of people being left behind and unable to receive certain benefits and services.

The city is well aware of this, as the increasing support for the fund attests, and the community groups are putting the money from the fund to good use. The Somali Family Safety Task Force, for example, is using the funds to expand an existing program that has been helping immigrant mothers build computer skills.

The laptops well purchase will triple the time these women can spend in a computer lab each week, said that groups grants manager, Consuelo Echeverria, in a statement. Well also be able to hire college students from the Somali community to teach them.Seattle recently won a pair of awards from the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors for its efforts to foster digital inclusion. Digital inclusion is of increasing concern nationwide, with many cities establishing official initiatives. This was also the first year that an official national digital inclusion week was established , complete with a series of accompanying events.
Dispatch logs

(TNS) -- ROCKFORD  When the state takes an Illinois data portal offline sometime this year, Rockford residents won't be without the ability to check on crimes reported in their community.Instead, city IT staff have helped the Rockford Police Department create its own police dispatch log, much like the state's existing record, showing 72 hours worth of some Rockford calls to the 911 dispatch center.Police Chief Dan O'Shea said today that the state plans to take down its site at some point to upgrade it, but city officials didn't want access to Rockford data to be disrupted."And Lord knows with the state how long that would be (down). They wouldn't even give us an estimate," O'Shea said, adding that city officials were notified of the site's impending shutdown a couple of weeks ago. "We don't know when they're going to pull it offline. They said 'soon.'"A news release issued late Friday afternoon says the government website will be "offline indefinitely." Rockford's site will be online Monday.The Rockford Police Department is one of numerous state agencies and municipalities that use the state's online data portal to provide access to some public records. Rockford's 72-hour dispatch log shows the location, date and time of calls and generally what police agencies are being dispatched to handle them. The calls include telephone threats, 911 hang-ups, shootings, robberies, home invasions and building checks.Other municipalities that have records there are Champaign and Midlothian. At the state level, entries include an Illinois State Police firearm transfer inquiry request record from 2002 through 2011, the Illinois Department of Public Health's list of migrant labor camps and the Illinois Department of Labor's amusement ride inspections for 2013."One of our main goals is to increase the amount of communication we're having with the residents," Mayor Tom McNamara said.This dispatch log helps ensure that residents have accurate information, he said."We have to take accountability with the bad stats, just as we take accountability with the good stats. Often, when you're left to just Facebook chatter or (water) cooler chatter, you don't get the full story," McNamara said. "It's just allowing residents to have the information and allow them to make informed, educated decisions and have informed, educated discussions."The Rockford Police Department dispatch log will have a link to it on the department's website at rockfordil.gov/city-departments/police "It's the same thing that's on the data portal right now," O'Shea said, adding that there is no cost for the city to create its own log because IT staff will simply take data already pushed to the state site and send it to the newly created city website.This new 72-hour dispatch log will be updated hourly but won't include certain calls to the dispatch center. These include sexual assaults, child abductions, domestic situations and what is termed "sensitive juvenile offenses.""We have to protect certain people's rights," O'Shea said, citing a victim's right to privacy.O'Shea said he hopes the department can modernize its computer-aided dispatch system and records-management system, the latter of which must be updated by October 2018 because the software program no longer will be supportable. Once that's completed, the city could continue to provide the dispatch log through its updated system.Although, "if the (state's) data portal comes back up" and the city's system meshes with it, "... we'll just provide people a link and they can watch it all day long."To view the existing state site featuring Rockford's 72-hour dispatch log, go to data.illinois.gov/Public-Safety/Rockford-Police-Department-72-Hour-Dispatch-Call-L/9zru-nvxs The new dispatch log, launching Monday, will be accessible at rockfordil.gov/city-departments/police To check out other public records on the state's data portal, go to data.illinois.gov
After several years of laying the foundation for a dedicated nationwide public safety communications network, the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) initiative is building even more momentum as states begin to opt in. To date, a dozen states have signed on stating their intent to join the network.But getting to this point had not been a simple process, and has required planning and a lengthy and continued outreach process in the all of the U.S. 56 states and territories.The significance of the effort is not lost on FirstNet board member Teri Takai, who also serves as executive director of the Center for Digital Government.* From where Takai sits, the progress is exciting, but has not come easily.In addition to years of planning and coordination, the FirstNet team has also made substantial outreach efforts to each state to ensure that leadership is equipped with the information necessary to make educated decisions on their participation.I think that we are off to just a great start. I think there is a lot of opportunity for states to be able to get some immediate benefit because of our partnership with AT&T," Takai said. "And obviously, some of the states are taking some time and thinking through it, and certainly there are some that may decide that they are planning to opt out, but we recognize that and are just really pleased with the progress so far.In Takais home state of Michigan, leaders pursued a competitive RFP to see if there was a better option for a statewide emergency communication network, but ultimately decided that the national network was a more prudent decision.State plans were submitted to FirstNet between June 19 and Aug. 4, and officials say feedback on those plans will continue until at least mid-September.Where opting in to the nationwide coalition does take some substantial consideration, planning and effort on the part of states, opting out could prove to be even more labor-intensive. As FirstNet spokesperson Ryan Oremland explained, opt-out states would need to prove that their individual solutions meet the overarching compatibility standards of the national network.If you are going to opt out, you are going to have to jump through a lot of hoops to make sure you are technically interoperable, financially viable  there is a whole litany of things and its a long process to opt out, he said. In designing this, Congress wanted the network to be interoperable, so there are a lot of checkpoints if you want to opt out.Looking past the process and the what lies ahead for undecided states, Takai said states and the agencies that operate within them will soon start to see the very real benefits of a consolidated and reliable communications network  or as Oremland puts it, giving first responders the first public safety-focused innovation platform and a whole new marketplace.Takai noted that it's important to recognize that opting in is an essential first step, "but now we really have to concentrate on making sure that all of public safety, all the way down to the first responders and emergency management personnel that are really on the ground, also get a clear understanding of FirstNet and start to really have the capability in their hands."The jurisdictions that have opted in to FirstNet thus far are: Arkansas, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming and the U.S. Virgin Islands.Arkansas was one of the first states in the nation to opt in to FirstNet. In an announcement made July 13, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said the undertaking would be a major step forward for public safety in the state. "First responders put their lives on the line each day to protect our communities," he said in a press release . "I am excited to partner with FirstNet and AT&T to provide innovative communication technologies and tools that will help first responders protect communities and lives. This is a major step forward for the Arkansas public safety community, and I am proud that Arkansas is among the first states in the nation to opt in to this critical infrastructure project."On July 18, Gov. Kim Reynolds announced her state would be participating in the FirstNet initiative. The move toward a consolidated first responder network will mean state agencies and emergency personnel will no longer have to rely on the more than 10,000 individual communications networks currently being used. The FirstNet network will not only strengthen and modernize public safety communications in our state," Reynolds said in a press release , "but also bring much needed investment to our communications infrastructure."Gov. Matt Bevins decision to join the FirstNet network was announced July 13.Gov. Paul LePage opted his state into FirstNet Aug. 4, making Maine the 11th state to join the network. Maine is proud to take this important step for first responders in our state, LePage said in a press release . The decision to join this network means that FirstNet and its partner, AT&T, will deliver a highly secure, federally funded, next-generation solution for our public safety community.Lt. Gov. Brian Calley signed a letter of intent to opt in to FirstNet on Aug. 3, making Michigan the 10th state to join the collective. Calley said the new network will improve services to rural and underserved areas of the state. This initiative puts Michigan at the forefront once again for public safety and public service, Calley said in a release . The ability for public safety agencies to communicate is critical in an emergency. The enhanced capabilities offered by FirstNet and AT&T will help ensure that those risking their lives for our safety have the tools they need."On Aug. 8, Gov. Steve Bullock announced that Montana would become the 12th state to opt in to the FirstNet partnership after receiving unanimous support from the Statewide Interoperability Governing Board. The governor said as wildfires continue within the state, the need for quick and effective response is more evident than ever before. As wildfires across the state impact our communities and our hometowns, its critical that we support the efforts of the men and women protecting Montana with all resources available, Bullock said in a press release : Like Wyoming and Arkansas, New Jersey is credited with being one of the first states to opt in to the FirstNet network. Gov. Chris Christie made the announcement July 25. New Jersey is proud to take this important step for first responders in our state," he said in a press release . "The decision to join this network means FirstNet and AT&T will deliver a highly secure, next-generation solution for our public safety community, building, maintaining and operating it at no cost and no risk to our state.Gov. Susana Martinez announced her states intent to join FirstNet on Aug. 1, making the state the ninth to opt in. We have to keep doing more to keep our communities safe, she said in a press release . I worked closely with law enforcement as a prosecutor for 25 years. Ive seen firsthand the need for a streamlined and modernized communication network for our men and women in uniform. This system will help them save more lives.Virginia was the first state in the country to announce its intention to opt in to FirstNet. Gov. Terry McAuliffe made the announcement July 10. I am proud that Virginia is the first state in the nation to opt in to this program that will help our first responders communicate during times of emergency, the governor said in a release . While this is only the beginning of the process, I look forward to the continued coordinated efforts among Virginia, FirstNet, and AT&T to provide public safety officials with innovative new technologies that will help them keep Virginians safe.West Virginia was the seventh state to announce its intention to opt in to the FirstNet network. Gov. Jim Justice made the announcement July 18, and said the undertaking would expand coverage for first responders and the states communities. "Our people will be safer because of this incredible initiative and it gives our state a launch pad for new jobs," he said in a press release . "I applaud AT&T for their commitment to a service area footprint that enhances coverage in West Virginia. Competitive pricing and the opportunities this will bring for future investment are limitless. The FirstNet network is a step toward putting West Virginia's first responders on the leading edge."On July 11, Gov. Matthew Mead signed onto the FirstNet/AT&T plan saying the action was in the best interest of the state to participate. "The state of Wyoming has participated in FirstNet consultation and outreach activities throughout the planning of the network and reviewed the details of the FirstNet State Plan," Mead said in a press release . Wyoming was one of the first states in the country to opt in to the network.On Aug. 1, the U.S. Virgin Islands became the first U.S. territory to opt in to the FirstNet network. The United States Virgin Islands participated in FirstNet consultation and outreach activities throughout the planning of the network and reviewed the details of the FirstNet State Plan, Gov. Kenneth Mapp said in a press release . I have determined that it is in the best interest of the United States Virgin Islands and the Country to participate in the FirstNet deployment of the National Public Safety Broadband Network.Government Technology
(TNS)  I don't know where my husband is! Where is he?" screamed Kay Kay McDermott, blood streaming down her face from a large laceration as emergency responders helped her from the wreckage of a train at the Lamy train station one morning last week. Meanwhile, her husband, Stacy McDermott, gritted his teeth against the pain of a fractured leg; some of the bone had forced its way through the skin.Fortunately, the injuries of the Edgewood couple were nothing more than special-effects makeup and the "wreckage" was actually a fully functional and intact Rail Runner Express car.The pair were among around 100 actors that assisted with an emergency preparedness exercise involving the New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma and Louisiana National Guards and local, state and federal agencies in Lamy on Tuesday."This was all for the first responders so they can hone their skills," Stacy McDermott said. "We try to make it as real as possible."The train derailment exercise was a portion of a massive exercise performed in northern New Mexico from Aug. 3 through Thursday.Staged by the U.S. Army's North Command as part of its "Vigilant Guard" exercise series, the scenario simulated the aftermath of a 7.0 magnitude earthquake striking the Albuquerque area.Four of the federally funded exercises are performed each year throughout the country, tailored to each state's goals and possible emergency scenarios.Vigilant Guard senior planner Russ Coble said it takes around 18 months to design each exercise."I think beyond being fun, it's rewarding," Coble said. "You come out of an exercise knowing that you helped that state protect its citizens."In Tuesday's exercise, aftershocks from the quake caused a passenger train to derail and strike a stationary car that contained anhydrous ammonia, a toxic chemical.Not only did emergency responders need to tend to the 100 people involved in the accident, they also had to work to decontaminate the area and seal up the leaking car."The goal is to have that realism so we can come out with lessons learned," said Maj. Robert Aguilar of the New Mexico National Guard.Aguilar said it was challenging to coordinate radio contact between all the participants; some use different types and frequencies."I think in any one of the exercises I've been a part of, communication is always our biggest challenge," Aguilar said. "That's why it's so important for us to train like this, so we can overcome those in a training environment."Martin Vigil, Santa Fe County emergency manager, served as the incident commander during Tuesday's exercise.More than 100 Santa Fe county emergency medical technicians and firefighters were initially dispatched to the scene."It was basically an all-call type response," Vigil said.It wasn't enough, though, and Vigil called on neighboring counties and the National Guard for additional support.Vigil said he was pleased with the interagency cooperation."We had a few speed bumps," Vigil said. "They identified, adapted, went to Plan B and got on with business."Other scenarios staged as parts of the weeklong exercise included a high angle rescue and medevac after a Sandia Peak tram car fell during the quake, search and rescue efforts for a group of missing hikers and riot suppression in the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta Park.New Mexico National Guard Adjutant General Maj. Gen. Ken Nava said he also was impressed with the performance of participating agencies."We work with joint and interagency partners on a regular basis, but this exercise has taken it to a different level," Nava said in a statement. "Vigilant Guard has provided the New Mexico National Guard the ability to hone our communications, responses, and relationships when working with our interagency and joint partner agencies at the tribal, federal, state and local levels."Everyone, from our soldiers and airmen to the first responders and partner agencies, trained with a great attitude, worked hard, and were eager to learn more to be ready to respond if New Mexico's worst day occurs."___(c)2017 the Albuquerque Journal (Albuquerque, N.M.)Visit the Albuquerque Journal (Albuquerque, N.M.) at www.abqjournal.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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Shanghai is to set up a database to better record and spread the history of Jewish refugees in China during World War II.

A forum held in Shanghai Jiaotong University on August 13 to discuss plans for the database alongside the launch of a new book on Jewish refugees in China.

According to its editor-in-chief, Pan Guang, the book contains stories, biographies and research outcomes.

Last March, the Jewish refugee database was chosen as a project by the press and publication reform & development of the State Administration for Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.

(Photo/thePaper.cn)

The database will be built in three phases. The first will include 10 refugee memoirs and 21 periodicals on refugees written by Jews and mainstream Chinese media during World War II.

The second part will consist of domestic and foreign archives on Jews and the third part will be an oral history collection expected to contain no less than 80 million characters, 10,000 pictures and videos with duration of 1,000 minutes.

The information and documents will be more accessible to the public as more people are expected to study the history of Jewish refugees in China, said Zong Debao, vice director of Shanghai Jiaotong University Press.
BY: Doreen Andoh & Salomey Appiah-Adjei, ACCRA, with additional reports from the regions

Category: Business News
(Qigong enthusiasts gathered at Gantry Plaza State Park in New York to celebrate World Health Qigong Day)

On the second Sunday of August, 200 Qigong enthusiasts gathered at Gantry Plaza State Park in New York to celebrate the first-ever World Health Qigong Day, organized by the International Health Qigong Association.

World Health Qigong Day will coordinate the practice of Health Qigong at 10 am local time in 43 countries and regions across the world. Globally, Health Qigong will be practiced non-stop for 24 hours from East to West, starting in Australia and ending in Canada.

Chang Jianping, chairman of Chinese Health Qigong Association, said Health Qigong helps cure illnesses and keeps people fit, as well as strengthens the immune system, as it requires a psychological skill that brings body, breath, and mind into one.

Qigong is a traditional Chinese exercise and healing technique, originally part of traditional Chinese medicine and ancient martial arts, he said. Confucians practiced Qigong to cultivate his mind and body.

Chang introduced nine forms of Health Qigong, including Eight Pieces of Brocade, Six Healing Sounds, Muscle-Tendon Change Classic, and Five Animals. According to Chang, experts would be invited to give lessons on the basic movements of Health Qigong to benefit more people.

He also clarified some misleading statements. Qigong is a kind of exercise; and not a miracle cure or a way to immortalize. People should approach it calmly. If people practice the movements and understand the harmony, they can benefit from it, he said. Beware of cults that say one can refuse medical treatment after illness. They are not real Health Qigong.
The researchers focused on PM 2.5 a component of air pollution emitted from vehicles, factories, power plants, fires and smokingbecause many studies have suggested this type of major air pollutant might lead to cardiovascular and metabolic health consequences, according to Haidong Kan, M.D., Ph.D., study author and professor of environmental health sciences at Fudan University in Shanghai, China.

Exposure to high levels of PM 2.5 air pollution increased stress hormone levels and negative metabolic changes in otherwise healthy, young adults according to the findings of a recent study conducted in China. Air purifiers appear to lessen the negative effects. The research is published in the American Heart Associations journal Circulation .

However, the biological mechanisms linking air pollution to cardiovascular risk are unclear. In this study, the first of its kind, researchers used metabolomicsa method that could reflect how glucose, amino acids, fatty acids and lipids are metabolizedto get a snapshot of the chemical processes by which cells produce the substances and energy needed to sustain life.

Researchers recruited 55 college students who received alternate treatments of real and sham air purification in random orders in their dormitory rooms.

Researchers measured indoor and outdoor fine particulate matter levels during the study, and at certain points did health tests and collected blood serum and urine samples to analyze the students metabolites, inflammation and oxidative stress biomarkers. They looked for differences in blood serum metabolites, biomarkers and blood pressures with increasing exposure to fine particulate matter.

Researchers found:

Notable changes in 97 blood serum metabolites after fine particulate matter exposure.

An average 82 percent lower level of indoor fine particulate matter with air purifiers versus sham purifiers.

Short-term reductions in stress hormone levels after air purifiers were used.

After 24-hours with real air purifiers in use, exposure levels for fine particulate matter were in the safe range per World Health Organization.

Higher fine particulate matter exposure was also associated with increases in stress hormone levels, which are believed to induce high blood pressure, inflammatory and metabolic effects in the body, Kan said.

Fine particulate matter exposure impacted metabolism of glucose, amino acids, fatty acids and lipids. These changes, along with the significantly higher blood pressure, insulin resistance and biomarkers of inflammation and oxidative stress found among people exposed to higher levels, could be partly responsible for the adverse cardiovascular effects caused by air pollution exposure, researchers said.

Levels of stress hormones, systolic blood pressure and biomarkers of oxidative stress and inflammation were significantly lower when using real air purifiers. Although we found significant health benefits with air purifiers, the actual health protection people could get from air purifiers in real living conditions is still not well-determined. Haidong Kan

This was a small study and whether the results translate to other countries remains to be seen, because air pollution levels are much higher in urban China than in the United States or Europe. Nevertheless, the study highlights air pollutions potential impact on human health in more ways than we currently know, Kan said.

Future studies should examine whether the health benefits from short-term air purification can improve long-term health, and whether these findings are also found in people who live in low pollution areas. Haidong Kan

The current study only focused on one particulate matter size found in pollution.

The National Natural Science Foundation of China, Public Welfare Research Program of National Health and Family Planning Commission of China, Shanghai 3-Year Public Health Action Plan, Cyrus Tang Foundation and China Medical Board Collaborating Program funded the study.

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Nissan Germany is offering a 2,000 (US$2,360) scrappage bonus for Euro 1-4 diesel vehicles to buyers of a Nissan LEAF or Nissan e-NV200 electric vehicle.

In combination with Nissan Elektrobonus (3,000 for a LEAF and 3,250 for an e-NV200) and the state environmental bonus (2,000), the scrappage bonuswhich is available until 30 December 2017allows a buyer switching from an old diesel to an EV to save up to 7,250 (US$8,556).

The LEAF has sold more than 277,000 units worldwide.
(File photo)

By 2027, China will set up as many as six world-class cybersecurity academies, the latest national guideline vowed on Aug. 14.

According to the guideline, jointly issued by the Cyberspace Administration of China and the Ministry of Education, the academies will invite top professionals to enroll and train talented students based on high-quality teaching materials.

Not only will students with an IT background be targeted, but students with science and engineering, law, and management backgrounds will also be on the radar.

Talents will not be judged by their education background or the number of papers they have published. What matters are their professional skills, especially their ability to innovate and solve practical problems, the guideline added.

The guideline did not reveal how much the government plans to invest in such academies. Rather, it just said that a large amount will be spent on their construction.

The academies will be housed in a small number of select universities after a series of appraisals. They will be built using money from both local authorities and companies, it noted.

China has been increasingly keen on developing cyber. In 2014, Chinese President Xi Jinping called on the country to become a major cyber power.
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China should promote market access to its self-developed genetically modified (GM) carp, said Zhu Zuoyan, a researcher and academician at the Institute of Hydrobiology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xinhua reported on Aug. 14.

The academician made the statement against the backdrop of U.S. regulators' decision to allow genetically modified salmon, making it the first GM animal destined for human consumption recently.

Zhu noted that China's GM carp not only meet regulatory requirements of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, World Health Organization, and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations on GM animals, but have been comprehensively studied.

Zhu said relevant departments need to make regulations on market access to China's genetically modified agricultural and animal products, and the government, research institutions, and the media should try to scientifically dispel public doubts about GM products.

Zhu's team started researching GM carp in 1983 and published their achievement of successfully breeding the world's first GM fish in 1985, three years before their Western peers.

As the transgenic salmon was injected with a gene from Chinook salmon, the carps bred by Chinese scientists were given a gene from grass carp to speed up growth. The growth hormone in grass carp is broken down into amino acids through cooking, thus causing no harm to human health.

The safety of the GM carp for food in terms of nutrients, toxicology, and sensitization was also assessed by the School of Basic Medical Sciences at Wuhan University and the China National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment.

As for ecological concerns over the possible consequences of GM carp being introduced into wild, the team said that the carp are less likely to survive and will not dominate the population and influence the original ecosystem.
I did not go to the candlelight vigil Sunday night in downtown Greensboro to mourn the violence that erupted when white supremacists and neo-Nazis rallied in Charlottesville, Va.

I wanted to go, and yet I didnt want to go, in equal measures.

It heartens me to see people stand up against the racists and neo-Nazis who spewed their witches brew of hate, violence, resentment and false righteousness, inspiring one of their own to mow down peaceful protesters with a muscle car.

It is beautiful and meaningful to gather in public rejection of such ugliness.

But I was not ready to be accountable for my emotions in public or to require it of my family.

In a sense, we keep the vigil every day.

When my biracial daughters and I go shopping, when my African-American husband and I meet for lunch, when our mixed family arrives anywhere together.

We are, every day, a living repudiation of everything these people believe.

As I read the news accounts and saw the video of the man driving his car into a sea of innocent people, my stomach roiled with sorrow.

It burned with anger when I read what the Daily Stormer, a white nationalist website, said about Heather Heyer, the 32-year-old paralegal with the sweet smile who was killed by this terrorist.

They called her a slob; a fat, childless slut. They said people would be glad she was dead and no longer a drain on society since, as an unmarried woman with no children, she had failed to fulfill her only purpose in life.

The rage I felt made me sicker.

This is what they want, I told myself. This is what they want. They want to make people as angry as they can, to provoke them enough to answer epithet with epithet, blows with blows, and to reduce them to subhuman stereotypes unfit to live, just as they do to people of color.

If you respond in kind with hate and violence, it provides them with the justification they seek for what they did, and the license to do worse going forward.

If you let the monster of hate and rage out of its cage, it may consume them, but it will certainly consume you.

But nevertheless, the bolt on the door of the cage slides back when I see the photos. And when I read what these despicable people say about the woman they helped kill, the door begins to swing open.

And I want to let it out.

Everything in me wants to rage against these arrogant, ignorant, entitled white men. The woman in me silently utters a thousand indignant curses. The wife in me raises a fist in furious defiance. The mother in me rises up in protective rage.

It takes a while to wrestle this monster back into its cage, because this is personal. I long ago saw on a racist website the silhouette of a family like mine in the crosshairs of a rifle scope. Even as vocal racism began to fade from polite society, it never stopped being real for me.

I didnt have the luxury of believing it was gone. And of course, it wasnt.

So I stayed home Sunday evening with my family, which is the center of my strength. We had dinner and watched TV. We did not watch the news, though we talked briefly about what happened in Charlottesville.

We dont have the luxury of NOT talking about it, because our children need extra awareness of what is happening in the world that lies outside our neighborhood, where people see us as they do everyone else, beyond the friends who never question their parentage, and apart from the family who cherishes them.

But I was not ready to expose the sorrow or tamp down the rage.

I keep the vigil in my own way every day. I write about it. I speak about it. I actively contest displays of white privilege. I share stories publicly and privately in an effort to help people understand and accept.

I do this for my husband, who is regularly reminded in word and deed that some people consider him inferior because of his color.

I do it for my children, who are sometimes seen as too black, not black enough, or a total conundrum to those who are locked in the binary of either/or.

What I feel is nothing compared to people who experience these things firsthand.

The vigil should not end with Sunday nights commemoration. White people need to live it every day, by acknowledging people different from themselves with the same respect and attention they would show to someone of their own skin color.

By interrogating their own thoughts, beliefs and attitudes.

By acting in ways that include instead of exclude.

By pushing themselves out of their comfort zone and into situations where they are the minority.

This is not a passive process that can be achieved by good intentions. It is an active process that requires constant participation and awareness.

Though I was proud to see so many Greensboro residents in the public square on Sunday, it is not what we do there, but what we do everywhere else that makes the difference.

We must keep the vigil every day.
The blood and hate in Charlottesville that claimed a life on Saturday  and could have claimed many more -- shakes me to my soul.

It lays bare a corrosive undercurrent of division and resentment that I have felt mounting for years.

Some of you may have sensed it, too.

And now it has erupted to the surface.

Its as if someone flicked a switch when Donald Trump was elected that flashed the message: Its OK to come out  all that racial resentment youve been harboring for years is acceptable now.

There are many disturbing images from the hellpit that the hometown of Mr. Jeffersons university became last weekend: armed white supremacists in riot gear waving Nazi banners and Confederate flags; a stoic black cop guarding a police line as a white man behind him raises his arm in a Hitler salute; a young woman on a stretcher weeping as firemen carry her away; bodies flying as that gray car lurches threw a crowd of protesters.

But what disturbs me as much is the site of many of the supremacists and neo Nazis. They appear so . young . dressed like frat boys in polo shirts.

They are not the potbellied greybeards that I expected to see (though quite a few in the ranks of the supremacists did fit that stereotype).

How did this happen?

When did we arrive back in 1967?

I mentioned the Trump election, which was a symptom but not a cause.

There was a backlash to the Obama presidency  as after Reconstruction, there was, Jim Crow.

And I believe there is unease about the growing diversity of the nation  and a twisted narrative that people of color are taking things from whites  has created resentment and anxiety. (Affirmative action and discriminatory government programs helped to build white wealth in the 1950s, something you rarely hear on Fox News.)

And I still believe, as Ive written many times before, that segregated schools and housing are creating cultural silos that breed prejudice and ignorance.

We had a chance to get school desegregation right here and walked away from it.

And we are paying the price, economically and academically (all students tend to perform better in racially mixed schools, which are about as rare around here as polka-dotted unicorns).

The social costs are just as steep.

What -- and whom  you dont know you dont know you dont understand. And you fear.

The there is the rise of white hate groups and the Trump administration refusal to acknowledge the growing threat of them.

The Huffington Post reports:

When it comes to domestic terrorism in America, the numbers dont lie: Far-right extremists are behind far more plots and attacks than Islamist extremists.

There were almost twice as many terrorist incidents by right-wing extremists as by Islamist extremists in the U.S. from 2008 to 2016, according to a new report from The Nation Institutes Investigative Fund and The Center for Investigative Reportings Reveal.

Looking at both plots and attacks carried out, the group tracked 201 terrorist incidents on U.S. soil from January 2008 to the end of 2016. The database shows 115 cases by right-wing extremists  from white supremacists to militias to sovereign citizens  compared to 63 cases by Islamist extremists. Incidents from left-wing extremists, which include ecoterrorists and animal rights militants, were comparatively rare, with 19 incidents.

And as The Hill noted in a post on Monday:

The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in May warned of the threat posed by white supremacist groups in the United States.

In a joint intelligence bulletin issued May 10 and obtained by Foreign Policy, the DHS and the bureau said white supremacist groups had carried out more violent attacks than any other domestic extremist group over the past 16 years  and were likely to commit more.

The white supremacist movement likely will continue to pose a threat of lethal violence over the next year, the bulletin said.

This is why Charlottesville  and the racist attacks that preceded it  is so disturbing.

And those fresh-faced young white men in polo shirts brandishing Confederate flags and swastikas made my skin crawl.
Things were starting to look up for the embattled Charlotte School of Law. The for-profit law school appeared to be on the verge of shutting down for good (which I wrote about here, here, here, here and here) when it announced at the end of July that the feds would once again give it access to federal student loans.

But then the bottom dropped out.

On Thursday, the law school asked the UNC system for more time to comply with several conditions laid out in June for the school to keep its license to operate in North Carolina.

On Friday, as the law schools dean assured students that the school would open as scheduled this fall, the school missed its deadline to keep its license. And on Monday, the American Bar Association rejected Charlotte Laws teach-out plan for current students who wanted to finish their studies.

There's plenty more coverage if you want to read it. Inside Higher Ed, the Chronicle and the Above the Law blog all have more.

The Charlotte Observers story ("No license, no student loans, no website: Has Charlotte School of Law closed for good?") is less definitive, but who can blame it for pulling a couple of punches? This zombie law school has been close to death before and each time manages to lurch a few more steps forward before dropping a limb.

But this really does appear to be the end of Charlotte Law. No zombie can survive head shots like these. Right?

Update, 1:45 p.m. Wednesday: It looks like the Charlotte Observer stealth-updated its story that I linked to above. The link is the same, but the headline is now "Attorney General tells Charlotte School of Law: Close or be closed." The story itself is substantially (but not totally) different. Lucky for you I posted the original here.

For more on Charlotte Law, here's law professor and blogger Paul Campos, who wrote this takedown of the school's parent company for the Atlantic in 2014.

Want to make sure you see these blog posts? Like me on Facebook, and follow me on Twitter.

Have something to say? Email me at john.newsom@greensboro.com.
DURHAM  Gov. Roy Cooper said Tuesday that he wants to bring down Confederate monuments throughout North Carolina, thrusting himself into a debate stoked by violence in Virginia and the toppling of a Confederate statue in his own state.

Coopers call to remove the monuments from public property came as Durham County sheriffs deputies began arresting people suspected of being responsible for tearing down a nearly 100-year-old Confederate statue in front of the old county courthouse in downtown Durham on Monday night.

North Carolina is among three states with the most Confederate monuments, but the Republican-controlled General Assembly passed a law in 2015 preventing their removal without legislative approval. Cooper, a Democrat, is likely to face an uphill battle against legislative leaders, who hold veto-proof majorities.

Cooper said legislators need to repeal the law.

Staff members for the GOP House and Senate leaders didnt immediately respond to emails requesting comment.

We cannot continue to glorify a war against the United States of America fought in the defense of slavery, Cooper said in a statement.

These monuments should come down.

Around the time of Coopers announcement, deputies were arresting the woman who climbed the statue in Durham and attached the rope that was used to tear it down.

During a news conference Tuesday held by protest organizers, Takiyah Thompson identified herself as the woman who climbed the statue. She said her actions were a justified response to white supremacists.

The statue had to go, and its linked to white supremacy that we see today, said Thompson, a 22-year-old college student.

After the news conference, sheriffs deputies arrived and took her away in handcuffs. According to the sheriffs office, she has charged with two felonies related to inciting and participating in a riot that damaged property, along with two misdemeanors. Investigators said late Tuesday that they expect to make other arrests..

Cooper also directed state officials to study the cost and logistics of removing Confederate monuments from state property and moving them to historical sites or museums. There are three on the old Capitol grounds in Raleigh and one at UNC-Chapel Hill, according to the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

Cooper said he was moved to act by the violence at the Charlottesville, Va,, rally, as well as the protest in Durham that toppled the statue. The Virginia rally was organized by people who disagree with efforts to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from a downtown park.

North Carolina is one of only three states  along with Virginia and Georgia  that have 90 or more Confederate monuments, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. A state tally shows at least 120 Civil War monuments around North Carolina, with the vast majority dedicated to the Confederacy. Around 50 are located at contemporary or historic courthouses.

Durhams Confederate Soldiers Monument, dedicated in 1924, stood in front of an old courthouse building that serves as local government offices.

The statue came down Monday night when demonstrators used a rope to pull the bronze Confederate soldier from his pedestal as a crowd cheered. After the statue fell, some people began kicking it, while others took photos standing or sitting on it. Organizers said the protest was in response to the Charlottesville violence.

Law enforcement officers took video throughout the protest but didnt intervene. Sheriff Mike Andrews said he was aware of the potential for vandalism, but used restraint because of the risk of injuries if deputies moved in.

Had I ordered my deputies to engage a hostile crowd, there would have been serious injuries, Andrews said. Statues can be replaced. Lives cannot.

Still, he said he would pursue felony charges against the protesters responsible for bringing the statue down: Let me be clear. No one is getting away with what happened yesterday.

Some people who passed by the empty pedestal on Tuesday expressed mixed feelings about the statue and its fate.

Ive walked by this statue several times in the last few weeks. And Ive wondered, if it is appropriate, said Emily Yeatts, a lawyer in Durham.

If there is a way to remember and honor, as it says, The boys who wore the gray, without also lending some legitimacy to the cause for which they fought, Yeats said. This statue has struck me as out of place in Durham, for some time. And while I was surprised to see the news footage last night, it seemed right.
HIGH POINT  The former director of finance for UNC Regional Physicians has been charged with taking more than $1.5 million while she worked at High Point Regional Health.

Kimberly R. Hobson, 46, of Kernersville, was arrested Tuesday morning by police detectives with assistance from U.S. Secret Service agents after a joint investigation.

Hobson is charged with felonious embezzlement by employee. She is confined to the High Point jail with bail set at $1 million. Her court date is set for Sept. 15.

The investigation is still ongoing on the state and federal level so no other details were available at the time of the release.

In a statement, the hospital said Hobson had been fired from her position. It states that hospital officials discovered the alleged embezzlement on July 28.

Hobson was employed at the hospital for 20 years, and most recently held the finance director position, according to Becky Kreitz, marketing and public relations director at the hospital. The hospital is part of the UNC Health Care system.

The system states that it is "reviewing all accounting policies and procedures while placing additional safeguards to prevent future fraud, theft or embezzlement."
GREENSBORO  A Danville man was found guilty of murder Monday even after last-minute attempts by his defense attorney to cast suspicions on other people.

Jurors spent only one hour deliberating before finding 28-year-old Craig Hairston guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit robbery in the shooting death of 32-year-old Kevin Millner.

Millner had parked his car outside a Holiday Inn Express on Big Tree Way on Sept. 2, 2014, and went to sleep when Hairston, Montray Price and Colby Watkins tried to rob Millner with a gun.

When Millner screamed for help, Hairston shot him in the heart.

During closing arguments Monday morning, Hairston's attorney, Thomas Johnson, tried to cast suspicion on Price  known to friends as "Trigger"  using testimony from Watkins.

Millner's mother, aunt, uncle and girlfriend attended the trial daily.

They were present in the courtroom when Superior Court Judge Stuart Albright sentenced Hairston to life in prison for first-degree murder with an additional 33 months minimum for conspiracy to commit robbery.

Hairston will not begin serving either prison sentence until he completes one already in progress in Virginia, likely to expire in 2018.

Since Aug. 8, jurors watched surveillance video and listened to testimony that tried to explain how Millner became the target of Hairston, Price and Watkins.

Price testified that he and Hairston concocted a scheme to rob a prostitute from Danville that Price had hired for the night.

Price said that he kept the prostitute occupied in a Holiday Inn hotel room while Watkins and Hairston drove around the parking lot trying to find her pimp.

Meanwhile, Millner left the house he shared with his girlfriend to cool down from an argument they had. He pulled into the Holiday Inn parking lot and called her before going to sleep in his car.

Price testified that Watkins spotted Millner in his vehicle.

Price and Watkins said they drove back to Price's apartment for guns and masks before returning to the hotel to rob Millner.

Watkins waited across the street at a Waffle House restaurant with the car. Hairston and Price went to the hotel and confronted Millner and ultimately killed him.

Hairston declined to speak to the judge or the family before his sentencing. He was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs and sent to the Guilford County jail where he will remain until being transferred back to prison in Virginia.

Price pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and Watkins pleaded guilty to accessory after first-degree murder. Both men agreed to testify as part of a plea agreement with the state and await sentencing.
What happened: Greensboro City Council voted Tuesday to reinstate the Police Community Review Board, which investigates citizen complaints against the Greensboro Police Department. The council decided to suspend the board last month while it organizes a new type of group called the Criminal Justice Advisory Commission. But council members realized Tuesday that it could take up to six months to create the new commission. So the PCRB will continue its work until the commission gets going.

Vote: 8-0 (Councilman Mike Barber was absent)

What they said: Mayor Nancy Vaughan: We need to give people some sense of remedy while the commission is in the works.

Whats next: The council will get an update on the progress on Oct. 17, then vote on the new commission Nov. 21. After that, the fate of the new commission is in the hands of state legislators in Raleigh.
GREENSBORO  Hold onto your whiskers, cat lovers, have we got mews for you!

The Crooked Tail Cat Cafe will open later this year at 604 S. Elm St. in downtown Greensboro, providing a place for patrons to sip coffee while playing with adorable  and adoptable  cats.

It will be the citys first cat cafe, a concept that originated in Taiwan in the late 1990s as spaces where people could pay a small fee to enjoy a hot beverage while interacting with cats. The cafes crept through Asia and Europe, finally reaching North America a few years ago.

Karen Stratman, owner of the Crooked Tail Cat Cafe and a self-described cat lady, decided to start her own kitten kingdom after a pop-up cafe in Portland (Purringtons Cat Lounge, now a permanent fixture) caught her eye.

I am a cat person and an entrepreneur, and when I saw that, that was when I knew I wanted to do this, said Stratman, 29, who has four cats (three permanent, one foster). Its the perfect way to help animals and also bring something exciting to downtown Greensboro.

The 2,100-square-foot property will host a dozen cats at a time, all on loan from a local rescue organization. All of the cats will be adoptable, Stratman said, but prospective guardians must go through the rescue to take one home. Guests will pay by the hour, and reservations are encouraged, though walk-ins are welcome if theres space.

The cafe will serve coffee, tea and pre-packaged sandwiches and pastries from Camino Bakery in Winston-Salem. Stratman also hopes to serve beer and wine. All food and drink prep will be limited to the cafes back room, which will be off-limits to all four-legged guests (humans are welcome to take their snacks anywhere).

The front room, though, is all about the cats. Plans for the space are still in progress, though Stratman envisions elevated walkways, ample lounging space and tons of toys for the rescued felines. She will likely raise money for some of those features via crowdfunding, she said.

I will be seriously catifying this space, she said. Its all about making the space acceptable to the cats and making the cats happy.

The Crooked Tail is poised to be one of the first cat cafes in North Carolina, though others are in the works in Wilmington, Charlotte and Raleigh. Theres no firm opening date yet, though Stratman said she aims to open the business this year. Word of the cafe has gotten out, she said, and interest is high.

Ive gotten so many calls from people hoping to volunteer to help care for the cats, she said. People are really excited, and Im excited, too. It helps the community, it helps the cats, and I get to pursue something that Im passionate about.
GREENSBORO  Its how you feel when you stare at the empty bread shelf as the first snowflakes fall.

If youve waited until this week to buy those cardboard glasses that let you watch the solar eclipse Monday without going blind, then you know that empty feeling.

What might have cost you $1 a week ago is now selling for up to $37 on eBay.

Such is the frenzy that has become the solar eclipse.

For the first time in 99 years, the moons shadow will cut a swath across the United States from Oregon to South Carolina. Any cities and towns inside the 70-mile wide path of totality  where day becomes night  will experience a full eclipse. Greensboro is just outside the path  but not by much.

With excitement building  and panic setting in  the clock is ticking for those still needing eclipse glasses to safely watch the eclipse unfold.

Good luck finding them, though.

The American Astronomical Society has a list of reputable vendors and manufacturers (https://eclipse.aas.org/resources/solar-filters). But click through the list and most of the online sites are sold out or shut down.

Locally, most retail chains ranging from Best Buy to Lowes to Walmart say theyre out, too.

You might as well abandon copper futures and invest in American Paper Optics glasses, which is one of the more prominent authorized brands, because one pair sold Tuesday afternoon for $36.95 on eBay.

For a $2 donation to the Cline Observatory, Guilford Technical Community College was offering eclipse glasses on Tuesday. Several hundred people lined up for the chance.

It was like Black Friday, said Annie Chrismon, the president of the GTCC Astronomy Club. We sent 500 (pairs of glasses) over to the bookstore this morning. They sold out by 9:30 or 10. The line was out the door. It was insane.

In all, the group has given away 2,000 pairs to raise money for the observatory, said Tom English, a GTCC astronomy professor and the director of the observatory.

English added that the astronomy club was on a strict budget when it ordered the glasses from its vendor, but more couldve been sold.

We ended up with just a few thousand, but I remember the company telling us You should get 10,000,  he said.

If you planned ahead, your name may be on the list of lucky customers at Toys & Co., which should be getting a shipment of glasses today at its Friendly Center store. If you are patient and hopeful, you can put your name on a waiting list in case somebody doesnt pick up their order.

You may have dropped by Best Buy in the past couple weeks. The electronics store had a well-stocked shelf with eclipse glasses along with camera filters, telescopes and binoculars for observing the rare event.

On Tuesday, only three telescopes were left along with one lonely pair of binoculars.

It has all found a home, Best Buy manager Andrea Ward said.

A co-worker checked the computer as Ward stood at the nearly bare racks: no eclipse glasses were available at Best Buys stores in central North Carolina.

Circle K convenience stores earlier this week were promoting that eclipse glasses would be available on the day of the eclipse  but not anymore. On Tuesday, a corporate email went out that said supplies are short and the company cant guarantee that glasses will be in stock.

And then theres Walmart, which ordered millions of pairs of eclipse glasses. Most are gone from stores here and elsewhere.

Sales of products related to the solar eclipse have shot up sharply in the final week before Aug. 21, company spokeswoman Meggan Kring said in an email.

If youve given up on finding glasses, dont give up on protecting your eyes. Dont use a regular camera, sunglasses or even your phone to watch the eclipse.

Please, lord, do not look directly at the sun, Ward said.
Three days after Donald Trump named his campaign foreign policy team in March 2016, the youngest of the new advisers sent an email to seven campaign officials with the subject line: Meeting with Russian Leadership - Including Putin.

The adviser, George Papadopoulos, offered to set up a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss US-Russia ties under President Trump, telling them his Russian contacts welcomed the opportunity, according to internal campaign emails read to The Washington Post.

The proposal sent a ripple of concern through campaign headquarters in Trump Tower. Campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis wrote that he thought NATO allies should be consulted before any plans were made. Another Trump adviser, retired Navy Rear Adm. Charles Kubic, cited legal concerns, including a possible violation of U.S. sanctions against Russia and of the Logan Act, which prohibits U.S. citizens from unauthorized negotiation with foreign governments.

But Papadopoulos, a campaign volunteer with scant foreign policy experience, persisted. Between March and September, the self-described energy consultant sent at least a half-dozen requests for Trump, as he turned from primary candidate to party nominee, or for members of his team to meet with Russian officials. Among those to express concern about the effort was then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who rejected in May 2016 a proposal from Papadopoulos for Trump to do so.

The exchanges are among more than 20,000 pages of documents the Trump campaign turned over to congressional committees this month after review by White House and defense lawyers. The selection of Papadopouloss emails were read to The Post by a person with access to them. Two other people with access to the emails confirmed the general tone of the exchanges and some specific passages within them.

Papadopoulos emerges from the sample of emails as a new and puzzling figure in the examination of the Trump campaigns contacts with Russian officials and their proxies during the 2016 election, now the subject of a special-counsel investigation.

Less than a decade out of college, Papadopoulos appeared to hold little sway within the campaign, and it is unclear whether he was acting as an intermediary for the Russian government, although he told campaign officials he was.

While the emails illustrate his eagerness to strengthen the campaigns connections to the Russian government, Papadopoulos does not spell out in them why it would be in Trumps interest to do so. His entreaties appear to have generated more concern than excitement within the campaign, which at the time was looking to seal the Republican nomination and take on a heavily favored Hillary Clinton in the general election.

But the internal resistance to Papadopouloss requests is at odds with other overtures Trump allies were making toward Russia at the time, mostly at a more senior level of the campaign.

Three months after Papadopoulos raised the possibility of a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the presidents son Donald Trump Jr. and son-in-law Jared Kushner met with a delegation led by a Russian lawyer offering to provide damaging information on Clinton.

Manafort attended that Trump Tower session in June 2016, a meeting now under scrutiny in the special counsels collusion inquiry. But the new emails reveal that Manafort had rejected a request from Papadopoulos just the previous month to set up a meeting between Trump and Russian officials.

In July 2016 and again two months later, Jeff Sessions, then a senator and senior foreign policy adviser to Trump, met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

And also in July, a few weeks after Papadopoulos asked his superiors whether other campaign advisers or aides could accept some of the Russians invitations, Carter Page, another foreign policy adviser, spoke at a Russian university in Moscow. Page said he made the trip independently of the campaign.

To experts in Russian intelligence gathering, the Papadopoulos chain offers further evidence that Russians were looking for entry points and playing upon connections with lower-level aides to penetrate the 2016 campaign.

Former CIA director John Brennan in May told the House Intelligence Committee that he had seen worrisome evidence of contacts and interactions between Russian officials and the Trump campaign, although he offered no specifics.

Steven L. Hall, who retired from the CIA in 2015 after 30 years of managing the agencys Russia operations, said when told by The Post about the emails: The bottom line is that theres no doubt in my mind that the Russian government was casting a wide net when they were looking at the American election. I think they were doing very basic intelligence work: Whos out there? Whos willing to play ball? And how can we use them?

Papadopoulos, a former intern and researcher at the conservative Hudson Institute, was on a list of campaign volunteers that Trump announced as his foreign policy advisory team during a meeting with The Posts editorial board in March 2016. Trump called Papadopoulos an excellent guy.

Almost immediately, Papadopoulos came under scrutiny for his lack of experience. He graduated from college in 2009, and his LinkedIn profile cited his participation in a Model U.N. program for students among his qualifications. Papadopoulos did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Page, who has been the subject of a foreign surveillance warrant over his connections to Russia, said the Papadopoulos email exchange was another sign that the Russia communications were inconsequential.

The entirely benign offer from a volunteer member of the Trump movement is infinitely less relevant than the real collusion in the 2016 election, said Page, who was copied on the first Papadopoulos email communication in March. Page said in an email exchange Saturday that the real scandal lies among Clinton and Obama associates who fed false evidence to investigators that he said formed the basis of the federal warrant concerning him.

Papadopoulos made more than a half-dozen overtures on behalf of Russians or people with Russia contacts whom he claimed to know.

On March 24, Clovis, the campaign co-chairman who also served on the foreign policy team, reacted to one proposed Russia meeting by writing, We thought we probably should not go forward with any meeting with the Russians until we have had occasion to sit with our NATO allies.

In the same email chain, Kubic, the retired admiral, reminded others about legal restrictions on meetings with certain Russian officials, adding, Just want to make sure that no one on the team outruns their headlights and embarrasses the campaign.

Undeterred, Papadopoulos alerted then-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski in an April email that he was receiving a lot of calls over the past month about arranging a Russia meeting.

Putin wants to host the Trump team when the time is right, he wrote on April 27.

On May 4, Papadopoulos forwarded Lewandowski and others a note he received from the program head for the government-funded Russian International Affairs Council. In it, Ivan Timofeev, a senior official in the organization, reached out to report that Russian foreign ministry officials were open to a Trump visit to Moscow and requested that the campaign and Russians write a formal letter outlining the meeting.

Clovis responded to the Timofeev invitation by noting: There are legal issues we need to mitigate, meeting with foreign officials as a private citizen.

The email chain does not show a response from Lewandowski, who did not return calls seeking comment.

Several weeks later, Papadopoulos forwarded the same message from Timofeev to Manafort, the newly named campaign chairman.

Russia has been eager to meet with Mr. Trump for some time and have been reaching out to me to discuss, the adviser told Manafort.

Manafort reacted coolly, forwarding the email to his associate Rick Gates, with a note: We need someone to communicate that DT is not doing these trips.

Gates agreed and told Manafort he would ask the campaigns correspondence coordinator to handle it  the person responding to all mail of non-importance  to signify this did not need a senior official to respond.

A spokesman for Manafort, whose Virginia home was raided by FBI agents three weeks ago as part of an investigation by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, said the email chain provides concrete evidence that the Russia collusion narrative is fake news.

Mr. Manaforts swift action reflects the attitude of the campaign  any invitation by Russia, directly or indirectly, would be rejected outright, Manafort spokesman Jason Maloni said in a statement.

In an email to The Post, Timofeev confirmed that his organization had discussed a meeting with the Trump campaign in the spring of 2016.

The Russian International Affairs Council was created in 2010 by a decree of then-President Dmitry Medvedev as a project of various Russian government agencies. It is led by former foreign minister Igor Ivanov. Its board includes Russias current foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, as well as top Russian scholars and business leaders, among them the chairman of Alfa-Bank and Sberbank, two of Russias largest banks.

We discussed the idea informally as one of the opportunities for . . . dialogue between Russia and the U.S., Timofeev said in the email. RIAC often hosts meetings with prominent political figures and experts from the US and many other countries.

He said the group would have been open to meeting with other campaigns.

Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill said officials with the Democrats campaign have no recollections or record of having been contacted by the group. Similarly an adviser to Barack Obamas first presidential campaign, former Russian ambassador Michael McFaul, said he could not recall any similar invitation.
The marketing and business models for B2C and B2B models are different. For the latter category, strategies for nurturing existing customers are significantly more important than for the former.

Related: Balance Your Sales Quotas With Serving Your Customers: 6 Ways How.

For B2B companies, in contrast, the customer pool is significantly smaller, which means that losing just one customer can be catastrophic. Generally, for B2B ventures, it is better for them to focus efforts on keeping their already-existing customers.

According to a research study by Bain & Company, a 5 percent increase in the customer-retention rate can result in a 25 percent-to-95 percent increase in profits for B2B businesses. Another big factor: It is 25 times more expensive to bring on a new customer than to keep an already existing one.

This is why B2B companies dread working on the customer-turnover rate and seemingly will do anything to avoid it. These realities are the reason why B2B loyalty programs are on the rise and why B2B marketers are constantly prioritizing these programs. Here are a few tips to help your B2B company hold on to your buyers.

1. Identify and categorize your buyers.

For every kind of business, numerous customer metrics exist to help entrepreneurs keep on top of their customers' buying patterns and behavior. Perhaps the best place to start is knowing to what category your customers belong.

In an article on consultative selling, FPX identified two broad categories of buyers: "small-fish" buyers and "big-fish" buyers. The former category is what I like to call the drive-by buyers. These buyers are not big on loyalty. They have their eyes on the prize, and by that I mean the best deals they can get, regardless of the seller they get it from. Beyond that, they are not really keen on long-term business relationships.

Related: The Profile of a Modern B2B Customer and What It Means For You

Big-fish buyers, in contrast, are more intentional and less volatile in their approach to business dealings. These guys are in it for the long haul, or at least one longer than that of the small-fish buyers. This is especially true when the B2B business they are dealing with offers products/services that require them to work hand in hand with the seller from the first contact to purchase and installation.

Once you are able to correctly lump your buyers into these categories, you'll find it easier to develop more targeted marketing campaigns without spending over the top for either.

2. Care for their business as much as for your own

When your buyers notice that you actually care about their business, beyond selling to them, loyalty toward you is almost a certainty. If you intend to consolidate a business relationship, understand that your dealings with your buyers do not end when you close a sale with them; the relationship actually never ends (or never should).

CenterCal, a real estate development company, has grown its business massively over a 13-year period by operating with a strategy that puts its customers first. Its latest project, for instance, called Mountain View Village in Riverton, Utah, is an ongoing 85-acre project that will boast a number of top-shelf amenities and services, such as a luxury theater, hotel and gym, retail outlets, restaurants, etc.

The individual businesses that will occupy this property will actually be reaping the benefits of the CenterCal brand. One of these benefits will be that those businesses will be able to significantly trim their marketing budgets. This is something they would not be able to do separate from the CenterCal name.

Loyalty is a two-way street.You need to be as loyal to your buyers as you need them to be to you. According to research by Kitewheel, 73 percent of customers polled believed that loyalty programs are about brands proving their loyalty to their customers, while 66 percent of marketing executives surveyed believed the reverse to be true.

When your buyers realize that being in business with you is actually good for them, the thought of jumping to the competition becomes a distant memory.

3. Speak with one brand voice.

One of the worst things that can happen to your business is when buyers feel they are getting mixed messages from you. You cannot effectively communicate with your buyers if your brand voice is not unanimous.

When all the departments across your business are in harmony with one other and are holistically working toward the right objective, this kind of harmony will register positively in your buyers perception of your brand. Throughout their relationship with you, these buyers will likely deal with different departments at your company; so you want to ensure that they get a consistently positive experience.

This may mean that the responsibilities of those various departments may have to overlap at some point, to bridge any gaps between the services being given them; the result for your buyers will therefore be a seamless, positive experience.

If any of your buyers have complaints, morever, they should never feel that any employee in any department is trying to pass the buck on to someone else or to another department entirely. The seamless transition from one department to another should be something they barely even notice.

Related: Here's How 'Boring' B2B Businesses Can Get Customers Emotionally Connected to Their Content Marketing

Gallup has said that only 29 percent of B2B customers are actively engaged with the companies they have business dealings with; thats a whopping 71 percent of customers ready to jump ship at a moments notice. If this one statistic alone doesnt reveal to you the urgency of continuous positive customer experience, nothing else will.

Related:

How Glossier Hacked Social Media to Build A Cult-Like Following

3 Ways for B2B Companies to Efficiently Retain Their Customers

Watch Live to Learn About the Underrated Platform That Could Massively Grow Your Audience



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved



This article originally appeared on entrepreneur.com


A Texas Republican, pleased at the revocation of a federal effort to shield older immigrants from deportation, elaborated that then-President Barack Obama repeatedly acknowledged that his administration's 2014 immigration order wasnt legal.

In a June 2017 press release, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton applauded the June 5, 2017, Department of Homeland Security decision rescinding the Obama-era policy memo announcing the program to protect parents of certain immigrants from deportation.

The Obama-era effort, Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, never took effect after Texas and 25 other states persuaded a federal district judge to block implementation--a move ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court.

Paxton said: "I applaud President (Donald) Trump for acknowledging what President Obama himself acknowledged over 20 times  the Obama Administrations DAPA immigration edict was a violation of law and the separation of powers."

We requested the basis of Paxtons claim that Obama had, over 20 times, said DAPA was offered in violation of federal law. Kayleigh Lovvorn in Paxtons state office answered by email: "All of Barack Obamas quotes on the subject are documented, archived, and available online."

Checking Obamas statements

Weve been over such turf before though Paxtons claim that Obama said the DAPA in particular violated the law adds a twist.

In December 2014, we gave Mostly True ratings to statements by a U.S. House member and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to the effect that Obama had many times said he couldnt act to protect immigrants from deportation unless Congress revised immigration laws.

U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, said at a December 2014 hearing of Obamas past statements on immigration: "The president said over 20 times that he did not have the legal authority to do this, to take this executive action, and that this is not how democracy works." McCauls count was overly high, we found. But Obama had often said through March 2014 that absent congressional action, he couldnt do more by himself to protect immigrants living in the country without legal permission.

In a 2015 interview, Abbott said: "22 times Barack Obama said he did not have the authority to implement this type of" anti-deportation "measure. And then the day after he signed this into law, he said, quote, I just changed the law." Like McCaul, we found, Abbott overstated the confirmed instances of Obama indicating he couldnt independently do more to prevent deportations.

Obamas statements since DAPA

Notably, those fact-checks were based on statements that Obama made long before announcing DAPA.

In contrast, Obama insisted he was within the law when he announced DAPA in November 2014 as a follow-up to his administrations established effort to keep certain young immigrants from being deported (as of June 2017, the older program--Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals--was left intact by the Trump administration). A 2014 memo from the federal Office of Legal Counsel said DAPA fell within Homeland Securitys discretionary powers to enforce immigration laws. That office, in the Justice Department, is responsible for providing authoritative legal advice to the president and executive-branch agencies.

In announcing DAPA, Obama changed his declared position on his ability to act unilaterally as PolitiFact noted at the time.

Obama told the country he was launching DAPA to delay deportations of unauthorized immigrants who had lived in the U.S. for more than five years and who had children who were citizens or had green cards. The intent was that if an applicant could pass a background check and pay a fee, he or she could qualify for a work permit and avoid deportation for three years at a time.

Obama also reaffirmed that hed have preferred Congress act on comprehensive immigration reform. Regardless, he said: "The actions Im taking are not only lawful, theyre the kinds of actions taken by every single Republican president and every single Democratic president for the past half century."

After Paxton made his 2017 claim, we searched for post-2014 instances of Obama saying he didnt have the authority to impose the DAPA--and came up empty.

Obama in May 2015 vowed to defend his authority to carry out DAPA. As reported by the Miami Herald, Obama said: "In the short term, if Mr. [Mitch] McConnell, the leader of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, want to have a vote on whether what Im doing is legal or not, they can have that vote. I will veto that vote because Im absolutely confident that what were doing is the right thing to do."

A footnote in a legal brief filed by Texas and other states pointed us to Obamas comment to reporters in June 2015, after a federal district judge held up DAPA, indicating the president believed hed acted legally. Obama said then: "I am absolutely convinced this is well within my legal authority, Department of Homeland Securitys legal authority. If you look at the precedent, if you look at the traditional discretion that the executive branch possesses when it comes to applying immigration laws, I am convinced that what were doing is lawful, and our lawyers are convinced that what were doing is lawful."

Obamas pre-DAPA calls for congressional action

Then again, Obama was previously clear about needing Congress to act first. The March 2015 legal brief filed by Texas and other states led us to a January 2015 article in the Texas Review of Law & Politics presenting many of the Obama quotations wed confirmed for the McCaul and Abbott fact-checks.

Here are a few of the times when Obama seemed to say that he lacked independent legal authority to act on immigration:

In October 2010, Obama told Eddie "Piolin" Sotelo, a radio host on Spanish-speaking Univision, that he couldnt achieve comprehensive immigration reform without congressional action. "I am president, I am not king," Obama said. "... Im committed to making it happen, but Ive got to have some partners to do it."

At a Univision event in March 2011, Obama was asked if he could stop deportations of students with an order. Thats "just not the case," Obama said, "because there are laws on the books that Congress has passed... Congress passes the law. The executive branchs job is to enforce and implement those laws." Simply issuing such an order, he said, "would not conform with my appropriate role as president." Yet he also hinted at wiggle room, saying: "That does not mean, though, that we can't make decisions, for example, to emphasize enforcement on those whove engaged in criminal activity.

In an April 2011 speech in Miami and the next month in El Paso, Obama said he couldnt bypass Congress and change immigration laws himself, saying thats not how a democracy works.

Addressing the National Council of La Raza in July 2011, Obama drew exhortations to act without waiting for congressional agreement. He called that idea "tempting," then said "that's not how our system works."

In September 2012, Obama was asked if he would follow up his recent protective move for students by doing something similar for non-criminal immigrants such as the parents of U.S.-born children. Obama replied that "as the head of the executive branch, theres a limit to what I can do were still going to, ultimately, have to change the laws in order to avoid some of the heartbreaking stories that you see coming up occasionally," as in parents deported.

At a presidential debate the next month, Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney were asked: "What do you plan on doing with immigrants without their green card that are currently living here as productive members of society?" Obama said: "I've done everything that I can on my own."

In a January 2013 Telemundo interview, Obama was asked why he couldnt protect mothers living here without authorization from deportation as he had aided law-abiding students. "Im not a king," Obama replied, tracking his response the same month to a similar query from Univision and his reply at a February 2013 Google Hangout town hall where he also said "weve kind of stretched our administrative flexibility as much as we can."

The same year, Obama was asked by Telemundo if he would consider freezing deportations of the parents of students benefiting from the administrations 2012 action. Obama replied that if he broadened his protective orders, "then essentially I would be ignoring the law in a way that I think would be very difficult to defend legally. So that's not an option."

We previously confirmed similar statements by Obama in a November 2013 speech in in San Francisco and a March 2014 Univision interview.

Our ruling

Paxton said Obama "acknowledged over 20 times" that his administrations DAPA "immigration edict was a violation of law and the separation of powers."

Paxton might have been trying to revisit mostly accurate earlier claims about what Obama once repeatedly said.

But there are significant differences between the earlier statements and this one. Paxton specified that Obama was speaking about his DAPA policy; in fact, Obamas statements were made long before DAPA was announced and were not about a specific policy initiative. Contrary to Paxtons statement, Obama has always maintained the DAPA policy was legal.

We find that Paxtons statement has an element of truth but ignores the critical fact that Obama has stood by his DAPA policy since it was issued. We rate this claim Mostly False.

MOSTLY FALSE  The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.

See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com
WILTON  In the northwestern part of Wilton there are two municipally owned conservation areas that offer places for recreational activities and quiet contemplation. Nearby is a residence that perfectly suits the surroundings of these protected open spaces.

The house at 60 Vista Road, and its detached barn, has a rustic appearance inside and out and yet, despite its composition of logs this is not your typical log cabin. This is a grand custom-built log house. The 2,524-square-foot house sits on 2.32 level acres and this property abuts the 36-acre Vista Road Open Space, in effect expanding the size of the backyard. Vista Road Open Space has scenic trails for horseback riding and hiking.

Additionally, this house is only a half mile from the Linden Tree Road Open Space, which straddles Wilton and New York. This municipal space includes the 14-acre Kent Pond, a popular spot for ice skaters and nature lovers, according to the Wilton.org website.

This house was built in 2009 by Ward Cedar Log Homes. It is a Coopersburg model, a traditional design. The Coopersburg would be perfect in a country setting or suburban neighborhood. This home features a large front porch, perfect for enjoying quiet time outdoors. Its charming gables add interest to the home and offer you an opportunity to showcase architectural windows, according to the Ward Cedar Log Homes website.

There is also a large rear porch and according to the listing agents, residents can sit on the rear porch and see only the open space and a wooded area. That view gives the sense that no one else is around, that they have this corner of the world all to themselves. Yet, there are neighboring houses and this location, while very private, is conveniently close to the centers of Wilton and Ridgefield. The combination of feeling remote and having proximity to local amenities make this an ideal year-round residence or the perfect weekend retreat from New York City, which is only about 60 miles away.

The house is set back from the road. Inside, the naturally colored wood walls and ceilings are made of cedar planks and round logs. The hardwood floors are oak. The first floor comprises an open great room containing the living room, dining room and kitchen. The openness of this space allows for flexible use.

More Information ABOUT THIS HOUSE STYLE: Log Cabin ADDRESS: 60 Vista Road PRICE: $899,500 ROOMS: 7 FEATURES: 2.32-acre level property, detached barn with two vehicle bays, abuts the Vista Road Open Space, covered deck, open deck, porch, open floor plan, close to the centers of Wilton and Ridgefield, easy commuting distance to Wilton train station, ceiling fans, central air conditioning, propane heat, private well water, 200 amps, loft, full unfinished basement, three bedrooms, two full and one half baths SCHOOLS: Miller-Driscoll Elementary, Cider Mill Intermediate, Middlebrook Middle, Wilton High ASSESSMENT: $593,390 MILL RATE: 27.77 mills TAXES: $16,217 See More Collapse

The living room has a floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace with a raised hearth. The dining room has French doors that open to the covered portion of the long rear porch. The kitchen has a ceramic tile floor, a center island topped in granite and a breakfast bar, cedar cabinetry, and granite perimeter counters.

Off the kitchen there is a mudroom, laundry room with a utility sink, a powder room, and a door to the rear porch and patio. The master bedroom suite is on the first floor. It has a sitting area, walk-in closet, and the master bath has a jetted tub, shower, and six-foot long vanity with granite counter.

There are two more bedrooms on the second floor, both with a vaulted ceiling. One has a walk-in closet. The other has multiple closets. In general, there is no shortage of storage space in this house. Also found on the second floor is a wide landing/loft area that looks down into the first floor. It is large enough to serve as a homework station, sitting area, play area or office, and it has built-in shelving on a portion of one wall.

The detached barn has more than 800 square feet of space on the first floor with room for four vehicles. It has a tall ceiling and its own electrical panel. It would be great for a car enthusiast. Its second floor could be converted into office space, a workshop, or other uses.

There are two upcoming public Open Houses scheduled, one on Sunday, August 20 and another on Sunday, August 27, both from noon until 2 pm.

For more information or to make an appointment to see the house contact Antonio Liguori and Agnes Iannucci of Calcagni Real Estate, Liguori at 203-988-6010 or realtybyliguori@gmail.com, and Iannucci at 203-376-7020 or Agnes_Iannucci@calcagni.com.
Clam toast from Harts. Photo: Melissa Hom

This morning, Bon Appetits Andrew Knowlton and Julia Kramer unveiled their ten finalists for the magazines annual Best New Restaurants list. Atlantas Staplehouse was named No. 1 last year, and taking the cake in 2017 is another southern hot spot in Turkey and the Wolf. A New Orleans sandwich shop, it serves collard-green melts and caused Knowlton, he says, to start hallucinating about sandwiches after a visit.

The rest of the list features some impressive, wide-ranging restaurants that are free of established big names. New York is represented by Harts, a wine bar in the vein of last years finalist Wildair; San Franciscos modern Chinese restaurant Mister Jius; Chicagos Elske; and Kemuri Tatsu-Ya, an East Austin izakaya-meets-Texas barbecue joint. Check out the full list:

1. Turkey and the Wolf

2. Elske

3. Mister Jius

4. Palizzi

5. Harts

6. Giant

7. Spring

8. Kemuri Tatsu-Ya

9. Nixta

10. Brewery Bhavana
The Cheetos grilled cheese and tomato soup.

Todays the day the Spotted Cheetah opens inside a Tribeca bar. Theres some bad news, though, if you expected to go knock down some mac and Flamin Hot Cheetos for lunch (either jokingly or for real)  you better stop by the corner bodega first. Not only is the pop-up fully booked, but The Wall Street Journal reports that the wait list has climbed past 1,000 people.

The folks at Pepsis Frito-Lay division arent expert restaurateurs, granted, but they can definitely monitor reservations on an OpenTable listing. They say that all of the seats available for today, tomorrow, and Thursday  a total of around 300  disappeared within six hours of the announcement last week. Even the companys marketing team cant believe it, calling their success a surprise to us in a big way.

The OpenTable early birds will get about a dozen Cheetos-themed items ranging in price from $8 to $22. Meatballs, a grilled cheese sandwich with tomato soup, tomatoes fried in a sort of Cheetos-y panko, and Sweetos-crusted cheesecake round out the menu, which is the work of chef Anne Burrell. She says her instructions were to elevate Cheetos without going totally crazy. (That was apparently a fine line to walk.)

If looking slightly desperate is of no concern, then you can still join the electric-orange corn-puff-makers wait list thats more than three-people deep for every seat. (Almost as bad as Noma Australia! The ten-week pop-up last year accumulated a 27,000-person wait list for 5,600 seats.) The company adds that Cheetos connoisseurs do have another option as well: A digital cookbook is being posted on the Spotted Cheetahs website later today, and its free to download.
Huawei has debuted every major (and recent) CPUs with the Mate series. Under Huaweis HiSilicon branding, the Mate 8 debuted the Kirin 950, the Mate 9 debuted the Kirin 960, and we have no doubt the Huawei Mate 10 will debut the Kirin 970.

A report from Taiwan claims that commercial production of the Kirin 970 has begun. In a previous post, we reported that the Kirin 970 might be produced by TSMC, the same Taiwanese-based chip manufacturer that pumped out the Kirin 960. However, that same report said that mass production of the Kirin 970 would begin in September.

The Kirin 970 might keep its Cortex A73 CPU architecture (but could go with Cortex A75 cores) with its main improvement said to be focused on a more powerful GPU, said to feature 12 cores. HiSilicon aims to put the 970 right on par with the Samsung and Qualcomms top offerings: the Exynos 8895 and the Snapdragon 835. On that note, the Kirin 970 is also expected to be built using a 10nm process, like Samsung and Qualcomms chips.

Huawei's Mate 9 debuted the HiSilicon Kirin 960.

Theres also talk of the Kirin 970 becoming the first chip with artificial intelligence of some form. Weve seen Huawei emphasize AI in other, more unobtrusive ways like with its machine-learning AI, which made up Huaweis machine-learning algorithms for keeping EMUI running smooth and predictably.

The Huawei Mate 10 is rumored to be announced sometime next month with a possible release in October. Were also expecting the Mate 10 to have a 6-inch Full Active Display with a 2:1 aspect ratio, and 2160 x 1080p resolution.

Source (Chinese) | Via 1 | Via 2
Introduction

We're back at checking out one of the most hyped phones this year - the Nokia 6. This time around though, it's repackaged for worldwide action and, hopefully, not a deja vu all over again. We'll obviously revisit the old review of the China-bound variant, only here we'll focus on the bits that are different. And those are by no means insignificant, who knew.

We'll start the list of changes with the small stuff, tiny actually. For some odd reason the global version lacks a notification LED, while the Chinese one does light up next to the earpiece when charging or upon missed calls and incoming stuff.

The global version also has a more prominent, shinier outline around the camera module. Some regulatory markings sprinkled on the back spoil the global version's looks, while Chinese regulator TENAA has been more laid-back about it, but that hardly passes for a change.

Other than that, we basically copy-pasted the following from our original Nokia 6 review - it is the same phone, after all, for the most part. Until it isn't, but more on than in the camera chapter.

Nokia 6 key features

Body: Aluminum body, 2.5D Gorilla Glass 3 front.

Aluminum body, 2.5D Gorilla Glass 3 front. Display: 5.5" IPS LCD, 1,920x1,080px resolution, 403ppi.

5.5" IPS LCD, 1,920x1,080px resolution, 403ppi. Rear camera: 16MP, 1.0m pixel size, f/2.0 aperture, phase detection autofocus; dual-tone dual-LED flash; 1080p video recording.

16MP, 1.0m pixel size, f/2.0 aperture, phase detection autofocus; dual-tone dual-LED flash; 1080p video recording. Front camera: 8MP, 1.12m pixel size, f/2.0 aperture, autofocus; 1080p video recording.

8MP, 1.12m pixel size, f/2.0 aperture, autofocus; 1080p video recording. OS: Android 7.1.1 Nougat.

Android 7.1.1 Nougat. Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 430; octa-core 1.4GHz Cortex-A53 CPU, Adreno 505 GPU.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 430; octa-core 1.4GHz Cortex-A53 CPU, Adreno 505 GPU. Memory: 3GB/4GB of RAM; 32GB/64GB storage.

3GB/4GB of RAM; 32GB/64GB storage. Battery: 3,000mAh, sealed.

3,000mAh, sealed. Connectivity: Dual-SIM; Cat.4 LTE (150/50Mbps); microUSB 2.0; Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac; GPS; Bluetooth 4.1; FM Radio; NFC.

Dual-SIM; Cat.4 LTE (150/50Mbps); microUSB 2.0; Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac; GPS; Bluetooth 4.1; FM Radio; NFC. Misc: Fingerprint reader; hybrid microSD/second SIM slot; dual speakers; 3.5mm jack.

Main shortcomings

Smallish battery capacity

Awkwardly placed fingerprint sensor (but that's nitpicking)

Basic CPU for the price segment

One would expect a USB-C port in 2017

Of course, the global Nokia 6 comes with a fully functional Google package right out of the box. The Chinese variant only got those with a recent update, but at this point it's not really a decider anymore.

During the course of the review we discovered a couple more differences, ones that a casual observer could easily miss. But before we get to those, let's quickly go over the hardware once again.
Update: As per the device's listing on the carrier's website, those pre-ordering will get their unit by September 1.

Original story follows:

In the US, Sprint is the only carrier that will sell the Essential Phone directly. In Canada, Telus is in the same position, as revealed back in June. The first handset created by Android co-founder Andy Rubin's new company should receive an actual, firm release date within days.

As we wait for that to happen, perhaps you're in Canada and want to be among the first people to purchase the handset from Telus? Good news, then - the carrier has started taking pre-orders today.

An Essential Phone will cost you a whopping CAD 1,050 outright. Alternatively, you can pay CAD 290 for it if you choose specific two-year contract plans starting at CAD 95 per month. If you want to pay lower per month (CAD 85 and up), then you need to shell out CAD 490 for the handset initially.

You can pick between the Black Moon and Pure White color versions for now, there's no word about the grey iteration or the green/copper combination called Ocean Depths. The devices you buy from the Canadian carrier will not be network locked.

Source | Via
Moe than a thousand Tai Chi enthusiasts gathered in Liaocheng, northern Chinas Shandong province, and staged a magnificent group performance. Dressed in the same outfits, the enthusiasts have become an attraction in the city.(Photo/iqilu.com)




Haiti - DR : Dominican military authorities support the formation of an army in Haiti





Dominican Defense Minister Lieutenant-General Ruben Dario Paulino Sem believes that Haiti is making a leap forward in the concretization of the formation of its army , dissolved 22 years ago. He stresses that in this rebirth, Haiti can already be assured of the solidarity support, for the development of its army, of the Dominican military authorities.



"To the extent that we can support Haitians in the development of their army, we will support them," said Minister Minister Paulino Sem "We are interested that they have Haitian army because they are also interested to have a secure border [...] I think it will be a big step that Haiti is going to make with the army," ecalling that an army was made to defend its territory and not to invade another territory..."



He urged Dominican citizens not to fear any invasion of Haiti "We can not fear that Haiti will invade the Dominican Republic" stressing "they are nationalists and patriots, just like us, they are interested in being sovereign in their country [...]"



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Agriculture : FAO and MARNDR assist 1,250 fishermen of the Grand'Anse





In response to the challenges faced by the Grand'Anse fishermen's associations since Hurricane Matthew, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Ministry of Agriculture Natural Resources and Rural Development (MARNDR), through the Agricultural Departmental Directorate of Grand'Anse, implement the Project "Protection, rehabilitation and diversification of livelihoods of people affected by the hurricane Matthew in Haiti" targeting 12,000 rural households (60,000 people) of the South, whose 1,250 fishermen of the Department of Grand'Anse.



In addition to the commune of Roseaux, FAO and the Ministry of Agriculture are targeting 7 others communes in Grand'Anse as part of this initiative, which aims to equip fishing groups with equipment such as nylon lines, hooks, engines and Fish Concentration Devices (FADs).



The mayor of the commune of Roseaux, Olin Jean Richard, thanked FAO and the Ministry for this initiative aimed at helping households living of fishery in the rehabilitation of their livelihoods "Following Hurricane Matthew, various materials inluding FADs have been destroyed. Moreover, alluvial deposits deposited in the sea following the floods caused by Matthew, made it difficult to fish on the coast. I am relieved by this distribution, which takes place before the beginning of the school year, will allow the fishermen to resume their activities," advocating the establishment of stores of fishing equipment and cold stores for the conservation of fish.



Gilot Ichmith, President of the Association des Fishermen of Roseaux, who greatly thanks FAO and the Ministry for these distributions, expressed satisfaction with the importance of such an initiative and the significant benefits it will bring to the community.



Apart from the distribution of fishing gear and equipment, the project also intends to strengthen the fishermen's capacities on the use, management and maintenance of these materials.



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Published on 2017/08/15 | Source

Added episodes 27 and 28 captures for the Korean drama "Bad Thief, Good Thief" (2017)

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Directed by Jang Joon-ho, Oh Kyeong-hoon

Written by Cha I-yeong, Son Yeong-mok

Network : MBC

With Ji Hyun-woo, Seohyun, Kim Ji-hoon-I, Lim Ju-eun, Ahn Kil-kang, Jung Kyung-soon,...

50 episodes - Sat, Sun 22:00

Synopsis

A story of thieves who affect the authorities that manipulate Korea. It serves to bring satisfaction to those who are frustrated at the reality of the world.

Broadcast starting date in Korea : 2017/05/13

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Disclosure: In any review for a product or service, products or compensation may have been provided to me to help facilitate my review. All opinions are my own and honest. I am disclosing this in accordance with FTC Guidelines. Please see Disclose and "Terms of Use" tabs for more information.

Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia are some of the most adored tourist destinations in the world. Whether youre travelling with your family, touring with your coworkers or backpacking solo  the trio of Asian destinations has something to offer for everyone. They are home to ancient ruins, historic landmarks and beautiful flora and fauna. Singapore Malaysia, Thailand packages are highly revered for their tourist attractions like art museums, beaches, street flea markets etc. Before you book a Singapore Malaysia, Thailand package from Ahmedabad make sure the itinerary includes a visit to the places listed in the post. Read on.

Marina Bay

Marina Bay is the gateway to Singapore river and a marvelous cosmopolitan. It holds the Financial District, Clarke Quay and the central Civic District and is home to the most luxurious and urban landscape dotted with scores of restaurants, hotels, discotheques besides ample shopping avenues. You will be spoilt for choice.

Clarke Quay

For a glimpse of Singapore nightlife, Clarke Quay  a refurbished riverside development of old warehouses is highly recommended. There are many alfresco style eateries overlooking the water. There are numerous clubs and bars for people seeking more debauchery. Perhaps words cannot do justice to the futuristic and amazing jelly like the roof that houses several delights for shoppers and merrymakers alike.

Universal Studios

For media enthusiasts and movie buffs Universal Studios Singapore is a must visit, being the first amusement park of its kind to open in Southeast Asia. Amongst its several attractions, one might particularly enjoy themed parks like the Lost World, Ancient Egypt, New York, Hollywood, Madagascar. You will also find crazy roller coasters and more water-based fun.

(Thailand)

Ayutthaya National Park

Make sure your Singapore Malaysia Thailand package includes a visit to the historical Ayutthaya National Park. The ancient city of Ayutthaya was destroyed by Burmese forces. Some structures managed to survive the onslaught and got buried deep for years until much of the city was excavated. Today, the site is a national park and houses a number of temples and monasteries such as Wat Phra Ram Temple and Wat Chaiwatthanaram monastery, palaces and statues. One of the major attractions of the national park is the overgrown Buddha head located behind Mahathat Temple. Ayutthaya National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and your Singapore Malaysia Thailand tour is incomplete without visiting this historic site.

Bangkoks Grand Palace

The Grand Palace is a 218,000-square-meter city. The complex houses magnificent palaces, ancient Buddhist temples, throne halls. You will need at least three hours to explore every part. During your visit, survey the upper terrace featuring the golden chedi. A couple of most noticeable attractions awaiting you at the site are a smaller version of Angkor Wat and the Royal Pantheon. When booking a Singapore Malaysia Thailand tour package , make sure the itinerary includes a visit to this historic site.

Elephant Nature Park

A must visit for animal lovers, Elephant Nature Park is a haven for abused and injured Asian elephants. During your visit learn about these gentle giants including their feeding habits. You can also interact with them, feed them and bathe them. All the proceeds collected from admissions go towards maintaining the park and buying food for the elephants.

Petronas Twin Towers

Inaugurated in 1999, the Twin Towers were the tallest buildings till 2004. Standing at 450 metres each, the towers have 88 floors and are connected through a bridge 170 metres above the ground. From the bridge, you can get a magnificent view of Kuala Lumpur. The towers lighting up is a sight to behold, which is why while choosing a Singapore Malaysia Thailand tour package from Ahmedabad or any other Indian city you must make sure the itinerary includes a visit to these magnificent towers.

Perhentian Island

A must-visit for nature lovers, Perhentian Island is a tiny archipelago whose two main islands are: Besar and Kecil. Most parts are unpopulated, making them the first choice for tourists who want to spend some quiet time away from the maddening city crowd. The islands are home to beautiful beaches famous for their white sand, pristine water and tall palm trees. Here you can also try a number of adventure activities such as scuba diving, snorkelling and canoeing.

Taman Negara

Sprawling over an area of 4,000 sq.km Taman Negara is a national park that is home to a number of endangered species such as Malayan tigers, crab-eating macaques and Asian elephants. To witness the vivid colours of nature, go bird watching, wade through the wild jungle or take a night trip.

Conclusion

Dubbing Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand as three gems in the crown of Asian tourism would not be an exaggeration. The trio is some of the most popular destinations on the travel bucket list of ardent travellers and occasional backpackers alike. The cities of Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand are a unique mix of modernity and ancient cultural heritage, which is why every year millions of tourists from around the globe flock to these Asian destinations every year. If you too are bitten by the wanderlust bug, consider planning a trip to these destinations. When buying a Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia tour package, make sure the itinerary includes a visit to the tourist spots listed in the post. You can book Singapore Malaysia, Thailand tour packages from Ahmedabad, Kolkata, New Delhi, Chennai and all other major cities in the India.
professionals often assume that HR technology is going to fix all their problems, according to Sarah Kruger, managing director at Accenture.For instance, they assume that by moving to cloud this will resolve the issues of an outdated HR operating model and disconnected data sources, she told HRD.One of the most common mistakes is thinking that the latest technology will be a panacea to HRs problems, said Kruger.Its about how this technology is applied, not simply the acquisition of this technology.Kruger will be a panellist at the upcoming HR Tech Summit in Sydney and will be talking on the topic of Predicting the future  Will we still be talking about business disruption in 10 years?If Kruger could give one piece of advice to HR professionals relating to this topic, it would be that "in this space, nobody really has all the answers".Therefore, part of being innovative is about experimenting and learning. Importantly, its not just about changing technology  its about how you apply that technology, she said.HR needs to embrace a liquid mentality and be open to learning new technology skills and tools.Kruger added that technology advancement is going to keep accelerating, and HR professionals need to be ready to adapt at all times."Events like the HR Tech Summit are crucial for raising awareness around the latest HR technologies and opening a discussion where the industry can voice their concerns and gain new insights," said Kruger.Workforce technology can often seem intimidating, and discussions and case studies can emphasise how technology is here to empower workforces, not replace them."At the HR Tech Summit , Kruger and her fellow panellists will also discuss: What technology should we be putting in place today to prepare for tomorrow? How far ahead can we really plan in todays economy? What are the emerging technologies that will shape tomorrows workplaces? The top five disruptive trends in HR technology (and where they might lead us) How will the Internet of Things impact on HR in the future?Sarah Kruger will be speaking on the topic of Predicting the future  Will we still be talking about business disruption in 10 years? at the HR Tech Summit being held at the Hilton Sydney on 13 September. Click here for more details and to register.
Westpac Bank, Deloitte and the Victorian Police are just some of the major organisations in Australia who have embraced blind recruitment in order to boost diversity.



In fact, organisations are increasingly adopting blind recruitment, which involves omitting personally identifiable information, such as name, gender, age and education, from applicant CVs.



Marian Spencer, Head of operations, people and culture, Black Dog Institute, told HRD that it is a good idea for recruiters to go blind.



The evidence shows that it results in more minority candidates being offered an interview, said Spencer.



I would also be interested in looking at some other systems which forgo the CV altogether and seek to minimise other aspects of conventional processes such as the Halo effect which can skew how applications are perceived depending on the order in which they are considered.



Spencer said fairness, and recruiting the best person for the role, irrespective of background, should be the goal.



However, going blind will not be a magic bullet against unconscious bias which may just be postponed until the interview.



Bernadette Gates, Head of human resources, Australian Military Bank said despite a great deal of research on unconscious bias and subsequent education in recent times, it is evident to her that it well and truly exists in the corporate world today.



I agree that there should be an opportunity for recruiters to go blind as a way of trying to combat this age old issue. We need options to dismiss this ineffective recruitment process that people are allowed to get away with. This is one such option, she said.



Hiring managers bear no accountability for their decisions rejecting candidates; this is one positive solution. I support this process and await some positive results.



Meanwhile, Lauren Trethowan, Head of enterprise culture, talent, culture and innovation, Australia Post, told HRD that recruitment biases are unavoidable.



Humans are hardwired to prefer those similar to themselves, without conscious awareness, said Trethowan.



For high volume recruitment, going blind is a great way of helping mitigate unconscious bias during the initial stages; however, the candidate wont be blind for long and still needs to pass a face-to-face interview.



For senior or highly specialised roles this is also unlikely to be practical. Therefore, such an approach must be supported by other methods, such as unconscious bias training, to address the bias at its core. This will have the added bonus of a carryover effect to other HR practices.




The German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) has issued a warning against the negative implications of a Washington-provoked trade war between the United States and China on Tuesday.

"A conflict between the world's two largest economies would also negatively affect the German economy," DIHK president Eric Schweitzer told German newspaper Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung.

Schweitzer stressed how deeply intertwined the German, U.S. and Chinese economies had become.

"Germany shares a trade volume with both countries of nearly 170 billion euros (199.8 billion U.S. dollars) each," he noted. The combined 335 billion euros account for more than 15 percent of Germany's total trade.

Schweitzer reprimanded U.S. president Donald Trump for his protectionist "America First" rhetoric, emphasizing that all sides had to abide by the rules of the World Trade Organization. He called for a strengthening of the Geneva-based organization to resolve disputes.

According to the DIHK president "a trade war would only produce losers."

German politicians and business leaders have repeatedly voiced concern over Trump's vocal criticism of globalization and related threats to impose tariffs and non-tariff barriers since his election.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has sought to intensify cooperation with China and other international partners to defend free global trade in response, while the European Commission has warned that Washington's move towards protectionism would be met with swift retaliation by the European Union.

On Monday, Trump continued to fan the flames of a potential trade war by ordering an investigation into China's use of intellectual property rights and threatening to impose higher tariffs depending on its outcome.
Vapaavuori estimated in an interview with Talouselama on Monday that the greatest obstacles to the growth of the region are insufficient housing production, the high cost of housing and too low a degree of internationalisation.

Jan Vapaavuori (NCP), the Mayor of Helsinki, has drawn attention to the importance of promoting internationalisation and attracting more immigrants to work in the capital region.

A lot more immigrants are needed to work in the capital region, he said to the business-oriented newspaper.

Helsinki will naturally compare itself to Copenhagen and Stockholm. They have an advantage because theyre almost double the size [of Helsinki] and especially because theyre considerably more international.

Vapaavuori also reminded that metropolitan areas are expected to become increasingly important for economic growth. He adds that the relatively high concentration of immigrants in the capital region should be taken into consideration in granting state subsidies due to the vast amount of resources required to integrate immigrants in large cities.

We need more immigrants and decision-makers must do whatever they can to make sure people with the capacity and willingness to work can find employment, he stressed.

He was also asked whether or not all restaurant employees should be required to be proficient Finnish. Of course they shouldn't. If customers dont like the staffs language skills, they can go somewhere else, replied Vapaavuori.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Photo: Mikko Stig  Lehtikuva

Source: Uusi Suomi
The choice was difficult on an emotional level but absolutely the right one rationally. Weve got a long road ahead of us  without party subsidies, without even a party, without an organisation on the ground, he stated in a meeting of the parliamentary group in Tapiola, Espoo, on Monday.

Sampo Terho (NA), the Minister of European Affairs, Culture and Sports, has revisited his decision to leave the Finns Party to co-found the New Alternative Parliamentary Group.

We lost our district organisations and hundreds of local associations. In short, we lost 20 years of work.

The New Alternative consists of 19 members after Ritva Elomaa, a second-term Member of the Parliament from Masku, re-joined the Finns Party Parliamentary Group in late June. The New Alternative was founded a few days after Terho was beaten to the reins of the Finns Party on 10 June by Jussi Halla-aho.

I promised during my leadership campaign that wed get a fresh start. I wasnt thinking about this fresh of a start, but this is where we all find ourselves now, said Terho.

The New Alternative has begun collecting support statements for establishing the Blue Reform Party. Simon Elo, the chairperson of the parliamentary group, conceded last week that the splinter group must step up its efforts if it is to meet its objective of collecting the requisite 5,000 support statements by the end of September.

The parliamentary group has previously suggested it is interested in nominating a candidate for the presidential elections held in January, 2018.

I think wed like to have an impact on the presidential elections, Elo said on 15 June.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Photo: Martti Kainulainen  Lehtikuva

Source: Uusi Suomi
A lone officer stood guard at the dig site as the search for the missing man intensified.

The continuous flow of gardai entering the sealed-off woodland in Chapelizod was an indication of just how extensive their search has become.

A black canvas stretching across the site, along with a significant density of trees, separated the high-profile operation from the Lucan Road. At one stage, several large, empty bins were taken off a truck and pushed on to the site.

Two workers in high-visibility jackets were also seen tending to a large water tank mounted next to a tall floodlight.

Inside, a digger was parked on a clear expanse of land without any evidence of it having been used throughout the day.

Members of An Garda Siochana arrived, mostly in unmarked cars, to assess the area and make preparations for the dig.

The recently reinvigorated investigation followed new information which alleged that Trevor, who was 22 when he disappeared in December 2000, was shot before his body was dumped in west Dublin.

It is expected this search operation will take about two weeks.

However, it is understood officers are hopeful a discovery could be made within a matter of days, should the information prove correct.

Trevor's parents, Michael and Ann Deely, who live in Naas, Co Kildare, have been robbed of their son and left without answers for 17 years.

Dumped

The suspicion he was murdered and dumped in secluded woodland three weeks before Christmas is almost too tragic to put into words. It was not clear if the family had visited the dig site, or if they were waiting for news from their home. But should Trevor's remains be found, it would provide a measure of closure to his devastated loved ones.

A discovery would also shed light on whether there is any substance in the allegation that a well-known Crumlin criminal is responsible for Trevor's murder.

The individual who has given information to gardai has not supplied any motive for the alleged murder of the former bank worker.

However, it is understood he claimed Trevor was killed after having an interaction with the criminal on the morning of his disappearance.

Trevor's high-profile disappearance almost two decades ago resonated with families throughout the country.

It gained massive media attention as it reflected every parent's worst nightmare. Social media users have been offering their thoughts and prayers for his family.

"After 17 years Trevor's family deserve to know what happened to their son," wrote one woman.

"Please God, bring him home," she added.
A 13-year-old girl was killed and her younger brother received life-threatening injuries when a driver steered his car into a pizzeria east of Paris.

Authorities initially said the victim was eight-years-old, but later said she was 13.

An official with the national gendarme service said her younger brother was among at least 12 people injured in the attack last night.

The official said the attacker was driving a BMW that he aimed at customers of Pizzeria Cesena in the small town of Sept-Sorts.

The French interior ministry described the man as apparently suicidal and said it did not believe his actions were linked to terrorism.

Depressive

"I cannot tell you that terrorism has been discounted, but it is not the leading line of inquiry at this point. The first indications don't point towards terrorism," said the spokesman.

He described the man as a "depressive" and said he was about 30-years-old.

Officers from the national gendarmerie put up a security cordon around the scene and urged the public not to hinder their operation.

The incident happened less than a week after an Algerian was arrested on suspicion of deliberately ramming a car into a group of soldiers on a patrol in the Paris suburb of Levallois-Perret.
Edel Leahy, from Marino, with her daughters Jane, 3, Aoife, 8, and Karen, 6, beside a tree next to fairview park where the council want to remove for a new cycle path. Photo: Damien Eagers

Three Dublin city councillors are threatening to chain themselves to trees in the north inner-city to save them from the chop.

Mannix Flynn, Christy Burke and Nial Ring, who are Independent representatives, say they will do whatever it takes to prevent 49 trees in Fairview from being cut down by the city council.

Backlash

The move comes as part of the council's preparation for a segregated cycle route in the area. Earlier this year, DCC said any trees removed would be replaced by new trees.

Its proposed 2.5km cycle route would run from Clontarf to Amiens Street and provide a connection for cyclists from Sutton to the city centre. However, these plans have been met with a backlash from a number of locals and councillors.

In correspondence sent around between councillors, after an email from an angry local, Mr Burke said he would do everything he could to stop the plans going ahead.

"I'll chain myself to the trees in September if I have to," Mr Burke said.

Mr Flynn and Mr Ring both backed the stance. "Absolutely, this is completely ridiculous," Mr Flynn said. "I said I would join Christy in occupying the trees, we'll actually strap ourselves around the trees.

"Hopefully it won't come to that. This is about where people live and about being informed," he added.

An online petition was set up in recent weeks, which has almost 12,000 signatures - with Mr Ring insisting that the disdain for the idea indicates that the plans will "be dead in the water" but said he will do "whatever it takes to stop it to be honest".

Edel Leahy, who set up the petition, told the Herald that she uses Fairview Park and the area around where the trees are every day with her children. Since looking into the history of the trees, Ms Leahy said a letter had actually been sent to a local school in 1977 from Dublin Corporation, regarding some of the new trees.

The letter asked the children to give the trees a chance to live and grow.

Shocked

"I was really shocked and thought it wasn't true when I heard about the plans," Ms Leahy said.

"These trees and their maturity are just really, really beautiful. The more I researched, the more I realised they are part of our heritage.

"Some of them were planted as far back as 1908," she added.

The city council has cited that the trees are struggling to cope with their surroundings as one of the reasons for axing them.
Chinese President Xi Jinping asked a group of college students to "take root" in Chinese society to learn the situation of the country and its people and to improve their talent and abilities via innovation and entrepreneurial activities.

He also hoped that students could strengthen their willpower through hard work in order to realize the value of their lives while Chinese people strive for the realization of the Chinese Dream.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks Tuesday in a letter in response to college students who took part in the third China College Students' "Internet Plus" Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition.

The students visited Yan'an, a revolutionary base in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, to help the people there to lift themselves out of poverty and build a moderately prosperous society.

"I'm very happy that you have not only made a positive impact, but also gone through ideological education there," Xi said in the letter.

The students followed the footprints of China's revolutionary pioneers in Yan'an, learned from the spirit of the base, and integrated their own dreams with the Chinese Dream, which reflects the diligent and promising image of Chinese youth today, Xi continued.

Ongoing efforts by groups of young talent are needed to complete the building of a moderately prosperous society, and achieve socialist modernization and the great revival of the Chinese nation, Xi noted.

"Today, we are closer to the goal of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation than any other time in history," Xi said. "The young generation who are aspirant, responsible and have lofty ideals, are the ceaseless strength for the realization of the great revival."

A total of 1.5 million college students participated in the program. Two groups travelled to Yan'an in April and July respectively, after which they wrote a letter to Xi and told him about the knowledge they gained and their thoughts from the trip.
Former national legislator sentenced to life imprisonment for organizing prostitution

Liang Yaohui, a former deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, and the owner of a five-star hotel involved in the sex trade, was given a life sentence Tuesday.

Liang was charged with organizing prostitution, collusive tendering and bribery by a court in south China's Dongguan, where a high-profile crackdown on prostitution took place in 2014.

According to the court, Liang's hotel had been offering prostitution services since 2004 and illegally gained nearly 40 million yuan (6 million U.S. dollars) in 2013.

Liang was also accused of colluding in entering bids which inflicted serious losses on national assets, and bribing a deputy manager of local power company for lower noncommercial electricity charges.

Liang appealed in court.
Head of coal mine in Shanxi detained after 4-day delay in reporting landslide that kills 4

CGTN photo

Four people were killed and five others are still missing after a landslide happened at a coal mine in north China's Shanxi Province last Friday. However it took over four days for the the head of the coal mine to report the incident, who gave himself up on Tuesday.

The accident took place at around 3:00 p.m. local time on Friday afternoon at Lvxin coal mine of Shanxi Coal Sales Co.,LTD in Heshun county, Jinzhong city, Shanxi Province, burying 10 people, five excavators, and one tanker.

One of the ten people buried has been rescued, but four of them were killed and five others are missing.

Gao Yang, the head of Lvxin coal mine, didn't report the accident to relevant authorities until Tuesday morning, and has been detained.

The rescue work is underway.
BRISTOL, Va. -- Bristol Virginia Utilities has announced it will have a planned power outage this morning as 10 a.m. as a result of maintenance and repairs to the Valley substation, according to BVU spokesperson Chris Hall.

This outage will affect the following areas: Gate City, Reedy Creek, Mendota, Hiltons, Island Road, Boozy Creek, Bristol Mall, Valley Institute Elementary, Hiltons Elementary, Brookdale Bristol and surrounding areas.

Hall said the outage is only expected last between one and two minutes and assuming no complications, power will be restored in a timely manner.
Just as the cloaking media fog created by the Obama administration has begun to fade, former president Barack Obama is reportedly planning his reemergence into the political arena. Good  it seems to be perfect timing, as he has some explaining to do. Specifically, the willfully hidden deficiencies and delusions of the Obama administrations foreign policy are emerging as some of President Donald Trumps most consequential and urgent problems. Forgive me if this piece runs a little long, but any discussion of Obamas foreign policy blunders does not lend itself to brevity.

For starters, circumstances with Cuba and North Korea are the result of Obama-era blunders and the suppression of truth. Happy to help their liberal icon who could do no wrong, much of the mainstream media was compliant in publishing Obamas spin. Now, the problems are reemerging and they are more dangerous and urgent than Obama and crew wanted us to believe.

For starters, it was discovered that in 2016, a possible acoustic attack targeted U.S. diplomatic staff in Havana. According to the Associated Press, American diplomats in Cuba have developed severe hearing loss attributed to a covert sonic device. Some have even been sent back to the United States. While it remains publicly unknown who planned and executed the possible attack, the fact is that Obama and his administration withheld crucial information from the public. And it appears they did nothing in response to the apparent targeting of on our own people. They certainly didnt sound the alarm and demand answers from their Cuban friends. Why would that be? The only answer is that they wanted Obamas opening to Cuba to appear wise and unblemished, and they wanted to sugarcoat or ignore Cubas sinister behavior.

Meanwhile in North Korea, the Obama administration failed to prevent further progress from being made on the Kim regimes nuclear weapons program, to say the least. Citing a recent confidential assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency, The Post reported last week that North Korea has successfully produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles, crossing a key threshold on the path to becoming a full-fledged nuclear power. This was known as far back as 2011. Yet the Obama administration suppressed the news and kept selling its policy of strategic patience. Turns out strategic patience in Asia was a lot like leading from behind in the Middle East. Specifically, the United States did nothing, much of the media applauded, our problems festered and now a deadly crisis is at hand.

And while were at it, the Democrats and their allies in the media went on a crusade to confirm nonexistent manipulation of American intelligence when President George W. Bush invaded Iraq in 2003, but I can discern no similar effort by the usual suspects on the left to expose the fact that Obama hid the truth of North Koreas rapid development of its nuclear weapons. Much of the media is obsessing over President Trumps fire and fury remarks, but they are ignoring the fact that it was Obama who allowed North Korea to get to this dangerous point.

As troubling as these revelations are, they should not come as a surprise. They were typical. Remember, the Obama White House boasted about its ability to manipulate the media during its capitulation to Iran. According to The Post, One of President Obamas top national security advisers, [Ben Rhodes,] led journalists to believe a misleading timeline of U.S. negotiations with Iran over a nuclear agreement and relied on inexperienced reporters to create an echo chamber that helped sway public opinion to seal the deal. The administration preyed on naive reporters who were either sympathetic to Obama or too inexperienced to see right through the scam. And as a result, anyone in Congress  or in the public for that matter  who disagreed with the Iran nuclear agreement was made out to be a heretic and warmonger. Well, the deceptive ploy to hide the truth and sell the Iran deal wasnt just a one-off rogue operation from Team Obama. It was standard operating procedure.

Given what we now know about Cuba and North Korea, it is important to reveal other realities that Trump has to deal with that were under-reported during Obamas presidency. Just to mention a few: Iraq is a client state of Iran; Afghanistan is beyond the brink; Obama kept a zombie regime in place in Kabul that couldnt last a month without U.S. support, and most of the countryside is either under the control of the Taliban or under the control of local warlords of uncertain loyalty; anarchy reigns in Venezuela; and, southeast Asia thinks the United States has become unreliable or has departed altogether. To our allies in the Pacific, China is viewed as the future. This is directly the result of Obama-era weakness and neglect. Say what you will about President Trump, but none of these problems started on Inauguration Day in January.

Even before he was elected, Democrats and their allies in the media heralded Obama as the chosen one. He was coddled and protected. They swooned when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The mainstream media was heavily invested in Obama from Day One, and it never exposed the reality of the American decline that he was leaving in his wake. Cuba and Iran still have Obama to thank. And while rattled by much of what they have witnessed from this White House, most of the rest of the world is hoping for Washington to provide leadership and for the United States to reemerge.
Egypt's transportation minister Hesham Arafat accepted on Sunday the resignation of the head of the railway authority Medhat Shousha, two days after a train collision in Alexandria killed 41 people and injured 179, Al-Ahram Arabic news website reported.

On Friday, a train travelling from Cairo to Alexandria crashed into the rear of another train en route to Alexandria from Port Said. The second train was stationary at Khorshid Station when the crash occurred.

Earlier on Sunday, an administrative prosecution suspended eight railway officials, while prosecutors in Alexandria have ordered the 15-day detention of the drivers of the two trains, state-run news agency MENA reported.

On Saturday, the transport minister said the crash was caused by the railway's manual-operation system and poorly developed infrastructure.

Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has said that those responsible "should immediately be held accountable and shown no leniency, regardless of their positions."

The president urged a quick upgrade of railway infrastructure, including an electronic signal system to be implemented nationwide to limit this kind of accident and improve passenger safety procedures.

Egyptians have long complained that successive governments have failed to develop the countrys dilapidated transport network and guarantee basic railway safety standards.

Several deadly railway crashes have taken place in Egypt over the past years.

In 2012, a train ploughed into a school bus south of Cairo, killing 50 people, mostly children.

The country's worst train disaster took place in 2002, when a fire swept through a passenger train, killing some 360 people.

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Maryland cross country: Hubs' Stine, Leopards girls each finish second

North Hagerstown sophomore Lauren Stine had the top performance by a Washington County athlete, placing second in the Class 3A girls race.
Egypt will open its border crossing with Gaza for four days starting Monday, state news agency MENA reported.

Earlier today, Al-Ahram Arabic website quoted a Hamas delegation currently in Cairo as saying that the Rafah crossing would open for two days starting Wednesday, in one direction only, for Palestinians to enter the Gaza Strip.

According to the subsequent MENA report, the crossing will be open for four days, beginning on Monday, for Palestinian pilgrims to cross from Gaza to Egypt, in preparation for the hajj pilgrimage season in September.

There are also unconfirmed media reports that Palestinians will be able to cross into Gaza on Wednesday and Thursday.

A Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo on Friday for talks with officials, according to media reports.

Egypt has kept its border with the Gaza Strip largely closed for security reasons since the ouster of Islamist ex-president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

The crossing in northern Sinai is the only way for 1.8 million Palestinians living in Israeli-besieged Gaza to enter and exit the enclave, as it is the only terminal not controlled by Israel.

Cairo periodically opens the border to allow civilians with foreign passports, Palestinian students, and those with medical needs to travel back and forth.

The crossing was last opened temporarily in early July.

The border openings in recent months have come amid signs of improving ties between Cairo and Gaza's governing group Hamas.

In late January, Hamas leader Mahmoud El-Zahar said that Palestinian and Egyptian officials had reached a border control agreement.

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Egypt has condemned on Monday a terrorist attack in Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou that killed at least 18 people and injured dozens.

In an official statement, Egypt's foreign ministry expressed its sincere condolences to the families of the victims, affirming that the Egyptian government and people stand with the government and people of Burkina Faso against terrorism.

On Sunday, suspected Islamist militants killed at least 18 people and wounded several during a raid on a restaurant in Burkina Faso's capital overnight, Reuters reported.

Burkina Faso, like other countries in West Africa, has been targeted sporadically by jihadist groups. Most attacks have been along its remote northern border with Mali, which has seen activity by Islamist militants for more than a decade.



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A policeman was killed in a gun attack in North Sinai's Arish on Tuesday morning, Al-Ahram Arabic news website reported.

According to Al-Ahram, a 42-year-old lower-ranking police officer was shot by unknown militants in the vicinity of Arish police station.

The victim's body was transferred to Al-Arish Hospital.

Security forces are intensifying efforts to catch the culprits.

No group has claimed responsibility for Tuesday's attack, although many similar attacks have been claimed by Sinai-based Islamist militant group Ansar Beit El-Maqdis.

Islamist militants have killed hundreds of security personnel in similar attacks in North Sinai in the past four years.

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Egypt's army foiled a militant car-bomb attack in North Sinai on Tuesday, the military said in a statement.

The armed forces, including the air force, discovered and destroyed a militant hideout used to conduct terrorist operations against the military, said armed forces spokesman Tamer El-Rifai.

"This is a continuation of the efforts of the armed forces in combating terrorist activity and pursuing militant elements," El-Rifai said.

Security forces have been battling an Islamist insurgency for several years in the restive northern part of Sinai, with hundreds killed on both sides.

Last month, the army foiled a major terror attack on a checkpoint in North Sinai, which could have left dozens killed.

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Egypt's Al-Azhar criticised on Tuesday an announcement by the president of Tunisia that his country is looking to allow for equal inheritance between men and women.

Although it did not mention Tunisia by name, a statement by Al-Azhar -- considered the world's most prominent authority on Sunni Islam -- said the concept of equal inheritance is "against Islamic teachings."

In the statement, deputy of Al-Azhar Sheikh Abbas Shuman said equality in inheritance is "unjust for women and is not in line with Islamic Sharia."

"The call for equality in inheritance between genders is unfair because women can already inherit more than men in some instances," the statement read.

According to Sunni Islam, inheritance for males is double that of females in most instances, with some exceptions including the mother and father of a deceased person both receiving one-sixth of the deceased's possessions.

Al-Azhar's statement also named an example where a mother would receive a bigger share of her deceased daughter's legacy, with the mother receiving one-third and the brother inheriting one-sixth.

On Sunday, Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi said that his country is seeking to establish equality between men and women in inheritance; the first Arab country to make such a move.

He also announced the formation of a committee to study the matter.

Al-Azhar's statement also denounced a call by President Essebsi to ammend the law to allow for marriage between a non-Muslim man and a Muslim woman.

"Such a marriage would obstruct the stability of marriage," Shuman said, arguing that a non-Muslim husband would not allow his Muslim wife to practice her beliefs as he is not a believer in her religion.

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CONOVER  The City of Conover IT Department, in coordination with the Conover Police Department, recently announced the establishment of a Safer Trade Zone.

The Safer Trade Zone is an effort to help keep people safe when making purchase and sale exchanges via websites like Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace, as well as safe child custody exchanges.

The zone is open to the public 24 hours a day for any legal transaction; however, making exchanges during daylight hours is recommended.

Meeting someone you dont know in a safe location reduces the chances of victimization and eliminates the need to give a stranger your home address.

Two parking spaces at the Conover City Hall parking lot (under the water tower) have been designated as the Safer Trade Zone and are clearly marked with blue signs.

The signs read, Safer Trade Zone  This zone is under continuous video surveillance. The City of Conover assumes no liability whatsoever for those using this zone for transactions. For emergencies call 911. For non-emergencies call 828-464-4698.

These spots are under 24-hour video surveillance, and the close proximity of the Conover Police Department will provide an additional level of security.
LENOIR  A Hudson man was sentenced after being found guilty of multiple property crimes by a Caldwell County jury on Friday, according to a 25th District Attorneys Office press release.

Catawba County Superior Court Judge Nathaniel J. Poovey oversaw the hearing.

Thomas Victor Rinehart Jr., 46, was sentenced to an active prison term of seven to nine years.

Rineharts sentence was enhanced by his status as a habitual felon, which includes previous convictions for breaking and entering a motor vehicle, selling or delivering marijuana and maintaining a vehicle or dwelling for use or storage of a controlled substance.

All of the previous offenses occurred in Caldwell County between 1989 and 2008, according to the release.

Between July 4-10, 2015, Rinehart broke into a rental home owned by a Burke County couple on Mount Hermon Road.

Rinehart caused extensive damage to the home and took several items, including antique furniture, electronics, light fixtures and plumbing pipes, according to the release.

Caldwell County Sheriffs Office detectives conducted an investigation that led them throughout Caldwell County and resulted in several of the stolen items being found in the Lick Mountain area.

Witnesses of the crime described items being discarded by Rinehart, and leading detectives to search a wooded area where the items were stored, according to the release.

A gas fireplace unit, audio speakers and antique sewing machine were returned to the property owners.
Nazis? Been there, done that. Just ask the Greatest Generation.

The Nazi flags and salutes in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend were a tough sight for anyone who had anything to do with the bloodiest war in human history.

"I signed up to fight Nazis 73 years ago and I'll do it again if I have to," tweeted World War II veteran and former Michigan Rep. John Dingell.

"Hatred, bigotry, & fascism should have no place in this country," he wrote.

And thousands of folks retweeted that, and military members liked it, some telling Dingell they'd be right behind him.

The folks behind the World War II Memorial also gave Dingell's message a thumbs-up.

"Thanks #WWII vet Rep Dingell & #GreatestGeneration! Let's work to encourage unity, civic engagement & personal responsibility in our nation!" the Friends of the National World War II Memorial tweeted.

At an assisted living facility in Provo, Utah, the World War II veterans who always sit at a lunch table together couldn't stop talking about the rally-turned-riot Charlottesville.

"Today, all they could talk about was how they wished they could teach those punk Nazis in Virginia" a lesson," Katie Wilson, who works at the retirement community, recounted on Twitter.

Even President Donald Trump finally joined in denouncing the neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan by name on Monday.

The last time the red-black-and-white flag was flown of a country, more than 407,000 American lives were lost, nearly half of them in Europe.

So seeing the swastikas, the t-shirts with Adoph Hitler, the torches in Charlottesville - that's in a realm beyond civil political discourse and disagreement.

Have any of those men - mostly in their 20s and 30s - been to a World War II memorial? Have any of them visited one of the thousands of small graveyards in rural communities across America that memorialize an entire generation of young men lost to that war?

Couldn't have.

The casual, weekend facsism practiced by newbie Nazis carrying Tiki torches and raising their arms in "Heil Trump" salutes is an egregious slap in the face to those American veterans, as well as about 60 million others who lost their lives in World War II.

And there was bipartisan agreement on that.

Besides the viral tweet that Democrat Dingell posted, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) remembered the toll that fighting Nazis took on his family.

"We should call evil by its name," Hatch tweeted. My brother didn't give his life fighting Hitler for Nazi ideas to go unchallenged here at home."

Navy veteran Adam Weinstein posted a fantastic collection of American veterans and the Nazi flags they captured in war on his website, Task & Purpose. With photos of destruction and battle debris around them, these veterans showed the "proper way to display a Nazi flag." One was on fire.

"Nazis in America are holding torch rallies, killing protesters, and hanging out with other losers of U.S. wars this week, begging the question: What is the appropriate way for a patriotic American to display the unmistakable, swastika-bearing flag of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich?" he asked.

The neo-Nazis are treading on wounds that still run deep in our country.

Dingell is rare in his generation as a social media warrior. Though the Greatest Generation may not be voicing its disgust with the new Nazis online, their kids and grandkids sure are.

Dozens of memes bringing back old World War II propaganda posters flooded social media by Monday.

A film clip created by the U.S. War Department in 1943 called "Don't Be a Sucker" was shared thousands of times over the weekend.

It shows an angry man on a soap box holding court to an audience of fedora-wearing chaps as a way of warning against hatred and xenophobia.

"I see negroes holding jobs that belong to me and you. Now I ask you, if we allow this thing to go on, what's going to happen to us real Americans?" In that 1940s, Jimmy Stewart cadence, he goes on to name immigrants, blacks, Catholics and even Free Masons for America's woes.

But then it cuts to an older, wiser man with an accent. "I've heard this kind of talk before, but I never expected to hear it in America," the immigrant says.

"I have seen what this kind of talk can do," he says. "I saw it in Berlin."

Here's the scary part. Today, this video would quickly be slammed as liberal political propaganda.

The world has been here before, people. Ask the veterans who put their lives on the line defending us from this evil.
Egypt is set to embark on a $255 million electric train project that will run to the country's planned new administrative capital, which officials say will save millions of dollars in fuel subsidies and reduce traffic, state news agency MENA reported.

The construction of the railway, which will connect the Cairo suburb Al-Salam City with the new metropolis east of Cairo, is set to start in two or three months, head of the National Authority for Tunnels (NAT) Tarek Gamal Al-Din said on Tuesday.

The railway, which will cover 68km and will mostly be above ground, will run through the northeastern Cairo suburbs of Badr and Al-Shorouk, Gamal A-Din told a press conference at the cabinet headquarters.

The train will be able to accomodate 340,000 passengers daily.

The project will be financed through a loan from China to be paid back over 20 years.

After it is complete, the project is expected to save the state EGP 2.3 billion (approx. $130 million) in fuel subsidies and vehicle traffic. It will also cut traffic by 30 percent on a highway connecting the capital to the the Suez canal at Ismailia port city, northeast of Cairo.

Egypt announced early in 2015 its ambitious plan to construct a new metropolis 45km east of Cairo as part of the government's efforts to draw back foreign investors scared away by years of political turmoil following the 2011 popular revolt.

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Majaz, poet of revolution, gave a call in mid 20th century to young women

Hijab e fitna parvar khud utttha leti to achha ttha

Tu apne husn ko parda bana leti to achha ttha

Tere matthe pe ye aanchal bahaut hee khub hai lekin

Tu iss aanchal se ek Parcham bana leti to achha ttha

Had you lifted yourself your mischievous veil

And made of your beauty itself a veil

On your forehead your scarf is graceful indeed

Had you made it a banner how well it would be!

Women had begun to make a banner of their veils much before this poetic advice. Muslim women were already playing their part in Indias freedom movement in the late nineteenth century but their voices became louder in the first decade of the 20th century. There were many; Abadi Banu Begum known to the world as Bi Amman, mother of Mohammad Ali and Shaukat Ali, leaders of Khilafat Movement, close associates of Mahatma Gandhi; Rehana, daughter of Gandhis friend Abbas Tayabji who designed the tiranga jhanda as we know it today and Jahanara Shahnawaz who was elected first to Punjab Legislative Assembly then to Central Constituent Assembly of India. The three Fyzee sisters, Atiya, Zohra and Nazli of Bombay, whose passion for freedom was expressed in their struggle for womens education. Sharifa Hamid Ali, also from the Tyabji clan, who drew up a model Nikahnama in the 1930s and was a nationalist to core. Shaista Ikramullah from Bengal, who was elected in 1946 to the Constituent Assembly, her fervour for Independence found in her writings. Then there were women who we know as writers but were passionate freedom fighters; Ismat Chughtai, Rasheed Jahan and many others.

My reason to write today about one woman who is not found in the womens whos who of the freedom movement is personal. Her name was Sakinatul Fatima and she was born in UP in 1886. As a child, I had heard stories of her blunt outspokenness and her defiant burning of Manchester cloth in Lucknows Hazratganj. Her brief life sketch was written by her granddaughter Dr Sakina Hasan, professor of English and Member of the first Status of Women Commission which wrote the landmark report Towards Equality in 1974. In 1931, when Gandhi launched the Civil Disobedience movement, she discarded the purdah, bought a charkha for daily use and wore nothing but Khadi. Her husband was Sir Wazir Hasan, Chief Justice of the Oudh Court in Lucknow. Much as she hated the British Raj and its favours, by virtue of being wife of a Sir, she was known as Lady Wazir Hasan. Her bluntness became legendary. At an official function she was introduced to Lady Wellington. They spoke through an interpreter until Lady Wellington said Your Ladyship, you should learn English so we can talk without an interpreter. Bang came the retort in her Purbi boli, which was the language she spoke. Hum kahe seekhain tohri bhasha (Why should we learn your language?) You have come across seven seas to rule us, you should learn ours. When we rule over you, we will learn yours!

Another story is recorded in Munshi Premchands autobiography. His wife, with a few comrades, was collecting donations in Lucknow city for the Congress Party for Gandhijis non-cooperation tehrik. They came to Wazir Manzil, an imposing mansion, which they were hesitant to enter. But Sakinatul Fatima welcomed them with open arms and gave what she could for the cause. Another incident is recorded by TN Kaul, ICS and foreign secretary, who was at the time DM Unnao. Lady Hasan was traveling by car from Lucknow to Unnao and her car was flying the Congress flag. An enthusiastic British joint magistrate on patrol stopped her car and asked that the flag be removed. She looked at him disdainfully and said: Nahin, kabhi nahin. The man refused to let her proceed further. Begum Sahiba also refused to comply and stuck to her point. Ultimately he had to ask his boss the magistrate. He quickly advised him to let her proceed and not clash with her iron will.

She sent her daughters to study in Karamat Husain, Lucknows first Muslim girls school. She supported the Sarda Act of 1929 for prevention of child marriage. She abhorred polygamy and when her cousin married a second wife she forbade them to enter her house. After independence, she was nominated to the UP legislative assembly. She supported the Zamindari Bill of 1948 despite herself being a small zamindar. She did not care that most Muslim zamindars vehemently opposed it.

Far from being confined to choolha chakki chardeewari as was the stereotype, women like Sakinatul Fatima, with no formal schooling, had the grit to become part of the movement which would dismantle colonial rule, not only in India but its domino effect would reach all over the world.

Syeda Hameed is an educationist, womens rights activist, and a former member of the Planning Commission of India

The views expressed are personal
Bollywood churns out the highest number of films every year in the world and patriotism is one of the dominating themes here. That keeps the producers and directors on toes is search for the story that can feature patriotism in a unique and interesting ways. Earlier Manoj Kumar and now Akshay Kumar are among the stars who have used the theme in many of their films. But they have rarely shown the Independence Day as the central thread unlike some Hollywood films where the day itself was at the centre of action.

However, there are films which talk about the Independence Day, and we have listed some of them.

Black And White: This Subhash Ghai film is among those rare films that revolve around the Independence Day and not just patriotism. Anurag Singh plays a suicide bomber Numair Qazi who wants to stage an attack during the Independence Day celebrations in the National Capital. He keeps preparing for the day and ultimately realises how strong is Indias social fabric.

Karma: Remember the song Tu mera karma, tu mera dharma? Well, Nutan sings that song as part of the Independence Day celebrations at a secluded jail in a valley. Very soon, the jail gets attacked by Dr Dangs henchmen. But its just the beginning of a war between a criminal and some spirited inmates led by the jail suprintendent (Dilip Kumar).

Train To Pakistan: Adapted from Khushwant Singhs novel of the same name, this film traces the changing scenario of a Sikh-dominated village during the partition. Director Pamela Rooks film featured a small village named Mano Majra where Juggut Singh and Nooran were in love. Its a terrific account of how interpersonal relationships changed overnight between communities.

1947 Earth: Aamir Khan, Nandita Das and Rahul Khanna are friends in Lahore right before the partition. Their relationship gets complicated once the British grant freedom to India and Pakistan. Its a love story set in the backdrop of riots, but it also explains how delicate could be the human psyche. It was directed by Deepa Mehta.

Midnights Children: Another Deepa Mehta film that was based on Salman Rushdies critically acclaimed book, Midnights Children is very complex in its structure, but simple in its message. An ambitious project, Midnights Children brought a group of terrific actors together to portray the pain of the partition and what happens when India and Pakistan get their own Independence Days. The story was told from Saleem Sinais perspective who was born at the stroke of midnight when India attained its independence.
Every time Hrithik Roshan and Sussanne Khan step out with their children, Hrehaan and Hridhaan, they gladden the hearts of their fans. While the former couple has made it clear that their split is for good, they remain friends and co-parent their two sons. So, of course, family dates that include lunches and dinners, movies and vacations are often and all adorable.

On Sunday, Hrithik and Sussanne were seen with their two sons as they watched a movie in Juhu, Mumbai. Accompanied by Swadesh actor Gayatri Joshi and her son, the two were captured by paparazzi as they exited the theatre.

On Saturday as well, the two dined with Hrehaan and Hridhaan at a Mumbai restaurant.

Movie time for the Roshans #hrithikroshan #sussannekhan #hredaanroshan #hrehaanroshan #bollyholics__ A post shared by BOLLYHOLICS (@bollyholics__) on Aug 13, 2017 at 1:45pm PDT

Hrithik Roshan And Ex-Wife Sussanne Khan Spotted On A Dinner Date With Sons#sussanneKhan #hrithikRoshan pic.twitter.com/IVbwx1nUQs  Ghada Benedtti (@jytaqybowo) August 13, 2017

In the aftermath of their divorce as Hrithik and Sussanne were spotted together, it fuelled rumours of a reconciliation. However, both were quick to dismiss such speculations. Speaking to the media, Hrithik had said then, Sussane and I are friends. We still love and care for each other. Thats about all.

Sussanne and Hrithik announced their split in 2013 and got divorced a year later. However, they have reiterated their commitment to being good parents to their sons.

Here are some earlier pics of Hrithik and his sons...

I asked them for a heroic pose. I'm not entirely sure what they had in mind. #acrobaticadventures #balanceiseverything A post shared by Hrithik Roshan (@hrithikroshan) on Jun 14, 2017 at 7:42am PDT

A magical experience is made even more special when it's shared with the ones you love. #Orlando #UniversalStudios #SummerVacay A post shared by Sonali Bendre (@iamsonalibendre) on Jul 1, 2017 at 6:37am PDT

On the work front, Hrithik is all set to play math maverick Anand Kumar in a film to be directed by Vikas Bahl. He recently met Anand in Mumbai as well.
Akshaye Khanna says he doesnt look like his late father and actor Vinod Khanna. Asked if the Mom actor would like to essay his fathers character in a biopic, Akshaye said, To portray any real life character, you have to look like that person. I dont look anywhere close to my father... Not an option.

Vinod Khanna died in April after a prolonged illness at the age of 70. The actor was admitted to Sir H.N. Reliance Foundation Hospital in the first week of April after reportedly suffering from severe dehydration.

Asked if he wants a biopic to be made on his father, Akshaye said, I havent ever thought about it so I cant say. But I think biopics by nature, I suppose as accurate as they can be, the better for an actor. Its very challenging as well as risky for an actor to portray a real life character because you are portraying some one who actually existed. So, it becomes really difficult.

Akshaye, 42, feels that one must think 10 times before portraying a real life person. He will next be seen in Ittefaq, a thriller film, directed by Abhay Chopra. It is an adaptation of the 1969 film by the same name.
Over 60,000 students from Delhi government schools, who had recently failed in their Class 10 Board exams, will be readmitted and special classes will be held for them, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal announced on Tuesday.

This year in Delhi, 64,570 students  many of whom had failed twice or more in Class 9  gave the Class 10 board exams through CBSE Patrachar (correspondence). However, only 1,654 students cleared the exam.

Kejriwal said that the no-detention policy had ruined the education system. Previous governments introduced no-detention policy till class 8. It ruined the (education) system. When students took their first exam in Class 9, they failed en mass. They appeared through open school in Class 10 and 60,000 students failed, he said.

The CM, in his address at the Chattarsal Stadium on the occasion of Independence Day, said, I assure all 60,000 students who failed in Class 10 that they will be readmitted and special classes will be held for them.

Around 25,000 out of the total 60,000 students have reappeared for compartment Class 10 Board exams already and are awaiting their results.

The rest of the students could not appear for compartment exams as they had failed in more than two subjects, officials said.

Now, the government is planning to help the rest of the students and those who might fail the compartment exams by enrolling them with National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS).

We are planning to give these students regular classes for the subjects in which they have failed. We might select schools in each zone where these students will come for regular classes or they may continue to go to the school which they attended last, said a government official.

The decision to move the students from CBSE patrachar to NIOS was taken as it allows the students to take the credit of subjects passed to NIOS. Suppose the student has passed in three subjects and failed in two. The student will only have to appear for the two subjects in NIOS, the official said.
Lack of space in crammed neighbourhoods, absence of sewer lines, and residents trying to extract money from the government by submitting false information are some of the main reasons why the authorities are rejecting applications for financing toilets in homes in Delhi.

The three municipal bodies have rejected over 70% applications received for constructing household toilets under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. The government provides Rs 4,000 per household for building toilets.

As per officials, in 40 per cent cases applicants already had toilets constructed in their houses still they have unnecessarily applied for scheme to withdraw money from government. Besides, there were other applicants who have no land for constructing toilets at homes.

The municipal corporations have so far accessed 2,312 applications, of which 378 received from areas under North Corporation, 1905 under South and 29 under East Delhi Municipal Corporation. And after verification, the sanitation departments had rejected 1,643 applications.

Initially, we were also worried with increasing number of rejected cases and thats why instructions were issued to the staff for being more careful during verification process. But later we realised that the application were not fulfilling the basic parameters, said Puneet Goel commissioner, SDMC.

For example, of the total applications accessed by the South DMC, an area (Lal Kaun) in central zone submitted 850 requests, within few months.

We carried a detailed enquiry and the result was surprising. It was found that majority of the applicants misinterpreted the policy as a freebie announced by central government for poor people and applied for scheme even if they have a toilet constructed at home, said the official.

And at the places where there is land, civic agencies are facing difficultly in providing legal connections. Especially at the unauthorised areas, there are no sewer lines. In the given circumstances we cant construct toilet and connect them to storm water drain as it is illegal, said official from North DMC.

We requested the residents to contribute money for making septic tank but they refused to spent money, he said further. The agency claimed to receive 290 from the unauthorised areas under Narela zone.

Situation is nowhere different in east Delhi which has rejected 28 out of 29 applications. We came across many fake cases including one from Sonia Vihar where owner wanted subsidy for toilet construction at another address in Loni, Ghaziabad, said senior official from East DMC.

The civic bodies are keeping close watch over the people already issued money (first instalment) for constructing toilets. Though money has been released in 150 cases, but it has been observed some of the people have not even begun the construction of toilet at their houses. We will issue them instruction soon because they cant misuse funds, said the official.

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Egypt has lifted a temporary suspension on snorkeling in the Red Sea resort of Marsa Alam that was imposed following a shark attack on an Austrian tourist earlier this month, the environment ministry has said.

A 25-year-old woman suffered a leg injury on 5 August after a shark attacked her while snorkelling at a tourist resort in the city. The ministry said at the time that the woman had swum past warning signs.

In a statement on Tuesday, the ministry said a probe by a committee of experts following the attack showed that the fish was a 1.8/2-meter-long oceanic white-tip shark that had been moving at a distance of 10km off the coast for almost 10 days prior to the incident.

A team of specialised experts caught the shark after it displayed abnormal behaviour in repeatedly approaching the area where holidaymakers engage in water activities.

The ministry's specialists are currently examining the shark in an attempt to determine the reason behind its behaviour.

The ministry says it is continuing to scan the area to ensure the safety of holidaymakers as beach and sea activities resume.

Shark attacks are very rare in Egypt, with only 34 cases reported since 1827, according to the Shark Research Institute, a US-based scientific research organisation.

However, environmentalists say certain actions on the part of divers and swimmers may provoke attacks.

The Society for the Rescue and Protection of the Environment of the Red Sea warns diving guides and tourists against feeding sharks or otherwise provoking them.

The organisation says the Austrian tourist was likely probably attacked as a result of such behaviour.

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Did Sundays meeting between Union home minister Rajnath Singh and the representatives of Gorkhaland Movement Coordination Committee signal the end of the road for a separate state of Gorkhaland, at least for now? Though politics is an art of the possible, it appears Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who has vowed not to allow a division of Bengal, is having her way.

Mr Singh has told the agitators who have already set a record 62-day shutdown of the north Bengal hills to restore normalcy and go for talks with the state government. The Centres stand has put its ally, Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, in a fix, and did not leave the agitators even a face-saving formula. While those campaigning for Gorkhaland were hoping for a tripartite meeting, the Centre washed its hands off by asking them to prepare for bipartite talks. The leaders of the hill parties have already withdrawn the fast-unto-death programme and are in extreme discomfort to announce the end of the indefinite bandh after the groundswell of opinion in support of their struggle. In short, it is an unqualified victory for Ms Banerjee, who has emerged as one of the bitterest critics for the BJP-led government at the Centre. She has denounced the agitators in strong words, alleging they cultivate links with insurgent groups of the Northeast and draw sustenance from foreign lands.

It is clear to anyone that her government will just not entertain any mention of a separate state. While the quest for a separate state is linked to the Gorkha identity and may not end here, the Centres stance seems to mark an end to the current phase of struggle. What Mr Singh conveyed to the agitators on Sunday may not have been very comfortable for the party itself that owes one of its two MPs in Bengal, SS Ahluwalia, to its alliance with Gorkha Janmukti Morcha and the partys declaration of a sympathetic consideration of the Gorkha aspiration.

But the BJPs position seems to be dictated by the consideration that it is eyeing a big share of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the 2019 elections, and exploring a separate state may be politically suicidal in Bengal, where Ms Banerjee is already accusing the party of trying to divide the state. Bimal Gurung and his men will find it difficult, if not outright impossible, to raise the demand for a separate state in the near or medium-term future. There is no shoulder to cry on.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has finally held out some hope for the strife-torn Valley, which has been through one of its worst phases in recent years. Mr Modi chose Independence Day to reach out to the Kashmiris, saying a solution could be found by embracing them and not through gaali or goli. The call for compassion not coercion comes as a reminder for some, of Atal Bihari Vajpayees famous jhamooriyat and insaniyat (democracy and humanity) remark. Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has for long been asking Mr Modi to be a Vajpayee-like statesman and the prime ministers comments must be followed up with concrete action for them to have any meaningful effect.

It is important that words and intent go hand-in-hand. Mr Modi has changed his stance on the current Kashmir crisis once too often. When he first spoke, at a rally in Madhya Pradesh last year, he had borrowed from Mr Vajpayees Kashmir policy of insaniyat but within a few days of that, however, Mr Modi uttered the Balochistan word, leaving Kashmiris wondering why they were being treated as pawns in a game that India wanted to play with Pakistan.

It is of utmost importance that the Modi government takes his Independence day speech forward, for what Kashmir needs  sooner rather than later  is azadi from repression and fear. Even at the time that the PM was delivering his speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort, the common Kashmiri was living through curfew and an Internet ban. For over a year since the killing of militant commander Burhan Wani in July last year, the Kashmiris have been living abnormal lives and have currently been rattled by the possibility of Article 35A  which guarantees a special status  being tweaked by the courts.

The no gaali or goli line can be the much-needed balm provided it goes beyond rhetoric. Mr Vajpayee had followed up on his outreach by initiating a dialogue with different stakeholders including the separatists. He had, in fact, walked an extra mile by sending his home secretary to Srinagar to open a channel with the Hizbul Mujahideen. Few expect Mr Modi to replicate Mr Vajpayees model but a beginning can be made by setting up a panel of parliamentarians  a promise the Modi-led government had made last year, after home minister Rajnath Singh led an all-party delegation to Srinagar. Momentum is key and no time should be lost in setting up a panel that will carry the weight of Parliament. It is in Indias interest to move to the next level in Kashmir.
India outlawed the dowry tradition in 1961 but it continues to be as much a social reality as it was five decades ago.

According to Delhi Police statistics, dowry harassment allegations, filed under Indian penal codes Section 498A almost doubled in five years, going from 2,046 new cases in 2012 to 3,877 last year. This is in contrast to the trend in other crimes such as murder, robbery, rape or dacoity, which decreased every year since 2012 or only had a marginal increase.

The number of unreported cases of dowry harassment could be sizeable too. Hindustan Times pored over all the 1,330 first investigation reports (FIRs) filed for such cases in the first six months of this year, and found that the tradition cuts across demographics.

Common items demanded, according to the complaints, included gold jewellery (543 cases), refrigerators (566 cases), sofa sets (217 cases), LED television sets (26 cases), flats and land assets.

It cannot be denied that there are several instances of women misusing Section 498A of the Indian penal code, under the aegis of which a man and his family, if named in a dowry harassment case, will be immediately arrested. A Supreme Court bench has now ruled that a family welfare committee in every district will scrutinise dowry harassment cases before the local police can arrest the accused.

The cases studied are in the trial phase, and recent observations from Indias top courts, legal experts and activists suggest that all may not be genuine since the laws misuse is common. Last month, the Supreme Court restricted automatic arrests under the anti-dowry law and in 2014, a separate SC bench called Section 498A a a weapon, not a shield used by disgruntled wives.

But while this issue is being addressed, it must be kept in mind that there are many, many cases still in India of dowry harassment, and many that even lead to the death of the woman. In a deeply patriarchal society, even in the higher economic strata, eligible men are seen as potential earners in the transaction of marriage. Fathers of daughters are forced to gift money, gold, cars, etc for the favour of a man agreeing to marry their daughters. It must also be noted that the conviction rates for other crimes such as murder are also very low (some estimates suggest that murder convictions are less than 20%).

Therefore, it would be prudent to be careful before assuming that every woman complaining about an abusive family or dowry harassment is disgruntled or wishes to exact revenge. It takes a lot of courage, in a very toxic set up, for a woman to muster up the courage to complain to the authorities. Such women find it very difficult to even move on from the trauma of their lives; and society must take steps to ensure that these women have the support and legal help they need to escape the abuse that they face at home.
New Delhi A Kendriya Vidyalaya (KV) will come up on the campus of the Indian Institute of Technology in Jodhpur in Rajasthan.

The HRD ministry on Monday gave its nod to a KV on the IIT-Jodhpur campus.

At present, there are 32 KVs functioning on the premises of Institutes of Higher Learning (IHL) in the country.

Today accorded approval for setting up a new #KendriyaVidyalaya under IHL sector in IIT Jodhpur campus in Rajasthan, union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar tweeted.

According to senior HRD officials, the proposal submitted by IIT-Jodhpur was examined and granted approval.

The sponsoring authorities have committed all required pre-requisites. The IIT-Jodhpur will bear the cost for setting up of the school as well as for future developement expenditure, an official said.
New Delhi IIT-Kharagpur professor Rajeev Kumar, who was given compulsory retirement after he exposed flaws in the IIT entrance exam, can now heave a sigh of relief, courtesy former President Pranab Mukherjee.

Days before he demitted office last month, Mukherjee had ordered setting aside of the penalty imposed on Kumar.

The HRD Ministry had last week issued orders to the IIT- Kharagpur director to comply with Mukherjees decision.

I am directed to refer to the appeal dated September 3, 2014, filed by professor Rajeev Kumar and to say that the President of India, in his capacity as the Visitor of IIT- Kharagpur,...has set aside the penalty of compulsory retirement imposed on him, read the HRD Ministry order.

Kumar, when contacted, refused to comment on the issue.

IIT-Kharagpur had suspended Kumar for misconduct in May 2011 -- the same year the Supreme Court had lauded him as a unsung hero for his efforts to reform the IIT Joint Entrance Examination (JEE), which has since been re-christened as JEE Advanced.

He was accused of damaging the reputation of the institute by levelling allegations on issues ranging from irregularities in the purchase of laptops to rampant copying by students during examinations.

The institute set up a probe panel that found him guilty. In 2014, the IIT decided to hand him compulsory retirement.

Kumar, who alleged that the panel was biased, moved the Delhi High Court and obtained a stay on the IITs decision. He also appealed to the President requesting that the decision be quashed.

The appeal against the retirement order has been pending in the Delhi High Court.
New Delhi The Indian Navys War College at Goa on Monday launched the second international programme for naval officers from friendly foreign countries, an official statement said.

The participants of the eight week programme include officers from Bangladesh, Maldives, Myanmar, Oman, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. Naval War College, Goa, is one of the three War Colleges of the Indian Armed Forces.

The programme, inaugurated by Goa University vice chancellor Varun Sahni, will see the participants deal with international relations theory, geopolitics, concepts of maritime security and strategy, International Maritime Law and management of ocean resources, amongst others.

Stressing the importance of maritime security in nation-building, Sahni said that in a dynamically changing geo-political scenario, there is a need for navies in the Indian Ocean Region to forge stronger ties and collaborate in developing an efficient security architecture in the maritime domain.

The statement said that during the course, participants will be exposed to subject matter experts and eminent speakers and familiarisation visits to the Indian Navys operational and training commands.

The participants are also put through simulation exercises on regional security scenarios including Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR).
Ahmedabad Expressing apprehension that the students who had appeared for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) in Gujarati might be at a disadvantage compared to those attempting the all-India medical test in English during admissions, the Congress leaders on Monday called on Governor O P Kohli and sought his intervention.

The Congress delegation, led by the state party chief Bharatsinh Solanki, demanded the state government prepare a separate merit list for the Gujarati medium students by bringing an ordinance as soon as possible.

During the meeting with the governor in Gandhinagar, the Congress leaders said the party would support the ruling BJP if the state government brings an ordinance for a separate merit list for the Gujarat board students who attempted the NEET in the regional language.

The Congress told the governor that due to a discrepancy, the NEET question papers in Gujarati were more difficult than those in English, the party said in a release.

According to Congress, as many as 47,583 students of the Gujarat board, who had given the test in Gujarati, would be subjected to injustice in the admission.

At present, the first round of the admission process as per the NEET merit list has been completed.

Congress alleged that the Centre and state government had failed to initiate any measures to save these students from facing injustice in admission despite knowing that the question papers in Gujarati were more difficult than those in English.

Meanwhile, the Congress has threatened to intensify protests if the government fails to come up with a solution to the issue at the earliest.

The opposition party announced that it will participate in the protest march to be held in Ahmedabad on August 17.

Congress leaders would take out rallies in all the districts of Gujarat on August 18 if the issue is not resolved, according to the release.
New Delhi The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) on Monday produced in the Supreme Court the draft communication on safety policy and adherence of guidelines on disaster management for schools, which would be sent by it to all state governments.

The NDMA placed the draft letter, which would be sent to the chief secretaries and the secretaries in charge of education departments of all states, before a bench comprising chief justice J S Khehar and justice DY Chandrachud, which approved it and expressed satisfaction on the steps taken.

The apex court directed that the guidelines and policy spelt out by the NDMA in the letter should be implemented by all the concerned authorities in the states.

We are satisfied with the draft letter to be sent by the NDMA to all the chief secretaries and secretary in charge of the education department of all states. We hereby direct that the same will be implemented by all concerned authorities, the bench said while disposing of the petition.

The bench was dealing with a PIL filed one Avinash Mehrotra seeking safety guidelines for school after the Dabwali fire incident in Haryana and the Kumbakonam tragedy in Tamil Nadu.

In the draft letter placed before the court, the NDMA has said that guidelines on school safety policy 2016 prepared by it were statutory in nature and statutorily required to be complied with scrupulously without any deviation.

Special attention should be paid to fire safety. All the requirements to ensure safety of children in schools mentioned in the said policy of 2016 are statutory in nature and everyone involved in the process of ensuring safety of children are statutorily bound by the same, the letter said.

It further asked the states that the district education officer of each district shall be declared to be a nodal officer with responsibility, liability and obligation as well as powers and functions to ensure strict compliance with the national disaster management guidelines (school safety policy) 2016 within the district of his jurisdiction.

It is observed that the CBSE schools, Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan do not fall within the jurisdiction of the state administration or district education officer of each district in a state. For the purpose of administration of these schools, the Central government can directly monitor them.

However so far as the implementation of national disaster management guidelines (school safety policy) 2016 is concerned, it is imperative that a nodal officer is earmarked who can ensure adherence and compliance to the said policy by all above referred schools and who is functioning at local district level, it said.

The NDMA has further said that it would be the duty of district disaster management authority to ensure compliance with the guidelines on the school safety policy and monitor its compliance.

The chief secretary of each state will satisfy himself about the due discharge of functions by the district disaster management authority as well as district education officer as a nodal officer and would send a report containing compilation of quarterly reports received by him from the district level authorities/nodal officer to the department of school education and literacy, ministry of HRD as well as NDMA, it said.

It said that department of school education and literacy, ministry of human resources and development and the NDMA would jointly monitor the implementation of the guidelines at the national level through periodical meetings for each state and periodical reviews.

The apex court had earlier pulled up the union government for not coming up with guidelines on disaster mangement to make schools safer even after the death of a large number of children in fire incidents in Dabwali and Kumbakonam. It had then asked NDMA to come up with comprehensive guidelines to prevent such incidents.
Haryana chief minister on Tuesday announced that senior IAS officer Anand Mohan Sharan will have the additional charge of the chief executive officer of the Gurgaon Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA).

CM Manohar Lal Khattar announced this while he was attending the Independence Day celebrations at Tau Devi Lal Stadium in Gurgaon. The state government released a notification for formation of the authority on Monday after the governor of Haryana gave his nod.

Anand Mohan Sharan, the principal secretary, Urban Local Bodies (ULB), Haryana, will have the additional charge as CEO of GMDA. V Umashankar, the commissioner of Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG), will continue to work as GMDAs officer on special duty (OSD), said Khattar.

Earlier, in April, the state cabinet had approved the GMDA bill, which was later cleared through an ordinance in May.

MCG commissioner V Umashankar, the architect of the GMDA draft, said, It is a new type of urban governance. It looks at coordination among different agencies in the district to provide infrastructure development, better mobility and a better urban environment.

It is worth noting that Gurgaon has been expanded multiple times in the last four decades, with the development of 115 sectors by the Haryana Urban Development Authority (Huda). The MCG area is 231 square kilometres while the GMDA area extends up to 675 square kilometres, in areas that are two kilometres beyond the Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) Expressway.

Several villages around KMP will come under GMDA for urban development, said Khattar.

When asked about financial resources of GMDA, the CM said, GMDA will have funds from the corpus and annual sources such as from cess on property tax, liquor, stamp duty etc. It will also get a share of the external development charges (EDC).

It is also worth noting that the officials are working on to minimise the areas of conflict between GMDA and MCG.

The conflict over jurisdictions between GMDA and MCG is being resolved. There is no issue of conflict in this regard between GMDA and the Huda, a senior official present at the occasion said.

Dharam Sagar, a senior resident of Sector 4, said, We appreciate the government for finally giving us good news. We hope that development will be much better under GMDA.

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The Gurgaon police on Tuesday inaugurated a police post at Vatika INXT in Sector 83. The police said that the move is aimed at providing security to residents of new sectors.

Gurgaon commissioner of police, Sandeep Khirwar, opened the police post for functioning.

The post was set up after residents of the area alleged that incidents of crime have increased in these new sectors and demanded a police station to cover sectors 81 to 85.

It was reported that five unidentified persons snatched a Mahindra XUV from an IT executive at gunpoint on July 29. The victim is a resident of Sector 83 and told the police that his vehicle was snatched around 9.30 pm while he was on his way to buy paan from a shop located 300 metres from his house.

The next day, residents had also protested at Kherki Daula police station demanding increased police presence after several car snatching incidents were reported in the new sectors.

Welcoming the move, Rahul Gupta, a resident of Vatika INXT, said, This will definitely boost security in the area.

Khirwar said they want to assure residents that the police are taking serious steps to improve the law and order situation. He said the CM is determined to set up more such posts in the new sectors. Khirwar said the police post would be under the Kherki Daula police station and the SHO would pay regular visits.

Pranav Garg of Mapsko Casabella in Sector 82 said, This move will curb crimes in the area.

Real estate developer Vatika had provided the space for setting up police post.

Gaurav Bhalla, managing director, Vatika Hotels, said, A dedicated police station for the area is already in progress. The new police station will further tighten security in Vatika INXT and surrounding areas.

On May 8, the city got 10 new police stations. At present, the total number of police stations in Gurgaon is 35, which is divided into three zones  east, west and south.

The new police stations were set up at New Colony, Shivaji Nagar, Sector 14, Sector 9A, Bajghera, Sector 50, Sector 53, City Sohna, Sector 37 and in Manesar industrial Sector 7.

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Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame have agreed to boost trade ties and mutual investments between the two countries as well as work towards bolstering the role of the African Union on the continent, state news agency MENA reported on Tuesday.

The two leaders met on Tuesday in Rwanda's capital Kigali, the second stop in El-Sisi's four-day African tour, which began one day earlier in Tanzania where he held talks with Tanzanian President John Magufuli.

El-Sisi and Kagame discussed ways to improve cooperation between the private sectors of both countries, mainly in the fields of telecommunication, tourism, agriculture and energy, the Egyptian president said at a joint press conference.

The duo also agreed to work to improve security and stability in African countries and pursue efforts to bolster the role and independence of the 55-nation African Union.

They also discussed international efforts to combat terrorism and extremism.

Upon leaving Rwanda, El-Sisi is scheduled to visit Gabon and Chad.

The Egyptian president last visited Rwanda in July 2016 during the African Union summit in Kigali.

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Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) is looking to revive the project of setting up a slaughterhouse in the city, where people with the requisite licence can legally slaughter animals for consumption.

The development takes place in the backdrop of MCG carrying out several raids over the last week, under which it demolished illegal slaughterhouses and shut illegal meat shops across the city.

As per MCG officials, if approved, the slaughterhouse will be constructed outside the MCG jurisdiction in Roz Ka Meo industrial area in Sohna, 26 kilometres from Gurgaon.

Since the area falls under Haryana State Industrial & Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC), the slaughterhouse will be jointly operated by HSIIDC and MCG, while the MCG will be responsible for its construction and maintenance.

The proposal for establishing a slaughterhouse and allotment of land at Roz Ka Meo has been sent to the Haryana government. Once approved, a Detailed Project Report will be compiled for the project, V Umashankar, MCG commissioner said.

The MCGs proposal for a slaughterhouse has been in the pipeline since 2013, similar to the one at Ghazipur in New Delhi.

On two occasions, MCG had shortlisted an area in Sector 37 for the construction of a slaughterhouse but had to abandon the project following protests by residents.

In April, Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar had directed municipal bodies in the state to provide details on legal and illegal slaughterhouses in their respective areas. The directive was issued around the time when Uttar Pradesh government had banned slaughterhouses.

It was then that the MCG discovered that all meat shops and slaughterhouses in Gurgaon were illegal.

Though the MCG has issued licences to over 100 meat shops in the city, it has no process in place for legalising slaughterhouses.

On Thursday, the MCG demolished seven slaughterhouses in Khandsa and Basai Mandi. Similarly, on Saturday, it shut down 55 illegal meat shops in the city.

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Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds is mourning the death of a motorcycle stunt driver killed during production Monday.

Reynolds released a statement on Twitter a few hours after the accident near the waterfront in downtown Vancouver.

Today, we tragically lost a member of our crew while filming Deadpool, the actor wrote. Were heartbroken, shocked and devastated ... but recognize nothing can compare to the grief and inexplicable pain her family and loved ones must feel in this moment.

A police officer photographs a motorcycle after a female stunt driver working on the movie Deadpool 2 died after a crash on set, in Vancouver, B.C. (AP)

Reynolds, a native of Vancouver playing the Marvel Comics superhero Deadpool in the 20th Century Fox movie, said his heart pours out to them  along with each and every person she touched in this world.

The motorcycle crash happened near the Shaw Tower office building, where a crumpled motorcycle was seen lying on its side and a window was smashed.

A post shared by Ryan Reynolds (@vancityreynolds) on Aug 14, 2017 at 2:20pm PDT

Nathan Kramchynski, who works on the seventh floor of the building, said he watched rehearsals for the stunt outside the Vancouver Convention Centre. The stunt woman had been riding the motorcycle down a set of stairs from the center and stopped when she reached the street, he said.

But when the accident happened, the driver appeared to pick up speed, crossed the street and swerved to avoid pedestrians before disappearing from his view, Kramchynski said.

She lost control really quickly. It happened in a split second, he said. She was going full throttle and then theres a building there.

A worker sweeps up blood covered glass at the site. (AP)

Another witness, Sharmina Kermalli, said she had just walked into a Starbucks next door to where the accident happened when she heard a loud crash. She ran outside and saw glass still falling on the body of the motorcycle driver.

The name of the stunt woman was not immediately released.

Police said WorkSafeBC, the British Columbia provincial workplace safety agency, and the coroners service were investigating. Trish Knight Chernecki of WorkSafe BC said some investigators are looking at any possible occupational health and safety issues while others examine the cause of the crash and prevention in the future.

The last stunt death in British Columbia was in 1996, when a person jumped from a helicopter and a parachute failed to open, she said.

In March 2016, actor Dylan OBrien suffered injuries on the British Columbia set of the latest instalment of the Maze Runner film series. WorkSafe BC said Fox Productions Inc. didnt rehearse a stunt sequence properly, but Fox said the stunt was thoroughly rehearsed.

A stuntman was fatally injured last month in Georgia during production of The Walking Dead. He fell head-first onto concrete about 22 feet (7 meters) below after appearing to try to grab a railing to stop his fall.

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Over 250 members of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), youth wing of the ruling BJP, were arrested before they could take out a Tiranga (Tricolour) rally through restive Srinagar to mark Independence Day on Tuesday.

BJYM national vice-president Ajaz Hussain and senior BJP leader Ashish Sareen were among those taken from Hotel Shahenshah Palace, where they were staying, to the Ram Munshibagh police station.

Police officers took the step to prevent a likely confrontation of the youth activists with local residents in a city that has seen large-scale violence since the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani last year.

However, former chief minister Omar Abdullah was not impressed. True definition of a fixed match. BJP Govt in J&K detains BJP office-bearers going out to hoist the National Flag, the National Conference leader tweeted.

Three militants, including Burhan Wanis successor Yasin Itoo, were killed in an overnight gunfight that left two soldiers dead in south Kashmirs Shopian district a few days ago. Indian security agencies described the development as a blow to the militant groups operations in the state.

Separatist leaders, including hardline Hurriyat faction chief Syed Ali Geelani, had extended greetings to the Pakistan government on the neighbouring countrys Independence Day  celebrated on August 14. After Allah Almighty, Pakistan is the only visible support to the people of Kashmir, Geelani had said.
Three Special Task Force (STF) personnel were injured, one of them seriously, on Tuesday when Maoists triggered a pipe bomb blast in Chhattisgarhs insurgency-hit Sukma district, police said.

The incident took place around 3 pm in the forests under Fulbagdi police station limits when a joint team of security forces was returning after an anti-Maoist operation, a senior police official said.

Separate teams of security forces, comprising CRPF, Special Task Force, DRG (District Reserve Guard) and district force, launched the operation on Monday in the interior forests of Sukma, around 400 km from Raipur, the official said.

The operation was undertaken in view of the Independence Day during which Maoists try to create disturbances, he said.

On way back, when one of the patrolling teams reached near Pariya village, Maoists triggered the blast from inside the forest that left three injured, he said.

The injured belong to the states counter insurgency force STF.

A constable identified as Kattam Rama was seriously injured in the explosion, while two others sustained minor injuries, the official said.

Soon after getting information of the incident, reinforcements were rushed to the spot and the injured were shifted from the forests and admitted to a local hospital, he said.

Of them, Rama was airlifted to Raipur for further treatment, he added.

Meanwhile, a search operation was underway in the region to nab the ultras who fled from the spot after executing the incident, he added.

Earlier, in the day security personnel had a narrow escape when the ultras triggered an IED blast in Rajnandgaon district while the police team was returning from an Independence Day function.

No casualty was reported in the blast which took place around 11 am near Jamdi village, a senior police official said.

A joint team of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and district force had organised a flag hoisting programme at Koracha village, located around 4 km deep in the forest under Kohka police station area (which is around 200 km away from the state capital), to celebrate Independence Day with the villagers, Rajnandgaons superintendent of police Prashant Agrawal said.

On way back from the programme, the team was passing through Jamdi village when the rebels detonated the Improvised Explosive Device (IED) near a field, he said.
Air India has ushered in a new era for military fliers beginning this Independence Day. As a mark of gratitude for the services of soldiers, the state-owned carrier has declared that they will be invited to board its flights ahead of all other travellers.

It has been decided that in order to show gratitude towards members of the Armed Forces, serving members of the Armed Forces from Army, Air Force and Navy would be invited to board our flights first, Air India executive director Sarabjot Singh Uberoi wrote in an e-mail to top officials on Monday. Uberoi wrote that the order has to be implemented Independence Day onwards on all Air India flights.

Serving soldiers will be invited to board all Air India flights even before First Class and Business class travellers. The country is grateful to them for their services and this is our way of honouring the soldiers for their contribution, Uberoi told Hindustan Times.

Uberois mail spells out how pre boarding announcements are to be made from Tuesday. Air India Star Alliance flight ___to ___is now ready for boarding through Gate No.___. We would like to invite serving members of our esteemed Armed Forces from Army, Air Force and Navy to board first.

Read more: After regular fliers exploit scheme, AI stops online booking facility for defence personnel

Air India has passed on the instructions to all its ground handling officers and staff at boarding gates and asked the same to be monitored for strict compliance.

The move comes days after Air India stopped the provision of giving online concession to soldiers, making it mandatory for them to visit the booking office. Effective 01 Aug 17, these tickets (concessionary fare) will be issued only at Air India City Offices, in cities where there is no city office, the tickets will be issued from Airport Ticketing Offices, the national carrier said, drawing flak in some military circles. It was said to be done to prevent misuse of the facility by unscrupulous travel agents.
In the 70 years since India and Pakistan were created from the former British Empire, there has never been a venue focused on the stories and memorabilia of those who survived that chaotic and bloody chapter in history  until now.

A new museum on the Partition of the Indian subcontinent opens this week, as the two South Asian giants mark seven decades as independent nations.

If you look at any other country in the world, theyve all memorialized the experiences that have defined and shaped them. Yet this event that has so deeply shaped not only our subcontinent but millions of individuals who were impacted has had no museum or memorial 70 years later, said Mallika Ahluwalia, CEO of the Partition Museum .

The exhibitions, housed in the red-brick Town Hall building in the north Indian border city of Amritsar, include photographs, newspaper clippings and donated personal items meant to tell the story of how the regions struggle for freedom from colonial rule turned into one of its most violent episodes, as communal clashes left hundreds of thousands of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs dead and another 15 million displaced from their ancestral homes.

An antique pocket watch that belonged to someone killed in mob violence in Pakistan. Woven fabrics from craftsmen of the time. A traditional rope cot carried by a refugee across the border. And many old black-and-white family snapshots.

Screens show video interviews with the now-elderly survivors. The last of the museums 14 galleries is called the Gallery of Hope, where visitors are invited to scribble messages of love and peace on leaf-shaped papers before hanging them on a barbed-wire tree. The idea, Ahluwalia said, was to have visitors participate in the greening of the tree and to think of peace and reconciliation between the torn nations.

You end up feeling so grateful to that generation who, I think, helped rebuild the nation, despite having suffered such trauma, Ahluwalia said.

In this Aug. 12, 2017, workers stand around a giant saw installation that is cutting through a brick wall at the Partition Museum that is set to open later this week in Amritsar, India, 32 kilometres (20 miles) from border with Pakistan. (AP)

She said she wanted to create the museum after years of hearing her 83-year-old grandmothers tales of the subcontinent before it was divided, before she had to flee her Pakistani home as a 13-year-old girl.

What must it have felt like for her, to one day come from, you know, a relatively affluent family, have a normal background, and the next day all you have left of your things is a small suitcase, Ahluwalia said. The personal experience led her to believe it was important to set up the museum, especially as we saw that generation leaving us.

The fact that it will be Indias first Partition museum makes it even more crucial, she said. Tickets are priced low at 10 rupees (25 cents) for Indians and 150 rupees ($2.30) for foreigners to encourage more visitors.

The museum is a nonprofit trust that has raised money from individuals such as Indian ad guru Suhel Seth and companies including Airtel and the Hindustan Times. The Punjab government donated the space.

While the bloody events of Partition became a foundational part of Indias history and identity, sparking countless works of art, literature and film, there has been no official expression of regret, and Indias leaders have been cautious in mentioning the communal violence that coincided with the countrys earliest days. There are no memorials to those who perished. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made no mention of Partition itself while regaling the countrys freedom fighters in his annual Independence Day speech to the nation.

Sociologist Shiv Visvanathan suggested the topic has simply been too painful for many to dwell on, and that reconciliation would need to be two-sided to work. Even the museum, he said, should reflect realities on both sides.

If a nation-state becomes the repository of memory, it becomes a one-sided memory, Visvanathan said. We have to acknowledge the mutuality of violence. There is no one truth. No one victim.

The museum is located in the heart of Amritsar, best known for its famed Sikh Golden Temple, because the Punjabi city was one of the first points of arrival for millions of refugees to India.

Dozens of people donated items to the museum, including 81-year-old Sohinder Nath Chopra, who included an autobiographical novel set in his old village near Gujranwala in Pakistan. His family had been warned by a Muslim cleric to flee the village as weaponized mobs went on killing sprees against Hindus and Sikhs in the newly declared Islamic republic.

He was 12 years old as they crossed the border into India, and remembers big arches welcoming the refugees.

Hindi film songs were being played loudly, Chopra told the Associated Press. There were people standing on both sides, holding bread, vegetables, water. And everybody started crying.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar on Tuesday said every citizen should be proud of his or her religious and ethnic identify while being equally proud of their Indian identity.

Everyone should be proud of his religion and ethnicity and this is what the Constitution is all about, the Chief Justice said, pointing out that he was proud to be a Sikh by birth and religion.

Khehar said this while speaking at an Independence Day function organised by the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) here. He touched on various issues including widespread perception that the children of judges enjoyed edge over others in judicial appointments.

Describing as unfounded the media reports which said that his son has found place in the list of Punjab government lawyers, he said that What (at times) appears to be the blatant misuse of authority, may not be so.

Khehar said this referring to SCBA president R.S. Suri who had said that the panels of government lawyers are full of sons and kins of judges and they had edge over others in judicial appointments.

Telling Suri, Mr. President dont say that, Khehar said that there were wise children of judges, Dalits, Brahmins and belonging to other communities and all are together for achieving what they want.

Speaking on the occasion, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said India is secular not because of its secular Constitution but because of its secular heritage, while pointing out that every faith needs to be protected.

Asking the audience to remember the unsung heroes of the freedom struggle who laid down their lives for the countrys Independence, Prasad said there was shortcoming and weakness but he could see a new India emerging with self-confidence.

However, the Chief Justice said it is not only those who laid their lives who should be remembered but even others who had contributed to the cause of countrys freedom and suffered at the hands of British colonialists.

On judicial appointment, Prasad said that as of now they have appointed 75 judges to various high courts in 2017 and hoped that in the remaining months they would appoint more. He said in 2016 they had cleared 126 names for appointment to high courts.

Complimenting all the three organs of state for the dramatic achievements since independence, Attorney General K.K. Venugopal said it was incumbent on the three wings to extricate the country out of endemic poverty.

Describing poverty as the greatest challenge to human rights, Venugopal said: If poverty is endemic then what is the purpose of human rights. Does right to free speech, free movement within the country have any meaning.

Quoting the incumbent Pope Francis, he said: Human rights are not only violated by terrorism, repression or assassination, but also by unfair economic structures that creates huge inequalities.

He also quoted late South African President Nelson Mandela who had said, Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life. While poverty persists, there is no true freedom.

Flagging the issue of children of judges enjoying edge over others for appointment to high court benches, SCBA President Suri said that more and more judges of high courts should be appointed from the Supreme court Bar as they have good exposure and would elevate the standards of high courts.

In his welcome address, SCBA Vice President Ajit Kumar Sinha called for refining and rebuilding the national character.
Police have registered a case of rape after a girl alleged that she was sexually assaulted by a man while returning home after attending the Independence Day function at her school in Chandigarh on Tuesday, officials said.

The incident happened at the childrens traffic park, located in the heart of the city, on Tuesday morning.

The accused, aged around 40 years, forcibly took the 12-year-old girl to the park, sexually assaulted her and fled, investigating officer in the case, sub-inspector Kuldeep, told PTI.

The victim, a student of Class 8 of a government school, was taken to a government hospital in Sector 16 for a medical examination, the officer said, adding a case had been registered.

When contacted, Chandigarh senior superintendent of police (SSP) Eish Singhal said further probe was underway.

We have registered an FIR, the suspect has been rounded up and investigation is underway. The girl is in a stable condition, said Singhal.

Tuesdays incident comes barely over a week after the 29- year-old daughter of a senior IAS officer was stalked by the son of Haryana BJP chief and his friend.
CRPF commandant Chetan Kumar Cheeta, who sustained multiple gunshot wounds during a February encounter with militants in Kashmir, is among the five security personnel who will be honoured with Kirti Chakra  the countrys second-highest peacetime gallantry award  on Independence Day.

Cheeta had suffered severe head, jaw and eye injuries and had fractured his hands during the Bandipora encounter, in which three soldiers and a militant were killed. He fought for his life for over a month at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and was discharged from the hospital in April.

Major David Manlun, who died fighting militants in Nagalands Mon district in June, Havildar Giris Gurung and CRPF commandant Pramod Kumar will be awarded the medal posthumously

Major Preetam Singh Kunwar will be the other recipient of Kirti Chakra.

President Ram Nath Kovind approved 112 gallantry awards, including 17 Shaurya Chakras and 85 Sena Medals (Gallantry) on the eve of Independence Day.

Jaitley speaks on surgical strike

The army carried out surgical strikes against terror launch pads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir last September after India ran out of patience as the terrorists were not only targeting the armed forces but also civilians, defence and finance minister Arun Jaitley said.

In his customary broadcast to the armed forces on the eve of the Independence Day, Jaitley said, Despite our repeated requests to our Western neighbour not to use our territory occupied by it not only to train terrorists but also use it as launch pad for pushing these militants into India, such nefarious activities continued. He said the army conducted surgical strikes at several of these launch pads to pre-empt infiltration by terrorists.
Buoyed by the turnout at his rally on Monday, a combative AIADMK (Amma) leader TTV Dinakaran warned the party factions led by chief minister EK Palaniswami and O Pannerselvam on Monday to mend their ways or be prepared to be mended.

Seeking to reclaim his authority after the Palaniswami camp adopted a resolution on August 10 declaring Dinakarans appointment as the partys deputy general secretary as illegal, he held a rally at Melur near in Madurai on Tuesday which was attended by 19 MLAs and six MPs.

Dinakaran had said in April that he was stepping aside after the Palaniswami and Panneerselvam camps decided to initiate talks for merger of the two factions.

Though a merger did not materialise then, there are indications of a thaw in their ties after the Palaniswami camp declared Dinakarans appointment by his aunt and party general secretary VK Sasikala as illegal. The Panneerselvam camp has already approached the Election Commission seeking annulment of the appointment of Dinakaran and Sasikala.

Sasikala is serving a prison term in a disproportionate assets case in which late chief minister J Jayalalithaa was the main accused.

They should mend their ways and come back to the party fold...or they will be mended, Dhinakaran told reporters here after offering prayers at the Meenakshi temple.

Without naming Palaniswami or Panneerselvam, also a former chief minister who was ousted by Sasikala after Jayalalithaas death, Dinakaran said they were committing mistakes.

The rally, the first in a series announced by him for celebrating the birth centenary year of party founder M G Ramachandran (MGR), was seen as a show of strength by the Dinakaran camp.

Dinakaran attacked Palaniswami, who is still with the AIADMK (Amma), saying he got the chief ministers post only because of Sasikala.

Dhinakaran said the AIADMK was a party of 1.2 crore cadres and all efforts would be made to strengthen it further.

At Mondays rally, he had accused the Palaniswami camp of trying to oust him and usurp the party. He had vowed to reclaim the AIADMKs two leaves election symbol that was frozen following a split in the party.

Dinakaran had appointed some new office bearers of the party a few days ago, in an apparent effort to reassert his authority after having announced his decision to step aside.

Meanwhile, senior AIADMK (Amma) leader and Tamil Nadu minister KA Sengottaiyan said on Tuesday the much anticipated merger of the two factions of the ruling party could happen soon.

There is a chance of the two factions led by O Panneerselvam and chief minister (K Palaniswami) merging soon. You can expect that soon, he said in Chennai.
French President Emmanuel Macron sought to secure the release of a French reporter detained in Turkey at the end of July, during a conversation Tuesday with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a statement said.

The French leader "expressed his concern about the case of Loup Bureau, a journalism student detained in Turkey, and his desire to see our compatriot return to France as soon as possible," the Elysee Palace said.

Bureau, 27, was arrested on July 26 and accused of having links to Kurdish militias which Turkey regards as terrorist groups.

He is studying for a master's degree in journalism but has also worked as a reporter, notably on a story for the French channel TV5 in 2013 on the militia known as the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).

French journalist unions, European and international journalist associations, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and TV5 have called for Bureau's immediate release.

Macron broke off from his holidays in the south of France to speak with Erdogan on Tuesday.

"The leaders have agreed to talk again next week," the statement said.

Foreign journalists have repeatedly been accused by the Turkish government of supporting terrorism for reporting on Kurdish separatist groups, adding to tensions between Erdogan and the EU.

Bureau is the third French journalist to be detained in Turkey in the past year.

In June, Turkey deported French photojournalist Mathias Depardon after holding him for a month on charges of supporting terror groups.

Another French reporter, Olivier Bertrand, was expelled in November 2016.

Deniz Yucel, a correspondent for the German daily Die Welt, has been held since February, personally accused by Erdogan of working as a "terror agent".

Turkey ranks 155 on the latest RSF world press freedom index after dropping four places from its 2016 ranking.

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An environment ministry panel has rejected the Uttar Pradesh governments proposal to develop the countrys first religious hi-tech smart city in Garh Mukteshwar, saying the project would kill the cleanest part of the Ganga and further endanger the dolphins inhabiting the national river.

Countries such as Malaysia had shown interest in the project in which the river was to be diverted to construct a barrage and a canal encircling the new city. Malaysias Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) wanted to invest US$30 million at four places in India, including Garh Mukteshwar.

The UP government had proposed a new city spread over 7,395 hectares inside Hastinapur wildlife sanctuary and on both banks of river Ganga with an aim to inculcate a unique mix of technology and religion. The city was to be developed in a public-private-partnership model having high-end residential and commercial establishments.

But the standing committee of the national board for wildlife, which reviews projects coming up in and around national parks and sanctuaries, rejected the proposal after a team led by the ministrys inspector general of forests inspected the site.

It found that the project had the potential to change morphology and hydrodynamics of the Ganga and will kill approximately 7km of the river in UP.

This (the project) will hinder the efforts towards the restoration of the Ganga river and will negatively affect the success of making a clean and vibrant Ganga which is one of the (central governments) main agenda, the team said in its reported submitted to the ministry of environment, forest and climate change last month.

On the proposed barrage to divert 6,000 cusec of water from the river to have a man-made river front, the inspection report said it will disrupt the downstream ecological process of Ganga and will be in violation of the National Green Tribunals July 2017 order which prohibited construction along the river. It also said the proposed 8.5km canal from the barrage will affect integrity of the wildlife habitat as it will hinder movement of wild animals.

The report said Ganga at Garh Mukteshwar was cleanest in Uttar Pradesh and held a significant population of river dolphins, critically endangered gharial and turtle species.

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In the eye of the storm after the death of over 60 children due to the disruption in supply of oxygen over the course of six days, Gorakhpurs BRD Medical College is now grappling with the shortage of medicines.

Despite the instructions of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath to improve facilities at the hospital, many patients and their attendants can be seen rushing to private medical stores to purchase medicines.

Aniket, 8, was admitted to the intensive care unit after he was bitten by a snake on Sunday. His uncle Parasnath, a rickshaw-puller, had to buy medicines worth Rs 3,000 from the market as the hospital had ran out of drugs.

It was only after he arranged the drugs that injections were administered to the child. Anikets condition is now stable.

I have spent Rs 3,000 on medicines. This is too much for a poor man like me, Parasnath said, and added the doctors threatened him for reporting the matter to the media persons.

The attendants of Brijesh, 17, and Seema Gupta also purchased medicines from private stores.

Doctors asked me to quickly get the drugs but they were not available at the hospital. I had to buy them from a private store, said Durgesh, Brijeshs uncle.

Some patients accused the doctors for asking attendants to buy drugs from private stores.

Superintendent in-charge Rama Shankar Shukla said, There is no shortage of medicines. Fresh stock arrives daily as per the requirement.

Even at the morgue of the hospital, attendants were seen spending money from their own pockets to get the post-mortem examinations conducted.

Hareesh Nishad said he was asked to arrange 5 metre cloth and 3 metre of plastic for the post-mortem of his nephew.

The items will cost me Rs 300-Rs 500. The tempo driver who transported the body to the morgue will also charge Rs 300 and then another Rs 500 from here to the crematorium, he said.
A Dalit man and his mother were thrashed allegedly by a group of 15 upper caste men for skinning a dead cow near a crematorium at a village in Anand district of Gujarat, instead of the place where cattle are disposed of, police said on Tuesday.

The incident comes almost a year after four Dalit men were allegedly beaten up by cow vigilantes at Una town in Gir-Somnath district, triggering uproar across the country.

The 22-year-old man has said in his complaint that the men, who are Rajputs from Kasor village, stormed into his residence on Saturday night and started verbally abusing him and his mother, referring to their caste. When he protested, the mob beat them up and threatened them with dire consequences, said DD Damor, the deputy superintendent of police, Khambhat division.

The FIR was filed with the Sojitra police on Monday. No arrest has been made so far, Damor said.

It all started on August 11, when the victim brought a dead cow for skinning from a nearby village. Instead of the designated place, he started skinning it near the crematorium. When some locals raised the issue with the sarpanch, he asked the victim to take the cow at the allotted place, said Damor.

He said though the man agreed to follow the rules the next time, the men attacked him and his mother on August 12.

The Sojitra police has lodged the FIR under IPC sections 143 (unlawful assembly), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 506(2) (criminal intimidation) and relevant provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

Both the victims have been provided round-the-clock security by the police, he added.
The Centres decision to deport an estimated 40,000 Rohingya Muslims to their native country Myanmar has triggered panic among 4,000-odd members of the ethnic group taking refuge in the old city of Hyderabad for the past six years.

Moulana Hameed-ul-Haq (50), a cleric at one of the Rohingya settlements in Balapur, says, It will be better if we are killed in India than in our own country. We will anyway be killed if we are forcibly sent back.

Moulana had fled Myanmar after 2011 violence in which thousands of Muslims were allegedly massacred by the Myanmar military and radical Buddhist monks. He reached Hyderabad through Bangladesh along with hundreds of other Rohingyas.

The Indian government was kind enough to acknowledge us as refugees. The Telangnaa government has been looking after us really well and we feel safe and secure here. Now, suddenly the news about we being sent back has caused a lot of panic among us, said Moulana .

Sultan Mohammad (70), who arrived in India three years ago after deserting his agricultural land at Rakhine state in Myanmar, works as a teacher in Hafiz Baba Nagar. The military personnel attacked my house and destroyed all my property. I came to Hyderabad along with my wife and two sons. We are thankful to the Narendra Modi government for allowing us to stay here as refugees. I am nearing death and I want my family to survive, said Sultan.

Though the government estimates say there are 40,000 Rohigya Muslims in India, Mazher Hussain, director of Confederation of Voluntary Associations, an NGO which has partnered with United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), says the number is not more than 16,000. They are not illegal migrants as claimed by the government, but are refugees as per the UN convention. In Hyderabad, all of them have been given identity cards by the UNHCR, said Hussain.

The Rohingya Muslims have been living in subhuman conditions in the slums of Balapur, Hafeezbabanagar, Pahadishareef, Mir MominPahadi and Kishanbagh. Each family pays around ~600 as rent per month.

Nearly 80% of the Rohigya Muslims living in these settlements are rag pickers or daily wage workers, Mohammad Moosa Azmi, a registration officer working with UNHCR.

I get work only twice a week and earn ~450 per day. With that I have to feed the entire family, said Dil Mohammad (53), who came to Hyderabad from Bouthidoung in Myanmar.

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Surrounded in waist-deep waters but with an unwavering gaze at the national flag, four teachers and two students of a school in flood-hit Dhubri district of Assam made sure the Tricolour was hoisted and the Jana Gana Mana sung to celebrate Indias 71st Independence Day.

Large parts of Assam have been inundated for weeks from heavy monsoon rains that also swelled rivers. The Naskara Lower Primary School, where the six gathered to celebrate Indias freedom, has been in submerged since August 13.

Photo by: Joydev Roy

The six were the schools head teacher Tazem Sikder, his colleagues Nripen Rabha, Joydev Roy, and Mizanur Rahman, and Class 3 students Jiarul Ali Khan and Haidor Ali Khan.

Photo by: Joydev Roy

Yesterday in a meeting, we four teachers decided to organise the programme, said Rahman, an assistant teacher at the school.

We couldnt do much due to the flooding. We sang the national anthem and Vande Mataram. Since, small children cant be in water for long, we dispersed the assembly early, Rahman said.

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Battling one of the worst floods to hit Assam, students and teachers braved surging waters and rowed boats to hoist the Tricolour to join the country in celebrating the 71st Independence Day on Tuesday.

Leading the celebrations were schools in western Assams Dhubri district that is often associated with cattle smuggling and illegal immigrants.

The Dhubri deputy commissioner, like his counterparts elsewhere in Assam, had ordered all government offices and schools to observe I-Day. The order is usually relaxed for schools hit by natural disasters.

But Tazem Sikdar chose to carry on with the tradition and waded through waist-deep water to unfurl the Tricolour at Naskara Lower Primary School in Fakirganj at 7.30am.

As the headmaster, it was my duty to hoist the flag. We had planned an hours programme but had to wrap up quickly because the floodwaters posed a risk, though the two students who joined in are good swimmers, he said.

Teachers Minazur Rahman, Nripen Rabha and Joydev Roy joined Sikdar. The two students who swam to get to the school were given an extra bar of chocolate each for their zeal. The others, who hoisted the flag but on a higher ground nearby, got a bar each.

The school has around 200 students, all Muslims, from Naskara and four neighbouring villages.

Rahman, who posted photos on Facebook, said his friends told him the prime ministers office had heard about the celebrations at their school.

Naskara was not the only flood-hit school to celebrate the day in Assam where 30 schools, 14 of them in Dhubri, have been washed away.

Teachers and students made their presence felt at some 400 schools partially damaged by heavy rain and flood waters.

In Dhubri districts Golakganj, headmaster Bipul Chandra Ray went with the flow, literally. He got his boat out, borrowed two from his friends to host the ceremony and it was a full house.

I rowed my own boat to bring some students and their guardians. Two of my friends lent their boats to bring three teachers and other students. Some parents were reluctant, but 38 students attended, Ray told HT.

His 51-student school perhaps must be the only one to have the distinction of celebrating the Independence Day on board three boats.

Assam education minister Himanta Biswa Sarma lauded the teachers and students for their effort. Big salute to these bravehearts, including teachers and students, who defeated adversity to celebrate I-Day, he said.

Assam had 51,898 schools as on September 30, 2010, the human resource development ministry data shows. Around 23,000 of these have been hit by floods.

Some schools that have escaped surging waters are serving as relief camps, forcing authorities to extend the summer break that should have ended on July 31.

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Kashmiri leaders saw cautious hope in Prime Minister Narendra Modis outreach on Tuesday, saying the government must follow his idea of using compassion, not coercion, to bring peace to the restive region.

In the morning, Modi said the dispute in Kashmir can be resolved with hugs, not guns or name-calling during his speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort in Delhi.

Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, the leader of a moderate faction of the separatist Hurriyat group, welcomed the PMs comment. Welcome @narendramodi also believes Goli&gaali will not help resolve Kashmir if insaniyat &insaaf replace them Resolution can become a Reality, he tweeted.

Farooq later told Hindustan Times that the state has to relook its policy of guns and abuses.

That is what the state is doing right now. It has to relook this policy. They are pursuing these young Kashmiris and killing them, he said.

Chief minister Mehbooba Mufti welcomed the Prime Ministers remarks about Kashmir.

She said she has all along believed that talks and peaceful means only can help resolve issues.

The slogan bandook say na goli say, baat banegi boli say (dialogue, not guns and bullets) that her party coined about 15 years ago is as relevant today as it was then, she added.

Modis comments seemed to allude to the local militancy led by young men from Kashmiri towns and villages. One such militant leader was Burhan Wani, whose death last year sent the region into a violent spiral that led to the deaths of least 100 civilians.

Jobs and incentives are all right but what youth of Kashmir want is justice, and that should be the focus, Farooq said.

Kashmir is not an economic, military or administrative problem. It is a political problem.

National Conference leader Omar Abdullah, the former CM of the state, had a similar view of the PMs remarks.

PM Modis words for Kashmir have been very well received by people here but everyone here is weary of yet more talk & no concrete action, he tweeted.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. We look forward to being embraced in the warm grip of understanding, acceptance & respect. That respect must include respect for the unique status J&K enjoys within the constitution of India that sets it apart from all other states, he said in subsequent tweets.

IN LOCKDOWN, KASHMIRIS UNAMUSED

The Kashmiri public was much less impressed with the PMs remarks. On DD Kashmir, paid performers are singing and dancing awkwardly in front of CM who occasionally claps; phones have been disconnected; internet has been blocked yet again (might as well be renamed Inter-disconnect in Kashmir!); the streets are empty and silent except for the noise of army vehicles, and Modi, from the ramparts of the Red Fort in New Delhi, talks about loving and embracing Kashmir which sounds like some final solution (sic), a local journalist said wrote on Facebook.

Another social media user said the statement would have some weigh when atrocities on people would stop. There is a curfew in whole valley and you are talking of love. What love? Forces are killing innocent people, ransack their property how could you think we love india or your army. Kashmiris hate Indian army (sic), he wrote.

Some people said the Prime Minister was indulging in jumla bazi (word play) as the peace talk did not reflect in reality.

But human rights campaigner Khuram Parvez said Kashmiris must welcome Modis admission that the people have been dealt with bullets and abuse. And that the Kashmir issue can be resolved by embracing Kashmiris, he added.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday called for a New India that will be free of casteism, communalism, terrorism and corruption as he urged those wielding the gun in Kashmir to join the mainstream so that the Kashmir problem is solved through embrace.

Addressing the nation from the Red Fort on Indias 71st Independence Day, Modi warned those indulging in mob violence, saying attacks in the name of aastha (faith) was not something to be happy about and wont be accepted.

Officials said anti-aircraft and anti-drone guns were deployed in and around Red Fort. An additional 500 closed-circuit television and high-resolution cameras were placed in and around Red Fort.

Highlights:

3:20 pm: In his Independence Day speech, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said the Maharashtra government aims to make farmers of the state debt-free.

The chief minister also announced that the homeless would be provided houses by 2019 and construction of three lakh houses in the state under houses for all scheme has begun.

3:15 pm: Uttarakhand chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat hoisted the national flag and led the 71st Independence Day celebrations in the state. He also administered an oath for maintaining moral values to government officials and employees.

2.55pm: India on Tuesday gifted 30 ambulances and six buses to Nepalese hospitals, charitable organisations and educational institutions.

2.40pm: Manipur saw peaceful celebrations of the 71st Independence Day on Tuesday despite a boycott and strike called by seven insurgent groups.

Chief minister N Biren Singh unfurled the national flag and took salute from 43 contingents in the Ist Manipur Rifles parade ground.

2.30pm:

West Bengal: A 103-year-old freedom fighter Bijay Kumar Dutta unfurled the tricolour in Purulias Manbazar

2pm: From the archives: How HT reported the news of Indias independence

1.45pm: The Congress on Tuesday described Prime Minister Narendra Modis Independence Day speech as most disappointing and said his promise of curbing black money remains a sham.

Congress leader Anand Sharma said the Modi government has promoted black money hoarding and promoted crony capitalism.

1.40pm: Surrounded in waist-deep waters but with an unwavering gaze at the national flag, four teachers and two students of a school in flood-hit Dhubri district of Assam made sure the Tricolour was hoisted and the Jana Gana Mana sung to celebrate Indias 71st Independence Day.

1.30pm: Supreme Court chief justice Jagdish Singh Khehar says every citizen should be proud of his or her religious and ethnic identify while being equally proud of their Indian identity.

1.15pm: As the nation celebrates its 71st Independence Day, Bollywood too shared its wishes to mark the occasion. From Amitabh Bachchan to Shah Rukh Khan, from Priyanka Chopra to Madhur Bhandarkar -- all took to their respective social media to express their pride in being an Indian, and wished their friends, fans and followers a Happy Independence Day on Tuesday.

Read the full story here.

1pm: Bareillys Barelvi madrasas on Tuesday openly defied the Uttar Pradesh governments directive that the national anthem be mandatorily sung at all Islamic educational institutions across the state on the occasion of Independence Day.

12.45pm: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath said that new policies will be initiated for the youth, who are migrating to metropolitan cities in search of employment opportunities.

12.30pm: Of eight claims made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in three Independence Day speeches from 2014 to 2016, three have been kept and five have been partially kept, according to a Factchecker analysis.

Read the full story here

12.10pm: The Madhya Pradesh government aims to make the state free of corruption and poverty by 2022, chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said on Tuesday.

11.50am: Hundreds of members of the Indian diaspora in the UK took part in the first-ever Freedom Run to mark Indias 70th Independence Day with the one-mile journey beginning from the historic Parliament Square in London.

11.40am: Omar Abdullah hoped that Prime Minister Narendra Modis assertion that the Kashmir problem cannot be resolved by abuse and bullets will be applicable to security forces too.

Actually he (Modi) said the Kashmir issue will not be resolved by abuse and bullets. I guess that covers both sides - terrorists and security forces, the former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister tweeted.

11.30am: Tamil Nadu chief minister EK Palaniswami says his government is working with the sole aim of public service by smashing all hurdles before us.

He unfurled the national flag at Fort St. George in Chennai on the occasion of the 71st Independence Day. The CM said his governments slogan was all-round development, inspired by late chief minister J Jayalalithaa.

11.20am: Delhi Metro services are running as usual. However, stations like Lal Quila, Jama Masjid, Delhi Gate and ITO are having restricted entry and exit during the ceremony owing to security considerations. Parking is not available at the stations till 2pm in view of the security measures.

11am: About 70,000 Delhi Police personnel kept a tight vigil over the national capital, especially around the Red Fort from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the nation on the 71st Independence Day.

10.55am: Amid the Doklam standoff, a customary border personnel meeting held between India and China on Indias Independence Day is unlikely as Beijing has not responded to communications from New Delhi.

10.40am: Undeterred by the Maoists threat, Odisha celebrated the 71st Independence Day amid gaiety and camaraderie with much patriotic fervour on Tuesday.

Chief minister Naveen Patnaik hoisted the national flag at the Mahatma Gandhi Marg in Bhubaneswar.

10.25am: Congress president Sonia Gandhi unfurled the tricolour at the AICC headquarters on Akbar Road in New Delhi.

In her Independence Day message, Gandhi stressed the need for every Indian to unite and fight against separatism, terrorism and all such forces that divide and spread hatred in society.

10.05am: Prime minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday launched a website to honour all the gallantry award winners since Independence.

Announcing the launch of the website http://gallantryawards.gov.in in a series of tweets, Modi said the portal will preserve and tell the stories of our bravest men and women, civilians as well as armed forces personnel.

9.45am: PM Modi, in a Twitter post, said he was honoured to address the citizens on Independence Day.

Honoured to address fellow Indians on Independence Day. Sharing my speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort. https://t.co/XOcdUsGCTu  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 15, 2017

9.30am: RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat ignores govt order, hoists tricolour in school in Kerala.

9.15am: Mobile internet services blocked in Kashmir valley, reports ANI News.

8.50am: Search engine Google displayed an artistic doodle which includes a motif of Indian Parliament, a symbolic wheel for the Ashok Chakra and Indias national bird peacock, all submerged in shades of saffron, green, white and blue.

8.40am: J-K: BJP youth wing national vice president Aijaz Hussain and 250 BJP workers, planning a Tiranga Rally in Srinagar were detained on Monday night, reports ANI News.

8.30am: To read the top quotes from the Prime Mininsters speech, click here.

8.29am: PM Modi concludes his Independence Day address at Red Fort with chants of Jai Hind, Vande Mataram, Bharat Mata ki jai.

8.25am: We must take a pledge to make a new India by 2022: PM Modi.

8.21am: We are fighting corruption - for the bright future of India and the well being of our people, says PM Modi.

8.20am: After demonetisation, 3 lakh companies were discovered as shell companies and the registration of 1.75 lakh companies were cancelled: PM Modi.

8.19am:

The most doting teacher at the #RedFort. Translating every word of PM's speech to the special students through sign language pic.twitter.com/75ICxLrKyX  Sweta Goswami (@sweta_goswami) August 15, 2017

8.17am: From 1 April to 5 August, the number of people filing income tax went up to 56 lakh, says PM Modi.

Today, I want to proudly tell people that within just three years, we have recovered Rs 1.25 lakh crore black money: PM Modi.

8.15am: Casteism and communalism will not help us. Violence in the name of faith will not be tolerated in this land of Gandhi and Buddha: PM Modi.

The poison of castesim and communalism can never be beneficial for our nation. This is the country of Lord Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi  Sweta Goswami (@sweta_goswami) August 15, 2017

8.12am: I admire the courage of women who suffer due to Tripe Talaq. We are with them in their struggles, says Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

8.10am: We are nurturing our youth to be job creators and not just job seekers: PM Modi.

8.05am: Be it issue of gas subsidy, Swachh Bharat or demonetisation , people of India extended their full support, says Narendra Modi.

8am: On the basis of those who got gallantry award, we are launching a portal through which the youth can find out about those who sacrificed for the country: PM Modi.

7.55am: We have to work for the progress of Jammu and Kashmir, says PM Modi.

Abuses and bullets wont solve the Kashmir issue, embracing Kashmiris will, says PM Modi.

7.50am: PM Modi says that India is not alone in the fight against terrorism and other nations are actively supporting its bid to end terrorism.

7.46am: The concern for national security is a natural one in an independent India. Our security forces have always shown their capabilities whenever on duty. Whether it is terrorism or infiltrators, our security personnel have always been ready for sacrifice, says Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

When surgical strike was carried out, the world came to know about the power that India possesses: PM Modi.

7.43am: We have to leave this Chalta Hai attitude and adopt the Badal Sakta Hai attitude, which will help us as a nation: PM Modi.

7.42am: We have to take the country ahead with the determination of creating a New India : PM Modi.

Everybody is equal in our nation, no one big or small. Together we can bring a positive change in the nation, says Modi during his address to the nation.

7.41am: People of India stand shoulder to shoulder with those affected due to natural disasters and the tragedy in Gorakhpur: PM Modi.

7.40am: This is a special year- 75th anniversary of Quit India, 100th anniversary of Champaran Satyagraha, 125th anniversary of Ganesh Utsav: PM Modi.

7.30am: The Army Band plays the National Anthem as PM Modi unfurls the tricolour.

7.20am: PM Modi has arrived at the Red Fort. He will be addressing the nation shortly.

7am: Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaches Rajghat to pay his homage to Mahatma Gandhi.

6.30am: Prime Minister Narendra Modi greeted the nation on occasion of Indias 71st Independence Day.

#        -   ! Independence Day greetings to my fellow Indians. Jai Hind.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 15, 2017

(With inputs from Saubhadra Chatterji and Sweta Goswami)
There is nothing more heartbreaking than the moment when your child refuses to recognises you. And that memory continues to haunt Santosh Yadav even now.

My daughter kept refusing to come near me, kept saying he is not my papa. I was helpless.

In February, Yadav was released from prison on bail. The Supreme Court had given the order. Accused of being present during a Maoist ambush and charged under anti-terrorism legislations, Yadav had spent 18 months in difficult circumstances in jail in south Chhattisgarhs Jagdalpur and Kanker.

It was when he stepped out that he encountered his daughter, who was only a month old at the time of his arrest.

Yadavs case, sub-judice at the moment, remains a tale of how in parts of India, the freedom to be a journalist, report events, and tell the truth is not available. It is a sign that 70 years after independence, there are still dark spaces of unfreedom.

Antagonising power

Bastar has been in the middle of a conflict between the state and the Communist Party of India (Maoist) for decades. And those who have got squeezed the most in the crossfire are ordinary citizens, mostly adivasis, of the region.

Yadav was a journalist who wrote for respected Hindi dailies - Dainik Navbharat, Patrika and Dainik Chhattisgarh - from the belt. And this is when he came on the radar of Bastar Police, headed until recently by controversial police official, inspector general SRP Kalluri, who had a reputation for brooking no dissent and using tough measures against all those who disagreed with him.

I used to document stories from inside villages. When police beat villages or arbitrarily arrested them, I used to write it. After on such instance, Kalluri came and said pick him up- he is trying to divide the people, disrupt police-public coordination.

Yadav may now be on bail- but this is strictly conditional. He has to go to the local thana everyday. (HT Photo)

Yadav was picked up in September 2015. A Chhattisgarh Police Special Task Force Commander alleged that he had seen Yadav stand behind a Maoist fighter during an ambush in August that year - Yadav has maintained that he was not even in Darbha the day of the ambush.

The same commander later expressed his inability to identify the accused with certainty - but till then, the damage had been done, Yadav was locked in, the charged framed, the wheels of justice - or injustice - in Indias complex and prolonged legal machinery had moved.

In the Jagdalpur prison, Yadav saw the conditions and began a movement to improve food and medical treatment for inmates - this brought him in confrontation with local cops again, and he had to face lathis and got injured.

Free but chained

Yadav may now be on bail- but this is strictly conditional. He has to go to the local thana everyday, and every time he leaves Darbha, even for the neighbouring town of Jagdalpur, he has to inform the thana.

He is also no longer working. I cannot go anywhere. It is difficult to write. I also dont want to leave my daughter. But would he quit journalism completely? Yadavs mother, listening quietly on the side, now steps in and says, No. How can he? So many people have supported him and us. He cannot just leave it now, but must continue working.

70 years after Independence, what does Yadav feel about free India?

How can you say Bastar is free? Laws are not followed. Police can pick people arbitrarily. But doesnt the fact that despite his troubles, he was able to get bail and civil society support indicate the vibrancy of Indian democracy? I agree with that, but it was people from outside who gave me most support. In Bastar itself, people did not rise. They are trapped between police which calls them Naxals and Naxals who call them informers. We have to break that cycle.

Till that is broken, Bastar will not be completely free. This August 15th, Yadav says he will unfurl the flag - as he laughs with his daughter, as they playfully bond. In the chains, he finds freedom when he can.
India is capable of thwarting any challenge to its security, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday, praising the countrys security forces for sacrificing their lives to protect this land.

Modi made the comments in his Independence Day speech that he delivered from the ramparts of the Red Fort. The PM also brought up last years surgical strikes which, he said, made the entire world acknowledge our power.

His remarks come against the backdrop of a tense stand-off with China near Sikkim and heightened hostilities with Pakistan along the Line of Control in Kashmir.

Indias security, our internal security is the top priority of our government. We are capable to thwart any challenges, the PM said, while also referring to terrorism.

The PM spoke mostly about the achievements of his government in the last three years and his concept of New India.

While talks have almost collapsed with Pakistan after a series of terror attacks on Indian soil, India and China are locked in a border standoff at Doklam for more than two months.

His reference to the cross-border raids in September, when Indian forces destroyed multiple launch pads from where Pakistani militants are pushed into the county, drew cheers and applause from the audience.

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U.S. President Donald Trump denounced neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan as criminals and thugs on Monday, bowing to mounting political pressure to condemn such groups explicitly after a white-nationalist rally turned deadly in Virginia.

Trump had been assailed from across the political spectrum for failing to respond more forcefully to Saturday's violence in Charlottesville. The head Merck & Co Inc, one of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies, quit a presidential business panel as a result, saying he was taking a stand against intolerance and extremism.

The chief executives of two other prominent companies - sportswear manufacturer Under Armour and semiconductor chip maker Intel Corp - followed suit hours later.

Critics denounced Trump for waiting too long to address the bloodshed, and for initially faulting hatred and violence "on many sides," rather than singling out the white supremacists widely seen as instigating the melee.

Democrats said Trump's reaction belied a reluctance to alienate white nationalists and "alt-right" political activists who occupy a loyal segment of Trump's political base. Several senators from his own Republican Party had harsh words for him.

Some 48 hours into the biggest domestic challenge of his young presidency, Trump tried to correct course.

"Racism is evil, and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans," the president said in a statement to reporters at the White House on Monday.

"We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence," he said.

A 20-year-old man said to have harbored Nazi sympathies was arrested on charges of plowing his car into protesters opposing the white nationalists, killing 32-year-old paralegal Heather Heyer and injuring 19 people. The accused, James Fields, was denied bail at a court hearing on Monday.

Several others were arrested in connection with street brawls during the day that left another 15 people injured. And two airborne state troopers involved in crowd control were killed when their helicopter crashed.

Saturday's disturbances erupted after white nationalists converged in Charlottesville, home of the University of Virginia's flagship campus, to protest plans for removing a statue of General Robert E. Lee, commander of the pro-slavery Confederate army of the U.S. Civil War.

Trump's belated denunciation of white supremacists by name was welcomed by Heyer's mother, Susan Bro, who thanked the president for what she called "those words of comfort and for denouncing those who promote violence and hatred."

But not everyone was mollified.

"I wish that he would have said those same words on Saturday," responded Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia on MSNBC. "I'm disappointed it took him a couple of days."

A group of community leaders meeting in Charlottesville likewise said they were unimpressed by Trump's latest message.

Why did it take criticism from his Republican buddies to move him ... to adjust the moral compass that he does not possess? said Don Gathers, who serves as chairman for the citys commission on monuments and memorials.

Trump lashed out at his critics late on Monday on Twitter: "Made additional remarks on Charlottesville and realize once again that the #Fake News Media will never be satisfied...truly bad people!"

REBUKES FROM BUSINESS

Trump's revised statement on Charlottesville, following a day of silence despite a rising chorus of outrage over the violence, came after the chief executive of Merck & Co Inc delivered one of the more noteworthy rebukes of the president.

Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier, who is black, resigned from Trump's American Manufacturing Council, saying expressions of hatred and bigotry must be rejected.

Trump quickly hit back on Twitter, but made no reference to Frazier's reasons for quitting the panel, instead revisiting a longstanding gripe about expensive medicines. Frazier would have more time to focus on lowering "ripoff" drug prices, Trump tweeted.

Frazier's resignation was followed hours later by two other members of the business panel quitting in protest, Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank and Intel chief Brian Krzanich.

"I resigned to call attention to the serious harm our divided political climate is causing to critical issues, including the serious need to address the decline of American manufacturing," Krzanich wrote in a blog post.

The AFL-CIO organized labor federation that represents 12.5 million workers said it, too, was considering pulling its representative from the committee.

The jarring images of violence from Charlottesville and the heated public debate over racism resonated around the world, particularly in Europe where leaders are contending with a wave of xenophobia.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told broadcaster Phoenix on Monday that clear and forceful action must be taken to counter right-wing extremism, and that "we have quite a lot to do at home ourselves."

About 130 people demonstrated outside the U.S. Embassy in London, some with placards reading "Fascism is not to be debated, it is to be smashed," and "I am an ashamed American."

The United Nations said there must be no place in today's societies for the violent racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia and discrimination on display in Charlottesville.

About 500 protesters assembled in front of the White House for a "Reject White Supremacy" rally, then marched to Trump's hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue nearby. In Manhattan, thousands of demonstrators stood outside Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue shouting "No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA."

In Durham, North Carolina, a crowd of demonstrators stormed the site of a Confederate monument outside a court and toppled the bronze statue from its base. Television news footage showed protesters taking turns stomping and kicking the fallen statue as dozens cheered.

Hundreds of miles to the north, a Holocaust memorial in Boston was vandalized, but police said they quickly arrested a 17-year-old boy who was grabbed by onlookers who saw him shatter one of the monument's glass panels with a rock.

Asked on Monday whether one side was more responsible for the violence than another in Charlottesville, Police Chief Al Thomas said: "This was an alt-right rally" - using the term that has become a banner for various far-right ideologies that includes neo-Nazis, white supremacists and anti-Semites.

Fields appeared in a Charlottesville court on Monday by video link from the jail where he was being held on a second-degree murder charge, three counts of malicious wounding and a single count of leaving the scene of a fatal accident. His next court date was set for Aug. 25.

Several students who attended high school with Fields in Kentucky described him as an angry young man who passionately espoused white supremacist ideology.

The U.S. Justice Department was pressing its own federal investigation of the incident as a hate crime.

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Indian troops on Tuesday foiled two incursion bids by the Chinese in Jammu and Kashmirs Ladakh region but not before stones were thrown and soldiers injured on both sides as India celebrated 70 years of Independence.

The clash near the Pangong Lake, which divides Indian and Chinese territory, comes at a time when the two neighbours are in a standoff thousands of miles away in the disputed Doklam plateau close to Sikkim on Indias northeastern border. The two-month-old row has soured ties between the two sides, with China accusing India of trespass.

Indian and Chinese troops came face to face at two places in Finger Four and Finger Five areas near Pangong Lake in Ladakh region, a government source said.

Finger Four is almost 5km into Indian territory from the line of actual control (LAC), manned by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police.

When Indian troops told the Chinese to retreat, words were exchanged and then a scuffle broke out. Stones were thrown at each other, resulting in injuries to troops from both sides after which finally the Chinese forces retreated, the source said.

The nature of injuries and number of soldiers involved could not be confirmed. The troops disengaged after an hour and the Chinese patrol went back, sources said.

The incursion bids were made between 6am and 9am.

The ITBP was not available for comments and the army refused to speak on the clash.

The LAC, or the unmarked border, divides Indian and Chinese territories where the boundaries are not clearly defined.

The Pangong area is prone to such face-offs as two-thirds of the lake is under Chinese control. Normally things are brought under control after showing banners to the Chinese side, telling them they are in Indian territory. There, however, have been occasions when the Chinese refused to leave, leading to an impasse, sources said.

Difference of perception over the territory leads to around 400 such skirmishes every year from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh.

If this has indeed happened in Pangong Tso, it is a fallout of the Doklam standoff, former northern army commander lieutenant general BS Jaswal said.

The best way forward for China would be to not get into a kinetic option or war but to create pressure, it could try and occupy vulnerable and disputed areas, Jaswal said.

The Indian Army has moved soldiers and equipment along the eastern sector to fortify its defences amid the Doklam standoff. China skipped the customary border personnel meeting to mark Indias Independence Day.

The army has reworked the schedule of Operation Alert, a two-week training exercise conducted by Siliguri-based HQs 33 Corps that involves familiarising troops with the areas they may be required to operate in.

Scheduled for early October, the exercise kicked off in the eastern sector in early August.

Sources in the army have rubbished reports in the Chinese media that it ordered the evacuation of a frontier Sikkim village near Doklam, which is claimed by both Beijing and Bhutan.

The Chinese, which accused India of preventing it soldiers from building a road, have taken an aggressive stand and even warned of a war.

Bhutan and India maintain that Doklam, or Donglang as the Chinese call it, is a Bhutanese territory. The road, if built, would have serious implications for Indias security, says New Delhi.

There was more neighbour trouble for India as Pakistani troops violated ceasefire, targeting two places along the line of control in Uri sector of Jammu and Kashmir, injuring a woman.
The six-year-old daughter of slain CRPF Commandant Pramod Kumar and his wife on Tuesday unfurled the tricolour from the same battalion camp in Srinagar, where exactly a year ago he hoisted the flag and was killed minutes later in an encounter with militants.

Kumars wife Neha Tripathy and daughter Aarna performed the ceremonial unfurling and saluting the flag at the 49th battalion camp in the Karan Nagar area.

Tripathy then performed the traditional drill of distributing sweets to the men of the battalion, once commanded by her husband. She also placed a wreath at the martyrs memorial built at the camp.

Kumar (44) on Monday decorated by the government with the Kirti Chakra (posthumously), the third highest peacetime gallantry medal, for his dare devil action where he picked up his AK-47 rifle and rushed to the Nowhatta Chowk area after he was told his patrol party was under attack, during the last Independence Day.

He suffered a fatal bullet shot in his head during the encounter at Nowhatta Chowk area and succumbed soon after.

Kumars wife had on Monday told PTI that she wanted her daughter to know what her father did for the country and hence decided to mark his first death anniversary at the same camp where he took his last salute.

Martyred CRPF Commandant Pramod Kumar's wife Neha Tripathi unfurling the tri-colour. (PTI)

I want my daughter to know what her father stood for and what he did. She should know that what is the importance of earning a Kirti Chakra. Hence, I made it a point to be on the same soil where my husband lost his life, to mark his first death anniversary.

As he unfurled the tricolour at the 49th battalion camp exactly a year before, we will be doing it tomorrow, she had said.

On the last Independence Day, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) CO had hoisted the flag between 8:30-8:40am and in his speech remarked that with India clocking 70 years of its freedom, the responsibility on security forces has increased and they have to effectively tackle militants and incidents of stone pelting in Jammu and Kashmir.

Just before he ended his speech, Kumar, in a recorded video of the event, is seen looking at his watch and saying it is an important day, unaware of the fate that awaited him.

Minutes later he was killed at the Nowhatta Chowk fighting militants.

While Kumar and his men eliminated the two armed foreign militants, nine other personnel, including a state police official, were injured in the attack.

The CO was posted to Srinagar in April 2014 and was promoted as a Commandant only a few days before the fateful day, on July 12.

He hailed from Patna in Bihar but lived in neighbouring Jharkhands Jamtara district.

The officer had been thrice decorated with the CRPF Director Generals commendation in 2015, 2014 and in 2011.

He had also served in the Special Protection Group (SPG) for three years.

The officer joined the force in 1998.
When two Muslim men were stabbed, allegedly by miscreants belonging to a pro-Hindutva group in late May in a small town in the Dakshina Kannada district in Karnataka, it set off a wave of violence that is now a painfully routine pattern here.

In fact, ban orders in parts of this coastal district, in force for nearly a month, was lifted only on June 25, 2017. The district, bordered by the Western Ghats to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west, has been a tinderbox for communal clashes over the last three to four decades. Going by retaliatory rounds of violence here, its not particularly different from neighbouring Keralas Kannur, notorious for vicious political attacks and murders.

This time round, the town of Kalladka in Bantwal taluk of Dakshin Kannada was the epicenter of the attacks. Prohibitory orders under Section 144 CrPC were imposed there on May 27, 2017, a day after two men were attacked on their way back from Ramzan-eve prayers. The target, Mohammed Hashir (18), sustained grave injuries but survived. The alleged perpetrators were three young men, Mithun, Amit and Yathin, who were out on bail after being arrested in connection with a dacoity case in Sajipamunnur. Then, on June 20, two Muslim youths narrowly escaped an attack at Thumbay near Bantwal town when five men chased and attempted to hack them.

The next day, Ashraf Kalai, an autorickshaw driver and a Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) activist, was hacked to death by a group of assailants in Bantwal even as the ban order was in force. Bantwal town is just six km from Kalladka. Nine persons have been arrested so far for the murder.

And, sure enough, on July 4, Sharath Madiwala (28), a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) worker who ran a laundry, was stabbed as he closed shop for the day in what was widely assumed to be revenge for Kalais murder. He died on July 7 and the funeral procession, held under tight security even as a ban order was clamped, saw stones being pelted.

Intelligence agencies had reportedly warned that attacks around Ramzan would soon escalate into communal tensions in Dakshina Kannada, which is perceived to be the Sangh Parivars communal laboratory. Not that this is new. In a 100-km radius of Mangalore, there have been similar incidents every year since 1998. That year, the region saw communal riots in Surathkal, an hour away from Kalladka. Those clashes, in which eight people died, supposedly started when a Hindu girl was found talking to a Muslim boy.

In the following years Assembly election, though the SM Krishna-led Congress won, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) increased its vote share from 16% (in 1994) to 20% with 44 seats.

In 2001, a Muslim bus driver was murdered in Katipalla, 5 km from Surathkal. The following days saw teargassing, caning and further assaults on protestors. In 2002, absurd rumours of Muslims spreading AIDS through pinpricks triggered mob attacks, looting and arson of Muslim homes in Asodu in Udupi district. In 2003, news that a group of young Hindus and Muslims were watching a movie together in Puttur ended in rioting and a three-day ban order. The following years were marked by vigilantes attacking cattle traders as well as friends and lovers from different religions hanging out together.

This year, on July 10, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, after meeting with top police officers in Bengaluru regarding security arrangements in Dakshina Kannada, called the district a laboratory of communalism. On their part, former Karnataka chief minister BS Yeddyurappa and former cabinet minister Shobha Karandlaje, among others, declared that Dakshina Kannada is in the grip of a jihadi mafia.

How did Dakshina Kannada get here?

So how did this district, with very high literacy and prosperity, get here? Muneer Katipalla, state unit president of Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), who has lived most of his life here, believes it began in 1992 when the Babri Masjid was razed to the ground by Sangh Parivar activists.

Today, there is a widespread fear among Hindus about Muslims and vice versa. The police have been unable to control the situation. They [oblige] politicians who back the Hindutva agenda. For almost three decades, the BJP has [gained politically] thanks to the divisive agenda. Similarly, Muslims are also being misled in the name of community. Some of us, who are trying to build bridges, are watching our efforts crumble to nothing, he told HT.

Long history

But the history of communal clashes here may date even further back. Old-timers remember the murder of Ismail, a Congress leader, way back in 1971 in Kalladka, leading to the arrest of some people, now known as Parivar activists.

A former government official, who did not want to be named, accused successive Congress and JD(S) governments of failing to providing a sense of security. After Ismails murder, Dakshina Kannada went up in flames every now and then but governments did little to contain it. If they had tried forging better bonds [between communities], things wouldnt have been so bad. We provide a reason for Hindus to vote for their leaders and Muslims to vote for theirs. There is no goal such as development or job creation here, he lamented.

Dinesh Amin Mattu, the chief ministers media advisor, who has worked extensively in Dakshina Kannada for nearly two decades as a journalist, disagrees. The problem is of identity and intercultural exchange. People there are very enterprising, yet vulnerable for sociocultural reasons -- and not economic distress -- unlike other places where communal clashes happen, he says.

The district has two revenue subdivisions: Mangalore (comprising Mangalore, Bantwal, Moodabidri, Mulki and Vitla) and Puttur (comprising Puttur, Belthangady, Sullia and Kadaba). In 2016, Dakshina Kannada had a per capita income of Rs 2,18,580, second only to Bangalore urban district (Rs 2,71,387). Its prosperity has grown with money sent by NRIs, mainly in the Gulf countries, energising local businesses. The district is home to a large number of educational institutions and opportunities are plenty.

Who gets the votes?

Ever since the recent troubles began, BJP leaders Yeddyurappa, Shobba Karandlaje, member of Parliament Nalin Kumar Kateel and former CM Sadananda Gowda have been making a beeline for Kalladka. Even as they accused the state government of failure on the law and order front, both Yeddyurappa and his confidante Karandlaje met with representatives of Hindu organizations, including RSS national committee member Kalladka Prabhakar Bhat and fiercely defended the polarising figure.

Bhat, 73, popularly referred to as the Bal Thackeray of Dakshina Kannada, emerged from the RSS ranks about three decades ago and is today its Dakshin Madhya Kshetriya Sampark Pramukh. A report in the Hindustan Times called this powerful RSS leader the architect of the first BJP government [in Karnataka], and that detractors say he is the reason coastal Karnataka has seen an upsurge in communal violence since the 1970s.

For instance, in a 2009 interview when Dakshina Kannada witnessed a spate of attacks on churches, the defiant Bhat said that Church attacks have strengthened BJP. His Hindutva clout dates as far back as 1992, when he was supposedly at the centre of protests after the 1992 Babri Masjid demolition.

In 2015, after Bhat delivered a speech in Puttur, Asharf Kalai of Popular Front of India (and Social Democratic Party of India) lodged a case against him for making inflammatory speeches against Muslims and Christians. The police also filed an FIR against him for making inflammatory speeches and a summon was issued, but it was subsequently stayed by a local court indefinitely. Its worth noting that this same Ashraf Kalai was murdered in June this year.

And Bhats Bajrang Dal associate, Bharat Kumedlu, is allegedly the prime accused in the Kalai murder and has been named in the FIR.

Bhat rubbishes these allegation, claiming that the communal clashes are funded from neighbouring Kerala. Muslims get easy money and have access to radical ideology from their Kerala factions. Hindus are not the initiators of these clashes. Our people have been hitherto silent; now they have realised they have to defend themselves as no law or police is out to protect them, he told HT.

B Ramanath Rai, the Congress minister elected from Bantwal constituency, refuted Bhats charge, Our officers are doing their best. This is something the BJP has nurtured in the district.

Though there is great pressure from Congress MLAs on the police to name Bhat as the instigator of the Kalladka violence, the police have so far not been able to establish this.

There is also speculation in political circles that the latest round of violence is less about party strategy and more about Bhat wanting to move up the ladder by displacing BL Santhosh, former RSS functionary and now BJP organising secretary, who handles more responsibility and commands more respect.

At a July 13 BJP protest meet in Mangaluru, Yeddyurappa openly dared chief minister Siddaramaiah to arrest Bhat, warning that Karnataka would burn if they did so. For good measure, Karandlaje sent a list of 25 Hindus purportedly killed in various clashes in the region in the last few years to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh. Incidentally, the list included the names of those alive, some who had committed suicide, some killed in family feuds, and some who had died of natural causes. The list also annoyed Parivar activists for some omissions also.

Minister Rai blames the BJP for the violence, accusing it of whipping up frenzy in the run up to next years assembly polls. He sees it as a diversionary tactic as the BJP does not have a convincing development agenda.

The septuagenarian Bhat disagrees. No one wants any trouble with Muslims. They may not accept this, but they are our brothers and sisters from past centuries. They are originally Hindus who converted. We do not want any trouble with them.

If no one wanted trouble, where does the problem lie? Police have done little to contain the situation. For many years, Muslims have engaged in anti-Hindu activities like stealing cattle or stealing our women in the guise of having genuine relationships with them. Love jihad is a reality, though some people may not want to accept it. Police are always on their toes to arrest Hindu boys, but they never touch Muslim youths for the fear of a communal riot, adds Bhat.

BJP politician CT Ravi, MLA from Chikmagalur and an RSS loyalist, blamed the violence on those trying to promote victimhood. True Muslims dont indulge in violence but Dakshina Kannada is a different ball game. The Hindus, after having been silent, are now in a reactionary mode as a form of self-defence. How do they defend themselves if they arent given attention and security to restore harmony?

The police say communal riots are now a well-entrenched pattern in the region. A top official who has served here said locals know and recognise the usual chain of events. This is not a law-and-order situation alone. Both political parties have a role in this, he said without elaborating further.

Gujarat model

In the last decade there has been a lot of talk of the BJP using the Gujarat model in Karnataka, and this has coincided with a steady rise in communal incidents in Dakshina Kannada, says A Narayana, political analyst, governance expert and professor at Azim Premji University.

A decade ago, the BJP vote share rose steadily in the Assembly elections from 20.69% in 1999 to 28.33% in 2004 and then 33.86% in 2008. More recently, according to police sources, 173 incidents of moral policing were registered in the year ahead of the 2014 general elections.

It was a poor show for the BJP in the last set of elections for one parliamentary and eight Assembly seats in the region. While seven of the eight assembly seats were won by the Congress, the BJP had to contend with Nalin Kumar Kateel winning the Lok Sabha seat and Angara S as MLA from Sullia. The Congress even wrested three seats from the BJP. Political pundits were quick to describe this as a defeat of intolerance. But recurring law-and-order problems could well change the fortunes of the political players ahead of next years assembly elections.

Other observers too see the rising violence as a pre-poll phenomenon. Professor Narayana says Kalladka is just the tip of the iceberg. As of now, communalism is what BJP is riding on. They have realised its not a cakewalk with elections. Unless the national heads decide on a solid approach, this will be seen as the only way to make some noise.

(Published in arrangement with GRIST Media)
Actor Kamal Haasan fired a fresh salvo at the ruling AIADMK in Tamil Nadu on Tuesday virtually calling for chief minister K Palaniswamis resignation over alleged corruption.

In a series of tweets, he also invited people who are brave enough to take a vow for a new freedom struggle, apparently against corruption.

If one states CM should resign for a mishap & corruption under his govt. How come no party calls for resignation in TN. Enough crimes done, Haasan said without naming anyone.

He was apparently referring to the demands by the Congress for the resignation of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath over the deaths of more than 60 children in a government-run hospital in Gorakhpur.

The national award winning actor-director has been critical of the AIADMK of late, alleging corruption in its government, drawing the ire of ministers.

Palaniswami and his cabinet colleagues had hit out at the actor for his remarks and dared him to substantiate his charges following which he had asked his fans to lodge complaints about corruption through social media.

While Palaniswami had asked Haasan to join politics to elicit response from the government, several of his ministerial colleagues had hit out at the actor asking among other things what his contribution was to the society.

Haasan also said unless there was independence from corruption we are all slaves.

Those who are brave enough to take a vow for a new freedom struggle, come we will win, he said.

The Vishwaroopam star said his aim was for a better Tamil Nadu and described both DMK, AIADMK and parties as tools, saying other options should be found if such tools become blunt.

My aim is a better Tamil Nadu. Who dares to strengthen my voice? DMK AIADMK & parties R tools to help. If those tools R blunt find others, he said.

Haasan had recently shared the dais with DMK working president MK Stalin at a function organised by the party in Chennai.
Sitting alone in his house in Keralas Kollams district, 26-year-old Shefin Jahan has pinned all his hopes on the Supreme Court that will take up on Wednesday his plea challenging the Kerala High Courts verdict annulling his marriage with Akhila Ashokan alias Hadiya.

The case hit national headlines after the Supreme Court directed the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to study the Kerala police report on Hadiyas conversion and subsequent allegations of love jihad and submit a report.

While annulling their marriage a division bench of the High Court had also made serious observations that a high-level probe was needed to find out whether there was an organised syndicate behind love jihad and their suspected role in recruiting youth for the ISIS.

It is a serious rights violation. Both are adults and married with consent. I am expecting a favourable decision from the highest court of the country, said Jahan, a Gulf returnee. He claims the police and Hadiyas parents dragged various theories, including the disappearance of 21 youth from the state, to get the verdict in their favour.

He said Hadiyas father KM Ashokan (an ex-serviceman) had given an affidavit before the court saying that Jahan was a member of a fundamentalist outfit and involved in three criminal cases.

Though I was a member of the Popular Front of India, I am not active now. There is only a single case and that too relates to campus politics, he claims, alleging that an attempt was made to turn it into a terror-related case.

Two other criminal cases involving a person bearing my name were added to my case. It was a mistake on the part of the police. I have collected all details and sent them to my counsel. I hope our conjugal rights will be restored soon, he said, adding the disappearance of youth from the state triggered knee-jerk reactions from many quarters. His counsel had opposed the move to entrust the case to NIA inviting criticism from the apex court.

After the high court annulled their marriage on May 24, Hadiya, a homeopathy doctor, was sent to her fathers house. She is under house arrest. I sent her three letters but they were returned saying recipient was not willing to accept them. I heard she is still practising Islam and was being pressurized to re-convert, he said.

Jahan claimed that he met Hadiya through a Muslim matrimony site in August last year and they married in December. Later, her father moved a habeas corpus petition and she was subsequently sent to a hostel in Kochi till the court took a final decision.

Hadiyas father had contended that his only daughter was indoctrinated while pursuing her studies with the intention of sending her to Syria. He claimed that once she told him that she would like to lead a life in desert rearing sheep.

When contacted by HT, Hadiyas father said he would comment only after the highest court gave its verdict.

Meanwhile, a senior police officer of Kottayam said police were providing round the clock security to Ashokan It is a very sensitive case. There are more unanswered questions and links than meets the eye. We have given all the details to the NIA, he said.

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The Pakistan government has begun consultations on nominating an ad-hoc judge to the panel of the International Court of Justice hearing the Kulbhushan Jadhav case, according to a media report.

Government functionaries are considering several candidates for nomination as the ad-hoc judge, including former chief justice Tassaduq Hussain Jilani and former Jordanian premier Awn Shawkat Al-Khasawneh, The Express Tribune reported.

During the tenure of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, former Supreme Court judge Khalilur Rehman Ramday was approached for the position but he declined the nomination.

The attorney general for Pakistans office has now recommended the names of senior lawyer Makhdoom Ali Khan, Jilani and Al-Khasawneh to the Prime Ministers Secretariat for the nomination of the ad-hoc judge.

Khan, who is seen as the favourite for the job, has experience in international arbitration cases as he has represented eight countries in international courts. Al-Khasawneh served as an ICJ judge for more than a decade,

Only one person has previously been appointed as an ICJ judge in Pakistans history  former foreign minister Zafarullah Khan, who was appointed in 1954 and later became president of the court.

Leading lawyers Yaqub Ali Khan and Sharifuddin Pirzada served as ad-hoc judges, as did Zafarullah Khan.

The nomination of the ad-hoc judge will be finalised after getting inputs from the Foreign Office and the military establishment, the report said.

Pakistan began considering the appointment of an ad hoc judge because an Indian judge is part of the 12-member tribunal hearing Jadhavs case.

Dalveer Bhandari, a former Supreme Court judge, is part of the panel that directed Pakistan in May to stay the execution of Jadhav, a 46-year-old former Indian Navy officer sentenced to death by a military court for alleged involvement in espionage and terrorism.

Article 31 of the ICJs statute states that if the panel includes a judge of the nationality of one of the parties, (the other) party may choose a person to sit as judge. An ad hoc judge can also be chosen if the panel includes no judge of the nationality of the parties.

The ICJ has ordered Pakistan not to execute Jadhav till it gives a final decision on Indias petition to annul his death sentence.

Pakistan says Jadhav was arrested in March last year in the restive Balochistan province. After he was sentenced to death in April this year, India contended he was kidnapped from the Iranian port of Chabahar and his secret trial was a farce.
CPI(M) on Tuesday strongly condemned Doordarshans alleged refusal to broadcast a pre-recorded Independence Day speech of Tripura chief minister Manik Sarkar after he refused to change parts of the message that Prasar Bharati found inappropriate for the occasion.

Doordarshan withheld the speech having references to gau raksha and attacks on minorities, but aired a live speech of the chief minister given at the Independence Day ceremony held at the Assam Rifles ground in state capital Agartala on Tuesday morning which the CPI(M) claimed was packed in the news bulletin.

Like every year, DD and All India Radio had sought permission for recording the chief ministers message. The speech was recorded at the secretariat on August 12, and was to be broadcast on August 14 evening.

But the Agartala centre of DD on Monday said it would not be able to telecast the pre-recorded message because Prasar Bharati, the autonomous body that governs DD and AIR, found it inapt for I-Day.

Following Prasar Bharatis order, DD sought some changes in the speech for it to be telecast. AIR too was in a dilemma whether or not to air Sarkars pre-recorded speech without changes.

Sarkar refused to change the content of his message and condemned the broadcasting agencys decision as undemocratic and intolerable.

In the pre-recorded speech, Sarkar said that a conspiracy was going on to create a division by trying to transform India into a state believing in a particular religion and spreading message of gau raksha.

He also said the minority and Dalit communities were being attacked and denied security, and the Centres anti-people policy was affecting peace and tranquillity. Unemployment, poverty are prevailing while the government is not taking any step to change the economic policy of the corporate.

Condemning the action, the CPI(M) took to Twitter to vent anger. Doordarshan refuses to broadcast Tripura CM Manik Sarkars speech. Is this the cooperative federalism that PM Modi talks about? Shame!

Doordarshan Refuses to Broadcast Tripura CM Manik Sarkar's Speech. Is this the Cooperative Federalism that PM Modi Talks About? Shame! pic.twitter.com/euuhRd18zc  CPI (M) (@cpimspeak) August 15, 2017

DDs Agartala centre station director, Shankar Prasad Mondal, however, refuted the allegation and said the chief ministers programme was aired Tuesday evening at 6.15 pm.

The centre everyday broadcasts Bengali news from 6:15 to 6:30 pm.

CPI(M) leaders said DD only packed in parts of Sarkars live speech given at the Assam Rifles ground, in their news bulletin, and not the pre-recorded speech.

The CPI(M) politburo in a statement, condemned the censorship of the CMs Independence Day speech, and demanded stern action against those responsible for preventing the broadcasting of the speech.

CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said Doordarshan was not the private property of the BJP-RSS and accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of instructing his cronies to black out voices of the Opposition, including that of an elected chief minister.

Tagging the tweet, he hit out at the central government saying the channels alleged refusal to air Sarkars speech was illegal.

Doordarshan is not the private property of the BJP or the RSS. Its refusal to broadcast Tripura CM's speech is undemocratic and illegal. https://t.co/mGnbn4gMOP  Sitaram Yechury (@SitaramYechury) August 15, 2017

PM can pay homilies to cooperative federalism while instructing his cronies to black out voices of the Opposition, including an elected CM.  Sitaram Yechury (@SitaramYechury) August 15, 2017

If this isn't authoritarianism & undeclared Emergency, what is? This will be fought back by the CPM, people of Tripura and all our citizens.  Sitaram Yechury (@SitaramYechury) August 15, 2017

The thrust of Sarkars I-Day speech was on protecting communal harmony and peace in the state. Unity in diversity is the spirit of this country and we must ensure freedom of all communities irrespective of caste and creed.

He also lauded the Left Front government for successfully eradicating insurgency and paving the way for development with peoples cooperation.

(With PTI inputs)
Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti is hopeful that the Supreme Court will uphold the special status of the state and reject any attempt to abrogate Article 35 A of the Constitution.

In her Independence Day speech at Bakhshi Stadium in Srinagar, she criticised elements in India who have approached Supreme Court challenging Article 35 A which gives special privileges to residents of Jammu and Kashmir.

The state is crown of India it should remain the crown. Like in the state there are people who want to take us back to pre-independence era, in the country also there are elements who want to create trouble and take us even back to 1947,  she said.

Expressing faith in the apex court, Mehbooba said, I have faith in the Supreme Court of India that whenever attempts were made to target the special status of the state, the apex court upheld Kashmirs status. I am sure like in the last 70 years they will reject the plea this time as well.

While stopping short of threatening agitation on the issue, the chief minister, however, said that the political parties in Kashmir are united on the issue.

When it comes to the state we (political parties ) are united. The fight for winning elections is different but we will all unite in case there are any such attempts, she said.

Mehbooba Mufti reiterated that she has got assurance from the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi when she called on him last week. He listened to me like a father and guided me and gave me assurances am sure he will continue to do the same, she said.

But she did not disclose what the assurances were. Opposition parties had also demanded that she specifies the PMs assurances.

In the beginning of her speech Mehbooba Mufti had said that both New Delhi and Kashmir have to work so that mistakes of the past are not repeated. Kashmir which is recovering from a bloody unrest of 2016 when more than 100 people lost their lives has another crisis simmering.

Mehbooba again batted for restoring differences with Pakistan through dialogue.

Political parties both mainstream and separatist have warned of an unheard off agitation staring the valley in the face if the Article 35 A is abrogated.

Article 35A empowers the Jammu and Kashmir legislature to define permanent residents of the state and confer special rights and privileges on those. The article also bars non-residents of the state to buy any property in the state and also does not allow them to get state government jobs.

Later this month, the Supreme Court will hear a petition filed by Delhi-based NGO We the Citizens demanding the article be repealed. The writ petition was filed in 2014.

An impromptu visit by Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti to the residence of senior National Conference leader and arch rival Farooq Abdullah on August 8 was a seen as a signal that mainstream political parties were ready to forget political differences in case the special status is harmed.

On Monday, National Conference working president Omar Abdullah put the BJP in his line of fire, accusing it of taking legal recourse via an NGO to abolish Article 35 A.

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Senior AIADMK (Amma) leader Tamil Nadu minister KA Sengottaiyan said on Tuesday the much anticipated merger of the two factions of the ruling party will happen soon.

There is a chance of the two factions led by O Panneerselvam and chief minister (K Palaniswami) merging soon. You can expect that soon, he said in Chennai.

Asked if Panneerselvam factionss demands have been met, the education minister said discussions were going on in that regard and that it cannot be revealed.

The Panneerselvam-led Puratchi Thalaivi Amma faction had set as preconditions for talks with the Amma camp  a probe into the death of late chief minister J Jayalalithaa, besides removal of jailed AIADMK chief VK Sasikala and her family members from the AIADMK.

Sengottaiyan also denied the BJP playing a key role in the merger, saying that the saffron party had only indicated that it wanted continuance of the Amma government following the unification process.

Discussions are on over the merger and a good decision will be taken soon, he said.

The two factions will unite. There need not be any apprehension, the education minister added.
Prosecution of tax cheats more than doubled in the three years since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took over, and more and more suspected evaders are paying up instead of resorting to long-drawn court battles, official figures show.

The numbers reflect the governments focus on fighting corruption, a pledge Modi renewed in his Independence Day speech on Tuesday, saying the days of looting the country were over and that black money hoarders had nowhere to hide now.

In a country where prosecution of tax crimes is low and conviction rare, the number of cases filed against tax cheats stood at 2,473 between 2014-15 and 2016-17, up from 1,133 cases filed during the three years before that.

During the same period, more people agreed to pay and settle their tax disputes with the government  a process called compounding. While 1,163 cases were settled in the three years since 2011-12, the number almost trebled to 3,127 between 2013-14 and 2016-17, figures from the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) show.

Tax receipts from the compounding cases of the past three years were still being computed but initial calculations indicated a possible windfall of more than Rs 37,000 crore, a CBDT official told Hindustan Times.

Much of this was because of the Modi governments drive against tax cheats that included a shock decision to scrap 500-and 1000-rupee notes and a new law to unearth unaccounted for cash stashed abroad.

To be sure, work on tightening the screws on tax evaders had begun during the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government itself. The trigger was a list of Swiss bank account holders shared by France in 2011, the same year anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare went on a fast and sparked nationwide protests against graft.

The HSBC list of Swiss accounts held by Indians came in 2011 and the tax department began probing, which led to a spike in raids and prosecution in 2013-14, said MM Joshi, a former CBDT chief.

Thereafter, Modi rode to power, making fighting corruption an election pledge. One of his first moves was to implement a Supreme Court order on setting up a special investigation team (SIT) on black money.

There has been a shift in philosophy in deterring black money and the data for the past three years shows the results, said an official in the finance ministry on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to journalists.

In 2016, the government brought in two income disclosure schemes that gave tax evaders a final chance to come clean or face 85% in penalty and jail in a country where just 3% of the working population pays tax.

On Tuesday, a large part of Modis speech dealt with his governments efforts to end corruption and bureaucratic lethargy and cut red tape.

He said the withdrawal of large currency notes had hauled around Rs3-lakh crore of illegal money into the formal banking system.

More than 300,000 shell companies funded by undeclared finance had also been uncovered through irregular transactions, he said, adding the licences of some 175,000 of the firms were cancelled.

Modi said 1.8 million people had been found whose wealth outstripped their income. Of these, 450,000 had admitted their mistakes.

India is celebrating honesty today, Modi said.

The corrupt have no place to hide anymore.
Kenya's government moved to shut down two rights organisations who said Tuesday they had been contemplating court action over last week's disputed presidential election.

On Tuesday morning, the interior ministry's NGO Board asked police to shut down the Africa Centre for Open Governance (AfriCOG) and arrest its members.

Already late Monday, the NGO Board said it was withdrawing the registration of the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) over alleged irregularities.

KHRC board member Maina Kiai said Tuesday it was "no secret" they had been considering lodging a complaint at the Supreme Court over "inconsistencies" in the election process.

And AfriCOG, which had filed several court petitions challenging the electoral commission ahead of the election, said it was also weighing a complaint over the poll.

"Going to court was one of the options we were discussing with other organisations. But we had not taken a decision yet," said the group's executive director Gladwell Otieno.

According to Kenya's electoral laws, complaints about the election must be submitted to the Supreme Court by Friday.

Raila Odinga, the defeated opposition leader of the National Super Alliance (NASA), has denounced the result of the vote as a fix, but has so far resisted calls to challenge it in the courts.

But civil society organisations can also file legal petitions challenging the results or conduct of the vote.

The interior ministry's NGO Board said it was acting against the KHRC over unpaid taxes, a lack of work permits for foreign staff, and illegal bank accounts.

It had said it had moved against AfriCOG because it was not properly registered as an NGO and was illegally operating as a "charitable organisation".

"These people who may go to court are being de-registered," Kiai said.

"There has been a lot of emphasis across the country urging people to go to court if they have any grievances," he added.

"We have been meeting here... there is no secret about it... there is thinking about whether we should or should not" go to court, he added.

"Once you close off avenues for legal, non-violent peaceful redress, you open up a can of worms, and the state needs to be very clear about what it wants to do."

Odinga has claimed he was the rightful winner and not President Uhuru Kenyatta, and NASA said a major hacking attack manipulated electronic results sent in from polling stations.

The disputed election have already sparked protests that at times turned violent over the weekend, leaving at least 16 people dead and 177 injured.



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Amid rising Indo-Pak hostilities, the nuclear neighbours did not assemble either at any of the posts along the 744 km long Line of Control and 198 km long International Border in Jammu and Kashmir to celebrate their respective Independence days with each other on Monday and Tuesday.

There are no celebrations on August 14 and 15 for obvious reasons at any of the meeting points on the International Border, a top BSF officer said.

He, however, informed that officers and BSF men besides their families marked the 71st Independence Day with fervour and gaiety at various formations.

The main function was held at the BSF headquarters in Paloura here where the forces inspector general Ram Awatar hoisted the tricolour and then mingled with BSF men and their families to celebrate the day.

Similarly, there were no celebrations between Indian army and Pakistani army on the LoC.

Read more: 17-year-old boy injured after shell lying for over a month explodes in J-K

There are no reports of celebrations on Monday and Tuesday as yet with me, said an officer.

During normalcy along the Indo-Pak border, the BSF celebrates national festival with Pakistan Rangers on the international border and Indian Army marks such festivals with Pak Army on the LoC.

Till August 1 this year, Pakistan has violated the ceasefire 285 times along the LoC.

The Pakistani army has also been resorting to indiscriminate fire on civilians since May this year on the LoC, especially in Nowshera sector of Rajouri district.

Indian security forces have eliminated more than 132 terrorists in Kashmir this year so far.

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Three labourers were killed and three others injured when a heap of coal in the stackyard of Dhamra Port in Bhadrak district caved in this afternoon. The death of the labourers triggered a violent protest with several workers torching vehicles and office presmises at the Dhamra port.

Bhadrak district collector Gyana Ranjan Das said the accident occurred when the labourers were covering the heap of coal at the ports stackyard to prevent it from getting wet in rains. Part of the heap containing high quality coking coal imported from Australia caved in burying the labourers underneath. Officials said three bodies have been recovered while three others are being treated at the Bhadrak district hospital.

The Dhamra port is owned and operated by the Adani group.

Soon after the accident, hundreds of labourers went on a rampage and torched the office of the ports security officer as well as several cars. Port CEO Subrat Tripathy too was heckled.

Bhadrak SP Anup Sahoo said the situation at the port was under control after deployment of five platoons of police.

The Adani group in a press release said it followed the highest and strictest standards of health and safety. The safety of our thousands of employees and contractual labourers is Adanis top-most priority and we have a well planned safety training programme for our employees and those of contractors as well. We will investigate this matter fully and find out the exact reasons of this unfortunate accident, said the release.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged a more conciliatory approach towards troubled Kashmir on Tuesday, saying problems can be solved by embracing the people rather than resorting to abuse or bullets. (I-DAY HIGHLIGHTS)

Modis comment as part of his Independence Day speech signals a possible shift in his policy towards Kashmir, where the government has been pursuing a tough line against a surge in street violence that has killed about 100 people over the past year.

I am clear in my belief on how to win the war against separatism, which is spread by a handful of people, Modi said from the ramparts of the 17th century Red Fort.

The problem will be solved neither by abuse nor bullets - it will be solved by embracing all Kashmiris And we are moving forward with this resolve.

In his 57-minute speech, the shortest of his four Independence Day addresses, the Prime Minister also enumerated his governments efforts at fighting corruption, condemned the use of violence in the name of faith, extolled the countrys defence capabilities and outlined his vision of a new India.

The speech was silent on foreign policy with no mention of ties with either Pakistan or China with which New Delhi has been involved in a tense border standoff for almost two months along a disputed stretch in Bhutan. In last years speech, Modi took a veiled dig at Pakistan, mentioning Balochistan and Gilgit where Pakistani military has been accused of using excessive force.

Modis Tuesday speech drew criticism from opposition Congress which termed it as most disappointing and an account of the failure of the government. Party spokesman Anand Sharma also accused Modi of trivialising the recent deaths of more than 60 children in a hospital in Gorakhpur by equating them with natural calamities.

In Kashmir, the speech was welcomed cautiously. Moderate separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said the regions problems could be solved if humanism and justice replaced bullets and abuses.

In a series of tweets, former state chief minister Omar Abdullah said: The proof of the pudding is in the eating. We look forward to being embraced in the warm grip of understanding, acceptance & respect.

PM Modis words for Kashmir have been very well received by people here but everyone here is weary of yet more talk & no concrete action.

Modi also spoke of restoring Kashmir to the paradise that it was but made it clear that his government will not go soft on terrorists.

He also used the occasion to condemn communal and caste-related violence at a time when the country has seen a spike in deadly attacks by self-styled cow protection groups.

Sometimes in the name of faith, some people due to lack of patience end up destroying the social fabric The poison of casteism and communalism can never benefit the country, he said.

Modi used the speech to urge people to embrace a New India where people are not driven by the system, rather the system is driven by the people.

Together we will build such an India which will be free from terrorism, communalism and casteism, he said.

Together we will build such an India where nobody will compromise with corruption and nepotism an India which will be clean and healthy.

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India and the United States will start a new 2-by-2 bilateral dialogue involving the Indian external affairs and defence ministers and their American counterparts to enhance peace and stability across the Indo-Pacific region and elevate strategic consultations.

The announcement came after a phone conversation between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump, who had called to congratulate the Indian leader on the 70th anniversary of Indias Independence. This was their fourth phone conversation since Trumps election last November.

The leaders resolved to enhance peace and stability across the Indo-Pacific region by establishing a new 2-by-2 ministerial dialogue that will elevate their strategic consultations, the White House said in a statement early on Tuesday morning.

The White House also announced the first shipment of American crude oil to India, which, it said will occur from Texas this month, pledging that the United States would continue to be a reliable, long-term supplier of energy.

Modi thanked Trump, the statement further said, for his strong leadership uniting the world against the North Korean menace.

The two ministers in the new 2-by-2 dialogue will be, according to officials who spoke only on background, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and defence minister Arun Jaitley and their American counterparts Rex Tillerson and James Mattis.

No dates were announced for their first meeting or the venue.

This 2-by-2 will replace the earlier 2-by-2 that the external affairs minister and commerce minister had with their American counterparts as part of the strategic and commercial bilateral dialogue, which the countries have been hosting in alternating years.

The two leaders also said they looked forward to the Global Entrepreneurship Summit their countries were hosting jointly in India in November. Trumps daughter and advisor Ivanka Trump is leading the American delegation.
Only love and not bullets or abuse can help resolve the dragging problem in Jammu and Kashmir, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday.

We are committed for the development of Jammu and Kashmir and this is also the resolve of every Indian, the Prime Minister said in his Independence Day speech from the Red Fort here.

Modi said the separatist campaign in the state cannot be resolved by gaali se (abuse) or goli se (bullet) but by embracing every Kashmiri.

But Modi made it clear that there would be no let up while dealing with the separatists.

At the same, he appealed to the terrorists to join the mainstream. You have every right to make your voices heard in Indian democracy.
The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF),which is currently tackling floods in four states of the country, is facing trouble with getting people to evacuate from their homes, a problem which some officials say can prove to be the most challenging to solve.

Officials say there are four major reasons cited by people or families refusing to be evacuated.

The first is the fear of loosing valuables followed by the possibility of their cattle drowning. In some instances, people have been reluctant because in the past, flood forecasts have been proven wrong. This reluctance is commonly seen in people who belong to economically weaker sections.

While NDRF officials maintain that such reluctant people form a very small minority, the situation presents a potential for an increase in causalities in rural India especially because floods are a regular occurrence in several states of the country.

Read more | Picture this: Flooded Assam schools teachers, students salute tricolour

According to an NDRF analysis of Bihar, annual flooding in the state accounts for about 30-40% of the flood damages in India; 22.1% of the total flood affected population in India is reported to be in Bihar.

The analysis adds that 28 districts of the state are classified under the most flood prone and flood prone categories.

The states topography is marked by a number of perennial and non-perennial rivers of which, those originating from Nepal are known to carry high sediment loads that are then deposited on the plains of Bihar.

During the ongoing floods in the state, nearly twenty lakh people have been affected.

The worst-hit districts in the state are Kishanganj, Araria, Purnea Katihar Darbhanga, Madhubani, Sitamarhi, Madhepura, Saharsa, Supaul, East and West Champaran.

But Bihar is not alone in facing the brunt of monsoon floods.This season, NDRF teams have evacuated or rescued more than 28,950 people and provided medical assistance to 3,529 people across Assam, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal and Rajasthan.

A total of 107 NDRF teams have been deployed throughout these states that are witnessing a deluge of rainfall that has left large swathes of land under water. The figure includes teams that have been pre-positioned at 75 locations.

Even this season, a number of instances were recorded where officials had to spend time convincing people to leave their residence and/or belongings ahead of the floods and travel to safer bases. In Assam where 18 NDRF teams are deployed, people in villages of Majoli and Jonai resisted the emergency relief bodys pleas to leave their place of residence. In Bihar, people from villages of Bharathua, Chainpur, Hanuman Nagar and Mahavir Tola have also refused to be evacuated.

A majority of the rainfall in this region is concentrated in the three months of monsoon during which the flow of rivers increases up to 50 times causing floods in Bihar. 68,800 sq km out of a total area of 94,160 sq km  an estimated 73% per cent of the total land area in Bihar  is vulnerable to flooding the NDRF analysis reads.

We have managed the situation but it takes a lot of patience and effort to convince the families to come to safer bases with us, said Krishnan Kumar, PRO, NDRF.

Officials say that the last thing that they want to do is to use force against people.

For people who refuse all our attempts all that we can do is to try to keep a close watch on them, offer medicines and food, an official told Hindustan Times.
Having made a record of delivering the longest Independence Day speech last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered his shortest speech from the ramparts of the historic Red Fort this year.

Modi spoke for 57 minutes, his shortest Independence Day speech in four years.

Last year, he had spoken for 96 minutes, the longest ever Independence Day address by an Indian Prime Minister.

Indias first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru spoke for 72 minutes in 1947 which was till 2015 the longest ever speech from the Red Fort.

In his radio address Mann Ki Baat last month, Modi said he had received letters from people complaining that his Independence Day speeches were a little too long and promised to make a shorter speech.

He spoke for over 65 minutes in 2014 and 86 minutes in 2015.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi address to the nation during Independence Day celebrations at the Red Fort in New Delhi, India, on Tuesday, August 15, 2017. (Raj K Raj/Hindustan Times)

Modis predecessor Manmohan Singh, who delivered 10 speeches over his long tenure at the helm, stuck to the 50- minute mark in his Independence Day speeches.

While he delivered speeches that lasted 50 minutes only on two occasions -- 2005 and 2006, during remaining eight years, his speech ranged from 32 to 45 minutes.

Modis party colleague and the first BJP Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee spoke for 30-35 minutes in his Independence Day addresses.

On August 2002, he delivered a speech that lasted 25 minutes, while in 2003 he gave a 30-minute address from the historic 17th century Mughal monument.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the nation in his Independence Day speech on Tuesday from the ramparts of the Red Fort.

Here are top quotes from the Prime Mininsters speech:



*We are devoting significant attention to eastern India- Bihar, Assam, West Bengal, Odisha, Northeast. These parts have to grow further: PM

*Violence in the name of astha is not something to be happy about, it will not be accepted in India

*India is about Shanti, Ekta and Sadbhavana. Casteism and communalism will not help us

*I want to mention those women who have to suffer due to tripe talaq- I admire their courage. We are with them in their struggles

*We are nurturing our youngsters to be job creators and not job seekers

*There is no question of being soft on terrorism or terrorists

*No bullets or abuses can solve the Kashmir problem, only hugs can do it

*We have to work for the progress of Jammu and Kashmir

*Indias stature in the world is rising. The world is with us in fighting the menace of terror. I thank all nations helping us doing so

*Good governance is about speed and simplification of processes

*GST has shown the spirit of cooperative federalism. The nation has come together to support GST & the role of technology has also helped

*Those who have looted the nation and looted the poor are not able to sleep peacefully today

*Indias security is our priority

*We have to drop this chalta hai attitude. We have to think of badal sakta hai- this attitude will help us as a nation

*January 1, 2018 will not be an ordinary day -- those born in this century will start turning 18. They are Bhagya Vidhatas of our nation

*In our nation, there is no one big or small... everybody is equal. Together we can bring a positive change in the nation

*We have to take the country ahead with the determination of creating a New India

*This is a special year- 75th anniversary of Quit India, 100th anniversary of Champaran Satyagraha, 125th anniversary of Ganesh Utsav

*People of India stand shoulder to shoulder with those affected due to natural disasters and the tragedy in Gorakhpur

*We remember the great women and men who worked hard for Indias freedom
From Lord Ram to Arjuna and Krishna, many Indian mythological heroes found a place in Prime Minister Narendra Modis Independence Day speech at the Red Fort in New Delhi on Tuesday.

Even as he began to speak, Modi noticed children dressed like Bal Gopal (young Krishna) sitting in the audience. He took the opportunity to draw a parallel between Krishna and Mahatma Gandhi, thereby underlining Indias rich heritage and culture. From that Mohan with the Sudarshan chakra to the other Mohan (Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi) with the charkha  everybody has been a part of our culture, the Prime Minister said.

He later interacted with children and took selfies, even as his special protection group (SPG) officers battled to keep the excited crowd of admirers at bay.

Modi said 2017 was a special year because it encompassed many momentous occasions, including the 75th anniversary of the Quit India movement, 100th anniversary of the Champaran Satyagraha and 125th anniversary of the Ganesh Utsav. This is a special year for Independent India, he added.

The Prime Minister cited the advice Arjuna took from Lord Krishna before the Kurukshetra battle to make people pledge to build a new India by 2022  the countrys 75th year of Independence. Krishna told Arjun that nothing can stop him if his faith is strong. Similarly, nothing can stop the people of this country if their faith is strong, he said.

Modi also cited an instance from Lord Krishnas life to demonstrate how every difficulty can be surmounted. Krishna lifted the Govardhan hill this shows how tough challenges can be met, he said.

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On August 14, 1947, British flags were lowered, marking a symbolic end of the empire in India and the birth of a new nation. India Independent: British rule ends - this was the lead headline of Hindustan Times on August 15, 1947. The newspapers edition that day reported about a range of events -- from governors being sworn in to homage to Mahatma Gandhi.

As India celebrates 70 years of independence, we asked our readers to imagine it was August 14, 1947. What headline would they use to break the news of the end of the countrys decades-long campaign against the British rule?

The night of August 14th 1947. You're an editor with HT. How would you break the news of Indian independence? Tweet to @htTweets #IndiaAt70 pic.twitter.com/UXX2gPCE9t  Hindustan Times (@htTweets) August 14, 2017

Editors at HT picked the best five headlines sent in by the readers:

Sunshine of Freedom in the Indian Subcontinent.. #IndiaAt70  Sushobhan Gupta (@sush0914) August 14, 2017

Swaraj Claimed:The freedom of Mother India  Abhinav Kumar (@A_kayThind) August 14, 2017

India independent on the cost of partition #IndiaAt70  Rohan Bafna (@beingRohanBafna) August 14, 2017

Correction: India independent at* the cost of partition

Rebirth of a nation: India free from British rule  Tushar Srivastava (@RockinTush) August 14, 2017

India awakens to Independence  Dr. SHYAM CHATURVEDI (@DrShyamKumarCh1) August 14, 2017
Eight people died in a confrontation between a suspected a criminal gang and security forces in a violent region in southern Venezuela, prosecutors and media said Tuesday.

The incident occurred near the border with Brazil, in the town of El Callao, the prosecutors' office said on Twitter. It said a mixed military and police unit was involved in the confrontation but gave no further details.

The deaths were unrelated to the political violence wracking Venezuela.

According to the newspaper El Universal, the eight killed were part of a criminal gang in the area. They did not have identity documents on them.

El Callao, population 21,000, is known for its gold-related activities. The region has a reputation for lawlessness and violence.

Last year, in the town of Tumeremo 40 kilometers (25 miles) away, a mass grave was found with the bodies of 17 miners who had been shot in the head and chest.

Months later another massacre, of 11 people, was recorded in the same town.

According to prosecutors, there were 21,752 murders in Venezuela last year. Its homicide rate makes it one of the deadliest countries in the world.

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The Swiss Peoples Party (SVP), a populist political party in Switzerland, has opposed automatic exchange of banking information with India and 10 other countries.

The opposition by SVP, which is known as a national- conservative and right-wing populist political party, is in sharp contrast to the official position of the Swiss government which has cited strong Indian data protection laws for agreeing to include India among jurisdictions for the automatic exchange of information (AEOI) on financial matters.

It is one of the largest parties in the Federal Assembly and late last year it had supported a campaign, Yes to protect bank secrecy in Switzerland.

Earlier, some private bank groups in Switzerland had opposed the pact, but the government decided to go ahead with this framework after putting in place necessary data protection and confidentiality clauses.

A draft memorandum has been ratified by the Swiss Federal council for implementing the automatic information exchange framework with India, which is expected to come into force from next year. India has been pressing for long to have such a pact amid a widespread perception about Swiss banks being among the most-favoured for stashing of suspected black money.

In a statement posted on its website after a press conference on the issue, SVP said implementing automatic information exchange pact -- which was signed by Switzerland and India last year under a global framework for fighting the black money menace -- will have serious consequences for foreigners who have protected their assets in Switzerland, as also for Swiss residents abroad.

Without giving any specific reason for opposing the pact with India, the party said it would press against automatic information exchange with 11 countries -- Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Colombia, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates -- in a meeting of the Economic Committee of the National Council.

The party said the pact should not be implemented with the countries with less than 45 points on the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, or those classified as not free on the Freedom House Democracy index.

The Freedom House index classifies India as one of the free democracies with a high score of 77/100, whereas the US has been given a score of 87. Switzerland has 96 points.

India is ranked 79th (out of 176 countries) on the Transparency index with a score of 40/100. Switzerland is ranked 5th with a score of 86 points.

On the Freedom House Democracy index, some of the countries named by SVP are however classified as not free and these include China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and UAE.

Despite constitutional reservations, the State Secretariat for International Financial Matters and the Swiss Federal Department of Finance plans to expand the AEOI network by at least 41 countries and territories. Among them are the authoritarian regimes of China and Russia, as well as countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, it alleged.

The SVP also said the Federal Council and the Swiss Parliament need to take full responsibility for possible reprisals such as expropriation and blackmail of Swiss nationals living abroad and it will closely monitor the developments in this area.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said those who have looted the nation and the poor are now not able to sleep peacefully.

Addressing the nation from the Red Fort on Independence Day, he also said that those who own benami properties were facing difficult times.

Soon after the Benami Act was implemented, the government has seized benami properties worth Rs 800 crore, he said.

He said his government had implemented the demand for One Rank One Pension (OROP) for military personnel after it had been kept pending for 30-40 years.
External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj discussed on Tuesday ways for greater synergy in foreign and defence engagements between India and the US when the American Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called her to convey Independence Day greetings.

In a series of tweets, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said, EAM @SushmaSwaraj had good conversation with US Secretary Tillerson@StateDept today who called to convey greetings for Independence day.

EAM @SushmaSwaraj and Secretary Tillerson discussed newly established 2+2 mechanism to harness synergy in foreign & defence engagements.

Earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and American President Donald Trump agreed to enhance peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region by establishing a new two-by-two ministerial dialogue, which would elevate their strategic consultations, the White House said on Tuesday.

Trump spoke with Modi last night to greet him on the eve of Indias Independence Day.
UN secretary general Antonio Guterres is concerned about Indias plans to deport Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, his spokesperson has said, underlining that refugees should not be returned to countries where they fear persecution once they are registered.

Minister of state for home affairs Kiren Rijiju had told parliament last week that the central government had directed state authorities to identify and deport illegal immigrants, including Rohingyas, who face persecution in the Buddhist- majority Myanmar.

Obviously, we have our concerns about the treatment of refugees. Once refugees are registered, they are not to be returned back to countries where they fear persecution, Guterres deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters here yesterday.

Haq was responding to a question on Indias plans to deport Rohingyas from Myanmar regardless of whether they are registered as UN refugees or not.

Haq said UN principles of non-refoulement applies in this case. According the these principles, no nation shall expel or return a refugee in any manner to territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.

When asked which agency would convey this message to India, Haq said the first point of contact will be through the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Rijiju had said that according to available data, more than 14,000 Rohingyas, registered with the UNHCR, are presently staying in India.

However, some inputs indicate that around 40,000 Rohingyas are staying in India illegally and the Rohingyas are largely located in Jammu, Hyderabad, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi-NCR and Rajasthan, he had said.

The Home Ministry had said that infiltration of (Rohingyas) from the Rakhine state of Myanmar into Indian territory, especially in recent years, besides being a burden on the limited resources of the country, also aggravates security challenges posed to India.
Many madrasas across Uttar Pradesh defied on Tuesday a controversial state government diktat that asked staff and students at the Islamic educational institutions to sing the national anthem and videograph Independence Day celebrations.

In Kanpur, Meerut and Bareilly, three of the biggest madrasa centres in the state, students sang Saare Jahan Se Achha, a 20th century patriotic song penned by the poet Mohammad Iqbal and didnt record proceedings, saying they didnt want to give proof of their patriotism. (Live updates)

Students hoisted the flag and celebrated the occasion with traditional fervour. The government order is an attempt to test our patriotism which is wrong, said Haji Mohd Saleeh, convener of the Sunni Ulema Council.

The controversy was sparked by a circular passed by the Yogi Adityanath government last week that asked the Islamic schools to hoist the Tricolour and sing the national anthem at 8 am. The order, which made photography and videography of the event mandatory, argued that visual proof would help the board in encouraging participants to better their performance in the future.

But many of the states 16,000 madrasas didnt take the order well and many prominent clerics publicly opposed the order. UP has one of the highest proportions of Muslims in the country, nearly a fifth, and just 600 of the madrasas are government aided.

In Bareilly, students at the Manzar-e-Islam  the biggest Barelvi madrasa in the city  hoisted the Tricolour but didnt sing the national anthem. Instead, around 500 students gathered at the open prayer hall to sing Sare jahan se achha. The madrasa authorities also refrained from videography. Mediapersons were not allowed to cover the main event, which lasted for over an hour.

Traditionally, we do not sing the national anthem during Independence Day or Republic Day celebrations. We only followed convention this time, a senior cleric told HT on the condition of anonymity.

The decision to oppose the government order was taken by senior cleric Asjad Miyan, a descendant of 20th century Islamic religious leader Ahmed Raza Barelvi. Ahmed Razas dargah (shrine) in Bareilly is the most revered religious site for members of Sunni Islams Barelvi sect. It manages over a thousand madrasas.

Barelvi clerics justified their decision, alleging the national anthem was written in praise of George V, the then king of England. Singing of the national anthem belittles the struggle of our freedom fighters. Thereby, it has been unanimously decided that such songs will not be sung on Independence Day, they said in a press release.

In Meerut, all madrasas organised Independence Day programme on their premises and hoisted the Tricolour. Teachers and Muslim clerics addressed the students on the sacrifices made by all communities, including Muslims, in Indias freedom struggle.

Mufti Syed Ahmad of madarsa Noor-ul-Islam in old city said, We cannot worship anyone else other than Allah.

In Kanpur too, orders to videograph the event or sing the national anthem werent followed. Haji Mohd Saleeh said the students sang Saare jahan se Accha to show their love towards their country. For us it is also a national song, he said.
Urdu was not only the language of Muslims but of the entire country, former Vice President Hamid Ansari said on Tuesday while asserting that now it was being spoken across the world.

He expressed disappointment that Urdu had become a politicised issue and said, ...an opinion was formed that Urdu belongs to Muslims.

He was speaking at the launch of the Urdu version of online news portal The Wire.

The former Rajya Sabha chairman further said one can easily find Urdu speaking people in south India, in West Bengal and in other parts of the country.

It is the language of the entire country, he said, adding that nowadays there were Urdu speaking people in Canada, the US, Australia and other parts of the world.

When asked if Urdu could also be a means of livelihood, he said no but that did not mean one should not learn it.

He said it was the biggest shortcoming of Urdu but what one can say and describe in the language cannot be done in any other language.
Gorakhpurs Baba Raghav Das Medical College, which tackles encephalitis and meningitis cases every year, has a budget of just Rs 5.32 crore for medicines, according to the state budget figures.

This medical college, which four lakh patients visit every year, has 955 beds out of which 150 have ventilators for emergency care.

The experts at the Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS) say the budget per bed at the Gorakhpur medical college comes to just Rs 152.62 per bed per year.

Professor Devendra Gupta of the SGPGIMS ventilator unit says, Expenditure of around Rs 5,000 to Rs 8,000 per day is incurred on a patient on ventilator support and around Rs 1,000 on an average bed. So, the government must think about increasing the medicine budget.

Dr Harsh Vardhan of SGPGIMS says, There is little wonder that patients have to bring many medicines and surgical items from outside as hospitals dont have the budget for them.

The situation at some other state-run medical colleges is similar.

Can you believe that the Kanpur GSVM medical college has a budget of just Rs 5.28 crore for medicine? This is a pathetic distribution of funds in a state with a population of 22 crore, said Dr PK Gupta, president of Indian Medical Association (Lucknow).

Most of the time, experts say, the plea to increase the budgetary allocation for medicines falls on deaf ears. But it is incidents such as the Gorakhpur tragedy that bring the attention back to the states crumbling health infrastructure, the experts add.
Bareillys Barelvi madrasas on Tuesday openly defied the Uttar Pradesh governments directive that the national anthem be mandatorily sung at all such Islamic educational institutions across the state on the occasion of Independence Day.

While students at the Manzar-e-Islam  the biggest Barelvi madrasa in the city  hoisted the Tricolor in the presence of teachers, they did not chant the national anthem. Instead, around 500 students gathered at the open prayer hall to sing Sare jahan se achha, a patriotic song in Urdu by poet Muhammad Iqbal. The madrasa authorities also refrained from videographing the occasion, as directed by the government.

Mediapersons were not allowed to cover the main event, which lasted for over an hour.

Traditionally, we do not sing the national anthem during Independence Day or Republic Day celebrations. We only followed convention this time, a senior cleric told HT on the condition of anonymity.

The decision to oppose the government order was taken by senior cleric Asjad Miyan, a direct descendant of 20th century Islamic religious leader Ahmed Raza Barelvi.

Ahmed Razas dargah (shrine) in Bareilly is the most revered religious site for members of Sunni Islams Barelvi sect. It manages over a thousand other dargahs in various parts of the state, 300 of which are situated in Bareilly and nearby districts.

Barelvi clerics had justified their decision to forbid singing of the national anthem at the madrasas under their jurisdiction by alleging that it was written in praise of George V, the then king of England. Singing of the national anthem belittles the struggle of our freedom fighters. Thereby, it has been unanimously decided that such songs will not be sung on Independence Day, they said in a press release.

The order, however, was followed by a few government-funded Barelvi madrasas in the city.

Ahmed Faraaz, a 14-year-old student at the Manzar-e-Islam madrasa, said he remembers the national anthem verbatim. However, I will sing it only if our teachers ask us to, he said.

Faraz and his friends sang Saare jahan se accha this Independence Day.

Meanwhile, district administration officials seemed to be in no hurry to act against madrasas that did not mandate the singing of the national anthem. We will look into the matter and take action. However, I believe the governments order was followed at all madrasas in the district, said district minority welfare officer Jagmohan Singh.

District magistrate Raghvendra Vikram Singh also claimed that most madrasas adhered to the government order.
Observing that Janmashtami celebrations had been disrupted in the state for a while, Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh has ordered that the festival will now be held in a grand but dignified manner in accordance with Indian traditions.

The order and its wording has angered the Congress which has criticised the government for being insensitive as the grand celebration order coincides with mass child deaths in Adityanaths Gorakhpur Lok Sabha constituency.

Yogi Adityanath, who is also the head priest of Gorakhnath temple, had visited Gorakhpurs BRD Medical College hospital on Sunday. He was again expected in Gorakhpur on Monday evening to join Janmashtami celebrations at the temple but he cancelled the visit.

The order angered the states main opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) which claimed it was mischievous.

The order, while asking the police force to celebrate the occasion in a grand manner, also says that in the past such celebrations were disrupted. This is mischievous. As chief minister, Akhilesh Yadavji himself visited the police lines for the Janmashtami celebrations, former UP minister Rajendra Chowdhary told HT.

After the order, director general of police Sulkhan Singh has written to all police chiefs to celebrate the festival that will be held across two days till Tuesday.

According to mythology, Krishna was born in a prison in Mathura. That is why special celebrations are held in police lines and prisons on the occasion. That is also the reason why the Adityanath government has asked the police to celebrate the occasion in a grand manner.

Former Congress lawmaker Akhilesh Pratap Singh said: Such an order could have been avoided given the fact that a mass tragedy has taken place in the CMs backyard. And imagine, the order is talking of celebrating the play of Lords baal leela when so many children have died. It reflects how insensitive the government is.

UP BJP leader Manish Shukla has dismissed the opposition criticism as unwarranted.

The criticism is political. Both the government and the party are pained by the tragedy and you will see a marked improvement in the situation that is anyway a legacy of the SP and Bahujan Samaj Party governments, he said.

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Three foreign firms, two of them from China, have shown an interest to redevelop one of Mumbai's largest land sprawls on prime real estate, the Bombay Development Directorate (BDD) chawl at Worli.

The Rs10,700-crore redevelopment project will unlock around 52 acres at Worli in south Mumbai and yield thousands of low-cost houses to add to the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority's (Mhada) stock of affordable houses for sale.

All the three foreign firms have bid in consortium with Indian companies. We recently opened the technical bids. After scrutiny, we will have to apply to the Centre for a security clearance for the bids before proceeding to the next stage  opening financial bids, said a senior Mhada official. The government will pick the contractor which fulfils all technical qualifications and quotes the lowest bid.

A state housing department official said the government has to seek a security clearance before giving work to any foreign firm and more so in this case as there are two Chinese companies involved.

Read: Mumbai: BDD chawls revamp in Worli gets zero response, tenders postponed

The two Chinese companies are CITIC Construction Co Ltd and China Construction Eighth Engineering Division Corporation Ltd. CITIC has bid in consortium with Capacity Infraprojects and Tata Projects Ltd while China Construction Eighth Engineering has bid in consortium with IL&FS Transportation Networks and IL&FS Maritime. The third consortium in the fray is Lebanon-based Arabian Construction Company Holding Ltd with ACC India.

The BDD chawls were developed by the British in the 1920s as a low-cost housing solution for the city. There are 207 such chawls spread across 37 hectare in four areas  Worli, Sewri, NM Joshi Marg and Naigaon. More than 12,000 families live in the 160-square foot houses at these locations. The buildings are dilapidated and in urgent need of redevelopment.

The Worli BDD chawl is the third one for which the state government has initiated redevelopment, after Naigaon, Dadar, and NM Joshi Marg, Lower Parel. The state government has picked Larsen & Toubro for the redevelopment of the Naigaon chawl and Shapoorji Pallonji Group for the NM Joshi Marg chawl. Work started at both the places earlier this year. The BDD chawl at Naigaon is spread across 42 acres, while the one at NM Joshi Marg is sprawled over 32 acres.

Being under the Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT), the BDD chawl at Sewri falls under the jurisdiction of the Union government. The state government is in talks with MbPT on how to revamp the chawl.

Read: Can BDD chawl redevelopment script new history?

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Japan's defence chief and foreign minister will meet their US counterparts on Thursday to reaffirm Washington's commitment to defending Japan, including the use of its nuclear deterrent, as threats from North Korea intensify.

Japan's Minister of Defence, Itsunori Onodera, and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Taro Kono, travel to the US capital this week for "two-plus-two" meetings with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the Japanese government announced on Tuesday.

The meetings come with tensions high in East Asia with North Korea threatening to fire missiles into the waters close to the US Pacific territory of Guam. The missiles would have to fly over Japan to reach their target worrying Tokyo that warheads or missile debris could fall on its territory.

US President Donald Trump has warned of "fire and fury" if North Korea threatens the United States, and said the US military is "locked and loaded".

"The strategic environment is becoming harsher and we need to discuss how we will respond to that," a Japanese foreign ministry official said in a briefing in Tokyo. "We will look for the US to reaffirm it defence commitment, including the nuclear deterrent," he added.

Under Japan's alliance treaty with the United States, Washington has pledged to defend Japan. It has put Japan under its nuclear umbrella, meaning it could respond to any attack on Japan with atomic weapons.

A renewed commitment by Washington to that promise would reassure Tokyo as it looks to bolster its defences against possible North Korean military action.

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Despite Bombay high court issuing a battery of guidelines, two govindas died during Dahi handi celebrations and 117 were injured. While Rohan Gopinath Kini, 21, died in Palghar after suffering from an epileptic fit while coming down from a two-tier pyramid, 30-year-old Jayesh Sainath Sarale was electrocuted after he touched a live wire near a mandal in Airoli.

After Kini, a resident of Dhansar village and a TYBCom student, broke a handi around 6.30pm on Tuesday, revellers began pouring water on the group, Kini who was on a friends shoulder, suddenly fell and suffered head injuries. Police said he suffered an epileptic fit and registered an accidental death case. Kinis father said he was his only son after his elder son drowned in the sea last year.

On the other hand, Sarale, a resident of Chunabhatti, had come to Airoli to participate in an event with other govindas at sector 16. He was waiting near a pole, which had a few hoardings and a halogen light tied to it. There was a live wire in the pole and he touched it. He lost his consciousness immediately. He was rushed to a private hospital in Mulund, but the doctors declared him brought dead, said a police officer from Rabale police station. The cops are trying to find out if it was a case of negligence.

Meanwhile, dahi handi events in BMC saw 117 people get injured. My son was not even on the pyramid, he was the supporting staff and one govinda fell on him. The number of participants, organisers and audience for the sport has decreased as compared to our time, said Suresh Pujari, father of an 18-year-old govinda who got injured.

As the number of Dahi handi organisers dropped this year, number of govindas getting injured was also at an all-time low. Dr Avinash Supe, director, medical education, BMC, said there were no serious cases this year. The patients had minor injuries, fractures, contusions and three patients were kept under observation. None of the injuries were serious enough to need admission, said Dr Supe.

Doctors from BMCs peripheral hospitals said since 2014  when SC put an age limit for participating in the events, cases of minor govindas sustaining injuries have dropped significantly.
A 78-year-old woman was found brutally murdered inside her south Mumbai residence on Monday morning. The police arrested a 25-year-old drug addict, who was released from Arthur Road jail just eight days ago, and recovered the victims earrings and her mobile phone from him.

Zehra Hakim was staying alone in Abba Gani building in Mazgaon and her body was discovered by her elder daughter, Arva Asgar, who had arrived from Hyderabad with her nine-year-old son in the morning.

Police said the senior citizens throat was slit and cash, a mobile phone and valuables from her home were stolen. The accused, Abdulla Usman Sayyed, was tracked down by the police after he made a call using the victims phone.

The police said he had followed the victim after she finished taking her walk in the morning and barged inside the house just after she had returned. He used a kitchen knife to slit her throat, said the police.

Read: Senior citizen found murdered at his Kandivli home in Mumbai

The knife used by the killer has been recovered from the spot and has been sent to the forensic laboratory, said an officer from Byculla police station.

The police have registered a case under section 302 (punishment for murder) and 394 (voluntarily causing hurt in committing robbery) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The victims son-in-law, Ali Asgar, whose wife found the body, told HT, The last we spoke to my mother-in-law was three days ago after we came back from Surat after visiting our son who is studying there. We were planning to come and meet her shortly, but today morning we got the news of her death.

He added, Arva was downstairs as she was getting the luggage, while our son ran up to meet his grandmother. But as soon as he opened the door, he found her body next to the bed. He ran down to my wife. They initially thought that she might have fallen from the bed, but later noticed the wound on her neck.

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The Mumbai Police have formed a team of more than 25,000 cops to guard important locations on Tuesday, which will see both Independence Day and Dahi Handi celebrations. The State Reserve Police Force (SRPF) has also contributed personnel to the team.

To tackle cases of offences, special teams from local police stations that will have women cops and special branch officials will move around in plain clothes. These teams have been asked to stay on guard in highly crowded areas where there are more chances of an untoward incident taking place, said a senior police official requesting anonymity.

The police said there were no specific alerts issued for the police or public however internal circulars were sent to all police stations asking them to be alert and keep an eye on any suspicious activities in their jurisdiction.

Apart from the force, well over 5,000 CCTV cameras across the city and suburbs will serve as eyes and ears of Mumbai Police who will monitor the traffic as well as Govindas.

Rashmi Karandikar, spokesperson for Mumbai Police, said, The Mumbai police, traffic police and SRPF will be part of the security bandobast. As Independence Day and Dahi Handi will be celebrated on Tuesday we have made appropriate security arrangements to ensure no untoward incident takes place.

We appeal to the general public to cooperate with the police by celebrating the festival peacefully and alerting us if they come across any suspicious activity, she added.
In a first, more than 200 schools from across the city came together on Monday to organise celebrations ahead of Independence Day in Bandra. They will organise celebrations on Tuesday too.

The schools hold joint celebrations to increase student turnout during such national events. It had celebrated Republic Day too.

The Brihanmumbai Inter-school Republic Day (BIRD) committee, which organised the event comprises schools from Bandra, Santacruz, Andheri, Malad, and, Mazgaon.

One of the features of the event was a performance by the 7th Sikh Regiment Pipe Band. Major General CE Fernandes was the chief guest.

Its a rare treat for students to see the band perform, said Peter Dsouza, convener of the group. Top officials from the armed forces interacted with the children and it gave them a chance to know more about the services.

Dsouza added that such interactions instil patriotic fervour among students. The idea behind such events is to encourage students to not bunk a flag hoisting, he said.

Schools said that attendance during national holidays had improved since they started holding such joint programmes. The BIRD committee was formed in 2013 for Republic Day celebrations and has since expanded.

We organise several student-led programmes and thats why we see increased participation. Along with participants, their friends and relatives too come for the event, said Father Jude Fernandes, principal, St Marys, Mazgaon, SSC.

Earlier this year, the group that was formerly known as the Bandra Inter-school Republic Day committee, organised a Maharashtra Day celebration too. They have had student-led a Republic Day parade in Bandra since 2012.

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Maharashtra on Tuesday celebrated the Independence Day with patriotic fervour, even though the commemorations were marred due to heavy rains in some parts of the state including Mumbai and coastal Konkan region.

Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis unfurled the national flag at his residence and near Mantralaya, while his ministerial colleagues were scheduled to attend flag-hoisting ceremonies in districts.

Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu Governor CV Rao this year spent the day in Chennai, where he would be taking part in various Independence Day functions, a Raj Bhavan official said.

CM Devendra Fadnavis at Mantralaya. (Kunal Patil/HT )

There were solemn flag-hoisting functions organised at the Bombay High Court, headquarters of the Central Railway, Western Railway and Konkan Railway, civic headquarters and the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport.

The tricolour was also hoisted amid singing of the National Anthem in schools, colleges, housing complexes, various state and central government offices, private companies, district collectorates, villages, social and cultural organisations, corporate offices and others.

A variety of special events to mark Independence Day have been scheduled all over the state and Mumbai during the course of the day.
On Tuesday, as many as 75 madrassas and masjids hoisted the national flag and sang the national anthem to celebrate the 70th Independence Day of India.

Muslim clerics and Ulemas (scholars) unfurled the tricolour at various places in the city and followed it up with sermons and call for peace.

Bhendi Bazaar hosted the biggest flag-hoisting ceremony. More than 150 people sang the national anthem in unison. Anand Raj Ambedkar, grandson of Babasaheb Ambedkar, was the chief guest.

This was not our first Independence Day celebration and the numbers were also comparatively larger than last year. Some madrassas and masjids celebrated the day for the first time, said Maulana Syed Moinuddin Ashraf, also known as Moin Miya, from Sunni Jama Masjid and founder of the Maharashtra Muslim Front.

We wanted to send out a message that Muslims care for the country too. We played as much part in the countrys Independence as anyone else. Our patriotic feelings are unparalleled, Maulana added.

Other madrassas organised events after the Tricolour was hoisted.

The Chishti Hindustani Masjid in Byculla has been celebrating the day for more than 50 years.

There was a special taqreer (sermon) and the chief guests called for peace in the country. Our masjid has been hoisting the national flag ever since the country achieved independence. But there seems to be a sudden bout of patriotism among the community, said Mohammed Irfan Aleemi, president of Aleemi Movement of India and member of All India Imam Tanzeem.

A meeting of Ulemas was held last week to discuss preparations for Independence Day celebrations. Religious leaders had urged the Ulemas to spread the message of patriotism among young Muslims.

Another madrassa in Mumbai celebrated the day for the first time. Maulana Ibrahim Aasi from Agripada said, Independence Day is the right day to show everyone that we are patriotic too. The nation is as much ours as it is anyone elses from any other faith.
Two days after an accident in Aurangabad, Maharashtra state Congress secretary Balkrishna Purnekar succumbed to his injuries on Tuesday.

Purnekar, 45, met with an accident on the Aurangabad-Gangapur Road on Sunday evening. He was travelling in an SUV with Congress leader Sanjay Choupane and two others, when it rammed into a a bus. Choupane died on the spot, while Purnekar and two others were injured.

Purnekar suffered head injuries and was admitted to Sigma Hospital in Aurangabad. However, he was not responding to treatment, said a senior Congress leader from Thane. He succumbed to his injuries at 1.30am on Tuesday. The final rites were held in Thane.

Manoj Shinde, Thanes Congress unit president, said, We have lost a fighter. He used to lead from the front. He will be missed in the entire state.

Purnekar, who was the former president of Thane Congress. He began his political journey after he joined the students wing of the Shiv Sena. In the early 1990s, he quit the Sena and joined the Congress and was elected a corporator in 1997. He was known for his protests.

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Citing the last weeks incident of the alleged rape of a 4-year-old girl at her Malad school by a peon, the city parents want the state to frame a policy to ensure that schools provide a secure atmosphere for their

children.

Although the government has framed a policy to reduce the weight of school bags, the education department is yet to frame one that focuses on childrens safety on the school premises.

Last April, the department made it mandatory for private and government-run schools to install CCTV cameras at important locations on the school premises. The order was issued after the Bombay high court brought up the case in which a kindergartner was alleged raped by a Dadar school staff.

Parents, however, said the order has not brought in any significant change, as at least two incidents of sexual assault on children during school hours were filed in the past two months.

Asking schools to install CCTV cameras isnt enough. The government needs to come up with a policy to safeguard children against sexual assault, said Anubha Sahai, member of the India Wide Parents Association, which held a protest rally at Shivaji Park on Saturday.

Simultaneously, educationists suggested that government should lay down parameters and checks for schools to abide by while recruiting staff.

An institute needs to be extremely careful while iring people. More than a candidates educational qualification, the school must screen him or her based on values, respect for women, and culture, said Father Francis Swamy, principal, St Marys School (ICSE), Mazgaon, and joint director of the Archdiocesan Board of Education (ABE), which runs more than 150 schools in Mumbai.

Swamy said to save time and money, background checks or in-service programmes are often skipped while hiring non-teaching staff.

Many schools rely on third-party firms to hire non-teaching staff such as clerks, peons, security guards. They do not meet or scrutinise the candidates beforehand, nor do they conduct any training programmes for them, he Swamy.

Another school suggested conducting psychometric tests of shortlisted candidates before hiring. We have made psychometric tests mandatory while hiring. All staff members have to take it, said Albin Anthony, chief executive officer of the Sacred Heart School, Kalyan.

The school has also appointed women-only staff in the school building. It is difficult for any school to constantly keep analysing CCTV footage to ensure that children are safe, but schools cannot shirk this responsibility, said Anthony. He added most schools ask parents to sign undertakings, exempting the managements from blame in case of untoward incidents. Schools will only be able to ensure student safety if they take it as their moral responsibility and not a liability.

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Maharashtra farmers protesting against the non-implementation of the farm loans waiver package were caned on Tuesday in some parts of the state. Many others were arrested, a farmer leader said.

All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) joint secretary Ashok Dhawale said hundreds of farmers who were protesting peacefully in Ahmednagar, Nashik and Parbhani, raising slogans like Bharatmata ki Jai, suffered at the hands of the authorities.

In Ahmednagar, we sought a meeting with the guardian m+inister Ram Shinde to submit a memorandum of our demands, but the police resorted to mercilessly caning us, Dhawale said.

Several farmer leaders including AIKS-Maharashtra General Secretary Ajit Navale, Farmers Action Committee leaders Balasaheb Patare, Subhash Lande, Sanjeev Bhor, Mahesh Navale, Nilesh Talekar and Rajendra Bavke were detained.

Dhawale said several farmers and their leaders were placed under preventive detention since Monday when they had organised road blocks in different parts of the state for immediate implementation of the farm loans waiver package announced by chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on June 11.

In Beed, guardian minister Pankaja Munde skipped the Independence Day flag hoisting ceremony as farmers protested outside the Collectorate.

Protesting farmers in Pune demanded that instead of Guardian Minister Girish Bapat, the flag-hoisting should be done by a farmer or a fallen soldiers widow.

In Aurangabad, farmers protested outside the Collectorate when guardian minister Ramdas Kadam came for the flag hoisting ceremony. Many were detained by the police.
A 17-year-old boy hanged himself in Kurar village after his mobile phone broke while his mother tried to snatch it from him.

The fight started when the mother started scolding the boy, a Class 11 student, for spending a lot of time on his phone, said the police.

Police said that the incident took place on August 12. The boy was busy with his phone the previous night and his mother got angry with him. When she tried to snatch the phone from him, it fell and broke.

The boy was angry because the phone broke. He left for his maternal uncles place. In the morning, he went to college and then came back home. He committed suicide later, said Uday Rajeshirke, senior inspector at Kurar police station.

The boys mother was at a neighbours place when he killed himself, said the police.

The police have filed an accidental death report. The body was handed over to the family after autopsy.

In another incident, a senior citizen hanged himself in Kandivli (west). Harshad Sanghvi lived with his family and was debt-ridden. This caused him to take the step, said the police.
The Emirati ambassador in Egypt Gomaa Mubarak Al-Jneibi praised on Tuesday the relations between his country and Egypt, saying the UAE is one of the biggest Arab investors in Egypt at $4.9 billion in investments, state-run news agency MENA reported.

The ambassador's comments came during the opening ceremony in Cairo of the EgyVac factory for vaccines, which is part of the Egyptian Company for Production of Vaccines, Sera, and Drugs (VACSERA).

Egypt's Minister of Health Ahmed Emad El-Din also participated in the openeing of the new factory, which was established with EGP 700 million ($39 million) in UAE investment, according to Al-Ahram Arabic news website.

Al-Jneibi said that EgyVac is one of the largest vaccine factories in the Middle East and is one of the more vital Emirati projects contributing to healthcare for Egyptians, the ambassador added.

The UAE maintains diversified investments in the Egyptian economy.

Last week, Dubai Ports signed an agreement with the General Authority for the Suez Canal Economic Zone to build development projects in the Suez Canal Zone.

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A trauma care centre, already built, but lying unused on the Mumbai-Pune expressway for the past two years is likely to be operational from October.

According to officials, the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) will now float bids to appoint a medical institution to operate the 3,500-sq feet trauma care centre at Ozarde on the expressway.

The medical institution, which will be appointed, will provide staff such as resident doctors, paramedics to treat accident victims. Once they stabilise the victims, they will have to shift them to their full-fledged hospital for further treatment.

The 94-km expressway, touted to rival the best in the world, is fast emerging as a death trap considering the number of accidents and deaths on it. Between 2010 and 2016, there were a total of 4,634 accidents, in which 1,323 people lost their lives. With such a high rate of accidents, a trauma care centre is essential to provide medical assistance in the golden hour to save lives of accidents victims. The centre has operation rooms, recovery rooms, two helipads and other facilities.

The state health department had given its recommendations, but other medical institutions had objected to the process. In our board meeting last week we decided to opt for competitive bidding to appoint an operator, said Kiran Kurundkar, joint managing director, MSRDC. Senior MSRDC officials said the bids will be floated by August-end, and an operator will be able to start its service by October.

In March this year, the state health department had evaluated three proposals and recommended Pune-based Sancheti hospital to run the centre. The other two medical institutions which had offered to supply staff were the Mahatma Gandhi Medical College, Kamothe and Shree Shankar Charitable Trust, Pune.

Meanwhile, Mumbais Shree Siddhivinayak Ganapati Temple Trust has agreed to fund the equipment required for the centre and has made a provision of Rs1.25 crore in its budget. The funds would be released as soon as the government appoints an agency to run the centre.

Read

Despite 2.5K accidents in 6 years, Mumbai-Pune expressways trauma care centre lies unused

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Dr AK Bhatt, director of Super Specialty Child Hospital and Post Graduate Institute in Noida said that the hospital has paid all outstanding amounts to the respective agency.

Following the death of 35 infants at BRD Medical College in Gorakhpur due to lack of oxygen supply, the state health ministry has sent an advisory to all government medical colleges and institutes in the state, asking the directors to ensure that the oxygen supply remains uninterrupted.

Dr Anita Bhatnagar, additional chief secretary of medical education, Uttar Pradesh, had sent this directive a day after the tragedy at Gorakhpur Hospital. Bhatnagar sent a written order to nine medical colleges and 12 prominent medical institutes in the state, directing them to clear outstanding bills of their respective oxygen supplying agency.

The oxygen supplying agency had cut off the supply after the administration of BRD Medical College did not pay an outstanding amount of Rs60 lakh.

Even before the order, we were maintaining a clean record with our outsourcing agency when it comes to the oxygen supply. We also have an ample number of oxygen cylinders in our storage and are ready to deal with any crisis, said Dr Bhatt.

The Super Speciality Child PGI outsources oxygen cylinders from Seth Traders, a Delhi-based oxygen agency whose godown is located in DLF industrial area, Faridabad. The process of choosing the agency is done through a tender decided by the state health department.

We consume 40 cylinders, on an average, every day. We have a stock of 220 oxygen cylinders, including our reserves for emergencies. The agency provides 40 cylinders every day, Dr Dinesh Kumar, registrar, Super Specialty Child PGI, said.

He said that in case of a problem with the supplying agency, they have other options as well. There are three companies we are constantly in touch with. So, even if our outsourcing agency refuses to provide us cylinders, we can always contact the two companies. However, such a need has never arisen, said Dr Kumar.

The gas supplying agency confirmed that the hospital has paid all overdue amounts.

We supply cylinders to Child PGI Hospital and till now, we have had no problems with them, said Tarun Seth, who works with the accounts department of Seth Traders.

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To ensure commuters face minimum inconvenience in Noida during peak hours, the police have started holding weekly meetings with the authority to review the traffic situation and make changes wherever needed.

The superintendent of police (traffic) and additional chief executive officer of Noida authority attend the meetings held every Friday.

Superintendent of police (traffic), Anil Kumar Jha, said, The first meeting was held on August 11. We decided to conduct it every Friday. Basic problems such as traffic lights and erecting barricades would be discussed with the authority. In Noida, we regulate traffic movement but the infrastructure has to be provided by Noida authority. It is important on our part to take up matters with them.

Jha took to Twitter and WhatsApp late Sunday evening, requesting people to forward their problems and suggestions in a bid to improve vehicular movement.

Recently, barricades were erected on the Delhi-Noida- Direct flyway to avoid jams on the clover leaf heading towards Greater Noida. This helped a great deal in reducing traffic congestion on the stretch. Similarly, many such problems will be resolved after talking to officials. It is true we need various mega projects such as flyovers and underpasses, but we cannot wait till their completion, Jha said.

In the first meeting on August 11, the Noida authority allowed traffic police to use its cranes for two more months. The traffic police now use them to tow away vehicles.

The Noida authority also got printers of cameras installed on Noida-Greater Noida expressway repaired. These will be used for printing challans.

These printers were not working for over two months and were repaired after a discussion with the additional chief executive officer of Noida authority, RK Misra.

It was also decided that hoardings and other advertisements installed in and around 112 traffic signals in Noida would be removed in two weeks.

Due to the hoardings, people were not able to see the signals. Moreover, the Supreme Courts guidelines say these areas should be clear of such installations, said Jha.

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Hundreds of homebuyers of Jaypee Infratech Group decided legal and political action on Tuesday after the private housing major in Noida teetered on the brink of insolvency.

Around 500 of them gathered at a park in Sector 15A to chalk out a plan after the National Company Law Tribunal admitted the insolvency petition filed by IDBI Bank against the debt-ridden Jaypee group.

The tribunal advised homebuyers, employees and creditors of Jaypee projects to file their claims before August 24.

We fail to understand why buyers should suffer if a real estate developer fails, said SK Nagrath, a retired army official and president of Jaypee Aman Flat Buyers Association.

The people agreed to meet Gautam Budh Nagar parliamentarian Mahesh Sharma, and Noida and Dadri legislators Pankaj Singh and Tejpal Nagar to help them out.

We decided to meet the political representatives so that our issues are taken up in the UP assembly and Parliament. If the elected representatives dont deliver, we will file a plea in the Supreme Court, Nagrath said.

Lawmaker Singh assured support to the homebuyers.

I have discussed the issue with chief minister Yogi Adityanath, who had asked authorities to act and do justice, he said.

The people want their investment refunded amid growing fears that lawsuits will become ineffective if the company is declared insolvent.

Our issues should be discussed in Parliament  why should buyers who have invested their life savings suffer? said Vipin Kumar, another man who fears he will not get possession of his promised flat and lose his hard-earned money.

Panic spread among the homebuyers after the tribunal appointed chartered accountant Anuj Jain as interim resolution professional to settle disputes and he has taken over the Jaypee management. People are asked to file their claims with the professional.

The real estate sector has been suffering a slump, especially after the government scrapped high-value banknotes in a blitz against black money and corruption. This largely unregulated sector in India is often accused of hitching its fortunes to illicit funds and questionable transactions are said to be widespread.

Several projects have been delayed after developers diverted funds raised for one project to another, leaving buyers waiting for their homes.

The government is trying to clean up the business with a landmark real estate law designed to protect millions of homebuyers facing harassment because of limited legal options at times of dispute. But implementation of the law is delayed because of several reasons.

The problem is that even the law has turned against us. They have recognised private banks as bigger creditors than homebuyers, which is unjust because we have a larger share. Now the fight is not just against Jaypee but the banks and the law itself, said Krishna Mitroo, an army veteran and a homebuyer.

Besides, the lack of an umbrella union to fight for the homebuyers is making the task tougher.

There are 30,000 buyers of Jaypee group and yet a few hundred turned up today. Some people are rich and live in western countries. It doesnt matter to them  but we have put our savings in this project, said Smriti Saroj, a buyer from Vaishali.

There were people like Saroj Yadav who dashed from Mumbai the day she heard the tribunals advice.

I booked a two BHK flat in 2011 and waiting since then. I was in two-three protests. Buyers were agitated and frustrated with the builders before. Now they are scared and anxious.

The people also decided to Noida chief executive officer Amit Mohan Prasad and ask him to ensure construction resumed in Jaypee housing projects.

He had apparently assured that their investments are safe and there will be no ban on registry or construction.
Independence Day was celebrated across Gautam Budh Nagar with much enthusiasm. Cultural programmes were held in government offices, cultural institutions, housing societies, schools, colleges and non-government organisations.

District magistrate BN Singh unfurled the National Flag and paid homage to martyrs who had died in the freedom struggle at the collectorate in Surajpur.

Today, we are able to celebrate Independence Day because of the martyrs. We achieved this independence with great difficulty, after decades of standing up to the British Empire. Therefore, we have to take a pledge to keep our independence intact, said Singh.

Superintendent of police (rural) Suniti unfurled the flag and took the guard of honour at the SSP ground in Surajpur. Meanwhile, senior superintendent of police (SSP), Love Kumar, along with station house officer of Kasna, Jitendra Kumar, were awarded appreciation medal in Meerut by Meeruts inspector general Prashant Kumar.

At the India International Mega Trade Fair, Dr Mahesh Sharma, Union minister of state for tourism and culture, hoisted the National Flag on a 163-foot flagpole, in a first, in the presence of Dadri MLA Tejpal Singh Nagar, ex-MLA of Noida Vimala Batham and other dignitaries. It took almost six and a half minutes for the flag, weighing 18 kilograms, and measuring 54 feet by 36 feet to be hoisted. Volunteers facilitated the ceremony by holding the flag till it attained a height of 50 feet.

Residents of Logix Blossom County in Sector 137, Noida, celebrated Independence Day with enthusiasm. The flag hoisting and singing of the National Anthem were followed by musical performances by children, dances, races and speeches inside the housing complex.

Students of Rotary Institute of Special Children (RISC), a trust of Rotary Club of Delhi Riverside, celebrated Spirit of Freedom at 70 programme in a special way. Deaf and Dumb children danced to patriotic songs and Bollywood numbers in a synchronised manner.

A partly differently abled child, Gaurav, recited a bhajan. Nisha, who is suffering from Down syndrome, Neha, who is physically challenged and Veeru, who is mildly specially able, also recited poems on the occasion. The programme was attended by the trusts chairman, Rajesh Agarwal, president of Rotary Club of Delhi Riverside and promoter of the trust, Rohit Dubey, trustees PK Gupta, Satish Gupta, Rakesh Gupta, Ajit Mishra and PK Singh.

Mrs Kavita Tripathi, the principal of RISC, said, Children have worked hard to prepare for this programme and so have teachers and staff of the school. The most difficult part was to get perfect coordination between deaf and dumb students.

The students of Maharishi Vidya Mandir School in Bhangel wore Army uniforms and performed patriotic numbers. The highlight of the programmer was flag hoisting by 19-year-old runner Dharampal Singh Gudha.

At Saraswati Shishu Mandir School in Sector 12, Independence Day was celebrated by remembering the freedom fighters who had died in the struggle.The children recited patriotic poems about Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Lala Lajpat Rai.

The day was also celebrated at Delhi Public School, Noida, Cambridge School, Vishwa Bharati School and Somerville School with equal enthusiasm.

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After the mob violence at Mahagun Moderne Society in Sector 77, the gap between migrant workers and Noida citizens had widened. However, there is a group of Robins in Noida, which is working to reduce the divide by providing migrant workers free food every week.

The Noida chapter of Robinhood Army, a pan national NGO dedicated to feeding the poor on daily, weekly and monthly basis in over 49 cities of India, have taken up the task to look after the needy in the slums of Sector 77.

The volunteers of Robinhood Army called themselves Robins and claim that there is no hierarchy in their organisation. They have been visiting the shanties in Sector 77 for more than one year, feeding the families there.

On July 18, the Noida authority had demolished around 50 shanties in the wake of the mob violence at Mahagun Moderne society. The violence had erupted due to alleged rumours that a house help has been kidnapped. The displaced people soon found a new home as they erected shanties 500 metres from the demolition spot. However, the mob violence had resulted in deep mistrust between Bengali migrants and residents of high-rise societies at Sector 77.

I am not a Bengali or a Bangladeshi. I am from Uttar Pradesh, claims Veerpal, an occupant of one of the shanties. Veerpal irons clothes for a living and he has been noticing the Robinhood Armys presence in the sector.

They have been coming here quite often, at least once in a week. They bring freshly cooked food in their vans and sweets for our children. I like them, Veerpal said.

Similarly, Rahim, a vegetable seller from Cooch Behar of West Bengal, claims that his son likes eating from the van of Robinhood Army.

My son has understood that the van comes once a week, mostly on Sundays. He eagerly waits for them, Rahim said.

The RHA volunteers or Robins claim that feeding the poor gives them the satisfaction that they dont find in their regular jobs. They get food from restaurants and hotels through networking channels via their volunteers.

In our group, there are students, CAs, business persons and working professionals. Yet, everyone finds time to assemble once a week and devote themselves towards serving society. We also intend to help them in ways other than providing food, said Zuali Morrison, a businessman who moonlights as a Robin.

The RHA intends to feed at least one million people in 2017 and its founder Neel Ghosh claims that they intend to beat hunger.

Mission One Million is not just about the number but the fact that any kind of societal change is possible only if we bring together citizens as a team. Our mission is to beat hunger, Ghosh said.

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If 1947 meant freedom for India, it was a loss for the British. Since 1947, the Indian narrative contains multiple interesting accounts. India has made progress, and this has been possible only because caste supremacy has shown a steady downslide.

A few experiences in life deserve mention because they capture how society has changed over time.

It was the summer of 1971. I was at a wedding of an upper caste woman in my village. A UP Roadways bus carrying the baratis got wedged at the entrance to the village. The entourage had a bus, jeep and a fiat car.

Paturia hai yelled a man pushing the bus as he spotted a woman and two men at the back of the bus behaving inappropriately. The news spread quick and wide. In east Uttar Pradesh, a paturia is a nautch girl  an unfair term, and it could mean much more.

That evening the brides side threw a feast for the villagers, one adult from each family. However, we children sneaked in. There were separate queues and I picked my plate and stood in the one for Dalits. The plates for non-Dalits were picked by their servants. The realisation and pains of untouchability came early in life.

After the feast, we went to the orchards where the barat had settled in. People were milling around a shamiana because the paturia would spell her magic there.

In the shamiana, seating was in a hierarchical order. The west side with the cushions was meant for the baratis, the east for the brides side and fellow caste members, the north for the Dalits and the south was a pathway. The well in front was reserved for the paturia and her band.

The shamiana sprung to life as the nautch girl stepped in. The youth from the grooms side cheered and jeered. The Dalits clapped. After a few songs, well-behaved members from the grooms party began waving currency notes towards the girl. A man with twirled moustache waved a Rs 100 note and that pushed her into his lap. Adhi raat ke baad vah gayab ho jayegi, a man from a lower caste whispered.

The next morning a friend and I headed to the mango orchards to see a horse that was injured during the race the previous evening.

It was a sort of custom at upper caste weddings for the grooms side to bring elephants and horses for races. In 1973, an upper caste man brought 28 elephants to his sons wedding. A friend, VB Singh of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), recalls a Thakur wedding in Azamgarh where the grooms side reached the brides house with 75 elephants and innumerable horses.

It is not to argue that all upper caste weddings involved paturias, elephants, horses, or all upper caste brides rode palkis. But, only they did it, and not the Dalits. These were symbols of upper caste pride, said Thakur Suresh Singh. Puturias danced for upper castes only, added Pandit Kamlesh from a nearby village.

All rules have exceptions, and so, sometime in the late sixties, in Hardoi, a Dalit who was a dreaded gangster in the area, had a paturia dance at his sons wedding.

My village had three large mango orchards. Post a storm, the Dalits would gather on the boundary of these mango orchards and eagerly look at mangoes lying on the ground. Once the upper caste owners permitted, the Dalits would collect the mangoes and praise the owner sky high  Ye bhagwan ke roop hain.

What kind of Thakur were you if you didnt possess a mango orchard, recalls Suresh Singh of Naya Gaon, a Thakur-dominated village in Sitapur district that my scholar colleague D Shyam Babu of the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and I were studying.

Back to my village. After 1990, no paturia has danced at an upper caste wedding, elephants and horses have not raced, the mango orchards have vanished and the palkis are not found only in museums. It is all over, adds Kamlesh.

More so, the upper castes have lost the Dalits who once used to collect the leftover food. With a tinge of nostalgia, an upper caste man recollects: Along with the buffaloes, cows, bullocks, we have also lost hal-wahas, char-wahas, duvarihas.

With exceptions here and there, Dalit women have stopped working in upper caste farmlands, says Thakur Suresh Singh.

Not that the upper castes have fallen below the Dalits, its just that they are losing control over the Dalits, cautions Babu.

I toured Shaharanpur early this month, and the story repeats here as well  upper castes rue losing the Dalits. The upper castes in the countryside are a disempowered lot today, they are the victims of the Constitution, of democracy, and of a market economy. At this rate, in another 70 years, caste may turn into a relic, much like Purana Qila is today.

History books will record that in the past 70 years India has undergone a social revolution.

Chandra Bhan Prasad is a Dalit ideologue

The views expressed are personal
Like a pair of new Lunarcharge Nike trainers that spark your morning run or an organic blend of rice flour delivered at your doorstep, you can order the Tricolour from an e-commerce site.

On Amazon India, The Indian National Outdoor Flag of Size 4ft x 6ft in 100% Knitted Polyester (EndureTex) with a rope/toggle for Rs 1840. The product description by The Flag Shop is pithy and pragmatic: 100% Warp-Knitted Polyester. Fast colours, UV resistant, hand or machine washable. This is besides the routinely spotted miniature tirangas on paper, silk, satin available a dime a dozen on e-shopping sites like India Mart or even eBay.

The Internet, however, is not the only address where the life, times and fortunes of the Tricolour has changed. The cheap to buy, unfurl and easy to dump or wash and keep avatars are more than visible in local bazaars and at traffic signals. It may well be Chinese silk, what do we know, said a design expert, adding that the anti-dumping duty of $1.85 per kg on mulberry raw silk from China levied since last year has not deterred the use of Chinese silk for Indian goods.

It is product descriptions such as fast colours, UV resistant, machine washable, warp-knitted polyester, super-strong nylon stitch on all three sides for maximum durability that underline how the old story is taking new routes. Especially as these wear and wash values are in stark contrast to the Tricolour specifications defined in Flag Code of India.

Even after the Flag Code established in 1950 was amended in 2002, its design and material guidelines remain enshrined in law. The Tricolour has always been made of Khadi, first woven during Mahatma Gandhis Swadeshi movement. In her book, Clothing Gandhis Nation, author Lisa Trivedi writes: Gandhi originally defined the colours of the flag as representative of Indias religious communitiesHindu, Christian and Muslim.

Much later, the manufacturing process began to be governed by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), whereas the right to producing the flag was with the Khadi Development and Village Industries Commission (KVIC). Since 2009, the Karnataka Khadi Gramodyoga Samyukta Sangha, which is based in the Bengeri area of Hubli, has been the only licensed manufacturer of the flag.

The current pattern follows the original created by Pingali Venkayya with three equal sections in kesari (orange), white and green based on the swaraj flag of the Indian National Congress, adopted on July 22, 1947. Thats when the charkha at the centre of the flag was replaced with a deep blue Ashok Chakra with 24 spokes symbolising the wheel of law.

The current BIS specifications cover all variables including sizes, dye colour, chromatic values, brightness, thread count and hemp cordage. While the raw materials for khadi are specified as cotton, silk and wool, by and large only two kinds of khadi is used. The body of the flag is stitched in khadi-bunting while khadi-duck, a sturdy natural-beige coloured cloth holds the flag to the pole. The Ashoka Chakra is screen printed, stencilled or embroidered on each side of the white band. Khadi-duck is an unconventional weave that meshes three threads into a weave, compared to the two weaves used in traditional weaving. Jhanda weavers are first given a training schedule before work, said VK Saxena, the chairperson of Khadi India.

This makes the Indian Tricolour a special woven product, a copyright deserving design. One also presided by a law that makes flying a flag made of any other material punishable with imprisonment up to three years, beside a fine. Even defects in manufacturing can result in fines. All government buildings thus mandatorily hoist khadi flags.

Yet look at the ways in which the deep tones of this law are fading.

With the present government fond of big and loud nationalist symbols, gigantic flags are hoisted at public sites. The 90 x 60 feet flag in the central park of Connaught Place in Delhi put up in 2014 is made of a knitted polyester fabric called deneir polyester with the Ashoka Chakra printed by a specialised process. It was manufactured in Mumbai by The Flag Shop incidentally the same shop that is currently peddling the outdoor Indian Tricolour on Amazon India.

So if the government must promote flying of huge flags such as the one at Sanjeevaiah Park on the banks of Hussain Sagar lake in Hyderabad, which went up in 2016 and is taller than the one in Delhi, it cannot also impose the Flag Code specifications of material and manufacturing. Oddly then, the law makes assorted flag vendors outside KVIC criminal but does not bar them from commercial dealings or business.

Flying a Tricolour is a ritual of displaying national pride and patriotism. It is primarily an outdoorsy sport and thus a flag must fly without crumpling, creasing, bunching up with weight and collapsing in rain, shine, pollution or smoke. Polyester flags that replace handspun khadi are an irony but also symbolize industrialiszation inspired by a cottage industry.

But once the law is amended, worthy product designers will, in fact, enter the fray and India will get flags of recycled materials and other design-smart fabric blends.

The market is ripe. It is difficult to pin down the exact earnings and sales from polyester-nylon Tricolours made out of other materials but Tiranga manufacturing appears to be profitable. Saxena confirms that Khadi Gramodyoga Samyukta Sangha of Hubli made a sale worth Rs 1.54 crore in 2015-2016, which went up to Rs 1.92 crore in 2016-2017.

Back in Delhi, the Khadi India Bhavan at Regal Building in Connaught Place has been selling an average of 400 tirangas in different sizes every day for the last few weeks.

Shefalee Vasudev is a fashion journalist and author

The views expressed are personal
Unidentified people pelted stones at Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modis vehicle while he was on his way to a former MLAs residence in Vaishali district late on Tuesday.

Modi escaped unhurt but his car was reported to be damaged in the stone pelting near Chaksikandar under the Bidupur police station limits. The attackers took advantage fled in the darkness.

Modi alleged that his car was attacked by RJD supporters out of political vendetta. He said windowpanes of four vehicles of his convoy were damaged and also appealed to his party workers to maintain calm.

According to BJP sources, the deputy chief minister was going to Kalapahar village to attend the shradh (post-death ritual) function of the mother of former MLA, Achutanand Singh. When the convoy reached near Chaksikandar, attackers rained stones at it.

Modis security guards immediately took him to safety. Later, police were informed about the incident.

Vaishali SP Rakesh Kumar said the deputy CM had safely reached the house of Singh after the incident.

The SP claimed that adequate security was provided to Modi.

Soon after the stone-pelting, hundreds of Kalapahar villagers gathered at the spot, causing tension in the area.

Union minister and LJP chief, Ram Vilas Paswan, who is also Hajipur MP, condemned the incident and demanded stern action against the attackers.
After making a smashing comeback with Khaidi No 150 earlier this year, Chiranjeevi is in no mood to stoop. As he gets ready for the shoot of Uyyalawada Narasimha Reddy, based on the life of well-known freedom fighter, the makers have decided to give his fans a glimpse of the film on his birthday on August 22. The title logo of the film, to be produced by Ram Charan, will be released on the occasion of Chiranjeevis 61st birthday, a reliable source close to the veteran star confirmed.

The makers are considering making the film as a bilingual  which will include in Tamil as well - as the subject will appeal to universal audiences and they dont mind exploring the possibility of catering beyond Telugu audiences.

Its been Chiranjeevis long-time desire to play a historic character. Earlier this year, on his show Meelo Evaru Koteeswarudu, he admitted to have regretted missing out an opportunity to play legendary Bhagat Singh. It has always been my dream to play Bhagat Singh. Despite being offered the role back then, I couldnt play it for several reasons and it was later played by several of my counterparts. It was played by several actors across languages. I regret missing out on an opportunity to play the role because I dont think anyone wants to make a film on him today, Chiranjeevi had said.

To be directed by Surender Reddy, the film also stars Nayanthara, who was paid a whopping rs 4 crore to be part of the project. The rest of the cast and crew will be finalised soon. Its going to be the biggest project in Chiranjeevis career and he will be seen sporting twirled moustache for his role.

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Three new discoveries in El-Kamin El-Sahrawi point to a large cemetery spanning the 27th Dynasty and the Graeco-Roman era

Three rock-hewn tombs from the Ptolemaic era have been discovered during excavation work in the El-Kamin El-Sahrawi area of Minya governorate, the Ministry of Antiquities announced on Tuesday.

The discovery was made by an Egyptian archaeological mission from the Ministry of Antiquities working in the lesser-known area to the south-east of the town of Samalout.

The tombs contain a number of sarcophagi of different shapes and sizes, as well as a collection of clay fragments, according to ministry officials.

Ayman Ashmawy, head of the ministry's Ancient Egyptian Sector, said that studies carried out on the clay fragments suggest the tombs are from the 27th Dynasty and the Graeco-Roman era.

"This fact suggests that the area was a large cemetery over a long period of time," said Ashmawy.

Ashmawy describes the discovery as "very important" because it reveals more secrets from the El-Kamil El-Sahrawi archaeological site.

During previous excavation work, the mission uncovered about 20 tombs built in the catacomb architectural style, which was widespread during the 27th Dynasty and the Graeco-Roman era.

Ali El-Bakry, head of the excavation mission,told Ahram Online that the three newly discovered tombs have a different architectural design from the previous ones.

The first tomb is composed of a perpendicular burial shaft engraved in rock and leading to a burial chamber containing four sarcophagi with anthropoid lids. Nine burial holes were also uncovered inside.

The second tomb consists of a perpendicular burial shaft and two burial chambers. The first chamber is located to the north and runs from east to west, with the remains of two sarcophagi, suggesting that it was for the burial of two people.

A collection of six burial holes was also found among them, one for a small child.

"This was the first time to find a burial of a child at the El-Kamin El-Sahrawi site," El-Bakry said.

He added that the second room is located at the end of the shaft and does not contain anything except of remains of a wooden coffin.

Excavation Works at the third tomb have not yet been finished.

El-Bakry said examination of the bones shows them to be from men, women and children of different ages, supporting the notion that the tombs were part of a large cemetery for a large city, and not for a military garrison as some suggest.

Excavation work started in 2015 when the mission unearthed a collection of five sarcophagi of different shapes and sizes, as well as the remains of a wooden sarcophagus.

The second session began in October 2016, with five tombs were uncovered. Four of them have similar interior designs, while the fifth consists of a burial shaft.

Work is under way to reveal more secrets at the site.

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Superstar Rajinikanth has two big releases in his kitty. While all eyes are on Shankars 2.o, tipped to be being made on a budget of over Rs 400 crore, there is also good anticipation for his other project Kaala, which reunites him with Kabali director Pa Ranjith.

Kaala will see Rajinikanth play his as he plays the role of a slum lord-turned-gangster. The project went on the floors earlier this year and according to its producer Dhanush, nearly 60 per cent of the shoot has been successfully wrapped up. Dhanush went on to add that itll be a celebration film for all Thalaivar fans.

Kaala is being made as a Tamil-Hindi bilingual and will also have lines in Marathi as the film is being predominantly shot in Mumbai. Kaala is believed to revolve around the lives of oppressed Tamils in Mumbai and their fight for equality. The project is currently being shot in a huge replica of Dharavi slum in Chennai where the makers have erected a set worth over Rs 5 crore. Inside rumours are that the film might hit the screens on Rajinikanths birthday on December 12 later this year.

Meanwhile, Dhanush also quashed rumours that 2.0, the sequel to 2010 blockbuster Enthiran, has been postponed to April 2018. He confirmed that the film will hit the screens in January next year and it will be the biggest release for an Indian film.

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August 1947 was the month that changed every Indians destiny  it was the month of glory when India won its independence. This year, we are celebrating our 71st Independence Day, and its time to go down memory lane. Here are the top destinations in India where you can learn about Indian history:

* Delhi: Delhi is Indias powerhouse and has relevance in Indian history. Attend the most important event that takes place this day  the flag hoisting and parade at Red Fort. While in Delhi, pay a visit to the innumerable monuments and heritage sites that give Delhi its cultural identity.

How to reach: Indira Gandhi International Airport is the main airport for Delhi and NCR. The city is connected to all major cities and town by air, rail and road.

* Sabarmati Ashram, Gujarat: Pay tribute to Mahatma Gandhi and know more about his role in Indian history by visiting the Sabarmati Ashram in Gujarat. Located on the banks of the Sabarmati River, this place was the epicentre for Indian freedom movement, be it the Civil Disobedience movement, the Swadeshi Movement, etc. Mahatma Gandhi lived here for about 12 years. The ashram also has a museum that has his relics, and is a must-visit for every Indian.

How to reach: The nearest international airport to Sabarmati Ashram is Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, Ahmedabad. There are regular buses and trains from all major cities to Sabarmati Ashram.

Cellular Jail in Port Blair. (Shutterstock)

*Jodhpur, Rajasthan: If you want to experience the grandeur and glory of India, Jodhpur is a must-visit. The beautiful blue city will leave you enamoured. The narrow lanes, medieval streets and massive forts are what Jodhpur is known for. Dont miss the magnificent Mehrangarh Fort when here.

How to reach: Jodhpur has got an airport, and is well-connected by rail and road.

* Cellular Jail, Port Blair: Located in Port Blair, the Cellular Jail is a reminiscence of the sacrifices that our heroes of the freedom movement made, and the confinement they suffered during colonial rule. Do watch the sound and light show, which encapsulates nerve-wracking stories from the past. Visit the silver sandy Andaman beaches to relax and rejuvenate.

How to reach: Veer Savarkar International Airport, also known as Port Blair Airport, is a customs airport located 2km south of Port Blair and is the main airport for Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

* Agra, Uttar Pradesh: Agra is popular for its prized possession  the Taj Mahal, one among the Seven wonders of the world. Visit this magnificent town to get a glimpse of the Taj Mahal and the Agra Fort, an integral part of British history of India. The fort was the site of the Indian rebellion of 1857, and is one of the world heritage sites recognised by UNESCO. Located by the Yamuna River, this incredibly beautiful fort features a unique blend of Hindu and Islamic architecture.

How to reach: Agra is well-connected to all major cities in India by air, rail and road.

* Hampi, Karnataka: Situated on the banks of the Tungabhadra River, Hampi is an extremely significant place in terms of history and architecture. This beautiful village, marked as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is home to a plethora of ruins and an intriguing mythological past. Hampi was the capital of Vijayanagara Empire from 1343 to 1565. The Hampi Festival, held for three days in November, is the most important festival celebrated here, and attracts people from around the globe. It is organised by the Government of Karnataka with dance, music, drama and processions.

How to reach: The nearest international airport to Hampi is Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru, and the nearest domestic airport is at Hubli, about 143 kilometres away. There are regular buses and trains from all major cities to Hampi.

* Udaipur, Rajasthan: Visit this magical town to experience India at its glorious best. Udaipur boasts of unique architecture and opulent grandeur and gives you a sneak peek of life as a royal. Also known as the City of Lakes, Udaipur offers a variety of activities for your family. Do visit Lake Pichola for a memorable boating experience.

How to reach: The nearest airport is the Maharana Pratap Airport, situated about 20 kilometres away from the city. It is well-connected by air to major cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chandigarh, and Jaipur.

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China announced $1 million assistance to flood-hit Nepal on Tuesday as the countrys Vice Premier Wang Yang held talks with his Nepali counterpart on ways to enhance bilateral ties.

Wang made the announcement during the Nepal-China Deputy Prime Minister-level meeting he jointly chaired with Nepals Deputy Prime Minister Bijay Kumar Gachchhadar.

Another Deputy Prime Minister Krishna Bahadur Mahara, Health Minister Girirajmani Pokharel, secretaries of Nepals ministries of finance, health and tourism and chiefs of Nepals Investment Board, National Planning Commission and National Reconstruction Authority also took part in the meeting.

More than 115 people have been killed in rain-triggered floods and landslides in Nepal with over six million people affected by natural calamity.

Meanwhile, the reconstruction of the historic nine-storey palace at the Hanuman Dhoka Durbar Square  a world heritage site  that was damaged two years ago in a devastating earthquake  began Tuesday with Mahara and Wang jointly inaugurating the re-bulding works of the 17th century structure.

The reconstruction effort is being undertaken with economic and technical support from the Chinese government.

The Chinese government will complete the reconstruction of the palace in five years at a cost of Rs 150 million, Bhesh Narayan Dahal, chief of archaeology department, said.
China announced on Tuesday it will provide $1 million as humanitarian assistance to flood-hit Nepal even as the two countries signed three agreements for projects worth billions of dollars.

The agreements, which related to economic and technological cooperation, aid for an oil and gas resources survey project and a framework agreement on promotion of investment, were signed after talks between Nepals deputy prime ministers Bijaya Kumar Gachhadar and Krishna Bahadur Mahara and visiting Chinese vice premier Wang Yang.

Wang announced the aid during a meeting he jointly chaired with Gachhadar, said a statement from the foreign ministry. He also expressed his condolences and sympathies for the victims of the floods and other natural disasters in Nepal.

More than 110 people have been killed by floods and landslides triggered by heavy monsoon rains across Nepal. Tens of thousands have also been displaced.

According to the agreements, China will provide 1 billion Yuan (Nepalese Rs 16 billion) for the repair and reconstruction of several structures, including the Kodari Highway that was shut down following the 2015 earthquake.

Another sum of Rs 2 billion will be spent on a feasibility study on natural gas and petroleum resources in the mountainous regions and the plains of the Terai.

The framework agreement on promotion of investment and economic cooperation is another key agreement regarding Chinese investment and cooperation in different sectors.

According to the foreign ministrys statement, the two sides held substantive discussions on enhancing cooperation in trade, tourism, investment, infrastructure development, energy, cross-border connectivity and people-to-people contacts.

In the context of the Chinese governments announcement designating 2017 as the Nepal Tourism Promotion Year in China, both sides agreed to cooperate in promoting tourism. The two sides also agreed to enhance facilities at border ports.

They also agreed to hold regular meetings of established bilateral mechanisms, including the joint economic and trade committee.

Wang arrived in Kathmandu on Monday for a four-day visit and will meet Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba on Wednesday. His visit assumes significance as it comes ahead of Deubas visit to India later this month.

Media reports in Kathmandu said Beijing wants Kathmandu to persist with a neutral position on the Doklam standoff between Indian and Chinese troops. China also does not want the matter to figure during Deubas visit to India, the reports said.

Wang conveyed a message from Chinese President Xi Jinping to Nepalese leaders about strengthening bilateral ties and supporting cooperation in various areas.
Trade tensions between the United States and China heated up on Tuesday as Beijing warned that it will not sit idle if a US probe into its intellectual property practices leads to sanctions.

President Donald Trumps decision to order the investigation comes on top of strains between the two nations over how to handle Beijings ally North Korea.

Trump on Monday signed a memorandum directing US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to determine whether Chinese policies hurt American investors or companies -- with retaliatory measures a possible outcome.

We will stand up to any country that unlawfully forces American companies to transfer their valuable technology as a condition of market access. We will combat the counterfeiting and piracy that destroys American jobs, Trump said.

We will safeguard the copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets and other intellectual property that is so vital to our security and to our prosperity.

Washington will turn a blind eye no longer, Trump insisted.

The president said the US would no longer tolerate Beijings theft of US industrial secrets, long a concern of major foreign corporations seeking a share of the huge Chinese market.

We will engage in a thorough investigation and, if needed, take action to preserve the future of US industry, Lighthizer said.

Chinas commerce ministry issued a statement voicing serious concern and warning that any US trade protectionism will definitely harm bilateral trade relations.

If the US side take actions that impair the mutual trade relations, disregarding the facts and disrespecting multilateral trade rules, China will not sit idle, the statement said.

The ministry said the country is definitely going to adopt all appropriate measures to vigorously defend the lawful rights and interest of China.

The United States is Chinas second-largest trading partner after the European Union, but Washington and Beijing have seen their relations grow increasingly fraught since a promising summit between Trump and Chinas Xi Jinping in April.

Multiple trade disputes

The new intellectual property inquiry joins numerous investigations launched by Washington into Chinese trade practices, notably those concerning steel and aluminium and their national security consequences, which the Trump administration began earlier this year.

However, the start of a US inquiry will not immediately result in open confrontation.

Lighthizer will first need to reach a preliminary finding of unfair practices by China before opening a formal investigation, which could take as much as a year, administration officials said.

The Chinese commerce ministry said the country has always been paying high attention to intellectual property right protection, continuously perfecting the legislation, and that the progress it has made on that front is obvious to all.

Since launching his successful run for the White House and then taking office, Trump has frequently accused China of undermining the US economy.

The bilateral US trade deficit with China approached $350 billion in 2016, and Trump has repeatedly blamed Chinese imports for gutting employment in US sectors such as steel.

Last week, Washington announced preliminary sanctions against Chinese imports of aluminium foil. But so far, the US has not imposed heavier trade measures on Chinese goods.

North Korea a bargaining chip?

On Thursday, Trump reiterated the suggestion that he could soften his position on trade if Beijing were to do more to help rein in nuclear-armed North Korea.

If China helps us, I feel a lot differently toward trade, he said.

China said it would halt iron, iron ore and seafood imports from North Korea starting Tuesday, in accordance with new UN sanctions that Beijing voted to approve.

US administration officials, however, have denied any link between the latest trade action and Pyongyangs nuclear ambitions.

Beijing echoed this view Monday, with the foreign ministry saying the two matters were totally different.

Despite Mondays expected action, Trump has so far refrained from making good on threats of retaliatory trade measures against China.

This includes in particular concerns over Beijings requirement that foreign companies establish local joint ventures. According to Washington, this can mean surrendering technological know-how to Chinese partners.
Two CEOs of major American companies have quit an advisory council over President Donald Trumps response to the Charlottesville clashes, even after he bowed to mounting pressure and denounced neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan, white supremacists and all hate groups.

The CEO of sportswear firm Under Armour, Kevin Plank, resigned on Monday evening and Intels Brian Krzanich a few hours later, joining Kenneth Frazier, the African American CEO of Merck Pharma, who was the first to quit the American Manufacturing Council earlier in the day, saying hate groups must be rejected clearly.

Trump did issue a clearer denunciation than his earlier attempts a few hours later: Racism is evil. And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.

He added: Anyone who acted criminally in this weekends racist violence, you will be held fully accountable. Justice will be delivered.

But that was clearly not enough for the CEOs. Under Armour engages in innovation and sports, not politics, Plank said in a statement.

Krzanich too said in a statement, I resigned to call attention to the serious harm our divided political climate is causing to critical issues, including the serious need to address the decline of American manufacturing.

There were statements from other business leaders as well  including Stephen A Schwarzman, the chief executive of the private equity firm, the Blackstone Group, and a close adviser of Trump  but no one else had gone as far as the three CEOs who quit the administrations advisory panels.

Trump had resisted calls for him to name and criticise the hate groups for two days after the clashes that claimed the lives of three people, including a 32-year old woman killed by a car that plowed through protestors, with a 20-year-old white supremacist allegedly at the wheel.

Critics argued it was important for Trump to say those words and denounce the hate groups because many of their members had supported him and voted for him, and felt emboldened by his election to assert themselves more belligerently than rarely before, never in recent years.

In his first response, a tweet, Trump vaguely condemned violence and called for peace and unity. In his second, brief remarks, he came out blaming both sides  many sides, he had said  and not the hate groups that had been widely blamed for starting the clashes.

Critics and allies, including leading Republican lawmakers, publicly called on him to issue a more unequivocal denunciation. Ivanka Trump, his daughter and senior adviser, went ahead and named the hate groups in a tweet on Sunday: There should be no place in society for racism, white supremacy and neo-Nazis.

Trump held out for another day amid more criticism, this time from the business community. Frazier resigned from a federal panel of business advisers, saying, America's leaders must honour our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy, which run counter to the American ideal that all people are created equal.

Trump hit back within an hour, mocking Frazier in a tweet that said since he had resigned, he should find all the time he needs to bring back the prices of drugs  in all caps, showing how angry he might have been.

But he did give in finally, and issued a firm and clear denunciation.
The death of a teenager at an internet de-addiction centre in China has again brought into sharp focus the countrys controversial camps to cure obsessive online habits among adolescents and young adults.

The parents of Li Ao, 18, were informed their son had died within two days of being admitted to the internet boot camp in eastern Anhui provinces Fuyang city earlier this month, the Anhui Daily reported.

The daily quoted the parents as saying that the centre had advertised that it cures internet addiction through counselling and psychological counselling, and not by using methods that could prove physically harmful to the inmates.

The parents, however, discovered several bruises and scars on their sons body, which aroused their suspicion.

My son's body was completely covered with scars, from top to toe...When I sent my son to the center he was still fine, how could he have died within 48 hours? Lis mother was quoted as saying by the Shanghaiist website.

Senior camp officials have been taken into custody but the reason for the death is yet to be ascertained.

According to the Sixth Tone news website, in 2008, China became the first country to recognise internet addiction as a clinical disorder.

Health officials divided the disease into five categories of addiction: online games, social networking, shopping, pornography, and the nebulous internet information, a report said.

Earlier this year, the government drafted a regulation banning electric shocks and beatings to wean teenagers off the internet.

The number of such boot camps in China is not officially available but reports often describe their style of functioning as military.

At one centre in Shandong, an inmate killed her mother last year, apparently because of the abuse she faced in the name of treatment.

A report released by the China Internet Network Information Center in January stated that 170 million under-18s are online in China, while 43.7% of them spend more than an hour on tablets and smartphones each day.

By June last year, about 23% of the 710 million internet users on the mainland were aged under 19, according to Legal Daily. More than 90% of adolescents used the internet, the report added.

In May, the ministry of culture issued a statement to strengthen the identity registration system in online games to control payments made by children, as according to the Civil Law, those under 10 have no capacity for civil conduct, while for those aged between 10 and 18, it is limited, the report said.
President Hassan Rouhani warned on Tuesday that Iran could abandon its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers within hours if the United States keeps on imposing new sanctions.

In a speech to parliament, he also hit out at US counterpart Donald Trump saying that he had shown the world that Washington was not a good partner.

Rouhanis comments come with the nuclear deal under mounting pressure after Tehran carried out missile tests and strikes, and Washington imposed new sanctions  with each accusing the other of violating the spirit of the agreement.

Rouhani warned that Iran was ready to walk out of the 2015 deal, which saw the lifting of most international sanctions in return for curbs on its nuclear programme, if Washington persisted.

Those who try to return to the language of threats and sanctions are prisoners of their past delusions, he said in the televised address.

If they want to go back to that experience, definitely in a short time  not weeks or months, but in the scale of hours and days  we will return to our previous situation very much more stronger.

He said Iran did prefer to stick with the nuclear deal, which he called a model of victory for peace and diplomacy over war and unilateralism but that this was not the only option.

Rouhani said Trump had shown he was an unreliable partner not just for Iran but for US allies.

In recent months, the world has witnessed that the US, in addition to its constant and repetitive breaking of its promises in the JCPOA (nuclear deal), has ignored several other global agreements and shown its allies that the US is neither a good partner nor a reliable negotiating party, he said.

He highlighted Trumps decisions to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement and international trade deals.

Irans parliament on Sunday approved more than half a billion dollars in funding for the countrys missile programme and foreign operations of the elite Revolutionary Guards in response to the new US sanctions.

Wanted to nominate women

Rouhani was addressing lawmakers as deliberations start over his new ministerial line-up, which must be approved by lawmakers in the coming days.

The president, who started his second term a fortnight ago, has faced criticism from reformists over his elderly and all-male cabinet.

I wanted to nominate three women ministers but it did not happen, he said, without explaining why.

All ministers must use women in high-ranking positions... and especially female advisers and deputies, he added.

Rouhani, a 68-year-old moderate cleric, won a resounding re-election victory in May in large part due to the backing of reformists who supported his message of greater civil liberties and equality.

Many felt let down by the lack of women ministers, saying he had bowed to pressure from the conservative religious establishment, although he did appoint two female vice presidents and a senior aide  positions which do not require parliamentary approval.

He defended his cabinet selections on Tuesday, and pointed to his choice for a new telecoms minister, 35-year-old Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, as our first experience in choosing from the youth, someone who has grown up after the revolution.
Iraqi forces are carrying out air strikes on Tal Afar, a town held by Islamic State west of Mosul, in preparation for a ground assault, an Iraqi military spokesman said on Tuesday.

Islamic States self-proclaimed caliphate effectively collapsed last month, when U.S.-backed Iraqi forces completed the recapture of Mosul, the militants capital in northern Iraq, after a nine-month campaign.

Parts of Iraq and Syria remain however under Islamic State control, especially along the border.

Iraqi authorities had said Tal Afar, 80 km (50 miles) west of Mosul, will be the next target in the war on Islamic State, who swept through parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014.

The town, which had about 200,000 residents before falling to Islamic State, experienced cycles of sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and has produced some of Islamic States most senior commanders.

The preparations are under way, there are strikes aimed at wearing them down and keeping them busy, targeting their command and control centers, their depots...these strikes have been going on for some time, Iraqi military spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Rasool said in a statement.

We are waiting for the commander in chief of the armed forces (Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi)to give the orders for the liberation battle to start.

Earlier on Tuesday, Baghdad-based al-Sumariya TV quoted Defence Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Khodari as saying the ground attack should start after the aerial bombardment campaign.

Tal Afar has become the focus of a wider regional struggle for influence. Turkey, which claims affinity with Tal Afars predominantly ethnic Turkmen population, opposes the involvement of Shiite paramilitary groups fighting with Iraqi forces, some of which are backed by Iran.

One of Iraqs senior military commanders, Major-General Najm al-Jabouri, told Reuters last month that between 1,500 and 2,000 militants were in Tal Afar, a figure which possibly includes some family members who support them.

The U.S.-led coalition is also keeping up its support to the Iraqi forces campaign to end the militants presence all over the country.

Coalition spokesman Colonel Ryad Dillon said last Thursday that the coalition carried out more than 50 strikes in the past week against Islamic State defensive positions, headquarters, weapons caches, and bomb factories in Tal Afar and also Kisik Junction to the east.

We fully expect this to be a difficult fight to root out ISIS from one of their last strongholds in Iraq, Dillon told a news briefing.

Jabouri had a different assessment of the battle, expecting a relatively easy victory because the militants and their families there are worn out and demoralised.

Islamic State has also lost swathes of Syrian territory to separate campaigns being waged by Syrian government forces backed by Russia and Iran and by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic (SDF) Forces, which is dominated by the Kurdish YPG militia. The SDF is currently focused on capturing Raqqa city from Islamic State.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Angus MacSwan)
Mass graves containing the bodies of more than 40 civilians allegedly massacred by Taliban and Islamic State insurgents were found on Tuesday after Afghan forces recaptured the village where they died, officials said.

In a rare joint operation by the rival militants, fighters killed dozens of men, women and children in Mirzawalang, a mainly Shia village in Sayad district of northern Sar-e Pul province, on August 5 after overrunning a government-backed militia, according to officials and residents.

We have so far discovered three mass graves in the village, containing the remains of a total of 42 people, including three children, some of them beheaded, Zabihullah Amani, a spokesman for the provincial governor, told AFP.

He said that 23 bodies had been found in one grave, 11 in another and eight in a third.

The majority have been identified as civilians, while there might be a small number of uprising forces too among them. Search operations will continue tomorrow, Amani added.

The discovery came after a spokesman for the Afghan National Armys northern military corps said troops had retaken the village following several days of intense fighting that left at least 50 insurgents dead.

Our forces are in full control of the village and are searching for Taliban mines and booby traps, Nasratullah Jamshidi told AFP.

Dawlat Waziri, a spokesman for the Afghan defence ministry, said forces had pushed the Taliban out of the village on Monday afternoon.

He told AFP that militants had suffered heavy casualties. There has been no word on any casualties to Afghan forces.

Survivors fleeing the violence described nightmarish scenes of militants going from house to house, gunning down local people.

The insurgents also took a number of residents captive, but later released 235 hostages after elders and provincial officials struck a deal with the group.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for killing 54 Shias in Sar-e Pul in a statement released by its propaganda outlet Amaq late Monday.

The Taliban earlier claimed capturing the village but said it did so alone. It also denied allegations it had killed civilians.

Taliban and IS fighters have regularly clashed since the latter gained a foothold in the country in 2015 but security sources say they have teamed up to attack Afghan forces on a few occasions.

IS has carried out a number of deadly attacks on Shiites in the past year, providing a sectarian twist to the Afghan conflict.

This month two suicide bombers killed more than 33 worshippers at a mosque in Afghanistans western city of Herat, in an attack claimed by the group.

A resurgent Taliban, whose ranks are mostly made up of Sunni Muslim ethnic Pashtuns, is at the height of its summer fighting season.
At least 312 people were killed and more than 2,000 left homeless on Monday when heavy flooding hit Sierra Leones capital of Freetown, leaving excavators to pull bodies from rubble and overwhelming the citys morgues.

An AFP journalist saw several homes submerged in Regent village, a hilltop community, and corpses floating in the water in the Lumley West area of the city, as the president assured emergency services were doing all they could to tackle one of the worst natural disasters ever to hit the city.

Red Cross spokesman Patrick Massaquoi told AFP the death toll was 312 but could rise further as his team continued to survey disaster areas in Freetown and tally the number of dead.

Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries in the world, according to UN indicators.

I counted over 300 bodies and more are coming, Mohamed Sinneh, a morgue technician at Freetowns Connaught Hospital, told AFP, having earlier described an overwhelming number of dead at the facility leaving no space to lay out every body.

Many more of the dead were taken to private morgues, Sinneh said.

In this image made available by Society 4 Climate Change Communication, Sierra Leone, mud and water flow in Freetown Sierra Leone Monday Aug. 14, 2017. (AP)

President Ernest Bai Koroma said in an address to the nation broadcast on television late Monday that an emergency response centre had been established at Regent, the worst-affected area.

He appealed for unity from a nation still struggling with the legacy of Ebola and a long civil war.

Our nation has once again been gripped by grief. Many of our compatriots have lost their lives, many more have been gravely injured and billions of Leones worth of property destroyed in the flooding and landslides that swept across some parts of our city, he said.

Every single family, every single ethnic group, every single region is either directly or indirectly affected by this disaster, Koroma said.

He announced that centres would be set up across the city to register those made homeless and praised the military, police and Red Cross volunteers, deployed in an all-out effort to locate those trapped.

Rescue workers search for survivors following a mudslide in Regent, east of Freetown, Sierra Leone, Monday, Aug. 14, 2017. (AP)

No warning

Images obtained by AFP showed ferocious, churning dark-orange mud coursing down a steep street in the capital, while videos posted by local residents showed people waist- or chest-deep in water trying to cross the road.

The Sierra Leone meteorological department did not issue any warning ahead of the torrential rains to hasten evacuation from the disaster zones, AFPs correspondent based in Freetown said.

Fatmata Sesay, who lives on the hilltop area of Juba, said she, her three children and husband were awoken at 4:30 am by rain pounding on the mud house they occupy, which was by then submerged by water.

I only managed to escape by climbing to the roof of the house when neighbours came in to rescue me, she said.

We have lost everything and we do not have a place to sleep, she told AFP in tears.

Deputy Information Minister Cornelius Deveaux earlier confirmed Koroma had called a national emergency, and said his own boss, Information Minister Mohamed Bangura, was in hospital after being injured in the flooding.

Deveaux said hundreds of people had lost their lives and had properties damaged, and promised food and other assistance for the victims.

He called on the public to remain calm with rescue efforts underway.

Rescue workers gather at the summit of a mudslide in Regent, east of Freetown, Sierra Leone, Monday, Aug. 14 , 2017. (AP)

The scale of the human cost of the floods only became clear on Monday afternoon, as images of battered corpses piled on top of each other circulated and residents spoke of their struggles to cope with the destruction and find their loved ones.

Meanwhile disaster management official Vandy Rogers said that over 2,000 people are homeless, hinting at the huge humanitarian effort that will be required to deal with the fallout of the flooding in one of Africas poorest nations.

Freetown, an overcrowded coastal city of 1.2 million, is hit each year by flooding during several months of rain that destroys makeshift settlements and raises the risk of waterborne diseases such as cholera.

Rescue workers carry the body of a victim from the site of a mudslide in Regent, east of Freetown, Sierra Leone, Monday, Aug. 14, 2017. (AP)

Rainy season not over

Sasha Ekanayake, Save the Childrens Sierra Leone Country Director, said the immediate priority was to provide shelter and protect residents, especially children, from the spread of deadly waterborne diseases.

We are still in the rainy season and must be prepared to respond in the event of further emergencies to come, she said in a statement.

Flooding in the capital in 2015 killed 10 people and left thousands homeless.

Sierra Leone was one of the west African nations hit by an outbreak of the Ebola virus in 2014 that left more than 4,000 people dead in the country, and it has struggled to revive its economy since the crisis.

About 60% of people in Sierra Leone live below the national poverty line, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The country ranked 179th out of 188 countries on the UNDPs 2016 Human Development Index, a basket of data combining life expectancy, education and income and other factors.
Pakistans ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif filed three separate appeals in the Supreme Court on Tuesday to review its verdict in the Panama Papers case that resulted in his disqualification.

A five-member Supreme Court bench last month disqualified Sharif for dishonesty and ruled that corruption cases be filed against him and his children over the Panama Papers scandal, forcing the prime minister to quit.

Sharifs lawyer Khawaja Harris filed the three review appeals, in reply to the petitions filed by Imran Khan, Sheikh Rashid and Sirjul Haq, in the Lahore registry of the apex court.

The decision to file the appeal against the verdict was taken before 67-year-old Sharifs road journey from Islamabad to Lahore but the legal team took time to prepare the case.

Harris also submitted relevant documents concerning the iqama  a United Arab Emirates work visa  that led the judges to declare Sharif unfit to hold office, Dawn reported.

Sharif has argued that the July 28 decision should have been given by a three-member bench since Justice Asif Saeed Khosa and Justice Gulzar Ahmeds jurisdiction had expired after their dissenting judgement on April 20, the paper said.

By signing the final order of the court on July 28, Justice Ahmed and Justice Khosa have actually passed two judgments in the same case, which is unprecedented in judicial history, reads the appeal petition, according to the paper.

Sharif also chaired a meeting of party leaders at his Raiwind estate in Lahore to prepare a strategy for his campaign to contact the masses over his disqualification.

The meeting was attended by Hamza Shahbaz, foreign minister Khawaja Asif, railways minister Saad Rafique, and Punjab law minister Rana Sanaullah, among others.

National Assembly speaker Ayaz Sadiq told the media after the meeting that he still considers Sharif his prime minister.

Sadiq said that Sharif will fight for his rights but he will not create any tension between the national institutions.

Sharifs plan is to go to the public and garner support for his plan to bring changes in the country for sanctity of the vote, the speaker added.

The ousted prime minister has repeatedly said that he will strive hard to replace Pakistans old and flawed system with a new law which will put an end to the unceremonious ouster of the prime ministers.

He also seeks accountability from military dictators and judges who he said have been sending prime ministers packing home in the last 70 years.
Philippine police killed at least 21 people in a series of raids near the capital Manila, in the bloodiest night of President Rodrigo Dutertes war on drugs, official records showed on Tuesday.

Duterte won a landslide victory in presidential elections last year after promising an unprecedented war on drugs in which tens of thousands of people would be killed.

The raids from Monday to Tuesday resulted in the single largest death toll in one night of police operations since officers killed 16 people, including a city mayor, in a raid on a southern city on July 30.

Police records from Bulacan province, a light-industrial centre just north of Manila, said that 26 anti-drug operations were conducted in 12 towns and cities, resulting in the killing of 21 drug personalities.

The raids also resulted in the arrest of 64 suspects, the seizure of 21 firearms and about 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of methamphetamines, popularly known as shabu the records said.

A breakdown of the incidents showed that the 21 were killed in 16 separate operations where all the fatalities were armed, the police added.

Spokesmen for the Bulacan police could not be contacted for comment.

Bulacan, a province of about 3.29 million people, has recorded numerous arrests and killings of drug suspects in recent months, the police records showed.

Duterte has vowed to protect police who kill drug suspects under suspicious circumstances.

Government figures show that since Duterte took office last year up to July 26, a total of 3,451 drug personalities have been killed in police operations.

More than 2,000 other people have been killed in drug-related crimes and thousands more murdered in unexplained circumstances, according to police data.

Despite warnings by human rights groups that Duterte may be overseeing a crime against humanity, he remains widely popular in the Philippines.
Western-backed Syrian rebels said they had shot down a Syrian military jet on Tuesday in a desert area in southern Syria near the border with Jordan, where the army had recently advanced and seized border posts.

Saad al Haj, spokesman for the Osoud al Sharqiya rebel group leader, said the rebels had shot down the Russian-built MiG using anti-aircraft guns.

It was downed in Wadi Mahmoud in eastern Sweida countryside. The wreckage fell in the area and we think the pilot has dropped in a parachute. The search is going on to find him, said al Haj, whose group is one of two major rebel groups that operates in the area.

The eastern countryside of Sweida province borders Jordan in a front where the Syrian army, alongside Iranian-backed militias, had established control last Thursday over checkpoints and border posts.

Syrian officials could not immediately be reached for comment. Reuters could not independently confirm reports of the downed plane.

Last month, the same rebel alliance said a military jet had come down about 50 km east of Damascus in a rebel-held territory near a frontline with army troops. Videos on social media were released of the remains of the pilot and wreckage said to be that of the warplane.
A powerful road side bomb blast targeting security forces on Monday killed at least six paramilitary troops and injured three others in Pakistans southwestern restive Balochistan province.

The vehicle of the Frontier Corps was on a routine patrol in Khost area of Harnai district when the bomb exploded.

Security official said that the bomb was planted on the side of the road and badly damaged the vehicle.

Six soldiers were killed and three other injured, the officials said.

It was second attack on the security forces in the last two days after a suicide bomber rammed his motorbike into an army truck on Saturday, killing 15 people including 8 soldiers.

Chief Minister of Balochistan Nawab Sanaullah Zehri strongly condemned the blast and directed the officers to bring the perpetrators to book.

We will not spare the elements involved in this act, he said in statement.

The attack came on a day when Pakistan celebrates its 70th Independence Day.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility of the blast but Taliban and Islamic State militants have carried out attacks in Balochistan.

Balochistan has oil and gas resources but has witnessed several terrorist attacks recently by militants and separatists while banned outfits have also carried out sectarian killings in the province.
The Afghan Taliban on Tuesday released an open letter to President Donald Trump, reiterating their calls for the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan after 16 years of war.

In a long and rambling note in English that was sent to journalists by Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, the insurgents said Trump has recognized the errors of his predecessors by seeking a review of the U.S. strategy for Afghanistan.

However, Mujahid said Trump should not hand control of the U.S. Afghan policy to the military but rather announce the withdrawal of U.S. forces  and not an increase in troops as the administration has planned.

The 1,600-word note said a U.S. withdrawal would truly deliver American troops from harms way and bring about an end to an inherited war.

The United States now has about 8,400 troops in Afghanistan.

Trump has so far resisted the Pentagons recommendations to send almost 4,000 more to expand training of Afghan military forces and bolster U.S. counterterrorism operations. The deployment has been held up amid broader strategy questions, including how to engage regional powers in an effort to stabilize Afghanistan.

What is evident is that the Afghan government has struggled to halt Taliban advances on its own and is now also battling an Islamic State affiliate that has carved out a foothold mostly in eastern Afghanistan. In its most recent report, the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction said the Taliban hold sway in nearly 50 percent of the country.

The Taliban letter sought to flatter Trump for initiating the Afghan policy review while warning against handing it to warmongering generals.

We have noticed that you have understood the errors of your predecessors and have resolved to thoroughly rethinking your new strategy in Afghanistan, it said, addressing Trump. You must also not hand over the Afghan issue to warmongering generals, but must make a decision where history shall remember you as an advocate of peace.

The letter also offered a long list of complaints against Afghanistans U.S.-orchestrated unity government and referenced a newly formed coalition of disgruntled warlords formed at a meeting last month in Turkey as an opposition bloc to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

Ghani has been under pressure from critics who have described him as divisive and accused him of stoking ethnic rivalries.

The opposition bloc includes Uzbek warlord and Afghanistans first vice president, Rashid Dostum, who has been criticized by the U.S. for human rights abuses and is currently living in Turkey. Atta Mohammed Noor, a Tajik warlord and governor of northern Balkh province and Mohammed Mohaqiq, an ethnic Hazara lawmaker are also in the bloc.
A Thai student activist was jailed for two and a half years on Tuesday for posting on Facebook a BBC article deemed offensive to Thailands king, his lawyer said.

Jatupat Boonpattaraksa, also known as Pai, an activist and critic of the ruling junta, was the first person to be charged with royal insult, known as lese-majeste, after new King Maha Vajiralongkorn formally ascended the throne on December 1, following the death of his father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

Jatupat, a former law student, was arrested on December 3 and charged for posting a BBC Thai language profile of the king which some deemed offensive.

He was also charged with violating a computer crime law for posting a link to the BBC report, which was shared by more than 2,000 people.

He pleaded guilty to the charges against him earlier on Tuesday, prompting the court to bring forward its verdict.

The court sentenced Pai to five years in prison, reduced to two and a half years, Kissandang Nutcharat, Jatupats lawyer, told Reuters.

Pai confessed ... He knew that if he tried to fight the charges it would not be of any use.

A representative for the BBC in Thailand said he could not immediately comment on the verdict.

Thailands military government took power after a 2014 coup against a democratically elected government.

Since then, the detention of people accused of royal insult has increased sharply.

Last week, a man was jailed for 18 years for posting six video clips deemed insulting to the monarchy.

International rights groups have accused the authorities in Thailand of using broad laws to silence critics. Some political commentators have said the laws have been used to shield governments and the military from criticism.

It appears that Jatupat was singled out from the thousands of people who shared the BBC article, and prosecuted for his strong opposition to military rule more than for any harm incurred by the monarchy, Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

Anyone can file a lese-majeste complaint against anyone in Thailand and complaints are almost always investigated by authorities who fear falling foul of the law themselves.

The laws protecting members of the royal family from insult limit what all news organizations, including Reuters, can report from Thailand.
Three young British men were sentenced Tuesday to jail time and caning for sexually assaulting a Malaysian woman during a stag party in Singapore.

Khong Tam Thanh, Le Michael and Vu Thai Son, in their 20s, were originally accused of rape but pleaded guilty on Monday to a lesser charge of aggravated outrage of modesty after a four-day trial.

High Court Judge Hoo Sheau Peng slammed their reprehensible conduct and sentenced the trio, British citizens of Vietnamese origin, to jail terms of between five and a half years to six and a half years.

They were also sentenced to between five and eight strokes of the cane each. Caning is a punishment dating back to British colonial rule in Singapore and involves being flogged with a rattan stick.

The attack happened in Singapore in September last year, when the trio travelled to the city-state for a bachelor party. The groom, the brother of Khong, was also on the trip.

After attending an electronic music festival, the men met the 23-year-old victim at a popular nightspot, and she went back to a hotel with one of their friends.

Later, Khong, 22, Le and Vu  both 24  took turns to enter the room where she lay drunk and unconscious and have sex with her, with the woman waking up as Le assaulted her.

As well as outrage of modesty, Khong and Vu, who worked as beauticians in Britain, were also convicted of an additional charge of sexual assault.
President Donald Trump on Monday authorised an inquiry into Chinas alleged theft of intellectual property in the first direct trade measure by his administration against Beijing, but one that is unlikely to prompt near-term change.

Trump broke from his 17-day vacation in New Jersey to sign the memo in the White House at a time of heightened tensions between Washington and Beijing over North Koreas nuclear ambitions.

The investigation is likely to cast a shadow over relations with China, the largest US trading partner, just as Trump is asking Beijing to step up pressure against Pyongyang.

US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer will have a year to look into whether to launch a formal investigation of Chinas trade policies on intellectual property, which the White House and US industry lobby groups say are harming US businesses and jobs.

Trump called the inquiry a very big move.

Trump administration officials have estimated that theft of intellectual property by China could be as high as $600 billion.

Experts on China trade policy said the long lead time could allow Beijing to discuss some of the issues raised by Washington without being seen to cave to pressure under the threat of reprisals.

Although Trump repeatedly criticised Chinas trade practices on the campaign trail, his administration has not taken any significant action. Despite threats to do so, it has declined to name China a currency manipulator and delayed broader national security probes into imports of foreign steel and aluminium that could indirectly affect China.

China repeatedly rebuffed attempts by previous US administrations to take action on its IP practices.

Im sure they will formally reject this if an investigation is launched and there is an implication this is going to require negotiation to resolve it, said Matthew Goodman, a senior adviser for Asian economics at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Jonathan Fenby, an analyst at the TS Lombard consultancy, said China was not interested in a short-term trade fix with the United States and will resist attempts to tie it down.

Chinas policy of forcing foreign companies to turn over technology to Chinese joint venture partners and failure to crack down on intellectual property theft have been longstanding problems for several US administrations.

The Information Technology Industry Council, the main trade group for US technology giants, such as Microsoft, Apple and Google, said it hoped China would take the administrations announcement seriously.

Both the United States and China should use the coming months to address the issues causing friction in the bilateral trade relationship before Presidents Trump and Xi have their anticipated meeting ahead of the November APEC leaders meeting, ITI President Dean Garfield said in a statement.

The US Chamber of Commerce, the largest business lobbying group, said China needed to end forced technology transfers and to protect foreign intellectual property rights.

In an editorial on Monday, the state-run China Daily newspaper said the investigation will poison relations and warned the Trump administration not to make a rash decision it could regret.

Trump had been expected to seek a so-called Section 301 investigation earlier this month, but an announcement was postponed as the White House pressed for Chinas cooperation on North Korea.

Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, a popular trade tool in the 1980s that has been rarely used in the past decade, allows the president to unilaterally impose tariffs or other trade restrictions to protect US industries from unfair trade practices of foreign countries.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis suggested Monday that a ban announced by President Donald Trump on transgender people serving in the US military may not be a done deal.

In a series of tweets, Trump last month upended an Obama-era policy of more than a year that allowed transgender troops to serve openly.

But in the weeks since the July 26 tweets, the White House has not issued formal guidance to the Pentagon explaining how a ban would work, or what would happen to those transgender troops who have already come out.

Mattis said he had no doubt that the White House would be providing additional guidance, and said the Pentagon is giving military input as it studies the issue.

The policy is going to address whether or not transgenders can serve under what conditions, what medical support they require, how much time would they be perhaps non-deployable, leaving others to pick up their share of everything, Mattis told Pentagon reporters. Theres a host of issues... its obviously very complex.

The current Obama-era policy remains in place for now. When pushed on whether the Pentagon will still employ transgender troops, Mattis said: We are going to study the issue.

He added that the Pentagon had received no White House directions that would indicate any harm to anybody right now.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court last week, five transgender women from the Air Force, Coast Guard and the Army said they faced uncertainty about their futures, including whether they would be fired or lose post-military and retirement benefits.

The number of transgender troops among Americas 1.3 million active duty service members is small, with estimates topping out at 15,000.

Trumps tweeted announcement came with little apparent coordination with the Pentagon and landed while Mattis was on vacation.

Several senior military officials have voiced unease over the policy shift, with the head of the Coast Guard saying he would not break faith with transgender personnel.

Trump last week said he did the Pentagon a great favour by banning transgender troops, saying the issue had been complicated and confusing for the military.
Ride-hailing giant Uber on Tuesday defied a Philippine government order to shut down, branding the suspension a blatant violation of its rights but risking its drivers being apprehended.

Philippine authorities announced on Monday they would suspend Uber for a month for failing to have the proper permits to license its drivers, and threatened to fine and impound the vehicles of those who defied the ruling.

Uber initially obeyed the order and shut down its app on Tuesday morning, triggering anger from commuters who lashed out at the government for taking away what had become a trusted alternative to notoriously bad public transport.

But on Tuesday afternoon, Uber relaunched the app, telling commuters via Twitter it was mounting a legal appeal and would continue operations until the dispute was settled.

Commuters wait for a ride on a main road in Manila on August 15, 2017. Ride-hailing giant Uber has defied a Philippine government order to shut down, branding the suspension a "blatant violation" of its rights but risking its drivers being arrested. (AFP)

In its motion for reconsideration to the transport authority, it said the suspension was a blatant violation of USIs (Ubers) right to due process.

The government warned the suspension remained in force and said Uber drivers who defied it would be fined 120,000 pesos ($2,350) and have their vehicles impounded for three months.

What is being done here is irregular conduct, irregular acts by Uber, Aileen Lizada, spokeswoman of the transport authority, told AFP.

It may not be a popular decision (but) we will continue to do what is legal and right, she added.

Uber officially launched in Manila in 2014 and the service was later rolled out to a few provincial cities.

The Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) requires Uber to get permits for its drivers and vehicles, in the same way taxi companies must.

But Uber insists the drivers are independent contractors and thus do not have to get the same type of permits.

Lizada said during a recent hearing, Uber officials had admitted having 68,000 drivers in the Philippines and handling 150,000 rides a day.

Cruel and absurd

The dispute is Ubers latest hurdle in Asia, where it also faced a two-month hiatus in Taiwan this year. It has operated illegally in Thailand since 2014, though law enforcement has been patchy, with roughly 1.5 million people downloading the app.

The firm is currently lobbying for a tweak to the decades-old Thai motor law to allow ride-sharing apps.

The Philippine suspension enraged many local commuters who prefer ride hailing companies to traditional taxi services, whereby drivers often demand higher fares than what is on their metres, decline to pick up customers and have shoddy vehicles.

To the LTFRB, quit being scumbags and open your eyes to what people need, Twitter user @sodachar said in reference to the transport authority.

Politicians also weighed in.

The decision of the LTFRB to suspend Uber is both cruel and absurd, said Senator Grace Poe, who heads the upper chambers transport committee.

Bur Uber driver Rodwin Agripa, 51, said he and many of his colleagues were staying off the road for now.

There are so many passengers out there but it looks like there arent too many Uber drivers who are going out. I think they are scared. It would be really hard for us if we get caught, Agripa told AFP.

The government order left many Manila commuters queueing for rides on overcrowded buses and trains, an ordeal that often takes several hours a day.

President Rodrigo Dutertes spokesman on Tuesday defended the transport authoritys decision.

We affirm the positive and beneficial service offered by the transport network companies. However as per LTFRB, Uber Systems unduly challenged its rules and instructions, Ernesto Abella told reporters.
A UK blood transfusion service has on Tuesday issued an apology for turning away hundreds of Indian-origin donors during a blood donation drive organised by the Indian community in Northern Ireland last year.

The Northern Ireland Blood Transfusion Service (NIBTS) claimed confusion and communications error over the travel criteria for donors prevented those without malaria tests from donating blood.

NIBTS fully accepts and apologises for the upset and inconvenience caused to those who attended the session and were unable to donate, it said.

Surendran Varma, among the organisers of the blood donation drive, accused the service of turning away potential donors without even checking if they had travelled to India, considered a high-risk country for malaria.

They didnt check our passport to see if we were an Indian citizen or a British citizen. They just looked at our face. They never checked if you had travelled to India, it was just a blanket no, he said.

Dr Umesh Vijayam, who also helped to organise the event last year, said people had travelled to Belfast from far away regions of Londonderry, Bangor and Newry in Northern Ireland to take part in what had been planned as a unique drive.

Around 30 people had already arrived, with many more on their way. One of my friends went in to donate blood, he was very enthusiastic, he was first. They asked had he taken a malaria test since he was from India, a malaria-risk country, he recalls.

Dr Vijayam said it was then that they realised that there was a problem and tried to contact others to prevent them making long journeys in vain.

A copy of an internal report and staff e-mails from the NIBTS obtained by the BBC through a freedom of information request reveals the services failure to spot the problem in advance.

A spokesperson for NIBTS claims all donors were assessed individually and some Malarial Antibody Tests (MAT) were taken.

Under its blood donation criteria, if a donor is born in India and spent a minimum of six months in the country, a Malarial Antibody Test is compulsory; if the person has never been a resident, ie just a visitor, the Geographical Disease Risk Index (GDRI) will be referred to in order to assess risk; and if it had been between four and 12 months since their return from a malaria-endemic area, a validated test for malarial antibody must be performed.
Edited by Nancy Tappan

It is one of the most celebrated letters in American history. First heard on a wide scale during Ken Burns The Civil War documentary on September 23, 1990, a letter presented as the final missive by Major Sullivan Ballou of the 2nd Rhode Island Infantry has over the years been read repeatedly and published in many accounts as the finest expression of why Northern soldiers went to war to preserve the Union.

Since 1990, however, some in the Civil War community have debated whether the 32-year-old major did indeed write that letter to his wife, Sarah. We will likely never get a definitive answer in this debate, as an original version of the letter in Ballous handwriting has yet to be found.

In her 2006 biography of Ballou, For Love and Liberty, Robin Young dismisses such conspiracy buffs while declaring the letter a masterpieceno doubt the handiwork of a master of the art of rhetoric. She analyzed other letters that Ballou is confirmed to have written and argued in her book that the Rhode Island lawyer and politician, who studied and taught oratory in his youth, was indisputably the author of the renowned document. But when given an opportunity to compare the famous letter and the authenticated ones, other experts see significant thematic and tonal differences among them. They argue that in the other dispatchessent about the same time in July 1861, as Ballou awaited his first taste of battlethe major clearly was concerned with more down-to-earth matters and never composed in the lofty, ethereal tones of the famed letter. (For the viewpoint of two of those experts, see Cushman and Samuels.)

The following article will explore the provenance of the letter and shed light on some of the questions surrounding it.

Sullivan Ballou was born March 28, 1829, in Smithfield, R.I. Although he grew up in poverty, he would attend Brown University and become known as an orator.

In 1850, Ballou moved to Ballston, N.Y., to teach oratory at the National Law School, where he also studied law. Admitted to the Rhode Island Bar in 1853, he set up a practice in his native state. Ballou married Sarah Hart Shumway on October 15, 1855, and they had two sons, Edgar and William. He became clerk of the Rhode Island House of Representatives, and in 1857 became a state representative, serving one year as speaker. Known as a Radical Republican, he supported Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 presidential election.

[quote style=boxed float=left]Ballou was REMEMBERED as a man whose heart was entirely in the northern cause[/quote]

In June 1861, just two months into the Civil War, Ballou was commissioned major of the 2nd Rhode Island Infantry and accompanied the regiment to Washington, D.C. He wrote Sarah repeatedly from his encampment. The Ballou Papers at the Rhode Island Historical Society contain two letters to Sarah dated July 14, 1861, a few days before the regiment marched off to battle in Virginia. One letter, confirmed to be in Ballous handwriting, is brisk and reassuring and addresses issues related to his personal affairs. The other, in someone elses handwriting, is reflective and sentimental, and sets out the thoughts of a man who believes he might well be killed in battle. It is that second letter that is now part of the American canon.

On July 21, 1861, the 2nd Rhode Island led the Union advance at First Bull Run. Charging up the winding slopes of Matthews Hill, the Rhode Islanders suffered heavy casualties, fighting unsupported for nearly 45 minutes before reinforcements arrived. During the fighting, Ballous horse was killed by a cannonball that also tore off part of the majors right leg. Taken first to a Confederate field hospital, he died on July 28 or 29 and was buried in the nearby Sudley Churchyard, near the 2nd Rhode Islands Colonel John Slocum, who was also killed in the fighting. (For what happened to Ballous and Slocums bodies after burial, see Sullivan Ballous Macabre Fate.)

As noted earlier, no version of the famous letter in Ballous handwriting has been found, though a number of copies exist in various scripts. The letter first appeared in print in 1868 in a chapter written by Horatio Rogers Jr. in Brown University in the Civil War, a volume looking at Brown alumni killed in the war. Rogers, a Brown alumnus who also served in the 2nd Rhode Island, was a friend of Ballous. His sketch of his comrades life says the letter was found in Ballous trunk, left behind at Camp Clark when the regiment marched off to its first engagement at Manassas. Rogers, who led the 2nd Rhode Island at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg as a colonel, wrote briefly that the trunk, with the letter inside, was returned to Sarah Ballou in August 1861.

Rogers was a respected lawyer, eventually serving as Rhode Islands attorney general and as an associate justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court. His sketch of Ballous life was typical of biographies published in the 19th century, painting the major as a family man, a talented attorney, and one whose heart was entirely in the Northern cause.

He quotes several of Ballous Camp Clark letters, and ends his chapter by reproducing the famous July 14 letter, which Rogers calls his own best eulogy. It is evident Rogers had access to some of Ballous other missives and interviewed family members, while recounting common experiences.

Stories have circulated that Rhode Island Governor William Sprague retrieved the trunk and returned it to Sarah. Rogers sketch makes no mention of that. Sprague did write Sarah a letter of condolence in October but refers in no way to the now-famous letter. In 1861, an early volume of the first Union martyrs of the Civil War, The Fallen Brave by John Gilmary Shea, included a brief sketch of Ballous life but does not mention the letter either. In 1867, Sheas article about Ballou, together with an engraving of him in uniform, was included in John Russell Bartletts Memoirs of Rhode Island Officers. In his official 1875 history of the 2nd Rhode Island, Augustus Woodbury gives only a brief sketch of Ballous life and service, again with no reference to the letter.

The letter next appeared in print in 1888 in An Elaborate History and Genealogy of the Ballous in America by Adin Ballou, a distant relativepublished in the same form as had appeared in the Brown University book. That widow and those sons, Adin Ballou wrote, still surviveever cherishing the following loving farewell. He provided no further details on the origins or location of the letter, however.

It Wasnt Ballou  Stephen Cushman, the Robert C. Taylor Professor of English at the University of Virginia, is affiliated with the schools Nau Center for Civil War History and has written extensively about the Civil War. I am one of the thousands who found the Sullivan Ballou segment among the most powerful, moving, and memorable moments in Ken Burns documentary The Civil War. Moreover, I am not inclined to want to debunk or demystify such a moment. True, I have been trained as a professional skeptic, but I had no preexisting desire to puncture the Ballou balloon. If I had my way, it would continue to float in a blue sky above us. Nevertheless, I have no compunction saying there is no way the famed letter was penned by the same person who wrote the confirmed Ballou letters at the Rhode Island Historical Society that Ive had a chance to read. If Sullivan were my student and had submitted these letters, I would suspect the famous one to be plagiarized. For one, the tonal and linguistic discrepancies among the letters are significant. Any of us has many tones and linguistic modes at our command, but the differences among the Ballou letters do not suggest mere variations in a persons verbal costumingthey suggest wholly different sensibilities and outlooks. Consider, for instance, that the famous letter mentions or addresses God five times, whereas the others mentionand never directly addressGod only three times: twice in the July 10 letter, once in the second July 14 letter. Also, compare the use of Jesus Gethsemane prayer (Not my will, but thine O God, be done) in the famous July 14 letter with the utterly formulaic and conventional God Bless you closing of the other one penned that day. Furthermore, not only are we supposed to believe Ballou wrote his wife twice the same dayit happens; George B. McClellan did so, for instancebut he wrote her once speaking about God in conventional, matter-of-fact terms and once addressing God as Jesus did before the Crucifixion. The famous letter also speaks of capitalized Omnipotence and Divine Providence, in addition to Civilization, Death, and Country; the writer of the other ones does not incline toward such capitalized abstractions, and when he does capitalize, he does so erratically and idiosyncratically (e.g., Havelock and Rubber boots following three lowercase uses of rubber.) Divine Providence versus rubber boots? These were not the same minds at work. Whoever wrote the famous letter also was familiar with Shakespeare: A pure love of my country and of the principles have often advocated before the people and the name of honor that I love more than I fear death have called upon me, and I have obeyed. That passage comes, slightly altered, from Julius Caesar, Act 1, Scene 2, where Brutus says to Cassius, For let the gods so speed me as I love / The name of honor more than I fear death. By contrast, the other Ballou letters exhibit no such literariness, and are much rougher stylistically and grammatically. They in fact have distinct problems with grammar and punctuation; the other is elegant and fairly clean. The famous letter is elevated too in diction, from Lest in the second sentence to thither in the last. Neither of these archaic niceties appears in any of the others, which also lack one of the most poetic touches of the famous letter, the use of so-called genitive-link metaphors, such as bitter fruit of orphanage and banner of my purpose. These metaphors, built around of and originating in English translations of the Bible, show a level of figurative thinking and expression noticeably absent from the lesser known letters. A conspicuous instance of visionary, nonliteral imagination comes at the end when the writer moves from anticipating his death to speaking from beyond the grave: O Sarah, I wait for you there! Come to me, and lead thither my children. The writer of the other letters seems wholly incapable of such a post-death thought experiment, and sounds unlike anyone who could muster the overwrought, 19th-century breathlessness building up to it.



As time went on, Sullivan Ballous letter was largely forgotten, but manuscript copies did circulate. Young writes in her 2006 biography that she found eight manuscript copies in repositories around the country. One of the two copies in the Rhode Island Historical Society archives may have been the one Sarah Ballou was aware of, as it was included in a collection she saved of her husbands papers. The other was donated to the Rhode Island Historical Society in 1957 by Colonel Slocums descendants. A manuscript reproduction of the letter is at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, Ill., formerly the Illinois State Historical Library.

Another copy wound up at the Chicago Historical Society in 1920, after a line of the Ballou family emigrated from New England to Illinois. The manuscript, donated by Charles J. Barnes, appears to have been copied directly from Brown University in the Civil War.

An excerpt of the Chicago letter was briefly quoted by Bruce Catton in his 1961 book The Coming Fury, though Catton mistakenly called Ballou Major Sullivan Bullen and stated he was from Illinois, rather than Rhode Island.

In 1976, Civil War historian Edward Longacre discovered the Chicago Ballou letter. He transcribed it and wrote a brief accompanying article about Ballous life. Longacre submitted the article to both Yankee Magazine and The Old Farmers Almanac, but it was never published.

The July 14 letter was brought to Ken Burns attention by Pulitzer Prizewinning author Don E. Fehrenbacher of Stanford University. In gathering material for Burns project, Fehrenbacher encountered the copy of it at the Lincoln Presidential Library and sent excerpts to Burns brother, Ric, in the summer of 1986. These excerpts, comprising only about half of the letter, were included in the documentary.

The excerpts, read by Paul Roebling and set to Jay Ungars haunting Ashokan Farewell, became for many the series most powerful moment. After Roebling reads them, narrator David McCullough states simply: Major Sullivan Ballou was killed a week later at the First Battle of Bull Run.

Sarah undoubtedly knew of the letter at some point, as the closing line, I wait for you there. Come to me and lead thither my children, is inscribed upon the Ballou memorial in Providences Swan Point Cemetery. According to Young, Ballou was interred in the plot in 1867; when exactly the large obelisk was put up is unknown. Rogers sketch was published in 1868.

After the broadcast, Ken Burns said, Its a letter that transcends even the extraordinary story of the Civil War. Its about the tension and the love that exists between a man and a woman. Every man in this country wishes he could say those things to a woman.

Immediately after the series premiered, phones rang off the hook, at PBS stations around the nation. People wanted to know more about Sullivan Ballou, and where his letter was located. Transcriptions were freely circulated, but no one was able to track down the original.

An unsupported theory that gained traction is that it was buried with Sarah Ballou when she died in 1917. In 2011, on the sesquicentennial anniversary of First Bull Run, when the letter was frequently quoted in newspapers, Ken Burns said that he is among those who believe the letter was buried with the widow. Neither Burns nor a studio representative could be reached for comment for this article.

Much attention has been focused on the differences between the famous letter and the other one definitely written on July 14. In the latter missive, Ballou discusses the weather, his health, soldiers food, and the mail service. I have a square rubber blanket to lay on the ground if it is wet, he wrote. I have a large rubber overcoat that reaches to my ankles, a rubber Havelock and my Rubber boots; and if I cannot go through the storms with these I deserve to be wet. He seems unconcerned about the upcoming campaign: I do not apprehend fighting on a large scale. [General Winfield] Scott is clenching his fingers and fist so clearly around the Confederates that they must jump and run or be caught; and of course they will run rather than be caught.

In the authenticated second July 14 letter as well as the others, Ballou dotes on his family: I was never separated from my children before. I never knew the longing of a father for his children before. And you can scarcely imagine how my blood dances, my nerves thrill and my brain almost whirlsand I see my little boys going through their childish pranks, and hear their singing voices, and even stretch my arms to catch them, and awake to touch the white walls of my tent. O Sarah how often do I think of them

If Ballou did not write the letter himself, who did? Is it possible that Horatio Rogers, a fellow attorney and assemblyman, a gifted writer and Ballous friend, chose to memorialize the fallen soldier with his own words?

An examination of Ballous other letters written from Camp Clark show a positive attitude, not one of concern and impending doom, nor do they offer any insight into Ballous reasoning for fighting. Instead of repaying the great debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution, Ballou hoped that military service would provide a steady paycheck to his family, and that he could use the connections gained from the service to further his political ambitions when he returned to Rhode Island.

Ballous death at First Bull Run was all but forgotten by the average Rhode Islander of the time. Rather, it was the death of Slocum, whose famous last words at Bull Run, Now show them what Rhode Island can do, became a rallying cry for Ocean State men to enlist.

Sullivan obviously loved his wife. A letter that included the words in the famous July 14 letter would have of course consoled a grieving widow and offered a strong explanation for why her husband chose to go to war. It also served as an excellent conclusion to the chapter on Ballous life in Brown University in the Civil War, encapsulating Rogers sentiments that Ballou was a true patriot who had gone to war to support the Union, despite having a much-dependent wife and family at home.

Robert Grandchamp, who writes from Jericho Center, Vt., is an award-winning author of 11 books on U.S. military history, including A Connecticut Yankee at War and Rhody Redlegs.
In 1780 two British military officers planned a mission that could have changed the course of history.

In February 1780 Lieutenant General Wilhelm von Knyphausen, the interim commander in chief of British forces in the New York area, and Captain George Beckwith, Londons spymaster in the American colonies, planned and attempted a mission that could have changed the course of the Revolutionary War: the capture of General George Washington, then quartered near Morristown, New Jersey. The audacious idea was the brainchild of Lieutenant Colonel John Graves Simcoe, an exceptionally courageous British cavalry officer who only a few weeks earlier had returned from three months as a captive of the Americans.

Simcoe, the commander of the Queens Rangers, an elite legionary corps made up of loyalist cavalry and infantry then stationed on Staten Island, aimed to lead a party of his mounted hussars across the iced-over Hudson River and make off with the American commander in chief, who, according to Simcoe, was quartered at a considerable distance from his army, or any corps of it. With the assistance of a loyalist sympathizer whod once lived near where Washington was staying, Simcoe soon had a very minute and perfect map of the country, as he described it in his journal. He planned to select 80 of his cavalrymen and march by secret ways, made the more so by the inclement season, and to arrive near General Washingtons quarters by day-break, to tie up his horses in a swamp, and to storm the quarters, and attack his guard on foot.

Simcoe likely would not have even considered the idea of a raid to capture Washington but for the fact that the Hudson River had iced over.

It may seem odd that Simcoe would choose to attack on foot, when on horseback his men would have the advantage of speed, but perhaps he thought that the mounted approach would be more likely to create an alarm. He did not plan to kill Washington, though he worried how he could prevent the death of the American commander in chief should he personally resist.

Since December 1, 1779, Washingtons headquarters had been outside Morristown, in the areas finest house. Built by Colonel Jacob Ford Jr., who had died of pneumonia in January 1777, the mansion was occupied by his widow, Theodosia, and their four young children. Lying roughly a half mile east of the main part of Morristown and three miles northeast of the main American encampments at Jockey Hollow, the mansion was vulnerable; all the more so because Washington was spending nights there away from the main body of his troops.

Still, to get there Simcoes cavalry would have to ride some 30 miles through the foothills of the Watchung Mountains and then across rough back roads regularly watched by local militia and Continental troops. Moreover, the raiders exceedingly long escape route to New York would provide many opportunities for enemy attacks. The weather was also unpredictable and potentially dangerous. That winter more than 20 snowstorms would pound the Morristown area, sometimes blocking roads with six-foot drifts. Simcoes plan was indeed a daring one.

In addition, soldiers whose specific job was to protect Washington lurked in the vicinity of the mansion. Unlike British commanders, Washington had established his own security detail, commonly known as Washingtons Life Guard. Its purpose was not only to provide personal security for Washington but also to handle the baggage of his headquarters and the money and official papers of the Continental Army. The unit, led by Major Caleb Gibbs, had 110 men, although not all of them would be available to defend against a raid: six of them worked as servants for Washington and several more as stable hands and messengers.

Two sentinels paraded in front and two [patrolled] in the rear constantly, day and night, John W. Barber and Henry Howe wrote in an 1846 history of New Jersey that included veterans accounts of the war. Several times in the course of the winter false alarms were given of the approach of the enemy.Immediately, the Life Guard would rush from their huts into the [Ford] house, barricade the doors, open the windows, and about five men would place themselves at each window, with their muskets brought to a charge, loaded and cocked ready for defense. There they would remain until the troops from camp were seen marching, with music, at quick-step down towards the mansion.

These occasions were annoying to the ladies of the household, Benson J. Lossing wrote in his 1851 history of the Revolutionary War, for both Mrs. Washington and Mrs. Ford were obliged to lie in bed, sometimes for hours, with their rooms full of soldiers, and the keen winter air from the open windows piercing through their drawn curtains. (Martha Washington had arrived to stay at the mansion on December 31.)

Washington and his staff, according to one of his aides, occupied two rooms below, all the upper floor, the kitchen, cellar and stable. Nonetheless, the Ford mansion, though spacious, was packed with bodies. On January 22, 1780, Washington complained in a letter to Major General Nathanael Greene that eighteen belonging to my family [meaning his staff] and all Mrs. Fords are crowded together in her kitchen.

On January 31, Brigadier General Thomas Stirling, the commander of the British 42nd Regiment (the famous Black Watch), approved Simcoes plan, noting, Your ideas are great, and would be of importance if fulfilled.

That same day Silas Condict, a member of New Jerseys executive council, wrote Washington expressing his concern: I take the liberty to suggest my apprehension respecting Your Excellencys situation, which I do not think so secure as I would wish, while the frost [ice] makes firm passing into Jersey from every part of the enemys lines. The prescient councilman advised Washington that the solid ice could make possible a bold attempt to surprise him and allow a party of cavalry to reach Morristown undetected. The importance of the object may induce them to hazard an attempt, Condict warned, and it will fully justify every means to be ready to receive them.

But Washington seemed unconcerned. He told Condict that he had already taken precautions that would be effectual in preventing a surprise cavalry raid on the mansion.

As he waited for scouts to confirm Washingtons continued presence at the mansion, Simcoe was surprised to learn that the spymaster Beckwith had come up with his own plan to kidnap Washington. Knyphausen agreed that a raid on Morristown was feasible. General Washington having taken up his quarters at a distance from his army, under the protection of a small corps of infantry, Knyphausen wrote, it appeared practicable to surprise that body with cavalry and to penetrate to the neighborhood of Morristown.

Knyphausen preferred Beckwiths plan, since it called for the deployment of many more troops, resulting in less risk. Beckwith proposed staging various diversions in New Jersey. This force of mounted men would consist of about 60 cavalrymen each from the British 17th Light Dragoons and from Simcoes Queens Rangers. Beckwith ordered a disappointed Simcoe to send him the mounted troops of the Queens Rangers for the operation.

In late January and early February, Knyphausen made his preparations for Beckwiths planned raids. The German general assigned a regiment of infantry to Paulus Hook to await the return of his mounted men from Morristown.

The core of the mounted attack force poised to ride to Morristown and capture Washington was the British 17th Light Dragoons, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Birch. This regiment had sailed from Ireland in 1775 and landed in Boston just before the Battle of Bunker Hill. Some of them had infamously ridden their mounts inside Bostons Old South Meeting House. Since then the regiment had participated in most of the significant engagements in the north, including those of Long Island, White Plains, and Monmouth, as well as dozens of small skirmishes in New Jersey and around Philadelphia and New York City. After the British evacuation of Philadelphia in 1778, the 16th Light Dragoons, the only other British regular cavalry regiment used in the Revolutionary War and whose dragoons had captured Major General Charles Lee, transferred many of its men and horses to the 17th and sent its officers back to England. After arriving in the New York City region, its headquarters was usually at Hempstead, on Long Island, but its men constantly patrolled the lines around New York City.

The uniform of the 17th Dragoons included a red jacket with white facings, buckskin breeches, black-top boots, and a leather helmet with a skull-and-crossbones above the words or glory. The helmet was topped with a red, flowing crest of dyed horsehair. The dragoons were armed with a single-bladed straight saber and a light carbine. They were trained to fire from the saddle.

The Black Hussars were mostly escaped German prisoners of war who had accompanied Major General John Burgoynes army to Saratoga. After they had gathered in New York City and had acquired a reputation for being unruly, they were formed into a hussar outfit in 1779. The men wore a hussar cap and black coat and short boots with blue trousers tucked inthe hussar style. Simcoes Queens Rangers were similarly attired, wearing a hussar-type cap, with the crescent or half-moon insignia of the Rangers on the front, a green wool jacket, green trousers tucked into short boots, and a sword belt over the right shoulder.

It is not known who commanded the expedition, but it was probably Birch, since he was the senior commander of the only regular British Army cavalry regiment in the attack force. Birch had not yet made much of an impression as a military leader. As commander of his dragoons on Long Island and later as a brigadier general and commandant of New York City, hed gained a reputation for corruption, stealing the houses and possessions of loyalists, allowing his soldiers to plunder the churches of loyalists, and even ordering the tearing down of a Quaker meetinghouse on British-held Long Island and personally selling the wood.

Knyphausen augmented the Elizabethtown-bound force with additional troops and a second senior officer, Brigadier General Cortland Skinner, the former attorney general of New Jersey. Stirling commanded two regiments of British regulars and Skinner probably commanded the 1st and 4th Battalions of New Jersey Volunteers, a loyalist outfit, for a total of about 1,200 men.

The British seized sleds from civilians. At least 86 were used on February 6 to carry munitions, provisions, and other military supplies to British posts at Paulus Hook and Staten Island. The ice on Newark Bay was so firm that 24-pounder cannons hauled across it to Paulus Hook on February 8 and 13 made no impression on the frozen surface, an event unknown in the memory of man, wrote Major General James Pattison, the commander of the British Armys New York City garrison.

On February 7 the mounted men of Simcoes Queens Rangers and the Black Hussars rode on the ice from Staten Island to New York City, and by the next day the 17th Regiment of Light Dragoons had joined them, after departing from their base at Jamaica in Queens County (then considered part of Long Island). The British also called on prominent New York City loyalists to make maps detailing the network of roads between Elizabethtown and Washingtons headquarters and the more distant Continental camps at Morristown.

While Knyphausen completed plans for his move against Washington at Morristown, much of the British activity related to efforts to increase New York Citys and Staten Islands defenses. The American army could just as easily cross the ice to attack them. The Royal Navy, having departed Upper New York Bay for the winter to avoid being iced in, could not protect army outposts. In desperation, Pattison buttressed his force by drafting more than 2,500 loyalist militiamen in a single week.

News of the British preparations was speedily conveyed to Washington and his commander of American outposts in northern New Jersey, Major General Arthur St. Clair. Washington believed he would be safe with Continentals and local militia manning guard posts at various key points. Our main body cannot be surprised he wrote to St. Clair on January 30, adding that he thought the main object of a raid would be his armys magazines of hay. He had no idea that he was the primary target of the raid, and that the British planned to have him on his way to Paulus Hook well before Continental troops could interfere.

According to historian Benjamin Huggins, Washington kept two brigades of his main army stationed west of Elizabethtown to guard against raids from Staten Island. Arriving to take command of these brigades on January 27, St. Clair ordered his commanders to post guards at Rahway, Cranes Mills, Connecticut Farms, Elizabethtown, and Newark. In addition, the New Jersey militia could be called into the field on an alarm. Washington also kept a detachment of about 200 infantry at Paramus.

Washington and St. Clair had also put another force in place that would prove critical in deflecting one of the raiding parties. With few Continental cavalry to patrol the areas between his guard posts, St. Clair asked the New Jersey authorities to raise a company of light cavalry at Continental expense to patrol the coast roads between Newark and Amboy. The company numbered 45 light cavalry raised from militia volunteers. St. Clair stationed these light cavalry at Rahway, Newark, and Woodbridge, with 15 at each town. They would prove their worth in the coming fights.

The mission to kidnap Washington was scheduled for February 8 but called off when a fierce snowstorm intervened. Knyphausen, however, was unwilling to wait much longer. On February 10, with no new snowfall, he ordered the Morristown raid and diversionary attacks to begin the next evening. During the night of February 1112, more than a hundred cavalrymen (accounts range from 120 to 300), all probably commanded by Birch, and an infantry regiment crossed the ice-sheeted Hudson River and Newark Bay to Paulus Hook, on the New Jersey mainland.

Meanwhile, Simcoe and Stirling ventured out to create their diversions. At the head of 200 infantrymen, Simcoe passed over the ice at 1 a.m. on February 11. Stirlings orders called for Simcoe to send a party to surprise the enemy post at Woodbridge or Rahway and to give a general alarm. To cover his return, Simcoe posted Major Richard Armstrong with some of the regiments infantry, his remaining cavalry, and some cannons at the heights overlooking the Old Blazing Star Ferry, which connected Staten Island with New Jersey. He then took the rest of the Rangers and headed toward Woodbridge, but he was forced to march on the beaten road because of the deep snows around them. When Simcoe and his men arrived at Woodbridge, they found the enemy guard post abandoned. Still, Simcoe was determined to beat up some of the enemys quarters, or fall in with their patrols to create a diversion that would give every assistance in his power to his friend Beckwith.

As they marched on from Perth Amboy to Elizabethtown, Simcoes troops were challenged at a crossroads by patriot sentries. All of Simcoes men, shielded by the darkness and deep snowdrifts, stood still in profound silence. The sentinels, talking among themselves, thought they were mistaken in spotting the enemy. But soon one of the New Jersey militia on horseback rode up on the flanks of Simcoes unit and yelled an alarm. The sentries opened fire. Simcoe ordered his men to retreat. As they did, one of them was struck and killed.

The patriots took time to gather and organize their forces. Then they set out after Simcoe and his men, using the same path. Finally, at 8 a.m., after crossing Woodbridge Creek, the Americans caught up with the raiders. But the deep snow prevented the Americans from attacking the British flanks. As Simcoe approached the road to the Old Blazing Star Ferry, he dispatched a man to ride over the ice to alert Armstrong to prepare his cannons, and he ordered Captain David Shank to cover his retreat by manning a ridge with a small detachment. That done, Simcoe suddenly ordered the rest of his men to turn around and charge the pursuing Americans. The surprised Americans immediately fled. As they passed over a hill, Shanks men rose and fired on them, driving them farther back, and Armstrong opened up his cannons on ferry buildings sheltering some of the other American soldiers. This dispirited the Americans and allowed Simcoe and his men to return over the ice to Long Island.

Simcoe had carried out his mission of skirmishing with local militia and St. Clairs horse patrols. He later wrote that he had lost just one man and suffered a few wounded, adding that he thought the enemys loss to have been much greater. St. Clair, though, reported only one man wounded.

The more punishing blow was struck at Elizabethtown. St. Clair informed Washington that his 50 men were timely apprised of the enemys approach and quickly retreated in the face of Stirlings and Skinners overwhelming force. Skinners advance raiders did manage to take some shots at a rear guard, wounding one man. With the town now unprotected, the soldiers resorted to lootingas was sometimes done by victorious loyalists, whose property had often been seized by patriots. There is no indication that Skinner tried to stop it. A number of houses in the town have been stripped of everything, St. Clair informed Washington the next day, and ten or twelve of the inhabitants carried off. The Pennsylvania Packet reported sarcastically of the raiders, After terrifying the women and children, they heroically marched off with their plunder and five or six prisoners.

As Stirlings and Skinners troops began to evacuate Elizabethtown, St. Clairs guards and the local horse patrols reclaimed it, taking two stragglers, but they turned out to be civilians from Staten Island whod followed Skinners troops in order to plunder. The guards, horse patrols, and some local militia pursued Skinners retreating raiders and claimed to have wounded several, but no report of the casualties survives in British or loyalist records.

A small, third force of British or loyalist soldiers (their identity is not known) raided Rahway. The next day St. Clair reported to Washington that enemy troops landed at Rahway, in a very obscure place, plundered two houses and carried off two men, and seem to have had no other object.

As for the main object, Birchs cavalrymen, accompanied by Beckwith, rode north to Hackensack and regrouped there as planned. But after setting out from Hackensack for Morristown, the mounted troops were stymied by the harsh weather. A body of cavalry passed into Jersey, but was obliged to return after a march of between five and six miles; the snow which fell on the 7th and 8th instant having rendered the roads impassable, Knyphausen reported. Simcoe wrote that Beckwith had found it impracticable to carry his attempt into execution, from an uncommon fall of rain, which encrusting the top of the snow, cut the fetlocks of his horses, and rendered it absolutely impossible for him to succeed. Judge Thomas Jones railed in frustration about the failed attempt: The guides got frightened, the party bewildered, they lost the road, and after a cold, tedious and fatiguing excursion of twenty-four hours, without ever seeing a Rebel, returned to New York, all frost-bitten.

Before turning back, the commander of the main body of dragoons had five rockets fired into the night sky to signal Stirling to call off his raid of Elizabethtown. In turn, Stirling had five rockets fired to signal Simcoe to call off his raid and turn back to Staten Island.

Loyalists in New York City quickly learned the true purpose of the raid. The dragoons went out last night with an intent to take Washington, newspaper printer Hugh Gaine wrote in his journal, but the roads were so bad they could not proceed, so returnedah well. William Smith, with fair accuracy, wrote in his diary for February 11: There went over the river last evening a party of 4 or 500 and 200 more from Staten Island, but they all returned on account of the depth of the snow. I suspect Washington was the chief object and the sallies from Staten Island feints.

The smothering February 78 snowstorm had spoiled the British mission to kidnap Washington. While the bitterly cold winter that had iced over the Hudson River made the raid against Morristown possible, it had also ruined Beckwiths plan. The American commander in chief surely could not have revealed the significance of the following entry in his diary for February 8: A fall of nine or ten inches of snow in the night from the northeast. Ironically, the inability of Washingtons Continentals to quickly clear the road of snow between Hackensack and Morristown had prevented the raid.

On February 11 St. Clair sent Washington an account of the unsuccessful British raids. Somehow, St. Clair had planted a spythe guide for Birchs dragoons. This man was likely a trader who plied his goods between New Jersey and Manhattan, supplying British-held New York. The spy reported to St. Clair, who explained to Washington:

The party from Paulus Hook consisted of about three hundred horse, and landed at Hackensack.They proceeded some distance into the country, and from the route they pursued, he [the spy] thinks, intended to have passed the Cedar Swamp, and were very particular in their inquiries about the situation of your quarters, and where I was quartered, and the guards that were posted between Hackensack and Morristown. He says particularly that, after marching some ways into the country, he heard an officer ask the commandant where they were going. He replied he could not tell him, but they had more than thirty miles to march that night. In a short time after this, finding the snow very deep and the roads not broken, they returned, and he [the spy] was dismissed.

St. Clair then laid out a warning. If their design was an attempt on your Excellencys quarters, he told Washington, I hope you will pardon me for hinting that there is not a sufficient body of troops near enough to render you secure. Had they designed to have fallen upon our rear, which they might have done, they had troops enough to have given us full occupation, and them the opportunity.

Washington responded to St. Clair the next day, noting that he had just taken precautions to guard against an attempt, by such a party as might be reasonably supposed to be able to reach [his Morristown headquarters] in the course of a night. One precaution was to increase his guard around and inside the mansion.

In his response to St. Clair, Washington added, I hope that a short continuance of this weather will make the ice impassable by horse; from foot there is no danger at this distance. To increase security against another raid on Morristown, he advised St. Clair to extend his horse patrols north, at least until the ice across remained firm. As temperatures warmed in late February, the ice in the bays melted, and the British shelved any further plans to kidnap Washington.

While the warmer weather melted the ice on the Hudson River, it also made the roads to Morristown passable by British dragoons. But Washington must have doubted that the British would plan a complicated amphibious operation, involving shipping dragoons and their horses across the Hudson, to mount another raid against him at Morristown. He also realized that a raid by infantry was not a true threat to his personal safety. Still, he took no chances.

In March, Beckwith kept himself informed of the American commanders security precautions through his own intelligence sources in and around Morristown. On March 3 Beckwith received word that General Washingtons bodyguard at the mansion was augmented to 350 men.One-third of them lodge every night in the lower part of the house. On March 9 the intelligence captain received further information that General Washingtons guard is augmented to 400 men. The caution against being surprised is sentinels being posted on every road leading to headquarters.

On March 16 a new storm dumped nine inches of snow in and around Morristown. Three days later, perhaps feeling vulnerable to another raid attempt over the ice on the Hudson River, Washington ordered two soldiers from each regiment and one sergeant from each brigade to join his Life Guard at the mansion.

Though he was frustrated by Washingtons increased vigilance, Beckwith continued to seek and receive reports of Washingtons quarters, hoping to see another opportunity to try to kidnap him. In July and August of 1781, for example, Washingtons headquarters was sometimes at Joseph Applebys house, on the crossroad from Dobbs Ferry to White Plains in New York, about three and a half miles from the ferry. On July 28 a Hessian intelligence officer forwarded to Beckwith information obtained from a female spy who had gained access to Washingtons headquarters, probably by performing chores such as laundry or cooking. The woman is returned from Washingtons quarters, wrote Lieutenant Carl Levin Marquard. She saw him herself and says that Washington sleeps in the back bedroom; that there were two French sentries yesterday at his door; that his guard consists of French and Rebels, which she judged to be about 30 or 40 men; that she saw no horsemen there; that there was no camp in the rear of his quarters;that Applebys was about half a mile back of the Rebel camps. On August 11 Beckwith received information from a Continental Army deserter: Washingtons house is about a quarter of a mile in the rear of the army at Applebys house.He has a guard of eighty men with him constantly.

Other than Simcoe, none of the major participants on the British side wrote about the attempt to capture the Continental Armys commander in chief. It may have been that they were too embarrassed to admit their role in kidnapping a man who had become revered in republican circles and elected to two terms as president of the United States.

Surprisingly, perhaps, Washington himself favored the idea of kidnapping the enemy. He twice ordered plans made to abduct his counterpart, British commander in chief Henry Clinton, at his headquarters in New York City, and he even ordered plans made to kidnap 17-year-old Prince William Henry, the first member of the British royal family to visit North America, in 1782, after the great victory at Yorktown. Referring to a bid to capture Clinton in 1778, he wrote, I think it one of themost desirable and honorable things imaginable. MHQ

Christian McBurney is a partner in the law firm Arent Fox in Washington, D.C. He is the author of four books on the Revolutionary War, including Abductions in the American Revolution: Attempts to Kidnap George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and Other Military and Civilian Leaders (McFarland, 2016).

Photo: Peter Newark/Bridgeman Images; Gilgers Stuart Clark Art Institute; Photo Illustration Brian Walker

[hr]

Featured in MHQ magazines Summer 2017 issue.

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Rich Chigga, the young Indonesian rapper known for his viral single Dat $tick has had a pretty incredible come-up thusfar. With the strength of the one single, he garnered the attention of the world and didnt take it for granted. While pushing the song, it had got the approval of some of hip hops most revered artists. On top of that, it also helped him gain a slot at Miamis Rolling Loud festival for his first American show ever as well as selling out shows in the U.S. earlier this summer. Today, he dropped his new video for Glow Like Dat. While that should hold over fans before his debut album comes, he is also announcing his Come To My Party tour.

The Come To My Party tour is his first headlining tour. Over the course of 28 dates, Rich Chigga will find himself touring across North America. On October 8th, he starts things off in San Francisco before ending the tour in Los Angeles on November 21st. He will also be playing in Toronto on November 9th, which serves as his only Canadian date on the tour. Rich Chigga will also be performing on September 9th at the Day N Night Festival alongside some big names such as Chance the Rapper, Post Malone, Lil Uzi Vert and more.

Its definitely a huge step forward for the Jakarta-native. His music has been bubbling all through the internet since Dat $tick and furthered the buzz as he worked with Ghostface Killah on the remix for the song as well as working with the likes of Diplo, XXXTentacion and more.

Tickets go on sale on Friday. Check the dates and flyer below.

Come To My Party tour dates:

Sep 9  Anaheim @ Day N Night Festival

Oct 8  San Francisco @ Social Hall

Oct 11  Santa Cruz @ Catalyst

Oct 12  San Diego @ BASSMNT

Oct 14  Albuquerque @ Sunshine

Oct 17  Dallas @ Trees

Oct 19  Austin @ Vulcan

Oct 20  San Antonio @ Paper Tiger

Oct 21  Houston @ Warehouse Live

Oct 24  Tampa @ Orpheum

Oct 25  Orlando @ Venue 578

Oct 26  Miami @ Heart

Oct 28  New Orleans, Voo Doo Festival

Oct 30  Atlanta @ The Loft

Oct 31  Jacksonville @ Hooligans Music Hall

Nov 1  Washington DC @ Howard Theatre

Nov 3  Boston @ Middle East

Nov 4  Philadelphia @ TLA

Nov 5  New York @ Irving Plaza

Nov 6  Long Island @ Paramount

Nov 8  Cleveland @ Grog Shop

Nov 9  Toronto @ Opera House

Nov 11  Chicago @ Bottom Lounge

Nov 12  Minneapolis @ Fine Line

Nov 14  Denver @ Gothic Theatre

Nov 16  Salt Lake City @ Complex

Nov 19  Phoenix @ Gold Rush Festival

Nov 21  Los Angeles @ Fonda

rich chigga
When I first made my Soundcloud account in 2012, there was not much on the site but DJ mixes and a subsection of rap obsessed with Anime. Most of the rap on the site was just kids making music over recycled beats found on the internet with terrible mics. What was beautiful about it was how, with little-to-no platform, it was a way to still find an audience. If your music was good, people would find it even if you were unsure how exactly it was happening, there was evidently an audience for everything. It also became a place where producers were able to thrive, and still do. Within the Soundcloud community, genre-specific groups made it truly special.

Fast forward five years, and Soundcloud has become a platform infiltrated by the corporate side of the music industry with artists connections being more important than the music. Alongside, weve seen how the platform has struggled on the business side as of late. We saw things begin to spiral when the company let go of 40% of their staff at the outset of July, continuing with reports that they wouldnt make it past 50 more days of activity in mid-July. Chance the Rapper and Young Thug teamed up in a valiant effort to help save (or promote) the platform, for a record which ultimately doesnt make this list, but deserves a mention nonetheless. Rumors of Soundclouds death have been postponed, at least for now.

Soundclouds best days may not be behind it just yet though, even with all the business drama, and although thats definitely a valid concern. In the midst of turmoil it continues to pump out new viral stars (see: the last spot on this list). In addition to constantly breeding new rap stars, Soundcloud became the launching pad of now-legitimate stars such as Lil Uzi Vert, Lil Yachty, Bryson Tiller, Post Malone and many others, who may make an appearance on this list.

While so many people are interested in the future of Soundcloud lets take a look at the past  here are the top 25 Soundcloud Rap songs of all time.

Sound off in the comments  who are we missing?

[Editors Note: Playlist added, shout out Dice the Microphone]

Tay-K The Race

Tay-K has been the Soundcloud phenomenon of summer 2017 and The Race is why. The song exhibited an element of realism that some tirelessly seek from rap, and its release on the day of Tay-Ks arrest for egregious acts was a smart ploy. Its immature, juvenile and insanely stupid but what weve learned over the course of Soundclouds existence, is that those are the exact elements often embraced. The Race, produced by S.Diesel and released as a DJ Phatt exclusive, instantly caught attention from major names, becoming a favorite of Lil Yachty and many more. It has become inescapable on Soundcloud and the story behind it has played an essential part, but even if Tay-K never gets a chance to create another track The Race will live as the premier song of a moment on the platform.

Father ft ILoveMakonnen & Key! Look At Wrist

The timing was perfect when Father released his 2014 track Look At Wrist, the cooking dance was at its peak and this track became the quintessential pairing. It fully exposed Soundcloud to Fathers minimalist production style as the song gained traction with the help of Key! and ILoveMakonnen, both of whom were on the verge of breaking on a major level. The tracks memorable ad libs would go on to influence future Soundcloud stars, opening the floodgates for a looser style of rap to make its impact (Fathers fellow/former Awful Records member Playboi Carti would benefit from this). Father sounds sedated and the song feels as if its moving in slow motion, but thats part of the beauty, and if nothing else Fathers Look at God ad lib makes it all worth it.

Divine Council ft $ilkmoney PS42WW$

For most of the world P$42WW$ was an introduction to Icy Twats dream like production that took Soundcloud by storm. The song quickly gained an audience as $ilkmoneys deep voice and rapid fire flow over the airy and kick-heavy Icy Twat beat meshed well together. The song also took advantage of a Soundcloud platform that embracs the absurd, with $ilkmoney belting P Sherman 42 Wallaby Way Sydney from Finding Nemo repeatedly. It was a great introduction to artists who clearly had talent, but didnt take themselves too seriously, and it received the love it deserved.

XXXTentacion Garrettes Revenge

When the controversial (which seems to be a trend) XXXTentacion dropped Garrettes Revenge it was a surprise for many. His previous hit Look At Me was climbing both the Soundcloud and Billboard charts and most were ready to pigeonhole him. But Garrettes Revenge diverted them away from that, as his acoustic ballad displayed his versatility and was the song that solidified him as one of the faces of Soundcloud. While we could have easily given this spot to XXXs latter hit, we specifically chose this record for its more unique sound, and as a bearer of proof that XXX might be more than a one-hit-Look At Me-wonder.

Trippie Redd Love Scars

Among the tiring Lil Uzi Vert comparisons, Trippie Redd erupted onto the Soundcloud scene in 2017 and the track that lead the charge was Love Scars. On Love Scars Trippie Redd displays his vocal range as his melodic near-scream over the booming Elliott Trent beat was something Soundcloud had never seen done this well before. Trippie is able to transition effortlessly from his most over-the-top to something more subdued. His ability to match his vocal pain with the lyrical agony felt genuine, and propelled Love Scars into one of Soundclouds great heartbreak tracks.

Russ Aint Nobody Takin My Baby

Russ rise through the Soundcloud ranks was one of the most interesting ones as his true do-it-yourself process helped him to cultivate a fanbase which admired him for his independence. Gradually developing one of the largest cult fanbases on the platform, despite not receiving the media coverage that some in similar popularity (and on this list) were experiencing. The self-produced Aint Nobody Takin My Baby was vital in catching the attention of the mainstream media as his tranquil singing voice and radio ready rap flow were on display. Russ is a Soundcloud success story and although his ascension wasnt as exponential as most it showed that there is still more than one way to make it.

Denzel Curry ft Yung Simmie & Robb Bank$ Threatz

One of the last great moments for the Raider Klan before all of the members officially branched out into their own entities was Threatz. An early Soundcloud hit, the song was an example of Denzel Currys star potential, and along with Yung Simmie and Robb Bank$ they created a 2013 banger. One of the most important aspects of the track is the Ronny J production, as this was one of the first looks into his bombastic style that he would bring to XXXTentacion and Lil Pump years later to much success. Denzel helped establish a Soundcloud scene in South Florida and Threatz was the framework.

Madeintyo Uber Everywhere

Madeintyos Uber Everywhere came out at the ideal time. There was a fascination around Uber that he swiftly capitalized on it. Rappers were name dropping the service left and right, but Madeintyo took it to the next level by creating an entire song about it one that his peers could very much relate to. The song gradually became a hit and Madeintyos uncomplicated lyrics and infectious ad libs, (Shorty bad as hell, yeah, with them Kylie Jenner lips) helped it become a Soundcloud staple, and highly remix-able.

Before the face tattoos, Lil Peep released his Soundcloud game changer Gym Class. Naturally the comparisons to those before him, such as Bones and Spooky Black existed, but he was able to carve out a space in more of a middle zone than the prior two. The track, produced by Killstation, has a long buildup and a hazy background under the drums. Lil Peeps uncommon flow channels grunge trends, as the emphasis placed on his words made it clear that the Kurt Cobain influence had reached the Soundcloud generation. This stylistic choice opened up Lil Peep to an audience craving music such as this and would establish him as a Soundcloud powerhouse with a legitimate core fan base. Gym Class is where Lil Peep honed in his style and realized exactly who he was as an artist.

Nav was surrounded by mystique at one point. Information about him was scarce other than he was making catchy, self-produced tunes that were having a major impact on Soundcloud. This all intensified with the release of the quotable and self loathing Myself. his is the essential Nav track, the one which shot him into stardom as an OVO Sound Radio mainstay and establish him enough to illicit collaborations with Metro Boomin (well, in between, nab the same management as The Weeknd). The song was inescapable and there was true fascination by the Soundcloud community as the number of plays was staggering. The songs content wasnt typical for a hit of this stature with its incredibly somber chorus When Im sober I just dont like who I am. This track helped to carve out a lane for Nav and reveal that there is a huge audience searching for pessimistic bangers.

Bones, Xavier Wulf & Chris Travis WeDontBelieveYou

Its difficult to talk about Soundcloud without mentioning Bones, Xavier Wulf & Chris Travis. When they first arrived on the platform there wasnt much, but they took a sound developed in their Raider Klan days and polished it, quickly becoming one of the earliest to form an extremely loyal fanbase. The eerie and dark sound of their music was like nothing else on the site and it was a crucial reason why they stood out. They embraced the weirdness and explored themes that werent perceived as cool within the rap community. WeDontBelieveYou is the culmination of their early Soundcloud days, uniting the three for a haunting posse cut. The flows are unique but fit together like a puzzle piece over the Purpdogg beat, which includes a Boards of Canada sample and the very 2014 extreme rattling hi-hats.

Tee Grizzely First Day Out

One of the most amazing parts of Soundcloud is how an artist can seemingly come out of nowhere and within months become a household name. This is exactly what happened to Tee Grizzely with the release of First Day Out. The track gradually built in popularity, before exploding, eventually earning Tee Grizzely shoutouts from both Lebron James and Jay Z. Similar in structure to Meek Mills Dreams and Nightmares intro, it starts out fairly reserved and as the the track continues the energy accelerates creating one of the rare tracks that actually lives up to its lengthy buildup. Lyrically, the track is amusing, violent and reflective, thus creating an experience distinct from much of the other rap on Soundcloud, and eually, much of the other songs that appear on this list.

OG Maco ft Key! U Guessed It

As the years have gone by the stamp OG Maco left on Soundcloud has been ignored, but during his brief high, U Guessed It was unavoidable. Vocally, the track was all over the place as OG Maco would screech, scream and whisper throughout. The hook quickly became a sensation as the Soundcloud community fell in love with OG Maco wilding out over Brandon Thomas haunting keys. The song worked as a bridge from the early days of Soundcloud to the current years, as this song was vital in shaking people of their uneasiness towards less traditional rap flows, and less traditional rap in general.

Ski Mask the Slump God ft XXXTentacion Take A Step Back

It was only a matter of time before a track on Soundcloud reached this level of ignorance and noise. The music on the platform had been slowly building to this from the bass in Threatz, to the screeching in U Guessed It, to the flat-out screamo in some Bones tracks, Soundcloud had been waiting for artists with the ability to take all of that to the next level. Take A Step Back is that, and a major reason behind it is the speaker blowing Ronny J beat whose boosted bass would overshadow most vocals if XXXTentacion wasnt shouting the chorus at the top of his lungs. Ski Mask the Slump God is also able to show off the flow that has made him so popular, while his chemistry with XXXTentacion is on full display.

Ugly God Water

Ugly Gods Soundcloud ascent is extremely interesting, when he first started getting some buzz there was a lot of confusion surrounding him. The name was absurd and the song titles were even more out there the confusion stemmed from whether or not Ugly God was simply a parody rapper, or if he was for real. The self-produced Water was the track that changed all of that. The second you hear the Thanks Ugly God producer tag, and the chorus starts, its clear that there is song-making talent here. The chorus is catchy, the production is mellow yet bouncy and Ugly Gods knack for foolish lyrics all make Water special.

Lil Pump D Rose

A common issue with our Soundcloud rappers is that its often unclear whether or not we should take them seriously, listeners often saw them as spoofs of the genre that would quickly fall off. Lil Pump, at 16-years old, didnt seem to be trying too hard, and reasonably most thought that there was nothing there. It appears listeners began to come around when Lil Pump released the irresistible D Rose. The beat starts out without about 10 seconds of gunshots, and once the poorly-mixed beat drops, Lil Pump begins to chant 100 on my wrist 80 on my wrist and D Rose repeatedly. There is no substance to it at all and little care is put into the track but thats all part of the charm that has made Lil Pump a Soundcloud star in 2017.

Kodak Black No Flocking

Kodaks buzz had already been growing immensely but it was No Flocking that shot him into stardom. Kodaks personality, voice and lyrics differentiated him from many of his peers and it helped him build a dedicated following. No Flocking began to cause a stir as videos surfaced online of entire crowds reciting the lyrics word for word, a rare hit that is catchy without even having a chorus. Since then, Kodak has remained in a pool of controversy, but either way his early hit is undeniable.

Post Malone White Iverson

Post Malones White Iverson caught on almost instantly as the easily recitable song gained a million plays within its first month. The smooth Rex Kudo production, combined with Posts silky voice and ability to form a hook, propelled the song to ridiculous heights. It was fun, light and a homage to one of the most popular athletes of an era. It is no surprise that Post Malone has continued to succeed.

Fetty Wap ft Drake My Way (Remix)

The era of Drakes career where he would drop loosies on Soundcloud is an overlooked one. Between 2014 and 2015 Drake released an abundance of songs onto the platform, some became anthems like the Soulja Boy-featuring We Made It, and some became cultural phenomenons like Back to Back. But the best of the bunch was his remix to Fetty Waps already superb track My Way. Fetty Wap was not only one of the dominant forces of Soundcloud but was also unavoidable in society. Fetty Wap had summer 15 on lock, and Drake, arguably the most powerful rapper in the industry, replaced Monty on the remix resulting in a heaven-sent combination. Fetty Waps impossible-not-to-sing-along chorus and one of Drakes most simple and pop ready verses (I like all my Ss with two lines through them) helped make this song one of the standout Soundcloud tracks, of all time.

Unotheactivist ft Thouxanbandfauni Parkin Lot Pimpin

If someone asked which song encapsulated the sound of Soundcloud during its peak, Parkin Lot Pimpin would be it. Its one of the first tracks to use the song structure which took over the platform, where it instantly starts without build and about 15 seconds into it, there is a cut and you hear the DJ Trapaholics tag as the track starts over. Flow wise, both Unotheactivist and Thouxanbandfauni are the beginning of an era where we first started to realize Chief Keefs influence. Everything from the way they rhyme to their enunciation of words is a direct effect of Keef and it is an influence that is strongly felt on Soundcloud to this day. The RXLVND beat contains the choppy drums which became so popular over a Kerri Chandler deep house sample. Everything about Parkin Lot Pimpin screams Soundcloud and it truly is one of the platforms great tracks.

Lil Yachty 1Night

Many rappers on Soundcloud have been controversial for legitimate reasons, their disrespect of women, lack of ethics and legal troubles. Lil Yachty was controversial in the most annoying way possible, as many purists of rap wanted to have a discussion about what should be considered rap, with a lot of hate and mean spirited responses targeting Lil Yachty by extension. 1Night was an essential reason why as when his heavily auto-tuned anti-love anthem began to pick up steam many were confused. The song was unique and like nothing we had heard before, Yachtys voice was high pitched and filled with energy and youthfulness; it was refreshing. It is also what helped establish Yachty as one of the iconic figures of the platform and as an artist who proved the crossover potential of Soundcloud rappers.

Bryson Tiller Dont

Bryson Tiller was also among the first Soundcloud artists to make it on a mainstream level, but more than just that, where Makonnen fell out of mainstream view, Bryson Tiller has remained. Dont is a major reason why. Bryson quickly learned that he was best when he blended both rapping and singing, helping him create a lush single that used its quotability to skyrocket it into a legitimate hit song. Bryson stood out on a Soundcloud platform where song structure meant little by embracing a formula that many ignored and creating one of the catchiest hooks of 2015.

ILoveMakonnen I Dont Sell Molly No More

ILoveMakonnen was basically first Soundcloud star to make it. His rise was quick: his unique, often off-key voice propelled him to stardom with his most prominent song being the Drake-assisted Tuesday remix. Although Tuesday was the song that pushed him onto the Billboard charts it was I Dont Sell Molly No More that solidified him as an influential Soundcloud star. The Sonny Digital beat beautifully fits Makonnens voice as the hook catches on instantly. Makonnen suffered from being the first with a voice this unusual, and many refused to accept him. He eventually endured a fall from both the good graces of OVO and the public. Even if Makonnen never reaches the same glory again, I Dont Sell Molly No More will forever live as one of the notable Soundcloud tracks.

Lil Uzi Vert XO Tour Lif3

If this list contained only Lil Uzi Vert songs it wouldnt be that unreasonable, but for all the great music he has dropped on Soundcloud, the peak of up to this point has got to be XO Tour Lif3. The song has dominated the Soundcloud charts for much of 2017 and the lyrics have become a sensation. The chorus is dark and about the closest rap has gotten to punk thus far (debate?). It is one of the great vocal performances of 2017 and truly a Soundcloud classic.

Playboi Carti Broke Boi

Broke Boi is the Soundcloud blueprint. Everything after it on the streaming platform is directly influenced from it and without it, the sound may have been completely different. From the signature Mexikodro drums to the money counter sample that became unavoidable. Cartis flow, much like Unotheactivist and Thouxanbandfauni, is birthed from Chief Keef, but his use of ad libs makes it all his own. The lyrics are memorable, the hook is irresistible and Carti had a certain charm and mystique that many have fallen in love with. If you ever found yourself confused as to why so many people cared about Cartis debut after waiting two plus years, its because of this.
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WASHINGTON - U.S. solar manufacturers and developers clashed Tuesday in a hearing before the U.S. International Trade Commission over whether solar panels from Asia represented an unlawful threat to domestic manufacturers.

Two U.S. solar manufacturers, Georgia-based Suniva and Oregon-based SolarWorld, are calling for the ITC to impose tariffs on foreign-made solar panels across the board, arguing that large manufacturers abroad are dumping their products onto the global market below cost, driving American competitors into bankruptcy.

"The U.S. is literally strewn with the carcasses of shuttered solar manufacturing facilities," said Matthew McConkey, an attorney representing Suniva. "Are we supposed to believe the almost 30 members of the domestic industry that have gone out of business over the last five years, all of them made bad decisions while companies in Korea (and other countries) were so brilliant? Please."

Suniva is petitioning the ITC for a four-year tariff on a type of solar panel most commonly sold around the world. But the Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade group backing solar developers who buy the panels, is fighting to stop them, arguing manufacturers' struggles stem from a failure to anticipate shifts in the market. The group estimates the tariffs would wipe out more than one-third of their industry's 250,000 jobs.

Last year solar accounted for almost 40 percent of new generation on the U.S. power grid, more than any other source, according to data compiled by GTM Research, a market analysis firm that studies renewable energy. Solar capacity in Texas doubled last year to 1.2 gigawatts, enough to power more than 200,000 Texas homes.

"Whether that growth would continue if Suniva is successful, that is pretty questionable," said George Hershman, general manager of Swinerton Renewable Energy, which is building a 150-megawatt solar farm in West Texas for NRG Energy.

Driving the installation boom are solar prices that have plunged roughly 70 percent since 2010, the product of a global race to produce greater and greater quantities of panels to feed demands from governments worldwide for carbon-free forms of energy.

With countries including the United States pumping tens of billions of dollars into building the solar industry, that has at times resulted in a supply that far exceeds demand, said Tim Fox, vice president at the Washington research firm ClearView Energy Partners.

"It's a mature industry now, and there's winners and losers," he said. "There may be a smaller U.S. manufacturing role than first envisioned, but I don't expect them to be entirely wiped out."

The prospect of an across-the-board tariff has raised protest from a diverse coalition of business and political groups - including everyone from the conservative Heritage Foundation to some of the nation's largest power companies, including Dallas-based Vistra.

"Over the last several years utilities and public power have increasingly diversified their portfolios," said Scott Segal, an attorney representing the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, a power industry group. "Inappropriate imposition of trade remedies on solar technology can fundamentally change the landscape for renewables without any consequent social benefits."

Likewise, lobbyists representing solar developers lined up seven elected officials from around the country to speak against the tariff at Tuesday's hearing. The lone public official who spoke in support of solar manufacturers was Bucky Johnson, mayor of Norcross, Ga., the town of 16,000 where Suniva's plant operated before shutting down earlier this year.

"Some might say protectionism," he said, "I say bunk. Give us a fair shot at competing."

The ITC is expected to issue a final ruling on a tariff by mid-November. Were it to rule in favor of Suniva, the ultimate decision on a broad solar tariff would lie with President Donald Trump.

The White House has offered little indication how it is leaning, but the president's tough-on-trade rhetoric and support for coal energy, a competitor of solar, have raised speculation he would be inclined to support the tariff.

"We believe the Suniva petition was drafted with President Trump's energy and economic policies in mind," Fox said.
Bankrupt solar panel manufacturer Suniva Inc. this week will try to close the proverbial barn door after all the horses have gone.

The Georgia-based company wants the U.S. International Trade Commission to impose a 40 cent per watt tariff on Chinese solar cells and a 78 cent-per-watt tariff on solar complete panels. Suniva's CEO says price-fixing is the only way to save the U.S. solar panel industry.

Raising prices also happens to be the best way to cripple the U.S. solar power industry as a whole.

RELATED: How Tesla and batteries could recharge Houston's energy title

There is no doubt that China makes the cheapest solar cells in the world, and for years they were pretty lousy. In the 2000s, I saw many Africans spend their life savings to bring electricity into their homes only to have the panels fail within a year.

That's all changed, though, after the communist government provided Chinese companies incentives to build better cells and tax breaks for consumers to purchase them. The Chinese National Energy Administration's latest five-year plan calls for 40 gigawatts of new, utility-scale solar projects from 2018 to 2020, according to energy data firm Wood Mackenzie.

That would bring China's installed solar generation to 110 gigawatts. By comparison, the United States has only 40 gigawatts of solar generation capacity. (One gigawatt can power more than 300,000 homes.)

Chinese cells, which are the important part of a panel, are still not as good as Suniva's, but they are produced on a huge scale, and therefore much cheaper. Suniva also doesn't manufacture the large 72-cell panels needed for large-scale projects, forcing solar energy companies to import them.

Blaming China for our problems is easy, but we need to take a hard look at U.S. energy policy to understand how we voluntarily ceded the lead in clean energy production to China 20 years ago.

Government-funded researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and other institutions across the country developed the solar and wind technology used today. They helped make cells more affordable and reliable before handing the technology off to private companies to commercialize the technology.

Unlike China, though, the U.S. provided inconsistent incentives for adopting solar power. Rather than declaring that U.S. tax incentives would last a decade, lawmakers renewed them annually. No major corporation is going to invest in a manufacturing facility when every year there is a chance the tax incentives would go away.

U.S. lawmakers also are the only ones in the world still debating the reality of man-made climate change. If our government can't admit there is a problem, how can a manufacturer invest in building the solutions and expect to make a profit?

RELATED: Solar energy is ready to expand dramatically in Texas

Some states and cities offer their own incentives for solar panels, but they are limited and spotty, still not enough to encourage local manufacturing.

Solar cell production therefore moved to where incentives were reliable and consistent. Chinese demand is so huge that most successful companies set up there, not in the U.S.

Unless and until an American company comes up with a much better solar cell, the U.S. will have lost the race to mass produce affordable solar cells. Granting the tariffs that Suniva is seeking will not change that, instead it will only crush the nascent solar power industry that the U.S. needs to stop burning coal.

China's success in bringing down the cost of solar cells is why U.S. energy companies are installing so many of them. Those inexpensive cells are why it's cheaper to build a solar array than it is to build a new coal-fired power plant and losing access to them will hurt millions of jobs connected to the installation of solar panels.

Texas solar installation companies would have to lay off 46 percent of their workforce if Suniva wins its case, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. That's 6,300 people out of work, and 88,000 job losses nationwide.

"Rather than help the industry, the action would kill many thousands of American jobs and put a stop to billions of dollars in private investment," association President Abigail Ross Hopper said. "Our estimates show that even in the states where Suniva and its lone supporter, SolarWorld, have operations, if the petition succeeds there would be many more jobs lost than expected gains for two struggling companies."

What Americans should worry about is holding on to the lead we have in other technologies and grabbing the lead on new ones. Because the competition is about getting off the starting line first and staying in front.

As the demand curve for oil flattens, my colleagues and I have been writing about how Houston can remain the energy capital of the world and sustain its economy as the oil business shrinks.

RELATED: Is Houston missing the next energy wave?

In a recent column, I suggested that Houston focus on what's replacing oil, mainly electric vehicle batteries. After all, John Goodenough at the University of Texas at Austin has developed the next generation lithium ion battery which will last 10 times longer and charge 10 times quicker. How can the U.S. hold on to that technology, commercialize it and manufacture it here?

There is no doubt that the China's communist government can more easily dictate industrial policy than the U.S. Congress can in this country. And China engages in unfair trade practices, including intellectual property theft. But we need to prepare for the next battle, not relitigate the ones we have already lost.

Hopefully, the International Trade Commission will recognize that tariffs on solar cells and panels will do more harm to the U.S. economy than to continue importing them from China. But more importantly, Congress will help American companies defend against losing the edge in the next generation of new technologies. Because staying in front is easier than coming from behind.
Houston offshore driller Rowan Cos. is cutting up to 85 jobs in the Gulf of Mexico, with more layoffs likely in the fall.

Rowan is following the trend of the sluggish offshore energy sector, idling rigs and cutting jobs as the contracts expire for its rigs and deep-water drillships in the Gulf.

Rowan axed close to 150 deep-water Gulf jobs earlier this summer when it idled its Rowan Reliance drillship.

Now, Rowan is eliminating jobs in the shallow Gulf as contracts expire for its shallow water rigs, known as jack-ups. Rowan told the Texas Workforce Commissions it is cutting 60 to 85 jobs from its Rowan EXL III jack-up rig when its contract with The Woodlands-based Arena Energy expires at the end of September.

If the rig finds new work in the near future, some of those people could be retained or rehired, the company said. But Rowan warned this month that its Gorilla IV jack-up rig in the shallow Gulf also will see its contract expire with Arena at the end of October, possibly triggering more layoffs at that time.

"The U.S. Gulf of Mexico remains one of the weakest jack-up reefs in the world and it may be challenging to secure continuous work for the EXL III and the Gorilla IV, while we are talking to multiple operators about future opportunities," Rowan's executive vice president, Mark Keller, said earlier this month.

While Rowan is losing most of its business in the U.S. Gulf, it's growing in the Middle East, thanks to its new joint venture with Saudi Arabia for offshore drilling.

That deal potentially leaves Rowan better positioned than several of its offshore drilling rivals, many of which are bankrupt, teetering on the edge, or seeking to merge with other companies.

For instance, Houston-based Hercules Offshore filed for bankruptcy twice. Paragon Offshore just emerged from a prolonged bankruptcy. Vantage Drilling filed as well but later emerged from it last year. Seadrill and Pacific Drilling are flirting with bankruptcy or some other restructuring. And London's Ensco is acquiring Houston's Atwood Oceanics.

Rowan has its main corporate office in Houston, although it is formally domiciled in the United Kingdom after moving its legal status five years ago.
A majority of doctors questioned nationwide now support a single-payer health care system - an almost exact reversal of their stance nine years ago.

Fifty-six percent of the 1,033 physicians who responded to the Aug. 3 Merritt Hawkins survey said they either strongly supported or somewhat supported a single-payer system.

That compares with 58 percent of physicians who, in 2008, said they opposed such a system. Back then, only 42 percent supported the concept.

The survey findings were released Monday,

The stark turnaround took many aback on Monday as doctors have often been among the most outspoken critics of single-payer health care, in which the government, rather than private insurers, cover health-care costs.

"I expected it would go the other way. We've always heard the opposite," admitted Phillip Miller, vice president of communications for Merritt Hawkins, one of the nation's leading physician search firms that often surveys doctors on their practices and opinions about the health-care climate.

The one-question survey asked "What is your position on single payer healthcare?" It was emailed to 70,000 nationwide across all specialties. Miller said the survey was purposely held to one question to measure gut reaction and did not delve into how such a system would work or be paid for.

He added that the return sampling of more than 1,000 doctors is considered a good statistical cross-section of opinion.

In the latest survey, 35 percent of respondents said they strongly opposed a single-payer system while 6 percent said they somewhat opposed it. The margin of error was 3.1 percent. Three percent of physicians said they did not support or oppose the system.

The new Merritt Hawkins findings are not dissimilar to a LinkedIn study earlier this year that found 48 percent of the 500 doctors surveyed said they would support a single-payer system if it provided health insurance to everyone.

Still, the shift surprised Vivian Ho, a health economist at Rice University's Bakes Institute for Public Policy. She wondered on Monday if it was a more a practical matter rather than a philosophical one.

Doctors she has spoken to often talk of the administrative burdens, both from federal program changes and narrowing private insurance markets, which have taken a toll. Ho suspected many doctors, especially those in small practices, may now be turning toward what they hope would be an easier system to navigate.

The survey did not ask for reasons behind the replies, but Miller also suspects a growing weariness among doctors with the current uncertainty coming out of Washington, D.C., about possibly repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.

"Physicians are seeking some sort of clarity and support in which way the health system is going," Miller said. "Doctors, like everyone else, have been living on a yo-yo."

Dr. Deane Waldman, a retired cardiologist and director for the Center for Health Care Policy at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, said Monday that he, too, thinks the nation's doctors may be changing previous positions out of desperation.

While cautioning against a single-payer system, which he believes would add even more regulation and bureaucracy, he said he understands why doctors may be changing their tune.

"They are just looking for relief," Waldman said.

The Harris County Medical Society said in an email that while it "supports the idea that the problems of our current system can and should be fixed" it does not believe a single-payer system would "address or change the forces that have resulted in skyrocketing health care costs in our society."

There is little doubt that opinions remain in flux, both within the medical community and among the public.

A tracking poll for the Kaiser Family Foundation in June found a slim majority of people, roughly 53 percent, were in favor of a single-payer health plan, up slightly from 2016 and substantially higher than the 46 percent who favored such a system in the years directly leading up to the passage of Obamacare.

Upheaval surrounding the nation's health care shows little sign of calming. Late last week, the Trump administration announced the deadline for insurers to submit rate increase request had been extended by three weeks, until Sept. 5. Previously it had been Wednesday.

Insurance companies have complained that it is exceedingly difficult this year to set rates and calculate risk with so many unknowns, including the on-again-off-again threat to withhold payments to insurers to help pay the out-of-pocket costs for low-income customers.

At the same time, congressional Republicans may not be done with trying to resurrect plans to repeal and replace Obamacare. The House passed its version of a replacement plan by a narrow margin in May, but the Senate failed to pass a version late last month.

"The uncertainty has had a huge effect on physicians," Waldman said. "It scares doctors, but it absolutely terrifies patients."
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Tina Nelkin's friends urged her to get a home security system when she moved to the Houston Heights 30 years ago. The neighborhood, she says, was notable for sagging front porches on tiny old wooden homes with broken refrigerators and furniture strewn in overgrown front yards.

"It was like going to grandma's house," Nelkin recalled Monday. "That's what people move to the Heights for."

It's since become a sought-after inner-city neighborhood where home prices average about a half-million dollars. Most of the original small homes, most of them built around the turn of the century, were buried beneath super-sized additions or demolished and replaced. The activity drew the attention of city planners who designated the region a historic district and waged a yearslong struggle to regulate how homeowners there could alter their historic homes.

"You can't do anything here without a permit," Nelkin said. "And we love that."

Now, for the first time, the city is preparing to publish a 225-page set of guidelines for building and modifying homes in the historic Heights, listing in explicit detail what can and cannot, should and should not be done. Until now, officials say, the process for permit approval has been subjective and reliant on substantial guesswork.

"If you are altering or building something new, these are the criteria you must meet to do that," said Margaret Wallace Brown, deputy director of the city planning department. "It will eliminate the guesswork that everybody has been operating under for the past several years."

A final public meeting will be held Sept. 28 at the United Way Building on Waugh, and the draft of the new guidelines then will be sent to City Council.

If approved, the new guidelines would specify regulations on the size, height and footprint of additions to the historic buildings, as well as detailed stylistic guidance on everything from window frames and doors and siding, chimneys and porches.

Some disillusioned by efforts

The document represents a major change in Houston's uneven push for historic preservation. Since the passage of Houston's original preservation ordinance in 1995, planners have worked to strengthen the rules and provide means of enforcement to prevent alteration of particular buildings.

The Heights would become by far the largest historic district brought under neighborhood-specific design guidelines. While the city considers it a major achievement, some designers and builders fear the rules infringe on property rights and could stifle development.

"How can we have this kind of control over someone's property rights? This is Texas," said Mark VanDoren, owner of Heights-based APD Design. "You don't tell us what to do with our property in Texas."

VanDoren has watched the preservation effort unfold for more than 25 years, as he designed new and remodeled homes in the Heights. Initially he took part in a citizens' land-use committee to protest construction of tall townhomes rising amid the squat bungalows.

Yet he grew disillusioned by the preservation effort by what he saw as politics and power play.

"Things have gotten way out of hand," he said. "They're going to make it more and more restrictive."

Any modifications to historic structures in the historic district currently require city approval and a "certificate of appropriateness."

Erin Patchell has confronted some of those restrictions. Two years ago, she and her husband bought a lot with two structures on it at 12th and Arlington. They drew up plans to adjoin the two structures, but the city historical commission denied them. The commission didn't like their use of brick siding, the planned height of the addition and the shape of the roof line, Patchell said. Months later, their amended plan was approved, but only after a tie-breaker vote.

"While I support historic preservation, I will never go through this process again," she said. "And this is before the new guidelines."

Her plan would not be approved under the proposed new guidelines, she said. She worried that the burdensome restrictions would discourage anyone from buying historic properties, leaving them to decay.

'Borderline insane'

Such experiences aren't particularly rare. Rob Hellyer, presidents of Heights-based Premier Remodeling and a member of the city historical commission, said he's seen homeowners brought to tears at commission meetings, frustrated by the slow and seemingly fickle process for design approval.

He said that "absolutely" the guidelines are needed.

"There just aren't real clear guidelines right now. A lot of it is based on subjective judgment," he said.

City approval in the district is required for replacing doors, windows, siding or any historical materials, adding new rooms, carports or awnings and any new construction. The new rules specify size and height restrictions for any add-ons.

That's a point that VanDoren fears could hurt development in the area, making additions not worth the investment. In one recent project, he said, a homeowner wanted a 1,000-square-foot addition to a $459,000 house. Restrictions allowed him to increase the size by only 40 percent to the home footprint. He bid that work out for $248,000, far more than the value the addition would add to the house.

So instead, VanDoren fast-tracked a much larger second-story addition, knowing it would be prohibited by the time the new guidelines passed.

Under the guidelines, he fears that additions will become cost-prohibitive for the smaller bungalows, which will be left to decay beside $1.5 million homes.

"What the city is doing is borderline insane," he said.

The Houston Heights Association said it had no opinion on the design guidelines.

'You have to protect it'

For others, the guidelines represent progress in Houston, which has a notoriously poor record on preservation. This city adopted its first preservation 32 years after Los Angeles did so, said David Bush, acting executive director of Preservation Houston.

He said the new Heights guidelines bring Houston one step closer to the standard practices in big U.S. cities.

He called the restrictions necessary to maintain a unique character, preventing historic neighborhoods from becoming strip malls.

"You can always build new," he said. "You can't build old. You have to protect it."

The Heights posed a particular challenge in crafting cohesive design guidelines, though, because the neighborhood grew in several phases, with large homes for wealthy people in the early days, followed by smaller bungalows as the area grew less affluent.

The city plans next to develop similar development documents for seven more historic districts: Woodland Heights, updates to the Old Sixth Ward, Norhill, Market Square, Freeland and Glennbrook Valley.

"You shouldn't just take a special place and turn it into Anywhere, USA," Nori Minster, who owns a home on Harvard Street, said. "Sometimes I worry."

Correction: This article has been update to note David Bush's title with Preservation Houston is acting executive director.
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The mother of a newborn baby found covered in ants and abandoned on a Cypress Station sidewalk was jailed Monday on a felony child abandonment charge.

Sidney Woytasczyk, who later told investigators she didn't know she was pregnant, could face up to 20 years behind bars, prosecutors said.

BACKGROUND: Hours-old infant found abandoned at North Houston apartment complex

Now Playing: The mother of a newborn baby found covered in ants and abandoned on a Cypress Station sidewalk was jailed Monday on a felony child abandonment charge. Sidney Woytasczyk, who later told investigators she didn't know she was pregnant, could face up to 20 years behind bars, prosecutors said. Video: Houston Chronicle

Sometime around midnight Thursday, the 21-year-old gave birth alone in her apartment kitchen.

Afterward, she clipped the umbilical cord, walked outside, put the infant on the ground, and went back inside to go to sleep, the Harris County Sheriff's Office said a press conference Monday.

Woytasczyk didn't want her boyfriend to know she'd been pregnant as she was afraid the baby would come between them, investigators said.

"She was scared, and she did not know that she was pregnant," Deputy Kimberly Thomas said. The baby's father was inside the apartment at the time, and had no idea what had happened.

But around five hours later, a neighbor discovered the baby girl, covered with insect bites, cuts and bruises. Fluid leaked out of the baby's umbilical cord.

"More than likely the baby would have died if nobody had found her," Thomas said.

First responders took the newborn to the hospital, and as of Monday afternoon she was still at the neonatal ICU at Texas Children's Hospital where she is being treated for a bacterial infection and rapid heartbeat. She is in "good condition" and on the mend, deputies said.

Woytasczyk is being held in the Harris County Jail on a $20,000 bail.

She does not have a criminal record. She was working in retail and was attending college at the time of her arrest, her lawyer said during a hearing early Tuesday.

Deputies urged expecting mothers to familiarize themselves with the so-called Baby Moses law, which allows moms to drop off babies under 60 days old to a fire station, hospital or emergency facility without facing any charges.

No additional charges are expected in the case, and the Harris County District Attorney's Office said probation "may be considered."

"This is not an everyday case for us," said Sgt. Matt Ferguson.
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Texas A&M University abruptly cancelled a White Lives Matter rally planned by an outside organizer days after deadly violence rattled Charlottesville near the University of Virginia's campus.

University administrators consulted with law enforcement, system leaders, regents and state officials before cancelling the rally that had been set for Sept. 11, officials said Monday.

Preston Wiginton, a one-time Texas A&M student, announced on Saturday that he would host a White Lives Matter event in College Station on Sept. 11. The announcement came as the "Unite the Right" protest was under way in Charlottesville, Virginia.

"Today Charlottesville, Tomorrow Texas A&M," he said in a press release.

A&M officials said the planned protest raised safety concerns after the violence in Virginia.

"Linking the tragedy of Charlottesville to the Texas A&M event creates a major security risk on our campus," officials said in a statement Monday afternoon.

The rally in Virginia turned deadly Saturday after a man slammed his car into counter-protesters, killing one person and injuring 19 others, including a Houston woman who is a student at UVA.

The 20-year-old Ohio man charged with second-degree murder in the car crash has been linked to a white supremacist organization, Vanguard America, that has posted hate-filled flyers at synagogues, and universities in Houston, across Texas and beyond.

HoustonChronicle.com: Campuses are targets of alt-right speakers. How should they respond?

The planned September event would have brought white nationalist Richard Spencer back to campus for a second time along with Ken Reed, a White Lives Matter representative from the Houston area. Wiginton said Monday he expected to pursue legal action following the cancellation.

"They think they're above the law," he said. "The First Amendment in America doesn't mean anything."

A&M officials defended the decision to cancel the event in light of the violence in Charlottesville.

In addition to safety concerns, A&M officials said Monday the daylong event would have challenged class schedules and the movement of students, faculty and staff.

"Texas A&M's support of the First Amendment and the freedom of speech cannot be questioned," the university said in a statement.

Spencer first spoke at A&M in December. Then, university officials said they could not block him from speaking on campus, citing the First Amendment.

In December, Wiginton organized an event featuring Spencer, who spouted racist views and drew hundreds of protesters to the campus.

"America, at the end of the day, belongs to white men," Spencer said.

Instead of cancelling the December event, A&M held a school-sanctioned event called Aggies United on the football field nearby.

University officials cited the First Amendment in deciding not to call off the event, despite enormous opposition.

Texas A&M President Michael Young said at the time that Spencer was legally allowed to "express odious, reprehensible ideas" as long as he followed university rules on time, place and manner of speech and did not incite violence.

The latest event would have disrupted the campus, interfering with the movement of students, faculty and staff, officials said.

"On Dec. 6, 2016 the university and law enforcement allowed the same speaker the opportunity to share his views, taking all of the necessary precautions to ensure a peaceful event," according to the university statement. "However, in this case, circumstances and information relating to the event have changed and the risks of threat to life and safety compel us to cancel the event."

A&M Regent Tony Buzbee, a Houston attorney, said in an email he supported administrators' decision to call off the event.

"We're living in a new age," he said by phone before the event was cancelled. "People show up to a so-called peaceful rally, and they're wearing helmets, holding shields and billy clubs. That's not a peaceful rally."

He added, "If we have evidence that the people are coming to be violent ... then not only should we act, I think we have an obligation to."

Students had already planned a "Maroon Wall" to "show that the Aggie Family's commitment to its own is far greater than any force trying to divide us," attracting interest from thousands of people, including other Texas students.

Another event, dubbed "BTHO Hate," was also planned to rally students against white supremacist messages.

"It is clear that the event posed a danger to the student body and Texas A&M did the right thing to protect its students," student organizer Adam Key said in an email.

State Rep. John Raney, R-Bryan/College Station, first announced the event's cancellation on the House floor Monday in the State Capitol, shortly after other representatives urged Chancellor John Sharp to call off the event.

Raney, an Aggie from the class of 1969, said Sharp called him to tell him the event had been cancelled amid safety concerns after people commented on social media they would be bringing firearms.

"I know there are, I guess you'd say, free speech issues," Raney said. "But this was not done on a free-speech basis. It was done on a safety-of-the-students basis. I think that's appropriate.

"There's no reason to put any of those kids in harm's way for a reason that's ridiculous in the first place," he said.

Gov. Greg Abbott's office also weighed in, working with the university "to prevent the type of hate-filled event that we saw in Charlottesville," according to a statement.

The white supremacist group, Vanguard America, was among dozens of nationalistic and neo-Nazi groups that turned out in Charlottesville for the weekend rally there.

Vanguard America has denied that the car's driver, James Alex Fields Jr., had ties to the organization, though he was seen wearing insignia and holding an organization shield during protests earlier in the day.

Vanguard America has a history of spreading hate in Houston, taping anti-Semitic flyers to signs, doors and gates at two Houston synagogues on July 16, according to a report by the Anti-Defamation league.

The group also participated in a protest over false reports about the possible removal of a statue of Sam Houston monument in Houston's Hermann Park.

"Vanguard America (VA) is a white supremacist group that opposes multiculturalism and believes that America is an exclusively white nation," according to the ADL's report. "Using a right-wing nationalist slogan, Blood and Soil, VA romanticizes the notion that people with 'white blood' have a special bond with 'American soil.'"

The ADL report says the group focuses on recruiting young man and has targeted its outreach to American college campuses.

Andrea Zelinski and Mike Ward contributed to this report.
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Since the city's founding 180 years ago, the northernmost street in downtown Houston has been called Commerce, for obvious reasons. Just beyond this edge of town, White Oak Bayou met Buffalo Bayou, forming the original Port of Houston at Allen's Landing. Commerce was the gateway for lumber, livestock, and cotton going out, and everything else coming in.

By the turn of the 20th century, Commerce was better known as Produce Row, a kind of wholesale market place for fruits and vegetables to feed the growing city. By the middle of the century all these business enterprises had migrated to roads easier for trucks to navigate and further from the bayou.

Very little of the original commercial buildings remain, so it's hard to imagine how things were when the port of Houston was where Main Street ended.

But those few that do are evidencing a spurt of adaptive reuse for new occupants, promising dramatic change to the northern edge of the Main Street/Market Square Historic District  and a new identity to Produce Row.

A surprising new owner is now at home at the corner of Commerce and Travis and promises to be a vital addition to Houston's cultural scene. After a three-year search that included more than 30 potential sites, the American Institute of Architects Houston Chapter selected the 1906 Riesner Building, to be the home of Architecture Center Houston, which is expected to open in mid-September.

Barry Moore

Originally, the three-story Riesner Building was a typical commercial building for its time, complete with double French doors facing the street. A previous owner gutted the timber-framed interior, leaving only the exterior walls, and built a concrete parking garage on the second and third floor levels.

Not only does the renovated first floor provide office and meeting space for the professional organization with 2,000 members and 26 standing committees, it also contains public exhibition space for all types of design.

An added bonus is the vacant "Boiler Room," originally built to service the connected 1911 Southern Pacific Building, offering additional space for showings and events.

Since 2007, Architecture Center Houston had made a home in Bayou Place, formerly the Albert Thomas Convention Center. The lease expired this year, prompting the move. Once negotiations for the Riesner Building were in play, the board initiated a competition among members to design the new space.

After the review of 28 submittals and three finalists, the jury unanimously selected the scheme prepared by Murphy Mears Architects.

DOWNTOWN ARCHITECTURE: 609 Main: A different skyscraper

Design and Construction Team Architects Walter Murphy, Kirby Mears and Kyle Humphries MKL (interior design)

Walter P Moore (civil engineering)

Cardno (structural engineering)

KCI (MEP consultants)

Kirksey (sustainability consultants)

Page (commissioning agent)

Harvey Builders (construction)

Sacaris Studio (metal fabrications)



Additional services and contributions came from Debner, Steelcase, Brochsteins, Elegant Additons, Dungan Miller and SPARQ1200 See More Collapse

The first inspiration for the Murphy Mears design began with the Boiler Room, a 2,300-square-foot space, adjacent to the main floor, but eight feet below its surface. It's an impressive volume, 23 feet tall, and sky lit. Inspired by benchmarks like the Venice Biennale, known for launching art installations in vacant industrial buildings, the architects chose to celebrate the rough concrete and masonry walls, with minimal intervention. When completed, a broad new ramp around the perimeter will provide additional wall hanging areas. It's a natural for major exhibitions.

The second inspiration was to provide a visual connection to Commerce Street. New glass windows where wood warehouse doors originally stood offer views into the interior and vice versa. The reception desk is at the back of the exhibit area instead of at the door, decluttering the vista into the space.

Murphy Mears

The penetration of natural light is another big factor in the design, enhanced by high transoms on the Travis Street side, and light white floors and ceilings.

The highly functional interior is seriously flexible, dramatically demonstrated by rolling steel panel systems that can move to accommodate differing needs of exhibit and meeting spaces. The architects early on realized that flexibility can be complicated to create, but to their credit, the completed project comes together naturally and logically. They made it look easy.

The near-certainty of flooding in this 100-year flood plain was a difficult challenge to face. There is a steel, manually operated floodgate at the entry, designed so that water pressure will keep it closed. Steel and aluminum wainscots below the Commerce Street windows and along the Travis Street facade will further discourage water penetration.

The design team, construction team, and owners appeared to have been one of the happiest groups in town, a blessing for any project. Careful attention to problem solving, scheduling and budgeting prevailed throughout. Everyone involved described it as a labor of love.

The former Produce Row currently is a work in progress, but shows the promise of being a destination in a very short while. The Buffalo Bayou Partnership has completed renovations of the Sunset Coffee Building at Allen's Landing, and biking and canoeing operations are developing.

TURNING POINT: What the Sunset Coffee Building can teach us about Houston history

The historic buildings at the corner of Commerce and Main are due soon for an upgrade in facade and tenancy. The UH Downtown classroom building is only a block away. The Bayou Lofts in the old Southern Pacific Building will soon house a bar, restaurant, and microbrewery. Market Square is but two blocks away and flanked by new residential towers.

And the reputedly haunted Spaghetti Warehouse is still going strong. The infrastructure could not be better  light rail on main, great street trees on Travis, historic brick paving on Commerce  and the greensward, sloping down to Allen's Landing, is just across the street.

Murphy Mears

The city can look forward to bigger and better exhibits in the Architecture Center. Past offerings have featured Women in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Interior Design, Stage Design, Environmental Graphics and the work of talented local artists and craftsmen. "Made/Unmade" the last show in the old space, curated by Eric Arnold and Michael Gonzales, both of the University of Houston, was a blockbuster indicator of what we can expect in the future; the show celebrated the work of all kinds of Houston designers, with an emphasis on making things. It was furniture, industrial design, building products, jewelry  in short, anything that could be dreamed up and made.

Architecture Center Houston stands a good chance of becoming the cultural heart of the district, with its changing exhibits and brightly lit show windows  and in the process transforming former Produce Row into a street of creativity for the 21st century.

Barry Moore is Senior Associate with Gensler. This article originally appeared on OffCite, a publication of the Rice Design Alliance, a community engagement program of the Rice School of Architecture.



Bookmark Gray Matters. Everyone involved describes it as a labor of love.
Many of you have likely seen the photo of the tiki-torch-bearing hater who has become the latest face of overt white supremacy and racism. The photo shows the angry face of 20-year-old Peter Cvjetanovic, who defended his actions by explaining that he "cares for all people."

He said: "I do believe that the replacement of the statue will be the slow replacement of white heritage within the United States and the people who fought and defended and built their homeland. Robert E. Lee is a great example of that. He wasn't a perfect man, but I want to honor and respect what he stood for during his time."

Cvjetanovic drove all the way from Reno, Nevada, not to debate, not even to protest, but to intimidate a community of people who had decided after much debate and deliberation to do what they thought was best for their community. As the de facto leader of the alt-right, Richard Spencer, retweeted the evening of this display of hatred: "The fear we instill in them only fuels our victory tomorrow."

What is it that they want to "instill fear" about? Are they really that passionate about states' rights?

Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Let's talk about states' rights for a bit.

People who defend these monuments to Confederate "heroes" do so under the guise that these men were patriots standing up for states' rights. They'll tell you time and time again that the Civil War was not about the defense of slavery or racist ideology. But the receipts are right there in the Declarations of the Causes of Secession passed by multiple states, including my beloved Texas, which was

"received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery  the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits  a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time.

Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them?

The controlling majority of the Federal Government, under various pretences and disguises, has so administered the same as to exclude the citizens of the Southern States, unless under odious and unconstitutional restrictions, from all the immense territory owned in common by all the States on the Pacific Ocean, for the avowed purpose of acquiring sufficient power in the common government to use it as a means of destroying the institutions of Texas and her sister slaveholding States.

The state's right that Texas and these other slave-holding states with which Texas felt a "strengthened association" was the right for white people to continue to hold African-descended slaves.

But let's pretend for just a moment that their states'-rights-sans-slavery defense is sincere. These people traveled from states hither and thither and descended en masse on a state and town to try to bully that community into doing what they wanted  thereby attempting to override that community's rights and deliberated decision to do what works best for them.

Hypocrisy much?

Ask yourself why a claim to whiteness equals a legitimate claim to U.S. heritage?

GRAY MATTERS: What Russia can teach us about Confederate statues

Recently, I've been able to trace my family tree through both DNA evidence and historical records on the white side back to 1775, where a family member was born in North Carolina, and on the black side to the 1820s, with records stating that their parents were born in Alabama, which likely makes them Americans born in the 1700s as well.

Note that as a black American in the United States, my racial background is both white and black. My heritage encompasses both. Most black Americans who were descended from enslaved people are about 20 percent white.

In other words, my heritage, our heritage, is deeply, generationally, ethnically entwined with the birth of this country. Some of us, like me, are descendants of people who were born in this country before 1776. This is not unusual, as most black Americans are descended from enslaved people and their white owners.

Yet when someone who looks like me says that these statues are offensive, that they symbolize the subjugation of human beings and American citizens like me, that they symbolize an evil ideology that does not represent the best in this culture and should not be celebrated, we are not listened to. We are argued with, we are ridiculed, we are dismissed, we are accused of trying to "hide history," we are intimidated and we are threatened with our lives.

Mayra Beltran/Staff

Folks, I am a living monument to this country's history, as well as to its future. Yet it is people who look like me, it is our voices and it is our history that these people want to continue to hide and destroy. And by these people, I mean some of you, too  who sympathize with and even teach this disinformation.

I don't know when Cvjetanovic's family emigrated to the United States from Eastern Europe, but it is likely that he, like his president, is a descendant of immigrants who came far later than both my black and white ancestors. Cvjetanovic also claims no ties to the South. So tell me why it is that he felt it was his right and duty to descend upon a city in another state with a group of white supremacists from outside the state to intimidate those people into doing something against what they'd decided was best for them?

Why is it that he feels so strongly that Robert E. Lee is "a great example" of "people who fought for and defended their homeland"? (Because I sure as hell don't feel that way, and I even have a grandfather named after Robert E. Lee.)

It is because of his proximity to whiteness and its white supremacist ideology  not U.S. culture, history, heritage (of which he has minimal claim)  but an ideology that tells him (and other white people) that he has more right to claim and demand that the history, culture and heritage of the United States  and its future  reflect primarily people who look like him.

This is why these statues have no place in public parks meant for all Americans, paid for by our tax dollars, built upon land that holds the bones and blood of all our ancestors. Their names do not belong on our schools that educate all of our children  native, immigrant, slave-descended.

These statues belong in museums. Museums reminiscent of Holocaust museums that explain the history of the South as well as the United States' original sin. Museums that tell the story of our current struggle with what to do with them  and what that struggle means for how far we've come and how far we haven't.

Museums that give this country and its citizens tools to help us overcome that sin  because this country still has a long way to go.

M. Yvonne Taylor is a writer, educator and mom who lives in Austin, Texas, but still calls Houston home. This was originally posted on Medium.



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The news seemed to come out of nowhere this past week: If about a dozen Houston ISD schools don't improve by next year, the state will close campuses or take over the district's operations.

Board trustees scrambled to defend their district in the aftermath of the state's warning, arguing that progress was already underway. District administrators pledged more resources for the failing campuses. Superintendent Richard Carranza, completing his first year, acknowledged that he only recently learned of the possibility of a state takeover and promised a "robust intervention program."

But the threat of the state taking over the nation's seventh-largest school district, as well as other major districts in Texas, has in fact been more than two years in the making. It arises from a law passed in 2015 with huge bipartisan support - including Houston-area Democrats. In interviews this week, legislators stood by their decision to vote in favor of the bill, which passed with about 85 percent support in both chambers.

The goal, legislators said, is not to promote a state takeover of Houston ISD, but rather to prod local education leaders into addressing long-failing schools.

"We just want to make people more mindful of how serious the responsibility is to get these things done," said state Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, whose district borders the city's longest-failing campus, Kashmere High School. "It's the gravity of the problem we are trying to call the attention to."

The legislation reflected a paradigm shift in Texas education, with state legislators sending a message to school boards: fix your worst schools, or lose your power. Some Houston education leaders have argued the law represents an unnecessary state encroachment on local rule. One Houston ISD trustee also suggested the law reflects a larger plan to foist Republican-favored education ideals - charter schools and private school vouchers - on Democratic-controlled urbandistricts.

For years, the state has given local school districts relatively wide latitude to improve chronically failing schools.

'Not isolated islands'

Austin-basedadministrators have intervened in districts with pervasive academic and financial issues, but largely left alone districts with a mix of strong and weak schools. Now, if a single school in a district receives five straight "improvement required" ratings, the Texas Education Agency must close the campus or appoint a board of managers to take over operations of the entire district.

The law puts 46 independent school districts under the gun.

In Houston ISD, 14 district schools must avoid back-to-back negative ratings over the next two years, though district officials maintain they have another year to improve five of those schools. Trustees said they expect a few schools to make the grade and come off the list of failing schools when 2017 scores are released Tuesday.

"Campuses are not isolated islands," TEA Commissioner Mike Morath said in August 2016. "They operate within school systems, and often the system as a whole isn't set up to support real performance improvement in that individual campus. In this case, system-level interventions are necessary."

Trustees push back

As local school districts begin to feel the law's brunt, trustees in the 210,000-student Houston ISD are pushing back. They argue the law is too draconian, potentially punishing Houston for having even one chronically failing school when 270 others have met state standards in recent years. They also say the law improperly wrests power away from locally elected officials.

"This is a precedent to dismantle public education, and it's not just a local trend," said Houston ISD Trustee Rhonda Skillern-Jones. "It's coming from the culture in this country around using the last pot of public money for private profit."

But when legislators passed the bill in 2015, there was broad support across both parties.

State Rep. Harold Dutton Jr., a Houston Democrat, sponsored the legislation after getting fed up with the lack of progress at campuses like Kashmere High, which has received seven straight "improvement required" ratings. His bill received unanimous support in the House Public Education Committee, which included three other Democrats.

Neither the Texas Association of School Boards nor Houston ISD officials publicly opposed the bill, though district officials say they lodged their opposition in private conversations with legislators and state leaders. The bill also included a now-popular designation known as "Districts of Innovation" that gave local leaders more flexibility in scheduling and other areas.

State Rep. Alma Allen, who worked in Houston ISD for 39 years as an elementary-school teacher and principal, said she initially saw the legislation as "a takeover of the public school system, particularly HISD." But the Houston Democrat voted for the 2015 bill, saying that if the threat of takeover made the school board pay attention to low-performing schools in communities of color, then so be it.

"You don't get this deep in trouble overnight. This has been a long time coming, and a longtime period of neglect for minority schools, particularly in minority communities," she said. "You have had time to make a difference."

In executing the law, legislators have found a willing partner in Morath, a reform-minded educator and former Dallas ISD trustee. Morath has embraced the ethos that local school board members must be held accountable for chronically failing schools, even if other campuses are posting positive results.

"It changes our focus from the campus level to the absolute top, where I think it needs to be: on school boards and superintendents," Morath said in August 2016.

The agency has declined to comment since issuing the warning to Houston ISD this week.

Response unclear

It remains unclear how state education officials will respond if any chronically failing schools gets an "improvement required" rating in 2017 and 2018. They have not said which option - campus shutdowns or a state takeover of operations - they would employ if forced to choose in 2018. The agency did signal this week its willingness to bend slightly, offering a third option: converting schools into "in-district" charters.

Rep. Thompson said she doesn't want the state to take over school-district operations or close campuses. She views the law as "more of a warning" to local leaders designed to spur action.

"Here's the hammer, and if you don't correct these things and start trying to get them taken care of, then the next move is going to be this" law, Thompson said.

Improvement seen

But the threat of state takeover has rattled some Houston leaders, who fear the unintended consequences of outside intervention.

"Houston has a deep reserve of smart people and resources, all of which can be leveraged to provide HISD with the support it needs to solve its own problems," said Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, a former state legislator.

Last April, Carranza announced an ambitious campus turnaround plan at 32 Houston ISD schools called "Achieve 180."

Huey German-Wilson, who helped draft Kashmere High School's campus turnaround plan in 2016, said administrators are finally making progress there. The school's leadership is stable after long stretches of turnover, with Principal Nancy Blackwell entering her third year. And additional resources are starting to pour in, many of which are aimed at addressing students' emotional and behavioral needs.

"Now that we're finally seeing a marked improvement, you're telling us it's great that you improved, but it might be too late?" German-Wilson said. "We don't need another change, and we certainly don't want to see another change."
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Natalie Romero knew there was danger.

The sophomore at the University of Virginia told her mother in Houston Friday night about angry men marauding on campus, using tiki torches as weapons.

She called her mother again Saturday morning as she walked to the demonstration against white supremacists gathering in Charlottesville near the campus.

Be careful, Ericka Chaves told her 20-year-old daughter.

But she went ahead.

"She's very tough," Chaves said about her daughter. "She's a tiny person, but she's very tough."

Romero remained in the hospital Monday, recovering from a fractured skull and gashed face inflicted Saturday when a man plowed a car into a crowd of counterprotesters, injuring Romero and 18 other people and killing a Charlottesville woman.

Chaves said she knows why her daughter went ahead despite the danger.

"She wanted to do what other people can't," Chaves told reporters Monday. "She wanted to raise her voice for those who can't."

Romero long had sought to help and lead others. Her mother said she picked the University of Virginia largely because of its proximity to Washington, D.C., and received a full scholarship as an ROTC cadet. She said Romero wants to serve in government and help immigrants like her mother, who came to Texas from Colombia.

More Information How to help The family of Natalie Romero - who was among 19 people injured when a driver crashed into counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Virginia Saturday - is accepting donations and a GoFundMe page to help cover her medical and travel expenses. The page is at www.gofundme.com/natalie-romero-medical-fund. See More Collapse

"She's my hero," Chaves said.

Romero graduated with honors last year from Bellaire High School, where became commander of the Junior ROTC corps her senior year. A Bellaire High teacher recalled how Romero organized her peers.

"She's just a born leader," chemistry teacher Sossiena Sanders said Monday. "She's very responsible. ... She's always taking the (lead)."

Sanders taught Romero during the 2013-2014 academic year, the same year Romero was picked for the Emerge program, a Houston ISD initiative that helps high-performing students from low-income families get into top colleges.

If Romero got anything less than an A on a test or assignment, Sanders said, she would talk with her teacher to ask how she could improve. And she was involved outside the classroom, even beyond JROTC, Sanders said.

"Every time you'd see her, she's organizing kids and connecting," she said.

Romero continued to show that leadership in college, her mother said, serving as a peer mentor to incoming Hispanic students.

The Houston native loved her first year of college but missed her hometown, Chaves said. When new friends visited Romero in Houston, the first thing she did was take them on a pilgrimage to Whataburger.

Chaves said her family will need financial and possibly legal help to cover mounting medical and transportation expenses.

She's unsure if her daughter might receive assistance from a state fund for crime victims. For now, donations are being accepted through a GoFundMe page, which had raised more than $100,000 by Monday afternoon.

The family isn't sure how high expenses could rise, and it's not yet clear whether Romero had insurance through the university.

Chaves said her mother is with Romero, but Chaves wants her daughter home as soon as possible to finish her recovery.

"We need her here," the mother said, "and she needs her family."

A reporter asked Chaves whether she wants her daughter to return to the university town where she was attacked.

"As a mother, I don't," she said. "But I know her, and she will go back."
AUSTIN - Tensions ran high in the Texas Capitol on Monday as the Legislature struggled to break the logjam that has held up key school funding and property tax bills that lawmakers argue Texans are begging for before their scheduled adjournment Wednesday.

With time running out, Monday was marked by testy floor debates, back-door meetings and somber denunciations of the violence that had erupted over the weekend in a Virginia college town.

After weeks of consternation, the House passed two major Senate bills as an act of good faith as leaders from both chambers attempted to make headway on a public school funding bill that has become the House's flagship issue.

The House voted 105-41 to pass the Senate's property tax reform bill giving voters the power to reject local governments' efforts to raise property taxes by more than 6 percent in a public referendum.

Debate grew heated as lawmakers largely from the House's tea party faction pushed against the chamber's decision to pass the bill to the Senate unchanged, accusing leadership of squelching the voice of Texans who want tax relief.

The upper chamber has pitched Senate Bill 1 as a tax relief measure, although the plan does "absolutely nothing" to lower tax bills, said Rep. Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton, the bill's House sponsor.

The legislation instead minimizes future tax increases by triggering automatic voter referendums when the effective tax rate exceeds the 6 percent threshold. Voters now have to petition to vote on property tax increases higher than 8 percent.

The Senate wants to lower the benchmark to a 4 percent property tax increase, essentially creating a smaller tax cap for local governments to work within. House lawmakers have dug their heels in over the 6 percent threshold, although lawmakers expect to try to negotiate a final version of the bill in a conference committee.

School funding formula

After repeatedly delaying plans to take up a House bill to infuse millions of dollars into the public education system, the Senate voted 25-6 late Monday to give approval to a retooled bill that focuses mostly on giving money to small school districts and charter schools.

The two chambers are miles apart on House Bill 21.

The House wants to inject $1.8 billion into public schools by increasing the basic allotment used to determine how much money school districts receive per student. The House version also updates the school funding formula by spending more money on students with dyslexia or who speak a second language. Other changes include a hardship grant funding plan for certain school districts.

The Senate has long warned it is unwilling to spend close to $2 billion to update the school finance system and prefers putting the issue off until it can create a commission to study how the state funds education. The House insists the state is done studying the issue and that lawmakers need to act.

Despite disagreement, the House still voted to inch forward a Senate bill creating a commission to study school finance in hopes the Senate will follow suit and approve the House's school funding bill, which the Senate slashed by $1.5 billion. Should the bill pass in the Senate, both sides plan to negotiate in a conference committee.

As the session gets into its last hours, formal meetings are giving way to a lot of behind-the-scenes negotiations between the biggest players in the Legislature.

Lawmakers quietly tried to hammer out deals, with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Sen. Paul Bettencourt, both Houston Republicans, meeting with in the governor's reception area. Just as HB 21 was coming up, Bonnen spent several minutes meeting with Patrick in an informal conversation out of earshot of reporters.

Before beginning the business of the day, in a sign of unity, every member of the Texas House of Representatives circled the front podium of the chamber to denounce violence that erupted in Virginia over the weekend stemming from a rally hosted by white nationalists who clashed with counter-protesters.

"Carrying torches on Friday night, on Saturday they filled the streets with venom, with bigotry and with violence," said Rep. Helen Giddings, a Democrat from DeSoto, as more than 100 members stood around her.

"We must make clear that the neo-Nazis, the white supremacists, the white nationalists and the Ku Klux Klan and their enablers are not welcome here. Again, this is not Republican verses Democrat, or even white versus black. This is about right versus wrong," she declared.

'Not here. Not ever'

The protests, which began over the city of Charlottesville's decision to remove a statute of Robert E. Lee, devolved into violence Saturday, including a white nationalist driving his car into a crowd of people, killing one woman and hurting 19 others.

The Texas Senate also started its session on Monday with a moment of silence for the victims of Charlottesville and condemnation for the racists who instigated the violence.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, said the "hatred and bigotry" was unacceptable and "un-American."

"Not here. Not ever," Patrick declared.

Sen. Charles Schwertner, a Republican from Georgetown, agreed.

"What happened in Charlottesville is absolutely wrong," Schwertner said.

Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, choked up recounting a question his 17-year-old grandson asked him over the weekend as the violence unfolded in Charlottesville.

"Papa, should my generation be more like Martin Luther King or Malcolm X?" West said, recalling the question.

West, who is African-American, said he didn't answer. But now, seeing the Senate coming together and all standing up and speaking out against the violence, he says his hope is renewed.
Kenneth Frazier, chief executive of Merck, the pharmaceuticals company, Monday resigned from President Donald Trump's American Manufacturing Council after the president failed to directly condemn the white nationalist protesters at the center of violent protests in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend.

"America's leaders must honor our fundamental views by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy, which run counter to the American ideal that all people are created equal," Frazier said in a statement. "As CEO of Merck and as a matter of personal conscience, I feel a responsibility to take a stand against extremism."

Less than an hour later, Trump took aim at the Merck executive.

Trump replied swiftly to Frazier on Twitter, suggesting that stepping down from the council would give him "more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!"

Later in the day, Trump explicitly condemned hate groups including neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan, offering the kind of sharp denunciation of racism that many critics believed was lacking over the weekend.

But the president's remarks came too late for Frazier, who resigned early Monday.

By midday, Frazier was joined by a handful of other executives as a voice of dissent in the business community, which has particular sway over the president, himself a businessman.

Lloyd Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, posted a cryptic message on Twitter, quoting Abraham Lincoln.

"Lincoln: 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' Isolate those who try to separate us. No equivalence w/ those who bring us together," Blankfein wrote.

Tim Cook, the chief executive of Apple, also posted a statement opposing white supremacy and racism.

"We've seen the terror of white supremacy & racist violence before. It's a moral issue - an affront to America. We must all stand against it," Cook wrote.

And at least one other chief executive - albeit of a foreign company - came to Frazier's defense. Paul Polman, the chief executive of Unilever, signaled his support for the Merck boss on Twitter.

"Thanks Merck Ken Frazier for strong leadership to stand up for the moral values that made this country what it is," Polman wrote.

General Electric said in a statement that it "has no tolerance for hate, bigotry or racism," but added that its chairman and recently retired chief executive, Jeff Immelt, will remain on the manufacturing advisory council from which Frazier resigned Monday.

Kevin Plank, Under Armour's chief executive, who is also on one of the advisory councils, issued a statement denouncing racism and discrimination.

He stopped short of criticizing the president or his comments about Frazier.
Tom Reel/Staff

AUSTIN -- The Texas House on Monday approved a property tax reform bill after a lengthy debate, apparently breaking a deadlock the day before that had stalled the approval of other key legislation.

The House approved its version of Senate Bill 1 that features a provision allowing voters to have a say in any tax hikes that are 6 percent or higher.
President Donald Trump's words are not enough.

On Saturday in Charlottesville, Va, a white supremacist killed one and injured nineteen, including Natalie Romero, 20, a Bellaire High School graduate and sophomore at the University of Virginia.

Trump, a man who exploded with moral certitude when Nordstrom stopped selling his daughter's handbags, first reacted with a statement so limp that many white supremacists took it as a sign of support.

The president issued a stronger condemnation Monday, but only after outrage from all quarters. The nation needs action. Trump has proven himself incapable of leadership, so we call on Chief of Staff John F. Kelly to remove White House staffers Stephen K. Bannon and Sebastian Gorka.

Before becoming chief strategist in the White House, Bannon was executive chairman of Breitbart News, which he transformed into a "white ethno-nationalist propaganda mill," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. In his own words, Bannon bragged about turning Breitbart into the platform for the "alt-right," which is just another word for neo-Nazi. His continued presence in the White House gives the alt-right a foothold in the highest halls of power and emboldens the white supremacists who brought death to Charlottesville.

Gorka, Trump's deputy assistant and counter-terrorism adviser, was a member of the Vitezi Rend - a Hungarian group with Nazi ties that is banned from the U.S. under current immigration laws. He has no experience in politics or policy beyond a record of Islamophobic views and ties to neo-Nazi extremists.

Trump's silence over the weekend left a moral vacuum that was righteously filled by members of Congress. Texas' own U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican, took a lead stance by urging the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute the Charlottesville attack as an act of domestic terrorism.

Cruz can lend further power to his words by focusing senatorial scrutiny on Bannon and Gorka.

Meanwhile, Ken Frazier, CEO of Merck, a pharmaceuticals company, resigned in protest from the president's American Manufacturing Council on Monday. Trump responded by attacking Frazier, one of the nation's most prominent African-American executives, with a Twitter tirade that featured all the speed and viciousness missing after Charlottesville.

Other members on the council, including Michael Dell of Dell Technologies, can show where their allegiances lie by following Frazier out the door.

Despite what Trump has said, the violence and terrorism in Charlottesville was not the fault of "many sides." When it comes to white supremacists, the KKK and neo-Nazis, there is only one side. America must resist their hate immediately and forcefully, even if our president does not.
North Korea

Regarding "Trump escalates N. Korea rhetoric" (Page A1, Friday), I suspect the hierarchy in North Korea is determined to join Korea into one country under their control. The lives of their citizens and soldiers have no human value to them, and I suspect they consider them expendable. They apparently have massive conventional firepower and troops on the border with South Korea ready to invade. For whatever reason they want a provocation to invade South Korea. Their belief is that they have adequate resources to accomplish a quick victory without using nuclear weapons.

I suspect the North Korea leader believes the United States will not use nuclear weapons if they don't. They believe we will be unable to defeat them with conventional warfare.

All of North Korea's posturing is designed to goad the U.S. into a conventional war where they can quickly overrun South Korea. Certainly there are other scenarios. I suspect North Korea's hierarchy is far more devious than we give them credit for.

Gerry Etheredge, Huntsville

True patriotism

Regarding "Deadly chaos boils over in Virginia" (Page A1, Sunday), the recent violence in Charlottesville, Va., should motivate the citizens of this nation to discuss the real meaning of patriotism. To me, a true patriot is a person who is concerned about the welfare of all the people who live in the United States. A true patriot wants everyone to have a decent life. He wants them to be able to earn enough to support their families and have quality health care. A true patriot does not earn enormous amounts of money at the expense of his fellow citizens.

A true patriot sees all the people living in this country as part of his family. He cares for all the children of the nation. He is respectful of all people regardless of their race, religion, ethnicity or economic status.

A true patriot wants everyone to able to get a good education, a good job and live in a good neighborhood. He is supportive of programs which help people who are struggling in life to improve themselves.

A true patriot also cares about people in other countries because he knows that if they are able to live a decent life, his life and the lives of his fellow citizens will also be good.

There are enough resources in the United States for everyone to have a good life. There is no need for anyone to see others as the enemy. True patriotism is inclusive and generous.

David Atwood, Houston

Carrots, sticks

Regarding "World wrestling over N. Korea" (Page A1, Saturday), in dealing with an unruly child, most parents know that you need the carrot-and-stick approach. Hopefully, we have some wise folks in our State Department who will use this same approach in negotiating with North Korea.

So far, President Trump has focused solely on the stick - economic sanctions, military action. I hope that there are quiet negotiations on-going that include some carrots. It was only by including carrots - lifting of sanctions, return of frozen assets - that we successfully negotiated a freeze of Iran's nuclear program.

What causes extra concern is Trump's seeming distrust and discounting of our own State Department.

Ron Siemers, Houston
Remember back in 2008, when Sarah Palin used to talk about the "real America"? She meant rural and small-town residents - white residents, it went without saying - who supposedly embodied the nation's true essence.

She was harshly condemned for those remarks, and rightly so - and not just because the real, real America is a multiracial, multicultural land of great metropolitan areas as well as small towns. More fundamentally, what makes America America is that it is built around an idea: the idea that all men are created equal, and are entitled to basic human rights. Take away that idea and we're just a giant version of a two-bit autocracy.

And maybe that is what we have, in fact, become. For Donald Trump's refusal to condemn the murderous white supremacists in Charlottesville finally confirms what has become increasingly obvious: The current president of the United States isn't a real American. (The president on Monday condemned hate groups).

Real Americans understand that our nation is built around values, not the "blood and soil" of the marchers' chants; what makes you an American is your attempt to live up to those values, not the place or race your ancestors came from. And when we fall short in our effort to live up to our ideals, as we all too often do, at least we realize and acknowledge our failure.

But the man who began his political ascent by falsely questioning Barack Obama's place of birth - a blood-and-soil argument if ever there was one - clearly cares nothing about the openness and inclusiveness that have always been essential parts of who we are as a nation.

Real Americans understand that our nation was born in a rebellion against tyranny. They feel an instinctive aversion to tyrants everywhere, and an underlying sympathy for democratic regimes, even those with whom we may currently have disputes. But the present occupant of the White House has made no secret of preferring the company, not of democratic leaders, but of authoritarian rulers - not just Vladimir Putin, but people like Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan or Rodrigo Duterte, the homicidal leader of the Philippines. When Trump visited Saudi Arabia, his commerce secretary exulted in the absence of hostile demonstrations, an absence ensured by the repressiveness of the regime.

Real Americans expect public officials to be humbled by the responsibility that comes with the job. They're not supposed to be boastful blowhards, constantly claiming credit for things they haven't done - like Trump bragging about job creation that has continued at more or less the same pace as under his predecessor - or which never even happened, like his mythical victory in the popular vote.

Real Americans understand that being a powerful public figure means facing criticism. That comes with the job, and you're supposed to tolerate that criticism even if you feel it's unfair. Foreign autocrats may rage against unflattering news reports, threaten to inflict financial harm on publications they dislike, talk about imprisoning journalists; American leaders aren't supposed to sound like that.

Finally, real Americans who manage to achieve high office realize that they are servants of the people, meant to use their position for the public good. In practice, human nature being what it is, many officials have in fact taken financial advantage of their office. But we've always understood that this was wrong - and presidents, in particular, are supposed to be above such things. Now we have a leader who is transparently exploiting his office for personal enrichment, in ways that all too obviously amount in practice to influence-buying by domestic malefactors and foreign governments alike.

In short, these days we have a president who is really, truly, deeply un-American, someone who doesn't share the values and ideals that made this country special.

In fact, he's so deeply alienated from the American idea that he can't even bring himself to fake it. We all know that Trump feels comfortable with white supremacists, but it's amazing that he won't even give them a light tap on the wrist. We all know that Putin is Trump's kind of guy, but it's remarkable that Trump won't even pretend to be outraged at Putin's meddling with our election.

Speaking of which: I have no more idea than anyone else what Robert Mueller's probe into potential collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, questionable financial ties, possible obstruction of justice and more will find. Trump is acting very much like someone with something big to hide, but we don't yet know exactly what that something is.

Whatever role foreign influence may have played and may still be playing, however, we don't need to wonder whether an anti-American cabal, hostile to everything we stand for, determined to undermine everything that truly makes this country great, has seized power in Washington. It has: It's called the Trump administration.

Krugman is a New York Times columnist.
Sixty-seven people in Texas County have applied for federal aid related to recent flooding before a deadline passed on Monday.

The largest number of applicants  18 family units  are included in the Licking zip code.

A series of meeting are under way in Texas County to assist with long-term recovery needs. The first meeting was July 18 in Houston. It was headed by Mike Pickerel and Mark Russell of FEMA. Paul Richardson was elected chairman and Renee Keaton as secretary of the Long Term Disaster Recovery Committee.

A second meeting occurred Aug. 1 at Lickings Fox Community Center. Shay Lane of Catholic Charities discussed the need for a long term recovery program to address unmet needs. The largest FEMA grant available is $33,300, which is often inadequate. Catholic Charities is available to assist in community fund raising efforts, doing screening and casework for disaster aid applicants, assisting with grants and even maintaining a multi-agency warehouse in West Plains that stocks large amounts of needed items that can be distributed in the event of a disaster, she said.

She noted long-term recovery programs are the last stop for those requesting assistance after a disaster, but it is important to register before the deadline as recovery can take many years. Joplins closed after five years.

Persons interested in participating in a long-term recovery for Texas County are encouraged to attend a 6 p.m. Aug. 22 meeting at the Texas County Health Department training room at 950 N. U.S. 63 in Houston. Persons interested can contact Pastor Paul Richardson at pastorpaulrichardson@gmail.com or Renee Keaton at 573-674-2521 or lickingcity@hotmail.com.
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I was nervous about coming to Charlottesville. About humidity, possums and reading Proust. And then the day before I arrived here a young woman was murdered. White supremacists marched through the university with flaming torches and suddenly all my friends back home have heard of this town.

I am staying in a hotel, waiting for my apartment to be ready. My clock is still on British time and I am wide-eyed about things that 'seem so American' - waffle irons in the Breakfast room. People are so friendly and there's more sugar in everything. A woman who just got in from Cleveland says she's here to minister, to spread love. Something about her pragmatism reminds me a firefighter I interviewed a few months ago. Someone who calmly moves toward disasters. She gives me a hug.

On my seven hour train from New York I thought about statues. The Rhodes Statue in Oxford and the eerie Memento Park I visited on a trip to Budapest; a graveyard for all the communist statues that were removed from the city's streets. I listened to a podcast about contested symbols of confederate America. We rolled through fields and cities I know from TV and arrived in Charlottesville. It's pretty, everything bright under the blue sky; quiet and hot.

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That night I find myself downtown. It's adorable. Bookshops and ice-cream parlours and a glittering old fashioned movie theatre. But the air is thick with sadness. I know I'm near the spot where Heather Heyer was killed because it's suddenly very quiet. I turn a corner and see the flickering candles and flowers. As I stand silently a reporter asks for a quote. No no, I say, I'm sorry. I just moved here today. A man sits on the pavement and sobs. I should learn to call the pavement the sidewalk. I watch for a minute then ask can I sit next to you? You just look so sad. He can't speak but nods. I am distantly aware of a photographer, taking our picture over and over again.

As I walk back, listening to the cicadas (or what I think are cicadas) I think about Heather Heyer's last words, If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.

And I think about my red radio. My secret. In London I had a little red radio in my kitchen but about two months ago it broke. I stopped listening to the news. Then I stopped reading it. For a short, blissful spell, I only had the vaguest sense of what was going on in the world. Something to do with Trump and nuclear war sounded troubling but it was easier not to look into it. It was easy to nod along with conversations about current events. I faked knowing and I faked caring.

But here, I realise it is a luxury to be disengaged. I am white, presumed straight, presumed non-disabled. I was chilled by images of flaming torches in the place I am about to live but I wasn't afraid for my own safety. On the train here my parents at home sent messages of luck and love, but how would they have felt if our family were black? Or Muslim?

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In the dark my heart hammer's for a second as I see a long tail and a body to big for a rat moving along the verge beside me. A possum. On my first day.
I recently celebrated my birthday with a long time bestie at Brighton Pride. It was fabulous from start to finish, filled with theatrics and passion, glitter and rainbows. Whitney, George and Dolly blared out from floats taking part in the parade as it traversed the city. People of all ages were dancing, whistling and vuvuzela-ing the day away. Utterly glorious indeed. In the midst of the chaotic carnival atmosphere I felt a stillness in my heart, it was hugely emotional. There was sadness for what had gone before, hope for the future, and pure rapture for the moment. This was a big deal. Pride is a big deal. Each and every Pride and Mardi Gras across the globe openly celebrating the diversity of love is a big deal.

This year marked the 50th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality in England and Wales. That wasn't so long ago. Not so long ago it was a crime to be gay. Not so long ago people couldn't bear to acknowledge it to family, friends, society, even themselves. And here we were on the streets of Brighton, lovers openly embracing, revellers adorned in whatever the hell they liked, and there was nothing but love.

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AUTHOR'S OWN

I grew up in the 1980s with Irish parents. My dad was reported by a neighbour for being a member of the IRA because he had an Irish accent. I was a teenage mum with a mixed race child. I am well acquainted with prejudice and stigma. As a straight, white, married woman raising her children in a sleepy village, I actively strive to educate and inform myself and not let the sheltered, dreamy bubble that I live in envelope me entirely. But something happened on our journey home that took me aback and has stayed with me ever since. It highlighted a few things: that I was woefully unaware of the unjust realities the LGBTIQ community have to deal with. That these are commonplace. That some people truly are absolute jerks.

We bussed it down to the main event and got chatting to the most beautiful soul, straight off the plane from Sydney, via Reykjavik. He was flying solo on the first leg of his UK holiday. What a guy. We glittered him up and took him under our wing, Brighton style. Yes, we all had Tuaca. We watched Years and Years and the iconic Pet Shop Boys set with an eclectic and happy crowd. At the end of the night, we walked our new bff back to his hotel. A cab pulled up and two guys wearing heels and dresses approached it, we saw the cabby tell them, 'No, I have a booking'. Heads down, they quietly walked away. The car then pulled along a few metres to us, the man told us to hop in. Astounded, I said no thanks. We were outraged, our Aussie friend not so much. He'd seen it many times before. The same thing, even on the other side of the world. I was speechless.

This was 50 years on from decriminalisation, and in Brighton. Jeez. The exchange spoke volumes about both parties involved; the driver was working on a night when his outdated and odious moral compass would not deem most prospective customers worthy of his service, so he would refuse their custom. Dark and frankly, moronic. Whereas the couple that were declined a lift, they walked on with humbling grace and dignity. It likely wasn't the first time they'd encountered such a person with such an outlook and sadly won't be the last.

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Witnessing such brazen discrimination heightened the stirring emotion I'd felt earlier at the parade. A parade filled with joy, acceptance and humanity. A time celebrating freedom of choice, freedom of speech and freedom of expression. In contrast, we find ourselves living in a climate where politics and media promote hate and division; where angst, fear and intolerance is returning to society, insidiously and divisively creeping into the very core of our communities.
Let's be honest - it's not a secret - the school summer holidays are a headache! Every year, millions of parents tear their hair out with screams of "Six weeks without school! They'll drive me mad!'. It's a rough ride: six children-hanging-around-your-ankles weeks of organising clubs, juggling days off work, begging friends and grandparents to do a day here or a day there, along with squeezing in the shopping and the cooking and, of course (let's admit it!), dealing with the piles of guilt for letting them watch too much YouTube! Gosh, dare I say it, the daily term-time-grind of 'brush your teeth, get dressed, finish your homework' almost looks like a doddle compared to spending six whole weeks with bored, nagging, fighting, squabbling children! Ouch!

Of course, my wife and I have a cunning plan to beat the mayhem. Being lucky enough to work from anywhere with an internet connection, every year we decide to drive to our little family house in the mountains of Romania. Yes, because we think driving eighteen hundred miles to a house closer to Syria than to London with three children squashed into the back of crumbling car for days on end will make our lives easier! (Mmm, perhaps that needs a re-think!). But we do it, with (gritted) smiles on faces, convinced that as long as we have a good repertoire of sing-alongs and eye-spy games and enough batteries for the DVD player, the 'holiday' problem will be solved!

The hardest part is always the start. No matter how many times we explain to the children it will take seven days (we always try and see things en route), within two hours of leaving home they start the dreaded 'are we almost there yet!', as if purposely trying to wind me up (I've showed them a hundred times how far away our destination is!). Then of course comes the arguments, followed by the chat back and the bickering, then the 'I feel sick', and the crumbs all over the back seat, and the 'I need a wee', and let's not forget the general screams of "I'm squashed!". Certainly, the first day is filled with plenty of husband-and-wife-swapping-glances of 'are we crazy?', 'is this worth it' and 'what the hell are we doing?!'

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But we push on. Because experience has taught us that this is all part of the settling in process. And before long we get into a routine, we begin to find our own little rhythm. The days become easier. The hours pass more quickly. The children get into their groove. And what we're left with is a family that seems to know how to do it; a family that remembers we've done it before. It all comes flooding back. The children begin to understand we've left England (the ferry on its own doesn't seem to do the trick), and the one hundredth look at the European Atlas seems to finally sink in - they finally understand that Europe is a place made up of different countries, each with their cities, each with their own languages and cultures, each with their own foods and sounds. They start to spot that Utrecht looks different to Tottenham, that Prague looks different to Norwich, that Lake Balaton looks different to Southwold. It's working! And slowly, as we head further and further east, they see Europe gently peeling away, changing, layer by layer, opening up new smells and sights as the true myriad flavours of Europe become revealed. Travelling becomes tangible; distance becomes real, and difference distinguished. We leave behind what we know, and head towards the horse and cart, the hand-stacked hay, the summer swallow.

And I can't help but take my hat off to the children - they endure hours in the car; they find inventive ways to get on with their siblings; they bed down in a multitude of rented homes; they put up with being dragged around yet another European old town; they try strange foods; they cope with being left stranded on the side of the road in the middle of the Czech countryside whilst our car gets towed away; the list goes on. For young minds, who have no control over when they stop, what they eat, where they sleep, I find their resilience truly remarkable. And it reminds, no, convinces me how much the summer is all worth it. Having six weeks off with the children is precisely why we go through the term-time-grind of teeth-brushing and homework-pestering! So we can have these special times together; so we can build memories and learn from one another, and learn about the world around us. Because these are the things that matter as we build our young families. It is because of the children the summer holiday works. It is the children that bring the magic. Hats off to the kids for putting up and making it all a joy. And I would do it all again next year in a heartbeat.

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In the early morning of Monday 14th August, roads in the Sierra Leone capital of Freetown turned into rivers and houses were washed away after a heavy night of rain caused chaos. Hundreds of people were buried alive in a mudslide that swept through some of the poorest communities in Freetown. As the death toll continues to rise, the international community must respond.

The mudslides in Freetown have been described as the worst natural disaster to strike Sierra Leone, a country that has already suffered from a decade of civil war and an Ebola outbreak that took the lives of over 8,000 people.

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The death toll currently stands at 312 but it is likely that not even a quarter of the bodies have been found. Yesterday the Red Cross worked with the Sierra Leone Office of National Security to collect dead bodies and take the wounded to hospital.

Those who were lucky to have survived this tragedy are left with simply nothing. Thousands are homeless. The Sierra Leone government have setup a response centre for those who have lost their homes but many people aren't thinking about where to go, they are just looking for their loved ones. Hundreds of bodies are in the morgue, waiting to be identified. The sheer enormity of the task is becoming apparent.

We must stand with Sierra Leone as they are faced with their next challenge. The Sierra Leone government resources are stretched thinly. Many people haven't had anything to eat or drink since yesterday. Urgent action is needed.

The international community and NGOs need to lead the response. Charity Street Child are setting up distribution points at the emergency refugee camps providing emergency food and drink.

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But it is not just an immediate response that is required. The road to recovery is going to be a long one. These communities have been left with nothing. Beyond emergency aid relief, we need to help rebuild their communities and give them hope for the future.
The ugly events of Charlottesville arrived as a shuddering reminder that the cancer of white supremacy continues to fester in America - and not just at the level of a few hundred knuckle-dragging racists marching with Confederate flags. On the contrary, it is rooted in the country's very foundations and is wedded into the fabric of its society and culture.

Seen in this light, the US Confederacy was not the aberration that liberals and progressives like to believe. It was merely the most ugly manifestation of the nation's founding principle of 'white is right'. That being said, if ever a cause was unworthy it was the cause of the US Confederacy; if ever a cause was righteously defeated in battle it was this one; and if ever a flag was and is an insult to human decency and dignity, it is the Confederate flag.

The mere fact this is still being debated, that there are those who continue to accord a nobility, valour, and romanticism to the Confederacy - regarded wistfully as the 'Lost Cause' to its adherents - this is evidence of the deep polarisation that divides a society which is yet to fully come to terms with its legacy of slavery, racial oppression, and brutality. Four million human beings - men, women, and children - were owned as chattel by the start of the US Civil War in 1861. They were bought and sold, raped, beaten, tortured and murdered upon the whim of their owners, whose barbarity has its modern equivalence in the barbarity of the followers and members of the so-called Islamic State.

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When white racist fanatic, Dylann Roof, slaughtered nine people at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina back in 2015, he unwittingly exposed the truth that the US Civil War remains the defining event in the nation's history, which still today informs a cultural divide between North and South.

The reason for this lies not so much in the legitimacy of the Confederate/southern cause - indeed, how could a cause defined by the right to keep millions of human beings in bondage ever be considered legitimate? - but in the weakness of progressive forces in succumbing to the mythology that has been ascribed to the Confederacy, along with those who fought and died for it. And yet racial oppression, whether delivered from the gun of a mass murderer in a South Carolinian church or the gun of a racist cop, has yet to be expunged in the land of the free, even though 150 years have passed since the Confederacy was defeated in battle.

There are historical reasons why this is so, but one in particular: namely the decision of the 18th US President, Rutherford B Hayes, to end Reconstruction as a condition of his entry into the White House with the support of southern Democrats, a tawdry political deal known to history as the Compromise of 1877. It marked the end of a decade in which so-called Radical Republicans (referred to pejoratively as Black Republicans), in control of the US Congress, had driven forward a federal programme to promote and uphold the rights of former slaves throughout the South, according them the full civil and political freedom that their status as free men and women demanded. This was absolutely necessary immediately at war's end, when local politicians assumed control of state legislatures across the South and enacted 'black codes' with the objective of keeping newly freed black slaves in as close to a state of their former bondage as was possible, refusing to grant them their civil rights or the vote.

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The reaction of the North was to divide the former Confederate states into military districts and occupy them with federal troops to ensure the protection of blacks from white racists and to enforce their civil rights. This was accompanied by the demand that those former Confederate states support the passage of the three post-civil war amendments to the US Constitution - the 13th, 14th, and 15th - outlawing slavery and granting rights of citizenship and the vote to every person born in the United States regardless of race or colour in every state.

The end of Reconstruction in 1877, and the withdrawal of federal troops from southern states, resulted in the plight of blacks in said states suffering a sharp reverse. The Klu Klux Klan's influence and power as America's first terrorist organisation quickly made its presence felt, measured in the rise and entrenchment of white supremacy as a state and culture of segregation returned across the South. Blacks were lynched, murdered, and tortured with impunity from then on, and their status as second-class citizens entrenched.

This mindset remains a fact of life not just in the South but throughout the United States, carried in the hearts and minds of right wing Republicans and an alt-right movement that has succeeded in normalising the politics of race in recent years, relentlessly whipping up division and spewing out prejudice and racial stereotypes.

The most telling evidence of the traction that white supremacy has gained recent times is, of course, Trump's election in 2016. The bigoted rhetoric he unleashed against migrants, Mexicans, Muslims, and minorities during his campaign gave license to racists, white nationalists and fascists, lending their creed the kind of legitimacy that would have been unthinkable previously. And, too, when the President of the United States counts among his key advisers an icon of the alt-right movement in Steve Bannon, a man who while editor of the far right website Breitbart published material that verily dripped in bigotry, you know that white supremacy not only continues to survive in America in 2017, it thrives.

The United States, a nation founded by white supremacists and whose constitution was written by white supremacists, is now at war with itself.

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Beyond the fanfare of pride and the shameless pinkwashing of Tory legacy, lies a history of apathy and political inaction, which is leaving behind our most vulnerable queer citizens: our queer youth.

In David Cameron's resignation speech in Downing Street in 2016, he cited the legalisation of same-sex marriage as one of his party's greatest political achievements. A sentiment which has since been echoed by Theresa May and a host of conservative MPs who have displayed rapid U-turns in voting intentions on LGBTQ issues. Yet as David Cameron gleefully accepts LGBTQ awards and tries to pinkwash the legacy of Tory history, it is more important than ever to remind ourselves of the large swathes of the queer population disenfranchised by this Tory press junket. Following years of austerity and a Tory education policy which has refused to enforce any credible form of LGBTQ sex education in schools, we are no closer to solving the issue of bullying amongst children or rooting out homophobia at its earliest conception. Our queer youth remain in the shadows; they are the boys and girls that pride has left out.

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50 years following the partial legalisation of homosexuality, it is important to remember that The Sexual Offences Act 1967 undoubtedly represented a massive breakthrough for queer communities across Britain; it legalised homosexual acts conducted in private. Yet whilst this afforded the queer community freedom in the confines of certain contexts, the fight was by no means won. It was not until 1994 that the age of consent for two male partners was lowered to 18. And perhaps more shockingly still, it was not until 2007 that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation was banned. The queer experience in Britain has been fraught and tumultuous, and the road to equality has been slow.

Queer hatred equally did not abate following the Act; institutionalised homophobia continued almost unchallenged throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. Despite the brief moment of respite that queer individuals enjoyed, queer vilification soon reared its ugly head and spread throughout the British tabloid press following the onset of the AIDS epidemic. According to figures published by the Ministry of Justice, the number of recorded offences for gross indecency rose from 820 in 1969, shortly after the legislative act, to 2022 in 1989, in the height of the AIDS epidemic.

Partial legislative reform evidently failed to materialise the liberation which the queer community had for so long been seeking. With increased legislative freedom, came increased institutionalised resistance. Gay bars were raided, gay saunas were shut down, and in turn, gay subjectivity was once again curtailed.

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Whether or not such overt examples of institutionalised homophobia continue to this day, systemic prejudice still undoubtedly simmers beneath the surface. With the MET police being forced to reappraise their approach to LGBTQ related crimes following their insufficient investigation into the murders of four gay men at the hands of Stephen Port a.k.a. the Grindr Killer in 2016, systemic homophobia is more prevalent than ever. Homophobia is not an issue of a bygone era, it is the lived experience of even our youngest generations of queer youth.

This is not to say that the 1967 Act did not create significant change. It did, and it laid the foundations for the legislative successes which we enjoy today. It has led to the proliferation of liberation movements, and the emergence of pride festivals nationwide. Pride itself is no longer the embattled protest it once was, but a veritable carnival enjoyed by gay and straight individuals alike. Gaydom itself is edging ever closer to the mainstream; we have gay figureheads in the media, and the "gayest" parliament in the world according to Plymouth Labour MP, Luke Pollard.

That being said, beyond the self-congratulatory posturing of the Tory grandees, what has actually changed for the individuals that pride has left out? Has the situation materially improved for our most vulnerable queer citizens; our queer youth?

The answer, quite frankly, is no. Whilst pride paints an image of a battle already won, the divide between childhood and adulthood for many queer youths could not be starker. Pride rarely filters down into the corridors of British schools, and we face a government frozen by inaction.

The ramification of years of homophobia in early life is, for many queer individuals, a string of psychological issues which are only resolved many years into adult life. A Stonewall survey across Britain concluded that 1 in 16 (6%) gay and bisexual men have attempted suicide in the last year, in comparison to only 1% in the heterosexual male population. Likewise, 1 in 6 (15%) gay and bisexual men have self-harmed in the last in year, in comparison to only 7% of their heterosexual counterparts.

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Whichever survey you look at, the figures are bleak; our queer youth are suffering disproportionately from a system which is failing to protect them. Despite the newfound visibility of pride, the government is failing to acknowledge the root cause of queer suffering, and is failing to tackle homophobia at its earliest conception; in schools.

Some is indeed being done; a recent BBC documentary by Years and Years frontman Olly Alexander provided a snapshot of LGBTQ workshops taking place in British schools today. An important step forward, and something which was never seen during my school days, but initiatives such as this are too few and far between. The overwhelming experience of LGBTQ youth in schools today remains one of silence, isolation, and confusion. LGBTQ issues remain unspoken, and there is a distinct lack of visible role models.

Sadly, this cannot be seen as a social anomaly; it is rather the direct result of continued political inaction. Tory education reforms have created a haphazard environment in which any productive discussion of LGBTQ issues, let alone LGBTQ sex education have been dispensed with. LGBTQ youth are instead forced to stumble their way into sexual awareness alone, and often bear the scars of traumatic experiences as a result.

For the vast majority of queer youth who have no access to queer communities or pride events, the situation remains much unchanged. Minimal structural change has been implemented, and no real attempt has been made to shake the status quo. The government has simply conceded gay marriage at a time in which it is both politically and socially expedient to do so. In this context, marriage is only accessible to a subsect of the queer community who have already navigated the often fractious path to pride, by way of many years of suffering and homophobia. So if the government fails to act, homophobia will continue to thrive in schools, and being "out" will remain virtually impossible.

Pride, in many respects, is not a granted right, but a destination. It is a retrospective state attributed to a life lived through substitution. But if the government wants to create a society in which queer individuals are no longer forced to navigate this fractious divide, then they must start looking towards our youth.

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"The Muslim Problem": that's what columnist Trevor Kavanagh asked the Sun's readers to find a solution for. If the phrase sounds familiar, it is. The language used appears to have been borrowed from the Nazis in the 1930s, where they implemented their "Final Solution" to the "Jewish problem" - a fact highlighted by the Board of Deputies of Jews.

Some might argue that this is nothing new: the Sun has a history of spreading hatred, from its Katie Hopkins' column dehumanising migrants by comparing them to "cockroaches" to its significantly misleading and dangerous front page "1 in 5 Brit Muslims' sympathy for Jihadis". But this goes beyond outrageous and vile bigotry, which often finds itself within the Sun's pages.

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In the UK, in 2017 we have a national newspaper with over 1.5 million readers, publishing Nazi language and specifically targeting Muslims. This - in a week where the Sunday Times reported 40 neo-Nazis were being investigated amidst fears they are plotting terrorist attacks against Muslims.

I genuinely could not believe what I saw.

In response, I could ignore his vitriol and spend this piece tackling the substance of Kavanagh's bigoted argument by detailing the evidence i.e. that the overwhelming majority of sex offenders are actually not Muslim.

Or I could discuss the principles of free speech and his right as a columnist to share his views by highlighting how racism, bigotry and Nazi language inciting hatred against any minority community should never be published in a national newspaper.

Or I could point out that litany of disgusting views and hatred spread by Kavanagh that he refuses to apologise for, from his attack on Fatima Manji for wearing a headscarf and for raising a complaint about his bigotry, to his lies about Muslims and migrants.

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But what really hurt me beyond the appalling decision by the Sun's editors to publish the piece, was the sharp contrast in how people reacted only a couple of weeks ago when the Sunday Times published the awful sexist piece containing anti-Semitic tropes by Kevin Myers. The social media of the liberal commentariat was rightly outraged and Myers was sacked within 24 hours.

Yet in this case, there has been barely any concern from these very same journalists, with some notable exceptions. Worse than that, Kavanagh remains a member of the Board of the "independent" press regulator Ipso, which is tasked with overseeing the press and its adherence to the "highest professional standards".

As violence against Muslims is on the rise and is linked to media reporting of Islam and Muslims, as hatred against Muslims appears to becoming socially acceptable and prevalent even amongst children, and as even Equalities Shadow Minister appears to be joining in the bigotry, I understand feelings of double standards and fear that appear to be more and more common in Muslim communities.

We look across Europe and the US often believing that we are better as such bigotry will never reach our shores.
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Having your period is a regular part of life for half the population, yet you would never know that from how the subject is discussed. It's discussed in whispers, with young girls often taken aside for their education on the matter, as if it is something to be ashamed of.

Fortunately, that is beginning to change in Scotland. We have had an open discussion in the Scottish Parliament and in the media about the need for change. And there are now a wide range of charities and campaigners backing my proposal, which would end period poverty in Scotland.

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Periods do affect people differently but women, girls and trans people who experience menstruation, all have a common need for access to sanitary products.

If you are trying to survive on a low income, feeling the squeeze on your pay packet or have certain health conditions, talking about and managing your period isn't just awkward, it can be impossible and messy. That's why I've been using the platform I have as a Member of the Scottish Parliament to raise this issue since I was elected last year. Period poverty, which can lead to people not changing sanitary products frequently enough or improvising with rags, is both humiliating and unsafe.

That's why this week I've launched a consultation on a proposal for a Member's Bill to put a duty on Scottish Minister's to introduce a system of free universal access to sanitary products. I'm also proposing a duty on schools, colleges and universities to provide free sanitary products in their toilets.

The proposal has received the support of the largest teachers' trade union in Scotland and the Scottish Children's and Young People's Commissioner, as well as a host of charities and food banks who deal with the reality of period poverty on a daily basis.

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There are many reasons organisations like the Educational Institute for Scotland have supported the plan to end period poverty. But most simple of all is that you just cannot have a world class education system if students are skipping class when they have their period. Pupils should be able to visit the toilet safe in the knowledge that sanitary products are freely available. In some schools, emergency sanitary products can be accessed from office staff. It's better than nothing, but it's hard to imagine pupils being expected to request toilet paper in this way.

In my own part of Scotland, South Lanarkshire College has recognised the impact on its students. The college has introduced free sanitary products in campus toilets as well as the option for extra supplies to be taken home from the college's Student Association. They have set an excellent example, and I hope the rest of the education sector follows suit.

Last summer, New York City became one of the first cities in the world to introduce free sanitary products in its schools, homeless shelters and prisons. Here in Scotland, only prisoners have the right to free sanitary products. If it possible to do this in the city of New York, it can be done in the country of Scotland.

When I quizzed the Scottish Government a year ago on what interest it was taking in the affordability and accessibility of sanitary products, Shona Robison, the SNP Health Secretary, confirmed there were no plans to examine this. For those struggling, the Scottish Health Secretary suggested that foodbanks may be able to help. That is unacceptable - those facing period poverty shouldn't have to rely on the ad-hoc kindness of strangers as a substitute for a state-funded safety net.

So in March, on International Women's Day, I announced I'd be introducing proposals for the right to access free sanitary products in Scotland.

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In a breakthrough moment, I secured cross-party support to lead the first ever Member's debate on period poverty in the Scottish Parliament and I've taken every opportunity to press the Scottish Government to take action, including asking the First Minister directly. The Scottish Government recently announced a pilot-scheme to provide free sanitary products to people on low-income in Aberdeen, showing the pressure put on the government is bearing fruit, but further action is needed. While a select few in Aberdeen are being given assistance, there are still countless others continuing to suffer the indignity of period poverty.

That's why I am pressing on with my proposal. It has become commonplace in many parts of Scotland to have access to free condoms. If the NHS can offer a menu of free condoms, I don't see why sanitary protection needs can't be supported in a similar way.

In a welcome victory for campaigners, retailers like Tesco and Morrisons have announced they will pay the tampon tax, which considers tampons a 'luxury', so that customers don't have to. Now it's time for government to take responsibility too.

On the day of launching the period poverty consultation, experts, charities and people who have experienced period poverty first hand spoke out publicly in support of my proposal. From Members of the Scottish Youth Parliament, to volunteers who run food banks and the Scotland's Children and Young People's Commissioner, I believe we are building the broad base of support that means we can change the law in Scotland, and make period poverty history.

You can have your say on my proposed change in the law at periodpoverty.scot before 8 December 2017.
(Image: Pixabay - Pexels)

I love travelling. In fact, I love flying. The flight before the holiday has so much anticipation that I would say it's the most exciting part of the trip. However, for some first-time travellers, the flight and preparation can be stressful.

I remember the first time I flew on my own, I loved it but I'm an experienced flyer lucky enough to go on frequent family holidays. However, when at the airport I've noticed on many occasions plenty of travellers panicking and getting flustered at different points throughout the travelling journey.

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To try and help some of you who might be stressing about flying for the first time, I've put together everything I've learned to hopefully help you to enjoy the experience and start your holiday stress-free.

Security Check Points:

A lot of airports, specifically the ones in the US, ask flyers to remove their shoes and belts before going through the security scanners. For those who haven't flown before, the security section is usually filled with long queues, meaning that when you finally get to your turn there is a lot of pressure to speed things up and go through the scanners quickly. Help yourself by prepping whilst in the queue. Take your liquids and electronics out and take off your shoes and any belts you have on; so that when you get to the scanners you'll be able to put them straight into the trays and walk through the body scanner quickly.

Flight snacks:

If you're flying via a budget airline or only on a short haul flight then you'll usually be charged for any snacks on a plane, so pre-plan and pack some in your hand luggage. I'd recommend taking something filling like cereal bars or dried fruit to feed your appetite. Double check online as to what foods you can bring on a plane though as some products are restricted.

Pre-pack in advance:

No one likes packing, or at least I don't because you always get to the other end and remember something you forgot. When it comes to your clothes, avoid having to do a last minute load of washing and pre-pack your suitcase with your holiday wardrobe. I usually pre-pack at least a week in advance sometimes two, this is to allow myself to remember the things I might have initially forgotten to pack and also avoids washing clothes that I've worn recently but want to take away with me.

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Travel size toiletries:

Taking travel size toiletries in your hand luggage is a must. I always find my skin to be dry and oily whilst on a plane, as my face is trying to over moisturize itself to compensate for the lack of moisture in the air, so I'll take a selection of travel size products to help counteract this such as REN's Omega 3 Optimum Skin Oil, as it helps my face to rebalance its moisture levels. If you don't have travel size products of your favourite items then you can buy travel size plastic containers in most pharmacies or supermarkets so you can decanter some product into them to take away with you. Remember one important thing though when it comes to toiletries within your hand luggage, some airlines limit the number of liquids you can take through. When I fly to the US it is usually 8 items, so check with your airline before packing your best products and remember to put them in a see through sandwich type bag ready for security.

Germs galore:

There's something about airports that make me feel like it's full of germs. There are thousands of people travelling through them on a daily basis and we all know how we feel after coming off a flight... rather disgusting. I always ensure I have a travel size hand sanitizer in my hand luggage ready for boarding and landing. It's also handy to have on you if the soap in the plane toilet runs out!

Free Upgrades:

The first time I flew solo, my seat was upgraded because the flight was oversold and I was a single traveller. This often happens as a single traveller if the flight you're on is oversold, so you're likely to get upgraded at the gate before you board. Nice little bonus! If you want to try your luck, there is no harm in asking too! When at the check-in desk ask the staff member if there are free upgrades available on this flight - what's the worst that could happen, they could say no and you head off on your holidays as planned.

Visible screen:

Most airlines require you to get to the airport 2-3 hours prior to your flight departure time, which for most people seems like a long time. However, with all of the amenities at an airport like the bars, shopping, restaurants, and sometimes spas - you can easily get side tracked and you don't want to be late and running for your flight. My plan when I get to the airport is to dedicate the first hour to wandering around the shops and picking up any last minute must haves, then for the last couple of hours I park myself in a cafe or bar where a screen is visible so I can enjoy a relaxing meal whilst checking to see what gate I need to head to for boarding.

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Comfortable clothes:

I know it can be easy to get worked up about what you're going to wear especially if you are leaving a cold country to go to a hot or vice versa. The best advice I can give is, layers are your best friend. If you're heading somewhere hot, start with layers and when you land you can easily take jackets off to feel more comfortable. I also like to make sure I pack a face mist if I'm going from hot to cold as it just gives your face that boost it needs when you land. If you're going from hot to cold, then save room and pack some additional layers within your hand luggage, so you're able to throw on a sweater the other end. Always go for comfort over style as well. You'll thank me for this advice when you have been sat on a plane for 10 hours in those high heels and skin tight jeans!

Flying for the first time can be nerve wracking but the air stewards understand and if you're really suffering they usually have some products on board to help ease your comfort as well, such as sleep masks, blankets, refreshing drinks (alcohol if that's what works for you) and extra pillows. Just ask and they'll be more than happy to help.
Sarah Taylor Jones

It was 15 years ago that I first suggested being a surrogate.

Those around me were horrified - what was I thinking? How could I give my baby away? What if I wanted to keep the baby? Who were these awful people who would pay to have a baby? How could I sell my own baby? That's when I realised that actually the hardest part of being a surrogate was educating people whose experience of surrogacy was limited to a tabloid headline, or a TV soap storyline. Although the knowledge of surrogacy has increased over the last 15 years, there are still so many misconceptions about how it works, and what type of person turns to surrogacy, either as surrogate or as an intended parent.

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I came to surrogacy, because as a parent I couldn't imagine what my life would be like if I hadn't have been able to call myself a mother. It was the absolute love I felt for my daughter every night when she would wrap herself up in my arms to fall to sleep, and I would think about how others felt who couldn't experience this. My heart would break, and I would cry for all those who were sat empty armed, longing for something that I had been given so easily.

I didn't know where to go, or who to speak to about this desire to carry a baby for someone else, but a google search led me to Surrogacy UK. I found kindred spirits in the women I met, other surrogates who felt the same as me. It was a revelation - I wasn't a weird person for wanting to do this after all! These ladies became my sisters, my surro-sisters, who could understand my every thought without question. I was home.

Through Surrogacy UK I met lots of couples, all with equally heartbreaking stories, miscarriages, still births, numerous rounds of IVF but yet here they were, starting a journey to find a special friend with whom they could build a lifelong relationship with, hopefully resulting in a baby.

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It was at one of the organised social events that I met a wonderful woman called Andria. Immediately we fell into chatting, and spent hours talking about everything, everything except surrogacy. We just clicked - that gut feeling that the other surrogates said I would get, was there. I was so excited! Was this the woman who I would make a mother? I asked Surrogacy UK to put in the official call, to tell her I was interested, and to see if she was interested in me. Luckily enough her and her husband felt the same. We spent months getting to know each other, and each other's families - we very quickly became family to each other.

I was a straight surrogate, so we would be using my eggs to conceive a child. We started artificial inseminations in my house, and within two months we were pregnant. Making the call to my lovely couple to tell them they would be parents was the best feeling. I was changing their lives. How many times can you say you've changed someone's life forever? I was on cloud nine, as were they - we were all achieving our dreams - theirs of being mummy and daddy, and mine of being a surrogate.

Throughout the pregnancy I received my expenses from the couple, so that I was never out of pocket. My loss of earnings, childcare, and maternity clothes were all paid for. As my intended mother said, they would have had to pay out for that if they were pregnant, so to give the expenses to me was no hardship. It helped me to cope with the guilt I felt for having to take expenses.

The day Georgina was born was one of the best of my life. Having both parents supporting me as my birth partners was amazing - my best friends holding my hands as I gave birth to their daughter will always hold a special place in my heart. Watching them as Andria breastfed, and her husband gazed adoringly at them both, ensured that this wouldn't be my last surrogacy journey.

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Within 18 months, I was giving birth to my second surrogate child, Miranda, for my second set of best friends. I felt so blessed. My surrogacy family was extending. The two surrogate children are now 14 and 13, and I still have a relationship with them and their parents. The girls know who I am, and know about their special birth story and they are proud. Proud that it took three people who loved them, to make them, Mum, Dad and Sarah.

After getting married and having two more children of my own, I returned to surrogacy. Knowing that I wouldn't have any more children myself, it seemed such a waste of my fertility not to gift it on to someone else. So, coming back to Surrogacy UK was the easiest decision I made.

Within six months, I was in a Getting to Know session with a lovely same sex couple, Michael and Nick. They became my third set of best friends. We laughed, chatted and they loved my children so much that I knew they would be perfect fathers. I was proven right when Elliot was born four years ago, via c-section. Watching their faces, and seeing their tears as they saw their much wanted son, made me forget that I was on an operating table. I knew immediately that I wanted to give that beautiful little boy a sibling.

Unfortunately I had developed blocked fallopian tubes, so having another proved to be a little more difficult. With the help of the London Women's Clinic, we conceived Erica through one round of IVF. She was born nine months later, through the most fun c-section any of the staff had ever experienced. We all laughed our way through it, the staff joining in with the sheer joy of a surrogacy birth.

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I knew at nearly 40, and seven babies later that it was time for me to retire as surrogate, or else I would never have stopped. It hurts to know that I won't be able to help those friends of mine still waiting for a surrogate, but I continue to volunteer for Surrogacy UK, so that I feel that in some small way I might be able to help them.

It took 15 years, and four surrogate babies, but I feel so happy that I managed to achieve my dream of being a surrogate. Little did I know that I would end up with a whole surrogacy family. It exceeded every expectation I had, I'm truly very lucky.
Elvis Lives! Spotify Shares Top Tracks, Cities 40 Years After His Death

This Wednesday, August 16th marks the 40th anniversary of Elvis Presleys death. To commemorate the King of Rock N Roll, Spotify has taken a look at the musical impact he continues to have today and uncovered a few surprises.

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Elviss catalog of songs has been streamed well over a billion times on Spotify with the most streamed Elvis song globally and in the US is Cant Help Falling in Love, which has been streamed more than 90 million times . Suspicious Minds is at number 2 with 69 million streams worldwide, and Jailhouse Rock rounds out the global top 3 with 68 streams.

Surprisingly, Elviss home country of the US doesnt have the biggest share of Elvis listening within a country. In fact, Sweden has the highest concentration of Elvis listening, followed by the United Kingdom, Chile, Iceland and the Netherlands.

Three out of the top five cities with the largest share of Elvis listening come from the United Kingdom, with Glasgow, Manchester and Birmingham coming in at number one, three and five, respectively. Santiago, Chile takes the number two spot, and Goteborg, Sweden appears a number four.

Top Global Elvis Tracks:

Cant Help Falling in Love Suspicious Minds Jailhouse Rock Blue Christmas In the Ghetto A Little Less Conversation  JXL Radio Edit Remix Hound Dog Always On My Mind Burning Love Heartbreak Hotel Dont Be Cruel Blue Suede Shoes All Shook Up (Youre The) Devil In Disguise Love Me Tender Viva Las Vegas Are You Lonesome Tonight Its Now or Never Return to Sender Thats All Right

Top US Elvis Tracks:

Cant Help Falling in Love Blue Christmas Jailhouse Rock Suspicious Minds Hound Dog Burning Love Heartbreak Hotel A Little Less Conversation  JXL Radio Edit Remix In the Ghetto Dont Be Cruel Here Comes Santa Claus (Right Down Santa Claus Lane) All Shook Up Its Now or Never Blue Suede Shoes Love Me Tender Stuck on You (Youre The) Devil in Disguise Santa Claus Is Back In Town Always on My Mind Thats All Right

Top Countries (normalized*):

Sweden United Kingdom Chile Iceland Netherlands Ireland Belgium Norway Liechtenstein Cyprus Spain Andorra Greece Malta Australia New Zealand Italy Switzerland Monaco Austria

Top Cities (normalized*):

Glasgow, Glasgow City, UK Santiago, Region Metropolitana, CL Manchester, Manchester, UK Goteborg, Vastra Gotaland, SE Birmingham, Birmingham, UK Dublin, Dublin, IE Stockholm, Stockholms Lan, SE Oslo, Oslo, NO Melbourne, Victoria, AU Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, NL Curitiba, Parana, BR Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, BR Buenos Aires, Distrito Federal, AR Mexico, Distrito Federal, MX Montreal, Quebec, CA London, London, City of, UK Copenhagen, Hovedstaden, DK Barcelona, Catalonia, ES Perth, Western Australia, AU Auckland, Auckland, NZ

*Elvis listening was normalized by dividing his streams by all streams in a country or city.

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The Porches is planning to raze two buildings on Veazie Street for a serving and storage area.

North Adams Planners OK Porches Inn Structure

NORTH ADAMS, Mass.  The Planning Board on Monday gave final approval for the Porches Inn to construct a new building where its patrons can have breakfast.

The inn, operating as Berkshire Hills Development Co. LLC, purchased four parcels along Veazie Street and plans to demolish two buildings on them to make room for the gathering center.

Attorney Jeffrey Grandchamp of Grinnell Partners LLC, representing the inn, said 10 and 18-20 Veazie St. would be razed and parking spaces will be relocated. The ZBA approved waivers for the project , including for parking so the inn would not have to add more for the new building.

"The side of the building that will be facing Veazie Street is going to be architecturally consistent with the neighborhood although the building as a whole ... is sort of an architecturally interesting and innovative, which we think will be nice," he told the board.

The structure will have a gathering area, bathrooms, storage and serving area but not a full kitchen. It will only be open to guests and the only signage will be on the interior grounds.

Porches is made up of a string of connected Victorian multifamily homes, none of which have the space to accommodate guests for breakfast.

The board also heard an update on methods to provide more screening of the massive solar array installed by Clean Energy Collective above Coca-Cola ledge.

The 1.32-megawatt solar array on 25 acres drew scores of complaints last fall because of its high visibility from numerous points on the city's east side. Planners were angry that a rendering with sightlines they had seen did not match what the final project looked like.

Michael Whigham, senior director of project management at Clean Energy Collective, told the board on Monday that he had looked over the area with Building Inspector William Meranti and come up with a solution.

"The primary concern is, at least as Bill and I discussed it, was on the farthest upslope side of what we call the B site, which is the west site, that was in an area where you could basically see from the tree clearing all the way to the ground," he said. "We went in and we planted 50 trees. It was a mix of native red oaks and saplings ... they'll grow pretty quick up there."

Whigham said the brush has already grown much thicker where the trees had been cleared for the project.

"I think that the company has made a considerable effort to remediate the problem," Meranti said in answering the board's questions. "Will it satisfy every citizen? Probably not, but I think they've done all that we've asked of them."

In other business, the board approved a Form A that adds a section of the Greylock Works mill to an existing parcel.

Attorney F. Sydney Smithers of Cain Hibbard & Myers said the partition gives volume to Parcel B, the flume that runs under Route 2 between the mill and the Hoosic River. The wheel room in the basement level, where the water ran in to power the machines in the former textile mill, is planned to be turned into an entryway when the flume is opened as a pedestrian access.

"There are structures like this all over the city of Boston," he said, and are largely skyways similar to the one at Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield. "We're doing it inside the building."

Parcels A1 and A2 make up the rest of the mill property, which is a for-profit venture as Greylock Works LLC. Parcel B, in contrast, is owned by the nonprofit Greylock Flume Inc.

 A Form A was also signed for Dennis Bernardi for property located at 20 Kately Lane to make it part of an adjacent lot.

 David Moresi of Moresi Associates was granted a special permit for a change of use at 18 Union St., the former Wall-Streeter mill, which he owns.

Moresi said he will use the office space in the building for real estate operations, Moresi Real Estate Partners, related to his business.

 Planner Kyle Hanlon was re-elected to represent the board on the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission. Hanlon is currently chairman of the commission.

 Planner Allyson Holmes asked that the board formally request the city "pursue zoning framing," as motioned by Hanlon, regarding sales and production of marijuana. Meranti said the city is looking into zoning issues and will be sending representatives to a state seminar at the end of the month. The board approved the motion to be on the record.

 The board also asked, at the urging of Planner Brian Miksic, to revoke permits for the two gas stations that are operating kiosks but have no gas. Plans were put forward several years ago for both sites  at the corner of Canal and Eagle streets and on Route 2  for new stations but no work has been done.

Meranti said it appears that the plans are being redone but was given no details or framework. The board asked that he begin discussions with the city solicitor on how the permits can be revoked.

 The manager of the Walmart Supercenter was invited to the next meeting to discuss landscaping maintenance issues at the Curran Highway store. Meranti said the manager was aware of the problems and wanted to address them.
The Williams Inn project falls into the Con Comm's jurisdiction because of the wetlands abutting the area to be developed.

Williamstown Con Comm OKs Culvert Replacement



Conservation Commissioners Stephanie Boyd and Philip McKnight participate in Thursday's public hearing. WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.  The Conservation Commission on Thursday OK'd Williams College's plan to replace the culvert that carries Christmas Brook under downtown, and the panel took its first look at the final plans for the new Williams Inn.

The culvert replacement project will replace an existing, undersized pipe with a conduit that is at least 5 feet by 12 feet and hopefully eliminate the flooding that occurs during heavy rain events.

The senior project engineer from Manchester, Conn., civil engineer Fuss & O'Neill was on hand to answer any final questions from the commission in a public hearing continued from July

The commissioners were satisfied that engineer Kristine Baker had addressed the concerns raised in the peer review the town ordered from Marlborough's Comprehensive Environmental Inc.

"His comments on the plan, most of them are about labeling," Baker said. "There are actually no design changes. The other thing that's nice about CEI's review is he reviewed the whole [hydraulics and hydrology] report. He did a very detailed review of the hydraulics of the culvert and looked preliminarily at the parking lot because it does tie in.

"When he gets the parking lot materials, he is very familiar with it."

The " parking lot project " is a complete redesign and rebuild of the municipal lot owned by the college and operated jointly with the town at the bottom of Spring Street. The lot is being expanded to create a bay designated for the hotel, and the college plans to install new water detention systems under the lot to handle runoff from the watershed to the north and west.

All that water eventually ends up Christmas Brook, which is why the parking lot work ties in with the new culvert, which runs to the east and carries the brook into the Green River.

The hotel project falls into the Con Comm's jurisdiction because of the wetlands abutting the area to be developed. Engineer Charlie LaBatt of Williamstown's Guntlow & Associates explained the college's plan to mitigate the impact of the hotel, plans that include the restoration of the nearby habitat by removing invasive species and replacing them with native plants.

Like the culvert replacement, notice of intent for the hotel project will be subjected to a peer review  ordered by the town but paid for by the applicant. The Con Comm hopes to have that analysis in hand so it can condition the project at its Aug. 31 meeting.

In other business on Thursday, the commission continued its public hearing on a notice of intent to build a residence and improve an existing driveway off Petersburg Road. The commissioners raised questions about the existing condition of the property  in particular whether the existing driveway is pervious  and the completeness of the application.

The commissioners also fielded a question from a potential applicant for a project on Cold Spring Road (Route 7).

Architect Martha Montgomery told the Con Comm she is working with the owner of Mezze, which wants to do work on the walkway leading from its lower parking lot to the restaurant.

Montgomery said she needs to design a walk compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act and suspects that the Architectural Access Board in Boston would sign off on a plan that would bring the proposed path within 10 feet of a pond on the property (the current walkway is about 50 feet away).

The commissioners expressed sympathy for the restaurant's situation, and the chairman suggested that the pond in question may not even be a jurisdictional wetland for the body. In the end, it recommended that Montgomery take the issue to the access board first and then return to the commission with a request for determination of applicability to see if the project needed approval through the expensive NOI process.
Selectmen Anne O'Connor, Hugh Daley and Jeffrey Thomas participate in Monday's meeting.

Williamstown Weighs Timing of Vote on Retail Pot Ban

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.  Now that the commonwealth has legislation in place to regulate the recreational marijuana industry, it is up to the Board of Selectmen whether it wants to ask town voters about banning production and sales of the drug in town.

Town Manager Jason Hoch explained to the board on Monday that the law signed by Gov. Charlie Baker this summer offers communities a chance to prohibit the pot industry. The mechanism differs depending on how voters in said town voted on the November 2016 ballot initiative that decriminalized marijuana in Massachusetts.

For towns where the majority of voters voted against legalized pot, the ban on retail can be accomplished either through town meeting or  for cities  by a city council vote.

Towns like Williamstown, where November's voters supported Question 4, can only accomplish such a ban by way of a ballot question.

"The reason we didn't ask that question before was it wasn't clear how to ask that question," Chairman Hugh Daley said on Monday. "Now, we're down to the question of: Do we call for a ballot question on whether the town wants to ban retail and production of marijuana in Williamstown. Do we call the question, and, if so, when?"

Hoch framed the latter question as a choice between the Nov. 7 special election to fill out the expired term of the late state Rep. Gailanne Cariddi and the regular town election in May.

Hoch said there are pros and cons to either date.

A November decision on the local ban question would allow more time to develop warrant articles in advance of the annual town meeting, which comes one week after the town election. Among the questions that could potentially be put to town meeting: whether to add a local sales tax on top of the state marijuana sales tax; municipalities are allowed to tack on a 3 percent tax, similar to the local portion of the state rooms and meals tax.

On the other hand, waiting until May will allow voters to have a clearer picture of what a commercial pot industry will look like in the commonwealth. Hoch explained that the Cannabis Control Commission created by the July legislation has until March 15 to publish its rules for businesses seeking a license to commercially produce or sell marijuana.

Another argument for waiting: the cost of a November vote.

Although the town is already holding a special election for the 1st Berkshire seat on Nov. 7, that is a state election, Hoch explained. Holding a town election on the same day may look like a zero-cost option, but, in fact, there are regulatory differences, including the addition of extra poll workers to run a "parallel" election, that would cost the town about $2,500.

On the other hand, in May, the ban question would just be an additional public question on an existing town election ballot.

Of course, the Selectmen always could choose to simply let the November 2016 vote on the ballot question speak for itself and make no move toward a public question on the idea of a ban. But that seems unlikely.

Although the vote in the town was 61 percent in favor of Question 4, it was clear in May 2017 that there were many voters  even some who supported statewide decriminalization  who were hesitant to allow pot-related businesses in town.

A zoning bylaw designed to regulate where commercial marijuana enterprises could be located in town generated considerable debate in the spring before passing by a wide margin at the a nnual town meeting  with proponents arguing that, absent a bylaw, pot businesses could potentially be located anywhere.

No local ban on pot could affect the statewide legalization of pot production for personal consumption or the decriminialization of possession of small amounts of the drug.

Hoch told the board that the town's counsel at the firm Kopelman & Paige can produce draft ordinance for a ban for voters to consider fairly quickly, so there is time to get the ban question together in time for the November vote if the board decides to go that route.

Two members of the five-member board did not attend Monday's meeting, and the board, as is its custom, is skipping its second August meeting. It next is scheduled to meet on Sept. 11.

Another topic for that meeting will be the process for conducting a review of the town manager.

The board started kicking around ideas for the review this summer. On Monday, Daley suggested that it finalize the process this fall and complete it by December. He explained that he thought late autumn was the right time for the board to conduct its regular annual reviews going forward.

His rationale was that a December review will be fresh enough to inform the spring renewal of the town manager's contract without interfering with the busy budget and town meeting season in the winter and early spring.

The form of the review will be decided by the board at a later date. Selectwoman Anne O'Connor said she had been researching procedures elsewhere in the commonwealth and found an assortment of approaches, including town that don't do much of a review at all.

Daley argued that the Board of Selectmen would be shirking its responsibility if it did not conduct regular reviews.

"We have a fiduciary obligation to the town to review performance," he said.

"I don't want to view this as  a compliance review. I want to view this as a tool so we can deliver to Jason areas where we can say, 'Focus on this,' or, 'You're doing a great job on this thing, so let's do more than that.' It's not a hammer, but it is a tool."

In other business on Monday, Hoch reported that the town's participation in a multi-community electricity aggregation program is up for a renewal. Under the program, all electric users in the town are automatically enrolled in the aggregation program unless they choose to opt out.

The regional aggregation has contracted for a rate of 10.7 cents per kilowatt hour as of Nov. 1, Hoch said. That represents an increase of 0.3 cents over the current rate that Williamstown consumers pay, and the rate is locked in for three years.

The aggregation's electricity will come be a 100 percent Green National Wind product. Currently, the towns in the aggregation are supplied by hydroelectric power.




Haiti - DR : Thousands of PNRE cards, awaiting to be withdrawn for more than 2 years...





The Head of the Consulate of the Republic of Haiti in Higuey, Jean Tholbert Alexis at the head of a delegation held a working meeting with the Governor of the province of Altagracia lic. Ramon Guiliamo Alfonso.



Several points were addressed, notably a list of 4,000 names of Haitian citizens registered on the National Regularization Plan for Foreigners (PNRE), whose card is available at the Governor's office for more than 2 years and who have neglected to get their document. The Governor confirmed that he would forward this list to the Haitian Consulate. These cards are among the 40,000 cards of Haitian applicants who have never claimed their cards at the national level...



Jean Tholbert Alexis took the opportunity to discuss with the Governor of the respect of the protocol agreement concerning the deportation of Haitian citizens in force between the two countries.



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iciHaiti - Politics : Gerald Oriol Jr., on all fronts for the disabled





Since his return to the head of the Office of the Secretary of State for the Integration of Persons with Disabilities (BSEIPH) on April 4, Secretary of State Gerald Oriol Jr. is on all fronts, multiplying sessions with public and private actors as well as NGOs, with a view to mobilizing actions for people with disabilities.



As part of these efforts, Secretary of State Oriol has already met with Prime Minister Jack Guy Lafontant, the National Commission for Public Procurement (CNMP), the Economic and Social Assistance Fund, the Inter-American Development Bank, the European Union, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID - Haiti), the Embassies of Brazil, Japan, Mexico and Canada. He also met with representatives of the different networks of people with disabilities, such as the National Association for the Integration of People with Disabilities (RANIPH), the Haitian Federation of Associations and Institutions of Persons with Disabilities in Haiti (FHAIPH), the National Coalition for Disabled Persons Organizations for the Integration of People with Disabilities (CONOIPH).



"We had an interesting meeting with the CNMP and we worked together to see how this Commission could establish a mechanism that takes account of the universal accessibility standards when awarding a public contract in accordance the wishes of article 27 of the law on the integration of people with disabilities," stressed Oriol.



Through these initiatives and initiatives, the Secretary of State hopes to mobilize resources and bring international donors and public sector actors to a greater focus on disability issues to better support people with special needs.



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Imperial County Executive Officer Announces Retirement

El Centro, California - Today, Ralph Cordova, Jr., Imperial Countys Executive Officer, announced that he will retire from Imperial County after twenty five years of dedicated service. Cordova has served as the County Executive Officer (CEO) for the last nine years. During his tenure with the County, Cordova also served in several leadership positions as both the County Counsel and the Assistant District Attorney.

After assuming his position as CEO in 2008, Cordova successfully navigated the County through the recession and economic downturn that significantly reduced County revenues. Cordova stated that one of his proudest accomplishments was leading the County through that difficult financial time without having to lay off employees, reduce salaries or reduce services to the community as, unfortunately many other Counties did.

Chairman of the Board of Supervisors, Michael Kelley stated about Cordova, I am going to miss Ralph. He has been a great asset to and leader of the County for many years. Ralph has helped the County face and overcome numerous challenges and create a secure future for the County. He has worked tremendously hard on protecting Imperial County residents from the impacts of the QSA water transfer. I look forward to seeing the impact he continues to make in this community that I know he loves.

I am grateful to the Board of Supervisors, the department heads, county employees, community members and all those involved in local government that have worked with me for the betterment of the County residents all these years." says Cordova, I am enormously proud of what the County has accomplished over the last nine years and see nothing but good things in the Countys future.

Cordova will continue to serve in an advisory role to the County. The next phase of my professional career will be to go into the private practice of law representing individuals and corporations. I was born and raised in Imperial County and will be a lifelong resident. I look forward to continuing to work with the cities and the County to give back to the community, Cordova stated.
Republic of Korea National Day

Washington, DC - Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, "On behalf of the United States of America, congratulations to the people of the Republic of Korea as you celebrate your national day on August 15th.

"On the anniversary of your independence, we also congratulate the people of the Republic of Korea on the election of President Moon Jae-in. We reaffirm the ironclad alliance between the United States and the Republic of Korea and honor our strong and historic people-to-people ties. This holiday also marks the bond our nations share in our support for democratic values, as we stand together to advance peace and security.

"We look forward to the continued alliance between our nations as we move forward. I send our best wishes to the people of the Republic of Korea as you celebrate this occasion."




This Isnt Our Last Love Letter



Dear Don Don,

Way back in 92



I walked into the room and knew



Never felt this way before



I shook your hand while gazing into your eyes



And the feeling grew



As I took a seat I knew



A love that would have my heart



Forever



I knew



Way back in 92





They say love at first sight doesnt always last or isnt true



We were the exception to that rule



Our love had no where to hide



A spark set fire



As if this is how the universe started





I never doubted our love or what we could do



Together we grew



Forming a bond everlasting



That became our glue



My euphoria was YOU



Im eternally grateful for the love and life we shared



For how fortunate we were :



to have and to hold

through sickness and in health

Til death do us part



Until we are together again



This isnt our last love letter



I love you with all my heart and soul



Yours forever,



Deirdre (Mrs. Hank Snow)





Im fortunate to have fallen in love with, marry and make a life with the sharpest, coolest, funniest, most rare, bad ass, tender loving, loyal man on the planet, my husband Don Imus.









A True American Hero

I dont know why it has been so hard for me to write about my dear friend Don Imus.



I certainly know what he meant to me, my family, my charity, my hospital and the millions of fans that listened and loved him for so many years.



I keep reading all the beautiful condolences that people are writing about how much a part of their lives were effected by listening to him over the years.

But what most people dont talk enough about is what he did for all of us.

In every sense of the word, he was an American Hero. His work with children with so many different illnesses and his dedication to their future was unmatched by anyone I have ever known or heard about.



Besides raising over $100,000,000 for so many causes, he took care of young people for over 20 years in a state where he could not breathe. Along with his incredible wife Deirdre, he created a world where children were not defined by their disease. That was a miracle! He was a miracle.

I will miss him ever day for the rest of my life.

I was blessed to be a part of his and Deirdes life.

No one will ever do what he did.

I love you Don Imus - A TRUE AMERICAN HERO





David Jurist

IMUS IN THE MORNING

FIRST DAY BACK!
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Some of the most shocking images from the crisis in Syria have been photographs of children: the body of a drowned toddler lying on a Turkish beach, the expressionless five-year-old boy from Aleppo, shellshocked, bloodied and ash-covered, after being pulled from the rubble of a bombed building.

Now, a number of childrens books authors, moved by these images and other news reports, are taking on the subject in fiction to humanise and personalise the ongoing conflict for young readers. More than a dozen new and forthcoming titles feature young Muslim refugees as protagonists, ranging from picture books aimed at readers as young as four to a cluster of novels for teenagers that delve into the murkier aspects of the refugee crisis. Some of the books touch on challenging issues such as the rise of Isis and the sectarian rift between Sunnis and Shias.

Recommended The UK must do more to tackle the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean

Suzanne Del Rizzos picture book My Beautiful Birds is based on an article she read about a Syrian boy living in Jordan in the Zaatari refugee camp who had tamed wild birds. In her book, she writes from the perspective of Sami, a boy who trains pigeons and must leave his birds behind when his family evacuates from their home in Syria and walks to a refugee camp in Jordan. There, Sami finds solace in caring for wild birds.

To research her young adult novel A Land of Permanent Goodbyes, the novelist Atia Abawi travelled to Lesbos, Greece, and spoke to Syrians in a refugee camp. Those conversations helped shape her book, which centres on a Syrian family that escapes an ISIS stronghold for Istanbul and then Greece.

Alan Gatzs Refugee is about a young boy fleeing Aleppo

In Alan Gratzs novel Refugee, for eight to 12-year-olds, a young boy named Mahmoud Bishara flees the violence in Aleppo after his familys home is destroyed, and has to contend with smugglers and militants as his family charts a treacherous course through Turkey and across the Mediterranean to Europe. His younger brother, Waleed  based on Omran Daqneesh, the Syrian boy famously photographed after the bombing  is too traumatised to even cry.

I wanted to make individual refugees visible and turn statistics into names and faces that kids could relate to, Gratz says.

The wave of childrens books about Muslim asylum seekers is arriving amid the worst refugee crisis the world has seen since World War II, as millions of civilians  many of them children  flee the wars and insurgencies in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. The Syrian civil war alone has uprooted more than two million children, according to Unicef.

Its really important to engage children with the world as it is, and the world right now is a very complicated place, said Zareen Jaffery, executive editor of Salaam Reads, a Muslim-themed childrens imprint at Simon & Schuster.

Some of these new novels explore perilous journeys, as refugees entrust their lives to smugglers and navigate war zones controlled by rebel groups and extremists. In Escape From Aleppo, a novel by NH Senzai for eight to 12-year-olds, a Syrian girl named Nadia flees her country for Turkey after civil war breaks out after the failed democratic uprising.

Young adult novel The Land of Permanent Goodbyes centres on a Syrian family that escapes an Isis stronghold for Istanbul and then Greece

Others focus on the discrimination and sense of displacement faced by Muslim asylum seekers. The Lines We Cross, a young adult novel by Randa Abdel-Fattah released by Scholastic in May, centres on a teenage Muslim refugee from Afghanistan who is accosted by Islamophobes and nationalists in Australia, where her family runs a restaurant. The girl, Mina, develops a crush on a boy whose parents are anti-immigration, anti-Muslim activists. In a political environment where theres such a demonisation of refugees, I wanted readers to understand what their lives are like, says Abdel-Fattah, who lives in Sydney.

Gratz says that he expected a book like Refugee, an unflinching and sympathetic look at people whose lives are upended by war and oppression, might repel some readers. There certainly will be people who will assume that I wrote it to push an agenda, he said.

Refugee, which Scholastic released in late July with a first printing of more than 200,000 copies, originally began as a novel about the St Louis, a German ocean liner carrying nearly 1,000 Jews fleeing Hitler during World War II. The ship was turned away from Cuba and the United States and returned to Europe, where many of the passengers died in the war. Gratz saw disturbing parallels between the historical episode he was researching and the current plight of Syrian refugees, and decided to weave together the stories of three children: a Jewish boy whose family tries to escape Nazi Germany on the St Louis; a Cuban girl who leaves Havana in a raft during the islands food shortages in 1994, and Mahmoud, the Syrian boy whose family escapes to Europe.

When he finished the novel this year, Gratz added an authors note that addresses President Trumps travel ban, and says that the United States has accepted less than one percent of the roughly five million refugees who have fled Syria.

Canadian childrens author Margriet Ruurs follows a family fleeing war in an unnamed country and features images by Syrian artist Nizar Ali Badr

When I began writing this book as a response to the Syrian refugee crisis, I had no idea how timely it would be when it finally came out, he says.

Teachers and librarians have embraced these titles as a way to explain the refugee crisis to children, and Gratz has been invited to speak at more than 40 schools around America.

Mollee Holloman, an elementary school librarian in Manteo, North Carolina, who helped organise a recent book signing for Gratz that drew around 80 children, said she hoped Refugee would give children more empathy for those displaced by war. Hes giving us the perspective of a child, and that helps these students see outside the world theyre living in, Holloman says.

In Canada, where more than 33,000 Syrians resettled in 2016, picture books featuring Syrian refugee characters are being used in some public schools to explain the crisis and give students perspective on what some arriving Syrian students might have been through.

The Canadian childrens book author Margriet Ruurs has spoken to thousands of students at schools around the world about her book Stepping Stones, which follows a family fleeing a war in an unnamed country and features images by the Syrian artist Nizar Ali Badr, who uses small stones to create human figures.

'The Lines We Cross', a young adult novel by Randa Abdel-Fattah, centres on a teenage Muslim refugee from Afghanistan who is accosted by Islamophobes and nationalists in Australia

During a reading last autumn at a British Columbia library, Ruurs was joined by Serina Khaldi, a nine-year-old girl from Aleppo whose family recently settled in Salt Spring Island, where Ruurs lives. Stepping Stones has text in both English and Arabic, and Serina read the story in Arabic. My daughter is very shy, but she was excited, says Samer Khaldi, Serinas father.

Carrie Gelson, an elementary school teacher in Vancouver, has used Stepping Stones and other picture books about Muslim refugees in social studies. She told the class, You meet these students in your class and its important that you know their stories. One of the picture books she read aloud was My Beautiful Birds, Del Rizzos story about a Syrian boy living in a refugee camp in Jordan.

Gelson was eager to share My Beautiful Birds with one student in particular: Nour Alahmad Almahmoud, a 12-year-old Syrian girl whose family came to Canada from a refugee camp in Jordan in late 2015. When Nour first read the book this spring, she was overwhelmed and ran outside in tears.

I cried because its like this book makes me remember everything, Nour says. I felt like this family in the book is my family.

She asked to take the copy home for the weekend to show her parents and siblings. Gelson told her the book was hers to keep.

 The New York Times
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The massive increase in wind and solar energy helped prevent the premature deaths of up to 12,700 people over a nine-year period in the US, according to new research which illustrates the wider benefits of ditching fossil fuels beyond limiting global warming.

The lower carbon emissions were worth billions of dollars as a result of the avoidance of the range of problems caused by fossil fuels, according to a paper about the study published in the journal, Nature Energy.

The UK Government has pledged that the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles will be banned from 2040  a deadline criticised by environmentalists as being too far in the future to make a difference. In contrast, Norway plans to phase out such vehicles by 2025.

According to the Royal College of Physicians, about 40,000 deaths a year in the UK are attributable to exposure to outdoor air pollution, which has been associated with cancer, asthma, stroke and heart disease, diabetes, obesity and changes linked to dementia.

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The new research, which was funded by the US Department of Energy, found there had been significant declines in major air pollutants between 2007 and 2015.

Carbon dioxide fell by 20 per cent, sulphur dioxide by a staggering 72 per cent, nitrogen oxide by 50 per cent and tiny particles known as PM2.5 by 46 per cent.

While some of this was due to fossil fuels being replaced by renewable energy, tougher emission regulations also played a part. Sulphur dioxide emissions fell from nine million tonnes in 2007 to 2.5 million tonnes in 2015 after coal power plants were forced to fit equipment that filters the gas out to meet air quality standards.

The growth in solar and wind power was dramatic, increasing tenfold from about 10 gigawatts in 2007 to roughly 100GW in 2015.

From 2007 to 2015, solar and wind power deployment increased rapidly while regulatory changes and fossil fuel price changes led to steep cuts in overall power-sector emissions, the researchers wrote in the paper.

We find cumulative wind and solar air-quality benefits of  $29.7bn to $112.8bn [during 2007 to 2015] mostly from 3,000 to 12,700 avoided premature mortalities."

In 2015 alone, some 1,850 premature deaths were avoided.

The researchers, led by Dr Dev Millstein of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, also estimated the increased generation of renewable energy was worth between $5.3bn and $106.8bn in cumulative climate benefits over the same period.

These include changes to agricultural productivity, energy use, losses from disasters such as floods, human health and general ecosystem services.

Sam Bright, a lawyer at environmental activist group ClientEarth, which has twice successfully sued the Government over sub-standard air quality plans, said it was clear that "moving away from coal brings major health benefits".

But he added: "It's essential that we make sure we use the opportunity the end of coal gives us to create the energy system of the future.

"That means replacing coal power stations with renewables, yes, but also making sure energy efficiency is top of the agenda and we build storage and flexibility into the system to lower and manage demand.

"A cleaner, more flexible energy system will mean fewer emissions of those pollutants that are harming people and our planet."

Nina Schrank, energy campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said: "Our energy system is radically transforming. Milestones such as the falling costs of offshore wind and solar, and the first working day without coal in Britain, are coming thick and fast as we move towards a low carbon economy. Now research also suggests that renewable power could be beginning to clean up the air by displacing some fossil fuels, but we need so much more.

"Our Government should prioritise speeding up the energy transition and making the UK a world leader in clean, green technology. Public opinion polls show that more than three quarters of people in the UK already support renewable energy. It's time to grasp the enormous potential of renewable energy and energy efficiency, which can give us cleaner air, skilled jobs and fair bills, whilst also helping towards our climate targets."

This article has been corrected. Up to 12,700 premature deaths were avoided between 2007 to 2015 inclusive, not in 2015 alone.
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The popularity of compact system cameras (CSCs) has grown exponentially since they were first introduced by Panasonic back in 2008. In the near decade since, pretty much every manufacturer has got involved with the concept (to varying degrees of success).

While it took traditional manufacturers, such as Canon and Nikon, longer to launch models, the technology was propelling other brands forward. Cameras in this sector display lots of innovation, whether in the form of miniaturisation or specs that entice even the most diehard DSLR (digital single-lens reflex camera) fan.

But what exactly is a compact system camera? Its the rather clumsy name thats been given to any camera which is capable of accepting different lenses, but is not a DSLR. Just like DSLRs, they have large sensors, but the biggest difference is that there is no mirror  so youll often hear these cameras also referred to as mirrorless.

The lack of mirror allows for cameras to be smaller and lighter, but means that an optical viewfinder is out of the question.

When it comes to sensor sizes, you generally have three choices for CSCs. Full-frame is the largest, APS-C is smaller again, while Four Thirds is the smallest. All of these sensors are still considerably larger than ones you would find in the average smartphone or compact camera, though. While a larger sensor generally equates to higher image quality, having a smaller sensor means you can keep the overall system smaller and lighter.

In terms of resolution (megapixels), anything over 16 is more than enough for the average user  only go for something with a super high number if youre often photographing very fine details. Video recording is offered as standard in pretty much all cameras now, but 4K is starting to become the norm too.

In this round-up, we take a look at some of the best compact system cameras currently on the market, designed for a range of different users and budgets. They were tested not only for how well they take pictures, but for how easy they were to use, the features they offer to both the photographer and the videographer, as well as taking into consideration the price.

1. Sony A6500 Mirrorless Digital Camera Body Only: 1,132, Park Cameras

Sonys CSCs are split into two categories; full-frame and APS-C. The A6500 sits atop the companys APS-C line-up, but offers some high-end specs that you might normally associate with professional level cameras. The A6500 has one of the smallest bodies in this list, but still manages to fit enough direct control dials and buttons for enthusiasts to feel at home. A bright and clear viewfinder is joined by a touch-sensitive tilting screen, which you can use to set the AF point or fire off a shot. Fast shooting (11fps) is available, as is 5-axis image stabilisation to help you keep your images as sharp as possible.

Buy now

2. Sony A9 Mirrorless Camera Body Only: 4,499, Jessops

With the A9, Sony is managing to convince professional photographers to take the brand seriously, with a host of specs that outmatch even the best DSLR on the market. Particularly appealing to sports, wildlife and action photographers, the A9s party-piece is that it can shoot at an incredible 20fps completely silently. Whats more, autofocusing is swift and accurate, allowing you to keep up with speedy subjects. The 24.2 megapixel full-frame sensor has a special design thats also primed for speed, while other features include 4K video recording, a high-resolution electronic viewfinder, dual memory card slots and a tilting touch-sensitive screen. It doesnt come cheap though, so youll need a professional budget.

Buy now

3. Panasonic GH5 Body Only: 1,699.95, John Lewis

Sitting at the top of Panasonics compact system camera line-up, the GH5 is ideal for both photographers and videographers. It features a 20.3 megapixel Four Thirds sensor, a 3.2-inch vari-angle touchscreen and very high resolution electronic viewfinder. Panasonics USP comes in the shape of 4K photo and, new for the GH5, 6K photo. This allows you to extract stills from video, meaning you can capture action at up to a staggering 60fps. So, for every second of action, you have 60 different frames to choose from, making it almost impossible to miss the crucial expression or moment. For videographers, cinema 4K is available at frame rates up to 60p  a first for the market.

Buy now

4. Fuji X-T2 Compact System Camera Body Only: 1,399, Argos

Fujis rather gorgeous X-T2 manages to perfectly combine style with substance. Yes, its retro stylings are very attractive, but its got a raft of high-end features to make it superb to use too. Theres an APS-C sized X-Trans CMOS sensor (which means its primed for high detail), 4K video recording, an excellent viewfinder, a tilting touch-sensitive screen and a range of dials and buttons giving direct control to key settings. It can also shoot at 14fps, making it a decent contender for sports, action and wildlife photography  if not quite on a par with the top-end offerings from other manufacturers here.

Buy now

5. Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II Digital Mirrorless Camera Body: 1,849, Park Cameras

The awkwardly named OM-D E-M1 Mark II is a seriously impressive model from Olympus, which shares the Four Thirds format with Panasonic. Here we have a 20 million pixel sensor, 4K video recording, dual SD card slots, and a high resolution electronic viewfinder. It can shoot at a seriously impressive 18fps at full-resolution with tracking focus, or, an incredible 60fps if youre happy to forego focus tracking. The camera has a superb image stabilisation system which allows you to shoot at slow speeds without introducing image blur. The downside here is the high asking price, but you get a lot of superior specifications for your cash.

Buy now

6. Fuji X-T20 Mirrorless Camera and XC 16-50mm Mark II Lens: 899, Park Cameras

Fuji often puts some of its top-of-the-line technology into those cameras that sit a little further down the line. Such is the case with the X-T20, which is basically a junior X-T2. In fact, its got the same 24.3 megapixel X-Trans sensor and is also capable of recording 4K video. For the price saving, you dont get weather-sealing, theres only one card slot, and the viewfinder is smaller (but still very useable). You get to keep 14fps shooting, and a decent array of dials and buttons for speedy access to key settings, though.

Buy now

7. Panasonic G80 Kit with 12-60mm Lens: 799, John Lewis

Panasonics mid-range CSCs come with some of the technology from its range-topping GH5 in a smaller and more affordable body. The G80 is classically DSLR-styled, with a functional viewfinder, an articulating touch-screen and plenty of customisable buttons to give you quick control. This being a Panasonic, it has 4K photo on-hand, which gives you the option to grab stills from video shot at up to 30 frames per second  perfect for capturing the movement of a fast-moving child or pet. In short, you still get a slew of appealing specs at a more affordable price than the GH5.

Buy now

8. Canon EOS M5 Mirrorless Camera with 15-45mm Lens: 999, Jessops

Canon was a little late to the CSC game, but nevertheless, the M5 is a very nice camera which should appeal to existing Canon users. Although the M5 uses a different mount from a Canon DSLR, you can buy an adaptor which allows you to use all your existing lenses. You also get a high-resolution viewfinder, a useful touch-sensitive screen and a 24.2 megapixel APS-C sized sensor (the same as youd find in a DSLR). On the downside, theres no 4K video recording available here  something to consider if youre a keen movie-maker, but probably of less concern to most casual photographers.

Buy now

9. Olympus PEN F Compact System Camera with 17mm Lens: 1,149, John Lewis

The Olympus PEN F is so satisfyingly old-school that you may be forgiven for thinking its an analogue camera at first glance. Its got some excellent features in that pretty body too, with a 20.3 megapixel Four Thirds sensor, 10fps shooting, an articulating touchscreen, a high-resolution electronic viewfinder and all the dials and buttons you could ever wish for. Theres no 4K video available here, but with looks like this, its definitely aimed at the dedicated photographer, rather than film-makers.

Buy now

10. Panasonic GX80 Mirrorless Camera with 12-32mm lens: 519, Currys

A slim and stylish mid-range offering from Panasonic, this camera is ideal for those who are keen photographers but dont necessarily want to spend big. You get a 16 megapixel Four Thirds sensor, a tilting touch-sensitive screen and Panasonics special 4K Photo mode for grabbing stills from video. Advanced enthusiasts will probably lament the lack of dials and buttons, but, thats not who this camera is for. The viewfinder is on the small side, so you may find you reserve use of it for when the sun is too bright for the screen, but otherwise this is a well-specced camera for the price.

Buy now

The Verdict: Compact system cameras

Theres a staggering amount of choice on the market right now, which is great news for finding something that matches your exact needs and budget. Image quality from all of these cameras is fantastic, so choosing between them will likely come down to handling, and the specifications to help you get the shot you want. The Sony A9 is without doubt one of the best cameras on the market right now (CSC or otherwise), but theres no getting away from the fact that it commands a very high asking price which is beyond the realms of most hobbyist photographers. If we have to single out one for special mention, the Sony A6500 is a good all-rounder option, which suits a variety of different users or needs. Those looking more towards the budget end of the scale are well served by the Panasonic GX80 and the Fuji X-T20.
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Long live the last of the summer wine, as it turns out that your nightly tipple could be more of a life-saver than you thought.

A glass or two of wine every evening could cut your risk of developing various life-shortening diseases and illnesses by 25 per cent, a US study has found.

It claims that those who regularly consume moderate amounts of alcohol lessen the likelihood of early death and developing cardiovascular disease.

Recommended Drinking wine makes people more creative

Naturally the study, which was carried out by the American College of Cardiology, was quick to assert that heavy drinking is incredibly detrimental to our cardiovascular health and can increase the risk of early death over time.

A delicate balance exists between the beneficial and detrimental effects of alcohol consumption, which should be stressed to consumers and patients, Bo Xi, the studys lead author explained.

The research accounted for 333,247 participants between 1997 and 2009, during which time patients were regularly required to divulge details on their alcoholic consumption.

The study classified a light drinker as someone who consumed less than three drinks a week, whilst a male moderate drinker will have between three and 14 drinks each week. A female will have between three and seven. Anything above that is considered heavy by drinking standards.

The research found that male heavy drinkers were 25 per cent more likely to die early than those who drank more moderately. They were also 67 per cent more at risk of dying from cancer.

A glass of wine a night might also increase creativity, a similar study conducted in Austria found. Exploring the links between creativity and mild alcoholic consumption, the research published in Consciousness & Cognition by Dr Mathias Benedek revealed that a moderate amount of alcohol can enhance the brains ability to think laterally and consequently boost capabilities for creative activities such as writing.

Bring on the Bordeaux.
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Last year saw the highest number of drug-related deaths since records began in 1993, according to data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). More than half of these deaths involved an opiate, such as heroin. Those aged 40 to 49 years old made up the largest group dying as a result of drug poisoning. Compared with the general population, this group are dying decades before they should.

For the population as a whole, life expectancy has stalled since 2010. This is not inevitable as the UK is not yet achieving the average life expectancy of countries such as Japan and Sweden. In a recent blog, Sir Michael Marmot said there was an urgent need to determine if austerity had contributed to the shortening of lives.

This makes politicians uncomfortable, as can be seen from this Twitter exchange between Marmot and the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, who tries to cast doubt on the data:

Fentanyl

Synthetic opiates, such as the fentanyls, have contributed to the rise in opiate-related deaths in the US. The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, which is responsible for monitoring drugs, identified 18 new fentanyls through its early warning system, and recently issued a risk assessment on a new drug of concern, furanylfentanyl. In England and Wales, deaths due to fentanyl have increased from 34 in 2015 to 58 in 2016, and it is suspected that this is an underestimate because toxicologists dont routinely test for it.

(Office for National Statistics (Office for National Statistics)

Historically, there has been disproportionate attention paid to deaths attributed to MDMA (usually sold as ecstasy). MDMA deaths in the UK have increased from 57 to 63 a year, the highest ever number, but these deaths are newsworthy because they are still rare, considering how many people take ecstasy each year.

However, while ecstasy deaths are atypical in relation to the overall burden of drug-related deaths, one analysis of Scottish newspaper reports in the 1990s showed that while all ecstasy deaths made the headlines, only one in nine opiate deaths  and one in 130,000 tobacco deaths  were reported.

More than half of all drug deaths in 2016 involved an opiate, such as heroin (Shutterstock)

This discrepancy is probably still evident and is important because reports of deaths are often used as a platform to advocate for change in policy and practice. While there was a welcome media focus over the summer on harm reduction strategies, such as drug checking at clubs and festivals, there has been a lack of equivalent focus on opiate deaths, perhaps because of who typically uses opiates compared with who uses ecstasy: younger people, with good social support networks, tend to die as a result of ecstasy, whereas heroin users are often older and lack positive relationships with family and friends.

Why are people dying?

It is difficult to know what impact austerity has had in shortening the lives of people who use drugs. But is it a coincidence that since the change in policy in 2010, which saw a move from trying to reduce the harm that drugs cause to one which promoted abstinence, more people have lost their lives?

It is unlikely that a single factor explains this rise in deaths. Rather a constellation of elements. We have an ageing cohort of opiate users who are developing physical problems. Variability in the purity of heroin will also be a contributing factor. Being in treatment reduces the risk of overdose and death but there are variations in treatment. Ensuring patients receive the right dose of an opiate substitute for long enough is one area we could improve as that has been shown to reduce mortality.

It is encouraging that the Government has made commitments to support high quality, methadone-based drug treatment, and the wider use of naloxone, a drug used to reverse the effects of an opiate overdose. Some 90 per cent of local authorities report that they have made take-home naloxone kits available to drug users, with the remaining reporting that local drug deaths were too low to warrant introduction.

However, in a 2016 report to government, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs made a number of additional recommendations to reduce opiate deaths, including the introduction of medically supervised drug consumption facilities. The recent European Union action plan on drugs has also encouraged member states to adopt this approach.

Unfortunately, the Government has replied that it has no plans to act on this particular advice. While it has stated that it is up to local areas to determine how to respond to drug users needs, the reality is that without central Government support and funding, local authorities are unlikely to introduce these potentially life saving measures on their own.

Ian Hamilton is a lecturer in mental health at the University of York; Harry Sumnall is a professor at Liverpool John Moores University. This article was originally published on The Conversation (www.theconversation.com)
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More than 200 people have been contaminated or infected with a potentially deadly strain of a drug-resistant fungus.

Some 20 separate NHS trusts and independent hospitals detected Candida auris in patients, with three hospitals being forced to tackle large outbreaks of the pathogen that is difficult to control.

First discovered in Japan, the family of yeasts can live on the skin and inside the body, causing complications in people with weakened immune systems.

Public Health England (PHE) said doctors at one hospital were still dealing with an outbreak of the fungus, which is resistant to a commonly prescribed fungicidal drug.

Medical staff have been issued with new guidance on detecting and dealing with the fungus, including the intensive disinfection of wards amid concern over the increasing experience of the complexities infections are posing.

Recommended NHS patients waiting for care reaches highest level since 2007

Meanwhile a biosafety unit at Porton Down, the UKs chemical weapons lab, has been testing fungicidal activity of a variety of disinfectants and antiseptics.

As at the beginning of July 2017, 20 separate NHS Trusts and independent hospitals in the United Kingdom had detected over 200 patients colonised or infected with Candida auris, PHE said.

Three hospitals have seen large nosocomial [within hospital] outbreaks that have proved difficult to control, despite intensive infection prevention and control measures, though two of these outbreaks have been declared over and one is seeing significantly fewer numbers of new acquisitions.

Over 35 other hospitals have had patients known to be colonised with Candida auris transferred to them.

PHE said there was no evidence that any of the infections had resulted in the death of a patient in the UK, although there were limitations to the data available.

Official guidance states that infections are usually minor.

PHE said most cases detected in the UK have been of colonised patients, while around a quarter of cases have been clinical infections  including 27 patients who developed bloodstream infections.

Complications arise when the fungus enters the body or bloodstream during medical treatment.

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The average 10 year old consumes the equivalent to 13 sugar cubes a day, 8 more than is recommended PA Health news in pictures Child health experts advise switching off screens an hour before bed While there is not enough evidence of harm to recommend UK-wide limits on screen use, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health have advised that children should avoid screens for an hour before bed time to avoid disrupting their sleep Getty Health news in pictures Daily aspirin is unnecessary for older people in good health, study finds A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine has found that many elderly people are taking daily aspirin to little or no avail Getty Health news in pictures Vaping could lead to cancer, US study finds A study by the University of Minnesota's Masonic Cancer Centre has found that the carcinogenic chemicals formaldehyde, acrolein, and methylglyoxal are present in the saliva of E-cigarette users Reuters Health news in pictures More children are obese and diabetic There has been a 41% increase in children with type 2 diabetes since 2014, the National Paediatric Diabetes Audit has found. 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Just Giving Health news in pictures Government to review thousands of harmful vaginal mesh implants The Government has pledged to review tens of thousands of cases where women have been given harmful vaginal mesh implants. Getty Health news in pictures Jeremy Hunt announces 'zero suicides ambition' for the NHS The NHS will be asked to go further to prevent the deaths of patients in its care as part of a zero suicide ambition being launched today Getty Health news in pictures Human trials start with cancer treatment that primes immune system to kill off tumours Human trials have begun with a new cancer therapy that can prime the immune system to eradicate tumours. The treatment, that works similarly to a vaccine, is a combination of two existing drugs, of which tiny amounts are injected into the solid bulk of a tumour. 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Candida auris is resistant to the first-line anti-fungal drug fluconazole and the species can rapidly evolve to develop resistance.

The fungus was first identified in the ear of a patient in Japan in 2009 and has since caused prolonged hospital outbreaks in India, Pakistan, Venezuela, and Colombia.

PA
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A woman has been called greedy and ungrateful after confessing that she was disappointed with the 1,300 engagement ring that her fiance bought for her - but who is right?

His salary is nearing a six figure sum and hes usually very generous, she wrote on Mumsnet, explaining that she wouldve expected him to splash out a little more on such an important piece of jewellery.

Feeling disheartened, she sought the advice of the Mumsnet community, asking if anyone else had ever been in a similar situation.

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The response however, was far less comforting than she mightve expected, with people expressing shock and horror at the bride-to-bes reaction to the rings price tag.

Blimey. I'd have been delighted; talk about being ungrateful, one commenter wrote.

1,300 quid is a lot of money to most people (I don't give a sh*t how much he earns) and you sound like the worst person imaginable. I hope he dumps you, another added.

But others however, were quick to offer their support, understanding why shed expect her high-earning fiance to splash out a little more on such a significant ring.

I don't think it's unreasonable to want to be absolutely head over heels in love with a ring you'll be wearing for the rest of your life, one wrote.

The woman explained how in an ideal scenario, she and her fiance would have chosen a ring together, so as to avoid a situation like this.

According to a recent study, couples in the UK are spending 19 per cent less on engagement rings than they did five to 10 years ago.

In fact, the average spend on engagement rings in Britain has fallen to just a little under what the Mumsnet writers fiance spent - 1,080.

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In the 1930's, leading diamond retailer De Beers launched a campaign suggesting people spend no more than a month's salary on an engagement ring.

With several of De Beers' rings now costing upwards of 20,000, its safe to say that their marketing strategy has changed somewhat over time, with some people going to extreme lengths in order to afford the luxury jewels.

An American man made headlines in April for starting a GoFundMe page to raise $15,000 (11,583) to buy an engagement ring for his fiancee. He raised just $594 in one week and explained that launching the page was the ideal opportunity to let everybody who loves us show us.

How considerate.
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A woman was born with no vagina after being diagnosed with Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser Syndrome - and is now trying to raise money for life-changing surgery.

After never having a period by the age of 18, Kaylee Moats visited a doctor who examined her and found that the young American did not in fact have a uterus, cervix, vagina or vaginal opening.

Moats and her family, who live in Gilbert, Arizona, were heartbroken, particularly given the news that she will be unable to have children.

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The 22-year-old told Barcroft TV that she's sad that she can't have children, adding that it makes her feel "less of a woman" because she "cant do what women are supposed to be able to do".

Moats is hoping to raise funds via a GoFundMe page to fund a reconstructive surgery that will create a vaginal opening for her.

Moats sister Amanda wrote on the page: There was nothing worse than getting that phone call and knowing that my sisters dreams for her life were changed so drastically in an instant, with nothing I or anyone else could do to make it better.

The surgery costs a $15,000, which Moats revealed her health insurance wont cover because they do not consider it to be a life-saving treatment.

So far, $3,500 has been raised to treat the condition, which affects just 1 in 5,000 women.

After hearing the news, the Northern Arizona University graduate was hesitant to tell her boyfriend Robbie, unsure of how hed react.

However, he has been incredibly supportive thus far and is even planning on donating a portion of his salary to help fund her surgery.

When she told me, I already had grown to love this person, so its not going to make me love her any less, he explained in the clip. Ill be there every step of the way. Im amazed that she hasnt let this define her, he added, she inspires me everyday.

Friends of the young woman have been quick to offer their support, as Moats explained that several of those closest to her have even offered to carry her child as a surrogate.
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The Government needs to implement a radical shake-up of working culture to close yawning gender, ethnicity and disability pay gaps, the UKs equality watchdog has said.

Caroline Waters, deputy chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said on Tuesday that progress on tackling pay gaps in the UK had been painfully slow and called for action to ensure the same conversations about the issue are not taking place for decades to come.

The commission recommends a raft of measures, including giving fathers additional use it or lose it paternity leave, paid at a higher rate, to encourage men to take more time off when their children are born.

This will help men and women to share the responsibilities of childcare more equally, the commission said. It argues that this in turn will lessen the motherhood penalty that sees mothers paid less after childbirth than fathers, because the former are more likely to sacrifice opportunities for career progression or leave their job and take up part-time roles, both of which contribute to the gender pay gap.

Men are currently entitled to two weeks paternity leave paid at about 141 per week but many do not take it as they cannot afford to, leaving women to shoulder most of the burden of childcare. Scandinavian fathers can take up to a year off paid at a higher rate, which has helped bring down wage disparity, the commission said.

The call is one of a raft of recommendations in the commissions comprehensive strategy, published on Tuesday, for tackling pay gaps.

Women are paid about 18.1 per cent less than men on average in the UK, the commission said, with ethnic minorities receiving 5.7 per cent less than white British workers and disabled people earning 13.6 per cent less than those with no disability.

The commission said all jobs should be advertised as available for flexible working in order to help women and disabled people, who are more likely to be forced in to accepting low-paid, part-time jobs than other groups. Currently, employers only have to consider requests from employees to work flexibly.

The report also calls for a new national diversity target for senior and executive management positions and action from a young age to ensure that people are not pushed in to choosing subjects that lead to lower-paying roles because of gender and ethnic stereotypes.

Business news: In pictures Show all 13 1 /13 Business news: In pictures Business news: In pictures Flybe collapses Airline Flybe has collapsed. All future flights on the Exeter-based airline have been cancelled  leaving more than 2,300 staff facing an uncertain future, and wrecking the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of passengers. The chief executive, Mark Anderson, said: Europes largest independent regional airline has been unable to overcome significant funding challenges to its business. AFP via Getty Business news: In pictures Future product placement will be 'tailored to individual viewers' Marketing executives say that product placement in films and televison shows on streaming services such as Netflix may be tailored to individuals in future. For instance, if data shows that a viewer is a fan of pepsi, a billboard in the background of a shot would host an advert for pepsi, while for a viewer known to have different tastes it could be for Coca-Cola Paramount Business news: In pictures Corbyn wishes Amazon a happy birthday In a card sent to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on the company's 25th birthday, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn writes: "You owe the British people millions in taxes that pay for the public services that we all rely on. Please pay your fair share" Business news: In pictures No deal, no tariffs The government has announced that it would slash almost all tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Notable exceptions include cars and meat, which will see tariffs in place to protect British farmers Getty Business news: In pictures Fingerprint payment NatWest is trialling a new bank card that will allow people to touch their hand to the card when paying rather than typing in a PIN number. The card will work by recognising the user's fingerprint NatWest/PA Wire Business news: In pictures Mahabis bust High-end slipper retailer Mahabis has gone into administration. 2 Jan 2019 Mahabis Business news: In pictures Costa Cola Coca-Cola has paid 3.9bn for Costa Coffee. A cafe chain is a new venture for the global soft drinks giant PA Business news: In pictures RIP Payday Loans A funeral procession for payday loans was held in London on September 2. The future of pay day lenders is in doubt after Wonga, Britain's biggest, went into administration on August 30 PA Business news: In pictures Musk irks investors and directors Elon Musk has concluded that Tesla will remain public. Investors and company directors were angry at Musk for tweeting unexpectedly that he was considering taking Tesla private and share prices had taken a tumble in the following weeks Getty Business news: In pictures Jaguar warning Iconic British car maker Jaguar Land Rover warned on July 5, 2018 that a "bad" Brexit deal could jeopardise planned investment of more than $100 billion, upping corporate pressure as the government heads into crucial talks AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures Spotif-IPO Spotify traded publically for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. However, the company isn't issuing shares, but rather, shares held by Spotify's private investors will be sold AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures French blue passports The deadline to award a contract to make blue British passports after Brexit has been extended by two weeks following a request by bidder De La Rue. The move comes after anger at the announcement British passports would be produced by Franco-Dutch firm Gemalto when De La Rues contract ends in July. The British firm said Gemalto was chosen only because it undercut the competition, but the UK company also admitted that it was not the cheapest choice in the tendering process. Business news: In pictures Beast from the east economic impact The Beast from the East wiped 4m off of Flybes revenues due to flight cancellations, airport closures and delays, according to the budget airlines estimates. Flybe said it cancelled 994 flights in the three months to 31 March, compared to 372 in the same period last year.

Current requirements for companies to report gender pay gaps should be extended to ethnicity and disability disparities, the commission said.

Ms Waters added: The pay-gaps issue sits right at the heart of our society and is a symbol of the work we still need to do to achieve equality for all. Subject choices and stereotypes in education send children of all genders, abilities, and racial backgrounds on set paths.

These stereotypes are then reinforced throughout the workplace in recruitment, pay and progression. For this to change, we need to overhaul our culture and make flexible working the norm; looking beyond women as the primary caregivers and having tough conversations about the biases that are rife in our workforce and society.
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The UK risks losing its place as a property-owning democracy if house prices continue to rise, according to the boss of the UKs largest independent estate agent.

Paul Smith, chief executive of haart, said that unaffordability is reaching crisis point and urged the Government to stop excessive profiteering at the expense of aspiring home owners.

The call comes as official figures showed that the price of the average house in the UK increased by 10,000 last year to 223,000.

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Property values increased by 0.8 per cent between May and June according to joint figures from the Office for National Statistics, Land Registry and other bodies.

In the year to June average prices were up 4.9 per cent, down marginally from 5 per cent growth in the year to May.

The report released on Tuesday said the annual growth rate had slowed since mid-2016 but has remained steady at about 5 per cent this year so far.

House prices continued to rally with unflinching determination once again in June despite the ongoing economic uncertainty," Mr Smith said.

However this means that the average UK buyer now has to fork out an extra 10,000 more to own a home than the same time last year.

Along with consumer price hikes and falling wage growth, unaffordability is reaching a crisis point. This is creating real impact on the ground as we see first-time buyer registrations drop by almost 20 per cent on the year across our branches.

Business news: In pictures Show all 13 1 /13 Business news: In pictures Business news: In pictures Flybe collapses Airline Flybe has collapsed. All future flights on the Exeter-based airline have been cancelled  leaving more than 2,300 staff facing an uncertain future, and wrecking the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of passengers. The chief executive, Mark Anderson, said: Europes largest independent regional airline has been unable to overcome significant funding challenges to its business. AFP via Getty Business news: In pictures Future product placement will be 'tailored to individual viewers' Marketing executives say that product placement in films and televison shows on streaming services such as Netflix may be tailored to individuals in future. For instance, if data shows that a viewer is a fan of pepsi, a billboard in the background of a shot would host an advert for pepsi, while for a viewer known to have different tastes it could be for Coca-Cola Paramount Business news: In pictures Corbyn wishes Amazon a happy birthday In a card sent to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on the company's 25th birthday, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn writes: "You owe the British people millions in taxes that pay for the public services that we all rely on. Please pay your fair share" Business news: In pictures No deal, no tariffs The government has announced that it would slash almost all tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Notable exceptions include cars and meat, which will see tariffs in place to protect British farmers Getty Business news: In pictures Fingerprint payment NatWest is trialling a new bank card that will allow people to touch their hand to the card when paying rather than typing in a PIN number. The card will work by recognising the user's fingerprint NatWest/PA Wire Business news: In pictures Mahabis bust High-end slipper retailer Mahabis has gone into administration. 2 Jan 2019 Mahabis Business news: In pictures Costa Cola Coca-Cola has paid 3.9bn for Costa Coffee. A cafe chain is a new venture for the global soft drinks giant PA Business news: In pictures RIP Payday Loans A funeral procession for payday loans was held in London on September 2. The future of pay day lenders is in doubt after Wonga, Britain's biggest, went into administration on August 30 PA Business news: In pictures Musk irks investors and directors Elon Musk has concluded that Tesla will remain public. Investors and company directors were angry at Musk for tweeting unexpectedly that he was considering taking Tesla private and share prices had taken a tumble in the following weeks Getty Business news: In pictures Jaguar warning Iconic British car maker Jaguar Land Rover warned on July 5, 2018 that a "bad" Brexit deal could jeopardise planned investment of more than $100 billion, upping corporate pressure as the government heads into crucial talks AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures Spotif-IPO Spotify traded publically for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. However, the company isn't issuing shares, but rather, shares held by Spotify's private investors will be sold AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures French blue passports The deadline to award a contract to make blue British passports after Brexit has been extended by two weeks following a request by bidder De La Rue. The move comes after anger at the announcement British passports would be produced by Franco-Dutch firm Gemalto when De La Rues contract ends in July. The British firm said Gemalto was chosen only because it undercut the competition, but the UK company also admitted that it was not the cheapest choice in the tendering process. Business news: In pictures Beast from the east economic impact The Beast from the East wiped 4m off of Flybes revenues due to flight cancellations, airport closures and delays, according to the budget airlines estimates. Flybe said it cancelled 994 flights in the three months to 31 March, compared to 372 in the same period last year.

Mr Smith called on the Government to cut the stamp duty stealth tax to ease the burden on those looking to buy a home. The tax on property transactions has seen several increases in recent years. The latest changes saw a 3 per cent surcharge introduced in April last year for stamp duty on buy-to-let properties second homes.

The resolution is clear  Government must stop excessive profiteering at the expense of the aspiring homeowner and cut the stamp duty stealth tax. Unless we see a more comprehensive break for first-time buyers, the UKs legacy as a property-owning democracy is at risk of vanishing, he said.

Tuesdays data revealed large differences in price rises across the country. The City of London saw the biggest decrease of any area, with a 20.3 per cent annual fall, though the ONS cautioned that the figures were volatile due to low transaction volumes.
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The exodus of corporate chieftains from a business council advising Donald Trump has continued, with a fourth person exiting the panel as the President confronts a mounting backlash to how he has responded to white supremacist violence in Virginia.

Scott Paul, the president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, said on Twitter he was stepping away from the manufacturing council, because its the right thing to do.

Minutes before, Mr Trump - who sold his candidacy in part by touting his business prowess - had taken to Twitter to condemn "grandstanders" in the business world who have distanced themselves from him.

Adding to the cascade of business figures distancing themselves from Trump, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon released a statement saying Mr Trump "missed a critical opportunity to help bring our country together by unequivocally rejecting the appalling actions of white supremacists".

Mr Trump has weathered intense criticism in the days after a car rammed into a crowd of protesters rallying against a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. After initially casting blame on all sides, Mr Trump made a followup statement specifically faulting racism and white nationalist groups.

 Charlottesville: Donald Trump condemns white supremacists as "criminals and thugs"

That was not enough to mollify a trio of business executives who announced they would exit the American Manufacturing Council. Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank cited his commitment to unity, diversity and inclusion in saying he would leave the council. Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said in a statement he was leaving to call attention to the serious harm our divided political climate is causing, denouncing the hate-spawned violence in Virginia and lamenting that many in Washington seem more concerned with attacking anyone who disagrees with them.

That description may have alluded to Mr Trump lashing out against Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier, who also abadoned the manufacturing council. In a pair of tweets, Mr Trump accused Merck of raising ripoff drug prices and exporting jobs. He also attacked a familiar bogeyman, calling members of the media truly bad people for questioning his response to the Charlottesville bloodshed.

This is not the first time Mr Trump has seen business leaders renounce a chance to advise the president. Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Disney CEO Bob Iger also stepped away from counseling the administration after Mr Trump pulled the U.S. from the Paris climate accords.
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Police have issued a fresh appeal for information on a jogger accused of pushing a woman into the path of a bus after releasing a second suspect.

The 41-year-old man had been arrested on suspicion of grievous bodily harm on Saturday afternoon based on a tip-off from a member of the public.

A spokesperson for Scotland Yard said: The man was taken to a south London police station and following further enquiries, he was released with no further action later that day.

The first person wrongly arrested was Eric Bellquist, an American investment banker who had irrefutable proof that he was in the US at the time of the incident in May.

A former Lehman Brothers employee, he represents Hutton Collins on the boards of Byron Hamburgers and Wagamama and was responsible for the firm's investment in Caffe Nero.

A legal firm representing Mr Bellquist, who was arrested in Chelsea on Thursday and released without charge two days later, said the hedge fund manager requested privacy amid reported death threats.

Police are appealing for information on the incident on 5 May (Metropolitan Police)

Our client is pleased to have had his name cleared by the Metropolitan Police but obviously very upset to have been implicated at all in this abhorrent crime, said a spokesperson from Duncan Lewis Ltd.

The Metropolitan Police confirmed Mr Bellquist had been eliminated from enquiries while issuing a new appeal for information on the incident on 5 May.

A woman was crossing Putney Bridge towards a nearby Tube station as the man ran in the other direction at around 7.40am.

CCTV captured from the back of a passing bus appears to show the jogger shoving the woman to his right with both hands, causing her to fall head-first into the road.

An approaching bus swerved and narrowly missed the 33-year-old pedestrian, who was left with minor injuries.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 12 November 2022 The City of London Pride Group take part in the parade during the Lord Mayor's Show PA UK news in pictures 11 November 2022 City workers attend a Remembrance Day ceremony at Lloyd's of London, in the City of London, to mark Armistice Day, the anniversary of the end of the First World War PA UK news in pictures 10 November 2022 A grey heron lands on the river Dodder in Dublin on a sunny autumn morning PA UK news in pictures 9 November 2022 Australia and Spain play during the Wheelchair Rugby League World Cup group A match at the Copper Box Arena, London PA UK news in pictures 8 November 2022 A migrant attempting to communicate with journalists is pinned against a fence by members of staff, before being taken out of view, at the Manston immigration short-term holding facility, located at the former Defence Fire Training and Development Centre in Thanet, Kent PA UK news in pictures 7 November 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The jogger ran back past her as she was being helped by members of the public on the pavement but did not acknowledge the victim when she challenged him, police said.

Officers continue to appeal for witnesses to the incident or anyone who recognises the jogger pictured on CCTV to get in touch, a spokesperson added.

There has been a positive public response to the appeal so far with a range of information provided to investigating officers.

Some people have simply put forward possible names for the suspect; officers would urge those people to please contact police or Crimestoppers again with as much information as they have so they can follow up those lines of enquiry.

The jogger is described as white, in his early to mid-30s, with brown eyes and short brown hair. He was wearing a light grey t-shirt and dark blue shorts.

Police are appealing for any witnesses to the incident or anyone who recognises the jogger in the CCTV to get in touch by contacting Putney Safer Neighbourhood Team on 020 8785 8874, calling 101 or tweeting @MetCC.

Information can also be reported anonymously to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 or online.
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The man who was hailed a hero for trying to save murdered MP Jo Cox has died, his family has said.

Bernard Kenny, 79, was given the George Medal for his valiant efforts to protect Ms Cox as she was attacked by right-wing extremist Thomas Mair.

Mr Kenny, a former miner and grandfather, sustained serious injuries after he was stabbed in the stomach with a ten inch blade trying to shield the Labour MP for Batley and Spen as she left her constituency surgery in June, 2016.

He ran from his car in a frantic effort to save the MP after he saw her collapse and was hit by the blade which pierced his liver, narrowly missing hs heart and other major organs.

His son, Phil Kenny, said his father had been suffering with cancer and passed away with his wife, Doreen, by his side.

He told the Huddersfield Examiner: He went very peacefully and he was not suffering. He wanted to die at home and he did so.

He added that the bravery his father showed in trying to protect Ms Cox was typical of the former miner..

Mr Kenny was honoured with the George Medal on the first anniversary of Ms Coxs death  but had not received it by the time he passed away.

His son said: It was a very special moment when that was announced. He didnt tell his family. He kept it a secret right up until the moment that it was revealed to the press.

We think it has to be presented by a member of the royal family so we expect he will receive it posthumously and probably Doreen will be presented with it.

Despite many requests, Mr Kenny, who was Batley born and bred, never gave interviews to the media following the horrific attack.

My dad could have been on wall-to-wall TV but he chose not to. He was a very private, unassuming, family man. Stubborn, kind and fair. An excellent bloke.

The only time the media heard his story was when his police statement was read out at Mairs trial at the Old Bailey.

The jury heard Mr Kenny was waiting for his wife outside the library when he saw Mair going berserk.

He said: I thought if I could jump on to the back I could take him down. I thought he was thumping her until I saw the blood. I saw he had a knife in his hands.

Just as I got short of him, he turned around and saw me. He shoved the knife in and it hit me in the stomach. The blood started pouring out between my fingers. I saw the blood and I thought Oh my God.

After he was discharged from hospital, Mr Kenny and his family offered their condolences to the family of Ms Cox.

Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Show all 20 1 /20 Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Floral tributes and candles are placed by a picture of slain Labour MP Jo Cox at a vigil in Parliament square in London AFP Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Tributes to Labour Party MP Jo Cox are placed on her houseboat in Wapping in London REUTERS Jo Cox tributes - in pictures The Union flag at half-mast on top of Portcullis House in London after Labour MP Jo Cox was shot and stabbed to death PA Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn (2R) and deputy leader Tom Watson (L) light candles as they attend a vigil to slain Labour MP Jo Cox in Parliament square in London AFP/Getty Images Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and deputy leader Tom Watson (rear) arrive to leave tributes at Parliament Square PA Jo Cox tributes - in pictures People leave St Peter's Church after a vigil in memory of Jo Cox REUTERS Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Flowers left at Parliament Square opposite the Palace of Westminste, following the death of Labour MP Jo Cox PA Jo Cox tributes - in pictures People react as they look at tributes left for Labour Member of Parliament Jo Cox in Parliament Square, London REUTERS Jo Cox tributes - in pictures A man writes a message at Parliament Square PA Jo Cox tributes - in pictures People stop to look at tributes left at Parliament Square opposite the Palace of Westminster PA Jo Cox tributes - in pictures A woman arrives to lay flowers at a statue to Joseph Priestly in Birstall near to the scene where Labour MP Jo Cox was shot AFP/Getty Images Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Tributes at Parliament Square opposite the Palace of Westminster PA Jo Cox tributes - in pictures A woman places candles in tribute to Labour Party MP Jo Cox REUTERS Jo Cox tributes - in pictures A member of the public signs a memorial for British MP Jo Cox in Parliament Square, London EPA Jo Cox tributes - in pictures People sign messages of condolence for MP Jo Cox during a vigil in Parliament Square in London Getty Images Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Flags at half mast outside Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, after Labour MP Jo Cox was shot and stabbed to death in the street outside her constituency advice surgery in Birstall PA Jo Cox tributes - in pictures People arrive in Market Square with floral tributes after the death of Jo Co Getty Images Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Floral tributes are placed in Market Square next to the statue of Joseph Priestley following the death of Jo Cox Getty Images Jo Cox tributes - in pictures Floral tributes are brought to the scene after the death of Jo Cox Getty Images Jo Cox tributes - in pictures A police officer carries bunches of flowers at the scene of the shooting of Labour MP Jo Cox in Birstall REUTERS

More than 80,000 people signed an online petition calling for Mr Kenny to be awarded the George Medal  the highest civilian honour for bravery.

Upon being told he had received it, Mr Kenny, who shared a birthday with Ms Cox, said he felt honoured.

Tracy Brabin, who was elected MP for Batley and Spen following Ms Coxs death, describe the have-a-go go hero Bernard as brave and selfless.

Neo-Nazi Mair was given a whole life sentence for the murder.

He was also found guilty of causing grievous bodily harm to Mr Kenny and possession of a gun and dagger.
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The public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower disaster is facing fresh criticism after the Government announced it would not consider broader questions around social housing.

Downing Street set out the terms of reference of the probe led by Sir Martin Moore-Bick, which will include scrutiny of building regulations and the actions of Kensington council (RBKC) both before and after the blaze that killed at least 80 people.

But the inquiry will fall short of considering the wider questions raised by the fire, including the impact of Britains social housing shortage.

The terms will instead evaluate the cause and spread of the fire, the design and refurbishment of the tower, building regulations, compliance, RBKC and the emergency service response to the fire.

Theresa May said while broader questions would not form part of the inquiry, she was determined they would not be left unanswered.

The terms of reference set out by Sir Martin address crucial issues such as the cause of the fire and the adequacy of building and fire regulations which will allow the inquiry to get to the truth of what happened and learn the lessons to stop a similar catastrophe happening in the future, she said.

We are taking action with the Housing Minister (Alok Sharma) meeting social housing tenants to discuss the challenges they face and we will be setting out further proposals in due course.

But Labours shadow Housing Minister John Healey said it was deeply unsatisfactory that housing policy failings were being excluded from Sir Martins remit.

In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Show all 51 1 /51 In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Police have released images from inside the tower where at least 58 people have died Metropolitan Police In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A still from a video shared by polices what appears to be a stationary bicycle sitting among the ashes In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A still from a video shared by police shows the remnants of a burnt-out bathroom In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Picture showing the lifts on an unknown floor Metropolitan Police In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Emergency crews outside the front entrance to the tower Metropolitan Police In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Fire crews inspecting flats in the burnt out tower London Metropolitan Police In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Grenfell Tower is seen in the distance PA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A drone flies near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire 'Theresa May Stay Away' message written on the messages of support at Latymer Community Church for those affected by the fire Ray Tang/REX In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire An aerial view of the area surrounding Grenfall tower Getty In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Donated shoes sit in the Westway Sports Centre near to the site of the Grenfell Tower fire Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Messages of support for those affected by the massive fire in Grenfell Tower are displayed on a well near the tower in London AP In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A local resident stands on her balcony by the gutted Grenfell Tower in Latimer Road Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Messages of condolence are left at a relief centre close to the scene of the fire that broke out at Grenfell Tower, EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A police officer stands by a security cordon outside Latimer Road station Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Firemen examine the scorched facade of the Grenfell Tower in London on a huge ladder AP In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A search dog is led through the rubble of the Grenfell Tower in London as firefighting continue to damp-down the deadly fire AP In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn comforts a local resident (name not given) at St Clement's Church in west London where volunteers have provided shelter and support for people affected by the fire at Grenfell Tower David Mirzoeff/PA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn hugs councillor Mushtaq Lasharie as he arrives at St Clement's Church in Latimer Road, where volunteers have provided shelter and support for people affected by the fire at Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn meeting staff and volunteers at St Clementis Church in Latimer Road David Mirzoeff/PA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Firefighters with a dog walk around the base of the Grenfell Tower REUTERS/Peter Nicholls In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Emotions run high as people attend a candle lit vigil outside Notting Hill Methodist Church near the 24 storey residential Grenfell Tower block in Latimer Road, West London Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Debris hangs from the blackened exterior of Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A woman speaks to Mayor of London Sadiq Khan outside Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building Yui Mok/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A woman holds a missing person posters near the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Sadiq Khan speaking with a resident James Gourley/REX In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Ken Livingstone walks near the scene of the Grenfell Tower fire Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Mayor of London Sadiq Khan is confronted by Kai Ramos, 7, near Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building Yui Mok/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Mayor of London Sadiq Khan speaks to a woman outside Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell Tower Yui Mok/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Volunteers distribute aid near Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Family and friends of missing Jessica Urbano, 12, wearing photographs of Jessica pinned to their t-shirts gather near Grenfell Tower EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Family and friends of missing Jessica Urbano, 12, wearing photographs of Jessica pinned to their t-shirts gather near Grenfell Tower EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Family and friends of missing Jessica Urbano, 12, wearing photographs of Jessica pinned to their t-shirts gather near Grenfell Tower EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People attend a vigil at Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People gather to observe a vigil outside St Clement's Church following the blaze at Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People light candles as they observe a vigil outside St Clement's Church following the blaze at Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People attend a vigil at Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A man distributes food from the back of a van near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Paul Hackett In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A firefighter is cheered near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Paul Hackett In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A T-shirt with a written message from the London Fire Brigade hangs from a fence near The Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A young girl on her way to lay flowers near Grenfell Tower Getty Images In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire The remains of residential tower block Grenfell Tower are seen from Dixon House a nearby tower block Getty In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Volunteers prepare supplies for people affected by the Grenfell Tower block which was destroyed in a fire REUTERS/Neil Hall In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Volunteers move a car to make space for a lorry picking up supplies for people affected by the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire People distribute boxes of food near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower bloc REUTERS/Paul Hackett In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A woman touches a missing poster for 12-year-old Jessica Urbano on a tribute wall after laying flowers on the side of Latymer Community Church next to the fire-gutted Grenfell Tower AP In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire A man looks at messages written on a wall near the scene of the fire which destroyed the Grenfell Tower block REUTERS/Paul Hackett In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Candles and messages of condolence near where the fire broke out at Grenfell Tower EPA In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Police carry a stretcher towards Grenfell Tower Rick Findler/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Emergency services at Grenfell Tower Rick Findler/PA Wire In Pictures: Grenfell Tower after the fire Police carry out a body from Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building Rick Findler/PA Wire

Kensington MP Emma Dent Coad accused the Government of commissioning a technical assessment without getting to the heart of the problem.

It is a complete betrayal of everything we were promised. Clearly, the Government are running scared, she said.

Tottenham Labour MP David Lammy, whose friend Khadija Saye died in the fire, said the decision was a grave injustice to those who died.

I am deeply disappointed that the narrow terms of reference ignore issue of the provision and management of social housing in the UK, he said.

The decision to duck these important issues and fail to learn the broader lessons of Grenfell represents a grave injustice to those who died.

Radical Housing Network  an activist collective that includes the Grenfell Action Group  said the Government had missed an opportunity to answer wider questions.

This is yet another refusal by the Government to confront the enormity of Grenfell, and the indictment of our housing system which it represents, a spokesperson said.

Investigators should be looking at the social policies which allowed such a tragedy in 21st-century Britain, and the way these have created a housing system in which some people matter more than others.

Sir Martin had previously warned the scope of the investigation was unlikely to be broad enough to satisfy all survivors.

The 70-year-olds appointment in June proved controversial after it emerged he once ruled in favour of Westminster council to rehouse a homeless mother-of-five 50 miles away in Milton Keynes.
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Holborn Tube station has been evacuated for a fire alert after passengers reported a loud bang and smoke on a platform.

A Transport for London spokesperson said west-bound Central Line trains were held while a faulty train was investigated.

The incident came on a morning of travel chaos in London, seeing one train partially derail outside Waterloo station and another hit the buffers at Kings Cross.

Sarah Marshall filmed fellow commuters evacuating Holborn station as a platform filled with smoke.

She described a loud bang, smoke and then an evacuation at Holborn station on Twitter, adding: There was smoke at one end of the station, a high pitched bang and a smell.

Lots of people ran but others encouraged people to walk and situation was calm. I was towards back of crowd.

The London Fire Brigade said it has sent two fire engines and 10 firefighters to the scene.

Emergency services outside a closed Holborn Underground station in London where engineers are checking a faulty train. (PA)

It was an overheated compressor on a train, not a fire, a spokesperson said.

The Brigade was called at 9.09am and the incident was over by 9.58am.

British Transport Police said officers helped to reopen the station after the evacuation caused by a defective train.

Nigel Holness, the director of network operations for London Underground, said: The cause of the smoke was a fault on one of our trains and it has now been taken out of service.

I apologise for the concern this would have caused our customers at Holborn this morning and for the disruption.

The Central Line was temporarily suspended between Liverpool Street and Marble Arch and the incident caused severe delays on the Piccadilly Line.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 3 November 2022 A villager cooks roti bread at the site of the annual Camel Fair in Pushkar, in India's desert state of Rajasthan AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 2 November 2022 A red squirrel gathers nuts in Pitlochry, Scotland Reuters UK news in pictures 1 November 2022 Englands Tara-Jane Stanley scores their sides seventh try against Brazil during the Womens Rugby League World Cup group A match at Headingley Stadium, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 31 October 2022 GBs James Hall competes during the mens parallel bars qualification at the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 October 2022 People dressed in Halloween costumes paddle board along the river Avon in Christchurch, Dorset PA UK news in pictures 29 October 2022 Members of the public take pictures as police officers remove activists from a road during a Just Stop Oil protest, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 28 October 2022 A cosplayer attends the MCM Comic Con London 2022 at the ExCel Centre in London Reuters UK news in pictures 27 October 2022 98-year-old D-Day Veteran Bernard Morgan, whose story is among those featured on the giant poppy wall, during the launch of The Royal British Legion 2022 Poppy Appeal, at Hay's Galleria in central London PA UK news in pictures 26 October 2022 A meerkat explores a pumpkin in the enclosure at Wild Place, Bristol, where some of the animals are having pumpkin treats as part of their environmental enrichment PA UK news in pictures 25 October 2022 King Charles III welcomes Rishi Sunak during an audience at Buckingham Palace, where he invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 24 October 2022 Rishi Sunak celebrates with Tory MPs outside the Conservative Campaign Headquarters after becoming the new leader of the Conservative Party Reuters UK news in pictures 23 October 2022 The Green Man at October Plenty, Borough Market's annual Autumn Harvest festival, in London, which returns for the first time post pandemic PA UK news in pictures 21 October 2022 Sculptor Peter McKenna puts the finishing touches to a pumpkin that will form part of the Planet A Hebden Bridge Pumpkin Trail in the West Yorkshire town PA UK news in pictures 20 October 2022 Britains Prime Minister Liz Truss delivers a speech outside of 10 Downing Street in central London to announce her resignation AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 19 October 2022 Salmon leap up Stainforth Force on the River Ribble in the Yorkshire Dales as they swim upriver to their spawning grounds during the annual Salmon migration PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2022 Just Stop Oil protesters continue their protest for a second day on the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links Kent and Essex and which remains closed for traffic, after it was scaled by two climbers from the group PA UK news in pictures 17 October 2022 Hundreds of students take part in the traditional Raisin Monday foam fight on St Salvator's Lower College Lawn at the University of St Andrews in Fife PA UK news in pictures 16 October 2022 A protester holds a placard during a march into central London at a demonstration by the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 15 October 2022 A member of the public drags an activist who is blocking the road during a "Just Stop Oil" protest, in London, Britain REUTERS UK news in pictures 14 October 2022 Germanys Womens double skulls during day one of the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals at Saundersfoot beach, Pembrokeshire PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2022 Family and mourners arrive at St Michael's Church, in Creeslough, for the funeral mass of 49-year-old mother of four Martina Martin, who died following an explosion at the Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA UK news in pictures 12 October 2022 Motorists in Coventry pass trees showing autumnal colour PA UK news in pictures 11 October 2022 A woman and her dog in the the North Sea at Tynemouth Longsands beach before sunrise PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2022 Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2022 A drummer plays during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2022 Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool before the start of the Labour Party annual Conference which he opened with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and sang the national anthem PA UK news in pictures 24 September 2022 Handout photo issued by Buckingham Palace of the ledger stone at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2022 A climate change activist protests against UK private jets while lighting his right arm on fire during the Laver Cup tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London EPA UK news in pictures 22 September 2022 Woody Woodmansey, Lee Bennett, Kevin Armstrong, Nick Moran and Clifford Slapper attend the unveiling of a stone for David Bowie on the Music Walk of Fame at Camden, north London PA UK news in pictures 21 September 2022 A flock of birds in the sky as the sun rises over Dungeness in Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2022 Flowers which were laid by members of the public in tribute to Queen Elizabeth II at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland are collected by the Hillsborough Gardening Team and volunteers to be replanted for those that can be saved or composted PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2022 The ceremonial procession of the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II travels down the long walk as it arrives at Windsor Castle for the committal service at St Georges Chapel AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 18 September 2022 A man stands among campers on The Mall ahead of the Queens funeral Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2022 Wolverhampton Wanderers Nathan Collins fouls Manchester Citys Jack Grealish leading to a red card. City went on to win the match at Molineux Stadium three goals to nil. Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 16 September 2022 Members of the public stand in the queue near Tower Bridge, and opposite the Tower of London, as they wait in line to pay their respects to the late Queen Elizabeth II, in London AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 15 September 2022 Members of the public in the queue on in Potters Fields Park, central London, as they wait to view Queen Elizabeth II lying in state ahead of her funeral on Monday PA UK news in pictures 14 September 2022 The first members of the public pay their respects as the vigil begins around the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Hall, London, where it will lie in state ahead of her funeral on Monday PA

Holborn station has since reopened and a full service has resumed on all Underground lines.

It comes days after a small fire at nearby Oxford Circus station, where two people were taken to hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation on Friday.

London Underground said that blaze was caused by an electrical fault under a train carriage, which is under investigation.

Hours earlier, a train had partially derailed outside Waterloo station after crashing into a Network Rail engineering wagon.

South West Trains said there had been a points failure on the line, where engineering work is already causing major disruption on services to south-west England.

There are no injuries to passengers or staff and a very limited service is running to and from Waterloo, which is expected for the rest of today, a statement added.

A South West Trains service derailed at Waterloo, where major expansion works are ongoing (Rebecca Middleton)

The incident happened as the train was pulling away from its platform at Waterloo at 5.40am.

An investigation to establish the cause of the incident is underway.

Elsewhere, a train at Kings Cross Station hit the buffers on platform nine in an incident being investigated by the Rail Accident Investigation Branch.

Network Rail said there was a slow speed buffer collision at around 6.20am and two people suffered minor injuries.

One passenger, Natasha Coella, described those on board going flying from one end of her carriage to the other after the train appeared to accelerate into barriers.

Inquiries are under way to establish why both accidents happened, the British Transport Police and Network Rail said.
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Families of the 22 victims of the Manchester attack are set to receive 250,000 each out of the millions of pounds raised in public donations.

Bereaved relatives have already been able to claim 70,000 from the We Love Manchester Emergency Fund, which was set up in the wake of the Isis-inspired bombing, and trustees have now announced they will be eligible for a further 180,000.

Bolstered by thousands of public donations and events including the One Love Manchester concert, the fund has raised more than 18m.

The charity, set up with money raised by Manchester City Council, the British Red Cross and Manchester Evening News aims to provide ongoing care for victims physical and mental health, help with their financial needs and support affected families.

Sue Murphy, chair of the We Love Manchester Emergency Funds trustees, said the money has been given to those with immediate needs as quickly as possible.

The city and the world responded with such extreme kindness, generosity and solidarity in the aftermath of the Manchester Arena attack, she added.

One Love Manchester Show all 12 1 /12 One Love Manchester One Love Manchester Concert goers queue outside Old Trafford Cricket Ground ahead of the One Love Manchester tribute concert in Manchester. AFP/Getty Images One Love Manchester Music fans embrace outside the Old Trafford Cricket Ground ahead of the One Love Manchester tribute concert in Manchester. AFP/Getty Images One Love Manchester A woman sunbathes as police officers patrol around Old Trafford Cricket Ground ahead of the One Love Manchester tribute concert in Manchester. AFP/Getty Images One Love Manchester Manchester residents cheer as survivors walk to Old Trafford cricket grounds for the concert @AlexScapensMEN/Twitter One Love Manchester Women wearing I Love MCR T-shirts arrive at the Old Trafford Cricket Ground ahead of the One Love Manchester tribute concert in Manchester. AFP/Getty Images One Love Manchester Armed police look-on as fans begin to arrive at the Old Trafford Cricket Ground ahead of the One Love Manchester tribute concert. AFP/Getty Images One Love Manchester One Love Manchester Benefit Concert fans. One Love Manchester One Love Manchester Benefit Concert. One Love Manchester The crowd at the 'One Love Manchester' benefit concert. One Love Manchester AP One Love Manchester Gary Barlow has tweeted a picture of Take That backstage with Ariana Grande. Grande said she wanted to return to the "incredibly brave city" to spend time with her fans and to "honour and raise money for the victims and their families". One Love Manchester Take That with Robbie Williams - Music fans have said they had to attend the Manchester benefit concert to show they were determined to "stay strong and carry on", despite recent attacks.

We will now spend some time looking at how we will distribute the rest of the funds.

This will be a complex and sensitive process as we will need to assess the long-term impacts of the attack. We will issue an update as soon as we know more.

The latest round of payments will mean more than half of the money raised will have been distributed, including 3.5m to those injured in the bombing.

Those affected can also apply to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority.

 Manchester Arena bombing victim Saffie Roussos mourned at funeral

Salman Abedi detonated his bomb as families flooded out of an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena on 22 May, killing men, women and children and wounding 250 other victims.

Among those killed were parents waiting to pick up their children, young fans at their first ever concert, an aunt who died shielding her niece and an off-duty police officer.

The last funeral was held for eight-year-old Saffie Roussos last month, seeing hundreds of mourners attend a service at Manchester Cathedral as thousands more lined the streets carrying roses.

As a criminal investigation into his possible accomplices continues, a review into the Governments response to the attacks in Manchester, Westminster, London Bridge and Finsbury Park is under way.

Andy Burnham, the first directly elected Mayor of Greater Manchester, has also commissioned a separate independent review of the citys response to the attack, with interim findings due out early next year.
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The Scottish Government has refused to release letters that allegedly show the Prince of Wales lobbying on behalf of a teacher training charity.

Prince Charles is the patron of Teach First, which runs a programme fast-tracking thousands of graduates into primary and secondary schools.

But the organisation has refused to detail the extent of his lobbying activity on its behalf and Scottish ministers have rejected three requests to publish letters and documents showing him supporting its proposed expansion.

An investigation by the Guardian found Prince Charles' office first contacted the Scottish Government in April 2012  the same day Teach First sent the Scottish education secretary a briefing on its plans for teacher training.

Mike Russell, now the Scottish National Partys Brexit minister, later attended a Teach First reception at Holyrood and instructed civil servants to keep him updated on discussions between the group and the General Teaching Council Scotland about its proposals.

Officials have also redacted correspondence and briefing papers, including at least two relating to Teach First, from between 2012 and 2014 on the grounds they relate to the Prince of Wales, the Guardian reported.

The content of Prince Charles communications remain unknown but Iain Gray, the education spokesman for Scottish Labour, said the pattern of communications can only raise questions of policy being made as a result of pressure.

Prince Charles reportedly wrote to Mike Russell on Teach First's proposals (PA)

Teach First refused to give any information on the future monarchs involvement and referred The Independent to Clarence House, which said it was unable to comment or release information on the communications.

A spokesperson for the Scottish Government confirmed disclosure requests had been turned down under Section 41 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act, which exempts communications with the Queen and royal family.

The law allows the exemption to be overturned in the public interest but the requested communications did not meet the test applied.

Maurice Frankel, director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, said the fact Teach First earns a fee for every trainee recruited  standing at 2,600 per person in England  created a potential conflict of interest.

Those who seek to influence Government policy must understand that the public have a right to know what they are doing, he told The Independent.

The public interest is very strong one with charities supported by Prince Charles [and] with this particular correspondence, Teach First now has a financial interest in the outcome.

Mr Frankel argued that the Scottish Governments refusals went against the findings of a long-running legal battle over Prince Charles black spider memos to politicians, which were eventually released.

The case started with another Freedom of Information refusal in 2010 and escalated through the Upper Tribunal, which ruled that it was in the public interest for there to be transparency as to how and when Prince Charles seeks to influence government.

Prince Charles/Tony Blair 'Black Spider' correspondence Show all 8 1 /8 Prince Charles/Tony Blair 'Black Spider' correspondence Prince Charles/Tony Blair 'Black Spider' correspondence 'Black spider' correspondence 'Black Spider' correspondence between Prince Charles and Tony Blair Prince Charles/Tony Blair 'Black Spider' correspondence 'Black spider' correspondence 'Black Spider' correspondence between Prince Charles and Tony Blair Prince Charles/Tony Blair 'Black Spider' correspondence 'Black spider' correspondence 'Black Spider' correspondence between Prince Charles and Tony Blair Prince Charles/Tony Blair 'Black Spider' correspondence 'Black spider' correspondence 'Black Spider' correspondence between Prince Charles and Tony Blair Prince Charles/Tony Blair 'Black Spider' correspondence 'Black spider' correspondence 'Black Spider' correspondence between Prince Charles and Tony Blair Prince Charles/Tony Blair 'Black Spider' correspondence 'Black spider' correspondence 'Black Spider' correspondence between Prince Charles and Tony Blair Prince Charles/Tony Blair 'Black Spider' correspondence 'Black spider' correspondence 'Black Spider' correspondence between Prince Charles and Tony Blair Prince Charles/Tony Blair 'Black Spider' correspondence 'Black spider' correspondence 'Black Spider' correspondence between Prince Charles and Tony Blair

That decision was vetoed by the Government but the move was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court and the letters were published, showing Prince Charles lobbying Tony Blair and senior ministers on policy.

The release showed Prince Charles writing to successive education secretaries to change teaching methods and asking for support for summer schools by run by the Princes Teaching Institute charity.

The future king did not become a patron of Teach First until 2008  three years after the black spider memos were written.

Scottish schools are currently understaffed, with up to 500 vacancies unfilled at the start of the autumn term according to local reports, and the Scottish Governments education and skills committee is reviewing ways to boost recruitment.

Teach First is among those putting forward proposals to plug the gap by offering recruits a five-week university course before being sent into classrooms where they work towards a postgraduate diploma.

It is the largest graduate recruiter in the UK but operates only in England and Wales, but has received a cooler welcome in Scotland, where only qualified teachers are allowed in secondary schools after completing a university degree in their subject and one-year diploma.

Teachers trade union the Educational Institute of Scotland is among the groups opposing Teach First, saying awarding it a contract would be a betrayal of the high professional standards we operate in Scotland.

A spokesperson said that while there is a need to attract and retain more qualified teachers, quality must not be sacrificed.

We must ensure that our high standards are maintained by continuing to guarantee that only fully qualified GTCS-registered teachers are teaching in our schools, he added. There can be no short-cuts in tackling this issue, and there must not be any dilution in the very high standards of teaching in our schools.

A spokesperson for the Scottish Government said 1m had been committed to developing new ways to recruit teachers and that an unspecified new initiative would soon be put out to tender to attract graduates in priority subjects.

The primary aim of the development of new routes into teaching is to broaden the range of people entering the teaching profession, not fast-tracking the qualification of new teachers, she added.

Ministers have made clear that we will always maintain the high standard we expect new recruits to attain before they become fully-fledged teachers.

This means that any new route into teaching must be accredited by the General Teaching Council for Scotland and will require a partnership with a university to maintain academic rigour and ensure programmes are of the highest quality.
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The Scottish government must do more to end the avoidable drug-death carnage, campaigners have said, as figures released on Tuesday revealed the country remains the drug-death capital of Europe.

A total of 867 drug-related deaths were registered in 2016, according to the latest National Records of Scotland data, representing a 23 per cent rise on 2015 (706).

The number is more than double the 2006 total of 421 and means drug-related deaths in the country have reached record levels for the third year in a row.

Scotlands drug-death rate now stands at 247 per million of the population, maintaining its position as the nation for the highest rate in Europe, which it has held since 2014. The European Union average is 21.3 per million.

Almost three-quarters (72 per cent) of drugs fatalities in Scotland were among older users in the over-35 age group and the majority (68 per cent) of deaths were men.

Heroin and/or morphine was implicated in or potentially contributed to more deaths than in any previous year at 473 (55 per cent).

Aileen Campbell, Scotlands public health minister, said the figures illustrated that the country is dealing with the complex problem of having a legacy of drugs misuse stretching back decades.

She explained: What we are seeing is an ageing group of people who are long-term drugs users.

They have a pattern of addiction, which is very difficult to break, and they have developed other chronic medical conditions as a result of this prolonged drugs use.

Unfortunately, there is a general trend of increasing drug-related deaths across the UK and in many other parts of Europe.

There are no easy solutions, but we recognise that more needs to be done.

Ms Campbell added that she expects a refresh of the Governments drugs strategy would provide an opportunity to reinvigorate our approach, to respond to the new challenges emerging and to be more innovative in our response to the problems each individual is facing.

However, experts and campaigners have called for radical change in the country after treatment services were hit by Scottish Government cuts of more than 20 per cent last year.

Dave Liddell, chief executive of the Scottish Drugs Forum, said the scale of the problem is a national tragedy that requires a fundamental rethink of our approach and Alex Cole-Hamilton, the Scottish Liberal Democrat health spokesman, described the numbers as shocking.

Scottish Labours Monica Lennon also criticised cuts to alcohol and drug partnerships funding and urged the SNP to have the courage to take a different course.

She added: SNP ministers need to give themselves a shake and take responsibility for their actions. If you underfund vital substance misuse services, people die.

Meanwhile, Miles Briggs, health spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives, said the figures are nothing short of appalling and called for a full parliamentary review of drugs policy in the nation, claiming a strategy refresh wont cut it.

He said: For decades now weve had a drugs policy that simply parks people on methadone programmes, offering them zero hope of ever beating addiction completely.

Not only is that methadone leaving vulnerable individuals in limbo, but it's killing hundreds of people too.

Cuts to alcohol and drugs partnerships need to be reversed now, and people need more direct access to physical support.

Martin Powell of Transform Drug Policy Foundation said the SNP must stand up for Scots and end this avoidable drug death carnage because the UK Government wont and called for a decriminalisation-based policy.

He added: Leaders in Holyrood can stop droves of young, poor and vulnerable people dying by following the advice of the UK Governments own advisers.

Decriminalise drug users, introduce safer drug consumption rooms, prescribe heroin, and properly fund treatment to end the scandal of Scotlands drug death rate being over 27 times that of countries like Portugal [which decriminalised drug users in 2001].

And longer term, to protect our communities we will need to explore legally regulating drug supply to reduce crime, and steer people towards safer products.

Glasgow could become the home of the UKs first legal drug consumption room after members of the health board, city council and police agreed to a proposal in principal last October.

Doctors say the scheme would save money for the NHS, while the drug-death, HIV-infection and crime rates are also expected to drop dramatically.

It is hoped the service could become operational in early 2018.
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Jewish and Muslim organisations in Britain have issued a joint complaint to the press regulator over an Islamophobic article they likened to Nazi propaganda.

The groups argue The Sun columns reference to the Muslim Problem resembles the Nazi references to the The Jewish Problem and sets a troubling precedent.

Written by the former political editor of the tabloid, the article features a tirade about Muslim communities and claims Britain is consumed by a Muslim Problem.

Trevor Kavanagh argues Islam constitutes the one unspoken fear which unites Britain and wider Europe but claims the phenomenon has been suppressed by political correctness. He says the problem began after former Prime Minister Tony Blair allowed what he describes as mass migration.

Recommended Fans from 70 football clubs vow to boycott The Sun over Hillsborough

The article, which caused anger among social media users, prompted the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Tell Mama and Faith Matters to complain directly to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso).

The organisations argue the phrase Muslim Problem shares direct parallels with The Jewish Problem  an expression used in Hitler's Nazi Germany which led to the mass murder of six million Jews.

The printing of the phrase The Muslim Problem  particularly with the capitalisation and italics for emphasis  in a national newspaper sets a dangerous precedent, states the complaint.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 12 November 2022 The City of London Pride Group take part in the parade during the Lord Mayor's Show PA UK news in pictures 11 November 2022 City workers attend a Remembrance Day ceremony at Lloyd's of London, in the City of London, to mark Armistice Day, the anniversary of the end of the First World War PA UK news in pictures 10 November 2022 A grey heron lands on the river Dodder in Dublin on a sunny autumn morning PA UK news in pictures 9 November 2022 Australia and Spain play during the Wheelchair Rugby League World Cup group A match at the Copper Box Arena, London PA UK news in pictures 8 November 2022 A migrant attempting to communicate with journalists is pinned against a fence by members of staff, before being taken out of view, at the Manston immigration short-term holding facility, located at the former Defence Fire Training and Development Centre in Thanet, Kent PA UK news in pictures 7 November 2022 Handout photo issued by Just Stop Oil of a protester who has climbed a gantry on the M25 between junctions six and seven in Surrey, leading to the closure of the motorway PA UK news in pictures 6 November 2022 A grey seal with its pup, at the Donna Nook National Nature Reserve in north Lincolnshire, where they come every year in late October, November and December to give birth to their pups near the sand dunes, the wildlife spectacle attracts visitors from across the UK PA UK news in pictures 5 November 2022 Demonstrators with placards calling for a General Election march near the Houses of Parliament AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 4 November 2022 A peacock is seen in the early winter sunshine in the Dutch Gardens in Holland Park AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 3 November 2022 Florence Kasumba, Letitia Wright, Tenoch Huerta and Lupita Nyongo attend the European Premiere of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in London Getty UK news in pictures 2 November 2022 A red squirrel gathers nuts in Pitlochry, Scotland Reuters UK news in pictures 1 November 2022 Englands Tara-Jane Stanley scores their sides seventh try against Brazil during the Womens Rugby League World Cup group A match at Headingley Stadium, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 31 October 2022 GBs James Hall competes during the mens parallel bars qualification at the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 October 2022 People dressed in Halloween costumes paddle board along the river Avon in Christchurch, Dorset PA UK news in pictures 29 October 2022 Members of the public take pictures as police officers remove activists from a road during a Just Stop Oil protest, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 28 October 2022 A cosplayer attends the MCM Comic Con London 2022 at the ExCel Centre in London Reuters UK news in pictures 27 October 2022 98-year-old D-Day Veteran Bernard Morgan, whose story is among those featured on the giant poppy wall, during the launch of The Royal British Legion 2022 Poppy Appeal, at Hay's Galleria in central London PA UK news in pictures 26 October 2022 A meerkat explores a pumpkin in the enclosure at Wild Place, Bristol, where some of the animals are having pumpkin treats as part of their environmental enrichment PA UK news in pictures 25 October 2022 King Charles III welcomes Rishi Sunak during an audience at Buckingham Palace, where he invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 24 October 2022 Rishi Sunak celebrates with Tory MPs outside the Conservative Campaign Headquarters after becoming the new leader of the Conservative Party Reuters UK news in pictures 23 October 2022 The Green Man at October Plenty, Borough Market's annual Autumn Harvest festival, in London, which returns for the first time post pandemic PA UK news in pictures 21 October 2022 Sculptor Peter McKenna puts the finishing touches to a pumpkin that will form part of the Planet A Hebden Bridge Pumpkin Trail in the West Yorkshire town PA UK news in pictures 20 October 2022 Britains Prime Minister Liz Truss delivers a speech outside of 10 Downing Street in central London to announce her resignation AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 19 October 2022 Salmon leap up Stainforth Force on the River Ribble in the Yorkshire Dales as they swim upriver to their spawning grounds during the annual Salmon migration PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2022 Just Stop Oil protesters continue their protest for a second day on the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links Kent and Essex and which remains closed for traffic, after it was scaled by two climbers from the group PA UK news in pictures 17 October 2022 Hundreds of students take part in the traditional Raisin Monday foam fight on St Salvator's Lower College Lawn at the University of St Andrews in Fife PA UK news in pictures 16 October 2022 A protester holds a placard during a march into central London at a demonstration by the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 15 October 2022 A member of the public drags an activist who is blocking the road during a "Just Stop Oil" protest, in London, Britain REUTERS UK news in pictures 14 October 2022 Germanys Womens double skulls during day one of the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals at Saundersfoot beach, Pembrokeshire PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2022 Family and mourners arrive at St Michael's Church, in Creeslough, for the funeral mass of 49-year-old mother of four Martina Martin, who died following an explosion at the Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA UK news in pictures 12 October 2022 Motorists in Coventry pass trees showing autumnal colour PA UK news in pictures 11 October 2022 A woman and her dog in the the North Sea at Tynemouth Longsands beach before sunrise PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2022 Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2022 A drummer plays during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2022 Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool before the start of the Labour Party annual Conference which he opened with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and sang the national anthem PA UK news in pictures 24 September 2022 Handout photo issued by Buckingham Palace of the ledger stone at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2022 A climate change activist protests against UK private jets while lighting his right arm on fire during the Laver Cup tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London EPA

And harks back to the use of the phrase The Jewish Problem in the last century, to which the Nazis responded with The Final Solution  the Holocaust.

A representative for Ipso told The Independent they had received a total of 150 complaints about the piece.

As youll appreciate, Ipso does not comment on any complaints while they are being assessed, they said.

However, I can confirm that we have had a total of 150 complaints about the piece to which you refer, mostly under Clause 12 (Discrimination) of the Editors Code of Practice.

Recommended Sun and Mail Online under fire for publishing nude photos of new femal

A spokesperson for the Board of Deputies said: We were horrified to read this in The Sun today, and we feel that it warrants swift condemnation by Ipso, and a prompt retraction and an apology by The Sun. We will not tolerate indiscriminate attacks in the media on any faith community.

A representative for Tell Mama and Faith Matters said: We stand united with the Jewish community in our condemnation of this outrageous article. Newspapers must take responsibility for peddling hate.

The Suns article has been branded disgusting on Twitter, with critics urging people to issue formal complaints to the paper.

This country doesn't have a 'Muslim problem', it has a Murdoch problem. Today's piece by Trevor Kavanagh in The Sun has to be the end of it, said one user, Maria Crawford.

"Trevor Kavanagh is trying to be the new Katie Hopkins. His language is incendiary & his views are vile. Poison," said another, Russ Jackson.

Mr Kavanagh, who became political editor of The Sun in 1983, sits on the Board of Ipso.

Miqdaad Versis, the Assistant Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: Author of this disgusting piece in The Sun about 'the Muslim problem#, Trevor Kavanagh, is a Board member of the press regulator Ipso.

Ipso sparked anger when it announced Mr Kavanagh would be joining its board at the end of 2015. He played a critical role in the tabloids infamous accusations that Liverpool fans had urinated on rescuers and pick-pocketed dead victims during the 1989 disaster.

At the time, Professor John Ashton, president of the Faculty of Public Health, who helped treat victims at Hillsborough, said: It beggars belief that Ipso believe this helps their credibility.

Dr Evan Harris, co-director of the pressure group for media reform Hacked Off said: It is hard to believe that any rational regulator would see fit to appoint someone directly involved in one of the most crass examples of press abuse in history.

A representative for The Sun did not immediately respond to request for comment.
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A train has derailed at London Waterloo.

South West Trains (SWT) warned passengers to avoid the station and said it was dealing with an "operational incident".

Images showed the front carriage of a train leaning against a freight car, having apparently crashed into it.

London Ambulance Service said its paramedics had been called.

It said: "We checked over three patients following the train derailment at #Waterloo this morning. Thankfully they did not need to go to hospital."

Recommended Trains to Waterloo better than normal despite predictions of chaos

London Fire Brigade said it was called at 6.12am to reports of an eight-car passenger train having collided with a freight train, but that no one was trapped or injured.

SWT said it was "a low speed, partial derailment".

It added: "The incident happened as the train was pulling away from its platform at Waterloo at 5.40am.

"An investigation to establish the cause of the incident is underway.

"There are no injuries to passengers or staff and a very limited service is running to and from Waterloo, which is expected for the rest of today.

"South West Trains and Network Rail are advising passengers not to travel."

British Transport Police said: "We are working with our industry partners to investigate the circumstances of the incident."

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 11 November 2022 City workers attend a Remembrance Day ceremony at Lloyd's of London, in the City of London, to mark Armistice Day, the anniversary of the end of the First World War PA UK news in pictures 10 November 2022 A grey heron lands on the river Dodder in Dublin on a sunny autumn morning PA UK news in pictures 9 November 2022 Australia and Spain play during the Wheelchair Rugby League World Cup group A match at the Copper Box Arena, London PA UK news in pictures 8 November 2022 A migrant attempting to communicate with journalists is pinned against a fence by members of staff, before being taken out of view, at the Manston immigration short-term holding facility, located at the former Defence Fire Training and Development Centre in Thanet, Kent PA UK news in pictures 7 November 2022 Handout photo issued by Just Stop Oil of a protester who has climbed a gantry on the M25 between junctions six and seven in Surrey, leading to the closure of the motorway PA UK news in pictures 6 November 2022 A grey seal with its pup, at the Donna Nook National Nature Reserve in north Lincolnshire, where they come every year in late October, November and December to give birth to their pups near the sand dunes, the wildlife spectacle attracts visitors from across the UK PA UK news in pictures 5 November 2022 Demonstrators with placards calling for a General Election march near the Houses of Parliament AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 4 November 2022 A peacock is seen in the early winter sunshine in the Dutch Gardens in Holland Park AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 3 November 2022 Florence Kasumba, Letitia Wright, Tenoch Huerta and Lupita Nyongo attend the European Premiere of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in London Getty UK news in pictures 2 November 2022 A red squirrel gathers nuts in Pitlochry, Scotland Reuters UK news in pictures 1 November 2022 Englands Tara-Jane Stanley scores their sides seventh try against Brazil during the Womens Rugby League World Cup group A match at Headingley Stadium, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 31 October 2022 GBs James Hall competes during the mens parallel bars qualification at the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 October 2022 People dressed in Halloween costumes paddle board along the river Avon in Christchurch, Dorset PA UK news in pictures 29 October 2022 Members of the public take pictures as police officers remove activists from a road during a Just Stop Oil protest, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 28 October 2022 A cosplayer attends the MCM Comic Con London 2022 at the ExCel Centre in London Reuters UK news in pictures 27 October 2022 98-year-old D-Day Veteran Bernard Morgan, whose story is among those featured on the giant poppy wall, during the launch of The Royal British Legion 2022 Poppy Appeal, at Hay's Galleria in central London PA UK news in pictures 26 October 2022 A meerkat explores a pumpkin in the enclosure at Wild Place, Bristol, where some of the animals are having pumpkin treats as part of their environmental enrichment PA UK news in pictures 25 October 2022 King Charles III welcomes Rishi Sunak during an audience at Buckingham Palace, where he invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 24 October 2022 Rishi Sunak celebrates with Tory MPs outside the Conservative Campaign Headquarters after becoming the new leader of the Conservative Party Reuters UK news in pictures 23 October 2022 The Green Man at October Plenty, Borough Market's annual Autumn Harvest festival, in London, which returns for the first time post pandemic PA UK news in pictures 21 October 2022 Sculptor Peter McKenna puts the finishing touches to a pumpkin that will form part of the Planet A Hebden Bridge Pumpkin Trail in the West Yorkshire town PA UK news in pictures 20 October 2022 Britains Prime Minister Liz Truss delivers a speech outside of 10 Downing Street in central London to announce her resignation AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 19 October 2022 Salmon leap up Stainforth Force on the River Ribble in the Yorkshire Dales as they swim upriver to their spawning grounds during the annual Salmon migration PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2022 Just Stop Oil protesters continue their protest for a second day on the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links Kent and Essex and which remains closed for traffic, after it was scaled by two climbers from the group PA UK news in pictures 17 October 2022 Hundreds of students take part in the traditional Raisin Monday foam fight on St Salvator's Lower College Lawn at the University of St Andrews in Fife PA UK news in pictures 16 October 2022 A protester holds a placard during a march into central London at a demonstration by the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 15 October 2022 A member of the public drags an activist who is blocking the road during a "Just Stop Oil" protest, in London, Britain REUTERS UK news in pictures 14 October 2022 Germanys Womens double skulls during day one of the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals at Saundersfoot beach, Pembrokeshire PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2022 Family and mourners arrive at St Michael's Church, in Creeslough, for the funeral mass of 49-year-old mother of four Martina Martin, who died following an explosion at the Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA UK news in pictures 12 October 2022 Motorists in Coventry pass trees showing autumnal colour PA UK news in pictures 11 October 2022 A woman and her dog in the the North Sea at Tynemouth Longsands beach before sunrise PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2022 Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2022 A drummer plays during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2022 Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool before the start of the Labour Party annual Conference which he opened with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and sang the national anthem PA UK news in pictures 24 September 2022 Handout photo issued by Buckingham Palace of the ledger stone at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2022 A climate change activist protests against UK private jets while lighting his right arm on fire during the Laver Cup tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London EPA UK news in pictures 22 September 2022 Woody Woodmansey, Lee Bennett, Kevin Armstrong, Nick Moran and Clifford Slapper attend the unveiling of a stone for David Bowie on the Music Walk of Fame at Camden, north London PA

Separately, a points failure has further disrupted other services to the country's busiest rail station.

SWT said on its website: "There is a fault with a set of points on one of the lines approaching London Waterloo.

"This means that South West Trains are unable to use one of the five lines into and out of the station.

"This is expected to cause some delays to services, while trains use the available lines."

Disruption is expected all day, it said. The operator clarified on Twitter that the points failure was at a different location to the derailment.

London Waterloo is currently undergoing multi-million-pound expansion work to increase capacity.

A number of platforms are closed.
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David Davis's former chief of staff is to launch a new political party to reverse Brexit with no second referendum.

Hours after launching an extraordinary social media tirade against his old boss, saying he had witnessed him being drunk, bullying and inappropriate, James Chapman announced the foundation of the Democrats party.

Mr Chapman, who left his role at the Department for Exiting the European Union because of his despair at the Brexit process, will launch the party at the Peoples March for Europe rally on 9 September.

 Brexit Secretary: UK wants temporary EU customs deal

I did my best to make Brexit work for a year  and it won't," he said. "There is no upside and it is clear that every sector of our economy will suffer for decades to come. Project Fear is Project Fact.

The first duty of our politicians is to stand up for the interests of their constituents  and that means sound money and job opportunities for all. The MPs that have left Britain careering towards a cliff worse than Black Wednesday have failed in that duty and are guilty of misconduct in public office.

Mr Chapman said the Peoples March would welcome people of all political parties.

"But I will be announcing my intention to lead a new party, the Democrats, which will reverse Brexit with no second referendum," he added. It's time for all of those with consciences to put nation before country and make sure we are Great Britain once again  not the Little Britain of Nigel Farage and Vladimir Putin's wet dreams."

The move is likely to draw comparisons to En Marche, the political movement started by French president Emmanuel Macron. En Marche billed itself as a centrist alternative to the entrenched left and right-wing parties.

Kaz Llewellyn, spokeswoman for the Peoples March, said she understood the Democrats would draw ideas from different political strands and would not be just a left, right or centrist party.

There will not be one political persuasion but one vision, Ms Llewellyn said. But she refused to give further details on aspects of non-Brexit related policy.

Mr Chapman, who previously worked as political editor at the Daily Mail and also for George Osborne, caused controversy this morning after he attacked Mr Davis in a series of tweets.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 12 November 2022 The City of London Pride Group take part in the parade during the Lord Mayor's Show PA UK news in pictures 11 November 2022 City workers attend a Remembrance Day ceremony at Lloyd's of London, in the City of London, to mark Armistice Day, the anniversary of the end of the First World War PA UK news in pictures 10 November 2022 A grey heron lands on the river Dodder in Dublin on a sunny autumn morning PA UK news in pictures 9 November 2022 Australia and Spain play during the Wheelchair Rugby League World Cup group A match at the Copper Box Arena, London PA UK news in pictures 8 November 2022 A migrant attempting to communicate with journalists is pinned against a fence by members of staff, before being taken out of view, at the Manston immigration short-term holding facility, located at the former Defence Fire Training and Development Centre in Thanet, Kent PA UK news in pictures 7 November 2022 Handout photo issued by Just Stop Oil of a protester who has climbed a gantry on the M25 between junctions six and seven in Surrey, leading to the closure of the motorway PA UK news in pictures 6 November 2022 A grey seal with its pup, at the Donna Nook National Nature Reserve in north Lincolnshire, where they come every year in late October, November and December to give birth to their pups near the sand dunes, the wildlife spectacle attracts visitors from across the UK PA UK news in pictures 5 November 2022 Demonstrators with placards calling for a General Election march near the Houses of Parliament AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 4 November 2022 A peacock is seen in the early winter sunshine in the Dutch Gardens in Holland Park AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 3 November 2022 Florence Kasumba, Letitia Wright, Tenoch Huerta and Lupita Nyongo attend the European Premiere of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in London Getty UK news in pictures 2 November 2022 A red squirrel gathers nuts in Pitlochry, Scotland Reuters UK news in pictures 1 November 2022 Englands Tara-Jane Stanley scores their sides seventh try against Brazil during the Womens Rugby League World Cup group A match at Headingley Stadium, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 31 October 2022 GBs James Hall competes during the mens parallel bars qualification at the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 October 2022 People dressed in Halloween costumes paddle board along the river Avon in Christchurch, Dorset PA UK news in pictures 29 October 2022 Members of the public take pictures as police officers remove activists from a road during a Just Stop Oil protest, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 28 October 2022 A cosplayer attends the MCM Comic Con London 2022 at the ExCel Centre in London Reuters UK news in pictures 27 October 2022 98-year-old D-Day Veteran Bernard Morgan, whose story is among those featured on the giant poppy wall, during the launch of The Royal British Legion 2022 Poppy Appeal, at Hay's Galleria in central London PA UK news in pictures 26 October 2022 A meerkat explores a pumpkin in the enclosure at Wild Place, Bristol, where some of the animals are having pumpkin treats as part of their environmental enrichment PA UK news in pictures 25 October 2022 King Charles III welcomes Rishi Sunak during an audience at Buckingham Palace, where he invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 24 October 2022 Rishi Sunak celebrates with Tory MPs outside the Conservative Campaign Headquarters after becoming the new leader of the Conservative Party Reuters UK news in pictures 23 October 2022 The Green Man at October Plenty, Borough Market's annual Autumn Harvest festival, in London, which returns for the first time post pandemic PA UK news in pictures 21 October 2022 Sculptor Peter McKenna puts the finishing touches to a pumpkin that will form part of the Planet A Hebden Bridge Pumpkin Trail in the West Yorkshire town PA UK news in pictures 20 October 2022 Britains Prime Minister Liz Truss delivers a speech outside of 10 Downing Street in central London to announce her resignation AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 19 October 2022 Salmon leap up Stainforth Force on the River Ribble in the Yorkshire Dales as they swim upriver to their spawning grounds during the annual Salmon migration PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2022 Just Stop Oil protesters continue their protest for a second day on the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links Kent and Essex and which remains closed for traffic, after it was scaled by two climbers from the group PA UK news in pictures 17 October 2022 Hundreds of students take part in the traditional Raisin Monday foam fight on St Salvator's Lower College Lawn at the University of St Andrews in Fife PA UK news in pictures 16 October 2022 A protester holds a placard during a march into central London at a demonstration by the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 15 October 2022 A member of the public drags an activist who is blocking the road during a "Just Stop Oil" protest, in London, Britain REUTERS UK news in pictures 14 October 2022 Germanys Womens double skulls during day one of the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals at Saundersfoot beach, Pembrokeshire PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2022 Family and mourners arrive at St Michael's Church, in Creeslough, for the funeral mass of 49-year-old mother of four Martina Martin, who died following an explosion at the Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA UK news in pictures 12 October 2022 Motorists in Coventry pass trees showing autumnal colour PA UK news in pictures 11 October 2022 A woman and her dog in the the North Sea at Tynemouth Longsands beach before sunrise PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2022 Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2022 A drummer plays during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2022 Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool before the start of the Labour Party annual Conference which he opened with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and sang the national anthem PA UK news in pictures 24 September 2022 Handout photo issued by Buckingham Palace of the ledger stone at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2022 A climate change activist protests against UK private jets while lighting his right arm on fire during the Laver Cup tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London EPA

Mr Chapman claimed his former boss has been "working three day week since day one" and that he had former Ukip leader Nigel Farage on speed dial.

He also criticised Mr Davis over comments about Labour's shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott, referring to an encounter in which Mr Davis had to apologise for remarks made about Ms Abbott in private text messages after the vote to trigger Article 50.

Asked what he made of Mr Chapman's recent suggestion that the Brexit department is "in chaos", Mr Davis told LBC radio: "James when he came to me was, I mean he was a Remainer, we knew that.

"But he did a good job, he was a good chief of staff. I'm not going to criticise him, I just don't do that, I'm afraid."
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The former chief of staff at the Brexit Department has launched an extraordinary tirade against his old boss David Davis, saying he had witnessed him being drunk, bullying and inappropriate.



In a stream of early-morning tweets, James Chapman made a series of astonishing claims about the man leading Britain's negotiations to leave the EU, including that he:



 Leered over Labour MP Diane Abbott while allegedly drunk

 Has been "working 3 day week since day one"

 Keeps former Ukip leader Nigel Farage on speed dial

 Could get easy rides in BBC interviews because of close relationships with top presenters

 Conducted extraordinary outbursts against foreign leaders



While Mr Davis was doing a series of interviews on breakfast television and radio, Mr Chapman called for Remain-supporting MPs of honour such as Chancellor Philip Hammond, Jeremy Hunt, Justine Greening, and Sajid Javid to quit the cabinet.



Mr Chapman, also a former political editor of the Daily Mail, alleged that Mr Davis would never prep for Radio 4 Today programme interviews with presenter John Humphrys because the two were close to the extent of going on holiday together - a claim denied by a BBC source.



Recommended David Davis pictured without any notes at Brexit negotiations

It is totally inappropriate for Humphrys to conduct Brexit interviews. [The Daily] Mail has to be prised out of his hands and he holidays with [David Davis], he tweeted.



He alleged that Mr Davis knew Humphrys would do [his] Brexit chums act then hector and interrupt Labour spokespeople.



He added: David Davis was also relaxed about Andrew Neil as they drink (lots) together regularly and his producer Robbie Gibb is a deranged Brexiteer now at No10.



Mr Davis was in February branded disgusting and misogynist by Labour MPs after a leaked text message showed he had suggested MP Diane Abbott was not attractive enough to kiss.



A spokesperson for Mr Davis said at the time he was sorry for any offence caused and that the message were a self- evidently jocular and private exchange with a friend.



Apparently commenting on the episode today, Mr Chapman added: I was with David Davis when he leered over Diane Abbott. He was drunk, bullying and inappropriate.



James Chapman (left) and the Brexit Secretary David Davis (PA)

Mr Chapman, who until now had always been careful not to directly criticise his old boss, let rip the string of messages on Twitter after Mr Davis said on television that his former chief of staff had always been a Remainer.

Recounting two apparently embarrassing outbursts for Mr Davis he said: Someone should ask David Davis about time he told horrified Slovakian PM if you think we are going to pay so you can sell us your cars, forget it.



He added: Someone should ask David Davis about time he called [EU negotiator] Michel Barnier by mistake thinking he was talking to a far-right friend.



Brexit Concerns Show all 26 1 /26 Brexit Concerns Brexit Concerns Brexit will put British patients at 'back of the queue' for new drugs Brexit will put British patients at the back of the queue for vital new drugs, the Government has been warned  forcing them to wait up to two years longer A medicines regulator has raised the alarm over a likely decision to pull out of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), as well as the EU itself. ealth Secretary Jeremy Hunt dropped the bombshell , when he said he expected the UK would quit the EMA  because it is subject to rulings by the European Court of Justice. Getty Images Brexit Concerns London to lose status as 'gateway to Europe' for banks One of Germanys top banking regulators has warned that London could lose its status as gateway to Europe for the banking sector after Britain quits the European trading bloc. Andreas Dombret, who is an executive board member for the BundesbankGermanys central banktold a private meeting of German businesses and banks earlier this week in Frankfurt that even if banking rules were equivalent between the UK and the rest of the EU, that was still miles away from [Britain having] access to the single market, the BBC reports. Jason Hawkes Brexit Concerns Exodus The number of financial sector professionals in Britain and continental Europe looking for jobs in Ireland rocketed in the months after the UK voted to leave the European Union Shutterstock Brexit Concerns Brexit is making FTSE 100 executives richer Pay packages of many FTSE 100 chief executive officers are partly tied to how well share prices are doing rather than the CEOs performance -- and some stocks are soaring. ritish equities got a boost since the June vote because the likes of Rio Tinto, Smiths Group and WPP generate most sales abroad and earn a fortune when they convert these revenues back into the weakened pound. Sterlings fall also made UK stocks more affordable for overseas investors. Rex Brexit Concerns Theresa May: UK to leave single market Theresa May has said the UK "cannot possibly" remain within the European single market, as staying in it would mean "not leaving the EU at all". Getty Brexit Concerns Lead campaigner Gina Miller and her team outside the High Court Getty Brexit Concerns Raymond McCord holds up his newly issued Irish passport alongside his British passport outside the High Court in Belfast following a judges dismissal of the UK's first legal challenges to Brexit PA wire Brexit Concerns SDLP leader Colum Eastwood leaving the High Court in Belfast following a judges dismissal of the UK's first legal challenges to Brexit PA wire Brexit Concerns Migrants with luggage walk past a graffiti on a wall as they leave the 'Jungle' migrant camp, as part of a major three-day operation planned to clear the camp in Calais Getty Brexit Concerns Migrants leave messages on their tents in the Jungle migrant camp Getty Brexit Concerns The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (Adra) which distributes approximately 700 meals daily in the northern Paris camp states that it is noticing a spike in new migrant arrivals this week, potentially linked the the Calais 'jungle' camp closure - with around 1000 meals distributed today EPA Brexit Concerns Migrant workers pick apples at Stocks Farm in Suckley, Britain Reuters Brexit Concerns Many farmers across the country are voicing concerns that Brexit could be a dangerous step into the unknown for the farming industry Getty Brexit Concerns Bank of England governor Mark Carney who said the long-term outlook for the UK economy is positive, but growth was slowing in the wake of the Brexit vote PA Brexit Concerns The Dow Jones industrial average closed down over 600 points on the news with markets around the globe pluninging Getty Brexit Concerns Immigration officers deal with each member of the public seeking entry into the United Kingdom but on average, 10 a day are refused entry at this London airport and between 2008 and 2009, 33,100 people were detained at the airport for mainly passport irregularities Getty Brexit Concerns A number of global investment giants have threatened to move their European operations out of London if Brexit proves to have a negative impact on their businesses Getty Brexit Concerns Following the possibility of a Brexit the UK would be released from its renewable energy targets under the EU Renewable Energy Directive and from EU state aid restrictions, potentially giving the government more freedom both in the design and phasing out of renewable energy support regimes Getty Brexit Concerns A woman looking at a chart showing the drop in the pound (Sterling) against the US Dollar in London after Britain voted to leave the EU Getty Brexit Concerns Young protesters outside the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, to protest against the United Kingdom's decision to leave the EU following the referendum Getty Brexit Concerns Applications from Northern Ireland citizens for Irish Passports has soared to a record high after the UK Voted in favour of Leaving the EU Getty Brexit Concerns NFU Vice President Minette Batters with Secretary of State, Andrea Leadsome at the National Farmers Union (NFU) took machinery, produce, farmers and staff to Westminster to encourage Members of Parliament to back British farming, post Brexit Getty Brexit Concerns The latest reports released by the UK Cabinet Office warn that expats would lose a range of specific rights to live, to work and to access pensions, healthcare and public services. The same reports added that UK citizens abroad would not be able to assume that these rights will be guaranteed in the future Getty Brexit Concerns A British resident living in Spain asks questions during an informative Brexit talk by the "Brexpats in Spain" group, about Spanish legal issues to become Spanish citizens, at the town hall in Benalmadena, Spain Reuters Brexit Concerns The collapse of Great Britain appears to have been greatly exaggerated given the late summer crowds visiting city museums, hotels, and other important tourist attractions Getty Brexit Concerns The U.K. should maintain European Union regulations covering everything from working hours to chemicals until after the government sets out its plans for Brexit, said British manufacturers anxious to avoid a policy vacuum and safeguard access to their biggest export market Getty

Mr Chapman served as Mr Daviss chief of staff until around a month ago. He has called for a new centrist political party to be set up to stop Brexit.

Asked what he made of Mr Chapman's recent suggestion that the Brexit department is "in chaos", Mr Davis told LBC radio: "James when he came to me was, I mean he was a Remainer, we knew that.

"But he did a good job, he was a good chief of staff, I'm not going to criticise him, I just don't do that, I'm afraid."

Asked if he had Mr Farage on speed dial, Mr Davis replied: "Not on speed dial, I've got his number somewhere, I haven't used it for, Lord knows, since I was last on your programme with him.

"So what? All this stuff, this is the small change of politics."

The Department for Exiting the European Union highlighted Mr Daviss comments on Sky News earlier this morning.

He had said: James was a 'Remainer' from the beginning, but he was a very good Chief of Staff. I am not going to criticise or argue with him [on air]."

A BBC source said that Mr Humphreys had not been on holiday with Mr Davis and that nobody in his decades at the Today programme would feel they had been given an easy interview by the presenter.

Sarah Sands, the editor of the Today programme, also echoed the rejection of Mr Chapmans version of events.
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David Davis has put Britain on a collision course with Brussels by insisting on the right to sign other trade deals from day one after Brexit  while remaining in a customs union.

The Brexit Secretary insisted the Government would negotiate and sign agreements once EU withdrawal is completed, whatever the nature of any transitional period after 2019.

Earlier, a former EU trade commissioner warned Brussels was likely to block Britains customs proposal on those terms, describing it as very problematic.

Recommended Britain to propose keeping customs rules to avoid Brexit border chaos

Karel De Gucht said the EU would not concede the benefits of a temporary benefits union if that meant keeping Britain warm for preferential agreements with non-EU countries in future years.

But Mr Davis, asked on BBC Radio 4s Today programme what outside trade advantages Britain was seeking, replied: Negotiate and sign.

He added: We should be able to have an arrangement whereby we can do the negotiation, sign it off, but not enter it into effect. Thats the sort of thing I would expect.

He insisted the law was on Britains side, because the duty of sincere co-operation  the bar on customs union members negotiating other deals  would lapse with EU withdrawal.

Once 2019 comes around and we leave, that legal duty goes away, the Brexit Secretary argued.

 EU set to block UK's temporary customs union plea to stop Brexit border chaos, warns former commissioner

The stance appears to guarantee a confrontation when the exit negotiations resume with Michel Barnier, the EUs chief negotiator, at the end of the month.

It is certain to provoke fresh accusations that the Government is trying to have their cake and eat it in the exit talks. In a later interview, on LBC radio, Mr Davis admitted: Michel's getting quite cross with us.

It is also possible that the EU will refuse to discuss the plan at all  having insisted the UK must first settle its priorities; citizens rights, the so-called divorce bill and the Northern Ireland border.

In the interview, Mr Davis was careful not to rule out Britain making some payments to the EU after 2019, as part of the transitional deal now being sought.

However, he insisted it would not be the current 10bn a year  appearing to rule out the 36bn, three-year financial settlement thought to be under discussion.

And he rejected suggestions that Britain had failed to put forward proposals until 14 months after the EU referendum, saying of the negotiation: Its going incredibly well.

Mr Davis also rejected suggestions that Britain would have to make significant concessions to get what it wants, insisting: The benefit goes two ways.

Arguing huge customs queues would also damage EU businesses, he added: I make no apology for being ambitious. That is the benefit - that is what they are going to get out of it.

In seeking identical customs rules for a temporary period, ministers are finally accepting the many months of warnings from business groups of looming border chaos.

Without a deal, there are fears of enormous queues at Dover and other checkpoints, huge disruption to trade and a need for many hundreds of extra customs staff.

Under Britains plan, both sides would have time to implement technology-based solutions to make the customs regime as smooth as possible when permanent arrangements are introduced.
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The EU is likely to block Britains plea for a temporary customs union to prevent Brexit border chaos if it also demands the right to seek other trade deals, a former Commissioner has warned.

Karel De Gucht described the plans being put forward today by the Government as very problematic and at odds with Brussels ideas for a transitional period.

The Belgian, who was European Commissioner for Trade between 2010 and 2014, suggested the EU would accept the status quo on customs for several years only its terms.

They would be Britain abiding by decisions of the European Court of Justice, paying contributions  and not seeking to sign preferential trade deals with third countries.

Recommended Britain to propose keeping customs rules to avoid Brexit border chaos

However, two Cabinet ministers have already insisted that Britain must also be free to negotiate free trade agreements with non-EU countries, from day one after departure in 2019.

Its very problematic, Mr De Gucht told BBC Radio 4 Todays programme, adding: Politically its very difficult because, to put it simple, we would be keeping Britain warm.

Meanwhile, Irelands EU commissioner, Phil Hogan, has suggested Dublin could block a deal on customs unless it dealt with the Irish question.

He told the Financial Times that British ministers still don't realise the other 27 [member states] have to agree to this transition period of two or three years or whatever they're going to be seeking.

There's a high level of delusion in London at the moment about what is required to be done, Mr Hogan said.

I'm very concerned about the Irish question. Ireland is probably the biggest victim of this mess.

Britain has said it wants to use smart technology and spot checks to police the flow of goods between the two countries after Brexit, angering the Irish Government.

Dublin fears the impact on the peace process in the North and has pushed for the Irish Sea to become the post-Brexit border with the UK, if it insists on leaving the existing customs union.

The warnings came as David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, announced Britain will seek the same trading rules with the EU for an interim period, of perhaps three years.

In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions Show all 12 1 /12 In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions European commission member in charge of Brexit negotiations with Britain, French Michel Barnier listens at the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker speaking at the European Parliament in Strasbourg Getty Images In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions Frank-Walter Steinmeier, President of the Federal Republic of Germany, delivers his speech at the European Parliament in Strasbourg EPA In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions European Union's chief Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt, President of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), addresses the European Parliament during a debate on Brexit priorities and the upcomming talks on the UK's withdrawal from the EU Reuters In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions Michel Barnier, European Chief Negotiator for Brexit reacts during a meeting at the European Parliament in Strasbourg EPA In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions Member of the European Parliament and former leader of the anti-EU UK Independence Party (UKIP) Nigel Farage wears socks with Union Jack flag at the European Parliament in Strasbourg Getty Images In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions Nigel Farage, United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) member and MEP, addresses the European Parliament during a debate on Brexit priorities and the upcoming talks on the UK's withdrawal from the EU Reuters In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions European commission member in charge of Brexit negotiations with Britain, French Michel Barnier gestures during speeches at the European Parliament in Strasbourg Getty In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions The President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker (L) speaks with European commission member in charge of Brexit negotiations with Britain, French Michel Barnier at the European Parliament in Strasbourg Getty In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions European Union's chief Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt, President of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), addresses the European Parliament during a debate on Brexit priorities and the upcomming talks on the UK's withdrawal from the EU Reuters In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions Getty In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier delivers a speech during a plenary session at the European Parliament in Strasbourg Getty In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions The European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France Getty Images

Ministers will tell Brussels they want a temporary customs union, amid evidence that businesses are already pulling investment because they fear the harm to trade from a cliff edge in 2019.

Press Association
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More than 100 cross-party politicians have signed an open letter demanding action over a column in The Sun for using Nazi-like language regarding the Muslim community in Britain, The Independent can reveal.

In a scathing letter MPs from Labour, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and the Green party unite to say they were truly outraged by the hate and bigotry in a comment piece written by the paper's former political editor Trevor Kavanagh.

In the article Mr Kavanagh argues Islam constitutes the one unspoken fear which unites Britain and wider Europe but claims the phenomenon has been suppressed by political correctness.

The common denominator, almost unsayable until last weeks furore over Pakistani sex gangs, is Islam, he wrote after 18 people were convicted in a Newcastle grooming gang last week.

Thanks to former equalities chief Trevor Phillips, and Labour MPs such as Rotherhams Sarah Champion, it is acceptable to say Muslims are a specific rather than a cultural problem."

He concludes his piece by asking: What will we do about The Muslim Problem.

The letter to The Suns editor  signed by 107 MPs  was organised by the Labour MP Naz Shah and includes prominent politicians, including former Cabinet ministers Baroness Warsi and Anna Soubry.

Labour frontbenchers, including the Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott Shadow and Education Secretary Angela Rayner have also signed the letter, alongside Tory MPs Tim Loughton and Gary Sreeter.

Although not appearing in the list of signatories, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn welcomed the contents of the letter, claiming the newspaper had published statements that incite Islamophobia and stigmatise entire communities.

That is wrong, dangerous and must be condemned, as Naz Shah's public letter does in the clearest possible terms, he added.

The letter is also published after Jewish and Muslim organisations issued a joint complaint over the article to the press regulator, the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso).

The printing of the phrase The Muslim Problem - particularly with the capitalisation and italics for emphasis - in a national newspaper sets a dangerous precedent, states the complaint by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Tell Mama and Faith Matters.

The politicians were particularly concerned with the use of The Muslim Problem, adding: There is little doubt (especially with the capitalisation of the three words) that Kavanagh was intentionally comparing Muslims to the The Jewish Problem: a phrase used in the last century, to which the Nazis responded with the Final Solution - the Holocaust, as outlined by the Board of Deputies of British Jews in their compliant letter to Ipso.

The letter continued: It is shocking that in the 21st century a columnist is using such Nazi-like terminology about a minority community.

We are sure that you are aware how media reporting about Islam and Muslims has created an atmosphere of hostility against Muslims and that hate crime against Muslims is on the rise.

Muslims currently face threats from far right and neo-Nazi groups in the UK and your publication of this article can therefore only be seen as an attempt to further stoke up hatred and hostility against Muslims.

We implore you to not only retract this article but given the sacking of Mr Myers following his disgraceful anti-Semitic article in the The [Sunday] Times, strongly consider whether Mr Kavanaghs brand of bigotry fits with your vision for the paper.

Mr Corbyn added: With hate crimes against Muslims on the rise in Britain and Neo-Nazis inciting violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, we must stand in solidarity and unity with all our communities and not let hate divide us.

But a spokesperson for The Sun said: We strongly reject the allegation that Trevor Kavanagh is inciting Islamophobia. He is reflecting the links between immigration, religion and crime in the context of a trial of largely Pakistani sex gangs."

They added: "Indeed he quotes Trevor Phillips, former head of the EHRC: 'What the perpetrators have in common is their proclaimed faith. They are Muslims and many of them would claim to be practising. It is not Islamaphobic to point this out."

"Any suggestion that this article is promoting Islamophobia is a deliberate misreading of a very serious subject. Furthermore, it was never the intention that other elements of the column would be equated to Nazi-like terminology.

On Tuesday, a representative for Ipso told The Independent they had received a total of 150 complaints about the piece. As youll appreciate, Ispo does not comment on any complaints while they are being assessed, they said.

MPs' letter to the Sun newspaper

MPs' letter to the Sun newspaper

However, I can confirm that we have had a total of 150 complaints about the piece to which you refer, mostly under Clause 12 (Discrimination) of the Editors Code of Practice.

The Independent has contacted The Sun for comment regarding the letter.
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Planned increases to the state pension age will affect nearly 37m people, including 56,000 in Theresa Mays constituency, according to a new analysis by Labour.

According to data from the House of Commons Library, which breaks down the number of people affected by the changes by constituency, 61,753 people under the age of 47 in the Chancellor Philip Hammonds constituency of Runnymede and Weybridge will have to work longer before receiving a state pension.

Under current plans, the state pension age for men and women will be equalised at 65 at the end of 2018, before rising to 66 in 2020 and 67 in 2028. The rise to the pension age to 68 will be phased in between 2037 and 2039.

Those born between 1970 and 1978 will now have to wait until they are 68, an extra year, before receiving payments, Mr Gauke added last month. A separate analysis last month found that nearly seven million people in their 30s and 40s will lose out by nearly 10,000 under the plans to increase the state pension age earlier than planned.

The analysis by Labour adds that of the 36.9m affected by the reforms, 56,547 reside in the Prime Ministers constituency of Maidenhead and a further 59,290 in the Work and Pension Secretary David Gaukes constituency of South West Hertfordshire.

Labours Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, Debbie Abrahams, added: Thanks to the Tories increasing the state pension age, 36.9m people will be forced to work longer, at the same time that evidence indicates life expectancy has stalled in some places and is reducing in others.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 12 November 2022 The City of London Pride Group take part in the parade during the Lord Mayor's Show PA UK news in pictures 11 November 2022 City workers attend a Remembrance Day ceremony at Lloyd's of London, in the City of London, to mark Armistice Day, the anniversary of the end of the First World War PA UK news in pictures 10 November 2022 A grey heron lands on the river Dodder in Dublin on a sunny autumn morning PA UK news in pictures 9 November 2022 Australia and Spain play during the Wheelchair Rugby League World Cup group A match at the Copper Box Arena, London PA UK news in pictures 8 November 2022 A migrant attempting to communicate with journalists is pinned against a fence by members of staff, before being taken out of view, at the Manston immigration short-term holding facility, located at the former Defence Fire Training and Development Centre in Thanet, Kent PA UK news in pictures 7 November 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Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. 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Conservative MPs must explain to the tens of thousands of people in their constituencies, why the burden of Tory austerity is being pushed on them, while corporations and the richest individuals receive tax breaks.

Theresa May should answer her 56,547 constituents, and the 36.9m people across Britain, whose hard-earned retirements are being postponed because of her Government.

The party added it would now launch a national state pension tour and Ms Abrahams will meet with pensioner groups across the country.
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Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe has said one of the reasons the police failed to control the violence during a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville was because militia members at the rally were armed with "better equipment" than the state police themselves.

Its easy to criticise, but I can tell you this, 80 per cent of the people here had semiautomatic weapons," Mr McAuliffe said.

Several members of militia groups, seen wearing tactical gear and carrying assault rifles, were marching from the early morning to Emancipation Park where the rally was supposed to take place to protest the removal of a statue of Civil War Confederate General Robert E Lee.

On the other side of town, counter-protesters comprised of faith leaders, groups like Black Lives Matter and Showing Up For Racial Justice, and others gathered as well.

The governor defended the police in what he called "a very delicate situation".

Mr McAuliffe said the tragic death of Heather Heyer, 32, a peaceful counter-protester who died as a result of a car being driven into the crowd, could not have been stopped.

The alleged driver of the vehicle, James Alex Fields Jr, 20, is in police custody on charges relating to Ms Heyer's death and injuring up to 35 people. He was denied bail at his first court hearing.

Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Show all 9 1 /9 Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Protesters clash and several are injured White nationalist demonstrators clash with counter demonstrators at the entrance to Lee Park in Charlottesville, Virginia. A state of emergency is declared, August 12 2017 Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Trump supporters at the protest A white nationalist demonstrator walks into Lee Park in Charlottesville, Va., Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017. Hundreds of people chanted, threw punches, hurled water bottles and unleashed chemical sprays on each other Saturday after violence erupted at a white nationalist rally in Virginia. AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville State police stand ready in riot gear Virginia State Police cordon off an area around the site where a car ran into a group of protesters after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Militia armed with assault rifles White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' with body armor and combat weapons evacuate comrades who were pepper sprayed after the 'Unite the Right' rally was declared a unlawful gathering by Virginia State Police. Militia members marched through the city earlier in the day, armed with assault rifles. Getty Images Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee The statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee stands behind a crowd of hundreds of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' during the 'Unite the Right' rally 12 August 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia. They are protesting the removal of the statue from Emancipation Park in the city. Getty Images Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Racial tensions sparked the violence White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' exchange insults with counter-protesters as they attempt to guard the entrance to Lee Park during the 'Unite the Right' rally Getty Violence on the streets of Charlottesville A car plows through protesters A vehicle drives into a group of protesters demonstrating against a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The incident resulted in multiple injuries, some life-threatening, and one death. AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Rescue personnel help injured people after a car ran into a large group of protesters after an white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville President Donald Trump speaks about the ongoing situation in Charlottesville, Virginia from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. He spoke about "loyalty" and "healing wounds" left by decades of racism.

Brian Moran, Virginias secretary of public safety and homeland security, said he saw from a post at a downtown bank that there were sporadic fights until people began throwing water bottles, smoke bombs, and using pepper spray.

Attendees told the newspaper that police waited to intervene. Jason Kessler, the organiser of the rally, claimed police "exacerbated the violence" and were "underequipped for the situation" in a statement.

Spokesperson for the Virginia State Police Corinne Geller said that though it may have looked like a lot of our folks were standing around" but there were several officers who responded to incidents.

She did not address a plan to prevent the violence in the first place, but witnesses said the perception of a lack of police presence was enough to spur more violent situations in pockets of the crowd.

Police, wearing riot gear, attempted to disperse the crowd after declaring the gathering an unlawful one just ahead of Mr Field's attack.

Two Virginia State Police troopers were also killed: Lieutenant H Jay Cullen and Trooper-Pilot Berke MM Bates when a helicopter they were piloting crashed while assisting public safety resources during the clashes.

Mr Sessions has said that "terrorism investigators from the FBI are working on the case as well as civil rights division FBI agents" to understand the whole incident.

In an initial speech given by Mr Trump ahead of a bill signing regarding the Veterans Administration, the President blamed "many sides" for the violence and stopped short of condemning the Klu Klux Klan and Nazis present at the rally. He called on the nation to "unite" and "heal wounds" of a problem that had been around for "a long, long time. Not Barack Obama. Not Donald Trump".

One senior administration official said "on background" to reporters that Mr Trump "of course" denounces these groups. Mr Trump called racism "evil" and condemned white nationalist groups during an address at the White House on Monday, having come under pressure to directly condemn those involved in the violence.
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Zimbabwe's First Lady, Grace Mugabe, returned home on Tuesday from South Africa after failing to turn herself in to police in Johannesburg to face charges of assaulting a model in a hotel room.

Ms Grace, 52, is a possible successor to her husband President Robert Mugabe, 93, who has ruled Zimbabwe since 1980.

Zimbabwe government sources confirmed she had returned home. "Yes, she is back in the country. We don't know where this issue of assault charges is coming from," said a senior government official, who declined to be named because they were not authorised to speak to the press.

A second official also confirmed that Ms Grace had returned, saying "she is around now" and accused the media of a plot to tarnish the first family's name.

Earlier, South African police had been negotiating with Ms Grace's lawyers to get her to turn herself in to face charges of assault, a senior police source said.

Gabriella Engels, 22, told South African media Ms Grace had attacked her after the model had gone to see Mr Mugabes' sons Robert and Chatunga at a hotel in Johannesburg's upmarket Sandton district on Sunday.

Confusion surrounded the case on Tuesday. South African police minister Fikile Mbalula said early in the day Ms Grace had already handed herself in to police and would appear in court shortly.

But in the afternoon, the magistrates' court where Ms Grace had been expected to be formally charged closed for the day without her appearing.

The police source said Ms Grace had earlier agreed to hand herself over at 10 am local time but failed to do so.

The source said police were investigating a charge of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm.

Asked if Grace was now considered a fugitive, the source said that was not the case at this stage.

"One cannot be a fugitive for not appearing at a court to which they have not been summoned & when they have not been charged of any crime!" Ms Grace's close ally and Zimbabwe's higher education minister Jonathan Moyo tweeted.

South African media said Grace had been in the country to have an injured foot examined. It was unclear whether she was travelling on a diplomatic passport.

On whether she could be arrested despite having diplomatic immunity, Mr Mbalula said: "All those implications will be taken into consideration ... She will be charged."

A Zimbabwean intelligence source said Ms Grace had been travelling on an ordinary non-diplomatic passport and was in South Africa on personal business.

The News24 website quoted Ms Engels' version of events in the hotel room. "When Grace entered, I had no idea who she was. She walked in with an extension cord and just started beating me with it," the model said.

"She flipped and just kept beating me with the plug. Over and over. I had no idea what was going on. I was surprised ... I needed to crawl out of the room before I could run away."

News24 published a picture of what it said was Ms Engels with a large gash in her forehead. "I am a model, with this scar over my face my whole career is ruined," she said.

It was unclear what triggered the incident.

"I just want justice," Ms Engels told Talk Radio 702.

"She just completely lost it. I was hit all over my body. I have bruises all over my body ... I have two open wounds at the back of my head as well."

Mr Mugabe's two sons were kicked out of the Regent luxury apartment complex in Sandton last month after an incident in the middle of the night, staff at the complex told Reuters.

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The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. 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Regent manager Imelda Fincham did not elaborate but confirmed the pair had left. "They're no longer here," she said.

In 2009, a press photographer in Hong Kong said Ms Grace and her bodyguard had assaulted him. Police there said the incident was reported but that no charges were brought.

President Mugabe spoke at a public event marking Defence Forces Day in Harare on Tuesday, but did not mention Ms Grace.

Ms Grace was in the news in late July when she challenged her husband to name his preferred successor.

The issue of who will succeed Mr Mugabe has deeply divided Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF party. One faction supports Ms Grace and the other Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is recovering in a South African hospital after he fell ill and was airlifted from Zimbabwe.

Reuters
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The mother of the man suspected of having driven into a crowd in Charlottesville during a protest repeatedly called emergency services saying her son beat her, according to transcripts.

The transcripts, obtained by multiple news outlets, indicate that the mother of James Alex Fields had called police to report her son had abused her. Mr Fields is currently in police custody, and was recently denied bail for his suspected involvement in the bloody crash that left one woman dead and 19 others injured.

The 911 records show that Mr Fieldss mother called a police agency in Kentucky several times in 2010 and 2011. In one instance, Mr Fields reportedly stood behind his wheelchair-bound mother with a 12-inch knife, prompting a friend to call the police and say he was threatening his mother. In another incident, Mr Fieldss mother called 911 from a bathroom after he grew violent because she said he needed to stop playing video games. A third incident was reported because the mother felt threatened after Mr Fields yelled at her, according to reports of the transcripts.

A grey Dodge Charger smashed into a group of counter protesters who had descended on Charlottesville, Virginia, to push back on a white supremacist rally being held there to protest the planned removal of a Confederate monument there. A video of the events shows the car quickly accelerating into the crowd before smashing into two stopped cars. The vehicle then reversed quickly before fleeing the scene.

Mr Fields, 20, has been charged with one count of second-degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding, and a hit and run.

Since the deadly attack, rumours have swirled about Mr Fieldss past. A former history teacher has said that his former student idolised Hiltler and the Nazis, and that Mr Fields had told him that he was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was younger. His Facebook profile  which was deactivated after the attack  was filled with pro-Trump and alt-right messaging.

Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Show all 9 1 /9 Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Protesters clash and several are injured White nationalist demonstrators clash with counter demonstrators at the entrance to Lee Park in Charlottesville, Virginia. A state of emergency is declared, August 12 2017 Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Trump supporters at the protest A white nationalist demonstrator walks into Lee Park in Charlottesville, Va., Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017. Hundreds of people chanted, threw punches, hurled water bottles and unleashed chemical sprays on each other Saturday after violence erupted at a white nationalist rally in Virginia. AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville State police stand ready in riot gear Virginia State Police cordon off an area around the site where a car ran into a group of protesters after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Militia armed with assault rifles White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' with body armor and combat weapons evacuate comrades who were pepper sprayed after the 'Unite the Right' rally was declared a unlawful gathering by Virginia State Police. Militia members marched through the city earlier in the day, armed with assault rifles. Getty Images Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee The statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee stands behind a crowd of hundreds of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' during the 'Unite the Right' rally 12 August 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia. They are protesting the removal of the statue from Emancipation Park in the city. Getty Images Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Racial tensions sparked the violence White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' exchange insults with counter-protesters as they attempt to guard the entrance to Lee Park during the 'Unite the Right' rally Getty Violence on the streets of Charlottesville A car plows through protesters A vehicle drives into a group of protesters demonstrating against a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The incident resulted in multiple injuries, some life-threatening, and one death. AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Rescue personnel help injured people after a car ran into a large group of protesters after an white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville President Donald Trump speaks about the ongoing situation in Charlottesville, Virginia from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. He spoke about "loyalty" and "healing wounds" left by decades of racism.

Mr Fields had recently moved near Toledo, Ohio, with his mother, according to reports. They had previously lived in Northern Kentucky. He is suspected of having driven down from Ohio for the rally.

His mother told reporters after the attacks that she wasnt aware of the reason for the rally, or aware of any motivations to harm others.
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After a day of work at the Engineering Research Center at the University of Arkansas, Kyle Quinn had a pleasant Friday night in Bentonville, Arkansas, with his wife and a colleague. They explored an exhibition at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and dined at an upscale restaurant.

Then on Saturday, he discovered that social media sleuths had incorrectly identified him as a participant in a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Overnight, thousands of strangers across the country had been working together to share photographs of the men bearing torches on the University of Virginia campus. They wanted to name and shame them to their employers, friends and neighbours. In a few cases, they succeeded.

But Quinns experience showed the risks.

A man at the rally had been photographed wearing an Arkansas Engineering shirt, and the amateur investigators found a photo of Quinn that looked somewhat similar. They were both bearded and had similar builds.

By internet frenzy standards, that was proof enough.

Quinn, who runs a laboratory dedicated to wound-healing research, was quickly flooded with vulgar messages on Twitter and Instagram, he said in an interview Monday. Countless people he had never met demanded he lose his job, accused him of racism and posted his home address on social networks.

Fearing for their safety, he and his wife stayed with a colleague this weekend.

For someone whose only sin was a passing resemblance to someone else, Quinn bore the direct consequences of the reckless spread of misinformation in breaking news, a common ritual in modern news events.

The practice of publicly identifying someone, often with sensitive personal details like addresses, phone numbers and employer information, is known as doxxing.

Mark Popejoy, an art director in Bentonville, attempted to correct dozens of Twitter accounts that had inaccurately pegged Quinn as the rally participant.

While some appreciated the new information, others adamantly refused to change their minds, he said Monday.

Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Show all 9 1 /9 Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Protesters clash and several are injured White nationalist demonstrators clash with counter demonstrators at the entrance to Lee Park in Charlottesville, Virginia. A state of emergency is declared, August 12 2017 Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Trump supporters at the protest A white nationalist demonstrator walks into Lee Park in Charlottesville, Va., Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017. Hundreds of people chanted, threw punches, hurled water bottles and unleashed chemical sprays on each other Saturday after violence erupted at a white nationalist rally in Virginia. AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville State police stand ready in riot gear Virginia State Police cordon off an area around the site where a car ran into a group of protesters after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Militia armed with assault rifles White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' with body armor and combat weapons evacuate comrades who were pepper sprayed after the 'Unite the Right' rally was declared a unlawful gathering by Virginia State Police. Militia members marched through the city earlier in the day, armed with assault rifles. Getty Images Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee The statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee stands behind a crowd of hundreds of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' during the 'Unite the Right' rally 12 August 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia. They are protesting the removal of the statue from Emancipation Park in the city. Getty Images Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Racial tensions sparked the violence White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' exchange insults with counter-protesters as they attempt to guard the entrance to Lee Park during the 'Unite the Right' rally Getty Violence on the streets of Charlottesville A car plows through protesters A vehicle drives into a group of protesters demonstrating against a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The incident resulted in multiple injuries, some life-threatening, and one death. AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Rescue personnel help injured people after a car ran into a large group of protesters after an white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville President Donald Trump speaks about the ongoing situation in Charlottesville, Virginia from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. He spoke about "loyalty" and "healing wounds" left by decades of racism.

I think its dangerous just to go out accusing people without any kind of confirmation of who they are, he said. It can ruin peoples lives.

The New York Times
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A Philadelphia firefighter says he was drunk and making a dumb joke about the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, when he posted a picture of himself holding a torch and wearing a Confederate flag hat on Facebook.

John Deluisi tells WTXF-TV he uploaded the picture, which he captioned Headed to VA, in response to another post referencing the Charlottesville rally, where torch-carrying protesters decried the planned removal of a Confederate statue. Three people died amid the turmoil Saturday, including a 32-year-old woman who was part of a crowd of counter-protesters struck by a car.

The Philadelphia Fire Department says it is investigating Deluisi's post and could take disciplinary action.

Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Show all 9 1 /9 Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Protesters clash and several are injured White nationalist demonstrators clash with counter demonstrators at the entrance to Lee Park in Charlottesville, Virginia. A state of emergency is declared, August 12 2017 Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Trump supporters at the protest A white nationalist demonstrator walks into Lee Park in Charlottesville, Va., Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017. Hundreds of people chanted, threw punches, hurled water bottles and unleashed chemical sprays on each other Saturday after violence erupted at a white nationalist rally in Virginia. AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville State police stand ready in riot gear Virginia State Police cordon off an area around the site where a car ran into a group of protesters after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Militia armed with assault rifles White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' with body armor and combat weapons evacuate comrades who were pepper sprayed after the 'Unite the Right' rally was declared a unlawful gathering by Virginia State Police. Militia members marched through the city earlier in the day, armed with assault rifles. Getty Images Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee The statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee stands behind a crowd of hundreds of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' during the 'Unite the Right' rally 12 August 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia. They are protesting the removal of the statue from Emancipation Park in the city. Getty Images Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Racial tensions sparked the violence White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' exchange insults with counter-protesters as they attempt to guard the entrance to Lee Park during the 'Unite the Right' rally Getty Violence on the streets of Charlottesville A car plows through protesters A vehicle drives into a group of protesters demonstrating against a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The incident resulted in multiple injuries, some life-threatening, and one death. AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Rescue personnel help injured people after a car ran into a large group of protesters after an white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville President Donald Trump speaks about the ongoing situation in Charlottesville, Virginia from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. He spoke about "loyalty" and "healing wounds" left by decades of racism.

Deluisi removed the picture. He apologised and said he is disappointed in himself.

AP
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White nationalists who participated in the deadly rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend are being identified on social media, and at least one man has lost his job as a result.

Top Dog, a hot-dog restaurant in Berkeley, California, said it fired Cole White on Saturday after he was named by a Twitter account devoted to outing rally participants.

Effective Saturday 12th August, Cole White no longer works at Top Dog, read a sign posted outside the restaurant on Sunday. The actions of those in Charlottesville are not supported by Top Dog. We believe in individual freedom and voluntary association for everyone.

The Twitter account that identified White, @YesYoureRacist, is encouraging the public to help identify other attendees shown in photos.

Peter Cvjetanovic, 20, was also identified in a photo from the white-nationalist march at the University of Virginia on Friday night and later defended himself in an interview with a Las Vegas TV station.

As a white nationalist, I care for all people, he told Channel 2 News. We all deserve a future for our children and for our culture. White nationalists aren't all hateful; we just want to preserve what we have.

In the photo, Cvjetanovic is holding a torch and shouting. He said he understood the photo had a very negative connotation.

Peter Cvjetanovic chants with neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville (Getty)

Few other businesses have weighed in on the rally, though Tiki Brand, the company that makes tiki torches, issued a statement on its Facebook page Saturday after white nationalists used its torches at Friday's march.

Tiki Brand is not associated in any way with the events that took place in Charlottesville and are deeply saddened and disappointed, the statement read. We do not support their message or the use of our products in this way. Our products are designed to enhance backyard gatherings and to help family and friends connect with each other at home in their yard.

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Read the original article on Business Insider UK.  2017. Follow Business Insider UK on Twitter.
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A celebrated American military division whose members flew into Normandy on D-Day to confront the troops of Nazi Germany, has denounced a Nazi protester photographed in Charlottesville, wearing a cap bearing its insignia.

One of the many images from the violence in Virginia that went viral was of a middle-aged man wearing camouflage trousers and a grey T-shirt, and making a Nazi salute. He was also wearing a cap that bore the insignia of the 82nd Airborne Division.

Over the weekend, Brandon Friedman, a former Obama administration official, tweeted the image and wrote: Would *LOVE* to know the name of Mr 82nd Airborne Division here rendering Hitlers Nazi salute. The 82nd jumped into Normandy on D-Day.

 Richard Spencer apologises for holding press conference in his flat after no hotel would host him

The elite airborne infantry division, which is based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, fought in both the first and second world wars. Its members were among those who air-dropped into France in the summer of 1944 as Allied forces sought to retake Europe.

After Mr Friedmans tweet was widely shared and viewed, the 82nd Airborne Divisions delivered a series of pointed tweets. They were first reported by the Huffington Post.

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

Our WWII Airborne forefathers jumped into Europe to defeat Nazism. We know who we are. We know our legacy, said one.

Another read: U really think that guy is an active member of the 82nd just because he has that hat? My mom has that same hat. Shes 78 & has never served.

It added: Respectfully, anyone who thinks this man represents our culture and values has never worn the maroon beret...and never will.

A 32-year-old woman, Heather Heyer, during the clashes after a car was allegedly driven into her and up to 20 other people were injured. A 20-year-old man has been charged with her murder.
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Numerous neo-Nazi websites have been shut down in the wake of violence triggered by white supremacist demonstrations in Charlottesville after a campaign that targeted their online hosting companies.

Daily Stormer and Vanguard America were among the platforms shut down for hate speech and links to extremist groups who took part in the clashes, including the Ku Klux Klan.

Tech consultant David Finster led the way in lobbying to pull the plug with a string of tweets to server companies, including WordPress, which provided the platform for the radical voices.

Recommended Three CEOs quit Trump council over Charlottesville response

But he kept his foot on the pedal and is still targeting other online domain companies that continue to serve extremist groups  including one website that calls to destroy Jewish tyranny.

It comes amid a separate online campaign that has outed white nationalists who gathered in Charlottesville, triggering clashes that saw a woman killed after a car was driven into a crowd of anti-fascist protesters.

Vanguard America staged a neo-Nazi demonstration during the rally where its members and followers wore helmets and held shields with the groups militant symbol.

The extremist group hosted their website tagged Blood and Soil  a common Nazi chant  on WordPress where it espoused its views that the U.S. is exclusively for White Americans.

Mr Finster lobbied the server company in the wake of the right-wing march in Charlottesville after pointing out that they were being used as a platform for hate speech.

One message he shared said: Hey, I thought I would let you know that NAZI'S are being hosted by you. BloodAndSoil.org needs to be shut down.

Mr Finster later tweeted: It's down. Users who try to enter the website find a message from Wordpress that reads the site is no longer available. This blog has been archived or suspended for a violation of our Terms of Service.

Twitter users congratulated Mr Finster after WordPress appeared to respond to his lobbying.

Campaign group Sleeping Giants, which targets racist and sexist media, tweeted: Just wanted to say that @david_finster is really showing us something today. Well done.

Neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer was also shut down amid the backlash over the rally in Charlottesville after it published a post critical of Heather Heyer, who was killed when a car ploughed into anti-racist protestors demonstrating against right-wing marchers.

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 site, which calls itself "The World's Most Genocidal Republican Website," had registered its name with GoDaddy  but the hosting company pulled the group from their servers.

GoDaddy's digital crimes unit chief, Ben Butler, said the company generally supports the free speech right of clients even if that sometimes means allowing such tasteless, ignorant content, but that DailyStormer went too far by encouraging violence.

In our determination, especially given the tragic events in Charlottesville, Dailystormer.com crossed the line and encouraged and promoted violence, Mr Butler's statement said.

Owners of the right-wing website later moved their online publication to Google but the internet giant also pulled the plug on the neo Nazi platform for violating the terms of our service.

In the wake of the Charlottesville violence Donald Trump came under fire for not forcefully condemning white supremacists. After facing an intense backlash for initially ruing "hatred, bigotry and violence, on many sides," Mr Trump later more explicitly assailed the "evil" of racism and "repugnant" groups like the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacists.
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The father of the woman who was killed during protests in Charlottesville over the weekend says that he forgives his daughters killer.

My daughter was a strong woman who had passionate opinions about the equality of everyone and she tried to stand up for that. And for her it wasnt lip service, it was real. It was something that she wanted to share with everyone, Mark Heyer told the Asburg Park Press of his 32-year-old daughter Heather Heyer.

And my thoughts with all of this stuff is that people need to stop hating and they need to forgive each other. I include myself in that forgiving the guy that did this. He dont know no better. I just think about what the Lord said on the cross. Lord, forgive them. They dont know what theyre doing, Mr Heyer continued.

Ms Heyer was killed when a grey Dodge Charger plowed through a crowd of protesters in Charlottesville who had assembled to demonstrate against a gathering of White Supremacists in that Virginia city. Ms Heyer was the only immediate casualty, but 19 others were injured in the attack.

The alleged driver of the vehicle that killed Ms Heyer was 20-year-old James Fields, who had reportedly driven down to Virginia from his home in Ohio in order to participate in the white supremacy rally, which included various groups including neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan, and members of the alt-right.

Mr Fields was arrested after the attack, and has been held on charges that include second degree murder. He was denied bail in his first court hearing after the incident.

Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Show all 9 1 /9 Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Protesters clash and several are injured White nationalist demonstrators clash with counter demonstrators at the entrance to Lee Park in Charlottesville, Virginia. A state of emergency is declared, August 12 2017 Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Trump supporters at the protest A white nationalist demonstrator walks into Lee Park in Charlottesville, Va., Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017. Hundreds of people chanted, threw punches, hurled water bottles and unleashed chemical sprays on each other Saturday after violence erupted at a white nationalist rally in Virginia. AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville State police stand ready in riot gear Virginia State Police cordon off an area around the site where a car ran into a group of protesters after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Militia armed with assault rifles White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' with body armor and combat weapons evacuate comrades who were pepper sprayed after the 'Unite the Right' rally was declared a unlawful gathering by Virginia State Police. Militia members marched through the city earlier in the day, armed with assault rifles. Getty Images Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee The statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee stands behind a crowd of hundreds of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' during the 'Unite the Right' rally 12 August 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia. They are protesting the removal of the statue from Emancipation Park in the city. Getty Images Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Racial tensions sparked the violence White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' exchange insults with counter-protesters as they attempt to guard the entrance to Lee Park during the 'Unite the Right' rally Getty Violence on the streets of Charlottesville A car plows through protesters A vehicle drives into a group of protesters demonstrating against a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The incident resulted in multiple injuries, some life-threatening, and one death. AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Rescue personnel help injured people after a car ran into a large group of protesters after an white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville President Donald Trump speaks about the ongoing situation in Charlottesville, Virginia from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. He spoke about "loyalty" and "healing wounds" left by decades of racism.

But, while the death of Ms Heyer and the general conflict at the rallies in Charlottesville have sparked national outrage and heated debate, Mr Heyer has instead decided to take the position of forgiveness. He says that he is proud of his daughter, and hopes that her death helps people to love one another.

My daughters life  Im proud of her. Im proud of her for standing up. She had more courage than I did. She had a stubborn backbone that if she thought she was right she would stand there and defy you. But if I understand her, she wanted to do it peacefully and with a fierceness of heart that comes with her conviction, he said.

I hope all this stuff thats come out isnt twisted into something negative but there comes a positive change in peoples hearts, in their thinking, in their understanding of their neighbor, he continued. We just need to forgive each other. And I just hope thats what comes out of all this.
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President Donald Trump says he may grant a pardon to former Sheriff Joe Arpaio following his recent conviction in federal court, prompting outrage among critics who say the move would amount to an endorsement of racism.

Trump told Fox News during an interview on Sunday that he was seriously considering issuing a pardon within the next few days. That was welcome news for the former Phoenix-area sheriff, who lost a re-election bid in November and who was convicted of misdemeanour contempt of court on 31 July.

But it angered immigrant rights activists and others who say it amounts to support for racism on the same day that Trump disavowed white nationalists whose rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, turned violent this weekend, leaving one woman dead.

A federal judge ruled in 2013 that Arpaio's officers racially profiled Latinos. But the sheriff refused to stop his immigration patrols, eventually leading to the criminal contempt of court case that he's embroiled in. It also contributed to his failed re-election bid last year.

Recommended Donald Trump considers pardoning Joe Arpaio

Arpaio said on Monday that he learned of the President's comments in the morning and was glad he stood by him.

I didn't ask for it, but if he's going to offer, I will accept, because I'm not guilty. So appreciate his interest in my matter here in Phoenix, Arpaio said.

Attorneys for the ex-sheriff filed two motions late Monday afternoon in US District Court in Phoenix for a judgment of acquittal and to vacate the verdict for a new trial. The motions are not appeals.

We're filing these motions because there was absolutely no evidence in support of the judge's verdict, the verdict was contrary to the evidence provided in court, and the verdict is a gross miscarriage of justice, said Mark Goldman, a lawyer for Arpaio.

Trump on Sunday told Fox that Arpaio is a great American patriot and said he hates to see what has happened to him, according to the news report. He cited his long service in law enforcement and said many Arizona citizens respected his approach to crime.

The two have been allies for the past couple of years. Arpaio campaigned for Trump at rallies in Iowa, Nevada and Arizona, and he gave a speech at the Republican National Convention in which he said Trump would prevent immigrants from coming into the country illegally. Trump has also invoked the former sheriff in his calls for tougher immigration enforcement and has advocated for tactics that made Arpaio a national figure.

I've been with him from day one, Arpaio said.

On Monday, the President condemned hate groups and said racism is evil in a statement that was much more forceful than he'd made earlier after the weekend clashes in Virginia that left one woman dead after a car ploughed into a group of counter-protesters who opposed a rally by white nationalists. The white nationalists were protesting a plan to remove a statute of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from a Charlottesville park.

Those who spread violence in the name of bigotry strike at the very core of America, he said.

Cecillia Wang, deputy legal director for the ACLU, criticised the idea that Trump could pardon Arpaio, saying the former sheriff had violated court orders that prohibited illegal detention of Latinos.

Make no mistake: This would be an official presidential endorsement of racism, Wang said.

Thomas A. Saenz, president and general counsel of MALDEF, or the Mexican American Legal Defence and Educational Fund, said in statement that Trump's comments to Fox were hypocritical and demonstrate how inextricably conflicted he is about condemning racism and the targeting of racial minorities

Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Show all 9 1 /9 Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Protesters clash and several are injured White nationalist demonstrators clash with counter demonstrators at the entrance to Lee Park in Charlottesville, Virginia. A state of emergency is declared, August 12 2017 Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Trump supporters at the protest A white nationalist demonstrator walks into Lee Park in Charlottesville, Va., Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017. Hundreds of people chanted, threw punches, hurled water bottles and unleashed chemical sprays on each other Saturday after violence erupted at a white nationalist rally in Virginia. AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville State police stand ready in riot gear Virginia State Police cordon off an area around the site where a car ran into a group of protesters after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Militia armed with assault rifles White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' with body armor and combat weapons evacuate comrades who were pepper sprayed after the 'Unite the Right' rally was declared a unlawful gathering by Virginia State Police. Militia members marched through the city earlier in the day, armed with assault rifles. Getty Images Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee The statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee stands behind a crowd of hundreds of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' during the 'Unite the Right' rally 12 August 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia. They are protesting the removal of the statue from Emancipation Park in the city. Getty Images Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Racial tensions sparked the violence White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' exchange insults with counter-protesters as they attempt to guard the entrance to Lee Park during the 'Unite the Right' rally Getty Violence on the streets of Charlottesville A car plows through protesters A vehicle drives into a group of protesters demonstrating against a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The incident resulted in multiple injuries, some life-threatening, and one death. AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Rescue personnel help injured people after a car ran into a large group of protesters after an white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville President Donald Trump speaks about the ongoing situation in Charlottesville, Virginia from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. He spoke about "loyalty" and "healing wounds" left by decades of racism.

That the White House chose to praise such unconstitutional, discriminatory behaviour in defiance of a federal judge on the same day that it refused to condemn the actions of white supremacists in Charlottesville compounds the damage of Trump's appalling moral relativism, Saenz said. In politics, there is hypocrisy on many sides, but the White House's praise of Arpaio as it tries to extricate itself from equivocal statements about the clear domestic hate-based terrorism in Charlottesville will forever stand out as record-breaking, political disingenuousness.

Associated Press
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President Donald Trump has arrived at his New York home for the first time since his inauguration as a throng of protesters lined the street.

The President's motorcade pulled up to Trump Tower on Monday night while avoiding the protesters, who chanted "New York hates you" and shame, shame, shame while awaiting him.

Thousands of protesters had lined Manhattan's Fifth Avenue to await him, along with a group of supporters numbering in the dozens.

The protesters carried signs with such messages as impeach and stop the hate, stop the lies. Supporters shouted God bless President Trump.

Security is heavy around the skyscraper. Police have stationed sand-filled sanitation trucks as barriers around the building and layers of metal police barricades around the main entrance.

Among the protesters was the Reverend Jan Powell, a retired United Church of Christ minister.

She said she is concerned by the Republican president's response to the white supremacist rally that descended into violence on Saturday in Virginia.

Mr Trump initially blamed many sides for the violence, before later saying racism is evil.

Police said two people have been arrested on disorderly conduct charges near Trump Tower, during the demonstration against the President.

The protesters began leaving following the President's arrival at Trump Tower.

Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Show all 9 1 /9 Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Protesters clash and several are injured White nationalist demonstrators clash with counter demonstrators at the entrance to Lee Park in Charlottesville, Virginia. A state of emergency is declared, August 12 2017 Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Trump supporters at the protest A white nationalist demonstrator walks into Lee Park in Charlottesville, Va., Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017. Hundreds of people chanted, threw punches, hurled water bottles and unleashed chemical sprays on each other Saturday after violence erupted at a white nationalist rally in Virginia. AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville State police stand ready in riot gear Virginia State Police cordon off an area around the site where a car ran into a group of protesters after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Militia armed with assault rifles White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' with body armor and combat weapons evacuate comrades who were pepper sprayed after the 'Unite the Right' rally was declared a unlawful gathering by Virginia State Police. Militia members marched through the city earlier in the day, armed with assault rifles. Getty Images Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee The statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee stands behind a crowd of hundreds of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' during the 'Unite the Right' rally 12 August 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia. They are protesting the removal of the statue from Emancipation Park in the city. Getty Images Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Racial tensions sparked the violence White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' exchange insults with counter-protesters as they attempt to guard the entrance to Lee Park during the 'Unite the Right' rally Getty Violence on the streets of Charlottesville A car plows through protesters A vehicle drives into a group of protesters demonstrating against a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The incident resulted in multiple injuries, some life-threatening, and one death. AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Rescue personnel help injured people after a car ran into a large group of protesters after an white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville President Donald Trump speaks about the ongoing situation in Charlottesville, Virginia from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. He spoke about "loyalty" and "healing wounds" left by decades of racism.

He tweeted: Feels good to be home after seven months, but the White House is very special, there is no place like it... and the US is really my home!

Mr Trump has said he would love to go home to Trump Tower more often but it is very disruptive to do.

Associated Press
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A US state has passed a resolution calling for police to class neo-Nazi groups as terrorist organisations in the wake of the violent clashes in Charlottesville.

The Illinois Senate approved an anti-hate group resolution in direct response to the violence which erupted at a white supremacist rally in Virginia over the weekend leaving one person dead and scores more injured.

The measure, which was passed on Sunday, stated neo-Nazism and white nationalism continue to pose dangerous threats to cohesion and society overall. The resolution argued far-right extremism was accelerating in the attempt to divide America and promote hate.

State Senator Don Harmon, who sponsored the measure, said: It is vital that we stand in total opposition to the hatred, bigotry and violence displayed by the white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups in Charlottesville this past weekend.

The Democrat added: They are the heirs to the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazis. We fought two bloody wars in opposition to their ideologies. We must continue to fight those same twisted ideologies today.

Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Show all 9 1 /9 Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Protesters clash and several are injured White nationalist demonstrators clash with counter demonstrators at the entrance to Lee Park in Charlottesville, Virginia. A state of emergency is declared, August 12 2017 Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Trump supporters at the protest A white nationalist demonstrator walks into Lee Park in Charlottesville, Va., Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017. Hundreds of people chanted, threw punches, hurled water bottles and unleashed chemical sprays on each other Saturday after violence erupted at a white nationalist rally in Virginia. AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville State police stand ready in riot gear Virginia State Police cordon off an area around the site where a car ran into a group of protesters after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Militia armed with assault rifles White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' with body armor and combat weapons evacuate comrades who were pepper sprayed after the 'Unite the Right' rally was declared a unlawful gathering by Virginia State Police. Militia members marched through the city earlier in the day, armed with assault rifles. Getty Images Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee The statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee stands behind a crowd of hundreds of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' during the 'Unite the Right' rally 12 August 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia. They are protesting the removal of the statue from Emancipation Park in the city. Getty Images Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Racial tensions sparked the violence White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' exchange insults with counter-protesters as they attempt to guard the entrance to Lee Park during the 'Unite the Right' rally Getty Violence on the streets of Charlottesville A car plows through protesters A vehicle drives into a group of protesters demonstrating against a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The incident resulted in multiple injuries, some life-threatening, and one death. AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Rescue personnel help injured people after a car ran into a large group of protesters after an white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville President Donald Trump speaks about the ongoing situation in Charlottesville, Virginia from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. He spoke about "loyalty" and "healing wounds" left by decades of racism.

The senate of the Midwestern state plans to send copies of the resolution to President Donald Trump, members of Congress and Republican Governor Bruce Rauner.

Governor Rauner was subject to a torrent of criticism from Democrats for failing to label the death of Heather Heyer, the 32-year-old women who was killed after a car ploughed into a crowd of anti-fascist protesters in Virginia, as domestic terrorism.

But after saying What doesn't matter is definitions, he was eventually forced to perform something of a U-turn and rework his position claiming: The deadly violence in Charlottesville this weekend is abhorrent and absolutely an act of domestic terrorism.

White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' with body armor and combat weapons evacuate comrades who were pepper sprayed after the 'Unite the Right' rally was declared a unlawful gathering by Virginia State Police (Getty Images)

The largest gathering of white nationalists the US has seen in decades descended on Virginia over the weekend. The rally was attended by neo-Nazis, skinheads, and members of the Ku Klux Klan clutching flaming torches and assault rifles and wearing paramilitary clothing.

Hundreds of anti-fascist protesters converged on the city in response and ugly clashes with fist fights quickly broke out in the street with pepper spray released onto the fighting crowds. Authorities declared the Unite the Right rally an unlawful assembly and later announced a state of emergency.

White nationalist, James Alex Fields Jr is being held in a Virgina jail in connection with the deadly crash near the white nationalist rally. The 20-year-old, who is from Ohio, was arrested on Saturday and charged with second-degree murder and other criminal counts.

In the wake of the rally, Richard Spencer, a leading white supremacist who helped organise the gathering in the generally peaceful quiet university town, has promised to carry on protesting.

Richard Spencer, who is president of the white nationalist National Policy Institute, said he had the will to win in the battle not to pull down the statue of a Confederate General, Robert E Lee from a local park  the initial reason for the rally.

Were going to be back here and were going to humiliate all of these people who opposed us, he told the Daily Mail. Well be back here 100 times if necessary. I always win. Because I have the will to win, I keep going until I win.

Recommended White supremacist Richard Spencer banned from SoundCloud

Mr Spencer, who is crediting with inventing the term alt-right, blamed the Mayor of Charlottesville, Mike Signer, for the violence. Writing on Twitter, he said the attempt to stop the protest constituted an attack on free speech, and claimed that Charlottesville was a total set-up.

Mr Spencers pledge is at direct loggerheads with the instruction from Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe who demanded white nationalists to go home.

Mr Spencer rose to fame for being punched at an anti-Trump protest earlier in the year. The spokesperson for the so-called alt-right  a far-right movement which has been accused of racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and misogyny  became an overnight meme after the clip went viral. At the time, he said he was worried the video would become the meme to end all memes.
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Two police officers in the US are being investigated for allegedly pulling over a college student and performing a vaginal search on her in a parking lot for 11 minutes.

Charneisha Corley, 23, was stopped in Harris County, Texas for running a stop sign and was told to step out of her car to be frisked after the deputies said they smelled marijuana.

But when they found nothing on her one of the officers bodyslammed her onto the ground before opening her legs and pulling her pants off to probe her, the dashcam footage shows.

Charneisha Corley said she felt the police had sexually assaulted her

"I feel like they sexually assaulted me! I really do. I feel disgusted, downgraded, humiliated," she told abc13 television news channel.

The officers, one white male and one black woman, claimed they found half a gram of marijuana  but the charges were later dropped.

Now prosecutors say they have new secret evidence against Ms Corley and have re-opened their investigation after handing over what they say is fresh material to a grand jury.

Sam Cammack, Ms Corleys lawyer, released the dashcam footage from the deputies car of the 11-minute search of his client in the parking lot after prosecutors reopened their case against her.

He said one of the officers can be heard saying in the video that he was determined to find that Ms Corley had drugs on her person in the incident on the night of 20 June, 2015.

One of the officers on the tape, you could hear him talking to a passenger, who was already in custody in the officers car, you could hear him telling that individual oh were going to find something, if we have to put our hands on her', Mr Cammock said.

The same officer bodyslammed Ms Corley, stuck her head underneath the vehicle, and completely pulled her pants off leaving her naked and exposed," he said of the video aired on Fox26.

They then took Ms Corley and put her ankles behind her ears, both of her ankles, in a spread-eagled position, and begin to search for something in Ms Corleys cavity in her vaginal area.

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The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. 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Harris County prosecutor Natasha Sinclair spoke out against the officers involved. No one in this office stands by the search the way it was conducted. No one condones that, Ms Sinclair said. No one thinks its appropriate. It should not have happened.

But she added that the deputies may not necessarily be punished for their actions, saying: Bad decisions, bad judgement, may not rise to the level of criminal offence.

The two deputies - Ronaldine Pierre, 34, and William Strong, 37 - were put on office duties pending the outcome of the case against Ms Corley and could face prosecution depending on the evidence revealed in any trial.

Ms Sinclair said that the case against Ms Corley remained open despite the nature of the search in which the deputies claimed they found half a gram of marijuana.

It should never have happened, the prosecutor said, and unfortunately we are in the business of prosecuting criminal offences and though it may not be criminal, it doesn't mean she won't receive justice.

Mr Cammack has called for a special prosecutor without any ties to Harris County law enforcement to be brought in to handle the case against Ms Corley.
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A female teacher who raped her 15-year-old student has been ordered to pay the teenager $1m (770,000) in damages.

Jennifer Caswells relationship with the boy caused him significant emotional distress, Oklahoma City Judge Robin Cauthron ruled.

The boy and his father sued Caswell and the local school district of Hollis over the abuse in 2015, which included sex in her classroom, according to the Oklahoman.

"(The boy) reports feelings of depression, isolation, and self-blame for the events that transpired," Judge Cauthron said.

"He experienced humiliation when members of his community publicly chastised him and when strangers recognized him and questioned him about the scandal."

The court heard how the pupil, who has not been named, had once been a well-liked athlete at the school but became the subject of ridicule once the pairs relationship went public.

The boy now goes to a new school where he has no family or friends, according to the Judge.

The 31-year-old teacher was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2015, five of them suspended, after pleading guilty to second-degree rape.

The attorney representing the boy and his father, Bob Wyatt, said they brought the lawsuit in the hope of raising awareness of sex abuse in schools.

Recommended British teacher arrested for alleged sharing of sexual child images

"We are pleased that the judge considered the outrageous behaviour of the teacher and are pleased with the fact that the judge sent a message to teachers and schools across the state of Oklahoma that sexual abuse of a child by a teacher will not be condoned," Mr Wyatt said.

Caswell is serving her sentence at Mabel Bassett Correctional Centre in McLoud.
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A university in Texas has cancelled a white nationalist rally planned for 11 September - inspired by last weekend's far-right event in Charlottesville - over safety concerns.

Neo-Nazis and other extremist groups had planned to host a white lives matter protest on Texas A&Ms campus.

The university said the rally would no longer take place after events in Charlottesville, which saw one woman killed and dozens injured when a man with views sympathetic to neo-Nazis deliberately ploughed a car into a crowd of anti-fascist campaigners.

Texas A&M said the white nationalist event planned for September had been cancelled over concerns about the safety of its students, staff and the public.

Linking the tragedy of Charlottesville and Texas A&M creates a major security risk on our campus, the university said.

The protest had been organised by former student Preston Wiginton, who was inspired by the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, according to the universitys student newspaper the Battalion.

Recommended Richard Spencer vows to continue protests in Charlottesville

Mr Wiginton had announced the event in a press release, which read: Today Charlottesville, tomorrow Texas A&M.

He said the event was planned to counter the liberal agenda of white guilt and the white genocide that is taught at most all universities in America".

White nationalist and alt-right figure Richard Spencer, who organised the Charlottesville rally, was due to speak at the September event.

The university added in its statement that Mr Wiginton had planned the event outdoors in the middle of campus, as no university facilities had been afforded him.

He added that he plans to seek legal action against the university for infringing on his freedom of speech.
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Donald Trump's administration is being sued by California and San Francisco because of the decision to revoke funding for areas that limit federal interaction with undocumented immigrants.

Shortly after taking office, the US President signed an executive order seeking to stop national money from being provided to regions which limited cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE].

Since then, the Department of Justice has targeted grants that have funded programs to prevent youth recidivism and help low-level drug offenders get treatment.

California drew about $28.3m (21.8m) from that program in the most recent fiscal year, according to the California Attorney Generals office.

But changes to the funding regulations mean that it is now tied to jurisdictions giving ICE agents access to immigrants detained in jails. They are also required to notify the federal government when immigrants were to be released.

So-called 'sanctuary' policies make all of us less safe because they intentionally undermine our laws and protect illegal aliens who have committed crimes, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in announcing the new directive.

Those demands clash with the status quo in California, where state law bars jails from holding onto immigrants so ICE can claim them unless theyve been convicted of violent crimes.

San Francisco also forbids local law enforcement from informing the federal government of detained immigrants release dates and bars federal agents from entering jails and interviewing immigrants about their status, in most cases.

 Donald Trump's immigration crackdown encapsulated in poignant footage of father being deported

In suing the federal government, San Francisco and California are filing parallel lawsuits seeking to block those new conditions from being attached to the grants.

San Franciscos lawsuit says that the city hosts a vibrant immigrant community, many members of which are undocumented and argues that a safer, healthier, and stronger city when its officials do not enforce federal immigration laws."

It adds that the city "is safer when all people, including undocumented immigrants, feel safe reporting crimes to authorities.

San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera said: In the name of public safety, this president is undercutting law enforcement in trying to withhold money used to reduce crime."

He added: "We have a president who is bent on trying to vilify immigrants and punish cities that prioritise real, effective public safety over splitting up hardworking families."

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

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who was tapped for Californias top law enforcement job in part to defend the state against Trump administration policies opposed by majorities of the liberal states residents, defended the state's lawsuit in similar terms.

The Trump administration has instituted policies that are not only reckless but illegal, Mr Becerra told reporters, calling it a low blow to our men and women who wear the badge for the federal government to threaten their crimefighting resources in order to force them to do the work of the federal government.

The Trump administration has made a habit of attempting to bend local governments to its immigration priorities by threatening to cut off funds. Earlier this month, the Department of Justice asked four cities that were eligible for federal assistance about their policies toward detained immigrants, leading one police chief to decry the politicisation of policing.
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Alex Jones, the broadcaster known for giving loud voice to wild conspiracy theories without providing any evidence, has claimed the KKK protesters in Charlottesville were in truth left-wing Jewish actors looking to cause trouble.

Mr Jones, whose views are said to frequently influence the thinking of Donald Trump, has previously claimed that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in which 26 people were killed, was a hoax.

In his latest comments, delivered after a 32-year-old anti-fascist activist was killed and up to 20 people were hurt during a white supremacist protest in Virginia, Mr Jones claimed the people wearing KKK robes looked like the cast of Seinfeld.

 Alex Jones on InfoWars: There's a Deep State coup planning to kill the President

Ive been to this events, said Mr Jones, host of the The Alex Jones Show. They were just Jewish actors. Nothing against Jews in general, but they are leftists Jews that want to create this clash and they go dress up as Nazis.

He added: I have footage in Austin - were going to find it somewhere here at the office - where it literally looks like cast of Seinfeld or like Howard Stern in a Nazi outfit.

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

They all look like Howard Stern. They almost got like little curly hair down, and theyre just up there heiling Hitler. You can tell they are totally uncomfortable, they are totally scared, and its all just meant to create the clash.

The violence in Virginia, which saw anti-Nazi protester Heather Heyer killed when a car was allegedly driven into her, has been widely condemned. Mr Trump has been criticised for being slow to call out white supremacists and racists present. A 20-year-old man, James Fields, has been charged with her murder.

Initially, Mr Trump condemned the egregious violence and then, more than a day later and under intense criticism, he issued another statement in which he named those groups behind the criticism.

Racism is evil, Mr Trump said on Monday, speaking from the White House. And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.
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The chief executives of three major manufacturing firms have resigned from Donald Trump's advisory panel over the President's failure to swiftly condemn deadly white supremacist violence in Charlottesville.

The bosses of pharmaceutical giant Merck, computer company Intel, and sportswear manufacturer Under Armour quit the American Manufacturing Council within hours of each other on Monday, issuing pointed statements about the response of US leaders to "expressions of hatred".

Their resignations came two days after a neo-Nazi demonstration in Virginia left one anti-fascist protester dead and amid mounting pressure on the President to explicitly speak out against white supremacy.

Mr Trump later declared racism "evil" and said the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups were "repugnant" in a new statement issued two days after the bloody rally.

Merck chief executive Kenneth Frazier's resignation from the council drew a much quicker response from the President, who tweeted that the executive would "have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!"

Mr Trump lashed out just 54 minutes after Mr Frazier, one of the few black Americans to head a Fortune 500 company, announced his departure from the panel "as a matter of personal conscience".

"America's leaders must honour our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy, which run counter to the American ideal that all people are created equal," the executive said in a statement.

Mr Frazier added: "I feel a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism."

President Donald Trump speaks at a meeting with manufacturing executives including Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier, centre (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Intel chief executive Brian Krzanich cited his "abhorrence at the recent hate-spawned violence in Charlottesville" in a blog post announcing his resignation later on Monday.

"Earlier today I called on all leaders to condemn the white supremacists and their ilk who marched and committed violence," he said, adding in a pointed parting shot: "I resigned because I want to make progress, while many in Washington seem more concerned with attacking anyone who disagrees with them."

Under Armour chief executive Kevin Plank said his company "engages in innovation and sports, not politics" and did not specifically mention Mr Trump or Charlottesville, but said the firm would focus on promoting "unity, diversity and inclusion" through sports.

Many on social media, including business leaders, spoke out in support of the executives' resignations.

"Thanks @Merck Ken Frazier for strong leadership to stand up for the moral values that made this country what it is," said Unilever chief executive Paul Polman on Twitter.

The trio are not the first executives to resign from advisory councils serving the President.

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk quit the manufacturing council and two other advisory groups in June after the US withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement.

Walt Disney chairman and chief executive Bob Iger resigned for the same reason from the President's Strategic and Policy Forum, which Mr Trump established to advise him on how government policy impacts economic growth and job creation.

The manufacturing jobs council had 28 members initially, but it has shrunk since it was formed earlier this year as executives resign, retire, or are replaced.

William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said he couldn't "think of a parallel example" of any President responding as viciously to a chief executive departing an advisory council as Mr Trump's attack on Mr Frazier.

"Usually, certain niceties are observed to smooth over a rupture," said Mr Galston, who served as a domestic policy aide in the Clinton administration.

He added: "We've learned that as president, Mr Trump is behaving exactly as he did as a candidate. He knows only one mode: When attacked, hit back harder."
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Donald Trump is facing increased pressure to get rid of the nationalist wing of his White House following a racial protest in Charlottesville that led to deadly violence.

Multiple former and current allies, reportedly including media mogul Rupert Murdoch, have called for the ousting of Chief Strategist Steve Bannon  a self-proclaimed nationalist who ran the Breitbart website and called it a platform for the alt-right.

The alt-right  a name given to the group that has rejected mainstream conservatism in favour of white nationalism  drew considerable controversy during Mr Trumps bid for the White House.

Mr Bannon, who embodies the populist movement at the centre of the Presidents agenda, is credited as being one of the key players that helped Mr Trump win the 2016 election.

In a press conference on Tuesday, Mr Trump told reporters that Mr Bannon is not a racist, I can tell you that.

Well see what happens to Mr Bannon, Mr Trump said. But hes a very good person, adding that the press treats the strategist unfairly.

The real estate mogul was said to be reciting Mr Bannons words  as well as those of senior policy advisor Stephen Miller  when he declared to a crowd during his inauguration ceremony that he is the protector of the countrys forgotten men and women and described the nation as a landscape of rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones.

Mr Miller  one of the main architects of the Presidents immigration policy  and advisor Sebastian Gorka, who once wrote for Breitbart, have also come under scrutiny.

Bannon, Miller, Gorka must go. Probably more, tweeted John Weaver, an advisor to Ohio Governor John Kasich, who ran against Mr Trump in the Republican primaries.

If the President is sincere about rejecting white supremacists, he should remove all doubt by firing Steve Bannon and the other alt-right white supremacist sympathisers in the White House, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement.

She added that the Presidents first response to the Charlottesville violence  in which he did not denounce white supremacist groups  was a direct reflection of the fact that Mr Bannon is an alt-right white supremacist sympathizer and a shameless enforcer of those un-American beliefs.

Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Show all 9 1 /9 Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Protesters clash and several are injured White nationalist demonstrators clash with counter demonstrators at the entrance to Lee Park in Charlottesville, Virginia. A state of emergency is declared, August 12 2017 Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Trump supporters at the protest A white nationalist demonstrator walks into Lee Park in Charlottesville, Va., Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017. Hundreds of people chanted, threw punches, hurled water bottles and unleashed chemical sprays on each other Saturday after violence erupted at a white nationalist rally in Virginia. AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville State police stand ready in riot gear Virginia State Police cordon off an area around the site where a car ran into a group of protesters after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Militia armed with assault rifles White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' with body armor and combat weapons evacuate comrades who were pepper sprayed after the 'Unite the Right' rally was declared a unlawful gathering by Virginia State Police. Militia members marched through the city earlier in the day, armed with assault rifles. Getty Images Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee The statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee stands behind a crowd of hundreds of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' during the 'Unite the Right' rally 12 August 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia. They are protesting the removal of the statue from Emancipation Park in the city. Getty Images Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Racial tensions sparked the violence White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' exchange insults with counter-protesters as they attempt to guard the entrance to Lee Park during the 'Unite the Right' rally Getty Violence on the streets of Charlottesville A car plows through protesters A vehicle drives into a group of protesters demonstrating against a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The incident resulted in multiple injuries, some life-threatening, and one death. AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Rescue personnel help injured people after a car ran into a large group of protesters after an white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville President Donald Trump speaks about the ongoing situation in Charlottesville, Virginia from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. He spoke about "loyalty" and "healing wounds" left by decades of racism.

In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter in November, after Mr Trump was elected, Mr Bannon said he was not a white nationalist, Im a nationalist.

He also emphasised that his ideology runs counter to those of both the Democratic and Republicans parties, which he believes have sold out the country and effectively created a middle class in Asia.

Former White House communications advisor Anthony Scaramucci, sacked by Mr Trump after just 10 days on the job, suggested to ABC that Mr Bannons time at the White House could be cut short.

I think the president knows what he's going to do with Steve Bannon, said Mr Scaramucci, who had railed against the senior strategist in a profanity-laced conversation with the New Yorker before being fired.

[The President has] got to move more into the mainstream, hes got to be more into where the moderates are and the independents are, Mr. Scaramucci told ABCs This Week. And so if he does that, hell have a very successful legislative agenda that hell be able to execute. And if he doesnt do that, youre going to see inertia and youre going to see this resistance from more of the establishment senators that he needs to curry favor with.

But a decision by Mr Trump to purge the White House of Mr Bannon, Mr Gorka and Mr Miller would be a slap in the face to the President's base of supporters, longtime Tea Party activist Debbie Dooley told the Independent.

Ms Dooley said voters elected Mr Trump for his America First agenda. He was not elected as a moderate, she said.

In an interview with Breitbart News Daily three days before the violence in Charlottesville, Mr Gorka accused the media for focusing too much on white supremacists.

Its this constant, Oh, its the white man. Its the white supremacists. Thats the problem. No, it isnt, Maggie Haberman, Mr Gorka said, referring to the prominent New York Times reporter.

Go to Sinjar. Go to the Middle East and tell me what the real problem is today. Go to Manchester, he added, suggesting that the real threat to the US is radical Islamic terror.

The White House did not respond to the Independent's request for comment regarding reports that the President is under pressure to get rid of some of his top advisors.
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The protesters who tore down a Confederate monument in North Carolina could face charges for the vandalism if local investigators are able to figure out their identities.

Durham Sheriff Mike Andrews said that he was relieved nobody was hurt when the protesters wrapped a yellow strap around the Confederate Soldiers monument and pulled it off its pedestal.

Collectively, we decided that restraint and public safety would be our priority Mr Andrews said in a statement. As the sheriff, I am not blind to the offensive conduct of some demonstrators more will I ignore their criminal conduct.

Recommended Plans to remove Confederate symbols in Kentucky following violence

Videos captured at the scene are being analysed by investigators, he said, to figure out who was responsible for the actions. The sheriff emphasised that racism and incivility wouldnt be allowed to run rampant in his county.

The statue, which is nearly a century old, is called the "Confederate Soldiers Monument". The statue was dedicated in 1924.

Protests were held outside of the Durham County Courthouse to protest racism there just days after a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, turned violent when a vehicle plowed through a group of counter protesters. A 32-year-old woman was killed by that vehicle, and 19 others were injured.

That rally in Charlottesville was organised to protest the recent decision by city officials to remove a statue honouring Confederate General Robert E Lee. Those officials reasoned that Lee had no real historical connection to the city, and that its continued placement on public grounds in the city was inappropriate.

Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Show all 9 1 /9 Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Protesters clash and several are injured White nationalist demonstrators clash with counter demonstrators at the entrance to Lee Park in Charlottesville, Virginia. A state of emergency is declared, August 12 2017 Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Trump supporters at the protest A white nationalist demonstrator walks into Lee Park in Charlottesville, Va., Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017. Hundreds of people chanted, threw punches, hurled water bottles and unleashed chemical sprays on each other Saturday after violence erupted at a white nationalist rally in Virginia. AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville State police stand ready in riot gear Virginia State Police cordon off an area around the site where a car ran into a group of protesters after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Militia armed with assault rifles White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' with body armor and combat weapons evacuate comrades who were pepper sprayed after the 'Unite the Right' rally was declared a unlawful gathering by Virginia State Police. Militia members marched through the city earlier in the day, armed with assault rifles. Getty Images Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee The statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee stands behind a crowd of hundreds of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' during the 'Unite the Right' rally 12 August 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia. They are protesting the removal of the statue from Emancipation Park in the city. Getty Images Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Racial tensions sparked the violence White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' exchange insults with counter-protesters as they attempt to guard the entrance to Lee Park during the 'Unite the Right' rally Getty Violence on the streets of Charlottesville A car plows through protesters A vehicle drives into a group of protesters demonstrating against a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The incident resulted in multiple injuries, some life-threatening, and one death. AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Rescue personnel help injured people after a car ran into a large group of protesters after an white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville President Donald Trump speaks about the ongoing situation in Charlottesville, Virginia from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. He spoke about "loyalty" and "healing wounds" left by decades of racism.

The rally quickly fell into chaos, however, and police attempted to disperse crowds soon after the planned start time. Reports of the two sides brawling ran amok, and videos showed white supremacist demonstrators beating up counter protesters. Some demonstrators used tear gas, while others used police batons and other weapons.

Confederate monuments have been a point of contention since at least 2015, when Dylann Roof, a 21-year-old white man, entered a historically black church and shot nine black people to death in Charlotte, South Carolina. Investigations into that attack  carried out by Roof in the hopes of sparking a race war  later unveiled pictures of Roof posing with a gun and the Confederate flag.

The flag photos quickly sparked a national debate over why the Confederate flag  which was flown by the Confederate army when the South seceded from the United States in protest of pro-emancipation policies in the North  was still flying on public grounds.

That uproar later led the South Carolina governor at the time, Nikki Haley, to force her legislature to write a law to remove the flag from state grounds. Other states and localities have since followed suit or have considered it, and the topic of monuments has been considered as well.

There are over 1,500 Confederate monuments or tributes on public grounds in the United States, according to a database compiled by the Southern Poverty Law Center. That includes 718 monuments or statues, 109 public schools, 80 counties, and 10 US military bases named for Confederate soldiers.
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Hosts of a programme on Fox News have claimed that the media - not the Klu Klux Klan or neo-Nazis - are to blame for the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.

On 'Fox and Friends,' co-host Pete Hegseth said that "nothing is ever good enough" for the "press" so they would keep pushing Donald Trump on his statements following the protest that resulted in three deaths and dozens of injuries.

Mr Hegseth was referring to the widespread questioning of the President's initial statement following the death of counter-protester Heather Heyer and two Virginia State Police officers, Berke MM Bates and H Jay Cullen.

Recommended 7 things Donald Trump condemned faster than white supremacism

Mr Trump, ahead of a bill signing regarding the Veterans Administration, blamed "many sides" for the violence and stopped short of condemning the Klu Klux Klan and Nazis present at the rally. He called on the nation to "unite" and "heal wounds" of a problem that had been around for "a long, long time. Not Barack Obama. Not Donald Trump".

One senior administration official said "on background" to reporters that Mr Trump "of course" denounces these groups. Several of the white nationalist protesters were seen wearing pro-Trump gear.

It was not until nearly 48 hours after the incidents that Mr Trump gave a statement at the White House that condemned those groups directly and once again called on the country to come together, adding that "regardless of race, creed, religion, or political party" everyone is American.

Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Show all 9 1 /9 Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Protesters clash and several are injured White nationalist demonstrators clash with counter demonstrators at the entrance to Lee Park in Charlottesville, Virginia. A state of emergency is declared, August 12 2017 Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Trump supporters at the protest A white nationalist demonstrator walks into Lee Park in Charlottesville, Va., Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017. Hundreds of people chanted, threw punches, hurled water bottles and unleashed chemical sprays on each other Saturday after violence erupted at a white nationalist rally in Virginia. AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville State police stand ready in riot gear Virginia State Police cordon off an area around the site where a car ran into a group of protesters after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Militia armed with assault rifles White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' with body armor and combat weapons evacuate comrades who were pepper sprayed after the 'Unite the Right' rally was declared a unlawful gathering by Virginia State Police. Militia members marched through the city earlier in the day, armed with assault rifles. Getty Images Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee The statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee stands behind a crowd of hundreds of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' during the 'Unite the Right' rally 12 August 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia. They are protesting the removal of the statue from Emancipation Park in the city. Getty Images Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Racial tensions sparked the violence White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' exchange insults with counter-protesters as they attempt to guard the entrance to Lee Park during the 'Unite the Right' rally Getty Violence on the streets of Charlottesville A car plows through protesters A vehicle drives into a group of protesters demonstrating against a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The incident resulted in multiple injuries, some life-threatening, and one death. AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Rescue personnel help injured people after a car ran into a large group of protesters after an white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville President Donald Trump speaks about the ongoing situation in Charlottesville, Virginia from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. He spoke about "loyalty" and "healing wounds" left by decades of racism.

Co-host Abby Huntsman said of the mainstream media: "they have an open door now to run with their narrative...in their minds, a lot of them, say 'we can associate the President with these groups'".

"That fits a lot of narrative on the left and of the media. And that is very problematic for society for us to even be talking like that," said Ms Huntsman.

"Of course, because so much of the left sees this world not through America first but through racial identity politics first," Mr Hegseth noted.

The President used what many considered fiery rhetoric on the campaign trail against women, the disabled, the African-American, Hispanic, Latin American, Muslim communities. He also cut federal funding awarded by the Obama administration to groups fighting right-wing violent extremist groups just ahead of the Charlottesville incident.

Mr Trump has frequently retweeted reports of Fox News using his personal Twitter account and the network has appeared largely favourable to the US leader. He is also close friends with the network's owner, NewsCorp CEO Rupert Murdoch.
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North Korea has moved missile equipment into position ahead of a possible launch, according to US defence officials.

American satellites detected the transportation of launchers capable of firing intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) amid tension over threats by Pyongyang.

The movement is "not believed to be directly related to the threat issued by North Korea last week to strike the waters near Guam," a source told CNN.

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But they added the activity was being "watched closely" by the US military.

It comes after James Mattis, the American Defence Secretary, warned a North Korean missile attack "could escalate into war very quickly".

He said the US would "take out" any such launch aimed at its territory, in an apparent reference to missile defence systems around Guam.

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un said on Tuesday he would hold off on plans to fire four missiles towards the Pacific island and would instead "watch a little more the foolish and stupid conduct of the Yankees," according to a state news agency.

In photos released with the report, Kim was seen pointing at a map showing a flight path for the missiles from North Korea's east coast, flying over Japan towards Guam.

But the island's Homeland Security Adviser George Charfauros said the movement of missile launchers was likely "just a show of force" to mark the country's Liberation Day on Tuesday.

It may be just a ruse. Today is an historic day for the Korean peninsular.... North Korea tends to use symbolism as part of their decision making," he said.

"There doesn't appear to be any indication, based on what we're hearing, that there will be any missiles attacking in the near future or in the distant future," Lieutenant Governor Ray Tonorio added.

Islanders were given a brief scare on Tuesday when two Guam radio stations accidentally broadcast an emergency danger warning for 15 minutes.

Listeners were warned of an unspecified threat at 12.25am local time.

Authorities stressed a real warning would describe the type of threat and said they were working with the stations to ensure the "human error" would not be repeated.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. 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Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. 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Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. 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Tensions have been heightened on the island, home to 162,000 people and two military bases, since Pyongyang's threat last week.

But Mr Charfauros told residents to "remain calm", adding in a statement: "Remember there is no change in threat level, we continue business as usual and know there are US Department of Defence capabilities in place.

"We continue communication with our federal and military partners and have not received official statement warranting any concern for imminent threat to Guam or the Marianas.

US President Donald Trump said last week his military was "locked and loaded" and ready to unleash "fire and fury" if North Korea acted "unwisely".
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A family refused to tip a restaurant waitress after they spotted her LGBT rainbow tattoo and instead scrawled abuse on their bill.

The diners wrote "can't tip someone who doesn't love Jesus" on the $60.55 receipt before leaving Buffalo Wild Wings in Rockford, Illinois.

Their note added: "Bad tatoo [sic]."

Samantha Heaton, who had served the family of five, was "hurt" when she saw the message.

The 20-year-old said she made friendly conversation with the customers and had served them attentively.

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They did not mention religion, sexuality or her tattoo, which she said represented equality and LGBT rights, while at the table.

I went above and beyond for this couple, and for them to leave that kind of hurt," Ms Heaton told the Rock River Times.

The waitress said she had a girlfriend of three years, identifies as a Christian, and believes in Jesus and God.

She said the couple who left the note had set a bad example for their three children.

The kids are going to be under the impression that it will be OK to discriminate against anybody, she said.

"I myself am a Christian. And, as a Christian, thou shall not judge. No matter how someone looks, you should love them for whats in their heart and how they treat you, not for what is on the outside.

"As someone who came out when it was still a battle for the LGBTQ community, thats just plain rude and uncalled for. What if one day their kids grow up and want to be with the same sex, are they going to disown them? Throw them on the street?

Samantha Heaton, right, with girlfriend Alyssa Christina (Facebook/Alyssa Christina) (Alyssa Christiana/Facebook)

A colleague snapped a picture of the note next to Ms Heaton's tattoo and posted it on Facebook, where it has been shared hundreds of times and prompted many messages in support of the waitress.

The co-worker, Joelle Nicole Marsh, said: "I would just like to say that being gay does NOT MEAN you don't believe in God or Jesus. And people who are 'religious' should not disrespect or act in such ways to other people."

Among those who shared the picture was Ms Heaton's girlfriend Alyssa Christina, who wrote: "My girlfriend is so much more than a tattoo. She is the most amazing human I know."

Referring to the customers who left the note, she added: "I bet she went above and beyond for you just for you to stiff her. I'm sure you seen her tattoo as she introduced herself, why not just ask for another server? Instead you let her serve you so that you could leave this ugly comment."

Some people have contacted Ms Heaton to offer her tips after seeing her story on social media. But she said did not want money and would donate any she received to charity.

She added: "Someone asked me the other day if I would go back in time and get the same tattoo and I said, No I would get it bigger.'"
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Three British men have been jailed and told they will be caned after they pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting an unconscious woman in Singapore.

They were on trial for raping a Malaysian woman but pleaded guilty on Monday to the lesser offence of aggravated molestation.

All three admitted outraging her modesty by taking it in turns to have sex with her while she was asleep after a stag party in 2016, according to the Straits Times.

Recommended Three British men face whipping over alleged rape on Singapore stag do

The actions of Khong Tam Thanh, 22, Vu Thai Son, 24, and Michael Le, 24, were "reprehensible", judicial commissioner Hoo Sheau Peng said.

She added: "While she was asleep, and quite unable to protect herself, they took advantage of her vulnerable state so as to commit these serious sexual crimes.

"In doing so, they showed no respect for her dignity and autonomy, and no regard for any harm and hurt they might cause to her."

Thanh was jailed for six years and sentenced to eight strokes of the cane. Son was sentenced to six-and-a-half years behind bars with eight strokes, and Le was jailed for five-and-a-half years with five strokes.
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Indian and Chinese military forces are reported to be preparing for the possibility of an armed conflict over a disputed area in the Himalayas should a peaceful solution not be found.

The standoff began two months ago when Indian troops confronted Chinese forces working on a road over the Doklam Plateau, a strategically important area near where Tibet, India and Bhutan meet, and which both China and Bhutan  an ally of India  claim as their own.

China has demanded that Indian troops withdraw before it will hold talks with the country, while India has called for each side to stand down.

The South China Morning Post reported that sources close to the Chinese military have claimed the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) has plans to deploy aircraft and strategic missiles against Indias troops in the event of conflict breaking out, in order to limit the action to skirmishes.

The PLA will not seek to fight a ground war with Indian troops early on. Instead it will deploy aircraft and strategic missiles to paralyse Indian mountain divisions stationed in the Himalayas on the border with China, a source told the newspaper on condition of anonymity.

In his Independence Day speech on Tuesday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke of the countrys capabilities in the face of security challenges, The Times of India reports.

Mr Modi did not directly reference the border dispute, but asserted that security is our priority.

It is clear that security of our country is our priority. Internal security is our priority. Be it sea or borders, be it cyber or space, India is capable of tackling every security challenge, he said.

In a separate report, the newspaper claimed that ceremonial border personnel meetings between India and China appear to have been affected since the stand-off started.

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

A source told The Times of India there are up to eight of these ceremonial meetings a year, which include speeches, cultural performances and an exchange of gifts. The Indian army reportedly did not cross the border on 1 August for the 90th anniversary celebrations of the PLA, and Chinas army has allegedly not responded to an invitation for Indias Independence Day celebrations.

Professor Steve Tsang, Director of the SOAS China Institute, told The Independent it is unlikely that either side will escalate military action as neither side wants a conflict at this point.

At the moment we are looking at a stand-off that is going to last for a while, I dont see the Chinese or Indian side escalating into conflict, he said. But we do have a lot of boys with a lot of fancy toys facing each other in an emotionally charged area, so the risk of things getting out of hand cannot be eliminated.

If the military disciplines on both sides hold, I dont expect them to escalate because it is not government policy. Neither side is willing to stand down but neither side wants a conflict at this point.

Last week sources told Reuters news agency that Indias military had increased its operational readiness along the eastern Indian border with China, though it was stressed the alert level had been raised as a matter of caution.

"The army has moved to a state that is called 'no war, no peace'," one source said. The order issued to all troop formations in the eastern command two weeks ago means soldiers are supposed to take up positions that are earmarked for them in the event of a war, the source added.

The move followed failed diplomatic efforts to break the stalemate, other sources with close ties to the Modi government told Reuters earlier in the week.

China has repeatedly warned of an escalation if India did not order its troops back. The state-controlled Global Times, which has kept up a barrage of hostile commentary, said last week that if Mr Modi continued the present course at the border, Beijing would have to take "counter-measures".

Rhetoric printed in local media has fuelled tensions between both sides over the past month.

In July the BBC reported a Delhi newspaper as stating that China had warned the stand-off could escalate into full-scale conflict, while state-run media in Beijing had started running old reports and pictures from the brief but bloody 1962 Sino-Indian War, in which China made decisive territorial gains.

Additional reporting by agencies
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A Thai student activist was jailed for two and a half years on Tuesday for posting a BBC article deemed offensive to Thailands king on Facebook, his lawyer said.

Jatupat Boonpattaraksa, also known as Pai, an activist and critic of the ruling junta, was the first person to be charged with royal insult, known as lese-majeste, after new King Maha Vajiralongkorn formally ascended the throne on 1 December, following the death of his father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

Jatupat, a former law student, was arrested on 3 December and charged for posting a BBC Thai language profile of the king on social media, which some deemed offensive.

The article was shared by more than 2,000 people. He was also charged with violating a computer crime law.

He pleaded guilty to the charges against him earlier on Tuesday, prompting the court to bring forward its verdict.

Recommended Thai King shot at with air pistol in Germany

The court sentenced Pai to five years in prison, reduced to two and a half years, Kissandang Nutcharat, Jatupats lawyer, told Reuters.

Pai confessed... He knew that if he tried to fight the charges it would not be of any use.

A representative for the BBC in Thailand said he could not immediately comment on the verdict.

Thailands military government took power after a 2014 coup against a democratically elected government.

Since then, the detention of people accused of royal insult has increased sharply.

Last week, a man was jailed for 18 years for posting six video clips deemed insulting to the monarchy.

International rights groups have accused the authorities in Thailand of using broad laws to silence critics. Some political commentators have said the laws have been used to shield governments and the military from criticism.

It appears that Jatupat was singled out from the thousands of people who shared the BBC article, and prosecuted for his strong opposition to military rule more than for any harm incurred by the monarchy, Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

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

Anyone can file a lese-majeste complaint against anyone in Thailand, and complaints are almost always investigated by authorities who fear falling foul of the law themselves.

The laws protecting members of the royal family from insult limit what all news organisations, including Reuters, can report from Thailand.

Reuters
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At least 12 people have been killed when they were crushed by a falling tree during a religious festival on the island of Madeira, local media reports.

Portuguese media say the large 200-year-old oak tree came crushing down on a crowd outside a small church during the Nossa Senhora do Monte festival, which attracts thousands of visitors from all around the world to the island every year.

A live stream of the event shows the moment the tree fell down on the crowd of families and children enjoying the festivities.

In the video, people are heard screaming and quickly scatter.

Television footage from the scene showed images of emergency workers and Red Cross workers flooding to the area and helping those injured around a tall tree on the ground.

Regional health chief Pedro Ramos said 10 people were killed when the tree fell down, a child died while being transported to a hospital and a woman died in hospital.

Speaking to reporters, Mr Ramos also said 52 people were suffering from serious injuries as a result of the incident.

Miguel Albuquerque, the head of the regional government of Madeira, declared three days of mourning for the victims.

Firemen and emergency workers secure the site where a large tree fell and injured several people in Largo da Fonte, in the parish of Monte, on the Madeira island (EPA/HOMEM DE GOUVEIA)

The tree came down just after midday local time on the village's Fountain Square, where there is a Catholic shrine. Worshippers were then preparing for the procession of Our Lady of the Mount.

According to newspaper Jornal de Madeira, local authorities had previously been warned about the condition of the tree and were urged to chop it down but only a few branches were reportedly cut.

Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa travelled to Madeira on Tuesday.

In a message posted on the President's official website, Mr de Sousa expressed his condolences for the victims of the accident.

"I will go to Funchal today to learn more about what happened, and, of course, to bring words of encouragements and comfort to those who have lost loved ones," he said.

Police and emergency services remain at the scene (EPA/HOMEM DE GOUVEIA)

Crowds are drawn to the village of Monte, a suburb of Funchal, the capital city of the Portuguese archipelago, for this major Roman Catholic festival which marks the Assumption, or the entry into heaven of the Virgin Mary.

Nossa Senhora is the patron saint of Madeira.
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Polish police broke up a feminist rally and forcefully removed activists to clear the way for a march for far-right extremists.

A live stream of the protest shows members of the All-Polish Women's Strike group and activists from Obywatele RP, which aims to defend democratic principles in Poland, taking part in a sit-in in central Warsaw, to block the far-right rally's route.

Many of the women were holding up photos of Heather Heyer, the American woman killed when a car ploughed into a crowd of counter-protesters during a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend.

Footage shows the women activists dressed in black and sitting on the floor, with banners reading: "If you're not outraged you're not paying attention. Heather Heyer, victim of fascism August 2017".

Another read: "Get fascists off the streets".

Holding white roses, the group aimed to prevent several dozen extremists from marching in central Warsaw on Poland's Armed Forces Day.

However, police officers were filmed forcibly removing the protesters off the street before taking them to a side street and recording their names. As they did so, new protesters arrived to take their place in the sit-in.

Women activists try to block a far-right extremists marching to celebrate the Polish Army Day (ANEK SKARZYNSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

Officers were also seen heavily guarded the far-right extremists on their march which according to local media reports was organised by the nationalist All-Polish Youth group.

According to Polish news website Fakt, members of the National Radical Camp, known in Poland as the ONR, were also part of the far-right march.

An anti-communist and nationalist political group, the National Radical Camp has been described as being influenced by Italian fascism and rejecting parliamentary democracy.

Fakt also reported that officers told the anti-fascists protesters to clear the way or the force would have to coerce them into doing so.

The All-Polish Youth reportedly met in front to the Polish Army Museum and were supposed to make their way across the city to the tomb of the unknown solider.

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

"We want to pay homage to the outstanding generation of Poles who have regained independence for Poland and who defended it in front of the Bolshevik's barbaric invasion," the organisers said.

In recent years, Polish far-right groups have become increasingly active, particularly on national holidays.

Critics of the ruling Law and Justice party believe the government is emboldening them by failing to denounce them in strong terms.

On social media, some users vehemently denounced the police's action with many making references to the march reassembling a Hitler youth event.

Earlier in the day, about 1,500 Polish soldiers paraded in Warsaw, while fighter planes and other aircraft flew in formation above.

President Andrzej Duda bestowed a high honour on Lt Gen Ben Hodges, commander of the US Army in Europe in recognition of his commitment to Polish-US military cooperation.

A small unit of US troops joined Poland's marching soldiers which included some of the thousands deployed in the country as part of efforts to reassure European countries concerned about possible Russian aggression.

The 15 August is a national holiday in Poland which celebrates the country's victory against the Russian Bolsheviks in the 1920 Polish-Soviet war.
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Arsonists have sparked large fires on the Greek island of Zante, a member of parliament has claimed.

Authorities declared an emergency after flames raged for four days on the island, also known as Zakynthos, which is a popular destination for British tourists.

"It's arson according to an organised plan," Justice Minister Stavros Kontonis, who is the member of parliament for Zakythnos, told state TV when asked to comment on the dozen fires burning on the island. "There is no doubt about it."

Recommended Man hailed a hero for attempting to single handedly put out bus fire

Late July and August often see outbreaks of forest and brush fires in Greece, where high temperatures help create tinder-box conditions.

Twitter users posted images showing flames and smoke rising from the hills around their homes.

Firefighters have also been battling a huge wildfire near Athens for several days, which has scorched thousands of hectares of land.

It started in Kalamos, a coastal holiday spot some 45 km (30 miles) northeast of the capital, and spread to three more towns, damaging dozens of homes. A state of emergency was declared in the area.

"We are trying to contain the active fronts and the main priority is the protection of human life," fire brigade spokeswoman Stavroula Maliri told a press briefing.

Three fire-fighting planes and six water-throwing helicopters operated through the morning, assisting 180 firefighters and about 100 military personnel battling the blaze on the ground near the town of Kapandriti.

Rugged terrain dotted with small communities made the fire fighting difficult, with winds rekindling the blaze at many spots along the front. Thick billowing smoke rendered fire fighting from the air difficult.

Authorities ordered a precautionary evacuation of two summer camps and homes in the area and evacuated a monastery after flames reached its fence on Monday. Hundreds of Kalamos residents fled, heading to the beach to spend the night.

A resident of Kalamos said: "It was a terrible mess ... You could see homes on fire, people running, people desperate, it was chaos and the fire was very big."

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

Andreas Theodorou, a local councillor in Kalamos, said the blaze had damaged "several dozens of homes."

"Help did not arrive fast enough, and if you don't stop a forest fire so large as soon as it breaks out, it's very hard to put it out," he said.

In the Peloponnese region of Ilia, the site of Greece's worst fires in 2007, which killed more than 70 people, blazes broke out in three areas on Monday, prompting the evacuation of a village. The fires there were contained on Tuesday.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to advance the passing of a bill which would allow his security cabinet to declare a war without the approval of the rest of the government, reports say.

Israels Channel 2 - known for its political coverage - said it had learned that over the last few weeks Mr Netanyahu has been pushing for an amendment to the Basic Law Concerning the Government which would allow him to declare war or to launch a military operation, without the need for its approval by the government, and in certain cases, without the presence of the entire [Security] Cabinet.

Channel 2 said the potential changes were raised on the recommendations of a committee created in 2015 to improve the efficacy of the security cabinet after disagreements between members led to operational difficulties in the 2014 Operation Protective Edge in Gaza.

 Benjamin Netanyahu urges Theresa May to back fresh sanctions for Iran

In another incident in 2010, former Israel Defence Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and ex-Mossad director Meir Dagan refused to carry out Mr Netanyahus secret orders on the grounds they could lead to war. It is reported the decision from Mr Netanyahu and his defence minister was to carry out a strike on Iran.

Since the two officials raised the objection, the covert operation had to go to the full cabinet for approval, which was not granted.

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Justice Ministry officials are reportedly in favour of the amendment, which would speed up the decision making process, prevent operational leaks and restrict debate before any potential military strikes.

Critics have said the move will allow the prime minister to send soldiers to their deaths without the approval of the rest of the government, and that any leaked information is an attempt to draw attention away from his current precarious political and legal situation.

The Knesset is expected to discuss the proposal in October, after the summer recess.
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It is very unfortunate that America has a President who is creating so much division, said Rafi, shaking his head. I wish we could just ignore Donald Trump, but he is causing problems which are affecting all of us, causing so much distress.

Like many others he is unsure about the punitive reach of the US Presidents immigration restrictions on travellers from a list of Muslim states which includes Iran. He emigrated with his parents to Germany when young but returned regularly to the land of his birth to keep in touch with relations.

Rafis current trip was to see an ill uncle in Tehran as well as pay a visit to friends from his Armenian background in Isfahan. But he was worried whether he would be allowed to travel to America where other family members have settled.

He has been advised by his lawyer that he should be able to get a US visa with his German passport: others have also told him that as a Christian, rather than a Muslim, he is likely to face fewer difficulties with US immigration.

But the 48-year-old engineer is still apprehensive enough not to want his surname published, in case the views he expressed made him a target for officials at American airports. Maybe I am being too nervous, but that is what the situation is like now, people are made to feel nervous, he stresses. Maybe it will be easier for me as a Christian, but we should not be thinking in these terms of division. Just look at this place, look at so many different people from different backgrounds who are here to appreciate all this.

Rafi is at the Cathedral of the Holy Saviour in Isfahan, built in 1606, at a time when the Armenian refugees from war against the Ottomans were given dispensation to settle in the city by Irans ruler, Shah Abbas I. Vank, as it is colloquially known after the Armenian word for monastery, is one of the most popular destinations for foreign travellers in Iran who come to view its magnificent dome and frescos, a fusion of Eastern and Western architecture.

Arlet, one of the volunteer helpers at the Cathedral, has seen a rise in numbers of tourists from Europe  France, Italy, Germany, Holland and also, at a smaller scale, from the UK. At the same time, however, the numbers from the US have dropped off, starting from around the time of Mr Trumps election victory.

There is anxiety about whether the new law will affect the steady stream of emigration of Armenians which has been taking place to the US from Iran. Many of Arlets family and friends from New Juffa, the communitys quarter in Isfahan, have made the journey to join fellow expatriates in California and the Mid-West. She does not know, she says, of the possible impact of the new laws.

Tourism to Iran has increased significantly in volume since the country started opening up to the outside world, in particular since the relative relaxation in the political climate following the signing of the nuclear deal with international powers and the coming of a reformist government in Tehran led by President Hassan Rouhani.

For visitors the lure is the culture and history of a sophisticated civilisation, with no fewer than 19 Unesco heritage sites, which had been inaccessible for decades when Iran was shunned as a pariah state. Now the country is also viewed as safe in comparison with other states offering similar attractions in the region  Syria, Egypt, Turkey, Tunisia, Libya  places which have become no-go areas due to the varying degrees of threats from terrorism or civil war.

More than 5.5 million foreign tourists visited Iran in 2016. About half the number were Shia pilgrims from the Middle East, others came from the Americas, Europe and South and East Asia. The benefit to the economy is estimated at $8bn. The Iranian government says it aims to host 20 million tourists by 2025, raising revenues to $30bn and creating around 650,000 jobs.

But there is uncertainty whether the high expectation will be fulfilled. Mr Trumps repeated threat to withdraw the US from the nuclear agreement, achieved through years of painstaking negotiations, is creating concern that Iran will be pushed back towards isolation. There was a terrorist attack in Tehran in June  a rare occurrence in the country  killing 12 people. Isis claimed credit for the killings: Iran has pointed the finger of blame at its Sunni sectarian rival, Saudi Arabia.

European visitors in Isfahan do not seem to have any great concern. Not only is this a beautiful country, but I feel pretty safe here, says 27-year-old Matilde Lejeune, from France. We have had many terrorist attacks in Paris where I live, also in Nice, it is now something we have begun to expect. I do not feel that tension here and also, personally, my friends and I have not been hassled at all in any way.

Francesca and Roberto Marchesi, from Milan, are on a tour of five Iranian cities. Francesca has been surprised how relaxed and easy everything has been, we have wanted to come to Iran for a long time and didnt really know what to expect. The Iranian people really seem so glad to see foreign visitors, I am very glad we came. The couple had, however, checked about future travel to America before their visit. It means we will have to go for an interview at the embassy and get a visa, it will cost more, but we just have to accept that, saya Roberto. We cannot let Trump dictate where we go on holiday.

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 Marchesis have made their own travel arrangements, working out that it costs less to pay for the visa on arrival at Tehran and have been travelling between the destinations by bus. We just go along to the bus station and book our seats. We hire local guides for places when necessary, we have had no pressure to take official ones, and its all reasonably priced, says Roberto, at the palace of Chehel Sotoun, where Safabid Shahs used to entertain foreign dignitaries including ambassadors from Europe.

British and American nationals have to be part of organised tours: suspicion of the Great Satan and Little Satan still runs deep among hardliners in Irans hierarchy. Tourism is just one of a range of policies in which President Hassan Rouhani and his reformist government have to tread carefully.

At the end of the day, tourism cannot be separated from politics here. Visitors from the Gulf States had begun to come to Iran with the easing of relations between Tehran and its Sunni neighbours after the end of Mahmoud Ahmadinejads presidency. But the current confrontation between Qatar and Saudi-led Gulf states put an end to that.

One of the main reasons for the blockade of Qatar by the Saudis and their client states was Dohas amicable relations with Tehran. Now the Saudis, Emiratis and Bahrainis are no longer to be found here.

For Hakim Ghasemi, the owner of an artefact emporium, it is a matter of seeking the positives from a crisis. We still get some Kuwaitis, some from Oman and some Qataris, he says. I had a Qatari customer last week, I told him about how we are losing out because of the Saudis no longer coming and then I assured him we were doing the right thing standing by his country. He was very happy, he spent good money, he said others will come from Qatar. Were getting people from other places, from Europe, I am optimistic about the future, we cannot go back to the past.
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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has warned the West that his countrys abandoned nuclear programme could be restarted within hours if the US imposes new sanctions.

If US President Donald Trumps recent threats and sanctions continue, he told parliament on Tuesday, the defunct nuclear problem, halted in return for sanctions relief in an international deal in 2015, could be resuscitated and quickly reach more advanced levels than before.

In an hour and a day, Iran could return to a more advanced (nuclear) level than at the beginning of the negotiations that preceded the 2015 deal, he said without elaborating.

 Rouhani says Iran s military strategy purely defensive

The comments come just a day after Tehran voted to shore up its ballistic missile programme and the international reach of its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard with extra spending.

Both the new bill and Mr Rouhanis comments are widely viewed as a direct retaliation to new ballistics-related sanctions slapped on Iran by the Trump administration earlier this month and are expected to further fray the two countries already strained relations.

The US also maintains a separate terror and human rights abuses sanctions list of individuals and organisations such as the Revolutionary Guard.

Iran's 'Trumpism' contest Show all 10 1 /10 Iran's 'Trumpism' contest Iran's 'Trumpism' contest AFP/Getty Images Iran's 'Trumpism' contest AFP/Getty Images Iran's 'Trumpism' contest AFP/Getty Images Iran's 'Trumpism' contest AFP/Getty Images Iran's 'Trumpism' contest AFP/Getty Images Iran's 'Trumpism' contest AFP/Getty Images Iran's 'Trumpism' contest AFP/Getty Images Iran's 'Trumpism' contest AFP/Getty Images Iran's 'Trumpism' contest AFP/Getty Images Iran's 'Trumpism' contest AFP/Getty Images

The US has shown that it is neither a good partner nor a trustable negotiator, added the moderate politician, who won a second term in June.

Those who are trying to go back to the language of threats and sanctions are prisoners of their past hallucinations. They deprive themselves of the advantages of peace.

While the US has admitted Iran is complying on the terms of the historic 2015 nuclear deal made with world powers, the White House has insisted that Tehran will face consequences for recent ballistic missile tests, which it says breach the spirit of the agreement reached under Barack Obama.

The wording of the UN resolution which endorsed the nuclear deal called upon Iran not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology.

Relations between Tehran and Washington have soured quickly since Mr Trump took office in January.

The new US president immediately set about imposing new financial penalties on individuals related to terror-related offences, and imposed a travel ban for citizens of Iran and six other Muslim countries, which has since become the subject of intense legal battles.

Iran, in return, temporarily banned US citizens from travelling to the country, and conducted a ballistic missiles test in January, and another in July.

 US extremists will not dictate Iran nuclear deal, says Rouhani

In his speech on Tuesday, Mr Rouhani did not offer evidence of Irans current nuclear capabilities, and tempered his own threat by adding that Iran wishes to abide by the terms of the 2015 deal, which opened a path of cooperation and confidence-building with the world.

On the campaign trail, Mr Trump proposed scrapping the nuclear deal altogether, a move widely criticised for endangering an agreement which former Secretary of State John Kerry said made the world a safer place.

The president is yet to communicate his administrations broader Iran policy.
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New information on three separate cases involving the disappearances of Saudi princes has come to light, suggesting the dissident members of the House of Saud were kidnapped by the Saudi government and returned to the country against their will.

Three princes  Prince Sultan bin Turki bin Abdulaziz, resident in Geneva and then Massachusetts, Prince Turki bin Bandar of Paris and Saud bin Saif al-Nasr of Milan  have all vanished in the last two years.

A new BBC Arabic documentary screening on Tuesday called Kidnapped! Saudi Arabias Missing Princes suggests that all three were abducted on European soil and returned to Riyadh in a systematic attempt by the Saudi authorities to silence high-profile defectors.

 Saudi Arabia arrest singer for 'doing a dab'

Prince Sultan, the most high-ranking of the three, was tempted onto a government jet which officials said would take him from Boston to Cairo to visit his father in January 2016.

Some of his 18-person strong entourage, made up of foreign nationals, told the documentary-makers that the plane was instead re-routed to Riyadh. When the plane landed the prince was dragged off by armed men as he screamed at his team to call the US embassy. He has not been heard from since.

The prince, who had long called for reform in the authoritarian Kingdom, had previously filed a criminal complaint in Switzerland accusing members of his family of drugging him and bundling him onto a plane bound for Riyadh when he was resident in Geneva in 2003.

10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Show all 10 1 /10 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses In October 2014, three lawyers, Dr Abdulrahman al-Subaihi, Bander al-Nogaithan and Abdulrahman al-Rumaih , were sentenced to up to eight years in prison for using Twitter to criticize the Ministry of Justice. AFP/Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses In March 2015, Yemens Sunni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi was forced into exile after a Shia-led insurgency. A Saudi Arabia-led coalition has responded with air strikes in order to reinstate Mr Hadi. It has since been accused of committing war crimes in the country. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Women who supported the Women2Drive campaign, launched in 2011 to challenge the ban on women driving vehicles, faced harassment and intimidation by the authorities. The government warned that women drivers would face arrest. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Members of the Kingdoms Shia minority, most of whom live in the oil-rich Eastern Province, continue to face discrimination that limits their access to government services and employment. Activists have received death sentences or long prison terms for their alleged participation in protests in 2011 and 2012. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses All public gatherings are prohibited under an order issued by the Interior Ministry in 2011. Those defy the ban face arrest, prosecution and imprisonment on charges such as inciting people against the authorities. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses In March 2014, the Interior Ministry stated that authorities had deported over 370,000 foreign migrants and that 18,000 others were in detention. Thousands of workers were returned to Somalia and other states where they were at risk of human rights abuses, with large numbers also returned to Yemen, in order to open more jobs to Saudi Arabians. Many migrants reported that prior to their deportation they had been packed into overcrowded makeshift detention facilities where they received little food and water and were abused by guards. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses The Saudi Arabian authorities continue to deny access to independent human rights organisations like Amnesty International, and they have been known to take punitive action, including through the courts, against activists and family members of victims who contact Amnesty. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Raif Badawi was sentenced to 1000 lashes and 10 years in prison for using his liberal blog to criticise Saudi Arabias clerics. He has already received 50 lashes, which have reportedly left him in poor health. Carsten Koall/Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Dawood al-Marhoon was arrested aged 17 for participating in an anti-government protest. After refusing to spy on his fellow protestors, he was tortured and forced to sign a blank document that would later contain his confession. At Dawoods trial, the prosecution requested death by crucifixion while refusing him a lawyer. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Ali Mohammed al-Nimr was arrested in 2012 aged either 16 or 17 for participating in protests during the Arab spring. His sentence includes beheading and crucifixion. The international community has spoken out against the punishment and has called on Saudi Arabia to stop. He is the nephew of a prominent government dissident. Getty

Prince Turki bin Bandar, once a major in the Saudi police, fled to Paris after a bitter family inheritance argument which led to his arrest in 2012, and began writing pieces and posting YouTube videos critical of the regime and its alleged human rights abuses.

He disappeared in late 2015. According to the documentary, the only trace of him was an article in a Moroccan newspaper which said hed been arrested in the country while visiting from France, and then deported to Saudi Arabia at Riyadhs request.

At around the same time Prince Turki vanished, so did minor royal Saud bin Saif al-Nasr  resident in Milan  who had backed a letter calling for King Salman to be overthrown.

His friend and fellow dissident Prince Khaled bin Farhan believes he was tricked into flying from Milan to Rome to discuss a business deal which was actually a kidnap plot engineered by the Saudi government to take him back to Riyadh.

The Saudi and Moroccan authorities did not respond to the BBC or The Independents request for comment.
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More than half a million people in Yemen have now been infected with cholera since the epidemic broke out in April, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said, as medical workers on the ground struggle to cope with up to 5,000 new cases a day.

A total of 1,975 people have now died from the acute diarrhoeal infection caused by ingestion of contaminated food or water, it said in a statement on Monday. Last month, the organisation estimated that around half of cases and a quarter of the dead so far are children under the age of 15.

The spread of cholera has slowed significantly in some areas compared to peak levels but the disease is still spreading fast in more recently affected districts, which are recording large numbers of cases, the statement said, reporting a total of 503,484 infected patients.

 Yemen crisis: More than one million children suffering from malnutrition

Two years of civil war has decimated Yemens infrastructure and put the 27-million strong population on the brink of famine.

The collapse of the medical system has allowed cholera to balloon across the entire country. Aid organisations are struggling to reach people in remote, recently hit areas, and critical medical as well as food supply lines are being strangled by the Saudi-led blockade on Yemens airspace and ports.

Less than half of the countrys medical centres are still functional, 14.5 million people dont have regular access to clean water, and in several provinces health and sanitation workers have not been paid in almost a year.

While it is easily preventable and treatable in hygienic conditions, cholera can kill the old, young and otherwise sick in hours if fluids are not replaced.

The situation in Yemen Show all 14 1 /14 The situation in Yemen The situation in Yemen Houthi supporters trample on a US flag during a gathering mobilizing more fighters into several Yemeni battlefronts, in Sana'a, Yemen EPA The situation in Yemen People carry the coffins of men, who were killed in the recent Saudi-led airstrikes during their funeral, in the Old City of Sanaa, Yemen AP The situation in Yemen Pro-government fighters give food to Yemeni children on the road leading to the southwestern port city of Mokha. Yemeni rebels are putting up fierce resistance in a key Red Sea port city where they are encircled by pro-government force Getty Images The situation in Yemen A Yemeni stands in front of a graffiti protesting US military operations in war-affected Yemen, in Sana'a, Yemen. According to reports, US Special Forces troops allegedly disembarked from US helicopters in the Yemeni town of Yakla and attacked several houses belonging to members of the terrorist group Al-Qaeda, killing three high-ranking Al-Qaeda members and nine civilians, six women and three children. One American serviceman has been killed and three injured in the attack EPA The situation in Yemen US Special Forces troops allegedly disembarked from US helicopters in the Yemeni town of Yakla and attacked several houses belonging to members of the terrorist group Al-Qaeda, killing three high-ranking Al-Qaeda members and nine civilians, six women and three children. One American serviceman has been killed and three injured in the attack EPA The situation in Yemen A Yemeni female fighter supporting the Shiite Huthi rebels, and carrying weapons used for ceremonial purposes, takes part in an anti-Saudi rally in the capital Sanaa Getty Images The situation in Yemen Yemeni female fighters supporting the Shiite Huthi rebels, and carrying weapons used for ceremonial purposes, take part in an anti-Saudi rally in the capital Sanaa Getty Images The situation in Yemen A boy shouts slogans next to pro-Houthi fighters, who have been injured during recent fighting, during a rally held to honour those injured or maimed while fighting in Houthi ranks in Sanaa, Yemen Reuters The situation in Yemen Balls of fire and smoke rise from a Houthi-held military camp following alleged Saudi-led airstrikes, in Sana'a, Yemen EPA The situation in Yemen Yemenis search under the rubble of damaged houses following reported Saudi-led coalition air strikes on the outskirts of the Yemeni capital Sanaa Getty Images The situation in Yemen A Yemeni boy looks on as Yemenis search under the rubble of damaged houses following reported Saudi-led coalition air strikes on the outskirts of the Yemeni capital Sanaa Getty The situation in Yemen A Yemeni boy sits amidst the rubble of damaged houses following reported Saudi-led coalition air strikes on the outskirts of the Yemeni capital Sanaa AFP/Getty The situation in Yemen Marine One with US President Donald Trump flies with a decoy and support helicopters to Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware, for the dignified transfer of Navy Seal Chief Petty Officer William 'Ryan' Owens who was killed in Yemen Getty Images The situation in Yemen US President Donald Trump aboard the Marine One to greet the remains of a US military commando killed during a raid on the al Qaeda militant group in southern Yemen on Sunday, at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, US Reuters

The UKs Department for International Development (DFID) said last week that it will provide chlorine tablets and hygiene kits for 500,000 people, and rehabilitate seven health centres and 35 oral rehydration points which are expected to help a futher 250,000 in three of the worst affected areas - but NGOs warn much more is needed to effectively tackle the crisis.

Yemens health workers are operating in impossible conditions. Thousands of people are sick, but there are not enough hospitals, not enough medicines, not enough clean water, said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHOs Director-General.

These doctors and nurses are the backbone of the health response  without them we can do nothing in Yemen. They must be paid their wages so that they can continue to save lives.

Saudi Arabia and its regional partners have used the spectre of Iranian influence to justify an extensive bombing campaign on Yemens Shia Houthi rebels, who control the capital Sanaa, at the request of the exiled, internationally recognised Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi.

The intense Saudi-led bombing campaign  which has in some cases targeted civilian buildings such as hospitals and funeral gatherings  has killed thousands of civilians.

Western governments including the UK have been heavily criticised for selling weapons export licences to Saudi Arabia, which rights groups say are destined for use in Yemens war.

Officials within former US President Barack Obamas administration worried the sales could amount to complicity in war crimes.

The UN estimates $2.1bn (1.6bn) is needed to stop Yemen become a completely failed state, but donor governments only pledged half that amount at an aid conference in Geneva in April.

We urge the Yemeni authorities  and all those in the region and elsewhere who can play a role  to find a political solution to this conflict that has already caused so much suffering. The people of Yemen cannot bear it much longer  they need peace to rebuild their lives and their country, Dr Tedros said.
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A "heavy handed approach" often in the name of national security has seen the UK slip in the rankings of countries with the world's freest press, according to a new report by Reporters Without Borders.

Scandinavian countries have the freest press in the world, the non governmental organisation said in its World Press Freedom Index 2017, while the UK is slipping onto "a worrying trend", it said.

It added that only 16 countries in the world were rated as "good" this year.

At the top of the list, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark lead the way followed by the Netherlands, Costa Rica, Switzerland, Jamaica, Belgium and Iceland.

Austria, Estonia, New Zealand, Ireland and Germany were also among the countries which obtained a "good" rating.

The state of the UK's press was deemed "satisfactory" and Britain ranked 40 out of 180 countries after slipping two places from last year's index and now ranking after Australia, Namibia, Ghana, South Africa, Lithuania and France.

But Reporters Without Borders warned of "a worrying trend" in the UK in regards to the freedom of the press.

The NGO said "a heavy-handed approach... often in the name of national security" has resulted in the UK slipping down the annual ranking.

It added the Investigatory Powers Act which was adopted by Parliament last November had "insufficient protection mechanisms for whitleblowers, journalists and their sources, posing a serious threat to investigative journalism".

Reporters Without Borders' analysis also highlighted the new Espionage Act which "would make it easy to classify journalists as 'spies' and jail them for up to 14 years for simply obtaining leaked information".

On the contrary, Norway, which topped this year's ranking, was described by the NGO as "faultless".

It notes "the media are free and journalists are not subject to censorship of political pressure. Violence against journalists and media is rare, although some have been threatened by Islamist fundamentalists in recent years."

The United States was ranked 43rd.

In Italy, Poland, Ukraine and Greece, Reporters Without Borders identified a "noticeable problem" with the levels of freedom of information.

The report indicates there is a "difficult situation" in Russia, India, Turkey, Mexico and a number of African countries including Algeria, Nigeria, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

A handful of countries, including Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam and China were identified as having a "very serious situation" regarding freedom of the press with Eritrea and North Korea scoring the worst in the world.

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

Reporters Without Borders said democracies were increasingly seeing violations of freedom of information, which were traditionally attributed to authoritian regimes and dictatorships.

"Once taken for granted, media freedom is proving to be increasingly fragile in democracies as well. In sickening statements, draconian laws, conflicts of interest and event the use of physical violence, democratic governments are trampling on a freedom that should, in principle, be one of their leading performance indicators," it said in a statement.

The index, it added, "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, suppression of freedoms - especially in democracies".

The World Press Freedom Index is published every year by Reporters Without Borders since 2002.

The index acts as a point of reference for press freedom around the world and is referred to by global institutions such as the UN and the World Bank. However, it is not an indicator of the quality of journalism in each country.

The criteria which make up the index include media pluralism and independence, the legislative framework and the safety of journalists in each country.
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Sitting on the Garonne river in south west France, Bordeauxs elegance has drawn crowds for centuries. The centre of the famous wine-producing region is full of breathtaking gothic architecture, incredible food and quirky corners.

Make a splash

Beat the city heat by heading to the Place de la Bourse, Bordeauxs most splendid square where the Water Mirror offers a place to cool off. Set beside the River Garonne, this 2cm-deep pool on a giant slab of granite alternates between a tranquil mirror reflecting the facades of the 18th-century buildings and a fine mist.

Cool off at the Place de La Bourse Water Mirror (Getty/iStockphoto) (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Cite du vin

There are museums and then there is the Cite du Vin, an 80m project dedicated to celebrating the global history, culture and passion for wine. Its impressive glass building is shaped like the swirl that wine makes as its poured into a glass, and the interactive, digital and historical displays inside are mind-boggling. Its exhibits cover everything from the romance of wine to the tipples of far-flung shores. The Belvedere, meanwhile, offers tastings from all over the world (laciteduvin.com, 20 entry).

Food, glorious food

With so much wine on offer, youll need something to soak up the alcohol and in Bordeaux you are spoiled for choice by the dining scene. The citys proximity to the coast allows for fresh oysters, served with style at Le Petit Commerce (22 Rue Parlement Saint-Pierre, 0033 556 797 658). Other local specialities include beef, with a side-order of vin rouge at Brasserie Bordelais (50 rue Saint-Remi, 0033 557 871 191, brasserie-bordelaise.fr) and the delicious rum and vanilla-infused cakes known as canele, which can be snaffled at Baillardrans 12 outlets (baillardran.com).

Enjoy fresh oysters at Le Petit Commerce (Getty/iStockphoto) (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Hang out in the Chartrons district

One of Bordeauxs hippest neighbourhoods, the Chartrons district, blends elegant mansions with former warehouses. Its home to a number of chic boutiques offering designer homeware, bric-a-brac and antiques, particularly along Rue Notre Dame. Take a table at Pauls Place, a charming bistrot rammed to the rafters with vintage paintings and unique objets darts (76 Rue Notre Dame, 0033 673 653 196, paulsplacebordeaux.com).

Admire the architecture

Two decades ago, Bordeaux was a bit on the scruffy side, but thanks to Mayor Alain Juppe, the city has spruced up its image and this year it celebrates a decade of its architecture being Unesco-listed. Head to the Places des Quinconces to visit the former Chateau Trompette, then on to the Cours du Chapeau Rouge to admire the Grand Theatre. Place de la Bourse has the most impressive view (see the Water Mirror above), and a leisurely stroll south will take you to the Porte Cailhau gateway and the Gross Cloche belfry (bordeaux-tourism.co.uk).

The Grand Theatre de Bordeaux is home to the citys opera and ballet companies (Getty) (Getty Images)

Climb a tower

For the best views of the city, steel yourself to climb the 229 steps up the Pey-Berland bell tower, which stands separately from the Saint-Andre cathedral. The cathedrals own 12th-century tower wasnt up to the job of holding the weight of the tenor bell, so in 1440 they built this additional tower. Its a wheeze-inducing walk up to the top, some 50m above the ground, so lay off the wine until youve admired the rooftops and the river beyond (pey-berland.fr/en, 6 per adult).

Go shopping

Bordeauxs newest shopping hangout is at the Quai des Marques, a converted warehouse next to the river in the newly developed Bassins a Flot area. Here youll find clothes, shoes and homeware shops. Meanwhile, the lengthy Rue Saint Catherine in the old city offers department stores and affordable brands, but for something with a bit of je ne sais quoi, wander into the narrow streets of the Saint-Pierre district and youll find trendy boutiques and quirky little shops for clothes and homeware. Finish up the day in a wine bar terrace (try the cosy Vins Urbains, 27 rue des Bahutiers, vinsurbains.fr) and discover Bordeauxs finest produce  du vin.

On your bike

Widely considered one of Europes most cycle-friendly cities, Bordeauxs city bike share scheme V3 (vcub.fr) has 1,500 bikes available, and you can borrow one for just 1.50 a day. Despite the traffic being on the heavy side in the city centre, there are bike paths galore with one of the best routes going along the waterfront promenade. For an easy ride out of the city, follow the picturesque and perfectly paved Roger Lapebie bike path along the river, doubling back before it turns inland.

Bordeaux has extensive cycle lanes throughout the city (Getty) (Getty Images)

Get out of town

Bordeaux is surrounded by some of the worlds most prestigious vineyards and wine chateaux so get beyond the city limits to quaff to your hearts content. One of the coolest ways to do it is to hail a taxi  the Wine Cab offers tours in three London Black Cabs, each complete with a tasting bar inside. And instead of cheeky repartee, these drivers will regale you with the insider knowledge you need for enjoying the best bottles at each wine chateau (wine-cab.com, half-day tours from 450 for two).

Buy some wine

Did we mention wine? Further vino-quaffing options can be found at the citys superb wine cellars and bars, the most jaw-dropping of which is LIntendant (2 Allees de Tourny, intendant.com) where a huge spiral staircase climbs past several floors and 15,000 bottles of the good stuff. Also try the wine bar on the ground floor of the Maison de Vin de Bordeaux (1 Cours du 30 Juillet) set in the citys flat-iron building. Alternatively, head to the Saint-Pierre district where youll find vibrant bars and expert-run cellars. Sante!
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A German minister has criticised Berlins restaurant staff for speaking English and not German.

Jens Spahn, a deputy finance minister, spoke out against the increasing use of English in Germany and specifically attacked those who worked in the country despite being unable to speak the language.

Speaking to Neue Osnabrucker Zeitung newspaper he said: It drives me up the wall the way waiters in Berlin restaurants only speak English.

Co-existence can only work in Germany if we all speak German. We can and should expect this from every immigrant.

You would never find this kind of madness in Paris.

The minister, who sits on the right wing of Angela Merkels Christian Democratic Union Party, is the latest public figure to join the debate about the prominence of the German language. Speaking good English is part of the German education system and lessons for children start in primary school.

Fashionable areas in Berlin like Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg have drawn American and English expats for years and bar and restaurant staff are often recruited from across Europe.

However, this has led to many establishments advertising their menus exclusively in English and hiring staff who speak only limited German.

Dominik Drutschmann wrote an article in Tagesspiegel about a visit to a restaurant in Neukolln where none of the four waiters spoke German.

Drutschmann wrote: You shouldnt be ostracised from Berlin life just because you cant speak English very well.

The German government recently made it compulsory for asylum seekers to learn German. Those who don't can lose their benefits and right to live there permanently. The rule, however, does not apply to EU citizens.
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A two-drink limit before a flight: that is the demand from Ryanair. Europes biggest budget airline has called on UK airports to cap alcohol sales to passengers, and to ban alcohol sales before 10am.

Ryanairs marketing director, Kenny Jacobs, said: Its completely unfair that airports can profit from the unlimited sale of alcohol to passengers and leave the airlines to deal with the safety consequences.

This is a particular problem during flight delays when airports apply no limit to the sale of alcohol in airside bars and restaurants.

Under a code of practice introduced last year, airlines, airport bars and retailers are not supposed to encourage excessive alcohol consumption.

The airlines cabin crew enthusiastically sell alcohol on board, leading to the accusation that Ryanair wishes to profit from such a move. But Mr Jacobs said: Given that all our flights are short-haul, very little alcohol is actually sold on board.

Ryanair passengers flying from Manchester and Prestwick to Alicante and Ibiza are no longer permitted to bring duty free alcohol on board the aircraft, and are warned Customers showing any signs of anti-social behaviour or attempting to conceal alcohol will be denied travel without refund or compensation.

The airline has diverted a number of flights because of disruptive passengers on board.

The Air Navigation Order states: A person must not enter any aircraft when drunk, or be drunk in any aircraft, but does not define what constitutes drunk.

A BBC Panorama investigation has found that the number of arrests of passengers suspected of being drunk at UK airports and on flights has risen by 50 per cent in a year. Researchers asked police forces serving larger airports for the figures. A total of 387 people were arrested between February 2016 and February 2017 - up from 255 the previous year.
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A travel agent is urging others to tell their customers not to vape in Thailand as they could face up to 10 years in prison.

Pat Waterton, manager at Langley Travel, said she was unaware of the ban. She only learnt of the law when her nephew James was forced to pay 125 as an on-the-spot fine after being threatened with jail for having an e-cigarette in Bangkok.

Recommended The prison themed hostel in Bangkok that turns travellers into inmates

Speaking to Travel Weekly Waterton said: If Im selling Thailand I will definitely mention it now. All agents should. Thailand is very popular so we should make sure we are telling people about things that could ruin a holiday.

In November 2014, Thailand approved legislation outlawing the import of e-cigarettes into the country. This has since been expanded to the export as well as sale of e-smoking devices and equipment. Although it is common to see people vaping in Thailand offenders are technically breaking the law as possession is illegal.

The Foreign Office advice is clear. On its website it instructs travellers not to bring vaporisers (like e-cigarettes) or refills into Thailand. The Foreign Office said: These items are likely to be confiscated and you could be fined or sent to prison for up to 10 years if convicted.

The sale or supply of e-cigarettes and similar devices is also banned and you could face a heavy fine or up to five years imprisonment if found guilty. Several British Nationals have been arrested for possession of vaporisers and e-cigarettes.

Kuoni, a UK tour operator which handles trips to Thailand, said it always advises travellers to check with the Foreign Office before embarking on a trip. A spokesperson for Kuoni said: We encourage our customers to be travel aware and to visit the Foreign and Commonwealth Offices Travel Aware site for foreign travel advice before they book.

Travel Aware information can be found on our website and our Personal Travel Experts in store direct customers to the site at holiday planning stages for specific country advice, including safety and security, entry requirements, travel warnings and health.
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What a comedown. A year on from the Brexit referendum and were not talking about new exciting free trade deals. Were not contemplating national rejuvenation. Happy chat of sunlit uplands has dried up.

Instead we find ourselves poring over the mind-numbing details of customs arrangements. Worse, were not discussing making customs better. Were talking solely about mitigating damage.

But first lets recap where we are today. Being in the EUs customs union means there are zero bureaucratic barriers on UK goods exports to Europe. A business in Worthing can send a product to Warsaw as easily as it can to Wolverhampton.

 Brexit Secretary: UK wants temporary EU customs deal

If we leave the customs union, that all changes. Goods crossing the UK border would have to pay tariffs and VAT would have to be paid up front. They would also have to prove compliance with local EU standards to inspectors. All shipments would have to be recorded and checked.

This will significantly increase the cost of UK trade with Europe  easily our biggest trading partner  and considerably slow down the movement of goods. That is why trading UK businesses are terrified about the prospect, particularly the likes of car manufacturers which have deeply integrated continental supply chains.

Yet Theresa Mays Government still insists we must leave the customs union, following their own hardline interpretation of the Brexit referendum result. But how?

In a new position paper, the Government moots two possible long term destinations for the UK outside the EU customs union. The first is that future, unspecified, technology-based solutions will allow for streamlined trade between Britain and the UK, despite all the bureaucratic requirements listed above.

The second is that the UK and EU can essentially create a customs union that is simultaneously not a customs union (as we understand it, at least). This Schrodingers cat scenario will allow the UK to sign new bilateral tariff-cutting trade deals with other countries while also maintaining the integrity of the borders of the EUs customs union. All of this can be politely summed up as magical unrealism.

In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions Show all 12 1 /12 In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions European commission member in charge of Brexit negotiations with Britain, French Michel Barnier listens at the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker speaking at the European Parliament in Strasbourg Getty Images In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions Frank-Walter Steinmeier, President of the Federal Republic of Germany, delivers his speech at the European Parliament in Strasbourg EPA In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions European Union's chief Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt, President of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), addresses the European Parliament during a debate on Brexit priorities and the upcomming talks on the UK's withdrawal from the EU Reuters In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions Michel Barnier, European Chief Negotiator for Brexit reacts during a meeting at the European Parliament in Strasbourg EPA In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions Member of the European Parliament and former leader of the anti-EU UK Independence Party (UKIP) Nigel Farage wears socks with Union Jack flag at the European Parliament in Strasbourg Getty Images In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions Nigel Farage, United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) member and MEP, addresses the European Parliament during a debate on Brexit priorities and the upcoming talks on the UK's withdrawal from the EU Reuters In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions European commission member in charge of Brexit negotiations with Britain, French Michel Barnier gestures during speeches at the European Parliament in Strasbourg Getty In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions The President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker (L) speaks with European commission member in charge of Brexit negotiations with Britain, French Michel Barnier at the European Parliament in Strasbourg Getty In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions European Union's chief Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt, President of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), addresses the European Parliament during a debate on Brexit priorities and the upcomming talks on the UK's withdrawal from the EU Reuters In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions Getty In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier delivers a speech during a plenary session at the European Parliament in Strasbourg Getty In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions The European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France Getty Images

Yet ministers have not retreated entirely into fantasy. They have, at least, grasped that their magical unrealism will not be ready by 2019. So they have bowed to an interim close association with the EU customs union, while the magical unrealism is cooked up.

They want to quit the EU customs union in 2019 but to then instantly enter a new one for a temporary period of time. The objective is to reassure all UK firms that there will be no customs or tariff "cliff-edge", and that everything will continue as normal the day after Brexit.

Why not simply stay in the existing customs union for an interim period rather than try to create a new one? First that would mean staying in the EU longer, since only EU members can be in the EU customs union. Second, for legal reasons, that would preclude the International Trade Secretary, Liam Fox, from being able to negotiate new trade deals with the likes of America and New Zealand  and for some reason giving Fox something to do has also been judged by the Government to be an inviolable imperative stemming from the referendum result.

It is unknown whether the EU will accept the interim customs proposals as put forward by the Government, but there are good reasons to suspect they will not simply swallow it whole. And, even if they did, the bigger problem is that a temporary new customs union in 2019 still isnt enough to avoid a cliff-edge for UK firms.

Even if the EU agrees to the transition and the UK and EU successfully recreate a new temporary union, there will still be major trade frictions. Turkey has a customs union with the EU but Turkish imports still have to be checked at the border to ensure compliance with EU standards. There are long queues of lorries at the Turkish-Bulgarian border.

Can these impediments be minimised? The UK Trade Policy Observatory at the University of Sussex says its possible that some standards checks could be performed at factories and that VAT charges could be levied inside the border too.

Switzerland and Norway, which are both outside the EU customs union, have launched a registered exporters scheme and allow for a degree of self-certification by firms. These fixes could marginally reduce administrative burdens for UK exporters.

Yet the crucial point is that agreeing in principle to a temporary tariff-free customs union is actually the simple part. Negotiating the terms of the temporary transition will be almost as difficult and politically fraught as settling on a permanent new long-term arrangement.

How, for instance, will the interim scheme be policed? The Governments position paper is entirely silent on such details. David Davis says there is constructive ambiguity in the Governments position. Sadly, it is more likely they are simply making it up as they go along.

 EU set to block UK's temporary customs union plea to stop Brexit border chaos, warns former commissioner

Yet the clock is ticking. There are now just 14 months before EU national parliaments will need to see any interim plan to vote on by the March 2019 Brexit deadline.

Brexiteers are sensing the day of accountability for their project approaching. The hardline backbencher Bernard Jenkin gave a BBC interview earlier this week in which he castigated not ministerial incompetence, nor his own sides undeliverable pledges, for the looming customs fiasco, but EU vindictiveness and unreasonableness.

It is a line we can expect to hear much more of as the edifice of the Brexiteers promises  on customs and everything else  crumbles in the coming months. The self-preservation blame game has begun.
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Driving to a dinner party on Saturday, we urgently roamed the radio dial trying to fathom the terrible violence unfolding in Charlottesville and how President Donald Trump was, or was not, responding to it. Another of the expected guests, we had learned, was considering bailing out at the last minute; he was just too distressed for dinner-table banter.

In the end, everyone showed up but a deal was struck to get through the evening without mention of Trump. It was hardly the first time wed been at a social event where the President had been banned as a topic of conversation. Nor was it the first time that the prohibition failed. Its an impossible edict to respect, because we all share the same anger, the same deep worry.

We do know people who voted for Trump and who are still glad he is in the Oval Office. For the most part, I can still discuss his record with them without endangering our friendships. But that is an increasingly rare luxury. I have lost count of how many acquaintances have told me they can no longer talk politics with their own wider families. Otherwise china, if not bones, might be broken.

I randomly hear strangers airing their despair into their cellphones on the street. It is so depressing. We are seriously considering moving to Canada, declared a young man one recent morning, apparently on his way to work like me. Less anecdotally, protestors gathered in their thousands to heckle Trump as he returned for the first time on Monday to his Manhattan skyscraper-home. Shame! Shame!, they chanted.

That Trump is a horror show for most of my circle wont surprise you. The friends I mentioned who like him dont live in Gotham, where the Presidents approval rating is 20 per cent. Moreover, I belong to a subset that is especially sensitive to whats going on: expats who chose to make the United States their home and in many cases took its citizenship, like me. What do we say now when we go home and people tell us the country we live in has become a bad joke?

In the 25 years Ive lived here, I have grown accustomed to the scorn. I have two Canadian brothers who have long expressed their sympathy for my being south of their border. Our arguments over the years have been about the Iraq War, of course, and more generally about the harm they see America inflicting on the wider world. I have grown quite good at pushing back. Canada? Zzzz.

I still try. Trump is not America. Things that made it great before he showed up still make it great. All the nations rituals still go on. Hot dogs and mustard, black bears and glaciers, oysters and lobster, Sikhs and Jews. Labor Day, back-to-school, the golden arches. Trains run through the Rocky Mountains and get stuck under the Hudson. God and big skies. Giving and philanthropy.

For years also I have listened to folk smarter than me predicting the demise of the American empire. Clinton debased the presidency. Decline. Bush launched a war on a lie and led the country into its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression; families lost the roofs over their heads. Decline. Obama drew red lines only to ignore them. For years, I tried not to pay heed.

Now though, I falter. August will become September and its possible memories of Charlottesville will fade. Trump will commit some even greater faux-pas than failing for two whole days explicitly to condemn those who marched into town and provoked the conflagration in the first place  the white nationalists, supremacists and the KKK, sometimes collectively dubbed the alt-right. And perhaps their movement, in the face of near universal disgust, eventually even from Trump himself, will somehow fray and disperse. But I doubt it.

I reluctantly admit that it feels like we are truly in a dark space now. America the Beautiful more than ever is America the Divided. The idea we nurtured after the election of Barack Obama in 2008 that a post-racial era was upon us has been exposed as a myth, ripped apart notably by Trump, for whom Charlottesville will surely turn out to be what Hurricane Katrina became for George W. Bush. The far-right is not in retreat. Trump has egged it on and its leaders openly celebrate him for it. We are determined to take our country back, David Duke, the one-time KKK leader, said in Charlottesville. We are going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump.

It is not just Trump who has fractured this land. Social media has too and cable news. Those who watch MSNBC for its liberal, anti-Trump viewpoint, will never watch Fox News and its hosts for whom Trump can rarely do wrong. Americans are for Rachel Maddow or for Sean Hannity and neer the twain shall meet. Prejudices are reinforced by social media. My Twitter feed is different from your Twitter feed. Tribalism is ascendant. Its the new American Grand Canyon.

Being an American will have meaning only in those increasingly rare moments when we are made one tribe again. It happens, or almost happens, at times of remarkable national achievement  Olympic golds, the first man on the moon  or national tragedy. Ronald Reagan re-forged the nation with his televised address after the 1986 explosion of the Challenger space shuttle. Obama got close after the school shooting in Connecticut and the attempted assassination of Gabby Giffords in 2011. I was in Tucson for that one.

America needs bringing together today like never before. A shared love of grilling and cold beers only goes so far. Trump had the opportunity to do so on Saturday and squandered it. Actually, it was far worse than that. He is a hamburger salesman and he couldnt bear to offend his most important customers, the bigots and racists of the far right. Even on Monday when finally he issued the condemnation we had all been waiting for he looked like a man gagging on his own words. He is incapable of uniting, because the nation does not come first for him. He does.

It is glib to borrow from Trumps own Tweeter lexicon. But I will. Sad.
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In setting out its long-term proposals for a customs deal with the EU, the UK Government has put the cart before the horse. Its plan for a two-year transitional deal allowing existing customs arrangements to continue is sensible, and will hopefully provide some reassurance for an increasingly anxious business community. This follows a welcome intervention by the Chancellor Philip Hammond to head off the clean break favoured by hardline Brexiteers, which would have created a damaging cliff edge for business in 2019.

However, the Governments document seems to be designed more for domestic political consumption  and the need to show a semblance of cabinet unity after ministers promoted their conflicting ideas  than the reality of the difficult negotiations with the EU. There are two options for a UK-EU customs regime after the interim period: a streamlined system using technology to limit bureaucracy, and a more ambitious partnership in which both parties would enforce each others rules, which the Government admits is untested as it does not exist anywhere in the world.

These ideas are an opening bid, a wish list in tune with Boris Johnsons have our cake and eat it approach, under which the UK expects to walk out of the EU club and yet be allowed to continue to enjoy its benefits. When asked what the UK would give the EU in return, the Brexit Secretary David Davis reverted to the German cars argument, pointing out that the EU sells more to the UK than vice versa.

He will have to do better than that. It is obvious that the 27 EU countries will not allow the UK a pain-free exit; they will use Brexit to discourage other states from trying to cherry-pick their membership terms. Britain will have to pay a price for the close trading links it wants to keep, while naively expecting the EU to allow it to strike rival trade deals with non-EU nations.

 Brexit Secretary: UK wants temporary EU customs deal

Rather than gazing at the horizon, the Government should be prioritising the more pressing issues on which the EU is demanding progress before it will discuss a long-term deal: citizens rights, the UKs divorce payment and the Irish border. Ministers will address the Irish question on Wednesday but, ominously, Mr Davis warned that the UK would not provide a number for the financial settlement by October or November. The Government should show more flexibility on this sensitive issue but is doing little to prepare the ground.

While ministers believe the money is their trump card, the EU may have a bigger one  the clock. Time is running out for an agreement, which will need to be struck by the autumn of 2018 to allow it to be approved by EU institutions by March 2019.

Buried in the Governments document is the announcement that its Customs Bill will give it powers to operate standalone customs, VAT and excise systems in case there is no deal with the EU. While this is not ministers preferred outcome, the extra bureaucracy and costs it would involve should encourage the Government to strain every sinew to secure what Theresa May has called a deep and special partnership with the EU.

Avoiding the worst outcome of all  no deal  will require much more clarity from the Government, and quickly. Ministers will have to accept some painful compromises; the sooner they admit that, and stop dreaming about a one-sided agreement in which the EU allows the UK frictionless trade at no cost, the better.
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Assessing a new leaders progress after 100 days is not an arbitrary exercise. American President Franklin D Roosevelt famously highlighted his achievements after this time period in a 1933 summer radio broadcast, saying it had been devoted to the starting of the wheels of the New Deal. Since then, ambitious commentators have often tried to gauge the effectiveness of an administration after just over three months.

In France, Emmanuel Macron reaches the 100th day anniversary of his astonishing presidential election win today. It is of course a cue for enemies to try to rip his reputation to shreds. Traditionalists from both left and right are naturally antipathetic towards a newcomer who in May humiliated both the governing Socialists and opposition Republicans. The former now portray Macron as an ex-banker turned amoral tool of big business, while the latter think he is a puny media creation who will fall apart when faced with his first real challenge.

The reality is that Macron fulfils none of these laboured caricatures. On the contrary, he has already shown he is ready to take on vested interests, and to transform society in a manner that none of his predecessors were able to do. Those sniping boorishly at the 39-year-olds much older wife, Brigitte Macron, or his huge enthusiasm for the EU, might well have missed some key summer developments that will have a profound effect on the immediate future of France.

21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Show all 21 1 /21 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Portugal drinks more wine than France Tindo - Fotolia 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Young Italians, by some distance, are the most likely to live at home with their parents 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Britain is on course to overtake Germany as Europes most populated country 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Greek workers work the longest hours in the EU 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Estonia has, per capita, more drug-related deaths than anyone else 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe The fastest download speeds are to be found in Romania 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Slovenia, Malta and Poland have the smallest gender pay gaps 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe France hates its leader more than other European countries 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Eastern and Western Europe are very divided on the issue of gay marriage 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Germany has the most millionaires 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Everyone likes Christmas, apart from France 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Germany accepts by far the most asylum applications 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe The UK and France have some of the most positive views of Muslim people 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Europe's largest Muslim population is in Germany 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Danes are the most trusting Europeans, and Cypriots the least 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Finland has the worst economy in the EU 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Italy has cut back its military spending more than any other major European Nato member 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Everyone is sad about the refugee crisis 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe People in Spain are also the most likely to live in flats (Brits are most likely to live in houses) 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Spain is the most likely to feel neighbourly 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe Luxembourg is home to the highest proportion of foreign nationals

In August  the month when blubbery heads of state are normally photographed on Riviera beaches before appearing in Paris Match feature spreads  a parliament dominated by Macrons REM! party (The Republic on the Move!) passed a law aimed at creating more jobs. The legislation will liberalise the labour market by giving employers more power to negotiate working conditions at a local level, rather than according to industry-wide agreements.

Just as crucially, the initiative guarantees that trade unions are involved, so introducing the consensus that is such an important part of Macrons overall project. In a country where us-and-them apathy is blamed for leaving close to three-and-a-half million people out of work, the President has made a united effort to reduce unemployment his priority.

Long-overdue institutional changes have also included a bill to prevent politicians from hiring direct family members. Penelopegate  the scandal that saw conservative presidential hopeful Francois Fillon accused of channelling hundreds of thousands in taxpayers money to his British wife Penelope Fillon  was a prime example of how serving ones own has perhaps been a prevalent maxim in French public life for far too long. This is one of the main reasons for Frances relative stagnation in recent decades, and it is high time somebody ended it, and the sleaze with which it is associated.

Recommended Emmanuel Macron is already unpopular after three months in office

Beyond proving himself a skilled technocrat  somebody who can turn ambitious domestic pledges into reality  Macron is also working hard to boost Frances standing overseas. He has just helped bring the 2024 Olympics to Paris following the humiliation of losing the 2012 bid to London, for example. Thus the indisputably clean-cut Macron is attempting to combine patriotic panache with a sense of morality. Unlike the last two presidents, Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy, he demonstrates no inclination towards dedicating large chunks of his time in office to a racy love life, or to pushing for personal gains in any way.

I had just interviewed Macron in Paris on the eve of his election victory, when news came in that Russian hackers had accessed thousands of emails and files related to his campaign. Much of this once confidential data has now been made public in a WikiLeaks dump, but reveals no controversy whatsoever.

In contrast, the resolutely vulgar Sarkozy is, like his former colleague Fillon, also charged with obtaining money illegally. Jacques Chirac, the Gaullist president before Sarkozy, was tried and convicted for embezzling state funds. Go back as far as Francois Mitterrand, the last Socialist chef detat before Hollande, and you will find another thoroughly shady character who kept a mistress and child on the public purse.

Of course Macron is making mistakes. Many think he is too reactionary in terms of foreign policy, especially after his crass references to African women having too many babies, and indications that he could accept murderous dictator Bashar al-Assads continued rule if it meant bringing some kind of peace in Syria. This sense of pandering to callous zealots was furthered by his glad-handling of alt-right populist US President Donald Trump and far-right hawk Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu  who is regularly accused of war crimes against the Palestinian people  during the two mens respective visits to France in July.

 Arnold Schwarzenegger takes a selfie video with Emmanuel Macron talking about a clean energy future

Some are also critical of the way in which Macron, the supreme head of all French military, forced the resignation of army chief Pierre de Villiers by disrespecting him in discussions over budget cuts. Macron was certainly brash and confrontational, although one would expect that de Villiers, a veteran of theatres of war including Afghanistan, should get over it.

No, Macron is not on the fast track to becoming a French Roosevelt. Yes, we are likely to see plenty of fierce street protests against his new policies by September at the latest, and his popularity ratings will continue to slide. Running France is a thankless task and Macrons schoolboy looks and can-do demeanour are bound to fade.

However, the 25th President of France has immense respect for the institution of the presidency. He will still only be in his 40s if he completes two terms  a feat that the often comically inept bling-bling Sarko and Flanby [a type of caramel pudding] Hollande never got close to  and wont just cruise towards a cushy retirement. If we have learned anything from his first 100 days, it is that Emmanuel Macron is a determined reformer who really does want to get the wheels of a new deal for his ailing country spinning as quickly as possible.
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Does Britain have a Muslim Problem? Trevor Kavanagh, who is a Sun journalist, plainly thinks so. In his latest column he writes: One day soon, if Philip Hammond and Liam Fox are right, we will be back in charge of immigration. What will we do about The Muslim Problem then?

I mention Kavanagh particularly because he is, I think, close to Rupert Murdoch, and he writes in what remains an influential newspaper. But even if he did not, someone ought to pull him up about his casual (I hope) use of the phrase  with significant capitalisation  The Muslim Problem.

Kavanagh is a highly intelligent man, a former Political Editor of The Sun and a man who, I suggest, knows full well the nasty Nazi pedigree of such a phrase. If not, then he oughtnt to be writing about such sensitive and important issues. If so, then I think he is playing with fire.

There are two issues he identifies as Muslim Problems. First, terror. This one is wearily familiar. The fact is that there are terrorists who are Muslims, and terrorists who kill in the name of Islam, just as there have been terrorists who happen to be Roman Catholic.

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. 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When the IRA was bombing its way across Ireland, Britain and Europe, no one called them Catholic Terrorists, even though most of them were nominally of that faith (and some, such as Martin McGuiness even taking the holy sacrament). Its true that they didnt kill in the name of Catholicism, but they did kill in the name of Ireland, even though the great majority of people in Ireland disapproved of their means and even, if they were true to themselves, werent that bothered about the romantic cause of Irish unity itself.

The IRA men purloined Irish identity for their own evil ends. The parallels are not precise  they never can be  but they are there with the current wave of Islamist terror. Getting rid of the Roman Catholic Church or committing genocide against the Irish or invading the modern Republic would not have solved the Irish question (or problem), and no one suggested it. In other words no one took the activities of the blokes in balaclavas kneecapping Protestant barmen and torturing British army officers as anything other than a bunch of dangerous fanatics who had to be controlled using police methods and intelligence on the one side, and a peace process on the other.

Again the parallels are not exact  the Islamists seem mostly to be beyond sensible discourse  but the point stands that you cannot blame an entire people or religion for acts committed in their name. That is a universal truth.

Then there are the sex abuse crimes, highlighted again in the recent Newcastle case. Its perfectly true, I agree, that here and in many other cities and towns, from Oxford to Rotherham, the great majority of the perpetrators were Muslims and the victims were white girls. Muslim, yes, but also predominantly from certain parts of the Indian sub-continent too  meaning that the culture they came from was more significant than their religion.

There are, it bears repeating, many millions of decent Muslim men from all backgrounds (including Pakistani heritage) who would never dream of behaving in this way, including towards their own mothers, wives, sisters and daughters.

 After acid attacks on Muslims, Islamophobes are terrifying people by throwing water on them

The gangs activities were stomach churning, but the answer to them isnt some sort of restriction on immigration but to deal with the criminals themselves; just as the answer to white people who abuse kids isnt to persecute them on the grounds of their skin colour but to put them in court for a fair trial and then jail for a very long time for what they did.

So in the 1970s the Irish got vilified. The idea was that the Irish offered safe houses and shelter to IRA men on the run; well, some I guess did, but not many. They locked up innocent Irishmen and Irish women, people chucked bricks through the windows of Irish clubs and you got called names in the playground if you had a Gaelic name. But none of that actually solved the Irish Question  a political question.

Most were horrified at the bloodshed and resentful at how the gunmen made their lives miserable, and angry about the idea that all Irish people were secret supporters of terror. That parallel with persecution of the Muslim community of today is strong.

Even then in the bad old days there wasnt much talk of an Irish Problem or a Black Problem as such, though it remained Conservative Party policy well into the 1970s to pay migrants to go home to the West Indies though a policy of voluntary repatriation. Nor did Enoch Powell do much to make immigrants feel at home. Yet todays mythical Muslim Problem represents a new frontier in the normalisation of hate, frankly along with voting Ukip. And if you want to see the dark, obsessive, paranoiac streak of murderous hatred in British society head to the MailOnline comments section (also the excellent DM Reporter Twitter feed) or anything on the Guido Fawkes site about Diane Abbot or other BAME politicians.

 Bacon appears to be placed in each item of Muslim family's McDonald's meal

The truth about Muslim people is that they are very much like their neighbours, who they have no wish to murder. Some, and not all, want to follow their faith  to massively varying degrees, and, again as they wish to integrate into society, and to make a life for themselves and their families. They work hard, or as hard as anyone else, they pay their taxes, they live law-abiding lives (again as much as anyone else).

They have their share of perverts, bastards and thieves, but so does every ethnic and religious group, including the Anglo-Saxons and Celts whove been here for centuries/millennia (though often with more miscegenation than they might assume, as that DNA testing exercise in the quintessentially English village of Bledington showed). And if folk wish to wear traditional dress, surely thats up to them.

I dont think I am getting overexcited about one article, though even if I were, you need eternal vigilance angst this sort of pernicious language if you are going to maintain a healthy and peaceful society. I think also of a few other notorious bits of journalism, broadly defined, weve seen lately. There was Kevin Myers tropes about Jews (namely Vanessa Feltz and Claudia Winkelman) being greedy for money in the Irish Sunday Times; Katie Hopkins for the MailOnline on cockroach refugees and a tweet about the final solution after the Manchester bombing; the Daily Mail cartoon that showed people coming in as refugees with rats, sickeningly reminiscent of Nazi propaganda film stuff (look up The Eternal Jew); and the daily subtle use of language and stereotypes that insidiously link Islam with evil and aggression. Too many headlines equate refugees, migrants, Muslims and terrorists in one sentence, so they become synonymous in peoples minds.

Just as the Nazis did with the Jews, now there is the suggestion that Muslim men are preying on white children, just as the Nazis exploited the blood libel and the notion that Jews were abducting German children; and also the same notions that migrants are carrying and spreading diseases and swindling their way through life.

And just as the fraudulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion was supposed to prove a global Jewish conspiracy, so now we are sometimes asked to believe in the Quran as the motivation for some monolithic Muslim entity in some great clash of civilisations. The more you look at it the more the echoes resonate.

The sub-editors and writers and editors who do it I think know that they are doing it because words and punctuation are their trade. It makes me sad to see it debased, except of course that elements of the British press were on Mosleys side in the 1930s, so it aint that new. Still horrible, though.

In any case this type of hostility and vengeful phobia is, of course, precisely the sort of reaction that Bin Laden and all who came after him have sought, to foment a sort of race/religious war that will justify their actions, perpetuate the conflict they started and feed off its own hatreds. Looking around the world, not least the ugly excrescence of Nazism in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the consequences of the Wests ill-judged attacks on Iraq and crackdowns on migrants, I cannot help feeling that Bin Laden might be well-pleased with the way his unwitting dupes in the West allowed themselves to be so manipulated.

A Muslim Problem? No such thing, but I suppose we certainly will have a Muslim Problem if journalists and politicians convince people there is such a thing. Look at the harmless cake maker Nadiya Hussain, who gets told to her face on a train by some stranger that I aint sitting near a Muslim, adding, I expect to be shoved or pushed or verbally abused, because it happens, its happened for years. Thats the real Muslim Problem  and it isnt Muslims whove created it.
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There are two ways of looking at the latest revelations that Tony Blair was being paid millions by the United Arab Emirates while also working as Middle East envoy.

If youre being kind to our former prime minister you might accept his assurances that there was no conflict of interest. You might accept that he didn't let any relationship with the Gulf state affect his important work trying to solve the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

For the sake of argument lets accept that  though many wont due to the intense hatred of Iran in the region landing the UAE fair and square on the side of Israel.

But what I am finding hard to accept is the assertion that Blair didn't use the role as Quartet envoy to further his business interests.

Its indisputable that his globetrotting role trying to solve the Israel-Palestinian crisis put him at many tables with world leaders with whom he could do business with.

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

So, according to this weeks story, its known that Blair frequently met the UAE foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan in his role as peace envoy.

But at the same time he was also being paid by a Korean oil company seeking to do business with the UAE-owned International Petroleum Investment Company.

Leaked emails speak of how very grateful Blair was that Sheikh Abdullah was able to get the two sides together and arrange meetings. No doubt the Korean oil company concerned, UI Energy, felt its large payments to Blair for his help setting things up was money well spent.

The main thrust of the story, however, is how Blairs office, and Blair himself, received millions in consultancy fees from the UAE.

There are also are claims that Foreign Office officials given to Blair to help him with his peace envoy role were diverted to work on his business projects.

One travelled to the UAE for a meeting with the head of the countrys sovereign wealth fund in Abu Dhabi, Khaldoon Al Mubarak. A year later Blair was hired to do paid advisory work for them.

Tony Blair narrates hilarious story involving EU presidency, the Italian PM and a dodgy tie

Four years later, in 2013, our former PM was having talks with the British government, on behalf of the UAE, when it was trying to secure deals in the UK worth hundreds of millions of pounds.

The justification for these very large financial windfalls is that Blair was not being paid for his envoy role and needed to find money from somewhere to pay for the large travel expenses he and his office were running up.

Thats a lot of flights and hotel expenditure when you consider that as well as the millions he got from the sovereign wealth fund, there was 1.2m from Sheikh Abdullahs office in 2011 and 8m for the UAE foreign ministry for work in Colombia, Vietnam and Mongolia.

What about consultancy roles in other countries which we havent been told about? We only know about the UAE handouts because of leaked emails seen by the Daily Telegraph.

Should any further arrangements not be publicly declared in much the same way as an MP has to reveal what he or she is paid in the Register for Members Financial Interests?

Chris Doyle, of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, said: If you look at the seven principles of public life  selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership  it is hard to make a case that Tony Blair adhered to any of these while serving as Quartet envoy.

The other player in this saga who doesn't come out too well is the United Arab Emirates  lining the envoys pockets to pursue its own geopolitical and commercial goals, when perhaps it should have left him to concentrate on the job in hand.

Is it any wonder that Blairs eight-year tenure as Quartet envoy is largely seen as ineffectual when so much else was going on?

Anthony Harwood is a former foreign editor of the Daily Mail
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This week Yemen reaches a grim milestone: half a million people are sick with suspected cholera this year, almost 2,000 of whom have died. Its the worlds worst cholera outbreak in the midst of the worlds largest humanitarian crisis.

Conflict, hunger and disease are daily affairs in this war battered country: two thirds of the population  17 million people  do not know where their next meal will come from; 5,000 more Yemenis fall ill with cholera or acute watery diarrhoea every day.

Cholera is an old and insidious disease. It thrives where there is famine, poverty, conflict and weak governance. It goes after the most vulnerable: half of all suspected cholera cases and a quarter of associated deaths in Yemen are among children; a third of those who die of cholera are aged over sixty. Hunger and malnutrition exacerbate vulnerability to cholera and acute watery diarrhoea  and disease, in turn, can drive malnutrition: a deadly cycle.

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

Two weeks ago in Yemen, we met a young boy at al-Sabeen Hospital in Sanaa. Less than five years old, he was breathing heavily on a hospital bed, an IV attached to the veins of his small hands to help him battle cholera and malnutrition. We were so focussed on his desperate condition that we almost missed his mother, sitting nearby, who was also very ill, and needed attention.

Their suffering is mirrored many thousands of times over across the country.

While in Yemen, we talked with the sick, their families and the health workers caring for them.

We saw the tragic state of a health system in ruins, with less than half of its facilities able to offer the most basic medical care.

We saw the impossible conditions that health workers face day in day out; 30,000 have not been paid their salaries in nearly a year.

But we also saw that coordinated action can save lives and bring an end to this epidemic.

More than 99 per cent of people sick with suspected cholera or severe acute watery diarrhoea who can access health services are now surviving.

To reach all the people at risk, we are working side by side  establishing Emergency Operations Centres where health, water, food, sanitation and communication partners pool resources and jointly deliver the emergency services that will save the most lives.

 Yemen crisis: More than one million children suffering from malnutrition

With our partners, we are helping to rebuild critical infrastructure  and to rehabilitate hospitals, district health centres and the water and sanitation network.

We are also supporting incentives and stipends for the extraordinarily dedicated and brave health workers who form the backbone of our response effort.

This week, more than 40,000 community volunteers are going house to house telling families how to protect themselves from cholera. They will visit more than 3.5 million households to distribute soaps and rehydration solutions, and advise families on how to help a loved one who falls ill.

This is important, lifesaving work -- but it is still not enough.

With the countrys infrastructure still in ruins, and hundreds of thousands of people still at risk of cholera, malnutrition and the ever-present dangers of conflict, Yemen needs urgent investment  and action by those who can make a difference.

When we met Yemeni leaders  in Aden and in Sanaa, on both sides of the conflict  we called on them to give humanitarian and health workers access to areas affected by fighting.

We urged them to respect international humanitarian law and refrain from attacking civilian infrastructure, especially hospitals and health centres.

Most of all, we entreated them to find a political solution to this conflict that has caused so much death and destruction.

We can still reverse the tide of this outbreak  and the enormous humanitarian crisis on which it feeds.

We call now on the international community, and especially those with the power and the ability to bring pressure to bear on both sides of the conflict, to help bring an end to the suffering  by bringing an end to the conflict.

General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is the Director of WHO, David Beasley is the Executive Director of WFP, Anthony Lake is Executive Director of UNICEF
An Irish student in Chicago has told of her embarrassment after not recognising Taoiseach Leo Varadkar in the restaurant she was working in.

Emma Kelly, 20, from Dublin and a hostess for the summer in the city's Barcocina restaurant, asked the leader and his friend to wait at the bar for 20 minutes before seating them at a "tiny" table outside on Sunday night.

The penny did not drop over the chance encounter until a friend, who was also working in the restaurant, pointed out Mr Varadkar.

Ms Kelly said the thought running through her head was: "Oh my God. I can't believe I've done this."

She added: "I would have know him and I would have seen his posters everywhere.

"It's just when you are in Chicago working, you just don't expect someone like that to walk in."

Ms Kelly, who is in the US on a special student visa for the summer, said she felt "v ery embarrassed" by the slip up and apologised before moving the Taoiseach's party to another, bigger table.

"He was really nice about it. He wasn't too mad that we did not recognise him ... I don't think," she told RTE Radio.

"He was like, 'no, it's kind of nice to feel like a normal person again'."

Ms Kelly took to Twitter to announce the chance meeting, adding : "Honestly what is wrong with me."

The hostess posted a photograph of what she said was a "painfully awkward pic" taken with the Taoiseach once the leader had been pointed out to her.

Mr Varadkar responded on Twitter: "Thanks Emma. The food & service was gr8. Enjoy the rest of your J1".

"Hahaha officially my fave Taoiseach." Emma tweeted later.
Britain could keep the same customs arrangements with the European Union for an interim period in order to avoid "unnecessary disruption" for UK businesses, David Davis has said.

The Brexit Secretary will publish a paper today outlining proposals for a time-limited transition, meaning businesses on both sides of the Channel only have to adapt once to rule changes.

Temporary arrangements could allow trade deals to be negotiated with other countries while governments and businesses adjust to new arrangements.

However, reports suggested this would have to be negotiated during Brexit talks, with members of the EU's customs union barred from striking their own trade deals outside the bloc.

Read more: UK 'deluded' over plan for Brexit transitional period, warns Hogan

Critics dubbed the proposals "a fantasy" and said they did little to provide the certainty businesses have called for.

Mr Davis, writing for the City AM newspaper, said the UK's new customs arrangements "will need to facilitate the freest and most frictionless possible trade in goods between Britain and the EU".

He said the Government would seek to negotiate an interim period with the EU in order to avoid "unnecessary disruption".

"That would be a strong indicator to all our businesses and citizens that politicians on both sides are serious about finding a constructive outcome that works for all involved. Doing so is our shared duty," he said.

"The united desire to avoid unnecessary disruption or a disorderly exit for the United Kingdom from the European Union is a strong foundation for the negotiations."

Ministers have been warned about the strain ports could be put under if they face a big increase in bureaucracy for dealing with goods entering and leaving the country.

The proposals for new customs arrangements to allow trade with the EU are being outlined in the first of a series of "future partnership papers" being released by the Government.

Although negotiations on a new system are not scheduled to start for some time, the Government said setting out its aims showed the UK's "desire to ensure our exit from the EU is smooth, orderly and successful".

One option being put forward by Mr Davis for new arrangements would see the UK manage a new customs border with administration streamlined to the "fullest extent possible".

The Brexit Secretary will also float plans for a customs partnership with the EU that would negate the need for a customs border between the UK and the rest of the bloc.

A position paper on the fraught issue of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic will be published on Wednesday, ahead of the third round of Brexit negotiations in Brussels at the end of the month.

Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, called the proposals "incoherent and inadequate" in response to pleas for certainty from British businesses.

"Instead, the Cabinet remain split on key issues and cannot decide between two very different but equally unachievable options," he said.

"The first proposal suggests 'a new customs border with the EU' could be introduced without disrupting trade; the second suggests a new borderless customs partnership could somehow be agreed while Britain also signs external trade deals.

"These fantastical and contradictory proposals provide no guidance for negotiators or certainty for businesses.

"The proposals also make it less likely that necessary transitional arrangements will be in place by March 2019."

It comes after Chancellor Philip Hammond and International Trade Secretary Liam Fox said the UK would pull out of both the single market and the customs union in 2019.

Labour former shadow chancellor Chris Leslie, a leading supporter of the Open Britain campaign group, said: "It looks like the new unified position in the Cabinet is to return the Government to the territory of wanting to have their cake and eat it.

"Ministers claim we can leave the customs union and yet still achieve 'the most frictionless customs agreement anywhere in the world' but with absolutely no detail about how such a miraculous new system will be achieved.

"It is a fantasy to pretend we can have the freest and most frictionless trade possible with our largest partner when the Government remain intent on pulling Britain out of the customs union."

Tom Brake, the Liberal Democrats Brexit spokesman, said the Government's "extreme Brexit will end up leaving Britain poorer".

He added: "Even if they were agreed to by the EU, these proposals will only delay the economic pain caused by leaving the customs union.

"We still face the prospect of more red tape for businesses, longer queues at our borders and higher prices for consumers once the transition comes to an end."
Irish shoppers could hop on a plane to the UK, once it has left the EU, stock up on duty-free alcohol and then bring it back into Ireland, with the spirits market here likely to be hit hardest, industry figures have warned. Photo: GETTY

The sale of cheap, duty-free alcohol in the United Kingdom post-Brexit would be a "disaster" for the drinks industry here, it has been claimed.

Irish shoppers could hop on a plane to the UK, once it has left the EU, stock up on duty-free alcohol and then bring it back into Ireland, with the spirits market here likely to be hit hardest, industry figures have warned.

"Even if you consider the numbers of Irish returning home at key holiday periods, you're looking at significant numbers of people who will be able to purchase duty-free alcohol and bring it into Ireland," said Evelyn Jones, government affairs director with the National Off-Licence Association.

"The ironic thing is that a lot of it will be Irish production, Irish whiskey exported and then reimported."

Currently, if you are travelling to Ireland from outside the EU, the Canary Islands, the Channel Islands or Gibraltar, you can bring in goods within a duty-free allowance without paying customs duty, excise duty and VAT, according to the Revenue Commissioners.

The allowance amounts to one litre of spirits, four litres of wine or 16 litres of beer.

Expand Close Evelyn Jones, government affairs director with the National Off-Licence Association. Photo: Frank McGrath / Facebook

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Whatsapp Evelyn Jones, government affairs director with the National Off-Licence Association. Photo: Frank McGrath

But there is also the potential for smuggling, suggested Ms Jones.

"Nobody remembers what it was like when we had duty-free on the Border," she said.

"I remember that when I was a child we used to go up to Donegal, when duty-free was in place, and people used to go to Strabane and do their shopping.

"You would have to put on all those clothes in the car, as you went across the Border, otherwise you would have to pay the tax on them.

"It will have a very serious impact on spirits and I would imagine in particular premium spirits, which are more expensive.

"If you are limited in terms of quantity (that you can bring in without being hit with duty), then people will go premium.

"That is happening even now. So duty-free will then be an absolute disaster."

Similar concerns have also been expressed by the Irish Whiskey Association (IWA), which warned that cross-Border and duty-free sales post-Brexit could have a major negative impact on alcohol sales here.

"The Irish Whiskey Association, as part of ABFI, has consistently warned that cross-Border sales will increase post-Brexit unless immediate action is taken to address Ireland's disproportionately high alcohol taxes," said William Lavelle, head of the IWA.

"Ireland has the second-highest alcohol tax in the EU. This acts as an incentive for shoppers to buy alcohol outside of Ireland, a problem that will be made even worse if duty-free sales are reinstated."

A spokesman for Revenue said that it was engaged in the data-based assessment of the potential impact of Brexit for Irish traders.

"Our planning is based on the full range of possibilities, including that customs controls or processes of some form will apply between Ireland and the UK," the spokesman said.

"Revenue supports voluntary compliance by targeting and delivering a proportionate and effective response to non-compliance. Tackling shadow economy activity in all its forms is, and will continue to be, a key priority in Revenue's drive to maximise compliance and protect legitimate trade."
Fresh thinking on dealing with the generational imbalance in Irish agriculture is urgently needed to safeguard the sector's future.

Fianna Fail TD Michael Moynihan said the current age profile of farmers was dangerously skewed and would inevitably undermine the industry's ambitious expansion targets.

Pointing to CSO figures which showed that just 6pc of farmers are under the age of 35, while 53pc are over the age of 55, Mr Moynihan said Irish agriculture faced a difficult future unless more young people can be convinced that farming was a viable career.

"There is a major challenge coming down the tracks for Irish society to replace older generations of farmers who are due to retire in the next 10-15 years," the Cork TD said. "If we want to have locally produced, high quality food, then we will need younger people choosing a career in farming."

The growing shortage of labour in farming, particularly in dairying, along with the growing number of elderly farmers, has prompted increased concern in the sector.

A recent Teagasc report found that Ireland will need approximately 6,000 new entrants into dairying over the next decade to replace retirees and meet the requirements of expanding herds. The report claimed the numbers coming through the various education routes were totally inadequate.

Macra na Feirme president James Healy said the young farmer body had been working hard to bring through new entrants. "Our Land Mobility Service is specifically catered towards generational renewal. It seeks to facilitate new collaborative arrangements between farmers such as farm partnerships, shared farming and long-term leasing," Mr Healy said.
Strong competition between farmers and traders continues to drive on straw prices.

Tillage farmers in Meath and Louth said the equivalent of 60/ac was being offered for straw on the flat, where a top of 32/ac was paid last year.

The buoyant trade for straw comes as a welcome boost for grain growers battling to make progress in the main crop harvest.

Combines were halted by the rains in much of the country yesterday and the outlook for the remainder of the week is for broken, showery weather.

Farmers report a particularly strong demand for wheaten straw, with prices of 38-40 being quoted for 8x4x4 bales in south Kildare and Carlow. Around 29-30 was paid for 8x4x3 bales.

Most of the buying is being done by beef finishers, with much of the straw heading to the North, traders said.

Large bales of barley straw are also trading for 38-40 for 8x4x4 bales, with up to 30 paid for 8x4x3 bales.

In South Tipperary 4x4 bales of barley straw off the field are still making around 14/bale. Oaten straw is generally making 12/bale.

Growers and traders claim there hasn't been enough straw to meet demand so far this harvest, with many livestock farmers ordering increased quantities compared to 2016.

Traders in the west said farmers were just starting to put in orders for straw, with 4x4 bales costing around 23-25/bale delivered.

Harvest

On the harvest front meanwhile, cereal growers were struggling to make headway this week, with heavy rains halting progress.

The winter barley and oilseed rape crops are generally completed and the focus now is on winter wheat and spring barley.

Although winter wheat crops are described as variable, some growers in the south reported yields of 4-4.5t/ac, with moistures around 19pc and 75kph. However, yields generally are in the 3.6-4.2t/ac range.

Some lodging is evident in the spring barley crop.

Yields are described as respectable by growers, with 2.8-3.4t/ac generally being achieved. However, fields rather than farms have been cut to date.

Yields of winter oats are good, with most crops in the 3.5-3.7t/ac range - moistures generally vary from 17pc to 20pc.
Ardlinn, an Irish global executive search firm has announced plans to open a new office in Boston following a strong first year performance successfully placing a range of executives across the UK, Europe, the Middle East and the USA.

The company, which is part of the Cpl Resources Group, said that foreign direct investment has fuelled the rise in demand for executive talent in Ireland, with IDA clients accounting for almost 10pc of direct employment.

"Within developed markets such as the UK and the US, there is uncertainty around short and longer-term growth prospects.

Ireland in particular has benefitted from this with multinationals making decisions around new investment locations in EU countries across sectors including professional and financial services, technology and life sciences," Aine Brolly, CEO and founder of Ardlinn, said.

Read more: Does American opportunity Knock for West of Ireland?

The company added that it has seen a considerable increase in both turnover and demand for the placement of executive candidates in the last six months of trading, both locally and internationally across the technology, finance, professional services, life sciences and healthcare sectors.

According to Ardlinn, these sectors are amongst those offering the most remunerative packages often amounting to over 1m including equity and bonuses.

However the company said that there are notable differences between those offered by multinational and indigenous companies, and the public and private sectors.

In the domestic market, Ardlinn said that it was growing its team of recruiters to solely focus on executive recruitment within the public sector while actively looking at opportunities to enhance its European footprint, including potential acquisitions.
Why place the blame on anyone but the passengers themselves? (stock image)

I like to have a drink when I fly.

I'm not an alcoholic, I'm not a nervous flier, I don't get rowdy and shout 'Who are ya?' over five rows of passengers after three glasses of wine.

More often than not, jumping on a plane signals the beginning of a holiday and I believe that the decision to have several drinks - as I am capable of not starting fights/having sex with strangers after consuming alcohol - is mine and mine alone.

So the recent call for additional restrictions to the sale of alcohol in UK airports before flying grates just a little.

Should it not be that the repercussions for disorderly drunken behaviour are that little bit more severe so the average tipsy tipple enjoyer doesn't bear the brunt of their actions?

Monday night's 'Panorama' revealed that the number of passengers arrested for drunken behaviour across UK airports increased by 50pc in 2016.

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With the additional draw on police resources with a major airport on their patch, and the safety of airline crew and passengers, to consider, I do agree that steps need to be taken to tackle the increase in this unruly behaviour.

But should the average well behaved travellers among us - who have learned to manage our alcohol intake - have to suffer as a result?

Let's be fair, it is a learned trait - so should the age limit for drinking alcohol on flights, therefore, be raised? How about the introduction of high fines that may be a more effective deterrent than a scolding?

Listening to the testimony of numerous airline crew interviewed for the Panorama investigation who reported being sexual harassed and abused by drunken passengers made for unsettling television.

While destinations such as Alicante, Ibiza and Palma were cited among "the worst routes" on the program, it was an even shorter trip from Belfast to the UK where I personally experienced the most rowdiest behaviour I've seen on a flight.

An argument between two men - who were obviously intoxicated - began, apparently over a woman who was sitting beside one of the afore mentioned men. It came to a few choice words and one thrown object before flight crew separated the trio and they subsequently fell asleep.

Not the most ideal way for the staff to start their early morning Friday but I happily downed a few rums on my connecting flight, safe in the knowledge that I would not feel the need to "take the f***ing head off" anyone in particular.

Ryanair's call for airports to ban the sale of alcohol before 10am and to limit the number of drinks per boarding pass to a maximum of two can seem like an obvious solution, at least for short haul flights.

But what was also glaringly apparent in the BBC show was a sense of shunting responsibility and calling for blame on anyone but the passengers as if we are all mindless animals incapable of behaving responsibly.

There was much pointing the finger at the advice given by airport staff around the purchase of alcohol in duty free.

While one sales assistant stated that she could not consume the alcohol on the plane, she gave her an unsealed back which incredibly left the journalist aghast. "What is stopping me from drinking this alcohol?," she asks. Um, I don't know, the sense you were given?

Why is it not enough that World Duty Free displays "clear advisory notices at till points, on till receipts and on carrier bags that remind customers that alcohol purchases cannot be opened until their final destination is reached"? Does the average right-minded person need a steel padlocked box to stop themselves stripping naked and dancing in the aisles?

Another sales assistant was held accountable after the Panorama undercover journalist asked, in a relatively nudge-nudge wink-wink manner to be honest, if she could drink the items on the plane. "Officially probably not, unofficially I think you'll get away with it," he said.

Airport Operator's Association chief executive Karen Dee told the journalist that this response was unacceptable and that the employee in question was either not trained correctly or made an error in judgement. My assessment? The lad is only human and was having a flirt with a good looking girl.

As Ms Dee said herself: "The sale of alcohol is not the problem. It's the misuse of it and drinking to excess and then behaving badly".

Surely we can come up with a solution to the growing disorderly trend so the holiday fun is sucked out of all our flights.
Irish retailers can now avail of funding from their local enterprise offices to obtain the eCommerce Trustmark.

The eCommerce Trustmark, which costs 300 per year, is designed to provide confidence to online shoppers throughout EU Member States. Lobby group Retail Excellence - which represents over 1,600 retailers in Ireland - launched the Irish eCommerce Trustmark last year alongside Brussels-based eCommerce Europe in a bid to promote cross-border trade in Europe and increase consumer confidence when shopping online.

Lorraine Higgins, deputy CEO of Retail Excellence, said that the lobby group was "delighted" to partner with local enterprise offices to offer the Trustmark, on what she described as an "important initiative".

"Many prominent Irish retailers throughout the country have availed of the Trustmark and this is a huge endorsement of the benefits of it and our work in supporting retailers on their online journey," Ms Higgins said.

Over the course of this year, European customers will spend around 600bn online.

However, Irish retailers face significant challenges selling in Europe, as consumers in other countries may not be familiar with an Irish brand, and therefore may be wary of purchasing from the website, a statement from Retail Excellence said.

The Trustmark helps to bridge the trust issue by increasing consumer confidence that they are buying from a legitimate website which is compliant with the latest Irish and EU legislation and satisfies legal audits, said REI.
Plans to encourage elderly nursing home residents to rent or sell their vacant homes could lead to them suffering undue distress and anxiety, it has been claimed.

Under a proposed new Fair Deal scheme, elderly people will be "encouraged" to become landlords and rent out their vacant properties in a bid to ease the property crisis.

As part of the current scheme, nursing home residents must hand over 80pc of their assessable income to the State.

Concerns have been raised regarding the impact the proposed changes will have on elderly nursing home residents.

"We must ensure older persons are not unnecessarily pressurised into divesting a possession that holds great emotional and spiritual value for them," said Tadhg Daly, of Nursing Home Ireland.

"People presenting for nursing home care are amongst the frailest in society and any imposition of stress or worry upon them can have a very seriously detrimental impact upon their well-being."

Rushed changes to the scheme without due consideration to nursing home residents "must be resisted", he said.

Read more - Fair Deal change: Nursing home residents will be encouraged to lease out their homes

Yesterday, Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy moved to calm fears nursing homes residents could be forced to rent or sell their vacant homes. He ruled out the possibility of making the scheme compulsory.

"What I have said, quite publicly on a number of occasions, to people who might have a second home or a vacant home or a property interest, is that they should be on notice that changes are coming," he said.

But a spokesperson for the minister said last night there would be "no question of forcing elderly people to rent out their homes".

He added that compulsory purchase orders were not being considered for these categories of homes either. Instead, he wants to incentivise them to become landlords by changing the terms of the 'Fair Deal' scheme.

Justin Moran, of Age Action, gave a cautious welcome to the minister's plans to bring more vacant homes to the rental market. "Any change must be an incentive that protects the choice of a nursing home resident to rent out their home," he said.

Pressure

There must be no pressure or coercion, he warned. Nursing home residents were already paying levies on their income, assets and family home and they would be unable to afford a vacant property tax, he said.

The housing and home charity, Peter McVerry Trust, welcomed the inclusion of many of its recommendations in the minister's plans, including a national empty homes unit, empty homes officers in every local council, and a national empty homes database.

Trust chief executive Pat Doyle said it was important to tackle the huge levels of empty homes. "It is absolutely critical we must all operate with a sense of urgency at every stage of the process until we get people into their homes," he said.

"A number of critical elements have been delayed until budget day, including details of an empty homes tax, measures to allow Fair Deal participants to rent their properties without penalty and capital funding for local authorities to carry out major compulsory purchase order campaigns."

Niamh Randall, of The Simon Community, said it was taking too long to implement the strategy. The repair and lease scheme must be made much more attractive for property owners, she said.

"The rapid build housing is taking up to 18 months to deliver. An 18-month time-line is just not rapid," she said on the 'Today' programme on RTE Radio 1. Security of tenure to keep people in their homes in the first place was key to solving the homeless problem, she said, along with building social housing.

Labour's housing spokesperson Jan O'Sullivan said the minister needed to ensure a vacant property tax is introduced.
Mobile business solutions company Zamano has announced that it has entered into a conditional sale and purchase agreement to sell all of the company's operating business and assets to its management team of Brian Gilsenan and Michael Connolly for 1.

Following the completion of the disposal shareholders can expect to benefit from 5.3m in cash, with the company left with no other significant assets or liabilities.

The news follows a decision taken by the company in February this year to wind down its existing business lines in order to protect the cash position on the company's balance sheet.

After consideration, the board decided that the wind-down would most effectively be completed by a sale of the company's remaining operating business and assets comprising its premium rate SMS business.

The deal, based on an effective date of 30 June, requires that nearly 1m be left in the operating companies to account for the amount by which their liabilities exceeded their assets.

A further 555,000 is being given to Mr Gilsenan and Mr Connolly's company Kilavan, mainly to provide for potential future liabilities which may require an indemnification.

It is expected to take up to six months for the 5.3m in cash to be returned to the shareholders, during which time the board, in a statement released to the stock market, said that it would "continue to examine possible investment opportunities".

"Any material or significant investment opportunity will be conditional on shareholder approval being obtained," a statement from the company said.

An emergency general meeting to approve the disposal and the investing policy is expected to be held at the Conrad Hotel in Dublin 2 on 30 August.

Colin Tucker, interim chairman at Zamano, said that the board had worked hard to achieve the disposal and "carefully compared and considered the merits of the disposal against all alternatives that were available to the company".

Mr Tucker also said that the board was satisfied that the disposal provided the company with the most appropriate option in terms of maximising the amount of cash that will be available for distribution to shareholders or reinvestment, minimising the remaining contingent liabilities of the group and the risk that the remaining cash will not be available for shareholders.

He added it would provide the highest level of certainty regarding completion and costs, and achieving the highest level of simplification of the remaining group structure.

"We believe the disposal is the most favourable outcome for our shareholders at this time," Mr Tucker said.
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)

Wall Street opened higher on Monday, with broad gains across sectors, as investor sentiment was lifted by easing tensions in the Korean peninsula after key US officials played down the risk of an imminent war with North Korea.

All the 11 major S&P sectors were higher, with S&P financial's 1.12pc rise leading the gainers.

Global stocks lost nearly $1 trillion last week after US President Donald Trump warned North Korea that it would face "fire and fury" if it threatened the United States, leading to a war of words between Pyongyang and Washington.

US officials, including National Security Adviser HR McMaster and CIA Director Mike Pompeo, played down the risk on Sunday, while South Korea's president said resolving Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions must be done peacefully.

The move steadied markets.

"Feels as though the North Korean tension seems to be abating a bit, with commentary coming out of China and the United States. But the situation seems to have de-escalated in the near term," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Wunderlich Securities.

"After the one-and-a-half percent self-off last week, we got a bit of a investor attitude to buy the dip," Mr Hogan said.

European shares also bounced after falling nearly 3pc last week, with the pan-European STOXX 600 up 0.9pc following a similar jump in MSCI's index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan.

Gains were led by bounces in Australia, Hong Kong and South Korea

In Dublin, the Iseq was almost 1pc higher at 6,646.46 by late afternoon.

Shares in CRH rose 1.14pc to 29.18 each and AIB was slightly higher at 4.8740 after Goodbody recommended both stocks.
The cheers and celebrations began early this morning at Malahide Castle as Daithi O Se introduced 64 hopeful Roses to begin the 2017 Rose of Tralee International Festival.

The Roses, representing villages and towns from all around the world, took to the castle in north Dublin with coordinated red dresses and wide smiles.

Daithi, who had been seen taking photos on the ground moments before, made a grand re-entrance for photographers in a red helicopter.

The helicopter was piloted by one of 2003's escorts who had stayed with the Roses in the Glenroyal Hotel, Maynooth the night before.

"The pilot, Ted, he said 'would you like to land in by helicopter in the morning' and I wouldn't be one to refuse something like that," Daithi joked.

The showman is running the contest for the seventh time and is once again looking forward to meeting all the contestants.

Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Rose of Tralee 2017 Rose of Tralee Contestants Derby Rose Sarah Kelly, Florida Rose Elizabeth Marnice during a introduction of the 65 International Roses hoping to make it through to the 2017 International Rose Television Selections on RTE One at Malahide Castle, Dublin. Photo: Gareth Chaney Collins Rose of Tralee Contestants Derby Rose Sarah Kelly, Florida Rose Elizabeth Marnice, Texas Rose Lydian Lawler Lopez, London Rose Caoimhe Gallagher during a introduction of the 65 International Roses Photo: Gareth Chaney Collins Dublin Rose Maria Coughlan with her nephew Tom Coughlan, 7 months, at Malahide Castle, Dublin. Photo: Gareth Chaney Collins Presenter Dithi O' Se & Dublin Rose Maria Coughlan with her nephew Tom Coughlan, 7 months, from Balbriggan during a introduction of the 65 International Roses Photo: Gareth Chaney Collins Lily Callaghan from Malahide passes by Rose of Tralee contestants during an introduction of the 65 International Roses hoping to make it through to the 2017 International Rose Television Selections Photo: Gareth Chaney Collins Lily Callaghan from Malahide passes by Rose of Tralee contestants during an introduction of the 65 International Roses hoping to make it through to the 2017 International Rose Television Selections Photo: Gareth Chaney Collins / Facebook

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"One of the things I really enjoy every year is meeting them all and then seeing how they get on on-stage. My main job is to make sure that all the Roses feel safe and secure there and that I'm a friendly face when they walk out," he added.

He said there are plenty of things to look forward to over the next few days of the festival.

"When you're down in Tralee there's a ball on Friday night which is good fun but the parade on Saturday night is good with between 10-15,000 people there and there's a good buzz," he said.

"At 11.30 on Tuesday night we can leave the hair down and we might have a few pints as well, so we'll look forward to them," Daithi added.

Expand Close Rose of Tralee contestants during a introduction of the 65 International Roses hoping to make it through to the 2017 International Rose Television Selections on RTE One at Malahide Castle, Dublin. Photo: Gareth Chaney Collins / Facebook

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Whatsapp Rose of Tralee contestants during a introduction of the 65 International Roses hoping to make it through to the 2017 International Rose Television Selections on RTE One at Malahide Castle, Dublin. Photo: Gareth Chaney Collins

The Roses have been singing songs all morning, and many of them have been dedicated to Daithi.

"It's crazy how we have 64 here today and 64 last year - and they keep coming. They're all here and they're all full of enthusiasm, life and joy," he said.

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He said the Roses form lasting friendships and that is what the festival is all about.

"They get the spirit of the festival because it's about celebration of Irish-ness and Irish women and they really embrace that," he added.

Expand Close Rose of Tralee Contestants Derby Rose Sarah Kelly, Florida Rose Elizabeth Marnice, Texas Rose Lydian Lawler Lopez, London Rose Caoimhe Gallagher during a introduction of the 65 International Roses Photo: Gareth Chaney Collins / Facebook

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Whatsapp Rose of Tralee Contestants Derby Rose Sarah Kelly, Florida Rose Elizabeth Marnice, Texas Rose Lydian Lawler Lopez, London Rose Caoimhe Gallagher during a introduction of the 65 International Roses Photo: Gareth Chaney Collins

Asked if there were any surprises in store for the festival, the host remained tight-lipped.

"We have a great music act on the Tuesday night which I can't tell you about - it's a big high profile name. We're delighted to have this person on the show," he added.

"We're still working on party pieces. There's a few acrobatic ones and a presenter being kicked around and things like that but that's all part of the fun.

"Last year my hands were set on fire. That brings a bit of surprise to the show and the madder the stuff the better for me," he said.

Dublin Rose Maria Coughlan is from Malahide and was very excited when the photocall was arranged in the castle.

Expand Close Presenter Dithi O' Se & Dublin Rose Maria Coughlan with her nephew Tom Coughlan Photo: Gareth Chaney Collins / Facebook

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"It's really exciting, I didn't expect it at all. When we got the final draft schedule I was delighted to see it," she said.

"All of my friends, my family and boyfriend have been really supportive. The people in Malahide are just giving me fantastic support so I'm delighted to be representing Dublin," she said.

Maria's 7-month-old nephew Tom was also taking in today's scenes as her brother John and his wife Aoife came out from Balbriggan to support her.

"There's been so many highlights. The Dublin selection night was amazing. I got the chance to visit the Irish Air Corps a couple weeks ago which was really good.

"Just in the last 48 hours, last night was absolutely brilliant. We spent it in the Glenroyal Hotel and we had dinner and there were special guests including 2016 Rose of Tralee Maggie McEldowney," Maria added.

She said they had great fun with a brilliant sing-off, but a winner wasn't decided.

"I'm really looking forward to getting to Tralee now. Stepping off the bus will be an exciting moment. There's supposed to be a good atmosphere when we get down there. I cannot wait to meet my Rosebud. Her name is Chloe and she is also an Irish dancer," she said.

And stepping off the bus will be a bit easier than Daithi's helicopter entrance this morning.

"There'll be a little less wind in our hair so it'll be a bit more manageable," Maria added.

Sydney Rose Aisling Walsh grew up in Ballylongford in North Kerry before heading to Sydney on a one-way flight four years ago to work as a general nurse.

"It's absolutely good to be back. I cant wait to get down to Tralee tonight - all my family are going to be there it'll be great to see them all finally. I haven't been home since last year," Aisling said.

"Having all these 63 other girls has been fantastic. We're just having the time of our lives really," she added.

Getting to know the other Roses has been one of her highlights along with shopping for the dresses.

"Sure who doesn't love getting dressed up and putting on make-up every day. It's lovely being treated and wined and dined."

Standing out from the sea of red dresses was the black stetson hat donned upon the head of Texas Rose Lydian Lawler Lopez.

Lydian is from Houston, Texas but the mother's side of her family, the Lawler in Lawler Lopez, are from Abbeyleix, Co Laois while her father's family are from Mexico City.

"I've been here a couple times before doing Irish dance competitions but coming here for the Rose of Tralee has been absolutely amazing. I still can't believe I'm here. It's a dream come true," she said.

The Roses are still deliberating with the organisers and Daithi over what their party piece will be and Lydian is deciding between a song in Spanish or some Irish dance.

"Meeting all the girls has been absolutely incredible. We've been in touch this whole time leading up to the festival. I'm so happy to finally meet them," Lydian added.
A windphone which was designed as a space to meditate on life and loss, has been destroyed by vandals.

The destruction of the installation has left the artists behind it "a little bit heartbroken".

.@AltruchasDublin An Fon Gaoithe (The Wind Phone) destroyed already and not by the wind :( #windphone #windphonedublin Pic taken today pic.twitter.com/YzbFXuyuFn  Noel Donnellon (@NoelDonnellon) August 15, 2017

The windphone, or fon gaoithe in Irish, was installed at the top of Two Rock in the Dublin Mountains in recent weeks, with the art collective behind the project choosing to remain anonymous.

The group Altruchas said it was informed by a walker that it had been demolished and the remnants piled up at the site.

"Given the nature of how it was destroyed and how what was left was laid out, it seems clear that the destruction of the installation was not regular vandals but a strong statement from people that didnt like the project," the art collective said.

The structure, with an old telephone inside, was made from salvaged material and made to look like an old-fashioned phonebox.

A note said that it was designed as "a place where you can speak privately and openly and your words will be carried on the wind to wherever you want them to go".

The inspiration for it from came from the windphone in Japan, which became a popular pilgrimage site following the 2011 tsunami.

Some 25,000 people there use the windphone in the town of Otsuchi to communicate with dead loved ones.

Otsuchi was devastated by tsunami in March 2011 with 1,285 people dead or missing.

Less than two weeks ago, a similar device was positioned at the summit of the Dublin mountain - a spot which is very popular with hillwalkers.

It was erected without planning permission, with the creators stating that they had put it there simply for people to enjoy.

"Of course we are sad it has been destroyed, but will not let such a mindless and selfish act take away from the positivity of the project," Altruchas said.

"We know from some feedback that weve gotten that it genuinely helped some people struggling with grief, so that makes the project completely worth it.

"We also hope that the destruction of the wind phone opens up some conversation about our society, goodwill, creativity and open mindedness."

Poignantly when the installation first hit the headlines a fortnight ago, the group behind the project said: "We have made many creative compromises to ensure its safety. We also intend on maintaining it indefinitely. With that in mind and giving the reasons and nature of the project, we hope that it will be left alone for people use when they need it."
A former garda, who left her job after what she believed had been a bid by a rogue motorist to murder her, has been awarded more than 230,000 compensation for personal injury -- one of the highest awards handed out by the High Court to any member of the force past or present.

The award against the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform was made today Tuesday by Mr Justice Bernard Barton who said he accepted that ex-Garda Martha OGorman, now aged 58, had seen a look of death in her assailants eyes.

I accept what Garda OGorman believed at the time when she says I took from the way he looked at me that he intended to kill me, Judge Barton said today.

Following delivery of the reserved judgment Mr Martin Moran, solicitor for Ms OGorman, said she had worked and lived in Boyle, Co Roscommon, at the time but had since moved to an undisclosed address elsewhere.

Judge Barton said Garda OGorman had given evidence of having lost all confidence and self esteem following the incident outside Boyle in November 2002 and had to move away from the small rural community because people were looking at her.

He said that having dreamed as a child of serving in the Garda Siochana she had ended up having to retire from the force. She was 43 and driving the official patrol when called to a check out a suspicious vehicle parked outside Centre Foodstore, Greatmeadow, Boyle.

Ms OGorman told the court that from a computer check she learned the car had been involved in a theft of petrol from a filling station in Athlone. It was untaxed and the driver, who later had been jailed for 12 months, did not have a driving licence with him.

Garda OGorman decided to seize the car and the driver had agreed to drive it and follow her to the station. Later he had turned off and she had pursued him in a high speed chase that had caused other motorists to swerve.

Near Hill Street, the vehicle had been reversed at speed at the patrol car and she had to jump out for her own safety as it seemed he was going to ram the patrol car.

The offending car drove away and I had followed only a short distance when I met him coming towards me driving straight at the patrol car. I jumped out again and climbed up on a high bank, she told the court.

He drove straight at me and missed knocking me down only by inches. I was alone, back-up had not arrived and I was unable to pursue the car any further, she said.

Judge Barton had been told she was so distressed and upset she was unable to return to work for over a year. She felt anxious and fearful, lost interest, motivation and enjoyment for the job she loved.

After 20 years in the force she had been discharged on medical grounds in January 2007.

She had attended a consultant psychiatrist and even after quitting her job she suffered from high levels of anxiety, hyper-vigilance, vivid intrusive thoughts and obsessional ruminations over what could have happened to her.

Ms OGorman said she had suffered panic attacks, nightmares, fatigue, loss of confidence, poor self-esteem, poor concentration, loss of short term memory, difficulty in sleeping and bouts of depression.

Her mind was constantly on red alert and getting through each day was an ordeal.

Judge Barton said he accepted that factors from the 2002 incident had contributed to Garda OGormans early retirement and awarded her 100,000 for loss of earnings, 70,000 general damages and 60,000 for loss of pension and gratuity rights.

Mr Moran applied for an award of agreed special damages of 1,593, bringing the total award to Ms OGorman of 231,593.
Retired solicitor Brian O'Donnell, formerly of Gorse Hill, Vico Road, Killiney, Co Dublin, is set to exit bankruptcy later this month.

Mr O'Donnell and his wife Mary Patricia were adjudicated bankrupt by the High Court in August of 2013.

That finding was confirmed by the Supreme Court in February 2015.

In July 2016 the O'Donnell's bankruptcy was extended following an application by the official in charge of his bankruptcy, the Official Assignee in Bankruptcy,Mr Chris Lehane, for alleged non co-operation.

The O'Donnell's opposed the move and denied the allegations.

Brian ODonnells son, solicitor Blake O'Donnell who represents his father, has told the High Court that the Official Assignee does not wish to extend Brian O'Donnell's bankruptcy any further.

The next hearing in relation to Brian O'Donnell is not due before the court until October and his father wanted the matter brought forward. Mr Blake O'Donnell said the official assignees legal representatives had no objections to the hearing being brought forward.

The application came before Mr Justice Charles Meenan who agreed to list the matter to a date in late August.

Mrs O'Donnell has already exited bankruptcy. Bank of Ireland applied to have the couple declared bankrupt after they failed to satisfy a judgment for 71.57m obtained against them.

The judgment was obtained by BOI in December 2011 after they failed to repay loans advanced by the bank.
Battle of Shanghai remembered

From:Xinhua | 2017-08-14 09:37

Chinese navy soldiers toll the peace bell in a memorial park for the Battle of Shanghai yesterday in the citys Baoshan District.



More than 500 representatives, including veterans, soldiers, historians and local teachers, students and residents, participated in the event to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Shanghai, also known as the Battle of Songhu.



The Battle of Shanghai was the first major engagement and one of the largest and bloodiest battles of the Chinese Peoples War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. Japanese troops invaded Shanghai on August 13, 1937 during World War II, but met with strong resistance.



More than 300,000 Chinese soldiers were killed or injured during the three-month battle, while casualties on the Japanese side numbered 40,000. The battle eventually escalated into a full-scale war waged by Japan that would involve all the major regions of China.


Prof Philip Nolan, President of Maynooth University pictured at the Launch of the NPCpp Leaving Certificate Exam Helpline. Photo: Frank McGrath

The way students are assessed in the Leaving Certificate needs to change, according to Maynooth University president Professor Philip Nolan.

Prof Nolan said the reliance on the traditional written exams in June was too narrow.

"We need much more innovation and diversity in the modes of assessment to encourage better student learning," he said at the launch of the National Parents' Council post primary (NPCpp) Exam 2017 Helpline.

As an example, Prof Nolan said that there should be more subjects where students are assessed in project work that they complete in school, such as design and communications graphics, where 50pc of the marks are awarded for the practical.

Prof Nolan headed the universities' task force on the reform of the points scale, which is being implemented this year, along with a restructuring of the exam grading system.

The changes, the first of such in 25 years, have been designed to take the heat out of the points race while, at the same time, rewarding scholastic achievement.

Expand Close Betty McLaughlin from the Institute of Guidance Counsellors with Professor Philip Nolan, president of Maynooth University, and Ross MacMahon, communications director with the National Parents Council, at the launch of the NPCpp Leaving Certificate Exam Helpline. Photo: Frank McGrath / Facebook

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Whatsapp Betty McLaughlin from the Institute of Guidance Counsellors with Professor Philip Nolan, president of Maynooth University, and Ross MacMahon, communications director with the National Parents Council, at the launch of the NPCpp Leaving Certificate Exam Helpline. Photo: Frank McGrath

But Prof Nolan said that it was only one step - a technical step - in what must be an ongoing process of reform around the Leaving Cert and the transition from second-level school to college.

"We really need to consider new forms of assessment," he said.

Government education adviser the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment has already started a review of the Leaving Cert, and is currently preparing a background paper on best international practice.

The road to change in the Leaving Cert is being paved by the reform of junior cycle, which is being implemented in all schools this September, after years of controversy because of resistance by one of the teachers' unions, the Asti.

At the centre of the row over junior cycle reform was a plan for teachers to assess their own students but, ultimately, this was dropped.

The new-style junior cycle involves the introduction of new classroom-based assessments in all subjects, along with the traditional June exams, although they will be shorter.

The view is that once students are exposed to the new way of learning in junior cycle, it will have to follow through to senior cycle.

Because of the level of change at junior cycle, all second-level teachers are being trained in new approaches to teaching, in which students are more actively engaged in their own learning

Prof Nolan is not calling for a "big bang" approach to a new-style Leaving Cert, acknowledging that "change can be difficult and can be easily derailed; we must proceed carefully".

He said that reform should be brought about through consultation and collaboration, and to "have everybody in the room" to discuss what was needed to enhance student learning, was what worked best.

Prof Nolan said that, internationally, there were a wide range of different assessment models in use that could be looked at.

Rather than a single sweeping change, Prof Nolan said there was scope to "innovate within subjects" and for teachers in individual disciplines to be involved in deciding, for instance, "how we can make physics more interesting".

Plans to change the way that Leaving Cert science subjects are assessed, along the line of what Prof Nolan is suggesting, are already well advanced.

In the coming academic year, a number of schools will be involved in trials of 90-minute practical exams in biology, chemistry and physics, which would be worth 30pc of the marks for those subjects.

The hands-on assessment will allow students to demonstrate what they know in a real-life way, rather than relying solely on written exams, for which many depend on rote learning.

Helpline to assist parents and pupils

About 58,000 Leaving Cert candidates are awaiting the release of the results tomorrow and, as usual, the National Parents Council post primary (NPCpp) Exam Helpline will be open to assist parents and students with any queries they may have.

The freephone 1800 265 165 helpline, sponsored by the Irish Independent, the Department of Education and Skills and Eir, opens at 10am tomorrow and will run for six days over the next week.

It will be staffed by members of the Institute of Guidance Counsellors and a representative of the grants agency, Susi, who will provide one-to-one advice to callers on the various issues that arise at this time.

Independent.ie will also run a live interactive blog on the mornings of August 16 and August 21. Questions can be sent to contact@independent.ie, on Twitter with #IndoCAO and through the liveblog itself.
A son has hailed his father as someone who would "give you his last pound and borrow another five to make sure you weren't stuck".

Gary Wilson Jnr described his father as a hero, just 12 hours after the 50-year-old died in a three-vehicle pile-up yesterday morning.

Gary Wilson, from Lisburn, who has two grandchildren, was driving on the Old Ballynahinch Road in his home city just before 7am when he was killed in the smash.

His son yesterday evening posted a picture of his father cuddling him on his Facebook page in an image that appears to have been taken on Christmas Day.

Mr Wilson Jnr told the Belfast Telegraph: "That's my dad and me 27 years ago. I'm his only son and he leaves two grandchildren behind - Christian (9) and Zach (5).

"I know most say their dad is the best. Mine was the man who would give you his last pound and then borrow another five to make sure you weren't stuck.

"He was forever doing an odd job or favour for someone and he didn't even have to know them as a friend to do it.

"He was a proud dad and granda, and such a handy man. We joked he owned half of Screwfix and there was no job he couldn't tackle."

Mr Wilson Jnr also posted the message to the dozens of friends who wrote online about their sorrow: "Thank you for the kind words. He was in a car accident this morning. And died at the scene. Heart's broke."

One Facebook user, Larry Ferguson, wrote about Mr Wilson: "Just found out that I have lost an old high school classmate. I am still in disbelief. Rest in peace Gary Wilson. You will be missed. Hope to once again see you at the crossroads."

DUP MP for Lagan Valley, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, posted on Twitter: "Sad news from Lisburn. My thoughts and prayers are with the family of Gary Wilson."

More than one person a week has died on Northern Ireland's roads so far this year, the youngest of whom was aged three.

Three of the deaths have come in the last four days.

On Sunday, a 66-year-old motorcyclist died in Newry after his vehicle collided with a Land Rover SUV believed to be towing a caravan at the time.

Three-year-old Christopher Ward died on Friday afternoon at Daisy Hill Hospital in Newry after being hit by a truck that morning at Dobson's Way in Bessbrook, Co Armagh.

The funeral mass for the little boy was held yesterday morning in The Church Of St Peter & St Paul in Bessbrook, Co Armagh, and Christopher was buried in Cloughogue cemetery.

His family, part of the settled Traveller community in Bessbrook, posted a family notice that read: "He will be sadly missed by his heartbroken daddy, mummy (John and Michelle) and his entire family, friends and community."

On Tuesday police re-issued their appeal for information.

Inspector Savage said: "50-year-old Gary Wilson was killed when his grey BMW 3 Series was involved in a collision with a silver Volkswagen Passat and a white Ford Transit van on the Old Ballynahinch Road shortly before 7am on Monday 14 August.

"We are keen to hear from anyone who witnessed the crash or who saw any of these vehicles travelling on the Old Ballynahinch Road prior to the collision.

"We would especially like to hear from anyone who may have spotted Mr Wilsons BMW travelling out of Lisburn towards Ballynahinch between 6.30am and 6.55am on Monday morning.

"Officers can be contacted at the Collision Investigation Unit by calling 101, quoting reference number 200 14/08/17."
The three years in prison handed down to a mother-of-two for what a senior judge described as the "horrific'' killing of a Co Antrim pensioner was last night branded "too lenient".

Margaret Henderson-McCarroll (31), formerly of Verner Street, Belfast, had previously pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of 67-year-old retired plumber Eddie Girvan.

He was gagged, bound and stabbed at his Greenisland home on January 18, 2016.

Dressed in denim jeans, black jacket and white top and with her red hair now dyed blonde and cut into a mohawk-style, Henderson-McCarroll spoke briefly to family and friends in the public gallery after she was brought into court in handcuffs.

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Henderson-McCarroll wiped away tears as the judge entered the court room.

Passing sentence yesterday at Belfast Crown Court, Mr Justice Treacy said the defendant would serve three years behind bars and a further three on licence .

Judges are bound by sentencing guidelines and must take into account mitigating circumstances such as early guilty pleas, co-operation with police and remorse, as well as aggravating factors such as intent and excessive violence.

Alliance MLA Stewart Dickson, who was well-known to Mr Girvan, said he was "disappointed" at the sentencing.

"It's difficult to accept such a short sentence as I feel it is too lenient," he said.

"I'm concerned that someone who did what that they did in such a heinous way has been handed a short sentence.

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"People in the area have also been shocked by the sentencing.

"There is public concern that this is a short sentence."

His long-term friend and neighbour John Milliken said: "I would have hoped for something stiffer. I knew Eddie for a long time.

"He shouldn't have been killed."

Mr Milliken told the Belfast Telegraph that his friend was "brilliant with his hands", "interested in loads of things" and "had a great mind".

"I think he would have loved to have been a mechanic as he loved motorbikes and rode grass track in his younger days," said Mr Milliken.

"There was nothing mechanical that he couldn't work with or fix."

Justice Treacy said he agreed with two consultant forensic psychologists that Henderson-McCarroll did not meet the dangerous provisions and that she did not pose a "significant risk of serious harm to the public in the future''.

The judge told the court: "This was an horrific crime and the deceased must have suffered terribly.''

The prosecution accepted her guilty plea to the manslaughter of the Mr Girvan on the grounds of "diminished responsibility''.

Her defence had argued that at the time of the killing, Henderson-McCarroll was high on a cocktail of heroin and crystal meth.

A defence QC had told a plea and sentence hearing in June this year that at the time of the manslaughter her life had descended into a "heroin hell'' following the cot death of her infant daughter.

The court heard that Henderson-McCarroll had known Mr Girvan for a number of years and she received "money for sex with him''.

In the hours after the attack Henderson-McCarroll was driving Mr Girvan's car when she was involved in a road collision in Belfast.

Police traced his address and went to speak to him several times, however there was no answer.

After becoming concerned for his safety, police broke into his home where they found his dead body bound, gagged and seated in a room on the ground floor.

Mr Justice Treacy said that Mr Girvan had sustained two stab wounds to his body - one wound was to the upper right chest area measuring 10cms in depth which had "punctured his lung causing high bleeding into the lung'' and which alone "could have resulted in death''.

"The deceased had a large wad of kitchen roll stuffed into his mouth and he had been gagged with a tie.

"This too, of itself, could have resulted in death.''

She told police she had been at his Greenisland home that weekend where she took drink and drugs.

The court heard that on the morning of Mr Girvan's death, he and Henderson-McCarroll had an argument about money she claimed he owed her for sex.

She told police he pushed her against a mantelpiece and the deceased pulled out a stick sword. She further alleged that she grabbed the stick sword and there was a struggle and then she grabbed a knife.

The judge continued: "You say you lifted it and poked him, to use your words, in the chest, and he fell on the chair.

"You said that you panicked, that Mr Girvan was shouting at you, and so you put a tie on his mouth to quieten him.

"You then left his house, took his car, drove to Belfast, were involved in a hit-and-run and had taken more heroin before the journey to calm your nerves.''

Mr Justice Treacy said that Henderson-McCarroll had 100 previous criminal convictions which included offences of robbery, theft and assault.

He added that she had a "clear propensity" to use threats and violence and that in a number of these attacks, she had bitten, punched and headbutted some of her victims who included children, elderly men, young women and adult men.

A consultant forensic psychiatrist, who had examined the defendant, said in a report to the court that she had an addiction history to opiates and stimulants which had led to a "chaotic life''.

"It is evident her abuse of illicit drugs intensified following the death of her infant daughter which led to a subsequent significant deterioration in her mental health and social functioning,'' the report stated.

"She also exhibits traits of an emotionally unstable personality disorder due to the background of violence and sexual abuse at the hands of a number of male partners.''

Mr Justice Treacy also handed down concurrent prison sentences and banned her from driving for one year for a series of offences.

Henderson-McCarroll, who remained emotionless as she was handed down the sentence, made heart gestures to her family and partner as she was being led away to serve her sentence.

It's understood Mr Girvan had been estranged from his former wife Heather and two daughters Martina and Amanda.

None of Mr Girvan's family members were present at court yesterday.
An Irish student on a J1 was left feeling embarrassed after she didnt recognise Taoiseach Leo Varadkar when he came into her Chicago restaurant.

Dubliner Emma Kelly (20) admitted she didn't know who Mr Varadkar was and then left him waiting before finally seating him at a tiny table.

Honestly what is wrong with me? she tweeted.

She said two men came into the restaurant and she told them they had to wait to sit outside.

"I was like oh hey are you guys Irish? and they were like yeah so I sent to them to the bar and a couple of minutes later I took them to a two person table, she said.

They were like 'oh we have an extra person'. So, I was like okay, Ill get you the next bigger table that opens, Emma added.

She told Independent.ie she realised her mistake when her friend Eimear, who also works in the Chicago restaurant Barcocina, told her the Taoiseach was sitting outside.

I was like, ah jaysis I can't believe I made the Taoiseach wait for a table and he thought it was funny but actually was like it's nice being treated like a normal person, she said.

Emma, who studies Biomedical Science in Maynooth, then got what she described as a "painfully awkward" picture with the Mr Varadkar, adding he is "officially [her] fave Taoiseach".
Road death victim Jonathan Fitzpatrick. Killed in a car crash when driving home to Kilkenny after working at the Dublin Horse Show in the RDS on August 12th 2017

Jonathan Fitzpatrick (23), from Keatingstown, Co Kilkenny, died when the vehicle he was driving crashed into a barrier on the Naas Road near Kingswood at about 6am on Saturday.

No other vehicle was involved.

He was taken to Tallaght Hospital, but was pronounced dead a short time later.

Mr Fitzpatrick was from a well-known showjumping and equine bloodstock family and he had been travelling back from working at the annual show at the RDS.

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It is believed he had borrowed his parents' car to travel home to feed and care for horses, and was due to return to Dublin later that day to resume his work.

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Jonathan was an "extremely popular guy and lived and breathed horses since he was a little boy", said a friend. "He had been going back to Kilkenny to sort out some work there.

"He was renowned for his hard work, professionalism, love of life and, of course, horses. He grew up around them and was heavily involved in the equine industry.

"His family are absolutely devastated, as are all his friends.

"News of Jonathan's shock death spread quickly around the horse show in the RDS on Saturday and, of course, it knocked the stuffing out of everyone there with the awful news.

"He will be dearly missed by his many relations and friends," the friend added.

He was the single occupant of the 4x4 that crashed.

Jonathan was the eldest son of Sharon and Joe and is also survived by his international showjumping sister Susan and brother Killian, along with his grandparents John and Agatha Butler.

His remains are reposing at Keatingstown House today from 3pm until 8pm.

Funeral Mass will take place tomorrow at St Canice's Church in Kilkenny at 11am, with burial afterwards.

Mr Fitzpatrick's death was one of two on Irish roads over the weekend.

Motorcyclist

On Sunday afternoon, a male motorcyclist in his 40s sustained serious injuries when he collided with a car in Athlone.

The motorcyclist was treated by emergency services at the scene, and was transported by air ambulance to Galway University Hospital.

However, he was pronounced dead a few hours later.

The two deaths over the weekend brought the total to 101 in 2017.

The figure, according to gardai, is 13 less than at the same time last year.

The total number of collisions in which deaths occurred has also decreased, from 106 to 94.

Some 42 drivers and 14 motorcyclists have already died this year, along with 20 pedestrians, 14 passengers and 10 cyclists.
Trump order to look at Chinas trade practices

From:Agencies | 2017-08-14 09:40

US President Donald Trump will today order his top trade adviser to determine whether to investigate Chinese trade practices, according to senior administration officials.

The move, which could eventually lead to steep tariffs on Chinese goods, comes at a time when Trump has asked China to do more to crack down on North Koreas nuclear missile program as he threatens possible military action against Pyongyang.

Trump has said he would be more amenable to going easy on China if it were more aggressive on the North Korea issue.

An administration official, however, insisted diplomacy over North Korea and the potential trade probe were totally unrelated, saying the trade action was not a pressure tactic.

These are two different things, the official told reporters.

Trump will direct US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to determine if an investigation is warranted of any of Chinas laws, policies, practices or actions that may be unreasonable or discriminatory, and that may be harming American intellectual property, innovation and technology, the official said.

Any investigation that may be launched could take as long as a year to conclude, a US official said. He said it would be premature to speculate on actions that could eventually be taken against China, and added that the issue could be resolved through negotiated agreement.

Trump, who will interrupt a 17-day working vacation to make a day trip to Washington for the trade announcement, had been expected to seek a so-called Section 301 investigation earlier this month, but an announcement was postponed as the White House pressed for Chinas cooperation on North Korea.

Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, a trade tool in the 1980s that has been rarely used in the past decade, allows the president to unilaterally impose tariffs or other trade restrictions to protect US industries from unfair trade practices of foreign countries.

The process can bypass World Trade Organization procedures for adjudicating grievances. Though widely used worldwide, the WTO process is viewed unfavorably by the Trump administration.

The imposition of tariffs and other non-tariff trade barriers will not solve Americas economic problems and probably in the long term will make it worse, Robert Lawrence Kuhn, a leading China expert, told Xinhua news agency in a recent interview.
Gardai at the scene near Ballyboughal in north Co. Dublin where the remains of a man were discovered in a ditch at the side of the road. Picture; Gerry Mooney

Gardai investigating the murder of a man who was found stabbed to death and dumped in a laneway in north Dublin are renewing their appeal for information.

The body of Michal Kurek was discovered in a laneway off the R129 Ballyboughal to Oldtown Road on August 4, 2017.

A post mortem examination confirmed that Mr Kurek died as a result of multiple stab wounds.

The 34-year-old Polish national resided in Ireland for several years. It is understood he had been living rough in the months leading up to his death.

Superintendent Noel Carolan today said: "The area where Michals body was discovered is otherwise a generally very quiet, peaceful rural community. Michal was homeless during recent months and is known to have spent time in the Blanchardstown/Ongar area and in Dublin City Centre."

A Garda Family Liaison Officer is providing support for members of Michal's family in Poland and providing them with updates of the investigation.

Superintended Carolan said that "garda resources are not being spared in this investigation" and confirmed that they have opened several hundred lines of inquiry into the case.

"We have received massive assistance from the public as well as very valuable information from the local community, the Polish community and the homeless community," he said.

Gardai are appealing to anyone who knew Michal, in particular anyone who met him or knew of his movements at any time on Thursday, August 3 or Friday, August 4, 2017 to contact with Balbriggan Garda Station on 01 802 0510 or the Garda Confidential Line 1800 666 111.
An independent senator will challenge Michael D Higgins for the presidency if the incumbent goes back on his word to only serve one term.

Speculation is mounting that Mr Higgins wants a second term after he refused to rule out the possibility.

During the 2011 election campaign, the former arts minister said he would only serve for seven years - but he already has the backing from senior political figures, including Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, to stay in office until 2025.

There is a growing consensus in political circles that the 76-year-old would like to stay on but is not keen on a potentially gruelling election campaign.

Senator Gerard Craughwell, however, told the Irish Independent he will seek a nomination for the presidency in order to force a vote.

Mr Craughwell, a former president of the Teachers' Union of Ireland, said he believes Mr Higgins has been "a marvellous President" but he should stick to his word.

"It's the principle of the thing," he said, adding: "You have to stand up to the plate on that.

"I've known Michael D since a young teenager. He has always been a man of the highest probity and character. I don't begrudge him a second term but I just think this was all wrong."

Mr Craughwell first became a senator in 2014 after running against Fine Gael's John McNulty, who was at the centre of a cronyism row.

In order to secure a nomination for Aras an Uachtarain a person must get the backing of at least 20 TDs and senators, or four local authorities.

Mr Craughwell said he will wait to see Mr Higgins's declaration before deciding which route to follow, adding that he will tour local authorities if necessary.

He has not yet devised a strategy for funding, adding: "I have no money. I have no idea how I'd go about that yet."

However, the Galway man said if he does enter the race he intends to be a serious contender.

"I don't ever enter a race without being serious about it. I will be very serious," he said.

Asked whether he would put forward a policy platform, Mr Craughwell replied: "The presidential role in Ireland is an honorary role. You are a servant of the State. Your job is to market Ireland. Wherever a government wants you, that's where you go."

He said in the past people have gone into presidential campaigns "putting forward policies and talking about job creation" but that's not the President's job.

"You can't deliver any as a President apart from signing legislation into law and doing it discerningly," he said.

The next presidential election isn't due until October 2018 but potential candidates would be expected to express an interest later this year.

Sources within Fine Gael said they are not keen on contesting what would be a costly campaign if Mr Higgins wants to remain in situ.

Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald has been tipped as a candidate for the party - but one source said: "There's a high chance of a general election before we even get to the presidential one. That's where resources will have to be focused."

Fianna Fail is also delaying a decision until Mr Higgins clarifies his position. The Irish Independent understands a number of TDs and senators want the party to put somebody forward, but leader Micheal Martin is cautious.

Mr Higgins's predecessor in the Aras, Mary McAleese, served two terms in office without having to be re-elected in 2004.

Seven candidates contested the 2011 election, which was marred by controversy.

The field included businessman Sean Gallagher, who was favourite to win until he was engulfed in controversy towards the end of the campaign.
Game of Thrones fans have been warned to stop buying huskies after the number of abandoned animals in the UK soared eight-fold since the show began.

The dogs, which bear a strong resemblance to the direwolves which feature in the fantasy epic, are increasingly popular with devotees of the series, but animal charities say huskies are often dumped once the novelty has worn off.

Before the show aired in 2011, the number of abandoned huskies was around 10 a year in the UK, according to figures from British charity Blue Cross, but last year the figure hit 81.

Peter Dinklage, who plays Tyrion Lannister in the series, teamed up with the animal charity PETA to ask fans to stop buying the animals.

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"We understand that due to the direwolves' huge popularity, many folks are going out and buying huskies," he said.

"Not only does this hurt all the deserving homeless dogs waiting for a chance at a good home in shelters, but shelters are also reporting that many of these huskies are being abandoned  as often happens when dogs are bought on impulse, without understanding their needs.

"Please, please, if you're going to bring a dog into your family, make sure that you're prepared for such a tremendous responsibility and remember to always, always, adopt from a shelter."

It is not the first time that a popular television programme or film has sparked an increase in demand for animals featured on screen. The films 101 Dalmatians, Beverly Hills Chihuahua, Legally Blonde and Men in Black, caused massive spikes in sales of dogs breeds seen on screen.

Many were later abandoned in shelters, and many have to be euthanised because they cannot find homes.

Already 29 huskies have been abandoned in the UK this year, but Blue Cross is expecting the figure to rise now a new series has begun.

"Numbers of abandoned and unwanted wolflike dogs, including huskies and malamutes, ending up at Blue Cross have been steadily rising over the past few years," said a spokesman for the charity.

"Part of the reason for the rise is down to people being drawn in by their striking looks  having spotted them on shows such as Game of Thrones - and making snap decisions to take on dogs such as Siberian huskies and Alaskan malamutes without thinking about how their lifestyle fits in with the breeds needs.

"Huskies can pull sleds across hundreds of miles of icy terrain. They are not happy with simply slobbing in front of the telly after a 10 minute plod round the block."

Blue Cross said people who are considering buying a huskie should also remember that huskies, like wolves, enjoy howling and singing which could cause a problem with neighbours.

They also have a strong chase instinct are likely to see small animals, or a neighbours cat as prey.

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As India celebrates 70 years of independence from the UK, heres a selection of words from across India which are now commonplace in English.

Pyjamas

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The word pyjamas is originally from Urdu, where it means leg clothing, but has been adopted into English to mean nightwear.

Mary ONeill, editor-in-chief of Collins English Dictionaries, said: A lot of words come down to the time of the British Raj and their presence in India up until the 20th century, to 1947.

People lived side by side and they would need to learn the language and learn local words to communicate. The words will have been inspired by basic needs  food, drink, clothes, things that were important in commerce.

Catamaran

Originally from the Tamil kattumaram, meaning tied timber, the word is now used in English to mean a boat with twin hulls.

ONeill added: These words will have been anglicised in some way. People must have written them down and the spelling probably had a few forms before there was an agreed version.

Sticking with a nautical theme, the word dinghy comes from the Hindi or Bengali dingi, for little boat.

Seersucker

From Hindi and meaning milk and sugar, it refers to the two tones of the stripes in the original material.

Dungarees, from the Hindi word dungri meaning a kind of coarse cloth, and jodhpurs, named after the city in Rajasthan, have also crossed into English.

English has always been a great borrower of words, said ONeill. Its a language of great richness.

Cummerbund

This formal mens clothing item sits underneath a dinner suit jacket above the waist of the trousers. It started out as a Hindi and Urdu word, kamarband, which came from Persian words for waist and band.

In the 19th century there was a medical view that the cummerbund could serve to ward off numerous ailments, such as dysentery and cholera, said a spokesman for Merriam-Webster Dictionaries.

Shampoo

Nowadays we think of the word shampoo as a verb to wash, mainly hair, with soap and water. It also refers to the actual soap.

But it had a markedly different meaning when it was first used in English, said the Merriam-Webster spokesman.

It comes from the Hindi and Urdu capo, which is the imperative of capna  to press, massage  and in its earliest use retained the meaning of massage. The sense of shampoo meaning to wash the hair of did not enter common use until the middle of the 19th century.

Punch

The drink punch is often prepared in a huge bowl and then ladled into glasses, conjuring up images of decadent parties in the 1920s.

But the name is probably from Hindi, meaning five. Why? The beverage originally included five ingredients.

Toddy

Another drink, toddy, comes from the Hindi tari, meaning juice of the palmyra palm.

Natural language evolution has shaped the sound of the word, says ONeill, who has been editor-in-chief of Collins English Dictionaries for five years and a lexicographer for two decades.

Perhaps for toddy, it sounded more like a d and there was a natural change and corruption to a form we recognise today. Theres a natural process.

Jungle

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Its easy to picture the jungle as the home of Mowgli. It was first recorded in English between 1770-1780.

Jane Solomon, lexicographer at Dictionary.com, said: Jungle is from the Hindi word jangal, which in turn comes from the Pali, Prakrit term jangala meaning rough, waterless place.

Pundit

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Sports shows and broadcast news are filled with people offering their views on everything from the Premier League to political decision-making. But the likes of Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher are named after a Sanskrit term.

Solomon explained: First recorded in 1665-75, pundit is from the Hindi word pandit, which comes from the Sanskrit term pandita meaning learned man, (adj) learned.

Other words to have travelled from India to English include juggernaut, bungalow, bangle, pukka, and pariah.

And there are many, many more.

Its hard to quantify because theres no single language of India, said ONeill. Theres Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, Bengali and a lot from Sanskrit. Sometimes the origin of the words is not known.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un (C) celebrating the successful test-fire of the intercontinental ballistic missile Hwasong-14 at an undisclosed location. Photo: STR/AFP/Getty Images

North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un has been briefed on a plan to fire missiles towards the US territory of Guam, home to US air and naval bases, Pyongyang's state media said early this morning.

Mr Kim "examined the plan for a long time" and "discussed it" with commanding officers yesterday during his inspection of the command of the Strategic Force in charge of the North's missile units, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The state-run news agency said Mr Kim would watch the actions of the United States for a while longer before making a decision.

"The United States, which was the first to bring numerous strategic nuclear equipment near us, should first make the right decision and show through actions if they wish to ease tensions on the Korean peninsula and prevent a dangerous military clash," Mr Kim was cited as saying.

If North Korea goes ahead with its threat to fire ballistic missiles toward the Guam, the order will come from Kim Jong-un himself.

The officials in charge of North Korea's missile programme could complete their preparations by next week and would then wait for the 33-year-old leader to decide what to do next.

North Korea has already demonstrated it has made great advances in its missile programme and can theoretically now hit the US mainland. This is a question of strategy.

"The North Koreans have been very clear that they need his authorisation. This is a moment for Kim Jong-un," said Michael Madden, who runs the North Korean Leadership Watch website and closely studies Kim

"He may take it as an opportunity to prove himself, or as an opportunity to let cooler heads prevail."

North Korea likes to mark important dates, and there are two of note.

Today, North Korea celebrates Liberation Day, marking the end of colonial rule by Japan, over which any Guam-bound missile would fly.

Then, next Monday, South Korea and the US start annual military exercises that always antagonise North Korea.
A worker watches as shipping containers are loaded onto a ship at a port in Qingdao in eastern China as the country's government responded to a trade probe ordered by Donald Trump (Chinatopix via AP)

China has sharply criticised Donald Trump's demand for an investigation into whether it is improperly obtaining foreign technology and said it will "resolutely safeguard" Beijing's interests.

The commerce ministry said the US president's order on Monday violates international trade agreements, and vowed Beijing will take action if Chinese companies are hurt.

Mr Trump ordered American trade officials to look into whether Beijing improperly requires foreign companies to hand over technology in exchange for access to Chinese markets.

The Chinese commerce ministry criticised it as "strong unilateralism" that violates the spirit of international trade agreements.

"If the US side disregards the fact it does not respect multilateral trade rules and takes action to damage the economic and trade relations between the two sides, then the Chinese side will never sit back and will take all appropriate measures to resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the Chinese side," the ministry said.

Mr T rump said in April he was setting aside disputes over market access and currency while Washington and Beijing worked together to persuade North Korea to give up its pursuit of nuclear weapons technology.

But American officials have resumed criticising Chinese policy in recent weeks.

"We believe the US side should strictly adhere to commitments and should not become the destroyer of multilateral rules," the commerce ministry said.

Before Monday's announcement, the Chinese foreign ministry had appealed to Mr Trump to avoid a "trade war".

Beijing requires carmakers and other foreign companies in China to work through joint ventures, usually with state-owned partners.

They are often required to give technology to partners that might become competitors.

More than 20% of 100 American companies that responded to a survey by the US-China Business Council, an industry group, said they were asked to transfer technology within the past three years as a condition of market access, according to Jake Parker, the group's vice president for China operations.

"We don't believe market access should be contingent on transferring technology," he said. "It goes counter to China's WTO (World Trade Organisation) commitments."

AP
The BMW which crashed into a pizzeria in Paris. Photo: Twitter

A 13-year-old girl was killed and four other people were seriously injured last night after a man deliberately drove a car into a pizzeria to the east of Paris.

Police were quick to rule out terrorism. The man drove into the crowd of diners at the restaurant in the town of Sept-Sorts, around 40 miles east of Paris.

Witnesses said around 20 people were in the pizzeria at the time.

Police arrested the driver immediately and after an initial interrogation ruled out any potential terrorist motives.

A source from the prosecutor's office said the man was suicidal and had already made a failed bid to take his life the day before.

While the driver did not manage to take his own life yesterday, he left the teenage girl dead.

Her younger brother was among the four diners in a critical condition after yesterday's crash. Another eight people were said to have suffered light injuries.

The identity of the driver remains unknown, although the Interior Minister has said that he is in his early thirties.

He is reportedly unknown to French police and intelligence services and has no links to terrorism.

France remains on edge after a series of attacks across the country, most recently with a driver last week ramming a BMW into six soldiers to the north of Paris.

The man was caught after a dramatic shootout on a motorway in northern France.

He remains in a serious condition, unable to talk with police.

Interior Minister spokesperson Pierre-Henry Brandet has said four of last night's victims are "seriously injured and in a state of absolute emergency".

A source at the prosecutor's office in nearby Meaux told 'Le Parisien' newspaper that the suspect was a young man with suicidal tendencies.

"He tried to kill himself yesterday and decided to try again like this today," the source told the paper.

It added that officers had erected a large security perimeter around the cafe, from which the public should steer clear.

One witness told the BFM TV channel: "The car drove into the terrace and crashed into the bar. The driver tried to reverse the car but someone stopped them. The police arrived quickly. There were around 20 people in the restaurant. ( Daily Telegraph, London)

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
Police stand during a rally in Seattle at which hundreds of demonstrators and counterprotesters converged one day after violent clashes in Charlottesville. Photo: AP

A man who marched in the white supremacy rally in Charlottesville has been disowned by his family.

Peter Tefft of Fargo, North Dakota, is a maniac, who has turned away from all of us and gone down some insane internet rabbit-hole, and turned into a crazy nazi, said his nephew, Jacob Scott, in a statement to a local television station.

On Saturday, Charlottesville became embroiled in violence when white nationals, who were protesting against the removal of a Confederate statue, clashed with counter-demonstrators.

[Peter] scares us all, we dont feel safe around him, and we dont know how he came to be this way, Mr Scott continued. My grandfather feels especially grieved, as though he has failed as a father.

In February, Mr Tefft told a reporter in Fargo he was 100 per cent pro-white.

Mr Teffts father said he and the rest of the family are entirely against his sons racist beliefs.

In a letter published on Monday in The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, Pearce Tefft wrote that he and other family members wish to loudly repudiate his sons vile, hateful and racist rhetoric and actions.

We do not know specifically where he learned these beliefs, Mr Pearce Tefft wrote. He did not learn them at home.

Expand Close A white supremacist militia member armed an assault rifle in Charlottesville. Photo: REUTERS/Joshua Roberts / Facebook

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Whatsapp A white supremacist militia member armed an assault rifle in Charlottesville. Photo: REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

In the letter, the father said he has taught his children that all men and women are created equal and that we must love each other all the same.

Evidently Peter has chosen to unlearn these lessons, much to my and his familys heartbreak and distress, he wrote.

We have been silent up until now, but now we see that this was a mistake, the elder Tefft continued. It was the silence of good people that allowed the Nazis to flourish the first time around, and it is the silence of good people that is allowing them to flourish now.

He said Peter is no longer welcome at family gatherings.

Expand Close White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the "alt-right" take refuge in an alleyway after being hit with pepper spray after the "Unite the Right" rally was declared an unlawful gathering Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the "alt-right" take refuge in an alleyway after being hit with pepper spray after the "Unite the Right" rally was declared an unlawful gathering Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

I pray my prodigal son will renounce his hateful beliefs and return home. Then and only then will I lay out the feast, he said.
Heather Heyer died after being hit by a car during the protests. Photo: Reuters

Heather Heyer came to downtown Charlottesville with her friends to make a stand against white nationalists who converged on the Virginia college town to demand the city keep a statue honouring a Confederate war hero, her boss said.

The 32-year-old paralegal wanted to send a clear message to the neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan sympathisers who planned to stage one of the largest far-right rallies in recent US history that people abhor their views in the city where she was born, he said.

But her decision to join counter-protesters on Saturday resulted in tragedy when a 20-year-old Ohio man drove his car at high speed into a line of marchers, killing Ms Heyer and injuring at least 19 others.

A strong sense of social justice was a constant theme in Ms Heyer's personal and working life, said Alfred Wilson, bankruptcy division manager at the Miller Law Group.

"There have been times that I've walked back to her office and she had tears in her eyes" for various injustices she saw in the world, said Mr Wilson, such as the time she was weeping after reading anti-Muslim comments online.

Ms Heyer was "a very strong, very opinionated young woman" who "made known that she was all about equality," he told reporters.

The two had worked closely since Ms Heyer joined the firm a little more than five years ago.

"Purple was her favourite colour," said Mr Wilson, recalling that Ms Heyer shared a duplex apartment in Charlottesville with a beloved pet Chihuahua named Violet.

"She would wear purple a lot, and she would wear it every day if she could get away with it."

Born in Charlottesville, the home of the University of Virginia's main campus, Ms Heyer was raised in a nearby town and graduated from William Monroe High School in Stanardsville.

A big part of Ms Heyer's job was to help people who were trying to avoid being evicted from their homes, or have their cars repossessed, or needed help paying medical bills, he said.

Ms Heyer was a supporter of Bernie Sanders, who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination won by Hillary Clinton, Mr Wilson said.

Unfair

As a white woman, she thought it unfair that she enjoyed liberties that Mr Wilson, as a black man, did not, he said.

"You're college-educated, but if you walk into the store you may have people following you, and it's not fair," Mr Wilson quoted Ms Heyer as having said to him often.

Ms Heyer, said Mr Wilson, was strongly opposed to US President Donald Trump.

She also spoke out against Jason Kessler, the blogger who organised the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that was broken up before it began on Saturday.

"A big thing that bothered Heather was this whole past election," said Mr Wilson.

"She would literally sit in the office and cry at times because she was worried about what was going to happen to the country."
The United States is ready to use the "full range" of its military capabilities to deal with North Korea, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff told his South Korean counterparts yesterday, amid widening pressures on the regime of Kim Jong-un.

But Gen Joseph Dunford, speaking in Seoul, just 30 miles south of the border with North Korea, stressed diplomacy and sanctions were the first plan.

"The military dimension today is directly in support of that diplomatic and economic effort," he told reporters after meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in Seoul.

"It would be a horrible thing were a war to be conducted here on the peninsula, and that's why we're so focused on coming up with a peaceful way ahead," he said. "Nobody's looking for war," the marine general said. But he added that the military's job was to provide "viable military options in the event that deterrence fails".

He was on the first stop of a trip that will also take him to Beijing today and then on to Tokyo, three capitals that do not want war to break out on their doorsteps.

China, meanwhile, signalled a potentially important break with North Korea as part of international sanctions.

Beijing announced yesterday that it would ban imports of iron ore, iron, lead and coal from North Korea, cutting an important economic lifeline for Pyongyang. The ban will take effect from today, China's Ministry of Commerce announced.

In the meetings with the South Korean president and other top officials yesterday, Gen Dunford appeared to offer a modified version of the threats that US President Donald Trump has issued.

Mr Trump last week warned North Korea it would face "fire and fury" if it tried to attack the United States or its allies. Then on Friday, after North Korea threatened to launch missiles toward Guam, Mr Trump warned the regime the American military was "locked and loaded".

But top administration officials appear focused on trying to play down the prospect of nuclear war. HR McMaster, the US national security adviser, said "we're not closer to war than a week ago". This echoed the tempered statements Secretary of State Rex Tillerson made earlier in the week, even as the president was warning of military action.

South Korean government officials have voiced surprise and confusion at Mr Trump's tough talk of the past week.
Iraqi security forces and allied Popular Mobilisation forces are expected to take part in the offensive (AP/Anmar Khalil)

Thousands of people have fled an Islamic State-held town west of Mosul as Iraqi and coalition warplanes step up strikes ahead of a ground offensive to drive out the militants.

Tal Afar and the surrounding area is one of the last pockets of IS-held territory in Iraq after victory was declared in July in Mosul, the country's second-largest city.

The town, about 93 miles east of the Syrian border, sits along a major road that was once a key IS supply route.

On Monday, hundreds of exhausted civilians were brought by Iraqi army trucks from the front line to a humanitarian collection point just west of Mosul.

Many described a harrowing journey of a day or more from Tal Afar, with no food or water.

Jassem Aziz Tabo, an elderly man who arrived with his 12-member family, said he had left Tal Afar months ago and gone to a village on the outskirts to escape hunger, air strikes and violence from the militants.

"Those who tried to escape were captured and shot in the head. They killed my son," he said. "He tried to escape, he was caught and they killed him."

He said severe shortages have caused the price of food to rocket in Tal Afar, which has been besieged by Iraqi forces for months.

"There was nothing. We were eating pieces of bread with water," he said.

Alia Imad, a mother of three whose family paid a smuggler to lead them to safety, said there is no drinking water left in the town.

"Most people drink water that's not clean. The majority are surviving on that and a bit of bread," she said.

The group she was with had come under fire during their escape from the militants, she said. A woman was killed, and they had to bury her by the road.

Lise Grande, the UN humanitarian coordinator, said conditions in Tal Afar are "very tough".

"Thousands of people are leaving, seeking safety and assistance. Families escaping north-east are trekking 10 and up to 20 hours to reach mustering points. They are exhausted and many are dehydrated when they finally arrive," she said.

Lt Gen Anwar Hama, of the Iraqi air force, said air strikes this week have targeted IS headquarters, tunnels and weapons stores.

But Iraqi forces, closely backed by the US-led coalition, are not expected to push into the town for another few weeks, according to an Iraqi officer overseeing the operation.

Iraqi army, federal police and special forces units are expected to participate in the operation, as well as state-sanctioned mostly Shiite militias known as the Popular Mobilisation Forces.

The militiamen largely stayed out of the operation to retake Mosul, a mostly Sunni city, but have vowed to play a bigger role in Tal Afar, which was mostly Shiite before it fell to IS, a Sunni extremist group.

The militias captured Tal Afar's airport, on the outskirts of the town, earlier this year.

Their participation in the coming offensive could heighten sectarian and regional tensions.

Tal Afar was once home to Shiite and Sunni Arabs, as well as a sizeable ethnic Turkmen community with close ties to neighbouring Turkey.

Turkey has repeatedly warned that military operations in and around Mosul should not lead to demographic change. Some Turkish officials are concerned that once territory is liberated from IS, Iraqi Kurdish or Shiite forces may push out Sunni Arabs or ethnic Turkmen.

On Monday, the Iraqi army began moving an armoured brigade to the front line south of Tal Afar, while an infantry division was deployed about 19 miles to the town's east.

The United Nations says some 49,000 people have fled the Tal Afar district since April, compounding a humanitarian crisis that has lingered despite the cessation of major fighting inside Mosul.

It says nearly a million people were displaced by the Mosul campaign.

AP
President Donald Trump waves as he boards Air Force One for a flight to New York (AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

A combative President Donald Trump has again insisted "there is blame on both sides" for the deadly weekend violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The president's comments effectively wiped away the more conventional statement he delivered at the White House on Monday when he branded members of the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists who take part in violence as "criminals and thugs".

Mr Trump's advisers had hoped those remarks might quell a crush of criticism from both Republicans and Democrats.

But his retorts on Tuesday suggested he had been a reluctant participant in that clean up effort.

During an impromptu press conference in the lobby of his Manhattan skyscraper, he praised his original response to Charlottesville and angrily blamed liberal groups in addition to white supremacist for the violence.

Some of those protesting at the rally to save a statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee were "also very violent", he said.

"There are two sides to a story," he said. He added that some facts about the violence still aren't known.

His remarks were welcomed by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, who tweeted: "Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth."

As Mr Trump talked, his aides on the sidelines of the lobby stood in silence.

Chief of staff John Kelly crossed his arms and stared down at his shoes. Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders looked around the room trying to make eye contact with other senior aides.

When asked to explain his Saturday comments about Charlottesville, Mr Trump looked down at his notes and again read a section of his initial statement that denounced bigotry but did not single out white supremacists. He then tucked the paper back into his jacket pocket.

He said he had yet to call the mother of the woman killed when a car ploughed into a group of anti-racist counter-protesters but said that he would soon "reach out."

As Mr Trump finally walked away from his lectern, he stopped to answer one more shouted question: Would be plan to visit Charlottesville, the college town ravaged by the hate-filled clashes?

The president's response was to note that he owned property there and to say it was one of the largest wineries in the United States.

On Monday protesters on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue had tried to spoil Mr Trump's homecoming with signs bearing messages such as "stop the hate, stop the lies" and chanting "shame, shame, shame" and "not my president".

Mr Trump's softer statement on Saturday had come as graphic images of a car ploughing into a crowd in Charlottesville were playing continually on television.

White nationalists had assembled in the city to protest against plans to take down the statue and counter-protesters gathered in opposition.

Fights broke out, and then a car drove into the opponents of the white supremacists. One woman was killed and many more badly hurt. Twenty-year-old James Alex Fields Jr of Ohio is charged with second-degree murder and other counts.

AP
The UN stressed that attacks targeting UN peacekeepers may constitute war crimes under international law

Gunmen attacked the headquarters of the UN peacekeeping force in the Mali city of Timbuktu, killing seven people and injuring seven others in what the mission's chief called a "terrorist" assault.

Earlier on Monday, unidentified gunmen had attacked two neighbouring UN camps in Douentza in the Mopti region of central Mali, killing a Malian soldier and a UN peacekeeper and slightly injuring another peacekeeper.

The head of the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, Mahamat Saleh Annadif, also called that incident a terrorist attack.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the attacks and warned that targeting UN peacekeepers "may constitute war crimes under international law".

He praised the "the important efforts" that Mali and four neighbouring countries are making to combat terrorism and violent extremism and promote peace in the region.

In the Timbuktu attack, the mission said five Malian security guards and a Malian contractor working for the mission were killed along with a member of the Malian gendarmerie.

It said six UN peacekeepers were wounded, two seriously, along with one Malian security guard.

The mission, known as MINUSMA, said it dispatched a quick reaction force and attack helicopters to secure the Timbuktu headquarters. It said UN troops killed six assailants.

In Douentza, MINUSMA said a group of attackers fired on a UN camp from an adjacent hill and Malian troops returned fire.

Another armed group shot at peacekeepers in a neighbouring camp who also returned fire, the mission said, and two attackers were killed in the exchanges.

The UN is looking into whether there was any connection between the two attacks.

Mr Annadif called for those responsible for "these terrorist acts" to be brought to justice.

The UN peacekeeping mission in Mali is the deadliest of its 16 global peacekeeping operations.

AP
For the last two weeks, Esha Gupta has turned into a sensation on the internet with pictures from a photo-shoot where she's flaunted her beautiful body with aplomb. The actress collaborated with two of her friends, a stylist and a photographer for the shoot which was done in the comfort of her own house. Ever since she started posting these pictures, her social media page went into a tizzy with comments varying from fabulous, flattering to outright mean and nasty. Trolls came down heavily on the actress, who will next be seen in Baadshaho. Esha even admits she was expecting negative reactions, and they don't surprise her.

instagram

"In our country, women are eternally blamed. They are accused when a girl child is born, they are even accused when they are raped. So, somewhere I knew that I will also have to face a lot of heat. After all, it's easy for some faceless and redundant people to pull a celebrity down at the first opportunity. I've done shoots like this one when I was a model. I've gone topless and naked, too. No one ever asked me about that. And who are these people who have 'issues' with my pictures? It's my body and it's been shot aesthetically.

A post shared by Esha Gupta (@egupta) on Aug 5, 2017 at 2:36am PDT

There's a thin line, which if you cross, you look vulgar. No one can say my pictures are vulgar. I got more love than hate, but it's better to be hated than to be forgotten.

And right now, I'm in my best shape. Although we knew where this could lead, we thought, 'If not now, then when?'" argues Esha, who is also accused on social media for trying to look like Angelina Jolie.

Bring this up and she continues, "Find me a doctor who says I went under the scalpel to look like that. It's not my fault that I look a certain way. I'm a carbon copy of my mother, who's far prettier than me. So, should we then say that Angelina Jolie has aped my mother's looks? No, we won't, right? On both sides of my family, fuller lips are a common feature. We have a beautiful country but people like the out-of-job-web-junkies spoil it for all of us."

A post shared by Esha Gupta (@egupta) on Aug 9, 2017 at 9:57am PDT

On the brighter side, Esha (Miss India International 2007) has found plenty of women, who have posted appreciative comments about her recent photo-shoot. When asked if this was a liberating experience for her, the actress points out that she was always liberated.

"Men tend to have a problem if a woman goes bold. Their manhood is challenged. They are prudes; they must have even saved these pictures on their phone. And here we are in the country of Ajanta and Ellora, and Kamasutra, objecting to a woman's photo-shoot, which she has done on her own will. So, my attitude is, 'S***w them', and that's the point I wanted to make. The pictures turned out so beautiful that I didn't want to hold them back. The thing is that I've been comfortable and confident about my body all along," says Esha.

A post shared by Esha Gupta (@egupta) on Aug 8, 2017 at 1:47am PDT

In situations like these, parents often become soft targets for trolls and naysayers. The actress insists that her parents, who probably aren't even aware of the social media hullabaloo about her pictures, have never interfered with her work. The only time they insisted on something was when they wanted her to pursue a degree in law. "I'm blessed with the nicest family. Initially, they were taken aback with the way this place functions and how everything from an engagement to a break-up becomes news. But today, they don't pay much attention," says Esha, adding, "As a law graduate, I know what I'm doing. I've survived this industry on my terms and that's not changing. I'm not a girl from the woods who has made it here. And for those ready to give me lessons on behaving Indian, I'm more Indian they can be. My father has served the nation and I represented it proudly on an international platform (Miss India and Miss Universe)."

All eyes on you A post shared by Esha Gupta (@egupta) on Aug 8, 2017 at 3:17am PDT

Did her film industry colleagues react to her pictures? The actress chirps, "Yes. Some of them did. Like Milan Luthria told me, 'You're killing it with these photos. I'll be there for you if need arises.' I'm relieved and happy. Now, isn't that what we all seek?"
You are a Game of Thrones fan since years and you knew nothing about it? Now you know how Jon Snow feels?

GoT already has a perplexing grasp on geography that most of the people get confused about, but did you know that the popular fantasy show that is making the entire nation go frenzy also has an India connection? Well, we are not kidding and not even exaggerating.

The show has a different aura that takes people in the fantasy world mentally, and contributing to that are the props, costumes and much more that equally catch the fancy of people as much as the storylinewhich is all about who wins and who dies.

Twitter

Wondering what the Lajpat Nagar connection is? The Game of Thrones costumes and tents (yeah, the same one that you watch on show) are actually manufactured in Lajpat Nagar. Yes, please take a moment to gulp that fact down.

mylaupshaw.com

There is a company called Rangrasons in the area which exists since 1945 and it supplies military ceremonial uniforms as well as accoutrements. And not only GoT, the company has contributed to films such as Avengers, Captain America, Gladiator, Prince of Persia, Kingdom of Heaven, Wrath of the Titans among others.

rangarsons.co

And in case you have not been living under the rock, you would know that GoT also has a connection with Dehradun and Noida. For more information, refer to this link here.
Bhagat Singh, Azad, Rajguru, Sukhdev, Ram Prasad Bismil, Gandhi, and Bose are few names that are synonymous with our struggle for freedom from the British. We owe our freedom to them.

But apart from these hallowed names, there were thousands of others who too sacrificed their lives on the path of freedom. But unlike these big names, history didnt do justice with them.

Cultural India

Many of them have been forsaken by history and most of us dont even know about them. This is an attempt to give those souls a tribute because their contribution to our freedom is by no means lesser than those who got their due.

Here we are discussing 11 such freedom fighters whom history might have forsaken, but we shouldnt.

Kartar Singh Sarabha

We all love Bhagat Singh, but only a handful know Kartar Singh Sarabha who Bhagat Singh himself considered his guru. Kartar Singh Sarabha was the main architect of the Ghadar revolution which aimed to incite a mutiny in British Indian Army during the thick of World War-I. Sarabha sought to take advantage of the war to uproot the British from India. Born in Ludhiana, Punjab in 1896, Sarabha went to the US for studies and established Ghadar Party in 1913.

PunjabiPortal.com

In 1913, the party came out with a paper called Ghadar which came out in languages like Pushto, Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, Urdu, and Gujarati. Sarabha aimed to start a mutiny within British Indian Army and over 20 thousand Ghadar activists travelled to India from different countries of the world put plans in the motion. But the betrayal of an insider resulted in the arrested Sarabha and a few more. After the trial, the 19-year-old, Kartar Singh Sarabha was hanged on November 16, 1915, in Lahore central jail, the same jail where Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were hanged.

Raja Mahendra Pratap (1 December 1886  29 April 1979)

A royalty of Hathras, Aligarh, Raja Mahendra Pratap was one of the first Marxist revolutionaries in the country. In fact, Pratap was the president of first President of the Provisional Government of India formed in Afghanistan. In 1906, despite against the wishes of the family, he went to Calcutta to attend the Congress session and met several leaders of the Swadeshi movement.

IndiaPost

But soon he realised that Congress wont be able to help his cause of freedom. Therefore, he moved out of India in 1915 and via Switzerland, entered Germany. With help of Indian members of the Berlin Committee, he met Kaiser Wilhelm-II, the German emperor who promised him assistance to invade India via Afghan border. Pratap who had family relations with Jat Sikh states of Jind, Nabha and Patiala wanted to invade India through Afghanistan and later to use these states to crush the British in India.

But with Germanys defeat in WW-I, his dream of invading India didnt materialise. Pratap also tried to connect with Russians after Germans forsake him and his peers. He met Lenin as well. In 1932, Pratap was also nominated Nobel Prize in 1932. N.A. Nilsson, his nominator, said about him- "Pratap gave up his property for educational purposes, and he established a technical college at Brindaban. In 1913 he took part in Gandhi's campaign in South Africa. He travelled around the world to create awareness about the situation in Afghanistan and India. In 1925 he went on a mission to Tibet and met the Dalai Lama. He was primarily on an unofficial economic mission on behalf of Afghanistan, but he also wanted to expose the British brutalities in India. He called himself the servant of the powerless and weak."

Today majority of land acquired by Aligarh Muslim University is donated by Pratap and his family.

Alluri Sitarama Raju

Wikipedia

Born in a prosperous Kshatriya family in Andhra Pradesh in 1887, Raju left everything for the freedom struggle. In 1922-24, he led a failed yet important Rampa Rebellion with the help of tribals. Raju was referred, Manyam Veerudu (Hero of the Jungles) by the local people. He took up the cause of the tribal people in the Agency areas, who were being harassed by British officials under the Forest Act, and led an armed rebellion against the British forces. Raju was trapped and killed by the British in the jungle in 1924.

Tirot Singh

Tirot Singh was one of the chiefts of Khasi people in the early 18th century who fought against the Britsh who tried to take control over the Khasi hills. Though the year of his birth is unknown, Tirot Singh fought the British in 1835 when British tried to acquire Khasi hills to extend their possession on Lower Assam areas.

IndiaPost

Actually, the British wanted to construct a road through this area to connect Guwahati with Sylhet to save weeks of travel and malarious country. But Singh and his tribe objected the British occupation of the area and thus British tried to crushed their opposition which resulted in a bloody war between Khasi tribes and the British in which Singh sacrificed his life defending his tribe and land.

Pingali Venkayya (1876-1963)

Venkaya was the man who designed the Indian national flag. Before independence, many flags were designed and used by different groups and in this process, Venkaya designed one version of flag for Indian National Congress which later became Indian flag after minor alterations post-Independence

worldview.com

According to The Hindu, "Pingali Venkayya was an authority in geology, agriculture and also an educationist who set up an educational institution in Machilipatnam. He, however, died in poverty in 1963 and was largely forgotten by the society and by his own party, the Congress." A postage stamp was issued to commemorate him in 2009 and in 2011 it was proposed that he be posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna. The outcome of that proposal is, however, not known.

Tanguturi Prakasam

Wikipedia

Not many people know about this Andhra Kesari (Lion of Andhra). Prakasam was first the chief minister of Madras presidency and then chief minister in Andhra state. He started as a lawyer but gave up practice in 1921 to participate in the freedom movement. He rose to fame in 1928 during the protest against Simon Commission in Madras. The police had issued orders of shooting people in some areas. But Prakasam didnt fear the orders and faced police by tearing open his shirt and daring police to shoot at him. This lone act of defiance won him the title of Andhra Kesari.

Veerapandiya Kattabomman

IndiaPost

Almost 60 years before the rebellion of 1857, Kattabomman rebelled against the British and refused to pay taxes to them.As a chieftain of Palyekar community in the 18th century, Kattabomman waged a war against the British to protect his lands. He too died in the war against the British.

The Trio of Badal, Dinesh and Benoy

Bengal had given many freedom fighters and these three were also from there. They are known for their attack on the Dalhousie Square in Kolkata. Much like Bhagat Singh and his friends killed Saunders, the trio killed Col NS Simpson Inspector General of Prisons who was known for his atrocities on the prisoners.

Wikipedia

The trio of Badal Gupta, Dinesh Gupta and Benoy Basu decided not only to kill him, but also to strike fear in the hearts of the British by attacking the secretariat building- the WritersBuilding in Dalhousie Square, Kolkata. On 8 December 1930, trio dressed as Europeans went to Writers building and killed Simpson. None of the three revolutionaries wanted to be nabbed; therefore Badal consumed poison whereas Benoy and Dinesh shot themselves. Badal was taken to hospital where he died on 13 December.

Surya Sen (22 March 1894  12 January 1934)

Surya Sen popularly known as master Da because he was school teacher was a Bengali Indian independence activist. Sen is known for 1930s Chittagong armoury raid. Sen drew his inspiration from nationalist ideals during his college days on 1916 in Behrampore. In 1918, he was selected as the president of INCs Chittagong branch.

Later after college, Sen started recruiting young men to fight the British. In the late 1920s, Sen decided to free Chittagong from the British and thus formed a group of revolutionaries who carried out the infamous Chittagong armoury raid.

Wikipedia

On 18 April, Sen led a group which looted the armoury of the police. Their plan was to seize the arms and destroy the communication system of the city, thereby isolating Chittagong from rest of the British India. The group managed to loot the armoury, but failed to get the ammunition. The group hoisted the Indian National Flag on the premises of the armoury before escaping. But the British captured most of the revolutionaries but Sen in Jalalabad hills. Many died there while fighting the British.

Sen managed to escape and remained absconding for three years before being captured in 1933. Before he was hanged by the British, he was tortured beyond the limit. The police broke all his teeth with a hammer and pulled out all his nails. They broke all his limbs and joints. He was dragged to the rope unconscious.
A 12-year-old girl returning home after attending the Independence Day function at her school here was allegedly sexually assaulted by a man in children's traffic park Chandigarh park.

Representational Image

The victim was on her way back home after flying the national flag at school when a man stopped her, pulled her into the park and sexually abused her.

"The accused, aged around 40 years, forcibly took the 12 -year-old girl to the park, sexually assaulted her and fled," investigating officer in the case, Sub-Inspector Kuldeep said.

The victim, a student of Class 8 of a government school, was taken to a government hospital for a medical examination, the officer said.

The incident comes barely over a week after the 29-year-old daughter of a senior IAS officer was stalked by the son of Haryana BJP chief and his friend.

BCCL

After the incident which caused massive outrage, the duo were arrested by the police last week.
Like true BFFs, China and Pakistan renewed their vows of friendship yesterday.

Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang, the "special guest" at Pakistan's Independence Day celebration, said on Monday that the two countries have always stood by each other and their friendship was "stronger than steel".

AFP

Wang, a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of China's ruling Communist Party, is among the country's top leaders. He arrived in Islamabad on Sunday on a two-day visit.

Addressing the Independence Day ceremony in Islamabad, he said China stands with Pakistan in its efforts to achieve progress and development.

"China and Pakistan have always stood by each other in difficult times and their friendship will stand the test of time and grow with coming generations," he said, with Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain and Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi by his side.

AFP

"Our friendship is stronger than steel [and] sweeter than honey," he said.

Wang is accompanying a high-level Chinese delegation and expected to sign a few bilateral agreements. He is also expected to inaugurate projects related to the $50 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor -- a part of the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative which passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

AFP

Wang said Pakistan is an important partner in the OBOR initiative and China wants to strengthen its multi-dimensional strategic cooperation with Islamabad. He also said that China would support Pakistan's efforts to pursue the fight against terrorism as per its national interest.
Any effort made towards recognizing our Armed Forces, and the sacrifices they make to safeguard the nation, should be welcomed.

To that end, India's national carrier, Air India has decided to salute the Indian Soldiers by inviting them to board first on all their flights, before any other passengers. Even before First Class and Business Class passengers.

BCCL

In a mail to top officials, Air India executive director Sarabjot Singh Uberoi wrote that the carrier has decided that the serving members of the armed forces from Army, Air Force and Navy would be invited to board flights first.

BCCL

Uberoi wrote that the order has to be implemented from August 15 onwards on all Air India flights.

"Serving soldiers will be invited to board all Air India flights even before First Class and Business class travellers. The country is grateful to them for their services and this is our way of honouring the soldiers for their contribution," Uberoi was quoted as saying.

BCCL

From Tuesday onwards, the carrier was instructed to add one line at the time of the announcement of boarding, which states that Air India would like to invite serving members of our esteemed armed forces from Army, Air Force and Navy to board first.

Nice gesture, Air India!
The principal of Gorakhpur's Baba Raghav Das medical college, under the lens for patient deaths allegedly on account of a disrupted oxygen supply, was suspended after it was disclosed that the funds to clear the oxygen supplier's dues were transferred to the latter only on Friday, after the deaths became national headlines.

AP

The reasons for the delay will be probed, said UP government officials, adding that the situation of low oxygen supply was completely avoidable. The supplier's demand for dues to the tune of Rs 65 lakh reached the state government at Lucknow on August 1, and the funds were released to the college on August 5, official sources said. Even when the UP CM visited the hospital on August 9, they added, no mention was made of any problems in the supply of oxygen.

ALSO READ: After Gorakhpur Hospital Tragedy Former Supplier Provides Oxygen Cylinders Free Of Cost

AP

In a communication to the college on August 8, the supplier, Pushpa Sales, said it would soon suspend supplies due to unpaid dues. "INOX, the firm we are taking oxygen supply from, has expressed inability to continue the supply of oxygen in future, in case we fail to make payments to them," said the letter from Dipankar Sharma of Pushpa Sales to the college principal .

ALSO READ: At Least 30 Children Feared Dead In Gorakhpur Hospital In 48 Hours After Alleged Disruption In Oxygen Supply

AP

The district administration also did not seem to have reacted to the brewing crisis at the hospital in a timely manner as there were reports in local dailies regarding the payment dispute and the supplier's reported threat to stop the oxygen supply.

ALSO READ: At Least 63 Kids Have Died In Gorakhpur Hospital In 5 Days, Yogi Govt Admits Oxygen Shortage

AP

Low oxygen was reported at the hospital on August 10, around 7.30pm. This led to the supply for patients being switched from the central system to cylinders. Thereafter the cylinders began to run out, forcing staff to adopt emergency measures such as using hand pumps to aid ventilators. Supply of cylinders was restored around 11.30 and situation stabilised around 1.30am.

ALSO READ: Ritesh Deshmukh Expresses His Anger Over Unfortunate Deaths Of 60 Kids At Gorakhpur Hospital

ALSO READ: BJP MLA Tells An On-Duty IPS Officer In Gorakhpur 'Not To Test His Patience', Leaves Her In Tears
Many children, who died at Gorakhpurs BRD hospital, were nameless and hadnt even lived one month of life. The tragedy that struck the poor children and their parents are beyond the realm of imagination, because no matter how hard the adjectives one uses, the loss incurred by state's apathy is unfathomable.

AFP

Whatever happened at BRD hospital in Gorakhpur is the microcosm of Indias health infrastructure and also a warning that unless adequate steps are taken, the tragedy likes Gorakhpur is likely to happen again.

Therefore, before we swallow this bitter pill and move on as we have done in the past as well; lets ponder over the state of health infrastructure in India.

27 crore people in 64 districts across 13 states dont have a single blood bank

Scary, isnt it? 64 districts out of a total of 675 districts across the country have a single blood bank (neither public nor private) and to make this matter frightening as hell, nearly 27 crore people live in these districts.

Can anything be appalling than this?

Like all other areas of Public Health Infrastructure (PHI), the blood banks across the country are too thin and scattered. If we see the average, India has only a total of 2,708 blood banks which account for almost 46.5 lakh Indians per blood bank.

Only 7 doctors per 1000 people

With only 9,38,861 registered doctors, which accounts for seven doctors per 1,000 people, India dreams to take care of its 1.3 billion people. Certainly, the ground reality is more heart wrenching than these statistics, particularly, when compared to the other states.

AFP

According to Central Bureau of Health Intelligence (CBHI) data released in March 2015, states Maharashtra and Bihar have the worst doctor to patient ratios, with each doctor serving 27,790 and 28,391 patients, respectively.

Chhattisgarh is a close third with a doctor to patient ratio of 1 is to 25,032.

Just 1833 people per one govt hospital bed

One government hospital bed serves 1,833 people on an average. The worst ratios are in Bihar (8,789) and Jharkhand (6,052). According to the report, there are 20,306 hospitals which have 6,75,779 beds in the country. There are 1,83,602 beds in rural areas and the urban areas have 4,92,177 beds

Here is the state of district hospitals, PHCs, and CHCs

As per the Rural Health Statistics (RHS), India takes care of its 1.3 billion people through a health infrastructure network of a total of 25,308 Primary Health Centres (PHCs), 5,396 Community Health Centres (CHCs) and 763 district hospitals across the country.

As far as population norms for setting up these facilities are concerned, one Sub Centre (SC) requires a population of 5,000 to be set up in a plain area, whereas, this ratio is 3,000 people in the hilly region.

One PHC should be there over a population of 30,000 whereas there should be one PHC over the population of 20,000 in the hilly region. The population ratio comes to 1,20,000 in plain for a CHC, whereas, a population ought to have a CHC over 80,000 people in a hilly region.

AFP

As per union health ministry's data till 31st March 2015, India requires a mammoth 29,337 PHCs across India but it only has a total of 25,308 PHCs with a shortfall of 6,556 PHCs which accounts for the shortfall of 22 per cent.

Similarly, India requires a total of 7,322 CHCs whereas it has only 5,396 CHCs in place with a deficit of 2,316 CHCs which amounts to a massive shortfall of 32 per cent.

PHCs, CHCs are there, but where are the docs

As per the norms, one PHC at least ought to have one doctor, but the current state of this centre is so appalling that in states like UP, Gujarat, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh have the majority of its PHCs without even a single doctor.

AFP

For example, out of a total number of 3,497 PHCs in UP, 1,288 don't have a single doctor looking after the patients. Similarly, the number of PHCs/no doctors ratio is massive in Gujarat (1247/358), Chhattishgarh (792/424), Odisha (1305/297) and West Bengal (909/186) is the worst in the country.

And then comes corruption where only rich gets preference

The basic definition of a welfare state is a state where poor get benefited most from state machinery, but thanks to rampant corruption and nepotism, public health system serves richer more than the poor in India.

According to WHO statistics, in India, the proportion of lower income classes getting free health care in comparison to the proportion of higher income class with access to free healthcare is 17.33 and 22 respectively.

AP

Although many countries like Brazil, Indonesia, and China have a similar situation, that's what, not a welfare state where over one-third is poor is supposed to do.

57.57 per cent of health expenditure is taken care of by individuals and not the state

In India, a mammoth 57.57 per cent of health expenditure is taken care of by individuals themselves. The out of pocket expenditure in India over health is third highest after Bangladesh (63.35 percent) and Pakistan (61.85) and that's why even poor people have to rush to private medical facilities which further takes a toll on the already crumbling financial health.

Even poor have to rush to private hospitals

Low insurance coverage and poor public health system are two major reasons why even poor go to a private hospital instead of a public hospital for treatment. The global average is this out of pocket is a meagre 17.87 which means that majority of the countries globally take care of the expenses on health related issues of their citizens.
Indecent behaviour against women shouldn't be brushed under the carpet or trivialized in any manner, if we can have any hope of fighting the menace.

Condemning the Chandigarh stalking case without mincing any words, a BJP MLA from Uchana, Premlata said that Vikas Barala, son of BJP Haryana unit President Subhash Barala, and his friend Ashish Kumar had no excuse whatsoever for stalking a woman.

"I completely support the woman as she is the victim in this scenario. Whatever happened is so unfortunate be it 'jawani ka josh' (young blood) or whatever. The law will decide and the justice will prevail," she said.

bccl

Accused Vikas Barala and his friend Ashish Kumar have been sent to judicial custody till August 25.

On August 5th, Vikas was arrested on charges of stalking and harassing an IAS officer's daughter, Varnika Kundu, in Chandigarh. But he was granted bail on the same day.

bccl

After massive outrage on streets and in the Parliament, the accused appeared before a Chandigarh court last Thursday.

Subhash Barala, however, rebuffed the claim of pressurising or influencing the police in the case.
PTI

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his fourth Independence Day speech on Tuesday, called on his fellow countrymen to create a new India where the farmers will sleep peacefully at night. Read more

Here are more top news of the day:

1) India To Deport Rohingyas, Including Those Who Have Identity Cards From The UN Refugee Agency

AFP

India will deport illegal immigrants including Rohingyas living in India despite the UN refugee agency has given identity cards to 16,500 Rohingyas. Nearly 40,000 Rohingyas Muslims are in India currently and the government aims to deport them, senior government officials told Reuters. Read more

2) Assam Flood Death Toll Rises To 102, As 3192 Villages Go Underwater Affecting 32 Lakh People

afp

On Monday, the deadly floods claimed three more lives, taking the total count to 102. The flood, so far, has hit people in 25 districts, besides snapping rail connectivity to the Northeast. Read more

3) Two Dalit Men Skinning Dead Cattle Thrashed In Anand, Gujarat, As Horrors Of Una Repeat 1 Yr On

BCCL/File

For nearly 20 minutes on Saturday night, Shailesh Rohit, 21, and Maniben, 45, who were skinning dead cattle, were allegedly beaten up by a group of people from the Darbar (Kshatriya) community at Kasor village in Anand district. Read more

4) Only 85 Lakh Milk-Producing Cattle To Get Aadhaar-Like UID, In Violation Of Supreme Court Order

afp/representational image

In order to have a comprehensive database for scientific management of animals and stop cattle smuggling, the government is expected to tag all cows, calves, oxen and bulls in the country with a tamper-proof unique identification number. Read more

5) J&K Cops, BSF And CRPF Men In The Valley Awarded 40 Of 190 Police Medals On Independence Day

AFP/Representational Image

The Centre, in appreciation of forces engaged in sustained counter-terror operations in Jammu & Kashmir, on Monday honoured two CRPF commandants with Kirti Chakra for acts of bravery in J&K and conferred 40 of the 190 police gallantry medals awarded this Independence Day on J&K police and CRPF/BSF personnel deployed in the Valley. Read more
Edit- Twitter announced on Saturday that it is now the most-liked tweet ever. It has over 3.3 million likes and 1.3 million retweets.

There is no dearth of validation when it comes to lauding Barack Obama, a man who is loved for his compassion, apathy and soulful deeds. During his reign, not only America but the entire world saw the kind of leadership that emancipated every individual.

facts4u

On August 11, folks in Virgina saw hundreds of marchers descending towards the University of Virginia carrying, yelling slogans like white lives matter. With the advent of protest, a lot of anti-racist and counter-protester joined the force that began functioning in the opposite force.

Reuters

"No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion..." pic.twitter.com/InZ58zkoAm  Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 13, 2017

"People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love..."  Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 13, 2017

"...For love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite." - Nelson Mandela  Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 13, 2017

The first is Ariana Grandes tweet about the Manchester bombing, followed by Elene Degeneres' iconic Bradley Cooper Oscars selfie.
Game of Thrones is serious business for a lot of people. And it doesn't treat online pirates too kindly!

Cersei is giving a stink eye to online pirates!

Episode 4 of the shows 7th season, titled The Spoils of War, was leaked online earlier this month, to equal amounts of annoyance and joy from viewers.

The leaked footage bore the Star India watermark, immediately implicating Hotstar (the official distribution channel in India) and anyone associated.

Now, just 10 days after the episode was leaked early, Mumbai police say theyve nabbed the culprits. Inspector General of Police (Cyber) Brijesh Singh says four employees of Prime Focus Technologies were behind the incident. Prime Focus is Hotstars technology vendor. All four employees involved in the leak (from the companys Bengaluru office) have been remanded to seven days police custody, even as the investigation carries on.

This is the first time in the history of Star India that an incident of this nature has occurred, the company said in a press release. We are deeply grateful to the police for their swift and prompt action. We believe that valuable intellectual property is a critical part of the development of the creative industry and strict enforcement of the law is essential to protecting it.

The accused are being kept in police custody for a period of seven days until August 21.
Silicon Valley emerged as a hotspot for Indian software graduates in the 1970-80s. Ever since, they have broken the glass ceiling for immigrants, pushed the boundaries of technological innovation and many have secured highly visible positions of power.

From the likes of Vinod Khosla cofounding Sun Microsystems, to Sabeer Bhatia establishing Hotmail, to the new crop of leaders, including Sundar Pichai becoming the CEO of Google, Satya Nadella becoming the CEO of Microsoft, and most recently Jyoti Bansal selling his app performance management company App Dynamics to Cisco for $3.7 billion, a long list of success stories have emerged over the years.

AFP

I was in the US on an H-1B visa and I had to wait many years to get my Green Card before I could start a company of my own. If you already have an established start up in India, moving to Silicon Valley to establish a presence is a bit easier, said Jyoti Bansal, founder of AppDynamics to ET.

Ajmer-born Bansal moved to US with dreams of setting up his own venture in 2000, but it took him seven years of working for other startups before he got the employment authorisation document that allowed him to launch his own company.

The first challenge for Indian-origin founders is to overcome visa and immigration issues before they can start a business in Silicon Valley. And the most important ingredient missing is the lack of experience selling and marketing in US and international markets, but that will come over time, Bansal said.

In 2016, according to the US Census Bureau, Indians stood out as the richest, as well as the most educated ethnic group in the country. Most recently, in an environment thats becoming increasingly hostile, MadeByImmigrants was formed in association with the Amercian Civil Liberties Union.

This comes as US president Donald Trump has made his views clear on immigrants taking away local jobs. The project said immigrants had set up over 65 companies, creating over 500,000 jobs in US, with Indian entrepreneurs and those at a leadership level contributing close to 35 percent to 40 percent.

BCCL/Representational Image

At Google alone, 40 percent of the engineers are Indians, its common for quite a few of them to set out and start ventures on their own. Even at the leadership level there are Indians heading various verticals, a senior executive at Google told ET at the companys headquarters in Mountain View, California.

According to the Migration Policy Institute, there were 89,000 Indians living in Silicon Valley in 2015, with most involved in the tech industry. Newer enterprise tech Indian startups Postman, Nutanix and Helpshift had to overcome a series of challenges ranging from insurance, office space, making local recruitments to adapting to cultural changes.

Setting up shop in a new country can be complicated. Everything is a bit different--banks, insurance, ways of doing business. We found our investors, Nexus Venture Partners, who have a base in Silicon Valley, to be super helpful on recruitments, finding an office, business advice on day to day challenges, said Abhinav Asthana, cofounder of Postman.

According to Abinash Tripathy, founder of Helpshift, the top two issues Indians face are adaptation to the culture and lack of a local network. We are just starting to see the first generation of product startups emerge from India, which is very exciting, said Tripathy.

The process of the ecosystem maturing to the point where we will create globally competitive companies is a multi-decade process that has just started, he said.
Weve already made it clear we want to go back to the Moon very soon, if not for more study then at least to eventually set up a launch base to propel us to Mars.

Now, a German space startup wants to set up a communication tower on the Moon to help us do just that.

The Audi quattro rover PTScientists will use on their Moon Mission - Audi

PTScientists, formerly known as Part Time Scientists, is looking to install a tower with the same cellular technology we use here on Earth, on the Moon. The tower network (provided by a tie up with Vodafone) will then be used by a rover co-designed with Audi called the Audi quattro lunar rover, to transmit data back home.

The rovers PTScientists plan to send to the moon have the capability to transmit data back to Earth themselves, just like NASAs lunar probes. The problem is that these are very power-hungry machines, not to mention that the rovers need to stand still while transmitting. Instead, if they can piggyback on LTE connections provided by the planned cell tower, they could be more power-efficient, the startups CEO Robert Boehme told BloombergQuint.

To do that, PTScientists is now teaming up with SpaceX, securing a spot on the American space companys reusable Falcon 9 rocket. The partnership would let the German startup launch their rovers, and construct their cell tower, on future missions with a much smaller budgetary requirement. Theyre expected to get their chance to launch on the Falcon 9 in 2018.
Attack Venezuela? Trump Can't be Serious!

By Ron Paul

August 15, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - There is something unsettling about how President Trump has surrounded himself with generals. From his defense secretary to his national security advisor to his White House chief of staff, Trump looks to senior military officers to fill key positions that have been customarily filled by civilians. Hes surrounded by generals and threatens war at the drop of a hat.



President Trump began last week by threatening fire and fury on North Korea. He continued through the week claiming, falsely, that Iran is violating the terms of the nuclear deal. He finally ended the week by threatening a US military attack on Venezuela.



He told reporters on Friday that, We have many options for Venezuela including a possible military option if necessary. We have troops all over the world in places that are very, very far away. Venezuela is not very far away and the people are suffering, and they are dying.



Venezuelas defense minister called Trumps threat an act of craziness.



Even more worrisome, when Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro tried to call President Trump for clarification he was refused. The White House stated that discussions with the Venezuelan president could only take place once democracy was restored in the country. Does that mean President Trump is moving toward declaring Maduro no longer the legitimate president of Venezuela? Is Trump taking a page from Obamas failed regime change policy for Syria and declaring that Maduro must go?



The current unrest in Venezuela is related to the economic shortcomings of that countrys centrally-planned economy. The 20th century has shown us very clearly that state control over an economy leads to mismanagement, mal-investment, massive shortages, and finally economic collapse. That is why those of us who advocate free market economics constantly warn that US government intervention in our own economy is leading us toward a similar financial crisis.



But there is another factor in the unrest in Venezuela. For many years the United States government, through the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy, and US government funded NGOs, have been trying to overthrow the Venezuelan government. They almost succeeded in 2002, when then-president Hugo Chavez was briefly driven from office. Washington has spent millions trying to manipulate Venezuelas elections and overturn the results. US policy is to create unrest and then use that unrest as a pretext for US intervention.

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Military officers play an important role in defending the United States. Their job is to fight and win wars. But the White House is becoming the war house and the president seems to see war as a first solution rather than a last resort. His threats of military action against a Venezuela that neither threatens nor could threaten the United States suggests a shocking lack of judgment.



Congress should take President Trumps threats seriously. In the 1980s, when President Reagan was determined to overthrow the Nicaraguan government using a proxy army, Congress passed a series of amendments, named after their author, Rep. Edward Boland (D-MA), to prohibit the president from using funds it appropriated to do so. Congress should make it clear in a similar manner that absent a Venezuelan attack on the United States, President Trump would be committing a serious crime in ignoring the Constitution were he to follow through with his threats. Maybe they should call it the Were Not The Worlds Policeman act.

This article was first published by RonPaul Institute - Copyright  2017 by RonPaul Institute.
Chomsky, Pilger Slam Trump Threats Against Venezuela



The progressive intellectuals say Washington's military threats against Venezuela must be stopped.



By teleSur

August 15, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - Noam Chomsky and John Pilger spoke with teleSUR, denouncing U.S. President Donald Trumps threats to Venezuela as irresponsible, but typical according to the presidents behavior and U.S. history.

During a conference Friday in Bedminster, New Jersey, Trump told reporters that the U.S. has a number of solutions to Venezuelas situation and military force was still an option being considered.

"We don't talk about it but a military operation, a military option is certainly something that we could pursue," Trump told a reporter when asked to elaborate on his statement.

Linguist and intellectual Noam Chomsky told teleSUR the presidents show of bravado was indeed shocking and dangerous, as many commentators have pointed out. Furthermore, the Tweeter-in-chief may be painting himself into a corner.

It is worth remembering, Chomsky continued, That he is probably following his usual practice of speaking to his base, and trying to ensure that he remains in the limelight, not caring much about real world consequences (except to his pocketbook and image).

The best hope is that some of the generals around him, who presumably understand the consequences, will manage to control him, he concluded.

Australian journalist John Pilger commented that Trumps suggestion for an aggressive course of action falls in line with U.S. history in the past century.

Donald's Trump's threat of a military invasion of Venezuela is typical of U.S. threats to the world over the past 70 years, he said.

The U.S. has already invaded Venezuela with its subversive groups, such as the NED, that back a so-called opposition that seeks to overthrow an elected government by force: a high crime under international law, Pilger told teleSUR, speaking of the U.S.s involvement and funding of the violent right-wing opposition whose protests have brought about the deaths of over 120 Venezuelans.

It's unlikely the U.S. itself will invade Venezuela  Washington only invades defenseless countries, and Venezuela is not defenseless. But at the very least, the decent world must stand with Venezuela, now subjected to a virulent propaganda that is war by media. If Venezuela falls, humanity falls, the journalist stated.

Shortly after Trump announced his consideration of a military option to Venezuela, the White House issued a statement saying it had rejected a request from his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro to have a telephone conversation with him.

According to Chomsky, the war-hungry state has ignored proposals for peace delivered by Chinese and Democratic People's Republic of Korea authorities.

North Korea will freeze its weapons programs and the U.S. will call off threatening military maneuvers on its borders. The record gives considerable hope that further progress could be made from there, Chomsky advised.

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This article was first published by teleSur -
When All the Worlds a War...





And All the Men and Women Merely Soldiers



By Rebecca Gordon

August 15, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - Since September 11, 2001, the United States has been fighting a war on terror. Real soldiers have been deployed to distant lands; real cluster bombs and white phosphorus have been used; real cruise missiles have been launched; the first MOAB , the largest non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal, has been dropped; and real cities have been reduced to rubble . In revenge for the deaths of 2,977 civilians that day, real people -- in the millions -- have died and millions more have become refugees . But is the war on terror actually a war at all -- or is it only a metaphor?

In a real war, nations or organized non-state actors square off against each other. A metaphorical war is like a real war -- after all, thats what a metaphor is, a way of saying that one thing is like something else -- but the enemy isnt a country or even a single group of Islamic jihadists. Its some other kind of threat: a disease, a social problem, or in the case of the war on terror, an emotion.

In truth, it may not matter if the war on terror is a real one, since metaphorical wars have a striking way of killing real people in real numbers, too. Take the U.S war on drugs, for example. In Mexico, that war, fueled by U.S. weapons , using U.S. drones, and conducted with the assistance of the Pentagon and the CIA, has already led to the deaths of many thousands of people. A 2015 U.S. Congressional Research Service report estimates that organized crime caused 80,000 deaths in Mexico between 2007 and 2015. Most of the guns used in what has essentially been a mass murder spree came from this country, which is also the main market for the marijuana, cocaine, and heroin that are the identified enemy in this war of ours. As with our more literal wars of recent years, the war on drugs shows no sign of ending (nor does the U.S. hunger for drugs show any sign of abating). If anyone is winning this particular war, its the drugs -- and, of course, the criminal cartels that move them across the continent.

American metaphorical wars fought in my own lifetime began with President Lyndon Johnsons " war on poverty ," first announced in 1964 when I was 12 years old. Indeed, my mother served in that war. We lived in Washington, D.C., at the time and she worked for the United Planning Organization , a community-based group funded under Johnsons Model Cities program. It fought poverty in the slums of my hometown, just a few blocks from the White House. As with other similar groups around the country, its personnel tested new weapons in the war on poverty -- job training programs, citizen advice bureaus, and community-organizing efforts of various sorts. I was proud that my mother was a soldier in that war, which for a few brief years it even looked like we might be winning.

And there were victories. After all, the legacy of Johnsons Great Society and the war that went with it included Medicare for older people -- Ill be starting on it next month myself -- and Medicaid for people of any age living in poverty. The struggles, sacrifices, and deaths of civil rights activists together with Johnsons political mastery gave us the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act . (Of course the Trump Justice Department is doing its best to roll back both of these victories.) Then, as now, poverty touched the lives of many white people, but it flourished most abundantly in black and brown communities and so these new rights for people of color, some of us believed, signaled a light at the end of the tunnel when it came to the genuine abatement of poverty.

By 1968, Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Council were addressing poverty across racial divides, organizing a Poor Peoples Campaign . It was to include a march on Washington and culminate in the building on the Capitol Mall of a  Resurrection City , which was to serve as a model -- a metaphor -- for a United States risen from the cross of poverty. King was, however, murdered that April and so didnt live to see that city. It turned out, in any case, to be a plywood encampment that would be drowned in mud from days of torrential rain. In the minds of those who still remember it, Resurrection City became a sad metaphor for Lyndon Johnsons war. The war on poverty, as the saying went, is over. Poverty won.

Meanwhile, much of the country was distracted from that metaphorical war by an actual war in Vietnam, where the only metaphor around was the insistence of commander of U.S. forces General William Westmoreland that there was light at the end of the tunnel when it came to that disastrous conflict.

Whats in a Metaphor?

The war on poverty was hardly this countrys first metaphorical war. In the 1930s, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover launched a war on crime, anticipating by some 40 years Richard Nixons war on drugs, which itself has lasted another 40 years with no end in sight. Nixon also gave us the war on cancer -- still ongoing -- even as he continued to pursue the actual war in Vietnam, a rare American conflict in the second half of the twentieth century, metaphorical or otherwise, that came to a definitive end (even if in defeat).

Nor is the United States alone in fighting wars against nonhuman enemies. The World Bank, for example, ran a seven-year total war on AIDS in Kenya. The project ended in 2014, by which time 1.6 million people , or 6% of the population, were infected with HIV. Perhaps the bank was smarter than the U.S. in choosing to declare victory and go home, as at one point Vermont Governor George Aiken famously suggested we should do in relation to Vietnam.

What, you might wonder, is the problem in using the metaphor of war to represent a collective effort to battle and overcome some social evil? Certainly, fighting a war often requires from whole populations a special kind of heroic focus, a willingness to mobilize and sacrifice, a commitment to community or country, and for those in uniform, loyalty to ones fellow soldiers. It also requires people to relinquish their own petty interests in the service of a greater whole. Correspondent Chris Hedges caught this aspect of war in the title of his powerful book War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning . Arent such qualities useful ones to bring to the struggle to solve urgent, life-destroying problems like disease, poverty, or addiction? Wouldnt it be wonderful if human beings could confront those horrors with the same kind of passion, intensity, and funding we bring to actual wars?

Yes and no. A metaphor is, of course, an implied comparison in which two things share enough qualities in common that calling one by the others name will be illuminating. If, for instance, you said, Donald Trump is a giant Cheeto , you wouldnt be suggesting that the president is actually a large, puffy piece of junk food. You would be highlighting the way he shares with that particular delicacy a certain orange coloration, as well as an airy structure that crumbles when you try to get your teeth into it -- as so many of Trump's statements crumble in the jaws of truth.

Metaphors only work when the similarity between two things is striking enough that you learn something about one by comparing it to the other. Those two things must also, however, be different in crucial ways, or what you have isn't a metaphor but an equation. For instance, Trump as Cheeto works exactly because you and I are unlikely to transfer to Donald J. Trump the feelings and attitudes we have toward Cheetos. We know enough about the nature of both never to want to eat the president, however much we may love the salty crunch of that snack food. When, however, you know less about at least one of the terms of comparison -- or less than you think you do -- then a powerful metaphor can be a deceiver, making us think we understand a phenomenon that actually goes over our heads (another metaphor). A bad metaphor can affect how we act individually and as a society and in some grim cases even whether we, or others, live or die.

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And the use of war as a metaphor -- the treating of every human ill as if it were an enemy that could be defeated by a battle plan -- works just that way. When we declare war on phenomena like crime, drugs, or terror, instantly militarizing such problems, we severely limit our means for understanding and dealing with them.

The Power of Metaphor

What happens, for example, when we transform the problem of human addiction into a war on drugs? For one thing, fighting a war requires an enemy, at least one group that, given the logic of war, we can imagine as not quite human as well as an existential danger to the rest of us. Its easy to forget that the ultimate aim of the war on drugs is not, or at least should not be, to destroy drug users but to release them from the prison of addiction (to mix metaphors dangerously). Instead, not just drugs but drug users often become the enemy.

One consequence of militarizing the problem of drugs -- a lesson from the war on terror, too -- is that our survival comes to seem dependent on ensuring that captured enemies be detained until the end of hostilities. And since such hostilities never seem to end, that means essentially forever. In other words, as soon as you make war on drugs (and so on those who use them), the urge to end the real human suffering that drug addiction causes quickly devolves into, in Trumpian terms, winning. That, in turn, means ensuring vastly more suffering through actual violence and the endless incarceration of millions of people , a startling number of them for drug offenses, or what might be thought of as the Guantanamo-ization of America.

Can a metaphor really do all that? It can indeed when it so limits our vision that any other approach becomes unthinkable, unimaginable. In the war on drugs, as in all wars, there must be good guys and bad guys, good citizens who are to be mobilized (at least in their sympathies) against not-quite-human drug users. Similarly, when we declare war on a disease, like cancer, we risk limiting understanding of the disease process to models like invasion, or territorial aggression, and so limit imaginable treatments to therapies that eradicate the invaders with poison or radiation. In effect, we accept that in the case of cancer, as in the case of the Vietnamese village of Ben Tre , it may be necessary to destroy the patient in order to save her. (This is not to say that chemotherapy and radiation dont save lives; they do. Rather, it suggests that a military approach to disease can cause doctors to think of patients as battlefields, rather than as people.)

Theres another problem with declaring wars on threats to human well-being: a tendency to conflate the threat and the victim of the threat. A war on AIDS becomes a campaign to protect society from AIDS carriers, as happened in 1986 when California voters were asked to approve Proposition 64 , which would have made it possible to quarantine everyone in the state with HIV. Proposition 64 was soundly defeated, but by then almost 30% of that states voters had been convinced that the enemy they confronted wasnt AIDS, but people living with AIDS.

Suppose we were to think about the struggle to deal with drug abuse not as a metaphorical war, but as a real public health problem (as seems to be happening in the case of the opioid crisis that presently affects mainly white people). What might change? For one thing, we might be able to separate the concepts of drug use and criminality in our minds. Not automatically identifying drug use with crime might make it possible to imagine adopting a program similar to Portugals decriminalization of drug possession. In 2001, that country stopped prosecuting simple possession of all illegal drugs and made government-run drug treatment easily available. Unlike the rest of Europe, let alone the United States, Portugals addiction rates have plummeted since decriminalization took effect and that country began putting funds that would previously have gone into incarceration into treatment instead. With Americans stuck on the idea of fighting a drug war, however, the Portuguese example remains beyond imagining here. It would be the moral equivalent of surrender.

Another problem with war as a metaphor for social ills is that warring and caring call upon very different moral qualities. While both share characteristics like courage, persistence, and often the need to endure real hardship, the prosecution of war also requires other qualities: obedience, indifference to the suffering of oneself and others, and the necessity of viewing the world in black and white. War requires that we recognize in ourselves only virtue and, in our foe, only inhuman evil. We should not be surprised when President Trump informs us that, in his wars on crime and drugs, the human enemies -- gang members, and by extension immigrants in general -- are not people, but  animals . And to be good soldiers, the rest of us are expected to practice dehumanizing the enemy, too.

When, in the twentieth century, the United States began fighting metaphorical wars against social ills, most Americans understood actual war as something with a beginning (requiring a congressional declaration) and an end (the surrender of one side, with a peace treaty to follow). However, the American wars of the second half of that century turned out to lack such clear demarcations. With the exception of outright defeat in Vietnam, starting with the Korean War, our military conflicts have lacked endings. We now have a generation of young people who have never known a time when the United States was not involved in war, whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, or Yemen.

In a 2001 essay, The War Metaphor in Public Policy: Some Moral Reflections, the philosopher James Childress argued that, like real wars, metaphorical wars against social evils ought to be just wars. In the tradition of what ethicists call  just war theory , legitimate wars begin for just reasons (primarily defense against direct aggression), are necessary and proportionate (military action taken is in proportion to the aggression suffered), and have a reasonable expectation of success.

Most crucially, just war theory imagines wars with beginnings and ends. But in the twenty-first century, Washingtons wars have essentially become endless, or as the Pentagon has taken to saying,  generational . Former CIA head Michael Hayden is typical these days in predicting that the fight against ISIS alone will last 30 years. And the countrys metaphorical wars have followed an eerily similar pattern.

War metaphors mainly have the effect of distorting legitimate efforts to resolve real social problems, while at the same time cheapening our understanding of actual war. We misunderstand the complexities of a problem like poverty when we approach it as if it were an enemy to be defeated. We also fail to appreciate the horrors of actual war when we equate the destruction of entire nations with attempts to end the suffering of impoverished people. A bad metaphor obscures at least as much as it illumines. Unlike attempts to improve peoples lives by eradicating poverty or curing disease, actual war involves the imposition of the will of one group on another, through acts causing injury, pain, destruction, and death.

Of course, as weve seen with recent Republican attempts to repeal Obamacare, policy proposals can kill, too, but they are not wars. Its important to maintain that distinction.

Rebecca Gordon, a TomDispatch regular , teaches in the philosophy department at the University of San Francisco. She is the author of American Nuremberg: The U.S. Officials Who Should Stand Trial for Post-9/11 War Crimes . Her previous books include Mainstreaming Torture: Ethical Approaches in the Post-9/11 United States and Letters from Nicaragua.

Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook . Check out the newest Dispatch Book, John Dower's The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War II , as well as John Feffer's dystopian novel Splinterlands , Nick Turses Next Time Theyll Come to Count the Dead , and Tom Engelhardt's Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World .

Copyright 2017 Rebecca Gordon
600,000 Syrians Returned Home in 2017, Mostly to Aleppo: UN By teleSUR August 15, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - In the first half of 2017, 602,759 Syrians displaced by conflict have returned home, according to reports by the United Nation's International Organization for Migration Well over half, approximately 67 percent, of the returning refugees have been to the Aleppo Governorate, where an estimated 405,420 individuals have been registered by the IOM as having returned. Hama Governorate has recieved the second highest number of returnees, with 75,209 individuals resettling in their homes. Within the Aleppo Governorate, Aleppo City recieved the highest number of returnees. Backed with Russian support in a successful offensive to retake the city, the city was returned to Syrian Government control in December 2016 after having previously been under control of the armed opposition. According to the IOM, the vast majority, 97 percent, of those returning have been able to return to their own houses. The rest are either with hosts, squatting in abandoned houses, in informal refugee settlements, or renting. While the rate of return for those displaced by the war is steadily increasing, the IOM notes that there are still high rates of displacement in many areas of the country. They estimate that during the same period of time, from January to July of 2017, 808,661 Syrians were displaced. IDP returns have mainly been spontaneous but not necessarily voluntary, safe or sustainable. As such, they cannot, at present, be considered within the context of a durable solutions framework, the UN-based organization wrote. While the majority of returnees are able to return to their own secure housing, many still face poor access to clean water, health services, and food due to the massive destruction of basic infrastructure that has taken place. Around 84 percent of those returning home were internally displaced within Syria and are returning due to the shifting boundaries of the conflict. Another 16 percent returned from Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, or Iraq. No Advertising - No Government Grants - This Is Independent Media Get Our Free Daily Newsletter This article was first published by teleSur - Why Are Syrian Refugees Running Back To This Evil Dictator Who Likes To Kill Them? By Caitlin Johnstone Al Jazeera , not often known to rock the establishment boat when it comes to the official narrative about Syria, has published an interesting new report on some recent findings of the International Organization for Migration. According to IOM, nearly 603,000 Syrian refugees returned to their homes in Syria between January and July of 2017. And, naturally, those hundreds of thousands of displaced Syrians who are returning home are all returning to areas that are securely protected from the bloodthirsty tyrant Bashar al-Assad by the Freedom Fighters and Moderate Rebels who oppose him, right? Theyd never willfully return to an area ruled by a sadistic dictator who routinely drops barrel bombs on his own people for no reason and kills children with poison gas, would they? Well yes, if you believe the things that the western mass media have been saying about Assad, they would. IOM reports that of those displaced Syrians returning home this year, about 400,000 of them were coming home to their city of Aleppo, which was fully recaptured by pro-Assad forces in December. The United Nations says Aleppo civilians were being shot in their homes by Syrian government forces https://t.co/A9W9PSUIlG pic.twitter.com/rKycXqdxXX  Daily on Defense (@dailyondefense) December 13, 2016 My name is Bana, I'm 7 years old. I am talking to the world now live from East #Aleppo . This is my last moment to either live or die. - Bana  Bana Alabed (@AlabedBana) December 13, 2016 At least 20 Women in Aleppo Choose Suicide Over Rape, Rebels Report https://t.co/cDYnGADq42 via @thedailybeast  Carla Marinucci (@cmarinucci) December 14, 2016 You remember Aleppo, dont you? I wouldnt blame you if you didnt; corporate media outlets hardly ever talk about it anymore. Its almost like they want us to forget the horror stories they told us about how the city that had been occupied by good, noble freedom fighters was about to be taken by an army of depraved psychopaths who wanted to rape women, burn children alive, and shoot civilians in their homes . Back at the tail end of 2016, though, it was all you ever heard. If the west didnt intervene to stop Damascus and Moscow from retaking East Aleppo from the good-hearted rebels, everyone there would be raped, tortured, and butchered by the army of the Syrian government. But oh my my, it sure is odd and peculiar and funny and interesting that hundreds of thousands of Syrians cant wait to get back there. This same bloodthirsty government which wanted nothing more than to slaughter, rape and destroy them still controls the region, but people have been running back to rebuild their city anyway. Whats up with that? Could we really have been misinformed about whats been happening in Syria on such a massive scale? Could the near-unanimous perspective of pundits and politicians everywhere, the perspective that Bashar al-Assad is a sadistic tyrant who enjoys slaughtering civilians, be so dead wrong that the behavior of Syrias own people seem to contradict it so directly Continue Caitlin Johnstone is a 100 percent reader-funded journalist, please consider sharing it around, liking her on Facebook , following her on Twitter , or throwing some money into my hat on Patreon . The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
Home Grown Hatred: Anger and Alienation in America

Is America home to a secret underworld of militant political groups bent on overthrowing the U.S. Constitution? Are apocalyptic Christians akin to religious militants elsewhere in the world in their quest to create a religious state? In a democratic society, should people have the right to preach the extermination of others?

Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center will identify movements, goals, and tactics of the far right, who are likely to gain traction and numbers as economic conditions worsen for millions of Americans. He is joined by Chris Hedges, author of American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America, who will discuss his thesis that extremist right wing religious groups are eroding democracy.

Mark Potok leads one of the most highly regarded operations monitoring the extreme right in the world today as director of the SPLCs Intelligence Project and editor of its award-winning, quarterly investigative journal Intelligence Report, and the blog Hatewatch. Chris Hedges is a distinguished journalist and author, and is currently a senior fellow at the Nation Institute and a Distinguished Fellow at Princeton University. He was part of the Pulitzer Prize winning team covering global terrorism for the New York Times.

See also - Watch: How differently Fox treats Christians and Muslims when it comes to terrorism

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Hyping North Korea To Relaunch Reagan's Star Wars?

By Moon Of Aalabama

August 15, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - Since Trump issued "fire and fury" threats against North Korea (the DPRK), sanity has taken over among serious people. The talk of preventive strikes on North Korea within the expert community has largely ended. It was never a seriously possibility. North Korea has many options to retaliate to any strike and all would come with catastrophic damage to South Korea and Japan and thereby to U.S. interests in Asia.

North Korea can be successfully deterred in the same way that all other nuclear weapon states are deterred from using their weapons. Unfortunately the National Security Advisor McMaster has not yet received that message:

STEPHANOPOULOS: But your predecessor Susan Rice wrote this week that the U.S. could tolerate nuclear weapons in North Korea the same way we tolerated nuclear weapons in the Soviet Union far more during the Cold War. Is she right? MCMASTER: No, shes not right. And I think the reason shes not right is that the classical deterrence theory, how does that apply to a regime like the regime in North Korea? A regime that engages in unspeakable brutality against its own people? A regime that poses a continuous threat to the its neighbors in the region and now may pose a threat, direct threat, to the United States with weapons of mass destruction? A regime that imprisons and murders anyone who seems to oppose that regime, including members of his own family, using sarin nerve gase (sic) -- gas in a public airport?

Classical deterrence worked against the Soviet Union as well as against Mao's China. (Vice versa it also worked against the United States.) Both were arguably, like North Korea, brutal against internal dissidents, threatening to their neighbors and military opponents of the United States. If they could be deterred than North Korea can also be deterred.

To set the Trump crew straight. China re-issued its guarantee for North Korea's security. The Global Times, a party owned but unofficial mouthpiece, wrote in an editorial:

"China should also make clear that if North Korea launches missiles that threaten U.S. soil first and the U.S. retaliates, China will stay neutral," [..]. "If the U.S. and South Korea carry out strikes and try to overthrow the North Korean regime and change the political pattern of the Korean Peninsula, China will prevent them from doing so."

Any unprovoked war against North Korea would thereby escalate into a war with China and no one is seriously interested in that adventure. The only reasonable course is to negotiate some new level of balance between North Korean and U.S. interests.

The U.S. continues to run large scale maneuver together in South Korea and to fly nuclear capable strategic bombers near the North Korean borders. These actions necessitate that North Korea's military stays in expensive high alert against potential surprises. One aim of North Korea's nuclear armament is to lessen the necessity for such conventional preparedness.

North Korea has offered several times to stop all missile and nuclear testing if the U.S. stops its large maneuvers near its borders. The Trump administration rejected that offer but North Korea increased the pressure with its recent tests.

Last week North Korea again offered to decrease its own actions if the U.S. stops some of its provocations. It announced a possible test of four missiles targeted into the vicinity of the U.S. base on Guam. The strategic U.S. bombers flying near North Korea usually take off from Guam. Few noticed that the announcement was conditional and came with an offer:

Typically, the nuclear strategic bombers from Guam frequent the sky above south Korea to openly stage actual war drills and muscle-flexing in a bid to strike the strategic bases of the DPRK. This grave situation requires the KPA to closely watch Guam, the outpost and beachhead for invading the DPRK, and necessarily take practical actions of significance to neutralize it. In the morning of August 8 the air pirates of Guam again appeared in the sky above south Korea to stage a mad-cap drill simulating an actual war.

...

[The US] should immediately stop its reckless military provocation against the state of the DPRK so that the latter would not be forced to make an unavoidable military choice.

In other words: Stop the overflights from Guam or we will have to test our missiles by targeting areas near to the island. The U.S. has no reliable defense that could guarantee to destroy four missile simultaneously coming towards Guam. If North Korea would indeed test near Guam the U.S. will lose face. If it tries to defend against the incoming missile and fails it will lose even more face. I am confident that the strategic bomber overflights from Guam will soon end.

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Several commentators claimed that the U.S. is giving false alarm over North Korean abilities. That the intelligence confirmation of miniaturized North Korean war-heads is a lie , that the North Korean missiles can not reach the continental U.S. or that the reentry vehicle cap North Korea used in recent tests is not strong enough to protect its nuclear payload. But it was North Korea that showed off a miniaturized war-head in March 2016; the reach of a missile is variable and largely dependent on payload size and burn time, and the discussed RV cap failure was caused by the unusual trajectory North Korea chose for the test. The chance of North Korea being correct when it claims to be able to hit the U.S. is higher than 50%. For any practical consideration one thereby has to accept that North Korea is a nuclear weapon state that can successfully target the continental U.S. with multiple nuclear armed missiles.

The claim that the U.S. intelligence agencies are exaggeration North Korean capabilities is likely false. But it is also reasonable. The Trump administration, the Pentagon and weapon salesmen will of course use the occasion to further their aims.

One missile defense marketing pundit claimed today that the North Korean missile engines used in the recent tests were bought from factories in Ukraine or Russia. The usual propagandist at the New York Times picked up on that to further their anti-Russian theme:

Mr. Elleman was unable to rule out the possibility that a large Russian missile enterprise, Energomash, which has strong ties to the Ukrainian complex, had a role in the transfer of the RD-250 engine technology to North Korea. He said leftover RD-250 engines might also be stored in Russian warehouses.

But the engines in question are of different size and thrust than the alleged R-250 engines and the claimed time-frame does not fit at all. The Ukrainian government denied any transfer of missiles or designs. The story was debunked with in hours by two prominent experts . But implicating Russia, however farfetched, is always good if one wants to sell more weapons.

One Pentagon hobby horse is the THAAD medium range missile defense systems that will now be stationed in South Korea. This even as it is incapable to defend South Korea from short range North Korean missiles. It is obviously targeted at China.

The Reagan wannabe currently ruling in the White House may soon revive Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative , aka "Star Wars", which was first launched in 1984. SDI was the expensive but unrealistic dream of lasers in space and other such gimmicks. Within the SDI the U.S. military threw out hundreds of billions for a Global Ballistic Missile Defense which supposedly would defend the continental U.S. from any incoming intercontinental missile. The program was buried in the early 1990s. One son of Star Wars survived. It is the National Missile Defense with 40 interceptors in Alaska and California. It has never worked well and likely never will. If NMD would function as promised there would be no reason to fear any North Korean ICBMs. Missile defense is largely a fraud to transfers billions of dollars from U.S. taxpayers to various weapon producing conglomerates.

I expect that the North Korean "threat" will soon be used to launch "SDI - The Sequel", another attempt to militarize space with billions thrown into futuristic but useless "defense" projects. It will soothe the Pentagon's grief over the success North Korea had despite decades of U.S. attempts to subjugate that state.

This article was first published by Moon Of Alabama -
Israel's Chorus Sings Again



Less than total loyalty to Israel is un-American



By Philip Giraldi

August 15, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - Congress is on a one-month summer recess. You would think that given the recent turmoil over the bill to eliminate Obamacare and the upcoming debate over tax policy the nations legislators would be back in their home districts talking to the voters. Some are, but many are not. More than fifty Congressmen are off on an all-expenses paid trip to Israel to demonstrate that there is no stronger bond with any ally we have. Yes indeed, a congress which cannot pass legislation to benefit the American people finds that it has only one voice when it comes to our troublesome little client state that also doubles as the leading recipient of U.S. tax dollars in the world.

How do they do it? They do it by relentless courting of the congress critters and media talking heads, all of whom know how to repay a favor. Some readers might be asking how Congress (spouses included) can accept these free trips from a foreign government? The current trip is estimated to be costing $10,000 per person. Well, the answer is that they cant do it directly, which would be illegal, so the clever rascals at the American Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC) have created an charitable foundation that pays the bills. Its called the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF) . AIEF is a tax exempt 501(c)3 foundation that had income of more than $80 million in 2015. As it is tax exempt that means that its activities are, in effect, being subsidized by the U.S. Treasury so the congressmen are being charitably educated while they are also being wined and dined and propagandized in part on the taxpayers dime. A couple of the congress critters hardly hit the ground before they were singing the praises of their hosts, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy crooning We have shared values! Shared security interests! No stronger bond! And plenty of feel-good all around as Israel is The Only Democracy in the Middle East!

Democratic House Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland, who has had his head up the Israeli derriere for decades, was also quick on the uptake, enthusing how support for Israel is completely bipartisan, We are not here as Democrats and Republicans, we are here as Americans who support Israels security, its sovereignty and the safety of its people. And as if it is not enough to go around bragging how one is subordinating U.S. sovereignty to that of Israel, the gnomes are hard at work back at home preparing to pass into law the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, which will criminalize for many Americans their First Amendment right to criticize Israel, and a completely bipartisan bit of new legislation being pushed by the Israeli government that will take away aid currently given to the Palestinians as long as the Palestinian Authority continues to provide subsidies to help support the families of those individuals being held prisoner by the Israelis. As most aid actually goes towards training Palestinian security forces that are intended to prevent terror attacks against Israelis, the bill is as wrong-headed as can be, but it just goes to show how far Congress will go to punish Arabs on behalf of Israel.

And finally there has been a series of Israel-centric attacks on leading members of the Trump Administration. A month ago, the State Department released its annual Country Reports on Terrorism for 2016. The report, as always, describes threats of violence in the Middle East from an Israeli perspective, but it was honest enough to also include two sentences that state that Continued drivers of violence included a lack of hope in achieving Palestinian statehood, Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank, settler violence against Palestiniansand IDF tactics that the Palestinians considered overly aggressive. The PA has [also] taken significant stepsto not create or disseminate content that incites violence.

Bnai Brith immediately blasted the report for parroting the false Palestinian narrative and the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) demanded that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson resign because the report was bigoted, biased, anti-Semitic, Israel hating, error ridden. ZOA went on to praise the co-chairman of the Republican Israel Caucus, Congressman Peter Roskam for demanding that the State Department correct the numerous mischaracterizations in the report.

Tillerson has long been a target of the American-Jewish media because of the perception that oil company executives are traditionally not friendly to Israel. There have also been claims that he is less hard on Iran than the Israel Lobby would like. But what Tillerson is really experiencing is the hard truth regarding Israel: that its Lobby and friends in congress are both unrelenting and unforgiving. Even when they get 90% of the pie they are furious over someone else getting 10%.

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Donald Trumps National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster has also been under siege for the past several weeks and his loyalty to Israel is now under the microscope. McMaster made the mistake of firing three National Security Council officials that were brought in by his predecessor Michael Flynn. The three  Ezra Cohen-Watnick, Rich Higgins, and Derek Harvey  are all regarded by the Israel Lobby as passionately pro-Israel and virulently anti-Iran. It was therefore inevitable that McMaster would take some heat, but the speed and intensity of the attacks has surprised even The Atlantic , which failed to note in its thorough examination of the development that while much of the anger flows from extreme right-wing sources there is also considerable pressure coming directly from friends of Israel.

It is interesting to note just how and by whom the argument against McMaster is being framed. Caroline Glick, an American-born Israeli journalist who might reasonably be described as extreme right wing, has led the charge in a posting that described McMaster as deeply hostile to Israel. She cites anonymous sources to claim that he refers to Israel as an occupying power and also has the audacity to claim that there once existed a place called Palestine. Oh, and he apparently also supports the nuclear agreement with Iran, as does Tillerson.

McMasters other crimes consist of allegedly altering the agenda of Donald Trumps recent trip to Israel in ways that are somewhat arcane but which no doubt contributed to Glicks sense of grievance. What is most interesting, however, is the unstated premise supporting Glicks point of view, which is that the United States national security team should be subject to approval by Israel. Her view is not dissimilar to what lies behind the attacks on Tillerson and the real irony is that neither Tillerson nor McMaster has actually demonstrated any genuine animosity towards Israel, so the whole process is part of a perverse mindset that inevitably sees nearly everything as a threat.

We Americans are way beyond the point where we might simply demand that Israel and its partisans butt out of our politics. Israel-firsters are literally deeply embedded everywhere in the media, in politics at all levels, in academia, and in the professions. They are well funded and highly disciplined to respond to any threats to their hegemony. Their policy is to never give an inch on anything relating to Israel and their relentless grinding is characteristic of how they behave. The Israel Lobby controls Congress and can literally get any bill it wants through the legislature. And it also has its hooks in the White House, though the unpredictable Trump obviously makes many American Zionists nervous because it is rightly believed that once the president takes a position on anything he cannot be trusted either to understand what he has committed to or to stick with it subsequently.

So what is to be done? To match the passion of the Israel Lobby we Americans have to become passionate ourselves. Do what they do but in reverse. Write letters to congressmen and newspapers opposing the junkets to Israel. When a congress critter has a town hall, show up and complain about our involvement in the Middle East. Keep mentioning the pocket book issues, i.e. how Israel costs the taxpayer $9 million a day. Explain how its behavior puts our diplomats and soldiers overseas in danger. The reality is that Israel is built on a lot of lies promoted by people who frequently cite the holocaust every time they turn around but who have no actual regard for humanity outside their own tribe. The hypocrisy must stop if the United States is to survive as a nation. Pandering to Israel and engaging in constant wars to directly or indirectly defend it, be they against Iran or in Syria, will wear our country down and erode our freedoms. We are already on a slippery slope and it is past time to put our own interests first.

This article was first published by

Unz Review

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Nigerian rapper, Vic O who threatened to drop a diss track that will surprise Don Jazzy if the Mavin record boss does not agree to work with him has finally record the Shii.

Vic O, who has been away from the music scene for a while, tweeted at Don Jazzy some days ago, telling him hes a big fan and will like to work with him.

He gave him a one-week ultimatum to reply his tweet otherwise he will do a diss track targeted at the record producer.

So far, Don Jazzy is yet to reply and Vic O is counting down already and Guess what? Tomorrow is the D Day for the release of the Diss Track.

Checkout what Vico Shared online today:-

You all should expect the Fire and the Bomb tomorrow..

Dont Jazzy go hear am.

Watch out

Source: Naijaloaded
A former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, has disclosed that she can not forfeit some assets to the nations anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, because those assets originally never belonged to her.

The former Minister who is faced with several corruption-related cases within and outside the country stated this in reaction to the recent court rulings secured by the EFCC demanding the forfeiture of some cash traced to her.

Diezani Alison-Madueke in a statement released by her media team noted that she cant forfeit assets and monies that does not belong to her.

I am deeply disturbed and bewildered by recent media reports claiming that by virtue of an order of the federal high court, I have forfeited to the federal government the sum of $153.3m, which I purportedly stole from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Whilst the reasons for my being out of the country are public knowledge, the principle of fair hearing demands that I should have been notified of formal charges if truly there was a prima facie evidence or indictment against my person linking me with the said issue, so as to ensure that I had adequate legal representation. This was never done. I wish to state that I cannot forfeit what was never mine.

I do not know the basis on which the EFCC has chosen to say that I am the owner of these funds as no evidence was provided to me before the order was obtained and they have not in fact served me with the order or, any evidence since they obtained it. As of the time of my writing this rebuttal, the EFCC has still not furnished me or my lawyers with a copy of the order. I am also informed by my lawyers that the legislation under which the EFCC obtained this order is for situations where the funds are believed to be the proceeds of crime and the owner is not known.

I do not therefore; understand how the EFCC can in the same breath say that the monies in question are mine. If they had evidence that the monies were mine then they would not/should not have used the procedure which applies only to funds of unknown ownership. If indeed they used this particular legal procedure because they did not know who owned the monies, then how can they now be falsely attributing the ownership to me?

Diezani in the statement also dismissed allegations that the anti-graft agency found the sum of $700 million in her Abuja home.

Would the videos of this $700 million cash discovery not have made good viewing? Or should those who recovered this money not tell the public where exactly the money has been kept. Perhaps the central bank should corroborate that it is in custody of these monies allegedly found in my house? But then, it is now patently apparent that Nigerians are no longer easily led to believe fables and sensational untruths.

Also reacting to the claims that she took bribe while in office, the former Petroleum Minister said in the statement: At end December 2011, I directed PPPRA to move for complete deregulation, to rid the oil and gas sector of the speculators, the bloated middlemen and the parasitic influence of God-fatherism. This was in an attempt to create a far less corruptible system as it was quite clear that the intended benefits of the Subsidy system were not reaching the masses but were being hijacked by unscrupulous middlemen cabals.

Also reacting to the controversial $2billion which went missing from NNPC while she was in office, the former Minister stated that investigations carried out by the PriceWaterCoopers, PWC, cleared her of any wrong doing.

In addition, the Makarfi-led committee in the senate of the federal republic of Nigeria, in a series of publicly-held hearings, also vindicated me on the matter of the purportedly missing funds. Yet, we are all silent as if these events never occurred. The allegations that I have addressed above are no different, the character assassination continues, this time with a new set of hirelings. One of the basic tenets of the human trait is that we all have shortcomings and we all make our fair share of mistakes, whether we are in positions of leadership, or not. It is therefore sad and distressing that in spite of all that I tried to do in the best interest of our nation, I continue to be faced with constant demonisation, unproven accusations, and deeply personal insults. The fight against corruption in Nigeria will be far better served if the EFCC focus on incontrovertible facts, as opposed to media sensationalism and completely distorted stories, in their bid to demonize and destroy a few specially chosen Nigerians. Documentary evidence is available to support the facts.

(herald)
It is rather too early for popular Yoruba actor, Mustapha Ololade sholagbade, who got married to his American based lover in a wedding that saw important personalities in attendance.

The actor is already blessed with two kids from two babymamas but rather than enjoy his new home, he is already thinking of the curse laid on him by a lady by the name, Titi Alayo, whom he jilted.

Titi took her time to give him the breakdown of the kind of life he has lived right from school till this level as she went on to expose all his dirty acts along with the attitude of his mother who is also after money.

She wrote : Hnnn. May the tears of all the girls you caused pains, tears and heartbreak hunt you for the rest of your life. Right from Laspotech, Odunfa, Ebute Meta as a whole. You are a play boy, gigolo, you sleep with girls and date them because of money. You take them home to your mum and she accepts them simply because she loves money than her life and later dump them because you feel they are not up to your taste and level. Mustapha Ololade sholagbade let God judge me if only I am telling lies. You think you can ruin peoples life just to have peace and be happy. Its a lie, what goes around comes around. Everybody knows why you married your new American based lover. She made you have a court wedding because she knows You will still look for a fault in her after months of marriage. How old are you with 2 baby mamas.

You will reap everything on earth by the special Grace of God. I know you would deny this but let your conscience judge you and remember the day you will be alone in your Grave, she wrote.

But I think its one of the baby mamas that faked the account and wrote this.l

Source: Praize blog
Lailasblog yesterday posted a report about the marriage crash of Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi Ojaja II and his Queen Wuraola-Zynab Ogunwusi.

Read the new report by LIB on what led to the end of their 17 months marriage.

She was with this guy in February 2016, infact she had their photo on her Whatsapp DP and just the following month, in March, she was married to the Ooni. We were all surprised a source close to the former Olori told LIB exclusively

The Ooni married Olori Wuraola shortly after meeting her last year. According to sources close to the estranged couple, after he ascended the throne, a wife was needed asap and he was introduced to Wuraola who at the time was with a Lebanese business man. But immediately the Ooni indicated interest to marry her, she quickly dumped the Lebanese man and went with the new Ooni.

The funny thing is; the Ooni was advised not to marry her. Former president Obasanjo himself, who regards the Ooni highly, advised him to marry someone else but the Ooni turned a deaf ear to his plea. She had been married before to a former governor and a Lebanese man and so many of his inner circle friends wanted another woman for him but he was adamant the source continued.

We gathered that the Olori still ran to the same Obasanjo for help and advise when the Ooni threatened to marry another wife. Obasanjo didnt do much according to what we gathered.

According to another source, Olori Wuraola and the Ooni didnt court for long and didnt really know themselves that well before getting married. And she went into the marriage with high expectations from the new Ooni but when those expectations were not met, she allegedly started to act up.

They have been having issues for many months now. But the Ooni finally knew his marriage to Wuraola was nearing its end after they returned from London in March. While there, he suspected the Olori was not 100% loyal to him after he saw some text messages on her phone. I wish I could go into details of what he saw. Before then, she had done so many things, including traveling abroad to be by herself, and many other things that the Ooni was bitter about the source continued.

According to what we gathered, after the Olori staged the walk against domestic violence in Lagos in July, the Ooni told a few friends that his marriage to the Olori was over but it wasnt until about two weeks ago that he informed her family that he no longer wanted the marraige and asked the Olori to leave.

LIB asked the source how they could have been having marital issues as far back as March 2017 when the Ooni sent out a loving birthday shout out to the Olori in April. The source laughed and said

Everyone who knows the Ooni knows he would never write that kind of message publicly. We know him. He himself was surprised to see the message online on her birthday but didnt react not to embarrass her. The Olori wrote the message herself and posted it on his IG page. I can assure you that message was not from the Ooni

The message read

Happy birthday to my beautiful wife, my queen. I pray on this day you continue to increase in strength, grace and wisdom. I love you very much

When we asked the source if they thought the marriage could be save, he said no!

Its final. Hes done with the marriage but dont be surprised if theres a media storm betweem them, especially from the Olori. She sent him a long scathing text message threatening fire and brimstone and called him unprintable names but the Ooni is not fazed. We expect him to get a new wife soon
Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo state, on Monday, said that the Pro Biafra agitators, led by Nnamdi Kanu, Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, was deceiving the Igbo using the name of Biafra.

The governor stated this while handing over Staff of Office and certificates of recognition to sixteen traditional rulers in the state.

The release further captured that IPOB activities would only result to loss of trillions of properties and assets owned by the Igbo in the country.

The governor added that no sane person would talk of division in Nigeria.

He said;

On IPOB, the cloud is gathering storm, nobody is talking even our traditional rulers, Pastors and leaders, this is bad for our people.

If you will remember vividly that few years ago, during the Civil War, it was a similar story.

That was how it all started. At that time, we believed that the Ohafia warriors will be able to fight and disseminate the North.

Now we are been deceived that IPOB will drive away Nigeria and give us Biafra.

Even our Pastors, men of God and some leaders in the rural areas, nobody is speaking out against this action and the song of war is coming gradually like a desert encroachment.

We fought the war and it was believed that the Igbos will learn from it but they still went ahead and developing the resources of other regions.

There are 5 million Igbo living outside the shores of Igbo region. Any form of war will cause the Igbo over 3 trillion naira loss in properties and assets.

No sane person will spread the message of division and war because it does not benefit the Igbo in any way.

I urge you traditional rulers to speak against it and educate your people on the true state of things. Igbo need to build bridge of unity across the nation.
The Yoruba traditional ruler, Ooni Of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, who got married seventeen months ago to his bride, Olori Wuraola has reportedly chased her from the palace over allegations of alleged infidelity and what was described as unspeakable things.

The report of the royal breakup surfaced online just recently and has since gone viral, however, a new report has revealed what led to the breakup between the royal couple.

According to Linda Ikejis Blog, the Ooni had been warned against marrying the Olori, Wuraola, from Benin in Edo state.

LIB reported a source close to the former Olori to have said: She was with this guy in February 2016, infact she had their photo on her Whatsapp DP and just the following month, in March, she was married to the Ooni. We were all surprised.

The funny thing is; the Ooni was advised not to marry her. Former president Obasanjo himself, who regards the Ooni highly, advised him to marry someone else but the Ooni turned a deaf ear to his plea. She had been married before to a former governor and a Lebanese man and so many of his inner circle friends wanted another woman for him but he was adamant the source continued.

We gathered that the Olori still ran to the same Obasanjo for help and advise when the Ooni threatened to marry another wife. Obasanjo didnt do much according to what we gathered.

According to another source, Olori Wuraola and the Ooni didnt court for long and didnt really know themselves that well before getting married. And she went into the marriage with high expectations from the new Ooni but when those expectations were not met, she allegedly started to act up.

They have been having issues for many months now. But the Ooni finally knew his marriage to Wuraola was nearing its end after they returned from London in March. While there, he suspected the Olori was not 100% loyal to him after he saw some text messages on her phone. I wish I could go into details of what he saw. Before then, she had done so many things, including traveling abroad to be by herself, and many other things that the Ooni was bitter about the source continued.

According to what we gathered, after the Olori staged the walk against domestic violence in Lagos in July, the Ooni told a few friends that his marriage to the Olori was over but it wasnt until about two weeks ago that he informed her family that he no longer wanted the marriage and asked the Olori to leave.

The news source further questioned its source on how the royal family could have been plagued with marital issues as far back as March 2017 when the Ooni sent out a loving birthday shout out to the Olori in April.

The source said: Everyone who knows the Ooni knows he would never write that kind of message publicly. We know him. He himself was surprised to see the message online on her birthday but didnt react not to embarrass her. The Olori wrote the message herself and posted it on his IG page. I can assure you that message was not from the Ooni

The message read

Happy birthday to my beautiful wife, my queen. I pray on this day you continue to increase in strength, grace and wisdom. I love you very much

When we asked the source if they thought the marriage could be save, he said no!

Its final. Hes done with the marriage but dont be surprised if theres a media storm between them, especially from the Olori. She sent him a long scathing text message threatening fire and brimstone and called him unprintable names but the Ooni is not fazed. We expect him to get a new wife soon

(Herald)
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has reportedly dropped plans to launch a missile at Guam- for now. Kim was pictured for the first time in weeks last night, examining plans for a strike on American military targets in Guam.

Pyongyangs state media said Kim examined the plan for a long time after his army chiefs handed him a proposal.

North Korea said last week that it would finalise by August 15, its detailed plan to fire four intermediate-range ballistic missiles up to 18 miles off Guams coast.

However, it seems that plan has been dropped. The countrys army is now awaiting Kims approval.

US President Donald Trump previously warned Kim that he would be met with fire and fury if he dared attack US- territory- Guam.

Guam, a Pacific island which is home to two US military bases, strategic bombers and about 163,000 people.

Source: Linda Ikeji
Following Sundays assault incident which was made public yesterday, Zimbabwes President Mugabes wife Grace Mugabe, has reportedly surrendered to the Police. This was confirmed by South Africas Police Minister, Fikile Mbalula.

The Zimbabwes First Lady who is South Africa for treatment, was accused of using extension cord on 20-year-old South African Model, Gabrielle Engels, which gave her a gash on her forehead.
A Nigerian man,Chinonso Okeke,from Anambra celebrated in Abidjan after his friends wife gave birth in the most unusual way in Abidjan.He decorated himself with powder.
The Academic Staff Union of Universities in Nigeria (ASUU) has expressed displeasure at the mandatory sale of handouts by some lecturers in tertiary institutions, NAN reports.

Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, President of the union, expressed this view in an interview on Tuesday August 15, in Abuja.

He stated: It is not wise for lecturers in our tertiary institutions to compel students to be buying handouts.

Though it is not a widespread practice, we have few people that are misbehaving.

But the system has a way of handling them, so anywhere they see them they always put them on check.

It is not permitted in the system and there is a structure for tracking and dealing with that; so ASUU as a union doesnt condone it, and we discourage it anywhere and everywhere we go.

A cross section of Nigerian students also decried the rate at which some lecturers extort money from them in the name of selling of handouts.

Speaking in separate interviews, students lamented that they were being forced to buy handouts, and that failure to do so could result in failing the courses.

Mr. Osita Chukwu, a student in the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Abuja, alleged that the lecturers usually assigned some students to sell the reading materials to them.

Chukwu alleged that the handouts were sold between N1, 500 and N2, 000, saying that the students were also made to submit their registration numbers for identification of defaulters.

He said: The most annoying thing is that you may have three lecturers handling a course and each of them will print a handout for students to buy.

And they will make it compulsory, so that you have no option than to subscribe to it, because if you decide to photocopy it, you may stand the risk of failing the course.

Miss Joy David, a student in the Faculty of Business Administration, Nasarawa State University, Keffi, decried the manner some lecturers compel students to buy handouts that sometimes lack depth.

Contributing, Miss Janet Obiora, a student of Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, said the sale of handouts by some lecturers had promoted mediocrity among students as many of them no longer go to the school library to do research.

She opined that the mandatory sales of handouts also encouraged laziness among students who often want to concentrate on the handouts from their lecturers.
Three young men suspected to be movie pirates were arrested today during a raid carried out by the newly inaugurated task force on uncensored and unclassified movies by the National Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB).

The raid led by film distributor Gabriel Okoye aka Igwe Gabosky took place at the popular Alaba International market.

Films and equipments worth over N50million were seized from the suspects.

The suspects are currently being interrogated at Area E Police Command in Festac town.

The suspects were then taken to Area E Police Station Festac Town, Lagos, where they were being interrogated.

Some of the movies that were seized include titles such as Ayamma, Wedding Party, Three Wise Men, 30 Days in Atlanta, A Trip to Jamaica, Lekki Wives, Wives on Strike, Jennifers Diary, and Fifty.
Copper Nears Important Area Taurus Trading LLC - Sat Nov 12, 11:33AM CST Watch price action between 3.9615 and 4.1167.

Elections, inflation and crop reports bring volatility Sidwell Strategies - Sat Nov 12, 11:28AM CST Black Sea Corridor Renewal ahead

Americans Are Saving Less. Heres How to Save More. Young & The Invested - Sat Nov 12, 6:00AM CST Several recent data studies show that Americans, after saving heavily during the pandemic, are starting to pull money from those savings. We discuss how to maintain healthy savings habits.

Hog Prices Closed Mixed Barchart - Fri Nov 11, 4:21PM CST Lean hog prices were mixed on Friday with 12 to 52 cent losses through the April contract. The deferred contracts closed 10 to 15 cents in the black with May UNCH. The USDA National Average Base Hog Price... HEZ22 : 84.350s (-0.62%) HEJ23 : 94.100s (-0.13%) KMZ22 : 94.900s (-0.63%)

Friday Cotton Closes Triple Digits Higher Barchart - Fri Nov 11, 4:21PM CST Cotton added 116 to 182 points to the upside on Friday after a brief pause for the WASDE numbers. That kept the board under the high on Tuesday, but ended as a weekly gain of 253 points. USDAs FAS... CTZ22 : 88.20s (+2.11%) CTH23 : 86.33s (+2.09%) CTK23 : 85.56s (+1.89%)
ST. JOHNS (August 15, 2017)  One normally wouldnt associate the stressful conditions of being inside a hot, noisy rally car barreling down a strange country road at over 150 km/h as the first choice of bonding time between a father and daughter. Yet, for George and Laura Greig, thats exactly what the two Americans have decided to do in Septembers annual Targa Newfoundland international tarmac rally.

George, of Miami Beach, Florida, is the veteran of some world renowned international rallies, such as the Chihuahua Express of Mexico and the Run to Monaco (London  Monaco) rally. He has also attended high performance driving schools by Porsche and Audi. Laura, of New York City, New York, is a motorsports rookie, however is a quick learner and recently completed rally school at the Florida International Rally and Motorsports Park, which has given her great confidence for the Targa. Theyll be competing in Georges 2017 Ford Focus RS in the Grand Touring division.

I dont have any racing experience, so in preparation for this trip we spent a couple days together at the school, she says. They gave us some really fun and fantastic instruction. I barely knew how to drive a stick in the morning, and by the afternoon I was downshifting through handbrake turns, my face sore from smiling. I think Targa is just the beginning of my motorsports career! George quickly added, Itd better be!

The anticipated result for the Greigs is to finish with Finishers Medallions, but also Targa Plates  awarded to teams that complete all stages within their assigned times. George was hoping Laura would agree to be his navigator for the event, and she didnt disappoint.

She said yes before I could finish asking the question, he explained. We are both avid road trippers, always looking to build our understanding of the vehicles we love. Were doing this for the experience; anything else we bring home would be a bonus.

Both look at the Targa as an adventure and bonding opportunity. Since they live far apart on the U.S. Atlantic seaboard, and share nomadic tendencies, its always fun to have a location-based activity to share. The Targa happens to be the activity of choice this time.

Neither of us has been to Newfoundland, she says. But we have Canadian roots, so we look forward to exploring a new province. Dad pitched it as a place not enough people get to see, so wild and isolated. Ill try not to look at too much scenery while navigating!

The Greigs have big shoes to fill. Another father/daughter team out of the U.S., Carson and Lauren Scheller, won Grand Touring division in 2015, and competed together in last years 15th anniversary Targa. This year, Carson is competing without his daughter, who recently got married and is focused on her career and new family. Hes still coming to Targa to make new memories that hell share with Lauren upon his return to California.

We understood from the start that rally is a team effort, which involves trust in each other, states Carson. We each have a responsibility depending on what side of the car were seated. Our goals have always been to be safe and have fun, and that has led to success. Certainly we, as all have, ups and downs in the car, and sometimes all within a single stage. That is rally. Yet, at the end of each stage, we fist pump, comment on what just happened and move onto the next stage. Rally creates memories and Im grateful I have created them with my daughter Lauren.

Owned and operated by Newfoundland International Motorsports Limited, Targa Newfoundland is one of three internationally recognized Targa motorsports events in the world. The 2017 competition will start in St. Johns on September 10th and concludes back in the capital on September 15th. The annual rally will cover more than 1,500 kilometres of the challenging, twisty roads of the central and eastern portion of Newfoundland, including over 430 kilometers of closed-road, flat-out Targa stages.

Contact:

Media: Robert Giannou 709-722-2413 rgiannou@targanewfoundland.com

Competitors: Darren Sheppard 1-877-332-2413 registrar@targanewfoundland.com

Websites: http://targanfld.com/  www.facebook.com/targanl  www.twitter.com/targanl  www.instagram.com/targa_nl

From: Darren Sheppard/ General Manager
Insurance giant Aetna reportedly met technology titan Apple in secret last week to discuss a partnership that would push the latters fitness-tracking smartwatches to millions of health insurance customers.People close to the matter told CNBC that Aetna is negotiating with Apple on a plan to provide either free or discounted Apple Watches as perks for the insurers customers.The secret, invitation-only meetings took place in Southern California last Thursday and Friday, sources said. Executives from Aetna and Apple, as well as hospital chief medical information officers from all across America attended the meeting.Aetnas supposed timeline for this collaboration to launch is slated for early next year.This is a logical step for Apples broader distribution of their watch, and this type of partnership has been on their radar from the beginning, Tim Bajarin, president of tech advisory firm Creative Strategies, told CNBC.When reached for a statement, both Apple and Aetna declined to comment on the speculation.Currently, Aetna covers 23 million customers. The insurer was recently hit with a lawsuit by its own shareholders, who claim that Aetnas board breached its fiduciary duties to the company and stockholders by lying about why it had to withdraw from the ACA exchanges of 11 states.
England have opted to bowl. Both sides are unchanged for the big game.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday issued a major disaster declaration for New Hampshire and will provide federal emergency assistance following severe storms that hit the state last month.

The storms dropped more than an inch of rain per hour. About 60 roads were damaged, about a dozen homes were surrounded by water and about 600 people evacuated from campgrounds. Most of the damage was in Grafton County.

New Hampshire authorities say initial damage assessments from last weekends storms and flooding are in excess of $11.5 million.

In a statement on Wednesday, Trump ordered federal assistance to supplement state and local recovery efforts on a cost-sharing basis for emergency work and the repair and replacement of damaged facilities in Grafton County. The statement did not say how much assistance would be provided.

Through this major disaster declaration, those most heavily impacted by the storm can have access to federal support for response efforts, Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, said Wednesday. I thank President Trump for his timely response to my request.

Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan urged the Trump administration to distribute the funding as quickly as possible so that those living in affected communities have the resources they need to fully recover from this emergency.

Homeland Security and Emergency Management Director Perry Plummer said officials will be contacting emergency management directors in Grafton County to provide meeting dates, information about the application process, and to assist with applications.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics New Hampshire
Wellthie, a New York, N.Y.-based insurance technology company offering broker and comparison shopping tools for small businesses and individuals, has hired D. Orlando Keise to serve as its chief technology officer.

Effective immediately, Keise will lead Wellthies technology and product teams, building upon the innovation Wellthie aims to bring to the medical and ancillary insurance distribution market.

Keise joins Wellthie with more than 15 years of experience leading technology teams in the fintech industry, bringing the lessons he learned in fintech to the insurtech space. Most recently, Keise was responsible for marketing technology at LearnVest and Northwestern Mutual. Keise brings to Wellthie a background in building products with creative technology solutions and has prior experience aligning product design, end user experience, data analytics and engineering.

We are laser-focused on bringing transformative technology solutions that simplify the outdated and cumbersome processes in insurance distribution while offering scalable and high performing solutions to our customers and partners, said Wellthie Founder and CEO Sally Poblete in a company press release.

The addition of Keises expertise and leadership comes at a time when Wellthie is preparing to release its new product: Wellthie Small Group. This is a marketplace and sales optimization platform that seeks to transform the way brokers quote, guide and enroll small business customers in the insurance that best serves their needs and budget. The platform offers expanded product offerings from insurance carriers and shortens the sales cycle so brokers and carriers can maximize sales opportunity across multiple insurance lines.

Source: Wellthie

Topics InsurTech Tech New York
Britain has said it wants an interim customs agreement with the European Union after Brexit to allow the freest possible trade of goods, but that it will also seek the right to negotiate other trade deals  a possible sticking point in the talks.

According to excerpts of a government document to be published on Tuesday setting out Britains strategy, the government will say one option to minimize friction when it leaves the bloc in March 2019 would be to introduce a temporary customs union, which should be time-limited.

That would provide certainty for businesses, the government said, aiming to address a main concern of companies who fear the introduction of customs checks will cause expensive delays.

Ministers will announce an intention to seek an interim period with the EU of close association with the customs union that would allow for a smooth and orderly transfer to the new regime, the government said in a statement ahead of publication of the first in a series of future partnership papers.

One possible approach would be a temporary customs union between the UK and the EU  During this interim period, which will be negotiated with Brussels, Britain will look to negotiate bold new trade relationships around the world.

Businesses welcomed the proposals, but the Confederation of British Industry also warned the government that the clock is ticking and what matters now is giving companies the confidence to continue investing as quickly as possible.

EU Wants Progress on Withdrawal

The EU said it would study the proposals carefully but it would only address the proposal for an implementation period once sufficient progress had been made on Britains withdrawal.

The EU wants to make progress on several key issues by October, including the financial bill for Britains exit, but Brexit minister David Davis told the BBC there would not be an agreed figure on the financial settlement by then.

Were going to talk it through very, very carefully, so at this stage were not going to commit, he said.

He later told LBC Radio: Were going to have a long haggle  (EU chief negotiator) Michel (Barnier) is getting quite cross with us. Hes saying, You should make your proposal.

Davis said Britain should not have to pay to have a temporary customs union with the EU. Any transitional period would most likely last for two years, he added, and must be over by the time of the next British national election, due in 2022.

In an effort to move the talks with the EU on to the issue of Britains future relationship, Prime Minister Theresa May and her government had promised to publish a series of policy documents this week.

But after being accused by some EU officials of being ill prepared for the first rounds of negotiations, the governments demand to secure trade deals while participating in a temporary customs union may cause further problems.

It looks like the new unified position in the cabinet is to return the government to the territory of wanting to have their cake and eat it, said Chris Leslie, a pro-EU campaigner and member of Britains opposition Labour Party.

Turkish Arrangement?

Countries that are part of the EUs customs union are not allowed to negotiate bilateral trade deals, and Mays government has said Brexit means Britain must leave the customs union.

But Turkey, while not an EU member, is part of a separate customs union for industrial goods and can still negotiate bilateral trade deals. It was not clear whether Britain was pursuing a similar arrangement to Turkey.

The government said that, by sorting out the customs arrangements, Britain and the bloc could avoid a hard border with EU member state Ireland, something that officials fear could reignite tensions between Irish nationalists and unionists in British-ruled Northern Ireland.

It proposed two different approaches  a highly streamlined customs arrangement managed by Britain, or a new customs partnership with the EU  that it said could negate the need for a customs border.

The government will set out its proposed solutions for the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland in detail on Wednesday.

The position papers are intended to flesh out the governments Brexit vision and show a united stance over the future relationship after rifts emerged among ministers.

(Additional reporting by Kylie MacLellan; editing by Kevin Liffey)

Topics Europe
Waterloo, Ontario-based Economical Insurance has appointed Roger Dunbar as the senior vice president of Sonnet Insurance, Economicals digital direct channel.

Previously, Dunbar was vice president, Marketing, at Trader Corporation where he led Traders consumer and business-to-business strategies, and business intelligence. Before Trader Corporation, he was managing director of Ancestry.ca. His career has spanned online publishing, media, retail and consumer packaged goods at leading global brands, including J. Walter Thompson, Colgate-Palmolive, Disney and The Globe and Mail.

He has an MBA from the Rotman School of Business and an undergraduate business degree from Wilfrid Laurier University.

Dunbar has more than 30 years of progressive business experience running consumer-focused operations, including a decade in the digital world, said Rowan Saunders, president and CEO of Economical Insurance.

Source: Economical Insurance

Topics Canada
Startup insurtechs need partnerships more than they need money from insurance carriers, according to one leading venture capitalist actively funding insurance technology firms.

Venture firm XL Innovates Martha Notaras told Super Regional property/casualty insurer executives looking to get involved in the insurtech movement that there is plenty of venture capital available already for insurtechs, noting that they got $2 billion in 2016.

I would really focus on partnering. Part of the reason is, investment is a different set of decisions. There are some very large funds available. I dont think thats what the insurtech ecosystem needs most from you, Notaras advised Super Regional executives at the 2017 Super Regional P/C Insurer Conference last month in Lake Geneva, Wis.

To me it feels like thats a lot harder to defend to your board of directors but when you go down to really becoming a partner to a startup, which you can do on a casebycase basis  you find an interesting startup, theyre solving a problem that is a problem that you have.

Notaras was one of the insurtech panelists at the conference that was sponsored by actuarial services firm Demotech Inc. and Wells Media Groups Insurance Journal and Carrier Management.

According to Notaras, startups are beginning to gain some traction and the interest from venture capitalists (VCs) shows no sign of waning.

Theres VC money from traditional VCs. There are very large funds from insurers and reinsurers. Theres a lot of money still going in, she said There has started to be some exits. When you see some exits, that is an indication that there will be a continuation of money going in, so I dont see any slowdown from the front end, in terms of the investments.

Open to Partnerships

Notaras, who in 1998 led the DMGT acquisition of RMS, which some consider the first insurtech, has invested in Lemonade, Cape Analytics and Notion among other startups at XL Innovate. She suggested that insurtechs are open to partnering, having come to the realization that they dont know everything about the industry they are entering.

A year ago, the insurtechs were saying, Well, maybe I can go this on my own, and Im going to be like the fintechs that launched 10 years ago, where they told us that all banks were idiots and they werent going to exist anymore, she recalled.

But she says the new crop of fintechs is singing a different tune that goes, Hey, I can cooperate with banks. This is cool. Thats what were seeing with the insurtechs. The ecosystem is turning out to be a lot more intertwined than what we expected.

Robert Mozeika, Munich Res Innovation Executive, also an early Lemonade investor, said carriers should recognize that there are many more startups than the ones that get media attention and not all are out to replace carriers.

According to Mozeika, its unfortunate that attention has focused on a few direct models like Lemonade while there are hundreds of other types of insurtech companies out there looking to help the industry. Theyre not looking to be a carrier. They dont have paper. They really want to come in and its great opportunity for a partner, Mozeika said. There are many, many more of those type of companies to work with, rather than one or two that seem to be getting all the press.

Mozeika got Munich Re involved in investing in insurtechs including Trov, Lemonade, Root and Slice. He now works with the reinsurance division to match up Munich Res client needs with startups in technology, and helps them integrate the insurtech into their operations.

For pioneer Mozeika, insurtech is more about solving real problems than it is about disruption.

Even my board of managers, when I was out in Silicon Valley said, Bob, try to find the truly disruptive things. To be quite honest I dont believe in just total disruption. If anything, disruption is little incremental things that change over time. Then you look back over the five years, whatever, it morphed into something totally disruptive, he said. You have to work on those little things that improve your process, improve the connection to the customer, make it easier, make it more accessible, make it better to understand and transparent.

Mozeika told the carriers its not too late for them to get involved but that they should start sooner rather than later.

Thats part of the reason why Im in my new position, is to help our clients get moving in this innovation market and hopefully we can find something we can cocreate, cocollaborate together with our clients. Thats why we specifically made this. It doesnt take much to get started but you really have to get yourself into this. 

He said joining an accelerator is also an option. His firm is part of the Plug and Play Tech Center accelerator in Silicon Valley.

Start with Data

The panelists offered some advice for partnering with insurtechs, pointing to data as a good place to start coming to terms with the role of new technologies.

Data is the new oil in this world right now and you need to start accumulating your data, Mozeika said. One of the things I see, many carriers, they dont even have these new forms of data yet. Youve got to build a history of these datasets.

Notaras cautioned that sometimes a discussion around data between traditional carriers and new technologists can get bogged down on what data a carrier is willing to or capable of sharing.

What weve often seen is that startups will come and say, What I need is your claims data, and theres a huge deep breath. But very often what they need is something quite pinpointed within that and there is often a common ground that you can reach.

That can be one of the language issues that bear watching in partnerships, she said.

There are multiple ways in which people speak different languages. Absolutely one of the biggest ones is the concept of time, she said. I cant overemphasis this. For an entrepreneur, if I call you and I want to talk to you, I meant maybe we could talk tomorrow if youre not available today. Within the insurance world it definitely feels to me like, So how is three weeks out next Tuesday? Does that kind of work for you? I think that has been a real mismatch.

It also helps for the carrier to understand where the startup really is in its development. Not what they tell you but where are they in terms of their problem definition? Notaras said. You can help them with the problem definition because they are very often super smart people, great experience in technology, not very much knowledge about insurance. So they really do need a depth of understanding about whats the problem?

Notaras agreed with Mozeika that data is key but she maintained that some of the upstarts in this area are indeed disruptive. She cited two of her portfolio companies, property data firm Cape Analytic and home telematics firm Notion, both of which provide insurers with better underwriting data.

Cape Analytics is disruptive in how it derives its data through machine learning from imagery. You tell me thats not disruptive? That feels pretty disruptive to me because its absolutely a new channel, but it is the same type of information youve used before and, amazingly enough, when you get better property data, you can make a better analysis of your risk management, she said.

Notion offers insurers information they have not had before. Using telematics it captures activities in the home and lets insurers look inside the home.

When you are a homeowner insurer, you have no idea. From the day that I sign you up, all I know is where you live and, depending on the state, your credit rating, very little else. Now there are a whole bunch of things that I can know and I can understand whether this person is an appropriate risk and a risk I might put in a different bucket, Notaras added.

Need to Know Insurance

Insurtechs want the industrys help to improve their technology, agreed Laird Rixford, president of agency technology firm Insurance Technology Corp., or ITC.

A lot of these technology startups, they dont understand insurance, he said.

He cited an example of a startup looking at homeowners insurance. [T]hey were like, We can do it just off the address. Im like, No you cant. Dogs, pools, trampolines  things you can go buy tomorrow and install  drastically affect rate, he said. Theyre deer in the headlights for a moment and Im like, There are ways to get around this, telling them about services that view Google Maps and find pools and as well as supplementary data that is available from companies like CoreLogic.

He also said carriers can educate startups on how insurance laws and regulations fit into the picture.

Insurtech Investing

According to Brian Cohen, an operating partner at Altamont Capital, one of the exciting features of todays environment for regional and small carriers in particular is that the cost of technology has dropped dramatically.

You can literally leapfrog your technology from where it is today to being state of the art, and to do it on a software-as-a-service basis, which is really more of a leasing way to do it, and is a much more efficient and a much more inexpensive way, said Cohen, who is also chairman of an MGA, Arden Insurance, sits on the board of Access Insurance Co. and previously served as CEO of Pacific Specialty.

To me, that would be one thing, if youre talking in general about insurtech. All of you now can look at things to do what just a few years ago would have been outrageously too expensive for you.

For carriers deciding they want to invest, Cohen advised they find entrepreneurs in their very early stagesbefore people like Notaras and Mozeika get to them. Figure out what you want, he advised. What is it that you think you could do a better way? Perhaps, for example, it is using more and better data for underwriting homeowners. You have a lot more data on water issues because theyre your biggest claims. What would you do?

After a carrier figures out what it wants, whether data analytics or something else, its time to reach out to insurtechs.

You want to look for the ones in the example that I used that are data analytics focused, that are focused on maybe water claims, he said. Then start looking for them and find the ones that dont have a lot of VC money in them and dont have a lot of PR. Find the ones that are looking for someone like you to get them to where a Martha [Notaras] will get interested, but get in there where you can drive their agenda, where you can have more control.

Approaching them this way will give a carrier a lot more out of any insurtech innovation than just waiting for guys to come to you and try to sell you on what their product is.

Opportunity or Threat?

Panelists agreed that insurtech is mostly an opportunity rather than threat for agents.

Consumers are demanding a new way to purchase their insurance. There are new ways to do things. Thats what really I see as insurtech as really doing. The real disruption is the disruption of your lead channel. Traditionally, agencies have been the lead channel for carriers, agreed? Thats where a lot of carriers get their customers, is from the agents, Rixford said.

Now these alternative channels are creating a way for those leads to be distributed, either to new ways of selling insurance, or to carriers who have chosen to invest in insurtech, or invest in their future to make sure theyre meeting the needs of when and where a consumer wants to reach them.

Cohen was bullish on what insurtech means for agents and brokers:

What Id say is insurtech for the agent and for the agentbased distribution channel, this is the golden age. There are things that are coming down the pike that are already here, that are going to allow an agent to be able to do everything that they thought that they couldnt do before. That is be able to engage with their local customer immediately.

Cohen cited the example of a startup named Engage that simplifies putting online buyers in touch with an agent right from the results of their Google, Bing or other search. What Engage does is, if somebody goes online and they search insurance, auto insurance or commercial insurance, an agents face pops up and, if the customer clicks on that agents face, theyre immediately connected to that agent, he said. Its been done in the travel business, and its being done right now starting in the insurance space.

Mozeika noted that the early hype around insurtech was that insurers had to be digital and direct and the agent was in the way. But thats not the way it is turning out.

What clearly you saw over the last two years is that the agents not going really away anytime soon at all, but you still need to be digital. You still need that better access. If agents want to work with something digital, easier, or less questions, whatever makes their job easier, its still going to be worthwhile today, Mozeika said.

Rixford said much of the insurtech thats available to carriers is also available to agencies and maintained that agencies that adopt new technologies grow because they have more time to sell.

The ITC executive referred to his own company experience with Google, which dropped its insurance sales venture.

One of the things we really pushed for them is that we wanted them to have agents in the mix because single carriers dont have the pivot. Whenever theyre doing selffulfillment, they cant pivot to a different product, cant pivot, but agents can, Rixford said.

Google went down, and when they walked away from, and one thing they said, We looked at it wrong, is that having the ability to pivot and have multiple markets and choice for them to sell insurance was really a key benefit of it. I was going, Well, thats what agents are.'

While insurtech may not be a threat to agents, what it means for carrier employees is less clear.

It depends on the line of insurance, according to Mozeika.

Some of the simpler commodity type, everyones looking at autounderwriting, he told the carriers. But I believe that more complex risks, commercial properties, once you get into that, I think a lot of this is only going to help your employees.

he said carriers are always going to need underwriters but their skill set may need to change. Think about it, in todays day and age, its not just insurtech thats changing, our industry  our world is changing. There are new forms of data out there all over the place. If youre not looking to get that new data in through like Cape Analytics and so on, youre going to be falling behind the eight ball. But youre still going to need the underwriting skill there at the end of the day.

Cohen agreed underwriters will still be needed.

I dont think the human underwriters going away. I think the tools the human underwriter is going to use are going to be based on AI [artificial intelligence] and machine learning, but theyre going to have a different role. The different role is going to be, theyre going to be an arbiter of last resort. Theyre not going to be doing the front end underwriting for risks that are fairly easy to be able to be done, according to Cohen.

Humans have a way of screwing things up, Rixford said. Were forever changing. Were changing at a rapid pace. Youve got to keep up with times.

Future Insurers

In the end, they see insurtech making insurers better in the future.

Mozeika sees insurtechs helping insurers develop new products to address new risks.

Theres still a lot more to go in product development. I think partly, with all the new data sets available. Our world is changing, he said. Our risk is actually going to change and you have to be at that forefront on that change. Thats whats going to see on the long haul. 

Notaras sees insurers of the future becoming focused more on risk reduction.

I would say actually one of the things is theyll become better insurance companies, where they literally are identifying risks that can be taken out of the system, sharing with the insured knowledge about how to reduce that risk. That could end up that you end up with lower premiums in certain areas, and yet better loss ratios, she said.

Then you have availability to insure other risks, so I actually think that when you think about the noble purpose of insurance, of enabling business to happen and protecting people, you actually have the potential to close much more of the protection gap.

For Cohen the promise of insurtech is in great part that it can help the industry address its recrutiment challenge.

Whats exciting to me about insurtech is that finally we have platforms and capabilities and challenging opportunities for young people looking to come into the insurance industry, and we really are fulfilling what insurance is, Cohen said. Its an information and data analytics business where you get to make decisions and make decisions on taking risks, and if youre right and you do it well, you can make a lot of money.

Related:

Topics Carriers Agencies InsurTech Tech Underwriting Property Casualty Data Driven Google
SageSure Insurance Managers announced that Leeann Manalla was awarded the 1752 Club Company Representative of the Year Award by the Professional Insurance Agents (PIA) of Louisiana. The presentation was made during PIA Louisianas Annual Convention in Galveston, Texas.

Based on peer recognition, the Company Representative of the Year Award publicly acknowledges Manallas continued efforts to elevate the status of the industry. The award represents her commitment to technical knowledge, high ethical standards and overall contribution to the association and the profession.

Manalla joined SageSure as the Louisiana field sales representative in 2013.

SageSure is an independent residential property managing general underwriter offering 33 products in 12 states while managing nearly all operations for 134,000 customers.

Manalla has been in the insurance industry for 30 years. She is a member of several industry associations, including PIA Louisiana, IIABL and the 1752 Club.

Source: SageSure Insurance Managers

Topics Louisiana
Dermaine Clark of San Antonio has been sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay more than $45,000 for a string of insurance fraud cases, the Texas Department of Insurance announced.

TDI fraud investigators say Clark used the stolen identities of dozens of people in the San Antonio area to make fraudulent life insurance policies without their knowledge. He would make the initial premium payments to collect commissions from the insurance company. Investigators say Clark tried the scheme 49 times in late 2009, stealing more than $32,000 in commissions.

One of the life insurance applications that Clark submitted was for a woman who had died three months earlier.

Its this kind of unscrupulous crime that puts a drag on the entire insurance system, said TDI Fraud Director Chris Davis. When an agent with access to peoples most personal information tries to game the system there will be consequences.

Insurance fraud was not the only crime uncovered during the investigation. During the sentencing, TDI prosecutor Nicole Thornbro told the court that while Clark was under investigation for the insurance scheme, investigators found he was stealing profits from a San Antonio restaurant he was managing. Part of the ordered restitution was to the restaurant owners.

TDI investigators are certified peace officers and work closely with law enforcement authorities around the state to investigate insurance fraud cases.

Source: Texas Department of Insurance

Topics Agencies Fraud
Newport Beach, Calif.-based insurance and risk management services firm, Alliant Insurance Services, has opened an office in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

The office will provide a new strategic location for the companys Alliant Americas middle market division and will be led by Steve Gaffney and Scott McLaughlin.

Gaffney and McLaughlin have an extensive track record of success in the region, which they will employ to provide targeted risk management and insurance solutions to a broad range of clients with both domestic and international operations.

Gaffney joins Alliant as senior vice president with more than 35 years of experience, and is regarded for his ability to deliver highly strategic risk and insurance solutions that improve business outcomes. He previously served as senior vice president with a regional insurance brokerage firm, specializing in high-risk property/casualty accounts.

Joining on as vice president, McLaughlin is a 23-year insurance veteran specializing in the design and deployment of technical, heavy casualty insurance solutions with an emphasis on construction, environmental, and marine exposures. Prior to joining Alliant, he was vice president with a regional insurance brokerage firm, serving clients across a broad spectrum of industries.

Source: Alliant Insurance Services

Topics Louisiana Alliant
The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) announced it will conduct a rate hearing on Aug. 31, 2017 to receive public comment on Citizens proposed rate changes for its business in the Coastal Account (CA), Commercial Lines Account, and Personal Lines Account (PLA). These accounts include, but are not limited to: commercial property, homeowners, mobile homeowners, and the dwelling fire lines of business. Additional filings on behalf of Citizens will be forthcoming and evidence regarding such filings may be received at the hearing.

The hearing is in response to Citizens 2018 rate filing that proposed an overall statewide rate increase of 5.3 percent. The insurer has largely blamed the increase on the surge in water loss claims with an assignment of benefits, that has fueled increased litigation and claims payouts for the company.

OIR said the proposed rate changes, included below (by file log number) as filed by Citizens, can be accessed via the I-File Forms & Rate Filing Search system.

File Log # Overall Proposed Rate Change Account 17-16826 +6.7 Homeowners Multi-Peril (PLA) 17-16827 +1.7 Homeowners Wind Only (CA) 17-16966 +5.2 Property/Personal (Dwelling Fire) (PLA) 17-16967 +6.3 Property/Personal (Dwelling Fire) Wind Only (CA) 17-17210 +3.9 Mobile Homeowners Multi-Peril (PLA) 17-17211 +9.8 Mobile Homeowners Wind Only (CA) 17-17409 +7.1 Mobile Homeowners (Dwelling Fire) (PLA) 17-17410 +10 Mobile Homeowners (Dwelling Fire) Wind Only (CA) 17-18043 +4.8 Commercial Property Residential Multi-Peril (Condo Assn.) (CLA) 17-18044 +4.7 Commercial Property Residential Multi-Peril (Ex. Condo Assn.) (CLA) 17-18234 +8.1 Commercial Property Non-Residential Multi-Peril (CLA)

There are no proposed rate changes for Sinkhole coverage and the requested rate changes in the chart above are not uniform. The effective date of the proposed rate change for all accounts is February 1, 2018, for new and renewal business.

OIR said the general public can submit comments about Citizens proposed rate filings by sending an email to: ratehearings@floir.com with Citizens in the subject line of the email. Comments will be accepted for consideration on rate filings until 5:00 p.m. EST on Aug. 31, 2017.

The hearing will be held at 4:00 pm at Kovens Conference Center, Bayview Ballroom South, Room 214A at the Florida International University Biscayne Bay Campus located at 3000 N.E. 151st Street, North Miami. The Florida Channel will also stream the hearing live online via its website and a link to a video recording of the hearing will be available at a later date.

Source: Florida Office of Insurance Regulation

Topics Florida Property Homeowners
A major Florida city is planning to get rid of its red-light cameras after data show the devices havent reduced car accidents.

The Florida Times-Union reports that Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams announced the decision at a City Council meeting on Thursday.

Statistics kept since Jacksonville installed the cameras in 2012 at 26 intersections have not shown that they reduced crashes. Statewide, crashes actually increased at intersections with cameras.

City officials also expected to make $1.5 million in annual revenue from the cameras, but they generated just $82,000 in 2012. Fines increased in later years, but those were offset by other costs.

Williams said the technology hasnt been perfected yet, so he decided to not renew Jacksonvilles red-light camera contract next year.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Florida
A West Virginia woman who filed a lawsuit after being injured when a deputy crashed into a townhome has settled for $1.5 million.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports the settlement was finalized Thursday. Samme Gee sued Kanawha County Sheriffs Deputy Shawn Layne, the Kanawha County Sheriffs Office, the Kanawha County Commission and the Charter Oak Fire Insurance company after the crash in 2014.

A report from the Charleston Police Department, which investigated the wreck, said Layne was speeding and had accelerated right before the crash. At the time, Charleston Police Sgt. Randy Sampson said Layne was on his way to a domestic violence call when he left the road and hit the townhomes garage, where Gee was unloading groceries. She was injured by debris from the crash.

Sampson said it was unclear what caused the deputy to lose control of his vehicle.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Virginia
Bernard David Thierry Bovier,

Luxembourg taxpayers had until June 30 2016 to benefit from the IP box regime that provided for an 80% exemption on income derived from certain IP rights. Because the IP box regime was not in line with the requirements of the OECD final report on Action 5 of the BEPS Project, it had to be abolished (subject to some transition rules).

The long-awaited draft bill on the new IP regime was issued on August 4 2017.

Proposed regime

The proposed rules will provide an 80% exemption on income derived from the commercialisation of certain IP rights, as well as a 100% exemption from net wealth tax.

Qualifying assets under the proposed law would include patents (broadly defined) and copyrights on software. Trademarks, designs and models are excluded, however. Qualifying income would include royalties, capital gains and embedded IP income from the sale of products or services directly related to the qualifying IP asset. The regime would apply on a net income basis, meaning that annual costs relating to the IP, as well as previous tax losses relating to the IP, would have to be deducted from the gross income.

The nexus ratio, the cornerstone of the new regime, would determine the proportion of net income entitled to the benefits under the new rules based on the ratio of qualifying expenditure and overall expenditure. Qualifying expenditure would include all research and development (R&D) expenditure incurred by the taxpayer for the creation, development or improvement of qualifying IP rights. It would not include interest and financing charges, the costs of acquisition of the IP, real estate costs or costs that cannot be linked directly to the eligible IP asset. The outsourcing of R&D would be permitted and included in qualifying expenditures provided it was carried out by unrelated parties. Overall expenditure would be the sum of qualifying expenditure, IP acquisition costs and outsourcing costs to related parties.

The nexus ratio and the net qualifying income would be cumulative and the taxpayer would be required to track income and expenditure by IP asset, group of IP assets or, alternatively, products or services arising from IP assets.

To remain competitive, Luxembourg would allow the 30% uplift on qualifying expenditure.

Finally, in an intragroup context, all transactions would have to be properly priced and documented according to the new transfer pricing guidelines deriving from BEPSActions 8-10.

Comments

Based on the draft rules, if a company incurs all of the expenditure to develop a qualifying IP asset, all income derived from the commercialisation of that IP would qualify for benefits, leading to an effective tax rate of approximately 5.2%.

This new IP regime, along with newly introduced R&D incentives, would be beneficial for Luxembourgs economic diversification objectives. We hope that it will be further enhanced after a first assessment period to include all options offered by BEPS Action 5 (e.g. third category of IP for SMEs) and offer more flexibility with regard to the organisation of R&D activities within a group of companies.

By Bernard David and Thierry Bovier, Deloitte Luxembourg.
Top News - Investor Idea

Breaking AI Stock News: GBT's (OTCPK: GTCH) Facial and Body Recognition Patent Application Received a Notice of Allowance

San Diego, CA - November 9, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) GBT Technologies Inc. (OTC PINK: GTCH) with GBT Tokenize Corp. ("GBT/Tokenize") received a notice of allowance for its facial and body recognition non-provisional patent application.

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Breaking EV Stock News: Mullen (NASDAQ: MULN) Enters into Agreement with Newgate Motor Group, one of Ireland's most Recognized Auto Groups, to Distribute the Mullen I-GOTM in Ireland and United Kingdom

BREA, Calif. - November 9, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Mullen Automotive, Inc. (NASDAQ: MULN), an emerging electric vehicle manufacturer, announces today that it has entered into an agreement to appoint Newgate Motor Group, one of Ireland's most recognized dealership groups, as marketing, sales, distribution and servicing agent for the Mullen I-GO in Ireland and the United Kingdom.

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Breaking AI Stock News: GBT's (OTCPK: GTCH) AI Driven Financial Technology Patent Application Received a Notice of Publication

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Breaking AI Stock News: Intellagents, a FatBrain AI (OTCQB: LZGI) Company, Announces Hiring of Insurtech Industry Veteran as Chief Revenue Officer

NEW YORK, NY - November 2, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) FatBrain AI (LZG International, Inc.) (OTCQB: LZGI), the leader in powerful and easy-to-use artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for star enterprises of tomorrow, announces the hiring of Euan King, an experienced and respected Insurtech industry leader as Chief Revenue Officer for insurance technology-focused subsidiary Intellagents.

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Update 1.41pm: A former detective is calling for a cold case review of several unsolved murder and missing person cases in Limerick.

Fianna Fail Councillor Sean Lynch, who is the Metropolitan district mayor of Limerick, made the appeal this afternoon in the wake of new information in the 17-year-old disappearance of Trevor Deely in Dublin.

He says people with information on historic cases should come forward.

I know their conscience has to be playing on their minds, he said.

Now is a good time to take that pressure that knowing brings to a persons mental well-being to come forward and just give that information thats needed, just make that call and [give] a bit of peace of mind for the families.

Earlier:

Work on woodland that gardai believe is connected to the disappearance of Trevor Deely will continue for a fourth day today as his family await news, writes Caroline ODoherty.

The task of removing dense undergrowth and vegetation is still ongoing but detectives are hopeful a sufficient area will be cleared to allow a detailed search to begin within days.

A forensic archaeologist is on site at the three-acre search zone on the outskirts of Chapelizod in Dublin to oversee the search which, it is hoped, will uncover the remains of Mr Deely, the 22-year-old Bank of Ireland employee who went missing on his way home from a Christmas party in December 2000.

Another expert in the field said the operation would be painstaking. Aidan Harte of Munster Archaeology, who is not involved in the case, said the first priority in any search site was to clear it as much as possible.

Trevor Deely

The clearing of vegetation permits a geophysical survey to take place, he said. The ground has to be clear for that to happen and similarly for the canine search. Then its a matter of a systematic search in a grid by grid fashion so that nothing is missed.

Mr Harte said geophysical surveys generally relied on electrical impulses that penetrate the ground.

That will highlight anomalies  objects in the ground or disturbances.

The cordoned-off scene of the search for the body of Trevor Deely in Chapelizod, Co Dublin. Trevor went missing almost 17 years ago from the Haddington Rd area of the city. Pictures: Colin Keegan

He said while technology was a great aid in searches such as this, a successful operation required enormous care and patience.

Youre looking for signs that indicate a disturbance in the past and whether its 17 years ago or 1,700 years ago, its largely the same principle, with the difference that the forensic archaeologist has to be extremely careful not to disturb any criminal evidence that might be connected to the site and very aware of how that might compromise a case.

Gardai have blocked off the site from public access and erected barriers along fencing to allow them to work unobserved. The arrival of portacabins, a truck, excavator, skips and wheeled bins backed up their warning that their search could take weeks.

Wheeled bins are delivered to the scene as searches continue in Chapelizod, Dublin. Picture: PA

They moved on to the site last Saturday following a tip-off that Mr Deely had been murdered and buried there after a chance encounter with a known criminal.

No trace of the young Co Kildare man has ever been found and his family have campaigned annually on the anniversary of his disappearance, seeking the publics help to find out what happened to him.

This article first appeared on the Irish Examiner.
President Donald Trump is back in the New York skyscraper that bears his name as anger over his reaction to race-fuelled clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend shows few signs of dying down.

Protesters on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue tried to spoil Mr Trump's homecoming on Monday night with signs bearing messages such as "stop the hate, stop the lies" and chanting "shame, shame, shame" and "not my president".

After two days of public equivocation and internal White House debate, the president condemned white supremacist groups by name on Monday, declaring "racism is evil".

In a hastily arranged statement at the White House, Mr Trump branded members of the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists who take part in violence as "criminals and thugs".

The groups are "repugnant to everything that we hold dear as Americans", he said.

"Trump Tower"

 No Trump! No KKK! No Fascist USA!  with marching band. NYC Trump Tower Protest. pic.twitter.com/lpeSX3mvzZ  rosannemiller (@freedomgirl2011) August 15, 2017

The move did not quiet the uproar, however. The leaders of four minority House caucus groups wrote a letter to Mr Trump calling for the removal of White House staff aides Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller and Sebastian Gorka.

The heads of the black, Hispanic, Asian and progressive caucuses called in the letter for the Trump administration officials to be fired in the wake of a violent, racist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The letter asserts their continuing presence in the White House is emboldening a resurgent white supremacist movement in America.

This came a day after Anthony Scaramucci, who was fired as White House communications director after a less than two weeks, called for Mr Bannon to go.

An inflatable, rat-like Donald Trump watches over 1000s of protesters gathering near Trump Tower in #Manhattan to protest the president pic.twitter.com/3rN130Kqfe  Hans Solo (@thandojo) August 15, 2017

In his initial remarks on the violence on Saturday, Mr Trump did not single out the groups and instead bemoaned violence on "many sides".

Those remarks prompted stern criticism from fellow Republicans as well as Democrats, who urged him to seize the moral authority of his office to condemn hate groups.

Mr Trump's softer statement on Saturday had come as graphic images of a car ploughing into a crowd in Charlottesville were playing continually on television.

White nationalists had assembled in the city to protest against plans to take down a statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee, and counter-protesters gathered in opposition.

Fights broke out, and then a car drove into the opponents of the white supremacists. One woman was killed and many more badly hurt. Twenty-year-old James Alex Fields Jr of Ohio is charged with second-degree murder and other counts.

Mr Trump was reluctant to adjust his remarks.

The president had indicated to advisers before his initial statement on Saturday that he wanted to stress a need for law and order, which he did.

He later expressed anger to those close to him about what he perceived as the media's unfair assessment of his remarks, believing he had effectively denounced all forms of bigotry, according to outside advisers and White House officials.

Several of Mr Trump's senior advisers, including new chief of staff John Kelly, had urged him to make a more specific condemnation, warning that the negative story would not go away and that the rising tide of criticism from fellow Republicans on Capitol Hill could endanger his legislative agenda, according to two White House officials.

Aides were dispatched to Sunday talk shows but struggled to explain the president's position. A stronger statement was released - but attributed only to an unnamed spokesman.

Tougher condemnations began on Sunday night with Vice President Mike Pence, travelling in South America, declaring that "these dangerous fringe groups have no place in American public life".

On Monday, Mr Trump had planned to interrupt his 17-day working vacation at his New Jersey golf club to travel to Washington for an announcement he hoped would showcase some tough talk on China's trade practices.

But by the time he arrived at mid-morning, it was clear all other messages would be drowned out until he said more about Charlottesville.

Mr Trump returned to a White House undergoing a major renovation. With the Oval Office unavailable, he worked from the Treaty Room as aides drafted his remarks.

Reading from a teleprompter, he made a point of beginning with an unrelated plug for the strength of the economy under his leadership. Then, taking pains to insist "as I said on Saturday," Mr Trump denounced the hate groups and called for unity.

Protest from outside Trump Tower yesterday. pic.twitter.com/HXUWzIf3aq  super regular (@RachaelSoluri) August 15, 2017

"We must love each other, show affection for each other and unite together in condemnation of hatred, bigotry and violence," he said.

Mr Trump for the first time mentioned Heather Heyer by name as he paid tribute to the woman killed by the car.

At the trade event later in the day, he was asked why it took two days for him to offer an explicit denunciation of the hate groups.

"They have been condemned," Mr Trump responded before offering a fresh criticism of some media as "fake news".

He followed with a tweet declaring "the #Fake News Media will never be satisfied."
Suspected Islamic extremists have attacked a Turkish restaurant popular with foreigners in Burkina Faso's capital, killing at least 18 people.

It is the second such attack on a restaurant in the last two years.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the violence, which continued into the early hours of Monday with yet another heavy exchange of gunfire overheard by witnesses.

Communication minister Remi Dandjinou said at least 18 people were dead and eight others wounded, according to a provisional toll.

The victims were of several different nationalities, he said, including at least one French citizen.

Security forces arrived at the scene with armoured vehicles after reports of shots fired near Aziz Istanbul, an upmarket restaurant in Ouagadougou.

The attack brought back painful memories of the January 2016 attack at another cafe that left 30 people dead.

Burkina Faso, a landlocked nation in west Africa, is one of the poorest countries in the world. It shares a northern border with Mali, which has long battled Islamic extremists.

The three attackers in the 2016 massacre were of foreign origin, according to al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, which claimed responsibility in the aftermath along with the jihadist group known as Al Mourabitoun.

But the terror threat in Burkina Faso is increasingly home grown, experts say.

The northern border region is now the home of a local preacher, Ibrahim Malam Dicko, who radicalised and has claimed responsibility for recent deadly attacks against troops and civilians.

His association, Ansarul Islam, is now considered a terrorist group by Burkina Faso's government.

AP
The Taliban have released an open letter to President Donald Trump, reiterating their calls for the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan after 16 years of war.

In a long and rambling note in English that was sent to journalists by Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, the insurgents said Mr Trump has recognised the errors of his predecessors by seeking a review of the US strategy for Afghanistan.

However, Mujahid said Mr Trump should not hand control of the US Afghan policy to the military but rather announce the withdrawal of US forces - and not an increase in troops as the administration has planned.

The 1,600-word note said a US withdrawal would "truly deliver American troops from harm's way" and bring about "an end to an inherited war".

The United States now has about 8,400 troops in Afghanistan.

Mr Trump has so far resisted the Pentagon's recommendations to send almost 4,000 more troops to expand training of Afghan military forces and bolster US counter-terrorism operations.

The deployment has been held up amid broader strategy questions, including how to engage regional powers in an effort to stabilise Afghanistan.

What is evident is that the Afghan government has struggled to halt Taliban advances on its own and is now also battling an Islamic State affiliate that has carved out a foothold mostly in eastern Afghanistan.

In its most recent report, the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction said the Taliban hold sway in nearly 50% of the country.

The Taliban letter sought to flatter Mr Trump for initiating the Afghan policy review while warning against handing it to "warmongering generals".

"We have noticed that you have understood the errors of your predecessors and have resolved to thoroughly rethinking your new strategy in Afghanistan," it said, addressing Mr Trump.

"You must also not hand over the Afghan issue to warmongering generals, but must make a decision where history shall remember you as an advocate of peace."

The letter also offered a long list of complaints against Afghanistan's US-orchestrated unity government and referenced a newly formed coalition of disgruntled warlords formed at a meeting last month in Turkey as an opposition bloc to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

Mr Ghani has been under pressure from critics who have described him as divisive and accused him of stoking ethnic rivalries.

The opposition bloc includes Uzbek warlord and Afghanistan's first vice president, Rashid Dostum, who has been criticised by the US for human rights abuses and is currently living in Turkey.

AP
The wife of Zimbabwe's president has been accused of assaulting a young woman at a hotel in South Africa.

It was not immediately clear where Grace Mugabe was. Minister of police Fikile Mbalula said in a video posted by local broadcaster eNCA that she had handed herself over to police.

But a police spokesman, Vishnu Naidoo, later said no arrest had been made and police were talking with the suspect's lawyers. He would not name the suspect.

The case draws yet more attention to the increasingly outspoken wife of the world's oldest head of state, 93-year-old President Robert Mugabe.

Last month she challenged her husband publicly for the first time to name a successor, positioning herself as a possibility as his advanced age takes a toll ahead of next year's election.

Twenty-year-old model Gabriella Engels has accused Mrs Mugabe of assaulting her on Sunday night while she was visiting mutual friends of Mugabe's sons at a hotel room in an upscale Johannesburg suburb. She claims the first lady's bodyguards stood by and watched as Mrs Mugabe attacked her.

Ms Engels posted several photos on social media showing a gash in her forehead, which she claimed was a result of the alleged encounter.

"She flipped and just kept beating me with the plug. Over and over," Ms Engels told local news channel News24. "I had no idea what was going on. I was surprised. I needed to crawl out of the room before I could run away."

Police confirmed that a 20-year-old woman registered "a case of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm" on Monday, but said the suspect could not be named as she had not yet appeared in court.

"The investigation into this case has already reached an advanced stage," a police statement on Tuesday said.

It was unclear whether Mrs Mugabe would qualify for diplomatic immunity if charges are brought against her.

There was no immediate comment by Zimbabwe's government or ruling party.

It was not clear on Tuesday night whether Mrs Mugabe was still in South Africa or had returned to Zimbabwe.

"If she went back, I just hope the police can do something to get her back," Ms Engels said. "I don't want her to get away with this."

She said she had recently met the Mugabe brothers and that mutual friends invited her to hang out at the hotel. She said the brothers were not in the room the night of the alleged assault.

"I don't know how she got into the hotel room. We didn't know she was Robert Mugabe's wife," Ms Engels said. "I only found out outside when blood was rushing down my face and back."

AP
Last month, Shell Ireland disposed of its shareholding in the project to the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board in a deal worth just over 1bn.

That left Canadas Vermilion Energy, which already owns 18.5% of the field, as the main operator.

In an update to investors, Vermilion said: As a result of our tax pools in Ireland, we do not expect to incur current income taxes in the Ireland Business Unit for the foreseeable future.

Shell E&P Ireland Ltd had received 186m so far in tax credits. Vermilion said other characteristics of the Irish project include no royalties, low operational expenditure and minimal ongoing capital expenditure translate to high netback and significant free cashflow.

From its 18.5% stake, Vermilion accounted for $81.31m (54.3m) in revenues from the field in the first six months of the year, double the revenues from a year earlier. It said there was limited capital activity planned for 2017 on the project. The Corrib partners invested more than 3.6bn.

The gas field was first discovered in 1996, but it was mired in controversy and the first gas was only processed in late 2015, 19 years later.

During development, millions were spent policing protests, facilitating workers and securing sites around north Mayo in the face of deep opposition locally and from environmentalists.

Five local men, who opposed a pipeline to an onshore refinery, were jailed for 94 days in 2005 for defying a court order.

At peak production, Corrib has the potential to meet up to 60% of Irish gas needs.
Danones shares were up 1.5% at one stage, valuing the company at around 44.2bn and putting them among the top performers on Frances CAC-40 market index. The shares have now risen 9.5% this year. The New York Post cited a stock market tipster as saying someone is going to buy Danone, with the tipster adding that Danone could be bought by a Kraft or a Coke (KO.N), and the French government would allow it.

A spokeswoman for Danone, the worlds largest yoghurt maker whose brands include Actimel and Activia, said the company had no comment to make on the report. Meriem Mokdad, fund manager at Roche Brune Asset Management, said that while Kraft and Coca-Cola were able to make a move on Danone, she remained cautious about the report. Those two companies have the means of launching a bid for Danone, but nevertheless we remain quite wary about this rumour and will wait to see if any more details or developments emerge, said Ms Mokdad, whose firm owns Danone shares.
Morgan Stanley sees the pair at 102 pence by the end of March, which represents a 12% gain for the euro from current levels, while HSBC is sticking to its forecast that the euro will trade one-for-one against the pound by year-end.

Standard Bank strategist Steve Barrow said: Its not a huge leap of faith to suggest we could get up to the parity area. It would be foolhardy to rule out the prospect of the euro reaching the one-pound mark, according to Rabobank Internationals senior currency analyst Jane Foley.

The euro has surged more than 6% against sterling this year amid speculation that the ECB will announce a tapering of bond purchases by autumn. By contrast, the pound is being held down by uncertainty surrounding Brexit negotiations.

In euro-sterling weve had a very strong conviction and its one of the biggest forecasts I ever remember making on a major currency, David Bloom, HSBCs London-based global head of currency strategy said in an interview last week.

Thats a 20% move and thats quite something. Its very unusual that we make such, what was at that time, an outrageous forecast but we are roughly half way there and we believe in it, he said. Bloom first made his parity call a year ago, when the euro was around 83p. HSBC predicts the euro and the pound ending this year at $1.20, which are both strong views, he said.

Euro-sterling was trading yesterday at 90.8p, having reached almost 91.2p last week, its strongest level since October. The pair reached a record 98p in December 2008.

Since France elected pro-European leader Emmanuel Macron in May, risks of the currency bloc fragmenting have diminished. In addition, eurozone economic data are showing signs of improvement. In contrast, Brexit negotiations are far from clear and thats weighing on sterling. Thats the main concern for Standard Banks Barrow. It all depends a lot of how the Brexit negotiations go, he said. On euro-sterling previously we thought the 90-92 area might be the peak, but obviously now I no longer do.

While Morgan Stanleys parity call is partly due to a bullish-euro outlook, the UK currency is likely to weaken in its own right, driven by weak economic performance, low real yields and increasing political risks, Hans Redeker, head of foreign-exchange strategy, said.

Bloomberg
IFA president Joe Healy, speaking at Tullamore Show, said the industry accounts for 6.6bn in overall output with an economic impact spread across every rural parish in the country.

However, he warned major challenges are facing the sector, ranging from Brexit, the Mercosur trade deal and Common Agricultural Policy reform to falling cattle prices and unacceptably low incomes for farmers.
Shirley McEntee, 43, from Galway, has beaten first being struck down by melanoma in 2004. She has also undergone a number of life-saving surgeries in recent years, including complex operations to remove part of her lungs and an ovary.

Her most recent surgery in 2014, an operation to remove a brain tumour, marked the end of a decade of battling the killler disease.

However, although she has now been in remission for three years, Shirley admits she is only too aware that the cancer could return at any moment. The former paramedic said past experiences have taught her she has to live every day to the full and fill her days with memorable experiences.

And she is more than keeping to her word, as she edges ever close to the finishing line of the gruelling trek, which kicked off in Derry earlier this month and is due to wind up in Crosshaven, Co Cork, on Friday .

Shirleys feat  which she is undertaking with Derry-based pal Fergal Barr  is all the more remarkable, as her most recent surgery to remove her brain tumour left her with poor balance and a limp.

However, the former redhead  whose efforts will raise thousands for the Irish Cancer Society  said nothing will stop her completing the epic Redhead300 walk later this week.

Were wallking to Crosshaven because thats where the Irish Redhead Convention used to take place at this time of year, she said.

Unfortunately, its not being held this year, but we still want to keep that connection going and raise money for cancer research. I couldnt have imagined Id have been doing this a few years ago.

Back in 2011, I was told I had just six months to live. But I was offered a trial drug and I took it and then a few months later I had a scan and thankfully, it was good news.

This challenge isnt easy for me. I walk in the mornings and then Im done, and go in the supporting car in the afternoon. But its been a fantastic experience and Id say to anyone whos suffering cancer, try and get up and do something if youre able.

Fergal, another former redhead, added: Its been a brilliant buzz to do this, and were already thinking about making this an annual event. Unfortunately, the Redhead Convention is no more, but Crosshaven has become the spirtual home of the redhead, so it would be great to do this again next year.

Full details can be found at thekingisalive.com/

redhead300. To donate, see justgiving.com/fundraising/redhead300
Entertaining the countys offer would effectively accede to the rewriting of the boundary proposals contained in the Mackinnon report, which has been accepted by Local Government Minister Eoghan Murphy, said city council chief executive Ann Doherty last night.

In a detailed report to councillors during a special city council meeting called to discuss the countys offer, Ms Doherty said considering the countys offer would only serve to deflect focus and thwart progress in bringing conclusion to the review process of local government arrangements in Cork.

Following almost two years of controversy since the review began, the Mackinnon group published its report in June, recommending a large expansion of the city, to include areas such as Ballincollig, Cork Airport, Blarney, Glanmire, and Carrigtwohill.

Cork County Council, which is opposed to the scale of the Mackinnon line, offered last week to cede a smaller area to the city, excluding Blarney, Ballincollig, Little Island, Carrigtwohill, Cork Airport, and Monard.

Ms Doherty told councillors last night that the Mackinnon report warns that a minimalist expansion would have only modest benefits, and would not be a long-term sustainable solution.

She said the countys proposal cannot be interpreted in any way other than to run contrary to the substantial boundary changes recommended in the Mackinnon report.

Ms Doherty said the city has consistently argued for a substantial boundary extension to accommodate the expansion of the States second-largest urban area to some 500,000 people over the coming decades.

In addition, city regions require an urban-focused governance based on authority, accountability, and responsibility, she said.

This position was taken in the context of city regions as recognised drivers of future growth and prosperity.

The recent proposal from Cork County Council subverts this position by offering a minimalist boundary extension.
Junior jobs minister John Halligan also said that if one super junior ministers pay should be cut, so should the wages of the other two super juniors, including his own colleague Finian McGrath.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner, Mr Halligan said Fianna Fail was picking on a woman by criticising Ms Mitchell-Connor, who was kept at Cabinet by the new Taoiseach Leo Varadkar after his reshuffle this year.

Mr Halligan, who oversees training and skills in the Department of Jobs, where Ms Mitchell-OConnor was senior minister until her recent demotion to a junior in education, defended her position.

Ive worked with her, she is always courteous to me, he said. There may have been some difficulties in her department, I dont know. I do fundamentally disagree with Fianna Fail saying that she shouldnt get the pay as a junior minister. Why are they picking on a woman?

Asked if he thought the criticisms of Ms Mitchell-OConnors retention at Cabinet and calls by Fianna Fail for her 16,288 top-up as a super junior to be scrapped were therefore sexist, Mr Halligan said: I think it is. Because why would they pick [on her]? How many super juniors are there? Why would they pick one?

If it was me, I would be saying I dont think any super junior minister [should get it]. Either you give it to them all or give it to none.

Mr Halligans remarks will likely irritate his Independent Alliance colleague, super junior minister for disabilities Finian McGrath, who also gets the 16,288 annual top up for sitting at Cabinet.

The other super junior minister is Paul Kehoe, whose remit is defence. The Government says that Joe McHugh, the chief whip and minister who sits at Cabinet, is not a super junior.

While the junior ministers are able to attend Cabinet, they cannot vote on matters. Special legislation is also needed for super juniors to get their wage top-ups.

Some members of Fianna Fail have suggested that Ms Mitchell-OConnor should not have been kept at Cabinet, especially after reports that she argued for her role in the recent reshuffle.

Asked if the Fine Gael minister had deserved to be retained at Cabinet, Mr Halligan answered: I cant say that, that would have to be for Leo Varadkar.

I worked with her out of two different offices. I found with her, if she was asked to do anything, she would do it.

Im sure if you ask 10 different people, am I doing a good job?, some would say yes you are, some would say not at the end of the day.

I think the decision that Leo made, he made it based on what was the right thing to do. I think she should be given her opportunity at this. I think she should be paid the salary that she is entitled to be paid or take the salary away from all of them together. They [Fianna Fail] have given no logical explanation as to why they picked on Mary Mitchell-OConnor.

I know she has been under pressure and would have been naturally disappointed. I really do think that FF should back off on that.
According to the figures, just over 1m has been spent on legal fees including those for ex-president Pat Hickey, arrested and charged by Brazilian authorities.

However, a final figure will not be known until such time as legal proceedings in Brazil are concluded, it was claimed.

A further 31,000 has been spent on accommodation, travel and subsistence and it is believed this relates primarily to Mr Hickey.

It was pointed out that some of the spend on legal fees may be recouped as there was an insurance indemnity policy in place for OCI officers.

Another 214,000 has been spent on hiring consultants Grant Thornton to produce a report into the Rio Games, while a further 84,000 has so far been spent on public relations. Another consultants firm, Deloitte, have received 18,000 for a second report into the mishandling of the Games.

The OCI has spent a further 70,000 on data protection, IT, and consultancy costs to help improve the organisations readiness for major games.

Meanwhile, the failure by so many principal participants to co-operate with the Governments inquiry into the Rio 2016 ticket scandal has been slammed by the judge who carried out the probe.

This failure by so many principal participants to engage with the inquiry has imposed a major impediment in the preparation of this report, it concluded.

The report was highly critical of the governance of the OCI.

The inquiry respects the claim of a right against self-incrimination and recognises the need to invoke this plea by a party facing serious allegations in another forum, Judge Carroll Moran found.

Nonetheless the invocation of this plea by the International Olympic Committee, Pro10, THG and Patrick Hickey has created a major obstacle for the inquiry.

Significant complaints from athletes, relatives, and friends who were unable to get tickets for key events arose as a result.

The OCIs authorised reseller, Dublin company Pro10, was appointed after its previously contracted reseller, THG, was rejected by the Rio organising committee. THG is owned by Marcus Evans Group.

Judge Carroll Moran found Mr Hickeys relationship with THG was long standing and to the mutual benefit of THG and the OCI, the report states. The OCI was run on presidential decision-making rather than a collegiate process.

Mr Hickey retained some functions usually handled by the CEO  including fundraising and commercial contracts.

Former OCI president, Pat Hickey, outside his home in Castleknock yesterday.

According to the 250-page report, Marcus Evans communicated to Mr Hickey an option of forming a new company to act as the authorised ticket reseller with some contractual and/or agency relationship with the OCI, once THG had been rejected by the IOC. Pro10 was incorporated shortly after this.

THG paid $1 million for rights to London 2012 and Sochi 2014 and Judge Moran says this was without explanation on how it would recoup the money.

He says it was difficult to see how this would be consistent with the allowed 20% premium on the quantity of tickets from the OCI.

The judge also says there was more concern with THG and Pro10 for commercial interests than the interests of athletes.

Pro10 was to get all of the OCIs 46 family tickets for the opening and closing ceremonies and almost all athletic finals.

At least 178 family tickets were transferred from the OCI to Pro10, although these were not allowed for general sale. The OCIs sport director told the inquiry that they were passed on to Pro10 as the OCI did not require them.

OCI president Sarah Keane said: The reputational and financial damage done to the organisation as a result of the Rio controversy has been immense.
The local authority, which acts as an agent for Irish Water, also pumped 178m litres of water into 5,000km of main pipes every day  enough to fill 71 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Of that, it supplied 15m litres each day to the city council.

These are just some of the eye-catching statistics released in the councils annual report.

Cork County Council has 624 vehicles, of which 23.7% (148) are rented. All vehicles are fitted with GPS units which assist in operating the fleet in an efficient and effective manner.

The entire fleet travelled 6.68m km carrying out its services in 2016.

In total, 170km of regional and local roads were strengthened in 146 locations, while a further 304km of non-national roads were resurfaced at 159 locations.

The county council collected more than 18m in rent from council house tenants during that year and spent 2.46m on carrying out energy efficiency works on 1,621 of the properties.

The local authority had 262,127 visitors to its 11 civic amenity sites (CIS) and 150 bring sites across the county.

They deposited 13,484 tonnes of recyclable waste and a further 9,496 tonnes of waste at the CIS facilities. Just over 6,250 tonnes of recyclables were off-loaded at the bring sites.

The county library service, which has 64,192 members, reported a busy year with 1,723,354 visits and 1,754,081 book loans. Visitors also used libraries to clock up 101,659 internet sessions.

The library service also introduced Mango language learning last year, offering a variety of courses in 71 different languages.

The planning department received 4,077 valid planning applications in 2016, an increase of approximately 13% on the previous year.

Meanwhile, the council took a further 10 housing estates in charge, bringing the total number under its control to 729.

The fire brigade, which is controlled by the council, responded to 1,248 call-outs to fires and 617 call-outs to other emergencies.

The average response time for fires was 14 minutes.

Ratepayers contributed 117.1m to the councils coffers, of which 1.08m was set aside by it for economic development and a further 1m for town development.

The motor tax department was as busy as ever. A total of 32.67m was paid by 152,197 vehicle-owners.

The council environment department took 966 samples from 177 public drinking water supplies and 207 samples from private group water schemes.

Its personnel also carried out 213 water samples at beaches and made 950 farm inspections.

The report said 14 complaints were received under Cork County Councils customer complaints procedures, all of them successfully resolved.

There was a significant increase in the number of Freedom of Information requests during the year.

A total of 176 FoI requests were made, of which 77 were granted, 57 were partially granted, and 37 were refused. Five were withdrawn and five requests for internal review were made.

Meanwhile, 31 new cases were referred by the Office of the Ombudsman to Cork County Council last year.

All of these cases were investigated and 27 were resolved by years end.
Google announced the addition of the new languages in a blog post and revealed its speech recognition function will support ancient languages including Georgian plus two of Africas most commonly used languages, Swahili and Amharic.

Gboard on Android users can access the new voice typing languages right now and they will soon be available on other Google apps including the Translate app.
So far, the war between US President Donald Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un over the latters nuclear programme has been fought only in words.

But each turn of the rhetorical screw deepens the risk that, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, jaw-jaw could turn into war-war.

Last month, following North Koreas second intercontinental ballistic missile test of the summer, the UN Security Council unanimously agreed to impose new and even stricter sanctions on the tiny country.

The response, reported in North Korean state-run media, was a pledge that strategic steps accompanied by physical action will be taken mercilessly with the mobilisation of all [North Koreas] national strength.

The next day, Trump went off script, asserting that further threats from North Korea would be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen before.

North Korea immediately did just that, threatening to carry out an enveloping strike on the US territory of Guam. Trump shot back that the US military is locked and loaded.

And, indeed, as this exchange of rhetorical fire has unfolded, the US

has reportedly been preparing revised military options for striking North Korea.

More ominous, according to a confidential US intelligence report, North Korea has achieved the capability to miniaturise nuclear warheads, and may have as many as 60 bombs. The stakes are rising in Kim and Trumps game of chicken.

It is unlikely that either North Korea or the US actually wants war. But, as the late English historian AJP Taylor concluded, after studying eight great wars since the late 18th century, wars have often sprung more from apprehension than from a lust for war or for conquest.

According to Taylor, many European wars were started by a threatened power, which had nothing to gain by war and much to lose.

If Taylor were alive to witness the current situation  characterised by fear-enhancing misperception, miscalculation, and overreaction  he would undoubtedly be feeling an alarming sense of deja vu. The question now is: What can be done to avoid catastrophe?

For starters, both the US and North Korea will have to avoid cornering one another. During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, US president John F Kennedy was firm in his stance that Soviet missiles would not be permitted in Cuba. But he knew better than to pursue a total American victory and a total Soviet defeat.

Instead, Kennedy offered a deal that would protect Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchevs reputation in the eyes of Kremlin hawks: The US would withdraw its missiles from Turkey (which were superfluous already), in exchange for the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba.

That pragmatic and courageous approach created the necessary space for the two leaders  neither of whom actually wanted a nuclear war  to retreat from the brink without losing face.

To bring todays crisis to a peaceful conclusion, Kim will have to tone down his aggression. But, for that to happen, the Trump administration needs to demonstrate clearly that its goal is not regime change, but policy change  that is, denuclearisation  in North Korea.

Unfortunately, the signals coming out of the US are still mixed. While

secretary of state Rex Tillersons recent remarks on the crisis focused on diplomacy, CIA director Mike Pompeo has mentioned regime change, and national security advisor general HR McMaster has raised the possibility of a preventive war.

While it is important to put pressure on Kim to bring him to the negotiating table, such pressure must be more carefully calibrated. If the US appears to be seeking regime change or a preemptive war, a panicked Kim will be more likely to lash out. The goal should be relative, not absolute, security for both sides.

To this end, it is crucial to maintain rigorous civilian control of the military. The First World War broke out largely because of the militarisation of the political decision-making process.

By not taking national military-mobilisation processes off of autopilot, European political leaders allowed for an international chain reaction to occur. Once the march to war had begun, there was not much room left for diplomacy.

Yet, far from making space for diplomacy, Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka recently told the press: The idea that secretary Tillerson is going to discuss military matters is simply nonsensical.

But why shouldnt Americas top diplomat have significant influence over military matters? If this does not change soon, we may, as then British prime minister David Lloyd George wrote of the First World War, [muddle] into war yet again.

South Korean political leaders must also avoid being swept up by this intensifying war rhetoric.

After North Koreas 2010 sinking of the Cheonan warship and bombardment of Yeonpyeong Island, the South Korean military toughened its rules of engagement.

Now, South Korean military leaders are warning that if North Korea attacks again, it will face retaliation not just against the proximate source of those attacks, but against the Norths command leadership.

Much like Trumps threats, this policy is intended to deter North Korea, but it is more likely to fuel a rapid escalation of conflict.

China also has a key role to play.

On June 10, 1994, at the peak of the first North Korean nuclear crisis, China informed Kims father, Kim Jong-il, that it would no longer veto UN sanctions on North Korea, driving the elder Kim to adopt a less antagonistic position.

China may be using a similar tactic today, as it declares publicly, via state media, that North Korea should not count on Chinas support in a military conflict of its own making.

Neither Trump nor Kim seems to have sufficient political capital to spearhead a shift from military threats to diplomatic solutions. Given the far-reaching risks posed by this rapidly escalating crisis, it may well be up to other stakeholders to take the lead.

Will China act as the regional stabiliser it so often proclaims itself to be? President Xi Jinping is being tested in this crisis as much as Trump and Kim.

Yoon Young-kwan , former minister of foreign affairs of the Republic of Korea, is professor emeritus of international relations at Seoul National University.
Tuesday, August 15th, 2017 (4:15 pm) - Score 3,040

A little known Bradford-based ISP called net365, which supplies broadband services to students, as well as residential, healthcare and business users, appears to have cut-off some or all of their internet access customers following an alleged dispute with one of their suppliers (FluidOne).

The details are currently unclear, although theres already enough information to perk our interest. Firstly, many of the customers affected appear to be those who were also caught up in the December 2016 collapse of broadband services from Fast.co.uk, 186K and Firenet (here), which was also cut off due to a similar dispute (i.e. the ISP failed to pay its bills).

We have just confirmed if you are affected by the #186k #adsl outage/closure we can get you back up and running in around an hour nationwide  Net365 Broadband (@Net365) December 13, 2016

As one customer, Harry, told ISPreview.co.uk today: Not sure if you have been informed of this already but as of yesterday we have lost our broadband service (cut off without warning) from Net365  Net365 had picked up some of the Fast ISP customers when Fast got cut off at Christmas. So this is the second cut off!!!

The development has also been confirmed by another broadband provider, which has chosen to remain anonymous but claims to have received similar calls from concerned net365 subscribers. The ISP also noted that the effected lines were all tagged with WBMC  FLUIDATA LTD  WBC and that related customers have been referred by net365 to another little known ISP called Legend Telecom.

Simon Stokes, FluidOnes Head of Indirect, told ISPreview.co.uk: FluidOnes DSL platform is geographically diverse and fully operational, supporting ADSL, FTTC FTTP and now FTTPoD. A suspension of services is the last resort in any long-term commercial dispute and through our processes, would not take place with less than two weeks notice. We are not at liberty to discuss any individual partners, however end users of the FluidOne DSL platform can switch to other ISPs on the platform and have services operational within a few hours.

Customers who contact Legend are apparently being told that it could take around 10 working days to reconnect them (note: another user was told 20 days) and this perhaps lends some weight to the suggestion of a fall-out with their supplier (FluidOne).

We have of course contacted both parties involved and are still awaiting a response.

UPDATE 4:38pm

Weve added a comment from FluidOne above.

UPDATE 4:54pm

After checking our database we think that iDNET, FastNet, Abzorb and Link Connect all make some use of the FluidOne platform and so should also be able to offer an almost seamless migration, although affected customers should ask those ISPs first.

UPDATE 8:33pm

The director of net365, Jon Dixon, has kindly furnished us with a detailed summary of events from their perspective, which helps to explain todays situation.

Statement from net365 As of the 14th of August 2017, at around noon we had 101 broadband connections (all ADSL and FTTC) knocked offline due to an ongoing dispute with one of our our upstream carriers FluidOne (formally Fluidata). Around 90% of these lines are ex-186k customers who came on board when Fluidata disconnected 186k for unknown reasons just before Christmas last year. Despite 101 lines being offline many of these connections are for machine-to-machine communications and backup lines for resilient systems so while it is inconvenient the number of businesses impacted it is unlikely to cause lasting damage. We do however regret there are 2-3 small businesses that are badly impacted by this event and they are in the process of being issued emergency 4G routers to get them back online ASAP while Legend Telecom completes the transfer to them. Our relationship with Legend telecom would be easier to understand if I explain our companys history. In 2008, I created a system for provision of internet for Student halls of residence and this expanded to include student houses soon after. During the governments broadband connection voucher scheme 2-3 years ago we took on a huge amount of small businesses in the Leeds/Bradford area connecting directly to our microwave access network. Due to the nature of how the two product areas operate this created a nightmare for support and with different views expressed in the office between key staff members it was decided to split the company and staff into 2 smaller ones. This started around 3 months ago and is still on-going. In the new roles Net365 would go back to what it was best (designing managed broadband systems for student halls and houses) as this is something I have always had a passion for and the three support staff that requested it would create a new company and buy only the business customers/infrastructure required to support them. Antony, who is the director of Legend Telecom ,is very dedicated to his cause and this way I could guarantee all the existing business customers would be well looked after going forward. Legend Telecom and Net365 share a building at 167-169 Sunbridge Road. The building in question is a 6 story specially converted mill that houses 2 data-centers and is more than big enough for both companies. Both companies will continue to trade in their dedicated fields and continue to expand. The nature of the dispute with FluidOne (formally Fluidata) started just after the onboarding of the ex-186k customers around January/February time when Fluidata incorrectly billed for activations (to the tune of over 3k) that had not taken place and ceased lines that were not supposed to be ceased resulting in customers getting cut off and us requiring circuits to be expedited within BT to get people back online at huge expense! This took months to resolve and was only finally resolved by us writing off the expedited orders as a loss on our side and FluidOne correcting the original billing issue. Problems did not stop there. 3 Months ago work was undertaken to build the Legend network with its core in London and at the same time consolidate Net365s infrastructure from 2 other data-centres in the north of England to London. Net365s core network was successfully re-built and Legends new network was complete in London except for the cross connect to FluidOne. The request to move the FluidOne cross connect from Manchester to London was put in at the same time as the order for rackspace/transit/peering/leased lines from all the other companies. All the other companies completed their works 2 months ago. Despite constant requests to our new account manager (4th one since Christmas) and support excuses were made or requests ignored to move the connection. Because of this delay we could not decommission the mostly unused racks/lines still supporting the fluidata platform costing us thousands of pounds each month. The last resort to limiting the damage fluidone was causing was to withhold payment until the circuit was moved or close the platform that would result in loss of customers since a username change would be required on the end users router if we moved supplier. Fluidone was informed of this and they reacted by shutting off the lines with no notice to us or our customers and attempting to get another provider to take over the lines to avoid losing them altogether. It makes me think did 186k simply not pay their bill or did they have the same problems we did? I will do all in my power to help the customers affected by this but ultimately there needs to be regulation laid down by Ofcom to clean up the telecoms industry abusing smaller players.

UPDATE 16th Aug 2017  2:20pm

FluidOne has issued another statement, which calls into doubt some of the claims that have been made by net365 above.
Tuesday, August 15th, 2017 (1:17 pm) - Score 6,707

The proposed Dark Fibre Access product from Openreach (BT), which would have allowed rival ISPs to gain physical access to the operators existing fibre optic cables (i.e. enabling them to install their own equipment at either end of the fibre within cable ducts), has today officially been cancelled.. for now.

The plan was first introduced as part of several measures under Ofcoms 2016 Business Connectivity Market Review (here). The regulator viewed it as a change that could foster more competition and speed-up the roll-out of faster broadband services around the UK (e.g. backhaul capacity for new networks). A number of ISPs (e.g. TalkTalk, SSE Telecoms) had already made significant plans for the new service.

However several major infrastructure builders, such as Openreach, Virgin Media, Cityfibre and Zayo, all feared that DFA would discourage operators from investing to build their own fibre optic networks. In keeping with that BT launched a legal challenge of the measures via the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT), which last month dramatically ruled in their favour (here).

A key part of the regulators review of the 2bn leased line market was its proposal for BT to make DFA available in all parts of the UK (RoUK) except central London (including the City of London and Docklands)  where Ofcom deemed that there is sufficient competition in the market  and Hull, where most leased lines are provided by KCOM (KC) rather than BT.

On top of that Ofcom also defined DFA as applying to a particular type of leased line(s) known as Contemporary Interface Symmetric Broadband Origination (CISBO), which use newer Ethernet and WDM technologies. However the tribunal ruled that the regulators market definitions for DFA were incorrect and this quashed some of the key decisions from their 2016 review, which sent DFA back to the drawing board.

CATs Ruling The Tribunal found unanimously that: (1) Ofcom erred in concluding that it was appropriate to define a single product market for CISBO services of all bandwidths;

(2) Ofcom erred in concluding that the RoUK comprises a single geographic market; and

(3) Ofcom erred in its determination of the boundary between the competitive core segments and the terminating segments of BTs network.

Under the original plan Openreach was expected to launch their DFA product on 1st October 2017, but the ruling changed all that. In theory Openreach could have either chosen to proceed with DFA (i.e. under less favourable terms), cancel the launch or shelve it until such time as Ofcom can figure out whether DFA is still viable (i.e. the regulator could do that by re-running their review from scratch).

Today the Office of the Telecoms Adjudicator (OTA) held a crunch meeting and the immediate fate of DFA was decided. Industry sources have informed ISPreview.co.uk that the launch of DFA has now been cancelled, at least until such time as Ofcom can set out how they intend to proceed.

The outcome was perhaps the only one possible because Ofcom are still awaiting the tribunals full reasoning and until they have that then the regulator will not know how best to proceed, although they continue to believe that DFA can bring significant benefits for businesses and consumers. In the meantime DFA will not proceed.

Separately, ISPreview.co.uk understands that the same meeting also included discussion about a potentially significant change to the expensive FTTP on Demand (FTTPoD) product. FTTPoD is similar to Openreachs native full fibre FTTP deployments, except it can be rolled out into certain non-FTTP areas following a request, but the end-user needs to pay a significant installation cost to help cover the construction work.

However we understand that the proposed change would involve dropping the price of FTTPoD to match native FTTP, with project builds becoming an option for things like estates. The new FTTPoD solution might also adopt ECC charges rather than a distance band with mandatory survey. But take this with a pinch of salt because we dont yet have the detail and its currently only being considered.

UPDATE 2:12pm

We now have some official comments coming in.

Openreachs Official Statement Industry will be aware, in June 2016 BT appealed Ofcoms findings in the 2016 Business Connectivity Market Review (BCMR) on the market definition and the imposition of the Dark Fibre Access (DFA) remedy. The Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) issued a Ruling on 26 July 2017 that Ofcom had erred (a) defining a single product market for contemporary interface symmetric broadband origination (CISBO) services of all bandwidth, (b) concluding that the rest of the UK comprises a single geographic market and (c) its determination of the boundary between competitive core segments and the terminating segments of BTs network In light of the CAT ruling and following discussions between Ofcom and various parties involved in the CAT litigation, Openreach do not intend to launch DFA on 1 October 2017 or notify launch pricing at the end of August/early September 2017. Well issue formal communications to CPs over the coming days. We are very keen to discuss with CPs what existing or future alternatives to dark fibre may meet their requirements.
Hyperscale data centers are pushing a number of extremes, but not all of them are related to sheer size.

Increasingly, centers are going up in remote places where cool climates and an abundance of renewable energy prevail, or in highly dense urban areas where data proximity is highly valued. And there is even a push for modular hyperscale facilities that can be activated in short notice and at relatively low cost.

Probably the most remote hyperscale center announced to date is the one planned for the tiny town of Ballangen, Norway, which lies about 150 miles inside the Arctic Circle. The Kolos facility, the brainchild of a U.S-Norwegian partnership of the same name, is expected to top 6.46 million square feet and support up to 1,000 MW of computing power. This would just edge past the Range International Data Hub in Langfang, China, the current largest operating data facility. The Kolos center will utilize all renewable power, drawn mainly from hydro-electric and wind sources, and is even sheltered by water and rolling hills to provide a steady source of free cooling and protection from physical damage.

Meanwhile, the drive to immerse data centers completely in water continues, with Microsoft claiming enough success in a 105-day experiment earlier this year to begin plans for a permanent deployment in the near future. Sustainable Business Forum reports that the design can reduce energy overhead to just 3 percent, which exceeds any other approach, including free-air cooling. As well, by placing a center just off-shore, data systems will be able to tap the kinetic energy of ocean waves, reducing demand on the local energy grid. On the downside, however, are the added maintenance costs related to protecting the center from corrosive sea water, and the upfront costs of constructing buildings at scale in such a difficult environment.

But even as Microsoft wades into esoteric data solutions, it is also pursuing more traditional approaches. The company is said to be the anchor tenant at a 460,000 square foot facility outside of Washington, D.C., which is seeing explosive demand for infrastructure now that many federal agencies are tasked with lowering their IT costs. The new MCC1 center developed by CloudHQ is rated up to 45 MW, with 35 MW earmarked for a single tenant. The company is shooting for a PUE rating of less than 1.2, which would make it highly efficient, with a parallel power design that enables power-sharing across multiple tenants while preserving high isolation from faults. It also features a dedicated fiber link to CloudHQs central hub in nearby Ashburn, Virginia.

And for those who need hyperscale right away, data center provider Switch has released its pre-fab models that measure up to 250 feet wide. The Modularly Optimized Design (MOD) facilities are built around the companys Tier 5 spec, which the company says provides higher reliability than the Uptime Institutes Tier IV designation through the use of double storm-proof roofs and other advancements, and can be built at less cost than even the institutes lower level Tier II and Tier II centers. The design, in fact, is based on Switchs own data hub in Nevada, which tops 1.3 million square feet at the moment but is expected to exceed 7 million square feet upon completion, with a total capacity of 650 MW.

The rise of hyperscale data centers is fueled not only by economic pressures and the desire to achieve economies of scale, but the physical realities of an increasingly distributed IT environment. As edge processing becomes more prevalent, a fair amount of data still must be forwarded to centralized compute infrastructure and then back to the edge where it can inform the user device.

By building or leasing hyperscale resources in both populated and remote areas, the enterprise gains the ability to match resources to data needs according to a wide range of requirements, such as relevancy, locality and response times.

In this way, organizations can drive digital services to the literal four corners of the world.

Arthur Cole writes about infrastructure for IT Business Edge. Cole has been covering the high-tech media and computing industries for more than 20 years, having served as editor of TV Technology, Video Technology News, Internet News and Multimedia Weekly. His contributions have appeared in Communications Today and Enterprise Networking Planet and as web content for numerous high-tech clients like TwinStrata and Carpathia. Follow Art on Twitter @acole602.
Google might release the latest version of the Android operating system dubbed as Android O, next week. The latest Android O will be the eighth generation of the Android operating system and is expected to be an incremental update with performance, feature, and design improvements rather than a major overhaul. Moreover, latest reports suggest that Android O might get its official name in the coming week.

There have been various rumors regarding the official name for Google's next OS release. Oreo, Oatmeal cookie, Octopus or perhaps something else starting with an "O". Android Police's David Ruddock has revealed in a series of tweets that Android O's official name might be unveiled by Google on the same day as the American solar eclipse, which is on August 21, Business Insider reported.

This corroborates well with Google's statement that Android O will launch sometime in Q3 2017. Ruddock also states that Android O will roll out the Google Pixel device on the same day, which is August 21. Last year, Google has officially unveiled Android 7.0 Nougat on August 22, so based on the cycle, the August 21 date seems quite likely, India Today reported.

Google had announced Android O during its annual developer conference, I/O 2017. The latest version of Android has new features like Notification Dots, Picture-in-Picture mode, LDAC support, Autofill and Smart text selection. Google has also improved the security and reduced the booting time in the latest OS. Additionally, the latest update also offers battery enhancement with background execution limits and other changes to vital system behaviors.

To improve battery life, Google is also introducing "Wise Limits" which places restrictions on background apps, particularly those which use location services continuously. Android O basically places specific limits on location updates, background services, and implicit broadcasts.
Buying into IoT comes with a wealth of benefits, but adopting heavy use of the internet of things means more than plugging in devices and waiting for the data to pour in; it means modifying network infrastructure to accommodate them.

This is not a trivial consideration. If the network doesnt adequately support all aspects of IoT, a company may be unable to take advantage of all that data and will fail to realize the return on investment it was hoping for.

+Related: Feds consider tougher requirements for IoT security; IoT Security for Health Care is in critical condition; What is IoT?+



Early adopters of IoT can provide valuable lessons to other companies looking to roll out similar projects. Here are three examples of how companies are addressing various IoT networking issues.

IoT Security and an IoT gateway at Rockwell Automation

For some companies, IoT is nothing new. Rockwell Automation, a provider of industrial automation technology, launched its first IoT effort in 2011, says Scott Sandler, technology manager, cloud computing.

The IoT initiative is intended to provide the appropriate technology to enable Rockwells customers to connect the industrial equipment and systems they use to the cloud, in order to better analyze their operational data and improve decision support for both operational technology and IT users.

The company hired Microsoft to ensure that it has a secure industrial IoT platform that scales to meet its customers needs, whether they are scaling up or down, and to facilitate the movement of data through the enterprise to enable a range of analytics and business processes.

Rockwells vision around IoT is really targeted towards [our] customershow we can better enable their success and achieve specific outcomes, Sandler says.

Rockwells IoT solutions have allowed its customers to monitor unmanned remote assets, predict equipment failure, avoid the cost of deploying traditional on-premises servers, and boost performance through reduced downtime and optimized processes.

One early consideration in terms of network infrastructure was data security, he adds. Rockwells early adopters were worried attackers would be able to reach into their manufacturing plants. To address these concerns, Rockwell made sure its IoT service used a gateway device that only connected to the cloud using outbound port 443 (https/TLS); the gateway is architected so that it only makes outbound calls and only receives updates from the cloud in a response to calls it has initiated.

Rockwell also adopted other security measures, such as a policy server that issues shared access tokens and certificates to gateway devices for authentication purposes, so its customers dont need to make changes to their network or firewall settings, since \port 443 is typically set by default to allow secure browser-based communications.

Other than taking steps to ensure secure data and configuring proxies, the network changes the company has had to make to accommodate its IoT initiative have been minimal, Sandler says.

However, I would point out that Rockwell approached the concept of an IoT gateway from the perspective of being as low impact as possible.

The companys experience with industrial automation, and the fact that Rockwell makes many of the devices its gateways connect to, help ensure a seamless connection between its industrial equipment and the cloud, says Sandler. Thats not a claim every industrial manufacturer can make.

This is actually an area that deserves some critical attention, he says. Most of the industrial automation equipment in factories today has been in operation longer than the concept of IoT and the cloud. As a result, making additional connections to those devices and asking for data at arbitrary rates runs the risk of impacting the actual ability for those automation devices to perform their job of controlling the process.

One suggestion Sandler has for preparing networks for IoT is to choose a solution partner that understands the companys data sources.

Failure to do this could significantly impact the network between your gateway and control systems, and even impact the automation itself, he says.

In addition, make sure the security strategy of your gateway aligns with your company guidelines, Sandler said. Our strategy around the gateway only making outbound calls and only to specific secured endpoints is designed to limit the risk of an outside threat reaching into the plant. There are certainly other security considerations as well as other ways to handle them, [but] make sure the gateway is consistent with your overall network security strategy.

Iot devices need careful network configuration to insure bandwidth

Thoroughly testing IoT devices before theyre deployed is also a good idea, but this too makes unique demands on network infrastructure.

Marist College is engaged in advanced research with a company thats an incubator in the late stages of IoT product and service development (the college cannot identify the company due to a non-disclosure agreement). The technology collects bio-digital health information through wireless access directly from sensors worn by people at some level of health risk.

The sensors gather data such as body temperature, heart rate and other indicators of a persons general health. Predictive algorithms compare any changes in these vital signs over time, and if any single vital sign or combination of signs change, that could indicate a decline in the persons health.

The monitoring devices must persistently stream data using secure wireless protocols to remain constantly connected to monitoring systems and medical services.

Our data science researchers have the opportunity to use big databillions of eventsto develop and prove advanced predictive processes, utilize machine learning, track interventions, and watch the effect of different variables in real time, says Bill Thirsk, vice president of IT and CIO at Marist. It is a perfect environment to develop cognitive computing with impact.

The diversity and manufacturing specifications of devices play a huge role in how Marist handles IoT devices from a networking standpoint.

Since they often have varying chip sets, use particular protocols or specific wireless bands, and even ignore security best practices at times, some leg work and testing is needed in order to properly develop the network for their support, Thirsk says.

Marist is working with devices using a Broadcom chip transmitting over Wi-Fi. The devices connect wirelessly using both EnGenious and Cisco broadcast nodes. Marist is using an on-premise server connected via a Netgear switch to collect, pre-process and encrypt the data.

A Netgear router transmits the SSL-secured data over the Internet, which is then received through Marists Juniper SRX 3600 series firewall and A10 load balancer. Once the device data is received by the predictive analytics server, its modeled for use by analysts.

We have not had to modify our network physically, but we have had to re-engineer network configurations [to] ensure persistent and secure transmission on the client side, Thirsk says. Weve found different devices using alternate protocols and channels, [and] devices that could only open stream with no security.

He also recommends testing and creating small pilots of various devices.

You will invariably be faced with supporting a plethora of devices that users and clients may try to connect to the network, he warns. You must have an idea of the bandwidth requirements created by smart devices, what sort of encryption they can or cannot support, and whether or not they are secure and can be updated as needed.

For example, Marist has experimented with small groups of inexpensive devices, such as Raspberry Pis, to see how they would work on its systems with various USB-based network interface cards, wireless adapters, and Bluetooth adapters. The goal is to collect information on the amount of bandwidth the devices would need and how much interference they might generate.

Device registration is also important. Our network team wrote their own portal page that integrates with identity services, Thirsk says. Users register devices and only then are they placed into a control group that allows access. Devices can then be set to connect to the SSID Marist created. Separate VLANs might be required to segment classes of devices away from the protected networks that have different security requirements.

Due to the lack of standardization on many devices, it might be difficult to identify them on the network if they do not have the ability to identify themselves, Thirsk says.

Remember that once you achieve some level of success with IoT, prepare for an influx of connected devices, Thirsk says. Build in device and group visibility so you can understand the status of things, maintain security, and continue to expand your device presence and value, he says.

IoT plus Wi-Fi can help track patients

Rolling out an IoT initiative at a single site is challenging enough; doing it across multiple locations at the same time requires even more testing and preparation.

Schlegel Villages, an operator of 16 long-term care and retirement communities across Ontario, Canada, recently overhauled its entire network, using Aruba Gigabit wireless access points and IoT devices to provide point-of-care services and automated food services to residents.

The company is preparing its network to support the connection of objects such as security cameras, nurse call systems and HVAC systems. As part of the transition, Schlegel is migrating from a Novell eDirectory multi-location server setup to a Microsoft Active Directory environment in a single data center.

In the future we anticipate taking advantage of the Aruba access points GPS locating technology, whether to locate lost equipment or get a notification on a resident who has left the building, says Chris Carde, director of information technologies for Schlegel. That will assist in saving lives.

As part of its network update, Schlegel is upgrading all its switches and Wi-Fi access points, replacing the old equipment with HPE 5130 switches and Aruba 300 series access points, mostly Aruba AP 315s.

By the end of the project we will have around 1,500 APs, 16 controllers, and 50 switches installed, Carde says. Internal speed means nothing if accessing the Internet is a bottleneck, so we are undergoing a large ISP upgrade from a basic business line to dedicated fiber of 150mbps up and down across all of our 16 sites, and 1000 mbps at our data center. The new infrastructure will allow us to support IoT with better care and services to our residents and administration staff.

During the transition, the company is also implementing new iPad-based clinical software, which requires reliable Wi-Fi connectivity and performance, Carde says. By the end of the project, the company will have deployed about 600 iPads.

In addition, the company is rolling out a multimedia product called Scala, which will display menus, news and weather on monitors throughout all of Schlegels locations.

Organizations looking to create an IoT strategy need to think long term in terms of what types of devices will need to be connected, Carde says.

Ensure your infrastructure is capable of growing with ease to accommodate your future needs, he says. There is nothing more frustrating than bottlenecking yourself with a new network infrastructure. Having a plan in place will speak volumes on your ability to design a robust and expandable network.
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A federal judge approved Monday final judgment on 73 regional and 494 statewide net winners in the ZeekRewards.com Ponzi scheme.

Judge Graham Mullen tentatively approved the financial judgments in July, at which time he gave permission for the option of hiring bill collectors to pursue the disputed funds.

ZeekRewards operated from January 2011 to Aug. 17, 2012, from Lexington with global participation. At $939 million and at least 2.2 million customers, federal prosecutors have called ZeekRewards one of the largest Ponzi schemes in U.S. history.

Receiver Kenneth Bell has defined net winners as those who had a net gain of at least $1,000. He had said there are about 9,400 net winners worldwide owing about $200 million.

For the 14-county region of the Triad and Northwest North Carolina, a combined $2.04 million was won by 73 net winners, along with a combined $701,703 in pre-judgment interest. The interest is based on the N.C. statutory rate of 8 percent per annum since ZeekRewards was shut down by federal regulators.

Mullen approved Bell attaching additional interest from the date of entry of this judgment until paid in full.

What Mullen approved was Bells list of domestic net winners who chose not to reach a settlement into what they owe to the defunct companys estate. Many of the largest net winners failed to answer or cooperate in the action.

Theres an extra-large caveat to victims getting those funds added to the 60 percent to 70 percent reimbursement theyve already received.

That because theres a strong likelihood some net winners dont have much, if any, of that money on them.

We are considering selling some or all of the judgments; the purchaser may engage a collections firm, Bell said in July. They would then decide against whom and how vigorously to pursue collections.

The original net-winner list contained 15 individuals from Forsyth County, 105 from the Triad and Northwest N.C., and 390 statewide. The final list contains 11 from Forsyth, 73 regionally and 494 statewide.

Mullen said net winners who agreed to a settlement were given several months to pay back the net winnings.

Prosecutors claim ZeekRewards founder Paul Burks received at least $10.1 million from the scheme. In 2015, a federal jury found Burks guilty on four charges. In May, he began serving three concurrent prison sentences of 14 years and eight months for his lead role in the scheme.

ZeekRewards official Darryle Douglas has been ordered to pay $2.27 million, which represents $1.97 million in net winnings and just under $300,000 in interest since August 2012. The interest has continued to build since Douglas was considered in default in July 2014.

As of June 30, Bell has recovered $366 million and disbursed $340.5 million to eligible victims.

During the second quarter, Bell dispersed $18.69 million to about 18,000 victims who live outside the United States.
With a gathering of a couple hundred peaceful demonstrators building just a half-block away, the Confederate monument at Fourth and Liberty was perhaps the quietest, most serene spot downtown on an otherwise sleepy summer Sunday evening.

Save for one quickly removed sign, scrawled on an old-school projector screen and placed in front of it  Winston-Salem please stand with Charlottesville move monumental misrepresentation into the ground  the old memorial went unmolested.

Only a handful of passersby noticed it. A young family headed home after the vigil stopped to read the inscriptions, and a couple others stopped just long enough to snap cellphone photos.

One, who claimed membership in a local chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans circled the block and said hed come to make sure nobody was messing with it.

Other than that, the 20-foot marble obelisk with a Confederate soldier standing atop it was largely ignored, or just plain forgotten, on a weekend dominated by fighting inflamed by such symbols.

And that is exactly the way local authorities hoped it would be. But it might not stay that way for much longer.

Claims of ownership

The Confederate monument, commissioned by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1905, has stood as a silent sentinel next to the old county courthouse for more than 100 years.

It has stood there mostly unnoticed throughout years of Jim Crow laws, the first-in-North Carolina sit-in victory to desegregate lunch counters just down the street and fit-and-starts Civil Rights demonstrations.

By and large, the monument was a relic, a community heirloom handed down across generations that nobody wants to deal with or even acknowledge.

Its sort of like that racist lawn jockey your crazy Uncle Earl kept in his front yard. You love your uncle but hate that damn lawn jockey.

So what do you do with it?

A few years back, when Forsyth County sold the old courthouse building to a developer and property management company based in Richmond, Va., for conversion into upscale apartments with rents starting at $985 a month, words of protest about the old Rebel grew.

County officials wanted to unload the old building and in 2012 agreed to sell it for $700,000. The fate of the Confederate statue and obelisk, though, was less clear-cut.

The late Walter Marshall, a black man and a longtime county commissioner accustomed to being a voice in the wilderness, wanted the statue removed or relocated as a condition of the sale.

The Confederacy was not legal, as far as Im concerned, Marshall said at the time. It was a form of treason. You dont recognize people who did not recognize the country as being legitimate.

The United Daughters of the Confederacy thought otherwise, however. The group claimed ownership and put its collective foot down.

The UDC, back in 1905, raised the money to have that built, said Cindy Casey, a past president of the local chapter. The county wrote in the newspaper a resolution thanking the UDC for giving the monument for citizens to enjoy. ... The statue represents men who died in the Civil War. It has nothing to do with race or racism.

In the end, the sale closed and the monument stayed put  and largely unnoticed.

Possible flashpoint

As people gathered down the block Sunday evening for a vigil that had been hastily organized in response to the tragedy in Charlottesville, the old Confederate again was mostly ignored.

Police dutifully passed by every so often and took note of a couple of cars and motorcycles circling Merschel Plaza and the monument a half block to the east.

We knew it could be a flashpoint, and we were told several years ago to keep an eye on it, said Sgt. Kevin Bowers of the Winston-Salem Police Departments downtown bike patrol. Weve had no issues here.

Not yet, anyhow.

The twitchy presence of a young man associated with a Confederate heritage group, out on a sleepy Sunday to make sure nobody messed with the monument, coupled with the violence in Charlottesville, wasnt terribly reassuring on that front.

Casey, who is no longer with the UDC, said that statues and monuments are a very difficult subject. I absolutely abhor white supremacy, she said. It has no place in our community.

Down the block, at the vigil, a 70-year-old Air Force veteran named Woodrow Haney admitted that he hadnt thought much about the Confederate monument in his hometown.

Im a black man. To black people, its about slavery and oppression, he said. Ill say this about (Confederate monuments)  I hope they move all those statues way out in a park somewhere so that people who want to see them can and theyre not right out in the middle of everything.

Ron Pardue, a white man who lives in Clemmons, said much the same thing. Perhaps it is time to move such statues and monuments. Maybe they belong in cemeteries or near Civil War battlefields, and not smack in the middle of a burgeoning, modern downtown.

Symbols change over time, or at least our understanding of them does, and I am no longer comfortable with it where it is, Pardue wrote in an email.

As things stand now, ownership of the monument is still claimed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and it sits on ground in an easement granted by the county when it sold the old courthouse to a developer.

Further complicating matters, the legislature, in 2015, passed a law making it more difficult to remove or relocate such monuments.

Its murky, at best, said Dudley Watts, the county manager. A lot of people have tried to tip-toe around it.

Maybe its time we do something about it. Maybe its time to stop treating the monument like Uncle Earls lawn jockey. Pardue, and others like him, think so.

My opinion on the memorials is evolving, he said. Charlottesville was a tipping point for me. Seeing the battle flag used next to (the) Nazi swastika made it crystal clear.

The Confederate monument, nestled next to the old Forsyth County Courthouse, sat mostly alone and largely ignored this weekend. Perhaps its time we stop looking away.
A Winston-Salem woman was indicted on first-degree murder charges in the fatal shooting of the manager of a gas station on Old Lexington Road last year.

Tonesha Tonyae Collins, 35, of Fir Street was indicted by a Forsyth County grand jury Monday in the death of J. Won Kim, 53, who lived on West Wendover Avenue in Jamestown. The shooting occurred at 9:54 p.m. on May 30, 2016, at the Citgo gas station in the 3400 block of Old Lexington Road, according to Winston-Salem police.

Police said Collins went into the store and shot Kim several times with a handgun. Kim was taken to Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, where he died on July 18, 2016. Collins was arrested the day after the shooting in Indianapolis and extradited to Winston-Salem. She was initially charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, inflicting serious injury. That charge was upgraded to murder when Kim died.

Nils Gerber, Collins attorney, filed a motion May 16 that questioned Collins capacity to proceed. In the motion, he said Collins appeared delusional and incapable of focusing on the charge. He also said Collins family and friends had noted that Collins mental faculties had diminished over the past few years. He also said in the motion that Collins had not been able to assist in her defense. Forsyth District Judge Camille Banks-Prince signed an order for Collins to be evaluated at Central Regional Hospital in Butner.

A hearing has not yet been held about Collins capacity to proceed.

I do not believe that this will ever be tried as first-degree murder based on a motion I filed, Gerber said Monday. A hearing will have to take place. There is medical evidence and credible evidence from Central Regional that shes incompetent to stand trial.

Collins is alleged to have been stalking Kim for several days before the shooting, according to a search warrant filed in the case. Before he lost consciousness, Kim told officers that the woman who shot him had been following and stalking him, the search warrant said.

An employee referred to as Mr. Rowdy in the search warrant told officers that the woman wore pink pants and a tank top shirt.

Mr. Rowdy advised that the female came to the store and was asking Mr. Kim for money and he refused, the search warrant said. She left the store and came back about 20 minutes later apologizing to Mr. Kim. She again asked for money and would not leave Mr. Kim alone, so he asked Mr. Rowdy to call the police. At that time, the female then produced a firearm and shot Mr. Kim several times.

Franklin Smith, another co-worker, told officers that the woman had been following Kim around for a few days and also provided officers with the license plate of the womans car, the search warrant said. Investigators checked with the N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles and found that the car was registered to Collins.

Edna Ward, who was dating Kim, looked at an image culled from surveillance video. She identified the woman in the image as Collins and told officers that Collins lived across from her parents house. Ward told officers that she knew Collins and had even taken Collins to church with her, the search warrant said.

When she was arrested in Indianapolis, Winston-Salem police searched her car and found 15 9mm live rounds and three cellphones. Another cellphone was seized when she was taken into custody. Investigators filed the search warrant to get into the cellphones and look for text messages, social media posts and other information.

It is believed that Mr. Kim and Tonesha Collins had contact for several days or weeks prior to the shooting of Mr. Kim and that record of this may be on the cellphones, according to the search warrant.

Collins is being held in the Forsyth County Jail with no bond allowed.
A 93-year-old woman will never drive again after she was convicted Tuesday of striking with her car a Forsyth County sheriffs deputy who was directing traffic at Tanglewood Park in Clemmons as part of a charity benefit in 2016, ultimately resulting in the deputys death.

Jessie Bennett Cook, 93, of Ivy Circle in Advance pleaded guilty in Forsyth District Court to one count of misdemeanor death by motor vehicle. She was accused of unintentionally failing to decrease her speed in her car, a 2006 Lexus, and hitting Deputy John Isenhour, who was standing in the road.

Isenhour died 10 days later.

Judge Camille Banks-Prince gave Cook a prayer for judgment continued, which means that no punishment was imposed, and ordered Cook to pay court costs. Cook had no prior criminal record.

The defendant doesnt have so much as a speeding ticket, your honor, Forsyth County Assistant District Attorney C. Ruffin Sykes told Banks-Prince during the hearing.

Banks-Prince said that one of the conditions is that Cook can no longer drive. Her attorney, David Freedman, said she has already surrendered her drivers license.

Isenhour, 38, a 17-year veteran of the Marine Corps before joining the Forsyth County Sheriffs Office, was directing traffic Sept. 18, 2016, on Clemmons Road during the annual Bike MS: Tour to Tanglewood fundraiser. Just after 10 a.m., Isenhour was standing in the eastbound lane on Clemmons Road attempting to stop traffic when Cooks car hit him.

The collision broke Isenhours neck, ribs, pelvis, both legs, nose and other facial bones.

He also suffered a traumatic brain injury, according to the Forsyth County District Attorneys Office.

Isenhour died Sept. 28, 2016 at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.

Sgt. Roger Mendenhall and Trooper Jonathan Sherrill of the N.C. Highway Patrol led the investigation. Sherrill said in court that Cook was driving 42 mph in a 45-mph zone and that there was no evidence that she was impaired or using her cellphone.

Cook had a restricted drivers license that required her to use corrective lenses when she drove and prohibited her from driving more than 45 mph.

She also could not drive outside of a 50-mile radius of her home in Advance.

At the time of the incident, she was in compliance with those restrictions, according to the prosecutors office.

Cook told investigators that she didnt see Isenhour and didnt know what she had hit. Isenhour was wearing a black sheriffs deputy uniform without a reflective vest. Sherrill said there were shadows from nearby trees.

Isenhours father, Charles Thomas Isenhour, 65, said John graduated from Riverside Military Academy and immediately enlisted in the military. Retiring after a long career with the Marine Corps, John wanted to be a state trooper in Kentucky but opted to become a Forsyth County sheriffs deputy to be close to family.

Charles Isenhour said the last time he saw his son alive was in the hospital when his son looked at him through his left eye.

I knew there would be no recovery, said the elder Isenhour, who says he has gone through the pain of many deaths.

I know from my faith that he is in a better place than he is on earth, he said.

Charles Isenhour said he was upset that Cook never reached out to him and the rest of the Isenhour family to apologize. Freedman said he advised Cook to not talk to the family because he didnt want there to be any perception that Cook was trying to influence the legal process. He said Cook was remorseful and has been cooperative with law-enforcement agencies in their investigation.

Cook said in court that she had wanted to reach out many times.

I want them to know how grieved I am, how much I loved them, how much I would want to hold them in my arms and tell them Im sorry for something that, in my eyes, was unavoidable, she said.

Charles Isenhour said state law should be changed so that if it ever gets to the point where a person Cooks age needs a restricted license, then maybe that person shouldnt be driving at all.

Cook and Charles Isenhour hugged and talked after the hearing.

Nanette Isenhour, Isenhours widow, said she has lost 25 pounds since her husband died. The most sleep she has had is three hours. Their children have struggled to accept that their father is not coming home. She said her life has been destroyed.

I have a lot of anger built up, she said. I have no compassion for this lady. She deserves more than this than a pat on the back for taking away a husband, a son and a father.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.  The driver charged with killing a woman at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville was previously accused of beating his mother and threatening her with a knife, according to police records released Monday.

Samantha Bloom, who is disabled and uses a wheelchair, repeatedly called police about her son, James Alex Fields Jr., in 2010 and 2011, telling officers he was on medication to control his temper, transcripts from 911 calls show.

Fields, 20, is accused of ramming his car into a crowd of counter-protesters on Saturday in Charlottesville, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer.

Fields, described by a former high school teacher as an admirer of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, was charged with second-degree murder.

A judge denied him bail Monday after the public defenders office said it couldnt represent him because a relative of someone in the office was injured in Saturdays protest.

Fields was assigned a local attorney, and another hearing was set for Aug. 25.

Records show that Fields was arrested and put in juvenile detention after his mother reported in 2011 that he stood behind her wielding a 12-inch knife.

In another incident in 2010, she said her son smacked her in the head and locked her in the bathroom after she told him to stop playing video games. There was no indication in the records that he was arrested.

Also Monday, a former classmate told The Associated Press that on a school trip to Europe in 2015, a teenage Fields couldnt stand the French and said he only went on the trip so that he could visit the Fatherland  Germany.

He just really laid on about the French being lower than us and inferior to us, said Keegan McGrath.

McGrath, now 18, said he challenged Fields on his beliefs, and the animosity between them grew so heated that it came to a boil at dinner on their second day. He said he went home after three or four days because he couldnt handle being in a room with Fields.

The incident shocked McGrath because he had been in German class with Fields for two unremarkable years.

He was just a normal dude most of the time, though he occasionally made dark jokes that put his class on edge, including one offhand joke about the Holocaust, McGrath said.

McGrath said Fields was no outcast: He had friends. He had people who would chat with him.

Protests and vigils were held around the country in the wake of Saturdays incident.

In Durham, N.C., protesters toppled a long-standing statue of a Confederate soldier.

The activists on Monday evening used a rope to pull down the monument outside a Durham courthouse. Video footage posted online shows protesters  some white, some black  kicking the crumpled bronze statue as dozens of people in the crowd cheered and chanted.

A United Daughters of the Confederacy website says the Confederate Soldiers Monument was erected in 1924.
The Rev. John Mendez harshly criticized the Rev. Franklin Graham on Monday as a liar and hypocrite after Graham blamed the Charlottesville City Council and Satan for the violence that happened there Saturday at a white supremacist rally.

Mendez, the pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church and a social activist, added that Franklin, doesnt represent what Jesus stood for.

Graham, the president of Samaritans Purse, an international relief organization based in Boone, wrote on his Facebook page on Sunday, Shame on the politicians whore making an attempt to push blame on President Trump for what happened in Charlottesville, Va.

Graham also is the president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, which bears the name of his father.

In the post Graham pointed to the Charlottesville City Council who voted to take away a memorial that had been in place since 1924, regardless of the possible repercussions. How about the city politicians who issued the permit for the lawful demonstration to defend the statue? Graham asked. And why didnt the mayor or the governor see that a powder keg was about to blow up and stop it before it got started?

Mendez said he agreed with the councils decision to remove Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lees statue from a Charlottesville park.

I think every symbol of hate, such as Confederate statutes and references to Dixie, should be torn down, Mendez said. Its not history. Its symbols of terrorism.

Mendez said Graham and other evangelicals never condemned the divisive and racist comments Trump campaigned on in 2016, and that Graham and Republicans now condemn the actions of white nationalists, but they dont talk about the white institutional racism that is prevalent in the country.

Members of Klu Klux Klan, neo-Nazi and pro-Confederate groups gathered in Charlottesville, Va., on Saturday to rally against that citys decision to remove a statute of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from a downtown park. Counter-protesters gathered to oppose the white nationalists rally.

Heather Heyer, 32, a counter protester, was killed when a car plowed through a crowd; 19 others were injured. James Alex Fields, 20, of Maumee, Ohio, a Nazi sympathizer, has been charged with murder and other offenses in Heyers death.

Graham wrote in his post, Instead they want to blame President Donald J. Trump for everything. Really, this boils down to evil in peoples hearts. Satan is behind it all. He wants division, he wants unrest, he wants violence and hatred. Hes the enemy of peace and unity.

I denounce bigotry and racism of every form, be it black, white or another, Graham wrote. My prayer is that our nation will come together. Were stronger together, and our answers lie in turning to God.

Winston-Salem City Council Member D.D. Adams said Graham feeds off an environment of hate that was displayed by the events in Charlottesville. Adams spoke Monday night at a small memorial service and vigil at the Blood Brought Word International Ministry for Heyer and the two Virginia state troopers who died Saturday when their helicopter crashed near Charlottesville.

Public and elected officials get blamed for every thing, Adams said. I would expect Franklin Graham to criticize their decision. That is part of the problem, and it adds fuel to the fire.

Apostle Kendrick Turner, the pastor of the Blood Brought Word, said he was disappointed that Graham never mentioned Trumps failure to mention the white supremacists by name in his initial comments Saturday about the unrest in Charlottesville.

The Lee statute caused a problem, said Turner. It represents hatred and bigotry.
The supporters of a N.C. House bill that would protect drivers who hit protesters from lawsuits if they exercise due care said Monday their bill wouldnt apply to drivers who commit acts like the one Saturday in Charlottesville, Va.

Opponents, though, said the bill still would penalize people exercising their right to protest.

The N.C. House passed House Bill 330 by a 67-48 vote in April. The bill passed a first vote in the Senate, then was sent to the Senate Rules Committee. The future of the bill is up in the air, though. Sen. Bill Rabon, the chairman of the rules committee, said Monday there are no plans right now to move forward with the bill.

The bills sponsors, State Rep. Justin Burr, R-Montgomery, and State Rep. Chris Millis, R-Onslow, issued a statement Monday about the bill and Saturdays violence in Charlottesville, Va., that left protester Heather Heyer dead.

It is intellectually dishonest and a gross mischaracterization to portray N.C. House Bill 330 as a protection measure for the act of violence that occurred in Charlottesville this past weekend, Burr and Millis said in the statement. Any individual who committed a deliberate or willful act, such as what happened this weekend in Charlottesville, would face appropriately severe criminal and civil liabilities.

The legislation was tailored to protect drivers exercising due care to avoid protesters blocking a public street or highway while respecting the right to protest according to the First Amendment, Burr and Millis said.

Heyer, 32, was killed when a car plowed into a crowd of people protesting a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville. James Alex Fields, 20, of Maumee, Ohio, is charged with murder and other offenses, accused of killing Heyer and injuring 19 others.Two Virginia state troopers also died Saturday when their helicopter crashed as it was deployed to try to contain the violence.

The Klu Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and neo-Confederates rallied in Charlottesville over the weekend to protest the removal of a statute of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in a downtown park. Counter-protesters flooded the city to oppose the rally, and many of them fought with the white supremacists.

The N.C. bill, Civil Procedure/Qualified Immunity for Auto Accident, was filed in the N.C. House about six months after the police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott, a 43-year-old black man killed in Charlotte on Sept. 20, 2016. Demonstrators upset about Scotts blocked interstate highways and other roads in the city after the shooting.

On April 27, state Reps. Donny Lambeth, Debra Conrad and Julia Howard, all Republicans representing Forsyth County, were among 67 House members to vote for the one-page bill. State Reps. Ed Hanes and Evelyn Terry, Forsyth County Democrats, were among 48 House members who voted against the bill.

The legislation states that a driver who is exercising due care and injures a protester who is blocking traffic in a public street or highway is immune from civil liability for the injury.

A person shall not be immune from civil liability if the actions leading to the injury were willful or wanton, the bill says.

The driver isnt protected if the protester has a valid permit for the protest, the legislation says.

Neither Lambeth, Conrad nor Hanes could be reached Monday to comment on the bill.

Howard said that the bill is a reasonable measure that requires a driver to exercise due care if a person is trying to get through an area where protesters have spilled out on a public street. Prosecutors and judges would decide whether criminal charges are appropriate in these cases if drivers hit someone with their vehicles, she said.

Howard said that Heyers death in Charlottesville was a mean, vicious act, but that incident has nothing to do with the bill.

That man (Fields) was intentionally trying to hurt somebody, Howard said.

Terry said she voted against the bill because it would retaliate against people who are exercising their right to protest.

People who suffer from stress and duress of daily injustices dont need more difficulty in protesting for their American civil and human rights, she said.
NEW YORK  President Donald Trump arrived at his home in Trump Tower on Monday for the first time since his inauguration, avoiding a throng of protesters on the streets flanking the skyscraper.

Thousands of demonstrators roared shame, shame, shame and not my president! while awaiting Trumps motorcade along Manhattans Fifth Avenue, but it ultimately approached from another direction. A far smaller crowd of Trump supporters also awaited him.

Onlookers who did see the motorcade greeted it with cellphone cameras and a few obscene gestures.

Some protesters carried signs with such messages as impeach and the White House is no place for white supremacy as chants including not my president and love, not hate  thats what makes America great rose above traffic noise. Nearby, an inflatable, rat-like caricature of Trump stood by The Plaza hotel.

The Rev. Jan Powell, a retired minister of the United Church of Christ, carried a sign that read No justice, no peace as she stood opposite Trumps signature tower.

She said she was bothered by the Republican presidents response to the white supremacist rally that descended into violence Saturday in Virginia. But what bothers me the most is when folks like Trump try to silence our First Amendment right to free speech, either with violence or fake news or hate speech, Powell said.

Still, she said, I pray for him every day. We are both human beings.

Meanwhile, about two dozen Trump fans were in a separate pen near The Plaza, chanting God bless President Trump and carrying American flags.

Now is not the time for divisiveness, read one of their signs.

With anti-Trump demonstrators penned across the sidewalk, both sides yelled at each other, Go home!

A block south of Trump Tower, police officers with bullhorns confronted protesters pressing against and straining the barricades, telling the demonstrators to step back.

Police had stationed sand-filled sanitation trucks as barriers around Trumps signature skyscraper and layers of metal police barricades around the main entrance.

Trump, under pressure after initially condemning what he called an egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides, on Monday declared that racism is evil and described members of the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and white supremacists who take part in violence as criminals and thugs.

Bowing to pressure from right and left, Trump condemned white supremacist groups by name on Monday, declaring racism is evil after two days of public equivocation and internal White House debate over the deadly race-fueled clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia.

In a hastily arranged statement at the White House, Trump branded members of the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists who take part in violence as criminals and thugs.

The groups are repugnant to everything that we hold dear as Americans, he said.

In his initial remarks on the violence Saturday, Trump did not single out the groups and instead bemoaned violence on many sides. Those remarks prompted stern criticism from fellow Republicans as well as Democrats, who urged him to seize the moral authority of his office to condemn hate groups.

Trumps softer statement on Saturday had come as graphic images of a car plowing into a crowd in Charlottesville were playing continually on television. White nationalists had assembled in the city to protest plans to take down a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, and counter-protesters gathered in opposition. Fights broke out, and then a man drove into the opponents of the white supremacists. One woman was killed and many more badly hurt. Twenty-year-old James Alex Fields Jr. of Ohio is charged with second-degree murder and other counts.

The president had indicated to advisers before his initial statement Saturday that he wanted to stress a need for law and order, which he did.
Some high school freshman in Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools who dont have internet access at home will get it this fall as part of the Sprint 1Million Project.

The district is one of eight in North Carolina that will receive about 11,000 free wireless mobile devices and hotspots, said Roni Singleton, spokeswoman with Sprint.

Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools will receive 1,400 Android tablets each year for four years.

Any school district could participate by filling out an application by October, Singleton said. They had to meet basic requirements, including having someone on the tech staff who can help run it over five years.

Guilford County Schools was also selected, and will receive 2,500 smartphones, Singleton said.

When the districts applied, they told Sprint how many items they would like, Singleton said. She declined to say if Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools received the maximum number they requested.

The district will receive Android tablets, which is what it requested, said Brent Campbell, spokesman for Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools.

District officials could have also requested smartphones or hotspot devices from Sprint. Campbell said the district requested tablets so students could more easily do their homework.

The devices will have 3GB of high-speed LTE data per month.

Freshmen will receive the devices in September and will keep them their high school career, with 1,400 distributed to freshmen each year during the four-year program, Campbell said.

Students will be selected by high schools surveying students, asking who doesnt have internet at home, who shares devices with a sibling or who has dial-up internet, Campbell said. Counselors will compile the list and split the devices as evenly as possible among the high schools, with preference likely given to the students with no internet.

The 1Million Project is something thats a passion of Sprints CEO, according to Singleton.

Weve been wanting to fill the need around the country for kids who dont have the internet. We want to try to help kids have equal footing, she said. Theres a great need for kids to have internet access at home.

She said this is necessary not only for students who need to do their homework, but also to apply for jobs and scholarships.

Once students are selected, an activation fair will be held and the devices will be handed out by Sprint, Singleton said.

North Carolina has really embraced the program, Singleton said.

Other school districts in North Carolina receiving the lines include:

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.

Cumberland County Schools.

Buncombe County Schools.

Nash-Rocky Mount Public Schools.

Rockingham County Schools

(323 lines)

.

Pitt County Schools.
RALEIGH  The Raleigh man behind the Twitter account @YesYoureRacist said Monday that since publishing photos of torch-carrying white supremacist protesters in Charlottesville Saturday, he has received remarkable support  but also death threats.

Logan Smith, who is communications director for Progress NC Action, says the account had about 65,000 followers Saturday morning. On Monday afternoon, it had topped 307,000 and was climbing.

I have been receiving death threats for the past 20 hours or so, Smith said in an interview. They have been threatening my family, too. The overall response of course has been 99 percent positive, but theres always that extremely small but extremely loud and extremely angry minority that bites back.

Smith said the threats seem to come from white supremacists, neo-Nazis and alt-right groups.

Theyre mostly anonymous Twitter accounts with three followers that only tweet nonstop hate, he said. But theres a lot of them  and they are mad.

In the past, Smiths account has mostly just retweeted people making statements Logan found to be racist. The weekend events in Charlottesville mark the first time he has used photos to call out people, he said.

I just started seeing all these photos from the torch march Friday night and the riots on Saturday and it was just so disturbing, he said. These photos from the torch march  it was exactly what you see in photos from 1930s Germany. But this is not happening in history books or some faraway country. Its here, its now.

And these people arent afraid anymore. Theyre not hiding behind their hoods like they did before the civil rights era. They are out and proud. I think if they are so proud of their beliefs and proud to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with neo-Nazis and KKK members and white supremacists of all stripes, then I think their communities need to know who they are. Theyre not random faces in the crowd, theyre your neighbors, theyre your co-worker, theyre the people you pass in the grocery store.

The attention from @YesYoureRacist got one man disowned by his family and another man is no longer employed at a hot dog restaurant in California.

Im not trying to get anybody fired, Smith said. Im not contacting anybodys employers. But you know, if someone goes to a white supremacists rally and their employer sees them, then thats their prerogative, and thats something they probably should have thought about.

Smith did misidentify one person at the rally but corrected the error.

Smith started the @YesYoureRacist Twitter account in October 2012, partly inspired by racism directed at President Barack Obama. But Smith said mostly he was inspired by Twitter searches he did for random phrases that he was hoping no one would be tweeting, like who is Neil Armstrong after the astronaut died.

It was when he searched for the phrase Im not racist but that Smith said he was moved to act.

I was just overwhelmed by the amount of casual, obvious racism, Smith said. People saying stuff like, Im not racist but I dont think we should have a black president. How could you not think thats racist? It was so astounding to me that I thought I just have to make a project on this.

Smith, an East Tennessee native who attended the University of South Carolina, said he believes its important for everyone to call out racism.

Im a white man, and I think that, while you may not expect that to be the person behind an anti-racism Twitter account, I think everyone  especially white people  have a responsibility to stand up against bigotry wherever they encounter it. Otherwise, by remaining silent you are potentially complicit in that white supremacist system, which depends on silence in order to thrive.

And even with the death threats, Smith said he is undaunted.

Nobody likes to get death threats, but intimidation is how these people work, he said. Its how theyve worked from the days of the KKK burning crosses in peoples yards and in Nazi Germany. By giving in to their intimidation tactics, thats how they win.

Im not going away.
It should not have taken the death and injury of innocents to move our nation toward moral clarity. It should not have taken President Trumps disgraceful refusal to condemn white supremacy, bigotry and Nazism to make clear to all who he is and which dark impulses he is willing to exploit to maintain his hold on power.

Those of us who are white regularly insist that the racists and bigots are a minority of us and that the white-power movement is a marginal and demented faction.

This is true, and the mayhem in Charlottesville, Va., Saturday called forth passionate condemnations of blood-and-soil nationalism across the spectrum of ideology. These forms of witness were a necessary defense of the American idea and underscored the shamefulness of Trumps embrace of moral equivalence. There are not, as Trump insisted Saturday, many sides to questions that were settled long ago: Racism, anti-Semitism, discrimination and white supremacy are unequivocally wrong.

Trump was more specific in comments Monday. But a president who cannot bring himself to say this immediately and unequivocally squanders any claim to moral leadership.

Advisers to the president tried to clean up after this moral failure, putting out a statement Sunday morning  attributed to no one  declaring that of course his condemnation of violence includes white supremacists, KKK, neo-Nazi and all extremist groups. But if that of course is sincere, why didnt Trump say these things in the first place? And why hang on to the presidents inexcusable moral equivalence by adding that phrase and all extremist groups? This was simply a weak philosophical cover-up for a politician who has shown us his real instincts throughout his public life, from his birtherism to his reluctance to turn away 2016 endorsements from Klansmen and other racists.

More Republicans than usual broke with Trump after his anemic response, and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, was especially poignant in offering historical perspective on this episode: My brother didnt give his life fighting Hitler for Nazi ideas to go unchallenged here at home.

But that so many others in the party preferred to keep their discomfort on background was itself a scandal. I cant tell you how sick & tired I am of the privately wincing Republicans, Peter Wehner, a veteran of three Republican administrations, tweeted. Its a self-incriminating silence. Yes, it is.

The proper response is for Democrats and Republicans willing to take a stand to force a vote in Congress condemning the president for his opportunistic obtuseness and making clear where the vast majority of Americans stand on white supremacy. This is important for many reasons, but especially to send a message to Americas minorities that whites are willing to do more than offer rote condemnations of racism.

For make no mistake: No matter how accurate it is to say that neo-Nazis and Klansmen represent a repugnant fringe, the fact that our president has consistently and successfully exploited white racial resentment cannot help but be taken by citizens of color as a sign of racisms stubborn durability.

The backlash to racial progress is an old American story, from the end of Reconstruction forward. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.s words from 1967 speak to us still: Loose and easy language about equality, resonant resolutions about brotherhood fall pleasantly on the ear, but for the Negro, there is a credibility gap he cannot overlook. He remembers that with each modest advance the white population promptly raises the argument that the Negro has come far enough. Each step forward accents an ever-present tendency to backlash. This is what we saw this weekend.

The battles over Confederate monuments, in Charlottesville and elsewhere, reflect our difficulty in acknowledging that these memorials are less historical markers than political statements. Many were erected explicitly in support of Jim Crow and implicitly to deny the truth that the Southern cause in the Civil War was built around a defense of slavery. Taking them down is an acknowledgement of what history teaches, not an eradication of the past.

But history is also being made now. As is always true with Trump, self-interest is the most efficient explanation for his actions: Under pressure from the Russia investigation, he is reluctant to alienate backlash voters, who are among his most loyal supporters.

The rest of us, however, have a larger obligation to our country and to racial justice. As the late civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer might suggest, it is time to ask about Trump: When will we become sick and tired of being sick and tired?
WILLIAMSBURG, Va. -- It's a rainy and humid afternoon in mid-August and General George Washington, commander of the Continental Army, and I are talking about what a new nation called the United States of America is going to do about the "peculiar institution" of slavery now that it's won its freedom from England.

Or rather, I'm having the conversation with Ron Carnegie, a historical interpreter at Colonial Williamsburg, who's spent years portraying, well, the Foundingest of all the Founding Fathers.

Washington, he tells me, struggled with slavery, even though he owned slaves for 56 years. As president, he stayed publicly silent on the subject, expecting that the ugly blight on our national conscience would collapse under its own weight - even though it took decades longer, and a bloody Civil War, for that to finally happen.

(Washington, it should be noted, freed his slaves in his will, making him the only Founding Father to do so.)

It's a hugely engrossing conversation. And time melts away as Carnegie, a deep student of Washington, whose enthusiasm for his subject is beyond contagious, shares his knowledge.

It was one of many conversations over several days I had last week with the historical interpreters who bring this landmark to life for scores of tourists from across the country and around the world.

Colonial Williamsburg's mission, we're all told more than once, is to tell "America's enduring story," just as it's been doing since 1926, when the Rev. W.A.R Goodwin, rector of the Bruton Parish Church here, first pitched philanthropist John D. Rockefeller on his plan to restore Virginia's Colonial capital.

But history isn't what it used to be.

As multiple news outlets reported earlier this summer, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the nonprofit that runs the tourist attraction in Virginia's Tidewater country, has cut and outsourced dozens of jobs to grapple with $300 million in debt and losses that totaled $54 million at the end of 2016.

It's a very modern problem for an institution that bends over backward to make visitors think they've crash-landed in an 18th century town.

But as painful as the cuts were, the alternative, "doing nothing," would mean "the end of this national treasure," Mitchell Reiss, the foundation's chief executive officer, wrote in a letter to the Williamsburg community, Bloomberg News reported in late June.

"It would mean the end of our mission," Reiss wrote.

Walking along the lovingly restored streets, ducking in an out of buildings, and chatting with employees who have, in many cases, been performing their roles for decades, it's not pleasant to consider an America without Colonial Williamsburg.

Yes, this place is expensive. And, yes, it's a little kitschy. But it's also exhilarating.

Because wrapped up in the questions that Carnegie and his colleagues pose to the patrons at Colonial Williamsburg is a very modern, yet still eternal, challenge to the way we think about ourselves as Americans.

They're questions to go the heart of our national character: How hard would we fight to preserve our own liberty in the face of a tyrannical government? How much do we treasure the right to determine our own fate as a nation? And when that government oversteps, what rights -- what duty -- do we have as citizens to rein it back in again?

The questions are open-ended enough to allow each visitor to answer them according to his or her own political leanings and philosophy.

A conservative visitor, for instance, might agree with Jefferson that a limited federal government, one with very tightly prescribed powers, is the most preferable form of government.

They might also agree with Jefferson's observation to James Madison, in 1787, that "a little rebellion, from time to time, is a good thing."

A more traditionally liberal visitor, meanwhile, might agree with the federalist George Wythe (the Williamsburg town father who schooled Jefferson in the law), who favored a stronger central government.

They're the same arguments the Founders had with each other more than two centuries ago. And given our own times and the challenges we face, those questions prompt deep contemplation and provoke active discussion.

So it's hard to leave this place with anything other than a reawakened passion for our early history, a fresh appreciation for the magnitude of the tale, and just utter awe at the heroic sacrifice that birthed America's "enduring story."

It's also tough to leave here without feeling the weight of your own responsibility to add to that enduring story, as we're exhorted to do more than once.

Toughest of all, though, is imagining Colonial Williamsburg not being here to help tell it.
We no longer have the option to pretend things are OK, Kenneth Pettigrew, pastor of Shouse Temple CME Church, told about 300 people gathered at a unity vigil in downtown Winston-Salem Sunday.

We agree. Were not going to dish out any platitudes here. One member of our editorial board who was in Charlottesville Saturday saw the white supremacists stirring up hatred a few hours before one of them crashed his car into peaceful counter-protesters, killing a 32-year-old idealist, Heather Heyer, and injuring many others. That was domestic terrorism, period.

It was part of an ugly day in which the supremacists clashed with the counter-protesters and police. Two state troopers, Lt. H. Jay Cullen and Trooper-Pilot Berke M.M. Bates, who were working the event from the air, were killed when their helicopter crashed.

The domestic terrorism happened in a beautiful foothills town just a few hours drive north of here. It could happen right here, too, or anywhere else in America.

We have to face the threat together. Were not going to get leadership on this matter from our president, whose initial statement Saturday on the Charlottesville violence was, at best, ambiguous.

The catalyst in Charlottesville was the removal of a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee. Ironically, Lee, as wrong as he was in leading a war to uphold slavery, laid the Confederate cause down after his side lost and worked at reconciliation.

But reconciliation over racial issues is an elusive ideal in America today.

Weve yet to resolve the tension brought on by the fact that most of our freedom-talking founders, including Thomas Jefferson of Charlottesville, were slave-owners.

Rev. Pettigrew said Sunday that We have to wake up each day to the reality that we have a fight ahead of us. We have to recognize unity and work come at a cost, and that cost is truth, including telling the truth about what happened yesterday (in Charlottesville), the Journals Richard Craver reported.

Whats encouraging is that vigils like the one here sprang up nationwide after the Charlottesville violence. And the one here  sponsored by the Young Democrats of Forsyth County, Winston-Salem Urban League Young Professionals and the Forsyth County Teenage Republicans  was notably diverse. It was billed on social media as hate has no home here.

The overarching message from local speakers is that the Charlottesville incident was just the latest in a series of violent acts that will reoccur unless and until Americans of all cultural, political and racial persuasions denounce and fight hatred rather than just ignoring it, the Journal reported.

Heather Heyer is gone. The threat of white supremacists killing more innocents is real. It falls to us, the living, to speak out together against their hate.
CHARLES NIFONG, Clemmons

Noble intentions

I would like to respond to the Aug. 11 letter Thinking about the poor.

The letter writer gives her opinion on the difference in the way she thinks liberals and conservatives see poor people. According to her, liberals are the compassionate ones who see the poor as families with hungry children and people with debilitating diseases. Liberals want to help them.

According to her, conservatives see the poor as people sitting at home drinking beer while collecting welfare checks. They have no concern at all for hungry, naked children.

This seems to be the theme of most letters to The Readers Forum.

In my opinion, if such concern for the poor is truly genuine, she and all liberals who agree with her should sell all their possessions, except bare necessities, and give the proceeds to these poor people she speaks of. Until this happens, please spare us your hypocritical nonsense about how noble you are and how greedy everyone else is.

***

MALCOLM RAMSEY, Winston-Salem

Eight months in

Eight months into President Trumps term, were on the brink of nuclear war and Nazis are marching in American streets.

But her emails ...

***

BILLY C. MEADOWS, Winston-Salem

Republicans speak up

After the Charlottesville tragedy, several prominent Republican leaders went online to express their anger and sadness that Nazis would be allowed to propagate their message of hate in an American city  and, surprisingly, to criticize President Trumps weak-kneed response.

Bill Kristol tweeted: What @POTUS should say: To racists and anti-Semites who claim to support me, know this: I denounce your bigotry and reject your support.

Sen. Orrin Hatch tweeted: We should call evil by its name. My brother didnt give his life fighting Hitler for Nazi ideas to go unchallenged here at home.  OGH

Sen. Cory Gardner tweeted: Mr. President  we must call evil by its name. These were white supremacists and this was domestic terrorism.

Sen. Jeff Flake: The #WhiteSupremacy in #Charlottesville does not reflect the values of the America I know. Hate and bigotry have no place in this country.

I disagree with all of these men politically. But I know that theyre not evil and that they wont serve as harbors for racial hatred.

The real political battle today isnt between liberal and conservative, left and right. Its between love and hate. Its between reason and ignorance.

I wish we could count on the president to be on the right side of that battle, but we cant.

***

RON F. SLATER, Winston-Salem

Content matters

Its a given in America that we have freedom of speech; government cannot censor anyone for their political speech. Its also a given that one may have to suffer the consequences of what they say.

It should also be a given that content matters. Theres a difference between espousing a view that is kind and uplifting and a view that is hateful and divisive.

The worst thing Ive seen (so far) in the wake of the Charlottesville tragedy is what some of the neo-Nazis are writing online about 32-year-old Heather Heyer, the victim of the white supremacist who drove his car into the crowd of protestors. They say that shes worthless, she deserved to die, because she was fat and childless.

They say things even worse than that that I refuse to repeat.

This is how these people think we should talk to each other  or, at least, how they want to talk about people they consider to be inferior. They want this level of discourse to be the norm in America. They promote this ugliness in the name of being against political correctness.

They think this is telling it like it is. Its not even close. Their statements about this young woman are not only vile, theyre false and ignorant. A persons worth is not dependent on how well they please the juvenile expectations of white supremacists.

How long would it take, if they got their wish, before society broke down completely? Is that what they want?

***

SAMANTHA BURGE, Winston-Salem

Speaking up

I watched President Trumps press conference Saturday following Charlottesville, and read his vague tweets condemning violence in general.

Why is he afraid to say radical white supremacist terrorism? Is there some ally among that group that hes being careful not to offend?

You cant fight something if you cant even name it.

Please submit letters online to Letters@ws journal.com or mail letters to: The Readers Forum, P.O. Box 3159, Winston-Salem, NC 27102. Letters are subject to editing and are limited to 250 words. For more guidelines and advice on writing letters, go to journalnow.com/opinion/submit_a_letter.
With decades of teaching experience in several capacities in Texas and over the past three years with The Flowertown Blossoms in Summerville, Anicia D. Brown is dead set on handing youngsters the tools to master stage acting and production, while also imparting impactful life lessons along t Read moreFlowertown Blossoms preaching the value of teamwork
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad Al Hussein called on Kenyan leaders [press release] Tuesday to take the responsible path and exercise their leadership to avoid violence in the wake of last weeks contentious election. Deadly protests erupted [JURIST report] over the weekend after incumbent candidate Uhuru Kenyatta was declared the winner Friday. Opposition candidate Raila Odinga has claimed widespread voter fraud. Zeid expressed concern over reports of police brutality and the use of live ammunition against protesters:

People have the right to assemble and protest peacefully, and the authorities have a responsibility to ensure they can do so. The Government also has a responsibility to ensure that security forces prioritize dialogue, non-violent means and exercise restraint, using proportionate force only when unavoidable.  Protesters should never resort to violence and political leaders should send clear messages to their supporters urging peaceful conduct. All acts of violence, including the serious allegations of excessive use of force by security forces, must be promptly and independently investigated.

Zeid urged Kenyas leaders to do their utmost to calm a volatile political climate.

Protests following Kenyas 2007 election resulted in more than 1,200 deaths, triggering an International Criminal Court investigation and charges that were ultimately dropped [JURIST report] against Kenyatta. In March a rights group urged investigation [JURIST report] into the practices and surveillance techniques of Kenyan police officers after releasing a report documenting serious human rights abuses. In February a group of UN human rights experts urged [JURIST report] Kenya to stop crackdowns on human rights group to protect the integrity of the upcoming election. In November a group of UN human rights experts condemned reported violence [JURIST report] against anti-corruption protesters and journalists in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.
My travel starts with two great Russian cities and not without a bump.

I arrive into bustling St Petersburg with 2 hours sleep in the fuel gallon already standing at empty on the first day of the school holidays. I dont waste any time with my travels.

The baggage area of the airport is a fascinating mix of West meets East. It is a great place to watch people, especially as they spend hours waiting for their bags, generally resigned but with some grunts as sniffer dogs are let loose on the baggage carousel. Narcotics have been found on a plane from Kazakhstan and all the luggage is held up.

When I am finally outfitted with my bags and chatting to some friendly Iranians, disaster strikes. Exhausted and sidetracked, I manage to leave my small rucksack containing my all my travel essentials and valuables on board a small local bus going from the airport to the city.

A kindly local stranger I meet in the subway station, who can barely speak any English, sees my despair and marches me up the stairs to the police, who dont do much to help. He introduces himself as Armen and becomes my guardian angel. For the next couple of hours armed with the patience of a saint and the persistence of a toddler learning to walk, he makes dozens of phone calls and using my finger sized bus ticket miraculously retraces the bag. It sits in the same bus, parked in one of the many, maze-like bus terminals on the outskirts of the city. The bus driver is waiting for me to collect it. I am incredibly lucky. The decency and goodness of humanity prevails. And in the light of this my adventures begin.

Majestic St Petersburg

St Petersburg must be one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Entering its kingdom is an experience which merges all of the senses. Majestic grandeur, pomp and glory fill its air. The city enchants with its grand palaces, luscious parks filled with pearly white busts, fountain jets, and flower filled orangeries, inconspicuous gold domed Cathedrals and, of course, the renowned Hermitage.

The Winter Palace, a section of the vast Hermitage houses nearly 3 million works of art, from Rembrandt to Leonardo da Vinci. It also contains the ostentatious apartments of the Tsar, wherein I feel like a Grand Duchess as I wander around the sumptuous surroundings. These include a stunning chapel with a golden, crown-shaped dome shimmering in the suns rays.

The Venice of the North lives up to its expectations in every facet. Canals and rivers meander around the city, leading to the many islands. A leisurely boat trip brings an entirely different perspective with its reflections of the magical buildings and the few clouds in the lapping waters, particularly as the sun starts to lower its head.

Hare Island is home to a lavish cathedral where the Romanovs were laid to rest in 1997, 80 years to the day of their murder in cold blood in Ekaterinburg. Next to it a former prison lies, where Revolutionaries including Trotsky were housed in large, damp, dark rooms. Despite efforts to sound proof the walls prisoners communicated using an ingenious tapping alphabet, on the walls and windows.

Nevsky Prospect, perhaps the most famous street in Russia, heaves with shops, cafes, and street sellers making coffee from the boots of cars and vans. People are all over the pavements and clamber over its bridges lightly raised above the intersecting canals.

The Church of the Spilled Blood sits on the river bank of one if Nevsky Prospects side streets. It is overwhelmingly beautiful. Sublime, religious paintings cover the walls, portraying the lives of sacred figures, covering every nook and cranny. It is as if man was working in union with the divine in producing something so beautiful.

The Faberge museum is a treat. It hosts the world famous, captivating Easter eggs which Tsar Nicholas II gave to his wife every Easter. Each delightful, unique, intricately detailed egg took an entire year to make and was a race against the clock.

There is so much more to discover in this charming city, but with my tight schedule and a heavy heart two days later I head to Moscow.

Lost in the enormity of Moscow

Dead at night, dropped off by a friendly Uber driver, I find myself lost in Moscow. The street of the hotel has several buildings of the same number on both its sides. Some kindly road workers come to help but with no luck. My communication difficulties in Russia are twofold: both the language and the alphabet are different. With the sheer scale of the place, Moscow does not help. From the very onset, it becomes clear that Moscow is on an entirely different plane to St Petersburg. An enormous industrialised megalopolis with over 10 million inhabitants it contrasts with the easy-to-get around, cosy and oozing charm of St Petersburg.

Moscows highlights lie in the centre with its renowned Red Square, the Kremlin, surrounded by startling fortress fiery red walls on the river banks and Lenins mausoleum, where his body lies preserved and open to the public against his wishes and those of his wife. Scores of visitors from around the world come to see him daily.

Monsoon style weather hits as I meander around the Kremlin. Enormous glorious cathedrals are the perfect place to shelter whilst drinking in the beauty of the Russian orthodox religious icons. These icons are believed to link our earthly dimensions to the divine and are seen as a window to heaven.

The Red Square is home to the iconic, extraordinary cathedral of astonishing geometric proportions, St Basil s Cathedral. Inside: more beautiful iconography, the relics of Saints and beautiful voices of musicians echoing throughout as they raise their voices to the heavens.

A day in Moscow is complete, it is time for my next stop, Irkutsk. Its 4200km, and although the 4 days train travel on the Trans-Mongolian Express appeals  it is supposed to be great fun and beautiful  I choose the 6-hours flight to save time.
KEARNEY  Americas wild animals are not reading newspaper stories about Mondays Great American Eclipse or preparing for the midday darkness within the totality corridor from Oregon to South Carolina.

However, some animals wearing global positioning equipment for existing research projects may help two University of Nebraska at Kearney Biology Department faculty members shine a light on solar eclipse effects.

Dustin Ranglack and Nate Bickford are collecting information about six red-tail hawks wearing GPS backpacks for a long-term UNK research project and will be sent data from about 25 other wildlife researchers in totality areas in Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Georgia and South Carolina.

We even have some in Oklahoma, Texas, North Dakota and South Dakota. Theyre not in totality, but theyll still get an 80 percent eclipse, said Ranglack, a UNK assistant professor specializing in wildlife ecology. All of the animals we will be using already have a GPS tag of some kind on them.

The eclipse study data is being collected this week ahead of Mondays eclipse and during the post-eclipse week.

Ranglack said the tight window helps ensure that other factors in the animals lives  food, water sources, environment  are mostly the same every day, leaving the eclipse as the most likely variable for any movement or activity changes seen in Mondays GPS data.

A benefit of GPS technology over observation research is no one risks disturbing the animals. So, if we see changes, we are more able to determine its because of the eclipse, Ranglack said.

The UNK eclipse study is funded in part by a small NASA grant.

Ranglack said other participants were contacted via emails sent to state wildlife management agencies and listservs used by wildlife researchers. Almost all of the responses from universities and from federal and state agencies were from people the UNK researchers dont know.

Bickford, an associate professor specializing in conservation and sustainability issues, described it as almost scary overwhelming,

Ranglack said the challenge is having so many animals and so much data, likely in several formats, that must be correctly labeled and put into computer models before he and Bickford can start looking for eclipse effects.

Well include students, too, which is exciting for them, Bickford said.

Even if they cannot link any animal behaviors to the eclipse, they expect to have enough data to say that. Ranglack said that means they will publish something from the project no matter what is learned.

The idea for a study using GPS-tracked animals came from a conversation between the two biologists at a UNK planetarium talk by Bickford.

After he agreed to talk about eclipse effects on wildlife, he discovered there wasnt much information on the topic. He found a zoo study that had used a two-week observation window to limit the non-eclipse influences on animal behaviors.

Bickford and Ranglack first thought about partnering with citizen scientists before choosing the GPS plan. They said each data-gathering method, observation or telemetry has pluses and minuses.

No one is putting GPS trackers on any of these species just to see what they would do during the solar eclipse, Ranglack said.

The UNK team attached equipment to the six red-tailed hawks over the past six months and plans to tag more hawks, plus deer and bobcats, in the next few months for their long-term study of animal movements related to habitat fragmentation. It is funded through a University of Nebraska collaboration initiative and involves Omaha campus researchers.

Bickford said the GPS tags used by most animal researchers last three to five years.

Among the questions he and Ranglack hope may be answered by the eclipse study is whether some animals can sense the approaching alignment of Earth, moon and sun hours before the eclipse is seen.

Others are whether nocturnal hunters such as owls will wake up in the middle of the day or if other birds will go to their roosts when conditions get dusky and return to daytime routines after the eclipse.

And once you have an answer to a question, it leads to four others, Ranglack said.

Bickford said so little is known now about eclipses affect wildlife that the project will at least provide more information for the next generation. Plus, he added, Its just fun.

The one big advantage of waiting for GPS data to be downloaded, rather than doing field observations, is the researchers get to watch the solar eclipse.

Bickford plans to be at Foster Field Monday. Im gonna have my kids there and just enjoy it, he said.

Ranglack, who will be elsewhere in Kearney, said, Im going to be looking up.
As reality TV programs go, the Donald Trump administration is a badly scripted muddle. Just the other day, the president reached out to the influential Imaginary-American community. He dashed out a tweet thanking one Nicole Mincey, supposedly a conservative black woman enthusiastically posting praise of Trump himself.

Except, uh-oh, the photogenic Mincey appeared not to exist. Pictures of her wearing Trump paraphernalia turned out to be photoshopped screen-grabs of African-American fashion models. Twitter suspended the @ProTrump45 account after concluding that it was a phony, perhaps originating (where else?) in Russia.

Since then, a real Nicole Mincy (note alternate spelling), has emerged, claiming that shes a victim of identity theft.

Twitter estimates that slightly more than half of Trumps approximately 30 million followers are bots, i.e. fraudulent accounts, many Russian.

Almost simultaneously, Trump lashed out at his favorite whipping boy, the so-called mainstream media. He tweeted: Hard to believe that with 24/7 #FAKE News on CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, NYTIMES & WAPO, the Trump base is getting stronger!

Is it even necessary to point out that the presidents approval rating in opinion polls has sunk to record lows?

But polls come and go. Whats really alarming are Trumps efforts to depict the news media as united in a near-treasonous conspiracy against him and his supporters. Or would be if they werent so clearly born of desperation.

He repeatedly lashes out at the failing NY Times, another falsehood because the newspapers paid circulation is at an all-time high 3.3 million and growing.

Posturing before a cheering crowd at a campaign-style rally in West Virginia, the president took it to the next level. He called independent counsel Robert Muellers investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election a witch hunt, and any potential charges a total fabrication. He accused Democrats of seeking an excuse for the greatest loss in the history of American politics.

Then he went there:

They cant beat us at the voting booths, Trump charged, so theyre trying to cheat you out of the future and the future that you want. Theyre trying to cheat you out of the leadership you want with a fake story that is demeaning to all of us, and most importantly, demeaning to our country and demeaning to our Constitution.

The good news, I think, is that Trump hasnt got the courage of his fabrications. Nor have his most enthusiastic supporters. That West Virginia audience was basically a pro-wrestling crowd, easily titillated and vastly entertained by the presidents antics.

As for the dreaded mainstream media, its tempting to observe that as the cable news networks  CNN and MSNBC particularly  made Trump, its only fitting that they play a role in unmaking him. Meanwhile, under the pressure of Trumps shameless, incessant lying, his trademark FakeNews slogan has turned itself inside-out. What once signified make-believe has basically come to mean, Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?

Arkansas Times columnist Gene Lyons is a National Magazine Award winner and co-author of The Hunting of the President.
FILE - In this May 19, 2017 file photo, planes of Air Berlin company parked in airport in Schonefeld, Germany. Struggling German carrier Air Berlin says it's filing for bankruptcy after its main shareholder, Abu Dhabi-based Etihad, said it would make no more financing available. The Economy Ministry and Transport Ministry said Tuesday Aug. 15, 2017 in a statement that the airline would get a loan of 150 million euros ($177 million) so that it can continue flights for the time being. (Ralf Hirschberger/dpa via AP, file)
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Security forces stand guard outside a cafe and a restaurant that was attacked by suspected Islamic extremists in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, Monday, Aug. 14 , 2017. The death toll is still rising and authorities said Monday many of the victims were children dining with their families Sunday night. (AP Photo/ Alain Didier CompaorA)
FILE - This is a June 15, 2016 file photo of of traffic crossing the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland in the village of Bridgend, Co Donegal Ireland. Britain said Wednesday Aug. 16, 2017 that there must be no border posts between Northern Ireland and the Irish republic after Brexit. (Brian Lawless/PA, File via AP)
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Its 7 a.m. We sit down around a table in the physicians lounge to discuss and our patients. I am a general and critical care surgeon. Every fourth week Im on service for the ICU. This is my week. I was off over the weekend. Im refreshed and ready to go. Im excited. I enjoy the challenge of taking care of critically ill patients.

I get sign out from my partner. It was a busy week for him. He is happy to be handing over the service. A patient was recently admitted to the ICU after a serious trauma that required an emergent operation. He is on the vent and is sick. There are other sick patients in the ICU, but he needs the most immediate attention.

Multidisciplinary rounds start at 9 a.m. with this patient. I found it odd that no family member had been by to see this patient. As my week went by, this patient was slowly improving. Still, there was no family, no one showed up to see him. Our social worker was trying to find a next of kin, a parent, sibling, anyone that may know him. Nothing. We were approaching the end of the week. Despite his injuries, he had youth on his side. He was improving. I was feeling optimistic about him. He gets extubated. Sunday he gets transferred out of the ICU.

Monday morning. My week is over. I sign out the patients in the morning and am on my way home. Im walking to my car as my pager goes off, its the floor, this patient has a visitor. His mother is at bedside and wants to talk to the doctor. I figured I knew him best, so I didnt turf this to my partner and went up to talk to her.

Hi, Im Dr. Farnejad   Im interrupted. Here stood an angry woman, unhappy with his care and yelling at everyone. Im threatened with violence, legal action, and deportation. Yes, deportation! I try to not let this bother me. This is the first time Ive seen this woman. This is the first time she has been in. Its understandable to be upset. I understand, no one wants to see their loved one hurt. I get it. Im understanding, trying to explain what has happened and where we need to go from here.

This is not the first time this has happened to me. I remember another patient asking for another surgeon when he saw me and very politely said, I dont want a sand niggers hand in my body. I politely complied with his wishes and asked another surgeon to see him. I was dumbfounded then, and was dumbfounded again with this situation. There were no questions about the injury, no thank you for saving my sons life, no question about the care, just disapproval of everything including me and things about me that I cant change.

But still, this was my patient. I felt a sense of responsibility. I tried, and tried: She wanted another doctor. OK, no problem. Ill have one of my partners come up to speak with you. Im off service anyway. Upon my departure, the situation deteriorates, and security escorts her out of the building.

A few days later Im on call. I get a call that evening. His mother wants to talk to his doctor. What? Why is she allowed back in the hospital? How many times has she been escorted out by security? Does she know Im the one she wanted to deport? Yes, Im told by the nurse on the floor, but she still wants to talk to me. Im thinking to myself, at what point does it become the responsibility of the patient to pick a physician that fit their criteria for race and religion? Ridiculous that I have to ask this question, but it is what it is.

Normally I would be happy to talk to a family member. The patient was recovering, seen daily by my partner and there were no acute issues going on with him. So I made my decision. I wasnt making a social visit. I wasnt going to put myself in that situation again.

Physicians have embraced the idea of caring for all patients, regardless of who they might be or how they treat us. I had done all the appropriate things, complied with her wishes and asked one of my partners to see her son. There was nothing more I could do.

When I seek out advice about this situation, everyone is quick to make light of it. The hospital is so concerned with patient satisfaction that they allowed this person who is openly hostile to the physicians and nursing staff to come back into the building after being escorted out by security on multiple occasions. What other profession would tolerate this? Why do doctors and nurses have to put up with this? Why arent threats against health care workers taken seriously? And ultimately, what is our obligation as physicians, nurses, and hospital staff in this situation? If the patient doesnt want a Brown, Black or Asian nurse or doctor, who is responsible for finding the health care provider that the patient approves of?

These situations are difficult for doctors, but worse for nurses, aides, and other staff. Physicians experience such discrimination during our brief interaction on rounds; nursing, and other staff are in a particularly vulnerable position because they are in constant contact with patients and their families.

If being subject to verbal abuse and threats of violence is accepted as part of the job because there is more concern about patient satisfaction, then the safety and well-being of physicians, nurses and other hospital staff, there is something really wrong with the system.

I wish I could say this was an isolated event. Its not. And not that it matters, but Im an American citizen, born in Iran and have lived in the United States for the past 32 years.

Farshad Farnejad is a trauma surgeon.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
Kingstree, SC (29556)

Today

Sun and clouds mixed. Much cooler. Morning high of 63F with temps falling to near 50. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Clear skies. Low 34F. Winds light and variable.
Editor's Note: Kitco readers, have your say! Check out our newest feature  KITCO CHAT!  where you can share your comments and ask questions directly to us.

Recent events have resulted in a de-escalation of the current tension between the United States and North Korea. Also lowered is the probability of North Korea aggressively continuing its nuclear testing program.

Chinese pressure has, in fact, dampened the current tension as they issued a proclamation to implement sanctions created by the United Nations.

According to Fox News, Chinas Commerce Ministry on Monday announced that all imports of coal, iron ore, lead concentrates and ore, lead and seafood from North Korea would be banned.

In a statement issued by the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, he said, "In order to maintain the international nuclear non-proliferation system and regional peace and stability, China will, as always, enforce the full content of relevant resolutions in a comprehensive and strict manner."

Add to this the fact that top military officials from the United States arrived in South Korea on Monday to present a single united position on the rogue country. "We are replacing the failed policy of 'strategic patience'... with a new policy of strategic accountability."

The United Nations sanctions, along with recent policy statements by the United States, have been issued at a time when North Korea plans to launch four missiles into the ocean near Guam.

North Korea condemned the sanctions in the strongest terms, stating that the UN resolution is a "wanton infringement upon the sovereignty of the country."

Given these recent events, there is certainly a pause in the mounting tension and back-and-forth rhetoric that was so prevalent last week. However, it is this authors belief that this crisis is far from over.

Inasmuch as there is a current lull in this complex crisis, there is still the possibility that the North Koreans will disregard the current sanctions and move forward with their missile test later this month. More so the United States in conjunction with South Korea will be holding its yearly exercises called the Ulchi-Freedom Guardian, which are scheduled to run from August 21-31.

Recent events resulting in the current the escalation of tensions have weighed heavily on gold. As of 330 EDT, gold futures are currently trading down $12.80, a net loss of a full percentage point at $1277.70. If this crisis continues to de-escalate in real and meaningful ways, we can look for the premium, which was recently added as a safe haven play, to continue to lessen.

However, as Jim Wyckoff of Kitco News expressed today, Dont expect the U.S.-North Korea confrontation to just fade away. Its likely this situation will flare up again, and likely sooner rather than later. And dont be surprised if this present dip in gold prices becomes a bargain buying opportunity for many traders and investors.

For those who would like a deeper analysis, simply use this link.

Wishing you as always, good trading,
BEIJING, Aug 15 (Reuters) - China's outstanding total social financing was 168.01 trillion yuan at the end of July, up 13.2 percent from a year earlier, the central bank said on Tuesday.

TSF includes off-balance sheet forms of financing that exist outside the conventional bank lending system, such as initial public offerings, loans from trust companies and bond sales.

It can also hint at trends in China's vast shadow banking sector.

China's foreign exchange deposits were $794.6 billion at the end of July, compared with $793.1 billion a month earlier, the central bank added.

(Reporting by Cheng Fang and Kevin Yao; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
By Maiya Keidan

LONDON, Aug 15 (Reuters) - Big computer-driven hedge funds such as AQR Capital Management, Aspect Capital and Two Sigma lost money in the first seven months of 2017, with human stock-pickers making better returns.

The average hedge fund made 4.8 percent from the start of the year to July 31, Hedge Fund Research data shows, but a lack of market direction, June's sharp reversal and low volatility has made trading more difficult for automated funds.

"Trend-followers are looking for long, drawn-out, directional moves and look to ride that trend as long as possible," Tom Wrobel, Director of Alternative Investments Consulting at Societe Generale, said.

"When there's a sharp reversal - like in June - they lose money because it goes against the established position."

Returns on hedge funds betting on macroeconomic trends were down by 1.4 percent on average to July 31 after losses of between 1.2 and 1.8 percent in three out of the first seven months of 2017, HFR data showed.

Losses may have been exacerbated by lower market volatility as trend-following funds typically put on larger positions in such conditions, a strategy that would have backfired for them when trends reversed.

Among the biggest losers was AQR Capital Management's $16 billion managed futures strategy, which lost 6 percent in the first seven months, data compiled by BarclayHedge and reviewed by Reuters revealed.

Two Sigma's Compass Fund, which has $2.5 billion in assets under management, lost 4.4 percent over the same period, while London-based Aspect Capital's flagship $3.9 billion diversified fund lost 3.4 percent, the data showed.

AQR, Two Sigma and Aspect Capital declined to comment.

Winton Capital, the fund set up in 1997 by David Harding, was down 0.8 percent, a source close to the firm told Reuters. Harding helped fund the "remain" campaign in Britain's European Union referendum last year.

And Leda Braga's Systematica Investments' BlueTrend, which was founded in January 2015 after spinning out of former hedge fund BlueCrest Capital, was down 6.4 percent.

However, some computer-driven trend-following funds bucked the trend, including Braga's Systematica Alternative Markets programme, which made gains of 11.2 percent, a source with knowledge of the firm told Reuters.

Also successful during the period were the five main trend-following AHL funds run by Man Group , which all delivered returns of between 0.5 percent and 10 percent over the same period, according to its website.

Man Group is the world's biggest listed hedge fund.

(Reporting by Maiya Keidan; editing by Alexander Smith)
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(Kitco News) - As gold prices fall under pressure after a rally late last week, analysts from a major Canadian bank highlight the mixed signals investors are giving right now.

Analysts at RBC Capital Markets compared holdings in gold-backed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) versus speculative positioning in gold futures on the COMEX, which they point out are not moving in tandem.

Over the past two months, inflows into global gold ETFs have stagnated following steady ETF purchases through the first half of the year, they noted in a report Monday. However, since mid-June ETF holdings have pulled back by 2.2 Moz after reaching a high of 68.6 Moz, coinciding with a decline in gold price from near $1,300/oz towards the $1,200/oz level.

Meanwhile, they added that speculative positioning in gold has risen significantly.

The COMEX net speculative position has more than doubled by 8.6 Moz over the past three weeks to 16.0Moz, suggesting a pick up in sentiment and momentum, they wrote.

However, the analysts expect ETF holdings to move higher in line with specs as the gold price moves up later this year.

In our view, the strengthening in net speculative position and positive gold price momentum heading into a seasonally stronger period in Q3 could set the stage for a reacceleration of inflows into global gold ETFs, they wrote.

The analysts were on point because since their report was released, the worlds largest gold-backed ETF SPDR GLD, released data showing that the ETF has seen inflows for the first time in over a month. According to the firms historical data, investors bought 4.14 tonnes of gold Monday, the first inflow since late June. GLD holdings now stand at 791.01 tonnes for the year.

Gold prices have come off of last weeks highs as geopolitical tensions have eased, with December Comex gold last trading at $1,278.60 an ounce, down 0.91% on the day. But, the analysts remain optimistic on gold prices moving forward.

We believe the gold price could continue to be supported by rising geopolitical concerns, persistence of low real rates globally, and potential for a more dovish view by the Fed.
JAKARTA, Aug 15 (Reuters) - Indonesia posted its first trade deficit since late 2015 in July, as imports surged more than exports did, the statistics bureau said on Tuesday.

Southeast Asia's largest economy had a trade deficit of $271.2 million in July. A Reuters poll had forecast a $1.1 billion surplus. June's trade surplus was revised on Tuesday to $1.67 billion.

During July, both exports and imports increased sharply on an annual basis, because of a low base from July 2016, when the Eid al-Fitr holidays at the end of the Muslim fasting month fell. This year, the holidays were in June.

In July this year, exports rose 41.12 percent on a yearly basis to $13.62 billion, compared with the median forecast in a Reuters poll of 31.12 percent. June's exports declined 11.71 percent from a year earlier.

July imports jumped 54.02 percent from last year to $13.89 billion. The poll had expected an increase of 30.34 percent. Imports declined 17.40 percent in June.

Below are details of Indonesia's July trade data:

USD bln y/y (pct) Reuters poll Exports $13.62 +41.12 +31.12 Imports $13.89 +54.02 +30.34 Trade balance -0.27b +$1.10b

(Reporting by Hidayat Setiaji and Nilufar Rizki; Writing by Gayatri Suroyo)
DUBAI, Aug 15 (Reuters) - Gulf stock markets were mostly slugggish in early trade on Tuesday with Union Properties plunging after it reported a 2.29 billion dirham ($624 million) net loss for the second quarter.

Union Properties said it was taking big provisions to cover past accounting errors related to its booking of a 503 million dirham gain on a plot of land at Dubai's Motor City. The errors were discovered as a new board and senior management, appointed in May, conducted an investigation of accounting practices dating back to 2013, the company said; its stock sank 7.9 percent to 0.789 dirham. Trading volume in Union Properties was about half half the market's entire volume.

The stock dropped below technical support at its February low of 0.852 dirham, triggering a bearish right triangle formed by the highs and lows since January and pointing down to around 0.60 dirham.

Dubai's stock index edged down 0.2 percent. The biggest real estate developer, Emaar Properties , rose 0.6 percent after reporting a 14.4 percent increase in second-quarter profit that was roughly in the middle of analysts' forecasts.

GFH Financial climbed 1.7 percent after tumbling 10 percent on Monday. On Tuesday morning, it said it had completed the acquisition of a $1.2 billion infrastructure portfolio in Africa and the Middle East, funded by a $315 million capital increase that took issued and paid-up capital to $975 million.

But restaurant and retail investment firm Marka sank 5.9 percent after reporting a second-quarter loss attributable to shareholders of 126 million dirhams ($34.3 million) versus a year-ago loss of 18.7 million dirhams.

Abu Dhabi's index rose 0.2 percent on the back of a 3.7 percent surge by Eshraq Properties .

But Saudi Arabia's index edged down 0.1 percent. Insurer MedGulf , which has been falling sharply this week after reporting a big second-quarter loss, slid a further 2.3 percent. Wafa Insurance , which earlier this month reported lower quarterly profit, fell 2.8 percent.

Qatar's index dropped 0.4 percent as Gulf Warehousing lost 1.8 percent. But Investment Holding Group , which tumbled 13 percent from its initial public offer price on Monday as it listed on the market, rebounded 1.2 percent.

(Reporting by Andrew Torchia; editing by Ralph Boulton)
* Union Properties comes off low, expects no more provisions

* Dubai's Marka hit by earnings, GFH by share dilution

* But Emaar Properties firm after in-line earnings

* Investment Holding continues post-listing slide in Qatar

* Telecom Egypt rises on earnings

By Andrew Torchia

DUBAI, Aug 15 (Reuters) - Middle Eastern stock markets sagged again on Tuesday because of a mediocre economic outlook, with a shock loss at a real estate developer weighing on Dubai and Egypt dropping for a sixth straight day.

Union Properties sank 4.3 percent to 0.82 dirham after it reported a 2.29 billion dirham ($624 million) net loss for the second quarter, although the stock came well off its intra-day low of 0.77 dirham. It accounted for over a third of Dubai's trading volume.

The company said it was taking big provisions to cover past accounting errors related to its booking of a 503 million dirham gain on a plot of land at Dubai's Motor City. The errors were discovered as a new board and senior management, appointed in May, conducted an investigation of accounting practices dating back to 2013, the company said. Its chairman later told Al Arabiya television that he did not expect to take further provisions in coming quarters.

Dubai's stock index dropped 0.2 percent. It was buoyed by a 0.1 percent gain by Emaar Properties , the biggest developer, which reported a 14.4 percent increase in second-quarter profit, in the middle of analysts' forecasts.

But restaurant and retail investment firm Marka sank 5.1 percent to a record low after reporting a second-quarter loss attributable to shareholders of 126 million dirhams ($34.3 million) versus a year-ago loss of 18.7 million dirhams.

GFH Financial fell 3.3 percent, bringing its losses over two days to 12.9 percent. The company said it had completed the acquisition of a $1.2 billion infrastructure portfolio in Africa and the Middle East, funded by a $315 million capital increase that took issued and paid-up capital to $975 million - a big dilution for minority shareholders.

Abu Dhabi's index edged down 0.2 percent although Eshraq Properties , which had been trading at its lowest levels this year, rebounded 1.2 percent in its heaviest volume for five weeks.

Saudi Arabia's index declined 0.3 percent. Insurer MedGulf , which has been falling sharply this week after reporting a big second-quarter loss, slid a further 2.9 percent. Wafa Insurance , which earlier this month reported lower quarterly profit, fell 3.1 percent.

In Qatar, the index dropped 0.6 percent as Gulf Warehousing lost 1.7 percent. Investment Holding Group , which tumbled 13 percent from its initial public offer price on Monday as it listed on the market, fell a further 1.7 percent.

Egypt's index slid 0.3 percent to 13,102 points, confirming a break below its July low of 13,261 points and support on its 100-day average, now at 13,171 points. A head & shoulders pattern formed by the highs and lows since June, and triggered this week, points down to about 12,650 points.

The broader EGX100 dropped 1.6 percent. Financial services firm Pioneers Holding lost 3.5 percent and blue chip Orascom Telecom Media fell 1.5 percent.

Telecom Egypt gained 1.1 percent, however, after reporting that second-quarter consolidated net profit after tax jumped 22 percent year-on-year to 1.27 billion Egyptian pounds ($72 million).

HIGHLIGHTS

SAUDI ARABIA

* The index declined 0.3 percent to 7,103 points.

DUBAI

* The index fell 0.2 percent to 3,580 points.

ABU DHABI

* The index dropped 0.2 percent to 4,471 points.

QATAR

* The index slipped 0.6 percent to 9,134 points.

EGYPT

* The index slid 0.3 percent to 13,102 points.

KUWAIT

* The index fell 0.2 percent to 6,844 points.

BAHRAIN

* The index lost 0.6 percent to 1,312 points.

OMAN

* The index dropped 0.8 percent to 4,939 points.

(Reporting by Andrew Torchia; editing by Mark Heinrich)
MOSCOW, Aug 15 (Reuters) - Russia's central bank said on Tuesday it would issue rouble-denominated bonds only if the banking sector saw excessive amounts of free rouble liquidity.

In an emailed comment to Reuters, the central bank said its new bonds, known as COBRs, are designed to keep money market rates close to the central bank's key rate, now at 9 percent.

The central bank will take into account levels of liquidity surplus in the banking sector when deciding on a next COBR auction.

Earlier on Tuesday, the central bank sold all 150 billion roubles ($2.5 billion) worth of COBRs on offer, tapping the domestic debt market for the first time since 2011. (Reporting by Andrey Ostroukh and Elena Fabrichnaya; Editing by Dmitry Solovyov)
Aug 15 (Reuters) - Shares in Bahrain's GFH Financial Group fell sharply on Tuesday as the firm said it had acquired $1.2 billion of infrastructure assets in Africa and the Middle East by increasing its capital, diluting minority shareholders.

The financial firm, which did not give details of the assets, said in a bourse statement that it had made the acquisition through a $315 million capital increase, taking GFH's issued and paid-up capital to $975 million.

GFH's Dubai-listed shares sank 3.3 percent to 1.75 dirhams, bringing their losses over two days to 12.9 percent.

Chief executive Hisham al-Rayes told Al Arabiya television that the company had agreed with the sellers of the assets, whom he did not name, to swap them for equity in GFH at 3.5 dirhams per share.

"At the time the deal was made, the estimated fair value of the company was 3.5 dirhams a share," he said without elaborating.

Rayes said some existing shareholders in GFH had increased their holdings in the company through the capital increase, while some financial institutions and wealthy individuals had bought into the company.

Integrated Capital, which was acquired by Shuaa Capital in July from Abu Dhabi Financial Group, is the largest shareholder in GFH with an 11.88 percent stake, according to the latest exchange data.

(Reporting by Celine Aswad; Editing by Andrew Torchia)
Here's a snapshot of Vietnamese dong exchange rates in the official and unofficial markets, indicative SJC gold prices in Hanoi and interbank offered rates at 0503 GMT.

August 15 USD/VND mid-point 22,444 USD/VND interbank 22,727/22,727.5 USD/VND unofficial 22,720/22,735 SJC gold (mln dong/tael) 36.20/36.42

Interbank offered rates Overnight 0.4-0.8

1 week 0.7-0.9

1 month 1.5-1.8

3 months 3.0-3.6

NOTES: As of Jan. 4, 2016 the State Bank of Vietnam has begun setting the mid-point rate on daily basis, allowing dollar/dong transactions to move in a band of +/- 3 percent around the mid point. The dong's exchange rate against other currencies is not restricted by a band. Interbank offered rates are the latest indicative bid/ask prices, quoted from market sources.

One tael is equivalent to 37.5 grams or 1.21 troy ounces. SJC gold prices are quoted by state-owned Saigon Jewelry Co.

For more interbank rate fixings released at 0400 GMT, click on .

For Vietnam market overview click on: Vietnam's bonds market auctions: Bonds auction results: (Compiled by Hanoi Newsroom)
ZURICH, Aug 15 (Reuters) - The Swiss blue-chip SMI was seen opening 0.1 percent higher at 9,038 points on Tuesday, according to premarket indications by bank Julius Baer .

Here are some of the main factors that may affect Swiss stocks:

SWISS LIFE The insurer plans to develop its commission business as part of its strategy beyond 2018, Chief Executive Patrick Frost told Swiss newspaper the Neue Zuercher Zeitung. The company will also look at acquisitions but will remain cautious, Frost, who has returned to work after battling cancer, told the paper.

For more news click on COMPANY STATEMENTS * Schindler reported a 12.6 percent increase in first half net profit to 419 million Swiss francs ($430.45 million)and said it still expects 2017 revenue growth of between 3 percent and 5 percent in local currencies, and a net profit of between 840 million and 880 million francs. * Flughafen Zuerich says 2.98 million passengers were handled at Zurich Airport in July (+4.5% versus previous year) * Elma Electronic reported H1 EBITDA of 3.9 million Swiss francs, up from 1.7 Million Swiss francs. * Tornos Holding reported its H1 net result turned to a profit of 0.3 million Swiss francs. * Phoenix Mecano reported a H1 result after taxes of 14.3 million euros ($16.84 million), up 4.7 percent on the previous year. * Orascom Development reported H1 adjusted EBITDA increased by 34.1 percent to reach 11.0 million Swiss francs vs. 8.2 million a year earlier .

* Wisekey said its Internet of Things segment generated reverences of roughly $15 million in the first half of 2017, and is projected to generate between $30 and $32 million for the full year. ECONOMY Producer/import price data for July due at 0715 GMT ($1 = 0.9734 Swiss francs) ($1 = 0.8494 euros)

(Reporting by Zurich newsroom)

Daily Swiss stock market report in German................ All SMI constituent stocks............................ News on major Swiss stock price moves.................. FTSE Eurotop 300 index................................ DJ STOXX index........................................ Top 10 STOXX sectors............................. Top 10 EUROSTOXX sectors........................ Top 10 Eurotop 300 sectors....................... Top 25 European pct gainers... , losers... Swiss mid-cap index SMI futures Swiss all-share index Market statistics Swiss market digest Sector overview All Swiss news Swiss research news All equity news INTERNET ADDRESSES: Swiss Exchange / Eurex STOXX Ltd SPEED GUIDES: ))

Keywords: MARKETS SWISS STOCKS/
TAIPEI, Aug 15 (Reuters) - Taiwan's minister for economic affairs offered to resign on Tuesday after a massive blackout hit homes and businesses across the island earlier in the day

Taiwan Premier Lin Chuan accepted the verbal resignation of Minister of Economics Affairs Chih-Kung Lee, a spokesperson for the government said.

The formal resignation letter will be handed to the government later this week, the spokesperson added.

(Reporting by Jess Macy Yu and Jeanny Kao; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree and Nick Macfie)
(Adds details)

By Toby Sterling

AMSTERDAM, Aug 15 (Reuters) - A third Dutch municipality swung behind the sale of electricity provider Eneco on Tuesday, meaning a majority of shareholders support the privatisation of the group which is valued at around 2.7 billion euros ($3.2 billion).

The city council of Dordrecht threw its weight behind earlier decisions in principle by Rotterdam and The Hague, part of a review of the company's options after it was ordered to split its generation and grid arms. The councils' decisions set up a potential conflict, given Eneco's management and workers have already begun campaigning to keep Eneco in Dutch hands, preserve jobs and protect the group's character as a champion of renewable energy.

The 53 municipal government shareholders in Eneco, the country's last large government-owned electricity provider, have been painted as motivated primarily as desiring a quick sale that would maximize profits.

But Dordrecht said it intends to respect the interests of various stakeholders. "This decision in principle does not mean that we will get rid of our holdings just like that," the council said in its written decision.

Dordrecht owns 9.05 percent of Eneco, while Rotterdam has 31.69 percent and The Hague has a 16.55 percent. Others must decide by Oct. 31.

With the three biggest shareholders all supporting a sale, many smaller municipalities may feel obliged to follow suit, though Eneco's management has sent them letters and brochures arguing they should consider keeping their stakes.

Last week labour union CNV sent municipalities a letter warning of the potential for job losses if Eneco were to be taken over by a foreign company. Eneco employs around 3,500.

During the recent failed takeover attempt of Dutch paintmaker Akzo Nobel by U.S. rival PPG Industries , the Dutch Economic Affairs Minister said a sale of Akzo would not be in the national interest. However, the government has so far remained silent on Eneco. When the Economic Affairs ministry ordered electric companies to split their grid arms in the 2000s, Eneco resisted, fighting the decision all the way to the Supreme Court before losing in 2015.

Eneco's more profitable grid arm Stedin was spun off in February. Eneco's pro-forma earnings for 2016 showed a profit of 103 million euros on sales of 2.64 billion.

Eneco's management has hired advisors and publicists in preparation for a sale. Its supervisory board has hired separate advisors, as have its shareholders. ($1 = 0.8525 euros)

(Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Greg Mahlich and David Holmes)
(Adds details)

COLOMBO, Aug 15 (Reuters) - Sri Lanka's central bank suspended on Tuesday the primary dealer status of Pan Asia Banking Corporation (PABC) for six months, following an investigation into alleged irregularities in government bond sales.

The central bank said in a statement it imposed the suspension because of the findings of an investigation carried out by the monetary authority related to PABC's transactions with Perpetual Treasuries Ltd in the government securities market.

Last month, the central bank suspended the business operations of Perpetual Treasuries, which is being investigated in relation to possible irregularities at a 30-year government bond sale in 2015. "Action will also be taken by the central bank to safeguard the interests of the customers and counterparties of PABC in the government securities market, in an orderly manner," the central bank said.

"The central bank wishes to emphasize that this regulatory action restricts PABC's access to the primary auctions for government securities. It does not affect any of the other activities/services of PABC."

Trade in PABC shares was halted pending an announcement from the company, the Colombo Stock Exchange said on its website.

A PABC official said the company would issue a statement shortly. Officials from Perpetual Treasuries were not immediately available for comment.

PABC's suspension comes a less than a week after former finance minister Ravi Karunanayake stepped down from his foreign minister post over corruption charges also linked to Perpetual Treasuries, a subsidiary of a company owned by the son-in-law of Arjuna Mahendran, the former central bank governor. The 2015 auction under investigation was originally intended to raise 1 billion rupees ($7 million) in 30-year bonds, but eventually grew to more than 10 times that amount to meet government borrowing needs.

More than half of the issue was sold to Perpetual Treasuries in what has been criticised as a conflict of interest.

Perpetual Treasuries, Mahendran, and his son-in-law have denied any wrong doing.

(Reporting by Shihar Aneez and Ranga Sirilal; Editing by Eric Meijer)
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Actress Yum Jung-ah in a scene from the horror-thriller "The Mimic" (2017) Courtesy of NEW



By Kim Jae-heun

Actress Yum Jung-ah has returned to the big screen in the horror film "The Mimic" (2017), 14 years after the success of her psychological horror-thriller "A Tale of Two Sisters" (2003).

In "Sisters," Yum captivated the audience with the role of a heinous stepmother. This time, she plays a strong maternal guardian, Hee-yeon.

In "Mimic," Hee-yeon leaves the city to live on Mount Jang after losing her child. There she meets a young girl who has the same name and voice as her daughter. Hee-yeon decides to take the girl into her house but mysterious things begin happening.

Filmmaker Huh Jung said he could not think of anyone else but Yum to play the lead character who is warm but also displays a sensitive and insecure side of herself.

"I was attracted to the movie because it dealt with the theme of maternal love," Yum said during the press conference at CGV Yongsan, Seoul, last Tuesday. "I cried a lot after I read the script. I also suffered a lot after shooting the film, not because of the horror but because of the emotion of maternal love that I portrayed during shooting. In this context, Mimic can appeal to audiences with various backgrounds, not only horror-thriller fans," said Yum.

Yum, who earned the nickname of "Thriller Queen" after she starred in "A Tale of Two Sisters," said she's not a huge fan of horror films because she gets frightened when she watches them. She said she screamed a lot and had her eyes half closed when she previewed her latest horror film before the press conference.

"Although I played the leading role in The Mimic, it was really scary. Watching horror movies and acting in them is very different," said Yum

Yum debuted in the TV series "Our Paradise" in 1991. She says "A Tale of Two Sisters" is her most notable film, which gave her a turning point in her life.

"When I was in my 20s, I only had passion to become a good actor but I did not know how to do it," added the actress. "When I met director Kim Jee-woon of a Tale of Two Sisters, I learned how actors can create their characters in the story. I don't regret becoming an actress and I am thankful that I can continue my career," said Yum.

Yum, also a mother of two children, said she feels grateful that she can still perform when many women are jobless.

"I am thankful that I am a working mother and there is a job for me besides my role as a housewife," said Yum.
By Yoon Ja-young



Despite favorable approval, the Moon Jae-in administration's ambitious plan to make a major shift in diverse economic and industrial policies faces a bumpy road strewn with a number of obstacles.



The economic policies of the Moon administration, which marks its 100th day Thursday, are in stark contrast to its past two conservative predecessors.



While the previous administrations sought quantitative growth, encouraging conglomerates to invest and the affluent to spend more through deregulation and tax cuts, the Moon government is focused on increasing the incomes of the working class to boost their buying and thereby leading to qualitative growth of the economy.



To increase household income, the administration has focused on creating jobs. His first order as President was to set up a jobs committee, a control tower for job policies. A few days later, he visited Incheon Airport to meet irregular workers, where he pledged to shift jobs to regular ones in the public sector. The minimum wage for next year will be raised by 16.4 percent following the presidential pledge that the minimum wage will be raised to 10,000 won by 2020.



While many experts agree that the previous export-led growth model is showing limitations, they also point out that there are constraints on an income-led growth strategy.



"Though the overall corporate performance is improving, there are many companies in marginal conditions and the ratio of the self-employed is also high. This means the wage hike can lead to fewer jobs," said Lee Geun-tae, an economist at LG Economic Research Institute, in a report.



He added that the huge household debt and structural contraction of consumption due to the aging population are also obstacles to income-led growth.



The new administration differs most with previous administrations in tax policies. While former President Lee Myung-bak slashed the corporate tax rate and his successor, former President Park Geun-hye, vowed there would be no tax hike despite social welfare policies, the Moon administration announced that it will raise taxes on conglomerates and high-income earners.



The main opposition Liberty Korea Party, meanwhile, says that the corporate tax hike is against the global trend and warns that it may prompt Korean businesses to move overseas.



"When businesses move overseas or start closing down, the country will fall into the worst situation where investment and employment deteriorate and tax revenue dwindles," said Kim Gwang-lim, the party's chief policymaker.



The opposition party is scheduled to hold a conference on problems of the Moon administration this week, starting from a review on its tax policies Thursday.



Those who support the tax hike say the Moon administration is being too timid, pointing out that its social welfare pledges will cost far more than the 178 trillion won estimated by the government for the next five years.



Tax experts also point out that nearly half of workers are exempt from paying taxes. "When considering that paying taxes is the constitutional duty of the people, the government should decrease the number of people who are exempt from taxes and make more people shoulder the burden," said Kim Jae-jin, a senior fellow at the Korea Institute of Public Finance.



The Moon administration also declared war against real estate speculators, unlike the former Park Geun-hye administration which deregulated the real estate market to help pull up economic growth. The new administration made it clear that economic growth from a real estate boom isn't healthy.



While prices of apartments in Seoul started to fall following the anti-speculation measures announced Aug. 2, analysts say it needs more cautious plans, pointing to the failure of the former Roh Moo-hyun administration.



"If investors become skeptical about the policies, they will lose trust. The market needs more concrete plans based on consistency, while inducing the liquidity in the real estate market to head toward a productive real economy," said Kim Cheon-koo, a researcher at Hyundai Research Institute.




North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has been briefed on the military's plan to fire ballistic missiles near the U.S. territory of Guam, home to key American air and naval bases, Pyongyang's state media said Tuesday.

After examining the plan, the North's leader said that he would watch Washington's behavior "a little more," but it will make an "important" decision if the U.S. continues its "extremely dangerous reckless actions" on the divided peninsula, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

He made the remark on Monday during his inspection of the Strategic Force command which threatened last week to fire four intermediate-range ballistic missiles towards Guam.

The North's unit in charge of missile launches said that the Hwasong-12 missiles will fly over Japan and splash down 30-40 kilometers from the western Pacific island.

"In order to defuse the tensions and prevent the dangerous military conflict on the Korean Peninsula, it is necessary for the U.S. to make a proper option first and show it through action," Kim said.

The latest remark may indicate that there are no imminent plans to fire off missiles by the repressive regime, but it could make provocations depending on how Seoul and Washington conducts their annual joint military drills slated for late this month.

The warning came after Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in Seoul that military options would come only after sanctions fail.












By Rachel Lee

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has called off his threat to fire ballistic missiles into seas off the U.S. territory of Guam, easing tension on the Korean Peninsula.

In his first public appearance in two weeks, Kim inspected the army command Monday and got a briefing on its military's detailed plan to strike Guam, the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Tuesday.

During the inspection of the army, Kim said he will watch the "foolish and stupid conduct of the Yankees" for now and make a "grave" decision if Washington continues its "extremely dangerous" actions on the Korean Peninsula, Pyongyang's state media said.

The U.S. should "think rationally and make a precise decision to avoid humiliation," the North Korean leader was quoted as saying.

The North claimed last week that it was examining a plan to fire four Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBM) into waters near Guam, home to two major U.S. military bases.

The United States "should first make the right decision and show through actions if they wish to ease tension on the Korean Peninsula and prevent a dangerous military clash," Kim said.












By Choi Ha-young





Rep. Ha Tae-keung

Rep. Ha Tae-keung from the minor opposition Bareun Party plans to submit a bill this week to disseminate information to the North Korean people.

Ha said in a forum, Tuesday, that the bill, if passed, would be the most effective tool to undermine the Kim Jong-un regime, in addition to international sanctions.

"If outside information was effectively distributed to the isolated nation, I believe the nuclear problem would not exist now," said Ha, a former human rights activist.

He said he will submit the bill Wednesday with the support of 10 other lawmakers.

"We should deliver a clear message that people who can freely watch South Korean TV broadcasts and access the internet can stir up a revolt against the regime," he said.

The main speaker of the forum, Kang Dong-wan of Dong-a University, backed the bill, saying it can usher in change in North Korean society.

"By watching South Korean drama and movies, North Koreans will be able to discover individual rights, and that each person can have desire and express opinions. This would trigger dissatisfaction with the totalitarian regime," Kang said.

The professor called on government bodies to create tailored content for North Koreans and monitor its influence.












Officials from the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs collect eggs laid by hens at a farm in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, Tuesday, whose owner is suspected of using a banned insecticide. Yonhap



Eggs written 08 and 08LSH contaminated: food safety ministry

By Lee Kyung-min

The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety said Tuesday that eggs with the coding 08 and 08LSH printed on them were produced at farms that used a banned insecticide or used a legal one over the maximum amount allowable.

"We identified the eggs by matching the code on them. We are conducting additional tests to determine whether the eggs have been contaminated with 27 harmful substances. Those that fail to meet the safety standard will be discarded immediately," a ministry official said.

Every egg has a production code printed on them. The first two digits indicate where they were produced in 17 provincial areas.

Those labeled 08 come from Gyeonggi Province. The last three digits or letters identify the name of the farm.

The announcement came 18 hours after the country's major discount store chains suspended the sales of eggs nationwide after a government inspection found a possibly hazardous insecticide a day earlier at a hen farm in Namyangju, Gyeonggi Province.

The ministry said another farm in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province, also failed to meet the safety standard.

A Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs inspection Monday found that the farm in Namyangju housing over 80,000 hens  used the toxic insecticide fipronil.

The same day, the farm in Gwangju with 60,000 hens was found to have an infestation of mites, which had over the maximum allowable level of bifenthrin, an insecticide used primarily against some types of ants, inside them.

The agriculture ministry said it is unclear how many eggs have been contaminated, adding that it is conducting a three-day inspection until Thursday of farms that have over 3,000 hens to identify ones that have used the banned insecticide or excessive amounts of permissible ones.












President Moon Jae-in burns incense to pay his respects to Kim Koo, one of the leaders of the nation's independence movement during the 1910-45 Japanese colonial rule and who served as the leader of the Korean government-in-exile, during a visit to Kim's grave in Hyochang Park, Yongsang-gu, Seoul, Tuesday. / Yonhap





By Yi Whan-woo

President Moon Jae-in said Tuesday he will not overlook Japan's wartime atrocities, although he put emphasis on "forward-looking" relations with Tokyo for regional peace and prosperity.

In his speech to mark the 72nd anniversary of the liberation of the Korean Peninsula from Japanese colonial rule from 1910 to 1945, the President accused the Japanese government of an "inconsistent acknowledgment of history."

He still called on a need to bolster bilateral cooperation, saying South Korea has "no other choice" but to better cope with North Korea's growing nuclear and ballistic missile threats.

"It is not desirable for the past and historical issues to continue to hold back forward-looking development of Korea-Japan relations. The government will expand various exchanges for the renewal of these relations," Moon said during a commemorative ceremony for Liberation Day at Sejong Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Seoul.

"While putting emphasis on the forward-looking Korea-Japan relations, however, we cannot overlook the historical issues."

Moon started the day by visiting the graveyard in Yongsang-gu, Seoul of Kim Koo, one of the leaders of the independence movement during the colonial era and who served as the leader of the Korean government-in-exile.

His speech came amid South Korea's prolonged disputes with Japan over Tokyo's sexual enslavement of Korean women and coerced labor of Koreans for the Japanese military during World War II.

The presidential address also coincided with the ritual offering made by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine on the anniversary of his country's World War II surrender.

A group of Japanese politicians, both from ruling and opposition parties, visited the shrine.

A total of 14 Class-A war criminals are enshrined there along with other war dead and the site is viewed by Seoul and Beijing as ground zero for Tokyo's unrepentant wartime remembrance.

Moon acknowledged efforts made by many Japanese politicians and intellectuals to "squarely face" Japan's militant past and that Japan should not change its historical recognition depending on domestic political circumstances.

"The obstacle to Korea-Japan relations is not the past itself but the Japanese government's inconsistent acknowledgment of it," he said.

He claimed that resolving historical disputes should be based on international principles that consist of the "restoration of the honor of the victims and compensation, the clarification of the truth and a promise to prevent any recurrence in line with the universal value of human life and a national consensus."

To improve bilateral ties, Moon urged to restore "shuttle diplomacy."

The term, "shuttle diplomacy," originally refers to negotiations by an intermediary who shuttles back and forth between hostile nations.

But here, it refers to holding a bilateral summit in Seoul and Tokyo back and forth regularly.

The two sides initially agreed on "shuttle diplomacy" in 2004. But the summits did not take place regularly due to their frayed ties.

"Korea-Japan relations should now go beyond the bilateral relationship and grow into a cooperative relationship in which the two countries work together for the peace and prosperity of Northeast Asia," Moon said.

He urged to capitalize on the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics, the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics and the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics for regional peace, saying "These are golden opportunities to promote peace and economic cooperation on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia."

"I suggest that all the leaders in Northeast Asia put their heads together to take advantage of this opportunity. In particular, Korea, China and Japan should jointly endeavor to institutionalize regional security and economic cooperation and share joint responsibility," he said.

Meanwhile, Moon promised to bolster support for the patriots, such as independence fighters and their family members as part of the efforts to build "a proper nation" and "a nation of the people."

Before joining the ceremony, Moon visited the graveyard of
By Kim Bo-eun



A high-level Japanese government official denounced a Korean bus company Tuesday for putting "comfort woman" statues on its five buses running in Seoul, urging the Korean government to take "appropriate measures."



"We are concerned this move could put a damper on efforts between Korea and Japan to develop a future-oriented relationship," Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide said at a press briefing, according to Kyodo News Agency.



"We have conveyed Japan's stance through a diplomatic channel to Korea, requesting adequate measures to be taken," Japan's national broadcaster NHK reported Suga as saying.



Suga is regarded as the Japanese government's spokesperson.



A day earlier, Suga also made comments on the comfort woman statues on a TV program on satellite channel BS Fuji. "This cannot happen," he said.



Dong-A Transit put a comfort woman statue on five of its number 151 buses, marking International Memorial Day for Comfort Women. The statues will remain on the buses until Sept. 30.



The statues on the bus are among many statues recently created, symbolizing the plight of former sex slaves to the Japanese military during World War II.



Criticism of the comfort woman statues also came from Park Yu-ha, a controversial scholar on the issue and author of the book "Comfort Women of the Empire."



At a recent seminar hosted by a conservative academy in Seoul, Park criticized the growing number of statues "idolizing the sex slave victims."



"We need to take a critical approach to the way people perceive the statues _ it is a problem that uncritical support is growing for civic groups for comfort women."



Park is known for her controversial views on the issue of sex slavery.



In her book, she wrote that some of the women were voluntary "prostitutes," that they "were in companionship with Japanese soldiers," and that both Korean collaborators and Japanese private agents were involved in getting the women to work in brothels for the Japanese military.



Park is currently on trial for defamation. A local court ruling acquitted Park, but prosecutors appealed and the case is being reviewed by the Seoul High Court.








By Kim Hyo-jin





Moon Chung-in

Moon Chung-in, President Moon Jae-in's special adviser for unification and national security affairs, has openly criticized U.S. President Donald Trump over his bellicose rhetoric toward North Korea.



"What is happening is very unusual. We do not expect the president of the United States to make that kind of statement," Moon told ABC News in an interview released Sunday. "It is very worrisome for the U.S. president to add to the crisis."



He was referring to the war of words between Pyongyang and Washington over the former's missile provocations, which is dampening South Korean President Moon Jae-in's initiative for cross-border rapprochement.



Trump vowed Aug. 8 to respond with "fire and fury like the world has never seen" if the North continues provocations against the U.S.



The North responded by saying it was "seriously examining" a detailed plan to launch four ballistic missiles toward the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam, a major military hub and home to about 163,000 U.S. citizens.



Moon Chung-in told ABC News that Trump's comment came 24 hours after a phone call between Moon and Trump last Monday. He said it left his administration "somewhat concerned."



"It is a chicken game, but I think what is needed right now is mutual restraint," ABC News quoted the top presidential adviser as saying, while describing the comment as a "rare rebuke" to South Korea's protector, the U.S.



Trump also tweeted Friday that "Military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely."



And North Korea responded to Trump's warning with a threat once again the following day. "If the Trump administration does not want the American empire to meet its tragic doom in its tenure, they had better talk and act properly," said the North's KCNA news agency.



Moon Chung-in also criticized the Trump administration for its lack of clarity on North Korea policy, saying it is confusing as to what replaced the previous Obama administration's strategic patience.



"I really don't see a unified message. There is confusion," he said, according to ABC News. "We are very much confused. We think the American government has moved from the strategic patience of the Obama administration into strategic confusion."



Moon was a leading architect of the so-called "Sunshine policy," of reconciliation with Pyongyang sought under the previous Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations.



He attended inter-Korean summits held in North Korea as a special aide to Presidents Kim and Roh in 2000 and 2007.



Moon earlier caused a stir with a controversial remark where he suggested a willingness to reduce the scale of joint military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea, and the frequency of the dispatch of strategic assets to the peninsula, if North Korea suspended its nuclear and missile programs.
President Moon Jae-in delivers a speech during a ceremony marking the 72nd anniversary of the nation's liberation from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule, Tuesday. He said no military conflict will be possible on the Korean Peninsula without Seoul's consent and he will prevent another war here at all costs. / Yonhap



South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Tuesday that the country will expand its diplomatic efforts to peacefully resolve North Korea's nuclear and missile issues, vowing to prevent a war from breaking out on the Korean Peninsula.

"The government will prevent a war at all cost. We must peacefully resolve the North Korean nuclear issue no matter how many ups and downs there are," Moon said in a ceremony marking the 72nd anniversary of the country's liberation from the 1910-1945 Japanese colonial rule.

"The government will further step up its diplomatic efforts to make sure the international community's principle of peaceful resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue will not waiver," he added.

Moon's remarks come amid escalating tension between the United States and the North that many here believe may lead to the outbreak of armed conflict if not an all-out war.

Pyongyang says it is considering staging a missile exercise around the U.S.-controlled island of Guam that is viewed as a clear and direct threat to the United States.

Washington has warned that it can move to counter Pyongyang's threats militarily, with U.S. President Donald Trump going a step further saying the option to use force is "locked and loaded" and ready for implementation.

Moon apparently sought to calm both sides, saying no military action should take place without Seoul's consent.

"Military action on the Korean Peninsula can only be decided by the Republic of Korea and no one may decide to take military action without the consent of the Republic of Korea," Moon said, referring to his country by its official name.

Still, the South Korean leader said his country will also enhance its own defense capabilities to ensure peace.

"At the same time, we will keep our doors open for military dialogue to make sure the military tension between the South and the North will not worsen," the president said.

He repeated his call on the communist North to halt its provocations and return to the dialogue table.
By Jun Ji-hye

President Moon Jae-in will hold a meeting with relatives of victims of the 2014 Sewol ferry disaster at Cheong Wa Dae, Wednesday, a presidential aide said Tuesday.

The aide said Moon has invited about 200 relatives to the meeting.

"President Moon will meet with the victims' relatives in person and apologize for the government's failure to protect the safety and lives of the people," the official said, asking not to be named.

The official noted Moon will listen to the opinions of the grieving families at a time when efforts are still ongoing to search for the truth behind what caused the ferry to sink, and why rescume teams failed to save so many.

"The meeting will take place at 1:30 p.m.," he said.












By Walt Gardner





If the experience of the United States is any indication, the new guidelines proposed by the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education to expand the rights of students are likely to have unintended consequences. What begins as a well- intentioned attempt to protect students from arbitrary rules eventually undermines the moral authority of teachers.

It's the latter that rightly concerns the Korean Federation of Teachers. When teachers are stripped of their ability to discipline students, instruction invariably suffers. All it takes is one recalcitrant student to hold the rest of the class hostage. But when teachers are hamstrung by rules imposed by a central office, they are reluctant to take steps to restore order out of fear of the legal consequences.

The U.S. learned that lesson in 1975 when the Supreme Court in Goss v. Lopez ruled that students had the right to due-process protections for even the most minor misbehavior. That meant the right to know the charges against them, the right to a formal hearing, the right to legal counsel, and the right to call witnesses.

Making matters worse, the Supreme Court one year later held in Wood v. Strickland that if teachers or principals knowingly violated a student's due-process rights, they could be held personally liable for punitive damages. The decision understandably had a chilling effect on the willingness of teachers or principals to address student behavior.

There was a time when teachers acted in loco parentis. They possessed the moral and legal authority to use their professional judgment in dealing with classroom misbehavior. No educator in South Korea or the U.S. wants to turn classrooms into Dickensian venues. But enabling students to establish their own rules, as the education office in South Korea proposes, sets the stage for chaos. As Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell wrote in his dissent in Goss v. Lopez, students who fail to learn the necessity of rules will be handicapped throughout life.

In contrast, allowing students in South Korea to engage in political discussions and lowering the voting age to 18 for general elections are steps in the right direction, if the goal is to prepare them for their future civic responsibilities. Students in the U.S. have long had this right. The only caveat in both countries is that teachers present a balanced view of controversial issues in designing their lessons. The more contentious the issue, the more imperative it is for teachers to maintain objectivity.

Lowering the voting age to 18 is long overdue. Students today are more sophisticated than ever before as a result of their exposure to information and images. Long before the internet, however, the U.S. granted this right based on the argument that those old enough to be drafted and die for their country deserved the right to vote.

Schools in both countries are at an historic crossroads. The global economy makes it impossible to continue along the same path. But at the same time, great care needs to be taken not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. How to achieve a balance between the two will the subject of contentious debates in the years ahead.

Walt Gardner writes the Reality Check blog for Education Week in the U.S. Write to walt.gard376@gmail.com.
By Pete McCloskey



If there is any people in the world to whom the people of the United States owe a duty, it is the Korean people.



Twenty-five million North Koreans live under a repressive regime, believing their leader is divine, much like how the Shinto religion of Japan once believed in their emperor. Fifty million people live in South Korea, with perhaps 25 million within range of emplaced North Korean heavy artillery.



The Korean Peninsula is almost equal in size to California. Its 38th parallel runs through Marin, Solano, San Joaquin and Mono counties. Its mountains, valleys and seacoast are fully as beautiful as California's.



We owe, particularly to the South Koreans, a duty not to take any sudden military action which would result in the destruction of their major cities near the DMZ, and inflict perhaps millions of civilian casualties.



You ask why?



The answer is simple: The risks facing South Koreans today are the direct result of the United States' terrible mistakes over the past 112 years.



In 1905, brokering a peace treaty after the Japanese had routed the Russians, President Teddy Roosevelt blithely agreed to Korea's occupation by their historic enemy, Japan. No Koreans were asked for their consent.



The Japanese would use Korea as the launching pad for their 1931 invasion of Manchuria and their later invasion of China in 1937. The terribly cruel occupation of Korea lasted 40 years, until the defeat of Japan by the United States.



In 1945, another Roosevelt, FDR, at Yalta, agreed to a temporary division of the country between Russia and the United States, to be set shortly thereafter at the 38th parallel. No Koreans consented to this division of their country.



Finally, in January 1950, our distinguished secretary of state cavalierly remarked that our defense perimeter in Asia did not include South Korea, thereby inviting the North Koreans, Russian-trained and equipped, to invade South Korea six months later.



President Harry Truman asked for and got a U.N. resolution to go to the aid of the South Koreans, but then refused to consider a message from Chinese leader Mao Tse Tung that China would enter the war if U.S. troops were sent to Korea's border with China on the Yalu River. At General MacArthur's urging, the United States sent its troops to the Chinese border. China predictably entered the war.



The bitter Korean War then lasted three years, ending in July 1953 with an armistice that continued to divide the two Koreas. The Americans suffered 36,000 deaths. A million Koreans died and another million Chinese died. The dividing line that exists today is not far from the unfortunate 38th parallel.



So now we have an acknowledged unpredictable madman running North Korea and testing ICBMs, and an unstable, blustering U.S. president, saying we are through talking and will "handle" North Korea.



Luckily, there are two quiet, sound-thinking, combat veteran Marine Generals, Jim Mattis at Defense and Joe Dunford at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who will strongly discourage any action that could get 20 million South Koreans killed.



But it has always been a Marine Corps ethic to carry out a mission ordered by their commander-in-chief, even knowing, as in the case of Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam, Bill Clinton in the Balkans, and George W. Bush in Iraq, that their commander-in-chief had dodged combat service in his youth.



It is to be devoutly hoped that the advice of the combat-experienced marine generals will be followed by President Trump.







McCloskey, like Generals Mattis, Dunford and Kelly, and Special Counsel Robert Mueller, was once a U.S. marine, leading a rifle platoon in the Korean War.  ED.




It's time for diplomacy to go in high gear



President Moon Jae-in said Tuesday that the government will do whatever it can to prevent a war on the Korean Peninsula.



Delivering a speech at a ceremony marking the 72nd anniversary of the country's liberation from Japan's colonial rule, the liberal head of state said no military action should take place without Seoul's consent. ''Military action on the Korean Peninsula can only be decided by the Republic of Korea. No one can decide to take military action without the consent of the Republic of Korea,'' he said. Moon also said the government will step up its diplomatic efforts to resolve the North Korea nuclear and missile issues peacefully.



Moon's remarks come amid mounting tension between the United States and North Korea as the two countries have engaged in a bellicose war of words recently. The President clarified his position that there should not be another war on the peninsula, reaffirming that Seoul has the final say in determining military action.



Both supporters and detractors expected Moon to come up with viable measures that could avert the latest crisis through his Liberation Day speech. Sadly, he reiterated what he had been claiming so far.



In the nationally televised address, he urged the North to halt provocations and return to negotiations. ''I once again clarify. We do not want North Korea's collapse. We will not pursue unification by absorption nor seek any type of artificial unification,'' the human rights lawyer-turned-chief executive said.



It's doubtful though if his wish for peace and dialogue will be well-received by the North, considering Seoul's lack of leverage against Pyongyang.



The most recent verbal war between Washington and Pyongyang was focused on a North Korean threat to fire a volley of four missiles toward the U.S. Pacific island of Guam that hosts a number of strategic American military bases. It is fortunate, however, that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un hinted Monday at holding off on the planned missile strike near Guam.



During an inspection of the North Korean army's Strategic Forces, Kim praised the military for drawing up a ''close and careful plan'' and said he would watch the ''foolish and stupid conduct of the Yankees'' a little more. Some watchers prematurely suggested Kim's comments could open a possible path to de-escalating a growing crisis.



The United States also signaled a willingness to avert the deepening crisis. In a joint opinion piece to the Wall Street Journal, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said America has ''no interest'' in regime change in Pyongyang.



It's long past time for the North's young dictator to restore calm, and contemplate what would be in the best interests of his impoverished state. Now it's time for a diplomatic solution.




By Bernard Rowan





These days I think of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) as a negative symbol and don't like it. Oh, I don't mean any disrespect to the lives of soldiers and civilians past and present or to the significant investments of South Korea and the United States. So many men and women support the presence. Many provide layers of support surrounding the DMZ.

The Zone remains a buffer between North and South Korea. It's part of the armistice that ended open hostilities of the Korean War. This bloody chapter in modern history continues nonetheless. It continues because the war hasn't ended. There's no peace treaty. It hasn't ended because the two Koreas remain divided.

The DMZ is a cold place. I've visited, but it never changes much. Soldiers peer across the zone. They're not holding fake weapons. Their guns show the presence of human war is right in that place. Occasionally violence erupts in the DMZ, such as the infamous 1976 "Axe murder incident" in the Joint Security Area.

I don't like it when leaders from America go to the DMZ and try to stare down the North from what they assume is a safe distance. With denunciations and avowals, their rhetoric looks tough. Today we are less secure day by day.

I did like it when Roh Moo-hyun walked across the DMZ and further than any leader before or since to meet with Kim Jong-il. That emotional day saw spirits rising further than in my life for the cause of peace on the Korean peninsula. Who's thinking about what they agreed to nowadays? Neither North, South, nor the United States _ not enough! Putin, Xi, and Trump go backwards. Kim and everyone go backwards.

I reread on Wikipedia what Roh and Kim's father's declaration stated: "The South and North share the view that they should end the current armistice system and build up a permanent peace system." I don't know if global leaders are even vaguely aware of this declaration. They need to dust it off. Maybe they need tutors and schools to school their ministers. They're too powerful to learn?












By Park Jae-hyuk



POSCO Group will offer 6,000 permanent positions through 2020, the nation's leading steelmaker said Tuesday.



To secure human resources for the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and to keep pace with the administration's job policy, it has decided to hire 1,500 regular employees annually for the next four years.



The group has employed around 1,000 new regular workers every year up to now, but has decided to increase the number of new employees to take the initiative in the operation of its smart factories with IoT and artificial intelligence technologies.



It will also reduce working hours to enhance the work-life balance of its employees.



Instead of demanding existing employees work extra hours to supplement the others on their vacations, POSCO will fill the vacancies with new hires.



The new employees will be selected through various means of recruitment, including school-work links, employment of honorably discharged military personnel and open recruitment.



In addition, POSCO will raise 550 billion won ($481 million) to support its affiliates and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It has administered 500 billion won in funds so far this year.



The funds are expected to allow financially strapped affiliates and SMEs to pay their bills in cash, instead of in promissory notes.



To vitalize the nation's industries, POSCO said it will monitor whether the payments of its affiliates are made in cash and will offer incentives to the firms that raise the rates of payments in cash.



The measure is in line with the policies of the Moon Jae-in administration, which has stressed the significance of shared growth between big companies and their suppliers since its inauguration in May.



POSCO is the country's dominant iron maker and one of biggest in the world.



The Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province-based company has developed innovative products to compete with its global rivals.



For example, it developed "giga steel," a lighter but more solid product based on its latest technology.



The company is working with many automakers that are striving to take advantage of the new steel to help them make better cars.




'Weekly Idol' has by far become one of the most popular television programs in Korea, alongside other hit shows such as 'Show Me The Money' and 'Produce IOI,' because they featured various idols over the years. However, who was the most memorable idol to appear on the show?

On August 13th, the MCs of the show announced which idol they thought was the most memorable, and surprisingly MC Kim Dong Ho didn't choose a group but selected G-Dragon of Big Bang as his favorite experience with an idol on the show.

Kim Dong Ho stated, "Since episode one, G-Dragon is the most memorable guest because even after we confirmed his appearance on the show, he did not reject any kind of request. He had a very sophisticated, yet aggressive attitude toward our broadcast." He also continued, "Initially we had to CG idols into our show, but now when I realize that idol groups appear on our show as guests at least once is still shocking. I am thankful when rookie idol groups comment that they would like to appear on our show."

But G-Dragon wasn't the only idol receiving some kudos, EXID's Hani as well as Super Junior's Heechul were recognized for their great hosting abilities and the chemistry they shared with other idol rookie groups.

"As idols and hosts of the show whenever a guest was having a hard time carrying out the missions, they took charge and did their utmost best to demonstrate the missions."

Congratulations to all the idols mentioned above for doing so well alongside 'Weekly Idol.' Don't forget to check out their show every week on Wednesdays t 6pm KST!
Korean actress and superstar Song Hye Kyo has currently garnered some attention for her charitable ways. Song Hye Kyo recently helped raise awareness for this cause in Korea.

On August 15th, which is Korea's National Liberation Day, Song Hye Kyo, alongside professor Seo Kyung Duk of Sungshin Women's University, had donated 10,000 pamphlets titled 'Learning Our History from Overseas - Kyoto Version', to the city of Kyoto, Japan!

The pamphlets were well made as it contains both Korean and Japanese characters and expresses the history of Korea's liberation. It also highlights Korea's important monuments in Kyoto, Japan.

But this isn't her first donation to this important cause! Song Hye Kyo, as well as the professor, have felt strongly about Korea's National Liberation Day and have donated similar pamphlets in the past to not only cities in Korea but also overseas in the states, including Los Angeles and New York. They can also be found in China and Canada!

Many fans were delighted to see Song Hye Kyo working passionately towards her favorite cause despite all the commotion surrounding her and Song Joong Ki ever since their engagement announcement. She is still donating her money, instead of saving it for a lavish wedding. What do you think of Song Hye Kyo's giving personality?
#World University Games Chuncheong named host of 2027 World University Games The South Korean central region of Chungcheong was named the host of the 2027 Summer World University Games on Saturday, bringing the biennial event to the country for the fourth t...

#first lady First lady visits home of Cambodian child with heart disease First lady Kim Keon-hee visited the home of a Cambodian child with a heart disease Saturday and comforted the family, urging them not to give up under any circumstances, the presid...
PRESS RELEASE

Indian and Chinese Navies To Participate in the Indian Ocean Exercise in November

Aug. 14, 2017 (EIRNS)Despite continuing claims by the media that a conflict is ready to break out between China and India over the on-going border dispute involving Bhutan, Bangladesh announced today that the Indian and Chinese navies will participate in the first-ever International Maritime Search and Rescue Exercise (IMMSAREX) scheduled for November and organized by the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS). While India will be participating as a member country, Chinas Peoples Liberation Army Navy has agreed to participate as an observer, Sputnik reported.

Bangladesh, the current Chair, is scheduling a maiden International Maritime Search and Rescue Exercise (IMMSAREX) in November in the Bay of Bengal to be attended by ships and aircraft of the members and observers of the IONS, an official source said, according to The Hindu. IONS is represented by 23 Indian Ocean littoral member-states, which include India, and nine observers, which include China.

Rejecting Sputniks suggestion that the IMMSAREX is a confidence-building measure, Commodore Abhay Kumar Singh, a military analyst at Indias Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses (IDSA), said the Indian Navy in the past has exercised with the PLA Navy in multilateral exercises, for example, ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting (ADMM) Plus Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR), exercise in Indonesia, and the Australian Navys International Fleet Review.

At present, the Indian Navy is coordinating with other navies, including the PLA Navy, in the anti-piracy patrol in the Gulf of Aden through the SHADE (Shared Awareness and De-confliction) mechanism, notwithstanding the current standoff at the border between India and China, Sputnik reported.
PRESS RELEASE

UN Agency: 600,000 Syrian Refugees Have Returned Home; Russian Commander Shoigu Calls for Aid to Returnees

Aug. 14, 2017 (EIRNS)The International Organization for Migration, the UN Migration Agency, and other partner agencies have calculated that 602,759 Syrians displaced by the war returned to their homes between January and July of 2017. This compares to 685,662 in all of 2016. Of the returnees for 2017, 84% had been internally displaced; 16% returned from outside the country, primarily from Turkey, with smaller numbers returning from Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq. An estimated 67% of returnees returned to AleppoGovernorate, most of which is now under government control.

According to the IOM release, returnee access to food and household items is good, but access to water and health services is "dangerously low as the countrys infrastructure has been extremely damaged by the conflict."

The IOM also notes that while returns are increasing, displacements due to the conflict remain high, an estimated total of 808,661 from January to July. More than six million people remain displaced inside Syria.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, in an interview broadcast on Rossiya 24 TV on Aug. 13, called on international aid agencies to provide aid to Syrian civilians.

"Today we say: Send [the aid] to the de-escalation zones, everything is open there. If you cannot transport, we shall transport for you. But we cannot be both the mother and the father. Thus, of course, there should be support from humanitarian organizations, from the United Nations Organization,"

he said, reported TASS. Joint work of Russia and international humanitarian organizations will favor stabilizing of the situation with refugees, he continued. "Further on, refugees would return home, at first from inside Syria, what is happening already now, and then from other regions," he added.
PRESS RELEASE

Tillerson and Mattis Reiterate, No U.S. Interest in Regime-Change or Acclerated Reunification in North Korea

Aug. 14, 2017 (EIRNS)In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, released yesterday by the U.S. Department of State, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis restate that the

"object if our peaceful pressure campaign is the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The U.S. has no interest in regime change or accelerated reunification of Korea. We do not seek an excuse to garrison U.S. troops north of the Demilitarized Zone."

They continue that the diplomatic approach is "shared by many nations...including China, which has dominant economic leverage over Pyongyang." They warn that "while diplomacy is our preferred means of changing North Koreas course of action, it is backed by military options," describing joint military exercises as "defensive," as is the THAAD deployment.
The Congressional Budget Office weighed in Tuesday with another of its long-awaited analyses of aspects of repealing or tinkering with the Affordable Care Act. This time the topic is the ACAs cost-sharing reduction subsidies, which reduce deductibles and co-pays for the lowest-income buyers of health coverage on the exchanges.

The CBOs findings are timely because the so-called CSRs are the subsidies that President Trump continually threatens to withhold, as a tool for forcing Obamacare to implode. And, as expected, the CBO finds that canceling the subsidies would be a disaster  but for Republicans favoring that approach, not Democrats.

Its conclusion is especially germane to the question of what congressional Democrats should trade in return for a GOP agreement to keep the CSRs funded. Earlier this month, healthcare analyst Avik Roy argued that Republicans should demand lots of concessions, including repeal of the individual mandate and enactment of premium-lowering regulatory reforms. Roy didnt specify these, but Republicans have talked about paring down the ACAs list of essential health benefits, such as maternity, hospitalization and prescription coverage, which are mandated to be offered by any qualified health plan.

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Democrats have no reason to trade CSR funding for policies that they dont prefer....Conservatives are the ones who need to make concessions to fully fund CSR.  Health insurance expert David Anderson

The CBOs analysis, however, suggests that Democrats should take Michael Corleones approach from The Godfather, Part II. His line to a corrupt senator overplaying his hand was: My offer is this: nothing.

Obamacare supporters havent fully internalized this reality. The Democratic National Committee responded to the CBO report by quoting the agency as finding that if cost-sharing reduction subsidies were ended, millions of Americans would face skyrocketing premium increases of 20% by 2018 and 25% by 2020. Actually, the CBO didnt say that. The premium increases it cited were gross increases, not factoring in premium subsidies, which would reduce the actual impact in many cases to zero.

Health insurance expert David Anderson of Duke got it exactly right: Democrats have no reason to trade CSR funding for policies that they dont prefer, he observed. Inaction gives them an incredible policy victory. Conservatives are the ones who need to make concessions to fully fund CSR.

The fallout from CSR cancellation already is visible in early rate requests filed by insurers in several states. California insurers are seeking an increase averaging about 12.5% for next year  but almost double that if the CSRs are ended. Those rates are pre-subsidy, and Covered California, which manages the states insurance exchange, said that the average buyer could avert all or most of the increases through the subsidy and smart shopping.

The CBO says its analysis is based on the assumption that CSRs would be paid through the end of this year, but not thereafter. If the scenario changes  say the payments are cut off in midyear, after insurers already have set their annual premiums and signed up customers, the results could be more dire. In that event, however, Republicans would probably be blamed for the resulting market carnage, since it would be associated directly with GOP action.

Before we get into the counterintuitive details, a quick primer.

Cost-sharing reductions are offered to buyers in the individual market with incomes between 100% and 250% of the federal poverty limit. For a family of four, the eligible income range is $24,600 to $61,500. These subsidies are in addition to the ACAs premium subsidies, which cover those with incomes up to 400% of the poverty level, or $98,400 for a family of four. Unlike the premium assistance, which technically is paid to the policyholder, the CSRs are advanced to the insurers based on the co-pays and deductibles they would otherwise charge. About half of all buyers of ACA plans are eligible for the CSR assistance, and about 90% receive premium subsidies.

The subsidies this year are expected to come to $7 billion, to be paid to insurers covering 7 million customers. The subsidies are authorized under the healthcare act, but House Republicans filed a lawsuit in 2014 asserting that because the money hadnt been specifically appropriated, paying the money is illegal. They won the first round in U.S. District Court last year, but the judge stayed her ruling pending an appeals court decision.

Since his inauguration, Trump has dithered over whether to pay out the subsidies and continue fighting for them in court. On occasion, hes threatened to kill the payments as a bargaining chip to force Democrats to negotiate an Obamacare repeal. Periodically, the plaintiff and government lawyers have to return to the appeals court to ask for a three-month hold in the case; the next scheduled appearance is Aug. 20. Recently, 17 states and the District of Columbia won the right to step in to defend the CSR payments if the Trump administration tries to withdraw from the case.

The CBO found that canceling the CSR subsidies might drive some insurers out of the individual market because of uncertainty about the effects of the policy on average healthcare costs for people purchasing plans. Those facing higher deductibles and co-pays might be less inclined to buy coverage. Regions with about 5% of the U.S. population might end up with no insurers in the individual market next year, the agency said. But by 2020, enough insurers would return to the market that almost no one would be left without insurance availability.

Insurers would, however, raise premiums to compensate for the loss of subsidies for deductibles and co-pays. Its likely that insurers would load these higher premiums onto silver plans, the only plans that provide CSR subsidies. That would drive up gross premiums for silver plans by 20% next year, compared to their expected level without a policy change.

But because premium subsidies are tied to buyers incomes and rise as premiums rise, the subsidies would also increase  in fact, more Americans would be eligible. The CBO reckoned that many silver-plan buyers receiving subsidies would pay net premiums similar to what they would pay if the CSR payments were continued. Some buying skimpier, bronze plans, would receive sufficient subsidies to cover premiums and some of their deductibles and co-pays too. The average subsidy would be greater, and more people would receive subsidies in most years.

The federal government, however, would take a hit. Over 10 years, the CBO said, canceling the CSR payments would increase the federal deficit by $194 billion. So much for the fiscally responsible Republican Party.

The picture could be materially different if Trump follows through on his threat to cancel CSRs immediately. Any decision to terminate CSRs after insurers had begun charging premiums based on continued CSR funding, the CBO said, would cause them significant financial losses. Some would leave the marketplace immediately, leaving their enrollees without coverage in the middle of the year and causing a spike in the ranks of the uninsured.

Is Trump prepared to explain the consequences to the public? Its doubtful. Many congressional Republicans know that for Trump to cancel the CSRs in midstream would hand them a poisoned chalice. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, told Roy he favors an affirmation by Trump of the CSRs at least through September, followed by congressional extension of the CSRs for one year. That would provide sufficient stability, Alexander said, to persuade the insurers to lower their rates.

Keep up to date with Michael Hiltzik. Follow @hiltzikm on Twitter, see his Facebook page, or email michael.hiltzik@latimes.com.

Return to Michael Hiltziks blog.
On Monday morning, Merck & Co. Chief Executive Ken Frazier resigned from President Trumps manufacturing jobs council to protest Trumps deficient condemnation of the racist violence in Charlottesville, Va. Since then, membership on Trumps Potemkin Village-like CEO boards has begun to look like something of a litmus test for American corporations and business organizations.

Two CEOs followed Frazier out the door on Monday: Under Armours Kevin Plank and Intels Brian Krzanich. But representatives of some 40 other corporations and other organizations, including a couple of retired CEOs, are still members of the jobs council and a second panel designated the Presidents Strategic and Policy Forum.

Those companies and organizations are undoubtedly pondering now whether cozying up to this president is worth the grief. When we polled members of the jobs panel Monday, only a handful responded, and a subset of those stated affirmatively that they were staying on. They were Whirlpool, Boeing, General Electric, Dell and Campbell Soup.

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The AFL-CIO said Tuesday that its two representatives on the jobs council, President Richard Trumka and Deputy Chief of Staff Thea Lee, were resigning, effective immediately. We cannot sit on a council for a President who tolerates bigotry and domestic terrorism, the two officers said in a tweet.

Make no mistake, the decisions business leaders make send a very powerful signal both to the rest of the world and the president.  Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers

Its possible that more will withdraw in coming days. But as a guide for shareholders and customers of those that remain, were providing a list here of the companies and organizations, and their current status.

Shortly after this column originally was published, Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, announced via Twitter his resignation from the manufacturing jobs council because its the right thing for me to do.

Pauls resignation tweet came just 16 minutes after Trump tweeted a response to the previous resignations, asserting that for every CEO who resigns, I have many to take their place. Grandstanders should not have gone on. JOBS!

On Wednesday, 3M CEO Inge Thulin and Campbell Soup CEO Denise Morrison said they were resigning from the jobs panel, becoming the seventh and eighth members to quit this week.

I joined the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative in January to advocate for policies that align with our values and encourage even stronger investment and job growth, Thulin said. After careful consideration, I believe the initiative is no longer an effective vehicle for 3M to advance these goals. A statement from Morrison attributed her departure to Trumps remarks Tuesday about the Charlottesville attack, in which he defended the white supremacists whose march instigated the violence.

I'm resigning from the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative because it's the right thing for me to do.  Scott Paul (@ScottPaulAAM) August 15, 2017

For every CEO that drops out of the Manufacturing Council, I have many to take their place. Grandstanders should not have gone on. JOBS!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 15, 2017

We should consider what membership on these panels means to its members and why the time may be nigh to bail out. The best outline of the arguments pro and con came from a dialogue in June between Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase  and a member of the strategic and policy panel  and Lawrence Summers, who served as Treasury secretary under President Clinton and chief economist to President Obama. They made their views known via Bloomberg TV.

The issue then was Trumps withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate agreement. I am a American patriot, and I want to help the president of the United States, Dimon said, explaining why he wouldnt resign from the panel in protest. It is very hard if you say Im going to go off an advisory group or not do a, b, c because you disagree on one issue. Honestly, no one is going to agree with every president or prime minister on every issue. So I dont want to overreact to it.

Summers said that wouldnt do. Jamie referred to this as one issue, he told the Bloomberg interviewers. Theres an immigration ban, theres arithmetic that doesnt add up, theres climate change, theres crony capitalism and selective deals  this is hardly the first and only minor issue. This is the central part or philosophy  does the United States believe in a community of nations? He argued that there is a difference between volunteering ones advice to a president, and lending your prestige and that of your company to joining an advisory board of his creation. That is accepting a presidential appointment.

He added that a mass resignation from the presidential committee would get Trumps attention. Make no mistake, the decisions business leaders make send a very powerful signal both to the rest of the world and the president.

By the time Summers was speaking, several CEOs had resigned from one of Trumps two business panels: Robert Iger of Disney and Elon Musk of SpaceX and Tesla Motors quit the strategic and policy council to protest the Paris decision, Musk also quit the jobs council, and Travis Kalanick of Uber had quit the strategic and policy council in the aftermath of Trumps travel ban.

As we observed Monday, retaining membership in Trumps business councils makes a company complicit in everything he represents: his punitive immigration policies, his climate change denialism, and now his embrace of white supremacist and Nazi sentiments.

The question is especially acute given the fundamental uselessness of Trumps business councils. Theres no evidence he listens. In fact, the jobs council has not held a formal meeting, other than a single get-together about a month after it was named in January. The two AFL-CIO representatives werent even invited. The strategic and policy council hasnt met since April. Thats why the panels deserve to be compared to Potemkin Villages. The term derives from the possibly apocryphal story of fake villages built by Catherine the Greats favorite, Grigory Potemkin, to impress her during a visit to the Crimea in 1787.

Here are the companies retaining membership on Trumps two major business panels, the Strategic and Policy Forum (designated SP in this list), and the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative (MJ). A handy spreadsheet as of late Monday can be found here, courtesy of Forbes. Well update the roster if changes occur Tuesday. In some cases, company spokespersons left their positions ambiguous; when they cited the virtues of remaining engaged with government officials, we interpreted that as affirming continued membership.

Affirmatively staying on:

--General Motors, CEO Mary Barra (SP)

--Cleveland Clinic, CEO Toby Cosgrove (SP)

--JP Morgan Chase, CEO Jamie Dimon (SP)

--Wal-Mart, CEO Doug McMillon (SP)

--Boeing, CEO Dennis Muilenberg (MJ)

--Blackstone Group, CEO Stephen Schwarzman (SP)

--General Electric, former CEO Jack Welch (SP)

--Dell, CEO Michael Dell (MJ)

--Whirlpool, CEO Jeff Fettig (MJ)

--Johnson & Johnson, CEO Alex Gorsky (MJ)

--General Electric, CEO Jeff Immelt (MJ)

--Timken, CEO Rich Kyle

--Newell Brands, CEO Michael Polk (MJ)

--International Paper, CEO Mark Sutton (MJ)

--Corning, CEO Wendell Weeks (MJ)

No specific comment on plans:

--BlackRock, CEO Larry Fink (SP)

--BCG (Boston Consulting Group), CEO Rich Lesser (SP)

--Boeing, former CEO Jim McNerney (SP)

--Pepsico, CEO Indra Nooyi (SP)

--Global Infrastructure Partners, Chairman Adebayo Ogunlesi (SP)

--IBM, CEO Virginia Rometty (SP)

--Stanford University/Hoover Institution, Kevin Warsh, visiting fellow (SP)

--EY (Ernst & Young), CEO Mark Weinberger (SP)

--IHS Markit, Vice Chairman Daniel Yergin (SP)

--Dow Chemical, CEO Andrew Liveris (MJ)

--Nucor Corp., CEO John Ferriola (MJ)

--United Technologies, CEO Greg Hayes (MJ)

--Lockheed Martin, CEO Marillyn Hewson (MJ)

--Dana Inc., CEO Jim Kamsickas (MJ)

Retired from company and council:

--Ford Motor, former CEO Mark Fields (MJ)

--Arconic, former CEO Klaus Kleinfeld (MJ)

--U.S. Steel, former CEO Mario Longhi (MJ)

--Caterpillar, former CEO Doug Oberhelman (MJ)

Members who have dropped out:

--Tesla, CEO Elon Musk (MJ and SPprior to Charlottesville)

--Disney, CEO Robert Iger (SPprior to Charlottesville)

--Uber, ex-CEO Travis Kalanick (SPprior to Charlottesville)

--Merck & Co., CEO Kenneth Frazier (MJ)

--Under Armour, CEO Kevin Plank (MJ)

--Intel, CEO Brian Krzanich (MJ)

--Alliance for American Manufacturing, President Scott Paul (MJ)

--AFL-CIO, President Richard Trumka and Deputy Chief of Staff Thea Lee (MJ)

--3M, CEO Inge Thulin (MJ)

--Campbell Soup, CEO Denise Morrison (MJ)

Keep up to date with Michael Hiltzik. Follow @hiltzikm on Twitter, see his Facebook page, or email michael.hiltzik@latimes.com.

Return to Michael Hiltziks blog.

MORE FROM MICHAEL HILTZIK

An Obamacare insurer flees another state, blaming Trump and the GOP for sabotage

How a factory deal Trump touted put the con in Foxconn  and how taxpayers will get taken

How right-winger Dennis Prager politicized his own symphony gig  and declared himself the victim

UPDATES:

9:22 a.m.: This post has been updated with the resignation of Scott Paul and Trumps tweeted response to the resignations.

3:11 p.m.: This post has been updated with the resignations of AFL-CIO officers Trumka and Lee.

9:24 a.m., August 16: This post has been updated with the resignation of 3Ms Inge Thulin.

10:12 a.m., August 16: This post has been updated with the resignation of Campbell Soups Denise Morrison.

This article was originally published at 8:35 a.m.
Federal agencies are looking into the Management Group, the Hollywood management company that is currently in the midst of a legal battle with actor Johnny Depp.

One of the probes, which is being led by the IRS and the Justice Department, is examining the possibility that the company has engaged in fraud and money laundering, according to people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to comment.

The Wall Street Journal first reported on the probes.

The Securities and Exchange Commission also is examining the manner in which the company handled Depps money. The IRS and the SEC declined to comment. The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.

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In January, Depp sued the company, accusing it of fraud and negligence and seeking at least $25 million in damages. TMG countersued the Pirates of the Caribbean star, claiming that its former client has engaged in profligate spending. It is seeking $560,000 in unpaid fees from the actor.

Michael Kump, an attorney for TMG, said in a statement Tuesday: In 30 years of business, no current or former client of TMG has raised any issue, other than Johnny Depp who continues to spread malicious, unfounded lies about the company. TMG will vigorously defend and defeat all of Depps fabricated claims.

A spokeswoman for Depp didnt respond to a request for comment.

TMG, based in Beverly Hills, was founded by brothers Joel and Rob Mandel. TMG hasnt been contacted about the federal probes, according to a person close to the brothers who was not authorized to comment publicly and requested anonymity.

Depp alleges in his suit that his former managers engaged in gross mismanagement and, at times, outright fraud. The suit also names the brothers business called the Mandel Co. as well as other defendants.

In response, the brothers claim that Depp and his close associates were made aware of the stars financial state but continued to spend extravagantly.

david.ng@latimes.com

@DavidNgLAT
When the North Korean regime of Kim Jong Un threatened to fire a nuclear weapon toward the U.S. territory of Guam, President Trump predicted that the added attention from the threat would increase tourism to the tiny island in the Pacific Ocean.

And some tourism officials agree. But they dont think the increase will be substantial.

After the threat from North Korea, Trump spoke to Guam Gov. Eddie Calvo last week and not only assured him that the island would be protected by the U.S. military, but also encouraged him to consider the benefits of the showdown.

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I have to tell you, you have become extremely famous all over the world, Trump told Calvo, according to a transcript released of the call.

They are talking about Guam; and theyre talking about you. And when it comes to tourism, the president added, I can say this: Youre going to go up, like, tenfold with the expenditure of no money.

Guam, an island known for its white-sand beaches and coral reef snorkeling, broke a 20-year record for visitation in July, with nearly 133,000 visitors. Guam is also home to two U.S. military bases, occupied by about 7,000 troops.

The new tourism record surpasses the previous high visitation mark set in 1997 and represents an 8.1% increase from the same month in 2016. Tourism represents about 50% of the islands economy.

The two biggest sources of visitors to Guam in July were Japan and South Korea, according to the Guam Visitors Bureau. Japanese visitors made up 39% of all visitors while South Korean tourists made up 46% of visitors in July. U.S. visitors made up only 6% of all tourism to the island.

Guam is home to about 160,000 people and is about 2,000 miles from North Korea. Surveys find that visitors are drawn to the island by its beaches and tropical climate.

Travel and tourism experts say it is possible that the attention brought to Guam by North Koreas threat could result in more visitors  assuming the harsh rhetoric between North Korea and the U.S. is resolved peacefully.

All of this publicity is going to be good for Guam, said Carl Winston, the director of the L. Robert Payne School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at San Diego State University.

In fact, the travel site Hipmunk.com reported a 438% increase in searches of flights from the U.S. to Guam from Aug. 8 to 13, compared with the week earlier.

Bjorn Hanson, a professor at New York Universitys Tisch Center for Hospitality and Tourism, agreed, saying Guam has gained substantial awareness and added curiosity and the attention could be very favorable.

But experts say it is highly unlikely that the North Korean threat  even after it is resolved  will boost visitation tenfold, as predicted by Trump.

Winston dismissed the prediction as hyperbole, while Hanson added that Guam probably doesnt even have the hotels, restaurants or airline capacity to handle a tenfold increase in tourism.

Henry H. Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst with Atmosphere Research Group, was even more skeptical. He noted that flights from the U.S. to Guam are 17 hours long and are typically more expensive than flying to Hawaii.

Im not sure there will be a rush of tourists from America or elsewhere, he said.

hugo.martin@latimes.com

To read more about the travel and tourism industries, follow @hugomartin on Twitter.
President Trumps buy American mantra has particular appeal among his blue-collar base and others who support giving preference to U.S. companies when it comes to federal government purchases.

But as Trumps team opens talks Wednesday aimed at rewriting the North American Free Trade Agreement, inserting a buy American provision into the landmark pact could prove to be one of the most contentious issues.

NAFTA prohibits preferential treatment for American companies when they bid on U.S. government contracts, with a similar restriction on Mexico and Canada when dealing with their own government procurement.

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Critics of the 1994 trade pact say scrapping that ban should be a no-brainer given Trumps signature campaign promise to transform trade policy and promote an America first agenda.

But with hundreds of billions of government procurement dollars at stake, Canada and Mexico are likely to fight to keep things as they are. And the Trump administration will have to contend with conflicting interests at home as well.

Even as smaller American firms generally favor domestic preferences for government contracts, large U.S. multinationals tend to oppose policies restricting their ability to produce, sell or bid on something in other parts of the world. Big American corporations dont want to see government procurement markets in Canada or Mexico closed to them.

The labor movement is more unified in favor of the buy American effort. But critics like Dana Frank, a professor at UC Santa Cruz and author of Buy American, who see Trumps slogan as part of a broader effort to promote economic nationalism and anti-immigration policies.

Buy American is the name of an actual U.S. law that came out of the Great Depression, affecting only direct federal purchases. NAFTA exempted Mexican and Canadian firms so they would be treated as U.S. companies.

Trumps top trade officials have been sympathetic to those wanting to remove the Buy American ban in NAFTA and other free trade deals. But in a letter last month outlining the administrations objectives for NAFTA renegotiations, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer did not include a definitive statement saying what they will do on government procurement.

In contrast, Lighthizer was more explicit on other issues, saying, for example, he would strive to eliminate a NAFTA provision allowing Canada and Mexico to challenge anti-dumping duties imposed by the U.S. through an independent dispute-settlement panel.

Lighthizers letter to Congress was much more restrained than Trumps fiery rhetoric during the campaign, when he called NAFTA a disaster and pledged a radical overhaul of the 23-year-old pact or threatened to terminate it.

But to some, the lack of specificity on Buy American suggested the Trump administration may be having second thoughts or internal divisions about the promise.

The toned-down statements have reassured those who have been fretting about NAFTAs future. Canada and Mexico account for one-fourth of all U.S. trade in goods and services. North American supply chains are deeply integrated, and millions of workers in the three countries count on trade with each other for their livelihoods.

Proponents for Buy American have cited a General Accountability Office review from early this year that found the U.S. makes available twice as much government procurement to foreign firms, measured in contract value, as the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Norway and Canada combined.

We have given away much more access than we have received, a group of nine Democratic senators said in a recent letter to Trump.

But Howard W. Roth, a government contracts expert at Oles Morrison, a law firm based in Seattle, said that imbalance is a reflection of Americas outsized military budget relative to other countries.

Denmark sells us a lot of goods and services, he said, but theres not a whole lot we can sell to Denmark. Its defense budget is next to nothing.

The Trump administration is now undertaking its own review, but that probably wont be finished until November, well into the NAFTA talks.

Also, what the GAO study does not answer is how much foreign firms actually win in government procurement.

Daniel Schwanen, a trade expert at C.D. Howe Institute, a nonprofit policy research organization in Toronto, says its worth remembering that although Canadas government procurement market is much smaller, so is its supplier base when compared with the U.S.

For every one Canadian bidder, there are nine American ones, and theyll still get the lions share, he said.

I think, bottom line, Canada wouldnt accept reduced access to the U.S. [procurement] market, Schwanen added. Theres no reason. Were not an unfair trader. I dont see why U.S. protectionism should be expanded to Canada.

With Mexico, the challenge for the U.S. has more to do with curbing corruption and ensuring that Mexican procurement procedures are transparent so American firms have fair access to government contracts.

Mexican infrastructure projects, for example, tend to be dominated by Spanish firms, says Manuel Molano, deputy director of the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness, a think tank in Mexico City.

We really need to look at and have better rules in engaging with suppliers in public purchases, he said.

And even if Trump manages to abolish the Buy American ban in NAFTA, its not clear how much would change in the way U.S. government makes its purchases.

For one thing, the U.S. would still be bound by an agreement it signed with Canada and others with the World Trade Organization to open up government procurement markets to each other.

Whats more, the Pentagon over the years has worked out separate understandings with more than 20 countries to remove Buy American barriers for many defense supplies, which constitute the bulk of direct federal spending for goods.

Some of those arrangements are an acknowledgment that the U.S. lacks domestic manufacturing capabilities for all its needs. Certain electronic components that are essential for older military jets, for example, are no longer produced in the U.S. That means the Pentagon has little choice but to rely on contractors to source them from global suppliers.

The Buy American Act in 1933 never envisioned the kinds of supply chains we have in place today, said attorney Roth. It was like a piece of solid cheese then, and now its like Swiss cheese. There are all these holes in it.

Should the U.S. fail to include domestic preferences for direct federal government purchases, analysts predict Trump will pay a heavy political price. Most Americans favor buy American policies, supporters say, and steering taxpayer dollars to domestic firms is directly in line with Trumps economic agenda, not to mention his motto.

From a policy perspective, Buy American makes sense, said Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, an advocacy group. I think its a piece of the puzzle to unlocking opportunities for American workers.

Paul added that it would help if Trump practiced what he preached. The presidents business holdings include 14 Canadian and two Mexican investments, according to Public Citizens Global Trade Watch. And its widely known that some of Trumps clothing line is made in Mexico.

It lends credibility to the effort if its your personal corporate ethos as well, Paul said.

don.lee@latimes.com

Follow me at @dleelatimes

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Target Corp.  increasingly aware that shoppers want the things they buy online to arrive right away  is acquiring a San Francisco transportation technology company that facilitates same-day deliveries.

The discount retailer announced Monday that it has agreed to acquire tech start-up Grand Junction, whose software manages local deliveries using a network of about 700 carriers.

Well leverage Grand Junctions platform  to become even faster and more efficient in how we get products to our guests, Arthur Valdez, Targets chief supply chain and logistics officer, said in a statement.

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Target declined to reveal financial details of the acquisition. It said the deal would close soon, but it did not specify when.

Grand Junctions 13 employees will become Target workers after the deal closes, Target said. The start-ups office is expected to move from San Franciscos financial district to be closer to Targets Silicon Valley headquarters in Sunnyvale. Its founder and chief executive, Rob Howard, is to become Targets vice president of technology.

Target has been working with Grand Junction on a same-day delivery pilot program at a store in New York Citys Tribeca neighborhood. Target said same-day deliveries will be expanded to other New York stores in the fall and to other major cities next year.

Minneapolis-based Target was already exploring ways to shorten the time between when customers place an order and when they receive their purchases. In June, Target announced a pilot program in the Minneapolis area to deliver essential household goods such as pet food and laundry detergent within one business day. In 2015, it partnered with Instacart for same-day grocery deliveries. That followed a 2014 pilot program that offered a same-day Rush Delivery option.

Instacart still does deliveries for Target in San Francisco, Chicago and Minneapolis as part of a test program, Target spokesman Eddie Baeb said. He said the planned acquisition of Grand Junction would not change Targets deal with Instacart.

The appetite for quick deliveries is growing. Consulting firm McKinsey & Co. expects same-day and instant deliveries to make up 20% to 25% of standard parcel revenue by 2025, according to the companys s 2016 report. McKinsey also surveyed people in the U.S., China and Germany and found that 25% were willing to pay higher prices for same-day or instant delivery.

Theres clearly an arms race going on from the mass merchants, recognizing that getting everyday essentials in the hands of customers is critical, UBS Group retail analyst Michael Lasser said in a note.

E-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc. offers same-day delivery and even two-hour delivery in some locations. Retail rival Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has been scrambling to offer speedy options. In June, it announced it was testing a program in which store employees can deliver packages while driving home from work.

nicholas.cheng@latimes.com
President Trump on Tuesday ripped three top corporate chief executives who resigned from his manufacturing council in protest of his handling of the Charlottesville, Va., violence, calling them grandstanders and saying they were embarrassed because they made their products abroad.

Trumps criticism came as three other members of the council announced they were stepping down as well.

Trump said on Twitter that for every CEO that drops out of the Manufacturing Council, I have many to take their place.

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He then said that grandstanders should not have gone on the council, which Trump formed shortly after taking office in January.

For every CEO that drops out of the Manufacturing Council, I have many to take their place. Grandstanders should not have gone on. JOBS!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 15, 2017

Trump described former FBI Director James B. Comey as a grandstander in a May interview with NBC in explaining why he fired him.

Later Tuesday, in an appearance in the lobby of Trump Tower, Trump told reporters that the executives who resigned from his advisory council were not taking their jobs seriously as it pertains to this country.

He specifically said Merck was manufacturing drugs abroad, even though he praised Merck last month for a new U.S. manufacturing initiative with two other companies.

Some of the folks that will leave [the council], theyre leaving out of embarrassment because they make their products outside. Ive been lecturing them  about you have to bring it back to this country, Trump said. I want manufacturing to be back into the United States so that American workers can benefit.

Kenneth Frazier, chief executive of Merck & Co., publicly announced Monday that he was stepping down from the council because he felt a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism.

One of the nations most prominent African American executives, Frazier did not mention Trump by name.

But Trump had been criticized for not explicitly condemning white supremacists after violent clashes with counter-protestors turned deadly in the Virginia college town Saturday.

Trump lashed out at Frazier on Twitter, criticizing Merck for what he said were its high drug prices.

Although Trump issued a statement later Monday specifically denouncing the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups, that didnt stop the fallout.

Kevin Plank, chief executive of Under Armour Inc., and Brian Krzanich, chief executive of Intel Corp., issued statements Monday night that they were stepping down as well.

Then on Tuesday, there were more departures.

Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a trade group of business and the United Steelworkers union, announced he was stepping down.

I'm resigning from the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative because it's the right thing for me to do.  Scott Paul (@ScottPaulAAM) August 15, 2017

And after Trump in his comments to reporters at Trump Tower again blamed the Charlottesville violence on both sides, as he had on Saturday, two members of the council from the AFL-CIO also said they were leaving.

We cannot sit on a council for a president who tolerates bigotry and domestic terrorism, said a joint statement from Richard Trumka, the labor unions president, and Thea Lee, its chief of staff.

President Trumps remarks today repudiate his forced remarks yesterday about the KKK and neo-Nazis, the two said.

I cannot sit on a council for a President that tolerates bigotry and domestic terrorism; I resign, effective immediately. pic.twitter.com/ip6F2nsoog  Richard Trumka (@RichardTrumka) August 15, 2017

In a statement released Tuesday, Doug McMillon, chief executive of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., criticized Trumps initial response to the Charlottesville violence.

McMillon said in the statement, which had been emailed to company employees Monday, that Trump missed a critical opportunity to help bring our country together by unequivocally rejecting the appalling actions of white supremacists.

But McMillon, who serves on a different White House business council, the Presidents Strategic and Policy Forum, said Trumps comments Monday were a step in the right direction, and we need that clarity and consistency in the future.

McMillon indicated he would continue to be part of the group, just as several members of the manufacturing council have done while decrying the violence.

Our country is facing some very difficult issues that require our elected officials, business leaders and community-based organizations to work together, McMillon said.

Representing a company with the largest and one of the most diverse groups of associates in the U.S., and an even more diverse customer base of tens of millions of customers, we believe we should stay engaged to try to influence decisions in a positive way and help bring people together, he said.

Trump told reporters Tuesday that McMillon was a very nice guy but was making a political statement.

Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, who was a top economic advisor to President Obama, said Tuesday that all the CEOs on the advisory councils should resign.

No advisor committed to the bipartisan American traditions of government can possibly believe he or she is being effective at this point, Summers wrote in a column in the Washington Post. And all should feel ashamed for complicity in Mr. Trumps words and deeds. I sometimes wonder how they face their children.

Twitter: @JimPuzzanghera

jim.puzzanghera@latimes.com

ALSO:

Pressure points? Here are the companies whose CEOs are still kissing up to Trump

Justice Department wants data on anti-Trump protesters. An L.A. tech firm is resisting

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UPDATES:

3:15 p.m.: This article was updated with the resignations of Richard Trumka and Thea Lee of the AFL-CIO.

1:50 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from President Trump.

11:45 a.m.: This article was updated with comments from Wal-Mart CEO Doug McMillon.

This article was originally published at 9:35 a.m.
Stephen Sanger, the chairman of Wells Fargo & Co., will step down from the board of the embattled bank effective Jan. 1 and will be replaced by former Federal Reserve official Elizabeth A. Betsy Duke, the bank announced Tuesday.

Two other long-serving directors, Cynthia H. Milligan and Susan G. Swenson, also will retire at the end of this year. Theyre the latest casualties in the banks long-running scandal over sham accounts, which has spurred a wide-ranging shake-up at the San Francisco financial giant.

All three are among the companys longest-tenured board members, with Milligan having served for a quarter of a century. The trio received only tepid support from shareholders at the companys annual meeting in April, a sign of investors dissatisfaction with the boards oversight of the bank amid an ever-growing list of misdeeds.

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In a statement Tuesday, Sanger said Duke, who joined the board in January 2015 and has served as vice chairwoman since last October, was the unanimous choice to lead the board as it continues its focus on strengthening oversight and rebuilding the trust of shareholders, customers, and other stakeholders.

Nearly a year ago, the bank reached a $185-million settlement with regulators, admitting it created as many as 2.1 million checking, savings and credit card accounts without customers knowledge. The banks practice of opening unauthorized accounts was first exposed by a 2013 Los Angeles Times investigation.

The settlement led to public outcry, a bevy of related investigations by federal and state agencies, two bruising Capitol Hill hearings and the resignation of Chief Executive and Chairman John Stumpf in October.

He was replaced as CEO by longtime Wells Fargo executive Tim Sloan, who remains on the banks board. Sanger, a longtime board member and former General Mills chief executive, was named chairman.

Since that initial shake-up, though, the number of potential sham accounts has grown and the bank has acknowledged or been investigated for a wide array of other bad practices, including forcing unneeded auto insurance policies on auto loan customers and charging improper fees on mortgage borrowers for bank-caused delays.

The board upheaval came as no surprise to analysts, who had expected such a move after Aprils annual meeting. A significant number of shareholders withheld support for most board members, with Sanger and six other directors receiving less than 70% of shareholders votes despite running unopposed.

Typically, corporate board members are elected with near-unanimous support. At the April 25 meeting, held at a Florida resort, Sanger called the vote tally a clear message of dissatisfaction from shareholders.

At the time, analyst Scott Siefers at investment bank Sandler ONeill said he expected the shareholder vote would lead to accelerated turnover.

Robert Hockett, a law professor at Cornell who specializes in financial and corporate governance matters, said recent revelations about more bad practices at the bank made a board shake-up even more of a foregone conclusion.

Its like the grift that keeps on grifting  just one scandal after another, Hockett said. The board probably thought, Were going to have to do something dramatic. 

He also said that by elevating Duke, a former Fed official, to chairwoman, Wells Fargo may be trying to tell regulators and lawmakers that it is serious about its turnaround efforts.

Shes someone who everyone takes seriously and who would take a compliance mission seriously as well, he said.

Duke served as a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from 2008 to 2013. Previously, she was an executive at a handful of regional and community banks in the Southeast and a member of the board of the American Bankers Assn., a trade group.

Brian Kleinhanzl, an analyst at investment bank Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, said in a note to investors Tuesday that it was inevitable Sanger would step down. He also said, though, that the board changes alone will not mollify investors, especially if more bad news about the bank continues to surface.

In the end, there still will be pressure to see greater management changes if more wrongdoing is found, since much of the wrongdoing was directly overseen by Wells management, Kleinhanzl wrote.

Other changes announced Tuesday include the appointment of a new board member, Juan A. Pujadas, a retired principal at accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, and the rejiggering of several board committees. The bank said as many as three additional board members will be appointed before the companys 2018 shareholder meeting.

In removing Sanger, Milligan and Swenson, the bank is parting ways with three of its longest-tenured board members, though not the directors who received the least support from shareholders.

Enrique Hernandez Jr., who has been on the banks board for 14 years and is chief executive of Pasadena firm Inter-Con Security Systems, garnered the least support, with votes from just 53% of shareholders. He will remain on the board but will be replaced by Karen B. Peetz, a former executive at the Bank of New York Mellon who joined Wells Fargos board in February, as chair of the boards risk committee.

Federico F. Pena, who served as secretary of education and secretary of energy during the Clinton administration, received votes from just 54% of shareholders. He will remain on the board and keep his position as chairman of the banks corporate responsibility committee.

The banks board said in a statement that the latest board moves were prompted by a self-evaluation conducted with the help of Mary Jo White, the former chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. White returned to law firm Debevoise & Plimpton after resigning from the securities regulator.

The board changes were announced after markets closed. In after-hours trading, shares of Wells Fargo were down 15 cents to $52.70.

james.koren@latimes.com

Follow me: @jrkoren

UPDATES:

6:45 p.m.: This article was updated with background information on former Federal Reserve official Elizabeth A. Betsy Duke.

4:45 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details on the board changes and comments from analysts.

2:15 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details on the banks accounts scandal and other problems.

This article was originally published at 1:35 p.m.
For 14 years, Encino resident Ed Wright received an expensive prescription medication for free through a drug-industry program intended to assist people with limited or fixed incomes.

Now hes rationing his doses after a change to the program that imposed a $1,100 deductible before he can get a refill.

I cant afford that, Wright, 75, told me. When I run out in a few weeks, thats going to be it.

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He isnt alone. Industry watchers say soaring drug prices have prompted many pharmaceutical companies to rethink long-standing programs to help subsidize purchases or even give meds away for free.

More and more people have become aware of these programs, and demand has gone up, said David P. Wilson, president of PRAM Insurance Services, a Brea firm that helps employers with prescription-drug benefits.

This means trouble for patients who, like Wright, cant handle sticker shock at the drugstore.

He suffered a head injury 17 years ago that damaged his pituitary gland. In 2003, he was diagnosed as having an abnormally low level of growth hormone, which caused him to suddenly become overwhelmed with fatigue.

Thats a potentially life-threatening condition if an episode should occur while driving, walking down stairs or performing some other physical activity.

Wrights doctor prescribed the self-injected human growth hormone Humatrope, manufactured by Eli Lilly & Co.

The cost, however, was out of reach for Wright, even with Medicare Part D. According to the drug-pricing website GoodRX, a 6-milligram cartridge of Humatrope  a one months supply  runs about $700.

Luckily, Wrights fixed income made him eligible for a program called Lilly Cares, which made the drug available free of charge. He and his doctor would renew the paperwork annually, and for 14 years Wright had no difficulty receiving the med.

Thats no longer the case with the new $1,100 deductible, which requires Wright to spend that amount on prescription drugs before he can access his free Humatrope.

Wright requires few other drugs, so the deductible is an almost insurmountable barrier to maintaining normal quality of life.

Most drugmakers offer what are known as patient assistance programs, through which the company may provide meds directly to patients at little or no cost. Or the company may assist with co-payments  the patients out-of-pocket expense thats not covered by an insurer.

A 2009 study published in the journal Health Affairs found that most patient assistance programs run by drug companies were reluctant to disclose details of the number of people they serve or the programs eligibility requirements.

These programs exist to provide patients with access to a wide variety of medications, researchers concluded. However, many details about these programs remain unclear. As a result, the extent to which these programs provide a safety net to patients is poorly understood.

Aaron Tidball, chief Medicare advisor for the Illinois consulting firm Allsup, which assists individuals and businesses in navigating the public insurance system, said Lilly Cares has been more generous than some programs weve seen.

He said that, until now, people who qualified for Lillys assistance were able to receive whatever specialty meds that were prescribed by their doctor without cost or co-pay.

It should be noted, though, that Lilly has structured its program so the company benefits as well. Rather than provide drugs directly to patients, as many companies do, Lilly donates its medications to a private foundation, the Lilly Cares Foundation, which in turn deals with the public.

This allows Lilly to deduct the value of its donated drugs from its taxes. According to the nonprofit foundations 2015 tax return, which by law must be made public, the Lilly Cares Foundation received more than $408 million worth of drugs from the company. That figure represented the fair market value of the meds.

Thats obviously a lot more than the cost to produce the drugs, observed Jeff Geida, a Los Angeles estate lawyer who specializes in nonprofit foundations and who examined the most recent Lilly Cares tax return at my request.

In other words, Lilly was able to reduce its taxable income for the year by $408 million, although the actual expense of manufacturing the donated drugs almost certainly was just a fraction of the deducted amount.

Its a very good deal, Geida said.

To be sure, the company is still doing enormous good by making millions of dollars worth of drugs available to people in need. But the inflated figures highlight the lack of transparency surrounding the true cost of prescription meds.

Julie Williams, a Lilly spokeswoman, declined to answer my questions about the Lilly Cares Foundation. But she forwarded a statement from Steven Stapleton, the foundations president.

He said the foundation imposed the $1,100 deductible for Medicare Part D beneficiaries after benchmarking our program with other similar programs, helping Lilly Cares to balance all the criteria for the program and to try to help as many people as possible.

Thats just gibberish to my ear  and doesnt address the fact that Lilly still helps itself to that whopping tax deduction while making it considerably harder for low-income people to receive assistance.

I called the foundation and spoke with a service rep, but she said she didnt know why the deductible was put in place. Nor could she explain how its in the best interest of patients with limited incomes to have to spend $1,100 on drugs before being eligible to receive a needed medicine.

Stapleton said notifications were sent to program participants in the fall of 2015 and 2016, but Wright told me he couldnt recall receiving any such notice. The office manager of his doctors practice said she too was caught by surprise.

Lilly Cares made the situation even more inexplicable when it sent a notice to Wright last month formally dropping him from the program. The only reason it gave was inactivity, which made no sense considering that hes been using Humatrope steadily for 14 years.

Williams, the Lilly spokeswoman, said she couldnt discuss an individual patient.

Wright told me that, after I started poking around, he received a call from a Lilly representative. She advised him to contact the Partnership for Prescription Assistance, an industry-sponsored service intended to help people find subsidy programs that can help cover the high cost of their meds.

Wright contacted four subsidy programs through the service. Each one turned him down.

Lilly says its balancing all the criteria for Lilly Cares, which undoubtedly will make the company more profitable.

Wright, and the many other patients in similar positions, are a secondary consideration.

David Lazarus column runs Tuesdays and Fridays. He also can be seen daily on KTLA-TV Channel 5 and followed on Twitter @Davidlaz. Send your tips or feedback to david.lazarus@latimes.com.

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A Los Angeles tech company is resisting a federal demand for more than 1.3 million IP addresses to identify who visited a website set up to coordinate protests on President Trumps Inauguration Day  a request whose breadth the company says violates the Constitution.

What we have is a sweeping request for every single file we have in relation to DisruptJ20.org, said Chris Ghazarian, general counsel for DreamHost, which hosts the site. The search warrant is not only dealing with everything in relation to the website but also tons of data about people who visited it.

The request also covers emails between the sites organizers and people interested in attending the protests, any deleted messages and files, as well as subscriber information  such as names and addresses  and unpublished photos and blog posts that are stored in the sites database, according to the warrant and Ghazarian.

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The request, which DreamHost made public Monday, set off a storm of protest among civil liberties advocates and within the tech community.

What youre seeing is pure prosecutorial overreach by a politicized Justice Department, allowing the Trump administration to use prosecutors to silence critics, Ghazarian said.

A spokesman for the U.S. attorneys office in the District of Columbia, which sought the warrant, declined to comment. But in court documents, prosecutors argued that the request was constitutional and that there was no reason for DreamHost not to comply.

The search warrant was issued July 12 by a Superior Court judge in the District of Columbia and served on DreamHost on July 17.

The request marked an escalation from January, when prosecutors investigating the protests asked DreamHost to preserve records and issued a subpoena for a limited set of data on the site. The company complied with both requests, Ghazarian said.

In April, the federal government charged more than 200 people in connection with the protests in Washington that injured six police officers and damaged store windows and at least one vehicle. The charges included property damage and assault.

After the search warrant was served, DreamHost raised concerns with Assistant U.S. Atty. John W. Borchert, according to court documents. The company thought that the request was overly broad and that it sought information  such as draft blog posts  in violation of the 1980 Privacy Protection Act.

Prosecutors responded July 28 with a motion to compel DreamHost to turn over the data on DisruptJ20. That website was used in the development, planning, advertisement and organization of a violent riot, U.S. Atty. Channing Phillips said in the motion. DreamHosts concern about breadth simply is not a sufficient basis ... to refuse to comply with the warrant.

The prosecutors also argued that the warrant identified the precise categories of information that DreamHost must provide and precise limitations on the information that the government may seize. They also argued that the Privacy Protection Act does not preclude the government from seizing even protected materials with a search warrant.

On Friday, DreamHost filed a reply arguing that the warrants breadth violates the 4th Amendment because it failed to describe with particularity the items to be seized. Asking for all records or other information pertaining to the site, including all files, databases and database records is far too broad, the company said.

The warrant also raises 1st Amendment issues, DreamHost said. Visitors to the protest site should have the right to keep their identities private, but if they fear that the Justice Department will have information on them, that will chill their freedom of speech and association, the company argued.

Mark Rumold, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that no plausible explanation exists for a search warrant of such scope, other than to cast a digital dragnet as broadly as possible.

He said that the government appears to be investigating a conspiracy to riot, but its doing it in a blunt manner that does not take into account the significant 1st Amendment interests.

Even people who were nowhere near Washington on Inauguration Day who visited the website will have their data swept into a criminal investigation, he said.

A hearing is scheduled for Friday in Superior Court before Judge Lynn Leibovitz.

To read the article in Spanish, click here

Nakashima writes for the Washington Post.

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Uber has agreed to settle accusations by Americas top consumer protection agency that the ride-hailing company failed to protect consumers sensitive data, a misstep that allowed employees to access rider and driver information and led to a data breach in 2014 that exposed thousands of drivers names and license numbers.

The settlement with the Federal Trade Commission does not require Uber to pay to settle the allegations, the agency said. The San Francisco company is required to hire an outside firm to audit its privacy practices every two years for the next two decades, and violations of the settlement could lead to financial penalties.

The agreement reflects Ubers latest attempt to move past its troubled history and recent crises, which have been marked by Travis Kalanicks resignation as chief executive, the departures of other top executives and an investigation into what some called a toxic workplace culture.

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One source of the FTCs concern was an Uber program known as God View, which enabled company employees to monitor the real-time locations of customers who had requested a ride on the service. The existence of God View caused an uproar in 2014, and Uber soon released a privacy statement to say it maintained a strict policy that prevented employees from inappropriately spying on customers.

But the FTC said in its complaint that Uber misled the public about its efforts to stop any snooping. Despite building an automated system to police employees access to God View, Uber abandoned the tool after less than a year and rarely monitored how employees were subsequently using God View, according to the FTC. The agencys investigation began shortly after news reports emerged about God View, but it does not cover later privacy-related revelations about tools such as Greyball, which Uber has used in some cases to track and circumvent regulators.

The FTC also said Uber failed to implement basic security practices, such as two-factor authentication, that could have kept Ubers driver data from leaking. Customer information, including location data, also was stored online in an unencrypted format, according to the agency  a state that can make the information easier for hackers to misuse.

Uber said that the allegations date to 2014 and that before the government complaint, it had already put safeguards in place to protect data. Since then, it said, it has strengthened privacy and data security and will keep investing in security programs.

This settlement provides an opportunity to work with the FTC to further verify that our programs protect user privacy and personal information, Uber said in a statement.

Maureen Ohlhausen, the FTCs acting chairwoman, said the settlement will force Uber to take privacy into account every day.

Companies will be held accountable for their promises, Ohlhausen said. This is the only way we can foster true competition on privacy practices in the marketplace.

The FTC voted 2 to 0 to accept the agreement. The public will be able to comment for 30 days, after which a final decision will be made.

Fung writes for the Washington Post. The Associated Press was used in compiling this report.

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3:43 p.m.: This article was updated with comment from Uber and additional details.

This article was originally published at 10 a.m.
True Detective season three, starring Oscar winner Mahershala Ali, is officially confirmed at HBO By Sarah Rodman Mahershala Ali accepting his Oscar for Moonlight. The actor will star in the third season of the HBO drama True Detective (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) During the HBO executive session at the summer edition of the Television Critics Assn. press tour, programming president Casey Bloys confirmed reports that Moonlight Oscar winner Mahershala Ali would star in a third season of True Detective. Although he was mum at the time on when it might happen, he did say that he had read five scripts and thought they were terrific. Thursday night, the premium pay cabler released a statement officially confirming that the series will indeed return for a third installment. While no episode count or premiere date was included in the release, an enclosed synopsis stated that the next iteration of the show tells the story of a macabre crime in the heart of the Ozarks, and a mystery that deepens over decades and plays out in three separate time periods. Ali will star as Wayne Hays, a state police detective from northwest Arkansas. (Ali follows in the footsteps of season one stars, and continuing executive producers, Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, and season twos Colin Farrell and Vince Vaughn. No word yet on whether hell have a partner.) The show will once again be helmed by creator Nic Pizzolatto, who penned all the episodes of the upcoming series, save the fourth, which he co-wrote with David Milch (Deadwood, NYPD Blue). He will share directing duties with fellow executive producer Jeremy Saulnier (Blue Ruin.) Im tremendously thrilled to be working with artists at the level of Mahershala and Jeremy, said Pizzolatto in a statement. I hope the material can do justice to their talents, and were all very excited to tell this story. Bloys noted that Nic has written truly remarkable scripts. With his ambitious vision and Mahershala Ali and Jeremy Saulnier aboard, we are excited to embark on the next installment of True Detective.  Facebook

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Newly reopened Angels Flight has long been a popular L.A. shooting location By Mark Olsen Its among the more unusual landmarks in Los Angeles, a short, steep railway that gets people up and down a single hill. So it makes sense that Angels Flight has been featured in many movies and television shows over the years. Angels Flight resumed regular service Thursday after being closed since 2013 (it did operate for one day of shooting on La La Land). It remains to be seen if it starts to appear again in movies and television shows. (Not that it ever really stopped.) Speaking to The Times at last years Toronto International Film Festival, La La Land star Ryan Gosling reflected on the use of historic locations in the movie. This was an opportunity to show an L.A. thats still there.... Youve got to squint your eyes a little, but there are still places in L.A. that are still part of the golden years of Los Angeles when Hollywood was in its heyday, Gosling said. I lived around the corner for a long time from Angels Flight and Grand Central Market, although I never got to ride Angels Flight because it had been shut down, Gosling added. Those places are still there... these gems that are there, and we were able to shoot them one by one. Angels Flight reopened on Thursday. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times) The small piece of land next to the top of Angels Flight, known as Angels Knoll, was also prominently featured in (500) Days of Summer. The location has appeared in a wide variety of movies over the years, as early as 1916s Good Night, Nurse, 1918s Up She Goes and 1920s All Jazzed Up. It has also had high-profile cameos in Act of Violence (1949), M (1951), Kiss Me Deadly (1955), The Exiles (1961), The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies (1963) -- all the way up to to 2011s The Muppets and last years La La Land. And on television, Angels Flight has been seen on Perry Mason, Dragnet and the recent series Bosch. READ MORE: Angels Flight: How it works and what its been through in its 100-year history Facebook

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Jamie Foxx announces telethon for Harvey relief By Libby Hill (Andrew Krech / News & Record via Associated Press) A new stream of celebrity support for victims of Hurricane Harvey opened Wednesday, as Jamie Foxx announced that a telethon fundraiser is in the works. In an Instagram post where the actor revealed his own donation of $25,000 to GlobalGiving, Foxx also shared preliminary plans for the upcoming benefit. From a fellow Texan, my heart goes out. My prayers go out, Foxx, from Terrell east of Dallas, said. September 12 we have a telethon that were doing. Well give you more details, so we can raise as much money as we can for everybody down there. View Instagram post Scooter Braun, talent manager and mastermind of One Love Manchester, is helming the event along with rapper and Houston native Bun B. TMZ reported that Foxx, Reese Witherspoon, Blake Shelton, Hilary Duff and Michael Strahan are all involved with the project, with commitments from the four major broadcast networks to air the special for an hour on Sept. 12. In an interview with TMZ, Bun B said that fellow Houston natives Beyonce and Jim Parsons are high on his wish list for the telethon. The outlet also reported that Bun B would only want President Trumps presence if it was via a show of unity with other former presidents. Solange also announced Wednesday that she will be holding a benefit show at Bostons Orpheum Theatre on Sept. 28. Featuring the Sun Ra Arkestra, the performance is titled Orions Rise and all proceeds will go to Hurricane Harvey relief. View Instagram post Facebook

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Gwyneth Paltrows love life? Yeah, she admits shes screwed up plenty of relationships By Libby Hill Gwyneth Paltrow takes full responsibility for her romantic failings. She admitted as much in a recent interview with the podcast Girlboss Radio, during which Paltrow went deep on some of her lost loves. Oh, my god, Ive [screwed] up so many relationships, so many, Paltrow said. Im actually a pretty good friend and a good sister and a daughter and a mother, but I am at my potentially most vulnerable  in the romantic slice of the pie. So its taken me a lot of work to get to the place where I have a good romantic relationship. Paltrow consciously uncoupled from ex-husband Chris Martin in 2014 after 10 years of marriage and has been romantically linked to American Horror Story creator Brad Falchuk for the past three years. On Girlboss Radio, Paltrow sent a shout-out to former beau Brad Pitt, whom she dated from 1994 through 1997, and was at one point engaged to. I [screwed] that up, Brad, Paltrow said. Paltrow also delved into her experiences as founder and CEO of her lifestyle brand Goop, sharing that once shes in the boardroom with investors, no one cares if shes a celebrity. I go into the room, and for the first 90 seconds, Im Gwyneth Paltrow, she said. And theyre like, Oh, my god, my wife loves you .... And then, about 90 seconds later, Im just getting grilled like anyone else. But she doesnt get offended; she relishes the challenge. It was such a beautiful chapter of my life when I started raising [venture capital financing], because it knocked me down so many pegs. I was like, Oh, Im, like, no one. Im nothing. This [stuff] is real. I have to know the most granular aspects of my business and be able to defend it. The celebrity just completely drains out of the room. Its irrelevant, she said. Paltrows full conversation with Sophia Amoruso can be streamed at Girlboss. Facebook

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Longtime Simpsons composer Alf Clausen fired from the show after 27 years By Randall Roberts When the 29th season of The Simpsons premieres in the fall, it will, for the first time in decades, be doing so without its longtime musical contributor, Alf Clausen. Clausen, who composed the Fox animated shows incidental music, was told that the show was looking for a different kind of music moving forward, according to Variety. Clausen confirmed his firing via Twitter. Thank you for all of the support...unfortunately, the news is true... https://t.co/jBQH0b40cz  Alf Clausen (@TheAlfClausen) August 31, 2017 The composers orchestral scores supported the familys foibles since the shows primitively drawn early days. And although The Simpsons theme song was penned by Danny Elfman, the sonic feel of the series has been defined by Clausens grandiose, often epic productions. Hes responsible for scoring Mr. Burns breakout See My Vest moment and crafted the tunes for the Springfield musical theater companys A Streetcar Named Desire adaptation. Ditto The Planet of the Apes musical. In short, nearly every classic music moment of The Simpsons has featured Clausens fingerprints. On Twitter, fans thanked Clausen for his work while expressing outrage at the circumstances surrounding his departure. Fired over the phone, yet, wrote one user. Clausen quickly corrected him with a one-word reply: Email ... On Thursday, producers for The Simpsons issued a statement to Variety. It stressed that Clausen will continue to contribute to the series: We tremendously value Alf Clausens contributions to The Simpsons and he will continue to have an ongoing role in the show. We remain committed to the finest in music for The Simpsons, absolutely including orchestral. The statement concluded: This is the part where we would make a joke but neither Alfs work nor the music of The Simpsons is treated as anything but seriously by us. Update, 1:16 p.m.: This story was updated with a statement from The Simpsons. Facebook

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Instead of statues, Trevor Noah and Roy Wood Jr. have another idea for honoring Confederate history By Chris Barton With the country still reeling from the harrowing impact of Hurricane Harvey in Texas, Wednesday nights Daily Show looked at one of the summers ongoing controversies: Confederate monuments. Occasionally setting aside the shows usual comedic tone, Trevor Noah enlisted correspondent Roy Wood Jr. to consider whether these statues honor Southern heritage, as their supporters claim, or the nations history and lingering problem with racism. After showing a montage of guests on network news shows who reminded viewers that these statues were erected during the Jim Crow era, decades after the Civil War, Wood equated slavery to another tragedy. Its like if a woman got out of an abusive relationship and then she had to keep pictures of her ex up in her house to remember the time, a straight-faced Wood explained. No, I dont need pictures to remember pain. People say, We want to remember the history of the Civil War, Noah added. Theres an easier way to remember what happened in the Civil War: Just walk around in the South. And if you see free black people, then you know what happened. Watch the segment above. Facebook

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Gloria Gaynor sings to Texas Harvey victims: You will survive By Christie DZurilla (Astrid Stawiarz / Getty Images) Gloria Gaynor wants people affected by Harvey to know they will survive, and shes communicating that message through a new version of the song that has defined her career. Gaynor, whose I Will Survive became an anthem over the years, rewrote the 1978 disco hit to reach out to victims in Texas and posted her rendition on social media Wednesday. Hi, my neighbors in Texas, she said in a video shot while she sat at a piano she was about to play. This is Gloria Gaynor with a song that hopefully will cheer you up just a little bit. @SylvesterTurner @rashivats @SallyMacFox26 @TheRitaGarcia @kaitlinmonte @ChrisdyannUribe @MsCoCoDominguez @JMartinFOX26 TX WILL SURVIVE  pic.twitter.com/FCNOnDr85o  Gloria Gaynor (@gloriagaynor) August 30, 2017 Here are the tweaked lyrics, for those who dont want to hit play with the sound on. First we were afraid

We were petrified

Thinking Texas couldnt live

With floodwaters this high

We know you spent plenty of time

Preparing for this hurricane

Who couldve known that it would come

With so much devastating rain

But we will strive

And youll survive

With all our love and help and prayers

We will stay strongly by your side

We are your neighbors tried and true

Well do all we can for you

And youll survive

You will survive, you will survive Similarly on Monday night, Coldplay unleashed a new original song written after the band was forced to cancel its Friday show in Houston with Hurricane Harvey bearing down. This is a new song, and well never play it again, frontman Chris Martin told an audience in Miami. Its a once-off. Its called Houston. Were going to sing it in Miami for everybody here, and then were going to send it over there to everyone who missed the show. Facebook

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Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation donates $1 million to Harvey recovery By Christie DZurilla (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times) Leonardo DiCaprio has stepped up with a $1-million donation to aid the victims of Hurricane Harvey, now a tropical storm, which has dumped historic levels of rain on the Gulf Coast over the last several days. United Way Worldwide announced Wednesday that it has started the United Way Harvey Recovery Fund with a seven-figure donation from the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation. The money  100% of it, according to the charity  will go to help victims of flooding with mid- and long-term recovery over the coming years. There are 23 United Ways that operate in the path of the storm, which made landfall Aug. 24. We are incredibly grateful for the generosity of Leonardo DiCaprio and his foundation, United Way Worldwide President and CEO Brian Gallagher said in a statement. Responding to Hurricane Harvey requires the best of all of us  and thats what this gift represents. DiCaprio has been urging support of the United Way and American Red Cross this week on his Twitter account and retweeting stories talking about Harvey and climate change. Di Caprios foundation has been committed to climate-related issues and environmental projects since 1998, Terry Tamminen, president and CEO of the foundation, said in a statement. We support efforts to build climate resilient communities and protect vulnerable wildlife and ecosystems across the planet, and have supported disaster relief and victim funds in the past. We hope others will step up and support the United Way and other organizations. Earlier this week, Sandra Bullock, who has a home in Texas, gave $1 million to the American Red Cross, repeating the lump-sum generosity she showed after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S. Ellen DeGeneres was also in the seven-figure donation tier. The comic and talk-show host dropped $1 million in the relief bucket on Wednesday via J.J. Watts foundation. The effort by the Houston Texans star player topped $10 million on Thursday, with Watt chronicling its progress all week via videos on social media. Update, 8:50 a.m.: This post was updated with information about DeGeneres donation to Watts fund. Facebook

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A Star Is Born: Chris Tucker turns 45 today By Los Angeles Times Staff (Iris Schneider / Los Angeles Times) I had a dream as a kid: I wanted to be big, big like Richard [Pryor] and Eddie [Murphy]. I imagined it. I studied it. I had a passion.  Chris Tucker, 2001 FROM THE ARCHIVES: In a Big Rush Facebook

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Springsteen on Broadway was born to run, is extended through February By Libby Hill Bruce Springsteens solo shows on Broadway have been extended through February, just hours after the original run sold out. (Greg Allen / Invision/Associated Press) Good news for Bruce Springsteen fans who were locked out of purchasing tickets Wednesday morning for his upcoming run of shows on Broadway. Ticketmaster announced that Springsteen on Broadway, an intimate stage experience that launches in October and features the rock legend performing solo, will be extending for 10 additional weeks. Originally scheduled to close in November, the show was extended through February after the original block of tickets sold out in a matter of minutes Wednesday. "#SpringsteenBroadway has been EXTENDED! the ticket outlet tweeted, with a follow-up tweet explaining that fans who had previously registered to purchase tickets will not have to register again. #SpringsteenBroadway has been EXTENDED!

More information coming today.

There will NOT be any additional codes released for today's onsale. pic.twitter.com/xGY3rj3Yrl  Ticketmaster (@Ticketmaster) August 30, 2017 #SpringsteenBroadway extended run information 

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO REGISTER AGAIN!

NEW #VerifiedFan registration: https://t.co/2xNBBhcVES pic.twitter.com/FT3mLaTLPV  Ticketmaster (@Ticketmaster) August 30, 2017 Springsteen will be performing at New York Citys Walter Kerr Theater, which houses fewer than 1,000 seats. To curtail ticket scalping, Ticketmaster relied on its Verified Fan program. The program forces fans to register to even have an opportunity to purchase tickets and are limited to two tickets per purchase. For all of Ticketmasters efforts, resale sites already are flooded with Springsteen on Broadway tickets, with some reaching $10,000 apiece. Fans interested in trying their luck for the second batch of performance dates will need to register with Ticketmaster Verified Fan by Sept. 3 (at 7 p.m. Pacific). Tickets will be available for purchase 10 a.m. Pacific on Sept. 7. Facebook

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Sandra Bullock donates $1 million to Harvey relief efforts By Libby Hill Sandra Bullock donated $1 million to the American Red Cross for storm relief. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) With the Gulf Coast still battling the aftereffects of Tropical Storm Harvey, celebrities continue to come forward to help with relief efforts for the humanitarian crisis. Sandra Bullock, who has a home in Texas, donated $1 million to the American Red Cross emergency efforts, the organization confirmed to The Times on Wednesday. We are so thankful for the overwhelming and generous response from those who want to help those affected by this devastating storm, Elizabeth Penniman, vice president of communications for American Red Cross national headquarters, said in an email. Massive disasters like Hurricane Harvey create many critical and immediate needs, so we are heartened by donations like this  which allow us to provide immediate shelter, food and comfort to thousands in need, Penniman continued. The entertainment community has been so supportive to the Red Cross in response to this devastating disaster, and we are so grateful. Bullock is just the latest star who has donated to recovery efforts in Texas. The Kardashian family pledged $500,000 to the Salvation Army and Red Cross on Tuesday. Kevin Hart also spearheaded a celebrity-driven fundraising campaign on Crowdrise that has brought in more than $1 million for the Red Cross. Facebook

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Corinne Olympios wants DeMario Jackson to know she doesnt blame him for anything By Christie DZurilla Corinne Olympios doesnt have any hard feelings toward DeMario Jackson, the fellow Bachelor in Paradise cast member who was with her at the center of a scandal that shut down production on the reality TV series in June. I dont blame DeMario. I never pointed fingers at DeMario. I never said a bad word about DeMario, the 25-year-old told host Chris Harrison in an early-August taped interview that aired Tuesday night on ABC. She and Jackson havent spoken since production was halted after allegations of misconduct were made by a producer, leading to an investigation of what happened during a period when, Olympios now says, she was blacked out. I was almost a little bit nervous to talk to [DeMario], because he did run to the media and I didnt want to add fuel to the fire, she said. Before she had a chance to collect her thoughts, he was out there and so on the defensive, she said. He was doing his thing and I didnt want to get messed up in that. ... I cant help but feel like maybe he felt like I thought he did something to me. Jackson did not do anything bad, she insisted. Seeing him start crying in a clip from his own interview with Harrison, which had aired on the show last week, Olympios welled up a bit too. It was hard for me to go through something like that. I know exactly how he feels. The media wants to paint you a certain way that you know youre just not, she said. Olympios told Harrison the same things she had said in a Tuesday morning interview with Good Morning America about blacking out from drinking too much and mixing alcohol with medication. However, she didnt directly address her I am a victim statement that was released at the height of the scandal. On GMA, she said she meant she was a victim of the media. Regarding Bachelor in Paradise with Harrison, she simply talked about how awful it was to have so many people acting like they had been there or were suddenly experts on her life. To even get up and go get eggs at the grocery store ... my face was all over every magazine and I had to check out and everyones staring, Olympios said. Youre looking at them and its like, Im not what youre thinking right now. Then, near the end of the interview, she shared one big wish. Obviously hindsight is 20/20, she said, and I wish it could have been handled differently. Facebook

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Tomi Lahren finds new home at Fox News By Libby Hill Conservative firebrand Tomi Lahren is again gainfully employed after being fired from Glenn Becks The Blaze in March. On Wednesday, Lahren announced via her Facebook page that she is joining the Fox News team as a contributor. This exciting new step will allow me to give voice to all the America-loving patriots who have had my back since day one, Lahren wrote. I will remain a solid and passionate advocate for you. Though 25-year-old Lahren has made television appearances before -- including a contentious appearance on The Daily Show With Trevor Noah -- much of her career has been in digital media. She hosted On Point With Tomi Lahren for One America News Network, and her Final Thought videos have garnered her over 4.4 million Facebook followers. In addition to her role as a contributor, Lahren will also have a signature role on a Fox News digital product in development, according to a press release issued by the network. Lahren makes her debut on Wednesdays edition of Hannity at 7 p.m. PDT. Facebook

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Trevor Noah is shocked  shocked  by the latest revelations about Trump and Moscow By Robert Lloyd Even as the Earth offers humanity another taste of its weather future  and President Trump keeps Sheriff Joe Arpaio out of jail and North Korean missiles fly over Japan  late-night TV hosts have disappeared from their chairs as if it were August in France. Trevor Noah is on the job, though, hosting The Daily Show. Tuesday night, he had some mirthful words about the ongoing investigation into the Trump campaigns Russian affairs. Specifically, he reflected on the revelation of a letter of intent, signed by POTUS himself, to build a Trump Tower skyscraper in Moscow  and make it the tallest building in the world  despite Trumps repeated claims to have no business, no interests, no nothing in Russia. How can one person lie so big? HOW? Noah asked, amazedly. Its like if your friend said he had never heard of Mumford and Sons and then one day you see the album cover and youre like, wait a minute, youre Mumford. Were those connections strictly business, or were they getting out on the votey-votey action? Thats not clear yet, he said. What was clear is that a typically dubious character was at the center of it  namely Felix Sater, a Russian-born real estate developer once convicted of stabbing a man in the neck and face with the stem of a broken margarita glass. Of all the glasses to stab someone with, a margarita glass is the worst, Noah said. Youre literally putting salt into the wounds. There was also a conviction for Saters involvement in a $40-million stock fraud, Noah added, which came as no surprise to the host. You never trust someone with a cat name. If a human goes by Felix or Whiskers or Mittens, you should probably just stay away. There were emails, of course; there are always emails. Buddy, our boy can become President of the USA and we can engineer it. I will get all of Putins team to buy in on this, Sater wrote to Trumps personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen. This buddy boy email may not be the smoking gun for Trump, Noah concluded, but what it could end up being is the broken taillight  the thing that gives law enforcement the excuse they need to look into Trumps trunk. And we all know, he said, as a picture of the golfing presidents derriere appeared over his shoulder, hes got a lot of junk in that trunk. Facebook

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Jury president Annette Bening addresses lack of female representation at Venice Film Festival By Nardine Saad (Claudio Onorati / Associated Press) Though there arent as many women represented at this years Venice Film Festival as she would like, jury president Annette Bening believes things are changing. The four-time Oscar nominee, whose film credits include American Beauty, The Kids Are All Right, 20th Century Women and Bugsy, addressed the lack of female directors Wednesday during the 74th annual Venice Film Festivals opening press conference. (Only one of the 21 films in competition is directed by a woman this year.) As women, we have to be sharp, shrewd and creative in what we choose to make. Sexism does exist and there is no question about it. But things are changing, the actress said at the opening press conference, according to Variety. The more we can make films that speak to everybody, the more we will be regarded as filmmakers, she added. Bening, the first woman to chair the jury in more than a decade, said she knew of both veteran and rookie filmmakers struggling to get their movies made whether they are men or women. She said the industry has a long way to go, in terms of parity but was confident that the direction were going is positive. Facebook

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A Star Is Born: Lisa Ling turns 44 today By Los Angeles Times Staff (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) [People have said to me], When you were in the worlds largest slum [in India], you could almost smell what it was like by your expression.' Its not that Im trying to force myself on the viewer. Im just their eyes and ears. I think our work is quite pure.  Lisa Ling, 1997 FROM THE ARCHIVES: Taking news personally Facebook

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In wake of Charlottesville strife, Virginia Film Festival to host director Spike Lee as special guest By Josh Rottenberg Director Spike Lee photographed in 2015. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times) As the city of Charlottesville, Va., and the nation as a whole continues to grapple with the violent racial strife that erupted earlier this month, the Virginia Film Festival announced on Tuesday that it will host filmmaker Spike Lee as a special guest at the upcoming festival as part of a program around the legacy of slavery. Lee, who has tackled thorny issues of race throughout his career, will present his Oscar-nominated documentary 4 Little Girls about the 1963 bombing of a Baptist church in Birmingham, Ala., that claimed the lives of four African American girls, an act of white supremacist terrorism that marked a pivotal moment in the civil rights movement. We have for many years been interested in bringing Spike Lee to the Virginia Film Festival as he remains one of the most talented, innovative, and socially conscious filmmakers in our world today, said Jody Kielbasa, director of the film festival and vice provost for the arts at the University of Virginia. We first reached out to Mr. Lee in the spring to include him in our upcoming collaboration with Montpelier, and of course, the recent events in Charlottesville have made his participation more compelling, relevant and vital. The festival program will also include a short film titled I Cant Breathe that combines footage of the 2014 chokehold death of Eric Garner during his arrest by a New York City police officer with footage of the death of Radio Raheem under similar circumstances in Lees 1989 film Do the Right Thing. The program is part of a larger collaboration with Montpelier, the Virginia plantation of President James Madison, who owned more than 100 slaves, that will explore both how the legacy of slavery continues to affect the lives of African Americans and how they are depicted in film and other media. The 30th annual Virginia Film Festival will run from Nov. 9 to 12 in Charlottesville. Facebook

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Jerry Seinfeld recaps childhood in Netflixs first Jerry Before Seinfeld trailer By Nardine Saad The first trailer for Netflixs stand-up special Jerry Before Seinfeld has arrived, and its a madcap recap of Jerry Seinfelds humble beginnings, quirky family dynamics and bits of everyday observations. The teaser opens with Johnny Carson introducing the iconic comic in 1981 during his debut on The Tonight Show. Then it showcases the sitcom star back at the mike at the Comic Strip, the famous New York comedy club where he launched his career. Throwback photos, videos and interviews with Seinfeld are woven throughout. Hes back where he began, the title reads, doing what he loves. The original comedy special is the first of two stand-up specials Seinfeld will deliver in his massive deal with the streaming giant. (The deal also includes the entirety of his Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee catalog and 24 new episodes of the Emmy-nominated talk show, which will launch later this year.) Seinfeld and Netflix teased to the special last week with several clips posted on Instagram and a close-up look at the numerous legal pads scrawled with handwritten jokes hes kept from the 1970s. Jerry Before Seinfeld begins streaming Sept. 19. Facebook

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Kermit the Frog finds his new voice in Matt Vogel By Nardine Saad The new Kermit the Frog has arrived and hes following his dreams -- literally. New Muppeteer Matt Vogel made his vocal debut as the iconic frog on Monday in a Muppet Thought of the Week video posted on YouTube. Dreams are how we figure out where we want to go. Life is how we get there, he says in the brief clip. Im headed this way. The veteran voice actor has worked on Sesame Street and also operates the Muppets Floyd, Constantine and Sweetums. He is only the third puppeteer to take on Kermit the Frog full time since the character was created in 1955. He replaced former puppeteer Steve Whitmire, who began work on The Muppet Show in 1978 and inherited the role of Kermit when creator Jim Henson died in 1990. Whitmire was dismissed over concerns about his repeated unacceptable business conduct over a period of many years and he consistently failed to address the feedback, the Muppets Studio said at the time. Whitmire claimed he was fired in October 2016 and kept quiet about it until Vogel was announced as his replacement in July. It was his opinionated communication style that earned him his walking papers, he said. Facebook

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Trevor Noah says Trumps pardon of Sheriff Arpaio renders courts powerless By Nardine Saad The Daily Show host Trevor Noah broke down former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaios presidential pardon on Monday, explaining how President Trumps decision undermines the judicial branch of government. The controversial Maricopa County lawman, who was convicted of criminal contempt of court for violating Latinos rights, earned himself a thuggish reputation as a sheriff, Noah said, citing his agencys use of tent cities, stun guns, jail overcrowding and numerous cases of inmate deaths and police brutality. But those were just his extracurriculars, Noah said. It turns out his full-time job is racism. The 85-year-old Arpaio was found guilty in July of defying a 2011 court order barring officers from stopping and detaining Latino motorists to check their immigration status. As much as Sheriff Arpaio presented himself as anti-illegal immigrants, it turned out really he was just anti being a decent human being, Noah said. When the president of the United States steps in and pardons someones contempt conviction, hes essentially rendering the courts powerless.  Daily Show host Trevor Noah His abuses hurt inmates and taxpayers, costing the state $142 million in legal fees, settlements and compliance costs, Noah said. Other things they could have spent that money on? Schools, roads or they could have just paid Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather to just punch Arpaio in the face. But Noah made the point that Trumps decision completely undercut the judiciary. Remember how the three branches of government are supposed to be equal? Well, convicting someone of contempt is the one and only way the judicial branch can put muscle behind its decisions. So when the president of the United States steps in and pardons someones contempt conviction, hes essentially rendering the courts powerless, he said. Watch the full segment above. Facebook

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Watch Coldplay dedicate new song to Harvey victims -- and vow never to play it again By Randall Roberts (Jens Meyer / Associated Press) On Monday night in Miami, Coldplays Chris Martin drew attention to the victims of Tropical Storm Harvey by unveiling a new song called Houston -- and then vowed never to play it again. The band, which was forced to cancel its Houston show days earlier due to the storm, wrote the song as the region was enduring historic flooding. After acknowledging that he and the band all grew up loving country music, and, of course, thats kind of what we think of when we go to Texas, Martin asked the crowd to bear with them. This is a new song, and well never play it again, Martin said. Its a once-off. Its called Houston. Were going to sing it in Miami for everybody here and then were going to send it over there to everyone who missed the show. Vowing to return to Houston, Martin and band huddled and tentatively started a twangy little number. Im dreaming of when I get back to Houston, sang Martin, replete with a touch of Johnny Cash-ian twang. Describing it as that city where they send you into space, Martin crooned of Corpus Christi, Harris County, Galveston, of a harmony that hums down there in Houston, and urged the region to keep on keeping on. Merle Haggard it wasnt (and everyones a critic), but the performance drew huge applause from fans and went viral on Tuesday morning. Coldplays quick-turnaround ditty is hardly the first to document such deluges. Johnny Cashs Three Feet High and Rising occurred in real time as a family struggled to keep dry. In Charley Pattons High Water Everywhere, the country blues singer recalled the lives lost in the Great Flood of 1927, which consumed the Mississippi Delta and spawned dozens of songs: Oh, Lordy, women is groaning down / Oh, Lordy, women and children sinking down, Patton sang. I couldnt see nobody home, and was no one to be found. Below is another song about the flood of 27: Bessie Smiths Backwater Blues. Facebook

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Corinne Olympios on Bachelor in Paradise scandal: I was really a victim of the media By Christie DZurilla (Frazer Harrison / Getty Images) Corinne Olympios says medication, the booze and the media were key players in Junes production-stopping Bachelor in Paradise scandal and its aftermath. Calling the situation just really unfortunate, she said Tuesday on Good Morning America that she doesnt remember anything that happened. Seeing video of what transpired on the first day of production on the looking-for-love reality show was like watching not-me, she said. Im watching someone else. On that day, Olympios and fellow cast member DeMario Jackson allegedly wound up in the pool or hot tub together in a situation that a producer thought went too far. Allegations of misconduct were made, and production shut down the next day for an investigation that ultimately determined nothing untoward had happened. The show, sans Corinne and DeMario, premiered its fourth season Aug. 14, a week later than originally planned. I did drink, too much, I definitely understand that, Olympios said. But I was also on a medication that severely blacks you out and impairs your judgment and messes with your balance, that I didnt know you were not supposed to not drink on, and so it really just caused a horrible, horrible blackout. It was like I went under like anesthesia and then just like woke up. Shes now weaning off the medication, she said, and cutting down on her drinking. But in explaining her provocative official statement that she was a victim living out her worst nightmare, Olympios revealed her specific definition of victimhood, which had little or nothing to do with consent, which was a hot topic throughout the scandal. I was really a victim of the media, Olympios said. It was just, all of a sudden people became an expert on the situation and on what happened, and it was like, Im still trying to figure out exactly what happened. It was just horrible to deal with. It got really, really bad. ..., she added. The things people say are just insane. When the remaining Paradise cast met as a whole on the first episode of the season, their sympathies seemed to lie with Jackson as they worried about the long-term effects the scandal would have on him and any future career opportunities, especially given the lingering racial issues of alleged misconduct between a white woman and a black man. However, they were quick to say they were not slut-shaming Olympios either. Jackson spoke last week on Bachelor in Paradise, sitting down with host Chris Harrison to give his take on what happened. Heres a taste of that, courtesy of GMA: Facebook

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Victorias Secret Fashion Show heads to Shanghai this year By Nardine Saad Angels will fly over the Great Wall of China in November as the Victorias Secret Fashion Show heads to Shanghai for the first time. Supermodels Adriana Lima, Alessandra Ambrosio, Behati Prinsloo, Candice Swanepoel, Lily Aldridge and more will strut their stuff for the annual lingerie extravaganza, Victorias Secret and CBS said in a statement on Tuesday. The iconic pre-holiday show  replete with teensy underwear and massive angel wings  is usually filmed in New York, but Miami, Los Angeles and London have also hosted the scantily clad runway walk. The broadcast will air on CBS on Nov. 28 and will be shown in more than 190 countries. Models Elsa Hosk, Jasmine Tookes, Josephine Skriver, Lais Ribeiro, Martha Hunt, Romee Strijd, Sara Sampaio, Stella Maxwell and Taylor Hill will also walk in this years show. Musical performers will be announced at a later date, the statement said. Ni hao, China! This year's #VSFashionShow is headed to Shanghai. Watch it Nov 28, 10/9C on @CBS. Learn more: https://t.co/AHWHWjKOCI pic.twitter.com/tgIVJs7Lsr  Victoria's Secret (@VictoriasSecret) August 29, 2017 Facebook

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A Star Is Born: William Friedkin turns 82 today By Los Angeles Times Staff (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) I love the experience of making films. I love the mud. I love the dirt. I love all the inconveniences. Thats why you do it. If you do it because youre looking to be the Great American film maker, youre liable to experience disappointment.  William Friedkin, 1989 FROM THE ARCHIVES: The Exorcisms of William Friedkin Facebook

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Taylor Swifts Look What You Made Me Do video bashes another YouTube record By Randy Lewis Taylor Swifts official video for her first new music in three years, Look What You Made Me Do, has blasted through the existing YouTube record for most views tallied during its first 24 hours of release. The clip logged 43.2 million views since the video was posted Sunday evening. That far surpasses the record set in 2013 by Korean pop star Psys Gentleman, which racked up 36 million views in its first day. It also hasnt slowed interest in Swifts previously released lyric video for the same song, which set a record for lyric video viewership by drawing 19 million views in the first 24 hours. That version has now surpassed 47 million views in less than four days. Both videos have generated flurries of debate and analysis among Swifts fans and her dissenters, the former seemingly outnumbering the latter by a margin of nearly 5 to 1. Likes have surpassed the 1 million mark, while dislikes stood at 232,000 at the 24-hour mark. The song is the first single from her forthcoming album Reputation, due Nov. 10. It will be Swifts sixth studio album. Each of her last three albums sold more than 1 million copies during the first week of release. Swift is the only artist with that achievement to her credit. Update Aug. 29, 10:30 a.m.: This post has been updated with the finalized 24-hour viewer total. Facebook

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Watch the Game of Thrones cast and crew break down some of Season 7s best scenes By Tracy Brown Game of Thrones Season 7 may have concluded Sunday, but there is still plenty left for fans to unpack before Thrones"-withdrawal sets in. Along with all the burning questions left in the wake of the season finale, HBO has left us with some behind-the-scenes videos from this seasons most epic moments. The production magic of Game of Thrones is undeniable and it extends to beyond special effects dragons. From Arya donning Walder Freys face to dole out her brand of vengeance to Daenerys walking into Dragonstone for the first time, there is plenty to explore from just the first episode alone. The video above dives deep into what it took to craft the Season 7 premiere, including how Cerseis fancy new giant map came to be. Of course, plenty of fans are probably still contemplating the latest episode and what Jon and Danys new level of intimacy means going into the final season. Can this be how the actual prince that was promised is conceived? And if you were a bit squicked out by the pairs developing relationship, youre not alone. Unlike Jon and Daenerys, Emilia Clarke and Kit Harington are definitely aware that they are both Targaryens. For us as actors its just weird, said Clarke in a video about the coupling. The reality of what they are to each other. In fact, the actors had more facial expressions and sound effects to convey their feelings about this union than words. Watch in the video below. Facebook

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Ed Skrein leaves Hellboy after whitewashing furor By Christie DZurilla (Jordan Strauss / Associated Press) Ed Skrein will not play Maj. Ben Daimio in a reboot of Hellboy, the English actor said Monday, noting that when he accepted the role he didnt know that in the comics the character was of mixed Asian descent. Just a week ago, Skrein had tweeted his excitement over taking on the role. Backlash  in the form of whitewashing allegations  ensued. It is clear that representing this character in a culturally accurate way holds significance for people, and that to neglect this responsibility would continue a worrying tendency to obscure ethnic minority stories and voices in the Arts, the 34-year-old Deadpool actor said in a statement announcing that he had changed his mind about portraying Daimio. Calling it a moral decision, he said he was sad to leave the movie but hoped his action would make a difference in making equal representation in the arts a reality. David Harbour, the Stranger Things actor slated to play Hellboy, tweeted, Hey internet. Thank you for your voices. An injustice was done and will be corrected. Many thanks to @edskrein for doing what is right. Mike Mignola, who created the Hellboy comics, also thanked Skrein on Monday and said the move was very nicely done. Hey internet. Thank you for your voices.



An injustice was done and will be corrected.



Many thanks to @edskrein for doing what is right. https://t.co/tUvP6YibgG  David Harbour (@DavidKHarbour) August 28, 2017 In addition to Harbour, the 2018 version of the story so far stars Milla Jovovich as Nimue, Ian McShane as Professor Broom and Alice Monaghan as Sasha Lane, according to IMDb. Neil Marshall, who among other things has helmed episodes of Game of Thrones and Westworld, is set to direct. The Daimio character didnt appear in the 2004 or 2008 Guillermo del Toro films based on the Hellboy comics. Heres Skreins full explanation: pic.twitter.com/8WoSsHXDFO  Ed Skrein (@edskrein) August 28, 2017 Updated, 2:39 p.m.: This story was updated with comments from Harbour and Mignola. Facebook

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Kathy Griffin and Anderson Cooper are super-friends no more By Libby Hill Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin (Rob Kim / Getty Images) What began as a tasteless joke at the expense of President Trump continues to have real-life consequences for comedian Kathy Griffin. In an extensive interview with The Cut, Griffin admitted that her 17-year friendship with Anderson Cooper, with whom she co-hosted CNNs New Years Eve gig for a decade, ended in the wake of the Trump controversy. In May, Griffin publicized a photo shoot that featured her holding a bloodied imitation severed head bearing a strong resemblance to the president. The backlash was immediate and largely bipartisan, as many saw the images as glorifying violence and furthering political division. Griffin quickly apologized for the misstep but the damage had been done, with condemnation from the White House, investigation by the Secret Service and the loss of several jobs, including her CNN gig. On May 30, Cooper tweeted his disapproval of Griffins artistic expression, calling it disgusting and completely inappropriate, and Griffin admitted at a June 2 news conference that Coopers comments hurt her. For the record, I am appalled by the photo shoot Kathy Griffin took part in. It is clearly disgusting and completely inappropriate.  Anderson Cooper (@andersoncooper) May 31, 2017 In July, Cooper appeared on Bravos Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen and stated that he and Griffin were still friends. Yeah, were still friends, and look I said what I said about  I didnt think what she said was appropriate, but I wish her the best and I hope she bounces back, he stated. But Griffin claimed that at that point, nearly two months after the fact, she had yet to hear from Cooper privately. In reality, it wasnt until Aug. 10 that Cooper finally reached out to Griffin in a series of text messages, CNN confirmed to The Cut  at which point Griffin informed him that their friendship was over. Facebook

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In One Mississippi Season 2 trailer, Tig Notaro prays for the gay to stay By Christie DZurilla Tig Notaros One Mississippi is coming back for a second season, one in which her character is getting used to life back in her small Mississippi hometown. Season 1 of the Amazon Prime Video series took viewers through a fictionalized series of events that echoed Notaros own life: a potentially deadly intestinal illness, breast cancer, a double mastectomy, the unexpected death of her beloved mother and a romantic breakup. Yup, its a dark comedy. In Season 2, L.A. transplant Tig is navigating her new environs, including strategizing about how to proceed with a crush on Straight Kate and dealing with some well-meaning, pray-the-gay-away critics of her radio show. Plus, theres her stepfathers whole dishwasher drill to contend with, not to mention the story line that has to do with sexual assault. The new season of One Mississippi starts streaming Sept. 8. Facebook

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Watch Frank Oceans lyric video for new song Provider By Randall Roberts As is his wont these days, R&B superstar Frank Ocean unveiled a new song, Provider, his own way: during the newest installment of Blonded Radio, the Apple Music/Beats 1 radio show he hosts and curates. The ballads a meditation that name-checks Aphex Twin, shoegaze, Talking Heads, Jaws, Patagonia sportswear and Stanley Kubrick, and moves through verses without much regard for structure. Immediately following the Sunday premiere, Ocean dropped the lyric video on his website. Featuring a souped-up mini-boombox retrofitted with bigger speaker cones and a Velcro-attached machete, the clip suggests an owner getting ready to hunt prey while using Provider as the lure. Ocean hasnt uploaded the clip to YouTube, but you can listen and watch on his blonded.co website. Facebook

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Gone With the Wind, deemed insensitive, has been pulled from a Memphis theater By Christie DZurilla Gone With the Wind will not be shown in the future by a Tennessee theater that decided it was insensitive to many in the local community. The 1939 movie, which marked the first Oscar win by a black actor, depicts a romanticized view of slavery and life on a Southern plantation before, during and after the Civil War. Gone With the Wind, which won 10 Academy Awards in 1940, including for best picture, had been shown by the Orpheum Theatre Group for years as part of an annual Summer Movie Series, according to Memphis Commercial-Appeal. At times, it was screened more than once a year, the paper said. This year, however, a different climate prevailed. The recent screening of Gone With the Wind at the Orpheum on Friday, Aug. 11, 2017, generated numerous comments, Brett Batterson, president of the theater group, said Friday in a statement (via the New York Times). The Orpheum carefully reviewed all of them. As an organization whose stated mission is to entertain, educate and enlighten the communities it serves, the Orpheum cannot show a film that is insensitive to a large segment of its local population. The majority of Memphis residents are black, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The screening happened, coincidentally, on the day before a rally of white nationalists that turned violent in Charlottesville, Va.  a rally that has been followed by a national conversation about whether to purge monuments to Civil War generals and soldiers from public spaces. In an interview with the Commercial-Appeal, Batterson said the appropriateness of screening Gone With the Wind had been discussed every year, but the social media storm this year really brought it home. By Monday, comments on social media, including on the Facebook post announcing the screening, had shifted in large part to defense of Gone With the Wind as a product of its time that, despite its romanticized portrayal of the Old South and of slavery, was still part of movie history and worth showing on a big screen. The Orpheum did not respond Monday to The Times requests for comment. Hattie McDaniels Oscar win for supporting actress was a significant first but was also loaded with a lot of political and racial issues given that the film was the classic archetype of the Mammy, said Adilifu Nama, associate professor of African American Studies at Loyola Marymount University, speaking to The Times in 2014. McDaniels role of Mammy is fundamentally a subservient role and is part of a film that is a Southern racial fantasy, Nama said. Facebook

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Taylor Swift gets petty and Pink talks pretty in the must-see moments from MTVs Video Music Awards By Libby Hill Were you too busy watching [spoiler] revealed as [spoiler] on Sunday nights Game of Thrones finale to watch MTVs Video Music Awards? Fear not! Weve gathered up four must-see moments from the socially conscious affair (and one lackluster video debut from Taylor Swift) to keep you in the loop. Pinks PowerPoint presentation It was a banner night for singer Pink, who received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award for her body of work and used the occasion to share an anecdote about her daughter Willow. Recently, Pink stated, her daughter referred to herself as the ugliest person she knew and complained that she looked like a boy with long hair. At first, the Raise Your Glass singer was taken aback by her daughters words but soon swung into action, compiling an elaborate PowerPoint presentation about the history of androgynous rock stars, including Michael Jackson, David Bowie and Annie Lennox. Pink relayed a simple sentiment that most of us could learn a lot from: So, baby, girl, we dont change. We take the gravel and the shell and we make a pearl. Logic talks emotions Plenty of artists used the VMAs stage to speak passionately about issues they care about, but few did so as extensively as rapper Logic. After his performance of 1-800-273-8255" with Khalid and Alessia Cara, the title of which is the phone number of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, Logic talked about mental health and equality. Beginning at 3:50 in the above video, Logic first thanked the audience for giving him a platform to discuss the important issue of mental health. He then quickly pivoted to other pressing social issues including discrimination, sexism and domestic violence. I dont give a damn if youre black, white or any color in between, Logic said. I dont care if youre Christian, youre Muslim, youre gay, youre straight, I am gonna fight for your equality because I believe that we are all born equal, but we are not treated equally and that is why we must fight. Jared Leto honors Chester Bennington Logics performance and subsequent speech were particularly moving given the past years loss of two rock musicians to suicide  Linkin Parks Chester Bennington and Soundgardens Chris Cornell. Jared Leto, an Academy Award winner and frontman of Thirty Seconds to Mars, spoke about both men at Sundays ceremony. MTV asked me to come here to say a few words about Chester and the late, great, Chris Cornell, two artists I had the absolute pleasure of touring with, Leto said of the two singers who were also close friends. Chester said of Chris, Your voice was joy and pain and anger and forgiveness, love and heartache, all wrapped up into one, Leto recalled. Leto also recounted his own memories of Bennington. I think about his heart, Leto said. And I remember his voice. At once ferocious and delicate, that voice will live forever. Fifth Harmony gets shady Despite the pleas for equality and the heartfelt speeches, there was still plenty of time for pettiness at the VMAs, as evidenced by Fifth Harmonys performance. As the group took the stage to perform its latest single, Angel, a mystery fifth member appeared in the lineup before being unceremoniously yanked offstage as the song began. What appeared as an inexplicable stunt to the uninitiated was likely a shady reference to former Fifth Harmony frontwoman Camila Cabello, who exited the group in December to pursue a solo career. It wasnt so much that Cabellos departure stung her former colleagues but that she reportedly failed to inform them of her decision before announcing it to the world. Oops. Also Taylor Swift Unless you were in a coma for the whole of last week, you probably heard that Taylor Swift announced the release date for her upcoming album, Reputation, as well as releasing the first single, Look What You Made Me Do. Its fine. Sunday night, Swift debuted the video for Look What You Made Me Do. It is also fine. This has been your daily Taylor Swift update. Facebook

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Kevin Hart, Beyonce and Drake lead charge for Hurricane Harvey flood relief By Nardine Saad (Liz O. Baylen / Los Angeles Times) As Harvey lashed southeastern Texas over the weekend, celebrities rallied for the relief effort. Comedian Kevin Hart led the charge Sunday night, donating $25,000 and challenging his celebrity friends to donate to the Red Cross amid catastrophic flooding in the Lone Star State. I think weve participated in a lot of challenges on the Internet, some meaningful, some meaningless, but weve all done them. Ive been a person thats partaken in several of them, Hart said in an Instagram video. At this point, this is a serious matter, he continued. I think the people are in bad shape and they need help. Im going to lead the charge and step up in this way. The Jumanji star called on his co-star Dwayne Johnson, comics Steve Harvey, Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle and Jerry Seinfeld, as well as musicians Jay-Z, Beyonce and Justin Timberlake to make donations and tag someone else to do the same. At that point, Houston native Beyonce and Kelly Rowland of Destinys Child had already posted notes about their hometown on Instagram, sending thoughts and prayers to the state that launched their careers. View Instagram post View Instagram post The deluge of support continued with country star Chris Young. The Man I Want to Be singer posted an emotional YouTube video about his certainty that his Texas home was destroyed and concern for his friends and family in the state. He donated $100,000 to relief efforts to a GoFundMe campaign to benefit the Red Cross. Harvey, one of the worst natural disasters in the states history, slammed onshore Friday as a Category 4 hurricane, then weakened to a tropical storm on Saturday, dropping up to 24 inches of rain on Houston in 24 hours. The National Weather Service reported that at least five people had died as of Sunday evening, but that number was expected to increase as the floodwaters recede. More than 30,000 people across the Gulf Coast are likely to seek temporary shelter as the tropical storm continues to drench southeastern Texas and Louisiana with heavy rains and surging floodwaters, The Times reported. Toronto native Drake, who has lived in Houston for the last eight years, said that he and DJ Future the Prince are working with local relief groups to aid and assist the people of Texas in anyway we can and in the most immediate way possible. I also want to thank all the men and women of service and volunteers for their courageous efforts to help people in need, the rapper said on Instagram. I encourage everyone to do what they can to assist the people of Texas knowing whatever effort you can make to help will go a long way. View Instagram post Also, during the MTV Video Music Awards Awards on Sunday, host Katy Perry touched upon the catastrophic event. She too urged viewers to donate to the Red Cross. All of us here at the VMAs are sending love to the people of southeastern Texas and everyone affected by Hurricane Harvey right now, Perry said onstage. Were praying for your safety in the days to come and we stand with you as you rebuild because were all in this together. According to the Houston Chronicle, more than 15 inches of rain could fall on several more southeastern Texas cities. Corpus Christi, where Harvey first made landfall, saw upward of 20 inches of rain in two days. By Monday morning, up to 40 inches of rain had fallen on northeast Houston. Another 20 inches were expected Monday before Tropical Storm Harvey travels farther east. Facebook

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Susan Bro, mother of slain Charlottesville protester Heather Heyer, announces anti-hate foundation at the MTV VMAs By Randall Roberts (Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP) During an evening filled with defiant messages against racism, homophobia and body shaming, the mother of Heather Heyer announced some concrete actions to further the cause. Susan Bro, whose daughter was killed two weeks ago during protests in Charlottesville, Va., has worked through her grief by speaking out against racism, and took a further step by creating the Heather Heyer Foundation. Describing it as a nonprofit organization that will provide scholarships to help more people to join Heathers fight against hatred, Bro requested that viewers visit the new site to help me make Heathers death count. Added Bro: Heather never marched alone. She was always joined by people from every race and every background in this country. Bro was introduced by Robert Lee IV -- a descendant of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee -- who said his ancestor has became of idol of white supremacy and hate. Lee went on to describe racism as Americas original sin. He went on to ask all of those with privilege to confront white supremacy and racism head-on. Watch his speech below. I call on all of us with privilege and power to confront racism and white supremacy head-on" - Robert Lee IV #VMAs pic.twitter.com/ko4SM9VnaU  MTV (@MTV) August 28, 2017 Facebook

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Watch Pinks inspiring MTV VMA speech to individuality By Randall Roberts In receiving her Video Vanguard award at the MTV VMAs on Sunday at the Forum -- the shows equivalent of a lifetime achievement trophy -- the pop star Pink told a story about a conversation shed recently had with her young daughter. They were driving to school and her daughter said, Mama, Im the ugliest girl I know. Pink replied, Huh? And she was like, Yeah, I look like a boy with long hair. Pink said that she immediately thought, My god, youre 6. Where is this coming from? The artist and mom didnt lecture her daughter. Instead, said Pink: I went home and made a PowerPoint presentation for her, and in that presentation were androgynous rock stars and artists that live their truth; are probably made fun of every day of their lives and carry on and wave their flag; and inspire the rest of us. These are artists like Michael Jackson and David Bowie and Freddie Mercury and Annie Lennox and Prince and Janis Joplin and George Michael, Elton John, so many artists. Pink said that her daughters eyes glazed over, but Pink pressed her about why she felt that way about herself. What do you think I look like? She said, Youre beautiful. The pop singer explained that she gets critiqued, too. They say I look like a boy or Im too masculine or Im too -- I have too many opinions. My body is too strong. I said to her, Do you see me growing my hair? She said No Mama. I said, Do you see me changing my body? She said, No Mama. Do you see me changing the way I present myself to the world? No Mama. Do you see me selling out arenas all over the world. Yes Mama. OK baby girl. We dont change. We take the gravel and the shell and we make a pearl. And we help other people to change so that they can see more kinds of beauty. Added Pink in closing: To all the artists here, Im so inspired by you. Thank you for being your true selves and for lighting the way for us. Facebook

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Watch Jared Leto offer touching tribute to Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington at the MTV VMAs By Randall Roberts In a moving tribute to two fallen musicians, the actor and musician Jared Leto honored the lives of Chris Cornell of Soundgarden and Chester Bennington of Linkin Park at the MTV VMAs on Sunday. Cornell and Bennington committed suicide in 2017, and Leto was friends with both. In 1976 in Phoenix, Ariz., a child was born. He was precocious, full of life, and determined, and grew up to become the singer of one of the greatest rock bands in the history of music, Leto said. His name was Chester Bennington, and the band is Linkin Park. Leto added that MTV asked him to say a few words about Bennington and Cornell, who he described as two artists that I had the absolute pleasure of touring with. They were close friends with one another -- Chester even singing the cover of the classic Hallelujah at Chris funeral. Recalling Benningtons words at Cornells funeral service, Leto said: Chester said of Chris, Your voice was joy and pain and anger and forgiveness, love and heartache all wrapped up into one. Just weeks later, Chester himself was gone. Chester was my friend. As he was to so many. Witnessing his life taught me important things -- especially about working relentlessly, pursuing dreams and being kind and caring while doing it. Facebook

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Kodak Black, Lil Uzi Vert and more steal the MTV VMA spotlight By Gerrick Kennedy Kodak Black arriving at the MTV VMAs. (Jordan Strauss / Invision / Associated Press) The line near a concession stand inside the Forum minutes before the MTV VMAs kicked off on Sunday was lengthy, but no one was waiting on food or drinks. Instead, a dozen or so folks waited patiently to get a selfie with Kodak Black, who high-fived and posed with as fans fumbled with smartphones. The VMAs are typically rife with heavyweights (Kendrick Lamar, Katy Perry, etc.) but this years ceremony looked to tap into the wide scene of rising acts that have been dominating streaming services and social media all summer. Before the telecast even began Lil Uzi Vert clinched a major win, taking the trophy for song of summer for XO Tour Llif3" and he later joined Ed Sheeran for the tune, no doubt the nights most surprising collaboration. Meanwhile, Khalids pre-show medley could have easily anchored the main show while reality star turned breakout rap sensation Cardi B was another highlight of the pre-show festivities. Her viral hit Bodak Yellow rattled throughout the Forum during nearly every commercial break. Fifth Harmony later made its debut at the VMAs with an explosive main stage performance of Down, a song that also won the award for pop video. Facebook

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Jack Antonoff is living his best life at the MTV VMAs By Mikael Wood Jack Antonoff performs onstage during the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards pre-show. (Joshua Blanchard / Getty Images) Has anyone at MTVs Video Music Awards had more screen time so far than Jack Antonoff? First the A-list producer and songwriter turned up on the nights pre-show ceremony for a performance with his band Bleachers. Then he introduced Lorde by noting that hed seen her eat gas-station sushi during the two years they spent together working on her album Melodrama. He also accepted the award for best collaboration  for Taylor Swift and Zayns I Dont Wanna Live Forever (Fifty Shades Darker), which he helped create  because the singers couldnt be there. But Antonoffs best moment? Obviously the candid reaction shot in which he was shown casually eating a banana, as his girlfriend, Lena Dunham, described it on Twitter. My boyfriend just casually eating a banana at the VMAs is a good reminder of why we've been at it half a decade  Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) August 28, 2017 Facebook

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Watch Taylor Swifts bold Look What You Made Me Do video, which premiered during the MTV VMAs By Randall Roberts Taylor Swifts new video for Look What You Made Me Do, which premiered during the 2017 MTV VMAs on Sunday night, features her dressed as a zombie, a diamond-drenched queen, a red-dressed seductress, a car-crash victim, a bird in a cage, a kitty-masked thief with a baseball bat, a biker chick wearing studded leather and a whip-snapping dominatrix. As she poses and pretends, Swift makes a not-so-veiled reference to her ongoing feud with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, getting all combative behind the microphone as a feather-light melody jumps behind her. The video premiered during a ceremony hosted by pop star and avowed Swift nemesis Katy Perry. Perry didnt introduce the clip, a hint that the two probably still arent besties. Inside the Forum, the video premiered on multiple big screen TVs rose that from the stage, and Perry was nowhere in sight. As the clip seems to be winding down, the music fades. But Swift hasnt fully made her point. In its final moments arrive a dozen-odd versions of Swift standing in front of a black private jet with the name of her new album, Reputation, scrawled on it. The many Swifts start bickering and referencing the various criticisms that have been lobbied at her over the years. Stop making that face, its so annoying, the zombie Swift says, a nod to what some believe is the exaggerated excitement the artist shows when she wins awards. A young version of Swift interrupts with an innocent Yall! but is shot down by an embittered Swift: Oh stop acting like youre so nice. Youre so fake! Standing in the center of the line is Swift seemingly dressed as she was at the 2009 VMAs, when West interrupted her victory speech to decry Beyonce's loss. Holding her VMA trophy, she says, Id like very much to be excluded from this narrative, both a nod to to the musical Hamilton and a repeat of a phrase Swift posted on social media in wake of controversy resulting from Wests song Famous. In that 2016 tune, he he boasted that I made that [profanity] famous and, therefore, that he and Swift might still have sex. The other Swifts reply in unison: Oh shut up! Facebook

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Kendrick Lamar opens 2017 VMAs with fiery performances of DNA and Humble By Randall Roberts Wearing a red scarf on his head and a poofy winter coat onstage, Compton rapper Kendrick Lamar opened the 2017 MTV VMAs needing neither. Within a few minutes of launching with DNA a dancer center stage burst into flames. You could almost feel the heat simmering through the screen. I was born like this, since one like this, Lamar rapped. Immaculate conception/I transform like this, perform like this. Perform he did, moving into a second track, Humble, from his recent album Damn. Shedding the coat, he stood in front of a fiery backdrop grid that burned as dancers scaled it. As they did so, Lamar rapped, My left stroke just went viral/Right stroke put lil baby in a spiral. It was the opening shot of a VMAs in which politics and protest may end up taking center stage. Indeed, moments later presenter Paris Jackson drew a rousing applause when she denounced the racism and hatred propogated by white supremacists and neo-Nazis. Facebook

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Heidi Klum, Jack Antonoff and others stand in support of transgender military service members at VMAs By Randall Roberts View Instagram post As the 2017 Video Music Awards were approaching, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) was out in full force at the Forum. Its president and CEO, Sarah Kate Ellis, walked the red carpet along with her invited guests: six transgender members of the military. The action came in the wake of President Donald Trumps direction to the Pentagon on Friday, as reported in The Times, to return to the long-standing policy and practice barring military service by transgender individuals. Praising MTV as a pioneering advocate for the LGBTQ community, Ellis said in a statement, Throughout all the tweets, memos, and speculation, brave transgender Americans are still serving their country and defending the freedoms of this nation while meeting the same rigorous standards of their peers. We are proud to stand with them. Posing in support: musicians and celebrities including Jack Antonoff (Bleachers), supermodel Heidi Klum, actor-comedian Billy Eichner and others, who stood alongside transgender service members including Jennifer Peace, Logan Ireland, Sterling James Crutcher and Akira Wyatt, as well as trans veterans Laila Ireland and Brynn Tannehil. Also joining them was LGBTQ philanthropist August Getty, who in his other life is a fashion designer responsible for Miley Cyruss red carpet dress. Facebook

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MTV VMAs return to Southern California with an overwhelmingly impressive setup By Gerrick Kennedy Cardi B performing at the pre-show for the MTV VMAs. (Chris Pizzello / Invision / Associated Press) After heading to the East Coast last year, the MTV VMAs have returned to Southern California. And tonight at the Forum in Inglewood, it was clear that the network decided to go big  huge really. Upon arrival to the venue it appeared that the scale of this years show was unlike anything MTV had done in recent history. A structure that looked like a space shuttle swallowed the lot in front of the venue, and stars such as Cardi B and Big Freedia could be seen pumping through the red carpet (its a deep shade of blue this year). Inside the Forum, the stage took up the entirety of the venues ground floor. The imprint of the stage was impressive, even overwhelming in size as a maze of catwalks and secondary stages traced the floor, all of which was outlined by hundreds of glowing triangles and projection screens. It made for a futuristic playground of geometric glowing shapes that show opener Kendrick Lamar put to use immediately as he emerged from the center of the venue for the explosive DNA, strutting through half of the venue before making it to the main stage. Facebook

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Taylor Swift breaks YouTube record with Look What You Made Me Do video By Randy Lewis Taylor Swift set a YouTube record with the lyric video for her new single Look What You Made Me Do, tallying 19 million views in just the first 24 hours. Thats more than double the previous first-day record for a lyric video, which was set in February by the lyric video for the Chainsmokers Something Just Like This featuring Coldplay, which registered 9 million views upon its release. Its also the best 24-hour figure Swift has logged, besting the first-day result for her 2015 official video for Bad Blood, which attracted 17 million views, and has since totaled more than 1.1 billion views. As of Sunday morning, the tally for Look What You Made Me Do had surpassed 35 million. It sets the stage for the premiere tonight of Swifts official video for the new single, which will be introduced during the MTV Video Music Awards Ceremony, taking place at the Forum in Inglewood. The overall record for viewership in the first 24 hours for any music video belongs to Adele, who registered 27.7 million views in 2015 at the premiere of the official video for her song Hello. Facebook

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Why William Friedkin called Tobe Hoopers Texas Chain Saw Massacre an Umami Burger of a movie By Mark Olsen Director Tobe Hooper, who died in Los Angeles on Saturday at age 74, created many movies and TV shows during his long career  including stepping to helm the filming of Poltergeist when Steven Spielberg was contractually banned from directing other films during the production of ET: The Extra Terrestrial. Hoopers most admired film, of course, was 1974s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. In 2014, on the occasion of the films 40th anniversary, The Exorcist director William Friedkin interviewed Hooper before an overflow audience at Los Angeles Vista theater. During the engaging conversation, Friedkin called Hooper one of the sweetest, nicest guys Ive ever known. And then added, So I often wonder where this stuff comes from. Hooper talked about purposely pitting his actors against each other to keep the on-screen tension high, how an unlikely pair of albums  Elton Johns Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and Lou Reeds Berlin  inspired him during the writing of the screenplay, and about how damn strong women are, referring to the resilent character played by Marilyn Burns. Shes just not going to die. At one point, Friedkin provocatively asked, Do you think this is a work of art? Hooper first asked, Should I be modest? before responding with a salty confirmation, Its a ... work of art. The Times Mark Olsen was there for the interview. At the end of his article, theres this affirmation of the film from Friedkin: No 3-D, no CGI, welcome to this Umami Burger of a movie. Read on to find his reasoning. Read More Facebook

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Cinefamily suspends all activities in wake of sexual misconduct allegations By Sonaiya Kelley The Cinefamily on Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles. (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times) Following the resignations Tuesday of two leadership figures at Cinefamily, the Los Angeles independent film venue has announced that it is temporarily suspending all activities to allow for the investigation and necessary restructure of management and the board. Recently, claims were made alleging improper behavior by one of more members of the organization, reads a release posted on the organizations website and social media pages. The Board of Directors of The Cinefamily has no tolerance for any form of behavior that does not conform to the high standards demanded by our members and staff and that of common human decency. The letter also says that Cinefamily is bringing on an independent third party, Giles Miller at Lynx Insights & Investigations, to conduct a thorough investigation into the allegations. View Twitter post A spokesperson for the theater could not immediately be reached for comment. The announcement comes in the wake of two high profile exits: co-founder and executive creative director, Hadrian Belove, and vice president of its board of directors, Shadie Elnashai, resigned on Tuesday following allegations of sexual misconduct. The exits were announced in postings on Cinefamilys social media accounts. In light of recent events, Shadie Elnashai has resigned from Cinefamilys Board of Directors and Hadrian Belove has resigned as the Executive Creative Director of Cinefamily, read the statement. Addressing the anonymous allegations in a post to his personal Facebook account following his resignation, Belove described the emails contents as demonstrable lies and half-truths, and allegations without known victims. It is not clear whether screenings currently scheduled will still run, and there has been grumbling by monthly billed members as to whether or not automated charges will be suspended or cancelled. Facebook

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The Texas Chain Saw Massacre director Tobe Hooper dies in Los Angeles at 74 By Associated Press Tobe Hooper, the horror-movie pioneer whose low-budget sensation The Texas Chain Saw Massacre took a buzz saw to audiences with its brutally frightful vision, has died. He was 74. The Los Angeles County coroners office says Hooper died Saturday in Sherman Oaks. It was reported as a natural death. Hooper and contemporaries like George Romero crafted some of the scariest nightmares that ever haunted moviegoers. He directed 1982s Poltergeist from a script by Steven Spielberg and was behind the 1979 miniseries Salems Lot, based on the Stephen King novel. Read More Facebook

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Is Taylor Swift trying to turn off her listeners? By Mikael Wood We can skip the rundown of Taylor Swifts feud with Kanye West, right? Less than 24 hours after the worlds biggest pop star unleashed her new single on a waiting commentariat, Im already exhausted by the idea of having to read (let alone write) yet another rehash of this deeply tiresome conflict. But you know whos not over it? Taylor Swift. In Look What You Made Me Do  released online Thursday night as the lead single from a new album, Reputation, due in November  the singer sounds positively fired up as she takes whack after brutal whack at the rapper who once interrupted her at an awards show. (Swift doesnt name West, to be clear, but with her reference to a tilted stage, she doesnt need to.) I dont like your perfect crime / How you laugh when you lie, she seethes over a throbbing electronic groove, You said the gun was mine / Isnt cool  no, I dont like you. Later in the tune, which Swift created with Jack Antonoff, she pretends to answer a phone call from someone evidently looking for the old Taylor  the sucker, you presume, who mightve let bygones be bygones. But she cant come to the phone, Swift tells the caller. Why? she adds. Oh, cause shes dead. Whats surprising about Look What You Made Me Do  beyond the harsh industrial production that makes it feel like Swifts response to her enemys Yeezus  is that it suggests the singer no longer cares (or is no longer able to tell) what pop fans want. Swift rose to superstardom by anticipating listeners desires; she knew just when to pivot from acoustic guitars to sleek synthesizers, from the fairy-tale romance of early hits like Love Story to the more grown-up depiction found on her last album, 2014s smash 1989. On tour behind that record, she spent a good portion of her show every night telling the members of her audience how closely shed been paying attention to them. But dredging up Taylor v. Kanye again? I mean, I cant be the only one whos sick of this topic  something Swift wouldve known a few years ago without even having to think about it. OK, so she hardly lacks for company among A-listers eager to cook expired beef. Earlier this summer Katy Perry revived her ancient tussle with Swift  I believe it had something to do with backup dancers?  for Swish Swish. But Perrys song takes delight in its own pettiness, whereas Look What You Made Me Do just makes me think of President Trump whining endlessly about fake news. (Crediting Right Said Fred for the songs supposed debt to Im Too Sexy is funny in writing, but the inspiration adds little humor to the dour music.) Maybe Swift isnt aiming for me, though. Maybe this polarizing song is meant to galvanize her base  which, sure enough, is rhapsodizing about the track on social media  even at the expense of the wider world shes dominated for much of the last decade. If thats her play, its a wild one, especially coming after her powerful testimony during the recent trial regarding her alleged sexual assault at the hands of a Denver radio DJ. In court, Swift appeared driven to speak with a voice loud enough for others. Now, just days later, she seems uninterested in that job. Have we ever seen a pop star so happily give up a portion of her following? Thats an idea Im not tired of considering. Maybe Reputation will take it up. Facebook

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Concerts by Coldplay, other acts canceled as Hurricane Harvey nears Texas By August Brown Coldplay performs at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena in 2016. (Michael Owen Baker / For The Times) As the potentially devastating Hurricane Harvey approaches the Texas coast, major acts including Coldplay, Lady Antebellum and Mary J. Blige have canceled or rescheduled their Houston-area concerts. Coldplay on Friday postponed a show scheduled for NRG Stadium in Houston. We really wanted to play tonight, but sitting here all together watching the news about the storm, we feel that we cant ask anyone to put their safety at risk. So, sadly, we will have to postpone, the band wrote. Live Nation Houston said ticket-holders would be updated when there was further information. We urge all fans in the area to stay safe, it said. A makeup date has not yet been scheduled. The country trio Lady Antebellum canceled its Sunday show at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in the Woodlands, citing the storm. Blige postponed her Friday show at the Smart Financial Centre at Sugar Land. The venue announced that the concert had been rescheduled to Sept. 19. The Category 3 storm, which would be the first major hurricane to hit the United States since 2005, is expected to make landfall in coastal Texas on Saturday morning, bringing 100-mph winds and up to 35 inches of rain in some areas. Facebook

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Bachelor couple Nick Viall and Vanessa Grimaldi break off their engagement By Christie DZurilla (Leon Bennett / Getty Images) Nick Viall and Vanessa Grimaldi, who got engaged on the most recent season of The Bachelor, have  with a great amount of heartbreak  called the whole thing off. We gave this relationship our all and we are saddened that we did not get the fairytale ending we hoped for, they said Friday in a statement to E! News. The relationship lasted five months after the proposal aired on the Season 21 finale of The Bachelor in March. The two said in their statement that theyre parting with love and admiration for one another. The silver lining to what they called a difficult decision? This means Nick is potentially available for yet another TV stint in the Bachelor/Bachelorette franchise. That as-yet-imaginary gig would be his fifth ride on the looking-for-love roller coaster. In Bachelor Nation, its always good to dream. Facebook

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Mila Kunis, Ashton Kutcher settle lawsuit over websites photos of their kids By Nardine Saad (Michael Nelson / EPA) Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis legal battle with British website MailOnline has been settled. The Two and a Half Men actor, the Bad Moms actress and the outlet have reached a satisfactory resolution of their legal action regarding the publication of photos of their children, their legal representatives said in a joint statement to The Times on Friday. The couple, who starred in That 70s Show together years before they began dating, took the websites publisher, Associated Newspapers, to Londons High Court in July 2015 over two articles featuring their daughter, who was 1 at the time. The U.K.'s MailOnline.com published images of Wyatt taken during a private family outing to the beach. A paparazzo used a long-lens camera to obtain the images, and the couple said they were unaware the photos were being taken. They claimed that the photos breached the Data Protection Act and were used for the unauthorized promotion of clothing on the website. [T]hey have reached a satisfactory resolution of their legal action, which includes an agreement to pixelate photographs of their daughter, Wyatt, their son, Dimitri, and any future children they should have together.  Joint statement from Kutcher, Kunis and the MailOnline announcing their lawsuit settlement Per the agreement announced Friday, the outlet will pixelate photographs of Kutchers and Kunis daughter, Wyatt, their son, Dimitri, and any future children they should have together. The settlement is the latest legal blow to MailOnline and its associated newspaper, the Daily Mail. (The U.S. version of the website, DailyMail.com, is run by a separate news team.) In April, the tabloids parent company settled a libel suit with First Lady Melania Trump over an article it ran in the paper and online that suggested she may have once worked as an escort. In July 2014, George Clooney lambasted the Daily Mail in a USA Today op-ed that accused it of making up stories in the wake of an article it published about his mother-in-law. He got an apology and an acknowledgement that the story was inaccurate. That same month, Angelina Jolie reportedly threatened to take legal action after it published a video that claimed to show her under the influence of heroin in the 1990s. Facebook

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Taylor Swifts Look What You Made Me Do lyrics: Let the analysis begin By Randy Lewis As if there were any doubt as to the level of interest in Taylor Swifts first new music in three years, her first single from her forthcoming album, Reputation, has been blowing up since it premiered Thursday night. The lyric video for Look What You Made Me Do had logged more than 7 million views as of 9:30 a.m. Friday. Additionally, Swift tweeted that the official video for the song will premiere Sunday during the MTV Video Music Awards ceremony. For those who want to dig in and attempt to decode what and to whom the I dont like you references might refer, here are the full lyrics to the song: Look What You Made Me Do FIRST VERSE I dont like your little games Dont like your tilted stage The role you made me play Of the fool, no, I dont like you I dont like your perfect crime How you laugh when you lie You said the gun was mine Isnt cool, no, I dont like you PRE-CHORUS But I got smarter, I got harder in the nick of time Honey, I rose up from the dead, I do it all the time Ive got a list of names and yours is in red, underlined I check it once, then I check it twice, oh! CHORUS Ooh, look what you made me do Look what you made me do Look what you just made me do Look what you just made me do Ooh, look what you made me do Look What you made me do Look what you just made me do Look what you just made me do SECOND VERSE I dont like your kingdom keys They once belonged to me You ask for a place to sleep Locked me out and threw a feast (what?) The world goes on, another day, another drama, drama But not for me, not for me, all I think about is karma And then the world moves on, but one things for sure Baby, I got mine, but youll all get yours PRE CHORUS REPEATS But I got smarter, I got harder in the nick of time Honey, I rose up from the dead, I do it all the time Ive got a list of names and yours is in red, underlined I check it once, then I check it twice, oh! CHORUS REPEATS Ooh, look what you made me do Look what you made me do Look what you just made me do Look what you just made me do Ooh, look what you made me do Look what you made me do Look what you just made me do Look what you just made me do THIRD VERSE I dont trust nobody and nobody trusts me Ill be the actress starring in your bad dreams I dont trust nobody and nobody trusts me Ill be the actress starring in your bad dreams I dont trust nobody and nobody trusts me Ill be the actress starring in your bad dreams I dont trust nobody and nobody trusts me Ill be the actress starring in your bad dreams (Look what you made me do) (Look what you made me do) ANSWERING MACHINE INTERLUDE Im sorry, the old Taylor cant come to the phone right now. Why? Oh cause shes dead! CHORUS REPEATS Ooh, look what you made me do Look what you made me do Look what you just made me do Look what you just made me do Ooh, look what you made me do Look what you made me do Look what you just made me do Look what you just made me do Facebook

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Patty Jenkins isnt surprised James Cameron doesnt get Wonder Woman By Tracy Brown Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins has some words about James Camerons comments on the Amazonian warrior goddess: Of course he doesnt get it. Following the Avatar directors claims that Wonder Woman is a step backwards for women, Jenkins responded in a tweet that Camerons thoughts are unsurprising because he is not a woman. In an interview with the Guardian, Cameron threw some shade on Wonder Womans success by trying to compare Diana Prince to Sarah Connor from his Terminator franchise. "[Sarah Connor] was strong, she was troubled, she was a terrible mother, and she earned the respect of the audience through pure grit, Cameron said. Nothing like the objectified beauty icon he considers Wonder Woman to be. Jenkins points out that Camerons narrow qualifications for what makes a good female hero are restrictive and not at all progressive. If women have to always be hard, tough and troubled to be strong, and we arent free to be multidimensional or celebrate an icon of women everywhere because she is attractive and loving, then we havent come very far have we, Jenkins wrote. Jenkins also insisted that there should be room for all types of female lead characters and that women themselves should be the judge of these icons of progress. There is no right and wrong kind of powerful woman, she wrote. Read Jenkins full statement below. pic.twitter.com/8zkJXHLCJW  Patty Jenkins (@PattyJenks) August 25, 2017 Facebook

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James Cameron thinks Wonder Womans success is misguided: Shes an objectified icon By Nardine Saad (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times) James Cameron isnt here for Wonder Womans blockbuster success. In fact, the moviemaker calls the much-loved superhero flick (Wonder Woman is currently at 92% on Rotten Tomatoes) a step back from the female heroes he created in the 80s and 90s. It appears that the Titanic and Terminator 2" director, whose films often put tough women at the center of the action, doesnt think that Gal Gadots character was complicated or groundbreaking enough to merit so much acclaim -- $800 million at the worldwide box office aside. All of the self-congratulatory back-patting Hollywoods been doing over Wonder Woman has been so misguided. Shes an objectified icon, and its just male Hollywood doing the same old thing! Cameron said in an interview with the Guardian. All of the self-congratulatory back-patting Hollywoods been doing over Wonder Woman has been so misguided. Shes an objectified icon, and its just male Hollywood doing the same old thing!  Filmmaker James Cameron on Wonder Woman The director, who was cast in the article as softened and evolved from his bone-crushing early movie-making days, believes that Wonder Woman was a step backwards. (Dont get him wrong, he did like Patty Jenkins summer blockbuster -- the first-ever feature-film incarnation of the DC Comics heroine and the highest-grossing live-action film directed by a woman -- just not enough to let it pass without throwing a little shade Diana Princes way.) Backwards in comparison with Camerons complex Sarah Connor character from the Terminator franchise. Sarah Connor was not a beauty icon. She was strong, she was troubled, she was a terrible mother, and she earned the respect of the audience through pure grit. And to me, [the benefit of characters like Sarah] is so obvious. I mean, half the audience is female! Cameron said. The three-time Oscar wi
More than 2,500 Hamilton fans filed into the gilded Hollywood Pantages Theatre on Monday evening, though the musical isnt set to have its opening night until Wednesday.

Instead, the crowd assembled to hear a conversation with some of the brains behind the phenomenon: director Thomas Kail, choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler and music supervisor, orchestrator and co-arranger Alex Lacamoire.

The hour-long discussion, moderated by Los Angeles Times Assistant Managing Editor Mary McNamara and organized as part of the Ideas Exchange series, touched on the musicals origins, creative development, meteoric rise and continuing evolution.

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I dont want to over-hype it, but Hamilton may be the one thing that can unite our very divided country, Times Editor-in-Chief and Publisher Davan Maharaj said to applause in his opening remarks. After all, Barack Obama and Dick Cheney are huge fans.

Lacamoire and Kail took the stage with Blankenbuehler, who won laughs by striking a Staying Alive pose when his bona fides (as a dancer on Broadways Saturday Night Fever and as the three-time Tony-winning choreographer behind Hamilton, In the Heights and Bandstand) were announced.

1 / 10 Chad Evett as King George III and Katie Aiani as George Washington enjoy a light moment as people wait for the Pantages Theatre to open its doors for the preview performance of Hamilton in Hollywood on Friday. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 10 People arrive for the preview performance of Hamilton at the Pantages in Hollywood on Friday. The official opening night is Aug. 16. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 10 Candice Berge finishes belting out a song from Hamilton while friend Amber Infante watches. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 10 People wait for the doors to open for the preview performance of Hamilton. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 10 Jackie Gonzalez takes a selfie with family and friends at the biggest theatrical event in Los Angeles in decades. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 6 / 10 Kayla Hockman shows off a pair of tickets to the preview performance. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 7 / 10 Alix Johnson, center, sells programs. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 8 / 10 People walk into the Pantages Theatre for the preview performance of Hamilton. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 9 / 10 Cooper Wines, 10, dressed as King George III, attends the preview performance of Hamilton. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 10 / 10 Chad Evett as King George III and Katie Aiani as George Washington take a selfie with Olivia Kimbley outside the theater. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Cheers also went up at the mere mention of composer, lyricist, book writer and original Alexander Hamilton performer, Lin-Manuel Miranda. Lacamoire recounted the moment the composer brought the musicals first song to him, a song they eventually performed together  Miranda rapping, Lacamoire playing piano  at a White House event that First Lady Michelle Obama organized in 2009 to celebrate the spoken word.

At first when I heard the opening number, I couldnt tell whether he was serious about it or whether it was supposed to be a joke, because it seems like such an absurd pairing in a way, Lacamoire said, referring to Mirandas mash-up of hip-hop with early American history. And when you watch the video of him performing it at the White House, when he explains what hes about to do, you hear the room laugh as well. But then you hear him do it and you realize ,'Oh my God, hes dead serious about this.

One Pulitzer Prize, 11 Tony Awards and a Grammy later, Hamilton has proved to be far from a joke. The theater fell silent as Blankenbuehler recounted his first time hearing the concept album that would become frenzy-inducing theater.

I remember thinking that what hes creating  could work almost in any venue, he said. It could be a film, it could be an album, it could be a play, and I remember being so inspired by it but at the same time so nervous that I wouldnt be included because I knew it could be successful any place. I started saying my prayers that night that it would become a show.

The creative team talked about the shows ability to bridge the gap between 1776 and 2017, between historical figures and the audience.

What we want to do is humanize everybody in this and not have them up there on dollar bills and pedestals but actually put them on the ground, Kail said. Colonial bonnets were tossed so that actors contemporary hairstyles became part of that linking between past and present; period costumes were designed to move like contemporary fashion.

All of a sudden youre hearing text that maybe you studied 10 years ago or 30 years ago, but youre hearing a beat that makes you realize that the street is happening right now, Blankenbuehler said. And so all of a sudden, everybody started seeing history not hundreds of years ago but history as in, Oh, I know that person, he lives on my block, or Thats a leader I would follow today.

The message rises up through propulsive music that drives the entire production, the creative team said.

The beat in our show is equal parts low and badass and high and aspirational, and that reminds us that thats the fight that we continue to go through every day, Blankenbuehler said. And then we realize, Oh, my fight every day was their fight 250 years ago.  The show is about ourselves.

Ticket-holding fans waiting for their turn to see the national tour heard Lacamoire talk about the ways songs might shift from city to city based on the actor whos playing the role  how the essential truth of the scene or emotion of the moment never changes, but the emphasis on certain notes might be tweaked ever so slightly.

They also heard just how much the teams success has been based on collaboration and trust built over years, and the ability to rework numbers dozens of times before getting it right.

Before the night ended, McNamara relayed questions submitted by The Times HS Insider program for high school students as well as a few from Miranda himself.

First of all, he wants to know, do you miss him? McNamara asked to audience laughter.

I think we answered that question, Kail said. Deeply.

Check back for video of this Ideas Exchange conversation. It will be posted along with other news from the Hamilton national tour, cast interviews and more at latimes.com/hamilton.

sonaiya.kelley@latimes.com

follow me on twitter @sonaiyak

MORE HAMILTON:

Hamilton hits Hollywood: Heres what it took to get the landmark musical to L.A.

The birth of Hamilton, told by the man who was in the room where it happened

Hamilton original cast and creatives: Where are they now?
Two days after he became president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, John Bailey celebrated his 75th birthday. He and his wife of 45 years, Oscar-nominated film editor Carol Littleton, enjoyed a late dinner together once she arrived home from work. The next day, Bailey presided over his first duty as president, the graduation of interns from the Academy Gold mentoring program.

Then he drove out to Arleta, where he stood in line at the DMV for four hours to renew his drivers license.

I actually had an appointment too, Bailey says, laughing.

Bailey hopes to bring a higher level of efficiency to the academy than what is typically found at the Department of Motor Vehicles, and those who have worked with him over his 50-year career as a cinematographer believe hes the right man for the job.

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His election as president caught most by surprise. Academy observers pegged Laura Dern or casting director David Rubin as the likeliest candidates to succeed Cheryl Boone Isaacs, who termed out after serving four years as president.

Bailey, a well-regarded veteran beginning his 14th year as a member of the academys board of governors, prevailed in a vote over Rubin. (Dern, citing a busy work schedule, declined to run after her name was put forward.) The choice was greeted with strong approval within the industry.

To be a cinematographer, you need three skills: you need to be an artist, you need to be a technician and you need to be a manager, said producer Michael Shamberg, who worked with Bailey on The Big Chill. Thats a pretty good tool kit for the president of the academy. I think Johns a real forward-looking choice for the job.

John has the least amount of ego of anyone I know in this business, adds cinematographer Gil Hubbs. Hes inquisitive and genuinely interested in what other people have to say.

Bailey displayed those qualities during a recent phone conversation that touched on the academys diversity push, delayed movie museum (now scheduled to open in 2019) and much more.

Why did you want to be president?

I love the academy. Ive been a member since 1981 and I just found myself slowly over the years becoming more engaged with a lot of the academys programs and initiatives. It seemed like a natural development.

Some members are worried that those programs and initiatives are going to be cut because the museum is costing so much money.

All the initiatives that Im aware of that are meaningful are ongoing and were continuing to have all kinds of programs.

Theres no question that the museum is the largest financial commitment the academy has ever made to anything. But you know, Ive been reading Walter Mirischs memoir and he has a chapter about being academy president. In the early 70s, the academy acquired this Wilshire property at La Peer and there was a huge amount of anxiety and concern among the board of governors. People were afraid. Oh, my God, this is going to bankrupt us.

Any time that any established institution decides to take a big step into something new, theres going to be a certain level of concern.

But to call it a financial crisis would be overstating it?

Its not only overstating it, its a mad dog response. And its not at all accurate. I had an interview the other day where I was referring to an article that came out in April in which the writer referred to the state of the museum and budget, equating it to Cleopatra and Heavens Gate.

I called him on it. I said, Thats a really stupid metaphor. What are you trying to do, troll the museum and academy?

Its irresponsible. Theres genuine interest and curiosity about how things are going, but theres also a lot of doomsdayers who seem to feed more off of creating or imagining bad news than whats really going on.

Cheryl Boone Isaacs was very vocal about the need to diversify the academys membership. Do you intend to be equally forthright in continuing the academys A2020 initiative?

Im very committed to it. Clearly the academy is too. Diversity has always been important to me in my career. I could give you chapter and verse in how long Ive been hiring minorities and women on my camera crews and grip and electrical. This is crucial!

Ive been involved in the concept of diversity before it ever became a buzzword. Ive been involved where it really counts ... working with people on sets.  John Bailey

Ive been involved in the concept of diversity before it ever became a buzzword. Ive been involved where it really counts, which is not writing memos or talking about it, but actually working with people on the set. Its bred in my bones.

From reading your blog, you also have a deep love for international cinema. Youve worked on the executive committee, which makes the Oscar foreign-language short list, right?

One year, there was a Bela Tarr film, The Turin Horse, which turned out to be Belas last movie. It was 2 1/2 hours long and it has 30 shots in it. Its very astringent. I loved that movie and argued relentlessly for that to make the shortlist. But I wasnt on the executive committee at that time, and I think just to shut me up, [academy foreign-language committee chairman] Mark Johnson put me on it.

The next year, I was standing outside a theater, waiting to be let in for a screening. And there was a tap on my shoulder. It was a little old lady behind me. And I turned around and she said, I know you. Youre the guy last year that liked that horse movie.

Your reputation preceded you.

As a matter of fact, my blog piece that just went up this morning is a tribute to Jeanne Moreau. I felt when she and Sam Shepard died within [days] of each other, Sam got all the attention, at least in the American media. Hardly anybody mentioned Jeanne Moreau, and for all of us who love European cinema from the 60s and 70s, she was it.

You must be pleased with the strides the academy has made the past two years to invite international members.

In the cinematographers branch, we offered membership to Jose Luis Alcaine, the great Spanish cinematographer whos even older than me. He has 155 credits on IMDB and has photographed [Pedro] Almodovar films and here he is. Finally somebody invited him.

And there was another cinematographer I felt particularly excited about, Ernesto Pardo, who did this wonderful documentary called Tempestad last year. It was shot on a shoestring with a low-end digital camera and its an absolutely gorgeous, beautiful film telling a very emotional story.

So you wouldnt agree with critics who say these last two huge classes of new members have watered down the academy?

Oh, God no! What it is is we realize now how much talent there is out there.

Whats your relationship with [academy CEO] Dawn Hudson like?

Dawn and I are very close. Carol and I are going to be having dinner with her Sunday night. I think she has done a tremendous number of incredible things, both on the diversity issue and helping on the fundraising front. Im really excited about moving forward with her.

Are you planning to take any other jobs while youre president?

The job has changed. Its very hands-on, and I have made a commitment to that. Im not even thinking about photographing a film in the next year. And that doesnt bother me at all. Having just turned 75, this is a new chapter in my life, unlike anything Ive ever done. I find that thrilling.

See the most-read stories this hour 

glenn.whipp@latimes.com

Twitter: @glennwhipp

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Its the television deal that has Hollywood talking.

Since 2005, prolific TV producer Shonda Rhimes has helped broadcast television in its ongoing battle against shifting viewing habits  fueled by DVR viewing and the convenience of on-demand streaming services  with a collection of ABC series built on high drama that drive viewers to tune in on a designated night and time. Now, Rhimes, well versed in high-stakes moves, is taking her TV empire to Netflix.

The mastermind behind prime-time hits Greys Anatomy and Scandal has signed a multi-year deal with the streaming service. As part of the deal, Rhimes will bring her L.A.-based production company, Shondaland, to Netflix to produce original series and projects. (Betsy Beers, Rhimes longtime producing partner, will also make the move to Netflix.)

Existing Shondaland shows on ABC  Scandal, Greys Anatomy and How to Get Away with Murder  as well as those in development at the network, will continue to air there . Heres a look at the hits and misses from Shondaland.

Patrick Dempsey and Ellen Pompeo in Greys Anatomy. (Michael Desmond / ABC) (Michael Desmond / ABC)

Greys Anatomy

The series follows the sordid lives of a group of doctors at a Seattle hospital, with Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) at the center.

"I wanted to create a show that I wanted to watch," Rhimes told The Times in 2005. "I wanted it to be about women, about competitive women who were like me and my friends.

The series was slotted as a midseason replacement in spring 2005 and ended its first season with a hefty 20 million viewers. Though viewership has experienced some erosion since then, the series closed out its 12th season as ABCs highest-rated drama among the advertiser-coveted demographic of adults ages 18 to 49.

Amy Brenneman, left, and Kate Walsh in a scene from Private Practice. (CRAIG SJODIN / ABC) (CRAIG SJODIN / ABC)

Private Practice

A spin-off of Greys Anatomy, the medical drama focused on neonatologist Addison Forbes Montgomery (Kate Walsh) as she moved to Santa Monica from Seattle in her search for a new life while working at a wellness center. The series also starred Taye Diggs.

After Walsh announced shed be leaving the series at the end of its sixth season, the decision was made to end the show.

Martin Henderson, left, with Thomas Blake Jr. and Jason George in a scene from Off the Map. (Mario Perez/ABC) (Mario Perez/ABC)

Off the Map

The medical drama about a group of doctors working in a remote South American village starred Mamie Gummer and Martin Henderson. A Times review described it as so inspirational and message-laden it would not be out of place on Oprah Winfrey's new network. The series aired on ABC from January to April. But Rhimes had something more promising in store.

Kerry Washington as Olivia Pope in ABCs Scandal. (Danny Feld / ABC) (Danny Feld / ABC)

Scandal

The series follows Washington, D.C., fixer Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) and is loosely based on former George H.W. Bush administration press aide Judy Smith .

The show premiered to lukewarm reviews and soft ratings as a midseason replacement in 2012, but the fast-paced drama picked up steam after it generated strong word of mouth via social media, particularly Twitter. The heavy engagement on the social media platform has become a template in how television shows  particularly their casts  can engage with an audience and promote appointment viewing.

When it premiered, it stood as the first network television drama since 1974 with a black female lead character. In 2013, Washington became the first African American to earn an Emmy nomination for lead actress in a drama since Cicely Tyson in 1995.

The series will wrap its run at the end of its upcoming seventh season.

Viola Davis in a scene from How to Get Away With Murder. (Mitchell Haaseth / Associated Press) (Mitchell Haaseth / AP)

How to Get Away With Murder

Unlike the other shows, Rhimes is not the creator of "How to Get Away With Murder." The series, a sexy legal thriller in which Viola Davis plays a criminal defense professor who gets entwined in a murder conspiracy with four law students from her class, was created by Peter Nowalk, who had previously worked as a writer on Greys Anatomy and Scandal. Rhimes serves as an executive producer.

The launch of the series gave ABC an opportunity to make a night out of the Rhimes brand of programming. The network christened Thursdays as "TGIT" (Thank God It's Thursday).

"I think everybody else thinks it's a bigger deal than I do," Rhimes told The Times in 2014. "I know it's an incredible amount of trust that's being placed on me, I get that. ... But I'm not really thinking about, 'Oh, I'm the Thursday queen.' Uh, no. I'm thinking, 'Grey's has to be good, Scandal has to be good, and Murder has to be damn good.' The block remains a valuable assert to the ABC schedule.

Meanwhile, Davis has earned three Emmy nominations for lead actress in a drama  and, with her 2015 win, she became the first black woman to take home the trophy.

Peter Krause and Mireille Enos in a scene from The Catch. (Richard Cartwright / ABC) (Richard Cartwright / ABC)

The Catch

The series, created by Kate Atkinson, Helen Gregory and Jennifer Schuur and executive produced by Shondaland, was anything but a catch for ABC. The caper drama, which starred Mireille Enos and Peter Krause, had been plagued by changes since its debut  it switched up showrunners and its format underwent retooling for a more romantic comedy tone. The series lasted two seasons.

Lashana Lynch as Rosaline and Sterling Sulieman as Prince Escalus in Still Star-Crossed. (Jose Haro / ABC) (Jose Haro / ABC)

Still Star-Crossed

The Elizabethan period drama, from creator Heather Mitchell and produced by Shondaland, was a sequel of sorts to Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet. Based on the book of the same name by Melinda Taub, the series starred Lashana Lynch as Rosaline Capulet and Wade Briggs as Benvolio Montague, who are being forced to marry each other to unite their families. It premiered in May to low ratings and was quickly banished to Saturdays.

Next up on ABC

Courtroom drama For the People, from Scandal writer Paul William Davies, follows rookie attorneys on both sides of high-profile cases. Samantha Who? co-creator Don Todd has been tapped to serve as showrunner of the series, which is being prepared for midseason.

Also on deck is another Greys Anatomy spinoff, which will revolve around Seattle firefighters. Greys veteran Stacy McKee will serve as showrunner.
For the first time since its acquisition by LOreal in 2012, Baxter of California is making serious strides to grow its business.

The Los Angeles-based mens brand has a new global president  Yann Joffredo  and a new campaign aimed at Millennial men. Industry sources estimate the brand does about $25 million in sales, but with increased efforts in digital and social media marketing, it could triple that number by 2020.

Baxter is a hair, skin and shave brand that was started out of a Los Angeles barber shop in 1965. For a new digital campaign that drops this week, Joffredo wanted to harken back to the brands California cool roots.

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The new campaign, called Life Lived True, centers on a handful of Los Angeles-based men, each with a unique personal style, who the brand believes live life true  Baxters new tag line, which debuted this year.

The brand has been evolving since 1965, and the idea was to make it relevant to a new generation  [particularly] the Millennials, Joffredo said. The focus is to explore the modern expressions of masculinity through the perspective of young men living their life in L.A.embrace your own perfection, strive to make your own unique mark in the world. The way we look at the concept of normal is so antiquated to us at Baxter of California.

So how does one live life true?

Its a spirit and way of lifenot being afraid of stereotypes or judgement, Joffredo said. This generation [Millennials] connects better with authentic stories of success and lifestyles that are aspirational and attainable. Theres a big shift  were seeing in the womens industry and its spreading. Perfection is not the key to beauty anymore.

The fact that Baxter is a California-based brand is also helpful in upping its aspirational factor for Millennials, Joffredo said. Its that California cool momentum  California is the new American dream in terms of [lifestyle and embracing individuality].

Aside from the Life Lived True campaign, Baxter  which industry sources estimate does about 80 percent of its business in the U.S.  is expanding further into international markets.

Baxter is in 17 countries in addition to the U.S, including France, the U.K., Japan and Australia, but is sold mainly in specialty retailers and concept shops. Joffredo said he plans to push Baxter further into Europe and Asia through partnerships with larger retailers.

As a streamlined brand that focuses on clean ingredients, Joffredo sees big growth potential for Baxter in the burgeoning mens market.

Theres a lot of traction in the mens market  its very fast-growing, Joffredo said. With the curation of product [within Baxter]  theres one moisturizer and its the best one  you dont have to overthink it.

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It seems appropriate that one of the citys most prestigious design auction houses, Los Angeles Modern Auctions (LAMA), will celebrate its 25th anniversary on Oct. 22 with a sale of artworks by California Modernists, the Cool School, and Light & Space artists, among others.

This auction is particularly special as it marks a quarter-century, said Peter Loughrey, director of LAMA. It is only fitting to feature a robust lineup of California artists and designers who led the way to make the West Coast and LAMA the art market powerhouses both are today.

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Highly anticipated sales include Ed Ruschas 8-color screenprint on paper Mocha Standard, shown above, expected to fetch between $50,000 and $70,000, Karl Benjamins oil painting Seascape, ($40,000 to $60,000) and Nathan Oliveiras Untitled painting, Standing Figure #1 ($30,000 to $50,000).

Decorative items include ceramics by John Mason and Ken Price, custom commissions by woodworkers Sam Maloof and George Nakashima, a custom wall unit by Gio Ponti and furniture by Charles & Ray Eames and the Campana brothers.

Keep in mind that not everything is priced in the tens of thousands. A diamond chair by Harry Bertoia, for instance, sold for $500 at the LAMA auction in May.

A detailed e-catalogue of the five lots will be available online beginning Sept. 28.

What: Modern Art and Design Auction

When: Oct. 22

Where: Los Angeles Modern Auctions (LAMA), 16145 Hart St., Van Nuys

Info: (323) 904-1950; lamodern.com

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lisa.boone@latimes.com

Twitter: @lisaboone19

For an easy way to follow the L.A. scene, bookmark L.A. at Home and join us on our Facebook page for home design, Twitter and Pinterest.
If youve ever driven past a Santa Monica house with a giant, 6-foot sculpture of a chartreuse dog on the corner and wondered who lived there, meet Robert Alschuler and Meryl Wecksler, a retired couple with a healthy sense of humor and a passion for canines and color.

I had always wanted a cool outdoor sculpture for the frontyard, said Wecksler, and when we saw this green dog outside the Coda Gallery in Palm Desert, we knew immediately this was the one.

The cute, cartoonish steel sculpture in the playful tradition of Jeff Koons was purchased from artists Karen and Tony Barone for Wecksler and Alschulers 20th wedding anniversary.

It was a present to ourselves, said Wecksler, and we had it installed in January 2016 The front of our house is pretty traditional so we thought that the sculpture subtly introduces whats inside.

Or not so subtly, as the case may be.

Out front, a hint at the whimsy inside the house. (Christina House / For The Times) (Christina House / For The Times)

In living color

The big thing with both of us is that we love color, Wecksler said. That is No. 1.

Wecksler said when they moved in to the 1940s ranch house two blocks north of Montana Avenue almost 21 years ago it was mostly white and beige with hints of green. Trophy fish were mounted on the wall.

They hired a designer to help decorate the home to their taste and incorporate a large collection of contemporary art gifted to them by Alschulers mother. We started by using the colors from the art as our palette, Wecksler said.

A designer helped the couple fill the house with art and color. (Christina House / For The Times) (Christina House / For The Times)

Passion and purpose

Over the years, they have added to their collection as dedicated patrons of emerging local talent.

Were very involved with APLA, Wecksler said, referring to AIDS Project Los Angeles. They have a fundraiser every year at Bonhams and we go and buy a piece to support them.

Their newest acquisition, a bright blue bust of a pill-topped head, is from a gallery they discovered on a recent trip to San Miguel de Allende in Mexico. Its by Francisco Esnayra, a young, Mexican artist who is very into the idea that pills control our lives, Wecksler said.

The hallway between his-and-hers bedrooms boasts a Lichtenstein plate framed in shadowbox and a large portrait of the couple painted by the late artist Sylvia Shap, whom the couple met through Bosom Buddies, the Los Angeles-based breast cancer support group Wecksler founded.

Some of her portraits are in museums, Wecksler said.

Everything is done for comfort and to protect against the dogs, Wecksler says. (Christina House / For The Times) (Christina House / For The Times)

Enter laughing

But the couple is anything but art-world snobs.

I love the idea of high-low decorating, said Wecksler, who is not afraid to mix flea market finds and items from IKEA, CB2, Target and Bed, Bath & Beyond with gallery pieces and artwork purchased from a now defunct program promoting emerging artists at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art .

In the kitchen, playful prints by JJ Johansen of tiny people set against giant blocks of cheese (Who Cut the Cheese) and amid a bowl of peas (Who Pead in the Pool) sit on the counter. We always go to the Beverly Hills art show, said Wecksler, and thats where we got these. They werent expensive.

Which is key, because for Wecksler and Alschuler pricier doesnt necessarily mean better.

A painting of New York that hangs on the wall in Alschulers bedroom glows in the dark, theres an anatomically correct light fixture in the guest room dubbed the pee-pee lamp, shelves are laden with framed photos of family and friends, and a brigade of rubber duckies perches in the bathroom.

Theres a poster I got at CB2 that says: You have to know how important I am. It makes you laugh, and those are the things we like, Wecksler said.

The couple covet pieces that make them laugh. (Christina House / For The Times) (Christina House / For The Times)

Puppy love

What they love, however, are their dogs. Rescues Murphy, Jasper and Bailey rule this roost and design decisions are made with them in mind.

Bailey was a pillow chewer, said Wecksler, citing a switch from designer pillows from Jonathan Adler to budget-friendlier styles from Tuesday Morning.

The dogs also voted with their teeth to remove an entryway area rug shaped like a question mark and were tough on the wood floors. Thats why we got tile in the entry, Wecksler said.

Everything is done for comfort and to protect against the dogs, she said.

The pampered pooches have their own room complete with separate eating areas and lots of toys.

Its a very dog-friendly house, said Wecksler, although tall, sculptural plant stands from CB2 have been repurposed as barricades and block entry to the kitchen. (Theyre not allowed in there.)

Ive Googled a million different dog gates, Wecksler said. Somebody has to come up with a really colorful, cool dog gate.

The pooches are pampered and front and center in the home. (Christina House / For The Times) (Christina House / For The Times)

Home, sweet home

Every time I walk into this house, its happy, Wecksler said. If someone comes in and says this house is so you  its so crazy and out there and eclectic  I say thank you. Its fun and we will grow old in this house and be happy.

Bonnie McCarthy contributes to the Los Angeles Times as a home and lifestyle design writer. She enjoys scouting for directional trends and reporting on whats new and next. Follow her on Twitter @ThsAmericanHome

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The Air Force pilot carefully throttled the controls of a missile-firing MQ-1 Predator drone flying half a world away in northern Syria. Suddenly his headset crackled to life.

Militants firing from bombed-out buildings had ambushed a U.S.-backed militia on a rubble-strewn street in Raqqah, Islamic States self-declared capital and one of its last urban strongholds. The militia was pinned down, and their commander wanted the drone to take out the gunmen.

The pilot studied the surveillance video streaming onto his screen. A captain, he instructed the staff sergeant at his side to set the drones target sights and powered up a Hellfire missile under its wing.

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Rifle, the pilot said, and the missile soared away.

Splash, he said seconds later as a fireball swelled across the screen.

The July 18 airstrike was delivered within 160 feet of the pinned-down troops from the Syrian Democratic Forces, according to Air Force officials. It thus marks an evolution in warfare.

American drone pilots now routinely launch missiles at what the Pentagon calls danger-close distances to U.S.-backed rebel ground forces fighting Islamic State in densely populated cities.

Hundreds of U.S special operations forces are deployed in Syria, and in some cases they direct airstrikes. But the danger-close missions also require approval from Syrian militia commanders because the missile blasts may put their ground troops at risk.

Ideally you dont want to accept that level of risk unless you have to, said Col. Julian C. Cheater, commander at Creech Air Force Base, where most U.S. Predator and Reaper drone pilots are based. But in an urban fight  like youre now seeing in Raqqah  options might not be available to you.

Over the last 20 years, unmanned aircraft were primarily used to collect intelligence or to launch Hellfire missiles at specific terrorist targets after extensive surveillance  enemy strongholds or targeted killings of suspects in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and elsewhere.

But drones are no longer confined to shadowy counter-terrorism missions. Their role has expanded to include more traditional military operations, including an increase in airstrikes during combat and close support for advancing ground troops.

In Raqqah, drone strikes have helped dislodge and kill militants in the citys narrow streets and crowded warrens, where they hid snipers, booby-traps and car bombs.

Day by day, we are controlling more area, Haval Bilind, a Syrian Democratic Forces commander, said by phone. Recently enemies attacked our forces from different sectors. The coalition dealt with it very well. The airstrikes were close to our forces, but no casualties.

About a dozen Predator and Reaper drones hunt for targets in Raqqah each day. The pilots and sensor operators work from dimly lit trailers here at Creech, a sun-scorched base 45 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The crews launch airstrikes from drones or pass the targets to coalition manned warplanes that constantly circle above the city, like vultures wheeling over a carcass, in a tiered system that U.S. air commanders call a stack.

The air campaign has helped the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces capture more than half of Raqqah since a three-pronged ground assault was launched two months ago, U.S. and Syrian officials say.

To assist the drone pilots, some Syrian Democratic Force commanders have been given a device called the ROVER, for remote operated video enhanced receiver. It displays real-time feeds from the cameras and sensors flying above them.

They have access to our video and are able to tell us exactly what to look at, said one of the drone pilots, who spoke on condition he not be identified. Because of that, it gives them greater peace of mind and greater confidence as they carry out their missions.

The Air Force launched its first danger-close drone strikes while aiding local forces fighting Islamic State in Surt, a coastal city in Libya, last year.

Commanders had little choice  they didnt have enough manned warplanes in the area.

Drones subsequently launched more than 70% of 495 airstrikes against the militants, helping local Libyan militia fighters retake Surt by December, according to the Air Force.

Danger-close drone missions also played a role in the nine-month offensive to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul, which finally fell to coalition-backed Iraqi forces July 10.

Commanders replicated the tactic with the assault on Raqqah.

Islamic State fighters spent three years fortifying the city after they captured it in January 2014 and turned it into the capital of their self-declared Islamist caliphate. They built a network of defensive positions, dug extensive tunnel systems and rigged buildings with mines and other booby traps.

The result has been a grinding battle of attrition, with house-to-house fighting and U.S.-backed forces trying to block militants from escaping. Brett McGurk, U.S. special envoy for the coalition, said this month that about 2,000 Islamic State fighters remain in the city and most likely will die in Raqqah.

Coalition aircraft have dropped 3,200 guided bombs and missiles on Raqqah so far, according to the Air Force. Human rights groups say the air war has jeopardized civilians trapped in the city, and United Nations investigators say hundreds have died.

Airwars, a London-based nonprofit group that tracks the air attacks, estimates that the air campaign has killed about 1,600 civilians so far.

We have seen a consistent rise in civilian casualties in Raqqah to a degree we have never seen from the coalition before in Syria, said Kinda Haddad, a researcher with Airwars.

Haddad said 30 to 50 airstrikes a week produce civilian casualties. Some of these are incidents where one or two people are killed, and some are where entire families are wiped out, she added.

Drone pilots at Creech insist they are usually able to avoid civilian casualties because of the flood of data at their fingertips. Their drones can stay aloft 20 hours monitoring a target or a battle zone, and the video and other information appear on multiple computer screens.

Pilots concede that confirmation bias  seeing suspicious activity when it isnt there  can color their judgments and lead to deadly mistakes.

They say they try to guard against errors by exchanging text messages with spotters on the ground or at a command center. They use encrypted phone lines to talk to intelligence analysts and radios to contact ground forces.

Most important, the pilots say, targeting and guidance systems have steadily improved, adding a greater degree of precision than in the past.

If you have three-story buildings on either side, I can shoot down an alleyway, said a Reaper pilot and operations commander who wasnt authorized to give his name. If theres a sniper in one of the windows, I can hit that.

After the danger-close missions, he added, we have a lesson learned on how to pair with those ground forces and take the city and those civilian centers back.

william.hennigan@latimes.com

Twitter: @wjhenn

Special correspondent Wael Resol in Irbil, Iraq, contributed to this report.

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Our ahistorical president is late to everything.

On Feb. 1, President Trump saluted black abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who died in 1895, as an example of somebody who has done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice.

In March, at a Womens Empowerment Panel at the White House, he lauded suffragette icon Susan B. Anthony  Have you heard of Susan B. Anthony? Im shocked that youve heard of her.

So really, is it any surprise that Trump was unforgivably tardy in linking white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the KKK to the death Saturday of a counter-protester at a pro-white-supremacy Unite the Right demonstration Saturday in Virginia?

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The victim, 32-year-old paralegal Heather Heyer, was run down by a car in what appears to be yet another act of domestic terrorism by a white extremist. (See: Timothy McVeigh, Ted Kaczynski, Scott Roeder, Dylan Roof, James Hodgkinson.) In a Toledo Blade profile of the 20-year-old suspect, his high school history teacher said James Alex Fields Jr. had been fascinated by Adolf Hitler.

After two days of being hammered by Democrats and Republicans alike for his milquetoast statement condemning violence on many sides, Trump stood at a lectern in the White House on Monday and, in stilted tones, read a condemnation that to these ears sounded like one of the loudest dog whistles in American history.

We must love each other, show affection for each other and unite together in the condemnation of hatred, bigotry and violence, said Trump, who has tried to keep Muslims from our shores, called Mexicans rapists and bad hombres, announced that transgender soldiers have no place in the military, encouraged police to rough up arrestees and described a reporter to supporters at a rally as absolute scum (requiring a Secret Service escort so MSNBCs Katy Tur could get safely to her car).

Does anyone think that the neo-Nazis and white supremacists who descended on Charlottesville Saturday to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee are feeling chastened now that their president has rebuked them with a teleprompter speech delivered with all the emotion of a wooden plank?

Of course not. White supremacists could see that Trumps speech was made under duress. Who takes those words seriously?

Actor Bryan Cranston tweeted that Trump sounded like a hostage forced to read a statement by his captors.

By Tuesday, Trumps facade of anti-racist outrage had crumbled. In an angry tirade at Trump Tower in New York City, the man finally spoke from the heart.

He attacked the medias failure to acknowledge that his statement Monday was nice, and reverted to his first response  that alt-right protesters were not the only ones who should be condemned. There are two sides to a story, he said. You had a group on one side that was bad. And you had a group on the other side that was also very violent. And nobody wants to say that, but Ill say it right now.

White supremacists were grateful. In a tweet, former Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard David Duke praised Trump: Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth about #Charlottesville.

::

Monday afternoon, a few hours after Trumps absurdly late statement, I caught a news conference with the man who had headlined the weekends Unite the Right demonstrations in Charlottesville.

Richard Spencer has supplanted Duke as the face many (such as White House advisor Steve Bannon) are now calling the alt-right. In truth, the alt-right is simply the hipster version of the white supremacy movement.

Spencer, as you may have noticed, is particularly obsessed with appearances: He wears spiffy suits with pocket squares and has revived the haircut style dubbed Hitler Youth. (Long on top, super short on the sides.)

He condemns violence, says it is counterproductive.

And yet he spoke in almost wistful terms about the beautiful torchlight demonstration he organized on the University of Virginia campus Friday night, the one that evoked for many horrified onlookers the terror raids and cross burnings of the KKK.

To do something at night with flames and light? Spencer said. Its gorgeous.

But what about the KKK? asked a reporter.

I dont care, Spencer replied. The idea that the KKK has a monopoly on torches? Its not the case. Millions of people use torches as a way of evoking a mystical atmosphere. Not a Southern thing, not a KKK thing.

Oh, but it is. And we all know it.

::

White nationalists like Spencer and Duke gave Trumps campaign a real boost, which undoubtedly is why the president had to be forced to condemn them.

Reporters on Monday asked whether Spencer still considered Trump an ally.

Obviously, the alt-right has come so far in the last two years, in terms of public exposure, Spencer said. Is Donald Trump one of the major causes of that? Of course. We were connected to Donald Trump on a psychic level.

White people, he said, have been dispossessed over the course of decades, and the dispossession is not just demographic but moral  the delegitimization of the white man.

At some point, Spencer said, there was going to be a reckoning. And Donald Trump is part of that, and the alt-right is part of that as well.

There should be a reckoning. But not on behalf of whiny white people frustrated because they sense their racial privilege is slipping away.

American citizens must stand up and say they have had enough of the hatred and bigotry that has animated the rise of Donald Trump, and empowered racist ideologues like Spencer.

That is the reckoning this country needs.

More columns 

For more on politics 

robin.abcarian@latimes.com

Twitter: @AbcarianLAT

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UPDATES:

3:20 p.m.: This article has been updated with Tuesday comments from Trump.

This article originally published at 4:30 p.m. Monday
USC names retired aerospace executive Wanda Austin as acting president, announces Nikias departure By Harriet Ryan USC appointed a retired aerospace executive as interim president and laid out a detailed plan for selecting a permanent leader Tuesday, ending speculation about whether outgoing President C.L. Max Nikias might remain in the post. Nikias, embattled over his administrations handling of a campus gynecologist accused of sexually abusing patients, relinquished his duties after a meeting of USCs board. The trustees tapped one of their own, Wanda Austin, an alumna and former president of the Aerospace Corp., to temporarily run the university. The trustees also approved the formation of a search committee and the hiring of firm Isaacson, Miller to coordinate the selection of a successor. A second search company, Heidrick & Struggles, will also advise trustees. Read More Facebook

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Ex-student sues elite Brentwood School after teacher is charged with sexually abusing him By Richard Winton A former student sued the elite Brentwood School on Monday in the wake of a female teacher being charged with repeatedly having sex with the minor, alleging that other faculty members encouraged the unlawful behavior and failed to report it to authorities. The lawsuit accuses the private school, whose students include the children of many of Hollywoods elite and L.A.s powerful, of acting negligently and allowing Aimee Palmitessa to abuse and batter the teenager sexually. The suit alleges that the student was abused in summer 2017 after one of the schools counselors offered words of encouragement to the then-17-year-old, identified in the suit as only John Doe, to engage in an illegal relationship with the teacher. Read More Facebook

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Civil jury vindicates fired Montebello school executives in whistleblower case By Howard Blume The Montebello school district is in dire straits  at risk of insolvency and under apparent criminal investigation. An outside audit in July found some teachers earning more than $200,000 a year, as well as improper raises, excess paid vacation time and inappropriate overtime, sick leave and car allowances. Fixing the district and pinpointing blame could take time. Read More Facebook

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L.A. schools fall short on safety measures, new report warns By Howard Blume After the mass shooting at Floridas Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February, Los Angeles school officials reassured parents that much had been done to keep local schools safe. California had tougher gun laws, after all, and the school district paid close attention to students mental health. But a new report issued Monday by a panel convened to take a close look offers some cause for concern, flagging inconsistent campus safety measures, thinly spread mental health staff and inadequate coordination between the school district and other public agencies. With the stakes this high, we must strive to do better, said L.A. City Atty. Mike Feuer, who assembled the panel. Read More Facebook

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L.A. school district says more are graduating, but rate may not show it By Howard Blume The L.A. Unified School District has hopes of continuing its winning streak this year with another record graduation rate, but the official numbers may not show it. A senior district administrator warned the board Tuesday that graduation rates were likely to decline 2% to 3% across the state, even though L.A. Unified is likely doing better than ever in producing graduates, he said. The issue is that the state will now count high school students who transfer to adult school as dropouts, said Oscar Lafarga, who heads the districts office of data and accountability. Previously, schools treated these students as though they had simply enrolled in another high school, he said. Read More Facebook

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Betsy DeVos to California: Not so fast on that federal education plan By Joy Resmovits In April, Californias top education officials breathed a sigh of relief. After months of debate and back-and-forth with Betsy DeVos staff, they had finalized a plan to satisfy a major education law that aims to make sure all students get a decent education. The state focused on aligning its plan to fulfill the requirements of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act with Californias Local Control Funding Formula, which gives extra money to districts to help students who come from low-income families, are in the foster system or are English learners. But this week, DeVos team said not so fast. Jason Botel, the U.S. Department of Educations principal deputy assistant secretary, sent California education officials a letter asking for more information in such areas as measuring student progress, graduation rates and English learners. In an unsigned statement, the California Department of Education declared itself surprised and disappointed because officials thought  after a meeting with federal officials in Washington  that they were on the right track to get approval. Now the Every Student Succeeds Act plan will be up for discussion once again at the July meeting of the State Board of Education. The U.S. Department of Education has already approved most state plans. Every Student Succeeds is the Obama administrations 2015 replacement for the No Child Left Behind Act. Facebook

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L.A. school board sets a new goal: prepare every grad to be eligible to apply for Cal State or UC By Sonali Kohli Last month, Los Angeles school board president proposed a spate of highly ambitious mandates aimed at ensuring that every district graduate be eligible to apply to one of the states public four-year universities by 2023. By the time the L.A. Unified school board unanimously approved the resolution Tuesday, the original language had been watered down. The goal is no longer that in five years 100% of students meet the long list of benchmarks, which include not just college eligibility for graduates but first-grade reading proficiency and English fluency by sixth grade for all students who enter the district in kindergarten or first grade speaking another language. The original college-readiness goal, for example, called for 100% of all high school students to be eligible to apply to one of the states four-year universities. Now the goal seems to offer more wiggle room: Prepare all high school graduates to be eligible to apply to a California four-year university. Read More Facebook

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We have been hurt. More women say they were mistreated by USC gynecologist By Richard Winton USC student Anika Narayanan says she vividly recalls her first appointment with Dr. George Tyndall at the campus health center, alleging that he made several explicit comments during an examination she felt was inappropriate and invasive. When she came back for a second visit in 2016 after a nonconsensual sexual encounter, he allegedly chastised her, she said in a civil lawsuit and at a press conference Tuesday. He asked me if I had forgotten to use a condom again,  said Narayanan, 21. At one point, she said, Tyndall asked if I did a lot of doggy style,  she said. Read More Facebook

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L.A. Unified gives inspector general brief contract extension By Howard Blume The Los Angeles school board on Tuesday extended the contract of Ken Bramlett, its inspector general, by three months, though his job is far from secure and questions remain about the future direction of his watchdog office. Board members also unanimously promoted Vivian Ekchian, who had been the runner-up for the superintendents job, to deputy superintendent  the districts No. 2 position. Both moves had elements of peacemaking between different factions on the board. Read More Facebook

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USCs handling of complaints about campus gynecologist is being investigated by federal government By Harriet Ryan The U.S. Department of Education announced Monday that it has launched an investigation into how the University of Southern California handled misconduct complaints against a campus gynecologist, the latest fallout in a scandal that has prompted the resignation of USCs president, two law enforcement investigations and dozens of lawsuits. In revealing the inquiry by the departments Office of Civil Rights, officials rebuked USC for what they alleged was improper withholding of information about Dr. George Tyndall during a previous federal investigation. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who has been criticized for taking a less vigorous approach to examining sexual misconduct than predecessors, called for a systemic examination of USC and urged administrators to fully cooperate. Read More Facebook

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Judge to sentence woman and her boyfriend for the murder of an 8-year-old that led to L.A. child welfare reforms By Marisa Gerber A woman and her boyfriend are expected to be sentenced Thursday for the torture and murder of an 8-year-old boy whose killing in 2013 provoked public outrage, prompted sweeping reform of Los Angeles Countys child welfare system, and led to unprecedented criminal charges against social workers who handled the childs case. Pearl Sinthia Fernandez, 34, faces life in prison without the possibility of parole for her role in the death of her son, Gabriel. A jury decided last year that her boyfriend, Isauro Aguirre, 37, should be executed. When paramedics arrived at the boys Palmdale home in May 2013, Gabriel had slipped out of consciousness. He had a fractured skull, broken ribs, burned skin, missing teeth and BB pellets embedded in his groin. A paramedic would later testify that every inch of the boys small body had been abused. Read More Facebook

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L.A. Unifieds spending out of step with similar school systems, task force says By Howard Blume The Los Angeles school district is out of step with similar school systems, spending more on teachers pay and health benefits and less on activities that could enhance student learning, according to a new report by an outside task force. The L.A. Unified School District Advisory Task Force did not make specific recommendations, but instead posed a series of questions it said the district needs to answer to make sure its funding is aimed at providing a full opportunity for all students to succeed. What were trying to say is: Lets put the data on the table. Lets look at the truth. Lets be transparent and here are the numbers, said task force member Renata Simril. This is not to say that  we should cut teachers salaries. Read More Facebook

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Top USC medical school official feared dean was doing drugs and alerted administration, he testifies By Paul Pringle A former vice dean of USCs Keck School of Medicine testified Tuesday that he feared the schools then-dean, Dr. Carmen A. Puliafito, could be doing drugs and expressed concerns about his general well-being to the universitys No. 2 administrator before Puliafito abruptly left his job in 2016. Dr. Henri Fords testimony at a hearing of the state Medical Board marks the first suggestion that any USC administrator had suspicions about Puliafitos possible drug use before he stepped down. A Times investigation in 2017 found Puliafito led a secret second life of using illegal drugs with a circle of young criminals and addicts. Puliafito testified about his behavior at the hearing Tuesday, saying he took drugs with one young woman on a weekly basis. Ford said that he decided to alert USC Provost Michael Quick after receiving reports in early 2016 that Puliafito was partying in hotels with people of questionable reputation, and that he came to worry about his mental stability. Read More Facebook

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Why L.A. Unified may face financial crisis even with a giant surplus this year By Jessica Calefati With more than half a billion dollars socked away for next school year, the Los Angeles Unified School District hardly seems just two years from financial ruin. Its a scenario that is especially tough to swallow if youre a low-wage worker seeking a raise or a teacher who wants smaller classes. But budget documents show that todays $548-million surplus cannot be sustained  and that even basic services face steep, seemingly unavoidable cuts because of massive problems barreling the districts way. Theres a disconnect between the rosy short-term picture and what we know is coming, said board member Kelly Gonez. Read More Facebook

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We have failed: Top USC officials try to reassure students amid gynecologist scandal By Joy Resmovits Top administrators at USC are reaching out to students in the wake of misconduct allegations against the universitys longtime gynecologist, acknowledging failings and vowing reforms as they try to address growing outrage over the revelations. Several USC deans have sent out messages trying to reassure students and faculty that the university is committed to changing. We have failed, wrote Jack H. Knott, dean of USCs Sol Price School of Public Policy, in a May 24 letter. What happened is antithetical to everything we know is right. Read More Facebook

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Rick Caruso is named chair of USCs trustees, vows swift investigation of gynecologist scandal By Thomas Curwen The University of Southern Californias board of trustees has elected mall magnate Rick Caruso to be the new chair of the board, giving fresh leadership as the university navigates a widening scandal involving a longtime campus gynecologist. The move marks the latest effort by USC to address the case, which has sparked a criminal investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department and dozens of civil lawsuits. More than 400 people have contacted a hotline that the university established for patients to make reports about their experience with Dr. George Tyndall. In his first act as chairman, Caruso announced that the white-shoe L.A. law firm OMelveny & Myers would conduct a thorough and independent investigation into the gynecologists conduct and reporting failures at the clinic. He set an ambitious timeline for the review, pledging it would conclude before students return for the fall semester. Read More Facebook

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UC Berkeley students persistence helps win more liberal rules for in-state tuition By Teresa Watanabe Ifechukwu Okeke thought shed be a shoo-in for in-state tuition when she was admitted to UC Berkeley for fall 2016. She had moved to the United States from Nigeria in 2012 to go to Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga. By the time she got her acceptance to transfer to UC to study molecular and cell biology, she had lived in California four years. She had a California drivers license, bank account and rental records as proof. UC Berkeley, however, ruled she was a nonresident  which meant she would have to pay nearly $27,000 more. Read More Facebook

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State medical board calls former County-USC doctor a sexual predator, suspends his license By Matt Hamilton A UCLA cardiologist has been temporarily stripped of his medical license after state regulators described him as a sexual predator who assaulted three female colleagues when he was working and training at L.A. County-USC Medical Center. Read More Facebook

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Global California 2030 aims to get more students learning more languages By Joy Resmovits Tom Torlakson (Andrew Seng / Associated Press) Outgoing state Supt. of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson on Wednesday announced a new statewide effort to encourage students to learn more languages. Called Global California 2030, its goal is to help more students become fluent in multiple tongues. Torlakson said that by 2030, he wants half of the states 6.2 million K-12 students to participate in classes or programs that lead to proficiency in two or more languages. By 2040, he wants three out of four students to be proficient enough to earn the State Seal of Biliteracy. Torlakson announced the initiative at Cahuenga Elementary School, which offers a dual-language immersion program in English and Korean. Californias public school students speak more than 60 languages at home, and 40% come to school with knowledge of a language other than English. Torlakson called his plan a call to action that invites parents, legislators, educators and community members to pool resources to expand language offerings in schools and get more bilingual teachers trained. He said the state already is working with Mexico and Spain to expand a teacher-exchange program. Fluency, the plan argues, can help students succeed economically  and language acquisition can help their overall critical thinking. The initiative builds on Proposition 58, a ballot initiative passed in 2016 that undid an earlier requirement that English learners be taught in English-immersion classes unless their parents signed waivers. Torlakson recently visited Mexico and met with that countrys education secretary. They later signed a pact to increase collaboration, particularly in language education. This [Global California 2030] is great follow-through on Toms part and very important, Patricia Gandara, a UCLA education professor who hosted the Mexico meeting, said in an email. It hands over a plan to move forward in an area in which California has a unique advantage, but must seize the opportunity. Facebook

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Jury convicts man of murder in 2015 slaying of UCLA student found inside her burning apartment By Marisa Gerber A jury on Tuesday convicted a man in the 2015 slaying of a UCLA student found dead inside her burning apartment  a gruesome stabbing case that led to a fierce rebuke of the police response amid concerns that the killing could have been prevented. The panel deliberated for about six hours before finding Alberto Medina, 24, guilty of murder, arson, burglary and animal cruelty. On Sept. 21, 2015, firefighters found the charred body of Andrea DelVesco inside her apartment after responding to the complex a block from campus. The 21-year-old student  an Austin, Texas, native known to her sorority sisters as a fearless giver who befriended others with ease  was stabbed at least 19 times, authorities said. Read More Facebook

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LAPD begins sweeping criminal probe of former USC gynecologist while urging patients to come forward By Adam Elmahrek The Los Angeles Police Department said Tuesday it is investigating 52 complaints of misconduct filed by former patients of USCs longtime campus gynecologist as detectives launch a sweeping criminal probe into the scandal that has rocked the university. LAPD detectives also made an appeal for other patients who feel mistreated to come forward, noting that thousands of students were examined by Dr. George Tyndall during his nearly 30-year career at USC. More than 410 people have contacted a university hotline about the physician since The Times revealed the allegations this month. Tyndalls behavior and practices appear to go beyond the norms of the medical profession and gynecological examinations, said Asst. Chief Beatrice Girmala. We sincerely realize that victims may have difficulty recounting such details to investigators. We are empathetic and ready to listen. Read More Facebook

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At L.A.'s only school for the deaf, parents want leaders who speak the same language By Anna M. Phillips Ever since her son was 6 months old, Juliet Hidalgo has been bringing him to the Marlton School, a low-slung building in Baldwin Hills that for generations has been a second home for deaf and hard-of-hearing students in Los Angeles. Marlton staff taught Hidalgos brother and sister, both of whom are deaf. The school was where her deaf son learned to make the signs for milk and food. Hidalgo had planned to enroll her daughter, taking advantage of a popular program that allows hearing children to learn American Sign Language alongside their deaf siblings. But after more than a decade of involvement, she and other family members are considering withdrawing their children. They are not alone. Read More Facebook

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Fueled by unlimited donations, independent groups play their biggest role yet in a California primary for governor By Ryan Menezes An unprecedented amount of money from wealthy donors, unions and corporations is flowing into the California governors race, giving independent groups  unrestricted by contribution limits  a greater say in picking the states chief executive than ever before. The groups have already spent more than $26 million through Thursday, the most ever spent by noncandidate committees in a gubernatorial primary, according to a Times analysis of campaign finance reports. California elections have always been expensive, and the future is even more expensive, said Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College and a former state Republican leader. The stakes are very real. Read More Facebook

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2 hurt in Indiana middle school shooting; suspect in custody, authorities say By Associated Press Authorities say two victims in a shooting at a suburban Indianapolis school are being taken to a hospital and the lone suspect is in custody. Bryant Orem, a spokesman for the Hamilton County Sheriffs Office, said in a news release that the victims in Friday mornings attack at Noblesville West Middle School are being taken to Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis and their families have been notified. He says no other information is available about the victims. Orem said the suspect is believed to have acted alone and was taken into custody. No additional information about the suspect was made public. Read More Facebook

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For new L.A. schools chief Austin Beutner, some key unions are giving no honeymoon period By Howard Blume In the less than two weeks since Austin Beutner took charge of Los Angeles schools, unions representing teachers and administrators have staged a job action and a protest. Theyve made it clear that they will not give the new superintendent the traditional honeymoon period, and they are bashing him for his wealth and lack of experience running either a school or a school district. Beutner is a billionaire investment banker with zero qualifications, local teachers union President Alex Caputo-Pearl told members in a phone alert urging them to participate in a Thursday afternoon rally in Grand Park. The board is saying that billionaires who made their money blowing institutions up and making money off it know best  not the education professionals who have dedicated our careers to working with students. Read More Facebook

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Pressure grows on Board of Trustees amid USC gynecologist scandal By Paul Pringle USCs large and powerful Board of Trustees is coming under growing pressure to provide a stronger hand as the university faces a crisis over misconduct allegations against the campus longtime gynecologist that has prompted calls for President C.L. Max Nikias to step down. Allegations that Dr. George Tyndall mistreated students during his nearly 30 years at USC have roiled the campus, with about 300 people coming forward to make reports to the university and the Los Angeles Police Department launching a criminal investigation. USC is already beginning to face what is expected to be costly litigation by women who say they were victimized by the physician. So far, the trustees to whom Nikias reports have expressed sympathy for the women who have come forward and launched an independent investigation while also publicly backing the president. Read More Facebook

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UC regents approve leaner budget for Janet Napolitano By Teresa Watanabe University of California regents on Thursday unanimously approved a leaner, more transparent budget for President Janet Napolitano, moving to address political criticism over the systems central office operations. The $876.4-million budget for 2018-19 reflects spending cuts of 2%, including reductions in staffing, travel and such systemwide programs as public service law fellowships, carbon neutrality and food security. Napolitano shifted $30 million to campuses for housing needs and $10 million to UC Riverside to support its five-year-old medical school. She also permanently redirected $8.5 million annually to help enroll more California students, as required by the state. Read More Facebook

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USCs Academic Senate calls on university president to resign after a series of scandals By Matt Hamilton The body that represents USCs faculty called on President C.L. Max Nikias to resign Wednesday in the wake of relevations that the universitys longtime gynecologist faced years of accusations of misconduct by students and colleagues at the campus health clinic. The Academic Senate took the vote late Wednesday afternoon after a fiery town hall meeting attended by more than 100 faculty members, many of whom voiced outrage over Nikias and the Board of Trustees leadership. The vote came a day after the trustees executive committee stood firmly behind Nikias, saying it has full confidence in his leadership, ethics and values. At the town hall meeting, Senate President Paul Rosenbloom said he did not think Nikias or Provost Michael Quick committed wrongdoing but that the university president deserved criticism for a lack of transparency. Read More Facebook

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Californias public universities on the way to getting a big longed-for boost in funding By Teresa Watanabe The University of California and California State University systems are poised to get major funding boosts that will help them enroll thousands of additional state students and eliminate the need for tuition increases in the coming school year. A key Assembly budget panel on Wednesday approved $117.5 million in new funds for the UC. A Senate panel approved a similar sum last week. The same committees recently approved even more funding for the Cal State system. Read More Facebook

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UC regents to scrutinize Janet Napolitanos office budget in a step toward stronger oversight By Teresa Watanabe University of California regents this week plan to scrutinize the budget of President Janet Napolitano, whose office came under political fire last year for questionable spending and murky accounting. Regents will vote on the proposed $876.4-million budget for 2018-19 during their two-day meeting, which starts Wednesday, at UC San Francisco. They also will discuss state funding, financial aid, online education and transfer student policies. Board Chairman George Kieffer said regents are stepping up to exert stronger oversight of the presidents office after a blistering state audit last year found financial problems including an unreported $175 million budget reserve. Read More Facebook

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State legislative panels approve major funding boost for Cal State By Teresa Watanabe After months of intensive lobbying, Cal State University has convinced two key legislative panels to approve funding to enroll nearly 11,000 more students, hire more faculty and expand housing aid to those without shelter this fall. An Assembly budget panel on Tuesday approved $215.7 million more for Cal State, adding to Gov. Jerry Browns proposed $92.1 million general fund increase. A Senate budget panel approved a similar increase last week. The extra funding  which went beyond Cal States own request to the Legislature of $171 million  is still subject to final budget negotiations with Brown. But the actions by the Senate and Assembly panels amount to a demand from Democrats that the governor hike higher education spending. Cal State University is the workhorse undergraduate university serving hundreds of thousands of Californians, said Assemblyman Kevin McCarty (D-Sacramento), who heads the Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Education Finance. We need more graduates for the California workforce and higher education is the ticket to the middle class. Cal State Chancellor Timothy P. White hailed the actions, but said it was too soon to celebrate. The CSU has a singular focus on helping students earn high-quality degrees sooner, and the entire university community has rallied to reinforce that message to our states lawmakers, he said in a statement. The actions taken thus far by the Assembly and Senate are promising and show that our message is being received, but there is still work to be done. Funding for the University of California was not taken up Tuesday as originally scheduled. McCarty would not comment on sticking points but said he was confident that a resolution would be reached this week. Were looking to provide resources above whats in the governors budget, but negotiations are ongoing, he said in an interview. State per-student funding is not what it once was, leaving both Cal State and the UC in a tough financial squeeze. Both systems raised tuition last year after a six-year freeze on higher costs. For this year, Cal State had asked for funding to enroll an additional 3,621 students, but both the Senate and Assembly panels approved three times that amount. Cal State, the largest public university system in the nation, turned away 32,000 eligible students last year because its campuses werent able to accommodate them. The panels asked that at least $50 million of the extra funding be used to hire more tenure-track faculty to help boost graduation rates. The Assembly panel also approved one-time funding of $5 million to ease hunger on campuses and $14 million for rapid rehousing pilot projects at three campuses, offering needy students rental support and short-term case management. Other items approved include $5 million to support the CSU Long Beach Shark Labs research on sharks and beach safety and $2 million for equal employment opportunity practices. This post has been updated to include comments from Assemblyman Kevin McCarty and Cal State Chancellor Timothy P. White. Facebook

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Faculty members call for USC president to step down: He has lost the moral authority to lead By Matt Hamilton Two hundred USC professors on Tuesday demanded the resignation of university President C. L. Max Nikias, saying he had lost the moral authority to lead in the wake of revelations that a campus gynecologist was kept on staff for decades despite repeated complaints of misconduct. Read More Facebook

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Gun battle, negotiations lasted 15 minutes before Texas school shooter was apprehended, sheriff says By Molly Hennessy-Fiske Minutes after a school shooter opened fire in an art class last week, killing 10 people and wounding 13, including a local police officer, fellow officers returned fire in a protracted gun battle before isolating the suspect, the local sheriff said Monday. Galveston County Sheriff Henry Trochesset praised first responders as well as Santa Fe Police Officer John Barnes, who was working as a resource officer at the school the day of the shooting. Their actions, he said, prevented the attack from spreading to other classrooms and potentially claiming additional victims. As officials continue to probe last Fridays shooting at Santa Fe High School, students are worried about returning to the scene of the attack when classes resume next week. Read More Facebook

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6 women sue USC, alleging they were victimized by campus gynecologist By Richard Winton Six women filed civil lawsuits Monday alleging that a longtime gynecologist at the University of Southern California sexually victimized them under the pretext of medical care and that USC failed to address complaints from clinic staff about the doctors behavior. One woman alleged Dr. George Tyndall forced his entire ungloved hand into her vagina during an appointment in 2003 while making vulgar remarks about her genitalia, according to one of the lawsuits. Another woman alleged that Tyndall groped her breasts in a 2008 visit and that later he falsely told her she likely had AIDS. A third woman accused the doctor of grazing his ungloved fingers over her nude body and leering at her during a purported skin exam, the lawsuit states. The wave of litigation comes as USC continues to grapple with the scandal, which legal experts said could prove costly to the university as scores of former patients come forward about their experiences with the gynecologist. Read More Facebook

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Fatalities reported in Texas high school shooting; suspect arrested, officials say By Associated Press Houston-area media citing unnamed law enforcement officials are reporting that there are fatalities following a shooting at a local high school Friday morning. Television station KHOU and the Houston Chronicle are citing unnamed federal, county and police officials following the shooting at Santa Fe High School, which went on lockdown around 8 a.m. The Associated Press has not been able to confirm the reports. The school district has confirmed an unspecified number of injuries but said it wouldnt immediately release further details. Assistant Principal Cris Richardson said a suspect has been arrested and secured. Read More Facebook

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This student followed the new L.A. schools chief on his first-day tour Melissa Barales-Lopez, a senior at Garfield High School followed Supt. Austin Beutner on his first day on the job, as he toured a variety of programs around the Los Angeles Unified School District. Heres what she took from the experience. LAUSD students and staff alike are looking for a personal champion, someone who will address and improve the difficulties afflicting their education.  What LAUSD students need is someone whos willing to listen and learn, someone who can understand the current issues affecting their schools and act to efficiently amend them, someone who can unlock the full potential of LAUSD students and enable them to reach their goals. During the entirety of his first day, superintendent Austin Beutner did indeed demonstrate a willingness to learn. Posing questions to teachers and students, Beutner engaged with the student communities he encountered to gain a better comprehension of the minutiae and nuances that distinguish each school inside an overwhelmingly large district. From inquiries about Grand View Boulevard Elementary Schools dual language program to questions regarding the services of LAUSDs after-school program, Beyond the Bell, Beutner revealed he has a lot to learn about the system. But, Beutner also showcased a willingness to tackle challenges head-on on his first day. Read More Facebook

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USC let a gynecologist continue treating students despite years of misconduct allegations By Matt Hamilton For nearly 30 years, the University of Southern Californias student health clinic had one full-time gynecologist: Dr. George Tyndall. Tall and garrulous with distinctive jet black hair, he treated tens of thousands of female students, many of them teenagers seeing a gynecologist for the first time. Few who lay down on Tyndalls exam table at the Engemann Student Health Center knew that he had been accused repeatedly of misconduct toward young patients. The complaints began in the 1990s, when co-workers alleged he was improperly photographing students genitals. In the years that followed, patients and nursing staff accused him again and again of creepy behavior, including touching women inappropriately during pelvic exams and making sexually suggestive remarks about their bodies. Read More Facebook

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Cal State trustees to discuss Browns latest budget proposal, which they say still falls $171 million short By Joy Resmovits Just how much money does California State University need to serve its students? In recent years, this question has been front and center for the nations largest public university system. Cal States leaders say that to keep their campuses quality from slipping, they need much more money than the state is giving them. This year, theyre also at odds with Gov. Jerry Brown on the question of whether any extra money should come in one-time bursts or be ongoing. Read More Facebook

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On his first day as L.A. schools chief, Beutner plans a day of visits across the district By Howard Blume L.A. Unifieds new superintendent, Austin Beutner, will kick off his first day of work on Tuesday with a choreographed tour of the nations second-largest school district, from the San Fernando Valley to Carson. His day is scheduled to begin at 5:15 a.m. at a school bus depot and end more than 12 hours later at a parent meeting at Garfield High School. Along the way, Beutner is expected to be joined by school district administrators, L.A. Unified board members and the vice president of the union that represents school bus drivers. Though he will be covering a lot of ground, Beutners tour has him skipping Tuesdays school board meeting, when board members are expected to discuss labor negotiations in closed session. Read More Facebook

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Cal State trustees to discuss Browns latest budget proposal, which they say still falls $171 million short By Joy Resmovits Just how much money does California State University need to serve its students? In recent years, this question has been front and center for the nations largest public university system. Cal States leaders say that to keep their campuses quality from slipping, they need much more money than the state is giving them. This year, theyre also at odds with Gov. Jerry Brown on the question of whether any extra money should come in one-time bursts or be ongoing. Read More Facebook

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Why a handful of rich charter school supporters are spending millions to elect Antonio Villaraigosa as governor By Ryan Menezes California voters have seen a barrage of sunny television ads in recent weeks touting former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosas record on finances, crime and education, aired by Families & Teachers for Antonio Villaraigosa for Governor 2018. But the group is, in fact, largely funded by a handful of wealthy charter-school supporters. Together they have spent more than $13 million in less than a month to boost Villaraigosas chances in the June 5 primary  at a time when his fundraising and poll numbers are lagging. Reed Hastings, the founder of Netflix, jump-started the group with a $7-million check, by far the largest donation to support any candidate in the election. Their efforts are part of a broader proxy war among Democrats between teachers unions  longtime stalwarts of the party  and those who argue that the groups have failed low-income and minority schoolchildren. Read More Facebook

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Talking schools with L.A. Unifieds new superintendent By Anna M. Phillips Austin Beutner, who officially starts Tuesday as the new superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, is taking on a famously difficult job at a particularly difficult time. The school board is divided and did not back him unanimously. The nations second-largest school district has deep-seated problems, including declining enrollment, lagging academic achievement and rising pension and healthcare costs that eat away at its budget. The 58-year-old former investment banker and former L.A. Times publisher has years of experience in the financial world but none as an educator. Earlier this week, he sat down with the Times education team to discuss the challenges facing the district, which has about 60,000 employees and 500,000 students in traditional public schools. He did not talk about his plans  saying repeatedly, stay tuned  but he spoke in broad terms about his mindset in approaching the tough decisions ahead. Read More Facebook

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Suspect detained, authorities search campus after reports of armed man at Palmdale high school By James Queally One person has been detained after a report of an armed man at a Palmdale high school sparked a massive law enforcement response Friday morning. The suspect was spotted at 7:05 a.m. on the campus of Highland High School in Palmdale, according to Sheriffs Department spokeswoman Nicole Nishida. The person was detained in a nearby parking lot, according to Nishida, who did not know whether that person was an adult or juvenile. Deputies at the scene are clearing the school methodically, and students will be transported home via school buses once the campus is deemed safe, Nishida said. Read More Facebook

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The education of Bertha Perez: How a UC Merced custodians disenchantment led to a political awakening By Robin Abcarian Its the third day of a three-day strike, and UC Merced custodian Bertha Perez is taking a break from a picket line at the universitys unremarkable entrance, an intersection with stop lights. Photos from other UC campuses this week have shown big crowds of striking service workers  members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees  marching and chanting pro-labor slogans as they try to force the University of California back to the negotiating table. But here, at UC Merced, whose handful of big buildings rise from a flat expanse of farmland, the picket line is tiny, maybe two dozen workers and a few students. Its not a big-city-style show of force. Then again, a union sympathizer is banging relentlessly on a snare drum, so its noisier than youd expect. Read More Facebook

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Ref Rodriguez resigns from teacher credentialing commission By Howard Blume Ref Rodriguez appears during a court appearance. (Al Seib/Los Angeles Times) Los Angeles school board member Ref Rodriguez has resigned from the states Commission on Teacher Credentialing, which oversees the integrity and quality of Californias teachers. Rodriguez faces felony and misdemeanor charges for political money laundering. Separately, his former employer, a charter school organization, has accused him of improperly authorizing checks to a nonprofit under his control. Rodriguez has denied wrongdoing. Rodriguezs resignation from the state body was effective May 4, days after he cast a crucial vote as part of a narrow majority that voted to authorize contract negotiations with Austin Beutner to become superintendent of the L.A. Unified School District. Beutners first official day on the job is Tuesday. Rodriguez remains in his $125,000-a-year position on the Los Angeles Board of Education. The mission of the state body is to ensure integrity, relevance, and high quality in the preparation, certification, and discipline of Californias teachers. Critics had questioned Rodriguezs continued service on the commission, given that teachers can be suspended from work if they face criminal charges. They also can lose their jobs for lapses in personal behavior, such as excessive drinking, with the potential to affect their performance. Police in Pasadena arrested Rodriguez on a Friday afternoon in March for public drunkenness. He was not charged in the incident and has apologized. The state commission reviews teacher discipline cases and can take action to remove a teachers credential to work in a California classroom. The commission has 15 members. Rodriguezs departure was disclosed in a one-sentence announcement on the agencys website. Facebook

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School board members request for restraining order against blogger is rejected By Priscella Vega An Orange County Superior Court judge on Wednesday denied a school board members petition for a permanent restraining order against a Huntington Beach blogger. Attorney Jeffrey W. Shields filed the petition on behalf of Ocean View School District trustee Gina Clayton-Tarvin, 46, who alleged in court documents that Charles Keeler Johnson, 56, has threatened her on social media and at school board meetings, causing her to fear for my own safety and for that of my immediate family members. Johnson, who goes by Chuck and publishes HBSledgehammer.com, said the trustee tried to stifle his freedom of speech. He also contended that Clayton-Tarvin took his blog posts and Facebook comments too seriously and out of context, saying anyone who is afraid of metaphors has serious issues. Read More Facebook

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Deal with workers averts one-day strike that could have shut down L.A. schools By Howard Blume Los Angeles school district and union officials announced a contract agreement Tuesday night that averted a one-day strike planned for next week. The pact, which runs through June 2020, removes one labor problem from the desk of incoming Supt. Austin Beutner  whose first day on the job would have coincided with the strike. Plenty of other challenges remain. Read More Facebook

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UC labor strike expands with show of support from more unions By Teresa Watanabe Fong Chuu is a registered nurse who has assisted with countless liver transplants, kidney surgeries and gastric bypasses during 34 years at UCLA. Working with her are scrub technicians who sterilize equipment, hand medical instruments to the surgeon and dress patient wounds. They are a team, Chuu says, which is why she walked off her job Tuesday in support of those technicians and other members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299. The 25,000 member AFSCME local, the University of Californias largest employee union, launched a three-day strike Monday. Read More Facebook

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We are humans too: Voices of UCLAs striking custodians, hospital aides and imaging technicians By Joy Resmovits Demonstrators parade in front of Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times) This week, thousands of UC employees are staging a three-day strike for better pay and working conditions. On Monday, more than 20,000 custodians, cooks, lab technicians, nurse aides and other members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299 walked off their jobs. By Tuesday, two more unions joined in sympathy strikes. The union and UC reached a bargaining impasse last year. The university has said it wont meet the workers demands. The strikers said they wanted better pay, more equity in the allocation of work, stable healthcare premiums and an end to the universitys use of contract workers. These are their stories. Read More Facebook

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Massive UC workers strike disrupts dining, classes and medical services By Joy Resmovits A massive labor strike across the University of California on Monday forced medical centers to reschedule more than 12,000 surgeries, cancer treatments and appointments, and campuses to cancel some classes and limit dining services. More than 20,000 members of UCs largest employee union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, walked off their jobs on the first day of a three-day strike. They include custodians, gardeners, cooks, truck drivers, lab technicians and nurse aides. Two altercations involving protesters and people driving near the rallies were reported at UCLA and UC Santa Cruz. At UCLA, police took a man into custody Monday after he drove his vehicle into a crowd, hitting three staff members. They were treated for minor injuries at the scene and released, said Lt. Kevin Kilgore of the UCLA Police Department. Read More Facebook

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Sen. Kamala Harris to skip UC Berkeley commencement in support of striking workers By Teresa Watanabe California Sen. Kamala Harris has canceled plans to deliver UC Berkeleys commencement address this weekend in support of UC workers who are on strike over wages and health benefits. Due to the ongoing labor dispute, Sen. Harris regretfully cannot attend and speak at this years commencement ceremony at UC Berkeley, said a statement from Harris office issued Monday. She wishes the graduates and their families a joyous commencement weekend and success for the future. They are bright young leaders and our country is counting on them. UCs largest employee union, the 25,000-member American Federation of County, State and Municipal Employees Local 3299, launched a three-day strike Monday and had earlier called for a speakers boycott. The union and university reached a bargaining impasse last year and subsequent mediation efforts have failed to produce an agreement. The union is asking for a multiyear contract with a 6% annual pay increase while the university is offering 3% annual increases over four years. UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ will deliver the keynote address instead, the university announced. About 5,800 students are expected to participate in the ceremony Saturday. Facebook

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School mural depicting Trumps bloody, severed head sparks controversy By Gary Warth A Chula Vista school mural that depicts the bloody, severed head of President Trump on a spear sparked a controversy that prompted officials to cover it and issue a response distancing themselves from the work. The statement also said the artist will alter the painting. We understand that there was a mural painted at the event this past weekend that does not align with our schools philosophy of non-violence, read the statement from MAAC Community Charter School director Tommy Ramirez. We have been in communication with the artist  who has agreed to modify the artwork  to better align with the schools philosophy. Read More Facebook

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New blackface incident at Cal Poly prompts calls for state investigation By Kim Christensen Cal Poly San Luis Obispo officials have asked the state attorney generals office to investigate after a new photo of a white student in blackface surfaced on a fraternity groups private Snapchat. I am outraged, Cal Poly President Jeffrey D. Armstrong said in a video address Friday to the campus. These vile and absolutely unacceptable acts cannot continue. We must not allow these acts to define us as an institution. Armstrong said the latest photo was intended to imitate an incident last month in which a white member of the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity was photographed at a party wearing blackface. Read More Facebook

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More than 50,000 UC workers set to strike this week but campuses will remain open By Teresa Watanabe More than 50,000 workers across the University of California are set to strike this week, causing potential disruptions to surgery schedules, food preparation and campus maintenance. The systems 10 campuses and five medical centers are to remain open, with classes scheduled as planned. UCs largest employee union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, plans to begin a three-day strike Monday involving 25,000 workers, including custodians, gardeners, cooks, truck drivers, lab technicians and nurse aides. Read More Facebook

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New L.A. schools chief Beutner pledges to listen, learn and take action By Howard Blume New Los Angeles schools Supt. Austin Beutner proved Wednesday that hes a quick learner even without an education background. Like countless public officials before him, he appeared at an important event  his first speech and news conference  with a photogenic background of students. His message  that he would put those students first  seemed heartfelt if hardly original. Nor was it a huge surprise that he pledged to push cooperatively but unflinchingly to improve the districts academic performance and stabilize its finances. As an introduction, Beutner, a former investment banker who made a fortune on Wall Street, offered little flash, but that was partly the point. Read More Facebook

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In a school lockdown, one student takes stock of the stressful scene At the beginning of lunch one day late last month, Duarte High School, Northview Middle School, and California School of the Arts-San Gabriel Valley were advised by the Los Angeles Sheriffs Department to go into lockdown mode due to police activity in the immediate area. Phalaen Chang, a junior at the California School of the Arts, wrote a series of notes on her iPhone while she sat in a room with her classmates. By the time the lockdown ended an hour later, she wrote, she knew which of her friends would hold open the door for others, be the ones calming others down, be the ones barricading the doors. She knew that all of them have the potential to be such strong people. Read More Facebook

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Tale as old as time: L.A. Unified superintendent pick follows a historical pattern of outside-the-box choices By Joy Resmovits L.A. Unified has long gone back and forth between picking insiders and outsiders to run the nations second largest school district. The choice of Austin Beutner, announced Tuesday, places the district squarely back in the outsider camp  months after a consummate insider, Supt. Michelle King, announced that she had cancer and would not return to the job. Check out this timeline of former L.A. superintendents to see how the school board members have changed their minds, sometimes favoring leaders who come from the world of education and sometimes executives from elsewhere, recruited to shock the system into change. At one point, the district hired someone from the military  retired Navy Vice Adm. David L. Brewer III, who served as superintendent from 2006-2008. In hiring Brewer, board members had opted for a non-educator  largely because they sought a fresh thinker, unwedded to the bureaucracy, unafraid to make bold, even unorthodox moves, reads a 2008 Times story. Facebook

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Austin Beutner named superintendent of Los Angeles schools By Howard Blume Austin Beutner, a philanthropist and former investment banker, on Tuesday was named superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nations second-largest school system. His selection was the biggest move yet by a Los Angeles school board majority elected with major support from charter school advocates. The decision came after lengthy public testimony, most of it in support of the other remaining finalist, interim Supt. Vivian Ekchian, who is well known within the school system. Beutner, 58, has no background leading a school or school district. Less than 2 years ago, a school board with a very different balance of power named Michelle King, a former teacher who rose through the district throughout her career, to L.A. Unifieds top job. Read More Facebook

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Hearing delay gives both sides more time in Ref Rodriguezs potential trial By Howard Blume Ref Rodriguez and his attorneys will have more time to prepare their defense against charges of political money laundering, a judge ruled Monday. The preliminary hearing in the case had been scheduled to begin May 9, but that date will now be pushed back to July 23 per the ruling from L.A. Superior Court Judge Deborah S. Brazil. Rodriguez, 46, faces three felony charges of conspiracy, perjury and procuring and offering a false or forged instrument, as well as 25 misdemeanor counts related to the alleged campaign money laundering. Read More Facebook

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L.A. school board poised to name Beutner as superintendent By Howard Blume The Los Angeles Board of Education is poised to select philanthropist and former investment banker Austin Beutner to be the next superintendent of the nations second-largest school system. Barring a last-minute development, the only mystery is whether Beutner emerges with four or five votes from the boards seven members. Terms of his contract already have been under discussion, according to sources close to the process who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak. The selection of Beutner, 58, who has no experience managing a school or a school district, would be a signal that the board majority that took control nearly a year ago wants to rely on business management skills instead of insider educational expertise. Read More Facebook

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Teacher walkouts in Arizona and Colorado continue national debate on money for schools By Michael Livingston Following the lead of teachers who walked off the job in other states in recent weeks, thousands of teachers and their supporters took to the streets in Arizona and Colorado for the second day in a row to demand better pay and more funding for education. Read More Facebook

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Three decades before the #MeToo movement, UC San Diego led the way against sexual assault By Teresa Watanabe When Nancy Wahlig first started her fight against sexual assault, one company was marketing a capsule for women to stash in their bras and then smash to release a vile odor. Because of the very nature of society, the only person who can prevent rape is the woman herself, read a 1981 advertisement for the Repulse rape deterrent. Ideas about how to prevent sexual violence have come a long way since then, and Wahlig has helped lead that evolution on college campuses. In 1988, she started UC San Diegos Sexual Assault Resource Center (SARC), the first stand-alone program at the University of California. Today, she remains the systems most senior specialist. Read More Facebook

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Andres Alonso withdraws from consideration for L.A. schools job By Howard Blume Andres Alonso, believed to be one of three remaining finalists to lead the Los Angeles school system, has withdrawn from consideration. The remaining known candidates in the confidential search are former investment banker Austin Beutner and interim Supt. Vivian Ekchian. Alonso, 60, announced his decision on Twitter on Thursday night, saying he had notified the L.A. Unified School District on Monday. The exit of Alonso, the former Baltimore schools chief, seems to solidify the front-runner status of Beutner, who also was a former L.A. Times publisher and a Los Angeles deputy mayor. He held each of those positions for about a year. Read More Facebook

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Heres why the apparent increase in autism spectrum disorders may be good for U.S. children By Karen Kaplan The prevalence of autism spectrum disorder among American children continues to rise, new government data suggest. And that may be a good thing. Among 11 sites across the U.S. where records of 8-year-olds are scrutinized in detail, 1 in 59 kids was deemed to have ASD in 2014. Thats up from 1 in 68 in 2012. Normally, health officials would prefer to see less of a disease, not more of it. But in this case, the higher number is probably a sign that more children of color who are on the autism spectrum are being recognized as such and getting services to help them, according to a report published Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Read More Facebook

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UC shelves tuition increase for now, in hopes of getting more state funding By Teresa Watanabe University of California regents will not vote on a tuition increase next month, shelving the plan for now in hopes that state lawmakers will come through with more funding. Raising tuition is always a last resort and one we take very seriously, UC President Janet Napolitano said Thursday in a statement. We will continue to advocate with our students who are doing a tremendous job of educating legislators about the necessity of adequately funding the university to ensure UC remains a world-class institution and engine of economic growth for our state. Last week, Cal State Chancellor Timothy P. White said the 23-campus system no longer would consider a plan to raise tuition for the 2018-19 academic year. But unlike Cal State, UC officials have not taken a tuition increase off the table entirely. Read More Facebook

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A chemical spill, unchecked eyewash stations, poor training: Audit details Cal States lax lab safety By Joy Resmovits In May 2016, two bottles tumbled off a poorly supported shelf and broke, leading to a chemical spill in a Sacramento State University lab. The liquid got onto one students legs and soaked anothers feet. Five employees cleaned up the mess, even though no one knew for sure what it was and whether it was dangerous. They called fellow employee Kim Harrington, their union representative, to let her know what happened. Read More Facebook

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After blackface incident, minority students at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo say they dont feel welcome By Hailey Branson-Potts Aaliyah Ramos was walking through the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo campus last year when a prospective student approached her. Ramos was the only black person, the young woman said, that she and her mother had seen that day. They asked about the quality of education and the diversity of the student body. Ramos, a mechanical engineering student, didnt want to sugarcoat the truth: Cal Poly long has been predominantly white. But she told the young woman  who also was black  that she didnt want to discourage her from applying, because that wouldnt help with diversity at a school where only 0.7% of students are African American  the lowest percentage of any university in the California State system. Read More Facebook

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El Camino Real Charter High School in Woodland Hills wins the 2018 U.S. Academic Decathlon By Carlos Lozano El Camino Real Charter High School in Woodland Hills has won the 2018 U.S. Academic Decathlon, officials said. The winner was announced early Saturday at a ceremony in Frisco, Texas. More than 600 students from the U.S., Canada, China and the United Kingdom gathered there over the last three days to compete in the 37th annual U.S. Academic Decathlon. Congratulations to El Camino Real Charter High School for another impressive victory, said Vivian Ekchian, interim superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Your academic stamina and competitive spirit to win is remarkable. The entire L.A. Unified family is so proud of you. Read More Facebook

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Anticipation mounts as L.A. school board meets over superintendent selection By Howard Blume The Los Angeles Board of Education is reconvening in closed session Friday at noon as anticipation mounts about the choice of the next leader of the nations second-largest school system. The presumed front-runner is former investment banker and philanthropist Austin Beutner, but interim Supt. Vivian Ekchian and former Baltimore Supt. Andres Alonso also are in the running. Most district insiders appear to be rooting for Ekchian, who has spent her entire career in education within the school system. After her 10 years as a teacher, her roles have included head of human resources, chief labor negotiator and regional administrator for campuses in the west San Fernando Valley. Shes managed the district since September, when then-Supt. Michelle King went on medical leave and chose Ekchian to fill in for her. King, who is battling cancer, never returned and announced her retirement in January. Numerous influential civic leaders have urged  and pressured  the board to select Beutner. Also lending their weight have been advocates for charter schools, which are independently operated, growing in number and competing for students with district-operated campuses. Four of the seven board members  enough to control the outcome  were elected with major financial support from charter supporters. Beutner has two ongoing connections with the L.A. Unified School District. The first is his leadership of an outside task force that is making recommendations on how to improve the school system. The second is his charity, Vision to Learn, which supplies glasses to low-income students. The charity and the school system are in a dispute at the moment over who is responsible for delays in providing services to students as part of a $6 million contract, half of which is paid for by L.A. Unified. Unlike Ekchian and Buetner, Alonso, who currently teaches at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, has no deep-seated local constituency, but the prospect of his selection has generated some excitement. While in Baltimore, Alonso was recognized for pushing for progress at low-performing schools, and for being willing to take strong action. While in Baltimore, he also weathered a test-score cheating scandal and occasionally rocky relations with the teachers union. But by the time he resigned, after six years, he and union leaders seemed to be working together without rancor. Leaders of some community groups have split from the pro-Beutner camp. They worry that Beutners approach to confronting the districts financial problems could shut out their voices or involve severe economic cutbacks that would undermine programs that are helping students. Some prefer Ekchian; some Alonso. Theyve been reluctant to speak out publicly because theyll have to work with whoever is selected, but they have tried to get the ear of board members. On Friday morning, one leader of a community group decided to come out in favor of Alonso. L.A. Unified has the opportunity to bring in an instructional leader of color with a history of success, said Alberto Retana, president and chief executive of Community Coalition, which works on behalf of low-income students and families in South Los Angeles. If we have a shot at that, we should go for it  because its in the best interests of our kids and of our community. Retana said his statement was not meant to criticize Beutner or Ekchian but to alert board members that there also is community support for Alonso. Facebook

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Cal State leader shelves proposed tuition hike: Its the right thing to do, but its not without risk By Joy Resmovits Cal State, the nations largest public university system, will no longer consider a plan to raise tuition for the 2018-19 academic year, Chancellor Timothy P. White announced Friday. The decision is a bet that Sacramento will come through in the end. If Cal State loses that bet, it could mean cuts to campus programs. White said in an interview that Californias economy is strong enough that families should not be shouldering the burden of higher college costs. Read More Facebook

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L.A. students to participate in national walkout activities on Friday By Joy Resmovits Students are taking to the streets again Friday to protest gun violence on the 19th anniversary of the Columbine school shooting. Starting at 10 a.m., students at many schools will spend 13 seconds honoring the 13 people  12 students and one teacher  killed on that day in Littleton, Colo. After that, theyll participate in a host of different activities. Within L.A. Unified, one school is having an open-mic event for students to talk about school violence, and lawmakers are visiting campuses to hear students thoughts. According to a central hub for organizing the protests  written by the students of Ridgefield High School in Connecticut  the walkouts are intended to drive the political change necessary to curb school violence. The day is also a time for students to interact on an elevated platform they have never had before, the site states. It is a day of discourse and thoughtful sharing. Bringing together communities and students to get a national discussion rolling. Organizers have suggested using the event to convey the importance of curbing gun violence to legislators. They are encouraging students to push legislation that would ban assault weapons and tighten up rules around who can buy guns and how. Over 2,500 schools nationwide are expected to participate. In L.A., some students  at campuses including Eagle Rock High School, the Ramon C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts and Bravo Medical Magnet  plan to walk out. Students from various schools expect to join area marches, including those in Santa Monica and Huntington Park. Other schools are hosting career days and voter registration drives. At 1 p.m., students plan to start a rally in front of L.A. Unified headquarters. For the record: An earlier version of this article stated that 12 teachers and one student were killed in the Columbine shooting. The opposite is true: twelve students and one teacher died. Facebook

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Stabbing of popular student devastates South El Monte High School; teen friend suspected in slaying By Sonali Kohli When administrators at South El Monte High School called Jeremy Sanchezs parents to say he never showed up for class Wednesday, his father began to worry. It was unusual for the 17-year-old junior to miss school, so his father filed a missing persons report and assembled two of Jeremys close friends to look for the popular student-athlete. Their search took them to a scenic stretch of the San Gabriel River Trail, where one of the friends  a 16-year-old boy  made a tragic discovery. Among the bushes in the riverbed near Thienes Avenue and Parkway Drive was Jeremys body, punctured with stab wounds, according to Lt. John Corina of the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department. Read More Facebook

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Racist fliers spark outrage at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo By Alene Tchekmedyian Soon after Neal MacDougall arrived on the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo campus Tuesday, the professor noticed university police standing outside a restroom near his office. A racial slur against African Americans had been scrawled in red marker on a stall wall. Later, he discovered a series of racist fliers pinned up next to his door. Someone had also slashed posters hed hung outside his office supporting students in the country illegally. The discovery was the latest controversy on the prestigious campus  which the president said is less than 55% white  that MacDougall said demonstrates a culture of racism at the university. Last week, photographs emerged of white fraternity members, including one in blackface, flashing gang signs. Read More Facebook

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The superintendent waiting game, paying for L.A.'s College Promise, Princetons slave history: Whats new in education By Joy Resmovits Acting LAUSD superintendent Vivian Ekchian is a finalist for the permanent job. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) In and around Los Angeles: The L.A. Unified school board spent 10 hours interviewing and discussing candidates for superintendent. When they adjourned after 10 p.m., they said they would reconvene on Friday. Who is paying for Mayor Eric Garcettis much-touted College Promise, a program that promises two years of community college for LAUSD grads? In California: The Legislature is considering a proposal that would boost K-12 education funding for black students. When the cost of living is taken into account, California has the highest rate of child poverty. Nationwide: The families of two children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School are suing Alex Jones and Infowars for saying the school massacre never occurred. Princeton will name two spaces  an arch and a garden  after slaves who lived or worked on the campus. Facebook

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L.A. school board meets privately with finalists and debates choice for school district leader By Howard Blume The Los Angeles Board of Education adjourned late Tuesday after spending more than 10 hours interviewing candidates and trying to reach a decision on who would be the next leader of the nations second-largest school system. When the meeting finally recessed at 10:11 p.m., a spokesman announced only that the school board would reconvene Friday at noon. Going into the days meetings, there were apparently four finalists, according to sources who could not be named because they were unauthorized to speak. Read More Facebook

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Two Sandy Hook families sue Alex Jones and Infowars for saying the school massacre never happened By David Altimari Families of two children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School have filed lawsuits in Texas against controversial radio host Alex Jones for continually claiming the massacre never happened. Neil Heslin, the father of Jesse Lewis, and Leonard Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa, whose son Noah Pozner died in the massacre, filed separate lawsuits late Monday in Travis County, Texas. The lawsuits allege that Jones defamed the parents by constantly calling them crisis actors and insisting the shooting was a false flag operation; they also claim Jones accusations have led to death threats against the Sandy Hook families by Jones followers. Read More Facebook

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Beutner emerges as a top pick for L.A. schools superintendent amid last-minute jockeying By Howard Blume Austin Beutner has emerged as a leading contender to run the Los Angeles school district, with backers saying he is smart enough and tough enough to confront its financial and academic struggles. Though he does not have a background in education, the former investment banker has in the last year examined some of the districts intractable problems, serving as co-chair of an outside task force with the support of then-Supt. Michelle King. Sources inside and outside the school district said Beutner appears to have more support on the seven-member board than other finalists, and his name could come up for a vote as early as Tuesday. Read More Facebook

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Challenge at Chicago school construction site: Watch for 38,000 unmarked graves By Nereida Moreno A 15-year effort to build a school in Chicagos Dunning neighborhood is underway with an unusual complication: Construction workers are taking careful steps to avoid disturbing human remains that may lie beneath the soil. The $70-million school is to be built on the grounds of a former Cook County Poor House, where an estimated 38,000 people were buried in unmarked graves. Among the dead are residents who were too poor to afford funeral costs, unclaimed bodies and patients from the countys insane asylum. There can be and there have been bodies found all over the place, said Barry Fleig, a genealogist and cemetery researcher who began investigating the site in 1989. Its a spooky, scary place. Read More Facebook

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Oklahoma teacher walkout winds down despite lawmakers failure to meet demands By Washington Post Oklahomas largest teachers union has announced an end to a walkout that has drawn thousands of educators out of classrooms and to the state Capitol demanding greater investment in the states schools, which have endured the nations steepest funding cuts. The announcement Thursday from the Oklahoma Education Assn. does not necessarily end the protests at the Capitol, as teachers not affiliated with the union vowed to stay longer. Instead of a walkout, the union and school districts across the state have said they plan to send delegations of teachers to Oklahoma City to keep the pressure on lawmakers. Teachers and their supporters have also promised to push education issues to the forefront of November elections, when the state chooses a new governor. As school districts begin to reopen, the protests may lose steam. The Legislature is not in session Friday, and observers are waiting to see what happens Monday, when lawmakers return. Read More Facebook

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Most Californians are worried about school shooting threats and oppose arming teachers, survey finds By Joy Resmovits Hamilton High School student Aiyana Dabriel holds a sign during a March 14 walkout in support of the Parkland shooting victims. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) Most Californians are worried that a school shooting like the one that occurred in Parkland, Fla., in February could shed blood closer to home, a new survey found. Some 73% percent of adults and 82% of public school parents said they were very concerned or somewhat concerned about school shootings. The Public Policy Institute of California surveyed 1,704 adults in the state by phone just after the March for Our Lives protest against gun violence. Latino and black respondents were significantly more likely to be concerned about school violence than white or Asian respondents, the institute found. Two-thirds of adults and public school parents said they opposed letting more educators carry weapons in school. The response differed across party lines, with 86% of Democrats and 69% of independents voicing their opposition, while 60% percent of Republicans said they would support a measure to arm educators. The poll, which had a margin of error of 3.2% in either direction, also asked Californians about school funding, educational issues in the governors race and the impact of immigration enforcement on students. You can find the full results here. Facebook

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Californias largest virtual charter school network agrees to contract with its teachers By Anna M. Phillips Nearly four years after teachers at Californias largest online charter school voted to unionize, they have reached a deal to increase pay and create job protections, according to a spokesman for the California Teachers Assn. The contract, which is still tentative and subject to ratification, is a victory for the teachers union. Although charter schools are publicly funded, most are privately managed and their employees arent protected by labor contracts. Under the terms of the contract  the result of years of negotiation and legal wrangling  approximately 500 teachers working for California Virtual Academies will no longer be at-will employees who can be dismissed for almost any reason. Their average salary will rise to just over $45,000, according to union estimates, a figure that remains far below the norm for traditional public school teachers. Still, it is an improvement over the previous average of $38,000. The accord also places a limit on the number of students each teacher is responsible for monitoring in online homeroom classes. Were very satisfied with the gains we made, said teacher Brianna Carroll, president of California Virtual Educators United. I think were going to see some extraordinary changes in our schools. According to Carroll, teachers at California Virtual Academies  better known as CAVA  had grown frustrated with the organizations foot-dragging and were making preparations to go on strike when CAVAs leadership agreed to the deal. CAVA and K12, the Virginia-based for-profit company linked to its schools, did not immediately respond to an email Tuesday asking for comment. The network currently operates nine virtual charter schools across California. In 2016, the charter network agreed to pay $8.5 million to settle claims of false advertising, misleading parents and inadequate instruction. The state attorney generals office had also accused K12 of controlling the charters for its own financial benefit. Neither CAVA nor K12 admitted to wrongdoing in the settlement. A year later, the state imposed a $2-million fine on CAVA after an audit found that it had misspent public funds. The network disputed the findings. Facebook

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School board approves a new formula for funding high-need schools By Sonali Kohli L.A. schools will soon get more money if they are located in neighborhoods with such problems as high levels of gun violence and asthma. The Los Angeles Unified school board voted unanimously Tuesday to adopt a new formula to determine how to dole out some funding to schools, based not only on the characteristics of the student populations but on the traumas that affect the communities around campuses. The new formula will be applied to $25 million in funding next fiscal year and about $263 million annually in future years  a small part of the districts $7.5 billion annual budget. Read More Facebook

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Protesters demand Ref Rodriguez resignation outside school board meeting By Sonali Kohli Students, parents, teachers and UTLA marching outside the board meeting chanting "Ref resign" pic.twitter.com/W0LRWZSIXY  Sonali Kohli  (@Sonali_Kohli) April 10, 2018 A few dozen parents, students and teachers marched outside the Los Angeles Unified School Board meeting Tuesday, some calling for board member Ref Rodriguez to resign the week after news broke that he was taken into custody on suspicion of being drunk in public at a Pasadena bar and restaurant. Rodriguez was not cited or charged in that incident, but was held for more than five and a half hours before being released. The school board member faces felony and misdemeanor charges for political money laundering. He is accused of getting more than two dozen people people to donate to his campaign for his school board seat with the understanding that he would reimburse them. He stepped down from his post as school board president after he was charged last fall, but he did not give up his seat on the board. He has pleaded not guilty to three felony counts of conspiracy, perjury, and procuring and offering a false or forged instrument, as well as 25 misdemeanor counts related to the alleged campaign money laundering. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for May. He cant give his full focus to our students, said Rebecca LaFond, a Highland Park parent whose three children marched with her as she chanted, Ref resign. One daughter marched in front of her, using a drum stick to hit the bottom of a gallon-size empty water jug. Our kids deserve someone who has the utmost ethical standards representing them, LaFond said. The protests continued into the board meeting, where some addressed Rodriguez directly, calling on him to step down during public comment portions of the meeting. Rodriguez, through his chief of staff, declined to comment. Some parents outside the board meeting did not know about the charges against Rodriguez but came out to protest the possibility of sharing their school campuses with charter schools. Protesters also oppose colocation  not all of the parents are here to ask Ref Rodriguez to step down pic.twitter.com/1Co8zQ9zSi  Sonali Kohli  (@Sonali_Kohli) April 10, 2018 Cynthia Martinez said her son, who goes to Christopher Dena Elementary School in Boyle Heights, has been bullied in the past by students from a charter school sharing the campus. She said she didnt know who Rodriguez was. Some parents and teachers are worried about losing computer labs, robotics rooms and fitness centers if they are required to share their campus with charter schools, said Ilse Escobar, a parent community organizer for United Teachers Los Angeles. The issues of Rodriguez and colocation are related, Escobar said. Rodriguez is part of a majority on the school board elected with financial backing from charter school supporters, and many parents, she said, feel that the school board is compromised if he is a part of it. Staff reporter Howard Blume contributed to this post. Facebook

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Delaine Eastin tries to gain momentum in the California governors race, one voter at a time By Seema Mehta Delaine Eastin was a sophomore in high school when a drama teacher urged her to try out for a part in The Man Who Came to Dinner. She hesitated until he told her: This is a metaphor for your whole life. If you never try out, you will never get the part. Eastin auditioned and won the role. Decades later, the advice sticks with the former state schools chief, this time in her unlikely run for governor. Despite calls for more women in leadership roles in state politics following sexual misconduct allegations in Sacramento, Eastin has been largely overlooked in the race, lagging far behind her Democratic rivals in fundraising and the polls. Read More Facebook

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Arizona high court rejects in-state tuition for DACA recipients By Associated Press Young immigrants granted deferred deportation status under a program started by President Obama are not eligible for lower in-state college tuition, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled Monday. The unanimous ruling will affect at least 2,000 students attending the states largest community college district and hundreds more at other colleges and the states three public universities. The Maricopa County Community Colleges District and state universities said they would begin raising tuition immediately for the coming school year. Read More Facebook

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New York high school students injured when bus strikes overpass By Associated Press A charter bus carrying teenagers returning from a spring break trip Sunday night struck a bridge overpass on Long Island, seriously injuring six passengers and mangling the entire length of the top of the bus. The crash happened shortly after 9 p.m. Sunday on the Southern State Parkway in Lakeview, according to New York State Police. One of the six injured passengers had very serious injuries, said State Police Maj. David Candelaria. Thirty-seven other passengers suffered minor injuries. Read More Facebook

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Some good news for California in national student test scores By Joy Resmovits Every two years, the nations fourth- and eighth-graders are tested in math and reading  and newly released results from last years tests give California at least a little reason to be pleased. The 2017 results  out Monday night  were mostly flat nationwide compared with 2015, though the average score in eighth-grade reading went up. But while that improvement largely came from the increased scores of the highest-performing students, California eighth-graders showed some reading progress from the lowest levels to the highest. Read More Facebook

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Under state control, Inglewood school districts financial picture worsened By Anna M. Phillips When Eugenio Villa agreed to return to the Inglewood schools for a second tour last summer, he knew the district remained one of Californias most troubled. Inglewood Unified had been nearly insolvent when it was taken over by the state Department of Education in 2012. Six years later, its enrollment was still declining. Its school buildings were tired  some edging into decrepitude. Its test scores and graduation rates were still below the state average. And the public was out of patience. Still, Villa, who had signed back on as the districts chief business official, was shocked at what he found when he arrived in June 2017. Two years earlier, he had left the school system on what he thought was firm ground. Read More Facebook

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Charter school group drops two lawsuits against L.A. Unified By Howard Blume A charter schools advocacy group last week announced that it would end two long-running lawsuits in which it was seeking more classroom space and construction money from the Los Angeles school district. The decision, the California Charter Schools Assn. said, reflects better relations between charter schools and the L.A. Unified School District. But the move also suggests that the litigation, which already contributed to significant gains for area charters, was unlikely to produce much more. It takes time, money and effort to litigate, said Ricardo Soto, general counsel for the charter group. Maybe its better to see if we can find the time and opportunity for collaboration. Read More Facebook

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L.A. school board member Ref Rodriguez is arrested on suspicion of public intoxication By Richard Winton Los Angeles school board member Ref Rodriguez was arrested recently on suspicion of being drunk in public at a Pasadena restaurant, the latest trouble for an elected official who faces political money-laundering charges. Pasadena police took Rodriguez into custody on March 16, according to city spokeswoman Lisa Derderian. Officers arrested Rodriguez at about 4:30 p.m. at the Yard House restaurant and bar at the Paseo Mall and held him in jail for more than five-and-a-half hours. Rodriguez was ultimately released without being cited or charged, Derderian told The Times. Other details about the arrest were not available, she said. Read More Facebook

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Kentucky teachers rally at Capitol over state budget By Associated Press Thousands of Kentucky teachers filled the streets near the state Capitol in Frankfort on a cold, overcast Monday to rally for education funding. Teachers and other school employees gathered outside the Kentucky Education Assn. a couple of blocks from the Capitol chanting, Stop the war on public education and holding or posting signs that say, Weve Had Enough. Were madder than hornets, and the hornets are swarming today, said Claudette Green, a retired teacher and principal. Read More Facebook

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Christina Fuller was down to the wire.

With less than one week to go before the new school year, the Willowbrook mother who works in students services at Santa Monica College still didnt know where her son would start sixth grade.

So one night last week, she brought Robert, a quiet 11-year-old wearing a Minecraft T-shirt, to an orientation she stumbled upon online for the districts newest offering: the Boys Academic Leadership Academy.

The school, known as BALA, emphasizes science, technology, arts, engineering and math, or STEAM education. Classes at the Washington Prep campus in South L.A. begin Tuesday.

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L.A. Unified opened a boys school in part to comply with its interpretation of a federal regulation after it launched the single-sex Girls Academic Leadership Academy in Mid-City last year. But its also the kind of unusual offering that the district hopes will help its ongoing fight to recapture enrollment  and revenue  lost to charter schools.

The district is trying to give parents a unique opportunity they feel they cant get through charter schools, said Tyrone Howard, a professor and associate dean for equity and inclusion at UCLAs education and information school. But, he said, you cant just say it, you have to ensure the quality of the school.

You also have to get students to enroll, which so far is a problem. The school was slated to serve 200 students in the first year, in grades six and seven, with plans eventually to add eighth grade and a high school. By Friday, Principal Donald Moorer said, about 100 were enrolled.

Fuller was one of just three parents or guardians at BALA that night  though Moorer said that was because the school had already held many such sessions.

Moorer is BALAs second principal. The district named the first one last year, promoting a career administrator, Jeremy McDavid. McDavid hired some teachers and designed the schools program. In July, he was transferred to View Park Continuation School, on the campus of Dorsey High School in Crenshaw, to swap places with Moorer, its principal.

The leadership change has been noticed. At the orientation, Amber Banks, who attended on behalf of a foster child, asked for McDavid because shed learned about the school from him at a presentation to a Boy Scouts troop.

McDavid declined to speak on the record. Hes moved on to another school where he can lead a school that already has high enrollment, said L.A. Unified spokesman Sam Gilstrap.

Moorer said he was glad to inherit a fully developed program. Growing up, I would have benefited from this program, he said.

When Moorer started at BALA, 30 students were enrolled, he said. A lot of it has to do with marketing and getting information out, he said. Ive been knocking on doors.

For her part, Fuller said she was looking for a place where Robert wont just pass through school.

Sixth graders race each of school for the Boys Academic Leadership Academy in South L.A. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

**

BALA is modeled after Eagle Academies, a group of all-boys schools in New York. Rosemary Salomone, a professor at St. Johns University law school who wrote the book Same, Different, Equal: Rethinking Single-Sex Schooling, said she was impressed by the Bronx sites communal feel. It gave students, she said, a positive image of what it means to be an African American male.

Others question the need for the schools. Sarah Bradshaw, West Coast political director of the Feminist Majority Foundation, said creating a STEM-focused all-boys school only widens the gap between males and females represented in those fields. How do we catch up when extra resources are diverted to ... supporting boys education? she said.

At the orientation, Moorer talked about the new school in a recently renovated classroom. Its eight desks had been set up in two groups to facilitate collaboration.

Each day at BALA, he said, will start with a schoolwide town hall in which a student would be chosen to pour libations. The boys will also recite the poem Invictus by William Ernest Henley: I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.

John Aquino, the school counselor, carried in a small potted tree and filled a black pitcher with water.

Students will state what theyre grateful for during the libation, which consists of watering the tree, Moorer said. Youll come in every day with a positive feeling.

Only one young man, Robert, was present for the orientation, so Moorer asked him to come forward and say what made him grateful. Come on, tell us what youre interested in, I appreciate you, the new principal said.

Robert slowly strolled forward and quietly said, Im thankful for my family. Moorer clapped and thanked him for his courage.

He said he wanted to create a culture in which right answers are rewarded and students feel comfortable owning up to what they dont know. Each classroom, he said, will have a mistake board on which a student can volunteer his mistake of the day so that other boys can learn from it.

The school, Moorer said, will be divided into four houses, which will compete for points and rewards based on character. Boys who misbehave or struggle wont be suspended. Theyll face a tribunal or an intervention circle or a harm circle to discuss the root causes.

There will be a mentoring program, a digital portfolio of students work, an effort to teach students to be aware of how they think and process information. Every student will take music class, and contemplate college early by visiting USC on the first day of school. Eighth-graders, Moorer said, can earn college credits at nearby Middle City College.

As Moorer described a daily wellness break, an afternoon period in which the boys will recharge through tai chi, yoga or meditation, Fuller sat up taller and nodded. After his presentation, Moorer said he was confident about the schools future.

As the word gets out, as they really need us, it will grow, he said.

Fuller was sold. She said she thought BALA would give Robert a well-rounded education  he was particularly jazzed about a potential robotics competition.

I still want him to socialize with girls, Fuller said. Its a cool idea to be with all boys learning these subjects. But maybe thats just an idealized, romantic view of education.

Joy.Resmovits@LATimes.com

@Joy_Resmovits
Los Angeles County Sheriffs homicide detectives are investigating the circumstances surrounding the fatal drug overdose of a 26-year-old man at the West Hollywood home of prominent Democratic donor Ed Buck.

Sheriff Jim McDonnell said Monday that while coroners officials ruled Gemmel Moores July 27 death an accident, homicide detectives will be conducting a follow-up investigation based on additional information. He declined to elaborate.

Initial investigations by deputies and the Los Angeles County Coroners office did not flag anything suspicious in Moores death, sheriffs Capt. Chris Bergner said, but the new probe was being launched out of abundance of caution.

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Seymour Amster, an attorney representing Buck, said Monday that his client had nothing to do with this young mans tragic death.

He added that Moore, whom he described as a good friend of Buck, was found in a bathroom of the home, alone, with the door closed.

It was a self-imposed accidental death, he said. Buck, 62, did not return calls seeking comment.

Ed Winter, a spokesman for the coroners office, said Buck was inside the Laurel Avenue home at the time of Moores death and that drug paraphernalia was recovered from the scene.

The new investigation came amid calls by Moores family for a deeper examination of his death.

A family friend provided the Los Angeles Times with pages of what he said was Moores journal from December. The friend also provided a video showing him picking up the journal from the coroners office. In the purported journal entries, Moore writes about his drug use. He also makes accusations against Buck.

Democratic donor Ed Buck, left, Hernan Molina and West Hollywood Councilman John Duran in West Hollywood in 2010. (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

Moores mother, LaTisha Nixon, said her son worked for a time as an escort and used drugs. Shortly before his death, he told her he was homeless.

I cant bring my son back. Hes gone, said Nixon, a mail carrier who lives in Spring, Texas. Theres nothing I can do. Id give the world if I could. I just want this situation exposed.

Amster dismissed the journals.

What happened in 2016, in unverified writing, I doubt has anything to do with what happened in 2017, the attorney said. There is nothing to show that Ed was anything but a kind-hearted individual trying to help somebody else by giving them access to his home.

Buck became a nationally known figure in the late 1980s when he led the effort to impeach Arizona Gov. Evan Mecham. News reports at the time described Buck as a conservative Republican.

The New York Times in 1987 described him as a 33-year-old millionaire entrepreneur who retired from the insurance service business a year ago to found the Mecham Recall Committee.

Upon learning that Buck is gay, Mechams aides distributed bumper stickers reading Queer Ed Bucks Recall. The Arizona governors efforts to dismiss the recall supporters  whom he dubbed a band of homosexuals and a few dissident Democrats  with comments about sexual orientation were pilloried in Doonesbury comics.

More recently, Buck donated to various Democratic causes. Through June of this year, Buck donated $23,600 to various California races and causes, including $7,600 to Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) in his bid for lieutenant governor, according to campaign finance records. He also donated to candidates running for election to the West Hollywood City Council, Los Angeles Unified School District board and state Senate.

Buck had also served on the Stonewall Democratic Club Steering Committee. Last week, the group requested Bucks resignation in the wake of Moores death.

We understand Mr. Buck has not been charged with a crime and we cannot comment on those allegations, the organization said in a statement. They are serious, however. We have requested, therefore, and accepted the resignation of Mr. Buck from the Stonewall Democratic Club Steering Committee.

According to Amster, Buck agreed to resign because he did not want to draw negative publicity to the organization.

richard.winton@latimes.com

alene.tchekmedyian@latimes.com

hailey.branson@latimes.com

Times staff writer Maya Lau contributed to this report.

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UPDATES:

9:50 p.m.: This article was updated with information about Bucks recent campaign donations.

This article was originally published at 8:20 p.m.
More than 550,000 Los Angeles Unified students head back to school Tuesday. Heres whats new in the nations second-largest school district:

1. Boys get their own school now

L.A. Unified launched an all-girls school last year. But federal guidelines suggest that if a district has an all-girls school, it must also provide a similar offering just for boys.

The Girls Academic Leadership Academy opened in 2016. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times) (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

The Boys Academic Leadership Academy in South L.A.s Westmont neighborhood is a single-sex middle school that will emphasize science, technology, arts, engineering and math.

Going into its first year, it still has plenty of room. The school was slated to serve 200 students in the first year, in grades six and seven, with plans to eventually add eighth grade and a high school. By the end of last week about 100 had enrolled.

2. Its going to be easier to learn a new language

Before this year, L.A. Unified had 87 dual-language programs in kindergarten through 12th grade. Now there are more, thanks in part to a voter-approved measure that makes them easier to launch.

The programs teach students in English and another language, often Spanish. Thats the case in most of the 16 new K-12 bilingual options, though programs with Mandarin and Armenian are opening. And two of the 10 new pre-kindergarten programs are in Korean and English.

Pre-kindergarten Elementary school Middle school High school 10 schools 12 3 1 New dual-language programs in L.A. Unified Pre-kindergarten Elementary school Middle school High school 10 schools 12 3 1 The focus is on younger kids for bilingual education Data: abcdefg hijkl mnop qrstu vwxyz 1234 56789 Sonali Kohli @latimesgraphics Source: Los Angeles Unified School District

Theres a focus on starting these programs for younger children. Research shows that dual-language programs can help students who are learning English grasp the language more quickly.

3. Preparing kids to graduate, with preschool

The district has opened 28 new pre-kindergarten programs in addition to the 10 dual-language ones. Early education is one of the few areas that got a boost in this years budget.

Lisa Harmison taught one of the first expanded transitional kindergarten classes at 186th Street Elementary in 2015. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

District officials say early education is key to getting English learner students up to speed and putting L.As children on the path to high school graduation and college.

4. Charters are continuing to grow

Eleven new charter schools are opening within L.A. Unifieds boundaries this fall. Most are part of established charter school organizations. One, the Crete Academy in South L.A., is designed for homeless students and those living in poverty, and will initially cover pre-kindergarten to sixth grade.

The Celerity Educational Group, currently at the center of a federal investigation, is opening two schools this year. These will replace two schools closed by the State Board of Education last year.

5. Magnet schools galore

Magnet schools continue to be one of the districts primary strategies to persuade families not to enroll in charter schools. There will be 11 new magnets this year, bringing the total to 225.

Most of the new magnets, which are all required to have a theme and promote desegregation, will have a STEAM focus.

6. Some kids get to sleep in

Five district middle schools and high schools are starting later this year, between 8:30 and 9 a.m. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been pushing for later start times, arguing that children need more sleep. But critics say that students could just end up staying awake later.

Which L.A. Unified schools will begin later than the rest?

Los Angeles Academy Middle School  8:30 a.m.

San Fernando Middle School  8:30 a.m.

Steven White Middle School  8:30 a.m.

New Middle School Pathway  8:45 a.m.

Metropolitan Continuation High School  9 a.m.

7. L.A. Unified is finished building new schools, for now

L.A. Unified has wrapped up a 20-year, $10-billion effort that yielded 131 new schools and 65 expanded campuses. The final new school, the $160-million Maywood Center for Enriched Studies, opens Tuesday in southeast Los Angeles County.

Architect Ben Levin of DLR Group walks through the new Maywood campus, which opens Tuesday. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Maywoods opening means that the districts last overcrowded school, nearby Bell High, can switch back from a year-round schedule to a traditional calendar.

The district plans to focus on repairing and modernizing its more than 1,000 schools  although theres money, theres not nearly enough for that task. Homeowners will be paying off the school construction bonds for decades. The tab this year is $131 for every $100,000 of assessed property value.

8. Finish community college  in high school

L.A. Unified is rapidly expanding the number of middle and high schools at which students can take credit courses from community college instructors. At seven high schools, theyll be able to leave with either an associates degree or a professional certificate.

An associates degree typically counts for two years of college. The certificate qualifies students for jobs that require special training.

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The Los Angeles city attorneys office has filed a lawsuit against the owner of a Canoga Park home, claiming the residence is a hub of white supremacist gang members and drug activity.

The lawsuit, filed Monday, claims that the single-family home in the 8400 block of Remmet Avenue has for years been a known location for narcotics, gang and general nuisance activity.

In the last 12 months, court documents claim, authorities have served four search warrants on the property and arrested more than a dozen people. Photos from inside the property attached to the court filing show opened paint cans filled with hypodermic needles, a coffee table covered in drug paraphernalia  such as glass pipes and plastic baggies  and broken-down vehicles on the front lawn.

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The home is within half a mile of a police station, park and elementary school.

The most recent warrant served there was on Aug. 3, when the homeowners daughter, Lisa Bellinaso, was arrested on suspicion of hooking up power to the home illegally, officials said. She and her boyfriend have been arrested at the home numerous times for drug-related crimes, including possessing heroin with the intent to sell, the city attorneys office said.

Bellinaso did not return a request for comment.

The home is a haven for members of the infamous Aryan Brotherhood gang and a smaller gang with ties to it in the San Fernando Valley, the lawsuit claims.

As the tragic events in Charlottesville remind us, racism, hatred and white supremacy are all too prevalent in todays America, said City Atty. Mike Feuer in a statement. This is the third lawsuit in less than a year my office has filed against property owners we contend provide bases of operations for alleged white supremacist gangs. No one should have to put up with conditions like these in their community. Were fighting to make this neighborhood safer.

The lawsuit requests a judge to evict the homes tenants, take ownership of the property for a year and rehabilitate it with fencing and other safety measures.

joseph.serna@latimes.com

For breaking California news, follow @JosephSerna on Twitter.
The Los Angeles Police Commission decided Tuesday that an officer was justified in shooting Carnell Snell Jr. last fall in South L.A., a killing that prompted protests and the rare public release of video evidence by the LAPD.

Siding with Chief Charlie Beck, the panel cleared the officer who fatally shot Snell, saying his decision to pull the trigger fell within the LAPDs policy for using deadly force. But the panel  again agreeing with the chief  faulted some of the tactics used by three officers involved in the Oct 1, 2016 encounter.

The unanimous ruling came after a meeting peppered with interruptions by activists who chanted the 18-year-olds name and criticized the police  disruptions that are not unusual for the civilian commissions weekly meetings but ultimately led to the arrests of three people Tuesday.

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After the findings were announced, Snells sister cursed at the five police commissioners.

That wasnt right at all, she told reporters later, declining to give her name. I miss and love my brother, and hopefully hes at peace.

The death of the young black man struck a chord in South L.A. during a year when police shootings of African American men deepened mistrust in a neighborhood where some residents were already wary of the LAPD. After Snell was shot, angry activists and residents flocked to the scene, decrying the police and dismissing the LAPDs account that Snell was carrying a gun.

The outcry led Beck to share a video captured shortly before the shooting as Snell ran from officers. The recording showed the 18-year-old holding a gun. At the time, Beck said police fired at Snell after he turned toward them holding the weapon, thinking he posed an imminent threat.

The Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union representing rank-and-file LAPD officers, welcomed the commissions review of the shooting.

When an armed suspect points a gun at a police officer, that officer must act to protect themselves and members of the public, the Leagues statement said. We commend the Police Commission for relying upon the evidence in front of them to make the correct ruling.

Activists continued to challenge the police narrative Tuesday, however, saying that just because Snell was seen carrying the gun didnt mean he pointed it at police.

A report Beck submitted to the Police Commission outlining his thoughts on the shooting, a redacted copy of which was made public Tuesday, offered a few new details.

Three Metro officers in a police car near 108th Street and Western Avenue when they spotted a Nissan Altima with paper plates, the report said. Snell, a passenger in the Nissan, made eye contact with one of the officers, then ducked, the report said, causing police to think he was trying to hide a gun or arm himself.

The officers turned on lights and siren to try to stop the car, the report said. The vehicle initially slowed down, then sped away.

As the car approached an alley on 106th Street, the report said, Snell bailed out while grabbing his waistband.

The officers chased after him. At least one saw Snell holding a gun, the report said. Police ordered him to stop and drop the weapon, the report said, but he kept running.

The video released by the LAPD shows Snell running behind a line of parked cars with the gun, then tucking it into the waist of his pants before taking off.

At one point, police said, Snell ran into a driveway and toward a fence.

He then removed his handgun from his waistband and then started to turn towards me, the officer told investigators. Just out of fear I  I thought he was going to try to shoot at me or try to kill me.

The officer fired three rounds at Snell, the report said. After Snell hopped the fence, the report said, he turned toward the officer again and began to raise the handgun.

The officer fired three more shots. Snell died at the scene.

The name of the officer who shot Snell was redacted from Becks report, but the LAPD previously identified him as Leovardo Guillen. The 10-year LAPD veteran has since returned to work in the field.

Beck took issue with some of the tactics the officers used before the shooting, including their decision to split up while chasing Snell and to handcuff him without proper cover after he had been shot. The names of the other officers have not been released.

Tension at Tuesdays meeting was evident from the start. Matt Johnson, the commissions president, opened with a statement condemning this weekends deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va.

Activists  about 30 were in the room  repeatedly interrupted him, accusing police here of racism. As Johnson tried to resume the meeting, they kept interjecting.

Commissioners ultimately paused the meeting twice, and an LAPD lieutenant declared two unlawful assemblies to clear the room.

Some, however, refused to leave. Four people were removed from the room  including Melina Abdullah, a professor and prominent Black Lives Matter organizer, who was taken away in handcuffs.

Abdullah and two other people the LAPD later identified as Courtney King, 28, and Danielle Robicheau, 30, were arrested on suspicion of resisting police, an LAPD spokesman said.

Once the meeting resumed, Snells family delivered emotional testimony about the 18-year-old. He struggled mentally and had some run-ins with the law, they said, but adored his family and wanted to turn his life around.

Carnell was my heart, said Carlena Hall, a great-aunt who raised Snell.

She recalled the last time she spoke to Snell, when he stopped by her house. When she saw him later that day, she said, he was running from the police.

If I could have stopped him, I would have, she said.

Activists repeatedly chanted Snells name during the meeting, as theyve chanted the names of others shot by Los Angeles police. Say his name! they shouted.

Snells sister screamed her brothers name, which echoed through the room.

Justice for my brother! she said. His life mattered!

kate.mather@latimes.com

@katemather

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UPDATES:

7:25 p.m.: This article was updated with details from LAPD Chief Charlie Becks report, a statement from the police union and the names of the three people arrested at the meeting.

3:25 p.m.: This article was updated with the Police Commissions decision and comments from Carnell Snell Jr.s sister.

1:40 p.m.: This article was updated with events from Tuesdays Police Commission meeting.

This article was originally published at 8:25 a.m.
Students at Palmdale High School were terrorized Tuesday by a swarm of bees authorities say had built a hive inside their classroom over the summer.

Los Angeles County firefighters were dispatched to the school just after noon to reports of bee stings, said fire Inspector Joey Marron.

Paramedics and firefighters evaluated 40 students and ultimately took three to the hospital, Marron said.

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The bees have since been confined to a single classroom.

The bees had apparently followed their queen into the room over the summer, where they built their hive, Marron said. Something apparently aggravated them enough on Tuesday for them to attack, he said. None of the injuries were reported to be serious or involved an allergic reaction, he said.

Classes resumed at the high school a week ago. School and district officials did not immediately return a request for comment.

joseph.serna@latimes.com

For breaking California news, follow @JosephSerna on Twitter.
For years, the victim at the center of Roman Polanskis sexual assault case has urged Los Angeles authorities to end the drawn-out legal saga, for her sake and for the sake of the movie director.

But when Samantha Geimer spoke sympathetically this year about Polanski before a scrum of reporters outside a Los Angeles courthouse, a woman who also claims be one of his victims was paying close attention.

She was not happy with Geimers forgiving attitude.

On Tuesday, she went public with her claim that Polanski sexually victimized her in 1973 when she was 16. She said she was speaking out after so many years of silence because Geimers remarks infuriated her.

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I am not over it, and I certainly believe that Roman Polanski should be held accountable for his criminal conduct with Samantha Geimer, said the woman, 59, who would give only her first name, Robin. She spoke at a news conference at the Los Angeles office of her attorney, Gloria Allred.

Geimer has long argued that prosecutors should sentence Polanski, 83, to time served. She was a 13-year-old junior high student when Polanski, then 43, took her to Jack Nicholsons house for a photo shoot. He gave her champagne and part of a Quaalude pill and, according to testimony from Geimer soon afterward, forced her to have sex with him.

The director pleaded guilty in 1977 to having sex with a minor and fled to Europe before his sentencing.

Intense media scrutiny has shaped Geimers life since, and she wants to be left alone. Letting Polanski go would be an act of mercy to myself and my family, Geimer said after testifying in the case on June 9. She said she also felt empathy for the way hes treated, particularly how he has been called a pedophile, a description she said is untrue.

From her home in Hawaii, Geimer said Tuesday that she was outraged by Robins criticism of her.

My life is not a bandwagon, Geimer said. They want to completely disregard the misery and hell Ive been through with that court case and somehow tack on to it at the end of 40 years and get a little bit of justice for themselves?

Robin would not provide details about what Polanski allegedly did to her or how she became acquainted with him.

Reading a statement, she said she told a friend about the incident the next day, then did not speak to anyone else about it for more than 40 years. She initially feared that her father would do something that might cause him to go to prison for the rest of his life, she said.

She is the third woman to come forward with similar allegations about Polanski, who directed movies such as Rosemarys Baby and Chinatown and whose wife and unborn child were murdered by the Manson family in 1969.

In 2010, British actress Charlotte Lewis, who appeared in Polanskis 1986 film Pirates, accused him of forcing himself on her in 1982 in Paris when she was 16. She also was represented by Allred.

Allred said Robin reported her allegations to law enforcement this year, even though the deadline for filing criminal charges has passed. That would help lay the groundwork for Robin to testify if Polanski withdraws his guilty plea and goes to trial, Allred said, adding that she hopes other victims will come forward.

Robin has no immediate plans to file a civil lawsuit, Allred said.

While we understand that Ms. Geimer would like this case to end, Robin and I feel that it is very important that Mr. Polanski returns to court in California to be sentenced, Allred said. An exception should not be made for a Hollywood film director, and it would be wrong for the court to appear to give special treatment to Mr. Polanski.

In April, a Los Angeles County judge denied Polanskis latest effort to resolve the 40-year-old statutory rape case, saying that the filmmaker cannot be sentenced in absentia because he remains a fugitive from justice.

Polanskis attorney, Harland Braun, said Allreds client has no business interfering with Mrs. Geimers life and opinion.

This should be a no-brainer. This case should be over, he said, adding that Polanski, who continues to live in exile in Europe, will not withdraw his plea.

Braun said that until Tuesdays news conference, he did not know about Robin or any sexual allegations against Polanski from 1973.

After reaching a deal with prosecutors, Polanski was sent to a state prison for a 90-day diagnostic evaluation. Judge Laurence Rittenband, who was presiding over the case at the time, said the evaluation would help him reach a fair sentencing decision. The director was released after 42 days, with prison officials saying he did not need additional prison time.

Rittenband, facing fierce media pressure, went against the recommendation and decided to send Polanski back to prison for an additional 48 days.

Polanski then boarded a plane to Europe and never returned.

In 1993, Polanski settled a civil lawsuit with Geimer, agreeing to pay her $500,000 plus interest.

As the decades have worn on, two portraits of Polanski have emerged. Many still shun him as a criminal who fled from justice. But some in Hollywood have argued that he was treated unfairly by a judge who wanted to make an example of a powerful filmmaker.

As the victim, Geimer has the right to be heard, but the criminal case was filed in the name of the people of California, Allred said.

It is the judge who decides the sentence, not the victim, she said.

cindy.chang@latimes.com

For more news on the Los Angeles Police Department, follow me on Twitter: @cindychangLA

UPDATES:

Aug. 16, 2:20 p.m.: This article was updated with the amount of the settlement that Polanski agreed to pay Geimer.

7:18 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from Geimer and additional comments from Polanskis attorney, Gloria Allred and her client.

This article was originally published at 1:25 p.m.
A wildfire in Yosemite National Park continued to grow Tuesday near the community of Wawona, home of the historic Big Trees Lodge, the park said.

As the fire inched closer to homes, the National Park Service asked to residents to be prepared to evacuate. Voluntary evacuations notices went out to residents in Camp Wawona and Chilnualna Falls Ridge.

The South Fork fire erupted at 2:30 a.m. Sunday about 1  miles east of Wawona in the Yosemite Valley, the park said. Flames had scorched 1,613 acres in an area of heavy tree mortality due to bark beetle infestation and poor forest health, the park said.

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Nearly 150 firefighters were aggressively tackling the flames in steep, rocky terrain that was not easily accessible to crews.

Wawona, about 66 miles north of Fresno, is nestled between Yosemites Chilnualna Falls and its Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias, an area that has been closed for restoration.

The hotel, formerly known as the Wawona Hotel, was not under immediate threat, park spokesman Scott Gediman told the Sierra Star.

To avoid potential trademark infringement issues, the park renamed the hotel as well as several other properties in 2016 when it failed to reach a settlement with the departing vendor, DNC Parks & Resorts at Yosemite Inc.

The South Fork fire is one of two blazes burning in Yosemite.

The lightning-sparked Empire fire, which started Aug. 1, is burning a mile south of Bridalveil Campground in Yosemites wilderness, the park said.

veronica.rocha@latimes.com

Twitter: @VeronicaRochaLA
The Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles plans to proceed with the sale of the St. James the Great church property in Newport Beach, citing a legal obligation.

In a letter Monday, Bishop Coadjutor John Harvey Taylor said the departing Bishop J. Jon Bruno had entered into a binding contract to sell the property to developer Burnham Ward Properties, and that diocese leadership would move forward with that plan. Bruno has locked the St. James congregation out of the building since 2015.

The buyer has the legal right to expect the seller to honor the contract, Taylor wrote. Much as we might wish it were otherwise, we do not believe that it would be in the interests of the diocese or consistent with our fiduciary responsibilities to endorse any steps leading to breaching or threatening to breach an enforceable contract that could lead to further expense and litigation.

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Taylor has been named to succeed Bruno upon Brunos planned retirement at the end of the year, and already has been assigned pastoral and property oversight for St. James by the highest-ranking bishop of the Episcopal Church in the U.S. That move was made Aug. 1 in light of a hearing panels determination that Bruno had engaged in misconduct when he attempted a separate sale of the church site in 2015.

Bruno changed the locks two years ago while trying to sell the property to would-be townhouse developer Legacy Partners for $15 million. That sale fell through.

The congregation has since been worshiping at other locations around Newport Beach and Costa Mesa. It currently meets at Newport Beach City Hall.

The hearing panels ruling, issued July 21 and finalized Aug. 2, recommended a three-year suspension from ministry for Bruno, plus halting efforts to sell the St. James building and unlocking the property so the congregation could resume worship in its longtime home.

Taylor, however, wrote that the panelists and their advising attorneys evidently did not take fully into account the existence of a binding contract, nor all the ways the dispute begs for wider reconciliation.

Parishioner Walter Stahr, who has been active in the congregations allegations of misconduct against Bruno and the effort to reclaim the building, said diocese leaders did not say when escrow would close on the property when they met Monday with him and St. James pastor Cindy Evans Voorhees. The sale price also has not been disclosed.

They assured us that if St. James the Great wishes to continue as an Episcopal congregation, they will support us  just not in our building, Stahr told his fellow parishioners in a statement Monday. I know how devastating this will be for many of you, but the story is not over.

Voorhees had no comment Monday.

Taylor said Burnham Ward plans to preserve the worship space so it may continue to be used by churches and other community organizations, including St. James if it wishes.

I wish it were possible to achieve a settlement in which all could receive everything they sought, Taylor said. Unfortunately, in the short term, this cannot be the case. And yet we continue to believe that healing and reconciliation are possible for our whole community.

hillary.davis@latimes.com

Davis writes for Times Community News
North Koreas autocratic ruler has decided not to launch missiles toward Guam, Pyongyangs state media reported Tuesday, easing the immediate threat of an attack on the U.S. territory in the western Pacific.

The North Korean statement said Kim Jong Un could change his mind if the Yankees persist in their extremely dangerous reckless actions, in which case the countrys artillerymen would wring the windpipes of the Yankees and point daggers at their necks.

The announcement appeared shortly after Defense Secretary James N. Mattis warned that an attack could quickly escalate to war, although its unclear if the developments were linked.

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If they fire at the United States it could escalate into war very quickly, Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon. Thats called war, if they shoot at us ... You dont shoot at people in this world unless you want to bear the consequences.

Mattis cited a classic Hollywood political satire about nuclear war to say he wasnt drawing red lines or making idle threats to spark a confrontation.

Its not declaring war  its not that Im over here, Dr. Strangelove, doing things like that, he said.

North Korea tested an intercontinental ballistic missile last month for the first time, and U.S. intelligence agencies assess that Pyongyang can build a nuclear warhead small enough to fit atop a long-range missile, although its not clear if it can target U.S. cities.

The latest missile tests led to a sharp rise in tensions. The United Nations Security Council voted unanimously to add new sanctions on North Korea, and President Trump warned he would unleash fire and fury if Pyongyang continued its threats.

In response, North Korea said Kim was reviewing a plan to fire four mid-range missiles over Japan and into international waters at least 20 miles off Guam, where the U.S. military operates several major bases.

Mattis was ambiguous as to how Washington would respond if Pyongyang launched a missile toward Guam as a show of force, and it landed far offshore.

War is up to the president, and perhaps up to Congress, Mattis said. The bottom line is we will defend the country from attack.

The U.S. military would be able to determine if a North Korean missile is headed toward Guam within moments, he said, because of spy satellites, radars and other high-tech sensors that track missile launches.

If necessary, well take it out, Mattis said, suggesting the U.S. military would attempt to shoot it down with antimissile interceptors on land and ships.

Analysts said North Koreas announcement was a clear de-escalation.

This is coming from Kim Jong Un himself  thats always important, said John Delury, an associate professor of Chinese studies at Seouls Yonsei University.

The previous set of Guam announcements were from the military, saying Were working on this plan, and well give it to the commander in chief. And now theyve given it to the commander in chief, and he said, This is awesome, but lets put this on ice, and see what the Americans do next.

Delury cautioned cautioned, however, that Kim didnt say he would never use the plan.

This is a very positive signal, but hes waiting for the Americans to reciprocate, Delury said.

Earlier, Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sought to defuse tensions in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that said the Trump administration did not seek regime change or accelerated reunification of Korea, issues of special concern to China, which supports Pyongyang.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in has also sought to defuse tensions, vowing to step up diplomatic efforts to denuclearize Pyongyang. The government will prevent a war at all cost, Moon said Tuesday, according to South Koreas Yonhap news agency. We must peacefully resolve the North Korean nuclear issue no matter how many ups and downs there are.

Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrived late Monday in Beijing to meet with Chinese military leaders. Earlier, he met with Moon at Osan Air Base, a U.S. Air Force base about 40 miles south of Seoul.

Dunford said in Beijing that his goal was to continue to develop our military-to-military relationships, to mitigate the risk of miscalculation in the region and to have cooperation where those opportunities exist, according to a Pentagon statement.

Times staff writers Hennigan reported from Washington and Kaiman from Beijing.

william.hennigan@latimes.com

Twitter: @wjhenn

jonathan.kaiman@latimes.com

Twitter @JRKaiman

ALSO:

Climate change is real: Just ask the Pentagon

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U.S. launches dozens of missiles at Syria in response to chemical weapons attack

UPDATES:

8:05 p.m.: This article has been updated with a comment from the South Korean president.

7:45 p.m.: This article has been updated with more details from North Koreas statement and analyst comment.

This article was originally published at 6:35 p.m.
Rejecting criticism that it has sidelined human rights in U.S. policy, the State Department on Tuesday accused Islamic State of trying to commit genocide of Christians and other minorities as it sought to build an Islamist caliphate in Iraq and Syria.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the armed extremists targeted Christians, Yezidis and Shiite Muslims for rape, kidnapping, enslavement and death.

The protection of these groups  and others who are targets of violent extremism  remains a human rights priority for the Trump administration, Tillerson said as he released the departments annual report on international religious freedom.

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Islamic State is clearly responsible for genocide as well as crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing against those groups and, in some cases, against other Muslims and Kurds, Tillerson said.

The Sunni extremist group swept out of northern Syria into neighboring Iraq in early 2014 and quickly captured much of Iraqs west and north. A U.S.-led coalition, including Iraqi troops and Kurdish guerrillas, has steadily pushed the militants back, last month recapturing the crucial city of Mosul.

American officials claimed last week that U.S.-backed Syrian militias also have recaptured half of Raqqah, Islamic States self-declared capital in Syria, although fighting there remains intense.

The report, which is mandated by Congress, was compiled in 2016 and reviews religious freedom around the world. Although last years report also accused Islamic State of mass atrocities, the language this year sought to remove previous ambiguity, Tillerson said.

Human rights groups have accused President Trump of ignoring human rights abuses during his talks with several major leaders, including Turkeys Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Chinas Xi Jinping and Egypts Abdel Fattah Sisi.

They also criticized Tillerson for not personally releasing the State Departments annual human rights report in March, as most of his predecessors have done, lowering its profile. The report is an accounting of the torture of political prisoners, efforts to stifle a free press and other abuses around the globe.

Instead, the administration appears to be highlighting more specific causes that appeal to conservative voters.

In June, Tillerson and the presidents daughter, Ivanka Trump, appeared together to release a report on human trafficking. Tuesdays report on religious freedom also got a high-level rollout.

Tillerson said 80% of the world population faces restrictions on or hostility to the free practice of religious beliefs.

He singled out seven countries for egregious practices, including U.S. allies Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Turkey and Pakistan, as well as Iran, China and Sudan.

He declined to say if the report would change White House efforts to change policy to cut in half the number of refugees allowed into the country, from 100,000 to 50,000.

Michael Kozak, senior advisor at the State Departments Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, said Department of Homeland Security officials would use data in the report to help evaluate refugee applications.

Unfortunately, every year, there are way, way, way more refugees than what any one country can take in, he added.

The report also voiced concern for the repression of Shiite Muslims by Islamic State but also by Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Muslim countries, saying they deserved greater protection.

Critics highlighted the disconnect between the reports concern for religious repression and White House efforts to ban travel from a half-dozen Muslim-majority nations earlier this year.

Does US still have moral influence on this topic? Farah Pandith, who served as States special representative to Muslim communities from 2009 to 2014, asked on her Twitter account. US must b example 2 fortify report.

The report cited improvement in the tolerance of religious minorities in Vietnam, Uzbekistan and Tunisia.

tracy.wilkinson@latimes.com

For more on international affairs, follow @TracyKWilkinson on Twitter
The thousands of demonstrators have left Charlottesville, Va. The bronze statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, around which the protests were focused, remained standing. A memorial service was being planned for the woman who was killed, and many of the 19 people injured remained in the hospital.

And as the city began to recover from the violence of this past weekend, both sides declared victory.

To the white supremacists who gathered from across the country, the havoc in the Virginia college town and the international attention it earned them marked a win. To the counter-protesters, widespread acknowledgment of the threat posed by racism  evident in television images of Nazi symbols and other blatant bigotry  was proof they had prevailed.

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It remains unclear what will happen to the racist movement that has been energized by the election of President Trump and was laid out for all to see in Charlottesville. But one thing seems certain: The fighting is not over. Both sides are gearing up for more.

White nationalists and pro-Confederate groups quickly announced rallies and speaking events in Virginia, Texas and beyond, gaining throngs of online supporters while the people who live in those places are already taking to the streets to warn them to stay away.

In Kentucky and Maryland, city officials promised to swiftly tear down Confederate monuments after years of debates, drawing cheers from supporters but also galvanizing the white supremacists and fanning fears of more protests and more violence.

These conflicts are growing, not diminishing, said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino. A wedge has been turned into a battering ram by emboldened white nationalists.

Hours after the Charlottesville rally on Saturday, where bodies flew as a man plowed a car into a crowd on a downtown street, Texas resident Preston Wiginton announced a White Lives Matter rally in College Station in September. He said he wanted to carry on the campaign launched by those in Virginia.

Today Charlottesville tomorrow Texas A&M, said a news release issued by Wiginton, who has been identified as a white supremacist by civil rights groups. He vowed to fight the liberal agenda of white guilt and white genocide.

On Monday, the university canceled the rally, citing safety concerns. The event had been advertised as featuring Richard Spencer, a prominent white nationalist who promoted the Charlottesville rally.

Wiginton said he would sue, and white nationalists across the U.S. defended his cause.

The University of Florida said the same day that it was considering a request from Spencer to give a talk on campus on Sept. 12. Spencer has also said he will to return Charlottesville.

While white nationalists fought for speaking engagements, monuments came down.

Residents of Gainesville, Fla., wiped away tears of joy on Monday as workers used jackhammers to remove a Confederate statue nicknamed Old Joe that stood in front of a county building. The removal was scheduled last month, and the statue now sits in a private cemetery after the United Daughters of the Confederacy, a group made up of women who trace their ancestry to Southern Civil War figures, volunteered to take it.

The same day, demonstrators in Durham, N.C., cheered as they used a lasso to topple a 15-foot statue of a Confederate soldier and started kicking its head.

No cops, no KKK, no fascist USA! and We are the revolution! they chanted.

The statue had stood since 1924 with a dedication to the boys who wore the gray.

In Atlanta, protesters spray-painted a statue of a Confederate soldier and broke off a piece. Dozens of people gathered in Nashville and hundreds more in San Antonio to protest local monuments.

The gatherings followed formal announcements in at least five cities that monuments would be taken down.

On Sunday, Baltimore City Councilman Brandon Scott, who is black and a Democrat, took to Twitter to call for the immediate destruction of all four Confederate monuments in the city.

Everywhere in this country, we have to remove these monuments and melt them down so nobody can ever idolize them again and wreak this havoc, he said in an interview.

After Scotts tweet went viral, Democratic Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh lent her support to removing the monuments, including those of Gens. Lee and Thomas. J. Stonewall Jackson.

In Lexington, Ky., the mayor shared a similar view.

These moral moments require everyone to take a stand, said Jim Gray, a Democrat, who tweeted Saturday that he would move to tear down two Confederate statues from the grounds of a 19th century courthouse, an idea city officials first broached two years ago.

There is no time to wait for tomorrow because tomorrow never comes, Gray said in an interview.

But other groups were ready to fight.

If the American people dont speak up, the majority of these monuments will be gone, said Kirk Lyons, an attorney at the Southern Legal Resource Center, a North Carolina-based pro-Confederate group. Lyons said his group is ready to file lawsuits against monument removals.

Confederate monuments are just a speed bump for these people. They will go after Confederates first. Its about Thomas Jefferson, George Washington next, said Lyons, who said he was a Christian attorney of Southern ancestry and rejected the label white supremacist.

Lyons said he was considering driving to Richmond, Va., to join a rally next month in support of a Robert E. Lee statue on downtowns Monument Avenue. A Confederate heritage group is still seeking a permit to hold the event.

A city commission is studying what to do with statues on the historic street popular with tourists  such as adding more historical context on the Civil War or placing monuments nearby paying tribute to black figures.

Mayor Levar Stoney, who has rejected the idea of removing statues, spoke to reporters Monday about the controversy after a groundbreaking ceremony for the American Civil War Museum. He said he wanted the city to acknowledge the complete truth about its history as the Confederate capital.

At the end of the day, those statues are offensive to me, very offensive to me, said Stoney, who is black. But you know what Im going to focus my time on? Destroying vestiges of Jim Crow where they live in our city  public housing, public education, you name it.

jaweed.kaleem@latimes.com

Times staffer Raoul Ranoa contributed reporting from Los Angeles.

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By their nature, fringe movements usually dont find the scalding-hot center of the national spotlight. Last weekends Unite the Right rally in Virginia was an extreme  and informative  exception.

Around the nation, TV screens and social media feeds overflowed with Confederate flags, fascist symbolism and bloody images of violence as far-right groups brawled with anti-racism protesters on the streets of Charlottesville. Their white-power message was suddenly hard to ignore.

What has happened since underscores a basic principle about the far right in the United States: Attention is a double-edged sword for white nationalists and neo-Nazis, a tool of further empowerment and an implement of their ruin.

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A protester kicks the toppled statue of a Confederate soldier after it was pulled down in Durham, N.C. Monday, Aug. 14, 2017. Activists on Monday evening used a rope to pull down the monument outside a Durham courthouse. The Durham protest was in response to a white nationalist rally held in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend. (Casey Toth/The Herald-Sun via AP) (Casey Toth / Associated Press)

Over the last two years, embracing the energy of Donald Trumps presidency, far-right millennials have grown increasingly vocal on social media and at public events around the country. Theyve accumulated new followers, piled up donations and garnered profiles in mainstream media outlets.

But their rising visibility also breeds contempt. Outside the far right, antipathy to neo-Nazis, white nationalists and other fascist figures has been building for months, sometimes giving rise to protests that boil into violent street fights.

Update: Trump blames both sides for violence in Charlottesville 

Now, the blowback from last weekends high-profile chaos has spread further  into the business world, on the streets and even at home.

In recent days, several websites frequented by the far right have been shut down and forced into silence. The Daily Stormer  the Webs most popular neo-Nazi site and a crucial platform promoting the Charlottesville rally  has had its Web hosting yanked by GoDaddy and Google, and the site had gone dark as of Tuesday.

Same for American Vanguard, a fascist group whose supporters attended the rally and which had its hosting dropped by WordPress. Gab, a social media service popular with some far-right figures, was temporarily inaccessible after its operators said it was being bombarded by a distributed denial-of-service attack by online vandals attempting to shut down the site. The anti-extremism Southern Poverty Law Center is pressuring PayPal to cut off white nationalists from its services.

Leading white nationalist Richard Spencer, who was scheduled to speak at the event, already has had a future speaking engagement canceled at Texas A&M University, and two Washington, D.C., hotels canceled his reservations as he tried to book space to hold a news conference to debrief reporters about the weekends rally. Instead, reporters filed into his home office to hear him talk.

White nationalist Richard Spencer speaks to select media in his office space on Aug. 14, 2017, in Alexandria, Va. (Tasos Katopodis / Getty Images)

We kept getting canceled. We had to come here, Spencer told them.

Less-extreme figures abandoned and criticized the alt-right movement in November after a video of Spencer receiving Nazi salutes at a conference went viral. Now, Spencer and other prominent rally figures are again under criticism from the right.

Richard Spencer has a kill count now and blood on his hands, former Breitbart writer Katie McHugh wrote at GotNews, a right-wing news site, alluding to the three people who died during Saturdays clashes  one woman killed by a driver ramming a car into a crowd of counter-protesters and two state troopers monitoring the action who died when their helicopter crashed.

Spencer is not responsible, but, of course, he is completely responsible, McHugh wrote, both because he knew that something like this is exactly what would happen and because the entire media is going to treat him as responsible (which, of course, he knew was going to happen).

Another right-wing blogger, Roosh Valizadeh, wrote that Spencer needs to do some serious soul-searching on whether hes the man who can continue as a leader for his followers.

Spencer denied responsibility and has blamed officials for the chaos, tweeting at Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer: You are responsible for allowing this chaos. Blood is on your hands.

Last weekends rally also inspired the left to hold street rallies of their own around the nation in opposition. Opponents of Confederate memorials  public officials and protesters alike  have redoubled their efforts to have the symbols taken down, sometimes in dramatic fashion.

In Durham, N.C., on Monday night, a crowd of protesters used a yellow tether to yank a memorial to Confederate soldiers from its tall pedestal, and it toppled headfirst into the ground. The crowd cheered as bystanders rushed in to kick the remains. The inscription on the pedestal read, In memory of the boys who wore the gray.

A toppled Confederate statue lies on the ground on Aug. 14, 2017, in Durham, N.C. (Virginia Bridges / AP)

Anti-racist Internet users also have worked to identify and harass white nationalist figures who were photographed at the weekends events.

Peter Cvjetanovic, a white nationalist, is upset that this photo of him has gone viral, tweeted journalist Kurt Eichenwald, referring to an interview with a television station in which Cvjetanovic acknowledged being a white nationalist but said he wasnt a racist. So be nice: dont retweet this tweet 1000s of times. Eichenwalds tweet of a picture of Cvjetanovic has been retweeted almost 400,000 times.

One rally attendee, Cole White, quit his job at a popular Berkeley hot dog eatery after the business was inundated with complaints, according to a statement by the eatery. Another attendee, Nigel Krofta, lost his job at a commercial and industrial supplier in South Carolina. Ditto James OBrien, who worked at a Tampa, Fla., roofing company. Under pressure, attendee James Allsup stepped down as president of the College Republicans at Washington State University.

The tolerant peaceful liberals continue to send me & my family death threats. Please leave my family alone, this is very wrong, tweeted a suddenly somber Tim Gionet, a popular Los Angeles-based far-right comedian who goes by the name Baked Alaska, who was scheduled to speak at the Unite the Right rally. Gionet thinks he may have suffered permanent eye damage after being sprayed with a chemical by counter-protesters.

Another personality who goes by the name Millennial Matt claimed hed also been the subject of thousands of thousands of death threats, along with his family.

All of their properties have been doxxed, all of their phone numbers have been doxxed, meaning their private information was posted online, he said in a video.

He exhaled. Everythings pretty messed up right now, he said.

One North Dakota family went so far as to publicly ostracize their son.

Peter Tefft, my son, is not welcome at our family gatherings any longer, wrote Pearce Tefft in a letter published in the Forum newspaper of Fargo.

He once joked, The thing about us fascists is, its not that we dont believe in freedom of speech. You can say whatever you want. Well just throw you in an oven,  Tefft continued. Peter, you will have to shovel our bodies into the oven, too. Please son, renounce the hate, accept and love all.

Email: matt.pearce@latimes.com

Follow me on Twitter: @mattdpearce

Hip-hop artist recalls his beating in Charlottesville: They were trying to kill me out there

IRS strips tax-exempt status from Richard Spencers white nationalist nonprofit

After violence in Charlottesville, cities rush to take down monuments as white supremacists gear up to fight
As the new school year begins, parents have reason to worry about what their kids may be exposed to in the classroom. Despite an overall increase in kindergarten vaccination rates to 95.6% since 2015, when the Legislature stopped allowing public school students to skip their shots simply because of their personal beliefs, a Los Angeles Times analysis found that at nearly 750 California schools, most of them charter or private schools, 90% or fewer of the kindergartners had their full course of vaccinations against diseases such as measles, polio, and whooping cough. The optimal rate for preventing a measles outbreak is 95%.

Some gaps are unavoidable over the next few years because the law, SB 277, isnt retroactive. Students with a personal belief exemption obtained before 2016 wont be required to get vaccinated until seventh grade. And eliminating personal belief exemptions led more kids to seek medical exemptions from a physician on the grounds that they were unusually susceptible to harm from the shots.

But the holes in coverage revealed by The Times suggest theres something more troubling going on. For example, 40% of students at one small school in Sebastopol, Calif., obtained medical exemptions, and it strains credulity that they all have conditions that make vaccination dangerous for them. At another Sonoma County school, only one-third of the students are fully vaccinated either because they have medical exemptions or carried over a personal belief exemption obtained before 2016. Numbers like these have prompted concerns among health officials that some doctors are helping parents with pseudo-scientific fears about vaccines circumvent the law.

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This is unacceptable. Schools with vaccination rates this low are putting their students at risk. And any doctor helping parents get around vaccination requirements is endangering public health by helping to create pockets of resistance to vaccination in their communities. Worse still, a third of the schools with low rates are in crowded Los Angeles County. Parents can find out if their schools are on the problem list at https://spreadsheets.latimes.com/vaccination-rates-1617/. But all should ask their school administrators whether steps are being taken to make sure their kids arent being exposed.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook
The violence in Charlottesville, Va., as awful as it was, may turn out to be a precursor to yet more clashes. Racists and neo-Nazis, invigorated by the chaotic confrontations and national dialogue that ensued, are pledging to march in yet more cities to tout their insidious claims of white supremacy  gatherings that rightly have local officials concerned and just as rightly have drawn outrage over the spreading of such vile beliefs. But two elements bear noting here.

First, as despicable as their beliefs are, the racists and Nazis have a constitutional right to them, and to espouse them, so long as they dont turn words into action. They can scream and froth all they want, but they cannot incite violence. And protesters have an equal right to stand tall and say, No. But without violence. A lot of energy has been, and will continue to be, expended in figuring out what the flashpoint was in Charlottesville, but in the end that doesnt really matter when both sides are itching for a fight.

And no, that does not equate the protesters with the Nazis  standing for a philosophy of genocide is uniquely despicable and indefensible. But altercations such as those on display over the weekend have as little place in civil society as the racist beliefs that triggered them.

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Secondly, reports from Virginia suggest the police were ill-prepared in the run up to an event that clearly had the potential to turn into a violent melee. Gov. Terry McAuliffe defended the citys readiness as critics argued that the police failed to keep the two sides separated and didnt have a workable plan for handling the crowd they cleared out of a park.

Attention has focused on the death of 32-year-old Heather Heyer, killed when a car was driven into a crowd of counter-protesters  a Nazi-sympathizer has been charged. But most of the violence consisted of street brawls. No, you cant always stop someone who determined to drive a car into a crowd, but police can  and must  anticipate volatile confrontations that come with so much advance warning. Local authorities in places where upcoming marches are threatened need to take an object lesson from Charlottesville, game out worst-case scenarios, and have workable plans for dealing with them.

While the Nazis and racists bear sole responsibility for their irredeemable and incendiary beliefs, counter-protesters bear responsibility for their own actions. A violent response to uttered words is not a proper reaction. Isolation and reasoned counter-arguments are called for. As is creativity.

In July 1998, the Aryan Nations  one of the nations highest-profile hate groups then  planned a march in Couer DAlene, Idaho, near its compound at Hayden Lake. In response, the local Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations urged people to pledge donations for every minute the march lasted.

A similar approach would be reasonable now. Organizations could solicit donation pledges to groups representing the interests the far-right hates  say, the United Negro College Fund, or the American Immigration Lawyers Assn. Send a lone representative with a stopwatch and for every minute a hate-monger like Richard Spencer speaks, more money would be raised to educate young African Americans or to defend immigrants seeking permission to live here legally.

People ... who reject the beliefs of the Spencers among us need to ensure that their actions dont become wind in the sails of hatred.

There are other approaches. Standing up to racism does not require screaming into faces or swinging sticks. Public events supporting a pluralistic, welcoming and diverse society can be scheduled for the same time far away from the Nazi rally, leaving the spewers of hate to talk into the wind.

Direct confrontation is the least-workable path because it feeds the far-rights need for attention. As civil rights activist and martyr Medgar Evers said, You can kill a man, but you cant kill an idea. He meant that in the context of violent responses to civil rights activists fighting segregation, but its a neutral concept. Racism is an endemic part of human society, and no one should be fooled into thinking its an idea that can be beaten out of someones head.

Some racists and Nazis eventually come to recognize the evil that propels their beliefs, and change. Some dont, taking their hatred to the grave. But the battle here isnt for the hearts and minds of the true believers and espousers of racism and intolerance.

It is to expose for those who might be seduced the self-defeating inhumanity behind hatred and intolerance. Those are lessons taught by actions as much as by words, and people  the vast majority of American society  who reject the beliefs of the Spencers among us need to ensure that their actions dont become wind in the sails of hatred.

Scott.Martelle@LATimes.com

Follow my posts and re-tweets at @smartelle on Twitter
Once more, a Los Angeles City Council committee will have an opportunity to jump-start a smart affordable housing development in Boyle Heights. On Tuesday afternoon, the councils Planning and Land Use Management committee will discuss the Lorena Plaza development at the corner of East 1st and Lorena streets. The matter was continued from last week. Hopefully, today, the committee will let this development launch.

This is a badly needed project in a city with a dearth of affordable housing. The development, which would sit just west of the El Mercado shopping center, would have 49 residential units  half going to low-income veterans and families and the rest to homeless people in the form of housing with services. The well-designed development would also have 10,000 square feet of commercial space.

The homeless population has risen 20% since last year to more than 34,000; we obviously need a lot of housing across the city. Last November, city voters made it clear that they want that. They approved Proposition HHH bond money that will finance as many as 10,000 units of permanent supportive housing for homeless people across the city over the course of a decade.

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This particular project has the blessing of the Boyle Heights Neighborhood Council, the L.A. City Planning Department, and the L.A. Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which owns the land. A highly regarded nonprofit developer, A Community of Friends, was chosen by Metro to be the developer. Since then, Dora Gallo, the chief executive of A Community of Friends, has changed the design to respond to concerns of the El Mercado owners and the suggestions of neighborhood residents.

City planning department professionals approved the developers environmental analysis, but the El Mercado owners have appealed it, saying the developers should go through a full environmental impact review. This is little more than a ploy to kill the project.

Even this modest amount of housing for the homeless has drawn some neighborhood opposition. This project needs strong, smart advocates for the homeless and political leaders to show residents that there is little reason to fear a well-designed, well-run housing development coming into the neighborhood to fill a vacant lot across one street from a cemetery and another street from a Pizza Hut.

On Tuesday, Councilman Jose Huizar, who represents this area and also chairs the Planning and Land Use Management Committee, has an opportunity to lead here and push this project along. Thats what he and his fellow council members should do. They should deny the appeal that will further delay the project and finally let it proceed.

carla.hall@latimes.com

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook
To the editor: What happened in Charlottesville, Va., this weekend was horrific, no doubt about it. The white supremacists protest and the killing of a counter-demonstrator were senseless acts of hate.

However, I do not agree with those who want to rewrite history by removing monuments like the one of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville. (After violence in Charlottesville, cities rush to take down monuments as white supremacists gear up to fight, Aug. 14)

Yes, slavery was evil and very wrong, but it is part of our history and it cannot be denied. These monuments are reminders of what can never happen again. They are a reminder of how far we as country have come.

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Marylane Graham, Costa Mesa

..

To the editor: Like many Americans, I have a family connection with a soldier of the Civil War. He fought with a Pennsylvania regiment. Like many thousands each year, I once visited Gettysburg, Pa., to search for his name. He was a private by all accounts.

At Gettysburg, there are also Confederate monuments that list some of the names of soldiers who fought and died there.

I was particularly saddened to see a picture recently of a monument in Georgia depicting an angel standing over a Confederate soldier being defaced. It is my hope that the same angel, unmarred, stands guard over my Union ancestor and the graves of all people who fought and died in the Civil War.

We should all cool down and heed the better angels of our nature.

David Strauss, Arcadia

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook
To the editor: Kudos to The Times for devoting editorial space to the vexing problem of unaffordable traffic tickets in our state. But the emphasis on how this affects only poorer people ignores the fact that it also impacts the middle class as well. (Relief from the high cost of traffic tickets  for some Californians, at least, editorial, Aug. 11)

To get a $500 ticket for a minor violation is a lot of money for anyone but the wealthy.

The common-sense simple solution is found at the end of the editorial. Instead of Band-Aids like community service or paying fines in installments, stop all the ridiculous add-ons to these tickets for completely unrelated programs. These surcharges can cause a $100 infraction to balloon to $500.

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When a $100 ticket remains a $100 ticket, we wont have 4 million people driving with suspended licenses.

Robert Newman, West Hills

..

To the editor: The Times hits the nail on the head regarding bloated traffic fines that support disparate pet causes usually unrelated to traffic issues.

I have complained to my state legislators about this for more than 30 years; the typical response is that my opinion will be considered when budget issues are discussed. Clearly, my opinion means nothing.

It is good that the Solano County Superior Court settled a lawsuit to allow drivers of limited means to pay reduced fines or perform community service. However, the proposal to make traffic offenses civil matters instead of a criminal ones is not the answer.

In criminal cases, the standard of proof is beyond a reasonable doubt. In civil cases, the standard is a preponderance of the evidence. Changing from criminal to civil would make it far easier to convict the accused.

Jim Rueff, Fountain Valley

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook
Racism is evil and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists.

Now, was that so hard to say? Apparently for Donald Trump it was, at least in his initial statement about the deadly confrontation between right-wing groups and counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Va., on Saturday. The president read the statement above from a teleprompter on Monday, but those words had an emphasis that was distinctly different from his first official, partly improvised reaction. In that, he condemned this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides.

Exactly which were those many sides that he felt compelled to emphasize twice? On one side were the neo-Nazis, white supremacists and various other supporters of right-wing extremism. They had come by the hundreds to Charlottesville to rally against the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. Friday night, they marched through the campus of the University of Virginia carrying tiki torches that made them look as ludicrous as they were threatening. On Saturday, they rallied near the statue, armed for battle, waving Confederate and Nazi flags and pro-Trump signs, eager to assert their belief that the United States should be a whites-only nation with no room for Jews, blacks, Latinos or anyone else who does not fit into their definition of a Europe-rooted superior race.

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1 / 51 la-1491523602-y7ephyarj1-snap-image (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 51 la-1491368625-0bgh58ihw8-snap-image (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los angeles Times) 6 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 7 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 8 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 9 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 10 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 11 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 12 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 13 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 14 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 15 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 16 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 17 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 18 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 19 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 20 / 51 Trump inspires millions to take to the streets -- to oppose him. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 21 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 22 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 23 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 24 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 25 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 26 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 27 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 28 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 29 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 30 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 31 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 32 / 51 Cartoon caption contest winner at the DENT conference in Sun Valley, Idaho: Jon Duval, executive director of the Ketchum Community Development Corporation. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 33 / 51 Old radicals and big media descend on Selma (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 34 / 51 Horsey imagined the creation of the Ann Coulter phenomenon in this cartoon from 2007. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 35 / 51 This David Horsey drawing is a reconfiguration of a cartoon he first published in 2006. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 36 / 51 Donald Sterling, owner of the L.A. Clippers, should give Cliven Bundy a call. After Sterling loses his NBA franchise and the deadbeat Nevada rancher loses his cattle, the two old racists will both need a buddy. Maybe they can team up together and open an all-white rodeo. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 37 / 51 Besides sending a chill up the spine of the international community, Vladimir Putin has accomplished one other thing by seizing Crimea and threatening the rest of Ukraine: Putin has brought back the bear. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 38 / 51 The right-wing insurrection at the Bundy ranch in Bunkerville, Nev., has taken another weird turn with new revelations about the family history of Cliven Bundy. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 39 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 40 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 41 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 42 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 43 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 44 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 45 / 51 David Horsey / Los Angeles Times (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 46 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 47 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 48 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 49 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 50 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 51 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)

On the other side there were clergy, civil rights supporters, students and Black Lives Matter activists. Were they one of the many sides that the president believes displayed hatred, bigotry and violence?

To be sure, scattered among the counter-protesters was a cadre of young anarchists, the type who have fouled up many peaceful marches for progressive causes, as well as self-proclaimed anti-fascist activists who came ready to rumble. Their penchant for physical confrontation deserves criticism, but their greatest fault is in providing a perfect foil for the right-wing extremists who desperately need someone to provoke so they can shed their feelings of impotence and pretend they are fighting for a great cause.

Yet, as misguided as the aggressive tactics of the anti-fascists may be, ultimately there was just one side, not many sides, that showed up in Charlottesville to preach bigotry and other sick ideas that should have been left behind in the last century. That side is filled with losers, loons and oddballs with an ignorant, distorted understanding of history, but that does not mean they are insignificant. Just as the Internet has provided a convenient means of recruitment and indoctrination for terrorist groups like Islamic State, so, too, has social media opened a welcoming space for right-wing crackpots to find each other, organize, spread propaganda and magnify their power beyond their small numbers.

And there is no question that they are dangerous. One militant right-winger, Timothy McVeigh, blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 innocent Americans and injuring 500 others. On Friday, a 23-year-old admirer of McVeigh named Jerry Drake Varnell was arrested in an FBI sting after he allegedly attempted to blow up an Oklahoma City bank as an expression of his hatred for the federal government. And, on Saturday, one of the participants in the so-called Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, 20-year-old James Alex Fields Jr., was charged with driving a Dodge Charger into a group of counter-protesters, injuring a score of people and killing 32-year-old woman, Heather D. Heyer.

Such home-grown terrorism stretches back 150 years to the first anti-black depredations of the Ku Klux Klan following the defeat of the Confederacy. In recent years, that violence sharply diminished as overtly racist ideas were banished to a few dark and dank corners of the country, but it has never gone away. Now, the ideas that justified the terrorism are resurgent, enabled by the caustic, conspiracy-mongering rhetoric in conservative media and encouraged by the election of a president who the extremists believe is sympathetic to their concerns.

Trump has done a poor job of dissuading them from that perception.

If the president has any interest in learning what an eloquent response to Charlottesville sounds like, I recommend to him the statement issued by a friend of mine, Ana Mari Cauce, the president of the University of Washington. Forty years ago, her 25-year-old activist brother, Cesar Cauce, was killed in a confrontation with members of the KKK and the American Nazi Party in Greensboro, N.C.

I recall a late-night conversation with my brother, in which he talked about the struggle, Cauce said in her letter to the university community on Monday. He did not view justice as an endpoint, or a goal with a clear finish line. Justice, he said, was a constant work in progress. You pushed the boulder up the hill, it would slide back, and you would have to push again. You needed to stay vigilant.

We are at a time in our countrys history where we must put our shoulder to that boulder, for it is sliding back down with a momentum many of us thought was impossible in this day and age. We must recommit to equity and inclusion  for all. But even in our grief and anger, it is important to remember the words of Martin Luther King, Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.

At least this president  President Cauce  got it right the first time on Charlottesville.

David.Horsey@latimes.com

Follow me at @davidhorsey on Twitter

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May you die in pain: California GOP congressman gets an earful at town hall

Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale) kicks off his Monday morning town hall in Chico. (Phil Willon / Los Angeles Times)

May you die in pain.

That was the nastiest moment of Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfas early morning town hall in the Northern California town of Chico on Monday.

The wish was uttered by an older man who criticized LaMalfa for voting for the House GOP plan to replace the Affordable Care Act. He was also holding a pink sign that read Lackey for the Rich!

ALSO: LaMalfa says the Russia investigation is a bunch of crap

The open hostility and intransigence inside the Chico Elks Lodge came as the political divide in the country has grown more inflamed, with Trumps election unleashing a wave of both liberal activism and conservative empowerment.

As a result, Washingtons deeply partisan fights over issues such as health care, immigration and environmental protections have followed members of Congress home, turning once sedate town halls into in-your-face venting sessions that in left-leaning California have Republican House members on the defensive.

LaMalfa stood his ground on stage as person after person ripped into him for his votes and positions on healthcare and climate change, as well as for his unyielding support for President Trump.

A few speakers asked LaMalfa to resign, including one dressed up as the Wicked Witch of the West Coast.

Heather Calun dressed up as the Wicked Witch of the West Coast in protest. She wants LaMalfa to resign over his vote to repeal Obamacare. pic.twitter.com/rBZXAnjd2l  Phil Willon (@philwillon) August 7, 2017

Most comments and questions during the hour-long town hall were fairly cordial, although they were laced with plenty of boos and catcalls.

Norma Wilcox, a retired nurse who lives in Chico, also questioned LaMalfas healthcare vote. Wilcox told LaMalfa the House plan would take away healthcare for millions of Americans while providing tax breaks to the rich.

I am open to new ideas, LaMalfa told her, describing the House GOP bill as a placeholder that everyone expected to be improved during negotiations with the Senate. (The Senates healthcare efforts now appear dead.)

But the Richvale congressman, who represents Californias massive 1st Congressional District in the northeast corner of the state, said he will support only a new healthcare program that provides affordable coverage to middle-class Americans.

LaMalfa said Obamacare is quickly become unaffordable and unsustainable, with premium costs rising and the number of insurance companies offering coverage declining.

People across the board are being hurt by this, LaMalfa said.

When shouts and boos rained down on him, he chastised the crowd saying, I have the mic folks. Yep, boo away.

Ann Sisney of Chico told LaMalfa that her son, William, died of an opioid overdose two years ago. She held up a picture of the 19-year-old, asked the congressman to take it, and told him more people will die if GOP leadership in Congress gets its way on healthcare.

These are life-and-death decisions that you are making, Sisney told him.

LaMalfa assured her that Congress was working to find funds to address the nationwide opioid epidemic.

The Republican congressman also raised the ire of the crowd when he was asked about climate change and the degraded air quality in this stretch of Northern California.

I dont buy the idea that man-made activity is responsible, LaMalfa said bluntly.

The crowd of several hundred did include some LaMalfa supporters, though most stayed silent.

Ron Jones, 67, of Paradise said hes been to a few of LaMalfas town halls and all have been dominated by his critics.

Most of the time people want to ... complain, said Jones, a self-described conservative, after the event ended. The people who support him are quietly in the background.

LaMalfa does indeed have a lot of support in the district that also overwhelmingly voted for Trump over Hillary Clinton in last years presidential election. LaMalfa won his last election by almost 15%, and though he has attracted a few Democratic challengers, the district is not considered a battleground for 2018.

Unlike many California Republican members of Congress, LaMalfa hasnt shied away from holding town halls, though its rarely a pleasant experience for him. He held one in Nevada City in March and another in April in Oroville. No other California Republicans are scheduled to hold town halls during their August recess.

Near the end of Mondays town hall, a woman criticized LaMalfa for inviting only Christian pastors to provide invocations at his town halls and other events, and urged him to include religious leaders of all faiths.

If you want to have your own town hall, you can invite whoever you like, LaMalfa told her.
President Trumps preferred candidate in the Alabama Senate primary Tuesday faces an uphill battle in a contest that could set the tone for other Republican Party skirmishes ahead of the 2018 midterm election.

Trump endorsed Sen. Luther Strange, who should have had an easy lock on a seat he took over when Jeff Sessions, the states longtime senator, resigned to become the Trump administrations attorney general.

But the race has become an early test of Trumps power to persuade his most dedicated supporters. Trumps approval rating remains sky-high in Alabama, but that enthusiasm has not spilled over to Strange, who is also favored by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

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Strange is trailing fiery former judge Roy Moore, according to recent polling.

The outcome could foreshadow a deepening feud between the GOPs base voters and party leaders in the months to come.

Some voters will surely be inspired by Trumps endorsement of Strange. But others still have doubts about how Strange was appointed to replace Sessions and his ties to McConnell and other Republican leaders, who have grown increasingly unpopular among many in the base.

Theyre confused, said Terry Lathan, chairwoman of the Alabama Republican Party.

With no candidate likely to emerge with a majority from a field that started with 10 Republicans, the top two vote-getters are expected to compete in a runoff in September.

More troubling for Big Luther, as the towering 6-foot-9 Strange is known locally, is that Moore has held steady in polls and would be a formidable opponent if the two faced off next month.

Moore is a colorful and well-known figure in Alabama, the former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court who was removed for refusing to get rid of a Ten Commandments display. He was later reinstated by voters only to be suspended after not conforming with the U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding same-sex marriage.

Despite such setbacks, Moore at times seems more Trump-like in his outspokenness and popular support than Strange, the candidate Trump has supported through tweets and a robo-call.

Luther has a tough battle on his hands, said Brent Buchanan, president of Cygnal consulting in Alabama, which is not working with any of the candidates. You have to tear down Moore, but nobodys every figured out the effective formula to do that.

Democrats see almost zero chance to make inroads in Alabama, which has remained a Republican stronghold, though strategists in Washington are keeping tabs on developments.

But more telling will be the outcome for Republicans, who are facing several spirited primary campaigns leading up to a midterm election they once hoped would put Democrats on defense.

Two Republicans, Sens. Dean Heller in Nevada and Jeff Flake in Arizona, have long been known to be heading toward tough reelections in 2018. But now both are expected to face noisy primary campaigns with challengers from their right flank, testing their loyalty to Trump and to conservative issues.

As money has poured in for Strange, including $4 million from McConnells aligned Senate Leadership Fund, the message being sent to challengers is that the official channels in Washington are sticking with the incumbent.

The group has been pounding the airwaves with ads critical of Moore, as well as another candidate in the race, Rep. Mo Brooks, hoping to ensure Strange can at least make the runoff.

A National Republican Senatorial Committee affiliate poured in $200,000 for Strange on Monday.

Sen. Luther Strange has done a great job representing the people of the Great State of Alabama. He has my complete and total endorsement! Trump tweeted last week. He followed up with another tweet Monday.

Voters, though, have had other ideas. Some are skeptical of Strange because of the way he was appointed to the job. As the states former attorney general, he was selected by a governor who was facing investigation and impeachment proceedings for possible wrongdoing related to a reported affair. He has since resigned.

Others are still inspired by Moore for his strong stands, particularly on social issues.

Brooks also retains a strong following as a conservative member of the House Freedom Caucus who was initially critical of Trump as a candidate, preferring Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. He has been criss-crossing the state on a Drain the Swap bus tour.

Stranges backers are counting on Trumps tweets of support to push him to the runoff, and ultimately to election.

It showed that the president is willing to engage in the Senate races and spend some of his political capital to achieve the outcome he wants, said Steven Law, a former McConnell aide now running the Senate Leadership Fund. That suggests he will take seriously his power and potential to impact the 2018 elections.

lisa.mascaro@latimes.com

@LisaMascaro

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President Trumps most useful ally in his push to restore the dominance of coal, oil and gas in America could ultimately turn out to be a pair of bankrupt solar firms seeking help from the federal government getting back on their feet.

In an unorthodox trade case roiling the solar industry worldwide, the duo of distressed panel makers is aiming to empower Trump with the authority to slap punishing tariffs on foreign competitors  mostly in China and other Asian countries  whose cheap panels have fueled the massive growth in U.S. solar installations.



For the record: This article refers to Oregon-based SolarWorld as being bankrupt. SolarWorldAG is in bankruptcy in Germany. Its American subsidiary, SolarWorld Americas, is not bankrupt.

The fallout from the case that was heard Tuesday by the U.S. International Trade Commission threatens to destabilize the massive network of installers and other nonmanufacturing businesses that make up the bulk of the American solar industry. Nearly 90% of the panels it uses are produced abroad.

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Prices of panels would roughly double should the two U.S. manufacturers get the relief they are seeking, several independent analysts warn. Some 88,000 installation and other jobs in the U.S. solar electricity sector  one in every three  would vanish, according to the Solar Energy Industries Assn. California, with its robust solar industry, would lose the most by far.

The consequences for green power in the U.S. would be so serious that even conservative think tanks that have been tangling with the solar industry for years are speaking up on its behalf, warning Trump against imposing the sanctions. They are joined by big electricity companies that have had their own misgivings about the expansion of solar, as well as some of the nations biggest retailers and dozens of members of Congress.

But solar companies are bracing for the worst. Independent analysts tracking the industry are warning that Trump, who would be the ultimate decision maker on tariffs should the commission rule the bankrupt firms have been unfairly hurt, could easily pull the trigger on heavily taxing imported panels. It would be a rare opportunity for Trump to use his executive authority to punish the imports that a flagging segment of U.S. manufacturing blames for its troubles. The move would drive up the price of solar, enabling fossil fuel companies to recapture lost market share.

At a Washington hearing room packed with solar activists Tuesday, officials from Georgia-based Suniva and Oregon-based SolarWorld, the two bankrupt solar firms seeking relief, riled many of those present by arguing the levies are essential to the survival of solar manufacturing in America. The U.S. is literally strewn with the carcasses of shuttered solar manufacturing companies, said Suniva attorney Matthew McConkey. He said American companies that design and produce photovoltaic panels are on the precipice of extinction in the U.S. amid the crush of cheap imports flooding the market and need the administration to intervene. Prices of foreign solar panels have dropped to as low as 35 cents per watt recently. The complaint seeks to force them up to 78 cents to protect American manufacturers.

Suniva filed its case under a rarely exercised provision of trade law called Section 201, which enables the president to broadly impose tariffs if the commission finds such a drastic move is needed to protect an American industry from a deluge of foreign imports. It hasnt been exercised since 2001, when George W. Bush invoked it in an effort to protect the U.S. steel industry from Mexican and Canadian imports. The move sparked retaliation, and the World Trade Organization ultimately voided the steel levies two years later.

Only a fraction of U.S. solar jobs are in companies like Suniva and SolarWorld. Most are in other sectors of the market that have embraced the plunging cost of imported panels. A spike in those prices threatens to slow growth dramatically.

It is hard to think of a free trade issue that is more fundamental or more clearly shows the benefits of free trade and the enormous cost to the economy and consumers of heavy tariffs, said Eli Lehrer, president of the R Street Institute, a free market think tank. His group has joined the conservative advocacy groups American Legislative Exchange Council and Heritage Foundation  both longtime irritants of the solar industry  in lobbying to protect it from the kind of levies threatened.

The White House has so far stayed silent about the case as it winds its way through the commission, which will decide by late September whether action is warranted. But Trump has been expressing interest in exercising the power to impose protectionist levies using this obscure provision of trade law since before his election. A trade agenda the administration presented to Congress in March calls it a vital tool.

Trump has not often been swayed by the kind of bipartisan pressure he now faces to reject such tariffs. He did not heed a similar lobbying campaign to stay in the Paris agreement on global warming. Independent analysts at Bloomberg New Energy Finance and Clearview Energy Partners warned investors to be prepared for a costly unsettling of the solar supply chain. Goldman Sachs alerted investors that it expects solar installations would fall precipitously in the U.S. if Trump imposes the tariffs Suniva and SolarWorld are demanding.

Whether the tariffs would even help the firms seeking them is a matter of debate. Suniva cast doubt on how much faith the solar company has in the case to save its business when one of its biggest creditors offered to make the whole thing go away for some cash. That creditor, SQN Capital Management, wrote a Chinese solar trade group, offering to pull the plug on the case  which SQN is bankrolling  if the Chinese group would buy $55 million in Suniva equipment SQN got stuck with in the bankruptcy.

SQN is not the only Suniva affiliate to cast a shadow over the trade complaint. The firm that owns 64% of Suniva is actually located in China  one of the main targets of the trade case. That firm, Shunfeng, has declared the case bad for the solar industry.

Many solar executives back in California agree.

This would significantly shrink the size of the market and directly impact the number of people employed in our value chain, said Tom Werner, chief executive of the large solar firm SunPower. His California-based company employs 1,000 people directly and works with a dealer network that includes 12,000 solar installers. He is bracing for the market to drop by as much as 60% if the levies being sought are imposed. Werner said he would have to cut his costs proportionately.

Also deeply anxious about the case is the Los Angeles chapter of the National Electrical Contracting Assn., which represents firms employing more than 1,000 solar installers in the region. These are good middle class jobs, the association wrote in a letter opposing the levies. This proposed tariff would make America the highest priced solar country and decimate the market.

Yet other veterans of the California solar industry traveled to Washington Tuesday to warn trade commissioners that America is going to altogether cede the business of solar cell innovation to foreign competitors if the few homegrown companies left are not protected.

Among them was Stephen Shea, who had been the vice president of a company called Beamreach Solar, which only recently had invested millions in a factory in Milpitas, Calif., to manufacture new generation solar cells. In January, Beamreach went bankrupt. It couldnt compete with cheap imports.

Im convinced that without relief, the few remaining U.S. producers will go the way of Beamreach, Shea said.

evan.halper@latimes.com

Follow me: @evanhalper

UPDATES:

4:50 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details about solar panel prices and markets.

This article was originally published at 2:55 p.m.
Wading into a roomful of California tea party members over the weekend, the two most prominent Republicans running for California governor professed their reverence for President Trump.

It was a must-do if they want to win over the highly charged conservative activists who favor Trump. The tea partys rising influence in the state Republican Party makes its members votes essential for any candidate hoping to coalesce enough GOP support to make it to the November 2018 general election. A USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll released in 2015 found that 48% of Republicans in California supported the tea party movement to some degree.

So Huntington Beach Assemblyman Travis Allen and Rancho Santa Fe businessman John Cox on Saturday worked feverishly to prove their pro-Trump credentials.

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I support Trump 100%. Im happy hes elected, Cox assured about 120 members at the Tea Party California Caucus conference, dubbed The Real Resistance, at a hotel near the Fresno airport Saturday.

Allen one-upped Cox when the stood at the podium about 90 minutes later: Theres only one candidate for governor who actually supported the Republican nominee for president, and his name is Travis Allen.

Still, both candidates had some explaining to do.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Travis Allen, right, poses for a photo with Gina Roberts, president of the Log Cabin Republicans of San Diego, at the Fresno conference. (Silvia Flores / For The TImes)

In 2012, Allen crisscrossed the country campaigning for GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who has been one of Trumps most vociferous critics. In Novembers presidential election, Cox voted for Libertarian Gary Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico. Cox also is a member of the New Majority, a group founded primarily by Orange County executives to nudge the state party away from social conservatives and their emphasis on issues such as gun rights.

Out of earshot of conference-goers, the Los Angeles Times also asked both Allen and Cox if they considered themselves tea party members. Both sidestepped the question.

I just consider myself a common-sense Californian, Allen said.

Cox said he was campaigning across the spectrum of the Republican Party, including the gay group Log Cabin Republicans: Im out to unify all Republicans. I am at heart a fiscal conservative.

From the outset of their young campaigns, Allen and Cox have faced a seemingly insurmountable challenge. Not only are they up against three well-known, well-funded Democratic heavyweights  Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and state Treasurer John Chiang  but theyre also running in a state where Democrats hold a 19-percentage-point advantage over Republicans in voter registration and where Hillary Clinton trounced Trump by 30 points last November.

Along with Cox and Allen, little-known GOP candidate for governor Stasyi Barth of Lake Elsinore was also on hand at the Fresno event. Barth, who had a table at the conference but did not have a speaking slot, pushed back on Allens pronouncement that he was the only Republican candidate for governor to vote for Trump. Not only did Barth vote for Trump, shes a tea party member, she said.

Barth yelled above the din as members starting drifting out, telling everyone that she has been a proud, longtime tea party member and was a Trump supporter from the beginning.

If the Democratic vote splinters, the states Republicans could provide enough votes for one of the GOP candidates to finish in the top two of the June primary. In California, the two candidates who receive the most votes in the primary advance to the general election, regardless of their party affiliation.

As the California Republican Party has weathered steady declines, the tea partys influence in the state GOP has appeared to grow across the state, especially in the Central Valley and Californias northern reaches. But it still doesnt have anywhere near the numbers to get an ideologically pure conservative elected as governor, U.S. senator or any other statewide post.

Its a faction of a faction right now, said UC San Diego political scientist Gary Jacobson. Its hard to imagine that a party aligned with the tea party will be able to expand its reach.

But the conference was designed to do exactly that. Caucus chairman Randall Jordan, a general contractor from Paso Robles, urged members to run for local office, county Republican central committees or become a state party delegate.

We have to take back the Republican Party. Theyre imploding, said Randall Jordan, who also serves as chairman of the San Luis Obispo County GOP Central Committee. I know how terrible our Republican Party is here . Its a good ol boy club. Its run by big money.

The loosely affiliated, national tea party movement was born after President Obama was sworn in to office in 2009, fueled in part by outrage over the Affordable Care Act and the mounting federal deficit. In California, it has evolved into a network of chapters up and down the state.

To the north, tea party members have joined in the State of Jefferson movement made up of activists who feel ignored and mistreated by state government and want Northern California counties to break away into a separate state. To the south in the Inland Empire, tea party protesters in 2014 blocked buses filled with immigrants and their children bound for a U.S. immigration facility in Murrieta.

California tea party members still burn with mistrust of and animosity for the Republican Party establishment, which they feel must be purged for abandoning core conservative ideals. Among their top targets over the weekend: the GOP-led Congress that failed to repeal Obamacare and a cadre of state Republican legislators who joined with Democrats to extend Californias cap-and-trade environmental program.

The only thing salving that political animosity was the election of Trump, praised as a long-awaited savior after eight years with Obama.

I believe [that] with Donald Trump God gave us another opportunity to save this country, Ken Campbell, a retired dentist from Lincoln, said before delivering the opening prayer for the conference.

phil.willon@latimes.com

Twitter: @philwillon

Updates on California politics
Trump promotes sons Justice with Judge Jeanine interview President Trump promoted via Twitter an interview with his son Eric Trump just before it aired Saturday night on Fox News Justice with Judge Jeanine. Eric Trump on @JudgeJeanine on @FoxNews now!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 21, 2018 Eric Trump called into the show to defend his father from criticism prompted by the first government shutdown in more than four years, as well as a series of Womens March events that saw protesters in dozens of cities take to the streets to oppose the presidents policies. .@EricTrump joined me over the phone from Mar-a-Lago ! pic.twitter.com/Hro3TzUW52  Jeanine Pirro (@JudgeJeanine) January 21, 2018 Speaking to host Jeannine Piro  who is reportedly an old friend of the presidents  Eric Trump offered effusive praise for his father, ticking off glowing statistics to illustrate the strength of the U.S. economy and gains against Islamic State fighters overseas. My fathers working like no ones ever worked before to bring back this country and to fulfill his promise to make America great again, said the executive vice president of the Trump Organization. He also repeated a sentiment recently expressed on Twitter by his father: That Democratic lawmakers forced a government shutdown on the anniversary of the presidents inauguration in a bid to distract from his achievements. You look at this whole government shutdown, and the only reason they want to shut down government is to distract and to stop his momentum, Eric Trump said. I mean, my father has had incredible momentum. Hes gotten more done in one year than arguably any president in history. Facebook

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Trump tweets: a perfect day for all Women to March President Trump hailed the nationwide Womens March gatherings Saturday. On Twitter, the president called it a perfect day for all Women to March, seeming to imply that those taking part were celebrating his administrations accomplishments: Beautiful weather all over our great country, a perfect day for all Women to March. Get out there now to celebrate the historic milestones and unprecedented economic success and wealth creation that has taken place over the last 12 months. Lowest female unemployment in 18 years!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018 Participants in the marches across the United States were actually seeking to deliver a powerful rebuke to Trumps policies and mount a crucial mobilization for this years midterm elections. But Trump continued to tout his administrations unprecedented success in tweets sent later in the day: Unprecedented success for our Country, in so many ways, since the Election. Record Stock Market, Strong on Military, Crime, Borders, & ISIS, Judicial Strength & Numbers, Lowest Unemployment for Women & ALL, Massive Tax Cuts, end of Individual Mandate - and so much more. Big 2018!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018 The Trump Administration has terminated more UNNECESSARY Regulation, in just twelve months, than any other Administration has terminated during their full term in office, no matter what the length. The good news is, THERE IS MUCH MORE TO COME!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 21, 2018 In addition to the roll call of major American cities where womens marches took place  including New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Dallas, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta  protesters also raised their voices in suburbs and small towns, reflecting the aim of coalescing a broad-based movement on the anniversary of Trumps inauguration to oppose the presidents stance on immigration, healthcare, racial divides and an array of other issues. Read More This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Laura King. Facebook

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Trump calls shutdown a present from Democrats By Associated Press President Trump is blaming Democrats for the government shutdown  tweeting that they wanted to give him a nice present to mark the one-year anniversary of his inauguration: This is the One Year Anniversary of my Presidency and the Democrats wanted to give me a nice present. #DemocratShutdown  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018 That comes after Senate Democrats late Friday killed a GOP-written House-passed measure that would have kept agencies functioning for four weeks. Democrats were seeking a stopgap bill of just a few days in hopes that would build pressure on Republicans, and they were opposing a three-week alternative offered by GOP leaders. Democrats have insisted they would back legislation reopening the government once theres a bipartisan agreement to preserve protections against deporting about 700,000 immigrants  known as Dreamers  who arrived in the United States illegally as children. Trump on Saturday accused Democrats of holding our Military hostage over their desire to have unchecked illegal immigration: Democrats are holding our Military hostage over their desire to have unchecked illegal immigration. Cant let that happen!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018 Democrats are laying fault for the shutdown on Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress and the White House and have struggled with building internal consensus. In a series of tweets hours after the shutdown began, the president tried to make the case for Americans to elect more Republicans to Congress in November in order to power through this mess: Democrats are far more concerned with Illegal Immigrants than they are with our great Military or Safety at our dangerous Southern Border. They could have easily made a deal but decided to play Shutdown politics instead. #WeNeedMoreRepublicansIn18 in order to power through mess!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018 He noted that there are 51 Republicans in the 100-member Senate, and it often takes 60 votes to advance legislation: For those asking, the Republicans only have 51 votes in the Senate, and they need 60. That is why we need to win more Republicans in 2018 Election! We can then be even tougher on Crime (and Border), and even better to our Military & Veterans!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018 #AMERICA FIRST!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018 The stopgap spending measure won 50 votes in the Senate, including five from Democrats. Although the House and Senate were in session Saturday, it was unclear whether lawmakers would take any votes of consequence. Trump had been set to leave Friday afternoon for a fundraiser at his estate in Palm Beach, Fla., where he intended to mark the inauguration anniversary. But he remained in Washington and ended up scrapping his plans to attend the Saturday fundraiser. Read More Facebook

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Trump tweet casts doubt on likelihood of averting shutdown President Trump appeared to cast doubt on the likelihood of reaching a deal to avert a government shutdown Friday night in a tweet. Trump also sought to blame Democrats for what would be the first shutdown since 2013. His message came just hours before the midnight deadline by which lawmakers must pass a measure to fund government agencies, or some operations will cease. Not looking good for our great Military or Safety & Security on the very dangerous Southern Border. Dems want a Shutdown in order to help diminish the great success of the Tax Cuts, and what they are doing for our booming economy.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018 Despite last-minute negotiations Friday between Trump and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, Congress remained deadlocked over a spending bill and the federal government was headed toward a shutdown at midnight. Senate Democrats  joined by some GOP deficit hawks and immigration allies  were set to filibuster a stopgap funding bill approved by the House on Thursday. A Senate vote was planned for 10 p.m. Eastern, and even White House officials predicted it would fail. Read More This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Lisa Mascaro. Facebook

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Trump signs surveillance law after confusing tweets By Associated Press President Trump on Friday signed a bill into law to renew a foreign intelligence surveillance program, announcing his action in the latest in a series of confusing tweets about the spy program: Just signed 702 Bill to reauthorize foreign intelligence collection. This is NOT the same FISA law that was so wrongly abused during the election. I will always do the right thing for our country and put the safety of the American people first!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 19, 2018 Trumps tweet on Jan. 11 created chaos in the House just before it voted to reauthorize what is known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. He linked the intelligence program to a dossier that alleges his presidential campaign had ties to Russia. That caused people to wonder if he didnt support the program that allows U.S. spy agencies to collect intelligence on foreign targets abroad. Trump and other Republicans have alleged that Obama administration officials improperly shared the identities of Trump presidential transition team members mentioned in intelligence reports. Democrats say there is no evidence that happened. Shortly before the House vote, and after conferring with House Speaker Paul Ryan, Trump did an apparent about-face. This vote is about foreign surveillance of foreign bad guys on foreign land, he tweeted. We need it! Get smart! In his tweet announcing that he had just signed the bill, Trump wrote: This is NOT the same FISA law that was so wrongly abused during the election. I will always do the right thing for our country and put the safety of the American people first! There are no obvious links between the dossier Trump spoke of, which includes salacious but unsubstantiated allegations against him, and the reauthorization of the spying program, or between the program and Trumps oft-repeated claims that the Obama administration conducted surveillance on Trump Tower during the presidential campaign. Facebook

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In tweet, Trump suggests that Pennsylvania trip is a political one The White House press office was once again forced to walk back a tweet from President Trump on Thursday morning after he described a trip to Pennsylvania later in the day as a political one  a statement that would force the Republican Party, not taxpayers, to pay for the journey. The White House had said Trump was going to an industrial equipment company outside of Pittsburgh to highlight the good economy and new tax cuts, making it an official, policy-oriented event. It was widely assumed that the trip had a political cast  the area is holding a special election to fill a congressional seat vacated by a Republican who resigned. Trump, by his tweet, seemed to confirm that politics was the whole purpose: Will be going to Pennsylvania today in order to give my total support to RICK SACCONE, running for Congress in a Special Election (March 13). Rick is a great guy. We need more Republicans to continue our already successful agenda!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 18, 2018 Trump later shared via Twitter a pair of video clips of his speech at H&K Equipment, in which he touted the tax cuts he signed into law just before Christmas and tried to turn the conversation back to his accomplishments after weeks dominated by distractions, including questions about his mental health and comments about immigration that some considered racist: Departing Pittsburgh now, where it was my great honor to stand with our incredible workers, and to show the world that AMERICA is back - and we are coming back bigger and better and stronger than ever before! pic.twitter.com/kWPgylqFzj  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 18, 2018 AMERICA will once again be a NATION that thinks big, dreams bigger, and always reaches for the stars. YOU are the ones who will shape Americas destiny. YOU are the ones who will restore our prosperity. And YOU are the ones who are MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! #MAGA pic.twitter.com/f2abNK47II  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 18, 2018 The Republican National Committee, rather than the White House, is supposed to pay for political travel so that taxpayers are not financing party activities; for trips that combine policy and politics, parties have split the cost under past presidents. Neither the RNC nor the White House responded to emails sent Thursday asking who would pay. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders released a statement later Thursday suggesting that taxpayers would foot the bill. She insisted that Trump would be conducting government business while in Pennsylvania. Read More This post contains reporting from the Associated Press and Times staff writer Noah Bierman. Facebook

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Trump tweets praise of Bob Dole after awarding him Congressional Gold Medal By Associated Press Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole knew the art of the deal before President Trump published the 1987 book of the same name. The two shared a stage under the Capitol dome Wednesday as Dole, 94, accepted Congress highest civilian honor, the Congressional Gold Medal, for his World War II service and decades of work in the House and Senate. Trump later praised Dole in a tweet, attaching to his message a video composed of clips from the ceremony: Today, we witnessed an incredible moment in history  the presentation of Congress highest civilian honor to our friend, and true AMERICAN HERO, Bob Dole. #CongressionalGoldMedal pic.twitter.com/qNQqDLRmCk  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 17, 2018 At the ceremony, the president saluted Dole as a patriot and gave tribute to Doles struggle as a veteran who worked his way back from a grievous shoulder wound he suffered in Italy. He knows about grit, said Trump. But it was Doles penchant for working across the aisle that earned him his latest award, according to the legislation. Bob Dole was known for his ability to work across the aisle and embrace practical bipartisanship, reads the legislation Trump signed in September. Some of the awards 300 recipients include George Washington and Mother Teresa, according to the Congressional Research Service. Read More Facebook

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Trump touts report that seeks to link terrorism cases with immigration By Joseph Tanfani The Trump administration on Tuesday released a report attempting to link terrorism with migration, arguing that it was evidence of the need to dramatically reshape the nations immigration system. New report from DOJ & DHS shows that nearly 3 in 4 individuals convicted of terrorism-related charges are foreign-born. We have submitted to Congress a list of resources and reforms....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2018 ....we need to keep America safe, including moving away from a random chain migration and lottery system, to one that is merit-based. https://t.co/7PtoSFK1n2  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2018 The report, ordered by President Trump in an executive order last year, said that 75% of the 549 people convicted of terrorism charges since 9/11 were born outside the U.S. Administration officials called that a sign that the U.S. needs to scrap its policy of family preferences for visas, which they call chain migration, and a diversity visa lottery program. But the report did not specify how many  if any  of the convicted terrorists entered the country through those means. It also did not detail how many of the convictions were related to attacks or plans in the U.S. versus overseas and how many involved people who went to fight overseas for the Islamic State or another terrorist group. Those details were not available, officials said. The report, due last year, is being released in a highly charged moment in the immigration debate, as Trump and some Republicans in Congress seek tough new border and immigration measures in return for a deal protecting the 690,000 people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Trump also fired off a pair of tweets on the topic earlier Tuesday: We must have Security at our VERY DANGEROUS SOUTHERN BORDER, and we must have a great WALL to help protect us, and to help stop the massive inflow of drugs pouring into our country!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2018 The Democrats want to shut down the Government over Amnesty for all and Border Security. The biggest loser will be our rapidly rebuilding Military, at a time we need it more than ever. We need a merit based system of immigration, and we need it now! No more dangerous Lottery.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2018 The focus of our immigration system should be assimilation, a senior administration official said on Tuesday, speaking on condition that his name not be used. He said the nation should give priority to potential immigrants who speak English, who have an education and those who are committed to supporting our values  not family members of people already here. The official said the timing of the report was coincidental. Read More Facebook

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Trump tweets welcome to president of Kazakhstan By Associated Press President Trump said Tuesday that he and the president of Kazakhstan are united in a shared determination to prevent North Korea from threatening the world with nuclear devastation. Trump and President Nursultan Nazarbayev discussed North Korea along with other issues during meetings at the White House. Today, it was my honor to welcome President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan to the @WhiteHouse! pic.twitter.com/TerYFZViax  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2018 Trump said Kazakhstan, once part of the Soviet Union, is a valued partner in our efforts to rid the Korean peninsula of nuclear weapons. Together we are determined to prevent the North Korean regime from threatening the world with nuclear devastation, he said, as both presidents addressed journalists between meetings. Nazarbayev noted that his country once had one of the worlds largest nuclear arsenals but voluntarily gave it up after the Soviet Union collapsed. He said his country is in talks with Iran, which was the focus of a global deal that lifted some economic sanctions in exchange for Irans curbing its nuclear program. Trump has sharply criticized the Iran nuclear deal and threatened last week to pull out soon unless other countries fix what he says are terrible flaws. Read More Facebook

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Trump falsely claims his approval rating among black Americans has doubled By Alex Wigglesworth President Trump lashed out at the news media Tuesday morning in a tweet denouncing the special counsel investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion among members of his campaign team. Do you notice the Fake News Mainstream Media never likes covering the great and record setting economic news, but rather talks about anything negative or that can be turned into the negative. The Russian Collusion Hoax is dead, except as it pertains to the Dems. Public gets it!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2018 It wasnt immediately clear exactly what prompted the presidents tweet, but it appeared as though he was watching Fox & Friends. A short time later, Trump tweeted a headline from a report that aired during that mornings episode: 90% of Trump 2017 news coverage was negative -and much of it contrived!@foxandfriends  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2018 The segment focused on the latest survey results from conservative watchdog Media Research Center, which purportedly analyzed the evening news broadcasts on ABC, CBS and NBC from Jan. 20 to Dec. 31 and found that 90% of the statements made about Trump were negative. Study: 90% of Trump media coverage in 2017 was negative pic.twitter.com/vbrwup4Drg  FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) January 16, 2018 But believe it or not, through all this negative coverage, they did a survey of 600,000 people about how black America views this president, co-host Brian Kilmeade said. His numbers have actually doubled in approval. Trump highlighted the statement in another tweet: Unemployment for Black Americans is the lowest ever recorded. Trump approval ratings with Black Americans has doubled. Thank you, and it will get even (much) better! @FoxNews  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2018 But its not true. The claim appears to have originated from a misreading of data from the online polling firm SurveyMonkey, according to factcheck.org. The firm polled 600,000 Americans in 2017 and found that Trumps approval rating among blacks actually dropped from 23% early in his presidency to about 17%, as of the week ending Jan. 3. Some conservative outlets, including Breitbart, produced an average from those and other SurveyMonkey figures and compared them to the scores Trump received from black voters in the 2016 exit polls. That methodology is not sound. And since the statistics measure different things, the comparison is misleading. Facebook

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Trump goes after senator who surfaced his immigration remark By Associated Press President Trump turned his Twitter torment Monday on the Democrat in the room where immigration talks with lawmakers took a famously coarse turn, saying Sen. Richard J. Durbin misrepresented what he had said about African nations and Haiti and, in the process, undermined the trust needed to make a deal. Senator Dicky Durbin totally misrepresented what was said at the DACA meeting, Trump tweeted, using a nickname to needle the Illinois senator. Deals cant get made when there is no trust! Durbin blew DACA and is hurting our Military. Senator Dicky Durbin totally misrepresented what was said at the DACA meeting. Deals cant get made when there is no trust! Durbin blew DACA and is hurting our Military.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 15, 2018 Trump was referring to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects young people who came to the United States illegally as children. Members of Congress from both parties are trying to strike a deal that Trump would support to extend that protection. Trump also cast doubt on the likelihood of reaching an agreement in tweets sent earlier Monday: Statement by me last night in Florida: Honestly, I dont think the Democrats want to make a deal. They talk about DACA, but they dont want to help..We are ready, willing and able to make a deal but they dont want to. They dont want security at the border, they dont want.....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 15, 2018 ...to stop drugs, they want to take money away from our military which we cannot do. My standard is very simple, AMERICA FIRST & MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 15, 2018 On a day of remembrance for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Trump spent time at his golf course with no public events, bypassing the acts of service that his predecessors staged in honor of the civil rights leader. Instead, Trump dedicated his weekly address to Kings memory, saying Kings dream and Americas are the same: A world where people are judged by who they are, not how they look or where they come from. That message was a distinct counterpoint to words attributed to Trump by Durbin and others at a meeting last week, when the question of where immigrants come from seemed at the forefront of Trumps concerns. Some participants and others familiar with the conversation said Trump challenged immigration from shithole countries of Africa and disparaged Haiti as well. Without explicitly denying using that word, Trump lashed out at the Democratic senator, who said Trump uttered it on several occasions. Read More Facebook

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Trump thanks pundit for laudatory Fox & Friends spot By Alex Wigglesworth President Trump thanked Fox News personality Stuart Varney after Varney praised Trump during an appearance on Fox & Friends. In a pair of tweets early Sunday, Trump quoted from Varneys commentary, in which he argued that Trump deserves more credit for the booming economy. The pundit, who also hosts a show on Fox Business Network, cited moves by some corporations to raise workers minimum wage or pay out one-time bonuses in response to the GOP tax cuts. President Trump is not getting the credit he deserves for the economy. Tax Cut bonuses to more than 2,000,000 workers. Most explosive Stock Market rally that weve seen in modern times. 18,000 to 26,000 from Election, and grounded in profitability and growth. All Trump, not 0...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 14, 2018 ...big unnecessary regulation cuts made it all possible (among many other things). President Trump reversed the policies of President Obama, and reversed our economic decline. Thank you Stuart Varney. @foxandfriends  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 14, 2018 Varney was reacting to a quote from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), who on Thursday called the bonuses handed down to workers pathetic in comparison to the gains corporations are expected to see from the tax cuts. In terms of the bonus that corporate America received versus the crumbs that they are giving to workers to kind of put the schmooze on is so pathetic, Pelosi told reporters. Its pathetic. Varney shot back Sunday that the bonuses, along with explosive stock market growth, are enriching all Americans. This is a huge shot in the arm, its the result of this tax cut deal and I think President Trump should get the credit for it, he said. .@Varneyco Sets the economic record straight after Nancy Pelosi calls U.S. mass bonuses crumbs pic.twitter.com/BvjIHGm3HE  FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) January 14, 2018 The sweeping tax plan passed last month lowers the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% and cuts personal income taxes. Analysts say the benefits will largely flow to corporations and the wealthy, as theyre more likely to be in positions to share in corporate profits. For instance, Wells Fargo & Co., which responded to news of the tax overhaul by announcing it will raise workers pay to at least $15 an hour, also reported that it expects to pay an effective tax rate of 19% this year, down from about 31% in previous years. That should amount to tax savings of more than $3 billion annually. On average, middle-class Americans are expected to see a very small tax cut in the near term and a tax increase after 2025, when all of the tax cuts for individuals expire. The tax cuts for corporations, however, are permanent.  This post contains reporting from Times staff writer James Rufus Koren. Facebook

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Trump touts MLK proclamation in tweet, but ceremony is overshadowed by reports of racist remarks By Associated Press President Trump signed a proclamation Friday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, noting the contributions of a great American hero. Today, it was my great honor to proclaim January 15, 2018, as Martin Luther King Jr., Federal Holiday. I encourage all Americans to observe this day with appropriate civic, community, and service activities in honor of Dr. King's life and legacy. pic.twitter.com/samlJsz1Nt  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2018 Overshadowing the event was mounting backlash from Trumps comments during a private meeting with lawmakers the day before. A short time after the meeting, which was called to discuss a possible immigration deal, reports emerged that Trump had asked participants why the United States should accept immigrants from shithole countries in Africa, Central America and the Caribbean. Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin, the Senates second-ranking Democrat, appeared to confirm those reports on Friday. Trump did not respond Friday to several questions about the incident, including whether he actually used vulgar language to describe African nations, or if he is racist. The president said at the White House that love was central to the slain civil rights leader. Trump said the nation celebrates King for standing up for the self-evident truth Americans hold so dear, that no matter what the color of our skin or place of our birth, we are all created equal by God.  This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Noah Bierman. Facebook

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Trump criticizes Democrats in tweet calling for stricter immigration rules President Trump hit out at Democrats on Thursday night in a tweet calling for stricter immigration rules. Trump wrote that members of the party seem intent on having people and drugs pour into our country from the border with Mexico: The Democrats seem intent on having people and drugs pour into our country from the Southern Border, risking thousands of lives in the process. It is my duty to protect the lives and safety of all Americans. We must build a Great Wall, think Merit and end Lottery & Chain. USA!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2018 It wasnt immediately clear exactly what prompted the tweet. Earlier Thursday, Trump rejected a bipartisan compromise to resolve the standoff over so-called Dreamers, young immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children but have temporary permits to work, attend school or serve in the military. The president drew widespread condemnation after reports emerged that he had asked participants in an Oval Office meeting about the proposal why the United States should accept immigrants from shithole countries in Africa, Central America and the Caribbean. Read More Facebook

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Trump touts bill aimed at improving border screening for fentanyl By Associated Press President Trump signed legislation Wednesday aimed at giving Customs and Border Protection agents additional screening devices and other tools to stop the flow of illicit drugs. Speaking at a surprise bill-signing ceremony while flanked by members of Congress from both parties in the Oval Office, Trump described the bill as a significant step forward in the fight against powerful opioids such as fentanyl, which he called our new big scourge. He echoed that language Thursday in a tweet: Yesterday, I signed the #INTERDICTAct (H.R. 2142) with bipartisan members of Congress to help end the flow of drugs into our country. Together, we are committed to doing everything we can to combat the deadly scourge of drug addiction and overdose in the United States! pic.twitter.com/ELZvFol5Lo  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2018 The legislation will pay for new portable and fixed chemical screening devices to detect and intercept fentanyl at ports of entry and in the mail, along with other laboratory equipment and personnel, including scientists. Trump has made fighting the opioid epidemic a centerpiece of his administration, though critics say he hasnt dedicated nearly enough money or resources to make a difference. Trump suggested during his remarks on Wednesday that hed like to take a more aggressive approach to the drug crisis  but the countrys not ready for what he has in mind. So were going to sign this. And its a step. And it feels like a very giant step, but unfortunately, its not going to be a giant step, because no matter what you do, this is something that keeps pouring in, he said. And were going to find the answer. There is an answer. I think I actually know the answer, but Im not sure the countrys ready for it yet, he added. Does anybody know what I mean? I think so. Facebook

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Trump applauds news that Toyota-Mazda plant is slated for Alabama By Associated Press Japanese automakers Toyota and Mazda on Wednesday announced plans to build a mammoth, $1.6-billion joint-venture plant in Alabama that will eventually employ about 4,000 people. President Trump lauded the news in a tweet: Cutting taxes and simplifying regulations makes America the place to invest! Great news as Toyota and Mazda announce they are bringing 4,000 JOBS and investing $1.6 BILLION in Alabama, helping to further grow our economy! pic.twitter.com/Kcg8IVH6iA  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018 Good news: Toyota and Mazda announce giant new Huntsville, Alabama, plant which will produce over 300,000 cars and SUVs a year and employ 4000 people. Companies are coming back to the U.S. in a very big way. Congratulations Alabama!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2018 Several states had competed for the project, which will be able to turn out 300,000 vehicles per year and produce the Toyota Corolla compact car for North America and a new small SUV from Mazda. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey and company executives held a news conference to announce that the facility is coming to the Huntsville area not far from the Tennessee line. Production is expected to begin by 2021. The decision to pick Alabama is another example of foreign-based automakers building U.S. factories in the South. To entice manufacturers, Southern states have used a combination of lucrative incentive packages, low-cost labor and a pro-business labor environment, because the United Auto Workers union is stronger in Northern states. Read More Facebook

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Trump highlights call for border wall in tweets on visit with Norways prime minister By Associated Press President Trump praised Norways prime minister in a tweet on Wednesday after Erna Solberg became the first foreign leader to visit with the president in 2018. Today, it was my great honor to welcome Prime Minister Erna Solberg of Norway to the @WhiteHouse - a great friend and ally of the United States! Joint press conference: https://t.co/qWR1BhfQZI pic.twitter.com/PJvwznjRCO  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018 Trump also shared via Twitter a video clip of a joint news conference he held with Solberg on Wednesday afternoon. In the clip, Trump responds to a question from a reporter by saying there can be no bipartisan immigration deal absent funding for his long-promised wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. Republican and Democratic lawmakers have been seeking a solution for hundreds of thousands of so-called Dreamers, young people who were brought to the United States as children and are living here illegally. The United States needs the security of the Wall on the Southern Border, which must be part of any DACA approval. The safety and security of our country is #1! pic.twitter.com/4CFzQXb5aS  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018 We need the wall for security, we need the wall for safety, we need the wall for stopping the drugs from pouring in, Trump said Wednesday.  Any solution has to include the wall because without the wall, it all doesnt work. On Tuesday, Trump drew widespread attention when he said during a meeting with a bipartisan group of lawmakers that he would be agreeable to signing a stand-alone bill to protect the Dreamers, before moving on to a more comprehensive immigration bill. That contradicted the Republican consensus that Dreamers fate needed to be part of a broader immigration bill that would include some version of Trumps promised border wall and other immigration reforms. Trump backed away from a stand-alone Dreamer bill in subsequent tweets and public comments. Read More This post contains reporting from Los Angeles Times staff writer Noah Bierman. Facebook

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Trump praises Cabinet in tweet touting meeting By Associated Press President Trump promoted a meeting of his Cabinet on Wednesday, sharing via Twitter a link to a video of the session posted on the White House YouTube account. In his tweet, Trump thanked his Cabinet for working tirelessly on behalf of our country and wrote that the last year has been one of monumental achievement. I want to thank my @Cabinet for working tirelessly on behalf of our country. 2017 was a year of monumental achievement and we look forward to the year ahead. Together, we are delivering results and MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! https://t.co/ptXa1hAPwW pic.twitter.com/yv6RALkQf3  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018 The former reality television star continued to dispense accolades at the meeting Wednesday, greeting reporters in the Cabinet Room by saying: Welcome back to the studio. Then he proceeded to relive a Cabinet Room session from the prior day, when he had allowed reporters and TV cameras to stick around for much of his meeting with a bipartisan group of legislators on the thorny issue of immigration. It was a tremendous meeting. Actually, it was reported as incredibly good. And my performance  you know, some of them called it a performance  I consider it work, Trump said. Trump went on to say he had received letters from news anchors calling it one of the greatest meetings theyve ever witnessed. He added that the media will ultimately support Trump in the end, because theyre going to say, if Trump doesnt win in three years, theyre all out of business. Asked for examples of letters received from news anchors, the White House said it had received private communications. It also offered a series of positive on-air comments and tweets from journalists about the unusual access to the meeting. During his remarks, Trump swung from praising his own meeting coverage to telling journalists that they were dependent on his presidency for ratings to threatening a strong look at libel laws. Still, Trump thanked the journalists in front of him, joking: Youve gotten very familiar with this room. I appreciate your nice comments yesterday. Facebook

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Trump blasts DACA ruling in tweet calling courts broken and unfair By Lisa Mascaro President Trump denounced the federal courts Wednesday as broken and unfair after a district judge in San Francisco issued a nationwide injunction keeping protections in place for so-called Dreamers. Trump tweeted: It just shows everyone how broken and unfair our Court System is when the opposing side in a case (such as DACA) always runs to the 9th Circuit and almost always wins before being reversed by higher courts.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018 On Tuesday night, U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco temporarily blocked the Trump administrations decision to phase out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, which has protected from deportation some 700,000 people who came to the country illegally as children. Alsup granted a request by the state of California, the University of California and other plaintiffs to stop Trump from ending DACA on March 5. The administrations decision to end DACA, which was announced in September, was based on a flawed legal analysis, Alsup wrote in his decision. Dreamers would be irreparably harmed if their DACA protections, which allow them to live and work legally in the U.S., were stripped away before the courts had a chance to fully consider their claims, he ruled. The action is the mirror image of a ruling in 2015 by a federal judge in Texas who ruled in favor of that state when it sought to block President Obama from expanding DACA to include the parents of Dreamers. Trump administration officials praised that judicial ruling. By contrast, they sharply criticized Alsups decision. Read More Facebook

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Trump thanks lawmakers for productive immigration meeting, says deal must include border wall President Trump thanked a bipartisan group of lawmakers for participating in a meeting on immigration legislation on Tuesday. Much of the discussion involved so-called Dreamers, an estimated 700,000 young people who were brought to the country illegally as children and are now facing deportation. In a tweet, Trump wrote that there was strong agreement to negotiate a bill to protect Dreamers, as well as put into place some of the reforms favored by Republicans. Thanks to all of the Republican and Democratic lawmakers for todays very productive meeting on immigration reform. There was strong agreement to negotiate a bill that deals with border security, chain migration, lottery and DACA. https://t.co/SdqAQ3aL3z pic.twitter.com/8DYHZHspAy  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2018 The most notable exchange of the meeting came when Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the San Francisco Democrat, asked Trump whether he would be agreeable to signing a stand-alone bill to protect the Dreamers, before moving on to a more comprehensive immigration bill. Yeah, I would like to do it, Trump responded. The statement drew widespread attention because it contradicted the Republican consensus that Dreamers fate needed to be part of a broader immigration bill that would include some version of Trumps promised border wall and other immigration reforms. Trump later backed away from a stand-alone Dreamer bill, tweeting that a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico must be part of any deal: As I made very clear today, our country needs the security of the Wall on the Southern Border, which must be part of any DACA approval.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018 Pressure has been mounting for Congress to broker an immigration deal by Jan. 19 as part of a must-pass budget package to fund the government. This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Noah Bierman. Facebook

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Trump thanks officers and veterans in tweets President Trump doled out a slew of accolades Tuesday via Twitter. He thanked the nations law enforcement officers, including in his message a hashtag denoting a day of appreciation organized by a national support group for law enforcement families. On behalf of the American people, THANK YOU to our incredible law enforcement officers. As President of the United States - I will fight for you, and I will never, ever let you down. Now, more than ever, we must support the men and women in blue! #LawEnforcementAppreciationDay pic.twitter.com/Qb4uxB4JRm  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2018 Trump later expressed gratitude for federal immigration agents, in particular: .@ICEgov HSI agents and ERO officers, on behalf of an entire Nation, THANK YOU for what you are doing 24/7/365 to keep fellow Americans SAFE. Everyone is so grateful!#LawEnforcementAppreciationDay

President @realDonaldTrump https://t.co/HXCpTlruVo  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018 The president thanked veterans as he cited his administrations efforts to curb the number of veteran suicides by improving mental health treatment for the high-risk group: Today, it was my great honor to sign a new Executive Order to ensure Veterans have the resources they need as they transition back to civilian life. We must ensure that our HEROES are given the care and support they so richly deserve! https://t.co/0MdP9DDIAS pic.twitter.com/LP2a8KCBAp  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2018 Trumps tweet included photos of the president signing an executive order Tuesday directing the secretaries of Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs to develop a plan to provide seamless access to mental health and suicide prevention resources for 12 months for members leaving the armed forces. Also on Tuesday, Trump touted a law he signed the day before designating the birthplace of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. a national historic park: It was my great honor to sign H.R. 267, the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park Act, which redesignates the Martin Luther King, Junior, National Historic Site in the State of Georgia as the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park. https://t.co/Qe0b6HBFTY pic.twitter.com/QTgaqTawPT  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2018 And he thanked House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) for sharing a video compilation comprised of clips of politicians and commentators praising the GOPs tax cut bill: Thank you @GOPLeader Kevin McCarthy! Couldnt agree w/you more. TOGETHER, we are #MAGA https://t.co/QaxtqpyXTR  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018  This post contains reporting from the Associated Press and Times staff writer Alex Wigglesworth. Facebook

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Trump hails tax bill in tweets recapping speech to farmers By Associated Press Connecting with rural Americans, President Trump on Monday hailed his tax overhaul as a victory for family farmers. Farm country is Gods country, Trump told the annual convention of the American Farm Bureau Federation. Trump became the first president in a quarter-century to address the federations convention. His Southern swing also included a stop in Atlanta for the national college football championship game. Cant wait to be back in the amazing state of Tennessee to address the 99th American @FarmBureau Federations Annual Convention in Nashville! #AFBF18



On my way now - join me LIVE at 4:00pmE: https://t.co/QaljAqekdD. pic.twitter.com/Wm7Io0hYT8  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2018 Joined by Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and a group of Tennessee lawmakers, Trump said most of the benefits of the tax legislation are going to working families, small businesses, and who  the family farmer. The package Trump signed into law last month provides generous tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest Americans, and more modest reductions for middle- and low-income individuals and families. In every decision we make, we are honoring Americas PROUD FARMING LEGACY. Years of crushing taxes, crippling regs, & corrupt politics left our communities hurting, our economy stagnant, & millions of hardworking Americans COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN. But they are not forgotten ANYMORE! pic.twitter.com/MdYS7xnukQ  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2018 The president vastly inflated the value of the package in his speech, citing a total of $5.5 trillion in tax cuts, with most of those benefits going to working families, small businesses and who? The family farmer. The estimated value of the tax cuts is actually $1.5 trillion for families and businesses because of cuts in deductions and the use of other steps to generate offsetting tax revenue. We have been working every day to DELIVER for Americas Farmers just as they work every day to deliver FOR US. #AFBF18 pic.twitter.com/QDH7fvFkZ7  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2018 From Nashville, Trump traveled to Atlanta to watch Alabamas Crimson Tide and Georgias Bulldogs face off Monday night in the College Football Playoff National Championship. We are fighting for our farmers, for our country, and for our GREAT AMERICAN FLAG. We want our flag respected - and we want our NATIONAL ANTHEM respected also! pic.twitter.com/16eOLXg6Fi  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2018 Before departing for the game, Trump referenced his ongoing defense of the American flag and the national anthem, saying there was enough space for people to express their views. We love our flag and we love our anthem, and we want to keep it that way, he said. Facebook

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Trump tweet hails drop in unemployment rate for African Americans By Associated Press President Trump touted a drop in the unemployment rate for African Americans on Monday in a tweet. African American unemployment is the lowest ever recorded in our country. The Hispanic unemployment rate dropped a full point in the last year and is close to the lowest in recorded history. Dems did nothing for you but get your vote! #NeverForget @foxandfriends  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2018 The rate fell to 6.8% in December, the lowest level since the government began tracking such data in 1972. The reasons range from a greater number of black Americans with college degrees to a growing need for employers in a tight job market to widen the pool of people they hire from. Trump also hailed the development via Twitter on Saturday. His latest tweet on the topic came about an hour after it was discussed during an episode of Fox & Friends, according to Mediaite. Facebook

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Trump talks up the economy and dresses down the media in Sunday tweets With President Trump cheering from the sidelines, the White House on Sunday pressed its defense of the presidents fitness to govern, as fired former aide Stephen K. Bannon reversed course and apologized for his role in a new books explosive portrait of Trump. The presidents critics, meanwhile, said Trumps stream of taunts and insults in response to the book  Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, released last week  served only to underscore the authors unsettling portrayal of Trumps year-old presidency, depicting a leader whose own aides consider him childish, ignorant and dangerously erratic. Trump provided more ammunition Sunday morning, as he continued to attack the book via Twitter while preparing to depart Camp David for the White House: Leaving Camp David for the White House. Great meetings with the Cabinet and Military on many very important subjects including Border Security & the desperately needed Wall, the ever increasing Drug and Opioid Problem, Infrastructure, Military, Budget, Trade and DACA.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2018 Ive had to put up with the Fake News from the first day I announced that I would be running for President. Now I have to put up with a Fake Book, written by a totally discredited author. Ronald Reagan had the same problem and handled it well. So will I!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2018 The most vehement defense of Trump on Sunday came from senior advisor Stephen Miller, a onetime Bannon acolyte who distanced himself from his former mentor. In a combative appearance Sunday on CNNs State of the Union, Miller called the book grotesque and writer Michael Wolff the garbage author of a garbage book. Trump is known to closely monitor aides televised performances in putting forth his case, and he gleefully weighed in within moments of Millers televised clash with host Jake Tapper. CNN has long been a particular target of Trumps ire. Jake Tapper of Fake News CNN just got destroyed in his interview with Stephen Miller of the Trump Administration. Watch the hatred and unfairness of this CNN flunky!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2018 Trumps reaction, however, seemed to bolster Tappers on-air depiction of Miller as using his appearance on the show to play to the president rather than addressing questions put to him. I get it  theres one viewer that you care about, the host said exasperatedly after Miller turned the discussion repeatedly to negative news coverage of the president while deflecting specific queries. Later on Twitter, Trump took up two themes that have been prevalent on his social media feeds recently. The president again went after the news media, tweeting that the recipients of his self-proclaimed most dishonest & corrupt media awards of the year, which he promised earlier in the week to announce on Monday, would actually be revealed the following Wednesday: The Fake News Awards, those going to the most corrupt & biased of the Mainstream Media, will be presented to the losers on Wednesday, January 17th, rather than this coming Monday. The interest in, and importance of, these awards is far greater than anyone could have anticipated!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2018 Trump later lauded a New York Post opinion piece that compared him favorably with his predecessor, President Obama, as well as Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. In quoting the op-ed, Trump initally misspelled consequential as consensual, but he deleted those tweets and re-sent the messages. His is turning out to be an enormously consequential presidency. So much so that, despite my own frustration over his missteps, there has never been a day when I wished Hillary Clinton were president. Not one. Indeed, as Trumps accomplishments accumulate, the mere thought of...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2018 ...Clinton in the WH, doubling down on Barack Obamas failed policies, washes away any doubts that America made the right choice. This was truly a change election  and the changes Trump is bringing are far-reaching & necessary. Thank you Michael Goodwin! https://t.co/4fHNcx2Ydg  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2018 Trump also continued talking up the economy, which has been enjoying a period of strong gains. The Stock Market has been creating tremendous benefits for our country in the form of not only Record Setting Stock Prices, but present and future Jobs, Jobs, Jobs. Seven TRILLION dollars of value created since our big election win!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2018 In addition to Miller, other senior administration officials made the rounds of Sunday news talk shows to decry the claims made in Wolffs book. CIA Director Mike Pompeo said Wolffs characterization of Trump as averse to digesting classified briefing material was ludicrous, and the ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, insisted that that those around Trump love their country and respect their president. Read More This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Laura King. Facebook

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Responding to book that mocks his intelligence, Trump tweets hes like, really smart By Tracy Wilkinson President Trump declared himself a very stable genius on Twitter on Saturday and later in a televised news conference called the author of a book that questioned his mental fitness a fraud. His comments came on a bone-cold day at Camp David during a weekend retreat with top administration officials and Republican congressional leaders strategizing on the years legislative agenda, including matters such as infrastructure, immigration, welfare reform and national security. Now that Russian collusion, after one year of intense study, has proven to be a total hoax on the American public, the Democrats and their lapdogs, the Fake News Mainstream Media, are taking out the old Ronald Reagan playbook and screaming mental stability and intelligence.....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018 ....Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star.....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018 ....to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius....and a very stable genius at that!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018 Still, Trumps explosive rebuttal to author Michael Wolffs claims not only opened the day, but it also ensured the presidents capability to fill the highest office in the land was a topic that would not go away. In his early-morning tweets, Trump said two of his greatest assets have been mental stability, and being, like, really smart. He noted that his former Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, played these cards [about competence] very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star to President of the United States (on my first try). Read More Facebook

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In morning tweets, Trump touts job numbers and takes digs at news media By Associated Press President Trump used Twitter on Saturday morning to tout a drop in the unemployment rate for African Americans. He also used the tweets as an opportunity to take digs at media outlets whose past coverage he has found to be critical. The African American unemployment rate fell to 6.8%, the lowest rate in 45 years. I am so happy about this News! And, in the Washington Post (of all places), headline states, Trumps first year jobs numbers were very, very good.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018 The unemployment rate for African Americans fell to 6.8% in December, the lowest level since the government began tracking such data in 1972. The reasons range from a greater number of black Americans with college degrees to a growing need for employers in a tight job market to widen the pool of people they hire from. Still, the rate for black workers remains well above those for whites and some other groups, something experts attribute in large part to decades of discrimination and disadvantages. Robust job creation has lowered unemployment for all Americans. U.S. employers added nearly 2.1 million jobs in 2017  the seventh straight year that hiring has topped 2 million. In his tweet, Trump praised a report that noted the numbers, touting the fact that it appeared in the Washington Post (of all places). Minutes later, Trump renewed his attack on an ABC News reporter who was suspended last month after filing an erroneous report on Michael Flynn, Trumps former national security advisor. Brian Ross, the reporter who made a fraudulent live newscast about me that drove the Stock Market down 350 points (billions of dollars), was suspended for a month but is now back at ABC NEWS in a lower capacity. He is no longer allowed to report on Trump. Should have been fired!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018 The reporter, Brian Ross, was reportedly reassigned within ABC News upon returning from his unpaid suspension. But on Saturday, Trump wrote that he should have been fired. Trumps tweets came hours before he was set to host congressional Republicans and administration officials at Camp David. The meeting scheduled to begin at midmorning Saturday was expected to touch on the budget, infrastructure, immigration, welfare reform and the shape of the midterm election this fall. Facebook

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Trump commends Sen. Rand Paul after he proposes eliminating all U.S. aid to Pakistan President Trump commended Sen. Rand Paul after the Kentucky Republican announced plans to introduce legislation that would eliminate all U.S. aid to Pakistan. Trump tweeted Friday night: Good idea Rand! https://t.co/55sqUDiC0s  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018 On Thursday, the Trump administration announced it was suspending security assistance to Islamabad until the country moves aggressively against local militants who have attacked U.S. troops in neighboring Afghanistan. Trump has repeatedly expressed frustration at the apparent inability of Pakistani authorities to rein in militants who cross out of the countrys rugged tribal areas to attack U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Read More This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Tracy Wilkinson. Facebook

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Trump continues to lash out at Sloppy Steve Bannon in tweets on tell-all book By Associated Press President Trump is praising a major Republican donor family for distancing themselves from his former advisor Steve Bannon. Trump tweeted Friday: The Mercer Family recently dumped the leaker known as Sloppy Steve Bannon. Smart!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2018 Trump has continued to lash out at Bannon over an explosive new book that quoted his former aide as questioning Trumps competence and describing a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower among Donald Trump Jr., Trump campaign aides and a Russian lawyer as treasonous and unpatriotic. On Thursday, billionaire GOP donor Rebekah Mercer issued a statement distancing her family from Bannon. Mercer is a co-owner of Breitbart, the populist website Bannon helps run. I support President Trump and the platform upon which he was elected, Mercer said. My family and I have not communicated with Steve Bannon in many months and have provided no financial support to his political agenda, nor do we support his recent actions and statements. The book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, quickly shot atop Amazons best-seller list, and the publisher moved up its release date by four days, to Friday. Trump took up the topic again on Twitter on Friday night, denouncing both Bannon and the books author, Michael Wolff, in starkly personal terms: Michael Wolff is a total loser who made up stories in order to sell this really boring and untruthful book. He used Sloppy Steve Bannon, who cried when he got fired and begged for his job. Now Sloppy Steve has been dumped like a dog by almost everyone. Too bad! https://t.co/mEeUhk5ZV9  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018 Trumps message linked to a meme depicting a parody book cover titled, Liar and Phony, that featured a photo of Wolff and disparaging quotes about the author. In a tweet sent earlier Friday morning, Trump suggested the book was intended to serve as a distraction from the FBIs investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, which Trump wrote is proving to be a total hoax. Well, now that collusion with Russia is proving to be a total hoax and the only collusion is with Hillary Clinton and the FBI/Russia, the Fake News Media (Mainstream) and this phony new book are hitting out at every new front imaginable. They should try winning an election. Sad!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2018 That came amid reports that Trump directed his White House counsel to tell Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions to not recuse himself from the Justice Departments Russia investigation. Trumps effort to keep Sessions, a vocal and loyal supporter of his election bid, in charge of an investigation into his campaign offers special counsel Robert Mueller yet another avenue to explore as his prosecutors work to untangle potential evidence of obstruction. Read More Facebook

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Trump praises the economy ahead of meetings at Camp David By Associated Press President Trump is praising the strength of the U.S. economy ahead of meetings at Camp David with congressional Republicans. Trump tweeted early Friday: Dow goes from 18,589 on November 9, 2016, to 25,075 today, for a new all-time Record. Jumped 1000 points in last 5 weeks, Record fastest 1000 point move in history. This is all about the Make America Great Again agenda! Jobs, Jobs, Jobs. Six trillion dollars in value created!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2018 The president also told reporters on the South Lawn that the tax cuts are really kicking in after Congress passed a package of tax cuts at the end of 2017. And the president praised the December jobs report, which found U.S. employers added 148,000 jobs in December and the unemployment rate stayed at 4.1%, the lowest level since 2000. The modest but steady pace of hiring is a reassuring sign for investors who have been buoyed by the just-passed Republican tax plan and have been sending stock market indexes roaring to uncharted heights. The president is meeting with Republican congressional leaders and members of his Cabinet on Friday and Saturday to discuss the 2018 agenda. Read More Facebook

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Trump tweets as Dow crashes through 25,000 By Associated Press President Trump dispatched a congratulatory tweet as the Dow Jones industrial average rose above the 25,000-point mark Thursday, just five weeks after its first close above 24,000. Dow just crashes through 25,000. Congrats! Big cuts in unnecessary regulations continuing.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 After the Dow closed above 25,000, Trump shared a graphic depicting the stock indexs record-setting rise. MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! pic.twitter.com/iONbr1DkVk  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2018 Later in the day, the president was back on Twitter, complaining that news outlets had barely covered the stock market milestone. He suggested that the strength of the economy would be the biggest story on earth, had it unfolded during the presidency of his predecessor. The Fake News Media barely mentions the fact that the Stock Market just hit another New Record and that business in the U.S. is booming...but the people know! Can you imagine if O was president and had these numbers - would be biggest story on earth! Dow now over 25,000.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2018 The Dow broke past 1,000-point barriers in 2017 on its way to a 25% gain for the year, as an eight-year rally since the Great Recession continued to confound skeptics. Strong global economic growth and good prospects for higher company earnings have analysts predicting more gains, although the market may not stay as calm as it has been recently. The Dow has made a rapid trip since it reached 24,000 points Nov. 30, partly on enthusiasm over passage of the Republican-backed tax package, which could boost company profits this year with across-the-board cuts to corporate taxes. Read More Facebook

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Trump reacts to Fire and Fury book in tweet lashing out at author and Sloppy Steve President Trump lashed out at the author of a soon-to-be-released book about the chaotic first year of his presidency Thursday night. In a tweet, Trump called Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, a phony book and claimed that hed never spoken to its author, Michael Wolff. Look at this guys past and watch what happens to him and Sloppy Steve! Trump wrote. He appeared to be referring to former White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, whose stunning criticisms of Trump and his circle figure prominently in the title. I authorized Zero access to White House (actually turned him down many times) for author of phony book! I never spoke to him for book. Full of lies, misrepresentations and sources that dont exist. Look at this guys past and watch what happens to him and Sloppy Steve!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2018 Trumps tweet came hours after he had his lawyer demand that Henry Holt & Co. and Wolff stop publication the book. Instead, the publisher expedited the books release to Friday, four days before it was slated to hit bookstore shelves, in response to unprecedented demand. Published excerpts on Wednesday and Thursday whetted that appetite and roiled Washington. Bannons comments, including that it was treasonous and unpatriotic for Trumps son Donald Trump Jr., son-in-law Jared Kushner and campaign manager Paul Manafort to have met in 2016 with Russians said to have dirt on Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, prompted Trump on Wednesday to rebuke his former advisor, saying Bannon had lost his mind. Read More This post contains reporting from Times staff writers Brian Bennett and Alex Wigglesworth. Facebook

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Trump thanks senators who attended meeting on immigration President Trump tweeted thanks to Republican senators who attended a meeting about possible immigration legislation on Thursday. In his message, Trump also listed his top priorities when it comes to any type of overhaul of the nations immigration system. Thank you to the great Republican Senators who showed up to our mtg on immigration reform. We must BUILD THE WALL, stop illegal immigration, end chain migration & cancel the visa lottery. The current system is unsafe & unfair to the great people of our country - time for change!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 Trumps tweet echoed his remarks at the beginning of Thursdays meeting, when he insisted again that constructing a border wall and overhauling two legal immigration programs must be part of any deal with Democrats to protect the so-called Dreamers from deportation. Two-year deportation protections and work permits given under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program begin to expire March 6 under an executive order. Trump announced in September that he was ending the Obama-era program, but told Congress to draft a law to continue protections for people brought to the country illegally as children  a group that has widespread public support. Read More This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Brian Bennett. Facebook

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Trump resumes Twitter war against kneeling NFL players President Trump has resumed his Twitter war against NFL players who kneel during the national anthem to protest social injustice and racial inequality. In a tweet early Thursday, Trump replied to a supporter who shared a meme that appears to depict family members lying on the grave of a fallen soldier with the caption: This is why we stand. Show this picture to the NFL players who still kneel! Trump wrote. So beautiful....Show this picture to the NFL players who still kneel! https://t.co/tJLM1tvbvb  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 The president has denounced players who kneel during the anthem in previous tweets. Hes also called for the firing of players who do so. His latest message came amid news that the NFL finished the regular season with TV ratings that fell nearly 10% below the previous season. Analysts attribute the drop to controversies facing the league, as well as changing viewing habits and a possible saturation point in the number of games available. Read More This post contains reporting from Times staff writers Stephen Battaglio and Alex Wigglesworth. Facebook

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Trump credits himself with facilitating talks between North and South Korea By Associated Press President Trump says his tough stance on nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula is helping push North Korea and South Korea to talk. Trump tweeted early Thursday: With all of the failed experts weighing in, does anybody really believe that talks and dialogue would be going on between North and South Korea right now if I wasnt firm, strong and willing to commit our total might against the North. Fools, but talks are a good thing!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 That assertion is in conflict with some of the presidents own statements. Last year, he ridiculed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for talking about negotiations with the North. This week, Trump seemed open to the possibility of an inter-Korean dialogue after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made a rare overture toward South Korea in a New Years Day address. But Trumps ambassador to the United Nations insisted that talks wont be meaningful unless the North is getting rid of its nuclear weapons. The overture about talks came after Trump and Kim traded more bellicose claims about their nuclear weapons. In his New Years Day address, Kim repeated fiery nuclear threats against the United States. Kim said he has a nuclear button on his office desk and warned that the whole territory of the U.S. is within the range of our nuclear strike. Trump mocked that assertion Tuesday evening in a tweet. Facebook

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After disbanding his vote fraud panel, Trump still says voting system is rigged By Brian Bennett One day after disbanding his troubled voter fraud commission without any findings of fraud, President Trump continued to call the U.S. voting system rigged and said states should require that Americans have voter-identification cards. In two tweets on Thursday morning, Trump blamed the commissions failure on the lack of cooperation from mostly Democrat States that refused to hand over voter rolls because they know that many people are voting illegally. However, voting supervisors in Republican-led states refused as well, objecting on privacy and other grounds. Many mostly Democrat States refused to hand over data from the 2016 Election to the Commission On Voter Fraud. They fought hard that the Commission not see their records or methods because they know that many people are voting illegally. System is rigged, must go to Voter I.D.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 As Americans, you need identification, sometimes in a very strong and accurate form, for almost everything you do.....except when it comes to the most important thing, VOTING for the people that run your country. Push hard for Voter Identification!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 Despite Trumps assertions, analysts have not found evidence of widespread voter fraud. Trump created the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity in May after alleging, without proof, that millions of illegal votes were cast for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. Trump was elected after winning a majority in the electoral college, but the nationwide count showed Clinton received nearly 3 million more votes. The commission sought personal data on voters across the country and faced mounting lawsuits in recent months over privacy concerns. Read More Facebook

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Trump touts another good day for stocks, credits tax cut By Associated Press President Trump touted another good day for the stock market Wednesday in a tweet. Stock Market had another good day but, now that the Tax Cut Bill has passed, we have tremendous upward potential. Dow just short of 25,000, a number that few thought would be possible this soon into my administration. Also, unemployment went down to 4.1%. Only getting better!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 Big gains for technology and healthcare stocks helped U.S. indexes set records again Wednesday. Some analysts attributed the surge to investor enthusiasm for Trumps $1.5-trillion tax cut. All told, Wall Street analysts estimate the tax package should boost earnings for companies in the Standard & Poors 500 index by roughly 8% this year. Thats much more generous than the average tax cut of 1.6% that middle-class families will receive, according to the Tax Policy Center. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 The public has been less enthusiastic about the tax law. A Monmouth University poll last month found that nearly half of Americans disapproved of it, with only 26% in support. Still, as Trump also noted on Twitter, some workers have seen a benefit: So far, dozens of companies have announced bonuses and higher minimum wages as a result of the tax cut. AT&T, Comcast, Bank of America, and American Airlines have all pledged to pay $1,000 bonuses to their employees. Some 40 U.S. companies have responded to President Trumps tax cut and reform victory in Congress last year by handing out bonuses up to $2,000, increases in 401k matches and spending on charity, a much higher number than previously known. https://t.co/bmWrwWzxMR  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 Investors also appear less concerned than many politicians about how the additional profits will be used. The Trump administration says it expects companies will plow much of the extra profit back into their businesses, purchasing more software, machinery, and other equipment. Those investments will make workers more productive and provide a key boost to the economys long-run growth. They should also boost wages and salaries for employees. Opponents of the tax law respond that companies are more likely to pass the windfall on to shareholders in the form of higher dividend payments and share buybacks, which raise the price of those shares still in investors hands. Previous cuts in corporate tax rates, in the United States and overseas, havent always led to higher wages. For Wall Street, its all good, at least in the short run. Most analysts take the view that either way, companies and the economy will benefit. Facebook

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Trump reacts to death of Mormon Church president By Associated Press President Trump mourned the death of Mormon Church leader Thomas S. Monson on Wednesday evening. Trump tweeted a link to a statement in which he said that Monson demonstrated wisdom, inspired leadership, and great compassion and delivered a message of optimism, forgiveness, and faith. Melania and I are deeply saddened by the death of Thomas S. Monson, a beloved President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints...https://t.co/ETD3fWtfU3  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 A church bishop at the age of 22, Monson became the youngest church apostle ever in 1963 at the age of 36. He served as a counselor for three church presidents before assuming the role of the top leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in February 2008. After a life of church service, Monson died Tuesday at his home in Salt Lake City, according to church spokesman Eric Hawkins. He was 90. Read More Facebook

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Trump tweets that Iranian protesters will see great U.S. support at the appropriate time By Associated Press President Trump continued to express support for Irans anti-government protesters on Wednesday. In a tweet, Trump commended the protesters and pledged that the United States will support them at the appropriate time. Such respect for the people of Iran as they try to take back their corrupt government. You will see great support from the United States at the appropriate time!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2018 Trumps tweet Wednesday morning came as Iranian Ambassador Gholamali Khoshroo sent a letter to United Nations officials complaining that Washington was intervening in a grotesque way in Irans internal affairs. The President and Vice-President of the United States, in their numerous absurd tweets, incited Iranians to engage in disruptive acts, the ambassador wrote to the U.N. Security Council president and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. The U.S. didnt immediately respond to the letter, which maintains that Washington has crossed every limit in flouting rules and principles of international law governing the civilized conduct of international relations. At least 21 people have been killed and hundreds arrested in Iran during a week of anti-government protests and unrest over economic woes and official corruption. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people took part in counter-demonstrations Wednesday backing the clerically overseen government, which has said enemies of Iran are fomenting the protests. Trump has unleashed a series of tweets in recent days backing the protesters, saying Iran is failing at every level and declaring that it is time for change in the Islamic Republic. Facebook

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Trump congratulates Sen. Orrin Hatch upon news of his retirement By Associated Press President Trump congratulated Sen. Orrin Hatch for an absolutely incredible career upon news of Hatchs impending retirement. In a tweet Tuesday afternoon, Trump called Hatch a tremendous supporter and wrote that he will be greatly missed in the Senate. Congratulations to Senator Orrin Hatch on an absolutely incredible career. He has been a tremendous supporter, and I will never forget the (beyond kind) statements he has made about me as President. He is my friend and he will be greatly missed in the U.S. Senate! pic.twitter.com/0VjzLEeHTl  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 Hatchs decision to retire from the Senate after four decades lets the Utah Republican walk away at the height of his power after helping to push through an overhaul of the tax code and persuading Trump to downsize two national monuments. Retirement also preserves the 83-year-olds legacy by allowing him to avoid a bruising reelection battle that would have broken his promise not to seek an eighth term. Read More Facebook

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Trump tweet exaggerates progress in improving veterans care By Associated Press President Trump played up tremendous progress in improving care for veterans in his first year on Tuesday in a tweet. His message linked to an Instagram video describing eight accomplishments that show Trump is fighting for our veterans. But it overstates the impact of these steps. We will not rest until all of Americas GREAT VETERANS can receive the care they so richly deserve. Tremendous progress has been made in a short period of time. Keep up the great work @SecShulkin @DeptVetAffairs! https://t.co/ir25vW15hx pic.twitter.com/OtuzIgxMn6  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 Of the eight achievements cited, two are ceremonial proclamations recognizing National Veterans and Military Families Month and National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. Two are pieces of legislation that extended the troubled Veterans Choice program on a temporary basis. This became necessary because the Trump administration repeatedly miscalculated the amount of taxpayer dollars available to pay for care from private doctors outside the Veterans Affairs system when veterans had to endure long waits for treatment at VA medical centers. The departments poor budget planning caught lawmakers off guard. A fifth claim involves telehealth, a step letting doctors practice medicine across state lines using digital technology. Announced in August, it has yet to take full effect because a proposed VA regulation hasnt been completed. The VA wants authority to practice across state lines to come from legislation, not a regulation. On Wednesday, the Senate approved a telehealth measure that now goes to the House. A sixth claim refers to legislation that streamlines the appeals process for disability compensation claims within the VA. This step has had limited effect so far because it applies to new disability claims, not the 470,000 pending claims. The last two initiatives make it easier for the VA to discipline employees. The department has pointed to more than 1,300 employees who have been fired under Trumps watch. Because their infractions are not detailed in public documents, the effect on veterans care is not fully known. Facebook

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Trump unleashes his first tweetstorm of 2018 By Noah Bierman President Trump clearly didnt resolve to change his Twitter habits this year. With nine disparate tweets over three hours on Tuesday morning, the first working day of 2018, Trump continued to exploit social media to be the most aggressive commentator in chief in American history. For any other president, his posts would have made for a monumental day of (mis-)statements. Yet for Trump, the series  attacks on political foes and media, provocations of foreign leaders and self-praise for events he had nothing to do with  was all but unremarkable. His Twitter barrage  sent between 7:09 a.m. and 10:16 a.m.  reflected a familiar gamut after nearly a year in office: Attacks on political foes: Nearly 14 months after his election, Trump called for the jailing of Huma Abedin, Crooked Hillary Clintons top aid (his misspelling, another occasional feature of Trump tweets). Crooked Hillary Clintons top aid, Huma Abedin, has been accused of disregarding basic security protocols. She put Classified Passwords into the hands of foreign agents. Remember sailors pictures on submarine? Jail! Deep State Justice Dept must finally act? Also on Comey & others  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 In the same tweet, he disparaged the Deep State Justice Dept, headed of course by his appointees, calling on it to act against James B. Comey, the FBI director he fired for investigating the Russia thing. Diplomatic provocations: Trump again called North Korean leader Kim Jong Un Rocket man, ridiculed the volatile nuclear-armed foe for recent military defections and openly speculated about potential talks between North and South Korea. Sanctions and other pressures are beginning to have a big impact on North Korea. Soldiers are dangerously fleeing to South Korea. Rocket man now wants to talk to South Korea for first time. Perhaps that is good news, perhaps not - we will see!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 Perhaps that is good news, perhaps not  we will see! Trump wrote. Later Tuesday, Trump tweeted: North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times. Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2018 Also later Tuesday, Trump tweeted an attack on Pakistan, his second in as many days, and added a new one against Palestinians: It's not only Pakistan that we pay billions of dollars to for nothing, but also many other countries, and others. As an example, we pay the Palestinians HUNDRED OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect. They dont even want to negotiate a long overdue...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 ...peace treaty with Israel. We have taken Jerusalem, the toughest part of the negotiation, off the table, but Israel, for that, would have had to pay more. But with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 Undermining media: Trump offered Congratulations! to A.G. Sulzberger, who took over as publisher of the New York Times this week. The Failing New York Times has a new publisher, A.G. Sulzberger. Congratulations! Here is a last chance for the Times to fulfill the vision of its Founder, Adolph Ochs, to give the news impartially, without fear or FAVOR, regardless of party, sect, or interests involved. Get...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 ....impartial journalists of a much higher standard, lose all of your phony and non-existent sources, and treat the President of the United States FAIRLY, so that the next time I (and the people) win, you wont have to write an apology to your readers for a job poorly done! GL  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 But the two-part post was really yet another slam against a perceived media foe: Trump said the paper had a last chance to fulfill its journalistic mission, and accused it of relying on phony sources and substandard reporters  just days after he granted another exclusive interview to the paper. As a bonus, the tweet contained a recycled falsehood, that the paper apologized after the election for reporting on him unfairly. It didnt. Trump later said on Twitter that he would soon announce the most dishonest & corrupt media awards of the year. Stay tuned! I will be announcing THE MOST DISHONEST & CORRUPT MEDIA AWARDS OF THE YEAR on Monday at 5:00 oclock. Subjects will cover Dishonesty & Bad Reporting in various categories from the Fake News Media. Stay tuned!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2018 The president also tweeted a quote from Fox Business Networks Lou Dobbs Tonight, which aired a segment praising Trumps first-year accomplishments. Dobbs reportedly joined Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Sunday for a gala to celebrate New Years Eve. President Trump has something now he didnt have a year ago, that is a set of accomplishments that nobody can deny. The accomplishments are there, look at his record, he has had a very significant first year. @LouDobbs Show,David Asman & Ed Rollins  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2018 Taking credit: Trump congratulated himself for policing the border with Mexico, an area where his policies and anti-immigration rhetoric are believed to have had some effect on reducing illegal crossings. Thank you to Brandon Judd of the National Border Patrol Council for your kind words on how well we are doing at the Border. We will be bringing in more & more of your great folks and will build the desperately needed WALL! @foxandfriends  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 He took credit for employee bonuses by companies after he signed Republican tax cuts into law last month. Companies are giving big bonuses to their workers because of the Tax Cut Bill. Really great!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 But the jaw-dropper was Trump congratulating himself for planes not crashing. Since taking office I have been very strict on Commercial Aviation. Good news - it was just reported that there were Zero deaths in 2017, the best and safest year on record!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 It was the safest year on record worldwide, but the American streak without commercial jet passenger deaths goes back to 2009. Trump, who has promoted deregulation as one of his top accomplishments, has not signed off on any new airline safety regulations. The White House pointed to new security screening of passengers, to electronic devices to prevent terrorist attacks and to Trumps support for privatizing air traffic control  a proposal that has gotten nowhere in Congress. Falsehoods: Trump said President Obama, in brokering the 2015 nuclear arms limitation deal with Iran, foolishly gave money to the brutal and corrupt Iranian regime. He didnt. The people of Iran are finally acting against the brutal and corrupt Iranian regime. All of the money that President Obama so foolishly gave them went into terrorism and into their pockets. The people have little food, big inflation and no human rights. The U.S. is watching!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 The nuclear deal, which included major U.S. allies as signators, released Irans own funds that had long been frozen. Trumps art of the deal: When Trump sees a big deal looming, he often blasts the other side  to gain leverage, as hes written. This week he resumes a showdown with Democratic lawmakers over funding the government and immigration protections for so-called Dreamers, who were brought to the country illegally as children. Democrats are doing nothing for DACA - just interested in politics. DACA activists and Hispanics will go hard against Dems, will start falling in love with Republicans and their President! We are about RESULTS.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 Trump, who in September ordered a gradual end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, sought to shift blame for the resulting controversy, saying Democrats are doing nothing for DACA and are just interested in politics. Trump has insisted that any help for Dreamers be paired with funding for a border wall and a crackdown on legal immigration. Democrats, and some Republicans, are opposed. Read More Facebook

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In tweet, Trump suggests U.S. will withdraw financial assistance to Pakistan By Shashank Bengali Pakistan lashed out Monday after President Trump accused its leaders of lies & deceit and suggested the United States would withdraw financial assistance to the nuclear-armed nation it once saw as a key ally against terrorism. It was the presidents latest broadside against Pakistan after a speech in August in which he demanded its leaders crack down on the safe havens enjoyed by Taliban militants fighting U.S.-backed forces in neighboring Afghanistan. The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 1, 2018 U.S. Ambassador David Hale was summoned to the Foreign Ministry to discuss the presidents statement, U.S. Embassy spokesman Richard Snelsire said. Pakistan lodged a strongly worded protest and asked for clarification about Trumps comments, according to two foreign office officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Pakistans prime minister, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, called a Cabinet meeting for Tuesday and a meeting of the National Security Committee on Wednesday to discuss Trumps New Years Day tweet. Read More Facebook

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Trump continues to tweet in support of Iranian protesters By Laura King President Trump expressed renewed support Sunday for protesters in Iran, declaring that people are finally getting wise as to how their money and wealth is being stolen and squandered on terrorism. In a tweet from his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, the president said the nationwide economic protests that began on Thursday  and have taken on wider political overtones as they have grown in size  were a signal that Iranians will not take it any longer. Big protests in Iran. The people are finally getting wise as to how their money and wealth is being stolen and squandered on terrorism. Looks like they will not take it any longer. The USA is watching very closely for human rights violations!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2017 Trump has tweeted about the protests for three days straight as Iranians took to the streets despite a heavy police presence, tear gas and scores of arrests. The defiance gained urgency after two people were reported shot to death in the city of Dorud, about 200 miles southwest of Tehran. As the conflict escalated, Iranian authorities on Sunday slapped a temporary ban on Instagram and the messaging app Telegram, which were widely used to fan protest fervor. Iran, the Number One State of Sponsored Terror with numerous violations of Human Rights occurring on an hourly basis, has now closed down the Internet so that peaceful demonstrators cannot communicate. Not good!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2017 Irans leaders already are casting Trumps increasingly effusive expressions of support for the demonstrators as opportunistic meddling and are painting the demonstrators as foreign pawns, adopting a strategy that some analysts say could jeopardize the legitimacy of the nascent antigovernment protests. Read More Facebook

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Trump tweets condolences after Colorado deputies are shot in ambush, one fatally By Associated Press A man fired more than 100 rounds at sheriffs deputies in Colorado early Sunday, killing one and injuring four others, before being fatally shot himself in what authorities called an ambush. Two civilians were also injured. President Trump expressed sorrow, writing on Twitter: My deepest condolences to the victims of the terrible shooting in Douglas County @DCSheriff, and their families. We love our police and law enforcement - God Bless them all! #LESM  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2017 Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock said deputies came under fire almost
How many false statements did Trump make in his interview with the Wall Street Journal? We count at least five

(Carolyn Kaster / Associated Press)

The Wall Street Journal didnt release the full transcript of the interview its reporters and editors had last week with President Trump, but when Politico obtained a copy and published it, the interview quickly drew attention for several false statements Trump made.

The one that immediately gained notoriety was Trumps claim that after his speech at the Boy Scout Jamboree last week, I got a call from the head of the Boy Scouts saying it was the greatest speech that was ever made to them.

On Wednesday, the Boy Scouts of America released a statement saying we are unaware of any such call. The Scouts specifically said that neither the organizations president, AT&T chairman Randall Stephenson, nor its chief executive, Mike Surbaugh, had made such a call.

In fact, Surbaugh last week issued an unprecedented apology for a presidential speech  Scouts have heard from presidents back to Franklin D. Roosevelt  saying he was sorry that some members of the scouting community had been offended by Trumps partisanship, language and tone.

In the daily White House press briefing, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that other Boy Scout leaders, whom she did not name, had complimented Trump after his speech.

That wasnt the only call to come into question recently. A few days after the Journal interview, Trump said that Mexicos president, Enrique Pena Nieto, had paid him the ultimate compliment by calling and telling him that their southern border, very few people are coming because they know theyre not going to get through our border.

The Mexican government press office issued a statement Wednesday denying that.

Pena Nieto has not had recent telephone communication with President Donald Trump, the statement said.

Sanders said that Pena Nieto did compliment Trump, but in a personal conversation, not a telephone call.

I wouldnt say it was a lie, she said of Trumps statements.

Other false statements involved broader factual matters.

Were the highest-taxed nation in the world, Trump said  a statement that he has repeatedly made and which has repeatedly been debunked. Whether measured by the top tax rate or the overall percentage of national income which is taxed, the U.S. has lower taxes than most of its chief economic competitors.

Trump may have been thinking about the U.S. corporate tax rate, which is higher than most developed countries, although not the highest. Yet few companies actually pay that top rate given various tax deductions, credits and exemptions.

Trump also said I honestly believe for six months, I have done more than just about any other president when you look at all of the bills that were passed, 42, 43.

Thats untrue. Many of Trumps predecessors had signed more legislation, and nearly all recent ones had signed more significant measures by this point in their tenures.

Jimmy Carter had signed 70 bills into law by this point, Bill Clinton 50. Franklin D. Roosevelt had 76 in just his first 100 days.

About one-third of the bills Trump has signed have been ceremonial measures, such as renaming courthouses.

Referring to his top economic advisor, Gary Cohn, Trump said Gary wrote a check for $200 million when he entered the government. He had to pay $200 million in tax.

Trump has said that before, including in a speech in June. Its false.

Cohn owned about $220 million in Goldman Sachs stock when he resigned as the banks president to become the head of Trumps National Economic Council. He sold the stock to minimize conflicts of interest, as most appointees do. But he certainly didnt have to pay $200 million in tax on that sale.

In fact, its likely Cohn hasnt paid any tax so far. He may never have to.

Federal law allows appointees to government positions to defer any tax they owe on assets that they sell to avoid conflicts. The law requires that they put the proceeds of the sale into neutral investments such as Treasury securities. If his securities go up in value, Cohn might have to pay tax on that gain. The top tax rate on capital gains is 20%.

Trump also repeated a false claim about his defeated rival from the election, Hillary Clinton.

Real crimes are what Hillary did with 33,000 emails, where she deleted them and bleached them after getting a subpoena.

Trump made that claim more than once during the campaign, and more recently on Twitter.

He is correct that Clinton deleted 33,000 emails from the private server she used for her messages while she was secretary of State. She says that all of those deleted emails were personal and that she had no obligation to keep them. No one has come up with evidence to the contrary.

The evidence from the FBIs investigation of the emails shows that in December 2014, after she turned over about 30,000 work-related emails to the State Department, Clintons aides told the company that managed the server to delete the rest of the emails. The emails were subpoenaed about three months later, on March 4.

The company didnt actually do the deletion until later in March, but theres been no evidence that Clinton knew about the delay at the time or that the company knew the messages were under subpoena.

In any case, the FBI declined to recommend prosecution, contrary to Trumps assertion that Clinton committed real crimes.

A poll released Wednesday by Quinnipiac University asked Americans if they believe Trump is honest. By 62% to 34%, a majority said no.

12:30 p.m.: This article was updated with comments by White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
This just in, and its definitive (for now): People who drink alcohol in moderation  especially older people, women and non-Latino white people  are less likely to die of any cause than are teetotalers or people who consume heavy doses of alcohol either on occasion or in an average week.

In follow-up periods that hovered around eight years, moderate drinkers were no less likely than alcohol abstainers to die of cancer. But they were roughly a quarter less likely to die of heart disease or stroke than were people who never consumed alcohol.

Heavy drinkers fared slightly worse than moderate drinkers and never-drinkers in their likelihood of dying of any cause during the studies follow-up periods. But it wasnt the risk of heart failure or heart attack that heavy drinkers drove up: it was cancer.

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Heavy drinkers odds of dying from cancer were roughly 45% higher than were the cancer-death odds of moderate drinkers.

In a meta-analysis  essentially an aggregation of studies reflecting the experience of 333,247 adults  researchers confirmed a long suspected (but much disputed) relationship between drinking and death: that, for most, consuming a little alcohol, even everyday, is better than drinking none. But throwing back too much is way worse than sipping just the right amount.

And whats the just-right amount of alcohol for health? Moderate drinkers are defined as men who consume, on average, no more than 14 servings of alcohol per week or women whose average consumption of alcohol is seven servings or fewer of alcohol per week. Heres what constitutes a serving (you might be surprised).

Binge drinking once a week or more (typically, drinking four or more servings of alcohol in two hours or less for women, or five or more for men) increased drinkers odds of dying during the study periods by about 16%, largely by driving cancer rates up.

Alcohol consumption bedevils doctors, public health experts and patients alike, what with all the stigma, sanctimony, lying and uncertainty that surrounds this most common of vices. Patients lie about how much they drink. Unless they see clear signs of alcohol-induced damage in a patient, a physicians are hard-pressed to guess. And claims and counter-claims abound about alcohols impact on health.

The World Health Organization, citing alcohols link to cancer, recommends against any consumption of alcohol at all. That may be reasonable, given that 3.3 million deaths, or 5.9% of global deaths in 2012, were attributed to alcohol consumption. But it may overlook the fact that, for those who can do so in moderation, alcohol consumption may positively influence health  and cardiovascular health in particular.

How alcohol influences health at different doses is also not well understood. Some research suggests that a modest intake of alcohol may reduce blood pressure, improve the function of blood vessels and  in the case of wine consumption at least  may introduce plant-based chemicals that scavenge toxins.

Aside from driving up risks of accidents and violence, excessive alcohol consumption may nudge cancer risk, especially for breast, colorectal and oral cancers, up by increasing inflammatory processes, changing hormonal balances, or suppressing immunity.

The newest research, published Monday in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, does find some key differences by gender, ethnicity and age.

Heavy drinking drove up rates of all-cause mortality, and of cancer mortality, in men. But the same effect was not seen in women.

Non-Latino whites appeared to benefit from moderate alcohol consumption. But non-Latino blacks did not.

The protective effects of moderate alcohol consumption was more pronounced in people 60 and older than among people 40 to 59. And among younger adults  those 18 to 39  moderate alcohol consumption didnt drive down death rates at all.

melissa.healy@latimes.com

@LATMelissaHealy

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A group called America First! plans to gather Sunday evening at Lagunas Main Beach to rally for victims of crimes that organizers say have been committed by immigrants illegally living in the United States, according to a Facebook post.

The event will begin at 6:30 p.m. and be the fourth time in the past year the group has met in Laguna, said Laguna Beach police Sgt. Jim Cota , who worked the last rally on July 30.

About 100 people gathered on that date, with supporters calling for a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico, according to a YouTube video of the rally.

In that video, one demonstrator shouted Make America great again before pulling a rubber mask of President Trump over his face.

Were out here to remind this community that their cheap labor and their cheap voting bloc they are importing into this country has real effects in terms of the kids who die in DUI accidents, and the murders and the gang crimes and all that stuff, organizer Johnny Benitez said in the video.

Karly Berube, a 20-year-old Aliso Viejo resident, is planning a counter-protest in response to America First!

I feel its important we dont let hate spread farther in our cities, Berube said. If you see evil happen on the streets and dont do anything about it, it almost deems it OK to act that way.

Cota said the previous three America First! events yielded no arrests. Well be there with plenty of staff to make sure everything goes OK, he said.

Cota added that the group members did not need a permit to demonstrate on public property because they are exercising their First Amendment right of free speech.

Sundays event comes on the heels of last weekends violence that erupted in Charlottesville, Va., between white supremacists and counter-demonstrators and led to three deaths, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Cota said America First! is not affiliated with groups involved in Charlottesville.

bryce.alderton@latimes.com

Twitter: @AldertonBryce

UPDATES:

3:45 p.m. Aug. 15: This article was updated with Karly Berubes comments.

This article was originally published at 3:40 p.m. Aug. 14.
The city Homer Bludau once ran is now giving back to him.

The retired Newport Beach city manager is the 2017 Newport Beach Chamber of Commerce Citizen of the Year.

Bludaus fellow advisory committee members from the Newport Beach 1st Battalion 1st Marines Foundation, including chamber President Steve Rosansky, lured Bludau onto the lawn outside City Hall after a meeting late Monday afternoon on the pretense of taking a group photo. Then Rosansky gave his other reason for being there and brought out champagne for a toast.

Bludau, 71, has lived in Newport Beach for 18 years and was city manager from 1999 to 2009. Before leading Newport Beach, he managed the cities of Coronado, Rialto and Avenal.

The chambers Citizen of the Year award honors individuals or couples who have long served the community. Previous honorees select the winners.

It was a unanimous vote for Bludau, said 2003 winner Scott Paulsen.

Bludau said this is the highest honor hes ever received.

Ive always respected the people who have been Citizen of the Year, he said of the award that was first given in 1949. What an elite group of people.

Outside of Bludaus professional leadership duties, the Air Force and Vietnam War veteran was a founding member of the 1/1 Foundation, which supports the Camp Pendleton-based Marine unit, and is on the Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church parish council, the Environmental Nature Center board and the executive board of Visit Newport Beach. Hes also a Chamber of Commerce Commodore and a past president of the Coastline Community College Foundation board and has been active with the Newport Beach Relay for Life fundraiser for the American Cancer Society.

I love this community and I love living here and being a part of it, he said. I want to give back to it for being as good as its been to me.

Rosansky, who was a Newport Beach mayor and city councilman from 2003 to 2012 and worked alongside Bludau, said Bludaus supportive leadership style made him a good fit for the citys top appointed position.

He had the perfect personality for a city manager and had the respect of his employees, Rosansky said.

Bludau will be honored at a Chamber of Commerce dinner Nov. 3.

Recent Newport Beach Citizens of the Year

2017: Homer Bludau

2016: John and Elizabeth Stahr

2015: Paul Watkins

2014: Jack and Nancy Skinner

2013: Jean Watt

2012: No award given

2011: Tom Johnson

2010: Ralph Rodheim

2009: Norm Loats

2008: Lula Halfacre

2007: Evelyn Hart

hillary.davis@latimes.com

Twitter: @Daily_PilotHD
A gang member admitted in federal court Monday to his involvement in supplying a trio of rival Los Angeles street gangs with drugs on orders from the Mexican Mafia.

Santos Zepeda, a 33-year-old Glendale man who also goes by Slim, faces a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison to a maximum of life without parole for conspiring to traffic methamphetamine.

According to the U.S. Attorneys Office, Zepeda was among 22 other defendants who were indicted two years ago under federal racketeering charges connected to Mexican Mafia member Arnold Gonzales.

Gonzales had ordered the unification of the Frogtown, Toonerville and Rascal gangs in 2010, according to the federal authorities. Normally rivals, Gonzales brought the three gangs together to control the drug trade and other illicit activities in an area of Los Angeles that spanned along the Los Angeles River from Elysian Park to near Burbank.

However, because Gonzales was serving out a murder sentence at Pelican Bay State Prison, Frogtown gang member Jorge Grey was appointed as his street emissary with Zepeda working as his top lieutenant, according to the indictment.

Through this arrangement, they provided drugs and collected taxes from local dealers.

Eleven of the 22 named in the indictment, including Zepeda, have since pleaded guilty, while the remaining 11 are scheduled to go to trial on March 5, 2018.

andy.nguyen@latimes.com

Twitter: @Andy_Truc
When a solar eclipse begins to hit the U.S. on Monday, nowhere in California will witness totality, the time when the moon completely blacks out the sun for a few minutes.

Total darkness will first be experienced in North America in Salem, Ore., around 10:18 a.m. PDT. The eclipses path of totality runs along a 70-mile-wide band across the U.S., starting in Oregon and ending in South Carolina.

About 12 million people live within the area where the eclipse will be at its darkest. Californians will not be among them, but residents of the Golden State will be able to see a partial eclipse.

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New Pine Creek, a northeastern town near the Oregon border, and Yreka and Crescent City in the north will experience more than 90% darkness at the eclipses peak  if clouds or fog dont obscure the sky.

In San Francisco, the moon will cover about 75% of the sun. In Los Angeles, the eclipse will cause little celestial drama with about a 62% partial eclipse, peaking at 10:21 a.m.

Tyler Nordgren, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Redlands, wrote in an email that 62% isnt that noticeable in the sky (unless you have your eclipse glasses). But, if you begin to look around at shadows of trees or bushes on the ground, youll see all sorts of glowing crescents on the ground at the maximum point of the eclipse.

If you havent made plans to see the total eclipse, here are eight viewing parties to celebrate the partial eclipse. And remember: Wherever you watch, youll need eclipse safety glasses to protect your eyes.

--Big Bear Lake: Head over to the eastern parking lot at Swim Beach at 41220 Park Ave., where members of the local astronomical society will set up telescopes to better view the partial eclipse, which should peak around 10:23 a.m. Theyll also provide safe viewing glasses too.

--Mammoth Lakes: The Mammoth Mountain ski area at 10001 Minaret Road invites folks to the 11,053-foot summit to watch the eclipse. Visitors may take the gondola to the top starting at 9 a.m. ($23 for adults, $10 for kids 13 and older; the visit includes safe viewing glasses). The moon will block out about 80% of the sun in this area, peaking at 10:20 a.m.

--Los Angeles: Take a hike from the Gateway to Nature Center at 130 Paseo de La Plaza starting at 8:30 a.m. Rangers will lead visitors to nearby L.A. State Historic Park at 1245 N. Spring St. to watch the eclipse.

--Los Angeles: The Griffith Observatory in Griffith Park will host a free eclipse party with viewing from the lawn, sidewalks and on the solar telescope in the Hall of the Sky. The event lasts from 9 a.m. to noon.

--Calabasas: The Santa Monica Mountains Recreation Area will host a free ranger program about the eclipse at the visitor center at 9:30 a.m., followed by viewing of the partial eclipse. The program takes place at the King Gillette Ranch, 26867 Mulholland Highway.

--Thousand Oaks: Rangers will host childrens activities, tell Native American stories about the sky and lead eclipse-watching starting at 9:30 a.m. Meet at the Satwiwa Native American Indian Culture Center near Via Goleta and Lynn Road.

--San Francisco: A 9 a.m.-to-noon eclipse-watching boat party on San Francisco Bay has sold out, but there are other places in the city to watch the partial eclipse, expected to be about 80%.

The Exploratorium at the Embarcadero and Green Street will open early at 9 a.m. for an eclipse-viewing event that runs until noon. Visitors can watch the eclipse on the museums plaza (telescopes and safety glasses provided). Youll also be able to see live streams of totality from Madras, Ore., and Casper, Wyo. Tickets cost $29 for adults, $19.95 for children 4 to 12 years old.

The California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park will host an eclipse-viewing party from 9:30 a.m. to 11:37 a.m. Museum staff will help visitors safely view the event and answer questions. There also will be live streams from the path of totality.

To read the article in Spanish, click here

travel@latimes.com

@latimestravel

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A caption in the Aug. 13, 1972, Los Angeles Times stated: Mrs. Lucille Gilbert, a full-blooded Paiute, stands outside her shack at edge of Bridgeport and hopes that United States will give Indian colony 20 acres of vacant federal land. She is one of about 60 members of group. In the background is Cecil Rambeau, her cousin.

The members of the Paiute Indian colony in Mono County, near Nevada, had long thought they owned the land through 1850s-era treaties. But 18 treaties negotiated in 1851 and 1852 with California Indians were never ratified by the U.S. Senate.

Ownership of their 20 acres had slipped into private hands. The Bridgeport Paiutes faced eviction. But in 1974, President Ford signed a bill by Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) handing over 40 acres of adjacent federal land.

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This photo by staff photographer John Malmin accompanied an in-depth article by Times staff writer Jack Jones on the plight of the Bridgeport Paiute Indian Colony.

Malmins image later won the Picture of the Year award in the 1973 Gold Seal California Press Photographers competition.

This post originally was published on Oct. 20, 2010.

See more from the Los Angeles Times archives here
The death toll from massive mudslides in Sierra Leones capital was certain to rise Tuesday as bodies washed up on a beach and workers searched for an untold number of people buried in their homes. The Red Cross estimated that 600 people were still missing.

Authorities have said that more than 300 people were killed in and around Freetown on Monday following heavy rains. Many were trapped under tons of mud as they slept.

The Connaught Hospital mortuary in central Freetown was overwhelmed on Tuesday with more than 300 bodies, many laid out on the floor.

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I have never seen anything like it, said Abdul Nasir, program coordinator for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, describing the scale of the disaster. A river of mud came out of nowhere and swallowed entire communities, just wiped them away. We are racing against time, more flooding and the risk of disease to help these affected communities survive and cope with their loss.

An estimated 9,000 people have been affected, Nasir told the Associated Press.

In a sign of hope, he said, two bodies were brought out alive from the debris last evening, said Charles Mambu, a civil society activist and resident of one affected area, Mount Sugar Loaf.

Government spokesman Cornelius Deveaux said rescue operations began early Tuesday to remove people still believed to be buried in the rubble. Heavy equipment was deployed to dig into the piles of red mud.

Deveaux said definitive death figures were unknown as the mortuary is overwhelmed with corpses  men, women and children.

Many bodies had been maimed, Deveaux said, adding that proper burials will be vital in keeping disease at bay. Contingency plans are being put in place to mitigate the outbreak of disease like cholera, he told a local radio station.

Sulaiman Parker, the environmental protection officer on the Freetown City Council, said bodies will be buried in the next 48 hours.

Some rescue workers and volunteers dug overnight with their bare hands through the mud and debris in a desperate search for missing relatives. Military units have been deployed to help with the operation in the impoverished West African nation.

The Sierra Leone National Broadcasting Corp. showed people carrying the dead to the morgue in rice sacks.

Many of the impoverished areas of Sierra Leones capital are close to sea level and have poor drainage systems, exacerbating flooding during the rainy season. Freetown also is plagued by unregulated building of large residential houses in hilltop areas.

Thousands of makeshift settlements in and around the capital were severely affected.

The government has been warning people not to construct houses in these areas. When they do this, there are risks, Nasir said. People dont follow the standard construction rules, and that is another reason that many of these houses have been affected.

Deforestation for firewood and charcoal is one of the leading factors of worsening flooding and mudslides.

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Irans president on Tuesday warned it could restart its nuclear program within hours or days if the Trump administration continued its confrontational policies toward the Islamic Republic.

President Hassan Rouhanis remarks were a direct response to Trumps increasingly bellicose rhetoric toward Iran and his announcement of fresh sanctions on individuals and businesses connected to Irans ballistic missile program.

Trump has also pledged to undo the 2015 agreement that Iran signed with the United States and five other world powers under which it suspended activities that could have led to the production of a nuclear bomb in exchange for a sharp reduction in international sanctions that had hammered its economy.

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Rouhani told lawmakers in Iran that sanctions and bullying by Trump administration officials were the type of failed policies that forced their predecessors to the negotiating table to reach the landmark nuclear deal, one of the Obama administrations signature foreign policy achievements.

Rouhani said Iran could quickly resume its nuclear activities and increase its quantities of enriched uranium  a precursor to building a nuclear bomb  to levels higher than before the agreement.

If they want to return to the previous position, definitely, not within a week or a month, but within hours or days, we will be back to a much more advanced stage than we were during our last negotiations, the state IRNA news agency quoted Rouhani as saying.

Rouhani has staked his presidency on the nuclear deal, and won reelection this year in part because the agreement remains widely popular in Iran, even among anti-Western hard-liners who believe it averted a military confrontation with the U.S.

It was the first time Rouhani threatened to break the agreement, a sign of how rapidly the war of words between the U.S. and Iran has escalated since Trump took office.

It was not clear if Rouhanis comments were bluster or if Iran could indeed restart its nuclear activities quickly. United Nations inspectors have access to Irans nuclear facilities under the agreement and have said the Islamic Republic is complying with its terms.

But last week, the head of Irans atomic energy agency and an architect of the 2015 agreement, Ali Akbar Salehi, suggested that Iran could return to 20% uranium enrichment levels in four or five days  to catch [the U.S.] by surprise.

Congress has repeatedly certified that Iran is complying with the agreement  as it is required to do every 90 days  but Trump has called the deal a disaster and suggested that he would push to have the certification revoked.

Meanwhile, he has ratcheted up pressure on Iran by announcing a massive arms deal with rival Saudi Arabia and unilateral economic sanctions related to Irans ballistic missile program. The missile program is not covered by the nuclear agreement, but Iran believes any additional U.S. sanctions violate the spirit of the deal.

Iran responded this week by announcing increased spending on its military, including an additional $300 million for the elite Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a paramilitary organization led by hard-liners.

It also announced that the government would prepare a strategic plan to combat the United States hegemony-seeking policies and interference in the Middle East.

Iran is sure that the sanctions are a failure, said Hamid Reza Taraghi, a political analyst close to the supreme leader. What President Rouhani said today is a threat against Americas threat.

Others characterized Rouhanis remarks as a bluff, saying it was unlikely that Iran could immediately resume a nuclear program that has been under close watch by the U.N. inspections regime.

What President Rouhani said is entirely empty talk, said Hoshang Taale, a former legislator who is close to Irans secular political factions.

Iran has already dismantled all functioning centrifuges and paralyzed its atomic enrichment technology. These sorts of speeches  are totally for domestic consumption.

Special correspondent Mostaghim reported from Tehran and Times staff writer Bengali from Mumbai, India.

shashank.bengali@latimes.com

Follow @SBengali on Twitter

UPDATES:

10:45 a.m.: This article was updated with comments from analysts and additional background.

This article was originally published at 8:05 a.m.
A student of Maynooth University failed to recognise Irelands new Taoiseach when he and a friend turned up at a Chicago restaurant where she is working for the summer.

Emma Kelly, 20, who is studying biomedical science in Maynooth is on a J1 visa in the US for the summer and working in a restaurant in Chicago.

On Sunday night, two men walked into Barcocina, a trendy restaurant in Chicago with a Mexican influence not far from the famous Wrigley Field, where Ms .Kelly has been working as a host.

They wanted to sit outside so I told them theyd have to wait. Then I was like oh hey, are you guys Irish and they were like yeah, she told the Irish Times.

She put the pair of them on a waiting list and put them sitting at a small table. The fact that it was a small table was something that embarrassed her when she realised later who they were, although from her reports of the exchange, the two men, one of whom was the Taoiseach, didnt appear to be bothered by it.

Meanwhile Dubliner Emmas friend, another Irish girl called Eimear, copped that it was Leo Varadkar. Emma was extremely embarrassed and moved the men straight away.

She said she apologised profusely and was very embarrassed. She said she couldnt believe shed made the Taoiseach wait for a table, but he took it all in his stride.

Painfully awkward pic of us and Leo when I realised it was the Taoiseach pic.twitter.com/7zxs4ugAW1  Emma Kelly (@__Emmax3) August 14, 2017

He thought it was really funny, she recounted.

Its nice being treated like a normal person, she says he told her.

She tweeted a pictured of her self and Eimear with the Taoiseach, who it appears, was dressed casually for the night.

And in a separate tweet she asks: Honestly, what is wrong with me?

The Taoiseach replied to her tweet: Thanks Emma. The food & service was gr8. Enjoy the rest of your J1.

She announced later, again on Twitter, that Varadkar is now officially her fave Taoiseach.
Are you uncertain about your Leaving Cert results and what they mean for you? The Exam Helpline 2017, provided by the National Parents Council Post Primary (NPCpp) and sponsored by eir and the Irish Independent, will open tomorrow, Wednesday, August 16 offering confidential advice, information and support to Leitrim students receiving their results.

The 1800 265 165 Freephone helpline is open from 10am on results day, Wednesday, August 16, to take calls from students and parents seeking advice and up to date information on what choices are available to students. It will open for three days the week of the results as well as a further three days the following week, after the release of CAO Round One offers.

The Helpline is sponsored by eir and the Irish Independent and supported by the Department of Education and Skills and staffed by members of the Institute of Guidance Counsellors. The Helpline receives thousands of calls every year, giving expert advice to students to enable them to make informed choices about their future career paths and further education.

Those seeking advice, information or reassurance can contact the Helpline on 1800 265 165 and speak to experienced guidance counsellors. All queries on third level courses, leaving cert appeals and repeats, CAO procedures, no offers and financing your further education will be dealt with in a professional and confidential manner.

The opening hours of HELPLINE 2017 are:
Oder people should not feel compelled or pressured into renting their home. Under a proposed new Fair Deal scheme, elderly people will be incentivised to become landlords and to rent out their vacant properties in a bid to ease the homeless crisis.

Fianna Fail TD for Sligo-Leitrim Eamon Scanlon explained, Many residents in nursing homes have no wish to become accidental landlords and still hold onto the wish to return to their home. Returning home is often the only hope that sustains them.

The measures announced by Minister Eoghan Murphy sends out a wrong message: the number of houses left vacant by those in nursing home care is small and vacant housing stock alone will not solve the current crisis or prevent future housing crises.

The headlines Ive read across the media since these proposals were announced might otherwise read New plans will see people in nursing homes penalised for not renting out their homes.

The decision to rent out your vacant property should not be a contributing factor as to whether you qualify for the Fair Deal Scheme or not.

People presenting for nursing home care are amongst the frailest in society and the most vulnerable, and any form of pressure or coercion from government or from their family units would have a seriously detrimental effect on their well-being.

The fact remains that many older people want to stay at home in familiar surroundings than be forced into a residential setting. We should be fighting for services that will see people, such as those with dementia, stay in their own homes and communities for as long as possible.

Caring for people in their homes frees up capacity in hospitals and other step down facilities.
Mary Flynn from Drumkeerin, Co Leitrim will travel to Beaumont Hospital this week to honour her hero, a clinic nurse manager who went above and beyond to take care of the Leitrim woman.

This Thursday, 17th Aug, Beaumont Hospital Foundation will host its annual Honour Your Heroes day, when former patients return to the hospital to give thanks to staff whom they believe have gone the extra mile in helping them in their recovery.

Mary is a widow and mother of ten children and in the last twenty years Mary has had two kidney transplants, surgery to remove her gall bladder, surgery to remove part of her colon as treatment for bowel cancer and open heart surgery.

She now wants to pay tribute and honour her hero, Clinical Nurse Manager, Monica Cunningham.

The event on Thursday will feature testimony from a number of patients/former patients who will talk about what brought them to Beaumont Hospital and who have nominated a staff member - whom they feel went an extra mile in their care  to receive an award.
Whatever motion we debate at Conference next month, we already know that the majority of us oppose Brexit. We all need to persuade the people around us of what a developing calamity it is. We also need to take the lead nationally. No new party is required to campaign on this: the Brexit Exiters are us.

But we need to shout about it, not leave it to retired government ministers and would-be leaders from other parties to grab the limelight.

For the country is in dire need of Brexit being called off.

Poverty worsens. Austerity bites harder as living standards sink. Health services decline with too few doctors and nurses. Councils struggle to keep meeting local needs, Young people lack decent rental accommodation at an affordable price. Working people with zero-hours contracts or temporary jobs cant pay all the bills, fall into debt and resort to food banks.

Yet we have a disunited government which, so far from tackling these ills, is almost entirely occupied with the enormous, wasteful task of trying to accomplish a Brexit which will make conditions worse. Negotiations with the EU on all fronts are stalled  rights of citizens living abroad, the Irish border, the size of the bill to be paid, and future trade relations.

As for the Labour opposition, with a better will to tackle the ills but no power to do so, it is no less divided on the terms of Brexit yet firmly keeps step with the government on the necessity of it.

So it is up to us to show unity and passion now in asserting the essential conditions of any Brexit and preferably of no Brexit, with the consent to be obtained not only of parliament but of the people.

But we havent done it yet. Here are two contrasting statements referring to Lib Dem policy on Brexit made a short time before the general election.

1. Let me make one thing very clear. Brexit will happen. Nothing can stop that. Of course I campaigned and voted to Remain. But were a democracy. We must abide by the referendum result. But we must also take care. Cornwall is at risk of being the biggest loser from a self-harming, shambolic Brexit.

2. I keep reading that their (the Lib Dems) hardline stance on Brexit is alienating voters. What hardline stance? Where is the tub-thumping for free movement, so vital for urban prosperity? Where is the impassioned defence of EU subsidies, so vital to rural areas? The Lib Dems problem is not that they have made this election a re-run of the referendum. It is that they are afraid of doing so in case they lose it again.

The first statement was in a letter sent to voters by Andrew George, Lib Dem candidate and former MP for St Ives. In the same letter he wrote that This election is about the future of our NHS. Andrew wasnt re-elected, though he came close.

The other statement is from an article by Hugo Rifkind in The Times on May 23, under the heading, Lib Dems are about to go down in flames. The sub-heading read, A third party wins voters by offering an alternative vision or by inspiring protest but Farrons team cant manage either.

Whatever the particular situation in St Ives, I believe we should indeed have campaigned more strongly and persistently against Brexit in the general election. A firm united stance, emphasising the need to stay in the EU internal market and the customs union, would surely have shown up the two-facedness of the Labour party and persuaded more Remain voters to vote for us.

The need for the country to stay close to the EU which we did not sufficiently convey in the election campaign must be strongly asserted now. The need is urgent  for Cornwall, for Northern Ireland, for Scotland and for England and Wales. Because we have a British government which fiddles while our country shrivels.

* Katharine Pindar is a long-standing member of the Lib Dems and an activist in the West Cumbrian constituency of Copeland and Workington.
Hardly a day goes by on my social media feeds without some form of the following conversation:

Commentator/political has been: What we really need is a new moderate centre party in the UK, standing up for all the internationalist, tolerant liberal values that Corbyn and May have abandoned.

Liberal Democrats: Helloooooo!!!!!

Every time somebody calls for a new centre party, a puppy dies, goes the tweet.

It is always more an observation than a plan. Starting from 0% and 0 MPs and councillors is always going to be harder than starting where we are. But I dont think the commentators and has beens are being obtuse. There are reasons they are not all saying we should join the Liberal Democrats, and Id like to reflect on those reasons and what we can do about them. Do please all submit further articles expanding this theme.



1. Momentum

People like joining sides that are winning. Thats not unreasonable. A large part of what made Corbyn possible both in winning the leadership and then in not losing the General Election as badly as people expected, was the realisation that it could be happening.

We dont just sit and wait for momentum, we build the fightback, and we get the other ingredients right:

2. Strength

There is a danger of appearing nice but ineffectual. It is an obvious attack line to choose against us. During the coalition, Labour changed tack to horrible and ineffectual, which is just as bad.

It is cobblers of course. Nobody who worked with Paul (now Lord) Scriven when he ran Sheffield Council would call him nice but ineffectual. He was a fearsome challenge and highly effective for it. And the actual record of coalition government was one of strength and stability provided by Liberal Democrats, with a firm hand on government decisions; in marked contrast with the chaos that followed. This is not the perception that it suited both Labour and the Tories to create: they understand the importance of appearing strong.

We dont do ourselves any favours here when we consistently adopt and emphasise policies which send the message nice and soft. Good policies, for sure, on drugs, welfare and immigration, debatable policy on Trident, all adds up to an impression that the party doesnt believe tough choices are ever necessary. Maybe many of us dont even believe tough choices are ever necessary.

And one persons tough choice is anothers sell out. See any debate on security and civil liberties. There are no easy answers, but we shouldnt make every issue a signal of how virtuous we are: some should signal more important and popular qualities than virtue.

3. Policy and strategy in the round

Labour during the Thatcher years had a reputation for weakness. Tony Blair overcame it not least by taking on his partys ideologues and winning. Maybe this was partly for show, but I think the perception was fair that in leading the Labour Party, Blair shifted it, and that was a positive story about him and his strength. (Clearly it didnt last but that is not relevant to my point.)

We seem to make a virtue of being led by committees that meet in secret to which our leader is accountable, and which have the power to manipulate conference to achieve almost any result they wish. We are institutionally set up to let ideologues run riot, to prevent leadership from happening, and so to prevent an understanding of policy and strategy in the round. (Policy and strategy are even separate committees.) This is not to denigrate the people involved, they are good liberals, but the structure is built on the assumption that a committee is the democratic and the effective answer to any problem.

And we should be the last people to consider some policy a sacred cow on the basis of a bare majority or a sham debate at a party conference. Our core values as liberals are not so cheaply bought. Yes, there may be some conflict between the absolute sovereignty of conference and our ability to work constructively with others. I favour working with our allies. I even voted Remain.

When the opportunity arises for a broader coalition of the tolerant liberal centre ground, we have to be ready to take the committees to the vets and put them to sleep; to challenge our conference when it behaves like a bubble. We have the strength to do that. We might then become the new party of the liberal centre that the country can see it needs.

* Joe Otten was the candidate for Sheffield Heeley in June 2017 and Doncaster North in December 2019 and is a councillor in Sheffield.
WITH the deadline for submissions on Limericks 150m Project Opera development fast approaching, a public meeting this Wednesday will encourage the public to have their say.

From 6.30pm this Wednesday in Chez le Fab cafe at Arthurs Quay, plans for the former Opera Centre site are being put on display by Solidarity councillor Cian Prendiville.

As revealed by the Limerick Leader last month, the Limerick Twenty Thirty DAC has formally applied for permission to develop at the Patrick Street site.

Three tall office buildings are planned, with the highest towering up to 14-storeys in a move which its hoped will create thousands of jobs.

But Cllr Prendiville is hugely concerned at the fact no living spaces are planned for the area.

It is very good to finally see some progress in terms of this vacant site, six years after the council bought it," he explained.

"The council are proposing to spend 150m building four multi-storey office blocks on this site, and redeveloping four existing buildings, again as offices, with not a single apartment on the site. This is in the middle of a housing crisis, with almost no affordable, quality apartments available in the city centre, and rents already going through the rough.

"While not everyone wants to live in the city centre, more and more young people in particular are looking for that option, he said.

Cllr Prendiville says if Project Opera proceeds as is planned, Limerick could be facing a dead zone after 6pm and at weekends.

As the Liveable Limerick campaign has highlighted, we have the potential for a truly vibrant city centre, but to do that we need to invest in providing quality, affordable and social housing in the city centre for people to rent or buy. The old Georgian buildings in particular could be turned into ideal apartments for young people and families who want to live in the city centre, he said.

People can make their views known on Project Opera by August 25. It will then be up to metropolitan district councillors on how the plans then proceed.

Original plans for the Opera Centre site would have seen the area become home to a new shopping centre, described by the then developer Suneil Sharma as Limericks shopping mecca. 

Meanwhile, entry to the event is free, but people are encouraged to buy drinks and snacks should they wish.

For more information on the meeting, call 086-8064801.
THE man who shot innocent Limerick man Shane Geoghegan nine years ago is seeking to have his conviction overturned by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), it has been confirmed.

Barry Doyle, aged 32, who has addresses in Ballinacurra Weston and Portland Row in Dublin was sentenced to life imprisonment more than five years ago after he was convicted, following a retrial, of murdering the 28-year-old in Dooradoyle on November 9, 2008.

During the trial, a jury at the Central Criminal Court heard that Doyle admitted during garda interviews that he shot Mr Geoghegan in a what was a case of mistaken identity.

Doyle, who had been ordered to shoot another man by criminal figure John Dundon, was arrested on February 24, 2009 and taken to Bruff garda station.

He was questioned more than a dozen times over three days and the admissions, the jury heard, were made during his 15th interview.

In previous appeals before the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court, lawyers representing the hitman argued the admissions should not have been admitted as evidence during the original trial because they were obtained in a non-voluntary manner as a result of threats and inducements and psychological oppression by gardai.

This, they claimed, was because Doyle was promised by gardai that his girlfriend would be released if he admitted his role in the killing.

The Court of Appeal rejected the appeal in 2015 while the Supreme also rejected the appeal in a 6-1 majority decision which was handed down in January.

According to the Irish Sun, lawyers representing Doyle have now initiated proceedings at the ECHR.

In submissions, they state the confessions were made as a result of a process of inducement, persisting misinformation and erosion of his (Doyles) right to silence.

Its not yet known when the latest appeal will be heard.
A PROFESSOR at the University of Limerick has said the upcoming appearance of controversial columnist Kevin Myers at a talk on censorship in Limerick strikes as a provocative, calculated move by the organisers to get an audience.

Prof Emeritus Pat OConnor, of sociology and social policy, with a particular focus on gender, said she hopes the talk isnt a call to legitimise the views of other unreconstructed misogynists.

The Sunday Times published an apology following the publication of an article on July 30 last by Myers, which contained offensive remarks about women and Jewish people, while he was also dismissed from the paper.

Mr Myers will moderate a talk, entitled How censorship stifles debate and undermines the tenets of free and democratic societies, inviting questions from the audience on the subject.

The talk will be given by Jodie Ginsberg, of the Index on Censorship, which publishes the work by censored writers and artists and campaigns for free expression worldwide, on September 28 next.

David OBrien, chief executive of Limerick Civic Trust, which has organised the series of talks, said he has not read Myers widely criticised article, entitled Sorry, ladies  equal pay has to be earned, but stressed their talks are about encouraging debate and having opposing views.

But Prof OConnor said her concern is that with this platform, they are framing Kevin Myers as the defender of free speech by putting him in that position?

I suspect that it is simply an attempt to drum up an audience by being controversial. In these sort of situations, the best thing one can do is to ignore.

Its not an acceptable position to say everyone is entitled to free speech if it stirs up hatred against any one group. Its not an uncontested right, said Prof OConnor.

I have no time for political correctness. I think if the heart is right, the lip can be forgiven. But it seems to be giving a platform to Kevin Myers, and legitimising opinions that many people found offensive.

Prof OConnor, a visiting Fellow at University College Dublins Geary Institute, said she wont be attending the talk, as there were too many crazy assumptions in his column.

He said men are more charismatic, and that is one of the reasons why they get ahead, but Im afraid we all know an awful lot of boring men. Me thinks the lady doth protest too much. When there are as many mediocre women as mediocre men in the top jobs, well have equality, she said.

Prof OConnor, who is now retired, said while she considers herself a feminist, I am not a lunatic man-hater, and Fintan OTooles column in The Irish Times [on the controversy cause by Myers column] was proof that some men can get it right.

It takes a lot to get me really angry, and with Mr Myers I just get a very tired feeling of Are we still dealing with this type of rubbish? I dont even give mental space to Kevin Myers; hes not on my list to be redeemed, she said.

While UL has led the league tables in terms of women holding senior academic roles, according to a recent report published by the Higher Education Authority, there isnt a state of nirvana yet for women in their fields, she cautioned.

Mr OBrien said he regards Mr Myers as an erudite, outspoken individual whose writing is actually so heavily nuanced it can be hard to penetrate.

Should he not be moderating an event because he expressed his own mind, asked Mr OBrien.

I am very mindful that hes a controversial figure, but Im equally mindful that we are providing an open platform for people, and he is the moderator of the talk  it is the speaker who will have the floor for 45 minutes. He will be there to extract the views of everybody else, he told the Limerick Leader.

The six talks will run on Thursday evenings from September 14 to October 19, and will also feature speakers on other subjects, including Irish Times journalist Simon Carswell, internationally-renowned architect Ian Ritchie, and Roger Medalin, a generation architect.

Other moderators include Quentin Peel of the Financial Times, Professor Vincent Cunnane, president of Limerick Institute of Technology, and Dr John OBrennan, amongst others.

The autumn lecture series is sponsored by the ULs Kemmy Business School and is supported by Limerick City and County Council.

All proceeds from the series will go towards the trusts development of St. Munchins Church into a museum.

The talks will be held from 7.30pm - 9pm in St Marys Cathedral.

Tickets are priced at 12. See www.limerickcivictrust.ie or www.eventbrite.ie.

Tickets will also be available on the door. Call 061 313399
A LIMERICK senator has called on the council to champion a proposal for a light rail network in the city.

This is a once in a generation opportunity to build a modern 21st century transport network that will be lost if the council does not act, with serious consequences for future investment for the city, said Senator Paul Gavan.

He said a light rail network badly needs to be planned, costed and implemented.

Without a modern public rail system we will never reach our city's potential in terms of inward investment, and our road network will grind to a halt. The city is tailor made for a light rail network.

We could utilise much of the existing old rail network that runs through Raheen, and also link through to the Ballybrophy line incorporating a new station giving access to the University of Limerick. On the Clare side we could develop local rail stations for Corbally, Moyross and Shannon Airport," said the Castleconnell-based senator.

In June, Cllr Bill ODonnell said at a municipal district meeting that he was very impressed by the transport system in Nantes which he said is so, so like Limerick.

They have  and I think its something that could be done in Limerick  a Luas, for want of a better word. They have a red line going from north to south and a blue line going from east to west  you could never get lost. It works very well in Nantes. The whole city is made very simple, said Cllr ODonnell.

Senator Gavan said there is a unique coalition of business, political and community groups who have all spoken of the need to develop a Luas style rail network in the city.

The IDA, and Chamber of Commerce back the idea, as do Sinn Fein and a number of other progressive political groups. And yet despite years of speculation it remains just an idea.

Significantly, there appears no prospect of capital funding from government to even cost the project. The lack of ambition from the political establishment with regard to this issue is palpable. They are not prepared to pay anything more than lip service to it.

Once again Limerick is expected to be the poor relation. Unless there is a change in political representation in this city, we will still be talking about a project like this in another 10 years time, by which stage we will be light years behind in European terms, said Senator Gavan.

The existing Limerick 2030 plan isn't fully realisable without such investment in a light rail project anyway, he concluded.
Aug 15, 2017, 5 AM

A rare three-color franking of stamps from the 1861-62 United States issue appears on this letter mailed to Hitchin, England. It will be offered in the Sept. 1-2 Auction Galleries Hamburg sale.

By Michael Baadke

Auction Galleries Hamburg in Hamburg, Germany, has a two-day sale scheduled Sept. 1-2 featuring German and worldwide stamps and postal history, including material from the United States.

A featured cover in this auction is a three-color franking on an 1862 letter from New York to Hitchin, Hertfordshire, England.

The stamps affixed are the 24 red lilac George Washington, the 30 orange Benjamin Franklin, and the 90 blue Washington  the top three stamps from the 1861-62 National Bank Note Co. set (Scott 70-72).

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Auction Galleries Hamburg notes that the $1.44 franking correctly pays six times the 24 pre-Universal Postal Union single rate.

Each stamp is struck with a mute red barred cancel, and the front of the cover is additionally struck by a red circular New York BR. PKT. (British packet) marking to the left of the stamps. An added manuscript per Steamer China appears on the front, and there also is a handsome circular black Hitchin receiving postmark dated AP 23 62 on the reverse.

A 2001 certificate from expertizer Enzo Diena of Rome accompanies the letter, with the expertizers comments (in Italian) describing what Auction Galleries Hamburg identifies as an insignificant fault on the 90 stamp (il francobollo da 90 e leggermente abraso). The other two stamps are identified by Diena as perfetti (perfect). The auction gallery also notes that the cover was cleaned, and describes it as an extraordinary rarity.

The cover is listed by Auction Galleries Hamburg with a starting bid of 6,000 (approximately $7,090).

The Scott Specialized Catalogue of United States Stamps and Covers values the 90 blue on cover at $25,000, with the value listed in italics, signifying a difficult-to-value item.

Linns U.S. Stamp Facts 19th Century, published in 1999, estimated 62 surviving covers franked with the 1861 90 blue Washington.

The auction presents a particularly strong selection of World War II German occupation issues and German field-post stamps, from a large collection that has been broken up into more than 500 single lots.

The German occupation of Montenegro during World War II resulted in 35 major varieties listed in the Scott Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue. The same number (with additional minor varieties) are identified in the German-language Michel Deutschland-Spezial catalog.

A complete set of the major varieties is offered in mint condition, including the key stamp, the 10-lira lake on rose buff overprinted airmail stamp (Scott 3NC5), which alone is valued by Scott at $3,200 unused. Just the set of five airmail stamps, never hinged, carries a Scott value of $6,250. Many of the Michel-listed minor varieties also are included in this lot. This expanded set is offered with a starting bid of 2,500 (approximately $2,950).

An extensive selection of German states and Austria also is on offer.

From the kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia comes a used block of 10 of the 1850 40-centesimi blue, type I, struck by VENEZIA 9/11 postmarks in black. The starting bid is set at 5,500 (approximately $6,490); the block is described as a great rarity by expertizer G. Colla.

The individual lots for this two-day auction are posted here, with bidding options available, or contact Auction Galleries Hamburg, vormals Schwanke GmbH, Kleine Reichenstrasse 1, 20457 Hamburg, Germany.
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The violence and death sparked by white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va., last weekend was, to most people, a frightening look into a fringe hate-group philosophy that experts say is resurgent across the country.

But the images of Ku Klux Klansmen marching and a reported Nazi sympathizer allegedly driving his car into a crowd of counter-protesters  killing a woman and injuring at least 19  suggest a cultural rift is stretching from the old plantation homes in the south, across the Great Plains all the way into the liberal enclaves in the Bay Area.

With the mayhem in Virginia still fresh, white nationalists are reportedly planning rallies in San Francisco and Berkeley later this month, raising questions about how the events should be handled or confronted.

Whats happening now is that since the change of the administration in Washington, these folks think they have a right to come out and assert themselves, said George Holland, an Oakland lawyer and president of the local branch of the NAACP. They are trying to bait people into physical violence. They come armed and prepared to fight.

President Trump denounced the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis on Monday after being widely criticized for an earlier denunciation of violence on many sides. He said the Justice Department had launched a civil rights investigation into the killing of a counterprotester at the rally.

The Virginia mayhem echoed a demonstration in Berkeley on April 15 that was led by Nathan Damigo, who was also one of the Virginia organizers. The 31-year-old white supremacist who grew up in Silicon Valley was caught on video punching a dreadlocked woman in the face during the Berkeley clash.

Damigo claimed he punched the 19-year-old woman because she was a threat, and he has not been charged. On Monday, he told The Chronicle that police were to blame for the violence during the Charlottesville protest, which started as a demonstration against the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

He said police ignored a permit and kicked his group out of the park, running them through a gantlet of counter-protesters wielding bats and sticks. He did not take any responsibility for the death of 32-year-old Heather Heyer, who was run over by a car that was driven through a crowd. James Alex Fields Jr., 20, of Maumee, Ohio, was arrested on second-degree murder and other charges.

Damigo said Fields may have been caught in the middle of a violent crowd, panicked and lost control of the vehicle.

We simply dont know what the intent was, said Damigo. I do feel that the blood rests in the hands of local law enforcement as well as the city officials in Charlottesville, because (they) created a scenario that created chaos and violence.

Leah Millis/The Chronicle

Damigo argues that an anti-white culture has developed in the United States that is destructive and harmful to society.

Diversity is divisive, he said. The idea that we are going to unite around some abstract principle  democracy, freedom or love  that simply is not going to work.

His view appears to be spreading.

There are tens of thousands of neo-Nazis and white supremacists in the U.S., and they seem to have formed alliances with other fringe groups like militias who are sympathetic, said Jack Glaser, a social psychologist and professor at UC Berkeley who studies prejudice and discrimination.

A permit has been issued for a Patriot Prayer group to gather Aug. 26 at Crissy Field in San Francisco, according to Sonja Hanson, a spokeswoman for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The group is ostensibly religious, but its purpose is really an attempt to provoke black-clad ideologues on the left into acts of violence, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups.

The park will review and assess safety, Hanson said. Were planning accordingly.

Noah Berger/Special to The Chronicle

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee said he does not condone hate speech, bigotry or violence, but noted that the gathering will be on federal land and that the U.S. Constitution protects the groups right to express an opinion, limiting his ability to respond.

I ask that when they chant of hate, San Francisco chants of love, Lee said.

Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin said another group, No Marxism in America, is planning an event on Aug. 27 at Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park in Berkeley, the site of earlier clashes between far-right groups and black-clad counter-protesters. The group has not yet applied for a permit, but police are making plans to respond should the gathering turn violent, he said.

We will be prepared to keep our community safe and prevent any destruction of property, Arreguin said. In light of what happened in Charlottesville over the weekend, he said, Im deeply concerned.

If this was really about freedom of speech  the city of Berkeley welcomes freedom of speech, he said. This isnt about that. This is about confrontation. This is about people coming to commit violence and spout hate speech and promote bigotry and promote white supremacy.

Such groups are strategically targeting Berkeley, San Francisco and the college town of Charlottesville because people there are liberal and likely to rise up in response. Its an old neo-Nazi tactic that goes back to an attempt in 1977 by the National Socialist Party of America to march on Skokie, Ill., where many Holocaust survivors lived.

Theyre trying to agitate a lot of people into reacting to them, said Lecia Brooks, an Oakland native who has studied the white supremacist and alt-right movements for the Southern Poverty Law Center. And they know that there is a lot of (anti-fascist groups) in these places, too, who will try to confront them.

The Southern Poverty Law Center counts 79 hate groups in California out of 917 it is tracking nationwide.

Theyre strong (in California). Id say theyre very strong, Brooks said, noting that Damigos white supremacist group Identity Evropa is one of those on the rise. Theyre determined to make a name for themselves.

Last week, Brooks co-authored a Southern Poverty Law Center guide on what to do when such groups come to a campus or city.

Alt-right personalities know their cause is helped by news footage of large jeering crowds, heated confrontations and outright violence at their events. It allows them to play the victim and gives them a larger platform for their racist message, according to the guide. Denying an alt-right speaker of such a spectacle is the worst insult they can endure.

Nonviolent opponents of hate groups should discourage anti-fascist groups from attending these events, Brooks said. The self-described alt-right thrives on physical confrontations and they get disappointed if the antifa doesnt show up, Brooks said.

When anti-fascist groups show up and start mixing it up with the hate groups, she said, media accounts often describe a clash instead of focusing on the hate groups. The hate groups chalk that up as a win because they have created chaos.

Arreguin said city and law enforcement officials have tried to ask anti-fascist groups not to attend alt-right events, but they showed up anyway.

The antifas feel that they have to come and have to confront them, Arreguin said. So you have two sides who are so passionate and ideological about what they believe in that its hard to talk some sense into them.

Glaser said having a black president for eight years angered many racists, and Trump emboldened them with his anti-immigration campaign speeches and, most recently, his delay in condemning white supremacist violence.

But Glaser characterized the latest uprisings as more the last gasp of a once mighty minority than the resurgence of white supremacy in America.

There are always going to be extremists like this, but I don't think there is a mass movement toward white supremacy, Glaser said. If anything, there has been an awakening, a greater recognition of the problems racial minorities face, and this is, in part, a backlash to the awakening. You can see it in their rallies where they chant, You will not replace us. They are feeling threatened.

Chronicle staff writer Kurtis Alexander contributed to this report.

Peter Fimrite and Joe Garofoli are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: pfimrite@sfchronicle.com, jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com
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California joined San Francisco on Monday in taking legal action challenging a Trump administration threat to withhold federal public safety grants from sanctuary cities that refuse to cooperate in deportations.

A lawsuit filed by Attorney General Xavier Becerra makes California the first state in the country to take on the U.S. Justice Departments plan to pull the grant money. San Francisco filed its own lawsuit Friday, the second such legal action it has filed against the Trump administration.

Becerra said the states lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, was based on the same grounds as the citys  that President Trump and his administration cant withhold money from a congressionally approved program without Congress agreement

We abide by federal law. We respect the Constitution. The federal government should do the same, Becerra said at a news conference with San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera at City Hall.

Becerras lawsuit, if successful, could help lay the foundation for state legal efforts against the administration should the Legislature approve a sanctuary-state bill that would prohibit local police officers and sheriffs deputies from enforcing federal immigration laws. Gov. Jerry Brown has said he has concerns about the measure, which some law enforcement officials strongly oppose.

The Trump administration has repeatedly sought to compel sanctuary cities to cooperate with immigration authorities by threatening to withdraw their federal funding. In April, San Francisco and Santa Clara County persuaded a federal judge to block a key section of an executive order issued by Trump that would withhold federal funding for sanctuary cities, calling the measure unconstitutional and an overreach by the federal government. The administration is appealing that decision.

The new lawsuits concern the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program, which provides money that local governments use to buy equipment such as police cars and fund a variety of public safety efforts, including jail diversion initiatives, adult alternative courts and social work services.

Each year, San Francisco receives about $1.5 million from the grant program. About a third of that comes from the federal government, and the rest from the state.

Last month, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the Justice Department would withhold Byrne grants to sanctuary cities unless their officials agreed to work more closely with immigration officers. Specifically, San Francisco and other sanctuary cities would have to grant jail access to federal immigration officials to interrogate suspects. They would also have to provide federal officials with 48 hours notice of the impending release of people wanted for immigration-related questioning.

In response to the latest lawsuits, a Justice Department spokesman said via email that San Francisco and other California cities have already experienced the devastating effects that sanctuary policies have on their citizens. He said it was especially disappointing that state leaders would take steps to limit cooperation between local jurisdictions and immigration authorities that are trying to keep Californians safe.

Trump made a campaign issue out of the 2015 killing of Kathryn Steinle, allegedly by a Mexican citizen who had been deported several times before being shipped from a federal prison to San Francisco to face possible prosecution for a marijuana charge. Prosecutors dropped the charge, and the Sheriffs Department let him go without turning him over to immigration officials.

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee said it was the Trump administration that was endangering public safety in the name of politics by threatening to withhold the grant money. San Francisco will not be intimidated by the federal governments threats, he said in a statement.

At Mondays news conference, Herrera called the administrations efforts to pressure sanctuary cities into complying with immigration officers an end-run around the Constitution that vilifies immigrants and punishes cities that prioritize public safety services over splitting up hardworking families.

The Department of Justice does not have authority from Congress to impose these conditions (on the grants), and for good reason. Herrera said.

Dominic Fracassa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: DFracassa@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dominicfracassa
With violence sparked by neo-Nazis in Virginia raising tensions across the U.S., white nationalists are planning rallies in San Francisco and Berkeley later this month.

A permit has been issued for a Patriot Prayer group to gather Aug. 26 at Crissy Field in San Francisco, said Sonja Hanson, spokeswoman for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The group is ostensibly religious, but its purpose is really an attempt to provoke black-clad ideologues on the left into acts of violence, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups.
A judge who released a 19-year-old man just days before he allegedly murdered a 71-year-old stranger on Twin Peaks had been given a faulty risk score that understated the danger the defendant posed on the street, officials said Monday.

The mistake was made by the Pretrial Diversion Project, a city-funded nonprofit group in charge of calculating public-safety assessment scores, or PSA scores, that San Francisco has been assigning to jailed defendants for more than a year, according to the San Francisco district attorneys office. The goal is to improve on the states traditional bail system.

The error apparently contributed to Judge Sharon Reardons July 11 release of Lamonte Mims of Patterson (Stanislaus County), who had been jailed on suspicion of being a felon with a gun. Five days later, police said, Mims and 20-year-old Fantasy Decuir of San Francisco killed photographer and film scout Edward French in a robbery on Twin Peaks.

Reardon had received a score for Mims that indicated he posed a medium risk of committing crimes or fleeing if released before trial, but the score was too low, officials said. It wasnt immediately clear how the mistake was made, and representatives of the Pretrial Diversion Project did not respond to requests for comment.

The risk assessment relies on a computer algorithm created by a Texas organization, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, which advocates for criminal justice reform and opposes the traditional system of setting bail amounts primarily according to a defendants charges, regardless of his or her ability to pay.

The tool weighs factors such as criminal history and age to determine an offenders public-safety and flight risk, but in the case of Mims, It appears certain factors were not accurately entered, and this resulted in a miscalculation by the agency that generates the scores, said Max Szabo, a spokesman for the district attorneys office.

The program recommended that Mims be released on what is known as assertive case management, which requires routine check-ins with authorities. Reardon was not obligated to follow the recommendation, but apparently did so. She cannot comment on the case due to judicial ethics rules, according to a court representative.

The revelation of the error came on the same day that the two defendants pleaded not guilty to murdering French, a San Francisco resident. Their defense attorneys declined to comment on the allegations.

Frenchs sister, Lorrie French, said the miscalculation further underscored that Reardon made the wrong decision.

The bottom line is she has to base her decision on facts, not on an algorithm, French said in an interview. How did she consciously put him back in the street, based on his history? She may not have pulled the trigger, but the trigger never would have been pulled had she done her job.

Investigators said they connected the pair to Frenchs killing after the two were arrested for robbing a man and woman at gunpoint near St. Marys Cathedral on Gough Street on July 28. While prosecutors said they have surveillance video of Decuir pulling the trigger on Twin Peaks, Mims allegedly made statements to police indicating he was involved in robbing French.

Mims had been ordered to stay away from Twin Peaks as part of a plea deal following his arrest in November in connection with three car break-ins in the Twin Peaks parking lot. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor burglary and receiving stolen property in March, and was sentenced to probation.

Mims already was on felony probation in San Mateo County, having pleaded no contest to felony car burglary and misdemeanor identity theft in July 2016. His November arrest at Twin Peaks was considered a violation of his probation in San Mateo County, and he was sentenced to six months in jail. He served three months, with three months of credit for good behavior.

On July 4, San Francisco police reported finding Mims in a car with another man and two guns. City prosecutors filed a motion to revoke his probation July 11, but Reardon apparently followed the mistaken recommendation.

The risk-assessment tool has been embraced in many counties around the country, but also is controversial. San Francisco has been using it since the Laura and John Arnold Foundation provided it free of charge in May 2016. The city has not provided any statistics on its success. .

The program is said to use data from the criminal case histories of more than 1.5 million people, focusing on how they fared after being released. Proponents of the tool say the recommendations serve as one helpful input for judges to consider.

Judges making tough decisions on who should be released and who should be held consider key information, David Hebert, a foundation spokesman, said in a statement. All systems are subject to human error, but the PSA represents a significant improvement over the days when nothing but money and subjective thinking determined freedom or incarceration.

District Attorney George Gascon advocated for bringing the tool to San Francisco, though his prosecutors sometimes disagree with the assessments.

Were taking steps to ensure our partners properly calculate PSA scores, as they play an important role in custody decisions, Szabo, the agency spokesman, said Monday.

Public Defender Jeff Adachi, who is representing Decuir, warned Monday against rushing to judgment in the Twin Peaks case. Whether or not a person is released on bail or released because of a pretrial assessment tool, there is always a risk that a person could re-offend, Adachi said. Its impossible to predict the future.

Lorrie French said her goal is to make sure this never happens to a family again.

I want justice for my brother, not just for his murder, but for the judicial system making a mistake and not following through the way it should have, she said. I want (Judge Reardon) to be accountable for what she did, whatever that may entail. She needs to be accountable because it was her decision that killed my brother.

Vivian Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: vho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @VivianHo
A security guard at the Burlington Coat Factory shot a man Tuesday at the entrance to the San Francisco store, police said.

Two witnesses, one inside the store and one outside, said they heard four shots, with at least one hitting the 32-year-old man.
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In a post Tuesday on its Facebook page as well as the website, Crude Fest organizers have announced that the there will be no 2018 festival.

The post cites that the cost to produce such an event has become too high.

RELATED: Mugshots: 57 arrested at 2017 Crude Fest

From the Crude Fest website:

A Message for Our Fans

To our fans: all of us here at Crude Fest thank you and really appreciate your loyal support over the past eight years. Unfortunately, however, the festival will not be returning in 2018. Long story short, it's just become too expensive and too difficult to produce in the current economic environment. That said, we'll look at opportunities to return at a different time and location. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for all the great memories and making us the biggest party in West Texas. 'Til we meet again.

We have reached out to Townsquare Media, which produces the festival.

"We're very saddened by this news but that's not to say there won't be events in the future," LoneStar 92 brand manager Gwen McCown said.

LoneStar 92 is also a Townsquare Media affiliate.

READ MORE: Man stabbed in butt at Crude Fest in West Texas

McCown reiterated much of what was said in the post, but wanted to thank the fans once again.

"We just thank West Texas for being a part of such a great event," she said.

This year was the eighth year for the three-day Texas country music and camping festival. The Eli Young Band, Josh Abbott Band, Cody Johnson, Flatland Cavalry among others.
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The first thing a visitor notices about Michael Guarinos downtown loft in the Travis Park Lofts, a short walk from Travis Park, is, well, the front door. Its a thick slab of carved, paneled mahogany, with a brass lions head knocker in the center.

I lived in Rome for a long time in my younger days, and when you find a nice apartment in Rome, the front door makes a statement, said Guarino, a designer at Ford, Powell & Carson Architects and Planners Inc. This one really got my bell ringing.

Rome is a good point of reference for Guarinos new home, an industrial loft space civilized by French antiques, modernist furniture and a mix of neoclassical, modern and contemporary art. He even has a small Picasso etching from the 20s and four Raoul Dufy lithographs, probably from the late 1940s.

They say the sets of An American in Paris were based on Raoul Dufy drawings, Guarino said, and two of these look as if they could be from the big finale.

The four-story building, he suspects, was a later addition  a warehouse wing  to the 1917 Frost Bros. department store, whose Houston Street facade a block away Guarino calls one of the most stylish Art Deco essays in Texas.

Its a steel structure infilled with hollow clay tile, concrete floors and wonderfully high ceilings, he said during a recent tour of his residence. It was designed for department store or warehouse loads, so I didnt have any fear for my books or piano. I could stable elephants in this place.

With 12-foot ceilings of exposed rebar and ducting, the 1,600-square-foot loft  one of just 18 units  has 10-foot windows facing west for dramatic sunsets and a small black lacquer balcony looking down Travis Street.

The old Milam Building is my beacon off the balcony at night, said Guarino, who is chairman of the citys Historic and Design Review Comission and also is a lecturer at the University of Texas at San Antonio College of Architecture. And the guest room is the Gunter Hotel, which is just right there.

Its one of the the main reasons he recently moved from a 4,000-square-foot historic home in King William: everything is right there, including the River Walk, the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, the Majestic Theater, restaurants and favorite hangouts, his doctors office, and his work once Ford, Powell & Carson moves into the old San Antonio Light building undergoing renovation on Broadway, just five minutes away on foot.

I just like being in the middle of stuff, he said. Its how urban life ought to be.

An Austin native, the 62-year-old Guarino is a graduate of the University of Texas School of Architecture. He worked as an architect for archaeological excavations in Italy and Turkey and was making a living as an archaeological illustrator before returning home to Austin in the 90s, eventually settling in San Antonio in 2006.

After renting for a time in the Casino Club Building downtown, he bought the King William home. But, after 11 years, he decided it was past time to go.

There were the usual maintenance and tax pressures, which everybody has, but more and more, it just seemed wrong to be occupying that much space, he said.

His loft, which was built in 2002, is an efficiently designed one-bedroom space with an open kitchen and a slate shower the size of a small garage.

Along one long wall off a small entry are waist-high bookshelves housing books on art, history and architecture, which serve as a shelf supporting Guarinos collection of ceramic casts of classical busts, including a head of Michelangelos David.

Theres beginning to be some interests in casts as works of art themselves, Guarino said. In the 19th century, it was almost impossible for art students to travel, so casts were taken of great works of art and shipped to places like the University of Texas and Cornell University, which continue to own them.

Other neoclassical treasures include a very rare early plan of Pompeii, one of the first measured drawings of the city, Guarino said, and a beautiful library table that was patterned after the carbonized Roman furniture found at Pompeii.

On it sits what Guarino calls the best graduation present any architecture student could ever receive, an 18th-century copy of antiquarian Robert Woods book The Ruins of Palmyra, which is considered the first scientifically accurate record of an archaeological excavation.

Its sort of a melancholy thing now, since all the wonders in it were destroyed by ISIS, Guarino said.

The living room, a mix of French antiques and Le Corbusier knockoff chrome-tube sofas, features as a focal point a sort of altar on the south wall made up of a Mexican tapestry, a round, convex bullseye mirror, the Dufy works, a French Second Empire clock and a small abstract painting by San Antonio artist Larry Graeber.

While Michaels architectural studies are deeply rooted in an expansive understanding of the history of art and architecture, his own sense of architectural design has a very 21st-century feel to it, Guarinos longtime friend, Austin sculptor David Everett, wrote in an email.

This visual sophistication allows him to blend his interest in the old and the new. I think he has done a wonderful job of marrying his collection of classical sculpture, traditional paintings and prints and drawings, contemporary art and books into a beautifully repurposed downtown building that really fits his sense of an urban walking lifestyle, an attitude influenced by the years he spent living, studying and working in his beloved Italy. I think it fits him perfectly.

Guarino sees his friends point.

I sort of feel like a hermit crab that has been looking for the right shell to crawl into, and Ive found it, he said. It has the feel of the kind of a place upper middle class Romans live in. This apartment actually has everything I love about designing spaces.

SBennett@express-news.net
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The City of Rio Bravo is requesting the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by its former police chief, Rene Cervantes, who claims the city's administrator asked him to shoot the children of immigrants who entered the country illegally.

Cervantes is suing Rio Bravo and City Administrator Miguel Berry for breach of contract, interference with his contract and intentional infliction of emotional distress. He is requesting more than $200,000 in damages.

Cervantes alleges the city breached his contract by allowing Berry to exercise supervisory authority over him when his contract states he is under the supervision of Dr. Francisco Pena, the mayor.

The lawsuit, filed in the 406th District Court, states Berry instructed Cervantes to "shoot children of illegal immigrants (he) and his officers might arrest so it would be easier to send the parents back to Mexico."

Cervantes resisted this and other directives that he says are unconstitutional and unconscionable, according to the lawsuit.

READ MORE: Rio Bravo official accused of ordering police chief to 'shoot children of illegal immigrants'

The city says in its response that Berry is being sued for performing discretionary governmental acts that were within the scope of his authority and that he performed in "good faith."

The city further asserts that as a political subdivision of the state of Texas, it is a governmental unit and immune from suit and liability for all or part of Cervantes' allegations. Berry, as a government official, has immunity as well, according to the city.

Cervantes' lawsuit alleges Berry's conduct in "ordering Chief Cervantes to shoot the children of illegal aliens, as well as his campaign to humiliate and terrorize Chief Cervantes, was extreme and outrageous."

These and all other allegations are denied in the city's response to the lawsuit.

Employment contract

The city is requesting the lawsuit's dismissal on "the fact that the alleged contract on which (Cervantes) bases his claims was never adopted and approved by the City Council."

In what the city calls the "unlikely event" that it is determined there was an agreement between the parties regarding Cervantes' employment, the city says it did not breach the agreement. Rather, the city asserts that Cervantes abandoned his employment.

Craig Lawrence, Cervantes' attorney, said the city suspended Cervantes improperly and "that suspension, combined with various breaches of contract, added up to a constructive discharge."

Constructive discharge occurs when an employee resigns as a result of the employer creating a hostile work environment.

While Cervantes wanted to continue to serve the citizens of Rio Bravo, Lawrence said the city hindered his client's employment by continually violating his contract.

Berry and the city allegedly sent several memorandums to Cervantes containing directives that Cervantes believes violated his employment contract.

He said he was notified that failure to comply with the directives would be considered insubordination under the city's policies and procedures manual and would result in disciplinary action.

Cervantes was subsequently suspended without pay June 17 for breach of the policies and procedures manual, the lawsuit states.

RELATED: More than 900 sign petition to 'change Bartlett back'

In a letter sent July 26 to LMT, Mayor Pena said he is requesting a ruling from the Texas Attorney General on documents requested by LMT related to Cervantes' suspension.

The letter adds: "The City of Rio Bravo intends to be forthcoming regarding the litigation, but until a law firm is engaged by the City, no statements or interviews for publication will be permitted.

After legal representation is in place, attorneys representing the City may, in their judgment, respond to inquiries from media organizations."

Lea Ream, who represents Rio Bravo, said "The city does not comment on matters currently in litigation," in response to a request for comment.

The lawsuit is scheduled for an initial hearing Oct. 10 before 406th District Court Judge Oscar J. Hale Jr., records state.
Adults who are looking to take the General Educational Development test (GED) now have three different test options to get their high school equivalency certificate in the state of Texas.

The tests that are available are the original GED, the HiSET exam and the TASC test. The GED is computer based, while the other two have paper options for those who do not have computer skills.

Other differences include the number of sections. The GED test has four sections to be taken separately which are math, language arts, science and social studies. The other two tests have separated the language arts into separate reading and writing sections. All tests can be taken in both English and Spanish. Other states have chosen to replace the GED or added one of these other tests. Each state has their own different policy.

"Each test is slightly different and has different standards. But at the end, if you have passing score, you will have a certificate," Dr. Eduardo Honold, Director at Harris County Department of Education, said.

According to Honold, the GED test itself went through significant changes back in 2014 and became much more rigorous.

"We have had fewer individuals seeking to take the test and few more passing the test. The passing score was lowered by five points which helped some. We are slowly gaining some traction, but we are still at significantly lower rates of passing from before 2014. It has taken awhile for teachers to learn the new standards," Honold said.

There are three eligibility requirements to take one of these tests. You have to be a resident of Texas, have a government-issued photo ID and be 18 years or older. If you are 17 years old, you have to have parental or guardian permission.

All tests, either written or on a computer, have to be taken at a certified testing center in a controlled environment. A list of testing locations can be found at http://tea.texas.gov/TxCHSE_Test_Information_At_A_Glance.html.

Honold says that there is no requirement in Texas to take a preparation course before the test, but the majority of the test takers do prefer to prepare before the test.

There are about 50 preparation class locations across Harris County, ranging from Alief to Katy to Baytown to Cypress Fairbanks, through the Harris County Department of Education's Adult Education programs. Classes are available at all times of the day and in the evening. There are instruction classes in GED, English as a second language and workforce development. Registration is ongoing year round. All schedules for fall classes are posted at www.hcde-texas.org/adulteducation.

"We are trying to find ways to accommodate the needs of our different students, and be a little more flexible in how we offer GED instruction. We are offering distance education for those who may not be able to come to classes on a regular basis and we are offering training that is online. This way, individuals can really focus on the skills they are really needing to address, whereas in a class you have to cater to the class as a whole," Honold said.

According to www.tea.texas.gov, study material is available at most libraries and book stores. Most preparation books have practice tests. You can find more information from each test provider website at www.ged.com, www.hiset.ets.org and www.tasctest.com.

The price take all of the sections of the GED is $145, $125 for the HiSET and $124 for the TASC. It is possible to be tested on all the sections in one day, but Honold notes that each section could take up to two hours each to finish. If a student fails one section, but passes the others, they only need to repay for and retake that specific section.

"When we look at the motivation of our students to get a GED, the number one motivation is to get a job or get a better job," Honold said. "People are realizing, and this is something we emphasis, that the real difference in terms of job stability, comes not from a high school diploma, but a college degree or work place certificate. We are really focusing on the GED as a stepping stone to middle skill jobs and future success."

Honold continued, "When I do talks about the GED, my main focus is on the jobs that are available in Houston, such as welding and medical assistants, that provide a wage that allows an individual to sustain a family. These will require more than just a high school diploma. The times when you could get jobs with just a diploma, those are harder to find now. These jobs will require additional training post GED, and a GED indicates to an employer that the individual is capable of learning and has the analytical skills to succeed in a training program."

In 2016 8,862 students were served through the Adult Education programs in Harris County. For resources for classes in GED/ESL or workforce training visit www.hcde-texas.org/adulteducation or call 713-692-6216.
Career training is getting a jolt this fall with the start of a new electrician apprenticeship offered to junior and senior students at Spring Branch area high schools that will allow them to complete two of the four required years toward a professional journeyman's license, all before graduation.

The program is a first of its kind in the state, according to education consultants working to blend resources from the school district, industry partners and grant funding to help improve opportunities for low-income students while filling a need in the state's economy for skilled workers.

"There was a gap between the millenial and the baby boomer; there was no experience or their hands were too old," said Shane Murphy, a superintendent and school manager at TRIO Electric, the private company in East Spring Branch who approached the district about expanding their existing apprenticeship program to high schoolers due to a lack of qualified workers in the field.

The program will allow students to be on track to sit for a journeyman's electrician exam with the state of Texas only two years after high school, while simultaneously earning well above minimum wage with their level-one certificate earned at the end of the high school course. First-year journeymen earn a median income of $52,000 annually, compared to the national average median income of $37,000 across all industries according to a 2016 Bureau of Labor Statistics survey from the United States Department of Labor.

But even for those students who have aspirations to earn a four-year degree, the pilot program will also confer college credit hours transferable to Houston Community College, which will certify their level-one certificate.

Murphy and Beau Pollock, TRIO president, have expressed a need for electrical engineers too, and hope to hire from the pool who come through the program once they finish college.

The initiative came together quickly, and TRIO and Spring Branch ISD made presentations at every high school to recruit students into the program, and held open houses for students and parents who were interested.

"It's really a win-win for the partnerships and the kids because we were able to identify about 50 juniors this year, and when they get to be seniors, we'll identify 50 more juniors," said David Sablatura director of Spring Branch's Career and Technical Education Center located at the Guthrie Center on Hammerly Road, where the hands-on learning will take place. A $50,000 renovation is hurriedly being completed to outfit the room with training modules that mimic the classroom at TRIO.

"This is a school-to-work program, and for some families, they're seeing this as a great way for their kids to move into a career and start early," said Sablatura. "A lot of those apprenticeships are hard to come by. We're really excited about it and we can't wait to get started; we're just weeks away from kicking it off."

So far, at least one student from each Spring Branch district high school has signed up for the electrical courses for the fall semester.

It starts with classroom lessons at Guthrie, then; over the summer, TRIO offers paid internships for students at $13 per hour, but more importantly, keeps the clock ticking toward the 2,000 hours of hands-on training to be completed by graduation.

TRIO is a Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation-approved Apprenticeship site and has been providing the program to high school graduates for four years in their "boot camp"-style classes. However, they hope training high schoolers will help them create a workforce for the entire state. They predict being able to hire all 50 students who complete the inaugural class, and after that they'll help with job placement at other companies who face the same labor shortage.

A National Association of Home Builders 2016 survey found, "The share of builders reporting either some or a serious (labor) shortage has skyrocketed from a low of 21 percent in 2012, to 46 percent in 2014, 52 percent in 2015, and now 56 percent in 2016. The shortages have harmed builders' abilities to both form their own workforces, and hire subcontractors, such as bricklayers and electricians."

The survey concluded that the labor shortage has been a factor in rising home prices.

The implications of stimulating a sluggish workforce that could affect home prices, a major economic lever, has piqued the interest of one graduate student at University of Houston who is using the program as a research project.

Victoria Doan has been privy to high-level meetings and conference calls, and Laurie Bricker, an education consultant working with the partners, hopes Doan's research will provide data and validation along the way so that initiatives like this can be modeled across the state, and even the country.

"We want to make sure students stay engaged, not just looking at a textbook," said Murphy. "We really want to train leaders."

A National Association of Homebuilders 2016 survey found, "The share of builders reporting either some or a serious (labor) shortage has skyrocketed from a low of 21 percent in 2012, to 46 percent in 2014, 52 percent in 2015, and now 56 percent in 2016.

A National Association of Homebuilders 2016 survey found, "The share of builders reporting either some or a serious (labor) shortage has skyrocketed from a low of 21 percent in 2012, to 46 percent in 2014, 52 percent in 2015, and now 56 percent in 2016.

46%

in 2014

52%

in 2015

56%

in 2016
Fort Bend ISD

The Elkins High School Honors Band, directed by Chad Collins, was named an Honor Band Finalist after earning 12th place at the Texas Music Educators' Association Honor Band Competition that welcomed more than 250 Class 5A Texas bands. This is the band's first time in the school's history to place at the state-level competition.

TMEA hosts the Honor Band Competition every other year for Class 5A bands throughout the state. Participating bands record and submit their best work for judging at the regional level, with an opportunity to advance to area and state levels.
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Xavier Herrera, secretary of the Stafford Municipal School District board of trustees, is one of approximately 34 trustees statewide selected to participate in the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) Leadership 2018 Class.

Trustees selected for this program will be part of a year-long education leadership study program. At the conclusion of the program, they will earn the designation of "Master Trustee."
A Philadelphia firefighter has apologized for an apparently racist photo making light of the protests that turned violent over the weekend in Virginia.

Philadelphia firefighter John Deluisi reportedly tagged an African American colleague in a Facebook photo showing Deluisi wearing a hat emblazoned with the Confederate battle flag and holding a tiki torch. "Headed to VA," the caption read, according to Fox affiliate WTXF.

"I am very disappointed in myself, and I'm very sorry," he told the news station.

"I am an idiot. I am very sorry. Maybe I get too carried away on Facebook, and I put something up there that was stupid. I thought he would get a joke about it. I really did. And thinking about it, it was very stupid," he added.

Deluisi could not immediately be reached for comment by The Washington Post.

Philadelphia Fire Department Capt. William Dixon said the matter is under investigation. He said the fire commissioner is "certainly disturbed" by the preliminary reports but that the department is still working to get to the bottom of it and determine how to best handle the situation.

Indeed, Fire Commissioner Adam Thiel said he was "utterly horrified and disgusted."

"Racist images, symbols, words and actions are contrary to our mission and values and have absolutely no place in our Department," Thiel said in a statement Tuesday to The Washington Post. "We will take swift and decisive personnel action after a full investigation. The Department will follow-up with intensive and focused workplace conduct training for our more than 2,600 members.

"While I am disappointed by this event, I know this individual's behavior does not represent the values, dedication and service of our entire Department."

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, D, said the social media post was "very disturbing."

He tweeted: "I denounce white supremacist rallies & violence in Virginia. This is not what America is supposed to be. We're about love & unity, not hate."

Law enforcement officers in two other states are being investigated for similar incidents.

An officer with the Shively Police Department in Kentucky and an officer with the Springfield Police Department in Massachusetts allegedly made fun of the fatal car crash that occurred during the Unite the Right rally Saturday in Charlottesville, where hundreds of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members clashed with counterprotesters. A 32-year-old Charlottesville woman was killed, and others were wounded in the attack.

In Massachusetts, Springfield police Officer Conrad Lariviere is under investigation after he reportedly commented on a Facebook post about the crash, writing, "Hahahaha love this, maybe people shouldn't block roads," according to MassLive.com.

In the post, Lariviere also responded to another commenter who had apparently criticized him for his controversial remarks, according to MassLive.com.

"I've been hit by as-bag with warrants but who cares right you ignorant brat live in a fantasy land with the rest of America While I deal with the real danger," he wrote, according to the news site.

Springfield Police Commissioner John Barbieri said he received a complaint Sunday about the Facebook comment.

"The post is purportedly from a Springfield police officer," he said in a statement. "I took immediate steps to initiate a prompt and thorough internal investigation. If in fact this post did originate from an officer employed with the Springfield Police Department, this matter will be reviewed by the Community Police Hearings Board for further action."

Police said Lariviere has been reassigned during the investigation.

Meanwhile, in Kentucky, Officer Morris Rinehardt has been placed on administrative leave during an investigation into a meme posted over the weekend on Facebook, police said.

The Courier-Journal reported Rinehardt posted a meme depicting the damaged vehicle. It read: "When you were born a Challenger but identify as a Ram."

Rinehardt also reportedly commented "LMFAO" on another user's post that jokingly listed the car for sale, according to the newspaper. The post read, "Minor front end damage. Nothing serious."

"The City of Shively, and its police department, take these types of allegations very seriously, and we do not condone any behavior by our personnel that shows indifference to human life," Shively police said Monday in a statement.

Authorities at either police department have not confirmed details about the social-media posts, and attempts to reach the two officers were not successful.

But in a Facebook chat with MassLive, Lariviere, with the Springfield Police Department, apologized for "a stupid comment about people blocking streets."

"Never would I want someone to get murdered. I am not a racist and don't believe in what any of those protesters are doing," he told the news site. "I'm a good man who made a stupid comment and would just like to be left alone."
BUENOS AIRES - Vice President Mike Pence celebrated Argentina as a model for a prosperous Latin America and vowed additional U.S. trade partnerships here Tuesday while also seeking to further isolate Venezuela and pressure its autocratic leader to reverse course and restore democracy there.

Delivering the centerpiece speech of his week-long visit to South and Central America, Pence on Tuesday declared "the dawn of a new era in the New World." He carried a message of unity here to Buenos Aires and promoted economic and security ties between the Trump administration and Argentine President Mauricio Macri's government.

"A secure Latin America means a more secure United States of America," Pence said. "A prosperous Latin America means a more prosperous United States of America. And the advance of freedom and democracy in Latin America benefits the cause of freedom everywhere."

Pence singled out one exception: Venezuela, the South American country where President Nicolas Maduro has precipitated an economic collapse and drawn international scorn by cracking down on dissent and asserting his autocratic rule.

"Venezuela is sliding into dictatorship, and as President Donald Trump has said, the United States will not stand by as Venezuela crumbles," Pence said.

Pence sought to soothe U.S. allies across the hemisphere, including Argentina, who reacted with alarm to Trump's threat late last week that the United States was considering military action in Venezuela.

As he did earlier in the week in Cartagena, Colombia, Pence made clear that the Trump administration would focus on diplomatic efforts and economic sanctions, although all options - including military ones - remain on the table.

"As President Trump said just a few days ago, we have many options for Venezuela," Pence said in Buenos Aires. "But the president also remains confident that working with all of our allies across Latin America, and across the wider world, that we can achieve a peaceable solution restoring democracy and ending the crisis facing the people of Venezuela."

Pence delivered his speech from the Bolsa de Comercio, the old stock exchange building in downtown Buenos Aires, following a busy day of official events. Pence met with Macri at the presidential residence, Quinta de Olivos, where the two leaders held a joint news conference.

Macri, who has a personal relationship with Trump dating back many years, distanced himself from the U.S. president's military threat in Venezuela. Standing next to Pence, Macri said, "We must refine diplomatic and economic skills in order to ensure that a democracy is restored as quickly as possible." He added: "The way to go is not the use of force."

Pence also met with Argentina's vice president, Gabriela Michetti, at the stately Casa Rosada, or the Pink House, which serves as the seat of Argentina's national government and the building from which Eva "Evita" Peron would address the masses from a balcony during the 1940s and 50s.

Pence also toured the Metropolitan Cathedral, the 16th-century house of worship where Pope Francis served as an archbishop before his promotion to the Vatican. Pence paid his respects at a memorial inside the cathedral for the victims of the 1992 Israeli Embassy bombing.

"The threat of terror still looms across our hemisphere, and we will stand together to confront it and protect our people from it," Pence said in his remarks at the old stock exchange. "And so, too, must we stand together to defeat the most immediate threat to Latin America's security and prosperity - the menace of transnational crime."

Pence is planning to travel on Wednesday to Santiago, Chile, for a day of official meetings, and then visit Panama City, Panama, on Thursday to tour the newly expanded Panama Canal.

Venezuela has been a core focus of Pence's trip. He spoke extensively about the Maduro government while visiting neighboring Colombia, and met on Monday morning at a Cartagena church with dozens of Venezuelan refugees who had fleed the country in recent weeks.

"We are seeing tragedy of tyranny play out before our eyes in our own hemisphere," Pence said Tuesday in Buenos Aires.
A crowd toppled a bronze Confederate statue in front of a county administrative building in Durham, North Carolina, on Monday evening, as throngs of "anti-fascist" groups gathered there days after white nationalist-fueled violence turned fatal in Virginia.

Derrick Lewis, a reporter from the local NBC affiliate WNCN, posted a video to Twitter at 7:15 p.m. showing the statue crashing to the ground in front of the old Durham County Court House during what organizers billed as an "emergency protest."

With a strap tied around the neck of the statue, protesters spat, kicked and gestured at the mangled figure after its base was ripped from the granite block.

The statue, which depicts a uniformed and armed Confederate soldier, stood atop an engraved pedestal that read, "In memory of 'the boys who wore the gray.' " It was erected in 1924 and stood 15-feet tall, according to a memorial database. One side of the granite pedestal depicts a Confederate flag.

"The racism and deadly violence in Charlottesville is unacceptable but there is a better way to remove these monuments," Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, said via Twitter on Monday evening. A 2015 state law prohibits the removal of any "object of remembrance" on public property that "commemorates an event, a person, or military service that is part of North Carolina's history" without legislative approval.

Groups at the rally included members of the Triangle People's Assembly, Workers World Party, Industrial Workers of the World, Democratic Socialists of America and the anti-fascist movement, the Herald Sun reported.

"Charlottesville and racist monuments across the country are the result of centuries of white supremacy," Alissa Ellis, a member of Workers World Party Durham branch that was a participant in the Charlottesville protests, told the Herald Sun. Her group mobilized members on Facebook to attend the Durham event.

A Durham County Sheriff's Office spokesperson referred questions from The Washington Post to the county's public information office. A request for comment was not immediately returned.

Protesters have targeted the Durham monument before. The statue was spray-painted with a message reading "Black lives matter" in 2015.

On Saturday, white nationalists, neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members clashed with protesters at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. The fringe groups gathered to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe said at a news conference Saturday that he had a message for "all the white supremacists and the Nazis who came into Charlottesville today: Go home. You are not wanted in this great commonwealth."

During the rally, a car plowed into the crowd, killing Heather Heyer, 32, and injuring 19 others. James Alex Fields Jr., 20, the alleged driver of the vehicle, has been charged with second-degree murder, hit and run, and three counts of malicious wounding. A former teacher described Fields as a Nazi sympathizer.
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The Texas Education Agency will release its annual school ratings Tuesday morning, detailing whether schools met state standards for academic achievement. The ratings take on added importance this year due to the passage in 2015 of a state law that forces the TEA to close schools or take over operations in districts where at least one school has repeatedly failed to meet state standards.

The results are to be released between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. The Houston Chronicle will post the scores here immediately after they are released.

Here, we answer common questions about the ratings:

What are the ratings? And how does the Texas Education Agency compute the scores?

Schools will receive one of two ratings: "meets standard" or "improvement required."

A school's rating is based on whether it exceeds a pre-set target based on four measurements of academic performance: student achievement, student progress, closing performance gaps, and post-secondary readiness.

To get a "meets standard" rating, a school must hit the target for student achievement or student progress, and it must meet the targets for closing performance gaps and post-secondary readiness.

Historically, how many schools "meet standard"?

In 2016, about 88 percent of schools statewide received a "meets standard" rating, about 5 percent were graded "improvement required," and about 6 percent were not rated.

Houston ISD had 37 schools rated "improvement required" out of about 280 campuses in 2016. District officials, who have received the 2017 ratings, said they expect to have 28 campuses rated "improvement required" when the data is officially released Tuesday.

Aldine, Alief, Galveston, and Spring Branch each had four "improvement required" schools in 2016.

Why do the grades matter so much more following the passage of the 2015 state law?

Under the new law, a district faces new punishments if any school receives an "improvement required" rating in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.

When that happens, the TEA must close the school that received five straight "improvement required" ratings, or it must take over the district's board of trustees.

HoustonChronicle.com: Potential HISD takeover has roots in widely supported 2015 law

Supporters of the law say it holds school districts more accountable for their lowest-performing schools. Opponents of the law say the punishments are draconian and take too much power away from locally elected school board members, including at large urban districts where all but a few schools failed to make the grade.

What schools are at risk of triggering the law if they receive an "improvement required" rating Tuesday and in 2018?

Seventeen Houston-area schools from four districts:

Aldine ISD

Caraway Intermediate School

Alief ISD

Best Elementary School

Houston ISD

Blackshear Elementary School

Cook Elementary School

Dogan Elementary School

Henry Middle School

Highland Heights Elementary School

Kashmere Gardens Elementary School

Kashmere High School

Lewis Elementary School

Mading Elementary School

Victory Prep South

Wesley Elementary School

Wheatley High School

Woodson PK-8 School

Worthing High School

Spring Branch ISD

Hollibrook Elementary School

Any idea how many schools will come off that list Tuesday?

School districts have already received the scores, so they know the answer to that. Some districts have leaked their results, while others have kept them close to the vest.

Houston ISD officials said they expect a few of their listed schools to meet state standards, but they have not listed which schools or provided an exact number. The remaining Houston-area districts have not publicly released their school ratings.
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State school ratings released Tuesday showed academic gains across Houston ISD this year, but enthusiasm over the results was tempered by 10 struggling campuses again falling short of state standards, leaving the district under threat of state intervention and even takeover next year without more progress.

District administrators heralded the results, released publicly by the Texas Education Agency, while also pledging to buckle down at the 10 schools that have now received at least four straight "improvement required" marks.

HISD officials were warned last week that a 2015 state law requires either the closure of schools that receive five straight "improvement required" ratings as of August 2018 or the state takeover of local boards in districts with chronically failing schools.

Prior to the release of the 2017 results, six local school districts faced state intervention if their chronically failing schools didn't improve. Four of them  Aldine, Alief, Brazosport and Spring Branch  all made the grade Tuesday, removing the threat for those systems.

That left only Galveston ISD, with one school needing improvement next year, and Houston ISD, which faces a monumental task in the coming months: turn around 10 schools in high-minority, high-poverty areas that have repeatedly fallen short of state standards. They are Blackshear, Dogan, Highland Heights, Mading and Wesley elementary schools; Henry Middle School; Woodson PK-8 School; and Kashmere, Wheatley and Worthing high schools.

Now Playing: Whether you dreaded the playground or it was your favorite asubjecta - the midday break from school has become a pretty retro idea. Now, elementary schools are more focused than ever on academics and testing, leaving little time to let kids just Video: Brandpoint

Houston district officials have said they plan to devote additional resources to those campuses, fill all vacant positions in them, and work with local leaders  including Mayor Sylvester Turner  to secure other aid for those students.

"It's what we wake up thinking about. It's what we go to sleep thinking about, if we even go to sleep," Superintendent Richard Carranza said Tuesday.

Still, Carranza saw positives in the results. Of 259 Houston ISD campuses graded by the state, 27 were labeled "improvement required," the lowest number in the five-year history of the ratings. And after multiple years of failing grades, four campuses  Cook, Kashmere Gardens and Lewis elementary schools and Victory Prep South, a charter high school  met state standards in 2017.

"I'm incredibly excited, incredibly buoyed by the results," said Carranza, who was brought to Houston a year ago from San Francisco, where he was schools superintendent. "For 90 percent to be performing so well is a great achievement."

State education officials have given no indication whether Commissioner Mike Morath would order school closures or a district board takeover. Some schools could have the option to convert to "in-district" charters, Houston ISD trustees have said.

In testimony before a Senate education committee last year, Morath said local school boards need to be held more accountable for failing to improve long-struggling schools.

"Right now, it's just speculation about what actions the (TEA) commissioner may take," said Gene Acuna, the agency's director of communications, in a phone interview Tuesday. "But I will say, this commissioner values successful student outcomes in every campus in the state. He will look to the local district to see what their plans are, but ultimately, he's going to be faced with a decision under (the new law)."

Across the state, about 95 percent of schools met state standards, 4 percent were marked "improvement required," and 1 percent were not rated. Other Houston-area districts with schools failing to meet state standards in 2017 include Spring Branch ISD (five), Aldine (three), Pasadena (two), Spring (two), Alief (one) and Fort Bend (one). Ten local charter schools also received an "improvement required" rating.

TAKEOVER: HISD given possible third option in dealing with struggling schools

The TEA measures school and district performance through four metrics: the percentage of students passing the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STARR; how much students' STAAR test scores improved over the previous year; how well campuses have closed achievement gaps among different racial and socio-economic groups; and how well campuses prepare students for college, careers or military service.

Each campus is given target scores to reach. If a school hits one of the first two metrics, and meets the two other measures, it reaches state standards.

In recent years, state officials have given school districts more latitude to fix struggling schools. But in 2015, a bipartisan coalition of Texas legislators overwhelmingly passed the law requiring more immediate state intervention.

The law put immediate pressure on 14 Houston ISD schools and eight other area campuses to meet state standards in 2017 or 2018.

HoustonChronicle: Potential HISD takeover has roots in widely supported 2015 law

Several schools immediately reached the target.

At Kashmere Gardens Elementary, which in 2017 met the state's standard for the first time in four years, Principal Reginald Bush said his first job was to diagnose the root causes of students' poor performance when he arrived in 2015. He found some shocking truths: more than one in three students were leaving the school each year, and many highly rated teachers were following them out the door.

He said some of those trends began to change last year when the central district started pouring more resources and providing wrap-around social services to students and parents. Groups worked with homeless families to find students homes, helped connect families with food pantries and found health services for students whose families could not afford regular medical check-ups.

During the past school year, the rate of Kashmere Gardens Elementary students who left the school dropped by 10 percentage points.

"Now we're able to have more conversations with parents, have more conversations with community partners and... look at each and every child and each and every family that's coming in," Bush said. "It's not just taking a look, it's being proactive and going to the next step to support these families and their kids."

Explore new school accountability rankings The Texas Education Agency's release of school accountability rankings on Tuesday brought good news for a handful of local campuses, but 10 chronically failing Houston ISD schools once again fell short of state standards, putting them and their districts at greater risk of state intervention. Click through the numbers to explore trends in the rankings. Explore new school accountability rankings The Texas Education Agency's release of school accountability rankings on Tuesday brought good news for a handful of local campuses, but 10 chronically failing Houston ISD schools once again fell short of state standards. Click on the circles below too see how schools fared. .

In Spring Branch ISD, Hollibrook Elementary School reached state standards after three straight years of "improvement required" ratings. Administrators there attributed the turnaround, in part, to Principal Karen Liska, who's entering her third year at the school, and to a five-year, $8.2 million grant it received in 2015.

"We're pleased and encouraged, not just at Hollibrook, but more broadly with our schools across the board," said Elliott Witney, Spring Branch ISD's associate superintendent of research and design.

However, 10 Houston ISD campuses weren't able to produce such quick results.

Some campuses teetered on the edge of passing. Three campuses  Blackshear Elementary School, Henry Middle School and Kashmere High School  reached their target for two metrics, but just barely fell short on the third. It was the second straight year that Kashmere High School missed the mark by a razor's edge. The campus now has received eight consecutive "improvement required" ratings, the longest such streak in the region.

Other campuses, however, remain far from passing.

Worthing High School and Woodson PK-8 School both failed to meet a single one of the four metric targets. Perhaps no school will be as challenging to turn around as Worthing in the Sunnyside area, which hasn't hit a single metric target since 2013.

Carranza noted that the 10 schools facing state intervention have long been under-served both by the school district and the city. All of the campuses are included in the "Achieve 180" plan he announced last spring, which devotes $24 million to bolstering 32 struggling schools.

"We've made decisions in the past that hurt these school campuses, and we're committed to looking at that," Carranza said. "There's no such thing as a bad school. There is such thing as lack of district support for that school and its students."

Jahson Gibbs, a rising junior at Kashmere High School in northeast Houston, said he knows his school has a bad reputation to some. He encouraged folks to visit the school or talk to several students before criticizing the campus, which he believes will no longer be in "improvement required" status by fall 2018.

"We're going to do it this year," Gibbs, 16, said as he played basketball at a park across from the campus. "I'll make sure."
The Midland County Commissioners Court on Monday proposed to leave the tax rate at the current rate.

The proposed tax rate is 15.5992 cents per $100 valuation. The portion for maintenance and operations is 14.897 cents, and the interest and sinking fund is 0.7022 cents.

County Judge Mike Bradford told the Reporter-Telegram on Friday the county is focused on potential revenue impacts from the Texas Legislatures special session.

The proposed tax rate is more than 9 percent above the effective rate. Because the proposed tax rate is above the effective rate, the county is required to have two public hearings.

Upcoming public hearing dates Aug. 24 - First public hearing on tax rate Aug. 28 - Second public hearing on tax rate Sept. 11 - Public hearing on budget See More Collapse

The county in its proposed 2017-18 budget estimates its general fund revenue balance will be $61.3 million at the end of this fiscal year and $53.5 million at the end of the upcoming fiscal year.

Veronica Morales, county auditor, said sales tax revenue numbers as of June show $27.4 million of this fiscal years projected $28 million was collected. The proposed 2017-18 budget includes a $29 million estimate.

The county brought in more than $30.7 million in sales tax revenue in fiscal year 2016, a decrease from about $41.1 million from the year before.

Home appraisal values from the Midland Central Appraisal District were not available as of press time.

The commissioners will meet 11 a.m. today to discuss and take action on salaries for elected officials, which was not addressed Monday because of notification requirements.

Commissioners are also scheduled to discuss and take action on the employer contribution and matching rate for the Texas County and District Retirement System. The court discussed the topic Monday but wanted additional TCDRS calculations.






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Seven deputies with Special Emergency Response Team at the Bexar County Jail were placed on administrative leave after a hazing incident that involved county-issued handcuffs, shackles and a stun gun, Sheriff Javier Salazar said Monday.

The incident reportedly occurred at a Friday evening house party. Six deputies are accused of hazing a seventh deputy.

Salazar said he placed all seven on leave Monday, after he was made aware of a video of the incident.

READ ALSO: S.A. cop fired for attempting to feed fecal sandwich to homeless person, official say

He said they are "not welcome back at the sheriff's office" until after an internal investigation and separate criminal investigation conclude.

Now Playing: The Bexar County Sheriff's Office is investigating a hazing incident involving multiple department employees, Sheriff Javier Salazar told reporters Monday, Aug. 14, 2017. Video: San Antonio Express-News

Though all the officers, even the one who was reportedly hazed, took the incident as a joke, Salazar said he's taking it seriously.

"It's not to be tolerated. It's not something I'm going to stand for," he said at a Monday press conference, surrounded by members of his command staff.

RELATED: Sheriff: Detention officer collected drug debts for inmate, had money deposited to commissary fund

At one point, even one of the officers' 4-year-old daughter took part in the hazing, Salazar said.

Criminal charges are possible against the deputies, including hazing, unlawful restraint and child endangerment.

"Had somebody not told me these were seven of my deputies involved ... and said this was video of a violent disturbance or even a murder, I would have believed it based upon what I saw," Salazar said.

Salazar said he could not release the names of the officers involved, but they included six men and one woman, he said.

Deputies are "hand-picked" to be part of the Special Emergency Response Team, Salazar said.

"It appears by all accounts that people from this highly elite team ... didn't feel the rules applied to them," Salazar said. "I think we proved otherwise today."

It's unclear whether this type of hazing was a routine occurrence for deputies in the office, Salazar said.

"I wouldn't rule it out," he said. "It's certainly something that may have occurred in years past, or months past, but it's not going to occur now."

Salazar also said placing this many officers on leave would put a strain on the department. Other deputies will work overtime to cover shifts and commanders may shift deputies from other parts of the department.

The Monday news conference came nearly two weeks after a Bexar County Jail detention officer, Rita Alvarez, was arrested and accused of collecting drug debts for an inmate and helping deposit the money into his commissary fund.

Alvarez is charged with engaging in organized criminal activity and a charge of illegal barter, expenditures or investments.

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One man is dead Monday night after he was gunned down outside a Southeast Side bar.

San Antonio Police Department Lt. Scott Bell said the man, in his mid-30s, was shot multiple times at about 8 p.m. in the 2700 block of Bill Miller Lane.

The man was sitting with a group of people at a park bench on the patio of Sugartime Texas when he started arguing with them, investigators said.

One of them shot him several times with what investigators believe is a handgun, Bell said, noting there were several shell casings on the patio.

Investigators were working to determine if the shooter then fled the scene in a white vehicle seen heading south on Goliad Road.

RELATED: Sheriff: 7 Bexar deputies involved in hazing incident with child

The man was pronounced dead at the scene moments after EMS arrived, Bell confirmed.

No one else was injured in the incident.

A driver passing through Bill Miller's, who did not wish to be identified, said she saw a white vehicle parked next to where the shooting occurred.

She heard eight shots before seeing the vehicle speed out of the lot.

Area resident Darlene Cirlos, 62, was at home she heard five gunshots off in the distance.

"I was cleaning my window and I hear pop-pop-pop," she said.

When she drove by the scene on her way to grab something to eat, she was shocked at the police presence.

"I'm surprised they don't have a cop on board or a security guard because it can repeat itself," Cirlos said. "I feel bad for the family."
AUSTIN -- Responding to fears that doctors and hospitals could allow patients to die without a patient's consent, the Texas Legislature is preparing to send Gov. Greg Abbott a bill to clarify how do-not-resuscitate orders are carried out.

"Right now under Texas law, a doctor can slip a DNR order into a patient's file without their knowledge," State Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, said. "It defies all logic."

Perry said it is not happening a lot, but it does occur enough that the Legislature needs to clarify what is required before a patient has a DNR order put into their file. Under his bill, if doctors issue an order instructing that no one attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation -- or CPR -- on a dying patient, the patient or the patient's power of attorney must be notified of the order.

The issue has become important enough for some conservative groups like Texas Right to Life, that Abbott made the topic one of 20 must-pass priorities during a special session of the Legislature, which ends on Wednesday.

"As leaders of this state, we have a responsibility to protect life at all stages," Abbott said in June after calling the special session.

But medical professionals have pushed back that the idea that they are "slipping DNR" orders in on patients without their consent.

"I don't believe that is happening on a wide scale," said Dr. Arlo Weltge, a Houston emergency physician and a member of the Texas Medical Association. "This is not something that is slipped in."

Weltge said doctors are trying to meet the needs of patients in often very difficult circumstance and have to make a call on whether performing CPR on a patient -- especially a dying patient who may be unconscious -- will benefit them more than hurt them.

The TMA has warned the legislation has the potential of interfering with a doctor's attempt to do what is best for a patient and could open them up to lawsuits.

The group has sought provisions to protect physicians who act in good faith. State Rep. Greg Bonnen, R-League City, responded during a debate on the bill on Saturday that the House has included language in the bill to assure doctors would have some protections from lawsuits.

"So if they're acting in good faith to the best of their knowledge, then they have protection from liability under this statute," Bonnen said.

About two-thirds of all adult Americans do not have legal advance directive documents for end of life medical care, including medical power of attorney or DNR orders, according to the TMA.

Perry said TMA and Texas Right to Life have been part of on-going discussions on the bill to get it into a position to pass over the final days. Under his Senate Bill 11, doctors would have to notify a patient when a DNR order has been placed on them because of their condition. If the patient is unconscious, the doctor or medical facility has to make a diligent effort to contact the patient's power of attorney or a family member.

"A patient or a patient's representative would have to have knowledge of that DNR," Perry said. "If I'm in bed and I say I don't want the DNR anymore, it immediately gets pulled."

If the decision goes the other way, and someone changes their mind and wants a DNR, there have to be witnesses who are not affiliated with the hospital.

Texas Right to Life officials say all they want to assure is that patients can stop a DNR from being placed on them if they don't want it.

"You've got to get the patient's consent or their surrogate," said John Seago, legislative director for Texas Right to Life.

The Texas Hospital Association has said such notifications about DNR already take place and that such a law could result in a patient's request to be reversed by a family member or guardian.

"Texas hospitals and our providers have an obligation to honor the wishes of patients who have taken steps to articulate decisions related to end of life care," THA President Ted Shaw said in a statement. "SB 11, if enacted, will work to undermine patients' choices and adds unnecessary confusion and ambiguity within a process that should be a sacred and personal one."

The Texas House voted 122-20 on Sunday in support of Perry's bill. The Senate was expected to give final passage to the bill as early as Monday night.

Todd Ackerman contributed to this report.
Hibiscus Hospice has joined its counterparts on the North Shore and Warkworth/ Wellsford in an alliance designed to help all three make best use of limited resources.

Under the Northern Hospice Alliance, the three hospices will share resources and services, but goods and funds donated in each local area will remain within that community.

It is hoped that the formation of the new alliance, announced on July 31, will increase access to expert palliative care and address the growing needs of three of the fastest-growing communities in the country.

Chief executive across all three hospices is Jan Nichols. She says that Hibiscus Hospice remains an independent trust, but a key change is that management roles, including human resources and clinical and volunteer management, are now shared.

Ms Nichols says the alliance also has a retail review underway, which is focused on the overall management and systems at its various charity shops.

This will include moving its garage sales into the new Warkworth Wellsford hospice building as soon as possible after it opens.

She says the alliance is all about working smarter to make limited resources go further.

Hospices across New Zealand are facing increased costs and a shortage of skilled palliative care nurses, family support professionals and doctors, she says. The hospices have taken a long term view and because the population is growing so rapidly, and ageing, we have looked at the projections around need and its daunting, she says. We also acknowledge that its difficult for health spending to keep pace with demand, so we need to use every single dollar we get from the community and Government wisely. Doing this may allow us to increase services but apart from that, the local community shouldnt notice many differences in their hospice.

With new management there can be changes but if so we will keep our volunteers involved because they are a very valued part of hospice.
A weekend of community activities, prayer, shared dinners and time to reflect marked 100 years of services at St Stephens church in Whangaparaoa.

The original little chapel was built in 1917 and is still in regular use and much loved by churchgoers.

Over the weekend of August 5 and 6, parishioners celebrated the centenary with events that included a car scavenger hunt around Whangaparaoa Peninsula, guided viewings of the chapel and a formal dinner with speakers that included the Rev Dr Sir David Moxon.

Sunday featured a reenactment of a family sailing into Arkles Bay and joining others in period costume for a ride in vintage cars (or a walk) up Arkles hill to the church.

Several vintage cars were provided for the occasion by the Hibiscus Vintage Enthusiasts Club.

Lady Rhyl Jansen, who helped organise the centenary events, says it was a wonderful weekend filled with fun and stories of the past.

These St Stephens parishioners were among those who dressed as early settlers to greet arrivals from The Frances at Arkles Bay.

Wyn Chadwick, aged 100, and Rob Aspden; Wyn wore a dress and fur coat that was passed down to her by her mother.

A family representing the Shakespears row into Arkles Bay after sailing from Weiti Boating Club on The Frances.

The dinghy is transported up Arkles Bay beach.

Jill McTeigue, left, and Chris Curtis joined the St Stephens centenary celebration.

Parishioner Lady Rhyl Jansen, who played a large part in organising events for St Stephens chapels centenary.
A lifetimes experience in the marine industry has given Brent Morris a better idea than most about what boaties are looking for in a trailer.

Strength and affordability, and a choice of models are at the top of his list.

Brents latest venture, Ultra Trailers NZ, at the end of Foundry Road in Silverdale, strives to deliver all three.

It carries around 25 models of trailers, from box trailers to boat and jetski trailers all made of galvanised steel.

I built my first trailer while I was at school and its still going 35 years later, so I guess I was destined to be in this business, he says.

Brent grew-up on a dairy farm in the Manawatu. He got into the marine industry early and worked at several boat shops in Auckland before setting up his own business in Silverdale, importing outboard motors in 1994.

From there he moved north to Mangonui where he ran a marine and auto workshop. When he returned to Auckland, he set up The Brokerage, which specialised in boat sales and repairs.

In 2006, he saw the need for lower priced trailers for owners of secondhand boats and set-up Xpress Trailers. He sold that business in 2014.

Brent is a keen recreational boatie himself so he knows what works and what doesnt when it comes to boats and trailers.

I just recently sold a 30-foot Pelin, which we spent many years building, and the new owner drove away with it on one of our Ultra trailers.

Brent showcased what the new business has to offer at the recent Fieldays in Hamilton, as well as the Boat Show in Auckland in May. Although he is selling predominantly in the Auckland area, orders are coming from as far away as Invercargill.

Ultra Trailers are made in China to Brents designs and specifications, which are of very heavy duty construction and have plastic mudguards, which Brent says are more user-friendly with no sharp edges.

He hopes NZs recent triumph at the recent Americas Cup will inspire more people to get out on the water and enjoy their boat.
Thirteen years after Don Brashs controversial speech at the Orewa Rotary Club denouncing Maori special privileges, a stinging riposte was delivered on July 29 from the same spot.

Broadcaster and Labour party candidate Willie Jackson delivered the rebuke during a Labour Party fundraising dinner in aid of its candidate for Rodney, Marja Lubeck.

At the same time, Mr Jackson delivered another broadside at the then Labour Party for failing to back the right of Maori to contest ownership of the seabed and foreshore.

Labour sadly ran for cover, and instead of standing up for Maori peoples right to go to court, began to roll out legislation that would prevent Maori from exercising their legal rights, and in fact, human rights, he said.

Mr Jackson said back then he was uncertain Labour would ever recover. But he said the party had changed, and an apology from Andrew Little over the seabed and foreshore issue had done much to restore Maori confidence.

Turning to the Don Brash speech entitled Nationhood, Mr Jackson described it as a cynical, manufactured, racial smear, calculated to twist the best egalitarian values of us as a people into a misdirected mob, with all the rationality of a lynch mob.

He sowed anger, fear and resentment and reaped a 17-point jump in the polls, Mr Jackson told the audience of about 100 Labour party faithful.

National were lagging 28 per cent and within two weeks they were 45 per cent in the polls, 10 per cent ahead of Labour.

It was an unprecedented jump in the polls that has never happened again, he said.

In the earlier speech, Mr Brash had complained non-Maori were becoming second-class citizens and there was a dangerous drift towards racial separatism in New Zealand.

Mr Jackson said despite the best efforts of Don Brashs staff they could not find one legitimate example of Maori privilege.

Indeed, the reverse was true. Maori died earlier and suffered more.

Maori are 380 per cent more likely to be convicted of a crime and 200 per cent more likely to die from heart disease and suicide. Maori are paid 18 per cent less and 34 per cent leave school without a qualification, Mr Jackson said.

Mr Jackson said Mr Brashs speech was a deliberate attempt to use anger, fear and resentment to motivate voters by falsely claiming Maori had been given greater civil, political and democratic rights than any other New Zealander.

He said Brashs even bigger lie was claiming that Maori wanted to be separate.

Im here to tell you that Maori dont want to be separate, we have always wanted a partner, and we are still waiting in good faith for that partnership to manifest, he said.

Visit our Marae, visit our Kapa Haka, visit our schools, visit our TV, visit our radio, visit our people, visit our lives. Walk with us as partners who are genuine in that partnership, he said.
A founder of the disgraced Masala chain of Indian restaurants is holding the keys of Stanmore Bay Cottage, according to the owners of Paprika restaurant, who leased premises there.

The historic cottage, at 195 Brightside Road Stanmore Bay was, until recently, owned by JKK Holdings; this company and its director, Supinder Singh, were both respondents in the High Court case brought by the Crown against the Masala chain. It was sold last month by the Official Assignee for $1.73 million as part of a court settlement to recoup funds that Masala gained unlawfully from tax evasion.

However, Paprika Restaurant owners Bob and Anu Konar say that although the new owner is GNG Investments NZ (sole director Hakam Gill)  a company that was incorporated just last month  in effect it remains in the hands of the Masala founder, Rupinder Singh Chahil.

The couple says that under their lease with JKK Holdings, Mr Chahil always dealt with them and described himself as their landlord. After the property was sold, Mr Chahil and Mr Gill, who is an Australian resident, served a trespass notice on the Konars and erected a fence preventing them from accessing the restaurant.

The Konars say they have a lot of personal property at the site, which they have not been able to retrieve and they are seeking legal advice about this along with issues associated with their lease.

Mr Konar says that Mr Chahil and Mr Gill indicated they will provide a new lease for Paprika and supply the keys to the property, but to date have not done so.

When we met them, Rupinder Chahil did all the talking, the Konars say. There is no doubt who is pulling the strings.

Mr Chahil was sentenced to six months home detention last October and ordered to pay $2500 in reparation after pleading guilty to providing false or misleading information to an immigration officer.

Hibiscus Matters attempts to contact Mr Chahil for comment were unsuccessful.
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Local News, Crime, Politics

By Long Island News & PR Published: August 15 2017

Nearly 300 Consumers Will Receive Over $270,000 In Restitution From AGs Settlement.

New York, NY - August 15, 2017 - Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today announced a $298,000 settlement with Pana Nissan, LLC (d/b/a Nissan of New Rochelle) for deceptively charging hundreds of consumers for an unwanted and bogus anti-theft product that cost up to thousands of dollars per consumer. This item, known as an after-sale product, was often added onto the final cost of the vehicle without the consumers knowledge or consent, after the customer had agreed upon the purchase price of a vehicle but before the sale transaction was finalized.

Consumers should not have to worry that they are being scammed into adding on bogus products and services when they purchase a car, said Attorney General Schneiderman. Buying a car is already a major investment for many families, and tacking on thousands of dollars extra can become a significant financial burden. I am pleased that we are able to return hundreds of thousands of dollars in restitution to the nearly 300 consumers who were scammed and defrauded.

Following a consumer complaint in August 2015 that Nissan of New Rochelle had fraudulently sold an after-sale product, the office commenced an investigation into the dealerships practices. The investigation found that Nissan of New Rochelle sold hundreds of consumers a product called Total Loss Protection, which was meant to serve as a theft deterrent. Consumers were charged amounts ranging from $215 to over $5,000. In many instances, Nissan of New Rochelle added this fee onto the final sales price without the knowledge or consent of the consumers. As a result, the final price paid by the consumers was inflated by the amount charged for the after-sale product.

Furthermore, Nissan of New Rochelle failed to clearly disclose the nature of the after-sale product to its customers. The Total Loss Protection or Total Loss Protection Guarantee product was advertised as a permanent etch or engraving of the vehicles VIN, or a registered serial number, on the windows of the vehicle  supposedly to deter theft. However, Nissan of New Rochelle did not actually etch the VIN onto the windows of the vehicles. Instead, for some vehicles, the dealership placed sticker decals with assigned registration numbers on the inside of the door or door-jamb where no one could see them, thus having no deterrent effect. For other vehicles, the dealership did not even provide stickers or decals.

Consumers were also led to believe that there would be a guaranteed credit up to either $3,000 or $5,000 towards the purchase of a new vehicle should their car be stolen. However, there were numerous conditions and limitations  such as that the credit would not be applied if it eliminated the dealerships profit on the sale  which rendered the credit illusory. Only one consumer ever received a credit through the Total Loss Protection program.

Under the agreement, Nissan of New Rochelle will refund $276,127 to 298 consumers who were charged an add-on fee for the Total Loss Protection product. In addition to restitution, the dealership will also pay $22,084 in penalties, fees, and costs to the State. The dealership has also agreed to certain reforms to its sales practices, including:

Fully disclosing that any and all after-sale services or products are optional and that the price is negotiable;

Clearly explaining to each consumer any and all after-sale services or products being offered by the dealership; and

Only adding an after-sale service or product to the final bill with the knowledge and full consent of the consumer.

This settlement is part of the Attorney Generals wider initiative to end the practice engaged in by many dealers of jamming, or unlawfully charging consumers for products and services without their knowledge or consent.
Local News, Crime, Politics

By Long Island News & PR Published: August 15 2017

Riadel Manzano Filed False Records To Conceal Neglect Of Patient Who Had Been Injured After Repeated Falls At Woodmere Rehabilitation And Health Care Center.

New York, NY - August 15, 2017 - Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced the sentencing of registered nurse Riadel Manzano, 45, of East Williston, after a Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced the sentencing of registered nurse Riadel Manzano, 45, of East Williston, after a Nassau County jury found her guilty of Offering a False Instrument for Filing in the First Degree, a felony, for providing a NYS Department Of Health (DOH) investigator with a record that she knew falsely reflected that nursing staff at Woodmere Rehabilitation and Health Care Center (Woodmere) had properly monitored a Woodmere resident who had been seriously injured after repeated falls. While he was not being monitored, the resident fell at Woodmere and struck his head, resulting in a laceration which required him to be hospitalized and receive staples to his scalp. After being returned to Woodmere, the following day the resident was found sitting on the floor and was again hospitalized with respiratory failure and pulmonary edema.

Nursing home managers are entrusted to provide the highest level of safety and care to residents. There is no excuse for lying in order to cover up the abuse and neglect of elderly and vulnerable New Yorkers, said Attorney General Schneiderman. We will not hesitate to fully prosecute nursing home executives who betray the well-being of those under their care and prioritize their own self-interest.

Manzano was found guilty on January 25, 2017 after a six-day jury trial in Nassau County Court before County Court Judge Meryl Berkowitz. Judge Berkowitz sentenced Manzano to a conditional discharge. As a result of her felony conviction, Manzano will now automatically be barred from working in any government-funded healthcare programs and faces the revocation of her nursing license by the New York State Office of Professional Discipline.

Three other former Woodmere employees, two registered nurses and a licensed practical nurse, cooperated with the Attorney Generals Office and previously entered guilty pleas in connection with this incident.

The Attorney General thanks the DOH, Division of Nursing Home & ICF Quality & Surveillance under the leadership of Director Shelly Glock for its outstanding work and cooperation with this investigation.
Local News, Crime, Business & Finance, National & World News, Politics

By Long Island News & PR Published: August 15 2017

New Legislation Would Classify Inciting to Riot and Rioting That Targets Protected Classes as Offenses to the State's Hate Crimes Law.

Albany, NY - August 15, 2017 - In the aftermath of the violent and deadly events in Charlottesville this past weekend, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced he will be advancing legislation to add the crimes of inciting to riot and rioting that targets protected classes to the list of specified offenses under the state's hate crimes law. These legislative changes, known as the Charlottesville provisions, will reaffirm that while peaceful demonstrations are allowed, New York will never tolerate advocacy or the incitement of imminent violence against protected classes within our communities.

"The ugly events that took place in Charlottesville must never be repeated, and in New York we're going to stand united against hate in all of its forms," Governor Cuomo said. "Our diversity is our strength and this legislation will help protect New Yorkers and send a clear signal that violence and discrimination have no place in our society. New York is one community and one family, and we will never stop fighting to ensure the safety and equal treatment of all New Yorkers."

Additionally, the Governor once again called for an expansion of the state's Human Rights Law to protect all students statewide. Under current law, only private school students are protected by the Human Rights law, meaning that if a public school student is discriminated against in school, that student has no claim.

The Charlottesville Provisions

Under state law, a person commits a hate crime when one of a specified set of offenses is committed targeting victims because of a perception or belief about their race, color, national origin, ancestry, gender, religion, religious practice, age, disability or sexual orientation, or when such an act is committed as a result of that type of perception or belief. Hate crimes can be perpetrated against an individual, a group of individuals or against public or private property. Under the Governor's proposal, the Hate Crimes Law would be amended to add inciting to riot and rioting, when directed at a protected class, to the list of specified offenses punishable as a hate crime. The penalties for engaging in rioting would be increased from an E felony to a D felony and inciting to riot would be increased from an A misdemeanor to an E felony.

Expanding the Human Rights Law

In addition to amending the Hate Crimes statute, the Governor is also calling on legislative action to amend the Human Rights Law to protect all public school students and institutions from discrimination. Following a 2012 decision by the New York State Court of Appeals that found public schools did not fit the definition of an "education corporation or association", the State Division of Human Rights lost its ability to investigate reports of bullying, harassment, or other discrimination being made by public school students. This decision was made despite the fact that the Division had asserted jurisdiction over public schools for nearly three decades and was forced to dismiss over 70 open complaints filed against public schools at the time.

Governor Cuomo yesterday also signed legislation giving prosecutors more tools to combat hate by allowing prosecutors to increase penalties against those who make bomb threats against community centers.

In November 2016, Governor Cuomo announced during an address at Abyssinian Baptist Church several actions to protect civil rights and combat hate crimes in New York, including the creation of a State Police unit to investigate reports of hate crimes, an expansion of the state's human rights law to protect all students, and the establishment of a new emergency legal defense fund for immigrants. The State Police have created a new hate crimes unit and Governor Cuomo launched the nation's first public-private immigrant legal defense initiative called the Liberty Defense Project, but the State legislature has not yet passed legislation expanding the Human Rights Law.

Protecting Civil Rights and Combatting Hate Crimes

New Yorkers who have experienced bias or discrimination are encouraged to call DHR's toll-free hotline at (888) 392-3644 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday - Friday. If you want to report a crime or fear for your safety, call 911 immediately.

If you have been the victim of a crime, you may contact the New York State Office of Victim Services, which funds 223 programs statewide, providing direct services, such as crisis intervention and counseling, to victims of crime, including hate crimes. Those programs also can help any crime victim apply for compensation and other assistance from the agency, which is a safety net for individuals who have no other resources. Individuals seeking help from OVS also can search for a service provider online: https://ovs.ny.gov/locate-program . For more information, please visit: www.ovs.ny.gov
Pets & Animal, Local News, Politics

By Long Island News & PR Published: August 15 2017

Boyle: "This new law will require and ensure compliance with existing laws and regulations, while also providing a measure of transparency to foster public trust that animals are getting the care they deserve."

Long Island, NY - August 15, 2017 - New York State Senator Phil Boyle (R-C-I, New York State Senator Phil Boyle (R-C-I, Suffolk County ) today announced that his bill (S5599) to require all not-for-profit and incorporated animal shelters and rescues to register with the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets (NYSDAM) has been signed into law by the Governor. This new measure amends the Pet Dealer License exemption, which has sometimes been exploited by former pet dealers and animal resellers who realized they could successfully avoid state oversight by obtaining a not-for-profit status.

Senator Boyle said, There are so many wonderful organizations that do incredible and valuable work to help animals, but unfortunately some not-so-great people have used this exemption as an excuse not to be regulated. The number of licensed pet dealers in New York has declined nearly 40 percent over the past five years showing just how troublesome this loophole really is. This new law will require and ensure compliance with existing laws and regulations, while also providing a measure of transparency to foster public trust that animals are getting the care they deserve. I applaud Governor Cuomo for signing this measure into law, and Id like to thank the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), the New York State Animal Protection Federation, and the New York State Veterinary Medical Society for their support on this important issue.

This new law will require organizations exempted from the Pet Dealer License to pay a $100 registration fee and abide by state documentation and vaccination requirements for dogs and cats imported into New York. The registration would include important disclosures, including contact information and address, description of premise, number of animals transported annually, not-for-profit and federal 501(c)(3) status, and other information on their operations to help ensure that all animals are cared for and transported safely and properly. NYSDAM will also be given additional authority to review and craft necessary regulations to govern these organizations.

Assemblyman Kenneth Zebrowski, the Assembly sponsor of the bill, said Although many times well intentioned, leaving these groups unregulated leaves a vulnerability that puts both animal health and public safety at risk. Requiring that these animal groups register will help us to weed out the bad actors that knowingly skirt the law. We currently have little to no information about the animals that are being brought into the state and this will help us get a handle on the situation. Id like to thank Governor Cuomo for signing this important piece of legislation into law. This will now bring New York in line with the many other states across the country that have already put into place basic registration requirements.

Bill Ketzer, Senior Director of ASPCA Government Relations for the Northeast region, said, Animal shelters across New York State and their rescue partners have done an incredible job reducing animal homelessness to a fraction of what our communities faced 20 years ago. This long overdue legislation will support those shelters by closing the existing loophole permitting unscrupulous pet dealers and animal sellers from evading state oversight by obtaining non-profit status. The ASPCA commends Senator Boyle and Assemblymember Zebrowski for their efforts to improve animal protection laws in the state, and we thank Governor Cuomo for signing this legislation.

Libby Post, Executive Director of the New York State Animal Protection Federation said, The shelter/rescue registration bill is a crucial step forward in protecting companion animals and the people who love them. Requiring all nonprofit shelters and rescue organizations to register and disclose whether they were ever a pet dealer will help us reign in the bad actors who masquerade as nonprofit entities but still operate with their bottom line and not an animals health and well-being as their top priority. The unfettered flow of companion animals into New York has created a host of animal health, public safety and consumer protection challenges. This law will help stem this tide and strengthen the animal sheltering and rescue organizations that pay attention to the rules and do the right thing.
Local News, Crime

By Long Island News & PR Published: August 15 2017

Sean P. Ludwick, 44, will be sentenced in October to three to nine years in state prison.

Sag Harbor, NY - August 15, 2017 - The Manhattan real estate developer who recklessly caused the fatal crash in August of 2015 in The Manhattan real estate developer who recklessly caused the fatal crash in August of 2015 in Sag Harbor that killed his passenger pleaded guilty today to aggravated vehicular homicide, leaving the scene of a fatal crash and aggravated driving while intoxicated, Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota said.

Sean P. Ludwick, 44, who apologized in court today to the family of the victim Paul Hansen, will be sentenced in October by State Supreme Court Justice Fernando Camacho to three to nine years in state prison; three to nine years for the top count of aggravated vehicular homicide, one to three years for leaving to scene and one year for the aggravated driving while intoxicated charge  all to be served concurrently in an upstate correctional facility.

The defendants blood taken five hours after the crash had a blood alcohol level of .18 percent, and the collision reconstruction by Sag Harbor Village Police, the New York State Police Forensic ID & Collision Reconstruction Unit and our Vehicular Crimes Bureau clearly established that the defendant left the scene in his damaged Porsche and traveled more than a block away where police found him and his disabled car on Woodvale Street, DA Spota said. The district attorneys office will recommend Ludwick be sentenced to five to fifteen years in prison.

Real estate broker Paul Hansen, 53, of Sag Harbor died at the scene in front of his house on Rolling Hill Court where Ludwick struck a utility pole at a curve on August 30, 2015.
The Taliban has published an open letter to President Donald Trump, urging him to adopt the strategy of a complete withdrawal from Afghanistan instead of a troops increase. The letter was clearly penned with the Trump administrations ongoing debate over the war in Afghanistan in mind.

Senior administration officials have reportedly prepared several plans, ranging from a complete withdrawal to a small increase of several thousand American troops. Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser, favors the latter while alternative scenarios have also been presented to the president.

President Trump has been reticent to commit additional forces, as he would then take ownership of the longest war in Americas history. The Taliban obviously knows this and is trying to influence the debate inside the US.

But readers should keep in mind that the new letter is propaganda and should be read as such. The letter is laced with erroneous and self-serving statements. And some of its key points, crafted for Western readers, are contradicted by the facts.

Allied with al Qaeda, which exports terrorism around the globe

The Taliban describes itself as a mercy for Afghanistan, [the] region and the world because the Islamic Emirate does not have any intention or policy of causing harm to anyone and neither will it allow others to use the Afghan soil against anyone.

Although the Taliban does not explicitly mention al Qaeda, the group likely wants readers to assume that this sentence means there is a clear distinction between the Talibans operations inside Afghanistan and jihadist threats outside of the country. In reality, there is no such clear line of demarcation.

Ayman al Zawahiri, the head of al Qaeda, remains openly loyal to the Talibans overall leader. Zawahiri swore allegiance to Mullah Mansour in Aug. 2015. Mansour, the successor to Taliban founder Mullah Omar, described al Qaedas leaders as the heroes of the current jihadist era and Osama bin laden as the leader of mujahideen. Mansour publicly accepted the esteemed Dr. Zawahiris fealty shortly after it was offered.

After Mansour was struck down by an American drone strike in Pakistan in May 2016, Zawahiri quickly rehearsed the same oath to Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, who still presides over the Taliban. Akhundzadas son carried out a suicide bombing in Helmand province in July. The attack was just the latest piece of evidence confirming that the Taliban emir is a committed ideologue, not a prospective peace partner.

Under Akhundzadas leadership, the Taliban is hardly bashful about its continuing alliance with al Qaeda. The Taliban celebrated the relationship in a Dec. 2016 video, which contained images of Osama bin Laden alongside Mullah Omar. One such image from the production can be seen below:

Other al Qaeda figures are also proudly featured in the Taliban video, such as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsulas (AQAP) Khalid al Batarfi, a veteran jihadist who plays an important ideological role. Batarfi praised the Taliban for harboring and supporting al Qaeda. And he directly connected the Talibans war in Afghanistan to the jihad against the US.

Groups of Afghan Mujahideen have emerged from the land of Afghans that will destroy the biggest idol and head of kufr of our time, America, Batarfi said in the Talibans video. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan was sacrificed and even vanished in support of our sacred religion, but they (the Taliban) did not trade off their religion. Batarfi crowed that the jihadists can finally see [the] light of victory, as governance according to the rule of Sharia law is even stronger in Afghanistan than before.

While the Taliban is often portrayed as a nationalist group (this is the intended implication of the groups letter to President Trump), the Dec. 2016 video portrayed the Talibans struggle as part of the global jihad and the effort to reclaim all Muslim lands.

Akhundzadas top deputy is the aforementioned Sirajuddin Haqqani, a longtime al Qaeda ally. The Haqqanis have been in bed with al Qaeda since the 1980s. Sirajuddins father, Jalaluddin, was one of Osama bin Ladens earliest and most influential backers. Files recovered during the May 2011 raid on bin Ladens compound reveal that al Qaedas men have fought alongside Sirajuddins forces for years. This is especially significant because Haqqani oversees the Talibans military operations.

There are numerous other ties. In Sept. 2014, for instance, Zawahiri publicly announced the creation of Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), which brought together existing al Qaeda-allied groups. AQIS has repeatedly made it clear that its men fight under the Talibans banner and that its primary goal is to restore the Talibans Islamic Emirate to power in Afghanistan. In Oct. 2015, US and Afghan forces raided two massive al Qaeda training camps in southern Afghanistan. One of the camps, approximately 30 square-miles in size, may be the largest al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistans history. Both of the camps were supported by the Taliban. AQIS conducts operations in Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and elsewhere.

Just over two weeks before the 2016 presidential election, the US hunted down a top al Qaeda commander known as Farouq al-Qahtani in eastern Afghanistan. Qahtani not only commanded jihadists fighting alongside the Taliban, he was planning attacks inside the United States at the time of his demise.

All of these details, and more, belie the Talibans claim that it wont allow others to use the Afghan soil against anyone.

State sponsors and enablers of the Taliban-led insurgency

The Taliban claims that the US government has concluded that the mujahideen are entirely self-sufficient and do not receive any foreign support. Your intelligence agencies admit that our Mujahideen are not being supported by any country and neither can they produce any proof in the contrary, the letter reads.

This is obviously false  Pakistans support for the Taliban is longstanding and well-known. Other countries, such as Iran and Russia, provide some level of assistance. Wealthy benefactors in the Gulf have contributed rich sums to the Taliban cause as well.

In July, the US State Department once again confirmed that Pakistan harbors the Taliban, including the so-called Haqqani Network (HQN), which plays an integral role within the organization. Pakistan did not take substantial action against the Afghan Taliban or HQN, or substantially limit their ability to threaten US interests in Afghanistan, although Pakistan supported efforts to bring both groups into an Afghan-led peace process, States Country Reports on Terrorism 2016 reads. A number of attacks inside Afghanistan throughout 2016 were planned and launched from safe havens in Pakistan.

In a report submitted to Congress in June, the Defense Department also explained the enduring importance of the jihadists Pakistani safe havens. Attacks in Afghanistan attributed to Pakistan-based militant networks continue to erode the Afghanistan-Pakistan relationship, the Pentagon noted. Militant groups, including the Taliban and Haqqani Network, continued to utilize sanctuaries inside Pakistan.

The Afghan Taliban is not operating under the radar in Pakistan, but instead receives assistance from parts of the government. Afghan-oriented militant groups, including the Taliban and Haqqani Network, retain freedom of action inside Pakistani territory and benefit from support from elements of the Pakistani Government, the report reads (emphasis added).

This is consistent with Pakistans Good Taliban vs. Bad Taliban policy, which favors jihadists who are focused on attacking the Afghan government and allied forces, including the US. Only the Bad Taliban  that is, those jihadists operating against the Pakistani state  are regularly targeted by Pakistani security. The effects of this policy are plain to see. The Quetta Shura Taliban (QST) earned its name because the groups most senior leaders have been able to operate openly in the city. It is well-known, too, that the Haqqanis have cozy relations with the Pakistani military and intelligence establishment. Sirajuddin Haqqani has been the Talibans top deputy leader since 2015.

Pakistan isnt the only regional player supporting the Taliban-led insurgency. The Iranian government is as well.

Iran provides some support to the Taliban and Haqqani Network and has publicly justified its relationships as a means to combat the spread of the ISIS-K threat in Afghanistan, the Pentagon reported in June. Although the Iranians attempt to justify their policy as a form of realpolitik, a necessary consequence of fighting the Islamic States Wilayah Khorasan (Khorasan province, or ISIS-K), the reality is that they first forged a working relationship with their former foes in the Taliban immediately after the 9/11 hijackings. [See FDDs Long War Journal report, Analysis: Iran has supported the Talibans insurgency since late 2001.]

A striking example of Iranian complicity in the Afghan insurgency was revealed in May 2016, when the Talibans leader, Mullah Mansour, was killed in an American airstrike. The US followed Mansour from Iran, where he was holding meetings, across the Pakistani border into Baluchistan, where he was struck down. Mansours ability to travel freely inside Iran speaks volumes about the ongoing relationship.

At a minimum, Russia has rhetorically backed the Taliban. Russian-Afghan relations suffered due to Russias public acknowledgment of communications with the Taliban and support of the Talibans call for coalition withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Pentagon has said. Press reports continue to point to evidence that Russian-supplied weapons are helping to fuel the Taliban-led insurgency. Asked about these reports in April, Gen. John Nicholson, the Commander of Resolute Support and US Forces Afghanistan, refused to refute them.

There are other obvious problems with the Talibans letter. The group accuses President Trumps generals of lying about the American casualties incurred. The [g]enerals are concealing the real statistics of your dead and crippled however the Afghans can easily count the coffins being sent your way on a daily basis, the letter reads. This is nonsensical, as American casualties are readily verified. Moreover, the Taliban frequently lies about the number of Americans killed or wounded in combat.

The Taliban says that it could conquer many provincial capitals currently under siege, if it were not for fear of civilian casualties. There is no question that the Taliban currently threatens multiple provincial capitals, but its concern about civilian casualties is mostly cosmetic. The United Nations has repeatedly documented the Talibans culpability in killing and wounding innocents. The group is responsible for more civilian casualties in Afghanistan than any other actor.

The US approach to the war in Afghanistan should be based on a rational assessment of the situation, not the Talibans misleading claims.

Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal. Thomas Joscelyn is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Senior Editor for FDD's Long War Journal.

Are you a dedicated reader of FDD's Long War Journal? Has our research benefitted you or your team over the years? Support our independent reporting and analysis today by considering a one-time or monthly donation. Thanks for reading! You can make a tax-deductible donation here.
A terrorist attack in the West African country of Burkina Faso has left at least 18 people dead and many others wounded in the capital Ouagadougou late last night. Not long after, UN troops in two different regions of Mali fell under attack. No group has yet to claim responsibility, but the assaults mirror similar attacks conducted by al Qaeda in the region.

Late last night, three gunmen drove up to the Aziz Istanbul restaurant in downtown Ouagadougou killing many bystanders near the restaurant before entering. Inside, the suspected jihadists killed many others while also taking hostages. This prompted a siege by Burkinabe security forces which killed the attackers. According to Burkina Faso officials, civilians from Canada, Lebanon, Kuwait, Algeria, France, Senegal, Nigeria, and Turkey were killed by the gunmen.

Local residents have reported that the Turkish restaurant was popular with Western residents and visitors. This is likely the reason that the restaurant was targeted.

Yesterdays assault is similar to other al Qaeda attacks on Western targets in the region in the past. Earlier this year, its branch in West Africa killed five people at a popular resort outside Malis capital of Bamako.

Last January, al Qaeda killed 20 after assaulting the Splendid Hotel in Burkina Fasos capital of Ouagadougou with two car bombs before breaching the perimeter and entering the hotel. In addition to hitting the hotel, a nearby restaurant was also targeted. Over 30 hostages were freed before the situation was contained. [See Threat Matrix report, Al Qaeda attacks hotel in Burkina Faso.]

Two months later, jihadists from al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) laid siege to a popular resort in the Ivory Coast. At least 14 civilians and two soldiers were killed when gunmen stormed a nearby beach and then the resort.

Before that, AQIMs Sahara Emirate and Al Murabitoon attacked Malis capital of Bamako in November 2015. In that offensive, the jihadists stormed the Radisson Blue in Bamako, killing 22 civilians and taking more than 100 people hostage before being killed in a joint raid led by Malian forces. Al Murabitoon said it was responsible in conjunction with the Sahara Emirate of AQIM, according to a statement sent to Al Jazeera. [See FDDs Long War Journal report, Al Qaeda group claims credit for attack on hotel in Malis capital.]

The Sahara Emirate and Murabitoon would later merge with two local al Qaeda groups, Ansar Dine and its Katibat Macina, to form the Group of Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM).

Not long after yesterdays assault in Burkina Faso, suspected jihadists from JNIM also launched an attack on UN forces near Douentza in the central Mopti region. The UNs mission to Mali reported that one of its peacekeepers from an unspecified country and one Malian soldier was killed. Around the same time, the UNs base in the northern city of Timbuktu fell under a coordinated attack.

Reuters reported earlier that eight people were killed, including a UN peacekeeper, five Malian security guards, a Malian gendarme, and one civilian. UN and Swedish forces elsewhere in the city were deployed to contain the situation.

These assaults serve as a reminder of al Qaedas capabilities to strike across the region. This comes even with a French counter-terrorism operation and a UN peacekeeping operation in Mali. Al Qaedas operational capacity in Mali and the wider West African region has not only remained intact, but is also expanding.

Caleb Weiss is a research analyst at FDD's Long War Journal and a senior analyst at the Bridgeway Foundation, where he focuses on the spread of the Islamic State in Central Africa.

Are you a dedicated reader of FDD's Long War Journal? Has our research benefitted you or your team over the years? Support our independent reporting and analysis today by considering a one-time or monthly donation. Thanks for reading! You can make a tax-deductible donation here.
Cars

Phukets first integrated marina complex is currently expanding and features state of the art facilities, a gleaming resort, and events and activities for everyone to enjoy.

Aug 15, 2017 | By Robbie Wilson

Phuket Boat Lagoon was officially opened in 1994 and is Phukets first integrated marina complex. Located on the Klong Tha Rua, the circular marina allows for vessels up to 32 meters into moor. As part of a fully developed Marina Village, most sailors consider the Khun Kanit Yongsakul complex, named after the Founder and Chairman, to be on par with some of the top marinas around the world.

Strategically located in southern Thailand, the Phuket Boat Lagoon marina is only 20 kilometers from the airport, 15 kilometers to Kata, Karon and Patong Beaches and 8 kilometers to Phuket town. The spacious Marina is expanding and currently features 180 berths in the water, 144 on the hardstand and 30 dry stacking bays. New from September 2017 are travel lifts with a capacity of up to one hundred and twenty tons. Other facilities include a large concrete work area and concrete work ramp, as well as a fuel dock. Theres also easy access to WiFi throughout while changing rooms and hot showers are available at the resort.

The recently renovated Boat Lagoon Resort features on-site fully serviced apartments and 270 hotel rooms. Located on the ground floor of the marina area is Lagoon Quay, offering visitors an abundance of dining options and marine oriented businesses. Self-branded as Phukets Most Lively Marina, the entire development is a lifestyle destination for everyone to enjoy. Regular events and activities such as the Boat Lagoon Weekend, which takes place during high season from December until May, are organised where live music is played and speciality food stalls serve delicious meals. The destination is certainly a must visit in Phuket.

For more information, visit Phuket Boat Lagoon marina.
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Sarah Silkey, Ph.D., associate professor of history at Lycoming College, has secured a $136,000 grant to analyze a rare Reconstruction-era collection of correspondence from a family with ties to the Ku Klux Klan. With this award, Lycoming joins Harvard University, Princeton University, University of Notre Dame, Boston College and other tier one research institutions in receiving one of only nine ACLS fellowships this year  a rare honor for an undergraduate institution.

The American Council of Learned Societies named both Silkey and her research partner, Michael Fitzgerald, Ph.D., professor of history at St. Olaf College, the recipients of a 2017 Collaborative Research Fellowship. Their project, titled Wild Adolescence: The Pickens Family, the Ku Klux Klan, and Racial Terrorism in the Alabama Black Belt, was chosen in part due to the effective incorporation of undergraduate students, enabling young scholars to gain an understanding of the research process. The fellowship is designed to support a team of scholars as it researches and coauthors scholarly works that individual research would not be capable of producing. These grant dollars will enable the Silkey-Fitzgerald team to exercise more diverse research methodologies, examine greater amounts of materials and analyze findings from varying perspectives.

The 20,000-item Pickens Family collection came to light when it was donated to the University of South Alabama in Mobile. With a prior connection to the area, Fitzgerald gained access to the collection and asked Silkey to help him research the correspondence, diaries and legal documents that detailed the lives of Pickens Family members and the world in which they lived. The trove of materials reveals the interpersonal dynamics of racial extremism and the generational conflicts between Victorian gender expectations and notions of southern manhood during Reconstruction and its aftermath.

Silkey has taken advantage of this project to engage in undergraduate-faculty research with Jacob Quasius 18 and Kaitlyn de Melo 19. Since 2016, the team has captured more than 30,000 digital images of family correspondence, diaries and legal documents spanning from 1830-1920, and constructed a topic-indexed correspondence database to organize and quickly access sources reviewed and annotated by team members. By participating in the project, senior history major Quasius and de Melo, a junior history and psychology double major, have already gained valuable research and analysis experience as undergraduates, and were able to make intellectual contributions to the project.

Silkey hopes that the book she plans to co-author with Fitzgerald on the Pickens family will foster productive public discussion of terrorist violence and the enduring challenge to forming a more equal society. Historians will gain a better understanding of how people dealt with extremism and white supremacy in a domestic setting, she said.

At Lycoming, Silkey teaches courses examining the intellectual, social and cultural history of modern America, as well as African American history and the history of Africa. Her work promotes a broader understanding of American history by examining the evolution of ideas about race, gender, violence and citizenship.

The initial stages of this project were funded by the George B. Gaul Endowed Student-Faculty Research Program, the Robert H. Ewing Fund, the Dan S. Collins Enhanced Academic Experience Fund and a Lycoming College grant from the Mellon Foundation.
Wi-Fi Assist is a feature in the iPhone to help with internet connections. The name is a little misleading, though as reader Bob Andres finds out:

Does Wi-Fi Assist boost cell phone reception in a low-service area?? We have poor service in our stone office building and are hoping Wi-Fi Assist will make the difference.

Unfortunately, no. Wi-Fi Assist is exactly the opposite. If youre on a Wi-Fi network and access is spotty, iOS will assist Wi-Fi by tapping into an accessible cellular network. (And, warning, a lot of people in the past have sucked down massive amounts of data unintentionally by enabling this feature, which Apple has turned on by default. I havent received horror stories lately, so perhaps its been fully tamed.)

If this is about cellular calling, however, theres a separate feature on an iPhone 5c or later that can help: Wi-Fi Calling. It lets you place phone calls via a Wi-Fi network, which routes them to your carriers telephone network, rather than use cellular signals. Your carrier has to offer this as a feature, and many do. AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless are three that do.

IDG The Wi-Fi Calling setting in iOS requires support from your mobile carrier.

In Settings > Phone > Wi-Fi Calling, you tap the switch on, and then wait for carrier activation. You have to enter a fixed address for emergency or 911 calls. This is meant as a sort of extra backup in case your location cant be obtained from a cellular network when an emergency call is placed, since you can use Wi-Fi Calling on networks other than your home network.

Once the feature is enabled, the label Wi-Fi appears to the right of the carrier name in the status bar in iOS. If you turn on Calls on Other Devices for other iOS hardware and Macsmodels released mostly in the last five yearsthat use the same iCloud account, you can also make Wi-Fi calls from those devices.

Ask Mac 911

Weve compiled a list of the questions we get asked most frequently along with answers and links to columns: read our super FAQ to see if your question is covered. If not, were always looking for new problems to solve! Email yours to mac911@macworld.com including screen captures as appropriate. Mac 911 cant reply tonor publish an answer toevery question, and we dont provide direct troubleshooting advice.
The next person to be appointed will be the thirteenth to hold the role in 12 years  and the third in just two months


















City living and long working hours can take a toll on your soul. After all, we can all agree that nondescript cubicles and dreary environments arent the most inspiring, right? If you feel yourself teetering on the edge of a burnout, why not go on an impromptu adventure trip to Indonesia? The cost of living is low, which means that your money can stretch further. Theres also minimal language barrier, taking away a huge part of your travel headache. Most importantly, Indonesia is home to a plethora of picturesque spots that offer adrenaline junkies an adventure of a lifetime. From crowd-favourite activities like surfing and white-water rafting to something a little more obscure like sand boarding and midnight volcano tours, theres plenty to check out in humble ol Indonesia.

Since Indonesia is just a hop, skip, and jump away from Malaysia, you dont even have to waste a huge chunk of your vacation time on travelling! Just hop on a flight, get ready for an adventure-filled day, and youll be there before you know it! Ready to shake off your dreary 9-to-5 life and get your heart pumping? Click through the gallery for the 9 spots in Indonesia that will bring out the adventurer in you!

This post was written with the collaboration & support of the Ministry of Tourism Indonesia. Air Asia offers the best connectivity to Indonesia, check out their 15 destinations here!
STUART  A tradition that began in 1988 will continue in Patrick County this Friday, as the annual Virginia State Peach Festival opens.

What started as a way to promote and highlight the peach harvest in the foothills of Virginia has grown over the past three decades to include not only a variety of dishes featuring the honored fruit, but also vendors selling handmade wares.

Rebecca Adcock, executive director of the Patrick County Chamber of Commerce, said that an estimated 15 vendors will take part in the festivities.

They will have everything from pottery to soap. I know one vendors going to be selling apple trees. I think theres going to be a lady there selling Lularoe. Grace Baptist Church will be doing face painting and therell be inflatables there for the kids, Adcock said.

Of course, there will also be vendors at the event with a variety of peach-related products.

We will have vendors there with fresh peaches, peach jam, peach cobbler, peach ice cream, Adcock said. Therell even be peach sangria. Itll be peach-everything.

For those who get their fill of peaches early or want to save the savory fruit for dessert, there will be other culinary options at the festival.

The food vendors will be serving barbeque and hotdogs and hamburgers, Adcock said.

There will also be some exhibits and family-friendly activities at the festival.

Theres going to be a childrens crime unit set up where parents can have pictures taken of their child and their fingerprints documented, Adcock said. Lord forbid anything ever happens, but its a good idea to be safe.

While the festivals taking place, several bands will also take the stage. Performances include selections by Slick Jr., Phonic 45 and the Foddrells.

Its mainly more rock and roll and blues, Adcock said. Bring a chair for the performances.

The festivals success, Adcock said, harkens back to an admiration of simpler times in the Blue Ridge Mountain region.

Its a throwback to our heritage, Adcock said. When the Danville and Western  or Dick and Willie  Railroad ran through our area, peaches and apples were one of the biggest supplies we distributed.

While many people think of Georgia as the peach capitol of the United States, there are orchards in Virginia that produce the sweet, juicy fruit  and a couple of them are in Patrick County.

There were several orchards years ago and while some are no longer with us, we still have a few in the county, Adcock said.

Honoring the heritage of the peach in the area, Adcock expects between 2,500 and 3,000 people will venture out to take part in the themed celebration.

However, the numbers could be impacted if rain in the forecast.

Its highly dependent upon the weather, Adcock said. Were hoping for 2,500 [attendees], but if it rains itll be less than that. We started doing the sunshine dance today.

No matter the weather, the Virginia State Peach Festival is an event locals look forward to each year.

I think everybody enjoys ending summer with the Peach Festival in Patrick County, Adcock said.

While theres no admission fee, parking will be $5 per vehicle. The festival will take place on Friday from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. at Wayside Park, located at 332 Wayside Park Rd. in Stuart. Gates open one hour before the official start of the festival.
SPRINGFIELD -- Hundreds of people have directed their anger over a city police officer's Facebook comments about racial violence in Charlottesville, Virginia toward the Springfield Police Department's Facebook page, posting a flood of one-star reviews and calls for the patrolman's firing.

In the two days since MassLive reported on comments officer Conrad Lariviere posted using his personal Facebook account, several hundred people -- many from around the county -- have posted critical comments to the page.

A number of people have also made phone calls made to Police Commissioner John R. Barbieri's office, and a petition created on the social media site Change.org calls for Lariviere's dismisssal.

Lt. Phil Tarpey, an aide to Barbieri, said Tuesday morning that Lariviere has been removed from street patrols and assigned to duties inside the station pending the outcome of an internal investigation.

Lariviere, a Springfield police officer since 2014, became a flashpoint for criticism far beyond the city's borders when it was reported Sunday night that he appeared to make light of a car plowing through a crowd of people in Charlottesville. The crowd was made primarily of people who took to the streets to protest a rally organized by white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups.

Dozens of people were injured and 32-year-old Heather Heyer was killed. The driver of the car, a 20-year-old Ohio man who has been described as having Nazi sympathies, is facing multiple charges including second-degree murder.

Lariviere, on his personal Facebook page, responded to an article about the attack by writing "Hahahaha love this. Maybe people shouldn't block roadways."

When someone called him out on that remark, Lariviere doubled down by replying that he had been hit by someone in the course of his work as a police officer, and critics "live in a fantasy land with the rest of America while I deal with the real danger."

The exchange came to light when someone found out he was employed as a Springfield police officer and alerted the media.

Lariviere has since issued a clarification, saying he did not want to see anyone killed, that he is not a racist and does not support any of the white supremacist or neo-Nazi groups in Charlottesville.

"I'm a good man who made a stupid comment and would just like to be left alone," he told MassLive.

That doesn't appear likely. The outcry both locally and nationally has been immediate, and only appears to be growing.

Barbieri announced an internal investigation and a review by the Community Police Hearing Board.

Mayor Domenic Sarno, City Council President Orlando Ramos and Springfield NCAAP president Talbert Swan have issued statements rebuking Lariviere.

The original story was picked up by web publications around the country if not the world, generating a tsunami of outrage directed back toward Springfield.

The number of people leaving one-star reviews of the city's police department -- the lowest allowed under Facebook's five-star system -- has been enough to bring its rating down to 2.2 stars.

Police spokesman Sgt. John Delaney, who oversees the department's page, said the rating had been around 5 stars as recently as last week.

The majority of the one-star reviews, totaling 555 as of Tuesday morning, have been logged since Sunday evening, Delaney said.

People are also leaving anti-Lariviere comments on posts that having nothing to do with him, Delaney said.

The three most recent posts include a notification of a drug arrest, a fatal motorcycle accident, and a promotion for the department's upcoming Ride to Remember bicycle ride commemorating fallen officers.

"I've never seen anything like this before," Delaney said, adding that he discovered different web pages directing people to voice their anger on the police department's Facebook page.

A random sampling of people leaving poor reviews and citing Lariviere shows them hailing from as nearby as Bridgewater and Boston, and as far as Arizona, Minnesota, California, Florida, and Winnipeg, Canada.

The Change.org petition calls for Lariviere to issue a public apology, that he be removed from all duties with the Springfield Police Department, and that the department investigate his record.

"How can a person who holds and openly displays this much hate and disregard for human lives serve and protect all members of the public? How can the public put their safety in the hands of a person who praises terrorist acts and rallies for hate?" the petition reads.

Organizers pledged to deliver the petition to Sarno, Barbieri and members of the city council if it reached 500 signatures. As of 1 p.m. Tuesday, it had 513 signatures.
SPRINGFIELD -- Baystate Health obstetrician Dr. Michael P. Plevyak was killed Sunday when he and members of his family were struck by a charter bus in the busiest tourist area of Vancouver, British Columbia.

Plevyak, 49, of East Longmeadow, was vacationing in Canada with his family including his wife, Baystate Dr. Sudeep Aulakh, and their two children. His 15-year-old daughter and an older man identified as a family member were also injured.

Vancouver police confirmed in a statement that the victims were all related and were visiting from Massachusetts. The crash happened Sunday morning at Burrard Street and Canada Place, according to police.

Baystate doctors were told of Plevyak's death Monday, said his colleague, Dr. David Kattan.

"He was a person who looked at life as something to enjoy," said Kattan, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School - Baystate. "Anyone who had the pleasure of working with him was better for having known him."

Plevyak was an associate program director in the obstetrics and gynecology residency program, training new doctors at Baystate. He was also an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology with the Tufts University School of Medicine, according to his Baystate biography.

Kattan recalled Plevyak as an enthusiastic teacher always willing to help doctors improve their skills.

Eyewitness accounts of the crash recounted in the Vancouver Sun said the bus, described as a tourist shuttle, had just pulled away from a curb at low speed Sunday morning when the driver suddenly noticed people in his path.

Witnesses said the bus driver slammed on his brakes, but couldn't stop in time.

"I saw the face of the (bus) driver, he was in pain," witness Mushfiqur Rahman told the Vancouver Sun. "Emotional pain."

Two victims were pinned under the bus and emergency workers had to lift the vehicle off them, according to the Sun.

An investigation into the crash is ongoing, police said.

This is a developing story that will be updated after further reporting.
EASTHAMPTON - Deli Williams and her sister Allhdene, two black women who live in Springfield, drove past Nashawannuck Pond on Monday evening, looking for the Log Cabin, roughly 2 1/2 miles away in Holyoke.

They were "surprised" to see several dozen white people standing on the boardwalk carrying signs that read "Black Lives Matter," so they pulled over to find out what was going on.

The Williams sisters had stumbled upon a rally against white supremacy, organized by residents of Easthampton who were outraged by Saturday's fatal attack on an anti-racism protest in Charlottesville, Virginia.

"It's very touching, you know? Very," said Deli. "We're all together. I'm happy."

The 6 p.m. event was less of a rally and more of a community meet-and-greet. Some attendees carried signs with slogans like "#NoHateHere," in reference to recent racial conflicts at Easthampton High School, and the crowd sang songs together, but most of the focus was on conversation.

Sitting on a bench facing Mount Tom, at the top of which sits the elusive Log Cabin, Deli and Allhdene chatted with anyone and everyone who stopped to say hello.

"I thought, 'All them white folks, and Black Lives Matter? I was shocked,'" said Allhdene.

Merri Ansara, one of the rally's organizers, said she was outraged "at what happened in Charlottesville and at the resurgence of white supremacy and open racism."

Ansara attended a massive anti-racism rally in front of Northampton City Hall on Sunday night. She said she wanted to gather with her own neighbors, as well.

"We've struggled ourselves in Easthampton with our young people expressing white supremacist ideas," said Ansara. "It's our right to have differences. ... We need to embrace the fact that we're all here, and we're all committed to this country."

In recent days, President Donald Trump has been hit with accusations that he is sympathetic to white supremacists, especially after his lukewarm reaction to the attack in Charlottesville.

When James Alex Fields, Jr., allegedly drove his car into a crowd of people protesting a planned white supremacist rally, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring dozens more, Trump blamed agitators "on many sides."

On Monday, two days after the attack by an avowed white supremacist and facing heavy bipartisan pressure to condemn hate groups, Trump made a brief statement to reporters at the White House.

"Racism is evil," said Trump, "and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans."

Deli Williams said racism is more open in society now that Trump is president.

"White supremacists, Nazis, Ku Klux Klan, they all said they put him in office," she said.

Kae Collins, of Easthampton, said it's important to show that racists are outnumbered and detested.

"That's not the country that we want," said Collins, "and it's not the community that we want."
"For small to medium to national organizations, for events and fundraisers of any size, in any format  live, virtual or hybrid  the platform is built for scale."
Even though big data has now been around for several years, the opportunities for startups seem to keep growing, just as the amount of data keeps growing. According to IBM, companies have captured more data in the last two years than in the previous 2000 years. This data comes from sensors, social media posts, digital pictures and videos, purchase transactions, everywhere.

Every day, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data  much of it unstructured and far beyond the capability of conventional databases. Hence one segment of the opportunity is the need for new database technologies, like Hadoop, a distributed file system originally designed for indexing the Web. Data capacity is measured in petabytes (1000 terabytes), or soon even yottobytes (1024).

Marty Zwilling

Full Story: http://blog.startupprofessionals.com/2017/08/10-key-business-domains-with-big-data.html
Eight hundred incoming freshmen students and parents gathered in Montana State Universitys ballrooms for a summer orientation session and when an admissions officer asked them to stand and shout out as she named their state, Montana got by far the biggest cheer.

There were also pretty big cheers from California, Colorado, Minnesota, Oregon and Washington state.

Voices were fewer but enthusiastic for Texas, Wyoming, Florida, Idaho, New Jersey, Kansas, New Hampshire, Illinois, Georgia, the Dakotas, Michigan and other states. There was one very loud Alaskan and a lone kid from Singapore.

By Gail Schontzler Chronicle Staff Writer

Full Story: http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/education/msu-s-success-with-out-of-state-students-a-boon/article_1ed0e2c9-eff2-5afa-b64f-489d2aecdeb5.html
2nd Quarter 2017 Index

Number of jobs FCR has created in new downtown call center: 50

Number expected by end of 2017: 200

Current number of eggs processed annually in Great Falls: 129 million

Number that will be processed here annually after Montana Eggs expansion: 269 million

Number of chickens that produce 129 million eggs: 600,000

Number of chickens to produce 269 million: 1.2 million

Human population of Montana: 1.033 million

Increase in average annual wages in Cascade County over past 5 years: 12.8%

Increase in average annual earnings of local workers: $4,456

Total wage earning growth in Cascade County over past 5 years: 12.9%

Annual increase in take-home pay: $163 million

City of Great Falls growth in local property tax revenue from FY 2011-2018: 29.2%

Increase in City annual mill levy due to newly taxable property FY2013-2017: $2,105,572

Global market growth for low-erucic acid rapeseed/canola oils since 2011: 61%

Forecasted growth from 2016-2021: 51%

Daily tons of oil seeds the new Montana Specialty Mills plant will crush: 200

Daily tons of oil the plant will refine: 60

Airline seat capacity increase at GTF this summer: 5,300

Estimated cost of living in Great Falls compared to Billings: 24% lower

Estimated housing cost in Great Falls compared to Billings: 22% lower

Cascade County cost of living as percentage of national average: 92.6%

Billings population growth rate from 2010-2016: 1.07%/year

Projected first year economic impact of growing Cascade County population at same rate Billings has grown for past 6 years: $16.3 million

Economic impact of growing Cascade County population at Billings rate sustained for 10 years: $897 million

Sustained for 30 years: $7.58 billion

Projected increase of households in Cascade County if we grew at Billings rate: 359/year

Direct spending increase within Great Falls MSA in first year: $9.6 million

Direct spending increase over 10 years of sustained population growth: $528 million

Over 30 years: $4.5 billion

Jobs created in Cascade County from one years population growth at Billings rate: 149

Local jobs created by growing back to Cascade Countys peak population of 1978: 850

Number of residents in region who shop, dine, entertain and receive professional services in Great Falls: 218,000

Number of GFDA gap and bridge loans approved during quarter: 5

Total amount of loans: $283,548

Additional private investment these loans will leverage: $2,737,730

Number of HPF SBA 504 loans approved during quarter: 4

Total amount of loans: $1,517,000

Additional private investment to be leveraged: $2,676,590

New loan capital grants won during quarter: $540,000

Estimated underutilized labor supply in Cascade County: 16,134

Number of underemployed workers in county: 1,251

Number of entrepreneurs and local businesses coached by GFDA during quarter: 108

Of these, number of new coaching clients: 30

Number of business training sessions offered during quarter: 5

Number of business participants: 61

New private capital secured by small business clients during quarter: $4,410,941

Number of businesses started, bought or announced by coached clients: 2

Government contracts won by small business clients during quarter: $31,319

Number of downtown renovation building permits issued in 1st and 2nd quarters of 2017: 33

Construction total for issued permits: $5,378,496

Number of new downtown businesses opened in 1st and 2nd quarters of 2017: 4

Number of downtown volunteer hours in 1st and 2nd quarters of 2017: 17,302

Drop in average wellhead breakeven price in key American shale plays since 2013: 55%

Breakeven price rank of Bakken amongst the nations 5 major plays: Lowest

Projected increase in road and bridge funds City of Great Falls and Cascade County will receive in 2018 from state gas tax increase: $1,013,805

Annual amount of increase projected by 2023: $1,601,618

Number of ethanol plants in the U.S.: 198

Fuel ethanol produced in U.S. in 2016: 14.8 billion gallons

Forecast for 2017: 15.8 billion gallons

Average monthly commercial water charges amongst 12 Montana communities (based on 18,000 gallons per month): $69.74

Average in Great Falls: $46.82

Great Falls cost ranking: 2nd lowest

Average monthly commercial wastewater charges amongst 11 Montana communities (based on 18,000 gallons per month): $91.20

Average in Great Falls: $70.24

Great Falls cost ranking: 3rd lowest

Average amount overseas visitors spend on trip to United States: $4,500

Domestic tourists: $767

Chinese vacationers: $7,200

GFDA 2nd Quarter 2017 Index PDF

Vision http://files.constantcontact.com/3e765937001/1ce6d955-b723-4f4e-abfa-1d06a104be13.pdf

Hungry to Grow the Great Falls region

Mission

Grow and diversify the Great Falls regional economy.

Create higher wage career opportunities.

Improve market competitiveness.

The first economic development organization in the Rocky Mountain West to earn accreditation from the International Economic Development Council.

GFDA is a certified Community Development Financial Institution and a 501(c)3 charitable organization. High Plains Financial is a certified Community Development Corporation that offers SBA 504 loans statewide. GFDA and High Plains Financial are Equal Opportunity Lenders.

GFDA is proud to host a Montana Small Business Development Center

and a Montana Procurement Technical Assistance Center.

For more info, click to our website http://www.gfdevelopment.org/

Great Falls Development Authority, Inc., 300 Central Avenue, Suite 406, Great Falls, MT 59401, Mailing Address: PO Box 949, Great Falls, MT 59403
The 43rd Annual North Carolina State Bluegrass Festival at Tom Johnson Camping World Resort in Marion starts Thursday and will last through Saturday.

The three-day event will begin each day at noon and go until around 10 p.m. daily. Open stage is daily from 11 a.m. until noon. The festival features some of the very best in bluegrass music.

All of them are good, said promoter Norman Adams.

This years festival will feature many returning favorites and several newcomers too. The returning favorites include Dailey & Vincent, Rhonda Vincent and the Rage, Gene Watson, Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver, Joe Mullins & the Radio Ramblers and Junior Sisk & Ramblers Choice, among others.

As for the newcomers, Grand Ole Opry star Mike Snider will perform for the first time at the festival in Marion. He will do a 90-minute show at 8:30 p.m. Saturday to close out the festival.

A unique newcomer to the festival is the U.S. Navy Band Country Current.

Marion is one of five cities in two states to host a performance by the U.S. Navy Band during its 2017 tour. It is one of the signature outreach programs of the U.S. Navy, according to a news release.

The U.S. Navy Band Country Current performances are scheduled for Saturday at 2:15 p.m. and 6:45 p.m. at Tom Johnson Camping World as part of the North Carolina State Bluegrass Festival.

The Navys country-bluegrass ensemble Country Current is renowned for its versatility and phenomenal musicianship, performing a blend of modern country music and cutting-edge bluegrass. Reaching out to communities both locally and nationally, they regularly perform for veterans, elementary schools, and in support of our nations active-duty sailors, according the news release.

One of the U.S. Navy Bands primary responsibilities involves touring the country. All of the bands primary performing units embark each year on concert tours throughout specified regions of the country, allowing the band to reach out to audiences in areas of the country that do not have opportunities to see the Navy's premier musical ensembles on a regular basis. The concerts are family-friendly events, meant to be entertaining to veterans, families, individuals and those interested in joining the Navy, according to the news release.

Adams said to The McDowell News that Haley Stilner formerly played the bass with the Little Roy & Lizzy Show. But she joined the Navy and went through training just so she could play banjo with the U.S. Navy Band Country Current.

Thursdays lineup features Tommy Brown & County Line Grass, The Chuck Wagon Gang, Springfield Exit, Dry Branch Fire Squad, Rhonda Vincent and The Rage (Queen of Bluegrass and IBMA Female Vocalist eight times). Also featured will be country music legend Gene Watson & The Farewell Party Band. They will perform one 90-minute show at 8:30 p.m. with special guest star Rhonda Vincent, according to a news release.

Fridays lineup of talent begins at noon and goes until 10 p.m. featuring Sons of the South, The Farm Hands, The Primitive Quartet, Joe Mullins & The Radio Ramblers, Junior Sisk & Ramblers Choice. Also featured will be Dailey & Vincent (IBMA Entertainers of the Year 2008-2010 and newest members of the Grand Ole Opry). They will perform one 90-minute show at 8:30 p.m.

Saturdays lineup begins at noon and goes until 10 p.m. featuring The Malpass Brothers, Big Country Bluegrass, The Little Roy & Lizzy Show, the U.S. Navy Band Country Current, Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver (Winner of IBMA Gospel Recorded Performance for seven years) and The U.S. Navy Band. Snider will give the grand finale Saturday night, according to the news release.

In addition, the festival will have all kinds of food vendors serving hamburgers, barbecue and ice cream. Craft vendors will have jewelry and leather goods. There will be other vendors selling CDs and tapes of bluegrass music. And all of the artists will sell their own CDs and souvenirs and sign autographs and pose for pictures with fans.

Well have a regular flea market here by Thursday, said Adams on Tuesday. But the main thing is the music. The rest is just extra.

Please bring lawn chairs, reads a news release from Adams Bluegrass LLC. No high back chairs, rockers or extra wide chairs. No alcoholic beverages or pets except service animals are allowed in the concert area. Security will be on duty. This is a family show.

Show goes on rain or shine under a covered pavilion, with tickets available at the gate. Daily ticket prices are $45 at the gate. Three-day adult ticket is $95 at the gate. Children ages 7 through 15 are $15 per day or $50 for three days at the gate. Children younger than 7 are free when accompanied by parents. Tickets may be ordered online at www.adamsbluegrass.com. Sound by Blue Ridge Sound and Sherry Boyd is the MC, according to the news release.

The festival draws bluegrass fans from all over the United States to Marion and McDowell County.

The sponsors for this years festival include The McDowell News, the McDowell Chamber of Commerce, Marion Pharmacy and McDowell Cornerstone Credit Union.

Thursday, Aug. 17

Open stage  11 a.m.

Tommy Brown & County Line Grass  noon and 4:30 p.m.

The Chuck Wagon Gang  12:45 and 5:15 p.m.

Springfield Exit  1:30 and 6 p.m.

Dry Branch Fire Squad  2:20 and 6:50 p.m.

Rhonda Vincent & The Rage  3:10 and 7:40 p.m.

Intermission  4 p.m.

Gene Watson & The Farewell Party Band  8:30 p.m. (one 90-minute show with special guest Rhonda Vincent)

Friday, Aug. 18

Open stage 11 a.m.

Sons of the South  noon and 4:30 p.m.

The Farm Hands  12:45 and 5:15 p.m.

The Primitive Quartet  1:30 and 6 p.m.

Joe Mullins & The Radio Ramblers  2:15 and 7:35 p.m.

Junior Sisk & Ramblers Choice  3:05 and 7:35 p.m.

Intermission  4 p.m.

Dailey & Vincent  8:30 p.m. (one 90-minute show)

Saturday, Aug. 19

Open Stage  11 a.m.

The Malpass Brothers  noon and 4:30 p.m.

Big Country Bluegrass  12:45 and 5:15 p.m.

The Little Roy & Lizzy Show  1:30 and 6 p.m.

The U.S. Navy Band  Country Current  2:15 and 6:45 p.m.

Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver  3:05 and 7:35 p.m.

Intermission  4 p.m.

Mike Snider  8:30 p.m. (one 90-minute show)

For more information contact Adams Bluegrass, LLC 706-864-7203 or visit www.adamsbluegrass.com and Tom Johnson Camping World 1-800-225-7802.
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School-based mental health programs can reach large numbers of children, with increasing evidence of effectiveness in improving mental health and related outcomes, according to a research review in the September/October issue of the Harvard Review of Psychiatry. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer.

"This review provides evidence that large-scale, school-based programs can be implemented in a variety of diverse cultures and educational models as well as preliminary evidence that such programs have significant, measurable positive effects on students' emotional, behavioral, and academic outcomes," write J. Michael Murphy, EdD, of Massachusetts General Hospital and colleagues.

School-Based Programs Focus on Preventing Mental Health Problems

An estimated 13 percent of children and adolescents worldwide have significant mental health problems such as anxiety, disruptive behavior disorders, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and depression. Especially if left untreated, these disorders often persist into adulthood, with lasting effects on many aspects of life.

Over the years, many programs have been designed to deliver preventive mental health services in schools, where children and teens spend so much of their time. Substantial research now shows that school-based mental health interventions can be widely implemented and can lead to population-wide improvements in mental health, physical health, educational, and social outcomes.

Dr. Murphy and colleagues identified and analyzed school-based mental health programs that have been implemented on a large scale and have collected data on specific mental health outcomes. The authors estimate that the eight largest programs have reached at least 27 million children over the last decade.

The interventions vary in their focus, methods, and goals. The largest program, called "Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports" (PBIS), focuses on positive social culture and behavioral support for all students. The second-largest program, called "FRIENDS," aims to reduce anxiety and to teach skills for managing emotions and coping with stress - not only to children, but also to parents and teachers.

Most of the school-based mental health interventions were designed to focus on mental health promotion or primary prevention for all students in the school; some programs also target students at high risk of mental health problems. Most of the programs have been implemented across school districts, while some have been introduced on the state or national level.

Available research provides "moderate to strong" evidence that these interventions are effective in promoting good mental health and related outcomes. For example, studies of FRIENDS have reported reductions in anxiety, while PBIS has shown improved reading scores and fewer school suspensions. Other programs have shown benefits such as reducing bullying at school; one intervention has even been linked to lower rates of substance abuse in young adulthood.

The authors point out that school-based mental health interventions have been studied almost exclusively in high-income countries - despite the fact that about 80 percent of the global population of children live in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). But there's evidence that this may be changing, since three of the eight largest programs have been implemented "to scale" in LMICs. One of these, called "Skills for Life," has been running on a national basis in Chile for more than a decade.

"Data sets of increasing quality and size are opening up new opportunities to assess the degree to which preventive interventions for child mental health, delivered at scale, can play a role in improving health and other life outcomes," Dr. Murphy and colleagues conclude. With ongoing data collection and new evaluation frameworks, they believe that school-based mental health programs have the potential to "improve population-wide health outcomes of the next generation."

Article: Scope, Scale, and Dose of the World's Largest School-Based Mental Health Programs, Murphy, J. Michael EdD; Abel, Madelaine R. BA; Hoover, Sharon PhD; Jellinek, Michael MD; Fazel, Mina DM, MRC Psych, Harvard Review of Psychiatry, doi: 10.1097/HRP.0000000000000149, published 5 August 2017.
Taipei, Aug. 15 (CNA) The government had imposed fines in 109 cases of illegal fishing involving Taiwanese deep-sea fishing vessels this year as of the end of July, as part of an effort to ensure the European Union (EU) removes Taiwan from a watch list of countries that have not taken sufficient action to curb illegal unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing, a Fisheries Agency official said Tuesday.
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Taipei, Aug. 15 (CNA) Taiwan has decided to make it easier for Japanese citizens to visit the country by lifting the requirement that their passports be valid for at least three months from the time of entry, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Tuesday.
There is only one word for this years Cass County Fair and that word is record-breaking.

Attendance was up based on the number of vehicles in the parking areas. They were packed for the 2017 fair and its theme, 50 Years of County Dreams and Jeans.

The weather, in part, is credited for the record-breaking crowds at the fair.

From Tuesday evening through Saturday evening, temperatures remained in the 80s with ever-so-slight breezes, making it the fourth fair in a row where the temperatures didnt head to the high 90s. Good weather makes a difference, said Cass County Fairgrounds Manager Steve Wehrbein. People also liked the new events. It all comes into play. We believe this year had a record-breaking crowd and weve talked to the board members and they are all in agreement with that.

Fair activities kicked off with the annual Cake Auction Tuesday night in the Open Air Auditorium. Forty-nine 4-H members and six local 4-H Clubs entered 55 cakes and raised $12,320. The money was divided between 4-H members auctioning baked goods or 4-H Clubs with baked goods and the Cass County 4-H Council. The council uses its funds for 4-H programs including camps and workshop scholarships, Citizen Washington Focus sponsorship, static exhibit prizes, contest prizes and yearly expenses.

Triple B 4-H earned the bid of $450 for a cake replicating a 1950s Omaha Stockyard steak, hence, breaking another record for highest bid on an auction cake.

Wednesday morning started with the 4-H Horse Show with several livestock shows scheduled throughout the day. By 6 p.m., fairgoers had taken a majority of parking spaces as they split their time between the casserole contest, bicycle motocross, Wildlife Encounters, Extreme Bull Riding program, and of course, the Cass County Queen Contest. Queen contest judges deliberated for about one-half hour in deciding who the new fair queen and fair princess would be. This years queen contestants were Miss Eagle Danielle Schreiber, Miss Elmwood Whitney Koehn, Miss Louisville Emma Gauthier, Miss Murdock Jenna Meyer, Miss Murray Maddie Daly, Miss Nehawka Sofia Sedlacek, Miss Plattsmouth Sydnee Bell and Miss Weeping Water Sydney Keckler.

Keckler won over the hearts of the judges with her elegance, humility and graciousness. After the 2016-17 Fair Queen Whitney Todd crowned her as the new queen, Keckler thanked the crowd and the other contestants. I sat here all evening thinking, I dont have a chance to get this, because these girls are so good, she said.

Daly earned the Fair Princess-runner-up, title with a well-rehearsed speech and friendly demeanor.

Cass County Agricultural Society Chairman Alan Horn agreed that the queen contest is always a big draw. The queen contest and bull riding drew a huge crowd. Overall, we had nice weather, so it was too nice of evening to stay home, he said. Wednesday was one of our better nights. We saw more cars than ever before on a Wednesday. There were a lot of cars that parked in the west area.

In the Expo Center kitchen, Annette Erhart, owner of Annettes Catering and Desserts, and Sarah Slattery, chef at Slatterys Vintage Estates, judged casserole entries.

Food was always an important part of the fair, Erhart said before noticing someone in the audience eating a pork chop on a stick. Theyll do anything with food nowadays. Food vendors, restaurant owners and caterers always have to step it up a notch and think about flavor profiles. There are so many new products out, buzz products.

After tasting seven different entries, Slattery and Erhart chose Hannah Manleys Taco Zucchini Pizza Casserole for first place, followed by Evelyn Hans Apple Bundt Strada in second place and Alexis Mogensens Tator Tot Casserole in third place.

We had some really good dishes, Erhart said.

Thursday opened with the Swine Show and Poultry Showmanship. The Swine Show proved the biggest swine show in Nebraska this year with a record number of 166 entries as compared to recent years.

For a Thursday, with the livestock shows going on all day, there were lots of kids, grandparents and parents at the fair, Horn said.

McClains Mutton Buster Show with 82 little riders also broke last years number of participants at 80.

Of course, the nights Outlaw Truck and Tractor Pull at the north pull track was standing room only.

The evening ended with the Performing Arts Contest, moved into this new slot this year, in the Open Air Auditorium. Eight entries performed in the contest, which ended with the thunderous and impressive, Glamorous Riverdance.

Attendance on Friday during the fair is always high due to the 4-H Market and Breeding Beef Show in the morning, Horse Judge Contest at noon, and pedal pullers in the evening.

This year, however, offered two major events that significantly increased attendance numbers  the 50th Anniversary Program celebrating 50 years the fair has been at its Highway 1 and 144th Street location and, secondly, Rex Allen Jr.s final tour concert performance, both in the Open Air Auditorium.

An estimated 300 people attended the 50th Anniversary Program, according to Horn. Former State Sen. Roger Wehrbein served as master of ceremonies. Roger Wehrbein was also Cass County Agricultural Society chairman in 1966 when the society purchased the 40 acres comprising the first part of the existing fairgrounds footprint.

During his presentation, Roger Wehrbein recognized society board members serving at the time the ground was purchased, past society board members and the current members.

He explained the fair was located in a former lumberyard in downtown Weeping Water for many years. By the early 60s, the fair had outgrown Weeping Water. There were very few places to park and the businesses were complaining. In the 1960s, several on the fair board decided to move ahead with moving the fairgrounds, he said.

Roger Wehrbein remembers some meetings lasted until 1 a.m., 2 a.m. and on one occasion, 3 a.m. The plan was to buy 40 acres off of Highway 1 and place the fairgrounds there.

We had meetings in the early 60s and they were somewhat contentious. On Jan. 3, 1965, we decided to buy the ground. But we had no money.

Long story short, the society held a fund-raising dinner at Winterset Inn, March 1, 1966. Also, individuals, 4-H clubs and 4-H members from all over the area contributed to the fund. By Friday of that week, we had $26,000 of the $56,000 needed. This was phenomenal, because we had no money to begin with, Roger Wehrbein said.

The money was eventually raised with people contributing everything from 5 cents to hundreds of dollars. Three buildings were initially constructed and the rest is history as the fair continued to grow into the largest traditional fair in Southeast Nebraska.

It was all volunteer, which is a secret to being successful, Roger Wehrbein said. The vision people had back then has come true.

Steve Wehrbein said he thought the anniversary program went very well. That drew a nice group of people and most of those stayed for Rex Allen Jr.s concert. Roger does such a nice job. He was so involved in it. Mark Buell was the driving force in it. They both worked a long time on it, he said. Friday night went very well. Its the biggest crowd Ive ever seen for a Friday.

Although he didnt live here all of his life, Rex Allen Jr. spent many summers in Cass County visiting relatives. Coming to Cass County for his final tour concert was like coming home.

My mothers oldest sister married a Hobscheidt, Rex said during an interview with The Journal. Uncle Frank Hobscheidt had a cabin at Lake Waconda. When I had four to five days off, Id stay in the cabin. Ive spent a lot of time there. Even my dad loved to come back here. He loved the Hobscheidts and Linders. He thought of here as a second home and so do I.

Activities throughout the grounds drew people to the fair. The Figure Eight Race went on forever. They also had a capacity crowd and that ran pretty late, Steve Wehrbein said.

Of course, the most well-attended day of the fair is always Saturday. Sams Amusement Carnival Kids Day was offered all afternoon. Wildlife Encounters put on another three shows, and a draft-horse demonstration was added to Saturdays lineup after the schedules were printed.

Blair Altman is on our board and is familiar with people who do draft horse pulls. She found three or four people to come demonstrate their skills, Horn said.

Nearly everyone in the county attended the hour and one-half long parade starting with a float carrying past ag society board members and ending with the current board members.

We had a lot of calls about entering the parade and about it being a free fair. That means we had new people attend. People who were here last year would know its a free fair, said Steve Wehrbein.

Overall, Steve Wehrbein credits the location of the fairgrounds off of the highway, new activities introduced each year and the sign at the intersection of Highway 1 and Highway 75 as main reasons for the fairs continued success. Its in the center of the county. Thats what they were thinking about when they bought this ground 50 years ago. They wanted to bring the east and west together and thats what it has done.
PLATTSMOUTH  A former Plattsmouth resident who tried to hide illegally-obtained prescription drugs from authorities will spend multiple months in Cass County Jail.

James D. McKinney Jr., 26, appeared in Cass County District Court on Monday morning for a sentencing hearing on two Class I misdemeanor charges. He pled guilty in June to one charge of attempted possession of controlled substance-oxycodone and one charge of attempted tampering with physical evidence. McKinney Jr. is a former Plattsmouth resident who has recently been living in Omaha.

Plattsmouth police officers obtained a search warrant for McKinney Jr.s former home in October 2016. The officers knocked loudly on the front door and then saw a female watching them from a window. The woman spoke to them and said someone would come to the front door and let them in.

Several minutes passed without anyone opening the front door. Officers then saw McKinney Jr. look at them from the window and move quickly away. The officers began preparing to forcibly enter the home because they suspected he was trying to destroy possible evidence. They were just about ready to remove the front door when the woman opened it for them.

Police searched the home and found multiple drug-related items in a bathroom. Officers discovered a straw with white residue on a sink and found a container of oxycodone pills with another persons name on the label. They learned McKinney Jr. did not have a legal prescription for the drug.

Officers also found two oxycodone capsules partially dissolved in the sink and other capsules in the drain. They also learned McKinney Jr. had tried to wash away the drugs before speaking with police.

Deputy County Attorney Colin Palm told the court Monday that McKinney Jr. had committed several other offenses in local cities. He said he had been convicted of burglary, theft, felony theft over $5,000 and attempted possession of controlled substance in Douglas and Sarpy counties over the past 18 months. He had also been charged with operating while intoxicated in Iowa this past January.

There have been a lot of charges before the events of this case happened and after they happened, Palm said. He has dug a big hole for himself.

Defense attorney Julie Bear told the court her client had become addicted to painkillers after suffering a back injury. She asked the court to issue probation to give McKinney Jr. an opportunity to address his drug addiction through a treatment program.

One thing that is abundantly apparent is that chemical dependency issues are at the root of these cases, Bear said. Mr. McKinney is the face of the opioid epidemic we are hearing about.

Judge Michael Smith said he did not feel McKinney Jr. was a suitable candidate for probation because of his recent criminal history. Smith sentenced McKinney Jr. to 300 days in Cass County Jail on both charges. He will receive credit for 61 days he has already served.
I like mine with lettuce and tomato

Heinz 57 and French fried potatoes 

 Jimmy Buffett

KEY NORTH  It is the opening weekend of the 19th annual Cheeseburger in Caseville festival, and I am beginning to think coming up here was a bad idea.

My doctor told me last month that I need to amend my carnivorous habits and eat healthier. Yet here I am in Key North, surrounded by a seemingly endless variety and quantity of the gastronomic delight  or gastronomic disaster, depending on who youre talking to  which Jimmy Buffett immortalized in his 1978 hit song, Cheeseburger in Paradise.

Hawaiian Burgers, Tropical Blue Burgers, Bacon Cheddar Burgers, Triple Hog Burgers, Mushroom Swiss Burgers, on and on.

I am determined to beat the odds and find a more heart- and overall health-friendly version of the wacky, tacky fests signature treat. And I am really here for the breezy trop rock music, the friendly cheeseburger-capped people and the glorious Lake Huron sunsets anyway, I tell myself.

Do you serve veggie burgers? I innocently ask my waitress, Jessica Morgan of Caseville, at Walts Restaurant on Saturday, the second day of this celebration of all things Margaritaville and beefy.

Not here, she replies.

Noting that Walts has been a fixture in Caseville for over half a century now, as the front of their menu proudly proclaims, I have a follow-up query.

To the best of your knowledge, has any customer ever requested a meatless patty?

Not here, Jessica repeats with a knowing smile and a Bless your little heart tone she might use with an eccentric uncle known for not being the sharpest slice of cheddar in the fridge.

I scurry over to the Caseville Family Market and ask manager Ron Bergman if his store carries ready-made veggie burgers I can grill up myself.

We have in the past, he says. But people want the real deal.

On to the Caseville Fire Department I go, vowing to keep the promises Ive made to my doctor. Saturday is Firehouse Burger Day. Eight volunteer firefighters man the blazing grills outside under mostly cloudy skies as a long line of folks snake out of the station all the way to Main Street, patiently waiting to be rescued from their hunger by the CFDs self-described world famous onion-infused ground beef patties.

None of them are vegetarian, assistant fire chief Carl Brunni tells me with a bemused look.

Eying all of the sizzling, smoking, dripping meat, I ask  desperately trying to be clever  if he is at all concerned about the possibility of a greasy conflagration.

Not really, he says with a shrug of his shoulders. Weve got six fire trucks parked outside.

Delighted kids are posing for pictures inside them, hands on the steering wheel, pretending to be driving the big red rigs. I fervently hope Carl has the keys.

My visit to the fire station makes me hot. The threatening skies have cleared a bit, so I ride my bike down to the wide, sandy Caseville County Park beach. After taking a refreshing dip, I amble into Baywatch on the Beach. My sagging spirits are brightened a bit by the pastel pink, yellow and blue walls and the kitschy, Parrothead-themed items  ships wheels, tin sea horses, a plastic palm tree  that decorate them.

Im sorry, I dont offer a veggie burger, owner Phil Crown tells me solemnly, seeing the naive flicker of hope die in my eyes. Our customers like their meat. But I can put veggies ON your burger.

Nice try, Phil. Anyone can do that. Heck, if I go back to the Caseville Family Market and visit their produce department, I can do that myself.

I return to Main Street and see that Key North Surf Shops $3 Sizzle Burgers are moving at a brisk pace. I ask owner Rob Pillsworth my stock question, and he pretty much laughs in my face.

Were having a Jimmy Buffett party here, and Jimmy Buffett doesnt eat veggie burgers, he says.

Finally, I turn to Caseville Chamber of Commerce President Steve Louwers. Im thinking that Mr. Cheeseburger  the tireless promoter and problem solver Pillsworth calls the ramrod and the catalyst of this tropically-flavored 10-day party that has become one of Michigans largest and most popular festivals  will surely have the answer Im looking for. I would have asked him earlier, but hes been busy keeping things running smoothly all day.

Me: Can you tell me where I might find a veggie burger in town?

Mr. Cheeseburger, sounding a little offended by the question: No.

Steves usually a lot more helpful than that. More talkative, too.

I am getting hungry. Over by the Caseville United Methodist Church, I notice a green sign proclaiming the Crab Shacks Cheeseburger Cristo  a one-third pound grilled cheeseburger topped with Canadian bacon, nestled between two slices of Texas French toast sprinkled with powdered sugar, with syrup on the side  the winner of the Kiwanis Clubs 2017 Best Cheeseburger Contest.

Holy cow, come to Papa. I immediately un-amend my carnivorous habits. Temporarily, of course.

I enjoy my Cheeseburger Cristo very, very much. When in Rome, right? Not such a bad idea after all, I come to realize, and theres a lot more fun ahead, beginning with that evenings Parade of Tropical Fools and a sure-to-be-rousing performance by fest fave Jimmy and the Parrots at the County Park Amphitheater.

Still, I have to ask Crab Shacks owner, Pigeon resident Bill Bechler, if he has any idea how many calories are in the culinary concoction his friend Doug Buehler, a retired optometrist, created specifically for the festival.

Who cares? Bechler says with a big laugh. This is Cheeseburger in Caseville!

Sure, everyone deserves a treat once in awhile, and this spirited little Tip-of-the-Thumb town is bursting at the seams with them right now. But come Monday, Bill, my doctor may want to have a word with you.

Afterward, I eventually managed to find two venues that offer veggie burgers: Hot Rods Catering Service and Giuseppes Pizzeria. But by that point, I was way too full to try them.

Detroit-based freelance writer Ron Campbell has written several Cheeseburger articles for the Tribune and other publications. He can be reached at roncamp22@wowway.com.
This article by Jared Keller originally appeared on Task & Purpose, a digital news and culture publication dedicated to military and veterans issues.

The woman on track to become the first female Navy SEAL officer has exited the training pipeline, multiple Naval Special Warfare Command sources have confirmed to Task & Purpose.

The female midshipman, identified by Military.com in July as an ROTC junior at an unnamed U.S. college, was the elite SEAL Officer Assessment and Selection (SOAS) program's first female entrant since the Department of Defense lifted restrictions on female applicants for combat arms and special operations forces roles in 2016.

Had she completed the three-week course, she would have been eligible for review by the NSW officer community manager and officer selection panel in September and, if selected, received orders by October to report to NSW's grueling 24-week Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training course.

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"No women have entered the full training pipeline just yet," a Navy official who declined to be identified told Task & Purpose. "She didn't make it to BUD/S." (NSW public affairs officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment). The entrant, one of a handful of female applicants who have applied for elite special warfare roles, appears to have exited the training pipeline after completing just half of the command's screening evaluations, sources told Task & Purpose. The first weeks of the program, which began on July 24 at Naval Amphibious Base Coronado in San Diego, include physical training with NSW Group 1 and a "mini" version of the BUD/S challenge that awaits the most qualified candidates. The news of the entrant's departure was first made public by Josh Cotton, a former Navy personnel research psychologist who worked for Institute for Selection and Classification from 2009 until 2014. Cotton's tenure with the institute focused on helping the branch screen sailors for various jobs; during his last 3.5 years with the ISC, Cotton worked with the NSWC helping officials refine screening evaluations like SOAS, BUD/S, and Naval Special Warfare Advanced Training Command, according to a DoD biography.

The first female officer candidate, alongside two female Special Warfare Combatant-Craft Crewman program entrants, represented a significant milestone for a service branch that had, until the 2015 Pentagon guidance, excluded women from the SEALs and SWCC community.

But according to the Navy official, NSWC is less concerned with the candidate's failure and more concerned with her future service.

"People try and fail on their own merits, and we respect the individual for the risk," he added. "And whatever happens, they're doing it to serve and protect their country."

More articles from Task & Purpose:

This Marine Corps Comic Strip Artist From The 1920s Might Be The Original Terminal Lance

6 Types Of Majors You Meet In The Military

Just A Normal Day In The Hangar, Then Bryan Cranston Of Breaking Bad Shows Up
A former Marine Corps senior drill instructor from Parris Island, South Carolina, was found guilty at court-martial of failing to adhere to recruit training rules in ways that risked recruits' welfare, having a recruit complete his college homework, and forcing another to call his sister so that he could proposition her.

Staff Sgt. Antonio Burke was, however, found not guilty of forcing recruits to perform incentive training in a dusty, abandoned squad bay known as "the Dungeon," and of slathering them in sunblock and making them roll around in a sand pit for the purpose of irritating their skin.

Burke is expected to receive a sentence Friday morning in the first of three cases involving alleged drill instructor hazing at Parris Island to be tried at general court-martial.

After a recruit jumped from a third-story barracks building to his death last March, a series of command investigations turned up serious allegations of hazing within 3rd Recruit Training Battalion at the recruit depot.

Fifteen drill instructors were sidelined in the initial probe, and six were ultimately charged in connection with two separate alleged incidents, one involving a Muslim recruit thrown into an industrial dryer, and another involving the Dungeon and a spectrum of unauthorized and demeaning training activity.

Of the four drill instructors accused in the latter incident, Burke faced the most serious charges.

But prosecutors were challenged to prove out elements of alleged hazing when a series of former recruits from Burke's unit, Platoon 3044, offered confusing and sometimes contradictory testimony.

Regarding the Dungeon, testimony was unclear as to when Burke was present for the incentive training, and how bad the breathing conditions were for the recruits, who allegedly did push-ups, burpees, and other strenuous exercises in the room for five to ten minutes at a time.

A jury of enlisted Marines and officers did, however, find sufficient evidence that Burke abused his power over recruits on multiple occasions.

Marine Lance Cpl. Kelvin Cabrera testified that Burke had confiscated a family picture showing Cabrera's sister, then forced Cabrera to log onto his Facebook page so Burke could message her. While on the page, Burke saw pictures of another sister, Jennifer, and made Cabrera call her so that Burke could proposition her with a trip to Miami.

Jennifer Cabrera testified that the call made her uncomfortable and worried for her brother.

"I believed the Marine Corps was out there to protect us," she said. "That abuse of authority that was going on with my brother changed my opinion, slightly."

The jury found Burke guilty as well of lying to an investigating officer about this activity.

Burke was also found guilty of having a recruit do his homework for American Public University; of not taking the proper actions when a recruit, later found to have a heart condition, passed out on his watch; of conducting unauthorized, or "illegal" incentive training with recruits on various occasions; and, on one occasion of grabbing a recruit by the collar and pushing him out of the chow line.

He was acquitted of other charges including being drunk on duty, calling recruits crass names, and throwing their footlockers, all of which are against regulations. Burke had also been accused of attempting to bribe recruits with Clif bars to keep them from saying anything incriminating about drill instructors being investigated; on that charge, too, he was found not guilty.

Despite the various acquittals, Burke may still stand to face the greatest punishment of any drill instructor so far for his inappropriate activities. To date, three other drill instructors from Platoon 3044 have had cases adjudicated in lesser proceedings.

In May, Sgt. Riley Gress was acquitted of violation of a lawful general order, false official statement, and cruelty and maltreatment.

In June, Staff Sgt. Matthew Bacchus pleaded guilty to charges of violation of a lawful general order and maltreatment at a summary court-martial and received administrative punishment. And the same month, Staff Sgt. Jose Lucena-Martinez took a plea deal, avoiding court-martial altogether and receiving administrative punishment.

Two more cases, involving the recruit allegedly stuffed in the dryer, are expected to go to general court-martial this fall.

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck.
The Fremont Police Department and the Dodge County Sheriffs Office are in the process of receiving an armored vehicle which will be used in a variety of emergency situations following Fremont City Council approval.

For approximately five years, Fremonts Emergency Response Unit  comprised of six members of the FPD and six members of the DCSO  has arrived at potentially life-threatening situations in a retired City of Fremont bus. The bus, Fremont Chief of Police Jeff Elliott said during a previous interview, has tallied up more than 140,000 miles and isnt equipped to handle adverse situations.

In mid-May, Fremont City Council approved a resolution enabling the Unit to apply for the transfer of a MRAP vehicle from the federal 1033 Program to the department to be used by the citys Emergency Response Unit.

The federal governments 1033 Program, which is administered through the state of Nebraska, provides law enforcement agencies with demilitarized armored vehicles for little to no cost. The vehicles are referred to as MRAPs  Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles.

During last Tuesdays Council meeting, the Council approved a resolution enabling the Emergency Response Unit to receive the vehicle. On Thursday, Fremont Police Department representatives were notified that a MRAP vehicle could be picked out from a vehicle lot located in Sierra County, Calif.

They give us three or four to pick from, they are being held for us now, we just have to pick it up and get it back out here, Lt. Glen Still of the FPD said during a Monday interview with the Tribune.

The vehicle, Still said, will in all likelihood be brought to Fremont via a large semi-truck trailer by the end of August.

Through the 1033 program, the expense of the vehicle is approximately $1,500 which covers the transfer fee, and then another $10,000 will be spent on up-fit expenses; meaning all military logos will be removed, the vehicle will be painted and the Emergency Response Units logos will be added.

A vehicle of this nature typically would cost well over $100,000, Elliott previously said. During the search process, one vehicle the department looked at  one smaller than the one the unit will receive  cost $162,000.

Upon arrival, the MRAP vehicle will be completely demilitarized. This means there are no machine guns, no cannons, no mine layers or weapons of any sort. It will, however, keep its armored plating and bullet-resistant glass.

In addition to protecting the Emergency Response Unit, the vehicle also will pay dividends if a flooding situation occurs. Elevated three to four feet off the ground, the MRAP vehicle is capable of maneuvering through water.

Its pretty high off the ground and has four-wheel drive, Still said. Its super durable and has these big tires that can get through a lot of water without having much of a problem. Youll notice that in most disaster situations or flooding situations military vehicles are used because they can go places and operate in a way that most civilian vehicles cant.

Most importantly, the vehicle does greatly reduce the risk of an officer being hurt during high-risk situations. High-risk situations  such as an armed suspect barricading himself or herself in a house  happen every 1  years or so, Elliott said.

Its huge for the protection of everyone, Still said. If you have to get in somewhere, like an officer is injured in a fire zone, it provides protection for that rescue. The armor and bullet-resistant glass is a huge positive safety factor for the safety of everyone.
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...
Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe defended the actions taken Saturday by state and local law enforcement in response to clashes between white nationalist protesters and counter-protesters in Charlottesville, VA.

McAuliffe told The New York Times in an impromptu street interview Sunday morning that police in Charlottesville did their best considering the circumstances.

"It's easy to criticize, but I can tell you this, 80% of the people here had semiautomatic weapons," McAuliffe said.

Law enforcement in Charlottesville have received widespread criticism from counterprotesters, bystanders, and participants of the white nationalist "Unite The Right" rally. Many called the police's handling of the event hands-off, often appearing outnumbered and waiting too long to break up skirmishes between protesters and counter-protesters.

Former police officials in New York and Philadelphia made similar criticisms that, despite a large mobilization of law enforcement personnel -- Charlottesville's mayor put the number at 1,000 -- police failed to separate the clashing factions at the beginning of the event, allowing the violence to quickly grow out of hand.

Though McAuliffe strongly commended law enforcement's handling of the event, he appeared to suggest that police were unprepared for who actually showed up to the rally.

"You saw the militia walking down the street, you would have thought they were an army ... I was just talking to the State Police upstairs; [the militia members] had better equipment than our State Police had," McAuliffe said. "And yet not a shot was fired, zero property damage."

McAuliffe's response that law enforcement's handling of the violence was successful because there were no bullets fired and "zero property damage" would appear to ignore that dozens were left injured and a 32-year-old woman, Heather Heyer, was killed when an apparent white supremacist plowed his car into a crowd.

McAuliffe, for his part, suggested that Heyer's death couldn't have been prevented.

"You can't stop some crazy guy who came here from Ohio and used his car as a weapon. He is a terrorist," he said.

Here's how ProPublica's A.C. Thompson described the scene, and the police response, in Charlottesville Saturday:

At about 10 a.m. today, at one of countless such confrontations, an angry mob of white supremacists formed a battle line across from a group of counter-protesters, many of them older and gray-haired, who had gathered near a church parking lot. On command from their leader, the young men charged and pummeled their ideological foes with abandon. One woman was hurled to the pavement, and the blood from her bruised head was instantly visible. Standing nearby, an assortment of Virginia State Police troopers and Charlottesville police wearing protective gear watched silently from behind an array of metal barricades -- and did nothing. It was a scene that played out over and over in Charlottesville ...

More From Business Insider:
Sen. John McCollister of Omaha, an independent-minded Republican who has carved out a moderate record in the nonpartisan Legislature, announced his candidacy for re-election on Monday with a call for coalition-building.

We need state senators now more than ever that mix common sense with broad coalitions to solve the problems facing our community, he said.

I remain committed to bringing people together around fiscally responsible solutions while prioritizing our small businesses, public schools and middle class families, McCollister said.

McCollisters re-election bid will be one of the most widely-watched legislative races in 2018 with the strong possibility that he may be targeted by Gov. Pete Ricketts, who played a key role in ousting three incumbent senators in 2016 who were fellow Republicans after they opposed him on key legislative issues.

Ricketts has not yet signaled whether he will be involved by encouraging or supporting a challenger, but robocalls not tied to the governor began undermining McCollister in his district in May, framing the opposition arguments against his re-election.

McCollister voted to override gubernatorial vetoes of legislation to repeal the death penalty, increase the state gas tax and allow young immigrants who have legal presence in the United States as so-called DACA youths to acquire Nebraska drivers licenses and earn professional and commercial licenses to work in the state.

In the 2017 legislative session, McCollister did not provide a vote to attempt to free the big package of income tax cuts and property tax reductions that the governor championed from the grips of a filibuster.

The governors involvement in 2016 legislative contests that targeted incumbent Republicans included endorsements and campaign finance support.

McCollister, the son of former Republican Congressman John Y. McCollister, represents the economically and politically diverse 20th District that stretches from 72nd to 144th streets in central Omaha.

Earlier, Sen. Matt Williams of Gothenburg, another Republican who has established an independent record in the Legislature, announced his candidacy for a second term representing the 36th District.

When I first ran for the Legislature, I pledged to improve Nebraskas rural economy, control government spending, attract good-paying jobs and advocate for our schools and our farms, he said.

Im proud of our many accomplishments, but there is more that must be done.

Williams, a Gothenburg banker, opposed the governor on veto showdown votes over the death penalty, the gas tax, DACA drivers licenses and DACA professional and commercial licenses.

But he cast a vote earlier this year to attempt to free the governors tax package from a filibuster.
MEARS, MI - The ongoing battle between a massive, moving sand dune and a group of cottage owners in its path is essentially on hold.

The Department of Environmental Quality recently put a stop to truckloads of sand being taken from the dune, which has moved onto private property adjacent to Silver Lake State Park, according to the property owner.

A DEQ spokeswoman said the moving of sand in a critical sand dune, which this dune is classified, requires a specific permit.

Sue Dressler and her husband own the cottage closest to the encroaching sand dune. The Dresslers also owned the cottage that was swallowed up and destroyed by the same shifting sand dune earlier this year.

Dressler called it a property rights' issue and said she just wants to defend her cottage from the sand.

"It's absolutely pathetic that they can take my rights away from me," Dressler said in a phone interview from her hometown of Chicago. "That has got to be against the law."

The main sticking point at this point seems to be securing the proper permit to remove the sand from a dune that is classified as "critical" along Lake Michigan.

The Dresslers have had a permit for years to move the sand or push it back to keep the dune from destroying their cottages. However, the DEQ requires a special permit to remove the sand from the critical dune.

Melody Kindraka, a DEQ spokesperson, said that the maintaining of the dune and protection of the homes are accounted for in the permitting process.

"We currently are working with the homeowners to get the proper permit in place," Kindraka said.

A condition of a permit will be that the sand will have to stay in the critical dune area, Kindraka said. About 74,000 acres of the 225,000 acres of sand dunes in Michigan are designated as critical.

For the Dresslers and the 10 other cottages potentially in the moving sand dunes path, it is a waiting game. The front-end loader that had been scooping up buckets of sand isn't operating. The big truck that had been taking the sand to various locations in the area that wanted it is no longer driving along North Shore Drive.

The cottage owners who have chipped in money to help save the structures estimated the cost at about $1,600 a day to remove the sand and deposit it off site.

The dune is just south of the ORV dune area and adjacent to the pedestrian dune area of Silver Lake State Park. That massive dune near the northern edge of Silver Lake still contains pieces of a different cottage that it swallowed up in April.

Silver Lake's sand dune area is one of the more active dune locations in Michigan.

Silver Lake State Park, which borders the cottages, is managed as a multi-use park. High foot traffic and ORV use mean that vegetation won't take hold on the sand dunes, said Alan Arbogast, widely regarded as a national expert on sand dunes.
MUSKEGON, MI - Muskegon County's previous firing of its then-public works director will now legally be considered a resignation.

Based on a settlement agreement, former public works director John Warner and Muskegon County agreed Warner would tender a letter of resignation, effective June 30, 2016, that would replace the record of termination of his employment.

The county fired Warner last year for incompetence in office and the county board denied his appeal in October. The firing, which has since become a resignation, stemmed from claims that Warner acted unprofessionally at a committee meeting, created a hostile work environment for county staff and acted contrary to the authority and bylaws of the Solid Waste Planning Committee.

The settlement agreement put an end to a lawsuit Warner filed against the county in U.S. District Court where he was seeking back pay and other damages for claims that his civil rights were violated and his name defamed. The signed agreement releases the county from any such claims.

As part of the settlement agreement, the county agreed that the Michigan Municipal Risk Management Authority will distribute $210,000 to Warner and his attorneys, Smith Haughey Rice & Roegge. MMRMA is a public entity self-insurance pool that provides liability and property coverage to municipal governmental entities across Michigan.

Warner also will receive $33,110 for his accrued sick leave and will be eligible for the county's retirement medical insurance available to other county retirees with the same years of service.

"Plaintiff (Warner) agrees and understands that this agreement is a compromise of a disputed claim and that payment made and conditions stated herein are not to be construed as an admission of liability on the part of any of the parties being released by whom all liability is expressly denied," the settlement agreement states.

Kevin Even, the attorney who represented Warner, and Laura Amtsbuechler, the county's attorney in this civil dispute, declined comment on the settlement agreement.
SAGINAW, MI -- Realtor.com ranks Saginaw as the sixth best place to age in place.

The article focuses on the best "metros" for middle-aged people who are slowing down or who might have an empty nest.

To determine which locations are the best, Realtor.com took 300 of the largest metros and evaluated them for affordability and health services.

Here is how they broke down the criteria:

Number of homes already adapted for seniors, looking at realtor.com listings with keywords like "universal design," "ground-floor master suite," "senior-friendly," and "no-step entry"

Percentage of residents older than 65

Low cost of living

Number of home health aides per senior

Number of hospitals per capita

Number of senior centers per capita

Number of singles 55 and up

Number of sunny days

Number of golf courses per capita

The article lists the median home price for Saginaw residents at $114,00 and said those on a fixed income would "love this area's low, low home prices."

It mentions some of the area's attractions such as the Japanese Cultural Center and the Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge.

The article also states that the area is a regional center for health care and has one of the highest ratios of home health aides in the U.S.

The AARP, which was not involved in the Realtor.com rankings, offers its own livability index, which rates the overall livability of a selected neighborhood, city, county or state on a scale from 0 to 100. It rated Saginaw a 51 on the scale. The score is comprised of seven categories: housing, neighborhood, transportation, environment, health, engagement and opportunity.

Housing had the highest score of 60 and health had the lowest score at 24.

Mark Hornbeck with AARP said, "Saginaw has strong scores on some key livability factors, such as housing affordability and transportation accessibility. But the community has work to do in some areas, most notably healthy behaviors."

Florence, South Carolina, was ranked as the number one spot to age in place in the Raltor.com report while Hickory, North Carolina, comes in a tenth place.

To see other places on the list visit here.
Although 70 years is a long time since Independence, the roots of our economy were established by some pioneering minds and institutions much before the British left.

There have been many big business conglomerates that have helped transform India. Here are some interesting stories about a few such companies:

Air India's first passengers were not humans

The company first began operations as a mail carrier, Tata airlines. With two single engine airplanes, JRD Tata took the first flight on October 15, 1932, from Karachi to Mumbai before finally stopping at Chennai. He was joined by Royal Air Force pilot Neville Vintcent. Unlike its current conditions, Air India in its heydey was known as a world-class airline, lauded for its quality service.

The Story Behind The Taj Hotel

One of the most famous Tata stories was, how the Taj Hotel came into being in 1906 when founder Jamsetji Tata, in a fit of anger, decided to open a world-class hotel after being denied entry in the famous Watson Hotel by the British. The hotel was carefully designed by architects and designers after Tatas many trips to Pais, London and Berlin to research on hotel benchmarks. The Taj at the time was also known as the first hotel with electricity.

Mahindra & Mohammed

Mahindra & Mahindra, or Mahindra & Mohammed? JC Mahindra was the first steel controller of India, in charge of importing steel for the country. His younger brother KC Mahindra was the chairman of the coal commission. They quit their prestigious jobs and sold their Calcutta house to establish Mahindra and Mohammed, after roping in partner Ghulam Mohammed. Post partition, when Mohammed emigrated to Pakistan, they renamed the company as Mahindra & Mahindra.

When SBI had an 'Imperial' Moment

The State Bank of India (SBI) was at one time, called the Imperial Bank of India. It was printing currency till 1861 before the Government of India was handed over that responsibility.

Bombay Dyeing

Before it began to be named for quality textiles, the 250-year-old Bombay Dyeing group was into marine construction, building the first ship for the British Navy outside England.

The First of Many

What do Indias first iron plough, diesel engine, lathe machine and electric motor have in common? They were all made by Kirloskar Brothers Limited over its 130-year history.

Royal Enfield's Unintended Domicile

The maker of the famous bike, Bullet, set up shop in Chennai in 1955. Although originated in Worcestershire, the parent company in the UK dissolved its operations, while its Indian operations carried on.

When the Backbay ruled the roost

The Backbay Reclamation Company was in charge of reclaiming the land from the shallow back waters of South Bombay which would later become the iconic Nariman Point. At one point, it had the largest market capitalization in the stock exchange.

When a Lawyer unlocked his potential

Ardeshir Godrej gave up his law practice in 1897 before he decided to try his hand at making locks. He developed his first safe in 1902, and later, soaps from vegetable oil. Today, Godrej is a household name. Many families still consider a Godrej cupboard the right gift for newly weds.
NEW DELHI, INDIA - AUGUST 15: Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses the nation from the rampart of historical Red Fort on the occasion of Independence Day celebration on August 15, 2015 in New Delhi, India. In his address to the nation from the Red Fort, PM Modi spoke about the progress of various social security schemes launched by his government. He said efforts to bring back black money stashed abroad are on, while stressing that there's no place for casteism or communalism in India. Modi repeatedly referred to the central role of the country's one billion-plus population - which he dubbed "Team India" - in his government's development plans, saying the people alone will take India to new heights. Modi, who spoke without the protection of a bulletproof shield, said his government had accepted the demand for OROP in principle but did not commit himself to a timeframe for rolling out the scheme. Modi warned that corruption was eating away at India "like a termite" as he used an Independence Day speech to pledge his commitment to eradicating graft and poverty. (Photo by Mohd Zakir/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)

Narendra Modi's latest Independence Day speech at Red Fort was his shortest I-Day speech in the four years as Prime Minister. In His last Mann Ki Baat address he had remarked that people were complaining about his long speeches.

In the run up to August 15, Modi had promised to keep his I-Day speech short and he delivered a speech over 55 minutes. His first Independence Day speech in 2014 was for over 65 minutes. The next year he spoke longer  about 86 minutes  and in 2016 the longest  about 94 minutes.

Let's take a look at Prime Minister Modis previous I-Day speeches.

August 15, 2017

This year, the Prime Minister started off empathising with the victims and families of Gorakhpur tragedy and those affected due to floods. "People of India stand shoulder to shoulder with those affected due to natural disasters & the tragedy in Gorakhpur," he said.

He further said that as the country marks 75 years of Quit India Movement and 100th anniversary of Champaran satyagraha, Indians must be determined to create a New India. India witnessed her collective strength from 1942 to 1947. Similarly, next five years, 2017 to 2022 are crucial for the country's progress, Modi said.

In a call to young voters, Modi said, "Those born in this century would turn 18. They are Bhagya Vidhatas of our nation. He added that it is time to shirk the chalta hai attitude and think of badal sakta hai.

"Badla hai, badal raha hai, badal sakta hai... this should be our attitude," Modi said.

A significant portion of Modis speech was earmarked for building a New India by 2022, the 75th anniversary of Indias independencean idea he had first flagged in March in an address to party workers at the BJPs headquarters in Delhi.

A New India is an India where the system doesn't control the common man, but the common man should control the system. Every Indian in a New India should remember the words 'Swaraj mera janm siddh adhikaar hai' (Swaraj is my birth right), he said.

August 15, 2016

In his third I-Day speech, Modi was vociferous about the human rights violations in Balochistan  a move that was termed a political masterstroke. It was seen as a retaliatory move against Pakistans attempts to gain attention over Kashmir. The Prime Minister was also vocal about Pakistans stance on Kashmir and its attempts to extol terrorists like Burhan Wani.

Once again, Modi highlighted his governments achievements assuring citizens that it was all for good governance, tackling corruption and bringing in accountability. He was critical of the UPA governments inability to implement development projects.

August 15, 2015

Modis second I-Day speech wasnt as industrious as the first. The speech lacked big announcements. The Prime Minister highlighted his governments achievement and promises. He had announced that the government had agreed in-principle to the One Rank One Pension formula.

His speech emphasised on the progress of Jan Dhan Yojana, crackdown on black money and corruption.

The Prime Minister made a strong pitch for nurturing entrepreneurial spirit with Start Up India, Stand Up India slogan.

August 15, 2014

Easily, one of Prime Minister Narendra Modis best I-Day addresses. Modi called himself a pradhan sevak and called for governing the country by consensus and not on the majority in Parliament after the landslide victory in general elections. In a first for any Prime Minister, he also gave up the bullet-proof shield during the speech.

Modi was critical of rising rape cases and asked parents to handle their sons. He called for ending discrimination against girls, before presenting hallmark initiative Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

Modi also made a clarion call to MNCs to come and make in India. This was an attempt to bring in investment. He also pledged to transform India with e-governance  e for easy, economical and effective.
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As India celebrates its 71st Independence Day, like always, Prime Minister's address once again became a highlight of our Independence Day mornings.

In accordance to the tradition, this year Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the nation from the ramparts of Red Fort in what was his fourth such address.

Despite the President being India's head-of-state, it has always been the Prime Minister who addresses the nation on the Independence Day.

If one was to list out the names of India's Prime Ministers it wont be nothing less than an illustrious cohort of visionaries that led our country through thick and thin.

India's first Prime Minister after independence, Jawaharlal Nehru was the first to shoulder that responsibility.

"At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom," were Jawaharlal Nehru's words in the parliament's central hall when India attained independence.

Nehru was not only a freedom fighter but also a senior leader of the Indian National Congress.

About Jawaharlal Nehru

Born in Allahabad, Nehru was from a Kashmiri Pandit family. His father was the president of the Congress twice. He completed his graduation from Trinity College, Cambridge and studied law at Inner Temple in London.

He then practiced law at the Allahabad High Court before joining the freedom struggle. Nehru worked along with Subhash Chandra Bose to develop relations with governments of free countries across the world.

He rose through the ranks of the Congress party and had become an important face by the time struggle for independence had gathered steam.

Nehru - The Prime Minister

Perhaps, no other prime minister had an impact on the India's fortunes as much as Nehru had.

Born in 1889, his service as the Prime Minister came at a time when India was struggling with poverty and dealing with the aftermath of the partition.

In over 16 years of being the Prime Minister, Nehru oversaw preparation of the constitution, successfully safeguarding India's democracy, steered India away from the Cold War with the help of other Non-Alignment Movement members.

Under Nehru, India embarked on countrywide agrarian reform and rapid industrialisation.

All of these achievements helped create a foundation for India's future.

Nehru's fading legacy

In the years that the Congress has remained out of power, questions about Nehru's image and legacy have been raised in the changing political atmosphere.

Since the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) came to power in 2014 with a thumping majority, the BJP-led coalition has sought to establish the legacy of other historic figures, apart from Jawaharlal Nehru.

Major schemes and projects are now increasingly being named after many other leaders such as India's first deputy Prime Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Nehru's minister of Industry and Supply Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Though Nehru's contribution to the country cannot be denied but how the debate on political idolatry by any party who is in power influences opinions, is a question that is left for the citizens to answer.

Nevertheless, as a result, Jawaharlal Nehru's legacy is facing a gradual submission.
Representative Image

By Major Sunil Shetty, SM (retd)

This morning, as I went through my WhatsApp messages on India's 71st Independence Day - a short video named "70 Years in 70 Beats", shared by a dear fellow journalist friend, caught my attention.

At the end of a three minutes video, a strange thought completely engulfed me - What if India was an entrepreneur.

What lesson would she offer to the aspiring entrepreneurs?

My hour long all-consuming mental journey, inundated with high emotions, has five lessons to share;

1.Live the Dream with Freedom: Entrepreneurship like Independence gives entrepreneurs the freedom to live, think and chase their dreams. If you firmly believe in your idea go for it.

However, for true entrepreneurship, freedom to think and express ideas and approach customers in an honest way unhindered by archaic laws is important. Freedom and entrepreneurship go hand in hand.

2. Long Journey: Seventy years in a nations life is too short- To put it in perspective of an entrepreneur, I would compare it to the first three years of a startups life cycle.

So, beware entrepreneurship, a long journey, has the potential to consume your entire life.

Many nations just liberating now from old regimes will take long to build as will a nation which could have challenges multi-fold.

3. Riddled with a crisis: An entrepreneur goes through numerous ups and downs, and some crisis could destroy the very idea of its founding members.

The strength to overcome crisis lies in the quality of leadership - so, entrepreneurship like the struggle for an independent nation is not for the weak hearted.

4. Founding Principles: Ahimsa (nonviolence) and non-interference is in the DNA of India.

It took a while for the world to appreciate these two Indian philosophies but it eventually did.

Similarly, entrepreneurs should define their core values and build their startups on strong fundamentals - as only high founding principles will stand the test of time.

Businesses built just to get rich rather than solve a core customer problem will die a natural death. However, nations born without core principles and constitution fall into anarchy and chaos.

5. Timely Pivot: Liberation of the Indian economy in the year 1991 was a pivoting moment.

Similarly, an enterprise with changing time may have to pivot not just to be relevant but also to move on to the next higher level.

Entrepreneurship is a long journey riddled with challenges some with the potential to break the will on an entrepreneur. The founding principles, decisive leadership and timely pivot will stand the test of time.

It is important for nations to change course, amend laws, abolish old ones and change their constitution with each generation. Similarly, businesses need to adapt to the customer of the day.

(The author is founder-CEO of Hyderabad based AskMentor, a platform for startups. Views expressed are personal. Edited for Moneycontrol.)
It has been just about eight months since the installation of 1,729 solar modules atop the roof of the meeting space at the Anaheim Marriott, and the hotel is already seeing a significant reduction in its energy consumption  particularly during the recent heat wave in Orange County.

According to Alex Shotwell, Director of Sales & Marketing, "During the month of June, the Anaheim Marriott typically consumes 880,000 Kwh of electricity, and during the past six months the rooftop system has already produced 402,320 Kwh, thereby slashing our energy consumption by 8 percent.

The Anaheim Marriott is believed to be the first and only hotel in Orange County to implement a significant renewable energy program which falls in line with the pending Senate Bill 100 proposing that California will receive all of its power from renewable energy, such as solar and wind power, by 2045. Mr. Shotwell notes that the solar energy project at the hotel cost $1.1M.

Located on the Anaheim Campus and within walking distance of Disneyland Park, the Anaheim Marriott combines well-appointed accommodations and superior service. An ideal choice for a family getaway, the hotel features its own dedicated Disney Desk staffed by Disneyland cast members in the lobby as well as a Concierge Desk which can make all arrangements for tickets to the other theme parks and attractions, many at special pricing. The Anaheim Marriott is also a great venue for those who place strong emphasis on quality food and beverage, with nFuse, a stylish bar and restaurant offering fresh California cuisine, an expert mixology team creating handcrafted cocktails from house-made infused syrups, and an impressive collection of bourbon and whiskeys. Other hotel facilities include a resort-style pool, state-of-the-art fitness center, Starbucks Coffee House, grab 'n' go market, and pizza spot.
Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani

Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani on Tuesday announced the setting up of ten industrial estates for small industries, financial aid to fishermen, and free Wi-Fi to educational campuses.

Rupani was speaking after unfurling the national flag at a state-level function organised here on the occasion of 71st Independence Day.

The announcements made by Rupani include setting up of ten Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) estates for small industries under the plug and produce model, extending Rs 25 per litre assistance on diesel to small fishermen for their fishing boats, and a public private partnership (PPP) model to dredge fishing ports for their maintenance.

He also announced to provide Rs two lakh immediate financial assistance to the kin of the fishermen who goes missing in the sea, so that their families do not have to wait for seven years for the missing fishermen to be declared dead to avail financial assistance.

The money will be disbursed as an interim relief from the chief minister's fund, said Rupani.

Rupani also said his government will work towards making all college and university campuses free Wi-Fi zone, so that students can emerge as global students and connect to the world.

He also reminded the public of the work done by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi in taking the state to a great height as the then chief minister, setting the benchmark for other states to emulate.

Rupani also mentioned the recently enacted stringent rules for the slaughter of cow and its progeny, as well as efforts to regularise school fees which he said will help poor and middle-class families.
India lost its colonial shackles at the stroke of midnight exactly 71 years ago on August 15 of 1947.

It was the fruition of a long struggle, with countless lives martyred and the motherland partitioned. It was the end of British colonialism and beginning of India's independent journey.

On Tuesday, the country celebrates its Independence Day with much fervour and passion cutting across all castes, religions and communities.

The 71st Independence Day celebrations kicked off as the PM arrived at the Red Fort in New Delhi and received a general salute by the police guard.

Afterwards, the PM inspected the The Guard of Honour presented by representatives from all the forces of Indian Army.

The Guard of Honour this year was commanded by Lt Col Dheeraj Singh of the Indian Army wherein the Army contingent was drawn from the 8th Jammu & Kashmir Light Infantry (Siachen).

The main event started when PM Modi hoisted the national tricolour flag at the Red Fort, 71 years after Indias first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru saw the Union Jackthe British flagdowned on the same day in 1947.

As the tricolour was unfurled, a 21-gun salute was fired in national honour. Simultaneously, a Rashtriya salute was presented by the National Flag Guard while the Indian Army played the National Anthem.

The nation is being taken on a new track, announced PM Modi in his speech which ended with the national anthem sung by everyone present. He called for a new India to be built where the dream of swaraj would come true.

Recently, PM Modi called for August 15 to be celebrated as a day of resolve or Sankalp Parva, urging people to do something constructive as citizens. His Independence Day speech resonated the similar ideas.

According to media reports, the Red Fort was put under heavy surveillance and security with 500 CCTV cameras installed. Eight control rooms were monitoring the feed from the cameras.

The police was equipped with anti-drone technology to resist any attack possible from the sky. On the ground, over 50,000 security personnel, from Delhi Police and central forces, have been deployed to keep vigil in and around New Delhi.

The government has also given out directions for the 71st Independence Day celebration for the country. Schools were asked to hoist the national flag at 8 am wherein students were asked to pledge to rid India of its crucial problems such as poverty, terrorism, corruption, and religious and caste-based discrimination.

The central circular on Independence Day celebration, issued by Ministry of Human Resource Development to educational institutions, asked them to include quiz competitions, lectures and debates in their celebration itinerary.

This time, Mumbai will celebrate its Dahi Handi festival and Independence Day on the same day. High security measures have been taken across the city which has faced terrorist attacks in past years.

The states of Kerala and Karnataka are to join hands during Independence Day celebrations as a gesture of alliance. As per a report, a contingent of Kerala police is scheduled to be in Bengaluru and attend the Independence Day parade there.

On the other hand, a contingent from Karnataka will be present in Thiruvananthapuram during the celebration.
Pakistani Petroleum Minister Shahid Abbasi poses for a photo during an interview with Reuters after the inauguration of the Haveli Bahadur Shah LNG power plant in Jhang, Pakistan July 7, 2017. Picture taken July 7, 2017. REUTERS/Drazen Jorgic - RTX3AU6Y

Pakistan's new Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi today blamed India for the impasse in bilateral ties, saying New Delhi's "expansionist designs" was the "main hurdle" in constructive relations between the two neighbours.

Addressing the nation on its 70th Independence Day, Abbasi said Pakistan "desires positive and constructive" relations with all countries based on sovereign equality.

Indo-Pak ties nosedived after a series of attacks last year, including the Uri strike, carried out by the Pakistan- based terror outfits. Following the attacks, India boycotted the SAARC Summit, which was scheduled to be held in November last in Pakistan.

"Our government has invariably made efforts to initiate the process of meaningful dialogue and adoption of peaceful means to resolve the issues but unfortunately the expansionist designs of India have remained the main hurdle in this regard," Abbasi said as Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang attended the celebrations as a "special guest" of the country.

Yang arrived in Pakistan yesterday for the event.

Abbasi said that China and Pakistan have "always stood by each other in difficult times and their friendship will stand the test of time and grow with coming generations."

He called on the international community to "play its role" in resolving regional conflicts, "particularly the Kashmir dispute" between India and Pakistan in conformity with the UN resolutions to ensure durable peace in the region.

Abbasi, 58, was sworn-in as Pakistan's 18th prime minister on August 1 after the Supreme Court disqualified the incumbent Nawaz Sharif for dishonesty following the Panama papers scandal.

"The people of South Asia have suffered enormously in the last fifty years due to the festering conflicts. Until and unless those conflicts are resolved amicably the people of the region cannot achieve prosperity and progress," he said.

He termed terrorism as the biggest challenge confronting the world in the 21st century and highlighted Pakistans "unparalleled sacrifices" in the fight against this menace.

In his address, President Mamnoon Hussain called for unity among the people for a developed Pakistan.

He said it is time to forget "personal grievances" and stand by the Constitution, apparently referring to Sharif's ouster as prime minister and his charge that his removal was "pre-planned".

The day began with a 31-gun salute in the federal capital Islamabad along with a 21-gun salute in provincial capitals to mark the official Independence Day celebrations.

Major public and private buildings, roads and avenues have been decorated with national flags, portraits of the national leaders, banners and buntings to give a festive look.

Pakistan Army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa hoisted a huge national flag at the Attari-Wagah border with India soon after midnight last night, kicking off the day-long celebration.

The flag flew at 400 feet, the highest in South Asia.

The 120x80 feet flag is also the largest in the history of the country, Pakistani media reported.

Bajwa was apprised of the recent "ceasefire violations from the Indian side and effective response by own troops".

"There's no better way to celebrate independence than defending the country," he told soldiers.

He also said that Pakistan will always stand with the Kashmiri people "in their just struggle against repression".

Pakistan Air Force (PAF) organised an air show in Islamabad to mark the 70th Independence Day celebrations.

Aerobatic teams from Pakistan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia performed before a huge crowd of people who flocked the Fatima Jinnah Park in the heart of the city to witness the show.

The special appearance of "Solo Turk", the famous aerobatic team of Turkish Air Force, and the internationally acclaimed "Saudi Hawks" of Royal Saudi Air Force alongside PAF aircraft were the main attraction of the show.

Pakistan air force also displayed JF-17 Thunder aircraft, indigenously built with the Chinese assistance.

Tri-Services free fall display of Special Services personnel was another salient feature of the show.

In Karachi, a similar air show by PAF was organised to mark the Independence Day festivities.
Indias Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives to cast his vote for the country's next President, at the Parliament House in New Delhi, India, July 17, 2017. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi - RTX3BQ8J

Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached out to Kashmiris on Tuesday, hinting at a likely political solution in the strife-torn state, as he laid emphasis on youth set to vote for the first time in the next general elections.

Modis fourth I-Day speech, unlike the previous three, was not laced with grand policy announcements or striking oratory, but had shades of a political undertone keeping in mind the approaching Parliamentary polls in 2019.

His speech marked out the youth, particularly those who will turn 18 next year, as this century's change agents. January 1, 2018 is not a normal January 1. All those born in the first year of the 21st century will turn 18 and the will be our nation builders, Modi said.

The implicit message, analysts said, was to reach out to the youth as a catchment vote bank, appealing to their sensibilities much in time before the poll bugle is sounded for national elections in April-May 2019.

Modi, hinted at a political solution in Kashmir. Na gaali se samasya sulajhne wali hai, na goli se...samasya suljhegi har Kashmiri ko gale lagane se (Neither abuses, nor bullets will bring a change. The change will take place when we embrace every Kashmiri), Modi said in a nearly hour-long Independence Day speech from the ramparts of Red Fort.

Development of Jammu and Kashmir will lead to the nations growth. We will restore the paradise, the Prime Minister said, signalling the governments intent to engage in a dialogue-driven process to hammer out a resolution on protracted issues that have dogged successive governments for decades.

There is no question of being soft of terrorism or terrorists. We all stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our brothers and sisters in Jammu and Kashmir. They have suffered a lot due to terrorism. We are determined to develop the state, educate the youth, give them jobs, include them in the mainstream, increase business and jobs and give them reasons to rejoice, he said.

The Prime Minister expressed sorrow over the tragic incident in Gorakhpur, where more than 60 children have died in a hospital as oxygen supplies were stopped.

Innocent kids have died, the entire nation is with you. I assure everybody, will leave no stone unturned (in getting to guilty to book), he said, referring to the turn of events in Uttar Pradesh where the BJP recently stormed to power in a landslide victory.

He also recalled the victims of floods in several states of the country, saying the country stands shoulder- to- shoulder with them.

The rise of religious polarisation and violence did not escape Modis attention Violence in the name of 'Astha' (faith) is not something to be happy about, it will not be accepted in India, he said, an oblique reference to incidents of "lynching" people for allegedly transporting cows and also killing of volunteers of RSS (the BJPs ideological fount) in some states.

India, he said, is about Shanti, Ekta and Sadbhavana (peace, unity and compassion). Casteism and communalism will not help.

He came out in support of people who have stood up against triple talaq. I want to mention those women who have suffered due to triple talaq. I admire their courage. We are with them in their struggle. Women in the country created a revolution against triple talaq. The contribution of our mothers and sisters is very important Now there is an atmosphere against triple talaq in the country I believe India will fully support these women in their struggle, said Modi.

A significant portion of Modis speech was earmarked for building a New India by 2022, the 75th anniversary of Indias independencean idea he had first flagged in March in an address to party workers at the BJPs headquarters in Delhi.

We have to leave the pessimism and negativity behind. The chalta hai attitude has to be abandoned, he said, espousing the approach of badla hai, badal rahan hai, badal sakta hai (change has happened, change is happening and change will happen).

New India," he said, has to be free of corruption and identity-based divisive politics.

A New India is an India where the system doesn't control the common man, but the common man should control the system. Every Indian in a New India should remember the words 'Swaraj mera janm siddh adhikaar hai' (Swaraj is my birth right), he said.

Goods and Services (GST) and demonetisation, Modi said, has helped brought in transparency, clamped down on the parallel economy and brought in lakhs of tax dodgers into the legitimate financial system.

GST, which kicked-in from July 1 ending more than a decade of protracted Centre-state negotiations, promises to stitch together a common national market by subsuming a host of local and central levies into a single tax. GST is a great example of cooperative federalism. It is a demonstration of the power of India, he said. GST has dismantled check posts at state borders resulting in 30 percent saving of time.

Demonetisation, through which the government had outlawed old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes in November to crack down on cash transactions that operate outside tax net, has helped bring down corruption, Modi said.

Demonetisation has helped black money come into the formal economy. More than Rs 3 lakh crore additional money has come to the banking system. Of this Rs 1.75 lakh crore deposits are under probe, he said.

Additional individual income tax assessees have more than doubled to 56 lakh this year, from 22 lakh last year. More than 18 lakh people have so far been found whose income disclosed in tax returns are lower than their actual earnings. About 1 lakh people, who had never filed returns, have filed their tax returns for the first time this year. Benami properties worth Rs 800 crore have been identified so far, he said.

Data mined from demonetisation-driven bank deposits have shown how about 3 lakh `shell or paper companies were used to funnel black money by obscuring the source of funds. The government has already ordered the shuttering of 1.75 lakh such companies, Modi said.
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday asked his country's top trade official to investigate Chinese trade practices with the focus on intellectual property (IP) and advanced technology, asserting that "unfair" practices by foreign countries harm American businesses.

"The theft of intellectual property by foreign countries costs our nation millions of jobs and billions and billions of dollars each and every year. For too long, this wealth has been drained from our country while Washington has done nothing," Trump said.

"Today, I'm directing the United States Trade Representative to examine China's policies, practices, and actions with regard to the forced transfers of American technology and the theft of American intellectual property," Trump said as he signed a memorandum in this regard.

"As President of the United States, it's my duty and responsibility to protect the American workers, technology, and industry from unfair and abusive actions," he said.

Trump said his administration will stand up to any country that unlawfully forces American companies to transfer their valuable technology as a condition of market access.

He said the US will combat the counterfeiting and piracy that destroys American jobs and enforce the rules of fair and reciprocal trade that form the foundation of responsible commerce.

"We will protect forgotten Americans who have been left behind by a global trade system that has failed to look -- and I mean look -- out for their interests. They have not been looking out at all," he said.

Trump said the US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, is empowered to consider all available options at his disposal.

"We will safeguard the copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, and other intellectual property that is so vital to our security and to our prosperity. We will uphold our values, we will defend our workers, and we will protect the innovations, creations, and inventions that power our magnificent country," he said.

Lighthizer said the US has for many years been facing a very serious problem. "China industrial policies and other practices reportedly have forced the transfer of vital US technology to Chinese companies," he alleged.

"We will engage in a thorough investigation and, if needed, take action to preserve the future of US industry. Thousands of jobs are at stake for our workers and for future generations. This will be one of USTR's highest priorities, and we will report back to the President as soon as possible," Lighthizer said.

Top American lawmakers welcomed the move. "I am pleased that President Trump has targeted China's forced technology policies. These practices have unfairly forced American companies to surrender vital intellectual property to their Chinese competitors as the price for doing business," said House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady.

House Ways and Means Committee Trade Subcommittee Chairman Dave Reichert welcomed Trump in addressing China's forced technology transfer requirements.

"The US economy and so many jobs depend on the strength of our technology companies, including some of our nation's leading tech companies headquartered in my home state of Washington," he said.

Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi alleged that for years now, China's brazenly unfair trade practices have weakened America's economy and hurt American workers.

Even though President Trump has signed a memo of instruction to the USTR to consider investigating China's unfair intellectual property practices, Pelosi asked the agency to take a series of strong steps including requiring American companies to transfer technology and proprietary information to do business in China.

Pelosi asked USTR to take steps against China's theft of American trade-secrets; China's piracy of other American intellectual property, including software; and market barriers facing US businesses and products in China.

"In addition, the Administration must recognise that challenging China's open intellectual property theft is especially vital now, in light of China's 'Made in China 2025' policy. This policy will not only not only hurt American companies in China, but will make it harder for us to compete globally with Chinese firms," Pelosi said.

"When the rules of the road are followed, US businesses and workers can compete with anyone in the world. I look forward to working with the administration as it begins this 301 investigation, and will continue to work to hold foreign countries accountable when they violate our trade laws," said Senator Robert Portman.

The bipartisan IP Commission welcomed the decision. "The scale of Chinese forced transfer and theft of American intellectual property threatens these interests, both our prosperity and security, and thus US policy must address this set of issues," said Dr Richard Ellings, director of the IP Commission and president of National Bureau of Asian Research.

Senator Charles Schumer, Senate Minority Leader felt that this was a weak action. "President Trump's pattern continues: Tough talk on China, but weaker action than anyone could ever imagine," he said.
Jarrett Coleman goes from school board to statehouse with win in 16th Senate District race
The Puerto Vallarta Tourism Board announced that the city has reported an increase of over 6% in hotel occupancy for the first 6 months of the year, with an average occupancy rate for January to June of close to 90% compared to 73% in 2016 and 70% in 2015.

Similarly, the Puerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR) handled 1,843,600 international passenger arrivals, in the first half of the year, 12.1% more than the same period in 2016. In addition, 189,324 passengers visited the destination while on cruise calls to the Puerto Vallarta Cruise Port, a 2% increase compared to 2016.

The Puerto Vallarta Tourism Board credits the success of its consistent and proactive promotional and communication campaign in its primary markets including as Mexico, the US and Canada as well as emerging markets in South America and Europe for the continued increase in visitor arrivals. In addition, the tourism boards strategic PR efforts targeting specific niche markets have played a role.

Puerto Vallarta is one of Mexicos top destinations and one of the most celebrated, continuously receiving accolades from the media and visitors alike.

US News & World Reports Best Vacations 2017 selected Puerto Vallarta as #9 Best Place to Visit in Mexico, #7 Best Beaches in Mexico and #5 Best Spring Break Destination. In addition, TripAdvisors consumer base of more than 2 million monthly users ranked Puerto Vallarta as #3 overall best Mexican destination for the 2017 Travelers Choice Award.

In 2016, Puerto Vallartas Cruise Port Terminal was named the top Mexican Riviera & South America Destination at the Cruise Critic first-ever Cruisers' Choice Destination Awards. The world's leading cruise reviews site and online cruise community, based its ranking on consumer ratings submitted with reviews on the Cruise Critic website. The awards go out to destinations across 15 regions worldwide.

Puerto Vallarta is home to the most amount hotels with Diamond Awards in Mexico; including: Hotel Mousai has a Five Dimond Award, Four Diamond Award rating for the Barcelo Puerto Vallarta (since 2008), CasaMagna Marriott Puerto Vallarta Resort & Spa (Since 1991), Casa Velas Hotel Boutique (Since 2003), Fiesta Americana Puerto Vallarta (2001), Garza Blanca Preserve, Resort & Spa, Hacienda San Angel (2006), Hilton Puerto Vallarta Resort (2013), Hotel Grand Miramar Puerto Vallarta (2015), Hyatt Ziva Puerto Vallarta (2015), Now Amber (2013), Secrets Vallarta Bay (2013), Sunset Plaza Beach Resort & Spa (2011), Villa Premiere Hotel & Spa (2006) and the Westin Resort and Spa, which has held the distinction for over 23 years in a row. For 79 years AAA has used professional inspectors to conduct in-person property inspections. AAA offers the only rating system using comprehensive, on-site professional hotel and restaurant evaluations guided by member priorities.

As Mexicos leading culinary beach destination, Puerto Vallarta has over 350 restaurants. Home to two AAA Four Diamond Awarded restaurants: Emiliano (2014) and Vista Grill (2005); visitors have also enjoyed and placed 3 Vallartan restaurants in the top 10 TripAdvisors Favorite Fine Dining Mexican Restaurants  Bistro Teresita, Le Kliff and La Leche.
KANNAPOLIS  Amazon is expanding in Kannapolis and plans to bring 600 more jobs to the area.

The Kannapolis City Council approved an incentive grant for an Amazon Distribution Center which will be located off N.C. 73 and Kannapolis Parkway.

We are very excited to welcome one of the nations largest companies to Kannapolis. Their role as a world leader in commerce continues to evolve and we look forward to being a part of their innovation in the distribution of good and services, commented Kannapolis Mayor Darrell Hinnant. The City is pleased to provide incentives that will result in over 600 jobs for people in Kannapolis and throughout the region.

Amazons new facility will be an $85 million, 1 million-square-foot industrial building at 6501 Macedonia Church Road. The company anticipates creating a minimum of 600 full-time jobs with benefits.

Amazon already has an operation off Derita Road near the Concord Regional Airport and a facility in Charlotte.

The citys incentive grant will be spread out over three years and will be $562,275 or 85 percent of the personal property taxes paid by the company during that time frame.

The effort to bring the firm to Kannapolis has been a joint partnership with Cabarrus County, Cabarrus County Economic Development Corporation and NCDOT.

The incentives offered by both the City and County were crucial in recruiting Amazon to our City. This economic development tool allowed us to succeed in this highly competitive environment and bring this firm to Kannapolis, said Kannapolis City Manager Mike Legg.

Robert Carney, executive director of Cabarrus Economic Development, commented, We are excited about the opportunity to bring such a transformational company to Kannapolis. Amazon is on the cutting edge of e-commerce innovation; this mirrors the efforts of Kannapolis and Cabarrus to continue to innovate for the benefit of its citizens.

Cabarrus County Commissioners will consider incentives for the company at its meeting on Aug. 21. Commissioners unanimously approved at their July 17, meeting an incentive package for Project Hercules, or the TPA Group.

This is certainly an impressive project, Cabarrus board chair Steve Morris said at the earlier meeting. Six hundred jobs, a million square feet and $50 million investmentthis is the kind of thing that a lot of counties in North Carolina would certainly love to have the opportunity to talk about.

Amazons new home in Kannapolis is expected to open in 2019.

According to Bloomberg News, Amazon plans to hire 100,000 more people nationwide over the next 18 months as it continues to expand into new areas such as groceries.
Most of Africa's top ten airports are seeing a healthy growth in capacity, which is more international than it is domestic. According to predictions for future travel patterns, there is a double digit growth in flight arrivals for the first half of this year and little indication that the pace of growth will slow down soon.

Morocco

According to a report produced by ForwardKeys, in the first seven months of the year, 1st Jan  31st July 2017, total international flight arrivals grew by 14.0% over the same period in 2016. Most significantly, growth was stronger for travel to and from the continent than within the continent. Arrivals from Europe, which make up 46% of the market, were up 13.2%. From the Americas, arrivals were up 17.6%; from the Middle East, they were up 14.0% and from Asia Pacific, they were up 18.4%. By comparison, intra-African air travel, which makes up 26% of the market, was up 12.6%.

Looking at Africas top ten destination countries, there have been stand-out performances from Tunisia and Egypt, which are recovering from notorious terrorist attacks two years ago, up 33.5% and 24.8% respectively. In addition, Morocco and Tunisia received a huge boost in arrivals from China, up 450% and 250% respectively, after they relaxed visa restrictions. The one disappointment is Nigeria, which has seen a 0.8% drop, in the wake of recession in 2016, caused by a collapse in the oil price to a 13-year low.

Looking forward to the end of the calendar year, bookings for flights to Africa are currently 16.8% ahead of where they were on July 31st, 2016. Bookings from Europe are currently 17.5% ahead, from the Americas 26.6% ahead, from Asia Pacific 11.5% ahead, from the Middle East 8.2% ahead and bookings for intra-African air travel are 11.0% ahead.

A specific look at East Africa shows very similar trends in year to date performance and outlook to the end of the year. However, it has stronger forward bookings from Europe, 22.9% ahead and less strong forward bookings from elsewhere; the Americas are 15.5% ahead and intra-African air travel 7.6% ahead. However, bookings from the Middle East and Asia Pacific are 6.0% and 3.8% behind respectively.

On an individual airport level, the most significant capacity increase in East Africa is at Kigali, with new routes to Brussels, London and Mumbai. Other notable new capacity includes Kilimanjaro to Dubai and Nairobi to Muscat and to Yemen.
The following charges were served on Sunday, July 30:

 Franklin Laquin Wilkerson, 38, of 49 George Drive, in Nebo, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply and two counts of misdemeanor driving during revocation. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $4,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Aug. 7.

 Ahmed Morsi Ibrahim, 45, of 906 Bethel Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $300 secured bond.

 Jason Eugene Smith, 36, of 204 La Colline Ave., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor driving during revocation and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for Oct. 2.

 Donna Kay Freeman, 49, of 1670 Bentbrook Drive, in Valdese, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Sep. 20.

 Alexander Edward Tucker, 35, of 720 W Union St., in Morganton, was charged with felony assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $50,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Aug. 31.

 Dale Jason West, 53, of 305 W Union St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor drunk, intoxicated and disruptive. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,500 secured bond. His trial date was set for Sep. 5.

 Dylan Barry Sneeden, 25, of 720 W Union St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor assault on a female and simple assault. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Aug. 9.

 Chance Douglas Lollar, 22, of 9514 Wilson Road, in Hildebran, was charged with misdemeanor communicating threats. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Aug. 29.

 Christopher William Webb, 39, of 4621 Scott Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for Dec. 6.

The following charges were served on Monday, July 31:

 Mikeal Franklin Coffey, 24, of 2799 Cheraw Road, in Lenoir, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of simple assault, possession of drug paraphernalia, failure to heed light or siren, driving during revocation, no liability insurance, fictitious or altered title or tag and expired vehicle inspection. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $3,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Sep. 12.

 Homer Lee Cook, 27, of 1025 Iron Lane, in Morganton, was charged with felony possession of methamphetamines. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,500 secured bond.

 Jennifer Ann Oakes, 36, of 421 Woodsway Lane NW, in Lenoir, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $360 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Aug. 21.

 Crystal Renee Tallent, 39, of 8228 Wards Gap Road, in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor resist, delay or obstruct a public officer and four counts of misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a total of $6,000 in secured bonds. Her trial date was set for Aug. 21.

 Donte Antonio Norwood, 17, of 117 View St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor common law. He was issued a $5,000 secured bond and released. His trial date was set for Dec. 6.

 Summer Michelle Coleman, 32, of 41-B W Highland Ave., in Granite Falls, was charged with three counts of felony identity theft, one count of felony forgery by uttering and misdemeanor unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a total of $30,500 in secured bonds.

 Everett Lee Avery Jr., 58, of 3316 Norman Drive, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor violating a domestic violence protection order. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail. His trial date was set for Aug. 14.

 Autumn Krista Harris, 24, of 854 Vinearden Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. She was released on a written promise to appear for a trial date set for Aug. 29.

 John E Robinson Jr., 38, of 2353 18th Ave. Place Ne, in Hickory, was charged with misdemeanor assault on a female. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail. His trial date was set for Aug. 23.

 Kelby Lynn Young, 25, of 2531 Branch Drive, in Valdese, was charged with misdemeanor larceny by trick and larceny of property; receiving or possessing stolen goods. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $4,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Aug. 22.

 William Alan Abernathy II, 38, of 1378 Tomlinson Loop, in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor possession of a schedule VI controlled substance and possession of a schedule IV controlled substance. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for Nov. 15.

 Jordan Deshawn Rutherford, 22, of 3202 Piney Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Aug. 28.

 Johnathan Carl Drake, 34, of 5260 New Haven Circle, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor second-degree trespassing. He was released on a written promise to appear for a trial date set for Sep. 13.

 Aaron Cornelius Corpening Jr., 35, of 104 3rd St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for Aug. 28.

 Heron Lozano Saldana, 48, of 846 Montclair Circle NW, in Lenoir, was charged with misdemeanor possess or consume an alcoholic beverage in the passenger area of a vehicle. He was cited and released.

The following charges were served on Tuesday, August 1:

 Valerie Lynn Ray, 45, of 702 Carbon City Road, 1/2, in Morganton, was charged with felony possession of methamphetamines and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $20,000 secured bond.

 Caleb Glenn Oxentine, 28, of 260 Hilltop St., in Rutherford College, was charged with misdemeanor unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. He was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for Aug 28.

 Keith Leon Blackburn, 56, of 109 Herron St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor communicating threats. He was released on a written promise to appear for a trial date set for Sep. 6.

 Fathom Lavelle Wolford, 26, of 1921 Wall St., 5, in Morganton, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor simple assault. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a total of $1,000 in secured bonds. Her trial date was set for Aug. 23.

 Trinity Shane Warren, 36, of 2301 Arrowood Drive, in Hickory, was charged with misdemeanor violating a domestic violence protection order. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail. His trial date was set for Sep. 5.

 James Louis McWilliams, 48, of 1237 12th Ave., in Hickory, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Aug. 8.

 Bobby Joe Shaw II, 32, of 2010 Maple Springs Church Road, Lot 1, in Shelby, was charged with misdemeanor larceny by trick. He was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for Aug. 23.

 Kevin Corjo Smith Sr., 39, of 209 Randolph St., in Morganton, was charged with one count each of misdemeanor driving while impaired, possession of drug paraphernalia and felony possession of methamphetamines with intent to sell or deliver. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail. His trial date was set for Sep. 11.

 Franklin Omar Cruz, 18, of 404 Valdese Ave., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor simple possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for Aug. 28.

The following charges were served on Wednesday, August 2:

 Christopher Michael Martin, 33, of 4347 Faith Fork, in Connelly Springs, was charged with felony possession of stolen goods.

 Bobby Wayne Smart, 24, of 4044 Owens Mountain Ave., in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $4,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Aug. 22.

 Chali Demon Young, 38, of 1448 Oak Hill Drive, in Morganton, was charged with one count each of felony possession of crack cocaine, maintaining a dwelling, vehicle or place for drugs or controlled substances and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $70,000 secured bond.

 Bobby Wayne Smart, 24, of 4044 Owens Mountain Ave., in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was issued an additional $7,700 secured bond and a trial date for this charge was set for Aug. 10.

 Len Anthony Gray, 54, of 29 Wilhelmena St., in Marion, was charged with misdemeanor damage to personal property. He was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for Nov. 8.

 Warren Garrett Ray, 21, of 109 Us Highway 70 E, R-27, in Hildebran, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor probation violation and one count each of misdemeanor larceny by trick and threatening phone calls. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a total of $10,000 in secured bonds. His trial date was set for Aug. 22.

 Danny Eugene Roseman Jr., 48, of 4369 S Fork Ave., in Hickory, was charged with felony obtaining property by false pretense. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,000 secured bond.

 Beverly Lusion ONeil, 54, of 112 Brackett St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor possession of marijuana. She was cited and released. Her trial date was set for Dec. 6.

 Amber Nicole Black, 25, of 3308 Muddy Creek Road, in Nebo, was charged with misdemeanor second-degree trespassing. She was issued a $1,000 unsecured bond and released. Her trial date was set for Dec. 6.

 George Emory Williams, 63, of 1118 Harmony Grove Road, in Nebo, was charged with felony obtaining property by false pretense and misdemeanor larceny of property. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,500 secured bond.

 Aaron Terrill ONeil, 27, of 112 Brackett St., in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of driving during revocation, reckless driving to endanger and hit and run causing property damage. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Oct. 3.

 Jacqulynn Leann Morris, 25, of 4146 River Road, in Hickory, was charged with misdemeanor resist, delay or obstruct a public officer. Her trial date was set for Oct. 3.

The following charges were served on Thursday, August 3:

 Elizabeth Elkins Harrison, 51, of 2125 US 181, Lot 4, in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of driving while impaired, open container after consuming, driving while license revoked for a DWI revocation and hit and run causing property damage. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,500 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Aug. 28.

 Victor Eugene Leatherman, 35, of 288 B & S Lane, in Hickory, was charged with three counts of misdemeanor violation of a domestic violence protection order. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Aug. 9.

 Chad Ashford Causby, 29, of 1880 Zion Road, in Morganton, was charged with one count each of felony larceny by destroying antitheft device, receiving, transferring or possessing a stolen vehicle and misdemeanor larceny by trick. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a total of $15,000 in secured bonds.

 Shawn Edward Cramer, 40, of 2676 Timerill Drive, Lot 2, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $3,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Aug. 14.

 Kevin Brice Alderman, 43, of 8638 Sparrow Trail, in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was issued a $300 secured bond and released. His trial date was set for Sep. 11.

 James Robert Hughes, 34, of 2309 US 70 W, Lot 1, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor assault inflicting serious injury or with a deadly weapon and larceny of property; receiving or possessing stolen goods. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,500 secured bond. His trial date was set for Aug. 8.

 David Lee Hardin, 29, of 964 Muddy Creek Road, in Nebo, was charged with felony possession of a schedule II controlled substance. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Sep. 25.

 Shawn Forrest Thornburg, 24, of 3830 Berry Road, in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor driving during revocation and resist, delay or obstruct a public officer. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,500 secured bond. His trial date was set for Aug. 8.

 Devin Nelson Shade, 29, of 2995 Jamestown Road, in Morganton, was charged with felony receiving, transferring or possessing a stolen vehicle. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,500 secured bond. His trial date was set for Sep. 25.

 Brittany Danielle Wiles, 26, of 1141 13th St. SW, in Hickory, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a total of $3,000 in secured bonds. Her trial date was set for Oct. 2.

 Kevin Patrick Field, 38, of 1189 Rusty Lynn Road, in Hickory, was charged with misdemeanor unlicensed bail bondsmen or runner. He was released on a written promise to appear for a trial date set for Sep. 6.

 Joshua Lee Franklin, 30, of 3225 Lytle Drive, in Morganton, was charged with felony trafficking methamphetamines and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $50,000 secured bond.

 Haley Sierra Stokes, 24, of 4274 Bollinger Gap St., in Morganton, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor possession of a schedule II, II, IV controlled substance and one count of misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,000 secured bond.

 Aaron Louis Howery, 22, of 5600 Buzz Lowman St., in Connelly Springs, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor probation violation and one misdemeanor count each of assault on a female, false imprisonment and domestic criminal trespassing. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a total of $15,000 in secured bonds. His trial date was set for Sep. 25.

 Jeffery Daniel Rudisill, 32, of 1986 US 70 W, in Morganton, was charged with two counts of felony assault inflicting serious bodily injury by strangulation and one felony count of assault by strangulation. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail.

 Terry Lynn Snipes, 44, of 2297 Shady Grove Road, in Connelly Springs, was charged with one felony count each of possession of a weapon by a felon and possession of methamphetamines, one count each of misdemeanor simple possession of a schedule VI controlled substance, possession of a schedule IV controlled substance with intent to manufacture, sell or deliver and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $35,000 secured bond.

 Haley Sierra Stokes, 24, of 4274 Bollinger Gap St., in Morganton, was charged with felony conspiracy to traffic methamphetamines and misdemeanor conspiracy to sell or deliver schedule II controlled substances. She was issued an additional $20,000 secured bond.

 Thomas Allen Owens, 27, of 2486 Watts St., in Morganton, was charged with felony failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Sep. 11.

The following charges were served on Friday, August 4:

 Gregory Scott Harwood II, 19, of 3764 Jamestown Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor assault by pointing a gun and assault on a female. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail. His trial date was set for Aug. 22.

 Reginald Allen Miller, 48, of 321 2nd Street, in Morganton, was charged with one count each of felony possession of cocaine, misdemeanor possession of a schedule II controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $3,000 secured bond.

 Tyler Thomas Russell Carswell, 23, of 616 2nd Street, in Morganton, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor assault on a female. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $6,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Sep. 6.

 Angela Dawn Miller, 41, of 109 US Highway 70 E, R-6, in Hildebran, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Oct. 3.

 Linda Kay Slone, 29, of 8946 NC 18 S, in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor probation violation. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Sep. 25.

 Dennis William Cali, 31, of 2236 Mount Home Church Road, in Morganton, was charged with one felony count each of common law robbery, assault on handicapped person, first or second-degree forced burglary, larceny after breaking or entering and misdemeanor damage to personal property. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a total of $51,000 in secured bonds.

 Joshua Landon Walker, 35, of 2755 Sides Ave., in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor second-degree trespassing. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Sep. 19.

 Samantha Rushele Yancey, 22, of 607 Valdese Ave., E302, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor aid and abet a driver with revoked license. She was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for Oct. 3.

 Dean Allen ONeil Jr., 26, of 107 Rhyne St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor second-degree trespassing. He was issued a $1,000 secured bond and released. His trial date was set for Sep. 5.

 Mercedes Lea Colon, 17, of 1705 Bethel Road, Lot 1, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor larceny of property. She was cited and released. Her trial date was set for Sep. 26.

 Guyanna Nichole Bollinger, 16, of 1318 Mountain Shadows Drive, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor larceny of property. She was cited and released. Her trial date was set for Sep. 26.

 George Edward Jackson, 59, of 4986 Duckworth Circle, in Morganton, was charged with felony possession of a schedule II controlled substance. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Sep. 25.

 Dalvin Montell Avery, 21, of 3680 Gladdyn Dairy Farm Road, in Vale, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply and driving during revocation. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,500 secured bond. His trial date was set for Sep. 11.

 Siereta Nicole Harris, 35, of 145 Stonebridge Drive, F, in Morganton, was charged with felony obtaining property by false pretense and misdemeanor larceny of property; receiving or possessing stolen goods. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond.

The following charges were served on Saturday, August 5:

 Phillip Eugene Christopher, 45, of 9488 West Ridge Drive, in Hickory, was charged with misdemeanor consume alcohol on premises having off-premises permit only and drunk, intoxicated and disruptive. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Aug. 28.

 Mark Thomas Stocksdale, 36, of 158 14th St. Place NW, in Hickory, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Sep. 6.

 Francisco Javier Rodriguez, 27, of 105 Regan St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was issued a $500 secured bond and released. His trial date was set for Sep. 8.

 William David Benfield, 44, of 109 Ross St., A, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor misuse of 911 system. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Aug. 28.
Rubber boots cover the feet of poultry plant workers who stand on them for hours at a time. Rubber gloves cover the workers hands, which work at whatever speed the never-ending disassembly line requires  at a constant rate known to cause swelling and pain.

Another part of a workers uniform is the white hard hat. But what most might not expect to be worn by a hard-working adult is a diaper.

Multiple groups advocating for the rights of poultry workers gathered outside Case Farms in Morganton on Monday to protest against what they say is an unfair policy that does not allow workers to use the bathroom when they need to.

Hunter Ogletree, a protest organizer from the Western North Carolina Workers Center, says the policy has led some workers to wear diapers to avoid retaliation from superiors when asking to use the bathroom.

They are waiting up to one hour, two hours, three hours until they are able to go to the bathroom, Ogletree said. Theyre getting breaks, but they are not getting breaks when they have to go.

Not allowing employees to use the bathroom is an Occupational Safety and Health Administration violation.

A statement was provided to The News Herald on behalf of Case Farms in response to the estimated 35 protesters, which included multiple former workers.

Case Farms has recently been targeted by the Western North Carolina Workers Center and Interfatih Worker Justice at the Morganton Division regarding working conditions, the statement said. We respectfully disagree with the allegations made by the aforementioned parties.

The statement went on to say the company devotes resources to make sure employees are successful, especially as it concerns health and safety standards in our facilities.

Irma Matul participated in the protest and shared her experiences from the six years she worked at Case Farms de-boning chicken. A translator was used to answer questions.

They wont let you go to the bathroom if you ask to go to the bathroom, and sometimes they even shame the workers that need to go to the bathroom, she said. The issue was very sad because they dont give access to go to the bathrooms when workers have the biological need to go to the bathroom.

Paul Cuadros, an associate professor of journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill, has written a book on the poultry industry and has devoted years to investigating the industry since 1998. He says that issues regarding bathroom breaks are common among poultry workers across the country.

You hear stories of workers who say they soil themselves on the line, Cuadros said in a telephone interview Monday. The workers say they feel intimated because they are threatened with their jobs and also immigration reprisal.

Ogletree said the WNC Workers Center does not care whether the workers at Case Farms are documented or undocumented  they still have the right to go to the bathroom.

The issue around threatening workers is widespread within the poultry industry, Ogletree said. The Case Farms plant, I dont think, is any different. Workers do feel threatened to speak up and stand up and speak out around their issues.

Ogletree said the groups at Mondays protest have spoken privately with current workers, but the current workers did not feel comfortable leaving work to participate in the protest, themselves.

Current workers work between 10- and 12-hour shifts and have a break of between 30 and 45 minutes for lunch, Ogletree said. However, several hundred workers take lunch at the same time with limited bathroom facilities, he said.

In an email late Monday night, a public relations worker for Case Farms confirmed that workers are given two 35-minute breaks during 10-hour shifts. If a worker wants an additional bathroom break, a supervisor will grant the request as long as no other employees in the department are using the bathroom.

"This is vital since the production line continues running," the email said. "There can be times when production demands require slightly longer shifts for the employees."

But workers have told Ogletree that Case Farms operates on an arbitrary point system, which gives strikes to employees using the bathroom when they are not allowed.

After a certain number of strikes, workers could be fired, Ogletree said.

Cuadros said the reason many managers wish to keep poultry workers busy is because the poultry industry operates on a very thin line.

The process is all dependent on speed, and anything that slows the line down can be the difference between the red and the black  between making money and losing money that day, Cuadros said. When it comes to labor and practices, you see the same issues again and again.

But the protestors looked to change the issues on Monday when they marched toward the security gate with a letter asking the manager to have a closed-door meeting with the protestors.

The protestors were stopped by a security guard, who said they could not come on the property. The guard said she would call the manager and inform him about the protest. But as of 5 p.m., Ogletree said the protestors had not received a response.

An article recently published by ProPublica provided an in-depth look at working conditions in Case Farms plants, which are located in North Carolina and Ohio.

The article states that Case Farms had 74 OSHA violations between 2010 and 2016. The poultry plant with the next highest number of violations during that time period was House of Raeford with 17.

The article, which has a section dedicated to a Morganton worker, led Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio to write a letter to Case Farms asking for an explanation.

Ogletree said he has heard Case Farms plans to respond. He also said that if protesters do not hear back from the manager by the end of the day Monday, they plan to call him Tuesday.

Ryan Wilusz can be reached at rwilusz@morganton.com or 828-432-8941.
A Hickory man was sentenced to prison on Monday from after pleading guilty to shooting and killing his wife in May of 2016.

Ronald Carl Lane, 62, of Hickory, was sentenced to an active prison term of five to seven years after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter for the death of his wife, said a press release from the district attorneys office.

Robert C. Ervin, Superior Court Judge from Burke County, imposed the prison sentence for Lane during Burke County Superior Court on Monday, the release said.

In May of 2016, Lane approached an officer in the Long View Police Department parking lot and told him that he had just killed his wife. He was immediately taken into custody. Based upon the defendants statements, investigators went to his Hickory residence, made entry into the home and found his wife, 60-year-old Audrey Price Lane, deceased from gunshot wounds, the release said.

Investigation showed that Lane shot his wife of 42 years with a .22-caliber revolver. An autopsy performed at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem confirmed the cause of death as gunshot wounds to the head and torso, the release said.

Further investigation by Long View Police Department showed no prior domestic violence between the defendant and his wife, and he had no past history of violent behavior. Lane appeared to have some mental issues when interviewed by North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation agents several hours after the shooting, the release said.

Lane will serve his time in custody of the North Carolina Division of Adult Corrections.

Mike Ford led the investigation of the case for Long View Police Department with assistance from the NCSBI. Assistant District Attorney Lance Sigmon handled prosecution for the State.
Much stronger than expected Japanese economic growth figures dominated off the global business agenda at the start of the week. An easing in military tension between the US and North Korea helped restore some calm to trading on Monday.

Asia

Japans GDP was up 4% on an annualised basis, making it the best performing G7 country in the second quarter, beating forecasts of a 2.5% rise. The rise in domestic business spending was double forecasts at 2.4%. Nevertheless, the strong data did not impress the market too much: the Nikkei 255 closed nearly 1% lower at 19,537, at similar levels to the start of the year.

Chinas Shanghai Shenzhen CSI 300 Index responded better to domestic numbers, rising 1.3% to 3,694.68. July retail sales were 10.4% higher than in 2016, and industrial production was 6.4% higher in the same period  although both figures were below analysts forecasts. In Australia, scandal-hit Commonwealth Bank (CBA) said its chief executive Ian Narev will step down next year, and the shares rose 1% to AUD 81.31.

Europe European markets started the week in a more positive mood than last week. By 11am BST, the FTSE 100 was up 38 points at 7,348, helped by a rise in financial stocks such as Standard Chartered (STAN) and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). The 11 billion merger of Standard Life (SL) and Aberdeen Asset Management goes through today, creating a combined with combined assets under management of 670 billion. Standard Life shares initially rose by were down 2% by 11am at 416p. Eurozone industrial production was the standout economics headline in Europe  June saw a 0.6% fall in output, worse than forecast, and against a 1.2% rise in May. European markets took their cue from the global picture than domestic numbers, with the Euro Stoxx 50, Germanys Dax and Frances CAC all up 1% by midday CET. North America US economic data is light on Monday but the negotiations over the North American Free Trade Agreement will loom large over the global economic agenda. Canada, the US and Mexico begin their talks in Washington at the start of week, negotiations that will likely affect of the future of auto stocks such as Ford (F) and General Motors (GM). President Trumps war of words against North Korea are set to provide a backdrop to these fraught trade talks. Markets will be looking ahead to Tuesdays US retail sales numbers for July, which are expected to have rebounded after a drop of 0.2% in June.
For a long time, investing in Japan was a frustrating experience. Perpetual stagflation and anaemic growth blighted the economy, while the stock market rose and fell with alarming repetition  climbing back no higher in each rally than the position it held in 1993. But thanks to a revolutionary leader, the stars look to be finally aligning for Japan.

At 19,753 today, the Nikkei is some way off the 37,269 peak of 1989, but the outlook for both the stock market and the economy is positive. The government this week revealed that the Japanese economy expanded at an annualised rate of 4% in the second quarter to the end of June. This is the sixth straight quarterly growth figure  the longest growth stretch in a decade for the country  thanks to rising capital spending and private consumption.

This 4% estimate is a considerable upgrade from the Bank of Japans statement last month that it expected the economy to expand 1.8% for the current financial year to March 2018.

JPMorgans Nicholas Weindling is positive on Japans prospects  and says that his colleagues are too. As a Japanese equities investor it is hardly surprising Weindling thinks the future is bright for his market, but he says that colleagues who invest across the Asia Pacific region and JP Morgans multi-asset fund managers are overweight Japan in their portfolios too. He says the positive sentiment is due to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The government of Japan is stable  especially compared to the US and UK, he explains. Before Abe came along, Japan had a new Prime Minister every nine months. Abe is known globally, and is known to be a source of stability.

Abe has cut the corporate tax rate, entered into negotiations with the European Union for a free trade agreement, signed up to the Trans-Pacific Partnership  and support for his party keeps growing. Today, his approval rate is 37.5% - compared to just 7.3% for the opposition, and it has stayed consistently at that level since March 2013.

What Has Changed?

Since Abe came to power, the tourism industry has boomed. In 2012 there were nine million visitors to Japan. Last year tourism peaked at 23 million visitors, with many from nearby China  a direct beneficiary of the loosening of Chinese visa restriction. Female employment rates have also improved under Abe, up to 66%, higher than in the US.

The employment story is an interesting one; Japan has a demographics issue. They are not the only country with an ageing population; nearly two billion people across the world are expected to be over 60 years old by 2050. China, the Scandinavian countries and Italy all have more than 20% of their population over the age of 65. But Japan is unique because it tightly controls its borders, whereas those other countries have a steady stream of immigration propping up the system.

While some investors see the growing burden of an ageing population as a reason to avoid Japan, Weindling says that it has thrown up some unique opportunities for growth.

Profiting from an Ageing Population

In the UK the top two chemists dominate the market, with 60% market share  leaving little room for growth and presenting a market very challenging for a start-up to break. But in Japan the top 10 chemists have just 30% of the market share  the rest are Mom and Pop shops, small, family run outfits with no successors leaving huge scope for industry consolidation and an excellent opportunity for a larger player.

Add to that, an ageing population is more likely to need medical assistance and equipment; his Weindling JPMorgan Japanese Investment Trust (JFJ) owns Sysmex Corporation for example, which makes laboratory equipment,and Topcon Corporation, which manufactures optical equipment and healthcare systems.

With a shrinking working population, Japan has record low levels of unemployment and the economy is poised to receive a boost once this lack of supply filters down to wage growth. But there are equities which can profit from the tight labour market to,o according to Weindling; he invests in recruitment firms that provide permanent and temporary workers.

Suppliers Immune from Domestic Threats

While the population is ageing, Weindling points out that a Japanese company does not need a Japanese customer base to thrive.

There is no reason why Japan should not continue to make things. Factory automation and robotics are not a threat to Japanese industrials in the way that they are to US companies  they are the solution to a dwindling workforce, he says. More automation is a good thing, and the larger industrials will continue to take market share. It is a multi-year, structural shift.

That does not mean he backs the exporters of old, however. The international names which have long been synonymous with Japan are electronics firms and auto-makers; Toyota, Canon, Mitsubishi and even Sony are no-go areas for Weindling.

No one buys cameras anymore, so why would I buy Canon, he says. We dont own any of those household names. Their prospects are considerably lessened. Japans export market is no longer about cars and electronics, it is about condoms, baby milk, skin cream, medicine. Japan is known across Asia for high-quality products, reliability and high safety standards. These are the companies you want to be invested in.
Dubai Business Events (DBE) has reported strong results for the first half of 2017, with 97 bids submitted to host business events being successfully awarded to the city. The events secured since January, including conferences, exhibitions, meetings and incentive trips, are poised to attract over 51,636 delegates from around the world, resulting in an expected economic impact of approximately AED 375 million (US$102 million).

In the first six months, Dubai Business Events won a total of 97 pitches to host business events in the city, and is currently awaiting verdict on 97 more that have been submitted. Key wins include: Baby Care Annual Incentive (2018), World Conference on Desalination and Water Re-Use (2019), and Congress of the International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions (2022).

Dubai Business Events has also ramped up efforts to highlight the citys business events offering to international audiences. DBE representatives have attended over 50 trade events in the first half of the year, interacting with over 4,500 business events buyers and planners. The bureau has also facilitated a total of 16 site inspections with 38 clients, and hosted 144 buyers from around the world as part of four in-depth Dubai study missions.

Steen Jakobsen, Director of Dubai Business Events, said: Weve had a stellar start to the year, and are well on our way to achieving our targets set for 2017. As we continue to work towards further strengthening Dubais reputation of being a premier host destination for business events, we have a steady pipeline of initiatives planned for the year ahead. We are also focusing on expanding our network and reach globally, enabling businesses, event buyers and planners to benefit from our expertise.

Dubai Business Events Al Safeer Ambassador Programme has also contributed significantly to the citys success in bidding for international events. The programme features a network of 300 prominent experts from diverse sectors, including academia, finance, and healthcare, who are based in Dubai. Since January, the programme contributed to securing a total of 11 business events for the city.

Further study missions in 2017 will come from India, China, the Americas and Southeast Asia, while DBE will also build on its participation in major trade shows with a significant presence at IMEX America in Las Vegas and IBTM World in Barcelona towards the end of the year.

Recently, Dubai was named as one of the top 10 destinations for international meetings by Union of International Associations (UIA) in its latest edition of the International Meetings Statistics Report published last month. The city previously ranked 14th in the 2015 edition, and moved up the list with a total of 180 meetings taking place in 2016.
Indebtedness among Canadas elderly population is on the rise, according to academics and financial experts at an international conference at Ottawas Carleton University last week.Contributing to this trendnot just in Canada, but worldwide as wellare multiple pressures that include easy credit, unreliable pension plans, divorce among seniors, unmonitored spending by people with dementia, and financing the needs of younger family members.Compounding the issue is a similar growth in the number of people in late middle age who are quitting employment or taking on even greater debt, either to care for their aging parents or to help their adult children buy their own homes.There is the worldwide phenomenon of older people who go into debt to help their children, Carleton University School of Public Policy and Administration professor Saul Schwartz said, as quoted by the Ottawa Citizen.Earlier this year, a global survey commissioned by HSBC found that 37 per cent of young Canadians who currently have their own homes used the Bank of Mom and Dad as a source of funding. Meanwhile, 21 per cent of millennial home owners moved back in with their parents to save for a deposit.Schwartz, who was one of the conferences organizers, added that Canadian seniors suffer from a lack of source that provides impartial advice.You can talk to your bank. But if the advice is free, its probably not unbiased, he explained.A study conducted by Equifax Canada and HomEquity Bank last year uncovered that 16.5 per cent of people aged over 55 were carrying mortgages. The average mortgage balance in this demographic swelled from $158,000 in 2013 to $176,000 in 2015.Bankruptcy trustees Hoyes, Michalos & Associates Inc. have warned that seniors were the fastest-growing risk sector for bankruptcies.The share of insolvency filings for debtors aged 50 and over increased to 30 per cent in our 2015 study compared to 27 per cent in 2013, the Ontario-based firm warned, adding that on average, debtors aged over 50 held unsecured debt of over $68,000 (over 20 per cent higher than the average debtor).
A number of claims brought forth by grieved investors against Fortress Real Developments have been dismissed.



The Ontario Superior Court dismissed four class action claims against Fortress Real Developments last week.



A representative from Fortress told MortgageBrokerNews.ca that there are no additional pending claims.



The four claims were dismissed due to the statements of claim not disclosing any legal causes of action, according to Fortress.



"We are extremely pleased with the ruling last week, Vince Petrozza, COO of Fortress, said in a statement.



The plaintiffs can still file new Statements of Claim with the court within 40 days but, if they fail to do so, the actions will be dismissed.



Fortress said that if the plaintiffs do choose to file new Statements of Claim it will continue to defend itself against the lawsuits.



"Fortress has a portfolio of over 80 development projects across the country, of which 22 are now completed, Jawad Rathore, President & CEO of Fortress, said. We continue to focus on identifying and developing high value real estate projects across Canada and along with our partners, we remain committed to delivering communities we are proud of."



Fortress has found itself embroiled in a number of class action suits to the tune of over $100 million. Many of which were for allegations of delayed projects and investment payouts.
Don't Worry, Housing Only "Feels" Unaffordable

Housing, at least according to Freddie Mac vice president and chief economist Sean Becketti, isn't unaffordable. It just feels that way. Becketti, in a recent post on the company's Perspectives blog, says the media is full of headlines that decry the costs faced by homebuyers today. He cites several, including a recent one from Business Insider, "An affordable-housing shortage in the US is about to get worse," as an indication of how the current environment feels to most people, but he says, "Housing is at near-record affordability, and I can prove it."

His proof is the Housing Affordability Index (HAI) developed by the National Association of Realtors (NAR). This is perhaps the most-widely-cited measure of housing affordability and is currently at record highs. This means, Becketti says, "the median-income family has more than enough income to qualify for a mortgage to buy the median-price house."

There are however reasons why homeownership feels out of reach to so many. First, housing is expensive. Nationally, prices are higher than they were in 2006, the peak before the housing downturn and have risen an average of more than 6 percent every year since hitting bottom in 2012. They show no signs of slowing down. In contrast, incomes have not keep pace, increasing only 2.4 percent on average in each of those years.

Second, the tight inventory of existing homes increases the perception that homes are unaffordable. Marketing time is at record lows, lots of sales are all-cash transactions, and bidding wars are common. The problem is exacerbated because many homeowners are reluctant to put their homes on the market for fear they won't find a new one. The imbalance between the supply of homes and the demand for them drives price increases and serves to transform the perception of unaffordability into actuality.

Homebuyers are uncertain if they can qualify for a mortgage, but Becketti states measuring income against home prices, as the NAR index does, is only part of the story. There is the issue of whether borrowers can document that their income is stable, a problem for the self-employed and those working in the gig economy. What about a borrower's credit score, is it high enough or does a borrower even have one? There are millions of "credit invisibles" who lack sufficient credit history on which to calculate a credit score.

There are other qualifications as well, the level of debt carried by the borrower (debt-to-income ratios are the most common reasons mortgage applications are rejected). Does the borrower have enough cash for a down payment? Becketti says this is one area where help is available. Freddie Mac's Home Possible Advantage mortgage that allows borrowers to put as little as three percent down, and that modest amount can be a gift from a family member or a government grant.

Becketti says that despite these hurdles, the HAI is correct, mortgage payments today are more affordable than at almost any time in history.
Big Landlord Merger Sounds Scary but Probably Isn't

One of the many shifts endured by the housing industry during the Great Recession was the entry of institutional investors into the single-family housing market. Hedge funds and other Wall Street types bought up thousands of single family residences (SFRs), largely from lender inventories of foreclosed homes. There were worries in the moment about the competition this presented to potential owner-occupants, and concerns over how disastrous this might be down the road. The difficulties inherent in scattered site property management could threaten neighborhoods, and what might happen once the housing market recovered and investors took their profits and ran, dumping thousands of properties on the market.

These fears, to all appearances, have been unrealized. The management issues were overcome, and the new owners, by and large, have hung on to their portfolios. Where they have sold, it has typically been to other investors or, in a bit of surprise marketing, to tenants who were interested in buying the homes they were occupying, sometimes with special financing and other inducements.

On August 10, two of the country's largest single-family landlords, Invitation Homes, and Starwood Waypoint Homes announced a merger. The combined company will own about 82,000 homes in 17 metropolitan areas in a deal valued at $4.3 billion.

According to an Urban Institute (UI) analysis of the merger, this has stirred up new concerns. Homeownership, while it has ticked up slightly in the last few quarters, is near an all-time low and inventories of available homes for sale are at historic lows. UI's Laurie Goodman quotes the Wall Street Journal's description of the merger as "a long-term corporate wager "that homeownership will no longer be an essential component of the American dream and that more people will choose to rent." Goodman said other voices have expressed concern about the plight of renters under landlords who "don't care about the carpet or the paint color."

She does not share these concerns.

There are more people renting by choice than there have been in other years and that this is likely to continue as more people delay marrying and starting families until they are well into their thirties, she says. Still, Wall Street's "bet" is not a sign that "millions of Americans no longer wish to own homes and access the wealth-building benefits of homeownership. And there's no reason to think renters will be worse off under these landlords."

She offers four reasons why this merger, or more generally investor-owned single-family homes, pose no threat to either homebuyers or renters.

The large-scale investor portfolios account for only "a tiny sliver" of the housing market. Forty percent of the nation's housing stock, or 17.5 million units, is in the form of SFR. However, so called "mom and pop" landlords, those owning a single unit, hold 45 percent of SFR rentals, while 85 percent are held by those with 10 or fewer units. Institutional investors, like the giant company formed by this recent merger, own, at most, 0.7 percent of SFR rentals, less than 300,000 units.

The portfolios of institutional investors are unlikely to grow quickly in the near future. The market sector did explode in the first few years when there was a large-scale availability of bargain-priced homes created by foreclosures. The ability of investors to buy them did serve to stabilize the market and put a floor on plunging prices, but those days are over. Prices are nearly back to their pre-crisis peak, and with the bargains gone, Goodman sees "the next logical step is for investors to seek economies of scale to cushion the fall in profitability." This will probably mean more consolidation in the SFR market and even the possibility that large investors will start acquiring properties from smaller ones.

Most homebuyers would not want to purchase the homes in which investors are interested. Institutional buyers typically acquire homes needing about $20,000 in repairs. Those are the bargains and they have the financial, skills, and labor resources to make those repairs along with the clout to buy materials in bulk. An individual buyer, especially a first-timer isn't usually prepared to spend $20,000 on immediate repairs and upgrades and wouldn't be able to get as much bang for those bucks. Goodman says this means that, although institutional investors may have a cash advantage, they generally aren't competing for the same properties as first-time homebuyers.

Institutional investors are likely to be fine landlords. Goodman sees little cause for concern on the part of tenants. These investments don't push rents higher; rent increases are the result of supply and demand. There is no credible evidence that institutions make worse landlords than the mom-and-pop companies either. Necessity and competition push investors to bring professional standards and methods in to match large apartment-building owners.

The Invitation/Starwood merger should remind policymakers that SFR rentals are here to stay, Goodman says, and they could be an important component of housing strategy. Affordable housing is becoming an imminent crisis, she says, and the government could encourage the SFR sector to help address this crisis. One way could be through more aggressive lending by the government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) in the SFR space. UI supported Fannie Mae in April when it faced many critics over its decision to back a $1 billion loan to Invitation Homes.

Goodman says we should remember that, despite the benefits that accrue from it, there is no "ideal" homeownership rate. It will ebb and flow with economic, demographic, and other factors. "Our goal should not be to make as many homeowners as possible but to ensure that any creditworthy person can become a homeowner when their financial means and other circumstances make them ready to do so." She adds that the difficulty of qualifying for a mortgage is one of the biggest impediments to the homeownership dream and, "The merger of institutional SFR investors poses no threat to this dream."
Turkish Airlines, a leader in terms of international destinations served and Africas top international carrier with 51 routes in the continent, partners with the group Love Army for Somalia (spearheaded by social media stars Jerome Jarre, Casey Neistat and actor Ben Stiller).

Turkish Airlines is involved in delivering aid to fight famine and drought in Somalia. Hundreds of tons of supplies have been delivered to the people of Somalia since the beginning of the campaign in March, 2017.

The airline that connects continents, cultures and peoples is a well-known brand with its corporate responsibility projects throughout Africa. Recent projects realized by Turkish Airlines in 24 African countries include building and renovating schools, orphanages, clinics as well as providing education and drilling water wells. Setting up solar panels for clinics situated out of urban areas and cooperating with local authorities and hospitals to conduct cataract surgeries are also among Turkish Airlines corporate responsibility projects.

As the only international airline that flies to Somalia, Turkish Airlines has a unique access to getting much-needed emergency food support to the country, which is suffering from a devastating drought. Millions of children are at immediate risk of severe malnutrition.

So when social media celebrity Jerome Jarre sent a Tweet asking Turkish Airlines directly whether they would send a cargo plane filled with food to Somalia, the company responded quickly  with a resounding yes. That first delivery took place in March, where 60 tons of nutritional supplements designed specifically for kids were sent to Mogadishu for immediate distribution.

Now, theyre at it again. Another shipment of food, an additional 60 tons of the nutritional supplements for children, has been delivered to Somalia on Tuesday, August 15th.

Speaking on the occasion, Turkish Airlines Chairman of the Board and Executive Committee Mr. M. Ilker Ayc said; "As the first call of help to Somalia echoed in social media, Turkish Airlines immediately took notice. We gladly joined the global campaign #LoveArmyForSomalia, contributing a cargo flight as well as food and supplies to the people of Somalia. Now, we are doing it again, this time delivering 60 tons of special food for Somalian children. As we take pride in connecting Africa to the world, we also take pride in our corporate responsibility projects that extend a helping hand to the African people.

Sharing his views on the global campaign, the social media star Jerome Jarre said that; "What is fueling this movement are people around the world coming together. We are united by the idea that anything is possible if we work together to make it happen."

Following the supplies arrival in Mogadishu, non-governmental organizations including the ARC have provided logistics and guidance on the ground, ensuring that the lifesaving supplements reach the most at-need children and their families.

As the only international airline flying to Somalia, Turkish Airlines will continue to stand by the people of Somalia in their time of need.
Mount Pleasant, SC (29464)

Today

Partly cloudy. Much cooler. Morning high of 67F with temps falling to near 55. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

A clear sky. Low 42F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph.
A new mortgage modification scam is making the rounds, this one with scammers posing as representatives of Nationstar.According to the New Mexico Attorney Generals Office, the scam is an attempt to steal money from struggling homeowners. The scammers are calling homeowners and claiming to be with Nationstar. They promise a loan modification and ask the homeowner to send money to an attorney in Florida. According to New Mexico AG Hector Balderas, the scammers have asked homeowners to wire amounts upwards of $1,200, money they may never get back.According to Balderas, the calls come from Ymax or magicJack phone numbers. Ymax is a telecommunications company that makes magicJack, a device that allows people to operate a landline telephone through an internet connection. The calls can appear to come from any area code, Balderas office warned.Calls and offers like these are scams and New Mexico homeowners need to be vigilant, because once you wire that money you may never get it back, Balderas said.So far only New Mexico has reported the scam  but successful scams have a way of going nationwide.However, unless the scammers are keeping up with financial news, they may soon give themselves away simply by calling themselves Nationstar representatives. The company is in the midst of a complete re-brand, and will change its name to Mr. Cooper sometime this month.
Anna Maria Farias has been named assistant secretary for fair housing and equal opportunity at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In that role, Farias will head efforts to make communities more diverse and inclusive by eliminating housing discrimination and promoting economic opportunities.HUD Secretary Ben Carson administered the oath of office to Farias last Thursday. She will be leading the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, which enforces the Fair Housing Act of 1968. The law provides protections against discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, and family status. The office also leads national enforcement, administration, development, and public understanding of federal fair housing policies and laws."We're thrilled to welcome Anna Maria back home to HUD," said Carson. "As she has in the past, Anna Maria will provide steady leadership and will advance HUD's mission as a manifestation of our nation's fair housing and civil rights laws.""It is a singular honor to be asked by the president and the secretary to return to an agency I love," said Farias. "I'm looking forward to rolling up my sleeves and getting down to work on behalf of the American people."During the George W. Bush administration, Farias held senior roles at HUD such as director of the Center for Faith-based and Community Initiatives and deputy assistant secretary for grant programs in the Office of Community Planning and Development. In the latter role, Farias managed over $16 billion in grants to Gulf Coast states as part of the departments recovery efforts following hurricanes in 2005.
Turkeys Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag announced that The Eid alAdha (Feast of Sacrifice) holiday has been extended to 10 days in Turkey.

The Eid al-Adha holiday will start on August 28 and end on September 3.

Earlier, President of Turkish Hoteliers Federation (TUROFED) Osman Ayik commented that the extension of the holiday will be good for the industry. He expects a high volume of tourism movement within the country. Ayik also said that local tourists will not only travel to seaside destinations but also to Anatolia in order to visit their families and relatives to celebrate the Eid al-Adha holiday together.

President of the Mediterranean Touristic Hoteliers Association (AKTOB) Erkan Yagci said that it is difficult to guess how many will travel for holiday but he expects that occupancy in hotels will reach to 100% during the holiday period.
Western Ohio Mortgage has chosen the RV Exchange (RVX) loan origination technology for its Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) activities, according to ReverseVision, a technology provider for the reverse mortgage industry.Western Ohio President Teresa Rose said the company made the selection as its loan officers express growing interest in HECM origination, particularly for the HECM for Purchase program. Under this program, which is insured by the FHA, qualified borrowers can take out a reverse mortgage and purchase a new primary home using equity from the sale of a previous residence. There is no required monthly principal and interest payment under the program.One of the great things about RVX is that it has safeguards built in to help loan officers who are new to HECMs avoid missing essential steps in the origination workflow, said Rose. Together with the specialized training Western Ohio Mortgage requires of all HECM loan officers, RVX makes it easy to originate HECMs efficiently and compliantly.Western Ohio has lending operations for Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Tennessee, and Florida customers. Although it began to deal with HECMs products as a broker, the company has recently began underwriting its own reverse loans.With the RVX technology, participants in a HECM loan are connected throughout the loan lifecycle and they are provided a centralized exchange through which they can share documents and information. Point-of sale, processing and underwriting, funding, post-closing, and secondary marketing are covered by the system.ReverseVision welcomes the opportunity to serve Western Ohio Mortgage and its customers in the American heartland, said Wendy Peel, vice president of sales and marketing at ReverseVision. HECM products are specifically designed to meet the needs of senior customers, making them an essential loan product for any lender who wants to continue delivering value to customers later in life.
University of Oklahoma professor to address SEPM

The Permian Basin section, SEPM will meet August 15 in Midland Colleges Carrasco Room beginning at 11:30 a.m.

Dr. Lynn Soreghan from the University of Oklahoma will speak on Eolian-Transported Dust in the Permian Basin of the Western U. S.: Implications for Paleoclimate and Source-Rock Formation.

Cost is $20. Reservations can be made by calling 279-1360 or by email at info@pbs-sepm.org. Online registration is also available at www.pbs-sepm.org and clicking on the Talks tab.

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SIPES to hear about Wolfbone play

Members of the Midland chapter, Society of Independent Professional Earth Scientists (SIPES) will meet August 16 in the upstairs ballroom at Midland Country Club beginning with a reception at 11:15 a.m.

David Grace, exploration manager for Exl Petroleum, will offer a presentation on Evolution of the Wolfbone Play.

There is no charge for members, $20 for guests.

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U.S. drilling permits fall nearly a quarter in July amid energy pullback

By Collin Eaton

Houston Chronicle

State governments issued fewer U.S. drilling permits in July, the latest sign oil companies are curbing activity as crude prices languish under $50 a barrel.

Oil companies took out 3,338 drilling permits last month, a 23 percent drop compared to the month before, according to data collected by investment bank Evercore ISI.

Texas issued 846 permits, down 27 percent compared to June and the lowest monthly figure since January. It was the states second monthly decline in a row, marking the first time that has happened since late last year.

In energy-rich North Dakota and Louisiana, permits dropped by more than two thirds. California and New Mexico also saw drilling permits fall, by 51 percent and 57 percent, respectively.

Post Oak Energy Capital, Nadel and Gussman announce commitment

HOUSTON  Post Oak Energy Capital LP has led a $100 million equity commitment to Nadel and Gussman NV LLC. Affiliates of Nadel and Gussman, LLC and the management team will co-invest alongside Post Oak.

NGNV is a Tulsa-based exploration and production company with an initial focus on the acquisition and development of oil and gas properties in the Haynesville Shale. NGNV is also evaluating additional resource shale plays throughout the United States.

The NGNV team is led by industry veterans Jim Adelson and Stephen Heyman and includes Kevin DeLay, chief operating officer; Shelley Nichols, chief financial officer; Jim Bucci, vice president, geoscience, and Perry Phipps, vice president, land and general counsel.

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Plains All American grows profits, but reduces future earnings projections

By Jordan Blum

Houston Chronicle

Houston pipeline giant Plains All American Pipeline said Monday it is reducing its future earnings guidance even though its profits grew in the second quarter.

Plains expressed concerns about recently falling oil prices. While Plains primary business of crude oil pipelines performed solidly, Plains CEO Greg Armstrong said its storage, terminal and transportation businesses are struggling more. As such, Plains is reducing its 2017 earnings guidance by 8 percent.

Still, in the second quarter, Plains said its $188 million in quarterly income grew 86 percent from the same period last year when the oil bust remained ongoing. Likewise, Plains more than $6 billion in quarterly revenues grew from less than $5 billion last year.
A voluntary plan the state of Texas crafted to protect a tiny West Texas reptile  and avoid its listing as an endangered species  is facing a significant threat from companies that mine the fine-grain sand oil producers use for hydraulic fracturing.

Thats the central message of a letter Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegars office sent late last week to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service updating the federal agency on the status of the Texas Conservation Plan for the dunes sagebrush lizard.

The Fish and Wildlife Service proposed listing the sand-colored critter as an endangered species back in 2010 primarily due to loss of habitat from oil and gas drilling and ranching operations in the Permian Basin  an oil-rich region that spans West Texas and southeastern New Mexico and also is home to the threatened lizard. But industry groups complained that an official listing, which would have severely restricted development in areas inhabited by the species, would hinder oil and gas production at a time when new drilling technologies were bringing new life to old oilfields.

After that, then-Comptroller Susan Combs  wielding a newfound oversight of endangered species  worked closely with the oil industry and others on a plan to protect the threatened lizard, recruiting a variety of energy companies as participants.

Now, one of industrys most important suppliers is threatening to derail it.

In a letter to the Fish and Wildlife Service on Thursday, Robert Gulley  the head of the comptrollers Division of Economic Growth and Endangered Species Management  said that more than a dozen frac-sand companies are planning mining operations in four West Texas counties that are home to prime dune sagebrush lizard habitat.

While most of the 15 companies that have begun or are currently planning to mine sand in the area have expressed a willingness to revise operations to help protect the threatened reptile  and four have taken major measures to do so  the letter says that 11 still are planning to excavate in areas where several lizards have been sighted.

Frac-sand operations could significantly impact [dune sagebrush lizard] habitat, including habitat in or near areas where lizards have been found in recent surveys, Gulley wrote. Moreover, the destruction of that habitat has already begun.

The comptrollers office has no authority to stop the development of frac-sand operations of non-participants in the [Texas Conservation Plan], he added, promising to keep the federal agency updated as the office has since the implementation of the conservation plan in 2012.

In an interview, Gulley told the Tribune its too soon to say how big an impact the mining operations will have on the dunes sagebrush lizard and the plan to protect it  its a relatively new but fast-developing factor that popped up only this year, he said  but that they definitely pose a significant threat.

Recent news reports have detailed a rush by several sand plants to get up and running in the Permian Basin as analysts expect half of next years U.S. sand demand to come from West Texas.

While the comptrollers office may successfully encourage some of those companies to revise their projects to minimize impact on habitat, Gulley said, I dont think were going to see any dramatic shifts.

I think theyre pretty locked down, he said.

Of particular concern is that most of the planned mining projects  one already is operational  closely track a horizontal swath of prime dunes sagebrush lizard habitat. Thats because both the lizard and frac-sand mining operations prefer the same kind of sand, said Gulley, a renowned expert on environmental law and endangered species whom Hegar hired to oversee the offices endangered species division in 2015.

Planned sand mining operations closely track a horizontal swath of West Texas land considered prime habitat for the dunes sagebrush lizard. The states endangered species chief, Robert Gulley, says thats because the tiny reptile and the oil industry prefer the same type of fine-grain sand.

Planned sand mining operations closely track a horizontal swath of West Texas land considered prime habitat for the dunes sagebrush lizard. The states endangered species chief, Robert Gulley, says thats because the tiny reptile and the oil industry prefer the same type of fine-grain sand. Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts

The division alerted Fish and Wildlife to the threat by frac-sand companies offline several months ago, Gulley said, deciding to officially alert the agency last Thursday after it had confirmed lizard habitat already had been disturbed.

About 270 acres have been impacted since March by frac-sand companies that arent official participants in the conservation plan, according to satellite data and in-person observations Gulleys office has collected. Thats compared to the 296 acres that participants have disturbed since the inception of the plan in 2012.

Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Lesli Gray said the agency is continuing to monitor the situation and work with the comptrollers office.

The federal agency declined to list the lizard as endangered in 2012 and enthusiastically accepted dunes sagebrush lizard conservation plans from Texas and New Mexico, touting them as landmark and a great example of how states and landowners can take early, landscape-level action to protect wildlife habitat before a species is listed under the Endangered Species Act.

Still, environmental groups sued over the plan in 2013, arguing it wouldnt adequately protect the lizard due in part to its voluntary nature. (They ultimately lost the legal battle.)

The letter comes a year after the comptrollers office quietly fired the oil and gas industry-funded organization charged with overseeing the conservation plan after it had failed to do the work it agreed to do, including monitoring oil and gas producers to ensure they were in compliance.

When Texas promised to protect the lizard, state officials entrusted the day-to-day oversight to a nonprofit foundation overseen by registered lobbyists for the powerful Texas Oil and Gas Association known as TXOGA, the states largest industry group.

Gulley said TXOGA has actually been quite helpful, as the office tries to convince frac-sand companies to account for the conservation plan in their operations even if they arent members. (Two of the 15 companies the division is monitoring are on track to join, he said.)

Todd Staples, a former state lawmaker who now heads TXOGA, said in a statement: Oil and natural gas operators and sand miners are in on-going communications regarding planned sand mining in and around the DSL [dunes sagebrush lizard] area.

The oil and natural gas industry led in developing a careful, voluntary conservation approach to ensuring the DSL was protected, he said. It is our hope that sand miners will take a similar approach, and operators are engaged in discussions on how best to encourage responsible development in a manner that protects the lizard and its habitat.

Disclosure: The Texas Oil & Gas Association has been a financial sponsor of The Texas Tribune.

Texastribune.com
In a deck of cards, there are 52 cards. Within those 52 cards, there are two different colors -- red and black. Of those two colors, there are four suits -- clubs, spades, hearts, and diamonds. Each suit has one of each number -- two through 10 and a jack, queen, king and ace. All together, this results in 52 unique cards.

But is each card really so different?

That is how I began my speech to the Arctic Lights Lions Club Camp in Kittila, Finland, regarding the countrys 100th anniversary of being an independent country. I visited Finland for three weeks to explore the countrys culture.

For the first nine days, I attended a camp along with other teenagers representing 17 different countries. During the camp, we did myriad activities: whitewater rafting, hikes and gazing at the risen sun at exactly midnight from the top of Levi Mountain. However, as our camp coordinator, Katja, constantly reminded us, We, the instructors, didnt make the camp. Its all of you, the campers, that make this camp special.

Editor's note: This is the first in a series of essays by Midland students who visited Europe on Lions Club-sponsored trips. Trinity School senior Jordan Sanz is the son of Lawrence Sanz and Wendi Dorr. His trip to Finland was sponsored by the Midland Downtown Lions Club. See More Collapse

My mental goal was to truly know as many campers as possible during the nine days and learn as much as I could about their culture back home, while still delving into the Finnish culture surrounding me. I formed lifelong friendships with students from Belgium, France, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands, Turkey, Italy, Austria, Denmark, Serbia and Finland, while planting myself in their shoes, their culture. I learned about so many cultural snippets from all sectors of the globe while representing Midland.

Never have I witnessed a group of teenagers so excited about pumpjacks, chocolate chip cookies and country music. On the sixth day of camp, I gave a presentation about the USA and Texas. My first discussion was about the numerous pumpjacks decorating Midland; as I returned to Midland, I sent the campers an aerial snapshot of Midland, and instantly, replies of The pumpjacks exist! and I thought he was kidding about there being so many pumpjacks! flooded into my phone. During my presentation, I also taught each camper the Texas two-step to the tune of Your Man, by Josh Turner. After that, we devoured salsa and played Spoons, a popular American card game that has spread to Austria, Finland and many other countries.

For the remaining two weeks, I lived with a generous Finnish family in the municipality of Muurame. During my stay, we consumed many sausages, explored an adventure park and attended confirmation for the familys grandson. We ate reindeer meatballs, kayaked over a shimmering lake and survived the scorching heat of a Finnish sauna. One day I baked chocolate chip cookies for the entire family and we ate them while we gulped Coca-Colas and watched Finnish flicks.

Besides teaching dances, eating salsa, playing games and having fun, I wanted to destroy any cultural barrier blocking us all from the truth: Were all simply a bunch of people. Sure, we come from different countries; we have different backgrounds; we speak different languages. But, are we really all that different? Sure, each card has its own number, suit and color. No card is completely alike. However, each card will always share at least one trait: Its from the same deck. We might have our own number, our own suit, our own language, our own interests; but all in all, were all human, and we all make up a card in the same deck. So, I ask again: Is each card really so different?

Thank you to the Midland Downtown Lions Club for this incredible experience. A month later, I am still in touch with almost every camper from this incredible trip, talking with them about anything and everything imaginable.






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For four weeks during the summer of 1992, Plainview was transformed by Paramount Pictures into Rushwater, Kansas, a dusty rural farming community in the grips of a drought that refused to give up its faith.

We know art imitates life, but its remarkable how often life imitates art, observed Leap of Faith director Richard Pierce who returned to Plainview on Saturday for a 25th anniversary celebration.

Back in early 2013, I woke up one morning to find an article in the New York Times about the devastating consequences to a small West Texas town from the third worst drought in Texas history. Before it was officially declared over in May of 2015, the 4 1/2-year drought had dried up pastures and forced local ranchers to sell off most of their livestock, ultimately bringing about the closure of the town's biggest employer: the Cargill meat processing plant. At the end of the article, the reporter wrote about a group of local residents encircling the Cargill plant praying for a miracle. My heart literally skipped a beat.

It had been 15 years since I had last been to Plainview, Texas. I had come looking for locations for a Hollywood comedy/drama about a fake faith healer named Jonas Nightingale (played by Steve Martin) who, while stranded during a severe drought in a small West Texas town (read: Plainview) almost despite himself succeeds in bringing about an actual miracle (read: a rainstorm).

I sat staring at that New York Times article that morning and thought about the strange ways in which Art imitates Life and Life imitates Art. Back in 1992, I had chosen Plainview not only because of its photogenic big sky West Texas landscape but also because it seemed to sit at the literal epicenter of the one of the country's driest (read: dryland) agricultural regions. Plainview would be the perfect place to set this fictional story of a small town experiencing a devastating drought.

Unfortunately, Pierce recalled Saturday, the movie makers rolled into town during one of Plainviews wettest summers in years.

Much of Leap of Faith was filmed in and around Plainview, Tulia and Groom, and to give the film a touch of realism moviemakers had to truck in several loads of fine dust  drilling mud  as well as paint lawns and spray thriving crops along five miles of roadway to give the impression of drought. The film crew had to take shelter their first night in Plainview due to a tornado warning.

Pierce and location scout Michael Casey praised local and area residents for their hospitality and cooperation during their filmmaking. Casey is originally from Matador and he and his wife Anna drove up from Abilene where they now reside.

I really want to thank (Main Street Director) Melinda Brown for dreaming up this reception, Pierce said during an afternoon reception at the Broadway Brew. Twenty-five years earlier, the business was the Quick Lunch and it was a principal location for the film.

Its a rare opportunity to be invited back and reflect on a film. He praised the community for adding realism to the film. This story was so personal on the subject of faith, and it was just so pure and wholesome. Essentially, we started out with a very good script that was made even more convincing by the performances of the actors. He specifically noted actor Lucas Haas, who portrayed a crippled youth who is miraculously healed. He had to make it convincing for the film to succeed, and he really convinced me. But he wasnt the only one. We had to persuade the audience to accept an Irish actor (Liam Neeson) as a small town Kansas sheriff.

Casey, describing the role of a location scout, explained that they are charged with finding the right location after receiving a movie script. Its so nice to see friendly people like those we found in Plainview, Tulia and Groom, he said. In Los Angeles, it seems like everyone has their hand out. People didnt mind that we were here. Everyone was happy, and that made us very happy. Of course they didnt mind that we were spending a lot of money, and then we would be gone.

Several local individuals provided memories of serving as movie extras or having encounters with actor Steve Martin and others. Everyone was really nice, recalled Punkin Laird. We would see Steve Martin riding his bicycle around, or stopping to pet dogs.

The script from Leap of Faith was later reworked to become a highly successful Broadway musical which received a Tony nomination for best new musical.

Drs. David and Ruth Rector-Wright provided medical services for the cast and crew, and on Saturday related some of their experiences as did others.

Pierce recalled that in the days before computer generated images, thousands of monarch butterflies had to be captured in Palo Duro Canyon to be released outside Tulia in a pivotal scene during the film. Some of the butterflies were able to escape their makeshift cage prior to the filming when a thunderstorm roared through Tulia. An even greater disaster was avoided when Pierce redirected a City of Tulia truck that was spraying for mosquitoes with a chemical that was likely lethal to butterflies.

Most of what we remember about Plainview is the people, screenwriter Janus Cercone and producer Michael Manheim write in a letter. Everyone who participated on the show did so with utmost care, enthusiasm and professionalism. And those watching were friendly, respectful of the process and patient. When a movie comes to town its always fun at the beginning, but the Plainviewites were generous and kind till the very last day of shooting.
AUSTIN -- The Senate approved its proposal for increasing education spending before a possible school finance overhaul next session. The bill, passed late Monday night, would add more than half a billion dollars to districts and teacher retirement programs, much less than the $1.8 billion proposed by the House in its proposal. The chambers have just two more days to work out a compromise before the session ends Wednesday.

Bill author and Friendswood Sen. Larry Taylor said the two sides have reached an agreement on how to pay for the increase. The Legislature would defer payments to Medicaid managed care organizations at the end of fiscal year 2019, leaving more money on the books for this biennium. The delay is not expected to affect healthcare service delivery.

What is not agreed on is how much to spend. The Senate's version includes $150 million to help school districts still depending on a hold-harmless provision from 2006, when the Legislature voted to compress local school property taxes by a third. It was hoped that rising property values would eventually make up this loss of revenue, but some districts still rely on state aid. With that provision set to end in September, these districts would face severe hardship and steep cuts.

Also in the Senate plan is $120 million for new facilities funding for public education. The money would be split equally between traditional and charter public schools. The plan would also spend $41 million to phase out the small-district adjustment penalty. The Legislature passed that adjustment more than 30 years ago to encourage smaller rural districts to consolidate, but it means that many still-existing small districts get less per-capita funding than their larger counterparts. The Senate plan would phase that penalty out over the next six years. An amendment added by Houston Sen. Joan Huffman would create a $40 million grant program for students with dyslexia and autism.

The final provision in the bill would add $212 million to help lower healthcare costs for retired teachers. Teacher Retirement System beneficiaries who are under 65 would see their deductibles cut in half, while those over 65 would see a savings of about $120 year in premiums. Like school finance, TRS reform is likely to be a major issue when the Legislature reconvenes in 2019.

Now the House and Senate will begin negotiating a final measure to present to both chambers. Five members of each chamber will hash out an agreement to present to both chambers, where majority approval will send the bill to the governor for his signature. Time is running out though; lawmakers will have less than 48 hours to come to a compromise before the special session ends.

The Senate was to reconvene Tuesday, Aug. 15 at 4:30 p.m.
AUSTIN -- Working over the weekend, the Senate gave final approval to two measures, sending them to Gov. Greg Abbott for signature. A third will likely see final passage in the Senate on Monday. So far, five of the 20 items set for consideration by Abbott for the special session have made their way to his desk, with only three days left to consider the rest.

Two of the bills deal with abortion. The first, HB 214, sponsored by Conroe Sen. Brandon Creighton, would ban abortion coverage for insurance offered to state employees, private group insurance and insurance purchased through the ACA exchange. Abortion coverage would have to be purchased through a separate policy. The second, HB 215, sponsored by Sen. Bryan Hughes of Mineola, would add additional reporting requirements for abortions involving minor women, requiring providers to report to state health officials the number, location and means of permission for minors who get abortions. Minors seeking abortion in Texas require either parental approval or a judicial order. HB 215 will face a final vote in the Senate on Monday.
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At least 11 tier 1 or tier 2 gangs are active in Midland County, according to a Texas Department of Public Safety gang assessment threat from July.

The report showed activity from Tango Blast/Tango Clicks, Latin Kings, Texas Mexican Mafia, Texas Syndicate, Crips, Bloods, Bandidos Outlaw Motorcycle Gang, Surenos, Aryan Circle and Aryan Brotherhood of Texas.

The most significant gang in 2016, according to the report, was Barrio Azteca. Midland Police Department Officer D.J. Goswick said Barrio Azteca has been active maintaining crime through firearms and narcotics trafficking.

They tend to have more organized criminal scenes, Goswick said.

The report states the most significant gangs for 2016 in Region IV, which includes Midland and Odessa, are Barrio Azteca and the Tango cliques of El Paso (Chuco) and West Texas (WTX).

The largest and most active street gangs in the region are Surenos (all sets), Gangster Disciples and Crips (all sets).

The largest and most active prison gangs, according to the report, are the Tango cliques in West Texas (West Texas Tangos) and El Paso (Chuco), Barrio Azteca and Aryan Brotherhood of Texas.

Midland police reported 57 arrests of gang members in 2016 and 39 between January and June of this year. MPD said the arrests may not have been due to gang activity but those were arrests in general of gang members (MPD) had on file.

Goswick said it is difficult to recognize gang members, but residents should contact police if they see anything suspicious.

Gangs are involved in crimes related to firearms, property crime and narcotics, he said. Most of the firearms traffic comes from weapons stolen in burglaries, so people should lock up their firearms, said Goswick, one of 12 members of Midlands gang unit.

DPS gang assessment threat notes:

- Among convicted tier-ranked gang members entering into the Texas Department of Criminal Justice during calendar year 2016, about 7 percent came from counties in Region 4, which extends from just east of San Angelo to Presidio and El Paso to Midland-Odessa and Big Spring and includes Andrews and Seminole. Tangos members represent 37 percent of those convictions. Barrio Azteca accounted for 28 percent of convictions

- More than half of all tier-ranked gang members incarcerated in TDCJ prisons are serving sentences for violent crimes, including robbery (23 percent), homicide (16 percent), assaultive offenses (14 percent), and sexual assault (6 percent).
Plainview police are investigating a reported sexual assault that occurred about 4 p.m. Saturday in the 1300 block of Nassau. The crime was described as a strong armed rape.

--A residence in the 1400 block of Wayland was burglarized between 4-10:45 p.m. Thursday.

--A known person reportedly discharged a firearm at or in the direction of another about 6:30 p.m. Friday in the 100 block of Southwest Ninth Street. The crime is classified as deadly conducted by discharge of firearm.

--A residence in the 4100 block of West 16th was burglarized between 8:30 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 6 and 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 10.

--A 34-year-old woman was held in Hale County jail Monday on $1,500 bond on a charge of interference with public duties. She was arrested about 10 p.m. Sunday in the 700 block of I-27 west frontage road.

--Property valued between $50 and $500 was stolen from the 2800 block of Lexington about 9:15 p.m. Friday.

--A 26-year-old man was held in Hale County jail Monday on $2,500 bond for fail to identify fugitive intent on giving false information. He is also held without bond on six active municipal warrants, for speeding (47 mph in a 35 mph zone), $252.20 fine; fail to yield at stop intersection, $212.95 fine; fail to maintain financial responsibility, $347.43 fine; violate promise to appear, $346.81 fine; and two for unrestrained child under 5 years of age, $328.55 fine on each count. He was arrested about 11 a.m. Sunday in the 1000 block of West Fifth Street.

--A 49-year-old man was held in Hale County jail Saturday on $2,500 bond for assault causing bodily injury family member. Bond had not been set on a charge of obstruction or retaliation of report of a crime. He was arrested about 4:50 p.m. Friday in the 1000 block of Martinez.

--A three-wheeled Schwinn bicycle valued between $100 and $750 was stolen from the 800 block of West Eighth between 5:30 p.m. Saturday and 8 a.m. Sunday.

--Property valued between $100 and $750 was stolen from the 600 block of West 27th between 9 p.m. Saturday and 12:30 p.m. Sunday.

--A 26-year-old woman was held in Hale County jail Friday on $1,500 bond for theft of service between $20 and $500. She was arrested about 10:30 a.m. Thursday in the 1200 block of South I-27.

--A 52-year-old man was held in Hale County jail Friday on $200 for public intoxication. He was arrested about 9:50 p.m. Thursday in the 600 block of West Fifth Street. A 31-year-old woman was arrested at the same time. She was held for unauthorized use of a vehicle. Bond was not reported.

--Property valued between $100 and $750 was stolen from the 1400 block of Wayland between 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday.

--A vehicle reportedly was stolen from the 2000 block of West 20th between 4-6 p.m. Thursday.

--Property valued between $100 and $750 was stolen from the 1200 block of South I-27 on June 15. The crime was reported Thursday.

--A 37-year-old woman was held in Hale County jail Saturday on $2,500 bond on an active out-of-county warrant for assault causing bodily injury. She was arrested about 4:30 a.m. Friday in the 900 block of West Fifth Street.

--A vehicle was vandalized in the 2000 block of West 10th Street. The crime was reported about 11 a.m. Friday. Damage ranged between $2,500 and $30,000.

--A 53-year-old man was held in Hale County jail Monday without bond on active Justice of the Peace warrants for illegal burning and failure to appear. Outstanding fines are the charges are $550 and $350, respectively.

--A 32-year-old man was held in Hale County jail Monday on $2,500 bond for assault causes bodily injury family violence. He was arrested about 6:30 a.m. Sunday in the 900 block of Austin.
Jonathan Lee Navejar, 28, was held in Hale County jail Tuesday on an active Hale County warrant for aggravated robbery. Bond had not been set. He was arrested about 2:45 Monday in the 800 block of Denver.

--A vehicle was stolen from the 500 block of South Broadway between 11 a.m. Saturday and 4:20 p.m. Monday.

--A vehicle valued between $2,500 and $30,000 was stolen from the 400 block of South I-27 between May 24 and Oct. 14.

--Property valued between $750 and $2,500 was stolen from the 1400 block of Kokomo between about 8:30 a.m. Sunday and 11:40 a.m. Monday.

--An individual reported being harassed through the use of annoying or abusive phone calls early Monday afternoon.

--Property in the 1100 block of Houston was vandalized between 4 a.m. Sunday and about 4 p.m. Monday. Damage ranges between $100 and $750.

--A 56-year-old women was held in Hale County jail Tuesday without bond on three active warrants for operating an unregistered motor vehicle ($229.78 fine), expired drivers license ($245.38 fine) and failure to maintain financial responsibility ($390.88 fine). She was arrested about 11:15 a.m. Monday in the 300 block of West Fifth following a traffic stop.

--A 41-year-old woman was held in Hale County jail Tuesday on bonds totaling $400 on active local warrants for driving while license invalid ($843.70 fine) and failure to appear-bail jumping ($46.18 fine). She was arrested about 7:30 p.m. Monday in the 3400 block of Olton Road.

--Property in the 1400 block was vandalized about 5 p.m. Monday. The extent of damage was not listed.

--An individual reported a terroristic threat through intimidation. The crime occurred between 10-11 a.m. Monday in the 900 block of West 28th.

--Property in the 600 block of Nassau was vandalized between 6 p.m. Sunday and noon Monday. Damage ranged between $100 and $750.

(Anyone with information on crime in Plainview and Hale County may contact the Crime Stoppers Hotline at 293-8477 or 293-TIPS.)
FARMINGTON, Conn. (AP)  A bicyclist got a surprising companion while riding along a local rail trail.



A spokesman for the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection says a bear came out the woods in Farmington on Monday afternoon and followed the cyclist for a short distance before breaking off.



The bear did not make any physical contact with the man.



The cyclist, whose name was not made public, called police, who reported the incident to wildlife officials.



There have been no previous reports of bears in the area just west of Hartford.



The state plans to deploy a trap in the area to try and capture the bear.






NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP)  A Bridgeport man has pleaded guilty in federal court to distributing heroin that caused a lethal overdose last year.



Thirty-four-year-old Careem Bentley, of Bridgeport, pleaded guilty Monday in connection with the November 2016 death of a 37-year-old Monroe man. Investigators determined the man had purchased heroin from Bentley the night before he died.



Prosecutors say the case is part of a statewide crackdown on people who sell powerful drugs that can cause serious injury or death.



Bentley is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 3. He faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.






MERIDEN  A city man on probation for assaulting two Wallingford police officers was arrested in New Hampshire for assaulting a relative.



Kyle Barker, 21, of 99 Ivy Drive, was charged Tuesday with violation of probation because he did not have permission to leave the state.



On Sept. 6, 2016, Barker was convicted of assault on a police officer and interfering with police and sentenced to a four and a half year suspended prison sentence and three years probation, according to court records. The conviction stemmed from a 2015 incident in which Barker drove off while Wallingford police were trying to get him out of his vehicle, nearly dragging two officers.



On July 29, Barker was charged by New Hampshire State Police after he was involved in a dispute with a relative at a home in Alstead, New Hampshire. He was tased after attempting to flee from police and later attempted to kick out the windows of a cruiser, according to his arrest warrant. Barker was charged with resisting arrest or detention, two counts of simple assault and attempted criminal mischief.



Barker was arraigned in Meriden Superior Court on Tuesday. The bail commissioner said he is also facing charges of possession of alcohol by a minor, possession of a weapon in a motor vehicle, interfering with police, driving under the influence, improper passing and failure to display plates. According to court records, Barker was granted the alcohol education program for that case and ordered to attend 10 sessions of treatment.



Attorney Patrick Hughes, who represents Barker, said his client is a nice person until he drinks and is working full time. The judge released Barker on a promise to appear in court Sept. 7 and ordered him not to drink alcohol.






SOUTHINGTON  Crews are working to complete an Aldi supermarket and Chick-fil-A restaurant on Queen Street and are just starting work on a Chipotle Mexican Grill in the same plaza.



The new store and restaurants are part of a project by local developer John Senese. Senese bought several parcels, including a shuttered Chinese restaurant and former 7-Eleven store, to provide access to the plaza. The developer also cleaned up pollution caused by a metal plating company on the site.



Senese expects Aldi to open at the end of September or early October. Aldi held a hiring event in Southington last month.



Chick-fil-A has set Jan. 6, 2018 as the opening date for its Southington store, he said. A Rhode Island company, New England Construction, is building the Chick-fil-A. The project costs $1.6 million, according to the company.



Chipotle could open the first quarter of 2018. Senese said foundation work began Tuesday.



Thats just starting, he said.



Just south of the plaza is a shuttered 7-Eleven. Senese said a Go Urgent Care medical facility is moving into the building, which is at a traffic signal on Queen Street.



The Aldi plaza is part of efforts by Senese to develop an area that includes residential homes between plazas to the north and Home Depot. He owns houses along Queen Street and said theyll be removed for commercial development.



The Planning and Zoning Commission unanimously approved a business overlay zone for three streets off Queen Street, near the plaza. Nearly 30 residential properties on Upson Drive, Chaffee Lane and Stoughton Road are surrounded by stores and restaurants along Queen Street. Senese argued for the overlay zone , saying it would allow more commercial development and make the homes more valuable.



Senese has developed other nearby commercial property at 826 Queen St., a plaza that includes Smashburger, Noodles & Co. and 203 Urgent Care.



These are really nice looking buildings, Senese said. Theyre all going to be nice compliment to Queen Street, no question about that.



jbuchanan@recordjournal.com 203-317-2230 Twitter: @JBuchananRJ






A Wallingford woman faces 42 felony charges after police say she embezzled over $178,000 from a Middletown electric company where she worked as a secretary and bookkeeper.



Wendy Stocking, 43, of 40 Wooding Road, Wallingford, was charged Monday with first-degree larceny and 41 counts of second-degree forgery. She was arraigned in Middletown Superior Court and released her on a promise to appear in court on Sept. 19.



On July 10, representatives from Giuffrida Electric Company reported that Stocking, an employee for 14 years, embezzled a large amount of money from the company, according to her arrest warrant.



Stockings duties included producing payroll checks and business expense checks. While reviewing a June financial statement, one of the owners noticed checks for $8,944, $4,396, $3,760 and two for $1,880 were written to Stocking, the warrant said. The owner told police Stocking should not have been paid that much in a month, and that the checks were unauthorized.



An accountant discovered Stocking had been making out checks for large sums to herself since April 2016, the warrant said. A total of 41 fraudulent checks were discovered.



When Stocking arrived at work on July 10, she was confronted about the forged checks. She said she forged checks, the warrant said, but claimed she had only been forging them for two months.



Police allege Stocking embezzled a total of $178,963 and described the payments for training, bonus, medical reimbursement, the warrant said.



Pat Hughes, Stockings attorney, told police she was sorry and wanted to pay back the money, the warrant said.



Police applied for a warrant to review Stockings bank account, and requested the account be frozen. The warrant was granted by a judge on July 20.






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The public information officer for the Alameda County sheriffs office apologized Tuesday for mistakenly retweeting a video of a press conference held by a prominent white supremacist.

Sgt. Ray Kelly said he was doing research Monday night on neo-Nazi groups ahead of their planned Aug. 27 gathering in Berkeley when he accidentally retweeted Richard Spencers Unite the Right news conference to the more than 10,000 followers of the sheriffs office.

Kelly told The Chronicle that his views couldnt be further from the sentiments in the video and that he had to call his the sheriffs IT department to undo the retweet, which remained posted for more than half an hour.

I hit buttons at the bottom of the video and somehow it went up on our feed, Kelly said, adding that he took full responsibility for the error. It was a complete accident. ... Its very embarrassing for me personally because I couldnt feel further from how those people feel.

The backlash on Twitter was swift, with many users saying the retweet was a tacit endorsement of racist views.

A number of local groups, including the California Immigrant Policy Center and Asian Law Caucus, planned to protest Wednesday evening in front of the sheriffs office, saying that the retweet was part of a disturbing pattern of racist, anti-immigrant comments and stances at the department.

Its common for law enforcement to collect intelligence over social media ahead of protests. Thats how local and state police in Virginia knew that white nationalist organizers of the Charlottesville gathering were planning on bringing military-grade weapons, according to interviews Gov. Terry McAuliffe has given in recent days.

In the Bay Area, Kelly said its part of his job to keep tabs on groups from across the political spectrum. In the past, the sheriffs office and other agencies have followed the postings of Occupy Oakland and other affiliated groups.

Its important for me to know the faces of the people who are talking  whos in the news, who they are, whos following them and what they stand for, Kelly said.

Police agencies in the East Bay are on high alert in the wake of the deadly car crash in Charlottesville that killed a 32-year-old woman and injured 19 people who were protesting the white nationalist groups. An Ohio man was charged with murder after authorities said he rammed his car into a line of vehicles, then fled the scene.

Kelly said the sheriffs office, Berkeley police and other departments are putting together a robust plan that includes creating an area for demonstrators that vehicles cant reach. And although Kelly said he didnt watch much of Spencers news conference, he said that information gleaned online can be invaluable to preparing for potentially turbulent events.

Social media is a very powerful platform to get real-time information, Kelly said. And its also a very unforgiving place for accidental retweets.

Kimberly Veklerov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: KVeklerov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kveklerov
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San Franciscos top political leaders piled on Tuesday in opposition to a right-wing groups planned rally next week at Crissy Field, with Mayor Ed Lee expressing outrage that the National Park Service granted a permit for the event and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi questioning whether it had been approved under guidance from the White House.

An organizer of the Aug. 26 rally rejected suggestions that it would be a gathering of white supremacists. And the local managers of the Presidio, a national park site, said the groups politics made no difference because it had a constitutional right to a permit  as long as public safety isnt endangered.

Pelosi, Lee and Sen. Dianne Feinstein said their fear is that law enforcement wont be able to ensure public safety, especially in the aftermath of Saturdays violence at a rally of white supremacists and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Va. A woman was killed and 19 people were hurt when a car was driven into a crowd of counterprotesters, allegedly by a man who has espoused neo-Nazi views.

The Golden Gate National Recreation Area tentatively issued a permit to the group Patriot Prayer for the Crissy Field rally before last weekends violence. Patriot Prayer says on its website that it is about fighting corruption and big government with the strength and power of love ... and extending free speech for all.

The group was not connected to the Virginia rally of white nationalists. However, its recent events in Portland, Ore., and Seattle have served as magnets for right-wing extremists, who in turn have drawn left-wing counterprotesters. Clashes between the two sides marked the Portland event, while the Seattle rally Sunday was largely peaceful.

The group is ostensibly religious, but its purpose is really an attempt to provoke black-clad ideologues on the left into acts of violence, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks alleged hate groups.

Pelosi said in a statement that San Francisco takes great pride in being a city of peace which cherishes free speech and the right to dissent. However, the National Park Services decision to permit a white supremacist rally at Crissy Field raises grave and ongoing concerns about public safety. She wants the agency to reconsider.

The San Francisco Democrat also asked at what level the rally had been given a permit. At the National Park Service? she said. In the Department of the Interior? Or under guidance from the White House?

Calls to the White House seeking comment brought no response.

Feinstein, D-Calif., said that Crissy Field is an inappropriate site for the rally and that she was reaching out to the GGNRA to find out what is going on.

I dont think ... it makes sense to have any kind of potentially volatile group in an area where families gather, Feinstein said.

Lee said he was outraged that the GGNRA had approved the permit without proper planning and resources, given the public safety concerns. In a letter to agency Superintendent Cicely Muldoon, Lee said there wasnt time to pull together the multiagency response that will be required.

The GGNRA did not respond to requests for comment on the fusillade of objections. But earlier, officials told us they couldnt take the organizers political views into consideration in granting a permit.

When it involves First Amendment rights ... we dont regulate the opinions of the people seeking the permits, said GGNRA spokeswoman Sonja Hanson. Its based on the Constitution.

That said, Hanson said park police were working closely with the San Francisco Police and Fire departments to ensure the rally doesnt turn ugly if counterprotesters show up.

It will only be held under peaceful and safe circumstances, Hanson said  and if it cant be, officials could still call off the gathering.

San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott said Tuesday that his department would work to ensure everyones right to free speech and that we will not tolerate violence in any form.

A posting on the Patriot Prayer Facebook page describes what it calls Liberty Weekend in the Bay Area  kicking off with the Aug. 26 gathering hosted by group organizer Joey Gibson, followed by a rally the next day at Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park in Berkeley, hosted by Transsexual Patriot Amber Gwen Cummings.

Cummings is advertising the No Marxism in America rally in Berkeley on her Facebook page. However, Matthai Chakko, a spokesman for the city, said, We have had no one seek a permit for that date for any event in the park, and that is what somebody would do if they wanted to have a safe and successful event.

Gibson describes the Crissy Field event as a day of freedom, spirituality, unity, peace and patriotism. Scheduled speakers include Gibson, Cummings and Harim Uziel of the group Los Angeles for Trump.

On a video posted Tuesday on his Facebook page, Gibson took aim at San Franciscos political establishment.

For those of you who believe we are seriously going to throw a white nationalist supremacist rally in San Francisco, its time for logic, Gibson said. We have a black speaker, two Hispanic speakers, weve got an Asian, a brown speaker right here (referring to himself)  we got a transsexual and we arent talking about race.

Gibson added: We are talking about America, and freedom and love and God, and that is why people in San Francisco are so afraid of our message. I dare the politicians in San Francisco and Berkeley to talk about how we are white supremacists, because all you are going to do is lose your credibility.

Political leaders arent buying it. At a City Hall news conference, Board of Supervisors President London Breed said, We will do everything we can to stop this from happening in San Francisco.
Bill Gates made his largest single gift since the turn of the century, giving away Microsoft shares that accounted for 5 percent of his fortune, the worlds biggest.

The billionaire donated 64 million of the software makers shares to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on June 6, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings released Monday. The shares were valued at $4.6 billion at the time.

Its the largest gift of Microsoft shares that Gates, 61, has made since 2000. He gave away $16 billion worth of the stock in 1999 and $5.1 billion a year later, according to calculations by Bloomberg.

Its a change in how he distributes that asset, said Ben Silverman, research director at InsiderScore, noting that Gates has been reducing his stake methodically for years through share sales to fund his foundation.

Spokesmen for Gates and Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft didnt respond to requests for comment.

Bill and Melinda Gates have given away about $35 billion of stock and cash since 1994, based on the value of the shares at the time of gifts, according to a review of Gates Foundation tax returns, annual reports and regulatory filings. Gates created the Giving Pledge in 2010 with billionaire investor Warren Buffett, and they have been joined by 168 others who promised to give the majority of their wealth to charity.

Gates probably has directed more than 700 million shares of Microsoft into the foundation, adjusting for stock splits, and he would be about $50 billion richer today had he kept them. The June gift represents 38 percent of his holding in the company and is the latest in a long line of Microsoft share disposals that have whittled his stake from 24 percent in 1996 to 1.3 percent now.

Gates remains the richest person on earth after the donation with a fortune the Bloomberg Billionaires Index valued at $86 billion as of 10:40 a.m. Tuesday in New York. His donation once again puts Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos close to the top spot, with a net worth of $84.5 billion.

Bezos, 53, whose fortune has surged 30 percent since Jan. 1, briefly leapfrogged Gates last month to become the worlds richest person on an intraday basis.
PHILADELPHIA  A Philadelphia-area woman contends that she bit into a Chick-fil-A sandwich last year and discovered something baked into the bun that she hadnt ordered: a dead mouse.

In a lawsuit filed in county court, Ellen Manfalouti said she found the tiny rodent baked into the chicken sandwich her co-worker at Nationwide Insurance brought back for her from one of the chains area drive-throughs in November.

Manfalouti, 46, had started to eat the sandwich in a conference room at her office when I felt something funny on the bottom of the bun, she said in an interview Monday. I turned it over. I said to (my co-worker), They burned my roll really bad.

Her co-worker, Cara Phelan, said that as soon as Manfalouti threw it on the table, I realized it was a small rodent of some sort. I could see the whiskers and the tail.

Manfaloutis lawyer, Bill Davis, said that he filed the suit last week against Chick-fil-A franchise owner Dave Heffernan and the store because both had stonewalled attempts to address the complaint. The suit seeks more than $50,000 for what it says are physical and psychological injuries Manfalouti has endured since the Nov. 25 episode.

Reached Monday, Heffernan said: Were not going to make any comment about any allegations. Its an ongoing allegation and investigation. The Atlanta-based restaurant chain also emailed an identical response, attributing it to Heffernan.

According to a laboratory analysis provided by Manfaloutis lawyer, the animal was a small rat/mouse, and appeared to have been baked onto the bottom of the bun.

Her lawsuit contends the defendants were negligent, saying they failed to supervise employees who intentionally and/or knowingly served a sandwich to a customer with a dead rodent baked into the bun and failed to have proper procedures in place to inspect their own food products before selling them to customers.

Davis, in an email Monday, said they decided to file the lawsuit after months of seeking a resolution. He said Chick-fil-A sought to push responsibility onto the franchise owner, the owner said the bakery may have been to blame, and the bakerys insurance company denied liability.

The franchise itself has never said who supplied the buns for their sandwiches. I have given them every chance in the world to talk to me about it and give their side, but they just referred it to their insurance company, who in turn has not engaged in any real conversation, Davis said.

After realizing that she almost bit into a dead rodent that day, Manfalouti said she basically lost my mind. I screamed.

Nauseated and distraught, she walked outside to get some air, then returned and snapped pictures on her phone and called Heffernan. Oh, this cant be good, she recalled him saying. She said she emailed him the photos and the receipt.

Later that day, she went to an emergency room. There, she said, she was given intravenous medication for her nausea. She later contacted her own doctor, who gave her a prescription for her nausea, she said. And she saw a psychologist for her anxiety.

She and Davis provided a copy of her discharge instructions from the medical center, the receipt for the sandwich, and photos of the sandwich and dead rodent.

Over the next weeks, Manfalouti said, she was nauseated and could hardly eat.

I had anxiety and nightmares, which I still do, she said. The first month was really rough.
Hannelore Foerster/Getty Images

Group 1 Automotive has acquired an Audi dealership in Fort Worth as it works to grow its luxury brand sales nationwide.

The Houston-based Fortune 500 auto retailer expects the new dealership to generate $55 million a year. The company now operates 13 Audi dealerships Texas, Florida, Massachusetts, South Carolina and the U.K.
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Greenspoint Mall is under contract for redevelopment, but the sprawling property isn't closing anytime soon.

A group of investors has agreed to purchase the struggling mall from Triyar Cos. and transform it into a mixed-use development, but both parties now say it'll be years before construction begins.

The deal, expected to close within four months, involves a five-year period during which the investors will design the project, seek community input and pay off a substantial financial note underpinning the purchase.

Triyar, which owns a number of other real estate projects, will continue to operate the mall until the note is paid off.

"Redevelopment is a very long-term process," said Bob Yari, a Triyar executive and president and CEO of Yari Film Group in Los Angeles. "We're trying to time everything with (tenant) leases expiring."

RELATED: Struggling Greenspoint Mall finds a buyer at last

Global Plaza Union, a group of investors led by Chinese developer Feng Gao, is considering three concepts involving a mix of residential and commercial space, but it declined to offer details.

Reggie Gray, president of the Houston Intercontinental Chamber of Commerce and a partner in the project, said group will use the five-year payoff period to conceptualize the redevelopment and seek input from residents about what they'd like to see as part of it.

"We want their feedback, honestly," he said. "We have some areas of flexibility where we're trying to see where things could be integrated and that would still work with the concept."

The redevelopment process itself will likely take up to five years. The group must first purchase the Sears, Macy's and Dillard's department store spaces, which are operated independently of Triyar.

An investor has purchased the Macy's property with the intent to turn it into a truck stop and perhaps a distribution center, said Jim Maddox, a broker with Maddox Properties. He disclosed Monday that the deal closed in early July, a few months after the department store ceased operations there.

Maddox has for months been in touch with Triyar executives and others regarding possible plans for the property, he said, but he didn't known it was under contract until the news broke late last week. He added that his client has considered the investor group's offers for the Macy's property but doesn't have a strong interest in selling it because the truck stop could be lucrative.

"It ain't pretty, but it makes money," Maddox said. "Think about the amount of truck traffic that goes up and down I-45."

Gray said negotiations for all three former department store properties are underway.

"I refer to it as my legacy project," he said. "It has the momentum to change the area that used to be referred to as Gunspoint."

RELATED: Greenspoint Mall's long decline offers lessons for retailers

The mall has for years languished as a result of competition from newer malls, office market vacancies, and changes in the way shoppers buy and browse for goods. Triyar for years considered redeveloping the property before tabling its plans.

"Everything that's happened to the area has worked counter to that," Yari said.

If the sale to Global Plaza Union falls through, Yari said, his company would likely resume its plan to renovate the mall. It's pursuing similar efforts at two mall properties in Indiana and Ohio.

But the company has in recent years sold off several mall properties facing similar pressures. Yari said he's looking to invest instead in other retail sectors.

"High end (retail) is doing well, but the midlevel is challenged," he said. "We have vastly reduced the number of malls we own."
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San Japan has come a long way from its early days of herding sweaty cosplayers between venues in the summer heat  10 years and one cooler, more elevated setting, to be exact.

Rolling with the designation San Japan X, San Antonios big anime and Japanese pop culture convention celebrates its 10th anniversary Labor Day Weekend with a gaggle of new thrills and plenty of classic fun for all those super-passionate fans lovingly referred to as otaku. San Japan runs Sept. 1 through Sept. 3 at the Convention Center.

This years theme? Only one of the greatest role-playing video game franchises to ever win over Japan and the world beyond.

RELATED: Photos: San Japan brings in fans of all ages at 2016 event

Really its Final Fantasy everywhere at the con, said S. David Ramirez, community relations director for San Japan.

New highlights at San Japan include A New World, a live orchestral performance of Final Fantasy music with Japanese composer Naoshi Mizuta, plus special guests that voice characters in the Final Fantasy games, such as Ray Chase (Noctis) and Robbie Daymond (Prompto), and even a Final Fantasy theme for the conventions always-popular formal masquerade ball.

Thats in addition to a couple of big names out of Japan looking to make some serious noise in the Alamo City: San Japan X marks the final United States performance of the Japanese punk rock band All Off and the S.A. debut of the popular Japanese fashion brand, Listen Flavor.

Then theres all the usual animated madness at San Japan, such as the many interactive panels and activities as well as artists and vendors. And dont forget the colorful cosplay, where con-goers bring the likes of Pikachu, Sailor Moon and other beloved characters to life in the most dynamic handmade and special-ordered costumes to ever grace the convention floor and stage of the Lila Cockrell Theatre.

And to think it all started with an anime convention that almost wasnt.

The first San Japan was slated as a three-day event in July 2007, but was postponed due to location issues. Instead, it launched as sort of a single-day beta event called San Japan: Zero Day Anime, which hosted around 800 at Our Lady of the Lake University on Nov. 10, 2007.

RELATED: Power Rangers stars coming to San Antonio: 'It's morphin' time'

The first official three-day convention followed in August 2008 with San Japan 1.5. The 1.5 couldnt have been more apropos; San Japan split its fun between the El Tropicano Riverwalk Hotel and what used to be the nearby San Antonio Municipal Auditorium, now the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts.

The dual setup came with its most memorable godsend  a series of water stations along Lexington Avenue between the Municipal and El Tropicano to hydrate all those sunbaked attendees trekking between hotspots.

San Japan would move on to the Marriott Rivercenter Hotel in 2010, then to its current home at the Convention Center in 2012. Today, its billed as the largest anime convention in South Texas, with last years show drawing around 16,300.

Not bad for an event that literally began with local fans thirsting for an anime convention experience in San Antonio.

Its kind of crazy to think we were just in the basement of the Municipal (Auditorium) and now were in year 10, Ramirez said. A decade goes by real quick.

READ MORE: Twice the frights! San Antonio is getting 2 horror conventions in October

rguzman@express-news.net

Twitter: @reneguz
Texas may already be known as a friendly state, but a recent ranking suggests the Lone Star State is pet-friendly too.

In a recent report by Wallet Hub, 13 Texas cities landed among the most pet-friendly cities in the nation, with San Antonio earning the 19th spot out of 100 cities in the United States.
Mexican authorities swept 31 resorts, restaurant and nightclubs in Cancun and Playa del Carmen where regulators seized 10,000 gallons of illegal alcohol, according to reports.

The thousands of gallons of counterfeit alcohol came from a company with "bad manufacturing practices," the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. The results of the search were announced Friday at a news conference in Mexico.

GALLERY: See the slideshow below to learn of the safest places in Mexico to visit.

TOUCHING TALE: Dad bikes to Louisiana to meet his daughter's heart recipient

KTRK reports the Fat Tuesday bar in Cancun and the lobby bar in the Iberostar Paraiso Maya, where 20-year-old Abbey Conner of Wisconsin allegedly drank tainted alcohol and later drowned in a resort pool, have been shut down as a result of the search.

"This is awesome; this is huge," Ginny McGowan, Abbey Conner's mother told the Journal Sentinel.

"It's needed. There is obviously stuff going on that needs to be cleaned up and looked into further. They need to investigate and interview employees. This makes sense. This needs to happen."

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WARNING: State Department warns tourists of 'tainted alcohol' in Mexico

The McGowan case is among multiple reports of people being served alcohol that had negative effects on them. The Journal Sentinel uncovered that dozens of vacation goers have been given tainted alcohol or possibly drugged, in order to mug, sexually assault or extort them. The travelers' accounts were backed up by hospital, ambulance and hotel records.
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Student rallies at Texas A&M University next month will proceed even as university administrators cancelled a White Lives Matter event hosted by an outside organizer.

Aggies had planned several rallies to protest that White Lives Matter event, which would have been attended by Richard Spencer, an alt-right leader who spoke on campus in December.

Student organizers have kept those event pages active online. They now use that platform to promote causes for donations, and they say they still plan to host speakers and cheers on Sept. 11.

HoustonChronicle.com: Campuses are targets of alt-right speakers. How should they respond?

White Lives Matter activists will likely still come to campus that day, said Michael Buse, a rising senior from Ohio who organized one of the protest events.

Just because that permits gone doesnt mean theyre not going to sue to get it back, he said. Or, theyre just going to show up.

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Preston Wiginton, a one-time A&M student who organized the White Lives Matter event, said Monday he expected to pursue legal action following the cancellation late Monday. The university said it believed it was in its legal rights to call it off.

Buse, 21, said he was incredulous then scared as he followed coverage from the Charlottesville rally near the University of Virginia.

Violence, which turned deadly the next day, gave him pause, he said. But Buse said students could not stand the idea of ignoring campus racism, and they decided to organize.

Letting them come to our campus and harass our students of colors, different creeds, national origins  that doesnt work, he said. We cant ignore them. Theyre not going to ignore us. Whenever they come here and we say nothing, theyve won.

HoustonChronicle.com: Mother wants daughter home in Houston after Charlottesville injury

A&M officials said the planned protest raised safety concerns after the violence in Virginia. In addition, A&M officials said Monday the daylong event would have challenged class schedules and the movement of students, faculty and staff.

Spencer said Monday night that Texas A&Ms argument for canceling the program was weak and that counter-protesters would bring any violence associated with the event.

You cannot suppress free speech on that basis, he said. This could get interesting.

Students said on social media that they are also organizing a prayer vigil for Sept. 10.

Fernando Alfonso III contributed.
Submitted

Evelyn Rubenstein JCC of Houston has spearheaded activation of Super Neighborhood 31 (SN No. 31) that includes Greater Meyerland in direct response to flooding and crime events. The City of Houston and Mayor Sylvester Turner formally recognized the formation of SN No. 31 at City Hall on July 25, 2017. Leadership of the group represents nine distinguished Homeowner Associations and several recognized community stakeholders.

"Our goal is to make the Greater Meyerland area a better place to live, shop, work and go to school," said Harold L. Harris, SN No. 31 President. "Super Neighborhood No. 31 represents more than 20,000 individuals. Our strength in numbers will get City Hall to listen and assist us in returning the Greater Meyerland area to the desirable area it was in the past."
As Fort Bend ISD educators await the Texas Education Agency's school ratings for the past academic year, leaders at the district's two lowest performing schools are hopeful that a new program implemented last year will have proved successful.

After Briargate and Ridgemont elementary schools were deemed in need of improvement by the TEA two years in a row, the school district was required by state law to enact a radical reform plan for the campuses.

The result was Educators Dedicated to Growing Excellence, or EDGE, a $1 million program that revamped the two schools with campus renovations, new staff and an innovative form of teaching that incorporated mentor and master teachers, as well as a flexible, small-group classroom approach.

The principals of both Briargate and Ridgemont elementary schools said that they have seen improvement in the first year of the program, citing better attendance and parent engagement.

At a midyear assessment in February, the Chronicle reported that students had tested higher on district assessments at 18 weeks into the school year than they had at nine weeks, that instances of out-of-school suspensions were down to 10 in August through February from 71 in the entire previous school year and that attendance was up a few percentage points.

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"One parent commented that it was easier to bring her student to school because she now wants to come to school every day so she won't miss something important," said Briargate Elementary Principal Deanna Olson, in an email. "During our first year of the EDGE program we have seen tremendous academic growth."

Both of the struggling schools are located in economically disadvantaged areas. Seventy-four percent of Briargate's and 84 percent of Ridgemont's students come from low-income households, according to data from Houston-based advocacy nonprofit, Children At Risk. The campuses are also black and Hispanic majority -- two facts that stack the odds against the students, according to local activist and social worker Regina Gardner.

"These communities are having a terrible time," Gardner said. "When kids live a life of abject poverty, they suffer with developmental delays. A lot of times there are situations and families that are unstable  We have to become experts in all of the interventions in minority communities."

Fort Bend ISD educators are hopeful that the changes to the staff and structure at Briargate and Ridgemont will help lift the students out of the cycle of academic underachievement.

As an incentive to draw highly-qualified candidates, EDGE teachers were offered stipends ranging from $1,500 for a teacher to $15,000 for a master teacher. According to the district website, each candidate completed a "rigorous, multi-step hiring process."

Ridgemont Elementary employs 40 staff, including one lead master teacher, eight master teachers, 10 mentor teachers and 11 EDGE teachers.

"(The students') everyday experience was enhanced by highly effective teachers in every classroom," said Ridgemont Elementary Principal Stephanie Houston, in an email.

"Because of our love for children, we provide them with and instill the importance of a quality education hoping that the seeds planted will create a desire to be a life-long learner," said Cathy DeYoung, a second grade mentor teacher at Briargate.

Both campuses introduced a recognition-based incentive approach to achievement for the students called the "7 Up Club," which emphasizes celebration of any measure of improvement.

"Students celebrate all growth from one assessment to the next," Olson said. "We are creating a culture where students know that it is about improvement and doing your best."

Still, the district has much riding on this improvement reflecting in the students' state standardized testing results. Under state law, if the schools do not pass the TEA's assessment within two years of implementing the recovery program, the state education commissioner must close the campuses, order new management or appoint a board of managers at the district level.

Olson and Houston are both planning to build on the previous year's work as the EDGE program enters its second year this fall.

"We have begun to build solid relationships with the students, and we know that students thrive in schools where they know that the staff cares about them," Olson said. "I am looking forward to seeing the students continue with the growth mindset, and to see them continue to aspire to greater levels of success."
It's mid-July, and there's still another month before hundreds of kids flood the halls of the newly constructed Kathleen Joerger Lindsey Elementary School just south of I-10 in Katy. Still, the building is a flurry of activity.

Maintenance staff work to assemble all of the desks, bookshelves and other furniture. Administrators check and double check the supply deliveries and stock each room with pencils, staplers and everything else needed for a successful inaugural school year.

Heather Williams, Lindsey's principal, has been busy preparing for the first day of school since she was hired in March  and she hasn't slowed down since.

"It's been a lot," she said with a laugh.

Lindsey is one of four new elementary schools opening in Fort Bend County this August, with plans for several more new schools in Lamar CISD and Fort Bend ISD to be built in the coming years.

The need for more schools reflects the dramatic population growth that Fort Bend County has seen over the past several years. The county has grown by more than 150,000 people - from 590,433 to 741,237 - from 2010 to 2016, according to data from the Fort Bend Economic Development Council, and is not expected to slow down soon. The population could increase by more than 2.1 million people by 2050, if current migration trends continue, according to projections from the University of Houston.

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To keep up with the growth, the county's two largest school districts have had to scramble to address overcapacity issues.

Lamar CISD, with its 30,829 students and 3.8 percent growth rate, was the sixth fastest growing school district in Texas for the 2016-17 school year, according to Lamar CISD's 2017 demographic update. Fort Bend ISD was right behind it with 1.5 percent growth and 74,210 students.

Fort Bend ISD will open Donald Leonetti Elementary, with 316 students, James C. Neill Elementary, with 585 students, and James Patterson Elementary, with 573 students, this August. Each school has capacity to grow to serve 850 students. The campuses were built with funds from a 2014 bond and cost about $102.3 million.

Likewise, Lindsey, which cost about $23.8 million, will open with 400 students, but has capacity for 800.

The communities that Lindsey will serve are almost all new housing developments that are only partially completed, Williams said.

Lamar CISD plans to put a nearly $440 million bond proposal on the ballot in November, which would include $317 million for a new high school, junior high and three elementary schools.

"Lamar is unique in the fact that it is exploding in growth on both sides - farthest north in Katy and on the south side," Williams said. "It's a race to keep up with the new builds that are coming in and make sure we're not at overcapacity."

Fort Bend ISD modified its zoning earlier this year to prepare for its three new elementary schools and the new middle school that will open next fall, as well as to re-distribute the populations at certain campuses to address overcrowding.

"We looked at current enrollment, projected enrollment, building capacity and building utilization," said Fort Bend ISD COO Oscar Perez, in an email. "Changes were made to accommodate projected enrollment over the next several years."

Fort Bend ISD is projected to add 6,000 students by 2018, according to district demographic data.

In addition to providing more space and staff for students to learn, both Fort Bend ISD and Lamar CISD have incorporated "state-of-the-art" education designs and technology into the building of the new campuses.

Fort Bend's new schools will have libraries designed as creative hubs and will incorporate "maker spaces" for all grades to encourage collaboration and creation, according to the district website.

And at Lamar's Lindsey Elementary, each classroom is equipped with surround sound, interactive whiteboards and iPads to aid in education.

As Williams spends the final weeks before the first day of school ensuring leaks are patched and computers are installed, she looks forward to building the community that will exist inside the walls. The first week of school will be mostly focused on the students and staff having fun and getting to know each other.

"We really want to be a family here," Williams said.
CHARLOTTESVILLE - Years before a 20-year-old Ohio man allegedly rammed his car into a panicked crowd of activists in Charlottesville, it was his disabled mother who was terrified.

James Alex Fields Jr. was barely a teenager in 2010 when his mother - who uses a wheelchair - locked herself in a bathroom, called 911 and said her son had struck her head and put his hands over her mouth when she told him to stop playing a video game, according to police records. On another occasion, records show, he brandished a 12-inch knife. Once, he spit in her face.

"Mom is scared he is going to become violent here," a dispatcher wrote in a log of the November 2011 call in which Fields's mother, Samantha Bloom, requested police help in getting her son to a hospital for assessment.

The portrait of a violent teen emerged as Fields was denied bail Monday during his first court appearance in connection with the Charlottesville attack that killed one and injured 19 others when his Dodge Challenger plowed into a mass of counterprotesters at a white nationalist rally Saturday. He is charged with second-degree murder, hit and run and three counts of malicious wounding.

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Prosecutors did not detail the evidence against Fields, who appeared via a video link from the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail. Fields came to Virginia to attend the rally, according to Bloom, who spoke to reporters over the weekend.

Fields replied, "No, sir," when asked in court whether he has any ties to the Charlottesville community.

The college town, along with the nation, continued to grapple with the violence that took three lives, including two Virginia state troopers who were killed when their helicopter crashed in woods not far from Charlottesville. Heather Heyer, 32, of Charlottesville, was killed when Fields barreled toward her and other counterprotesters "at a high rate of speed," police said.

A few hours after the court hearing, President Trump responded to growing criticism about his initial response to the violence by singling out the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and other white supremacists as "criminals and thugs . . . that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans."

Earlier on Monday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in television appearances that the violence met the definition of domestic terrorism. Charlottesville Police Chief Al Thomas said that his department responded to 250 calls on Saturday and that officers were still taking reports of assault from the weekend.

Thomas defended his department's handling of the explosive convergence of white nationalists from around the country and hundreds of counterprotesters. Both sides have criticized the failure of officers to keep the sides apart, but Thomas said officers coped as well as they could with protesters, who were determined to cause trouble despite agreements worked out in advance.

"We worked out a plan to bring the groups in," Thomas said at a news conference. "They changed the plan and entered the park in different directions."

Richard Spencer, a leader of the alt-right, which calls for a form of American apartheid, told reporters Monday that his group would "one hundred percent" return to Charlottesville to protest the planned removal of a Robert E. Lee statue. He also held his followers blameless in the Charlottesville melee.

Speaking in his Alexandria office after two Washington hotels canceled his reservations, Spencer said that blame for the deadly attack fell on authorities who he said failed to keep order.

"Mayor Mike Signer and Governor Terry McAuliffe have blood on their hands," he said. "Their job is to keep order. They kept chaos."

Spencer also refused to condemn Fields, claiming that he had seen video footage of Fields's car being attacked by someone with a baseball bat.

"I'm not going to condemn this young man at this point," he said. "This man could have lost control because he felt in danger and slammed on the accelerator and unintentionally killed someone."

Spencer also dismissed Trump's condemnation of white supremacists as "hollow and vapid . . . kumbaya nonsense."

"I don't think anyone takes it seriously, including the president," he said.

At his appearance before Judge Robert H. Downer Jr. in Charlottesville General District Court, Fields said he could not afford an attorney and was appointed one by the court.

Fields, who served a four-month stint in the Army in 2015, worked for about two years as a security guard in Ohio, earning $10.50 an hour and taking home about $650 every two weeks, according to income information filed with the court.

The judge informed Fields that he could not be defended by the Charlottesville public defender's office because a relative of someone who works for the office was involved in Saturday's incident. He did not specify whether that meant the protests or the crash.

"I'm going to make a decision that you could not have a bond until you see your attorney," the judge said in appointing Charles L. Weber Jr. to represent Fields.

Downer set Aug. 25, at 11 a.m., as the next court date to consider scheduling of a preliminary hearing.

The judge asked Fields whether he understood everything that had taken place, and Fields responded, "Yes, sir."

The city's decision this year to change the name of Lee Park to Emancipation Park and to order the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue from the park has made it a lightning rod for white nationalists and extremists who see the moves as an attempt to erase white history.

Weber, Fields's court-appointed attorney, is one of a dozen plaintiffs in a lawsuit seeking to stop the removal of the Lee statue.

The lawsuit, filed on March 20, describes Weber as a Vietnam fighter pilot with "a special interest in the protection and preservation of war memorials and monuments located in the City, including those of Generals Lee and Jackson."

Those who wish to defend the statues had "no recourse but to proceed in a court of law," he told The Washington Post when the suit was filed.

Weber did not return repeated calls on Monday.

The 911 records indicating Fields's teenage outbursts, first reported by the website TMZ, cover police calls made while Fields and his mother lived in Florence, Ky., about 20 minutes southwest of Cincinnati. In the past year, they moved near Toledo. The records seem to indicate that he was arrested and held in juvenile detention after the November 2011 call.

In the 2010 call, Bloom reported that her son had struck her in the head and threatened to beat her after she told him to stop playing video games. Bloom said her son was taking medication to control his temper and told authorities that she was locked in the bathroom.

In October of the following year, Bloom called 911 to say that her son was "being very threatening toward her" and that she didn't feel "in control of the situation," according to a dispatcher's notes.

And in November 2011, police were asked to come to the house because Bloom was said to want her son to be assessed at a hospital, according to the records. He had spat in her face, said the caller, whose connection to the family is not clear in the records.

The previous night, Fields had stood behind his mother with a 12-inch knife, the caller reported.

"Scared mom to death not knowing if he was going to do something," the dispatcher's report continued.

In Charlottesville on Monday, the late-summer rhythms of the college town began to reassert themselves. Parents helped students move into dorms and apartments ahead of the first day of classes at the University of Virginia next week. In places, it almost seemed as if the violence that shook the country had never happened.

Pedestrians made their way silently to one of two impromptu memorials for Heyer.

But at the center of it all, leaning against the controversial statue of the Confederate general, stood a reminder of all that had changed.

A hand-lettered sign read "Heyer Memorial Park" - an informal name change for a contested space.

- - -

The Washington Post's Joe Heim, Justin Wm. Moyer and James Higdon contributed to this report.
DES MOINES | Gov. Kim Reynolds on Tuesday joined a chorus of Iowans urging the state Board of Regents to take a cautious approach to raising yearly tuition for students enrolled at the three state universities.

A regent panel has received proposals from presidents of the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa to make up for declining state appropriations by raising undergraduate tuition by as much as 41 percent over the next five years, but the governor balked at the idea during her weekly news conference.

"That is too much," Reynolds told reporters. "There is no way that Iowa families could afford a 7 percent increase over five years."

The governor did not say if she supported raising tuition and, if so, what level she would recommend, telling reporters instead that she is encouraging the regents to "take a look at what's manageable and keep in the forefront doing everything we can do to keep higher education costs, post-secondary costs down." She pointed to past efforts that froze tuition at state universities for two and a half years.

This week UI President Bruce Harreld offered a multi-year plan that would increase resident undergrad rates 7.08 percent each year through 2022 - raising rates from $7,486 this fall to $10,537. The five-year plan also includes an annual 2.08 percent bump for non-resident undergrads - increasing this year's $29,130 to $32,288 by 2022. The proposed UI tuition increases also would extend to graduate students and those in costlier programs like medicine, engineering, dentistry and business.

Last week, UNI and ISU officials presented their plans to the task force. ISU pitched a similar rate plan and UNI proposed a smaller 2.5 annualized bump for resident undergrads, provided the Legislature also appropriated enough money.

The regents would have to approve any tuition increases annually, making the university plans only suggestions. But if regents approve the proposed increases, they would usher in the first significant split in basic resident undergrad rates between the three public universities.

While the UI and ISU would push resident undergrad costs to around $10,500, UNI's comparable rate would rise more slowly to $8,237 by 2022.

"They're going to work through the process," Reynolds said of the regents' future deliberations. "The regents will take a look at what's possible and what's the right amount moving forward. Their work is just getting started and I'm going to let them work through the process."

On other topics, Reynolds:

* Acknowledged Iowa is among the states being considered as a possible site for a joint venture by Japanese automakers Toyota and Mazda to build a $1.6 billion U.S. assembly plant that would create up to 4,000 jobs but declined to divulge any additional details. "We don't want to let other states to know what we're doing," she said named as assests Iowa's central location, talented workforce, infrastructure, certified industrial sites and low electric rates.

* Said state officials are monitoring dry weather conditions that continues to negatively impact Iowa's corn and soybean crops as harvest approaches. A report issued Monday showed 3 percent of Iowa's corn crop was rated in very poor condition and 9 percent poor, while 81 percent was still rated in fair to good condition and 9 percent excellent. Similar conditions were reported for Iowa's soybean acres.

* Called violence associated with a deadly white supremacy protest in Charlottesville, Va., last week "unconscionable" and said she has no information that similar events have been planned in Iowa. "This racist bigotry is not who we are as Americans. We've got to come together and really fight for what unites us," Reynolds said when asked to comment on the situation in Virginia. "It's unacceptable. It can't be tolerated. There is absolutely no place for the hatred that we saw there."

* Said she called Christina Andersen, the graphic designer who created the options for the new Iowa Department of Transportation license places, to thank her for her work in the face of negative social media responses to the three designs that are in the running to become the new state license plate. "We need to treat everybody with respect and dignity. It's OK to have an opinion, but it's not OK to make them personal," the governor said. Much of the criticism, Reynolds said, related to design limitations relating to law enforecement and cost issues associated with producing a new license plate that were beyond the designer's control.
The Lincoln Memorial in Washington was vandalized with red spray paint early Tuesday, authorities said.

At about 4:30 a.m., graffiti was found on a column at the memorial, the National Park Service said in a statement. The graffiti was difficult to read, but appeared to say "[expletive] law," the statement said.

Additional graffiti that could not be read was found in silver spray paint on a Smithsonian wayfinding sign, according to the statement.

The graffiti at the Lincoln Memorial was to be removed with "a mild, gel-type architectural paint stripper that is safe for use on historic stone," the Park Service said. The material is spread on the column and allowed to set for an hour before being removed with water. The process is repeated until the graffiti is gone.

This is not the first time graffiti has appeared on Mall monuments this year. In February, the Washington Monument and the World War II, Lincoln and D.C. War memorials were vandalized with cryptic messages, including the phrase "Jackie shot JFK."
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Using an SLR camera, a tripod and a bit of celestial knowledge, George Myers captures light from the other side of the clouds.

Colorful nebulae, constellations and other heavenly bodies are all subjects of Myers' lenses.

Myers, 46, shoots the stars largely near the less populated areas of Lake Sam Rayburn and Toledo Bend, but he has traveled to the southern edges of Texas looking for spots where man-made light is scarce.

"Too much light pollution can ruin your chance for a good photo," said Myers, gesturing toward the hazy lime-green glow of

Ivanhoe (population 887) during a shoot late last month at Kara Farms near Woodville.

During that shoot, Myers photographed the stars from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. using a compass, a planisphere (a low-tech space map), space tracking apps on his cell phone and ranch scenery, all of which helped him compose images of the galaxy.

In between camera adjustments and taking pictures, the Lumberton man talked about his good and bad experiences over the years and how he's learned to improve his craft.

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While repeated shoots have trained him to keep an eye on things like lens focus, shutter speed, white balance, wind variations and location, one of Myers' most important lessons was learning to pay attention to physicals hazards that can be hidden in the dim light of a new moon.

He learned that the hard way after slipping on granite and landing in the frigid waters of California's King Canyon in 2015.

For several days after a shoot, Myers said he spends time selecting the best photos and editing them on his computer.

After he's happy with his work, he posts the images online or prints them for contests and framing.

Myres said he hopes to one day sell his work. For now, the 18-year veteran electrician seems content to bring home a little piece of the Milky Way to hang on his walls.

At a glance

George Myers' 5 tips for photographing the stars:

n Buy a good tripod and a head lamp with a red light. The tripod will keep the camera steady for long exposures and the red light's low-frequency will keep your eye comfortable with the dark.

n Buy an intervalometer to help maintain a frequency of shots during meteor showers.

n Buy a good wide-angle lens (17 mm or wider) with an F-stop of 2.8 or faster.

n Research and scout areas. Use Google maps and darksitefinder.com to find interesting areas for good compensation and dark areas to avoid light pollution.

n Preset the lens' focus, then test the photos on a computer to make sure they are tack sharp. When you find a good setting, lock and tape down the auto focus switch to lock in the lens.

GBarranco@HearstNP.comTwitter.com/SpotNewsShooter
Bunker Hill

8/10/17 at 0800 Hours. 11900 Block of Broken Bough. Theft of Construction Supplies. During the night unknown persons removed several sheets of plywood from the gated area of the construction site. Detectives have been notified and are looking for area surveillance cameras.

8/5/17 at 1100 Hours. 12000 Block of Surrey lane. Burglary of a Habitation. Officers were dispatched to the listed location in reference to a burglary. Upon arrival officers learned that the house was in the process of being vacated in order to be torn down. The home had been left unsecured and some time over the past several weeks unknown persons had entered the home and removed items from within.

Piney Point

08/05/2017 at 1645 Hours. Officers responded to the 2000 block of S. Piney Point Rd., in regards to a disturbance. The victim reported that while driving, he was assaulted by his girlfriend, that he wanted to report the incident but did not want to pursue charges. Officer observed visible marks on the victim. The female was transported to her residence in Houston, while the victim went to another location.

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08/08/17 at 1815 Hours. Officers responded to the 100 block of Stillforest St., in regards to a disturbance between a homeowner and an employee of AT&T. The employee of AT&T reported he was unable to resolve a homeowner's internet and phone issues. The employee called his boss in order for him to speak with the homeowner. The homeowner was put on hold for an extended period and that got him upset. An argument then ensued. Contact was made with the homeowner and advice was given to him on how to handle these situations in the future.

Hunters Creek

8/11/17 at 1044 Hours. 500 Block of Trails End. Theft of Lawn Equipment. Suspects in a small blue sedan drove up to a landscaping vehicle parked at a residence. A black male exited the vehicle and took a leaf blower from the landscaping vehicle. The suspects then fled from the area. Officers responded, along with detectives and are checking for area surveillance cameras. The investigation is on-going.

8/11/17 at 0200 Hours. Thamer and Memorial Drive. Accident and subsequent DWI Arrest. Officers were dispatched to an accident at the corner of Thamer and Memorial where vehicle had struck a wall. Upon investigating the accident officers found the driver to be intoxicated and also in possession of a handgun. The driver was taken into custody and booked into the Harris County jail.
Police said they had perfectly legitimate reasons to pull over Richard Hubbard III as he drove through the Cleveland suburb of Euclid, Ohio, on Saturday morning. Hubbard, a 25-year-old black man, had rolled through an intersection, they said, and a search on the 2011 Hyundai showed the owner had a suspended license.

But what began as a routine traffic stop quickly escalated into violence.

A bystander captured video of an officer slamming Hubbard to the ground and punching him repeatedly before taking him into custody. The footage went viral over the weekend, drawing some 6 million views on Facebook.

On Monday, police released dash cam footage of the violent arrest.

Both videos have left city officials, activists and outraged locals questioning whether the officer was justified in using such force against Hubbard, who appears in the footage to be passively resisting.

"The videos of the incident on Saturday morning raise some very serious concerns," Euclid Mayor Kirsten Gail said in a statement. "We have policies and procedures in place to ensure that all use of force by police are both lawful and justified. I can assure you the incident will be reviewed thoroughly and appropriate action will be taken."

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In a statement, police told local media that a "violent struggle" broke out after Hubbard ignored orders to face away from the arresting officer so he could be taken into custody. Police officials have not identified the officer but said he has been placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation.

"This entire incident will be reviewed, in detail, so that the public can have a full and open understanding of the series of events that led to this violent encounter," a department spokesman said.

The dash cam video, first posted by Cleveland 19, offers the most complete account of what happened. It opens with a squad car pulling over Hubbard and a female passenger, who were riding through town in a silver Hyundai. An officer tells Hubbard he stopped him for a traffic violation and says the vehicle shows a suspended license.

Step out, he tells Hubbard. Then, "face away from me."

In a matter of seconds, the traffic stop turns violent.

Without clear provocation, the officer shoves Hubbard against the car and grabs him by the arms. They tumble into the center of the street, then collapse onto the pavement. A second officer rushes to help his partner. The passenger, a black woman, gets out and shouts at them to stop.

"Bae, please look at me," she pleads as the officers try to pin Hubbard to the ground. "Bae, stop. Please listen, just let them do what they do."

One officer can be seen slamming Hubbard against the pavement, then punching him several times. Though police would go on to say that Hubbard was resisting arrest, the video appears to show him lying on the ground and trying to block the officer's blows with his arms.

Panic sets in when one of the officers says he sees Hubbard "reaching down." Hubbard tells the officers he doesn't have a gun on him, then screams, "Record this (expletive)! Record it!"

Hubbard's companion retrieves a cellphone from the car. One of the officers punches Hubbard eight more times in the head or upper body. Bystanders arrive. Then more police, sirens wailing.

Officers cuff Hubbard's hands behind his back.

"Look at this," one bystander yells. "He ain't resisting."

Two other officers handcuff Hubbard's companion. "What am I under arrest for," she asks.

The video ends with the pair being taken away by police.

Facebook user Lashaunda Malone captured a different angle from the doorway of a building across the street. Her video opens just as Hubbard and the officers fall to the ground.

As the woman films, a child can be heard asking, "Mommy, what are the police doing?"

"Oh my god, he's punching him," the woman says.

The officer can be seen sitting on top of Hubbard and punching him at least six times on his face or head while his partner stands over them. Hubbard covers his head with his arms and writhes on the pavement. At one point, he appears to lie limp, then throws up his arms again as the officer strikes him several more times.

Later, as Hubbard lies on the ground in handcuffs, one officer presses Hubbard's face against the asphalt while the same officer punches him in the back of the head.

The arresting officer was treated at a hospital for unspecified injuries.

Hubbard was charged with driving under suspension and resisting arrest. He was medically examined at the Cuyahoga County Jail Euclid Anned jail and posted bond shortly after. A booking photo posted by Cleveland 19 shows Hubbard with bloody cuts above his right eye and swelling on his forehead. It wasn't clear Monday if he had retained an attorney.

The videos fell especially hard on the northeast Ohio community, which is still grappling with the death of Luke O. Stewart, an unarmed black 23 year old, who was shot and killed in March by a Euclid officer investigating a suspicious vehicle report.

On Saturday night, protesters led by Black Lives Matter activists rallied at the site of Hubbard's arrest. Michael Nelson, an attorney for the Cleveland NAACP was among those who attended.

"There seems to be some aggression and at no time have we seen de-escalation take place," Nelson told Cleveland.com. The footage, he said, "is disturbing regardless of the underlying circumstances."

Demonstrators rallied again on Monday night at City Hall to demand greater accountability from police. Local organizer Rian Brown told Cleveland.com that Hubbard's arrest and other violent encounters between police and young black men were part of a larger problem.

"The city government fails to respond to black folks," he said. "This is nothing new. This is something we are seeing all across the country."

---

https://youtu.be/12y_twVJnbU
South Korean President Moon Jae-in has signaled his country will no longer stay quiet as tensions escalate between the U.S. and North Korea.

In a forceful speech on Tuesday, Moon asserted the right to veto any military action against Kim Jong Un's regime, saying that decision should be made by "ourselves and not by anyone else." He vowed to prevent war at any cost -- a statement that drew a sharp contrast with President Donald Trump, who has warned of "fire and fury" if North Korea continues to threaten the U.S.

"Moon's speech speaks to his frustration, and his nation's wider frustration -- and that is the perennial problem that they are not masters of their own destiny when it comes to North Korean geopolitics," said Euan Graham, a director at the Lowy Institute in Sydney. "The U.S. now sees itself as the primary concern and the South Koreans as a secondary concern."

Moon's speech risks exacerbating a rift between the U.S. and South Korea over the best approach to dealing with North Korea. Any divisions among America and its allies may further embolden Kim, who is seeking the ability to strike the U.S. with a nuclear weapon as a way to deter an invasion that could overthrow his regime.

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Moon, a former human-rights lawyer whose parents fled North Korea during the Korean War, took power in May promising a softer approach to Pyongyang after nine years of conservative rule that ended in a messy impeachment trial. He raised questions about a U.S. missile shield, pushed for dialogue with Kim and sought to mend ties with China, North Korea's main ally and benefactor.

Just a few months later, however, North Korea's tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles forced him to embrace the missile shield and agree to tighter sanctions against Kim. His calls for a peace treaty and dialogue have been drowned out by the war of words between Trump and Kim.

The Moon administration's evaluation of the situation on the peninsula "was quite naive," said Kim Dong-yub, an analyst at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University in Seoul. "They simply thought the North would be more nice and slow-paced when they took office, but seven missiles later -- they're obviously overwhelmed."

Even worse for Moon, some U.S. officials have signaled that they'd be willing to tolerate collateral damage in Seoul to protect the American homeland. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican, told NBC News that Trump told him that "if thousands die, they're going to die over there." Joseph Dunford, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last month that it was "unimaginable" for North Korea to develop a nuclear-tipped ICBM.

Seoul's 10 million people are within firing range of North Korea's artillery, and would likely suffer the brunt of the first retaliatory blows in a U.S. strike. While the city regularly shrugs off North Korea's threats to turn it into a "sea of fire" -- and Moon's approval rating has stayed above 70 percent -- Trump's rhetoric spurred more calls for the president to get tough.

"Peace can't be secured by begging and pleas," the conservative-leaning Chosun Ilbo, one of South Korea's biggest newspapers, wrote in an editorial published Tuesday before Moon's speech. Korea JoongAng Ilbo said on Aug. 12 that his administration appears "helpless."

One problem for Moon is that North Korea has little interest in talking to South Korea, in part because Kim sees the U.S. and its nuclear capability as a much bigger threat to his regime. The U.S. has almost 30,000 troops in South Korea, and protects it with a so-called nuclear umbrella.

Another irritation for Moon is that the U.S. calls the shots if hostilities break out, a legacy of the Korean War in the 1950s. While plans to transfer full operational control to South Korea were agreed on in 2005, the transition has been repeatedly delayed because of budgetary constraints and rising tensions.

Moon has pushed to complete the handover during his five-year term. On a visit to the White House in June, Moon and Trump agreed to "expeditiously enable the conditions-based transfer of wartime operational control" of South Korean forces.

For now, tensions appear to be calming down. North Korea's state-run news agency reported on Tuesday that Kim would wait "a little more" before carrying through with a threat to fire four missiles over Japan into waters near Guam, home to key U.S. military bases in the Pacific.

Tensions may yet rise again ahead of U.S.-South Korea military drills slated to start Aug. 21. Some 50,000 South Korean soldiers and about 25,000 U.S. troops participated last year over two weeks in the so-called Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercises.

Apart from the difficulties in pushing back against Trump, Moon's pledge to veto any military activity on the Korean Peninsula is unrealistic for another reason, according to Graham from the Lowy Institute.

"The problem," he said, "is that North Korea gets a vote on who uses military force on the peninsula."
NORWALK  A Stamford woman, who police say was caught shoplifting at Walmart, had nearly $3,000 in cash on her when she was charged with larceny.

Police say that Roseanne Cardillo, 29, had two young children with her as she was allegedly observed passing through the self-checkout lane with items concealed under the cart.

According to police, Cardillo had the two juveniles  one of whom she was related to  carry large body pillows out of the store.

The woman was detained by security and police were contacted.

Reponding officers say that Cardillo appeared nervous and was locking her legs together. Police say that she was handcuffed for safety and police recovered a sock in her pant leg that contained $2,921 in mostly $100 bills.

Police say that Cardillo was uncooperative and gave the officer five different addresses.

Cardillo, of Stillwater Avenue, was charged with sixth-degree larceny, interfering with an officer and risk of injury to a minor. Her bond was set at $2,500 and she was given a court date of Aug. 23.

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The Connecticut Department of Children and Families was contacted about the incident. Police say that Cardillo has a prior history of DCF complaints.

The child who was related to Cardillo was placed in temporary custody with another relative. The other childs parent was contacted and came to pick them up.

llake@hearstmediact.com
MASON CITY | Nearly 300 gas customers were affected by a gas leak Monday night in Mason City.

The leak occurred near the intersection of Fifth Street Southeast and South Pennsylvania Avenue after a contractor  not associated with Alliants project  drilled down and hit one of the gas mains in the area about 9:30 p.m., said Mike Wagner, an Alliant Energy spokesman, Tuesday morning.

We worked all through the night and brought in a fresh set of crews this morning, he said.

The one-way, westbound lanes of Fifth and Highway 122 were closed while Alliant Energy, police and fire officials rerouted traffic starting at South Georgia Avenue.

Houses in the immediate area of the leak were evacuated with the assistance of the Cerro Gordo County Emergency Management as Alliant crews made sure there wasnt a buildup of gas and it was properly vented before they began repair work, Wagner said. Residents returned to their homes by 11:30 p.m. Monday.

We needed to shut it down for safety reasons, he said.

Officials said the leak entered the underground sewer system and was spreading as far as 15th Street Southeast and South Federal.

Wagner said the repairing of the gas main, including capping the line and patching it, took about two hours and was completed about 2 a.m. Tuesday.

Customers gas meters were turned off and re-piloted after the repair was complete.

Were expecting to be slow going, he said, but our goal is to have everyone back in service late this afternoon.

Wagner said those affected customers who are not home when Alliant Energy arrives will need to call 1-800-ALLIANT.
In the latest sign the Trump administration is looking to overturn Obama-era policy at home and abroad, the U.S. military is preparing to restart a long-running military exercise with Egypt after President Barack Obama cancelled it in 2013 to protest the killing of hundreds of protesters in Cairo.

The restart next month of the biannual Bright Star exercise, a bilateral effort now focused on counterterrorism operations, comes as Egypt struggles to contain a potent insurgency on the Sinai peninsula. Though Egypt may invite other countries such as Sudan as observers, only U.S. and Egyptian forces will take the field, U.S. defense officials said.

The renewal comes just months after Trump welcomed Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to the White House in April, showering him with praise for fighting extremists at home and and in North Africa. The Obama administration struggled to craft a coherent policy toward Egypt after the 2011 uprising there, abandoning longtime U.S. support for ousted president Hosni Mubarak, then warily embracing the democratically-elected Islamist leader Mohammed Morsi, then growing distant from Sisi after the military reasserted control in 2013.

Unlike in past years, however, Bright Star will feature a smaller U.S. military footprint, a U.S. official with knowledge of the planning told Foreign Policy, with "several hundred" personnel taking part, as opposed to the thousands that deployed from the early 1980s until it was called off.

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In previous years, hundreds of U.S. airborne troops dropped into the Egyptian desert and Marines stormed the beaches; the largest Bright Star took place in 1999 and included about 70,000 troops from 11 nations.

But there's little need for that kind of show this time around, said David Schenker, director of the Program on Arab Politics at the Washington Institute. Cairo has no real peer threat in the region, but its borders with Libya and Sudan are increasingly causes for concern. Instead, battling Islamist terrorists who have gobbled up parts of the Sinai peninsula is Cairo's main worry - yet proving a tough task for Egypt's traditionally-focused military.

The work next month will be focused primarily on counterterrorism, detecting and eliminating roadside bombs, and border security operations - all tasks crucial to ending the years-long insurgency in the Sinai, which has seen the influx of Islamic State fighters and funding over the past two years. The largest group in the Sinai, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, is responsible for dozens of roadside bombs and other attacks, and pledged allegiance to ISIS in late 2014. The group currently controls large swaths of the peninsula.

"The Egyptian military has been fighting and losing an insurgency in the Sinai for the last several years," Schenker said, and has shown little interest in restructuring its large and lumbering military to fight an entrenched insurgency. "A smaller exercise focused on these highly technical things is the best thing that Egypt could get."

The exercise was last held in 2009, as Cairo called off the 2011 event due to the Egyptian revolution that eventually ousted Mubarak, and president Obama halted the follow-on event in 2013 after Egyptian security forces killed hundreds of civilian protesters.

Obama is widely seen as having given al-Sisi the cold shoulder. But he'd started to roll back some of the penalties imposed on Egypt well before Trump took office. In March 2015 he ended the freeze on $1.3 billion in U.S.military aid, resuming the shipment of F-16 fighter planes, Abrams tanks and Harpoon missiles, and other equipment.
More than 180,000 people have been killed in Mexico since then-President Felipe Calderon sent the army to fight organized crime groups in his native state of Michoacan in 2006.

But one small town in that state says it hasn't had a homicide since 2011 because its residents - led by women - took up arms to kick out groups who had expanded from drug trafficking into illegal logging.
In many ways, our coworkers are like family - if you spend 40 hours a week with a group of people, you are likely to become close. So it's no surprise our work family celebrates our successes and mourns our losses with us. It's common for colleagues to pool money for a bouquet and spa gift certificate when a staff member is grieving the loss of a parent, or schedule a triumphant potluck or happy hour when someone gets engaged or announces a pregnancy. This recognition of life beyond the cubicle is great . . . except when it isn't.

Workplaces tend to acknowledge events relating to a traditional, first-comes-love life. Engagements and baby showers are on the list, of course, and the sorrows are based on a nuclear family model as well: ill or dying parents, but rarely anyone further removed, or unrelated biologically.

There's nothing wrong with this, of course - less support in the workplace is certainly not the answer. But for many employees, these occasions don't encompass the most meaningful events we're going through. You're unlikely, for example, to get flowers and a card when your best friend commits suicide, or a care package after a sexual assault. Gender confirmation surgery or finally getting that doctorate aren't typical reasons for a post-work drink at the pub across the street. If our lives haven't followed the marriage-to-pregnancy path, it's possible we'll move through our careers with no recognition at all.

Six years ago, Meg St-Esprit McKivigan of Pittsburgh adopted a son. "I went to so many work baby showers," she says, but nobody threw one for her and, even worse, her office maternity leave policy didn't cover adoption. "My son was born the day after my co-worker's baby," McKivigan says. "She took three months off and my boss assumed I would 'take a day or two.' " While McKivigan's friends and family celebrated with her, the lack of support at work stung. What made her baby different? He was still a newborn, still part of a life-changing, incredible moment. Yet somehow it didn't measure up.

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Russ Marshalek of Brooklyn experienced something similar when his beloved French bulldog, Frito, died last January. He knew Frito wasn't a human child, but Marshalek says the 3-year-old rescue was his everything. "By all accounts he did as much for me as I did for him," Marshalek says. Yet hours after talking to his direct boss, throwing up an out-of-office response and taking Frito's body to the vet, he got a work call. One of his clients had seen the out-of-office message and was sorry about the dog, but wanted to know if the social media calendar would still be completed. When Marshalek came back to work the next day, he felt looked down upon for taking time to mourn a crucial family member. "I really could have used some support," he says.

After the death of a dear and longtime friend, I confided to my colleagues and manager. It was more uncomfortable to keep something private that seemed written all over my face. I certainly wasn't expecting a bouquet, but the silence that followed got me thinking. I was reminded of single women who throw themselves faux-bridal showers; just because they aren't married, they feel, shouldn't mean miss out on a Le Creuset from loved ones. It made me wish life milestones were more like floating holidays than a set of specific days off - that you could pick which part of your life is deserving of cake and champagne in the break room, or of sympathy, rather than relying on a prescriptive standard.

Danielle, who asked that only her first name be used because of stigma often attached to academics working outside their field, told me about the monthly gathering of co-workers and students at the ballroom dance studio she once taught at. "The boss would go around and see if anyone had anything to celebrate, and we'd make everyone wear a funny hat and stand in the center of the room so everyone could sing at them," she says. Birthdays and anniversaries were common achievements - anniversaries with romantic partners, not at the job. When it was her turn, she excitedly shared that she'd gotten her Ph.D. "Everyone kind of went silent," she remembers. "The general atmosphere was painfully awkward. There were some handshakes from the students and students who wanted to know more about my work, but that was really about it. My boss never mentioned it again."

Why do some events turn into awkward elephants-in-the-room while others are met with sympathy and fanfare? It can possibly be traced back to school, and what news was appropriate for the classroom. "I got a lot of grief [at work] when I had to go to doctor visits after being in a car accident," says Leslie Hatton of Toronto. But what was even worse happened when she was 11. Her stepfather passed away shortly after both grandfathers and an uncle. "My homeroom teacher told the entire grade to not say anything about my stepdad's passing," Hatton told me. Death is often viewed as an awkward subject for kids, and the fact that it wasn't a biological father might have affected the teacher's decision.

Of course, workplace cultures vary. Some places help you mourn the deaths of pets, but not friends. Some celebrate your child, as long as they're biological. And some workplaces really win a medal: When I asked around, people did, amidst the horror stories, report seeing gender confirmation celebrations as well as a party for someone's first full year of sobriety. Sorrows and triumphs happen to everyone, whether on a traditional life path or not. And when they're at least occasionally recognized at the water cooler, the triumphs can feel more profound, and the sorrows easier to bear.
After reportedly turning herself in to South African police on Tuesday over allegations that she assaulted a 20-year-old woman who was partying with her two sons, Zimbabwean first lady Grace Mugabe's whereabouts are currently unknown, and local reports indicate that she may have returned to her country despite officials in Johannesburg stating otherwise.

It had been unclear whether the wife of Zimbabwe's 93-year-old president was traveling in South Africa on a diplomatic passport and, therefore, had legal immunity. She was in the country for medical purposes. A Zimbabwean intelligence source told Reuters that Mugabe had been traveling on an ordinary nondiplomatic passport.

Fikile Mbalula, South Africa's police minister, had said that charges would be brought against her and that she was being cooperative. In 2009, a photographer in Hong Kong said Mugabe and her bodyguard had assaulted him, but no charges were brought because the Zimbabwean first lady was able to claim diplomatic immunity.

The young woman accusing Mugabe of assault on Sunday night is Gabriella Engels, who works as a model. She was reportedly visiting with Mugabe's two sons, Robert Jr. and Chatunga, at a hotel in an upscale neighborhood of Johannesburg called Sandton. Speaking to News24, Engels said Mugabe suddenly burst into the room.

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"When Grace entered, I had no idea who she was. She walked in with an extension cord and just started beating me with it," Engels said.

"She flipped and just kept beating me with the plug. Over and over. I had no idea what was going on. I was surprised. . . . I needed to crawl out of the room before I could run away."

Engels posted a picture of an injury to her head on Twitter, later adding that it could impair her modeling career.

The Mugabes' party, ZANU-PF, claimed it was actually Engels who perpetrated the assault, tweeting an earlier picture of the model.

Mugabe's sons are enrolled at the University of Johannesburg. They have been evicted from apartments in both Johannesburg and Dubai for rowdy behavior, and tabloids have widely covered their partying habits.

Mugabe's reputation precedes her, too. In a profile of her written for the Guardian, David Smith said: "Few women in Africa provoke such fascination, or such loathing, as Grace Mugabe. Loyalists describe her as 'Amai' (Mother), 'The Lady of the Revelation' or, predictably, 'Amazing Grace', while detractors prefer 'DisGrace', 'Gucci Grace' or 'First Shopper.' There are reports that the couple have substantial foreign properties and multiple offshore bank accounts, Grace's overseas shopping expeditions are legendary: She was widely reported to have spent 75,000 on luxury goods in one day in Paris in 2003, and to have taken 15 trolley-loads of purchases into the first-class lounge of Singapore airport. She has been forced to deny rumors that she has been unfaithful to the president and defends herself against accusations that she is pampered and lazy."

Just weeks ago, Mugabe was reportedly detained in Singapore after attempting to destroy camera equipment belonging to two journalists. But diplomatic immunity absolved her in that case, too.

Mugabe is openly vying to become her elderly husband's successor. Robert Mugabe presides over one of the world's poorest and most unequal countries. Zimbabwe's currency recently collapsed, and the country is suffering from prolonged drought. Nevertheless, its government announced plans last week for a $1 billion university to be built in Robert Mugabe's name. Health care is so ineffectual in Zimbabwe that members of ZANU-PF regularly travel abroad for treatment. Political dissidents often are jailed or simply disappear.
BRITT | Mike and Becky May of Britt count themselves lucky.

This July marked the couples second time driving their quarter horses, Tim and Rob, in the downtown parades and grand entry at Cheyenne Frontier Days, the nations largest outdoor rodeo and Western celebration.

Its as good as it gets, in my mind, Becky said. All the rodeo people rodeo just to be in Cheyenne.

The Mays were placed on a waiting list to drive in the celebrations parades after they purchased the two horses from a man in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, who had ties to the celebration, and when a spot opened in 2016, they were invited to the event and have returned since.

Its a huge honor, Becky added.

Becky said she was invited to drive a team of horses in Cheyenne Frontier Days about four years ago, and that was the Mays first inkling of the celebration.

We love it there, Becky said.

This year, Mike and Becky, longtime equestrians, arrived in Cheyenne, Wyoming, on July 15.

Once there, the couple acclimated Tim and Rob with the excitement of the event by pulling hayracks and stuff before the celebrations official start on July 21, when the horses would pull old buggies carrying event sponsors, politicians and government officials in the grand parades from the Wyoming State Capitol to the Cheyenne Depot Square on July 23, 26, 28 and 30.

Mike said Tim and Rob were among at least 165 driving horses from all over the U.S.

Once they saw how good these horses are, they let us do the grand entry, which is huge, he said.

On July 24, the Mays drove a carriage carrying Wrangler representatives in the rodeos grand entry in front of thousands of spectators.

The experience was made even more special because it was military day during Cheyenne Frontier Days.

In November 2016, the Mays 27-year-old son, Luke, died. He had served in the U.S. Army as a 13B10 Cannon Crew Member in Afghanistan. Following his honorable discharge in December 2011, he returned to Britt where he worked on the family farm and did construction.

It was real special to be a part of that, Becky said, noting the crowd that day was the largest the celebration had on a Monday since its centennial. It was like he was looking out for us. I felt him there.

The Mays returned to their acreage in Britt, where they have five horses and a miniature pony for their grandchildren, on July 31, and theyre already looking forward to next years trip west and every one after as long as their health allows, Mike said.

Theres a lot of people, so were lucky enough to be there, too, Becky said.

The 2018 Cheyenne Frontier Days will take place from July 20-28.
MASON CITY | U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Ia., will make two appearances Monday, Aug. 21, in North Iowa as part of his annual 99-county tour.

He will be at a noon meeting of the Mason City Rotary Club at the Mason City Fire Station. He will then travel to Forest City for a question-and-answer session with employees of Manufacturers Bank and Trust Co., 245 E. J St. from 2:15 to 3:15 p.m.
August is National Immunization Awareness Month. The goal is to raise awareness about the importance of vaccinations in preventing serious diseases and more specifically, helping to protect your family.

If your children need back-to-school immunizations, they will be offered for free at the Midland Health Department as part of this years Wellness Tour. Free vaccinations will be given 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Thursday, on a first-come, first-served basis to those who qualify. To learn more, visit www.midlandwellnesstour.com or call the Midland Health Department at 681-7613.

-- Its important that your child be immunized, because before vaccines:

- roughly 10,000 children became paralyzed by polio; rubella;

- rubella (German measles) caused birth defects and mental retardation in as many as 20,000 newborns;

- measles infected about 4 million children;

- diphtheria was one of the most common causes of death in children;

- haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) caused meningitis in 15,000 children, leaving many with permanent brain damage;

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- pertussis (whooping cough) killed roughly 8,000 infants.

-- Even if diseases have gone away, children still need vaccines.

Although vaccines are very effective, we have started to see a resurgence of certain diseases. Within the past two years, there have been outbreaks in the United States of measles, whooping cough, mumps, meningococcal meningitis and chickenpox. Polio, rubella, and other vaccine preventable diseases still exist in other countries.

International travel is not unusual. It takes only one infected person to start the cycle here at home.

Vaccinating adults can help protect infants in the community who may be too young to receive certain immunizations. Newborns are especially susceptible to being exposed to influenza or whooping cough from their caregivers or relatives.

-- Dont be concerned about too many vaccines at once.

Starting from the birth, babies are exposed to millions of bacteria through their mother's birth canal. Even the air that we breathe (or food we eat) can contain viral particles or bacteria. Your immune system is constantly making antibodies to exposures from the environment. This number far outweighs the number of antigens that are found in a set of routine vaccinations.

Following an alternate vaccine schedule (or spacing out shots) puts you at risk for longer periods and is not recommended.

To view the recommended vaccinations schedule, please visit www.midlandhealth.org/vaccinations.

-- Vaccinations side effects are generally mild.

In general, vaccines are very well-tolerated. Most side effects are mild and can include fever, soreness or redness at the injection site.

Conversely, the diseases that vaccines protect you from can be deadly or debilitating. Serious side effects are rare, and your clinician is trained on how to handle them.

Vaccines, as with all products regulated by Food and Drug Administration, undergo a rigorous review of laboratory and clinical data to ensure the safety, efficacy, purity and potency of these products.

-- Your doctor is the best source of information.

Do not hesitate to talk to your health care provider. They are a reliable source of vaccine information and are a wealth of knowledge. Keep in mind, there is a lot of material on the internet and not all of it is accurate, studied or from a medical source. It is also a good idea to keep up with routine well-child exams, which is a great opportunity to catch up on any missing immunizations and discuss general health concerns.

Lori Benninghoff is a physician assistant at Wall Street Pediatrics.






Lawmakers are sending a bill to Gov. Greg Abbott that would let homeowners avoid paying fees for cutting down trees on their own property, so long as they agree to plant new ones.

The changes to local tree ordinances wouldnt affect San Antonio, where city rules only apply to new development, not homes.

A bill Abbott signed into law Tuesday, however, will limit San Antonio's ability to expand its borders through annexation. Homeowners in unincorporated areas can now have a vote on whether they city scoops up their land, and their tax dollars, through annexation.

Residents from across the state that have expressed their concerns about feeling abused by the annexation process have had their voices heard, Abbott said in a statement after the signing, to which the press was not invited. Im proud to sign legislation ending forced annexation practices, which is nothing more than a form of taxation without representation.

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The property rights issues are two of the 20 items on Abbotts agenda for the special session, which must come to an end Wednesday night.

The House agreed 119-23 Tuesday to accept the Senates changes to House Bill 7, putting an end to long-running negotiations over limiting local tree-cutting rules.

This does strike a stronger balance between private property rights and local control," said the bills sponsor Rep. Dade Phelan, R- Beaumont.

Though Abbott vetoed a similar measure during the regular session, saying it didnt go far enough, he has agreed to sign this one, according to Phelan. Abbotts office did not return a request for comment, but the Republican governor, who has called tree ordinances socialist, made overturning such rules one of priorities for the session.

The bill represents a compromise between the House and the Senate, which walked back its proposal to ban municipalities from enforcing tree rules within their extraterritorial jurisdiction. San Antonio officials particularly objected to that provision, worrying it could curb their ability to regulate tree density at the borders of military bases. The final version would not affect the citys tree ordinances, which require new development maintain a certain canopy cover and already allows people to plant trees in lieu of paying fees.

"Most legislators have agreed that San Antonio has a very reasonable tree ordinance that only applies to development, not homeowners, said Mayor Ron Nirenberg in a statement.

Under House Bill 7, cities cant charge homeowners a fee for cutting down trees that are less than 10 inches in diameter, are dead or those that pose a threat. Most cities dont regulate trees until they have reached at least a foot in size, Phelan said. A 2-3 inch tree really does not provide much value to a homeowner, he said. Homeowners could plant new trees to avoid all fees, instead of just a portion as some ordinances now allow.

The annexation law also represents a compromise. Though reforms were initially opposed by municipal officials who warned it would curb cities ability to manage development and grow their borders, San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg called the final version an acceptable compromise.

It includes a five-mile military buffer zone, sought by city officials, meant to protect bases from development that could hinder their training mission. While residents who live within the zone could vote on whether they get annexed, should they refuse, the city could still enforce land use regulations within the buffer.

Only cities that fall in the states 10 most populous counties, those with more than 500,000 residents, will be required to get approval from affected residents before annexing new land. Landowners in smaller counties could petition for an automatic vote. The law takes effect Dec. 1.

Abbott also signed into law two abortion-related measures Tuesday. One strengthens reporting requirements for abortion providers. Another requires women to buy separate health insurance to cover the procedure when it is deemed to be elective and not medically necessary to protect the life of the mother. Critics argue the law will make it more difficult for women to afford the procedure. But Abbott, and other supporters, argue those who oppose abortion shouldnt have to subsidize it through insurance pools.

As a firm believer in Texas values I am proud to sign legislation that ensures no Texan is ever required to pay for a procedure that ends the life of an unborn child, said Abbott in a statement.

AMorris@express-news.net
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A new wall is planned for South Texas, but it's not on the U.S.-Mexico border. This one divides San Antonio from the Hill Country.

Just call it the Boerne wall.

For two decades, the small city of Boerne has been asking property owners adjacent to the town if they want to become part of its extraterritorial jurisdiction, or ETJ.

ETJ is unincorporated land adjacent to a city, where cities can extend certain regulations. Cities also can only annex land in their ETJs.

RELATED: Meet Cheryl Ladd, Boerne's newest celebrity resident

By becoming part of Boerne's ETJ, Boerne can eventually annex those areas - and San Antonio can't.

"From our standpoint, that does create a wall, which gives us some area for future growth, which we would not be able to go into if that was part of San Antonio's ETJ," said Deputy Boerne City Manager Jeff Thompson.

Boerne started this latest round of additions after San Antonio officials escalated their annexation plans two years ago. That included a proposal to annex an area along Interstate 10 West, near Boerne.

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In response, Boerne officials sent letters to 53 property owners between Boerne and San Antonio, asking them if they voluntarily wanted to become part of Boerne's ETJ. About 45 property owners agreed - enough "to effectively provide a buffer to San Antonio annexation to the West," according to a July 11 Boerne City Council agenda.

READ ALSO: Photos show demolition of 5,000-square-foot stone guard house in Boerne subdivision

The idea is that many of these residents identify more with Boerne than San Antonio, Thompson said. Boerne, in fast-growing Kendall County, is just shy of 15,000 people but its population has tripled in the last 30 years.

This isn't the first time Boerne has taken this kind of action. Twenty years ago, Boerne extended its ETJ near Fair Oaks Ranch, on the eastern side of the city.

This latest round of additions is now extending "the western version of the wall," Thompson said.

But, he admits, San Antonio will only get bigger and will eventually grow around Boerne.

"I guess you could call it a temporary shield more than a wall," Thompson said.

vdavila@express-news.net

@viannadavila
Tuesday morning update: Alliant Energy officials said the gas leak was repaired Tuesday morning, but they would need to turn off and then re-pilot service to more than 50 homes throughout the day.

Those affected residents who are not home when Alliant arrives will need to call 800-ALLIANT.

Original story: MASON CITY | A gas leak near the intersection of Fifth Street Southeast and South Pennsylvania Avenue forced officials Monday night to close the one-way, westbound lanes of Fifth and Highway 122.

Officials with Alliant Energy said work to repair the unknown issue will last through the night, but the area was deemed "safe." They are also investigating the cause.

Alliant, police and fire officials were on the scene and rerouting traffic starting at South Georgia Avenue. Scanner traffic also indicated they were preparing to evacuate houses in the area with the assistance of Cerro Gordo County Emergency Management.

Officials said the leak entered the underground sewer system and was spreading as far as 15th Street Southeast and South Federal.
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How much does one arrest cost?

In this case, more than $136,500.

Last year, San Antonio officials decided to fund ShotSpotter, a gunfire detection system that alerts police when gunshots go off in a certain area. Former District 2 Councilman Alan Warrick aggressively pushed for the program, saying it would ensure police were alerted to gunfire, even if residents were too scared to call 911.

READ ALSO: Armed citizen patrol carries assault rifles through streets of S.A. subdivision

The city spent about $546,000 total on the ShotSpotter program, which includes $378,000 on the system itself and a new mobile app for officers, and another $168,000 on overtime to ensure a patrol officer responded to every ShotSpotter alert that went off between the hours of 5 p.m. and 3 a.m.

The system was installed in undisclosed locations on the city's East and West sides, including Warrick's district, where gun violence was particularly problematic.

The payoff? San Antonio police have made four arrests and confiscated seven weapons in cases that could be attributed specifically to the ShotSpotter alert system.

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About 80 percent of the times when ShotSpotter was activated, police could find no evidence of a shooting at the scene, said Joe Frank Picazo, assistant to SAPD Police Chief William McManus.

RELATED: SAPD: Gunman at large after shooting 3 at NW Side sports bar

Now, the city has decided to stop funding the program completely; ShotSpotter is not included in the proposed FY 2018 budget, which the city council votes on Sept. 14. Warrick lost his reelection bid in June, so there's no one left on council actively advocating for the program.

A lot of the ShotSpotter money will instead go to hiring SAFFE officers - San Antonio Fear Free Environment officers, who work with the community.

"We're going to use that money to provide more community engagement, which ShotSpotter can't provide," McManus said.

vdavila@express-news.net

@viannadavila


Republican Texas Congressman Will Hurd had a message for President Trump after a press conference where Trump said "fine people" were among a group of white supremacists who held a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia over the weekend.

"Apologize," Hurd, R-Helotes, said on CNN. "Racism, bigotry, anti-Semitism of any form is unacceptable and the leader of the free world should be unambiguous about that."
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After the events in Charlottesville, leaders of several cities made a renewed push to take down Confederate monuments while calls to remove such statues bubbled up in several more states.

In San Antonio, two days after competing rallies over a Confederate monument in Travis Park attracted 500 people, city leaders said the process already underway wouldn't be rushed to a vote.

Councilmen Robert Trevino and Cruz Shaw made a request July 31 to remove a 118-year-old Confederate soldier statue from Travis Park. Under their request, the monument would be moved to a location where it "will be preserved and integrated in to an educational context."

RELATED: Deadly rally accelerates removal of Confederate statues

The protests in Travis Park for and against the removal resulted in one arrest Saturday.

The request must go before the Governance Council Committee before heading to City Council for a deciding vote. If a second special meeting is called for the governance committee this month, the measure could be voted on before the end of August.

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If not, it could be September before the committee votes and sends the measure to the city council.

"We do feel the support is there," said Justin Renteria, a spokesman for Trevino. "With the protest, as far as urgency goes, this has been something the councilman has had on his radar for at least two years now. We talked about this for years and the opportunity presented itself."

RELATED: S.A. officials respond to bill that would block removal of Confederate statue from Travis Park

In Virginia, one woman was killed and at least 19 others were injured when a driver plowed through a crowd Saturday. Images of crowds carrying Nazi and Confederate flags and shouting Nazi slogans have dominated the media since.

The mayor of Lexington, Kentucky, said on Saturday he would ask the Urban County Council at its Tuesday work session to ask the state military commission for permission to take down two Confederate statues. In Louisville, Kentucky, the mayor said a panel will review the city's public art and note any pieces linked to bigotry, racism and slavery.

Calls to remove Confederate statues in Maryland, West Virginia and Florida bubbled up in the days after the violent event in Virginia.

Councilmembers Rey Saldana, Ana Sandoval and John Courage have signed onto Trevino and Shaw's proposal, Renteria said.

Newly elected council members and Mayor Ron Nirenberg at the helm have created an opportunity for the idea to become a reality, he said.

"We've had positive conversations with (the mayor) about this," he said.

RELATED: Rowdy but peaceful counter protesters converge on Travis Park Saturday

Nirenberg did not respond to a request for how he would vote should the proposal come to City Council.

Shortly after the councilmen's request was filed last month, Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, filed a bill that, if passed during the Texas legislature's special session, would make it impossible for the Travis Park monument to be removed.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

kbradshaw@express-news.net

Twitter: @kbrad5
A sergeant with the Progresso Police Department has been accused of helping drug traffickers in exchange for money, federal prosecutors announced Monday.

Giovani Hernandez, 43, was arrested on Saturday, and charged Monday morning before U.S. Magistrate Judge Dorina Ramos with aiding and abetting the attempt to possess with intent to distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine.
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San Antonio police said a man accused of an armed robbery admitted to forcing his way into a hotel room and stealing keys to a vehicle, authorities said.

Jayden Harry Brooks, 19, was arrested Sunday by police after he was pulled over in a reportedly stolen Ford F-150.

On Aug. 9, two men called police and said they were robbed at a hotel in the 2400 block of Southwest Loop 410.

RELATED: SAPD: Gunman at large after shooting 3 at NW Side sports bar

They said two men forced their way into their room, and robbed the men at gunpoint, police said. One of the suspects reportedly took the car keys to the pickup and drove off in it while the other got into the backseat of a different car and also left the scene, authorities said.

On Saturday, officers found the pickup and conducted a traffic stop. When they approached the vehicle, they noticed a handgun in plain sight, according to an affidavit.

RELATED: Affidavit reveals what police believe happened in days and moments before S.A. woman's death

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Brooks, who was driving the car, was taken into custody and reportedly confessed to the crime during questioning.

During the taped confession, he also identified the other suspects in the crime, according to the affidavit.

Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com



fsabawi@mysa.com



Twitter: @FaresInSA
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The relative of an 8-year-old girl was arrested Sunday after he allegedly slashed the neck of a man who is now accused of sexually abusing the girl.

The relative, 30-year-old Francisco Javier Avila-Lopez, faces a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The man he's accused of stabbing, 39-year-old Gerardo Lopez, was booked into the Bexar County Jail remotely from San Antonio Military Medical Center, where he's recovering from the alleged attack.

RELATED: Affidavit reveals what police believe happened in days and moments before S.A. woman's death

According to court documents, a fight broke out between Lopez and the victim's relatives, including Avila-Lopez, around 6:20 a.m. on Sunday after he had allegedly tried to touch the victim inappropriately.

By the time police arrived, Lopez had fled, and responding officers later determined that no inappropriate touching had occurred. Officers advised Avila-Lopez to stay home and not confront Lopez, an affidavit shows.

But an hour later, officers were dispatched about two blocks away to Lopez' home in the 100 block of King Roger Street, where they found Lopez with a stab and slash wounds to his body, including a wound to his neck, police said.

Paramedics immediately took Lopez to San Antonio Military Medical Center for emergency treatment, according to Lopez's arrest affidavit.

RELATED: 2 years after disappearance of S.A. woman's body, new developments emerge in Julie Mott case

Witnesses told police they saw Avila-Lopez flee Lopez' home with a knife. Officers later located Avila-Lopez and arrested him. During interviews, Avila-Lopez is alleged to have admitted to assaulting Lopez "in retaliation to what he had done to the victim," according to court records.

Avila-Lopez told police he had seen Lopez try to wake the girl up earlier that morning and that he had been behaving suspiciously around the girl, according to an affidavit.

Police then interviewed the child. According to Lopez's arrest affidavit, she told investigators that Lopez had touched her inappropriately on at least two occasions.

Authorities obtained an arrest warrant affidavit and booked Lopez into jail from the hospital.

Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com

cdowns@mysa.com

Twitter: @calebjdowns
A local business owner is hoping the public will help her identify the person who broke into her store after that person was caught on camera.

On Monday night, Jess Steitler-Cardenas posted surveillance images and video footage of the Sunday morning break-in at the Lion's Den, a meal prep and supplements store at 10918 Wurzbach Road.

The footage shows the suspect, whose face is partially covered with a bandana, kicking in the glass door to make his way into the shop.

RELATED: Police searching for driver who allegedly caused head-on collision that injured 3, including teen

Now Playing: Local business owner Jess Steitler-Cardenas is hoping the public will help her identify the person who broke into her store and neighboring businesses on August 13, 2017. The person was caught on camera. Video: San Antonio Express-News

In a Facebook post, Steitler-Cardenas said the the thief didn't take anything of value, but he broke into other neighboring stores, including Jugo's Juicery.

Chris Hinojosa, the manager at Jugo Juicery, said the burglar was not able to actually get into the store and take anything, but whoever it was significantly damaged the door.

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Other businesses in the area were burglarized as well, including Quality First Cleaners, a laundromat in the same plaza.

Lion's Den and Jugo's have put up $1,000 rewards for information that leads to an arrest.

The suspect in the video appears to have tattoos on his arm, and drives off in a dark-colored SUV.

Anyone with information about the incident can call San Antonio police or message the Lion's Den on their Facebook page.

Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com



fsabawi@mysa.com



Twitter: @FaresInSA
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Two years ago today, Julie Mott's remains disappeared from the Mission Park Funeral Chapel on San Antonio's North Side. The 25-year-old's strange disappearance captured the nation's attention, but the case remains unresolved to this day.

Now, new court documents examined by mySA.com reveal a previously undisclosed relationship between Mission Park and a third-party mortuary service whose employees had "unfettered" after-hours access to the funeral home. The same company was sued just months before Mott's disappearance for mishandling a body.

The documents are part of a civil lawsuit filed by Mott's family in January 2016 against Mission Park. The case is pending and though all parties to the lawsuit are under a gag order, the records help shed a new light on the case.

The newly uncovered business relationship is just the latest development in the strange, ongoing case of Mott's missing body.

Now Playing: Police say a U-Haul was parked overnight at a hotel with a casket and a body inside. The family members were shocked to find out it was missing the next morning. Video: KOAT

A strange disappearance

Mott died of complications from cystic fibrosis on Aug. 8, 2015. The following day Mott's father, Tim, signed a Mission Park burial contract, agreeing to pay almost $7,500 in exchange for a memorial service and the embalming and cremation of his daughter's remains, according to court records.

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Mott's body was delivered to Mission Park North, at 3401 Cherry Ridge Drive, where her memorial service was held around noon on Aug. 15, the day she would have turned 26.

At roughly 1:30 p.m., everyone left the chapel, with the exception of Bill Wilburn, who was described as Mott's "obsessed" ex-boyfriend. At the time of her death, Wilburn and Mott had been separated for two years.

According to court documents, Wilburn remained in the chapel for an extra 10 to 15 minutes after everyone left and was then seen out by a Mission Park employee, who locked the door behind him.

Mott's casket was moved to a hallway to await transfer to a different Mission Park location for cremation, and around 4:30 p.m., Mission Park staff locked up the building and activated the building's ADT alarm system.

RELATED: Family of woman whose body was taken from casket sues funeral home in San Antonio

The next morning, an employee discovered Mott's casket was empty. One of the hinges on the casket had been damaged, and the bier on which it was resting was found in an "unnatural" position by an exit door, according to expert testimony given in the civil case. According to a police report, there were no signs of forced entry, and the building's security system was never triggered.

Police launched an investigation into the disappearance of Mott's body, and Wilburn was immediately named a person of interest in the case.

Mission Park Owner Robert "Dick" Tips, who had previously employed Mott's father as a pilot for his private aircraft and at one time rented a home to the Mott family, offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the people responsible for Mott's disappearance, and multiple search parties for the remains were conducted.

None were successful.

"We just want our daughter's remains returned so we can have some closure to our grief," Tim Mott told reporters a week after the disappearance.

The location of Mott's body remains unknown today.

A newly uncovered business relationship

At the heart of the new developments is a relationship between Mission Park Funeral Chapel & Cemeteries and a third-party mortuary service company, Beyer & Beitel.

Mott family attorneys say Tips and his wife Kristin Tips, the president of MPII, Inc., the parent company of Mission Park, either didn't know or deliberately "sought to conceal" the fact that Mission Park subcontracted services from Beyer & Beitel for years.

According to court records, Beyer & Beitel employees had "unfettered" after-hours access, exterior door keys and alarm codes to Mission Park facilities, including the location on Cherry Ridge Drive from which Mott's body disappeared.

"After initially denying the use of subcontractors to transport and embalm deceased loved ones, Mission Park now admits that they have used the subcontractor for many years, without any supervision to speak of, by Mission Park," Mott family attorneys allege.

According to court documents filed by Mott family attorneys in the civil case accusing Mission Park of gross negligence, Beyer & Beitel employees were tasked with performing "the vast majority, if not all, of the transportation and embalming" of bodies entrusted to Mission Park.

Bexar County property records show that MPII, Inc., even serves as Beyer & Beitel's landlord. The company is the listed owner of a building at 211 Brooklyn Avenue, where Beyer & Beitel conducts business.

The new development has placed increased scrutiny on the Tips and Mission Park's past security protocols, according to a source with knowledge of the trial.

RELATED: Everything we know about the theft of Julie Mott's body from a San Antonio funeral home

Neither the Tips nor the Motts were available for comment as the presiding judge in the case issued a gag order to both parties on June 30, 2016, barring them from speaking with members of the press.

"While the Tips would love to talk to you about Julie's case, they cannot," said Ted Eccles, a Tips family friend who said they asked him to respond to requests for comment from mySA.

A manager at Beyer & Beitel, who identified himself only as Allen, declined to comment on the company's relationship to Mission Park and Mott's disappearance.

The source said the contract between Mission Park and Beyer & Beitel was first discovered in February of this year and that the relationship was "kept from" the family and their attorneys.

According to court records, Kristin Tips testified on Feb. 28 that there was no possibility that someone other than a Mission Park employee was involved in the services provided to Julie Mott.

But her testimony appears to contradict three affidavits from former Beyer & Beitel employees who claimed they delivered bodies to Mission Park on a regular basis.

"If the delivery was after the funeral home business hours, I would use the key to enter the funeral home and the alarm code to disarm the alarm and deliver the body to the prep room," said Corina Barron Kaiser, a former Beyer & Beitel employee. "At Mission Park North (on Cherry Ridge Drive), I would enter the building after hours almost every other weekend to deliver bodies from Beyer & Beitel, I had the key and alarm code from the key ring that was in each Beyer & Beitel van and the prep room code I had memorized because I delivered there so often."

Kaiser also said that she began a job at Mission Park after she left Beyer & Beitel in May 2014. She was employed with Mission Park at the time of Mott's disappearance, and she said the following week, "Mission Park changed their policy of allowing Beyer & Beitel drivers to enter the funeral home after hours with a key and alarm code and required deliveries to be made during business hours."

Just months before Mott's disappearance, Beyer & Beitel was also sued for its role in mixing up the body of 73-year-old Beatrice Garza with that of another woman. The case was later settled.

Mission Park has had recent legal trouble as well. Online Bexar County District Court records indicate Mission Park and its parent company, MPII, Inc., have been sued for damages or breach of contract at least a dozen times since 2000.

A lawsuit filed against the company about a week after the Motts sued accuses Palm Heights Mortuary, which is owned by Mission Park, of confusing the body of Jose C. Perez with that of another man, according to mySA archives. Mission Park employees conducted a 2- to 3-hour search before Perez's body was found at another funeral home.

The police investigation

Jesse Salame, a spokesman for the San Antonio Police Department, said he couldn't confirm police have spoken with any Beyer & Beitel employees, but he said they've spoken to numerous persons of interest and witnesses, not all of whom are tied to Mission Park.

"We're following the leads as they come in," he said. "This case was handled in a way that a homicide would be investigated. We're not taking any evidence for granted, and we've been reexamining things. It's been a very comprehensive investigation."

Meanwhile, Wilburn, Mott's ex-boyfriend, who did not respond to multiple requests for comment, allegedly began harassing everyone connected to Mott's case to get information on her body's whereabouts after the disappearance. According to one police report, Wilburn called Mission Park staff over 200 times in one day, and police issued him a criminal trespass notice on Sept. 2, 2015, forbidding his entrance to Mission Park property.

The Mott family reported Wilburn to the Bexar County Sheriff's Office on Feb. 8, 2016, after he called them more than a dozen times between midnight and 4 a.m. over a two-week period to ask for information on the investigation.

He also violated Mission Park's trespass notice on June 26 and June 29, 2016, when he was spotted by employees and captured on security camera footage attempting to gain entrance to Mission Park North, according to police reports. He was later arrested on two charges of criminal trespassing and is awaiting trial.

RELATED: Relatives sue San Antonio funeral home over dressing wrong corpse in father's clothes, losing body

"In my opinion, [the security camera footage] demonstrates Wilburn's ongoing obsession with remaining at the center of his own narrative, repeatedly driving around the facility, looking in windows, shaking door handles, and staring straight into monitoring cameras," testified James D. Calder, a University of Texas-San Antonio professor specializing in crime and politics who was asked by attorneys for Mission Park to serve as an expert witness in the trial.

Wilburn's actions were "far outside the range of any normal person who would claim to police investigators that he had nothing to do with a crime, such as theft of human remains," Calder said.

A source close to the trial said Wilburn's actions, while strange and suspicious, don't have anything to do with Julie's disappearance.

"Julie having a crazy ex-boyfriend is the best thing that could have happened to [the Tips]," the source said.

The source said the Mott family began to get the feeling they were "being played" by the Tips and Mission Park shortly after Mott's disappearance. In January 2016, the Mott family, including Mott's father Tim, his wife, Sharlotte, and son, Jonathan, filed suit against Mission Park for gross negligence. The family is seeking $1 million in damages.

Salame said that if there is conclusive proof that anyone has deliberately withheld information regarding Mott's whereabouts or purposefully deceived investigators on the case, they could face criminal charges.

Both the civil and criminal cases are pending, and Salame said police are far from considering the investigation into Mott's disappearance "cold."

"A case isn't cold until you've exhausted every possible lead and explored every possibility, and I don't know that we're there yet."

cdowns@mysa.com

Twitter: @calebjdowns
At least 17 people were killed and eight others wounded after a number of assailants attacked a restaurant in Burkina Faso around 9 p.m. local time Sunday (5 p.m. ET).

The attack took place in Ouagadougou, the capital of the West African nation, the government confirmed in a statement. It's not known how many attackers were involved.

Attackers barricaded themselves in the Istanbul restaurant on Avenue Kwame Nkrumah in the center of the city, state media RTB reports, citing authorities.

Burkina Faso Communications Minister Remis Dandjinou called the raid a "terrorist attack," according to Reuters, and said the victims were from a number of countries. Efforts are underway to identify the bodies so the authorities can inform their families.

State media RTB reported that two "terrorists" had been killed.

After the attack, a security perimeter was established by the Defense and Security forces and all roads leading up to the Ouagadougou International Airport were closed. The injured were taken to the Yalgado Ouedraogo hospital center, according to the government statement.

The Prosecutor's Office is investigating the incident.

The government sent condolences to the families of the dead and requested that citizens "remain calm and respect... safety instructions."

The French Foreign Ministry issued a statement urging its citizens to stay away from the area. It also offered its condolences to the victims' families and said that it "stands by" the Burkino Faso government "during this painful time."

Burkina Faso -- then known as Upper Volta -- was a French colony until 1960.

Ongoing issue

Militants have targeted civilians in Burkina Faso previously, most notably in 2016 when attackers raided a luxury hotel in Ouagadougou, shooting some and taking others hostage in a siege that lasted hours and ended with 29 people dead.

An al Qaeda-linked terrorist group, Al-Mourabitoun, claimed responsibility for that assault, which had similarities to one at the Radisson Blu Hotel in neighboring Mali in November the previous year.

That attack left 22 people dead.
Eric Gay/STF

AUSTIN -- The Texas Legislature has sent another bill related to abortions to Gov. Greg Abbott to become law.

Early Tuesday morning, the Senate passed out House Bill 215, which would require physicians to report more details to the state about women younger than 18 who obtain abortions. Specifically, physicians would have to note whether they received permission for the abortion from a parent, through a legal guardian or through the courts.
When George Hill isn't playing for the Kings in Sacramento, he might be getting in some rest and recuperation in the Texas Hill Country.

David Garcia, of Luxury Home Magazine, said the former Spur bought about 700 acres on Aug. 11.
Iowa was once known as the creme de la creme in primary education, raising children who ranked near the top in college readiness and math and reading scores.

Now, the status quo is mediocrity. The latest evidence: In a nation known for its foreign-language illiteracy, Iowa ranks below average in the percentage of students learning a world language.

This is the result, in part, of the state's modus operandi of underfunding education. Many Iowa schools can't afford to offer more than one foreign language in high school and nothing in lower grades.

Continuing to fail, however, need not be a fait accompli. Gov. Kim Reynolds has focused on expanding opportunities in science, technology, engineering and math for students. These topics are critical for Iowa's competitiveness. But we should not send the message that mastering coding language is more important than learning Chinese or Spanish.

As the U.S. lags other countries in language learning, Iowa has fallen behind its neighboring states.

About 15 percent of Iowa's K-12 students were enrolled in a foreign language course in 2014-15, according to a report published by the American Councils for International Education and the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.

That puts Iowa 35th out of 50 states and the District of Columbia, and near the bottom in the Midwest. Nebraska, the Dakotas and Missouri have a higher percentage of students learning a foreign language.

Evidence shows that the earlier students get instruction in a foreign language, the more likely they will become proficient and the better they will do academically overall. Yet Iowa districts are not required to offer courses until high school. Most elementary schools offer nada.

Wisconsin ranked No. 3 in the report, with more than 36 percent of students learning a foreign language. The state requires schools to offer foreign language courses starting in seventh grade and encourages schools to start earlier. And it offers the Seal of Biliteracy, which a student receives after taking a test to show proficiency in English and another language.

Iowa lawmakers failed to pass a bill allowing the seal this past legislative session.

One problem Iowa and most states face is a shortage of qualified teachers, according to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Iowa teacher salaries rank in the middle of the country, so the odds are against it in the race for teachers  particularly after the Legislature passed the law this year shrinking public employees' collective-bargaining rights.

The classroom shouldn't be the only opportunity for foreign-language learning. The American Academy of Arts & Sciences report recommends partnerships between businesses and schools, more opportunities for students to study abroad and ways for students to immerse themselves in other cultures.

Business leaders understand that as commerce becomes increasingly global, knowledge of another language is de rigueur. National security experts urge students to learn critical-need languages, such as Arabic, Korean and Russian.

Yet an anti-immigrant zeitgeist can undermine these efforts. Qatar Foundation International, which supports Arabic language instruction in U.S. schools, faces anti-Islamic opposition. In 2015, residents in Houston protested at an Arabic Immersion Magnet School.

Federal policies can also build walls between cultures. A bill to curb legal immigration, which President Donald Trump promoted this week, would favor immigrants who know English. Such a move would not help efforts to increase bilingualism among native-born Americans.

Iowa is justifiably proud of its international connections, including having a former governor as ambassador in Beijing. Our new governor and other state leaders can take advantage of this to promote learning Chinese or another foreign language. Iowa can be on the avant-garde in foreign language education.

This editorial appeared in the Aug. 3 edition of the Des Moines Register.
Three rights groups have joined forces with the Democratic Alliance (DA) to set aside the diplomatic immunity granted to former Zimbabwean first lady Grace Mugabe to shield her from trial for allegedly assaulting a South African model at a Sandton hotel four months ago.

The High Court in Pretoria granted leave to Freedom Under Law (FUL), the Commission for Gender Equality and the Womens Legal Centre Trust (WLC) to intervene in the DAs application as friends of the court and to make legal submissions.

The DAs application will be heard next year with a separate application by model Gabriella Engels and AfriForum to set aside International Relations and Cooperation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabanes August decision to recognise Grace Mugabes diplomatic immunity. Engels laid a charge of assault against Mugabe after she burst into a Sandton hotel room and allegedly used an electric cord with a plug at the end to hit Engels on the head on August 13.

Engels maintained diplomatic immunity legislation excluded granting it to heads of state who behaved in a criminal manner and caused death or injury to South African citizens, and that granting it to Mugabe was invalid. The DA said Nkoana-Mashabanes decision constituted an irrational abuse of statutory power and should be set aside as unconstitutional.

Nkoana-Mashabane, in court papers, said Grace Mugabe, as the wife of former Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe, had spousal immunity under international law. Not granting immunity to her would have had serious implications for international relations between SA and Zimbabwe and would have caused chaos and collapsed the Southern African Development Community summit which SA was hosting, she said.

She said she had considered Engels interest but had to recognise Mugabes spousal immunity. FUL said the decision that spouses of heads of state had the same immunity as their partners offended SAs Bill of Rights, including the right to dignity, equality and to be free from all forms of violence. WLC said Mugabes immunity has grave implications for the jurisprudence on violence against women and the states obligations in respect thereof.

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Iowa has more than 10,000 factory farms - more than any other state. These facilities come under fire from animal rights groups, environmentalists, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They are breeding grounds for diseases and generate 22 billion gallons of manure annually, which contaminate our rivers, streams and wells with E. coli bacteria. Today, Iowa has a record-breaking 750 polluted water bodies. The burden of clean up falls upon everyday Iowans.

The Master Matrix is a tool in the permitting process that is supposed to protect communities and the environment from factory farm pollution. But it has failed to live up to those promises. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources has denied only 2 percent of applications, in spite of objections from citizens. The result is that Iowa has more factory farms and more pollution than ever.

We need to strengthen the permitting process for factory farms. The DNR needs to take up a petition filed last month by Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement and Food & Water Watch to strengthen the Master Matrix. This is something DNR needs to do right now because our legislature has failed to address the problem. Iowans can't wait any longer!

Jan McGinnis, Marshalltown
PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa has condemned unjustified price hikes by some business dealers, saying such actions cannot be allowed to continue. Addressing delegates attending the 6th Buy Zimbabwe Annual Awards at a Harare hotel last night, President Mnangagwa said no to such counter-economic practices. He said business should complement Government efforts to revive the economy by refraining from counter-productive measures like selling cash and multi-tier pricing systems. Government notes with concern the existence of a multi-tier pricing system and this cannot go unabated, he said.

We need to examine our modus operandi as captains of industry and commerce if we are ever going to move forward. There are some dealers, suppliers and business owners who are in the habit of increasing prices willy-nilly without proper justification, let me hasten to say my Government says no to such counter-economic practices.

I urge our wholesalers and retailers, as we approach this festive season, to refrain from profiteering by charging unscrupulous prices and never to put measures that may derail our efforts for a quick turnaround of the economy. Government wants to protect the rights of the consumers and ensure that its citizenry is not short changed or duped by unscrupulous dealers. Our people need a decent festive season where they can make and enjoy their holidays.

President Mnangagwa said Government was also implementing sweeping measures to address the prevailing liquidity crunch. He said such measures included import management strategies and export expansionary policies in line the with the recent budget statement by Finance and Economic Planning Minister Cde Patrick Chinamasa. We need to keep money inside the country to avert the liquidity crisis and reduce company closures in the context of limited foreign direct investment, said President Mnangagwa.

The cash shortages have negatively impacted on effective demand. Government is doing all in its power to address the anomaly, among other things the proposed domestic procurement index which will require retailers to cut down on imports and increase purchases of local products. President Mnangagwa reiterated that individuals and corporates who illegally extenalised funds and assets must return them before by end of the three month moratorium with no questions and or charges leveled against them.

For those who might choose to ignore his call he warned that: I think you all know my background. President Mnangagwa also spoke highly on industrialisation saying Government was doing everything to support the local industry. Government is doing everything possible to revive the economy through enactment of laws and policies that support local producers and linking them to retailers, consumers and other relevant stakeholders.

Amongst some of these measures are the Cotton Pricing Model, Cotton to Clothing Value Chain, Industrial Development Fund, Leather and Leather Products Strategy and the National Competitiveness Bill. Buy Zimbabwe efforts through its annual Buy Zimbabwe Awards should be should be applauded. The campaign seeks to actively promote home-grown products for the domestic and global markets.

I also urge the relevant stakeholders and individuals to complement Government strides than engaging in illegal counter measures such as cash selling, cash hoarding, multi-tier pricing, extra commission pricing, forex dealing, funds externalisation and other money laundering activities. President Mnangagwa said Zimbabwe should now reclaim its position as the jewel of Africa and its economic growth should be hinged on the ability to meet global standards.

The Buy Zimbabwe Awards chairman Sebastain Zuze said the awards were benchmarked on four key aspects that include economic growth, job creation, capability to produce quality products and sustainability of operations. Some of the companies that walked away with the prestigious awards include Nestle Zimbabwe, Nyaradzo Group, Zimplats and World Gas, among others.

Breaking News via Email
FORMER American soldier Ronald Leon Johnson has been fined $50 000 (equivalent to US$400) by a Harare magistrate for entering the country with a loaded pistol in breach of the immigration laws and the Firearms Act.

Johnson, who was in the country on a 30-day holiday visa, was fined by magistrate Stanford Mambanje yesterday, who found him guilty of possessing a firearm without a valid certificate.

The court heard that Johnson landed at the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International

Airport on February 5 with his Glock 17 gen 4 pistol and three loaded magazines stashed in his suitcase.

On February 15, he checked in at the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport intending to board a fastjet flight to Victoria Falls.

The accused had not applied for authority to carry a firearm on board an aircraft 24 hours prior to check in, in terms of section 65(3) as read with section 65(4) of the Civil Aviation (Security) Regulations, 2019.

This led to his arrest.

 NewsDay

Breaking News via Email
ZIFA have added their former finance manager Benjamin Dhewa and ex-accountant Fabian Vanganayi to a cartel of football leaders, led by their former chief executive Jonathan Mashingaidze, whom the association accuse of having captured Zimbabwean football for years in which they ran a fraudulent multi-million-dollar scheme that ripped the game of its financial muscle.

The domestic football governing body wants the trio arrested for the financial crimes they allegedly committed as they worked in cahoots to milk the association during their time as leaders of both the financial and administrative arms of ZIFA. They have dubbed it ZIFA Capture and claim the fraudulent activities of the trio ripped the heart off domestic football and left it resembling a shell weighed down by a debt that ballooned from $600 000 to over $7 million in less than six years.

The Warriors were also expelled from the FIFA 2018 World Cup qualifiers, for the first time in their history, after ZIFA failed to pay the teams former coach Valinhos about $68 000 despite the PSL having forwarded a similar amount from their coffers for the dissolution of the debt.

The money paid by the PSL, just like about $55 000 that was given to ZIFA by their benefactor Walter Magaya for the Young Warriors COSAFA Under-20 Tournament in South Africa in 2015 did not find its way to the intended destination. This led to the prophet publicly rebuking Mashingaidze for the way his financial support ended in the wrong hands.

I wasnt very happy on the issue of the rands (560 000) that l gave (to the Young Warriors). Some of the players didnt even get them, including the coach, Magaya thundered back then.

Mr Mashingaidze, my support is not for you, is not on the ZIFA side, lm not a political person. My support is on these guys (players). ZIFA made a report to the police on Friday in which they accused Mashingaidze of running a cartel that was fleecing the association of millions of dollars in a fraudulent scheme that had left the organisation with a debt in excess of $7 million.

Yesterday, ZIFA added former accountant Venganayi and ex-finance manager Dhewa to the cartel in a report they made to the police. The developments came on the day that the Confederation of African Football also exposed Mashingaidze as the man who was working as a local spy for the continental bodys former president Issa Hayatou during the boardroom battles that eventually toppled the Cameroonian strongman from power.

Mashingaidze had gambled on Hayatou retaining his position in the battle against Ahmad and then using a dossier, which the former ZIFA chief executive sent to CAF, to boot ZIFA president Philip Chiyangwa from his position as part of a cocktail of disciplinary measures against the Harare property tycoon for leading the campaign to topple the Cameroonian.

Although Mashingaidze was still employed by ZIFA back then, he secretly sent a dossier to CAF outlining what he claimed to be transgressions by his boss and calling for the continental football governing body to kick him out of domestic football administration.

That CAF didnt even entertain Mashingaidzes package of allegations, including vote-buying and mismanagement, but have now sent that dossier back to Chiyangwa, exposing Mashingaidzes shenanigans, also suggest that the former ZIFA chief executives battle to rope in either the continental organisation or FIFA to kick out the ZIFA boss are clearly a fruitless exercise. ZIFA have now gone a step further to try and nail Mashingaidze and his crew.

We made a report with the above RRB Number (report on theft/fraud at ZIFA RRB 3370999) on Saturday 16 December 2017 wherein the accused person was one Jonathan Mashingaidze, read a report filed with the police yesterday by ZIFA chief executive Joseph Mamutse.

Further perusal of the information at hand has revealed that the accused worked with the following persons in committing the crimes in the report and others. Mr Benjamin Dhewa ID number 18-06224 D 18 of 1619 Damofalls and Mr Fabian Madzima Venganayi of Second Avenue, Mbare.

The criminal activities took place over several years with the parties taking advantage of their positions and influential offices to siphon money out of the institution fraudulently.

The three cases in the 2011 Audit Report (reveal):

1) theft of an amount of $41 215

2) theft of amount of $99 648

3) fraud amounting to $744 635

It has now come out that the trio, working together and at times individually, stole or misappropriated or defrauded the association of various amounts on several occasions some of which are listed below:

a) Mr Fabian Venangayi stole $1 500 by way of withholding part of the gate takings and converted the amount to his own use and never returned the money to ZIFA.

b) The trio took advantage of a garnish placed ZIFA BancABC account and fraudulently withdrew money from the account and converted it to own use. We are requesting the Zimbabwe Republic Police to effect arrest of these criminals and bring them to book.

ZIFA is suffocating from the problems brought about by these people. It would be in the best interest of justice that the culprits return whatever moneys they stole and/or defrauded from ZIFA. We need to regain lost confidence and trust from the donor community in order for ZIFA to function smoothly.

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FUGITIVE former Zanu PF Manicaland youth chairman Mubuso Chinguno says he now regrets the decision to align himself with former First Lady Grace Mugabe and her G40 cabal.

Speaking to NewsDay yesterday from his hideout in South Africa, Chinguno claimed he had been misled into believing Grace was the final arbiter in Zanu PF politics and that she was the kingmaker in both party and government.

When I was in G40 I was misinformed on everything. As youths we followed the G40 blindly. As youths we were young and too small on some actual issues that were happening, Chinguno said.

I regret that I made certain decisions and statements associated with the G40 cabal based on the inadequate information I had.

I thought that as a loyal and dedicated party cadre I was doing the right thing, by supporting the former First Lady, not knowing that she had been compromised.

Note that as youths we are often not privy to certain information, especially that which is confidential, in the party and country particularly with regard to serious accusations against members of the party and national leadership.

The former youth leader said he was afraid of coming back home following his string of unrestrained attacks on then Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa before he took over from former President Robert Mugabe.

Let the dust settle first. I know what the other G40 members have gone through. But as of now I would like to apologise to President Emerson Mnangagwa and everyone who might have been offended by my actions, Chinguno said.

Other G40 members who have skipped the country and are yet to return include former ministers Saviour Kasukuwere, Jonathan Moyo, Patrick Zhuwao and Mandiitawepi Chimene, among others.

Breaking News via Email
New law will allow retailers to ask customers for a photo ID with credit and debit card purchases.

AUSTIN  A new Texas law that goes into effect on January 1 will allow merchants to decline card purchases made without a valid photo ID, reports the Texas Tribune.

The goal of the new law is to reduce debit and credit card fraud, notes the news source, adding that merchants can currently ask to see photo ID; however, their contracts with card companies often bar them from declining a transaction if a customer refuses to show it.

I think most people, like me, were surprised that merchants cannot already do this, state Sen. Bryan Hughes, who authored the legislation, told the news source. The intent of the law is to give Texas businesses the right to take this common-sense step of asking for an ID for a credit card transaction.

Because the new law says merchants may decline a transaction if ID is not provided, its not necessarily requiring them to violate their contract, Colin Marks, a professor at St. Marys University School of Law and an expert on contracts, told the news source. He adds that card companies could tell merchants that the law doesnt require you to turn [customers who don't show ID] down, and you contractually agreed that you would not.

Keith Strama, a lobbyist for Visa, says that the law could be confusing to retailers. The last thing we want to do is get in a legal dispute about how this bill applies to our contracts, he said, adding that the measure could penalize Texans without photo ID who use debit cards issued by the government for certain benefit programs.

Groups opposing the measure include a state retailer association, notes the news source, whose lobbyist suggested that allowing employees to determine which customers must show an ID could be perceived as discriminatory or biased.
Heading to college and looking for the lowdown on what its like to be a third level student on some of Ireland's most popular campuses?

Warning to parents ahead of Leaving Cert results night

The Nationalist chatted with the Tipperary students in the know to get a glimpse of life after secondary school.

Laura Pigott moved to Clonmel from West Cork to study Creative Multimedia at LIT and never looked back. The third year student said her Clonmel experience was "fantastic" and credited LIT's welcoming staff and students as pivotal in her decision to put the college top of her CAO list.

Laura said the smaller classes allowed for greater interaction with lecturers and students, making adjusting to college life a lot easier. Laura also dispelled any suggestions that Clonmel isn't a vibrant hub of student activity off campus. "Clonmel is a lovely town to live in with lots of events, festivals and things to do. LIT integrates with the local community with events like DesignFest and open days for prospective students, and getting involved in student life will ensure that you get the most from the experience, she smiled.

Newchapel Podiatry student Gemma O'Dwyer "absolutely loves NUI Galway". Gemma shared some advice for those considering third level education. "Campus accommodation in first year will help you find your feet, and clubs and societies are a great way to make some lifelong friends," the past Loreto Secondary School Clonmel student suggested.

Aspiring secondary school teacher Grace Kennedy decided to study Irish and History at Maynooth University because it ticked all the boxes.

I wanted to experience the buzz of a university town, and in comparison to cities like Dublin and Cork, Maynooth is laidback and less hectic. During the academic year the town is home to thousands of students and it tends to all of our needs. It seems like the whole town becomes our campus.

Its great to meet so many diverse personalities from across the country and the world who attend the university and refer to it as their second home, the past Loreto Secondary School Clonmel student said.

Past Presentation Secondary School Clonmel student Vivian Kenneally, who studied Architectural and Building Information Modelling at WIT, noted that commuting to college from home has advantages and disadvantages. It was tiring being up early in order to catch the bus, but it was a nice way to ease into to the college life, and it wasn't a complete shock to the system when I did move down in my third year. Thinking back I don't think I missed out on the college life in the first two years.

Past Scoil Mhuire, Carrick-on-Suir, student Sara McQuinn highlighted that going to UCC was one of the best decisions of her life. Sara studied Public Health in Cork, before commencing a two year Masters in Research in DCU. UCC s campus is beautiful and its so close to the city; living close to college is something I took for granted after living in Dublin. Student life is great in UCC, there are constantly events going on and the free gym is brilliant.

It's slightly more expensive in Dublin in all aspects, and DCU is about a 15/20 minute bus from the city centre so it isn't as easy as a stroll into town from UCC.

DCU is smaller than UCC too but the clubs, societies, gym and library are just as good, Sara added.

Cahirs Marian ODonnell highlighted the great community atmosphere in the University of Limerick. My degree included work placement and Erasmus which really attracted me to UL, the History and Politics graduate explained.

All the buildings are on the same campus, and were like one big family. The nightlife in the city is also brilliant, she concluded.
Chettinad, the word that is popular throughout the country due to the exceptional cuisine that everybody's familiar with, is actually a region in the Sivaganga district of Tamil Nadu. The word "Chetti" is a Sanskrit word, which means wealth. Chettiar is a social caste of Mercantile Bankers, who are well known for being traders of spices and salt.

This finds place in their cuisine, of which some of the most beloved dishes are Chicken Chettinad and other seafood made in Chettinad style. The religious sites that are dotted in and around the region have made Chettinad a nomination in UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

PC: CCFoodTravel.com

Chettinad used to be a group of 96 villages, which has now been reduced to 74 since a lot of residents emigrated to Southeast Asia in the 19th and early 20th century. During this time, they even used to import white marble, chandelier, crockery, etc., from the East Asian and European countries like Burma, Belgium and Indonesia.

Here are some of the places to visit and things to do in Chettinad.

Witnessing Mansion

During the 19th and 20th century, the people of Chettinad traded salt and spice for the above mentioned items like marble and decorative articles since they used it for building huge Chettinad-style mansions. The mansions were so big that the entrance would start on one lane and exit on the other lane!

PC: KARTY JazZ

Locally called nattukottai, these mansion can be seen till date, wherein some of the remnant mansions have been turned into luxury hotels. If you want to travel back a century in time, then make sure to visit, or even live in one of these mansions!

These palatial homes show off a gloss till date due to the coat of egg whites and lime given to the walls. They exhibit ceiling tiles from Spain, chandeliers and teak pillars from Burma and a rainwater harvesting method adopted hundreds of years ago. They have been built in such a way that these palatial homes remain cool even in the scorching heat of Tamil Nadu.

Temples Of Chettinad

PC: rajaraman sundaram

About 17 km from Kanadukathan village of Chettinad, lies the beautiful and ancient Pillayarpatti Temple. This 5th century temple is believed to be one of the most important places that houses the shrines of Lord Shiva and Ganesha.

Thirumayam Fort, a fortress spread across the area of 40 acres was built in 1687 by a local ruler, Vijaya Raghunatha Sethupathi. Since it is perched at a vantage point, a fantastic view of the region's landscape can be seen.

But the main attraction of the place is the group of 3 rock-cut temples which is dedicated to Lord Shiva and Lord Vishnu. Bastions with canons belonging to the British can be seen in the fort.

PC: Joelsuganth

How To Reach Chettinad

By Air: Located at a distance of 100 km from Chettinad lies the Madurai International Airport, which is the closest air base to the region. It is well connected to the main cities of India like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, etc.

By Rail: Thiruchirapalli Railway Station is the closest railhead to Chettinad, which is connected to all neighbouring cities like Chennai, Rameswaram, Coimbatore, etc.

By Road: It is well connected to the rest of the state by roads of good condition. Taxis and interstate buses are regularly available, that connects Chettinad to places within and around the state.
(Natural News) If the right to bear arms is the most important right outlined in the United States Constitution, then the freedom of speech is a close second. The Founding Fathers understood better than anyone that those who are in positions of power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree, and that tyranny will come to America unless those with authority are restrained. One way we restrain these authoritarian figures (namely the politicians in Washington DC) is by practicing our First Amendment rights to speak about, praise or criticize the direction in which the country is going. The freedom of speech allows us to hold politicians accountable, elect leaders that will govern in our best interests, and expel those who dont. Without the ability to speak freely and openly, none of this is possible.

Currently, and sadly, the freedom of speech is under attack in America. The mainstream media, Hollywood and leftists on college campuses across the country have been the main culprits of the assault on free speech, however recently it has also been undermined on the Internet. More and more frequently, stories are emerging of conservative voices being suppressed or even silenced by various social media websites, search engines, and even Google.

Recently, a Google employee who goes by the alias Hal spoke to Breitbart News about the political bias that allegedly runs rampant throughout the company. Hals interview with Breitbart is the first in a series entitled Rebels of Google, which will be published in full within the next few days.

In the interview, Hal, who understandably chose to use a fake name out of fear of losing his job, spoke about the ongoing effort within Google to suppress certain content that the company doesnt want the public to have easy access to.

Many people now fear that Google, Facebook and other companies are moving to control and censor their content. Are these fears justified? asked Breitbart reported Allum Bokhari. That is absolutely what Google is trying to do, Hal replied. The pro-censorship voices are very loud, and they have the managements ear. The anti-censorship people are afraid of retaliation, and people are afraid to openly support them because everyone in their management chain is constantly signaling their allegiance to far-left ideology. Our leadership (Sundar in particular) is weak, so he capitulates to the meanest bullies on the block.

The news is particularly damning to conservatives, who in recent years have been working to establish a stronghold on the Internet considering the fact that all other outlets, from the mainstream media to Hollywood, are run by leftists. A prominent example of this is Mark Levins LevinTV, which is an Internet-based conservative program launched last year that puts out new episodes every weeknight. If Google is actively working to censor ideas and information that do not align with the progressive ideology, conservative voices on the Internet could be in serious trouble. Related: Google and Facebook algorithms create a whole new kind of censorship, warns News Corp CEO.)

Another area of the Internet where widespread censorship is occurring is on the Google-owned video sharing website, YouTube. Just days ago, YouTube revealed on their official blog that they would be taking action to censor what they consider to be hate speech and violent extremism. YouTube also plans on launching a trusted flagger program, which will help the video sharing website identify videos that contain hate speech and extremism. Unsurprisingly, one of the organizations tasked with identifying which videos are to be censored is the left wing No Hate Speech Movement, as well as the Anti-Defamation League.

With liberal censorship running rampant in the mainstream media, in Hollywood, on college campuses and across the Internet, our country needs pro-First Amendment voices now more than ever. Once the freedom of speech is gone, it is only a matter of time before an all-powerful authoritarian state is established and individual liberty in America ceases to exist.

Sources include:

Breitbart.com

ZeroHedge.com
(Natural News) Frustrated with Googles continued efforts to silence free speech and control the content that shows up on peoples internet searches, protesters from all across the country are planning a multi-locale March on Google on August 19 to make their voices heard. The nationwide event will reportedly take place at ground zero, Googles headquarters in Mountain View, California, as well as in New York City, Washington, D.C., Austin, Texas, Boston, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, and Kirkland, Washington (near Seattle).

Dubbed as a coordinated effort to challenge Googles silencing (of) dissenting voices, the protest was sparked after the recent firing by Google of James Damore, a company employee who wrote a memo entitled Googles Ideological Echo Chamber. Some news outlets have described the memo as being anti-diversity, but in reality, it simply challenges Googles discriminatory policies that cater to LGBT people, for instance, at the expense of everyone else.

In his memo, Damore called into question Googles political bias, for instance, explaining that it practices shaming into silence everyone who disagrees with it as promoting the antithesis of psychological safety. Damore also challenged Googles lack of discussion on important matters relating to political bias, the gender pay gap myth, and others extreme forms of political correctness that Google accepts and promotes, not to mention is blatant censorship of web search results.

Google has several biases and honest discussion about these biases is being silenced by the dominant ideology, Damore wrote in his memo, noting that Google loves to talk about fictitious race and gender biases, but never about its flagrant political orientation bias, which fosters discrimination against employees with conservative-leaning political views.

Mainstream media falsely labels protest alt-right to discredit it and protect corrupt Google

For expressing these truths, Damore was reportedly fired from his position at Google, ironically illustrating the Goolag-type dictatorship that exists at this powerful company. In response, Damore is planning to sue Google for his being wrongfully terminated, having submitted a complaint to the National Labor Relations Board just before his expected firing.

But this is just the start of Googles troubles from those who are absolutely outraged that the company would stoop to such lows to silence dissent. Google had initially attempted to hold a discussion on the matter with its 60,000 employees, but many of the questions that Google had asked its employees to submit were apparently leaked, and their private information published online for the world to see  a retaliatory effort by hackers to shame Google for committing an egregious act of discriminatory vengeance against an employee who had every right to express his views without fear of retribution.

Google is a monopoly, and its abusing its power to silence dissent and manipulate election results, the March on Google website explains, announcing its plans for the upcoming protest. Protesters may also be exercising their free speech rights, which Google does not respect, by protesting in front of the homes of Googles executive team.

Meanwhile, the mainstream media is working on behalf of Google to discredit the protest by falsely associating it with the so-called alt-right, a fictitious group that supposedly espouses racist ideologies and other fringe positions. The March on Google is in no way affiliated with the alt-right, nor does it have anything to do with race.

We, the organizers of the March on Google, join the President in condemning the actions in Charlottesville on August 12th, the protest website added in a recent update. Despite many false rumors from those seeking to discredit us we are in no way associated with any group who organized there.

More on the March on Google and how to join up with it in a city near you is available at the March on Google website.

Sources for this article include:

MarchOnGoogle.com

Medium.com

Fortune.com
(Natural News) The average onshore wind turbine is a good source of energy, but the same cant be said of their smaller cousins. To some, the smaller, cylindrical wind turbines are too inefficient to be of any real use. To others, that need not be the case. Lam Nguyen and Meredith Metzger, both mechanical engineers from the University of Utah, assert that well-designed vertical-axis wind turbines can be useful in urban and suburban settings. Not just in terms of performance capabilities, but in monetary benefits as well.

For the entire year of 2009, Nguyen and Metzger gathered wind speed data from nine suburban and urban sites spanning a 500-kilometer square radius around Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; on these sites were 3D sonic anemometers positioned on top of traffic posts. They then used the wind speed data to simulate 13 wind turbine configurations, keeping in mind four important design parameters: blade airfoil shape, height-to-diameter aspect ratio, the turbines solidity, and the turbines moment of inertia. Furthermore, the researchers focused on the Darriues Wind Turbine or eggbeater turbine for this study.

To determine turbine efficiency, Nguyen and Metzger also calculated the amount of energy captured by each wind turbine configuration and compared it to the total available wind energy. Moreover, the researchers studied these wind design turbine configurations for the levelized cost of energy (LCOE), a metric used by the utility industry to estimate the cost of electricity produced by a generator. The researchers found four suburban sites that had potential to be economically viable for small vertical-axis wind turbines based on this metric.

Of the 13 wind turbine configurations, the one with the lowest moment of inertia was found to be the optimal turbine design. This particular design had an aspect ratio of 1.2, a symmetrical blade shape that was 15 percent thick as it was long, and a solidity of 12 percent. Even taking inertia into consideration, this configuration was found to be the most ideal out of all the others. At one of the economically viable suburban sites, this design produced electricity at a cost 10 percent smaller than the average national electricity unit price. That meant that the wind at this location had the potential to be a cheaper energy source than fossil fuels. In addition, the researchers noted that placing vertical-axis wind turbines on points that are at least nine meters off the ground would make them well-suited to urban locations. (Related: Breakthrough new wind farm design to increase energy production efficiency)

On their work, Nguyen stated that they have no intentions of just stopping at their current findings, especially with the knowledge that an optimally designed vertical-axis wind turbine could pave the way for lower electricity costs. This is not the end of our research, and I think that we have more to study on the turbine design configuration and its operating conditions that would allow for enhancing the amount of energy captured by the turbine, Nguyen remarked before adding: Its exciting.

To read up on more stories that are just like this one, go to Environ.news today.

Sources include:

ScienceDaily.com

AIP.Scitation.org
English Latvian

On August 14 JSC Latvijas Gaze organized webinars for investors with the aim to provide information of companys performance in 6 months of 2017, its second reorganization phase and other topics.

The recorded JSC Latvijas Gaze webinar is available online: http://ej.uz/LG-webinar-rec, and the presentation, demonstrated during the webinar, is available in the attachment.
Elisabeth Heflin is exhausted.

Shes been by her 15-year-old daughter Kaitlyns side while she suffers debilitating seizures. She administers Kaitlyns daily doses of medication and makes sure her feeding tubes are working properly. Kaitlyn receives nutrient-rich fluids intravenously at all hours of the day and night. Heflin, a single mom, is her daughters round the clock caregiver.

I just want to be her mom, Heflin said. Just for breaks, just to be a mom. That would be awesome. I need some help.

The state of California says Kaitlyns fragile medical condition qualifies her for 16 hours of at-home nursing care every day. But for more than three years, Kaitlyn has received exactly zero hours of care in her Sonoma County home. The Heflin family cant find an agency in the Bay Area that can help.

The state has an obligation to ensure that kids enrolled in Medi-Cal  kids like Kaitlin  get the services they need. But thats not always happening. As the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit first reported in 2016, a Napa family had to relocate to San Diego to find nurses who could help their 2-year-old daughter.

Despite new indications that the lack of home health care is impacting even more families, the state still isnt convinced theres a problem. The Department of Health Care Services, which oversees Medi-Cal, says there is not a systemic or geographic access-to-care issue. The department cites reports that show the number of home health providers has remained steady.

But as NBC Bay Area exposed last year, the department didnt even keep track of the hours nursing agencies failed to fill, either because companies couldnt staff the hours or because they refused care to patients. The state says it is now collecting this data, and hopes to complete its analysis by the fall.

DHCS says qualified home health nurses are limited by the same factors that affect any labor market, including retirement rates and the cost of living in different cities.

These factors interact with the availability of nurses and authorized hours, the geographic availability of providers, and the competing market demand for such providers, a department spokesman wrote in an email.

But critics say the state is failing families across California. William Leiner, managing attorney with Disability Rights California  a statewide advocacy organization  says federal law requires DCHS to make sure children get the help they are entitled to through Medi-Cal.

When nursing hours are authorized, the state has a corresponding obligation to make sure those hours get filled, Leiner said. When they dont, its a problem.

Following NBC Bay Areas investigation, Disability Rights California launched its own investigation into the availability of home health nurses. The group asked to speak with struggling families, and heard from more than 100 of them.

From the stories weve heard, it does seem to confirm that children are not getting the medical services that they have been determined to need, Leiner said. Hearing from over 100 families speaks to us that its something very significant in the system thats worth a much closer look and deeper dive.

Elisabeth Heflin has spent countless hours on her own, calling nursing agencies. Last year, the state gave her a list of more than 40 providers. The only agency that said it could help her daughter Kaitlyn, is located in Los Angeles.

In a May 2016 email, a DHCS case manager told Heflin that she had also contacted the agencies on the list, but none of them had availability. The woman said she would continue to follow up in hopes of finding a viable solution.

Heflin says she has yet to hear back, and subsequent phone calls and emails to DHCS have gone unreturned. When asked why she thinks her inquires to the state have been ignored, Heflin offered a theory.

I think the issue has been overlooked for so long, no one has an answer, she said. Im not asking for anything luxurious. Im not asking for money. Im not suing anybody. Im asking for care for Kaitlyn, that is covered  that she is supposed to have.

If you have a tip for the Investigative Unit, email theunit@nbcbayarea.com or call 888-996-TIPS. Follow Liz Wagner on Facebook and Twitter.

Disability Rights California is interested in talking to families who are authorized for in-home nursing or private duty nursing, but who cannot find nurses. Representatives are encouraging families to contact them at 888-852-9241.
AUSTIN, Texas, Aug. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SolarWinds, a leading provider of powerful and affordable IT management software, today announced the findings of its Digital Experience Monitoring Survey*. Chief among the findings are that North American organizations are experiencing digital issues that negatively affect their businesses at an alarming rate, yet they have been slow to adopt digital experience monitoring (DEM) tools. This slow adoption relates to both a lack of understanding of the benefits as well as budget constraints. However, the survey also found DEM brings proven benefits to both IT departments and businesses on the whole alike.



A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/94b6591f-b1f4-4d37-9fbe-53b72974ab70

We live in a highly digital world where companies can no longer take a passive approach to the digital experience of their customersits an organizations most important competitive advantage and makes all the difference between a good or bad customer experience, said Christoph Pfister, executive vice president, products, SolarWinds. These survey results demonstrate just how large of an impact DEM can haveamong the organizations that reported a revenue increase, it has driven an estimated mean of 15 percent revenue increase. The problem is that only eight percent are currently leveraging DEM.

To better enable customers to deliver the high-quality digital experience end-users expect, SolarWinds also announced updates to Pingdom, its leading DEM solution, including the all new filmstrip view and threshold alerting, as well as mobile application enhancements. These updates will help improve the digital experience by providing greater visibility to optimize how a website loads and more flexibility to alert sooner if a website is down.

In todays increasingly complex application environments, where users connect via a growing variety of devices and traverse a multitude of services within an app, quickly identifying when and where problems occur is key to business, said Nancy Gohring, senior analyst, application and infrastructure performance at 451 Research. Providers of traditional APM solutions that can offer products capable of monitoring and improving the digital experience will be well positioned to serve the needs of businesses that are increasingly focused on the user experience.

For a live view of global website outages, which demonstrates the need for greater DEM adoption, visit the Pingdom State of the Internet Live. This live broadcast of website outages and internet usage statics is collected by Pingdom from users across the world.

Survey Key Findings

Companies are suffering digital experience issues that negatively affect their businessesthey report a lack of visibility into customer experience and a need to monitorat an alarming rate, yet they are slow to adopt monitoring tools.

40 percent of the IT professionals surveyed reported negative customer-impacting digital experience issues or downtime within the past year The most commonly experienced digital issues were: Slow performance (51 percent) End-users being the first to discover issues (44 percent) Difficulty troubleshooting customer experience issues (41 percent) Website and/or app downtime (34 percent)

More than 25 percent said they are usually the last to know when customers are experiencing an issue, with only 16 percent reporting they are usually the first to know when there is a digital experience issue

While 70 percent said their companies are either in development or early stage implementation of DEM, only eight percent of respondents said their companies are currently leveraging DEM, and just four percent said theyre experts on DEM

The slow adoption of DEM relates to both a lack of understanding of the benefits as well as budget constraints.

The top three DEM challenges are: Budget constraints (50 percent) Integration with existing systems (37 percent) Lack of expertise with/understanding of DEM (34 percent)

The majority (60 percent) consider their companies DEM budgets to be insufficient

However, DEM brings proven benefits to both IT departments and businesses on the whole alike.

Fifty-nine percent reported fewer support tickets, 44 percent reported improved brand image, and 33 percent reported better ability to retain customers

Furthermore, the top three corporate benefits reported were less time spent manually troubleshooting reported performance problems (70 percent), less budget and resources dedicated to firefighting (43 percent), and more time to focus on innovation (43 percent)

The three problems DEM has most often been able to solve are: Website or web application page load speed (43 percent) Website or web application downtime (43 percent) Impacts on the end-user experience due to various devices, operating systems, and browsers (43 percent)

Among those who reported that DEM has driven increased revenue, a mean of 15.2 percent of revenue increase can be attributed to DEM

Business leaders seeking to improve visibility into and the performance of systems affecting digital experience should focus on technology.

The most important technology considerations in a DEM strategy are: Website uptime monitoring (75 percent indicated this is critical or very important) Server monitoring (74 percent indicated this is critical or very important) Network monitoring (67 percent indicated this is critical or very important) Application performance monitoring (64 percent indicated this is critical or very important)

The top two key factors driving interest in DEM are a lack of visibility or quantifiable customer experience metrics (48 percent) and the need to remain competitive through technology innovation that improves user experience (45 percent)

Pingdom Updates

Filmstrip View

With the new Filmstrip function, Pingdom users will be able to easily view the web page rendering using data from the Pingdom PageSpeed test, enabling even greater visibility of how website and web application changes impact the end-user experience. Filmstrip view is now available.

Threshold Alerting

With threshold alerting, users can select a time threshold after which their site would be considered down. This allows users to specify how long is too long when it comes to server response times for their website, giving them greater control over how their websites perform for visitors. Threshold alerting is now available.

Mobile Application Enhancements

With the latest updates to the Pingdom mobile applications for Google Android and Apple iOS, mobile device users will enjoy an updated design, more application customization, and other benefits. These mobile application enhancements for Android are now available, and the updates for iOS will become available in an upcoming release.

Latin America Probe Servers

Latin America is one of the fastest growing Internet markets in the world. Pingdom has added seven probe servers in Latin America so customers can check their websites availability and performance from this growing region. Pingdom now has over 100 probe servers located across the globe. Latin America Probe Servers are now available.

With more than one million accounts, Pingdom is the industry standard in the DEM arena, helping organizations make websites faster and more reliable with powerful, easy-to-use uptime and performance monitoring, Pfister added. With these updates, IT and marketing professionals are more empowered than ever to not only ensure websites and web applications are online, but also give their users a great digital experience; build positive brand image; and ultimately, drive more revenue.



*Fielded between May and June 2017 in conjunction with Penton Research, the survey yielded responses from 244 IT professionals, including 179 IT professionals in North America. Full survey results available upon request.

Additional Resources

Connect with SolarWinds

About SolarWinds

SolarWinds provides powerful and affordable IT management software to customers worldwide, from small businesses to Fortune 500 enterprises, managed service providers (MSPs), government agencies, and educational institutions. We are committed to focusing exclusively on IT, MSP, and DevOps professionals, and strive to eliminate the complexity that our customers have been forced to accept from traditional enterprise software vendors. Regardless of where the IT asset or user sits, SolarWinds delivers products that are easy to find, buy, use, maintain, and scale while providing the power to address key areas of the infrastructure from on-premises to the cloud. This focus and commitment to excellence in end-to-end hybrid IT performance management has established SolarWinds as the worldwide leader in both network management software and MSP solutions, and is driving similar growth across the full spectrum of IT management software. Our solutions are rooted in our deep connection to our user base, which interacts in our THWACK online community to solve problems, share technology and best practices, and directly participate in our product development process. Learn more today at www.solarwinds.com.

The SolarWinds, SolarWinds & Design, Orion, and THWACK trademarks are the exclusive property of SolarWinds Worldwide, LLC or its affiliates, are registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and may be registered or pending registration in other countries. All other SolarWinds trademarks, service marks, and logos may be common law marks or are registered or pending registration. All other trademarks mentioned herein are used for identification purposes only and are trademarks of (and may be registered trademarks of) their respective companies.

 2017 SolarWinds Worldwide, LLC. All rights reserved.
The state of California and city of San Francisco are suing the U.S. Department of Justice over President Donald Trump's sanctuary city restrictions on public safety grants.

In a news conference Monday, Attorney General Xavier Becerra and City Attorney Dennis Herrera, both Democrats, announced the lawsuit, which makes California the first state to challenge the administration on its policy of denying funds to cities that limit cooperation with enforcement of U.S. immigration laws.

San Francisco also filed its own federal lawsuit Friday. Becerra said he was filing on behalf of smaller cities and counties that may not have the resources to challenge the federal administration.

He said about $28 million is at stake for programs that fight and prevent crime because the president wants to impose his immigration policies on local government.

"It's a low blow to our men and women who wear the badge, for the federal government to threaten their crime fighting resources in order to force them to do the work of the federal government when it comes to immigration enforcement," Becerra said.

Chicago filed a similar suit last week, arguing that the Trump administration's bid to withhold public safety grants from so-called sanctuary cities is illegal.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has said the Trump administration "will not simply give away grant dollars to city governments that proudly violate the rule of law and protect criminal aliens."

The California Legislature is considering a measure nicknamed the "sanctuary state bill" that would limit state and local police from cooperating with federal immigration agents. Supporters of the legislation, SB54, say it rebukes the president for his crackdown on illegal immigration.

The Senate passed the measure earlier this year, sending it to the Assembly where it still requires a vote. It would also need approval from Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown, who has said the bill needs changes but has declined to say specifically what he wants altered.
Last-ditch efforts to keep an Oakland woman and her husband from being deported failed on Tuesday evening.

Maria Mendoza Sanchez, a nurse at Highland Hospital, spent 15 years trying to get United States citizenship, but was unsuccessful.

The woman and her husband were granted a stay of deportation that expires at noon on Wednesday. The couple spent Tuesday hoping to receive an extension so they could stay in the U.S. for another year to take care of their children and attend their youngest daughter's graduation.

Having been turned down, though, Sanchez, her husband and their son will be forced to leave on a flight at 11 p.m. Wednesday. The couple's friends will look after their girls.

An Oakland woman and her husband are being deported after 15 years of trying to gain citizenship . Pete Suratos reports.

Twenty-three years ago, Sanchez illegally crossed the border with her husband and one of her daughters. They had two more girls and a boy.

The daughter she brought with her to the U.S. can stay here because of DACA. Their son and two other daughters are citizens, with one just a year away from graduating from UC Santa Cruz with a degree in human biology.

Their youngest daughter has a learning disability so Sanchez, seeking to pay for a tutor, became a nurse in the oncology department at Oakland's Highland Hospital.

She recalled telling her child, "I work. You study."

However, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said late Monday, "When we fail to enforce (immigration) laws, what message are we sending to the millions of people who respect that process and are waiting outside the US now for visas that will enable them to enter the country lawfully?"

Sanchez countered that she hadn't broken any laws, but was ensnared in the illegal immigration crackdown. ICE officials might've sent the "wrong message" if she was a criminal "but I'm not even taking jobs," she said. "There's a shortage of nurses."

Sanchez's coworkers rallied for her on Monday, calling for an end to the deportation, but the woman in question does not blame President Donald Trump.

That said, "this law is affecting all immigrants," she admitted, "but I feel somehow Mexicans -- we've been targeted. I don't know why."
An Oakland woman and her husband are being deported after 15 years of trying to gain citizenship. The couple were granted reprieves time and again, but there is a new administration and on Tuesday will leave their family and home for Mexico City.

Maria Mendoza Sanchez late Monday packed her bags and spent her last hours saying goodbye to her three daughters and the country she has called home for 23 years. Sanchez has broken no other law, but she is caught up in the illegal immigration crackdown.

"I don't even want to think about it," Sanchez said of her deportation. "I know that it's going to be very difficult."

More than two decades ago, Sanchez illegally crossed the border with her husband and one of her daughters. They had two more girls and a boy. She became a nurse in the oncology department at Oakland's Highland Hospital.

An Oakland woman and her husband are being deported after 15 years of trying to gain citizenship . Pete Suratos reports.

Sanchez's coworkers rallied for her on Monday, calling for an end to the deportation. She is hoping for a last-second miracle.

"A stay of deportation I've been asking for one more year so we can be here for my daughter to graduate from college," Sanchez said.

The daughter she brought with her to the United States can stay because of DACA. The son and two other daughters are citizens, with one just a year away from graduating from UC Santa Cruz with a degree in human biology.

Immigration and Customers Enforcement, or ICE, said late Monday, "When we fail to enforce (immigration) laws, what message are we sending to the millions of people who respect that process and are waiting outside the US now for visas that will enable them to enter the country lawfully."

Sanchez does not blame President Donald Trump for the immigration laws that have been on the books for years. However, she said the president is "taking it personally against Mexicans. This law is affecting all immigrants, but I feel somehow Mexicans -- we've been targeted. I don't know why."

Sanchez said she will not be allowed to return to the US for 10 years.
The Bay Area appears to be the next target for alt-right groups and its supporters.

Three major protests or demonstrations have been planned within the next two weeks in Mountain View, San Francisco and Berkeley.

The Mountain View event is a planned alt-right march at Google on Saturday protesting the company's firing of James Damore, who wrote a controversial memo on gender rules at Google.

These protests, and counter-protests have prompted concern about confrontations similar to Charlottesville, Virginia.



Charleston Park near Google is a peaceful refuge in Silicon Valley, but alt-right leaders have announced plans for a nationwide March on Google Saturday to ask Google to expand their diversity efforts.



Alt-right leaders call the March a way to raise awareness of Google's "bias and campaign against dissenting opinions."

A counter-protest by many groups is planned at Charleston Park for Sunday, a strategy to avoid a clash such as the one that took place in Charlottesville.

Vera Sloan, co-founder of Stand San Jose says she understands the organizers' concerns.

"We have seen that these so-called 'alt right, which are really 'misogynistic' and 'white supremacist' groups that they are known to become violent with counter protesters."

But a confrontation might be hard to avoid.

Sloan acknowledges many counter protesters want to face the marchers.

There are a lot of internal conversations happening within the community that there is something powerful about making sure when 'hate' is present in our community that a counter message is also 'physically present' at that time, she said.

Protests and counter-protests are also planned at Crissy Field in San Francisco on August 26.

The Portland based pro-Donald Trump group Patriot Prayer is heading up to San Francisco August 26 to hold a two-day event.

The organization describes itself on Facebook as using the power of love and prayer to fight the corruption both in the government and citizen levels that seek to gain power through division and deception.

Police and protesters clashed during a right-wing rally and counter-demonstration in Seattle on Sunday. According to NBC News, the rally's organizer, Joey Gibson of Patriot Prayer, told a crowd gathered at Westlake Park in downtown Seattle that he was against white supremacy and wanted everyone to have his or her chance at the microphone.

Leaders for the Crissy field counter-protest are trying to block the alt-right event altogether saying the event shouldn't be allowed on federal property.
While the August 12 white nationalist rally took place across the country in Charlottesville, Virginia, a similar breakout of violence occurred in Berkeley four months ago. Embedded within the both groups of white supremacists was Bay Area local Nathan Damigo.

According to El Tecolote, a San Francisco based newspaper, Damigo established the white nationalist group Identity Evropa. The news source revealed that Damigo was raised in San Jose and went on to serve in the Marines. Upon his return in 2007, Damigo robbed a cab driver at gun point in San Diego. While the ex-Marine stated he believed that his actions were a consequence of PTSD, Damigo was sentenced to six years in prison.

El Tecolote highlighted Damigo's involvement with White Nationalism after his release in 2014, establishing both "Identity Evropa" and National Youth Fron, another supremacy group.

The new source captured Damigo's statement about Identity Evropa: We reject [the idea of] multiracialism as being something that is good for European people. Then the 30 year old continued by asking, Do we want to have this person breeding in our gene pool?

Damigo was seen earlier this year at a violent Berkeley rally punching an opposing protester in the face. The white nationalist leader ran into the crowd as the woman was knocked to the ground.

The Charlottesville rally that Damigo took place in over the weekend left one dead and many injured after a car rammed into a crowd of counter protesters. Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin released a statement pertaining to the tragic event, reported The East Bay Times:

Berkeley stands in solidarity against bigotry, hate and white supremacy and support (of) those who embrace peaceful assembly and debate. It is the multicultural diversity of our country that makes it great. Please join me in speaking out against violent extremism masquerading as freedom of speech.

A counter rally against white nationalism is also scheduled to take place in Berkeley August 27.
A San Jose woman is back in the Bay Area after witnessing the violent rally in Charlottesville.

Kristin Savini and her husband were in Charlottesville to drop off their daughter at med school. But when they heard about a protest nearby they decided to check it out. And that's when they saw something they say they'll never forget.

On Saturday, Savini and her husband found police marching with shield and a tank roaring down streets. But it was protesters decked out in military gear and wearing assault rifles that she found most disturbing.

"That was shocking -- walking next to people with this artillery," Savini said.

Savini was just a block away when a driver plowed into a group of counter protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer. She said she saw another car attack in the parking garage she was in.

"The woman, a white supremacist, hit the gas and started tearing through this group," Savini said.

No one was seriously hurt in that attack.

The "Unite the Right" protest was initially focused on denouncing plans to move a statue of confederate General Robert E. Lee, but Savini said it was clear to her much more was going on.

"This was pure hate. There was no sign saying save the General Lee statue," she said. "It was nothing like that."

After watching it first hand, Savini said she is even more disappointed by President Donald Trump's comments responding to the violence.

"I don't think I've ever seen him come down so softly on anything, so why this?" Savini said. "It was so horrendous."
For travelers looking to get a glimpse of the total solar eclipse next week, rubber-necking delays may be the least of their worries.

The eclipse, due on August 21, has astronomy enthusiasts and summer road-trippers flocking to the "path of the totality," a belt of states across the country that will provide prime viewing of the solar event. But as hotels fill up and time runs out to find a viewing spot, drivers may attempt to watch the solar event while in transit, according to the American Automobile Association.

That's a bad idea. The organization recommends that eclipse-seekers arrive at the location to view the eclipse before it begins and never attempt to watch while driving a car. However, if you must drive during the event, AAA has some tips to ensure you stay safe.

Drivers are advised to keep their car's headlights on and put down the sun visor to block the sun. Stay mindful of people outside the car, too  pedestrians who would normally be looking down at their cellphones may be looking up at the sky instead.

A total solar eclipse is going to be visible across parts of the U.S. this August. But what is a total solar eclipse, exactly? When was the last time one happened? What should you look for? Find out all that and more.

Experts warn travelers against wearing eclipse-viewing glasses while driving. Drivers should not try to photograph or take video of the eclipse, though using your cellphone or camera in the car is never advisable. And although pulling over from moving traffic may sound like a safe way to get a glimpse of the eclipse, AAA says that drivers should not pull over to the side of the road and instead should simply exit the roadway and find a safe area to park.

The solar eclipse could make an already-enjoyable summer vacation astronomically better  but with any event expecting high traffic, safety should always be the priority.
Law enforcement and Massachusetts officials are stepping up security and speaking out against racism ahead of a planned "free speech" rally in Massachusetts that will follow the deadly, race-fueled clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Violence will not be tolerated during the "Boston Free Speech" rally, planned for Saturday on Boston Common from 125 p.m.

"Boston does not welcome you here. Boston does not want you here. Boston rejects your message. We reject racism. We reject white supremacy. We reject anti-Semitism. We reject the KKK. We reject neo-Nazis. We reject domestic terrorism. And we reject hatred. And we will do every single thing in our power to keep hate out of our city," Mayor Marty Walsh said at a joint press conference that included Gov. Charlie Baker and Boston Police Commissioner William Evans. "We are a city that believes in free speech. But we will not tolerate incitements to violence. We will not tolerate threatening behavior. We will not have it. And we will stand in solidarity as a diverse community and a diverse nation as we do every single day."

"What happened in Virginia was a tragedy and an act of terror," Gov. Baker agreed. "A tragedy perpetrated by white supremacists that disturbed, as it should, Americans everywhere. As governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I want to be clear that there is no place here for that type of hatred. Period."

"We're all here, united, to stand against the hatred of what happened that day in Charlottesville," Evans said. "We're often, as police officers, sort of thrust in the middle of protecting groups that we don't necessarily agree with, and I think that, very much, can be the case on Saturday when this particular group wants to come to the Boston Common," "I'm very confident in our plan. I think we've handled major demonstrations in this city ... I'm confident that the people who do come down, and are going to march, are going to be safe."

Evans added that there will be a strong "uniformed presence" during the rally.

"All I ask, and I'll say, is we do anticipate large crowds, but we expect best behavior out of people," he said. We will not tolerate any acts of violence or any misbehavior or any vandalism whatsoever."

"State police, along with the Boston Police, and other state, local and federal officials, will work closely with community organizing groups and others to monitor the situation and take the necessary precaution to make sure that everyone plays by the rules, and that we have a safe weekend here in Massachusetts," Gov. Baker said.

One woman was killed when a man plowed a car into a crowd in Charlottesville, and dozens more were injured, prompting a federal civil rights investigation; two Virginia State Police troopers were also killed when their helicopter that was flying over the chaos crashed.

The Boston rally organizer, who would only give his first name of Steven, said his group is not connected to the groups responsible for the violence in Charlottesville, adding they are not white supremacists and are only interested in free speech.

State police say they are in contact with the state Division of Homeland Security, as well as Boston police, and are monitoring all sources, including social media. Federal authorities are also to receive this intelligence.

State officers and special operation personnel will be on standby to assist Boston police if necessary.

Earlier Monday, the ACLU of Massachusetts said its chapter "forcefully condemns racism, white nationalism and all forms of bigotry," but that it also condemns those planning to be violent "under the guise of exercising civil liberties.

"And we condemn President Donald Trump in encouraging  and in his recent comments and tweets, implicitly supporting  those voices of hate and violence."

President Trump had initially criticized violence on "many sides," prompting criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike for failing to denounce the groups by name. But Monday afternoon, Trump condemned violent white supremacists as "criminals and thugs."

"Racism is evil," President Trump said, singling out the hate groups as "repugnant to everything that we hold dear as Americans."
Gov. Bruce Rauner on Monday condemned the deadly, race-fueled violence that took place in Virginia over the weekend as an "act of terrorism," a comment that follows backlash for his initial statements on the violent clashes.

"It is outrageous, the behavior appalling, completely beyond anything America should be about," Rauner said.

Earlier, when asked if he considered the violence an act of terrorism, Rauner said "you define terrorism."

"What I'll say is that it's horrible, horrible behavior completely beyond the pale," he said. "We in America have to fight against it in every regard."

J.B. Pritzker and Chris Kennedy, both candidates running against Rauner in the 2018 race for governor, decried Rauner's remarks.

White supremacists are terrorizing communities and Bruce Rauner is mincing words and tiptoeing around our bigoted president, Pritzker said in a statement. The injured and dead who protested this weekend deserve better than this flagrant cowardice from Bruce Rauner and Donald Trump. If we are going to address what happened in Charlottesville then we should have the courage to call it exactly what it is: terrorism.



Two hours later, Rauner clarified his remarks in a statement, saying "the deadly violence in Charlottesville this weekend is abhorrent and absolutely an act of domestic terrorism."

"Racism, hatred and violence have no place in our society," he said. "The individuals responsible should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

President Donald Trump also spoke out about the violence once again Monday in an unscheduled address from the White House.

In his statement, Trump declared "racism is evil" after two days of bipartisan criticism for not explicitly condemning white supremacists and hate groups involved.

"Racism is evil and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans," Trump said.

The specific condemnation of white supremacists and hate groups was something that members of both parties had called for from Trump in the wake of the violent clashes. On Saturday, he blamed bigotry "on many sides."
SeaTac, Washington, Aug. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Federal Bureau of Prisons, Federal Detention Center, in SeaTac, Washington released on Tuesday, August 15 a solicitation in which it outlined plans to contract with a Native American spiritual leader.

In its solicitation, the Federal Bureau of Prisons explained that it intends to issue this contract to a Native American spiritual leader to support comprehensive religious programs within the facility's Religious Services Department.

The contractor who receives the contract must hold at least three one-hour sessions, but no more than six one-hour sessions, per week. The Federal Bureau of Prisons, in its solicitation, said that the contractor will be required to hold sessions on Tuesdays from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., but this day and time may vary.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons intends to award the contract to a certified small business contractor. The relevant North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for the service is 813110, and the small business size standard is $10 million.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons intends to award a firm fixed indefinite delivery/requirements type contract for a base period of approximately 12 months from the effective date of award, with four 12-month option year renewal periods based on continued need. The agency intends to award the contract to the responsible contractor who meets the qualifications and who will provide the best value to the government.

Interested and capable contractors must submit responses to the Federal Bureau of Prisons by no later than September 15, 2017 at 1 p.m. PST and are invited to e-mail Contract Specialist Jerry Lucas at jxlucas@bop.gov.

Businesses interested in bidding on and receiving contracts from the government must be registered with the System for Award Management (SAM) database and have as part of the Registration all current Representations and Certifications.

US Federal Contractor Registration, the worlds largest third-party government registration firm, and a firm that not only helps companies survive but also thrive, completes the required Registrations on behalf of its clients. It also makes available information about opportunities like this, as well as training on how to locate, research, and respond to opportunities.

We also make available for our clients and for contracting officers our proprietary Advanced Federal Procurement Data Search (AFPDS). Our Advanced Federal Procurement Data Search (AFPDS) gives you in one place instant bid notifications, bid proposal prospecting, and information about government procurement officers. We make this search tool available to clients, as part of our commitment to helping each and every USFCR client succeed and thrive as a government contractor.

For contracting officers, the AFPDS gives them in one place access to a database of available contractors and also a place to post information about opportunities. Contracting officers get free access to AFPDS. We also provide interested contracting officers a list of contractors who may be able to provide a service and/or product that they need.

For more information, to get started with a SAM registration, to learn more about how US Federal Contractor Registration can help your business succeed, to find out how we can help you complete the processes necessary to become certified as one or more types of small business(es), to determine if your business qualifies for WOSB certification, and/or to speak with our federal training specialists about how to craft a memorable proposal, call 877-252-2700, ext. 1.
New questions now surround the investigation into what was initially believed to be a shooting during a burglary in Chicago's East Side neighborhood over the weekend.

Police said there are "inconsistencies" in the account given by the homeowner during what he said was a home invasion. Three people were shot and killed inside the home, authorities said.

The shooting was initially a suspected self-defense case, but authorities said they are still "pressing pertty hard to get the facts and timeline."

Police confirmed that two men and one woman were shot and killed in the 10200 block of S. Ewing. All three victims sustained multiple gunshot wounds, and all three were pronounced dead at the scene, according to police.

According to police, the case was being investigated as a suspected burglary. Preliminary information indicated the three people allegedly entered the home through the basement, and the homeowner shot all three of them, according to a police spokesperson.

After the shooting, the homeowner allegedly secured himself in another part of the house and called 911, according to police.

The man was in possession of a valid Firearm Owner's Identification card, authorities said.

A 22-year-old man, Narcisco Ledesma, of Chicago, was identified among those killed, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's office. A 17-year-old boy, Antonio Lopez, of East Chicago, Indiana, was also killed, the medical examiner's office said. The identity of the third person was not immediately released.
Paul C. Huber has a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for serving in World War II.

Which is why his family was both surprised and confused when the Army veteran didnt receive a traditional three-volley salute at his July funeral service.

Hubers wish was to be buried with full military honors, but some of the honors many consider customary at military funerals are not federally mandated.

"Its very disappointing. These people that put their lives on the line for this great country deserve every single honor they have," said the late veteran's son, Dave Huber.

Huber said his father was honored with the playing of taps, and a folding and presentation of an American flag to his next of kin.

Those honors mandated by federal laws for military funerals, but everything else is extra, based on what the state will cover.

"A few of us were looking and waiting," Huber said.

As of July 1, the state stopped paying a stipend to the Honor Guard detail that carries out the rifle salute. The state currently does not have a budget, and the executive order the Governor signed did not include funding for the Honor Guard, according to Chris McClure, a spokesperson for Governor Dannel Malloy.

McClure said a good number of states dont fund the extra services.

Members of the Honor Guard detail that provide the three-volley salute got a stipend of $50-per-person, per day. McClure said that doesnt necessarily cover the entire cost of the rifle volley, since the detail does about 3,500 funerals a year, statewide.

Once the state budget is in place, the stipend could be restored, according to McClure.

The state gets an average between $750,000 and $1 million in federal funding to make sure the federal-mandated honors are constantly funded, according to Major Mike Petersen, director of communications for the Connecticut National Guard, that runs the Honor Guard.

"They cant get the honor they deserve. So our Posts are trying to pick up some of the slack on this," said Ed DeGumbia, the state department commander of the American Legion.

DeGumbia said Legion posts are using their own squads or forming firing squads to provide the service.

"Its about saying goodbye to our brothers and sisters," DeGumbia said.

State Rep. Liz Linehan (D- Cheshire, Southington, Wallingford) tells NBC Connecticut she has partnered with the Connecticut Funeral Directors Association to create a map of where third-party groups are providing military honors, including buglers and riflemen and women. They provide the services for free or for a small donation. Click here to see the map.
Busloads of teens from Connecticut are heading to the White House for a rally to defend the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, a program created under the Obama administration that the Trump administration threatened to remove.

The program allows certain undocumented immigrants who entered the country as minors to receive a two-year protection from deportation and makes them eligible for a work permit.

Gabriela Valdiglesias has three siblings who benefited from this program, all of whom were able to go through college because of it.

With that, they were able to get jobs, and since theyre all out from college, they can help support my dad for paying for their higher education, Valdiglesias told NBC Connecticut.

DACA was introduced five years ago. Valdiglesias said suspending it would hurt thousands of families like her own.

If DACA gets taken away, then that means well be having to leave Connecticut, which has been practically our home, because we basically grew up here our whole lives, Valdiglesias said.

In total, around 100 people from Connecticut are traveling to Washington, DC and will join hundreds of others.
For months Connecticut Citizens Against Crumbling Basements (CCACB) said it would ask the feds for help if it didn't get the assistance it wanted from the state.

Last month the group acted. The federal complaint it filed with the U.S. Attorney's Office, however, will not be investigated by that agency.

On Monday, CCACB learned the U.S. Attorney's Office will not take up the case. It said the group had insufficient materials to initiate a federal criminal proceeding. Instead, the U.S Attorney's Office suggested the group ask the FBI to start an investigation.

CCACB tells the NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters it will ask the FBI to initiate an investigation in the very near future. It wants the federal government to look into its claim that the crumbling basements crisis grew for years in Connecticut without any state intervention, while insurers rewrote homeowner policies that do not cover basements that are slowly falling apart
A Pentagon spokesman says the two U.S. soldiers killed Sunday in Iraq were casualties of a U.S. artillery "mishap."

The soldiers have been identified as 22-year-old Sgt. Allen L. Stigler Jr. of Arlington, Texas, and 30-year-old Sgt. Roshain E. Brooks of Brooklyn, New York.

Both were cannon crewmembers assigned to 2nd Battalion, 319th Airborne Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division.

"I knew something was wrong," said Stigler's father, Allen Levi Stigler Sr., as he recalled the painful Sunday door knock from two men in uniform. "One of them says your son is deceased in Iraq, and you can't breathe, and something is so hot in your throat, you can't say nothing. You lose your air."

The Pentagon spokesman, Army Col. Rob Manning, says an Army artillery unit was firing on an Islamic State mortar position "when a mishap occurred." Manning says there is no indication that ISIS played a role in the deaths. He says he cannot provide other details because the incident is under investigation.

Five others suffered injuries that Manning says are not life-threatening.

"The U.S. Armed Forces is great. A lot of good things can happen to you," Allen Stigler Sr. said. "But there's also danger."

Faces of the Fallen

The Stiglers say not knowing what happened to their son is the hardest part.

"He was coming home," said stepmother Leslie Stigler, through tears.

The soldier was on his first combat deployment and was expected home in a month.

"He will be missed terribly," Leslie Stigler said.



Stigler was posthumously promoted from specialist to sergeant. He was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Meritorious Service Medal and Combat Action Badge. His funeral is planned for Saturday, Aug. 26, at 11 a.m. at Mount Olive Baptist Church in Arlington.

[NATL] Top News Photos: Pope Visits Japan, and More
Investigators with the FBI served a search warrant Tuesday morning at the abandoned Dallas home where investigators found the bodies of 13-year-old Shavon Randle and 19-year-old Michael Titus last month.

Video captured from Texas Sky Ranger showed Dallas police officers and FBI agents searching the house, located in the 2200 block of East Kiest Boulevard in East Oak Cliff.

FBI Searches Abandoned Home in Shavon Randle Case

Randle, of Lancaster, had been the subject of an Amber Alert after being kidnapped June 28 in retaliation for a drug theft with which she was not involved, according to court records.

The home had been preserved by prosecutors as a crime scene, saving it from demolition in the days after the bodies of Randle and Titus were found inside.

The abandoned house had become a memorial and a place of quiet, tearful reflection.

FBI investigators serve a search warrant Tuesday morning at the abandoned Dallas home where the bodies of 13-year-old Shavon Randle and 19-year-old Michael Titus were found last month.

Tuesday's FBI search served as a harsh reminder that it was still a crime scene with possible evidence inside.

"I must say this has affected a lot of people the way they killed that baby," Brenda Van Dyke, of Dallas said.

Some in the community questioned the timing of the search.

"Even if they are looking for evidence, they waited too long. That little girl has been dead for a month," neighbor Jamie Anderson said.

More than 100 neighbors spent the morning and early afternoon watching investigators. At the heart of their curiosity was Shavon Randle.

"An innocent child had nothing to do with it, and it's sad," neighbor Cassandra Dotson said.

Plans to demolish the abandoned Dallas home where investigators recently found the bodies of 13-year-old Shavon Randle and 19-year-old Michael Titus have been put on hold.

Many said they pray from Randle's family as this spotlight brings the pain back again.

"Just like a hole in their heart. Just like a bomb thrown back on them," Dotson said.

In a statement about Tuesday's search, Dallas County District Attorney Faith Johnson said, in part, "Collecting additional evidence throughout the course of an investigation is routine. We remain committed to vigorously and thoroughly fighting for justice on behalf of our victims. As this case is pending, we will not be releasing any further details at this time."

A Lancaster city spokeswoman told NBC DFW the city was not aware of any activity related to the house.
A Central Texas sheriff returned a payment-demand call and confronted a scammer who falsely claimed to be a deputy with his department.

Williamson County Sheriff Robert Chody tweeted details of Tuesday's call in which the scammer answers: "sheriff's department."

Chody provides his name, without saying he's the sheriff, and says he's returning a call to a deputy about owing money and a warrant.

The caller eventually figures out he's speaking with a law officer before the line goes dead.

An assistant to Chody says a woman had reported getting a message from someone claiming to be a deputy, told her she owed money and left a number for her to call back.

The sheriff returned the call and warned the scammer that real deputies are looking for him.
Fort Worth city leaders voted against joining a lawsuit against the state's so-called "Sanctuary Cities Ban," which takes effect Sept. 1.

The City Council heard from nearly 100 citizens on the matter during a meeting that stretched late into the night Tuesday. The council then voted 5-4 against joining the lawsuit.



Senate Bill 4 allows law enforcement officials to ask the immigration status of people on college campuses and people who are detained for an alleged crime or during a traffic stop. The law also threatens police chiefs and sheriffs across the state with jail if they do not cooperate with federal immigration laws.

Gov. Greg Abbott and other supporters insist the law will help remove dangerous criminals from Texas communities.

Fort Worth is the only large city in Texas not to join the lawsuit, which already includes Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and Houston.

Opponents of SB4 say it's a "show me your papers" law.

Those in favor of Fort Worth joining in the SB4 lawsuit spoke first at Tuesday's meeting, followed by those against such action.

Among the first to speak was Police Chief Joel Fitzgerald, who opted to turn toward the crowd instead of the City Council members.

"Our department is focusing upon making sure our officers don't engage in any discriminatory practices, any racial profiling," Fitzgerald said. "We realize this law is going to be very difficult for us to enforce."

Councilman Carlos Flores, a new council member, has led the charge to have Fort Worth join the other cities. Flores told NBC 5 that he intended to force a vote by the end of the meeting Tuesday.

During a briefing earlier this month, Flores and three other council members  Ann Zadeh, Gyna Bivens, and Kelly Allen Gray  expressed their support for joining the lawsuit.

Mayor Betsy Price and the remaining four council members said they were hesitant to get involved. They questioned the need to join the lawsuit, which will move forward regardless of their participation. Some also expressed concerns about what it might cost the city.

Community activist Daniel Garcia Rodriguez led a solidarity walk to City Hall earlier in the evening.

During the meeting, Rodriguez stood at the podium with his migrant parents and gave the council an ultimatum: join their effort or face the political consequences.

"This is a minority-majority city, and we're going to get that minority out to the polls, and we're going to do whatever it takes. And my community is going to fight this, and fight you guys and get you of office," he said to the council.
Lake County officials say they have an armed suspect in custody following a standoff that prompted residents in the area to shelter-in-place.

Joshua "Buck" Brown, 43, of Kelseyville was taken into custody without incident, Lake County Sheriff's Department officials said Monday.



Dozens of officers in Northern California searched the area after a gunman opened fire on state employees working on a highway and officers assisting them. No one was injured.

The department says Caltrans workers and California Highway Patrol officers were on Highway 29 in Kelseyville Monday when Brown allegedly fired two shots in their direction.

Authorities say Brown fired three more shots at officials who responded to the scene before fleeing on foot.

A shelter-in-place order was issued and Highway 29 was closed to traffic during the search.
A man and two women were charged Tuesday in connection with last week's fatal shooting of a 12-year-old girl at her family's Southern California home.

Makiya Walls was inside the Victorville house when a man with a shotgun got out of car and opened fire on the home, sending rounds through a front window. On Tuesday, Anthony Pitts, 26, of Adelanto, Danielle Cummings, 29, of Apple Valley, and Reyna Mercado, 28, of San Bernardino, were charged with murder and shooting at an inhabited dwelling.

The shooting appeared to stem from a feud between the suspects and Makiya's family, investigators said.

"Once again, we have an innocent child caught in the crossfire," said San Bernardino County District Attorney Mike Ramos. "A young life taken away, far too soon. We can't bring her back, but I can promise one thing. Our office, our prosecutors, our victim advocates and all of our support staff, will work tirelessly like we do in every case to be the voice for young Makiya. She deserves nothing less than justice. We will hold these individuals accountable for their despicable actions."

It was not immediately clear whether the suspects have attorneys.

Pitts, the alleged gunman, and the victim's mother knew each other and had been in a long-standing dispute, investigators said after his arrest last week. The argument had been going on for several months before it escalated into Wednesday night's shooting in the 17000 block of Monaco Drive.

Paramedics performed CPR on Makiya before transporting her to the hospital, where she died. Makiya's mother said the girl had just returned from walking the family dog.

"She was my strength, she was my strength," said Maesha McCullers, shedding tears Thursday as she clutched her daughter's eyeglasses and stuffed toy bunny. "My baby was my strength and she's not here anymore."

The attackers fled the scene in a white sedan, witnesses told investigators.

Makiya's mother also was arrested Thursday on suspicion of making threats against the alleged shooter. It was not immediately clear when the alleged threats occurred.
IRVINE, Calif., Aug. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Khang & Khang LLP (the Firm) announces a securities class action lawsuit against Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (Chipotle or the Company) (NYSE:CMG). Investors who purchased or otherwise acquired shares from February 5, 2016 through July 19, 2017, inclusive (the Class Period), are encouraged to contact the Firm in advance of the September 18, 2017 lead plaintiff motion deadline.



If you purchased Chipotle shares during the Class Period, please contact Joon M. Khang, Esq., of Khang & Khang LLP, 4000 Barranca Parkway, Suite 250, Irvine, CA 92604, by telephone at (949) 419-3834 , or by e-mail at joon@khanglaw.com.

There has been no class certification in this case yet. Until certification occurs, you are not represented by an attorney. You may choose to take no action and remain a passive class member as well.

According to the lawsuit, throughout the Class Period, Chipotle made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose: that the Companys purported improvements in its restaurants food safety policies were inadequate; that Chipotles quality controls were not in compliance with applicable consumer and workplace safety regulations; that the quality controls remained insufficient to safeguard consumer and employee health; and that as a result, Chipotles public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times. When this information reached the public, Chipotles stock price declined materially, which harmed investors according to the Complaint.

If you wish to learn more about this lawsuit, or if you have questions regarding this notice or your rights, please contact Joon M. Khang, Esq., a prominent litigator for almost two decades, by telephone at (949) 419-3834 , or by e-mail at joon@khanglaw.com.

This press release may constitute Attorney Advertising in certain jurisdictions.
A Minnesota couple is searching for the family of a California woman whose ashes were discovered inside a storage unit they won at auction in 2011. Six years later, they're still searching for the woman's family to return the remains.

In 2011, Amanda Fitzsimmons and her husband won a storage unit at auction in Hermantown, Minnesota. A cardboard box addressed to Carrie Miller of Inglewood was found inside the unit. The box contained remains and a certificate of cremation from Phoenix, Arizona, for a woman named Vonda Jean Range.

The certificate from Serenity Mortuary Services, Inc., states that Range died on March 8, 2004, in Inglewood, California, and was cremated on March 17, 2004.

Fitzsimmons and her husband searched online for possible relatives of Range or Miller, but the phone numbers and addresses led them nowhere.

The couple eventually moved and took the ashes with them.

"We'd see them daily, talk about them often, yet never seemed to look for the rightful owners," Fitzsimmons told NBC4.

[2017 UPDATED 12/19] 2017 Southern California Images in the News

She took to social media on Aug. 4 to help solve the mystery. The Facebook post has garnered more than 3,200 shares so far.

Fitzsimmons says she's "so grateful to see so many people care to help."

Sifting through hundreds of comments, she's reached out to many possible relatives through Facebook, but each person has replied that there's no relation to Range.

"I'm currently waiting on a few other responses and hope that someone is found."

But, in the meantime, Fitzsimmons says she and her husband will not let the ashes be thrown out.
The first total solar eclipse across the United States in nearly 40 years will cast partial darkness over Southern California Monday in a rare celestial event. The moon will block the sun over a nearly two-hour span, yielding a total eclipse only on parts of the North American continent.

The best views will be in the Pacific Northwest, across a large swath of the nation's midsection and the southeastern United States. The sun's corona, normally seen only during a total eclipse, will be entirely hidden behind the moon beginning about 10 a.m. as viewed from the coast of Oregon. From there, totality will continue for the next 90 minutes, cutting across the nation's midsection.

Southern California will be in the penumbra, or partially shaded area, with roughly 60 percent of the sun in shade. Several locations in Southern California are offer opportunities for watching, and many will feature experts in all things sun and moon.

As with most any spectacle of the sky, keep the forecast in mind. Southern California coastal residents may want to head inland to ensure a chance of seeing Monday's eclipse. NBC4 forecasters say a persistent marine layer will bring low clouds and fog from the night through morning along the coast and extending into some valleys.

Note: This article will be updated with more events.

Griffith Observatory: Organizers expect "very large crowds" for a free public viewing of Monday's solar eclipse. It's scheduled for 9:05 a.m. to 11:44 a.m., the time of the eclipse. The observatory will have solar telescopes available staffed by employees and volunteers to provide safe viewing. Special glasses will be available for purchase at the Stellar Emporium gift shop. Visitors were also urged to wear a hat, sunscreen and walking shoes and to bring water, as they may need to walk uphill to get to the observatory. If parking becomes full on Monday, vehicle access to the park via the Vermont Avenue and Fern Dell gates will be suspended. Visitors are encouraged to take the DASH Observatory bus from Metro's Vermont/Sunset Red Line station, which will run earlier than usual on Monday.

UCLA: "The Great UCLA Eclipse" will have everything you need to enjoy the big event -- solar telescopes, projection telescopes and a projected image on a screen for eclipse selfies. Scientists will be there to answer questions Monday from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at UCLA's Court of Sciences. The event will be streamed on the school's Facebook page.

Cal State Long Beach: The school's physics and astronomy department will host a viewing event from 9 a.m. to noon between campus parking lot 16 and Hillside College. There will be solar telescopes and eclipse glasses.

University of California Riverside: The UCR Department of Physics & Astronomy will be hosting the eclipse viewing party adjacent to the campus Bell Tower, beginning about 10 a.m. Monday. Using the filtered telescopes, viewers can watch as the moon blocks the sun.

LA State Historic Park, downtown Los Angeles: National Park Service rangers will be at the park, starting at 8:30 a.m. for a hike to the new Gateway to Nature center in El Pueblo. Or, just come straight to the downtown LA park during the eclipse.

LA Public Library System: Library branch locations around Los Angeles have an August schedule packed with eclipse events, including Monday viewing parties. Click here to find a location and event near you.

King Gillette Ranch, Calabasas: Another event with the National Park Service, an eclipse program is scheduled for the Santa Monica Mountains Interagency Visitor Center at 9:30 a.m.

Rancho Sierra Vista, Thousand Oaks: Join NPS rangers at 9:30 a.m. for childrens' activities, Native American sky stories and the eclipse viewing. Meet the rangers at the Satwiwa Native American Indian Culture Center.

Santa Clarita Public Library: Celebrate with two free events at the Old Town Newhall Library. On Friday, a solar eclipse workshop will include a session on making a pinhole projector. A free eclipse viewing event is scheduled for 10 a.m. to 11 a.m.

Glendale Community College Planetarium: From 9 a.m. to noon, a live video feed from NASA's eclipse coverage will be available at the Planetarium and lecture hall. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory will supply NASA eclipse glasses.

Big Bear Lake: The Big Bear Valley Astronomical Society plans to have telescopes set up at Swim Beach. The Society expects the best viewing at 10:23 a.m. with 70 percent of the sun behind the moon.

Mammoth Mountain: Watch the eclipse at the ski resort's 11,000-foot summit. Gondola rides to the top start at 9 a.m. and riders will receive a free pair of viewing glasses.

The last total solar eclipse over the contiguous U.S. was visible in the northwest tier of the country in February 1979. After Aug. 21, the next one will happen in April 2024, according to NASA. That eclipse, however, will only be viewable in the central and eastern United States.


A Wisconsin mother preparing a memorial for the anniversary of her young daughter's death on Aug. 4 was unexpectedly rushed to the hospital the same day, and received a shock she didn't see coming.

Aleece Geist's daughter Zentaviah was born on Aug. 4, 2013. She passed away just a few months later, NBC affiliate WEAU reported.

"She passed away on Jan. 3, 2014," said Geist showing pictures of Zen. "These are New Year's, so just right before. She was just a happy little girl."

Now each year family and friends gather to commemorate her short life by lighting and releasing lanterns at an area park.

Geist said it's the one time a year she lets herself focus on nothing but the memories of her daughter.

"I remember the first time she laughed. She was taking a bath and it was just out of nowhere," she says.

On what would have been Zen's birthday this year, Geist was experiencing physical pain, along with the emotional.

"I didn't realize it at first actually but the pain was familiar to me," she says now.

What happened next changed the meaning of August 4 for the family forever.

Read more from WEAU
Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who was twice removed from his judicial duties, forced a primary runoff Tuesday against Trump-backed incumbent Sen. Luther Strange in a race likely to be closely watched for clues about Republicans' prospects in 2018 midterm elections.

Despite being buoyed by millions of dollars in advertising by a super political action committee tied to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Strange was unable to defeat the firebrand jurist who took losing stands for the public display of the Ten Commandments and against gay marriage.

demMoore told cheering supporters that they had sent a great message to Washington, D.C., in a race where Moore presented himself as the better carrier of Trump's outsider appeal.

"This is a great victory. The attempt by the silk stocking Washington elitists to control the vote of the people of Alabama has failed," Moore said at his victory party in downtown Montgomery, with a copy of the Ten Commandments among the decorations.

Strange's struggles have already raised concerns among sitting GOP members of Congress, even if he ultimately survives.

"There are a probably a number of incumbents on both sides of the aisle who should take notice of another demonstration that voters still want change," said Greg Strimple, a Republican pollster for a political action committee aligned with House Speaker Paul Ryan.

"The takeaway is that Washington is very unpopular," Strimple said, and that overrides even President Donald Trump's endorsement, because he cannot simply "transfer his brand" to candidates, like the lobbyist-turned-politician Strange, who fail to establish their own outsider credentials.

Trump's approval rating has hit a new low of 34 percent, according to Gallup, but strong currents of support still flow through the Republican electorate in Alabama, where the GOP candidates went all-out to attract Trump voters and throw shade on the Washington, D.C. "swamp."

Strange had emphasized his Trump endorsement  delivered first via Twitter and then in recorded phone calls to voters  in the closing days of the race but had acknowledged all along that a runoff was likely because of the crowded GOP field in a low-turnout special election.

"He knows that I'm the person in the race who is going to help him make this country great again," Strange said of Trump's support. "It all boils down to who's best suited to stand with the people of this country  with our president  to make America great again," Strange said.

The senator, a former college basketball player sometimes called "Big Luther" because of his 6-foot-9 frame, said he liked his chances in a "one-on-one" matchup with Moore. The two will meet in a Sept. 26 runoff. The winner will face Democratic nominee Doug Jones in a December election.

Moore harnessed his strong support among evangelical voters to lead the first round of primary voting despite a shoestring budget. His critics have sometimes derided him as the "Ayatollah of Alabama," accusing him of intertwining his personal religious beliefs and judicial responsibilities.

Alabama's judicial discipline panel removed Moore as chief justice in 2003 for disobeying a federal judge's order to remove a boulder-sized Ten Commandments monument from the state courthouse. He was permanently suspended last year after telling probate judges they remained under a state court order to deny marriage licenses to gay

Throughout the race, Moore wore his ousters from the bench as something of a badge of honor, telling Republican voters in the blood-red state that they are akin to battle scars for standing up for what he believes.

In the rural community of Gallant in northeast Alabama, Jimmy Wright, 41, showed up early Tuesday to vote for Moore.

Aside from being a neighbor, Wright said, he likes the way the ousted judge conducted his campaign.

"He's the only one who hasn't been talking crap about the others," Wright said. Trump's support for Strange didn't matter to him, he said.

In Montgomery, retired teacher Tommy Goggans said he turned out specifically "to keep Roy Moore from getting it." Why? "He's been kicked out of everything he's done."

Strange was Alabama's attorney general before he was appointed to the Senate in February by Gov. Robert Bentley, who soon resigned in scandal. Strange said he did Bentley no favors, but his challengers questioned the ethics of seeking the appointment while investigating the governor.

On the Democratic side, a former U.S. attorney under the Clinton administration, Jones was backed by former Vice President Joe Biden and some other national party figures. He is perhaps best known for leading the prosecution of two Klansmen for the 1963 bombing of a Birmingham church that killed four little girls.

Although Alabama has not been represented by a Democrat in the U.S. Senate in 20 years, Jones has said Democrats must not concede the seat without a fight. He says Democrats can win if they can turn the conversation to "kitchen table issues" such as wages, health care and jobs.

"I think there are enough people in the state who are yearning for new leadership and a change," Jones said.
Cities and states accelerated their plans to remove Confederate monuments from public property Tuesday as the violence over a Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, moved leaders across the country to plan to wipe away much of the remaining Old South imagery.

Only two statues were taken down immediately, in Gainesville, Florida, where the Daughters of the Confederacy removed a statue of a Confederate soldier known as "Ole Joe," and in Durham, North Carolina, where protesters used a rope to pull down a Confederate monument dedicated in 1924.

But the anti-Confederate momentum seemed to ensure that other memorials would come down soon. Many local and state governments announced that they would remove statues and other imagery from public land, or consider doing so, in the aftermath of Saturday's white nationalist rally that killed one person and injured dozens more.

The changes were publicized as President Donald Trump defended Confederate statues in wide-ranging remarks.

"This week it's Robert E. Lee. I notice that Stonewall Jackson's coming down," Trump said during a visit to Trump Tower in New York. "I wonder, is it George Washington next week, and is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You know you really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop?"

Asked specifically whether Charlottesville's Lee statue should come down, he said: "I would say that's up to a local town, community or the federal government, depending on where it is located."

All around the country, Republican and Democratic officials at the state and local levels moved swiftly to begin a process to remove the statues.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said he would ask the Legislature to reverse a 2015 law signed by his Republican predecessor, Pat McCrory, that prevents the removal or relocation of monuments, and to defeat a measure giving immunity to motorists who strike protesters. He also planned to ask state officials to determine the cost of moving Confederate statues and to give him options of where they could go.

"Our Civil War history is important, but it belongs in textbooks and museums  not a place of allegiance on our Capitol grounds," Cooper said in a statement.

In Maryland, GOP Gov. Larry Hogan said Tuesday he would push to remove the statue of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney, author of the infamous Dred Scott ruling in 1857 affirming slavery, from state land.

"While we cannot hide from our history, nor should we, the time has come to make clear the difference between properly acknowledging our past and glorifying the darkest chapters of our history," said Hogan, who before had resisted calls to move the statue.

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings announced plans Tuesday to ask his city council to appoint a task force to study the fate of the city's Confederate statues. Rawlings said he personally finds the monuments to be "dangerous totems," but a task force would ensure a productive conversation.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, a Republican, called on state officials Monday to remove a bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate cavalry general and an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan, from the Tennessee Capitol. Protesters earlier draped a black jacket over the head of the bust while cheering, "Tear it down!"

Similar plans were being made in Baltimore and San Antonio, as well as Lexington, Kentucky; Memphis, Tennessee; Jacksonville, Florida; and elsewhere.

In Durham, Sheriff Mike Andrews said protesters who toppled a nearly century-old Confederate statue in front of a North Carolina government building would face felony charges. The Confederate Soldiers Monument, dedicated in 1924, stood in front of an old courthouse that how houses local government offices. The crumpled and dented bronze figure has been taken to a warehouse for storage.

Deputies later arrested Takiyah Thompson, who identified herself Tuesday as the woman who tied the rope that was used to tear it down. She said her actions were justified because Confederate statues represent white supremacy.

A law professor and director of the Center for Terrorism Law at St. Mary's University in San Antonio called removal a "slippery slope," saying judging historical figures through a modern lens can be difficult.

"A healthy democracy and people within that democracy should be able to say, 'This is our history.' And history is made up of actions of human beings, and human beings aren't perfect," said Jeffrey F. Addicott, who stressed he was speaking for himself and not the law school.

Statues, he added, can be moved, but he's opposed to them being "put in a warehouse never to be seen again because then you're kind of erasing or rewriting history."

The Sons of Confederate Veterans condemned attempts to take down Confederate statues around the country.

"These statues were erected over 100 year ago to honor the history of the United States," added Thomas V. Strain Jr., the group's commander in chief. "They're just as important to the entire history of the U.S. as the monuments erected to our forefathers."

Strain, who said his group did not participate in Charlottesville, condemned the Klan, white nationalist groups, neo-Nazis and other extremists.

"It's painful to watch for lack of better words," he said. "It was our family that fought, and it was our families that died, and now we have these knuckleheads hijacking the flag for their own purposes."

But city and state officials said Charlottesville convinced them it's time to move on from having Confederate imagery in prominent public places.

In Lexington, Kentucky, Mayor Jim Gray moved up his announcement by a day in reaction to the Charlottesville bloodshed. Memorials to John C. Breckinridge and John Hunt Morgan are perched outside a former courthouse that was the site of slave auctions before the Civil War.

"This is the right time," Gray said Monday. "We accelerated that because of the events in Charlottesville, but I knew that it was the right thing to do."

Associated Press reporters Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar in Washington, Claudia Lauer in Dallas, Bruce Schreiner in Louisville, Kentucky; Erik Schelzig in Nashville, Tennessee; Jonathan Drew in Durham, North Carolina; and Jason Dearen in Gainesville, Florida, contributed to this report.
You can see them in every parking lot or when driving down any street. Thousands of Florida vehicles sport a license plate frame.

But one driver now thinks he would have been better off without one.

A Miami police officer stopped Alvaro Alves because one of his lights wasn't working. He had a backup light and offered to fix it on the spot. But the officer pointed out what he considered another problem.

"You have this frame," he recalls what the officer said. "This is illegal in Florida."

Alves says the officer told him the frame obstructed the view of the license plate. But Alves pointed out that his tag number and registration decal were fully in view.

"He couldn't see the "MyFlorida.com" and the Sunshine State wording," Alves said.

Miami Police spokesperson Kenia Fallat says you can't cover any part of your plate.

"It cant cover where it says Florida, or Sunshine State, on the very bottom," she said.

Florida law says you must be able to read all letters, numerals, printing, writing, and other identification marks so that an officer can read your tag.

"Its not something that people know," she said. "But if its a small frame and it doesnt cover anything on the tag then its ok."

Daniel Gonzalez, an attorney with the Ticket Clinic believes it's all about how the law is interpreted.

"I dont think that this plate (Alves') is in violation of what the statute intends to be a violation," he said. "If you want to extrapolate this sentence and say nothing should be on the face of a Florida license plate, then yeah, technically this is on the face, but the cops dont need to see florida.com."

Gonzalez agreed to take Alves' case for free.

A judge dismissed the ticket after seeing proof that the frame has been removed.

Gonzalez recommends instead of risking a ticket, you can remove the frame. He says a police officer can issue a ticket even if the car is parked with no one inside.
A Florida man has been sentenced to 40 years in federal prison for having pornographic images on his phone of a 9-year-old girl who disappeared last year.

The Fort Myers News-Press reports that 29-year-old Jorge Guerrero-Torres was sentenced Monday. He was convicted in May of production and possession of child pornography.

Authorities say Guerrero-Torres had been staying at the Fort Myers home where the girl lived in May 2016, around the time the girl went missing. Detectives later found sexually explicit images of the girl on his phone.

Guerrero-Torres hasn't been charged in the girl's disappearance. A state investigation is still active.
Those working inside the US embassy in Caracas, Venezuela are on edge Tuesday morning after reports of a possible protest planned outside the building as unrest continues in the county.

Diplomats there say theyre not sure exactly when the protest is going to take place, but the embassy issued a warning to Americans in Venezuela about a possible demonstration there.

In a message, the embassy said it had received reports from social media about opposition activists planning to converge there.

The State Department has cautioned Americans to stay away from protests in the country, as many have ended in deadly confrontations in recent months as those who oppose the regime of President Nicolas Maduro have clashed with military members sent to end each protest.

The report comes just as Vice President Mike Pence met with Venezuelan refugees in neighboring Colombia on Monday  days after the Trump administration did not rule out possible military intervention in the country.

It also comes as an increased security detail protects U.S. Senator and Miami native Marco Rubio, a vocal critic of the Maduro regime, after reports of a death threat against him surfaced from a high ranking official in Venezuelas government.
The University of Florida is coordinating with local and state law-enforcement officials in anticipation of the potential appearance in Gainesville of a white nationalist leader affiliated with this weekend's deadly confrontation in Charlottesville, Va.

UF President Kent Fuchs sent an email to staff this weekend, alerting them that National Policy Institute President Richard Spencer, who made an appearance at the Charlottesville event, could speak at the university next month.

Spencer is a leader in the alt-right movement, blamed for a deadly outburst following a Unite the Right rally Saturday in Charlottesville that left one person dead after a car plowed into a group of counter-protesters.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott has been in contact with University of Florida officials regarding Spencer's potential visit.

Governor Scott has spoken with University of Florida President Kent Fuchs and Alachua County Sheriff Sadie Darnell to offer any support from the state, if needed. Regardless of how the university decides to move forward, Florida has zero tolerance for violence of any kind. Safety is always the governor's foremost concern, John Tupps, Scott's communications director, said in an email Monday when asked about the Gainesville situation.

Fuchs said in this weekend's email to staff members that Spencer could make a Sept. 12 appearance.

Also wanting to make an appearance is Augustus Invictus. Invictus is a former Libertarian Party candidate for U.S. Senate from Orlando, who is most famous for saying he sacrified a goat and drank its blood. He also had an important role in the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville.

Invictus is hoping to speak at the University of Florida, but nothing has been finalized.

For many in our community, including myself, this speaker's presence would be deeply disturbing. What we've watched happen in Charlottesville, Va. in the last 24 hours, is deplorable, Fuchs said in the Saturday message. I again denounce all statements and symbols of hate. The University of Florida is a community of learners, educators and scholars. We encourage open and honest dialogue, and we strive to build an inclusive environment where hate is not welcome.

Fuchs added, While this speaker's views do not align with our values as an institution, we must follow the law, upholding the First Amendment not to discriminate based on content and provide access to a public space.

University officials met Monday with the Gainesville Police Department, campus police and other law enforcement in preparation for Spencer's potential appearance.

But University of Florida spokeswoman Janine Sikes stressed that the event has not been finalized.

This is a tentative event at this point, Sikes told The News Service of Florida. Nothing has been signed. This is not a go yet.

Like other speakers, Spencer would have to pay for the rental of the space as well as security costs, which had not been determined as of Monday, according to Sikes.

In Saturday's missive, Fuchs cautioned against a volatile reaction to Spencer, a divisive figure who heads the National Policy Institute, a group dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States, and around the world, according to its website.

The university's ability to restrict controversial figures like Spencer from appearing on campus is limited, even in the aftermath of the situation in Charlottesville, according to First Amendment lawyers.

One could understand how he (Fuchs) would prefer not to see a repeat of that in Gainesville and prefer to see that they not come. But if they have opened the university's space for the public to use for meetings or speakers, then he literally can't say no simply because he disagrees with someone who asks to use the space, Tom Julin, an attorney who specializes in First Amendment law, told The News Service of Florida. Simply because there has been an incident of violence, that doesn't mean that speakers affiliated with that violence lose their right to speak. That's the last thing you want to do.

Julin's views reflected those of multiple First Amendment lawyers interviewed Monday.

Because UF officials have made the space available to others, they aren't able to put it off-limits to more controversial speakers, said Frank LoMonte, director of the University of Florida Brechner Center, a think tank focused on media-related issues.

Once you hold the availability of government property for speech, you can't pick and choose the speakers you like, LoMonte said in a telephone interview Monday.

If UF officials wanted to blackball Spencer, they'd also have to shut down the venue for other speakers, according to the experts.

It's very easy to say these are white supremacists, and we should stop them from speaking. But the First Amendment protects the most unpopular viewpoints that are being expressed. So you have to look at all the alternatives that are available  before you can, consistent with the First Amendment, stop that viewpoint from being expressed, Julin said. That's the last thing you want to do.

In the meantime, state, local and federal law-enforcement officials are preparing for the potential event, especially in light of the developments in Virginia.

GPD is aware of a possible appearance by white nationalist Richard Spencer at UF on September 12th. We are also aware of information online through multiple forums and blogs surrounding the event, the Gainesville Police Department said in a Facebook post. We will continue to closely monitor the planning of this event and any peripheral protests/counter protests that are expected to arise if Mr. Spencer does appear.

The Gainesville police post acknowledged that, although the event is scheduled to take place on the UF campus, it would be foolish to think that any protests/counter protests would not occur in our city limits.
PORTLAND, Ore., Aug. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- iFlipd, the only pay-as-you-go weekly textbook rental provider, announced a new partnership with GoFundMe, the worlds largest social fundraising platform, so college students can raise money from family, friends, and community organizations to help pay for their textbooks needs. All of the contributions raised go straight to the cost of the textbooks, so their supporters know their money is well spent.



"Paying for college is hard enough and many students can use some help. Our pay-as-you-go weekly textbook solution provides a flexible experience at an affordable price," said Kati Radziwon, iFlipd CEO and founder. GoFundMe is the number one fundraiser for textbook costs to date and our partnership with them extends our simple and flexible payment process to a wider and needed audience.

With college tuition on the rise, its more important than ever to help support students pursuing their higher education, said Rob Solomon, GoFundMe CEO. Many students have a network of family and friends who are ready to help them out with expenses like textbooks. With this new partnership with iFlipd, were excited to make it easier and faster for college students to get the financial support they need.

How can students start to raise money?

The process is simple for students to get started:

Create a free iFlipd account Set up their GoFundMe account Share their story, invite family & friends to help fund their textbooks Apply the funds directly through iFlipd to rent and pay for textbooks

Why iFlipd?

As the only pay-as-you-go weekly textbook rental provider, iFlipd allows students to pay for only the time they need through weekly rentals. Students instantly have access to the books they need in print and eBook format. Students can return them any time they like while earning reward points each time.

About GoFundMe

Launched in 2010, GoFundMe is the worlds largest social fundraising platform, with over $4 billion raised so far. With a community of more than 40 million donors, GoFundMe is changing the way the world gives. Find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

About iFlipd

iFlipd is the first textbook pay-as-you-go rental platform that allows students to pay for only the weeks they really need textbooks. Through this payment model students are empowered to break up the traditional cost of textbooks. For more information please visit: www.iflipd.com.
What to Know The president had been spending time at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf course, on a working vacation and arrived at Trump Tower Monday

Donald Trump has been under fire for his response to weekend violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia

At least three people were arrested in separate rallies outside Trump Tower Monday evening; more are expected Tuesday

On President Donald Trump's first night home since his inauguration, the NYPD says three protesters were arrested and hours later even more demonstrations are planned near his Manhattan skyscraper.

As Trump arrived at his New York home Monday night, a throng of protesters lined Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, carrying signs with such messages as "impeach" and "stop the hate, stop the lies." The president is expected to be met with more opposition Tuesday -- his first full day in NYC as president.

Feels good to be home after seven months, but the White House is very special, there is no place like it... and the U.S. is really my home!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 15, 2017

The president's motorcade pulled up to Trump Tower and avoided the protesters, who chanted "Shame, shame, shame'' while they awaited his arrival.

[NATL] In Pictures: Protesters March to Trump Tower Ahead of President's 1st Visit

People chanted things like, "No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA" and "Not my president."

Supporters said, "God bless President Trump."

President Trump lands in New York City Monday night.

The three arrested are facing charges of disorderly conduct, reckless endangerment and obstructing government administration, police said. Another protest is planned at 5 p.m. Tuesday.

Security was heavy around the skyscraper: Streets were closed in the area, and massive sanitation trucks were lined up outside Trump Tower. Metal barricades were set up across the street. Police sources said the department had an existing detail protecting the president's home and office at Trump Tower, and resources were flexible in the case of a protest or other unplanned event.

Heavy security will remain in place until the president leaves some time on Wednesday.

Streets were closed and the NYPD was out in full force as President Trump traveled to Trump Tower Monday for a planned two-night stay. Its his first time returning to Trump Tower as president, and protesters had been awaiting his arrival all evening.

This is Trump's first visit to his Manhattan home and office since his inauguration. He has said he'd "love'' to go home to Trump Tower more often but it's "very disruptive to do.''

Some New Yorkers expressed their annoyance by the security measures: "You can't even hear yourself think. There's helicopters and cabs and traffic and God knows what else, and everything's barricaded."

Trump has said he'd ``love'' to go home to Trump Tower more often but it's ``very disruptive to do.'' He's said he'd "love'' to go home to Trump Tower more often but it's "very disruptive to do.''

Trump initially was supposed to head to the city Sunday, but briefly postponed the trip as deadly chaos unfolded amid a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville. It's not clear if that's why he delayed the trip to New York City, but the president has been under fire for his response to the violence.

[NATL] Dramatic Photos: Violent Clashes at White Nationalist Rally in Virginia

Two blocks away, in front of the Plaza Hotel, an artist collective called BravinLee set up a 15-foot inflatable balloon caricaturing Trump as a rat. The artists says on their website that "the inflatable rat, an enduring sign of resistance and ridicule, has been repurposed to help lead protest against Trump's policies."

NBC 4 NY

On Saturday, BravinLee posted a photo showing a Confederate flag on the sleeve of the inflatable figure and wrote: "#charlottesvillevirginia Our hearts are with you. As you can see Trump wears his on his sleeve." The balloon also shows a Russian flag pin.

John Post Lee told News 4 he came up with the concept three months ago and raised $10,000 in a Kickstarter campaign. An Ohio company made the balloon, and it arrived last week. Monday was the first appearance of the balloon out in New York. He says he wants to station the balloon at Grand Army Plaza for a few days, then move it around New York for a couple of months.

But the display only made Trump supporters wave their flags and banners higher. One said, "He is our president, and is doing a great job, in my opinion. People are induced by the media."

Another group of protesters nearby wore black and staged a mock funeral for the people and things they said the president was killing. They held signs reading things like, "We mourn our healthcare," "We mourn trans lives" and "We mourn our diplomacy."

The violence in Virginia Saturday stemmed from what is believed to have been the biggest gathering of white nationalists in a decade, a movement in protest of the planned removal of a Confederate monument. A young woman died when a driver intentionally plowed into a group of counter-protesters; two Virginia State Troopers patrolling the protests from the air died in a helicopter accident.

In a statement later Saturday, Trump addressed the violence in broad strokes, saying that he condemns "in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides."



A White House statement Sunday went further, naming "white Supremacists, KKK, neo-Nazi and all extremist groups" among the outlets he condemned, a sentiment echoed by Attorney General Jeff Sessions in a "Today" show interview Monday, but the president faced continued backlash for not personally and explicitly calling out those groups by name. He rectified that in an impromptu address from the White House early Monday afternoon, calling racism "evil" and specifically calling out the KKK, neo-Nazis and other supremacist groups.

Despite efforts to promote tolerance in the most diverse city, the number of hate crimes is on the rise in New York. Michael George reports.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and U.S. Sen. Cory Booker were among the elected officials who had said Trump's response to the violence was not strong enough.

The NYPD has increased security around Trump Tower as the president prepares to visit for the first time since he took office. Erica Byfield has a look at the police measures in the area as protesters also planned to gear up for demonstrations.

[NATL] Top News Photos: Pope Visits Japan, and More
Police say a Brooklyn gas station owner and retired correction officer exchanged gunfire with a pair of armed robbers when they tried to stick him up Monday afternoon.

Two men tried to rob the 70-year-old gas station owner on Gates and Throop avenues in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood at around 1:30 p.m, but he fired back, according to police. Friends say he is heavily armed.

Police say a Brooklyn gas station owner and retired corrections officer exchanged gunfire with a pair of armed robbers when they tried to stick him up Monday afternoon. Checkey Beckford reports.

"This would be the worst place you'd come to rob," Ken Kaufman, a retired NYPD officer, who will star in a documentary chronicling their 1970s crime fighting. "You're better off robbing the police station. There's more guns here than the crooks have."

Kaufman and Joe Willins, the friends of owner, Hillary Farmer Jr., aren't surprised he took on the robbers, suffering a gunshot wound to the leg. He has been part of the neighborhood for more than 40 years.

"He's my hero," Willins said. "He would do that. He's a tough guy."

Farmer was shot in the leg during the shootout, police said. He was taken to Kings County Hospital, where he's listed in serious but stable condition. He is expected to be OK.

At the scene, there were bullet holes in car windows, shattered glass and visible shell casings that detail the shootout.

NYPD

Police Tuesday morning released surveillance footage of the suspects last seen wearing a white and a red shirt. Police said one of the suspects wore a black ski mask, while the other wore a red bandana across his face.

Police do not have the suspects in custody.

Top Tri-State News Photos
Community leaders and officials in Brooklyn are demanding that the Army take down the street names dedicated to General Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, icons of the pro-slavery south during the Civil War, at Fort Hamilton in Bay Ridge.

Lee Avenue and Jackson Court, as well as a monument to Lee, surround the Army base in Bay Ridge. Local leaders have asked the Army in the past to take down those names, and on Tuesday, Rev. Khader El-Yateem, a city council candidate, echoed the request during a protest.

"We are demanding of our Army to rename the streets so everybody can feel welcome, respected and honored in our community," said El-Yateem. "We are pushing against the bigotry and hate in our country."

Aber Kawas, who lives in Bay Ridge, was among those who showed up Tuesday to protest the street names and monument.



"You have to understand what it feels like to walk by a street or a monument of somebody who fought for your continued enslavement," he said.

The Army responded to a similar demand from local lawmakers last month, and told News 4 Tuesday that it stands by that letter.

"The men in question were honored on Fort Hamilton as invidivuals, not as representatives of any particular cause or ideology," a spokesman said. "After over a century, any effort to rename memorializations on Fort Hamilton would be controversial and divisive."

But controversial and divisive have taken on new meaning after the weekend tragedy in Charlottesville. The resulting outcry even prompted the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island, which owns the abandoned St. John's Episcopal Church in Bay Ridge, also known as Church of the Generals, to order the removal of a plaque dedicated to Robert E. Lee. The Diocese told News 4 the plaque, which was sponsored by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, will be gone by next week.

As for the Brooklyn protest, a spokeswoman for Mayor de Blasio said, "These are reasonable concerns and requests. We are in the process of figuring out how to best play a role in this conversation."

President Trump, asked separately Tuesday about whether statues of Lee should be taken down during a Q-and-A with reporters at Trump Tower, said, "I would say that's up to a local town, community or the federal government."
A Pentagon spokesman says the two U.S. soldiers killed Sunday in Iraq were casualties of a U.S. artillery "mishap."

The soldiers have been identified as 30-year-old Sgt. Roshain E. Brooks of Brooklyn, New York, and 22-year-old Sgt. Allen L. Stigler Jr. of Arlington, Texas.

Both were canon crewmembers assigned to 2nd Battalion, 319th Airborne Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division.

The Pentagon spokesman, Army Col. Rob Manning, says an Army artillery unit was firing on an Islamic State mortar position "when a mishap occurred." Manning says there is no indication that IS played a role in the deaths. He says he cannot provide other details because the incident is under investigation

Five others suffered injuries that Manning says are not life-threatening.

Brooks joined the Army in July 2012, and was assigned to Fort Hood, Texas. In 2016, he was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division, and he deployed to Afghanistan from June to November 2014.

This was his first deployment to Iraq.

Brooks' awards and decorations include the Army Commendation Medal with "C" Device, the Army Achievement Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, the Iraq Campaign Medal with Campaign Star, the Parachutist Badge and the Air Assault Badge.

Stigler and Brooks were posthumously awarded the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Meritorious Service Medal, and Combat Action Badge, the Pentagon says.
A foster child who once lived with a Pennsylvania girl who authorities say was killed and dismembered by her adoptive mother and her boyfriend, told NBC10 she witnessed her being abused years before her murder and even reported it to a foster care agency.

Grace Packer, 14, was murdered in July of 2016. The girls adoptive mother, Sara Packer, and her boyfriend, Jacob Sullivan, were both arrested and charged in the girls death. Authorities say the couple killed the girl as part of a rape-murder fantasy they shared and then left her for dead in a hot closet inside a home in Quakertown, Pennsylvania. After several months, the couple allegedly dismembered the girl's body and dumped it in a field near Scranton, Pennsylvania where it was eventually discovered in October.



More than a year after Packers death, a foster child who once lived with the girl is speaking out, claiming she not only saw her being abused by her adoptive parents but that she also reported it.

We werent listened to, the woman, who did not want to be identified, told NBC10. No one cared to hear what was going on.

The woman said she witnessed the abuse when her and Grace Packer were under the care of Sara Packer and her then-husband, David Packer, in 2007. At the time, the couple cared for 30 foster children, including Grace. David Packer was later arrested however and accused of sexually abusing Grace and another foster child.

The woman who spoke to NBC10 Monday is the third person who claimed they witnessed Grace Packer being abused and reported it to the Impact Project, a foster care agency.



We told Impact and I told my case workers from Bucks County Children and Youth, the woman said. Gracie was hit, slapped around.

While the Bucks County CYS declined to comment Monday, Courtney Wagaman, the executive director of the Impact Project, spoke on the allegations.

We have never once not reported any suspected abuse and where it goes from there is outside of our control, Wagaman said.

Are you aware of any children coming to you saying Grace Packer was being abused? NBC10s Deanna Durante asked.

I cannot speak about anything related to Grace Packer, Wagaman replied.

Grace Packers biological parents, Rose and Rodney Hunsicker, are currently trying to become administrators of their daughters estate. Vincent Vangrossi, an attorney for the Hunsickers, said they also want to sue Berks County Children and Youth Services, the agency that took Grace from them and placed her in the care of Sara and David Packer.

Im very surprised that more hasnt been done to assure the Hunsickers of the safety of their other children, at least offer them an apology, Vangrossi said.

Berks County CYS had no comment. Vangrossi said any possible lawsuit would extend to all county agencies involved in the adoption and placement of Grace and her siblings, including the Impact Project.


A Hazmat team and police officers gathered in West Philadelphia Monday to investigate a marijuana grow operation inside a home, leading to the evacuation of several residents on the block.

A neighbor first reported a foul odor coming from a home on the 4800 block of Cedar Avenue. Narcotics officers and a Hazmat team arrived at the home to assess the situation and make sure it was safe to enter. Several homes were evacuated on the 4800 block of Cedar Ave during the response and the street was blocked off to traffic.

We were just coming home to see everything blocked off, one evacuated resident told NBC10. My grandma comes in and she goes, Well, someone has marijuana plants in the basement. As far as I know, weve never seen anything like this over 20 years weve been on the block.

Officials say they discovered a large operation and 100 marijuana plants inside the home and removed them. When neighbors found out the reason for the police response and evacuations, some believed it was an overreaction.

"Four huge fire engines," said Erica Peterson. "It just feels really like overkill. Unless people are doing harm to other people. I know that drugs are a problem but in the scale of drugs, marijuana, I wouldn't see it as a terribly dangerous drug."

Police officers disagreed however and told NBC10 they found extension chords which used a lot of electricity inside the house to grow the plants.

"One spark could take this whole block down," Philadelphia Police Lieutenant Scott Walker said. "So these are always of concern, especially nestled in a community like this with these homes so close."

The incident sparked debate among residents on the subject of marijuana.

"I think marijuana should be decriminalized and that money should be taxed and sent to the Philadelphia schools," said Abby Schottenfels.

While the owner of the home was not there at the time of the search, he's now facing drug charges as well as risking a catastrophe and reckless endangerment.


Dozens of residents and stakeholders, some wearing stickers that read "I live in Mt. Airy and I oppose this location," crammed into a Philadelphia zoning hearing Tuesday morning to lay out their concerns about a state-approved medical marijuana dispensary.

A defunct bank at 8319 Stenton Avenue near East Allen Lane would be converted into the facility, which would provide tinctures, oils and edibles to approved patients. The cannabis plant, itself, would not be grown or sold on the premises.

The building is in a residential neighborhood some worry could be exposed to crime, litter and crowding should TerraVida Holistic Center be allowed to operate there.

The dispensary owner, Christine Visco, was awarded a license by the state Department of Health in June, but lawyers representing members of the community said TerraVida was not in full compliance at the time of permitting.

Representatives for TerraVida argued that many zoning restrictions enacted by the city came after the state issued permits to potential medical marijuana businesses. They will retrofit if necessary, lawyers representing Visco said.

"This case has nothing to do with medical marijuana," TerraVida attorney Michael Phillips said. "This is a land-use issue."

Despite the understanding that Tuesday's hearing would be a referendum on Pennsylvania's medical marijuana program, residents questioned if drug dealers would be attracted to the area and worried the impact this facility could have on young children in the area.

A home daycare center currently operates within 500 feet of the building, which would be in conflict with the city's ordinance to maintain at least that much distance from any child-serving institution. But TerraVida lawyers argued that the daycare center is not licensed by the city, only the state, and therefore not a concern for the dispensary.

Tensions rose throughout the first two hours of testimony as residents murmured, snickered and occasionally shouted.

At one point, an attorney representing opponents of the dispensary compared zoning issues to segregation in the 1960s.

"It's a question of whether the city preempts the state," David Fineman said.

Among his complaints, Fineman argued TerraVida does not have a garage door or covering mandated by the state to provide coverage for cars and trucks that will unload product into the dispensary. Lawyers representing TerraVida said retrofitting of the existing building, which functioned as a bank for several years, would be done in accordance with state law, but did not have to be completed prior to receiving a license to operate.

"It was a nightmare when it came to parking," said one resident who has lived on E. Allens Lane for 35 years and remembers overflow parking obstructing her own home.

Councilwoman Cherrelle Parker, who represents the neighborhood, accused TerraVida of not meeting with community members before applying for a permit at the Stenton Avenue location.

"They never talked to me about it," she said. "We were shocked that the attorney never even informed us this was occurring."

In an apparent attempt to ease anger, the chairman of the zoning board offered one alternative.

"Sometimes you might want to look for another place," former City Councilman Frank DiCicco said as audience members clapped and whistled.

"I know this community well. They're not going to give up."

After more than two hours of back-and-forth, both sides agreed to break. The hearing will be continued Sept. 19 at 9:30 a.m.

"I know what some of you sacrificed to be here," Parker said before Mt. Airy residents boarded buses and shuttles back to their neighborhood. "But come September, if you can't be here, you better find someone to take your place."

Councilwoman Cindy Bass said in an emailed statement that she will ask the Department of Health to revoke TerraVida's permit during a Wednesday morning press conference.

Editor's Note: The president of TerraVida Holistic Center is the sister of NBC10s Deanna Durante. Deanna is not involved in the business venture.
Dallas, Aug. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Longtime North Texas Food Bank supporters Aradhana (Anna) and Raj G. Asava have pledged to donate $100,000 to the North Texas Food Bank in conjunction with the launch of NTFBs Indo-American Council (NTFB-IAC), which the couple will co-chair.

Their generous gift will help fund the North Texas Food Banks efforts to provide food assistance to thousands of food insecure individuals across the NTFBs 13- county service area.

Anna and I are passionate about the work of the North Texas Food Bank and we wanted to raise awareness around the issue of hunger that exists right here in North Texas, said Raj Asava co-founder of the North Texas Food Banks Indo-American Council.

We are excited to launch the NTFB-IAC to raise hunger awareness, community involvement, as well as channel the resources and contributions of the Indo-American community towards the mission of NTFB, added Anna Asava.

Prominent members of the community have extended their support to this initiative. The NTFB-IAC has set its sights to fund one million meals per year.

The Asavas are determined leaders. Having just one of them help us would be transformational, I count us doubly lucky to have them both by our side, said Trisha Cunningham, President and CEO of the North Texas Food Bank. Anna and Raj have a clear vision for the Indo-American Council and with their donation, they have already put 300,000 meals on the table for our hungry neighbors. I am certain that their shared enthusiasm and drive will be a draw for their peers, helping raise awareness for the critical issue of hunger and ultimately will help the NTFB reach our goal of providing 92 million meals by 2025.

The Indo-American community in North Texas has grown exponentially over the years with nearly 200,000 people in our region. The North Texas Food Bank and the Asavas created the Indo-American Council as an avenue to mobilize this driven and diverse group in the fight against hunger.

For additional information on the Indo-American Council, please visit ntfb.org/IAC

##

About the North Texas Food Bank

The North Texas Food Bank (NTFB) is a top-ranked nonprofit hunger-relief organization with its primary distribution center in Southwest Dallas, and administrative headquarters located in the Dallas Farmers Market. Each day, NTFB provides access to more than 190,000 meals for hungry children, seniors, and families through a network of more than 1,000 programs and more than 200 Partner Agencies. In fiscal year 2016, NTFB provided access to some 70 million nutritious meals. While the NTFB is making steady progress toward closing the hunger gap, much work remains to be done to reach the organization's 10-year goal of providing 92 million nutritious meals annually by 2025.

Attachments:

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/f00e4732-e9bb-4a9e-88ca-3b9082f7d9a1

Attachments:

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/cb00a8e2-0f35-4c7f-937b-8da137bb2157
San Diego Unified officials have shut off some drinking fountains at district headquarters after high levels of lead were discovered in the water.

Bottled water is being provided to employees and the public at the Education Center, a district spokesman said.

Water was discovered at 18 parts per billion (ppb) at the Education Center in the 4100 block of Normal Street where the school board meets, a spokesman confirmed Tuesday.

The federal limit for lead in water is 15 ppb.

[[440598113,C]]

The district also discovered lead in drinking water at 25 ppb in an annex building at the Education Center.

An off-site administration building called the Revere Center tested with drinking water with 29 ppb.

Water was at tested at 207 schools on district property.

Results show 19 percent of the schools have some level of lead in the water.

Schools are required by the state to fix problems if they discover lead in water at levels greater than 15 parts per billion (ppb) in schools.

However, they are not required to test district office buildings or other district property.

A spokesman said the additional testing is something the district decided to do, beyond the state requirements, to make sure all employees and public have safe drinking water.
D.C. is dealing with a shortage of beds for inmates who need mental health services.

Here in the District, weve seen a 60 percent increase in these pre-trial admissions in the last two years, D.C. Department of Behavioral Health Director Dr. Tanya Royster said.

That spike in inmates needing mental health services resulted in not enough beds at St. Elizabeths Hospital, so when judges at D.C. Superior Court order an inmate to undergo mental health evaluation and treatment before they can be found competent to stand trial, those inmates often end up on a wait list for anywhere from a few days to several weeks. Its not just inmates impacted by the backlog. Currently six patients who have been civilly committed to the hospital are still waiting for an open bed.

Judge Lynn Leibovitz blasted the Department of Behavioral Health Friday for not solving the backlog problem.

Royster said the cause of the problem goes beyond her agency.

Were all equal partners, she said. We all have a part to play: DOC, DBH and the courts.

Royster said St. Elizabeths Hospital, which was just opened about 10 years ago, is at capacity, which cant be increased

No, you cant just add beds to a hospital, Royster said. You have to be licensed.

The backlogs usually only occur during the summer months, she said, so they are developing a plan to avoid this problem next year.

How do we prevent or divert people from getting arrested in the first place? she said. And so we are working close with MPD and our deputy mayors and even beginning to bring on our states attorneys to look at alternatives to arresting people so that we can slow down the pipeline of people that need our service.

Royster hopes to have the current backlog of seven inmates cleared by the end of this week, as well as the six commitment patients.

One idea Leibovitz suggested was having the D.C. government pay a private mental facility to help with the backlog. Royster said the D.C. government is not considering that.

This problem is not unique to D.C. Jurisdictions nationwide have trouble keeping up with the demand for mental health services, particularly in local jails.
Events in Charlottesville appear to have set off a small but very disturbing chain of hate-related incidents in the D.C. area.

Sunday afternoon at the Rumsey Aquatic Center in DC's Capitol Hill neighborhood, witnesses said a man with swastika tattoos on his torso used a vile racial epithet to a young, African-American lifeguard responding to patron's concerns about the man's behavior.

A northeast Washington woman returned home from a 24-hour shift at a hospital to find someone had ripped down and set fire to her gay Pride flag. She responded by flying the burned flag one story higher and placing a poster in her window.

The poster said, To whoever tore down and burned my gay Pride flag: I hung it up higher and prouder than before. It was a little low.

"I called police. They told me there had been a number of incidents," the woman said.

In an Ashburn, Virginia, church, people gathered in a circle to pray for peace and tolerance. Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, who attended the service, was asked if he believes the death of Heather Heyer, killed in Charlottesville after a white supremacist rally, met the legal standard to be prosecuted as an act of domestic terrorism.

"From the video that all of us saw, it is clear that the person, the suspect, weaponized his car and intended to do as much harm and strike as much fear as he could," Herring said. "To me, that looks like an act of terrorism."

Police in Montgomery County, Maryland, are investigating an apparent hate-based incident Sunday afternoon on Rollins Avenue near East Jefferson Street. They said a man heard a couple conversing in Arabic, then made anti-Muslim comments and physically assaulted the husband.

In D.C., a dramatically higher number of people reported being the victims of hate crimes in 2016 than in 2015 -- and data for 2017 as of June suggested a continued increase.

Source: Metropolitan Police Department
Authorities are investigating after a Massachusetts business' American flag was found burning.

Arlington police say a patroling officer noticed the burning flag at Minuteman Repair on Massachusetts Avenue around 6:15 a.m. Tuesday.

By the time that firefighters arrived on the scene, the fire had already burned itself out, destroying the flag.

Police say they questioned a man on Amsden Street, but determined he wasn't connected to the fire.

Anyone with any information about the fire is asked to call Arlington police at 781-643-1212.
More than 1,000 people turned out Monday evening on the steps of City Hall in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for a unity rally following the deadly weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The message of "Cambridge Stands with Charlottesville" means the city does not stand for the intolerance and fear that was shown over the weekend in Virginia.

Mayor E. Denise Simmons said the tragic events "make you worry about the society we are becoming."

The Quest-Neubert family said they were turning this weekend's tragedy into a teaching moment for their children, Harper and Elijah.

"It's really important to us that they use the power that they have to fight for what is right and make a positive change in the world," said Jo Quest-Neubert.

In nearby Waltham, a similar rally was held on their common.

"I think it's important to stand for what you believe in," said Francelle who lives in Waltham.

The Quest-Neubert family said it's important for their children to learn right from wrong and its in rallies like this where they see unity and solidarity for themselves.

"They're growing up with this understanding so hopefully they can make change in the world," said Melissa Quest-Neubert.

Cambridge is not the only city taking a stand against violence.

"We don't standalone. Boston, Detroit, New York, Newburyport. Cities across the country are saying this is not the way we are," Simmons said. "This is not America being great. This is America being abysmal."

Simmons said she plans to sit down with other city leaders to come up with a game plan for this Saturday when a free speech rally is scheduled to be held on Boston Common, in case of potential violence.
A number of keynote speakers are pulling out ahead of planned "free speech" rally in Boston that will follow the deadly, race-fueled clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The "Boston Free Speech" rally, planned for Saturday on Boston Common from noon to 5 p.m., is expected to attract right-wing activists from around the country. Organizers applied for a permit on Tuesday. The same group held a similar rally on the Common this spring.

Organizers of the event say they're not white supremacists. They say they're only interested in free speech and oppose violence.

One woman was killed when a man plowed a car into a crowd in Charlottesville, and dozens more were injured, prompting a federal civil rights investigation; two Virginia State Police troopers were also killed when their helicopter that was flying over the chaos crashed.

Three of the activists planned for Saturdays rally were in Virginia, but they have dropped plans to come to Boston.

State police say they are in contact with the state Division of Homeland Security, as well as Boston police, and are monitoring all sources, including social media. Federal authorities are also to receive this intelligence.

State officers and special operation personnel will be on standby to assist Boston police if necessary.

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh spoke out about the rally on Tuesday.

"Boston does not welcome you here. Boston does not want you here. Boston rejects your message. We reject racism. We reject white supremacy. We reject anti-Semitism. We reject the KKK. We reject neo-Nazis. We reject domestic terrorism. And we reject hatred. And we will do every single thing in our power to keep hate out of our city," Walsh said.

Later in the day, Walsh confirmed on MSNBC that the city received a permit application for a so-called "Free Speech" rally.

If the city approves it, Walsh says it will come with strong restrictions such as no sticks or signs.

"Weve watched what has happened around the country and in Charlottesville, people coming with sticks and helmets and weapons. That will not be tolerated in the city of Boston," Walsh said.

The Mayor has strongly opposed the groups presence in Boston but does acknowledge this is a different group than the one associated with the violence in Charlottesville. His biggest concern is the message.

"Twenty-eight percent of the residents in our city were born in other countries. Forty-eight percent of the residents are first generation. We are a city of moving forward. We dont need a group of people bringing us back," Walsh said.

A volunteer for the group planning the event reiterated that the event is all about free speech and the issues of the day.

"We're mostly concerned about people mistaking us for the white supremacists," said the volunteer.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Shiva Ayyadurai plans to speak at the rally.

"I've been an activist all my life, we chased the KKK out of Boston, I was one of the people who helped organize one of the largest protest against South African racism, MIT had investments in South Africa so when I find people talking about, why is Shiva speaking there and trying to corner me as though I am supporting white supremacist and why am I on the stage with white supremacists, I think it's a distraction," Ayyadurai said.

Walsh says even if the city approves the permit, the group may not accept it with all the restrictions.
A 19-year-old Maine man has been charged in connection with a shooting earlier this month that seriously injured another man.

State police say Brandon Lasante has been charged with attempted murder and elevated aggravated assault after his arrest on Monday.

Lasante is accused of shooting 28-year-old Lincoln Kimball of Hollis on Aug. 6 in front of Lasante's home on Old Orchard Road.

Kimball, who has been slowly recovering from several pellet wounds from a shotgun at Maine Medical Center in Portland, was interviewed by state police detectives last week in his hospital room, according to police.

The decision to file charges against Lasante came after state police consulted with the offices of the state's attorney general and the York district attorney.

Lasante will be arraigned either Tuesday or Wednesday in York County Superior Court in Alfred. It's unclear if he has an attorney.
A former Vermont lawmaker convicted of setting up his tenant to have sex with one of his acquaintances wants the conviction thrown out or to get a new trial.

Sixty-five-year-old Norman McAllister of Highgate Center was convicted in July of one misdemeanor count of prohibited acts. The Burlington Free Press reports that his attorney has filed paperwork arguing that the court was wrong to deny a pre-trial motion to dismiss the case. Attorney Bob Katims says he wasn't able to adequately prepare for trial because the state failed to immediately disclose evidence about a domestic assault case involving the woman.

Prosecutor Diane Wheeler says the materials were turned over when prosecutors learned of their existence.

Lawmakers voted to suspend McAllister, a Republican state senator, after his arrest in 2015.
President Donald Trump called the KKK, neo-Nazis, and others like them repugnant on Monday.

Racism is evil, President Trump said in an address from Washington. Those who spread violence in the name of bigotry strike at the very core of America.

The comments came after Saturdays sorrow in Virginia, when a suspected white supremacist drove a car into a group counter-protesting a hate rally in Charlottesville.

Heather Heyer, 32, was killed, and 20 other people were injured when the suspect, James Alex Fields Jr., allegedly plowed into the crowd.

Fields did not enter a plea at a court appearance Monday.

The presidents rejections came too late for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont.

Sanders was critical of the president for not being more forceful over the weekend in condemning the hate groups.

On Saturday, President Trump said bigotry on many sides was to blame for the violence.

To suggest that there's violence, quote unquote, on all sides is total nonsense, Sanders said Monday. The message he is sending out to racists and neo-Nazis all over the country is, It's OK.

Sanders remarks to members of the media followed a town hall meeting at the Franklin County Senior Center, which focused primarily on health care concerns affecting senior citizens.

You have a president who doesn't have the guts to say what the vast majority of the people understand to be true, that white supremacy and neo-Nazism have got to be condemned, Sanders said, describing his disappointment in President Trump for what Sanders said was a weak response to the situation Saturday.

Sanders said because of a lack of forcefulness and directness Saturday when it came to rejecting white supremacists and other hate groups, that Trump bears some responsibility for the boldness exhibited by white nationalist demonstrators who marched through Charlottesville Friday, carrying torches and chanting hateful slogans.

Humphrey Leonard of Jamaica, who works in Franklin County, said he wants to become an American citizen. Still, he told necn the Virginia violence is a reminder of how much work the U.S. has to do around race.

I don't think things are going to change to be better, Humphrey sighed. Because racism is still there. Some people still have it  not everybody have it  but some people still have it.

In a written statement, Vermonts other U.S. Senator, Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, said, I will always denounce the racial, religious and even political bias and hatred growing in our country. It makes us less safe as a nation and it is not why all of us work to preserve what we see as American values.

Gov. Phil Scott, R-Vermont, also spoke out against the violence and hate speech in Virginia. Over the weekend, Scott said that kind of behavior does not represent American values, and has no place in our nation.
With less than a week left before the solar eclipse, people are scrambling to get their hands on a pair of eclipse glasses. Some branches of the Boston Public Library were offering them to visitors, but due to popular demand the limited supply of glasses has run out.

For those that do have glasses and are planning on staying in Boston for the eclipse, youll have plenty of options for viewing on August 21.

Though our area falls outside the path of a total eclipse of the sun, New Englanders can still experience a partial eclipse.

These libraries and museums across Massachusetts are holding events in celebration.

The Central Library in Copley Square will hold a party in their courtyard, with educational activities for all ages.

There are also parties at the branches in Mattapan, South End and Adams Street in Dorchester. The Chelsea Public Library is hosting their party on the City Hall lawn.

The Boston Childrens Museum is hosting an event on the outside boardwalk from 1:30 to 4 p.m.

"Sup Yoga" will host a special solar eclipse class allowing attendees can do yoga on a stand-up paddle board.

MIT is hosting a viewing session at the oval. At Northeastern, the physics department is hosting a viewing event on the centennial common.

There will also be events on Spectacle Island, as well as the Blue Hill Observatory in Milton. Be sure to reserve your spot now so you don't miss out on this historic event.
Harper's 50th anniversary: Ties run deep for many families like the Basches

Its often said that immigrants are woven into the fabric of America. Thats certainly true of the Basch family, who left Cubas new communist regime in 1960 to plant roots in Chicagos Northwest suburbs.

Embodying certain values  hard work and contributing to ones community, to name a couple  have been integral to their journey. So has a belief that education opens doors to opportunity.

For many of the Basches, that gateway has been Harper College. Throughout the Colleges 50-year history, several in the family chose Harper to begin their path toward advanced degrees and rewarding careers.

Harper College has always been there for us, said Arlington Heights resident Clara Basch Stone, Class of 1970. Its really been the stepping stone to our success.

Clara was nine years old and brother Ricardo was 10 when their family left Havana for New York City. Their father, Gerardo, worked for a U.S. company and secured a sponsor who drove them to Chicago and housed them for a month.

Since the Basches had German ties, they chose to make Mount Prospect  a village with plenty of German influences  home. The family bought and operated a convenience store on Main Street that flourished for several years.

Although Clara and Ricardo had attended a bilingual school in Cuba, the transition was a challenge.

We were very behind with our English and misunderstood a lot of basic instructions, Clara said. It took us a while.

Clara decided to attend Harper in fall 1968 after graduating from Prospect High School. Tuition was a fraction of what a four-year institution cost, an important factor considering her father was ill and the family business was struggling to keep up with increased competition.

Harper had opened the previous year, and classes still took place at Elk Grove High School while the Palatine campus original six buildings were under construction.

Nearly five decades later, Clara looks back fondly at her teachers, her time on the Harper Pompon Corps and the friends who carpooled with her to class.

It felt like going to a community college really meant you participated in your community, Clara said. A journalism class included a tour of a newspaper, art class visited the Art Institute, theater class took a trip to the Lyric Opera. Part of my class on exceptional children had us volunteering at a local organization. I picked Little City, and Ive supported them ever since.

Clara went on to transfer to Eastern Illinois University and become a bilingual teacher in Wheeling Community Consolidated School District 21. She earned a masters degree in special education and worked at the Midwest Multifunctional Resource Center in Des Plaines teaching adults before wrapping up her career at the Illinois State Board of Education.

While her brother excelled at sports, Ricardo Basch averaged Cs and Ds while attending Forest View, Wheeling and eventually Prospect High School. Figuring hed get drafted upon graduating in 1967 Harper opened its doors later that year  he joined the Navy and served four years during the Vietnam War, much of it as a jet mechanic on the USS Kitty Hawk supporting operations in Southeast Asia.

When Ricardo returned to civilian life in 1971, he followed Claras footsteps and came to Harper for two years. His newfound discipline aided in his success, and he transferred to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he graduated with honors. He went on to earn a Masters of Business Administration degree from the University of Chicago and to work as a financial analyst for large companies such as Kraft and CNA Financial Corp.

Before he died in 2016, Ricardo was an active volunteer with WFMT public radio, the Audubon Society and numerous other groups.

He left money to 10 organizations including $25,000 to Harper College.

After Ricardo left the service, he didnt know what he wanted to do, Clara said. Harper was there for him.

The Basches connections to Harper dont end there. Clara and Ricardos younger sister, Margaret, also attended Harper and is now a practicing attorney. While in her early 70s, their mother, Sarah E. Emma Basch, took a German class at Harper. Margarets daughter, Emma, graduated from Harper this past year with an Associate of Arts degree  at just 14 years old. And Margarets husband attended Harper as an adult student to help further his career.

No matter what point weve been at in our lives, Harper has been the place that helped get us pointed in the right direction, Clara said.

With Harper serving more than 35,000 students annually, its not difficult to find families such as the Basches with deep, long-standing ties to the College.

During this 50th anniversary year, Harper will honor its proud past, affirm its present mission and impact, and aspire to an even stronger future. The community, whose unwavering support has helped Harper emerge as a leader in community colleges across the country, is invited to join in the celebration:

Dont forget to wish Harper College a Happy 50th Birthday on September 13; Harper held its first classes that day in 1967.

How did open farmland and horse stables in Palatine give rise to a vast brick-and-glass complex serving some 35,000 students annually? Retired Harper Professor Trygve Thoreson captures Harpers proud past in Harper College: The First 50 Years. An e-edition can be downloaded for free or pick up a hard copy (suggested donation is $20).

A 50th Anniversary Gala will take place September 16 at Priester Aviation at Chicago Executive Airport in Wheeling. Due to overwhelming sponsor support, Harper increased its fundraising goal to $1 million for the Promise Scholarship Program, which offers every eligible public high school student in Districts 211, 214 and 220 an opportunity to earn up to two years of tuition at Harper.

Hundreds of employees will volunteer at schools throughout Harpers 11 area school districts for the Doing More Together initiative during the week of October 23-29.

Community Day on April 14, 2018, will be an opportunity to experience, learn, reconnect and realize all that Harper has to offer through a series of on-campus events. They include the College and Career Expo, Inspire U Experience Expo, Alumni Reunion, Alumni Art Exhibit and a performance by Harper Ensemble Theatre Company alumni.

To learn more about Harpers 50th anniversary celebration and how the College helped shape the region, visit harpercollege.edu/50.
Some elected officials in New England are speaking out about the violence in Charlottesville, Virgina, and weighing in on how President Donald Trump handled the condemnation of the hate groups responsible.

Sen. Ed Markey (D) says what happened in Charlottesville is the result of a culture that has been created by President Donald Trump.

"President Trump ran on a platform of making America great again, but what he is really done he is giving permission to make America hate again," Markey said. "Each and every one of the steps which the president has taken is something that is signaling to these white racists, as articulated by David Duke over the weekend, that he's with them."

Gov. Charlie Baker also weighed in, saying the president should have condemned white supremacists, neo-Nazis, the KKK and other hate groups immediately.

"White supremacists have no place and no business in American political dialogue. Period. End of discussion. Case closed," said Baker.

Rep. Michael Capuano (D) is now looking toward Saturday, when some fear a long-planned "free speech" rally in Boston will draw a similar crowd.

"No matter how violent your speech might be, public safety comes first, and if what they're intending is to come to Boston, either them or people that want to associate with them, to commit violent acts, that won't be tolerated," Capuano said.

Calling the event in Charlottesville a very sad moment in American history, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) said the president's late, inadequate response was also sad.

"The idea that hundreds of people who are neo-Nazis, who are white supremacists, who are racists of the worst kind, are marching in a city in Virginia is a very sad state of affairs," Sanders said. "To suggest that there is violence on quote-unquote 'all sides' is total nonsense."
By IANS

CHENNAI: India's largest lender, State Bank of India (SBI), has rationalised 716 offices (594 branches and 122 administrative offices) and several thousands of employees have been transferred beginning this fiscal, but, strangely, there have been no major protests, top officials said.

Several hundreds of offices would be closed and thousands of staff would be moved in the coming months, officials added.

Strangely one does not hear any major complaints of vindictiveness or arbitrariness from the normally vociferous banking sector employees. This, at a time when leading software companies are arbitrarily firing people at day's notice.

Even the unions that strongly opposed the merger of six banks with SBI and were apprehensive about treatment of incoming staff by the SBI management agree that there is not much of vindictive or arbitrary movement of people till now, making one wonder as to how and why this happened.

Around 70,000 employees (around 40,000 Cass III and IV and around 30,000 officers) were added to SBI's rolls following the merger of SBBJ (State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur), SBM (State Bank of Mysore), SBT (State Bank of Travancore), SBP (State Bank of Patiala) and SBH (State Bank of Hyderabad) and Bharatiya Mahila Bank.

"By and large, the staff redeployment in SBI has been smooth. However, there seems to be complaints of vindictive transfers in Kerala which the management must address satisfactorily," C.H. Venkatachalam, General Secretary, All India Bank Employees' Association (AIBEA), told IANS.

But how is it that SBI is managing the show without the flag of protest being raised by the usually vociferous unions?

"The management did not deviate from the transfer policies that were signed between the management and the unions," Sanjeev Kumar Bandlish, General Secretary, All India State Bank of India Staff Federation (AISBISF), told IANS.

"There are set transfer policies for officers and the award staff. We have told the management not to transfer employees on a large scale," D. Thomas Franco Rajendra Dev, President, All India State Bank Officers Federation (AIBOF), told IANS.

Union leaders said the employees were consulted and posting preferences were sought prior to their transfer.

"The employees were moved to other branches located in the close vicinity of their earlier offices. This reduced tension in the minds of incoming employees to a large extent," Neeraj Vyas, Deputy Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer, told IANS.

He said those who opted to take higher responsibility under the Career Progression Plan (CPP) were transferred to another location as per the existing policy.

"The reservation about the merger was only in the incoming employees' minds. Once the merger happened and the employees saw the systematic way the policies were followed, the mental block against the merger has melted," Vyas said.

"When the merger was proposed, integrating the officers of associate banks was not considered to be a problem. However, in the case of clerical cadres there was a crucial difference between SBI and the associate banks," Vyas added.

Vyas said that under the SBI's CPP for clerical staff, those who accept higher responsibility are given additional powers and allowances.

"But such schemes were not there in the associate banks and the major union there -- the AIBEA -- had opposed the scheme," Vyas said.

He said many employees of the erstwhile associate banks have now opted for the CPP.

According to Vyas, there were no mass scale transfers in the associate banks prior to the introduction of Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) before the merger.

A total of 3,569 employees opted for VRS.

"The VRS numbers were as per our initial expectations," Vyas said.

In the case of officers, they will be transferred on promotion or after completing three years at a location.

On the staff redeployment process, Vyas said the bank planned a mix of employees -- those who are originally from SBI and from associate banks -- so that they get culturally integrated with SBI.

According to SBI, the projected number of staff to be redeployed due to rationalisation of administrative offices and branches is around 10,616.

The bank has said that nearly 30 per cent of the 8,616 staff to be redeployed due to branch rationalisation will be posted in sales functions.

Questioned about the complaints on transfer in Kerala, Vyas replied: "Only 25 employees of erstwhile State Bank of Travancore (SBT) have complained out of 4,300 employees to whom the Career Progression Plan was offered."

He said the unions in SBT had vociferously opposed the career progression scheme prior to the merger.

According to Vyas, the acceptance of the career progression scheme amongst the erstwhile associate bank employees is around 80 per cent now, the same as in SBI.

Queried about the criteria for closure of banks, Vyas said it is based on factors like profitability, viability, period of lease, footfalls and others.

"We are not closing the branches of erstwhile associate banks. Even SBI branches will be closed if they do not fulfill the criteria. We move from rental premises to owned premises wherever possible," Vyas added.

According to Vyas, the total number of branches that would be rationalised will be around 1,400, of which 594 have been completed.

"The remaining will happen over a period of time. Further, we will open new branches wherever needed," he added.

CHENNAI: India's largest lender, State Bank of India (SBI), has rationalised 716 offices (594 branches and 122 administrative offices) and several thousands of employees have been transferred beginning this fiscal, but, strangely, there have been no major protests, top officials said. Several hundreds of offices would be closed and thousands of staff would be moved in the coming months, officials added. Strangely one does not hear any major complaints of vindictiveness or arbitrariness from the normally vociferous banking sector employees. This, at a time when leading software companies are arbitrarily firing people at day's notice. Even the unions that strongly opposed the merger of six banks with SBI and were apprehensive about treatment of incoming staff by the SBI management agree that there is not much of vindictive or arbitrary movement of people till now, making one wonder as to how and why this happened. Around 70,000 employees (around 40,000 Cass III and IV and around 30,000 officers) were added to SBI's rolls following the merger of SBBJ (State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur), SBM (State Bank of Mysore), SBT (State Bank of Travancore), SBP (State Bank of Patiala) and SBH (State Bank of Hyderabad) and Bharatiya Mahila Bank. "By and large, the staff redeployment in SBI has been smooth. However, there seems to be complaints of vindictive transfers in Kerala which the management must address satisfactorily," C.H. Venkatachalam, General Secretary, All India Bank Employees' Association (AIBEA), told IANS. But how is it that SBI is managing the show without the flag of protest being raised by the usually vociferous unions? "The management did not deviate from the transfer policies that were signed between the management and the unions," Sanjeev Kumar Bandlish, General Secretary, All India State Bank of India Staff Federation (AISBISF), told IANS. "There are set transfer policies for officers and the award staff. We have told the management not to transfer employees on a large scale," D. Thomas Franco Rajendra Dev, President, All India State Bank Officers Federation (AIBOF), told IANS. Union leaders said the employees were consulted and posting preferences were sought prior to their transfer. "The employees were moved to other branches located in the close vicinity of their earlier offices. This reduced tension in the minds of incoming employees to a large extent," Neeraj Vyas, Deputy Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer, told IANS. He said those who opted to take higher responsibility under the Career Progression Plan (CPP) were transferred to another location as per the existing policy. "The reservation about the merger was only in the incoming employees' minds. Once the merger happened and the employees saw the systematic way the policies were followed, the mental block against the merger has melted," Vyas said. "When the merger was proposed, integrating the officers of associate banks was not considered to be a problem. However, in the case of clerical cadres there was a crucial difference between SBI and the associate banks," Vyas added. Vyas said that under the SBI's CPP for clerical staff, those who accept higher responsibility are given additional powers and allowances. "But such schemes were not there in the associate banks and the major union there -- the AIBEA -- had opposed the scheme," Vyas said. He said many employees of the erstwhile associate banks have now opted for the CPP. According to Vyas, there were no mass scale transfers in the associate banks prior to the introduction of Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) before the merger. A total of 3,569 employees opted for VRS. "The VRS numbers were as per our initial expectations," Vyas said. In the case of officers, they will be transferred on promotion or after completing three years at a location. On the staff redeployment process, Vyas said the bank planned a mix of employees -- those who are originally from SBI and from associate banks -- so that they get culturally integrated with SBI. According to SBI, the projected number of staff to be redeployed due to rationalisation of administrative offices and branches is around 10,616. The bank has said that nearly 30 per cent of the 8,616 staff to be redeployed due to branch rationalisation will be posted in sales functions. Questioned about the complaints on transfer in Kerala, Vyas replied: "Only 25 employees of erstwhile State Bank of Travancore (SBT) have complained out of 4,300 employees to whom the Career Progression Plan was offered." He said the unions in SBT had vociferously opposed the career progression scheme prior to the merger. According to Vyas, the acceptance of the career progression scheme amongst the erstwhile associate bank employees is around 80 per cent now, the same as in SBI. Queried about the criteria for closure of banks, Vyas said it is based on factors like profitability, viability, period of lease, footfalls and others. "We are not closing the branches of erstwhile associate banks. Even SBI branches will be closed if they do not fulfill the criteria. We move from rental premises to owned premises wherever possible," Vyas added. According to Vyas, the total number of branches that would be rationalised will be around 1,400, of which 594 have been completed. "The remaining will happen over a period of time. Further, we will open new branches wherever needed," he added.
A China Card for the Middle East



PARIS  The list of crises plaguing the Middle East is growing. In Yemen, a civil war rages amid an uncontrollable cholera epidemic. In Jerusalem, religious violence is intensifying, while in parts of Iraq and Syria, sectarian warfare shows no signs of abating. Most ominously, a new level of antagonism between Saudi Arabia and Iran suggests that a direct confrontation between the leading powers of Sunni and Shia Islam is no longer out of the question.

Just when the region needs the steady hand of international leadership most, none of the usual actors is strong enough, or committed enough, to engage effectively. What the region requires is a new framework for diplomacy  one with the strong backing of a new mediator: China.

By exporting terrorism and religiously inspired extremism, the Middle East has become global in the most negative sense. But while much attention has been focused on addressing what Frances former finance minister, Michel Sapin, once called the unhappy side of globalization  such as unemployment and income inequality  too little has been done to contain the spread of extremist violence or address its causes. Many diplomatic formulas have been tried, but progress remains elusive.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Europe endured horrific religious wars, but Christendom was mostly united when it began to confront the threat posed by an expanding Ottoman Empire. In the nineteenth century, the delicate balance of power between European powers and the crumbling Ottoman fringe gave rise to the Eastern Question. Ultimately, the Ottoman Empires demise fueled conflict in the Balkans and sowed rivalries that led to World War I.

Today, too, mainly European, or Western, approaches to ensuring stability in the Middle East no longer work. As a top European diplomat told me recently, the Middle East crisis is in desperate need of fresh thinking and new leadership. One idea he offered was a Helsinki-inspired solution, drawing on a diverse collection of countries to address a common, if regionally focused, problem.

My interlocutors suggestion was original, and potentially game-changing. In 1975, in Helsinki, Finland, a mechanism was created to reduce tensions and enable dialogue between the United States and the Soviet Union, the two Cold War superpowers. The resulting Helsinki Accords, which placed an emphasis on sovereignty and territorial integrity, represented a significant step toward strategic de-escalation. For some analysts, the accords, which received broad European and Western support, initiated the end of the Cold War (which the Soviet Union, of course, survived with neither its sovereignty nor its territorial integrity).

The geopolitical map has changed significantly since 1975, but the underlying premise of the Helsinki process  mutual respect built on global consensus  is no less relevant today.

Unfortunately, neither the US nor Europe appears to be in a position to implement such an approach for the Middle East. That, in my view, leaves an opening for China, the worlds most important rising power, to engage in a formal and meaningful way.

Chinas engagement would be a significant departure from its past policy. During much of Chinas reform period, the countrys leadership emphasized domestic priorities and kept a low profile internationally. But in recent years, China has been more willing to play a larger global role, reflected in its leadership on climate change and its efforts to mediate between Sudan and South Sudan. In 2015, when France launched an ultimately unsuccessful bid to restart the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, China was among the initiatives most enthusiastic supporters.

Involving China in Middle East diplomacy makes sense politically, but it could also make sense culturally and historically. China faces fewer security vulnerabilities from the Middle East (except on matters of energy) than Europe does, and it has no imperial legacy in the region  and thus none of the emotional baggage of the colonial past. Moreover, the Chinese have not sided with Saudi Arabia, like the United States has under President Donald Trump, or with the Iranians, like Russia has under President Vladimir Putin. And China has none of the guilt that Europeans have over their historic mistreatment of both Arabs and Jews.

Of course, China may resist exposing itself to the pitfalls of Middle East diplomacy. China remains committed, at least rhetorically, to a policy of non-interference, and its citizens may be unenthusiastic. In Beijing last year, I was told by a Chinese foreign-policy expert that the countrys reluctance to interfere in other countries internal affairs partly reflects the legacy of the one-child policy that was enforced for more than three decades. Why would Chinese parents risk the life of their only child for the sake of faraway countries that pose no threat to China?

Yet, within the context of more broad-based international engagement, akin to the Helsinki process, China might actually be in the best position to help bring about long-term stability the Middle East.

Given the collective failures of the usual actors, a new cast could surely do no worse.
By Express News Service

HYDERABAD: As the hullabaloo over the Tollywood connect to drug peddlers was beginning to fade, Rachakonda police on Monday arrested four drug traffickers in Hyderabad, and allegedly stumbled upon links to celebrities, whose names were cropping up in the Telangana Prohibition and Excise departments investigation into drug trade in the city. After LB Nagar police busted a drug and flesh trade racket, Rachakonda sleuths say they focused on cracking down on the rest of the network.

On Monday they arrested Nigerian national Ajah Gabriel (26), Nooka Navyanth (23), associate of alleged drug peddler Calvin Mascarenhas, Ankith Pandey (28) and B Ghanath Kumar Reddy (24) in Hyderabad on charges of peddling drugs. As many as 450 amphetamine pills, 45 grams of MDMA, 60 LSD blots, 450 Ecstasy pills, 5 gram of cocaine, 60 gram of ganja were among drugs seized from their possession. Another accused Pavan Kumar Reddy is absconding. Gabriel was produced before a court for judicial remand.

Police said Gabriel had been living in Hyderabad from 2014 when he joined Nizam college. He later dropped out. Gabriel, along with other Nigerian nationals, Cosmas, John, Henry and Emeka, was peddling drugs from Goa, Mumbai and Pune. In March, he was arrested with 20 gms of cocaine but got bail, police said. Gabriel allegedly acted as an agent for Cosmas, who was arrested. Police claim he collected and delivered drugs. His customers are elite society people. Learning of the arrest of his countrymen by LB Nagar police, Gabriel fled to Bengaluru and then to New Delhi and was nabbed when he came to the city to meet his girlfriend, said Rachakonda commissioner Mahesh Bhagwat at a press conference.

POLICE said his friend Pandey, a city Disco Jockey and HR consultant would order drugs on WhatsApp. They used international mobile numbers. Ankith would place orders for cocaine, heroin and LSD. Gabriel and Navyanth would procure them from Delhi, Mumbai and Goa, Bhagwat said.

One Pavan Kumar Reddy, an event manager, is also allegedly involved in drug trafficking. Pavan has contacts with film personalities, celebrities and junior artists whose names cropped up in the drug investigation, said Bhagwat, adding the police did not want to create hype by disclosing names of celebrities. Our focus is on the drug peddlers, he said.

After Mascarenhas was arrested by Excise department, Navyanth, an engineering dropout from Karimnagar, disappeared. Cops said hed rented a room on Anjuna beach in Goa. Hundreds of men and women are customers. Navyanth accepted money only on PayTm. He earned lakhs selling drugs. He wanted to make money at the Freedom Blast festival in Goa, but was arrested, police added.

Through Navyanth, police said, Ghanath, an engineering dropout and businessman from Malaysian Township, came in contact with drug consumers. Navyanth advised Ghanath to invest win purchase and sale of drugs. The duo was known for selling drugs in pubs at Banjara Hills, Jubilee hills and Madhapur, said police. When police went to his home, his father, a reputed businessman, reportedly told them of his sons habits and asked them to teach him a lesson.

HYDERABAD: As the hullabaloo over the Tollywood connect to drug peddlers was beginning to fade, Rachakonda police on Monday arrested four drug traffickers in Hyderabad, and allegedly stumbled upon links to celebrities, whose names were cropping up in the Telangana Prohibition and Excise departments investigation into drug trade in the city. After LB Nagar police busted a drug and flesh trade racket, Rachakonda sleuths say they focused on cracking down on the rest of the network. On Monday they arrested Nigerian national Ajah Gabriel (26), Nooka Navyanth (23), associate of alleged drug peddler Calvin Mascarenhas, Ankith Pandey (28) and B Ghanath Kumar Reddy (24) in Hyderabad on charges of peddling drugs. As many as 450 amphetamine pills, 45 grams of MDMA, 60 LSD blots, 450 Ecstasy pills, 5 gram of cocaine, 60 gram of ganja were among drugs seized from their possession. Another accused Pavan Kumar Reddy is absconding. Gabriel was produced before a court for judicial remand. Police said Gabriel had been living in Hyderabad from 2014 when he joined Nizam college. He later dropped out. Gabriel, along with other Nigerian nationals, Cosmas, John, Henry and Emeka, was peddling drugs from Goa, Mumbai and Pune. In March, he was arrested with 20 gms of cocaine but got bail, police said. Gabriel allegedly acted as an agent for Cosmas, who was arrested. Police claim he collected and delivered drugs. His customers are elite society people. Learning of the arrest of his countrymen by LB Nagar police, Gabriel fled to Bengaluru and then to New Delhi and was nabbed when he came to the city to meet his girlfriend, said Rachakonda commissioner Mahesh Bhagwat at a press conference. POLICE said his friend Pandey, a city Disco Jockey and HR consultant would order drugs on WhatsApp. They used international mobile numbers. Ankith would place orders for cocaine, heroin and LSD. Gabriel and Navyanth would procure them from Delhi, Mumbai and Goa, Bhagwat said. One Pavan Kumar Reddy, an event manager, is also allegedly involved in drug trafficking. Pavan has contacts with film personalities, celebrities and junior artists whose names cropped up in the drug investigation, said Bhagwat, adding the police did not want to create hype by disclosing names of celebrities. Our focus is on the drug peddlers, he said. After Mascarenhas was arrested by Excise department, Navyanth, an engineering dropout from Karimnagar, disappeared. Cops said hed rented a room on Anjuna beach in Goa. Hundreds of men and women are customers. Navyanth accepted money only on PayTm. He earned lakhs selling drugs. He wanted to make money at the Freedom Blast festival in Goa, but was arrested, police added. Through Navyanth, police said, Ghanath, an engineering dropout and businessman from Malaysian Township, came in contact with drug consumers. Navyanth advised Ghanath to invest win purchase and sale of drugs. The duo was known for selling drugs in pubs at Banjara Hills, Jubilee hills and Madhapur, said police. When police went to his home, his father, a reputed businessman, reportedly told them of his sons habits and asked them to teach him a lesson.
Pradip R Sagar By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: On a day when Pakistan exchanged sweets at the border with Indian soldiers on the occasion of 70th Independence Day, Chinese troops distanced themselves from the event.The Chinese military did not attend the two-decade-old practice of holding Border Personnel Meeting (BPM), on the occasion of Independence Day. A government source said, No delegation from the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) came to our side to attend the ceremonial Border Personnel Meeting. Holding such meetings is important as it is a part of the confidence-building measure mechanism between the two neighbours.



The BPM meetings are held at five locations where India shares the border with China. They are Bum La and Kibithu in Arunachal Pradesh, Daulat Beg Oldi and Chushul in Ladakh and Nathu La in Sikkim.

Chinese and Indian soldiers have been engaged in an eyeball-to-eyeball situation since June 16, after Indian troops objected to a road construction project being carried out by Chinese soldiers in the strategically-important Dokalam plateau close to Sikkim border. Objection was also raised by the Royal Bhutanese Army.



Since then, over 300 soldiers from each side are camping in the disputed site. Multiple efforts to break the ice, including National Security Adviser Ajit Dovals visit to Beijing last month, have not yielded any positive outcome. Now all eyes are on Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit in September to China to take part in the BRICS summit where leaders from both sides are expected to resolve the issue.



Meanwhile, near the Attari-Wagah border, on the occasion of the countrys 70th Independence Day on Tuesday, security forces of India and Pakistan posted at the border in Punjab, exchanged sweets and greetings to mark the occasion. Despite repeated violation of the ceasefire by Pakistani troops at the Line of control, Indias Border Security Force (BSF) and Pakistani Rangers exchanged pleasantries at the border. A small cultural ceremony was held before the two forces exchanged sweets.

NEW DELHI: On a day when Pakistan exchanged sweets at the border with Indian soldiers on the occasion of 70th Independence Day, Chinese troops distanced themselves from the event.The Chinese military did not attend the two-decade-old practice of holding Border Personnel Meeting (BPM), on the occasion of Independence Day. A government source said, No delegation from the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) came to our side to attend the ceremonial Border Personnel Meeting. Holding such meetings is important as it is a part of the confidence-building measure mechanism between the two neighbours. The BPM meetings are held at five locations where India shares the border with China. They are Bum La and Kibithu in Arunachal Pradesh, Daulat Beg Oldi and Chushul in Ladakh and Nathu La in Sikkim. Chinese and Indian soldiers have been engaged in an eyeball-to-eyeball situation since June 16, after Indian troops objected to a road construction project being carried out by Chinese soldiers in the strategically-important Dokalam plateau close to Sikkim border. Objection was also raised by the Royal Bhutanese Army. Since then, over 300 soldiers from each side are camping in the disputed site. Multiple efforts to break the ice, including National Security Adviser Ajit Dovals visit to Beijing last month, have not yielded any positive outcome. Now all eyes are on Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit in September to China to take part in the BRICS summit where leaders from both sides are expected to resolve the issue. Meanwhile, near the Attari-Wagah border, on the occasion of the countrys 70th Independence Day on Tuesday, security forces of India and Pakistan posted at the border in Punjab, exchanged sweets and greetings to mark the occasion. Despite repeated violation of the ceasefire by Pakistani troops at the Line of control, Indias Border Security Force (BSF) and Pakistani Rangers exchanged pleasantries at the border. A small cultural ceremony was held before the two forces exchanged sweets.
Namita Bajpai By

Express News Service

LUCKNOW: Five days after tragedy struck Baba Raghav Das (BRD) Medical College in Gorakhpur where over 30 lives were lost in 48 hours between August 9 and 11, stories of dubious dealings, rampant corruption and appalling apathy are flying far and wide.

While state health minister Siddharth Nath Singh, in no uncertain terms, made light of the alleged commission-khori (kickbacks) as the reason for the disruption of oxygen supply on August 10-11, the allegation was corroborated by more than one source on the hospital premises with the needle of suspicion pointing to top authorities who were at the helm while the tragedy occurred.

The report of the committee formed by the Gorakhpur district magistrate too has reportedly pointed the finger at gross mismanagement and anomalies.

While a high-level committee under Uttar Pradesh chief secretary Rajive Kumar will probe the angle in detail, negligence in maintaining oxygen supply is a matter of serious concern. As per hospital sources, the payment to the liquid oxygen supplier was delayed as some of the medical college officials were not getting kickbacks.

While talking to the paramedical and other staff of BRD medical college, one can easily gauge the level of rot having seeped in to the system.

The BRD medical college is the only hospital across 15 districts in eastern Uttar Pradesh also catering to patients from Bihar and bordering Nepal. It is the nerve centre to treat patients with encephalitis with a footfall as staggering as 6,000 per day during the monsoons when the epidemic peaks.

A woman holds her child admitted at the

BRD Hospital in Gorakhpur district on

Tuesday | PTI

The deficiency of life-saving drugs and important equipment like life support systems lying defunct or out of order for long durations are the common phenomenon here.

This delays even normal surgeries by over a month, says a junior doctor from the surgery department.

The system of kickbacks is dominant because of which basic maintenance of the machines is compromised. It is outsourced and money plays an important role in the selection of agencies.

The drier sterilisation machines are nowhere in the OT (Operation Theatre). There is one machine in routine OT but it is also out of order, said a staff of the surgery department.

Other machines are also awaiting maintenance and repair but pending payment to agencies concerned and subsequent delay in kickbacks to authorities, in turn, has halted the system, said another source.

According to a staff of the encephalitis ward, a warmer is urgently needed in the ward to foment ailing children but since the commission deal is stuck, there is further delay in the installation despite repeated reminders by the department.

Even the chief minister has issued directives in this regard but the greed of top authorities is overriding all orders, said a doctor requesting anonymity.

A similar scenario crops up when it comes to increasing the bed strength of the encephalitis ward. ACs, OT costume and slippers need to be arranged.

According to highly-placed sources associated with hospital administration, suspended principal Dr RK Mishra ran three pathologies across Gorakhpur. His wife Dr Poornima Shukla, a homoeopath, reportedly calls the shots in the medical college in striking deals and allocating tenders to outsource various operations.

Money has a big role to play even in the inter-departmental transfers and posting of paramedical staff.

We have to bribe the authorities if we need a transfer to other departments. Money changes hands in the recruitment of lower staff and ward boys, says a nurse.

However, the officials at the highest level express ignorance about the practices going on in BRD medical college saying the probe will bring each worm out of the can.

LUCKNOW: Five days after tragedy struck Baba Raghav Das (BRD) Medical College in Gorakhpur where over 30 lives were lost in 48 hours between August 9 and 11, stories of dubious dealings, rampant corruption and appalling apathy are flying far and wide. While state health minister Siddharth Nath Singh, in no uncertain terms, made light of the alleged commission-khori (kickbacks) as the reason for the disruption of oxygen supply on August 10-11, the allegation was corroborated by more than one source on the hospital premises with the needle of suspicion pointing to top authorities who were at the helm while the tragedy occurred. The report of the committee formed by the Gorakhpur district magistrate too has reportedly pointed the finger at gross mismanagement and anomalies. While a high-level committee under Uttar Pradesh chief secretary Rajive Kumar will probe the angle in detail, negligence in maintaining oxygen supply is a matter of serious concern. As per hospital sources, the payment to the liquid oxygen supplier was delayed as some of the medical college officials were not getting kickbacks. While talking to the paramedical and other staff of BRD medical college, one can easily gauge the level of rot having seeped in to the system. The BRD medical college is the only hospital across 15 districts in eastern Uttar Pradesh also catering to patients from Bihar and bordering Nepal. It is the nerve centre to treat patients with encephalitis with a footfall as staggering as 6,000 per day during the monsoons when the epidemic peaks. A woman holds her child admitted at the BRD Hospital in Gorakhpur district on Tuesday | PTIThe deficiency of life-saving drugs and important equipment like life support systems lying defunct or out of order for long durations are the common phenomenon here. This delays even normal surgeries by over a month, says a junior doctor from the surgery department. The system of kickbacks is dominant because of which basic maintenance of the machines is compromised. It is outsourced and money plays an important role in the selection of agencies. The drier sterilisation machines are nowhere in the OT (Operation Theatre). There is one machine in routine OT but it is also out of order, said a staff of the surgery department. Other machines are also awaiting maintenance and repair but pending payment to agencies concerned and subsequent delay in kickbacks to authorities, in turn, has halted the system, said another source. According to a staff of the encephalitis ward, a warmer is urgently needed in the ward to foment ailing children but since the commission deal is stuck, there is further delay in the installation despite repeated reminders by the department. Even the chief minister has issued directives in this regard but the greed of top authorities is overriding all orders, said a doctor requesting anonymity. A similar scenario crops up when it comes to increasing the bed strength of the encephalitis ward. ACs, OT costume and slippers need to be arranged. According to highly-placed sources associated with hospital administration, suspended principal Dr RK Mishra ran three pathologies across Gorakhpur. His wife Dr Poornima Shukla, a homoeopath, reportedly calls the shots in the medical college in striking deals and allocating tenders to outsource various operations. Money has a big role to play even in the inter-departmental transfers and posting of paramedical staff. We have to bribe the authorities if we need a transfer to other departments. Money changes hands in the recruitment of lower staff and ward boys, says a nurse. However, the officials at the highest level express ignorance about the practices going on in BRD medical college saying the probe will bring each worm out of the can.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar today alleged that Doordarshan and All India Radio (AIR) refused to broadcast his Independence Day address unless he "reshaped" it and termed it as an "undemocratic, autocratic and intolerant step".

There was no immediate reaction from the Prasar Bharati, which runs Doordarshan and All India Radio.

A Tripura government press statement alleged that Doordarshan and AIR had recorded Sarkar's speech on August 12.

Yesterday at 7 pm, the Chief Minister's office was informed through a letter that his speech would not be broadcast unless he "reshaped it".

The letter purportedly said, "The message of the Chief Minister was closely examined by the competent authority. In view of the sanctity of the occasion, the broadcast code and responsibility of the public broadcaster it is not possible to telecast it in the present format."

"However, Doordarshan/Prasar Bharati will be happy if the chief minister agrees to reshape the content making it suitable to the solemnity of the occasion and sentiment of the people," it purportedly said.

The CMO statement claimed, "The chief minister clearly stated that he would not change a single word and described it as unprecedented, undemocratic, autocratic and intolerant step."

Sarkar's speech was supposed to be broadcast today by Doordarshan and AIR in Tripura.

CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said Doordarshan was "not the private property" of the BJP-RSS and accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of "instructing his cronies to black out voices" of the opposition, including that of an elected chief minister.

In a statement, the CPI-M Politburo said it "strongly condemns the refusal by the Doordarshan and All India Radio to broadcast the customary Independence Day address of Sarkar".

"The Doordarshan and All India Radio had recorded his speech for the occasion. However, they subsequently informed him that the speech cannot be carried as it is and asked him to 'reshape' it," it said.

The party demanded action against those responsible for "prohibiting" the broadcast.

"This is a gross infringement on the right of a chief minister to address the people of his state on Independence Day. This act is reminiscent of the Emergency days and goes beyond as it seeks to gag the elected Chief Minister of a state. The central government is trampling upon the autonomy of Doordarshan/AIR and Prasar Bharati by such acts of censorship," the statement said.

"Doordarshan Refuses to Broadcast Tripura CM Manik Sarkar's Speech. Is this the Cooperative Federalism that PM Modi Talks About? Shame!" the CPI (M)'s official Twitter handle said.

Tagging the tweet, Yechury hit out at the central government saying the channel's alleged refusal to air Sarkar's speech was "illegal".

"PM can pay homilies to cooperative federalism while instructing his cronies to black out voices of the Opposition, including an elected CM.

"If this isn't authoritarianism & undeclared Emergency, what is? This will be fought back by the CPM, people of Tripura and all our citizens," the Marxist leader tweeted.

NEW DELHI: Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar today alleged that Doordarshan and All India Radio (AIR) refused to broadcast his Independence Day address unless he "reshaped" it and termed it as an "undemocratic, autocratic and intolerant step". There was no immediate reaction from the Prasar Bharati, which runs Doordarshan and All India Radio. A Tripura government press statement alleged that Doordarshan and AIR had recorded Sarkar's speech on August 12. Yesterday at 7 pm, the Chief Minister's office was informed through a letter that his speech would not be broadcast unless he "reshaped it". The letter purportedly said, "The message of the Chief Minister was closely examined by the competent authority. In view of the sanctity of the occasion, the broadcast code and responsibility of the public broadcaster it is not possible to telecast it in the present format." "However, Doordarshan/Prasar Bharati will be happy if the chief minister agrees to reshape the content making it suitable to the solemnity of the occasion and sentiment of the people," it purportedly said. The CMO statement claimed, "The chief minister clearly stated that he would not change a single word and described it as unprecedented, undemocratic, autocratic and intolerant step." Sarkar's speech was supposed to be broadcast today by Doordarshan and AIR in Tripura. CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said Doordarshan was "not the private property" of the BJP-RSS and accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of "instructing his cronies to black out voices" of the opposition, including that of an elected chief minister. In a statement, the CPI-M Politburo said it "strongly condemns the refusal by the Doordarshan and All India Radio to broadcast the customary Independence Day address of Sarkar". "The Doordarshan and All India Radio had recorded his speech for the occasion. However, they subsequently informed him that the speech cannot be carried as it is and asked him to 'reshape' it," it said. The party demanded action against those responsible for "prohibiting" the broadcast. "This is a gross infringement on the right of a chief minister to address the people of his state on Independence Day. This act is reminiscent of the Emergency days and goes beyond as it seeks to gag the elected Chief Minister of a state. The central government is trampling upon the autonomy of Doordarshan/AIR and Prasar Bharati by such acts of censorship," the statement said. "Doordarshan Refuses to Broadcast Tripura CM Manik Sarkar's Speech. Is this the Cooperative Federalism that PM Modi Talks About? Shame!" the CPI (M)'s official Twitter handle said. Tagging the tweet, Yechury hit out at the central government saying the channel's alleged refusal to air Sarkar's speech was "illegal". "PM can pay homilies to cooperative federalism while instructing his cronies to black out voices of the Opposition, including an elected CM. "If this isn't authoritarianism & undeclared Emergency, what is? This will be fought back by the CPM, people of Tripura and all our citizens," the Marxist leader tweeted.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: IIT Kharagpur professor Rajeev Kumar, who was given compulsory retirement after he exposed flaws in the IIT entrance exam, can now heave a sigh of relief, courtesy former President Pranab Mukherjee.

Days before he demitted office last month, Mukherjee had ordered setting aside of the penalty imposed on Kumar.

The HRD Ministry had last week issued orders to the IIT Kharagpur Director to comply with Mukherjee's decision.

"I am directed to refer to the appeal dated September 3, 2014 filed by professor Rajeev Kumar and to say that the President of India, in his capacity as the Visitor of IIT Kharagpur,...has set aside the penalty of compulsory retirement imposed on him," read the HRD Ministry order.

Kumar, when contacted, refused to comment on the issue.

IIT-Kharagpur had suspended Kumar for "misconduct" in May 2011 -- the same year the Supreme Court had lauded him as a "unsung hero" for his efforts to reform the IIT Joint Entrance Examination (JEE), which has since been re-christened as JEE Advanced.

He was accused of "damaging the reputation of the institute" by levelling allegations on issues ranging from irregularities in the purchase of laptops to rampant copying by students during examinations.

The institute set up a probe panel that found him guilty.

In 2014, the IIT decided to hand him compulsory retirement.

Kumar, who alleged that the panel was biased, moved the Delhi High Court and obtained a stay on the IIT's decision. He also appealed to the President requesting that the decision be quashed.

The appeal against the retirement order has been pending in the Delhi High Court.

NEW DELHI: IIT Kharagpur professor Rajeev Kumar, who was given compulsory retirement after he exposed flaws in the IIT entrance exam, can now heave a sigh of relief, courtesy former President Pranab Mukherjee. Days before he demitted office last month, Mukherjee had ordered setting aside of the penalty imposed on Kumar. The HRD Ministry had last week issued orders to the IIT Kharagpur Director to comply with Mukherjee's decision. "I am directed to refer to the appeal dated September 3, 2014 filed by professor Rajeev Kumar and to say that the President of India, in his capacity as the Visitor of IIT Kharagpur,...has set aside the penalty of compulsory retirement imposed on him," read the HRD Ministry order. Kumar, when contacted, refused to comment on the issue. IIT-Kharagpur had suspended Kumar for "misconduct" in May 2011 -- the same year the Supreme Court had lauded him as a "unsung hero" for his efforts to reform the IIT Joint Entrance Examination (JEE), which has since been re-christened as JEE Advanced. He was accused of "damaging the reputation of the institute" by levelling allegations on issues ranging from irregularities in the purchase of laptops to rampant copying by students during examinations. The institute set up a probe panel that found him guilty. In 2014, the IIT decided to hand him compulsory retirement. Kumar, who alleged that the panel was biased, moved the Delhi High Court and obtained a stay on the IIT's decision. He also appealed to the President requesting that the decision be quashed. The appeal against the retirement order has been pending in the Delhi High Court.
Namita Bajpai By

Express News Service

LUCKNOW: After 30 children died at Baba Raghav Dev Medical College in Gorakhpur between August 9 and 11, hospital authorities blamed the disaster on disruption of oxygen supply by private company Pushpa Sales. The authorities alleged the firm had suspended the supply as bills to the tune of Rs 70 lakh were yet to be cleared. The firm, however, denied this claim.

We maintained supply to BRD Medical College irrespective of the overdue payment, said Meenu Walia, office & HR head of Pushpa Sales, claiming the first consignment for the month was released on August 4 against an earlier requisition placed by the medical college. After a weeks silence, the next intimation (after August 4) for a refilling request from the college authorities was given to the company on August 11 and the consignment reached the hospital on August 12, 2017, claimed Walia.

Thus, the supply was never interrupted by the company irrespective of the non-payment of bills pending for the last six months and despite repeated reminders, she added. However, the company had issued a legal notice to BRD Medical College on July 30. The notice had clearly mentioned that payment should be cleared within 15 days but authorities did not respond to it.

According to Walia, oxygen supply to any hospital or medical college needed a three-source protocol  oxygen cylinder, liquid oxygen and Ambu bag  according to norms. College sources added a consignment of 6000-litre liquid oxygen can sustain the system for six days.

After receiving a delivery, the requisition for the next consignment needs to be placed within four days as it takes around two days to reach, said a highly-placed source. In this case, the authorities should have placed the order latest by August 8.

However, the panic-stricken medical college administration placed the order only on August 11, after having transferred the money. But by then, the damage was done and at least 30 lives across neo-natal, acute encephalitis syndrome and general wards were lost.

Moreover, the companys director Manish Bhandari questioned the maintenance of protocol for the life-saving gas for the patients in the hospital. While adequate amounts of the liquid gas were being supplied on time, every hospital and medical college is expected to maintain 350-400 filled cylinders at any given point, whereas, at the time of tragedy, when the pressure of the liquid oxygen went down considerably on Thursday (August 10) night, only 50-60 cylinders were in the hospital, he said. A statement released by the hospital on August 11 said that after supply ran out at 7.30 pm on August 10, there were only 52 reserve cylinders.

Action, reactions

Resident doctors of the AIIMS condemned the sacking of Dr Kafeel Khan, alleging that he had been made a scapegoat. Khan is also alleged to be running a 50-bed hospital for children by proxy

The NHRC has sent a notice to the UP government stating that it indicated gross callousness on the part of health administration

UP Health Minister Siddharth Nath Singh claimed that corruption had been detected in the administration of BRD Medical College

SC refuses to intervene

The Supreme Court refused to intervene in the issue saying the matter was being handled by the UP govt. Any grievances about it should be raised before the Allahabad High Court, the top court told a lawyer who mentioned the issue before it on Monday morning

LUCKNOW: After 30 children died at Baba Raghav Dev Medical College in Gorakhpur between August 9 and 11, hospital authorities blamed the disaster on disruption of oxygen supply by private company Pushpa Sales. The authorities alleged the firm had suspended the supply as bills to the tune of Rs 70 lakh were yet to be cleared. The firm, however, denied this claim. We maintained supply to BRD Medical College irrespective of the overdue payment, said Meenu Walia, office & HR head of Pushpa Sales, claiming the first consignment for the month was released on August 4 against an earlier requisition placed by the medical college. After a weeks silence, the next intimation (after August 4) for a refilling request from the college authorities was given to the company on August 11 and the consignment reached the hospital on August 12, 2017, claimed Walia. Thus, the supply was never interrupted by the company irrespective of the non-payment of bills pending for the last six months and despite repeated reminders, she added. However, the company had issued a legal notice to BRD Medical College on July 30. The notice had clearly mentioned that payment should be cleared within 15 days but authorities did not respond to it. According to Walia, oxygen supply to any hospital or medical college needed a three-source protocol  oxygen cylinder, liquid oxygen and Ambu bag  according to norms. College sources added a consignment of 6000-litre liquid oxygen can sustain the system for six days. After receiving a delivery, the requisition for the next consignment needs to be placed within four days as it takes around two days to reach, said a highly-placed source. In this case, the authorities should have placed the order latest by August 8. However, the panic-stricken medical college administration placed the order only on August 11, after having transferred the money. But by then, the damage was done and at least 30 lives across neo-natal, acute encephalitis syndrome and general wards were lost. Moreover, the companys director Manish Bhandari questioned the maintenance of protocol for the life-saving gas for the patients in the hospital. While adequate amounts of the liquid gas were being supplied on time, every hospital and medical college is expected to maintain 350-400 filled cylinders at any given point, whereas, at the time of tragedy, when the pressure of the liquid oxygen went down considerably on Thursday (August 10) night, only 50-60 cylinders were in the hospital, he said. A statement released by the hospital on August 11 said that after supply ran out at 7.30 pm on August 10, there were only 52 reserve cylinders. Action, reactions Resident doctors of the AIIMS condemned the sacking of Dr Kafeel Khan, alleging that he had been made a scapegoat. Khan is also alleged to be running a 50-bed hospital for children by proxy The NHRC has sent a notice to the UP government stating that it indicated gross callousness on the part of health administration UP Health Minister Siddharth Nath Singh claimed that corruption had been detected in the administration of BRD Medical College SC refuses to intervene The Supreme Court refused to intervene in the issue saying the matter was being handled by the UP govt. Any grievances about it should be raised before the Allahabad High Court, the top court told a lawyer who mentioned the issue before it on Monday morning
By Online Desk

As the nation observes the 70th Independence Day, security has been beefed up across the country, aiming to ensure a seamless feat of celebration for its countrymen.

As a mark of celebration, the Gateway of India in all its grandeur is lit up, portraying various phases of the Independence struggle.

Follow our LIVE updates:

8:30 am: PM Narendra Modi concludes his speech with 'Jai Hind', 'Vande Mataram', 'Bharat Mata ki jai' chants.

PM Modi concludes his #IndependenceDayIndia address at Red Fort with chants of 'Jai Hind', 'Vande Mataram', 'Bharat Mata ki jai' pic.twitter.com/vvJMucEvlQ  ANI (@ANI) August 15, 2017

8:24 am: Demonetisation has helped bring black money into formal economy: PM

8:23 am: Modi says after note ban, three lakh shell companies were detected; 1.75 lakh shell companies have been shut.

8:22 am: Modi said, "Rs 1.25 lakh crore of black money has been detected. Rs 3 lakh crore has come to banking system after note ban. Over Rs 1.75 lakh crore under scrutiny and Rs 2 lakh crore black money has reached banks."

8:21 am: Desh mein ab loot nahi chalegi , sabko jawab dena padega : PM Modi

8:20 am: We are dedicating significant attention to East India-Bihar, Assam, West Bengal, Odisha, Northeast. These parts have to develop further: PM

8:19 am: District Collector says inappropriate for a political leader to hoist national flag in school, a teacher or elected representative can do so .

8:18 am: RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat restrained by district collector from hoisting national flag in Kerala's Palakkad school, BJP challenged his direction.

8:17 am: An atmosphere has been created against TripleTalaq: PM Modi

8:16 am: By 2019, 99 irrigation schemes will be completed: PM

8:15 am: Desh shaanti ekta aur sadbhaavna se chalta hai,sabko saath lekar chalna hamari sabhyata aur sanskriti hai: PM

8:12 am: The poison of castesim and communalism can never be beneficial for our nation. This is the country of Lord Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi: PM

8:08 am: We are nurturing our youth to be job creators and not just job seekers: PM Modi

8:05 am:

New India ka loktantra aisa hoga jisme tantra se lok nahi, lok se tantra chalega: PM Modi #IndependenceDayIndia pic.twitter.com/8CW7ZJ4MPG  ANI (@ANI) August 15, 2017

8:00 am: PM Modi thanks the people of India for extending their support to issues like gas subsidy, Swach Bharat or demonetisation .

7:58 am: We can reach Mangalyaan within 9 months, this is our capability, but one rail project was stuck for last 42 years: PM Modi

Na gaali se samasya sulajhne wali hai, na goli se...samasya suljhegi har Kashmiri ko gale lagane se: PM Modi #IndependenceDayIndia pic.twitter.com/hd2LOk2VgG  ANI (@ANI) August 15, 2017

7:52 am: You will be happy to know that today we are not alone in our fight against terrorism, many countries supporting us actively, says PM Modi

7:49 am: GST has shown the spirit of cooperative federalism. The nation has come together to support GST & the role of technology has also helped: PM Modi

7:47 am: Jab surgical strike hui, toh duniya ko humara loha manna pada: PM

Must leave this 'Chalta Hai' nature. We have to now think of 'Badal Sakta Hai'- it will help us progress as a nation: PM Modi pic.twitter.com/r4ZvTHwXkm  ANI (@ANI) August 15, 2017

7:45 am: PM Modi says January 1 2018 will not be an ordinary day, those born in this century will start turning 18, 'Bhagya Vidhatas' of our country.

7:42 am: Everybody is equal in our nation, no one big or small. We together can bring a positive change in the nation.

7:41 am: We have to take nation forward with the resolve of creating a 'New India': PM Modi

7:40 am: This is special year,75th anniversary of QuitIndiaMovement,100th anniversary of Champaran Satyagraha,125th anniversary of Ganesh Utsav, says Modi

7:37 am: PM addresses about the Gorakhpur hospital tragedy incident. He said, "Few days back many of our innocent children died in a hospital. People of India stand shoulder to shoulder with those affected due to natural disasters & the tragedy in Gorakhpur."

7:36 am: Desh ki aazadi ke liye jin jin logon ne balidaan diya hai, yogdaan diya hai,aise sabhi ko naman karta hoon,aadar karta hoon: PM Modi

7:35 am: PM Modi begins addressing the nation, wishes the nation on.

7:32 am: Former Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and HD Deve Gowda can be seen along with Gursharan Kaur, and HM Rajnath Singh at Red Fort.

Dr.Manmohan Singh,Gursharan Kaur,HD Deve Gowda and HM Rajnath Singh at Red Fort #IndependenceDayIndia pic.twitter.com/Yukjv1rIop  ANI (@ANI) August 15, 2017

7:15 am: PM Narendra Modi unfurls the Indian tricolour at Red Fort.

Delhi: PM Modi unfurls the tricolor at Red Fort #IndependenceDayIndia pic.twitter.com/RQBXlsFKe8  ANI (@ANI) August 15, 2017

7:10 am: PM Narendra Modi pays tributes at Rajghat.

Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi pays tributes at Rajghat #IndependenceDayIndia pic.twitter.com/cqarSUFqBT  ANI (@ANI) August 15, 2017

7:00 am: PM Narendra Modi to address the nation from the Red Fort shortly.

PM Narendra Modi to address the nation from the Red Fort shortly #IndependenceDayIndia pic.twitter.com/KXCPsV4ZKF  ANI (@ANI) August 15, 2017

6:30 am: Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to the Twitter and wished the nation on the occasion of Independence Day. In a tweet he said, Independence Day greetings to my fellow Indians. Jai Hind.

#        -   ! Independence Day greetings to my fellow Indians. Jai Hind.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 15, 2017

As the nation observes the 70th Independence Day, security has been beefed up across the country, aiming to ensure a seamless feat of celebration for its countrymen. As a mark of celebration, the Gateway of India in all its grandeur is lit up, portraying various phases of the Independence struggle. Follow our LIVE updates: 8:30 am: PM Narendra Modi concludes his speech with 'Jai Hind', 'Vande Mataram', 'Bharat Mata ki jai' chants. PM Modi concludes his #IndependenceDayIndia address at Red Fort with chants of 'Jai Hind', 'Vande Mataram', 'Bharat Mata ki jai' pic.twitter.com/vvJMucEvlQ  ANI (@ANI) August 15, 2017 8:24 am: Demonetisation has helped bring black money into formal economy: PM 8:23 am: Modi says after note ban, three lakh shell companies were detected; 1.75 lakh shell companies have been shut. 8:22 am: Modi said, "Rs 1.25 lakh crore of black money has been detected. Rs 3 lakh crore has come to banking system after note ban. Over Rs 1.75 lakh crore under scrutiny and Rs 2 lakh crore black money has reached banks." 8:21 am: Desh mein ab loot nahi chalegi , sabko jawab dena padega : PM Modi 8:20 am: We are dedicating significant attention to East India-Bihar, Assam, West Bengal, Odisha, Northeast. These parts have to develop further: PM 8:19 am: District Collector says inappropriate for a political leader to hoist national flag in school, a teacher or elected representative can do so . 8:18 am: RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat restrained by district collector from hoisting national flag in Kerala's Palakkad school, BJP challenged his direction. 8:17 am: An atmosphere has been created against TripleTalaq: PM Modi 8:16 am: By 2019, 99 irrigation schemes will be completed: PM 8:15 am: Desh shaanti ekta aur sadbhaavna se chalta hai,sabko saath lekar chalna hamari sabhyata aur sanskriti hai: PM 8:12 am: The poison of castesim and communalism can never be beneficial for our nation. This is the country of Lord Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi: PM 8:08 am: We are nurturing our youth to be job creators and not just job seekers: PM Modi 8:05 am: New India ka loktantra aisa hoga jisme tantra se lok nahi, lok se tantra chalega: PM Modi #IndependenceDayIndia pic.twitter.com/8CW7ZJ4MPG  ANI (@ANI) August 15, 2017 8:00 am: PM Modi thanks the people of India for extending their support to issues like gas subsidy, Swach Bharat or demonetisation . 7:58 am: We can reach Mangalyaan within 9 months, this is our capability, but one rail project was stuck for last 42 years: PM Modi Na gaali se samasya sulajhne wali hai, na goli se...samasya suljhegi har Kashmiri ko gale lagane se: PM Modi #IndependenceDayIndia pic.twitter.com/hd2LOk2VgG  ANI (@ANI) August 15, 2017 7:52 am: You will be happy to know that today we are not alone in our fight against terrorism, many countries supporting us actively, says PM Modi 7:49 am: GST has shown the spirit of cooperative federalism. The nation has come together to support GST & the role of technology has also helped: PM Modi 7:47 am: Jab surgical strike hui, toh duniya ko humara loha manna pada: PM Must leave this 'Chalta Hai' nature. We have to now think of 'Badal Sakta Hai'- it will help us progress as a nation: PM Modi pic.twitter.com/r4ZvTHwXkm  ANI (@ANI) August 15, 2017 7:45 am: PM Modi says January 1 2018 will not be an ordinary day, those born in this century will start turning 18, 'Bhagya Vidhatas' of our country. 7:42 am: Everybody is equal in our nation, no one big or small. We together can bring a positive change in the nation. 7:41 am: We have to take nation forward with the resolve of creating a 'New India': PM Modi 7:40 am: This is special year,75th anniversary of QuitIndiaMovement,100th anniversary of Champaran Satyagraha,125th anniversary of Ganesh Utsav, says Modi 7:37 am: PM addresses about the Gorakhpur hospital tragedy incident. He said, "Few days back many of our innocent children died in a hospital. People of India stand shoulder to shoulder with those affected due to natural disasters & the tragedy in Gorakhpur." 7:36 am: Desh ki aazadi ke liye jin jin logon ne balidaan diya hai, yogdaan diya hai,aise sabhi ko naman karta hoon,aadar karta hoon: PM Modi 7:35 am: PM Modi begins addressing the nation, wishes the nation on. #FLASH: PM Modi begins addressing the nation, wishes the nation on #IndependenceDayIndia and #Janmashtami pic.twitter.com/AyU9iUQq6X  ANI (@ANI) August 15, 2017 7:32 am: Former Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and HD Deve Gowda can be seen along with Gursharan Kaur, and HM Rajnath Singh at Red Fort. Dr.Manmohan Singh,Gursharan Kaur,HD Deve Gowda and HM Rajnath Singh at Red Fort #IndependenceDayIndia pic.twitter.com/Yukjv1rIop  ANI (@ANI) August 15, 2017 7:15 am: PM Narendra Modi unfurls the Indian tricolour at Red Fort. Delhi: PM Modi unfurls the tricolor at Red Fort #IndependenceDayIndia pic.twitter.com/RQBXlsFKe8  ANI (@ANI) August 15, 2017 7:10 am: PM Narendra Modi pays tributes at Rajghat. Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi pays tributes at Rajghat #IndependenceDayIndia pic.twitter.com/cqarSUFqBT  ANI (@ANI) August 15, 2017 7:00 am: PM Narendra Modi to address the nation from the Red Fort shortly. PM Narendra Modi to address the nation from the Red Fort shortly #IndependenceDayIndia pic.twitter.com/KXCPsV4ZKF  ANI (@ANI) August 15, 2017 6:30 am: Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to the Twitter and wished the nation on the occasion of Independence Day. In a tweet he said, Independence Day greetings to my fellow Indians. Jai Hind. #        -   ! Independence Day greetings to my fellow Indians. Jai Hind.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 15, 2017
Anand ST Das By

Express News Service

PATNA: Determined to stamp out dissent led by veteran leader Sharad Yadav, Bihars ruling JD(U) on Monday suspended 21 leaders who owe allegiance to him and are opposed to chief minister and party national president Nitish Kumars decision to dump the grand alliance and form the state government with BJP.

The 21 leaders, including an ex-MP and four former legislators, were suspended from the primary membership by the partys state unit president and Rajya Sabha member Bashistha Narayan Singh. The action was taken citing anti-party activities these leaders indulged in.

Prominent among those suspended include former MP from Sheohar Arjun Rai, former minister Ramai Ram, ex-MLA Raj Kishore Sinha and ex-MLC Vijay Varma. The rest include two district presidents and five block-level presidents. All the leaders had participated in Yadavs tour of Bihar during which he publicly spoke against Kumars betrayal of Bihars mandate.

The decision came a day after the Sharad Yadav faction claimed to have letters of support for itself written by JD(U)s 14 state units and prepared to claim itself as the real JD(U) that has a national footprint and ambition contrary to Nitish Kumars claim that the party is recognised only in Bihar.

The party had removed Yadav as its leader in the Rajya Sabha last week for undertaking his Jan Samvad Yatra and saying that JD(U) is not only Nitish Kumars party. Ali Anwar, a JD(U) Rajya Sabha member and one of the prominent Muslim faces in the party, was also suspended from the parliamentary party last week for siding with Yadav, who was JD(U)s national president until last year.

JD(U) national general secretary and RS member K C Tyagi denied there was any split in the party as most of the MPs and MLAs of the party are with Nitish Kumar. He also criticised Yadav for deciding not to attend JD(U)s national executive meeting scheduled in Patna on August 19.

PATNA: Determined to stamp out dissent led by veteran leader Sharad Yadav, Bihars ruling JD(U) on Monday suspended 21 leaders who owe allegiance to him and are opposed to chief minister and party national president Nitish Kumars decision to dump the grand alliance and form the state government with BJP. The 21 leaders, including an ex-MP and four former legislators, were suspended from the primary membership by the partys state unit president and Rajya Sabha member Bashistha Narayan Singh. The action was taken citing anti-party activities these leaders indulged in. Prominent among those suspended include former MP from Sheohar Arjun Rai, former minister Ramai Ram, ex-MLA Raj Kishore Sinha and ex-MLC Vijay Varma. The rest include two district presidents and five block-level presidents. All the leaders had participated in Yadavs tour of Bihar during which he publicly spoke against Kumars betrayal of Bihars mandate. The decision came a day after the Sharad Yadav faction claimed to have letters of support for itself written by JD(U)s 14 state units and prepared to claim itself as the real JD(U) that has a national footprint and ambition contrary to Nitish Kumars claim that the party is recognised only in Bihar. The party had removed Yadav as its leader in the Rajya Sabha last week for undertaking his Jan Samvad Yatra and saying that JD(U) is not only Nitish Kumars party. Ali Anwar, a JD(U) Rajya Sabha member and one of the prominent Muslim faces in the party, was also suspended from the parliamentary party last week for siding with Yadav, who was JD(U)s national president until last year. JD(U) national general secretary and RS member K C Tyagi denied there was any split in the party as most of the MPs and MLAs of the party are with Nitish Kumar. He also criticised Yadav for deciding not to attend JD(U)s national executive meeting scheduled in Patna on August 19.
By PTI

JAMMU: Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh today appealed to opposition parties to join hands with the government to work for Jammu and Kashmir instead of "misleading" people over an issue which is before the Supreme Court, a reference to the Article 35A case.

The senior BJP leader also criticised Pakistan and China and said the country would not be cowed down by border skirmishes as nobody should have any misconception about India's ability to defend its borders. He was addressing a gathering after unfurling the national flag at the Independence day celebrations at the Mini-stadium here.

"Some people are trying to mislead the people of Jammu and Kashmir and the people of the country by politicising issues. I would like to appeal to them to come forward and join hands with us to address the problems of Jammu and Kashmir. There should be no politics over the issue and we should have full faith in the Supreme Court," he said.

Though Singh did not name any political party, he was apparently referring to the National Conference which has kickstarted an awareness campaign to defend Article 35A of the Constitution which is being challenged by an NGO in the Supreme Court.

Article 35A, which was added to the Constitution by a presidential order in 1954, empowers the state legislature to define permanent citizens and grant them special privileges.

Singh said that when the BJP formed the government with PDP, it was decided that the partners will maintain status quo on certain contentious political issues due to the difference of opinion.

"We have accepted the agenda of alliance and we being part of the government will maintain that status quo (on these issues), irrespective of our party line," he said. Singh also said that China and Pakistan were conspiring against India.

"After failed Pakistani attempts, China is trying to encircle us, but India, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, left the country isolated at the global level. India now is not the same as it was in 1962. It is 2017 and if China makes a mistake and steps on our land, it will taste a bitter defeat," he said.

Singh said that Pakistan was not learning any lessons and is continuing with its "nefarious" activities. "Whatever is going on is at the behest of Pakistan which is responsible for the bloodshed of thousands of innocents in the state. Security personnel and local policemen are rendering sacrifices to defeat the nefarious designs of Pakistan," he said.

India is a powerful country and we will not be cowed down by nefarious and cowardly acts. Our people are being killed at the borders but we have made a resolve to weed out separatism and terrorism from the state, he said.

The deputy chief minister paid rich tributes to the father of nation Mahatma Gandhi, Baghat Singh, Raj Guru, Chandra Shekhar Azad, Ashfaqullah Khan and other martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the freedom of the country.

"After a long drawn battle, the country achieved freedom and it is now our responsibility to safeguard that freedom. If achieving freedom was difficult, to maintain it is a bigger challenge," he said.

Singh hailed the contribution of Kashmiri service personnel and said that DSP Ayoub Pandit, SHO Feroz Ahmad and Lieutenant Umar sacrificed their lives like many others from Jammu and other parts of the country to safeguard our nation. We salute their sacrifice, he said. He also remembered Syama Prasad Mukherjee.

Rejecting the opposition criticism related to governance, Singh said the development of the state especially Jammu region has gathered pace since the formation of the PDP-BJP government and will be further improved in the coming years. "We got two smart cities  one each for Srinagar and Jammu, an IIT and an IIM. The prime minister had given us an economic package of Rs 80,000 crore. We will ensure holistic development of the state," he said.

He also assured round-the-clock power supply in Jammu region from next year.

JAMMU: Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh today appealed to opposition parties to join hands with the government to work for Jammu and Kashmir instead of "misleading" people over an issue which is before the Supreme Court, a reference to the Article 35A case. The senior BJP leader also criticised Pakistan and China and said the country would not be cowed down by border skirmishes as nobody should have any misconception about India's ability to defend its borders. He was addressing a gathering after unfurling the national flag at the Independence day celebrations at the Mini-stadium here. "Some people are trying to mislead the people of Jammu and Kashmir and the people of the country by politicising issues. I would like to appeal to them to come forward and join hands with us to address the problems of Jammu and Kashmir. There should be no politics over the issue and we should have full faith in the Supreme Court," he said. Though Singh did not name any political party, he was apparently referring to the National Conference which has kickstarted an awareness campaign to defend Article 35A of the Constitution which is being challenged by an NGO in the Supreme Court. Article 35A, which was added to the Constitution by a presidential order in 1954, empowers the state legislature to define permanent citizens and grant them special privileges. Singh said that when the BJP formed the government with PDP, it was decided that the partners will maintain status quo on certain contentious political issues due to the difference of opinion. "We have accepted the agenda of alliance and we being part of the government will maintain that status quo (on these issues), irrespective of our party line," he said. Singh also said that China and Pakistan were conspiring against India. "After failed Pakistani attempts, China is trying to encircle us, but India, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, left the country isolated at the global level. India now is not the same as it was in 1962. It is 2017 and if China makes a mistake and steps on our land, it will taste a bitter defeat," he said. Singh said that Pakistan was not learning any lessons and is continuing with its "nefarious" activities. "Whatever is going on is at the behest of Pakistan which is responsible for the bloodshed of thousands of innocents in the state. Security personnel and local policemen are rendering sacrifices to defeat the nefarious designs of Pakistan," he said. India is a powerful country and we will not be cowed down by nefarious and cowardly acts. Our people are being killed at the borders but we have made a resolve to weed out separatism and terrorism from the state, he said. The deputy chief minister paid rich tributes to the father of nation Mahatma Gandhi, Baghat Singh, Raj Guru, Chandra Shekhar Azad, Ashfaqullah Khan and other martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the freedom of the country. "After a long drawn battle, the country achieved freedom and it is now our responsibility to safeguard that freedom. If achieving freedom was difficult, to maintain it is a bigger challenge," he said. Singh hailed the contribution of Kashmiri service personnel and said that DSP Ayoub Pandit, SHO Feroz Ahmad and Lieutenant Umar sacrificed their lives like many others from Jammu and other parts of the country to safeguard our nation. We salute their sacrifice, he said. He also remembered Syama Prasad Mukherjee. Rejecting the opposition criticism related to governance, Singh said the development of the state especially Jammu region has gathered pace since the formation of the PDP-BJP government and will be further improved in the coming years. "We got two smart cities  one each for Srinagar and Jammu, an IIT and an IIM. The prime minister had given us an economic package of Rs 80,000 crore. We will ensure holistic development of the state," he said. He also assured round-the-clock power supply in Jammu region from next year.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: On a day when arch rival Pakistan exchanged sweets at the border with Indian soldiers on the occasion of 71st Independence Day, Chinese troops distanced themselves from the event.

Chinese military did not attend the two-decade old practice of holding Border Personnel Meeting (BMP), on the occasion of Indias Independence Day.

"No delegation from People Liberation Army came to our side to attend the ceremonial Border Personnel Meeting. Holding of such meetings at important as it was part of the confidence building measures mechanism between the two neighbours," said a government source.

There are five BPM points at Bum La and Kibithu in Arunachal Pradesh, Daulat Beg Oldi and Chushul in Ladakh and Nathu La in Sikkim.

Chinese and Indian soldiers are engaged in an eyeball to eyeball situation since June 16th after Indian troops objected to road construction by Chinese soldiers in a strategically important Dokalam plateau close to Sikkim border.

Since then, over 300 soldiers from each side are camping at the disputed site. And multiple efforts to break the ice have not yielded any positive outcome including National Security Adviser Ajit Doval's visit to Beijing last month.

Now all eyes are on Prime minister Narendra Modi's next month visit to China to take part in the BRICS summit where leaders from both sides are expected to resolve the issue.

Meanwhile, on the other side, On the occasion of the countrys 71st Independence Day on Tuesday, security forces of India and Pakistan, posted at the international Attari-Wagah border in Punjab, exchanged sweets and greetings to mark the day.

Notwithstanding repeated violations of the ceasefire by Pakistan troops at the Line of control, Indias Border Security Force (BSF) and Pakistani Rangers exchanged pleasantries at the border. A small cultural ceremony was held before the two forces exchanged sweets.

NEW DELHI: On a day when arch rival Pakistan exchanged sweets at the border with Indian soldiers on the occasion of 71st Independence Day, Chinese troops distanced themselves from the event. Chinese military did not attend the two-decade old practice of holding Border Personnel Meeting (BMP), on the occasion of Indias Independence Day. "No delegation from People Liberation Army came to our side to attend the ceremonial Border Personnel Meeting. Holding of such meetings at important as it was part of the confidence building measures mechanism between the two neighbours," said a government source. There are five BPM points at Bum La and Kibithu in Arunachal Pradesh, Daulat Beg Oldi and Chushul in Ladakh and Nathu La in Sikkim. Chinese and Indian soldiers are engaged in an eyeball to eyeball situation since June 16th after Indian troops objected to road construction by Chinese soldiers in a strategically important Dokalam plateau close to Sikkim border. Since then, over 300 soldiers from each side are camping at the disputed site. And multiple efforts to break the ice have not yielded any positive outcome including National Security Adviser Ajit Doval's visit to Beijing last month. Now all eyes are on Prime minister Narendra Modi's next month visit to China to take part in the BRICS summit where leaders from both sides are expected to resolve the issue. Meanwhile, on the other side, On the occasion of the countrys 71st Independence Day on Tuesday, security forces of India and Pakistan, posted at the international Attari-Wagah border in Punjab, exchanged sweets and greetings to mark the day. Notwithstanding repeated violations of the ceasefire by Pakistan troops at the Line of control, Indias Border Security Force (BSF) and Pakistani Rangers exchanged pleasantries at the border. A small cultural ceremony was held before the two forces exchanged sweets.
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By PTI

HAJIPUR/PATNA: Unidentified persons today attacked Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi's car near Kala Pahar village in Vaishali district, but the BJP leader escaped unhurt.

Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo Lalu Prasad dismissed speculations that any of his partymen was behind the incident, which took place in an area known to be an RJD stronghold.

It also occurred minutes after Leader of Opposition in the Assembly and Lalu's son Tejaswi Prasad Yadav's motorcade had passed through the area.

According to Ritesh Mandal, the officer in-charge of the Bidupur police station, unidentified persons hurled stones at Modi's car when he was on his way to the village this evening.

Preliminary information suggests that the car received some damage but there was no injury to the deputy chief minister, who proceeded to attend the funeral ceremony of ex-BJP MLA Achutanand Singh's mother.

His escort party informed the police about the incident, Mandal said.

Vaishali Superintendent of Police (SP) Rakesh Kumar said Modi was being escorted back to Patna under heavy police protection.

He added that the police would lodge an FIR on the basis of a complaint from either the deputy chief minister himself or from someone from his escort party or anyone else.

The incident took place a few minutes after Tejaswi's motorcade passed through the area. The RJD leader was on his way to Samastipur to launch the second stage of his programme against the "disintegration" of the erstwhile Grand Alliance government in the state from tomorrow.

The area where Modi's car was attacked is known to be a stronghold of the RJD, the workers and supporters of which are particularly angry with the BJP leader for levelling a series of corruption allegations against Lalu and his family.

Lalu, however, denied an "RJD hand" in the incident and alleged that it was Modi who "orchestrated" it.

"RJD workers do not believe in violence...it (the attack) must have been orchestrated by Sushil Modi with the help of his supporters for political gains," he said.

The RJD chief alleged that the BJP leader was known for his "habit of enacting such dramas".

"Once he had alleged an attack on him by the RJD and put a bandage. When we insisted that he showed the injury by removing the bandage, he did not do as he would get exposed," he said.

Lalu also blamed the district administration for the incident.

"Why did they take Modi through the same place which was just crossed by Tejaswi Yadav? They could have taken him through an alternate route," he said.

The RJD supremo alleged that the BJP leader might have orchestrated the event to divert the attention of the people from his name cropping up in a scam related to swindling of government money by an NGO in Bhagalpur.

HAJIPUR/PATNA: Unidentified persons today attacked Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi's car near Kala Pahar village in Vaishali district, but the BJP leader escaped unhurt. Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo Lalu Prasad dismissed speculations that any of his partymen was behind the incident, which took place in an area known to be an RJD stronghold. It also occurred minutes after Leader of Opposition in the Assembly and Lalu's son Tejaswi Prasad Yadav's motorcade had passed through the area. According to Ritesh Mandal, the officer in-charge of the Bidupur police station, unidentified persons hurled stones at Modi's car when he was on his way to the village this evening. Preliminary information suggests that the car received some damage but there was no injury to the deputy chief minister, who proceeded to attend the funeral ceremony of ex-BJP MLA Achutanand Singh's mother. His escort party informed the police about the incident, Mandal said. Vaishali Superintendent of Police (SP) Rakesh Kumar said Modi was being escorted back to Patna under heavy police protection. He added that the police would lodge an FIR on the basis of a complaint from either the deputy chief minister himself or from someone from his escort party or anyone else. The incident took place a few minutes after Tejaswi's motorcade passed through the area. The RJD leader was on his way to Samastipur to launch the second stage of his programme against the "disintegration" of the erstwhile Grand Alliance government in the state from tomorrow. The area where Modi's car was attacked is known to be a stronghold of the RJD, the workers and supporters of which are particularly angry with the BJP leader for levelling a series of corruption allegations against Lalu and his family. Lalu, however, denied an "RJD hand" in the incident and alleged that it was Modi who "orchestrated" it. "RJD workers do not believe in violence...it (the attack) must have been orchestrated by Sushil Modi with the help of his supporters for political gains," he said. The RJD chief alleged that the BJP leader was known for his "habit of enacting such dramas". "Once he had alleged an attack on him by the RJD and put a bandage. When we insisted that he showed the injury by removing the bandage, he did not do as he would get exposed," he said. Lalu also blamed the district administration for the incident. "Why did they take Modi through the same place which was just crossed by Tejaswi Yadav? They could have taken him through an alternate route," he said. The RJD supremo alleged that the BJP leader might have orchestrated the event to divert the attention of the people from his name cropping up in a scam related to swindling of government money by an NGO in Bhagalpur.
By IANS

BENGALURU: Independence Day celebrations took place across Karnataka on Tuesday amid tight security.

In Bengaluru, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah unfurled the tricolour, inspected a guard of honour and took the salute as the police and 40 other contingents marched by at the Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw Parade Ground.

About 6,000 people, joined Siddaramaiah in singing the National Anthem at the ceremony.

Earlier in the day, an Army helicopter hovered over the ground showering rose petals.

Inclement weather, heavy overnight rains and traffic snarls due to water-logging in several areas across the city forced many people to stay away from the main function.

According to reports from districts, the national flag was hoisted by the state cabinet ministers and deputy commissioners.

The event was also held in hundreds of schools and colleges.

BENGALURU: Independence Day celebrations took place across Karnataka on Tuesday amid tight security. In Bengaluru, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah unfurled the tricolour, inspected a guard of honour and took the salute as the police and 40 other contingents marched by at the Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw Parade Ground. About 6,000 people, joined Siddaramaiah in singing the National Anthem at the ceremony. Earlier in the day, an Army helicopter hovered over the ground showering rose petals. Inclement weather, heavy overnight rains and traffic snarls due to water-logging in several areas across the city forced many people to stay away from the main function. According to reports from districts, the national flag was hoisted by the state cabinet ministers and deputy commissioners. The event was also held in hundreds of schools and colleges.
By Express News Service

BENGALURU: BJP national president Amit Shah on Monday launched a blistering attack on the Siddaramaiah government, calling it the most corrupt, and accusing it of misleading people over financial aid from the Union government to cover up its own failures.

On the last day of his three-day visit to the state on Monday, Shah took serious exception to Siddaramaiahs relentless allegations against the Modi government of step-motherly treatment to Karnataka on providing grants for development, relief and rehabilitation works.

Refuting the allegations, Shah put forth details on funds provided to Karnataka under the present NDA and the previous UPA governments at the Centre, arguing that the aid has seen a huge increase under the Modi regime. Karnataka is receiving `2.19 lakh crore under the 14th Finance Commission against Rs 88,583 crores received under the 13th Finance Commission as devolution of states share of Central taxes, relief and rehabilitation aid.Apart from this, the Modi government has so far provided a total of Rs 7,90,396 crore under various developmental programmes like Mudra, Smart City, Amruth, Bengaluru Metro and development of roads, Shah said.

Where have these funds gone? People of the state want to know. Siddaramaiah should present a reply, present the accounts before the people as I am challenging him in public to present the facts and stop misleading the people, Shah demanded. The money has not been used for helping the farmers or spent on the welfare of Dalits, or on irrigation projects. Then where has the money gone? People are asking, Shah said. The IT raids have shown as to where the money is going, he added.

Corruption is Siddus medal of honour: Shah

Shah demanded the resignation of ministers who are facing corruption charges and those found having disproportionate assets. Instead of sacking such ministers, the Chief Minister is strutting around by treating corruption charges as medals of honour. Siddaramaiah is so shameless, Shah said. He also attacked the state government over the series of killings of RSS and BJP workers in the state and blamed its appeasement policy for it.

BENGALURU: BJP national president Amit Shah on Monday launched a blistering attack on the Siddaramaiah government, calling it the most corrupt, and accusing it of misleading people over financial aid from the Union government to cover up its own failures. On the last day of his three-day visit to the state on Monday, Shah took serious exception to Siddaramaiahs relentless allegations against the Modi government of step-motherly treatment to Karnataka on providing grants for development, relief and rehabilitation works. Refuting the allegations, Shah put forth details on funds provided to Karnataka under the present NDA and the previous UPA governments at the Centre, arguing that the aid has seen a huge increase under the Modi regime. Karnataka is receiving `2.19 lakh crore under the 14th Finance Commission against Rs 88,583 crores received under the 13th Finance Commission as devolution of states share of Central taxes, relief and rehabilitation aid.Apart from this, the Modi government has so far provided a total of Rs 7,90,396 crore under various developmental programmes like Mudra, Smart City, Amruth, Bengaluru Metro and development of roads, Shah said. Where have these funds gone? People of the state want to know. Siddaramaiah should present a reply, present the accounts before the people as I am challenging him in public to present the facts and stop misleading the people, Shah demanded. The money has not been used for helping the farmers or spent on the welfare of Dalits, or on irrigation projects. Then where has the money gone? People are asking, Shah said. The IT raids have shown as to where the money is going, he added. Corruption is Siddus medal of honour: Shah Shah demanded the resignation of ministers who are facing corruption charges and those found having disproportionate assets. Instead of sacking such ministers, the Chief Minister is strutting around by treating corruption charges as medals of honour. Siddaramaiah is so shameless, Shah said. He also attacked the state government over the series of killings of RSS and BJP workers in the state and blamed its appeasement policy for it.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI, CHENNAI: The Union Home Ministry on Monday said it was examining a Tamil Nadu government Ordinance seeking exemption from the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test or NEET score for undergraduate admissions to medical courses in the State for a year.

Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi said, We have received an Ordinance on NEET from Tamil Nadu and it is under consideration.

A meeting was held in the Union Home Ministry on Monday to discuss the issue. Opinion is being sought from the Union ministries of health, human resource development and law and a final call will be taken soon, official sources said.

In Chennai, over 200 parents and students from the State Board and CBSE schools shared their concern with senior Supreme Court advocate Nalini Chidambaram on Monday regarding the proposed NEET exemption. She said she will file an affidavit in the Supreme Court on their behalf challenging the waiver.

It is purely a political and commercial game, said one of the parents, Ramesh Babu.

They dont care about the students. There are so many candidates who wasted one or two years to sit for NEET. We have given an appeal to the Health Secretary and Nalini Chidambaram said that she will file an affidavit in the SC. Babu felt that the Ordinance should not be promulgated.

If they were deciding on NEET exemption, they could have done it in the beginning itself, Babu said. Our children could have pursued medicine through the all-India quota under NEET and would have had better chance. Last year, too, the same thing happened and the State got exemption. M S Jeyanthan, another parent, added that the least the candidates were expecting was release of the rank lists.

Last year the Supreme Court said that this year NEET would be mandatory, Jeyanathan explained.

Following this, so many candidates wasted a year. All of a sudden the Central government is considering exemption from NEET. What about those students who took a break for a year?

Taking cue from TN, Pondy postpones CENTAC counselling

Puducherry: The CENTAC counselling to fill 285 MBBS seats under management quota in various medical colleges in Puducherry was postponed on Monday following a direction from the territorial government. The process, scheduled from 11 am on Monday, was postponed without giving any fresh date. CENTAC co-ordinator Rudra Goud said that the counselling was postponed based on an order from the government. He further said that no reason was given by the government in its order.

Meanwhile, the sudden turn of events has given much inconvenience to students and parents.

NEW DELHI, CHENNAI: The Union Home Ministry on Monday said it was examining a Tamil Nadu government Ordinance seeking exemption from the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test or NEET score for undergraduate admissions to medical courses in the State for a year. Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi said, We have received an Ordinance on NEET from Tamil Nadu and it is under consideration. A meeting was held in the Union Home Ministry on Monday to discuss the issue. Opinion is being sought from the Union ministries of health, human resource development and law and a final call will be taken soon, official sources said. In Chennai, over 200 parents and students from the State Board and CBSE schools shared their concern with senior Supreme Court advocate Nalini Chidambaram on Monday regarding the proposed NEET exemption. She said she will file an affidavit in the Supreme Court on their behalf challenging the waiver. It is purely a political and commercial game, said one of the parents, Ramesh Babu. They dont care about the students. There are so many candidates who wasted one or two years to sit for NEET. We have given an appeal to the Health Secretary and Nalini Chidambaram said that she will file an affidavit in the SC. Babu felt that the Ordinance should not be promulgated. If they were deciding on NEET exemption, they could have done it in the beginning itself, Babu said. Our children could have pursued medicine through the all-India quota under NEET and would have had better chance. Last year, too, the same thing happened and the State got exemption. M S Jeyanthan, another parent, added that the least the candidates were expecting was release of the rank lists. Last year the Supreme Court said that this year NEET would be mandatory, Jeyanathan explained. Following this, so many candidates wasted a year. All of a sudden the Central government is considering exemption from NEET. What about those students who took a break for a year? Taking cue from TN, Pondy postpones CENTAC counselling Puducherry: The CENTAC counselling to fill 285 MBBS seats under management quota in various medical colleges in Puducherry was postponed on Monday following a direction from the territorial government. The process, scheduled from 11 am on Monday, was postponed without giving any fresh date. CENTAC co-ordinator Rudra Goud said that the counselling was postponed based on an order from the government. He further said that no reason was given by the government in its order. Meanwhile, the sudden turn of events has given much inconvenience to students and parents.
By AFP

MAZAR-I-SHARIF (AFGHANISTAN): Afghan forces have recaptured a remote village where Taliban and Islamic State fighters allegedly massacred dozens of civilians earlier this month, officials said Tuesday.

Militants killed about 50 men, women and children in Mirzawalang, a mainly Shiite village in Sayad district of northern Sar-e Pul province, on August 5 after overrunning a government-backed militia, according to officials and residents.

A spokesman for the Afghan National Army's northern military corps said troops had retaken the village following several days of intense fighting that left at least 50 insurgents dead.

"Our forces are in full control of the village and are searching for Taliban mines and booby traps," Nasratullah Jamshidi told AFP.

Dawlat Waziri, a spokesman for the Afghan defence ministry, said forces had "pushed the Taliban out of the village" on Monday afternoon.

He told AFP that militants had suffered "heavy casualties". There has been no word on any casualties to Afghan forces.

Troops are expected to start searching for mass graves following claims from families and local officials that about 50, mostly-Shiite and Hazara, villagers were either shot or beheaded after Taliban and IS insurgents took Mirzawalang in a rare joint operation.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for killing 54 Shiites in Sar-e Pul in a statement released by its propaganda outlet Amaq late Monday.

The Taliban earlier claimed to capture the village but said it did so alone. It also denied allegations it had killed civilians.

Survivors fleeing the violence described nightmarish scenes, detailing how militants went from house to house, shooting villagers.

The insurgents also took a number of residents captive, but later released 235 hostages after elders and provincial officials struck a deal with the group.

Taliban and IS fighters have regularly clashed since the latter gained a foothold in the country in 2015 but security sources say they have teamed up to attack Afghan forces on a few occasions.

IS has carried out a number of deadly attacks on Shiites in the past year, providing a sectarian twist to the Afghan conflict.

This month two suicide bombers killed more than 33 worshippers at a mosque in Afghanistan's western city of Herat, in an attack claimed by the group.

A resurgent Taliban, whose ranks are mostly made up of Sunni Muslim ethnic Pashtuns, is at the height of its summer fighting season.

MAZAR-I-SHARIF (AFGHANISTAN): Afghan forces have recaptured a remote village where Taliban and Islamic State fighters allegedly massacred dozens of civilians earlier this month, officials said Tuesday. Militants killed about 50 men, women and children in Mirzawalang, a mainly Shiite village in Sayad district of northern Sar-e Pul province, on August 5 after overrunning a government-backed militia, according to officials and residents. A spokesman for the Afghan National Army's northern military corps said troops had retaken the village following several days of intense fighting that left at least 50 insurgents dead. "Our forces are in full control of the village and are searching for Taliban mines and booby traps," Nasratullah Jamshidi told AFP. Dawlat Waziri, a spokesman for the Afghan defence ministry, said forces had "pushed the Taliban out of the village" on Monday afternoon. He told AFP that militants had suffered "heavy casualties". There has been no word on any casualties to Afghan forces. Troops are expected to start searching for mass graves following claims from families and local officials that about 50, mostly-Shiite and Hazara, villagers were either shot or beheaded after Taliban and IS insurgents took Mirzawalang in a rare joint operation. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for killing 54 Shiites in Sar-e Pul in a statement released by its propaganda outlet Amaq late Monday. The Taliban earlier claimed to capture the village but said it did so alone. It also denied allegations it had killed civilians. Survivors fleeing the violence described nightmarish scenes, detailing how militants went from house to house, shooting villagers. The insurgents also took a number of residents captive, but later released 235 hostages after elders and provincial officials struck a deal with the group. Taliban and IS fighters have regularly clashed since the latter gained a foothold in the country in 2015 but security sources say they have teamed up to attack Afghan forces on a few occasions. IS has carried out a number of deadly attacks on Shiites in the past year, providing a sectarian twist to the Afghan conflict. This month two suicide bombers killed more than 33 worshippers at a mosque in Afghanistan's western city of Herat, in an attack claimed by the group. A resurgent Taliban, whose ranks are mostly made up of Sunni Muslim ethnic Pashtuns, is at the height of its summer fighting season.
By AFP

BRUSSELS: The European Union's foreign policy chief Monday called for "peaceful, not military" means to resolve the Korean peninsula crisis, urging Pyongyang to avoid any "further provocative action" that could stoke tensions.

"At such a critical juncture, the European Union supports diplomatic work with our partners aimed at the de-escalation of the situation and achieving the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula through peaceful, not military, means," Federica Mogherini said in a statement.

The statement was issued after a meeting of a key EU panel which agreed the bloc would reach out to North and South Korea, the United States, China, Russia and Japan.

"There is an urgent need for a de-escalation of tensions on the situation on the Korean Peninsula," Mogherini said.

"(...) We therefore call on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to refrain from any further provocative action that can only increase regional and global tensions."

North Korea's "continued acceleration" of its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes "constitutes serious and worrying violations" of its international obligations, Mogherini warned.

Tensions have been mounting since the North's two intercontinental ballistic missile tests last month, which appeared to bring much of the US within range.

Its military said last week that it would finalise by mid-August its detailed plan to test-fire four intermediate-range ballistic missiles in an "enveloping fire" around the US Pacific island of Guam.

On Tuesday, Pyongyang's state media said North Korean leader Kim Jong-un "examined the plan for a long time" and "discussed it" with commanding officers.

BRUSSELS: The European Union's foreign policy chief Monday called for "peaceful, not military" means to resolve the Korean peninsula crisis, urging Pyongyang to avoid any "further provocative action" that could stoke tensions. "At such a critical juncture, the European Union supports diplomatic work with our partners aimed at the de-escalation of the situation and achieving the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula through peaceful, not military, means," Federica Mogherini said in a statement. The statement was issued after a meeting of a key EU panel which agreed the bloc would reach out to North and South Korea, the United States, China, Russia and Japan. "There is an urgent need for a de-escalation of tensions on the situation on the Korean Peninsula," Mogherini said. "(...) We therefore call on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to refrain from any further provocative action that can only increase regional and global tensions." North Korea's "continued acceleration" of its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes "constitutes serious and worrying violations" of its international obligations, Mogherini warned. Tensions have been mounting since the North's two intercontinental ballistic missile tests last month, which appeared to bring much of the US within range. Its military said last week that it would finalise by mid-August its detailed plan to test-fire four intermediate-range ballistic missiles in an "enveloping fire" around the US Pacific island of Guam. On Tuesday, Pyongyang's state media said North Korean leader Kim Jong-un "examined the plan for a long time" and "discussed it" with commanding officers.
By PTI

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif today filed three separate appeals in the Supreme Court to review its verdict in the Panama Papers case that resulted in his disqualification.

A five-member Supreme Court bench last month disqualified Sharif for dishonesty and ruled that corruption cases be filed against him and his children over the Panama Papers scandal, forcing the prime minister to quit.

Sharif's lawyer Khawaja Harris filed the three review appeals, in reply to the petitions filed by Imran Khan, Sheikh Rashid and Sirjul Haq, in the Lahore registry of the apex court.

The decision to file the appeal against the verdict was taken before 67-year-old Sharif's road journey from Islamabad to Lahore but the legal team took time to prepare the case.

Harris also submitted relevant documents concerning the iqama  a United Arab Emirates work visa  that led the judges to declare Sharif "unfit to hold office", Dawn reported.

Sharif has argued that the July 28 decision should have been given by a three-member bench since Justice Asif Saeed Khosa and Justice Gulzar Ahmed's jurisdiction had expired after their dissenting judgement on April 20, the paper said.

"By signing the the final order of the court" on July 28, Justice Ahmed and Justice Khosa "have actually passed two judgments in the same case, which is unprecedented in judicial history," reads the appeal petition, according to the paper.

Sharif also chaired a meeting of party leaders at his Raiwind estate in Lahore to prepare a strategy for his campaign to contact the masses over his disqualification.

The meeting was attended by Hamza Shahbaz, Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif, Railways Minister Saad Rafique, and Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah, among others.

National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq told the media after the meeting that he still considers "Sharif his prime minister."

Sadiq said that Sharif will fight for his rights but he will not create any tension between the national institutions.

Sharif's plan is to go to the public and garner support for his plan to bring changes in the country for "sanctity of the vote", the speaker added.

The ousted prime minister has repeatedly said that he will strive hard to replace Pakistan's old and "flawed" system with a new law which will put an end to the unceremonious ouster of the prime ministers.

He also seeks accountability from military dictators and judges who he said have been sending prime ministers packing home in the last 70 years.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif today filed three separate appeals in the Supreme Court to review its verdict in the Panama Papers case that resulted in his disqualification. A five-member Supreme Court bench last month disqualified Sharif for dishonesty and ruled that corruption cases be filed against him and his children over the Panama Papers scandal, forcing the prime minister to quit. Sharif's lawyer Khawaja Harris filed the three review appeals, in reply to the petitions filed by Imran Khan, Sheikh Rashid and Sirjul Haq, in the Lahore registry of the apex court. The decision to file the appeal against the verdict was taken before 67-year-old Sharif's road journey from Islamabad to Lahore but the legal team took time to prepare the case. Harris also submitted relevant documents concerning the iqama  a United Arab Emirates work visa  that led the judges to declare Sharif "unfit to hold office", Dawn reported. Sharif has argued that the July 28 decision should have been given by a three-member bench since Justice Asif Saeed Khosa and Justice Gulzar Ahmed's jurisdiction had expired after their dissenting judgement on April 20, the paper said. "By signing the the final order of the court" on July 28, Justice Ahmed and Justice Khosa "have actually passed two judgments in the same case, which is unprecedented in judicial history," reads the appeal petition, according to the paper. Sharif also chaired a meeting of party leaders at his Raiwind estate in Lahore to prepare a strategy for his campaign to contact the masses over his disqualification. The meeting was attended by Hamza Shahbaz, Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif, Railways Minister Saad Rafique, and Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah, among others. National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq told the media after the meeting that he still considers "Sharif his prime minister." Sadiq said that Sharif will fight for his rights but he will not create any tension between the national institutions. Sharif's plan is to go to the public and garner support for his plan to bring changes in the country for "sanctity of the vote", the speaker added. The ousted prime minister has repeatedly said that he will strive hard to replace Pakistan's old and "flawed" system with a new law which will put an end to the unceremonious ouster of the prime ministers. He also seeks accountability from military dictators and judges who he said have been sending prime ministers packing home in the last 70 years.
By AFP

WASHINGTON: Media mogul Rupert Murdoch recently urged President Donald Trump to sack his far-right chief strategist Steve Bannon, The New York Times reported late Monday.

Murdoch made his plea during a White House dinner before Trump left for vacation in New Jersey on August 4, the Times said.

The timing means it preceded the violence that broke out over the weekend at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, leaving one dead and 19 wounded.

Bannon's critics label him a white supremacist.

The dinner was also attended by Jared Kushner, one of Trump's closest advisers and the husband of his daughter Ivanka, and Trump's new chief of staff John Kelly, the paper said, quoting a person familiar with the conversation.

Trump did not strongly counter Murdoch's advice and expressed frustration with Bannon, the paper said.

CBS News also said Bannon's job is in jeopardy after Trump failed to speak out immediately against white supremacists after the violence in Virginia. Bannon could be gone by the end of the week, CBS said, quoting a source it did not identify.

Bannon, the former head of ultra conservative outlet Breitbart News, is described as being the nucleus of one of several competing power centers in what has been a chaotic White House.

The Times said Kelly has warned he will not tolerate what he sees as Bannon's behind the scenes maneuvering in the West Wing.

The paper quoted a dozen current and former Trump aides and associates who have knowledge of the situation.

Murdoch, a founder of Fox News, which Trump is said to watch assiduously and often praises as he criticizes other mainstream media as sources of fake news, is close to Kushner, the Times said.

And Kushner does not get along well with Bannon, it added.

The Times said Bannon is in disfavor for allegedly leaking stories about White House colleagues who he feels do not sufficiently adhere to Bannon's populist agenda, fighting nastily with Kushner and creating a unit that operates outside the chain of command in the White House.

WASHINGTON: Media mogul Rupert Murdoch recently urged President Donald Trump to sack his far-right chief strategist Steve Bannon, The New York Times reported late Monday. Murdoch made his plea during a White House dinner before Trump left for vacation in New Jersey on August 4, the Times said. The timing means it preceded the violence that broke out over the weekend at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, leaving one dead and 19 wounded. Bannon's critics label him a white supremacist. The dinner was also attended by Jared Kushner, one of Trump's closest advisers and the husband of his daughter Ivanka, and Trump's new chief of staff John Kelly, the paper said, quoting a person familiar with the conversation. Trump did not strongly counter Murdoch's advice and expressed frustration with Bannon, the paper said. CBS News also said Bannon's job is in jeopardy after Trump failed to speak out immediately against white supremacists after the violence in Virginia. Bannon could be gone by the end of the week, CBS said, quoting a source it did not identify. Bannon, the former head of ultra conservative outlet Breitbart News, is described as being the nucleus of one of several competing power centers in what has been a chaotic White House. The Times said Kelly has warned he will not tolerate what he sees as Bannon's behind the scenes maneuvering in the West Wing. The paper quoted a dozen current and former Trump aides and associates who have knowledge of the situation. Murdoch, a founder of Fox News, which Trump is said to watch assiduously and often praises as he criticizes other mainstream media as sources of fake news, is close to Kushner, the Times said. And Kushner does not get along well with Bannon, it added. The Times said Bannon is in disfavor for allegedly leaking stories about White House colleagues who he feels do not sufficiently adhere to Bannon's populist agenda, fighting nastily with Kushner and creating a unit that operates outside the chain of command in the White House.
By AFP

SEPT SORTS (FRANCE): The driver who rammed his car into a pizzeria near Paris, killing a girl and injuring 13 people, had consumed large quantities of medication before setting off, a legal source told AFP on Tuesday.

The incident on Monday night initially raised fears it was a new terror attack, coming just five days after a suspected extremist rammed a vehicle into a group of soldiers in Paris.

But investigators have ruled out a terror motive, saying the driver had allegedly tried to kill himself the day before, several sources have told AFP.

"He's confirmed that he had taken large amounts of medication," a legal source told AFP on Tuesday, asking not to be named because the information was sensitive. "

"We still don't understand his motive from what he's told us so far," the source added.

The crash in the village of Sept-Sorts, 55 kilometres (34 miles) east of Paris, killed a girl aged around 12 years and left five other people seriously injured, including her three-year-old brother.

Pictures showed a BMW with its front-end inside the restaurant after ploughing through diners enjoying an evening meal in balmy summer weather.

Eight other people suffered light injuries, Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said.

French President Emmanuel Macron sent his condolences, tweeting with the hashtag #SeptSorts that his thoughts were with the victims and their loved ones.

Screengrab of French President Emmanuel Macron's tweet

France is on edge after suffering a series of terror-related attacks, with some involving the use of vehicles as weapons.

On August 9, six soldiers were injured after they were hit by a rented BMW in the western Paris suburb of Levallois-Perret. The suspect, a 36-year-old Algerian man, was later shot and wounded after a dramatic motorway chase.

On July 14 last year, an extremist driving a truck crushed 86 people to death after a fireworks display in the southern city of Nice.

SEPT SORTS (FRANCE): The driver who rammed his car into a pizzeria near Paris, killing a girl and injuring 13 people, had consumed large quantities of medication before setting off, a legal source told AFP on Tuesday. The incident on Monday night initially raised fears it was a new terror attack, coming just five days after a suspected extremist rammed a vehicle into a group of soldiers in Paris. But investigators have ruled out a terror motive, saying the driver had allegedly tried to kill himself the day before, several sources have told AFP. "He's confirmed that he had taken large amounts of medication," a legal source told AFP on Tuesday, asking not to be named because the information was sensitive. " "We still don't understand his motive from what he's told us so far," the source added. The crash in the village of Sept-Sorts, 55 kilometres (34 miles) east of Paris, killed a girl aged around 12 years and left five other people seriously injured, including her three-year-old brother. Pictures showed a BMW with its front-end inside the restaurant after ploughing through diners enjoying an evening meal in balmy summer weather. Eight other people suffered light injuries, Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said. French President Emmanuel Macron sent his condolences, tweeting with the hashtag #SeptSorts that his thoughts were with the victims and their loved ones. Screengrab of French President Emmanuel Macron's tweetFrance is on edge after suffering a series of terror-related attacks, with some involving the use of vehicles as weapons. On August 9, six soldiers were injured after they were hit by a rented BMW in the western Paris suburb of Levallois-Perret. The suspect, a 36-year-old Algerian man, was later shot and wounded after a dramatic motorway chase. On July 14 last year, an extremist driving a truck crushed 86 people to death after a fireworks display in the southern city of Nice.
By PTI

BAGHDAD: Iraqi warplanes carried out air strikes today against Islamic State group positions in Tal Afar in preparation for a ground assault to retake the town near the Syrian border, the military said.

Tal Afar is the main remaining IS stronghold in northern Iraq, after the capture by Iraqi forces in July of second city Mosul further east in a major blow to the jihadists.

"Preparations are under way pending instructions from the commander in chief (Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi)" for the launch of the assault, said a spokesman for Iraq's Joint Operation Command (JOC).

The spokesman, Yahiya Rassul, said that although the main offensive to retake Tal Afar had not yet begun, the air force was pounding jihadist positions in the town.

Plans to retake Tal Afar were announced yesterday by federal police chief Lieutenant General Raed Shakir Jawdat, who said "armoured and elite units" were headed for the town.

The units, whose number has not been specified, were "regrouping in combat positions in preparation for the next battle," he said in a statement.

Joining them is the Hashed al-Shaabi, a Shiite-dominated coalition of paramilitary units deployed since 2014 to halt the jihadist advance.

"Hashed al-Shaabi commanders met Saturday with army and police commanders to decide on the plan to free Tal Afar,"

spokesman Ahmed al-Assadi said.

Abadi is expected to announce the launch of the ground assault but there are no indications on when it is due to start.

JOC said the defence minister today sacked his official spokesman, Brigadier Genereal Mohammed al-Khodari, for having erroneously announced the start of the operation.

Khodari had told a local television by telephone that the ground assault on Tal Afar had been launched but his remarks were quickly denied by several military officials.

IS jihadists overran Tal Afar in June 2014, when it had a population of around 200,000.

BAGHDAD: Iraqi warplanes carried out air strikes today against Islamic State group positions in Tal Afar in preparation for a ground assault to retake the town near the Syrian border, the military said. Tal Afar is the main remaining IS stronghold in northern Iraq, after the capture by Iraqi forces in July of second city Mosul further east in a major blow to the jihadists. "Preparations are under way pending instructions from the commander in chief (Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi)" for the launch of the assault, said a spokesman for Iraq's Joint Operation Command (JOC). The spokesman, Yahiya Rassul, said that although the main offensive to retake Tal Afar had not yet begun, the air force was pounding jihadist positions in the town. Plans to retake Tal Afar were announced yesterday by federal police chief Lieutenant General Raed Shakir Jawdat, who said "armoured and elite units" were headed for the town. The units, whose number has not been specified, were "regrouping in combat positions in preparation for the next battle," he said in a statement. Joining them is the Hashed al-Shaabi, a Shiite-dominated coalition of paramilitary units deployed since 2014 to halt the jihadist advance. "Hashed al-Shaabi commanders met Saturday with army and police commanders to decide on the plan to free Tal Afar," spokesman Ahmed al-Assadi said. Abadi is expected to announce the launch of the ground assault but there are no indications on when it is due to start. JOC said the defence minister today sacked his official spokesman, Brigadier Genereal Mohammed al-Khodari, for having erroneously announced the start of the operation. Khodari had told a local television by telephone that the ground assault on Tal Afar had been launched but his remarks were quickly denied by several military officials. IS jihadists overran Tal Afar in June 2014, when it had a population of around 200,000.
Hours before the president is scheduled to arrive in Midtown, a 15-foot inflatable "Trump Rat" has been erected two blocks from his Trump Tower residence.

Reminiscent of the inflatable rats often placed outside New York City worksites accused of union-busting, the inflatable features Donald Trump's likeness characterized with a long tail, buck teeth, a Russian flag lapel, and Confederate flag cufflinks. Erected shortly after 12:30 p.m. Monday, it immediately began drawing crowds of selfie-snapping tourists and office workers out for lunch.

Karin Bravin, who installed the piece with her husband John Lee, said a representative from the police department helped them place Trump Rat on the sidewalk. She also noted that the inflatable company they commissioned "had a good time with it."

Bravin and Lee, who run a Chelsea gallery called BravinLee programs, said that while Scabby the Union Rat was their inspiration for the project, the message they're trying to convey isn't necessarily political.

"Political discussion is one for me where people trade ideas about what the actual policies are, on the issues, I dont think thats what were going here," Lee said.

"We want to ridicule this very thin-skinned, very incompetent guy who has no business being President of the United States."

Mo Gelber, a Crown Heights resident passing by the Trump Rat, said it was "great."

"[The president] is supposed to come to New York today, hes probably gonna have to drive past it and see it and know that people dont like all the things that he represents," Gelber said. "It sends a good message."
By AFP

TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday sent a cash donation to a controversial war shrine as the country marked the anniversary of its defeat in World War II.

Yasukuni Shrine honours about 2.5 million dead, mostly Japanese, who perished in the country's wars since the late 19th century.

But it is contentious for also commemorating senior military and political figures convicted of war crimes by an international tribunal.

The indigenous Shinto religious shrine has for decades been a flashpoint for criticism by countries that suffered from Japan's colonialism and aggression in the first half of the 20th century.

Abe, a staunch nationalist who wants to see Japan's pacifist constitution amended, visited the shrine in December 2013, but has stayed away since.

His only visit as prime minister sparked fury in China and South Korea, and even earned a diplomatic rebuke from close ally the United States.

A member of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) said Abe had sent the monetary offering this year in his capacity as president of the party, not as prime minister. He made a similar donation last year.

His decision not to attend the shrine again this year comes as Tokyo has sought cooperation with Beijing and Seoul over North Korea's nuclear and missile programmes.

Pyongyang last week threatened to test-fire missiles toward the US Pacific island territory of Guam, after US President Donald Trump warned North Korea of "fire and fury".

Kim Jong-Un, the North Korean leader, said early Tuesday he would hold off on the planned missile launch.

Painful reminders

Masahiko Shibayama, a party aide to Abe who made the donation on his behalf, said at the shrine that it came from Abe's personal funds.

"Upon direction from LDP President Abe, I offered my condolences to the ancestors who sacrificed their lives in the war and reaffirmed my commitment to eternal peace," Shibayama told reporters.

"President Abe said he's sorry for not visiting the shrine," Shibayama said.

Lawmakers, mostly conservative, say pilgrimages to the shrine are a chance to console the spirits of the dead and pray for peace. But North and South Korea and China consider them painful reminders of Japanese colonialism and invasion.

Some lawmakers, though apparently no members of Abe's cabinet, visited the shrine Tuesday.

Among them were LDP member and former defence minister Tomomi Inada, noted for her nationalist views. The close Abe ally and onetime protege resigned as defence minister late last month over a scandal at the ministry.

Tuesday marks the 72nd anniversary of Japan's surrender on August 15, 1945.

An official annual ceremony commemorating the end of the war was also held Tuesday inside a Tokyo arena and was attended by Abe as well as Emperor Akihito.

"Our country has consistently hated war and cherished peace after the war," Abe said at the sombre ceremony.

"We will maintain this firm policy at all times by humbly facing history," he said.

The 83-year-old emperor, whose plan to abdicate within three years was approved by parliament earlier this year, expressed "deep remorse", saying he hopes the tragedy of war will not be repeated.

TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday sent a cash donation to a controversial war shrine as the country marked the anniversary of its defeat in World War II. Yasukuni Shrine honours about 2.5 million dead, mostly Japanese, who perished in the country's wars since the late 19th century. But it is contentious for also commemorating senior military and political figures convicted of war crimes by an international tribunal. The indigenous Shinto religious shrine has for decades been a flashpoint for criticism by countries that suffered from Japan's colonialism and aggression in the first half of the 20th century. Abe, a staunch nationalist who wants to see Japan's pacifist constitution amended, visited the shrine in December 2013, but has stayed away since. His only visit as prime minister sparked fury in China and South Korea, and even earned a diplomatic rebuke from close ally the United States. A member of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) said Abe had sent the monetary offering this year in his capacity as president of the party, not as prime minister. He made a similar donation last year. His decision not to attend the shrine again this year comes as Tokyo has sought cooperation with Beijing and Seoul over North Korea's nuclear and missile programmes. Pyongyang last week threatened to test-fire missiles toward the US Pacific island territory of Guam, after US President Donald Trump warned North Korea of "fire and fury". Kim Jong-Un, the North Korean leader, said early Tuesday he would hold off on the planned missile launch. Painful reminders Masahiko Shibayama, a party aide to Abe who made the donation on his behalf, said at the shrine that it came from Abe's personal funds. "Upon direction from LDP President Abe, I offered my condolences to the ancestors who sacrificed their lives in the war and reaffirmed my commitment to eternal peace," Shibayama told reporters. "President Abe said he's sorry for not visiting the shrine," Shibayama said. Lawmakers, mostly conservative, say pilgrimages to the shrine are a chance to console the spirits of the dead and pray for peace. But North and South Korea and China consider them painful reminders of Japanese colonialism and invasion. Some lawmakers, though apparently no members of Abe's cabinet, visited the shrine Tuesday. Among them were LDP member and former defence minister Tomomi Inada, noted for her nationalist views. The close Abe ally and onetime protege resigned as defence minister late last month over a scandal at the ministry. Tuesday marks the 72nd anniversary of Japan's surrender on August 15, 1945. An official annual ceremony commemorating the end of the war was also held Tuesday inside a Tokyo arena and was attended by Abe as well as Emperor Akihito. "Our country has consistently hated war and cherished peace after the war," Abe said at the sombre ceremony. "We will maintain this firm policy at all times by humbly facing history," he said. The 83-year-old emperor, whose plan to abdicate within three years was approved by parliament earlier this year, expressed "deep remorse", saying he hopes the tragedy of war will not be repeated.
By AFP

MEXICO CITY: Mexico feared the worst when Donald Trump was elected, but nine months on it is cautiously optimistic heading into negotiations on a new version of its crucial trade deal with the US and Canada.

Since taking office, Trump has toned down his rhetoric against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the 1994 deal that helped turn Mexico into a major exporter -- but which the US president calls "disastrous" for American jobs.

Now Mexico -- whose exports have more than quintupled in the past 23 years -- is daring to hope for even deeper trade ties with its wealthy northern neighbors as its negotiators head to Washington for talks on updating the deal, which open Wednesday.

"You don't lose anything by asking. We're trying to get (tariffs) removed in the few remaining categories where they apply," said Ana Riquelme, head of the group that represents Mexico's booming medical device industry.

Such a boldly free-trade agenda would have been unthinkable back in November, when Trump shocked pundits by winning the US election after a vitriolic campaign in which he vowed to tear up NAFTA and accused Mexico and its people of stealing American jobs.

But Trump grudgingly opted in May to renegotiate rather than scrap the deal, and his tirades against it have grown less fiery.

Now, Riquelme said, Mexican industry is hoping at a minimum to keep basically everything the same.

"Things favor us just the way they are," she said.

That confident view is shared by Juan Pablo Castanon, president of Mexico's Business Coordinating Council (CCE).

His reaction to Trump's victory was to launch a database of US and international companies that depend on NAFTA and lobby them.

He believes it has paid off. He is hoping for a new deal that "leads to deeper ties in terms of finding synergies and policies to make (North America) more competitive," he said.

The Mexican government has been careful to hew to similar arguments, answering Trump's outbursts on American job losses and trade deficits with talk of "North American competitiveness."

Negotiators involved in the original deal say it was ripe for an update -- and that they are glad to see Trump has decided not to kill it after all.

"I was relieved," said Carla Hills, US Trade Representative under former president George Bush.

"I believe that it needs to be updated," she told AFP.

"We didn't have a cell phone in 1991, I didn't, and much has changed in terms of technology wich has affected commerce and the way we live.... I think all three governments will agree on most of the things listed like rules governing digital flows, communications, services."

Racing the electoral clock

But the Trump administration is unpredictable, and touchy subjects abound.

Number one on the list: the US trade balance with Mexico, which has gone from a surplus of $1.3 billion to a deficit of $64 billion under NAFTA.

"That's not something that can be resolved in a trade relationship," said Jaime Zabludovsky, deputy head of Mexico's negotiating team for the original NAFTA.

"The deficit is related to the macroeconomic situation in the United States, which is an economy that consumes more than it produces."

Another big bone of contention for both Mexico and Canada is NAFTA's dispute resolution mechanism, Article 19. It allows exporters to appeal to a special arbitration commission if they believe they are being wronged by tariffs or dumping.

"It's worked very well for all three countries, but those who have a protectionist view feel that it takes away their room to maneuver, because there is a kind of cop watching over them," Zabludovsky told AFP.

The three countries are planning seven to nine rounds of negotiations, hoping to wrap them up by the end of the year -- before the talks get caught up in the politics of next year's mid-term elections in the US and presidential elections in Mexico.

A tight calendar, but not an impossible one, said Zabludovsky.

"It can be done. Twenty years ago, we concluded our negotiations in 14 months, starting from scratch," he said.

MEXICO CITY: Mexico feared the worst when Donald Trump was elected, but nine months on it is cautiously optimistic heading into negotiations on a new version of its crucial trade deal with the US and Canada. Since taking office, Trump has toned down his rhetoric against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the 1994 deal that helped turn Mexico into a major exporter -- but which the US president calls "disastrous" for American jobs. Now Mexico -- whose exports have more than quintupled in the past 23 years -- is daring to hope for even deeper trade ties with its wealthy northern neighbors as its negotiators head to Washington for talks on updating the deal, which open Wednesday. "You don't lose anything by asking. We're trying to get (tariffs) removed in the few remaining categories where they apply," said Ana Riquelme, head of the group that represents Mexico's booming medical device industry. Such a boldly free-trade agenda would have been unthinkable back in November, when Trump shocked pundits by winning the US election after a vitriolic campaign in which he vowed to tear up NAFTA and accused Mexico and its people of stealing American jobs. But Trump grudgingly opted in May to renegotiate rather than scrap the deal, and his tirades against it have grown less fiery. Now, Riquelme said, Mexican industry is hoping at a minimum to keep basically everything the same. "Things favor us just the way they are," she said. That confident view is shared by Juan Pablo Castanon, president of Mexico's Business Coordinating Council (CCE). His reaction to Trump's victory was to launch a database of US and international companies that depend on NAFTA and lobby them. He believes it has paid off. He is hoping for a new deal that "leads to deeper ties in terms of finding synergies and policies to make (North America) more competitive," he said. The Mexican government has been careful to hew to similar arguments, answering Trump's outbursts on American job losses and trade deficits with talk of "North American competitiveness." Negotiators involved in the original deal say it was ripe for an update -- and that they are glad to see Trump has decided not to kill it after all. "I was relieved," said Carla Hills, US Trade Representative under former president George Bush. "I believe that it needs to be updated," she told AFP. "We didn't have a cell phone in 1991, I didn't, and much has changed in terms of technology wich has affected commerce and the way we live.... I think all three governments will agree on most of the things listed like rules governing digital flows, communications, services." Racing the electoral clock But the Trump administration is unpredictable, and touchy subjects abound. Number one on the list: the US trade balance with Mexico, which has gone from a surplus of $1.3 billion to a deficit of $64 billion under NAFTA. "That's not something that can be resolved in a trade relationship," said Jaime Zabludovsky, deputy head of Mexico's negotiating team for the original NAFTA. "The deficit is related to the macroeconomic situation in the United States, which is an economy that consumes more than it produces." Another big bone of contention for both Mexico and Canada is NAFTA's dispute resolution mechanism, Article 19. It allows exporters to appeal to a special arbitration commission if they believe they are being wronged by tariffs or dumping. "It's worked very well for all three countries, but those who have a protectionist view feel that it takes away their room to maneuver, because there is a kind of cop watching over them," Zabludovsky told AFP. The three countries are planning seven to nine rounds of negotiations, hoping to wrap them up by the end of the year -- before the talks get caught up in the politics of next year's mid-term elections in the US and presidential elections in Mexico. A tight calendar, but not an impossible one, said Zabludovsky. "It can be done. Twenty years ago, we concluded our negotiations in 14 months, starting from scratch," he said.
By PTI

KATHMANDU: The death toll from widespread flooding and landslides in Nepal today climbed to 120 with nearly 35 people still unaccounted for and over six million affected by incessant rainfall across the Himalayan country.

Most of the displaced, living in temporary shelters for the past three days, were yet to receive relief supplies in the flood-hit interior areas, the Kathmandu Post reported.

More than 2,800 houses have been completely destroyed.

Normal life in parts of Nepal has been hit and a large number of people have been displaced due to flooding and landslides.

Authorities recovered seven bodies from the "no man's land" near the flood-hit BiratnagarJogbani border with India today and the death toll has hit 115, Home Ministry sources said.

"A committee has been formed under Home Minister Janardan Sharma to ascertain the extent of the loss. The chief secretary and secretaries of 12 ministries are members of the committee," home ministry spokesman Ram Krishna Subedi said.

The ministry said that the Nepal government has accelerated rescue and relief operations. It said nearly 27,000 security personnel have been engaged in post-disaster operation and a search for those missing was underway.

Thirteen helicopters, including seven from the Nepal Army, motorboats, rubber boats and other equipment are being used for search, rescue and to supply relief materials.

Subedi said tarps, cooking pots, dry foods, salt, vegetable oil and other relief supplies have been distributed in the affected districts.

Heavy rainfall has lashed Nepal for the past five days.

The Rapti river, which flows through a large part of Nepal towards the southern plains, has flooded human settlements and hotels popular with tourists in the central Chitwan Valley.

Many people, inluding foreigners, had been stranded in Sauraha, a part of the Chitwan National Park. The 35 Indians stranded there have been rescued, the Indian embassy said.

Some reports had previously said that 200 Indian tourists were among the 700 people stranded in Sauraha, but the Indian embassy officials said only 35 of them were Indian nationals.

The flood triggered by the monsoon rains, a yearly feature, has affected 27 districts across Nepal

KATHMANDU: The death toll from widespread flooding and landslides in Nepal today climbed to 120 with nearly 35 people still unaccounted for and over six million affected by incessant rainfall across the Himalayan country. Most of the displaced, living in temporary shelters for the past three days, were yet to receive relief supplies in the flood-hit interior areas, the Kathmandu Post reported. More than 2,800 houses have been completely destroyed. Normal life in parts of Nepal has been hit and a large number of people have been displaced due to flooding and landslides. Authorities recovered seven bodies from the "no man's land" near the flood-hit BiratnagarJogbani border with India today and the death toll has hit 115, Home Ministry sources said. "A committee has been formed under Home Minister Janardan Sharma to ascertain the extent of the loss. The chief secretary and secretaries of 12 ministries are members of the committee," home ministry spokesman Ram Krishna Subedi said. The ministry said that the Nepal government has accelerated rescue and relief operations. It said nearly 27,000 security personnel have been engaged in post-disaster operation and a search for those missing was underway. Thirteen helicopters, including seven from the Nepal Army, motorboats, rubber boats and other equipment are being used for search, rescue and to supply relief materials. Subedi said tarps, cooking pots, dry foods, salt, vegetable oil and other relief supplies have been distributed in the affected districts. Heavy rainfall has lashed Nepal for the past five days. The Rapti river, which flows through a large part of Nepal towards the southern plains, has flooded human settlements and hotels popular with tourists in the central Chitwan Valley. Many people, inluding foreigners, had been stranded in Sauraha, a part of the Chitwan National Park. The 35 Indians stranded there have been rescued, the Indian embassy said. Some reports had previously said that 200 Indian tourists were among the 700 people stranded in Sauraha, but the Indian embassy officials said only 35 of them were Indian nationals. The flood triggered by the monsoon rains, a yearly feature, has affected 27 districts across Nepal
By AFP

SINGAPORE: Three young British men were sentenced Tuesday to jail time and caning for sexually assaulting a Malaysian woman during a stag party in Singapore.

Khong Tam Thanh, Le Michael and Vu Thai Son, in their 20s, were originally accused of rape but pleaded guilty on Monday to a lesser charge of aggravated outrage of modesty after a four-day trial.

High Court Judge Hoo Sheau Peng slammed their "reprehensible" conduct and sentenced the trio, British citizens of Vietnamese origin, to jail terms of between five and a half years to six and a half years.

They were also sentenced to between five and eight strokes of the cane each. Caning is a punishment dating back to British colonial rule in Singapore and involves being flogged with a rattan stick.

The attack happened in Singapore in September last year, when the trio travelled to the city-state for a bachelor party.

The groom, the brother of Khong, was also on the trip.

After attending an electronic music festival, the men met the 23-year-old victim at a popular nightspot, and she went back to a hotel with one of their friends.

Later, Khong, 22, Le and Vu -- both 24 -- took turns to enter the room where she lay drunk and unconscious and have sex with her, with the woman waking up as Le assaulted her.

As well as outrage of modesty, Khong and Vu, who worked as beauticians in Britain, were also convicted of an additional charge of sexual assault.

SINGAPORE: Three young British men were sentenced Tuesday to jail time and caning for sexually assaulting a Malaysian woman during a stag party in Singapore. Khong Tam Thanh, Le Michael and Vu Thai Son, in their 20s, were originally accused of rape but pleaded guilty on Monday to a lesser charge of aggravated outrage of modesty after a four-day trial. High Court Judge Hoo Sheau Peng slammed their "reprehensible" conduct and sentenced the trio, British citizens of Vietnamese origin, to jail terms of between five and a half years to six and a half years. They were also sentenced to between five and eight strokes of the cane each. Caning is a punishment dating back to British colonial rule in Singapore and involves being flogged with a rattan stick. The attack happened in Singapore in September last year, when the trio travelled to the city-state for a bachelor party. The groom, the brother of Khong, was also on the trip. After attending an electronic music festival, the men met the 23-year-old victim at a popular nightspot, and she went back to a hotel with one of their friends. Later, Khong, 22, Le and Vu -- both 24 -- took turns to enter the room where she lay drunk and unconscious and have sex with her, with the woman waking up as Le assaulted her. As well as outrage of modesty, Khong and Vu, who worked as beauticians in Britain, were also convicted of an additional charge of sexual assault.
By PTI

KABUL: The Taliban have sent an "open letter" to President Donald Trump, reiterating their calls for America to leave Afghanistan after 16 years of war.

In a long and rambling note in English that was sent to journalists on Tuesday by Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, the insurgents say Trump recognized the errors of his predecessors by seeking a review of the U.S. strategy for Afghanistan.

Mujahid says Trump should not hand control of the U.S, Afghan policy to the military but rather, announce the withdrawal of U.S. forces  and not an increase in troops as the Trump administration has planned.

The note, which is 1,600 words long, also says a U.S. withdrawal would "truly deliver American troops from harm's way" and bring about "an end to an inherited war."

KABUL: The Taliban have sent an "open letter" to President Donald Trump, reiterating their calls for America to leave Afghanistan after 16 years of war. In a long and rambling note in English that was sent to journalists on Tuesday by Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, the insurgents say Trump recognized the errors of his predecessors by seeking a review of the U.S. strategy for Afghanistan. Mujahid says Trump should not hand control of the U.S, Afghan policy to the military but rather, announce the withdrawal of U.S. forces  and not an increase in troops as the Trump administration has planned. The note, which is 1,600 words long, also says a U.S. withdrawal would "truly deliver American troops from harm's way" and bring about "an end to an inherited war."
By AFP

ISTANBUL: Turkish authorities have detained in Istanbul a Belgian national who spent time in Syria and is accused of planning a major attack, the state-run Anadolu news agency said Tuesday.

The man, identified as M.A, was detained in the Fatih district of the city, Anadolu said, adding that he had gone to Syria with his wife and children three years ago to join the Islamic State group.

The Hurriyet daily reported that the man was suspected of being the coordinator for all French-speaking jihadists seeking to join the Islamic militants, and also of planning jihadist attacks in Europe.

He had been the target of an international search, it added.

The report of the arrest comes after a 24-year-old Turkish police officer was stabbed to death in Istanbul at the weekend by a suspected IS member who had been arrested on suspicions he was planning a suicide attack.

His superiors praised the heroism of the officer, saying he had helped prevent a "very serious attack".

Turkey was hit by a succession of attacks in 2016 that left hundreds dead in the bloodiest year of terror strikes in its history.

The attacks were attributed to IS jihadists as well as the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) who have battled the Turkish state in an insurgency lasting more than three decades.

In one of the bloodiest strikes, a jihadist gunman opened fire on an elite nightclub in Istanbul just 75 minutes into New Year's Day in 2017, killing 39 people, mainly foreigners.

There has since been a lull in similar attacks, but tensions remain high and Turkish police launch raids almost daily against suspected IS cells across the country.

ISTANBUL: Turkish authorities have detained in Istanbul a Belgian national who spent time in Syria and is accused of planning a major attack, the state-run Anadolu news agency said Tuesday. The man, identified as M.A, was detained in the Fatih district of the city, Anadolu said, adding that he had gone to Syria with his wife and children three years ago to join the Islamic State group. The Hurriyet daily reported that the man was suspected of being the coordinator for all French-speaking jihadists seeking to join the Islamic militants, and also of planning jihadist attacks in Europe. He had been the target of an international search, it added. The report of the arrest comes after a 24-year-old Turkish police officer was stabbed to death in Istanbul at the weekend by a suspected IS member who had been arrested on suspicions he was planning a suicide attack. His superiors praised the heroism of the officer, saying he had helped prevent a "very serious attack". Turkey was hit by a succession of attacks in 2016 that left hundreds dead in the bloodiest year of terror strikes in its history. The attacks were attributed to IS jihadists as well as the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) who have battled the Turkish state in an insurgency lasting more than three decades. In one of the bloodiest strikes, a jihadist gunman opened fire on an elite nightclub in Istanbul just 75 minutes into New Year's Day in 2017, killing 39 people, mainly foreigners. There has since been a lull in similar attacks, but tensions remain high and Turkish police launch raids almost daily against suspected IS cells across the country.
By AFP

WASHINGTON: Pentagon chief Jim Mattis said Monday he backs the top US commander in Afghanistan -- after President Donald Trump reportedly suggested firing him.

NBC News this month said Trump had told Mattis and General Joe Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, they should replace General John Nicholson, who heads up US and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Nicholson "is our commander in the field. He has the confidence of NATO, he has the confidence of Afghanistan, he has the confidence of the United States," Mattis told Pentagon reporters.

Trump "is looking at all aspects of our effort over there, as he must in his responsibilities as the commander-in-chief," Mattis added.

When asked if he personally backed Nicholson staying in the job, Mattis said: "Of course."

Trump has yet to announce a strategy for Afghanistan, but Mattis said one is "very, very close."

Possible plans include sending thousands more troops into the nearly 16-year conflict, or taking the opposite tack and pulling out, leaving private military contractors to help the Afghans oversee the fragile security situation.

WASHINGTON: Pentagon chief Jim Mattis said Monday he backs the top US commander in Afghanistan -- after President Donald Trump reportedly suggested firing him. NBC News this month said Trump had told Mattis and General Joe Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, they should replace General John Nicholson, who heads up US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. Nicholson "is our commander in the field. He has the confidence of NATO, he has the confidence of Afghanistan, he has the confidence of the United States," Mattis told Pentagon reporters. Trump "is looking at all aspects of our effort over there, as he must in his responsibilities as the commander-in-chief," Mattis added. When asked if he personally backed Nicholson staying in the job, Mattis said: "Of course." Trump has yet to announce a strategy for Afghanistan, but Mattis said one is "very, very close." Possible plans include sending thousands more troops into the nearly 16-year conflict, or taking the opposite tack and pulling out, leaving private military contractors to help the Afghans oversee the fragile security situation.
By AFP

WASHINGTON: Defense Secretary Jim Mattis warned Monday that an attack by North Korea against the United States could quickly escalate into war, as he and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson moved to dial down tensions.

North Korea last week threatened to test-fire four missiles that would fly toward the small US Pacific island territory of Guam, following a promise from President Donald Trump to meet ongoing threats from Pyongyang with "fire and fury."

"If they fire at the United States, it could escalate into war very quickly," Mattis told Pentagon reporters.

Mattis's comments came after he and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal that America has "no interest" in regime change in Pyongyang or the accelerated reunification of the two Koreas, and stressed the importance of a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

The two statesmen decided to write the piece a couple of weeks ago, and it had not been in response to last week's heated rhetoric, Mattis said.

"We were thinking it would be wise to put out something that shows how the State Department and the Defense Department work together, it's not one or the other, it's the two working together," he said.

Mattis and Tillerson said the United States favors a diplomatic solution to the nuclear stand-off, especially with help from China, though they stressed diplomacy is "backed by military options."

"The US has no interest in regime change or accelerated reunification of Korea," Mattis and Tillerson wrote.

"We do not seek an excuse to garrison US troops north of the Demilitarized Zone. We have no desire to inflict harm on the long-suffering North Korean people, who are distinct from the hostile regime in Pyongyang."

Mattis and Tillerson called on China, which is North Korea's main trading partner and ally, to take advantage of an "unparalleled opportunity" to assert its influence on Pyongyang.

"If China wishes to play a more active role in securing regional peace and stability -- from which all of us, especially China, derive such great benefit -- it must make the decision to exercise its decisive diplomatic and economic leverage over North Korea," the US officials wrote.

Mattis and Tillerson also credited UN efforts and said the United States was willing to negotiate with North Korea, but said Pyongyang should indicate a desire to show good faith by halting weapons and nuclear tests.

General Joseph Dunford, who chairs the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and is the nation's top uniformed military officer, met Monday with South Korea's defense minister Song Young-Moo and defense chief General Lee Sun-Jin.

He "conveyed America's readiness to use the full range of military capabilities to defend our allies and the US homeland," said spokesman Captain Darryn James.

WASHINGTON: Defense Secretary Jim Mattis warned Monday that an attack by North Korea against the United States could quickly escalate into war, as he and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson moved to dial down tensions. North Korea last week threatened to test-fire four missiles that would fly toward the small US Pacific island territory of Guam, following a promise from President Donald Trump to meet ongoing threats from Pyongyang with "fire and fury." "If they fire at the United States, it could escalate into war very quickly," Mattis told Pentagon reporters. Mattis's comments came after he and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal that America has "no interest" in regime change in Pyongyang or the accelerated reunification of the two Koreas, and stressed the importance of a diplomatic solution to the crisis. The two statesmen decided to write the piece a couple of weeks ago, and it had not been in response to last week's heated rhetoric, Mattis said. "We were thinking it would be wise to put out something that shows how the State Department and the Defense Department work together, it's not one or the other, it's the two working together," he said. Mattis and Tillerson said the United States favors a diplomatic solution to the nuclear stand-off, especially with help from China, though they stressed diplomacy is "backed by military options." "The US has no interest in regime change or accelerated reunification of Korea," Mattis and Tillerson wrote. "We do not seek an excuse to garrison US troops north of the Demilitarized Zone. We have no desire to inflict harm on the long-suffering North Korean people, who are distinct from the hostile regime in Pyongyang." Mattis and Tillerson called on China, which is North Korea's main trading partner and ally, to take advantage of an "unparalleled opportunity" to assert its influence on Pyongyang. "If China wishes to play a more active role in securing regional peace and stability -- from which all of us, especially China, derive such great benefit -- it must make the decision to exercise its decisive diplomatic and economic leverage over North Korea," the US officials wrote. Mattis and Tillerson also credited UN efforts and said the United States was willing to negotiate with North Korea, but said Pyongyang should indicate a desire to show good faith by halting weapons and nuclear tests. General Joseph Dunford, who chairs the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and is the nation's top uniformed military officer, met Monday with South Korea's defense minister Song Young-Moo and defense chief General Lee Sun-Jin. He "conveyed America's readiness to use the full range of military capabilities to defend our allies and the US homeland," said spokesman Captain Darryn James.
By AFP

JOHANNESBURG: Zimbabwe's first lady Grace Mugabe was to appear in a South African court Tuesday after she allegedly used an extension cord to assault a model who was at a Johannesburg hotel with her two sons.

The alleged attack threatened to spark a major diplomatic incident between the two neighbouring countries which have strong political and economic ties.

Grace Mugabe, 52, is accused of beating Gabriella Engels, 20, on Sunday evening with an electrical extension cord, leaving her with injuries on her forehead and the back of her head.

"She's not under arrest because she cooperated and handed herself over to the police," South African Police Minister Fikile Mbalula told reporters.

"In terms of foreign citizens, they must understand they have responsibilities, especially those who hold diplomatic passports."

Pictures on social media appeared to show Engels with a bleeding head injury after the alleged incident at the Capital 20 West Hotel in the upmarket Johannesburg district of Sandton.

"I cannot just go to Zimbabwe and beat up people there and then the matter will disappear," Mbalula said.

"From the police side, we have had to act in the interests of the victim, we have opened a case."

According to local media, Mugabe was to appear at Randburg Magistrate's Court at 2:00 pm (1200 GMT).

She allegedly arrived at the hotel with bodyguards and accused Engels of partying with her sons Robert and Chatunga, both in their 20s, who live in the South African city.

"We were chilling in a hotel room, and (the sons) were in the room next door. She came in and started hitting us," Engels was quoted as saying by the Times Live website on Monday.

"The front of my forehead is busted open. I'm a model and I make my money based on my looks."

- A future president? -

Grace Mugabe, who is 41 years younger than her husband Robert, 93, has two sons and one daughter with the Zimbabwean president.

Sizakele Nkosi-Malobane, a provincial minister in South Africa's Gauteng province, told Jacaranda FM radio that the case should be pursued fully through the courts.

"We hope that it will send a strong message to all leaders who abuse their power and assault innocent people in our country," she said.

Grace Mugabe regularly speaks at rallies in Zimbabwe and is seen as one potential candidate to take over from her increasingly frail husband.

Last month she urged her husband to name his chosen successor, reviving speculation about the race to take over from the world's oldest national leader.

President Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from British colonial rule in 1980.

The succession battle is widely expected to pit Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa against a group called "Generation 40" or "G40" because its members are generally younger, and which reportedly has Grace's backing.

Grace has previously denied harbouring ambitions to take over from her husband, but at other times has said she would be prepared to serve in any political position.

She has taken on a larger public role in recent years, speaking regularly at meetings to drum up support for the president and also heading the women's league of the ruling ZANU-PF party.

In 2014, Grace led a bitter campaign to expel from the party former vice president Joice Mujuru, who had been seen as a favourite to succeed to Mugabe.

In speeches this year the president has often slurred his words, mumbled and paused for lengthy periods.

His reign has been marked by brutal repression of dissent, mass emigration, vote-rigging and a sharp economic decline since land reforms in 2000.

The Zimbabwe government made no immediate comment on Grace Mugabe's case.

JOHANNESBURG: Zimbabwe's first lady Grace Mugabe was to appear in a South African court Tuesday after she allegedly used an extension cord to assault a model who was at a Johannesburg hotel with her two sons. The alleged attack threatened to spark a major diplomatic incident between the two neighbouring countries which have strong political and economic ties. Grace Mugabe, 52, is accused of beating Gabriella Engels, 20, on Sunday evening with an electrical extension cord, leaving her with injuries on her forehead and the back of her head. "She's not under arrest because she cooperated and handed herself over to the police," South African Police Minister Fikile Mbalula told reporters. "In terms of foreign citizens, they must understand they have responsibilities, especially those who hold diplomatic passports." Pictures on social media appeared to show Engels with a bleeding head injury after the alleged incident at the Capital 20 West Hotel in the upmarket Johannesburg district of Sandton. "I cannot just go to Zimbabwe and beat up people there and then the matter will disappear," Mbalula said. "From the police side, we have had to act in the interests of the victim, we have opened a case." According to local media, Mugabe was to appear at Randburg Magistrate's Court at 2:00 pm (1200 GMT). She allegedly arrived at the hotel with bodyguards and accused Engels of partying with her sons Robert and Chatunga, both in their 20s, who live in the South African city. "We were chilling in a hotel room, and (the sons) were in the room next door. She came in and started hitting us," Engels was quoted as saying by the Times Live website on Monday. "The front of my forehead is busted open. I'm a model and I make my money based on my looks." - A future president? - Grace Mugabe, who is 41 years younger than her husband Robert, 93, has two sons and one daughter with the Zimbabwean president. Sizakele Nkosi-Malobane, a provincial minister in South Africa's Gauteng province, told Jacaranda FM radio that the case should be pursued fully through the courts. "We hope that it will send a strong message to all leaders who abuse their power and assault innocent people in our country," she said. Grace Mugabe regularly speaks at rallies in Zimbabwe and is seen as one potential candidate to take over from her increasingly frail husband. Last month she urged her husband to name his chosen successor, reviving speculation about the race to take over from the world's oldest national leader. President Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from British colonial rule in 1980. The succession battle is widely expected to pit Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa against a group called "Generation 40" or "G40" because its members are generally younger, and which reportedly has Grace's backing. Grace has previously denied harbouring ambitions to take over from her husband, but at other times has said she would be prepared to serve in any political position. She has taken on a larger public role in recent years, speaking regularly at meetings to drum up support for the president and also heading the women's league of the ruling ZANU-PF party. In 2014, Grace led a bitter campaign to expel from the party former vice president Joice Mujuru, who had been seen as a favourite to succeed to Mugabe. In speeches this year the president has often slurred his words, mumbled and paused for lengthy periods. His reign has been marked by brutal repression of dissent, mass emigration, vote-rigging and a sharp economic decline since land reforms in 2000. The Zimbabwe government made no immediate comment on Grace Mugabe's case.
The producer of an upcoming HBO show was sentenced Tuesday to one year and one day in prison for his role in dragging a dead body into a Chelsea apartment in order to protect his drug dealer's "stash house."

Marc Henry Johnson, executive producer and creator of The Deuce, which premieres on HBO in September, pled guilty earlier this year to being an accessory to moving the body of Dr. Kiersten Cerveny, a Long Island dermatologist who'd overdosed inside a drug dealer's apartment on West 16th Street in October of 2015.

According to court filings, Cerveny and Johnson had met at nearby bar earlier that night, then went to the home of Johnson's longtime friend and dealer James "Pepsi" Holder. After Cerveny overdosed in Holder's home, Johnson "helped move the woman's unresponsive body out of an apartment," down three flights of stairs, and into the vestibule of the building. The incident was caught on the building's surveillance footage, and both men were arrested shortly thereafter.

Holder was sentenced to five years in prison in 2016 for maintaining a drug-involved premises, and Johnson pled guilty earlier this year to acting as an accessory.

"Faced with a choice between helping his long-time drug dealer avoid arrest or helping a woman survive a cocaine overdose, Marc Henry Johnson chose to help the drug dealer," acting U.S. Attorney Joon H. Kim said. "For his callous and illegal choice, Johnson will now join that drug dealer in federal prison.

During the sentencing, Johnson's lawyer argued that he should be granted leniency because he attempted CPR on Cerveny, and eventually called 911. The Wire creator David Simon also asked the Manhattan federal judge to show leniency, noting that Johnson was an "instrumental" producer on his forthcoming HBO drama The Deuce. The show, focused on the Times Square sex industry of the 1970s, premieres next month on HBO.

"Had he not called for help and had he not remained with the victim, I could not now write this letter nor remain professionally associated with Mr. Johnson," Simon wrote in a letter delivered to U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman last week.

Judge Furman, meanwhile, noted that Johnson did not immediately call 911, which could have saved the woman's life, am New York reports. He also refused to identify himself, or offer any details about why Cerveny was unconscious.

"We are tested at times of stress," the judge told Johnson. "Quite honestly, you failed that test."


Police are investigating the mysterious disappearance of freelance journalist and recent Columbia University graduate Kim Wall, who was last seen boarding a submarine in Copenhagen on Thursday along with Danish inventor and amateur rocket builder Peter Madsen. Now, Danish authorities are alleging that the vessel was deliberately sunk, and the inventor known as Rocket Madsen is facing charges of preliminary manslaughter, as the search for Wall continues.

The Washington Post reports that Wall, 30, who is based in New York and China, was last seen getting into the UC3 Nautilus submarine with Madsen, a self-described inventrepreneur and the subject of her latest piece. When the vesseldescribed as the worlds [sic] biggest amateur built submarine, on a crowdfunding websitedid not return the following day, Danish authorities launched a hunt, eventually locating the submarine in a bay about 30 miles south of Copenhagen. Police searched the sub, and Jens Moller, head of the Copenhagen Police's homicide unit announced at a news conference Sunday that "There are no persons in the submarine, dead or alive," Reuters reports.

Walls boyfriend, Krisitan Isbak, was also involved in the hunt, and told a Danish news outlet that he saw Madsen in the submarines conning tower, then watched him go down into the submarine. He returned to the surface just as the submarine began to sink, the boyfriend said.

There was no panic at all, Isbak alleged, according to the Washington Post. The man was absolutely calm.

Isbak elaborated on the story to the Associated Press:

"He then climbed down inside the submarine and there was then some kind of air flow coming up and the submarine started to sink," Isbak said. "(He) came up again and stayed in the tower until water came into it" before swimming to a nearby boat as the submarine sank, he added.

Madsen, meanwhile, claims that he dropped off Wall on a nearby island a few hours after their expedition began. He says the submarine sank after a minor problem with a ballast tank...turned into a major issue.

It took about 30 seconds for Nautilus to sink, and I couldnt close any hatches or anything, Madsen told a Danish television station. But I guess that was pretty good because I otherwise still would have been down there.

A judge ordered that Madsen be detained for 24 days as police investigate the crime and search for Wall. The inventors attorney said that hed be willing to cooperate.

Wall, a freelance journalist born in Sweden, graduated from Columbia University with a masters degree in journalism in 2013, and previously studied at the Sorbonne university in Paris and the London School of Economics, according to the Washington Post. Shed written for the New York Times, The Guardian, The Atlantic, Harpers, the South China Morning Post and Vice Magazine.

It is with a great concern that we, her family, received the news that Kim is missing after an interview with Peter Madsen in Denmark, Walls family wrote in a statement to the Committee to Protect Journalists. We sincerely hope that she will be found and that she is well.

Here's a video showing Madsen and his submarine:
Newport Art Museum wraps up fall with variety of programs

Though it hasnt always felt like fall these past few weeks, the museum is in high gear hosting fall events and planning for winter.
Columnist

Tom Kacich is a columnist and the author of Tom's Mailbag at The News-Gazette. His column appears Sundays. His email is tkacich@news-gazette.com, and you can follow him on Twitter (@tkacich).
Champaign, IL (61820)

Today

Generally sunny. High around 40F. Winds NW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

A few clouds from time to time. Low around 20F. Winds light and variable.
Berne/New Delhi: The Swiss People's Party (SVP), a populist political party in Switzerland, has opposed automatic exchange of banking information with India and 10 other countries.



The opposition by SVP, which is known as a national-conservative and right-wing populist political party, is in sharp contrast to the official position of the Swiss government which has cited strong Indian data protection laws for agreeing to include India among jurisdictions for the automatic exchange of information (AEOI) on financial matters.



It is one of the largest parties in the Federal Assembly and late last year it had supported a campaign, 'Yes to protect bank secrecy in Switzerland'.



Earlier, some private bank groups in Switzerland had opposed the pact, but the government decided to go ahead with this framework after putting in place necessary data protection and confidentiality clauses.



A draft memorandum has been ratified by the Swiss Federal council for implementing the automatic information exchange framework with India, which is expected to come into force from next year. India has been pressing for long to have such a pact amid a widespread perception about Swiss banks being among the most-favoured for stashing of suspected black money.



In a statement posted on its website after a press conference on the issue, SVP said implementing automatic information exchange pact -- which was signed by Switzerland and India last year under a global framework for fighting the black money menace -- will have "serious consequences for foreigners who have protected their assets in Switzerland, as also for Swiss residents abroad".



Without giving any specific reason for opposing the pact with India, the party said it would press against automatic information exchange with 11 countries -- Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Colombia, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates -- in a meeting of the Economic Committee of the National Council.



The party said the pact should not be implemented with the countries with less than 45 points on the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, or those classified as "not free" on the Freedom House Democracy index. The Freedom House index classifies India as one of the "free" democracies with a high score of 77/100, whereas the US has been given a score of 87. Switzerland has 96 points.



India is ranked 79th (out of 176 countries) on the Transparency index with a score of 40/100. Switzerland is ranked 5th with a score of 86 points.



On the Freedom House Democracy index, some of the countries named by SVP are however classified as 'not free' and these include China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and UAE. "Despite constitutional reservations, the State Secretariat for International Financial Matters and the Swiss Federal Department of Finance plans to expand the AEOI network by at least 41 countries and territories. Among them are the authoritarian regimes of China and Russia, as well as countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico," it alleged.



The SVP also said the Federal Council and the Swiss Parliament need to take full responsibility for "possible reprisals such as expropriation and blackmail" of Swiss nationals living abroad and it will closely monitor the developments in this area.
Thousands of New Yorkers crammed as close as they could to Trump Tower on Monday night to shout down President Donald Trump on his first trip to his Midtown home since January. The protests, which were planned last week, gained a special urgency following a neo-Nazi and White Supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia that ended with the death of one anti-racist protester mowed down by driver behind the wheel of a Dodge Challenger.

Carlos Rivera, 20, a Parsons student, said he was troubled to see images of "Unite the Right" participants marching through the University of Virginia campus with tiki torches.

"I myself am a college student," he said. "It's crazy to think that in a place where you are going to acquire knowledge, you would have those mindsets."

"I'm here to tell [President Trump] right outside his property that we don't respect him, we don't respect his values, and that we don't want him representing us," added Zach Pace, a 30-year-old demonstrator from Brooklyn.

Dozens of protesters initially refused to leave the corner of 56th Street and 5th Avenue across from Trump Tower, staging a brief sit-in on the sidewalk while two rows of police officers lined up in the street facing them. The group chanted, "We have every right to be here," while the NYPD used a microphone to threaten arrests. Police climbed over the barriers after several minutes and slowly parted the group down the middle. Many protesters inched back, facing the police with raised fists and shouting, "This is what fascism looks like!"



A protester outside of Trump Tower on Monday evening. (Scott Heins / Gothamist)

"I think its awful that we have to leave this sidewalk. Why can't we be right here? They've got people taking pictures of us," said protester Emma Schull, 27, motioning to the police.

"They just threw this girl on the floor," said Gia Greer, running away from the crowd. "The police officer took her entire body and just threw her on the floor."

"I saw police officers talking amongst themselves and come and surrounded one guy and drag him away... they just swooped the guy off," her mother Marilyn added.

Three people were arrested at Monday's rally, according to the NYPD. Charges included obstructing governmental administration, refusing to disperse and reckless endangerment.

With Trump en route, it's protest, part lit dance party a block from Trump Tower in NYC pic.twitter.com/VMjfNKoxxn  Scott Heins (@scottheins) August 14, 2017

"The ones... the national guard and the police in their riot gear are protecting are Donald Trump, Mike Pence and their fascist cabal in the White House," said Desba Rojas, 23, of Brooklyn, a member of Refuse Fascism.

Funneled north of 57th Street and south of 56th, demonstrators chanted and sang, waiting for Trump's arrival. Hundreds laid out their disgust in a mic-check call and response.

"We are here because Donald Trump is a fascist who has released White Supremacists to march through the streets and murder our people," the group said. "We stand for millions. It is 2017. The goddamn Klan and Nazis are murdering in the streets and Donald Trump did not say shit about it for days."

After 32-year-old Charlottesville resident Heather Heyer was killed by rogue driver James Alex Fields Jr. on Saturday, Trump criticized violence "on many sides" without explicitly denouncing the hate groups that participated in the weekend action. He waited until Monday afternoon to say that "racism is evil."

"I've taken a few breaks [from protesting] this summer just to preserve myself and for my mental health. But now I'm back," said Chyenne Akia, an 18-year-old college student from Albany standing on Fifth Avenue. "I'm ready to keep the momentum going. People need to understand that our president had the opportunity to fully denounce hatred for what it is, and to denounce the very thing that he's protecting."

The contingent of counter-protesters was thin Monday. Roughly ten people clustered on 5th Avenue and 58th Street, near a larger contingent of anti-Trump demonstraters. Their chants of "USA! USA!" were matched with shouts of "We love Gays! We love Gays!"

Trump's motorcade arrived shortly after 9:00 p.m., passing through protesters shouting, "No Trump! No KKK! No racist USA!" and "New York hates you! The whole world hates you!"

Earlier in the evening, demonstrator Natasha Beshenkovsky, 73, walked through the crowd holding a sign with three hooded KKK figures, one painted orange and blue in Trump's likeness.

"I was a political refugee from the Soviet Union 40 years ago. I came here because I am against the exact type of government they're trying to impose here," she said.

"The secrecy, screaming about leaks, they admire strong arms. Our so-called president doesn't know how government works. He wouldn't pass a naturalization exam. I'm trying to enjoy the democracy while it lastsnobody can say how long that will be."

Trump is expected to be in New York City through Wednesday, according to the NYPD. Another action, for immigrant rights, is planned for outside Trump tower Tuesday evening.

Additional reporting by Jake Offenhartz.
Images: Getty Images

"Yesterday, on the banks of Sindhu yearning for Ganga,today, on the banks of Ganga, praying for a glimpse of Sindhu"After the 1947 partition, many Sindhis sailed from Pakistan to India leaving behind their ancestral homeland, wealth and friends and family. Not many of them speak about what they had left in the land that was once theirs but instead choose to highlight the tales of survival and re-establishment in a land unknown. Its quite possible that the historical knowledge of the current generation of young Sindhis may not be on fleek and that even though we tout ourselves to be opinionated on partition matters; well never understand the extent of anguish, helplessness and pain that people went through as they battled and survived the 1947 period.But what we do know and understand, perhaps, is that were at a loss - a loss of a consolidated identity, a loss of a conscience binding the Sindhis together, a loss of oneness as our mother tongue fades away and a loss of our history, as nearly all from migrant population burn to ashes.If ones well-acquainted with partition memoirs, theyd know that unlike experiences of Punjab, Bihar and Bengal (to a certain extent), the case of Sindh consists of relatively fewer episodes of violence and bloodshed and more of internal distress and the pain of losses. Hindu Sindhis, in entirety, left their homeland behind and moved to an unknown Indian land with a sheer inability to relocate on the new soil due to a lack of a consolidated linguistic state. Zar, zameen, zoru - roughly translating to wealth, land and wife - sum up the major torments of the Sindhi refugee or rather, a Sindhi displaced.While the angst of spending days and nights homeless and penniless didnt reach from their generation to ours, seventy years hence, we, the Sindhis, continue to battle an identity crisis  more on the inward than on the outward.The community, of which little is known, is now coloured by the gross misrepresentation in cinema as a money-minded and selfish clan. A community, too scattered and small, Sindhis, till date, dont have a state to call their own or a political representation to fight for their rights. In fact, even as late as 1967, the language was not regarded as an Indian language.Many kids during my school days questioned as to why Id call my grandmother amma and not dadi and many of them in my college, after knowing that Im a Sindhi, commented on how Id have a certain Pakistani-touch to my look. Some of them cited how theyd prefer killing a Sindhi over a snake and some even quipped how our community belonged in Pakistan and not here.However, I failed to make them understand that even though the current generation hasnt experienced the partition and displacement first hand and that they're yet to visit Pakistan, a part of them will always live there  a part that yearns to visit its roots, a part that longs for walking on lands that our grandparents called home and to see if any of it still remains. A part whose identity still juggles between two nations and a part that still wishes to thrive on the shared language and culture across the border and somehow, stands up in solidarity with one another.
Chandigarh: Close on the heels of the stalking incident in Chandigarh that rattled the nation, a Class 8 student was raped in a park on Tuesday in Chandigarh's Sector 23. Police have registered a case under different sections of the IPC and have begun investigations.



The incident happened soon after Independence Day celebrations got over at the girls school in Sector 23 and she was on her way home. She was walking past the Childrens Traffic Park in Sector 23, when she was accosted just about 1.5 kms away from home.



Initial reports indicate the girl was waylaid by a man in his 40s, who covered her face and raped her in the bushes. The man fled the spot and her screams got passers-by to rush to her aid. They later took her to the hospital and also informed the police.



Police have registered a case under Sections 376, 341, 363 and 506 of IPC.



A medical examination was conducted at the Sector 16 general hospital and a police force has now been deployed at the Traffic Park for further investigation. Police are also conducting search operations going by the girls description of the culprit.



On August 4, the 29-year-old daughter of a bureaucrat in the Haryana government wrote a Facebook post accusing Haryana BJP chief Subhash Barala's son Vikas Barala of stalking and chasing her in a car. The post created national outrage when the police had let off Barala and his friend. However, the two accused were later arrested and given police custody after national outrage over the incident.
Guwahati: The flood situation in Assam deteriorated today as the second wave of deluge affected 25 of its 32 districts claiming 10 more lives, besides displacing 33 lakh people.



The Army was assisting the civil administration in rescue and relief operations as the Brahmaputra river and its tributaries were flowing above their danger levels snapping surface communications in many parts of the state.



Three persons died in Morigaon district, one each in Dhemaji, Darrang, Kokrajhar, Dhubri, Goalpara, Nagaon and Dibrugarh districts taking the toll to 28.



According to the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) here, the toll in flood-related incidents this year now stands at 112.



Thirty-three lakh people were affected in 25 districts, including Dhemaji, Lakhimpur, Biswanath, Sonitpur, Darrang, Baksa, Nalbari, Barpeta and Bongaigaon. Dhemaji district in upper Assam is the worst-hit where nearly one lakh people were affected. Flood water is flowing over the roofs of houses in many areas, the ASDMA said.



As flood waters were flowing over National Highway 37, communication between upper and lower Assam have snapped. Vehicles were stranded on the highway and being diverted via Nagaland, official sources said.



According to a defence spokesperson, troops of Gajraj Corps were involved in relief and rescue operations in Nagaon and other districts of lower Assam.



The Army's flood relief columns are involved in relief and rescue operations in Purabheti and Jaklabandha. They have established liaison with the state administration and are coordinating relief operations with them, he said.



Army vehicles are assisting the civil administration in ferrying rations and other provisions to the relief camps, the spokesperson said, adding the commanders of the relief force are interacting regularly with the deputy commissioners of the affected districts.



District administration sources said the Army was assisting them in air dropping food packets and other relief items in the flood-hit areas.



Around 1.83 lakh hectares of standing crops has been inundated with Morigaon being the worst-affected, followed by Kokrajhar, the ASDMA report said, adding the deluge has affected at least 1.8 lakh domestic animals.



The district administrations have set up 315 relief camps where 1.68 lakh people are taking shelter. The SDRF and NDRF have deployed 232 boats so far and rescued more than 14,000 people, the ASDMA said.



Waters of the Brahmaputra river were flowing above the danger mark at Guwahati, Nimatighat in Jorhat, Tezpur in Sonitpur, Goalpara and Dhubri towns.



The Burhidehing river is flowing above the danger mark at Khowang in Dibrugarh district, the Dhansiri river at Numaligarh in Golaghat, the Jia Bharali river at N T Road Crossing in Sonitpur, and the Puthimari river at N H Road Crossing in Kamrup.



The overflowing waters of the rivers have damaged embankments, roads, bridges and other infrastructures in a number of districts including, Dhemaji, Sonitpur, Darrang, Nalbari, Barpeta, Bongaigaon, Morigaon, Nagaon, Golaghat, Biswanath and Chirang districts.



With a majority areas under Kaziranga National Park, Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary and Lawkhua Wildlife Sanctuary inundated, a large number of animals, including rhinos, were taking shelter in the highlands or have moved to safer areas across the hills, the forest department said.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his Independence Day address, touched on the Kashmir issue and said this age-old dispute can only be resolved with compassion. He said, Na gali se na goli se, Kashmir ki samasya suljhegi gale lagane se.



Here are some key takeaways:



 People of India stand shoulder to shoulder with those affected due to natural disasters and the tragedy in Gorakhpur.



 We have to leave this 'Chalta Hai' attitude. We have to think of 'Badal Sakta Hai'  this attitude will help us as a nation.



 We have pulled up Rs 800 crore benami properties. This nation is for the honest. No place for corruption.



 The nation stood with the women who spoke out against triple talaq. We stand by women who protested against it.



 Every one of the 1.2 billion population will work towards a new India in 2022, to celebrate the 75th year of Independence. No one is small or big in our country.



 All our security forces, our bravehearts have never faltered in protecting the country, be it protecting the nation against terrorists or during the surgical strike or helping those affected in natural calamities.



 India is self-sufficient to protect itself from all outside forces.



 Cooperative federalism has taken a new leap with GST implementation. People are amazed at how India could implement GST across the nation so successfully and across sectors.



 The poor and tribal people have received gas connection, they have been empowered.



 The young unemployed population were given loans. The homeless have been given assistance to build homes.



 Other nations are with us in fighting external threats and terrorism. I thank all nations who are helping us in doing so.



 Along with the Kashmir government, it's also the nations concern to develop J&K and its youth. The Kashmir issue cannot be solved with either bullets or abuses, but with love. We are committed to restoring Kashmir's status as 'heaven on earth'.



 I was a chief minister for a long time. I know how important the states are for the nations development. Weve empowered the states with cooperative federalism. The Centre is successful in walking shoulder to shoulder with the states.



 We have fulfilled 21 of the schemes that I announced in last years address. We will soon fulfill the other 50 schemes left. We cannot leave out farmers in the road towards development. Weve taken forward the idea of FDI, in food processing. This will change the lives of our farmers for betterment.



 We have empowered the youth with funds so that instead of seeking employment, they are in a position to give employment.



 Our future depends on the future and security of our female population.



 This is the land of Buddha and Gandhi. There is no place for violence here. We will not tolerate violence in the name of faith. There can be no room for divisions. We have to move forwards together. No place for violence in the name of faith (astha). Casteism and communalism will not help the nation.



 We have successfully taken back all illegal money into the formal economy. Rs 3 lakh crore has come back into the economy after demonetisation. Over Rs 2 lakh crore is under scrutiny. Around 56 lakh new individual taxpayers filed Income Tax returns between April 1 and August 5. At least 3 lakh companies have been found to be shell companies doing hawala transactions. Of these, we have shut down 1.75 lakh companies.



 We have built airports, railway stations. The entire eastern India has huge potential to take the country to new heights. This includes West Bengal, Odisha and Northeast India. We must tap into this potential.



 Highway movement has eased. GST has fast tracked transportation across Indian highways. It takes 30% less time now to move on the highways.



 We will work towards a new india in 2022, when everyone will have a house, job. Every youth, woman will get an opportunity to fulfill their dreams. Corruption free. Well create a clean and new nation.



 The upcoming January 1 is not an ordinary date. Those born in the 21st Century will turn 18 next year. They are the ones who will chart the course of this century. India invites them to come and write a new future, design a New India.


People of India stand shoulder to shoulder with those affected due to natural disasters & the tragedy in Gorakhpur: PM @narendramodi  PMO India (@PMOIndia) August 15, 2017





Nearly 70 children have died at the state-run BRD Medical College in Gorakhpur in the past few days many of them allegedly due to shortage of oxygen. The BJP government in Uttar Pradesh has refused that claim.



The prime minister said sympathies of the 125 crore countrymen were with the affected families and that the government would extend all possible help to them.



"I assure the people that with all sensitivity in mind, the government will ensure the well-being and safety of people and will leave no stone unturned to help them," he said.



(With PTI inputs)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day speech condoled the death of nearly 70 children at the Gorakhpur Hospital saying the entire nation stood with the affected families.Delivering his Independence Day speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort, Modi said, "Many parts of the country faced natural calamities in the recent past. Children died at a hospital, the entire nation is with them."
No other spot in post-Independent India may have witnessed deaths of as many children with a mind-numbing regularity as has been seen in just one medical institute  Gorakhpurs BRD Medical College.The deaths of 73 children between August 10 and 14 from Encephalitis, including 42 newborns, outraged the masses across the country. But what if you were told that almost 1600 children have already died of Encephalitis at this college, this year alone? That nearly 10,000 people have died in this hospital of the same disease since 1978, a majority among them children?Or that over 10,000 children affected by Encephalitis, brought to this institute during these 39 years, have come out of it mentally and physically handicapped?These are official figures from just one institute in Gorakhpur. And even these numbers would pale in front of the actual figure of victims in this district alone, if one could somehow obtain the number of those admitted in private clinics, those who died on way to medical facilities and those who died even before the journey.This monumental tragedy becomes even tougher to grasp as one digs a little deeper to find the reasons behind these deaths.It isnt just the lack of oxygen thats killing the children. There are medical staffers in this college who havent been paid for the last 27 months. Urgently required funds to set up Encephalitis care units, considering that people from several states and even Nepal come here from treatment, havent been released for the last several years. Land meant to be allotted for special care units hasnt been released because of which plans to set up specialized units have been hatched and buried. Requests for funds to help save patients, being made for last 10 years by successive principals of the colleges, have been ignored.It is the lack of intent to save lives, heaps of false promises piled year on year, thats killing and maiming thousands of children each year.While the state government shies away from the criticism, hides behind random numbers, the one thing it cannot do is cover bare bones of the medical college with a skeletal staff thats continuously gasping for breath.BRD college is in Gorakhpur, the Parliamentary constituency of UPs Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. It has seen one-third of all the Encephalitis cases that have been reported in the country.Since 1978 it has seen around 41,000 Encephalitis cases of which around 9,900 patients have died. About 30 per cent of all Encephalitis patients admitted in the college do not survive. This year alone around 1600 children have died in the institute.Every year during three months  August, September, October  between 400 to 700 patients come here each month. But the supply of medicines, the number of doctors, and paramedical staff, the ventilators and oxygen, remain the same. In this institute, which sees one-third of all Encephalitis cases of the country, no separate financial arrangement has been done for the constant battle against Encephalitis thats fought here every day.The college has for last 10 years requested the government to provide it with Rs 40 crore to create a special unit to deal with Encephalitis cases. But the money hasnt been provided yet.Except, a 100-bed ward for Encephalitis patients is seasonally made available. But the supply of beds and other medical supplies is dwarfed by the ever increasing demand.Apart from Encephalitis, children get admitted here for several other diseases also. If one takes figures just for this year, between 600 and 900 children were admitted each month. On the other hand, there are only 228 beds available in the colleges paediatrics department.Most of the patients of Encephalitis, who sometimes have to make long journeys to reach here, are severely out of breath and unconscious by the time they reach the hospital. What they need at this time is ventilator to assist them in breathing.But paediatrics department has only 50 beds in its ICU department. The Sick Newborn Care Unit (SNCU) has only 12 warmers  a medical necessity for sick newborns  while the need is of at least 50. Because of this, one regularly sees four children being placed on each warmer. This not only reduces the efficacy of treatment, it also exposes the children to each others infections.For the last 10 years the hospital administration has been requesting Rs 10 crore to upgrade this department. But the money hasnt come yet.Several promises have been made. Theyre made on an annual basis actually, each time a central or state minister makes a visit here. These ministers usually depart the premises with one promise  that no ends will be cut short in providing whatever it takes to help the institute deal with the ever increasing number of Encephalitis cases.Every time all senior staff members are told to send proposals for Encephalitis treatment. And proposals are sent every time.Dozens of letters have been written to the state and central ministers and bureaucrats requesting funds since 2010. The recent former principals of the college  professor KP Khushwaha, RK Singh, RP Sharma  had written these letters.Each time the college principals request that Encephalitis patients need more medical staff, nurses, ward boys, medicines and equipment. Rs 40 crore is the budget. It is promised but the college never hears from the government nominees afterwards.Only last year, on February 14, 2016, the principal of medical college had formally asked Rs 37.99 crore for these facilities. The principal had sent this letter to the chairperson of National Health Mission, and asked the cost to be added to the years NHM budget. Not one file moved.The successive principals of the college have also pleaded that most of the doctors and workers here have been hired on a temporary basis and their salaries are lower than those hired on permanent basis at other medical institutes. This prevents good talent from coming in or eliciting enthusiasm from the current staff. This also results in the college being perennially short-staffed.The medical system run despite continued apathy of central and state ministers, has saved many lives. But from this college, almost 10,000 children have emerged physically and mentally handicapped after being infected with JE and AES.Not just the doctors from the hospital, the National Commission Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has several times written to the state government to get a survey done of the disabled children to devise a program for their treatment, education, rehabilitation. But even this hasnt happened yet.The only thing that happened though was that a department was opened to rehabilitate disabled children  PMR division (Physical, Medicine and Rehabilitation).But after being created, it was not provided with funds. It runs with just 11 medical officers, and even such a small staff has not been paid salaries for last 27 months. Recently 3 medical staffers working here left their jobs.Patients not just suffering from diseases alone, but suffering various disabilities also come here to get treated. Since 2011-12, 21,210 disabled people have come here to get treatment. But an ongoing tussle between the Centre and the state has meant that this department has been ignored.Social Justice Ministry had planned to start a Composite Regional Centre for Persons with Disabilities (CRCPD) in BRD College a few years ago. But the program had to be shelved since land for this program wasnt provided by the state.And the state is failing not just in providing care for those stricken with these deadly diseases. Despite knowing that JE and AES are deadly diseases that leave the survivors handicapped, the state or central government have still not tried to prevent the spread of these diseases.Despite the availability of cheap Rs 20-22 vaccines produced in China, it hasnt vaccinated children in the area with anti-JE and AES vaccines. It hasnt regulated pig-sties which are the source of this disease. The government hasnt provided deep, 80 feet hand-pumps, to provide uncontaminated water supply for locals. It has not yet connected large swathes of East UP districts with piped water. This has rendered even newly constructed toilets useless.One undeniable fact of JE and AES is that it primarily affects poor people. So we dont see the sort of outrage we see when someone in Delhi or Mumbai is affected by dengue or swine flu.One self-help group recently did a survey of the children affected by JE. It was found that 74% of the affected children by these diseases came from families whose monthly income was less than Rs 2000 and 83% were from rural areas. They are children of manual labourers and small farmers and maybe because of this, the outrage is far more subdued.In his Independence Day speech from Red Fort, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called East India as the focus region of his government. States like Bihar, Bengal, Assam, North East and Odisha can take India to a new direction, said Modi. Maybe the Prime Minister can begin this by stopping thousands of preventable deaths at BRD Hospital.(The author is an independent journalist)
With the country awaiting the triple talaq verdict from the Supreme Court, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his address to the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort on Independence Day said he admired the courage of the women who led the revolution against triple talaq. The PM said he believes that the country will fully support them in their struggle.I want to mention those women who have suffered due to triple talaq. I admire their courage. We are with them in their struggle. Women in the country created a revolution against triple talaq. The contribution of our mothers and sisters is very important Now there is an atmosphere against triple talaq in the country I believe India will fully support these women in their struggle, said Modi.This was not the first time when the prime minister addressed the issue of unilateral divorce. In June this year he had voiced his concern over the issue while addressing a BJP conclave in Bhubaneswar. Sangharsh nahi samajha kar parivartan lana hai hume (We have to usher in social change through dialogue and not conflict or violence), Modi has said.Hours before his Independence Day speech, the PM received a Model Nikahnama from All India Women Personal Law Board, which gives women the option to do away with triple talaq. The board has also requested Modi to link Nikahnamas with Aadhaar numbers of the bride and groom to curb polygamy and other misogynistic practices.Modi government had also shown unequivocal support to the cause when it submitted an affidavit in the Supreme Court supporting the plea of the petitioners to strike down triple talaq as its unconstitutional.PM Modi said violence in the name of faith was unacceptable. Violence in the name of astha (faith) will not be accepted in India. There is no place for intolerance in todays India this is land of Gandhi and Buddha said Modi.
New Delhi: Even as the nation was celebrating 70 years of Independence on Tuesday, Chinese troops tried to cross the Line of Actual Control near Pangong Lake in Ladakh on Tuesday morning, said sources.



They were engaged by Indian Army troops. A minor scuffle happened as the Chinese soldiers were stopped by Indian troops from crossing over into the Indian territory, sources told CNN-News18.



Soldiers of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) tried to enter the Indian side in two areas  Finger Four and Finger Five  twice between 6 am and 9 am. But on both the occasions their attempts were thwarted by alert Indian troops.



After Chinese troopers found their path blocked by Indian soldiers who formed a human chain, they began hurling stones, prompting a swift retaliation by Indian border guards.



Personnel from both sides received minor injuries and the situation was brought under control after the customary banner drill under which both sides hold banners before stepping back to their respective positions.



India has asked for a Flag meeting on Wednesday and will raise the issue there.



As a sign of brewing tension, this Independence Day, there was no Sino-India Border Personnel Meet (BPM) at LAC. sources said that India was ready to host a PLA delegation for the customary BPM on Tuesday. But, Chinese did not come.



Apart from this, there was no BPM on PLA Day in August when the Chinese Army celebrated its 90th birthday. Sources say that PLA did not even send an invite.



Just last week, India moved in more troops all along the border with China and put the Air Force on operational alert in the North East as the standoff over Doklam worsened, sources said.



The standoff between China and India in the Doklam area in the Sikkim sector shows no signs of easing. At the centre of the dispute is the PLA's attempt to build motorable road in the contentious tri-junction between Bhutan, China India.
PM Modi's words for Kashmir have been very well received by people here but everyone here is weary of yet more talk & no concrete action.  Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) August 15, 2017

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. We look forward to being embraced in the warm grip of understanding, acceptance & respect.  Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) August 15, 2017

: Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti welcomed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's outreach, focussed on developing Kashmir's youth, to solve the decades-old problem in the state.Chief Minister Mufti said she has all along believed that only dialogue and peaceful means can help in resolving issues as the futility of violence has been established all around.In his Independence Day address, PM Modi said it was nations concern to develop Jammu and Kashmir and its youth. The Prime Minister asserted that peace can be brought to the strife-hit Kashmir by "embracing" Kashmiris and not by "bullets or abuses". We are committed to restoring Kashmir's status as "heaven on earth", he said.Omar Abdullah, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and Opposition leader, said PM Modi should follow his words with action now."PM Modi's words for Kashmir have been very well received by the people here but everyone here is weary of yet more talk and (and) no concrete action," he wrote on Twitter.Omar emphasised that PM Modi's "respect" for Kashmir should acknowledge the state's "unique status within the Constitution of India", setting it apart from all other states.Abdullah also took a dig at news channels, asking that without the goli (bullets) and the gaali (abuses) what would happen to the TV news studios that specialise in deploying these weapons against all Kashmiris?Moderate Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq also joined the Kashmir-based parties in welcoming PM Modi's statement, saying if humanity and justice replace bullets and abuses, resolution of Kashmir issue can become a reality."Welcome @narendramodi also believes Goli (bullets) and gaali (abuses) will not help resolve Kashmir if insaniyat (humanity) and (and) insaaf (justice) replace them Resolution can become a Reality," he wrote on Twitter.
Thiruvananthapuram: RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat on Tuesday ignored a restraining order and hoisted the national flag during Independence Day celebrations at a government-aided school in Kerala, prompting immediate action by the district collector.



Bhagwat raised the Tricolour at the Karnaki Amman school in Palakkad district despite orders from the collector that only elected representatives or functionaries of the school are allowed to do so in aided schools.



The collector had issued the order on Monday night but did not attempt to stop the RSS chief from defying it. Hours after the function, she wrote to the police to take action against the school and was exploring with the state legal department whether any action could be taken against the RSS chief.



The pro-Sangh school management said no rule was violated as an earlier state government circular had said the flag should be hoisted by a public figure in the presence of the principal and school authorities.



A statement issued by RSS Prachar Pramukh Manmohan Vaidya said that "no other school had been given similar information...Sarsanghchalakji was only exercising his constitutional rights".



"We condemn such brazen attempts by the CPI-M led government of Kerala to deny the basic citizen rights of celebrating Independence Day and their continuous attempts to poison the state of Kerala with divisive politics," said Manmohan Vaidya.



Kerala had recently witnessed violence between cadres of the CPM and RSS-BJP and this incident is playing out much beyond the technicalities of violating a government order.



CPI(M) MP MB Rajesh said, "There is no problem in Mohan Bhagwat hoisting the flag in an RSS-run school. But not in a school aided by the government."



The RSS and the BJP have stepped up their campaign against the Left Front government in Kerala since the killing of RSS worker Rajesh on July 29. The ruling CPI(M) has denied any links with the arrested accused of the July 29 murder. It also accused the RSS-BJP of fomenting violence and then playing victim.




Prime Minister Narendra Modi kept the promise he had made during the last Mann ki Baat address and delivered his shortest Independence Day speech as PM.Having made a record of delivering the longest Independence Day speech last year, Modi limited this years Red Fort speech at 57 minutes.Last year, he had spoken for 96 minutes, the longest ever Independence Day address by an Indian Prime Minister.India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru spoke for 72 minutes in 1947, which was till 2015 the longest ever speech from the Red Fort.In his radio address Mann Ki Baat last month, Modi said he had received letters from people complaining that his Independence Day speeches were "a little too long" and promised to make a shorter speech.He spoke for over 65 minutes in 2014 and 86 minutes in 2015.Modi's predecessor Manmohan Singh, who delivered 10 speeches over his long tenure at the helm, stuck to the 50-minute mark in his Independence Day speeches.While he delivered speeches that lasted 50 minutes only on two occasions  2005 and 2006  during remaining eight years, his speech ranged from 32 to 45 minutes.Modi's party colleague and the first BJP prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee spoke for 30-35 minutes in his Independence Day addresses.On August 2002, he delivered a speech that lasted 25 minutes, while in 2003 he gave a 30-minute address from the historic 17th century Mughal monument.(With PTI inputs)
Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh government has asked all schools of the state to put on hold morning assemblies from Wednesday to prevent the spread of swine flu.



"An advisory has been sent to all the district magistrates and commissioners in the state asking them to put on hold morning assembly prayers in all private and government schools in view of the swine flu scare," principal secretary health and family welfare Prashant Trivedi told on Tuesday.



The decision in this regard has been taken to check the spread of the disease and ensure that school children do not catch the infection, he said.



Till August 13 this year, 695 cases of swine flu had been reported in Uttar Pradesh. Of these, 21 have died, an official statement by the state director general, medical and health services has said.



To check the spread, the government has already formed district-level rapid response teams, which will consist of a public health specialist, a physician, an epidemiologist, a pathologist and lab technician.



"In all the district hospitals of the state, a 10-bed isolation ward has been established. The state surveillance unit and district surveillance unit are continuously monitoring the swine flu situation. Instructions have also been issued to combat any emergency-like situation pertaining to Influenza A (H1N1)," Trivedi said.



The officer said all the doctors and para-medical staff posted at the casualty wards and emergency wards who treat patients infected by H1N1 have been vaccinated.



"A toll free number 18001805145 has been activated. Apart from this, control rooms working round the clock are also being activated in various districts," he added.



According to the director of communicable diseases, Dr Badri Vishal, patients have been categorised as 'A', 'B' and 'C' according to their symptoms as per the directives of the Centre.



Only patients in the C-category have to be admitted to hospitals. Those who complain of breathing difficulty, chest pain, drowsiness, low blood pressure, blood coming out with sputum and nails turning blue have been kept in the C-category.



Children who suffer from high fever, breathlessness and are not able to eat food have been put in the C-category, he said.



"However, those who complain of mild fever, cough, itching in throat, body pain, headache and diarrhoea need not undertake swine flu test. They come in the B-category.



"They should refrain from public interaction. These patients should be under observation for 24 to 48 hours, and then their health condition be re-evaluated," he said.



If those in A-category complain of high fever and severe throat itching, they should be isolated in their houses, the director said.



Some of the ways to prevent the spread of swine flu are by staying home if a person is sick, washing one's hands thoroughly and frequently, covering mouth and nose while sneezing or coughing, staying away from crowds, and reducing exposure within the household.
Image Courtesy: JW Marriott Aerocity

Image Courtesy: JW Marriott Aerocity

Image Courtesy: JW Marriott Aerocity

MP and writer Shashi Tharoors oft expressed views on the reparations owed to India by the former British Empire stoke the patriotism of every Indian who hears and or watches them, and rightly so. And while we do agree with everything the esteemed gentleman so eloquently states, we have a small addendum to make, to wit, Anglo-Indian cuisine. While this particular facet of the crown jewel that was India was also developed as an Indian means to a British end, we suggest that it at least added value to the country instead of detracted from it. But why take our word for it?Bridget White Kumar is the preeminent authority of the syncretic cuisine that was crafted over the entirety of the British Raj, and perhaps beyond. Having dusted off and uncovered a myriad old recipes and written a number of cookbooks, White Kumar has also curated a number of culinary lessons and experiences for leading hotels of the country. Currently stationed at the JW Marriot Aerocity in New Delhi for a hatke (pardon our Hindi) Independence Day festival, we caught up with the food historian and writer to delve back through the ages and pages of culinary yore.Delving is a subject White Kumar grew up with as the the fourth generation of a British, and subsequently Anglo-Indian, family that worked and lived at the Kolar Gold Fields, located outside present-day Bengaluru. The gold mining works and community can said to be established when John Warren, a British surveyor, set up a camp in the region in 1802. Interestingly, one of the earliest recipe tomes found by White Kumar is dated around the same time, attributed to an unknown author but subsequently published by Higginbothams, another relic of the Raj. As she attempted to recreate the ages-old recipes in a modern day kitchen and calculate what a two paisa of coriander and five paisa of red chilies would amount to today, she discovered a spark to fuel a new fire, as it were. It probably helped that she had been a banker.Indeed, this culinary career was White Kumars third, following stints as a teacher and the aforementioned banker. She also found the time to dismay the good people of KGF when she married a Hindu South Indian; they came around after a month, and we imagine the prospect of Chettinad food may have helped in this. In any case, following her early retirement from the banking center and subsequent discovery of dusty old recipe books, including an Indian cookery book printed on the storied Gutenburg press, sparked as we said an interest that would lead to the publication of White Kumars first book, printed by her local church.While the first book was meant for as a resource for White Kumars daughter as the latter left for college in the UK, further digging up of recipes as well as anecdotes had her, er, digging in more and more. For instance, the Dak Bungalow Chicken Curry, a mainstay of any Colonial-era menu, developed at the dak, or postal, bungalows that dotted the various highways that bisected the country. Each bungalow was maintained by a man-of-all-work and his family, who used to throw together whatever was locally and seasonally available, along with one of the chickens they reared, whenever a mail carriage came rattling in. As several generations of the servitors, and the many, many more generations of their fowl passed, the birds began to identify the rumbling of the carriage wheels with imminent death and descend into a panicked cacophony, or cock-aphony if you prefer. Hence, the other name for this storied dish is the Sudden Death curry.Then of course is the Railway Mutton Curry, referring to the curried mutton served on the Blue Trains that began at Victoria Terminus in Mumbai and chugged all the way to Calcutta, via Nagpur. Given that steam was the pinnacle of modern technology at the time and refrigeration was non-existent, no food was prepared or cooked on the train (the wagons of the time having been constructed almost entirely of wood may also have something to do with this logistical anomaly). Instead, as the railways presumably didnt want their passengers to starve over the course of the journey, food was picked up at various stations along the route. And since there were no fridges or freezers (or electricity), the curries had tamarind-water or vinegar added to them, to prevent spoilage. Rather amazingly, this enabled them to stay preserved over two or three days, with the acidic addition also imparting the curries with their characteristic sour taste.These two curries are among a whole menu the kitchens at JW Marriot are turning out under the aegis of Executive Chef Vivek Bhatt and White Kumar. The curries are quite watery (a la the British palate) and meant to be mopped up with assorted Western breads, rather than our local rotis, an interesting variation of this particular style of cuisine. Theres no dearth of flavor here, however, and our visit had us finish our meal on crockery as spotless as before we festooned them with curries, chops and other provender. History has never gone down so easy.
Bengaluru: As the BJP sets its sights on the southern states, party chief Amit Shah has pulled up the Karnataka unit for not going all guns blazing against the Congress on the recent income tax raids on minister DK Shivakumar.



In one of the 20 meetings that he attended in Karnataka, Shah reprimanded state BJP chief BS Yeddyurappa for not taking up the I-T raids as a campaign issue. "What greater issue will you get other than the raids that point to corruption," he is said to have asked the state leadership.



Yeddyurappa was rapped on why the Karnataka BJP unit hasn't gone ballistic over the raids that could have done serious damage to the state government.



The central leadership is unhappy after having already lost ground on other issues such as the Lingayat religion demand and Hindi imposition.



Party sources said state leaders, including Yeddyurappa, barely spoke on the raids issue because of their ties with Shivakumar. In fact, three years ago, Yeddyurappa and Shivakumar were co-accused in the same illegal land allotment case.



Shah is said to have told Yeddyurappa to keep friendships and business partnerships aside and focus on politics like a professional.



The rebuke seems to have worked and Yeddyurappa scurried to hold a press briefing, announcing a week-long agitation against corruption in the Congress government. The briefing also paved way for Shah to train guns on the Congress government on the issue of corruption.



"The Siddaramaiah government is the most corrupt in the country. It has no shame. Even after these raids, the CM hasn't dropped Shivakumar from the cabinet. Instead, they wear the corruption charges like medals. Why has Congress not sacked or suspended these people," Shah said.



The party president also rapped office-bearers asking if they have engaged any of the 80 lakh new members who have enlisted with the party.



This was apparently one of the first questions that Shah fired on his whirlwind three-day tour in Bengaluru to take stock of election preparedness. "It was like a classroom where the schoolteacher asks questions randomly, with some trick questions in between," said a BJP leader, who was part of these meetings in Bengaluru.



Shah attended about 20 meetings with functionaries at different levels, held many rounds with the core committee over these three days.



Almost every meeting ended with some grim faces, while some others were held accountable for not fulfilling their targets. He held meetings with district office-bearers, SC/ ST, OBC cells, MLAs and MPs, with leaders who have recently joined BJP deflecting from other parties, with leaders of constituencies where the BJP had failed to win a seat in the last election, with some spiritual gurus and RSS and its affiliate organizations.



Over time, the issue of political killings will also get noisier as the BJP continues to blame the Congress government for politics of 'appeasement' and use it in the coastal Karnataka region as an election tool.



"They have willingly withdrawn many cases against SDPI workers who attacked the RSS cadre. For appeasement (of minorities), an environment of insecurity is being created," Shah said.
Agartala/New Delhi: Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar on Sunday alleged that Doordarshan and All India Radio (AIR) refused to broadcast his Independence Day address unless he "reshaped" it and termed it as an "undemocratic, autocratic and intolerant step".



There was no immediate reaction from the Prasar Bharati, which runs Doordarshan and All India Radio.



A Tripura government press statement alleged that Doordarshan and AIR had recorded Sarkar's speech on August 12. Yesterday at 7 pm, the Chief Minister's office was informed through a letter that his speech would not be broadcast unless he "reshaped it".



The letter purportedly said, "The message of the Chief Minister was closely examined by competent authority. In view of the sanctity of the occasion, the broadcast code and responsibility of the public broadcaster it is not possible to telecast it in the present format."



"However, Doordarshan/Prasar Bharati will be happy if the chief minister agrees to reshape the content making it suitable to the solemnity of the occasion and sentiment of the people," it purportedly said.



The CMO statement claimed, "The chief minister clearly stated that he would not change a single word and described it as unprecedented, undemocratic, autocratic and intolerant step."



The Doordarshan Kendra in Agartala denied the allegations and said that the speech was broadcast at 7 PM. "The allegation that Doordarshan Kendra, Agartala blacked out the Chief Minister on Independence Day is totally incorrect and is vehemently refuted," it said in a statement.



CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said Doordarshan was "not the private property" of the BJP-RSS and accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of "instructing his cronies to black out voices" of the opposition, including that of an elected chief minister.



In a statement, the CPI-M Politburo said it "strongly condemns the refusal by the Doordarshan and All India Radio to broadcast the customary Independence Day address of Sarkar".



"The Doordarshan and All India Radio had recorded his speech for the occasion. However, they subsequently informed him that the speech cannot be carried as it is and asked him to 'reshape' it," it said.



The party demanded action against those responsible for "prohibiting" the broadcast.



"This is a gross infringement on the right of a chief minister to address the people of his state on Independence Day. This act is reminiscent of the Emergency days and goes beyond as it seeks to gag the elected Chief Minister of a state. The central government is trampling upon the autonomy of Doordarshan/AIR and Prasar Bharati by such acts of censorship," the statement said.



"Doordarshan Refuses to Broadcast Tripura CM Manik Sarkar's Speech. Is this the Cooperative Federalism that PM Modi Talks About? Shame!" the CPI (M)'s official Twitter handle said.



Tagging the tweet, Yechury hit out at the central government saying the channel's alleged refusal to air Sarkar's speech was "illegal".



"PM can pay homilies to cooperative federalism while instructing his cronies to black out voices of the Opposition, including an elected CM.



"If this isn't authoritarianism & undeclared Emergency, what is? This will be fought back by the CPM, people of Tripura and all our citizens," the Marxist leader tweeted.



(With PTI inputs)




If one state's CM should resign for a mishap & corruption under his govt. How come no party calls for resignation in TN. Enough crimes done

 Kamal Haasan (@ikamalhaasan) August 15, 2017



My aim is a better Tamilnadu.Who dares to strengthen my voice? DMK AIADMK & parties R tools to help. If those tools R blunt find others.



 Kamal Haasan (@ikamalhaasan) August 15, 2017



Actor Kamal Haasan on Tuesday asked for the resignation of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami's on social media over alleged corruption.Taking to Twitter, Hassan invited people "who are brave enough" to take a vow for a new freedom struggle, PTI reported.Without naming anyone, he took potshots at the Tamil Nadu CM while apparently referring to the demands by the Congress for the resignation of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath over the death of more than 60 children in a government-run hospital in the northern state.The national award winning actor-director has been critical of the AIADMK of late, alleging corruption in its government, drawing the ire of ministers. PTI reported that Palaniswami and his cabinet colleagues had hit out at the actor for his remarks and dared him to substantiate his charges following which he had asked his fans to lodge complaints about corruption through social media.While Palaniswami had asked Haasan to join politics to elicit response from the government, several of his ministerial colleagues had hit out at the actor asking among other things what his contribution was to the society.Haasan also said unless there was independence from corruption "we are all slaves". "Those who are brave enough to take a vow for a new freedom struggle, come we will win," he said on Twitter, as quoted by PTI.The "Vishwaroopam" star said his aim was for a better Tamil Nadu and described both DMK, AIADMK and parties as tools, saying other options should be found if such tools become 'blunt'.Haasan had recently shared the dais with DMK Working President M K Stalin at a party-organised function.(With PTI inputs)
KARNATAKA  and a few others  has barricaded itself with the language shield as a belligerent BJP bulldozes its way into states ruled by Opposition parties. But neighboring Kerala  a Left-ruled state that the RSS-BJP war machine is trying to conquer riding on recent incidents of political violence  is charting a different path by proactively reaching out to the Hindi-speaking public.And thats earning state chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan plaudits from the unlikeliest of quarters: principal Opposition in the state, the Congress.Last week, RSS Joint General Secretary Dattatreya Hosabale had done a rare press conference  protesting the killing of an RSS worker in Thiruvananthapuram allegedly by CPM cadre  that made the BJP send finance minister Arun Jaitley to visit the slain activist's home. A few days later the Government of Kerala came up with an ad blitzkrieg in Hindi newspapers.Kya Banata Hai Kerala Ko No.1? asked Kerala CM Vijayan in the ads as well as on social media. The CM has gone all out on a 360-degree campaign to portray Kerala with all its positives, subtly ignoring the attacks on the ruling LDF government over the spate of political killings in the state.Vijayan has also taken to posting on Twitter, from his official CM Office handle (https://twitter.com/CMOKerala) in Hindi.Highlighting the state being the best in law and order, its status as the least corrupt in various surveys, best in governance, and first in human development Vijayan has taken very aggressively to Twitter and Facebook. As part of the 360-degree campaign, the CMs office is also running full-page advertisements in leading Hindi and English dailies.Lok Sabha MP from Thiruvananthapuram and Congress leader Shashi Tharoor was one of the first politicians to laud Vijayans efforts through a Facebook post.This entire image that is being created about Kerala as Godforsaken country and it being a carnage-ridden battleground is absolutely absurd and damaging to the state, Tharoor toldHe was pointing to the RSS-BJP campaign against CPM that had peaked since the political murder in his constituency, which saw BJP MP from New Delhi Meenakshi Lekhi refer to Kerala as Godforsaken country in Parliament.Tharoor felt that the CM was smart in his move to reach out to people who did not speak Malayalam.The CM himself is not fluent in Hindi, but I think his step of reaching out to people who did not speak Malayalam sends out a strong positive message. Its his attempt in showcasing that the violence being reported is very localized and poses no harm to people who want to visit the state or would like to invest in it, Tharoor said.So is it all part of a new strategy by the Kerala Government?Nothing of that sort, says John Brittas, media advisor to CM Pinarayi Vijayan and MD of the pro-CPM Kairali TV Network. He calls it a plan of action, that was adopted in the face of the RSS-BJP campaign against the state.The propaganda was such that even reputed national networks were blindly parroting the RSS line, and Kerala was portrayed as a conflict-zone like Kashmir. So it was absolutely essential for us to counter this and retain the trust of people who deal with Kerala, said Brittas, adding that it will take two decades for other BJP-ruled states to match Keralas human development indices.All those Central leaders sent by the BJP high command have returned to Delhi convinced that everything is normal in Kerala. I am sure they will return soon as tourists, he quipped.The BJP Kerala unit would have none of it and dismissed the Hindi outreach programme of Pinarayi Vijayan as a desperate damage control measure by the Kerala Government.An offensive has been unleashed by BJP and RSS on the political killings in the state. For the first time, the nations attention has been focused on Kerala. It has somewhat changed the perception that people had about Kerala being a peaceful state, said V Muraleedharan, BJP national executive member and former state president.The chief minister, he added, has been forced to defend himself. Unless he is able to put his point of view, it'll be a loss of face for him at the national level. The campaign run by him and his government is a strategy in that regard, he told News18.Meanwhile, the language outreach from Thiruvananthapuram seems to be on a steady path. A few days ago, the CM took to Tamil after the death of a migrant worker from Tirunelveli following a bike accident. The ambulance carrying Murugan had taken him to six hospitals all of which refused to take him citing various reasons; his family alleged the hospitals refused him because they feared he couldnt pay for it.Through his Facebook post Pinarayi apologized to his family for the conduct of the Kerala hospitals and assured the government would bring in a new legislation to ensure such incidents doesnt recur.
Washington: US President Donald Trump today asked his country's top trade official to investigate into Chinese trade practices with focus on intellectual property (IP) and advanced technology, asserting that "unfair" trade practices by foreign countries harm American businesses.



"The theft of intellectual property by foreign countries costs our nation millions of jobs and billions and billions of dollars each and every year. For too long, this wealth has been drained from our country while Washington has done nothing," Trump said.



"Today, I'm directing the United States Trade Representative to examine China's policies, practices, and actions with regard to the forced transfers of American technology and the theft of American intellectual property," Trump said as he signed a memorandum in this regard.



"As President of the United States, it's my duty and responsibility to protect the American workers, technology, and industry from unfair and abusive actions," he said.



Trump said his administration will stand up to any country that unlawfully forces American companies to transfer their valuable technology as a condition of market access.



He said the US will combat the counterfeiting and piracy that destroys American jobs and enforce the rules of fair and reciprocal trade that form the foundation of responsible commerce.



"We will protect forgotten Americans who have been left behind by a global trade system that has failed to look -- and I mean look -- out for their interests. They have not been looking out at all," he said.



Trump said the US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, is empowered to consider all available options at his disposal.



"We will safeguard the copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, and other intellectual property that is so vital to our security and to our prosperity. We will uphold our values, we will defend our workers, and we will protect the innovations, creations, and inventions that power our magnificent country," he said.



Lighthizer said the US has for many years been facing a very serious problem. "China industrial policies and other practices reportedly have forced the transfer of vital US technology to Chinese companies," he alleged.



"We will engage in a thorough investigation and, if needed, take action to preserve the future of US industry.



Thousands of jobs are at stake for our workers and for future generations. This will be one of USTR's highest priorities, and we will report back to the President as soon as possible," Lighthizer said.



Top American lawmakers welcomed the move. "I am pleased that President Trump has targeted China's forced technology policies. These practices have unfairly forced American companies to surrender vital intellectual property to their Chinese competitors as the price for doing business," said House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady.



House Ways and Means Committee Trade Subcommittee Chairman Dave Reichert welcomed Trump in addressing China's forced technology transfer requirements.



"The US economy and so many jobs depend on the strength of our technology companies, including some of our nation's leading tech companies headquartered in my home state of Washington," he said.



Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi alleged that for years now, China's brazenly unfair trade practices have weakened America's economy and hurt American workers.



Even though President Trump has signed a memo of instruction to the USTR to consider investigating China's unfair intellectual property practices, Pelosi asked USTR to take a series of strong steps including requiring American companies to transfer technology and proprietary information to do business in China.



Pelosi asked USTR to take steps against China's theft of American trade-secrets; China's piracy of other American intellectual property, including software; and market barriers facing US businesses and products in China.



"In addition, the Administration must recognise that challenging China's open intellectual property theft is especially vital now, in light of China's 'Made in China 2025' policy. This policy will not only not only hurt American companies in China, but will make it harder for us to compete globally with Chinese firms," Pelosi said.



"When the rules of the road are followed, US businesses and workers can compete with anyone in the world. I look forward to working with the administration as it begins this 301 investigation, and will continue to work to hold foreign countries accountable when they violate our trade laws," said Senator Robert Portman.



The bipartisan IP Commission welcomed the decision. "The scale of Chinese forced transfer and theft of American intellectual property threatens these interests, both our prosperity and security, and thus US policy must address this set of issues," said Dr Richard Ellings, director of the IP Commission and president of National Bureau of Asian Research.



Senator Charles Schumer, Senate Minority Leader felt that this was a weak action. "President Trump's pattern continues: Tough talk on China, but weaker action than anyone could ever imagine," he said.
Washington: Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has warned that an attack by North Korea against the United States could quickly escalate into war, and said the military would try to shoot down any missile that threatened Guam.



North Korea last week said it was drawing up plans to test-fire four missiles that would fly toward Guam but splash into the sea before hitting the small US Pacific island territory, after President Donald Trump promised to meet ongoing threats from Pyongyang with "fire and fury."



"If they fire at the United States, it could escalate into war very quickly," Mattis told Pentagon reporters yesterday.



Mattis's comments came after he and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said America has "no interest" in regime change in Pyongyang or the accelerated reunification of the two Koreas, and stressed the importance of a diplomatic solution to the crisis.



The defense chief said the Pentagon is able to tell "within moments" where North Korea's missiles are headed, and said the United States would try to shoot down anything that threatened America.



"We will defend the country from any attack at any time from any quarter," he said.



If North Korea fires missiles deemed to be a threat to Guam, "then it's game on, and we will try and do our best to make sure it does not hit the United States," Mattis said.



When asked if he would order the shoot-down of missiles headed toward Guam -- but which would fall short of actually hitting the island -- Mattis said he did not want to signal whether the United States would still try to stop them.



"If it falls short of Guam, then it becomes an issue that we take up however the president chooses," Mattis said.



"I need a certain amount of ambiguity on this because I am not going to tell them what I'll do in each case.
Washington: Demonstrators toppled a statue of a Confederate soldier in North Carolina, two days after violence erupted during a protest by white nationalists against the planned removal of another Confederate monument.



Local television networks in Durham, North Carolina, broadcast images of the statue outside the old Durham County courthouse being pulled down as dozens of protesters cheered on Tuesday.



A demonstrator could be seen climbing a ladder and looping a yellow strap around the statue, the Confederate Soldiers Monument, which was erected in 1924 to honor the southern dead in the 1861-1865 Civil War.



After the statue came crashing to the ground, demonstrators could be seen spitting on it and kicking it.



"We are the revolution," they chanted. "No KKK, no fascist USA."



"The people, united, will never be defeated," they said.



The toppling of the statue in Durham came two days after clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, between anti-racism protesters and white nationalists opposed to a plan to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from a park.



One woman was killed and 19 other people were injured when a suspected white extremist drove his car into a group of counter-protestors.



Two policemen assigned to the rally were killed when their helicopter crashed.



President Donald Trump, after initially blaming the Charlottesville violence on "many sides," singled out white extremists yesterday saying they were "repugnant."


Geneva: A Swiss hotel that posted signs telling Jewish clients to shower before using the pool and restricting their access to the facility's freezer has unleashed outrage and official complaints from Israel.



The Paradies apartment hotel in the Alpine village of Arosa in eastern Switzerland is being accused of anti-Semitism after an outraged guest posted to Facebook a picture of a notice plastered outside the hotel pool.



"To our Jewish Guests, women, men and children, please take a shower before you go swimming," it said, adding that "If you break the rules I'm forced to (close) the swimming pool for you."



A second notice, in the kitchen, meanwhile instructed "Our Jewish guests" that they could only access the facility's freezer between 10 and 11 am and between 4:30 and 5:30 pm. "I hope you understand that our team does not like being disturbed all the time," it said.



The story quickly made the rounds on social media and was published by Israeli papers, prompting a harsh reaction from Israeli officials.



Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely described the incident as "an anti-Semitic act of the worst and ugliest kind."



Israel's ambassador to Switzerland, Jacob Keidar, reportedly contacted the hotel and informed Hotovely the signs had been removed.



But she was not satisfied and has reportedly demanded "a formal condemnation" from Bern.



Swiss foreign ministry spokesman Tilman Renz told AFP in an email that the ministry had been in contact with Keidar and had "outlined to him that Switzerland condemns racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination in any form."



Paradies manager Ruth Thomann, who signed the notices, meanwhile insisted to Swiss daily 20Minutes that she was not an anti-Semite, and acknowledged that her "choice of words was a mistake."
Johannesburg: Zimbabwe's first lady, Grace Mugabe, handed herself in to South African police on Tuesday and will be charged with assault after reports that she attacked a young woman in Johannesburg, the police minister said.



Fikile Mbalula earlier told reporters that 52-year-old Grace, a possible successor to her husband, 93-year-old president Robert Mugabe, had cooperated with police.



South African media said Grace was in the country to have an injured foot examined. It was unclear whether she was travelling on a diplomatic passport.



On whether she could be arrested while having diplomatic immunity, Mbalula said: "All those implications will be taken into consideration." He then added: "She will be charged."



"She is not under arrest because she cooperated and handed herself over to the police. But a case has been opened," he said.



It was not clear at which court Grace would appear.



Neither Grace Mugabe, Zimbabwe information minister Christopher Mushohwe nor Mugabe's spokesman George Charamba were available to comment.



A Zimbabwean intelligence source said Grace had been travelling on an ordinary non-diplomatic passport. "She was here on business," the source told Reuters.



MUGABE SONS



South Africa's News24 website said 20-year-old model Gabriella Engels had been visiting the Mugabes' sons Robert and Chatunga at a hotel in the upmarket Sandton district over the weekend when she was set upon by Grace.



"When Grace entered, I had no idea who she was. She walked in with an extension cord and just started beating me with it," she told the news website.



"She flipped and just kept beating me with the plug. Over and over. I had no idea what was going on. I was surprised ... I needed to crawl out of the room before I could run away."



News24 published a picture of what it said was Engels with a large gash in her forehead. "I am a model, with this scar over my face my whole career is ruined," she said.



It was unclear what triggered the incident.



President Mugabe spoke at a public event marking Defence Forces Day in Harare on Tuesday, but did not mention Grace.



Grace was in the news in late July when she challenged her president husband to name his preferred successor.



The issue of who will succeed Mugabe has deeply divided Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF party. One faction supports Grace and the other Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is recovering in a South African hospital after he fell ill and was airlifted from Zimbabwe.
The Lynchburg Fire Departments Technical Rescue Team has been getting a refresher course on water rescue techniques at Ivy Creek Parks Clemmons Lake.

The exercises this week are part of surface water rescue training, which would be directly applicable for incidents on lakes or in cases of flooding, according to Battalion Chief Robert Lipscomb Jr.

Clad in helmets and PFDs, or personal flotation devices, 24 team members in the training already had passed a basic swimming test before setting out for two days of instruction on the lake starting Tuesday.

Allen Carwile, a captain with the Lynchburg Fire Department, was overseeing Tuesdays training as an instructor with the Virginia Department of Fire Programs. Other instructors leading the training came from other parts of the state. Carwile said the surface water training, organized by the state about four years ago, is a useful tool for any firefighter, not just the Technical Rescue Team out on the lake this week.

Every firefighter needs this basic skill set. Were trying to push that though because  the water rescue team, it takes time for them to get mobilized, to get somewhere, he said.  So everybody at the basic level ought to be able to put on a PFD, be able to throw a throw bag at somebody.

The Virginia Department of Fire Programs states its surface water rescue courses are meant for situations involving confined water or water whose movement is less than 1 knot, as opposed to swift water rescue under whitewater conditions. Greg Wormser, the Lynchburg Fire Department's deputy chief of operations, said the primary hazard in moving water is the water itself. He said once the team is certified in a discipline like the surface water rescue, itll revisit that training every so often as part of weekly training sessions.

Lipscomb said Lynchburgs team, composed of several dozen Lynchburg Fire Department personnel, can end up responding to calls from around the region and even around the state. In the past, he said, the team helped out in an incident in Snowden, and Lynchburg firefighters responded in May to reports of 10 people stuck in the flow of the James River north of Lynchburg, along with personnel from other localities. Preparation for incidents like those comes from swift water rescue training.

This is a precursor to the training that will come later, which is swift water rescue training, Lipscomb said.  Surface water versus swift water; this is just the basics, this is the entry level stuff.

Even so, Carwile said the fundamentals in surface water rescue training transfer into the swift water world. While Lynchburg this year equipped firefighters with new PFDs, he said hed like to see this more basic training done department wide in case of some kind of city-wide event.

Were trying to change the culture so that if youre going to be at the water, you need to  have throw bags, have helmets, water rescue helmets  so if you find yourself in the water, youre going to be a lot safer.

On Tuesday, participants moved through different stations on the lake, learning floating positions and techniques used to keep victims from drowning and to conserve body heat, as well as practicing throwing ropes to victims and bringing them closer to land. Later, Carwile said theyd be using boats and performing active mock rescues in the lake.

Tuesdays exercises meant most of the participants were brushing up on skills theyd already learned.

Most of them, even the ones that have swift water training, they dont a have a lot of the victim contact training, Carwile said.  Some of the refresher stuff will be some of the boat stuff that we do.

That victim contact training can come in handy when workers are out on the water with a panicked victim  sometimes one who is trying to cling onto and push down a responder as the closest floating object, he said.

Lipscomb said the team will continue with swift water rescue training at the U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, in the fall.
Students from Iraq will return home after two weeks of attending workshops and developing projects to promote peace-building and reconciliation through a program hosted by World Montana.

Helena-based World Montana is a nonprofit facilitating 150 international visitors each year, and most recently scheduled a two-week program for 13 Iraqi students in the Iraqi Young Leaders Exchange Program. World Montana has hosted IYLEP students for seven years.

The students started with an eight-day orientation in Vermont. Once in Montana, the program through World Montana focused on a different topic each day such as awareness, service and compassion with workshops and activities designed to develop new skills and ideas.

They also met with organizations like the Montana Human Rights Network, toured several churches to learn about different religious denominations and visited the Blackfeet Reservation. Students met with Lt. Gov. Mike Cooney and Secretary of State Corey Stapleton to learn how peace-building and reconciliation are addressed in Montana.

During the final day of the program, students presented the projects theyd been developing for two weeks.

Zhino Azwar, 16, said she applied to the program because she wanted to see a change in her community and share her culture with America. When she goes home, she wants to spread unity and respect within her community.

Onel Kakona, 17, created a project to encourage education, which he says is the foundation of peace-building.

We need good leaders and little by little, we can make a change, he said. Everything starts at school. If you have a goal in life, then you will have a future.

Part of the goal of the program is for students to learn about a different culture, while sharing their own with host families.

Azwar learned to make a blueberry pie and Kakona said his host family asked him to make a traditional dish to try. He made dolma, which is typically grape leaves or other vegetables stuffed with rice, spices and sometimes meat.

We are strangers but they welcomed us into their homes and respected our beliefs, he said.

Abrar Mushtaq Al-Maliki, 16, said she taught her host family Arabic words during free time, and they encouraged her daily to finish her project and teach her own community when she returns home.

Im excited to challenge myself, she said.

All 13 students will spend five days in Washington, D.C. learning how to put the ideas they came up with into action. In Iraq, they will introduce their projects to the community and have a reunion with the 152 students involved in IYLEP this year to discuss progress.
CHARLOTTESVILLE - The man accused of killing one person and injuring 19 in a car attack was held without bail by Charlottesville District Court Judge Robert Downer.

James Alex Fields Jr., 20, appeared via video conference from jail Monday morning. Downer told him that the public defenders office would typically represent him, but that a relative of an employee was injured in the crash and the office had informed him that it could not take him as a client.

Instead he appointed attorney Charles Weber from a list of possible court appointed attorneys. Downer described Weber as "very experienced" and set a Aug. 25 hearing to reconsider bond once Fields has had an opportunity to consult with Weber.

Weber is a plaintiff in the lawsuit against the city regarding the removal of Confederate statues. In 2013, Weber ran for Charlottesville City Council as a Republican.

Heather Heyer, 32, was killed Saturday when a 2010 Dodge Challenger plowed into a group of anti-racist counterprotesters at Fourth and Water streets mid-afternoon that followed an intense and violent white nationalist rally protesting the city's decision to remove a Confederate statue of Robert E. Lee from a public park.

Fields appeared calm throughout the hearing. Hair neatly parted and wearing a jail jump suit with thick, black stripes, he stared blankly at the camera, periodically looking down and sniffling. He answered most of Downer's questions by saying "yes sir" or "no sir."

He told the judge he could not afford an attorney. He said he earned $650 every two weeks and identified his employers as Securitas and Ohio Omni.

The small, brick walled courtroom just blocks from the scene of the intense violence that took place on Saturday was filled almost entirely with reporters.

Fields appeared on the roughly two-foot-by-two-foot screen without warning during a recess at 9:55 a.m. A hush came over the courtroom as reporters watched his eyes dart around the small room he appeared to be sitting in.

At 10:05, the court was called into session and Downer, a thin man with silver hair, drooping mustache and glasses perched on his nose, addressed the prisoner.

"Mr. Fields?" he said.

"Yes, sir," Fields responded.

Downer explained the severity of the charges.

"You are charged with a number of felonies, including murder and malicious wounding," he said. "So you should have a lawyer representing you. Can you afford to hire one?"

"No, sir," Fields said.

Downer then placed Fields under oath. When Fields began to speak the oath back - "I solemnly swear ..." - Downer interrupted him, telling him he didn't have to repeat the words.

Downer then explained why the public defenders office couldn't represent him and set the hearing, which he said could be moved at Downer and Weber's request.

"Do you understand all these those things?" Downer said.

"Yes, sir," Fields said.

The hearing then ended and the screen on which Fields appeared went dark. Reporters rushed out of the court room.

"Leave quietly please," Downer instructed.

Outside the court house, two men shouted that the melee over the weekend was not the fault of the white supremacists who massed in the city to protest the removal of a Confederate statue. Instead, they blamed it on the City Council, for attempting to remove the statue.

They two men were swarmed by national and local media and eventually shouted down by several Charlottesville residents.

Downer and the Commonwealth's Attorney office described the Aug. 25 hearing as a "control date."

Commonwealth's Attorney Dave Chapman said in a statement that "a control date is one of which a more informed decision can be made concerning the scheduling of a preliminary hearing. The timing of a preliminary hearing may be affected by many factors, including the availability of witnesses and the results of any forensic testing."

Addressing the "future course of the case," the office said city police will complete a "full and fair investigation" and that final decisions regarding the charges will not be made until it's complete.

"Before then, we will not engage in public discussion or speculation about new or additional charges," Chapman said. "Our pretrial comments are limited to court proceedings."

The Daily Progress contributed to this report.
Green Days reaches journeys end

The films premiere will be held at a red carpet gala on September 19.

In a phone interview with Newsday the acclaimed author said, I wrote the book as a writer hoping his work will be published... you think about telling a good story, a story that people would want to read and carry on reading it. Not only did audiences want to continue reading Anthonys novel 50 years on, but it has become so beloved in the hearts and minds of Caribbean readers that the novel is now finished.

Recalling what it was like initially crafting the novel, Anthony said, When I finished Green Days by the River, I sent it and kept my fingers crossed that it would be published, and when it was published it began doing what you would call fairly well and I kept having hope. And then 50 years later, Mr Mooleedhar and his producer came to me and told me about the film and I said my goodness, just in time I am ready to die. I warmly accepted this and look forward to the film but I just did not have any real deep faith that wed get to journeys end. Anthony now expects out of the film, a new wave in Caribbean literature with an eye on film. With a widely growing local and regional film industry, Anthony said, I am hoping for success so that it will start a new day for writers and that there are some writers that will write with their minds on film. I did not because I never thought for one moment that my book was going to be filmed. There are young writers who would think, Oh I hope they turn my book into film.

This is the sort of effect that comes from that sort of event which is going to be with us shortly. The films director and producer have similar expectations, that the film would draw a large local and regional audience to it. For the films producer Christian James, although he had not known about the book because he had not done it in school, he knew that it had a large fan base.

When he and fellow University of the West Indies (UWI) graduate, Michael Mooleedhar began looking at films, Green Days was not the only option, but James said the pair kept coming back to it because of its simplicity.

When I came back States in 2014, I had just done a degree, a masters in film producing and creative producing and I met back up with Michael. It was actually at a UWI event that we met back up. They were launching the new film building or something and we decided that alright, Michael was making short films and experimental films and documentaries and stuff but he didnt do his first narrative feature as yet. And likewise with me, so we were both looking for that first narrative feature project.

So Green Days wasnt the first one on the list, we had a few scripts that we were reading on the table, a few ideas, some of them were original, some of them the script wasnt written for as yet.

But Green Days, luckily he had a script written, its called a spec script or a speculated script and it was written already by Dawn Cumberbatch, who is another local screen writer. I didnt know about Green Days, the book per se. I knew about Michael Anthony but I didnt really know about the book because I didnt do it in school, but I know a lot of people who did it in school. When I saw the script, okay well we both read it and its like we made our short list and somehow Green Days always we always gravitated towards Green Days because of the its simplicity and because of the context that it came from such a strong intellectual property as the book. The book was published in 1967 and has been around for the past 40 years, people still know it and still talk about it, that means that there is a life for it, a market for it. It was that perfect project where we knew we could have, he said.

While issues of funding posed some difficulty, the duo got it done, although it took them three years from initial thought to completion.

James and Mooleedhar plan to release the film at a number of film festivals in the region and globally. The film will also be screened at the Bahamas Film Festival and the Belize International Film Festival. James told Newsday he wants to do more films like these but the scales would have to be bigger and funding will have to come from outside. In Mooleedhars heart, he knows that he and his team have made a quality film and he hopes local and regional audiences would buy into as its first showings happen here.

On the novels 50th anniversary, he hopes that the film would last as much as three to four weeks in local and regional cinemas to large audiences. But also important for him is telling a story about Trinbagonians for Trinbagonians.

Mooleedhar knows only too well that films have a lifespan. While, he said its hard to get a movie accepted internationally, what he hopes to bring to local audiences is what the international cinema landscape hasnt seen before. Mooleedhars end goal is to hopefully have the the film picked up by Netflix in about two years. But more importantly, Mooleedhar hopes 50 years from now the film could also celebrate its 50th anniversary and the success that goes with that.
Father of drowned toddler granted $75,000 bail

Gorkin appeared before acting Chief Magistrate Maria Busby Earle- Caddle charged with manslaughter arising out of the death of his son.

His attorney Samuel Pete Thomas requested that his client be granted bail as he was the bread-winner of his family and was struggling to come to terms with his sons death. He said Gorkins experience has been made even more traumatic since his arrest last Tuesday.

Your worship while my client may have had matters before the court in the past, these matters have been resolved and all but two were ruled in his favour.

He is employed with the Port-of Spain City Corporation.

He is still in a state of grief and shock and I am making this bail application so that he has the opportunity to catch himself. However Prosecutor Inspector Dillon objected to the bail application and suggested that if granted, Gorkin may use the opportunity to interfere with witnesses.

Several of his relatives who were in the public gallery expressed their discontent prompting Earle-Caddle to intervene.

Listen if you all dont know how to behave in this court, well then I suggest you dont stay here for the remainder of the proceedings, she said. In response to Dillons objections, Thomas argued the offence was bailable and said the claims of potential witness interference were baseless.

Earle-Caddle granted Gorkin bail in the sum of $75,000 and he is expected to reappear in court on September 11.
Masvingo Provincial Affairs minister Shuvai Mahofa collapsed and died early yesterday morning, splitting opinion in the deeply-divided Zanu PF party almost immediately after the provincial leadership initiated steps to have her buried at the national shrine.



Known in Masvingo as the iron lady because of her abrasive style, Mahofa collapsed at her house in Rhodene  a low density suburb on the northern side of the city centre  and was pronounced dead before she could be attended to at Makurira Hospital  in the same city.



Mahofa ,76, had been unwell for some time, although she had always insisted to be in good health.

In December 2015, she survived suspected food poisoning at a Zanu PF conference held in the resort town of Victoria Falls, and spent close to six months in hospital.

She never regained her health from then on.



A close friend of Mahofa and a fellow Zanu PF politburo member, Josiah Hungwe, confirmed her death yesterday.



Its very sad. I am currently going to officiate at the Heroes Day celebrations (in Masvingo) where she was supposed to be officiating. We are going to sit down and map the way forward, Hungwe told Daily News.



In his Heroes Day message yesterday, President Robert Mugabe, revealed how as recent as a fortnight ago he had inquired into her health at a Zanu PF politburo meeting held at the partys headquarters in Harare and was told she was fine.



In the last politburo meeting, as I always do, I asked how she was feeling and she said I am okay. So the news is astonishing. As astonishing as it is; depressing and sorrowful, I say let us not think that as we move along we are totally healthy. See doctors as often as possible, Mugabe said.



A hugely divisive figure in her home province, Mahofa was hated and liked in the same measure.





She was a darling of the Team Lacoste faction, which is campaigning for Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa to succeed the incumbent.

Naturally, she had no sympathisers among members of the Generation 40 (G40) faction who could be shedding crocodile tears following her sudden death.

Mahofa was popularly known for her passion in dancing so much such that she collapsed while on the dance floor at one of Zanu PFs gatherings.



Despite her advanced age and the fact that she was not really good at it, Mahofa never slowed down on dancing.



She was also part of a growing breed of Zanu PF politicians who owe their ascendance to influential positions to praise-singing for Mugabe.



Having presided over a fractious province, Mahofas death has divided opinion in Zanu PF over whether she deserves a place at the National Heroes Acre.



Her death comes less than two months after the death of renowned freedom fighter and musician, Dick Chingaira, popularly known as Cde Chinx, who was denied national hero status.



She is survived by four children and 27 grandchildren.

Zimbabwe Liberation War Collaborators Association (Ziliwaco) chairperson, Pupurai Togarepi, yesterday described Mahofa as a mentor who deserves a place in the sun at the national shrine.



She was the patron of Ziliwaco  a war collaborator herself. She was a firm political and principled leader. She was a powerful proponent of unity among revolutionaries. I am what I am because of Chikoforo. A natural leader, gushed Togarepi.



While that decision is the preserve of the highest decision-making body, for us she is a heroine of the highest order. She has all the credentials as a freedom fighter, a consistent and persistent advocate of the founding principles of our revolution. We know our party leadership respected her as well, he added.



While her friends in Zanu PF will remember her as the hoarse-voiced woman who had to bring the office of the minister of State for Masvingo Province from the 4th floor to ground floor since she had trouble walking, her foes had no kind words for her.

The former Member of Parliament for Gutu South for more than two decades was described by the Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC secretary for recruitment, Job Sikhala, as a thug who used to terrorise people in the constituency.



In 2002, before the presidential election, she led a group of storm troopers to my village homestead and accused my mother of hiding firearms that were alleged to belong to me. My mother went through a nightmare on accusations that shocked her to her death, Sikhala claimed.



Early this year Mahofa, who was nicknamed Chikoforo, threatened to unleash violence against anti-Zanu PF supporters during the Bikita West by-elections.

The election was at the end won by Zanu PFs Beauty Chabaya.



The veteran Masvingo politician, who played an instrumental role in the expulsion of former vice president Joice Mujuru and her team, was widely revered as the Zanu PF political godmother in the volatile province.



At the time of her death, Mahofa was involved in nasty battles with the G40 faction opposing Mnangagwas ascendancy.



Mahofa engineered Mnangagwa ally, Ezra Chadzamira to win the race for Masvingo provincial election race against a G40-linked Mutero Masanganise.

Chadzamira was later endorsed by Mugabe despite a spirited fight from G40 to have the results nullified.



The late Mahofa was in recent months the target of First Lady Grace Mugabes wrath.

Grace sledged Mahofa for failing to acknowledge her while chanting a Zanu PF slogan and failing to display party regalia during a recent womens league national assembly meeting.

This did not go down well with Grace, who went for Mahofa hammer and tongs, claiming there were women who were working with rival party bigwigs to stampede Mugabe out of power.



She also cited an unnamed South Africa-based woman she claimed was splashing money among womens league members, urging them to dump Mugabe.



It has been a bad week for the Team Lacoste faction as Mahofas death comes at a time when the factions alleged leader, Mnangagwa is battling for his life at a private hospital in South Africa after he was allegedly poisoned by political rivals.



The Team Lacoste faction has been on the back foot since Grace suggested that Mugabe should name his successor and also publicly undressed Mnangagwa.



Political analyst Maxwell Saungweme said it was surely not looking good for the Team Lacoste faction to lose one of its most vocal kingpins at a time when the dye on Mugabes succession has been cast.



What is happening is meant to show Lacoste camp that they might have the army but not the intelligence and police. Hitting on their head was a way to show them power lies in G40. But this may not be true when Lacoste starts fighting back. Its likely to be nasty and dirty. This poisoning of the crocodile is just a minor setback, a single battle in an impending full-scale war. When they hit back things will be nasty, Saungweme said. daily news
12:05 - IT gives me great pleasure to join the ZDF in celebrating their 37th today. The celebration affords us the opportunity to reflect on our security achievements and superb work that the gallant sons and daughters in the ZDF have achieved since the attainment of our independence, President Mugabe begins his address. We say congratulations to them.



The secure environment we have enjoyed as a country has not been a walk in the park for the ZDF. While our detractors continue to work round the clock to frustrate our development, the ZDF has always been alert to these manoeuvres.



The ZDF has always resolutely defended our territorial integrity. Together with other arms of security, they have ensued that peace peace prevails all the time.





12:07 - President Mugabe says the ZDF together with the ZRP have managed to curb smuggling of contraband and also protected mining fields. The ZDF corps of engineers conducted the defining operations on the south-eastern Mozambique border in the Dumsa and Gwaivhi areas.





12:10 - President Mugabe says these are bombs planted by the colonialists and are dangerous because they detonate when one steps on them (regardless of how long they have been planted) adding that what makes it worse is that it is not known where exactly they were planted.

The ZDF, in de-mining the country borders of anti-personnel landmines, received invaluable assistance from two NGOs, the HALO Trust and the Norwegian Peoples Aid (NPA)

President Mugabe thanks the two countries for rendering assistance in this regard.





12:15 - While the HALO Trust is working on the Mukumbura, Rushinga area, the NPA is working in the Cecil and Forces border area. And they have registered significant progress.

Zimbabwe as a state party to the Ottawa Convention on the Prohibition of the Anti Personnel Landmines is expected to comply with the 2025 deadline of clearing all mined areas.

12:18 -To meet the deadline, the Ministry of Defence recently enlisted the services of two more international de-mining NGOs which are expected to start before the end of 2017. The two NGOs are Mines Advisory Organisation and Apopo.

12:20  The ZDF has always honoured its obligation of providing military and to civil communities.

One case in point is Murongwe Primary school which I officially handed over in the Dande Community. The school was transformed from the pole and dagga (structures that it was)





12:21  The ZDF also carried out other projects which Dr Sekeramayi has already highlighted, says President Mugabe.

12: 23- During their annual ZDF community assistance week this August, the Ministry of Defence handed classroom blocks in Himago Secondary School and also in Dzivarasekwa (Harare).





12:25  During the cyclone Dineo induced floods, the ZDF deployed health personnel and helicopters to rescue Marooned villagers in Tsholotsho, Zvimba, Gokwe, Mt Darwin, Masvingo and Gwanda areas.

In 2015 and 2016, the ZDF were also very active in the movement of drought relief maize to the needy areas through out the country. Without the involvement of the ZDF, we would not have managed.

12:26 - On the international scene, the ZDF continues to deploy officers to regional and international peace support operations under the auspices of the SADC, AU, and UN. As such, six defence forces officers are currently deployed in Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan

12:29  There is a contingent of ZDF members currently deployed in Tanzania, participating in a SADC Special forces Exercise, code named Exercise Matumbamwe taking place from 1 to 31 August 2017.

12:30 -In an effort to improve conditions of service of the ZDF, Government has provided staff with vehicles and other equipment. However, a lot more needs to be done on medical support, housing, salaries and allowances,

12:32  President Mugabe says he hopes as the economy improves, salaries of the ZDF members will be considered and increased.

It is also strongly recommended that the housing projects in Dzivarasekwa, Khumalo and Zimbabwe Military Academy aimed at improving the housing provision for the ZDF, should be resuscitated.

President Mugabe has congratulated the Defence Forces on their 37th anniversary of their celebrations adding that Zimbabweans owe it to the force.





12: 34 - He has also commended the force for the immaculate organisation of the event.

President Mugabe Mugabe has also congratulated the Defence Forces for having their college (Zimbabwe National Defence College in Mazowe) upgraded to a university status and has encouraged members of the force to take up courses being offered there. He has also congratulated Dr Chiwenga on the attainment of his PHD.

President Mugabe has concluded his remarks
Politics in Zimbabwe will always guide the gun, but the Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) will not hesitate to intervene when they feel the countrys security is being compromised, ZDF Commander General Constantino Guveya Chiwenga has said.



Addressing journalists in Harare yesterday ahead of todays Defence Forces Day celebrations, Gen Chiwenga said the military would not tolerate anyone who undermined Zimbabwes peace and tranquillity. He also warned would be saboteurs that they would face the full wrath of the army.



This country, of all countries which fought the wars of liberation, Zimbabwe bore the brunt, said Gen Chiwenga. When we look at the mass graves, who would you want to please when you are not proud of your own country?



Do you think there is going to be another Zimbabwe besides this one? This Zimbabwe will be protected by our own blood. Politics, Gen Chiwenga said, would always lead the gun, as what was taught during and after the liberation struggle.



In our training, when we were out there, from the time when we were juveniles, what people would call boy-soldiers, that is what we were taught, he said. And that is what we had to teach everyone.



Remember, before anyone would be given a gun or would be taken to the range, you had to qualify, you had to pass what we called political orientation to understand why one has to train and why he has to hold a gun and the purpose of that gun.



Gen Chiwenga said some failed the test and were never given the gun. Before anyone can talk about that, it is clear to every man, woman and officer, whether we were in the liberation struggle, now in the free and independent Zimbabwe, know that the politics leads the gun, he said. Not the other way!





Gen Chiwenga said it was the militarys subservience to politics that made Zimbabwe peaceful since independence in 1980. The relations (with politicians) are very good, he said. We are very clear where we think things or a person is not saying the correct thing, we will tell (them).





Because it is our role to make sure that nobody causes conflict and confusion, which can then confuse people and make people fail to understand what is going on. Peace, stability and tranquillity is the key.





Gen Chiwenga said although Zimbabwe is a democratic country, there were limitations to what people should do or say. If people are discussing, this is a democratic country, he said. They will say whatever they want to say, they can talk, but there is a red line which can never be crossed.





When one causes the country to be in turmoil, then you become an enemy of the State and an enemy of the people and we will tell you, no, you are overstepping, that is not the correct way.





Gen Chiwenga warned people against abusing the social media, which could lead to mayhem. We are not in that time when everyone would scrounge for a newspaper or for stale news, things are instant, he said. Even as things happen, the newsman is there, the television is there, they are embedded.





We now see what is happening from afar. We have seen what is happening in the Middle East. Who is going to reconstruct these countries in the Middle East? You have seen shells blowing buildings, skyscrapers being brought down, women and children being killed, for what?





That is what we will never want to see happen in Zimbabwe. No one can reverse the history of the country. It is our history for generations upon generations to come, he added.

And all what we want is posterity for future generations. Long when we are gone, we want to see a stable and economically prosperous Zimbabwe.





Gen Chiwenga said Zimbabwe should be peaceful in honour of thousands of people, who lost their lives during the liberation struggle. herald
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A Chinese couple sent their teenage son to an internet addiction treatment campand within days, he was dead. As the BBC reports, "boot camps" for internet and gaming addictions have become popular in China, with some being criticized as using harsh military-style discipline on attendees. Some even beat patients or use electroshock therapy. The 18-year-old who died earlier this month in Fuyang had been sent to a camp that promised "psychological counseling and physical training"; according to the Telegraph, the camp said no corporal punishment would be used. Two days after the teen was dropped off by his mother on Aug. 3, he was rushed to the hospital, where he died.

His parents say doctors told them their son's body had sustained more than 20 external injuries and that he also suffered internal injuries. "My son's body was completely covered with scars, from top to toe," his mother told local media. His cause of death is not yet known, but the director and four teachers from the center have been held by police and the center is shut down as the investigation continues. According to the Telegraph, it was an illegal camp that had already been ordered by officials to cease operations. The Washington Post runs down similar tragedies at other camps, including the beating deaths of a 15-year-old and a 19-year-old. (In 2015, a teen battling an internet addiction reportedly cut off his own hand.)
Donald Trump's first presidential pardon might go to Joe Arpaio. The former Arizona sheriff known for his unconventional and sometimes controversial tactics on crime and illegal immigration was found guilty of criminal contempt last month, and Trump, who has so far not pardoned anyone, tells Fox News he's "seriously considering" doing so for Arpaio. Arpaio's conviction stems from him refusing to halt traffic patrols that targeted those suspected of being undocumented imigrants, even after a state judge ordered him to do so. Arpaio, 85, is set to be sentenced Oct. 5, but while he faces up to six months in jail, some attorneys doubt he'll get any time behind bars due to his age and his lack of prior convictions.

Trump told Fox Arpaio, whom he still referred to as "Sheriff Joe," "has done a lot in the fight against illegal immigration. Hes a great American patriot and I hate to see what has happened to him." He said many in Arizona admire Arpaio and the tactics he used, including things like bringing back chain gangs and forcing inmates to don pink underwear. "He has protected people from crimes and saved lives. He doesnt deserve to be treated this way," Trump said. Arpaio, who lost his bid to be re-elected as sheriff last year, told Fox News he was unaware of Trump's familiarity with his case and that he would accept a pardon if offered "because I am 100% not guilty." One Arizona columnist thinks Trump should pardon him, since he's already ended his career "in disgrace" and no longer has a place on the national stage. (Read more Joe Arpaio stories.)
Victory for Taylor Swift in her groping case against a former DJ: The jury ruled in her favor Monday, ordering David Mueller to pay her $1 in damages, CNN reports. After Swift accused Mueller of groping her during a meet-and-greet event in 2013 and he subsequently lost his job, he sued her, her mother, and radio promotions director Frank Bell. Swift countersued for a symbolic $1, alleging Mueller sexually assaulted her, and the jury's ruling comes after four days of testimony in the civil trial. A judge had already dismissed Swift as a defendant in Mueller's suit, and in addition to ruling in her favor Monday, the jury found her mother and Bell not liable for tortious interference, which Mueller had accused them of. (Read more Taylor Swift stories.)
In what President Trump's critics say is turning into an exodus, two more CEOs stepped down from the president's American Manufacturing Council on Monday. The resignations of Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank and Intel CEO Brian Krzanich followed that of Merck Pharma CEO Kenneth Frazier, who was strongly criticized by Trump after stepping down, citing what he saw as a tepid response to events in Charlottesville. Plank, who caught flak this year for calling Trump a "real asset to this country," said he was stepping down because his company "engages in innovation and sports, not politics," CNBC reports.

Plank did not mention Charlottesville, but said he will focus on promoting "unity, diversity, and inclusion," MarketWatch reports. Krzanich's statement was more directly political, referring to the "divided political climate" and the damage it is doing. "I have already made clear my abhorrence at the recent hate-spawned violence in Charlottesville, and earlier today I called on all leaders to condemn the white supremacists and their ilk who marched and committed violence," he said in a blog post. "I resigned because I want to make progress, while many in Washington seem more concerned with attacking anyone who disagrees with them." Trump has yet to respond to the latest resignations. (Read more Under Armour stories.)
Protesters gathered in North Carolina tore down a 97-year-old Confederate statue in front of a cheering crowd of more than 100 people Monday. Activists used a ladder to put a rope around the statue's neck before a group of people pulled it to the ground, the News & Observer reports. Protesters, who had gathered outside the old courthouse building in Durham in response to the weekend violence in Charlottesville, then kicked and spat on the statue. The bronze statue of a soldier holding a muzzleloading rifle was erected in 1924, with the words "In Memory of the Boys Who Wore the Gray" engraved on the pillar, reports CNN.

Police officers filmed the toppling of the statue. No arrests were made, though North Carolina brought in a law in 2015 banning the removal of monuments to the Confederacy from public property without permission from state officials, the AP reports. Police say they didn't arrest anybody because the toppling took place on county property. "The racism and deadly violence in Charlottesville is unacceptable, but there is a better way to remove these monuments," tweeted Gov. Roy Cooper. Protesters called for the removal of other monuments to the Confederacy, including the "Silent Sam" statue on the University of North Carolina's Chapel Hill campus. (Read more Confederate stories.)
A Florida man has been sentenced to six years and five months in prison for accidentally shooting a gun while taking a selfie in a strip club restroom. The US Attorney's Office in Tampa announced 34-year-old Rorn Sorn's sentencing Monday, the AP reports. The Asian Pride Gang member pleaded guilty in April to possessing a firearm as a convicted felon. Court documents say Sorn was at Club Lust in St. Petersburg in December when his gun discharged.

The bullet went through the mirror and into the adjacent women's restroom. No injuries were reported. A security guard approached Sorn as he was leaving, and Sorn reportedly told the guard that it was an accident and that he "was just trying to take a selfie." Police responded, and officers found a handgun, ammunition, and drugs on Sorn, who has prior felony convictions for burglary and attempted first-degree murder. (This selfie-taker accidentally broke a Washington, DC, museum exhibit.)
Former President Obama tweeted for the first time in weeks in response to the violence in Charlottesvilleand it has now become the most popular tweet in history. "No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion..." tweeted Obama on Saturday, quoting Nelson Mandela's autobiography Long Walk to Freedom. With more than 3.1 million likes as of Wednesday morning, the tweet has now passed Ariana Grande's response to the Manchester concert attack (2.7 million likes) and Ellen DeGeneres' Oscar selfie (2.4 million), notes the Daily News. It's also the fifth-most retweeted tweet ever, notes CNN. (Grande's is No. 1.)

Obama followed the tweet up with more words from Mandela, USA Today reports. "People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love," he tweeted, before adding, "For love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite." (Each of those now has more than 1 million likes, too.) According to FavStar, Obama also has the fourth most-liked tweet of all time, written on Jan. 10 of this year: "Thank you for everything. My last ask is the same as my first. I'm asking you to believenot in my ability to create change, but in yours." (This kid won a lot of chicken for his retweet record.)
Snippets of some 20,000 Trump campaign emails handed over to congressional investigators reveal repeated efforts by Russian officials to arrange meetings between Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Washington Post reports. In a half dozen emails sent between March and September 2016, a Trump foreign policy adviser alerts campaign officials to the efforts and offers to arrange such a meeting. In one April email sent to campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, volunteer George Papadopoulos said Putin wanted to "host the Trump team when the time is right." Another email made clear the Russian International Affairs Councilwith Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov on its boardwas receptive to such a meeting, the Post reports.

But some within the Trump campaign seemed cautious. In a March email, campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis wrote, "We thought we probably should not go forward with any meeting with the Russians until we have had occasion to sit with our NATO allies." Paul Manafort later told a colleague, "We need someone to communicate that DT is not doing these trips." Despite the apparent hesitation from members of Trump's campaign, senior officials including Manafort would go on to attend a meeting with a Russian lawyer in June 2016. Even so, a spokesperson for Manafort says his response to Papadopoulos' email shows "any invitation by Russia, directly or indirectly, would be rejected outright" and "is concrete evidence the Russia collusion narrative is fake news." (Read more Russia stories.)
North Korea says its plan to fire ICBMs into the waters around Guam is on hold while it waits to see what the "foolish Yankees" do next. North Korean state media said Tuesday that Kim Jong Un has reviewed the plan for "the enveloping fire at Guam," discussed it with military officials, and decided to delay a decision, the BBC reports. The official KCNA news agency said Kim decided to see "if the Yankees persist in their extremely dangerous reckless actions on the Korean peninsula" per Reuters. Pyongyang earlier called for the US to stop flying heavy B-1B bombers around South Korea. The last such flight involving the Pacific island-based bombers was on Aug. 7, the Guardian reports.

With Pyongyang apparently backing away from its harshest rhetoric, South Korean President Moon Jae In also moved to ease tensions, urging the US not to take independent military action against the North and saying "that no one may decide to take military action without the consent" of Seoul. Before Pyongyang's latest statement, US Defense Secretary James Mattis warned that any North Korean missile attack "could escalate into war very quickly." He said that if a missile was launched toward Guam, the US would know "within moments" and would "take it out." (Analysts say Ukrainian engines might be powering North Korea's ICBMs.)
For three years, Hans Nilsson has been on a quest to find a rare white moose in southwestern Sweden. Finally, on two consecutive days last week, he succeededand, on the second day, happened to have his camera rolling, reports the Local. "Everything fell into place: the location, the light, and the calmness," Nilsson says of Friday's encounter in the Varmland region. The resulting footage, which has since gone viral, shows a white moose crossing a small river and munching on foliage. According to the BBC, the animal is believed to be one of just 100 white moose in Sweden. While some are albino, the one Nilsson recorded is piebald, meaning its coloration is the result of a genetic mutation, per National Geographic.

Though clearly rare, one expert believes white moose may be increasing in number in Sweden because hunters, apparently stunned by their beauty, tend to leave them in peace. Moose face few other predators in the country. But a local residentwhose apple tree is frequently visited by a white moosesays the animals are "constantly chased and disturbed" by non-hunters hoping for a glimpse of their white fur, per the Local. That's bad news for both the moose and humans since moose "can get aggressive," she says. Two white moose calves were spotted earlier this summer in Norway, per Nat Geo. White moose have also been seen in Alaska and in Canada, where hunters are banned from killing moose that are more than 50% white. (Pandas are piebald, too.)
US citizen William Dathan Holbert was sentenced to 47 years in prison by a court in Panama for robbing and killing five other Americans in a Caribbean tourist destination, authorities say. Holbert's ex-wife Laura Reese was sentenced to 26 years for her role. Authorities say Holbert admitted killing five people between 2007 and 2010 in Bocas del Toro province in order to steal their property, the AP reports. Holbert and Reese were arrested while trying to enter Nicaragua from Costa Rica in 2010. That year, the bodies of four adults and one child were found buried on the property of a hostel that Holbert owned.

Holbert killed a US citizen named Mike Brown, his wife, and young son in 2007. Authorities have said Brown may have been living under an alias and they don't know where he was from. In 2010, Holbert killed Cheryl Lynn Hughes, a native of St. Louis, Missouri, who ran a small hotel in Panama, and Bo Icelar, former owner of a gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Holbert, a white supremacist nicknamed "Wild Bill," left his native North Carolina after he divorced a previous wife, sold his landscaping business, and filed for bankruptcy. He and Reese had been living in Panama under the alias Cortez. They were fleeing a Panamanian investigation when they were arrested in Nicaragua. (Read more Panama stories.)
President Trump was back in his own bed Monday night for the first time since taking officebut not everybody in his hometown was pleased to see him back. Thousands of protesters, some holding signs denouncing the violence in Charlottesville, gathered along Fifth Avenue ahead of the president's return to Trump Tower in New York City, the Washington Post reports. Protesters shouted "Shame" and "New York hates you," while a smaller group of a few dozen Trump supporters gathered near The Plaza, chanting "God bless President Trump," the AP reports.

Police, who kept the rival groups of demonstrators apart, said three arrests were made for disorderly conduct, CNN reports. In the end, Trump and the protesters never saw each other: His motorcade approached Trump Tower from a different direction and he was whisked into the building without the crowd seeing him. "Feels good to be home after seven months, but the White House is very special, there is no place like it... and the U.S. is really my home!" he tweeted. (Read more Trump Tower stories.)
The Mooch appeared on Stephen Colbert's show Monday night and found himself defending the boss who just fired him. Colbert in particular grilled Anthony Scaramucci on why President Trump waited two days to condemn white supremacists after the violence in Virginia. "It was late, I'm not going to say it wasn't, but he did go to the White House (Monday) and he did make a statement that was very declarative against it," Scaramucci said. Colbert pressed him on why it took days, asking, "Does he order his spine on Amazon Prime?" Scaramucci responded that only Trump could answer that question. See the video. Other highlights, per People and the Hollywood Reporter:

Steve Bannon: "If it was up to me, he would be gone," said Scaramucci, accusing Bannon of leaks. "But it's not up to me." Scaramucci also apologized to his mother about his infamous and vulgar Bannon joke.

"If it was up to me, he would be gone," said Scaramucci, accusing Bannon of leaks. "But it's not up to me." Scaramucci also apologized to his mother about his infamous and vulgar Bannon joke. Reince Priebus: Was Scaramucci brought in to get rid of him? "I don't want to say it that way," Scaramucci said. When Colbert asked him to "say it like the Mooch," he responded, "So The Mooch from Long Island would say there's no love lost there."

Was Scaramucci brought in to get rid of him? "I don't want to say it that way," Scaramucci said. When Colbert asked him to "say it like the Mooch," he responded, "So The Mooch from Long Island would say there's no love lost there." Odds and ends: He called Trump a "super compassionate person" (that got boos), said the president made a "huge sacrifice" to be president (that got derision from Colbert), joked that he was like Arya Stark and had compiled a kill list of Colbert's writers (the joke fizzled), and said he thought he'd last in his White House job "longer than a carton of milk.")
The government of British Columbia has some good news and bad news for grizzly bears in the Canadian province: The good news is that hunters will no longer be able to kill them for sport. The bad news is that hunters will still be able to kill them for meat. Specifically, BC is outlawing the "trophy" hunting of grizzlies in the province, meaning that hunters can't kill the bears and leave with their heads, hides, or paws, reports the CBC. However, hunters who kill strictly for meat are still allowed to do so, provided they don't take those body parts. The new law doesn't spell out what the meat hunters should do with those items, but they'll need to leave them behind. The rule takes effect in November, at the end of this year's season.

"Society has come to the point in BC where they are no longer in favor of the grizzly bear trophy hunt," says Natural Resources Minister Doug Donaldson. "It is time." The meat loophole, though, has grizzly advocates a little worried because "virtually no one legitimately hunts grizzlies for food," says the director of a conversation group. "Killing these bears is strictly a trophy hunt." BC has about 15,000 bears, and hunters kill about 250 each year; the meat-versus-trophy breakdown of those 250 isn't clear. The government is expected to spell out more details on the logistics of the ban in the fall, notes CTV News. (Read more Canada stories.)
The wife of Zimbabwe's president handed herself over to police in South Africa on Tuesday after being accused of assaulting a young woman Sunday night at an upscale Johannesburg hotel, South Africa's police minister said. Grace Mugabe was due to appear in court Tuesday afternoon, local news outlet eNCA reported. The 52-year-old is "not under arrest because she cooperated and handed herself over," Minister of Police Fikile Mbalula said in a video posted on eNCA. Gabriella Engels, 20, has accused Mugabe of assaulting her while she was visiting Mugabe's sons in a hotel room. She claims the first lady's bodyguards stood by and watched as Mugabe attacked her.

Engels posted several photos on social media showing a gash in her forehead, which she calls a result of the alleged encounter, reports the AP. Engels told News24 she had no idea who Mugabe was when she walked into the room "with an extension cord and just started beating me with it. ... She flipped and just kept beating me with the plug." Engels claims the first lady accused her of living with her sons. "The investigation into this case has already reached an advanced stage," a police statement on Tuesday said. The BBC reports Mugabe was in the country to receive treatment for an ankle injury; she reportedly injured it in July when the presidential limo began to drive away as she was climbing in. (Read more Zimbabwe stories.)
A federal judge's decision on trademark infringement likely has Costco executives feeling bluebut definitely not Tiffany blue. Per CNBC, US District Judge Laura Taylor Swain ruled Monday the warehouse club must fork over $19.4 million in damages, plus interest, to the luxury jeweler for selling diamond engagement rings that customers might incorrectly think were made by Tiffany. The judgment represents three times the profit of $3.7 million Tiffany is said to have lost to Costco over the 2,500 or so rings sold through the warehouse club, plus $8.25 million in punitive damages awarded by a jury last year. Swain also barred Costco from selling any item with the name "Tiffany" on it, unless it's qualified by words such as "setting," "style," or "set" to make it clear it's not an official Tiffany product.

The suit comes as Tiffany is trying to regain customers who've started going elsewhere for their gems. Per the complaint cited in the Washington Post, Costco sold the rings next to signs that "promoted [them]  as Tiffany diamond engagement rings," and a salesperson used the term "Tiffany ring" to refer to several different rings. But Costco argued the word "Tiffany" has entered the generic realm as a way of describing a certain ring style, the rings were stamped with the name of the actual manufacturer, and, per the Street, the rings were sold in brown boxes, not in Tiffany's trademark blue packaging. However, Swain said Costco management "displayed at best a cavalier attitude" in using the Tiffany name to sell their wares and that its defense was "not credible." (Tiffany originally wanted billions of dollars in this case.)
DECATUR  A $1 million grant for Dove, Inc., from the Howard G. Buffett Foundation is expected to secure the future of Macon Countys only domestic violence shelter, the agencys executive director said Tuesday.

The fate of the shelter had been threatened by the two-year budget impasse. Though state lawmakers enacted a $36 billion budget last month, Dove Executive Director Christine Gregory said the agency hopes the donation from Buffett will help it rely less on state funding.

Our board is still meeting to decide how best to spend the money over time, Gregory said. But making sure we can offer those services is amazing.

Doves domestic violence program offers shelter, a 24-hour hotline, childrens services, support groups, parenting groups, prevention programming and legal advocacy to those seeking services in Macon, Moultrie, Shelby, Piatt and DeWitt counties.

Gregory told the Herald & Review in June that the state had failed to meet contracts it had signed with the agency for 2017 and was more than $500,000 behind on payments. She said at the time that the agency would have just 60 days of funding available after July 1, when it would have exhausted its line of credit.

While lawmakers overrode Gov. Bruce Rauners veto and passed a budget July 7, Dove took a hit of more than $100,000 for services that it had already provided, Gregory said last month. It was unclear how or when the payments will be processed for the 2017 and 2018 fiscal years, as the final budget did not include a prioritization scheme.

Overall, Gregory said Dove wants to rely less on state funding, especially for the domestic violence program, which is funded 50 percent by the state.

One area where the organization has been thinning is staffing, Gregory said. With the donation and newly awarded federal grant funding, the agency started the hiring process for a few positions, which have been frozen since February. Volunteer training also will resume in October, Gregory said.

There are some restrictions on the funding, she said, but overall Dove will decide what will be the most useful. Howard was very specific he didnt want this to be used for an endowment, but for services, Gregory said.

Gregory credited Macon County Sheriff Thomas Schneider, who did not return messages seeking comment Tuesday, with advocating for Dove to the Buffett Foundation.

The Buffett Foundation, which also could not be reached for comment, has made a number of large donations in recent years to various community organizations in the Decatur area. The most recent of these, announced July 20, was a $3 million donation to build a two-story exhibit on law enforcement at the Children's Museum of Illinois.

Among his gifts have been several grants to fund equipment and positions for the Macon County Sheriffs Office, where Buffett serves as an auxiliary deputy. Buffett donated $350,000 in May for training firearms, radios and five police vehicles.

Last fall, the foundation began construction on a $15 million law enforcement training facility on Decatur's south side. The center will open later this year, and will host new recruits from throughout the state and provide advanced training for police chiefs and command officers.

Several of Buffett's recent gifts have also benefited the Decatur Park District. In October, he said the foundation would cover the $3.9 million cost of building a new amphitheater in Nelson Park, a key part of the long-term plan to develop more recreation opportunities near Lake Decatur.

Buffett also said he would contribute $2 million to extend the train at Scovill Zoo to wrap around the Childrens Museum, a project for which engineering work is underway.

That announcement came on the heels of the July 2016 opening of a sculpture park between the zoo and museum, which was also funded by a $250,000 grant from the Buffett Foundation.

The foundation's recent gifts have extended to other areas of the community, too. It funded a new downtown headquarters for the United Way of Decatur and Mid-Illinois, which opened in February. It also paid to bring a 2-1-1- telephone information and referral service to Macon, DeWitt and Moultrie counties for the next decade.
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DECATUR  One of the four men accused in the robbery and murder of a Decatur woman in her apartment told a judge Monday he wasn't interested in a plea deal on first-degree murder charges.

The attorney for Shaitan L. Cook Jr., 18, had worked out a deal with the Macon County State's Attorney's Office involving a 20-year sentence for Cook and his alleged role in the death of 21-year-old Cesley Taylor. She was shot and killed Sept. 7, 2015, when prosecutors say Cook and three other youths, all age 16 at the time, tried to rob her in her northside apartment.

Taylor died after being shot four times; her roommate, Britney Wilson, suffered multiple gunshot wounds but survived. Cook said he didn't take part in the shootings or the robbery.

Of the others accused in the crime, Darion Evans is charged by prosecutors with actually firing the shots that killed Taylor; his murder case is due for a disposition hearing Thursday.

The third defendant, Daiquan Cline, has already pleaded guilty to a first-degree murder charge carrying a 20-year sentence and is due to be sentenced Aug. 23. The fourth defendant, Ryan O'Neal, faces a bench trial on his murder charge, starting today.

Cook's attorney, Philip Tibbs, had told Circuit Judge Thomas E. Griffith Monday that the deal with prosecutors involving Cook was all set to go last week but now Cook didn't want it. He is not going to accept any offer from the state, Tibbs said.

Cook, who is being held in custody, now faces a maximum sentence of almost 100 years in prison if convicted on the murder charge. Griffith warned Cook that not following the advice of his attorney meant he wasn't placing himself in a good position.

... Sometimes it makes sense to listen to one's lawyer, the judge said.

Cook told the court he had tried to do a deal that would involve a charge of armed robbery. Although I didn't commit murder or robbery, he added.

Assistant State's Attorney Kate Kurtz said she had received a letter from Cook saying he would plead guilty to a robbery charge, which she rejected. That is not going to happen, she said of Cook's written offer.

The case is now set for a pretrial hearing Oct. 11. If you are going to hire a new lawyer, that lawyer needs to be present on that day, Griffith told Cook.
Fairbanks, AK (99707)

Today

Mostly cloudy skies with afternoon snow showers. High 26F. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 50%..

Tonight

Cloudy with scattered snow showers and flurries becoming a steady accumulating snow later. Low around 20F. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 70%. About one inch of snow expected.
New Delhi:

Theres some good news for you. Air India is all set to make your travel cheaper in the coming months. As part of the Independence Day celebration, the National carrier is offering one-way fares at Rs. 425 for some domestic flights. Customers can book some of the international flights for amount as low as Rs. 6,000. The offer is available only for a limited period and the dates for the same are August 13 to August 20, 2017.

The travel period needs to fall between September 16 to November 30, 2017 and January 25 to March 31, 2018.

Customers will have to book the flights within the stipulated date as seats are limited. First-come, first-served basis will be followed by Air India.

As a matter of fact, the offer is applicable for major South Asian cities including Dhaka, Kathmandu, Colombo, Kabul, and Yangon. You can book flight tickets to places in the Gulf area like Dubai and Bahrain for as low as Rs. 6,000.

The flight tickets of economy class for places like Hong Kong, Singapore and Bangkok will be avauilable at Rs. 15,000. In case, you are planning to visit any of the European cities like Milan or London, then price for the same is Rs. 38,000. Flight tickets for US cities like Washington DC and New York can be booked at Rs. 65,000.

A glance at the Air Indias website will indicate that the air fare from Jammu to Srinagar on the date February 6 is currently available from Rs. 425.

Flight tickets can be booked on the offical website of Air India. Passengers can also contact authorised travel agents or use the mobile app of Air India to book the tickets.

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New Delhi:

In shocking turn of incidents, Kannada film star Guru Jaggesh was stabbed in Bangalore. The incident took place on Monday morning when Jaggesh went to drop his kid to school.



According to the media reports, the actor had a heated argument with a stranger who had hit Guru's car. The actor reportedly questioned the other driver for his reckless driving following which the miscreant lost his cool and stabbed Guru on his thighs.



Jaggesg was soon rushed to the nearby hospital and was case was registered with the police who is investigating the matter further.



Apparently, there have been reports of personal enmity behind the incident, however, Guru's father Jaggesh refuted the reports.



Guru had gone to drop the kids to school on that morning. On the way, there was an altercation between my son and some miscreants which led to the misfortune. If they had stabbed his even a little upwards, things would have taken a different turn by now. Thank God, he is safe and is recovering well," he said.



On the work front, Guru had made his big debut in showbiz with 2009 release Gilli and was later seen in Guru, Sakranthi and Paipoti among others. He was seen in Shivaraj Kumar's 'Mass Leader'.

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New Delhi:

Prabhas' upcoming movie 'Saaho' has been the talk of the town since it was announced not just because of its lead actor but also because of its female lead. And after much of speculations over the lead actress, the makers of Saaho have finally zeroed in a leading lady opposite Prabhas.



We are talking about Bollywood actress Shraddha Kapoor.



According to the media reports, Shraddha will be seen romancing Prabhas in 'Saaho' for the first time and the makers are quite excited to have her in the movie.



Interestingly, there were reports that 'Baahubali' actress Anushka Shetty was being considered for the female lead. However, the media reports also suggested that the actress was replaced over weight issues



Confirming the news about Shraddha, producers (Vamsi and Pramod) of UV Creations stated, Shraddha is absolutely the perfect choice for the role. We are very excited to have her on board with us.



'Saaho' happens to be a multilingual movie and will also be released in Hindi.



Saaho is Prabhass first film being shot in Hindi and so its very special for all of us. It is a highly ambitious project and there will be some really high-octane action scenes in the film, the producers added.



Talking about the movie, 'Saaho' happens to be a hi-tech action drama and will be released in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu  simultaneously.



Helmed by Sujeeth, 'Saaho' also have Neil Nitin Mukesh as the lead antagonist.

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New Delhi:

Mumbai Police Cyber Cell arrested four people for allegedly leaking the fourth episode of the latest season of popular TV series Game of Thrones. The company which airing rights filed complained after the episode was found on the internet in low-quality video.

An internal enquiry was commenced by the company, two employees names pop-up who were involved in leaking it online.

Police arrested Abhishek Ghadiyal, Suhail Navinchandra Joshi and Alok Sharma and also an ex-employee Mohammed Suhail.

A case has been registered under sections 408 (Criminal breach of trust by clerk or servant) and 34 (common intention) of IPC and 43 (damage to computer, computer system, etc.) and 66 (computer related offences) of the IT Act.

Deputy Commissioner of Police said, We have arrested the four accused. Three of them are employees of the firm while one is a former employee. They were based in Bangalore. We have their custody till August 21. We are probing how and why they committed the crime.
New Delhi:

A 12-year-old girl returning home after attending Independence Day program in her school, was allegedly raped at a Children Park in Chandigarh on Tuesday morning.

According to police, the girl was assaulted and raped at knife point in Children Traffic Park in Sector 23 of the city.

Police said the victim is a student of class VIII in a government school.

Police have learnt during course of investigation that the victim was overpowered and raped by a middle-age man while she was returning home from school around 9:30 am in the morning.

Also Read | Noida: Woman alleges gangrape by four men

The miscreant after raping the minor attacked her with knife and fled the crime site, added police.

Police had learnt about the incident after the victim along with parents lodged a complaint at the Sector 17 police station.

The victims parents said, We saw our daughter bleeding. On asking she narrated her ordeal.

Also Read | Delhi: Man attempts rape, throws girl from 4th floor of under construction building in Begumpur

On learning the incident SSP Eish Singhal and other senior police officials reached the incident site to investigate the matter.

We have lodged an FIR and raids are being made to nab the miscreant, said the SSP.

Another police official told the media that the girl was sent to civil hospital for medical examination. The doctors have confirmed she was sexually assaulted, added the officer.

Police have apprehended at least five people in connection to rape of the incident.

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New Delhi:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort as India will celebrate its 70 years of independence on Tuesday. It is expected that PM Modi may speak on crucial topics including terrorism, Kashmir issue, Pakistan & China issue, demonetisation, Swachh Bharat Campaign, Beti Bachao Beti Padhao and Gorakhpur Medical College incident. This will be his fourth address to the nation from the Red Fort. In his earlier speeches in the years 2014, 2015 and 2016, he focused on the development, women empowerment, social issues and international issues. Take a look at his top quotes from those speeches.

Top quotes of PM Modis 2014 speech:

1. I tell the world - Come, Make In India. Sell anywhere but manufacture here. We have the skill and talent.

2. Our heads hang in shame when we hear about rapes. Parents ask about daughters but did anyone dare ask their sons. After all, the rapist is someone's son. As parents, have we asked our sons where he is going? Why not put same yardstick for sons too?

3. Politicians haven't made this nation, parties haven't made this nation, governments haven't made this nation. Instead it is the farmers, scientists and common people who have built this nation.

ALSO READ | 70 years of Independence: PM Modi may speak on these issues from ramparts of Red Fort

4. The first step towards "Swachh Bharat" begins with immediate effect, through a commitment to build toilets in all schools, including separate toilets for girls, within one year.

Top quotes of PM Modis 2015 speech:

5. We opened the doors of banks for the poor. Starting Jan Dhan Yojana was a big step towards financial inclusion and we did it. It was a time-bound programme that was successfully implemented.

6. We are determined to implement OROP, but in the process none should be left out. Talks are on with the stakeholders. We want justice to be done to all sections and cases are pending for 35 to 40 years.

7. Start-up India, Stand-up India: We are looking at systems for enabling start-ups. We must be Number 1 in start-ups.

Top quotes of PM Modis 2016 speech:

8. My dream is to double the income of farmers by 2022, and this dream will materialise.

9. Lets join together and fight poverty as one. There cant be a bigger freedom than freedom from poverty. Invite all SAARC countries to work together to fight this.

10. The people of Balochistan, the people of Gilgit, the people of Pak-occupied Kashmir have thanked me in such a manner, from places that I have never been and never had a chance to meet, they have sent wishes to the people of India and thanked us. I am grateful to them.

ALSO READ | 70 years of Independence: Jawaharlal Nehrus Tryst with Destiny speech | Top 10 quotes

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CHARLESTON  A woman who was accused of taking part in a plan to make methamphetamine can avoid a record of a conviction with the agreement reached in her case.

Melanie A. Shaffer, 44, of Mattoon pleaded guilty to a methamphetamine possession charge in Coles County Circuit Court.

The charge accused Shaffer of having the drug in August 2015, and the original methamphetamine conspiracy charge against her was dismissed

The agreed-to sentence was two years of first-offender probation, which can lead to no record of a conviction if completed successfully.

Probation terms included an evaluation to determine substance abuse treatment and a requirement that Shaffer follow its recommendation. She was also ordered to pay about $750 in fines and court fees.

Circuit Judge Brien O'Brien sentenced Shaffer by accepting the terms of a plea agreement that Illinois Assistant Attorney General Barry Schaefer and county Assistant Public Defender Jesse Danley recommended.

The Illinois Attorney General's Office prosecuted Shaffer and the others accused because they were indicted by a statewide grand jury.

The grand jury can consider charges against people suspected of criminal activity in more than one county. The cases are then prosecuted in one of the counties in which the crimes allegedly took place.

Shaffer and five other suspects were indicted in 2015 and accused of working together to obtain methamphetamine ingredients in Coles County and other counties.

Shaffer's case was the last of the group to conclude and all of them resulted in guilty pleas. Most received probation sentences, and the only prison term was ordered against a woman who also admitted to other crimes.
New Delhi:

All Kailash Mansarovar pilgrims are safe and secure and Uttarakhand government is in constant touch with them, the External Affairs Ministry said on Tuesday in the wake of cloudburst incidents.

Uttarakhand government and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) are taking steps to ensure a safe journey to Kailash Mansarovar by pilgrims, MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said.

Incident of cloud burst in #Uttarakhand. All yatris safe and secure. Constant watch & contact with Uttarakhand Govt and @ITBP_official, he tweeted.

Yatris given option to continue yatra keeping weather in mind. Uttarakhand Govt and @ITBP_official ensuring safe & smooth conduct of yatra, Kumar said in another tweet.

ALSO READ: Kailash Mansarovar Yatra suspended due to damage of three bridges

Batch 16 moved back from Sirkha to Dharchula due to weather conditions while batch 12 return to Delhi tonight, he said.

Batch 13 arrived in Gunji. Will take helicopter to Dharchula tomorrow on their return journey while Batch 14 completing Kailash parikrama, he said.

Batch 15 in Taklakot, Tibet after completing Kailash parikrama. Will cross into India tomorrow, he added.

Uttarakhands Pithoragarh district was hit by two cloudbursts on Monday.

The first cloudburst had occurred near Tawaghat, sending a rivulet, the Mangti Nullah, into a spate and its swirling waters swept away a few shops and three Army tents.

The second cloudburst also occurred at around the same time at Malpa and swept away six persons. Rescue teams recovered four bodies from the area while two were still missing.

(With PTI inputs)

ALSO READ | Floods, landslides, cloud burst across nation: 11 trains cancelled; PM Modi assures support to Bihar, Assam

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New Delhi:

India is capable of tackling any kind of security challenge, be it the sea or borders, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday asserted amid the standoff with China in Doklam.

Without naming China or the two-month-long Doklam standoff, he said the countrys security is a priority for his government and that soldiers are deployed to protect the borders effectively.

In his Independence Day speech from the ramparts of the historic Red Fort, Modi referred to last years surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC) and said the world has realised the mettle of Indias security forces.

It is clear that security of our country is our priority. Internal security is our priority. Be it sea or borders, be it cyber or space, India is capable of tackling every security challenge, he said.

Our army, our bravehearts, every personnel in uniform and not only the Army, Navy, the IAF, have shown their capability and grit whenever there was a situation. Our heroes never shied away from sacrifices, he said.

The prime minister said the personnel in uniform were always ready to combat any kind of challenges facing the countrybe it Left-wing extremism, terrorism, infiltration or tackling those trying to foment trouble inside the country.

Be it Left-wing extremism, terrorism, be it infiltration or be it tackling the forces trying to foment trouble inside, our people in uniform have always given sacrifices, he said.

He asserted that there will be no soft approach towards terrorism or terrorists and the government is determined to rid the country of this menace.

At the same time, he said the government has given an opportunity to the terrorists to join the national mainstream.

We have told terrorists you come to the mainstream, you have right to talk inside the countrys democratic system. Only the mainstream can fill the energy in every ones life, he said.

The prime minister said that in its fight against terrorism, India is getting support from other countries.

Also Read | PM Modi Independence Day Speech: '18 lakh people, Rs 1.75 lakh cr deposits under scrutiny'

You will be happy to know that we are not alone in fight against terrorism. So many countries have been actively helping us. If there is hawala transaction, the world is giving us information, the world is giving us details about movement of terrorists, he said.

I want thank all those countries which are cooperating with India in fighting the menace and this cooperation is giving strength in ensuring overall peace and security, Modi said.

Due to efforts of the security forces, particularly in areas under Left-wing extremism, a large number of youth have surrendered and made efforts to come to the mainstream, he said.

Indias stature in the world is rising. The world is with us in fight against terror. I thank all nations helping us doing so, he said.

Modi said a website is being launched to give information about security personnel who have contributed significantly towards the country.

The prime minister also referred to implementation of one-rank, one-pension scheme for defence personnel.

Also Read: Music composer duo Salim-Sulaiman dedicate new song to army men

For last 30, 40 years, the issue of one-rank, one-pension was pending. When the government fulfils the demand, when the government heeds to wishes of the armed forces, then their resolve to give sacrifices for the country increases, he said.

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New Delhi:

Congress leader Anand Sharma on Tuesday criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for comparing Gorakhpur hospital tragedy with other natural calamities. He said,Prime minister should have been careful over sensitive issues.

While talking to reporters over Prime Ministers Independence Day speech, Sharma said PM talked about the surgical strike which had taken place almost a year ago and since then several ceasefire violations and repeated attacks took place in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Congress leader said PM Modi was making tall claims on GST, but it was the BJP which had stalled GST for seven years in the Parliament when the saffron party was in the opposition.

He said the opposition played important role in passing of GST and it allowed it with amendments. He said they did not expect that Modi would ignore the issue and suddenly sought cooperation on the same.

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New Delhi:

Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Modis car was attacked with stones at Chak Shinkandrabad in Bihars Vaishali district on Tuesday evening allegedly by RJD partyworkers.

According to BJP members, Modi was on his way to Mahnat to attend funeral rites of fromer BJP MLA Achutanand Singh.

Officer in-charge of Bidupur police station Ritesh Mandal said that some miscreants attacked Sushil Modi's car when he was on way to Mahnat.

Members added that as Modis cavalcade reached Chak Shikandrabad RJD party workers allegedly blocked the road and attacked the cavalcade.

According to BJP party workers, RJD members attacked the cavalcade with sticks and pelted stones on the cars.

According to BJP party workers who were part of the cavalcade few stones hit Modis car.

He is safe, said a BJP partyworker to the local media.

The party worker added that the stone pelters were shouting anti-BJP, anti-Modi and anti-Nitish Kumar slogans while pelting stones.

BJP party workers of Vaishali district and nearby areas started gathering at the incident site on learning about the incident.

Vaishali district administration has pumped in force in the area to prevent any clashed between members of the two rival political parties.

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New Delhi:

The Director General of Border Security Force, KK Sharma, on Tuesday said that there is zero infiltration on India-Pakistan border which is controlled by BSF since January 2016.

Sharma said that they are going to implement comprehensive integrated border management, 2 pilot projects of which have already begun in Jammu.

Our force is known for its training and discipline, coming generations should learn the same from BSF, said KK Sharma.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed nation on 71st Independence Day from the ramparts of Red Fort. He reiterated governments resolve to fight against terrorism.

PM Modi sent a strong message to Pakistan and warned them of all possible action against the terrorists.

Also read: BSF to lodge protest with Pak Rangers against ceasefire violations

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New Delhi:

On the eve of Independence Day, the Army Goodwill School was renamed as Shaheed Lt Ummer Fayaz Goodwill School in Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday. Lt Ummer Fayaz was killed by terrorists in May.

"Persons involved in killing of Lt Ummer Fayaz (in month of May) identified and we are on their trail," said Lt Gen JS Sandhu, GoC 15 Corps.

Lt Gen JS Sandhu said that number of protests and people participating in them are reducing. He added that people are fed up with agitations and want their lives to go on normally.

Lieutenant Fayaz, from the troubled region of Kulgam district, was posted with 2 Rajputana Rifles and had applied for leave to attend a cousins wedding.

He was on leave when he was picked up from his house at Harmein in Kulgam, 60 kilometres from Srinagar. The body of the young officer was later found three kilometres from his house.

Fayaz, who studied at Navodaya Vidyalaya, a branch of government schools for gifted students, at Ashmuquam in South Kashmir, joined the Army after being commissioned in December last year. He belonged to the 129th batch of cadets from the prestigious Pune-based National Defence Academy.

This was for the first time that he had taken leave after joining the Army, a senior official said. He was supposed to have returned to his unit in the Akhnoor area of Jammu on May 25.

Also read: Army assures family of Lieutenant Ummer Fayaz to punish perpetrators of crime

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New Delhi:

Pakistan on Tuesday violated ceasefire in Baaz and Nambla areas of Uri sector in Baramulla district on the Independence Day. A woman was injured in the attack.

The injured lady has been identified as Haneefa Begam resident of Namla Uri.

Indian Army is retaliating strongly. Heavy firing is currently going on.

Earlier on Sunday, Pakistani troops violated the ceasefire four times along the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch, Rajouri and Baramulla districts of Jammu and Kashmir, injuring three Army jawans, officials said.

Also read: Ceasefire violation in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri, Naushera sectors, 3 Army personnel injured

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New Delhi:

Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav on Tuesday attacked government by saying that the surgical operation done by Indira Gandhi was so powerful that it split Pakistan into two parts whereas the current surgical attack is only a deception.

Lalu said that attacks are being done from all sides and China is also intruding. He added that the government does not have material to even fight for ten days.

RJD was recently forced out of grand alliance in Bihar when CM Nitish Kumar joined hands with NDA.

Earlier on August 13, Lalu Prasad Yadav on Sunday said he would never join hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party as the latter spreads communalism in the country.

While addressing people in Siwan, Lalu attacked Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, saying that he is a falturam and his career is finished forever.

The RJD supremo said come what may, he would never join hands with the BJP.

Lalu supported the statements of former vice-president Hamid Ansaris affirmation of apprehension among the Muslim community in the country.

The RJD supremo blamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying that the latter is trying to divide on communal lines. He said, I will defeat Nitish and Modi within two months.

Also read: Lalu slams Nitish, says 'will never join hands with BJP like Bihar CM did'

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New Delhi:

After a massive search operation for four hours, Lucknow police has claimed that the alert call informing about five suspected terrorists hiding in a call centre building at Chinchwad area of Uttar Pradeshs Lucknow turned to be a hoax.

The STF received a phone call from locals of sighting heavily armed people. We did not find any terrorists hiding in the area, said SSP Lucknow Deepak Kumar.

He added, working on the tip a search operation was launched by the joint security forces including Lucknow Police and STF to nab the suspected terrorist and sanitize the area.

A STF official part of the search operation said, We could not take a chance as the intelligence agencies a week back had alerted of a possible terror attack to disrupt Independence Day and Janmashtami celebrations.

The STF official added, During search operation and investigation we learnt that a high-profile man with five to six bodyguards had visited the building.

The officer added that police officials from four police stations were engaged by the Lucknow Police in the search operation.

The officer added, Bomb disposal team and a dog squad team are also engaged in the hunt.

The search operation was being led by Assistant Director General of Police (ADGP) Abhay Pratap.

A week prior to Independence Day, different intelligence agencies of the country had warned of a possible terrorist attack in major cities across the country to disrupt Independence Day and Janmashtami celebration.

(With inputs from Anil Yadav)
Srinagar:

The six-year-old daughter of slain CRPF Commandant Pramod Kumar and his wife on Tuesday unfurled the tricolour at the same battalion camp in Srinagar, where exactly a year ago he hoisted the flag and was killed minutes later in an encounter with militants.

Kumars wife Neha Tripathy and daughter Aarna performed the ceremonial unfurling and saluting the flag at the 49th battalion camp in the Karan Nagar area.

Tripathy then performed the traditional drill of distributing sweets to the men of the battalion, once commanded by her husband. She also placed a wreath at the martyrs memorial built at the camp.

Kumar (44) was on Monday decorated by the government with the Kirti Chakra (posthumously), the third highest peacetime gallantry medal, for his dare devil action where he picked up his AK-47 rifle and rushed to the Nowhatta Chowk area after he was told his patrol party was under attack, during the last Independence Day.

He suffered a fatal bullet shot in his head during the encounter at Nowhatta Chowk area and succumbed soon after.

Kumars wife had on Monday told PTI that she wanted her daughter to know what her father did for the country and hence decided to mark his first death anniversary at the same camp where he took his last salute.

I want my daughter to know what her father stood for and what he did. She should know that what is the importance of earning a Kirti Chakra. Hence, I made it a point to be on the same soil where my husband lost his life, to mark his first death anniversary.

As he unfurled the tricolour at the 49th battalion camp exactly an year before, we will be doing it tomorrow, she had said.

On the last Independence Day, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) CO had hoisted the flag between 8:30-8:40 AM and in his speech remarked that with India clocking 70 years of its freedom, the responsibility on security forces has increased and they have to effectively tackle militants and incidents of stone pelting in Jammu and Kashmir.

Just before he ended his speech, Kumar, in a recorded video of the event, is seen looking at his watch and saying it is an important day, unaware of the fate that awaited him.

Minutes later he was killed at the Nowhatta Chowk fighting militants.

While Kumar and his men eliminated the two armed foreign militants, nine other personnel, including a state police official, were injured in the attack.

The CO was posted to Srinagar in April 2014 and was promoted as a Commandant only a few days before the fateful day, on July 12.

He hailed from Patna in Bihar but lived in neighbouring Jharkhands Jamtara district.

The officer had been thrice decorated with the CRPF Director Generals commendation in 2015, 2014 and in 2011.

He had also served in the Special Protection Group (SPG) for three years.

The officer joined the force in 1998.

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DECATUR  Police said a Decatur husband-and-wife theft team was arrested Saturday after stealing and reselling more than 60 DVDs valued at $1,200.

Sworn affidavits from Decatur police said the 42-year-old wife stole the DVDs from the Walmart store at 4224 North Prospect Drive. She made multiple trips, police said, beginning in July. Police said her husband, 37, helped her sell them at a resale store, which provided police with extensive purchase records.

The woman faces a preliminary charge of burglary, and the man was booked on a charge of possession of stolen property. Preliminary charges are subject to review by the Macon County State's Attorney's Office.
New Delhi:

Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo Lalu Prasad on Tuesday dismissed the speculations that any of his partymen was behind the attack on Bihar Deputy CM Sushil Modis car attack. Unidentified persons attacked Modis car in an area known to be an RJD stronghold.

The incident occurred minutes after Leader of Opposition in the Assembly and Lalus son Tejaswi Prasad Yadavs motorcade had passed through the area.

Unidentified persons hurled stones at Modis car when he was on his way to the village on Tuesday evening, Ritesh Mandal, the officer in-charge of the Bidupur police station said.

Preliminary information suggests that the car received some damage but there was no injury to the deputy chief minister, who proceeded to attend the funeral ceremony of ex-BJP MLA Achutanand Singhs mother.

His escort party informed the police about the incident, Mandal said. Vaishali Superintendent of Police (SP) Rakesh Kumar said Modi was being escorted back to Patna under heavy police protection.

ALSO READ: Bihar deputy CM Sushil Modis cavalcade attacked in Vaishali; leader alleges RJD's hand

Earlier, Sushil Modis car was attacked with stones at Chak Shinkandrabad in Bihars Vaishali district on Tuesday evening. According to BJP members, Modi was on his way to Mahnat when the incident happened.

Officer in-charge of Bidupur police station Ritesh Mandal said that some miscreants attacked Sushil Modi's car when he was on way to Mahnat.

According to BJP party workers, RJD members attacked the cavalcade with sticks and pelted stones on the cars. He is safe, said a BJP partyworker to the local media.

The party worker added that the stone pelters were shouting anti-BJP, anti-Modi and anti-Nitish Kumar slogans while pelting stones. BJP party workers of Vaishali district and nearby areas started gathering at the incident site on learning about the incident.

Vaishali district administration has pumped in force in the area to prevent any clash between members of the two rival political parties.

ALSO READ: Lalu Yadav says Nitish Kumar does not belong to JD(U) anymore, it is Sharad Yadav now

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath congratulated the countrymen and addressed UP on the occasion of 71st Independence Day. He cited that the soil of Uttar Pradesh marks the land of India's first freedom struggle that took place in 1857.

"Can we take the oath of devoting every moment of our lives in establishing a powerful India?," added CM Adityanath.

The UP CM said that the path to achieve this objective traversed through Uttar Pradesh only.

ALSO READ: 'We have to leave this 'Chalta Hai' attitude'

1857 ka wah din, 1857 ka pehla sangram Uttar Pradesh ki bhoomi rahi hai: UP CM Yogi Adityanath #IndependenceDayIndia pic.twitter.com/JD3nRkvne4  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) August 15, 2017

"We need to emphasise on the development and prosperity of India. Our aim is to enlist India among the developed nations." said CM Adityanath.

Bharat ko viksit karna hai,samriddh karna hai,agrani deshon ki katar mein rakhna hai.Iska raasta Uttar Pradesh se jaata hai: Yogi Adityanath pic.twitter.com/tB4f7oMmWb  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) August 15, 2017

READ: 'Youth turning 18 next year are Bhagya Vidhatas of nation'

Kya hum sankalp kar paenge ki hum apne jeevan ka ek ek pal dunia ke saamne Bharat ko shakti ke roop mein sthapit karne mein denge?: UP CM pic.twitter.com/rqoxLskYEh  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) August 15, 2017

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

Several Muslim institutions on Tuesday defied the diktat issued by Uttar Pradesh government which had asked staff and students at Islamic educational institutions to sing national anthem and videograph Independence Day celebrations.

Many muslim institutions hoisted the national flag but did not sing the national anthem. In many institutions Sare Jahan Se Acha, a 20th century patriotic song penned by poet Mohmmad Iqbal was sung in spite of the national anthem.

Many teachers and students of several institution said that they dont need to prove their nationality.

The Yogi Adityanath government had passed a circular last week stating that all Islamic educational institutions should celebrate Independence Day, sing national anthem at 8 am sharp and video-record the event.

Many prominent clerics openly opposed the order.

According to a press release issued by Barelivi clerics they said, Singing the national anthem belittles the struggle of our freedom fighters.

The clerics also alleged that the national anthem was written in praise of George V, the then king of England.
New Delhi:

Marking 70 years of Indias freedom from British rule,Google on Monday celebrated India's Independence Day with a special doodle. Search Engine Giant has designed a unique and one of its kind Google Doodle that depicts the parliament house.

Googles new art work has been designed by the Mumbai-based artist, Sabeena Karnik, who is known for her paper typography work and looks spectacular. Google has also shared some behind the scenes picture from the making of the Google Doodle for Indias Independence Day.

According to Googles statement, Karnik used a unique paper-cut art style to create a Doodle fit for the bold and colorful celebration of todays events.

The Parliament House depicted in her work commemorates this day, this movement, and this triumph of independence.

Heres a look at Karniks work or in other word making the final doodle for Indias 71st Independence Day.
London:

Hailing the "long standing" UK-Indiaties, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said today that the UK was committed to working together with India to tackle global challenges. In his message to India on its Independence Day, Johnson, whose wife is of Sikh origin, said the India-UK partnership was rooted in the Indian diaspora population based in the UK.

He said: "On behalf of the United Kingdom of Great-Britain and Northern Ireland, I extend my warmest wishes to the people of India and the British-Indian community in the United Kingdom on the occasion of India's Independence Day. "The United Kingdom and India share a deep and longstanding partnership, rooted in the 1.5 million BritishIndian diasporas in the UK who contributed so richly to our society.

Our two countries are committed to working together to promote our people?s prosperity, improve global security and tackle the global challenges that we face today." Making a reference to the ongoing 2017 UK-India Year of Culture, the Conservative Party minister said the UK will continue to celebrate the strength of the bilateral ties including "our shared history, values, culture and language".

He added,"Whilst today is an opportunity to reflect onIndia's success over the past 70 years, it is also a chance to look ahead at a bright future for both our countries, supported by the flourishing ties between the people of India and the UK." PTI AK ABH AKJABH08151943

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
DECATUR  One of the highest honors for a quilter is to have their work shown in Paducah, Ky., during the American Quilter's Society show.

The Decatur Quilters Guild has the privilege of sending two members to the popular competition this year.

Mary Traxler of Hammond and Linda Boles of Decatur will have their quilts displayed in the international show Sept. 13 to 16.

To be selected is an honor, but to have two quilters from the same guild is an especially warm recognition.

Everybody who knows quilting knows about Paducah, Boles said. It is like the Academy Awards for quilters.

Boles' quilt, titled International Sunbonnet Sue, and Traxler's Quilt of Many Colors quilt will be two of 550 quilts displayed. More than $120,000 in prizes will be awarded to 15 winners. Countries represented at international quilt show include Japan, New Zealand, Australia and England, as well as 41 states.

They use different techniques, and the designs are across the board, Boles said.

After more than 30 years, the quilting competition has grown, motivating organizers to expand. This will be the first fall show. Traxler and Boles have attended the spring show for years and have experienced crowds of 30,000 people.

Nearly 140 vendors are also part of the show, selling everything associated with quilts, including sewing machines, fabrics, thread and patterns. Anything your heart desires, Traxler said.

The women the quilting show is important as the craft continues to grow as an art form.

You can't get a hotel within a hundred miles, Boles said.

The Paducah competition is fierce, Boles and Traxler agreed. Three certified international judges will critique each of the quilts beginning two weeks before the show. A Best of Show will voted on by the competition's quilters through online voting.

Other American Quilter's Society competitions throughout the year include Virginia Beach, Virginia; Daytona, Florida; and Grand Rapids, Michigan.

You think you have seen the most beautiful quilt, then you go around the corner, then there is another, Boles said.

Neither Traxler nor Boles had ever entered a quilt in the international competition. Both ladies knew they had special quilts when they finished the work, though. Each took about a year and a half to complete their work. Traxler enlisted the help of Joy Voltenburg of Sullivan to piece together the quilt.

She turned it into something beautiful, Traxler said.

Quilters attend the competition not only to view beautiful pieces of work, but also to learn more about their craft. On the first day of the show, competitors will stand with their quilts answering questions about the designs and techniques.

Quilters are very generous in their knowledge, Boles said.

We are all teachers at heart, Traxler said.

Both ladies began quilting later in life. Boles watched as her grandmothers quilted, but didn't take up the craft until she decided to make a quilt for her in-laws.

It wasn't great, she said. It was tied, not quilted. I didn't know anything about quilting.

Traxler learned some stitching techniques from her mother as a child, but didn't start seriously quilting until she was an adult. Once they found an interest, both ladies took quilting classes to learn more.

You learn from the experts, from each other, Boles said.

I learned from books, too, Traxler said.

The quilters use the techniques in which they feel most comfortable. Both competition quilts were created using hand applique. Traxler uses needle-turn applique while Boles uses prepared applique. Each is a different technique but with the same result.

It takes more concentration to do a hand applique than it does to do anything else. Traxler said. It is the top of the line.

Boles and Traxler were required to send a picture of each of their quilts in its entirety as well as a picture of a small section of it. Obviously, I sent a picture with no flaws, Boles said. But it's not about winning anything.

The prestige of getting a quilt in the Paducah show, it is a tremendous honor, Traxler said.
BLOOMINGTON  Democrats shouldn't expect to find state Rep. Bill Mitchell on their side again this week.

Mitchell, a Forsyth Republican, voted with House Democrats to override Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner's veto of the new state budget last month, but he stands with Rauner on the latest Springfield stalemate: education funding.

"The school districts I represent do much better under Gov. Rauners plan than (Democrats'), said Mitchell, who represents Decatur and parts of McLean County. This is an argument about whether downstate is going to get our fair share versus Chicago.

Lawmakers are under pressure to approve a new school funding system after including in the budget a provision that requires one before schools can get state money. Districts have already missed an Aug. 10 payment.

While no districts will be unable to open, according to the Illinois State Board of Education, many face the possibility of running out of money during the school year.

Decatur schools are set to run out of reserves by mid-November without state funding, Superintendent Paul Fregeau has said. The district would consider borrowing against future tax revenue to help keep doors open.

The Democrat-controlled General Assembly approved a plan this summer, but Rauner didn't sign it, opting for an amendatory veto changing the bill. The state Senate voted 38-19 Sunday to override the veto with only one Republican, but Democrats don't hold enough House seats to override without more help.

The Illinois House plans to gauge support for the changes Rauner made with his amendatory veto of Senate Bill 1.

There will be no immediate vote on overriding the veto when the House convenes Wednesday. Instead, Democrats will consider a new bill that incorporates the Republican governor's changes. But its chances in the House are slim.

Other Republicans lawmakers such as state Rep. Brad Halbrook echoed Mitchell's sentiments regarding support to override Rauner's veto.

"It's hard to vote against something that will give more money to the schools in my district," said Halbrook, whose district includes parts of Macon, Shelby, Moultrie, Douglas, Champaign and Edgar counties.

While he was unaware of when a possible vote could be coming when asked Tuesday afternoon, Halbrook said he could not support any attempt to override Rauner's veto.

State Rep. Dan Brady, R-Bloomington, said he can't say how he'll vote until he has a specific proposal. Brady backed Rauner in the budget fight.

Rauner said he vetoed the education bill because it benefits Chicago by making state taxpayers cover its teacher pensions  as they do for every other Illinois district  without taking away compensatory funding.

Democrats countered that his proposal would hurt downstate districts by distributing funding by student without a permanent funding floor, harming schools with declining enrollment but rising costs like building maintenance.

"It gets down to a numbers game. Whose numbers are you going to believe? said Brady.

State Rep. Sue Scherer, D-Decatur, said Tuesday afternoon that she still had hope that both parties could come to a compromise on school funding. But if no agreement can be reached soon, Scherer said she would likely support the override of Rauner's veto in order for schools to start receiving state money owed to them.

Mitchell said he expects the House will fail to override the governor, paving the way for legislators to negotiate.

"There are a lot of different things he could do," said Mitchell of Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan of Chicago, a frequent target for Rauner. "Does he want to play games, or is he serious about working with Republicans to get something done? Lets hope hes serious about working with us.

Herald & Review Staff Writer Ryan Voyles and the Associated Press contributed to this article.
Citizens in Japan have been observing the 72nd anniversary of the end of World War Two. August 15th is the day Japan commemorates the end of the war.

The government held a memorial ceremony in Tokyo on Tuesday to honor the approximately 3.1 million people who died in the conflict. About 6,400 people, including bereaved family members, attended the event.

In a speech, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the devastation of war should never be repeated. He highlighted Japan's contributions to global peace and prosperity in the decades since the war.

Abe said Japan will continue to uphold a policy of supporting peace and hating war, while facing history with humility.

At noon, participants observed a minute of silent prayer.

Emperor Akihito spoke of a profound sense of remorse over the war and expressed his hope that it never happens again.

He said he joined the Japanese people in offering condolences to those who died in the war, and prayed for world peace and the future progress of his country.

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Japan's education ministry on Monday announced a rule that will not allow in principle an increase in the enrollment limits at private universities in Tokyo's densely populated 23 wards, beginning in fiscal 2018 from next April.

The regulation, announced in a draft revision to its notice regarding the establishment of universities, is intended to correct the concentration of young people in the Japanese capital. The ministry will amend the notice after seeking comments from the public until Sept. 12.

The draft revision says that an increase in the enrollment quotas will not be allowed for private universities, including two-year colleges, in the 23 wards in fiscal 2018. For fiscal 2019, not only an increase in the enrollment limits but also the establishment of new universities and colleges, and the creation of new faculties and courses at existing institutions that lead to an increase in the admission capacities will not be permitted, according to the draft. fake rolex replica watch rolex
Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested a 24-year-old university student after a robbery at a supermarket in Higashi-Murayama City left a female customer injured on Saturday, reports TBS News.

At 7:20 p.m., Kentaro Nakamura allegedly stabbed the woman, 53, in the neck and face after he swiped 10,000 yen from her at the register at the Seiyu Kumagawa supermarket.

According to police, the woman was transported to a hospital with injuries that are expected to require two weeks to heal.

Nakamura, who has been accused of robbery and attempted murder, denies the allegations.

Prior to the incident, the woman was waiting to pay at the register when Nakamura allegedly grabbed a 10,000-yen note from her and fled the store. After giving chase, the woman was stabbed by the suspect outside the store.

About 20 minutes after the incident, police were alerted by the parents of the father of the suspect, who said that his son had committed a theft and was in possession of a knife, according to Nippon News Network (Aug. 13).
CLINTON  A Braidwood man faces a charge of driving under the influence, following a crash that injured himself and two others last week near Clinton.

Francis Lang, 46, is scheduled for a preliminary hearing in DeWitt County Court on Tuesday. Prosecutors say at about 10:30 p.m. Aug. 7, Lang was driving a pickup truck west on Illinois 10, on the eastern edge of Clinton when it collided head on with an eastbound van driven by Joseph Adams, 45, of Clinton at Jemima Road.

Adams was airlifted to Carle Hospital in Urbana with several broken bones in his leg and wrist. He remained in stable condition. His daughter, Marissa Nanez, 26, was taken by ambulance to Advocate BroMenn Medical Center in Normal, where she was treated and released.

Lang was also taken to Advocate BroMenn Medical Center in Normal where he was treated and released, before being arrested on the DUI charge.

The Illinois State Police, DeWitt County Sheriff's Office, Clinton Police, DeWitt County EMS, Clinton Fire Department and Kenney Fire Department assisted at the scene.
Who's For Paying More?

Let's take a quick vote. How many consumers are in favor of surcharges just for the convenience of using a credit card? Anybody? That's what we thought.

The European Union and the United Kingdom agree with that assessment. New rules from the British government will soon prohibit retailers from charging customers extra for paying for their purchase with a credit card. The UK rule stems from an EU directive set to take effect on January 13, 2018, and, according to the UK Treasury Ministry, British consumers could save a sizable portion of the millions of pounds spent annually on card surcharges.

Calling credit card surcharges "rip-off charges", Economic Secretary to the Treasury Stephen Barclay said that such charges "have no place in a modern Britain." Do they have a place in a modern America? Some states already say no, but the situation is not straightforward  and, despite Barclay's comment, lack of surcharges does not guarantee lower prices to consumers.

Variations on the Theme

Currently, Puerto Rico and ten states do not allow credit card surcharges (California, New York, Kansas, Florida, Maine, Connecticut, Texas, Oklahoma, Massachusetts, and Colorado). Merchants in the other states are generally allowed to pass on a surcharge that is equal to their costs associated with accepting the card (up to 4%). Surcharges on debit cards are already banned throughout the US via an amendment to the Dodd-Frank legislation.

However, each card network has a specific set of surcharging requirements that retailers must follow in order to apply surcharges using that card brand. Combine different card requirements with differing state rules and you can see why relations between retailers, banks, credit card companies, and the credit card processors are complex and tense.

For example, the American Express guideline does not allow retailers to charge a higher fee for one card network (swipe fee) compared to another. This is troublesome because fees are not the same among all card networks, and merchants are then limited to passing on only the lowest rate  or refusing to take cards with higher rates altogether.

Retailers can get around this by applying product level surcharges (types of cards) instead of brand-level surcharges, but the situation remains complex. They must still abide by any state laws and limits/restrictions imposed by each card network, post an appropriate notice of the surcharge within their store, and include the surcharge amount as a separate line item on the receipt.

There's Always a Way

What about states where surcharges are not allowed? In many of these states, merchants are permitted to offer discounts for using cash or debit cards  thus the standard price is raised to cover the cost of credit card processing.

The Supreme Court recently addressed a New York case challenging the execution of this approach, ruling that state law may be challenged with respect to the way prices are advertised on free speech grounds. New York state law allows that a merchant can advertise an item for a specific cash price (for example, $5) and a specific credit card price (for example, $5.10), or advertise the item for $5.10 with a 10 cent cash discount  but the merchant can't advertise a $5 item and a 2% surcharge for credit.

Of course, retailers are welcome to raise prices straightaway without explanation and charge the same price to every one regardless of payment type. They risk losing business in doing so, but each merchant must do the risk/reward calculation.

In short, if the US bans credit card surcharges nationwide, retailers can  and almost certainly will  continue to find ways to recoup their costs. What can change, however, is making these costs fully transparent, so consumers can decide which cards best meet their needs. The free market should take care of the rest.

The Takeaway

Nobody wants to pay extra fees on their credit card transactions, and it's laudable that the EU and UK are trying to protect their consumers from such fees. But it is naive for them to assume that by removing card fees, merchants will mostly absorb the costs of processing credit cards, and not pass those costs on to consumers in other ways. We remain skeptical.

Your job as a savvy consumer is to consider all fees and taxes before making a purchase, regardless of what you are buying and where you are buying it. This is not always easy  especially if you are buying an airline ticket or booking a hotel online  but you can't truly comparison-shop until you understand the total costs associated with your purchase.

New regulations may make your job of assessing costs a bit easier, but they have an equal chance of making it harder. In either case, it's still your responsibility to shop wisely for credit products, comparing features, benefits  and costs  on an apple-to-apple basis.

If you want more credit, check out MoneyTips' list of credit card offers.
DANBURY  City Democrats are making their strongest push in years to regain control of City Hall in November, their leader said on Tuesday.

We have not had a full slate of candidates for the last several election cycles, but this year we filled every position that is open on the November ballot, said Democratic Party Chairman Gene Eriquez. It demonstrates the acute interest Democrats have in running for mayor, treasurer, clerk, City Council, the Board of Education and the Zoning Commission.

At stake are 21 seats on the City Council, where Republicans have a 15-to-6 majority, and the mayors office.

Democrats are running all six incumbents for City Council. The party is also running a mayoral candidate for the first time in four years  Al Almeida  a decorated combat veteran who came to the United States from Portugal when he was 11. He will try to unseat GOP Mayor Mark Boughton, who is running for an unprecedented ninth term while exploring a third run for governor.

Boughton made headlines last week by undergoing surgery to remove a benign tumor from his brain. The 53-year-old mayor is recovering in Pittsburgh, where his surgery was performed, and plans to return to work next week.

The citys GOP chairman said Republicans are in a strong position because Danbury is one of the leading cities in the state.

The Democrats might seem more energized this year because they filled their slate, but we have a full slate for the ninth election in a row, said Jack Knapp, the GOP chairman. The city is running smoothly in our eyes.

Republicans, who are running all 15 incumbents on the City Council, take credit for the citys low unemployment rate, its low crime rate, and its state-leading growth.

Our Board of Education has been underfunded in the tens of millions of dollars and still we offer a quality education, Knapp said. When you are knocking on doors that is what people want to hear  that our education system is good and the city is safe.

Going by voter registration numbers, Republicans are the minority party in Danbury, as Republicans are statewide. There are 7,800 registered Republicans in Danbury, compared to 12,500 registered Democrats and nearly 18,000 unaffiliated registered voters, the latest city records show.

Eriquez said Democrats need to work harder to use their numbers to their advantage.

We know and recognize the importance of being the majority party, said Eriquez, a former longtime mayor. We have governed this city well when we have been in the majority.

Eriquez countered the GOP characterization of Danbury as a leading city.

Our education system is challenged in some areas and requires attention, Eriquez said. Property taxes have gone up under this administration and there have been reductions in our workforce  and we have seen the result of that in reduced services.

rryser@newstimes.com; 203-731-3342
New Braunfels, TX (78130)

Today

Sunshine and some clouds. High 61F. Winds E at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies early followed by increasing clouds with showers developing later at night. Low 44F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP)  A new study has found that Connecticut ranks third among the six New England states for community and four-year college tuition. The average in-state tuition was $4,618 at two-year colleges and $10,988 at four-year colleges during the 2016-17 school year.

There were 104,550 undergraduate students enrolled at public colleges across Connecticut in fall 2016, according to data from the state's Office of Higher Education. The report from the New England Board of Education said that enrollment, however, has dropped over the past five years.
The Cole memorandum pops up frequently in media reports and discussions about the legal marijuana industry. This is especially true in recent days, when it appears it could be under attack by the Trump Administration.

But just what is the Cole Memo? Simply put, its all that stands between legal adult-use marijuana businesses and getting arrested by federal agents. Consequently, its the most important document in the legal marijuana industry.

Its even more important now. In recent days, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has sent letters to Colorado, Oregon and Washington indicating he believes the states may not stand in compliance with the memo.

Related: Oakland Explores Reparations for Those Persecuted by the War on Drugs

Cole Memo Overview

As states began legalization of adult-use marijuana, the federal government under then-President Barack Obama faced a challenge. With states legalizing marijuana, how should the federal government go about enforcing federal laws? Marijuana was, and still is, a Schedule I illegal drug under federal law.

Cracking down on marijuana sales would impede the rights of those who had voted for its use in those states. It also would violate the doctrine of states rights. In an attempt at compromise, Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole wrote a memorandum in 2013 calling for the Justice Department to not enforce federal law on marijuana against cannabis businesses operating legally under state law.

However, the memo stands on the idea that states will enact regulatory framework that tracks marijuana from seed to sale. The memo also requires states to work for prevention of:

Distribution to minors

Marijuana profits from going to criminal enterprises

Marijuana being distributed from a legal state to an adjacent state where its illegal

Legal marijuana providing cover for the sale of other, illegal drugs

Violence or firearms becoming involved in the marijuana industry

Drugged driving or other negative impact on public health

The growing of marijuana on public lands

The possession of marijuana on public lands

Related: Getting Healthy, Not High: Using Cannabis to Fight Cancer

Why its a bigger deal now

In recent weeks, Sessions has sent letters to leaders in Colorado, Oregon and Washington asking for detailed reports on how they are adhering to the memo. He also apparently repeated that the federal government plans to enforce laws against marijuana, which he called a dangerous drug.

For some, this signals he might be looking at violations of the memos prevention of section. Meanwhile, the Associated Press obtained portions of a report that a committee formed by Sessions delivered last month.

The Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety apparently developed no new policies for Sessions to implement. According to the Associated Press, the group largely reiterates the current Justice Department policy on marijuana.

Given that, Sessions focus on the Cole memo may indicate a new approach. While to this point its been all talk, the cannabis industry will continue paying very close attention to Sessions in case talk turns to action.

Follow dispensaries.com on Twitter to stay up to date on the latest cannabis news.

Related:

What Every Cannabis Entrepreneur Needs to Understand About the Cole Memo

Oakland Explores Reparations for Those Persecuted by the War on Drugs

Federal Legalization of Marijuana Not Likely Soon but Proponents Are Trying



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved



This article originally appeared on entrepreneur.com


We need more farmers, not fewer.

That was one of the comments made two weeks ago at the Farm Bill Listening Session held by the United States House Agriculture Committee at Farm Fest in Morgan, Minn.

Ive been pondering that statement ever since.

I couldnt agree more with wanting more dairy farmers. Each dairy farm in our area contributes to our strong dairy infrastructure . . . and also to the strong sense of camaraderie and community.

The sad reality, though, is that someone who wanted to start his or her own dairy farm today . . . the way my husband and I did 10 years ago . . . could face one nearly insurmountable hurdle  market access.

In some locales, there is no room for new milk.

Milk processors here in central Minnesota, both cooperative- and privately-owned, are operating at full or near-full capacity. Most are not taking on new patrons; others are very reluctant to do so.

It seems the only way a beginning dairy farmer can secure market access is by obtaining it from a dairy farmer exiting the market . . . and even that strategy isnt a guarantee.

Perhaps this is extra troubling for me because of my heritage. My father, my grandfather, and my great-grandfather all struck out on their own, building their own dairy farms from scratch through the acquisition of land, credit, and dairy cows.

I personally understand that access to land and credit can be challenges in our current environment, but I never expected market access to become such an obstacle.

I guess I should count my lucky stars that we got a patron number when we did.

Is market access an issue in your area?

The author is a dairy farmer and writer from central Minnesota. She farms with her husband, Glen, and their three children. Sadie grew up on a dairy farm in northern Minnesota and graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in agricultural communications and marketing. She also blogs at Dairy Good Life.
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WINNIPEG, Aug. 14, 2017 /CNW/ -

Sales

Revenue for the quarter was $91.4 million, up $4.3 million from the prior year third quarter. Revenue for the first nine months of 2017 was $218.0 million, up $13.6 million from the same period of 2016. Weak commodity prices continue to contribute to reduced sales levels for the Company. Orders in North America have returned to near historical levels, with the Company seeing an increase in sales to the United States. Sales to Eastern Europe have remained steady.

3rd quarter ending



9 months ending

June 30, 2017



Year Ago June 30, 2017

Year Ago Revenue (millions)

$91.4 $87.1 Revenues (millions) $218.0 $204.4 Net profit (millions)

$2.6 $3.1 Net profit (millions) ($0.1) ($4.1) Net profit/share

$0.10 $0.12 Net profit/share ($0.00) ($0.16) Shares issued (millions)

25.0 25.0 Shares Issued (millions) 25.0 25.0

Net Earnings

Net earnings of $2.6 million were down from earnings of $3.1 million for the third quarter of 2016. For the year to date, net earnings were ($0.1) million, an improvement of $4.0 million from the prior year. Contributing to the decreased earnings for the quarter was a $2.4 million gain on sale of surplus property in the prior year, offset by the current quarter's improved margin. For the year to date, the increase is principally due to the improved margin, offset by increased gains on sale of surplus property in the prior year.

Looking Forward

Sales for 2017 are expected to be up over 2016 sales. While demand for agricultural equipment continues to be slow resulting from lower commodity prices, the Company has experienced higher levels of demand for equipment in 2017 compared to 2016. Dealer inventory levels for front-wheel assist and four-wheel drive tractors are down from last year in both Canada and the United States which will create opportunities when demand for new equipment increases. Subsequent to quarter end, the Company finalized a three year asset-based lending agreement with CIBC which will provide the Company with a $50 million credit line and help reduce interest costs going forward. Profit margins are still expected to be soft due to competition for equipment sales and the weaker Canadian dollar that continues to have a significant negative impact on the Company with parts purchased in US dollars.

Complete financial statement: http://www.buhlerindustries.com/investors/reports/buhler-2017-q3.pdf

Trading symbol: BUI

SOURCE Buhler Industries Inc.

For further information: Willy Janzen, Chief Financial Officer, Phone: (204) 654-5718, E-mail: [email protected]

Related Links

http://www.buhler.com


Revenue of $56.4 million , versus $57.3 million last year

Adjusted EBITDAR of $7.6 million or 13.5% compared to $14.2 million or 24.8% a year ago

Adjusted EBITDA of $5.1 million or 9.0% compared to $11.1 million or 19.4% a year ago

Net income from continuing operations of $4.1 million or $0.31 per share versus $3.7 million or $0.28 per share last year

Net income for the period of $2.5 million or $0.19 per share versus $3.1 million or $0.24 per share last year

Net mobilization costs and other startup costs incurred were $3.7 million in the second quarter for our four recently awarded contracts

Net loss from discontinued operations at Norsk Helikopterservice was $3.3 million in the second quarter and $5.6 million year to date

Solid financial position with a $1.5 million net cash position and a $75 million credit facility ( $54.0 million available net of letters of credit and drawdowns)

MONTREAL, Aug. 14, 2017 /CNW/ - HNZ Group Inc. (TSX: HNZ) (the "Corporation"), an international provider of helicopter transportation and related support services, today announced its financial and operating results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2017.







Financial Highlights Quarters ended June 30, Six months ended June 30, (in thousands of dollars, except per share data) 2017 2016 2017 2016 Revenue 56,351 57,250 96,303 102,550 Adjusted EBITDAR [1] 7,647 14,238 9,239 24,964 Adjusted EBITDA [2] 5,106 11,139 5,332 18,639 Net income from continuing operations [3] 4,085 3,659 435 6,456

Per share - basic and diluted ($) 0.31 0.28 0.03 0.50 Net income (loss) [3] 2,512 3,122 (2,327) 4,735

Per share - basic and diluted ($) 0.19 0.24 (0.18) 0.36 Cash flows related to operating activities (7,039) 4,154 (7,229) 5,533 Weighted-average shares outstanding (all classes) 12,974,624 13,020,845 12,988,883 13,024,424

[1] Adjusted EBITDA (as defined below) before aircraft operating leases expense but including payments made to lessors to cover variable costs for leased aircraft such as maintenance and crew costs (see reconciliation in the Non-IFRS financial measures section) [2] Net income (loss) before net financing charges, income taxes, depreciation and amortization, adjusted for gain or loss on disposal of property, plant and equipment, trade name impairment charge (if any), goodwill impairment charge (if any), change in fair value of the obligation to purchase the shares of non-controlling interests in subsidiaries (see reconciliation in the Non-IFRS financial measures section) [3] Attributable to the Shareholders of the Corporation

SECOND QUARTER RESULTS

Revenue was $56.4 million in the second quarter of 2017, a decrease of $0.9 million compared to $57.3 million a year ago. This variation is mostly explained by a decrease in onshore revenue and ancillary revenue, partially offset by an increase in offshore revenue. The Corporation flew 10,725 hours compared to 11,557 hours in the second quarter of 2016, a decrease of 7.2%.

Onshore revenue decreased by $4.5 million as a result of lower VFR activity in western Canada and the completion of an onshore contract in Asia-Pacific. Offshore revenue increased by $6.3 million from the second quarter of 2016 primarily due to the addition of the new INPEX contract, partially offset by the completion of the Shell Halifax contract. Ancillary revenue decreased by $2.7 million mainly due to decreased activity at Heli-Welders and Nampa Valley.

Operating expenses, before aircraft operating leases expenses, increased by $8.6 million to $50.9 million in the second quarter, compared to last year. The increase is primarily explained by startup costs for the new INPEX crew transport offshore contract and the new INPEX-Shell Search and Rescue (SAR) contract in Asia-Pacific. Startup costs including mobilization costs and crew training contributed to the higher operating costs, partially offset by lower costs from the completion of the Shell Halifax contract, and lower costs at Nampa Valley and Heli-Welders due to decreased activity.

Foreign exchange gain for the second quarter of 2017 amounted to $2.2 million compared to a foreign exchange loss of $0.8 million a year ago. The variation is mostly due to a $3.4 million foreign exchange gain from the wind-down of the investment in Laos.

Adjusted EBITDAR and adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter of 2017 were $7.6 million and $5.1 million respectively or 13.5% and 9.0% of revenues, compared to $14.2 million and $11.1 million a year earlier.

During the second quarter, the Corporation recorded an income tax recovery of $2.2 million, compared to an income tax expense of $2.3 million for the same period in 2016. This variance is primarily attributable to the recording of a deferred tax asset associated with prior years' tax losses not previously recognized.

Net income from continuing operations attributable to the shareholders of the Corporation totaled $4.1 million or $0.31 per share, compared to $3.7 million, or $0.28 per share for the same period in 2016. Net income attributable to the shareholders of the Corporation totaled $2.5 million or $0.19 per share, compared to $3.1 million, or $0.24 per share in 2016. Cash flows related to operating activities were ($7.0) million in the second quarter of 2017 versus $4.2 million in the corresponding period a year earlier and is primarily related to the net mobilization costs incurred, as well as the decline in revenue.

Adjusted net free cash flows for the six months ended June 30, 2017 were ($1.1) million, compared to $11.4 million for the same period a year ago. For the twelve-month period ended June 30, 2017, adjusted net free cash flows stood at $5.2 million, compared with $17.7 million for the year ended December 31, 2016.

"HNZ's second quarter revenue was approximately the same as the comparable period last year, but represented a continued shift towards offshore revenue. The quarter was one which reflected the impact of the decision to cease funding Norway based Norsk, significant start-up costs for the commencement of four new long term contracts in Australia and Canada and onshore activity weakness. Global market conditions and local operating challenges had emerged since the initial investment in Norway and we made the decision to terminate rather than continue to incur significant losses. Norsk related losses for the quarter were $3.3 million. Net mobilization and other startup costs incurred for the start of INPEX-Shell SAR and PHI/HNZ operations, as well as ExxonMobil/Encana and Nova Scotia EMS contracts were $3.7 million in the quarter. While challenging for the quarter these one time costs incurred set the stage for significantly improved profitability for the balance of 2017 and beyond," said Don Wall, President and Chief Executive Officer of HNZ Group Inc.

As at June 30, 2017, the Corporation's financial position is strong with working capital of $51.7 million, and cash and cash equivalents of $12.6 million, combined with short-term debt of $11.1 million.

SIX-MONTH RESULTS

For the six-month period ended June 30, 2017, revenue totaled $96.3 million, compared with revenue of $102.6 million in the corresponding period of 2016. The decrease is mostly explained by lower onshore revenue of $5.7 million and lower ancillary revenue of $3.3 million, partially offset by an increase in offshore revenue of $2.7 million. The Corporation flew 17,091 hours compared to 18,073 hours in 2016.

Adjusted EBITDAR and adjusted EBITDA for the six-month period amounted to $9.2 million and $5.3 million respectively, compared to $25.0 million and $18.6 million a year earlier.

Net income from continuing operations attributable to the shareholders of the Corporation totaled $0.4 million or $0.03 per share, compared to $6.5 million, or $0.50 per share for the same period in 2016. Net loss attributable to the shareholders of the Corporation totaled ($2.3) million or ($0.18) per share, compared to net income of $4.7 million, or $0.36 per share in 2016. Cash flows related to operating activities were ($7.2) million for the six-month period versus $5.5 million in the corresponding period a year earlier.

POST SECOND QUARTER HIGHLIGHTS

Ceasing Norsk operations

On July 4, 2017, HNZ announced that the operations carried out by Norsk Helikopterservice AS ("Norsk"), a Norwegian entity in which the Corporation holds a 49.9% interest, ceased on June 30, 2017. Norsk has encountered various challenges in the Norwegian market, and has not performed as projected. After considering the results and prospects of this investment, the Corporation has decided to focus its efforts on other aspects of its strategic plan, and to discontinue funding its interests accordingly. Norsk has implemented an orderly wind-up process including the termination of employees, the return of a leased aircraft to the lessor and settling of other matters, while Norsk's majority shareholder evaluates its options.

OUTLOOK

"We enter the second half of 2017 with our long-term contracts recently signed representing approximately $90 million in annualized revenues. As we have previously indicated, our recurring revenue base from long-term contracts now accounts for approximately two thirds of HNZ's total revenue. We have continued to experience weakness in our onshore markets and continue to look to match our cost structure with it. Our financial position remains strong, and allows us to seek new opportunities for investment and growth," concluded Mr. Wall.

CONFERENCE CALL

The Corporation will hold a conference call to discuss these results on Tuesday, August 15, 2017 at 11:00AM (ET). Interested parties can join the call by dialing 514-807-9895 (Montreal) or 1-866-865-3087 (toll free). If you are unable to call at this time, you may access a tape recording of the conference call by dialing 416-849-0833 (Toronto), 514-807-9274 (Montreal), or 1-855-859-2056 (toll free) followed by access code: 61198454. This tape recording will be available until August 22, 2017.

ABOUT HNZ GROUP INC.

HNZ Group Inc. is an international provider of helicopter transportation and related support services with operations in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica, the United States and Southeast Asia. The Corporation operates in excess of 115 helicopters to support offshore and onshore charter activities under a number of different brands. Offshore operations are provided under the HNZ brand, while onshore charter operations are under the Canadian Helicopters brand in Canada, Acasta in Northern Canada and the HNZ brand in Asia-Pacific and Antarctica. Clients consist of multinational companies and government agencies including offshore and onshore oil and gas, mineral exploration, military support, hydro and utilities, forest management, construction, air ambulance and search and rescue. In addition to charter services, it provides ancillary services which include third-party repair and maintenance services and advanced flight training by the internationally recognized HNZ Topflight training center in Penticton, British Columbia. The Corporation is headquartered near Montreal, Canada and employs approximately 600 personnel from 36 locations around the world. Revenue from offshore and ancillary operations is mostly earned evenly throughout the year while onshore operations follow a seasonal pattern with the highest revenue occurring from May to October.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

Certain statements in this press release may constitute "forward-looking" statements which involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Corporation, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. When used in this press release, such statements use such words as "may", "will", "intend", "should", "expect", "believe", "plan", "anticipated", "estimate", "predict", "potential" or the negative of these terms and other similar terminology. Examples of such statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the financial position, results of operations, objectives, dividend policy, participation in bidding processes, continuing business relationships with actual or potential key clients, expected revenues from contracts with key clients, seasonal levels of activity, maintenance of contractual relationships, any goodwill impairment that could result from changes to those relationships, impact of any economic uncertainty, expected competition, use of available funds, maintenance of strategic relationships with aboriginal groups and regulations (in particular environmental and transportation regulations) and legislation (including tax legislation) applicable to the Corporation. Consequently, readers should not place any undue reliance on such forward-looking statements.

Although the forward-looking statements contained in this press release are based upon what Management of the Corporation believes are reasonable assumptions, the Corporation cannot assure investors that actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements. The assumptions on which the forward-looking statements are based include, but are not limited to, general economic trends, industry trends, current contractual and business relationships, capital markets and current competitive, governmental, regulatory and legal environment.

These statements are not based on historical facts but instead reflect current expectations of the Management regarding future events and operating performance and speak only as of the date of this press release. Forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties, should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results, and will not necessarily be accurate indications of whether or not such results will be achieved. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, the factors discussed in this press release under "Risk Factors". These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release, and the Corporation assumes no obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances, unless required by applicable laws.

NON-IFRS FINANCIAL MEASURES

This press release contains certain non-IFRS financial measures as defined under applicable securities legislation, including Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDAR, Adjusted operating income and Adjusted Net Free Cash Flows. The Corporation believes that such non-IFRS financial measures improve the period-to-period comparability of the Corporation's results by providing more insight into the performance of ongoing core business operations. As required by applicable securities legislation, the Corporation has provided reconciliations of those measures to the most directly comparable IFRS measures. Investors and other readers are encouraged to review the related IFRS financial measures and the reconciliation of non-IFRS measures to their most directly comparable IFRS measures set forth below and should consider non-IFRS measures only as a supplement to, not as a substitute for or as measure to, measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with IFRS.

References to "Adjusted EBITDA" are to net income (loss) from continuing operations before net financing charges, income taxes, depreciation and amortization, adjusted for gain or loss on disposal of property, plant and equipment, trade name impairment charge (if any), goodwill impairment charge (if any) and change in fair value of the obligation to purchase the shares of non-controlling interests in subsidiaries as disclosed in the "Summary of Selected Consolidated Financial Information". Adjustments to standard EBITDA are made by management to normalize for non-recurring events.

References to "Adjusted EBITDAR" are to Adjusted EBITDA before aircraft operating leases expense but including payments made to lessors to cover variable costs for leased aircraft such as maintenance and crew costs (as disclosed in the "Summary of Selected Consolidated Financial Information"). This measure is commonly used in the Corporation's industry as a means to measure operating results and to assess comparability with peers, as there are differences in the way corporations finance their aircraft and other assets.

References to "Adjusted operating income" are to revenues less direct operating expenses from continuing operations. Direct operating expenses include crew and maintenance costs, cost of goods sold (if applicable), direct base costs, aircraft leases and other operating expenses. The Corporation uses this measure as a means to evaluate the segment performance for the purposes of making decisions.

References to "Adjusted Net Free Cash Flows" are to cash flows from operating activities plus (minus) net change in non-cash working capital balances and deferred revenues less "Maintenance CAPEX" from continuing operations. "Maintenance CAPEX" is defined by management as any capital expenditure which is undertaken to maintain current output in terms of revenues and operating cash flows, as opposed to "Growth CAPEX" which is defined as capital expenditures undertaken to increase the Corporation's capacity for potential growth as defined by management. This measure is commonly used in the Corporation's industry and is used by the Corporation as an indicator of financial strength and performance of its business, indicating the amount of cash the Corporation is able to generate from operations after capital expenditures.

Since Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDAR and Adjusted Net Free Cash Flows are useful to many investors to assess performance on the basis of the ability to generate cash from operations on a recurring basis, management believes that, in addition to net income (loss), Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted operating income and Adjusted Net Free Cash Flows are useful supplementary measures which exclude non-recurring items or items that are not related to day-to-day operations. Management believes that Adjusted Net Free Cash Flows provides useful additional information to investors concerning the operations and cash flows of the Corporation including the amount available for distribution to the shareholders, repayment of debt and other investing activities.

Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDAR, Adjusted operating income and Adjusted Net Free Cash Flows are not earnings or cash flows measures recognized under IFRS and do not have a standardized meaning prescribed by IFRS. Therefore, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDAR, Adjusted operating income and Adjusted Net Free Cash Flows may not be comparable with similar measures presented by other entities. Investors are cautioned that Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDAR, Adjusted operating income and Adjusted Net Free Cash Flows should not be construed as alternatives to net income or earnings per share determined in accordance with IFRS as indicators of the Corporation's performance, or to cash flows related to operating, investing and financing activities as measures of liquidity and cash flows.

Adjusted EBITDAR and Adjusted EBITDA Reconciliation to income before income taxes



Three-month period ended

June 30

Six-month period ended June 30 ($000's except for shares and per share amounts) 2017 2016

2017 2016 Continuing operations









Revenue 56,351 57,250

96,303 102,550 Operating expenses before aircraft operating

leases expenses 50,920 42,252

89,423 77,362 Foreign exchange (gain) loss (2,216) 760

(2,359) 224 Adjusted EBITDAR(1) 7,647 14,238

9,239 24,964 Aircraft operating leases expenses 2,541 3,099

3,907 6,325 Adjusted EBITDA(1) 5,106 11,139

5,332 18,639 Amortization 4,336 4,760

8,566 9,055 Net gain on disposal of property, plant and equipment (1,282) (10)

(1,331) (434) Net financing charges 88 276

159 379 Income (loss) before income taxes from continuing operations 1,964 6,113

(2,062) 9,639 Income taxes expense (recovery)











Current 1,126 2,643

555 3,850

Deferred (3,294) (319)

(3,100) (909)

(2,168) 2,324

(2,545) 2,941 Net income from continuing operations 4,132 3,789

483 6,698











Discontinued operations









Net loss from discontinued operations (3,295) (962)

(5,641) (3,183) Net income (loss) for the period 837 2,827

(5,158) 3,515











Net income (loss) attributable to:









Shareholders of the Corporation 2,512 3,122

(2,327) 4,735 Non-controlling interests from continuing operations 47 130

48 242 Non-controlling interests from discontinued operations (1,722) (425)

(2,879) (1,462)

837 2,827

(5,158) 3,515 Earnings per share basic and diluted from continuing operations 0.3149 0.2810

0.0335 0.4957 Total assets 309,065 306,306

309,065 306,306

[1] See "Definition of Non-IFRS Measures". Adjusted EBITDAR and Adjusted EBITDA are not recognized measures under IFRS and do not have a standardized meaning prescribed by IFRS. Adjusted EBITDAR and Adjusted EBITDA may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other issuers.

Adjusted net free cash flow Reconciliation to cash flows from operating activities









Six months ended Twelve months

ended

June 30, 2017 Year

ended

December 31,

2016 (in $000's) June 30,

2017 June 30,

2016 Cash flows related to operating activities (7,229) 5,533 6,907 19,668 Add (deduct): Net change in non-cash working capital balances

and deferred revenues 8,863 9,372 6,262 6,771

1,634 14,905 13,169 26,439 Less: Maintenance CAPEX(1) 2,733 3,500 7,951 8,718 Adjusted Net Free Cash Flows(2) (1,099) 11,405 5,218 17,721









[1] See "Definition of Non-IFRS Measures" for a description of management's definition of Maintenance CAPEX and Growth CAPEX. [2] See "Definition of Non-IFRS Measures" Adjusted net free cash flows is not a recognized measure under IFRS and does not have a standardized meaning prescribed by IFRS. Adjusted net free cash flows may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other issuers.

Note to readers: Complete consolidated financial statements and Management's Discussion & Analysis of Operating Results and Financial Position are available on the Corporation's website at www.hnz.com and on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

SOURCE HNZ Group Inc.

For further information: HNZ Group Inc., Matthew Wright, Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer, Tel: 780-429-6903
OTTAWA, Aug. 15, 2017 /CNW/ - The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today announced that Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar will visit Canada from August 19 to 22, 2017. The two leaders will meet in Montreal on August 20th. They will also take part in the Pride Parade that day.

During their meeting, Prime Minister Trudeau and Taoiseach Varadkar will continue discussions from this past July when the two leaders met for the first time in Dublin, Ireland. Their discussions will focus on issues related to diversity and inclusion, and how people and businesses in both countries can benefit from new opportunities available through the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).

Quote

"Ireland and Canada are close friends, and I look forward to meeting again with Taoiseach Varadkar in Montreal. Our two countries enjoy strong family ties, common values, and a shared history. Now we are collaborating again to ensure that CETA creates good, well-paying middle class jobs on both sides of the Atlantic."

 Rt. Hon. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada

Quick Facts

This will be the first time a foreign head of government walks with a Canadian prime minister in a Canadian Pride parade.

On July 4, 2017 , Prime Minister Trudeau met with Taoiseach Varadkar and President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins in Dublin to deepen the close collaborative relationship between the two like-minded countries.

, Prime Minister Trudeau met with Taoiseach Varadkar and President of Ireland in to deepen the close collaborative relationship between the two like-minded countries. Canada and Ireland share a close relationship, based on strong people-to-people connections, cultural affinities, and shared democratic political traditions. Over 4.5 million Canadians claimed Irish ancestry in 2011, making the Irish-Canadian community one of the largest ethnic groups in Canada .

and share a close relationship, based on strong people-to-people connections, cultural affinities, and shared democratic political traditions. Over 4.5 million Canadians claimed Irish ancestry in 2011, making the Irish-Canadian community one of the largest ethnic groups in . The two countries also enjoy very strong commercial relations with twoway bilateral merchandise trade worth $2.4 billion in 2016, making it Canada's tenth largest trading partner in the European Union. In that year, Canadian exports totalled $496 million and imports were over $1.9 billion .

in 2016, making it tenth largest trading partner in the European Union. In that year, Canadian exports totalled and imports were over . In 2015, Canadian foreign direct investment in Ireland was $13.99 billion and Irish foreign direct investment in Canada was $6.28 billion .

was and Irish foreign direct investment in was . CETA comes into effect as of September 21, 2017 .

Associated Links

This document is also available at http://pm.gc.ca

SOURCE Prime Minister's Office

For further information: PMO Media Relations: 613-957-5555
VANCOUVER, Aug. 14, 2017 /CNW/ - Mason Resources Corp. (TSX:MNR  "Mason" or the "Company") is pleased to report its financial results for the period ended June 30, 2017. Details of the Company's consolidated interim financial results are contained in the unaudited consolidated financial statements and Management's Discussion and Analysis, which are available on the Company's website at www.MasonResources.com and on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. All figures are in US dollars unless otherwise noted.

Q2 2017 HIGHLIGHTS

On May 9, 2017 , Mason and Entree Resources Ltd. (formerly Entree Gold Inc.  "Entree") completed a strategic reorganization of Entree's business where Entree transferred to Mason all of the issued and outstanding shares of Entree's wholly owned subsidiary, which indirectly owns the Ann Mason copper-molybdenum project in Nevada and the Lordsburg copper-gold property in New Mexico , and $8.75 million in cash. As a result, each Entree shareholder received 0.45 of a Mason common share, and option-holders and warrant-holders of Entree received replacement options and warrants of Mason which are proportionate to, and reflective of the terms of, their existing options and warrants of Entree.





, Mason and Entree Resources Ltd. (formerly Entree Gold Inc.  "Entree") completed a strategic reorganization of Entree's business where Entree transferred to Mason all of the issued and outstanding shares of Entree's wholly owned subsidiary, which indirectly owns the Ann Mason copper-molybdenum project in and the copper-gold property in , and in cash. As a result, each Entree shareholder received 0.45 of a Mason common share, and option-holders and warrant-holders of Entree received replacement options and warrants of Mason which are proportionate to, and reflective of the terms of, their existing options and warrants of Entree. On May 9, 2017 , the Company entered into an Administrative Services Agreement with Entree, pursuant to which Entree will provide basic day-to-day head office and executive responsibilities on a pro-rata cost-recovery basis.





, the Company entered into an Administrative Services Agreement with Entree, pursuant to which Entree will provide basic day-to-day head office and executive responsibilities on a pro-rata cost-recovery basis. On May 12, 2017 , the Company's common shares commenced trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol "MNR".





, the Company's common shares commenced trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol "MNR". As at June 30, 2017 , the Company's cash balance was $9.2 million .





, the Company's cash balance was . The Company's financial results have been prepared on a continuity of interest basis of accounting following the completion of the strategic reorganization, which requires that prior to the May 9, 2017 effective date thereof, the assets, liabilities, results of operations and cash flows of the Company be on a 'carve-out' basis from the consolidated financial statements and accounting records of Entree. As a result, the Company's net loss of $0.4 million (three months ended June 30, 2017 ) and $1.1 million (six months ended June 30, 2017 ) included carve-out results from Entree for the periods prior to May 9, 2017 .

Subsequent to the end of the second quarter 2017:

On July 19, 2017 , the Company adopted a Shareholder Rights Plan (the "Rights Plan") to ensure, to the extent possible, that all shareholders of the Company are treated fairly and equally in connection with any take-over bid or other acquisition of control of the Company. The Rights Plan was not adopted in response to any specific take-over bid or other proposal to acquire control of Mason and Mason is not aware of any such pending or contemplated proposals.





, the Company adopted a Shareholder Rights Plan (the "Rights Plan") to ensure, to the extent possible, that all shareholders of the Company are treated fairly and equally in connection with any take-over bid or other acquisition of control of the Company. The Rights Plan was not adopted in response to any specific take-over bid or other proposal to acquire control of Mason and Mason is not aware of any such pending or contemplated proposals. On August 4, 2017 , Mantos Copper ( Bermuda ) Limited ("Mantos") acquired 13,664,757 shares of Mason from Rio Tinto International Holdings Limited and Turquoise Hill Resources Ltd., representing approximately 17.53% of the outstanding common shares of Mason.

Ann Mason Project

On May 10, 2017 , Mason filed its National Instrument 43-101 technical report titled "2017 Updated Preliminary Economic Assessment on the Ann Mason Project, Nevada, U.S.A. " for its flagship Ann Mason Project in Nevada on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

, Mason filed its National Instrument 43-101 technical report titled "2017 Updated Preliminary Economic Assessment on the Ann Mason Project, " for its flagship Ann Mason Project in on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. During the second quarter 2017, a program of geological mapping and sampling has been on-going on the Ann Mason Project to identify potential new targets of near-surface copper mineralization west of the Ann Mason deposit and northwest of the Blue Hill deposit and over the Shamrock target. Several zones of interest have been identified through detailed mapping and XRF analysis of copper mineralization. Work remains ongoing to define targets which could be further evaluated by future drilling programs.

OUTLOOK AND STRATEGY

Corporate

The Company's corporate focus going forward will be to maximize market value through increasing investor awareness of its key asset, the Ann Mason Project, while undertaking a process to prioritize and progress growth strategies including: introducing one or more strategic partners, evaluating opportunities for district consolidation and other strategic acquisitions. The Company will also continue to focus its efforts on fiscal responsibility and conserving cash reserves.

Total corporate costs for the second half of 2017, including marketing, investor relations, and compliance, are estimated to be $0.5 million .

Ann Mason Project

The Company is currently evaluating options for its Ann Mason Project which may include commencing a pre-feasibility study and testing high priority exploration targets with potential to provide early production options.

The Company is targeting expenditures of between $0.7 million and $0.9 million for the 2017 year, including claim filing fees, site maintenance and local administration costs. The Company is currently evaluating various strategies for the second half of 2017.

Lordsburg Property

The Company is managing the costs associated with the Lordsburg property while management evaluates the best path forward to add value to the project. Expenditures for 2017 are mainly for claim filing fees and local administration costs. The Company expects to spend approximately $0.1 million for the 2017 year.

QUALIFIED PERSON

Robert Cinits, P.Geo., Mason Resources' Chief Operating Officer, a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, has approved the technical information in this release.

ABOUT MASON RESOURCES CORP.

Mason Resources Corp. is a well-funded Canadian company focused on copper exploration and development in the U.S.A. The Company's key asset is its 100% owned Ann Mason Project  an extensive, prospective land package located in the Yerington District of Nevada. The Ann Mason Project hosts two copper-molybdenum porphyry deposits, Ann Mason and Blue Hill, as well as numerous earlier-stage or untested priority targets. The Ann Mason deposit is currently at a PEA level and is among the largest undeveloped copper porphyry resources in Canada/U.S.A. The excellent infrastructure, year-round access, strong community support and clear permitting process are all factors that contribute to making Yerington, Nevada one of the best mining jurisdictions in the world. Mason also holds a 100% interest in the Lordsburg property, an exciting earlier-stage copper-gold porphyry project, located within an historic mining district in New Mexico.

Mason's strong financial position and high-quality asset portfolio provide it with a solid foundation and flexibility for growth, by advancing development of Ann Mason towards Pre-Feasibility, introducing one or more strategic development partners, exploring high priority targets or considering strategic acquisitions. More information on Mason Resources can be found at www.MasonResources.com.

This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to corporate strategies and plans of Mason; uses of funds; the value and potential value of assets and the ability of Mason to maximize returns to shareholders; completion of a Pre-Feasibility study on the Ann Mason Project; a potential strategic development partner for the Ann Mason Project; the potential impact of future exploration results on Ann Mason mine design and economics; the potential development of Ann Mason; potential discovery of new mineralized zones; plans for future exploration and development programs and budgets; anticipated business activities; proposed acquisitions and dispositions of assets; and future financial performance.

While the Company has based these forward-looking statements on its expectations about future events as at the date that such statements were prepared, the statements are not a guarantee of the Company's future performance and are based on numerous assumptions regarding present and future business strategies, local and global economic conditions and the environment in which Mason will operate in the future, including the price of copper, gold, silver and molybdenum. Uncertainties and factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from future results expressed or implied by forward-looking statements and information include, amongst others, unanticipated costs, expenses or liabilities; discrepancies between actual and anticipated production, mineral resources and metallurgical recoveries; the size, grade and continuity of deposits not being interpreted correctly from exploration results; the results of preliminary test work not being indicative of the results of future test work; fluctuations in commodity prices and demand; changing foreign exchange rates; actions by government authorities; the availability of funding on reasonable terms; the impact of changes in interpretation to or changes in enforcement of, laws, regulations and government practices, including laws, regulations and government practices with respect to mining, foreign investment, royalties and taxation; the terms and timing of obtaining necessary environmental and other government approvals, consents and permits; the availability and cost of necessary items such as power, water, skilled labour, transportation and appropriate smelting and refining arrangements; and misjudgements in the course of preparing forward-looking statements. In addition, there are also known and unknown risk factors which may cause the actual results, performances or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements and information. Such factors include, among others, risks related to international operations, including legal and political risk; risks associated with changes in the attitudes of governments to foreign investment; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; inability to upgrade Inferred mineral resources to Indicated or Measured mineral resources; inability to convert mineral resources to mineral reserves; conclusions of economic evaluations; future prices of copper, gold, silver and molybdenum; failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; accidents, labour disputes and other risks of the mining industry; delays in obtaining government approvals, permits or licences or financing or in the completion of development or construction activities; environmental risks; title disputes; limitations on insurance coverage; as well as those factors discussed in the Company's most recently filed Managements' Discussion and Analysis available at www.sedar.com. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company is under no obligation to update or alter any forward-looking statements except as required under applicable securities laws.

SOURCE Mason Resources

For further information: David Jan, Investor Relations, Mason Resources Corp., Tel: 604-673-2001, E-mail: [email protected]
RICHMOND HILL, ON, July 31, 2017 /CNW/ - To help students in need get back-to-school with the essential supplies, Staples Canada has begun its annual School Supply Drive. Now in its 12th year, the back-to-school program has raised more than $12 million for children in need, thanks to the generosity of Staples customers.

This year, Staples has partnered with pop superstar Lady Gaga to support this initiative.

"The School Supply Drive is near and dear to our hearts," said Mary Sagat, President of Staples Canada. "There is nothing more important than having the right tools, and we are proud to help millions of young people start their school year on the right track with the supplies they need to be successful."

Until September 12, customers can participate in the School Supply Drive by adding a donation to their purchases made in store and online at Staples.ca. The campaign is managed by local Staples stores, with funds raised supporting a local community organization, such as Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada, United Way, Salvation Army and Breakfast Club of Canada. Annually, Staples customers donate more that $1.5 million to local non-profits through the Staples School Supply Drive.

"Our team members care deeply about this program," added Sagat. "They take pride in the fact that they are reaching out to their peers and asking them to support a program that gives something directly back to their community."

To learn more about the Staples School Supply Drive and to make a donation, visit www.staples.ca/supplydrive.

About Staples Canada/Bureau en Gros

Staples Canada/Bureau en Gros makes it easy to make more happen with more products and more ways to shop. Through its world-class retail, online and delivery capabilities, Staples lets customers shop however and whenever they want, whether it's in-store, online, on mobile devices, or through the company's buy online, pick up in store option. Staples is dedicated to offering customers the highest level of service, with more products than ever, including technology, facilities and breakroom supplies, furniture, safety supplies, medical supplies, and Print and Marketing services. The company also invests in a number of corporate giving programs that actively support environmental, educational and entrepreneurial initiatives in Canadian communities from coast to coast. Visit www.staples.ca for more information, or visit us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

SOURCE Staples Canada Inc.

For further information: Media Information: Kathleen Stelmach, Staples Canada, 905-737-1147 ext. 2714, [email protected]

Related Links

http://www.staples.ca


OTTAWA, Aug. 15, 2017 /CNW/ - The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today issued the following statement in recognition of India's Independence Day:

"Today, we join the people of India and members of the Indo-Canadian community to celebrate India's 71st Independence Day.

"Our two countries share much in common, including our commitment to democracy, freedom, and the rule of law, and are linked by similar institutions and forms of government. Above all, the success of Canada and India demonstrate that we both prosper not in spite of our diversity, but because of it.

"We enjoy a special relationship  one that we are committed to strengthening. I recently met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the G20 Leaders' Summit. I look forward to continuing to collaborate with him on global issues, including peace and security, health, climate change, and gender equality.

"As we celebrate the 150th anniversary of Confederation, I invite Canadians to reflect on the countless contributions Indo-Canadians make to our national fabric. Canada is a stronger and more prosperous country because of them.

"On behalf of the Government of Canada, Sophie and I wish a happy Independence Day to all those celebrating."

This document is also available at http://pm.gc.ca

SOURCE Prime Minister's Office

For further information: PMO Media Relations: 613-957-5555

Related Links

http://pm.gc.ca/


OTTAWA, Aug. 15, 2017 /CNW/ - The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today issued the following statement on National Acadian Day:

"Today, we celebrate the proud heritage and vibrant culture of the Acadian people. We also recognize their resilience through history, and the significant role they have played in shaping Canada.

"National Acadian Day traces its roots to the first Acadian national convention held in 1881 in Memramcook, New Brunswick. During that convention, Acadian delegates chose to celebrate their national day on Our Lady of Assumption Day, in recognition of their French Catholic heritage.

"Descendants of French settlers, Acadians hold a unique place in Canada's history. Over centuries, they survived a deportation, endured exile, and persevered through relentless persecution. Despite these hardships, Acadians grew into a distinct community with a beautiful language, a colourful culture, and a rich set of customs. Today, Acadian music, poetry, literature, and theatre entertain and inspire people around the world.

"As we celebrate 150 years since Confederation, we also take time to recognize the people and communities at the heart of Canada's success. Acadians reflect the vibrant diversity that defines us as a country, and they continue to make important and unique contributions to our national fabric.

"On behalf of the Government of Canada, Sophie and I wish all those celebrating a happy National Acadian Day."

This document is also available at http://pm.gc.ca

SOURCE Prime Minister's Office

For further information: PMO Media Relations: 613-957-5555

Related Links

http://pm.gc.ca/


OTTAWA, Aug. 15, 2017 /CNW/ - The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today issued the following statement in recognition of the 72nd anniversary of the Republic of Korea's independence:

"Today, the people of the Republic of Korea and Korean communities in Canada and around the world celebrate the 72nd anniversary of Korea's independence, also known as 'Gwangbokjeol' or 'Restoration of Light Day'.

"Over sixty years ago, thousands of Canadians fought in the Korean War in the defence of the Republic of Korea. Since then, the Republic of Korea and Canada have been close friends and increasingly important economic partners. Today, we share a commitment to democratic values, open markets, and the rule of law.

"I look forward to working with President Moon Jae-in to further deepen the relationship between our two countries. Together, we will address important international issues, including peace and collective security, climate change, and trade liberalization.

"As Canada celebrates 150 years since Confederation, I invite all Canadians to recognize the significant contributions that Korean Canadians have made, and continue to make, to our country.

"On behalf of the Government of Canada, Sophie and I wish all those celebrating a happy Independence Day."

This document is also available at http://pm.gc.ca

SOURCE Prime Minister's Office

For further information: PMO Media Relations: 613-957-5555

Related Links

http://pm.gc.ca/


OTTAWA, Aug. 15, 2017 /CNW/ - The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today issued the following statement on the terrorist attack in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso:

"I am deeply saddened that 18 people, including Canadians Tammy Chen and Bilel Diffalah, were killed during a terrorist attack on a popular restaurant in downtown Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Those lost include women and children, and people of many nationalities and backgrounds, who should have felt safe gathering together to share a meal.

"On behalf of the Government of Canada, Sophie and I offer our condolences to the families and friends of those killed and wish a speedy recovery to all those injured.

"Canada strongly condemns this heinous attack. People should not have to live in fear over their safety and security  no matter where they call home or where they travel. We will continue to work closely with the international community to fight terrorism and bring those responsible to justice.

"These cowardly acts seek to instill fear and divide us. In the face of hatred, we must stand united in the values of diversity, openness, and inclusion."

This document is also available at http://pm.gc.ca

SOURCE Prime Minister's Office

For further information: PMO Media Relations: 613-957-5555

Related Links

http://pm.gc.ca/


When trying to cook more at home, many like when meals are already picked out for them and they have a smaller selection to narrow down their options.

Pasture and Plenty Events

Sign up for all events at pastureandplenty.com.

Read It & Eat: "Real Food/Fake Food"

Saturday, Oct. 7, 6-8:30 p.m.

HotelRED, 1501 Monroe St.

$150/couple, $80/ person

Panel discussion with chef Luke Zahm of Driftless Cafe and "Real Food/Fake Food" author Larry Olmstead, featuring small plates, cocktails, blind tastings and a signed copy of the book.

Dinner Delivery Pilot: September

Starting Sept. 5. Three meals meals per week; one meal kit, one ready-to-eat, one freezer. Delivery costs $5 extra on the near west (West Washington Avenue to Whitney Way) or pick up at 2433 University Ave., Mondays 4-5:30 p.m. Pricing for three dinners per week for a month is $120 for one, $196 for two and $360 for four.

Harvest Moon Wine Dinners

Thursday, Sept. 14 at 6:30 p.m. (three courses), Friday, Sept. 15 at 6:30 p.m. (five courses) and Saturday, Sept. 16 at 5 p.m. (three courses) and 7:30 p.m. (five courses)

$50-$120
/NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION OVER UNITED STATES WIRE SERVICES/

 Second Quarter Highlighted by Transformational Venture that will see Diversification into Cannabis Production in Canada 

VANCOUVER, Aug. 14, 2017 /CNW/ - Village Farms International, Inc. ("Village Farms" or the "Company") (TSX: VFF) (OTCQX:VFFIF) today announced its financial results for the second quarter of 2017 and six months ended June 30, 2017.

Highlights for the Second Quarter of 2017:

(Note amounts in U.S. Dollars unless otherwise indicated)

Sales increased to $45.5 million from $44.4 million for the second quarter of 2016;

from for the second quarter of 2016; Net income improved to $4.3 million , or $0.11 per share, from a net loss of ( $0.8 million ), or ($0.02) per share, for the second quarter of 2016;

, or per share, from a net loss of ( ), or per share, for the second quarter of 2016; EBITDA decreased to $1.3 million from $1.6 million for the second quarter of 2016;

from for the second quarter of 2016; The Company executed on its stated strategy to diversify into higher margin alternative crops through the formation of a joint venture (the "JV") with Emerald Health Therapeutics, Inc. ("Emerald") (TSXV: EMH) for large-scale, high-quality, low-cost cannabis production.

Cannabis JV Summary and Update

Under the terms of the JV agreement, Village Farms initially contributed a 1.1 million-square foot (25-acre) greenhouse facility in Delta, BC , (the " Delta 3 greenhouse") which will be converted to ACMPR (Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations)-compliant production and, if permitted by applicable law, production for the non-therapeutic adult-use market. Emerald is contributing an aggregate of CA$20 million in cash to fund the conversion of the greenhouse;

, (the " 3 greenhouse") which will be converted to ACMPR (Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations)-compliant production and, if permitted by applicable law, production for the non-therapeutic adult-use market. Emerald is contributing an aggregate of CA$20 million in cash to fund the conversion of the greenhouse; The cannabis JV entity was formed and named Pure Sunfarms Corp., with three directors appointed to the board from each of Village Farms and Emerald;

Pure Sunfarms continued to advance its initial priorities, including:

Planning for the conversion process for the Delta 3 greenhouse, which it expects to commence immediately upon acceptance of the application to Health Canada for a cultivation license under ACMPR; and,

3 greenhouse, which it expects to commence immediately upon acceptance of the application to Health Canada for a cultivation license under ACMPR; and,

Completion of the cultivation license application for the Delta 3 greenhouse, which Emerald plans to submit to Health Canada as a "second stream" application in September 2017 .

"A core element of Village Farms' strategy has been to diversify into higher margin alternative crops and the second quarter saw us execute in a meaningful way with the formation of our JV with Emerald for the large-scale production of cannabis in Canada using existing Village Farms state-of-the-art greenhouse facilities in Delta, B.C.," said Michael DeGiglio, Chief Executive Officer, Village Farms International, Inc. "The JV, now named Pure Sunfarms Corp., is a transformational opportunity for Village Farms. Based on conservative market pricing and yield forecasts, we expect conversion of our Canadian greenhouse facilities to cannabis production could generate revenue of 10- to 15-times that of our current tomato production with EBITDA margins in excess of 50%."

"Growing in large-scale, high-tech greenhouses with experienced large-scale master growers and large labour-force managers provides us with confidence that Pure Sunfarms can be the low-cost cannabis producer in Canada, without sacrificing quality, at a target cost of production of less than $1.00 per gram  which we believe will be of critical importance when the market eventually commoditizes. Moreover, the use of existing facilities will minimize capital costs and provide speed to market to capitalize on the significant projected near-term shortfall in industry supply."

"Immediately upon establishing the JV on June 6, the Village Farms and Emerald development teams began work toward conversion of the Delta 3 greenhouse and, completion of the application to Health Canada for a cultivation license for that site, leveraging Emerald's existing cultivation license through a "second stream" application, which Emerald expects to submit next month."

Mr. DeGiglio added, "In our core produce operations, we continue to focus on maximizing margins through exclusive higher-margin varieties and lowering our cost of production at our facilities, while continuing to grow the highest quality, safest, best tasting produce. Sales for the second quarter were up 2% year-over year, befitting from a 7% increase in supply partner revenue due to an increase in our partners' growing area. This was partially offset by a 2% decrease in the Company's tomato pounds resulting from atypical low light levels in British Columbia this spring. We continue to have success in managing production costs at our own facilities, which were held flat compared to the second quarter of last year and are down a meaningful 5% for the first half of 2017."

Financial Summary

(in thousands of U.S. Dollars unless otherwise indicated)



For the three months

ended June 30,

For the six months

ended June 30,

2017

2016

2017

2016 Sales $45,530

$44,441

$76,807

$76,149 Cost of sales (42,805)

(41,908)

(70,125)

(68,558) Selling, general and administrative expenses 3,853

3,050

7,077

6,477 (Loss) from operations (1,829)

(451)

(1,741)

(650) Interest expense, net 695

641

1.327

1,198 Gain (loss) on sale of assets 8,572

-

8,564

(12) Provision for (Recovery of) income taxes 1,751

(335)

1,401

(870) Net income (loss) 4,325

(770)

4,135

(1,011) EBITDA 1,264

1,627

4,015

5,337 Income (Loss) per share $0.11

($0.02)

$0.11

($0.03)

Second Quarter 2017 Operational Discussion:

(in thousands of U.S. Dollars unless otherwise indicated)

Sales

Sales for the three months ended June 30, 2017 increased by $1,089, or 2%, to $45,530 from $44,441 for the three months ended June 30, 2016. The increase in sales is primarily due to an increase in supply partner revenue of 7%. The revenues from the Company's facilities were lower as tomatoes pounds were lower by (2%) and cucumber pieces were lower by (2%). The increase in supply partner volume is due to an increase in the growing area of the Company's supply partners. The Company's tomato pounds decreased during the three months ended June 30, 2017 versus the same period in 2016 due to lower light levels in British Columbia that caused a decrease of (11%) in our Canadian production, which was partially covered by an increase from the Company's Texas facilities.

The average selling price for tomatoes increased by 3% for the three months ended June 30, 2017 versus the three months ended June 30, 2016. The 2017 second quarter price increase was primarily due to an increase in the mix of the higher selling priced specialty tomato varieties. Cucumber pricing decreased by (9%) and pepper pricing increased by 1% in the second quarter of 2017 versus the comparable quarter in 2016.

Cost of Sales

Cost of sales for the three months ended June 30, 2017 increased by $897, or 2%, to $42,805 from $41,908 for the three months ended June 30, 2016. The increase is due to a 4% increase in supply partner product volume versus the same period in 2016. Cost of sales for the Company's facilities during the quarter was flat versus the same quarter in 2016.

Selling, General and Administrative Expenses

Selling, general and administrative expenses for the three months ended June 30, 2017 increased $803, or 26%, to $3,853 from $3,050 for the three months ended June 30, 2016. The increase is primarily the result of non-cash stock compensation granted in the second quarter of 2017 of $398 due to the successful launch of the cannabis initiative, as well as the reversal of a year-to-date bonus accrual of $300 in the second quarter of 2016 that did not occur in 2017. Excluding non-cash expenses, operating expenses increased by $105, or 3%, which was partially related to development costs related to the new venture.

Change in Biological Asset

The net change in fair value of the biological asset for the three months ended June 30, 2017 decreased by ($767) to a loss of ($701) from $66 for the three months ended June 30, 2016. The decrease in the change in value is primarily due to a lower average selling price of the biological asset in early July 2017 versus the same period in 2016. The fair value of the biological asset as at June 30, 2017 was $6,756 as compared to $6,147 as at June 30, 2016 due to higher production in July 2017 versus July 2016.

(Loss) from Operations

Loss from operations for the three months ended June 30, 2017 is ($1,829), which was an increase of ($1,378) from a loss of ($451) for the three months ended June 30, 2016. The decrease in operating results is due to the decrease in the change in fair value of the biological asset, higher cost of sales and higher non-cash operating costs in the second quarter of 2017 versus the second quarter of 2016, partially offset by increased sales.

Gain on Sale of Assets

The Company recognized a gain of $8,572 on the contribution of one of its Delta greenhouse facilities in exchange for a 50% equity position in Pure Sunfarms Corp., as the contribution was valued at higher than the book value of the assets contributed.

Income Taxes (recovery)

The income tax provision for the three months ended June 30, 2017 was $1,751 compared to income tax (recovery) of ($335) for the three months ended June 30, 2016. The income tax provision increase is due to the gain on sale of assets in 2017 as compared to the same period in 2016.

Net Income (loss)

Net Income for the three months ended June 30, 2017 improved by $5,095 to $4,325 from a loss of ($770) for the three months ended June 30, 2016 as a result of a gain on assets partially offset by the decrease in income from operations and an increase in provision for income taxes.

EBITDA

EBITDA for the three months ended June 30, 2017 decreased by ($363) to $1,264 from $1,627 for the three months ended June 30, 2016, principally as a result of lower production yields at the British Columbian facilities and an increase of ($105) in cash operating expenses. See the EBITDA calculation in "Non-IFRS Measures - Reconciliation of Net Income to EBITDA."

Non-IFRS Measures

References in this press release to "EBITDA" are to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization, foreign currency exchange gains and losses on translation of long-term debt, unrealized change in biological asset, stock compensation, and gains and losses on asset sales. EBITDA is a cash flow measure that is not recognized under IFRS and does not have a standardized meaning prescribed by IFRS. Therefore, EBITDA may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other issuers. Investors are cautioned that EBITDA should not be construed as an alternative to net income or loss determined in accordance with IFRS as an indicator of the Company's performance or to cash flows from operating, investing and financing activities as measures of liquidity and cash flows. Management believes that EBITDA is an important measure in evaluating the historical performance of the Company.

Reconciliation of Net Income to EBITDA

The following table reflects a reconciliation of net income to EBITDA, as presented by the Company:

(in thousands of U.S. dollars) For the three months

ended June 30,

For the six months

ended June 30,

2017

2016

2017

2016 Net income (loss) $4,325

($770)

$4,135

($1,011) Add:













Amortization 1,949

2,084

3,900

4,147 Foreign currency exchange loss (gain) (13)

22

1

3 Interest expense 695

641

1,327

1,198 Income taxes (recovery) 1,751

(335)

1,401

(870) Stock based compensation 428

51

469

94 Change in biological asset 701

(66)

1,346

1,764 (Gain) loss on disposal of assets (8,572)

-

(8,564)

12 EBITDA $1,264

$1,627

$4,015

$5,337

Conference Call

Village Farms' management team will host a conference call tomorrow, Tuesday, August 15, 2017, at 11:00 a.m. ET to discuss its second quarter 2017 financial results. Participants can access the conference call by telephone by dialing (647) 427-7450 or (888) 231-8191, or via the Internet at http://bit.ly/2ho7DSP.

For those unable to participate in the conference call at the scheduled time, it will be archived for replay both by telephone and via the Internet beginning approximately one hour following completion of the call. To access the archived conference call by telephone, dial (416) 849-0833 or (855) 859-2056 and enter the passcode 65789586 followed by the pound key. The telephone replay will be available until Tuesday, August 22, 2017 at midnight (ET). The conference call will also be archived on Village Farm's web site at http://villagefarms.com/investor-relations/investor-calls.

About Village Farms International, Inc.

Village Farms International, Inc. is one of the largest and longest-operating vertically integrated greenhouse growers in North America and the only publicly traded greenhouse produce company in Canada. With more than 750 years of accumulated master grower experience coupled with advanced proprietary technology and environmentally sustainable growing practices, Village Farms is highly resource efficient. Village Farms produces and distributes fresh, premium-quality produce with consistency 365-days a year to national grocers in the U.S. and Canada from its large-scale Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) greenhouses in British Columbia and Texas, as well as from its partner greenhouses in BC, Ontario, and Mexico.

Cautionary Language

This press release contains certain "forward looking statements". These statements relate to future events or future performance and reflect the various party's expectations, results of operations, performance, business prospects, opportunities, industry performance and trends. These forward looking statements reflect the party's current internal projections, expectations or beliefs and are based on information currently available. In some cases, forward looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "may", "will", "should", "expect", "plan", "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "predict" , "potential", "continue" or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. A number of factors could cause actual events or results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward looking statements. In evaluating these statements, you should specifically consider various factors, including, but not limited to, such risks and uncertainties as Pure Sunfarms Corp. not obtaining the necessary Health Canada licenses, in which case Pure Sunfarms Corp. will not be permitted to grow cannabis under the ACMPR regulations, and the parties may elect to terminate Pure Sunfarms Corp. in accordance with its terms, availability of resources, other regulatory requirements and all of the other "Risk Factors" set out in the Village Farms' and Emerald's respective annual information forms and management's discussion and analyses for the year ended December 31, 2016, and for the three and six-month period ended June 30, 2017, which are available electronically at www.sedar.com. Actual results may differ materially from any forward looking statement. Although Village Farms and Emerald believe that their respective forward looking statements contained in this press release are based upon reasonable assumptions, you cannot be assured that actual results will be consistent with these forward looking statements. These forward looking statements are made as of the date of this press release, and other than as specifically required by applicable law, neither Village Farms nor Emerald assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new information, events or circumstances.

Non-IFRS Measures

References in this press release to "EBITDA" are to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization, foreign currency exchange gains and losses on translation of long-term debt, unrealized change in biological asset, stock compensation, and gains and losses on asset sales. EBITDA is a cash flow measure that is not recognized under IFRS and does not have a standardized meaning prescribed by IFRS. Therefore, EBITDA may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other issuers. Investors are cautioned that EBITDA should not be construed as an alternative to net income or loss determined in accordance with IFRS as an indicator of Village Farm's performance or to cash flows from operating, investing and financing activities as measures of liquidity and cash flows. Management of Village Farms believes that EBITDA is an important measure in evaluating the historical performance of the Company.

SOURCE Village Farms International, Inc.

For further information: Stephen C. Ruffini, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Village Farms International, Inc., (407) 936-1190, ext. 340; Lawrence Chamberlain, Investor Relations, (416) 519-4196, [email protected]
Britain Europe Solar Eclipse

Visitors try on their solar glasses in preparation to view the eclipse in Regents Park in London, Friday, March 20, 2015. Due to heavy cloud cover, the eclipse was not visible in London. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

(Kirsty Wigglesworth)

Syracuse, N.Y. -- When asked today if the Lowe's store in Clay still had solar eclipse viewing glasses, customer service representative Sandy Hunt laughed.

"We had a bunch last week and they went like hotcakes," Hunt said. "All of the sudden, starting last week, it's been nonstop phone calls and people coming in and asking for them."

The Lowe's store in Clay is sold out of the glasses, which cost $1.98. So are the Lowe's stores in Camillus, Watertown, Auburn and Glenmont. And at the Lowe's in Orchard Park, the man who answered the phone reported: "We've got zero."

Store representatives said they didn't expect to get any more shipments.

With the Aug. 21 eclipse only a week away, people are suddenly scrambling to buy the solar eclipse glasses that let you look directly at the sun. What many are finding instead is disappointment, including Rick Head, of LaFayette.

This morning, Head struck out at two Lowe's stores. He checked Walmart online. Nothing. He even went to his local library. Nope.

"They're only lending them," Head said. "You have to sign up for them and stay there" during the library's eclipse viewing parties.

Glasses are still available online, but they're expensive and time is very, very tight. The minimum order now at one of the biggest approved suppliers, American Paper Optics, is $100 for 25 pairs of glasses. You'll have to pay $21.99 extra for a two-day Fed Ex shipment.

"THE TIME IS NOW!," the optics company website said.

Amazon.com has glasses available for $34.95 per four-pack, but even with the one-day shipping option they won't arrive until Monday.

A search of Best Buy's website for "solar eclipse glasses" came up with just one item, and it's sold out.

Make sure any glasses you buy are stamped with ISO 12312-2, which means they meet international safety standards. To be certain they're the real thing and not counterfeits, buy only from manufacturers approved by the American Astronomical Society.

Dozens of libraries around the state received glasses through a grant, but many libraries say they've given away all they can. The Monroe County Library System is keeping what it has for Monday's library events. The same with Liverpool and North Onondaga Public Library, both in Onondaga County.

It won't hurt to call your local library, but prepare to be disappointed unless you're going to the library event Monday afternoon during the eclipse.

In Syracuse, the eclipse starts at 1:17 p.m. and ends at 3:53 p.m. The maximum eclipse will be at 2:38 p.m., when the moon will cover about 75 percent of the sun. It won't get dark.

And remember: Without approved solar eclipse glasses that carry the ISO 12312-2 rating, NEVER look at the sun during the eclipse. It can cause serious eye damage.

Don't do it. Ever.

Contact Glenn Coin: Email | Twitter | Google + | (315) 470-3251
HARTFORD >> Connecticut craft brewers are concerned that a merger of two of the nations biggest beermakers will have chilling effect on their business.

Representatives from about two-dozen small breweries from around Connecticut met with U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal Monday afternoon to discuss their concerns about the $107 billion merger between Anheuser Busch InBev and SAB Miller. Blumenthal met with the local industry leaders at the Thomas Hooker Brewery in the citys Colt complex.

You have a great American story, an enduring one, Blumenthal told the brewers. Theres nothing more important than insuring free access to the open market.

Because the combination of Anheuser Busch InBev and SAB Miller accounts for about half of the beer sold in the United States, the approval the U.S. Justice Department granted the deal between the two companies in 2016 contained a number of provisions to keep them from monopolizing the market.

Blumenthal, who opposed the merger, said if there is evidence it results in the brewing giant having a stranglehold in such areas as product distribution or availability of ingredients, he is willing to call for Senate hearings.

Among the brewers attending the meeting with Blumenthal was Ed Crowley, founder of Branfords Stony Creek Brewery. Crowley said some brewers in other parts of the United States already are feeling the impact of the merger.

Craft breweries in California use South African hops in making their beer, he said. AB (Anheuser Busch) has said they will not allow non-AB brewers to use their South African hops.

The merger between Anheuser Busch InBev and SAB Miller included the latter hop farms in South Africa. South Africa produced 1.81 million pounds of hops in 2016, according to the website MarketWatch, more than the entire crop produced in the United States when excluding Oregon, Washington and Idaho.

The concern Connecticut craft brewers have about the deal is a little more long-term, Crowley said.

The men and women in this room today are very passionate about their craft, he said. I think we are very concerned about what the merger is going to mean in terms of our ability to grow five years from now.

Right now, business is booming for small breweries in Connecticut, said Dana Bourque, co-owner of Firefly Hollow Brewing in Bristol and president of the Connecticut Brewers Guild. Currently, there are about four-dozen craft breweries operating in Connecticut, Bourque said, with another 60 in the planning stage.

We want to see everyone succeed, he said. We dont want to get to a point where growth is curtailed.

Call Luther Turmelle at 203-680-9388.
Recently, the General Assembly voted to adopt the major concessions agreement struck between the governor and the State Employee Bargaining Agent Coalition, or SEBAC, and with it accept $1.57 billion in savings to help us solve our immediate budget deficit. A chorus of critics continues to downplay the fiscal and historical significance of this deal, to minimize the sacrifice middle-income state employees willingly made, and to knock legislators who voted for it. I ask every citizen of Connecticut to take a look at the numbers and they will be convinced that this is a good deal for the state of Connecticut.

The nature of any negotiated settlement is that both sides have to give and get something. What the tate of Connecticut gets is an important and significant contribution to solving our budget problem, not just for the biennium, but for years to come. An independent analysis shows that this agreement does, in fact, solve 30 percent of our projected biennial deficit. It saves us $1.57 billion over the next two years, more than $10 billion over the next decade, and more than $24 billion over the next 20 years.

Despite the naysayers, state employees have willingly and overwhelmingly agreed to financial sacrifices that theyll feel immediately. The agreement provides zero percent wage freezes for three years with no step increases, plus three furlough days over the next two years.

The agreement also makes an immediate impact on the cost of pensions. First, since the agreement includes these years of no wage increases, actuarial estimates of the pension obligation of future retirees will be reduced by 10 percent Second, all state workers will see their contributions to their pensions increase by 2 percent of pay. In fact, Tier 1, 2A and 3 employees will see their contribution to their pensions double compared to current levels. Most significant of all in terms of major structural reform is the creation of a new Tier 4 with a hybrid pension-and-401k-defined-contribution plan. This is a radical departure from the type of pension that all previous state employees have had, and so is a truly historic, long-term reform.

Regarding health insurance redesign, this agreement introduced a new tiered network based on quality and cost criteria to incentivize employees to seek high-quality, low-cost care. The state will benefit not only by an immediate cost savings of paying less in certain cases for procedures, but also when state employees no longer incur costs from such quality issues as hospital-acquired infections.

Critics have fixated on the job security provisions of the agreement, so much so that they miss the big picture. First, while the number of private sector jobs is close to recovering to pre-recession levels, state government jobs have seen a more drastic and permanent reduction  almost 10,000 over a full decade. Second, the provision for protections against layoffs does not apply to new employees hired after the agreement comes into effect. They will not be protected. The agreement also allows for potential reductions in workforce due to agency restructuring.

These are significant savings. They clearly reflect the willingness of our state workers to contribute and be part of the solution to our states financial shortfalls, which they have recognized are major and severe. What the critics miss is that a negotiated agreement is always better than one which is forced down peoples throats and creates the possibility of costly litigation and lingering resentment.

This agreement respects our proud tradition of collective bargaining and respect for the right of the states employees to negotiate and be active participants in solving our budget problems. To unilaterally impose by statute something that is not agreed to moves us toward the policy of states like Wisconsin and away from our traditional Connecticut values of fair play, respect for workers, and the right of workers to have a say in the issues that affect them.

Supporting this agreement was the right choice for Connecticut. These savings will allow us to move to the final resolution that we all want, which is a balanced, sustainable budget for the next biennium, with systemic reform that will also help us in the years beyond.

Senate Democratic President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney represents portions of New Haven, Hamden and North Haven.
GUILFORD >> A burglary suspect was in custody Monday after an hours-long, intensive search in a marsh, police said.

There was a large police presence for much of the morning and early afternoon with Guilford police assisted by Connecticut State Police and officers from Madison and North Branford. The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection also responded, as did the Guilford Fire Department.

The initial call came at 10 a.m. when police were dispatched to a report of residential burglary in progress. A neighbor reported seeing a male enter a garage at a home and, knowing the owners were not there, contacted police. The suspect reportedly fled into a nearby marsh and arriving officers quickly set up a perimeter, a news release stated.

The search focused on a large marsh and shoreline area. Officers and police dogs searched the area on foot. The state police helicopter arrived and searched from above. With the assistance of alert citizens, police were able to limit the suspects movement and contain him to a smaller area, police said.

Ultimately, pilots from Trooper 1 spotted the suspect and directed Madison police Sgt. Brian Baxter and his canine Paco, who took the suspect into custody.

According to the release, Guilford and other area towns have been experiencing a rash of daytime burglaries. Area departments were collaborating to determine whether the suspect, whose name was not released, is linked to others.

Anyone with information about Mondays incident or any others was asked to contact Guilford police at 203-453-8061.

The suspect is expected to be charged initially with burglary and interfering with police but additional charges are possible, police said.
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GREENWICH  Greenwich resident Dita Bhargava has taken the first steps toward a possible run for the states highest elected office.

Bhargava, who ran unsuccessfully for state representative last year, has been vice chairman of the Connecticut Democratic Party since January. On Tuesday she sent a resignation letter to party Chairman Nick Balletto saying she was considering running for statewide office.

She did not declare which office she will seek, but said governor was one of the options.

Current Gov. Dannel Malloy will not run for a third term in 2018.

Our state is facing some deep challenges, Bhargava said Tuesday. Im trying to determine how I can help in the best possible way. My resignation is the first step, and the next step is talking to people throughout the state, hearing their concerns and seeing how I can best help.

In addition to talking with voters, Bhargava said she plans to do lots of soul searching and talking with people she trusts over the next few weeks before making a decision about her political future.

A first-time political candidate in 2016, Bhargava is a former trader and hedge fund manager who co-founded of The Parity Partnership, a Greenwich-based organization supporting gender equality. While she has less political experience than some others who have expressed interest in statewide office, Bhargava said her 20-plus years in the financial sector make her uniquely qualified and uniquely prepared.

She said she already has received support for a potential run from voters and Democratic town committees throughout the state.

We simply cant afford to keep doing things the same way and expect a different outcome, Bhargava wrote in her letter to Balletto. We need new solutions to overcome Connecticuts fiscal and economic challenges while advancing progressive goals.

She heavily criticized President Donald Trump in her letter, as she did while running for office last year in Greenwich, and noted the white supremacist march in Charlottesville, Va. over the weekend that turned deadly.

Donald Trumps equivocation on the kind of bigotry and hatred that we saw this past weekend in Virginia is encouragement to the intolerant forces that seek to destroy our civil rights, she wrote. The Party must do all that it can to defend fundamental and progressive values under assault by this President.

Bhargava said she takes the issue personally as someone raised by a single immigrant mother and who has endured racism as a child and sexism and discrimination as an adult in a male-dominated industry that required her to work harder than her peers for the opportunities others had.

There are solutions to the problems that plague our state and through them we can empower the hard working families, immigrants, children, mothers and fathers, Bhargava wrote. Everyone in Connecticut deserves to have a good education, healthcare and opportunity.

Balletto released a statement on Tuesday praising Bhargava, particularly for her efforts to revitalize the womens caucus and organize groups that have become engaged in response to Trumps election.

I want to wish her the very best going forward, just as I do to every Democratic candidate and potential candidate exploring a run for statewide office, Balletto said.

Bhargava is the third Greenwich Democrat to announce a potential run for state office. Selectman Drew Marzullo has formed an exploratory committee for a possible lieutenant governor bid, and Board of Estimate and Taxation member John Blankley, who ran for the state Senate on the same ticket as Bhargava in 2016, formed a committee to explore a run for treasurer.

Neither Marzullo nor Blankley have announced whether or not they will formally begin campaigns.

The ticket is going to be decided by the voters, Bhargava said. Drew and John are friends of mine and I wish them well in whatever decisions theyre going to make.

kborsuk@greenwichtime.com
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MILFORD >> Boys & Girls Village Monday broke ground on an 8,300-square-foot expansion of the Charles F. Hayden Therapeutic Day School, but no gold-shovel-wielding official there said it better than former student Chase Brown.

Brown, 18, of West Haven, said he couldnt make it in the public school because he had issues that needed personalized attention. He entered Boys & Girls Village at age 15, had a breakdown the fourth day of school that sent him to a residential program elsewhere for a year and, still, BGV took him back to complete high school, Brown said.

It was at BGV  because they never gave up on him  that Brown learned coping, life and job skills. Today he has a job, offers for two other jobs, and a scholarship to a two-year college. Brown hopes to study graphic design and coding.

It is successes like Browns that have driven the school to become one of the best known special education schools in the state.

The growth resulted in BGV adding eleventh and twelfth grades in recent years and created the need for more space. Hayden school has used temporary buildings for some classes and offices.

As a therapeutic school, the program focuses on special education, emotional, behavioral and academic growth, with the goal of returning students to a mainstream setting.

State Department of Children and Families Commissioner Joette Katz  BGV is partners with DCF  was among the dignitaries who shoveled the ceremonial first dirt.

It really does take a village. ... Its about partnership, and Boys & Girls Village has answered the call for so many, Katz said.

Katz said when she took office 6 years ago, she was contacted by Dr. Steven M. Kant, a psychiatrist who also is president and CEO of Boys & Girls Village, who called her to ask, What do you need?

Katz said told him almost 400 children in need of therapeutic and special education services were being sent out of state. Katz said she didnt like that because Connecticut is one of the richest states and rather than be sent out to other jurisdictions, those children should have the opportunity to be treated and educated in their home state where they would likely naturally settle and raise their own families.

Boys & Girls Village answered the call by expanding services  and now its campus. Katz said today there are only six students out of state.

A $2 million grant from DCF will fund expansion of the therapeutic day school.

In addition, construction of a 15,000-square-foot, state-of-the art facility for treating and housing some of the states most vulnerable youths will take place as part of the overall expansion project.

Construction of the new program building will be funded, in part, by a $2.16 million state grant. BGV will match that grant, drawing on capital support from its donors.

The work is scheduled to be done in phases and is expected to be completed in 2018. The teardown began this summer.

Kant said that when he first showed Katz the temporary buildings on campus, she said, My kids are not going to be educated in trailers. Kant said thats how deeply Katz cares for the children in Connecticut.

The new behavioral health facility will allow expansion of programs and services, including a 16-bed childrens psychiatric care unit; a 12-bed residential treatment program for boys; in-home treatment and family reunification programs; and specialized training for foster and adoptive parents, according to a press release from Boys & Girls Village.

Kant said recently the facility has almost doubled in size in terms of our school, our staff, and our offerings of sophisticated programs and services.

This new facility is crucial to supporting that growth and allowing us to connect a greater number of children and families in Connecticut to the valuable care and support our agency offers, Kant has said.

Boys & Girls Village, which has a partnership with DCF, serves at-risk youth from Fairfield and New Haven counties. When founded, the organization housed at-risk boys, but today serves both genders.
State Debate: Foxconn debate continues, Right Wisconsin blog claims white supremacists not all to blame for Charlottesville
South African President Jacob Zuma indicated that ruling party lawmakers who backed an opposition attempt to oust him should face disciplinary action and said he may consider firing his higher education minister, who has criticized his leadership.More than two dozen members of the ruling African National Congress backed a motion of no confidence in the president on Aug. 8, which the main opposition Democratic Alliance filed after he unilaterally fired his respected finance minister and two ratings companies responded by downgrading the countrys debt to junk. While the motion was defeated by 198 votes to 177, Zuma said anything could have happened.The ANC was put into serious disrepute by its lawmakers who refused to toe the party line, Zuma said at an ANC gathering in Parys in the central Free State province. Nobody can say they did not know what they were supposed to do, he said.A former intelligence operative who has ruled Africas largest economy since 2009, Zuma has been implicated in a succession of scandals, including a finding by the nations top court that he violated his oath of office by refusing to repay money spent on his private home. While he has clung to office because he continues to enjoy the backing of most of the ANCs top leaders, who are reliant on him for their jobs in the government and cabinet, his missteps have cost the ANC support and left the party deeply divided.The Aug. 8 vote against Zuma, 75, was conducted by secret ballot, and with only a handful of ANC lawmakers having openly stated they would vote in favor of his ouster, the party will battle to identify all those who broke ranks. The matter will be raised at a meeting of the partys top six leaders on Monday, Zuma said.In 2012, the ANC expelled youth league leader Julius Malema who had clashed with Zuma, and he went on to form the Economic Freedom Fighters, which is now the countrys third-largest party. Marius Fransman, the ANCs chairman in the Western Cape province, had his membership suspended for five years in November last year, after he was found guilty of misconduct.Zuma also said he would consider a suggestion raised by one of the delegates who attended the gathering to replace Blade Nzimande, his higher education Minister, who is also the general secretary of the South African Communist Party  an ally of the ANC that has called for the presidents removal.Zuma is due to step down as head of the ANC in December and as president in 2019. He alleged that Western countries intent on destabilizing emerging economies were behind the the attempts to bring about his early removal.Part of what is happening in parliament is not an innocent political thing, he said. It is anchored on a bigger strategy.
Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., brings wisdom and experience to the table as he takes a lead in organizing congressional opposition to President Trumps bombastic threats about unleashing fire and fury on North Korea. PHOTO BY ASSOCIATED PRESS




South East Governors and other leaders

The Igbos living in the north have been urged to return home and invest where they come from for their own benefit. Some traditional rulers in Anambra State have urged Igbos to take advantage of the quit notice issued to Igbos resident in the northern Nigeria by Arewa Youths to begin to invest in their home states.

The call was made by Igwe Chijioke Nwankwo, the traditional ruler of Nawfia in Njikoka Local Government Area who said Igbos living outside the southeast should use the opportunity of the quit notice to return home.

He maintained that traditional rulers in the state decided to make the call urging Igbos to come home and invest, their investments are better secured in their homeland than elsewhere.

It is the culture and the tradition of the Igbos to always go home at least three, four times in a year. In order to do this, you must have a comfortable home. It must not be a mansion and we the traditional rulers have been making this call even be- fore this threat. They should start investing at home because the only place you can run to is your own home town, he said.

Speaking further, the royal father said that Arewa youths quit notice should serve as a wake-up call to the rest of Nigeria to organise a round-table conference rather than the national conference held in 2014.

The traditional rulers of Nri, Omasi and Umuawulu communities, Eze Obidiegwu Onyesoh, Igwe Benjamin Okeji and Igwe Joel Egwuonwu, advised sons and daughters of South- east to repatriate their economic ventures to the zone as well as join hands with their state governments to transform the region.

They also stressed the need for federal government to organise a national conference to define the fate of the nation and its ethnic nationalities.
The meeting between leadership of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the Minister of Labour and Employment, Sen. Chris ...

The meeting between leadership of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the Minister of Labour and Employment, Sen. Chris Ngige has just ended in Abuja.The meeting held on Tuesday at the Ministers Conference Room, Ministry of Labour, Abuja, took significant steps toward the resolution of the issues raised by ASUU. According to the Deputy Director, Press, Ministry of Labour, Mr Samuel Olowookere, the meeting agreed on the forensic audit of the sum of N30 billion earlier given to the ASUU in 2010.He said the meeting further agreed on monthly remittances to ASUU, while the audit last. The minister assured members of ASUU and Nigerians that government is already at work to resolve all outstanding issues in line with the present administrations commitment to prevent disruption of academic calendar in universities.ASUU had on Monday declared indefinite strike to protest non implementation of agreement between the union and the Federal Government.
Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, and his Labour and Employment counterpart, Chris Ngige, were Thursday, lurked in a crucial meeting, over the ongoing strike declared Monday morning by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU.This was as academic activities continued at the University of Abuja unhindered.The meeting by the two ministers, which was ongoing at a secret location in Abuja, according to Vanguard source, was aimed at reviewing the strike action by university lecturers with a view to coming out with a common position on how it should be handled.Following the development, Mallam Adamu was conspicuously absent from his office even as some staff of the ministry approached for comments bluntly refused, claiming they were not authorised to speak with the press on any matter.The meeting, which the source said was earlier slated 12pm at the Minister of Labours office, was later shifted at the instance of Adamu to a location kept in secret at press time.The two men, as gathered, would deliberate on the strike, its implications on not only the students bit also on the nation and come out with a common position which is to be captured in a joint statement to be issued later in the day, the source who would not want his name in print said.The meeting, as gathered by the source, would also determine whether how the government will handle expected negotiation with executive members of the lecturers union.Meanwhile, academic activities at the University Abuja, were seen going on smoothly Tuesday in spite of a strike declared Monday by the national leadership of the Academic Staff Union of Universities.The university, according to its Public Relations Officer, Mallam Waziri Garba, has not received any notice from its ASUU branch intimating it of intention to go on strike yet.But Garba told Vanguard on a telephone interview that the school was aware that the lecturers were having their meeting on Wednesday.Vanguard gathered that the expected meeting of University of Abuja lecturers, will deliberate on the strike and come out with a common position backing the ongoing industrial action.It was gathered that the lecturers, after the Wednesdays meeting, will join the university lecturers strike on Thursday.Recall that the national leadership of the union declared an indefinite strike Monday, citing inability of the federal government to honour the agreement it entered with it in 2009, as a major reason.National President of ASUU, Biodun Ogunyemi, at a press conference in Abuja, said the action became necessary, owing to breach of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the 2009 FG/ASUU Agreement on financing of state universities; breach of the conditions of service; refusing to honour the Earned Academic Allowance,EAA,and re -negotiation of the agreement.Ogunyemi said the 2009 agreement revolved around conditions of service, funding, university autonomy and academic freedom all of universities.
Members of the #ResumeOrResign group have reacted to an attack on them at Wuse Market in Abuja on Tuesday.

Members of the #ResumeOrResign group have reacted to an attack on them at Wuse Market in Abuja on Tuesday.

Deji Adeyanju, a co-convener, in a statement said they were attacked by known supporters of President Muhammadu Buhari while on a visit to Wuse Market.





He said the attack was spearheaded by a member of the pro-Buhari support group that often meets at the Unity Fountain.



He noted that, This attack was completely unprovoked. This is the third in a series of attack carried out against us using a combination of policemen and paid hoodlums.

It is saddening that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari would rather commit scarce national resources to such underhand tactics than give full disclosure regarding the health of the President.

We reiterate commitment to remain resolute in demanding full disclosure regarding the state of health of the President.

It is the right of the Nigerian people to know the true state of health of the man they voted into power and for whose healthcare they are paying.

We also restate our commitment to remain law abiding in the face of such constant provocation. Our right to freedom of speech and peaceful assembly are constitutional rights that we will not allow to be abrogated.
Boko Haram insurgents have again attacked and razed Muduvu and Nyibango villages in Madagali Local Government Area of Adamawa.

Boko Haram insurgents have again attacked and razed Muduvu and Nyibango villages in Madagali Local Government Area of Adamawa.The attack is coming few days after similar ones in Ghumbili and Mildu villages of the area where several lives were lost.Chairman of Madagali Local Government Council, Malam Yusuf Muhammed, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Yola that the latest attacks lasted from 11 pm to 12 midnight on Monday.Muhammed disclosed that the recent incidence was the fifth attack in the area by the Boko Haram within two weeks.He called on the Federal Government to come to the rescue of the affected communities.Again, at about 11 pm two of our villages Muduvu and Nyibango came under Boko Haram attack where houses, shops and worshiping places were completely burnt down.The way and manner our people are always under attack by Boko Haram insurgents is a serious issue of concern.We want the government to come to our aid by improving security as well as show sympathy by visiting the affected areas that are under attacks this two weeks, Muhammed said.According to the chairman,the exact number of dead and injured people has yet to be ascertained.He added that villagers who escaped the attack as well as returnees in communities have relocated to Gulak and Madagali town for fear further attacks.He said that the community that were attacked include Ghumbil and Bakin Dutse in Gulak District as well as Mildu and Muduvu in Sukur.When contacted, Major Adetoye Fadare, spokesperson of 28 Task Force Brigade, Mubi said that he was on transit and out of town and therefore could not comment.
Nigerias earnings from oil production and sales in the 27 months Pres. Buhari has been in office is far less than what the previous gove...

Nigerias earnings from oil production and sales in the 27 months Pres. Buhari has been in office is far less than what the previous government led by ex-president GEJ earned in one year, Daily Sun is reporting.

The US officials said if the Buhari government could keep afloat in economic distress, it means it would do more for the country if the economic were buoyant.
The special adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on media and publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina has said via Channels that the president has the right to be treated by the country.Though I dont know who pays Buharis health bills but as the president of Nigeria, he has a right to be treated by the country, Adesina said.In respect to a question thrown on him on the presidents inability to travel for six hours, the media aide who had earlier described Buhari as a sharp, smart and lucid man unequivocally said that Mr. President is a man of tremendous energy.He equally quoted Buhari to have said that, I have never been this ill in my life, not even as a young man.
A pan-Nigerian group, the Niger Delta Peoples Congress, has called on the Northerners and the Yoruba living in the region to disregard the October 1, 2017, quit notice given by a Coalition of Niger Delta Agitators.The CNDA had last Thursday asked northerners and Yoruba to leave the oil region before October 1 ahead of resumption of attacks on oil installations.The Convener, NDPC, Chief Mike Loyibo, said in an interview on Tuesday that the statement allegedly made by the militants group was not a true representation of the position of elders, leaders and people of the region.Read also: Quit notice: Northern, Igbo groups form panel to resolve crisisHe said the Niger Delta leaders believed in one Nigeria where every citizen is free to live, visit or do business in any part of the country.The Niger Delta leader, however, called on the National Assembly, to as a matter of urgency, revisit the issue of devolution of power to states.He contended that the alleged action of the federal lawmakers voting against power devolution had heated up the polity, insisting that right steps should be taken to restore confidence and trust among Nigerians.Loyibo stated, The good people of the Niger Delta region have always been peace-loving and accommodating. We see strengths and opportunities in diversity rather than divisions.The statement allegedly made by a Niger Delta militants group is not a true representation of our position. We believe in one Nigeria where every citizen is free to live, visit or do business in any part of the country. Hate speeches will never take us anywhere.Despite years of oppression, our region has remained resolute and committed to one Nigeria where justice, equity, and peace reign.The statement should be disregarded and all Nigerians should feel free in the Niger Delta region.He also expressed disagreement with the issuance of quit notice by the Northern youths on the Igbo people.
University teachers are set for major strike, it was announced yesterday. The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) said the stri...

University teachers are set for major strike, it was announced yesterday.The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) said the strike will be total, comprehensive and indefinite to press home lecturers demand for improved welfare and working conditions.ASUU National President Dr. Biodun Ogunyemi said the union took the decision after a nationwide consultation with its members at an emergency National Executive Council (NEC) on Sunday.According to him, there will be no teaching, no examination and no attendance of statutory meetings of any kind in any of the unions branches during the strike.He said ASUU must make the Federal and state governments to implement the provisions of the 2009 Agreement, the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) of 2013 and the understanding reached in November 2016 in order to lay the foundation for a university system capable of producing a country of our dream.Dr. Ogunyemi said: The foundation of development of any nation lies on its attention to education. No nation can grow beyond the level of its educational development. Any genuine move to transform Nigeria into an economically viable and politically stable country must begin with a firm commitment to an all-round transformation of the countrys education.ASUU has been vociferous on the primacy of the university education system because it is the repository of ideas for invention, innovation and national transformation.Consequently, based on a nationwide consultation with our members, an emergency meeting of the National Executive Council (NEC) of ASUU rose on Saturday, 12th August, 2017 with a resolution to embark on an indefinite strike action starting from Sunday, 13th August, 2017.The nationwide action is total and comprehensive. During the strike, there shall be no teaching, no examination and no attendance of statutory meeting of any kind in any of our branches.Lastly, we call on all patriots to prevail on owners of public universities to be alive to their responsibilities. Indeed, ASUU struggles should be Nigerians struggles.The ASUU president also accused the political class of paying lip-service to addressing the rot and decay in Nigerias university education.According to him, Nigeria is beginning to lose the little gains it had achieved through the struggles of the union, labour movement, the media and other patriotic organisations at salvaging the countrys crisis-ridden public universities.It is, however, disappointing that despite prime importance of university education, the political class in Nigeria has continued to pay mere lip-service to addressing the rot and decay in the sub-sector.As things stand, the country is beginning to lose the little gains achieved through the struggles of ASUU, the labour movement, the media and other patriotic organisations at salvaging our crisis-ridden public universities.The Federal Government said yesterday that negotiations were ongoing between it and the union on the issues arising from the 2009 agreement and the MoU of 2013.The Director of Press, Federal Ministry of Education, Mrs. Chinenye Ihuoma, said:If it is on ASUU, just know that the FG/ASUU renegotiation 2009 is ongoing with the government team under the leadership of Dr. B. O Babalakin (SAN).Minister of Education Malam Adamu Adamu, in January inaugurated a 16-member team to renegotiate the 2009 agreement.The committee, headed by Babalakin, was given the mandate to dialogue with the ASUU, Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT) and Non-Academic Staff Union of Associated & Allied Institutions (NASU) to ensure sustainable peace and industrial harmony in tertiary institutions.The ASUU president said the Wale Babalakin-led committee lacked the powers to resolve the issue as there were unimplemented items in the 2009 agreement.He said government had ignored the system, stressing that the political class had also shifted attention to sending their wards to private universities and universities abroad, leaving public universities to collapseAmong the issues in current disputes involved in the 2009 agreement and 2013 MOU are funding for the revitalisation of public universities and earned academic allowances.Others include registration of Nigerian Universities Pension Management Company (NUPEMCO), University staff school, fractionalisation and non payment of salaries, Ogunyemi said.But the National Parents Teachers Association (NAPTAN) and the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) faulted the strike. Both organisations said they were not consulted before ASUU declared the strike.NAPTAN National President Haruna Danjuma said given the kidnapping of some ASUU members at the University of Maiduguri, the authorities had not done enough to guarantee security of workers and students.He said: Though we were not consulted by ASUU, as parents, we have been in consultation with them to find a lasting solution to their demands.We were shocked by their (ASUU) decision. We parents are not 100 per cent in support of the strike; but in a situation where it involves lives of students and lecturers, we shall not keep our eyes closed.I understand that students of Bayero State University are meant to start their exams today (yesterday), but with this strike, it no longer looks feasible.As parents, we are concerned about the wellbeing of our children from primary up to university levels.Let government call a roundtable discussion to stop this strike now before things get complicated.CAN National President Rev. Samson Ayokunle said CAN was unhappy about the situation.Speaking through his spokesperson Bayo Oladeji, he urged the Federal Government to immediately begin talks with the union.He said: As far as we are concerned, ASUU did not consult us and I do not think they consulted other stakeholders, such as parents and students, before declaring the strike.To us, this is unfortunate. The Federal Government too has not helped matters by playing into their hands. From time to time, we have witnessed situations where ASUU embarks on strikes only for government to beg them to resume with a promise to attend to their demands, but in the end, nothing will happen.Our children are now spending between seven to eight years in universities before they graduate and CAN is not happy about the situation.
Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha yesterday warned the Igbo nnot to fall for the deception of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafr...

Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha yesterday warned the Igbo nnot to fall for the deception of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) Nnamdi Kanu over the actualization of Biafra.

He warned that the Igbo would lose not less than N3 trillion I assets and cash should there e another war.

Okorocha, who spoke at the presentation of staff of office and Certificate of recognition to traditional rulers, lamented that traditional rulers had kept mute while the cloud gathered over activities of Biafra agitators.

He said: On IPOB, the cloud is gathering, nobody is talking, even our traditional rulers, pastors and leaders. This is bad for our people. If you will remember vividly that few years ago, during the civil War, it was a similar story. That was how it all started. At that time, we believed that the Ohafia warriors would be able to fight and disseminate the North.

Okorocha added: Now we are being deceived that IPOB will drive away Nigeria and give us Biafra. Even our Pastors, men of God and some leaders in the rural areas, nobody is speaking out against this action and the song of war is coming gradually like a desert encroachment. We fought the war and it was believed that the Igbos would learn from it but they still went ahead and developing the resources of other regions.

There are five million Igbo living outside the shores of Igbo region. Any form of war will cause the Igbos over three trillion naira loss in properties and assets. No sane person will spread the message of division and war because it does not benefit the Igbo in any way. I urge you traditional rulers to speak against it and educate your people on the true state of things. Igbo need to build bridge of unity across the nation.

Enugu, Southeast governors yesterday in Enugu, resolved to support holding election in Anambra State in November.

It was a reaction to the declaration by IPOB that there would be no election in Anambra.

At the meeting were South East Governors Forum chairman and Ebonyi State Governor Dave Umahi; host Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi; Governor Rochas Okorocha Imo State;Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State and Governor Willie Obiano of Anambra State who was represented by his deputy Nkem Okeke.

The governors appealed to stakeholders for a peaceful governorship election in Anambra State, assuring that they were solidly in support of the forthcoming poll.

Umahi, who read the communique also said the Apex-Igbo Social Cultural organization, Ohanaeze Ndigbo briefed them on the latest on the quit notice given the Igbo by a coalition of Northern youths.

They assured that they were in torch with the Igbo residing in different parts of the North over the quit notice with the firm assurance that they were making efforts to ensure that no Igbo lives are in danger or threatened.

The governors hinted that they received a presentation from Geometric Power Company and commended Professor Barth Nnaji for the wonderful presentation.
In this May 27, 2010, photo, a worker looks out through the logo at the entrance of the Foxconn complex in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen.
The main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party, says Acting President Yemi Osinbajo is not in charge of the country.

The main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party, says Acting President Yemi Osinbajo is not in charge of the country.It said actions taken by the Acting President had shown that power was not handed over to him contrary to the claim by the Presidency that ailing President Muhammadu Buhari ceded power to him (Osinbajo) before leaving Nigeria for London on medical trip more than 90 days ago.Spokesperson for the party, Dayo Adeyeye, who spoke with newsmen on Sunday, wondered why the Acting President had refused to assign portfolios to the two ministers that were sworn in more than two weeks ago.Adeyeye, who was a former minister of state for works, observed that the action of the Acting President indicated that he was just a figurehead.He said, The Acting President is not in charge of the country. He is not in charge of anything. This is why nothing is moving forward.How do you explain a situation where two of the ministers who were sworn in after much pressure from the people and the National Assembly have not been assigned portfolios?He is not in charge. He is a mere figurehead and cannot do anything. The cabals are still in charge. That is why nothing is moving forward in this country.The two ministers are just idle. They have no offices, nowhere to resume to and nothing to do. What is the essence of their being sworn in then? They are ministers without portfolios.It is a constitutional breach on the side of the government because each state ought to have a minister each. Now, these two states had been without ministers for long and after you reluctantly appointed them, you refused to give them offices. The ministers are Prof. Stephen Ocheni from Kogi State and Mr. Suleiman Hassan from Gombe State.Twenty days after Osinbajo administered the oath of office on the ministers, they have yet to be assigned portfolios.Ocheni and Hassan were inaugurated on July 26, 2017, in Abuja.Their inauguration came after another long delay since May when they were screened and cleared by the Senate.It also took a resolution and an ultimatum issued by the House of Representatives for the ministers to be inaugurated.Adeyeye said it was apparent that the All Progressives Congress was not ready to rule, adding that it won the 2015 presidential election in error.He asked Nigerians to be patient, adding that 2019 would soon come when new elections would be held.
The Special Adviser to the President on Political Matters, Sen. Babafemi Ojudu, has dismissed the assertion that the presidency sponsore...

The Special Adviser to the President on Political Matters, Sen. Babafemi Ojudu, has dismissed the assertion that the presidency sponsored the group of Nigerians that embarked on solidarity protests across the country in support of the President Muhammdu Buhari-led government.Ojudu stated this while fielding questions from State House correspondents shortly after addressing the pro-President Buhari protesters at the Federal Secretariat/Supreme Court Junction of main entrance of the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Monday. He said that the presidency was not in the habit of hiring people for protest marches, saying that all those who participated in the pro-Buhari protest were die-hard supporters of the president.I was working in my office when I was called to go and receive them, just the way we also received the BringBackOurGirls protesters last time. This presidency does not give money to anybody. This is not our tradition, is not our culture to buy protest or induce people to do any.You will be surprised the day President Buhari is coming back to see the millions of people that will go to the airport to welcome him, he said. Ojudu dismissed the insinuation that the presidency deliberately shunned the coalition of civil society organisations demanding that Buhari resumes duty or resigns. The presidential aide, however, expressed the readiness of the presidency to talk to the coalition if they indicated interest to do so.He said: If they decide to talk to us we talk to them. This group has a special message for the acting president and they wrote to us that they were coming and we received them. Those ones never informed us of anything. They were just doing their own protests and that was it. Speaking while addressing the pro-Buhari protesters, Ojudu alerted Nigerians on the activities of some elements that had ganged up against the President Buhari-led administration.He, therefore, charged the pro-Buhari protesters to join hands with other well meaning Nigerians to stand up against those elements who are bent on frustrating the ongoing developmental efforts of the federal government. President Buhari stands for anti-corruption. Buhari is not selfish, is not fighting for himself and the elements who are selfish; who are greedy and corrupt they are standing up and are coming together against him.`You have to mobilise and educate people across Nigeria to stand up against these people. Ojudu, however, challenged members of the pro-Buhari group on the need to conduct themselves peacefully and shun any act capable of causing social unrest. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the protesters, who were in their hundreds, presented a letter of solidarity to the acting President through Ojudu. The pro-Buhari protesters, who came from different states of the federation, had earlier stormed the Unity Fountain, Abuja, singing solidarity songs in support of President Buhari.(NAN)
There was tension as Personnel of the Lagos State Task Force clashed with some hoodlums on Tuesday at Iyana Ipaja area of Lagos State.

There was tension as Personnel of the Lagos State Task Force clashed with some hoodlums on Tuesday at Iyana Ipaja area of Lagos State.

The face-off was believed to have spilled to the area where the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), is currently holding its orientation camp along old Ipaja-Agege road.





It was gathered that the men of the task force (security operatives), arrived the area to raid some erring motorcycle riders.





Unfortunately, this was met with resistance as some hoodlums known as area boys attacked the security operatives while their operation was on-going.





It was gathered that the task force squad who were almost overpowered by the hoodlums were said to have called for reinforcement.





The arrival of their colleagues led to a fight as the area boys began to hurl dangerous weapons at the security operatives.





Traders and commuters also ran for safety when the hoodlums were tear-gassed by the team of mobile policemen who arrived the scene.





Meanwhile, some of the hoodlums were also seen just a stone throw from the NYSC orientation camp.





The military personnel attached to the NYSC orientation camp were preventing them from causing commotion near the camp.





The soldiers were also seen beating up some of the area boys who were caught.
HACKENSACK - A Westwood woman has sued Delta Airlines, claiming she was injured two years ago when the plane she was on crash-landed due to pilot error on a snowy runway at LaGuardia Airport.

Ashley Pronovost, 19, claims in court papers she was a passenger on Flight 1086, which flew from Atlanta to New York - skidding off a runway and striking an airport perimeter fence about 11 a.m. on March 5, 2015.

The plane came to rest with its "nose on an embankment hovering over Flushing Bay with its left wing broken and spewing fuel," according to the suit filed in Bergen County Superior Court.

There were 127 passengers on board. Twenty-nine of them suffered minor injuries, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.

Pronovost, who is now a student at Quinnipiac University, claims she suffered "physical and psychological personal injuries with resultant medical expenses."

The suit claims the student has suffered a loss of income along with reduced earning capacity, pain and suffering, and an impairment of her quality of life.

The lawsuit was filed Aug. 7 by attorney Gerald H. Baker of Springfield. In addition to Delta Airlines, Baker blames the captain, first officer and flight crew for negligence that resulted in the crash.

FDNY releases photos of just how close Delta flight 1086 came to the waters of Flushing Bay http://t.co/hup6N2R8B4 pic.twitter.com/YAflwoAivg  The Village Voice (@villagevoice) March 5, 2015

The captain, who is not named in court documents, was under "situational stress resulting from his concern about stopping performance," the suit states.

In September 2016, the NTSB determined the accident was due to the captain's excessive reversing of the engines while braking. The technique rendered the rudder ineffective and caused a loss of control, the NTSB said.

The lawsuit states the captain had "attentional limitations due to the high workload during the landing, which prevented him from immediately recognizing the use of excessive reverse thrust."

Pronovost is seeking a jury trial and unspecified compensatory damages, along with attorney fees and interest.

Delta Airlines did not return a call seeking comment.

Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
PHILADELPHIA -- The attorney for a Burlington County man accused of sexually assaulting two children at a city day care he owns told 6abc that his client passed a polygraph test.

Duncan Round, 53, of Medford Lakes, is charged with 14 charges including involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and illegal contact with a minor.

Philadelphia police have said that two children, both 5, told authorities that they had been sexually assaulted multiple times by Round at Sprouts, the day care center and kids' gym he owns on South 9th Street. Their reports came after the Department of Human Services was alerted to the allegations July 25.

His attorney, Brad Shuttleworth, told 6abc outside of family court Tuesday morning that Round is innocent and has the full support of his family.

Shuttleworth told the news station that Round passed a polygraph test, sometimes called a lie detector test, while being questioned last Wednesday.

Police have said they collected physical evidence to prove their case.

6abc reported that Round is out on bail, but Sprouts remains closed.

Rebecca Everett may be reached at reverett@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @rebeccajeverett. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
OCEAN CITY -- Police in Ocean City are conducting an animal cruelty investigation after a seagull was found beaten to death on the beach Monday.

Police are asking that anyone who can identify the man pictured to call police at 609-399-9111.

Though the man told police he hit the seagull with an umbrella because the bird was being aggressive toward children, a witness later told cops he lied.

The witness reported to police that the man maliciously attacked the seagull, which had done nothing more than accept a pieces of sandwiches from beachgoers.

Lifeguards had already removed the seagull by the time police arrived about 12:15 p.m.

Police left without taking action, but returned later when they were informed the man beat the bird. By that time, the man had packed up and left.

The man who attacked the seagull speared it with the umbrella tip, PhillyVoice.com reported citing a witness.

It is a disorderly persons offense in New Jersey to use a live animal as a target or to abandon a disabled animal to die in a public place.

Posted by Brittany DePasquale on Monday, August 14, 2017

Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JeffSGoldman. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Donovan's Reef in Sea Bright is having a big year: Just a few months after the bar reopened for the first time since it was nearly destroyed by Hurricane Sandy, a national website has named the Monmouth County hotspot one of the best beach bars in the country.

Thrillist released its list of the country's 21 best beach bars in America Friday, ranking the long-running Jersey Shore favorite among destinations in Hawaii, Florida and California. It's the only Jersey watering hole to make the list.

First opened in the mid-1970s, Donovan's was devastated when Sandy hit in October 2012. Doubts about whether the bar would ever return followed. It took nearly three years before the tiki bar, the only structure to weather the storm, temporarily opened to the public while the owners continued to plan for a larger-scale return.

But construction began last year to resurrect the main building, and Donovan's finally started running at full capacity this May. The restored building features three bars, an expanded patio and a full kitchen.

Donovan's triumphant return is clearly getting noticed. Thrillist called the bar "a sprawling mecca of summer bliss," and noted its appeal to both tourists and locals with live music and fried food. The rebuilt Donovan's is "bigger, and better than ever," the site says. The list also highlights the bar's idyllic location in Sea Bright, nodding to a previous list that named the town one of the best small towns in the United States.

Of course, not all beach bar rankings are apt to agree. Earlier this summer, The Daily Meal released its list of the 25 best beach bars in the United States: Two different Jersey bars -- Beach Bar in Asbury Park and the Rusty Nail in Cape May -- made the list. We feel a showdown coming on.

Donovan's, at 1171 Ocean Ave. in Sea Bright, is now open seven days a week.

Andrew Doerfler may be reached at adoerfler@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @adoerfler or on Facebook.
First, a quick "thank you" to Eater.com, which Tuesday published a well-researched article about Asbury Park's recent resurgence -- both in foodie status and economic standing -- over the past 15 years.

The website said our little city by the sea has "improbably become the Jersey Shore's hottest dining destination." We agree -- and good on them for finally recognizing what we've known for years.

But then Eater did the thing it seems everybody has been doing lately; something that drives us beach-bum New Jerseyans utterly insane. It labeled Asbury Park "the Brooklyn of the Jersey Shore."

You read that right. Yet another publication marginalizing a brilliantly revitalized shore town. All the "hipster" stuff you'll find there -- Eater's word, not ours -- is just a facsimile of bigger, better Brooklyn.

After all, our city's thriving arts community, powerful musical scene, and blossoming food culture is just little brother New Jersey finding its way, right? It's not like Asbury Park has a history -- cultural, musical, culinary -- every bit as rich and varied as Brooklyn's. Apparently we wouldn't know Coq Au Vin from Coke and Veal without the "Real City" to pop in and check our spelling.

This doesn't look like Brooklyn to us. (Mark Brown | For NJ.com)

So here's a message for Eater, Vogue, New York Times, and every other trendy travel story that paints Asbury as the next chic place to be seen and pad your Instagram portfolio: Enough with the dopey comparisons. Can't we just have this one, without all the backhanded "just like New York" compliments?

It's not just the publications that are guilty of this. It's the people, too. Walk around Cookman Avenue for a day and see how many out-of-towners say, "This reminds me of Williamsburg" or "Bushwick has a place just like this."

Well, maybe.

But do Williamsburg and Bushwick have the magnificently briny smell of the Atlantic Ocean wafting through the air?

Do they have The Stone Pony and its insane collection of signed guitars, from Springsteen to Dropkick Murphys and Dinosaur Jr.?

Do they have a Silverball Museum, with walls of playable pinball machines dating back to the '50s?

Asbury Park enjoys its own unique atmosphere; a blend of old-school family Shore culture, emerging arts prowess and a far more easygoing aesthetic than the bustle of a New York borough. It just isn't the same.

Town wanderers who make such comparisons -- starts with B, rhymes with pennies -- are the same folks who likely won't visit the city's actual Main Street, where past impoverishment is still very visible, yet spots like La Tapatia Mexican restaurant are pulling in terrific business during the city's boom.

If this sounds like a gross overreaction to a generally positive food article, you'd be correct -- sometimes you have to stand up for your locals. New Jersey has, is and always will be compared to and mocked as a mere extension of New York culture, with no ostensible identity of its own.

But us New Jerseyans know this not to be the case. Many of us actually like to live here for what's here and the Jersey persona we know to exist, and not just what's nearby.

Are there a few similarities between Brooklyn's trendier spots and Asbury Park? Sure. It attracts similar sorts of arts-savvy 20-somethings. Heck, the House of Independents music venue even hosts an "Emo Night Brooklyn" party once a month.

But here we have a city, in a state long overlooked for its particularities, trying to do its own thing, with dozens of business owners trying to build original concepts. And all they get from travel blogs and tourists is "Brooklyn South."

So to our friends on the other side of the river, if you're writing about us, great. But you can do better, we know you can.

And if you're visiting and this is your chosen attitude, take it from me, a year-round Shore resident: kindly go to Johnny Mac's, get your free pizza, and hit the high road back to Bushwick.

Bobby Olivier may be reached at bolivier@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @BobbyOlivier and Facebook. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
In this Feb. 4, 2016, photo, employees enter and exit the headquarters of Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., also known as Foxconn, in New Taipei City, Taiwan.
RACINE  The grandmother of the 3-year-old Racine boy shot to death last month is pleading with the county to return his two young brothers to her after removing them from her home last week.

Racine resident Lisa Thomas, 53, who is on disability, said shes trying to pull the family together in the face of unspeakable tragedy.

The county should be offering to help me, not treat me like a criminal, Thomas said.

Child Protective Services placed 2-year-old Saonee Pitt in her care on July 12 when his brother JereMiah Pitt was found dead with a bullet wound to the chest in a duplex in the 1800 block of Howe Street.

Their father, 30-year-old Jeffrey L. Pitt Jr., is accused of taking shots of alcohol before falling asleep with Saonee and JereMiah with a loaded gun in his waistband. Sometime overnight, police suspect the 3-year-old shot himself.

Pitt is charged with first-degree reckless homicide, first-degree recklessly endangering safety and possession of a firearm. Pitts brother-in-law, Laquan L. Russell, 27, was also charged in the incident. He is facing charges of resisting/obstructing an officer and harboring or aiding a felon. Thomas said shes raised 12 children of her own so it was natural for Child Protective Service to place the toddler in her care.

Kerry Milkie, manager of the Youth and Family Division of the countys Human Services Department, said she is unable to discuss case specifics due to confidentiality laws.

Under Wisconsin State Statutes and with the guidance of the States Access and Initial Assessment Standards, children are removed from their homes if the conditions are unsafe and/or there is not a protective parent who can provide care and the department is unable to develop a protective plan with the family to ensure safety.

Milkie said that according to policy, if a parent or caregiver is not around and unavailable it could be considered neglect. Thomas said rather it is CPS who is neglectful.

Right now its neglect on the part of CPS. If you cant reach someone on the phone the next step is to pay them a visit, Thomas said. I did not get a warning or a final warning. They showed up and I was playing with the kids. They said we tried to call you numerous times and got no reply. I showed them my phone and they were not on there (the call log).

From July 12 to when they were taken on Aug. 4, Thomas said she only had three interactions with CPS; when they originally placed the toddler, to inquiry about his mother Lakia Russell and when they came with Racine Police officers to take the child back.

Why did they need to have police officers here? They were trying to intimidate me, Thomas said.

According to Racine Police Sgt. Adam Malacara, officers dont always accompany CPS when removing children from a home.

We respond when requested by CPS. They usually request us if they feel there may be a problem so we go to there to perform our main function, keep the peace, Malacara said.

Second child taken

Thomas said CPS informed her that they were not only taking the toddler, but also Russells other son, 4-year-old Ayden Oliver, who is no relation to Jeff Pitt.

Ive had him since February and hes not a part of the situation ... CPS told me they were taking Ayden because hes at risk of being a fatality. Thats why they said they snatched him, Thomas said.

CPS ignored her teenage children at the home at the time of the interaction including Thomass 12-year-old granddaughter from Madison who was staying for the summer.

I think its deceitful, Thomas said. They should be trying to keep these children with their families.

Thomas said the frivolous seizure of her grandchildren is one reason why the county is facing a foster parent crisis.

How can they say they need foster parents when they do this to me so quickly without warning? Thomas said.

According to county data, 366 children are currently placed in licensed foster homes. That number is up from last month when they averaged 259 children daily in the foster care system.

About 30 percent of our current placements are out of county, Milkie said.

Thomas said that her two grandchildren are also out of county and are now an hour away living with two different families.

Mothers return

Lakia Russell, 23, is now living in Racine, but believes her history of domestic violence with the father may have lead CPS to consider her an unfit mother, she said.

The Pitt family is accusing me of doing drugs but the (authorities) made me take a drug test and it was negative, Russell said.

In June, Russell was found guilty of disorderly conduct in Racine County Circuit Court but she said shes changing her life to focus on her children.

Russell said she misses her boys and is now enrolled in a GED program, is looking for a job and takes a parenting class to prepare to get her children back someday.

Moving forward

On Thursday, Thomas visited JereMiahs unmarked grave at Graceland Cemetery in Racine where she found a Paw Patrol figure in the grass left over from his cartoon-themed funeral.

Hes buried a couple of rows from my father. Hes watching over him now, Thomas said. The last time I saw JereMiah he said good-bye and gave me a kiss. The little boy never gives me kisses. He held me tight and kissed me right here on the cheek. The next time I saw him they were taking his body away.

Thomas hopes an attorney might take up a potential lawsuit against CPS so she can pull her family back together.

Ive grown all my kids up and I was willing to take on two more little ones, Thomas said. I havent asked the community for help. Im determined to do it on my own.
Driver had constitutional right to give police 'the finger,' ACLU says
FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP)  Survivors of Hurricane Ian face a long emotional road to recover from one of the most damaging storms to hit the U.S. mainland. For those who lost everything to disaster, the anguish can be crushing to return home to find so much gone. Grief can run the gamut from frequent tears to utter despair. The Lee County medical examiner says two men in their 70s even took their own lives a day apart after viewing their losses. Experts say suicides climb after disasters and more funding for mental health should be provided as climate change makes storms and fires more frequent and devastating.
Welcome to nonleaguedaily.coms news provision, your go-to source for all non league updates, rumours, interviews, and much more besides.

Founded by a team with a genuine passion for the world of non league football, nonleaguedaily.com understands exactly what supporters of the so-called lower leagues are looking for. You want the high-quality reporting, in-depth analysis, and match reporting that matches that is more commonly found in the journalism for the top flights, but with the focus firmly fixed on the national leagues.

We understand that your passion, interest, and dedication is constant, and we believe you need a news service that matches that commitment with its own dedication and thoroughness  so thats what you can expect from our site.

The latest non league news, as and when it happens

Conventionally, non league news has always travelled fairly slowly, especially when compared to the instantaneous, constant breaking news cycles found in the upper leagues. Tales are told on terraces, rumours passed between pub patrons and circled between supporters at the latest game, often forced to remain somewhat local initially before word eventually spreads to other locales.

For us, this slow spread may be fairly organic in nature, but it simply isnt compatible with the modern football environment. Its also not conducive to the current fast-paced, always-available media landscape, nor the way that people tend to consume news nowadays. Thats why we have put together a non league news source that fans can turn to for the latest updates, as and when they happen, and as and when you want to read them. Non-league news now is the only acceptable speed at Betting.co.uk.

We update our non-league football news coverage constantly, bringing you all the latest developments and seeking to spread the word as quickly and accurately as possible. So if youre wondering whats happening both with your local team and with the lower leagues as a whole, you can visit us for non league news now, and be confident the stories you find are completely up to date.

News reported by passionate fans

Our efforts to bring you the very best non league football news are undeniably a professional concern, and one that we take seriously. We are  if youll excuse the uncharacteristic tooting of our own horns  good at what we do, and we know that the efforts we make in this regard are one of the reasons our site has enjoyed such success thus far.

However, everyone who writes for us also shares our readers enthusiasm for non league football. Were not just churning out content in the hopes of cashing in on a professional dream; were here because we want to be, and will always be dedicated and committed to non league football as an entity and thriving in the experience of being able to talk about our favourite subject whenever we can. We create non-league news now that is written by genuine fans and enthusiasts, for fans. We know what you want to know and what matters most to an ardent non league supporter, and we always ensure that focusing on these elements is our guiding principle as we seek to solidify our status as an online non league paper fans can always rely on.

When compiling non league news, we think with the mind of a fan first and foremost. We cover the angles and stories that we find compelling and that we know our fellow non league enthusiasts also care about. News doesnt have to be dry and formulaic, in our opinion. When its written by people who are genuinely as fascinated by the stories they are reporting on as their readership will be, we believe news can be interesting, compelling, and even have a sense of personality and humour.

News content written with passion and expertise

We believe that thanks to our dedication, insightfulness, and commitment to our subject matter of non league today, we are offering the best of both worlds to those searching for an online non league paper. We give you the professional approach we feel is appropriate for news about one of the most intriguing aspects of UK football; an aspect that we genuinely feel does not receive the interest and plaudits that it should be generating. Nevertheless, we dont let that professionalism take over everything we do: we remain committed fans, nurturing our own personal interest in non league football and ensuring every word we compose is infused with a sense of passion and dedication that enhances the posts we create.

Its therefore obvious that our non-league content today isnt ever going to be dry, basic, or put together by a tired staff writer who has never heard of any team below the Championship before they rush off to the pub for the evening. Our writers are genuine experts: were covering non league football because we want to, because we believe in it, and because its where our strengths lie. The result is informed content that capitalises on our deep knowledge of the history, as well as the present-day realities, of non league football in the UK.

Beyond news: the nonleaguedaily.com interview series

One of our goals with nonleaguedaily.com is to not just dryly report the news from an outsiders perspective, effectively regurgitating press releases that are devoid of genuinely illuminating information. We also go right to the source of the stories: the managers and club insiders who have direct experience, and often influence, on the sport and how it is managed.

We regularly conduct interviews as part of our news provision, asking the questions that are on everyones lips and providing the best possible view into the non league world. We have reporters pitchside at matches, microphone to hand and plentiful questions ready to be asked. The end result for you, the reader, is the kind of information and close-up looks into the non league world that just cant be found anywhere else.

As our commitment to providing interesting interviews amply demonstrates, we want to be involved in breaking the stories that everyone then talks about, rather than following along and focusing solely on what everyone already knows. If youre looking for leading content that you cant find anywhere else, and that goes right to the centre of the non league world, then you can turn to nonleaguedaily.com for all the benefits of a conventional non league paper, but in electronic, easily-accessed form.

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John Minshall believes its important for parents to step up and be involved in their childs education, so he threw his hat in the ring for the Council Bluffs school board.

Minshall, 40, is running for the Council Bluffs Community School Districts Board of Directors as a Bluffs native who grew up in the district attending Edison Elementary, Wilson Junior High and Thomas Jefferson High School.

An electrician foreman for Miller Electric, Minshall wants to bring his perspective to add diversity to the school board. A release given to The Nonpareil states that Minshall is a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

I feel like the school district touches every part of our city, he said in an interview. All walks of life have an opportunity to be represented on the school board.

In his job, Minshall said he deals with personalities and conflict, so he would bring leadership and listening skills to the board. He said hes great at listening to others ideas and taking their input.

Minshall and his wife, Melissa, who grew up in Underwood, have a daughter who will start preschool this month at College View Elementary School. He said he credits the Council Bluffs school district with an important role in his own success.

The district is doing a fine job, he said, adding praise for both the new and the former superintendent of schools from a recent event at Abraham Lincoln High School.

I met Dr. (Vickie) Murillo at the listening and learning session she had at A.L. last week, and, from what she said, shes in the right position to build on what Dr. (Martha) Bruckner left the district with, Minshall said.

Asked about the districts tough budget situation, Minshall said he hasnt had much opportunity to look into those numbers, but he said he would if elected.

I would be willing to make those decisions, Minshall said, noting that he would discuss decisions with Murillo and his fellow board members. I have something to add as a community member to continue to move forward, to build on what the school board and the district currently has.

Fostering more involvement is what he views as the districts top issue.

A challenge we have is there isnt a lot of participation from all of our parents, he said. They need to have a better role in their students lives, and I think thats going to make the district grow.
DES MOINES (AP)  Theres a sign-up sheet in the basement of the West Des Moines Methodist Church that looks like the Container Store let loose on a poster board.

Its the king of sign-up sheets, and one glance at its methodically charted grids, tiny boxes, color codes and sticky notes denoting important updates tells part of the story behind the churchs beloved Iowa State Fair food stand.

For 11 days, the church needs 226 volunteers to staff two eight-hour shifts per day, plus a special two-person clean-up crew that works for two hours after the fair closes.

Each of these volunteers will be pummeled with more numbers as the fair goes on: 350 egg sandwiches need to be ready by 6 a.m., each plate of biscuits and gravy gets two biscuits and, most importantly, every pie should yield exactly seven slices.

But figures tell only part of this storied stands tale; the other portion is less analytical and more spiritual.

The West Des Moines Methodist Church is the last remaining Christian organization to host an eatery on the fairgrounds, making them the final vestige in a church food stand tradition that stretches back to the very first fair. Vowing to return every year theyre able, church members see staying open as a duty not just for themselves, but for the many religious stands that came before.

Its a State Fair staple that has become a tradition for our fairgoers, fair CEO Gary Slater told The Des Moines Register. They do things the old-fashioned way, and people know, when you go down to the West Des Moines Methodist stand, they are going to serve you right.

Still, running the stand isnt an easy task. Despite making tens of thousands of dollars each fair  the churchs largest fundraiser by far  the congregation relies on its aging members to work the stand. And with each year comes new unexpected adjustments: added labor regulations, tighter health codes, unavoidable stand upkeep and further volunteer headaches.

This year, more changes than usual seem to be afoot at the fair.

The Midway has been transformed with a la carte vendors rather than a single amusement company. The fair for the first time staged a sort of Food Network extravaganza to unveil its new foods. Longtime fair volunteer Arlette Hollister wont be the guru of the famous cooking competitions. And Jalapeno Petes, a music venue right near the Grandstand, got a face-lift costing more than $400,000  about double the intended price tag.

Amid this upheaval, the WDM Methodist stand is classically quaint  a corner of the fair where the conversation flows as easily as the coffee. The stand doesnt serve alcohol, so families wanting to avoid the rowdier side of the fair can find respite in the large seating area, which easily accommodates strollers and multi-generational households.

Congregants pride themselves on good, simple food  eggs, bacon, loose meat sandwiches and pie  at low prices, said Larry Sample, 72, one of the co-chairs of the churchs State Fair committee.

We take the time to sit and visit with people and make them feel welcome, said Bob Meyers, 88, a church stand volunteer since 1960. They enjoy it, and all of a sudden they get to talking and it feels almost like home, Id say. Like a barbecue with family. And thats what brings people back.

In that vein, the church does its best to position its stand at the intersection of tradition and relevance. The volunteers tweak their menu a bit each year (diners can look forward to a new brand of sausage at the stand this year); they fix up their seats for maximum comfort; and they even get in on the stuff on the stick trend.

Saddle up to their stand and amid menus and napkins and table salt, youll find their speared offering: a prayer  on a tongue depressor.

The WDM Methodist stand started in 1949, when just about anyone could set up a food stall on the fairgrounds, said Millie Knee, daughter of one of the stands founders.

Where today there are applications and forms and hoops to jump through, then there were two questions: Do you have food and can you serve it?

The stand was the brain child of one of the churchs womens circles, and Irma Meyers, Knees mother, was approached to lead the charge soon after her husband died. In a memo describing the Altruist Class of people who worked the stand in those early years, Meyers wrote that taking on the responsibility of the fair stand was good therapy.

She would take our 5-year-old brother with her and work from about 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. managing that stand, Knee said. She took her recipes down there and she made a chiliburger, a type of loose meat sandwich, which they still sell today. This was a cause she was strongly dedicated to.

After a good run, Meyers went back to work full-time, and some men from the church took over the stand. From 1954 until this year, the churchs mens organization helmed the stand.

In 1974, the stand had its most revolutionary idea yet: pie.

Helen Brantley was tapped to bake apple pies using fruit from a fellow members orchard. She made just a few to start because church members werent sure if pie would sell at the fair. One day mid-fair, she dropped off a handful of completed confections to little fanfare.

By the time I came home, they had already called and said they needed more pie, Brantley remembered. Today, the church gets its pies from a member whos a professional baker.

The addition of pie isnt the only transformation the food stand has weathered over the years. The church used to sling hash for 24 hours, but now the stand generally runs from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. The building itself used to be rustic, as Knee termed it, with a floor of sawdust and wood chips and a tarp for a roof. In 1975, the church built a permanent structure, which it still uses.

At the close of the 2016 fair, the mens groups aging members huddled and decided they needed help organizing the efforts. After getting buy-in, the stand became a mission project for the entire church.

So far, members have heeded that call, Sample said, generously filling out the various fair committees and filling in that giant sign-up sheet.

During the many years Knees mother ran the fair stand, Knee would run the fairgrounds. She distinctly remembers the area known as Church Row, the straightaway where a collection of churches once hosted dining halls.

You used to walk down there, and the people in the church stands would holler at you, Come eat with us! Support church such-and-such! Knee remembered.

Churches have been a part of the fair since its beginnings, said fair CEO Slater.

Back in the day, there really werent organized concessionaires, he said. Instead when there was a big event like the fair, you called upon organizations like local churches to provide those services.

But in recent years, there have been just a handful of church stands at the fair. At least four churches  Chesterfield Christian Church, Tri-Met Methodist, the Basilica of St. John and West Des Moines Methodist  had booths within the past two decades, according to fair records.

The Chesterfield Churchs stand opened in 1912 to help raise money to rebuild its building, which was gutted by fire, according to the Register archives. It was the fairs longest-running concession stand until it closed in 2002.

Serving homemade food to 11,000 people for 14 straight days requires more work than the churchs remaining volunteers could handle, a 2003 news story explained, citing $30,000 in needed repairs that the tiny congregation could not afford. Last year, the church  where membership has slipped from more than 100 people to about 15  had to hire help.

The Basilica of St. Johns Brother Bubbas Basilica Bar-B-Q, which was named for the holy brothers who worked there, ran into similar staffing issues in the 1990s.

When the parish priory closed, the basilica relied on its congregation  predominantly older workers  and there just werent enough volunteers, conceded Dwayne Weuve, the business manager who oversaw the stand.

Also, pricing got more competitive, and the basilicas corner of the fair became crowded with other options. In Bubbas best year, the church stand cleared $13,000 net profit, Weuve said. It was the parishs largest annual fundraiser, and the church hasnt been able to replace it.

The profit is hard for WDM Methodist to think of giving up, too, Sample said.

The money the church makes, which adds up to tens of thousands a year, is used for mission work. Whether through local improvements, community engagement or sending youth groups and adult missionaries around the world, every cent made at the fair goes back to the churchs calling, said Ken Ferguson, the other co-chair.

But outside of the financial gains, many who work at the stand see it as a time for fellowship, said church member Tom Ackerman. When you work eight hours at the stand with other church members, you create a special kind of bond, one full of those remember when stories.

On some level, Ackerman said, the stand is also a public service, a place for good works. Its a comfortable, calm locale for people to rest, which is enough, but if those people also want to talk about the church, thats so much the better.

Weve been out there as long as a lot of people have been alive, Ackerman said. I cant tell you how many people will tell volunteers about how they used to come here with their mom and dad when they were little and how much that connection to the past means to them.

The stand is on pretty stable ground for the future, said Sample and Ferguson. Most church members dont want to see it fold  Knee called the thought devastating  so they are doubling their efforts to find younger people to ensure their fate at the fair. This year, they started a volunteer internship in which the intern is rewarded with elevated status for his or her work with the churchs State Fair Council.

With the entire church behind the mission now, the 2017 sign-up sheet is looking pretty full, and excitement is high. But, considering the fair is so close, the church is focused on one thing and one thing only, Meyers said: We just need people to show up hungry!

If the way to the soul of the fair is through its stomach, you just might find it at the West Des Moines Methodist Church stand.
A West Side shop that found its niche in specialty games and toys is closing.

Whoops! & Co., 555 S. Midvale Blvd., is having a going-out-of-business sale and will be closed by the end of the month at the latest, said Missy Stein, who opened the shop in Sequoya Commons in 2009. Stein, 40, said she wants to spend more time with her children, who have been raised in the store but are now 6 and 8 years old.

"It's not a decision that was taken lightly, trust me," Stein said. "I just need to find a balance and running a business takes a lot of time."

Stein, who grew up in Waunakee and has been in retail most of her life, will continue to own and operate Paper Piper, a specialty stationery business, but likely out of a small studio. The design company specializes in custom wedding and event stationery and designs are custom made to fit specific themes, styles and budgets.

Stein said the Nutzy Mutz & Crazy Catz, located a few doors away in the shopping center, will move into the 1,300-square-foot Whoops! & Co. space. The move will provide the pet supply store, that also has a location at 330 W. Lakeside St., with more room.

Sequoya Commons is a $34 million retail, residential and library center at the corner of S. Midvale and Tokay boulevards that also includes a Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream Co. store; EVP Coffee, Hybrid Salon, Luigi's Pizzaria and the Sequoya branch of the Madison Public Library.

"Even though we're in Madison, we're a small neighborhood store," Stein said. "Im going to miss it. Its a neat neighborhood community."
A Wisconsin appeals court has taken the unusual step of correcting a ruling after a longtime pediatric allergist said an error in the original opinion implying he was a pedophile caused irreparable personal and professional harm.

The 4th District Court of Appeals issued a ruling on July 20 that said three patients of Dr. Don Bukstein  who primarily treats children  alleged he had touched them in a sexual manner during an exam or treatment.

But there was no evidence to back that up.

After Bukstein protested, the appeals court revised the ruling Thursday to specify that it was three adult patients and that they had accused him of making physical contact with them, removing any reference to the contact being in a sexual manner.

But Bukstein, who has worked primarily in the Madison area for more than 35 years, said the damage has already been done.

Bukstein cited numerous news accounts of the July ruling, including by The Associated Press, that were published across the country citing the courts incorrect reference to him facing allegations of sexual misconduct.

The destruction of Dr. Buksteins professional life has been swift, his attorney Lester Pines told the court in asking for a correction.

Bukstein told the court that the error has led to patients canceling appointments, the loss of speaking engagements and a personal stigma causing his wife to cry nightly. Bukstein said UW-Madison also asked that he no longer reference the fact that he was a clinical professor there or that he taught medical students and residents for three decades.

Dr. Gary Steven, who hired Bukstein to work for his Milwaukee-based clinic, said his jaw dropped when he read press accounts of the ruling that essentially evokes an image of Dr. Bukstein as a pedophile. Steven said hes under intense pressure to fire Bukstein.

I believe that my career ... has been functionally ended, causing severe financial distress to me and my family, Bukstein said in a statement to the court submitted along with the request for a correction. I believe the emotional damage this has caused me and my family is irreparable.

The ruling was written by appeals court judges Paul Lundsten, Brian Blanchard and Gary Sherman. None of them returned messages Tuesday seeking comment. Court spokesman Tom Sheehan said judges are barred from discussing pending cases.

The appeals court ruled against Bukstein in July, saying that Madison-based Dean Health Systems had properly fired him in 2012. Bukstein had worked there since 1981.

The decision overturned a Dane County Circuit Courts ruling in favor of Bukstein, who had been awarded $2.2 million in 2016 after a jury determined Dean improperly fired him because he wasnt given due process to fight the allegations.

This case was never about sexual misconduct, Pines wrote in the motion seeking a correction. By using the phrase in a sexual manner, the Court of Appeals placed a fact in the record where it had not been before.

The patients complained that Buksteins groin area had made contact with their legs during the course of a medical exam and that made them uncomfortable. The state Department of Safety and Professional Services investigated and took no action against Buksteins license, saying there was no evidence his contact was inappropriate or involved sexual gratification.

Pines said Tuesday he worried that the grotesque error had an effect on the appeals court siding against Bukstein. He plans to appeal to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
For some, a total solar eclipse can be a religious experience  and sure enough, an old house of worship in Nebraska bears the name Eclipse Church.

And wouldnt you know, the 101-year-old church sits in the path of totality for the Aug. 21 Great American Solar Eclipse.

So you can imagine that some people want to watch from the church property, in middle of the Sandhills in the middle of the state, near the south fork of the Dismal River, as the moon blocks out the sun and the sky goes dark.

You have no idea, said Linda Tucker, whose family owns the church property. Probably 20 to 30 people have called.

But with 12 days before the big event, she and her husband, Jack, are saying no  on Tuesday he began posting no trespassing signs.

Its not because the Tuckers are mean. They are Nebraska nice, but they fear that an influx of people would be risky.

Were sorry to have to do this, Linda said, but everything is so dry, were concerned about range fires. Were just scared wed be bombarded by people.

So how did a church and cemetery in the middle of ranch country  about 30 miles southwest of Mullen in Hooker County  come to be called Eclipse? The Tuckers dont know but say there was previously an Eclipse post office nearby.

The familys history in the Sandhills dates to 1886. The story goes that another young family was headed west by wagon and left a sick baby to be temporarily cared for. The parents never returned.

The baby died, and Jacks great-grandfather, Chauncey Tucker, buried the child in a pasture  the start of the Eclipse Cemetery. The tombstone is still there, with the words Our Baby.

In 1916, an Episcopal church, originally called All Saints, was built next to the cemetery.

For many years there were no roads to the church, so people arrived by wagon or on horseback. The congregation eventually dwindled and there were no regular services, though the church occasionally has hosted a wedding or funeral.

In 1981, the Episcopal Diocese of Nebraska sold the church to the Tuckers, and it became nondenominational. It took the name of the cemetery and has been known as Eclipse Church.

In honor of its history, Nebraska Episcopal Bishop Scott Barker of Omaha last year presided at a service celebrating its centennial.

Its just a gorgeous, iconic, white country church in incredibly remote and beautiful Sand Hills ranch country, he said Tuesday in Omaha. The Tuckers have really taken it on as a ministry to care for the church and its grounds.

About 15 years ago, Linda said, people responded to the familys call for help. Repairs were made, including replacement of 18 windows and the roof.

A metal gate into the cemetery includes an arch with the word Eclipse. Linda calls the little church, which has no electricity, picturesque.

The old Tucker place sits not far from the church, but Jack and Linda now own a home in North Platte.

Jack still drives 65 miles a day to the ranch, now in its sixth generation. The operation, which used to be all Herefords but now has crossbreds, is run by son John and his two sons.

Though the Eclipse Church is surely out of the way, Linda says people find it.

I think that church is in one of the most beautiful spots in the state, she said. Youd be surprised how many people drive off the highway and come up to see it. People love that little church.

There were a couple of reports of people staking out spots in the Sand Hills for eclipse-viewing, but ranchers have asked them to leave the private property. The grassy area is fragile.

Across the path of the eclipse, people who look forward to an unimpeded view Aug. 21 are hoping for clear skies. The Tuckers dont want anyones celestial show spoiled, but they and other ranchers really need precipitation.

The drought is substantial, said Bishop Barker, who will watch the total eclipse from another Sand Hills ranch. We are praying for rain at every church I visit in greater Nebraska.

Linda says its too dangerous to let anyone on their place.

We are really concerned about it, she said. We dont want fires like theyve had in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

As they post signs asking people to stay away from Eclipse Church on Eclipse Day, the Tuckers will keep praying  and hope eclipse-watchers wont ignore them, asking the couple to forgive their trespasses.
The Lincoln County Board of Commissioners will appeal the decision of the Nebraska Tax Equalization and Review Commission exempting some property owned by the Nebraska Cooperative Republican Platte Enhancement Project from taxation.

N-CORPE has appealed the countys decision to tax the land. On July 28, TERC agreed with N-CORPE that the property in question should be exempt from taxation for both 2014 and 2015.

N-CORPE is an interlocal agency formed in 2012 by four natural resources districts to increase stream flows in the Republican and Platte rivers. The agency purchased land in Lincoln County that has been retired from irrigation so that water can be transported via pipelines and tributaries to the Republican and Platte rivers.

On Monday, the commissioners heard from some Lincoln County property owners and attorney Kendra A. Strommen, who is representing them.

We are here this morning to urge you to support appealing the decision to put the 19,000 acres that N-CORPE has taken off the property tax records and place them back on the property tax records for multiple reasons, Strommen said. But one reason Id like to bring up is, I think everyone is familiar with the Estermann v. Bose case. Within that case it states time and time again that the removal of the groundwater was considered for state purpose, but it was never argued that the surface was going to be used for state purpose. And for that argument alone, the surface should be on the tax rolls.

Kurt Olson, a Lincoln County property owner, had a question for the commissioners on the issue: At the point in time we decide to take (the N-CORPE) property off the tax rolls, does that put the burden on every taxpayer in Lincoln County then?

County Assessor Julie Stenger was called to answer the question.

If they do decide, even if we appeal this and we lose and it does come off the tax rolls permanently, then, yes, Stenger said. (N-CORPE) has paid its 2014-15 taxes, so it would be up to the taxing entities of Lincoln County to reimburse those funds to N-CORPE.

Stenger said that basically the burden would be placed back on the taxpayers, who could file for a hardship allowing five years to pay back the taxes.

So, Kurt, not only the individual taxpayer, but also the taxing entities that have already used that money and counted on it, and probably spent it, will have to come up with that refund also, Commissioner Joe Hewgley said.

Strommen said a group of Lincoln County landowners is working to make the N-CORPE land available for purchase by private owners.

We are in the process of forming a nonprofit group thats called Landowners for A Common Purpose, Strommen said after the meeting.

She added the group is OK with N-CORPE taking the water, but we want the surface to be used for agricultural purposes.

In other business Monday, the commissioners scheduled a public hearing at 10 a.m. Sept. 11 to receive comments on the proposed 2017-18 fiscal year budget, and a public hearing at 10:15 a.m. that day for comments relating to setting the final tax request at a different amount than the previous year.

The next meeting of the commissioners will be at 9 a.m. Aug. 22, which is a Tuesday rather than the usual Monday meeting. The meeting will be postponed a day because of Mondays total solar eclipse.
LINCOLN  The Nebraska Legislatures Urban Affairs Committee will host an interim study hearing in North Platte on Aug. 24.

The hearing will begin at 1:30 p.m. in the W.W. Wood Building on the north campus of Mid-Plains Community College, 1101 Halligan Drive.

The committee will receive public testimony on two interim studies: LR 160, to examine the ability of municipalities in Nebraska to offer relocation incentives to attract new residents, and LR 60, examining issues related to the use of tax increment financing that were raised in a December 2016 report issued by the state auditor.

State Sen. Justin Wayne of Omaha, chairman of the Urban Affairs Committee, called the North Platte hearing an opportunity for committee members to receive testimony from Nebraskans who might not be able to travel to Lincoln for legislative hearings.

Our committee represents municipalities across Nebraska, so it is helpful for us to travel to other communities as part of our work, he said. I look forward to hearing from city officials and citizens from North Platte and other communities in western Nebraska.

LR 160, introduced by state Sen. Dan Hughes of Venango will examine current relocation incentives that communities can offer, including incentives under the Local Option Municipal Economic Development Act (commonly referred to as LB 840). The study will also examine incentives offered by municipalities in other states.

LR 60, introduced by the Urban Affairs Committee, will take a comprehensive look at the report issued by State Auditor Charlie Janssen on various TIF projects by Nebraska municipalities. Before receiving public testimony, the committee will receive invited testimony from the auditors office as well as those municipalities whose TIF projects the auditor examined.

Two additional hearings on LR 60 have been scheduled for Sept. 29 at the Hall County Extension Office in Grand Island and Oct. 6 at the State Capitol in Lincoln.

This is the third consecutive year that the Urban Affairs Committee has hosted hearings outside of the Capitol during the interim.
Today, public school students in grades K-9 will head to class, and they will be joined by a number of new staff members.

According to a staffing report given at Monday evenings North Platte Public Schools Board of Education meeting, 35 new teachers and certified staff members, two new principals, 10 new paraprofessionals and five custodians/maintenance workers have been hired this year.

Earlier this month, the new teachers were together for orientation, and during one activity they were asked if they had purchased a house in North Platte.

Over half of them stood up, said Dr. Tami Eshleman, associate superintendent. That means theres a commitment there.

Eshleman said the district is making efforts to retain new teachers by making sure theyre trained and getting what they need to be successful.

New teachers will be evaluated twice a year for their first three years in the district, according to the Certified Evaluation Handbook that the board approved during the meeting. Teachers are considered to be on probationary status until theyve taught for a full three years, Eshleman said.

The previous handbook was adopted in 2004 and last updated in 2008. Eshleman said it followed framework by Charlotte Danielson and the Danielson Group. The new handbook is aligned with Marzanos instructional strategies, which are used throughout the district year-round.

In this new evaluation model that is proposed, one of the cool things about it is that it has a lot of teacher responsibility, Eshleman said, explaining that teachers will be expected to set goals and evaluate their progress.

She added that the district wants to focus on ensuring evaluations are honest and accurate.

Not everyone is excellent, Eshleman said. We wish they were, but they arent. The tendency to mark everyone as excellent or at the top is not doing us any favors.

The handbook also has guidelines in place for staff members who require help to become better teachers, such as a guided improvement or intensive assistance plan.

The board also approved the negotiated agreement for para-educators. Per the agreement, para-educators will receive a 20-cent raise for the 2017-18 school year and a 25-cent raise for the 2018-19 school year.

The board voted to approve the sale of excess equipment at a garage sale, but a date hasnt been set. The equipment includes desks, chairs and other surplus items.

During the public comment period, the board heard from Lincoln County resident Bernice Ziegler, who said she was there to remind them to consider the taxpayer.

Show some concern for those that need your help in paying their monthly bills, Ziegler said.

She pointed out that while the district made an effort not to raise the overall budget, the property tax request still increased. The proposed total personal and property tax request is $28 million, about 7 percent higher than last years request of $26.2 million.

I feel bad for the people who received an increase in their property valuation, Ziegler said.

The school board will hold a hearing on Sept. 11 before the regular board meeting to hear comments on the proposed tax request.
The Dane County Sheriff's Office is warning area businesses about a scam trying to dupe victims out of money over missing a fake court appearance.

Several businesses have contacted the Sheriff's Office after receiving calls that threaten prosecution for missing a court date, Lt. Krista Ewers-Hayes said. The caller, who falsely identifies themselves as a Sheriff's Office official and mentions an actual federal judge in the district, tries to solicit an untraceable money transfer to dismiss bogus charges of contempt of court or failure to appear, Ewers-Hayes said.

"This scam has circulated for years around the country," she said. "A local, or federal court, or law enforcement agency will not demand payment over the phone or through a wire service, to dismiss charges, alleviate fines or in lieu of jury service."

Ewers-Hayes said there is no information that any monetary losses have been incurred as a result of the most recent scams.
Social Security is a large portion of many Americans retirement incomes, and Congress is working on a number of solutions to strengthen the program and increase efficiency for beneficiaries.

At the end of June, I joined Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee Chairman Sam Johnson of Texas in introducing the Providing Choice for Social Security Retirees Act. This bill would provide Social Security Old-Age (OASI) beneficiaries the option to claim a portion of their delayed retirement credit in a one-time, partial lump sum.

A modernized Social Security should allow seniors to make their own retirement decisions rather than pressure them to conform to a one-size-fits-all program. This additional option ensures that seniors who choose to remain in the workforce beyond their full retirement age have greater flexibility to determine how they access their benefits. Workers have paid taxes into Social Security with the expectation their benefits will be there in retirement, and they should be able to choose the method of receiving these benefits that best suits their needs.

Another crucial part of strengthening Social Security is preventing fraud and abuse. I am a co-sponsor of the Social Security Disability Insurance and Unemployment Benefits Double Dip Elimination Act to prevent beneficiaries from receiving Social Security disability benefits and unemployment benefits at the same time. This is an important step to preserve Social Security disability benefits for those who truly are unable to work.

Unfortunately, fraud committed by those entrusted to administer Social Security benefits is also a concern. One example made the headlines earlier this year when Social Security Administration (SSA) Administrative Law Judge David Daugherty and Kentucky disability lawyer Eric Conn pleaded guilty in a scam involving $550 million in fraudulent SSA disability claims. As a judge with the responsibility to decide disability claims on behalf of the SSA, Daugherty admitted to accepting more than $600,000 in cash in exchange for awarding benefits in more than 3,000 cases brought forth by Conn.

Despite his guilty plea, the SSA still did not have the authority to revoke Daughertys retirement benefits. Under current law, Daugherty could only lose these benefits if convicted of criminal offenses related to treason and espionage. To close this loophole, I co-sponsored the Holding SSA Employees Accountable Act to prohibit SSA employees convicted of a felony related to their official job duties from receiving their federal retirement benefits.

Addressing Social Security fraud is not just about going after those who have broken the law but also protecting current and future beneficiaries. When benefits are paid to ineligible individuals, it reduces resources for those who truly need access to these benefits and frustrates taxpayers who are expected to foot the bill.

In addition to protecting Social Security funds from fraud, we are also working to ensure the safety of Americans personal information. Ten years ago, the Office of Management and Budget issued a memo requiring all federal departments and agencies to eliminate the unnecessary use of Social Security numbers and look into alternative methods of identification. A report issued in July shows some progress has been made, but we still have a long way to go.

This is why I co-sponsored legislation last Congress, which was signed into law, to remove Social Security numbers from Medicare cards. On the Ways and Means Committee, we continue to work on ways to cut down on the use of Social Security numbers in government and employer documentation.

We have a lot of important work to do to shore up Social Security and protect beneficiaries. By cutting down on fraud and providing more choices to retirees, we can create a stronger Social Security that better serves the American workforce.
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Fair Oaks Farms co-founder Sue McCloskey now has a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval for general awesomeness.

McCloskey, who launched the hugely popular agritourism farm on the border of Jasper and Newton counties, was one of 15 women to receive an Awesome Women Award in the August edition of Good Housekeeping, which hits newsstands Tuesday. She was lauded for her work in turning manure into clean fuel that powers vehicles at the farm, as well as 42 delivery trucks of Fairs Oaks cheese and dairy products.

Other honorees include Every Mother Counts founder Christy Turlington Burns, Mogul CEO Tiffany Pham, CNN News Anchor Poppy Harlow, tribal attorney Tara Houska and actress Whoopi Goldberg. Special Guest Editor Melinda Gates said they were making a significant impact on the world.

Awesome only begins to describe the women were celebrating," Gates said in a statement. "They are the people whose ideas and innovations are shaping the future, who are filling gaps in the market with creative products and meeting our biggest challenges with bold solutions. Their stories deserve to be shared, and I love thinking of the young people who will hear these names and be inspired to put their own ambitions into action."

The national magazine, which has a circulation of more than 4.3 million copies, honored McCloskey for developing a 99 percent methane gas made from manure at Fair Oaks Farms, which helps cut down on greenhouse gases.

Weve created a co-op of farmers in the U.S. who recycle waste, McCloskey said. The goal is to reduce the carbon footprint of dairy farms by 20 percent before 2025.

McCloskey, who runs one of the most popular agritourist attractions in the country with her husband Mike McCloskey, said she strives to be a role model.

My daughter gave me a Wonder Woman bracelet and a beautiful letter telling me how I was her Wonder Woman," she said. "That reminds me to be a strong, fair and smart example for her and other young women in my life.
Hammond is putting Africa Tarver, the city's new executive director of planning and development, on the board of the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority.

Hammond Mayor Thomas M. McDermott Jr. appointed Tarver to fill the remaining term of Philip Taillon, who resigned from the seat after he was named McDermott's chief of staff.

It is with deep regret that I must tender my resignation from the Regional Development Authority, Taillon said of the agency that spearheads major Region-wide infrastructure projects such as the South Shore Line expansion. My new duties as chief of staff will require more of my time and attention. I greatly appreciate the opportunity I was given, and it has been an honor to serve on the board.

Tarver has worked for Hammond city government for 16 years, most recently as director of economic development.

I am honored to be appointed by Mayor McDermott to a board that is so instrumental to development in the Region, Tarver said. I look forward to working with them to continuously move the Region forward.

In her most recent position, Tarver visited Hammond businesses to discuss retention and expansion, and has worked to create a healthy business climate in the city.

McDermott said she was well suited to serve in a position overseeing big economic development projects such as the West Lake Corridor commuter rail line and Gary/Chicago International Airport expansion.

"With her background in economic development, I believe Africa is an excellent choice for this board, McDermott said. I am sure she will continue to represent the city of Hammond well on this board.
HAMMOND  State conservation officers are investigating after responding to a fire and explosion during the overnight hours Tuesday at Hammond Marina.

Multiple law enforcement agencies responded at about 3:50 a.m. to the marina for a report of a fire, said Lt. Terri Millefoglie, spokeswoman for Indiana Department of Natural Resources' law enforcement division.

A preliminary investigation showed one docked boat caught fire before the blaze spread to another in the G dock section of the marina, near the main office, Millefoglie said.

Two boats are considered total losses, she said, and two others suffered some level of damage. Investigators believe an explosion on the first boat triggered the second boat to catch fire.

The police and fire departments of Hammond, along with the U.S. Coast Guard, Hammond Port Authority, Hammond Marina, and Tow Boat U.S., all assisted at the scene, Millefoglie said.

At this time, there have been no injuries reported. Hammond fire officials are investigating the fire.

The cause remains under investigation.
An Assembly committee Monday gave the green light to a package of incentives designed to convince Taiwanese electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn to build its first U.S. plant in Wisconsin.

The Republican-controlled Assembly Committee on Jobs and the Economy voted 8-5 along party lines to advance Gov. Scott Walkers bill that provides Foxconn with nearly $3 billion in tax credits, exempts the company from a number of environmental regulations and spends $20 million in state funds on job training to ensure the states workforce is prepared to fill the 13,000 jobs the company has promised to create.

The full Assembly is scheduled to vote on the package Thursday.

Republicans rejected nearly two dozen Democratic amendments, including ensuring 70 percent of the proposed Foxconn plants workers would be Wisconsin residents and that Wisconsin contractors would work on building the proposed manufacturing campus.

Rep. Tod Ohnstad, D-Kenosha, who represents the area near where Foxconn is looking to build, voted against the bill. Ohnstad said he had too many unanswered questions Monday, but hoped he could review more information by Thursday.

Ive certainly had a lot of constituents that have expressed concerns about the environmental clauses, that express concerns about the price tag and express concerns that this might not be the best thing for Kenosha and Racine, Ohnstad said after the vote. But once again, I want to express that people are very, very excited about the possibility of thousands of jobs.

Republicans said amendments to Walkers bill that the committee adopted Monday have added some of the protections Democrats want. They included asking state officials negotiating the final contract with Foxconn to add a goal of hiring Wisconsin-based workers and making sure enough workers in the state are available to be hired and at a livable wage.

The amendments also call for providing $20 million to the Department of Workforce Development after 2019 for job training, requiring the states jobs agency to provide tax credits only for jobs that have a salary of at least $30,000 per year and allowing tax incremental financing funds to be used for fire, police and other government services.

The lawmakers also want state officials negotiating a final contract with Foxconn to emphasize that workers living in Wisconsin should be given preference for hiring. But Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, has acknowledged that requiring that preference could be illegal.

If Foxconn fills a wetland during its construction process, Assembly lawmakers also want to require the creation of two wetlands in its place in the same watershed, if possible.

This is an investment that makes sense and we cannot look the other way and let this go by, Rep. Bob Kulp, R-Stratford, said before voting for the package.

Senate leader: Assembly action irrelevant

Meanwhile, a leader of the state Senate said Monday the Assemblys action this week is largely irrelevant because the legislation must go through the Legislatures budget-writing committee, and that changes recently made to the bill by Assembly Republicans may not have support from Walker or Senate Republicans.

Senate President Roger Roth, R-Appleton, told WTAQ on Monday that the speed at which the Assembly has pushed the Foxconn bill has the Senate on the outside looking in.

Theyve had their hearing prior to receiving the whole fiscal analysis, theyre going to pass amendments out which Im not even sure have the support of the administration let alone the Senate today, theyre going to vote on the bill on Thursday and the Senates totally sidelined in that process, Roth said. Whatever the Assembly does this week is largely irrelevant because when they pass their bill on Thursday its going to come to my office and Im going to send it to the Joint Finance Committee.

That committee is made up of lawmakers from both the Assembly and the Senate.

Roth also said there is a great deal of support for the Foxconn bill and predicted the package would pass the Senate.

He indicated more changes could be made to the bill after it is taken up by the budget-writing committee, which also hasnt finished its work on the 2017-19 state budget.

This is a complicated bill, and thats not to say that its not going to pass or that it shouldnt pass, but its something that cannot and should not be rushed, Roth told the radio station.

A spokesman for Walker did not say whether Walker supported the changes.

Governor Walker is working closely with the Legislature to advance this bill and he looks forward to signing it into law in the coming weeks, spokesman Tom Evenson said.

But Vos told reporters on Friday that the changes made to the bill were made with officials from Walkers administration and that he had asked Senate Republicans to hold joint hearings on the Foxconn legislation but was rejected, prompting him to go it alone.

New jobs analysis

Walker proposed the legislation after Foxconn said they wanted to build a $10 billion, 20 million-square-foot campus in southeastern Wisconsin that would employ thousands of workers to create LCD panels.

An analysis commissioned last month by Foxconn of the impact to the states economy showed the number of jobs created through the construction process and through suppliers could reach 35,000. But a new analysis commissioned by state officials and released Monday showed the ripple effect could be between 4,000 and 10,000 fewer jobs.

Lawmakers are more than a month late in passing a new state spending plan. Roth said he hopes the Foxconn bill will provide the momentum necessary to get a consensus from Republicans in the Senate and the Assembly who have been at odds for months over transportation funding.
Cassandra Forsythe, of Michigan City, was reported missing Monday by her family, according to a news release from the Michigan City Police Department.

Forsythe was last seen Sunday near Barker Avenue and Wabash Street in Michigan City, police said. There was reason to believe Forsythe may have been in "medical jeopardy," police said.
VALPARAISO  Capt. Jeff Balon has been tapped to take over as police chief Friday when Mike Brickner steps down to head up Porter County's 911 and emergency management departments.

"Jeff Balon exemplifies the values that define our outstanding police department: professionalism, humility, innovation and collaboration," Mayor Jon Costas said Monday when announcing his appointment.

Costas said he chose Balon after meeting with several officers and administrators at the department, and interviewing five exceptional candidates who applied for chief.

Balon is a 25-year veteran of the force and has most recently served as captain over its detective bureau, according to the city. He was a member of the Northwest Indiana Major Crimes Task Force from 2006 to 2015 and is the crisis negotiator on the Porter County SWAT team.

"Our emphasis on community policing, citizen engagement, transparency and technology has kept our city safe and secure," Costas said.

Brickner was appointed police chief just more than 13 years ago by then-newly elected Mayor Costas and made an unsuccessful run as a Republican for sheriff in 2014 against Democrat Dave Reynolds.

"I really look at this as an opportunity to take a good organization and take it to the next level," Brickner had said of his new position with county government.

In addition to Brickners departure, Assistant Police Chief Rich Spicer is retiring to accept a full-time position with Valparaiso Community Schools as its assistant director of transportation and safety/training.
GARY  David Capp, the former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Indiana, said the serious crime issues impacting Northwest Indiana are not confined to any one particular community or set of cities.

Capp, who was among the U.S. attorneys asked to submit their resignations earlier this year by President Donald Trump's administration, spoke at Monday's meeting of the Gary Chamber of Commerce.

Capp, who served in the U.S. attorney's office for 31 years and was nominated by former President Barack Obama to lead the office in 2010, stayed away from commenting on some of the more controversial national and local issues, including immigration and political corruption.

He focused instead on the need to do away with what he said is a perception by some that certain crimes are confined to communities like Gary, East Chicago or Hammond.

"It is not a Gary, Hammond or East Chicago problem. It is a regional problem that crosses multiple county lines," Capp said.

He called on the business community to have regular meetings with law enforcement agencies to talk about how these criminal issues are being addressed on a regional basis.

"I believe the business community and the private sector can play a role in helping to address the regional issues on crime," he told those in attendance.

Capp then provided an example of how private and public entities can work together.

He said after the terrorism attack of Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. attorney at the time put him in charge of anti-terrorism efforts for the office. As he held meetings on the issues, he said there was noted lack of involvement from the private sector.

As officials focused their efforts on the Region's industrial corridor, however, Capp solicited input from U.S. Steel and representatives from other regional companies. Eventually, he said, this group grew into a five-county regional organization known as the Northwest Indiana Information Sharing and Security Alliance that now meets on a regular basis.
To generate creative solutions and spark civic dialogue throughout Lake County, Legacy Foundation is partnering with the Lake County Public Library, Indiana University Northwest and Ivy Tech Community College to promote its community initiative, On the Table.

On the Table invites residents of all ages throughout Lake County to come together on Sept. 26 in small groups in their own spaces such as homes, churches, schools, workplaces and community centers to share a meal and have a conversation about community issues that matter to them.

Legacy Foundation launched this countywide initiative during its 24th annual meeting May 2 at the Halls of St. George.

The objective of On the Table is to gather six to eight folks around a table on one specific day for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, wine and cheese to share ideas on challenges and improvements for Lake County, said Carolyn Saxton, president of the Merrillville-based Legacy Foundation, at that meeting.

Legacy Foundation staff and the board of directors hope thousands of people in Lake County will gather for a meal and share their vision for improving Lake County, said Erica Fizer, Legacy Foundation director of marketing and communications.

Participants at each On the Table gathering will provide their key takeaways and feedback using a short survey created by the University of Illinois Chicago Institute for Policy and Civic Engagement (IPCE). Those who share their email address will receive a survey link. Surveys will be available online at www.legacyfdn.org/onthetable or a host can provide paper surveys during the event.

The IPCE will analyze the survey data and submit a report to Legacy Foundation. Legacy Foundation will share that report publicly and utilize the feedback to guide the foundations future grant-making efforts and encourage new collaborations, Fizer said.

We believe that each voice is essential to building a safer, healthier, more prosperous Region, reads Legacy Foundations Guide to Giving booklet. If you live, work, worship or play in Lake County, we encourage you to participate. Your voice matters.

Individuals interested in hosting an On the Table conversation can attend one of the free information sessions slated from Aug. 28 through Sept. 9. Four of the sessions will take place at various Lake County Public Library sites while IUN and Ivy Tech Community College will each host one information session.

On the Table is funded by Legacy Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Horizon Bank. Legacy Foundation is one of 10 community foundations across the U.S. replicating the On the Table initiative this year with funding from the Knight Foundation.
GARY  Preparing children for the first day of classes can be challenging, but several entities collaborated Monday to help families with the task.

Hundreds walked through The Salvation Army's Gary-Merrillville Corps community center to load up on free school supplies.

The Salvation Army partnered with the Carter Memorial Christian Episcopal Church to host the event.

Cynthia L. Hall, of Gary, brought her two granddaughters to the program. The girls were happy as they looked through their free bookbags, which contained notebooks, pencils, crayons, a ruler and many other items they will need for school.

Hall said she is trying to stretch her money as much as she can, and she is appreciative of the assistance from Monday's back-to-school event.

I can relax a little bit, Hall said.

Along with the free supplies, Ashley Homestore, a sponsor of the event, also donated 50 twin-bed sets to area children through its Hope to Dream program.

Monday's event provided an opportunity for those receiving the sets to meet with store representatives to express their gratitude for the items that include a mattress, sheets and bedframe. It also gave them time to coordinate delivery of the new beds.

Shmecka Barton, of Gary, was among those thrilled to be selected for the program. She said she is receiving sets for two of her daughters.

It's always a blessing to receive something, especially in a time of need, Barton said.

Several other groups participated in Monday's back-to-school event to provide free haircuts, giveaways and information about services available in the area.

The Merrillville Fire Department also stopped by so children could check out one of its fire engines and to provide information about fire safety.

The Rev. Willie Weaver, pastor at Carter Memorial, said there was an awesome turnout Monday, and the event grows each year.
As the Tri-Creek School Board expected, paving of the reconfigured parking lot at Lowell High School is not expected to be completed for the start of school Wednesday.

"It's going to be close. I'm not going to lie ... It'll be right down to the wire," said Derek Anderson of The Skillman Corp., the firm managing the Lowell High School projects. "We'll get the main flow areas done. We'll do our best to get it striped before school starts," Anderson said.

Paving resumed Monday.

Superintendent Debra Howe said she expects a group of teachers will be in the lot on Wednesday to help direct arrivals and temporary signs are expected to help the flow as well.

Speaking of the start of school, when the Tri-Creek Schools district breakfast was held this morning, it included for the first time not only teachers and administrators, but all staff members ranging from bus drivers and custodians to cafeteria workers as well.

"We want them to feel a part of all this," Howe said. She said there is more of a family feel about the district now.

Howe thanked the custodial staff for the tough job of working around all of the construction. She thanked the transportation department for its 100 percent on the Indiana State Police bus inspection.

Board Vice President Michelle Dumbsky attributed the positive aura felt this school year, in part, to earlier audits done by all departments. While time-consuming and challenging, she said they resulted in valuable employee feedback, positive changes and a sense of all being on the same team. "It's almost like a new start," she said.
Indiana State Police have identified the officers involved in the fatal shooting at a Dyer gas station of a suspect in a stolen car and an ankle monitoring bracelet from the Illinois Department of Corrections who led them on a high-speed chase and hit a pedestrian about three miles west of the state line, police said in a release.

Police said the officers were Lake County Sheriff's Department deputy Victor Zamora, St. John Police Department officers Luke Schreiber and Jacob Patzschke and Dyer Police Department's Daniel Kolodziej.

All four officers are on paid administrative leave while the Indiana State Police investigates as a matter of standard departmental policy after a fatal shooting, the release said. State police will let the Lake County Prosecutor's Office review their findings once they complete an investigation that involves reviewing footage from dash cams and body cams.

On the morning of Aug. 10, officers in Illinois pursued a stolen car that hit a pedestrian in Sauk Village and kept fleeing, according to Indiana State Police. The chase continued to a gas station at 81st Avenue and Hart Street in Dyer, where it came to a rest after crashing into another car.

Officers fired multiple shots at the suspect, 33-year-old Chicago Heights resident Mark Coffey, according to Indiana State Police investigators. Coffey had an active warrant for battery and robbery and was considered armed and dangerous, though police haven't said whether he had a weapon at the time.
Donald Trump once famously asked the African-American community: What do you have to lose?

We now have the answer. Everything.

Is this the the time to stand up and fight back? Clearly, the answer is yes. Poll numbers on Trumps disastrous performance as president reveal rapidly shrinking support for him and his policies.

Yet his minions are generating alarm and outrage as they push forward with their right-wing agenda. Recent reports that the Department of Justice is planning to investigate and possibly sue universities over admissions policies that allegedly discriminate against white applicants are fanning the flames of both racism and resistance to racism.

This action brings us back to the Allan Bakke case of almost 40 years ago that alleged reverse discrimination against white students at a California medical school. At that time, in a close vote, the court ruled that while affirmative action was constitutional, quotas were not.

Judge Harry Blackmun wrote in his opinion on Bakke that To get beyond racism, we must first consider race. His words ring as true today as they did then.

Two years after the Bakke ruling, civil rights organizations came together to oppose the nomination of Robert Bork, an arch conservative and Ronald Reagans nominee to the Supreme Court. We were able to defeat Bork through national sustained political action.

But now we have conservative Neil Gorsuch on that court.

By saturating the ground with gasoline, all someone needs to do is light a match at the Supreme Court that could undo admission policies all over the country.

We cannot allow that to happen.

Eight states already ban affirmative action admission policies.

It is clear this administration is building a case against young people of color on every front.

The evidence is compelling. Education Secretary Betsy Devos Civil Rights Division chairperson Candice Jackson, who is white, will be brought into the fray. She has claimed she was a victim of discrimination at one point in her college career.

Meanwhile, as planned, the education department has scaled back its civil rights investigations at public schools and universities.

This bombshell follows another volley from the Attorney General Jeff Sessions that they would not enforce recent DOJ reforms aimed at the nations municipal police departments.

An unrelenting trend in police shootings of unarmed African Americans continues to stalk the nation.

Add to this Sessions rant that prosecutors must enforce maximum sentences for drug offenses that we know will target black and brown communities unfairly.

And all of this on the heels of the gutting of the Voting Rights Act four years ago.

We agree with the Associate Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund that This is what a 21st century assault on civil rights looks like, an assault on voter rights, an assault on police-community relations, and now this latest attack on affirmative action.

These actions are proof positive that through the DOJ, the education department and the Supreme Court, Trump intends to use false flags to tear asunder good policies and laws under the guise of Making America Great Again.

We say he is really trying to Make America White Again!

We must stand up for this generation and the next in every way possible  through our national organizations, on the streets, in the courts, in our social media and in our churches, mosques and synagogues.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.  A Purdue University entomologist is urging Indiana residents to scout the trees on their property for signs of a destructive beetle that's killed trees in several other states.

Entomologist Cliff Sadof says August is the peak emergence season for the Asian long-horned beetle, which poses a serious threat to shade trees. The invasive insect has been found in Chicago and Ohio, but it hasn't yet been spotted in Indiana.

Sadof says private citizens have been critical to eradication efforts in Illinois, Ohio, New York and New Jersey. He suggests residents with swimming pools also check their water skimmers for the beetles because the insects often fall into pools.

The Asian long-horned beetle has long, black-and-white antennae, which give it its name, and a glossy, black body with irregular white spots.

To Report Asian long-horned beetles, call 1-866-NO-EXOTIC (1-866-663-9684).
When web developer Madalyn Parker emailed her team to say she was taking time off to care for her mental health and posted her bosss positive response, the news went viral. Suddenly, everyone was talking about mental health in the workplace. Now we need to go from talking about it to doing something to help.

For years, we have used the term mental health day to mean we need time to recharge our batteries and take a break. We know workplace stress is rampant and costly, in both human and financial terms. One in three Americans is chronically stressed on the job, and job stress costs U.S. industry more than $300 billion a year in absenteeism, turnover, diminished productivity and medical, legal and insurance costs.

Stressed workers are disengaged workers, and thats not good for business. Disengaged workers are more likely to be absent, have more accidents and make more errors than those who are actively engaged in their work.

We all feel stressed from time to time, but what Parkers story points to is the often-unacknowledged reality that one in five American adults struggles with mental illness  including anxiety and depression  and 40 percent of them take time off from work because of it. Absenteeism because of depression alone costs U.S. employers $23 billion annually.

When Parker first expressed concerns in 2014 about how to talk to her employer about mental health problems, she was advised to keep quiet or risk being fired. Sadly, she is not alone in her concern.

Their fears are not unfounded. More than half of Americans report they dont want to work with a person who has a mental illness or to have them marry into their family.

So when Parkers employer thanked her for helping cut through the stigma, he was lauded for his progressive views, and the National Council for Behavioral Health echoes the praise.

Reducing stigma is only part of the answer. For individuals to get the help they need, we must be educated about how to help one another.

Your office probably has a defibrillator, and you may have received training in how to use it. You know how to summon emergency help for a physical ailment.

Mental Health First Aid at Work can teach you how to recognize and respond to mental health challenges in the workplace. Mental Health First Aid at Work provides you with an action plan to assess risk, provide reassurance and information and encourage appropriate professional help. Its been called CPR for the mind.

Mental Health First Aid at Work can be the lynchpin in creating a mentally healthy workplace. In fact, a Gallup poll showed that employees value workplace well-being more highly than material benefits.

In May we launched a campaign called Be the Difference. We tell people that if you know what to do and what to say, you can be the difference in the life of someone experiencing a mental health challenge. Mental Health First Aid at Work can help employers be the difference for their employees.
A boat with seven people aboard crashed into a concrete navigational marker on the Mississippi River Saturday, killing two and injuring five.

The crash happened at about 6 p.m. in the main navigation channel in the town of Bergen in Vernon County, the Sheriff's Office said.

The 32-foot, 10-passenger pleasure craft was going south on the river and hit the day marker, sending the boat's stern underwater while the bow went vertical.

Diana Klankowski, 56, of Spring Grove, Minnesota was taken to the shore by a private watercraft and was pronounced dead at 6:34 p.m.

Kevin Hanson, 47, of Mabel, Minnesota, was missing in the water after the crash, and his body was recovered on Sunday.

Five other people were injured, including an unidentified woman who was flown to Gundersen Health System in La Crosse, and an unidentified man taken to Gundersen via ambulance.

Other injuries include Gerald Ladsten, 57, Robert Klankowski, 52, and Tracy Peterson, 50, all of Spring Grove.

"A number of personal flotation devices were on board the boat but were not in use," the Sheriff's Office said.

Other boats in the area immediately went to the scene of the crash to help the injured get out of the water.
The educators and graduates who groused about state-mandated testing need to be reminded of why these tests were instituted in the first place. Too many students graduating high school in the 1970s could not do simple math computations. Professors complained that college students could not compose a coherent, grammatically correct paragraph.

During my 21 years of teaching, I had the honor of working with many dedicated teachers. Unfortunately, there were many teachers who did not challenge students. The most challenging assignment that one government honors teacher gave was vocabulary crossword puzzles. Another teacher showed R-rated movies he recorded on his camcorder.

Teachers and parents who consistently set high standards for their students dont need to resort to threats of being held back.

Roland Camp, Munster
A sergeant from Brooklyn and a sergeant from Texas were killed Sunday in Iraq, the Department of Defense said.

The Department of Defense says 30-year-old Sergeant Roshain Brooks of Brooklyn and 22-year-old Sergeant Allen Stigler Jr. of Arlington, Texas died of wounds sustained during combat operations.

The Department of Defense says they were stationed with the 82nd Airborne Division in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

According to the 82nd Airborne Division's Facebook page, the paratroopers were killed while engaging the enemy with artillery.

The 82nd Airborne Division says Brooks joined the Army in July 2012 and was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division last year.

This was his first deployment to Iraq. He deployed to Afghanistan from June to November 2014, according to the 82nd Airborne Division.

This was Stigler's first combat deployment, according to the 82nd Airborne Division. He joined the Army in 2013.
Thousands of protesters gathered around and even inside Trump Tower ahead of the President Trump's arrival Monday night.

Many demonstrators rallied outside Trump's Midtown home, pointing signs toward the building with the message that he is not welcome in the city.

"No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA!" some chanted.



People had gathered about two blocks away from Trump Tower for a rally there in advance of a march towards the building. They were later held about a block away on 57th St. and 5th Ave.



The president's motorcade pulled up to Trump Tower around 9 p.m. while avoiding the protesters, who chanted "Shame, shame, shame'' while awaiting him.

The protesters carried signs with such messages as "impeach'' and "stop the hate, stop the lies.''



Nearby, an inflatable, rat-like caricature of Trump, seen below, stood by The Plaza hotel.



City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, a Democrat, was among the protesters.



A group of about two dozen supporters of the president said "God bless President Trump'' as they rallied in support of him. They were kept separate from the anti-Trump demonstrators.

"Donald Trump won. Trump is president. That's it," a Trump supporter said. "No matter how much you fight it, you're not going to win."

"They'll call me a Nazi, but do you know that you're acting like a Nazi by telling me to get off the street?'' Shaun Jackson, a tax attorney, said at the pro-Trump rally.

With supporters and anti-Trump demonstrators penned across the sidewalk, both sides yelled at each other, "Go home!''

A block south of Trump Tower, police officers with bullhorns confronted protesters pressing against and straining the barricades, telling the demonstrators to step back.



Police have stationed sand-filled sanitation trucks as barriers around the building and layers of metal police barricades around the main entrance.

After Trump was elected president, security around the tower ramped up dramatically. Barricades and checkpoints were manned by scores of uniformed police officers. The security precautions have been lessened somewhat in Trump's absence but still have inconvenienced residents and business owners in the highly-trafficked area.

Trump, who lived in his Midtown skyscraper before he was inaugurated, said Friday that he had stayed away because he realized the impact of the street closings and other aspects of a presidential visit.

"I would love to go to my home in Trump Tower, but it's very, very disruptive to do,'' he said.

Onlookers who did see the motorcade Monday night greeted it with cellphone cameras and a few obscene gestures.



The rally, which was not violent, began to thin out in the evening before Trump's arrival. It was in part honoring Heather Heyer, who officials said was killed when an Ohio man plowed a car into her and a crowd of people protesting a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday.



A second anti-Trump protest gathered at the New York Public Library at 42nd St. and marched toward Columbus Circle, with hundreds there also denouncing the president.

One image on social media, seen below, showed that two protesters were inside Trump Tower, despite a very heavy police presence outside, and pressed signs to a window.

Protestors have gotten inside Trump Tower pic.twitter.com/s0Jk7wuCuE  jacob (@jacobplitman) August 14, 2017

Artist behind #Trumprat says president deserves to be ridiculed. More on what awaits Trump when he returns to #NYC tonight on @NY1. pic.twitter.com/bhoApLr8dA  Lori Chung (@lorichung) August 14, 2017

Protesters are already out in Midtown as the city awaits President Trump's arrival. pic.twitter.com/xlR9n96WD8  Spectrum News NY1 (@NY1) August 14, 2017

Trump protesters at the New York Public Library have now started marching toward Columbus Circle. pic.twitter.com/ll4utaeie5  Spectrum News NY1 (@NY1) August 14, 2017

Hundreds of protesters cleared from sidewalks around trump tower. pic.twitter.com/c8mpM3Tvkr  Josh Robin (@joshrobin) August 14, 2017

You can say in police terms @NYPDnews not messing around. pic.twitter.com/ZWjeFFxtKH  Josh Robin (@joshrobin) August 14, 2017

Here's another look at some of the anti-Trump protests at Grand Army Plaza in Manhattan. pic.twitter.com/NYe4AYN4kc  Spectrum News NY1 (@NY1) August 14, 2017

"He is a dangerous, dangerous man," said one demonstrator outside Trump Tower.



"If this was a Muslim or a black crowd on Saturday, driving into a crowd and being that vile, then they would have had a military operation, they would have had a different response," another said. "He would have been talking about terrorism."

"One person should not be dead right now for speaking up for what's right," one man said at the Trump Tower rally.

Many people at the rally expressed outrage, specifically, at the Queens-native's remarks after the Charlottesville protest.

"We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides, on many sides," Trump said in a press conference Saturday afternoon. "This has been going on for a long time in our country. Not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama  this has been going on for a long, long time."

"I don't know what rhetoric they'd be referring to," a supporter of the president said Monday outside Trump Tower. "I've seen no issue whatsoever with anything he's said, nothing white supremacist."

But some of the white nationalists cited Trump's 2016 election victory as validation for their beliefs, and Trump's critics pointed to the president's racially tinged rhetoric as exploiting the nation's festering racial tension.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson noted that Trump for years publicly questioned President Obama's citizenship.

Many officials also criticized the president for claiming that hatred has been "on many sides."

Monday afternoon, Trump directly condemned the hate groups responsible for the deadly violence in Virginia.

He spoke after he discussed the race-fueled violence with the FBI and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

"Racism is evil, and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, Neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans," Trump said Monday in Washington.
There's a push underway to rename two Brooklyn streets named for Confederate generals.

You can find "General Lee Avenue" and "Stonewall Jackson Drive" at Fort Hamilton Army Base.

They were named more than a hundred years ago.

Activists are rallying today near the base to demand a change.

They say the names memorialize slavery and should be removed, especially in light of the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville.

Though the Fort is not in her district, Brooklyn Congresswoman Yvette Clark has long supported a name change.

Last week, she said her request for one was denied by the Army.

Congressman Dan Donovan is the district's representative.

He says he condemns Lee and Jackson's support for slavery, but adds he cannot "censor or reverse every decision our military makes."
A Bronx teenager is facing manslaughter charges after allegedly choking his mother's ex-boyfriend to death.

Police say 18-year-old Luis Moux came to his mother's defense when 43-year-old Stanley Washington showed up at their University Avenue home early Monday morning.

His mother and Washington had gotten into a physical fight.

Washington eventually died at the hospital.

Now Moux's friends are coming to his defense.

"He's really not like that type of person," said one friend. "I guess he was just trying to protect his mother. This is not the first time it happened, actually, so I'm guessing it really got to him this time and I'm pretty sure it was not the way it went down. He didn't try to kill him, I guess he didn't try to take a life. He was just trying to protect his mother."

"What would you do if you was in his situation?" said another. "Would you have defended your mother or would you just stood there?"

Moux's mother suffered minor injuries.
State flags will be lowered to half staff Wednesday in honor of a Brooklyn solder killed while fighting the Islamic State in Iraq.

The Army says 30-year-old Sergeant Roshain Brooks died Sunday while engaging the enemy with artillery.

He enlisted in 2012 and was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division as a paratrooper last year.

Brooks lived on East 85th Street in Canarsie.

Family and friends say he was a fixture in the neighborhood.

"He was the coolest guy you could ever meet, anybody could ever meet," said Joy Houston, Brooks' cousin. "He was calm-spirited, and he was very nice."

"Every time I met him, he always had a smile on his face," said another person in the neighborhood. "He always said good things about his country, and he was so happy to be fighting for his country."

This was Brooks' first deployment in Iraq. He previously served in Afghanistan from June to November of 2014.
Supreme Court 2016 Term in Review: (Apparent) Mistake, Another Textualist Possibility Unexplored in SW General: Asher Steinberg has this post at his blog, The Narrowest Grounds.







Clashes over Title VII protection of sexual orientation make way toward Supreme Court: Alex Swoyer has this front page article in todays edition of The Washington Times.







Women now hold the majority on the Utah Court of Appeals for the first time; But men still wear the majority of judicial robes: Pamela Manson has this front page article in todays edition of The Salt Lake Tribune.







In Recess #3: Third Class Webelo.' You can access todays new episode of the First Mondays podcast, featuring Dan Epps and guest host Leah Litman, via this link.







The spurned couple, the baker and the long wait for the Supreme Court: Robert Barnes has this article in todays edition of The Washington Post.






A blown transformer caused East Alabama Medical Center to lose its main electrical power Monday night, which in turn prompted the hospital to switch to reserve power and implement a diversion plan that called for redirecting ambulances to other hospitals.

However, by 10:30 p.m. the hospital reported that power was restored and the ER was back to normal status on receiving emergency patients.

No patients already at EAMC were seriously affected by the disruption, hospital officials said.

"Due to the outage of a nearby power transformer that reduced full power to East Alabama Medical Center in Opelika, the hospital is currently on diversion," a press statement from EAMC reported at about 10 p.m. Monday.

"This means that ambulance services in Lee and surrounding counties have been notified to take any new patients in need of emergency care to EAMC-Lanier in Valley or to other hospitals in nearby cities. Those hospitals have been notified of this situation," it said.

Utility workers told EAMC officials at the time that crews were acting on the situation, but there was no estimate on a timeline.

Then at 10:30 p.m. Monday, the hospital reported: "Thanks to Opelika Power Services, power has been restored to all areas of the hospital. East Alabama Medical Center is no longer on diversion."

The hospital's "disaster plan," which calls for "all hands on deck" to address the issue at hand, went into effect at 7:22 p.m., and was lifted at 10:30 p.m.

Officials believe lightning struck the transformer at about 6:30 p.m. Monday. The transformer is located on the back side of the hospital campus.

The hospital went on its diversion plan at 9 p.m., ending an hour-and-a-half later.

"It affected our power, including our chillers. And so there wasn't much air flow and it probably caused discomfort," said EAMC spokesman John Atkinson.

"As my engineer director said, 'If it had happened in November, it probably wouldn't have been noticed as much. But because it happened in the heat and humidity of August, it affected the air flow inside the building,'" he said.

No serious incidents involving any patients occurred, Atkinson said, but perhaps some were uncomfortable for a short while because of the warm weather and the air conditioning being affected.
Alabamians will head to the polls today for a special election to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Jeff Sessions. Or will they? Lee County Election Manager Robert Garris said that while the county election office treats every election the same, the oddity of this Senate race leaves projected voter turnout unpredictable.

This one comes at such a weird time, Garris said. Were in the middle of August. Schools are coming back into play. Other people are just coming back from vacation, or leaving to go on vacation. Ive heard a rough estimate of 20 percent, but it could be lower or much higher. This is a tough one to call.

After President Donald Trump tapped Jeff Sessions to serve as U.S. Attorney General earlier this year, then-Alabama Governor Robert Bentley selected Luther Strange to temporarily take his seat in the U.S. Senate. Bentley had scheduled an election for a permanent replacement to coincide with the regular election cycle in 2018, but Gov. Kay Ivey, who replaced Bentley following his scandal-filled resignation, moved the special election to today.

Prepping for a special election

This one was a surprise in terms of, we were not expecting this Senate seat to come open until the 2018 election, Garris said. But we had sufficient prior notice. I think this was one of the first decisions she [Gov. Ivey] made when she took office.

So Garris and the election office staff got to work, securing volunteers to work at Lee Countys 23 polling places and ensuring all regular venues would be available for the day. They were, so all registered Lee County voters can visit their regular polling place today. Some equipment was still being delivered to the proper locations on Monday.

There are 103,000 eligible voters in Lee County, said Garris, in his third year as the countys election manager.

Whenever theres an election, we start our process of getting things ready, he said. While I was looking forward to a summer off, I just had to switch gears and start the election preparation process. But, he added, I just havent seen a lot of interest in it or heard much buzz about this particular one.

The primary fields for both parties are loaded with candidates. Nine names will appear on the Republican ballot, with seven on the Democratic ticket. Sessions had consistently held the seat since 1996.

What happens next

This will be the first election in Alabama during which crossover voting is prohibited. In May, Ivey signed a bill sponsored by Sen. Tom Whatley that ended the practice. This means that if a voter casts his ballot in one partys primary, he cannot then vote in the other partys runoff, should that occur. In the general election, though, voters can cast their ballot for whomever they wish.

If a runoff election in necessary, it would be held on Sept. 26, Garris said. The general election to fill the seat is scheduled for Dec. 12.

Theres a high probability that there will be a runoff, because of the number of candidates in both parties, Garris said. A candidate has to receive a more than 50 percent of his partys votes to clinch the nomination.

Lee County did have a special election in September 2016, for Alabama House District 79 Representative. There was no general election, as Republican primary winner Joe Lovvorn received 51 percent of the primary vote and did not face a Democratic opponent.

Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. today. To locate your polling place, visit the Alabama Secretary of States website at myinfo.alabamavotes.gov.
The Opelika City Council will vote at its meeting tonight to enter into an agreement with Robins & Morton Group for the purpose of providing project management and construction consulting services in connection with the citys new police department headquarters project.

The company will act as the construction manager for the project. It will be compensated for its services through the citys unassigned fund balance of the general fund.

Once the project begins, the old police department will be demolished and the new facility will be constructed on the existing site at 501 South 10th Street.

The council will also vote to authorize the mayor to sign a Byrne Justice Assistance Grant for the Opelika Police Department. The city applies for the grant every year.

The administrator of the grant changes each year between the city of Opelika, the city of Auburn and the Lee County Sheriffs Department. Lee County is the administrator this year.

This year, the amount of the grant is $26,826 with each of the three entities receiving $8,942.

For a full agenda, visit http://www.opelika-al.gov/

The council will meet at 7 p.m. in the City Council Chambers at 204 South 7th Street.
Several weeks later, there is still controversy over the exact number of Ugandan soldiers killed in Somalia by the al Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab militants during a July 30 attack.



The Ugandan soldiers were killed in an ambush by the insurgents during an African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) patrol. The ambush spot is reported as Gorowen, an area between the townships of Bulumaler and Beladamini in Lower Shabelle region, 140 kilometres southwest of the capital Mogadishu.



The al-Shabaab claimed that they killed 39 out of the 59 Ugandan soldiers who were in the patrol, but the Ugandan army insists 12 soldiers died in the attack with seven others injured, some seriously.



Despite the UPDF claim of 12 dead, the number could be higher than is being officially claimed. The Somali government put the number of the dead at 23.

Caskets containing the remains of UPDF soldiers on arrival at Entebbe

Sources in Somalia, international agencies and sources within the UPDF told URN off the record that 21 UPDF soldiers died in that attack while nine others were injured. The sources further reveal that by late evening on July 30, at least 19 bodies were kept at the Level 2 hospital in Mogadishu.



The attack has reignited the discussion on how the Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF) manages its casualty numbers.



On Wednesday, August 2, caskets the army said contained the remains of the 12 soldiers were brought back to Uganda.



Speaking at a ceremony of receiving the bodies at the UPDF Airforce base in Entebbe, army spokesman, Brig Richard Karemire, said the soldiers "died a dignified death", adding that "that is how men and women should die".



Brig Karemire also vehemently refuted the claim of higher casualty numbers than what the army stated officially, dismissing it as al-Shabaab propaganda.



"I will really not go into your speculations. I have already told you. Whom do you believe? Do you believe al-Shabaab? Do you know what al-Shabaab is saying? Theyre are saying; we have killed one million Ugandans. Do we have one million soldiers in Somalia? Do we have them here in Uganda?", he angrily said.



The soldiers numbering 59 were reportedly under the command of one Lt Baraza who was due to retire from the army. He is said to have survived the ambush.



Sources also say during the ambush, 25 soldiers escaped and ran back to their base located four kilometres from the ambush scene.



Brig Karemire dismisses this claim too saying the ambush took place far away from the base.

"Go on the map and look for Gorowen and then you will get to know the distance of Gorowen from Mogadishu



Sources say the patrol was simply outnumbered and outgunned, as the ambush was laid by over 200 heavily armed al-Shabaab fighters. The sources say "there was nothing like fighting back".



Sources also say on the day of the ambush, four UPDF soldiers were missing from the base, but the following day, two reported at the AMISOM base with their guns. The remaining two, according to the sources, were hanged by the al-Shabaab in the town of Gorowen.



More reports also say during the ambush, the al-Shabaab fighters undressed and disarmed their victims, taking away uniforms and guns and equipment.



Sources say the al-Shabaab fighters took 21 sub-machine guns, five PK machine guns, a 60-milimeter mortar, and five tetra radios.



Repeat of September 2015



Brigadier Karemire appears to be reading from the same script-book used in 2015 by his predecessor, Lt Col Paddy Ankunda.



Karemire took over from Ankunda in January this year. But four months earlier, Lt Col Ankunda was at the centre of shaky information management following yet another deadly al-shabaab attack on the AMISOM forces.



On September 1, al-Shabaab militants carried out a suicide car bomb attack on the AMISOM base in Janaale district in the Lower Shabelle region, some 80 kilometres southwest of Mogadishu. Initial sources reported that up to 50 Amisom soldiers had died while the Somali military sources said 37.



Two days later, however, Lt Col Ankunda tweeted that the estimates of more than 50 deaths was a fabrication, insisting later that only 10 Ugandan soldiers had been killed in Somalia.

Luggage of the fallen soldiers returned home

Numbers puzzle



On the same day, September 3, 2015, General Jeje Odongo, then minister for Defense told the parliament that indeed 10 soldiers had died, but added that 46 al-Shabaab fighters had also been killed in action. He further told parliament that the UPDF had captured "some militants".



This was after Ankunda had tweeted on the same day, at 9:28am: "Amisom has accounted for all its soldiers. No Missing in action from Janaale attack."



Ankunda further dismissed as propaganda, messages attributed to al-Shabaab that the terrorist group had also captured UPDF soldiers. Tweeting on September 9, 2015 at 4:44pm, Ankunda insisted: "al-Shabaab can't claim to have any of our soldiers, pure lie. Amisom has reliably briefed us that they can account for all the soldiers."



Three days later, on September 12, President Yoweri Museveni added yet another piece to the puzzle of numbers, telling the media while on visit to Japan, that 19 Ugandan soldiers had been killed in the Janaale attack. The president further revealed that six soldiers were still missing. He blamed his commanders for being "asleep" something he said enabled the militants to carry out the attack on the Amisom base.



Sounding tough, President Museveni further told the media in Japan that the commanders had been suspended.

"It was the mistake of our own soldiers. Our commanders were asleep, not alert. And we have suspended those commanders. They will face a court martial."



It emerged later that at least one UPDF soldier, Private Masasa, was indeed in the hands of al-Shabaab. A video recording of his purported execution emerged in January this year.



Statements



On the evening of July 30, 2017, hours after the al-Shabaab attack, Brigadier Karemire issued a statement which was in many ways similar to the ones Lt Col Ankunda issued in 2015.



In the first press statement Brig. Karemire said al-Shabaab attacked a joint patrol of Amisom and the Somali National Army (SNA) forces and that lot of damage was inflicted on the enemy. "our troops took fatalities whose number is yet to be ascertained and will be made known as the situation evolves. We salute the gallant officers and men who have made sacrifices to ensure that peace is restored in Somalia," Karemire said.



It was on Monday, July 31 that Brig Karemire released another statement quoting the figure of 12 deaths and seven injuries.



Karemire said the UPDF would set up an inquiry "to establish circumstances leading to this fateful incident."



Just like in 2015, however, the army released no names of the dead insisting that they had to inform their relatives first. Even on August 2 when the 12 bodies were brought home, no names were released, at least not officially.



"The UPDF office of Chief of Personnel and Administration is contacting the next of kin of the deceased and injured to inform them of the developments while arrangements are being made to transport deceased comrades to their homes of origin for descent burial," he said.



Last week, a list containing 21 names, purported to be those of the victims of the July 30 attack, was circulating on social media. When contacted, Lt. Col. Deo Akiiki, the deputy UPDF spokesperson insisted it was "fake. "We are not going to keep reacting to fake lists on social media. Our position still stands; that we lost 12 combatants and seven others were injured," he said.



According to the source in the UPDF, so scant has the information about the July 30 attack been that it took a military officer based in Northern Uganda days to know that his relative was among the dead.
Uganda's external and domestic debt has hit $11.2 billion according to the latest Bank of Uganda State of the Economy report.



The report says provisional total public debt stock (at nominal value) as at the end May 2017 stood at Shs 34 trillion, an increase of 14.1 per cent relative to June 2016 and 16.7 per cent in the same period a year ago.



It comprises of Shs 21.1 trillion or $5.7 billion in external debt, commanding a dominant share of 62.4 per cent of the total public debt, and Shs 12.7 trillion in domestic debt.



The external public debt at the end of May 2017 stood at $11.2 billion dollars. Undisbursed external debt stood at 5.3 billion dollars, down from 5.5 billion dollars as at end June 2016.

The debt burden has been exacerbated by infrastructure projects

The former Finance minister, Maria Kiwanuka in 2013 introduced a Public Debt Medium Framework (PDMF) in an effort make Uganda's public debts sustainable.



But the Bank of Uganda says latest figures indicate that most of the domestic debt cost and risk indicators were outside the Public Debt Medium Framework (PDMF) benchmarks and domestic debt stock continues to exhibit roll over risk.



The rate of public domestic and external debt has been worrying though finance Minister Matia Kasaijja in June insisted that it was sustainable.



President Museveni in July declared that he must personally approve all loan applications requested by the government before they can be put to a vote in Parliament.



The president's decision was aimed at reducing what he called wasteful spending while the country navigates its way out of choppy economic waters. Museveni also halted the approval of 11 loans worth $914.79 million.



The current high public debt has been attributed to ongoing infrastructure developments in the road sector, oil and gas and hydro power projects.



Uganda's public debt burden has risen by 12.7 percentage points to 38.6 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2016/17 from 25.9 per cent of GDP in 2012/13 and is projected to continue rising towards 45% of GDP by 2020.



Debt as a percentage of revenues has risen by 54 per cent since 2012 and is expected to exceed 250 per cent by 2018.



The debt burden, which is more than this year's budget of Shs 29 trillion, accounts for 33.8% of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP).



The preliminary Debt Sustainability Analysis shows that Uganda is likely to face moderately high risk.



There is also a risk of a further increase in the already high interest costs in the budget, which currently account for more than 10 per cent of government expenditure.



Debt Sustainability Analysis is a tool developed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to help donors in mobilizing critical financing for low-income countries, while reducing the chances of an excessive build-up of debt.



Uganda's debt had peaked to unsustainable levels nearly two decades ago, such that the economy did not have the capacity to meet its debt obligations.



The situation was only turned around when Uganda qualified for debt relief under the Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) Initiative in 1998 and subsequently under the Enhanced HIPC in 2000.



Uganda also benefited from another form of debt relief under the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI) in 2006.



These eased Uganda's debt service obligations but Bank of Uganda is concerned that government borrowing is exceeding Public Debt Medium Framework (PDMF) 2013.
Mukhtar Robow

The former number-two leader of al-Shabab says he has quit the Somalia-based militant group.



Mukhtar Robow, also known as Abu Mansour, faced the media at a hotel in Mogadishu where he made the announcement on Tuesday.

I would like to state to the Somali people and the international community that I quit al-Shabab five years and seven months ago and that Im not a member of the group, he said in a prepared statement.



He said he quit the group because of ideological differences.



I quit because of misunderstanding and differences over the ideology, which is not in the interest of the religion, people and the country, he said.



The former al-Shabab official indicated he is holding talks with the Somali government and said "Im hopeful we can pave the way for a lasting peace.



Robow surrendered to the Somali government on Sunday in the Bakool region after several days of heavy fighting between his militia and al-Shabab fighters. He said al-Shabab wanted to kill him.



For five years and seven months I was living in the jungle where I was attacked [by al-Shabab]. They wanted to kill me but I defended myself, he said.



Robow was a founder of al-Shabab and served as the group's deputy leader under longtime emir Ahmed Abdi Godane. The two men were known to have sharp differences over tactics and strategy in al-Shabab's war to overthrow the Somali government and install a strict Islamist state.



In 2012, the U.S. government offered a $5 million reward for information leading to Robow's capture or death. The U.S. dropped the reward offer in June, as al-Shabab closed in on Robow's hideout.
Gabriella Engels after the alleged assault

Zimbabwe's first lady, Grace Mugabe, will be charged over allegations that she assaulted a South African model, Gabriella Engels, 20, in Johannesburg over the weekend.

South African police minister Fikile Mbalula said on Tuesday that Grace "handed herself over to police" but is not under arrest.

Grace, a possible successor to her husband, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, cooperated with police and was not arrested when she handed herself in, Mbalula said.

Mrs Mugabe is accused by Engels of hitting her on the head with an extension cord during a confrontation at a hotel after finding her with her two sons in a hotel in a plush suburb in Sandton, north of Johannesburg.



According to Engels, the attack happened on Sunday evening, when Grace walked into a hotel room and started beating her "over and over".
Two non-governmental organisations have today petitioned the Constitutional court protesting governments inaction in providing sign language interpreters at public health facilities.

The Initiative for Social and Economic Rights (Iser) and Uganda National Association of the Deaf (Unad) say lack of interpreters is tantamount to discrimination against people with hearing disabilities in Ugandas healthcare system.

Todays petition urges the government to fully meet [constitutional] obligations to the deaf by training health personnel in sign language and providing sign language interpreters to people with hearing disabilities at health facilities. Nearly 1.1 million Ugandans suffer from hearing disability, according to the 2014 National Housing and Population Census, a statement by Iser partly reads.

Patients waiting for service at a health centre

The Iser executive director, Salima Namusobya, said their interaction with the deaf across the country revealed that they could't access health counseling services due to absence of sign language interpreters.

Such discrimination, the advocates argue, hinders deaf individuals from enjoying the equal benefits of life-saving public health education alongside the wider public.

Unads executive director Joseph Mbulamwana said such people are also left out of health campaigns such as Obulamu by Uganda Health Marketing Group. Mbulamwana said a 2009 Unad survey found that 90 per cent of Ugandans with hearing deficiencies have never heard about HIV/Aids.

The statement, dated August 15, notes that a number of people with this disability have reported that medics always administer to them medication or offer laboratory services such as HIV/Aids testing without providing proper counseling.

As a result, the patients choice, right to refusal, informed consent  which are granted in the Patients Charter of 2009  are not observed.

In 2006, parliament passed the Persons with Disabilities Act which was designed to eliminate discrimination against people with disabilities. It provided that sign language interpreters be trained and posted in all health facilities, something that has never been implemented.

If the Constitutional court grants this petition, government will be given one year to furnish a comprehensive framework detailing plans to provide interpreters throughout the health system and to incorporate sign language instruction in the health workers curriculum.

tusiime.chris20@gmail.com
Ever since she moved to Jerusalem from Toronto, in the 1980s, Tova Saul has dedicated her life to looking after the street cats of Israel. She prowls the streets of the Old City carrying bags of food for the felines, provides medical attention to any injured animals she finds by either taking them to the vet, or welcoming them into her home, and takes females to be spayed in hopes of slowing down the rate at which the street cat population of Jerusalem has been growing for several decades. Some call her the Cat Lady of Jerusalem, but she is more of an unofficial chief caretaker of the stray cats in the Israeli city.

The Mediterranean basin in general is home to a lot of cats, due to the favorable climate  the weather is generally warm and winters are very mild. It is estimated that there are currently over two million street cats in Israel today, and about 100,000 of them are in Jerusalem. It wasnt always like this. though. Up until the 1930s, the cat population was small, but under the British Mandate, felines were brought in to deal with the rat problem, and they thrived. Theyve been multiplying at such an accelerated rate that, a couple of years ago, the Israeli minister of agriculture suggested that all male or female cats be deported to another receptive country. That has yet to happen, but it gives you an idea of how authorities intend on dealing with the problem. Thats definitely not how Tova Saul sees things. She believes that compassion and responsibility are key to finding a viable solution to this issue.

Photo: National Geographic video screengrab

Saul has been trying to help the street cats in Jerusalem Old City ever since she came to Israel, nearly four decades ago. She only started keeping count of the cats she rescued and spayed in 2009, and the number is currently over 600. Every day, she walks through the ancient quarter carrying bags full of cat food and a couple of cages, in case she finds any felines in need of medical care, or a female that has to be spayed. She refers to her home as a revolving door for cats, because as soon as she gets a cat on its feet and ready to be released, another one comes in. But shes been doing it for so long that it has become a lifestyle.

Six hundred and twenty cats having kittens  they can have kittens two or three times a year, each cat having three or four kittens at a time, Saul said about the cats she has spayed since 2009. Most of those kittens die after a lot of suffering and literally hundreds of people walking past them, watching them go blind, watching them crying for their mothers, watching them being eaten alive by fleas.

Photo: National Geographic video screengrab

Although Tova Saul works with a number of veterinary clinics and cat shelters in Jerusalem, she says that most people dont really care about cats and their problems. They dont see neutering and spaying as a necessity, especially the religious folks. Some are actually against such practices, and even Israels Minister of Agriculture, Uri Ariel once declared himself against them, citing a biblical commandment to populate the earth. He soon retracted his statement, after media backlash.

Many people think they are helping the cats by throwing them food every day, but they are only contributing to the problem, Saul says, because they are not spaying them, so they just wonder off and keep reproducing. Tova sometimes gets into trouble when confronted by religious people who interfere with her efforts to catch female cats to be spayed, but after so many years on the front lines its almost become routine.

Photo: Facebook

And then there is the fact that people have gotten so use to seeing the cats everywhere, and the preconception that theyll be fine on their own. But Tova Saul claims that thats not the case at all. There really isnt that much trash for the cats to go scouring for food in, not with so many of them around, anyway. Plus, they are often victims of physical abuse, become infested with fleas, and many kittens are abandoned and die a slow and cruel death. She does all she can to help as many of them as she can, but she is just one person.

Tova Saul is often referred to as the Cat Lady of Jerusalem, but she doesnt like the nickname. When people refer to me as the cat lady, they are actually defining everybody else as people who wont lift a finger to help an animal in need. So really its an insult to the human race, she told AFP.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has retained lobbying and PR firm Prime Strategies for help with federal tax policy as it applies to the arts, as well as for advocacy work among government agencies supporting the arts.

President Trumps proposed 2018 budget earlier this year called for effectively shutting down the National Endowment for the Arts, the independent government agency that is the primary funding source for many art-related programs around the country.

A lobbying salvo supporting the agency ensued. The budget that Congress eventually agreed to included a $2 million increase for NEA for FY 2018.

The Met, which opened in 1872, is one of the largest and most visited art galleries in the world.

The Met account will be led by managing director Jennifer Manley, who was previously Queens Director of New York Citys Community Affairs Unit during the Bloomberg Administration; and Scott Klenet, a former Organizing for Action field organizer who coordinated VA operations during President Obamas 2012 reelection campaign.

Prime Strategies maintains offices in New York, Florida, Texas, California and Washington D.C.
Agricultural News

Culling Open Heifers After First Breeding Season Can be Economically Advantageous for Producers

Dr. Glenn Selk, Oklahoma State University Emeritus Extension Animal Scientist, offers herd health advice as part of the weekly series known as the "Cow Calf Corner" published electronically by Dr. Peel and Dr. Glenn Selk. Today, Dr. Selk advises producers on the economic advantages behind culling open replacement heifers after their first breeding season.





"Many Oklahoma ranchers choose to breed the replacement heifers about a month ahead of the mature cows in the herd. In addition, they like to use a shortened 30 to 60-day breeding season for the replacement heifers. The next logical step is to determine which of these heifers failed to conceive in their first breeding season. This is more important today than ever before.







"The bulls were removed from the replacement heifers about 60 days ago, therefore, this would be an ideal time to call and make arrangements with your local large animal veterinarian to have those heifers evaluated for pregnancy. After two months of gestation, experienced palpaters should have no difficulty identifying which heifers are pregnant and which heifers are not pregnant (open). Those heifers that are determined to be "open" after this breeding season, should be strong candidates for culling. Culling these heifers immediately after pregnancy checking serves three very economically valuable purposes.







"1) Identifying and culling open heifers early will remove sub-fertile females from the herd. Lifetime cow studies from Montana indicated that properly developed heifers that were exposed to fertile bulls, but DID NOT become pregnant were often sub-fertile compared to the heifers that did conceive. In fact, when the heifers that failed to breed in the first breeding season were followed throughout their lifetimes, they averaged a 55% yearly calf crop. Despite the fact that reproduction is not a highly heritable trait, it also makes sense to remove this genetic material from the herd so as to not proliferate females that are difficult to get bred.





"2) Culling open heifers early will reduce summer forage and winter costs . If the rancher waits until next spring to find out which heifers do not calve, the pasture use and winter feed expense will still be lost and there will be no calf to eventually help pay the bills. This is money that can better be spent in properly feeding cows that are pregnant and will be producing a salable product the following fall.





"3) Identifying the open heifers shortly after (60 days) the breeding season is over will allow for marketing the heifers while still young enough to go to a feedlot and be fed for the choice beef market. "B" maturity carcasses (those estimated to be 30 months of age or older) are very unlikely to be graded Choice and cannot be graded Select. In addition, they may not be eligible for some international beef markets. As a result, the heifers that are close to two years of age will suffer a price discount. If we wait until next spring to identify which two year-olds did not get bred, then we will be culling a female that will be marketed at a noticeable discount compared to the price/pound that she would have brought this summer as a much younger animal. In today's market an 850 pound non-pregnant heifer will bring about $1.30/lb. or $1105 per head. If current prices hold, next spring a two-year old 1000 pound open cow may bring $0.90/lb. or $900 per head. This calculates to a $205 per head loss plus the expense of keeping her through the winter.







"Certainly the percentage of open heifers will vary from ranch to ranch. Do not be overly concerned, if after a good heifer development program and adequate breeding season, that you find that 10% of the heifers still are not bred. Resist the temptation to keep these open heifers and "roll them over" to a fall-calving herd. These are the very heifers that you want to identify early and remove from the herd. It just makes good economic business sense to identify and cull non-pregnant replacement heifers as soon as possible."















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Bellevue City Council members with conflicts of interest on issues would be allowed to address the council as private citizens if changes to the citys code of ethics are approved.

Currently, a council member with a conflict of interest must disclose the conflict, step down from the council table, leave the chambers and refrain from discussing or voting on the issue.

At last months City Council meeting, Councilman Pat Shannon was threatened with physical removal when he would not excuse himself during a discussion on his car wash, which was up for condemnation.

Shannon eventually left the council chambers on his own, but says he should have been allowed to defend himself as a resident. Condemnation of the car wash at 12709 S. 28th Ave. was approved by the City Council.

This deprives the council member of the basic right that all citizens enjoy, to attend a public meeting, to address their elected officials and to face their accuser in certain cases, Shannon said in the proposed ordinance. As an example, Shannon cited a model code of ethics for local governments in the State of New York.

Other council members declined to speak about the issue on Monday night.

City Administrator Joe Mangiamelli is opposed to the changes. He wrote a six-paragraph response to the proposal, which included opposition from League of Nebraska Municipalities Executive Director Lynn Rex.

To enact any of the proposed changes to Bellevues code of ethics would undermine the purpose of having a code of ethics, Rex said.

Rex said Monday that she didnt know of any city that has or plans to implement changes to its code of ethics as Shannon has proposed.

Mangiamelli said the changes neither reflect good public policy nor facilitate good governance.

When you sought the office to which you were elected, you pledged to the public that you were committed to serving their best interests, Mangiamelli wrote. In electing you to the office, they placed their trust in you to do exactly that. The public trust is the most critical asset an elected official can earn.

The code enforces the concept that a council member should not leverage his or her position for personal gain or benefit, Mangiamelli said.

At Mondays City Council meeting, residents had a chance to weigh in on the changes to the code of ethics. A few residents agreed with Mangiamelli.

David Anson said its important that public officials not be perceived as serving in office to benefit themselves.

On the other hand, Chuck Fredrick, a former City Council member and friend of Shannons, suggested that not allowing Shannon to speak about his property was almost unconstitutional.

City Attorney Pat Sullivan urged the council to look at the changes as a whole and not in relation to one person or one issue.

Shannon agreed with Sullivan but otherwise didnt speak during the discussion on the changes.

The City Council will vote on the proposed changes to the ethics code at its next meeting, later this month.
Omahas mayor and City Council president are set to have a showdown Tuesday over the citys program to award more of its contracts to local small businesses.

The City Council is set to vote on a host of changes that Council President Ben Gray has proposed to the citys small and emerging business ordinance.

Gray wants to move the governance of the program from the Public Works Department to the Human Rights and Relations Department. He also wants to establish new rules that say the very smallest of businesses qualify for the program only if theyre not affiliated with a larger company.

He also wants the program to apply only to companies that are based within the city limits. And the ordinance would limit companies to a maximum of six years in the program.

The Small and Emerging Small Business Program, or SEB, is intended to create opportunities for smaller businesses to compete for city contracts.

Companies with revenues under a certain threshold  which varies based on the type of work they do  can qualify for an SEB designation.

Those companies are the only companies that can compete on certain contracts. Companies based in high-poverty areas and that employ people from those areas get even more preference.

The city also requires larger, non-SEB contractors to subcontract a certain portion of their work to SEB companies.

Last week Mayor Jean Stothert sent a letter to the City Council, saying she opposes changes to the ordinance.

She noted that she has already moved some of the administration of the ordinance to the Human Rights and Relations Department. She previously has said the Public Works Department should still have a role in the program.

Stothert said in the letter that she would support a limit on the amount of time a company can spend in the program, with a maximum of nine or 12 years depending on the size of the business.

She said she would also support the new rules for the smallest businesses in the program.

She doesnt support limiting the program to companies inside city boundaries and suggested that the council expand that to include all companies in the metropolitan statistical area, which includes all of Douglas County and several surrounding counties.

Gray said the proposal came out of recommendations from staffers in the Law, Public Works and Human Rights and Relations Departments.

Theres nothing in the proposed ordinance that people shouldnt want to agree to, he said.
Nebraska and Iowa officials responded in recent days to events in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb.  These people are utterly revolting  and have no understanding of America. This creedal nation explicitly rejects blood & soil nationalism.

Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb.  The hatred, violence & racism displayed in Charlottesville, VA have no place in our society. We must show civility & respect to one another.

Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb.  I am saddened for #Charlottesville & mad at bigots. No room for that in US. Lets unite against all bigots & those who commit violence.

Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb.  I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.  Martin Luther King, Jr. #Charlottesville

Rep. Adrian Smith., R-Neb.  The hatred and violence in Charlottesville today is horrifying & does not represent the America we love. We must bring our country together.

Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, a Republican  It was an ugly reminder that we cannot take for granted the founding principles of our county: that all men are created equal.

Rep. David Young, R-Iowa  It is just after 2:00 am here in Israel where I am wrapping up my travels and meetings and will begin my journey home to Iowa tomorrow. From a land that has seen the pain and deep divisions hatred has caused throughout history I wanted to acknowledge and condemn the hate and pain we have seen this weekend at home. Political discourse is something we can pride ourselves on in America  but hate is disgusting and must be condemned to the core.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa  What WhiteNatjonalist (sic) are doing in Charlottesville is homegrown terrorism that cant be tolerated anymore that what Any extremist does.

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa  I agree w\Lt. Col. Allen Wests Charlottesville article. American history is to be learned & understood not erased.

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa  The violence in #Charlottesville that is fueled by racist hatred has no place in our society. We are one nation, under God, and indivisible. We cannot stand for this terrorism.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican  We must forcefully condemn ugly, vile, racist hate. My prayers are with the victims of these despicable acts. #Charlottesville
Ken Dewey is used to seeing disasters.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln climatology professor has investigated the aftermath of tornadoes, and hes happened upon car crashes. But a house explosion in southeast Lincoln on Monday, which critically injured two people, was like nothing he had ever seen, he said Monday night.

Dewey said he was driving in the neighborhood near 77th Street and Old Cheney Road and was about 100 yards away when the blast occurred about 4:30 p.m. He and others found the victims lying on the lawn outside of the house and tried to talk to them, he said. But the man and woman, whom he believed to be residents of the house, were unresponsive. When paramedics arrived minutes later, Dewey said, he helped direct them to the victims.

Their injuries  which included burns, Dewey said  were considered life-threatening.

No other people were reported injured in the explosion, said Lincolns public safety director, Tom Casady.

Officials had not identified the cause of the blast but said it likely was a natural gas explosion.

Technicians from the natural gas utility Black Hills Energy went to the scene after the blast. The company is conducting an investigation into the explosion, said spokeswoman Brandy Johnson.

Under different circumstances, that blast could have instantly killed the two injured, Dewey said. The center of the house was a torch when he arrived, he said, and the two seemed to have been blown out of the house by the side of the blast, not in the direction of its main force.

Otherwise, they wouldnt have survived, Dewey said after seeing the destruction.

The scene he happened upon Monday afternoon seemed surreal, he said.

He had been driving about a block away  with cars windows up and the radio on  and heard what sounded to him like a sonic boom. Then he saw first a plume of black smoke and then debris on the street. When he got out of his car, he heard the fire crackling, Dewey said, and he figured he must be close.

Maybe a car exploded inside a garage, he thought.

He walked toward the smoke, rounded a corner and saw insulation, roofing materials and boards everywhere. The insulation was even in the trees, Dewey said.

Nothing was left of the home except a pile of rubble.

It was unbelievable, he said. It was heart-rending, too.

There was a blazing torch on one side of the street, and on the other side, the houses looked like theyd been hit by a tornado.

Almost as soon as the explosion happened, the sirens of approaching rescue vehicles could be heard, Dewey said. And once the rescuers arrived, it was like being in a movie scene, with fire engines coming from all directions.

He said he ran to meet the paramedics to direct them to the victims.

There were more, lesser explosions as the fire continued to burn. Neighbors, standing and watching from the end of their driveways for as far as Dewey could see, seemed to sense the continued danger and stayed away initially, Dewey said. Apparently some ammunition in the burning remains of the house exploded, he said, and those on scene moved away. Shells littered the street, Dewey said.

As he was leaving the area, he took in the damage to surrounding homes, some a block away, he said.

Besides the leveled home, at least eight other homes were damaged, Casady said.

A neighbor a street away, whose house sustained minor damage, said he thought that perhaps two dozen or more homes in the neighborhood had some type of damage.

The blast broke windows and garage doors in houses as far as a block or so away, said Anand Rau, who lives to the north of the explosion.

He was on his way to Lincoln from Omaha when his wife contacted him about the explosion, which she said felt like it lifted their house off its foundation and dropped it back.

She didnt see any damage at first, Rau said. After he arrived home, he saw that an attic door was blown off, scattering insulation all over their garage, and a garage door and outside faucet were damaged.

Family members hearing seemed unaffected, Rau said, despite the loud blast, which could be heard 2 miles away by his teenage sons friends, who called to make sure their friend was OK.

The Lincoln Fire Department had warned people to stay away from the scene after the explosion. By Monday night there was a parade of people driving by, Rau said.
While President Donald Trump ratchets up a verbal war with North Korea, he cant seem to decide what to do about the real war in Afghanistan.

The U.S. effort to stabilize that country has dragged on for 16 years, since the 2001 defeat of the Taliban, who had harbored al-Qaeda. Yet the Taliban are making a comeback and now control about 40 percent of the country.

Seven months into his term, Trump has yet to approve a new U.S. strategy for Afghanistan. He has refused, so far, to approve his generals request for a small increase to the 8,400 troops in country  to train and assist Afghan forces.

Some of the presidents advisers have urged him to pull U.S. troops out altogether and he once said hed like to wash his hands of the Afghan conflict. That may be tempting but such a more would likely lead to a Taliban takeover and a return of al-Qaida, as well as a new base for the Islamic State, in a huge defeat on Trumps score sheet.

Yet theres no sign whether Trump will do the one thing that hasnt been tried, which Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama both failed to do, and which might open a path to resolving the conflict: Put a real squeeze on the country that keeps the Taliban war boiling, even as it pretends to be a U.S. ally. Im referring to Afghanistans duplicitous neighbor, Pakistan.

"The problem of Afghanistan is inextricably linked to Pakistan," says Husain Haqqani, former Pakistani ambassador to Washington. "The Taliban would not be where they are if they did not have a safe haven in Pakistan.

"The two problems have to be solved together."

Heres what Haqqani means: For decades, U.S. leaders have chafed at the double game played by Pakistani generals and the ISI intelligence agency. The Pakistanis have trained and sheltered the Taliban Islamists in order to exert control over the future of Afghanistan, which they view through the lens of their endless struggle with India. Elected Afghan leaders, they believe, will be friendlier with Delhi.

In my many trips to Afghanistan, national and provincial leaders complained bitterly that, without Pakistani weapons, training and shelter for the Taliban, Afghan tribes and local leaders could have resolved their problems through mediation and bargains.

Instead, the Pakistani ISI and military kept the Afghan pot boiling. They played a frustrating game of "good Taliban, bad Taliban"  helping Afghan Talibs who were killing Americans but fighting murderous Pakistani Taliban at home.

The Pakistani military continually denied the Afghan Talibans top leaders and their families were based in Pakistan  a blatant falsehood. Pakistan sheltered Osama bin Laden for years, right beside a military cantonment. Just this month, the Lashkar-e-Taiba organization  headed by Hafiz Saeed, a U.N.-named terrorist suspected of masterminding the 2008 attacks in Mumbai  registered as a political party under a new name.

Why has the United States put up with such duplicity? In past decades, State Department and Pentagon officials insisted they needed Pakistan as an ally to fight terrorists on both sides of the Pakistani border  and to force the Taliban to negotiate. But, Haqqani says, "every time Taliban leaders (in Pakistan) reached out to U.S. officials, they were arrested" or prevented from showing up.

However, times have changed. With only a small troop presence in Afghanistan, Washington is no longer as dependent on using Pakistan as backup. And Washington officials have recognized, as Haqqani puts it, "Pakistani behavior wont change."

So it is time to consider a new U.S. approach to Pakistan, which is the title of a Hudson Institute monograph by Haqqani and Lisa Curtis (now senior director for South and Central Asia on the National Security Council).

Among its key recommendations: Stop portraying Pakistan as a major non-NATO ally (while keeping the door open if the country stopped supporting terrorist groups). Also, curb U.S. military aid and reimbursements unless Pakistan meets counterterrorism conditions  a step the Pentagon is now taking. And keep open the option of targeting Taliban leaders in Pakistan with drones.

Two more key points: Make clear to Pakistan if it doesnt show substantial progress toward ending support to the Haqqani terrorist network and the Afghan Taliban  including an end to weapons shipments and deportation of its leaders  Pakistan may be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism. This would have negative repercussions on a problematic Pakistani economy.

The point is not to break relations with Pakistan but to demonstrate that its duplicity will no longer be rewarded.

The goal of any new strategy would be encouraging reconciliation talks between Taliban factions and Kabul, without expecting help from the Pakistanis. But Pakistan should pay a price if it continues to obstruct such talks.

With a saner policy toward Pakistan, it makes sense to increase the U.S. presence in Afghanistan by 4,000 U.S. trainers and enablers. The Pentagon has learned valuable lessons while fighting the Islamic State in Iraq as to how to best use such troops on the ground.

But any new U.S. forces should be added without a deadline. As Haqqani warns, "You have to show Pakistan, everyone, you are not doing an Obama." He means Trump should not set a deadline at the same time he sends troops, so the Taliban know they just have to wait the Americans out.

And for gods sake, ignore the advice of Erik Prince, the former head of Blackwater, the private security firm that ran wild and unfettered in Iraq, killing civilians and embittering Iraqis. No surprise, Prince is urging the president to send private contractors to replace U.S. troops as trainers. Down that road lie shame and disaster.

Trumps national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, recognizes the need for a new Pakistan strategy, to back up a troop increase. So does Defense Secretary James Mattis, and the concept has support in Congress. Afghanistans fate rests on whether they can persuade Trump to do the right thing.
An injured bald eagle that underwent a skin graft earlier this month is healing well and will not need additional surgeries, the Omaha zoo and a local raptor group announced Tuesday.

The eagle was re-evaluated Monday, and the graft looks excellent at this time with 90 percent successful attachment, according a press release. The treatment plan is to allow the remaining 10 percent to heal on its own without any future surgeries.

Any time we can pull together the expertise and resources to tackle a truly unique case like this, it makes the eventual release that much more meaningful to us, Janet Stander, director of Fontenelle Forest Raptor Recovery, said in the statement. This eagle still has healing to do before he can be released, but he has truly gone from a hopeless case to a success story.

The bird was found this spring near Syracuse, Nebraska, with a mysterious head wound that baffled raptor experts.

Dr. Coleen Stice, an Omaha plastic surgeon, determined that the injury was from some type of electrical burn, possibly from a power line.

The bird underwent a skin graft Aug. 4 at Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium, carried out by a team that included Stice and zoo veterinarian Dr. Trenton Shrader.

Feathered skin was removed from the eagles inner leg and attached to its head. The skin graft is an essential step for the bird to be released into the wild. Without feathers, the bird would suffer dangerous sunburn.

The eagle will be kept at the zoo hospital for two more weeks for monitoring and continued antibiotic treatment. Following that period, the intent is to transfer the bird to Fontenelle Forest Raptor Recovery in Elmwood for eventual release, although the timing of that has not been determined.
Should Kashmir be given to Pakistan: Row erupts after this question appears in MP civil service exam

From hijab to Kashmir, Zawahiri was Al-Qaeda's voice for everything anti-India

250 BJP youth wing members detained to prevent Tiranga rally in Srinagar

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

Around 250 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers, who were planning a 'Tiranga Rally', detained by police on Monday night in Srinagar.

The BJP Youth Wing National Vice President Aijaz Hussain was one among the 250 BJP workers detained. All workers were detained in different police stations to maintain law and order on Independence Day, reports ANI.

While some activists were detained last night, several others were taken into custody this morning from Abi Guzar here. They were here to hoist the national flag at the Lal Chowk, the police official told PTI. The activists will remain in detention till the official function at Bakshi Stadium concludes.

Police officers took the step to prevent a likely confrontation of the youth activists with local residents in a city that has seen large-scale violence since the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani last year, reports Hindustan Times.

Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah called the detention as 'match fixing' between the ruling PDP-BJP alliance.

True definition of a fixed match. BJP Govt in J&K detains BJP office bearers going out to hoist the National Flag  https://t.co/SGRthxqY7D  Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) August 15, 2017

Meanwhile, mobile internet services was blocked on Tuesday morning in Kashmir valley. Only BSNL landline service was functional in the valley. Internet facilities and services of all other mobile phone operators were suspended as a precautionary measure on the 71st Independence Day, the officials told PTI.

Ahead of the Independence Day in view of the recent spurt in militancy-related incidents in the Valley security had been beefed up across Kashmir.

(With agency inputs)
Recommendations by-passed

While clearing the pay panel's recommendations the basic hike in pay effective January 1 2016 was at 14.27 per cent. The recommendations made by the Empowered Committee headed by Cabinet Secretary P K Sinha for an average 30 per cent hike in basic pay was bypassed by the Union Cabinet.

Pay matrices

As per the notification there were 18 pay matrices that were approved. The notification said, the highest pay matrix (Level-18) for the Cabinet secretary to the Union government is Rs 2,50,000 (fixed), which was Rs 90,000 (fixed) in the immediate past under 6th pay commission recommendation. The rate of increase is 178%. The pay matrix in the lowest grade (Level-1) is Rs 18,000 which was Rs 7,000 under 6th pay commission recommendation. The rate of increase is 157%.

The ratio of pay between the highest declared pay matrix (Level-18) and the lowest grade (Level -1) in the 7th Pay Commission recommendations is 1:13.9, which was 1:12 as per the previous pay commission:

No pay gap made up

All pay commissions in the past had made up the pay gap between the lower paid employees and the top officials from second Pay Commission 1:41 ratio to Sixth pay commission 1:12. In the first pay commission, the pay of the top bureaucrats was 41 times higher than the employee earning the lowest. The future pay commissions however reduced the ratio from 1:41 in 1947 to about 1:12 in 2006.

Reducing pay gap ruled out

The government has however put aside the demand by central government employees to reduce the pay gap. The government says that no decision will be taken to reduce the pay gap under the 7th Pay Commission. Government employees have been demanding for a long time to pay ratio should be minimised. They have also demanded that Rs 25,000 should be the minimum pay in the new pay scale and the fitment factor will be higher than the 2.57 times approved by the government based on the pay commission recommendations.
Actor Dileep's mother writes to Kerala Chief Minister, calls her son innocent

India

oi-Anusha

Calling her son innocent, Malayalam actor Dileep's mother has written to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. Sarojam Pillai in her letter has requested the Chief Minister's intervention in the case to ensure justice for her son.

"My son will never commit such a crime. He is innocent and is being framed. I request you to intervene in the case and ensure that my son gets justice," the letter reads. The letter has been handed over to Kerala police chief Loknath Behera. The letter was submitted to the Chief Minister's office after Sarojam Pillai's attempt to meet Pinarayi Vijayan during his visit to Kochi remained futile.

The letter comes on the close heels of Dileep's bail petition in the High Court where the actor has been described as a 'family man'. The petition said that his daughter chose to continue living with him instead of going to ex-wife, Manju Warrier and the same went on to show that he was a 'good, responsible family man'.

The detailed bail petition and Dileep's mother's letter is being viewed as an extension of a campaign to paint a sympathetic picture of Dileep who has been named an accused in the actress abduction and molestation case. Dileep was arrested in July and has spent more than a month in Aluva sub-jail. Dileep has also accused his ex-wife Manju Warrier of conspiring to frame him in the case.

Dileep's mother wrote a letter to the Chief Minister after she met the actor at the Aluva jail last week. Dileep's bail petitions have been turned down multiple times ever since his arrest.

Oneindia News

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 15, 2017, 15:12 [IST]
China, Pakistan plotting to attack India, claims Mulayam

India

pti-PTI

Etawah (UP), Aug 15: Describing China as the "biggest" threat for India, former defence minister Mulayam Singh Yadav on Tuesday said it is plotting to attack India in collaboration with Pakistan.

"There are a number of threats before the country but the biggest threat is from China...it is continuously encroaching on our land and is planning to attack but is not able to advance because of our army," he said at a function here.

"China is preparing to attack India in collaboration with Pakistan. This collaboration of China and Pakistan is dangerous for us...this matter should be taken seriously," the Samajwadi Party patriarch said.

Referring to the contribution of Lohia, JP and other socialist leaders in the freedom struggle, the SP founder said people have faith in the socialists and they need to raise their voice against injustice. There are a number of problems before the country like unemployment, poverty, farmers' plight, women's safety, terrorism and security of borders and all need to stay together in dealing with them, he said.

Mulayam, who had been dethroned by his son Akhilesh from the post of party president earlier this year, however, did not respond to a suggestion made by his brother Shivpal Singh Yadav in his speech earlier that it was time for him to think about the party. Shivpal had said that those who claimed to have strengthened the party, in fact, weakened it and appealed to Mulayam that it was time now for him to decide as the "Samajwadis" of the state are looking to him for taking the party forward.

PTI
Congress lacks vision, leadership: BJP IT chief on party's social media outreach

India

oi-Anusha

BJP is no longer the only political party with a huge social media presence, outreach and impact. From Congress to parties like Rashtriya Janata Dal, Bahujan Samaj Party, Samajwadi Party etc social media is being used as the most effective political tool to set the narrative.

The BJP, however, sees it as no competition. Speaking to OneIndia, Amit Malviya, the chief of BJP's national Information and Technology cell called it a 'compliment'. He added that BJP had what other parties, especially the Congress didn't have- vision and leadership.

"We do not look at our social media outreach in the context of any other political party. Each party can decide how it wants to reach its constituent. From our point of view, we have our policies, our programs, our ideological issues and we look at digital mediums as a means to get them across to people. It is independent of what other people are doing," said Amit Malviya.

The BJP's IT in-charge, in fact, took pride in the fact that other parties had realised what BJP had done with its social media outreach and were attempting to emulate the same. "Congress, the new kid on the block and some other parties are now realising what we have been doing and are trying to emulate it. I look at it as a big compliment to the BJP," he said.

What makes BJP more confident

BJP is deemed the most tech-savvy political party in India. The first to utilize social media to its advantage, the BJP also introduced 3D hologram as part of its audio visual campaign for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. However, the party does not believe that technology is its strength.

"It is not about technology but about vision and leadership. The Congress clearly lacks both of it today" said Malviya asserting that the Congress' social media presence made little difference to the BJP. The Congress party had claimed that its social media outreach's priority was to bust 'fake news, highlight misrepresented facts and nail the BJP's lies promoted through its social media platforms'. The BJP, however, has rubbished all of Congress' claims.

"If the Congress is alleging that the BJP is spreading falsehood using social media then they are suspecting the intelligence of 1.34 crore people who are on our Facebook page. The party is questioning the intelligence of almost 60 lakh people who follow us on Twitter and millions of people who voice their opinion in support of the BJP. These are the people who often are seen as leading the charge as far as the narrative is concerned," said Malviya adding that unless the Congress realised what they were up against they won't be able to address it.

On Rahul Gandhi's new online avatar

Most people who follow AICC Vice President Rahul Gandhi's tweets have noticed the change in style and pattern over the last few weeks. Rahul Gandhi's tweets that have largely been formal subtle have now become quirky, witty and at times sarcastic. While most agree that Rahul Gandhi's tweets have become more impactful and vibrant, the BJP is unimpressed and it is no surprise.

"I wish his (Rahul Gandhi) Twitter account reflected his true personality. Every time he speaks it is very unlike what he sounds on Twitter. That is really the problem because if you are not what you are in real life on social media then obviously you are not going to be taken seriously," Malviya said.

OneIndia News
International news brief: Floods trap many in Florida; Royal Mint unveils first coins and more

Cry for Modi to visit Assam grows louder again, as state faces worst floods in 36 years

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia

Guwahati, August 15: Figures don't lie. Since June, Assam is reeling under floods, with a couple of days of relief between late July and early August. As heavy rains battered Assam and its neighbouring states, including Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya, in the last couple of days, the death toll due to floods in the state crossed 100 on Monday.

More than 22.5 lakh people residing in 21 districts of the state have been affected by floods, this year. According to experts, the state is facing its worst floods in the last 36 years.

Amid all the tragedies, cry for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to visit the flood-hit areas of the state grew louder, once again.

Last month, after Modi conducted an aerial survey of the flood-affected places in Gujarat, people of Assam, including former chief minister, Tarun Gogoi, slammed the PM for not visiting the state and neglecting the plight of the people of the northeastern state, where floods had created massive destruction.

On August 1, Modi visited Guwahati, Assam, and had a series of meetings with the CMs of various northeastern states to take stock of the floods and landslides situation in the region.

He also announced a package of Rs 2,000 crore for the entire region to be used for relief and rescue measures. Modi didn't pay visit to any flood-affected places during his couple of hours stop in the state last time.

Officials cited the fact that floodwaters had already receded and it made no point conducting an aerial survey of Assam at that time.

The All Assam Students' Union (AASU), the oldest and the most prominent students' organisation in the region, on Monday reiterated its demand that Modi should visit the state now.

"PM Modi should visit the state now to see the real havoc of floods," said AASU general secretary, Lurinjyoti Gogoi.

Modi spoke to CM Sarbanand Sonowal on Monday for the second time in as many days and said all possible support is being provided to the state. The PM said the central government has been closely and constantly monitoring the flood situation in Assam.

"PM @narendramodi spoke to Assam CM @sarbanandsonwal yesterday & today regarding the flood situation in the state," the PMO tweeted.

"All possible support is being provided to Assam for overcoming the flood situation prevailing in parts of the state," Modi said.

The students' leader, who visited flood-affected Kaliabor subdivision on Monday, alleged that flood-hit people were living on roads or on elevated land. The affected-people did not get any help from the district administration, Gogoi added.

"The flood-affected people are being helped by various organisations but not the district administration. The state government has been claiming that it has enough money. We demand the government to expedite its relief operations," Gogoi said.

One of the opposition political parties, All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), appealed to Union minister for women and child development Maneka Gandhi to set up Swadhar Greh centres for families in Dhubri and Barpeta districts affected by erosion. Swadhar Greh is a central scheme for women facing difficult circumstances.

Leaders of the AIUDF submitted a memorandum to Maneka signed by three of its MPs --Badruddin Ajmal, Radheshyam Biswas and Sirajuddin Ajmal, which stated, "The ministry of women and child development has provision for Swadhar Greh for calamity victims. At least 200 villages have been affected in Dhubi and Barpeta districts by erosion and floods. We request you to grant at least 10 Swadhar Greh in Dhubri and Barpeta districts."

As per an assessment of the AIUDF, over 5,000 square km of farmland in Assam has been eroded in the past 67 years and nearly 2 million people lost land and property.

The Border Security Force (BSF), National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) personnel are engaged in rescuing people in various parts of the state.

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 15, 2017, 7:29 [IST]
PM Modi's one appeal to voters in Himachal today is 'to participate'

India has become center point to world's desires, says PM Modi

Current surgical strike is 'dhong',says Lalu

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav on Tuesday ridiculed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's comments on surgical strike.

Lalu Prasad Yadav called the ruling BJP's surgical strike a 'hypocrisy'.

He said: Indira Gandhi's surgical operation divided Pakistan into two parts, but, their [BJP] surgical operation is a hypocrisy.

''India has been attacked from all sides. China is infiltrating in our territory, however, the government doesn't have ammunition which lasts even 10 days, '' Lalu Prasad told ANI.

Full text of Narendra Modi's Independence Day speech

Earlier, talking about the strength of Indian security forces, PM Modi said that India's security is our priority. He added that India's security forces have always proved their mettle. "When we launched a surgical strike, the world had to admit the strength of our nation."

The Indian Army Special Forces had carried out surgical strikes against terror launch pads across the Line of Control in 2016 after terror attack in Uri camp which left 17 Jawans martyred.

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 15, 2017, 17:04 [IST]
Digital empowerment: How rapidly India will transform by 2022

India

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Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal replying to queries under RTI said that the PM Modi led government is planning to bring down the cost of smart electricity meters for homes and offices. He also said that the electricity meters which are priced at around Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000 will come down to under Rs 1,000.

Goyal expressed confidence that the Modi government would be able to achieve total electrification even before the target of 2022 set by the Prime Minister himself. He asked the Indian citizens to download a Government of India's mobile application to know the cheapest source of electricity available. This, he said, will lower the chances of any state government buying electricity at higher costs.

Goyal further said that under the guidance of Modi, the Ministries of Power, Coal, New and Renewable Energy, and Mines have been digitising decisions, progress, and goals in the form of apps, and delivering upon the PM's promise of the 'Right to a Transformed India'.

The minister also expressed that with an aim to double mining contribution to GDP, the government launched TAMRA mobile application and portal to ensure transparent award of statutory clearances for mining operations. Transparency Auction Monitoring and Resource Augmentation (TAMRA) Portal and Mobile Application is developed by the Ministry of Mines. TAMRA was simultaneously launched across 12 mineral rich states, with ministe The government has prepared an ambitious plan to put 280 mines with mineral reserves worth over Rs 10 lakh crore for bidding to increase the share of mining in Indian economy.

To ensure transparency in implementation of rural electrification, the Power Ministry also launched a new app, GARV-II, to provide real time data of all six lakh villages of the country.

He also wrote about the UJALA app which has been instrumental in ensuring the fastest rollout of LED bulbs.

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Gallantry awards: CRPF, NIA steal the show

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The CRPF personnel received the most gallantry medals for the sacrifices they made in guarding the nation. Officers of the National Investigation Agency too were recognised for their probe into the Hurriyat Terror Funding case among others.

For his meritorious service, NIA SP, Arvind Digvijay Negi, who is handling the Hurriyat Terror Funding probe was awarded the police medal. A Himachal Pradesh-cadre officer, Negi was promoted to the IPS last year. He has probed fake currency and IS recruitment cases during his stint at NIA. He also played a key role in busting the MBBS admission scam in Himachal Pradesh.

A Chhattisgarh police officer who died fighting Maoists has been named along with 190 others for gallantry while 989 central and state police personnel will get various service medals.

NIA officer C Radhakrishna Pillai, a deputy SP at Kochi, was chosen for the police medal for his distinguished service. Most of the personnel 53 of 190 named for the medals are from the CRPF, the lead force for anti-Maoist operations.

Chhattisgarh Police platoon commander Shankar Rao (posthumous) is the lone recipient of the top President's Police Medal for Gallantry for leading his team during the Sukma Maoist ambush in April 2015.

Among the award winners are six IPS officers working in LWE-affected states. A six-member CRPF team that killed two terrorists in Nowhatta in Srinagar on August 15 last year will be awarded.

Constable Gurnam Singh of R S Pura, head constable Sushil Kumar of Haryana and head constable Jitendra Kumar of Bihar died during the fighting, said IG BSF for Jammu Frontiers Ram Awtar.

BSF constable Gurnam Singh, who died while foiling an infiltration bid by a group of heavily armed terrorists from across the international border in Kathua district last October, was among three awarded the President's Police Medal for Gallantry posthumously on the eve of Independence Day.

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 15, 2017, 6:28 [IST]
After 'The Kashmir Files', Agnihotri back with 'The Vaccine War'

Game of Thrones: 4 from Mumbai arrested for leaking episode online

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Four persons have been arrested in Mumbai for leaking online an episode of the popular fantasy TV series, "Game of Thrones."

Three of the accused are employees of Prime Focus Technology, while the fourth one is its former employee, police said. The company, which processes the series for online streaming service Hotstar, had lodged a complaint.

A court in Mumbai remanded them in police custody till August 21, deputy commissioner of police Akbar Pathan said.

Maharashtra Cyber police and the city cops started investigation after Prime Focus Technology lodged a complaint last week that the fourth episode of season seven of the series was available online before its scheduled release on August 7, DCP Pathan said.

Police have registered a case under IPC section 408 (criminal breach of trust by an employee) and also under the Information Technology Act. The accused men's motive behind leaking the episode was yet to be ascertained, he said.

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 15, 2017, 6:41 [IST]
Why the NIA needs to take up the Gorakhnath Temple attack case

Frogs married off in UP to please rain God, end drought like situation

Gorakhpur tragedy: Shah rules out Yogi's resignation

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Ruling out the resignation of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath, BJP's national president while referring to the Gorakhpur tragedy said such incidents have taken place in the past too.

It is the job of the Congress to demand resignation. Many such big tragedies have occurred in this big country. This has not happened for the first time. Such (tragedies) have happened during Congress governments too," Shah told reporters in response to a question about the main opposition party's demand for the chief minister's resignation.

Replying to a query, Shah said that unlike the Congress, BJP "does not hold anybody guilty" without investigation.

Several children have died at Baba Raghav Das (BRD) medical college hospital within a span of a week in the UP chief minister's hometown and parliamentary constituency.

The BJP chief said Adityanath had announced a time-bound probe+ into the tragedy and a report in this regard would be made public after the team submitted its findings.

"Investigations are on. Yogiji has fixed a time-bound investigation. Once the investigation report is submitted, the government will make it public," he said.

"This is an incident and a mistake, at whichever level it may be. All said and done, you cannot deny the party's and BJP government's intention for development of the poor.

There is no link between the tragedy and government's intention," he added.

Asked why Narendra Modi had not tweeted on the tragedy, Shah said the Prime Minister had already expressed his grief over the incident in the media.

"The Prime Minister has already expressed his grief over the incident, and tweet is not the only medium to convey a message. He has already made a statement in the press," Shah added.

On a reported directive of Adityanath on preparations for a "grand" Krishna Janmashtami celebrations when the state was mourning the deaths of infants, he said that everybody is grieved over the death of children in UP.

"Everybody is sad that children have died. But Krishna Janmashtami has its own place as is August 15. Yogi ji has not said in this reference that you celebrate the festival even though children have died. Krishna Janmashtami is being observed. It will be observed across the country and in the same manner it will be in UP too based on people's belief. It is not a government festival."

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 15, 2017, 6:48 [IST]
A fraud on the Constitution: How Article 35A was added by deceit

PM says Article 370 has given separatism, terrorism in J&K, hails its revocation 'historic'

Flat in 7 minutes: This is how Union Cabinet took to clear scrapping of Article 370

Ive full confidence SC will dismiss 35A matter, says J&K CM on Independence Day

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia

Srinagar, August 15: On the occasion of 70th Independence Day on Tuesday, Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti spoke about the "controversial" Article 35A in Srinagar.

"I have full confidence that our Supreme Court will again dismiss this plea," Mufti said about the Article 35A matter, currently pending before the apex court.

The SC is hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition challenging the constitutional validity of Article 35A, which prohibits a non-J&K resident from buying property in the state and ensures job reservation for residents.

While all the regional parties in the state, including Mufti's Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the National Conference (NC), are vehemently opposing against the revocation of the Article 35A, the Bharatiya Janata Party BJP), running a coalition government with the PDP in J&K, has a contrary view.

As per a report by The Hindu, the BJP, which is in power at the Centre also, is likely to take a divergent opinion from that of its alliance partner PDP on Article 35A, on the grounds that it discriminates against women who marry outside the state from applying for jobs or buying property, which is in violation of Article 14 of the Constitution.

On Saturday, Kashmir and Chenab observed a shutdown over the issue of Article 35A.

Currently, a political storm is brewing in Kashmir following the Attorney-General's suggestion to the SC in July "to have a larger debate on the Article 35A" while it is being challenged by an NGO.

The Article 35A is being challenged in the Supreme Court by NGO--We The Citizens--on its legal basis because the article was never presented before Parliament and executed on the orders of President of India.

Earlier in July, J&K CM said that if the Article 35A is tampered with then nobody in the Valley will hold the Indian Tricolour.

"Any tinkering with the article won't be acceptable. I won't hesitate in saying that nobody will even carry the corpse of the National Flag in Kashmir (if the article is scrapped). Let me make it very clear," she said at an event on Kashmir in Srinagar, last month.

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 15, 2017, 13:24 [IST]
In Narendra Modi Cabinet reshuffle, is Fadnavis headed to Delhi

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

One could expect some major changes in the Narendra Modi Cabinet reshuffle. It was indicated that the reshuffle would take place after the winter session of Parliament. Some reports indicate that Maharashtra Chief Minister, Devendra Fadnavis may join the Union Cabinet.

Sources say that at least two ministers who are from Uttar Pradesh are likely to be dropped from the Cabinet. This is being done in view of the upcoming elections in the states of Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka. The two ministers from UP may be asked to join Amit Shah's team in a bid to prepare for the next big battle in 2019.

The key portfolios that would come under the scanner are that of Defence and Housing and Urban Development. The Defence portfolio is being held by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley after Manohar Parrikar took charge as the Chief Minister of Goa.

There are also indications that Fadnavis may be asked to join the Union Cabinet. However several party sources refused to comment on the development. Some indicated that while the name of Fadnavis has been doing the rounds, the BJP is unsure if wants to disturb the balance in Maharashtra.

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 15, 2017, 6:53 [IST]
PM unfurls the tricolour at Red Fort

Before his speech, PM Modi unfurled the tricolour at the Red Fort, the official venue of the Independence Day celebrations in Delhi.

Picture credit: @ANI

Bengaluru celebrates Independence Day amid water

Since Monday, the capital city of Karnataka, Bengaluru, received heavy rains. Due to rains, most parts of the city came under water. That did not deter the mood of the people to celebrate the occasion. In this picture, traffic cops of the city were seen guarding the roads.

Picture credit: @DCPTrEastBCP

Kashmir witnesses heavy army deployment

Trouble-torn Kashmir celebrated the day amid tight security.

Picture credit: PTI

UP: Madrasa in Bareilly celebrates Independence Day

A madrasa in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, unfurled the tricolour as a part of the celebrations of the Independence Day on Tuesday.

Picture credit: @ANI

Dignitaries attend the festivities

Former PM Manmohan Singh, his wife Gursharan Kaur, former PM HD Deve Gowda and Union home minister Rajnath Singh at Red Fort.

Picture credit: @ANI
Its a sweet affair at Wagah-Attari border as violence takes a backseat

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia

New Delhi, August 15: The army personnel belonging to both India and Pakistan engaged sweets at the Wagah-Attari border on the occasion of 70th Independence Day of the former on Tuesday.

On Monday, armies of both the nations exchanged sweets to mark the 70th Independence Day of Pakistan. After getting freedom from the British Raj, India and Pakistan got divided and started their respective journey as two independent countries.

While India celebrates its Independence Day on August 15 every year, Pakistan marks the day on August 14 annually.

Currently, the relationship between the two nations is not very good because of Pakistan's continuous violation of ceasefire agreement along the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir.

Moreover, Pakistan is responsible for fomenting terror activities in the Valley. However, that did not stop people-to-people connect. The citizens of both the countries exchanged wishes on the occasion of Independence Days.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the nation from the historic Red Fort in the national capital on the occasion of Independence Day on Tuesday. During his speech he spoke on various issues including demonetisation, surgical strikes, the Good and Services Tax (GST) and Gorakhpur hospital tragedy, to name a few. He also promised to make the country a "New India" by 2022.

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India@70: Army Goodwill School in Benibagh renamed as 'Shaheed Lt Ummer Fayaz Goodwill School'

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

On the occasion of 71st Independence Day celebrations, the 'Army Goodwill School' in Behibagh has been renamed as 'Shaheed Lt Ummer Fayaz Goodwill School' to honour Lt Ummer Fayaz, who was martyred in May 2017.

Students were seen holding placards which said: 'Ummer Fayaz, You are in our hearts, You are our hero'.

When Major General Raju had met the bereaved family members of Lt Fayaz in May, he had told that the Army Goodwill School Behibagh would be renamed as 'Shaheed Lt Ummer Fayaz Goodwill School'.

Behibagh, J&K: 'Army Goodwill School' renamed 'Shaheed Lt Ummer Fayaz Goodwill School' to honor Lt Fayaz,who was killed by terrorists in May pic.twitter.com/DMgtR64BRy  ANI (@ANI) August 15, 2017

Martyred Lieutenant Ummer Fayaz, from the troubled region of Kulgam district, had joined the Army after being commissioned in December 2016. He was posted with 2 Rajputana Rifles and had applied for leave to attend a cousin's wedding. Umer was picked up from his house at Harmein in Kulgam, 60 kilometres from Srinagar. The body of the young officer was later found three kilometres from his house.

Army Goodwill School in Behibagh:

The School was established on April 1st, 1999 and inaugurated by Lieutenant General Krishan Pal, PVSM, VSM**, General Officer Commanding 15 Corps on 18 May 1999. Students of remote areas of Shopian & Kulgam districts have been benefitted immensely by the education provided by the school.

A total of 3681 students have completed their education from the school since its establishment. The School, Behibagh is affiliated with Jammu & Kashmir Board School of Education (Srinagar).

(With agency inputs)
Ghazwa-e-Hind in Assam: NIA roped in as Islamists plan destruction of India

India@70: Assam schools celebrate Independence day in waist-deep flood waters

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

People and students of Assam have hoisted the national flag in waist-deep flood waters in their schools and towns on the occasion of 71st Independence Day.

According to ANI visuals, a school teacher in flood-hit Morigaon district ensured the flag was hoisted on Independence day. He did not mind to climb the roof of the school along with two children to unfurl our national flag.

Assam: Various schools unfurled the tricolor in flood-hit Morigaon district #IndependenceDayIndia pic.twitter.com/S0RlgYja7g  ANI (@ANI) August 15, 2017

The staff and children were seen paying respect to the national flag in the flooded school premises. The spirit of Assam is not dented by the flood which has wreaked havoc this year.

The floods in Assam has claimed 102 lives till Monday, and hit nearly 32 lakh people in 25 districts, besides snapping rail connectivity to the Northeast.

A total 3,192 villages are under water and 1.79 lakh hectares of crop area have been damaged. As per the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) report, Dhubri was the worst affected district where 7.79 lakh people have been hit by the deluge, followed by Morigaon (3.83 lakh people).

In fact, in view of the critical flood situation in the state, Assam Chief Minister Sonowal had directed to cancel the traditional High Tea programme as part of the celebrations of 71st Independence Day.

(With agency inputs)
India@70: Changing history, one Mughal fact at a time

India

oi-Prabhpreet

By Prabhpreet

Babri Masjid demolition and the long legal battle over the land it was built on; the controversy whether Taj Mahal was originally Tejo Mahalay, a Shiva temple; the role of Muslim rulers including Mughals, are some of the most famous controversies over the subject of history, which India has in the past and is currently witnessing.

Given the diverse nature of different elements such as culture, religion among others that make up society and country, especially one as large and complicated as India, it wouldn't be considered wrong to assume that such debates over historical events and facts must be seen at regular intervals. Yet, ever since India attained independence, of which this year it is celebrating the 70th anniversary, such matters have only come to light when those in power deem it wise to do so.

"History is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books-books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe." Though writer Dan Brown wrote these lines for a work of fiction, the sentiment has been true and shared by many in the real world.

These words are also the best way to describe what is being seen in the present attempts to challenge and change the narrative of historical events in India in an effort to imbibe 'cultural nationalism.' And the decision makers involved along with the timing and places of such changes give an idea of not only why Mughal history is being eliminated from that of the country, but also should it happen.

After Congress, it's BJP-RSS duo's turn

The attempts to toy with history and taking advantage of nomenclature are by no means limited to the present governments at centre and state levels alone. In fact, bending the narrative according to convenience, and the naming and renaming of roads, station, airports, government schemes or other institutions are practices long followed by the Congress.

From using names of the members of the Gandhi family, which has held control of the party, to appointing members to important institutions which are to decide on matters of history, the Congress has played a major role in making this problem a reality. A popular example, of this, is ignoring contributions of freedom fighters like Bhagat Singh and others like him in school textbooks, as it did not suit the Congress narrative.

These hold more importance given that since independence, for more than five decades, the Congress, has dominated the political arena, at all levels. And the emergence of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is not only a political alternative to the grand old party of India but also in terms of ideological beliefs, has given an impetus to the aggression in terms of setting a new narrative.

BJP's rise has been accompanied by that of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, its ideological parent body, which has always called India a Hindu Rashtra and has worked towards making it a widely accepted claim. It is the beliefs of the RSS that are contrary to those of Congress, whom it has blamed for minority appeasement and burying the true past of the country, which is at the centre of the present tussle over the facts related to Mughal history, a clear an attempt to alter the Muslim past of India.

The result being the changing narrative

In June this year, the Rajasthan University saw an induction of a book in its syllabus, which claims that Maharana Pratap defeated the Mughal emperor Akbar in the Battle of Haldighati. And now, according to reports, the board of education in Maharashtra has chosen to change history text books for schools by removing the Mughal emperor's role in history and limiting it only to a few lines, instead focusing on the Maratha empire of Shivaji. While the class VII book of the subject will not have any mention of Muslim rulers before the Mughal period.

These are just the latest developments and can be seen in line with earlier decisions of the union government to approve Uttar Pradesh government's proposal to rename Mughalsarai station after a leader revered by the BJP, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya and also renaming Aurangzeb Road in Delhi as Dr A P J Abdul Kalam Road.

The nature of the changes related to Mughal history clearly shows these are not only to take out the facts related to one kingdom or its rulers from the history of the country but a conscious attempt at making sure of the acceptance of India to have always been a Hindu Rashtra and glorifying its achievements by claiming to invent plastic surgery, air travel machines among others by quoting mythological stories from religious texts.

All successes of which are credited to the rulers of the Hindu religion and failures fall on the invaders, the role in which the first of the Muslim rulers came to the country.

Along with the timing, the states where these and other similar controversies go a long way in explaining these developments. Both Rajasthan and Maharashtra have governments of the BJP and UP, where the Babri issue and the Taj Controversy have picked up steam again, is also governed by the party with a majority on its own and has a Hindu priest as the chief minister.

Two wrongs don't make a right

While it is cannot be anyone's contention that history should not be open to revision, it needs to be done in a manner consistent with the strict standards followed by historians, backed by fresh evidence based on facts, which satisfy peer review. Yet none of these conditions are satisfied when random changing or tinkering with facts of India's past are looked at, and all that feels to matter is the political will and authority to be able to do so using the excuse the previous regime did it too.

This is what seems to be happening in the latest steps related to Mughal history, where, in the zeal to make the past more suitable to the desired propaganda, the present day decision makers do not only leave the country vulnerable to the effects of the saying that 'those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it' but also alienating a whole section of the country's population.

It will not be the first time a government of a democracy will be guilty of committing such mistakes. Some examples of which such as what the Nazis under Hitler did to the Jewish community and the destruction of literature and historical texts that did not suit the propaganda of the regime, though a bit extreme, drive home the point of risks that turning history into fiction by replacing facts with false narratives, hold.

And even if the current dispensation feels that the Congress has been unfair, in the 70 years since independence, to what the BJP and the RSS believes is the reality of India, by following a policy of minority appeasement, the fact that the two wrong don't make a right should lay bare the mistake of the present policy.

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 15, 2017, 13:52 [IST]
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India@70: Gallantry awards to Bravehearts of India

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

On the eve of Independence Day, President Ram Nath Kovind approved gallantry award for Army, CRPF and BSF personnel.

Army honoured its brave hearts by awarding Shaurya Chakra and Kirti Chakra.

Central Reserve Police force (CRPF) honoured its heroes with peace time gallantry awards. The CRPF personnel received the most gallantry medals for the sacrifices they made in guarding the nation.

BSF constable Gurnam Singh, who died while foiling an infiltration bid by a group of heavily armed terrorists from across the international border in Kathua district last October, was among three awarded the President's Police Medal for Gallantry posthumously on the eve of Independence Day.

Officers of the National Investigation Agency too were recognised for their probe into the Hurriyat Terror Funding case among others.

Kirti Chakra awardees of the Indian Army Three Army personnel were awarded Kirti Chakra for the their valour. Major David Manlun and Havaldar Giris Gurung were awarded Kirti Chakra posthumously. Shaurya Chakra awardees the Indian Army Seven Army personnel were awarded Shaurya Chakra. Kirti Chakra awardees of the CRPF Two CRPF Commandant were awarded Kirti Chakra awardees. One of them Chetan Kumar Cheetah is till recuperating from injuries. Commandant Pramod Kumar was awarded posthumously. Shaurya Chakra awardees of the CRPF Assistant Commandant Chandan Kumar received Shaurya Chakra posthumously. A CRPF Constable Amar Nath Mishra was also awarded. President's Police Medal for BSF soldier A File Photo of Injured BSF Constable Gurnam Singh who got injured in a sniper fire attack by Pakistani Rangers near the international border in Hiranagar Jammu. PTI Photo

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 15, 2017, 9:58 [IST]
Kejriwal now claims BJP offered to spare Sisodia, Jain if AAP backs out of Gujarat polls

India@70: Kejriwal calls for swift action to tackle crime against women

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, August 15: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in his Independence Day speech said justice has to be certain and swift in order to tackle crime against women.

He said it is deploring "tendencies to shield" sons of politicians involved in such cases.

Kejriwal said governments should ensure freedom for women instead of imposing restrictions on them. A politician's son, guilty of such crimes, should be awarded double the punishment as stipulated in statute books, he said.

The comments, made by Kejriwal in a televised Independence Day speech, came against the backdrop of the Chandigarh stalking case involving the son of Haryana BJP chief Subhash Barala.

"The most important thing in such cases is deterrence. There should be certainty and swiftness when it comes to punishment. Now when a politician's son commits any such crime, the entire system comes together to shield him," he said.

In his 14-minute-long address, Kejriwal said many countries, which got independence after India, have raced ahead in terms of development as they invested more in education.

He further said that he derived the greatest satisfaction from government's work in the education sector. The government is in a way bringing revolution in the education sector. ''Poverty can be eliminated if we sincerely educate a generation," he added.

PTI

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 15, 2017, 12:27 [IST]
Thick layer of smog with 'very poor' air continues to choke Delhi

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Full text of Narendra Modi's Independence Day speech

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The Prime Minster, Shri Narendra Modi today addressed the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort on the 71th Independence Day. Following are the highlights from his speech:

1. Greetings to my fellow Indians on Independence Day.

2. For the freedom and glory of the country, those who have contributed, those who suffered and sacrificed their lives, I salute all those noble souls, mothers and sisters on behalf of 125 crore people of the country from the ramparts of the Red Fort.

3. We remember the great women and men who worked hard for India's freedom.

4. People of India stand shoulder to shoulder with those affected in the wake of natural disasters in parts of the country & the death of children in the hospital.

5. This is a special year- 75th anniversary of Quit India, 100th anniversary of Champaran Satyagraha, 125th anniversary of Ganesh Utsav.

6. The Quit India Movement was "Bharat Chhodo," but the call today is "Bharat Jodo."

7. We have to take the country ahead with the determination of creating a 'New India'.

8. From 1942 to 1947, the country had demonstrated collective strength, in the coming 5 years, we have to take the country forward with the same collective strength, commitment and hard work.

9. In our nation, there is no one big or small...everybody is equal. Together we can bring a positive change in the nation.

10. We have to move forward for making a New India with the collective strength of 125 crore people without any discrimination of small and big people.

11. 1st January 2018 will not be an ordinary day- those born in this century will start turning 18. They are Bhagya Vidhatas of our nation.

12. We have to leave this 'Chalta Hai' attitude. We have to think of 'Badal Sakta Hai'- this attitude will help us as a nation.

13. The country has changed, is changing and can change. We have to move forward with this belief and commitment.

14. Security of the country is our priority. Internal security is our priority. Whether it is our oceans or borders, cyber world or space for all kind of security India is capable to defeat all such inimical forces.

15. Our uniformed forces have achieved the pinnacle of sacrifice in fighting left-wing extremism, terrorism, infiltration and elements disturbing peace. The world had to recognise the strength of India and it clout in the surgical strike.

16. One rank, One Pension policy has boosted the morale of our security forces.

17. Those who have looted the nation and looted the poor are not able to sleep peacefully today.

18. No law was passed for those having Benami property for years. However after the recent passage of the Benami Act, within a short span of time, government has confiscated Benami property worth Rs. 800 crores when these things happen, common men feel that this country is for the honest people.

19. Today, we are celebrating the "festival of honesty".

20. GST has shown the spirit of cooperative federalism. The nation has come together to support GST & the role of technology has also helped.

21. Today, the poor of the country is joining the main stream and the country is moving torwards the path of progress.

22. Good governance is about speed and simplification of processes.

23. India's stature in the world is rising. The world is with us in fighting the menace of terror. I thank all nations helping us doing so.

24. We have to work for the progress of Jammu and Kashmir.

25. There is no question of being soft of terrorism or terrorists.

26. Neither by bullet: nor by abuses but by hugging we can solve the problem of Kashmir.

27. Our fight against black money and corruption will continue. We are trying to bring transparency through technology.

28. There is no question of being soft on terrorism or terrorists.

29. People would be the driving force behind the establishment, rather than the other way around - Tantra se Lok nahin, Lok se tantra chalega.

30. New India will be the biggest strength of democracy.

31. Nature of job is changing with changing demand and changing technology.

32. We are nurturing our youngsters to be job creators and not job seekers.

33. I want to mention those women who have to suffer due to 'Triple Talaq'- I admire their courage. We are with them in their struggles.

34. India is about Shanti, Ekta and Sadbhavana. Casteism and communalism will not help us.

35. Violence in the name of 'Astha' is not something to be happy about, it will not be accepted in India.

36. The country is being run by peace, unity and harmony. It is our civilisation and culture to take everybody along.

37. We are taking the nation on a new track (of development) and are moving ahead with speed.

38. We are devoting significant attention to eastern India- Bihar, Assam, West Bengal, Odisha, Northeast. These parts have to grow further.

39. Our farmers have worked hard to ensure a Record foodgrain production.

40. Over 5.75 crore farmers have been covererd under Pradhan Mantri Fasal Beema Yojaana.

41. Under Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana, 30 projects have been completed while work is on for 50 more projects.

42. Under Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samapada Yojana we are providing handholding to the farmers from availing seeds to accessing the markets for their produce.

43. More than 14000 un-electrified villages have been electrified.

44. 29 crore JanDhan accounts opened.

45. More than 8 crore youth have received loans without any guarantee.

46. We are fighting corruption - for the bright future of India and the wellbeing of our people.

47. Our fight against black money and corruption will continue and move forward and the loot in the country will not be allowed.

48. Our strive for a Corruption Free India has yielded results.

49. Black money worth Rs. 1.25 lakh cror has been unearthed.

50. Over 1.75 lakh fake companies have been shut down.

51. Post GST savings and efficiency in transportation sector has increased. Efficiency has gone up by 30 percent.

52. More money has come to the banks due to demonetization which will give impetus to the economy.

53. Our country has the world's largest youth population. Today is the era of IT and let's move ahead on the path of digital transaction.

54. Let us lead from front, promote digital economy and adopt the Bhim App.

55. We have moved from Co-operative Federalism to Competitive Co-operative federalism.

56. It had been said in the old scriptures that if a work is not completed on time, one does not get the desired results.

57. For the Team India it is the right time to commit for a New India.

58. We shall build together an India, where the poor will have concrete houses with water and electricity connection.

59. We will build such an India, where the farmers will have a peaceful sleep without any worry. He will earn double than what he is earning today.

60. Our resolve is to build an India, which provides all the opportunities to the youth and women to fulfil their dreams.

61. Our resolve is to build such an India, free from terrorism, communalism and casteism.

62. We will build together an India, where there will be no place for nepotism and corruption.

63. We will build together such an India, which will be clean, healthy and fulfil the dream of self-rule (Swaraj).

64. We aspire to build a Divya and Bhavya Bharat.

OneIndia News
India@70: Modi embraces Kashmir from Red Fort

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

From the ramparts of the Red Fort, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the occasion of Independence Day sent out a strong message on Kashmir. In a 56 minute address, Modi touched upon a variety of issues including Kashmir and triple talaq.

He said that the problem of Kashmir can only be resolved by embracing them. It cannot be solved through abuses and bullets. "Na goli se, na gaali se, Kashmir ki samasya suljhegi gale lagaane se," PM Modi said.

On triple talaq, PM Modi said that he admires the courage of women who have been suffering due to triple talaq. He added that the nation is with them in their struggles. I thank all my sisters who have taken up this issue, Modi also said.

He also spoke about creating a "New India." The people of the nation have to come together to build a country where the governance goes along with the people of the nation. "New India' is the greatest strength of the of the democracy and it is not just limited to the ballot papers," PM Modi said. He also said the government's fight against black money and corruption will continue.

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 15, 2017, 10:10 [IST]
India@70: Modi hails women's fight against 'triple talaq'

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, August 15: Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day address hailed the women fighting the practice of 'triple talaq' and said the entire country is with them in their endeavor to get their rights.

"I pay my regards to the women who had to lead a pitiable life due to 'triple talaq' and have started a movement which has created an environment in the entire country against the practice," Modi said from the ramparts of the historic Redfort.

The prime minister said the entire country is with them in their endeavor to get their rights. The Centre has said that it is against the practice of triple talaq. The matter is being adjudicated by a constitution bench of the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court had reserved its verdict on a batch of petitions challenging constitutional validity of the practice of triple talaq among Muslims.

A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar heard the issue for six days during which various parties including the Centre, All India Muslim Personal Law Board, All India Muslim Women Personal Law Board and various others made the submissions.

The bench had made it clear that it would examine whether the practice of triple talaq among Muslims is fundamental to their religion and had also said for the time being it will not deliberate upon the issue of polygamy and 'nikah halala'.

In fact, PM Modi has been repeatedly urging the Muslim community not to "politicise" the issue and requested them to come forward with a "solution". He has termed triple talaq a "bad social practice" saying such practices can be ended by social awakening.

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 15, 2017, 11:25 [IST]
Indias unsung hero: Mitali Madhumita, first woman officer to win Sena award for gallantry

India

oi-Deepika

By Deepika

Without bothering too much about her personal safety, unarmed Mitali Madhumita, then on a United Nations' mission in Kabul, rushed to save lives buried under the debris when the Indian embassy in Kabul suffered a terror attack on February 26, 2011.

Had she wanted she could have easily looked the other way and allowed local security agencies take charge of the rescue operations. Her brave act helped save scores of lives of those grievously injured in the attack.

For her valiant act, Mitali was conferred with the Sena Medal, the very first awarded to a woman army officer who went beyond the call of duty and helped save lives.

The 41-year-old joined the army under the short service commission (SSC) that allows an officer to serve for 5-15 years. However, she declined permanent commission (PC) offered to her in September 2010 for personal reasons. Madhumita was also posted in sensitive areas like Jammu-Kashmir and the northeast of the Indian state.

Being a short service commission officer requested the army for a permanent commission but the Ministry of Defence refused to accept her request, Madhumita appealed the Ministry of Defence's decision not to give her permanent commission before the Armed Forces Tribunal in March 2014. The Tribunal found her request had merit and in February 2015 directed the Ministry of Defence to reinstate her.

However the Ministry of Defence appealed against the order of the Armed Forces Tribunal in the Supreme court of India stating that Madhumita had enlisted in the army on a short service commission. In 2016 Supreme court of India rejected the Ministry of Defence's plea against granting her a permanent commission in the Indian army.

The Army may not have resolute to allow women combat roles but Major Mitali Madhusmita has made history by becoming the first woman officer to win a Sena Medal for bravery.

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 15, 2017, 6:00 [IST]
FM Nirmala Sitharaman hints at possibility of Centre considering restoration of state status to J&K

J&K: Woman injured in ceasefire violation by Pakistan

India

oi-Vikas

By Vikas

A woman was injured on Tuesday in ceasefire violation by Pakistan in Baaz and Nambla areas of Uri sector in Jammu and Kashmir's Baramulla district.

The Army is retaliating to the unprovoked firing by the Pakistani forces.

On Saturday, a 45-year-old lady had lost her life in a ceasefire violation by Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir. The incident took place at the Medhar sector early on Saturday morning.

There has been an increase in the number of cease fire violations by Pakistan as it is trying to help terrorists infiltrate into the Valley. Intelligence Bureau officials report that there is a major push being made to enhance infiltrations.

With several terrorists being gunned down in the Valley, Pakistan wants to increase the presence of terrorists in the Valley. Attempts would also be made to push in as many terrorists as possible before the winter sets in.

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 15, 2017, 20:49 [IST]
Manipur: 68 militants surrender on eve of Independence Day

India

oi-Madhuri

Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh lauded Sri Sri Ravi Shankar for peace work after 68 militants including four women, along with a huge cache of assorted weapons such as AK series assault rifles, surrendered before him.

The militants surrendered at the Home Coming Ceremony in the parade ground of 1st Bn Manipur Rifles in Imphal on the eve of 71st Independence Day that marked a landmark in The Art of Living's efforts of bringing peace in troubled areas.

Those who joined the mainstream include were from the 11 most dreaded outfits operating in Manipur, including six factions of Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP), two factions of People's Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK), People's Liberation Army (PLA), United National Liberation Front (UNLF), and Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup (KYKL).

The event took place in presence of Chief Minister N Biren Singh and Swami Bhavyatej and Deepa Dave of The Art of Living, along with top ministers and officials.

Earlier, the Art of Living volunteers, led by Deepa Dave and Shanti Meitei, have been working to take the message of peace to the ultras through various sources and channels despite the risks involved. The team even reached out to insurgent groups across the borders.

Biren Singh promised that the new government will protect and provide necessary assistance to those who joined the mainstream.

In a series of tweets, Chief Minister of Manipur N Biren Singh expressed his gratitude to The Art of Living and Gurudev.

He also appreciated the proactive stance of the Manipur government and the support extended to The Art of Living volunteers to bring the insurgents to the mainstream. The Art of Living has also offered to work with the government in creating a respectable rehabilitation package for the cadres.

The Art of Living has been tirelessly working in Manipur over the last 15 years, bringing its life-transforming programs to all sections of society, including influential civil society groups. It has also conducted several programs in prisons where many arrested cadres of outlawed outfits not only got an experience of inner peace, but also came in touch with Gurudev's vision for a peaceful and prosperous Manipur.

OneIndia News
Mumbai University Results 2017 misses Independence day deadline

India

oi-Anusha

Students had to spend India's 70th Independence Day in anxiety as there was further delay in announcing Mumbai university results 2017. The institution has now missed its third deadline. Change of authority has made little difference to the unfortunate delay in announcing results.

Close to 140 results were yet to be declared as on Monday. Results for commerce, law, and arts are yet to be declared. More than 1.5 lakh answer sheets, as on Monday, were yet to be evaluated while almost 50,000 papers are yet to be moderated. On Monday, students rushed to Kalina campus of the university in anticipation of confidential results.

Mumbai University Vice Chancellor, Dr Sanjay Deshmukh, who is currently on leave had set August 15 a deadline for declaration of results. The institute has not been able to meet the third deadline as well. Previously the university had missed two deadlines set by Maharashtra Governor Vidyasagar Rao.

Mumbai university sets up task force

Given the delay in announcing results, Mumbai University's in-charge VC Devanand Shinde has decided to set up a task force. The task force will speed up the process of providing confidential results to students. Confidential results are provided to students in sealed covers and are meant for the consumption of other universities or companies where student have applied for higher studies or jobs. The task force will expedite the results of students seeking admission to national and international universities.

The task force will include four teachers and one official and will coordinate with individual students to ensure confidential results to each. The desk will help students who require results to apply for higher education and job opportunities. The acting vice chancellor said that all measures have been taken to announce error-free results at the earliest. Multiple technical glitches that were delaying the process of evaluation have been set right now, University authorities said.

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 15, 2017, 15:46 [IST]
PFI leader arrested in RSS worker Sharath murder case in Karnataka

India

oi-Anusha

The Karnataka police have arrested a Popular Front of India leader in RSS worker Sharath Madivala murder case. The Mangaluru police said that both accused were arrested after their identities, as well as their association with organisations, were verified.

36-year-old Abdul Shafi and 30-year-old Khaleelulla, the president of Chamarajanagar unit of PFI have been arrested in connection with Sharath Madivala murder case. "Abdul Shafi was arrested in Bantwal while Khaleelulla was nabbed in Chamarajanagar. We have produced them in the court and have sought police custody," said Harishekaran, IGP, Western range.

The police are yet to nab other accused in the case but their identities have been established. This is the second case where a PFI member has been made accused in the murder of an RSS worker. PFI members were chargesheeted by the NIA in RSS worker Rudresh murder case in Bengaluru.

Sharath Madivala was stabbed to death in July, a time when coastal districts in Karnataka were witnessing communal tensions and stabbing incidents. The BJP had staged massive protests over Sharath Madivala's murder while the Congress had accused the BJP of creating communal tensions. The investigating officials divided themselves into groups and questioned almost 30 people in connection with the case. Teams were sent to Maharashtra, Kerala, Bengaluru, Shivamogga, Karwar and other places as part of investigations. Harishekharan also added that jails across Karnataka were also monitored to zero in on the accused.

The police are now on the lookout for two conspirators who are said to have helped the accused procure weapon and vehicles. While the police confirmed that a PFI leader was one of those arrested, they refrained from commenting on the motive behind the murder.

OneIndia News
PM equated Gorakhpur tragedy with other calamities', Congress slams Modis I-Day speech

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia

New Delhi, August 15: Within a few minutes after the end of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Independence Day speech at the Red Fort in the national capital on Tuesday, the Congress immediately hit back at the PM over his remarks on the Gorakhpur hospital tragedy, "tall claims" on the Good and Services Tax (GST) and surgical strikes, to name a few.

Senior Congress leader Anand Sharma told reporters that the PM trivialised the Gorakhpur hospital tragedy where around 70 children died in the last few days. "The PM in a very trivial manner equated the Gorakhpur tragedy to the other natural calamities, he should have been careful," said Sharma.

Modi, who was criticised for maintaining silence on the deaths of children allegedly due to lack of supply of oxygen at a government hospital in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, finally spoke about the tragedy during his Independence Day speech.

"In the last few days, some of our innocent children died in a hospital. All the countrymen stand together at this time," he said.

The Congress also slammed Modi for "taking credit" for the GST during his speech. "The PM was making tall claims on the GST. For seven years he and the Bharartiya Janata Party (BJP) in the opposition had stalled the GST," said Sharma.

Regarding the GST, Modi in his speech said that the latest tax reform was an example of co-operative federalism. Modi said that the reform will help the nation achieve higher growth without losing any momentum.

"Through the GST, the nation gave new direction to competitive federalism. Technology is a miracle. People wondered how the GST was rolled so fast across the country," Modi said. "After the GST enrolment, our truck drivers save 30 per cent of their time in travel now," he added.

Sharma again slammed Modi over "surgical strikes". "The PM mentioned surgical strikes in his speech, this is about a year old; after that repeated attacks and violations of ceasefire agreements took place in Jammu and Kashmir by Pakistan," he added.

Modi hailed the surgical strikes that took place on September 28, 2016, and reiterated that his government is serious about tackling various national security issues. "After the surgical strikes, the entire world had to acknowledge India's strength. The concern for national security is a natural one in an independent India," the PM said.

"Our security forces have always shown their capabilities whenever on duty. Whether it is terrorism or infiltrators, our security personnel have always been ready for sacrifice," Modi added.

OneIndia News
Rahul Gandhi to inaugurate Congress' ambitious Indira canteen in Bengaluru on Wednesday

India

oi-Anusha

By Anusha Ravi

Karnataka Congress' ambitious Indira canteen will be inaugurated on Wednesday by AICC vice president Rahul Gandhi. 101 units of the subsidised canteen will open its doors to public starting Wednesday.

Rahul Gandhi will inaugurate one unit of the canteen named after his grand mother and former Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi. Amid still opposition to the name, the Congress chose to call the units 'Indira canteen' instead of 'Namma canteen'. Posters of Indira Gandhi are plastered across the canteen to drive home a point as the state is headed towards assembly elections.

While Rahul Gandhi will inaugurate and have lunch prepared at the Kanakanapalya unit in south Bengaluru along with several Congress leaders, remaining 100 canteens across the city will start serving food to customers from Wednesday evening. 101 out of the planned 198 canteens are ready to open doors to the public on Wednesday.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had announced the subsidised canteen scheme during his budget speech this year. Along the lines of Amma canteen in Tamil Nadu, Indira Canteen will provide quality food for the urban poor in subsidised prices. The JD(S) in an attempt to counter the Congress' canteen politics, had launched 'Appaji canteen' earlier in July.

Rahul Gandhi is expected to inaugurate the canteen unit in South Bengaluru at 11.30 after which he will address a public gathering. He will leave for New Delhi on Wednesday evening accompanied by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.

On the inaugural day, all 101 units of Indira canteen will provide free food to the public. "The canteens will start off by dishing out 500 meals in each session i.e., breakfast, lunch and dinner. Based on the response we receive we will work on the numbers," said BBMP Commissioner N Manjunath Prasad. The canteens will serve breakfast for Rs 5 and lunch and dinner for Rs 10 each.

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 15, 2017, 20:34 [IST]
Rain water floods homes in Bengaluru

Many houses in low-lying areas of the city from Koramangala, Madivala, Shantinagar, Shivajinagar to HAL old airport road were flooded as a result of heavy rains. Basement and ground floors of under construction buildings, PGs, hostel in low lying areas were inundated. Water gushed into households damaging furniture, vehicles etc.

Waist-level waters on roads

In many localities, people were seen wading through waist-level waters. Medians on arterial roads in Southeast Bengaluru were almost submerged. Commuting became a challenge on Tuesday morning with vehicles as big as buses finding it hard to keep afloat. Many cars and bikes were inundated where they were parked.

Record-shattering rains

The HAL Airport Observatory recorded 144 mm rainfall while the BBMP commission said that the rainfall on Monday night was about 170 mm. This is the highest 24-hours rainfall recorded in the month of August in Bengaluru. Monday night's mammoth rain fury broke the 103 mm record set on August 12, 1996.

Citizens vent fury on social media

Netizens in Bengaluru took to Twitter and Facebook to share pictures and videos of how Monday night rains had an effect on them. As the India celebrates 70th Independence day, some Bengalureans did not have the freedom to step out of their houses thanks to flooding.

IT hub, posh localities flooded

Koramangala, considered one of the posh localities in the city and home to many businessmen, prominent doctors, politicians and celebrities was one of the worst-affected areas. The BBMP is undertaking clearance operations on priority.
India's stand on Rohingyas gracious so far but housing them would be risky

Indias population imbalance and how Mullahs across the border are fuelling it

Rohingya Muslims to go back irrespective of UN registration says Centre

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The government has said that it is very serious about tackling the Rohingya Muslim issue. There are around 40,000 Rohingya Muslims living in India and they are illegal immigrants, the government has said.

The centre has now decided that these persons will be identified and deported irrespective of the UN registration. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has issued identity cards to about 16,500 Rohingya in India that it says help them "prevent harassment, arbitrary arrests, detention and deportation".

Junior interior minister Kiren Rijiju told Reuters that the UNHCR registration was irrelevant. "They are doing it, we can't stop them from registering. But we are not signatory to the accord on refugees," he said.

"As far as we are concerned they are all illegal immigrants They have no basis to live here. Anybody who is illegal migrant will be deported," he also said.

Terror threat looms large:

With the threat of terror looming large, the Union Home Ministry has directed states to identify and deport illegal immigrants. The decision comes in the wake of intelligence inputs suggesting that terror groups may use the Rohingya Muslims to further their activities.

These illegal immigrants not only infringe on the rights of Indian citizens but also pose grave security challenges. The rise of terrorism in last few decades has become a serious concern for most nations as illegal migrants are more vulnerable to getting recruited by terrorist organisations, the communication also reads.

Due to economic and political turmoil in the neighbouring countries, many enter into India. Many are vulnerable and the chances of terror groups using them is very high.

Hence a special task force be set up to identify such persons and deport them, the ministry also said.

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 15, 2017, 6:34 [IST]
Telangana upper caste woman ostracised for supporting Dalits, cops arrest none

India

oi-Anusha

An upper caste woman in Rajanna Sircilla district of Telangana has been socially boycotted by the community for speaking up for Dalit rights. For three weeks now, neither has anyone in her village spoken to her nor have visited her house. All this simply because Indira, a Reddy woman supported a Dalit family that suffered atrocities at the hands of Reddy Sangam.

The Reddy Sangam of Mallaram village has also reportedly imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 on anyone who speaks to or interacts with Indira. Fine amount of Rs 20,000 was collected from Indira's brother who visited her last week. Now the woman has filed a complaint against the community leaders for ostracising her and committing atrocities against Dalits.

Ostracised for supporting Dalits

Indira had leased out a portion of her land in the village to a Dalit family. Since the land was located between fields belonging to other Reddy households, she was asked to cancel the lease. "The community leaders did not want Dalits to walk on their field to reach the land they had taken on a lease. The pressure was exerted on me to cancel the lease and not allow Dalits to farm there," Indira told the police in her statement.

Lakshmi, the Dalit farmer who had taken the land on the lease was also allegedly harassed by the community leaders. "Lakshmi and her family have been taking my land for lease for almost 10-15 years now. This piece of land was given on lease to them recently and the community leaders didn't like it. When I refused to revoke the lease, they issued a diktat socially boycotting me," Indira said.

A couple of weeks ago, paddy crop on the leased land was ready for harvesting but someone destroyed the entire crop and dumped the paddy far away. When the Dalit family approached the village sarpanch's office they were abused and sent away. Indira was witness to the same. The family filed a case under the atrocities act. Indira was made a witness and gave a statement supporting the Dalit family. This enraged the community leaders.

"I was accused of working against my community and hence they decided that I had no right to be part of the community. I was boycotted and ever since I have not been invited to any religious events and even the Dalit families are afraid of talking to me fearing repercussions," Indira said.

No arrests, police want to solve issue amicably

Three FIRs have been registered against the community leaders and Rs 20,000 collected as fine has been recovered. Despite three cases, not a single person from the community has been arrested. The police and the revenue department officials have now decided to arrange a meeting between all parties to solve the issue amicably. FIR names nine people but not a single arrest has taken place so far despite an FIR under the serious SC/ST atrocities act.

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 15, 2017, 9:29 [IST]
What does independence mean? Chaiwallah, safai karamchari, security guard speak

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia

Bengaluru, August 15: By now, your social media accounts must be relentlessly beeping with Independence Day messages. You must have wished your fellow citizens too. Mostly, you have also expressed your views on being an Indian and being independent.

Words like "independence" and "freedom" always become more meaningful during all our national days, especially during Independence Day and Republic Day celebrations.

We at OneIndia thought of talking to a couple of people, who don't have any platforms--be it political podiums or social media sites-- to speak their minds on the occasion of 70th Independence Day on Tuesday.

We caught up with a roadside tea vendor (chaiwallah), a sanitation worker (safai karamchari) and a security guard in India's IT hub Bengaluru to understand what it means to be independent and many other things associated with being a citizen of a free and a democratic country.

Rama TN, a native of Tirumala in Andhra Pradesh, migrated to Bengaluru almost 15 years ago. After doing several odd jobs, since the last three years, Rama is running a small tea stall in the Outer Ring Road--one of the favourite destinations of IT companies in the city.

Ask him, how he is going to celebrate Independence Day, Rama smiled, "I will sell tea, as usual."

Explaining the logic behind working on the day, when almost all offices are closed, and a good amount of Bengalureans have left for a short vacation in nearby hill stations, Rama said he did not have the "luxury to enjoy Independence Day".

"I am a poor man. I have to work every day. I can't sit in front of the television and watch Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech, no matter how much inspiring it is for others," added Rama.

Like Rama, Sunitha (who only writes her first name), a sanitation worker with the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), was seen working as she cleaned roads near Electronic City on Tuesday.

Although it's an official holiday for all state-run offices, including the municipal corporation of Bengaluru, but Sunitha worked on Independence Day as her bosses asked her to attend her duties.

"I know it's a holiday, but not for us, as we are cleaners. If my colleagues and I don't work, the roads will look filthy. It's Independence Day, we can't afford to have dirty roads on the day. Moreover, it has been pouring in Bengaluru since Monday, we have to ensure roads look neat and clean," said Sunitha.

When asked what does it meant to be a citizen of a free nation, the woman in her mid-40s said, "To be able to send my children to schools. I don't want my two sons to be manual workers like my husband and I. They go to schools and I want them to get degrees and work in offices."

Purnananda Das, a security guard, who hails from Assam, but has been working in the city for the last seven years said that Bengaluru was his second home.

"Independence Day holds great meaning for me. I feel proud to be in a free country. Yes, we are poor, but we are no less patriotic. Who does not struggle in life? I am also doing so, by leaving my home in Assam and working in Bengaluru. The city is beautiful and so are its people. I love working here," smiled Purnananda.

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 15, 2017, 10:40 [IST]
What transpired during the Modi-OPS meet: Details here

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former chief minister of Tamil Nadu O Panneerselvam was expected to unify the AIADMK. While the two leaders met in New Delhi on Monday, there was no major breakthrough with OPS putting forth some conditions for a merger.

While on record OPS has placed two demands, behind the scenes he has sought for more. His on record demands are- a probe into Jayalalithaa's death and the expulsion of the Sasikala family from the party.

However during the meeting with the PM, OPS said that he has three demands. If the E Palanisami faction accepts the three demands, then the merger could become a possibility.

OPS sought for the CM's post and if this could not be granted then he wanted to be made the general secretary of a unified AIADMK. The third demand was to share the post of CM on a rotational basis.

The problem for both factions would however be T T V Dinakaran. The factions will have to get him on board in case a merger were to take place, observers feel. Both OPS and EPS are however opposed to this idea. It may be recalled that EPS faction had recently passed a resolution nullifying the appointment of TTV as the deputy general secretary.

BJP insiders tell OneIndia that the party is keen on working out a truce. However the BJP too wants Sasikala and family out of the picture. The negotiations are tricky and need to be handled carefully, the BJP source said. However we are confident of a positive outcome which will be acceptable to all parties, he also said.

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 15, 2017, 7:04 [IST]
"Yes, we slacked": What Karnataka BJP leaders told Amit Shah

India

oi-Anusha

Three days, 35 meetings and interaction with close to 6,000 people is how Amit Shah's visit to Bengaluru fared. While the state unit was pulled up for its functioning, senior leaders of the party told OneIndia that the session was much needed to make them realise that they had slacked and let go of multiple opportunities to strengthen the party.

"Padhai likhai hogayi, iska matlab ye nahi ki mehnat nahi karni. Ye mat socho ki sirf unpad ko mehnat karna hai (You studying or being prepared or being in the know of things is no reason for you to slack or not work hard. Do not assume that only someone who isn't prepared should do all the hard work) was Amit Shah's message to BJP leaders.

"This one line of Amit Shah hit us like a bolt. I was startled. BJP leaders do a lot of work but the lack of impact was the real problem. Now that will not repeat. We are not to sit idle or be indifferent. Synergy was required and it will be implemented now," the BJP leader said.

Amit Shah held close to 35 meetings in three days, most of them unscheduled. He met leaders from every section- core committee, newly inducted members including S M Krishna, Dalit leaders, OBC community representatives, political action committee, IT cell workers, BJP youth wing etc. "All sessions were with batches of some 15 or 20 leaders.

Amit Shah interacted with every single person and perhaps even mentally photographed everyone and remembers what they said," another leader who was part of more than four such meetings said.

Karnataka leaders' admission to Amit Shah

Leaders of various sections of the BJP told made presentations will detail of every activity taken up by workers of their wing. Shah offered suggestions to every presentation made. "When he saw that enough was not being done, he asked the chief of each wing and program why there was lapse on the impact front. What we realised is that we had been working in individual capacities but there was no synergy. Because there was a lack of coordination and the will to take an issue to its conclusive end, we failed. Shah highlighted the same," said a senior BJP leader.

Many leaders said that a plan of action was put in place. Now, those in Karnataka are expected to implement the same. "He is someone who won't tell you what exactly needs to be done. He has given us a direction and has told us what the end result should be. It is up to us now to do everything in our capacity to achieve that desired result," said a member of the core committee.

Aftermath of Amit Shah's visit

The BJP National President has already cracked the whip on the Karnataka unit of the BJP. Without wasting any time, the BJP is now alls et to launch its attack on the Congress. State unit chief B S Yeddyurappa said that starting Friday, the BJP will begin a statewide agitation demanding the ouster of D K Shivakumar and other Congress leaders over income tax raids. BJP workers in the city, district and taluk headquarters will protest demanding resignation of Karnataka's energy minister D K Shivakumar.

"The protests will be impactful since all wings, morchas of the BJP will come together to protest. No longer will there be individual attacks and protests," said a BJP Yuva morcha leader. In the next two months, the BJP hopes to turnaround the narrative in Karnataka to a favourable one. Many leaders were of the opinion that Amit Shah's visit was a wakeup call while others opined that it was a shot in the arm.

OneIndia News
Doklam standoff: China skips ceremonial Independence Day meet

International

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

China skipped the ceremonial Independence Day meeting with India amidst the Doklam standoff. India had sent out an invitation to China, but there has been no response, official sources said.

A meeting at Nathu La which was scheduled for Friday did not take place as the Chinese did not show up. The border personnel meetings are important and they take place at five locations at the Line of Actual Control every year. Such meetings are held on Republic Day, Independence Day and PLA Day.

The locations for these meetings are at Daulat Beg Oldie and Chushul in Ladakh, Bum La and Kibithu in Arunachal Pradesh and Nathu La in Sikkim. These meetings help both countries maintain peace.

India has sent out an invite to the PLA for the meeting, but there has been no response as yet. Indian officials say that the meeting scheduled for August 1, PLA day did not take place. The Chinese did not send out an invite to India for the August 1 meeting, Indian officials say.

OneIndia News
Leave Afghanistan, says Taliban to Trump in open letter

International

oi-PTI

Kabul, August 15: An "open letter" sent by the Taliban to President Donald Trump has reiterated their calls for America to leave Afghanistan after 16 years of war.

In a long and rambling note in English that was sent to journalists on Tuesday by Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, the insurgents say Trump recognized the errors of his predecessors by seeking a review of the US strategy for Afghanistan.

Mujahid says Trump should not hand control of the US, Afghan policy to the military but rather, announce the withdrawal of US forces and not an increase in troops as the Trump administration has planned.

The 1,600 words long note also says a US withdrawal would "truly deliver American troops from harm's way" and bring about "an end to an inherited war."

PTI

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 15, 2017, 14:53 [IST]
. To do so, first type the original number into the text box. Then click on the "Scientific Notation" option located at the top of the floating window. Finally, click on the "Standard" button found beneath the text box to display your result. This program is useful for scientists and engineers working with decimal-based numbers. It provides easy access to those who need to convert those numbers into more compact forms without having to do heavy math calculations first.

Scientific notation is a way to express very large or very small numbers. It is used in physics, chemistry and other fields where large numbers are common. Those numbers are written as a power of 10 followed by a number with an exponent. For example, 1,000,000 (one million) is written as 1  103. The exponent shows how many zeros are after the first digit. For example, 1,000,001 is written as 1  102. Scientific notation is a useful tool for making calculations easier. You can use it to write down very big or very small numbers in one step instead of writing out both the large and small numbers separately. You can also use it to express large or small numbers in terms of other units like centimeters or millimeters.

Scientific notation solver is an online tool that can be used to convert any number into scientific notation. Simply enter any number to the left of the decimal point and it will automatically convert it into a scientific notation equivalent. This web tool can be very helpful when you need to convert a large number into scientific notation. However, please note that this online tool can only convert numbers that are in scientific format. For example, it cannot convert a non-scientific number like "1,085" into a scientific notation equivalent. It is also important to keep in mind that this web tool only works when converting numbers from one particular format to another. For example, if you want to change a non-scientific number like "1,085" into standard format, then you will have to use another online tool like NumberFormatting.com.
Modi, Trump agree to step up efforts to enhance peace across Indo-Pacific region

International

pti-PTI

Washington, Aug 15: The White House on Tuesday said President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have agreed to enhance peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region by establishing a new two-by-two ministerial dialogue, which would elevate their strategic consultations.

Trump spoke with Modi last night to greet him on the eve of India's Independence Day. During the phone call, Trump welcomed the first-ever shipment of American crude oil to India, which will begin this month from Texas. He pledged that the US would continue to be a reliable and long-term supplier of energy to India, the White House said in a readout of the phone call between the two leaders.

"The leaders resolved to enhance peace and stability across the Indo-Pacific region by establishing a new two-by- two ministerial dialogue that will elevate their strategic consultations," the White House said, without giving details of the mechanism.

As the leaders of two of the world's largest and fastest-growing major economies, Trump and Modi looked forward to the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in India this November, the White House said, adding that Trump has asked his daughter and advisor Ivanka Trump to lead the US summit delegation.

"Prime Minister Modi thanked President Trump for his strong leadership uniting the world against the North Korean menace," it added.

Trump had recently warned North Korea that it would face "fire and fury" if it attacked the United States, while the North threatened to test-fire its missiles over Japan and towards the US Pacific island of Guam.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson extended his best wishes to the people of India on the country's Independence Day today.

"The US is proud to stand with the people of India, the world's largest democracy, in the cause for freedom and prosperity around the globe," he said.

"Prime Minister Modi's ambitious vision for the US-India relationship holds great promise for advancing our shared interests in the 21st century, and we look forward to the many years of friendship before us," Tillerson added.

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Craig Evans Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque Geneva:

An Australian commodity hedge fund manager talks about his current favourite themes, namely new energy and car batteries, and the current commodity cycle.

The managers of the Tribeca Global Natural Resources Fund, a long/short hedge fund, are most positive in the new energy theme and commodities associated with this theme. Oil and coal, as far as they are concerned are grouped in the 'old energy' basket. Then there is also the highly traded copper.

"Copper and oil are always extremely good indicators to the generalist investors to raise their interest in commodities more broadly but as specialist investors, we do a lot more modelling and analysis on the entire commodity universe," co-manager Craig Evans tells Opalesque. "This is why out investible universe covers the breadth of Metals & Mining, Energy and Soft Commodities."

"We've had headlines recently out of OPEC and those referenced to who is maintaining the agreed production cuts and who isn't," he continues. "That's an unknown variable; all of the investment banks have oil price targeted high and the consensus opinion probably worries us a little bit right now in the old energy space so we are more lightly positioned than peers. But just about all other commodities are quite constructive at the moment. We are running a moderate net long in the fund (around 30-50%) and ......................

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Every society gets the social bots it deserves

Celebrating Account Corpses

http://www.facebook.de/accountleichen

http://www.movement-for-account-corpses.de

The art project Movement for Account Corpses starts an opt-out program for social bots today.Why that?Social bots are copying our behavior in communities. In a society full of account corpses social bots wouldn't cause any problems at all, because they would be  like all members of that society  inactive. If someone posted more often than once a year, everybody would understand: Uh, it's a bot! Social bots wouldn't have any influence on anything like for instance on the German federal election.What an inspiring utopia! To reach out for it the Movement for Account Corpses has designed a project: ASCIT  an opt-out program for social bots and other folks. During a six week training period billions of social bots and other community members learn, how to withstand their irresistible need to share, retweet, like or comment.The exit is comprised of 3 level grades:1) BeginnerThe Movement for Account Corpses will follow bots and other folks on Facebook and Twitter, asking them to not follow back, to not like the ASCIT project and to not spread the word of it in any way.(Period: August 15 - August 27, 2017)2) AdvancedThe Movement for Account Corpses will like, retweet and share to further strengthen the first growing community abilities to simply ignore all actions by the movement.(Period: August 28 - September 10, 2017)3) ExpertThose who have passed step 1 and step 2 without reacting, will be highly praised. If they keep on doing nothing, they will be praised even more.(Period: September 11  September 24, 2017)With the ASCIT project the Movement for Account Corpes is celebrating its tenth anniversary in its usual ecstatic wayhttp://www.twitter.de/accountleichenThe Second Life based Movement for Account Corpses was founded by the avatar Muji Zapedzki and her account keeper Susanne Berkenheger in 2007. By general request of the account corpse scene, the movement declared to represent the account corpses of all metaverses and online communities in the very first month of its existence. The estimated number of members runs into tens of billions.The Movement for Account Corpses was presented at the exhibition second art, has been nominated for the IBM Award for New Media 2008 and was awarded the CYNETart prize 2008. In 2009 the fictional weblog The Last Days of Second Life was awarded the net residency Bremen and participated in the project e-tribal art by the Romanian foundation "AltArt". In 2011 the blog got a honorable mention at the International Competition New Media (on/offline) by the Stuttgarter Filmwinter. With the augmented reality project In Account Corpses We Trust the movement joined the arOCCUPY May Day 2012 in New York.Movement for Account Corpsesc/o Susanne BerkenhegerStargarder Strae 1310437 Berlinsus@berkenheger.de0049/30 47377668
Cutaneous T-Cell Lymphoma US to have the lions share among the 7MMs

http://bit.ly/2uBEObP

Cutaneous T-Cell Lymphoma market size in 7MMs is estimated to increase at a CAGR of 1.6% for the forecasted period (2013-2025), as per the latest report of DelveInsight. CTCL is a group of lympho proliferative disorders characterized by localization of neoplastic T lymphocytes to the skin. Collectively, CTCL is classified as a type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). It is the most common type of skin lymphoma. Out of every 4 skin lymphomas diagnosed, more than 3 are CTCLs. They often appear as eczema-like skin rashes and can affect widespread parts of the body. The most common types of CTCL are mycosis fungoides and Sezary syndrome.According to DelveInsights report, Cutaneous T-Cell Lymphoma- Competitive Landscape, Market Insights, Epidemiology and Market Forecast-2025, US accounts for the highest incident population as well as annual cost of therapy of CTCL compared to EU5 (Germany, France, Spain, Italy and UK) and Japan. Out of the two sub-types, the incident rate of mycosis fungoides has been increasing significantly since 1970s. There were about 1703 cases of mycosis fungoides estimated in United States in 2013, which is estimated to increase at a much higher rate.As per the latest report, it is estimated that the incident cases of CTCL in US shall increase at a CAGR of 0.35%, fueling the market size of CTCL in US which is expected to increase at a CAGR of 1.4% during the forecasted period (2013-2025). Many companies are developing drugs for this indication wherein Soligenix, Seattle Genetics, Eisai are leading the market with their products in phase III of development. According to the estimated market size of early stage and late stage CTCL, early stage Cutaneous T-Cell Lymphoma market size is expected to have a CAGR twice as high as that of the late stage one.The latest report is built using data and information sourced from proprietary databases, primary and secondary research, and in-house Forecast model analysis. It provides detailed insight about the global pipeline scenario for Cutaneous T-Cell Lymphoma, products and associated companies information. Complete coverage of pipeline products with detailed clinical profiles, historical and forecasted epidemiological data of CTCL in 7MMs is included to understand all the key market drivers and barriers in the market of CTCL.Reasons to buy: The report will help develop business strategies by building a thorough understanding of recent market trends that shape up and drive the Cutaneous T-Cell Lymphoma market. Insightful reviews of key market drivers and barriers will help the buyer assess the CTCL market intelligently. Organize sales and marketing efforts by identifying the best opportunities for CTCL in US, Europe (Germany, Spain, Italy, France and United Kingdom) and Japan. The report will help in identifying strong upcoming players in the market, and will also help clients devise strategies to create a competitive edge over these players.Information based on DelveInsight's latest report:DelveInsight Business ResearchDelveInsight is a leading Business Consulting and Market Research Firm. We combine industry expertise with probing market insights in innovative ways to deliver enduring results to deliver critical information to leading decision makers.DelveInsight Business ResearchNew Delhi
Tel Aviv University Announces Collaboration with Biosynth on Pioneering Chemiluminescent Reporter Molecules

http://www.ramot.org

www.biosynth.com

STAAD, SWITZERLAND and TEL AVIV, ISRAEL, AUGUST 14, 2017  Biosynth, a global company supplying intermediate chemicals to the life science industry and Tel Aviv University (TAU) through Ramot its Business Engagement Center, announce the signing of a licensing agreement giving Biosynth the right to manufacture and sell probes invented by Prof. Doron Shabat from the TAU School of Chemistry.Prof. Doron Shabat has developed a series of Dioxetane based novel chemiluminescence probes for research and diagnostic applications. This work was recently published in ACS central science and received much attention and follow up comments.These probes offer unique advantages as they can work as single agents (without the need for enhancers), they have a higher efficiency and sensitivity over currently existing probes, they are especially designed to work under physiological conditions and can be used ex-vivo and in-vivo.Dr. Urs Spitz, President of Biosynth declared: We develop reporter molecules for bioanalytical and diagnostics producers across the globe. As soon as I read Dorons publication I realized how huge the inventions potential really is - it will dramatically improve the handling and speed of bio tests.Biosynth will receive a license to manufacture the probes and sell them to customers who develop and sell kits. The series of invented probes have multiple commercial applications, targeting a potential multibillion dollar market. Ramot has filed the series of probes under the trademark name AquaSpark."We are confident that Biosynth is the right partner with the most professional tools to rapidly bring this technology to the market. We intend to work with Biosynth to generate many agreements with multiple players in the various life science sectors in order to make AquaSpark the acknowledged standard Dioxetane-based novel probe for research and diagnostic applications, said Dr. Adi Elkeles, VP BD Life Sciences, Ramot.Prof. Shabat summarized: We are extremely encouraged by the speed at which our initial communication and cooperation has developed and I look forward to expanding our collaboration with additional extensions of the current technology which look very promising.About Tel Aviv UniversityTel Aviv University (TAU) - Israel's largest and most comprehensive institution of higher learning - is home to over 30,000 students studying in nine faculties and over 125 schools and departments across the spectrum of sciences, humanities and the arts.Situated in Israel's cultural, financial and technological capital, TAU shares Tel Aviv's unshakable spirit of openness and innovation  and boasts a campus life as dynamic and pluralistic as the metropolis itself. Tel Aviv the city and Tel Aviv the university are one and the same  a thriving Mediterranean center of diversity and discovery.Consistently ranked in the top 20 in the world in terms of scientific citations and among the top 100 universities internationally, Tel Aviv University is also Israel's first choice for students, and its graduates are the most sought after by Israeli companies.About Ramot at Tel Aviv UniversityRamot is the Business Engagement Center at Tel Aviv University, Israel's largest research and teaching university. Founded in 1956, Tel Aviv University is located in Israel's cultural, financial and industrial center. Rooted in both academic and corporate arenas, Ramot is uniquely positioned to cultivate the special relationships between these two compelling worlds, creating win-win connections that support fertile, ground breaking research while providing companies with discoveries that give them a crucial competitive edge. For more information, visitAbout BiosynthBiosynth is an accomplished player with a successful history in the field of biochemicals for the diagnostics, pharmaceutical and chemical industries as well as food and environmental analysis. Biosynth's own biology and chemistry labs constantly drive the further development of molecules for the sensitive detection of pathogens. In recent years Biosynth has successfully introduced innovative chromogenic, fluorogenic and luminescence-based systems into the field. The Swiss-based organization has branches in the USA, China and the EU as well as a worldwide distribution network that reaches the entire diagnostics industry. Biosynth, with its product offering of over 80000 substances is a competent partner for industrial as well as research customers.Mario Mehmelenews@biosynth.chBiosynth AGRietlistrasse 49422 Staad
Internet Startup company is creating a platform for finding or creating personalized tours.

Tio tour Guides

Ever tried to go on a tour with a guide or an operator and got rejected because Oops! you're overweight or too old or physically challenged - the list is endless, but you get the point, you were just not good enough for the tour or vice versa. Well good times are now ahead with news coming from an internet startup called Tio Tour Guides.Tio Tour Guides is creating a platform where users can fine tune their search for a tour to meet their personal private preferences and if they couldnt find one, they could just create it. And sooner or later after creating their own tour, others can search, find and join this tour group, which would now make this group very financially attractive for a professional tour guide or tour operator to pick up and operate.So lets say, you're a middle-aged mom, who is obese and asthmatic but really wanted to go on a "disco tour" of all the smoke free disco clubs in West Berlin, but you got turned down because of the reasons stated above.The coolest way to get your sweet revenge would be to create the same exact tour that you got turned down from right? now that's what I've been saying all along. To add to this, they have their own cryptocurrency called Tio (Tks) for which you can use to pay for services via direct or Escrow payment on their platform.So what that also means is you could offer to put down money in escrow first, go on the tour and then pay afterwards based onhow you feel about the tour, how awesome is that!Tio Tour Guides is set to launch the platform in november, so don't start packing your bags yet. Right now the company is in the middle of a huge marketing campaign to promote the platform and their initial coin offering (ICO) which is currently ongoing.Who says you can't eat your cake and have it! With Tio, you can.Tio Tour Guides is an internet start up on whose platform it's users can search for personalized tours or create one.220/37 Uthen 19 Nawam soi 24, Beung Kum, Bangkok,10240
Three Associates Promoted to Partner at Beach Cowdrey Jenkins

Darryl Hottinger, Mindee Stekkinger and David Loy promoted to partner

http://www.beachcowdrey.com

The preeminent law firm Beach Cowdrey Jenkins, LLP, has promoted three of its attorneys to the position of partner. Darryl Hottinger, Mindee Stekkinger and David Loy, who were each promoted from the position of associate, all practice in the firms Oxnard office.Darryl, Mindee and David are all excellent attorneys and litigators with proven records of success in the courtroom, Tom Beach, the firms senior partner, said. We are pleased to showcase their levels of expertise, leadership and integrity as they continue to provide the reliable, quality counsel our firm is known for.Darryl Hottinger received his Juris Doctor from the University of Arizona College of Law before beginning his legal career as an appellate attorney for the California Department of Justice. He practiced civil litigation and appellate law at firms in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara before joining Beach Cowdrey Jenkins, where he heads the firms law and motion department, handling critical motions, writs, and appeals. Hottinger has argued and won dozens of cases at the trial and appellate court levels.Mindee Stekkinger participated in the launch of USA Today in major markets across the country before attending Pepperdine University School of Law, from which she received her law degree. Her practice areas have focused on personal injury, construction defect, real estate, general civil litigation and insurance policy enforcement. Her practice at Beach Cowdrey Jenkins involves the defense of health care and human service providers, including physicians, hospitals, public health agencies, drug treatment centers, and family service agencies, against claims of personal injury, sexual abuse, elder and dependent adult abuse, wrongful death, and negligence.David Loys work at Beach Cowdrey Jenkins primarily involves areas of personal injury, elder and dependent adult abuse, sexual abuse, and administrative appeals, with a particular focus in litigating wrongful death and catastrophic injury cases. He has been involved in numerous lawsuits involving multi-million-dollar demands, and has a particular strength in, and understanding of, these high exposure cases. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of California at Santa Barbara, and Juris Doctor from California Western School of Law.Beach Cowdrey Jenkins, LLP is a full-service law firm focused on the defense of businesses, health care providers, long-term care providers, and human services providers in high-stakes civil litigation, writs and appeals, as well as administrative proceedings in state and federal courts. The firm specializes in representing skilled nursing facilities, assisted living/residential care facilities, home health agencies, hospice providers, substance abuse rehabilitation facilities, physicians and hospitals facing lawsuits involving claims of elder/dependent adult abuse and neglect, medical malpractice, professional negligence, and wrongful death. The firm also boasts a strong general litigation practice group which defends businesses throughout California in a wide variety of litigation matters, including personal injury, wrongful termination, discrimination, and wage and hour lawsuits and class actions.The firm has two offices from which it provides legal services to the medical/healthcare industry throughout California. Beach Cowdrey Jenkins, LLPs Southern California office located at 500 E. Esplanade Dr., Suite 1400, Oxnard. It serves Northern California from its Sacramento office located at 2150 River Plaza Dr. #330, Sacramento.The firm has earned a peer review rating of AV Preeminent, a significant rating accomplishment that is a testament to the fact that peers have ranked the firm at the highest level of professional excellence. For more information about the firm, visit500 E. Esplanade Dr., Suite 1400, OxnardContact: Tamiann Cook805-388-3100Tamiann@beachcowdrey.com
Spinal Muscular Atrophy Therapeutics Exhibit Promising Pipeline with approximately 15+ drug candidates

www.psmarketresearch.com/market-analysis/spinal-muscular-atrophy-therapeutics-pipeline-analysis

www.psmarketresearch.com/market-analysis/spinal-muscular-atrophy-therapeutics-pipeline-analysis/report-sample

https://www.psmarketresearch.com

The study analyzed that the therapeutics pipeline comprises approximately 16 drug candidates in different stages of development. Spinal muscular atrophy is defined as the inherited genetic disease that is characterized by a failure of nerve cells called motor neurons. Motor neurons are responsible to accept the nerve impulses transmitted from the brain to the spinal cord and transmit the impulses to the muscle with the help of peripheral nerves. The loss of motor neurons leads to muscle weakness in muscles that are closest to the trunk of the body such as back, hips and shoulders.Browse Report Description at:Imago Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is using nucleic acid therapeutics technology platform for the treatment of spinal muscular atrophy. Nucleic acid therapeutics technology includes large and innovative class of drugs that can modulate the function of target ribonucleic acid, or RNA, to ultimately affect the production of disease-associated proteins. Nucleic acid therapeutics comprise of complex mixtures of various chemical entities known as stereoisomers. Some stereoisomers in these mixtures have therapeutic effects, while others are less beneficial or contribute to undesirable side effects. Uncontrolled stereoisomer drug mixtures can lead to suboptimal efficacy and increased risk and safety concerns.Explore Report Sample at:Some of the other key players developing drugs for the treatment of spinal muscular atrophy include Cytokinetics, Inc., F. Hoffman La-Roche Ltd, WAVE Life Sciences Ltd. and others.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:KundanManager  Client Partner347, 5th Ave. #1402New York City, NY - 10016Toll-Free: +1-888-778-7886 (USA/Canada)Email: enquiry@psmarketresearch.comWeb:
Need a Head Start? See how successful and influential millenials have gained theirs.

I am excited to share with you the launch of our new show called Head Start, where Shivad Singh interviews the most successful and inspiring young people in the world. This is done with the aim to inspire and fuel you to take action on your dreams!People interviewed include Forbes 30 under 30 members, Time's Most Influential teens, successful young entrepreneurs, scientists, inventors, programmers, game developers, a Masterchef Junior Winner, a NY Times Bestselling author and many more successful millennials!This show isnt just aimed to inspire us, after all, we have enough of those morning quotes from our newsfeed. Its aimed to get us moving. Shivads vision is to share their journey; see how they come up with ideas; how they started; how they overcome fear and failure; what they have learnt from their mistakes; what are the tips and tricks that made them a success at such a young age, and what they have done differently to take the road less travelled.Welcome to the Head Start Show where Shivad Singh Interviews the most successful and inspiring young people in the world. This is done with the aim to inspire and fuel you to take action on your dreams!People interviewed include Forbes 30 under 30 members, Time's Most Influential teens, successful young entrepreneurs, scientists, inventors, programmers, game developers, a Masterchef Junior Winner, a NY Times Bestselling author and so many more youngsters!Head Start1 Old Stanhope Road, Claremont, Cape Town, South Africa+27 71 684 3252Irakli: PR and Marketing
Buy Back Pros LLC Introduces Easy Way To Cash In On Unwanted Electronics The site gives consumers a chance to sell their electronics online and risk-free, reports www.buybackpros.com.

www.buybackpros.com

www.buybackpros.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE(Saint Louis, MO)Buy Back Pros LLC announced the introduction of an easy way for consumers and business owners to cash in on their unwanted electronics. The company is giving anyone and everyone a chance to sell their electronic devices to their team online and risk free. Those who wish to use the service can sell their devices in any condition using Buy Back Pros easy three step process.In this day and age where new electronics are launched every day, almost every consumer and business owner has unwanted devices laying around that they no longer use because they have upgraded their model or found something they like better. The good news is that they no longer have to let these devices sit around collecting dust. Instead, were making it as easy as possible for them to recoup some of their investment by selling them to us. Our smartphone buyback process is designed to be simple, speedy, and painless, allowing consumers to get paid fast in exchange for their unwanted electronics, said Sam Herwitz of Buy Back Pros LLC.All that consumers and business owners need to do to begin the buy-back process is visit the Buy Back Pros website, search for their device, and then get a 30-day guaranteed offer. After securing an offer, they can simply print and attach a free prepaid shipping label the company instantly prepares for them and send the packaged device in the mail. Once Buy Back Pros receives the device and it passes their inspection, they will send payment to the seller within 2 business days. They offer numerous payment options including checks, overnight checks, PayPal, Square Cash, Venmo, and wire transfers as well as a bulk buyback program for business owners with lots of devices to sell.Herwitz went on to say, If I were looking for a way to Sell my broken iPhone, I would definitely make use of this service. Buy Back Pros makes it so that our sellers never have to worry about taking pictures, managing listings, or communicating with multiple buyers. Our process is quick and reliable, which means that they can get rid of their unwanted devices and have cash in hand faster than they ever thought possible.About Buy Back Pros LLC:Buy Back Pros LLC is an e-commerce company specializing in buying and selling pre-owned consumer goods. Their team pays cash for cell phones, computers, laptops, smartphones, tablets, and other electronic devices. Next, they inspect, evaluate, certify, and sell them to consumers. Buy Back Pros is simple, effective, green, and available to everyone who has electronics they would like to part with.Media Contact:Sam HerwitzSaint Louis, MO 63141Telephone: (314) 675-0289Email: support@buybackpros.comWebsite:Buy Back Pros LLCSam HerwitzPO Box 411602Saint Louis, MO 63141Telephone: (314) 675-0289Email: support@buybackpros.comWebsite:
SPRINGFIELD - With waiting lists for public school-affiliated charter schools and a Democrat majority in the state legislature that refuses to open the way for K-12 students to be allowed choice in education, Illinois parents continue to clamor for something better for their kids.

After all, they are allowed school choice before starting kindergarten and after graduating from high school. Why not the other 13 years?

The answer is that powerful teacher unions in Illinois just can't allow taxpayer-funded per student allowances to be used for competing with non-public schools. Why, if they allowed choice, the state could be facing the same challenges the Florida government school system is enduring: a mass exit to non-public alternatives.
Deep Brain Stimulator Market Intelligence with Competitive Landscape

http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-1338

http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-1338

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Deep Brain Stimulation (DMS) is a neosurgical procedure which helps to treat a variety of disabling neurological symptoms. It involves the implantation of a battery-operated medical device called neurostimulator which sends electrical signals to specific parts of brain that control movement and affective disorders like pain, mood, weight and awakening. This procedure also helps in treating essential tremor, a common neurological movement disorder. DMS system consists of three components: a thin, insulated wire, called a lead or electrode that is placed into the brain, the neurostimulator which puts out the electric current and is generally placed under the skin near the collarbone and another thin, insulated wire, called an extension which connects the lead to the neurostimulator. The neurostimulator device is also referred to as brain pacemaker. FDA approved DMS as a treatment for essential tremor in 1997, for Parkinsons disease in 2002. Before this procedure, a neurosurgeon uses either MRI or CT scanning to detect the exact target area within the brain where the electric signals will generate the Parkinsons disease symptoms.Deep Brain Stimulator Market: Drivers and RestraintsIncreasing incidence of Parkinsons disease is the main driving force for the fast growth of deep brain stimulation device market. Deep brain stimulation does not involve destruction of any part of the brain and thus, has fewer complications than thalamotomy and pallidotomy.Moreover this electrical injection is adjustable and can be changed as the persons disease change or his or her response to medication change. No further surgery is needed to make the adjustments. All these has led to the growth of deep brain stimulation device market. However, with any surgical procedure there involves risk. The implantation of any foreign object in the body leads to increased risk of infection. If the battery fails then the device would stop working properly (the battery normally lasts 3 to 5 years).DMS placement may even lead to allergic reaction to the DMS parts. These may obstruct the deep brain stimulation device market to grow.Request For Report Sample@Deep Brain Stimulator Market: SegmentationDeep Brain Stimulator Marketis segmented based on product type, application, end user and geography.Based on product type, deep brain stimulatormarket is segmented into the following:Single Channel Deep Brain StimulatorDual Channel Deep Brain StimulatorBased on application, deep brain stimulatormarket is segmented into the following:Parkinsons diseaseEssential TremorChronic PainDystoniaTourette syndromeBased on end user, deep brain stimulatormarket is segmented into the following:HospitalsAmbulatory Surgical centersNeurological clinicsDeep Brain Stimulator Market: OverviewGlobally deep brain stimulation devices market are the main causes of mortality. Parkinsons disease is the most common neurological movement disorder after Alzheimers. Deep brain stimulation devices market is expected to grow at a healthy rate during the forecasted period 2013-2019. Rise in the number of neurological movement diseases like Parkinsons disease, essential tremor, Alzheimers disease has led to the huge growth of deep brain stimulation devices market. Parkinsons disease includes symptoms like tremors, stiffness, rigidity and walking problems.Deep Brain Stimulator Market: Region-wise OutlookRegion wise, the global deep brain stimulator marketis classified into regions namely, North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific, Japan, Middle East and Africa. North America region has a sizeable market share in the global deep brain stimulation market. Countries like US, Canada, Europe, Germany, UK, France and Spain has led North American and European market of deep brain stimulation device to grow at a faster rate. Increasing awareness regarding the application of deep brain stimulation device contributes its larger share in this region. However, emerging economies like India and China with their growing disposable income and advanced technological awareness enabling them to enter into this market and contribute towards its growth.Visit For TOC@Deep Brain Stimulator Market: Key PlayersKey players pertaining to Deep Brain Stimulator market includes Medtronic Inc., St. Jude Medical, Boston scientific. These companies hold huge amount of share in global deep brain stimulation devices market. Functional Neuromodulation, a startup backed by Medtronic and the National Institutes of Health, will advance its deep brain stimulation implant into a Phase III trial to treat Alzheimers disease patients. St. Jude Medical has received a CE mark for its latest neuromodulation technology-the Infinity Deep Brain Stimulation System to treat movement disorders. Key players across all locations use deep brain stimulation device market to treat Parkinsons disease, essential tremor thus, leading to the growth of this particular market.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Wireless Power Transmission Market Research Study for Forecast Period (2014 - 2020)

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Wireless power transmission (WPT) or wireless power transfer refers to the transfer of energy or power from one place to another without being connecting through wires. In this, electromagnetic energy is transferred from power sources to electric loads.Wired transmission is the most commonmode of transmitting electrical energy. Its main drawback, the loss of energy during transmission, drives the demand for wireless power transmission. Being fast and consistent, WPT can be used both for short and long range transmissions. A major advantage of WPT is low maintenance cost. However, there is a high initial cost i.e. capital cost involved in implementing the WPT. Another disadvantage is interference of microwaves with current communication systems. WPT is generally used for transfer of energy to remote areas. Major application of WPT is in consumer electronics goods such aslaptops, tablets and smartphones. The largest application of WPT is in solar-power satellites. WPT is also used in fuel-free aircrafts, fuel-free electric automobiles, robots and fuel-free rockets.Request For Report Sample@Globally, WPT technology is being accepted positively, outdated wired power transmission tools are being replaced with the latest technology. Countries likethe U.S.are investing high on the adoption of WPT technology, to take full advantage of their power system networks and reduce the installation cost of overhead cables. This technology is still in its initial stage, which providesa huge opportunity for new entrants to enter this market,conditional to their acceptance of the high capital cost. The main drivers for the market area huge demand by the battery functioned devices globally and decrease in high tension on Head Cables.Market is expected to show a double digit growth rate in coming five years (2015-2020). The growth is majorly driven by need of technological advancement and new wireless power transmission applications such as solar-power satellites.Market segmentation for WPT is basedon application, technology,transmission types, transmission range andgeography. The application segment includes consumer electronics, healthcare, automotive and defence. Consumer electronics are further sub-divided into mobile phones, tablets, laptops and wearable electronics. Technological segmentation includes near-field or non-radioactive techniques and far-field or radioactive techniques.On the basis of transmission types, the market is segmented into devices with and without battery. The market is also segmented on the basis of transmission range which include short, medium and long ranges. The regional or geographical segmentation includes regions such as North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific, Japan, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and Middle East & Africa.Majorplayersinvolved in the wireless power transmission market are Qualcomm, Leggett & Platt, ConvenientPower HK, Energizer Holdings, Inc. and Integrated Device Technology, Inc. Other important companies are Powermat Technologies Ltd., Plugless Power, Texas Instruments, Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd. and WiTricity. The common strategy adopted by players are product development and a focus on research & development activities.Visit For TOC@WPT technology helps make life easy and comfortable. WPT is much better than thetraditional form of power transmission. Its an efficient technology which helpsin decreasingenergy crises and energy loss. In the near future,the world will completely shift towards wireless technologyand use of wireless devices, as well as wireless power transmission, will be evermore, creatinga good opportunity for players in this market.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Gas Leak Detectors Market Projected to Grow at Steady Rate through (2020)

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A gas leak detector is a piece of equipment or a device that senses and detects the existence of gases in a particular area. These devices are used as a part of safety systems installed in factories, homes and commercial complexes. A gas leak detector system detects the gas leaked and generates a signal to take proper action. Industrially, gas detector systems are fitted with a sound alarm to evacuate the area in case of toxic gas leakage. The popularity of such devices is growing due to the influx of new chemical facilities across the world. Further, the growing gas storage facility network across the globe has deployed a significant number of gas leak detectors for safety systems.Due to their design modifications, gas detectors are broadly categorised on the basis of technology as electrochemical, infrared imaging, infrared point, ultrasonic, semiconductor and holographic. On the basis of product type, the global gas detectors market is bifurcated into portable gas detectors and fixed gas detectors.Request For Report Sample@Portable gas detectors are widely used in lab application whereas fixed detectors find their maximum application in gas extraction and processing fields. Fixed gas detectors can also be used for residential applications such as using itin a bedroom. Further, industrial fixed type gas detector application includes SCADA monitoring.Gas detectors are used in applications such as gas turbines, building and construction, health care, food and beverages, water treatment, oil and gas refineries, chemical plants, underground gas storage facilities, and others. The segments for refineries and chemical plants applications dominate the global market at present. Nevertheless, gas detectors are widely used in underground gas storage. The growing gas supply network is spurring the demand in this segment.One of the major driving factors for gas leak detectors market is the ever growing oil & gas industry. The increasing number of gas field explorations and widening gas supply network has been fuelling the demand for gas leak detectors. In addition, active government organizations have been imposing safety regulations on the industries. This, in turn, has propelled the demand for gas leak detectors. Further, Asia Pacific is likely to lead the league in terms of growth of the industrial sector, mining sector, medicine and healthcare sector, and construction sector. This is likely to create opportunities for the growth of theglobal gas leak detectors market. However, the market is facing strong competition due to the influx of new players in the market and frequent product launches.Multi-gas detector coupled with an analyzer system is one of the emerging trends in the global leaked gas detector market. This kind of detector is gaining popularity due to its compact designs and better features as compared to conventional gas leak detectors. It is expected that the after sales market is likely to develop further in future and a number of market participants will enter this segment. It is also expected that the gas leak detector manufacturers will expand their business to aftermarket sales through forward integration and strategic alliances.A number of product launches can be seen in the global gas leak detectors market. For instance, market participants such as Scott Safety, GE and RAE Systems recently launched a few new gas leak detectors. The global gas leak detectors market has also been witnessing strategic alliances such as that between Cbiss and Old Man Partner. To expand the business globally, a number of gas leaked detectors manufacturers have acquired other companies such as the acquisition of Edinburgh Instruments Ltd by Techcomp Group Ltd., the acquisition of RAE Systems by Honeywell International Inc. and the acquisition ofGroveley Detection Ltd by Emerson.Visit For TOC@Some of the prominent players in global gas leak detectors market are City Technology Ltd., Honeywell International Inc., Mine Safety Appliances Co., Dragerwerk AG & Co., KGAA, Testo AG, ABB Ltd, Industrial Scientific Corporation, California Analytical Instruments Inc., Figaro Engineering Inc., Yokogawa Electric Corporation, Hitech Instruments Ltd, Ametek Inc., Emerson Electric Co.,Halma Plc, Trolex Ltd,GE Measurement & Control, Gasmet Technologies OY, Enerac Inc., Xtralis Pty. Ltd, Horiba Ltd and others.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Logistics Outsourcing Market Forecast and Analysis by Future Market Insights

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Logistics outsourcing, most commonly known as third-party logistics is a process or operation of sub-contracting industrial functions like cross-docking, inventory keeping, warehousing and transportation to a third party or supply chain management provider. Third party logistics providers include raw material suppliers, distributors and other value-added service providers. These services are generally integrated and used together to provide end-user convenience. The decision for outsourcing logistics by a parent company is generally dependent on company size, complication of logistics and relative economic benefits of outsourcing.Logistics outsourcing includes contracting of material management, supply chain management, distribution management, shipment packaging and channel management. E-business web portals and stores are in extensive need of on-clock dispatch and delivery services offered by outsourced logistics providers. The advantages associated with the logistics outsourcing market are  improvement of suppliers capability due to the use of information technology, specialization of operation, focus on core competencies and uniform growth. However, lack of monitoring control over logistics and risks associated with vendor reliability are some of the drawbacks of this market.Request For Report Sample@Regions across the globe with an attractive logistics outsourcing market, in terms of contract logistics, include North America and Southeast Asia. RoW (Rest of the World) is showing growth in inter-regional logistics. Major factors driving the development of logistics outsourcing market are globalization, time-proportional economy, presence of virtual organizations, improved customer awareness, strategic concerns to achieve more flexibility and better IT infrastructural support. On the other hand, loss of logistics, poor transportation, local protection regulations and lack of post-outsourcing measurements are some of the factors hampering growth of this market.The global logistics outsourcing market is segmented on the basis of service type, transport media used and geography. The market can vary in service type as simple service, combined service, consulting service and value-added service. On the basis of transport media used to handle logistics, it can be classified into air freight, ocean carriers, railways and trucking. The market can be categorised on the basis of geography into North America, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, Japan, Western Europe, Eastern Europe and Middle East & Africa.Globalized product availability, demand for product individualization in terms of logistics, on-time delivery, just-in-time inventory, agility in time response transport, big data analytics and atomization of shipment are some of the global market trends guided by technological innovations like remote tracking and monitoring using RFID tags and EDI-based location of the shipment. Analytics based on big data is providing better accuracy of frequency of tasks and decision-making capabilities. There is a continuous insourcing trend by online retailers (like Amazon.com) for inventory so as to be more cost-effective and unified in terms of operations, and to emphasize on outsourcing for end-product transportation services only. These technological up gradations continuously enhance services provided by outsourced logistics providers.Exel Logistics (U.K.), Menlo Worldwide Logistics (U.S.), FedEx (U.S.), Ryder Logistics (U.S.) and Tibbett and Britten (U.K.) are some of the key outsourced logistics providers. These companies have a wide global presence and provide multi-sector services. They are continuously trying to reach influential market and customers by means of removing bottlenecks related to international shipments and reducing cost through geographical spread of inventory. The market in Asia-Pacific region shows a steady and consistent growth through service innovations by companies, so as to attract economic customers. The companies need to shift their focus from integrated services to offering broad range of products & services portfolio. With more focus on growing B2C sector, the scope for logistics outsourcing will extend towards value-added and specialized services.Visit For TOC@The research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the logistics outsourcing market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry-validated market data and projections with a suitable set of assumptions and methodology. It provides analysis and information by categories such as service type, transport media used and geography.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Coal Bed Methane Market Analysis and Forecast Study for (2014 - 2020)

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Under the purview of energy, coal bed methane primarily refers to the natural gas or methane recovery from un-mined coal seams and adjacent sandstones. Such methane recovery usually occurs prior to mining, whereas in some cases, coal seams remain un-mined and methane recovery from such sites is known as virgin coal bed methane. Coal bed methane recovery from un-mined coal mines is of strategic importance as absolute or maximum drainage of the methane seam is necessary to avoid the risk of explosion as well as mitigate the emission of methane in the atmosphere from coal mining operations. From the estimated global coal bed methane reserve of about 4,000 Tcf to 5,000 Tcf, about 20% to 25% is recoverable.The fact that the coal in some sites is at a greater depth, makes it not feasible to extract it on account of the associated safety. This and other environmental and economic considerations serve as the drivers for the global coal bed methane market. Further, the shifting focus towards the use of unconventional energy sources serves as another factor for the growth of global coal bed methane market. The constraints of the coal bed methane are dependent on the accessibility of coal seams. Major constraints of the global coal bed methane market include environmental, regulatory, technical and economic challenges. Among these, environmental constraints include risk associated with greenhouse gas emission.Request For Report Sample@The economical challenges associated with the global coal bed methane market are more prevalent in the early stages of the recovery, when large quantities of water are pumped in with minimal recovery of revenue producing gas. This dewatering and produced water disposal cost is of significant importance for any carbon bed methane project. Although the development cost for the coal bed methane project is relatively lower, it is always a challenge to keep it within minimal range to achieve profitability. The technical constraints of the coal bed methane market depend on the well completion and optimization design to achieve maximum production with optimum number, spacing and location of wells. Also, handling and disposal of water at a minimal cost alongwith the efficient reservoir characterisation are other key technical restraints for global coal bed methane market. Also, coal bed methane requires a low pressure pipeline system which acts as an economical constraint. However, the potential of carbon bed methane to serve as a supplement for conventional natural gas supply and its contribution towards the global energy mix will act as an opportunity for global coal bed methane market. However, the market expansion of the global coal bed methane will be dependent upon the growth of newer technology and development.Market segmentation of global coal bed methane can be done on the basis of application, technology and geography. On the basis of application, the global carbon methane market includes commercial application, industrial application, power generation, residential application, and transportation. On the basis of technology, the global carbon bed methane market includes fracturing techniques including hydro-fracturing, proppant-based fracturing and chemical additive based fracturing, exploration, and drilling. Among these, fracturing techniques have been utilised most frequently for coal bed methane recovery. On the basis of geography, the global coal bed methane market includes North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific, Japan, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and Middle East & Africa. Among these, the largest carbon bed methane resource bases are found in Canada, China, US, Soviet Union and Australia, with Canada accounting for the maximum share followed by the Soviet Union, China, Australia and US. On a broader level, any country with abundant coal reserves and population, and high energy demand will serve as a potential market for carbon bed methane development at a global level. The demand for coal bed methane gas is evident alongwith the demand for natural gas in China and other Asian countries. Associated exploration in the US has been active in the past few years whereas Canada witnessed lower exploration and the development offewer extraction technologies pertaining to global coal bed methane market.Visit For TOC@Some of the prominent players of the global coal bed methane market include Santos, Quick Silver Resources Inc, Baker Hughes Incorporated, BG Group, Arrow Energy, Blue Energy Limited, Halliburton, Dart Energy Ltd., Fortune Oil PLC, ConocoPhillips and Metgasco Limited.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Asia-Pacific Underground Coal Gasification Market Intelligence Study for Comprehensive Insights

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Global energy demand had seen an exponential growth over the decade due to changing lifestyle. At the time when natural gas prices witnessing fluctuation and coal resources are depleting, the world is witnessing a significant gap between demand and supply of energy. Though as per World Coal Association, global coal reserves are estimated to be 861 tonne and accounts to 42% of total world electricity production; the year on year growth for coal consumption was highest in FY 2013, making it the highest since 1970. The demand for coal consumption is increasing every year thereby leading to depletion of coal reserves at an alarming rate. Moreover, most regions are economically unviable to extract coal from its bed. It is due to this reason that companies are looking for alternative solution that can lead to harnessing the total potential of coal, without disturbing the ecological balance.Underground coal gasification (UCG) is an industrial process by which coal is gasified under intense heat and atmospheric pressure. This enables the production of synthetic gas, constituents of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, which are extracted through a well and utilized in various sectors, ranging from power generation to biodiesel and fertilizer production. Though this concept is not new to the market, little progress has been achieved in this sector, primarily due to low R&D. However, with growing energy consumption and fluctuating oil prices, industries are focusing on UCG to offer clean, efficient and cost-effective energy to various industries.Asia-Pacific is projected as the largest market for underground coal gasification over the next 5 years due to impressive growth in end-use industries ranging from power to chemicals. China along with India, and Australia are key markets for underground coal gasification projects. China is the largest producer as well as the largest consumer of coal based energy. It consumes almost half of the total coal production to meet its energy demand. China has conducted 17 UCG trials since 1991 to check the economic viability of UCG. Major power generating enterprise SinoCoking Coal is planning to harness coal reserves in Henan Province which was abruptly shut down because of strict environmental compliance set up by Chinese government. UCG is an environmental friendly approach that empRequest For Report Sample@owers companies to scale high power generation. With worlds most populated country, China offers a vibrant platform for energy sector companies to set up their base in China and thereby meet the growing demand of energy in China. Recently, China signed a whooping US $ 1.5 billion major pact with UK for commercial development of UCG in interiors of Mongolia.Request For Report Sample@Next prominent market is India. In India, mining contributes 10% of Indias GDP. With vast coal reserves, India is looking towards harnessing coal without disturbing ecological balance. There are also some sites which are economically nonviable to mine. Though Indias untapped 88.6 billion tonnes of non-metallurgical coal is found at a depth of 300 to 1200 metre is economically nonviable; UCG makes it economically sound option. Coal India Limited is trying to push the UCG technology to harness the coal in Kaitha (Jharkhand) and Thesgora (Madhya Pradesh) area. These two promising region is expected to generate high return on investment (ROI) by FY 2025.Next prominent destination is Australia. In Australia, most companies are undertaking R&D to fully harness the concept of UCG. At present, three major UCG trials is being conducted by Linc Energy, Cougar Energy, and Carbon Energy at Queensland. Australian government is paying a vigil eye on these projects until the technology is commercially proven.Visit For TOC@SinoCoking Coal, Cougar Energy, Carbon Energy, Linc Energy, and ONGC are key market players that have conducted pilot projects on UCG technology.Future is optimistic for underground coal gasification. With major innovations going around globally, it is expected to meet the needs of people in oil shortage region. Regions including APAC, and Africa will be a future market for underground coal gasification segments.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
North America and Europe Retail Automation Market Projected to Grow Steadily During (2014 - 2020)

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OverviewAutomation is the latest advancement set to revolutionise the global retail market. The retail automation market is expected to witness steady growth, owing to such avant-garde collaboration between global retail and consumer goods sector, and the global electronics and IT industry. Considering the fact that retail industry drives the growth of several business and trade ventures around the world, the influence of automation will bring more efficiency to billions of retail transactions.Visual merchandising, planogram, and big data in retail are the key trends fuelling the demand of automated services in retail markets. Effective automated products and programs that speed up the sales mechanism, create efficiency in product supplies, and develop easily-accessible business platforms that can produce a lucrative environment for the growth of the retail automation market globally.The global market for retail automation is gaining traction in Asia Pacific, Western Europe, and Middle East & Africa (MEA). The two most lucrative regions for the growth of the global retail automation market are North America and Europe.Retail Automation in North AmericaOf these two regions, North America is the current market leader, holding the greater pie of retail automation market share. The North American retail automation market is likely to register high growth rate during 2014-2020 period.North America remains a lucrative market for retail automation globally, with the US and Canada witnessing steady demand. North American consumers have adopted the prominent trend of relying on retail automated products and services for business transactions, which has made an affirming impetus on the retail automation market. Economic progress and rising purchasing power of consumers are some of the trends, specific to North America, that make the outlook of retail automation market considerably positive.Request For Report Sample@The European Retail Automation MarketEurope, on the other hand, is closing in on North America in order to become the leading key region in the global retail automation market. Several retail chains and multiple product lines established in Europe are helping the setting up of retail automation in European nations. The European regional market is primarily segmented into UK, Germany, Spain, France and others. Britains exodus from EU is likely to impact the implementation of automation in UKs retail market. But, the economic stability in other European countries is expected to create a supportive dais for building up the retail automation market.Factors Benefiting the Growth of Retail Automation MarketNorth America and Europe, collectively, will continue their prominence in the global market, with respect to the market size, revenue share, and overall demand. The factors that will incite this growth are,Growth of Local Retail & Customer ReceptionLocal retail markets are growing in several parts of North America & Europe. Combined with a positive consumer response, automated retail will continue flourishing in niche retail markets.Overflowing Investments on Automation Products & ServicesRetail giants dominating the existing retail market are investing in automated programs and devices for creating efficient output. The cost advantage is increasing the demand for automated retail services.Proliferation of Shopping Centres and SupermarketsConsumers in the US and European countries prefer buying from hypermarket and malls, which is great platform for automated retail kiosks.Challenges in the Global Retail Automation MarketThe retail automation market in North America and Europe is growing steadily, but there are a handful of factors that may restrain or slow down its growth. In the US and Canada, a key challenge for retail automation is its greatest disadvantage -- the loss of job. Labours and working professionals at retail outlets are a major contributor of the regions economy. Rising unemployment levels could plunge the local economy, having a rippling effect on the national economies of North America.In Europe, the instability of economies across its constituent nations is restraining the growth of its retail automation market. Improving financial conditions in Turkey, Russia and Poland could influence the expansion of automated retail products; however, theundulating economies of Spain, Italy as well as Britain, can impede the adoption of automation in European retail sector.Besides, maintaining the continuous supervision of retail kiosks, high dependency on electricity and the implications arriving from variable internet regulations are some other restraints recoiling the progress of retail automation in Europe and North America.Visit For TOC@SegmentationThe segmentation of the retail automation market is done on the basis of geography, the operator type and the product type.Geographic SegmentationNorth America (sub-segmented into United States, Canada & others)Europe (sub-segmented into Spain, France, UK & others)Operator Type SegmentationUnattended TerminalsHuman-Operated TerminalsProduct SegmentationCurrency CounterBarcode ReaderBill PrinterCash CounterCash RegisterCard ReaderSelf-Checkout SystemWeight ScaleKiosks/Vending MachineOthersKey CompetitorsElectronic companies such as Seiko Epson, Fujitsu, First Data Corp., Siemens, Toshiba and Wincor Nixdorf are some of the top players in the global retail automation market. Most of these ICT companies are headquartered in Europe, making the region a credible platform for new manufacturers and startups in retail automation. Meanwhile, North American retail giants such as Walmart and Kroger are developing their own devices and services to reap benefits from the amalgamation of retail and automation.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Carrier Infrastructure in Telecom Applications Market Research Study for the Period (2014 - 2020)

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The telecommunications infrastructure consists of various companies that provide content, database, transmission, switching, applications, signaling OSS/BSS systems, required software and others services. In recent years telecom market is being affected by tightening carrier budgets, business model evolution by various companies and technology evolution. The telecom industry infrastructure consists of many active and passive components such as some active components are spectrum, base station, Radio Network Controller (RNC), MSC and routers among others. And some passive components in the telecom carriers infrastructure are Site, Base transceiver station (BTS), power source, cables and antenna systems.The carrier infrastructure market is undergoing continuous transformation as various emerging trends are transforming the market such as cloud based services, network virtualization and integration of existing networks often termed as heterogeneous networks. The spending on services such as 2G and 3G is expected to reduce and the spending on the LTE will gradually account maximum market share in the carrier infrastructure.Request For Report Sample@The demand for mobile broadband and its availability is increasing day by day; this is increasingly driving the adoption of carrier infrastructure in telecom applications market. As the telecom carriers are achieving economies of scale the total cost of operations and service provided is gradually coming down; this is turn is essentially increasing the number of subscriptions. The quality and efficiency of the services provided by the carriers across the world is improving slowly and resulting into the satisfaction of the subscriptions. With this the limited spectrum availability is one of the key challenges that telecom providers are facing . Device availability and voice delivery protocols for the new technology are not easily available, thus the adoption rate of the new technologies is reduced.Carrier Infrastructure in Telecom Applications Market is segmented on the basis of wireless technologies, wire line access, video technology, transport mechanism, control switches used, data type and geography. On the basis of wireless technology used by the carriers the carrier infrastructure in telecom applications market is segmented into WiMAX, cellular core and cellular RAN. On the basis of wire lien access provided the market is segmented into EAD, NB DLC, FTTx, CMTS and DSLAM. Further on the basis of video technology the Carrier infrastructure in telecom applications market is segmented into VOD server video and digital headend video.On the basis of transport mechanism used the carrier infrastructure in telecom applications market is segmented into LH DWDM, MSPP, packet optical, metro WDM, OCC and SDH SONET. Carrier infrastructure in telecom applications market is segmented on the basis of control mechanism into softswitch, media gateway and TDM-fixed circuit switch. On the basis of data this market can be segmented into router edge, router core, ATM switch and Ethernet switch. And on the basis of geography the carrier infrastructure in telecom applications market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and rest of the world (RoW).Visit For TOC@Some of the major carriers in telecom industry are AT&T Mobility, Reliance Communications, Softbank Japan, U.S Cellular, Verizon Wireless, Telefonica O2 UK, Optus Australia, SFR France, Korea Telecom, Zain Saudi Arabia, Vodafone, Sprint, SK Telecom, T-Mobile, Zain Bahrain and Eircom among others.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Managed Mobility Services Market:Forecast Report Offers Actionable Insights

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Managed services include all those in-house functionality that is transferred to the third-party service providers for better management. In today's fiercely competitive business environment, organisations want to ensure that their staff focuses on the core competencies of their business and non-core activities are handled by third-party service providers. Some of the common managed services include lifecycle management activities, IT resource activities, HR activities, etc.The global managed services market is forecasted to witness a healthy growth rate in the next five years as more organisations understand the importance and advantages of outsourcing their non-core operational activities.Managed Mobility Services Market Anticipated to Witness High Double-Digit CAGRThe global managed services market is segmented into managed data centre, managed security, managed infrastructure, managed communications, managed mobility, etc. All these segments of the global managed service market are anticipated to witness a healthy growth through 2020, with the managed mobility segment forecasted to witness a high double-digit CAGR.Request For Report Sample@Managed mobility services include the management of smartphones, tablets, and other mobility services required by businesses in carrying out their day-to-day operations. Over the years, smartphones have penetrated every walk of our life and businesses want to leverage on the enormous reach of the mobile phones.Organisations are using mobile devices to manage their work in an effective manner. Mobile devices are used extensively in the hotel and restaurant industry for allocating seats to patrons on a real-time basis. Moreover, mobile phones have become an important platform for advertising and marketing purposes, as they offer multiple channels through which a product or service can be promoted. These factors have forced businesses to look for credible mobility management service solutions and this is anticipated the boost the prospects of the global managed mobility services market.Low Adoption of Managed Mobility in Developing Economies Can Pose a Challenge to the Growth of the Global Managed Mobility Services MarketAlthough organisations in developed countries are pushing the demand for managed mobility services, it is forecasted that the low demand from organisations in developing nations can curtail the growth prospects of the global managed mobility services. Many organisations in developing economies are concerned about the rising operational costs and they do not want to increase it by outsourcing their mobility activities to third-party vendors. Moreover, businesses in developing economies tend to use free, open-source software for mobility management, as they do not have the budget to invest in premium software. These factors are forecasted to present a key challenge for the growth of the global managed mobility services market.The global managed mobility services market is segmented into:Managed smartphones and tabletsManaged mobile securityManaged mobile VASAmong these segments of the global managed mobility services market, the managed smartphones and tablets segment is forecasted to expand at a high CAGR through 2020. The increase in proliferation of smartphones and tablets in both developing and developed economies is projected to be the key reason for the growth of this segment. The growth will be particularly phenomenal in India and China, but the weak demand from other Asia Pacific nations can have an adverse impact on the growth of the global managed mobility services market.Visit For TOC@Global Managed Mobility Services Market: Key PlayersSome of the key players in the global managed mobility services market include Cisco, Alcatel-Lucent, Dell, AT&T, Ericsson, HP, and Microsoft.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
APAC Solar Micro Inverters Market Report Offers Intelligence and Forecast till (2014 - 2020)

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The first commercially successful micro inverter was launched by Enphase in 2008, which played a key role in popularising solar micro inverters globally. Currently, the global market comprises numerous domestic as well as international players supplying quality micro inverters.Modularity, safety, and maximum energy harvest will continue to drive the market at a considerable pace through 2020. Till recent years, the demand for micro inverters was highly restricted to North America. However, the market is gradually shifting toward commercial applications, and witnessing expansion in most of the developed as well as developing regions outside the U.S.Adoption of solar micro inverters has gained momentum in the recent past, resulting in a growing market in developing nations, including Asia Pacific. Improved device features and enhanced efficiency are currently pushing the market in APAC, which is projected to continue in the near future as well, creating a lucrative market for micro inverters on a global level.Request For Report Sample@APAC Solar Micro Inverters Market: Key DriversDeclining Prices to Push DemandThe market is currently growing at a considerable pace. Persistent advances in R&D of solar micro inverters and substantial reduction in costs of micro inverters are estimated to boost the market during the forecast period.Size and Modularity to Impact Maximum ApplicationsCompact size and high modularity of solar micro inverters make them ideal for residential applications. These two are the key drivers why micro inverters are currently gaining an impetus at a global level.Superiority over Conventional Inverters is a Key DriverSolar micro inverters are superior over conventional centralised or string inverters in various ways.Unlike string inverters, micro inverters are tolerant to shade and do not let the power generation performance of individual solar panels drop, even if the area surrounding them is shady. This character is identified as one of the key factors positively influencing the demand for micro inverters when it comes to their efficiency.Contrary to centralised inverters, solar micro inverters are compact in size and do not need separate air cooling, resulting in lesser heat loss. This is another factor fuelling the demand for micro inverters in the market.Moreover, a broken string or centralised inverter faces halted performance merely due to a defect in one panel, whereas a defective panel in a micro inverter does not degrade the performance of the entire system because the system architecture allows individual panel monitoring. The maximum power is generated through MPPT. This has been an important driver in popularising micro inverters over the years.Higher Costs Can Create ChallengesHowever, relatively higher initial costs associated with installation and replacement of micro inverts may continue to create a major roadblock for solar micro inverters from becoming a widely commonplace device across Asia Pacific. Furthermore, installation of micro inverters requires the installation of another extra monitoring device - a communication bus, in addition to the basic common monitoring system. This in turn adds up to the final costs.APAC Solar Micro Inverters Market SegmentationFMIs research offers a six-year forecast, segmenting the APAC market for solar micro inverters based on the type, consumer, and application.Based on the type, the market is segmented into standalone solar micro inverter market and grid tied solar micro inverter market. On the basis of consumers, the solar micro inverter market in Asia Pacific is segmented as urban and rural. The urban segment dominates the market owing to rising awareness about alternate energy usage and growing population density in urban areas.According to the application, the solar micro inverters market in APAC is segmented as residential and commercial. As micro inverters are economically lesser affordable compared to other traditional inverters, their residential applications find a lower market share in economically sensitive regions in Asia Pacific. However, the commercial solar micro inverter market application currently dominates the market.Market to Explore Untapped Growth Opportunities in APACAlthough the U.S. is a leading market for solar micro inverters, adoption of solar micro inverters is expected to gain traction in Asia Pacific, especially in India, Japan, and Australia. Soaring fuel prices, burgeoning demand for power supply, and favourable government policies are currently driving the market in APAC.Regional Analysis: APAC Solar Micro Inverters MarketIndia, owing to the availability of ample renewable energy sources, captures a prominent position in the APAC market for micro inverters. Growing awareness about benefits of micro inverters and widespread adoption of renewable energy sources for agriculture are expected to fuel the demand for solar micro inverters across India. The Union Budget of India for 2014-15 has clearly indicated emphasis on using solar for electricity generation. This is a key factor, anticipated to provide momentum to the market for micro inverters in and post-2016.Japan, despite representing a key residential market potential, has been facing limited micro inverter shipments. Stringent certification norms are anticipated to govern the Japanese market but domestic suppliers are expected to encounter growing opportunities.Australia is a relatively emerging market for photovoltaics, which makes it an unestablished market for string and centralised inverters. The Australian market, since the past few years, has been reflecting growing demand for micro inverters and FMIs research indicates string growth prospects for micro inverter suppliers. Recently, Enphase announced to commercially launch their AC battery first in Australia, later this year. ARENA Australia, through ample of renewable energy funds, will continue to provide an additional thrust to the market.In addition, there are other expanding market, including Malaysia, Indonesia, and Philippines. Malaysia hosts several off-grid projects, whereas Indonesia is up for a thousand islands project. Philippines is also continually initiating multiple rural electrification projects. Utility companies located in all the three countries are currently prioritising rural electrification.Visit For TOC@Key Players in APAC Solar Micro Inverters MarketKey participants in the Asia Pacific market for solar micro inverters, include Enphase Energy, Solar Bridge Technologies, SolarEdge, Green Ray Solar, and Enecsys.The research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the solar micro inverter market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry-validated market data. It also contains projections using a suitable set of assumptions and methodologies. The research report provides analysis and information according to categories such as market segments, geographies, types, technology and applications.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Hand Tools Market to Showcase a 3.9% CAGR Growth Through 2027

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Competitive advantage of adopting power tools has lowered the adoption of hand tools. Multiple industrial operations are being equipped with power tools to benefit from their cost-effectiveness, lesser labour-induced work and higher efficiency. Furthermore, advancements in existing power tools are swiftly outpacing the upgrades done on conventional hand tools. In the long run, there is a possibility that hand tools might lose their applicability to power tools. Future Market Insights projects that during the forecast period 2017-2027, the global market for hand tools will showcase a moderate growth, registering a CAGR of 3.9%.Future Market Insights recently published report, titled Hand Tools Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment, 2017-2027, estimates the global hand tools market to reach US$ 15.6 Bn value by end of 2017. In the ten-year forecast period, the global demand for hand tools is likely to witness a downtrend, bringing in just over US$ 22.3 Bn in revenues towards the end of 2027. Factors impacting the growth of global hand tools market are compiled in the report, which include:There has been a rise in the number of major manufacturing plants and industries in the world, wherein hand tools are widely used for maintenance purposesAutomotive repair & maintenance sector is presently a lucrative industrial vertical for application of hand toolsAlthough, the global demand for hand tools is predicted to decline due to rising prices of raw materials such as iron ore and aluminiumRequest For Report Sample@Increasing prevalence of DIY activities and rising employment opportunities for technical jobs are observed as key trends of the global hand tools market. The report further reveals that a majority of hand tools sold in the world will be used for industrial purposes. In 2017, industrial application of hand tools is expected to net global revenues worth over US$ 9.3 Bn. Key findings in the report also indicate that metal cutting tools will be observed as top-selling products, registering a steady revenue growth at 4.9% CAGR. Also, throughout the forecast period, over 40% of global hand tool sales will be accounted by retail distribution channels. Online distribution of hand tools is also expected to gain traction towards the latter half of forecast period.North America is estimated to remain as the most-lucrative region for growth of hand tools market. Consistently procuring one-third share on global revenues, North America will remain the dominant region in the global hand tools market through 2027. On the other hand, the hand tools market in Asia-Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) region will register fastest revenue growth, exhibiting 6% CAGR over the forecast period. Companies such as Channellock, Inc., Akar Tools, Ltd., Apex Tools Group, Wera Tools, Snap-On, Stanley Back Decker, Kennametal Inc., Klein Tools, and JK Files (India) Limited are profiled in the report as key manufacturers of hand tools in the world.Send an Enquiry @ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Poultry Feed Market Analysis and Forecast Study for (2015-2025)

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Poultry feed market is a part of vast animal feed market and makes an important part of it as poultry is invariably consumed in most parts of the world. The concept of animal feed has been there in the market for several years especially in the developed markets. However, with the advent of globalization and rise in the standard of living of consumers, companies are expanding in the emerging markets of the world with improved products and wide range of options for each animal group. Poultry meat is the highest among others such as pork, beef and fish meat. Therefore, vast opportunity lies in the poultry feed segment.Poultry Feed Market: Drivers & RestraintsRising per capita income and widespread poultry diseases are the major driving factors of the poultry feed market globally. In addition, growth of domestic and international quick service restaurants in developing countries and demand for quality meat products by consumers has significantly contributed to the rising demand of poultry feed those regions. In 2014, Asia Pacific was the largest market in terms of poultry feed demand and revenue and would continue to dominate the market for several factors. The market growth is attributed to the higher standard of living among consumers coupled with shift towards away-from-home-eating. Manufacturers are closely working with the factory farmers to direct them towards higher yield of poultry thereby increasing their return on investment (ROI). For instance, Cargill Inc. were engaged closely with Malaysia based TD Poultry to deliver best poultry solution. As a result, TD Poultry could achieve remarkable results in broilers with 1.63 feed conversion rates. Also, 2.35 kg body weight was achieved in 35 days, down from previous 40 days.Request Report Sample@Poultry Feed Market: SegmentationThe various type of poultry feed additives available in the market consists of antibiotics, vitamins, antioxidants, amino acids, feed enzymes and feed acidifiers. Feed acidifiers are the largest among all other poultry additive segment across the world. The regional segmentation includes North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and Middle East & Africa. Asia Pacific is the largest market followed by North America. On the basis of type, the poultry feed market can be segmented as broilers, layers, turkey and others. The consumption of meat varies from region to region, for instance, in North America, broilers is the most preferred meat category and antibiotics falls under the largest category under the feed additives segment.Poultry Feed Market: Market OverviewPoultry feed is required to increase the feed conversion ratio by improving gut micro flora thereby enhancing animals health. It also maintains animal health by preventing diseases among them. The manufacturers are concentrating more on the developing markets to tap the under penetrated feed market in countries such as Vietnam, India, Indonesia, South Africa, Lebanon and Turkey. These markets offer greater opportunities to increase revenue and sales with higher per capita expenditure on quality food. Moreover, it is a proven fact that with rise in per capita income, people tend to consume more meat and meat products. Therefore the poultry feed market is expected to grow at a healthy CAGR through the forecast period (2015-2020).Poultry Feed Market: Recent DevelopmentPlayers such as Novus International, Inc. and Kemin group continue to deliver new products for poultry farmers. In November 2012, Novus International, Inc. launched AVIMATRIX- a feed solution for optimized broiler performance by acting over gut environment through targeted and controlled release of compounds in the broilers gut. There is an increasing demand of solution oriented customized products from the poultry farmers in the emerging markets. In May 2013, a South African firm AgriProtein Technologies bagged the Innovation Prize for Africa (IPA) for developing a commercial method to develop animal feed through maggots.Visit For TOC@Poultry Feed Market: Key PlayersKey global players of the poultry feed market include Alltech Inc., ADM (Archer Daniels Midland Company), ABF Plc (Associated British Food), BASF (Badishce Anilin und Soda Fabrik), Charoen Popkhand Foods, Cargill Inc., Evonik Industries AG, CHR.Hansen Holdings A/S, Novus International Inc, Nutreco NV, Royal DSM N.V., DLG Group and InVivo NSA.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Toilet Care Market Is Expected To Generate Huge Profits Forecast to 2015 to 2021

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Toilet care products are used in cleaning of toilet in home, hotels and commercial buildings. Various toilet care products are toilet care powder, toilet care gel, toilet care freshener, toilet care liquid, toilet care bar, toilet care foam, toilet cleaning brush, toilet paper, toilet wipes, in-cistern devices, ITBs and toilet cleaning system. Due to the nature of toilet care products, which combat germs and bacteria, sales of toilet care products is strongly driven by the consumer preference for disposable and hassle-free products. This trend is also supported by housewives who wanted to shorten their cleaning time, so that they had more free time to do other things.You can now buy a single user license of the report @Growing consumer awareness towards cleanness results in to switching from traditional abrasives including phenyls and acids to branded toilet care products in mainly rural areas. Sales including toilet liquids, continued to receive a boost due to the growing awareness promoted by promotional campaigns such as Harpic challenge. Rising investment over various advertisements of toilet products and various promotional events boost the consumer awareness especially in rural area, further helps in penetration of toilet care products. This helps in market growth of global toilet care products.Sale of toilet care products are benefited from increased segmentation through specialist products in innovation particularly in-cistern products device and other value added factors such as fragrance. The demand of toilet care products is also growing with the growing number of hotels and restaurants.A sample of this report is available upon request @Asia Pacific is one of the prominent markets for toilet care. With the growth in number of domestic and institutional buildings, the demand of toilet care products are also on the rise. Consumers in Indian and China are increasingly opting toilet care products that not only clean their toilets efficiently, but also provide disinfection and keep their toilet bacteria-free. Toilet care market is driven by the strong influence of leading international brands such as Reckitt Benckiser, S. C. Johnson & Son and Unilever in which consumers place a great amount of trust. Due to large population base in India and China, this nation becomes one of the most lucrative investment destinations for the toilet care market. Rising economy and growing household income are some of the key reason which further triggers the market growth of toilet care in Asia Pacific region. Asia Pacific is expected to witness fastest growing market for toilet care during forecasted period. Various product innovation such as multi fragrance, easy to use and less maintenance cost are some of the key issue which further helps to boost the toilet care market in North America and European region. The global toilet care market is expected to grow in a double digit growth rate during forecasted period 2014- 2020.Browse Complete Report @Some of the major companies operating in global toilet care market are Jeyes Group Ltd., Reckitt Benckiser Group plc, McBride plc, S. C. Johnson & Son, Unilever, Ecover, Henkel AG & Co KGaA in Home Care, Procter & Gamble, Werner & Mertz GmbH, Clorox Co, SC Johnson & Son Inc, Dainihon Jochugiku Co Ltd, Kao Corp, Dabur India Ltd and HenkelPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a U.S.-based full-service market intelligence firm specializing in syndicated research, custom research, and consulting services. PMR boasts market research expertise across the Healthcare, Chemicals and Materials, Technology and Media, Energy and Mining, Food and Beverages, Semiconductor and Electronics, Consumer Goods, and Shipping and Transportation industries. The company draws from its multi-disciplinary capabilities and high-pedigree team of analysts to share data that precisely corresponds to clients business needs.PMR stands committed to bringing more accuracy and speed to clients business decisions. From ready-to-purchase market research reports to customized research solutions, PMRs engagement models are highly flexible without compromising on its deep-seated research values.Persistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Washing and Cleaning Products Market Growth to be Driven by Technological Advancements Forecast to 2015 to 2021

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Washing and cleaning products are the substances generally liquid, powder, sprays or granules which are used to remove dirt, including dust, stains, bad smells and clutter on surfaces. Cleaning agents are normally in the form of acidic, alkaline or neutral depending on the use. The acidic washing agents are mostly used for cleaning deposits such as scaling. The active ingredients are usually strong mineral acids and chelates. Alkaline washing and cleaning products consist of strong bases like sodium hydroxide as it dissolves oil, grease, fats and proteins based deposits. Whereas, neutral washing products are those whose pH value is neutral and are made from different ionic compound which are used to clean different types of dirt.Washing and cleaning products are used in wide range of applications such as Sanitation & Janitorial Cleaning Products, Industrial Cleaners, Kitchen & Catering Cleaning Agents, Food & Dairy Processing Cleaners, Laundry Agents, pulp & paper, chemical processing, agrochemicals and others. Soaps and detergents have become a necessary product in our daily lives. End-users include various industries such as manufacturing units, food & lodging, building service contractors, food & drinks processing units, retail, healthcare and others commercial facilities. However, the needs and requirement for cleaning products used by these industries differ vastly. Products, which are used by building contractors, include those products which are used for cleaning soiled floors, carpets, restrooms, window glasses and furniture.You can now buy a single user license of the report @The global demand for washing and cleaning products in the market is driven by rise in population and increasing usage norms impacted as it is by greater concern for hygiene. Cleaning without making use of any detergents or soaps may be time consuming for most of the time. Therefore, products, which make the task easy, quickly and to a high standard, are favorable. However, consumers are more likely to pay for such products. Raising awareness of personal hygiene, increased focus on communal hygiene and growing concern over the spread of infectious disease are some of the other factors which are driving the market for washing and cleaning products. Increasing concern about ensuring the safety, social and self-actualization needs by enabling safe food storage, sterilizing household surfaces and controlling garbage in a hygienic manner are also driving the washing and cleaning market at some extent.In less developed countries, price becomes the major factor as consumers have less money to spend. Therefore, manufacturers of cleaning products must work on this aspect in order to succeed in the washing and cleaning product market. Strict government regulations about use of cleaning agents as many of them consist of certain chemicals which affect the environment in one form or the other. These are some of the factors which are hampering the growth of washing and cleaning products market to some extent.A sample of this report is available upon request @Introduction of new, innovative and technologically advanced products, efficient research and development activities and development of product to meet the needs of the consumer are some of the growth opportunities which is likely to drive this market in the year to come. Improved lifestyle and tip from cleaning experts are some of the trends contributing the growth of this market.Asia Pacific is the largest market for washing and cleaning products attributed to a large population of the emerging countries such as China and India. It is then followed by North America and Europe. Asia Pacific is also the fastest growing region for washing and cleaning products market owing to the rising population of this region.Moreover, rising leaving standard, growing disposable income of the consumer of this region has contributed to the overall growth of the washing and cleaning products market.Browse Complete Report @Some of the major companies operating in washing and cleaning products market include Henkel KGaA, Colgate-Palmolive Company, Procter & Gamble Co., Reckitt Benckiser Plc, The Clorox Company, Church & Dwight, The Dial Corporation and Unilever N.V.Persistence Market Research (PMR) is a U.S.-based full-service market intelligence firm specializing in syndicated research, custom research, and consulting services. PMR boasts market research expertise across the Healthcare, Chemicals and Materials, Technology and Media, Energy and Mining, Food and Beverages, Semiconductor and Electronics, Consumer Goods, and Shipping and Transportation industries. The company draws from its multi-disciplinary capabilities and high-pedigree team of analysts to share data that precisely corresponds to clients business needs.PMR stands committed to bringing more accuracy and speed to clients business decisions. From ready-to-purchase market research reports to customized research solutions, PMRs engagement models are highly flexible without compromising on its deep-seated research values.Persistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Worldwide Cyber Insurance Market Analysis, Market Share, Application Analysis, Regional Outlook, Competitive Strategies & Forecast by 2022

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Market Study Report adds Global Cyber Insurance Market by Manufacturers, Countries, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 new report to its research database. The report spread across 121 pages with table and figures in it. The report provides information on Industry Trends, Demand, Top Manufacturers, Countries, Material and Application.Cyber-insurance is an insurance product used to protect businesses and individual users from Internet-based risks, and more generally from risks relating to information technology infrastructure and activities. Risks of this nature are typically excluded from traditional commercial general liability policies or at least are not specifically defined in traditional insurance products.Coverage provided by cyber-insurance policies may include first-party coverage against losses such as data destruction, extortion, theft, hacking, and denial of service attacks; liability coverage indemnifying companies for losses to others caused, for example, by errors and omissions, failure to safeguard data, or defamation; and other benefits including regular security-audit, post-incident public relations and investigative expenses, and criminal reward funds.Request a Sample Copy of Global Cyber Insurance Market Research Report @Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the Cyber Insurance in Global 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, Global Cyber Insurance Market report covers such as American International Group, The Chubb Corporation, Zurich Insurance Co, XL Group Ltd, Berkshire Hathaway, Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty, Munich Re Group, Lloyds, Lockton Companies and AON PLC.Market 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).Global Cyber Insurance Market Segment by Type, covers as Small Medium Enterprise and Large Medium EnterpriseGlobal Cyber Insurance Market Segment by Applications, can be divided into: Healthcare, Retail, Financial Services, Information Technology and Services and OthersRequest Discount for Global Cyber Insurance Market Research Report @There are 15 Chapters to deeply display the global Cyber Insurance market.Chapter 1, to describe Cyber Insurance Market Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Cyber Insurance, with sales, revenue, and price of Cyber Insurance, 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 Cyber Insurance, for each region, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, to Cyber Insurance Market analyze the key regions, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in these regions;Chapter 10 and 11, to show the Cyber Insurance Market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 12, Cyber Insurance market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2017 to 2022;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Cyber Insurance Market sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source.Related Reports: -Global Audit Software Market by Manufacturers, Countries, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022Audit software (audit management software) is specialized programs that perform a variety of audit functions, such as sampling databases and generating confirmation letters to customers and vendors.Marketstudyreport.com allows you to manage and control all corporate research purchases to consolidate billing and vendor management. You can eliminate duplicate purchases and customize your content and license management.Market Study ReportThe Green Suite #4594,Dover, DE 19901United StatesPhone: 1-201-355-0868US Toll Free: 1-866-764-2150Email: sales@marketstudyreport.comWebsite:News:
Global Social Media Analytics Market Research Report- Segment, outlook, By Region, Forecast 2022

Social Media Analytics Market

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The Social Media Analytics Market Research Report Forecast 2017-2022 is a valuable source of insightful data for business strategists. It provides the Social Media Analytics industry overview with growth analysis and historical & futuristic cost, revenue, demand and supply data (as applicable). The research analysts provide an elaborate description of the value chain and its distributor analysis.For this report, the Social Media Analytics market value is provided for 2016 in USD millions, an expected CAGR % as well as USD million worth of industry in 2022. Regionally, the globe is segmented into United States, China, Europe, Japan, Southeast Asia and India to study their market size and local analysis. End user applications of Social Media Analytics market covering Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) and Large enterprises are studied in this research. Share of Social Media Analytics market is covered by applications as well supported with potential applications in the future.Buy the complete Social Media Analytics report with Comprehensive table of contents @The research methodology used to estimate and forecast the Social Media Analytics market involves a primary and a secondary research. A systematic procedure has been used to arrive at the global size of the Social Media Analytics market and present revenue of key players in the market. Accurate data has been collected by conducting extensive interviews with people holding key decision making positions in the industry such as CEOs, VPs, directors, and executives.Inquire for discount for this report @Industry chain analysis covering upstream raw materials and equipments of Social Media Analytics market, their suppliers' information as well as analysis of downstream major consumers for Social Media Analytics is provided to understand the complete industry chain structure. Overall market analyzed in this report is divided by regions, types and manufacturers/companies. The research estimates 2017-2022 Social Media Analytics market development trends covering capacity, production and revenue forecasts as well as regional supply consumption forecasts.Towards the end, this report includes a feasibility analysis of New Project Investment covering SWOT analysis of Social Media Analytics OR marketing strategy analysis and market effect factor analysis. Overall, the report provides factual insights collected and analyzed with detailed primary and secondary research on Social Media Analytics market.The research compiles profiles of small and big Social Media Analytics market companies covering their product details as well as important statistics on production, capacity, price and more. These active companies' numbers are supported with information on marketing traders and/or distributors of the Social Media Analytics industry along with their contact information. This data gives valuable industry insights and direction to individuals and/or companies that are new entrants, eyeing to enter or grow in the Social Media Analytics market. Some of the Key vendors profiled in this research include: International Business Machines Corporation (US) Oracle Corporation (US) Salesforce (US) Adobe Systems Incorporated (US) SAS Institute Inc. (US) Clarabridge, Inc. (US) Netbase Solutions, Inc. (US) Brandwatch (UK) Talkwalker Inc., (Luxembourg) GoodData Corporation (US) Crimson Hexagon, Inc. (US) Simply Measured, Inc. (US) Sysomos (Canada) Digimind (US) Unmetric Inc. (US) Cision US Inc. (US) Simplify360, Inc. (India) Hootsuite Media Inc. (Canada) Meltwater (US) Germinait Solutions Private Limited (India) Socialbakers (US) Spredfast, Inc. (US) Sprinkler, Inc. (US) Synthesio (US) Lithium Technologies, Inc. (US) Tableau Software Inc. (US) Tencent (China)Partial list of Tables and Figures for this report include:Table Global Social Media Analytics Sales Market Share by Deployment Model (2012-2017)Figure Global Social Media Analytics Sales Market Share by Deployment Model in 2016Table Global Social Media Analytics Revenue (Million USD) by Deployment Model (2012-2017)Table Global Social Media Analytics Revenue Market Share by Deployment Model (2012-2017)Figure Global Social Media Analytics Revenue Market Share by Deployment Model in 2016Table Global Social Media Analytics Price (USD/Unit) by Deployment Model (2012-2017)Table Top Players of On-premises Social Media Analytics Products ListFigure Global On-premises Social Media Analytics Sales (K Units) and Growth Rate (2012-2017)Table Top Players of Cloud Social Media Analytics Products ListFigure Global Cloud Social Media Analytics Sales (K Units) and Growth Rate (2012-2017)Table Global Social Media Analytics Sales (K Units) by Component (2012-2017)Table Global Social Media Analytics Sales Market Share by Component (2012-2017)Figure Global Social Media Analytics Sales Market Share by Component in 2016Table Global Social Media Analytics Revenue (Million USD) by Component (2012-2017)About Us:eMarketOrg.com aims to provide businesses and organizations market intelligence products and services that help in making smart, instant and crucial decisions. Our database offers access to insights from industry leaders, experts and influencers on global and regional sectors, market trends, user behaviour, for companies as well as products. With data and information from reputable and trusted private and public sources, our clients are never short of statistics and analysis that are up to date.Contact Details:Ronald Aldensales@emarketorg.cominfo@emarketorg.comeMarketOrg.com aims to provide businesses and organizations market intelligence products and services that help in making smart, instant and crucial decisions. Our database offers access to insights from industry leaders, experts and influencers on global and regional sectors, market trends, user behaviour, for companies as well as products. With data and information from reputable and trusted private and public sources, our clients are never short of statistics and analysis that are up to date.Starting with market research reports, eMarketOrg.com plans to add conferences, knowledge products, which can be periodically subscribed to, and more to its range of business offerings. Spread across the globe, our network of partners, in collaboration with our service specialists, ensure that our clients receive the right product, service and/or solution that meet their requirements in convenient timelines and within comfortable budgets that neither go underutilized nor dig a big hole into their monthly, quarterly and/or yearly spends.Get in touch with us to experience a new one-stop market intelligence and business service.F/3, 4A Bharat Pushpa Apt.,Subhash Nagar, Shukrawar Peth,Pune  411002
Breast Cancer Cases, Clinical Trials Insight, Reimbursement, Competitive Strategies and Forecast, 2017 - 2022

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United States Breast Cancer Screening Market is expected to reach more than US$ 5.8 Billion by 2022.Longterm Growth Projection: Mammography grasp the dominant share in the United States Breast Cancer Screening Market Breast MRI Screening market is likely to reach more than US$ 350 Million by 2022 Number of mammograpy screening population in United States will increase tomore than 50 Million by 2022Market growth can be attributed to factors such as increasing incidence of breast cancer, increasing awareness related to early breast cancer detection, growing government investments and funding for breast cancer screening, technological advancement in breast imaging technologies and implementation of several initiatives to create awareness about the early detection of breast cancer.United States Breast Cancer Screening Market Analysis: By Type, Share, Cases, Clinical Trials Insight, Reimbursement, Competitive Strategies and Forecast, 2017 - 2022 provides a deep and thorough evaluation of the United States Breast Cancer Screening Market. The report provides an indepth analysis of the breast cancer invasive, in situ and men cases and added breast cancer death figures of both men and women in United States. Furthermore, the report also covered mammography screening population from 2010 to 2022.Complete Report @Market outlook in value terms has been analyzed based on historical, current and potential trends and the market is projected from 2017 to 2022. The breast cancer screening market is segmented based on its product types: Mammography, Breast MRI and Breast Ultrasound. Additionally, the report includes assessment of clinical trials and reimbursement pattern. The report also explores detailed description of growth drivers and inhibitors of the United States Breast Cancer Screening Market.The report concludes with the profiles of major manufacturers of Mammography, MRI and Ultrasound such as Hologic, Hitachi Medical Corporation, Siemen Healthineers, Philips Healthcare, Toshiba Medical Systems Corporation and GE Healthcare. The major manufacturers are evaluated on various parameters such as business overview, marketed products and latest development and trendsKey Topics Covered in the Report United States Breast Cancer Cases (2010 - 2022) United States Breast Cancer Mammography Screening Population (2010  2022) United States Breast Cancer Death (2010  2017) Market Overview: United States Breast Cancer Screening (2010  2022) Market Share: United States Breast Cancer Screening (2010  2022) By Types (Mammography, Breast MRI & Breast Ultrasound): Market Size & Analysis (2010  2022) Reimbursement Policies of the United States Breast Cancer Screening Breast Cancer Screening Market Clinical Trail Insight by Phase, Company & Country Key Drivers and Inhibitors of the United States Breast Cancer Screening Market Key Manufacturers AnalysisMajor Breast Cancer Screening Analyzed Under This Report Are: Mammography Breast Magnetic Resonance Imaging(MRI) Breast UltrasoundMajor Companies Covered in This Report: Hitachi Medical Corporation Siemen Healthineers Philips Healthcare Toshiba Medical Systems Corporation GE Healthcare HologicDPI Research is a business solutions firm which offer bespoke market research reports, custom research solutions and consulting across multi geographies and industry verticals. We deliver wide range of cutting-edge research solutions that helps organizations in making better decisions of the business to business needs.DPI Research provides high standard of business research reports to the clients across industry verticals comprising Life Sciences, Information Technology, Telecom & Internet, Food Beverages & Agriculture, Travel & Tourism, Consumer Goods & Retail, Education and Social Sciences. We are committed to use advanced analytical tools and methodologies to help clients with crucial industry information for decision making.DPI Research approaches for the business research led by a team of dynamic industry experts. DPI Research provides a real insight for effective decisions to help business with the help of current source and accurate data available in the market. DPI Research reach across the globe with global standards from established markets in the North America and Europe to emerging markets in South America, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa to provide the best business solutions.Maria RaiTel :+91 -7289949987Email: sales@dpiresearch.comWebsite:
Perineal Care Market Set to Witness an Uptick during 2017 - 2025

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Perineal trauma is an injury to urethra, vagina, perineal muscles and labia. Perineal trauma occurs intentionally during childbirth by surgical incision (episiotomy) or by other factors. According to St Thomas' Hospital, U.K, more than 80% of the women having vaginal childbirth sustain some perineal trauma and out of which 60-70% receive sutures. Perineal trauma can cause long-term psychological and physical problems such as perineal pain, dyspareunia, urinary or fecal incontinence problems. The most common type of perineal dermatitis is yeast dermatitis, irritant dermatitis, and superficial skin loss. To avoid this long term tissue injury, proper perineal care is needed. Perineal care means cleaning and caring for genital and rectum area to eliminate bacteria and spread of germs. Perineal care also helps in faster healing of perineum and prevent from an injection. Incontinence-associated dermatitis (IAD) is a significant risk factor for perineal trauma and pressure ulcers. According to Aintree University Hospitals among 975 patients studied, 20% of them were incontinence of that prevalence of IAD was 54% for incontinence patients.To View full report @The global perineal care market is segmented by product type, distribution channel, and region. Based on product type, the global perineal care market can be further segmented into, moisturizers and skin protectants, cleansers, washcloths, and oral pain medicines. Based on the distribution channels, the global perineal care market can be further segmented into, hospital pharmacies, clinics, e-commerce, long-term care centers and ambulatory care centers. The increasing prevalence of urine or fecal incontinent and demand for personal hygiene care products have been some driving factors for the growth of perineal care market. The moisturizers and skin protectants segment is expected to register significant CAGR during the forecast period of 2016-2024, due to positive patient outcomes, and its functional properties which help in moisture barriers that limit the exposure of irritants and moisturizers reduce the skin friction and prevent from tissue injury.A sample of this report is available upon request @The perineal care market is expected to grow exponentially during the forecast period, primarily due to increase in the prevalence of sphincter and obstetric injury, increasing vaginal child delivery procedures, spontaneous tears which require stitches, and perineal trauma during first vaginal delivery. Moreover, malposition or large fetus, poor nutritional state, mode of delivery, increasing demand for hygiene care products and shorter recovery time is another significant driver for perineal care market. However, patients clumsiness, social taboos and side effect with medicines are proving a major challenge for the overall growth of perineal care market. However, this billion dollar industry is likely to witness upward trend during the forecast period 20162024, primarily due to rise in demand for personal care products.Buy Now: You can now buy a single user license of the report @Alternative to conventional suturing such as absorbable synthetic stitches and catgut sutures, premoistened and disposable washcloths with dimethicone are some of the factors expected to drive the growth of the global perineal care market. Based on geography, the global perineal care market is segmented into five key regions, North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa. North America accounted for the largest share of the perineal care market in 2015 followed by Europe. Government initiatives, educational programs and patients awareness, are the factor which has increased the use of perineal care products among patients which ultimately drives the growth of the global perineal care market. Also, there is a high patient awareness, healthcare infrastructure, research and development activities and production facilities, which is driving the perineal care market in North America and Europe. Asia-Pacific is expected to witness remarkable CAGR during the forecast period, due to the large patient base, increase in geriatric population and high birth rate. However, lack of healthcare facilities and low patient awareness in developing countries is anticipated to affect the adoption of perineal care products in these countries.Some of the major players in the global perineal care market include ConvaTec Inc., 3M, DermaRite Industries, LLC. GOJO Industries, Inc., Sage Products Inc. and Coloplast. The global perineal care market is fragmented with the presence of many small-scale vendors which impacts the growth opportunities for international players.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Medikonia announces distributor agreement with Pathway Genomics To bring its DNA tests and AI Analysis to Hong Kong

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Hong Kong, 15/08/2017.Medikonia, a solution based genomics service provider in Hong Kong, announced today it has signed distributorship agreement with Pathway Genomics to bring its wide range of clinical genetic testing with advanced Artificial Intelligence analysis available to Hong Kong.Our goal is simple: bring reliable, accurate and actionable precision healthcare information to users and help them discover his/her own path to healthier life. said Joe Lai, Medikonias Chief Executive Officer. Pathway genomics is one of the best global precision medical diagnostic companies, offering a wide rage advanced clinical genetic testing. It is our honor to bring its service to Hong Kong. Jim Plante, CEO and Founder of Pathway, said Asia is an enormous emerging market for genetic testing. We are very pleased to align ourselves with a passionate partner like Medikonia to extend our global reach to Asia ABOUT MEDIKONIA:Established in 2015, Medikonia, based in Hong Kong, is a fast growing solution based genomics service provider. We provide solutions to professors and researchers in universities and laboratories, helping genomic research easier; meanwhile, we empower people with actionable genetics information, discovering his/her own path to healthier life. For more about medikonia, visitABOUT PATHWAY GENOMICS:Founded in 2008, Pathway Genomics offers digital healthcare and genetic testing. Based in San Diego, our CLIA and CAP accredited clinical laboratory provides physicians and their patients in 40+ countries with actionable and accurate precision healthcare information to improve health and wellness. The companys program with IBM Watson is a smartphone app that merges artificial intelligence and deep learning with personal genetic information. The app provides users with personalized health and wellness information based on the individuals health history. For more about Pathway Genomics, visitCONTACT:MEDIKONIA:Unit 2302, 23/F, New World Tower 1, Central, Hong KongKiwi Lai, Marketing ManagerTel: +852 2866 8069Emai: cs@medikonia.comPATHWAY GENOMICS:4755 Nexus Center Drive,San Diego CA, 92121,USABlythe Lawton, Senior Director, MarketingTel:+1 858.568.7002Email:pr@pathway.com
SONGWON Industrial Group releases Financial Results for Q2/2017

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 Sales in Q2 totaled 186,742 Mil. KRW Net profit amounted to 12,279 Mil. KRW The gross profit margin is at 23.6%Ulsan, South Korea  August 15, 2017  Today, SONGWON Industrial Group () released its financial results for the second quarter of 2017. The Group reported consolidated sales of 186,742 Mil. KRW and a net profit margin of 6.6% for Q2 - a decrease of 2.1% compared to Q2/2016. For the first half of the year, the Group realized consolidated sales of 361,707 Mil. KRW which is a -0.1% decrease compared to the first six months of 2016 (362,145 Mil. KRW).SONGWONs business delivered according to expectations during the first half year 2017, and in terms of volumes the Group saw double digit growth in some product lines compared to Q2/2016. Although Q1/2017 revenues declined, as a result of the price concessions implemented in response to increased price competition pressure in the second half of 2016, SONGWON managed to reverse the trend in Q2/2017 by successfully implementing price increases where contracts allowed. Overall, the first half year 2017 showed stable growth in line with the Groups expectations in a market perceived by the organization to be quite balanced particularly for antioxidants.As a result of both sustained market demand and a generally balanced supply situation, SONGWON continued to see strong demand across all the global regions. The Group also reports that the demand in polymer stabilizers, particularly in the Americas is increasing notably as a result of the polyolefin capacities that are now coming onstream. However, with the global economy remaining uncertain, currency developments were difficult to predict which had a negative impact on the Groups financial results throughout Q2/2017.Throughout Q2/2017, all of SONGWONs manufacturing facilities ran steadily at high capacity utilization levels without disruption which ensured an optimal cost position for the Group. Compared to the previous quarter, the positive trends already described regarding the implemented price increases, as well as the high capacity utilization from the production sites led to an increase in the EBITDA and EBIT margins in Q2/2017 to 14.1% and to 9.9% respectively.SONGWON extended its antioxidant range for fuels and lubricants in the second half of 2016 and introduced SONGNOX L670 which has been well-received by customers. The organization now also has a world scale plant for its new aminic product range starting up production in Ulsan in Q3/2017. This, together with other developments, gives SONGWON good reason to expect continuous growth providing the demand remains at stable levels. From an historical perspective, Q2 has been a strong quarter and the Group expects to see the general demand for its products steadily increase in 2017 at a rate which slightly exceeds the global GDP.However, with the overall global economic situation remaining volatile combined with the high levels of political uncertainty and instability in various regions across the world, SONGWON will remain cautious, as well as vigilantly aware of the potential for negative surprises. The Group will continually review situations as they arise and ensure that it has solid contingency plans in place, while exercising the prudent management of its capital and continue to progress with various initiatives to maintain profitability.The Q2 Report can be downloaded at:/en/investors/financialresults.About SONGWON Industrial Co., Ltd.SONGWON, which was founded in 1965 and is headquartered in Ulsan, South Korea, is a leader in the development, production and supply of specialty chemicals. The second largest manufacturer of polymer stabilizers worldwide, the SONGWON Industrial Group operates companies all over the world, offering the combined benefits of a global framework and readily accessible local organizations. Dedicated experts work closely together with customers to develop tailor-made solutions that meet individual requirements.For further information, please go to:Box 62950KapellenBelgium003233130311
PC Smart Cleanup PC Optimization Software

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May 24, 2017: Longrun Software has released their new and efficient PC optimization software, PC Smart Cleanup, that provides one-stop solution to all your PC cleaning and optimizing worries. This software uses advanced technology to find unnecessary programs or junk data that are clogging up your disk space and performs extensive clean-up to reclaim the important disk space. Removing these junk files or unnecessary programs from the PC helps in boosting the performance of the computer.PC Smart Cleanup is also quite effective against Windows registry issues. It scans the registry for errors and after finding them, clears them to enhance the speed of the PC. Apart from registry and junk files cleaning, this innovative software is effective against malwares. The smart engine of PC Smart Cleanup scans the system for malwares and removes them from the PC without any hassles. Once cleaning these rogue and harmful programs from the system, it helps in enhancing the speed of the computer.PC Smart Cleanup is a great tool for users to surf the internet securely. It effectively prevents any type of virus threat or hacking and allows the user to browse the internet safely. It also helps in clearing any trace of your internet browsing activities, hence protecting your privacy. The best part this software is that it carries the whole PC optimization and maintenance process in a very easy and quick manner.PC Smart Cleanup is compatible on Windows XP and later Windows versions and requires a minimum RAM capacity of 800 MB to run smoothly. Users can be benefitted from the 24x7 Live Support service provided by a team of experienced and skilled technicians that handle wide variety of issues related with PC Smart Cleanup including PC Tune Up, malware diagnosis, email setup, software installation and protection against ID theft. For more information about the product, visitAbout Longrun SofwareLongrun Software is a leading software development company that deals in creating software solutions for wide range of IT services. Since its incorporation in 2011, the company has worked with several influential names in the business to establish a strong reputation for itself. The company is constantly creating and upgrading advanced and innovative software programs that help the users in making their PCs faster and more secure. For more information about Longrun Software, you can visit the company website,UltraHeal, a subsidiary of Longrun Software Private Limited, develops path breaking and effective internet security solutions for home, offices, small and medium scale enterprise users worldwide who need top security solutions to protect their PC and servers against all forms of Malware and Spyware ensuring that their online security is never compromised by an ever growing array of threats. Our award-winning, innovative product line helps protect money, privacy and data from sophisticated hacking attempts and threats.706, Plot No. 7, Roots Tower District Ce110092New DelhiIndia
Wireless Ambulatory Telemetry Monitors Market Set to Surge Significantly During 2017 - 2025

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Ambulatory telemetry is a type of heart monitoring. It uses lightweight, portable equipment to record hearts electrical activity during daily activities. Monitoring can last for a few days to several weeks. The goal of ambulatory telemetry is to discover if symptoms such as dizziness, shortness of breath, chest pain, or fainting are caused by a heart rhythm problem. An electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG) is unable to reveal the source of symptoms and a longer test may be needed. The telemetry monitoring device market includes wireless patient worn monitors. Telemetry monitors have traditionally been used for monitoring one or two parameters. However, recent advancements have enabled these devices to monitor three or four parameters of the heart on an average. The patient worn monitors allow for continuous monitoring of ambulatory patients within the area of coverage. Signals from the patient worn device are transmitted to a central station where nurses can monitor patients vital signs. Wireless ambulatory telemetry is most commonly found in cardiac care areas, including stroke units, coronary care units, step and step down units.To View full report @Over the forecast period, the global wireless ambulatory telemetry monitors market will continue to witness moderate growth driven by a prevalent interest to invest in patient-worn monitors across unmonitored, low-acuity hospital settings. Acute care areas where telemetry is seeing increased adoption include the recovery and general care floors, where continuous monitoring helps to reduce avoidable complications, as well as critical care settings, such as the cardiac care unit (CCU). On the other hand, new efforts to combat excess workload on hospital resources and alarm fatigue are expected to limit future growth of wireless ambulatory telemetry monitors through 2024. Wide expansion in the number of technologies that are used for patient ambulatory telemetry and wireless medical device instrument are booming in the healthcare industry globally which is anticipated to drive growth of the global wireless ambulatory telemetry monitors market growth during forecast period.A sample of this report is available upon request @The global wireless ambulatory telemetry monitors market is segmented on the basis of application into Emergency department, ICU stepdown, Cardiac unit, Neuroscience unit and others. Hospitals have discovered that telemetry systems have broad applications, from the emergency department where incoming patients with suspected cardiac abnormalities can be monitored without necessarily tying up a monitored bed, to neuroscience units where ECG telemetry can be useful in caring for stroke patients.Buy Now: You can now buy a single user license of the report @Geographically, wireless ambulatory telemetry monitors market has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and Middle East & Africa. The wireless ambulatory telemetry monitors market is currently dominated by North America region in terms of value and volume owing to the presence of a large number of global players in the region. Moreover, technological advancements in the wireless ambulatory telemetry monitors is also expected to boost growth during the forecast period. Similarly, Asia Pacific is expected to witness high growth in wireless ambulatory telemetry monitors market due to rising awareness among healthcare professionals about the need for wireless ambulatory telemetry monitors, & rising healthcare expenditures coupled with increasing focus of global players in the countries like India and China. The market will typically witness a higher growth rate in countries such as the Germany, Spain, U.K., Italy and France. The wireless ambulatory telemetry monitors market in the Germany is developed and well-established, and is comparatively easy to enter, making the wireless ambulatory telemetry monitors market in the country stronger than in any other European countries.Major players operating in the global wireless ambulatory telemetry monitors market include Philips Healthcare, GE Healthcare, Mindray Medical, Natus Medical, Welch Allyn, Omron Healthcare, Nihon Kohden, Spacelabs Healthcare, Nonin Medical, Boston Scientific to name a few.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Mosy Solutions to equip 23 Bulgarian police vehicles with intelligent police car solution

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Bratislava. Public safety technology provider Mosy Solutions has reached agreement to equip 23 vehicles of the Bulgarian state police with its intelligent technology solutions by Autumn 2017.Mosy Solutions will equip the Kia Ceed police cars with automated number plate recognition (ANPR) and speed radar technology. ANPR will allow the Bulgarian polices to automatically check vehicles passed by the police cars against national and international databases, helping reduce car theft and other crimes.The project tendered by the Bulgarian Ministry of Interior is co-financed by a Swiss government programme.Mosy is used in more than 2,300 vehicles across Europe, providing technology tailored to fit police departments requirements and allowing quick integration with existing technologies. Mosy Solutions address needs of police vehicles, officers and command centres. Modules available for vehicles include automatic number plate recognition, video recording, incident management, collaboration with command centre, ID checks, vehicle location monitoring, emergency navigation, fine management and knowledge handbook.Mosy Solutions is part of Soitron Group, a leading European IT company based in Slovakia with operations across the United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland and Turkey.In two short years, MOSY is now being used in more than 2,300 police vehicles across Europe in the fight against crime. Were helping to make communities safer for everyone. MOSY empowers police forces, officers and vehicles with the intelligence they need to deal with the enforcement issues facing their communities. The technology can be tailored to fit any police departments requirements and can be easily and quickly integrated with existing technologies.Mosy Solutions5 West MillsNewbury BerkshireRG145HGUnited Kingdom+44 1189 657990
Dirt Augers Market Global Forecast 2017-2022: ASPEE, STIHL, ECHO, HITACHI, BRAVE, MARUYAMA, PALFINGER AG

Dirt Augers

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http://www.spiremarketresearch.com/global-dirt-augers-market-research-report-2017

Dirt Augers Market Research 2017A market study  Global Dirt Augers Market  examines the performance of the Dirt Augers market 2017. It encloses an in-depth Research of the Dirt Augers market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Dirt Augers market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.The Global Dirt Augers Market 2017 report includes Dirt Augers market Revenue, market Share, Dirt Augers industry volume, market Trends, Dirt Augers Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Dirt Augers Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2022.To Get Sample Report Click Here:Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Dirt Augers Market 2017 :STIHLHusqvarnaBobcat CompanyPALFINGER AGPaladin AttachmentsMakita CorporationECHOMARUYAMADiggaHITACHIWeidemannBRAVEASPEEDanuser MachineDirt Augers Market : By ApplicationUtilityConstructionAgricultureFirstly, the report covers the top Dirt Augers manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on geological regions.Further, the Dirt Augers report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Dirt Augers industry, Dirt Augers industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Dirt Augers Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.Browse Full Report Here:The Dirt Augers research report includes the products that are currently in demand and available in the market along with their cost breakup, manufacturing volume, import/export scheme and contribution to the Dirt Augers market revenue worldwide.Finally, Dirt Augers market report gives you details about the market research findings and conclusion which helps you to develop profitable market strategies to gain competitive advantage.About Us:"Spire Market Research" is a leading market intelligence team which accredits and provides the reports of some of the top publishers in the field of technology industry. We are as a firm expertise in making extensive reports that cover all the necessary details about the market assessments such as major technological improvement in the industry.Contact Us5001 Spring Valley Road,Suite 400 East,Dallas, TX 75244, USA
Amylase Kit Market Share 2017 industry Size, Status and Forecasts

Amylase Kit

http://bit.ly/2vyUyLz

https://www.marketsresearch.biz/report/global-amylase-kit-market-2017-demand-insights-k-104263/

Global Amylase Kit Market Research ReportRecently published a detailed market study on the "Amylase Kit Market" across the global, regional and country level. The report on the global Amylase Kit market uses the top-down and bottom-up approaches to define, analyze, and describe the market trends for the next five years. The Amylase Kit market report further provides production, capacity, Amylase Kit market price per region, gross margin, production cost, for all major regions and countries listed in Amylase Kit report.The Global Amylase Kit Market 2017 report includes Amylase Kit market Revenue, market Share, Amylase Kit industry volume, market Trends, Amylase Kit Growth aspects. The Amylase Kit Market research report analyses and provides the historical data along with current performance of the global Amylase Kit industry, and estimates the future trend of Amylase Kit market on the basis of this detailed study. Amylase Kit Market also focuses on the growth drivers and restraints for the key market players during the forecast period.Do Inquiry For Sample Report:Top key Playes In Amylase Kit Market :Company 1Company 2Company 3Company 4Company 5Company 6Company 7Company 8...1. Amylase Kit North America.2. Amylase Kit Europe.3. Amylase Kit Asia Pacific.4. Amylase Kit Middle East.5. Amylase Kit Africa.6. Amylase Kit Latin America.Browse Complete Report:The competitive landscape of the global market for Amylase Kit is determined by assessing the major industry participants, production capacity, production capacity utilization rate, Amylase Kit market's production chain, pricing by each manufacturer and the revenue generated by each manufacturer in the Amylase Kit market globally.The Amylase Kit Market report provides upstream and downstream analysis covering major raw material used in manufacturing of Amylase Kit along with detailed manufacturing sources. The Amylase Kit report also shares list of major raw material manufacturers along with their manufacturing locations. Amylase Kit report Detailed raw material price trend analysis along with Amylase Kit manufacturing cost analysis is also incorporated into the report.About Us:MarketsResearch.Biz is a single destination for all the industry, company and country reports. We have a leading market intelligence team which accredits and provides the reports of some of the top publishers in the field of the technology industry. We are as a firm expertise in making extensive reports that cover all the necessary details about the market assessments such as major technological improvement in the industry.Contact US:5001 Spring Valley Rd #400,Dallas,TX 75244, USAContact No. +1-214-661-1669Email: sales@marketsresearch.biz
Silver Nitrate Market Outlook 2017-2022: Yinxing Shiye, Ames Goldsmith, Chenzhou Jingui Silver Industry

Silver Nitrate

http://bit.ly/2vzuUq1

http://www.spiremarketresearch.com/global-silver-nitrate-cas-7761-88-8-market-2017-demand-insights-key-players-segmentation-and-forecast-to-2022

Worldwide Silver Nitrate 2017 Research Report presents a professional and complete analysis of Global Silver Nitrate Market on the current situation. Silver Nitrate Market report includes development plans and policies along with Silver Nitrate manufacturing processes and price structures. Global Silver Nitrate Market 2017 research report offers the analytical view of the industry by studying different factors like Silver Nitrate market growth, consumption volume, Silver Nitrate market Size, Revenue, Silver Nitrate market Share, market trends and Silver Nitrate industry cost structures during the forecast period from 2017 to 2022.Firstly, the report covers the top Silver Nitrate manufacturing industry players from regions like Silver Nitrate market in United States, EU, Japan, and China. Silver Nitrate also characterizes the market based on geological regions.To Get Sample Report Click Here:Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Silver Nitrate Market 2017:Ames GoldsmithRicca Chemical CompanyRochester Silver WorksTongling Noferrous Metals GroupJiangsu Shangyong New MaterialYinxing ShiyeChenzhou Jingui Silver IndustrySilver Nitrate Market : ApplicationPhotographic EmulsionPharmaceuticalElectronics IndustryTextilesSilver Nitrate Market : TypePhotographic Grade Silver NitrateACS Grade Silver NitratePharmaceutical Grade Silver NitrateFurther, the Silver Nitrate report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Silver Nitrate industry, Silver Nitrate industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Silver Nitrate Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.Browse Full Report Here:Finally, Silver Nitrate market report gives you details about the Silver Nitrate market research findings and conclusion which helps you to develop Silver Nitrate profitable market strategies to gain competitive advantage.About Us:"Spire Market Research" is a leading market intelligence team which accredits and provides the reports of some of the top publishers in the field of technology industry. We are as a firm expertise in making extensive reports that cover all the necessary details about the market assessments such as major technological improvement in the industry.Contact Us5001 Spring Valley Road,Suite 400 East,Dallas, TX 75244, USA
Appsecco, the application security company, announces training partnership with DevSecCon

https://www.devseccon.com/academy

Specialist application security company Appsecco, has announced that it is launching a training partnership with DevSecCon, a global platform for leading security experts, software developers and DevOps practitioners to showcase their DevSecOps ideas via thought-provoking talks and workshops.Initially launched in 2015, DevSecCon organises and hosts the worlds only conference dedicated to DevSecOps  the practice of building security into development processes.Kicking off later this month with bespoke in-house training packages, the partnership between leading application security specialists, Appsecco, and the worlds foremost DevSecOps conference organisers will deliver practical tools and advice around how to implement security in the overall development process, from the supply chain through to the customer experience. The partnership will eventually offer a classroom format for individuals in combination with DevSecCon conferences to make the courses accessible to as many people as possible.Appsecco co-founder, Akash Mahajan, together with Appseccos Automation and Security Expert, Madhu Akula, will also be hosting a workshop at the next DevSecCon conference, being held in Boston on the 11th and 12th of September 2017, entitled Real World Security Monitoring & Automated Defence for almost free.Appseccos co-founder, Gwilym Lewis, says of the agreement, Were thrilled to be launching this partnership with DevSecCon to offer cutting-edge, industry leading security training that is firmly grounded in commercial reality. Together we will be covering the entire software development lifecycle, from advising on how to build and foster a culture of security within development teams and organisations, to reviewing and advising on the security of applications and any associated infrastructure under development.DevSecCon founder, Francois Raynaud, adds, The number of businesses that are looking to implement DevSecOps is growing rapidly and with it the demand for more in-depth technical knowledge and skills around continuously secure delivery. As a response, we have created the DevSecCon Academy for DevOps, Development and Security professionals who want to deep-dive into DevSecOps. We offer a selection of top-notch training courses, with Appsecco being an important core training partner.Appseccos training packages will be bookable through the DevSecCon Academy in combination with conference tickets or can be arranged as bespoke courses for corporate teams. Upcoming DevSecCon conferences include Boston (11-12 September 2017), London (19-20 October 2017) and Singapore (February 2018).Organisations or individuals interested in finding out more about the training packages on offer should visitAbout Appsecco:Appsecco is a specialist application security company providing industry leading IT security solutions that are firmly grounded in commercial reality. Its services cover the entire software development lifecycle, from advising on how to build and foster a culture of security within development teams and organisations, to reviewing and advising on the security of applications and associated infrastructure under development, to providing rapid response and advice in the event of a security breach or incident.About DevSecCon:DevSecCon brings together DevOps and Security to make development and delivery more secure, without compromise. We offer a platform for leading experts and practitioners to showcase their DevSecOps ideas in thought-provoking talks, workshops and training courses. Attendees learn how to implement security as code in the development process, ensure secure continuous delivery, automate and monitor security processes and create an inclusive and collaborative culture between DevOps and Security.Stream (UK) Limited12-18 Hoxton StreetLondonN1 6NGLisa Donohuelisa@wearestream.com+44 (0)207 749 0903
FLAC to MP3 Mac 2.0 Converts FLAC Audio Files to MP3 and Other Formats

FLAC to MP3 Mac Screenshot

https://flactomp3mac.com

https://flactomp3mac.com/download.html

Today independent development team WDSoft is proud to announce the release and immediate availability of FLAC to MP3 Mac 2.0, an important update to their free macOS application that converts FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) audio files to MP3, WMA, M4A, AAC, OGG and WAV audio formats. By simply dragging and dropping FLAC files into the app, the files are instantly converted to the smaller, more portable MP3 format or one of five other popular audio formats.Users can covert FLAC files to MP3, AAC, M4A, OGG, WAV, and WMA audio formats. Audio files formatted in WAV, WMA, AAC, and other formats can also be converted to MP3, making them easy to play on almost any device or most music apps. In addition, anyone can extract the audio from popular video formats including MP4, MOV, AVI, MPG, WMV, M4P (no DRM), and more.While the FLAC audio format is a favorite of audio purists, due to its lossless data compression algorithm, the resulting files are large in size. This makes FLAC a less than ideal format for the relatively small storage amounts offered by mobile devices such as the iPod, smartphones, and tablets. By using the FLAC to MP3 Mac 2.0 app, Mac users can quickly convert FLAC files to almost any popular compressed audio format. All it takes is a simple drag-and-drop of their FLAC files into the app.Features:* Easy Drag-and-Drop FLAC file conversion* Output to 6 popular formats, including: MP3, AAC, M4A, OGG, WAV and WMA* Convert MP3 to other audio formats and vice versa* Extract audio from MP4, MOV, AVI, MPG, WMV, M4P (no DRM) video formats* Convert multiple files at onceTo convert FLAC files to another format, anyone can simply select their conversion preferences, including file type, bitrate, and more. They then select which folder on their hard drive they want to save the converted audio files to. With a simple drag-and-drop of their file(s) into the FLAC to MP3 Mac app window, the application immediately begins the conversion process. Following a short wait, all the audio files have been converted, and can be found in the selected location. The files are ready to play in iTunes or most any other audio player, or on most mobile or audio devices.Conversion Options Include:* Convert to: MP3, M4A, ACC, OGG, WMA, and WAV* Channels: Stereo or Mono* Bitrate: 64, 96, 128, 192, 256, or 320 Kbps* Rate: 11025, 22050, 44100, or 48000 HzNow audiophiles can have the best of both worlds. They can have their FLAC files for listening at home, where they have plenty of hard drive storage to store the larger audio files. Plus, they can carry all their music on their mobile devices, in the smaller yet still good quality MP3 format. And even better, FLAC to MP3 Mac 2.0 is free to use, with no hidden charges or other catches.Device Requirements:* Mac OS X 10.10 or higher* macOS compatible* 64-bit processor* 36 MBPricing and Availability:FLAC to MP3 Mac 2.0 is free and is available worldwide exclusively through the FLAC to MP3 Mac website.EXTRA LINKS (please, no duplicates or redirects):FLAC to MP3 Mac 2.0Download FLAC to MP3 MacFounded in 2008, WDSoft develops conversion software for macOS and Windows PCs. The company relies on its extensive experience in developing conversion utilities that have already demonstrated their technical excellence and ease of use in thousands of homes worldwide. All Material and Software (C) Copyright 2017 WDSoft. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh and Mac OS X are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other trademarks and registered trademarks may be the property of their respective owners.WDSoft, Inc.57-2-25 366 HT StreetXA SX ProvinceChina 710100+86-910734532admin@flactomp3mac.com
IDEX Health & Science Announces New Optics Center of Excellence in Rochester, NY

www.idex-hs.com

www.idex-hs.com

PRESS RELEASEFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEFor further information, please contact:Heidi LechnerTel: +1 707-588-2160E-mail: hlechner@idexcorp.comIDEX Health & Science Announces New Optics Center of Excellence in Rochester, NYRohnert Park, CA, August 14, 2017  IDEX Health & Science, LLC today announced plans to occupy a new, state-of-the-art facility in Rochester, New York that will enable scalable future growth of its optical components, sub-systems, and filters business.In 2014, IDEX Health & Science believed that bringing together its Life Science Optics, Scientific Fluidics and Optical Technologies businesses would yield a highly differentiated platform that could better serve the life science, semiconductor, and defense markets. This vision was realized in 2016 as the two organizations were formally combined under one leadership team. Since creating this new optofluidic enterprise, IDEX Health & Science has focused on the growth of integrated optofluidic sub-systems, components, and highly engineered solutions across its target markets. This focus has driven accelerated growth across its business and has revealed the need for a new facility that will allow IDEX Health & Science to execute on its long term growth plans.The goal of this new facility is to create an Optics Center of Excellence that allows us to continue to advance our leadership position in life science optics and optical assemblies, as well as supporting the semiconductor and defense markets we serve said Gus Salem, Group President of IDEX Health & Science. The Optics Center of Excellence will consist of a brand new, 100,000 square-foot leased manufacturing, research, and development facility that will bring together IDEX Health & Sciences Semrock and Melles Griot Rochester businesses that specialize in optical filters, lenses, shutters, and optical assemblies, as well as the manufacturing operations of its Melles Griot Carlsbad, CA business that specializes in laser light sources and integrated optical systems. Additionally, we will be establishing a commercial, research, and development center for innovation in Carlsbad, CA, that will enable continued growth in illumination technology and optomechanical assemblies, continued Salem.The design of the new Optics Center of Excellence will integrate IDEX Health & Sciences different optical technologies and its research and development capabilities that will enable IDEX Health & Science to create a world class optical coating facility, scale-up sub-system manufacturing, and expand optical sub-system design capabilities. By combining these functions into one new facility under common management, IDEX Health & Science will be able to deliver on its commitment to its customers to become a best-in-class supplier of optical systems.IDEX Health & Science selected the Rochester area for its new facility due its strong history in optics technology, base of people, universities and supporting businesses. Additionally, the concentration of current employees and business functions along with governmental support of optical businesses in Rochester contributed to the decision. Construction is expected to begin in late 2017, and occupancy will follow upon completion of construction in 2018.About IDEX Health & Science, LLCIDEX Health & Science is the global authority in fluidics and optics for the life sciences market, offering a three-fold advantage to customers by bringing optofluidic paths to life with products, people, and engineering expertise. Respected worldwide for solving complex problems, IDEX Health & Science delivers complete life science instrumentation development innovation for analytical, diagnostic and biotechnology applications. With the industrys broadest portfolio of state-of-the-art components and capabilities, IDEX Health & Science is changing the vision for optofluidic solutions, anticipating customers needs with intelligent solutions for life. Product offerings include: connections, valves, pumps, degassers, column hardware, manifolds, microfluidics, consumables, integrated fluidic assemblies, filters, lenses, shutters, laser sources, light engines and integrated optical assemblies. For more information visit:ENDS________About IDEX Health & Science, LLCIDEX Health & Science is the global authority in fluidics and optics for the life sciences market, offering a three-fold advantage to customers by bringing optofluidic paths to life with products, people, and engineering expertise. Respected worldwide for solving complex problems, IDEX Health & Science delivers complete life science instrumentation development innovation for analytical, diagnostic and biotechnology applications. With the industrys broadest portfolio of state-of-the-art components and capabilities, IDEX Health & Science is changing the vision for optofluidic solutions, anticipating customers needs with intelligent solutions for life. Product offerings include: connections, valves, pumps, degassers, column hardware, manifolds, microfluidics, consumables, integrated fluidic assemblies, filters, lenses, shutters, laser sources, light engines and integrated optical assemblies. For more information visit:ENDS1 WHITESIDE STATION ROAD
Gas Insulated Switchgear Market Share, Size, Trends (2016-2023)

https://www.qyresearchreports.us/request-sample/global-gas-insulated-switchgear-market-research-report-2016

https://www.qyresearchreports.us/request-sample/global-gas-insulated-switchgear-market-research-report-2016

https://www.qyresearchreports.us/market-analysis/global-gas-insulated-switchgear-market-research-report-2016

QY Research Reports brings you the latest report titled Global Gas Insulated Switchgear Market Research Report which the in-house expert analysts have prognosticated to considerably grow at a fairly large CAGR over the forecast period 2017 to 2022.Steady and updated with our acknowledged policy of rendering the top quality research material from throughout the globe to our flourishing list of intellectual clients, here in yet another market report which is designed to meet their expectations. The market research report on Global Gas Insulated Switchgear Market is a precisely integrated study.Enquire For Sample Report:How is this report beneficial for you?The report incorporates market analysis and forecasts of Global Gas Insulated Switchgear Market Research Report 2016 on a global level. The report forecasts revenue growth on all three - regional, global, and country levels and furnishes an analysis of newest market trends and potential opportunities in each of the sub-segments in the forecast period. The expert analysts with proven credentials amongst the research fraternity have intricately assessed complete sales and revenue production of this market. The study comprehends a market allure analysis, wherein the service segments and application segments are evaluated depending on their market size and growth rate.In-detailed Table of contents:Further this market report encompasses the analysis of several profiles of Insulated Switchgear manufacturers of Gas Insulated Switchgear Market. ABB Ltd. Alstom SA Siemens AG Schneider Electric SE Mitsubishi Electric Corporation Hitachi Ltd. Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. Ltd. Fuji Electric Co. Ltd. Toshiba Corporation Nissin Electric Co. Ltd. Crompton Greaves Limited GE Digital EnergyAll the market segments of this report are rigorously studied with reference to various Countries. Additionally, this market report segments the global market into its prime countries, which mainly contributes to the overall growth, keeping in mind the revenue, market share, sales and consumption, and growth of Global Gas Insulated Switchgear Market in these countries during the forecast period 2017 to 2022. North America Europe China Japan Southeast Asia IndiaLastly, this market report offers fathoming perception in terms of many product types and the applications. The product types are further gathered focusing on the revenue, price, production, rate of growth, and market share of each type. Likewise, depending on the applications, this report addresses the market share, growth rate and consumption of Global Gas Insulated Switchgear Market in every application. The comprehensive summary, in-depth analyses, accurate definitions, and opinions from the experts, on each application, together make this report an excellent piece of presentation.To View The Entire Report, Please Visit:About Us:QY Research Reports is a company that simplifies how analysts and decision makers get industry data for their business. Our unique colossal technology has been developed to offer refined search capabilities designed to exploit the long tail of free market research whilst eliminating irrelevant results. QY Research Groups is the collection of market intelligence products and services on the Web. We offer reports and update our collection daily to provide you with instant online access to the worlds most complete and current database of expert insights on global industries, companies, products, and trends.Contact us:Jia WangRoom B1510, ShijiKemao Building, No.66, Zhongguancun East Road,Haidian District, Beijing, 100190, ChinaEmail- sales@qyresearchgroups.com
IXYS Applications by GD Rectifiers

IXYS Corporation develops technology driven semiconductor products to improve power conversion efficiency, generate clean energy and provide advanced products.They service over 2,500 companies in the aerospace/defense, communications, consumers, green energy, industrial, lighting/display, medical, power management and transportation sectors.IXYS applications are divided by the major market segments listed below:AEROSPACE/DEFENSEIXYS launched three GaAs and GaN based high linearity RF power amplifiers for use in telemetry, point to point wireless and military communications.Find out moreCOMMUNICATIONSIXYS manufacture CPC7514Z Quad High Voltage Isolated Analog Switch Array which is designed to provide access to high voltage networks.Find out moreCONSUMERLDS8991, an innovative inductor-less, high efficiency 1.2A WLED driver for photo flash applications including digital cameras, video cameras and smart phones.Find out moreGREEN ENERGYIXYS Wespack Thyristors offer the same maximised power ratings for weight and volume, but in an industry standard 1 thick package. These thyristors are normally used in wind power converters.Find out moreINDUSTRIALRugged 500V and 600V PolarP3 power MOSFETs for power factor correction circuits, switch-mode power supplies, UPS, motor drives, DC-DC converters, robotic and servo control.Find out moreLIGHTING/DISPLAYLDS8763, an inductor-based, high efficiency, 6-channel white LED (WLED) driver for backlight LED lighting of LCD displays and indoor or outdoor LED lighting.Find out moreMEDICALCPC1966, an AC solid state switch utilising dual optically isolated power SCRs as an alterative to discrete optocoupler and Triac circuits. For use in medical equipment.Find out morePOWER MANAGEMENTZ16MiniZ28 Module is a dual inline pin stamp module designed to quickly develop prototypes, proofs of concept and products for power management.Find out moreTRANSPORTATIONIXYS provided power semi assemblies for expansion of the London Underground, Sub-Surface Railway and Network Rails South East infrastructure.Find out moreGD Rectifiers are an official Distributor for both IXYS and IXYS UK Westcode. They stock a wide range of IXYS semiconductor components, including: Diodes, IGBTs, MOSFETs, Rectifiers, Thyristors, IGBT Gate Drivers and the IXYS RF Power range.For further information on the IXYS product range available from GD Rectifiers, please call: 01444 243 452 or email: enquiries@gdrectifiers.co.uk.GD Rectifiers is a Global Manufacturer and Distributor of products, services and solutions to commercial and industrial users of power electronic components.Established in 1964, GD Rectifiers has over 50 years of extensive experience across a large range of markets, specialising in new and current technologies for industrial power control applications. An extensive product offering has built GD Rectifiers exceptional reputation as the go-to power specialist with innovative experience across: Aviation, Automotive, Rail, Medical, Industrial and Electronics markets.GD Rectifiers have extensive experience in the rail industry and are RISQS Qualified.GD Rectifiers are an ISO 9001:2015 registered company that design and develop bespoke power semiconductor assemblies to control voltage, current and frequency for international industrial markets.GD RectifiersBentley House2 William WayBurgess HillWest SussexRH15 9AG
Chewing gum to screen for oral inflammation: A research team from the University of Wurzburg presents this novelty in the journal "Nature Communications".---Dental implants occasionally entail complications: Six to fifteen percent of patients develop an inflammatory response in the years after receiving a dental implant. This is caused by bacteria destroying the soft tissue and the bone around the implant in the worst case.In future, patients will benefit from a quick and affordable method assessing whether they carry such bacteria: using a chewing gum based diagnostic test developed by a pharmaceutical research team at the Julius-Maximilians-Universitat (JMU) Wurzburg in Bavaria, Germany.In practice, the test works as follows: If there is an inflammation in the oral cavity, a bittering agent is released while chewing the gum. Patients can then visit their dentist who confirms the diagnosis and treats the disease. This type of early detection aims at preventing serious complications such as bone loss."Anyone can use this new diagnostic tool anywhere and anytime without any technical equipment," Professor Lorenz Meinel says; he is the head of the JMU Chair for Drug Formulation and Delivery. He developed the new diagnostic tool with Dr. Jennifer Ritzer and her team; the invention is currently featured in an article in the journal "Nature Communication".Enzymes release bitter tasteThe scientific background: In the presence of inflammatory conditions, specific protein-degrading enzymes are activated in the mouth. In just five minutes, these enzymes also break down a special ingredient of the chewing gum, thereby releasing a bittering agent that could not be tasted before.Meinel's team provided the proof that this principle actually works. First studies using the saliva of patients were conducted at Merli Dental Clinic in Rimini.Company establishment plannedTo launch the chewing gum into the market, Meinel's team plans to set up a company. The professor assumes that it will take two to three years until the gum is commercially available.Chewing gum rapid tests for other medical applications are presently under development. "We hope to be able to diagnose other diseases with our anyone, anywhere, anytime diagnostics to identify and adress these diseases as early as possible," Meinel explains.Diagnosing peri-implant disease targeting the tongue as 24/7 detector, Nature Communications, 15. August 2017, DOI 10.1038/s41467-017-00340-xContactProf. Dr. Dr. Lorenz Meinel, Chair for Drug Formulation and Delivery, University of Wurzburg, T +49 931 31-83765,Quelle: idw
Tuesday 15 August 2017 10:32am

Dr Kourken (Kirk) Michaelian

An internationally leading philosopher of memory, Dr Kourken (Kirk) Michaelian, is the latest recipient of the University of Otagos Carl Smith Medal and Rowheath Trust Award.

The Award and Medal, which recognise outstanding research performance of early-career staff at Otago, are accompanied by a $5000 grant for personal scholarly development.

Announcing the Medals latest recipient, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Richard Blaikie warmly congratulated Dr Michaelian, noting that he had clearly earned the honour.

Kirks prodigious high-quality research output at such an early stage in his academic career has been described by some colleagues as simply amazing.

Using approaches from philosophy and psychology he has made significant progress towards providing a general account of episodic memory, one that supports latest thinking of such memory as an active and creative process, rather than a simple recording and storing of experiences, Professor Blaikie says.

His 2016 book Mental Time Travel: Episodic Memory and Our Knowledge of the Personal Past, published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Press, provides compelling arguments that remembering is a matter of imagining past events, rather than reproducing past experiences.

Dr Michaelian last year received a prestigious Fast-Start grant from the Marsden Fund of New Zealand to study collective memory.

Before joining Otagos Department of Philosophy in 2015, he worked for several years at Bilkent University in Turkey and at the Institut Jean-Nicod in France. His PhD is from the University of Massachusetts and his MA and BA are from Carleton University and the University of Alberta, both in Canada.

As well as creating an extremely strong scholarly publication record before coming to Otago, since his arrival he has continued to be prolific in his research, producing 12 articles and book chapters that have been published or are forthcoming. He is also working on editing a third book and has attracted doctoral students from Canada and Brazil.

Dr Michaelian says he is thrilled to receive the Carl Smith Medal and Rowheath Trust Award.

If Ive been able to make good progress on my research since coming to Otago, this is in large part due to the exceptional research environment provided by the Department of Philosophy, the Division of Humanities, and the wider University."

Dr Michaelian will be presented with the Medal at a public lecture he will give in October.

The Rowheath Trust was established in 1964 by Carl Smith  whose family lived in the Rowheath area of England  to support the University. Mr Smith received an honorary doctorate from Otago in 1968.

A list of Otago experts available for media comment is available elsewhere on this website.

Electronic addresses (including email accounts, instant messaging services, or telephone accounts) published on this page are for the sole purpose of contact with the individuals concerned, in their capacity as officers, employees or students of the University of Otago, or their respective organisation. Publication of any such electronic address is not to be taken as consent to receive unsolicited commercial electronic messages by the address holder.
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15 August 2017, New discovery could help prevent preterm birth in at-risk pregnant women
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Jaimie Kemmerer, a registered nurse, quit her job 18 years ago to go into business with her first love.

She also works with her husband, Grant.

Monkeys are my first love and thats what led me to this, Jaimie said after hosting the first showing of the Wild World of Animals at the Midland County Fair on Monday.

Grant Kemmerer III and Jaimie own the traveling wildlife show, based in Eighty Four, Pennsylvania, south of Pittsburgh. It was the first time the tongue-in-cheek performance came to Midland.

The duo raises and trains 150 wild, exotic animals for the show  some big, some small, others ugly, creepy, or crawly. The Kemmerers dont operate an animal rescue per se; their goal is education and outreach, Jaimie said.

On Monday, things started slow: Jaimie brought out a snapping turtle, that, when tickled on his neck, opened wide for parents and children bunched up near the stage, in bleachers, and a gazebo at the fairgrounds. His bite pressure: 1,000 pounds per square inch.

Next up was Frank the Tank, an African spurred tortoise with an enormous dusty shell that wandered across the stage and rainforest backdrop.

Hes basically a cow in a shell, Jaimie said, noting tortoises are constantly eating grass.

Then it was the American alligators time to shine. His bite pressure: the most powerful in the world, more than twice that of the snapping turtles.

Assistant Megan Heyl circled the stage with Chuck, a red tail boa with 100 razor sharp teeth and 10,000 muscles that, when squeezing a victim, are unforgiving: He doesnt let you exhale, Jaimie said.

Thats how you get (Pittsburgh) Steelers fans  you deprive their heads of oxygen, Jaimie said in a self-mocking throwback to the start of the show, when she asked whether there were any Steelers fans in attendance.

We get to have a lot of fun, she said after the show, calling it a nice, big crowd.

Max, a European eagle owl, represented what Jaimie called the closest living species to dinosaurs. Hes 5 pounds and has a wingspan of 5 feet. If human eyes were proportional to the owls, they would be the size of grapefruits, she said. Max rarely moves his eyes, but his head swivels 270 degrees.

That means he can pretty much turn around and look at his butt, Jaimie said.

Serenity, a two-toed sloth, couldnt make it to stage without Heyl; the sloths cant stand or walk. On ground, they drag their bodies.

Next, the largest rodent in Africa scurried across the stage: the African crested porcupine, known to back down lions, leopards and hyenas with the ultimate defense: a body chock-full of quills.

The crowd then laughed at an otter that bodysurfed across stage to dry off after diving for a treat in a kiddie pool, his hind legs running like a turbine with Heyl following his lead.

A seemingly sweet red kangaroo, born the size of a childs pinky finger, clung to Jaimie as she described part of the birthing process: after six months in his mothers pouch, his head will pop out. But its a different story when he grows up: the kangaroo aims for the guts when attacking, with the intent to disembowel.

Dont get in a fight with a kangaroo, Jaimie said. Youll regret it.

Jaimie had another baby to tend to: a baboon that, just like children to parents, clung to her until comfortable with the new Midland environment.

I dont have to hold him; he holds me, she said.

The baboon played with toys, all of which he claimed as his own. The smartest animals play a lot, and  wait for it  there is a direct correlation with intelligence and play, Jaimie said, which is why humans also spend a lot of time playing.

The big unveil came with the African spotted leopard  small, solitary and strong. He was fed a chicken thigh, had a drink of water, and calmly rested in his cage, allowing the crowd to watch  something wild leopards typically wouldnt tolerate.

The Wild World of Animals continues this week with showings on Tuesday at 1:30, 6 and 8 p.m.; Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at 2, 6 and 8 p.m.; and at noon, 2 and 4 p.m. on Saturday. For more info, visit www.midlandfair.com
By PTI: Mumbai, Aug 15 (PTI) At least 45 persons were injured while forming human pyramids during Dahi Handi celebrations on the occasion of Janamashtmi in the city today.

Across Maharashtra, `Govinda troupes compete to form multi-tier pyramids and break pitchers of curd and buttermilk tied high above the ground on this day.

As many as 45 govindas were injured in Mumbai till five in the evening, according to the civic officials.

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One of them was seriously injured and admitted to a hospital, while others were discharged after administering first aid, officials added.

Hundreds of Govindas were seen moving around in trucks and tempos, travelling from one `Handi venue to another.

Last week, the state government had assured the Bombay High Court during the hearing on a PIL that it would ensure that children below 14 years of age would not participate in formation of Dahi Handi pyramids. PTI AVI KRK

--- ENDS ---
Weve succeeded in creating a warm and welcoming environment that honors God in all the details.

At the northwest corner of the City of Angels, Shepherd Church has grown to become one of the largest churches in Los Angeles with nearly 10,000 people a week gathering at one of its four campuses. Its roots date back to 1912, when 100 dedicated believers began meeting in an old railroad car to worship God. It has become a significant gathering place in North LA, hosting nearly 19,000 people for Easter and more than 45,000 for Fourth of July fireworks. In addition to television, radio and internet ministries, the church has been able to reach beyond its campuses to love God and love people in 22 different countries with 32 global partners.

Despite having successfully launched other campuses and even spinning off two congregations as separate churches, the main campuswith its 2,100-seat auditoriumwas beyond full. Shepherd Church was even forced to develop a multilevel parking structure.

In kicking off the redesign of the main campus and new 3,500-seat auditorium with the Visioneering Studios team, we had the opportunity to explore the story of the church, the city and the site. We discovered that the area had a unique tie to the earliest roots of the Hollywood film industry, being the location of historic movie ranches and the setting of classic Western movies. Today, as Hollywood offers a false north morality to the world, Shepherd Church seeks to offer Gods Word as true north through multiple live and media-based ministries.

Our mission has always been to lift up Jesus that the whole world might believe, as we see in John 3:14-15 and John 12:32, says Dudley Rutherford, senior pastor. When we got together with the design team, we talked about this theme of lifting up the name of Jesus and being a light in a dark world.

Our church is situated on the hills of Porter Ranch in the San Fernando Valley, which makes us feel we are a small part of what Jesus was talking about when he said, You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Then we thought about the city in which we live. Los Angeles is a unique and diverse city, and Shepherd Church is filled with unique people from all kinds of diverse backgrounds who love and serve the Lord Jesus together.

Their Bible-based DNA, their desire to serve as a true north of truth and light, and their celebration of the communitys diversity led us to the aurora borealis or northern lights as our driving big idea. In the northernmost places of the world, you can see beautiful, radiant and colorful lights displayed across the sky. We learned that these lights are caused by collisions between electrically charged particles from the sun as they enter the Earths atmosphere.

Similarly, believers in Christ at Shepherd can light up the Valley when we allow Jesus to collide with our lives. Our different shapes, colors and cultures come together as we boldly engage the culture with the transforming truth of the gospel, says Rutherford.

A former parking lot and underutilized courtyard was re-imagined as CandleWalk, a meandering pedestrian plaza following the path of 12 iconic stone pillars with a torch on top of each one. We designed and fabricated spatial storytelling graphics that tell the story of the 12 apostles on one side and the 12 tribes of Israel on the other, creating an experiential discovery trail.

Another unique environmental-art feature is a series of amber-colored, LED-lit cattails that sway in the wind, capturing the eye of surrounding Angelinos. Outdoor fireplaces, seating and water features create an inviting gathering place right across the street from the areas largest shopping district.

Our desire is to reach all 2 million people living in the northern Los Angeles area, says Rutherford. When I look around at the new design of our campus and our new worship center, I cant help but feel joy and excitement for the people in our community and in our city who will come and learn about Jesus Christ. I think weve succeeded in creating a warm and welcoming environment that honors God in all the details, big and small. And weve built this new worship facility not only for the lives that will be transformed for Christ today, but also for future generations.

Mel McGowan, an Outreach magazine contributing editor, co-founded Visioneering Studios and PlainJoe Studios, where he now serves as chief creative principal. PlainJoe Studios, is a multidisciplinary design firm focused on storytelling from branding to building. Mel also serves as chief creative officer for Storyland Studios, giving leadership to its multidisciplinary Spatial Storytelling practice.
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By IANS: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday expressed concern over continued civilian casualties in Afghanistan where US-led international forces are fighting the war against Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists.



"Attacks targeted against civilians are unacceptable," Ban told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York.



Ban, who had several times in the past one year expressed concern over the deaths of civilians during anti-terrorists operations of the US-led international forces in Afghanistan, said: "In planning military strategy, they have to avoid and they have to ensure that this will not create any civilian casualties."



While there are no official figures for civilian casualties, it is estimated that the number runs into at least a couple of thousands in the post-Taliban era. The Karzai government has been raising its voice against the increasing number of civilian casualties with the Bush administration and the NATO leadership.



Analysts say the failure of the US-led international forces to minimise civilian casualties could prove to be counter-productive as it would push the masses more towards the Taliban. NATO and US military officials, however, argue that of late they have been taking utmost precaution to ensure there are no civilian deaths during their operations. At the same time they point out that the Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorists use civilians as their shield to hide and launch their attacks against them, thus making their task difficult.



"The civilian casualties have caused great alarm and sadness and concern in the international community," Ban said in response to a question on the issue. He also referred to his similar statement in the past on this issue and that he has been taking up the matter with the concerned authorities.



"In fact, I have been discussing this matter on many occasions with the President of Afghanistan, (Hamid) Karzai and the Secretary-General of NATO, (Jaap de Hoop) Scheffer, on the necessity of protecting civilian populations," Ban said.



"I will continue to do that, and my special envoy, Kai Eide, is now strengthening this military/civilian coordination in Afghanistan," Ban added.

--- ENDS ---

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BLOOMINGTON  A 25-year-old man was convicted Tuesday of organizing a scheme to defraud a bank of more than $2,700 by recruiting four others to open bank accounts used to pass forged checks.

Reginald Cooper, 25, a Chicago resident who came to Bloomington to visit a relative, was accused of organizing a financial crimes enterprise involving US Bank, according to authoirities.

In closing arguments Tuesday, Assistant State's Attorney Brad Rigdon told the jury Cooper preyed on vulnerable people to get them to assist with the fraud.

"He targeted people who needed money: the young, unemployed and homeless," Rigdon said.

The four people who assisted Cooper by opening checking and savings accounts with money he provided are liable for the 14 bounced checks that bear their forged signatures. Those debts contributed to the state's decision not to prosecute the accomplices in exchange for their truthful testimony about the scheme, said Rigdon.

According to testimony Monday, the checks were drawn on the accounts of bank customers who did not authorize the withdrawals noted as "loans" on the memo line of the checks.

Defense lawyer John Bussan asked jurors to consider the witnesses' motives for testifying.

"All these people tried to get something for nothing. They all got caught and could get off the hook if they testified that Reginald was the organizer. Reginald is not the organizer or supervisor," said Bussan.

Two other men who helped Cooper connect with people willing to open the bank accounts also were not charged, Bussan told the jury.

Rigdon displayed eight photos on a screen in the courtroom depicting Cooper at ATMs where funds were withdrawn from the bank accounts.

Standing directly behind the defendant's chair, Rigdon quoted a Normal police investigator assigned to the case who described Cooper as "an original looking person" with his dreadlocks and manicured beard.

Rigdon also pointed out that Cooper was wearing the same Chicago Bulls jacket in the bank security photos.

In comments after the verdict, Ridgon said "the jurys verdict is a reflection of the excellent work by the Normal and Bloomington Police Departments during this complex investigation. Hopefully this sends a message that this type of financial crime enterprise which manipulates and harms so many people will not be tolerated by the community.

Cooper faces six to 30 years when he is sentenced Aug. 25 on the Class X felony.
EUREKA  A Woodford County judge will consider a request to reduce the eight-year prison sentence of a Bloomington woman who confessed to killing her husband in October 2016.

Sarah Mellor was sentenced July 18, after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in the stabbing death of her husband, Mark Mellor, at a campground near Carlock.

According to prosecutors, the two argued and struggled over a knife. During the altercation, Mark Mellor was stabbed in the chest. He later died at Advocate BroMenn Regional Medical Center.

Sarah Mellor was originally charged with first-degree murder, but in May, accepted a deal to plead guilty to second-degree murder. She faced punishment ranging from probation to 20 years in prison.

After four hours of testimony at her sentence hearing, Judge Michael Stroh sentenced her to eight years, saying sometimes good people do bad things.

Sarah Mellor was a teacher at Bloomington High School, but resigned after her arrest.

The motion to reconsider Mellors sentencing was filed earlier this month by her attorney, Stephanie Wong. Wong could not be reached for comment on Monday.

Mellors case will be heard Sept. 5 at the Woodford County Courthouse.

Mellor, who had been in the county jail since her arrest on the day of the stabbing, has been transferred to Logan Correctional Center in Lincoln and remains in the orientation program for Illinois Department of Corrections inmates.
BLOOMINGTON  Bloomington resident Bruce Meeks on Monday publicly called for the City Council and state police to act against Mayor Tari Renner for allegedly intimidating Meeks, a frequent critic of his administration, and calling him "crazy" and "pathetic" in an early morning email.

"I asked for (the council) to take some action," Meeks told The Pantagraph during a break in a City Council work session at which he read the email during the time for public comments. The meeting was called to discuss Renner's proposal for hiring an assistant for the mayor and revising the Downtown Bloomington Association.

"I feel that it is comparable to what (Renner) was rebuked for in 2015," Meeks said, referring to when the City Council formally criticized Renner for a late-night online rant against a conservative blogger who also frequently challenges Renner.

"You truly do seem to be totally crazy as they come!" the mayor wrote in the email he sent at 2:46 a.m. Sunday.

"It's too bad we can't bill for the tens of thousands of dollars you cost the city taxpayers of Bloomington over absolutely nothing (that would be true justice!)," wrote Renner, referring to Meeks' frequent requests for information from the city through the Freedom of Information Act.

"It seems as if you do this kind of garbage because you don't have an actual job! Very sand (sic) and pathetic!"

Meeks said he has asked the Illinois State Police to look into the intimidation allegation, but The Pantagraph was unable to confirm Monday whether the state police are investigating.

Meeks alleged Renner chastised him for raising questions about whether a city credit card, called a procurement card or p-card, was improperly used to buy a $1,836 airline ticket for Renner's girlfriend, Margot Ehrlich. She accompanied Renner on a city-sponsored trip earlier this month to attend the 55th anniversary celebration of the Sister City Sister bond with Asahikwawa, Japan.

The city received a check for that amount May 26 from Ehrlich as payment for her ticket, according to documents The Pantagraph received from the city through a FOIA request.

Renner did not comment during the meeting because council members customarily do not address remarks made during the time set aside for public comments. He did address the matter later, during a time at the regular council meeting set aside for the mayor's comments.

"It seems like it's a show of silliness, lies and videotapes," he said.

Countering allegations that the ticket purchase violated the law, Renner said: "It's an absolute, total lie. The chief legal officer has said even if the particular ticket in question were paid for by the city  it was not  it would have been legal ... because the person in question was an official delegate of the Sisters Cities Committee and did have an official role.

"At the end of the day there were no policies that were violated. It was all something that was appropriate."

"That's one of the reasons why, I think, that very many good people do not even want to bother to run for public office because they know they or their loved ones are going to be trashed sooner or later by people who seem to have nothing better to do with their lives," added Renner.

The mayor's early Sunday email referenced an email Meeks sent July 31 to city attorney Jeff Jurgens, aldermen and McLean County State's Attorney Jason Chambers. In it, Meeks asked whether the city would ask for a state police probe into the airline ticket and other spending.

"My purpose for filing for a request for an investigation, which I have done, is to get clarity ... on what transpired with the public funds, not just for a single purchase related to a plane ticket to Japan, but there are other situations," said Meeks. "There also has been a long-term concern about using public funds for lunches."

Meeks said he talked to the Bloomington Police Department and was told to contact state police.

McLean County State's Attorney Jason Chambers told The Pantagraph: "My office has no role in this at at this time. If someone thinks they are a victim of a crime, they need to call police and file a report."
On August 15, the day of Independence, Mahatma Gandhi observed 24-hour-fast, offered prayers, and spun khadi yarn and a cabinet of ministers was sworn in with Jawaharlal Nehru as the Prime Minister.

By Prabhash K Dutta: Eighty-nine years after the British Crown occupied it, India attained freedom at midnight just as the clock ticked 12.00 on August 15, 1947. India's Legislative Council had taken over the power from the crown through and Act passed by British Parliament on July 4 the same year.

The celebrations had begun earlier the previous day. Even at the Parliament building, the official function had started at 11 pm. Vande Mataram was sung as the National Anthem. There was yet no controversy about singing Vande Mataram. Later it was declared as the National Song.

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There were three main speakers at the Central Hall of Parliament. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was the third notable speaker at the official event where he delivered his famous the 'Tryst With Destiny' speech. The other two were Chaudhary Khaliquzaman and Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan.

In his speech, Nehru, referring to 1929 Lahore Congress, said, "Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom."

A cabinet of ministers was sworn in with Jawaharlal Nehru as the Prime Minister. His Ministers came from all walks of political philosophy. There were 13 ministers. The most notable non-Congressmen were BR Ambedkar and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee.

The current political lot is in race among itself for laying claim on the legacy of BR Ambedkar, the president of the drafting committee of the Constituent Assembly. He is hailed as the Father of the Constitution. Nehru's legacy has been claimed by the Congress almost exclusively. On the other hand, the BJP thinks that it carries forward Shyama Prasad Mukherjee's ideology and political legacy.

Some say that on the advice of some astrologer, the Independence Day celebrations were launched a day before. The astrologers apparently convinced the leaders that August 15, 1947 was not an auspicious day.

The celebrations at the Central Hall of Parliament ended well past midnight with the presentation of flag on the behalf of women of India.

THE OTHER PICTURE

While the mood was joyous and festive in New Delhi with Nehru taking charge as the first Indian government in almost two hundred years, about 1,500 km away Mahatma Gandhi - belovedly called the Father of the Nation - was in sombre mood.

Mahatma Gandhi had refused to be part of Independence Day festivities. In July that year, by the time the date of Independence had been finalised, Mahatma Gandhi was reported to have said, "I cannot rejoice on August 15. I do not want to deceive you. But, at the same time I shall not ask you not to rejoice. Unfortunately the kind of freedom we have got today contains also the seeds of future conflict between India and Pakistan. "

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In the meantime, clashes had broken out at numerous places in the sub-continent from Lahore to Dhaka. On receiving repeated requests from people and leaders in Bengal, Mahatma Gandhi had travelled to the then Calcutta on August 9 in his effort to bring peace to the riot-torn city.

Mahatma Gandhi wanted to visit Noakhali - now in Bangladesh - as it had turned into a macabre centre of communal violence. But, some local leaders convinced Mahatma Gandhi that he should stay at Calcutta. If Mahatma Gandhi could bring peace in Calcutta, the local leaders told him, the entire Bengal across the divide line would return to normalcy and peace.

Mahatma Gandhi shifted to Haideri Manzil or Haideri Mansion at Beliaghata very close to Miabagan, a locality dominated by Muslims. Mahatma Gandhi's decision to stay near Miabagan led to some protesters shouting "Gandhi Go Back" outside Haideri Manzil as they thought the Father of the Nation had come to sympathise with the Muslims only.

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Soon Mahatma Gandhi proved the protesters wrong. He continued to visit trouble-torn areas and meet people from both communities. Within days, efforts of Mahatma Gandhi yielded results. The frail old man, the apostle of non-violence had surprised the erstwhile rulers as what the might of the state could not do, Mahatma Gandhi had almost delivered.

Referring to Mahatma Gandhi's efforts in Kolkata, Lord Mountbatten wrote, "In the Punjab, we have 55,000 soldiers and large-scale rioting on our hands. In Bengal our forces consist of one man, and there is no rioting."

WHAT DID GANDHI DO 70 YEARS AGO

On August 15, the day of Independence, Mahatma Gandhi observed 24-hour-fast, offered prayers, and spun khadi yarn. There are seven entries in the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi for the Independence Day on 15 August 1947.

The first entry is about a letter written by Mahatma Gandhi to his friend and British reformer Agatha Harrison. "My way of celebrating great events, such as today's, is to thank God for it and, therefore, to pray," Mahatma Gandhi wrote.

Among the visitors were the new West Bengal Governor C Rajagopalachari, a group of students and the ministers of West Bengal. To the newly appointed ministers, Mahatma Gandhi said, "Today, you have worn on your heads a crown of thorns... Do not fall a prey to the lure of wealth."

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Mahatma Gandhi ended his day with a public rally at the Rash Bagan Maidan in Beliaghata, where he said that he hoped that the "meeting together (Hindus and Muslims) in perfect friendliness... was not a momentary impulse."

Also read: Bullets or abuses won't solve Kashmir problem, we must embrace its people: PM Modi

Also read: 70 years after Independence, Delhi hospitals remains in grips of apathy: Ground report

Also read: PM Narendra Modi's I-Day speech: Violence in name of faith unacceptable

--- ENDS ---
BLOOMINGTON  The city of Bloomington ended up Monday with more than three dozen applicants who want to serve on the new Public Safety and Community Relations Board.

More than 40 people had applied before the application deadline of 5 p.m. Monday, said Bloomington Communication Manager Nora Dukowitz.

The original deadline of 5 p.m. Friday was extended to Monday at Mayor Tari Renner's request because of some earlier confusion about the deadline.

Renner reported there were 15 applicants as of Wednesday.

The applicants' names won't be released until the city staff compiles all of the applications, Dukowitz said.

Applicants will need to fill out and submit by Wednesday a supplemental questionnaire asking whether they are or were associated with law enforcement and if they are convicted felons, said Dukowitz.

The board's membership will not include anyone in those categories, as outlined in the ordinance approved by the City Council on July 24 to create the civilian board.

The seven-member advisory board will look at public complaints about police to review whether department protocols were followed.

The board was created at the request of an alliance of community organizations, including Not in Our Town, American Civil Liberties Union of Central Illinois, NAACP, YWCA of McLean County and Black Lives Matter Bloomington-Normal.
100 years ago

Aug. 15, 1917: Today is Dollar Day in the city retail stores. Once or twice a year, merchants mark down certain items to a dollar and fling open their doors to bargain hunters. Nearly all the retailers in town are participating. (Dollar Day continued for decades.)

75 years ago

Aug. 15, 1942: 2nd Lt. Albert Woodard was killed in an Army plane crash in Louisiana. He is the ninth known ISNU student or alumnus to die in uniform since the attack on Pearl Harbor. Woodard attended ISNU from 1839 to 1941, and had just received his commission.

50 years ago

Aug. 15, 1967: The Firestone plant in Normal has received an order to produce tires for the army. The total order is for 1,717 tires for large pieces of earth moving equipment. Most of the tires will be made here; the rest will come from the Firestone plant in Des Moines, Iowa.

25 years ago

Aug. 15, 1992: Fire destroyed the home of Dennis Brooks, 204 S. Emery St., Heyworth. He got out all right, but Brooks says he hasnt come to grips with losing all their belongings in the fire. He was the only one home. His wife was in New York for her fathers funeral.
This weekend, white supremacists gathered for a "Unite the Right" rally that resulted in violent clashes with counter-protestors in the small college town of Charlottesville, Virginia. The rally, which was planned months in advanced, was originally slated as a response to the city's decision to sell a statue of Confederate hero Robert E. Lee, but quickly proved to be about so much more.

Led by Richard Spencer (himself a University of Virginia alum) and joined by David Duke, self-proclaimed neo-fascists, neo-Nazis and white nationalists showed up holding blatantly racist signs and shouting anti-Semitic slogans. Anti-racist counter-protestors, including groups like Black Lives Matter, the Democratic Socialists of America, students from the University of Virginia and the Industrial Workers of the World were also on the scene.

Shortly after Governor Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency, a car driven by a self-avowed neo-Nazi slammed into a crowded street, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others (two police officers also died in a helicopter crash while policing the event).

The response from some politicians, especially President Trump, to such virulent displays of racism and anti-Semitism was weaker than many would have hoped for. At first Trump took the stance that there were "many sides" to the issue, saying, "We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence, on many sides. On many sides. It's been going on for a long time in our country. Not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama. This has been going on for a long, long time."

After two days of intense national and international criticism, he took a stronger stance against white supremacists, saying, "Racism is evil, and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans."

Other top leaders condemned the violence (and the people behind it) clearly and forcefully. Angela Merkel, chancellor of Germany, said, "The scenes at the right-wing extremist march were absolutely repulsive  naked racism, anti-Semitism and hate in their most evil form were on display." Attorney General Jeff Sessions called the events "domestic terror." And in tech news, both GoDaddy and Google booted racist website The Daily Stormer from hosting its domain with them, after being called out online for allowing the site to stay up in the first place.

In light of all this, you may be wondering what you can do to help, so we put together the following list of actionable steps you can take to stay engaged with activism.



1. Attend a protest. Protesting is as American as apple pie. Look on Facebook and the websites of political movements you support for protests in your geographical area (there is one outside Trump Tower in NYC today, for example), or start your own. This helpful map from the progressive Center for American Progress Action Fund shows you where political events are happening all over the country, and you can also find events here. Note: If you find more pro-white supremacy rallies coming up, you can always attend/plan a counter-protest. Stay safe.

2. Donate. Though the (very real and important) responsibilities of day-to-day living may keep you from doing things that require your physical presence, tons of nonprofit groups that make protecting vulnerable groups their full time job could use your help.

Here are a few Charlottesville-specific places you can donate to:

NAACP (Charlottesville Chapter)

Two victims of the attack yesterday

The family of Heather Heyer, who died as a result of the attack

University of Virginia Hillel (support Jewish students)

National Organization of Women (Charlottesville Chapter)

IMPACT Cville (brings Muslim, Catholic, Protestant and Jewish communities together)

Charlottesville Pride

3. Call your representatives. Your elected officials are chosen to represent the people - aka you. Make them listen. Call them and tell them what you think about the work they're doing, whether it's positive or negative. In a world where no one picks up the phone anymore, it can feel daunting to call a stranger and give them a piece of your mind. But there are lots of tools out there to make this process easier, like this one and this one.



4. Be informed. If you are white, do your homework. There is a vast amount of literature available on not only the Civil Rights movements of the past, but also on what is happening right now (including this handy guide the Southern Poverty Law Center directed us to when we reached out to them). Don't hit up your friends/internet acquaintances of color and ask them what you should be doing. (Though when marginalized people talk, listen). Understand your role in history. Take a fearless inventory of how you have benefitted from being white. This "Syllabus for White People to Educate Themselves" is a comprehensive Google doc of helpful links to reading material that has been circulating since the election.

4a. Don't shy away from difficult conversations. If you're white, talk to other white people. This step has been repeated time and again, and for good reason. White people are the only ones who can fully put an end to the false doctrine of white supremacy. White people are also, apparently, more likely to listen to other white people, so grab your friends, coworkers and family members and have a chat. Talk to people about what you've learned, and share where you've found gaps in your knowledge. Here's a helpful flowchart for talking to people who get defensive about racism (also useful for evaluating these tendencies in yourself).

5. Take care of each other. The movement against hatred is never-ending, and life is short. There is strength in numbers, and value in softness and support. Stay in touch with yourself, and check in with your friends to send them love. There is community in resistance. You are not alone.



Image via Getty


On October 1, Japanese pop artist and lover of polka dots, Yayoi Kusama, will open a museum of her work in Tokyo. Artnet reports that the museum will be housed in a *gorgeous* five-story building in Toyko's Shinjuku ward designed by architecture firm Kume Sekkei, which was completed all the way back in 2014. The first two floors will house a retrospective of her paintings and sculptures, the third floor will showcase her infinity rooms and immersive installation work, and the top floor reading room will house archival material. Considering how insanely popular she is among academics, collectors and Instagram basiques alike, it's pretty amazing that she's manage to keep the project under wraps for so long! The debut show will be entitled, "Creation is a Solitary Pursuit, Love is What Brings You Closer to Art" and will be devoted to her colorful recent series of "My Eternal Soul" paintings, depicting eyes and biomorphic forms. How the museum plans to protect her priceless works from committed selfie desperados with nothing to lose is still TBD.

Watch this mini-documentary on Yayoi Kusama and her amazing work below...



[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRZR3nsiIeA&t=2s expand=1]





Splash image via Getty




Back in May, Jamila Woods and Chance the Rapper put out a call to Chicago public school students to help create the visuals for "LSD," a track off Woods' 2016 album HEAVN.

ATTENTION CPS STUDENT FILMMAKERS pic.twitter.com/0u9fR0yX1W

 Lil Chano From 79th (@chancetherapper) May 23, 2017





That project has now come to fruition in the below music video for the song, which is a love letter to Woods' and Chance's native Chicago. Seven local students contributed to the visuals, which show Woods and Chance at a cookout, dancing in the streets of Chitown, and hanging on the shores of Lake Michigan next to Lake Shore Drive (aka LSD).

Woods previously told SPIN, "When I was a kid, getting on Lake Shore Drive from the south side to go downtown was magical. I lived on the east coast for a few years and people would laugh when I told them we have beaches and a lake we can swim in. I always wanted to write about that. A lot of people get Chicago wrong. I've developed this protective feeling about how we're portrayed, and at the same time, I'm acutely aware of the issues we face and the root causes of these issues. It's important to me that there's not just one story told about our city. LSD is an ode to Chicago, a song for the complicated love I have for my city."

Check out "LSD" below:





[h/t Fader]
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There were many significant things in my childhood that helped to define who I was as a person, artist and witch. Somethings like spending time at the beach, springs and living on the edge of a swamp had deep influences on my genre of craft. Besides being an Avalonian and Water Witch I identify as Polytheistic. For as long as I remember I have known there are gods and spirits that were feminine. I grew up in a fundamental Christian home, and was baptized in a pool. Like that chemical filled water my relationship with the church was littered with toxicity and abuse. I knew there was more out there and I would eventually be driven by a mad urge to follow my path and leave everything else behind.

There were a few supernatural occurrences in my younger years that showed me who I was, where I was going, and that the barren path laid out for me was not the one I would travel. Though it wasnt till my early 20s that I would start to figure that out. On one fateful day I was sitting on the couch when a man in black walked through the room and right through the wall and tv. He was a supernatural being, having no feet and being able to walk through walls. I called him an angel, because I knew he was benevolent, in later years I explored the idea of an ancestor, and the King of Fae, but he remains a ghostly man in black. His appearance gave me a deep knowing that there was a spirit world that was vast.

Perhaps being born under Cancer and being a water moon child, combined with sleeping upon the waters every night in a water bed that set my prophetic and precognitive dreams in motion. It was strange to have deja vou as a child. Though later it would all make sense. I first remember having pre-cognitive dreams at the beginning of puberty. They continue on and off depending on my mental and spiritual state. The pre-cognitive dreams are important because again, it gave me the deep understanding that the church was a barren wasteland that was not part of my path and later gave me the strength and understanding to know there was more than just a single male tyrant in the sky sentencing people to hell for all eternity for being who they were.

My time in the church was an agonizing saga which I will not go into at this time, but it is worth mentioning that there were times that I intensely studied the bible and parts of it influenced my path. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that these studies showed me what I was drawn to and the experiences would serve me well later on. I mention this because when I was about 10 I studied Daniel in an in-depth class with a thick binder and notes. This was influential because at its core it is a book about magic, prophecy and initiation. There are also parts of the bible that deal with magic, necromancy and often declare the existence of other deity.

Still under the age of 18 and living at home I prayed each night, forming a circle at the table holding hands (also influential when it comes to circle casting, and the use of magical rings) but when I prayed it was to a god, a male. It is important to note here that at the table was a single man and 3 or 4 women (depending on the time frame) At the end of each prayer we would say Amen which is pretty typical, but then I would add and a couple of women. I had realized there was in fact A man at the table, only one, the rest of us were girls At first it was a joke, at least that is how it started, but there was more to it. I had no idea, how true this mantra I repeated would become. Shoot! I had no idea that I was saying a mantra or what the heck that even was. It was said at least 1 time a day for years. Later in my adult hood I realized that it in a way was a honor the divine feminine, or perhaps a goddess. It was a way of recognizing the divinity in us, the women at the table. It was in my own way a way to honor the feminine side of divinity. I had always known that there was a higher power that was of the feminine nature, why not honor her in my own way.

When I was about 16 I started working at Michaels, where I would spend the next almost decade working. I worked there through art school and later on and off. I became obsessed with fine art. I dont know if it was the newness of it, but certain paintings made me feel things I had no idea how to process. It was beauty, love, intrigue, confusion and wonder. While working in the art and framing sections of Michaels I would often sort through the art, putting them back in the right places and organizing them. I remember flipping through the art prints and falling deeply in love with paintings like Iris by John Atkinson Grimshaw, Midsummer Eve by E. R. Hughes and any number of Waterhouse paintings. The classical artist, the Pre-Raphaelites and others that featured beautiful enchanting faery women and goddesses caught my eye, there was something about these paintings of magical women, women that for some reason felt familiar and like home. Like somehow I belonged to it, I belonged to her. I didnt really understand the pull at the time, but it lead me on a path to pursue the fine arts. I immediately started painting faery women and groups of 3 or 9 maiden. I was driven to focus my art on these forms, wings, women and nature. It was here that I understood deeply there was female divinity and that my path would include the goddesses and they werent going to let me forget it!

When I was in high school we had to do oral reports, you know the kind where you dress up and pretend to be the person you are reporting on. So for some reason I decided that I would be Aphrodite. I dont remember why, other than I had a small obsession with her and other classical Greek/Roman female forms. This was the first taste of divinity that made my heart sing. At the time I didnt have an inkling what ritual theater was or really who Aphrodite was, all I knew is that I loved her. Later she would become a big part of my path in her guise as a water goddess. Aphrodite, and then Gaia first caught my attention and showed me a loving spiritual presence. What it meant to be held by a loving female touch, what it meant to heal and to see divinity in my own shape and similar form. It was here that I began to question why if we were made in gods image and women were the creators of life why everyone kept calling god a he. If God was really a man, why do men not birth life? Simple answer at the time. God was female.

Now before I go on I will say that currently I work with 2 Gods through Triskele Rose but my practice is largely influenced by the feminine side of divinity and more specifically with the nine maiden groups, fresh water fae and other water goddesses. Through my studies I was able to heal most of my aversions with male deities and have successfully formed relationships with Forest and Sun Gods and Faery Kings. So you could say that my spiritual life at that time was lacking, I knew there was another side, I knew there was more and so as I came into adulthood I began to gravitate towards it.

While in Japan I had a fierce awakening, now understanding that there is a goddess or multiple goddesses, nymphs and faery to honor and work with as divinity meant that this was profound time for me. I stepped out of being solitary and found a circle that met on the Air Force base. We circled in a sacred hidden grove and on the beaches. It was here I fell deeply in love with HER. Gaia caught my attention. She in a way stalked me, she knew the path I was to follow and the work I have and will do. She gently led me down the path and to the shores where I began my practice as a Sea/Water Witch. It was here I fell in love with the ocean goddess who made herself known to me in many ways that I could not ignore. I finally felt whole and I also understood my path better. Later I would uncover more synchronicities that would lead me down the path of water and to working with the Avalonian and other groups of 9 faery women.

My time in North Carolina was important as well. While I had already found divinity at this time, it was the instruction from a Watery Fire Storm and a Green Flame that taught me how to be a witch, how to honor the earth and worship divinity. I was brought in and given an amazing education, ways to improve myself, heal and explore the unknown. The foundation had been carved out up to this point. It was here that the foundation for my craft was cemented in stone. It laid the foundation for my priestess work and how I could finally honor and serve as a Priestess of these Watery Spirits. It was one of my teachers at this time that said You should work with Morgan La Fae It was a bit of a light bulb moment, I thought, of course I would! It felt right and I have been working with her ever since.

It is also worth noting that Sulis has been an ever present water spirit in my life as well. Visiting Bath several times and having been drawn to her and her temple as a child. She was one of the spirits that drew me to the watery path. These last two portions of the story could be a post in itself, but we will leave that for later. Really this is a love story, one that involves falling in love with beauty and sacredness, water and the earth. It is about being honored for being a woman, and honoring divinity as sacred and whole through seeing myself in the same way. Dion Fortune an influential mystic Avalonian once said a religion without a Goddess is half way to atheism and is true, for me it was a necessary part of my path and who I am. I was empty until she filled my cup; I was angry, hurt, broken and scared. I screamed out to the universe to save me from the abuse and trauma that I had experienced and it was She that reached down, took my hand and showed me the love of a mother, the love of a woman and the love of the Divine Feminine.
By PTI: Srinagar, Aug 15 (PTI) Restrictions were imposed in several areas in Kashmir to maintain law and order, even as a strike called by separatists disrupted normal life in the valley today.

Restrictions were in place in many areas in the valley, a police official said.

He said the restrictions continued in five police station areas of Nowhatta, Rainawari, Khanyar, M R Gunj and Safakadal in Srinagar for the second day today.

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The official said the curbs were also imposed this morning in Kulgam district and Anantnag, Chadoora and Nagam towns to maintain law and order.

He said the restrictions were in place to prevent any untoward incident.

A thick security blanket was thrown around Bakshi stadium, the venue for the main Independence Day function in the state where Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti presides over the celebrations, the official said.

Snipers were posted atop high-rise buildings across the city to thwart any attempt by militants to disrupt the celebrations, he said.

Mobile phone services and portable internet services were snapped across Kashmir as a precautionary measure, he added.

Meanwhile, normal life was disrupted across Kashmir due to the strike called by separatists against Independence Day celebrations.

Shops, fuel stations and other business establishments were shut across Kashmir, while public transport was off the roads, the official said.

The official said the effect of the strike was accentuated by a holiday on account of Independence Day. PTI SSB MIJ SMN

--- ENDS ---
Iranian Women's Rights Activist Demands Rouhani Provide Reasons for His Exclusively Male Cabinet

08/15/17

Source: Center for Human Rights in Iran

President Hassan Rouhani must explain why he didn't nominate women to serve in his new cabinet, feminist researcher Nahid Tavasoli told the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) in a recent interview.



Women's rights advocate Nahid Tavasoli



"Dr. Rouhani should explain why and based on what expedient principle did he decide not to reinstate [Vice President for Women and Family Affairs] Shahindokht Mowlaverdi?" she said. "He made all these promises about utilizing competent women in key positions and ministries, but didn't deliver. Why?"

"We are all aware that since the early days after the [1979] revolution, women have tolerated a lot of limitations with the hope that one day their aspirations for equality and fairness based on human and Islamic principles would come true," said Tavasoli, the editor-in-chief of Nafe, an academic women's periodical based in Iran. "There is nothing stopping them now. Why should they be restricted today?"

"There are so many women in charge of managerial posts [mid-level governmental posts] that if they stop working for a couple of days, the country would grind into the ground," she added.

Civil rights activists and reformist politicians had high expectations that women, who were excluded from ministerial positions in Rouhani's first term in office (2013-17), would be nominated to his new cabinet after his re-election on May 19, 2017. However, women were completely absent when he submitted his ministerial nominations to Parliament for approval on August 8.

"It's wrong to think that men have a higher status or that they are more capable than women," said Rouhani at his first press conference after his election on May 27.

"Of course men are better at some professions and women are better at others. [God] has given both their own special qualities," he added. "But women are not lower than men and keeping them inside the house does not make sense from social or legal standpoints."

Mowlaverdi, who during Rouhani's second re-election campaign said "two or three" women would be appointed to his next cabinet, has been moved over to the position of vice president for citizens' rights affairs. Her replacement is Masoumeh Ebtekar, who was the head of the Environmental Protection Organization in Rouhani's first cabinet.

"Masoumeh Ebtekar has a lot of knowledge and experience about environmental issues, but has none in the field of women's rights," women's rights advocate Tavasoli told CHRI. "Why Rouhani chose her as vice president for women's affairs is beyond comprehension."

Rouhani has also appointed a third woman to his inner circle of advisers: Laya Joneidi will be his vice president for legal affairs. Nevertheless, many women's rights activists believe the make-up of Rouhani's new cabinet is a setback for women's aspiration for greater participation in high-level governmental positions.

"In his inauguration speech, Dr. Rouhani made several references to 'people's rights,'" said Tavasoli. "I have a question for him: Isn't it the people's right to expect you to carry out your promises?"

Tavasoli continued: "Everywhere in the world, slogans and promises lure voters to take part in elections. It has been the same in Iran, but after all the excitement of the campaign and the victory celebrations, people forget that they have a responsibility to work hard to make sure those slogans and promises are acted on. They become indifferent."

"Our Iranian citizens, women and men, have gained the right to vote," added Tavasoli. "It has become part of their expectations in life, but they are still not aware that they have other rights, too, such as the right to demand that the officials they voted for make good on their promises. This is the first thing we have to be self-critical about."

In the 28 years since the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, only one woman, Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi, has served at the cabinet level-as minister of health in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's second term in office (2005-13).

The first female cabinet minister of the pre-revolutionary government, Minister of Education Farrokhroo Parsa (1968-71), was executed in 1980 by the new revolutionary government for allegedly introducing anti-Islamic policies.

The second ever female Iranian cabinet member, Mahnaz Afkhami, was minister for women's affairs from 1975 until 1979 when she was forced into exile in the United States after the revolution.

Some women's rights activists in Iran remain optimistic about the future of women under Rouhani's second term.

"I think it would have been a lot better if Mr. Rouhani had appointed three women and at least one Sunni Muslim to ministerial positions and thrown the ball into Parliament's court," Islamic feminist and author Jila Movahed Shariat Panahi told CHRI. "Then he wouldn't have been accused of making bad promises."

"I see the future being very bright," added Panahi. "Just the fact that three competent and experienced women [Ebtekar, Mowlaverdi and Joneidi] can participate in cabinet meetings is a welcomed opportunity. They can calmly and wisely defend citizens' rights."

Panahi said the mere appointment of a female minister would not necessarily be as helpful to the women's movement in Iran as more women serving in Parliament.

"The Campaign for Changing the Parliament's Male Face not only helped double the number of women elected to Parliament in 2016, but also increased male representatives who supported the nomination of female ministers," added Panahi. "We saw a dramatic increase in the number of women elected to national councils as well."

Seventeen women were elected in Iran's February 2016 parliamentary elections, the highest ever since the revolution.
Windows 10 S tries to minimize security risks by restricting app installations to the Windows Store. But the lack of app flexibility and available hardware significantly limits its appeal.

As with Chromebooks, students cant pick up a copy of Windows 10 S and load it onto their own machine. Instead, Windows 10 S will come preloaded onto Microsofts Surface Laptop or a small cadre of third-party Windows 10 S laptops priced for modest school budgets and ruggedized to withstand classrooms full of kids.

Windows 10 S and its hardware are also chasing Chromebooks, the cheap clamshell notebooks powered by Googles free and manageable Chrome OS, which have taken the education market by storm. The resemblance is not an accident: In fact, as we were writing this review, Asus let us know that a version of its Chromebook C202 would be released in September as the W202NA, a Windows 10 S-powered machine.

Microsoft provides Windows 10 S free of charge to academic institutions, and its not hard to see why: Microsoft wants a schools IT department (not you) to buy its associated Intune for Education management support software, as well as an Office 365 for Education subscription for the Office apps students will use.

Locking your PC away from the big, bad, outside world makes sense when your children are going off to high school or college, Microsoft thinks. But even the most dutiful parent will wonder why their child cant use Chrome to beam YouTube videos to a Chromecast, print on some local printers, or protect their PC with anything other than Windows Defender. Theres always an escape hatch: a simple upgrade to Windows 10 Pro. But otherwise, Windows 10 S can be an exercise in frustration.

Microsofts Windows 10 S is what happens when a once-easygoing operating system has kids and turns into a helicopter parent. Windows 10 S, a locked-down version of Windows 10 found on the Surface Laptop and a small group of low-cost, third-party notebooks, keeps students safe and secure by restricting them to the Windows Store. But as our review shows, the lack of freedom chafes.

So far, however, only the Surface Laptop is available. As Microsoft revealed in August, the low-cost Windows 10 S laptops wont ship until at least September, possibly missing the back-to-school window for the 2017 school year.

For this review, were not considering how manageable Windows 10 S is, or whether its a better choice for securing an academic environment than Chrome OS. Instead, were looking at it from the users perspectivewhat its like to use compared to full-fledged Windows.

Dan Masaoka Our test machine: the Surface Laptop.

We tested a Microsoft-supplied Surface Laptop, which comes preloaded with Windows 10 S. We will note, however, that we upgraded the Laptop to Windows 10 Pro for benchmarking. To return the Surface Laptop to Windows 10 S, we downloaded a publicly available Surface recovery image, which is something youd normally do only if your system were malfunctioning. The process was pretty easy, though Microsoft says that youll need a USB stick of at least 16GB in size. We found it took about an hours worth of time to download and install the image.

Microsoft also asked us to make this crystal-clear: If you revert from Windows 10 Pro to Windows 10 S, all apps, data and settings are reverted, and will be erased from your PC.

Hey, this is (only) Windows 10!

If youre comfortable working within the Windows 10 environment, Windows 10 S really is almost virtually identical to Windows 10. The so-called Out of the Box Experience is identical, with Cortana walking you though setup. Once inside the operating system, nearly all Windows functions like Windows Hello, File Manager, Cortana, Windows Ink, and the various built-in Windows apps all work identically to their equivalents in Windows 10 Home or Pro.

IDG Microsoft tries to convince you that Windows 10 S is almost Windows 10 Pro.

In fact, Microsofts own summary slide points out that Windows 10 S and Windows 10 Pro are nearly identical, but with two key differences: Windows S is restricted to apps in the Windows Store, and you cant join a Windows 10 S machine to a company domain. Otherwise, on both Windows 10 S and Windows 10 Pro you can use BitLocker, Windows Subsystem for Linux, and the HyperV virtual machine manager, though you may need to enable features within the Windows Features control panel.

IDG Like Windows 10 Pro, you have access to advanced features like Hyper-V even within Windows 10 S. Dont expect to enable all of these advanced features on the low-cost Windows 10 S hardware, though.

Its when you become bored or dissatisfied with Windows that the troubles start.

For safetys sake, Windows 10 S prohibits you from installing apps from anywhere but the Windows Store. Youll be able to download the app, but when it comes time to install it, the Windows 10 S helicopter parent steps in:

Mark Hachman Sorry, no Win32 apps for you! Windows 10 S has strict protections in place.

That means, for instance, you cant download a game from the Steam gaming service. If youd like to use Googles Chrome browser, you cantonly Edge. Windows 10 S will allow you to download an executable file from a third-party source, or transfer it onto the PC from a USB stick. When it comes time to launch it, though, Windows 10 S will block it.

You likely have certain apps that you simply take for granted, whether theyre class requirementslike Photoshop (or GIMP), AutoCAD, or MatLabor teaching aids for younger students, like Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. Silly little utilities that you may have tucked away in a folder simply wont work. Remote support solutions like LogMeIn123 also require the user to download an executable before a remote technician can log in and help you solve an issue with your PC, so this solutions out, too. Even tried-and-true executable apps within Windows, such as the Command Shell or Registry Editor, are off-limits.

Mark Hachman / IDG If you try to download and install Googles Chrome browser, a different warning pops up, encouraging you to open Edge instead.

This cant be overstated: The lack of flexibility is the biggest reason not to invest in a Windows 10 S notebookunless you plan to upgrade it to Windows 10 Pro.

A larger issue, in my mind, is that Windows 10 S forces you to use Microsofts Edge browser. While the number of available Edge extensions has climbed to 48 at the time of this writing, with excellent choices including Ghostery and LastPass, Opera, Chrome, and Firefox have thousands of plug-ins and extensions from which to choose. Importing websites and stored passwords from platform to platform simply isnt as convenient in Edge as it is in Chrome. Bottom line, its a change in behavior thats forced upon the user, which is sure to irritate some.

Finally, theres Office. The Windows 10 S private catalog feature allows a school or university to create a sort of store within the Store to carve out apps that a particular class might need. It wont allow you to join the machine to a business or corporate network, though. This might not mean much, but if you had visions of saving a buck or two by connecting a business account of Office 365 to a Windows 10 S PC, it wont work. The Surface Laptop we reviewed did come with a years subscription to Office 365 Personal, however, which is available in a beta form. I noticed no differences between Office 365 and the Windows 10 S versions of the apps.

IDG A number of Office apps are available under Windows 10 S, which appear to have the same functionality as they do under Office 365.

Some parents will undoubtedly support removing the potential distraction of say, Overwatch, from their childs PC. And if a school has a web-based curriculum set up for Chromebooks, a Windows 10 S machine should be able to step in without missing a beat. But in my mind, the lack of freedom to obtain apps that students may need robs a lot of the value from Windows 10 S, especially as kids move higher in the educational system.

Unfortunately, the compatibility issues apply to third-party hardware, too. When I tried to connect the Surface Laptop to an older Dell all-in-one printer via a USB connection, the Laptop recognized the hardware, but wouldnt load the driverin other words, I couldnt print, with no explanation why. Any driver or third-party application that contains scripts or executable files will be blocked by Windows 10 S, Microsofts support documentation reveals. But thats a lot of gobbledygook to a consumer who buys a Surface Laptop for their student, then has to call Microsoft or a support tech to find out why their son or daughter cant print a draft of their paper.

Mark Hachman / IDG Unfortunately, this older Dell printer that I use at home cant print anything when Im running Windows 10 S. Note the driver is unavailable message.

Its worth digging though this Microsoft-compiled index of supported (and unsupported) devices on Windows 10 S to see if youll experience the same problems I did: The vast majority of older printers simply arent supported by Windows 10 S. To be fair, setting up Google Cloud Print for a Chromebook has its own issues, which is why Google is adding local printing as an experimental feature in Chrome OS. Still, doesnt it seem slightly insane to be forced to ensure your devices are compatible before buying a Windows machine?

Security and speed

You may recall that the S in Windows 10 S supposedly stands for simplicity, security, and speed. Weve already seen the downside of simplicity.

One of the selling points of Windows 10 S, according to Microsoft, is its resistance to known ransomware. Windows 10 S is the companys newest and most hardened OS, according to a company blog post. ZDNet almost immediately put that claim to the test, and found that Windows 10 S could be exploited via an old workaround: Word macros. We didnt try to reproduce ZDNets results, but take Microsofts claim with a grain of salt.

Another thing to consider: Dont think that apps like Avast Antivirus Download Center, Kaspersky Now, or McAfee Centralall apps that appear in the Store when you search for antivirusrepresent actual antivirus programs. Theyre not. Youre dependent upon Windows Defenders built-in firewall and antivirusboth competent, but probably not as secure as a third-party solution.

Finally, theres speed. Microsoft claimed that Windows 10 S is faster to boot and resume than Windows 10 Pro. Originally, we found that Windows 10 S was slower than Windows 10 Pro. After retesting, we found its slightly quicker to boot, but also slightly slower to resume from a cold boot. Neither difference is especially significant.

IDG

A click away from Windows 10 Pro

Piercings, tattoos, dating the drummer, beer, a joint: all tried-and-true ways for todays youth to rebel against their parents. Now, you can add another to that list: upgrading Windows 10 S to Windows 10 Pro. If your son or daughter wants to really stick it to The Man, they can upgrade to Windows 10 Pro in just minutes.

(While the upgrade from Windows 10 S to Windows 10 Pro is free on the Surface Laptop, it will cost $49 thereafter. Its not clear what Microsoft will charge to upgrade to Windows 10 Pro on the other, cheaper Windows 10 S hardware designed for elementary schools. As of Sept. 5, Microsoft extended the deadline to switch for free from the end of 2017 until March 31, 2018.)

Mark Hachman / IDG Windows 10 S makes it easy to switch, or upgrade to Windows 10 Pro.

You can upgrade to Windows 10 Pro through one of two ways: either by a link at the bottom of the Windows 10 S popups that appear when you try and run an executable file, or by simply typing Windows 10 S Pro into the search box of the Windows Store. Either way, clicking the Install button begins the process. It doesnt appear that youll actually need to download the new operating system, as I was able to upgrade without being connected to a wireless network. Windows recommends that you save and close all your files and apps before you begin the process. Backing up to OneDrive or another location would be a good idea.

When I upgraded from Windows 10 S to Windows 10 Pro, Windows informed me it was preparing to switch, rebooted once, than completed some final preparations before it launched Windows 10 Pro. All told, the process took nine minutes.

As we noted above, the switch from Windows 10 S to Windows 10 Pro is assumed to be a one-way street. Thats not necessarily true, as you can download and restore from a Windows 10 S disk image. But restoring Windows 10 S from that disk image will erase all files, apps, and settingsso make sure youre prepared to do so.

Conclusion: If this is Windows, kids will want a Mac

Its difficult to construct a scenario where a user would want Windows 10 S. Sure, an elementary-school student with a curriculum built around the Web might not care whether they use Edge or Chrome. A concerned parent trying to minimize distractions for a child away at school might buy a machine running an OS that locked out most games. Part of the issue concerns how Microsoft has attempted to stretch Windows 10 S from elementary schools all the way through college, which have vastly different requirements in terms of hardware and software.

Because theyre limited in their choice of software, its likely that most university students will quickly switch over to Windows 10 Pro. Meanwhile, Microsoft seems to think that elementary and middle school administrators will be willing to wait until cheaper Windows 10 S hardware finally rolls out, then shift lesson plans designed for Chromebooks onto Windows machines. That seems unlikely. Within the K-12 environment, Windows 10 S seems like a 2018 play at best.

Mark Hachman / IDG Microsoft needs to do more work touting the education value of the Windows Store, and educational apps. (Hint: Netflix isnt one.)

Schools and teachers are always on the lookout for cheap, entertaining ways to supplement their own words and lectures with compelling ways to engage students. Computers, whether Chromebooks or Windows-powered machines, are a naturally enthralling way to do that, and capabilities like Windows Ink offer possibilities Chromebooks do not. Give kids enough to do, and theyll happily remain inside the walled garden of the Store. Still, Im a little skeptical that the companys on the right track when the second app within Microsofts back-to-school section of the Store is Spotify, and the fourth is Netflix.

I dont think Microsoft has necessarily failed with Windows 10 S. But it should be handed back to the company with a scrawled note: Must do better.

Updated on Sept. 5 to note that the deadline to upgrade from Windows 10 S to Windows 10 Pro has been extended to March 31, 2018.
Founder and President of Concerned Voters Movement (CVM), Razak Kojo Opoku has applauded the Bank of Ghanas efforts under President Akufo-Addo's government to restore fiscal discipline and enforcement of Banking and Financial Laws of Ghana to protect customers' monies from missing.



A statement signed by, Mr Opoku on August 14, 2017 indicated that when Merchant Bank was collapsing, the Bank of Ghana under former President John Mahama's government sold it to a four months old Fortiz Private Equity Fund, which was an allegedly NDC-owned Company.



The statement further stated that unlike the Merchant Bank situation, the BoG has done the right thing in the Capital and UT Banks takeover by GCB.



Below is the full statement



The Bank of Ghana Under President Akufo-Addo's Government Deserves a Big Round of Applause - CVM



The smooth takeover of UT Bank and Capital Bank by GCB under Purchase and Assumption (P& A) transaction is an indication that the current managers of the Economy is really thinking outside the box.



John Mahama's government wasn't thinking right and wisely, they could have adopted the Purchase and Assumption (P & A) Agreement to save all the monies belonging to the Customers of DKM, God is Love Fun Club, Jasta Motors, amongst others.



When Merchant Bank was collapsing, the Bank of Ghana under John Mahama's Government sold it to a four-month-old Fortiz Private Equity Fund, an alleged NDC-owned Company.



Fortiz Private Equity Fund was incorporated in 2013 and went ahead to purchased Merchant Bank in the same year 2013 with no track record.



After the purchase of Merchant Bank by Fortiz Private Equity Fund in November 2013, their Board Chairman, Dr Kingsley Fletcher was again rewarded with an appointment from John Mahama's Administration on 5th March 2014 as the first Chancellor of University of Professional Studies, Accra(UPSA) supervising Prof. Joshua Alabi (then as Vice-Chancellor of UPSA) who is now 2020 flagbearer hopeful of the NDC.



UT Bank and Capital Bank started collapsing during John Mahama's Administration due to the poor management of the economy. From the officials of these two Banks and from the records of Bank of Ghana, UT Bank and Capital Bank were on life support for survival since 2015.



But thanks to the wise decision by Bank of Ghana under President Akufo-Addo's government to restore financial discipline, enforcement of Banking and Financial Laws of Ghana, and protect the monies of Customers, GCB, Government-owned Bank has taken over these two distressed Banks such as UT Bank and Capital Bank through Purchase and Assumption transaction.



GCB has been in existence since 1953 unlike Fortiz which was four months old when it acquired Merchant Bank.



The competence of NPP Government and incompetence of NDC Government is crystal clear for sound Ghanaians to differentiate between the two.



...Signed....



Razak Kojo Opoku

(CVM Founder & President)

Source: ghanaweb/Daniel Kaku









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A 31-year old welder, who operates along the Ghana-Togo Border at Aflao has been jailed 12 years in hard labour by an Aflao Circuit Court for possessing wee.



Edem Agutsi, who allegedly poses as a security person, pleaded guilty for possessing wee and an alcoholic beverage also laced with the substance.



Mr. Michael Akemo, a Police Detective, told the court presided over by Mr. Ali Baba Abature that at 1300 hours on July 12, this year, police followed a tip-off that some fake security men were searching and robbing travellers of monies at Beat 11 entry point and Agutsi was arrested.



He said the suspect denied any wrong doing, resisted arrest and threatened he would only die with the policemen.



Mr Akemo said during interrogation, Agutsi took to his heels towards the border, in an attempt to escape to the Togolese side, but he was re-arrested.



He said the police found substances believed to be wee seeds and an alcoholic beverage laced with wee in a bag belonging to him with an amount of CFA 80,000.



He said Agutsi denied that he was extorting money from travellers, but claimed the wee was given to him by a friend, called Emmanuel, and that he was always agitated to work hard on the frontier helping travellers to cross the border when he took the wee-laced beverage.

Source: GNA









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Ramesh Krishnan had accused AXA Life Insurance Singapore of defaming him while providing references on his work performance in 2012, the Strait Times reported on Tuesday.

By Indo-Asian News Service: An Indian-origin man here has got 4 million Singaporean dollars ($2.9 million) in damages from his previous employer after a scathing reference letter by them cost him the chance to get a new job.

Ramesh Krishnan had accused AXA Life Insurance Singapore of defaming him while providing references on his work performance in 2012, the Strait Times reported on Tuesday.

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Justice George Wei noted on Monday that the stands of both parties had been "polar opposites" when it came to damages. Ramesh had sought 63 million Singaporean dollars, while AXA urged he should be awarded only a nominal sum of 1 Singaporean dollar.

Krishnan lost his initial defamation suit in 2015, but the Court of Appeal later ruled that AXA had breached its duty of care to him, the report said.

AXA's BREACH OF DUTY LED SINGAPORE FIRM NOT TO HIRE RAMESH

The court had also noted AXA's breach of duty led Prudential Assurance Company Singapore not to hire Ramesh.

When the firm in which Krishnan had applied for a job asked AXA for the reference, it wrote back saying: "He showed a very poor 13th month persistency rate" - meaning that many of his clients did not stick with their policies - and "we are very concerned as to whether the clients have been provided with proper advice".

The Court of Appeal said this would have given the mistaken impression that Ramesh was not competent, and did not square with the evidence that he was one of "AXA's best financial services directors" and it had earlier persuaded him not to resign.

"People must know that justice is served. Somebody must go out there and make a point," said Ramesh, after the ruling.

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The United States branch of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has congratulated and welcomed Ghanas new Ambassador to the USA, Dr. Barfuor Adjei-Barwuah.



On Friday, July 21, 2017, H.E. Dr. Barfuor Adjei-Barwuah, Ghanas nineteenth ambassador to the United States, met and presented his credentials to President Donald Trump, at the White House in Washington DC.



NPP-USA in a statement said it joins the larger Ghanaian community to congratulate Dr. Barfuor Adjei- Barwuah on his appointment and successful assumption of office.



We warmly welcome you to the United States and into the Ghanaian community.



Dr. Adjei-Barwuah is an experienced diplomat, who brings years of embassy experience as President Kufuors ambassador to Japan, to expertly serve Ghanas interest in the United States.



There is, therefore, every confidence that Ghanas mission rests in a very skilled and stable hands the group said.



We in the NPP-USA are hopeful and especially happy about Dr. Barwuahs appointment because we see his wealth of experience as a critical factor for cultural and service reforms in the embassy system which currently falls far below the expectations of Ghanaians and general embassy clientele.



It added that, Given the enormity of the task, the membership of NPP-USA pledges its support and call on all Ghanaians to work with Dr. Adjei-Barwuah to advance Ghanas mission here in the United States.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









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Executive Chairman of the Jospong Group of Companies, Joseph Siaw Agyepong, has dismissed suggestions that greed drives his business interests.



According to him, he is content with his current position in life and that he finds joy in seeing people work, thus his interest in building businesses.



Mr Agyepong has in the last few weeks been in the news over governments contract with the Road Safety Management Limited (RSML) a subsidiary of the Jospong Group to impose a mandatory tow levy on vehicle owners.



Critics have described the move as a bad idea, with others suggesting that the policy was a recipe to create, loot and share.



But speaking on Accra-based Joy FM Tuesday morning, Mr Agyepong said the driving force behind his business interests is trying to find solutions to problems in society whilst creating employment for the teaming unemployed youth in the country.



He said his joy is "to see people working. I dont say that Im greedy. One company is enough to take care of me and my five children. When I create a business, its because of employment.



He said he sees himself as someone trying to create employment for people [and] to create an environment that will make people work, stressing, I consider myself as someone blessed and I have to share the blessing with society.



He bemoaned the current Ghanaian system which he said, practically makes it impossible for young people to start up a business after college education.



The sad thing he noted, is that you are doing business as a local businessman and at the same time you have foreigners competing with you for the same business.



He fears that soon, foreigners will cook and sell waakye, a delicious meal made from boiled rice and beans enjoyed by Ghanaians, if a decision is not taken to boost local businesses.



Things will be better he said, only if we can look at the system and see how best we can customize the system for Ghanaians.



Mr. Siaw Agyepong, therefore, called for the urgent need to protect local businesses maintaining that,If the demand is not there, there is nothing you can do.

Source: Daily Graphic









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A former Member of Parliament on the ticket of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) for the Tamale North Constituency, Alhaji Abubakari Sumani is reported dead.



Sources narrated that he was bedridden after the 2016 general elections and died on Saturday August 12.



There are indications that the remains will be airlifted to Tamale for burial, Sunday August 13 in line with Islamic tenets.



As a lawyer, he was born in April 28, 1946 at Savelugu in the Northern Region.



He attained LLB at the University of Ghana Law School in 1970 and later BL (GSL) in 1972.



The late Alhaji Abubakari Sumani went to Parliament in 2000 as MP for then Choggu/Tishigu constituency.



He succeeded Alhaji Adam Ibrahim who did not renew his mandate from 1996 to 2000.



The late Alhaji Abubakari Sumani lost the Tamale North constituency seat in 2012 to an independent candidate, Dahamani Alhassan.



He failed in an attempt to stage a comeback at the NDCs Parliamentary primary ahead of the 2016 general elections.



The incumbent NDC Member of Parliament, Alhaji Alhassan Suhuyini dashed his hope and that of six others at the primary.



The late Alhaji Abubakari Sumani was a former Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia under Jerry Rawlings democratic rule.



He was Chairman of the Public Procurement Authority under the watch of late President John Evans Atta Mills.



He also served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Ghana Commercial Bank.











Source: citifmonline.com









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President Nana Akufo-Addo has said Ghana lost about $3 billion in economic activities during the power crisis that hit the nation under the Mahama administration.



Akufo-Addo who quoted figures from the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) said the country lost about GHc618 million in economic activity in 2014 alone which he said is equivalent to 2 percent of GDP.



Thus the four years of dumsor cumulatively led to a loss of more than $3 billion in economic activity and in the process thousands of Ghanaians lost their jobs, he said at the second National Policy Summit on Trade and Industry held in Accra on Monday.



He also said the Ghanaian industrial sector was drastically suffered within the period.



Regrettably the industrial sector has suffered one of the most significant setbacks in our history over the past few years. In 2014 for example, industry which in 2008, the last year of the government John Agyekum Kufuor, former president of the Republic had grown to 15.1 percent slumped to 0.8 percent in 2015 to -0.3 percent and further down to -1.4 percent in 2016. In 2015, manufacturing recorded a negative growth of 0.3 percent.



He lamented that a signification number of small, medium and large scale operators were all brought to their knees as a result of four years of dumsor induced by the mismanagement of the energy sector.

Source: citifmonline.com









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A Pennsylvania man's 21st birthday party allegedly became criminal because the birthday boy is accused of having sex with two 12-year-old girls during the party in Chester County, Pa.

The suspect, Devin Edward Storf, has been brought back to Chester County from North Carolina, where he had moved after growing up in East Whiteland, Pa., according to the Mercury News of Pottstown.

The now 22-year-old Storf faces multiple counts of rape of a child under 13, unlawful contact with minors, indecent assault of a child under 13, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, statutory sexual intercourse, aggravated indecent assault, and corruption of minors.

The charges stem from an alleged incident at Storf's 21st birthday party last year, according to the newspaper, which adds:

During the June 2016 party, Storf allegedly asked one 12-year-old girl to go into the basement of his family home in East Whiteland.

The girl later told police she went there with another 12-year-old girl ... along with a juvenile male who was friends with Storf.

Storf allegedly began talking to the girls about sex, and "telling them that it was fun." Police say he asked the girls to have oral sex with him.

The first girl told police she had sexual intercourse with Storf and Storf's male friend. She then continued having sex with Storf about 15 more times between June 2016 and March 2017, the newspaper reports, citing court papers.

She told police Storf would sometimes give her alcohol to drink. She said Storf told her not to tell anyone about what occurred because he would get arrested.

The second girl, also interviewed by police, said she had oral sex with Storf at the party.

Storf's underage male friend told police he witnessed the sex acts.

At last report, Storf was lodged in Chester County Prison with bail set at $300,000 cash. He faces an Aug. 25 preliminary hearing.
Editors note: This story was updated in 2020 to reflect a change in the name of the company that designed the swimsuit.

Theres more to the cover of the 2018 Philadelphia Eagles Cheerleader Swimsuit Calendar than cheerleader Snow Feng in a bikini.

Feng's wearing the Sponge Suit, which cleans the ocean while you swim in it by absorbing oil contaminants (while still repelling water). Those contaminants get stuck inside the pores of the material, so the swimmer never actually comes into contact with it.

The swimsuit is designed by SOUR (formerly Eray/Carbajo) and centers around the idea that youll regularly change the sponge part of the swimsuit as the sponges get saturated.

The technology that makes it all possible, and the sponge material, is the work of Sponge, Inc.

The suit is not yet available for purchase.

What is available for purchase, however, is the 2018 Philadelphia Eagles Swimsuit Calendar. It can be bought online at philadelphiaeagles.com starting today or at brick and mortar stores on Aug. 17. The calendar is $20 and features 34 cheerleaders.

Photos for the calendar were shot in the Dominican Republic, where the cheerleaders worked with Waves for Water to bring portable water filtration systems to the Village of Cajuil and Macao La Ceiba so that the people there can have access to clean water.

For those more curious about Feng, the calendar's cover star, she's been with the Philadelphia Eagles Cheerleaders squad for four years and works as a physician assistant. She has a B.S. degree in biochemistry and an M.S. degree in physician assistant studies. She's also fluent in Spanish, Mandarin and English.

For all your Philadelphia Eagles news check pennlive.com/philadelphiaeagles or like us on Facebook (Philadelphia Eagles on PennLive). For all of our coverage of Philadelphia head to pennlive.com/philadelphia. You may also enjoy these stories:
A 171-year-old home in Butler County will soon have a new owner to add to its long history.

This map from 1874 shows the Rev. John Galbraith's property right between the "M" and "S" in the township name.

The property at 1623 Three Degree Road in Adams Township, Butler County, can be traced back to 1846. According to the indenture dated April 17, 1846, the Rev. John Galbraith purchased the land for $548.80.

The reverend was born in Ireland in 1818, traveling to the United States in 1832 and graduating from Western University (now the University of Pittsburgh) before studying at the Reformed Theological Seminary of Allegheny City and being ordained in 1943. He took over as minister of the Adams Township church the same year. The Rev. Galbraith served the church until 1889.

A single-room school stood across the street, where it is thought the reverend also taught.

He died in 1904, 10 years after his wife passed away. Both are buried in the Mars Cemetery less than 3 miles from their home on Three Degree Road.

This photograph from 1935 or 1936 shows the front porch at 1623 Three Degree Road. It looks about the same today.

The property changed hands over the next century, though owners made sure to keep some of its historical touches. In the kitchen, original wood floors and handmade nails take you back to a largely forgotten era. And outside, a barn and silo hold memories of the past as they wait to be reinvented.

"We tried to keep it pretty authentic," said owner Mark Collier. "We putzed with the idea of going for a historic landmark, but we were somewhat being persuaded otherwise just because it's so involved and then you're really limited as to what you can add to it."

After 21 years in the home, the Colliers are selling the property to be closer to the family business headquarters in New Castle. The property is listed at $649,900.

The home has grown larger in its age. It now features a combination of historic and modern features, including air-conditioning and a newly paved driveway. Four bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms are spread across the main and upper floors, giving a family space to spread out.

This side view shows the home before the Colliers added a sunroom.

In their two decades at the 9-acre property, the Colliers added more rooms to relax and entertain guests. They added a master bedroom, sunroom and pool. They also updated the kitchen with newer appliances and soapstone countertops, blending with the charm of the room's original brick wall and wooden floors. Built-in storage and a pantry offer plenty of room for a chef or host.

A door under the stairway leads down to a basement ideal for storage or exercise room. Those looking for more space can find a use for the barn, which has largely been untouched.

For more information, see the property listing on Howard Hanna.

Want more Cool Spaces? See all of our stories showcasing the neatest homes, businesses and museums in Pennsylvania by clicking here.
By PTI: Eds: Recasts intro, adds comments of Brinda Karat

Palakkad (Ker)/ New Delhi, Aug 15 (PTI) Defying the CPI (M)-led government in Kerala, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat today unfurled the national flag at a school in Palakkad in alleged violation of an official order after which the local administration has decided to register a case against him.

Palakkad District Collector P Marykutty had issued an order late last night stating that since the Karnagi Amman school was government-aided, only elected representatives or school authorities could hoist the flag, as per protocol.

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The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) defended its chiefs action in a statement which said that after due consultations, "the school authorities decided that they would proceed as planned and that Bhagwat must exercise his constitutional rights".

"We condemn such brazen attempts by the CPI-M led government of Kerala to deny the citizens their basic right of celebrating Independence Day and their continuous attempts to poison the state of Kerala with divisive politics," RSSs Akhil Bharatiya Prachar Pramukh Manmohan Vaidya said.

Senior CPI-M leader Brinda Karat, however, criticised Bhagwat for violating the rules of the Kerala government.

The DC said the administration would take action in the matter. "We will give instruction to the police to register a case," she said.

Bhagwat is in the state to attend a two-day meeting of the Sangh which began here yesterday. The state has witnessed political violence involving activists from the ruling CPI(M) and the RSS-BJP combine, which has left several people dead.

Addressing the students, Bhagwat said, "It is our duty to remember the sacrifices and hard efforts of those who laid down their lives during the struggle for independence. We have to bring that dedication to our lives". Independence, he said, was "sacred", and added "we have to protect it". PTI UD APR JTR BDS SK

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Police said they had perfectly legitimate reasons to pull over Richard Hubbard III as he drove through the Cleveland suburb of Euclid, Ohio, on Saturday morning. Hubbard, a 25-year-old black man, had rolled through an intersection, they said, and a search on the 2011 Hyundai showed the owner had a suspended license.

But what began as a routine traffic stop quickly escalated into violence.

A bystander captured video of an officer slamming Hubbard to the ground and punching him repeatedly before taking him into custody. The footage went viral over the weekend, drawing some 6 million views on Facebook.

On Monday, police released dash cam footage of the violent arrest.

Both videos have left city officials, activists and outraged locals questioning whether the officer was justified in using such force against Hubbard, who appears in the footage to be passively resisting.

"The videos of the incident on Saturday morning raise some very serious concerns," Euclid Mayor Kirsten Gail said in a statement. "We have policies and procedures in place to ensure that all use of force by police are both lawful and justified. I can assure you the incident will be reviewed thoroughly and appropriate action will be taken."

In a statement, police told local media that a "violent struggle" broke out after Hubbard ignored orders to face away from the arresting officer so he could be taken into custody. Police officials have not identified the officer but said he has been placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation.

"This entire incident will be reviewed, in detail, so that the public can have a full and open understanding of the series of events that led to this violent encounter," a department spokesman said.

The dash cam video, first posted by Cleveland 19, offers the most complete account of what happened. It opens with a squad car pulling over Hubbard and a female passenger, who were riding through town in a silver Hyundai. An officer tells Hubbard he stopped him for a traffic violation and says the vehicle shows a suspended license.

Step out, he tells Hubbard. Then, "face away from me."

In a matter of seconds, the traffic stop turns violent.

Without clear provocation, the officer shoves Hubbard against the car and grabs him by the arms. They tumble into the center of the street, then collapse onto the pavement. A second officer rushes to help his partner. The passenger, a black woman, gets out and shouts at them to stop.

"Bae, please look at me," she pleads as the officers try to pin Hubbard to the ground. "Bae, stop. Please listen, just let them do what they do."

One officer can be seen slamming Hubbard against the pavement, then punching him several times. Though police would go on to say that Hubbard was resisting arrest, the video appears to show him lying on the ground and trying to block the officer's blows with his arms.

Panic sets in when one of the officers says he sees Hubbard "reaching down." Hubbard tells the officers he doesn't have a gun on him, then screams, "Record this (expletive)! Record it!"

Hubbard's companion retrieves a cellphone from the car. One of the officers punches Hubbard eight more times in the head or upper body. Bystanders arrive. Then more police, sirens wailing.

Officers cuff Hubbard's hands behind his back.

"Look at this," one bystander yells. "He ain't resisting."

Two other officers handcuff Hubbard's companion. "What am I under arrest for," she asks.

The video ends with the pair being taken away by police.

Facebook user Lashaunda Malone captured a different angle from the doorway of a building across the street. Her video opens just as Hubbard and the officers fall to the ground.

As the woman films, a child can be heard asking, "Mommy, what are the police doing?"

"Oh my god, he's punching him," the woman says.

The officer can be seen sitting on top of Hubbard and punching him at least six times on his face or head while his partner stands over them. Hubbard covers his head with his arms and writhes on the pavement. At one point, he appears to lie limp, then throws up his arms again as the officer strikes him several more times.

Later, as Hubbard lies on the ground in handcuffs, one officer presses Hubbard's face against the asphalt while the same officer punches him in the back of the head.

The arresting officer was treated at a hospital for unspecified injuries.

Hubbard was charged with driving under suspension and resisting arrest. He was medically examined at the Cuyahoga County Jail Euclid Anned jail and posted bond shortly after. A booking photo posted by Cleveland 19 shows Hubbard with bloody cuts above his right eye and swelling on his forehead. It wasn't clear Monday if he had retained an attorney.

The videos fell especially hard on the northeast Ohio community, which is still grappling with the death of Luke O. Stewart, an unarmed black 23 year old, who was shot and killed in March by a Euclid officer investigating a suspicious vehicle report.

On Saturday night, protesters led by Black Lives Matter activists rallied at the site of Hubbard's arrest. Michael Nelson, an attorney for the Cleveland NAACP was among those who attended.

"There seems to be some aggression and at no time have we seen de-escalation take place," Nelson told Cleveland.com. The footage, he said, "is disturbing regardless of the underlying circumstances."

Demonstrators rallied again on Monday night at City Hall to demand greater accountability from police. Local organizer Rian Brown told Cleveland.com that Hubbard's arrest and other violent encounters between police and young black men were part of a larger problem.

"The city government fails to respond to black folks," he said. "This is nothing new. This is something we are seeing all across the country."

(c) 2017, The Washington Post. Story by Derek Hawkins
As officials across the country examine whether to display Confederate monuments in U.S. cities, the area park dedicated to one of the most noteworthy Civil War battles has no plans to remove anything memorializing Confederates.

In the wake of white supremacist rally and ensuing violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, Gettysburg National Military Park has not received any new complaints about its Confederate monuments at the park, said spokeswoman Katie Lawhon.

More than 1,300 monuments, markers and plaques are housed at the park to memorialize the historic battle, including a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee and a Confederate flag on display in the museum. The park maintains that the memorials are important to the cultural landscape and has no plans to remove any monuments or statues.

"The National Park Service is committed to safe guarding these unique and site-specific memorials in perpetuity, while simultaneously interpreting holistically and objectively the actions, motivations, and causes of the soldiers and states they commemorate," states policy from the U.S. National Parks Service.

Charlottesville's unrest Saturday was a result of a clashes between "pro-white" rally protesting the city's decision to remove its statue of Lee and counter-protesters. An apparent car attack by James Alex Fields Jr. during the unrest killed 32-year-old Heather Heyer on Saturday, as a result of Fields plowing into a group of counter protesters, injuring 19 others.

Lebanon County man arrested in Charlottesville torchlight rally

The incidents in Charlottesville have reignited the debate about honoring Confederate statues and monuments across the country, a movement which gathered a steam in 2015 as then South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley removed the Confederate flag from its prominent spot at the state capitol.

Leaders in other southern states are facing similar decisions with statues as Charlottesville has with the Lee statue. Mayor Jim Gray, of Lexington, Kentucky, said the events in Charlottesville "accelerated" the process of removing two statues from Lexington streets and placing them in a local park.

In Baltimore, Mayor Catherine Pugh has looked into removing Confederate-era monuments in the city, voicing frustration that the process wasn't further along for two of four monuments that have been recommended for removal. A statue of Supreme Court Justice Roger Taney, author of the Dred Scott decision, might be removed as Maryland House Speaker Michael E. Busch is calling for the removal of the Annapolis statue. Monuments in Jacksonville, Florida are coming under fire as activists push for removal of the symbols.



After the Civil War, Lee resisted efforts to build Confederate monuments in his honor and instead wanted the nation to move on from the Civil War, according to an Associated Press report.

After his death, Southerners adopted "The Lost Cause" revisionist narrative about the Civil War and placed Lee as its central figure. The Lost Cause argued the South knew it was fighting a losing war and decided to fight it anyway on principle. It also tried to argue that the war was not about slavery but high constitutional ideals.

As The Lost Cause narrative grew in popularity, proponents pushed to memorialize Lee, ignoring his deficiencies as a general and his role as a slave owner, according to Gary Gallagher, a University of Virginia professor specializing in the history of the Civil War. Lee monuments went up in the 1920s just as the Ku Klux Klan was experiencing a resurgence and new Jim Crow segregation laws were adopted.

The Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville was erected in 1924. A year later, the U.S. Congress voted to use federal funds to restore the Lee mansion in the Arlington National Cemetery.

The U.S. Mint issued a coin in his honor, and Lee has been on five postage stamps. Most Union figures, besides President Abraham Lincoln, weren't granted as many honors.

Shawn Alexander, associate professor of African and African-American studies at the University of Kansas, said that despite the attempt to use Lee as a reconciliation figure, many African-Americans spoke out in the black press that Lee had betrayed the U.S. and was responsible for tens of thousands of deaths. "He was no hero in their eyes," Alexander said.

By the early 20th century, Northern state politicians -- fearing deadly violence over black civil rights in the South -- caved to pressure from Southern leaders to cast Lee in a more conciliatory light, said Gerald Horne, a professor of history and African-American studies at the University of Houston. "The South showed it would shed blood," Horne said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
In his native Sierra Leone, Mamadu Balde's life was thrown into disarray when a rebel group ransacked his hometown and separated its residents by ethnicity.

Rebels burned his house and separated Balde from his parents and one of his sisters. He never saw them again. In 1999, he fled to New York City, seeking asylum from the ongoing civil war at home.

Mamadu Balde

Now, the 44-year-old sits in detention at the York County Prison, a man without a country.

In June, amid a crackdown on illegal aliens, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained him--for the second time--with an eye toward deportation.

Sierra Leone, however, has repeatedly declined to authorize his return. The civil war ended in 2002 but the West African nation still struggles with corruption, a faltering economy and the aftermath of the 2014 Ebola epidemic.

"He's tried repeatedly to get travel papers--Sierra Leone won't release them," said Balde's attorney, Witold Walczak. "There's no question: He can't be deported and yet ICE still takes him into detention."

The ACLU of Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking the immediate of release of Balde, who previously spent nine months in prison in 2012 only to be released because Sierra Leonean authorities couldn't confirm his citizenship.

Even prior to the recent ICE raids, many refugees slipped through the cracks of America's complex immigration system. Balde, like a number of those from war-torn countries, is in a kind of immigration limbo with no legal status in this country and no ability to return home.

A spokesman for ICE declined to comment on pending litigation.

The agency has contracted with York County to house detainees at the prison for more than a decade.

York County spokesman Mark Walters said the facility housed 624 ICE detainees, as of Tuesday, although he noted that the figure fluctuates constantly. On Monday, for example, it housed 630.

Mamadu Balde came to New York City in 1999, fleeing civil war in Sierra Leone. His case has wound through the immigration system since.

A prison official said she could not release Balde's mug shot, per an ICE policy. Balde and the other detainees do not appear on the prison's inmate roster.

Balde's original asylum request was denied and, for nearly two decades, his case has wound its way through the immigration system. Since being released from prison in 2012, he's lived and worked in West Virginia with his wife, who is an American citizen.

In 2006, Balde was convicted of a minor vehicle offense in New York, for which he paid fees and fines. Four years later, an Ohio court sentenced him to 90 days imprisonment for misuse of a credit card but most of that sentence was suspended.

According to the ACLU, which took up his case this summer, Balde complied with every ICE order and paid taxes on all of his wages. He provides financial support for his teenage nice and nephew, who were orphaned by Balde's other sister, but he's unable to continue that support from prison.

"Mr. Balde suffered real tragedy in his African homeland," said Ashley Lively, his immigration lawyer, in a written statement. "This plainly unconstitutional detention is incredibly unfair to Mr. Balde, who has been a caring husband, devoted uncle, and productive employee for many years."

Walczak, who serves as the ACLU of Pennsylvania's legal director, said previous court rulings allow for up to six months of detention for immigrants in Balde's situation.

"The court has said, if you can't do it within six months, you need to let the person out," he said. "The question is: is there a reasonable likelihood the person will be deported in the future? If the answer's no, there's no reason to keep the person."

It's unprecedented, however, that the same individual would be detained multiple times when they have no place to be deported to. This time, Walczak said, Sierra Leone notified ICE that it could not take Balde within a week of his June detention.

"It's like [ICE is saying], 'we're going to hold you as long as we can, or at least until a court says otherwise'," he said. "There's no earthly reason why this man should be in detention. [This] is blatantly unconstitutional."

ICE's activities drew increasing scrutiny this year as it ramped up raids, including in Harrisburg, and deportation activities under the Trump administration.

Earlier this year, another York County Prison detainee--35-year-old Washington Klever Calle Delgado--drew headlines for a similar situation. Calle Delgado, who overstayed a work visa in 2013, was held for more than a month as ICE figured out where to send him.

Despite holding citizenship in both Ecuador and Spain, the process for Calle Delgado was a protracted one.

Yolanda Compton, his aunt, told PennLive that ICE deported her nephew to Spain about a week after his story was covered by local news media and picked up by USA Today.

"It's not good at all," she said, of the situation, "especially when he didn't do anything bad. It's not fair."

This article was updated to include information about the number of detainees held at York County Prison.

Wallace McKelvey may be reached at wmckelvey@pennlive.com. Follow him on Twitter @wjmckelvey. Find PennLive on Facebook.
WILLIAMSPORT -- A federal judge, saying he will not legislate from the bench, has for the second time granted summary judgment to a Marcellus Shale natural gas driller that was sued following a 2012 fatal water tanker accident.

"Without a question, I have come to realize that the facts of this case are steeped in misfortune as they are shrouded in mystery," U.S. Middle District Judge Matthew W. Brann wrote Tuesday.

As unfortunate as it is, the retrospective efforts of the estate of George B. Garlick III to "wind the clock back and discern the true cause of the driver's accident have proven fruitless," the judge wrote.

Garlick was killed when his water tanker left Route 144 six miles south of South Renovo and rolled down a steep embankment about 2:30 a.m. on May 16, 2012.

The accident location was 2.5 miles beyond an intersection with Beech Creek Mountain Road, where he was to turn to reach an Anadarko well pad.

Garlick's window, Maria, on behalf of herself and her late husband's estate, sued Anadarko, Trans Tech Logistics Inc. of Toledo, Ohio, for whom Garlick worked, and QC Energy Resources Inc. QC hired Trans Tech to haul water.

Trans Tech was dismissed because as an employer who paid benefits, it was immune from suit under the Pennsylvania Worker's Compensation Act.

Brann granted QC's motion for summary judgment because he found it was Garlick's statutory employer and enjoyed the same protection.

The lawsuit claimed Anadarko breached its duty by failing to provide lights and signs at the Beech Creek Mountain Road intersection.

Garlick had only three weeks experience at driving the water tanker but had delivered water to the well pad earlier in his shift.

Anadarko had provided QC Energy with a booklet containing directions to each of its 48 well pads in the area.

In granting summary judgment, Brann found there was no evidence establishing Andarko's actions or omissions in any way caused Garlick to miss the turn and eventually crash the tanker.

He also cited the acknowledgment that the truck's brakes failed after Garlick missed the turn.

The U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals on Dec. 18, 2015, affirmed Brann granting summary judgment to QC but remanded the claims against Anadarko.

After oral argument and briefing, the judge said the estate failed to adduce sufficient facts to establish the proximate cause of the accident.

Even with his ruling, the judge said Garlick's family is not left emptyhanded, adding, it should have obtained all applicable relief under the state's Workers Compensation Act.

"In other words, the system here worked precisely as it was intended to," he wrote.

"Any ruling to the contrary would amount to nothing less than my legislating from the bench and rejecting decades of established precedent, all because this case presents tragic facts.

"My sympathies are with the decedent's family, but the oath that I took forbids me from ruling as such."
By PTI: Eds: With fresh inputs

Palakkad (Ker)/ New Delhi, Aug 15 (PTI) Defying the CPI (M)-led government in Kerala, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat today unfurled the national flag at a school in Palakkad in alleged violation of an official order.

Palakkad District Collector P Marykutty had issued an order late last night stating that since the Karnagi Amman school was government-aided, only elected representatives or school authorities could hoist the flag, as per protocol.

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Marykutty said she has submitted a report to the government and the decision on whether a case would be registered against the RSS chief will be taken by it.

She had earlier said she will instruct the police to register a case against Bhagwat.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) defended its chiefs action in a statement which said that after due consultations, "the school authorities decided that they would proceed as planned and that Bhagwat must exercise his constitutional rights".

"We condemn such brazen attempts by the CPI-M led government of Kerala to deny the citizens their basic right of celebrating Independence Day and their continuous attempts to poison the state of Kerala with divisive politics," RSSs Akhil Bharatiya Prachar Pramukh Manmohan Vaidya said.

Senior CPI-M leader Brinda Karat, however, criticised Bhagwat for violating the rules of the Kerala government.

Bhagwat is in the state to attend a two-day meeting of the Sangh which began here yesterday. The state has witnessed political violence involving activists from the ruling CPI(M) and the RSS-BJP combine, which has left several people dead.

Addressing the students, Bhagwat said, "It is our duty to remember the sacrifices and hard efforts of those who laid down their lives during the struggle for independence. We have to bring that dedication to our lives". Independence, he said, was "sacred", and added "we have to protect it". PTI UD APR JTR BDS SK

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This photo provided by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections shows Jerry Drake Varnell, of Sayre, Okla., who was arrested Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017, in connection with a plot to detonate a vehicle bomb in an alley adjacent to BancFirst in downtown Oklahoma City. Authorities said Varnell is expected to be formally charged Monday, Aug, 14. (Oklahoma Department of Corrections via AP)
By PTI: By Shirish B Pradhan

Kathmandu, Aug 15 (PTI) China today announced USD 1 million assistance to flood-hit Nepal as the countrys Vice Premier Wang Yang held talks with his Nepalese counterpart on ways to enhance bilateral ties.

Wang made the announcement during the Nepal-China Deputy Prime Minister-level meeting he jointly chaired with Nepals Deputy Prime Minister Bijay Kumar Gachchhadar.

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Another Deputy Prime Minister Krishna Bahadur Mahara, Health Minister Girirajmani Pokharel, secretaries of Nepals ministries of finance, health and tourism and chiefs of Nepals Investment Board, National Planning Commission and National Reconstruction Authority also took part in the meeting.

Over 90 people have been killed in rain-triggered floods and landslides in Nepal with over six million people affected by natural calamity.

Meanwhile, the reconstruction of the historic nine-storey palace at the Hanuman Dhoka Durbar Square -- a world heritage site -- that was damaged two years ago in a devastating earthquake -- began today with Mahara and Wang jointly inaugurating the re-bulding works of the 17th century structure.

The reconstruction effort is being undertaken with economic and technical support from the Chinese government.

The Chinese government will complete the reconstruction of the palace in five years at a cost of Rs 150 million, Bhesh Narayan Dahal, chief of Archaeology Department, said. PTI SBP ASK AKJ ASK

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Democrats seal control of Senate after Cortez Masto defeats Laxalt in Nevada

Democrats will retain control of the U.S. Senate after incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada defeated Republican Adam Laxalt.
By PTI: By K J M Varma

Beijing, Aug 14 (PTI) China today reaffirmed opposition to the Dalai Lamas visit to any country after he called off a planned trip to Botswana on "health grounds".

The 82-year-old exiled Tibetan spiritual leader was due to speak at the three-day "Mind and Life Dialogue" in Botswanas capital Gaborone on August 19.

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"China attaches great importance to relations and friendly cooperation with Botswana, and hopes bilateral ties will maintain positive and healthy development," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters.

"Chinas position remains firm after media reports said that the Dalai Lama cancelled the plan in mid August due to health problems," Hua said.

Earlier reports from Botswana said that President Ian Khama will be meeting the Dalai Lama.

Botswana confirmed that it will allow the Dalai Lama to visit next month as "a foreign dignitary" though it is a "purely private visit" despite firm opposition from China.

China had last month warned Botswana against hosting the Dalai Lama and facilitate a meeting with its president, saying the African nation should "respect" Beijings core concerns.

Beijing views the Dalai Lama as a "separatist" who is engaged in activities aimed at splitting Tibet from China.

The Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against the Chinese rule in his Himalayan homeland. He has been living in India in exile since then. PTI KJV CPS AKJ CPS

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Delaware's Council on Development Finance has voted a $474,491 grant to Prelude Therapeutics, the latest company founded by Dr. Krishna Vaddi, whose previous cancer drug development company, Incyte, is now one of the state's largest public companies.

Prelude, another cancer drug "discovery-based biotech company" that employs around 12 at the University of Delaware's Star Campus (the old Chrysler plant site), plans to employ 32 by 2020 as a condition of the grant, and is seeking a larger Delaware location, the council says. The company was founded in July 2016.

"Dr. Vaddi has a proven track record of growing a biotech company here in Delaware," said Cerron Cade, director of Delaware's Division of Small Business, Development, and Tourism, which administers the grants. "In the biotech industry, there is pressure to take start-ups to a place like Massachusetts." Subsidizing Prelude to keep it home "is a sign the state is a player in this space."

"It demonstrates to people who are here and may join the company that the state is supportive," Vaddi said in a statement. "There's more than just financial resources here. There is an economic and research ecosystem that we want to be a part of. It's a close-knit community, where people take pride in the success of the companies that are founded here."

The Prelude grant is among the first that Delaware has handed out since reorganizing its business subsidy efforts under Gov. John Carney. Other recent grants went to Sallie Mae, the private student lender; General Refrigeration; and serving as a financial conduit (no grant) for bonds issued and paid by Independence School, one of a number of Delaware private schools that has lost students as the state increased support of taxpayer-funded charter schools under Carney's predecessor, Gov. Jack Markell.
Discussing the results of the Pulse business survey are MaryFrances McGarrity, senior vice president of business development services with the Chester County Economic Development Council, and Mike Grigalonis, the councils chief operating officer and executive vice president. Read more

Doing business in Chester County couldn't be better, except for the traffic, according to a new survey of businesses there.

Overwhelmingly, the survey found, business owners like Chester County: They're optimistic about their prospects and believe the business climate is improving.They like the quality of life, the natural environment, the quality of the education system, and the safety of the community and local events. They believe, for the most part, that they can attract the talent they need, and that there is sufficient availability of land, capital, raw materials, and customers.

The downside? Businesses responding said they were only slightly bothered by a handful of negatives: the lack of public transportation, congestion on the highways, the permitting process, the cost of land, housing affordability, and local tax policies and structures.

Taking the "pulse" of Chester County businesses was the aim of the survey with the same name, whose results were released Tuesday. The survey was conducted in March and April by the Chester County Board of Commissioners and the Chester County Economic Development Council in cooperation with the county's 10 chambers of commerce.

About 330 businesses participated in the online survey by email. Most of them, 85 percent, were small companies employing fewer than 20 people, and 55 percent were sole proprietors with fewer than five employees. One in five businesses fell in the professional-services category.

The idea behind the survey was to keep tabs on the county's business environment to learn about the challenges facing local companies, and to identify opportunities for them.

"It reinforced something we already knew: how valuable the beauty of our landscape is and the open space," said Mike Grigalonis, chief operating officer and executive vice president of the Economic Development Council.

It's an indicator, he said, that growth in the county has to happen in a way that preserves that asset: "I know that's kind of a unique response from an economic-development guy, but there's a way to do it."

A statement accompanying the release of the survey's findings offered the following summary:

 Compared with 2016 findings, respondents in 2017 had a significantly more positive view of several characteristics of Chester County, including the natural environment/open space (90 percent net positive ratings, up from 76 percent); location/access to markets (86 percent, up from 78 percent); presence of related business clusters (77 percent, up from 58 percent).

 Areas where impressions of Chester County declined compared with 2016 included

availability of workforce (63 percent net positive ratings in 2017, down from 72 percent in 2016); infrastructure (down to 39 percent, from 58 percent); roads/highways (37 percent, down from 62 percent); and permitting process/municipal approval process (down to 19 percent, from 26 percent).

Grigalonis said the report presents an early warning that workforce availability may become a growing problem. In 2016, 72 percent of respondents said they were able to find the talent they needed. In 2017, that number dropped to 63 percent.

"A small minority do struggle with workforce-related challenges," the survey report said. Of those, one in four said that difficulty finding "qualified candidates for job openings" is a "significant issue" for their businesses.

Grigalonis said the county is monitoring the employment preferences of millennial workers. Some Chester County businesses have opened offices in Philadelphia, he said, because millennials like to live near their workplaces and prefer not to drive. "That's something we're keeping an eye on."

He noted that county manufacturers and the mushroom industry report significant challenges in finding employees, but that those companies were not the main groups that responded to the survey.

About half the surveyed businesses reporting workforce challenges said the lack of access to affordable housing and public transportation affected their ability to attract and retain employees.

"People get frustrated with the lack of public transportation," Grigalonis said, and he'd like to see rail lines extended and more buses in the county. "But it takes time and money," both in short supply.

As for traffic congestion, "it's all relative," Grigalonis said. His commute is 10 minutes on back roads. "My car never gets above 40 miles per hour."

Yes, there are congestion and bottlenecks, he said, but commuters in Chester County have it relatively easy compared with their compatriots elsewhere in the Philadelphia region and in the nation.
The National Nurse-Led Care Consortium, which has been part of Public Health Management Corp. since 2001, wants to leave the Philadelphia organization, alleging that PHMC's escalating management fee and other problems have jeopardized the consortium's ability to fulfill its mission of supporting community care led by nurses.

The management fee PHMC charges the National Nurse-Led Care Consortium (NNCC) has soared to $403,800 for the year ended June 30 from $196,800 four years earlier, while the consortium's overall revenue climbed just 27 percent, according to a lawsuit filed Monday in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court seeking to break that deal.

"It starts impacting the work we can do," Nancy De Leon Link, the consortium's chief executive, said Tuesday. "The more overhead we're paying, the less nurses we can hire to serve our constituents and our clients. That's why the board really felt strongly that for us to have a sustainable future, we really need to be on our own and have less cost."

The lawsuit also alleges that PHMC "was making very questionable fiscal decisions," such as spending "$4 million in a no-bid process to build a child-care facility that serves defendant's staff at its primary business address, even though similar facilities in Philadelphia are built for half that cost."

After the consortium notified PHMC that it wanted to withdraw as an affiliate, PHMC "abruptly transferred our controller without any prior discussion in the midst of fiscal year closure of federal, city and state grants, thus putting NNCC at risk of fiscal mismanagement," according to a letter attached to the complaint.

The consortium is based at PHMC's headquarters at 15th and Market Streets in Center City and had $10.9 million in revenue in the year ended June 30, 2016.

PHMC rejected the allegations. "NNCC is a wholly controlled subsidiary of PHMC," it said in a statement, "and we are therefore obligated to make decisions in the best interest of NNCC's charitable mission and the vulnerable communities we collectively serve."

"PHMC takes seriously its obligations to act in compliance with all laws and regulations, the highest standards of business ethics and practices and its charitable mission to help build healthy communities," it said.

PHMC, which had $230 million in revenue in the year ended June 30, has made more than 20 acquisitions since 1985, the organization's CEO, Richard Cohen, said last month during an interview on the planned acquisition of the bankrupt Wordsworth Academy. That was before the acquisition of Treatment Research Institute, announced July 18.

Cohen described PHMC's acquisition strategy as an effort to "wrap services around people."

Not all targets have stuck around. Among those who have left PHMC are La Comunidad Hispana in Kennett Square, Caring People Alliance in Philadelphia, and Clarifi, also in Philadelphia.

In the case of Clarifi, which separated from PHMC in June 2016 after three years, the "board and senior management determined it to be in the best interests of Clarifi to resume oversight over the organization's accounting, human resources, and technology functions," Clarifi said.

The arrangement with Caring People Alliance lasted less than a year and resulted in a 2015 lawsuit by PHMC alleging that Caring People's departure cost it at least $81 million in revenue.

"Each entity is separate and distinct from NNCC," PHMC said, "and any decision to part ways from PHMC was based on mutual decision by both parties,"
An affiliate of Westport, Conn.-based real estate investment firm Dalzell Capital Partners LLC has paid $10.8 million for 1430 South St., a 34-unit apartment building with ground-floor retail space.

The acquisition is Dalzell's first in Philadelphia, the company said in a news release Monday. It is teaming with Philadelphia real estate firm OCF Realty, owned by developer Ori Feibush, to manage the property and advise on future acquisitions in the city, it said.

The purchase, from an entity called New South Philly LP, closed on Thursday, Dalzell managing partner Christian Dalzell said in an email. New South Philly is an affiliate of Wendell Family Investments Ltd., which is incorporated in Delaware, according to state records.
Artists rendering of Pennroses proposal for the 800 Vine St. development site near Chinatown. Read more

El Paso, Texas-based real estate investor Hunt Cos. has acquired a minority stake in Pennrose Properties LLC of Philadelphia in what the firms characterize as a strategic alliance aimed at boosting their holdings.

Under the deal, Hunt will secure a long-term interest in Pennrose's future developments, while Pennrose takes on oversight for "a substantial portfolio of projects in Hunt's pipeline," the companies said in a release Tuesday.

Projects currently underway by Hunt and Pennrose are to continue as negotiated, with the partnership applying its combined capabilities to new work, the companies said.

A Hunt spokeswoman declined to provide financial details of the deal.

Hunt and Pennrose are together responsible for more than 300 projects encompassing some 40,000 affordable and market-rate units nationwide, they said.

Pennrose's past Philadelphia-area projects include the John C. Anderson senior-affordable apartments in Center City and the conversion of a row of historic rowhouses beside Fairmount Park in West Philadelphia into affordable apartments.

A team led by Pennrose was also selected in April to develop a 3.2-acre city-owned lot at Chinatown's eastern edge.
White supremacist groups clashed with counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Va., on Saturday. Read more

You might think hate-fueled death, injuries, and violence in Charlottesville, Va., would move elected officials everywhere to reexamine public policy.

As far-right neo-Nazi and white supremacist leaders promise future marches with the potential for more of what we witnessed last weekend, you might wonder where's the evidence of action against such hatred.

Well, if you're looking for responses from the Pennsylvania legislature, don't expect much.

As is true in so many areas that actually impact people's lives, the legislature, when it comes to hate crimes, is MIA.

It's another instance of short-sighted governance, the only Northeastern state that does not extend protection based on sexual orientation, gender, or gender identity.

Maybe you caught some of the explicit anti-LGBT chants in Virginia.

And, yes, laws on the books don't stop bigotry. But they do define a society's belief in equality, and underscore unity over division.

So State Rep. Dan Frankel of Allegheny County, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, is calling on Republican leaders who control the legislature to schedule a vote to strengthen the state hate-crimes law.

"It's frustrating," he tells me. "We as legislators have limited capacity to do something other than speak out. But this is one thing we can do that has substance and is a good way to make a statement."

Why are we regional outliers on this?

Three reasons: mismanagement of past legislation, broad swaths of social conservatism, and spine-free political leadership.

We had a tough hate-crimes law. It was enacted in 2002. But it was, as much legislation is, constitutionally sloppy. It was an amendment inserted into an agricultural bill.

The evangelical Christian group Repent America sued on grounds it failed to meet a constitutionally mandated single-topic provision, a common occurrence rarely called out. State courts agreed. The law got tossed.

In the years since, the legislature grew more conservative. And multiple efforts to resurrect the tougher law failed  even after a high-profile 2014 hate-crime beating of a gay couple in Center City, after a 2016 neo-Nazi rally on the state Capitol steps, and after a 2017 KKK cross-burning in Lancaster County.

Instead, there was year after year of inaction. And now, two bills sit ignored in House and Senate committees.

I ask Rep. Kevin Boyle (D., Phila.), sponsor of the House bill, whether the events in Virginia could spur action on his legislation. He says, "Well, they should."

He notes lawmakers passed such legislation more than a decade ago and asks, "Why not now, especially given the growth of the alt-right?"

A matching Senate bill (both measures also extend protection based on ancestry and disabilities) is sponsored by Sen. Larry Farnese (D., Phila.).

"When you look back at the history of hate-crime statutes, they were in response to KKK and Nazi groups 40 years ago," Farnese says. "That we're still dealing with this today? We should all be ashamed we can't get these bills to move."

Frankel believes that if put up for votes, the bills would pass. But Farnese says GOP leaders are "scared to do the right thing for fear it will cost them political points."

Boyle's bill is cosponsored by dozens of Democrats, but just two Republicans: Reps. Thomas Murt (R., Montgomery) and John Taylor (R., Phila.).

Farnese's bill has nine cosponsors, all Democrats.

I reached out to GOP leadership press aides about possible votes on these bills. A Senate aide said leaders there are willing to take a look. A House spokesman said the House bill's "on a list the Judiciary Committee wants to go through."

This shouldn't be and isn't a partisan thing. It's basic. It's lending, at least, a voice against intolerance, against hate-based violence.

It's also an affirmation of founding principles, of equality and shared rights. And it's way past time our elected officials embraced it.
By PTI: (Eds: Updating toll)

By Shirish B Pradhan

Kathmandu, Aug 14 (PTI) At least 14 people were killed in a landslide in Nepal today, taking the death toll in rain- triggered floods and landslides to 80 across the Himalayan nation, even as all the 35 stranded Indian nationals have been rescued, officials said.

Heavy rainfall has lashed Nepal for the past four days, leading to the swelling of several rivers beyond the danger mark and causing flooding and landslides at many places.

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Rapti river, which flows through a large part of Nepal towards the southern plains, flooded human settlements and hotels popular with tourists in the Chitwan Valley.

All the 35 Indian nationals, who were stranded in Sauraha, a part of the Chitawan National Park, have been rescued, an Indian Embassy spokesperson said. They were rescued to safer place by using tamed elephants.

Earlier reports quoting local authorities had said that 200 Indian tourists were among the 700 stranded people, but the Indian Embassy official said only 35 of them were Indian nationals.

According to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA), at least 14 people were killed by landslide in Morang district, taking the death toll in the district to 17 and overall to 80.

Thirty five people have been also missing since Friday.

The monsoon havoc has affected 27 districts spanning from the eastern, central to the western regions.

Nine persons were killed in Rautahat, eight in Sunsari, four each in Sarlahi, Sindhuli, Bara, Makawanpur and Banke districts while five persons were killed in Jhapa, three each in Dang and Surkhet and two each in Bardiya and Chitawan, besides nine others elsewhere.

Meanwhile, Nepals Energy Minister Mahendra Bahadur Sahi has claimed that the highways built along the no mans land on the Indian side of the border are the major reasons behind the floods in the Terai.

"The highways made by elevating the land next to the Nepal-India border have restricted the natural flow of water, leaving Nepals Terai plains submerged during the rainy season," Shahi said.

The government will take up the issue with India during Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deubas India visit slated for next week, Shahi said yesterday.

A total of 34,843 houses were inundated across the plains. More than 1,000 houses were destroyed in floods that killed an estimated 400 livestock, the Kathmandu Post reported.

The government has mobilised Nepal Police, Nepali Army and Armed Police Force personnel for rescue and recovery work.

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The rainfall is likely to continue in the next few days as predicted by the Meteorological Forecasting Division.

Weathermen have said the extreme rainfall, starting from eastern Nepal, witnessed in the last few days was caused by the formation of a low pressure zone over the hills.

The monsoon was gradually getting weaker in the east and moving towards the west, it added. PTI SBP AMS AKJ MRJ MRJ

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Finding meaning and eloquence after an event like this weekend's disturbance in Charlottesville is often a challenge  one that the Editorial Board faces after every violent episode in this country, whether it's driven by guns, terrorism, or political strife. In the last few days, we have been struck by the many powerful and eloquent statements issued by the nation's clergy on Charlottesville. Here are excerpts of some of their statements:

Charles J. Chaput, archbishop of Philadelphia:

"Racism is a poison of the soul. It's the ugly, original sin of our country, an illness that has never fully healed. Blending it with the Nazi salute, the relic of a regime that murdered millions, compounds the obscenity.  Charlottesville matters. It's a snapshot of our public unraveling into real hatreds brutally expressed; a collapse of restraint and mutual respect now taking place across the country. We need to keep the images of Charlottesville alive in our memories. If we want a different kind of country in the future, we need to start today with a conversion in our own hearts, and an insistence on the same in others."

Rabbi Mordechai Liebling, director of the Social Justice Organizing Program at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, Wyncote:

"I think it is no accident that our nation is so polarized at the time that we have the largest wealth and income gap since the Civil War.  It is clear from studying American history that white populism emerges in these moments and undermines the formation of a multiracial, multiethnic coalition that can bring about economic and social justice.  "This overt assertion of white supremacy is occurring at the same time that the challenge to structural racism has become more powerful through the organizing of the Black Lives Matter movement, the resistance at Standing Rock, the struggle for immigrant rights and the growing awareness of white privilege among many whites. This will inevitably cause more confrontations.  "We are faced with a difficult challenge: we cannot tolerate white supremacy and we must listen to the fear and pain that many of its supporters carry.  "History shows that a society with extreme wealth inequality will collapse, and it is usually ugly. The extremism of wealth gives rise to all other forms of extremism. We need to understand how white supremacy is at the root of the inequities in our schools and legal system. We must stand up against hate and for love, while we advocate for policies that bring about more justice."

The Rev. Robin Weinstein, pastor, Bethany Grace Community Church, Bridgeton, N.J.:

"In working for justice, we must recall our collective past the good, the bad, and the ugly. The American story is not always a nice one. From its beginning, our nation has exploited, dehumanized, and hated various groups of people.  "We must resist evil in all its forms, and everywhere it makes itself  Many times, oppression, slavery, discrimination, and hatred have been justified by Holy Scripture and sanctioned by our churches. This is wrong. 

Read more ongoing coverage of the violence in Charlottesville on Philly.com.
General manager John Barry and owner Brendan Smith (right) at Smiths Restaurant in Center City, with the controversial chalkboard. Read more

When the Great Recession struck months after he opened his Center City restaurant in 2007, Brendan Smith made a business decision that would define him, for better and worse.

To lighten the dark economic mood, he started putting jokes on chalkboards in his windows to give passersby a laugh, and perhaps lure them into Smith's Restaurant & Lounge, 39 S. 19th St.

The chalkboards became Smith's trademark. Customers did come in. So did lawsuits.

Smith, 46, a Southwest Philly native, got sued on two occasions over  get this  bad jokes.

By bad, I mean politically incorrect, maybe even hurtful to some people.

The first one that landed him in court was this: "I like my beer how I like my violence  domestic."

The joke may be awful, but isn't it protected free speech?

A woman's group didn't think so and slapped him with a lawsuit.

He was flabbergasted.

We seem to be in an era where even humor must be bleached by political correctness. As comedian Gilbert Gottfried observed, "The big thing now is, you tell a joke, and then you have to apologize for it."

On the day I spoke with Smith, his window sign read: "Open Sept. 2017. Sandals North Korea. Mind-blowing vacations."

"Maybe if you were from North Korea," he says, "you wouldn't think my sign is funny."

On the advice of his attorney, Smith settled the women's group's suit for $15,000.

Smith's sign wasn't obscene. It didn't advocate violence. Why would it be actionable? His attorney did not return my calls.

The second lawsuit followed this gem: "I was on my way home from work when I got a kitten. I had to swerve, but I got him."

An animal-rights group sued him.

"They have to find reasons to be pissed off," grouses Smith, who settled out of court for $5,000. I'm an animal lover, but the joke hurt no animal.

Then there was the Bruce Jenner joke, with a different outcome.

"If Bruce Jenner went missing, would his picture be on a carton of half-and-half?" wondered the chalkboard.

"The LGBT community went frigging crazy," says Smith, "and it was so fast."

The different outcome was the result of a visit by Nellie Fitzpatrick, then the city's director of LGBT affairs.

"She wasn't looking for money," says John Barry, 36, Smith's general manager. "She gave us an education about why that was offensive."

Smith says, "I'm not trying to be offensive." He removes any chalkboard that draws a complaint, but he says he rarely hears complaints.

I found a couple on the restaurant's Facebook page.

"Every time I walk by, there is a new sign in the window that features some type of sexist, racist, homophobic, fat-shaming 'joke' of some type," Camille Johnson wrote June 17.

I went through about 100 past chalkboards and didn't find that to be the case, but humor is subjective. Typical Smith jokes:

"If you keep following your dreams, they're going to file a restraining order."

"Don't be ashamed of who you are. That's your parents' job."

"Best relationship advice: Make sure you're the crazy one."

Smith concedes that his sense of humor can have an edge, but that lately his jokes "are a little more watered-down than they have been, which is probably a good thing."

With eight siblings, he says, "all I have is sarcasm. It's juvenile, it's very juvenile. But the bar business is juvenile."

As for being sued? He chalks that up to experience.
During the eclipse, the sky will darken, the temperature will drop, and the winds will change. Read more

A total eclipse of the sun  like the one that will be seen Monday in a 70-mile-wide swath from Oregon to South Carolina  is a dramatic thing. Yes, the sky will darken. But the temperature will drop, and the winds will change, too.

Unfortunately, we here in Philly won't see that total eclipse in person (unless you've already booked a very expensive hotel room somewhere in the total-eclipse path or are OK with sleeping in your car). But that doesn't mean it should be business as usual for you Monday.

COMING MONDAY: Derrick Pitts, the Franklin Institute's chief astronomer, will take your solar eclipse questions live on Philly.com's Facebook page at 3 p.m., just after the eclipse's peak in Philadelphia.

Though less rare and dramatic than a total eclipse, the partial eclipse that's happening here at 2:44 p.m. Monday  when the moon will cover almost 80 percent of the sun  is still not an everyday thing. Seeing it is a great way to put your existence into celestial perspective and to teach science to little ones  providing you know what you're doing and have the right equipment. (Eye protection will be needed throughout the entire event in Philadelphia!)

Read more: How to look at the eclipse without burning your eyes

Here's a look at the way local organizations are marking the eclipse:

The Mann Center for the Performing Arts

The Mann is hosting Super Solar Saturday, with interactive science experiments, face-painting, live performances, and strolling Star Wars characters. The space-themed day finishes with a 7 p.m. screening of Hidden Figures.

12:30 p.m. Saturday (rain date Sunday), 5201 Parkside Ave., 215-546-7900, manncenter.org.

The Franklin Institute

You might expect the home base for celebrity astronomer Derrick Pitts to be all-in on the solar eclipse, and you'd be right. The Franklin's observation event will feature pinhole-camera workshops, science educators to explain how and why eclipses happen, and monitors set up to show both the NASA feed and Pitts' live-stream of the total eclipse from St. Joseph, Mo.

Noon-4 p.m. Monday, 222 N. 20th St., $16-20. 215-448-1200, fi.edu.

Wagner Free Institute of Science

The institute will present eclipse model demonstrations and a pinhole-camera workshop in its yard and will screen NASA's broadcast of the total eclipse in its lecture hall. View the eclipse via the sun funnel telescope (set up for group projected-image viewing) or with eclipse sunglasses the institute will hand out while supplies last.

12:30-4:30 p.m. Monday, weather permitting, 1700 W. Montgomery Ave. (enter on 17th Street). Free. 215-763-6529, wagnerfreeinstitute.org.

Independence Seaport Museum

The museum is hosting a BYO eclipse-watching picnic on its second-floor terrace Monday afternoon. You bring lawn chairs, blankets, and food, and it will have viewing glasses available for $3. Eclipse-watchers will also have access to the museum galleries.

Noon-4 p.m. Monday, weather permitting, 211 S. Columbus Blvd., $12-16. 215-413-8655, phillyseaport.org.

Darby Free Library

The library will hand out viewing glasses at its eclipse-watching event at the nearby Darby Rec Center. In addition, there will be science exhibits and quizzes and the NASA live feed on TVs.

Noon-4 p.m. Monday, 1022 Ridge Ave., Darby. Free. 610-586-7310, delcolibraries.org/darby-free-library.

Folcroft Library

This eclipse event will feature demonstrations and explanations by a member of the Delaware Valley Amateur Astronomers, activities for young children, and the chance to see the eclipse through filtered binoculars and telescopes.

1-5 p.m. Monday, weather permitting, 1725 Delmar Drive, Folcroft. Free; preregistration requested. 610-586-1690, folcroftlibrary.org.

Other local libraries holding eclipse-watching parties with free viewing glasses include: Haddonfield Public Library, 60 Haddon Ave., Haddonfield, 856-429-1304, haddonfieldlibrary.org ; Free Library of Springfield, 1200 E. Willow Grove Ave., Wyndmoor, 215-836-5300, freelibraryofspringfieldtownship.org ; Glenolden Library, 211 S. Llanwellyn Ave., 610-583-1010, delcolibraries.org/glenolden-library ; Woodbury Public Library, 33 Delaware St., Woodbury, 856-845-2611, woodburylibrary.org ; and Infanti Bellmawr Library, 35 E. Browning Rd., Bellmawr, 856-931-1400, camdencountylibrary.org/bellmawr-branch

These places not convenient? You can view the eclipse anywhere you can see your shadow  even through a southwest-facing window in your office building  with a safe viewer.

Ordinary sunglasses are not safe viewers. Proper paper solar glasses that will allow you to view the partial eclipse directly must bear the ISO logo and reference number 12312-2 and are available at Warby Parker on Walnut Street, Lowe's on Columbus Boulevard, the Franklin Institute's gift shop, and on Amazon.

You can also make a simple pinhole camera to watch the eclipse as a projected image indirectly, or create one with your hands. With your back to the sun, cross the outstretched, slightly open fingers of one hand over the outstretched, slightly open fingers of the other. When you look at your hands' shadow on the ground, you should see an image of the sun as a growing crescent in the spaces between your fingers.
Elizabeth Wellington demonstrates some of her new SLT moves. Read more

Three days later, my butt cheeks were still throbbing.

A little over a week ago, SLT  strengthen, lengthen, tone  opened its 16th boutique fitness studio, in Rittenhouse Square: Philly SLT-NYC.

The 50-minute workout, a combination of Pilates, weights, yoga, and pain created by New York City wellness expert Amanda Freeman, has quite the lithe following. Model Chrissy Teigen is an SLT-er, as is actress Sofia Vergara. Word has it several Victoria's Secret models routinely engage in SLT's mindful brand of core-building movements, which work the slow-twitch muscle fibers, resulting in the ultimate bikini-ready, tube-top-chic bod.

And when I read that former first lady Michelle Obama was a fan of the MegaFormer  a part Pilates reformer, part treadmill apparatus invented by Los Angeles trainer and Lagree fitness founder Sebastien Lagree  I straight had to give it a shot. Were Mrs. Obama's perfectly buffed arms possibly within my reach?

Maybe.

I knew I could hang. After all, I've taken my fair share of boutique fitness classes, from Barre Focus Fitness to Flywheel. And I'm a regular at Core Power Yoga's way-too-hard sculpt class. So SLT should be a breeze, right?

Wrong.

Everything about SLT was intimidating, starting with the steep walk-up to the entrance on Moravian Street, the tiny alley tucked between Walnut and Sansom Streets.

And then there were the toeless socks that I struggled to fit my long toes into while my tiny hard-bodied instructor, Emma Lippert, gave a demo on how to adjust the MegaFormer's red and yellow weights. Fiddling with those darned socks, I almost missed the instructions.

There are MegaFormers for 13 people on the hardwood floor of SLT's breezy and sunlit Philadelphia studio. With the small class size, the instructor all but doubles as a personal trainer. That kind of one-on-one attention, and the fact that regular SLT-ers have goddess abs, explains why the classes cost $32 each. (The first class is half off.) SLT-ers who go three to four times a week, Freeman said, see optimal benefits.

So, yes, this is an investment.

"I was looking for certain results from a workout," said Freeman, a 41, a graduate of Harvard Business School and soon-to-be mom. She opened SLT-New York's first studio in 2011 in midtown Manhattan, two years after she took her first class on a MegaFormer while on a business trip to California. "I wanted a workout that was fun, challenging, and resulted in long, lean muscle tone."

Before opening SLT-New York, Freeman was CEO of Vital Juice, an online newsletter geared to the wellness community; Freeman sold the company shortly after SLT-New York took off. In 2016, Freeman received a sizable, albeit undisclosed, investment from private-equity firm North Castle Partners that funded SLT's expansion to Philadelphia as well as to other cities including Hoboken, N.J., and Greenwich, Conn.

A few minutes into my SLT warm-up  which, quite honestly, left me drenched  it became clear that SLT-New York is all about form.

We started with a series of lunges, our hands lightly placed on a red pole shaped like a plunger with its flange facing up.

The lunges, repeated on each leg, each time for a little more than a minute  were followed with a series of planks; some straight, some side. These already hard movements were even more challenging because my core was fighting to keep me steady on the moving platform.

Clearly, this is how the abs get ripped.

Then came the hard work.

The workout was set to the beat of late' 90s dirty south hip-hop. (Think Mystikal's "Back That Thing Up.") And because of the playlist, the initial pain didn't feel so painful. More leg lifts. More lunges. More planks. Then a few side sit-ups. A little weight. A lot of weight. Too much weight.

Too, too much weight.

Eventually, I got the hang of it. And around the time I felt like I wasn't going to tumble off the platform to my death, my first SLT class was over.

I was drenched.

Everyone else was just kind of moist.

Afterward, I had drinks with a girlfriend and even made my way to Eakins Oval, where D.J. Mike Nyce spun a few old-school tunes.

But the next day  and the day after that and the day after that  my booty was on fire.

That, however, doesn't mean I won't go back.

Elizabeth Wellington [10:35 AM]

Philadelphia SLT-New York

1625 Walnut St., Floor 2. (The entrance is on Moravian Street.)

sltnyc.com/philly
Philadelphia police officers will receive annual raises of about 3 percent for each of the next three years in a contract that will cost the city $245 million, it was announced Tuesday.

The agreement marks a quick end to a short stalemate: The union's old contract had expired on June 30, though negotiations had continued in subsequent weeks with few public signs of discord between the city and union officials.

Decided by a panel of three arbitrators, the deal's total cost exceeds by $45 million the amount the city had budgeted for this contract and two others currently being negotiated with major municipal unions  deals that could cost hundreds of millions of dollars on their own. The city has 20 days to revise its five-year financial plan; officials said the Kenney administration was "examining its options."

In the city's favor, members of Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5  which represents the majority of the Police Department's 6,300 officers, as well as some in the Sheriff's Office  will be asked to contribute more toward their pension plan. That change will pump $160 million more into the depleted pension fund over the next 13 years, according to Mayor Kenney's office.

Still, the deal did not go as far as city officials had hoped. Initially, they proposed placing new employees in a "stacked" retirement plan, with a smaller pension plan alongside a 401(k). The FOP had long opposed that approach.

Despite not achieving its preferred pension outcome, city officials touted the money that will be freed up for its pension fund, as well as a provision creating the ability to electronically notify officers of court appearances, and a rejection of the FOP request to change city residency requirements.

The contract did not make significant changes to the grievance and arbitration process, which some criminal justice advocates have said is too forgiving for officers accused of misconduct.

John McNesby, president of the local FOP, did not return a request for comment Tuesday.

The deal, which runs through June 2020, calls for a 10.5 percent raise over the life of the contract, spread in near-equal annual increments. Police officers, on average, currently earn more than $75,000 a year, according to the city's annual pension report.

The Kenney administration had wanted all new employees, unionized and not, to participate in a hybrid pension plan that would allow for a traditional defined contribution benefit of up to $50,000 annually. Above that, they could enroll in a 401(k) plan. The city would match half of the employee's contribution up to 1.5 percent of annual compensation.

In addition, the administration wanted all labor unions to agree to the same increased pension contribution plan that AFSCME District Council 33 agreed to last year. Doing so, the city estimated, could have meant that the city's $11 billion pension liability would be more than 80 percent funded in 13 years. Currently, the fund has only 45 percent of the money it needs to meet its obligations.

Kenney spokeswoman Lauren Hitt said that even though police balked at the city's preferred pension plan, the new contract, with its increased employee contribution, keeps the city on track to meet its enhanced pension fund goals.

Still, the development could make it harder to persuade the firefighters and city's white collar workers' union to agree with the city's pension proposals. Leaders of both unions said earlier this year that they had issues with the options being presented.
Adria Regn and Christopher White are charged with human trafficking and other crimes. Read more

A Burlington County couple are accused of forcing a 17-year-old girl to work as a prostitute for 10 days by threatening to beat her and making her take drugs after meeting the pair in a motel room for what she thought was a babysitting job.

Christopher K. White, 19, of Eastampton, and his girlfriend, Adria Regn, 28, of Mount Holly, were indicted by a state grand jury Monday on charges that included conspiracy, human trafficking, promoting the prostitution of a minor, and child pornography, the New Jersey Attorney General's Office said.

According to the indictment, the couple allegedly prostituted the girl at South Jersey motels after they posted nude photos of her on Backpage.com advertising her as an "escort." They also allegedly forced her to inhale crystal methamphetamine with them while working as a prostitute.

"This is a classic case of human trafficking where these defendants allegedly trapped an underage girl in dehumanizing circumstances in which they gave her drugs and forced her to have sex with multiple men per day," Attorney General Christopher S. Porrino said in a news release Tuesday.

"It's terrible for anyone to be exploited in this manner, but it's especially heartbreaking when the victim is so young and vulnerable." Porrino said.

Authorities said the investigation began when the victim escaped and contacted law enforcement. Regn has two young children, and the victim, who knew White, went to a motel to meet them, thinking she would be babysitting the children.

When she got there, she told authorities, White and Regn allegedly gave her crystal methamphetamine and marijuana and told her that she needed to work as an "escort" for them so that they could make money.

If she did not work as an escort, she was told, it would be her fault if Regn's children ended up on the street, the 17-year-old told police. White allegedly threatened to beat the victim if she did not take the drugs and he also allegedly threatened to find her and beat her if she fled.

White and Regn allegedly arranged the sexual encounters and stayed in the same motel room, or an adjoining room. After the encounters, the couple allegedly collected money but did not share any with the victim, authorities said. During a three- or four-day stay at a motel in Wrightstown, White and Regn allegedly made the victim have sex with at least five men each day.

The victim ultimately fled while White and Regn were asleep, authorities. White and Regn initially were arrested in May by Mount Holly police and have since been detained in the Burlington County Jail.

"Our Human Trafficking Unit will continue to work with law enforcement partners throughout the state to rescue victims of human trafficking and ensure that those responsible for these deplorable crimes are aggressively prosecuted," said Elie Honig, director of the Attorney General's Division of Criminal Justice.

The human-trafficking charge carries a sentence of 20 years without parole to life, and a fine of up to $200,000.
By PTI: Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 15 (PTI) Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan today urged people to defeat any attempt to "poison and dilute" the idea of nationalism in the country, "which has evolved through diversity, secularism and democratic values".

In his address after unfurling the national flag at the Central Stadium here on the 71st Independence Day, he said nationalismdoes not mean hatred towards others religion, language or "other" nations.

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Beginning his speech on an emotional note by mentioning the deaths of children at a state-run hospital in Uttar Pradesh, Vijayan said though Independence Day is an occasion to celebrate, "who could be happy when children have died without getting oxygen?"

"That (deaths of the children) is an irreparable loss," he said paying tribute to the deceased children.

Vijayan said people joined hands irrespective of caste, religion, creed, language and culture for the countrys struggle for Independence and the nationalism imposed in the name of symbols or rituals would harm that unity among the citizens.

"The countrys nationalism has evolved on the principles of democratic, secular values and diversity. Such nationalism should not be deviated to narrow religious-nationalism and hatred. Any attempt topoison and dilute the nationalism should be defeated," he said.

If anybody tried to eliminate countrys diversity by imposing uniformity, it would result in the disintegration of nationalism, Vijayan cautioned. "A nationalism built on narrow-mindedness would pose a threat to the country and people."

Vijayan also referred to former Vice President Hamid Ansaris remark about "growing concerns and anxieties among minorities".

He said Ansaris statement was an "eye-opener" and it was unfortunate that even those holding responsible posts criticised him for this, he said.

The Chief Minister also emphasisedthe need to uphold the fundamental values of the Constitution which binds people and the nation together.

Apparently taking a dig at BJPs state unit over the recent corruption charges against some of its leaders, Vijayan said growing corruption is a major hurdle for the development of the country and it was undesirable that even some political parties were plunging into it.

He also listed out various development initiatives of the state government in economic, health, infrastructure and agriculture sectors.

State ministers unfurled the national flag at various district headquarters. PTI LGKAPR TIR

--- ENDS ---
The militant Saiful Islam killed himself right before a raid by police counter-terrorism unit and Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) at a hotel in Dhaka's Panthapath.

By Sahidul Hasan Khokon: A militant of the banned Neo-Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (Neo-JMB) terror outfit was today killed after he detonated explosives in his hotel room to escape a police raid.

The militant Saiful Islam killed himself right before a raid by police counter-terrorism unit and Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) at a hotel in Dhaka's Panthapath. According to police, the Neo-JMB militant tried to attack a rally taken out to pay homage to Bangladesh's founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on its National Mourning Day.

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Police chief AKM Shahidul Haque said that the SWAT team cordoned off the hotel and surrounding area since 3 am based on tip-off of a militant's presence there. A huge explosion was heard at 9.30 am inside the 3-storey hotel room and a part of the hotel collapsed. The bomb was kept inside Islam's trolly bag.

According to police, a man from southern Bangladesh came to the hotel three days ago.

"The militant had plans to sabotage the National Mourning Day rally. He attempted to kill hundreds of people through the bomb blast in the mourning rally," the police chief said.

President Abdul Hamid, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Speaker Dr Shirin Sharmin Chowdhury paid homage on the mourning day.

ALSO READ |

Suicide bomber blows himself up near RAB camp in Dhaka's Ashkona

Bangladesh: 6 arrested JMB militants reveal Al-Qaeda, ISIS terror plot to disrupt Ramadan

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: (Eds: Updating with more details)

Madurai, Aug 14 (PTI) AIADMK (Amma) deputy chief T T V Dhinakaran today accused the party faction, led by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami, of focussing on ousting him and "usurping" the party even as he vowed to work for its unity and secure its Two Leaves symbol.

Addressing a massive rally, the first in a series of rallies announced by him to mark the birth centenary of late chief minister and party founder M G Ramachandran (MGR), Dhinakaran launched a scathing attack on Palaniswami, saying he got the top post only because party chief V K Sasikala chose him.

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Days after he announced the MGR birth centenary celebrations and appointed some office-bearers after returning to active party work on August 4, following a two-month hiatus, the Palaniswami camp had held a meeting on August 10 and passed a resolution, declaring that Dhinakarans appointment as deputy general secretary was against the party bye-laws.

This was seen as a step towards a merger of the factions led by Palaniswami and former chief minister O Panneerselvam, whose main demands included expulsion of Dhinakaran and his aunt V K Sasikala from the party.

However, Dhinakaran had dismissed the resolution and asserted that he continued to be in control of the AIADMK.

Todays rally at Madurai, which is being seen as a show of strength by the Dhinakaran camp, was attended by six AIADMK MPs, 19 MLAs and a huge number of party workers.

Stating that it was the cadre who made the party and not only the MLAs, Dhinakaran said those who had passed the resolution against him should come out and see the crowd.

"The AIADMK is a cadre-based party and those who respect the cadre and their wishes alone would survive. They (the Palaniswami camp) cannot survive by removing me or my banners from the party headquarters," he added.

In a veiled attack on Panneerselvam over his demand for a probe into former chief minister J Jayalalithaas death, Dhinakaran said let there be a judicial inquiry.

"The people know who was in power throughout the period when Puratchi Thalaivi Amma (Jayalalithaa) was in hospital. Let there be a judicial probe...the truth will come out," he said addressing the huge crowd, which stayed put braving rains.

Dhinakaran urged Palaniswami and his cabinet colleagues to forge a "good relationship" with the Centre and try to get the "maximum" for the development of Tamil Nadu and its people, "instead of focussing on removing certain leaders".

He asserted that the people had elected the AIADMK government so that the good works of MGR and Jayalalithaa, who had toiled to protect the party to fight against the "evil and corrupt forces" (a veiled reference to the DMK), would continue.

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"Instead of continuing with the good work of Amma, they (the government) are now focussing on removing me from the party post and using power to prevent the workers, including the MLAs, from attending this rally," alleged Dhinakaran.

He claimed that the "hearts of the MLAs" in the Palaniswami camp, were with the "real AIADMK", led by him.

Seeking to invoke the legacy of MGR, he said, "Is it wrong to celebrate MGRs birthday? Now, an AIADMK government is in power and it is working against the AIADMK."

Dhinakaran claimed that Palaniswami had become the chief minister only because "Chinnamma (Sasikala) pointed her finger at him."

Had Sasikala wanted, she could have made any of her family members the chief minister, but that was not her wish, he said, adding that she only wanted the government and the party to be protected for the welfare of the people.

"If the MLAs were not at the Kuvathoor resort, could Palaniswami have dreamt of becoming the chief minister," asked Dhinakaran, in an apparent reference to the efforts of Sasikala to keep the AIADMK flock together after Panneerselvam revolted against the party leadership in February.

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He claimed that Palaniswami had become chief minister "by accident" and due to various circumstances, including Sasikalas incarceration in a Bengaluru jail in a corruption case.

"Those who claimed that they were waging a dharma yudhha (battle for justice), are actually fighting against dharma," Dhinakaran said.

He vowed to get the partys Two Leaves poll symbol, which had been frozen by the Election Commission (EC) after the Panneerselvam faction staked claim to it, before the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

Dhinakaran claimed he had been in the party since 1987 and had worked closely with Jayalalithaa, whom he described as his mentor.

Earlier, talking to reporters, he questioned the Palaniswami camps move to adopt the resolution, questioning his appointment as the partys deputy general secretary.

Stating that the Palaniswami camp had earlier submitted affidavits before the EC, supporting the appointment of him and Sasikala, he sought to know whether challenging the same later did not amount to cheating.

"They have passed a resolution, as per which the appointments made by me are null and void. Is this not 420 (cheating)? If 27 ministers, including the chief minister, have signed the resolution nullifying the appointments made by me, it is cheating," Dhinakaran said.

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He added that he was not scared of anyone as he had faced "a lot of opposition" since 1987.

Dhinakaran alleged that there were reports of corruption against a state minister in implementing a marriage assistance scheme of the government. PTI SSN VS RC

--- ENDS ---
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A man who had a Taser-device disguised as a knuckle-duster has narrowly avoided a lengthy jail sentence.

The home of 26-year-old Pawel Klaczek was searched on July 19, 2016 as part of a wide-ranging investigation by Devon and Cornwall Polices Serious and Organised Crime Team into money-laundering and drugs supply. The lengthy operation has since seen a number of men charged and convicted with a variety of offences.

Officers who searched Klaczeks home in Clifton Place found what at first appeared to be a knuckle-duster, but on closer examination turned out to be a Taser-like device capable of emitting 950,000 volts when fully charged.

Klaczek, who came to the UK from Poland as a young boy, gave no explanation during police interview, but later when he appeared in court charged with possession of a prohibited weapon  which can carry a mandatory minimum jail sentence in some circumstances  he offered a basis of plea which Judge Ian Lawrie QC described as implausible.

(Image: Carl Eve)

Klaczek claimed there had been a social gathering at his home and two women attended and showed him the weapon. He then took it from them and kept it.

He initially claimed he was going to hand it in at the nearby police station, but at his sentencing hearing his advocate Jason Beale, admitted he had no intention of doing so.

Judge Lawrie heard how Klaczek was lightly convicted and had not offended for eight years.

Mr Beale, mitigating for his client, said Klaczek was in work, was the father of two children  a five-year-old and a newborn  by two mothers, the eldest child of which he saw regularly.

(Image: Carl Eve)

Mr Beale accepted the item was not a torch and was clearly a rather large weapon which was not the sort of item which would come into ones possession of normal working people.

Judge Lawrie said the context of the case was a key issue. While it was not found in Klaczeks possession in the street, it was found on a wardrobe in his bedroom.

It had not been used, but was fully charged.

Judge Lawrie called Klaczek into the witness box to give him opportunity to explain how he felt about being held at HMP Exeter the previous night.

Klaczek, having sworn on the Bible, said it was horrible explaining he did not like the people in the prison, did not like the food and said the person he had to share his cell with was very bad.

On being asked what kind of people were in the prison he replied one was attempted murder, thieves, and kidnaps, assault.

Judge Lawrie told Klaczek it was sheer stupidity to be in possession of such a weapon and that most courts would have jailed him with no further explanation. He paid tribute to Klaczeks barrister, Mr Beale, who had convinced him otherwise.

Sending him back to the dock, he said the weapon was formidable and Klaczek had faced a minimum term of five years. He added that Klaczeks explanation as to why he had it defied credibility.

He took into account the wider police investigation into money laundering and drug offences which gave context to why police attended his address and found the weapon, but noted nothing else was discovered at the address.

He said he was reassured by a probation officers view that Klaczek was left devastated at spending an uncomfortable night at HMP Exeter.

(Image: Carl Eve)

He handed the 26-year-old a 20-month jail sentence, suspended for two years. He ordered him to be subject of a curfew from 7pm to 7am for six months, carry out 200 hours unpaid work, pay 350 court costs within three months and a victim surcharge of 170.

Judge Lawrie then pointedly explained to Klaczek that his sigh of relief would be short-lived if he committed any crime in the next two years or failed at the court orders to carry out unpaid work. He told Klaczek he would be back before the court and the same judge with the likelihood of the sentence being imposed in part or whole.

Stopping Klaczek before he left the dock Judge Lawrie added: Just be careful about the company you keep. Ive read in the [legal] papers you were keeping very undesirable people and I know two of them. One is in custody and the other is almost certainly facing custody.

You need to appreciate that if you keep a weapon like that the other person may have a bigger weapon or  worse case scenario  a different weapon.
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An RAF commander and florist, who received an MBE in 2006, has appeared in court charged with sexual assault.

The court heard that Brian Wills-Pope MBE, 64, kissed a teenage boy on his neck and asked him to wear a mankini, the BBC reports.

The jury heard that the alleged incident took place at an overnight band camp at the Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth in August 2015.

Mr Wills-Pope, the current chairman of the British Florist Association, also suggested sharing a bed, Taunton Crown Court heard.

He has denied one charge of sexual assault.

Prosecutor Sean Brunton said that Mr Wills-Pope approached the boy from behind.

"Rather unexpectedly this defendant leant forward and kissed the victim on the neck and then put his hand under his shirt, running it over his back, skin on skin," he said.

The jury was told that Mr Wills-Pope, from Torquay, was a "highly-respected and well-regarded man", who held a considerable responsibility in society.

The trial continues.
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The world will be watching Plymouth three years from now, John Glen, the new minister for arts, heritage and tourism, said during a visit to the city yesterday.

Mr Glen met the team working on the Mayflower 2020 celebrations.

Plymouth is leading a partnership of 11 locations across England and Leiden in Holland, all commemorating the historic voyage of Americas Pilgrim Fathers.

The group of 102 colonists set out from Plymouth on board the Mayflower in September 1620. They founded the first permanent colony at what is now the modern town of Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Its a fantastically important commemoration, of 400 years with such enormous consequences, Mr Glen said.

The whole world will be interested to know what Plymouth puts together.

He said the government had already given significant funding in 2015, and would continue to support the city as it put in bids.

He called on Plymothians to back the event.

Now is the time to be bold and ambitious. Plymouth has so many assets. It is the centre of a tourism peninsula with many thousands of jobs.

(Image: Penny Cross)

He said he hoped that if Plymouth gets it right, the Mayflower celebration would amplify the regions tourism offer.

He promised that the government would give its backing  though he would not give any new financial commitments. Mr Glen earlier visited Taunton and Torquay, where he learned about the long-term impact of Torre Abbey on the towns tourism industry.

Charles Hackett, chief executive of Mayflower 2020, said he would publish the first draft of a calendar of events in the next few months. He welcomed Mr Glens visit so soon after he was appointed.

Mr Hackett said they were now talking to US travel agents about bringing tourists to Plymouth, and there was a high level of interest.

Luke Pollard, newly-elected Labour MP for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport, said the celebration needed to leave a significant legacy.

I was eight when we had the Armada celebrations, and the legacy of that was the Plymouth Dome, which I dont think is the kind of legacy we need, he said.

The London 2012 Olympics showed us how to do it.

The sooner the organisers can start telling the city about the events and the legacy, the more Plymouth will get behind this.

Oliver Colvile, the former Sutton and Devonport MP and the Prime Ministers Mayflower envoy, said it was vital to use Brexit to build stronger links with the United States.

(Image: Penny Cross)

Glenn Jordan, Plymouth City Council cabinet member for culture, said: This is a major opportunity not only for attracting more tourism but for inward investment.

Part of the Mayflower project is Plymouth project will be the opening of The Box  the 37 million attraction, gallery and museum complex which will become the citys cultural centre.

Other events already unveiled include a Mayflower Muster week in September 2020; three historic trails in Plymouth, which will form part of a national network of trails, taking visitors on a journey back to the 16th Century; renovations to the historic Elizabethan House; and an Illuminate festival of light.

Mr Glen said, Mayflower 400 is a wonderful project that will not only celebrate centuries of shared history between the UK and US but also help promote Plymouth to the world.
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The world will be watching Plymouth three years from now, John Glen, the new Minister for Arts, Heritage and Tourism, said during a visit to the city today.

Mr Glen met the team working on the Mayflower 2020 celebrations.

Plymouth is leading a partnership of 11 locations across England and Leiden in Holland, all commemorating the historic voyage of Americas Pilgrim Fathers.

The group of 102 colonists set out from Plymouth on board the Mayflower in September 1620.

They founded the first permanent colony at what is now the modern town of Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Its a fantastically important commemoration, of 400 years with such enormous consequences, Mr Glen said.

The whole world will be interested to know what Plymouth puts together.

He said the government had already given significant funding in 2015, and would continue to support the city as it put in bids.

He called on Plymothians to back the event.

Now is the time to be bold and ambitious. Plymouth has so many assets. It is the centre of a tourism peninsula with many thousands of jobs.

He said he hoped that if Plymouth gets it right, the Mayflower celebration would amplify the regions tourism offer.

And he promised that the government would give its backing  though he would not give any new financial commitments.

Mr Glen earlier visited Taunton in Somerset and Torquay, where he learned about the long-term impact of Torre Abbey on the towns tourism industry.

Charles Hackett, chief executive of Mayflower 2020, said he would be published the first draft of a calendar of events in the next few months.

He welcomed Mr Glens visit so soon after he was appointed to the job.

Mr Hackett said they were now talking to US travel agents about bringing American tourists to Plymouth, and there was a high level of interest.

Luke Pollard, the newly elected Labour MP for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport, said the celebration needed to leave a significant legacy for Plymouth.

I was eight when we had the Armada celebrations, and the legacy of that was the Plymouth Dome, which I dont think is the kind of legacy we need.

The London 2012 Olympics showed us how to do it.

The sooner the organisers can start telling the city about the events and the legacy, the more Plymouth will get behind this.

Oliver Colvile, the former Sutton and Devonport MP and now the Prime Ministers Mayflower envoy, said it was vital to use Brexit to build stronger links with the United States.

Glenn Jordan, Plymouth City Council Cabinet member for culture, said: This is a major opportunity not only for attracting more tourism but for inward investment.

Part of the Mayflower project is Plymouth project will be the opening of The Box  the 37 million attraction, gallery and museum complex which will become the citys cultural centre.

Other events already unveiled include a Mayflower Muster week in September 2020; three historic trails in Plymouth, which will form part of a national network of trails, taking visitors on a journey back to the 16th Century; renovations to the historic Elizabethan House; and an Illuminate festival of light.

Mr Glen said: Mayflower 400 is a wonderful project that will not only celebrate centuries of shared history between the UK and US but also help promote Plymouth to the world.
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A young man had to be rescued by the fire service from a roof in Mutley Plain.

The Herald understands the man, who is in his 20s, to have been "covered in blood" at the time of the incident.

Police were called to reports of the man on a roof on Alexandra Road just after 3pm yesterday afternoon, Monday, August 14.

Police, who were concerned for his welfare, called upon the fire service to help him down from the flat roof.

A spokesperson for Devon and Cornwall Police said: "Officers were concerned for the welfare of the male and tried to engage with him.

"Ambulance were called and fire were also on the scene.

"The man was taken to Derriford Hospital with possible injuries to his arm and leg."

A nearby worker, who wished not to be named, had driven passed at the time of the incident.

They said: "I think whatever had happened was at an end so I couldn't see what was going on but I did wonder.

She added: "I saw two police cars, an ambulance and a police car there."

Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service were on the scene by 3.18pm and used an aerial ladder platform to bring the man to safety.

A fire spokesperson said: "One appliance from Greenbank and aerial ladder platform from Crownhill were mobilised to a male casualty on a flat roof at the request of the police.

"Crews assessed the casualty and placed him in a stretcher before using the Aerial Ladder Platform to rescue the casualty.

"The casualty was then dealt with by ambulance crew."
A Chicago police captain died while on duty early Sunday morning.

The officer, 50-year-old James Lavoy was found unresponsive in his squad car on I-94. Police said there were no signs of trauma and believe it may have been cardiac related. He was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Captain Lavoy was a Calumet district supervisor.

A piece of #Chicago was lost last night but a much greater part will live on thanks to what Capt James Lavoy did to make our city safer. pic.twitter.com/l9ArHLZRD2  Anthony Guglielmi (@AJGuglielmi) August 13, 2017

As an ambulance took his body to the medical examiners office, dozens of squad cars honored him in an end-of-watch procession. A death investigation is underway.
Lt. H. Jay Cullen and Trooper Berke Bates (Photo: Virginia State Police)

There was no distress call, according to federal safety investigators looking into what caused a helicopter crash that killed two Virginia State Police officers as they were conducting surveillance work during the white nationalists' rally in Charlottesville on Saturday.

Lt. H. Jay Cullen and Trooper Berke Bates were killed in the crash. According to investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board, the helicopter left Charlottesville airport around 3:54 p.m. and was conducting surveillance over the downtown area. It left downtown Charlottesville at around 4:42 p.m. to provide support for Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffes motorcade. Roughly two minutes later, at 4:44 p.m., officials received the first 911 call reporting the crash, reports the Washington Post.

According to the report, the helicopters vertical flight path was about 45 degrees when it descended into trees. Investigators said the main wreckage was about 100 yards from where the aft portion of the tail boom became lodged in a tree.

Investigators said that the helicopter was traveling about 34 miles per hour at an altitude of 2,300 feet. The crash occurred in a wooded area on Old Farm Road in Albemarle County, about seven miles southwest of the Charlottesville airport. There was a post-crash fire, investigators said.

Lt. Cullen was a veteran Virginia State Police trooper who had nearly 20 years of experience flying helicopters and airplanes for the departments aviation unit. Trooper Bates paid his way through aviation school last year in hopes of fulfilling his lifelong dream of flying for the State Police. Bates would have turned 41 on Sunday, reports the New York Times.

Cullen is survived by a wife and two sons. Bates is survived by his wife and their son and daughter, 11-year-old twins.

The full investigation into the deadly crash is expected to take 12 to 18 months.
By PTI: Eds: Updating with CPI-M Politburo statement

New Delhi, Aug 15 (PTI) The CPI(M) today alleged that Doordarshan refused to broadcast Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkars speech and said it would fight this "undeclared Emergency".

CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said Doordarshan was "not the private property" of the BJP-RSS and accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of "instructing his cronies to black out voices" of the Opposition, including that of an elected chief minister.

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There were no immediate reaction from the Prasar Bharati, which runs Doordarshan and All India Radio.

In a statement, the CPI-M Politburo said it "strongly condemns the refusal by the Doordarshan and All India Radio to broadcast the customary Independence Day address of Sarkar".

"The Doordarshan and All India Radio had recorded his speech for the occasion. However, they subsequently informed him that the speech cannot be carried as it is and asked him to reshape it," it said.

The party demanded action against those responsible for "prohibiting" the broadcast.

"This is a gross infringement on the right of a chief minister to address the people of his state on Independence Day. This act is reminiscent of the Emergency days and goes beyond as it seeks to gag the elected Chief Minister of a state. The central government is trampling upon the autonomy of Doordarshan/AIR and Prasar Bharati by such acts of censorship," the statement said.

"Doordarshan Refuses to Broadcast Tripura CM Manik Sarkars Speech. Is this the Cooperative Federalism that PM Modi Talks About? Shame!" the CPI (M)s official Twitter handle said, without mentioning the speech of the prime minister but believed to be his Independence Day address.

Tagging the tweet, Yechury hit out at the central government saying the channels alleged refusal to air Sarkars speech was "illegal".

"PM can pay homilies to cooperative federalism while instructing his cronies to black out voices of the Opposition, including an elected CM.

"If this isnt authoritarianism & undeclared Emergency, what is? This will be fought back by the CPM, people of Tripura and all our citizens," the Marxist leader tweeted. PTI ENM ZMN

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A rookie Miami police officer on the way home from work fatally shot a man who had stabbed a woman near Miami Lakes Middle School on Sunday morning, according to police.

Yurine Rodriguez-Perez, 27, was in good condition after county paramedics airlifted her to Ryder Trauma Center, Miami-Dade police said.

The officer was in uniform when the drama unfolded around 7 a.m.

The shooting is being investigated by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the stabbing is being handled by Miami-Dade police.

Javier Ortiz, president of Miami Fraternal Order of Police, said the officer was a rookie in shock from having to kill a suspect. The Miami officer and the dead suspect were not identified.

On behalf of the FOP, there is no doubt in our mind that when the investigation is completed, this officer will be declared a hero, Ortiz told the Miami Herald. If it wasn't for the swift actions of this officer, we would not only have had just one homicide here, we would've had a victim that would've been tragically injured.
Four police officers were among 12 people sickened by carbon monoxide in a New Jersey home so toxic it left victims convulsing and foaming at the mouth, reports the Associated Press.

Sensors detected dangerously excessive levels of carbon in the home, said Flanders Fire Chief Tyler Wargo. Five people were taken to a New York hospital, including three of the officers, who were released after treatment. Others were treated at the scene.

The names of the injured people were not released, and a hospital spokeswoman said she could not provide information on a patient's condition without their names.

People were lying on the lawn outside the house in Mount Olive when firefighters arrived around 7:30 p.m. Monday.

Wargo couldn't comment on the cause, but officials have narrowed it down to something in the home.

The Morris County Prosecutor's Office is investigating.
A Mississippi deputy died in a crash on the way to a call, reports the Clarion-Ledger.

Early Sunday morning, Quitman County Deputy Jimmy Clark was responding to a shooting call when he swerved to dodge two dogs in the road in the Falcon community on Mississippi 3, about eight miles north of Marks, fellow officers said.

Town C Deputy Jimmy Clark (Photo: ODMP) lerk Stephanie Armstead said Clark was known and loved by everyone in Crowder, MS, a town of between 700 and 800 people where he was the police chief before he left around two years ago to become a Quitman County deputy.

Clark was a husband and father, and he was the kind of good guy who made a mark on a small Mississippi town known for being a little strange about outsiders. "Jimmys folks are in Wyoming and Virginia, but he fit in real good. Crowder is a little different place, if youre not from there, they dont take you in too good for a while, but everyone liked Jimmy," said Quitman County Deputy Tommy Bryant.

The thing about Clark, his friends said, was he was always willing to come to their aid, no matter who they worked for or whether he was on duty or off. He is survived by his wife and children.
After events in Charlottesville, Va., last weekend showed how much violence white nationalist rallies could provoke, police chiefs from Richmond, Va., to Boston were taking steps to avoid a repeat of a situation in which the police appeared to have little control of the crowd.

Texas A&M University canceled a white lives matter rally at which Richard Spencer, a white supremacist leader, was to appear, citing safety concerns. Officials in Mountain View, Calif., where Google has its headquarters, were gearing up for one of several marches at the companys offices around the country to protest the firing of a male employee who wrote a memo criticized as sexist.

Rallies like the one in Charlottesville, fueled by overt displays of racism, attended by members of self-described militias, and attracting counterprotesters, pose novel challenges: Many of the demonstrators are legally and openly carrying firearms, including semiautomatic weapons. And instead of protesters versus police, as has often been the case in recent years, the situation is civilian versus civilian, with some participants spoiling for a fight.

But to deal with these new circumstances, the police have few new tactics, the New York Times reports.

Crowd-control techniques are much the same, experts said, whether demonstrators are armed or not. A crucial technique is keeping opposing sides apart, which the police tried and failed to do in Charlottesville on Saturday.
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Under Armours Kevin Plank became the second CEO to leave Trumps manufacturing council after the President did not do enough to denounce the racist attacks in Charlottesville.

Under Armour tweeted a statement from CEO Kevin Plank:

I love our country & company. I am stepping down from the council to focus on inspiring & uniting through power of sport.  CEO Kevin Plank pic.twitter.com/8YvndJMjj1  Under Armour (@UnderArmour) August 15, 2017

Two CEOs leaving the manufacturing council is not enough. The council should be empty after Trump supported and still has not denounced the support that he gets from racists. Any CEO who stays on that council and supports Trump deserves to have their brand reputation ruined, and customers boycott their products.

Trump has finally made himself so toxic that CEOs would rather anger the president than the 61% of the country that does not support him. None of these CEOs who fear what being associated with Trump could mean for their profit margins deserve praise. Trump has always been who he is, so the same people who saddled up to him in the first place dont deserve praise for finally leaving.

Trumps angry tweets mean nothing, but a boycott can destroy a brands reputation and profits.

Every single CEO who continues to serve on Trumps manufacturing council needs to keep this mind if they choose to associate with this president.
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By Dan Levine

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters)  California plans to file a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice over federal restrictions on some law enforcement grants to so-called sanctuary cities, a spokesperson for Californias attorney general office said on Monday.

The city of San Francisco filed its own lawsuit against the department late last week, saying the federal government has improperly sought to force local jurisdictions to enforce national immigration law by imposing funding conditions.

President Donald Trump issued a broad executive order in January targeting wide swaths of federal funding for cities that generally offer illegal immigrants safe harbor by declining to use municipal resources to enforce federal immigration laws.

However, a San Francisco judge drastically limited the scope of that policy.

The Justice Department has sought to impose conditions on a national grant for local law enforcement that mandates access to local jails for federal immigration officials, as well as 48 hours notice before releasing anyone wanted for immigration violations.

Californias planned lawsuit challenging those conditions, as well as San Franciscos case, is similar to a legal challenge filed last week by the city of Chicago.

In a statement on Monday, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said the state, not the federal government, is best suited to determine how best to allocate its law enforcement resources.

When President Trump threatened to defund our local law enforcements ability to do its job and protect our people, he picked the wrong fight, Becerra said.

A Justice Department spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.

(Reporting by Dan Levine; Editing by James Dalgleish and Dan Grebler)
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Intel CEO Brian Krzanich is the third CEO to quit Trumps manufacturing council in less than 24 hours over the Presidents weak condemnation of white supremacists and the violence in Charlottesville.

In a blog post, Krzanich wrote:

I resigned to call attention to the serious harm our divided political climate is causing to critical issues, including the serious need to address the decline of American manufacturing. Politics and political agendas have sidelined the important mission of rebuilding Americas manufacturing base.

I have already made clear my abhorrence at the recent hate-spawned violence in Charlottesville, and earlier today I called on all leaders to condemn the white supremacists and their ilk who marched and committed violence. I resigned because I want to make progress, while many in Washington seem more concerned with attacking anyone who disagrees with them. We should honor  not attack  those who have stood up for equality and other cherished American values. I hope this will change, and I remain willing to serve when it does.

I am not a politician. I am an engineer who has spent most of his career working in factories that manufacture the worlds most advanced devices. Yet, it is clear even to me that nearly every issue is now politicized to the point where significant progress is impossible. Promoting American manufacturing should not be a political issue.

My requestmy pleato everyone involved in our political system is this: set scoring political points aside and focus on what is best for the nation as a whole. The current environment must change, or else our nation will become a shadow of what it once was and what it still can and should be.

Corporate America loves stability, and what Trump is doing with his refusal to seriously condemn white supremacy and extremism is creating chaos in American society. The catering to extremist fringes and blaming the left for the violence in Charlottesville is part of the polarization that the Trump presidency survives on. Donald Trump has to constantly divide and appeal to his basis because he lacks both the skills and the knowledge to govern from the middle and build consensus.

Trump is a far-right believer, and feelings are not the basis for good policy.

CEOs are likely to continue to flee from Trump because there is no reward to being seen with a president who supports racism and bigotry or at best is too disinterested to respond appropriately to white supremacist domestic terror.
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By Jim Finkle and Salvador Rodriguez

TORONTO/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters)  The neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer had its internet domain registration revoked twice in less than 24 hours in the wake of the weekend violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, part of a broad move by the tech industry in recent months to take a stronger hand in policing online hate-speech and incitements to violence.

GoDaddy Inc, which manages internet names and registrations, disclosed late on Sunday via Twitter that it had given Daily Stormer 24 hours to move its domain to another provider, saying it had violated GoDaddys terms of service.

The white supremacist website helped organize the weekend rally in Charlottesville where a 32-year-old woman was killed and 19 people were injured when a man plowed a car into a crowd protesting the white nationalist rally.

After GoDaddy revoked Daily Stormers registration, the website turned to Alphabet Incs Google Domains. The Daily Stormer domain was registered with Google shortly before 8 a.m. Monday PDT (1500 GMT) and the company announced plans to revoke it at 10:56 a.m., according to a person familiar with the revocation.

As of late Monday the site was still running on a Google-registered domain. Google issued a statement but did not say when the site would be taken down.

Internet companies have increasingly found themselves in the crosshairs over hate speech and other volatile social issues, with politicians and others calling on them to do more to police their networks while civil libertarians worry about the firms suppressing free speech.

Twitter Inc, Facebook Inc, Googles YouTube and other platforms have ramped up efforts to combat the social media efforts of Islamic militant groups, largely in response to pressure from European governments. Now they are facing similar pressures in the United States over white supremacist and neo-Nazi content.

Facebook confirmed on Monday that it took down the event page that was used to promote and organize the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.

Facebook allows people to organize peaceful protests or rallies, but the social network said it would remove such pages when a threat of real-world harm and affiliation with hate organizations becomes clear.

Facebook does not allow hate speech or praise of terrorist acts or hate crimes, and we are actively removing any posts that glorify the horrendous act committed in Charlottesville, the company said in a statement.

Several other companies also took action. Canadian internet company Tucows Inc stopped hiding the domain registration information of Andrew Anglin, the founder of Daily Stormer. Tucows, which was previously providing the website with services masking Anglins phone number and email address, said Daily Stormer had breached its terms of service.

They are inciting violence, said Michael Goldstein, vice president for sales and marketing at Tucows, a Toronto-based company. Its a dangerous site and people should know who it is coming from.

Anglin did not respond to a request for comment.

Discord, a 70-person San Francisco company that allows video gamers to communicate across the internet, did not mince words in its decision to shut down the server of Altright.com, an alt-right news website, and the accounts of other white nationalists.

We will continue to take action against white supremacy, Nazi ideology, and all forms of hate, the company said in a tweet Monday. Altright.com did not respond to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, Twilio Inc Chief Executive Jeff Lawson tweeted Sunday that the company would update its use policy to prohibit hate speech. Twilios services allow companies and organizations, such as political groups or campaigns, to send text messages to their communities.

Internet companies, which enjoy broad protections under U.S. law for the activities of people using their services, have mostly tried to avoid being arbiters of what is acceptable speech.

But the ground is now shifting, said one executive at a major Silicon Valley firm. Twitter, for one, has moved sharply against harassment and hate speech after enduring years of criticism for not doing enough.

Facebook is beefing up its content monitoring teams. Google is pushing hard on new technology to help it monitor and delete YouTube videos that celebrate violence.

All this comes as an influential bloc of senators, including Republican Senator Rob Portman and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, is pushing legislation that would make it easier to penalize operators of websites that facilitate online sex trafficking of women and children.

That measure, despite the non-controversial nature of its espoused goal, was met with swift and coordinated opposition from tech firms and internet freedom groups, who fear that being legally liable for the postings of users would be a devastating blow to the internet industry.

(Reporting by Jim Finkle in Toronto and Salvador Rodriguez in San Francisco; Additional reporting by David Ingram and Dustin Volz in San Francisco, and Chris Michaud in New York and Alastair Sharp in Toronto; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Lisa Shumaker)
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By Scott Malone and Jeff Mason

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va./WASHINGTON (Reuters)  U.S. President Donald Trump, facing a mounting political furor and backlash from business leaders, has explicitly condemned neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacists two days after a rally by hate groups in Virginia turned deadly.

The Republican presidents specific denunciation of extreme right-wing organizations, whose followers constitute a devoted segment of his political base, came on Monday after a torrent of criticism from Democrats and members of his own party.

Critics said Trump waited too long on Saturday to address the upheaval in Charlottesville before delivering a tepid and ambiguous message denouncing hatred and violence on many sides.

Two days later, yielding to pressure for a more forceful response to the biggest domestic crisis of his presidency, Trump singled out the white nationalists whose Unite the Right rally was widely seen as stoking the Charlottesville disturbances.

Racism is evil, and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans, Trump said in a statement to reporters at the White House on Monday.

By the time he sought to revise his message, however, the most pointed rebukes were coming not just from politicians, pundits and civil rights activists, but from the captains of American industry.

In quick succession, three members of Trumps advisory American Manufacturing Council quit in protest, led by the chief executive of one of the worlds biggest pharmaceutical companies, Kenneth Frazier of Merck & Co Inc.

TRUMP HITS BACK

The CEOs of sportswear manufacturer Under Armour semiconductor chip maker Intel Corp, Kevin Plank and Brian Krzanich, announced their resignations from the panel hours later.

Trump quickly struck back on Twitter at Frazier, who is black, saying the Merck executive would now have more time to focus on lowering ripoff drug prices.

Trump also lashed out on Monday at the media, where many commentators said his response to the Charlottesville unrest still rang hollow.

Made additional remarks on Charlottesville and realize once again that the #Fake News media will never be satisfied truly bad people!

Saturdays disturbances erupted after hundreds of white nationalists converged in Charlottesville to protest plans to remove a statue of General Robert E. Lee, commander of the pro-slavery Confederate army in the U.S. Civil War.

They were met by crowds of anti-racism demonstrators in heated confrontations that escalated into street brawls. A car then plowed into a group of the counter-protesters, killing one woman and injuring 19 other people.

Police identified the driver as a 20-year-old man said to have harbored Nazi sympathies. He was detained on charges of murder, malicious wounding and leaving the scene of a fatal accident.

Several other people were arrested during the day as the clashes left another 15 people injured. Two state troopers involved in crowd control were killed when their helicopter crashed.

(Reporting by Scott Malone in Charlottesville and Jeff Mason in Washington; Additional reporting by Brandon Shulleeta in Charlottesville, Susan Heavey, Timothy Ahmann and Mohammad Zargham in Washington, Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Emma Rumney in London and Michelle Martin in Berlin; Writing by Frances Kerry, Daniel Wallis and Steve Gorman; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
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Trump will sign an executive order that will end the requirement that flood prone infrastructure is built with rising sea levels in mind, which means that thanks to Trump, it will infrastructure will be more dangerous to human life during floods.

Journalist Zack Coleman tweeted:

per source, WH has confirmed they will rescind Obama order that flood-prone infrastructure be built with sea-level rise in mind  Zack Colman (@zcolman) August 15, 2017

per last tweet  the standard WH will rescind would have required infrastructure getting fed $ to be built to withstand flooding  Zack Colman (@zcolman) August 15, 2017

as source points out to me  the Obama order had been in works since Jan 2015. several agencies had been working on implementation.  Zack Colman (@zcolman) August 15, 2017

per FEMA, flooding has caused $260b of damage to U.S. in last 35 years, for what it's worth (which, apparently, is $260 billion)  Zack Colman (@zcolman) August 15, 2017

It is impossible to think of a move by a president that could be more short-sighted, poorly thought out, and potentially deadly than what Trump is planning on doing. According to data from NOAA, In 2015, about 64 percent (112 out of 176) of the flood deaths involved vehicles. Many of those likely occurred when a person was trying to cross a flooded road. Vehicles have also been a part of many flood-related fatalities in 2016. As an example, many of the 26 deaths in North Carolina from Hurricane Matthew involved motorists being swept away on flooded roads.

By lowering the standard for infrastructure in flood prone areas, Trump is going to get people killed.

Donald Trump is making it easier for people to die in floods because he wants to kill an Obama executive order.

Trumps obsession with undoing the Obama presidency is going to be fatal for Americans who live in flood prone areas. There is no limit to the damage and harm that this president will do to the American people in the name of getting himself a win.
By PTI: judge choice: report

By Sajjad Hussain

Islamabad, Aug 15 (PTI) The Pakistan government has begun consultations over the nomination of an ad-hoc judge for the Kulbhushan Jadhav case being heard at the International Court of Justice with an ex-attorney general and a former Jordanian premier emerging as the top contenders, a media report said today.

India had moved the Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Jadhavs death penalty handed down by a Pakistani military court. The ICJ had on May 18 restrained Pakistan from executing the death sentence.

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Pakistan governments functionaries have started consultations for the nomination of an ad-hoc judge, Express Tribune reported, citing sources.

During the tenure of ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif, former Supreme Court judge Khalilur Rehman Ramday was approached, but he declined the nomination, the report said.

Sources were quoted by the daily as saying that the Attorney General for Pakistans (AGP) office has recommended the names of senior lawyer Makhdoom Ali Khan and former Jordanian prime minister Awn Shawkat Al-Khasawneh to the Prime Ministers Office for the nomination of one name as an ad-hoc judge.

Khasawneh served as an ICJ judge for over a decade, while Khan, a former Attorney General who is seen as the favourite for the job, also has experience in international arbitration cases, having represented eight different countries in international courts.

The nomination of the ad-hoc judge will be finalised after getting inputs from the Foreign Office and the military establishment, the sources said, adding that earlier, government functionaries had also considered the name of former chief justice of Pakistan Tassaduq Hussain Jillani.

An official was quoted as saying that the name of the ad- hoc judge will be finalised next month, soon after the Indian side files its documents.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) representative Raheel Kamran Sheikh has called upon the government to seek Parliaments approval on the appointment of the ad-hoc judge.

Only one person has previously been appointed as ICJ judge in Pakistans history -- former foreign minister Zafarullah Khan, who was appointed in 1954 and later became the president of the court.

Yaqub Ali Khan and Sharifuddin Pirzada both served as ad-hoc judges, as did Zafarullah. PTI SH ASK ASK

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Pizza has been a constant in Brian Kesslers life, from the time he got a job in a pizzeria as a teenager until the day he met his wife in a pizza joint. Read moreIggy's Pizza Shop is now open in Mount Pleasant
Boeing Co. times the performance of its employees at each stage of the 787 Dreamliner assembly process, with the best performance earning "champion time" designation. The practice is spreading from the Dreamliner program to manufacturing sites in the rest of Boeing's commercial airplane and defense, space and security divisions. File/Staff
The State Ports Authority plans to buy about 46 acres of land on Daniel Island across the Wando River from its Wando Welch Terminal (above) as a disposal site for the agency's Charleston Harbor dredging project. Provided/State Ports Authority
Derryck Barentine had just turned 20 and was working as a welder apprentice through a contractor at Detyens Shipyards, a ship repair yard in North Charleston. In the sprawling industrial complex, deaths due to falls, crushing and electrocution have left coworkers like him  men and women scarred by the tragedies they witnessed and the friends they lost. Read moreShipyard deaths take toll on workers left to grapple with trauma, friends lost
By PTI: New Delhi, Aug 15 (PTI) Netizens can now be a part of Mahatma Gandhis historic Dandi March as tech giant Google recreates the journey digitally for the millennials who have only read about it in textbooks.

Google has added the Dandi March story to its Google Earth Voyager, which features map data, storytelling and archival photographs.

Google claimed that many of these have never been released.

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The 24-day journey started on March 12, 1930 to protest against the tax levy on salt by the British. The march added huge momentum to Indias independence movement.

While 78 people began the almost 400 km-march with Gandhi, many more joined along the way.

Users can now experience the emotion felt on that long trek towards independence, Google said in a statement. "The Voyager story takes you through a journey retracing the steps of Gandhis Salt March from Sabarmati to Dandi in his campaign for Indias freedom," it added.

The story is told in the words of Mahatma Gandhis great-grandson Tushar Gandhi, based on his family knowledge and his own retracing of the march in 2005, the statement said.

Google has created a montage of 22 slides covering each key stage of the journey to specific locations along the way, recounting what happened at that location along with a photograph taken at the time.

The first stop in the journey is at the Gujarat Vidhyapeeth University, where viewers learn about the thatched hut built by the townspeople of Vasana, and about the boat owner who ferried almost 400 volunteers and villagers across the Narmada river free of charge.

At any time, users can zoom in, and pan around the scene. PTI SR ANU

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SC Attorney General Alan Wilson is challenging the CDC's recommendations on COVID vaccinations for kids. They have no force of law, so this is no different than the left trying to enforce its woke orthodoxy. Read moreEditorial: Alan Wilson should stick to the law, stop trying to silence opinions he dislikes
An India Today reality check found that several doctors who have residential complexes allotted in the campus- are running their private clinics in them.

By Shivendra Srivastava: Baba Raghav Das Medical College in Gorakhpur finds itself only spiralling in a myriad of controversies and revelations since the unfateful day of August 12.

After, Dr Kaleef Khan was suspended on Saturday, on suspicion of stealing oxygen cylinders from the hospital and indulging in financial irregularities that could have affected the timely purchase of cylinders, more skeletons tumbled out of the closet.

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Not only Dr Khan but many senior doctors were and continue to flout rules openly, while pushing their duty towards the government hospital patients on the backseat.

An India Today reality check found that several doctors who have residential complexes allotted in the campus- are running their private clinics in them.

In a blatant disregard for law governing their medical practice, the doctors have been conspicuously running their practice in the BRD Medical College campus.

Moreover, now expelled principal of BRD Medical College, Dr Rajiv Mishra was no less than a vanguarding figure. He used to refer his patients to Sri Ram Pathology Centre- right outside the campus, where he used to work.

Mishra's neighbour, the Mohan family proudly boasts of three doctors running their private practice in the same compound.

The clinic at their official residence is equipped with a bed and a medicine rack but all patients were turned back when the news of India Today investigation reached the Mohan family.

"We are not cheats or goons. We do this private practice out of goodwill. People we know , even media people come to us at odd hours. Where will we treat them if not here," asks Dr Renu Mohan.

About 100 meters away, Dr Mukesh Shukla's residence cum clinic also portrays the same picture.

A neurosurgeon at the BRD Medical College, Dr Shukla apart from running his private clinic also renders his services at the Buddha Hospital.

While carrying out the exhaustive investigation, India Today spoke to technicians of the radiology ward at the hospital who complained of low attendance of doctors in the hospital.

On conditions of anonymity, one said, "If seven are supposed to be on duty then only two show up. Everyone is busy with their private practice. After yogi came they finally showed up."

Some said, "Poor patients are deliberately given dates for a month later for a even an ultrasound. It is done to ensure that they visit the private MRI centres where these doctors practice."

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BRD Medical College is not only plagued by money-grubbing doctors but also stray dogs and pigs that roam within the hospital. The moot point then takes course over what authorities have done to curb this sprouting of private clinics and ensure the hospital is sanitized.

--- ENDS ---
LAS VEGAS  Control of the U.S. Senate may come down to Nevada, where a slow ballot count entered its final act Saturday in the nail-biter contest between Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Republican challenger Adam Laxalt. Read moreSenate control may come down to Nevada as count nears end
Rochester Assistant City Administrator Aaron Reeves' application to replace Stevan Kvenvold has helped him land the top administrative job in Cloquet.

Reeves learned last week that he was selected as the next city administrator for the northeast Minnesota city with a population of 12,124.

He applied for the position two days after the Rochester City Council picked its top three candidates to fill the local city administrator position, which has been vacant since Kvenvold retired on May 31.

"The council named their finalists at a Wednesday (committee-of-the-whole meeting)," Reeves said. "That's when I talked to the consultant a bit  and that Friday, basically, I applied for this."

The consultant, Sharon Klumpp of Springsted Waters Executive Recruitment, was hired by the city of Rochester to conduct a nationwide search to fill the city administrator position. At the same time, she was working with Cloquet to fill a similar position.

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Reeves said he wasn't looking to leave Rochester but was intrigued by the open position after it was clear he wasn't going to make the cut in Rochester.

"Cloquet is a great city," he said, noting his family enjoys the North Shore region. "They have a lot going on and are really reinvesting a lot in the parks and things like that."

When he applied for the Cloquet position, the posting had been closed and the Cloquet City Council was preparing to interview applicants. They agreed to add Reeves to the list.

"It all kind of clicked and went really good," Reeves said, noting he was informed he had the job on Wednesday and gave Interim City Administrator Gary Neumann his notice at the end of the week. He is slated to start in Cloquet during the first week of October.

"I tried to get a little further out start date, so I can wrap up as much as I can in Rochester," he said.

Reeves, who served as city administrator in Kenyon and Cannon Falls before becoming Rochester city clerk in January 2014, said he's excited about returning to a city administrator post but has mixed feelings when it comes to leaving Rochester.

"We really love Rochester; it's a great town, but this is something new," he said.

Reeves' resignation means staffing in Rochester city's administration office will drop to four people until the new city administrator, Steve Rymer, starts on Oct. 12.

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"As soon as Steve's on board, we'll be making moves to hire somebody," Neumann said, noting staff will likely start preparing to advertise for the position in the meantime.

Neumann noted the administration operated with five staff members before Reeves left the city clerk position to become an assistant city administrator last year. At the same time, he said the added staff has allowed the staff to take on new tasks, including development coordination, which Reeves initially took on as city clerk .

"We do believe six is a better number for us," Neumann said.
HINCKLEY, Minn.  Republican candidates for Minnesota governor in 2018 are sounding at lot like President Trump these days.

As they reach out to party activists in the early stages of the campaign, GOP hopefuls are portraying themselves as outsiders, talking tough and pledging to "drain the swamp" in St. Paul.

"We've got to go out and we've got to fight for the people of this state," said former Minnesota Republican Party chair Keith Downey during a recent candidate event in Hinckley. "We've got to show them that we are truly on their side, that we care about them and that we're going to fight those entrenched interests and all the cronyism and all the insider status down in St. Paul."

Downey had a ringside seat last year when the Trump wave helped flip the state Senate to GOP control and came within 2 percentage points of turning red the reliably blue Minnesota.

Now as a candidate for governor, he is trying to capture that energy and make a similar connection with Trump voters with a populist message that emphasizes jobs, tax cuts and a new direction for state government.

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Other GOP gubernatorial candidates are doing the same.

Four candidates attended the Pine County Republican Party event, where they received polite applause from the attentive group. Two other candidates were invited but couldn't make it.

Pine County, like most rural parts of the state, went big for Trump in 2016. So, it wasn't shocking to hear the candidates embrace many of the president's favorite issues.

"We've got to get on top of election fraud," said Phillip Parrish, a naval reserve officer from Kenyon who has made previous bids for governor and U.S. Senate. He did not offer any evidence of the voter fraud he claims exists.

Parrish also said he wants to put the brakes on refugee resettlement.

"It's got to end. It's not a conspiracy theory to tell you that we have people overseas holding classes on how to exploit the local communities," he said.

Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Johnson, who's making a second run for governor, said he plans to invest aggressively in roads and ban so-called sanctuary cities. Johnson is also pledging to reduce regulations and give power back to the people.

"We're going to change the attitude in government, and particularly in the government agencies ... from controlling and punishing to serving the people who actually pay our salaries," Johnson said. "If there's a government employee who can't get on board, then they're not going to survive the Johnson administration."

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In another Trump-like remark, state Rep. Matt Dean of Dellwood criticized a New York Times columnist. He also pledged big changes in health care. Dean wants to return Minnesota to a pre-Obamacare system, and he's ready to do it with or without the federal approval.

"The state of Minnesota is going to do it our way again, and we're going to tell the federal government if you don't like it, too bad," Dean said.

Nine Republicans are declared candidates for governor, and more could still join the race.

State Republican Party chair Jennifer Carnahan likes how the field is shaping up. She's confident that the party will have a strong nominee who can win next year. As far as Trump comparisons, Carnahan sees it as a matter of substance rather than style.

"I don't know if I would apply so much the themes that the candidates were talking about as necessarily harvesting the Trump energy or strategy," she said, "as it is the things Trump campaigned on and ran on last year are things that do directly affect people, not only in the country but in Minnesota."

Trump has strong support among Republicans, but his broader polls numbers are poor.

Those low poll numbers could be a big drag on Republicans next year and a boost for his side, said Minnesota DFL chair Ken Martin. The DFL has six declared candidates in the race. But after the stinging results of 2016, Martin isn't taking anything for granted.

"I'm not sure what the calculus is right now and how any of the Republican candidates think that they're going to be able to win," Martin said. "But any of them could win, in my opinion, and the way they win is by the Democrats doing their job for them and beating each other."
The radio show is sharing stories that transcend all social norms, and leaving us teary-eyed.

By India Today Web Desk: While the imposition of innumerable bans have created an atmosphere of oppression in the country, a radio show hosted by gay rights activist, Harish Iyer comes as a whiff of fresh air (pun intended) for the people belonging to the LGBT community.

After holding campaigns for the rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) community, women, and survivors of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA), Harish is now playing a radio jockey for a show called Gaydio--a show dedicated to acknowledging LGBT issues in India.

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Also Read: How a man is using Arnab Goswami's voice and dance to make a point about LGBT issues

This first of its kind, Gaydio was launched in mid-July, and airs every Sunday on radio channel, Ishq (104.8 FM) in New Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata. Like the name of the channel suggests, Gaydio is a progressive step taken towards encouraging people to come out with their sexuality, and share their love stories with the world.

"As an activist, it is in my DNA to stand up for a cause," Iyer told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Iyer also added, "You hear heart-warming love stories during your activism, but you are busy being the saviour. But on this show, I look at the softer side."

From having a Sikh-Muslim gay couple talk about their 12-year-old relationship on the show to a mother addressing her son's ex-boyfriend--this initiative is a platform that helps people embrace each other's sexuality, while imparting them the strength to deal with the stringent Indian laws against homosexuality.

Also Read: Delhi Queer Pride Parade: The 9th edition of the parade saw immense support for the LGBTQ community

In another episode, a heterosexual man and a transgender woman shared their heart-warming love story, and demonstrated why, we, as a society, needed this show.

The estimated LGBT population of the country stands around 2.5 million today, but it is believed to be drastically higher, considering how the narrow-minded approach of our society restricts people from opening up on their sexuality.

--- ENDS ---
According to the Daily Caller, about 40 of the 250 officials on the National Security Council (NSC) are Obama administration holdovers. Their boss, H.R. McMaster, has instructed that these folks not be called holdovers. This might make sense from a team-building perspective. But since Im not part of the team, they will be referred to as holdovers in this post.

The Daily Callers Richard Pollock and Ethan Barton profile some of them. They report that Allison Hooker remains NSC director for Korea, no backwater job given current circumstances. According to Pollock and Barton, Hooker is an architect of former President Barack Obamas Korean policy. This may be a reach because they also say she joined the NSC in 2014, by which time Obama administration Korea policy was in place.

Nonetheless, President Trump has denounced Obamas Korea policy  strategic patience  in harsh terms. Thus its surprising to find his administrations NSC adviser on Korea still in place more than half a year into the Trump administration.

Pollock and Barton report that McMasters director for South America is Fernando Cutz. He received his masters degree in international relations from the Clinton School of Public Service in or around 2010. The Clinton School operates on the grounds of the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock.

According to Pollock and Barton, Cutz, who previously reported to former deputy NSC advisor Ben Rhodes, enthusiastically endorsed Obamas Cuba policy throughout his tenure as an NSC staffer. He helped plan and organize Obamas trip to Cuba.

Andrea Hall is another holdover who reported to Ben Rhodes. She serves as NSCs senior director for weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and threat reduction.

Pollock and Barton cite a paper she published in December 2002, while earning her doctorate, in which she criticized the West for not doing enough for Vladimir Putin. She wrote that Russia has received few tangible benefits from its cooperation with the United States, and claimed that Washington was ignoring Russian concerns. She added:

Given that Putin has received significant criticism for his foreign policy concessions and that he has valid concerns about the Russian economy, Washington would be wise to help Russia achieve some of its goals as well in order to cement this partnership.

In fairness to Hall, this thinking does not seem inconsistent with Trumps. Coincidentally (or maybe not), it mirrors the blame America first attitude of McMasters Israel-Palestine guy, Kris Bauman. He blamed Israel and the Bush administration for undermining the peace process by failing to recognize Hamas moderation.

Rear Adm. David Kriete, another Obama holdover, is NSCs director for strategic capabilities policy and responsible for policy on nuclear weapons-related issues. According to Pollock and Barton, he was a representative to the interagency panel that wrote Obamas 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, which reflected the former chief executives vision of a nuclear-free world.

That document received considerable criticism from conservatives. According to Pollock and Barton, National Review found that it undermines the basis of the deterrent policy that has helped maintain the peace for more than 60 years.

Pollock and Barton discuss several other holdovers. However, the four discussed above strike me as the most problematic.

Michael Anton, an NSC spokesman and author of the famous Flight 93 Election article, told the Daily Caller that all of the holdovers (I assume he didnt use that word) are stalwarts who faithfully follow the presidents foreign and military policies. I have no reason to believe that any holdover is insubordinate.

However, the NSC can help shape a presidents foreign and military policies. Thats particularly true where, as here, (1) the president lacks experience with, or apparent in-depth knowledge of, foreign policy issues and (2) the national security adviser is extremely aggressive.

Thus, the cliche personnel is policy seems particularly apt in the context of this NSC staff. Thats why its reasonable to be concerned about some of the Obama holdovers and about McMasters purge of some pro-Trump staffers.
We truly have entered the era of the permanent campaign. The 2020 election is more than three years away, and President Trump has already released his first ad. I suppose the ad has in view not only Trumps re-election, but also the fact that the Democratic Party press doesnt want to cover the administrations accomplishments, preferring to obsess over Trumps foibles and non-existent scandals. The ad seeks to remind voters of Trumps record so far, which is, in fact, impressive:

As usual, the Trump administration has to rely on its own devices to get its message out, the press being occupied elsewhere.

UPDATE: CNN refused to run the ad on the ground that it is inaccurate. The ad features several CNN personalities among the media people who are pictured while the voiceover says, The presidents enemies dont want him to succeed. CNN said:

CNN would accept the ad if the images of reporters and anchors were removed, a network spokeswoman told DailyMail.com. Anchors and reporters dont have enemies, as the ad states, but they do hold those in power accountable across the political spectrum and aggressively challenge false and misleading statements and investigate wrong-doing, the spokeswoman added.

No word on whether she was able to say it with a straight face.
Last week I noted Patrick Lawrences article on the the purported hack of the DNC email by the Russians in the run-up to last years election. Lawrence reported on the analysis presented by former intelligence officials who assert it was something else entirely. Lawrences article was posted under the heading A New Report Raises Big Questions About Last Years DNC Hack. Lawrences article includes relevant links.

The analysis has been presented by a group of former American intelligence officers. The group  Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)  was founded in 2003 and now has 30 members, including a few associates with backgrounds in national-security fields other than intelligence.

In his article Lawrence noted that [t]he chief researchers active on the DNC case are four: William Binney, formerly the NSAs technical director for world geopolitical and military analysis and designer of many agency programs now in use; Kirk Wiebe, formerly a senior analyst at the NSAs SIGINT Automation Research Center; Edward Loomis, formerly technical director in the NSAs Office of Signal Processing; and Ray McGovern, an intelligence analyst for nearly three decades and formerly chief of the CIAs Soviet Foreign Policy Branch.

At Bloomberg View Leonid Bershidsky performed a service. He summarized the analysis and subtracted the stuffing from Lawrences article. Bershidskys column is Why Some U.S. Ex-Spies Dont Buy the Russia Story.

The analysis seems so far not to have broken out beyond a small circle of friends. Last night Tucker Carlson invited Binney on to discuss it (video below). The analysis is over my head. As I said last week, I can only say that it is interesting if true and that the discussion should extend beyond a small circle of friends.
Salon has a good column summarizing the argument presented by Patrick Lawrence in the Nation asserting that the alleged Russian hack of the DNC email was rather an inside job. It nicely complements our previous installments in this series. Author Danielle Ryan quotes the official DNC response to Lawrences Nation article provided to the Nation after publication and now appended to the article:

U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded the Russian government hacked the DNC in an attempt to interfere in the election. Any suggestion otherwise is false and is just another conspiracy theory like those pushed by Trump and his administration. Its unfortunate that The Nation has decided to join the conspiracy theorists to push this narrative.

Ryan rightly comments that the statement is so lackluster it is almost laughable[.] Students of logical fallacy may recognize both the argument from authority and the ad hominem in the three-sentence DNC statement. That is pathetic.

Via Glenn Reynolds/InstaPundit.

PAUL ADDS: The case that the Russians hacked the DNC emails has always been based on the conclusion of U.S. intelligence agencies. To my knowledge, these agencies have not provided the information that forms the basis for their conclusion. Thus, the public has never been in a position to assess the conclusions validity.

As long as there was no credible person or organization building a case to the contrary, I was willing to believe  naively perhaps  that the conclusion of the intelligence agencies was very likely correct. Now, it seems that a credible case to the contrary is emerging.

I think it is time for the intelligence agencies to back up their conclusion if they can, so that those who defend it dont have to rely on argument from authority.
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Local rice production in Nigeria has now reached 15 million metric tonnes annually, the government has claimed.

It said the development means the country will now be saving about N300 billion it used to spend annually on importation of the commodity.

The Director of Agriculture at the Kano office of the Federal Ministry of Agricultural, Muhammad Adamu, made the claim on Tuesday while inaugurating the Rice Millers Association of Nigeria, (RIMAN) in the state.

He said in Kano alone, 1.2 million metric tonnes of rice was produced in 2016.

He said with the significant increase in local productions and the efforts to make the local variety qualitative and more attractive to Nigerians, the country expects to begin exporting rice to West African countries by 2018/2019.

Mr. Adamu said about 34 states in Nigeria are producing rice, with many now producing three times in a year.

He disclosed that investigation carried out by the Federal Government revealed that rice imported to Nigeria are 10-15 years old and and are preserved with chemicals which can cause cancer to consumers.

In his remarks, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Rice Millers Association, Peter Dama, said, the association was established to promote local milling of rice that is fresh, healthy and nutritious.

He said the association is willing to collaborate with the Nigeria Customs Service to stem smuggling of expired rice into Nigeria.

Mr. Dama added that the association intended to work closely with regulatory agencies and policymakers to ensure standard in local rice milling.

The Customs officer in charge of rice enforcement, Ado Hassan, warned that Custom officers caught conniving with rice smugglers would have themselves to blame.

He said that in less than one year, the zonal command of the agency confiscated 800,000 bags of rice in Kano and Jigawa states.

He said about 9000 bags of the rice are still in the stores of the agency, adding that most of the rice were being given to internally displaced persons after been certified fit for consumption by the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control, NAFDAC.

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Fourteen companies and government agencies have led the pack among organisations that participated in a ranking conducted by the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, to select firms that fully complied with the guidelines for submission of information and data in the 2015 audit templates.

The top companies with a maximum 100 percent score include Chevron Nigeria Limited, Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited, Consolidated Oil Producing Nigeria Limited, Continental Oil & Gas Limited Nigeria, Eroton Exploration & Production Company Limited, Esso Exploration & Production Nigeria Limited, Niger Delta Petroleum Resources, Nigerian Gas Company, Orient Energy, Star Deepwater Petroleum and Waltersmith Petroman.

Two government agencies, the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, and the Nigeria Content Development and Monitoring Board were also among the group.

Five companies, namely Shoreline Natural Resources Limited, Statoil Nigeria Limited, Petrobas Nigeria Limited, Midwestern Oil & Gas Company Limited and ND Western Limited, scored between 94 and 98 percent to join others in the top compliance ranking category.

NEITI spokesperson, Ogbonnaya Orji, explained that 20 companies scored between 80 and 88 percent, while 12 others recorded between 72 and 75 percent. Only four companies, representing six percent of the total figure, failed to make submissions before the deadline.

Mr. Orji said of the four companies, two made submissions after the ranking deadline had ended while the two others failed to make submissions at all.

Aiteo Exploration & Production Limited and Network Exploration & Production Nigeria Limited made submissions to NEITI after the deadline, while the remaining two companies, Neconde Energy Limited and Prime Exploration & Production Limited Nigeria, failed to comply.

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The governor of the oil city of Basra has stepped down and gone to Iran after Iraqs anti-corruption body began investigating graft allegations against him, people close to him and officials said on Tuesday.

Iraqs Integrity Commission on Monday evening issued a statement asking the foreign ministry in Baghdad to ask Iran to repatriate Nasrawi.

A Basra-based politician close to Nasrawi said the accusations against Nasrawi were politically motivated by rivals.

He can travel wherever he likes as long as there are no legal obstacles, the politician said, confirming that Nasrawi had left for Iran.

The governors family declined to comment and the lawyers association in Basra said he had no known attorney.

Oil-rich Iraq ranks 166st out of 176 nations in Transparency Internationals Corruption Index.

In a separate case, Samir Kubba, the director-general of Iraqi Airways, has been arrested and referred to trial on graft charges, a spokesman for the Supreme Judicial Council said on Tuesday.

Judge Abdul Birqadr said he faced accusations of bribery cases and job violations.

Majid al-Nasrawi and the Iraqi Airways boss are the highest ranking public figures to come under investigation for alleged corruption since Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi was elected three years ago, partly on a pledge to fight graft.

Graft has exacerbated the effects on the economy of a sharp decline in oil revenue caused by falling crude prices and the costs of fighting Islamic State, which took control of large parts of northern and western Iraq after 2014.

Fourteen years after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, the country still suffers shortages of electricity, water, schools and hospitals, and infrastructure has been widely neglected.

(Reuters/NAN)

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Zimbabwes first lady, Grace Mugabe, has handed herself over to South African Police after allegedly assaulting a woman at a Johannesburg hotel, Police Minister Fikile Mbalula, said on Tuesday.

She is not under arrest, because she cooperates, Mbalula told the broadcaster eNCA.

The 52-year-old wife of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is in South Africa to seek medical treatment for an ankle injury sustained in a car accident, the website News24, reported.

The website identified Mrs. Mugabes victim as model Gabriella Engels, 20.

Engels told the website she was visiting Mrs. Mugabes two sons at a hotel in Johannesburgs upmarket Sandton neighbourhood late on Sunday.

When Grace entered I had no idea who she was. She walked in with an extension cord and just started beating me with it, Engels was quoted as saying.

The model said Mrs. Mugabe accused her of living with her sons.

Gauteng provinces top security official Sizakele Nkosi-Malobane, said she was deeply appalled and devastated by reports that people of Graces caliber should exhibit such behaviour.

Nkosi-Malobanes spokesperson Busaphi Nxumalo, forwarded to dpa photographs of a young woman with a severe head wound, saying she was the one Mrs. Mugabe had attacked.

Reports said that diplomatic immunity would not protect Mrs. Mugabe, because she was in South Africa privately.

Mbalula said she would soon appear in court.

Grace Mugabe is tipped as one of the likely successors to her husband, 93, who has ruled the southern African country since 1980.

(dpa/NAN)

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Judges at the International Criminal Court, ICC, on Tuesday issued an arrest warrant for Mahmoud al-Werfalli, a Libyan National Army (LNA) Commander accused of allegedly executing dozens of prisoners.

Prosecutors at the worlds permanent war crimes court are seeking Mr. al-Werfallis hand-over to face charges of murder during the armed conflict in Libya.

According to the ICC, Mr. al-Werfalli is alleged to have directly committed and to have ordered the commission of murder as a war crime during seven incidents, involving 33 persons in June and July 2017 in and near Benghazi.

The LNA, which controls the eastern part of Libya, has been pushing to expand its presence in the central and southern part of the country where it has been vying for control with forces linked to the UN-backed government in Tripoli and other groups.

The UN called for the LNA to suspend Mr. al-Werfalli after a video in March allegedly showed him shooting dead three men, who were kneeling and facing a wall with their hands tied behind their backs.

The LNA said it would investigate any potential war crimes but has not released any details of such a probe.

In June, two further videos appeared to show summary executions carried out by LNA fighters on his orders.

The ICC has jurisdiction over war crimes in Libya after a referral by the UN Security Council in 2011 and has been investigating alleged atrocities there.

(Reuters/NAN)

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Nearly 400 bodies have been recovered from a mudslide that hit a Sierra Leone town on Monday. Officials expect to recover more than 500 bodies.

Rescue workers remove the rubble after a mudslide in the mountain town of Regent, Sierra Leone August 14, 2017. REUTERS/Ernest Henry

By Reuters: Rescue workers have recovered nearly 400 bodies from a mudslide in the outskirts of Sierra Leone's capital Freetown, the chief coroner said on Tuesday, as morgues struggled to find space for all the dead.

Dozens of houses were buried when a mountainside collapsed in the town of Regent on Monday morning - one of the deadliest natural disasters in Africa in recent years.

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President Ernest Bai Koroma urged residents of Regent and other flooded areas around Freetown to evacuate immediately so that military personnel and other rescue workers could continue to search for survivors who might be buried underneath debris.

"As the search continues, we have collected nearly 400 bodies - but we anticipate more than 500," chief coroner Seneh Dumbuya told Reuters.

Hundreds of other people are missing, aid agencies said.

Bodies continued to arrive at Freetown's overwhelmed central morgue on Tuesday. Corpses were lying on the floor and on the ground outside for lack of room, a Reuters witness said.

"Our problem here is space. We are trying to separate, quantify, and examine quickly and then we will issue death certificates before the burial," said Owiz Koroma, head of the morgue, who also estimated the death toll to be in the hundreds.

To relieve pressure on the morgue, authorities and aid agencies were preparing to bury the bodies in four different cemeteries across Freetown, said Idalia Amaya, an emergency response coordinator for Catholic Relief Services.

The burials are expected to take place on Thursday, government spokesman Cornelius Deveaux said.

Medecins Sans Frontieres is providing hundreds of body bags to authorities that the medical charity kept in Sierra Leone after the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak which killed 4,000 people in the former British colony.

FEAR OF DISEASE

Sierra Red Cross Society spokesman Abu Bakarr Tarawallie said by phone he estimated that at least 3,000 people were homeless and in need of shelter, medical assistance and food. The Red Cross said another 600 were missing.

"We are also fearful of outbreaks of diseases such as cholera and typhoid," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation from Freetown. "We can only hope that this does not happen."

Contaminated water and water-logging often lead to potentially deadly diseases like cholera and diarrhoea after floods and mudslides.

Crowds of people gathered, waiting for news of missing family members.

"I've been looking for my aunt and her two children, but so far no word about them," said a tearful Mohamed Jalloh. He said he feared the worst.

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President Koroma said in a television address on Monday evening that rescue centres had been set up around the capital to register and assist victims.

Bulldozers dug through mud and rubble at the foot of Mount Sugar Loaf, where many residents had been asleep when part of the mountainside collapsed. The government said a number of illegal buildings had been erected in the area.

ALSO READ | Assam floods: 15 dead in four days as situation worsens due to incessant rains, rescue efforts on

ALSO WATCH | Colombia: Over 250 killed, hundreds injured in Putumayo mudslide

--- ENDS ---
Zimbabwes first lady, Grace Mugabe, returned home on Tuesday from South Africa after failing to turn herself in to police in Johannesburg to face charges of assaulting a model in a hotel room.

There was no immediate public comment on the case from Grace, 52, a possible successor to her husband President Robert Mugabe, 93, who has ruled Zimbabwe since 1980.

However, Zimbabwe government sources confirmed she had returned home.

Yes, she is back in the country.

We dont know where this issue of assault charges is coming from, said a senior government official, who declined to be named because they were not authorised to speak to the press.

A second official also confirmed that Grace had returned, saying she is around now and accused the media of a plot to tarnish the first familys name.

Earlier, South African police had been negotiating with Graces lawyers to get her to turn her in to face charges of assault, a senior police source said.

Twenty-year-old Gabriella Engels told South African media Grace had attacked her after the model had gone to see the Mugabes sons Robert and Chatunga at a hotel in Johannesburgs upmarket Sandton district on Sunday.

Confusion surrounded the case on Tuesday. South African police minister Fikile Mbalula had earlier in the day said that Grace had already handed herself in to police and would appear in court shortly.

However, in the afternoon, the magistrates court where Grace had been expected to be formally charged closed for the day without her appearing.

The police source said Grace had earlier agreed to hand herself over at 10 a.m. local time but failed to do so.

(Reuters/NAN)

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A six-month-old girl has died in Kenya, her doctor told Reuters on Tuesday, after her parents said she was teargassed and clubbed by police in a security crackdown following the August 8 disputed elections.

Her parents said Samantha Pendo had been asleep in her mothers arms when police forced their way into their home and beat her and her parents as they searched for protesters.

Police have said they are investigating the incident in the western city of Kisumu.

NAN reports that a witness, who gave his name as Eric, said the girl was hit by a stray bullet while she was on a balcony as police were firing sporadic shots.

A government official told reporters another man was killed in Kisumu county, centre of serious post-election ethnic violence in 2007 in which 1,200 people were killed and 600,000 displaced.

Kisumus main hospital was treating four people brought in overnight with gun-shot wounds and six who had been beaten by police, hospital records showed.

NAN reports that Mr. Kenyatta secured a second term in office, results showed on Friday, setting off wild street celebrations by his supporters and protests in opposition strongholds in the capital and the west of the country.

Speaking after the result of Tuesdays election was announced, Mr. Kenyatta offered an olive branch to the opposition, urging national unity and peace with rivals who have rejected the result and raised the prospect of street protests.

Many Kenyans fear a repeat of the violence that followed the 2007 disputed election, when about 1,200 people were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced as protests over the result led to ethnic killings.

Mr. Kenyatta got 54.3 per cent of the vote, ahead of rival Raila Odinga who secured 44.7 per cent, according to election commission figures.

Nearly 80 per cent of the 19 million registered voters cast their ballots.

To my worthy competitor Raila Odinga, I reach out to you, I reach out to your supporters, let us work together, Kenyatta, 55, said, shortly after being declared winner.

Let us be peaceful, let us share together, he said.

Reach out to your neighbour, shake their hand. Say this election is over, let us move on.

In Nairobi and other towns in Kenya his supporters took to the streets to celebrate, honking car horns and blowing whistles.

However, there were also protests.

Police fired tear gas and gunshots were heard in the Nairobi slums of Mathare and Kawangware, where young men took to the streets as police helicopters buzzed overhead.

In Kisumu, an Odinga stronghold in the west, youths banged drums and tyres burned in the streets in the Kondele district.

As election officials prepared the final results, the NASA opposition coalition, led by 72-year-old Mr. Odinga, who has lost the last two elections amid complaints of fraud, said it rejected the process after its complaints had not been addressed.

We raised some very serious concerns. They have not responded to them. As NASA, we shall not be party to the process they are about to make, senior opposition official Musalia Mudavadi told reporters.

James Orengo, one of Mr. Odingas top lieutenants, said the process had been a charade.

He stopped short of calling for protests but praised the Kenyan peoples history of standing up to stolen elections and said there were constitutional alternatives to challenging any result.

Going to court, for us, is not an alternative. We have been there before, he said.

The Kenyan people have never disappointed  every time an election has been stolen, the Kenyan people have stood up to make sure changes are made to make Kenya a better place.

Earlier, Mr. Orengo had called for the candidates and observers to be given access to the election commissions computer servers so there could be a transparent audit of data from 41,000 polling stations across the country.

Yakub Guliye, election commissioner in charge of information technology, said the opposition had not made a formal request and it would not act on a verbal request.

Normal procedure calls for the commission to release final results after cross checking electronic tallies with paper forms.

Mr. Odingas camp has said figures released by the commission since Tuesdays vote were fictitious and that confidential sources within the commission had provided figures showing Odinga had a large lead in the race.

The election commission rejected the claims, pointing out they contained basic mathematical errors.

Police had beefed up security across much of Kenya, particularly in opposition strongholds in the west and parts of Nairobi, in anticipation of the announcement of the result.

Kenya is the leading economy in East Africa and any instability would be likely to ripple through the region.

Mr. Odinga is a member of the Luo, an ethnic group from the west of the country that has long said it is excluded from power.

Kenyatta is from the Kikuyu group, which has supplied three of four presidents since Kenya gained independence from Britain in 1963.

International observers have given the thumbs-up to the vote and U.S. Ambassador Robert Godec issued a statement on behalf of the diplomatic community calling for any complaints to be channelled through the courts, not street protests.

If there are disputes or disagreements, the Kenyan constitution is very clear on how they are to be addressed. Violence must never be an option, he said on Friday.

The opposition criticised foreign observer missions, which included former South African president Thabo Mbeki and former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, saying they should have been vetted ahead of the vote.

The observers largely served the interests of the government, Mr. Orengo said.

As well as a new president, Kenyans also elected new lawmakers and local representatives.

Some of those races have also been disputed, leading to violence in Garissa and Tana River counties.

(Reuters/NAN)

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The Government of Sierra Leone is expected to hold mass burials on Tuesday for the majority of corpses of victims in the devastating mudslide which claimed nearly 300 lives, sources close to the government told Xinhua.

It is unclear whether the mass burial is meant to free up space for more bodies in the central morgue, but Sulaiman Zainu Parker, environment officer at the Freetown City Council said the disaster killed some entire families and there is nobody to identify them.

Sierra Leones President Ernest Bai Koroma was in the disaster-hit area Tuesday morning and communicated with rescue teams on disaster relief.

Mr. Koroma said in an address broadcast on television late Monday that an emergency response centre had been set up in the town of Regent, which is worst hit.

No fewer than 286 people have died after a devastating mudslide struck an area on the outskirts of Sierra Leones capital city Freetown, Sinneh Kamara, an official in charge at the Connaught Hospitals mortuary said on Tuesday.

Kamara said a total of 280 bodies had been brought to the facility, while the ambulance had just left to collect six more bodies that were discovered on Tuesday morning.

At present, mortuary staff are busy placing corpses in body bags.

The number of survivors still remains unknown but sources at the Connaught said about 20 survivors with severe injuries are currently responding to treatment.

Te head of operation of the Sierra Leone police, Al-Sheik Kamara, said many people were still buried under the rubble, and excavators were removing debris to discover more bodies.

The police officer said seven more survivors at Mount Sugar Loaf where the mudslide occurred were rescued on Tuesday.

So far, the government has not yet released official figures regarding the death toll as rescue work is under way.

Xinhua correspondent at the scene said the weather remained cloudy on Tuesday morning, stoking fears of more rain that could impede rescue work.

Meteorological authorities in Freetown said on Tuesday the area could expect more rain toward the end of the day.

Aminata Kamara, a relative of the victims, was wailing as she said she lost 21 members of her extended family.

Some of the bodies were unidentifiable because of the severe damage.

Wang Bo, a staff member of China Railway Seventh Group who works in the West African country, told Xinhua that his company has dispatched two excavators to the site upon request by the Sierra Leonean side to help with rescue.

A total of 35 staff members of our company were quickly mobilized and dispatched for the rescue, Wang said.

He said that the mudslide which occurred Monday had been triggered by heavy rain amounting to 220 millimeters which started since the early hours of Monday.

As August is the peak rain season in Sierra Leone, the rains as well as heavy crowds and vehicles are making it very difficult for the vehicles to travel on the muddy roads leading up to the rescue site, Wang said,.

He said that his colleagues later abandoned the vehicles and made it to the site on foot. (Xingua/NAN)

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A few days after President Donald Trump suggested the United States could use force to resolve the Venezuelan political crisis, China has called for non-interference.

The present crisis in Venezuela should be resolved by its own government and people, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Tuesday.

According to Mr. Wang, China will not interfere in other countries domestic affairs.

He made the comments during a meeting with Bolivias Foreign Minister Fernando Mamani.

Parties in Venezuela should find an appropriate resolution through dialogue and within the framework of law.

History has proven that imposed pressure and interference from outside will not help to settle crisis, Mr. Wang said.

President Donald Trump of the U.S. had said he would not rule out use of force in Venezuela to resolve the political crisis there.

President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela has arrested scores of opposition members and protesters calling for his exit. He also conducted a controversial election boycotted by the opposition that could lead to a new constitution for the oil-rich country.

During the Tuesday meeting, Mr. Wang and his Bolivian counterpart hailed the two countries present bilateral ties and pledged to facilitate cooperation in various fields.

Mr. Mamani is on a working visit to China from August 10 to 16 at the invitation of Mr. Wang.

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The Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Kayode Fayemi, has accused security operatives of aiding and abetting illegal mining activities in Plateau State.

Mr. Fayemi made the accusation while addressing security operatives in Kampani Zurak village in Bashar chiefdom of Wase Local Government Area of the state where 20 illegal miners, including eight Chinese citizens, were arrested on Monday on the order of the National Security Adviser, Ali Monguno.

It is sad that security operatives are giving them (illegal miners) security cover. If not, why do people guard this site? the minister said.

A PREMIUM TIMES reporter observed three security checkpoints mounted by members of the Special Taskforce on Jos Crisis (STF) at the mining site.

Mr. Fayemi described the illegal miners as economic saboteurs.

These miners are illegal. Government did not give them permission to do this, they are economic saboteurs.

This cannot happen anywhere else in the world and we will not allow it anywhere in Nigeria. We do not want these miners, a fuming Mr. Fayemi told the security agents.

The state governor, Simon Lalong, while addressing the gathering, said government would sanction any traditional ruler found to have connived with the miners to exploit the community.

Mr. Lalong also threatened to transfer the divisional police officer in charge of Wase Local Government Area for allowing the illegal miners excavate the land.

Mr. Lalong, who was visibly furious over the activities of the miners, alleged that the miners excavate minerals from the site worth N5 billion monthly.

Reacting to the arrest of the illegal miners, the member of the House of Representatives for Wase, Idris Maje, urged that the arrested miners be bought to book.

He advised that the sites be guarded against further saboteurs.

In his address to the minister, the chairman of Bashar Chiefdom Community Development Association, Zakari Mohammed, alleged that there was N15 billion worth of minerals at the depot of the miners.

There are over 150 truckloads of lead zinc material valued at over N15 billion at the depot of these illegal miners, which are yet to be moved out as a result of restrictions by the community.

Mr. Mohammed said the the only source of potabe water of the host community of the mineral had been contaminated due to mining activities.

The federal commissioner of the Public Complaint Commission in charge of Plateau State, Musa Adamu, who hails from the community, told journalists that at least 10 persons from the community had died of cholera disease due to contaminated water.

In 2014, this community lost over 10 people due to contaminated water following activities of the illegal miners, he said.

A youth in the community, Usman Usman, who said he had benefited from the mining activities, was not happy about the clampdown on illegal mining in the area.

To me the miners are helping us. I built my house and got married from the money I got from Solid Unity Nigeria Limited. Sometimes I get between N30,000 and N50,000 in two weeks from the activitesi

The site manager of Geotexx Mining Company, Chidi Onoyima, who was also accused of the illegality, however debunked the claims of the community.

Mr. Oniyima, who escaped arrest, said his company had suspended excavation due to a court case against it by the community.

Officials of Solid Unit Nigeria Limited, a company allegedly owned by Abdullah Usman, also known as Dan China, the alleged kingpin of illegal mining in the area, were arrested by the police.

PREMIUM TIMES observed that the host community of the two mining sites do not have roads, schools, healthy facilities, potable water or mobile telecommunications network.

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The Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, on Monday said that he has no idea who foots the medical bill of the president.

Mr. Adesina said this when he appeared on a Channels Television talk show, Politics Today, monitored by our correspondent.

Mr. Buhari has been away on medical vacation since May 7. He has been in the United Kingdom for treatment of an undisclosed ailment.

During the interview, Mr. Adesina said details of how payments for Mr. Buharis hospital bills are effected do not matter.

Does it matter at this point? he said in response to a question posed by the programme presenter.

We need to know, he is our president. He is a public official. This shouldnt be shrouded in secrecy, the presenter, Seun Okinbaloye, replied him.

I do not know who is paying, Mr. Adesina said, but as a president, he has a right to be treated by the country.

When asked specifically whether Nigeria is taking care of the bill, he said: Most likely. I dont not know for sure.

Mr. Adesina, who was a part of the delegation that met Mr. Buhari during the weekend, explained that the president was sharp, he was smart, he was lucid.

But like I said in the statement we issued, he will come when his doctors say its time to go home, he argued.

Critics of the president have expressed concern at his continuous stay outside the country for about 100 days now. Some protesters, under the #ourmumudonedo coalition have demanded the president returns to assume his position or resigns. His supporters, however, said he constitutionally transferred power to his vice, Yemi Osinbajo, before travelling out of the country and the constitution has no time limit for which a president can be away from the country.

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The Nasarawa State Police Command has arrested two persons in connections with a mob action that led to the death of a soldier, Ayuba Ali, on Monday in Akwanga, Nasarawa State.

The commands spokesperson, Kennedy Idirisu, confirmed the arrest to the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, on Monday in Lafia.

Mr. Idirisu said that available information revealed the victim, who was on pass from Maiduguri, allegedly hit a street hawker at Agwan Affi area of the town while riding on a motorbike.

According to him, the soldier, who was in mufti, tried to pacify the hawker and an altercation ensued resulting in irate youth beating him to coma.

Mr. Idirisu said the soldier later died at the hospital, while investigation has begun to arrest all the perpetrators of the dastardly act.

Meanwhile, John Abimiku, a witness, told NAN that the area has been deserted for fear of the unknown.

As I speak with you now, about four military trucks are stationed in the area and soldiers are picking up any youth on sight, Mr. Abimiku added.

He claimed that the two persons arrested by the police were amongst those who took the soldier to the hospital after the mob action.

(NAN)

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Rescue workers have recovered 270 bodies so far from a mudslide in the outskirts of Sierra Leones capital, Freetown, the mayor said on Tuesday.

Freetown mayor, Sam Gibson, told reporters that rescue operations continue in the town of Regent where the mudslide happened on Monday morning.

Vice President of Sierra Leone Victor Foh said on Monday that it was likely that hundreds were lying dead underneath the rubble.

Mr. Foh told Reuters at the scene of the mudslide in the mountain town of Regent that a number of illegal buildings had been erected in the area.

The disaster is so serious that I myself feel broken, he added.

Were trying to cordon (off) the area (and) evacuate the people.

The mudslide happened in the early morning in Regent, where dozens of houses were submerged after a night of heavy rain.

A major rescue operation is now underway although emergency workers are struggling to reach the worst-affected areas.

Mudslides and floods are fairly common during the rainy season in West Africa, where deforestation and poor town planning put residents at risk.

(Reuters/NAN)

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The senator representing Kaduna Central District, Shehu Sani, has expressed support for the strike announced by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, on Monday.

Mr. Sani, who was once a unionist before he became a lawmaker, expressed his support in a Facebook post.

Members of ASUU had publicly announced their decision to embark on an indefinite strike at a press conference in Abuja on Monday.

In the post, shortly after the announcement by ASUUs president, Biodun Ogunyemi, Mr. Sani urged the executive arm of government to accede to ASUUs demands.

First, I wholeheartedly support ASUU strike. Secondly, I call on the executive to dialogue and meet up the demands of the Union. Thirdly, the need to declare emergency on the state of public universities, polytechnics and colleges of education is now.

He condemned leaders in Nigeria who send their children to schools abroad while public high institutions in the country are left in bad state.

If you dont see anything wrong when leaders flash the images of their childrens (wards) matriculation or graduation ceremonies in some of the worlds most prestigious or elitist universities, you shouldnt see anything wrong with ASUU strike and demand for a better deal for Nigerian Universities, the lawmaker said.

Giving some children the best of education and denying some children same is aimed at entrenching and sustaining a political, social and economic dynasty of class order, he added.

Also speaking on the ongoing strike, the president of National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS, Chinonso Obasi, expressed dissatisfaction with the governments handling of the education sector.

He urged the federal government to do all it can to get ASUU back to the classrooms.

He said the demands of ASUU are reasonable and touch on the integrity of government, especially in the light of the fight against corruption.

NANS also gave the government a deadline to resolve the issues at stake.

In the light of the foregoing we here give the federal government 21 days to resolve outstanding issues with ASUU in the interest of longsuffering Nigerian students who are forced to bear the brunt of government insensitivity.

Meanwhile, the ASUU chapter in the University of Ilorin, UNILORIN said it will not be joining the national body in its industrial action aimed at pressing home its demands.

Its chairman, Uthman Abdulraheem, during an interview with Channels Television breakfast programme, Sunrise, Tuesday morning, said it would however benefit from whatever positive outcome emerges from the strike.

Giving reasons for the chapters position, Mr. Abdulraheem said, We were not involvedthe invitation to vote was not extended to us. We were not communicated.

Mr. Abdularaheem, however, expressed sympathy for the action and blamed the government for not respecting dialogues.

UNILORIN is one of the nations premier institutions that rarely joins in strike actions since 2001 when over 49 lecturers of the school were sacked for participating in that years nationwide strike.

The Supreme Court later ordered the reinstatement of the sacked lecturers in 2009, but unionism has ebbed since then.

Also, a lecturer at the Bayero University, BUK, Kano, Muhsin Ibrahim, said lectures are ongoing despite the national strike.

Mr. Ibrahim told PREMIUM TIMES that BUK was not on strike.

As I am talking to you now we are yet to receive directive from the leadership of ASUU in BUK to embark on strike. Lectures are ongoing at the university, he said.

What I received is a text message to attend congress meeting on Wednesday by 10 am to deliberate on reports from Abuja emergency NEC meeting, he added.

He lamented the needless suffering meted on students by such strikes.

The branch chairman of the chapter, Ibrahim Barde, however contradicted the lecturers submission saying that the school would be joining the strike.

BUK is solidly in support of the strike. It would be declared during congress meeting on Wednesday, he said.

Bayero University has played a key role in past strike actions by the union.

The immediate past president of ASUU, Nasir Fagge, who led the unions team during the 2009 negotiation with the federal government, is a member of staff in the institution.

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In a renewed onslaught against Boko Haram insurgents in the North-east, the Nigerian Army has inaugurated a special mobile strike force.

The Theatre Commander, Operation Lafiya Dole, Ibrahim Attahiru, made the announcement on Tuesday at the inauguration of the force at Maimalari Cantonment, Maiduguri.

He said the special strike force was one of the new approaches evolved by the military to end insurgency and enhance security network in the region.

He said that soldiers deployed to the force were exposed to modern terrorism combat techniques to enable them to crush the insurgents.

The Mobile Strike Force is launched to deny the insurgents freedom of action and finally decimate them.

This specially selected force with mixed equipment and platforms were deployed to achieve the conduct of long range patrols and ambush deep into the hinterlands.

All these are in an effort to ensure the success of Operation Lafiya Dole and enhance our operational efficiency, Mr. Attahiru, a major general, said.

The commander tasked the soldiers to be resolute, disciplined and determined to achieve victory in the campaign.

He urged them to be guided by their professional ethics to enable them win the war against the insurgents.

He told the soldiers that successful campaign against the insurgents would have indelible mark in the history of counter-insurgency campaign in the North-East.

The latest effort by the Army occurs few weeks after the Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo ordered the military to intensify the war against the insurgents.

The Boko Haram who had lost most of the territory they once controlled across Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states to Nigerian forces, have since the start of 2017 appeared emboldened. They have carried out attacks against civilian and military personnel, causing the deaths of scores of people and kidnapping several others.

PREMIUM TIMES reported the latest attack, on two villages in Adamawa on Monday night. The casualty from that attack is yet to be confirmed.

About 100,000 people have been killed since the insurgency began in 2009.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi insisted that there would be a New India by 2022 - when India will mark 75 years of independence.

By India Today Web Desk: While addressing the nation on 71st Independence Day today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi insisted that there would be a New India by 2022 - when India will mark 75 years of independence.

"I Invoke Team India to run for a New India by 2022. By then the poor shall have concrete houses, the farmer shall double his income, youths and women will get ample opportunities, an India free of casteism, terrorism, corruption, nepotism, a clean India," said Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

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PM Modi spoke on a plethora of issues concerning the nation. He spoke extensively on topics ranging from mob violence to the ongoing issue of Jammu and Kashmir. Talking to an energetic crowd, PM Modi instilled hope in many saying that a new hope had replaced the prevalent hopelessness.

"The usual attitude of 'chalta hai, theek hai, chalne do' (complacency) has been replaced and a new chapter has begun," said PM Modi.

Addressing the nation from the Red Fort, Modi warned those indulging in mob violence, saying attacks in the name of "aastha" (faith) was not something to be happy about and won't be accepted.

In a 56-minute speech, his fourth from the Red Fort, Modi touched upon various topics including demonetisation, black money and corruption and promised to take India ahead "with greater speed". He hoped the campaign against Triple Talaq would succeed.

CONGRESS CALLS IT HOLLOW PROMISES

Immediately after the prime minister finished his address, Congress accused him of making false promises. The Congress leadership hoped that rather than making empty promises, PM Modi should have given an account of the promises that had been fulfilled in the past three years.

On the eve of Independence Day, the party also hoped that Modi would talk about the state of the economy, the sharp decline in investment and loss of jobs in the country.

Senior Congress spokesperson Anand Sharma said that when the prime minister addresses the country from the ramparts of the Red Fort tomorrow, he should refrain from making more tall promises and false and hollow claims about the achievements of his government.

"We request and advise the prime minister to give an account of how many promises that he made to people of the country in the last three years have been fulfilled. How many jobs has this government created and how many jobs have been lost. And if jobs have not been created, who should we hold responsible," Sharma said.

Also Read:

PM Narendra Modi's fourth Independence Day speech: What he said on Gorakhpur, Kashmir and other issues

PM Narendra Modi's I-Day speech: Violence in the name of faith is unacceptable

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70 years of independence: 10 events that shaped today's India

WATCH | PM Modi unfurls tricolour from Red Fort

--- ENDS ---
The attempt by protesters at the popular Wuse Market in Abuja to urge President Muhammadu Buhari to return to Nigeria or resign on Tuesday resulted in the breakout of an inter-tribal clash.

Early Tuesday, members of the movement, #ResumeOrResign, led by popular musician, Charles Oputa, popularly called Charly Boy, were attacked at the market by supporters of the ailing president.

The incident later resulted in the breakout of an intertribal clash in the market, which caused chaos and forced the police to close the market.

When PREMIUM TIMES visited, traders were made to vacate the market by security operatives and the entrance was heavily guarded by the Police.

The chaos however continued on the streets outside the market as people were seen hurling stones and other projectiles at one another, while others scampered for safety.

What happened is that Charly boy, who is fighting for the return of the president, came here this morning with his people in three cars and two motorcycles, one witness, Mohammed Lawal, told PREMIUM TIMES.

He came to protest. When he got to the gate, the security men said he should not come in but he insisted and said he wanted to buy something in the market. The security men tried to stop him but he still entered.

When he entered and began to speak against Buhari, some Hausa people began to beat him but he managed to escape on one of the motorcycles, he said.

He added that some hoodlums later took advantage of the opportunity and began to throw stones at the Igbo people around the area.

The Igbo people also retaliated and one of them almost killed someone, Mr. Mohammed said.

Mr. Oputa is ethnic Igbo.

PREMIUM TIMES reporters also witnessed Nigeria Security And Civil Defense Corps, NSCDC, officers trying to curtail the clashes.

The co-convener of the #ResumeorResign movement, Deji Adeyanju, said the attack on Charly Boy was completely unprovoked.

This is the third in a series of attacks carried out against us using a combination of policemen and paid hoodlums. It is saddening that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari would rather commit scarce national resources to such underhand tactics than giving full disclosure regarding the health of the President.

We reiterate commitment to remain resolute in demanding full disclosure regarding the state of health of the President. It is the right of the Nigerian people to know the true state of health of the man they voted into power and for whose healthcare they are paying, Mr. Adeyanju said.

He said the groups would continue to remain law abiding in the face of provocation.

The FCT police spokesperson, Anjuguri Mamzah, told PREMIUM TIMES that the police have remained law-abiding in bringing the situation under control.

To forestall further breakdown of law and order the market management has ordered the closure of the market, he said. A large contingent of policemen has been deployed to the market to provide security.

Some traders have expressed hope that the major market would be reopened by tomorrow and normalcy returned.

President Buhari has spent about 100 days in the UK for an undisclosed ailment, a development that has continued to generate ripples in the polity despite the fact that Mr. Buhari has handed over the reins of governance to his deputy, Yemi Osinbajo.

The controversy has continued even with sporadic appearances by the president in the media.

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The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, on Monday said power generation and transmission in the country had improved.

A communique issued at the 18th monthly power sector and stakeholders meeting in Kano, chaired by Mr. Fashola, said power generation improved beyond what was recorded in 2016.

As at August 10, 2017, 6803MW was recorded as the current available generating capability, with a wheeling capacity of 6700MW by TCN, currently constrained by DisCos inability to take load, the communique read.

This is in line with incremental power policy with improvements from TCN improving the wheeling capacity from 5000MW to 6700MW.

Commenting further, the minister said the Federal Government was doing its best to ensure improvement in electricity supply.

Government has embarked on serious expansion of transmission capacity with some power plants already completed, while others have reached advance stages of completion, he said.

He also assured support for any state willing to be involved in generation and distribution of electricity, adding that there was no monopoly in the business of electricity generation and distribution and that state governments and big companies could also involve in the business.

Large power consumers like government and big manufacturing companies can engage in power supply business. All they need to do is to secure permit from the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), he explained.

Speaking further, he noted that: The Discos have the obligation to meter their customers, but that they must provide them with meters for effective metering before charging them.

The meeting also noted that meter provision is not a monopoly of DisCos but is open and regulated by NERC and NEMSA, adding that the democratisation of meter provision is intended to reduce conflict between customers and DisCo and reduce losses in the sector.

According to the communique, in line with efforts to reduce energy theft in the country, Ibadan DisCo announced arrest of an ex-staff by EFCC for meter infiltration and the meeting lauded the support of security agencies in the efforts to reduced financial losses in the sector.

Meanwhile, it was announced at the meeting that the best performing DisCo of first quarter 2017 was Ikeja DisCo and the best performing GenCo was Omotosho I.

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The Nigerian Youth Parliament led by its speaker, Ayodele John, has called on state assemblies to support the Age Reduction Amendment Bill for elective political offices popularly known as the not-too-young-to-run bill.

The bill which was passed by both chambers of the National Assembly seeks to reduce the age for elective offices in the country.

Speaking to journalists on Monday, Mr. John said, Houses of Assembly should as a matter of necessity and trans-generational breakthrough pass the Not Too Young to Run Bill and the Local Government Autonomy Bill as passed by the National Assembly.

He said the youth are watching with keen interest and ready to adequately match their rhetoric with actions in ensuring that the bills become part of the constitution.

Other demands of the youth parliament include:

the presidency should arrange an urgent meeting with Youth Stakeholders with the Acting president or the president, and the the federal government should convoke a National Youth Conference on Security and Peace Building in line with the United Nations theme for 2017 IYD.

the 8th National Assembly should promulgate an Act that will establish the punitive measures as deterrents to every hate speech that will ridicule and destabilise national unity and cohesion.

the presidency should as a matter of urgency commence the full implementation of all treaties, agreements and consensus with any group.

Mr. John also called on the federal government to adhere and comply with all court rulings, judgments and injunctions, thereby doing away with selectiveness in the compliance with any outcome of court process.

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The Academic Staff Union of Universities in Nigeria, ASUU, has expressed displeasure at the mandatory sale of handouts by some lecturers in tertiary institutions.

Biodun Ogunyemi, President of the union, expressed this view in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, on Tuesday in Abuja.

It is not wise for lecturers in our tertiary institutions to compel students to be buying handouts, though it is not a widespread practice; we have few people that are misbehaving.

But the system has a way of handling them, so anywhere they see them they always put them on check.

It is not permitted in the system and there is a structure for tracking and dealing with that so ASUU as a union dont condone it and we discourage it anywhere and everywhere we go, he said.

However, a cross section of Nigerian students had decried the rate at which some lecturers extort money from them in the name of selling of handouts.

Speaking in separate interviews with NAN, students lamented that they were being forced to buy handout and that failure to do so could result in failing the courses.

Osita Chukwu, a student in the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Abuja, alleged that the lecturers usually assigned some students to sell the reading materials to them.

Mr. Chukwu alleged that the handouts were sold between N1,500 and N2,000, saying that the students were also made to submit their registration numbers for identification of defaulters.

The most annoying thing is that you may have three lecturers handling a course and each of them will print a handout for students to buy.

And they will make it compulsory, so that you have no option than to subscribe to it, because if you decide to photocopy it, you may stand the risk of failing the course.

Joy David, a student in the Faculty of Business Administration, Nasarawa State University, Keffi, decried the manner some lecturers compel students to buy handouts that sometimes lack depth.

Contributing, Janet Obiora, a student of Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, said the sale of handouts by some lecturers had promoted mediocrity among students as many of them no longer go to the school library to do research.

She opined that the mandatory sale of handouts also encouraged laziness among students who often want to concentrate on the handouts from their lecturers.

Similarly, Yinusa Bello of the University of Abuja said that compulsory sale of handouts by lecturers would increase examination malpractice among students, who may be tempted to take such handouts into examination halls.

Mr. Bello, therefore, appealed to ASUU to take the necessary measures that would discourage the habit of the lecturers in indulging in the sale of handouts compulsorily for students.

According to him, not many students have the purchasing power to the bidding of the lecturers, who insist that the purchase of their handouts is the surest way to passing certain courses.

Some of these handouts are less than 30 pages which if students were allowed to photocopy will cost them lesser than the original price, he said.

(NAN)

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The judicial commission set up by Acting President Yemi Osinbajo to probe alleged human rights abuses by the Nigerian military has announced its schedule of public hearings, and has called for memorandum from affected persons and institutions.

The commission, headed by Justice Biobele Georgewill of the Port Harcourt division of the Court of Appeal, was inaugurated on Friday by Mr. Osinbajo.

According to a statement issued by Haliru Suleiman, Secretary to the Presidential Investigation Panel, it will hold its public hearing in Abuja from September 7 to October 6.

It urged affected persons, institutions and interested members of the public to submit their memorandum within two weeks, through the Presidency, Special Services Office, Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, for the attention of the secretary of the panel.

The panel further directed that soft copies of the memorandum are to be submitted to judcomhro.ng@gmail.com

Mr. Osinbajo inaugurated the Presidential Investigation Panel to review compliance of the armed forces with human rights obligations and rules of engagement, especially in local conflicts and insurgency situations.

Allegations of human rights abuse had been levelled against the military by civic groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Several PREMIUM TIMES investigations also raised issues of such abuses.

Some of the prominent cases include extra-judicial killing of over 300 Shiite protesters in Kaduna in 2015, the extra-judicial killing of dozens of pro-Biafra protesters in the South-east, and that of suspected Boko Haram members in the North-east.

Read the Panels Terms of Reference Below

To review extant rules of engagement applicable to the armed forces of Nigeria and the extent of compliance thereto.

To investigate alleged act of violation of international humanitarian and human right law under the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria, 1999 as amended, Geneva Conventions Act, African Charter of Human and peoples rights( Ratifications and Enforcement) Act and other relevant laws by the armed forces in local conflicts and insurgencies.

To investigate matters of conduct and discipline in the Armed Forces in local conflicts and insurgencies.

To recommend means of preventing violations of international humanitarian and human rights law in conflict situation.

To make further recomendations in line with these terms of reference as may be deemed necessary.

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The week-long convention of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) at the twin sites of Redemption Camp, Lagos, ended last Sunday with the ordination of 47 honourary elders and 1,037 full pastors of the church.

Also, as at 7 a.m. that Sunday, 106 babies  60 boys and 46 girls  had been delivered at the churchs facilities at the camp.

Honourary elders are members of the church who are so honoured for loyalty, service, and performance, on the recommendation of their provinces.

Earlier on in the convention, 8,222 Deacons and Deaconesses, as well as 2,236 Assistant Pastors were ordained.

The ordination of the elders and pastors on Sunday followed the same pattern as earlier ordinations. The candidates were formally presented to the General Overseer, Enoch Adeboye, who welcomed and prayed for them.

They were then anointed with oil by leaders of the church and proclaimed by Mr. Adeboye: We ordain you as pastors of the Redeemed Christian Church of God in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost he proclaimed.

The Almighty will fill you with the Holy Spirit., you will not fall, you will not fail. God will use you for his glory; He will fight for you

That was followed by a ministration by Assistant General Overseer, Johnson Odeshola, titled, When we get to heaven.

He stressed that going to heaven, which the pastors should not miss, takes holiness; and readiness to pay the price by doing Gods will and being obedient go to Him.

Thanksgiving

The next session of the double-headed ceremony was a thanksgiving service, which began with a call by a retired AGO, G.A. Ilori, to give glory to God for a successful convention.

We have had opportunity to praise God and He has done wonderful things in our lives, he noted.

Thanksgiving offering was given by Mr. Adeboye, his family and the entire congregation. Prayers were offered by the 90-year-old Deputy General Overseer, Pa Abiona.

To close the day, Mr. Adeboye got onto the pulpit to give thanks: It has been a glorious convention; God has surprised us, as He always does, he said. Thank you all for your prayers, support and for standing by us.

He recalled how during the churchs Holy Ghost Congress in Abuja, God had asked him to praise Him for three days before asking for anything; and how that made the event a huge success. He then assured that for praising God all week, prayers would be answered.

He went on to bless the congregation and participants around the world.

For the rest of your life, you will be singing, dancing and shouting halleluyah, he said.

Holy Communion

The day before, Saturday, was for the Communion Service, which sometimes also doubled as an anointing service, during which people were anointed and had bottles of olive oil they took to the camp blessed. However, the anointing of heads was not done.

So much anointing took place on Friday, one gentleman observed.

In a message after the Holy Communion was administered to thousands of people with seamless ease, Mr. Adeboye reminded the congregation about the need to give thanks as Jesus did after breaking bread during the Last Supper.

He said usually when Jesus gave thanks, many things happened. For example, he gave thanks and fed thousands of people from two fish and fives loaves of bread.

Similarly, he gave thanks when he was raising Lazarus from the dead. When he stone at the entrance had been removed on his orders, Jesus looked up and said, Father, I thank you that you have heard me

According to Mr. Adeboye, giving thanks while taking the Holy Communion could also make the enemy within disappear as Judas departed from them after the Last Supper.

He explained that the big problem in most troubled homes is that there is always an agent within, but by taking Holy Communion and giving thanks, the agents disappear. There have been cases in many homes where such people just say they are leaving or demand to leave.

He cited an incident during a convention in those early years of the church at the RCCG headquarters at Ebute Metta, Lagos, when someone fled the church because she said fire was burning there.

He said shouts of Halleluyah, which he encourages, also scare away the devil.

To many people, the convention was a rewarding experience. What that may mean for the church is to look for more space to accommodate the surge in numbers next year.

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Four people, including an operative of the Edo State Command of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, have been killed by gunmen in Benin.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) learnt that the NSCDC operative, Rawlings Osagie, was shot dead at his residence when he returned home from work late on Monday.

A younger brother to the deceased, Aghatise Osagie, who confirmed the development, told NAN that Mr. Rawlings was shot in the stomach by the gunmen.

He said Mr. Rawlings, an assistant superintendent in the NSCDC, died at a hospital where he was rushed to after the shooting.

NAN learnt that a four-man gang had laid siege on Mr. Rawlings home, opening fire at him as he made to open the gate to his house at Ugbor area of Benin.

In a related development, three men, one of whom was an auto mechanic, were also shot dead at Omokharo Street, Off Siluko Road in Benin on Monday.

Two of the victims were said to have brought their vehicle to the mechanic for repairs when the three men met their fate.

On July 8, gunmen similarly, killed a staff reporter with the Nigerian Television Authority, Lawrence Okojie, in Benin.

Mr. Okojie was also said to be on his way home from work when he was shot dead around Ogunola area, near Siloko Road in Benin.

Reacting to the latest killings, the spokesman of the Police Command in Benin, Moses Nkombe, said he was yet to be briefed on the killing of the NSCDC officer.

He, however, confirmed the killing of the mechanic and the two others, attributing the killing to what he described as cult-related issues.

Mr. Nkombe said the command had intensified its security strategies to address incessant killings in the state. (NAN)

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A bus belonging to the Federal University of Agriculture, FUNNAB, Abeokuta has been intercepted and the driver arrested by operatives of the Nigeria Customs for conveying Indian hemp through a border town in Ogun State.

The Comptroller of the Service, Ogun State Command, Sani Madugu, made this known on Tuesday at a press conference held at commands headquarters in Abeokuta.

He said the patrol team of Customs intercepted the vehicle and apprehended the driver of the coaster bus with registration number FUNNAB 50 B-100 FG, alongside 211 parcels of cannabis which was made to fit Bible size.

Mr. Madugu, accompanied by the commander, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, of the state, Bala Fagge, said the suspect, Abolade Bolaji, was caught in Imeko border town, while conveying the illegal drugs into the country.

The Customs boss said the suspect had concealed the parceled cannabis under bags of rice he was transporting.

He added that after a search by the Customs officials, the Indian hemp, neatly wrapped, were discovered.

At the press briefing, the Customs authorities handed over the suspect and exhibits to the NDLEA for further investigation.

Mr. Fagge, while receiving the suspect and exhibits, commended the Customs for the feat.

He said cannabis was now being cultivated in neighbouring countries adding that the haul seized from the suspect weighed 295.4kg.

Meanwhile, the University has said it would not interfere with the ongoing investigation into the matter.

As a responsible and law-abiding organisation, the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta is committed to upholding all statutory enactments guiding its establishment, subsisting legislation in Ogun State and the nation in general. This uncompromising and non-negotiable stance had always and severally been hammered to bonafide members of staff and students of the University, the statement read.

It said the school would also carry out an independent investigation.

Already, the University has put the necessary machinery in place, to carry out proper investigations, to ascertain what actually transpired on the said date on one hand, while law enforcement agents, on the other hand, would be allowed and supported to perform their statutory duties in the overall interest of all citizens, the statement said.

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The Nigeria Army on Tuesday said it would respond promptly to complaints of human rights abuses by civilians against any of its personnel nationwide.

The Director, Civil Military Affairs, Solomon Kumapayi, gave the assurance at a sensitization workshop on human rights held at the 1 Division, Nigerian Army Kaduna.

Mr. Kumapayi, a brigadier general, said the Army was working to ensure full respect for the rights of civil populace by soldiers in line with global practice.

According to him, there has been sharp reduction in cases of alleged human rights violation by soldiers in the last few weeks due to a new reorientation of the personnel by the military leadership.

We are doing our jobs more professionally and have been responsive to the complaints that we receive.

The Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen Tukur Buratai has directed us to go round army formations to sensitize our troops on human rights activities, and their conduct whether on operations or out of operation.

The COAS has set-up human rights desk at the army headquarters. So, he directed same to be set-up at formation levels at the divisional headquarters.

It is also to be set-up outside divisional headquarters to allow easy access for civilian populace to reach us, he explained.

Mr. Kumapayi added that a Call Centre with sort code 183, had been set up to reach out to the human rights desks on any network.

Someone is there to receive your complain and immediate action will be taken, and the Army Chief is being briefed daily on all calls that comes in.

He takes decision on such complaint and this has been seen in recent times, he said.

The director said the department run a weekly one-hour live programme on Armed Forces Radio to communicate with the civil populace

Our hope is that over time, people will get to know what the Nigeria Army is doing in line with the global best practice, he said.

A paper tagged, The Professionally Responsive Soldiers. A worthy Ambassador of Nigeria Army, was presented at the workshop.

(NAN)

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Nigerias Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo, on Tuesday revealed that he consulted the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, RCCG, Enoch Adeboye, before accepting to be the vice-presidential candidate of the then opposition APC in the 2015 presidential elections.

He made the disclosure at the public presentation of a book titled: Pastor E.A Adeboye: His Life and Calling which held at the Redemption Camp on Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Ogun State.

Mr. Osinbajo said he also sought the view of his wife, Dolapo,  saying that his inexperience as a politician made him consult the duo.

I consulted Daddy (Adeboye) and he gave the go-ahead to accept the VP position; before then I was not a politician, he said.

Mr. Osinbajo later became Nigerias vice president after the APC won the 2015 presidential elections. He has been acting as president since President Muhammadu Buhari went on medical vacation about 100 days ago.

The acting president noted that RCCG was the only church that has been able to pull the largest gathering at a single convention in the world.

Apart from Coca-Cola, the Church is next in mileage across the world. And it all has to do with sincerity, dedication and humility of Daddy G.O, Mr. Osinbajo said.

Earlier, in his speech, a former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, who was the chairman at the occasion, described Mr. Adeboye as a man who has touched more lives than many politicians in the country.

We are supposed to touch lives; but for Pastor Adeboye, he has touched more lives than politicians.

He has been a man of God with a difference, whom I benefited from personally when I was consulting to contest the 1999 election.

The wife of the renowned cleric, Folu Adeboye, explained that the book was completely produced without the knowledge of her husband.

It is because it is part of the year of surprises we are going to be having, she said.

She acknowledged the role played by the 40 authors of the book in ensuring that the publication is near perfect, because only God can be perfect, she added.

Mr. Adeboye in his remarks said he must have been kept away from the publication for a purpose and that God did not reveal anything to him on it.

Because God wanted it to happen, I suppose. If I had been foretold, I would not have approved of it. And the reason is simple. Who should be celebrated? Me or the person who sent me the message (God)? Anyway, just like Baba (God) had requested, I forgive you all he said.

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Flooded, so what? Assam has not taken a step back from honouring our 71st Independence Day, even while being inundated.

By India Today Web Desk: Sentiments are running high in India, today. It is our 71st Independence Day. But as we celebrate, several areas in Assam are suffering from one of the worst floods in decades.

However, even while bring inundated and cut off from supplies, Assam has not forgotten to hoist the national flag today.

This picture from a flood-hit district in Assam has been winning hearts on social media since morning. Reports say it was taken at Naskara LP school in Dhubri district by an assistant teacher named Mizanur Rahman.

Source: Twitter/@abhiemanyu

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This is not all.

Since morning, Twitter has been flooded with pictures from several schools in Assam, showing people hoisting and saluting the national flag while standing in waist-deep water.

Here are some of the pictures:

Source: Twitter/@SuperDipam Source: Twitter/@SuperDipam

Source: Twitter/@SuperDipam

Source: Twitter/@Bharatbarsh

Source: Twitter/ANI

Source: Twitter/@smart_nasirkhan

For more on Independence Day...

Independence Day Special: 70 years, 70 iconic institutions

70 years of independence: 10 events that shaped today's India

75 years to Quit India Movement: How the revolution unfolded

--- ENDS ---
The company whose owner the Nigerian government declared wanted on Monday for alleged illegal mining in Wase local government area of Plateau State has denied that its activities are against the law.

Solid Unit Nigeria Limited is owned by Abdullahi Usman, also known as Dan China, who was described as the kingpin of illegal mining in the area.

Mr. Usman escaped arrest when the National Security Adviser, Ali Monguno, ordered the arrest of 20 suspected illegal miners at the mining sites on Monday.

But on Tuesday, the company said the Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Kayode Fayemi, was wrong to have said that it was operating illegal mining.

We have documents in our possession and which have also been presented to the Minister showing that Sold Unit Nigeria Limited is engaged in legal and legitimate mining, the company told journalists on Tuesday at a press conference in Jos.

These documents are duly issued to the company by Ministry of Mines and Steel Development.

The companys spokesperson, Suliaman Adamu, who addressed the press conference on behalf of the company Tuesday evening, said Solid Unit Nigeria Limited has met all conditions and community agreements and other social obligations of state, local government council and traditional institutions where its mining site is sited.

The company applied for mining lease in 2011 and has paid all fees and fulfilled all conditions provided for in the Mineral and Mining Act 2007, as well as conditions provided for by the Ministry of Mines, Mr. Adamu said.

But the issuance of the mining lease has not been done, in contravention of the Law which provides that the minister must issue the mining lease within 45 days.

Mr. Adamu referred the journalists to section 65 (1) of the Mineral and Mining Act, Laws 2007, insisting that the company was operating a legitimate business under the Nigerian Constitution.

He accused the Plateau State government of wrongly disclaiming the company in time of trouble.

The company has been paying all revenues to the state government, Wase local government and Kampani Zurak Development Association till date and we have evidence, Mr. Adamu said.

He said Solid Unit Nigeria Limited has met all the obligations which warrant it to operate for 10 years.

We (Solid Unit Nigeria Limited) graded Bashar Kampani Zurak road, about 100 kilometres which was bush. The company also built medical facilities, bought ambulance for the facilities and also takes care of all referral bills.

The company has sunk over 10 boreholes and dam in the communities in Kampani Zurak to provide water to citizens within the communities.

We built a clinic at Zak. We purchased one Toyota Hilux jeep for the village head of Kampani Zurak and another Toyota to KADA (the community association).

The National Security Adviser, Mr. Mongonu, in company of the Minister of Mines and Steel, Plateau State Governor Simon Lalong and the member of the House of Representatives for Wase, Idris Maje, had declared the owner of Solid Unit Nigeria Limited, Mr. Usman wanted on Monday.

Several technical officials of the company were arrested and the company shut for running illegal operation.

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A former Jigawa State Governor, Saminu Turaki, who is facing corruption charges, was on Tuesday granted permission to travel abroad for medical treatment.

Justice Nnamdi Dimgba of a Federal High Court, Abuja, granted the permission following an application filed by defendants counsel, Olusegun Jolawo, asking for the release of Mr. Turakis travel documents.

In a short ruling, Mr. Dimgba ordered that the defendants international passport be released, to enable him travel for medical treatment.

The judge further ordered that the former governor must produce a serving senator who will guarantee that he will return to Nigeria before the end of courts vacation to face his trial.

He adjourned the matter until September 19 for hearing in line with first adjournment by a Dutse Federal High Court.

Justice Sabiu Yahuza of the Dutse Federal High Court had earlier adjourned the case until Sept. 19.

Mr. Turaki had been on the run for three years since 2014 before he was eventually arrested this year.

The defence counsel had earlier filed an application asking the court to release his clients international passport to enable him travel for a medical appointment in Singapore.

Responding to the application, prosecution counsel, Mohammed Abubakar, did not raise any objection to the application but asked the trial Judge to use his discretion on whether to grant the request or not.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Justice Dimgba had on July 18, upon the former governors re-arraignment, agreed with most of the bail conditions earlier set by Justice Yusuf Haliru of the Federal High Court, Abuja.

Mr. Turaki was re-arraigned alongside three companies, INC Natural Resources Ltd., Apel Construction Ltd., and WideHeart Construction Ltd., on a 32-count charge bordering on money laundering.

(NAN)

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The Benue State government has sealed 2,424 schools in the state, an official said

on Tuesday.

A statement by Dennis Ityavyar, the State Commissioner for Education, Science, and Technology, disclosed this at a meeting with education stakeholders

According to Mr. Ityavyar, the affected schools failed to meet the basic requirements which include good environment, playground and good classrooms.

The Commissioner said the schools should include: 1,977 primary schools, 433 secondary schools and 14 tertiary institutions cutting across the three senatorial districts of the state.

He said the affected schools were responsible for the poor performances of students in both external and internal examinations.

He noted that the production of half-baked graduates resulted in the establishment of many miracle centres in the state.

He also revealed that Benue state ranked 14 out of 36 states in the 2017 West African Examination Council results

The decision to embark on the closure of illegal schools across the 23 local governments of the state is a deliberate step towards improving the standards of quality education in the state, he said.

He said that a team has been set up in all the local governments, to ensure adequate compliance.

According to him, traditional rulers, opinion leaders, representatives of the State Commissioner of Police and the Director of State Security Services, as well as area education officers, are all in support of the move.

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Gov. Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State on Tuesday denied that his government is muzzling the media and impinging on the rights of people to free speech.

The governor made the denial in Kaduna in a message to the opening of a workshop on conflict prevention and peace building for civil society organisations.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the three-day workshop was organised by the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution and the United Nation Development Programme.

Mr. El-Rufai who was represented by his media aide, Samuel Aruwan, however said the administration would not accept any report that incites violence and ignites crisis in the state.

Contrary to the false assertions from some quarters, the government of Kaduna state does not seek to muzzle the free press or journalists in the performance of their duty.

As a government, it is our constitutional mandate to protect against actions that disrupt the society such as irresponsible journalism that spread falsehood, publishes inciting stories and turn our people against one another.

I am convinced that the active participation of Civil Society Organizations in conflict prevention, resolution and peace building will help the government in fostering harmonious living and peaceful co-existence in our country.

We must all rise against voices that promote division and those who promote hate speeches which incites people to violence against those they differ from.

People must learn to tolerate one another and respect others even when they differ on political ideology, religion or tribe, he said.

Mr. El-Rufai disclosed that the state government would set up a peace commission to manage conflicts in the state.

He said it was one of the steps taken by government to address the recurring conflicts, adding that the peace commission would also handle prevention and non-violent interventions as well as render support to security agencies.

The governor said the administration had partnered religious and traditional leaders in ongoing peace building efforts across communities.

He stressed that peace is everybodys business, as such there was need to leverage on the roles of the CSOs to collectively build peace in Nigeria.

He appealed for reason and moderation from all persons in the country to reinforce peace, tolerance and cooperation for the unity and progress of the country.

The governor urged the CSOs to cooperate with government to denounce hate speeches, radicalization and violent extremism as well as ensure effective enforcement of laws to punish offenders.

Earlier, the Director General of the institute, Oshita Oshita, urged Nigerians to embrace peace and help to build a strong and united country.

He said that the workshop was to build the capacity of CSOs for continuous dialogue, collaboration and peace building across the country.

In her goodwill message, Hannatu Ibrahim, a peace ambassador, said civil societies must compliment government in their peace building efforts.

According to her, individuals and communities must also learn to dialogue in addressing contentious issues among them.

(NAN)

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The police in Kano have arrested a cleric, Samuel John, of Whether-Head in Sabon Gari, Kano, for allegedly serially raping 13-year-old twin sisters and their 11-year old sister.

The police spokesperson in the state, Magaji Majiya, told PREMIUM TIMES that the pastor was arrested after the parents and neighbours of the victims reported his alleged randy act.

One (Pastor) Samuel John of No. 26 Whether-head, Sabon-gari, Kano was arrested for raping 13-year old twin sisters and their 11-year younger one, Mr. Majiya said in a statement.

The police expressed concern over the rising incidence of rape in the state, despite multiple efforts by the police, sister security agencies, non-governmental organisations and relevant stakeholders.

Underlining the severity of the development, Mr. Majiya said the police had received 34 cases of rape since the beginning of August this year.

He cited some of the cases, including one involving a 40-year old man, Nuruddeen Abubakar, of Unguwa Uku Quarters, Kano who allegedly raped his 14-year old daughter and made her have abortion three times.

Also, one Musbahu Ibrahim, 25 years old of Zangon Marikita Quarters was arrested for severally raping his cousin sister.

Also, Dahiru Haruna and Hamza Lawan, both of Sheka Quarters, Kano conspired and acted in an unnatural manner against their nine-year old male victim.

All the suspects confessed to the commission of the crime, Mr. Majiya said.

The police spokesperson said the 34 cases recorded involved 36 victims aged between five and 13 years.

Mr. Majiya further stated that the police arrested 35 suspects over the 34 cases.

Presently, about 15 pending cases of sexual assault will be transferred to the SCIID for discreet investigation from various divisions, he said.

He appealed to residents of the state to join their hands in fighting rape, incest and other heinous crimes evolving in the society.

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Lecturers of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology have accused Osun States Governor Rauf Aregbesola of hypocrisy over his appeal to workers to reopen the school for the sake of the students.

The school has been mostly shut since last year over the failure of the two owner states to fund its operations.

But on Monday, at a ceremony to receive students of Osun State University who returned from Ukraine after completing their programme in Medicine, Mr. Aregbesola appealed to LAUTECH workers to go back to work.

Reacting to the appeal through a statement on Tuesday, the lecturers accused the governor of playing the ostrich and insensitivity to the plight of LAUTECH students.

In a statement signed by chairman of the schools branch of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Biodun Olaniran, they said LAUTECH cannot resume without the resolution of the issues that led to the closure of the university.

They said the governor was being insincere in expressing concern over the plight of the students, alleging that he had declined several requests by the students to meet with him.

At what point did he become the champion of LAUTECH students that he refused to see and address despite efforts made by them to interact with him personally over their plight? the lecturers said in the statement.

The Ila episode where he sent the students away like lepers is a graphic point in case here. Therefore, the governor of Osun State should stop behaving like the ostrich which buries its head in the sand, thinking that its rump is hidden from view.

The lecturers said they have been poorly paid since December 2013 but remained at work despite this.

May we also ask our Governor, who is asking for sacrifice on the part of LAUTECH workers; what further sacrifice does he demand from hapless workers who have remained on their duty posts since December 2013 when salaries had been epileptic, principally due to his total withholding of salary subvention to the University.

He, through his insincerity to LAUTECH, has brought the University to its knees.

A yawning contradiction in the speech clearly exposes Ogbenis hypocrisy. At a stage, he clearly stated that he is financially incapacitated to fund LAUTECH, only for him to end up talking about auditing as a pre-condition for release of funds.

The lecturers stopped work in protest against poor funding of the university that had led to their salaries not being paid.

LAUTECH chapter of ASUU has also joined in the ongoing nationwide strike declared on Monday by the national body of the union, thereby prolonging the crisis of the university.

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President Andrzej Duda has said that on August 15, Poland celebrates a turning point in the 1920 Polish-Soviet War, which helped stem the advance of Bolsheviks into the country and the whole of Europe.

President lays wreaths on Armed Forces Day

First President Andrzej Duda laid wreaths at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and at the Monument to Jozef Pilsudski as part of the Armed Forces Day observances held in Warsaw on Tuesday.

A national holiday, Polish Armed Forces Day is celebrated annually on Aug. 15 to commemorate the anniversary of the 1920 victory over Soviet Russia at the Battle of Warsaw during the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1921.

President calls for unity in modernising the army

Speaking at a ceremony to mark Polish Armed Forces Day, at the Marshal Pilsudski monument in Warsaw, President Andrzej Duda emphasised August 15 was also an important day for Christians, honoring the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

May be of interest to you President Duda: Let's shape the Polish military together He has said that on August 15, Poland celebrates a turning point in the 1920 Polish-Soviet War, which helped stem the advance of Bolsheviks into the country and the whole of Europe.

"But for us, Polish people, it's also a great celebration of a famous Polish victory, of Polish military might and of the Polish nation", the President said.

"It's a celebration of victory in the Battle of Warsaw, of a great breakthrough in the Polish-Soviet War, in warding off the Bolshevik assault on Poland", the President stressed, "and also on the whole of Europe, as such were the designs of the Bolshevik leaders, especially Lenin".

President Duda added August 15 was a day when Polish people felt immense pride in their values, army and attitude.

During the Battle of Warsaw everyone stood togather - this resulted in Bolsheviks defeat, although earlier it seemed they have already won the war", said President Duda.

The President also noticed that on one end there was the Chief of State, Marshal Jozef Pilsudski, on the other "general Rozwadowski, a strategic genius", and they were able to make a compromise and carry out an ingenious counterattack plan, breaking the Russian lines and the front".

"This resulted in the Bolsheviks' defeat, although earlier it seemed they had already won the war", added the President.

President Duda also pointed out that Poland had received support from abroad, including from America. "General Frederick Ben Hodges! Today's ceremony is in keeping with tradition, our traditional alliance, the big Polish-American alliance", the president said, addressing the commander of American land forces in Europe, whom he decorated with the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland.

Military parade crowns Armed Forces Day state celebrations

Armed Forces Day official observations were crowned with a parade of 1,500 soldiers, 200 vehicles and several aircraft.

The march along Aleje Ujazdowskie was preceded by an airshow by the Polish "Iskry" aerobatic team of six aircraft.

Ca. 1,500 soldiers took part in the parade. They represented the majority of the units in the country. Also, for the first time ever the Territorial Defence Force took part in the parade.

As every year, Poland's Allies took part in the march. This time they were represented by NATO troops, sent to strengthen the eastern flank, e.g.: Americans, Canadians, British and Romanians.

During the march the audience was able to see various military vehicles, including Leopard 2A5 and 2A4 tanks, the PT-91 "Twardy" tank, "Rosomak" wheeled armoured vehicles, Humvees, WR-40 Langusta multiple-launch rocket systems and many others.

Another equipment exhibition is organised in Radzymin, and a reenactment of the Battle of Warsaw is planned in Ossow near Warsaw.

The PolishSoviet War (February 1919  March 1921) was fought by Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine against the Second Polish Republic and the Ukrainian People's Republic for control over an area covering today's Ukraine and parts of Belarus. The Soviets also hoped to invade and occupy Poland.

At the time, Poland's leader, Jozef Pilsudski, planned to expand the Polish borders as far east as possible pending the formation of a Polish-led Intermarium federation of East-Central European states, to serve as a rampart against Germany's and Russia's imperial ambitions.

For Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin, Poland had to be crossed for his Red Army to aid European communist movements. The Soviets started to move westward, pushing Polish forces back to the Polish capital Warsaw. In August of 1920, the Polish side won an unexpected but important victory over the Red Army at the Battle of Warsaw. (PAP)
Michigan State Police welcomed 14 prospective motor carrier officers Aug. 13 for the start of the 22nd Motor Carrier Officer Recruit School.

Motor carrier officers are armed and uniformed, specializing in commercial vehicle enforcement of traffic safety laws, size and weight restrictions, hazardous material regulations and more.

Over the next 19 weeks, recruits will train in firearms, water safety, defensive tactics, patrol techniques, first aid, criminal law, commercial vehicle law and inspection and precision driving. Graduation day is Dec. 21.

To learn more about a career with the MSP, visit www.michigan.gov/mspjobs.
Six hundred ninth-grade students in Vineland and Egg Harbor Township high schools will receive free wireless devices this year from Sprint to help close the homework gap, the wireless service provider announced.

Egg Harbor Township and Vineland school districts will each receive 300 wireless devices with internet access as part of Sprints 1Million Project to provide 1 million wireless devices to students across the United States who do not have at-home access to the internet.

This year, Sprint is providing nearly 6,000 New Jersey high school students with a free smartphone, tablet or hotspot device and 3GB of high-speed LTE data per month for up to four years while they are in high school.

The company cites research that shows approximately 5 million U.S. families with school-aged children do not have broadband access at home, yet, at least 70 percent of teachers assign homework that requires web access.

According to Sprint, the homework gap puts low-income students at a major disadvantage because they dont have ready access to the internet needed for completing homework, communicating with teachers, or applying for jobs, scholarships or college.

The classroom has rapidly evolved through the last decade, which is why its crucial for students to have access to cutting-edge technology, said Karen Paletta, Sprints president for the New York City and New Jersey Region. Sprint wants to make sure every child has what he or she needs to succeed, and thats why were so excited to make this donation to schools across New Jersey.

In addition to Egg Harbor Township and Vineland, 4,000 students will receive devices at Newark public schools; 600 at Jersey City public schools; 450 at Paterson public schools; and 300 at New Brunswick public schools.

New Jersey will be one of 32 states in the nationwide rollout beginning this fall. It includes, 118 school districts, over 1,300 high schools and 180,000 students.

Participating schools will hold an event to distribute the devices where students and their parents or guardians will sign a consent form and receive training on the program and online safety techniques.
Congregations in Longport and Atlantic City marked the union of their communities with the ocean with traditional Wedding of the Sea ceremonies Tuesday.

In Atlantic City, Camden Diocese Bishop celebrated Mass at the Adrian Phillips Theater in Boardwalk Hall before heading out into the waves with Mayor Don Guardian to toss a wreath. The day also included the dedication of a new convent at the former St. Michaels Church rectory for four members of the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal and a multi-cultural festival hosted by the Parish of St. Monica on the grounds of St. Michael's.
The team consists of a range of professionals who took time out of their daily schedules to support the endeavour of empowering women.

All the team members were emotional and could not stop tears of joy when they hoisted the national flag.

By Ashraf Wani: Fifty women bike riders today created history by hoisting the national flag at a height of 18,380 feet above sea level at Khardung La pass in Ladakh. A group of 50 women riders covered an over 10,000 km long journey from Gujarat to Khardung-La in Ladakh on their motor bikes to spread the message of women empowerment.

The 'All India All Women Bike Rally' that started on July 19 from Surat, went through 15 states over a period of 45 days. After covering 6,000 villages, the journey came to end on August 15, when the riders hoisted the Indian flag at Khardung-la to mark the country's 71st Independence day.

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"We are riding for passion and social cause simultaneously. Women in our country have a lot of inhibitions about their talent. And there is also widespread inferiority complex among them. Through this journey we have informed women about their rights and make them aware of the different occupations they can take up to earn their living," Dr Sarika Mehta, who leads the all women rider group 'Biking Queens' told India Today.

"Besides, for them, "biking is a perfect medium", especially because biking is traditionally seen as something meant exclusively for men," Sarika said.

On their way back the team will also be meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Sarika added. She appreciated the support given to them by the government in general and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in particular for this mission.

Sarika's team consists of a range of professionals including doctors, architects, students and house wives, who have taken time out of their daily schedules to support the endeavour of empowering women.

All the team members were emotional and could not stop tears of joy when they hoisted the tricolor at the highest motorable pass in the world.

Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Col Rajvardhan Singh Rathore recieved these bikers at Khardung La pass. The minister who himself is a world class sportsman praised the women bikers for their will and initiative.

"These women are modern Durgas. Mother Durga used to ride a tiger but the women today have replaced the tiger with bikes. Riding a bike is a strong message in itself. That is why they chose this as the medium," MOS RS Rathor said.

Also Read:

New India by 2022 will be free of corruption, terror: PM Narendra Modi in Independence Day speech

Independence Day: As Narendra Modi vows to build New India by 2022, a look at what people think

Also Watch:

Prime Minister Modi's Indpendence Day speech from Red Fort

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Gural on track record, inevitable upstate casinos

Regarding the July 29 guest commentary, Push continues behind closed doors to expand NJ gaming:

Bob McDevitt and others criticize my track record on promises to state government. I promised the governor Id build a new grandstand at Meadowlands Racetrack. It cost $130 million and received no state aid.

As far as my threat to close Vernon Downs, I have given the N.Y. education fund over $150 million. Unfortunately, the state issued casino licenses on either side of Vernon Downs and my main competitor opened a third facility, making it impossible for Vernon Downs to compete. The Vernon Downs tax rate was 59 percent compared to Atlantic Citys 9.25 percent. Even with the adjustment, my new rate is 48 percent. If it was 9.25 percent, Id make a lot of money just like Atlantic City casinos have for the last 30 years.

I have no interest in circumventing the will of N.J. voters and expect over time they will realize they made a mistake once the three N.Y. downstate licenses and the last license in Philadelphia are issued. It will become apparent that having all N.J. casinos in one location where the fewest people live makes little sense. Hopefully, once Genting gets a license at Aqueduct, voters will stop opposing a casino at the Meadowlands.

It was never, nor will it ever be, my intention to hurt Atlantic City or the people employed there. But thousands of horse-racing industry jobs have been lost and thousands of acres of farmland put in jeopardy. I personally have made no efforts whatsoever to skirt the results of the last election.

Jeffrey Gural

Chairman, New Meadowlands Racing

A.C. gain, Hammonton loss

The Gateway Project is a great Atlantic City developement, but the state gave $8 million in tax credits to South Jersey Gas to move its headquarters there from Hammonton. Now Hammonton, which is also in Atlantic County, loses a tax contributor. It doesnt make sense to me.

Giancarlo A. Ioannucci

Galloway Township

Buy beer, dont bring it

How ironic that the city that was against BYOB in restaurants now allows trolleys with huge beer ads to drive up and down the island every evening, taking kids and families to the Boardwalk.

Pete Hall

Ocean City
By PTI: New Delhi, Aug 15 (PTI) India is capable of tackling any kind of security challenge, be it the sea or borders, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today asserted amid the standoff with China in Doklam.

Without naming China or the two-month-long Doklam standoff, he said the countrys security is a priority for his government and that soldiers are deployed to protect the borders effectively.

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In his Independence Day speech from the ramparts of the historic Red Fort, Modi referred to last years surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC) and said the world has realised the mettle of Indias security forces.

"It is clear that security of our country is our priority. Internal security is our priority. Be it sea or borders, be it cyber or space, India is capable of tackling every security challenge," he said.

"Our army, our bravehearts, every personnel in uniform and not only the Army, Navy, the IAF, have shown their capability and grit whenever there was a situation. Our heroes never shied away from sacrifices," he said.

The prime minister said the personnel in uniform were always ready to combat any kind of challenges facing the country -- be it Left-wing extremism, terrorism, infiltration or tackling those trying to foment trouble inside the country.

"Be it Left-wing extremism, terrorism, be it infiltration or be it tackling the forces trying to foment trouble inside, our people in uniform have always given sacrifices," he said.

He asserted that there will be no soft approach towards terrorism or terrorists and the government is determined to rid the country of this menace.

At the same time, he said the government has given an opportunity to the terrorists to join the national mainstream.

"We have told terrorists you come to the mainstream, you have right to talk inside the countrys democratic system. Only the mainstream can fill the energy in every ones life," he said.

The prime minister said that in its fight against terrorism, India is getting support from other countries.

"You will be happy to know that we are not alone in fight against terrorism. So many countries have been actively helping us. If there is hawala transaction, the world is giving us information, the world is giving us details about movement of terrorists," he said.

"I want thank all those countries which are cooperating with India in fighting the menace and this cooperation is giving strength in ensuring overall peace and security," Modi said.

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Due to efforts of the security forces, particularly in areas under Left-wing extremism, a large number of youth have surrendered and made efforts to come to the mainstream, he said.

"Indias stature in the world is rising. The world is with us in fight against terror. I thank all nations helping us doing so," he said.

Modi said a website is being launched to give information about security personnel who have contributed significantly towards the country.

The prime minister also referred to implementation of one-rank, one-pension scheme for defence personnel.

"For last 30, 40 years, the issue of one-rank, one- pension was pending. When the government fulfils the demand, when the government heeds to wishes of the armed forces, then their resolve to give sacrifices for the country increases," he said. PTI MPB AKK AKK

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19 crimes turned convicts into colonists. In 18th-century Britain, criminals guilty of at least one of the 19 crimes, were sentenced to live in Australia, rather than death. For the rough-hewn prisoners who made it to shore, a new world awaited. As pioneers in a frontier penal colony, they forged a new country and new lives, brick by brick. Today, 19 Crimes wines celebrate the rebellious spirit of the more than 160,000 exiled men and women, the rule breakers and law defying citizens that forged a new culture and national spirit in Australia.

The new 19 Crimes Augmented Reality app gives a voice to the signature 19 Crimes Red Blend's John O'Reilly, who recounts finding love after avoiding the hangman's noose, the dark red blend The Banished's James Wilson, who shares his tale of triumph after a conviction for treason, and the newest addition to the band of knaves, 19 Crimes' first female scoundrel, Jane Castings, who admits to her crimes of thievery, and is depicted on the label of 19 Crimes' first and newly available white wine, Hard Chard. Hovering a mobile device over each of these bottles will bring the rogue on the label to life, sharing their scandalous stories of rule breaking that sent them on a long journey to build a new life across the ocean in Australia.

19 Crimes fans have always been genuinely enthusiastic about the authentic 19 Crimes story, experiencing the wines beyond the glass, collecting the corks and posing for photos with the labels. The new 19 Crimes Augmented Reality app offers a new and exciting way to experience the 19 Crimes story, told by the convicts-turned-colonists themselves!

The 19 Crimes app can be downloaded from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. To learn more about 19 Crimes, visit http://19crimes.com/ and follow on Facebook at 19Crimes, @19Crimes on Twitter, and on Instagram @19CrimesWine.

SOURCE 19 Crimes
By PTI: By Youssra El-Sharkawy

Cairo, Aug 15 (PTI) Egypt supports Indias Dalveer Bhandari as judge of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), while New Delhi will back Cairos nominee to the UNESCOs Director-General post, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry has said.

In a statement, the ministry said Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry received a phone call on Sunday from his Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj and the two leaders discussed bilateral relations and means of international coordination.

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During the call, Swaraj informed Soukry that India supports the Egyptian nominee Ambassador Moushira Khattab to the UNESCO?s Director-General post, the statement said.

At the same time, Shoukry said that Egypt supports Bhandari, who has been nominated by India as its candidate for another nine-year term as judge of the ICJ, it added.

"India and Egypt have always had a very good cooperation in international fora," Indias Ambassador to Egypt Sanjay Bhattacharyya told PTI today.

"We found that the candidature of Khattab is a very attractive one. Both, the candidature Khattab for the UNESCO and of Bhandari for the ICJ are having mutual support," the ambassador said.

The UNESCO and ICJ elections will be held in October and November respectively. PTI YES ZH

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AUSTIN, Texas, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The 5th Annual Ameripolitan Music Awards moves to Memphis, Tennessee, and the home of Elvis, to The Guest House at Graceland on Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2018, at 8 p.m. Ameripolitan Music Showcases will kick off the celebration's beginning, Saturday, Feb. 10, 2018. Nominations will open to the general public on Friday, Sept. 1, 2017.

Motley Crew Media

"The 2018 awards show will mark a new milestone for the genre," says renowned musician Dale Watson. "Austin has been great to us, but when we first started the awards, the dream was to bring the Ameripolitan Music Awards to different host cities. And for the fifth year, moving to Memphis, the epicenter of roots music, seemed like a natural progression. Every year we strive to take the Ameripolitan Music Awards to a new level, and moving to Graceland seemed like the perfect fit."

Dale Watson coined the term "Ameripolitan" to describe his own brand of original roots music  when moved by remarks made by Ray Price in defense of his style of traditional music. Seizing the moment, Watson embarked on the ambitious goal of organizing an Ameripolitan Music Awards show.

Jerry Phillips' welcomed the Ameripolitan Music Awards with the message, "As my father Sam Phillips said many times...'For God's sake, let's don't become conformists'...Ameripolitan is a tie to the past and a door to the future...Welcome to Memphis."

Nominations are open for all categories beginning Friday, Sept. 1 and will conclude on Friday, Sept. 22. Please send an email to [email protected] to submit your nomination. ONE NOMINATION PER PERSON. For official nomination and voting rules, information on categories, updates and breaking news, please visit Ameripolitan.com as well as the Ameripolitan Awards social networks on Twitter and Facebook.

WHAT: 5th Annual Ameripolitan Music Awards

WHEN: Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2018

Doors open at 7 p.m. / Awards Ceremony at 8 p.m.

WHERE: The Guest House at Graceland / 3600 Elvis Presley Blvd / Memphis, TN 38116

TICKETS: On-sale Tuesday, Aug. 15 and will be available at gofundme.com

About Ameripolitan Music Awards: Under the leadership of Texas Honky Tonk legend, Dale Watson, the Ameripolitan Music Awards was created to acknowledge the exceptional creativity and dedication of roots artists whose work does not readily conform to the tastes of today's "Country," or other music genres and organizations. Ameripolitan Award Productions, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization which produces the Annual Ameripolitan Music Awards show, was founded to benefit and acknowledge these artists. It also provides fans with a means of finding these artists and their music.

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Nicole Shiro | 512.740.6665 | [email protected]

Photos available upon request

Related Files

2018 Ameripolitan PR date venue_FINAL2.docx

Related Links

Ameripolitan Music Awards

SOURCE Ameripolitan Music Awards
NEW YORK, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- O'Dwyer's, a public relations industry magazine and website, has ranked 5WPR as a top ten Food & Beverage PR Agency in the United States according to its annual rankings. The agency was also ranked among the top five independently-owned agencies in New York. 5WPR food and beverage clients include fast growing Sparkling ICE, Medifast, ZICO Beverages, Santa Margherita, Viki's Granola and others.

"From influencer relations work to digital media, traditional media relations to corporate communications, our client work in the food and beverage arena is unsurpassed. We work with market leaders, start-up brands and challengers for whom we provide market communications services. We are proud of our hard work and results we provide to our client partners," said Ronn Torossian, Founder & CEO of 5WPR.

O'Dwyer's is a trusted and influential trade publication in the PR and marketing communications industry. The O'Dwyer's annual ranking of independent PR firms is unique in that participants must supply the top page of their latest corporate income tax return and W-3.

5W Public Relations, a full-service PR agency, helps some of the world's most admired brands, corporations and personalities achieve more. 5WPR's bold, resourceful and thoroughly modern approach has measurably increased the positive results of its clients' communications efforts. Founded in 2003, the agency's full-service PR programs, novel approach and innovative people deliver game-changing results and have been recognized with many awards including PR Agency of the Year, PR Executive of the Year, Product Launch of the Year, Business to Business Program of the Year and Digital/Social Media Campaign of the Year, among others.

The agency's diverse roster of client experience includes All-Clad Metal Crafters, KRUPS, Ashley Stewart, Sparkling ICE, JetSmarter, Medifast, Ultra Mobile, SAP NS2, Zeta Global, Wendy Williams, Camp Bow Wow and other publicly traded companies, brands and organizations.

MEDIA CONTACT

5W Public Relations

Ronn Torossian l [email protected]

212-999-5585

SOURCE 5WPR
SHANGHAI, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Acorn International, Inc. (NYSE: ATV) ("Acorn" or the "Company") today announced that the Company's board of directors has appointed Pierre E. Cohade as Lead Director of Acorn. Mr. Cohade was also appointed as chair of the Company's Compensation and Audit Committees.

"Since joining the board earlier this year, Pierre has been a highly involved board member, offering valuable insight and guidance in areas such as internal control systems and procedures, best practice optimization, corporate governance and risk control," said Mr. Jacob Fisch, President of Acorn. "In the role of Lead Director, Pierre will continue to provide active support to management. He will also take the lead as a liaison between management and the independent members of the Board. We look forward to working with him more closely as we strive to take Acorn to the next level."

Executive Chairman Robert Roche agreed, "Pierre has already made valuable contributions in his short tenure with Acorn helping management in the turnaround of the company, and I am confident that his expertise will continue to help guide the way forward as we focus on growing our business."

About Acorn International, Inc.

Co-founded in 1998 by Executive Chairman Robert Roche, Acorn is a marketing and branding company in China with a proven track record of developing, promoting and selling a diverse portfolio of proprietary-branded products, as well as well-established and promising new products from third parties. Its business is currently comprised of two main divisions, its direct sales platforms and its nationwide distribution network. For more information visit www.acorninternationalir.com.

Safe Harbor Statement

This news release contains forward-looking statements. These statements constitute "forward-looking" statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "expects," "future," "going forward," "intends," "outlook," "plans," "target," "will," and similar statements. Such statements are based on management's current expectations and current market and operating conditions, and relate to events that involve known or unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, all of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond the Company's control, which may cause the Company's actual results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Further information regarding these and other risks, uncertainties, or factors is included in the Company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law.

Contact:

SOURCE Acorn International, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.acorninternationalir.com/home/


REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Actiance, the leader in communications compliance, archiving, and analytics, today announced the general availability of Vantage 2017, the latest version of its flagship solution for managing and securing enterprise communications. Vantage 2017 further unifies compliance management of electronic communications for IT, compliance, security, legal, and HR teams, allowing them to stay ahead of the ever-evolving regulatory landscape, including the new requirements of MiFID II and GDPR. Click here for more information about Vantage 2017.

With Vantage 2017, organizations in regulated industries can now compliantly capture a broadened set of communications channels including Cisco Spark and Slack Enterprise Grid. Moreover, businesses can unify management and capture of all communications channels and seamlessly export communications data to their archive of choice including Microsoft Office 365 Security and Compliance Center. For maximum accuracy and efficiency, Vantage 2017 now includes data reconciliation reporting and chain of custody to ensure communications data is secure and can be tracked and reconciled.

"We're excited that Actiance is integrating its advanced compliance and archiving solutions into Cisco Spark and the Cisco Cloud Collaboration ecosystem," said Jens Meggers, Senior Vice President and General Manager for Cisco's Cloud Collaboration Business. "Through this effort, we're leveraging the expertise of the joint platform to enable compliance and archival for customers' adoption of Cisco Spark."

Connect with confidence: Protect your people and your data

"Whether shared during internal collaboration or external customer engagements, teams must ensure that data is only being delivered to the appropriate users through secure channels," said Scott Whitney, SVP, Product Management, Actiance. "With Vantage 2017, organizations can uplift their communications information security and data privacy posture associated with real-time communications infrastructure with capabilities such as data loss prevention. They can also centralize and harmonize the capture, security, and governance policy control and simplify export capabilities to the compliance archive of their choice, which now includes an option for Microsoft Office 365 Archive."

New compliance and security features in Vantage 2017 include:

Cisco Spark: Capture, control, and archive of all Cisco Spark content

Capture, control, and archive of all Cisco Spark content Slack Enterprise Grid: Real-time content capture and data loss prevention, including alerts on restrictive phrases

Real-time content capture and data loss prevention, including alerts on restrictive phrases Microsoft Office 365: Export of Microsoft and non-Microsoft communications to Microsoft Office 365 Security and Compliance Center for archiving and presentation into Microsoft Office 365 eDiscovery

Export of Microsoft and non-Microsoft communications to Microsoft Office 365 Security and Compliance Center for archiving and presentation into Microsoft Office 365 eDiscovery Microsoft Skype for Business: Voice capture and advanced ethical walls

Voice capture and advanced ethical walls Cisco Jabber: File transfer capture across Cisco IM and Presence

File transfer capture across Cisco IM and Presence Microsoft Azure Active Directory: Automated sync of Vantage on-premises Active Directory and policy settings to cloud Active Directory in Microsoft Office 365

"GDPR and the ever-changing compliance landscape have many organizations unsure of the implications and risks to their business," said Angela Gelnaw, Sr. Research Analyst, Legal, Risk & Compliance Solutions, IDC. "Having proactive compliance management solutions like Vantage can help minimize the risk and exposure by providing a proactive, unified compliance solution for managing and securing enterprise communications across a myriad of communication channels."

Vantage 2017 is available now.

Additional Information

Become a fan of Actiance: http://www.facebook.com/actiance

Follow Actiance on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/actiance

About Actiance

Actiance is the leader in communications compliance, archiving, and analytics. We provide compliance across the broadest set of communications and social channels with insights on what's being captured. Actiance customers manage over 500 million daily conversations across 80 channels and growing. Customers include the top 10 U.S., top 5 Canadian, top 8 European, and top 3 Asian banks. The Actiance advantage is customers stay ahead of compliance and uncover patterns and relationships hidden within their data. Learn more at www.actiance.com.

Actiance headquarters are in Redwood City, California. For more information, visit http://www.actiance.com or call 1-888-349-3223.

Actiance Media Team:

Lisa Bergamo

Vice President, Corporate Communications

Actiance, Inc.

Phone: 650-380-9250

Email: [email protected]

Michael Burke

415.989.9000

[email protected]

SOURCE Actiance

Related Links

https://www.actiance.com


"The Sandy Rollman Ovarian Cancer Foundation has made great progress against ovarian cancer by combining awareness, public education and funding cutting-edge research," said Robin Cohen, co-Founder and CEO of the Sandy Rollman Ovarian Cancer Foundation. "We are so excited to have William deVry bring his voice to this public health initiative that empowers everyone to play a role in the fight against ovarian cancer. His dedication to raising awareness for this disease makes him a very powerful ambassador."

Participating in two fundraisers with the Foundation, deVry had the opportunity to learn about the organization's mission and the passion for the cause. Most recently, he has called on his massive social media following to support SROCF's work. deVry will now become more involved in the Foundation and its efforts as a formal ambassador.

"I am honored to join the Sandy Rollman Ovarian Cancer Foundation in this extremely important cause," said actor William deVry. "I share their passion to make a difference for the 188,000 women in the U.S. currently living with the disease. I am excited to join them as they raise awareness of ovarian cancer, fund research, and support those women currently diagnosed."

To learn more about the Sandy Rollman Ovarian Cancer Foundation and how you can get involved, please visit http://www.sandyovarian.org.

About Sandy Rollman Ovarian Cancer Foundation

The Sandy Rollman Ovarian Cancer Foundation, Inc. is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization created as a tribute to the life, character and immense strength of Sandy Rollman, who passed away from advanced ovarian cancer in May 2000. Her sister Adriana Way and her nurse Robin Cohen started the organization to keep Sandy's memory alive while trying to prevent other women from having to endure the same pain as she did. Their mission is to fight for those who are fighting, speak for those who have fallen silent and provide for those who are working towards the end of ovarian cancer. Since its founding, SROCF has awarded over $3.7 million to ovarian cancer research, recently announcing a $500,000 contribution to the Stand Up to Cancer "Ovarian Cancer Dream Team."

About William deVry

The Daytime Emmy-nominated Canadian-born actor is most notably known today for his role as the charming yet unpredictable mob boss Julian Jerome on "General Hospital." He is also widely recognized for roles on "All My Children," "InSecurity," "Nikita," "Bold and the Beautiful," "Earth Final Conflict," "Beggars and Choosers," and "StarGate SG-1." He has had multi-episode arcs on Hallmark Channel's "Cedar Grove" and CW's "Beauty and the Beast." deVry has also made guest appearances on ABC's "Castle" and CBS's "NCIS." He currently resides in Los Angeles with his longtime girlfriend, Rebecca. In addition to his work as SROCF Ambassador, he is very active in animal rescue and home restoration.

SOURCE The Sandy Rollman Ovarian Cancer Foundation

Related Links

http://www.sandyovarian.org


"I don't see people as their circumstances, I see people as their possibilities," says Ours to Service House of Hospitality Executive Director Sandy Hennum. Ours to Service House of Hospitality is a social services organization which provides temporary shelter and support services for families experiencing homelessness. Their vision of strengthening the community by assisting families to break the cycle of homelessness is accomplished by incorporating their three core values: Family Focus through identifying and achieving dreams and goals; Respect by honoring individual differences and unique needs with kindness, compassion, and integrity; Collaboration by creating strong communities through participation in the planning and coordination of the continuum of services for families on a regional level.

Ms. Hennum believes having the honor of working with families experiencing homelessness has been a journey of a lifetime. In her own words, Ms. Hennum states "Village of Hope creates an environment in which people begin to see their possibilities and a powerful future for themselves and their children. Poverty is complicated and is affected by so many issues. These issues create generational poverty. Our vision is to strengthen our community by assisting families to break the cycle of homelessness. We work with the adults and the children to create a powerful future. The parents attend classes in budgeting, parenting, self -development, goal setting, and the power of positive thinking to name a few. The children attend classes with a trained parent/child educator and work with physical, emotional awareness and coping strategies as well as healthy life style choices. Village of Hope is a part of a caring community that collaborates with our families for their future. We have a Nice Ride station for bicycle transportation and are working with a functional medicine organization, True North and Nutritious Weighs on stress reduction, mindfulness, and nutrition to add value and education of the families at Village of Hope. These collaborations also let families know that they are not forgotten and not alone. Homelessness creates an environment of loneliness. Relationships are the difference for all of us and at Village of Hope we strive to develop and maintain lasting relationships with families experiencing homelessness. I have the opportunity to help people see their potential, all they are capable of achieving. To provide them with confidence and hope. Changing lives one family at a time"

The Times Square appearance is given to the individual who has demonstrated consistent excellence in their career. The visual celebration of this individual will be displayed on digital screens at the venerable and historical 3 Times Square, New York, one of the busiest and most high profile landmarks in the nation.

About America's Registry of Outstanding Professionals

America's Registry is a membership organization that gives its members the type of national recognition they strive for. Professional business people may join memberships, societies and organizations to develop business contacts, thus gaining image and credibility for themselves and their organization. As a powerful third party endorsement, America's Registry offers this kind of recognition for individuals on a national basis with the added benefit of instantaneous networking with the other members. Members are encouraged to welcome, network and assist each other whether they are in the same or an entirely different industry or profession. Being in America's Registry can be viewed by the members as a letter of introduction to all the other members.

CONTACT: Bea Hanley, 516-997-2525 ext. 100, [email protected]

SOURCE America's Registry of Outstanding Professionals
Risk Statement: There is a significant likelihood that the dropper marking errors will result in dispensing either less than, or more than, the prescribed dose. There is a significant probability of a serious health consequence if more than the prescribed dose is dispensed and potential serious adverse events include  drowsiness causing trauma; increased anxiety; increased accidental injury to self or others (e.g., hip fracture, motor vehicle accident); which in the most serious circumstances could result in permanent decreased function or death.

The product is indicated for the management of anxiety disorders for the short-term relief of the symptoms of anxiety or anxiety associated with depressive symptoms. It is packaged in an individual carton, identified with the code: NDC 65162-687-84, which contains a 30mL amber glass bottle of liquid produced by Amneal, a package insert with patient information, and a plastic dropper sealed in a clear plastic bag. The affected Lorazepam Oral Concentrate, USP 2mg/mL, lots are the following:

Lot Number Expiration Date 06876016A 08/2018 06876017A 08/2018 06876018A 08/2018 06876019A 09/2018 06876020A 09/2018 06876021A 09/2018 06876022A 09/2018 06876023A 11/2018 06876024A 12/2018 06876025A 12/2018 06877001A 02/2019 06877002A 02/2019 06877003A 03/2019

The product can be identified by the lot number printed on the bottom-right side of the blue and white label, with the Amneal logo, on the amber bottle supplied with the dropper, in a blue and white carton, with the Amneal logo. The Lorazepam Oral Concentrate, USP 2mg/mL was distributed nationwide to wholesalers.

Amneal Pharmaceuticals has notified its wholesale customers by a Recall Letter to return all recalled lots. Amneal is notifying pharmacies by providing a Recall Letter and a supply of replacement droppers to all pharmacies that may have received any of the recalled lots. There is no safety issue with the bottled product itself. To avoid any interruption in supply or access to the medication by the patient, pharmacies are instructed to immediately discard the dropper included with the recalled lots and replace it with the dropper included with the Recall Letter. Amneal also is providing the pharmacist with a sticker which the pharmacist is required to place on the box to alert the patient and other pharmacists that the dropper has been replaced. Pharmacists are instructed to notify all Consumers impacted by the recall of the potential defect and the need to exchange a defective dropper. Consumers are instructed to discontinue use of any defective dropper and return it to the place of purchase for a replacement. If Consumers are unsure whether their droppers are defective they are encouraged to confirm with their dispensing pharmacy.

AUGUST 19, 2017 UPDATE:

Customers also may call Amneal directly at 1 (877) 835-5472 to request a replacement dropper.

AUGUST 19, 2017 UPDATE:

Customers also may call Amneal directly at 1 (877) 835-5472 to request a replacement dropper.

Consumers with questions regarding this recall can contact Amneal Pharmaceuticals at (631) 633-2142 or [email protected] on Monday through Friday from 9AM through 5PM Eastern Time. Consumers should contact their physician or healthcare provider if they have experienced any problems that may be related to taking or using this drug product.

Adverse reactions or quality problems experienced with the use of this product may be reported to the FDA's MedWatch Adverse Event Reporting program either online, by regular mail, or by fax.

Complete and submit report Online: www.fda.gov/medwatch/report.htm ( http://www.fda.gov/MedWatch/report.htm)

Regular Mail or Fax: Download form www.fda.gov/MedWatch/getforms.htm (http://www.fda.gov/Med-Watch/getforms.htm) or call 1-800-332-1088 to request a reporting form, then complete and return to the address on the pre-addressed form, or submit by fax to 1-800-FDA-0178.

This recall is being conducted with the knowledge of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

About Amneal:

Amneal Pharmaceuticals LLC, a privately-held, global, company headquartered in Bridgewater, New Jersey, was founded in 2002 and is one of the largest and fastest growing generic pharmaceutical manufacturers in the United States.

Click here to view full prescribing information for Lorazepam Oral Concentrate.

Media Contact:

Cheryl Lechok

203-961-9280

[email protected]

SOURCE Amneal Pharmaceuticals LLC
BOSTON, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Chilmark Research's latest report, the 2017 Healthcare Analytics Market Trends Report, reveals that analytics vendor solutions have matured but struggle to exploit new sources of data in a rapidly transforming industry. Building on the 2014 and 2016 editions of this report, Chilmark returned to the market this year to assess critical changes in vendor solutions and how well they map to provider needs. Notably, analytics solutions and care management applications are more tightly linked now and show promise for moving analytics-derived insights closer to the point of care. Analytics applications are also becoming more user friendly  an opportunity for differentiation previously identified in the 2016 edition.

What remains the most important driver underlying the strong growth in data analytics is the move to alternative payment models, commonly referred to as value-based reimbursement (VBR). Future financial success in the VBR realm requires healthcare organizations (HCOs) to effectively manage risks, utilization and costs while concurrently improving quality and optimizing outcomes.

Today, however, HCOs still straddle the different payment regimes of fee-for-service (FFS) and VBR. Analytics solutions are currently focusing on helping HCOs to maximize at-risk revenue (hitting quality targets) and still leverage traditional FFS reimbursements (closing care gaps). A secondary objective is to help HCOs reduce medical costs (unwarranted variability) and unnecessary utilization (readmissions reduction and low-acuity, non-emergent utilization).

This year's report provides in-depth profiles on 17 of the leading analytics vendors in the market today. All solutions profiled have the capability to co-mingle claims and clinical data. While Chilmark noted last year that EHR vendors are well positioned to incorporate analytics into their EHR solutions, vendors of all types have promising analytics solutions both in terms of product vision and capabilities. The report also includes major changes in vendor solutions compared to those from last year's report.

Chilmark Analyst and report author Brian Murphy explained, "Vendors still struggle to present information in a way that would cause providers to act and best use these emerging technologies and the insights they provide." Both providers and analytics solutions vendors would benefit from the report to not only evaluate different solutions options but also for the report's clear connections between analytics insights and opportunities for reducing utilization and improving health and revenue outcomes.

On August 24, Chilmark Research will host a webinar sharing highlights from this research, which you can register for here. The report is available to subscribers of the Chilmark Advisory Service or may be purchased separately (discounts for qualified provider organizations). For more information, visit www.chilmarkresearch.com/reports. Direct inquiries for purchase should be addressed to John Moore III at [email protected].

About Chilmark Research

Chilmark Research is the only industry analyst firm focusing solely on the most transformational trends in healthcare IT. We combine proven research methodologies with intelligence and insight to provide cogent analyses of the emerging technologies that have the greatest potential to improve healthcare. We do not shy away from making tough calls, and are respected in the industry for our direct and thoughtful commentary. For more information visit: www.chilmarkresearch.com

Vendors Profiled: The Advisory Board Company, Allscripts, Arcadia Healthcare Solutions, athenahealth, Inc., Caradigm, CareEvolution, Cerner Corporation, Conifer Health Solutions, eClinicalWorks, Epic Systems Corporation, Forward Health Group, Geneia LLC, Health Catalyst, HealthEC, IBM Watson Health, MCIS, Inc., Optum, Philips Wellcentive.

Media Contact:

Brian Murphy:

[email protected]

617.230.0623

SOURCE Chilmark Research

Related Links

http://www.chilmarkresearch.com


HORSHAM, Pa., Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Ladies and gentlemen, sharpen your knives. The search for the next better sandwich is on with the kickoff of the fourth annual America's Better Sandwich Contest. Arnold, Brownberry and Oroweat Bread have teamed up with one of the culinary world's most celebrated figures, Chef Tom Colicchio, a seasoned food judge and sandwich expert, to inspire contestants with his own sandwich creations and help determine which inspiring sandwich recipe will make the final cut and win the $25,000 grand prize.

From now until September 15, 2017, sandwich lovers can share recipes featuring their favorite Arnold, Brownberry and Oroweat productsincluding Whole Grain and Country bread varieties, Sandwich Thins Rolls and Sliced Hamburger and Hot Dog Bunsfor an opportunity to take home the grand prize. Recipes can be served up as wholesome twists on classic favorites, include energy-boosting ingredients, be featured as artistic, open-faced snacks and more. All eligible sandwiches will be judged based upon nutrition, creativity and ease of preparation.

For every recipe submitted during the entry period and for every vote cast during the voting period (August 10  October 26, 2017), Arnold, Brownberry and Oroweat will donate one loaf of bread, up to 10,000 loaves, to Feeding America, the contest's official charitable partner, in an effort to help feed families across the country.

"The most important part of any sandwich is what holds it all together: the bread. As a chef and a father of three, I love to use Arnold, Brownberry and Oroweat breads because they help boost the flavor of every recipe, and I can trust that my kids are enjoying a delicious sandwich that I can feel good about," said Chef Tom Colicchio. "With the right combination of bread and ingredients, anyone can prepare a better sandwich, and we're excited to see which will rise to the top in this year's America's Better Sandwich Contest."

The top five finalists will be posted online for public voting from October 5 until October 26, 2017. The winner and runner-up will be announced on National Sandwich Day on November 3, 2017. The highest overall scoring sandwich will receive the $25,000 grand prize and will be crowned the 2017 America's Better Sandwich winner, while the runner-up will take home $5,000.

"No matter how you slice it, the possibilities for creating tasty and nutritious sandwiches are endless, especially with all of the delicious varieties of Arnold, Brownberry and Oroweat breads to choose from," said Marlene Sidhu, Director of Arnold, Brownberry and Oroweat Breads. "Each year, we try many unique and delicious recipes, so we're thrilled to have Tom Colicchio as one of the judges for this year's America's Better Sandwich Contest. After all, he knows a thing or two about competition!"

All sandwich makers can enter the America's Better Sandwich Contest and access the official rules at www.americasbettersandwich.com, where they can also gain inspiration from Tom Colicchio's recipes that he created specifically for the contest.

About Bimbo Bakeries USA

Bimbo Bakeries USA (BBU) is a leader in the baking industry, known for its category leading brands, innovative products, freshness and quality. Our team of more than 22,000 U.S. associates operates more than 50 manufacturing locations in the United States. Our distribution routes deliver our leading brands such as Arnold, Bimbo, Boboli, Brownberry, Entenmann's, Francisco, Freihofer's, Heiner's, Marinela, Mrs Baird's, Oroweat, Sara Lee, Stroehmann, Thomas' and Tia Rosa.

No Purchase Necessary to Enter or Win the America's Better Sandwich Contest or Vote. Both programs begin at 12:00 p.m. ET on 8/10/17 and end at 12:00 p.m. ET on 10/26/17 (or donation will end when max donation has been reached, whichever is sooner). Bimbo Bakeries USA will donate one (1) loaf of bread to Feeding America for each entry and/or vote received in the Contest, with a maximum of 10,000 loaves donated. Contest is open to legal residents of the 50 United States, District of Columbia and Puerto Rico who are 18+ and have reached the legal age of majority in their jurisdiction of residence at time of entry. Void where prohibited. Contest rules and donation terms available at http://www.americasbettersandwich.com. Offered by Bimbo Bakeries USA, Inc.

SOURCE Bimbo Bakeries USA

Related Links

http://www.americasbettersandwich.com


On the occasion of Independence Day on Tuesday, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said that India would grant medical visa to those Pakistani nationals whose cases were genuinely pending.

By Press Trust of India: On the occasion of Independence Day on Tuesday, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said that India would grant medical visa to those Pakistani nationals whose cases were genuinely pending.

In a tweet tagging the Indian High Commission in Pakistan, Sushma said, "On the auspicious occasion of India's Independence day, we will grant medical visa in all bonafide cases pending with us. @IndiainPakistan".

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A few weeks ago, Swaraj had said that India would grant medical visa to those nationals from the neighbouring country whose applicants were recommended by Pakistan Prime Minister's Foreign Office Advisor Sartaj Aziz.

Aziz, however, is no longer the Pakistan Prime Minister's foreign office advisor as he has been appointed as the deputy chairman of the planning commission. Shahid Khaqan Abbasi Abbasi, 58, was sworn-in as Pakistan's 18th Prime Minister on August 1 after the Supreme Court disqualified the incumbent Nawaz Sharif for dishonesty following the Panama Papers scandal.

CASE IN POINT

Last month, four-month-old Rohaan, son of Pakistani national Kamaal Siddiqui, had undergone a successful heart surgery at a Noida hospital.

According to a statement issued by the hospital, Rohaan was suffering from 'D-transportation of great arteries with abnormal origin of main arteries from opposite chambers with multiple VSD and severe pulmonary hypertension'.

The surgery went on for five hours on July 14 after which the baby was put on a ventilator and a tracheotomy was done, doctors said.

In a teary tribute, Siddiqui had thanked the media, doctors and Sushma Swaraj for helping save her child.

Following this, he had requested to help other Pakistanis get medical visa and expressed concern over delays in the process.

ALSO READ |

Qatar to offer visa-free entry to nationals of 80 countries including India

Swaraj slams Sartaz Aziz for being mum on visa for Kulbhushan Jadhav's mother

What do I call you, God? Ailing Pakistani thanks Swaraj after getting visa

ALSO WATCH VIDEO: Pakistan considering to grant visa to Kulbhushan Jadhav's mother

--- ENDS ---
Jon joined Arup in 1998 as a tunneling engineer and since then has worked on many of the firm's largest projects around the globe, including the Billy Bishop Airport Pedestrian Tunnel in Toronto, Canada; the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Thames and London Tunnels in the United Kingdom; the Trans Hudson Express and Second Avenue Subway in New York; and the Lake Mead Intake No.3 project. In addition to his expertise in tunnel project management, design, and construction, Jon is also the coordinator of the Americas region philanthropic program, managing resources for a wide variety of programs.

Hurt noted, "From students to seasoned professionals, engineers are fantastic resource, and this is a fantastic opportunity for us to make a lasting, positive impact on developing communities. EWB-USA is a unique organization that's crossing the boundaries between the AEC industries and humanitarian organizations and NGOs. I'm honored to join the board of such a progressive organization."

"Jon's enthusiasm and experience will be a huge asset to EWB-USA as he steps into this new board role," said Cathy Leslie, Executive Director of EWB-USA. "We look forward to the insight and global perspective Jon will bring to drive our organization forward."

To learn more about Jon's involvement with EWB-USA you can read his interview in Doggerel, Arup's digital magazine in the Americas.

About Arup

Arup provides planning, engineering, design, and consulting services for the most prominent projects and sites in the built environment. Since its founding in 1946, the firm has consistently delivered technical excellence, innovation, and value to its clients, while maintaining its core mission of shaping a better world. Arup opened its first US office more than 30 years ago and now employs 1,400 people in the Americas. The firm's employee-ownership structure promotes ongoing investment in joint research to yield better outcomes that benefit its clients and partners. Visit Arup's website, www.arup.com, and the online magazine of Arup in the Americas, doggerel.arup.com, for more information.

About Engineers Without Borders USA

Engineers Without Borders USA (EWB-USA) is a nonprofit humanitarian organization established to build a better world through engineering projects that empower communities to meet their basic human needs and equip leaders to solve the world's most pressing challenges. EWB-USA members work with local communities and NGOs in 46 countries around the world on projects such as water, renewable energy, sanitation, and more. EWB-USA has grown from a handful of members in 2002 to more than 16,800 members today and has 698 projects worldwide. For more information, visit www.ewb-usa.org.

Contact: Ioana Botzoman

[email protected]

646.661.2111

Contact: Rebecca Maloney

[email protected]

617.412.6632

SOURCE Arup

Related Links

http://www.arup.com


DUBLIN, August 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The "5G in Asia-Pacific, Forecast to 2022" report has been added to Research and Markets' offering.

The market trends are analyzed for a study period of 2017 to 2022, with the base year being 2016. The study leveraged on primary research through interviews with 4 out of 5 radio access network equipment vendors supported by extensive secondary research and validated by key industry experts. A carefully curated selection of MNOs across Asia-Pacific was interviewed to get a more accurate view of the industry from within. The timeframe covered is from 2017 to 2022, of which the forecast period is from 2018 to 2022.

5G is on its way. It may be closer to 2019-2020 for some but for others, it may be 2023-2025 before it materializes. In all the countries that are frontrunners of 5G in Asia-Pacific, 5G is benefiting from local government support coupled with local demand or at least the potential for demand for 5G services. The demand may be incentive or market driven.

The drive for governments and industry regulators to push for faster internet speeds through 5G comes from the angle of its potential contribution towards a country's economic growth and digital economy transformation. Industry regulators need to understand what 5G is and why the right regulatory strategy will be essential to the success of 5G.

For mobile network operators (MNOs), markets are saturating, competition is increasing, and revenues and/or profitability, especially from traditional core services, is declining. MNOs are under pressure to seek out new revenue streams that can be derived from innovative new services and the reduction in cost to serve. 5G will trigger a quicker transition to distributed, cloud native networks that leverage on NFV, SDN, and MEC to reduce cost to serve and improve on efficiency and profitability for MNOs.



Further, with 5G offering latency below 1ms and larger bandwidths, mobile networks can gain an edge over fibre networks and regain competitiveness. This study covers the challenges and issues with 5G as well as the growth opportunities within the ecosystem and will be beneficial to strategists and marketeers to aid in formulating a 5G strategy and corresponding go-market or GTM plans. Industries benefiting from 5G, for example, cloud, software, network equipment manufacturing, and IoT applications/sensors, will find this study useful.

Key Questions This Study Will Answer:

What is 5G and what are the major features of 5G?

What are the likely frequencies and spectrum considerations?

When will 5G be available for rollout and what is the optimum timing for 5G?

How big will the market be for 5G?

What are the likely use cases?

Why should MNOs implement 5G and what is the best approach to deploying 5G?

Key Topics Covered:

1. Executive Summary



2. 5G Market Overview



- Market Definitions

- Key Questions This Study Will Answer

- What is 5G-5G is an Anticipated Positive Disruption to Industries

- What is 5G-5G is a Departure from Previous Generations

- What is 5G-5G Goes Beyond 4G

- What is 5G-5G is Evolving Along Distinct Tracks

- What is 5G-5G Adds New Concepts Within the Network

- What is 5G-5G will Require Multi-mode/Connectivity Smartphones

- What is 5G-5G Means New Challenges and Issues

- 5G Standardization-Global Coordination Through 3GPP

- 5G Standardization-5GAA the First Vertical Association

- 5G Standardization-5GAA Fosters Cross-Collaboration

- 5G Spectrum Considerations-Regional Outlook

- 5G Spectrum Considerations-Regulatory Strategy

- 5G Networks-Support from Pre-5G Technology

- 5G Networks-Update on NFV and SDN Market Trends

- 5G Network-Implications for MNOs

- 5G Network-Rollout Strategy

- 5G Networks-Regional Outlook on Rollout Strategy

- 5G Timeline-5G is Evolving With Time

- 5G Timeline-When will 5G be Available for Rollout?



3. Drivers and Restraints-Total 5G Market



- Market Drivers

- Drivers Explained

- Market Restraints

- Restraints Explained



4. Forecasts and Trends-Total 5G Market



- Forecast Assumptions

- Subscription and Service Revenue Forecast

- Subscription and Service Revenue Forecast Discussion

- Percent Service Revenue Forecast by Country

- Percent Service Revenue Forecast Discussion by Country



5. 5G Market Updates



- Heat Map of 5G Activity Across Asia-Pacific

- Global Benchmarks-US First to Allocate 5G Spectrum

- Global Benchmarks-A Divide and Conquer Approach

- Global Benchmarks-The EU is Lagging Behind in 5G

- Global Benchmarks-Telcos in Europe are Behind Asia-Pacific

- Global Benchmarks-Samsung Driving 5G

- Asia-Pacific Developments-Developed Nations

- Asia-Pacific Developments-Developing Nations

- Asia-Pacific Frontrunners-South Korea

- Asia-Pacific Frontrunners-Japan

- Asia-Pacific Frontrunners-China May Be First to Launch 5G

- Asia-Pacific Frontrunners-China Mobile

- 5G Complementing LPWAN-LPWAN Implemented First

- 5G Complementing LPWAN-5G Networks Next

- 5G Complementing LPWAN-Europe Case Study

- 5G Complementing LPWAN-NB-IoT versus LoRaWAN



6. 5G Potential Use Cases



- 5G Potential Use Cases-A Snapshot

- 5G Potential Use Cases-IoT

- 5G Potential Use Cases-IoT Spending by Verticals

- 5G Potential Use Cases-IIoT

- 5G Potential Use Cases-Connected Vehicles

- 5G Potential Use Cases-Connected Vehicles US Case Study

- 5G Potential Use Cases-AR and VR

- 5G Potential Use Cases-AR/VR in Tourism

- 5G Potential Use Cases-AR/VR in Education

- 5G Potential Use Cases-AR/VR in Workforce Management

- 5G Potential Use Cases-AI for Drones

- 5G Potential Use Cases-Voice Services

- 5G Potential Use Cases-Video Services



7. Growth Opportunities and Companies to Action



- Growth Opportunity 1-IoT and IIoT

- Growth Opportunity 2-Software and Applications

- Growth Opportunity 3-Cloud and Mobile Edge Computing

- Growth Opportunity 4-Local Government Agendas

- Growth Opportunity 5-Mobile Network Hardware

- Growth Opportunity 6-Key Verticals

- Strategic Imperatives for Success and Growt

Companies Mentioned



AT&T

Alcatel-Lucent

Aug That

Augment

Blippar

China Broadcasting Network

China Mobile

China Telecom

Daqri

Educreations

Explain Everything

Far EasTone

Fujitsu

Intel

KDDI

KT

M1

NEC

NTT DoCoMo

Qualcomm

Quiver

5GAA

Starhub

T-Mobile

Taiwan Star

Telkomsel

U Mobile

Unicom

Verizon

Vodafone

Yelp

ZTE

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/5xknds/5g_in



Media Contact:

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

SOURCE Research and Markets

Related Links

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Atento S.A. (NYSE: ATTO), the largest provider of customer-relationship management and business-process outsourcing services in Latin America, and among the top five providers globally, today announced its second-quarter 2017 operating results. All comparisons in this announcement are year-over-year and in constant-currency (CCY), unless noted otherwise.

Summary

($ in millions except EPS) Q2 2017 Q2 2016 CCY Growth YTD 2017 YTD 2016 CCY Growth Income Statement











Revenue (1) 473.7 448.6 +2.4% 941.7 864.3 +2.7% Adjusted EBITDA (3) 52.5 54.2 -6.1% 106.2 103.0 -3.2% Adjusted EBITDA Margin (3) 11.1% 12.1% -1.0pp 11.3% 11.9% -0.6pp Recurring Net Income (2) 9.6 9.5 -3.0% 22.1 19.9 +8.9% Recurring Earnings Per Share (2) $0.13 $0.13 - $0.30 $0.26 +7.1% Reported EBITDA (3) 46.1 46.1 -2.9% 96.4 83.4 8.8% Reported Net Income (2) (3.7) (8.1) +57.5% 5.4 (12.9) n.m. Reported Earnings Per Share (2) ($0.05) ($0.11) +54.5% $0.07 $(0.16) n.m. Cashflow, Debt and Leverage











FCF before Interest and Acquisitions (4) 15.4 33.8

5.8 6.3

Net Debt 400.4 459.1







Leverage (x) (5) 1.8x 2.0x

1.8x 2.0x



(1) Revenue excludes Morocco which was divested in September 2016. (2) Reported Net Income and Earnings Per Share and Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA Margin and Adjusted Earnings Per Share refer only to continuing operations. Reported and Adjusted Earnings Per Share, for the period ended June 30, 2017, were calculated considering the number of ordinary shares of 73,909,056. For the period ended June 30, 2016, the number of ordinary shares was 73,751,131. (3) EBITDA is defined as profit/(loss) for the period from continuing operations before net finance costs, income taxes and depreciation and amortization. Adjusted EBITDA is defined as EBITDA adjusted to exclude acquisition and integration related costs, restructuring costs, sponsor management fees, asset impairments, site relocation costs, financing and IPO fees, and other items which are not related to our core results of operations. EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA are not measures defined by IFRS. The most directly comparable IFRS measure to EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA is net income for the period from continuing operations. (4) We define Free Cash flow before interest and acquisitions as operating cashflow minus Capex payments and income tax expenses. (5) Does not consider the debt refinance. On a pro-forma basis, leverage ratio would be 1.6x.

Alejandro Reynal, Atento's Chief Executive Officer, commented, "We are pleased with our results during the first half of 2017, as we continued to deliver solid topline growth, protect profitability and generate positive operating cash flow. Our growth strategy, which has been improving our revenue mix in the last couple years, continued to contribute to commercial wins in the quarter. Our enhanced capabilities from the latest acquisitions of RBrasil and Interfile, combined with our new digital platform, will help Atento to drive future growth by expanding our portfolio of services to offer complete end-to-end solutions to our clients. Based on our results in the first half of 2017 and the strength of our commercial pipeline, we remain confident in the trajectory of our business and we are revising our full-year guidance, notably increasing our outlook for revenue growth."

Mr. Reynal continued, "Our new digital business unit continues to generate value for our clients and drive broad-based growth in each of our key markets. We recently announced a partnership with Keepcon, which will further expand our digital capabilities and allow us to provide differentiated customer experience solutions to generate competitive advantages for companies and increased satisfaction for consumers."

Mauricio Montilha, Atentos Chief Financial Officer, said, "We strengthened our balance sheet and enhanced our financial flexibility through disciplined capital allocation and vigilance over working capital. Our recent debt refinancing improves our cash flow, is accretive to our bottom line and will further increase our financial flexibility to allow us to remain focused on targeting investments aligned with our growth strategy."

Second Quarter Consolidated Operating Results

All comparisons in this announcement, unless otherwise noted, are year-over-year, in constant-currency (CCY) and exclude the effects of our divestiture of Morocco in September 2016.

We continue to deliver solid topline growth, with consolidated revenue in constant currency up 2.4%, driven by the significant 5.8% growth in Brazil. Revenues from multisector grew a strong 8.5%, mainly in Brazil and Americas. As a percentage of revenues, multisector increased 390 basis points to a record 60.5% in Q2 2017, showing stability vs Q1 2017. Revenues from Telefonica remained stable versus Q1 2017, and declined 5.8% in the quarter, driven by lower volumes in Brazil, Mexico and Argentina. The mix of revenue from higher value-added solutions increased 330 basis points to 26.3% in the quarter. On a reported basis, total revenue increased 5.6%.

Recurring net income of $9.6 million, with recurring EPS of $0.13 flat year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA reached $52.5 million, implying an 11.1% margin. Adjusted EBITDA margin was impacted by the ramp up of new clients and lower business volumes in Mexico and Argentina.

Operating cash flow totaled $30.0 million in the quarter, and free cash flow before interest and acquisitions totaled $15.4 million, with Adjusted EBITDA to cash conversion of 29.4% in the quarter.

At the end of the second quarter, the Company had a cash position of $146.3 million with a net debt of $400.4 million. Net Debt to adjusted EBITDA improved to 1.8x from 2.0x in 2016. Important to highlight that the leverage ratio does not consider the debt refinance announced in early August. On a pro-forma basis, leverage ratio would be 1.6x.

Adjusted earnings, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted earnings per share are non-GAAP financial measures and are reconciled to their most directly comparable GAAP measures in the accompanying financial tables.

Segment Reporting

($ in millions) Q2 2017 Q2 2016 CCY growth YTD 2017 YTD 2016 CCY growth Brazil Region











Revenue 233.5 202.2 5.8% 471.8 384.7 5.5% Operating Income 13.4 10.3 26.4% 32.1 17.4 66.3% Adjusted EBITDA 28.7 27.1 -1.0% 63.0 52.0 6.1% Margin 12.3% 13.4%

13.4% 13.5%

Americas Region











Revenue 185.7 189.1 -0.3% 359.1 366.3 -0.3% Operating Income 10.4 14.3 -26.8% 17.2 28.8 -39.6% Adjusted EBITDA 21.7 24.3 -11.8% 39.1 47.7 -18.0% Margin 11.7% 12.9%

10.9% 13.0%

EMEA Region











Revenue 55.1 57.8 -2.0% 111.8 114.1 1.1% Operating Income 1.2 (1.7) N.M. 3.1 (4.9) N.M Adjusted EBITDA 3.8 3.6 8.6% 8.1 6.3 28.6% Margin 6.9% 6.2%

7.2% 5.5%



Brazil Region

Revenues in the region continued to present significant growth, up 5.8% in Q2 2017, primarily driven by an increase of 11.2% in revenues from multisector supported by new services and client wins, mostly Non-Telefonica Telcos and financial services. Revenues from Telefonica decreased 4.4% in the quarter, driven by volume reductions, however was stable as compared to Q1 2017 and Q4 2016. As a percentage of revenues, multisector increased 3.3 percentage points to a record of 68.8% in Q2 2017, while revenue mix from higher value-added solutions reached 36.3%. On a reported basis, revenue increased 15.5% in Q2 2017.

Operating Income was $13.4 million, up 26.4% in Q2 2017. Adjusted EBITDA was $28.7 million, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 12.3%, down 1.1 percentage points, driven by ramp up costs from newly acquired services and clients.

Americas Region

Americas revenue presented stability in Q2 2017 and year-to-date, down only 0.3% in both periods. Revenues from multisector presented a 6.5% increase in Q2 2017, driven by new client wins in Argentina, Colombia, Chile, and U.S. Nearshore. Revenues from Telefonica presented a decrease of 8.1% in Q2 2017, reflecting late 2016 volume reduction in Mexico and Argentina.

As a percentage of revenues, multisector reached 57.6% in Q2 2017, up 3.7 percentage points. The mix of revenue from higher value-added solutions increased 5.2 percentage points to historical high of 17.5%. On a reported basis, revenue declined 1.8% in Q2 2017.

Operating income was $10.4 million. Adjusted EBITDA was $21.7 million, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 11.7%. Profitability decreased when compared to Q2 2016 due to the ramp up of new multisector clients in Argentina, Colombia and Chile, combined with volume adjustments from Telefonica in Mexico and Argentina.

EMEA Region

Revenue in EMEA decreased 2.0% in Q2 2017, driven by a 3.0% decline in revenues from Telefonica, partially offset by the stability in multisector revenues. Revenues from multisector increased 70 basis points to 35.7%, while the mix of revenue from higher value-added solutions increased 2.0 percentage points to 12.2%. On a reported basis, revenue declined 4.7% in Q2 2017.

Operating profit was $1.2 million in Q2 2017. Adjusted EBITDA was $3.8 million, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 6.9%, up 70 basis points. The continued improvement in profitability was supported by improved business mix and lower fixed costs, as a result of cost saving initiatives implemented during 2016.

Strong Balance Sheet and Debt Refinancing Enhances Financial Flexibility

As of June 30, 2017, the Company had of $146.3 million and undrawn revolving credit facilities of 50 million, implying total liquidity of $203.4 million. Total net debt with third parties was $400.4 million and last twelve month (LTM) adjusted EBITDA to net debt with third parties was 1.8x compared to 2.0x at June 30, 2016. Including the debt refinancing, the pro forma leverage ratio would be 1.6x.

As announced on April 28, 2017, the Company continued the accelerated debt pay down program, with a voluntary payment of $27 million of higher-cost Brazil debentures. The $27 million payment was comprised of $20 million accelerated from Q4 2017 and $7 million from 2018.

On July 28, 2017, the Company announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Atento Luxco 1 S.A., issued a new Senior Secured Notes due 2022, in aggregate principal amount of US$400 million with a coupon on 6.125%. The proceeds, combined with the use of cash in hands, are being used to redeem all outstanding 7.375% Senior Secured Notes due 2020 and all the existing debentures due 2019 in Brazil. In addition, it was announced a new Revolver Credit Facility of $105 million to replace the current existing 50 million line. The debt refinancing reaffirms the commitment in strengthening balance sheet and improving financial flexibility. The debt refinance is estimated to reduce annual interest expense by $10-15 million as of 2018 versus the FY 2017 revised Guidance.

Debt Refinance - Overview US$MM Actual Adjustments Proforma

Cash Balance 146.3 - 146.3 EUR RCF 57.1 (57.1) - Undrawn SS RCF (Club Multicurrency) - +50.0 50.0 Undrawn SS RCF (Bilateral Multicurrency) - +55.0 55.0 (=) Total Liquidity 203.4 47.9 251.3 1st Brazilian Debenture (CDI+3.7%) 129.4 (129.4) - 2nd Brazilian Debenture (CDI+3.75%) 20.8 - 20.8 7.375% Senior Secured Notes due 2020 304.2 (304.2) - 6.125% Senior Secured Notes due 2022 - +400.0 400.0 BNDES Credit Facility 59.4 - 59.4 Other Borrowings 32.9 - 32.9 (=) Total Debt 546.7 -33.6 513.1 (=) Net Debt 400.4

366.8 Net Leverage (Net Debt / LTM Adj. EBITDA) 1.8x

1.6x









Revising Fiscal 2017 Guidance

The Company is revising its guidance for Fiscal 2017, notably increasing its revenue growth target to 5% to 8%, on a constant currency basis, and reducing its net interest expense target to reflect the debt refinancing starting as of Q4 2017. The increase in effective tax rate to ~39%.

Guidance New Prior Consolidated Revenue Growth (CCY) 5% to 8% 1% to 5% Adjusted EBITDA Margin Range (CCY) 11% to 12% 11% to 12% Net Interest Expense Range $55MM to $60MM $60MM to $65MM Cash Capex (% of Revenue) ~3-4% ~3-4% Effective Tax Rate ~39% ~34% Diluted Share Count ~73.9MM shares ~73.9MM shares Cash Conversion as % of Adj. EBITDA ~40% ~40%

This guidance assumes no change in the current operating environment, capital structure or exchange rates movements on the translation of our financial statements into U.S. dollars except where noted.

Conference Call

The Company will host a conference call and webcast for analysts on Tuesday, August 15, 2017 at 10:00 am ET to discuss its financial results. The conference call can be accessed by dialing: +1 (877) 407-3982 toll free domestic, UK: (+44) 0 800 756 3429 toll free, Brazil: (+55) 0 800 891 6221 toll free, or Spain: (+34) 900 834 236 toll free. All other international callers can access the conference call by dialing: +1 (201) 493-6780 toll free. No passcode is required. Individuals who dial in will be asked to identify themselves and their affiliations. The conference call will also be webcasted through a link on the Investor Relations website at investors.atento.com. A web-based archive of the conference call will also be available at the above website.

About Atento



Atento is the largest provider of customer relationship management and business process outsourcing (CRM BPO) solutions in Latin America, and among the top five providers globally, based on revenues. Atento is also a leading provider of nearshoring CRM/BPO services to companies that carry out their activities in the United States. Since 1999, the company has developed its business model in 13 countries where it employs 150,000 people. Atento has over 400 clients to whom it offers a wide range of CRM/BPO services through multiple channels. Atento's clients are mostly leading multinational corporations in sectors such as telecommunications, banking and financial services, health, retail and public administrations, among others. Atentos shares trade under the symbol ATTO on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). In 2016, Atento was named one of the Worlds 25 Best Multinational Workplaces by Great Place to Work for a fourth consecutive year. For more information visit www.atento.com

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "may," "should," "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "predicts," "intends," "continue" or similar terminology. These statements reflect only Atento's current expectations and are not guarantees of future performance or results. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, competition in Atento's highly competitive industries; increases in the cost of voice and data services or significant interruptions in these services; Atento's ability to keep pace with its clients' needs for rapid technological change and systems availability; the continued deployment and adoption of emerging technologies; the loss, financial difficulties or bankruptcy of any key clients; the effects of global economic trends on the businesses of Atento's clients; the non-exclusive nature of Atento's client contracts and the absence of revenue commitments; security and privacy breaches of the systems Atento uses to protect personal data; the cost of pending and future litigation; the cost of defending Atento against intellectual property infringement claims; extensive regulation affecting many of Atento's businesses; Atento's ability to protect its proprietary information or technology; service interruptions to Atento's data and operation centers; Atento's ability to retain key personnel and attract a sufficient number of qualified employees; increases in labor costs and turnover rates; the political, economic and other conditions in the countries where Atento operates; changes in foreign exchange rates; Atento's ability to complete future acquisitions and integrate or achieve the objectives of its recent and future acquisitions; future impairments of our substantial goodwill, intangible assets, or other long-lived assets; and Atento's ability to recover consumer receivables on behalf of its clients. In addition, Atento is subject to risks related to its level of indebtedness. Such risks include Atento's ability to generate sufficient cash to service its indebtedness and fund its other liquidity needs; Atento's ability to comply with covenants contained in its debt instruments; the ability to obtain additional financing; the incurrence of significant additional indebtedness by Atento and its subsidiaries; and the ability of Atento's lenders to fulfill their lending commitments. Atento is also subject to other risk factors described in documents filed by the company with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.

These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which the statements were made. Atento undertakes no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

SELECTED FINANCIAL DATA

The following selected financial information should be read in conjunction with the interim consolidated financial statements and the section entitled "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" presented elsewhere in the Form 6-K.

Consolidated Income Statements for the Three and Six Months Ended June 30, 2016 and 2017































($ in millions, except percentage changes) For the three months ended June 30,

Change

Change excluding

For the six months ended June 30,

Change

Change excluding 2016 (*)

2017

(%)

FX (%)

2016 (*)

2017

(%)

FX (%)

(unaudited)









(unaudited)







Revenue 448.6

473.7

5.6

2.4

864.3

941.7

9.0

2.7 Other operating income 0.7

8.3

N.M.

N.M.

1.5

9.1

N.M.

N.M. Operating expenses:





























Supplies (14.9)

(17.5)

(17.4)

(15.9)

(29.9)

(34.3)

(14.7)

(9.2) Employee benefit expenses (338.3)

(355.1)

(5.0)

(1.8)

(651.1)

(700.8)

(7.6)

(1.7) Depreciation (11.8)

(11.1)

5.9

9.8

(22.4)

(22.9)

(2.2)

5.4 Amortization (13.3)

(12.3)

7.5

10.9

(23.9)

(25.9)

(8.4)

(1.6) Changes in trade provisions -

0.2

N.M.

N.M.

(0.3)

-

100.0

100.0 Other operating expenses (50.0)

(63.5)

(27.0)

(22.1)

(101.1)

(119.3)

(18.0)

(9.1) Total operating expenses (428.3)

(459.3)

(7.2)

(3.9)

(828.7)

(903.2)

(9.0)

(2.7) Operating profit 21.0

22.7

8.1

6.1

37.1

47.6

28.3

22.4 Finance income 0.7

1.5

114.3

114.3

2.2

3.6

63.6

44.0 Finance costs (19.9)

(16.0)

19.6

23.1

(37.8)

(33.5)

11.4

17.5 Change in fair value of financial instruments 0.2

(0.3)

N.M.

N.M.

0.7

(0.3)

(142.9)

(142.9) Net foreign exchange gain/(loss) (9.2)

(4.3)

53.3

52.7

(12.9)

(0.9)

93.0

93.0 Net finance expense (28.2)

(19.1)

32.3

34.1

(47.8)

(31.1)

34.9

38.2 (Loss)/profit before tax (7.2)

3.6

150.0

147.4

(10.7)

16.5

N.M.

N.M. Income tax expense (0.6)

(7.3)

N.M.

N.M.

(1.5)

(11.1)

N.M.

N.M. (Loss)/profit from continuing operations (7.8)

(3.7)

52.6

56.0

(12.2)

5.4

144.3

141.9 Discontinued operations:





























Loss from discontinued operations (0.3)

-

100.0

100.0

(0.7)

-

100.0

100.0 (Loss)/profit for the period (8.1)

(3.7)

54.3

57.5

(12.9)

5.4

141.9

139.7 (Loss)/profit attributable to:





























Owners of the parent (8.1)

(3.9)

51.9

55.2

(12.9)

5.1

139.5

137.5 Non-controlling interest -

0.2

N.M.

N.M.

-

0.3

N.M.

N.M. Other financial data:





























EBITDA (1) (unaudited) 46.1

46.1

-

(2.9)

83.4

96.4

15.6

8.8 Adjusted EBITDA (1) (unaudited) 54.2

52.5

(3.1)

(6.1)

103.0

106.2

3.1

(3.2)































(1) For reconciliation with IFRS as issued by IASB, see section "Summary Historical Consolidated Financial Information - Reconciliation of EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA to profit/(loss)". (*) Restated, excluding discontinued operations - Morocco. N.M. means not meaningful

Reconciliation of EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA to profit/(loss):









































For the three months ended June 30,

For the six months ended June 30,

($ in millions)

2016

2017

2016

2017





(unaudited)





















(Loss)/profit from continuing operations (*)

(7.8)

(3.7)

(12.2)

5.4

Net finance expense (*)

28.2

19.1

47.8

31.1

Income tax expense (*)

0.6

7.3

1.5

11.1

Depreciation and amortization (*)

25.1

23.4

46.3

48.8

EBITDA (non-GAAP) (unaudited)

46.1

46.1

83.4

96.4

Restructuring costs (a)

6.7

5.5

12.9

8.9

Site relocation costs (b)

0.2

-

5.9

-

Asset impairments and Other (c)

1.2

0.9

0.8

0.9

Total non-recurring items (**)

8.1

6.4

19.6

9.8

Adjusted EBITDA (non-GAAP) (unaudited)

54.2

52.5

103.0

106.2





















(*) The amounts of June 30, 2016, were restated excluding discontinued operations  Morocco.

(**) We define non-recurring items as items that are limited in number, clearly identifiable, unusual, are unlikely to be repeated in the near future in the ordinary course of business and that have a material impact on the consolidated results of operations. Non-recurring items fall mainly into three categories of investment:





The first includes investments to lower our variable cost structure, which is mostly labor, in response to the exceptional and severe adverse macroeconomic conditions in key markets such as Brazil, Spain and Mexico, which drove significant declines in volume. For the three months ended June 30, 2016 and 2017 we invested $3.2 million and $1.4 million, respectively, in these activities. Considering the six months ended June 30, 2016 and 2017, we invested $8.0 million and $3.8 million respectively in these activities. The second includes investments in Brazil, to relocate and consolidate our sites from higher to lower costs locations. This program started in 2014 when 53 percent of our sites were in Tier 2 cities. For the three and six months ended June 30, 2016 we invested $0.1 million and $5.7 million in these activities. We have not invested in this program for the three and six months ended in June 30, 2017 as it was substantially completed in 2016. We ended the three months period at June 30, 2017 with 63.9% of our sites in Tier 2 cities. The third includes investments to drive a more sustainable lower-cost and competitive operating model, especially considering the exceptional adverse macroeconomic circumstances and associated declines in volume referenced above. For the three months ended June 30, 2016 and 2017 we invested $3.5 million and $4.1 million, respectively, in these activities. Considering the six months ended June 30, 2016 and 2017, we invested $4.8 million and $5.1 million respectively in these activities. We expect that these adjustments continue until the third quarter of 2017, due to exceptional macro circumstances in most cases, like in Brazil and Argentina. a) Restructuring costs for the three and six month ended June 30, 2016, are primarily related to costs to adapt the organizations in EMEA and Brazil to lower levels of activity and other minor restructurings in the Americas. Restructuring costs incurred in three and six months ended June 30, 2017, are primarily related to the costs of adapting the organization in Argentina and Brazil to the lower level of activities and the investments made in Brazil, Mexico and Spain to implement a lower-cost operating model.



b) Site relocation costs incurred for the three and six months ended June 30, 2016 are related to the anticipation of site closures in Brazil in connection with the site relocation program.



c) Asset impairments and other costs incurred for the three months ended June 30, 2016 and 2017 mainly refer to consulting and other non-recurring costs.

Reconciliation of Adjusted Earnings to profit/(loss):





















For the three months ended June 30,

For the six months ended June 30,

($ in millions) 2016

2017

2016

2017



(unaudited)

(Loss)/profit from continuing operations (*) (7.8)

(3.7)

(12.2)

5.4

Amortization of acquisition related intangible assets (a) 6.2

4.3

11.4

11.1

Restructuring costs (b) (**) 6.7

5.5

12.9

8.9

Site relocation costs (c) (**) 0.2

-

5.9

-

Asset impairments and Other (d) (**) 1.2

0.9

0.8

0.9

Net foreign exchange gain on financial instruments (e) (0.2)

0.3

(0.7)

0.3

Net foreign exchange impacts (f) 9.2

4.3

12.9

0.9

Tax effect (g) (6.0)

(2.0)

(11.1)

(5.4)

Total of add-backs 17.3

13.3

32.1

16.7

Adjusted Earnings (non-GAAP) (unaudited) 9.5

9.6

19.9

22.1

Adjusted basic Earnings per share (in U.S. dollars) (***) (unaudited) 0.13

0.13

0.26

0.30



















(*) The amounts of June 30, 2016 were restated excluding discontinued operations - Morocco.

(**) We define non-recurring items as items that are limited in number, clearly identifiable, unusual, are unlikely to be repeated in the near future in the ordinary course of business and that have a material impact on the consolidated results of operations. Non-recurring items fall primarily into three categories of investment:





The first includes investments to lower our variable cost structure, which is mostly labor, in response to the exceptional and severe adverse macroeconomic conditions in key markets such as Brazil, Spain and Mexico, which drove significant declines in volume. For the three months ended June 30, 2016 and 2017 we invested $3.2 million and $1.3 million, respectively, in these activities. Considering the six months ended June 30, 2016 and 2017, we invested $8.0 million and $3.7 million respectively in these activities. The second includes investments in Brazil, to relocate and consolidate our sites from higher to lower costs locations. This program started in 2014 when 53 percent of our sites were in Tier 2 cities. For the three and six months ended June 30, 2016 we invested $0.1 million and $5.7 million in these activities. We have not invested in this program for the three and six months ended in June 30, 2017 as it was substantially completed in 2016. We ended the three months period at June 30, 2017 with 63.9% of our sites in Tier 2 cities. The third includes investments to drive a more sustainable lower-cost and competitive operating model, especially considering the exceptional adverse macroeconomic circumstances and associated declines in volume referenced above. For the three months ended June 30, 2016 and 2017 we invested $3.5 million and $4.0 million, respectively, in these activities. Considering the six months ended June 30, 2016 and 2017, we invested $4.8 million and $5.0 million respectively in these activities. We expect that these adjustments continue until the third quarter of 2017, due to exceptional macro circumstances in most cases, like in Brazil and Argentina. a) Amortization of acquisition related intangible assets represents the amortization expense of customer base, recorded as intangible assets. This customer base represents the fair value (within the business combination involving the acquisition of control of Atento Group) of the intangible assets arising from service agreements (tacit or explicitly formulated in contracts) with Telefonica Group and with other customers.



b) Restructuring costs for the three and six month ended June 30, 2016, are primarily related to costs to adapt the organizations in EMEA and Brazil to lower levels of activity and other minor restructurings in the Americas. Restructuring costs incurred in three and six months ended June 30, 2017, are primarily related to the costs of adapting the organization in Argentina and Brazil to the lower level of activities and the investments made in Brazil, Mexico and Spain to implement a lower-cost operating model.



c) Site relocation costs incurred for the three and six months ended June 30, 2016 are related to the anticipation of site closures in Brazil in connection with the site relocation program.



d) Asset impairments and other costs incurred for the three months ended June 30, 2016 and 2017 mainly refer to consulting and other non-recurring costs.



e) Since April 1, 2015, the Company designated the foreign currency risk on certain of its subsidiaries as net investment hedges using financial instruments as the hedging items. As a consequence, any gain or loss on the hedging instrument, related to the effective portion of the hedge is recognized in other comprehensive income (equity) as from that date. The gains or losses related to the ineffective portion are recognized in the income statements and for comparability, and those adjustments are added back to calculate Adjusted Earnings.



f) Since 2015, our management analyzes the Company financial condition performance excluding net foreign exchange impacts, which eliminates the volatility of foreign exchange variances from our operational results.



g) The tax effect represents the impact of the taxable adjustments based on tax rate of 13.1% for the three months period ended June 30, 2017, 30.4% for the same period ended June 30, 2016, 24.4% for the six month period ended June 30, 2017 and 29.4% for the same period ended June 30, 2016.



(***) Adjusted Earnings per share, is calculated based on the weighted average number of ordinary shares outstanding of 73,909,056 as of June 30, 2017. For the period ended June 30, 2016 the weighted average number of ordinary shares outstanding was 73,751,131.

Financing Arrangements



As of June 30, ($ in millions, except Net Debt/Adj. EBITDA LTM) 2016

2017

(unaudited) Cash and cash equivalents 159.5

146.3 Debt:





7.375% Senior Secured Notes due 2020 302.5

304.2 Brazilian Debentures 204.9

150.2 Contingent Value Instrument (1) 23.9

- Finance Lease Payables 4.1

9.1 Other Borrowings 83.2

83.2 Total Debt 618.6

546.7 Net Debt with third parties (2) (unaudited) 459.1

400.4 Adjusted EBITDA LTM (3) (*) (non-GAAP) (unaudited) 232.1

225.2 Net Debt/Adjusted EBITDA LTM (non-GAAP) (unaudited) 2.0x

1.8x

(*) Restated, excluding discontinued operations  Morocco. (1) The CVI was terminated on November 8, 2016. (2) In considering our financial condition, our management analyzes Net debt with third parties, which is defined as total debt less cash and cash equivalents. Net debt with third parties is not a measure defined by IFRS and it has limitations as an analytical tool. Net debt with third parties is neither a measure defined by or presented in accordance with IFRS nor a measure of financial performance, and should not be considered in isolation or as an alternative financial measure determined in accordance with IFRS. Net debt is not necessarily comparable to similarly titled measures used by other companies. (3) Adjusted EBITDA LTM (Last Twelve Months) is defined as EBITDA adjusted to exclude restructuring costs, site relocation costs, asset impairments and other items not related to our core results of operations.

Free Cash Flow:



Q2 YTD Free Cash Flow (FCF) US$ MM 2017 2016 2017 2016 Operating Cash Flow (1) 30.0 62.1 40.1 60.2 Cash Capex (2) (10.1) (20.6) (24.2) (39.7) Income Tax Paid (4.4) (7.7) (10.1) (14.2) Free Cash Flow before interest and Acquisitions 15.4 33.8 5.8 6.3 Adj. EBITDA to Cash Conversion (%) 29.4% 62.3% 5.4% 6.1% Acquisitions (27.1) 0.0 (27.1) 0.0 Net Interest Paid (14.8) (21.7) (28.5) (36.1) Free Cash Flow (FCF) (26.5) 12.1 (49.9) (29.8)

(1) We define Operating Cash flow as Net Cash flow from/(used in) operating activities (as per 6K) adding back net interest and income tax expenses. (2) Does not consider acquisitions

SOURCE Atento S.A.

Related Links

http://www.atento.com


Vince Di Pietro, chief executive for Lockheed Martin Australia attended the event along with AIR 5428 partners Pilatus Aircraft and Hawker Pacific.

"We are excited to celebrate this momentous occasion with the CAF and recognise this marks the beginning of training for Australia's fifth-generation air capability," said Vince Di Pietro. "This milestone is a great achievement to all involved and we celebrate the Australian Defence Force's first flight in service and acceptance of the first six of 49 PC-21 aircraft, as the mainstay trainer for Australia's pilot training program for decades to come."

"Combining the PC-21 turboprop training aircraft with state-of-the-art training simulations and an electronic learning environment, Australia's new Pilot Training System will prepare Australia's next-generation pilots for mission success."

The AIR 5428 Pilot Training System is an integrated solution tailored for all future pilots of the Royal Australian Air Force, Royal Australian Navy and the Australian Army.

"Lockheed Martin Australia leads the delivery of integrated solutions for all future pilots of the Australian Defence Force," said Amy Gowder, vice president of Training and Logistics Solutions for Lockheed Martin's Rotary and Mission Systems business. "This milestone is an important achievement, and confirms the Lockheed Martin-led team is on track to deliver a world-class pilot training solution to the Australian Defence Force."

Under the AIR 5428 contract, Lockheed Martin is providing overall project management for the pilot training system and delivering a family of integrated ground-based training technologies. Pilatus Aircraft is providing 49 PC-21 turboprop training aircraft and through-life engineering and airworthiness support, while Hawker Pacific is providing maintenance services and fleet support, and leveraging its established supply chain in Australia.

Signed in December 2015, the initial seven-year AIR 5428 Pilot Training System is valued at AU$1.2 billion, with performance-based options to extend the value and length of the contract for up to 25 years.

For additional information, visit our website: www.lockheedmartin.com/AIR5428

About Lockheed Martin Australia: Headquartered in Canberra, Lockheed Martin Australia is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation. Lockheed Martin Australia and its related entities employ more than 1000 people in Australia and New Zealand working on a wide range of major programs spanning the aerospace, defence, maritime civil sector.

About Pilatus: Established in 1939, Pilatus Aircraft Ltd is the world's leading manufacturer of single-engine turboprop aircraft. Headquartered in Stans, Switzerland, Pilatus is a privately held company employing close to 2000 people. Pilatus provides aircraft and aviation services worldwide for the general aviation, commercial, training, utility, and special mission markets. The company, through Pilatus Australia Pty Ltd, currently supports over 140 Australian based military and civil aircraft.

Hawker Pacific Pty Ltd was formed in 1978 with its corporate headquarters in Sydney NSW, employs over 400 people across Australia and has significant aviation sales and support capabilities across the Asia Pacific and the Middle East. Hawker Pacific's Government Business unit is the prime contractor to the ADF delivering the B300 aircraft capability to 32 and 38 Squadrons at RAAF Bases East Sale and Townsville, holding AMO and AEO accreditation. At RAAF Base Pearce, Hawker Pacific has successfully provided maintenance support to the Singapore Air Force PC21 aircraft training capability in synergy with Lockheed Martin and Pilatus since 2007.

For additional information, visit our websites:

http://www.lockheedmartin.com.au -- www.pilatus-aircraft.com  www.hawkerpacific.com.au

SOURCE Lockheed Martin

Related Links

http://www.lockheedmartin.com


SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Ava, a medical technology company focused on innovations in women's reproductive health, today announced the birth of the first baby conceived with the help of its Ava fertility tracking sensor bracelet launched to consumers last summer.

Ava user Lizzie McGee, 32, and her husband, Sam, 31, welcomed son Jace McGee, a healthy 6 lb., 10oz. boy, on July 11, 2017 becoming the first confirmed "Ava baby" born since the bracelet's official consumer debut.

Ava fertility tracking bracelet Jace McGee is the first-ever "Ava baby"

Lizzie, a hairstylist in St. George, Utah, found out about Ava after struggling for over a year to get pregnant with her second child: "The experience of conceiving our first child was really difficult and stressful on our marriage, and I didn't want to go through the same thing again with our second," said McGee, who conceived Jace after wearing Ava for three months.

According to Ava Co-founder Lea von Bidder, McGee is one of over one-third of Ava users who purchased the bracelet to aid in conceiving a second child. "Secondary infertility is much more common than many people realize," von Bidder explained, "especially in cases where a couple has started their family later in life because it's widely known that fertility decreases as maternal age increases. Ava helps women optimize their chances of conception at any age by identifying in real time her full fertile window, not just the day of ovulation."

Since its consumer launch in August 2016, the Ava fertility tracking bracelet has already helped over 500 women conceive. According to von Bidder, Ava users from across the US and Europe are reporting about 5-10 pregnancies a day.

How Ava Works

Ava is a sensor bracelet that uses new technology to precisely detect the fertile days during a woman's monthly cycle in real time. Worn only at night while sleeping, Ava measures nine physiological parameters including pulse rate, breathing rate, heart rate variability, temperature that, in combination, help indicate a rise in reproductive hormones estradiol and progesterone. The impact of the rise of these hormones on the physiological parameters is used to detect a 5.3-day fertile window in a woman's cycle. Because users simply wear the Ava bracelet at night and sync it with the Ava app in the morning, they avoid the hassles, mess and invasiveness of other fertility tracking methods like ovulation strips and BBT thermometers. An FDA Class 1 medical device, the Ava bracelet was proven in a recently concluded clinical study at the University Hospital of Zurich to detect an average of 5.3 fertile days per cycle - in real time - with 89 percent accuracy.

About Ava

Founded in Switzerland in 2014 by Pascal Koenig, Philipp Tholen, Peter Stein and Lea von Bidder, Ava is a medical technology company dedicated to bringing innovation to women's reproductive health. The Ava bracelet, which received The Bump "Best of Baby Tech CES 2017" award for fertility and pregnancy, is the company's first consumer product. It uses sensor technology combined with clinically tested data science to precisely detect a woman's entire fertile window in real time. The company is also conducting clinical studies to adapt and expand its algorithms for use in pregnancy monitoring, and future use as a non-hormonal contraceptive device. Backed by $12.3M in seed and Series A funding, Ava has operations in Zurich and San Francisco.

Media Contact:

Lindsay Stevens

[email protected]

(213) 200-9638

SOURCE Ava
PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- BestValueSchools.com has published its 2017-2018 list of the Top 20 Online Doctoral Programs in Psychology, which is available here: http://www.bestvalueschools.com/psychology/online-doctoral-programs-in-psychology/

The demand for skilled individuals in this field is strong. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, jobs for professional psychologists, counselors, university professors, and medical researchers are all growing as fast or faster than the national average.

While there is no "one size fits all" approach to education and different students have unique educational needs, BestValueSchools.com sought to create an objective ranking of the online PhD psychology programs representing the best overall value. Ranking factors include affordability (per-credit tuition cost), accessibility (percentage of the program delivered online), quality of curriculum (indicated by a specialized accreditation or adherence to other academic guidelines), and course depth/breadth (coinciding with the specific topics that the American Psychological Association requires for all APA-accredited programs).

Below is a list of the 20 schools that made the ranking.

1. Fielding Graduate University

2. Oregon State University

3. University of the Cumberlands

4. Texas Tech University

5. University of Georgia

6. Regent University

7. Alaska Pacific University

8. Pacifica Graduate Institute

9. Touro University-Worldwide

10. Saybrook University

11. North Central University

12. Felician University

13. Endicott College

14. University of the Rockies

15. Lesley University

16. Arizona State University

17. Michigan State University

18. California Institute of Integral Studies

19. The Chicago School of Professional Psychology

20. Sofia University

For more about the methodology and detailed information about each program, visit the full article here:

http://www.bestvalueschools.com/psychology/online-doctoral-programs-in-psychology/

BestValueSchools.com uses publicly available data and original ranking methodologies to produce independent assessments of U.S. colleges and universities, including both online and traditional degree programs. The mission of Best Value Schools is to provide clear, credible guidance that helps current and potential students find the best college for them. Best Value Schools recognizes that no ranking is perfect and recommends that readers use their articles to help inform, but not dictate, their decision about where to attend college.

Contact: Paul Church, Editor

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 484-945-2742

SOURCE Best Value Schools

Related Links

http://www.bestvalueschools.com


CHESTNUT RIDGE, N.Y., Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- BioHiTech Global, Inc. ("BioHiTech" or the "Company") (OTCQB: BHTG), a green technology company that develops and deploys innovative and disruptive waste management technologies, reported financial results for the second quarter of 2017 ended June 30, 2017.

Business Highlights

Secured 12 acre site in New York State for its 2nd HEBioT waste disposal facility  Entered into a contract with the Town of New Windsor, New York for the acquisition of a 12 acre site planned for the company's second Resource Recovery Facility utilizing the proprietary HEBioT technology. BioHiTech's HEBioT facilities provide a cost-effective alternative to traditional waste disposal that results in a significant reduction in landfill usage and the production of an EPA recognized solid recovered fuel. The Company also owns a minority interest in the nation's first HEBioT facility expected to begin generating revenue in the first half of 2018.

Delivered the 100th Eco-Safe Digester to the Federal Bureau of Prisons  The Federal Bureau of Prisons took receipt of its 100th Eco-Safe Digester unit and is now diverting an estimated 44 million pounds of food waste from landfills annually with BioHiTech's sustainable waste disposal solution.

Scheduled initial production order for 100 units of its new Revolution Series Digesters  The Company began the marketing launch of its new line of Revolution Series Digesters at the RFMA tradeshow in early March. Due to extremely favorable market response, the Company scheduled an initial production order of 100 units in June. The Company expects to receive delivery of the first units in August and to begin field deployments beginning in Q3 2017. The Revolution Series Digesters are a compact, cost-effective, easy to install and environmentally friendly on-site food waste disposal solution targeting a large market segment of the food services industry.

Continued the development of its cloud-based smart technology for supply chain management and enhanced machine performance  The Company completed the software development and testing of its new BHTG Smart Mode technology to intelligently drive its digester equipment in order to optimize performance and reduce servicing downtime. Subsequent to the end of Q2 2017, BioHiTech filed for a provisional patent on this new technology.

"We continue to lay the foundation for establishing our company as the premier provider of cost-effective and environmentally friendly technology solutions for waste management," said Frank E. Celli, CEO of BioHiTech. "We are excited about the initial response to the launch of our Revolution Series Digesters and believe these units will prove to be a game changer for the company in the coming years as we have now opened a large underserviced segment of the food service and hospitality market. We have also made tremendous progress in the quarter toward the development of a HEBioT facility in New York through the land purchase contract with New Windsor. New York state is the largest exporter of waste in the US and our proven technology provides a solution that can reduce landfill waste by as much as 80% in addition to producing solid recovered fuel. As we move through the remainder of 2017, we will continue to progressively deploy our technology solutions for waste and supply chain management as we work to drive accelerating revenue growth for the benefit of our stockholders."

Q2 Financial Highlights

Revenue: Revenue in Q2 2017 was $549,000, a 22% increase compared to revenue of $451,000 in Q2 2016. Recurring rental, service and maintenance grew by 11% and represented 67% of total revenue. Revenue from equipment sales rose by 53% to reach $182,000. This significant improvement in equipment sales was primarily due to an increase in reseller activity supporting educational and hospitality customers.

Gross Profit: Q2 2017 gross profit was $170,000, an 89% increase compared to gross profit of $90,000 in Q2 2016. Gross profit margin increased by 11 percentage points to reach 31%. Rental, service and maintenance gross profit margin increased by 3 percentage points to 26%. Equipment sales gross profit margin increased 31 percentage points to reach 42% due to increased domestic sales and a change in the models sold.

Operating Expenses: Q2 2017 operating expenses increased by 3% to $1.7 million compared to $1.6 million in Q2 2016. The increase was primarily driven by a continued focus on professional services supporting investor relations and marketing, offset in part by a decrease in SG&A.

Operating Loss: Q2 2017 operating loss improved by 3% to a loss of $1.5 million due to increased gross profit offset by a lesser increase in operating expenses.

Net Loss: Q2 2017 net loss was $1.9 million, a 9% increase compared to net loss of $1.7 million in Q2 2016. The increase in net loss was due to an increase in interest expense in excess of the improvement in operating loss.

Year to Date June 30, 2017

Revenue: In the first half, 2017 revenue was $1,140,000, a 25% increase compared to revenue of $914,000 in 2016. Recurring rental, service and maintenance grew by 14% and represented 64% of total revenue. Revenue from equipment sales rose by 50% to reach $415,000. This significant improvement in equipment sales was primarily due to an increase in reseller activity supporting educational and hospitality customers in the second quarter and international activity in the first quarter.

Gross Profit: In the first half, 2017 gross profit was $369,000, an 81% increase compared to gross profit of $204,000 in Q2 2016. Gross profit margin increased by 10 percentage points to reach 32%. Rental, service and maintenance gross profit margin increased by 6 percentage points to 27%. Equipment sales gross profit margin increased 16 percentage points to reach 42% due to increased domestic sales and a change in the models sold.

Operating Expenses: In the first half, 2017 operating expenses increased by 12% to $3.6 million compared to $3.2 million in 2016. The increase was primarily driven by a continued focus on professional services supporting investor relations and marketing, offset in part by a decrease in SG&A.

Operating Loss: In the first half, 2017 operating loss increased by 8% to a loss of $3.2 million due to increased operating expenses relating to professional services supporting investor relations offset in part by decreases in other professional fees and SG&A. Net cash used in operating activities decreased to $2.2 million in the six months ended June 2017 compared to $3.0 million in the six months ended June 2016.

Net Loss: In the first half, 2017 net loss was $3.9 million, a 17% increase compared to net loss of $3.3 million in 2016. The increase in net loss was due to an increase in interest expense and an increase in the operating loss.

Brian C. Essman, CFO commented, "We are pleased to have achieved continued quarter over quarter top line revenue growth in Q2 2017. More importantly, gross profit margin expanded for both rental and equipment sales. SG&A expenses decreased slightly in Q2 2017 and net cash used in operating activities decreased substantially as we continue to work to prudently manage our resources while we grow our business. We expect our Revolution Series digesters to begin contributing revenue in Q4 2017 and to build progressively throughout 2018. As we move through the second half of 2017, we intend to continue to move forward with our aggressive long term growth plans to deliver substantial value for our stockholders."

About BioHiTech Global

BioHiTech Global (OTCQB: BHTG), "The Company" headquartered in Chestnut Ridge NY, develops and deploys innovative and disruptive waste management technologies. The combined offerings of BioHiTech Global offer our customers a full suite of technology based disposal options capable of having a significant impact on waste generation while providing a true zero landfill environment. With options for both on and off site biological treatment of waste, BioHiTech Global is a leader in zero waste solutions for businesses and municipalities. For more information, please visit www.biohitechglobal.com.

Forward Looking Statements

Statements in this document contain certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These statements are based on many assumptions and estimates and are not guarantees of future performance. These statements may involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of BioHiTech Global, Inc. to be materially different from future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. BioHiTech Global, Inc. assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise these forward-looking statements for any reason, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future. Our actual results may differ materially from the results anticipated in these forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors, including, without limitation those set forth as "Risk Factors" in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"). There may be other factors not mentioned above or included in the BioHiTech's SEC filings that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statement. BioHiTech Global, Inc. assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or developments, except as required by securities laws.

Company Contact:

BioHiTech Global, Inc.

Lisa Giovannielli

Director, Corporate Communications

Direct: 845-262-1081

[email protected]

www.biohitechglobal.com

BioHiTech Global, Inc. and Subsidiaries Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations and Comprehensive Loss (Unaudited)





Three Months Ended June 30,

Six Months Ended June 30,



2017

2016

2017

2016 Revenue























Rental, service and maintenance

$ 366,812

$ 331,692

$ 725,348

$ 637,555 Equipment sales



182,405



119,589



414,549



276,454 Total revenue



549,217



451,281



1,139,897



914,009 Cost of revenue























Rental, service and maintenance



272,757



254,617



531,697



505,727 Equipment sales



106,664



106,717



239,154



204,173 Total Cost of revenue



379,421



361,334



770,851



709,900 Gross profit



169,796



89,947



369,046



204,109 Operating expenses























Selling, general and administrative



1,057,223



1,159,598



2,121,852



2,188,248 Research and development



216,822



235,164



404,324



419,095 Professional fees



364,227



201,889



1,013,850



537,734 Depreciation and amortization



28,335



29,174



58,107



54,948 Total operating expenses



1,666,607



1,625,825



3,598,133



3,200,025 Loss from operations



(1,496,811)



(1,535,878)



(3,229,087)



(2,995,916) Other expense (income)























Equity loss in affiliate



5,916



-



5,916



- Loss on change in fair value of warrants



1,999



-



1,999



- Interest income



-



(2,713)



-



(3,068) Interest expense



374,175



185,566



670,432



334,725 Total other expense



382,090



182,853



678,347



331,657 Net loss



(1,878,901)



(1,718,731)



(3,907,434)



(3,327,573) Other comprehensive (loss) income























Foreign currency translation adjustment



(21,340)



(1,506)



(28,504)



6,400 Comprehensive loss

$ (1,900,241)

$ (1,720,237)

$ (3,935,938)

$ (3,321,173)

























Net loss per share - basic and diluted

$ (0.23)

$ (0.21)

$ (0.47)

$ (0.40) Weighted average number of common shares

outstanding - basic and diluted



8,322,086



8,229,712



8,276,154



8,229,712

BioHiTech Global, Inc. and Subsidiaries Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets (Unaudited)





June 30,



December 31,





2017



2016

Assets















Current Assets















Cash

$ 150,457



$ 325,987

Accounts receivable, net



137,173





140,130

Inventory



410,663





706,017

Prepaid expenses and other current assets



44,782





21,865

Total Current Assets



743,075





1,193,999

Equipment on operating leases, net



1,178,007





1,023,404

Equipment, fixtures and vehicles, net



48,098





54,356

Intangible assets, net



219,233





267,042

Investment in Entsorga West Virginia, LLC



1,028,112





-

MBT facility development costs



74,966





-

Other assets



13,500





13,500

Total Assets

$ 3,304,991



$ 2,552,301

Liabilities and Stockholders' Deficit















Current Liabilities:















Line of credit

$ 2,463,736



$ 2,463,736

Accounts payable



1,380,348





1,197,277

Accrued expenses



584,086





522,727

Accrued interest payable



733,397





411,917

Accrued interest payable in cash or common stock



389,333





-

Deferred revenue



88,384





61,879

Notes payable



100,000





100,000

Notes payable - related party



275,000





275,000

Convertible note, net of deferred financing cost of $12,982 and original issue discounts of $47,007



160,011





-

Convertible notes, including related party of $640,000, net of original issue discounts of $219,265



720,735





-

Advance from related party



593,527





1,213,027

Customer deposits



30,094





36,131

Long-term debt, current portion



7,143





8,525

Total Current Liabilities



7,525,794





6,290,219

Promissory note - related party



4,500,000





2,500,000

Long-term debt, net of current portion



8,201





11,048

Long-term accrued interest payable in cash or common stock



86,485





253,000

Unsecured subordinated mandatorily convertible notes, including related parties of 1,750,000, and $3,800,000, net of deferred financing costs of $69,898 and $118,866 as of June 30, 2017 and December 31, 2016, respectively



5,655,102





4,956,134

Total Liabilities



17,775,582





14,010,401

Commitments and Contingencies















Stockholders' Deficit















Preferred stock, $0.0001 par value; 10,000,000 shares authorized; none issued



-





-

Common stock, $0.0001 par value, 40,000,000 shares authorized, 8,352,712 shares issued and outstanding as of June 30, 2017; 20,000,000 shares authorized, 8,229,712 shares issued and outstanding as of December 31, 2016



835





823

Additional paid in capital



10,527,759





9,604,324

Accumulated deficit



(24,979,600)





(21,072,166)

Accumulated other comprehensive (loss) gain



(19,585)





8,919

Total Stockholders' Deficit



(14,470,591)





(11,458,100)

Total Liabilities and Stockholders' Deficit

$ 3,304,991



$ 2,552,301



BioHiTech Global, Inc. and Subsidiaries Condensed Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows (Unaudited)





Six Months Ended June 30,





2017



2016

Cash flows from operating activities:















Net loss:

$ (3,907,434)



$ (3,327,573)

Adjustments to reconcile net loss to net cash used in operations:















Depreciation and amortization



202,064





205,268

Provision (recovery) - bad debts



29,212





61,743

Stock based employee compensation



230,981





350,632

Fees paid in stock and warrants



518,267





-

Interest resulting from amortization of financing costs and discounts



71,903





-

Equity loss in affiliate



5,916









Change in fair value of warrant liability



1,999









Changes in operating assets and liabilities



693,725





(269,317)

Net cash used in operations



(2,153,367)





(2,979,247)



















Cash flow from investing activities:















Sale of used machinery and equipment



13,352





-

Investment in Entsorga West Virginia, LLC



(1,034,027)





-

Increase in MBT facility development costs



(74,966)





-

Purchases of equipment, fixtures and vehicles



(4,040)





(3,825)

Net cash used in investing activities



(1,099,681)





(3,825)



















Cash flows from financing activities:















Net change in line of credit



-





(25,017)

Proceeds from convertible notes with warrants and beneficial conversion feature



200,000





-

Proceeds from series convertible notes with warrants and beneficial conversion feature



270,000









Proceeds from series convertible notes



150,000





3,250,000

Deferred financing costs incurred



(16,000)





(132,391)

Repayments of long-term debt



(4,228)





(4,097)

Related party:















Net decrease in advances



1,169,527





(531,973)

Proceeds from promissory notes



786,973





790,000

Repayments of promissory notes



-





(200,000)

Proceeds from convertible notes



500,000





-

Net cash provided by financing activities



3,056,272





3,146,522

Effect of exchange rate on cash



21,246





27,473

Net change in cash



(175,530)





190,923

Cash - beginning of period



325,987





39,196

Cash - end of period

$ 150,457



$ 230,119



SOURCE BioHiTech Global, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.biohitech.com


TORONTO and BOSTON, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Bionik Laboratories Corp. (OTCQX: BNKL) ("Bionik" or the "Company"), a robotics company focused on providing rehabilitation and assistive technology solutions to individuals with neurological and mobility challenges from hospital to home, today announced its first quarter fiscal year 2018 financial results for the three months ended June 30, 2017.

Corporate Highlights

Closed on the Company's previously announced tender offer to amend and exercise certain outstanding warrants, raising $1,125,038 in gross proceeds.

in gross proceeds. Announced partnership with Wistron Corporation to develop exoskeleton technologies for the consumer medical device market and bring lower-body assistive robotic technologies to the consumer home products market.

Reached milestone with shipment of 250 th interactive robotic therapy system for patient rehabilitation. Company's technology now utilized in more than 200 hospitals and clinics in 20 countries worldwide.

interactive robotic therapy system for patient rehabilitation. Company's technology now utilized in more than 200 hospitals and clinics in 20 countries worldwide. Entered into joint venture with Ginger Capital Investment Holding Ltd. to bring evidence-based interactive robotic systems to the Chinese market, the largest growth market in the world. Agreement includes $500,000 direct investment into Bionik and $1.45M investment into joint venture by Ginger Capital.

direct investment into Bionik and investment into joint venture by Ginger Capital. Made key additions to commercialization team, adding industry veterans to help drive the commercial sales and clinical team's efforts to reach underserved rehabilitation and mobility solutions market.

"We have taken a positive step forward this quarter with the formation of key partnerships and joint ventures. We believe these relationships will enable us to continue the commercialization of our clinical robotic technologies, while also positioning us to enter the homecare medical market in the future with a line of consumer-friendly products," said Peter Bloch, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Bionik Laboratories Corp. "We will continue to focus on high-growth markets for our technology, such as Asia and the global aging population, as both markets provide significant revenue opportunities for our Company."

Summary of Financial Results for the Quarter ended June 30, 2017

The Company reported sales of $87,520 for the quarter ended June 30, 2017.

For the quarter ended June 30, 2017, the Company reported a comprehensive loss of $2,245,322, resulting in a loss per share of $0.02, compared to a comprehensive loss of $2,322,772 for the quarter ended June 30, 2016, resulting in loss per share of $0.03.

The Company's cash and cash equivalents at June 30, 2017 was $846,431 compared to $543,650 at March 31, 2017. Working capital was ($4,937,770) at June 30, 2017 compared to ($4,375,225) at March 31, 2017.

Since March 31, 2017, the Company has received convertible loans of $500,000 from its Chinese JV partners and gross proceeds from the warrant offer of $1,125,038.

Condensed Consolidated Interim Balance Sheets (Amounts expressed in US Dollars)







As at

As at

June 30,

2017

(Unaudited)

$

March 31,

2017

(Audited)

$ Assets





Current





Cash and cash equivalents 846,431

543,650 Accounts receivable 134,926

383,903 Prepaid expenses and other receivables 172,051

228,047 Inventories 255,546

228,249 Due from related parties 19,366

18,731 Total Current Assets 1,428,320

1,402,580 Equipment 218,469

227,421 Technology and other assets 4,937,675

5,030,624 Goodwill 22,308,275

22,308,275 Total Assets 28,892,739

28,968,900







Liabilities and Shareholders' Deficiency





Current





Accounts Payable 890,624

784,726 Accrued liabilities 1,223,130

1,228,657 Customer advances 229,862

121,562 Demand Loans 332,941

330,600 Promissory Notes payable 241,700

236,548 Convertible Loans 2,581,510

2,017,488 Deferred revenue 106,609

98,624 Warrant Derivative Liability 759,714

959,600 Total Current Liabilities 6,366,090

5,777,805 Shareholders' Equity





Preferred Stock, par value $0.001; Authorized 10,000,000 Special Voting Preferred Stock, par value

$0.001; Authorized; Issued and outstanding - 1 (March 31, 2017  1) -

- Common Shares, par value $0.001; Authorized - 150,000,000 (March 31, 2017  150,000,000);

Issued and outstanding 53,885,279 and 47,909,336 Exchangeable Shares (March 31, 2017 

48,885,107 and 47,909,336 Exchangeable Shares) 101,794

96,794 Additional paid in capital 40,216,582

38,640,706 Deficit (17,833,876)

(15,588,554) Accumulated other comprehensive income 42,149

42,149 Total Shareholders' Equity 22,526,649

23,191,095 Total Liabilities and Shareholders' Equity 28,892,739

28,968,900

Condensed Consolidated Interim Statements of Operations and Comprehensive Loss

For the three month periods ended June 30, 2017 and 2016 (unaudited)

(Amounts expressed in U.S. Dollars)



Three months

Three months

Ended

Ended

June 30, 2017

June 30, 2016

$

$ Sales 87,520

164,191 Cost of Sales 29,300

58,875 Gross Margin 58,220

105,316



Operating expenses

Sales and marketing 445,525

82,198 Research and development 685,909

417,790 General and administrative 627,606

1,303,614 Share-based compensation expense 251,048

219,248 Amortization 92,949

- Depreciation 24,552

10,163 Total operating expenses 2,127,589

2,033,013







Other expenses (income)





Foreign exchange 98,561

- Interest expense 72,766

15,234 Other income (178)

(11,218) Change in fair value of warrant derivative liability 4,804

391,059 Total other expenses (income) 175,953

395,075 Net loss and comprehensive loss for the period (2,245,322)

(2,322,772)







Loss per share - basic and diluted (0.02)

(0.03) Weighted average number of shares outstanding  basic and diluted 96,959,284

82,050,549

The above financial information has been derived from the Company's unaudited consolidated condensed financial statements as of June 30, 2017 and 2016, and should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements, including the notes thereto, found in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC on June 29, 2017.

The Company will require additional financing this year to fund its operations and it is currently working on securing this funding through corporate collaborations, public or private equity offerings and/or debt financings, and is subject to a going concern qualification.

About Bionik Laboratories

Bionik Laboratories (OTCQX:BNKL) is a robotics company focused on providing rehabilitation and mobility solutions to individuals with neurological and mobility challenges from hospital to home. The Company has a portfolio of products focused on upper and lower extremity rehabilitation for stroke and other mobility-impaired patients, including three products on the market and four products in varying stages of development. The InMotion Systems  the InMotion ARM, InMotion Wrist, InMotion Hand and InMotion AnkleBot  are designed to provide intelligent, patient-adaptive therapy in a manner that has been clinically verified to maximize neuro-recovery. Bionik is also developing a lower-body exoskeleton, ARKE, designed to allow paraplegics as well as other wheelchair users the ability to rehabilitate through walking. ARKE is designed to continually adapt to a patient's ability and provide real-time feedback to the physiotherapist.

For more information, please visit www.bioniklabs.com and connect with us on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

Forward-Looking Statements

Any statements contained in this press release that do not describe historical facts may constitute forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements, which involve assumptions and describe our future plans, strategies, and expectations, are generally identifiable by use of the words "may," "should," "would," "will," "could," "scheduled," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "believe," "intend," "seek," or "project" or the negative of these words or other variations on these words or comparable terminology. Forward-looking statements may include, without limitation, statements regarding (i) the plans and objectives of management for future operations, including plans or objectives relating to the design, development and commercialization of human exoskeletons and other robotic rehabilitation products, (ii) a projection of income (including income/loss), earnings (including earnings/loss) per share, capital expenditures, dividends, capital structure or other financial items, (iii) the Company's future financial performance, (iv) the market and projected market for our existing and planned products and (v) the assumptions underlying or relating to any statement described in points (i), (ii), (iii) or (iv) above. Such forward-looking statements are not meant to predict or guarantee actual results, performance, events or circumstances, and may not be realized because they are based upon the Company's current projections, plans, objectives, beliefs, expectations, estimates and assumptions, and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties and other influences, many of which the Company has no control. Actual results and the timing of certain events and circumstances may differ materially from those described by the forward-looking statements as a result of these risks and uncertainties. Factors that may influence or contribute to the inaccuracy of the forward-looking statements or cause actual results to differ materially from expected or desired results may include, without limitation, the Company's inability to obtain additional financing, the significant length of time and resources associated with the development of our products and related insufficient cash flows and resulting illiquidity, the Company's inability to expand the Company's business, significant government regulation of medical devices and the healthcare industry, lack of product diversification, volatility in the price of the Company's raw materials, and the Company's failure to implement the Company's business plans or strategies. These and other factors are identified and described in more detail in the Company's filings with the SEC. The Company does not undertake to update these forward-looking statements.

SOURCE Bionik Laboratories Corp.

Related Links

http://www.bioniklabs.com


BOSTON, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts (Blue Cross), Inc. and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts HMO Blue, Inc. announced second quarter 2017 financial results today and reported a combined after-tax net loss of $7.7 million on revenue of $1.83 billion. The results reflect an operating loss of $25.4 million, investment income of $19.6 million, and federal income taxes of $1.9 million. Blue Cross is the leading private health plan in Massachusetts with 2.8 million members.

"Our second quarter results closely follow our expectations as we continue to focus on managing our administrative spending and offering high-quality, affordable health plans to our customers and members in a competitive and dynamic market," said Andreana Santangelo, Blue Cross' Chief Financial Officer.

Santangelo noted that the company continues to closely monitor events in Washington related to potential changes to the Affordable Care Act.

About Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts (bluecrossma.com) is a community-focused, tax-paying, notforprofit health plan headquartered in Boston. We're the trusted health plan for more than 25,000 Massachusetts employers and are committed to working with others in a spirit of shared responsibility to make quality health care affordable. Consistent with our corporate promise to always put our 2.8 million members first, we're rated among the nation's best health plans for member satisfaction and quality. Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

SOURCE Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts

Related Links

http://www.bluecrossma.com


NEW YORK, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Bluerock Value Exchange ("BVEX") announced today the sellout of its latest 1031 exchange program, BR Big Creek, DST, a Class A, 372-unit, apartment community ("the property") located in Alpharetta, Georgia. The securities offering was fully subscribed for more than $35 million in capital.

Completed in 2016, Big Creek is a class A apartment community in the affluent, high growth, mixed-use neighborhood of Alpharetta in Atlanta, GA. In keeping with the value creation strategy of BVEX, the property offers steady cash flow with upside potential in rents.

"Bluerock Value Exchange concentrates solely on acquiring high-quality, Class A 1031 replacement properties with potential to deliver attractive current cash flow and grow investor capital. There's significant need, particularly among independent broker dealers, for high-caliber replacement properties from established sponsors with proven performance records, and we are meeting this demand," said Ramin Kamfar, founder and CEO of Bluerock Real Estate, BVEX's parent company.

Big Creek is considered a best-in-class development, comprising nine, three-story residential buildings on 20 acres. The community offers one-, two-, and three-bedroom floor plans averaging 1,025 square feet and features high-quality construction as well as upscale amenities including fitness center, theatre, media/billiards room, outdoor fireplace and resort-style swimming pool. It is within walking and biking distance to the Big Creek Greenway and adjacent to Halcyon, a $370 million, mixed-use project that will include a theatre, hotels, offices and high-end townhomes as well as 50+ acres of greenspace and a trailhead to the 9.6 mile Big Creek Greenway.

About Bluerock Value Exchange

BVEX is a national sponsor of syndicated 1031 exchange offerings with a focus on class A assets that can deliver stable cash flows and with the potential for value creation. Bluerock has structured 1031 exchanges on over $800 million in total acquisition cost and nearly 6.5 million square feet of property. With capacity across nearly all real estate sectors and the ability to customize transactions for individual investors, BVEX is available to create programs to accommodate a wide range of tax requirements. To learn more, please visit BVEX's website at www.bluerockexchange.com.

About Bluerock Real Estate

Bluerock is a national real estate investment firm founded to provide smart institutional investments, such as Delaware Statutory Trust ("DST") 1031 exchange replacement properties, to accredited investors. Bluerock principals have over 100 years aggregate experience and have transacted on over 30 million square feet and $10 billion in acquisitions, primarily on behalf of leading U.S. institutional investors. Bluerock's current portfolio consists of more than 15 million square feet of multifamily, office and retail properties with over $4.0 billion of managed assets across the United States.

BR Big Creek, DST is a closed investment program; not open to new investment.

This material does not constitute an offer to sell nor a solicitation of an offer to buy any security. The securities discussed herein are now unavailable for purchase from the issuer. Should an investor consider purchasing any securities, they should refer to the terms of that security's confidential Private Placement Memorandum or similar offering document, paying careful attention to the risks associated with such security. The investor should also fully investigate the security and speak with an attorney and/or Certified Public Accountant or other knowledgeable professionals. Other securities may have terms which differ materially from the security discussed herein.

There are material risks associated with investing in real estate, DST and 1031 exchange properties. These include, but are not limited to, tenant vacancies; declining market values; potential loss of entire investment principal; that past performance is not a guarantee of future results; that potential cash flow, potential returns, and potential appreciation are not guaranteed in any way; adverse tax consequences and that real estate is typically an illiquid investment.

IRC Section 1031, IRC Section 1033, and IRC Section 721 are complex tax codes; therefore, you should consult your tax and legal professional for details regarding your situation.

Securities were offered through registered representatives of Bluerock Capital Markets LLC, a Massachusetts limited liability company, a member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Agency ("FINRA") and an affiliate of the BVEX, who served as Managing Broker-Dealer for the offering and on a "best efforts" basis through the broker-dealers participating in the offering, who are also members of FINRA.

 2017 BLUEROCK REAL ESTATE, L.L.C. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

SOURCE Bluerock Value Exchange

Related Links

http://www.bluerockexchange.com


By PTI: New Delhi, Aug 15 (PTI) India and Turkmenistan reviewed the entire gamut of their bilateral relations and took stock of the progress achieved in key areas like energy, trade and security, the Ministry of External Affairs said.

The Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Turkmenistan Rashid Meredov led a high-level delegation comprising senior officials of the Government of Turkmenistan to New Delhi from August 13-15.

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During his visit, he met External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Finance and Defence Minister Arun Jaitley.

He also had a meeting with Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari and Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

The delegation participated in the 6th Session of the India-Turkmenistan Inter-Governmental Commission (IGC) on Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technological Cooperation held on August 14, a statement by the MEA said.

A Protocol of the 6th meeting of the IGC was also signed by the two co-chairs.

"EAM Sushma Swaraj and DPM Meredov comprehensively reviewed the entire gamut of bilateral relations and took stock of the progress achieved in the areas of energy, trade and economic cooperation, transport and connectivity, security cooperation, civil aviation, information technology, science and technology, cultural and educational matters," the statement added. PTI PR IKA

--- ENDS ---
Akeem B. Ogunsegun joins the firm with more than ten years of accounting experience to ORBA's Cloud Services Department. He specializes in closing monthly accounting statements; posting journal entries; analyzing general ledger entries and income statements; managing accounts payable and receivable; and documenting and implementing the preparation of financial reports in compliance with U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).

Ostrow Reisin Berk & Abrams, Ltd. (ORBA) is a full-service accounting, tax and business consulting firm located in downtown Chicago serving privately-held companies, individuals and not-for-profit organizations. ORBA's Certified Public Accountants have experience with accounting and assurance, business advisory services, financial and estate planning, fraud investigation, tax, litigation, and mergers and acquisitions. With some of the highest levels of direct client involvement in the industry, ORBA is where clients go to build long-standing, meaningful and successful relationships with resourceful, proactive business and tax advisors. For more information, visit www.orba.com. Subscribe to our blog www.orbablog.com or connect with us on LinkedIn.

Contact: Joy Long

312.670.7444

[email protected]

SOURCE Ostrow Reisin Berk & Abrams, Ltd. (ORBA)

Related Links

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COLUMBUS, Ohio, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Business Professionals of America (BPA) has taken a bold step towards their organizational mission. To help contribute to the preparation of global professionals through the advancement of leadership, citizenship, academic, and technological skills, they have formally adopted a requirement to have all members in national leadership roles complete Social Assurity's educational, social media courseware. Upon completion, leaders will receive a digital leadership certification. As an innovator in Career and Technical Education, BPA recognizes that student leaders, who are proficient in navigating social media, will realize significantly more career and academic opportunities.

Business Professionals of America

"One of the many things about the Social Assurity e-courses that is so wonderful is that the courses are not only updated but relevant and timely," states Heather Bunning, BPA's Director of Strategic Advancement. "By taking these courses, our members show that they are versed, educated and understand the importance of being responsible with their digital identity."

"As a forward-thinking student organization, BPA appreciates the role of digital leadership as an essential 21st-century skill and is arming their student leaders with pragmatic social media education necessary for a competitive edge for future college and career opportunities," says Jamie Finch, Social Assurity's Senior Vice President. "With an emphasis on education and professional development, providing Social Assurity's social media courseware for members will be a natural extension of the student organization's long-held beliefs."

About Business Professionals of America (BPA)

BPA is the premier CTSO (Career and Technical Student Organization) for students pursuing careers in business management, office administration, information technology and other related career fields. BPA has 45,000 members in over 1,800 chapters in 25 states and Puerto Rico. BPA is a co-curricular organization that supports business and information technology educators by offering co-curricular exercises based on national standards.

As a co-curricular activity, Business Professionals of America has the ability to enhance student participation in professional, civic, service and social endeavors. Business Professionals of America members participate in these activities to accomplish its goals of self-improvement, leadership development, professionalism, community service, career development, public relations, student cooperation and safety and health.

About Social Assurity

Social Assurity is the leading social media education provider for schools, students, teachers, and parents. Social Assurity offers online courseware that teach high school and college students essential professional social media networking, reputation management, and digital literacy skills. Social Assurity's courseware teaches students how to harness the power of social media to create informative and persuasive portraits that reflect their authentic character and potential in college admissions and career opportunities.

Media contact:

Naomi Ben-Shahar

[email protected]

917-660-1177

SOURCE Social Assurity LLC

Related Links

https://socialassurity.com


MINNETONKA, Minn., Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Table Trac, Inc. (OTCQB: TBTC) announces that its CasinoTrac online management system and cashless wager system have been approved by the Nevada Gaming Control Board's Technology Division lab for group 1 and group 2 nonrestricted licensee casinos.

Table Trac's Casino Management System is the first new complete slot online management system that incorporates its own approved cashless wagering system to enter the market in Nevada in over a decade. Table Trac is now one of a select few companies that can meet the needs of all casinos that are licensees in Nevada. There are over 330 casinos in Nevada, and CasinoTrac, the new feature rich easy to use system, scales beautifully to fit any size floor while offering unmatched value for the operating budgets in these casinos. With updates included, and no planned obsolescence, CasinoTrac is operator friendly, and backed by a U.S. based support team.

Table Trac's president and founder, Chad Hoehne, stated, "I want to thank the Nevada Gaming Commission's technology division lab for guiding us through testing of every system aspect for functionality and correct compliant operation. We are so pleased with the positive response we are already seeing in Nevada. Our team is staged and prepared to begin servicing Nevada casinos, including our three iconic field trials sites, Club Cal Neva, Sierra Sid's and Mizpah." Hoehne added, "This is by far the most exciting milestone of our 22 years of being in business."

Jeff Siri, President of Club Cal Neva, commented, "Club Cal Neva, which is a Nevada group 1 licensee, was the first casino to install CasinoTrac in Nevada, and worked closely with Table Trac to complete the Nevada required field trials. I am happy to say we are very pleased with the system. The installation of CasinoTrac was very smooth and the accounting and player tracking have added to our ability to track machine performance and market to our customers."

Frederic Cline, Owner of Mizpah Club at the historic Mizpah hotel in Tonopah, Nevada, stated "Table Trac's system has been a fantastic addition to our property and has allowed the Mizpah Club to dramatically improve the experience of our players. Not only has the CasinoTrac system had perfect uptime over the course of its field trials at our site, it offers tremendous flexibility to craft player rewards and promotions, setting us apart from the competition."

"CasinoTrac is intricately involved, not only in the support of their properties, but also the ongoing success of each location. Their 24 hour support is responsive and their highly trained and friendly staff is unparalleled." commented Adam Barba, General Manager at Sierra Sid's Casino and Atomic Bootlegger Lounge in Sparks, Nevada. He went on to state, "Table Trac's system has greatly improved the customer experience at Sid's. The system's marketing capabilities give our players new fun options for more play, more rewards, and bonus chances for additional winning."

About Table Trac, Inc.

Founded in 1995, Table Trac, Inc. designs, develops and sells casino information and management systems. The company has over 120 sites installed in North, South, and Central America, as well as the Caribbean. More information is available at http://www.tabletrac.com/.

For more information:

Robert Siqveland

Table Trac, Inc.

952-548-8877

SOURCE Table Trac, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.tabletrac.com


DUBLIN, August 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The "China Human Vaccine Industry Report, 2017-2021" report has been added to Research and Markets' offering.

Pushed by the two-child policy, population aging, and launching of new vaccines, the vaccine industry in China will grow rapidly with an estimated market size of up to RMB31.2 billion in 2021.

The human vaccine industry presented the following main characteristics in 2016 in China

Affected by the illegal vaccine case in Mar 2016 in Shandong, the country's lot release volume of human vaccines came to 553.6 million doses through the year 2016, down 3.8% over the previous year. The lot release volume of ten vaccines (Hepatitis B vaccine, Diphtheria, Tetanus and acellular Pertussis combined vaccine (adsorbed), rabies vaccine, Japanese encephalitis vaccine, poliomyelitis vaccine, meningococcal vaccine, measles and rubella combined attenuated live vaccine, MMR combined attenuated live vaccine, influenza vaccine, and Hepatitis A Vaccine) was relatively higher, totaling 467.2 million doses, 84.4% of the country's total, a year-on-year 1.4% drop.

The Chinese human vaccine market had been highly concentrated, primarily dominated by Beijing Tiantan Biological Products, Chengdu Institute of Biological Products, Shanghai Institute of Biological Products, Lanzhou Institute of Biological Products, Wuhan Institute of Biological Products, and Changchun Institute of Biological Products under China National Biotec Group Company Limited.

In 2016, China National Biotec Group accounted for 52.6% of the country's lot release volume of human vaccines, compared with a small fraction of market share for Liaoning Chengda Biotechnology, Changsheng Bio-technology, Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products, Chongqing Zhifei Biological Products, Beijing Minhai Biotechnology, Walvax Biotechnology, Changchun BCHT Biotechnology, Hualan Biological Engineering, Zhejiang Tianyuan Bio-Pharmaceutical, and Sinovac Biotech.

Major Chinese vaccine enterprises have intensified their efforts for R&D in order to enhance overall competitiveness in recent years. Walvax Biotechnology has started HPV-2 industrialization project and is expected to launch the product in 2019, and meanwhile has put its 13-valent pneumococcal combined vaccine in phase III clinical trial and is predicted to bring the product to the market in 2018 or 2019. Launching of new vaccines will make the company more competitive. Along with full implementation of the two-child policy in Oct 2015, the country's newborns increased sharply to 17.86 million in 2016 and will remain above 18 million each year over the next five years. Meanwhile, the population aged 60 and over reached 230.9 million by the end of 2016 and is expected to hit 245.3 million by 2021. In addition, some domestic enterprises have set about developing new vaccines like HPV vaccine and 13-valent pneumococcal vaccine which are expected to be available on the market in 2018 or 2019.

Key Topics Covered:

1. Overview of Vaccine Industry



2. China Human Vaccine Industry Development Analysis



3. Human Vaccine Market Segments in China



4. Major Vaccine Manufacturers in China



Companies Mentioned



Beijing Minhai Biotechnology Co., Ltd.

Beijing Tiantan Biological Products Co., Ltd

Beijing Tiantan Biological Products Co., Ltd.

Changchun BCHT Biotechnology Co. Ltd.

Changchun Changsheng Life Sciences Limited

Changchun Institute of Biological Products Co., Ltd.

Chengdu Institute of Biological Products Co., Ltd.

China National Biotec Group

Chongqing Zhifei Biological Products Co., Ltd.

Convac Biotechnology Co., Ltd.

Dalian Aleph Biomedical Co., Ltd.

Dalian Hissen Bio-Pharm Co., Ltd.

Hualan Biological Engineering Inc.

Jiangsu SimcereVaxtec Bio-pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.

Lanzhou Institute of Biological Products Co., Ltd.

Liaoning Cheng Da Co., Ltd.

NCPC GeneTech Biotechnology Development Co., Ltd.

Shanghai Institute of Biological Products Co., Ltd.

Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products Co., Ltd.

Shenzhen Sanofi Pasteur Biological Products Co., Ltd.

Sinovac Biotech Ltd.

Walvax Biotechnology Co, Ltd.

Wuhan Institute of Biological Products Co., Ltd.

Xiamen Innovax Biotech CO., LTD.

Zhejiang Tianyuan Bio-Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/vv6nhn/china_human





Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

SOURCE Research and Markets

Related Links

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HAIKOU CITY, China, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- China Pharma Holdings, Inc. (NYSE MKT: CPHI) ("China Pharma," the "Company" or "We"), an NYSE American listed corporation with a fully-integrated specialty pharmaceuticals subsidiary based in China, today announced financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2017.

Second Quarter Highlights

Revenue decreased 17.7% to $2.9 million in second quarter 2017 from $3.5 million in the same period of 2016;

in second quarter 2017 from in the same period of 2016; Gross profit margin was 22.2% in second quarter 2017, compared to 13.6% in the same period of 2016.

Loss from operations was $2.1 million in second quarter 2017 compared to $2.2 million in the same period of 2016, a decrease of $0.1 million in loss;

in second quarter 2017 compared to in the same period of 2016, a decrease of in loss; Net loss was $2.3 million in second quarter 2017 compared to $2.5 million in the same period of 2016. Loss per common share was $(0.05) per basic and diluted share in second quarter 2017 compared with $(0.06) per basic and diluted share in the same period of 2016.

"We experienced a slight revenue decrease in the second quarter of 2017 compared to the same period last year, which was primarily due to the current status of Chinese health care reform. Recent reforms require health care institutions to strictly control 'the proportion of drug sales to total revenue', in an effort to prevent hospitals from subsidizing medical services with inflated prescription drug prices. This background led to a significant decrease of drug purchases from health care institutions and impacted our drug sales in this period," said Ms. Zhilin Li, China Pharma's Chairman and CEO. Ms. Li continued, "Nevertheless, increasing sales remains our top priority. Management will continue to vigorously promote sales by actively participating in the recent provincial market openings to receive new drug tender offers and by further exploring the basic medical market. The ongoing generic drug consistency evaluations and reform of China's drug production registration and review policies will have a major impact on the future development of our industry and may change its business patterns. We will continue to actively adapt to state policy guidance and further evaluate market conditions for our current existing products, pipeline products, and competition in the market in order to optimize our development strategy."

Second Quarter Results

Revenue decreased by 17.7% to $2.9 million for the three months ended June 30, 2017, as compared to $3.5 million for the three months ended June 30, 2016. This decrease was mainly due to the impact from the ongoing Chinese health care reform.

Gross profit for the three months ended June 30, 2017 was $0.6 million, compared to $0.5 million in the same period last year. Our gross profit margin in the three months ended June 30, 2017 was 22.2% compared to 13.6% in the same period last year. This increase was primarily due to more sales of higher margin products in this period compared to the sales performance in the same period last year.

Our selling expenses for the three months ended June 30, 2017 were $0.8 million, a decrease of $0.1 million, compared to $0.9 million for the three months ended June 30, 2016. Selling expenses accounted for 27.5% of the total revenue in the three months ended June 30, 2017 compared to 24.2% in the same period last year. Because of adjustments in our sales practices resulting from health-care reform policies, despite the overall decrease in sales, we may require additional personnel and expenses to support our sales and the collection of accounts receivable.

Our general and administrative expenses for the three months ended June 30, 2017 were $0.6 million, which represented a decrease of $0.2 million compared to $0.8 million in the same period last year. General and administrative expenses accounted for 21% and 22% of our total revenues in three months ended June 30, 2017 and 2016, respectively.

Our bad debt expenses for the three months ended June 30, 2017 was $0.4 million, compared to $0.5 million in the same period last year.

During the three months ended June 30, 2017 and 2016 the Company recognized an impairment related to "Advances for purchases of intangible assets" in the amount of $1.0 million and $0.8 million, respectively. The Company reviewed the contracts relating to advances made for purchases of intangible assets with independent laboratories and determined that the Company's advances to independent laboratories for several formulas were impaired.

Net loss for the three months ended June 30, 2017 was $2.3 million, compared to net loss of $2.5 million for the three months ended June 30, 2016.

Six Months Results

For the six months ended June 30, 2017, our sales revenue was $6.2 million, which represented a decrease of $1.0 million, or 13.7%, from the $7.2 million in the corresponding period of 2016.

Gross profit for the six months ended June 30, 2017 was $1.4 million, compared to $1.1 million in the same period of 2016. Gross profit margin for the six months ended June 30, 2017 and 2016 were 22.0% and 15.6%, respectively. The increase in gross profit margin was mainly due to more higher-margin products sold in this period.

Our operating loss for the six months ended June 30, 2017 was approximately $2.9 million, compared to $3.5 million for the same period of 2016, which represented an improvement of $0.6 million. This was mainly due to the increase in gross profit margin and decrease in bad debt expense in the first half of 2017 compared to the same period last year.

Net loss was $3.3 million, or $0.07 per basic and diluted share for the six months ended June 30, 2017, compared to $4.0 million, or $0.09 per basic and diluted share, for the same period a year ago.

Financial Condition

As of June 30, 2017, the Company had cash and cash equivalents of $1.7 million compared to $2.7 million as of December 31, 2016. Working capital decreased to $6.7 million as of June 30, 2017 from $7.1 million as of December 31, 2016; and the current ratio was 1.6 and 1.7 times at June 30, 2017 and December 31, 2016, respectively.

Our net accounts receivable balance decreased to $3.2 million as of June 30, 2017 from $4.0 million as of December 31, 2016.

Conference Call

The Company will hold a conference call at 8:30 am E.T. on August 15, 2017 to discuss the results of second quarter 2017. Listeners may access the call by dialing 1-866-519-4004 or 65-671-350-90 for international callers, Conference ID # 66755768. A replay of the call will be accessible through August 23, 2017 by dialing 1-855-452-5696 or 61-281-990-299 for international callers, Conference ID # 66755768.

About China Pharma Holdings, Inc.

China Pharma Holdings, Inc. is a specialty pharmaceutical company that develops, manufactures and markets a diversified portfolio of products focused on conditions with a high incidence and high mortality rates in China, including cardiovascular, CNS, infectious, and digestive diseases. The Company's cost-effective, high-margin business model is driven by market demand and supported by new GMP-certified product lines covering the major dosage forms. In addition, the Company has a broad and expanding nationwide distribution network across all major cities and provinces in China. The Company's wholly-owned subsidiary, Hainan Helpson Medical & Biotechnology Co., Ltd., is located in Haikou City, Hainan Province. For more information about China Pharma Holdings, Inc., please visit www.chinapharmaholdings.com. The Company routinely posts important information on its website.

Safe Harbor Statement

Certain statements in this press release constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any statements set forth above that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements, which may include, but are not limited to, such factors as the achievability of financial guidance, success of new product development, unanticipated changes in product demand, increased competition, downturns in the Chinese economy, uncompetitive levels of research and development, and other information detailed from time to time in the Company's filings and future filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements made herein speak only as of the date of this press release and the Company undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statement to conform the statement to actual results or changes in the Company's expectations except as required by applicable law or regulation.

Contact:

China Pharma Holdings, Inc.

Ms. Diana Na Huang

Phone: +86-898-6681-1730 (China)

Email: [email protected]

- FINANCIAL TABLES FOLLOW -

CHINA PHARMA HOLDINGS, INC. CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS















June 30,

December 31,



2017

2016 ASSETS

(Unaudited)

(Audited) Current Assets:







Cash and cash equivalents

$ 1,745,566

$ 2,665,802 Restricted cash

2,568,895

1,088,879 Bankers acceptance notes

16,692

- Trade accounts receivable, less allowance for doubtful







accounts of $16,805,221 and $15,664,496, respectively

3,152,815

3,999,809 Other receivables, less allowance for doubtful







accounts of $60,627 and $71,548, respectively

217,527

224,373 Advances to suppliers

2,063,172

2,003,792 Inventory

7,258,973

7,310,939 Prepaid expenses

185,543

226,357 Total Current Assets

17,209,183

17,519,951









Advances for purchases of intangible assets

35,381,708

35,498,059 Property, plant and equipment, net

24,080,326

24,967,448 Intangible assets, net

453,376

534,682 TOTAL ASSETS

$ 77,124,593

$ 78,520,140









LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY







Current Liabilities:







Trade accounts payable

$ 2,149,331

$ 3,060,374 Accrued expenses

129,516

139,830 Other payables

2,294,358

2,502,694 Advances from customers

655,350

811,232 Other payables - related parties

1,354,567

1,354,567 Current portion of construction loan facility

1,328,043

1,440,154 Banker's acceptance notes payable

2,568,895

1,088,879 Total Current Liabilities

10,480,060

10,397,730 Non-current Liabilities:







Construction loan facility

8,853,622

8,640,927 Deferred tax liability

648,103

572,349 Total Liabilities

19,981,785

19,611,006 Stockholders' Equity:







Preferred stock, $0.001 par value; 5,000,000 shares authorized;







no shares issued or outstanding

-

- Common stock, $0.001 par value; 95,000,000 shares authorized;







43,579,557 shares and 43,579,557 shares outstanding, respectively

43,580

43,580 Additional paid-in capital

23,590,204

23,590,204 Retained earnings

21,502,566

24,757,374 Accumulated other comprehensive income

12,006,458

10,517,976 Total Stockholders' Equity

57,142,808

58,909,134 TOTAL LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY

$ 77,124,593

$ 78,520,140













-

-

CHINA PHARMA HOLDINGS, INC. CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS AND COMPREHENSIVE LOSS (Unaudited)





















For the Three Months

For the Six Months



Ended June 30,

Ended June 30,



2017

2016

2017

2016 Revenue

$ 2,917,180

$ 3,542,230

$ 6,202,383

$ 7,182,724 Cost of revenue

2,268,823

3,060,133

4,836,173

6,059,808

















Gross profit

648,357

482,097

1,366,210

1,122,916

















Operating expenses:















Selling expenses

803,434

857,694

1,521,071

1,826,201 General and administrative expenses

611,951

780,953

1,028,677

1,099,883 Research and development expenses

21,450

96,661

47,510

190,094 Bad debt expense

364,989

494,548

725,052

1,075,848 Impairment of long term assets

977,980

822,539

977,980

822,539 Total operating expenses

2,779,804

3,052,395

4,300,290

5,014,565

















Subsidy income

-

348,672

-

348,672

















Loss from operations

(2,131,447)

(2,221,626)

(2,934,080)

(3,542,977)

















Other income (expense):















Interest income

16,316

33,123

21,349

66,715 Interest expense

(142,205)

(243,883)

(281,169)

(486,192) Net other expense

(125,889)

(210,760)

(259,820)

(419,477)

















Loss before income taxes

(2,257,336)

(2,432,386)

(3,193,900)

(3,962,454) Income tax expense

(30,574)

(21,416)

(60,908)

(44,244) Net loss

(2,287,910)

(2,453,802)

(3,254,808)

(4,006,698) Other comprehensive income (loss) - foreign currency















translation adjustment

1,008,890

(2,153,639)

1,488,482

(1,673,209) Comprehensive loss

$ (1,279,020)

$ (4,607,441)

$ (1,766,326)

$ (5,679,907) Loss per share:















Basic and Diluted

$ (0.05)

$ (0.06)

$ (0.07)

$ (0.09) Weighted average shares outstanding

43,579,557

43,579,557

43,579,557

43,579,557

CHINA PHARMA HOLDINGS, INC. CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS (Unaudited)



For the Six Months



Ended June 30,



2017

2016 Cash Flows from Operating Activities:







Net loss

$ (3,254,808)

$ (4,006,698) Depreciation and amortization

1,628,380

1,728,273 Bad debt expense

725,052

1,075,848 Deferred income taxes

60,908

44,244 Impairment of long-term assets

977,980

822,539 Changes in assets and liabilities:







Trade accounts and other receivables

(6,262)

(534,417) Advances to suppliers

(9,933)

(294,753) Inventory

439,865

1,146,342 Trade accounts payable

(974,197)

105,290 Accrued taxes payable

(144,739)

(41,984) Other payables and accrued expenses

(87,949)

(22,833) Advances from customers

(173,692)

244,323 Prepaid expenses

45,817

288,705 Net Cash (Used in) Provided by Operating Activities

(773,578)

554,879









Cash Flows from Investing Activities:







Purchases of property, plant and equipment

(51,808)

(66,213) Net Cash Used in Investing Activities

(51,808)

(66,213)









Cash Flows from Financing Activities:







Payments of construction term loan

(145,750)

(306,028) Net Cash Used in Financing Activity

(145,750)

(306,028)









Effect of Exchange Rate Changes on Cash

50,900

(146,159) Net (Decrease) Increase in Cash and Cash Equivalents

(920,236)

36,479 Cash and Cash Equivalents at Beginning of Period

2,665,802

6,248,760 Cash and Cash Equivalents at End of Period

$ 1,745,566

$ 6,285,239









Supplemental Cash Flow Information:







Cash paid for income taxes

$ -

$ - Cash paid for interest

410,509

486,192









Supplemental Noncash Investing and Financing Activities:







Accounts receivable collected with banker's acceptance notes

227,274

643,457 Inventory purchased with banker's acceptance notes

210,787

635,806 Issuance of banker's acceptance notes

1,435,381

1,274,293

SOURCE China Pharma Holdings, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.chinapharmaholdings.com


SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced seven new customers in Greater China who are adopting SAP SuccessFactors solutions for human capital management (HCM) to better engage and unleash the potential of their employees. These companies join a rising number of the world's leading organizations who are taking advantage of SAP's global network of data centers to enable digital workforce strategies that can accommodate specific regional and local market requirements.

"In today's global environment, businesses need cloud-based HCM solutions that not only provide a unified and engaging employee experience for the global workforce but also address the unique needs of each operating environment," said Greg Tomb, president of SAP SuccessFactors.* "We're excited to provide our newest customers and their employees with a world-class HR experience in Greater China and the ability to scale the power of their people internationally."

In the first half of 2017, a diverse range of leading organizations in Greater China selected SAP SuccessFactors solutions  many with other SAP solutions  to drive their digital HR transformations, including:

Bosideng International Holdings Limited , a leading apparel company, chose SAP SuccessFactors solutions to develop a new HR management platform to not only decrease manual paperwork but also help increase employee engagement and provide greater career and performance capabilities.

, a leading apparel company, chose SAP SuccessFactors solutions to develop a new HR management platform to not only decrease manual paperwork but also help increase employee engagement and provide greater career and performance capabilities. E-Life Mall , the number one retailer in Taiwan , with 340 stores, chose SAP SuccessFactors solutions together with SAP S/4HANA and SAP Ariba solutions to enable an enterprise-wide digital transformation. The company plans to standardize and centralize core processes. Moreover, it plans to do this while supporting retail business innovation and attracting the best talent through an interactive learning and HR platform to engage and motivate employees.

, the number one retailer in , with 340 stores, chose SAP SuccessFactors solutions together with SAP S/4HANA and SAP Ariba solutions to enable an enterprise-wide digital transformation. The company plans to standardize and centralize core processes. Moreover, it plans to do this while supporting retail business innovation and attracting the best talent through an interactive learning and HR platform to engage and motivate employees. GF Securities Co. Ltd , the largest non-government-controlled investment bank in China , selected the SAP SuccessFactors Performance & Goals solution to provide employees with a leading workforce management platform to support talent development and align business targets for a new generation of cloud-based, strategy-driven systems.

, the largest non-government-controlled investment bank in , selected the SAP SuccessFactors Performance & Goals solution to provide employees with a leading workforce management platform to support talent development and align business targets for a new generation of cloud-based, strategy-driven systems. Hubei Xin Yang Feng Fertilizer chose SAP S/4HANA as its digital core, along with SAP SuccessFactors solutions as its HR platform, to remain at the industry forefront and comply with a changing legislative environment. In an evolving agricultural landscape, Xin Yang Feng is focused on attracting and retaining top talent to continue producing the most innovative farming solutions in China .

chose SAP S/4HANA as its digital core, along with SAP SuccessFactors solutions as its HR platform, to remain at the industry forefront and comply with a changing legislative environment. In an evolving agricultural landscape, is focused on attracting and retaining top talent to continue producing the most innovative farming solutions in . Ningbo Economic & Technical Development Zone Holding Co. Ltd. (NETD) operates logistics, real estate, financial investment and environmental protection public utilities businesses. Through the implementation of SAP SuccessFactors solutions together with SAP Leonardo offerings and SAP S/4HANA, NETD is building a Smart Manufacturing Innovation Center in Ningbo to speed development of intelligent manufacturing. This will support NETD's strategic plan to help the local government provide better services in Zhejiang Province and eventually expand to the whole of China .

(NETD) operates logistics, real estate, financial investment and environmental protection public utilities businesses. Through the implementation of SAP SuccessFactors solutions together with SAP Leonardo offerings and SAP S/4HANA, NETD is building a Smart Manufacturing Innovation Center in to speed development of intelligent manufacturing. This will support NETD's strategic plan to help the local government provide better services in and eventually expand to the whole of . Shanghai Qiniu Information Technologies Co. Ltd chose the SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central and SAP SuccessFactors Performance & Goals solutions to help engage and retain its most talented employees, while also enabling greater efficiency through real-time information and dependable data analysis.

chose the SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central and SAP SuccessFactors Performance & Goals solutions to help engage and retain its most talented employees, while also enabling greater efficiency through real-time information and dependable data analysis. Suzhou Anjie Technology is a total solution provider of functional insulating and cushion materials. The company is pursuing an Industry 4.0 strategy using digitally enabled technologies, data tools and analytics across the value chain. With SAP SuccessFactors solutions and SAP S/4HANA, Anjie expects to reap ROI from employee training and improve productivity and employee satisfaction.

These companies join more than 6,000 global organizations in choosing SAP SuccessFactors solutions to put people first and help them succeed. As more companies look to transform HR to meet the demands of an increasingly global and digital workforce, they are embracing leading SAP SuccessFactors solutions to help optimize HR processes and enhance their employees' experiences. With 10 data centers around the world  including one in China  the global cloud infrastructure footprint of SAP SuccessFactors solutions is unique in its ability to help customers comply with local and regional regulations.

Dozens of leading organizations will present their digital HR transformation stories at the SuccessConnect event in Las Vegas taking place August 29-31 at The Cosmopolitan. To learn more about the premier HR event of the year, visit http://sapsuccessconnect.com/en_us/las-vegas-2017.html.

For more information, visit the SAP SuccessFactors website or the SAP News Center. Follow SAP SuccessFactors solutions on Twitter at @SuccessFactors and SAP at @sapnews.

*SAP SuccessFactors is a new brand name launched in January 2016 and is used here to mean the offerings, employees, and business of acquired company SuccessFactors, which continues to be our legal entity until integration with SAP is complete.

About SAP

As market leader in enterprise application software, SAP (NYSE: SAP) helps companies of all sizes and industries run better. From back office to boardroom, warehouse to storefront, desktop to mobile device  SAP empowers people and organizations to work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively to stay ahead of the competition. SAP applications and services enable more than 355,000 business and public sector customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably. For more information, visit www.sap.com.

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "forecast," "intend," "may," "plan," "project," "predict," "should" and "will" and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP's future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including SAP's most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.

 2017 SAP SE. All rights reserved.

SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE in Germany and other countries. Please see http://www.sap.com/corporate-en/legal/copyright/index.epx#trademark for additional trademark information and notices.

For customers interested in learning more about SAP products:

Global Customer Center: +49 180 534-34-24

United States Only: 1 (800) 872-1SAP (1-800-872-1727)

SOURCE SAP SE

Related Links

http://www.sap.com


Weems is the driving force behind the company's energetic, heart-filled brand and culture. With experience in beauty, interior design and art, Chrissy's visionary spirit and expertise constantly inspire innovation within the Origami Owl brand and its customizable, meaningful jewelry. Her passion and commitment to being a Force for Good has led to explosive growth in the company's field leadership, sales and charitable donations to dozens of worthwhile organizations every year on behalf of Origami Owl. She has been married for more than 25 wonderful years to her husband, Warren, and is the mother of five children, residing in Gilbert, Arizona.

In addition to energizing the company's thousands of independent jewelry distributors  called "Designers"  Weems is focused on growing its unique Owlette program, created to provide youth, ages 11-17, an opportunity to work alongside a parent who is an Origami Owl Designer to sharpen their entrepreneurial and leadership skills while growing their confidence.

"We believe the youth are our future and we are committed to giving them the tools they need to be successful," says Weems. "The Origami Owl Owlette program will move to the forefront once again as we achieve our goal to inspire the youth of the world, develop young entrepreneurs, and connect with them in meaningful ways."

Origami Owl, a custom jewelry company was founded in 2010 by then 14-year-old Founder Bella Weems who had a simple dream to own a car once she turned 16. She created a line of meaningful jewelry, including signature Living Lockets which can be customized with charms to tell a personal story. Fast-forward seven years and Origami Owl, a global social selling company and Inc. Hire Power Award recipient, is fulfilling its mission to be a Force For Good. Visit https://www.origamiowl.com to learn more!

Contact: Taryn Gosch, [email protected]

SOURCE Origami Owl

Related Links

https://www.origamiowl.com/


NEW YORK, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- CIT Group Inc. (NYSE: CIT) today announced that its Real Estate Finance business provided a $60 million senior secured construction loan to Edward J. Minskoff Equities, Inc. (Minskoff Equities), a privately held real estate investment and development firm. Proceeds from the facility will be used towards the development of a six-story, seven-unit luxury for-sale residential condominium located at 17 Jane Street in New York, NY.

Edward J. Minskoff, president of Edward J. Minskoff Equities, Inc., said: "The CIT team was responsive, efficient and extremely knowledgeable, which ultimately led to a proposal that met our needs and brought to light the true value proposition of this amazing property. With the financing now secured, we can begin work immediately and attempt to stay within our timeline projections. l look forward to working with CIT's Real Estate team on future projects."

Matt Galligan, president of CIT's Real Estate Finance business, said: "We are pleased to see the financing on this project come to fruition. The West Village is one of the most premier, sought-after neighborhoods in New York City. The transaction is representative of our targeted efforts to provide secure, low-leverage financing to developers in vibrant cities across the U.S., and we look forward to a long-lasting relationship with Mr. Minskoff and his team, who hold a distinguished portfolio of developments throughout Manhattan."

EDITOR'S NOTE:

CIT thought leadership content can be found at the Knowledge Center on CIT.com (cit.com/knowledgecenter) and our CIT Point of View blog (cit.com/pov). Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook.

About CIT

Founded in 1908, CIT (NYSE: CIT) is a financial holding company with more than $50 billion in assets as of June 30, 2017. Its principal bank subsidiary, CIT Bank, N.A., (Member FDIC, Equal Housing Lender) has more than $30 billion of deposits and more than $40 billion of assets. CIT provides financing, leasing, and advisory services principally to middle-market companies and small businesses across a wide variety of industries. It also offers products and services to consumers through its Internet bank franchise and a network of retail branches in Southern California, operating as OneWest Bank, a division of CIT Bank, N.A. For more information visit cit.com.

SOURCE CIT Group Inc.

Related Links

http://www.cit.com


ATLANTA, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Southern Company subsidiary Southern Linc has entered into a partnership with the City of Huntsville and Madison County Alabama's 911 dispatch center. Southern Linc will add LTE equipment to select Madison County towers to connect City and County first responders to Linc's new mission critical LTE network.

The Huntsville agreement enables Huntsville and the Madison County 911 Dispatch Center (MadCo 911), Alabama's largest combined dispatch center, to use Southern Linc's mission critical LTE network for wireless data transmission.

"Southern Linc is a trusted service provider that has supported the City of Huntsville for more than 10 years. This new data service agreement is specifically designed to help our first responders better serve our community," stated Bill Steiner, Information Technology Services Director for the City of Huntsville.

Public Safety IT Manager Lorenzo Wright added, "We are extremely excited to begin this new public/private partnership with Southern Linc. This is a giant step forward for public safety and first responders in north Alabama."

MadCo 911 CEO and Director of Radio Infrastructure Ernie Blair has been working with Southern Linc to bring mission critical wireless data services to his service area via a public/private network partnership for the last two years. "We are excited about deploying wireless data service with Southern Linc because it will bring us a service level that's just not available from other carriers," he said. "Linc's new mission critical LTE network is built for reliability and priority, and our agencies will reap the benefit of priority and pre-emption of services when critical events occur. That's something we need and are not getting today," Blair continued.

Mission critical LTE data service is expected to be available in Huntsville and Madison County in the second quarter of 2018. Southern Linc is constructing its new 4G LTE Advanced network to meet the growing mission critical data needs of its largest customer, Southern Company's electric utilities. The highly reliable and secure network will serve the most crucial data needs of area businesses and local government like the City of Huntsville and the MadCo 911 Center.

"Our goal is to provide highly reliable, secure wireless communications for utilities, public safety and business customers," stated Southern Linc President and CEO Tami Barron. "Because our most important customers are utilities and first responders, we designed our new LTE network to accommodate the need for priority and pre-emption over normal network traffic when emergencies occur. That means Huntsville and Madison County first responders will get the data they need when they really need it--especially when network usage spikes."

Southern Linc's new 4G LTE Advanced network will offer network encryption over the air. In addition, the company is strengthening emergency backup power capabilities with hydrogen fuel cell technology at key locations and is adding main power and complete data center redundancy to further increase the reliability of the new network. Southern Linc plans to begin migrating existing customers to the new network in 2018.

About Southern Linc

Southern Linc, a Southern Company (NYSE: SO), is an Atlanta-based regional wireless carrier with network coverage in the major metro and rural areas of Alabama, Georgia, southeast Mississippi and northwest Florida. Southern Linc combines multiple communication options, including Push To Talk two-way radio (PTT), cellular service, wireless Internet access, wireless data, and text and picture messaging, into one hand-held device. Southern Linc is constructing a new 4G LTE Advanced network to meet the growing mission-critical data needs of its largest customer, Southern Company's electric utilities. The highly reliable, secure network will have the capacity to serve the most crucial data needs of area businesses and local government as well. For more information, please call 1-800-818-LINC (5462) or visit https://www.southernlinc.com/.

Twitter: @southernlinc

Facebook: SouthernLINCWireless

About Southern Company

Southern Company (NYSE: SO) is America's premier energy company, with 46,000 megawatts of generating capacity and 1,500 billion cubic feet of combined natural gas consumption and throughput volume serving 9 million customers through its subsidiaries. The company provides clean, safe, reliable and affordable energy through electric operating companies in four states, natural gas distribution companies in seven states, a competitive generation company serving wholesale customers across America and a nationally recognized provider of customized energy solutions, as well as fiber optics and wireless communications. Southern Company brands are known for excellent customer service, high reliability and affordable prices that are below the national average. Through an industry-leading commitment to innovation, Southern Company and its subsidiaries are inventing America's energy future by developing the full portfolio of energy resources, including carbon-free nuclear, 21st century coal, natural gas, renewables and energy efficiency, and creating new products and services for the benefit of customers. Southern Company has been named by the U.S. Department of Defense and G.I. Jobs magazine as a top military employer, recognized among the Top 50 Companies for Diversity by DiversityInc, listed by Black Enterprise magazine as one of the 40 Best Companies for Diversity and designated a Top Employer for Hispanics by Hispanic Network. The company has earned a National Award of Nuclear Science and History from the National Atomic Museum Foundation for its leadership and commitment to nuclear development and is continually ranked among the top energy companies in Fortune's annual World's Most Admired Electric and Gas Utility rankings. Visit our website at www.southerncompany.com.

SOURCE Southern Linc

Related Links

http://www.southernlinc.com


CHARLOTTE, N.C., Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Clariant, a world leader in specialty chemicals, announces a grant to create an afterschool and summer-break science club for second and third grade students who participate in programs at California Community Center in Louisville. This collaboration with Louisville Metro Council District 6 Councilman David James, Phillis Wheatley Elementary School and Louisville Metro Parks and Recreation Department will provide academic support to at-risk students who live in a neighborhood with limited upward mobility.

Clariant is providing a $75,000 grant to fund this afterschool club for three years. This is an extension of the investment Clariant has made for decades to support the youth of the California community through its partnership with Family Resource Center of Phillis Wheatley Elementary School. Past investments have included donations of school supplies and food and gifts at the holidays as well as employee volunteerism.

Now, Clariant is investing in a program to help foster a love of learning through fun, hands-on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) projects. Named "Moving Forward thru STEM," the club curriculum will support the school system's core academic content of reading, math and science and will measure both academic and life skills attainment.

"Clariant is committed to being a good corporate citizen. We want to add value to our communities by enhancing educational opportunities and supporting initiatives that bring increased well-being," said Dr. Deepak Parikh, Region Head of Clariant North America.

Stefan Brejc, Head of Business Unit Catalyts in North America added: "We want to help develop a foundation for education in the community where we operate. We are excited to offer this support to children who live in Louisville's California community, which is nearby our facilities, and we look forward to seeing these young minds flourish."

www.clariant.com

Clariant is a globally leading specialty chemicals company, based in Muttenz near Basel/Switzerland. Its North America headquarters are in Charlotte, NC. On 31 December 2016 the company employed a total workforce of 17,442. In the financial year 2016, Clariant recorded sales of CHF 5.847 billion for its continuing businesses.

SOURCE Clariant
Highly-placed sources told India Today that the incident took place early Tuesday morning and lasted for about half-an-hour until both sides pulled back.

By Geeta Mohan: Indian and Chinese forces had a brief face-off in the north bank of Pangong lake in Ladakh. Highly-placed sources told India Today that the incident took place early Tuesday morning and lasted for about half-an-hour until both sides pulled back.

The incident comes at a time when both nations have been facing a continued stand-off at the India-Bhutan-China tri-junction in Doka La (Doklam). Sources say that it is believed that the Chinese patrols lost their way due to bad weather conditions but it ended up with heated exchanges between the two sides resulting in stone pelting as well that caused minor injuries to people on both sides.

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The People's Liberation Army (PLA) forces were close to two areas: Finger Four and Finger Five. India claims the area till Finger Eight but controls and dominates up to Finger Four. The situation was brought under control after thirty minutes of face-off, when both sides held their banners indicating either side to pull back to their respective positions.

The border stand-off took place on the occasion of Indian Independence Day when as practice Border Personnel Meetings (BPM) take place at five points across Line of Actual Control (LAC) and sweets are exchanged between Indian and Chinese forces. Instead, India Today has learnt that no BPM took place. Indian soldiers had gone with sweets to Nathu La but the Chinese didn't turn up.

Earlier in the week, India Today had also reported about the Chinese PLA having started construction of a bridge near the LAC in Ladakh. Chief Executive Councillor Dr Sonam Dawa Lopo, while speaking to India Today, said, "We will raise the issue with the Government and the Army. They should immediately object to the Chinese construction on LAC".

With increased tensions between India and China due to Doklam, the entire LAC remains volatile including Pangong lake, whose 45-km stretch is on the Indian side while 90-km is on the Chinese side.

DOKLAM STANDOFF

This comes at a time when India and China have been locked in a standoff at the Doklam plateau for over eight weeks.

Beijing wants to construct a road through the plateau, which both Bhutan and China claim. India has objected to the construction, and has deployed the Army to prevent it.

The Indian Army and China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) held a flag meet at Nathu La last week to sort things out, but in vain. Both sides stuck to their stated positions.

China wants the Indian Army to withdraw from Doklam, and India asked China to stop building the road.

ALSO READ

Has Donald Trump turned Doklam tide in India's favour by raising heat over North Korea?

Indian flier alleges Chinese airline staff misbehaved with him due to Doklam standoff

ALSO WATCH

As Doklam crisis continues, India-China border stand-off at Ladakh's Pangong lake

--- ENDS ---
EUGENE, Ore., Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- College Choice, a leading authority in college and university rankings and resources, has published a ranking of the "25 Best Online Graphic Design Degrees."

http://www.collegechoice.net/rankings/best-online-bachelors-in-graphic-design-degrees/

As our society moves from a print-based to an image-based culture, the demand for graphic designers grows. Every single day the influence of these visual storytellers is felt. From an advertisement on a city bus to a well-designed website or an infographic in a news story, graphic designers have the ability to inspire and inform, all with the simple tools of color, text, and image.

"By harnessing just a few basic concepts and technical skills, graphic designers can communicate big ideas that affect hundreds, maybe thousands, of people every day," Christian Amondson, Managing Editor of College Choice, said of the ranking. "With the right training you can be on your way to landing a creatively fulfilling and financially sustainable career."

College Choice developed its list by examining the academic reputation, student satisfaction, affordability, and average annual salary of graduates from online graphic design programs across the country. Data comes from PayScale, university and colleges' websites, U.S. News & World Report, and The National Center for Education Statistics.

The ranking for the 25 Best Online Graphic Design Degrees for 2017 finds Midway University in Midway, Kentucky in first, California Baptist University in Riverside, California in second, and Bellevue University in Bellevue, Nebraska in third.

The entire ranking, listed in alphabetical order, is as follows:

Academy of Art University, San Francisco, CA

Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ

Art Institute of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA

Ashworth College, Norcross, GA

Bellevue University, Bellevue, NE

Berkeley College, New York, NY

California Baptist University, Riverside, CA

California College, San Diego, San Diego, CA

Full Sail University, Winter Park, FL

Herzing University, Milwaukee, WI

Hodges University, Naples, FL

Independence University, Salt Lake, UT

Lesley University, Cambridge, MA

Liberty University, Lynchburg, VA

Los Angeles Film School, Los Angeles, CA

Midway University, Midway, KY

Rasmussen College, Maitland, FL

Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design, Lakewood, CO

Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, GA

Southeastern University, Lakeland, FL

Southern New Hampshire University, Manchester, NH

Stevens-Henager College, West Haven, UT

University of Maryland University College, Adelphi, MD

University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA

Upper Iowa University, Fayette, IA

College Choice is an independent online publication dedicated to helping students and their families find the right college. The site publishes rankings and reviews that make finding the best colleges for different interests easier and more fun, as well as resources to help students get into, pay for, and thrive at the college of their choice.

Contact:

Christian Amondson, Managing Editor, College Choice

Web: http://collegechoice.net

Email: [email protected]

Phone: (541) 255-3801

SOURCE College Choice

Related Links

http://www.collegechoice.net


NEW YORK and SANTIAGO, Chile, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Confuturo S.A., a leading annuity and life insurance company with $8.5 billion assets under management, is the first Chilean company to implement Bloomberg's Multi-Asset Risk System (MARS) Collateral Management tools. The technology helps financial institutions and large corporations meet more stringent global regulations on over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives trading to prevent financial crises.

Under the new rules, companies need to value their derivative contracts with each counterparty, calculate the amount of collateral required, agree on the value, make or receive the payments daily, and update their records much more frequently than ever before. The requirements for firms to now exchange initial and variation margins were agreed to by global regulators and are being phased in. The next key implementation milestone is September 1, 2017.

"Confuturo's Board of Directors asked for a new initiative on market risk last year," said Juan Pablo Cabrera Antezana, Confuturo's Head of Market Risk, who was named to oversee the program. "The regulations on margin requirements are complex, far-reaching and will significantly increase administrative burdens," he said, adding, "Bloomberg's MARS Collateral Management solution is just what we need to meet the requirements."

Phil McCabe, Bloomberg's Global Collateral Management Product Manager, said, "Confuturo is showing strong leadership on this, as corporations and investment firms globally will need to comply. Our collateral management is a world-class solution that will help manage the risk process, provide more transparency, and increase confidence in the market."

"This latest set of requirements under the U.S. Dodd-Frank act and the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) will have global impact, so Latin American firms will be affected," said Geraldo Coelho, Bloomberg's Head of South America sales, adding, "Bloomberg's MARS Collateral Management has all the tools needed to meet their obligations and manage risk in an efficient manner."

MARS Collateral Management has built-in portfolio reconciliation tool to communicate and resolve disputes. It calculates, aggregates and displays margin calls across products and legal entities and generates independent derivative and collateral valuations and liquidity risk scenarios. It can be used to manage the day-to-day margin call process, including sending margin calls, booking collateral, and managing interest payments. Executives can track their exposures, as well as collateral positions and agreement terms in real-time.

Subscribers to the Bloomberg Terminal can find more information at {RISK }.

About Compania de Seguros Confuturo S.A.

In 2013, Inversiones La Construccion S.A. (ILC), investment department of the Camara Chilena de la Construccion (CChC), has become the controller for Insurance Companies CorpVida and CorpSeguros, acquiring 67% of CorpGroup Vida Chile S.A. assets.

Two years later, Corpvida changed its name and brand to Compania de Seguros Confuturo S.A., which consolidates its merger with CChC through ILC.

By the end of 2015 and the beginning of 2016, there has been an important increase in its capital, into UF 2.000.000, which confirms the confidence and the support from the Camara Chilena de la Construccion, through the ILC, to these companies. Last year, Inversiones La Construccion S.A. (ILC) took over 100% of both companies, Confuturo and Corpseguros.

By mid-2016, Confuturo and CorpSeguros acquired 10 malls "Espacio Urbano" from retailer Walmart, becoming the insurance company with the largest portfolio investments in real estate in the country. This transaction is the most important in Chiles real estate history. For further information, please visit: https://www.confuturo.cl/

About Bloomberg

Bloomberg, the global business and financial information and news leader, gives influential decision makers a critical edge by connecting them to a dynamic network of information, people and ideas. The company's strength  delivering data, news and analytics through innovative technology, quickly and accurately  is at the core of the Bloomberg Terminal. Bloomberg's enterprise solutions build on the company's core strength: leveraging technology to allow customers to access, integrate, distribute and manage data and information across organizations more efficiently and effectively. For more information, visit www.bloomberg.com or request a demo.

SOURCE Bloomberg

Related Links

http://www.bloomberg.com


OYO Fitness has received over $700,000 in orders from backers on Kickstarter, placing it in the top 99.9 percent of all products ever offered on this leading crowdfunding site. Since then, OYO has gone on to raise an additional $226,000 through crowdfunding site Indiegogo, bringing total crowdfunding orders to over $930,000 so far.

On the Taiwanese Backer Founder site, the DoubleFlex Black is available at a pre-order price in two configurations that provide 15 or 25 pounds of resistance and include leg and door attachments for a total body workout. Over 75 exercises can be performed in the comfort of the home, office or on the go.

"Following our success on Kickstarter and Indiegogo, we are thrilled to bring the DoubleFlex Black to other global crowdfunding sites at a discounted price before general distribution to consumers and health clubs in December," said OYO Fitness founder and CEO Paul Francis. "The overwhelming response speaks directly to consumers' desire for a fitness product that is both efficient and portable, and that can be used anywhere amid today's busy lives." The DoubleFlex Black is available for pre-order in Taiwan at:

https://www.oyofitness.com.tw

For US and other countries, the DoubleFlex Black is available for pre-order at:

https://igg.me/at/oyo/x/16092817

The closed Kickstarter campaign can be seen at:

http://kck.st/2lmsXZN

Please visit our website at oyofitness.com and Facebook.com/oyofitness to learn more about OYO Fitness and their products that fits fitness into busy lifestyles.

SOURCE OYO Fitness

Related Links

https://www.oyofitness.com


Angus Struthers, Vice President, Cunard said: "This mediterranean cruise is perfectly timed to pay tribute to QE2's launch and naming by HM Queen Elizabeth II 50 years ago. When QE2 came into service in the 1960s, many critics said she wouldn't last a decade in the age of the jet but her unique design as a dual-purpose ship meant that she was versatile enough to operate both as a transatlantic liner and a cruise ship."

He added: "Given how famous and loved she was, we felt this was a great opportunity to pay tribute to this Cunarder's remarkable life onboard our newest ship, Queen Elizabeth; herself designed to offer a perfect luxury cruise holiday."

Celebrations focus on five special theme days, each of which will be accompanied by QE2 inspired menus, talks from special guests, historical snippets in the daily programme, past-passenger gatherings and QE2 quizzes.

Themes include Moving in Royal Circles which looks back at the unique and special bond between QE2 and the Royal Family; The Falklands which acknowledges the ship's service as a troop ship in the 1982 conflict; Triumph of a Great Tradition examining the QE2's remarkable career achievements and the long history of Cunard 'firsts', and World Flagship in tribute to QE2's 26 world cruises that made her an icon in cities across the globe.

Celebrations culminate on QE2 Day - 20 September 2017 - exactly 50 years since the ship was launched by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Events will include a QE2 ball, and a historical retrospective of the ship's service life to be hosted in Queen Elizabeth's 850 seat Royal Court Theatre.

As part of Cunard's renowned and award winning Insights Speaker programme, a number of special guests connected to QE2 will be sailing onboard. One such guest is Captain Ian McNaught, QE2's last Master, who said: "This voyage is a significant and timely tribute to the world's best loved ship. QE2 remains the longest serving express liner in history. She carried 2.5 million passengers over 5.6 million miles; that's further than any passenger ship - ever! This remarkable ship sailed alone on the North Atlantic for most of her career. She carried the Cunard tradition from the bygone era of the ocean liner and sustained it into the 21st century. The QE2 carried Royalty, celebrities and served in the Falklands War."

He added: "What I remember most as her Master, were the passengers. Everyday people who saved up to experience life onboard the world's best loved ship. Many came back time and time again. That is a tribute to the countless people who served as QE2's crew, each one making the experience special and memorable. QE2 has been gone for nearly a decade now, however on her 50th anniversary the memory of her is strong. It is very fitting to be acknowledging the QE2's remarkable career here onboard Queen Elizabeth."

Other guests include Commodore R. W. Warwick who served as QE2's Captain for 13 years; QE2 social hostess Maureen Ryan who served onboard the original Cunard Queens as well as Queen Mary 2; and maritime historian Chris Frame, author of a series of books about QE2 and Cunard.

The voyage departs 8 September and returns 25 September. For more information please go to www.cunard.com

Notes to editors

About QE2

QE2 was launched by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on 20 Septembr 1967. The ship was the last large transatlantic liner built in the United Kingdom. During a service career of almost 40 years, the ship sailed over 5.6 million miles and carried more than 2.5 million passengers  record numbers that are yet to be broken. In 1982, QE2 was requisitioned for use in the Falklands War and sailed with 3,000 troops of the 5th Infantry Brigade. QE2 was a favourite of the Royal Family having entertained HM. The Queen, HRH. The Duke of Edinburgh, HRH. Prince Charles and HRH Princess Diana to name just a few. During the ship's career, she sailed on 26 world cruises, carried celebrities and heads of state and attracted crowds in every port she visited.

QE2 Fun Facts

 QE2 was very fast and had a usual service speed of 28.5 knots, with a top cruising speed of 32.5 knots making her the fastest passenger ship to sail in the 21st century

 QE2 was launched by Her Majesty The Queen on 20 September 1967. The launch was celebrated in many countries of the Commonwealth

 QE2 was the longest serving flagship of the Cunard fleet and the longest serving express transatlantic liner in Cunard's 177 year history

 QE2 was the last large express liner to be built in the United Kingdom and the final passenger ship to be constructed at the historic John Brown & Co. Clydebank

 QE2 was requisitioned as a troop ship in the 1982 Falklands War

 QE2 made 806 Transatlantic Crossings in her career

 QE2 sailed over 5.6 million miles  the furthest distance by any passenger ship  ever

 QE2 carried 2.5 million passengers

 QE2 was the first ship to carry a reigning British Monarch as a passenger in 1990

 Cunard's first ship Britannia could have fitted into QE2's Grand Lounge

 QE2's anchors weighed 12.5 tons each  one now resides on QE2 mile in Southampton

 Each year QE2 used more than 3 million eggs and enough cling-film to wrap the ship many times over

About Cunard

Cunard is a luxury British cruise line based at Carnival House in Southampton, owned by Carnival Corporation since 1998. It has been a leading operator of passenger ships on the North Atlantic, celebrating 175 years of operation in 2015. There are three Cunard liners - Queen Mary 2, Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria. For more information, please see www.cunard.com

Press office contact details:

Ruth Harrington: [email protected] 07814764266

Rachel Lloyd: [email protected] 07773039895

Photography:

Cunard photography is available online at www.cunard3queens.com or at www.cunardimages.com

Login ID: press

Password: guyonda

Cunard Social Media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cunard/

Twitter: www.twitter.com/cunardline

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cunardline/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/WeAreCunard

SOURCE Cunard Line Ltd
NEW YORK, Aug. 14, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation announced the appointment of Dianne S. Harris as a senior program officer in Higher Education and Scholarship in the Humanities. Harris will join the Foundation on November 1.

As a senior program officer, Harris will work on a range of grants and research initiatives supporting undergraduate and doctoral education, advanced scholarship, and the public humanities.

"We are thrilled that someone of Dianne's stature and experience has elected to pivot from her current role as an academic leader to join us here at the Mellon Foundation," said Andrew W. Mellon Foundation President Earl Lewis. "She is an accomplished scholar, proven administrator, and overall student of the humanities and higher education. She will greatly enrich the work we have underway and inform the work we have yet to plan."

Mariet Westermann, executive vice president for programs and research, noted, "Dianne brings to the Foundation the kinds of capacities and commitments needed in this time of great pressure on the humanities and liberal arts education. She has dedicated her career to the humanities as a resource of public life, working to strengthen interdisciplinary research and develop programs that broaden participation in the humanities in and outside universities."

Harris has been dean for the College of Humanities and a history professor at the University of Utah since 2015. During her tenure at Utah, she placed particular emphasis on creating and strengthening pipelines to the College of Humanities for community college transfer students and high school students, especially for first-generation and underrepresented groups. Harris also focused on supporting student success through the inauguration of pilot cohort programs such as Humanities Scholars and by collaborating on the creation of the recently launched Digital Matters Lab with the University's Marriott Library. She prioritized raising the visibility of the college and the humanities locally and nationally, and helped recruit an outstanding and diverse group of assistant professors to the university.

Prior to her appointment at the University of Utah, Harris was director of the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities (IPRH) and a professor of landscape architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Harris's scholarship, which has a broad temporal and geographic reach spanning from 18th-century Lombardy to the postwar United States, is united by a constant interest in the relationship between the built environment and the construction of racial and class identities. She is the author of several books, including The Nature of Authority: Villa Culture, Landscape, and Representation in Eighteenth-Century Lombardy, Maybeck's Landscapes: Drawing in Nature and Little White Houses: How the Postwar Home Constructed Race in America. She is also editor of the multidisciplinary volume Second Suburb: Levittown, Pennsylvania, series editor for the University of Pittsburgh Press' Culture, Politics, and The Built Environment and co-editor of several works. Harris is a past president for the Society of Architectural Historians and currently serves on the boards of the National Humanities Alliance and the Utah Humanities Council. In 2016, she was nominated by President Barack Obama to serve on the National Council on the Humanities.

Harris has been the Principal Investigator for several grants from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, including a grant to create Humanities Without Walls, a consortium of humanities centers at 15 research-extensive universities throughout the Midwest and beyondan unprecedented experiment in cross-institutional collaboration in the humanities and arts.

"Joining the Mellon Foundation," Harris said, "is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to support the humanities in higher education at an unparalleled scale, and at a time when doing so feels especially urgent. I'm profoundly grateful for the opportunity to join the Foundation, and I look forward to supporting its important work in the United States and beyond. I am also very thankful to have served as dean at the University of Utah where I have enjoyed two especially fulfilling years working alongside outstanding faculty, students, and staff."

ABOUT THE ANDREW W. MELLON FOUNDATION

Founded in 1969, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation endeavors to strengthen, promote, and, where necessary, defend the contributions of the humanities and the arts to human flourishing and to the well-being of diverse and democratic societies by supporting exemplary institutions of higher education and culture as they renew and provide access to an invaluable heritage of ambitious, path-breaking work.

SOURCE The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Related Links

http://www.mellon.org


Digital Trends bestowed awards in six categories, spotlighting companies working to combine technology and the great outdoors in their latest gear. Editors from Portland field tested this year's nominated products at Lost Lake in Hood River, OR. After pushing each contender to the limit, Digital Trends has crowned our favorite products for Cooking , Sleeping , Trekking , Recreation , Unwind and a special award for Innovation .

"The Outdoor Awards are a brand-new recognition we've been eager to debut this year. Since the premiere of the Outdoor section last fall, our readers have been greatly interested in seeing the best gear for their backpacking and camping trips," said Digital Trend's Editor-in-Chief Jeremy Kaplan. "All season long, our editors camped, backpacked, paddle boarded, and hiked our way through the Pacific Northwest to find the best new outdoor gear for the first annual Digital Trends Outdoor Awards, and I'm proud to say we've curated the best outdoor products 2017 has to offer."

Editors judged award entries on technological advancements, accessibility, and overall outdoor experience. Click each category for a full review of the winners and the nominees. The following are the official winners of Digital Trends 1st Annual Outdoor Awards.

Trekking: Danner Mountain 600s

Cooking: BioLite CampStove 2 Bundle

Sleeping: Big Agnes Copper Spur HV UL2 mtnGLO Tent

Recreation: Red Paddle 10'6 inflatable SUP

Unwind: OtterBox Venture 45 cooler

Innovation: Thermacell Backpacker mosquito repeller

To celebrate the awards, Digital Trends is giving away a prize a day from each category. Prizes include a mosquito repellant from Thermacell, a pair of Danner boots, a camp stove bundle from BioLite, an OtterBox cooler set, a tent from Big Agnes, and our grand prize, a Red Paddle Co paddleboard.

For reviews, hands-on impressions, and complete coverage of the outdoor awards, go to https://www.digitaltrends.com/2017-outdoor-awards/

About Digital Trends

Digital Trends is a leading consumer technology publisher helping people navigate an increasingly digital world. With easy-to-understand product reviews, entertaining news and videos, Digital Trends serves more than 30 million unique visitors each month. Digital Trends reaches 90 million tech influencers through their own media network, and its syndicate partners include Yahoo!, FOX News and more than 200 broadcast news stations. Digital Trends is headquartered in Portland, OR with offices in New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Detroit, and Chicago. For more information, visit www.digitaltrends.com.

SOURCE Digital Trends

Related Links

http://www.digitaltrends.com


PUNE, India, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Market Research Future published a half-cooked research report on "Global Edge Computing Market Research Report - Forecast to 2023"  Market Analysis, Scope, Stake, Progress, Trends and Forecast to 2023.

Microsoft Corporation (U.S.), Amazon.com, Inc. (U.S.), SAP SE (Germany), Alphabet Inc. (U.S.), General Electric Company (U.S.), Aricent (U.S.), IBM Corporation (U.S.), Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (China), Integrated Device Technology, Inc. (U.S.), Nokia Corporation (Finland), and Intel Corporation (U.S.) are some of the prominent players profiled in MRFR Analysis and are at the forefront of competition in the Global Edge Computing Market.

Edge Computing Market Overview

The Global Edge Computing Market is growing with the rapid pace majorly due to the rapid growth in the technology and increasing demand of IoT. According to a recent study report published by the Market Research Future, the global market of Edge Computing is booming and expected to gain prominence over the forecast period. The global Edge Computing Market is anticipated to accrete to USD ~$33.75 Billion by 2023, at a staggering double digit CAGR of ~35.0% between 2017 and 2023.

The advantage of the edge computing that includes push applications, data transfer and services to devices at the edge of networks that helps to reduce transmission costs, shrink latency and improve user experience. A recent trend of real time reporting is boosting the Edge Computing market. Edge Computing market as the service can also be deployed on the edgeOS for better management and delivery are major factor to market growth.

The study also signifies that The Edge Computing market is expected to grow at a high rate as the researchers have built the proof-of-concept platform to run face recognition application. By moving computation from cloud to the edge, the response time is reduced from 900 to 169 ms which has huge effect on improvement, operation optimization, unplanned downtime reduction, and high cost savings.

The study indicates that Edge Computing is growing due to the factors that includes temperature, vibration, sound, motion or location and read information embedded in bar codes, strips, and chips. The increasing demand of Internet of things that has increased the response times of a minute or less for many important applications, including power production from solar facilities, driverless cars, smart lighting, security cameras, as well as monitoring ill patients.

Request a Sample Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/3239

The Edge Computing is a method of utilizing cloud computing by analyzing and processing the data at the edge of the network. This approach requires the resources such as laptops, smartphones, tablets and sensors that may not be continuously connected to the network. The computer industry shifts back and forth from centralized computing, which has lots of power but is far away from the person or device using it, to local computing, close to the action but messy and hard to harness all of its capacity. For instance, mainframes (centralized computing) gave rise to PCs, client/server (decentralized), which gave rise to the cloud (centralized). So decentralized is due next. This is the breathing in and breathing out of computer industry.

Edge Computing Market - Competitive Analysis

Characterized by the presence of several major well-established players, the global Market of Edge Computing appears to be highly fragmented and competitive. Well established players incorporate acquisition, collaboration, partnership, expansion, and technology launch in order to gain competitive advantage in this market and to maintain their market position. Strategic partnerships between Key players support the growth and expansion plans of the key players during the forecast period. The Key players operating in the market compete based on pricing, technology, reputation and services.

Edge Computing Market - Segments

Edge Computing Market can be segmented in to 6 key dynamics for the convenience of the report and enhanced understanding;

Segmentation by Technology: Comprises Mobile Edge Computing, Fog Computing.

Segmentation by Deployment: Comprises On-premises and on Cloud.

Segmentation by Component: Comprises Hardware, Software, Service.

Segmentation by End Users: Comprises Healthcare, Public Safety, Connected Vehicles, Location Based Service, Education, Gaming.

Segmentation by Applications: Comprises Environment Monitoring, Optimized Local Content, Data Caching, Video Computing, Location Service, Internet of Things.

Segmentation by Regions: Comprises Geographical regions - North America, Europe, APAC and Rest of the World.

Looking through the end-user segment it has been observed that the edge computing is considered perfect for building a smart home, has shown a tremendous growth Edge Computing and holds the largest market share. The analysis indicates that the other sectors like telecommunication and IT would be considering next for Edge Computing for their regular use and would show a positive growth in this market as IoT can be connected and managed easily at the network and the data can be processed locally to release the burdens for Internet bandwidth.

Browse Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/edge-computing-market-3239

Edge Computing Market - Regional Analysis

The regional analysis of Edge Computing Market is being studied for region such as Asia pacific, North Americas, Europe and Rest of the World. The study signifies that the market of Edge Computing is trending in North America region. The rapid growth in the technology and increasing demand of IoT is fuelling the Edge Computing market in North America. The study reveals that Europe region is also showing the positive sign towards edge computing at a very rapid pace in the Edge Computing Market as it allows business data to be dynamically distributes across a device network and supports edge Computing. Asia-Pacific countries like China, Japan and India have shown considerably fair share of market in the Edge Computing Market but will be growing fast in coming time.

About Market Research Future:

At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.

Contact

Akash Anand,

Market Research Future

+1 646 845 9312

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Market Research Future
OXFORD, England, August 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Elsevier, the information analytics business specializing in science and health, and the International Solar Energy Society (ISES), today announced Dr. Sebastian Groh of ME SOLshare Ltd. as the winner of the inaugural Renewable Transformation Challenge.

Dr. Groh wins the award for the project The Energiewende 3.0 - Smart P2P Solar Grids. In short, a SOLshare grid is created when rural households or SMEs agree on setting up a "swarm network" that consists of existing and new solar home systems (SHSs) and storage devices and enables the interconnection of larger loads. ME SOLshare provides a peer-to-peer solar energy trading platform empowering individuals and SMEs to become solar entrepreneurs offering pay-as-you-go and cash-in-as-you-go electricity solutions to low-income households. ME SOLshare therefore has potential to play a crucial role in supporting rural development and providing a means of direct income to rural communities.

The Renewable Transformation Challenge, launched in February, aims to honor and showcase outstanding work that supports the transformation to a world powered by renewable energy and has potential to widen access to energy, particularly in developing countries. The challenge was open to individuals and organizations in both not-for-profit and commercial sectors worldwide. Over 200 entries were received which were scored in terms of applicability, impact, sustainability and scalability in two stages: first by the Juror Panel, and then by the Elsevier-ISES Award Committee who selected the final winner from the ten shortlisted applications.

"Elsevier were impressed by the project's potential to positively impact people and the planet - reducing the cost of energy access; supporting women who are the main energy consumers during trading hours; creating solar entrepreneurs and social empowerment; and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from energy generation by increasing use of renewables and reducing reliance on unsustainable energy sources such as kerosene and diesel," said Katherine Eve, Executive Publisher of Elsevier's renewable and sustainable energy journal portfolio. "By backing community projects like SOLshare, Elsevier, in collaboration with our partners such as ISES, continues to play a significant role in supporting the UN Sustainability Development Goals."

"ISES is very excited about this award, and the groundbreaking work being undertaken by ME SOLshare. A major key toward achieving 100% renewable energy globally is for there to be effective business models that provide reliable and clean energy access for all, including the 1.2 billion people around the world who currently do not have access to electrification services," added Dr. David Renne, President of ISES. "We are confident that ME SOLshare's efforts will make major strides toward achieving clean energy goals in off-grid regions."

Dr. Groh, on behalf of ME SOLshare, will receive a monetary prize of 20,000, one ISES Gold membership and one free registration to the Solar World Congress 2017 in Abu Dhabi where he will be presented with the Award during the conference dinner on 1 November 2017.

The winner explained "ME SOLshare plans to use the Renewable Transformation Challenge award fund to kick-start a new pilot project to support clean energy transportation. By upgrading the existing SOLshare swarm grids to create a multiplier effect, SOLshare will offer free solar charging for the over 800,000 battery rickshaw drivers of rural Bangladesh. The equivalent of the charging cost will be credited to the SHS owners in the SOLshare grids who will jointly provide the charging and receive the financial return."

Read more about the award on the Renewable Transformation Challenge homepage, the Solar Energy journal homepage and on the ISES website.

About the International Solar Energy Society

The International Solar Energy Society (ISES) was founded in 1954 and is now incorporated as a UN-accredited, non-profit membership organization with members in over 100 countries. ISES serves as a center for information on research and development in solar energy utilization. Through its publications and conferences, the Society provides a global forum for the science and advancement of solar energy.

About Elsevier

Elsevier is a global information analytics business that helps institutions and professionals progress science, advance healthcare and improve performance for the benefit of humanity. Elsevier provides digital solutions and tools in the areas of strategic research management, R&D performance, clinical decision support, and professional education; including ScienceDirect, Scopus, ClinicalKey and Sherpath. Elsevier publishes over 2,500 digitized journals, including The Lancet and Cell, more than 35,000 e-book titles and many iconic reference works, including Gray's Anatomy. Elsevier is part of RELX Group, a global provider of information and analytics for professionals and business customers across industries. www.elsevier.com

Media contact

Katherine Eve

Elsevier

+44-(0)-1865-843171

[email protected]



SOURCE Elsevier
CHICAGO, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Envestnet | Tamarac (http://www.tamaracinc.com) has added single sign-on capability to its existing integration with TD Ameritrade Institutional's Veo One custody platform. Independent advisors can now gain immediate access to client data and reports in Tamarac's award-winning Advisor View portfolio management application, using contextual links in Veo One to quickly access client account information in Tamarac and provide a more seamless portfolio management experience for their clients.

"Offering contextual linking between our two applications saves advisors time and improves productivity. This integration aligns with the way advisors want to work: They can quickly retrieve the information and data they need to move and act on requests and provide a higher level of service to their clients," said Stuart DePina, president of Envestnet | Tamarac.

The single sign-on functionality builds upon an existing integration between Envestnet | Tamarac's Advisor Rebalancing application and the Veo platform introduced earlier this year, which enabled advisors to submit trades directly to TD Ameritrade for straight-through processing from within Tamarac's trading and rebalancing software. Additionally, advisors also have the ability to access real-time alerts, holdings, transactions and account values from TD Ameritrade within Tamarac's portfolio management application, Advisor View. This new integration reinforces Tamarac's commitment to helping advisors drive more efficiencies across their organizations so they can focus on facilitating meaningful engagements with clients.

"Single sign-on gives our advisors easy access to the resources and tools they need to provide strategic and actionable insights to our clients," said Tony Anderson, president and CEO at ARS Wealth Advisors. "This integration of these applications is another example of how Tamarac's innovations help us work more efficiently and demonstrate our value to our clients."

"Our advanced, open-architecture approach allows for deeper integrations with widely used technology providers such as Envestnet | Tamarac," said Jon Patullo, managing director of technology solutions at TD Ameritrade Institutional. "Our ongoing collaboration speaks volumes about how both our organizations are dedicated to helping advisors leverage technology to work faster and smarter."

Advisor View is a component of Advisor Xi, Envestnet | Tamarac's web-based platform for independent RIAs. In addition to Advisor View, the Advisor Xi suite includes Advisor Rebalancing, the industry's leading portfolio rebalancing and trading application, and Advisor CRM, a client relationship management system designed specifically for independent advisors and built on the trusted Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform.

About TD Ameritrade Institutional

TD Ameritrade Institutional is a leading provider of comprehensive brokerage and custody services to more than 5,000 fee-based, independent registered investment advisors (RIAs) and their clients. Our advanced technology platform, coupled with personal support from our dedicated service teams, lets RIAs run their practices more efficiently and effectively while optimizing time with clients. TD Ameritrade Institutional is a division of TD Ameritrade, Inc., a subsidiary of TD Ameritrade Holding Corporation. Brokerage services provided by TD Ameritrade, Inc., member FINRA / SIPC.

About Envestnet

Envestnet, Inc. (NYSE: ENV) is the leading provider of intelligent systems for wealth management and financial wellness. Envestnet's unified technology enhances advisor productivity and strengthens the wealth management process. Envestnet empowers enterprises and advisors to more fully understand their clients and deliver better outcomes.

Envestnet enables financial advisors to better manage client outcomes and strengthen their practices. Institutional-quality research and advanced portfolio solutions are provided through Envestnet | PMC, our Portfolio Management Consultants group. Envestnet | Yodlee is a leading data aggregation and data analytics platform powering dynamic, cloud-based innovation for digital financial services. Envestnet | Tamarac provides leading rebalancing, reporting, and practice management software for advisors. Envestnet | Retirement Solutions provides retirement advisors with an integrated platform that combines leading practice management technology, research and due diligence, data aggregation, compliance tools, fiduciary solutions and intelligent managed account solutions.

More than 57,000 advisors and 2,500 companies including: 16 of the 20 largest U.S. banks, 38 of the 50 largest wealth management and brokerage firms, over 500 of the largest Registered Investment Advisors, and hundreds of Internet services companies, leverage Envestnet technology and services. Envestnet solutions enhance knowledge of the client, accelerate client on-boarding, improve client digital experiences, and help drive better outcomes for enterprises, advisors, and their clients.

For more information about Envestnet | Tamarac's Advisor View, please visit www.tamaracinc.com and follow @TamaracInc.

Media Contact:

Jill Lewis

Weber Shandwick

952.346.6279

[email protected]

SOURCE Envestnet | Tamarac
CARROLLTON, Texas, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- FASTSIGNS International, Inc., franchisor of FASTSIGNS, the leading sign, graphics and visual communications franchise, announced today that it is attending and sponsoring the National Business Media Show from Aug. 17-19, 2017 at the Meadowlands Exposition Center. The company is recruiting franchisees for expansion throughout the Northeast, with a focus on co-brand and conversion franchise offerings.

"FASTSIGNS offers a phenomenal opportunity to existing business owners within the print and signage industry that allows them to join forces with our internationally recognized brand, through our co-brand franchise offering and conversion options," said Mark Jameson, EVP of Franchise Support and Development, FASTSIGNS International, Inc. "By onboarding with FASTSIGNS, franchisees are at the forefront of many new resources that weren't available to them in the past, we pride ourselves on the training, research, new product support and operational support that we offer."

Local entrepreneurs are invited to meet with the brand's franchise development team at booth #815 to learn more about co-brand and conversion franchise offerings particularly in the Northeast, including in New Jersey, Westchester County and New York City. During the first half of 2017, FASTSIGNS opened 18 centers across the U.S., Canada, and England, and signed 19 franchise agreements to develop additional new, co-branded, and conversion locations. Due to the ongoing worldwide need for visual communications and digital signage technology, the company expects to open a projected 45 locations this year.

For any existing business looking to expand into this fast-paced market, FASTSIGNS gives the added support and training needed to make the process smooth. Whether an existing print-based business or a photography studio, FASTSIGNS' co-brand centers receive the same assistance as any new franchisee, with the added bonus of being able to exclude established revenue streams, outside of the FASTSIGNS core business offering, from future royalty payments. Both the co-brand and conversion franchise offerings can be started with only $15,000 down on the initial franchise fee.

FASTSIGNS International, Inc. was ranked number 1 in the Business Services/Signs category for 2017 and 95 overall in Entrepreneur magazine's Franchise 500, the world's first, best and most comprehensive franchise ranking. Acknowledged by entrepreneurs and franchisors as a top competitive tool of measurement, the Franchise 500 recognizes FASTSIGNS for its exceptional performance in areas including financial strength and stability, growth rate and brand power. FASTSIGNS also has been recognized for its franchisee satisfaction by being named a World Class Franchise by the Franchise Research Institute for five consecutive years and ranking number one in franchisee satisfaction by Franchise Business Review in 2016 and was recently named to Franchise Business Review's " innovative franchise brands list.

For information about the FASTSIGNS franchise opportunity, contact Mark Jameson ([email protected] or 214-346-5679).

About FASTSIGNS 

FASTSIGNS International, Inc. is the largest sign and visual communications franchisor in North America, and is the worldwide franchisor of 660 independently owned and operated FASTSIGNS centers in nine countries including the US, Canada, England, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Grand Cayman, Mexico and Australia (where centers operate as SIGNWAVE).

FASTSIGNS locations provide comprehensive sign and visual graphic solutions to help companies of all sizes and across all industries attract more attention, communicate their message, sell more products, help visitors find their way and extend their branding across all of their customer touch points including decor, events, wearables and marketing materials. Learn more about sign and visual graphic solutions or find a location at fastsigns.com. Follow the brand on Twitter @FASTSIGNS, Facebook at facebook.com/FASTSIGNS or LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fastsigns.

CONTACT: Chelsea Bear

Fish Consulting

954-893-9150

[email protected]

SOURCE FASTSIGNS International, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.fastsigns.com


By PTI: Gangtok, Aug 15 (PTI) There was no ceremonial meeting between officers of the Indian and Chinese armies on the Independence Day today at the strategic Nathula border amid the continued standoff at Doklam, but personnel from two sides exchanged sweets.

The Army and ITBP personnel took part in the informal exchange of sweets at Nathula, barely 25 km from Doklam where the two armies are face-to-face for over two months now, Army sources said.

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Earlier, a ceremonial meeting used to take place between the two sides on Indias Independence Day which was attended by officers of the Chinese Army.

The Army also celebrated the occasion by distributing sweets to the local people.

Sikkim shares international borders with China, Nepal and Bhutan. It shares a 220.7 km border with China, 95.6 km with Nepal and 32 km with Bhutan, and is connected to the country through a narrow 27 km stretch of land known as the chickens neck.

Speaking at the days main function in Gangtok, Chief Minister Pawan K Chamling said the states location shows its strategic importance for the unity and integrity of the nation.

"Our people are like unpaid soldiers defending our motherland. Unbounded peace and harmony for people living in the border states are great assets for the nation.

"I am pleased to say that the state government of Sikkim and every Sikkimese citizen stand solidly behind the central government to safeguard the integrity and sovereignty of our great nation," he added. PTI COR KK SK SK

--- ENDS ---
BOSTON, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Manion Gaynor & Manning LLP (MG+M) congratulates partners Harry L. Manion III, John B. Manning, Max Swetman, Chris Massenburg, and David Frohn on their selection by their peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America 2018 Guide.

Best Lawyers in America is highly selective. It gives recognition to lawyers based on an exhaustive national peer-review survey. Recipients have earned the highest level of respect among other leading attorneys and clients in their community and practice areas for their knowledge, professionalism, and integrity. In publication for over three decades, Best Lawyers has come to be regarded as the definitive guide to legal excellence.

Harry L. Manion III was selected in the areas of Commercial Litigation, Corporate Law, and Mass Tort Litigation. Harry's 38-year record of results across a broad legal spectrum has placed him on the short list of go-to lawyers: locally, nationally, and globally. Within the last five years, Harry resolved the most significant legal challenges facing Koch Industries, Lukoil, Nike, and Sodexo (for whom he has been national litigation counsel since 1986). During the same period, Harry and his Dutch co-counsel secured a $66 million judgment in the Amsterdam District Court for a large Dutch pharmaceutical company's pension fund against its global financial advisor. Currently, Harry is Lead Trial Counsel in the Southern District of New York for a target defendant in the largest admiralty case in the U.S.

John B. Manning was selected for his extensive expertise in Mass Tort Litigation and Class Action Defense. Mr. Manning serves as the Chair of Manion Gaynor & Manning's Products Liability and Complex Tort Litigation Group, and concentrates his practice in products liability, toxic torts, asbestos defense, mass torts, litigation management, food liability, professional liability, pharmaceutical and medical device litigation, environmental litigation, class actions, commercial and insurance disputes. He represents dozens of corporations in litigation throughout the country and serves on several clients' National Trial Teams. In addition, as National Coordinating Counsel for multiple products manufacturers, he directs all aspects of the defense of more than 200,000 asbestos lawsuits pending in all 50 states.

Max Swetman was selected in the areas of Product Liability Defense, Mass Tort Litigation, and Class Action Defense. His litigation practice focuses on the defense of toxic tort, occupational diseases, and environmental claims alleging bodily injury and property damage for both individual and mass tort claims. In addition to a law degree, Max holds a Master's Degree in Environmental Science and Policy, and a Master's of Public Health Degree in Epidemiology. His extensive technical background allows him to bring together legal, medical, and scientific teams to ensure the best possible defense of these claims. He also frequently handles litigation and regulatory compliance counseling concerning a wide range of environmental laws on behalf of his clients.

Chris Massenburg was selected in the areas of Mass Tort Litigation and Class Action Defense. Chris' practice primarily focuses on environmental, toxic tort, products liability, commercial trucking and transportation, premises liability, construction defects, and intellectual property litigation. Chris currently serves on the National Trial Team for multiple clients, and has defended his clients in numerous cases as lead trial counsel. Even when trial is not desired, Chris's experience at all levels of both simple and complex litigation allows him to provide his clients with a comprehensive defense for their cases. Chris has also been retained by clients to reevaluate their litigation strategies, defend fact, corporate and expert witnesses in deposition and trial, and to step in and try cases at a moment's notice.

David Frohn was selected in the area of Product Liability Defense. With more than 35 years of jury trial, product liability, and insurance litigation experience, David focuses his practice on the defense of domestic and international manufacturers of consumer and industrial products. David is Board Certified in Civil Trial Law and in Civil Pretrial Practice Advocacy by the National Board of Legal Specialty Certification. His Diplomate rank with the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA) certifies he has tried over 100 civil jury trials to verdict as lead trial counsel. An AV rated lawyer since 1987, he has been named both a Louisiana "Super Lawyer" in the field of product liability defense and a "Top Attorney in Louisiana" for personal injury defense/products for the past 15 years.

About Manion Gaynor & Manning LLP

Manion Gaynor & Manning LLP (MG+M) is a national litigation firm with deep expertise in a wide range of practice areas. We approach litigation as a unified team, integrating our efforts with those of our clients to advance their interests wherever they do business. Our goal is always to deliver optimal results at the best possible value. Find out more at www.mgmlaw.com.

About Best Lawyers

Since it was first published in 1983, Best Lawyers has become universally regarded as the definitive guide to legal excellence. Over 52,000 leading attorneys cast more than 5.5 million votes on the legal abilities of other lawyers in their practice areas. Lawyers are not required or allowed to pay a fee to be listed; therefore inclusion in Best Lawyers is considered a singular honor.

Contact:

Samuel Cohen

Marketing Specialist

617-670-8406

[email protected]

SOURCE Manion Gaynor & Manning LLP

Related Links

http://www.mgmlaw.com


SANTA CLARA, Calif., Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Based on its recent analysis of the ambulatory revenue cycle management (RCM) market, Frost & Sullivan recognizes eClinicalWorks with the 2017 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for Customer Value Leadership. eClinicalWorks pioneered a cost-effective, streamlined approach to billing in the ambulatory RCM market with its integrated cloud-based solution. For 2.9% of the monthly collection, it offers physicians comprehensive billing solutions, and prevents existing customers of electronic health record (EHR)/patient heath management/hospital management/patient engagement/cloud services from outsourcing billing services to external vendors. eCinicalWorks' solutions integrate seamlessly with other proprietary health IT applications, allowing key provider executives to measure and monitor billing performance through unified dashboard reporting, powered by predictive financial analytics.

Click here to view the full multimedia release - http://bit.ly/2vV7xbm

eCinicalWorks' cloud-based solution boasts an uptime of 99.9% and has achieved a 98% first-pass acceptance for practice claims. It incorporates both the national rules engine, as well as the company's own rules engine, so that reimbursements are evaluated efficiently and physician practices become eligible for various payer and state incentives.

"The company has assembled progressive technology modules that digitize the entire billing ecosystem end-to-end. It performs patient insurance eligibility assessment in real time, manages denials, investigates reasons for underpayments, periodically updates database rules, and automates the process of claims adjudication," said Frost & Sullivan Industry Analyst Koustav Chatterjee. "eClinicalWorks' built in RCM console also allows customers to monitor claims volumes at an enterprise level."

Significantly, RCM operations largely require professionals with expertise in optimizing billing and collection for the cost incurred during patient care. eClinicalWorks' highly skilled billing experts and ecosystem-level partners that have high-value technical capabilities in coding compliance, coding validation, bank reconciliation, and collection ensure that customers do not have to seek third-party help.

"eClinicalWorks is also widely popular among physician practices because of its round-the-clock and customer-friendly service. Dedicated account management teams carefully assess customer queries raised for patient registration, claims processing, and final collection, and make sure that payer reimbursement or self-payments made by patients are delivered directly to providers," noted Chatterjee. "Technology, coupled with custom service capabilities, are helping eClinicalWorks garner optimum success in this service line."

eClinicalWorks is a proven leader in the US ambulatory EHR market with an estimated market share of 10.2%, second only to Epic with 11.2%. The company offers advanced health IT solutions to almost 125,000 physicians and nurse practitioners, and its various service lines are used by more than 850,000 providers across all 50 US states, and globally in 20 countries.

For its ability to aid physicians with all their RCM needs and comply with regulations, Frost & Sullivan is pleased to present eClinicalWorks with the 2017 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for Customer Value Leadership.

Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents this award to the company that has demonstrated excellence in implementing strategies that proactively create value for its customers with a focus on improving the return on the investment that customers make in its services or products. The award recognizes the company's inordinate focus on augmenting the value that its customers receive, beyond simply good customer service, leading to improved customer retention, and, ultimately, customer base expansion.

Frost & Sullivan Best Practices awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research to identify best practices in the industry.

About eClinicalWorks

eClinicalWorks is a privately held leader in healthcare IT solutions. With more than 125,000 physicians and nurse practitioners using its solutions, customers include ACOs, physician practices, hospitals, community health centers, departments of health, and convenient care clinics. During the past eight years, 16 eClinicalWorks customers have received the prestigious HIMSS Davies Award, honoring excellence in electronic health record implementation. The company is second largest in the country for e-prescribing. Based in Westborough, Mass., eClinicalWorks has additional offices in Austin, New York City, Chicago, California, Georgia, London, India, and Dubai. For more information, please visit www.eclinicalworks.com, Facebook, Twitter or call 866-888-6929.

About Frost & Sullivan

Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, works in collaboration with clients to leverage visionary innovation that addresses the global challenges and related growth opportunities that will make or break today's market participants. For more than 50 years, we have been developing growth strategies for the global 1000, emerging businesses, the public sector and the investment community. Contact us: Start the discussion.

Contact:

Samantha Park

P: 210.247.2426

F: 210.348.1003

E: [email protected]

SOURCE Frost & Sullivan

Related Links

http://www.frost.com


Unlike other IoT security solutions that protect the gateway to the cloud but leave all other devices and industrial control systems exposed to cybersecurity threats, Mocana's software can be easily embedded in devices, on the gateway, and in the cloud. In this way, Mocana provides unprotected devices and endpoints that have minimal CPU and memory with the ability to authenticate to a network using an X.509 certificate and to encrypt data at rest and in flight.

"As most devices have minimal processing power and memory, Mocana has designed its cryptography engine to have a tiny, lightweight footprint of less than 30KB," said Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Sankara Narayanan. "Its software is fast and responsive, making it ideal for hashes and advanced cryptographic functions. In addition, the software modules that sit on the device, gateway, and cloud are customizable, in that customers need to deploy only the code they require to implement specific functions."

The IoT security platform contains no open source software and supports a variety of complex networking environments, such as a secure sockets layer (SSL), secure shell (SSH), multicast, Internet protocol security (IPSec), wireless, simple certificate enrollment protocol (SCEP), and enrollment over secure transport (EST). Importantly, it can operate across multi-vendor environments and is integrated with more than 70 chipsets, 30 operating systems, and real-time operating systems (RTOS).

Mocana strives to stay relevant in a rapidly evolving market by constantly upgrading its products. For instance, the latest iteration of its platform has two additional functionalities that enable easy integration of hardware-secure elements and a scalable standards-based approach to certificate enrollment and management. Recently, Mocana announced the introduction of an IoT security development kit that allows developers new to IoT security to use sample applications and test cryptographic controls on a resource-constrained IoT device.

"Furthermore, the platform's software employs a Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 validated cryptographic engine that supports a comprehensive set of asymmetric and symmetric ciphers and standard X.509 certificate management protocols," noted Narayanan. "When users deploy the platform, its cryptographic software authenticates individual devices and gives them a unique private key and a certificate. This method results in three different certificates for the device, manufacturer, and end user, which greatly enhances the level of security."

Mocana currently supports nearly 200 customers, including market majors, of which approximately 80% are from industrial manufacturing and automation. Although it primarily focuses on companies that are building either IoT devices or industrial control devices, Mocana also works with a number of telecom and cloud providers that serve companies that are building out or managing critical infrastructure, smart buildings, and smart cities.

Mocana continues to build new functionality and platform support by leveraging operating systems, chip vendors, and other ecosystem partners. One of the functionalities it is working on is a management and analytics platform that gives users detailed security data down to the device process level. The volume of actionable security insights available to manufactures helps improve the safety, visibility, and control of the devices, control systems, gateways, and cloud applications. Currently, such details cannot be obtained from network-based threat analytics.

Such visionary product innovations and a continued focus on R&D have earned Mocana the 2017 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for Product Leadership.

Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents this award to the company that has developed a product with innovative features and functionality and is gaining rapid acceptance in the market. The award recognizes the quality of the solution and the customer value enhancements it enables.

Frost & Sullivan Best Practices awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research to identify best practices in the industry.

A copy of the full report can be downloaded for free at https://www.mocana.com/frost-sullivan-award-2017.

About Mocana

Founded in 2002, Mocana provides mission-critical IoT security solutions for embedded systems, industrial controls and the Internet of Things (IoT). Our proven cybersecurity software goes beyond traditional security approaches by making IoT and ICS devices trustworthy and enabling secure device-to-cloud communications. Mocana's full-stack platform operates across complex, multi-vendor environments where performance and security are critical to ensuring safety and reliability. Hundreds of industrial and IoT companies depend on Mocana's military-grade technology to protect millions of IoT devices, controllers and embedded systems. www.mocana.com

About Frost & Sullivan

Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, works in collaboration with clients to leverage visionary innovation that addresses the global challenges and related growth opportunities that will make or break today's market participants. For more than 50 years, we have been developing growth strategies for the global 1000, emerging businesses, the public sector, and the investment community. Contact us: Start the discussion.

Contact:

Samantha Park

P: 210.247.2426

F: 210.348.1003

E: [email protected]

SOURCE Frost & Sullivan

Related Links

http://www.frost.com


DUBLIN, August 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The "Global Social Media Management Software Market 2017-2021" report has been added to Research and Markets' offering.

The global social media management software market to grow at a CAGR of 14.57% during the period 2017-2021.

Global Social Media Management Software Market 2017-2021, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.

The latest trend gaining momentum in the market is the increased adoption of analytics in marketing. The use of analytics in data-driven marketing practices by combining actionable analytics, audience segmentation, and sharing of key business information is one of the major trends in the market. Marketers can measure and manage the activities of customers in the social networking sites using social media management software. This helps them improve the performance of their marketing activities. Analytical solutions present in social media management software help organizations to manage large volumes of data from mobile applications and smart connected devices.



According to the report, one of the major drivers for this market is the use of social media management software to increase brand awareness. Companies consider social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Snapchat as efficient platforms to promote themselves, build their brands, and reach out to larger audiences or consumer bases. Finding the time to update the profiles and blogs can be a challenge for companies, which release several products in a month. Tracking consumer updates regarding products from social media is another time-consuming task. Many customers complain online about products if they are not satisfied with them If such complaints are not taken care of immediately, there are chances that the customer's social media post may become viral and tarnish the brand completely.



Key Vendors

AgoraPulse

Buffer

Hootsuite Media

Sprout Social

Other Prominent Vendors

Crowdbooster

Facebook

IFTTT

Lithium Technologies

NUVI

Oktopost

Roeder Studios

Sendible

Others



Key Topics Covered:

PART 01: Executive summary



PART 02: Scope of the report



PART 03: Research Methodology



PART 04: Introduction



PART 05: Market landscape



PART 06: Deployment model



PART 07: Geographical segmentation



PART 08: Key leading countries



PART 09: Decision framework



PART 10: Drivers and challenges



PART 11: Market trends



PART 12: Vendor landscape



PART 13: Key vendor analysis



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/z4v755/global_social

Media Contact:

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

SOURCE Research and Markets

Related Links

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KINGSTON, Jamaica, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The Government of Jamaica (" Jamaica ") announced today the aggregate principal amount of tenders of each series of Old Notes listed in the table below (collectively, the " Old Notes ", and each Old Note, a "series" of Old Notes) that have been validly tendered and accepted pursuant to its previously announced invitation for offers to tender Old Notes for cash (the " Invitation "), subject to the terms and conditions contained in the Invitation, dated August 9, 2016 (the " Invitation Materials "). The Invitation expired as scheduled at 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on August 14, 2017. All Old Notes validly tendered and not withdrawn pursuant to the Invitation have been accepted for purchase, and, as such, there will be no proration. Jamaica also announced that the Aggregate Purchase Price for all Old Notes accepted for purchase is U.S.$175,318,865.40. Capitalized terms not defined in this communication have the meanings specified in the Invitation Materials.

Old Notes Aggregate Original

Principal Amount

Tendered Percentage of

Aggregate

Original

Principal

Amount

Tendered** Aggregate Original

Principal Amount

Accepted Proration

Factor Aggregate Original

Principal Amount

Remaining

Outstanding 2019 Notes U.S.$19,242,000 6.87% U.S.$19,242,000 100.00% U.S.$260,927,400 2021 Notes U.S.$121,819,377 91.29% U.S.$121,819,377 100.00% U.S.$11,616,402 2022 Notes U.S.$1,026,000 0.41% U.S.$1,026,000 100.00% U.S.$248,974,000 2025 Notes U.S.$66,482,000 26.59% U.S.$66,482,000 100.00% U.S.$183,518,000















** Original principal amount of each series of Old Notes tendered pursuant to the Invitation expressed as an approximate percentage of the aggregate original principal amount of Old Notes outstanding of such series.

If Jamaica accepted all or a portion of a holder's tender of Old Notes of any series, the holder will be entitled to receive for such Old Notes the applicable Total Purchase Price, which will be paid on the Settlement Date, if the conditions of the Invitation are met. The Settlement Date is expected to occur on Friday, August 18, 2017, subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Invitation Materials.

Any holder who fails to make delivery in accordance with the Invitation Materials shall not be entitled to receive any payment therefore unless Jamaica, in its sole discretion, determines to waive any such failure.

Jamaica intends to apply a portion of the net proceeds of its new notes offering announced on Monday, August 14, 2017 (the " New Notes Offering ") to purchase the Old Notes accepted pursuant to the Invitation at the applicable Total Purchase Price. Accordingly, the Invitation is conditioned upon the closing of the New Notes Offering.

Citigroup Global Markets Inc. and Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated acted as Dealer Managers for the Invitation, and questions regarding the Invitation may be directed to the contact information below:

Citigroup Global Markets Inc. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith 388 Greenwich Street, 7th Floor Incorporated New York, New York 10013 One Bryant Park United States of America New York, New York 10036 Attention: Liability Management Group United States of America Collect: (212) 723-6106 Attention: Liability Management Group Toll-free: (800) 558-3745 Collect: (646) 855-8988

Toll-free: (888) 292-0070

The Invitation Materials may be downloaded from the Information Agent's website at http:// gbsc-usa.com/Jamaica/ or obtained from the Information Agent, Global Bondholder Services Corporation, 65 Broadway  Suite 404, New York, New York 10006 (Tel. (212) 430 3774, or toll free (866) 470-3900) Attention: Corporate Actions, or from any of the Dealer Managers.

Important Notice

The distribution of materials relating to the Invitation and the transactions contemplated thereby may be restricted by law in certain jurisdictions. The Invitation and any of the transactions contemplated thereby are void in all jurisdictions where they are prohibited. If materials relating to the Invitation or any of the transactions contemplated thereby come into your possession, you are required by Jamaica to inform yourself of and to observe all of these restrictions. The materials relating to the Invitation and the transactions contemplated thereby, including this communication, do not constitute, and may not be used in connection with, an offer or solicitation in any place where offers or solicitations are not permitted by law. If a jurisdiction requires that the Invitation be made by a licensed broker or dealer and a Dealer Manager or any affiliate of a Dealer Manager is a licensed broker or dealer in that jurisdiction, the Invitation shall be deemed to be made by the Dealer Manager or such affiliate in that jurisdiction. Owners who may lawfully participate in the Invitation in accordance with the terms thereof are referred to as "holders."

This announcement is for informational purposes only. This announcement is not an invitation for offers to purchase for cash or a solicitation of invitations for offers to purchase for cash any Old Notes. Any materials relating to the Invitation do not constitute, and may not be used in connection with, any form of offer or solicitation in any place where such offers or solicitations are not permitted by law. If a jurisdiction requires that the Invitation be made by a licensed broker or dealer and a Dealer Manager or its respective affiliate is such a licensed broker or dealer in that jurisdiction, the Invitation shall be deemed to be made by a Dealer Manager or affiliate in such jurisdiction.

The distribution of the Invitation Material in certain jurisdictions may be restricted by law. Persons into whose possession the Invitation Material comes are required by Jamaica, the Dealer Managers, and the Information and Tender Agent to inform themselves about, and to observe, any such restrictions as set out in the "Jurisdictional Restrictions" section of the Invitation Material.

European Economic Area

In any European Economic Area Member State (each a "Member State"), this announcement and the Invitation is only addressed to and is only directed at qualified investors in that Member State within the meaning of Directive 2010/73/EU, together with any applicable implementing measures in any Member State, the "Prospectus Directive."

Belgium

The Invitation will not constitute a public offering within the meaning of Articles 3, 1, 1 and 6 of the Belgian Law of April 1, 2007 on takeover bids (the "Takeover Law"). The Invitation will be exclusively conducted under applicable private placement exemptions and has therefore not been, and will not be, notified to, and any material relating to the Invitation has not been, and will not be, approved by, the Belgian Financial Services and Markets Authority (Autorite des services et marches financiers/Autoriteit voor Financiele Diensten en Markten). The Invitation as well as the Invitation Material may only be advertised, offered or distributed in any way, directly or indirectly, to any persons located and/or resident in Belgium who qualify as "Qualified Investors" as defined in Article 10, 1 of the Belgian Law of June 16, 2006 on public offering of securities and admission of securities to trading on a regulated market and as referred to in Article 6, 3, 1 of the Takeover Law, and who are acting for their own account, or in other circumstances which do not constitute a public offering in Belgium pursuant to the Takeover Law.

France

The Invitation has not been offered nor will be offered, directly or indirectly, to the public in France; the materials relating to the Invitation have not been distributed or caused to be distributed and will not be distributed or caused to be distributed to the public in France; and only qualified investors (investisseurs qualifies), as defined in Articles L. 4112 and D. 4111, of the French Code monetaire et financier who are acting for their own account and are not individuals and the other legal entities referred to in Articles L. 3412 1 and D. 3411 of the French Code monetaire et financier are eligible to participate in the Invitation. The Invitation has not been and will not be submitted to the clearance procedures (visa) of nor approved by the Autorite des marches financier.

Germany

The Invitation does not constitute an offer of securities or the solicitation of an offer of securities to the public in Germany under the Securities Prospectus Act (Wertpapierprospektgesetz). Accordingly, the Invitation has not been submitted for approval and has not been approved by the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (Bundesanstalt fur Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht - BaFin) or any other German public authority.

Hong Kong

With respect to persons in Hong Kong, the Invitation is only made to, and is only capable of acceptance by, professional investors within the meaning of the Securities and Futures Ordinance (Cap. 571) of Hong Kong (the "SFO") and any rules made thereunder ("professional investors"). No person or entity may issue or have in its possession for the purposes of issue, whether in Hong Kong or elsewhere, any advertisement, invitation or document relating to the Old Notes or the Invitation, which is directed at, or the contents of which are likely to be accessed or read by, the public in Hong Kong (except if permitted to do so under the securities laws of Hong Kong, including in circumstances which do not result in the document being a "prospectus" as defined in the Companies (Winding Up and Miscellaneous Provisions) Ordinance (Cap. 32) of Hong Kong) other than with respect to Old Notes which are or are intended to be tendered only by persons outside Hong Kong or only by "professional investors" as defined in the SFO and any rules made thereunder.

Italy

None of this announcement, the Invitation, or any other documents or materials related to the Invitation have been or will be submitted to the clearance procedure of the Commissione Nazionale per le Societa e la Borsa ("CONSOB") pursuant to Italian securities legislation and, accordingly, the Invitation may not be promoted, and copies of this announcement may not be delivered, to Holders resident or located in Italy, other than (i) to qualified investors (investitori qualificati) (as defined in Article 26, paragraph 1, letter (d) of CONSOB Regulation No. 16190 of October 29, 2007, as amended (the "Intermediaries Regulation")), pursuant to Article 35-bis, paragraph 3 of CONSOB Regulation No. 11971 of May 14, 1999, as amended, or (ii) in any other circumstances where an express exemption from compliance with the restrictions on public offers to purchase applies.

Holders or beneficial owners of the Old Notes may tender their Old Notes through authorized persons (such as investment firms, banks or financial intermediaries permitted to conduct such activities in Italy in accordance with the Italian Legislative Decree No. 58 of February 24, 1998, as amended, the Intermediaries Regulation and Italian Legislative Decree No. 385 of September 1, 1993, each as amended) and in compliance with any other applicable laws and regulations or with any requirements imposed by CONSOB or any other Italian authority.

This announcement and the information contained herein are intended only for the use of its recipient and are not to be distributed to any third-party resident or located in Italy for any reason. No person resident or located in Italy other than the original recipients of this document may rely on it or its contents.

Jamaica

This announcement has not been and is not required to be registered with the Financial Services Commission pursuant to the Jamaican Securities Act. No purchase of any securities in connection with this Invitation can be completed in Jamaica unless the purchase is made by or through a securities dealer registered with the Financial Services Commission or an exempt dealer (being a bank). However, Jamaican law does not prevent a Jamaica resident from selling securities outside the jurisdiction.

Luxembourg

In Luxembourg, this announcement has been prepared on the basis that the Invitation will be made pursuant to an exemption under Article 3 of the Prospectus Directive from the requirement to produce a prospectus for offers of securities.

Switzerland

The Invitation is made in Switzerland on the basis of a private offer, not as a public offering. Neither this document nor any other offering or marketing material relating to the Invitation constitutes a prospectus as such term is understood pursuant to article 652a or article 1156 of the Swiss Code of Obligations, and neither this document nor any other offering or marketing material relating to the Invitation may be publicly distributed or otherwise made publicly available in Switzerland.

United Kingdom

The communication of this announcement, the Invitation and any other offer material relating to the Invitation are not being made, and such documents and/or materials have not been approved, by an authorized person for the purposes of section 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (the "FSMA"). Accordingly, such documents and/or materials are not being distributed to, and must not be passed on to, the general public in the United Kingdom. The communication of such documents and/or materials is exempt from the restriction on financial promotions under section 21 of the FSMA on the basis that it is only directed at and may be communicated to (i) persons who are outside the United Kingdom or (ii) to investment professionals falling within Article 19(5) of the FSMA (Financial Promotion) Order 2005, as amended (as so amended, the "Order") or (iii) high net worth entities, and other persons to whom these documents and/or materials may lawfully be communicated, falling within Articles 49(2)(a) to (d) of the Order (all such other persons together being referred to as "relevant persons"). Any investment or investment activity to which the Invitation or these other documents and/or materials relate are available only to relevant persons and will be engaged in only with relevant persons. Any person who is not a relevant person should not act or rely on the Invitation or these other documents and/or materials or any of its or their contents.

SOURCE Government of Jamaica
"What better way to celebrate the Dominican Day Parade than by helping others and giving back to our community," said Rafael Toro, Director of Public Relations of Goya Foods. "To Goya, it's not just about donating food or money, but about making a difference in the lives of our consumers and their families."

The food will go directly to Catholic Charities' food pantries, where it will be distributed to hundreds of families in need. "We are grateful for the ongoing generosity of Goya and their support in our mission to providing meals to all hungry New Yorkers in need," said Executive Director, Monsignor Kevin Sullivan. "In celebrating Dominican Week, we highlight one of the many communities our agencies are proud to serve."

The donation is part of the Goya Gives campaign, a national initiative committed to supporting local communities through social causes. Goya has donated millions of pounds of food to organizations worldwide and continues to support over 250 organizations, events and cultural institutions. "We are proud to partner with Goya in the spirit of our Dominican culture, which embraces community and service," said Maria Khury, Chair, Board of Directors of the Dominican Day Parade. "Catholic Charities fights hunger, among many other causes, and it is our distinct honor that Goya is making this significant donation in recognition of our mission."



Goya's annual food donations also serve to encourage consumers to participate in the message and act of helping those in need. Consumers can share the #GoyaGives message with friends and family through Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @goyafoods and @CathCharitiesNY 

For more information about Goya Foods and the #GoyaGives campaign, please visit www.goya.com.

About GOYA: Founded in 1936, Goya Foods, Inc. is America's largest Hispanic-owned food company, and has established itself as the leader in Latin American food and condiments. Goya manufactures, packages, and distributes over 2,500 high-quality food products from Spain, the Caribbean, Mexico, Central and South America. Goya products have their roots in the culinary traditions of Hispanic communities around the world; Goya's combination of authentic ingredients, robust seasonings and convenient preparation make Goya products ideal for every taste and every table. For more information on Goya Foods, please visit www.goya.com

About Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York: Currently celebrating their 100th year, Catholic Charities is a federation of approximately 90 agencies and programs located throughout the 10 counties of the Archdiocese of New York, helping to solve the problems of New Yorkers in need  non-Catholics and Catholics alike  with services that protect and nurture children, strengthen families and resolve crises, assist the hungry and homeless, support the physically and emotionally challenged, and integrate immigrants and refugees.

In 2017, Catholic Charities is marking a 100-year legacy of service and launching the next century of providing help and creating hope for New Yorkers in need. Catholic Charities is recommitting to providing basic human services that are efficient, effective, accountable and caring  and to being a valued partner in building the fabric of a caring New York. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook. For more information on how to donate or volunteer, please visit our website at catholiccharitiesny.org.

About the Dominican Day Parade in New York: Since reconstituted in 2015, the Dominican Day Parade Organization has been a 501(c)(3) nonprofit whose mission is to celebrate the cultural heritage of people who trace their ancestry to the Dominican Republic either by birth or descent. The organization promotes and supports the contributions of people of Dominican ancestry. We acknowledge the heritage and contributions of the Dominican community throughout the world.

We celebrate the richness of the Dominican culture, folklore and popular traditions for generations to come, as highlighted when we celebrate several community outreach programs and cultural events leading up to our annual benefit gala culminating in the celebration of our parade the 2nd Sunday of the month of August appropriately on the Avenue of the Americas. Follow us on #DRPARADEUSA and Facebook Dominican parade. For more information on how to donate, participate or volunteer, please visit our website at dominicanparade.org

PRESS RELEASE

Press Contacts:

Natalie Maniscalco

[email protected]

845.659.6506

SOURCE Goya Foods

Related Links

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NEW YORK, August 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The North American marijuana market is growing at rates that are similar to those recorded by broadband internet in the 2000s. This stunning comparison, noted in a 2017 report by Arcview Market Research, highlights the potential short-term and long-term effects of what many analysts are referring to as the "green rush." ABcann Global Corp. (OTC: ABCCF) (TSX.V: ABCN) (ABcann Profile) is one company looking to make the most of the opportunities presented by this growth. With a strong cash position and plans to implement one of the most aggressive expansion plans in the industry, ABcann could be the next in a long line of cannabis stocks that have exploded in value in recent years. Some examples include Canopy Growth Corp. (OTC: TWMJF) (TSX: WEED), which rose by more than 700 percent following its initial public offering; Aphria, Inc. (OTC: APHQF) (TSX.V: APH), which spiked from C$0.75 at IPO to a high of C$6.60 earlier this year; Supreme Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (OTC: SPRWF) (TSX.V: FIRE), which soared by over 1,600 percent after its IPO; and industry investment firm Cannabis Wheaton Income Corp. (OTC: KWFLF) (TSX.V: CBW).

According to Arcview data, the North American cannabis sector is currently on pace to achieve a compound annual growth rate of 25 percent through 2021, when the market is expected to top $20.2 billion. "What broadband changed for the internet was a kind of remarkable parallel to legalization for cannabis," Tom Adams, editor in chief of Arcview Market Research, stated in an interview[1] with Business Insider. "We saw what had been a $5 billion industry - like this one - in North America take off at that point on new growth spurts." These parallels are promising for investors looking to capitalize on the ongoing cannabis boom. In early 2000, Pew Research Center[2] found that just one percent of U.S. adults had access to home broadband services. Today, nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults have broadband service at home.

While a considerable amount of the focus on North American marijuana legalization remains on the unpredictable U.S. market, it presents a number of challenges that put growers and their investors in an uncomfortable position. Although 29 states and the District of Columbia currently have laws broadly legalizing marijuana in some form, these markets operate in a sort of legal gray area that directly contradicts with existing federal laws stemming from the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). Passed in 1970, the CSA identifies marijuana as a Schedule I substance with a high potential for abuse[3] and no currently accepted medical use. As such, industries operating across state lines, most notably banks and other financial institutions, have largely steered clear of the promising sector. Despite nationwide sales of $5.4 billion in 2015, according to The Arcview Group, banking options for these budding U.S. businesses have remained few and far between. A 2017 survey by the California Growers Association found that 75 percent of its members didn't have a bank account, and this dearth of banking options extends to markets across the country, according to a survey by Marijuana Business Daily.

These banking complications present concerns regarding both the safety and sustainability of U.S. marijuana markets, and they've been compounded in recent months by inconsistent rhetoric from the current presidential administration. In June, the Washington Post reported[4] that Attorney General Jeff Sessions requested that congressional leaders undo federal medical marijuana protections that have been in place since 2014. Sessions went on to cite a "historic drug epidemic" as justification for a planned crackdown on medical marijuana. Though the protections, known as the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment, were extended through September 30, 2017, as part of a spending bill signed into law in early May, the current administration's efforts to "crackdown" on state cannabis programs continues to cast a shadow of unpredictability on the industry, adding an inescapable level of risk for the investment community.

While the U.S. cannabis market continues to evolve, Canada is currently preparing to legalize recreational marijuana at the federal level, becoming the first G7 country to do so. The new law, set to come into effect on July 1, 2018, will expand upon a booming medical marijuana market led by a number of licensed growers. Because licensing for growers is completed at the federal level, the number of licenses is limited, preventing the space from becoming oversaturated and enabling companies to record rapid and sustainable growth. As noted by Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. in a November 2016 report, "The rigorous process of becoming a licensed producer of cannabis in Canada imposes significant barriers to entry and there will be a shortfall of supply in a legalized market in the short-term until production capacities catch up by 2020." The report goes on to forecast that Canadian cannabis sales could exceed $8 billion by 2024.

Many Canadian cannabis growers have already experienced sizable share price increases in recent years, but one company that could be on the verge of a significant uptick is ABcann Global Corporation. At just over three months old and having completed its U.S. listing on the OTCQB Venture Market on July 13th (http://nnw.fm/BTh41), ABcann is firing out of the gate with approximately $43 million in cash in its coffers, 100 percent ownership of a 65-acre parcel of land upon which to construct expansions to its operations and a completely licensed and fully operational production facility with annual production capacity of about 1,000 kilograms of cannabis.

At the heart of ABcann's expansion effort is its advanced growing technology, which not only creates a consistent, organically grown, pesticide free standardized product, but also brings down costs through the use of exclusive, computer-controlled environmental systems. By monitoring every variable in the growing, curing and harvesting processes, the company is able to produce yield quantities that significantly exceed those produced through traditional growing techniques.

Unlike many of its U.S. counterparts, ABcann has found early success in attracting investors thanks in part to the predictability of the Canadian market. On August 2, the company announced (http://nnw.fm/aVAL7) the close of an initial $15 million investment by Cannabis Wheaton Income Corp., (OTC: KWFLF) (TSX.V: CBW.V) the world's first cannabis streaming company, as part of a larger phased investment to fund an additional 50,000 square feet at ABcann's second production facility at its 65-acre Kimmett property in Napanee, Ontario. Plans for this facility, in addition to the company's current construction plans for a 100,000 square foot purpose built facility at the Kimmett property, position ABcann to expand at a rate that's unparalleled in the Canadian cannabis industry. It's important to note that Cannabis Wheaton's valuation of ABcann comes at a 160% premium over the company's current share price of $0.68. Cannabis Wheaton paid $2.25 per share - $15 million cash - in a $30 million financing, the remaining $15 million of which is expected to fund an additional production with ABcann.

Understanding ABcann's potential upside is most easily accomplished by studying its competitors in the Canadian market. Because the Canadian government limits the number of cannabis production licenses granted under the Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations (more than 1,600 companies have applied to become licensed producers since 2013, with only 19 winning LP status from 2013-2014), the market maintains extremely high barriers to entry. These barriers helped propel Canopy Growth Corporation (OTC: TWMJF) (TSX: WEED.TO) from a share price of C$2.20 at IPO in May 2014 to a high of C$17.86 for its Canada-listed stock in November 2016, when it became Canada's first billion dollar marijuana stock. Today, Canopy is one of the biggest growers in the world, boasting indoor and greenhouse production facilities spanning over half a million square feet and a collection of brands such as Tweed, Bedrocan and Mettrum. Canopy's emergence as one of the world's leading diversified cannabis companies comes as the firm continues to steer clear of the U.S. market. As it noted in an August 4 news release, Canopy is committed to only conducting business in jurisdictions where it is "federally legal to do so," in an effort to avoid "being exposed to undue risks."

Aphria Inc. (OTCQB: APHQF) (TSX.V: APH.V) is another player in the Canadian cannabis industry that has experienced tremendous growth since going public in November 2014. The company's products, which include capsules, oral solutions and vaporizers featuring 100 percent greenhouse grown medical cannabis, have propelled it to the forefront of the global medical cannabis industry. Aphria's PPS for its Canada-listed shares hit a high of C$7.79 in November 2016 just before it closed on an offering generating gross proceeds of C$40.25 million to fund further expansion efforts. To date, the company has raised more than C$160 million while recording seven consecutive quarters of positive EBITDA and continuing to expand its production capacity. Unlike Canopy Growth Corporation, Aphria is also eyeing the unpredictable U.S. cannabis market. On April 4, Aphria announced the launch of a U.S. expansion strategy through a lead investment in an entity to be renamed Liberty Health Sciences Inc.

Another Canadian cannabis grower that's recorded huge gains since going public is Supreme Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (OTC: SPRWF) (TSX.V: FIRE.V) Since its IPO in February 2014, Supreme's Canada-listed shares have soared by over 1,600 percent, climbing to a high of C$2.05 in November 2016. Beginning with 7ACRES, a federally approved medical marijuana company operating a hybrid greenhouse production facility, Supreme has taken a unique approach to establishing a foothold in the Canadian cannabis market. In 2015, the company focused its business model on its strength in cultivation by becoming the country's first B2B-focused licensed producer. More recently, on June 1, Supreme announced the listing of its common shares on the TSX Venture Exchange, graduating from the Canadian Securities Exchange, in an effort to facilitate further growth.

The Canadian cannabis market has shown to be a fertile proving ground for growers with the resources, leadership and licenses required to compete. ABcann's strong management team led by CEO Aaron Keay and chairman and founder Ken Clement, alongside its outstanding advisory board headed by the "Father of Cannabis Medicine" Dr. Raphael Mechoulam, has positioned the company to follow in the footsteps of competitors like Canopy Growth Corporation, Aphria Inc. and Supreme Pharmaceuticals. Cannabis Wheaton Income Corp. has already provided a vote of confidence for ABcann's chances in the form of a $15 million investment, and ABcann's aggressive expansion strategy has earned it a 'Buy' rating and a price target of $2.25 from PI Financial. With the company still trading for less than many of its competitors did before recording huge increases to their share prices, ABcann should be on the radar of any investor looking to capitalize on the North American marijuana boom. As noted in an article published by CNBC, "Now is the right time to bet big on marijuana [as] the pot industry is poised to be gigantic."

Editorial Sources:

[1]Business Insider: http://nnw.fm/Q4UKl

[2]Pew Research: http://nnw.fm/m0OG5

[3]Drugs.com http://nnw.fm/3UhrB

[4]Washington Post http://nnw.fm/J46mL

For more information on ABcann Global please visit: ABcann Global (TSX.V: ABCN) (OTCQB: ABCCF)

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SOURCE NetworkNewsWire
"Never before has there been a more urgent need for the American Bar Association to lead the way toward needed changes in the profession and to educate our citizens about the rule of law," Bass said. "As I begin my year as ABA president, my passion for our justice system and connecting individuals with legal services will drive my efforts to bring together a diverse group to tackle the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. We will focus on issues that go to the core of our profession: how we provide access to justice, educate law students, and serve our clients."

Specifically, in her year as president, Bass will focus on issues involving the future of legal education, the legal needs of homeless youth both in the United States and worldwide, and the precipitous exodus of experienced female lawyers from many firms. She also will institute an ABA Legal Fact Check service to help answer legal questions in the news.

Under Bass' direction, the ABA has created a new 10-member Commission on the Future of Legal Education to help lead the discussion of how the nation educates future lawyers. It will study issues such as the bar exam and passage rates, the length of law school, alternative teaching methods, and more.

"If we as a profession want to guarantee that the best and the brightest will continue to join us, we must ensure that their training and testing to become lawyers will be relevant, appropriate, and truly based on their competency to provide accurate and appropriate legal advice," Bass said. "The ABA is uniquely positioned to work with the important stakeholders to explore possible changes that could transform legal education."

The Legal Rights of Homeless Youth Initiative will have an international and domestic component. In the U.S., more than 500,000 homeless children need access to lawyers who can remove the legal barriers that prevent these youth from getting the education, employment, housing, health care, identification, and other services that could transform their lives. But of the more than 350 shelters in the U.S. that serve homeless children, few have access to pro bono legal services. The ABA project will train volunteer lawyers to provide legal assistance to children in the shelters and match lawyers from across the country with shelters to provide free legal assistance.

Internationally, the ABA plans to convene a summit in Sao Paulo, Brazil in Nov. 2017 with organizations from across the globe to exchange ideas and information on how to best fulfill the obligations laid out by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

"The problem of homeless youth cannot be solved overnight, but it must be addressed," Bass said. "By bringing together some of the leading experts at the Brazil summit, we hope that together these great minds can take on this global challenge. At home, our dedicated lawyers extending a helping hand to these children will certainly change the trajectory of their lives."

The ABA also will address the issue of women lawyers leaving law firms in its Achieving Long Term Careers for Women in Law initiative. While women are for the first time this year matriculating at a higher percentage in law schools than men, preliminary research reveals that the most experienced women are leaving the profession in their 40s and 50s. By the age of 50, women may comprise just about a quarter of the profession. To gain an understanding about the career dynamics of women lawyers, the ABA is co-sponsoring a research project with the American Bar Foundation on the career trajectories of women lawyers. In November, the ABA will co-sponsor a first-of-its-kind summit with Harvard Law School examining potential solutions for the long-term retention and advancement of women in law.

"This is a huge loss of talent and expertise to the legal profession and to our justice system that we cannot afford. We need to understand why so many women lawyers are leaving when their experience is at its peak and they should be reaching the highest levels of leadership positions," Bass said. "We cannot rest until we have done everything we can to ensure that diverse attorneys  whatever their race, sexual orientation or gender  experience a law profession that is as hospitable to them as it is to everyone else."

With ABA Legal Fact Check, the goal is to operate a fact-checking service that focuses on the law and legal matters. The ABA will work with a panel of legal experts to develop dependable answers to legal questions that emerge in the public arena.

"In an era of alternative facts and fake news, the ABA should be the definitive source of real facts when it comes to the law," Bass said.

Bass serves as co-president and a member of the executive committee for Greenberg Traurig, a multi-practice firm that has approximately 2,000 attorneys across 38 offices worldwide. She previously served an eight-year term as national chair of the firm's 600-member litigation department. Bass is based in Miami.

She has been actively involved with the ABA for more than 30 years, beginning as a young lawyer and working her way up to become chair of the 70,000-member Section of Litigation (2010-11). As chair, Bass spearheaded the creation of a Task Force on Implicit Bias in the Justice System. She has held several other notable positions at the ABA, including serving as chair of the Committee on Rules and Calendar (2012-14).

The ABA presidency marks another lifetime achievement and testament to the success that Bass has attained throughout her career. A prolific trial attorney, Bass has successfully represented high-profile corporate clients in jury and non-jury trials involving hundreds of millions of dollars in controversy. In recognition of that success, Bass was inducted in 2011 to the American College of Trial Lawyers. She has worked on and settled more than 100 cases, tried more than 20 cases to conclusion and argued numerous appeals. Among her significant cases, Bass led the effort to eliminate Florida's 20-year-old ban on gay adoption, which was found unconstitutional in 2010 and led to the state removing questions on sexual orientation from the adoption application.

Outside the firm, she has led many top legal and community organizations and received numerous awards and accolades. Among them, she is listed in "The Best Lawyers in America," "Who's Who Legal: Florida," and "Chambers USA." In recognition of her work, Bass has been honored with the Judge Learned Hand Award from the American Jewish Committee (2017), Euromoney Legal Media Group's Outstanding Practitioner Award (2016), silver medallion from the Miami Coalition of Christians and Jews (2011) and C. Clyde Atkins Civil Liberties Award from the ACLU in Florida (2009), among several other awards throughout her career.

Bass serves as Vice Chair of University of Miami's Board of Trustees. She was formerly Chair of the United Way of Miami-Dade County and a president of the Florida Bar Foundation (1994-95).

Bass earned her law degree at University of Miami School of Law and her bachelor's degree at George Washington University.

About Greenberg Traurig, LLP

Greenberg Traurig, LLP (GTLaw) has more than 2,000 attorneys in 38 offices in the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East and is celebrating its 50th anniversary. One firm worldwide, GTLaw has been recognized for its philanthropic giving, was named the largest firm in the U.S. by Law360 in 2017, and among the Top 20 on the 2016 Am Law Global 100. Web: www.gtlaw.com Twitter: @GT_Law.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Elaine Walker

[email protected]

(305) 579-0832

SOURCE Greenberg Traurig

Related Links

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HOUSTON, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Group 1 Automotive, Inc. (NYSE: GPI), an international, Fortune 500 automotive retailer, today announced that it has acquired the exclusive Audi dealership in Fort Worth, Texas, which is expected to generate $55 million in estimated annual revenues. The Company owns and operates 13 Audi dealerships across Florida, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Texas, and the United Kingdom.

"We are delighted to expand our relationship with Audi in the United States and strengthen our luxury brand representation and overall retail portfolio in the greater Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area," said Earl J. Hesterberg, Group 1's president and chief executive officer.

About Group 1 Automotive, Inc.

Group 1 owns and operates 174 automotive dealerships, 228 franchises, and 47 collision centers in the United States, the United Kingdom and Brazil that offer 32 brands of automobiles. Through its dealerships, the Company sells new and used cars and light trucks; arranges related vehicle financing; sells service contracts; provides automotive maintenance and repair services; and sells vehicle parts.

Investors please visit www.group1corp.com, www.group1auto.com, www.group1collision.com, www.facebook.com/group1auto, and www.twitter.com/group1auto, where Group 1 discloses additional information about the Company, its business, and its results of operations.

Group 1 Automotive can be reached on the Internet at www.group1auto.com.

This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which are statements related to future, not past, events and are based on our current expectations and assumptions regarding our business, the economy and other future conditions. In this context, the forward-looking statements often include statements regarding our goals, plans, projections and guidance regarding our financial position, results of operations, market position, pending and potential future acquisitions and business strategy, and often contain words such as "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "plans," "believes," "seeks," "should," "foresee," "may" or "will" and similar expressions. While management believes that these forward-looking statements are reasonable as and when made, there can be no assurance that future developments affecting us will be those that we anticipate. Any such forward-looking statements are not assurances of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those set forth in the statements. These risks and uncertainties include, among other things, (a) general economic and business conditions, (b) the level of manufacturer incentives, (c) the future regulatory environment, (d) our ability to obtain an inventory of desirable new and used vehicles, (e) our relationship with our automobile manufacturers and the willingness of manufacturers to approve future acquisitions, (f) our cost of financing and the availability of credit for consumers, (g) our ability to complete acquisitions and dispositions and the risks associated therewith, (h) foreign exchange controls and currency fluctuations, and (i) our ability to retain key personnel. For additional information regarding known material factors that could cause our actual results to differ from our projected results, please see our filings with the SEC, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements after the date they are made, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Investor contacts:

Sheila Roth

Manager, Investor Relations

Group 1 Automotive, Inc.

713-647-5741 | [email protected]

Media contacts:

Pete DeLongchamps

V.P. Manufacturer Relations, Financial Services and Public Affairs

Group 1 Automotive, Inc.

713-647-5770 | [email protected]

or

Clint Woods

Pierpont Communications, Inc.

713-627-2223 | [email protected]

SOURCE Group 1 Automotive, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.group1auto.com


By PTI: (Eds: Adds details of celebrations in US)

Beijing/Melbourne, Aug 15 (PTI) Soaked in patriotism, hundreds of Indians abroad today marked the countrys 71st Independence Day with the tricolour fluttering high and the national anthem reverberating at Indian missions across the world.

Indians in countries like the US, China, Australia, Japan, Singapore, Egypt, Israel and South Africa celebrated the day with hoisting of the national flag and singing of patriotic songs.

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A large number of Indian expats attended the Independence Day celebrations at the embassy in Beijing with Indian envoy Vijay Gokhale reading the address of President Ram Nath Kovind. He met the Indian diaspora at a reception held in the embassy.

In Shanghai, Indian Consul General Prakash Gupta hoisted the national flag. A large number of Indian expats, besides Tarun Vijay, President of the India China Parliamentary Group, who is on a visit attended the celebrations.

In Guangzhou, Indian Consul General Y K Sailas Thangal hoisted the tricolour. Over 150 Indian professionals and businessmen settled in the southern Chinese city attended the reception held on the occasion at the Consulate.

In Australia, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull today extended his wishes by calling it a day that commemorates "the achievement of sovereignty and freedom for the worlds largest democracy" as the Indian diaspora celebrated the special occasion by attending flag hoisting ceremonies held at Indian High Commission and consulates across the country.

Turnbull said it is an occasion to take pride in Indias progress over seven decades of independence, and to share in hopes for its future.

He said the ties between the two countries have become stronger and that the governments are working closely to support shared interests in a stable and prosperous Indo- Pacific region.

"The Indian community in Australia is an important part of our strong and enduring ties, helping to build even closer bonds between our nations, he said adding that two-way trade exceeded 20 billion dollars in 2016, and shows great potential for further growth," he said.

"With these thoughts in mind, I hope the Indian community in Australia enjoys wonderful Independence Day celebrations, and finds their sense of affection and esteem for India renewed," he said.

Canberra based Indian High commission as well as consulates in Melbourne, Sydney and other cities also held flag hoisting ceremonies attended by a several members of Indian communities.

Several Indian community organisations are also holding dinners and special events to acknowledge the occasion.

On Saturday, Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, who was a special guest of the Indian Film festival of Melbourne (IFFM) this year, unfurled the tricolour to celebrate the day.

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Indians in Japan also celebrated the 71st Independence Day with great enthusiasm.

A large gathering of about 600 people, including the growing Indian community in Tokyo, celebrated the day.

Indian Ambassador to Japan Sujan R Chinoy unfurled the national flag, which was followed by the singing of the National Anthem.

The envoy also addressed the gathering and read out the Kovinds address. Students of Indian International School in Japan (IISJ), Tokyo and Global Indian International School (GIIS) sang patriotic songs. The programme was followed by refreshments.

Three local newspapers, Japan Times, Japan News and Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun carried the message of Ambassador Chinoy on the occasion along with congratulatory messages from Japanese dignitaries.

An Incredible India photo contest organised by the Indian embassy in Japan in association with India Tourism Office and Air India was launched to mark the celebrations.

In Singapore, Indian High Commissioner to Singapore Jawed Ashraf along with 700 Indians celebrated the Independence Day.

Students from Indian schools in Singapore sang patriotic songs and performed cultural dances at the High Commission.

In the UK, hundreds of members of the Indian diaspora took part in the first-ever Freedom Run to mark the Independence Day with the one-mile journey beginning from the historic Parliament Square here.

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In Egypt, Indias Ambassador to Egypt Sanjay Bhattacharyya hoisted the countrys flag to mark day at the India House in Zamalek.

The celebration was attended by members of Indian community in Egypt as well some Egyptian friends of India and students of language the The Maulana Azad Centre for Indian Culture (MACIC).

After hoisting the flag, and the attendees sang the national anthem, Bhattacharyya also read out the message of Kovind.

In Israel, around 250 Indians from all over the country assembled in this northern coastal town to celebrate Independence Day in a year when the 25th anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries has seen a flurry of activities.

Ambassador Pavan Kapoor hoisted the national flag with some of the enthusiastic participants from the Indian Jewish community raising slogans of "Bharat Mata ki Jai".

Kapoor thanked the Indian community for joining the celebrations and also expressed Prime Minister Narendra Modis deep appreciation for their participation in large numbers in the July 5th event last month when the Indian Premier addressed them during his three day visit to Israel.

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Noah Massil, a founder member and former President of Central Organisation of Indian Jews in Israel (COIJI), told PTI that Modis visit has "instilled a fresh sense of pride" among the Indian Jewish community.

"We are now going to launch the World Organisation of Indian Jews in Mumbai at an event on January 14th next year with participation of members of the community from all over the world", Massil said.

"Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi has won the hearts of all of us by announcing that Indian Jews who have done mandatory army service only are entitled to OCI and also his initiative to set up an Indian cultural centre in Israel", he added.

Women members of the Indian mission staff sang Vande Matram during the event.

Indias Independence Day was celebrated across South Africa with gatherings in all major cities.

Large numbers of expatriates and locals of all communities watched the hoisting of the flag at the Indian missions in Pretoria, Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg before hearing the message from President Kovind.

In his maiden address to the nation on the eve of 71st Independence Day, Kovind remembered the role of leaders of Independence struggle, including Jawaharlal Nehru.

Kovind pitched for a partnership between citizens and the government to create a new India by 2022 that is a "compassionate society" and includes the "humanist component integral to the nations DNA".

The special relationship between South Africa and India was highlighted by an unprecedented lighting up of several Gandhian heritage sites in the colours of the Indian flag on the eve of the Independence Day.

"In compliance with a request from the Indian government, we approached the owners of some historic sites to do this and they welcomed it enthusiastically," Consul General in Johannesburg Dr K J Srinivasa told PTI.

The three sites that attracted hundreds of onlookers overnight were Constitutional Hill and Satyagraha House in Johannesburg; and the Pietermaritzburg Railway Station, where Gandhi started his path as a champion of anti-discrimination after being thrown off a train because he was in a compartment reserved for whites only.

Consul General in Durban Dr Shashank Vikram said the government authorities in Pietermaritzburg were just as excited about the project.

Constitutional Hill, home to the Constitutional Court, South Africas highest judiciary body, was built on the site of the Old Fort prison where Mahatma Gandhi was imprisoned during his tenure in Johanensburg at the turn of the last century.

In the UAE, hundreds of Indian expats gathered at their countrys missions to celebrate, Gulf News reported.

Patriotic Indians chanted slogans praising their motherland before the Indian flag was hoisted at the premises of the Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi and the Indian Consulate in Dubai.

In the US, Indian-Americans celebrated the event by unfurling the national flag and holding cultural extravaganza.

Americans joined Indians and people of Indian-origin in various cities by rendering Indias national anthem, cultural performances and short speeches on India-US relationship.

Despite heavy downpour, a large number of Indian- Americans turned up for the traditional flag-hoisting ceremony at the official residence of Indias Ambassador to the US Navtej Sarna who unfurled the tricolour.

Thereafter Sarna addressed the guests and read out President Ram Nath Kovinds address to the nation.

A brief cultural programme involving rendition of patriotic songs by school children in the US was also organised to mark the occasion.

Several US lawmakers joined Indian-Americans in celebrating the Independence Day.

"Celebrated the 70th Independence Day of India in Henderson over the weekend!" tweeted Congresswoman Jacky Rosen from Las Vegas, Nevada.

"Happy Independence Day to our ally and partner, India. Congratulations to the largest democracy from the oldest democracy," said Congressman Ted Poe.

Congressman Billy Long retweeted the tweet of Israeli Prime Minister (Benjamin Netanyahu) in which he greeted Modi on the occasion of Independence Day.

"Today we celebrate 70 years of independence for India! Happy," tweeted Congressman Pete Olson.

"Beautiful celebration of Indias Independence at Sate House. Delicious food and great music. So lucky to live in state that values diversity!" tweeted Congressman David Cicilline from Rhode Island along with pictures after he attended an Independence Day event with Indian-Americans at the State House.

"Big crowd for India Day Parade in Edison and Woodbridge," tweeted Congressman Frank Pallone after he attended the India Day parade in New Jersey which was attended by hundreds of Indian-Americans.

Congressman Ruben J Kihuen said he had wonderful time celebrating Indias Independence Day with friends of India.

"Our Indian neighbours have contributed so much to Nevada Congressional District Four," he tweeted along with pictures.

"Celebrating Indian Independence Day with" Indian- American Coalition of Texas, said Congressman Lloyd Doggett.

"US and India show that diversity is a strength, not detriment, to vibrant democracies," he added.

Congresswoman Grace Meng wrote that it was great to march in the India Day parade down Hillside Avenue in Queens, New York. PTI TEAM UZM AKJ CPS

--- ENDS ---
RESTON, Va., Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- GTL, an innovation leader in correctional technology, education solutions that assist in rehabilitating inmates, and payment services solutions for government, today announced that it has entered into an agreement with the State of Mississippi to resolve a civil lawsuit for $2.5 million.

"We have always acted with integrity," said Brian Oliver, GTL's Chief Executive Officer. "So why are we settling? We can spend the next three years focused on innovation or litigation. We choose innovation."

The settlement acknowledges that GTL denies any involvement or liability in any wrongdoing. In a statement, Attorney General Hood said: "As a company that continues to contract with the State, Global Tel*Link quickly approached our office seeking settlement after the Epps scandal. Due to their cooperation, we have now resolved this matter."

GTL was one of 15 companies involved in civil lawsuits filed by the state following the conviction of Christopher Epps, former commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Corrections, for his role in an extortion scheme.

"This whole episode is the result of the corrupt actions of a bad actor, Mr. Epps, who is now in prison," Oliver said. "We work with many great public officials in Mississippi and across the country every day. This is an aberration, not representative of the many fine corrections leaders and personnel we work with."

GTL provided full, unstinting cooperation to law enforcement and was not a party to the illicit acts of Epps. Testimony in related federal proceedings confirmed that GTL's contracts with the State of Mississippi are legitimate. GTL has provided service to the State of Mississippi since 2005 and remains a service provider to the State today.

"Like many other public and private sector organizations facing such litigation, we cleared the decks to focus on our customers, not the courtroom," said Jeff Haidinger, President of GTL. "It is a credit to our employees that while working to resolve this matter, we continue to serve the State of Mississippi with high-quality service and leading-edge technology. That is why we continue to be a trusted partner."

"I am proud of the integrity of our people and our company," Oliver said. "We are glad to close the door on this issue so we can focus our full attention on rolling out the next generation of technology solutions to our customers."

About GTL

GTL leads the fields of correctional technology, education, and government payment services with visionary solutions and customized products that integrate seamlessly to deliver security, financial value, and operational efficiencies while aiding inmate rehabilitation and reducing recidivism rates. With the recent acquisition of Telmate, GTL has strengthened its suite of solutions for the corrections industry and expanded its community corrections portfolio with Telmate Guardian, a smartphone-based GPS monitoring solution. As a trusted industry leader, GTL provides services to over 2 million inmates in more than 2,500 correctional facilities in the United States and Canada, including 33 U.S. departments of corrections, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and many large city/county/provincial facilities. GTL is headquartered in Reston, Virginia, with an employee presence throughout North America. To learn more about GTL, please visit www.gtl.net or our social media sites on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Press Contact: Elizabeth Northrup

202-465-7776

[email protected]

SOURCE GTL

Related Links

http://www.gtl.net


HOSFORD, Fla., Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Gulf, Gadsden, Liberty, and Franklin Counties announce the establishment of the Gulf to Gadsden Freight Logistics Zone (FLZ). A FLZ is a grouping of activities and infrastructure associated with freight transportation and related services that can become a platform for broader economic development. Establishment of the FLZ can provide the counties with priority for funding and incentives from the State when pursuing certain projects within the FLZ. The four counties created a strategic plan for the attraction of business to the zone that was accepted by the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity and adopted by the Board of County Commissioners in each county.

"The new Freight Logistics Zone will connect communities, improve infrastructure for freight transportation and strongly impact the local economies," said Florida Department of Economic Opportunity Executive Director Cissy Proctor. "We are proud to work with this team to create a positive effect on economic development and job growth across these counties."

Gadsden, Liberty, Franklin and Gulf counties share a common transportation asset in the Apalachicola Northern Railway, owned by St. Joe Company and operated by a subsidiary of Genesee & Wyoming Inc. The railroad connects the Port of Port St. Joe in Gulf County with the CSX Class I railroad in Gadsden County, thereby providing for the movement of goods across the nation. A number of industrial sites have been identified and qualified by Enterprise Florida's Strategic Sites program along the railroad and proximate to additional transportation assets. Interstate 10 and major arterial roads like Highways 65, 71 and US 98 together with the Apalachicola Regional Airport in Franklin County comprise a transportation network that is valuable to the growing industries of transportation, logistics, manufacturing and distribution. The study outlines two inland ports  one near Interstate 10 and one near the Port of Port St. Joe.

"We are delighted about this partnership between several counties in North Florida to establish the Gulf to Gadsden Freight Logistics Zone," said Senator Bill Montford. "It will provide a much-needed boost for our rural counties and with our local leadership, I am confident we will be successful in providing more job opportunities and a better local economy."

"When we see leaders at the city, county and state levels join forces with the private sector, the greatness that can be accomplished becomes evident," said State Representative Halsey Beshears. "What this partnership and naming of this new zone means to this area is immeasurable and I look forward to seeing the positive impacts for years to come."

"Working together to find ways to stimulate our local economies is a priority across the board," said State Representative Ramon Alexander. "Partnerships such as these lead to new jobs and opportunities for the hard-working citizens of this region and position us as a key player in industry growth."

"Enhancing transportation infrastructure is important to promoting economic development," Gretna Mayor Anthony J. Baker said. "The FLZ strategic plan describes areas where infrastructure investment is essential. I look forward to working with the State of Florida to facilitate economic development and job growth by way of the FLZ in Gretna and throughout the zone."

"Enterprise Florida's Rural Area of Opportunity Strategic Sites program is an important component for Liberty County as we prepare our sites to take advantage of the AN Railroad," emphasized Dexter Barber, Liberty County Board of County Commissioners Chairman.

Joseph "Smokey" Parrish, Chairman of the Franklin County Board of County Commissioners stated, "We are happy to be working with the other counties to create a transportation and logistics hub that will facilitate growth and economic development in our region. We are working to position the Apalachicola Regional Airport as a strategic asset in the FLZ."

Gulf County Board of County Commissioners Chairman Ward McDaniel said, "We are proud to see this effort come to fruition. The alignment of sea, air, rail and interstate around a common strategy will prepare this region for the much-anticipated economic growth."

"The four counties in the FLZ have tremendous potential for economic development and job growth" said Jorge Gonzalez, CEO of The St. Joe Company. "With the proper infrastructure in place, the Port of Port St. Joe can leverage the benefit of its proximity to rail, air, and interstate transportation assets. We are committed to working with the counties to improve transportation connectivity and propelling growth throughout the FLZ."

Kevin Phillips, AVP Industrial Development for Genesee & Wyoming explained, "The FLZ region has natural transportation and logistics advantages that we need to maximize and use to attract additional jobs and prosperity to the region. The FLZ is one way to accomplish this."

Craig Swilley, CEO of International Wood Group, said, "We fully support the development of a FLZ in Gulf, Franklin, Liberty, and Gadsden Counties. Improved logistics capability will benefit all companies in the region and will enhance economic development and employment opportunities."

SOURCE Gulf to Gadsden Freight Logistics Zone (FLZ)
Brazilian type certification for the HondaJet follows approvals in the United States (Federal Aviation Administration), Europe (European Aviation Safety Agency), Mexico (Directorate General of Civil Aviation), and Canada (Transport Canada).

"We are excited to achieve Brazilian certification for HondaJet," said Honda Aircraft Company President and CEO Michimasa Fujino. "We are eager to respond to customer interest in one of the largest business jet markets in the world."

Honda Aircraft appointed Lider Aviacao as the exclusive dealer in 2015 to provide sales, service and support for customers in Brazil. Based in Belo Horizonte, Lider operates more than 21 fixed base operations (FBOs) throughout Brazil.

"The type certification is a tremendous milestone for the Brazilian market," said Eduardo Vaz, CEO for Lider Aviacao. "The aircraft is particularly ideal for intra-Brazil travel, connecting all the major cities, with the comfort, speed and high performance only found in the HondaJet."

In conjunction with LABACE, the HondaJet will tour around Central and Latin America, including the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Trinidad & Tobago, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Colombia, Panama, Nicaragua, and Guatemala throughout the months of August and September.

For more information, visit www.HondaJet.com.

About HondaJet

The HondaJet is the fastest, highest-flying, quietest, and most fuel-efficient jet in its class. The HondaJet incorporates many technological innovations in aviation design, including the unique Over-The-Wing Engine Mount (OTWEM) configuration that dramatically improves performance and fuel efficiency by reducing aerodynamic drag. The OTWEM design also reduces cabin sound, minimizes ground-detected noise, and allows for the roomiest cabin in its class, the largest baggage capacity, and a fully serviceable private aft lavatory. The HondaJet is equipped with the most sophisticated glass flight deck available in any light business jet, a Honda-customized Garmin G3000 The HondaJet is Honda's first commercial aircraft and lives up to the company's reputation for superior performance, efficiency, quality and value.

Honda Aircraft Company

Honda Aircraft Company is a wholly owned subsidiary of American Honda Motor Co., Inc. Founded in 2006, Honda Aircraft is responsible for the design, manufacturing, sales, service and support of the HondaJet. The company's world headquarters is located in Greensboro, North Carolina, the birthplace of aviation. The challenging spirit upon which Mr. Soichiro Honda founded Honda Motor Co., Ltd. is alive today as Honda Aircraft fulfills one of Honda's longstanding dreams to advance human mobility skyward.

Lider Aviacao

Lider Aviacao is the largest business aviation company in Latin America. Founded 59 years ago, it has 1400 employees and a fleet of more than 70 aircraft. With 21 operational bases, in the main Brazilian airports, the company has five business units: aircraft charter and management; aircraft sales; maintenance; ground handling services and helicopter operations. Lider also offers aeronautical insurance brokerage services, flight simulator training and helicopter blade repairs. Go to http://www.lideraviacao.com.br to learn more.

Media Contact:

Kristy Kennedy

[email protected] / +1 (336) 383-2484

SOURCE Honda Aircraft Company

Related Links

http://www.hondajet.com


NEW YORK, Aug. 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Hunt Mortgage Group, a leader in financing commercial real estate throughout the United States, announced today it has provided Freddie Mac Small Balance Loans to refinance two multifamily properties located in Seattle, Washington. The loans total $9.44 million and were provided to the same sponsor.

Both transactions are a 5/1 Hybrid ARM, a 20-year ARM loan with the first five-years fixed with one-year interest only and a 30-year amortization. The borrower is Harvest Investors, LLC, backed by Key Principals Patrick Cahill and Shaun Bishop, each with a 50% ownership interest through their respective companies in these properties.

The properties include:

Boston Crest Apartments . Hunt Mortgage Group provided a $4.9 million loan to refinance Boston Crest Apartments, a 24-unit residential property that consists of two, three-story buildings located at 215 and 219 Boston Street in Seattle . The borrower purchased Boston Crest in June 2015 and since acquisition spent approximately $1.69 million on an extensive property renovation.

. Hunt Mortgage Group provided a loan to refinance Boston Crest Apartments, a 24-unit residential property that consists of two, three-story buildings located at 215 and 219 Boston Street in . The borrower purchased Boston Crest in and since acquisition spent approximately on an extensive property renovation. 524 5th Ave. West Apartments (formerly Whitley Manor Apartments). 524 5th Ave. West Apartments is a 17-unit residential property that is comprised of one mid-rise five-story building located at 524 5th Avenue in Seattle. Hunt Mortgage Group provided a $4.54 million loan to refinance Whitley Manor Apartments. All units at the property have recently been extensively renovated with almost $1.1 million in renovation costs.

"The borrowers are experienced local real estate investors with a strong record for success," noted Jeffrey Ballaine, Vice President at Hunt Mortgage Group. "The properties are both in wonderful condition, both having been recently renovated, and they are both located in the Queen Anne Hill neighborhood, a desirable location that is currently considered one of the strongest residential neighborhoods in the city of Seattle."

Demand for apartments remains high in the Queen Anne neighborhood among young tech executives due to the close proximity of employment centers in South Lake Union and downtown Seattle.

The deals were brought to Hunt Mortgage Group by correspondent mortgage bankers DSC Capital located in Seattle, Washington.

"We were pleased to fund these loans for a quality local multifamily investor and hope to partner with than again in the near future," added Ballaine.

About Hunt Mortgage Group

Hunt Mortgage Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hunt Companies, Inc., is a leader in financing commercial real estate throughout the United States. The Company finances all types of commercial real estate: multifamily properties (including small balance), affordable housing, office, retail, manufactured housing, healthcare/senior living, industrial, and self-storage facilities. It offers Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, HUD/FHA in addition to its own Proprietary loan products. Since inception, the Company has structured more than $21 billion of loans and today maintains a servicing portfolio of more than $12.5 billion. Headquartered in New York City, Hunt Mortgage Group has 198 professionals in 23 locations throughout the United States. To learn more, visit www.huntmortgagegroup.com.

MEDIA CONTACTS

Brent Feigenbaum

Hunt Mortgage Group

212-317-5730

[email protected]

Pam Flores

773-218-9260

[email protected]

SOURCE Hunt Mortgage Group

Related Links

http://www.huntmortgagegroup.com


MEXICO CITY, Aug. 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Oracle announced ABC Aerolineas, S.A. de C.V., operating as Mexican airline Interjet, has seen significant efficiency gains from using Oracle's Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management to coordinate, manage and execute key projects.

Interjet's projects range from the acquisition of new aircraft to the introduction of new routes to the installation of flight simulators. The airline notes that Primavera P6 EPPM's flexibility to adapt to different levels of project complexity and size has enabled Interjet to increase its efficiency by more than 50 percent among more than 200 projects.

"With the former tools, planning was more complicated and required us to develop complementary tools to show in a very graphic and simple way the status of each project and each responsible person. Primavera P6 EPPM has reduced the effort and time needed to analyze and present results, with benefits for those who manage the projects, those who execute and those who follow up. Oracle's software has allowed us to contribute in a coordinated and effective way to the development of the company," said Carlos Nunez Brambila, Project Director of Interjet.

With Primavera P6 EPPM from Oracle Construction and Engineering, Interjet now also has the ability to streamline management responsibilities. It can designate one member of the project management team to control the project development, identify project deviations and bring visibility to key stakeholders to make informed decisions. Additionally, Interjet is able to map clear objectives and responsibilities for each project to corresponding specialists based on their knowledge and skills. The result is that resources are leveraged more effectively through closer coordination between various departments and managers.

"Oracle's Primavera P6 EPPM provides the real-time collaboration, visibility and scalability that enable organizations like Interjet to manage projects of any size efficiently and effectively," said Andy Verone, Vice President, Product Strategy, Oracle Construction and Engineering. "We are thrilled to deliver transformative solutions that are improving project and business outcomes for customers in Mexico and around the world."

Using Primavera P6 EPPM, Interjet has been able to eliminate:

93 percent of the time spent on the generation of status reports by specific tasks

67 percent of the time spent on work plan updates

83 percent of the time spent on creating new project reports

"The transformation of Interjet, in its processes of planning, monitoring and execution of projects, through an efficient technological platform, is the mission of Oracle. To understand the challenges Mexican companies face day-by-day and to solve their needs with a platform that empowers its strengths is how Oracle contributes to the transformation of Mexico. Interjet has managed through the planning and database management solutions to support the development of projects that drive the growth and presence of the airline nationally and internationally," said Javier Cordero, Managing Director of Oracle Mexico.

About Interjet

Interjet is an international airline based in Mexico City providing air service to 53 destinations in seven countries, including 35 cities in Mexico. Its network includes service to nine U.S. markets: Chicago, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Orlando/Sanford and San Antonio, Montreal, Toronto. Other international routes include Havana, Santa Clara and Varadero, Cuba; Bogota, Colombia; Guatemala City, Guatemala; Lima, Peru; and San Jose, Costa Rica. The airline operates a fleet of more than 70 aircraft including the three Airbus A320neo, 47 Airbus A320's, 04 Airbus A321-200's and 22 Sukhoi Superjet 100's.

About Oracle

The Oracle Cloud offers complete SaaS application suites for ERP, HCM and CX, plus best-in-class database Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) from data centers throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information about Oracle (NYSE:ORCL), please visit us at oracle.com.

Oracle Construction and Engineering helps companies reimagine their businesses. With best-in-class project management solutions, organizations can proactively manage projects, gain complete visibility, improve collaboration, and manage change. Our cloud-based solutions for global project planning and execution can help improve strategy execution, operations, and financial performance. For more information, please visit www.oracle.com/construction-and-engineering.

Trademarks

Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

SOURCE Oracle

Related Links

http://www.oracle.com


LONG BEACH, New York, August 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Ipsidy Inc. (www.ipsidy.com ) [OTC:IDGS], (formerly known as ID Global Solutions Corporation), a provider of secure, biometric identification, identity management and electronic transaction processing services, today announced its results for the quarter ended June 30, 2017.

Financial Highlights for the Three and Six Months Ended June 30, 2017

 Total revenue for the three and six month periods was $0.6 million and $1.1 million compared to $0.5 million and $0.8 million for the three and six months in 2016.

 Net loss for the three and six month periods was $2.8 million and $12.5 million compared to a net loss in the second quarter of 2016 of $0.8 million and net income of $6.9 million in the first half of 2016. In 2016, there was a reduction of the derivative liability of $4.7 million and $17.7 million in the three and six months ended June 30, 2016.

 Basic net loss per share for the second quarter and first half of 2017 was $0.01 cent and $0.04 cents compared to basic net loss per share of $0.00 cents in the second quarter of 2016 with net income per share of $0.03 for the first half of 2016. Fully diluted net loss per share was $0.04 cents for the second quarter and first half of 2017.

 Adjusted EBITDA loss for the second quarter and first half of 2017 was $1.4 million and $3.0 million compared to $0.8 million and $1.9 million in 2016. The Company invested in people, infrastructure and technology to support on-going and future operations.

 Converted outstanding debt and accrued interest in the amount of approximately $6.3 million into approximately 84.8 million shares of common stock.

 Repaid an additional $0.3 million of outstanding debt, cancelled 3.6 million warrants and cancelled 2.5 million shares of the Company's common stock.

 Secured $7.0 million of additional debt and equity financing.

 Total liabilities reduced to $4.0 million as of June 30, 2017, compared to liabilities of $25.8 million as of December 31, 2016, and stockholders' equity increased to $11.4 million as of June 30, 2017, compared to a stockholders' deficit of $13.3 million as of December 31, 2016.

The combination of the above events resulted in the substantial improvement in the Company's balance sheet and provided near-term working capital.

Refer to Table 1 for reconciliation of net income to Adjusted EBITDA (a non-GAAP measure).

Operational Highlights

Announced the appointment of Philip Beck as Chairman of the Board of Directors, Chief Executive and President and Stuart Stoller as CFO on January 31, 2017

as Chairman of the Board of Directors, Chief Executive and President and as CFO on Continued process improvements to the Company's MultiPay bill pay transaction platform in Colombia .

. Continued development of the Ipsidy identity transaction platform

Continued development of a digital payment processing platform comprising modules for payment card issuance, HCE, tokenization, and a consumer mobile wallet as well as a merchant acquiring gateway and mobile point of sale, and mobile-commerce, beacon marketing and loyalty products.

"Ipsidy is redefining the identity transaction," said Philip Beck, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Ipsidy. "Our goal is to manage an identity transaction as easily and securely as a payment transaction. We are focused on building out our identity transaction platform, in order to provide our customers with reimagined solutions to enable people to authenticate their identity to their own device, before commencing a transaction. We intend to facilitate the processing of diverse electronic transactions, be they payments, votes, or physical or digital access, embedded with the participant's identity."

In a world that is increasingly digital and mobile, but also fraught with account breaches and stolen identity information, our vision is to offer solutions that provide pre-transaction verification of identity as well as embed identity verification within every electronic transaction message processed through our platform, or other electronic systems. We believe that it is essential that businesses and consumers know who is on the other side of an electronic transaction and have an audit trail, proving that the identity of the other party was duly verified. Ipsidy is therefore developing solutions intended to provide our customers with the next level of transaction security, control and certainty operating in both physical and digital environments leveraging mobile eco-systems.

We are building upon our existing capabilities in biometric identification and multi-factor identity management solutions to develop an identity transaction platform for our customers. The platform enables mobile users to more easily authenticate their identity to a mobile phone or portable device of their choosing (as opposed to other identity solutions requiring dedicated hardware). Our system allows participants to complete transactions with a digitally signed authentication response, including the underlying transaction data and embedded attributes of the participant's identity, accessible to the business.

Our strategy is to leverage our identity transaction platform to support a variety of vertical markets. These vertical markets include but are not limited to border security, public safety, public transportation, enterprise security, electronic payments transactions and banking. In addition, our platform is designed to be highly available and language agnostic thereby accessible to customers around the world. We believe that the various technologies that Ipsidy is developing and has acquired can be combined into a unified offering.

Ipsidy's digital mobile wallet application, or electronic account holder, will contain different services and accounts that enable users to conveniently and securely authenticate and authorize a variety of electronic transactions, using their identity. For example, our closed-loop payment account and digital issuance platform is intended to offer secure and cost-effective methods of conversion of cash and paper to electronic payments. Consumers accessing this system, using their mobile phones, electronic devices, or smart card payment tokens will be able to participate in the digital economy thereby facilitating financial inclusion for the un-banked and under banked population around the globe. Another example is for consumers and employees to use their mobile application to verify identity, in order to access secure, digital or physical environments.

Additional analysis of the Company's performance can be found in "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" included in the Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the Quarter ended June 30, 2017 filed at www.sec.gov and posted on the Company's investor relations website.

About Ipsidy:

Ipsidy is a provider of secure, biometric identification, identity management and electronic transaction processing services. Ipsidy is headquartered in New York and has operating subsidiaries: MultiPay in Colombia www.multipay.com.co and Cards Plus in South Africa. www.cardsplus.co.za . In a world that is increasingly digital and mobile, our vision is to enable solutions that provide pre-transaction verification of identity as well as embed identity verification within every electronic transaction message processed through our platform, or other electronic systems. We believe that it is essential that businesses and consumers know who is on the other side of an electronic transaction and have an audit trail, proving that the identity of the other party was duly verified. We are therefore developing solutions intended to provide our customers with the next level of transaction security, control and certainty. Further information on Ipsidy can be found at www.ipsidy.com or contact us at [email protected].

Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements.

Information contained in this announcement may include "forward-looking statements." All statements other than statements of historical facts included herein, including, without limitation, those regarding the financial position, business strategy, plans and objectives of management for future operations of both Ipsidy and its business partners, net revenue, net income, Adjusted EBITDA, diluted earnings per share, future service launches with customers and new initiatives and customer pipeline are forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are based on a number of assumptions regarding Ipsidy present and future business strategies, and the environment in which Ipsidy expects to operate in the future, which assumptions may or may not be fulfilled in practice. Implementation of some or all of the new services referred to is subject to regulatory or other third party approvals. Actual results may vary materially from the results anticipated by these forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of risk factors, including the risk that implementation, adoption and offering of the service by customers, consumers and others may take longer than anticipated, or may not occur at all; changes in laws, regulations and practices; changes in domestic and international economic and political conditions and others. Additional risks may arise with respect to commencing operations in new countries and regions, of which Ipsidy is not fully aware at this time. See the Company's Annual Report Form 10-K for the Fiscal Year ended December 31, 2016 filed at www.sec.gov for other risk factors which investors should consider. These forward-looking statements speak only as to the date of this announcement and cannot be relied upon as a guide to future performance. Ipsidy expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to disseminate any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements contained in this announcement to reflect any changes in its expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any statement is based.

Non-GAAP Financial Information.

The Company provides certain non-GAAP financial measures in this statement. Management believes that Adjusted EBITDA, when viewed with our results under GAAP and the accompanying reconciliations, provides useful information about our period-over-period results. Adjusted EBITDA is presented because management believes it provides additional information with respect to the performance of our fundamental business activities and is also frequently used by securities analysts, investors and other interested parties in the evaluation of comparable companies. We also rely on Adjusted EBITDA as a primary measure to review and assess the operating performance of our company and our management team in connection with our executive compensation. These non-GAAP key business indicators, which include Adjusted EBITDA, should not be considered replacements for and should be read in conjunction with the GAAP financial measures.

We define Adjusted EBITDA as GAAP net loss adjusted to exclude: (1) interest expense, (2) interest income, (3) provision for income taxes, (4) depreciation and amortization, (5) stock-based compensation expense (5) derivative income (expense) and (6) certain other items management believes affect the comparability of operating results. Please see "Adjusted EBITDA" below for more information and for a reconciliation of Adjusted EBITDA to net income, the most directly comparable financial measure calculated and presented in accordance with GAAP.



Contacts:

+1-407-951-8640

Ipsidy Inc.

Philip D. Beck, Chairman, CEO & President - [email protected]

Stuart P. Stoller, CFO - [email protected]



SOURCE Ipsidy Inc.
NEW YORK, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Today Axoni announced the appointment of Joseph Ratterman as an independent member of the company's board of directors. Mr. Ratterman was a founding employee of BATS Global Markets serving as BATS' Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board for eight years. Joe currently serves on the board of CBOE following its $3.2 billion acquisition of BATS.

"There are few people in the world with Joe's proven track record of building successful financial markets companies who also bring his depth of technical experience. He's an outstanding fit for Axoni and we are delighted to have him involved," stated Greg Schvey, CEO of Axoni.

Mr. Ratterman has worked in a wide range of software, technical, and management positions throughout his career. He served as the Chief Information and Technology Officer for Bridge Information Systems Inc. from March 1990 to December 2001 where he managed a global private network and suite of products that served financial industry professionals with real time market data from around the world.

With the appointment, Mr. Ratterman will become the fifth member of Axoni's Board of Directors and the only independent director.

"I was honored to be asked to join the Axoni board to help advise this fast growing technology firm. I have worked with the companies and individuals on this board in the past and have immense respect for each of them. It was the vision and energy of the management team and the high regards I have for the current board of directors that compelled me to join the board. The distributed ledger technology that this firm is developing will be instrumental in the securities industry going forward and I look forward to watching them succeed," said Mr. Ratterman.

The addition of Mr. Ratterman to its board marks another milestone in a busy year for Axoni. In January it was announced that Axoni was selected by The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation ("DTCC") to help replatform DTCC's Trade Information Warehouse - the legal record of nearly all credit derivatives - onto Axoni's distributed ledger technology.

Axoni was recently selected to CB Insights' 2017 Fintech 250 in addition to winning the 2017 Derivative Industry Initiative of the Year Award from Global Capital. The company also announced a strategic financing round from a list of noteworthy investors, including Wells Fargo, NEX Group, J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Thomson Reuters, F-Prime Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, DCG, and others earlier this year.

About Axoni

Schvey, Inc. (d/b/a "Axoni") is a New York-based capital markets technology firm that specializes in distributed ledger infrastructure. The company was founded in 2013 by a team of distributed ledger technology entrepreneurs and cryptography specialists. Axoni's product offerings include distributed ledger technology deployments, bespoke smart contract development and analytics tools.





SOURCE Axoni

Related Links

https://axoni.com


KANSAS CITY, Mo., Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Burns & McDonnell KCI HOMETOWN Team today confirmed its dedication to work with the City to evaluate all financing options available to build a new single terminal at KCI. Burns & McDonnell's complete proposal package was released to the public on Monday following its interview with the Airport Selection Committee.

The Burns & McDonnell KCI HOMETOWN Team plan provides flexibility and will utilize all tools to ensure the lowest financing cost to the City.

"We will not alter the City's existing financial structures and in no way will the City's existing and long-term debt be subordinate to private financing," says Greg Hamilton, Vice President, Americo. "We are excited to work with the City and the Airlines to find a financing solution that ensures Kansas City Aviation Department (KCAD) debt is priority and meets the needs for Kansas City and the traveling public," Hamilton added.

Commitments discussed during Burns & McDonnell's interview include:

Ensuring that the priority and seniority of the City's existing and future debt is unaffected by the private financing and a commitment to work with the City and the Airlines to develop a financing plan that provides flexibility and aligns the interests of the City and the Airlines.

Protecting the taxpayers of Kansas City .

. Making no change to City Bond Ordinance.

Ensuring that City debt is priority, and payment for the new terminal is secondary, which protects KCAD's ability to meet ongoing and future needs.

Working with the City and KCAD to align with the City's desires on airport debt and repayment priorities.

Helping the City evaluate all financing options available to select the best financing option for the City.

Achieving 30-40 percent MBE/WBE goal for the project.

"The City has our commitment to evaluate all financing options available to guarantee maximum flexibility to the city and Aviation department in their financing options and ensure that we build a project that is right for Kansas City," said Ray Kowalik, chairman and CEO, Burns & McDonnell. "To ensure local dollars stay in Kansas City, Burns & McDonnell and Americo have committed to spending more than $10 million of their own money to help build a diverse and local workforce and to ensure minority and women-owned business expansion."

Burns & McDonnell's proposal showed a range of potential project costs for the project. Those cost estimates would require an Airline commitment of between $58 million and $85 million per year. For the terminal concept presented in Exhibit K of the proposal, costs are expected to be near $964 million with a required airlines commitment of $67 million per year.

The firm also reaffirmed its pledge, delivered in the interview, to achieve a goal of 30-40 percent participation for Minority and Woman-Owned Business Opportunities for the project.

"Projects like the New KCI come around once in a generation, this is our chance to make sure we deliver a project for the WHOLE Kansas City community," said Kowalik.

To review the complete proposal package, go to: www.KCILoveThisPlace.com.

About Burns & McDonnell

Burns & McDonnell is a Kansas City-based firm that's been committed to the people and growth of our hometown since we were founded in 1898. The 3,000 employee-owners based in Kansas City actively volunteer within the community and have donated millions of dollars to causes that support our great city from United Way to Science City. We are made up of more than 5,700 engineers, architects, construction professionals, scientists, consultants and entrepreneurs with offices across the country and throughout the world. We strive to create amazing success for our clients and amazing careers for our employee-owners. Burns & McDonnell is 100 percent employee-owned and is proud to be No. 16 on Fortune's 2017 list of 100 Best Companies to Work For. For more information, visit burnsmcd.com.

Contact: Kristi Widmar, Burns & McDonnell

816-448-7379

[email protected]

SOURCE Burns & McDonnell

Related Links

http://www.KCILoveThisPlace.com


WALTHAM, Mass., Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Lionbridge Technologies, Inc., the world's most trusted translation and digital communications company, today announced that Kreg Tool, a leading manufacturer of tools and accessories for do-it-yourself and woodworking enthusiasts, has selected Lionbridge as its translation provider as the Company expands into select European markets. Lionbridge created four localized websites to provide Kreg customers in France, Germany, Spain and the UK with detailed product information and resources in their native language, giving customers the confidence to select and create woodworking projects.

As Kreg grew its presence internationally, the company recognized it needed a strong partner to effectively reach global audiences with content that resonates with its diverse customer base. A core component of the company's expansion strategy was translating its English-only website into additional languages so customers could access product guides as well as project ideas and plans in their preferred language. Lionbridge completed the translation project in a matter of weeks, exceeding Kreg's expectations for speed and quality.

Additionally, Lionbridge translated Kreg product manuals and labels into 12 European languages to meet compliance with European regulations and improve customer safety. It's important to provide precise direction in multiple languages to ensure safety and desired results for the user.

"Kreg educates and inspires millions of consumers to create woodworking projects that provide a sense of accomplishment. We can't be successful in delivering on our mission if we only offer information and resources in English," said Rick Bentrott, International Sales Manager at Kreg Tool. "By tapping into the translation and localization expertise of Lionbridge we are now able to offer more of our customers the resources they need to build projects that exceed expectations, whether they're a beginner or a seasoned veteran."

This project expands on an eight-year relationship between the two companies, where Lionbridge translates Kreg marketing materials into Spanish and French for Lowe's Home Improvement stores in North America.

"Over the past 28 years, Kreg Tool has grown to become one of the most respected brands in DIY woodworking products with customers around the world," said Rich Tobin, COO of Global Translation, Marketing and Engineering Services. "We look forward to continuing to work with Kreg as they build their business in global markets and extend their positive track record of customer engagement and loyalty."

About Lionbridge

Lionbridge enables more than 800 world-leading brands to increase international market share, speed adoption of products and effectively engage their customers in local markets worldwide. Using our innovative cloud technology platforms and our global crowd of more than 100,000 professional cloud workers, we provide detail-critical business processes, including translation, online marketing, global content management and application testing solutions that ensure global brand consistency, local relevancy and technical usability across all touch points of the customer lifecycle. Based in Waltham, Mass., Lionbridge maintains solution centers in 27 countries. To learn more, visit www.lionbridge.com.

About Kreg

Kreg creates solutions that give woodworkers and do-it-yourselfers the confidence to create their own projects. In addition to their well-known Kreg Jig pocket-hole jigs, Kreg also offers solutions for measuring and marking, cutting, joining, clamping, routing, hardware installation, and creating a workspace. In addition, Kreg offers educational resources through newsletters, social media, the Kreg Owners' Community and BuildSomething.com, a community for passionate project builders. Kreg products are available throughout North America and in select international locations through local dealers, home centers and online retailers. To learn more, visit www.kregtool.com.

Media Contact:

Aimee Jen

Text100

[email protected]

+1-415-593-8402

SOURCE Lionbridge Technologies, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.lionbridge.com


LONDON, Aug. 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- EVs taking goods or people to their final destination



Last mile delivery is expensive, slow or dangerous whether package or person. 1.7 million US truckers' shipment revenues were $726bn (2015), more than google, Amazon and Walmart combined. Turning trucks regularly crunch cyclists to death.





Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/5059909/







This report appraises all options for last mile delivery of people and things, from drones to sidewalk and planned taxi/bus robots and new manually driven EVs. Electric vehicles best leverage autonomy. See forecasts and statistics.



This unique report analyses the world of delivering things and people on the last leg of their journey and how electric vehicles will help. It explains how last mile LM delivery is expensive, slow or dangerous whether package or person.



The report is packed with appraisal of relevant technologies and opportunities in the form of easily understood infograms, ten year forecasts and statistics. All options for last mile delivery of people and things are appraised including drones, sidewalk and taxi/bus robots. Needs are tabulated with how EV, internal combustion and manually powered vehicles compare as solutions.



The Executive Summary and Conclusions is sufficiently complete yet information and image-packed to be a sufficient for those with time limits. Numbers, unit values and market values for 18 categories of EV are given for 2018-2028 plus many relevant background statistics.



The Introduction reveals definitions, challenges and options. It considers the various package and person delivery modes, emphasis being on comparing alternatives, identifying the best, forecasting the potential sales of the overall categories. Understand the special case of China with 98% of the worlds electric bikes and pure electric buses.



Chapter three brings the subject alive with case studies of last mile delivery of goods. Problems include emergency supplies not getting through and inadequate, unprofitable fresh food delivery. How do we stop traffic congestion and pollution worsening in cities, aggravated by a profusion of delivery vehicles caused by internet shopping?



How is Amazon stealing market share using last mile and now taking on Wal-Mart? Learn about the Amazon drone hive and how courier company Deutsche Post DHL is even making last mile EVs for the open market, not just using them. What is the first commercial driverless delivery vehicle for things and people? Why is start up PonyZero in Italy growing so fast internationally using EVs with a different customer proposition? How does Tesco, the largest UK supermarket chain newly offer one hour delivery by EV?



Chapter four critically reveals many new ways of delivering people using EVs across the world from single to four wheel compact vehicles. Learn which are most promising and why. This even includes mobility for the disabled and the special cases of India and the Philippines and those addressing them. Learn the good and bad about those new autonomous taxi-buses and when they get deployed in large numbers, where and for what. The approach is broad. We even cover intriguing concept transportation, a search and rescue amphibious boat that can climb mountains at 45 degrees and the place of planned electric personal and taxi aircraft in all this.



Chapter five thoroughly considers EVs for delivering goods, including sidewalk robots and examples of rollouts. Drones are appraised in detail too including drones dropping cargo at destination, morphing drones and disposable single trip delivery drones. How is that shaping up in Rwanda? It is all here.



Finally Chapter six very frankly appraises key enabling technologies such as batteries, power electronics, energy independent vehicles such as new cargo trikes, microbuses and inflated wings carrying heavy cargo precisely to final destination. For even more on specifics of technology, new IDTechEx reports are available on batteries, motors, power electronics, range extenders, energy harvesting for electric vehicles and so on, so this report is part of a complete service including 30 minutes free consultancy on the topic, to answer your outstanding questions.





Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/5059909/



About Reportbuyer

Reportbuyer is a leading industry intelligence solution that provides all market research reports from top publishers

http://www.reportbuyer.com



For more information:

Sarah Smith

Research Advisor at Reportbuyer.com

Email: [email protected]

Tel: +44 208 816 85 48

Website: www.reportbuyer.com

SOURCE ReportBuyer

Related Links

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By PTI: (Eds: Adds fresh inputs)

Beijing/Melbourne, Aug 15 (PTI) Soaked in patriotism, hundreds of Indians abroad today marked the countrys 71st Independence Day with the tricolour fluttering high and the national anthem reverberating at Indian missions across the world.

Indians in countries like the US, China, Australia, Japan, Singapore, Egypt, Israel and South Africa celebrated the day with hoisting of the national flag and singing of patriotic songs.

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A large number of Indian expats attended the Independence Day celebrations at the embassy in Beijing with Indian envoy Vijay Gokhale reading the address of President Ram Nath Kovind. He met the Indian diaspora at a reception held in the embassy.

In Shanghai, Indian Consul General Prakash Gupta hoisted the national flag. A large number of Indian expats, besides Tarun Vijay, President of the India China Parliamentary Group, who is on a visit attended the celebrations.

In Guangzhou, Indian Consul General Y K Sailas Thangal hoisted the tricolour. Over 150 Indian professionals and businessmen settled in the southern Chinese city attended the reception held on the occasion at the Consulate.

In Australia, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull today extended his wishes by calling it a day that commemorates "the achievement of sovereignty and freedom for the worlds largest democracy" as the Indian diaspora celebrated the special occasion by attending flag hoisting ceremonies held at Indian High Commission and consulates across the country.

Turnbull said it is an occasion to take pride in Indias progress over seven decades of independence, and to share in hopes for its future.

He said the ties between the two countries have become stronger and that the governments are working closely to support shared interests in a stable and prosperous Indo- Pacific region.

"The Indian community in Australia is an important part of our strong and enduring ties, helping to build even closer bonds between our nations, he said adding that two-way trade exceeded 20 billion dollars in 2016, and shows great potential for further growth," he said.

"With these thoughts in mind, I hope the Indian community in Australia enjoys wonderful Independence Day celebrations, and finds their sense of affection and esteem for India renewed," he said.

Canberra based Indian High commission as well as consulates in Melbourne, Sydney and other cities also held flag hoisting ceremonies attended by a several members of Indian communities.

Several Indian community organisations are also holding dinners and special events to acknowledge the occasion.

On Saturday, Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, who was a special guest of the Indian Film festival of Melbourne (IFFM) this year, unfurled the tricolour to celebrate the day.

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Indians in Japan also celebrated the 71st Independence Day with great enthusiasm.

A large gathering of about 600 people, including the growing Indian community in Tokyo, celebrated the day.

Indian Ambassador to Japan Sujan R Chinoy unfurled the national flag, which was followed by the singing of the National Anthem.

The envoy also addressed the gathering and read out the Kovinds address. Students of Indian International School in Japan (IISJ), Tokyo and Global Indian International School (GIIS) sang patriotic songs. The programme was followed by refreshments.

Three local newspapers, Japan Times, Japan News and Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun carried the message of Ambassador Chinoy on the occasion along with congratulatory messages from Japanese dignitaries.

An Incredible India photo contest organised by the Indian embassy in Japan in association with India Tourism Office and Air India was launched to mark the celebrations.

In Singapore, Indian High Commissioner to Singapore Jawed Ashraf along with 700 Indians celebrated the Independence Day.

Students from Indian schools in Singapore sang patriotic songs and performed cultural dances at the High Commission.

In the UK, hundreds of members of the Indian diaspora took part in the first-ever Freedom Run to mark the Independence Day with the one-mile journey beginning from the historic Parliament Square here.

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In Egypt, Indias Ambassador to Egypt Sanjay Bhattacharyya hoisted the countrys flag to mark day at the India House in Zamalek.

The celebration was attended by members of Indian community in Egypt as well some Egyptian friends of India and students of language the The Maulana Azad Centre for Indian Culture (MACIC).

After hoisting the flag, and the attendees sang the national anthem, Bhattacharyya also read out the message of Kovind.

In Israel, around 250 Indians from all over the country assembled in this northern coastal town to celebrate Independence Day in a year when the 25th anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries has seen a flurry of activities.

Ambassador Pavan Kapoor hoisted the national flag with some of the enthusiastic participants from the Indian Jewish community raising slogans of "Bharat Mata ki Jai".

Kapoor thanked the Indian community for joining the celebrations and also expressed Prime Minister Narendra Modis deep appreciation for their participation in large numbers in the July 5th event last month when the Indian Premier addressed them during his three day visit to Israel.

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Noah Massil, a founder member and former President of Central Organisation of Indian Jews in Israel (COIJI), told PTI that Modis visit has "instilled a fresh sense of pride" among the Indian Jewish community.

"We are now going to launch the World Organisation of Indian Jews in Mumbai at an event on January 14th next year with participation of members of the community from all over the world", Massil said.

"Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi has won the hearts of all of us by announcing that Indian Jews who have done mandatory army service only are entitled to OCI and also his initiative to set up an Indian cultural centre in Israel", he added.

Women members of the Indian mission staff sang Vande Matram during the event.

Indias Independence Day was celebrated across South Africa with gatherings in all major cities.

Large numbers of expatriates and locals of all communities watched the hoisting of the flag at the Indian missions in Pretoria, Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg before hearing the message from President Kovind.

In his maiden address to the nation on the eve of 71st Independence Day, Kovind remembered the role of leaders of Independence struggle, including Jawaharlal Nehru.

Kovind pitched for a partnership between citizens and the government to create a new India by 2022 that is a "compassionate society" and includes the "humanist component integral to the nations DNA".

The special relationship between South Africa and India was highlighted by an unprecedented lighting up of several Gandhian heritage sites in the colours of the Indian flag on the eve of the Independence Day.

"In compliance with a request from the Indian government, we approached the owners of some historic sites to do this and they welcomed it enthusiastically," Consul General in Johannesburg Dr K J Srinivasa told PTI.

The three sites that attracted hundreds of onlookers overnight were Constitutional Hill and Satyagraha House in Johannesburg; and the Pietermaritzburg Railway Station, where Gandhi started his path as a champion of anti-discrimination after being thrown off a train because he was in a compartment reserved for whites only.

Consul General in Durban Dr Shashank Vikram said the government authorities in Pietermaritzburg were just as excited about the project.

Constitutional Hill, home to the Constitutional Court, South Africas highest judiciary body, was built on the site of the Old Fort prison where Mahatma Gandhi was imprisoned during his tenure in Johanensburg at the turn of the last century.

In the UAE, hundreds of Indian expats gathered at their countrys missions to celebrate, Gulf News reported.

Patriotic Indians chanted slogans praising their motherland before the Indian flag was hoisted at the premises of the Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi and the Indian Consulate in Dubai.

In the US, Indian-Americans celebrated the event by unfurling the national flag and holding cultural extravaganza.

Americans joined Indians and people of Indian-origin in various cities by rendering Indias national anthem, cultural performances and short speeches on India-US relationship.

Despite heavy downpour, a large number of Indian- Americans turned up for the traditional flag-hoisting ceremony at the official residence of Indias Ambassador to the US Navtej Sarna who unfurled the tricolour.

Thereafter Sarna addressed the guests and read out President Ram Nath Kovinds address to the nation.

A brief cultural programme involving rendition of patriotic songs by school children in the US was also organised to mark the occasion.

Several US lawmakers joined Indian-Americans in celebrating the Independence Day.

"Celebrated the 70th Independence Day of India in Henderson over the weekend!" tweeted Congresswoman Jacky Rosen from Las Vegas, Nevada.

"Happy Independence Day to our ally and partner, India. Congratulations to the largest democracy from the oldest democracy," said Congressman Ted Poe.

Congressman Billy Long retweeted the tweet of Israeli Prime Minister (Benjamin Netanyahu) in which he greeted Modi on the occasion of Independence Day.

"Today we celebrate 70 years of independence for India! Happy," tweeted Congressman Pete Olson.

"Beautiful celebration of Indias Independence at Sate House. Delicious food and great music. So lucky to live in state that values diversity!" tweeted Congressman David Cicilline from Rhode Island along with pictures after he attended an Independence Day event with Indian-Americans at the State House.

"Big crowd for India Day Parade in Edison and Woodbridge," tweeted Congressman Frank Pallone after he attended the India Day parade in New Jersey which was attended by hundreds of Indian-Americans.

Congressman Ruben J Kihuen said he had wonderful time celebrating Indias Independence Day with friends of India.

"Our Indian neighbours have contributed so much to Nevada Congressional District Four," he tweeted along with pictures.

"Celebrating Indian Independence Day with" Indian- American Coalition of Texas, said Congressman Lloyd Doggett.

"US and India show that diversity is a strength, not detriment, to vibrant democracies," he added.

Congresswoman Grace Meng wrote it was great to march in the India Day parade down Hillside Avenue in Queens, New York.

Hundreds of Indian-Americans converged at the Consulate General of India in Houston where Consul General Dr Anupam Ray unfurled the tricolour and read President of India Ram Nath Kovinds address to the nation.

As part of Texas-wide celebrations, Deputy Consul General Surendra Adhana led a colourful parade in Dallas. PTI TEAM UZM AKJ CPS

--- ENDS ---
WASHINGTON, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The National Hemophilia Foundation (NHF), Hemophilia Federation of America (HFA), and Hemophilia of Iowa (HOI) filed a complaint today with the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) requesting that federal action be taken to end an Iowa insurer's discrimination against people with hemophilia. The complaint alleges Wellmark Inc. violated provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and effectively prevented hemophilia patients from accessing care when it carved certain counties in Iowa out of their ACA plans and then pulled out of the Iowa marketplace entirely. The complaint further alleges Wellmark violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) when it publicly stated it was providing health insurance coverage to a 17-year-old male with hemophilia at a cost of $1 million per month.

Hemophilia is a rare inheritable bleeding disorder that: prevents the blood from clotting normally; can result in extended bleeding after injury, surgery or trauma; and can be fatal if not treated effectively. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 20,000 Americans have hemophilia.1

"Prior to the Affordable Care Act, health insurance companies routinely denied coverage to people living with pre-existing conditions, and imposed annual and lifetime caps on benefits, which disproportionately affected people living with chronic lifetime diseases," said Val D. Bias, CEO, NHF. "The ACA makes these discriminatory practices illegal, so it is unconscionable for an insurer like Wellmark to deny coverage to individuals with significant health needs, including people living with hemophilia. That is why we and our advocacy partners filed this complaint on behalf of the bleeding disorders community and, in essence, all individuals living with chronic health conditions."

A history of discrimination by Wellmark

The complaint maintains that Wellmark Inc., an insurer that offered Qualified Health Plans (QHPs) in Iowa through 2017, "has a long history of discriminating against and intimidating those with hemophilia" and "has gone to extreme lengths to avoid covering hemophilia claims."

Wellmark's latest and most punitive action occurred on April 3, 2017 when it announced it would not sell or renew ACA plans in Iowa effective January 1, 2018. The company's official statement regarding their withdrawal noted a loss of approximately $90 million in the marketplace since 2014 and continued uncertainty over the future of the ACA. However, on March 30, 2017, a senior Wellmark executive gave a public speech citing coverage of a 17-year-old male with hemophilia that cost the company $1 million per month as a motivating factor.

The complaint charges that given the rare nature of hemophilia and the relatively low population of Iowa, this public disclosure, done without the patient's consent, was a clear violation of patient privacy protections in HIPPA. The complaint further alleges that this revelation was made for the purpose of justifying their withdrawal from the marketplace. The patient's information was also widely disseminated in local, national and online media coverage, much of which featured commentary by a healthcare policy researcher  "Everyone is trying to avoid the $12 million-man because whoever catches him basically can't make money"  that could have an impact on coverage options not only for people with hemophilia, but also individuals living with other chronic lifetime diseases.2

"Wellmark's wrongful disclosure of the patient's condition and costs, and its decision not to sell policies to individuals with hemophilia, has resulted in other insurers withdrawing from the Iowa marketplace," said Kimberly Haugstad, President & CEO, HFA. "In fact, Iowans seeking health insurance in Iowa's marketplace now have only one insurer from which to choose, Medica, which announced it would raise premiums an average of nearly 45 percent to afford the risk it will incur. This increase will make coverage financially prohibitive for many people, which is directly attributable to Wellmark's wrongful disclosure of patient information. We therefore are asking HHS to take all necessary steps to remedy Wellmark's unlawful conduct."

Requested action by the federal government

The complaint, filed pursuant to the ACA's nondiscrimination provision and on behalf of NHF, HFA and HOI, requests the Office for Civil Rights at HHS: review the basis for Wellmark's decision to withdraw from the Iowa marketplace and take steps to remedy the company's actions; review Wellmark's public disclosure of patients' health information; and seek civil monetary penalties from the insurer for noncompliance with federal civil rights protections.

About NHF

NHF (the National Hemophilia Foundation) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to finding better treatments and cures for inheritable bleeding disorders and to preventing the complications of these disorders through education, advocacy and research. Established in 1948, NHF has 54 chapters throughout the United States. Additional information on NHF and bleeding disorders can be found at www.hemophilia.org/. To locate an NHF chapter near you, visit https://www.hemophilia.org/Community-Resources/Chapter-Directory.

About Hemophilia Federation of America

Hemophilia Federation of America (HFA) was formed in 1994 as a place of education and support for bleeding disorders families. HFA is a national nonprofit that assists and advocates for the bleeding disorders community and is comprised of 44 Member Organizations across the country, including Hemophilia of Iowa. Our vision is to remove barriers to choice of treatment and to improve the care and quality of life for all people with bleeding disorders.

About Hemophilia of Iowa

Hemophilia of Iowa's mission is to provide education and support for people with bleeding disorders and their family and friends. Their goal is to assist anyone in Iowa affected with a blood coagulation disorder to become healthier and more self-sufficient.

1 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Hemophilia Data & Statistics, https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/hemophilia/data.html. Accessed July 27, 2017.

2 Tony Leys, Iowa teen's $1 million-per-month illness is no longer a secret, The Des Moines Register, May 31, 2017, http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/health/2017/05/31/hemophilia-patient-costing-iowa-insurer-1-million-per-month/356179001/. Accessed July 27, 2017.

SOURCE National Hemophilia Foundation; Hemophilia Federation of America

Related Links

http://www.hemophilia.org


WASHINGTON, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Global law firm Ropes & Gray announced today that Scott A. McKeown has joined its intellectual property practice as a partner in the firm's Washington, D.C. office, and as chair of the firm's Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) practice. Mr. McKeown, one of the nation's most experienced counsel in post-grant proceedings, adds a strong element to Ropes & Gray's industry leading IP practice, known for its outstanding record handling high-stakes patent litigation cases.

Mr. McKeown is the most active PTAB trial attorney in the U.S. having personally handled over 150 PTAB trial proceedings since 2012, including those in which more than half a billion dollars was at stake. Mr. McKeown also has significant appellate experience in PTAB appeals before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Mr. McKeown is lead post-grant counsel to some of the world's most well-known innovators. As a former electrical engineer, he has a deep understanding of a wide range of technologies, including computer software, wireless telecommunication protocols and network architectures, e-commerce applications, analog and digital signal processing, and medical devices. Mr. McKeown also maintains an award-winning blog which examines developments in patent litigation, including issues related to USPTO post issuance proceedings.

Mr. McKeown has been recognized as a leading PTAB practitioner by various publications, including Chambers USA, Legal 500, The National Law Journal, Intellectual Asset Management and Best Lawyers in America. In 2017, he was named as the "Litigator of the Year" in Virginia by Managing Intellectual Property for his successes before both courts and administrative bodies in high value patent disputes. He joins the firm from Oblon, McClelland, Maier & Neustadt, L.L.P., where he was a member of the management committee and chair of the post-grant patent practice group, which focuses on post-grant counseling, litigation and related prosecution issues.

"The PTAB can be an attractive alternative to the time-consuming and costly traditional avenues for patent litigation and defense," said Richard T. McCaulley, Jr., the chair of Ropes & Gray's nationally recognized IP litigation practice. "Scott's experience with post-grant proceedings will be a significant asset to our clients. Scott is recognized as a thought leader in this space, and has been from the inception of the PTAB."

Mr. McKeown received his J.D. from Temple University School of Law and his B.S. in electrical engineering, with honors, from Temple University. Outside of his PTAB practice, he is a Professorial Lecturer in Law at the George Washington University Law School, where he teaches the course on post-grant patent proceedings.

"I'm honored to join Ropes & Gray's premier intellectual property team," Mr. McKeown said. "Having previously partnered with the firm for joint clients, I was impressed by the collaborative culture and depth of litigation expertise. The firm's complex IP work for high-profile technology companies is a perfect fit for both me and my practice."

Ropes & Gray's intellectual property practice combines a sophisticated understanding of the latest legal developments with cutting-edge technical and scientific knowledge to offer an all-inclusive suite of IP services.

The firm's IP work extends to approximately 70 countries and a wide range of industries, including life sciences, technology and media, retail and consumer, private equity and financial services, and health care and education. In the highly competitive world of intellectual property, Ropes & Gray's IP attorneys are regularly recognized for their legal acumen by Chambers, Legal 500, Managing Intellectual Property, Intellectual Asset Management and other national and global publications. The firm was also recognized by U.S. News & World Report as 2017 "Law Firm of the Year" for patent law.

About Ropes & Gray

Ropes & Gray is one of the world's premier law firms, with more than 1,200 lawyers and legal professionals serving clients in major centers of business, finance, technology and government. The firm has offices in New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., Chicago, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, London, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo and Seoul, and has consistently been recognized for its leading practices in many areas, including private equity, M&A, finance, investment management, hedge funds, real estate, tax, life sciences, health care, intellectual property, business & securities litigation, government enforcement, privacy & data security and business restructuring. www.ropesgray.com

CONTACT:

Eric Goldman

Senior Public Relations Specialist

Ropes & Gray

[email protected]

+1 212 596 9089

SOURCE Ropes & Gray

Related Links

http://www.ropesgray.com


Founded in 1948 and headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, Senco is a designer, manufacturer and distributor of fasteners and tools for the powered fastening industry. The Company's products include branded fastening tools and collated staples, nails and screws which are available in more than 40 countries. Senco is a market leader in wood-to-wood, drywall, steel and concrete applications. The Company operates a domestic manufacturing facility in Cincinnati and also has a significant international presence in Europe. Wynnchurch acquired Senco in July of 2009.

This transaction represents another important deal for Lincoln's highly active Building and Infrastructure Group, which has now closed 25 merger and acquisition transactions globally since the beginning of 2015. "We were honored to work with Wynnchurch and Senco management on this successful transaction," said Jeff Corum, head of the Building and Infrastructure Group at Lincoln. "Senco is a leader in the powered fastening industry run by a highly successful and experienced management team. This was a classic Wynnchurch investment in a company with an iconic brand that was impacted by the construction downturn, but has now returned to very strong performance under their ownership."

Lincoln acted as the exclusive investment banking representative for Wynnchurch and Senco in this transaction, working closely with the Company's management team throughout the sale process. This included managing the preparatory, marketing and diligence phases of the process. "Lincoln was a valued partner throughout the transaction," said Frank Hayes, Co-Managing Partner, of Wynnchurch. "Their extensive experience in the building products industry proved invaluable as they managed a disciplined process that produced a great outcome."

For more information on our Global Building & Infrastructure Group Leadership Team, please visit http://www.lincolninternational.com/industries/building-and-infrastructure/.

About Senco

Senco is a leading designer, manufacturer and marketer of branded fastening tools and collated staples, nails and screws. With tools, fasteners and accessories for use in a variety of professional fastening segments - home construction/remodeling, furniture, manufactured housing, pallets/crating - Senco products are available through professional distribution outlets in more than 40 countries.

About Wynnchurch Capital

Wynnchurch Capital, LLC, headquartered in the Chicago suburb of Rosemont, Illinois, with offices in California and Canada, was founded in 1999, and is a leading middle-market private equity investment firm. Wynnchurch's strategy is to partner with middle market companies in the United States and Canada that possess the potential for substantial growth and profit improvement. Wynnchurch Capital manages a number of private equity funds with $2.2 billion of committed capital under management and specializes in recapitalizations, growth capital, management buyouts, corporate carve-outs and restructurings.

About Lincoln International

Lincoln International specializes in merger and acquisition advisory services, debt advisory services, private capital raising and restructuring advice on mid-market transactions. Lincoln International also provides fairness opinions, valuations and joint venture and pension advisory services on a wide range of transaction sizes. With eighteen offices in the Americas, Asia and Europe, Lincoln International has strong local knowledge and contacts in key global economies. The firm provides clients with senior level attention, in depth industry expertise and integrated resources. By being focused and independent, Lincoln International serves its clients without conflicts of interest.

More information about Lincoln International can be obtained at www.lincolninternational.com

Media Contact: Heidi Becker

[email protected]

(312) 506-2739



SOURCE Lincoln International LLC

Related Links

http://www.lincolninternational.com


SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Compliance.ai announces its search for Regulatory Heroes to assist as "Experts in the Loop" (EITL) for classifying and ranking regulatory documents on its AI-powered financial regulatory platform. Qualified contributors gain immediate access to the industry's most comprehensive collection of regulatory insights, trends and content.

FinTech School

The EITL method enlists professionals with industry expertise to work in unison and continuously improve the machine learning and AI-based decisions; by integrating human input and validation, for properly curating tagged content.

"We are excited to partner with Compliance.ai to bridge a clear gap in the financial industry," says My Nguyen, Co-Founder and Head of Partnerships of FinTech School. "This partnership is clearly in line with our direction as professional educators. Compliance.ai allows our expert instructors to contribute to a dynamic platform that is curating the latest regulatory content in real-time, giving institutions smart tools to save money and increase efficiency."

With the help of the financial industry's Regulatory Heroes, Compliance.ai automatically processes millions of regulatory documents from all major federal and state agencies, as well as white papers, and boils them down to tangible insights and trends. Regulatory Heroes gain free access to the industry's most comprehensive regulatory content in exchange for their input into the platform's curation process.

"It is important to be aware when regulatory changes are being discussed, so failing to monitor on a regular basis is problematic," Carliss Chatman, Assistant Professor of Law, Northern Illinois University. "With Compliance.ai, I am able to monitor as much as I need in a way that doesn't waste my time, or valuable research assistant's time. Curated content allows me to review a single daily email that combines all updates from the agencies and regulations of interest, as well as dig deeper when I need to, or rest assured knowing I haven't missed any financial regulatory change of importance to my scholarship or teaching concerns."

If you are a law student, a compliance or legal industry professional, you may be eligible to become a contributor in the Compliance.ai Regulatory Heroes program and gain free access and industry recognition for your contributions.

Compliance.ai will be launching the program with a panel discussion on the topic: "What do Syria, Russia and financial compliance have in common?" at Gunderson Dettmer in Redwood City on Wednesday, August 16 from 6-8 pm. You can find out more about becoming a Regulatory Hero at this event. Register online at http://www.regulatoryhero.eventbrite.com

About Compliance.ai

Founded in 2014, Compliance.ai focuses on distilling regulatory content into tangible, actionable intelligence. The company is led by technology veterans, with a mission to empower professionals with the best regulatory and compliance change management platform.

You can find out more, by visiting https://compliance.ai.

About FinTech School

Headquartered in San Francisco, FinTech School, a FinTech Portfolio company, leverages its network of subject matter experts and practicing entrepreneurs to bring affordable and practical training to people, corporations and universities across the world who are interested in financial technology (FinTech) via highly curated on and offline content.

Media contact:

Ronjini Joshua

[email protected]

562-241-1668

SOURCE Compliance.ai

Related Links

https://compliance.ai


WASHINGTON, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Thurgood Marshall Fund (TMCF) received $500,000 from Lowe's for the TMCF | Lowe's Gap Scholarship, which has provided over $1.2 million to graduating seniors at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) since 2012. As part of the 2016-17 TMCF | Lowe's Gap Scholarship program, Lowe's helped nearly 300 member-school students meet outstanding financial obligations so that they could graduate.

The scholarship meets a critical and often overlooked need for many college students. At the end of their senior year of college, many students have an account balance or debt they must pay in order to graduate. For many first generation or low-income students on financial aid, this presents a significant barrier to graduation. Understanding the importance of getting HBCU students across the graduation finish line, Lowe's partnered with TMCF to address this specific need.

To qualify for this need-based scholarship, candidates must be graduating from one of TMCF's 47 member-schools with an account balance of $500 - $3,100 owed to their school. Student applicants are chosen based on their academic skills, financial need and leadership abilities.

Langston University graduate and TMCF | Lowe's Gap Scholarship recipient Jailynne Jones said, "By awarding me this scholarship, you have eliminated my financial burden and allowed me to become the first person in my family to graduate college and earn a Bachelor's degree. I cannot thank Lowe's and TMCF enough for their generosity."

This year, nearly 300 students from the following 33 publicly-supported HBCUs received the TMCF | Lowe's Gap Scholarship:

Alabama State University

Albany State University

Central State University

Chicago State University

Coppin State University

Delaware State University

Fayetteville State University

Florida A&M University

Fort Valley State University

Grambling State University

Harris-Stowe State University

Howard University

Jackson State University

Langston University

Lincoln University

Mississippi Valley State University

Morgan State University

Norfolk State University

North Carolina A&T State University

North Carolina Central University

Prairie View A&M University

South Carolina State University

Southern University and A&M College

Southern University at Baton Rouge

Tennessee State University

Texas Southern University

Tuskegee University

University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff

University of Maryland Eastern Shores

University of the District of Columbia

Virginia State University

Winston-Salem State University

York College

"I am proud of the TMCF | Lowe's Gap Scholarship because we have been able to partner with a company committed to ensuring our HBCU students graduate from college," said TMCF president & CEO, Johnny C. Taylor, Jr. "More students should apply because there is no reason why several hundred dollars should be a barrier to graduation after years of hard work."

ABOUT THE THURGOOD MARSHALL COLLEGE FUND (TMCF)

Established in 1987, the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF) is the nation's largest organization exclusively representing the Black College Community. TMCF member-schools include the publicly-supported Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Predominantly Black Institutions, enrolling nearly 80% of all students attending black colleges and universities. Through scholarships, capacity building and research initiatives, innovative programs and strategic partnerships, TMCF is a vital resource in the PK-12 and higher education space. The organization is also the source of top employers seeking top talent for competitive internships and good jobs.

TMCF is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt, charitable organization. For more information about TMCF, visit: www.tmcf.org.

ABOUT LOWE'S IN THE COMMUNITY

Lowe's, a FORTUNE 50 home improvement company, has a 60-year legacy of supporting the communities it serves through programs that focus on K-12 public education and community improvement projects. In the past decade, Lowe's and the Lowe's Charitable and Educational Foundation together have contributed nearly $300 million to these efforts, and for more than two decades Lowe's Heroes volunteers have donated their time to make our communities better places to live. For the latest news, visit Newsroom.Lowes.com or follow @LowesMedia on Twitter.

SOURCE Thurgood Marshall College Fund

Related Links

http://tmcf.org


"In 1997, Maggie Sottero offered a product unlike anything on the market: elegant and affordable gowns with a couture edge," says Kelly Midgley, lead designer at Maggie Sottero Designs. "Today, in an era of ever-increasing wedding costs, Maggie Sottero Designs upholds its commitment to innovative bridalwear at attainable price points. From initial concept to final touches, each gown embodies the pursuit of perfection."

Today, the award-winning wedding dress designer features:

Authorized retailers in over 70 countries

Trend-setting bridalwear at attainable prices

Innovative construction for optimized fit

To date, millions of brides have chosen a Maggie Sottero Designs gown for their wedding day. To commemorate, the company launched a social media campaign inviting brides from the last twenty years to share images from their weddings using the hashtag #MaggieBridesForever. Brides who have worn a Maggie Sottero, Sottero and Midgley, or Rebecca Ingram gown are invited to participate in the campaign.

Maggie Sottero Designs' twentieth anniversary gown collections will be unveiled on runways in Las Vegas, Chicago, New York, and England in September, and on the website in October. Brides interested in the designer's three labels can find a store on the company website.

Maggie Sottero Designs Resources:

About Maggie Sottero Designs:

For twenty years, Maggie Sottero Designs has been one of the most recognized and sought after bridal gown manufacturers in the world, with design studios in Sydney, Australia, and Salt Lake City, Utah. Brides know Maggie Sottero Designs for its inspiring collections and meticulous attention to detail. The couture designer's mission is to make dreams a reality for brides by delivering innovative styles, superior quality, and best-in-class service through win-win relationships with its retailers, supply chain partners, and service providers.

SOURCE Maggie Sottero Designs
STAINES-UPON-THAMES, United Kingdom, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals (NYSE: MNK), a leading global specialty pharmaceutical company, will present on Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2017, at the Morgan Stanley 15th Annual Global Healthcare Conference at the Grand Hyatt New York, 109 E. 42nd Street, New York.

Matthew Harbaugh, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Dr. Steven Romano, Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer, will represent the company in a fireside chat at 3:30 p.m. Eastern time.

Individuals who cannot attend the meeting in person can find webcast information at: http://www.mallinckrodt.com/investors. A replay will also be available following the meeting.

ABOUT MALLINCKRODT

Mallinckrodt is a global business that develops, manufactures, markets and distributes specialty pharmaceutical products and therapies. Areas of focus include autoimmune and rare diseases in specialty areas like neurology, rheumatology, nephrology, pulmonology and ophthalmology; immunotherapy and neonatal respiratory critical care therapies; and analgesics and hemostasis products. The company's core strengths include the acquisition and management of highly regulated raw materials and specialized chemistry, formulation and manufacturing capabilities. The company's Specialty Brands segment includes branded medicines and its Specialty Generics segment includes specialty generic drugs, active pharmaceutical ingredients and external manufacturing. To learn more about Mallinckrodt, visit www.mallinckrodt.com.

Mallinckrodt uses its website as a channel of distribution of important company information, such as press releases, investor presentations and other financial information. It also uses its website to expedite public access to time-critical information regarding the company in advance of or in lieu of distributing a press release or a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission disclosing the same information. Therefore, investors should look to the Investor Relations page of the website for important and time-critical information. Visitors to the website can also register to receive automatic e-mail and other notifications alerting them when new information is made available on the Investor Relations page of the website.

CONTACTS

Investor Relations

Coleman N. Lannum, CFA

Senior Vice President, Investor Strategy and IRO

314-654-6649

[email protected]

Daniel J. Speciale, CPA

Director, Investor Relations

314-654-3638

[email protected]

Media

Rhonda Sciarra

Senior Communications Manager

908-238-6765

[email protected]

Meredith Fischer

Chief Public Affairs Officer

314-654-3318

[email protected]

SOURCE Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals

Related Links

http://www.mallinckrodt.com


LONDON, Aug. 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Losing share to competitors? Understanding market barriers can help close the gap



Haemophilia A treatment is a highly competitive market in the EU5 countries, where market shares for several of the brands we surveyed are very close. Understanding the market barriers that prevent doctors from prescribing your brand is essential if you want to build a lasting competitive advantage.



Learn how 7 barriers affect your market share, see who you take share from, and who gets your lost share in Market Access Impact: Haemophilia A (EU5).





Based on a survey of 150 haematologists, the report covers 9 major therapies from Bayer, CSL Behring, Novo Nordisk, Octapharma, Pfizer, Shire, Swedish Orphan Biovitrum.









Top Takeaways



The barrier effect is split evenly: 4 of the surveyed brands lose share because of barriers, 4 others gain, and one brand breaks even.



Not all brands are widely prescribed: Most brands are prescribed by less than 70% of doctors. However, most doctors are willing to consider brands they don't prescribe.



One brand can't catch a break: The 4th place brand loses share to every other surveyed brand because of barriers.



Barriers affect the market equally: Each of the 7 surveyed barriers affects roughly the same number of prescriptions.



Barriers aren't a problem for all doctors all the time: For the most part, fewer than 20% of doctors experience any one barrier with a given brand.



Patient preferences are a huge problem for one brand: Nearly 20% of doctors experience cost barriers with this brand; 10% more than any competitor.

Insight into 9 Major Haemophilia A Drugs



Advate (octocog alfa; Antihemophilic Factor [human]; Shire)



Elocta (efmoroctocog alfa; Swedish Orphan Biovitrum)



Feiba (Anti-Inhibitor Coagulant Complex; Shire)



Haemate-P (Antihemophilic Factor/von Willebrand Factor Complex [human]; CSL Behring)



Helixate NexGen (octocog alfa; CSL Behring)



Kogenate Bayer (octocog alfa; Bayer)



NovoEight (turoctocog alfa; Novo Nordisk)



Octanate (purified factor VIII concentrate; Octapharma)



ReFacto AF (moroctocog alfa; Pfizer)



Exploring Market Access Barriers



Market Access Impact: Haemophilia A (EU5) explores key issues affecting drug manufacturers. You'll learn:



How barriers affect market access:



What brands do doctors prescribe the most?



How many prescriptions do barriers affect?



Which barriers have the biggest impact?

How barriers affect your brand:



How many doctors prescribe your brand? How many don't, but would consider it?



Why don't doctors prescribe your brand? What do they prescribe instead?



Which competing brands does your brand take market share from?



A Report Based on Expert Knowledge



We surveyed 150 medical haematologists30 from each EU5 country (France, Italy, Germany, Spain, UK)chosen from the largest community of validated physicians in the world.



All respondents have:



Been practicing for 2+ years



Prescribed at least one of the listed products



Seen at least 5 patients with haemophilia A in total in the last month



We conducted the survey between May 2nd and 10th, 2017.





























Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/4967731/



About Reportbuyer

Reportbuyer is a leading industry intelligence solution that provides all market research reports from top publishers

http://www.reportbuyer.com



For more information:

Sarah Smith

Research Advisor at Reportbuyer.com

Email: [email protected]

Tel: +44 208 816 85 48

Website: www.reportbuyer.com

SOURCE ReportBuyer

Related Links

http://www.reportbuyer.com


SEATTLE, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- MDCorp ($MDCX) has executed a non-exclusive distribution agreement with Smart Medical Systems (Ra'anana, Israel) allowing MDCorp to sell Smart Medical's G-EYE system and NaviAid products to its customer-base throughout six core markets in Europe.

Neuraxon, MDCorp's designated distribution affiliate in Europe, will assume responsibility for distributing Smart Medical's products, focusing on their network of 92 hospitals.

Mr. Pantelis Stanitsas, CEO of Neuraxon stated: "This kind of product distribution win is what we have expected from our M&A partner MDCorp. This cooperation with Smart Medical Systems serves to align Neuraxon and MDCorp further. The G-EYE system should be sold to our base of 92 hospitals covering an addressable market of 100 million people in six countries. Endoscope related sales in our markets total $450 million USD annually, and we are particularly enthusiastic about deployment of this new, world class, patented, life-saving technology."

Onsite product training is set to begin in September/October this year, in Israel.

Mr. Gilad Luria, VP of R&D and PM at Smart Medical Systems added: "Smart Medical Systems is welcoming this partnership with yet another leading distributor of its technology for enhanced polyp detection and prevention of colon cancer. As a non-exclusive distribution partner in Europe, MDCorp provides our products with direct access to about 100 hospitals across six countries, enhancing the G-EYE system's deployment and market presence."

MDCorp seeks to expand into current and new markets, open new branch offices and expand sales, layering more products and services through existing and then new sales channels.

[email protected]

[email protected]

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including but not limited to, statements regarding the MDCorp's position as a market leader, acceleration of innovation and expansion of total addressable market opportunity. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date they were first issued and were based on current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections as well as the beliefs and assumptions of management. Words such as "expect," "anticipate," "should," "believe," "hope," "target," "project," "goals," "estimate," "potential," "predict," "may," "will," "might," "could," "intend," variations of these terms or the negative of these terms and similar expressions are intended to identify these forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which involve factors or circumstances that are beyond the MDCorp's control. MDCorp's actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied in forward-looking statements due to a number of factors, including but not limited to (1) failure to realize the estimated synergies or growth anticipated as a result of the transactions or that such benefits may take longer to realize than expected, (2) risks related to unanticipated costs of integration of European Distribution Medical Systems by MDCorp, (3) the effect of the consummation of the transactions on the ability of MDCorp to retain and hire key personnel and maintain relationships with key business partners and customers, and on MDCorp's operating results and businesses generally, (4) adverse trends in economic conditions generally or in the industries in which the MDCorp operates, (5) adverse changes to, or interruptions in, relationships with third parties unrelated to the merger, (6) MDCorp's ability to compete effectively and successfully and to add new products and services, (7) MDCorp's ability to successfully manage and integrate acquisitions, (8) the ability to attract new customers and retain existing customers in the manner anticipated, (9) unanticipated changes relating to competitive factors in the MDCorp's industries, and (10) any business interruptions in connection with MDCorp's acquired technology, sales or systems. MDCorp is under no obligation, and expressly disclaims any obligation, to update, alter, or otherwise revise any forward-looking statements, whether written or oral, that may be made from time to time, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Persons reading this announcement are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements which speak only as of the date hereof.

SOURCE MDCorp

Related Links

http://www.mdcorp.com


VANCOUVER, Aug. 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - Patients at BC Children's Hospital were delighted by a visit today with one of the world's most famous pirates, Captain Jack Sparrow. Hollywood actor Johnny Depp arrived at the hospital dressed dread to toe as his character from "The Pirates of the Caribbean" movie franchise. The charismatic character charmed patients and their families alike, leaving smiles and laughter in his wake during his 5 1/2 hour visit.

"Captain Jack's" ship arrived under a veil of secrecy and was met at the entrance by three very special guides Aidan Chin, Madison Kertcher and Logan Lay who, having all been patients at the hospital, gave the pirate the lay of the land.

Blowing into the playroom with his first mates at 3:30pm (PST) "Captain Jack" brought his pirate playfulness to the children assembled for a Pirate Party. Depp then spent more than hours meeting one-on-one with patients in the oncology, general pediatrics and neurology wards.

"Meeting Captain Jack was a dream come true for my daughter," said Sarah Kertcher, mother of 7 year old "First Mate" Madison. "He never broke character once and was so generous with his time. He was truly here for the kids and it brought tears to my eyes to see how special he made each one feel."

Footage of Depp's visit is available at https://spaces.hightail.com/receive/zz8LAJ1SVp

About BC Children's Hospital

BC Children's Hospital is the province's only full-service acute-care pediatric hospital, treating 86,000 children annually. The money raised by the foundation supports urgent needs at the hospital, its research institute, and Sunny Hill Health Centre for Children. For more information, visit www.bcchf.ca

SOURCE BC Children's Hospital Foundation

Related Links

http://www.cw.bc.ca


Harish Iyer, hit headlines in 2015 when his mother posted a "groom wanted" matrimonial advertisement in a leading English-language newspaper.

By Reuters: Outspoken Indian gay rights activist Harish Iyer is used to fighting for equal rights but over the last month he has turned into a messenger of love.

He is the host of "Gaydio", the first radio show dedicated to lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender (LGBT) issues in India, where homosexuality is a taboo and gay sex can be punished with up to 10 years in jail.

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"As an activist, it is in my DNA to stand up for a cause," Iyer, 38, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"You hear heart-warming love stories during your activism, but you are busy being the saviour. But on this show, I look at the softer side."

India's penal code bans "sex against the order of nature", which is widely interpreted as homosexual sex, and transgender people face widespread discrimination even though the Supreme Court has enshrined a person's right to identify as transgender.

The weekly show on commercial radio channel Ishq, which means love in Urdu, was launched in mid-July and is aired every Sunday in the cities of Mumbai, New Delhi and Kolkata.

Iyer's guests on the two-hour Sunday show included a Sikh-Muslim male couple who spoke about how they met, their coming-out experience and still going strong after 12 years.

In another episode, a mother spoke with her son's ex-boyfriend and in the latest airing, a heterosexual man and his transgender wife shared their story.

Iyer, who hit headlines in 2015 when his mother posted a "groom wanted" matrimonial advertisement in a leading English-language newspaper, said people on his show have shared their stories openly.

"The unique religion, caste, gender and familial bonds in these stories are part of the narrative," Iyer said.

There is no official data on the LGBT population in India, but the government estimates there are 2.5 million gay people, reflecting those who have declared their sexuality to the health ministry.

Campaigners say real numbers are far higher as many individuals conceal their identity fearing discrimination in a country where most marriages still take place within the boundaries of caste and religion.

Shivangini Jajoria, national operations head at Ishq, said the radio station wants to break down boundaries and feature all kind of relationships.

"When the Muslim and Sikh couple shared their coming out story, it made it easier for others to come out," said Jajoria. "People are also understanding the LGBTQ community better through these stories."

Also Read:

Donald Trump to ban transgenders from US military despite vow to fight for LGBT community

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Queer Insurrection: First ever LGBT military unit to fight against ISIS in Syria

--- ENDS ---
NEW YORK, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Nielsen announced it will begin crediting video content distributed on Facebook, Hulu and YouTube in Digital Content Ratings. Through this capability, participating TV and digital publisher clients can now capture incremental viewing of their content within their reported audience numbers.

With Nielsen including viewership of distributed content on three of the industry's largest digital platforms within its measurement of digital content, publishers can demonstrate the breadth of their audience. Enabled publisher clients will be able to receive credit for video distributed on Facebook and YouTube in Nielsen's Digital Content Ratings. Hulu will be providing select media partners with credit for current series content distributed on the platform, with data evaluation set to begin this month.

Now, both TV and digital clients enabled for Digital Content Ratings will be able to display viewership of their content across all platforms, including these key digital distributors. This will allow publishers to better showcase the various ways people watch their digital content as well as provide agencies and advertisers with valuable data for more informed decision-making.

"The inclusion of video content distributed on Facebook, Hulu and YouTube in Nielsen Digital Content Ratings is a major accomplishment and part of our ongoing commitment to providing the industry with independent, comprehensive measurement of the evolving consumer landscape," said Megan Clarken, President of Product Leadership at Nielsen. "Through capturing this audience, Nielsen is providing publishers, agencies and advertisers with a better picture of today's media consumption, with comparable metrics."

Nielsen will provide content owners and distributors with the same visibility to data for all distributed video content. Providing a consistent and transparent view ensures a level playing field with access to the same information across both publishers and platforms.

"BuzzFeed is a distributed network publishing engaging, shareable content and adapting it to the platforms where our audience lives. Much of our content is being missed by traditional measurement tools and Nielsen's Digital Content Ratings allow us to count content views and viewers across our owned and operated properties as well as Facebook and YouTube. With this new tool at our disposal we are able to have a clearer view of BuzzFeed's true reach. Nielsen's Digital Content Ratings are necessary for accurate audience measurement in today's digital universe," said Edwin Wong, VP of Research and Insights at BuzzFeed.

"Nielsen is standard-bearer for independent ratings measurement and as the world continues to shift toward social and mobile, the enhancements to Digital Content Ratings will be invaluable for digital publishers and advertisers alike," said Ashish Patel, SVP of Audience Development & Insights at Group Nine Media. "We at Group Nine rely on data to inform our business and content strategy, more deeply understand our audience, and contextualize our standing in the media ecosystem. We're thrilled to have access to these new measurements as we continue to rapidly grow and evolve."

"It's critical to have access to accurate ratings data across channels to enhance plan efficiency and inform our investment decisions on behalf of clients," said Michele Donati, SVP, Managing Director, WHERE at Horizon Media. "Nielsen incorporating crediting of distributed content across Hulu, Facebook and YouTube into its Digital Content Ratings is an important first step in helping to provide our clients with more complete communications planning and activation resources that are more reflective of the digital ecosystem that consumers navigate each day."

"We at MAGNA are pleased to see this important enhancement come to fruition. Having a more complete understanding of how audiences build across platforms will help inform our strategies, and we are looking forward to seeing more progress made on this front." said Brian Hughes, SVP, Audience Intelligence & Strategy at Magna Global.

"Mic looks to reach our audiences wherever they are, including social platforms such as Facebook and YouTube," said Jonathan Carson, President at Mic. "With Nielsen including Facebook and YouTube video consumption in Digital Content Ratings we are getting a more complete picture of our audience, helping us to better tailor the news to our viewers and better articulate the strength of our audience to brand partners."

"At Refinery29 we are constantly speaking to our global audience of young women across myriad platforms," said Bart Boughton, SVP, Revenue Operations at Refinery29. "In order to reach this audience in a way that integrates with her lifestyle, we create unique content native to each platform. Having the ability to quantify this engagement is critical. Using Nielsen Digital Content Ratings will not only further benefit our understanding of where our audience spends time, but also allows us to share this important information with our partners."

"As our own data increasingly gives us powerful insights on how to optimize brand campaigns, we're encouraged and excited by this initiative," noted Melissa Drucker, Head of Sales and Brand Partnerships at Tastemade. "Nielsen's Digital Content Ratings for Facebook and YouTube signal an important step in overall measurement of mobile-first video, and will allow TV buyers to have even greater visibility into actual reach and engagement on major social platforms."

CONTACT

Leslie Pitterson, [email protected], 917-562-0715

ABOUT NIELSEN

Nielsen Holdings plc (NYSE: NLSN) is a global performance management company that provides a comprehensive understanding of what consumers watch and buy. Nielsen's Watch segment provides media and advertising clients with Total Audience measurement services for all devices on which content  video, audio and text  is consumed. The Buy segment offers consumer packaged goods manufacturers and retailers the industry's only global view of retail performance measurement. By integrating information from its Watch and Buy segments and other data sources, Nielsen also provides its clients with analytics that help improve performance. Nielsen, an S&P 500 company, has operations in over 100 countries, covering more than 90% of the world's population. For more information, visit www.nielsen.com.

SOURCE Nielsen

Related Links

http://www.nielsen.com


SAN DIEGO, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Metacrine, Inc., an innovative biotechnology company focused on drug development for metabolic diseases, announced it has entered a collaboration with Novo Nordisk A/S to develop Fibroblast Growth Factor 1 ("FGF1") variants for glucose lowering and insulin sensitization.

Metacrine began work on FGF1 following a 2014 seminal study published in the journal Nature, which demonstrated the ability of FGF1 to lower glucose and improve insulin sensitivity in preclinical diabetes models. Metacrine has made significant progress with protein engineering work to improve the pharmaceutical properties of FGF1.

"We are very pleased to be working with Novo Nordisk, a clear global leader in diabetes and diabetes-related disease complications," said Ken Song, MD, President and CEO of Metacrine. "Combining the knowledge and experience of Novo Nordisk with Metacrine's capabilities ensures an ideal path forward for the FGF1 program, with the opportunity to develop a first-in-class therapeutic to treat patients who have diabetes and other conditions related to insulin resistance."

Under the terms of the agreement, Metacrine will continue to be responsible for certain research activities to further develop and characterize novel FGF1 variants. Novo Nordisk will have an option to license the FGF1 program upon achievement of certain research milestones. Financial terms were not disclosed.

About Metacrine

Metacrine is a privately held biotechnology company headquartered in San Diego, CA. The company is focused on efficiently developing innovative drugs that materially benefit patients with metabolic disease. For more information, visit www.metacrine.com.

Contact:

Julie Rathbun

Rathbun Communications

[email protected]

206.769.9219

SOURCE Metacrine, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.metacrine.com


LONDON, Aug. 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Automated guide vehicles/carts; autonomous industrial material handling vehicles, autonomous mobile carts, autonomous mobile picking robots, autonomous trucks, and last mile delivery drones and droids: technologies, markets, forecasts





Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/5059907/







This report is focused on all aspects of mobile robotics in material handling and logistics. In particular, we consider the following: automated guided vehicles and carts (AGVs/AGCs); autonomous mobile vehicles and carts/units; mobile picking robots; last mile delivery ground robots (driods) and drones; and autonomous trucks and light delivery vans (level 4 and level 5 automation). We provide technology roadmaps and twenty-year market forecasts in unit numbers and revenue.



Mobile robotics in material handling and logistics will become a $75bn market by 2027. It will then more than double by 2038. These staggering headline figures mask turbulent transformative change underneath: some technologies will rise and transform the fortunes of industries, fuelling growth rates far outpacing recent trends, whilst others will face with decay and obsolesce. We are at the beginning of the beginning of a transformative change, and the time to plan is now. The images below demonstrate this point.



This report is focused on all aspects of mobile robotics in material handling and logistics. In particular, we consider the following: automated guided vehicles and carts (AGVs and AGCs); autonomous mobile vehicles and carts/units; mobile picking robots; last mile delivery ground robots (droids) and drones; and autonomous trucks and light delivery vans (level 4 and level 5 automation).



We provide technology roadmaps and twenty-year market forecasts, in unit numbers and revenue, for all the technologies outlined above (12 forecast lines). We built a twenty-year model because our technology roadmap suggests that these changes will take place over long timescales. In our detailed forecasts we clearly explain the different stages of market growth and outline the key assumptions/conditions as well as data points that underpin our model.



Furthermore, our granular forecast model includes price projections, often at component level, for all the technologies outlined above. Our technology assessments and price projections feed directly into our market forecast model, governing the adoption timescales and the estimated technology market share evolutions.



Our model also considers how technology improvements will increase productivity and/or performance levels, expanding potential target markets or meeting competitive threshold levels with time, and thus raising market adoption. It will also consider how some technologies will lose their value add to emerging technologies, thus facing obsolescence.



We further provide investment/trend analysis, always seeking to put each technology within its greater quantitative as well as qualitative context. We also include company interviews/profiles/reviews. Our company profiles and interviews provide valuable insight on company positioning, strategy, opportunities, and challenges



Incumbents face obsolescence?

AGVs are a mature technology that can safely transport payloads ranging from several Kg to multiple tonnes, essentially acting as semi-rigid distributor conveyer belts covering large areas.



Their navigation technology is evolving. Today multiple options are available ranging from the low-cost wire or magnetic tape guidance to the increasingly popular laser guidance. All however requires follow rigid guide points, thus requiring some degree of infrastructure modification and extended onsite installation. This industry is showing healthy, albeit small, grow rates.



This gives an illusion of security to this mature highly-fragmented business where price competition is rise. The next generation of navigation technology, i.e., infrastructure-independent flexible autonomy, may appear as just as the next natural step in navigation technology evolution. It however has the potential to shatter this illusion and fully redraw the competitive landscape.



This report provides a detailed and quantitative (revenue and unit numbers) assessment, forecasting how sales of AGVs will grow then decline in the next twenty-years. In addition, it will show how autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) will rise, not just largely replacing AGVs but in time diffusing beyond the structured confines of warehouses and factories.



Forklifts will never be the same?

Navigational autonomy will induce a colossal transfer of value from wage bills paid for human-provided driving services towards spent on autonomous industrial vehicles.



This, in turn, will fuel the growth in this material handling vehicle industry (e.g., forklift), creating significant revenues over a business-as-usual scenario. This is despite our technology roadmap showing that hardware commoditisation will slowly devalue such driving services particularly in high-wage regions.



AGVs barely made a dent in this industry. This is because their navigational rigidity put a low cap on their total market scope, keeping them as a small subset of the warehouse/factory automation business. Autonomous mobile robots are radically different however because they will ultimately enable automation to largely keep the flexibility and versatility of human-operated vehicles.



Our technology roadmap suggests that this change will not happen overnight. It will nonetheless take place much earlier than mobile autonomy in general driving since the structured and controlled environment of indoor industrial facilities lends itself better to automation.



Indeed, our model suggests that autonomous forklifts, for example, will remain a tiny share of the global addressable market until around 2023 but will soon after enter the rapid growth phase, causing a transformation of the industry and dramatically raising adoption levels to as high as 70% by 2038. This trend may not yet be on investor presentations of big, say, forklift suppliers, but will inevitable rise up the agenda as a key feature of the industry for years to come.



Mobile picking robots will learn, fast

Mobile robotic picking is generally restricted to stationary robotic arms operating on known objects in controlled environments. The artificial intelligence technology for robotic grasping is however changing with a transition taking place from deterministic scripting towards perception-driving learning.



Today companies are actively generating data to train their robots, and hope to utilize the cloud to rapidly share data and learnings at scale across distributed fleets. The latter will particularly help energy-constrained mobile picking robots because it partially transitions the computational burden to the cloud.



In parallel, soft robotic technology is offering innovative end effector designs that can adapt their shape- without computer guidance/instruction- to the target object. For certain objects and cases, this will dramatically ease the intelligence/computational challenge in picking (identifying objecting, recognising optimal grasp point, developing approach path, etc).



Our report shows how mobile picking units will evolve through different levels of performance (sub-human, approaching human, and potentially exceeding human) over a twenty-year period for both regular and irregular/mixed shaped items. We provide forecast in unit sales as well as revenue.



Disrupting the last mile delivery using mobile ground robots

Last mile delivery remains an expensive affair in the parcel delivery business, often representing more than half of the total cost. Its importance is also growing thanks to a change in the composition of total deliveries with B2C deliveries rapidly taking on a bigger share. E-commerce companies are also pushing next-day and now same-day services hoping to take away that last stronghold of bricks-and-mortar shops: instant customer fulfilment.



Autonomous mobile delivery robots are currently small slow-moving units that will need to return to base to charge. They often need close supervision and can only operate in sparsely-populated and highly-structured environments such as university campuses or special neighbourhood. They therefore are unproductive and easy to dismiss as gimmicks.



This is however only the beginning of the beginning. Our cost projections in the report suggest that these mobile robots can indeed become low-cost. The robots are now in the trial and learning phase, gathering more data and optimising the navigational algorithms. They will become increasingly more adept at path planning, even when GPS signals fail, and at object avoidance. The increased autonomous mobility capability will in turn enable a lower operator-to-fleet-size ratio, furthering boosting overall fleet productivity.



This report paints a quantitative picture of the emergence of last mile delivery mobile robots, clearly explaining the different phases of evolution from trial/early commercial sales toward rapid market penetration and finally towards maturity and then revenue decline, i.e., our model shows that hardware commoditization outpaces volume growth.



Delivery drones: publicity stunt or a game changer in instant fulfilment?

The idea of drone delivery sharply divides commentator opinion: some dismiss it as a mere publicity stunt whilst others consider it a game changer that will bring near instant product fulfilment to e-commerce, stripping traditional shops of their last major differentiator.



Drone delivery faces critical challenges. Individual drones offer limited productivity compared to traditional means of delivery. They can only carry small payloads and battery technology limits their flight duration, constraining them to around 30min radius of their base whilst further lowering their productivity due to the downtime needed for re-charging/re-loading. Safety is a potential showstopper with many accidents waiting to happen.



Drone delivery however is still in its infancy. Its short-term potential, we find, has been exaggerated. However, the technology has long-term future, particularly within the context of the bigger trend to automate as much as of the logistic chain as possible.



Indeed, we find that delivery drone sales will remain limited until 2027/28. Demand will then start to taking off in remote or sparsely-populated (e.g., suburbs), ultimately enabling companies to establish large accumulated fleets. Despite their ultimate rise, however, drone delivery will remain only a small part of the much bigger commercial drone story.



Trucking: a large attractive business to autonomize?

Trucking is a big business. In the US, the trucking industry revenues are in excess of $726bn. This is the equivalent of combined revenues of Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, IBM, Baidu and then some (a lot) more.



It is also a big employer: the US Bureau of Labour Statistics suggests that 1.79m people work in this sector driving 7.2m trucks for inter-city freight transport earning an average salary of 41.3 k$/year. No wonder this is a hot topic now then.



Trucking is also potentially an easier target than general passenger cars. This is because it spends much of its time in intercity roads which are less congested and less sinuous than city ones. The driver may remain in the vehicle, but the commercial incentive, even in this hybrid approach, exists because it may justify a relaxation of the rulebook which limits driving hours. This can therefore boost driver productivity and asset utilization.



In this report we forecast how different levels of automation (level 4 and 5) will rise and fall in trucking over the next twenty years. We offer detailed projections for the future cost of automation hardware systems (Lidar, radar, IMU, GPS, PC, etc) based on historical learning curves of similar technologies. Our forecasts are expressed in unit numbers as well as in value- both at the level of the truck itself and the automation part.





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About Reportbuyer

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For more information:

Sarah Smith

Research Advisor at Reportbuyer.com

Email: [email protected]

Tel: +44 208 816 85 48

Website: www.reportbuyer.com

SOURCE ReportBuyer

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Mr. Ledgett joins M&T's board with four decades of intelligence, cyber security and cyber operations experience, including 29 years with the National Security Agency (NSA), the largest intelligence organization in the U.S., where he served as Deputy Director from January 2014 until his retirement in April 2017. As Deputy Director for the NSA, he led a global entity with almost 200 operating locations around the world and acted as the Agency's chief operating officer, responsible for providing foreign intelligence and protecting our country's most important national security-related networks and information.

Additionally, Mr. Ledgett led the NSA's 24/7 Threat Operations Center (NTOC), responsible for identifying and countering cyber threats to our national security systems. In that capacity, he redirected the NTOC's focus to robust identification of cyber threat actors and made that information actionable by consumers. Mr. Ledgett was also selected as the Intelligence Community's first National Intelligence Manager for Cyber, serving as principal advisor to the Director of National Intelligence on all cyber matters. In this capacity, he was also responsible for integrating cyber activities across 16 intelligence agencies and numerous international partners, and he developed the first National Intelligence Strategy for cyber.

Mr. Ledgett is a recipient of numerous honors and awards, including Presidential Rank Awards for Distinguished and Meritorious Service and the National Intelligence Distinguished Service and Superior Service Medals. He is a member of the U.S. Naval Academy's Cyber Board of Advisors and has served as an instructor and course developer at the National Cryptologic School and as an adjunct faculty member at the National Intelligence University in Washington, D.C. He earned his M.S. in Strategic Intelligence from the National Defense Intelligence College in Washington, D.C., completed graduate-level coursework in engineering at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and earned his B.S. in Psychology from the University of the State of New York in Albany, New York.

"Rick Ledgett has had a long and distinguished career serving our country and protecting our nation's most important information security interests around the world," said Robert G. Wilmers, M&T's Chairman and CEO. "He will be an invaluable addition to our board, bringing a management, operational and technical perspective to cyber security and information assurance that will further strengthen M&T's commitment to information security and risk management."

About M&T Bank

M&T is a financial holding company headquartered in Buffalo, New York. M&T's principal banking subsidiary, M&T Bank, operates banking offices in New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Connecticut, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. Trust-related services are provided by M&T's Wilmington Trust-affiliated companies and by M&T Bank.

 2017 M&T Bank. Member FDIC

SOURCE M&T Bank Corporation

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ROCHESTER, N.Y., Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- PSECC Solar Farms Ltd, a climate change mitigation company and developer of solar farms, has turned to Natcore Technology Inc. (TSX-V: NXT; OTCQB: NTCXF) to help restore financial viability to a 20 MW Ghanaian project that was threatened by a 29% reduction in feed-in tariffs.

A feed-in tariff (FIT) is an economic policy created to promote active investment in and production of renewable energy sources. Feed-in tariffs typically make use of long-term agreements and pricing tied to costs of production for renewable energy producers. In practice, feed-in tariffs may be payments to ordinary energy users for the renewable electricity they generate.

The previous Ghanaian government had set the feed-in-tariff at about $0.137 per KWh, but the government appointed late in December 2016 has recently said that the signing of new Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) can have a maximum FIT payment no greater than $0.10 per KWh.

"The lower FIT payment meant I had to look for the best possible technology choice for solar panels," says Alan Brewer, CEO and Director of PSECC (www.pseccsolarfarms.com). "That's when I contacted Natcore, because the increase in power using their technology meant that the revenues could be increased by 10% or more and the project could once again be financially viable."

PSECC had gained a Provisional License in December 2016 for the 20 MW solar farm at Simbrofo in Ghana. Two additional 20 MW farms are planned for that venue. A commitment for financing the projects has been obtained from a Polish bank via the European Central Bank. The estimated build cost of the first 20MW solar farm at Simbrofo will be $28.776 million.

By licensing Natcore's technology in Ghana, PSECC would also gain exclusive access, on a regional basis, to Natcore's newest advances, including laser-processed, back-contact foil cell technology, black silicon and others as they come on line.

Last month, Natcore and PSECC signed a Memorandum of Understanding under which PSECC would engage Natcore to develop solar projects within the United States.

"We estimate that the fee for a license agreement of this size will be about $2.5 million," says Chuck Provini, Natcore President and CEO. Although we haven't finalized negotiations, we're able to make a projection based on the savings anticipated by using our technology."

"From the beginning, our mantra has been 'raise the efficiency, lower the cost,'" says Provini. "Our new Natcore Foil Cell will do both. It has achieved an efficiency of 20.7% so far, which is already a relative 20% higher than most commercially available solar cells, and it uses a revolutionary laser process with a novel metallization strategy, to create a high-efficiency all-back-contact cell architecture at low cost. Importantly, it also eliminates the need for silver, one of the highest-cost components of a conventional solar cell."

PSECC has formed Simbrofo Light Ghana Ltd, a special purpose vehicle to take this project forward.

This is the fifth project to be assigned to Natcore as a result of its Best-of-Breed program. Under that program, Natcore functions as a consultant on the design and construction of solar cell/solar panel fabrication facilities and solar farms. Natcore also serves as a general contractor, hiring subcontractors and vetting every component of the project, taking advantage of their status and know-how to get the best available price, quality and efficiency. The company is in various stages of development on projects in Belize, Australia, Vietnam and the United States.

About Natcore Technology

Natcore Technology is focused on using its proprietary nanotechnology discoveries to enable a variety of compelling applications in the solar industry. Specifically, the company is advancing applications in laser processing and black silicon solar cells to significantly lower the costs and improve the power output of solar cells. With 65 patents (31 granted and 34 pending), Natcore is on the leading edge of solar research. www.NatcoreSolar.com

Statements herein other than purely historical factual information, including statements relating to revenues or profits, or Natcore's future plans and objectives, or expected sales, cash flows, and capital expenditures constitute forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on numerous assumptions and are subject to all of the risks and uncertainties inherent in Natcore's business, including risks inherent in the technology history. There can be no assurance that such forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on such statements. Except in accordance with applicable securities laws, Natcore expressly disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements or forward-looking statements that are incorporated by reference herein.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Contact: Chuck Provini

585-286-9180

[email protected]

SOURCE Natcore Technology Inc.

Related Links

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HOUSTON, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- NCI Building Systems, Inc. (NYSE: NCS) announced today that it will release financial results for its fiscal 2017 third quarter ended July 30, 2017, after the market closes on Tuesday, August 29, 2017. In conjunction with the earnings release, supplemental operational and financial information will be posted on NCI's website in the Quarterly Earnings & Transcripts section of the Investor Relations page at www.ncibuildingsystems.com. The Company has also scheduled a conference call to discuss its results on Wednesday, August 30, starting at 9:00 a.m. ET (8:00 a.m. CT).

By Phone: Dial 1-877-407-0672 or 1-412-902-0003 at least 10 minutes before the call. A telephone replay will be available through September 13, 2017 by dialing 1-877-660-6853 or 201-612-7415 using the access code 13668657#.



By Webcast: Visit the Event Calendar, Calls & Webcast section of the Investor Relations page of NCI's website. Please log on at least 10 minutes in advance to register and download any necessary software. A replay will be available shortly after the call and will be accessible for approximately 90 days.

About NCI Building Systems

NCI Building Systems, Inc. is one of North America's largest integrated manufacturers of metal products for the nonresidential building industry. NCI is comprised of a family of companies operating manufacturing facilities across the United States, Canada, Mexico and China with additional sales and distribution offices throughout the United States and Canada. For more information visit www.ncibuildingsystems.com.

Contact:

K. Darcey Matthews

Vice President, Investor Relations

281-897-7785

SOURCE NCI Building Systems, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.ncibuildingsystems.com


Understood in Motion 02 was crafted with carefully selected apples from both the east and west coasts: Bittersweet Muscadet de Lense and Marie Menard from Oregon, and heirloom, acid-forward Gold Rush and Northern Spy from New York. Both the Pacific Northwest and New York State have a rich history of apple growing, thanks in large part to the terroir of the region. Each region's sunlight, temperature, and soil impart distinct qualities to the fruit, such as low acidity in the Pacific Northwest and high acidity in Walden, which are the foundation for this cider.

The fruit was juiced and naturally fermented in a process that requires very little intervention but lots of careful attention. The result is a still, dry cider with just a touch of residual sweetness, and like wine, meant to be shared, paired with a great meal, and enjoyed with friends.

"At Angry Orchard, we're constantly striving to create interesting ciders to enhance and grow America's cider culture," said Ryan Burk, Head Cider Maker at Angry Orchard. "E.Z. Orchards Cider Maker Kevin Zielinski is a long-time friend and mentor. It was a privilege to work with him on a cider that pays homage to traditional cider making, yet uses experimental wild fermentation techniques."

The team at E.Z. Orchards is first and foremost orchardists, with a deep passion for cider's main ingredient: the apple, and the orchard grows apples with specific cider blends in mind. Like E.Z. Orchards' approach to its orchard, the cider makers at Angry Orchard are in pursuit of producing only the highest quality ciders, traveling the world to find unique apple varieties and ingredients to develop inventive and refreshing styles for drinkers to enjoy. Angry Orchard's most popular style, Crisp Apple, is made with bittersweet and culinary apples from Europe, striking the perfect balance between sweet and dry. In addition to the flagship cider, Angry Orchard makes a variety of cider styles, including specialty ciders available only at the Cider House in Walden, New Yorkthe cider's home for research and development.

"Understood in Motion 02 is a product of the nuances between the fruits of the Northwest and Northeast regions," says Kevin Zielinski, Founder and Cider Maker at E.Z. Orchards. "We enjoyed working closely with our East Coast friends at Angry Orchard, from selecting the apples to blending the fermented cider."

More about the cider:

The Backstory: While hailing from opposite ends of the country, the cider makers at both Angry Orchard and E.Z. Orchards are focused on producing hard ciders using innovative techniques and high quality ingredients. Understood in Motion 02 began at the 2016 Seattle Cider Summit where the cider makers connected and decided to create something that merged their cider making techniques and local apples.

While hailing from opposite ends of the country, the cider makers at both Angry Orchard and E.Z. Orchards are focused on producing hard ciders using innovative techniques and high quality ingredients. began at the 2016 Seattle Cider Summit where the cider makers connected and decided to create something that merged their cider making techniques and local apples. Creation: Together, the cider makers chose specific apples varieties from the Pacific Northwest and New York . Understood in Motion 02 involves 100% wild fermentation with no intervention, a technique both cider makers are passionate about. The fermentation took place in four different locations, including in stainless steel tanks at E.Z. Orchards, and three ex-cognac barrels made of oak in Angry Orchard's Cider House. The very slow, cold fermentation process took up to three months, giving the final product a subtle residual sweetness. Together, the cider makers worked to blend different amounts of fermented cider to achieve a perfectly balanced, finished product.

Together, the cider makers chose specific apples varieties from the Pacific Northwest and . involves 100% wild fermentation with no intervention, a technique both cider makers are passionate about. The fermentation took place in four different locations, including in stainless steel tanks at E.Z. Orchards, and three ex-cognac barrels made of oak in Angry Orchard's Cider House. The very slow, cold fermentation process took up to three months, giving the final product a subtle residual sweetness. Together, the cider makers worked to blend different amounts of fermented cider to achieve a perfectly balanced, finished product. The Apples: Understood in Motion 02 is made from a carefully selected blend of low-acid apples, including French bittersweet Muscadet de Lense and Marie Menard varieties from E.Z. Orchards and high-acid apples, including traditional culinary apples Gold Rush and Northern Spy from Angry Orchard in New York .

is made from a carefully selected blend of low-acid apples, including French bittersweet Muscadet de Lense and varieties from E.Z. Orchards and high-acid apples, including traditional culinary apples Gold Rush and Northern Spy from Angry Orchard in . Tasting Notes: Understood in Motion 02 is a dry, balanced cider with a subtle residual sweetness and mellow acidity, a result of the soft tannins in the French bittersweet apples. It has an overripe, bittersweet apple flavor with notes of raw honey, oak and sprit from the time it spent fermenting in oak barrels, also known as foeders, which previously held Cognac. The result is a truly balanced cider.

is a dry, balanced cider with a subtle residual sweetness and mellow acidity, a result of the soft tannins in the French bittersweet apples. It has an overripe, bittersweet apple flavor with notes of raw honey, oak and sprit from the time it spent fermenting in oak barrels, also known as foeders, which previously held Cognac. The result is a truly balanced cider. Availability: Understood in Motion 02 (8% ABV) is the second American collaboration to come from Angry Orchard and will be available for limited release at the Angry Orchard Cider House and select Portland, Oregon retailers, starting on August 18 th in 750mL bottles for $25.00 per bottle, while quantities last.

This cider follows Angry Orchard's first American collaboration, Understood in Motion 01 created last year with Eden Specialty Cider (Newport, VT). A third collaboration is already in the works for later this year.

To find where Angry Orchard hard cider is available near you, visit the "cider finder" at www.angryorchard.com/cider-finder.

About Angry Orchard Cider Company:

Angry Orchard Cider Company's cider makers have been experimenting with apple varieties and unique flavors to develop hard cider recipes for 20 years. The cider makers have travelled the world to find the best apples for cider making and chose specific varieties, like French bittersweet apples from Normandy and culinary apples from Italy and the United States, based on each cider's flavor profile. In November 2015, Angry Orchard established a home for cider research and development called the Innovation Cider House, located on a historic apple orchard in the New York Hudson River Valley. In May 2016, Angry Orchard planted three acres of traditional cider making apples at the Angry Orchard, which will be used for research and experimentation at the Innovation Cider House.

Angry Orchard makes a variety of year-round craft cider styles, including Angry Orchard Crisp Apple, a fruit forward hard cider that balances the sweetness of culinary apples with dryness and bright acidity of bittersweet apples for a complex, refreshing taste. Despite the recent growth of hard cider in the U.S., the category is still small and relatively unknown. Angry Orchard is committed to drinker education and awareness-building to help grow the category for all craft cider makers.

About E.Z Orchards

E.Z. Orchards have been orchardists since the 1920s when we began to grow Roman Beauty apples on the farm. When we began specifically producing cidre apples in 2000, the orchard was transformed around that intent and slowly took shape. Surrounding the orchards, the larger farm produces a wide variety of fruits that diversify the land and aid in the pollination process, including peaches, pears, and hazelnuts. Today, they grow a wide variety of heirloom cidre apples including French and English bittersweets, and American semi-sharps. In the Willamette Valley of Oregon where they farm, the ground is an ancient seabed full of rich and nutritious soil. With so much nutrition available to the trees, they have to suppress their vigor to ensure that each apple receives the most intense nurturing for flavor and aromatics. They grow our apples with specific cidre blends in mind. As visitors walk the grounds, it becomes clear that it's organized around specific cultivation and harvesting techniques, enabling us to manage a precise maturation on the tree that they improve with every year's lessons.

To Learn More:

Cider lovers can explore the Orchard online at www.angryorchard.com/theorchard, like us at www.Facebook.com/AngryOrchard, https://instagram.com/angryorchard, and follow us at www.twitter.com/AngryOrchard.

Angry Orchard is a registered trademark of Angry Orchard Cider Company.

SOURCE Angry Orchard

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"I don't see people as their circumstances, I see people as their possibilities," says Ours to Service House of Hospitality Executive Director Sandy Hennum. Ours to Service House of Hospitality is a social services organization which provides temporary shelter and support services for families experiencing homelessness. Their vision of strengthening the community by assisting families to break the cycle of homelessness is accomplished by incorporating their three core values: Family Focus through identifying and achieving dreams and goals; Respect by honoring individual differences and unique needs with kindness, compassion, and integrity; Collaboration by creating strong communities through participation in the planning and coordination of the continuum of services for families on a regional level.

Ms. Hennum believes having the honor of working with families experiencing homelessness has been a journey of a lifetime. In her own words, Ms. Hennum states "Village of Hope creates an environment in which people begin to see their possibilities and a powerful future for themselves and their children. Poverty is complicated and is affected by so many issues. These issues create generational poverty. Our vision is to strengthen our community by assisting families to break the cycle of homelessness.

We work with the adults and the children to create a powerful future. The parents attend classes in budgeting, parenting, self -development, goal setting, and the power of positive thinking to name a few. The children attend classes with a trained parent/child educator and work with physical, emotional awareness and coping strategies as well as healthy life style choices. Village of Hope is a part of a caring community that collaborates with our families for their future. We have a Nice Ride station for bicycle transportation and are working with a functional medicine organization, True North and Nutritious Weighs on stress reduction, mindfulness, and nutrition to add value and education of the families at Village of Hope. These collaborations also let families know that they are not forgotten and not alone. Homelessness creates an environment of loneliness. Relationships are the difference for all of us and at Village of Hope we strive to develop and maintain lasting relationships with families experiencing homelessness.

I have the opportunity to help people see their potential, all they are capable of achieving. To provide them with confidence and hope. Changing lives one family at a time"

The Times Square appearance is given to the individual who has demonstrated consistent excellence in their career. The visual celebration of this individual will be displayed on digital screens at the venerable and historical 3 Times Square, New York, one of the busiest and most high profile landmarks in the nation.

About Strathmore's Who's Who

Strathmore's Who's Who publishes an annual two thousand page hard cover biographical registry, honoring successful individuals in the fields of Business, the Arts and Sciences, Law, Engineering and Government. Based on one's position and lifetime of accomplishments, we honor professional men and women in all academic areas and professions. Inclusion is limited to individuals who have demonstrated leadership and achievement in their occupation, industry or profession.

SOURCE Strathmore's Who's Who
LONDON, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- North West London Pathology (NWLP), hosted by Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, and Abbott (NYSE: ABT) announced today that they signed a $252 million managed equipment services contract for the supply of all analytical equipment and consumables, including Abbott's Alinity ci and Alinity h series diagnostics instruments as well as their professional services and informatics solutions known as AlinIQ.

The contract was the subject of a detailed and competitive procurement process conducted by NWLP. Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust and the Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust consolidated their pathology services into NWLP earlier this year to better manage demand, standardize operations, improve value for money and make use of new technologies.

Stephen Snewin, managing director of NWLP, said: "NWLP aims to provide an innovative and sustainable pathology service which delivers outstanding quality for our patients and clinicians. After a highly competitive process involving multiple diagnostic equipment manufacturers, NWLP is extremely excited to be working with Abbott, which supports our vision of increased efficiency and transformation across six major sites in North West London using the latest technology."

The partnership is expected to manage 26 million tests per year and currently holds 6 percent of the total pathology market in the UK.

"Abbott is delighted to provide NWLP with personalized Alinity and AlinIQ solutions to help them navigate the challenges of an evolving healthcare system," said Mike Clayton, managing director, Northern Europe, for Abbott's diagnostics business. "Through our partnership, we will equip NWLP to help maximize productivity, drive faster delivery of test results and provide the critical information needed for clinical decisions  with the goal of helping the Trust improve patient outcomes."

The hospitals included within this partnership are: Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, which comprises St Mary's Hospital, Charing Cross Hospital, Hammersmith Hospital, Queen Charlotte and Chelsea Hospital and the Western Eye Hospital; Chelsea & Westminster Hospital Foundation Trust, which comprises Chelsea & Westminster Hospital and West Middlesex University Hospital; and Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which comprises Hillingdon Hospital and Mount Vernon Hospital.

About Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust:

Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust is one of the largest hospital Trusts in England, providing acute and specialist healthcare for a population of nearly two million people. The Trust has five hospitals  Charing Cross, Hammersmith, Queen Charlotte's & Chelsea, St Mary's and The Western Eye  as well as community services.

About Alinity:

Abbott's Alinity family of harmonized solutions is unprecedented in the diagnostics industry, working together to address the challenges of using multiple diagnostics platforms and simplify diagnostic testing. Alinity systems are designed to be more efficient  running more tests in less space, generating test results faster and minimizing human errors  while continuing to provide quality results.

The Alinity portfolio includes Alinity c (clinical chemistry), Alinity i (immunoassay), Alinity s (blood and plasma screening), i-STAT Alinity (point of care), Alinity h (hematology) and Alinity m (molecular) diagnostics, along with Abbott's AlinIQa first-of-its-kind, holistic suite of professional services that combines expertise with process analysis and informatics. Alinity is helping labs and hospital systems solve some of their most pressing challenges to deliver better patient care with fewer resources. More information is available at abbott.com/alinity.

About Abbott:

At Abbott, we're committed to helping you live your best possible life through the power of health. For more than 125 years, we've brought new products and technologies to the world -- in nutrition, diagnostics, medical devices and branded generic pharmaceuticals -- that create more possibilities for more people at all stages of life. Today, 94,000 of us are working to help people live not just longer, but better, in the more than 150 countries we serve.

SOURCE Abbott

Related Links

http://www.abbott.com


The Jay Jawan mandal built a nine-level pyramid to retain its record at the same ground where it was first set a few years ago.

By Mayuresh Ganapatye: More than 20,000 people today took part in Dahi Handi celebrations in Thane, as Govinda troupes across Maharashtra competed to form multi-tier pyramids and break pitchers of curd on Janmashtami.

Krishna Janmashtami is a festival that commemorates the birth of the Hindu deity Lord Krishna.Here are scene's from Mumbai's Ghatkopar.

#WATCH:Huge crowd at Dahi Handi celebrations in Mumbai's Ghatkopar, on the occasion of #Janamashtami pic.twitter.com/wgU05mBBtF- ANI (@ANI) August 15, 2017

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100 Govinda mandals participated in Thane, where a 'Pro Govinda' event - inspired by the Pro Kabbadi tournaments - was organised.

In Varatak Nagar, a locality in the city, Dahi Handi organisers set a time limit for the construction of human pyramids.

The Jay Jawan mandal built a nine-level tower to retain its record at the same ground where it was first set a few years ago.

But this year, the show-stopper was Tad Wadi's eight-tier pyramid, with four single-row levels.

Actors Vindhu Dara Singh, Anya Singh and Adar Jain attended the celebrations, and cautioned participants to play safe.

As of 5 pm, at least 45 people were injured while forming pyramids in Mumbai - one of them seriously - officials said. The others were discharged after being given first aid.

The Devendra Fadnavis government told the Bombay High Court last week that it would ensure children below 14 years of age didn't take part in human pyramids.

INJURIES IN PARTS OF MUMBAI DUE TO CELEBRATIONS

Even as Dahi Handi was celebrated with fervour across the city, one person died and at least 19 Govindas were injured while forming human pyramids as part of the festival.

Five of the injured were admitted to Sion Hospital, of which three received three injuried. Seven were rushed to KEM Hospital, while three Govindas were taken to Trauma Care, one to Cooper Hospital in Juhu and three injured were admitted to Rajawadi Hospital in Ghatkopar.

Of the 19 injured Govindas, seven are undergoing treatment while the rest were released after first aid and medication.

(Inputs from Divyesh Singh and PTI)

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--- ENDS ---
PORTLAND, Ore., Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- OIA Global, a leading logistics, packaging and material sourcing provider, announced its Southeast Asia expansion with the opening of its first company-owned office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. OIA's decision to open the office, is driven by customer growth, and the continued growth of the Malaysian economy.

Peter Wong, OIA's Managing Director Asia-Pacific, noted the country posted a strong 5.6% GDP expansion in the first quarter which ended March 31, 2017. "Our business continues to grow in Southeast Asia and specifically in Malaysia," said Wong.

The new Kuala Lumpur office supports the existing OIA Penang location led by Herlyn Choo, Branch Manager. "Malaysia continues to lead in exports of energy, electronic equipment, wood products, textiles and Chemicals," Choo stated. "The increased volume of imports and exports are a clear message for OIA Global to continue to expand here in Malaysia," Choo added. The new office is located at located at Unit A505, 6th Floor, West Wing, Wisma Consplant 2, No 7, Jalan SS16/1 47500 Subanjaya Selangor Malaysia.

About OIA Global

Since its founding in 1988, OIA has grown into a $1 billion supply chain management leader, delivering clients a unique combination of global logistics , materials sourcing and packaging solutions. With over 1,200 professionals, and 69 owned offices in 27 countries, OIA designs innovative solutions that optimize supply chains around the world. OIA is privately owned by Indianapolis-based LDI, Ltd., with more than a century of experience funding and operating high potential, middle-market companies. For more information, please visit www.oiaglobal.com and www.ldiltd.com .

OIA Global Media Contact:

Jerry Levy

Director of Marketing & Communications

T. 503.736.5900

E. [email protected]

SOURCE OIA Global

Related Links

http://www.oiaglobal.com


CLEVELAND, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- New Mexico Military Institute (NMMI) recently deployed OnBase by Hyland, an industry leading enterprise information platform, to support increased departmental efficiencies and streamline processes across campus. The Roswell, New Mexico-based institution will leverage OnBase functionality implemented in the admissions, registrar and financial aid departments to digitize student documents.

OnBase replaced NMMI's former Singularity solution, which has since been sunsetted, and nearly 100 percent of the documents have been converted over. With an emphasis on leveraging OnBase workflow capabilities and creating a campus-wide centralized digital document management strategy, NMMI will eliminate duplicate copies and paper files while providing immediate access to information.

"From the time that Hyland purchased Singularity to our current OnBase implementation, we have appreciated the support and the customer service that was pleasant, professional and patient," said Col. Todd Lupien, director, application development and support, information services at NMMI. "During the Discovery phase, the Hyland team recommended best practices, such as merging, indexing and adding document types, which will help meet our goal of 'if users need it, they have it.'"

In the next phases, the information services team at NMMI is looking to extend the OnBase solution to additional departments across campus. OnBase will work in tandem with current line-of-business systems including PowerCampus by Ellucian, Microsoft Dynamics and PowerFAIDS.

"OnBase will help to connect student information across the NMMI campus, accelerating informed decision making and supporting the delivery of superior student service," said Dave Vegh, director, higher education practice at Hyland. "We look forward to continuing to grow with NMMI and celebrate their successful transition to OnBase."

For more information about how higher education institutions are streamlining processes, connecting information and providing better student service with OnBase, visit OnBase.com/HigherEd.

About OnBase by Hyland

OnBase is a single enterprise information platform for managing content, processes and cases deployed via on-premises or in the Hyland Cloud. Providing enterprise content management (ECM), case management, business process management (BPM), records management and capture all on a single platform, OnBase transforms organizations around the globe by empowering them to become more agile, efficient and effective. Enterprise cloud-based sharing capability for the OnBase platform is available with our complementary offering, ShareBase by Hyland.

OnBase is one of the most widely used information management solutions for colleges and universities. Flexible, scalable and secure, OnBase fits specific processes across institutions. From admissions processing and review, including transcript capture and transfer course evaluation, to AP invoice processing, this end-to-end solution enables institutions to leverage existing hardware investments, integrate with student information systems and alleviate administrative burdens on IT. For more information about OnBase, please visit OnBase.com/HigherEd.

Media contact:

Laura Pegg

+1 440-788-5632

[email protected]

SOURCE Hyland

Related Links

http://www.hyland.com


NEW YORK, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- CentSai, the online financial wellness community, announced today that it has partnered with SeedInvest, the foremost online investing platform, to open an investment opportunity in the company to any and all interested parties. CentSai is accepting live investments on SeedInvest.com and will present at SeedInvest's August Digital Demo webinar on Wednesday, August 16th, at 2:30 p.m. EDT.

CentSai provides personal finance lessons through storytelling and interactive content, including blogs, quizzes, videos, and podcasts. CentSai's bloggers use personal stories to engage readers through relatable content. Topics include how to manage credit card debt, student loans, real estate, and insurance, among many others, which helps users gain knowledge to become savvy financial consumers. Users can also participate in money forums, where they can ask questions to experts and peers alike.

CentSai also provides financial products and services a targeted way to get in front of a self-selected audience. This makes CentSai a valuable platform for new and emerging financial brands to connect with millennial and Gen X users who will benefit from their solutions.

"We are delighted to partner with SeedInvest and bring the opportunity to investors who support improving financial literacy through engaging content," said Arindam Nag, co-founder and CEO of CentSai. "We look forward to realizing our vision for CentSai as an authentic social community for brands, consumers, and experts to interact and increase financial literacy."

Additional information on participating in the CentSai investment opportunity can be found here.

About CentSai

CentSai's mission is to make learning personal finance skills approachable and fun for young Americans through every stage of life. CentSai provides financial wellness education through its two platforms  CentSai, which serves millennials and Gen X-ers, and CentSai Adulting, which serves teens. Both platforms spread invaluable personal finance information through storytelling in blogs, videos, expert commentary, Q&As, podcasts, and more.

About SeedInvest

SeedInvest is a leading equity crowdfunding platform that provides individual investors with access to pre-vetted startup investment opportunities. SeedInvest has funded over 160 startups and boasts a rapidly growing network of over 160,000 investors. SeedInvest has had over 13,000 startups apply to raise capital since inception and has only accepted ~1% of those companies to feature on the platform. For more information about SeedInvest, visit www.seedinvest.com.

CentSai is offering securities under Regulation CF and Rule 506(c) of Regulation D through SI Securities, LLC ("SI Securities"). The Company has filed a Form C with the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with its offering, a copy of which may be obtained at: https://www.seedinvest.com/centsai.inc

Media Contact for CentSai:

Kelly Bailey

347-556-5985

[email protected]

Media Contact for SeedInvest:

Alexandra Tynion

[email protected]

SOURCE CentSai, Inc.
SACRAMENTO, Calif., Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Grammy and Oscar-Winning Artist and Activist Common will be joined by a number of special guests including J. Cole, Goapele, Van Jones and more on Capitol Mall in Sacramento to host a community concert, Imagine Justice, to advocate for criminal justice reform on Monday, August 21.

The free community concert, for all-ages, is an opportunity to bring diverse audiences together for a historical performance by artists and activist who believe that reform, redemption and rehabilitation are critical for the betterment of all of society. Centered at the intersection of art and activism, Imagine Justice will spark meaningful dialogue around mass incarceration and justice, provide audiences with an enriching and unforgettable cultural experience, and amplify messages of hope, justice, change, and love.

On March 28-31, Common kicked off a Hope and Redemption Tour by playing four shows, in four prisons, in four days. Since then, Common has visited the California State Capitol to meet with various legislators about criminal justice reform bills, participated in a number of community events and visited numerous state prisons throughout Southern California.

"Visiting these prisons and speaking with the men and women inside during the Hope & Redemption Tour had a profound impact on me. I believe it is my duty to lend my voice to the voiceless and stand with the men and women in prison who have been silenced for so long. We need a justice system that is a tool for rehabilitation rather than a weapon for punishment," said Common.

On August 21, Common will continue his advocacy work in justice reform with a community concert on Capitol Mall in front of the California State Capitol where he and special guests including J. Cole will take to the stage for an inspiring and empowering evening of music and unity. The next day, Common will join multiple organizations in the State Capitol for several meetings with the Governor, caucuses and other legislators to discuss a number of upcoming bills. Following his visit to the State Capitol, Common will travel to the historic Folsom State Prison to perform for the men in prison, joined by special guest Goapele and Mike Epps.

Doors open for Imagine Justice concert at 4:00 PM and the featured programming will kick off at 6:00 PM. Imagine Justice will include live performances by Common, J. Cole, Goapele, Los Rakas, Syncopated Ladies and more. The concert will feature guest speakers DeVon Franklin, Bryonn Bain and Van Jones.

Admission to the event is free with advance registration. More than 30,000 guests have registered and no further registrations can be accepted.

Imagine Justice is supported by the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, which provides support for formerly incarcerated young people and advocates for justice reform. Organizations partnering on the event include: All of Us or None, Always Knocking, Blackout for Human Rights, Boys and Men of Color Alliance, Californians for Safety and Justice, California Alliance for Youth and Community Justice, Communities for a New California Education Fund, Congregations Organized for Prophetic Engagement (COPE), Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice (CURYJ), East Asian Youth Center- Sacramento, Ella Baker Center, Equality California, La Familia, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, PICO, Presente.org, Sacramento ACT, Sacramento Building Healthy Communities, Sacramento City Unified School District  Youth Development Support Services, Sacramento Reinvestment Coalition, Self-Awareness and Recovery (SAR), Sol Collective, Youth Justice Coalition.

For real-time updates and announcements around Imagine Justice, follow @ImaginexJustice on Twitter and Instagram. Join the conversation using the hashtag #ImagineJustice and #SchoolsNotPrisons. To download the official posters and additional promotional material, click HERE.

About Common

Common is an Academy Award, Golden Globe and Grammy winning artist, actor, film producer, and activist. He won an Academy Award for Best Original Song, "Glory," from the film "Selma." Common also co-starred in the film as civil rights movement leader James Bevel. His album, "Black America Again," focuses on themes of social injustice, including the fight against mass incarceration. He was recently nominated for an Emmy Award for his song "Letter to the Free" which was featured in the Netflix Documentary "13th." Common also is the founder of the Common Ground Foundation, with a mission of empowering high school students to become future leaders through programs focused on character development, healthy living, financial literacy, and creative expression.

About the Anti-Recidivism Coalition

ARC serves nearly 350 formerly incarcerated men and women, who commit to living crime-free, gang-free, and drug-free; enrolling in school, working, or actively searching for work; and being of service to their community. ARC's advocacy has led to numerous reforms of the juvenile justice system, including limiting the practice of sentencing juveniles to life without the possibility of parole, and providing second chances to individuals who committed their crimes as youth and received adult prison sentences. ARC has offices in Los Angeles and Sacramento, and members in Orange County, Riverside County, San Bernardino County, and the San Francisco Bay Area. For more information, see http://www.antirecidivism.org/.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Michael Latt, 310-720-9002

[email protected]

SOURCE Common

Related Links

http://commongroundfoundation.org


Forty percent of unanticipated hospital deaths happen on the General Ward [1] , where it's hard to predict which patients to watch closely. Obtaining vital signs in real-time using EWS allows clinicians to identify subtle signs of deterioration in a patient's condition at the point of care, hours before a potential adverse event occurs. Since Lakeland Health first implemented Philips patient monitoring technology in June 2016, the amount of rapid responses has increased significantly, with the number of cardiac and respiratory arrests decreasing by approximately 56 percent.

"Patient safety with zero harm is our number one goal at Lakeland," said Arthur Bairagee, Chief Nursing Informatics Officer, Lakeland Health. "The IntelliVue Guardian Solution has changed the way we work by eliminating potential transcription errors and also providing caregivers immediate access to patients' vital signs reducing delays in treatment time. With the help of the Guardian Solution, caregivers are immediately notified of changes in a patient's vital signs which may put them at risk for conditions such as sepsis, cardiac arrest, or respiratory failure. Frequent monitoring with automated EWS allows caregivers and Rapid Response teams to respond earlier  in enough time to make a difference."

"Through the IntelliVue Guardian Solution, we are aiming to change how clinicians work by providing them with the information they need at the moment they need it in order to intervene quickly," said Felix Baader, Business Leader, Patient Monitoring at Philips. "Having automated tools that provide a comprehensive view into a patient's condition not only aids in identifying potential patient deterioration earlier, but it also enhances workflow efficiencies by simplifying the medical documentation process and better utilizing limited staff resources."

The latest version of Philips IntelliVue Guardian Software has been available in countries requiring the CE Marking since October 2016, and available in the U.S. since early 2017. For additional information on Philips' advanced patient monitoring solutions, visit www.usa.philips.com/healthcare/solutions/patient-monitoring.

For more information, please contact:

Kathy O'Reilly

Philips Group Communications

Tel: +1 978-659-2638

Mobile: +1 978-221-8919

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @kathyoreilly

Ingrid Mitchell

Philips Patient Care and Monitoring Solutions

Tel: +1 978-482-5949

Mobile: +1 617-599-6624

Email: [email protected]

Jessica Hines

Lakeland Health

Tel: +1 269-927-5271

Email: [email protected]

About Royal Philips

Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) is a leading health technology company focused on improving people's health and enabling better outcomes across the health continuum from healthy living and prevention, to diagnosis, treatment and home care. Philips leverages advanced technology and deep clinical and consumer insights to deliver integrated solutions. Headquartered in the Netherlands, the company is a leader in diagnostic imaging, image-guided therapy, patient monitoring and health informatics, as well as in consumer health and home care. Philips' health technology portfolio generated 2016 sales of EUR 17.4 billion and employs approximately 70,000 employees with sales and services in more than 100 countries. News about Philips can be found at www.philips.com/newscenter.

About Lakeland Health

Lakeland Health is a non-profit, community-owned health system, which includes three hospitals, an outpatient surgery center, a cancer center, rehabilitation centers, long-term care, hospice, home care services, and physician practices. Lakeland was ranked as a 15 Top U.S. Health System by Truven Health Analytics in 2017. The health system has over 4,000 employees who provide clinical and support services at locations throughout southwest Michigan, and partners with more than 450 affiliated physicians and other providers. For more information, visit www.lakelandhealth.org.

[1] Rutherford P, Lee B, Greiner A. Transforming Care at the Bedside. IHI Innovation Series white paper. Boston: Institute for Healthcare Improvement; 2004. (Available on www.IHI.org)

SOURCE Royal Philips

Related Links

http://www.philips.com


NEW YORK, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Plaza College's new degree program in Dental Hygiene has received initial accreditation from the Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA) of the American Dental Association (ADA). The awarding of this accreditation is the culmination of a two-year long process of self-study, program review, and site evaluation.

Designed to address the increasing need for access to oral healthcare, Plaza's is the only dental hygiene program in the borough of Queens and the first new program in all of New York City in the past 27 years.

"There is a well-documented need for oral healthcare prevention and treatment for patients of all ages, particularly the diverse population in the borough of Queens," explains Dr. Laura Sleeper, RDH, Dental Hygiene Program Director. "Our program will not only train high-quality hygienists to fill the voids in the workforce, but it will also provide oral healthcare services through student hygienists in our community clinic."

The Plaza College Community Dental Clinic will be opening in conjunction with the program. The clinic will be open to the public, expanding the community's access to dental care and allowing for the treatment experiences the student hygienists needed to complete the program and obtain licensure. Students will screen patients to determine their oral health status and develop a treatment plan to provide quality care under the supervision of licensed dentists and hygienists.

"The participation of the community members is essential to the success of the students," said Dr. Burton Wasserman, program consultant and former head of Dental Medicine for NY Presbyterian/Queens. "It's a no-brainer  a win-win for everyone involved."

Applications are now being accepted for students to begin the program in September 2017. Interested candidates should contact the Admissions Department at 718-505-4188.

For more information on Plaza College's Dental Hygiene program, visit plazacollege.edu/dental-hygiene.

About Plaza College

Plaza College was founded in 1916 and is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. Plaza College offers associate and bachelor degrees in allied health, business, dental sciences, and legal studies.

Contact: Brittany Travis

Director of Communications

(718) 779-1430

SOURCE Plaza College

Related Links

http://www.plazacollege.edu


PRB's 2050 projections show Africa's population will more than double to 2.6 billion by 2050 and account for more than half (57 percent) of the global population increase by that date. The number of people in Asia will rise about 750 million to 5.2 billion, while Europe (including all of Russia) is headed for a population decline from 745 million to 736 million. The population of the Americas is seen increasing to 1.2 billion from 1 billion now, and Oceania (which includes Australia and New Zealand) would rise from 42 million to 63 million.

The Data Sheet's 2050 population projections indicate that:

India will be the world's most populous country with 1.7 billion people , with China in second place at 1.3 billion. Currently China is at 1.39 billion, compared with 1.35 billion in India .

, with in second place at 1.3 billion. Currently is at 1.39 billion, compared with 1.35 billion in . India will also register the largest numerical increase in population of any country , adding 323 million people by 2050. Nigeria will post the second-largest rise at 220 million, followed by Democratic Republic of Congo at 134 million.

, adding 323 million people by 2050. will post the second-largest rise at 220 million, followed by at 134 million. Thirty-nine countries will have smaller populations in 2050 than in 2017. China will register the largest numerical population decrease of 44 million, followed by Japan at 25 million and Ukraine at 9 million.

will register the largest numerical population decrease of 44 million, followed by at 25 million and at 9 million. The population of 30 countries, nearly all in Africa , will at least double by 2050.

The population of the United States will be 397 million, up from 325 million today.

Special Data Sheet Focus on Youth

This year's Data Sheet includes a special focus on the world's youth. Here are a few key figures:

The world youth population (ages 15 to 24) is projected to rise to 1.4 billion in 2050 from 1.2 billion now but the youth share of world population will fall to 14 percent from 16 percent.

from 1.2 billion now but the youth share of world population will fall to 14 percent from 16 percent. Africa's youth population will rise to 35 percent of the world youth total in 2050 , from 20 percent today.

, from 20 percent today. Ethiopia currently has the highest share of youth population at 21.8 percent while Bulgaria has the lowest share at 9.1 percent.

while has the lowest share at 9.1 percent. The global adolescent fertility rate (ages 15 to 19) is 50 births per 1,000 women, compared to only 16 per 1,000 in more-developed countries and 54 per 1,000 in less-developed countries.

Media Notice: Use the link below to access background information, graphic images, shareable images, and explanatory videos about the 2017 World Population Data Sheet: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B85ciVy-QP7cZUp5ME55R09nS28?usp=sharing

About PRB: PRB informs people around the world about population, health, and the environment, and empowers them to use that information to advance the well-being of current and future generations. Find out more at www.prb.org.



Contact Peter Goldstein: [email protected]; tel: 1.202.939.5407

SOURCE Population Reference Bureau

Related Links

http://www.prb.org


PROVIDENCE, R.I., Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Premama, a Rhode Island startup and the first nationwide line of pill-free, natural prenatal supplements is announcing today as "National Moms Who Pump Day" in celebration of moms around the world that pump breast milk for their baby or donation.

"At Premama, we celebrate all moms whether they breastfeed, pump or formula feed. During Breastfeeding Awareness Month, we noticed that there wasn't a day to specially honor all the moms who continually go above and beyond to pump breastmilk for their babies, or even others' babies through donation," said Dan Aziz, CEO and Founder of Premama. "We decided to create National Moms Who Pump Day on Aug. 15, to shine a spotlight on this special group of dedicated moms who pump."

"We created Premama Lactation supplement to support moms on their breastfeeding journey, whether they are nursing or pumping. It is designed to boost breast milk supply and fortify mom's milk with added nutrition," said Aziz.

Over the past three weeks, Premama has encouraged moms to share their hilarious, empowering and heartwarming pumping stories on the Premama Facebook page. Four winners will be chosen to each win one $500 SpaFinder gift card. The story categories were: "funniest pump story," "pumpers who go above and beyond" and "the person who supported you most during their pumping journey."

The winning stories for each category are:

Funniest Pump Story had one winner:

Hannah: "I made my toddlers breastmilk popsicles and my husband came home and ate two, not knowing they were breastmilk. You should've seen his face when I came in and saw him and told him what he was eating!"

Pumpers Who Go Above and Beyond had two winners:

Bracha: "I've been pumping for almost nine years. I never thought I would end up here when we adopted our first child. He was premature and weighed a few ounces short of two pounds. I induced lactation and was able to feed him exclusively with my milk from six months on after supplementing with donner milk and the help of an SNS.

"I have gone onto feed 22 children (including my four kids). I've donated pumped milk as I've also wet nursed as many of the 22 kiddos I've fed over the years.

"My latest accomplishment was being able to pump for a surrogate baby I birthed in July 2016. I pumped and shipped 1000 ounces of milk to her bi-weekly in addition to nursing my own toddler at the time. I am now pregnant with that baby's sibling (due this Fall), and I hope to pump for him/her as well. Breastmilk is an amazing gift and I am ever so thankful that my breasts have exceeded my expectations to nourish so many children. Nothing can compare."

Stephanie: "I was diagnosed with an aortic aneurysm on July 7. I had open heart surgery to repair it on July 31. Our third son was only three months old. Five hours post-op and immediately after removing the breathing tube, my sister hooked me up to my pump. I continued to pump three times a day during my hospitalization in an effort to preserve his food source.

"A small miracle is that I had pumped and stored about 700 ounces in the previous two months that I had planned to donate. Because of our stash, we were able to keep him on breastmilk during my entire hospitalization. Hopefully, my supply will return well enough we can still donate in the future."

Person Who Supported You Most During Their Pumping Journey had one winner:

Christine: "My sister Stephanie was by far my hugest supporter & cheerleader in my pumping journey. She not only bought me my (quite expensive) pump, but she also taught me all of the ins and outs when it came to pumping. She helped me find the right size parts, taught me just how to pump and encouraged me when I wanted to quit before my goal date (multiple times). I would never have made it 18 months without her!

"I'll never forget my early days in the NICU with my son. I was beyond exhausted (emotionally and physically) but she made sure I was pumping at the right times to ensure that my milk would come in for my little guy while he couldn't quite nurse yet. Or the one time I got mastitis. She had a two-year-old and newborn at the time, but she spent the whole day at my house caring for my newborn and me as well so that I could pump all day and heal.

"Or the time when my deep freezer broke, I lost my entire stash of pumped milk (sad face) and she gave me an overabundance of her frozen milk so that my little boy did not have to supplement with formula (amazing)! I am so thankful for my sister! She's so selfless and absolutely deserves a spa day!"

For more stories like these visit www.facebook.com/drinkpremama and for more information about Premama visit www.drinkpremama.com.

About Premama

Founded in 2011, Premama strives to make all moms happier with its best-in-class line of natural powdered supplements, gummies and soft chews specifically formulated to support preconception through postnatal nutritional needs, concerns and conditions. Premama's pill-free, drinkable and chewable solutions are formulated with high-quality, clinically-studied and physician-approved ingredients, and are designed to mix seamlessly with liquids and soft foods, or simply chewed. Premama is available online at drinkpremama.com and retailers across the US, including GNC, CVS, Walgreens, Target, The Vitamin Shoppe, Sprouts, Meijer, Buy Buy Baby, and Amazon. Purchasing Premama products supports Vitamin Angels, a non-profit organization that helps pregnant women, new mothers, and children under five in at-risk populations from over 50 countries worldwide gain access to life-changing vitamins and minerals. Visit www.drinkpremama.com for more information.

Media Contact:

Premama / Melissa Czerwein

[email protected]

401-749-7221

SOURCE Premama
"We are continuing to stress this radar by increasing the range and complexity of the targets and demonstrating the radar is meeting its performance requirements," said Navy Capt. Seiko Okano, major program manager for Above Water Sensors, Program Executive Office (PEO) Integrated Warfare Systems (IWS). "AN/SPY-6 is the nation's most advanced radar and will be the cornerstone of the U.S. Navy's surface combatants for many decades."

This result is the most recent in a series of successes for AN/SPY-6, following the tracking of the first ballistic missile target in March 2017. Building up to that milestone, the radar was tested against targets of increasing complexity, including integrated air and missile defense targets of opportunity, satellites and aircraft.

Having achieved Milestone C, ahead of schedule, the program remains on track for delivery to the first DDG 51 Flight III destroyer. AN/SPY-6(V) transitioned to Low Rate Initial Production with the May 1st contract award for the first three ship sets.

AN/SPY-6(V) provides greater capability  in range, sensitivity and discrimination accuracy  than currently deployed radars, increasing battlespace, situational awareness and reaction time to effectively counter current and future threats. It is the first scalable radar, built with Radar Modular Assemblies - radar building blocks. Each RMA, roughly 2' x 2' x 2' in size, is a standalone radar that can be grouped to build any size radar aperture, from a single RMA to configurations larger than currently fielded radars.

The U.S. Navy's new Enterprise Air Surveillance Radar leverages the highly-scalable design and mature technologies of AN/SPY-6 in a scaled nine-RMA configuration to meet the mission requirements of carriers and amphibious ships. The commonality  in both hardware and software  with AN/SPY-6 offers a host of advantages, including maintenance; training; logistics; and lifecycle support.

About Raytheon

Raytheon Company, with 2016 sales of $24 billion and 63,000 employees, is a technology and innovation leader specializing in defense, civil government and cybersecurity solutions. With a history of innovation spanning 95 years, Raytheon provides state-of-the-art electronics, mission systems integration, C5I products and services, sensing, effects, and mission support for customers in more than 80 countries. Raytheon is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. Follow us on Twitter.

Media Contact

Carolyn Beaudry

+1.401.842.3550

[email protected]

SOURCE Raytheon Company

Related Links

http://www.raytheon.com


The Razer Atheris is equipped with Razer's proprietary wireless Adaptive Frequency Technology (AFT) providing industry-leading transmission for the most reliable, stable connection. AFT is enabled through a compact USB dongle that stores away conveniently in the mouse, and Bluetooth LE connectivity is also available for devices without a USB port.

With a 7200 DPI optical sensor, the Razer Atheris is capable of blazing accuracy across multiple high-resolution monitors and provides the unfair advantage when it comes to work or play. Sporting a sleek and compact ambidextrous design, the Razer Atheris is suitable for both right and left-handers.

"We created the Razer Atheris to be the ultimate mobile productivity mouse  allowing users to bring their A-game in any situation whether it's in the boardroom or the gaming arena," says Min-Liang Tan, Razer co-founder and CEO. "The Razer Atheris outperforms and outlasts the competition with unparalleled reliability."

The Razer Atheris is available now at RazerStore.com. It will be available worldwide in Q4.

For more information, visit https://www.razerzone.com/gaming-mice/razer-atheris

Price:

U.S. $49.99 / EU 59.99

Availability:

Razerzone.com  15 August 2017, 8am Pacific Time

Worldwide  Q4 2017

Product features:

350-hour continuous use on a single pair of AA batteries (On Bluetooth mode)

7,200 DPI optical sensor

Dual connectivity

In-built Bluetooth (BLE)



2.4 GHz connection with Adaptive Frequency Technology

Ambidextrous ergonomic form factor

Compact and mobile ready (Dongle fits in the mouse, no extra carrying case required)

Five independently programmable Hyperesponse buttons

Approximate size: 99.7 mm / 3.9 in (Length) X 62.8 mm / 2.5 in (Width) X 34.1 mm / 1.35 in (Height)

Approximate weight 66g / 0.14 lbs (Excluding batteries)

For more information about the Razer Atheris, please visit https://www.razerzone.com/gaming-mice/razer-atheris

Images:

Razer Atheris press images

ABOUT RAZER:

Razer is the world's leading lifestyle brand for gamers.

The triple-headed snake logo trademark of Razer is one of the most recognized icons in the global gaming community, and the company has a fan base that spans every continent. Razer has designed and built the world's largest independent gamer ecosystem of hardware, software and services with over 35 million users.

Razer's award-winning products include hardware such as high-performance gaming peripherals (for the PC and console platforms), the Razer Blade line of gaming laptops; software such as Razer Cortex (a game optimizer and launcher); and services such as Razer zGold (a virtual credit service and payment engine for gamers). The company additionally provides audio-visual certification through its subsidiary THX Ltd.

The company has a global footprint with 9 offices worldwide and is recognized as the leading gaming brand in the US, Europe and China.

Founded in 2005 and dual-headquartered in San Francisco and Singapore, Razer is backed by institutional investors such as IDG-Accel, Intel Capital, Digital Grid and Horizons Ventures.

1 Among mobile productivity mice with gaming-grade features. As of 1 Aug 2017.

Press Contacts:

Americas

Kevin Scarpati

[email protected]



Europe/Africa

Jan Horak

[email protected]



Asia Pacific

Nicholas Ferguson

[email protected]



China

Evita Zhang

[email protected]

Razer - For Gamers. By Gamers.

SOURCE Razer

Related Links

http://www.razerzone.com


By PTI: By Anisur Rahman

Dhaka, Aug 15 (PTI) An Islamist militant was killed in a suicide blast during a counter-terror raid at a Dhaka hotel as he was plotting to attack a rally taken out to pay homage to Bangladeshs founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, police said today.

The police said Saiful Islam, an operative of the outlawed Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) group, was under surveillance for the past two days and was killed in operation August Bite.

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The elite SWAT team shot the militant when he triggered to blow the the door of his hotel room and tried to trigger another bomb, police chief AKM Shahidul Haque told reporters.

"He attempted to trigger a second bomb prompting police to fire shots as he also set off his suicide vest," he said.

Witnesses said that up to a kilometre of road was blocked for the anti-terror operation.

Another official familiar with the development said the police had kept a vigil on the militant following a tip-off he was planning to attack a rally on the National Mourning Day.

On August 15, thousands of people take out a procession in Dhaka to mark the anniversary of the assassination of the Bangabandhu, who was killed along with most of his family members in a military coup in 1975.

His daughter and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina survived as she was touring abroad.

Black flags dominated the skyline in Dhaka today.

Hasinas government blames the JMB for a number of deadly attacks in Bangladesh. Several foreigners, bloggers and rights activists have been targeted by the group in recent years.

In one of the deadliest attack in Bangladesh, five gunmen stormed an upscale cafe in Dhaka in July last year and killed 22 people, 18 of them were foreigners.

The Islamic State claimed the brutal attack but the government has insisted the group has no base in the country and the attacks were carried out by homegrown militant groups like the JMB. PTI UZM/AR ABH

--- ENDS ---
BOSTON, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Repsly, Inc, a SaaS company changing the way sales and marketing teams do work in the field, today announced the addition of Matthew DePaolis and Allen Bonde to the firm's leadership team.

Matthew DePaolis joins Repsly as VP of Customer Success, responsible for building new education, engagement, and recognition programs for the company's nearly 1,000 customers. One of his first efforts has been scaling the company's Field Team Academy and building streamlined onboarding programs to shorten the time to value for clients and partners.

Repsly

Previously Matt was the Partner Enablement Manager at Autodesk, and Director of Implementation Services at Vela Systems, where he served on the company's executive team providing strategic direction for the business and driving SaaS adoption metrics.

Outside of the office, Matt enjoys new adventures. Before returning home to Boston he lived and worked abroad in both London, England and Suzhou, China. His favorite holiday to-date was spent hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu.

Allen Bonde joins Repsly as VP of Marketing, responsible for scaling the company's go-to-market and demand generation efforts and raising visibility among key influencers and stakeholders.

Previously Allen was SVP of marketing at vertical SaaS provider Placester, VP of Product Marketing & Innovation at OpenText, and co-founder at Offerpop (now Wyng). He started his career as a consultant and analyst at firms including Digital Clarity Group, McKinsey, and Yankee Group, and is a recognized advocate and authority on content marketing, CRM, and mobile, data-driven apps.

When not writing or traveling to industry events, Allen can be found up on a ladder renovating his family's beach house. He also plays bass in an almost famous local indie blues rock band.

These strategic hires come after the company's recent $1.6M round of financing, and three consecutive years in which Repsly has more than doubled its revenue. Repsly now serves customers in more than 70 countries and is acclaimed for its intuitive approach to empowering brands and service providers to thrive in the new retail environment.

"Repsly has been on a roll, and a lot of our success has come from attracting the right talent and creating a fun, collaborative culture," said Mat Brogie, Repsly's COO. "Matt and Allen bring some impressive experience and new perspectives to our leadership team, which will be essential as we build the foundation for our next stage of growth."

Repsly, Inc. is a software as a service company that's creating world-class education and mobile CRM tools that help brands grow from where they are today to where they want to be tomorrow, in a human, enjoyable way. By connecting brands like Altra Running, Heretic Brewing, Philips, UNREAL Candy and Victoria's Secret with their field teams, Repsly empowers them to make agile, data-driven decisions at the store level, while adding a layer of organization and accountability.

For more information, please visit the company's website, www.repsly.com.

Media Contact:

Cameron Garrant

Phone: (617) 356 - 8125

Email: [email protected]

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SOURCE Repsly

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CLEVELAND, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ResellerRatings, the leading integrated brand and product review management platform, today announced Hayneedle has selected ResellerRatings to manage its customer reviews and ratings program. Hayneedle.com is a leading online retailer of indoor and outdoor home furnishings and decor based in Omaha, Nebraska.

As an online retailer, Hayneedle relies heavily on customer feedback, social media chatter, and reviews to drive traffic and increase conversion rates. ResellerRatings' review management platform will help Hayneedle:

Collect a larger database of customer reviews and ratings;

Analyze those reviews to meet customer needs and make better business decisions;

Syndicate reviews from multiple search engines including Google and Bing, to improve SEO and keyword rankings.

"When it comes to optimizing search results and leveraging customer feedback, ResellerRatings is a great platform for gaining insight into how we are meeting customer expectations," said Doug Williams, Director of Partner Marketing at Hayneedle. "ResellerRatings' systematic approach to gathering customer feedback and developing verified brand reviews gives our customers the information they need to make informed buying choices."

"We are excited to work with Hayneedle and have so much respect for how they've built a loyal customer following with home furniture shoppers and enthusiasts over the past 15 years," said Brad Poole, Director at ResellerRatings. "We look forward to helping Hayneedle harness their customer energy and feedback to strengthen all of their customer programs."

Learn more about ResellerRatings recently expanded solutions for brand and product reviews here.

About ResellerRatings

ResellerRatings, a ForeSee company, is a review management platform that helps more than 2500 retail brands collect, analyze, answer, and syndicate consumer reviews in order to inspire trust and increase sales. Our influential reach establishes consumer trust in major syndication channels such as Google.com SEO, Google Shopping, AdWords, Facebook, Microsoft adCenter, Bing Shopping, and within retailers' own sites. Find us online at www.resellerratings.com.

For more information:

[email protected]

SOURCE ResellerRatings
SAN DIEGO, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Reverse Mortgage Lending, Inc. is thrilled to unveil a new website designed to inform the public about the benefits of a reverse mortgage, available at www.rmlending.com.

The website provides easy-to-use tools that invite individuals to explore how a reverse mortgage would apply to their personal financial situation. A clear layout and plain language allow potential borrowers to make an informed decision.

Baby Boomers Seeking Financial Freedom Look to Reverse Mortgage Lending and CEO Collin Knock

"We recognize that every day, more of our customer base is embracing technology. In order to reach this demographic and meet the growing demand they've shown for our product, we've created a dynamic website that clearly explains the benefits that a reverse mortgage can provide," said Reverse Mortgage Lending CEO Collin Knock.

The new site features an automated benefits calculator, walkthroughs of the lending process, informational resources, and Frequently Asked Questions that provide clarity on ways to use this sound financial tool.

The personalized, transparent approach that Reverse Mortgage Lending takes with every single client is on full display with this new website. Information is at your fingertips and getting a free quote takes just seconds. More than any previous effort, the site embodies the world class customer service provided by Reverse Mortgage Lending.

Visit www.rmlending.com today to learn more.

Media Contact:

Collin Knock

[email protected]

1-800-730-6558

SOURCE Reverse Mortgage Lending, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.rmlending.com


TUCSON, Ariz., Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- RightSure Insurance Group is pleased to announce the acquisition of Tucson-based Arizona Economy Insurance effective August 3, 2017.

As an independent agency, Arizona Economy Insurance is known for providing unbiased advice, broad market access and premier customer service. As part of RightSure, customers will experience even more of these great attributes.

RightSure agents help customers bypass the hassle of comparison shopping by doing all the analysis for them. The agency uses modern technology and a customer-focused model to provide clients with the best insurance options available.

Licensed to sell personal, commercial and life insurance products in 42 states, RightSure is growing quickly thanks in part to its stellar track record of satisfying customers. Arizona Economy is the company's thirteenth book of business acquisition.

With this transition, Arizona Economy Insurance customers will enjoy convenient access to RightSure's call center and its licensed and highly-experienced team for an upscale insurance experience. "We're very excited to collaborate with the Arizona Economy Insurance team and their customers," says President, R. Jeffery Arnold. "Customers can look forward to clear, friendly guidance and efficient, intuitive processes."

With access to an impressive number of insurance markets, RightSure is well-positioned to provide both personal and commercial insurance clients with robust insurance coverage at the most competitive rates available.

About RightSure Insurance Group

Headquartered in Tucson, Arizona, RightSure Insurance Group is a full-service independent insurance agency providing insurance products to families and businesses in 42 states. By using a unique, client-centered approach combined with superior technology, RightSure presents clients with a wide range of insurance options and a seamless purchasing process. To learn more, visit https://www.rightsure.com or call 520-917-5295.

Media Contact:

Evie Quintana,

[email protected]

520-777-1125

SOURCE RightSure Insurance Group
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, ROSE IN GOOD FAITH announces the launch of their collaboration with JNCO. The 6-piece luxury collection represents both ROSE IN GOOD FAITH's and JNCO's first collaboration together; serves in relaunching the JNCO namesake.

The RIGF x JNCO capsule collection forges a design which combines the "youth-eternal" aesthetic of ROSE IN GOOD FAITH, with high-octane colors, baggy unisex fitments, and luxury materials including French-Terry, Velour, Composite Neoprene, and Japanese Denim. All hand-fabricated in small quantities in Downtown Los Angeles.

"RIGF x JNCO tells a story of our childhood and youth: Japanese tuner cars, video games, high-octane," says Rose In Good Faith co-founder David Teitelbaum.

JNCO's signature aesthetic was defined by baggy pants and ultra-large pockets that were capable of holding spray-paint cans. "Often times people have an idea of what was, especially as it applies to JNCO. We are communicating a vision of not what was. Rather, what is, what will be," says Rose In Good Faith co-founder Akiva Alpert.

"We can talk about the RIGF x JNCO collection as an exercise in design, but this is also therapy. We design to work through the memories of our childhood and channel our past into our garments. In a way, it's living our youth, eternally. We want for you to embody a character every time you step into the collection," says Akiva Alpert.

Those who sign up today will receive private early access to the collection when the virtual pop-up goes live tomorrow at 6 a.m. PST through the co-branded site, www.rigfxjnco.com. The 5-day virtual pop-up opens wide on Thursday at 6 a.m. PST and will close next Tuesday at midnight.

About ROSE IN GOOD FAITH: Formed in 2016 by best friends and seasoned entrepreneurs Akiva Alpert and David Teitelbaum, ROSE IN GOOD FAITH represents elevation  to rise, in good faith. It's a philosophy that luxury isn't a contrived market or simply a dollar figure. It's created through iconography, twisting conventions, injecting juxtaposition, utilizing elevated materials, and a story of their personal youth.

Site: www.roseingoodfaith.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/roseingoodfaith

About LOOKBOOK:

The lookbook was shot on location at iconic car-customizer LTMW in El Monte, CA. LTMW specializes in high-end European and Japanese makes, and is known as one of the exclusive international fabricators of Liberty Walk and Rocket Bunny wide-body kitted vehicles.

Photography: Akiva Alpert

Stylist: Jessica Turner

HMU: Ashley Tani

Models: Josephine Pearl Lee and Bradley Soileau

About COLLECTION:

Daydreamer Hoodie-Cropped, French-Terry hoodie channels nostalgic classroom vibes, spending the day lost in imagination. Complete with raw-edged oversized sleeves, thumbholes, and a dropped shoulder. The gradient, "nitrous blue" dip-dye is reminiscent of nitrous flames shooting from an exhaust.

Flame Top- Mesh top channels the oversized, flame-laden JNCO fitments of decades past, with a contemporary ROSE IN GOOD FAITH dropped shouldered silhouette; constructed of a luxurious cotton-mesh composite blend.

Nitro Pant- 26" leg-opening Neoprene Composite with 360 degree nitrous-blue embroidered flame on the right leg, and classic 9" JNCO rear pockets with custom embroidery. The blue flame is reminiscent of nitrous oxide being activated, and the resulting combustion.

Cult Python Pant- 29" leg-opening Japanese Cotton-Twill with bespoke snakeskin print, and black, oversized hardware channel the rebellious spirit of the Harajuku neighborhood of Tokyo, Japan.

Harajuku Velour Cutoff- Reversible French-Terry Velour cut-off shirt with bespoke white embroidery, and oversized front pocket detailing channels original JNCO patch pockets.

Bosozoku Denim Vest- Stone-washed Japanese Denim, bespoke patch embroidered, outlaw-style vest with custom curb chains, and nitrous blue zip ties channel the East LA roots of both brands, combined with Japanese outlaw culture.

Media Contact

David Teitelbaum

[email protected]

Related Links

PHOTOS

SITE

SOURCE ROSE IN GOOD FAITH

Related Links

http://www.roseingoodfaith.com


"The strength and growth of 10022-SHOE over the past 10 years is a testament to Saks' commitment to the footwear category as well as our customers' desire for the depth and breadth of our designer and emerging designer shoe assortment," stated Tracy Margolies, Chief Merchant, Saks Fifth Avenue. "10022-SHOE is a landmark for shoe lovers in New York City and around the world for one-of-a-kind merchandise and experiences that they cannot find anywhere elsea core principle of Saks' identity."

Beginning this month, Saks Fifth Avenue is celebrating 10022-SHOE's 10th birthday with:

More than 75 exclusive shoe styles from powerhouse brands such as Aquazzura, Gucci, Giuseppe Zanotti , Valentino Garavani and Gianvito Rossi ;

, Valentino Garavani and ; 12 exclusive made-to-order programs, including programs by Prada, Alexandre Birman , Manolo Blahnik , Nicholas Kirkwood , Roger Vivier and Jimmy Choo ; and

, , , and ; and 16 designer Happy Birthday 10022-SHOE cakes featured in the New York flagship store's windows designed by brands such as Valentino Garavani, Gianvito Rossi , Gucci and Prada.

From Thursday, Aug. 17 until Sunday, Aug. 20, Saks will showcase a visual installation in its New York flagship, entitled "10 Galleries: A Decade of Shoes." Each of the 10 installations will play off the 10022-SHOE exclusive items and trends and invite customers to discover, interact with, and celebrate all things shoes.

Throughout the past 10 years, Saks Fifth Avenue has held a constant and dominating presence in the shoe industry, selling on average 850,000 pairs of shoes per year, which equates to approximately 8.5 million over the course of its 10 year historythat's enough "shoe footage" to travel up and down the Empire State Building close to 2,000 times! Coupled with its impressive selection, 10022-SHOE has played host to many launches, exhibitions and firsts:

In 2008, 10022-SHOE was chosen to host the 70 th anniversary exhibition of ruby slippers honoring the 1939 film, "The Wizard of Oz," which included styles by designers including Oscar de la Renta , Stuart Weitzman and Roger Vivier , as well as Judy Garland's original ruby slippers designed by Adrian Greenberg of MGM studios;

anniversary exhibition of ruby slippers honoring the 1939 film, "The Wizard of Oz," which included styles by designers including , and , as well as original ruby slippers designed by of MGM studios; From 2008 to 2015, designers such as Christian Louboutin , Manolo Blahnik , Edgardo Osorio of Aquazzura, Paul Andrew and Nicholas Kirkwood , among many others, made special appearances at 10022-SHOE locations across the country;

, , of Aquazzura, and , among many others, made special appearances at 10022-SHOE locations across the country; In early 2015, 10022-SHOE paid tribute to Disney's live-action film inspired by the classic fairy tale, "Cinderella," by collaborating, in partnership with Disney Consumer Products, with nine luxury designersincluding Paul Andrew , Tabitha Simmons , Nicholas Kirkwood , Jimmy Choo and Salvatore Ferragamoto create their own interpretations of Cinderella's famed glass slipper;

, , , and Salvatore Ferragamoto create their own interpretations of Cinderella's famed glass slipper; Later in 2015, 10022-SHOE made history with the launch of Manolo Blahnik's first U.S. shop-in-shop in the United States ; and

first U.S. shop-in-shop in ; and In 2016, Saks opened its first store dedicated solely to shoes10022-SHOE Greenwichlocated in the heart of Greenwich, CT .

Notable footwear designers share memories about Saks Fifth Avenue and 10022-SHOE:

Designer Christian Louboutin speaks about his fondest memory of Saks' 10022-SHOE: "Doing a personal appearance on the shoe level when it was first opened where women told me intimate stories about themselves and their shoes. It made me understand the desire of the American customer, their differences in their approach, and their taste for luxury."

Designer Manolo Blahnik speaks about his fondest memory of Saks' 10022-SHOE: "I think when we first launched our boutique in 2015we had a book signing and dinner. It was an honour to meet so many women who loved my shoes  I love it [Saks]! It has always been one of my favourite stores, so beautiful and feminine!"

Designer Sandra Choi of Jimmy Chooa brand which first launched at Saks Fifth Avenue in 1997recalls her favorite memory, designing the commemorative 2007 10022-SHOE stamp: "The custom Jimmy Choo stamp I designed for the inauguration of the shoe floor 10 years ago. It was designed to reflect the unique zip code that was created to mark the opening. It featured a sketch I drew of a signature pump, it was such a fun and original idea."

Designer Nicholas Kirkwood speaks to his exclusive 10022-SHOE birthday style: "I wanted to create something completely different to celebrate the 10022-SHOE 10th birthday, but also something special, and I loved the idea of the interplay between masculinity and femininity so it was from there that I designed the Combat boot."

Designer Paul Andrew speaks about his partnership with Saks Fifth Avenue: "Saks has been a signifier of style and sophistication since they opened their doors for the first time in 1924. When I launched my own brand in 2013, my very first order came from Saks. It was a surreal momentand Saks will always hold a special place in my heart for that reason."

Designer Edgardo Osorio of Aquazzura speaks fondly about Saks Fifth Avenue: "Saks is such an iconic shopping hub, especially the historic Fifth Avenue flagship, and it's just amazing to be carried there and all over the United States  Saks was the first department store to buy AQUAZZURA in the U.S. and as one of our key partners, they have continued to believe in me and my designs ever since. Over the years the working relationship has blossomed into a friendship."

Check out Saks' 10 top shoe trends in the upcoming Saks Fifth Avenue Shoe Book, which will be available in stores and on saks.com August 16. Visitors can view their local stores' 10022-SHOE celebratory activities on the Store & Locations page on Saks.com. Saks Fifth Avenue also welcomes viewers to connect via its social channels, listed below, and to follow #10022SHOE for insider access.

Instagram: Instagram.com/saks

Facebook: Facebook.com/saks

Snapchat: Snapchat.com/saks_official

Twitter: Twitter.com/saks

ABOUT SAKS FIFTH AVENUE (@saks)

Saks Fifth Avenue, one of the world's pre-eminent specialty retailers, is renowned for its superlative American and international designer collections, its expertly edited assortment of handbags, shoes, jewelry, cosmetics and gifts, and the first-rate fashion expertise and exemplary client service of its Associates. As part of the Hudson's Bay Company brand portfolio, Saks operates 41 full-line stores in 22 states and Canada, five international licensed stores and saks.com, the company's online store.

For more information, kindly visit saks.com, Instagram.com/saks, Facebook.com/saks, Snapchat.com/saks_official, and Twitter.com/saks.

CONTACT:

Katie Majeski

Saks Fifth Avenue

570.362.2474

[email protected]

Elizabeth FitzGerald

Saks Fifth Avenue

646.802.4026

[email protected]

SOURCE Saks Fifth Avenue

Related Links

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BOSTON, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Sappi North America, a leading producer and supplier of diversified paper and packaging products, today announced the 12 Gold Award winners of its annual North American Printer of the Year contest. Regarded as the world's most respected accolade of excellence in printed communications, this award recognizes superior innovation and creativity in print across 11 categories for work produced on Sappi papers. The 2017 winners were chosen as the most outstanding print submissions from nearly 1,500 entries.

"We are impressed year after year with the innovative techniques that printers incorporate into their projects. While all the submissions are worthy of praise, this year's winners truly caught our eye with their attention to detail," said Patti Groh, Director of Marketing Communications, Sappi North America. "Our Printer of the Year competition showcases the incredible power of print to inspire and influence purchasing decisions."

Lithographix, Inc., a premier offset and grand format printer, is this year's 2017 Printer of the Year award winner. Based in Hawthorne, Calif., the printer was selected for the book "The 4th Phase Book", printed for Red Bull Media House, which highlights a beautiful collection of images shot during an epic four year, 16,000 mile journey across the picturesque North Pacific region. Printed on Sappi McCoy Silk paper, the book features legendary snowboarder Travis Rice, and was later adapted into an action movie.

According to judge Jim Tenorio, professor emeritus in the Cross-Media Graphics Management Program at University of Wisconsin-Stout, the piece was chosen for a number of reasons: "The printer did a great job reproducing black and white and full-color images. They matched color and tone across long full-page spreads," he said. "It was impressively bound with colored edges and cloth siding that complemented the body of the book. The project used a great combination of format and page size that skyrocketed the impact of the broad, beautiful horizontal and vertical landscape photography that was extensive in the book."

Lithographix will receive $20,000 to support branding and marketing initiatives, as well as up to 5,000 pounds of Sappi paper. The Gold Award winners, each chosen for their dedication to craft and meticulous eye for detail, will receive 5,000 pounds of paper as well as an award for the featured client and themselves.

A panel of highly regarded print professionals selected the winning entries based on the overall impact of the piece, degree of difficulty in printing techniques, and technical excellence. The winners of Sappi's North American Printer of the Year award competed in a variety of categories, including Books, Brochures, Direct Mail and Catalogs. Sappi introduced two new categories to this year's awards: Packaging and Activated Print. The following companies represent the gold winners of this year's competition.

Gold Award Winners of Sappi's North American Printers of the Year, 2016 Category Award Company Name Location of Company Books Gold & Printer of the Year Lithographix, Inc. Hawthorne,CA Activated Print Gold Geographics, Inc. Atlanta, GA Brochures Gold Neiman Printing Company Dallas, TX Catalogs Gold Nahan Printing, Inc. St. Cloud, MN Digital Gold Imtech Graphics Carlstadt, NJ Direct Mail Gold Dreamworks Graphic Communications, LLC Glenview, IL General Gold Queen Beach Printers, Inc. Long Beach, CA Magazines  Sheet Gold Southeastern Stuart, FL Magazines - Web Gold St. Joseph Communications Toronto, Canada Magazines - Web Gold Lane Press, Inc. South Burlington, VT Printers Own Promotions Gold Hatteras Tinton Falls, NJ Packaging Gold Gamse Lithographing Co. Baltimore, MD

To ensure the highest possible standards and integrity, this year's judging panel was comprised of judges from recognized print institutions and trade professions, including: Lauren Elliot, Principal of Wicked Good Print Production; Ken Lantz, SVP, Director of Print Operations at FCB Health Network; Dr. James K. Tenorio, professor emeritus in the Cross-Media Graphics Management Program at University of Wisconsin-Stout, Wisconsin's Polytechnic University; and John Tenwinkel, program manager at Shutterfly.

Sappi's North American Printer of the Year winners will also gain increased visibility with current and potential clients by being featured on their own page in Sappi's Printers of the Year Online Resource. This unique and searchable database for designers, print buyers and corporations provides information about the award-winning printers and their capabilities, printing equipment and location. The database is available here.

About Sappi North America

Sappi North America, headquartered in Boston, is a market leader in converting wood fiber into superior products that customers demand worldwide. The success of our four diversified businesses  high quality Coated Printing Papers, Specialised Cellulose, Release Papers and Specialty Packaging  is driven by strong customer relationships, best-in-class people and advantaged assets, products and services. Our high quality Coated Printing Papers, including McCoy, Opus, Somerset and Flo, are the key platform for premium magazines, catalogs, books and high-end print advertising. We are a leading manufacturer of Specialised Cellulose used in a wide range of products, including textile fibers and household goods, and one of the world's leading suppliers of Release Papers with our Ultracast, PolyEX, Classics and Neoterix lines for the automotive, fashion and engineered films industries. Our Specialty Packaging products, such as LusterPrint and LusterCote, represent an important asset in the food packaging and labeling industries. Customers rely on Sappi for high technical, operational and market expertise; products and services delivered with consistently high quality and reliability; and, state-of-the-art and cost-competitive assets and innovative spirit.

Sappi North America is a subsidiary of Sappi Limited (JSE), a global company headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, with more than 12,000 employees and manufacturing operations on three continents in seven countries and customers in over 150 countries around the world. Learn more about Sappi at: www.sappi.com.

SOURCE Sappi North America

Related Links

http://www.sappi.com


PORTLAND, Maine, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- "Say No to Rent Control" announced today its formal opposition to a proposed ballot referendum to implement rent control in the City of Portland. The coalition was formed in response to immediate public outcry over the highly controversial ballot referendum.

"Simply put, this proposed rent control referendum is reckless and extreme," noted Brit Vitalius, a spokesperson for the group. "It would cause immediate and lasting problems for the entire City, ultimately resulting in less safe housing, and a decline in neighborhoods, while shifting the property tax burden toward individual homeowners."

Repercussions of the proposed referendum include a sharp decrease in property values, reduced incentives for property improvements, and an inability to terminate leases of the most problematic tenants, even those who are disturbing the peace of their neighborhood.

The referendum would require property owners wishing to raise rent to go before a proposed "rent control board" of 7 volunteers, of whom 4 are tenants. Tenants could also appeal rental increases and lease terminations to this board, which would be given authority to impose fines through the proposed ordinance. This board would replace the court system and the free market system, adding hopeless bureaucracy for both tenants and property owners.

Additionally, there are many inherent legal issues that would make this proposal difficult if not impossible to enforce. "Many provisions of this proposed ordinance are preempted by State law and therefore unenforceable by the City," says Vitalius. "This ill-conceived 'rent control board' would be a legal and bureaucratic nightmare for Portland."

The referendum would lock-in rents as of November 1, 2017. It forces the rent amount to remain with the property, it does not reset when a tenant leaves. Property values will stagnate as rents will become essentially fixed. With rents controlled by the City, property owners would have little incentive to invest in or even maintain their properties.

Historically, rent control is a counterproductive policy that has failed in many cities across the country. More than 93% of economists, liberal and conservative alike, agree that rent control reduces the quality and quantity of housing available.

"There is little debate among housing experts that rent control is a policy that routinely fails the communities who experiment with it," added Vitalius.

A group of concerned Portland citizens named "Say No to Rent Control" has formed to defeat this referendum. Their mission is to educate voters about the real consequences of this proposed law.

"We are confident that once all the voters of Portland truly understand the real implications of this reckless referendum, it will be soundly rejected," noted Vitalius.

SOURCE Say No to Rent Control

Related Links

http://www.saynotorentcontrol.com


LOS ANGELES, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Walter O'Brien, the founder and CEO of Scorpion Computer Services, Inc., won C-Suite Quarterly's Visionary award at its 2017 ceremony. C-Suite Quarterly, a major media publication targeted at billionaire changemakers, c-suite visionaries, entrepreneurs and executive advisors in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York, recognizes industry leaders through its series of Visionary awards annually. Walter O'Brien, known for a decades-long career building one of the most capable, global consulting companies and for an impressive resume consulting for Fortune 500 and government entities, earned C-Suite's Visionary award, joining an illustrious alumni that includes Troy Carter, Clive Davis, Dan Beckerman and Dana Walden.

Scorpion Computer Services, Inc.

C-Suite Quarterly, published as CSQ magazine, is a regional media outlet that addresses C-level executive problems and solutions. The magazine featured O'Brien in its Summer 2017 issue, describing him as "One of the world's smartest people... who has spent his life solving problems and saving lives, now inspires others to find a passion for coding and hacking."

Since founding Scorpion Computer Services in 1988, O'Brien has consulted for some of the world's largest financial institutions, software companies and militaries on software infrastructure and architecture, efficiency, and security consulting. A sought after resource on the topic of cybersecurity, O'Brien spoke to solutions on ransomware and contemporary security concerns on CNBC in 2017 and keynoted MIT's Technology Review.

CSQ's Visionary awards also recognized O'Brien for his contributions to education and inspiration for children to pursue science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects in school. As the executive producer of CBS's television show, Scorpion, now in its fourth season, O'Brien reaches tens of millions of viewers in over 180 countries. Regarding his team's work, O'Brien says, "Being smart is cool. We're seeing a shift and a diversification in what people perceive to be popular. I'm glad to contribute to a renewed celebration of intelligence."

ABOUT SCORPION COMPUTER SERVICES, INC.

Scorpion Computer Services is the internationally recognized problem-solving consultancy led by computer-security expert and hacker "Scorpion" Walter O'Brien.

Scorpion has won the most innovative product and most innovative company award, being named the Patrick Soon-Shiong Innovation award winner by Los Angeles Business Journal. In 2017, O'Brien won Unite4:Humanity's Humanitarian of the Year award. For over two decades, Scorpion Computer Services has contributed to the greater good by managing geniuses as they transform Scorpion client ideas into reality.

From confronting and solving issues of national security to rescuing failing businesses, Scorpion Computer Services is the brainpower behind solving global issues, proving "smart is cool." The company's clients include government, military, a number of Fortune 5000 firms as well as start-ups and small- and medium-sized businesses with opportunities across cutting-edge information technology solutions, transportation and logistics, business efficiency and marketing.

ABOUT WALTER O'BRIEN

Walter O'Brien is the founder and CEO of Scorpion Computer Services, Inc., and CEO of Scorpion Studios. He is the Executive Producer and the inspiration behind the hit CBS television drama, Scorpion, with over 26 million viewers in the U.S. and airing in 188 countries. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has certified Walter O'Brien as being a person of national interest to the United States and granted him an Extraordinary Ability EB 1-1 Visa. He has worked with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, plus Navy and Air Force systems to deploy artificial intelligence that protects American military personnel. Walter was recently recognized by the Fort Wayne Base Community Council for saving countless lives and awarded a member's Combat Infantry Badge and Battle Dress Uniform from Operation Desert Storm. The Northeast Indiana Defense Industry Association recognized his tremendous support of defense initiatives. He was the youngest recipient of Unite4:Good's Humanitarian Lifetime Achievement Award. In addition, he has worked with multiple Fortune 500 companies including the world's largest mutual fund, Fujitsu, Trados, Oracle Corporation, Baltimore Technologies and Critical Path. O'Brien serves as chairman or former board member for Strike Force Solutions, Talentorum Alliance, Lawloop and previously served on the boards of Houston Technology Center, American Environmental Energy, Starglobe and Toin Corp.

O'Brien regularly donates his time to charities and the community in general, to encourage all generations to celebrate intelligence. O'Brien provided the seed funding for TaxiWatch Kilkenny, a suicide prevention program that has saved 100 lives since its inception in 2015. Appearing on CNBC, Fox News and CBS as an expert on computer security, in 2015 O'Brien contributed to the next XPRIZE selection as part of XPRIZE Visioneering.

Press contact:

Jordan French

[email protected]

www.scorpioncomputerservices.com

SOURCE Scorpion Computer Services, Inc.

Related Links

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The actress condemned the scathing remarks made against her by MLA PC George from Poonjar.

By Shalini Lobo: The Kerala actress assault case took the entire state by storm after the names of several bigwigs from the film industry cropped up and alleged conspiracies started doing the rounds.

In the latest development, the actress has written an open letter to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan regarding the victim-shaming she is being subjected to by one of his cabinet ministers, PC George. The letter was published on the official Facebook page of Women in Cinema Collective.

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Following the gruesome incident, scores of people have come out in support of the young actress. However, the likes of PC George resorted to shaming the actress, who resumed work after the attack. George has made several scathing remarks against the actress.

Even after the Women's Commission took action against the minister, he continued his tirade against the victim. The actress has written to the chief minister to bring to light the victimisation she has been subjected to.

George had said, "If she was attacked how can she act in movies the very next day?" The minister's comments were received with widespread criticism.

HERE'S WHAT THE ACTRESS SAID IN HER LETTER

I have never thought of writing such a letter. However, in the last few days MLA PC George has been passing offensive remarks about me. I would like to bring this to your attention.

I am unable to explain my mental state in the past few months after the assault. I feel pressurised by such insults. I hail from an ordinary family and such things deeply affect us. I am surviving purely on the thought that I should not break down and continue my fight.

"Should I have committed suicide? Been locked up in a mental asylum or should I have hidden from society?", wrote the actor.

The actor clarified that she did not go to work immediately after the assault, but after nearly 10 days. She said that she got the courage to join work because of the motivation from her colleagues.

She even questioned if people like George wanted her to commit suicide or be admitted to a mental asylum after such an incident. She asked if she should hide herself somewhere away from the public after being terrorised by such an horrific act.

In her letter, the actor pointed out the cavalier attitude of George, who also passed snide remarks about the Women's Commission. She even sought action against George for tarnishing an institution which is seen as a symbol of hope by thousands of women in the state.

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She concluded her letter by saying that no assaulted woman should be insulted in public like this. She emphasised her trust in CM Pinarayi, hoping that justice will be delivered. ALSO READ: Kerala actress says she had personal problems with Dileep

ALSO WATCH: Dileep's bail rejected, more trouble for the Malayalam actor

--- ENDS ---
LA JOLLA, Calif., Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Silvergate Bank today announced financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2017, with net income of $2.2 million. The Bank's total assets increased to $1.2 billion at quarter end, compared to $948.9 million at March 31, 2017.

"We are pleased to report strong earnings for the second quarter of 2017," said Alan Lane, the Bank's chief executive officer. "We did this while growing the Bank's balance sheet to over $1.2 billion during the second quarter. We continue to invest in technology and people that allow Silvergate to offer innovative products and services to our business customers."

Financial Performance

The Bank's net income for the second quarter of 2017 was $2.2 million, compared to $1.6 million in the first quarter, and $1.7 million for the second quarter last year. For the six-month period ending June 30, 2017, net income was $3.8 million, compared to $3.6 million for the same period in 2016.

The Bank's net interest income for the second quarter of 2017 was $9.9 million, compared to $8.8 million for the prior quarter and $8.5 million for the second quarter last year. The Bank's net interest margin for the second quarter was 4.10%, compared to 3.94% for the first quarter, and 3.76% for the second quarter last year. The improvement from prior quarters reflects both an increase in higher yielding loans and a reduction in our cost of funds as compared to both of the prior periods.

The Bank's reserve for loan losses remained strong at $7.9 million, or 1.17% of loans held for investment at June 30, 2017. The Bank had no charge-offs or recoveries in the second quarter of 2017, compared to net charge-offs of $136 thousand in the previous quarter and $8 thousand in the second quarter of 2016.

Noninterest income totaled $704 thousand for the quarter ended June 30, 2017, compared to $529 thousand for the prior quarter, and $652 thousand for the second quarter of 2016. The increase over the prior quarter reflects higher fee income from deposit and loan growth.

Noninterest expense was $7.0 million for the second quarter of 2017, compared to $6.8 million for the prior quarter and $5.8 million for the second quarter of last year. The increase reflects higher compensation expense resulting from strong production activity and an increase in total employees as the Bank continues to expand its business banking activities.

"The Bank continues to experience strong loan production at good yields," noted Dennis Frank, the Bank's chairman. "The Bank remains focused on expanding the partnerships that we have developed with both our local business customers and our national residential loan originators."

Balance Sheet Activity

The Bank's total loans increased by $32.2 million to $842.1 million at June 30, 2017, compared to $809.9 million at March 31, 2017, and $815.1 million at June 30, 2016.

Loans funded and purchased by the Bank's Mortgage Warehouse Lending Division totaled $1.0 billion in the second quarter, compared to $857.3 million in the prior quarter and $1.2 billion in the second quarter of 2016. Total commercial real estate loan balances rose to $371.4 million at June 30, 2017, compared to $366.5 million and $307.7 million at March 31, 2017, and June 30, 2016, respectively. Single family residential loan balances totaled $431.1 million at June 30, 2017, compared to $401.0 million and $480.0 million at March 31, 2017, and June 30, 2016, respectively.

Deposit balances increased by 26.1% compared to the prior quarter end, and increased 34.5% compared to June 30, 2016. This significant deposit increase was driven by a combination of continued growth in our local market as well as the success of a deposit initiative launched a few years ago focused on the Financial Technology industry, resulting in an increase of $323.9 million in noninterest bearing demand deposits. At June 30, 2017, deposits totaled $969.4 million, compared to $769.0 million at the prior quarter-end and $720.8 million at June 30, 2016.

At June 30, 2017, Silvergate Bank's Tier 1 Leverage Capital Ratio was 9.08% and Total Risk-Based Capital Ratio was 15.04%, both substantially exceeding "well capitalized" minimums of 5.00% and 10.00%. At June 30, 2017, the ratios of nonperforming loans to total loans and nonperforming assets to total assets remained low, at 0.64% and 0.51%, respectively.

About Silvergate Bank

Silvergate Bank is a San Diego-based bank that specializes in meeting the needs of businesses and residential loan producers through a comprehensive offering of lending products and personalized banking services. Silvergate Bank opened in 1988 and is a subsidiary of Silvergate Capital Corporation. Bank branches are located in Carlsbad, Escondido, La Jolla, and La Mesa and a loan production office is located in Seal Beach in Orange County. Silvergate Bank's headquarters office is located at 4250 Executive Square, Suite 300, La Jolla, CA 92037. The Bank's website is www.silvergatebank.com.

Statements concerning future performance, developments or events, expectations for growth and income forecasts, and any other guidance on future periods, constitute forward-looking statements that are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from stated expectations. When used in this release, the words or phrases such as "will continue," "is anticipated," "estimate," "expect," "projected," "believe," "seeking," or similar expressions, are intended to identify "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements, which reflect views only as of the date hereof. Neither Silvergate Capital Corporation nor Silvergate Bank undertakes any obligation to publicly revise these forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.

CONTACT:

Alan Lane

858-362-6300

SOURCE Silvergate Bank

Related Links

https://www.silvergatebank.com


LAS VEGAS and RENO, Nev., Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- SilverSummit Healthplan announced today that it plans to launch its Health Insurance Marketplace product, Ambetter, in Nevada for 2018. SilverSummit anticipates to cover all 17 counties statewide, including the "bare counties" that were expected not to have coverage by any other health insurers in 2018. To expand its offering so that Nevadans throughout the state have access to its new high quality health insurance, SilverSummit has partnered with Hometown Health to utilize its expansive provider network.

"SilverSummit is pleased to serve its current Medicaid members in Nevada, and it looks forward to expanding its product offerings to the Health Insurance Marketplace in 2018," said Garrett Leaf, president and CEO of SilverSummit Healthplan. "We strive to be a responsible partner with the state and are committed to working closely with regulators and policymakers to be able to offer affordable coverage options for Nevada residents."

SilverSummit's parent company, Centene Corporation, previously announced its commitment to participating on the 2018 Health Insurance Marketplace in Nevada and is currently working through the regulatory process.

About SilverSummit Healthplan

SilverSummit Healthplan (SilverSummit) is a managed care plan that provides health insurance to the people of Nevada. Established in 2017, SilverSummit exists to improve the health of its members through focused, compassionate and coordinated care. SilverSummit is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Centene Corporation, a diversified, multi-national healthcare enterprise. For more information, visit www.silversummithealthplan.com.

About Hometown Health

Established in 1988, Hometown Health is the insurance division of Renown Health and is northern Nevada's largest locally-owned, not-for-profit health insurance company. Hometown Health is pleased to partner with SilverSummit Healthplan to offer our provider network to the people of Nevada. For more information, call 775-982-3000 or visit www.hometownhealth.com.

SOURCE SilverSummit Healthplan

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http://www.silversummithealthplan.com


SAN DIEGO, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Sirenas, LLC, a leader in the application of deep data mining approaches to the discovery of new classes of therapeutics from the global microbiome, today announced establishment of their world leading scientific advisory board. This board, with unparalleled expertise in the fields of drug discovery, molecular medicine and medicinal chemistry, includes:

Benjamin Cravatt , Ph.D., professor and co-chair of the Department of Molecular Medicine at The Scripps Research Institute , co-founder of Activx Biosciences, Abide Therapeutics and Vividion Therapeutics, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences

, Ph.D., professor and co-chair of the Department of Molecular Medicine at The , co-founder of Activx Biosciences, Abide Therapeutics and Vividion Therapeutics, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences Alan Ezekowitz , MBChB, D.Phil., president, co-founder and CEO of Abide Therapeutics

, MBChB, D.Phil., president, co-founder and CEO of Abide Therapeutics Terry Rosen , Ph.D., CEO and co-founder of Arcus Biosciences

, Ph.D., CEO and co-founder of Arcus Biosciences Christopher Walsh , Ph.D., consulting professor to the Stanford University Department of Chemistry, emeritus professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School and a member of the National Academy of Sciences

, Ph.D., consulting professor to the Department of Chemistry, emeritus professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at and a member of the National Academy of Sciences Jin-Quan Yu , Ph.D., Frank and Bertha Hupp Professor of Chemistry at The Scripps Research Institute and 2016 MacArthur Fellow

"These scientists are icons in their respective fields and bring invaluable insights from their highly successful translational experiences. They recognize the untapped potential of natural products in the discovery and development of differentiated pharmaceuticals," said Phil Baran, Ph.D., co-founder of Sirenas and chemistry professor at The Scripps Research Institute.

Benjamin F. Cravatt is a professor and co-chair of the department of molecular medicine at The Scripps Research Institute. His research group is interested in understanding the roles that enzymes play in physiological and pathological processes, especially as it pertains to the nervous system and cancer. Dr. Cravatt obtained his undergraduate education at Stanford University, receiving a B.S. in the Biological Sciences and a B.A. in History. He then received a Ph.D. from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) in 1996. Dr. Cravatt joined the faculty at TSRI in 1997. Dr. Cravatt is a co-founder and scientific advisor of Activx Biosciences, Abide Therapeutics, and Vividion Therapeutics. His honors include a Searle Scholar Award, the Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry, a Cope Scholar Award, the Protein Society Irving Sigal Young Investigator Award, the Tetrahedron Young Investigator Award in Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry, the ASBMB Merck Award, and memberships in the National Academy of Sciences and American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Alan Ezekowitz currently serves as president and CEO of Abide Therapeutics, a company he co-founded in 2011. Prior to founding Abide, Dr. Ezekowitz was senior vice president and franchise head at Merck Research Laboratories, where he was responsible for the drug discovery and development process from target identification through proof of concept. He worked closely with his commercial general manager to develop life cycle strategies for approved drugs. Prior to Merck, Dr. Ezekowitz was the Charles Wilder Professor of Pediatrics at the Harvard Medical School and served as the chief of pediatric services at the MassGeneral Hospital for Children and the Partners Healthcare System. He has served on multiple boards and committees, including the chair position of the executive committee on research at Massachusetts General Hospital, the board of directors of the Partners Healthcare System and the MassGeneral Physicians Organization. He has also served on the boards of Anika Therapeutics and Natimmune, a biotech company that he founded. He currently serves on the board of directors of Oxagen and Abide Therapeutics. He is a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and a Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2008, he was honored with the establishment of the R. Alan Ezekowitz Professorship in Pediatrics at the Harvard Medical School. He is a pioneer in the field of innate immunity and has over 150 publications. Dr. Ezekowitz received his medical training at the University of Cape Town in South Africa and was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Oxford University, where he also completed a postdoctoral fellowship. At Children's Hospital in Boston, he completed a second postdoctoral fellowship in the division of hematology and oncology and his clinical training in pediatrics.

Terry Rosen has been leading successful drug discovery and development organizations in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries for over 30 years. In 2015, he co-founded Arcus Biosciences, a drug discovery company focused on the treatment of cancer by blocking tumor-induced immunosuppression. Previously, he was co-founder and CEO of Flexus Biosciences, a company created to develop small-molecule drugs to reverse tumor immunosuppression, which was acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb early in 2015 for $1.25 billion. Prior to Flexus, Dr. Rosen served as vice president, Therapeutic Discovery (TD) at Amgen and as the site head for Amgen South San Francisco, having joined Amgen with the acquisition of Tularik in 2004. He was named Amgen Washington site head in 2006, transitioned to a leadership role heading chemistry research and discovery in 2007 and became the head of protein sciences in 2011. He and his leadership team were responsible for the creation of the TD organization, a group of 550+ staff responsible for all of Amgen's large and small molecule drug discovery efforts. Dr. Rosen received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley.

Christopher Walsh is a consulting professor to the Stanford University Department of Chemistry and an advisor to the Stanford ChEM-H Institute. He was the Hamilton Kuhn Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School from 1987 to 2013, when he took emeritus status. He has had extensive academic leadership experience, including chairmanship of the MIT Chemistry Department and of the HMS Biological Chemistry & Molecular Pharmacology Department, as well as serving as president and CEO of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Dr. Walsh is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and a co-recipient of the 2010 Welch Prize in Chemistry. He has been involved in a variety of venture-based biotechnology companies since 1981, including Genzyme, Immunogen, Leukosite, Millenium, Kosan, Vicuron, Epizyme, Ironwood. Currently he is on the board of directors of Proteostasis, and the non-profits The Scripps Research Institute, California Institute for Biomedical Research and Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research. He is a member of the scientific advisory groups at Hua, Abide, Cidara, and Flex Pharma, an advisor to Health Care Ventures and a limited investor in Health Care Ventures, MPM BioVentures, Clarus and the Longwood Venture Funds. Dr. Walsh received his bachelor degree in biology from Harvard in 1965, and his doctorate degree from Rockefeller University in 1970.

Jin-Quan Yu is the Frank and Bertha Hupp Professor in the Department of Chemistry at The Scripps Research Institute. Among many honors, in 2016 he was selected as a MacArthur Fellow for his pioneering new techniques for the functionalization of carbon-hydrogen bonds. Dr. Yu's unconventional approach to CH functionalization is creating a paradigm shift in the logic of organic synthetic chemistry and breaking down barriers to the development of versatile compounds with enormous benefits to academic, industrial and pharmaceutical research. Additionally, Dr. Yu was awarded the ACS Elias J. Corey Award for Outstanding Original Contribution in Organic Synthesis by a Young Investigator in 2014. He received an M.Sc. from Guangzhou Institute of Chemistry, and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. He was a research fellow and junior faculty member at the University of Cambridge, postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, and assistant professor of chemistry at Brandeis University prior to his current affiliation with The Scripps Research Institute.

About Sirenas

Sirenas aims to translate the high-value chemical language of the global microbiome  the microbial life existing in diverse ecosystems all over the world  into groundbreaking new discoveries for the most pressing unmet medical needs. Sirenas has uniquely combined this highly evolved chemical diversity with its Atlantis proprietary deep data mining technology and next-generation synthetic chemistry to create a fully integrated, rapid and validated approach to drug discovery. Sirenas drug discovery programs are focused on eliminating cancer through targeted therapy and immune modulation. Sirenas is headquartered in San Diego and has a presence at JLABS San Diego. For more information about Sirenas, please visit www.SirenasMD.com.

SOURCE Sirenas, LLC

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http://www.sirenasmd.com


NEW YORK, Aug. 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

"Speech and voice recognition market projected to grow at a CAGR of 19.80% between 2017 and 2023"

The speech and voice recognition market is expected to be valued at USD 6.19 billion in 2017 and is likely to reach USD 18.30 billion by 2023, at a CAGR of 19.80% between 2017 and 2023. The growing impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the accuracy of speech and voice recognition and the increased demand for multifactor authentication are driving the market growth. However, oligopoly in the development of speech and voice recognition technology using neural networks is a restraint for this market.

Read the full report: http://www.reportlinker.com/p05061072/Speech-and-Voice-Recognition-Market-by-Technology-Vertical-Retail-Education-Healthcare-Government-and-Geography-Global-Forecast-to.html

"Speech recognition technology expected to hold largest share of market during forecast period"

The speech recognition technology is expected to hold the largest share of the market during the forecast period due to its growing use in multiple applications owing to the continuously decreasing word error rate (WER) of speech recognition algorithm with the developments in natural language processing and neural network technology. The speech recognition technology finds applications mainly across healthcare and consumer electronics sectors to produce health data records and develop intelligent virtual assistant devices, respectively.

"Speech and voice recognition market for consumer vertical expected to grow at highest CAGR during forecast period"

The market for the consumer vertical is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. The key factor contributing to this growth is the ability to integrate speech and voice recognition technologies into other consumer devices, such as refrigerators, ovens, mixers, and thermostats, with the growth of Internet of Things.

"Speech and voice recognition market in APAC expected to grow at highest CAGR during forecast period"

The speech and voice recognition market in APAC is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. The key factor contributing to the growth of the speech and voice recognition market in APAC is the increasing awareness among masses and lowered costs of biometric devices. The Americas is expected to hold the largest share of the market in 2017. This can be attributed to the increase in the deployment of biometric systems to ensure high level of security in countries such as the US, Canada, and Mexico.

Following is the breakdown of primary participants' profiles by different parameters:

 By Company Type: Tier 1  43%, Tier 2  19%, and Tier 3  38%

 By Designation: C-Level Executives  39%, Directors  27%, and Others  34%

 By Region: Americas  24%, Europe  20%, APAC  37%, and RoW  19%

The key players operating in the market include Nuance Communications, Inc. (US), Microsoft Corporation (US), Alphabet Inc. (US), Cantab Research Limited (UK), Sensory, Inc. (US), ReadSpeaker Holding B.V. (Netherlands), Pareteum Corporation (US), Iflytek Co., Ltd. (China), VoiceVault Inc. (US), VoiceBox Technologies Corp. (US), LumenVox, LLC (US), and Acapela Group SA (Belgium).

Research Coverage:

The report covers the following market segments: technology, vertical, and geography. The report offers a detailed view of the market across 4 main regionsAmericas, Europe, APAC, and RoW (comprising the Middle East and Africa). The strategic benchmarking has also been included in the report.

Reasons to Buy the Report:

 This report includes statistics pertaining to the speech and voice recognition market by technology, vertical, and geography.

 The report includes competitive leadership mapping of ~25 global companies.

 It provides major drivers, restraints, challenges, and opportunities for the speech and voice recognition market.

 The report includes illustrative segmentation, analysis, and forecast for the speech and voice recognition market based on its segments and subsegments.

Read the full report: http://www.reportlinker.com/p05061072/Speech-and-Voice-Recognition-Market-by-Technology-Vertical-Retail-Education-Healthcare-Government-and-Geography-Global-Forecast-to.html

About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.

http://www.reportlinker.com

Contact Clare: [email protected]

US: (339)-368-6001

Intl: +1 339-368-6001

SOURCE Reportlinker

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LISLE, Ill., Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- SunCoke Energy Partners GP LLC, the general partner of SunCoke Energy Partners, L.P. (NYSE: SXCP), today announced the addition of three new directors to the Company's Board of Directors (the "Board"). Effective September 1, 2017, John W. Somerhalder, II, Martha Z. Carnes and Alvin Bledsoe will be joining the Board.

All three will serve on the Company's Audit Committee, which will be chaired by Mr. Bledsoe. Mr. Somerhalder and Ms. Carnes will also serve on the Board's Conflicts Committee, which will be chaired by Mr. Somerhalder.

"John, Martha and Al bring a wealth of operational and financial expertise to SunCoke Energy Partners," said Fritz Henderson, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of SunCoke Energy Partners GP LLC. "We are very pleased that they have all agreed to join the board, and we look forward to their contributions to the direction and growth of our company in the years to come."

In connection with the appointment of Messrs. Somerhalder and Bledsoe and Ms. Carnes to the Board, the following independent directors each stepped down from the Board, effective September 1, 2017: C. Scott Hobbs, Wayne L. Moore and Nancy M. Snyder.

Henderson continued, "As original Board members since SXCP's IPO, Scott, Wayne and Nancy have made numerous invaluable contributions during their tenure. On behalf of the company, we are grateful for their years of service and dedication."

Mr. John W. Somerhalder, II, 60, has been the Interim President and CEO of Colonial Pipeline Company (a refined products pipeline) since February 2017. Prior to that, he was Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of AGL Resources, one of the nation's largest natural gas distributors. Mr. Somerhalder has over four decades of experience in the energy industry, including state and regulatory experience in multiple jurisdictions. Prior to joining AGL Resources, Mr. Somerhalder was President of El Paso Pipeline Group and Executive Vice President of El Paso Corporation (one of North America's largest natural gas producers and a provider of natural gas and related energy products, until its acquisition by Kinder Morgan in 2012). He is a past Chairman of the board of directors of the American Gas Association and of the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America. Mr. Somerhalder currently serves as a director of CenterPoint Energy (a major electric and natural gas utility serving markets in Arkansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas). In addition, he is a director of Crestwood Midstream GP LLC, the general partner of Crestwood Midstream Partners LP, and the Gas Technology Institute. He also is a Member of the National Petroleum Council.

Ms. Martha Z. Carnes, 55, retired in June 2016 from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. During her 34-year career with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, she held a number of leadership positions, including as Managing Partner for the firm's Houston, Texas office. As an Assurance Partner serving large, publicly traded companies in the energy industry, Ms. Carnes led PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP's energy and mining assurance, tax and advisory practices. She has vast experience with capital markets activities and was the lead audit partner on some of the largest merger and acquisition transactions completed in the energy sector. Ms. Carnes currently serves as a director and Audit Committee Chair of Core Laboratories N.V. (one of the world's largest providers of core and fluid analysis in the petroleum industry, headquartered in Amsterdam). She is also a director of Matrix Service Company (a provider of design, engineering, construction, repair and maintenance services to industrial and energy clients in North America).

Mr. Alvin Bledsoe, 69, retired in 2005 from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. During his 33-year career with PwC, Mr. Bledsoe served in several senior roles, including as global leader for PwC's Energy, Mining and Utilities Industries Assurance and Business Advisory Services Group. Mr. Bledsoe is an experienced public accounting executive with industry expertise in the mining, utilities and energy industries. He has extensive knowledge of finance, merger and acquisition transactions and major cost restructurings. Mr. Bledsoe has been a director of SunCoke Energy, Inc. since June 2011. In addition, Mr. Bledsoe is a director and Audit Committee Chair of Crestwood Equity GP LLC (general partner of Crestwood Equity Partners LP, a natural gas and crude oil logistics master limited partnership holding company).

ABOUT SUNCOKE ENERGY PARTNERS, L.P.

SunCoke Energy Partners, L.P. (NYSE: SXCP) is a publicly traded master limited partnership that manufactures high-quality coke used in the blast furnace production of steel and provides export and domestic coal handling services to the coke, coal, steel and power industries. In our cokemaking business, we utilize an innovative heat-recovery technology that captures excess heat for steam or electrical power generation and have long-term, take-or-pay coke contracts that pass through commodity and certain operating costs. Our coal handling terminals have the collective capacity to blend and transload more than 40 million tons of coal each year and are strategically located to reach Gulf Coast, East Coast, Great Lakes and international ports. SXCP's General Partner is a wholly owned subsidiary of SunCoke Energy, Inc. (NYSE: SXC), which has more than 50 years of cokemaking experience serving the integrated steel industry. To learn more about SunCoke Energy Partners, L.P., visit our website at www.suncoke.com.

SOURCE SunCoke Energy Partners, L.P.

Related Links

http://www.suncoke.com


IRWINDALE, Calif., Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- A Wireless and Superior Communications Announce Strategic Partnership Streamlining Supply Chain Services through Distribution Consolidation and Incorporate Value Added Services.

A Wireless, Verizon Wireless's largest Premium Retail partner, and Superior Communications, the nation's leading wireless accessory solution provider, today announce a strategic distribution partnership that will streamline supply chain services in support of products sold in the retailer's 1000+ locations throughout the United States. The partnership is expected to deliver significant savings to the retailer coupled with incremental sales revenue. Supplier consolidation, logistics efficiencies, supply chain services, marketing programs, 4pl services and VMI platforms will provide the foundation driving key strategic objectives. Superior Communications will support all brand partners selected by A Wireless for both existing suppliers as well as those new to the A Wireless product portfolio.

The partnership is a strategic fit, leveraging industry leading respective strengths.



A Wireless provides consultative services to wireless consumers in the business and consumer space. The retailer is highly focused on the continued development of their sales team with priority placed on continuing product education and training platforms. Superior Communications will support these initiatives through a collaborative environment utilizing their internal National training team.

Superior Communications has strategically located distribution centers in the United States . A 230k square foot facility in Irwindale, CA allows for easy import for products shipped direct from manufacturer as well as provide logistics services for all West coast ship to locations. A 130k square foot facility in Nashville, TN exposes significant transportation and time savings for all customer locations in the Midwest and East Coast.

. A 230k square foot facility in allows for easy import for products shipped direct from manufacturer as well as provide logistics services for all West coast ship to locations. A 130k square foot facility in exposes significant transportation and time savings for all customer locations in the Midwest and East Coast. Real-time data integration, financial and logistical KPI management, and dynamic product portfolio management will prove to be key components that will accelerate the overall success of the mutually beneficial relationship.

"This partnership with A Wireless represents a strategic opportunity to drive our business with a wireless retail leader. This relationship will ultimately extend our reach into a retail channel with exponential growth opportunities while exploiting an industry leading product and services portfolio providing incremental savings as well as top and bottom line growth for both organizations," said Jeff Banks, CEO of Superior Communications. "This announcement is the culmination of several years of focused effort building out the services side of our organization as we change the expectations a customer will have of their distribution partner," said Scott Shanks, Sr. Vice President of Indirect Sales and Marketing.

"We are very enthusiastic about our strategic partnership with Superior Communications. Their role as our primary 4PL partner will allow us to accelerate our efforts toward delivering best-in-class end-to-end supply chain capabilities," said Michael Moore, Chief Experience Officer at A Wireless. "This end-to-end capability is a critical factor in achieving our daily standard of providing the best guest experience within the industry."

About Superior Communications:

Superior provides a complete line of wireless products, logistical support and services to major carriers, OEMs and retailers across North America. Established in 1991 as the sales and logistics arm of an Asian-based manufacturing partner, Superior Communications has continued to grow its lines of accessories and service offerings. Superior has become a recognized leading provider of both OEM/Brand and ODM/Private Label accessories in the Americas. For more information, visit www.superiorcommunications.com.

About A Wireless:

A Wireless is a leading retailer of wireless products and services, operating as an exclusive retailer for Verizon Wireless, the nation's largest wireless carrier. A Wireless has approximately 1,148 Verizon-branded retail stores across 46 states, offering a comprehensive mix of wireless devices  including smartphones, feature phones, tablets, mobile broadband, and wearables  as well as a broad range of accessories and device insurance coverage. A Wireless is an important retail partner to Verizon Wireless, and in 2016 was named Verizon's 2016 Partner of the Year, an award that is the pinnacle achievement for any Verizon Retailer.

Contact: Superior Communications

Armand Canyon, 626-388-1931

[email protected]

SOURCE Superior Communications

Related Links

http://www.superiorcommunications.com


SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- PipelineRx, a leading medication management technology company focused on clinical telepharmacy, today announced that Swisslog Healthcare, a leading supplier of solutions for medication and supply chain management in healthcare, has become a significant investor in the company. Leveraging each company's proprietary technologies, the partnership aims to support new and existing hospital clients by improving workflow efficiencies and enabling better patient care.

As hospitals struggle to stay financially viable in today's healthcare environment, there's a growing need for digitalization to enable patient-centric care models and transform traditional models of healthcare delivery. Digitalization and process centralization in hospitals and health systems promote resource optimization and cost reduction. Following today's investment, PipelineRx and Swisslog Healthcare are committed to supporting their combined 2300 customers with jointly developed solutions that support clinical care and enhance patient experience.

"PipelineRx's PowerGrid technology, combined with Swisslog Healthcare's pharmacy automation, will enable our customers to benefit from new medication supply chain solutions across the continuum of care," said Stephan Sonderegger, CEO of Swisslog Healthcare. "We're excited to work with PipelineRx and their team of telepharmacy experts who are proving the importance of connected pharmacists in both rural and urban hospital environments on a daily basis."



"Swisslog Healthcare represents a long tradition of pharmacy automation and also a new generation of products and services that will combine telepharmacy and automation to advance pharmacy," said Brian Roberts, CEO of PipelineRx. "Building on Swisslog Healthcare's established global success in health-system pharmacies, we're looking forward to developing new products and services that will integrate with our existing telepharmacy offerings. We're proud to add another industry-leading partner to enable our strategic vision and strong financial backing."

The investment in PipelineRx allows the companies to jointly develop new solutions that increase the quality of care and enhance the patient experience.

About Swisslog Healthcare

Swisslog Healthcare is a leading supplier of services and solutions for material transport, medication management and supply chain management in healthcare facilities. Swisslog has installed facility-wide and pharmacy automation systems in more than 3,000 hospitals worldwide. The company offers integrated solutions from a single source  from consulting to design, implementation and lifetime customer service. For more information, visit www.swisslog.com/healthcare.

Swisslog is a member of the KUKA group, a leading global supplier of intelligent automation solutions. www.kuka.com

About PipelineRx

PipelineRx is the leading independent medication management telepharmacy provider serving individual acute and specialty hospitals and integrated delivery networks through its services and software solutions. The Company's telepharmacy solutions enable hospitals to dramatically increase operating efficiencies while ensuring medication efficacy, increasing patient safety, and improving clinical outcomes. PipelineRx differentiates its unique services via its integrated, private, cloud-based technology platform, PowerGridRx, and its optimized, distributed telepharmacist network. PipelineRx is privately held and headquartered in San Francisco, California.

For more information, please visit www.pipelinerx.com.

For more information, please contact:





Vera Zlidenny Jessika Parry Director of Marketing Next Step Communications [email protected] [email protected] 877-696-9101 x1031 781-326-1741

SOURCE PipelineRx

Related Links

http://www.pipelinerx.com/


NEW YORK, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Synthesio, the leading global Social Intelligence and Social Listening platform, announced today that it is strengthening its industry leading social data capabilities through key integrations and additions into the platform.

The offerings being added into the Synthesio platform today are a mix of functionality and expanded sources, all of which will add to the already strong pool of social data that Synthesio offers. The integrations include:

Consumer Review Sites: Synthesio added hundreds of new sources for consumer reviews across e-commerce, travel, business-to-business, cosmetics and more. This will help Synthesio users that rely on knowing what is being said on review sites, data that they weren't able to fully access previously.

Synthesio added hundreds of new sources for consumer reviews across e-commerce, travel, business-to-business, cosmetics and more. This will help Synthesio users that rely on knowing what is being said on review sites, data that they weren't able to fully access previously. Reddit Firehose: Synthesio is an official Reddit firehose partner, which offers Synthesio exclusive access to over 100,000 regularly updated subreddits. This will allow Synthesio users to scale their crawling to reach passionate communities on one of the top destinations on the internet.

Synthesio is an official Reddit firehose partner, which offers Synthesio exclusive access to over 100,000 regularly updated subreddits. This will allow Synthesio users to scale their crawling to reach passionate communities on one of the top destinations on the internet. Twitter Access: Synthesio secured the highest level of access to Twitter engagement, audience and follower graph data, which will create new offerings for Synthesio's interactions, media value and audience segmentation widgets.

Synthesio secured the highest level of access to Twitter engagement, audience and follower graph data, which will create new offerings for Synthesio's interactions, media value and audience segmentation widgets. Image Recognition: Synthesio updated its best-in-class logo recognition throughout multiple social platforms, using Netra on the back-end of Synthesio's platform.

"Synthesio's customers are always looking for more information about their audience, and we are thrilled to be able to give them more of the data that they are looking for," explained Loic Moisand, CEO and Co-Founder of Synthesio. "Consumer review sites are crucial to consumer-facing businesses who rely on reviews on sites like Amazon, the Apple Store, OpenTable, Google Play, Glassdoor and Booking.com, among many others. Our customers need to know what is being said on these sites, and we are so excited to give it to them. On top of this, we also upgraded our Reddit and Twitter offerings, where we will now have the highest level of access to audience data integrated into our platform. All of this data will be crucial for our customers to understand who it is that they are targeting, and what these people care about."

The addition of consumer reviews from sites like Amazon, Glassdoor, and G2 Crowd will provide unprecedented audience analysis and information for Synthesio customers to better understand their consumers, and build more strategic and insightful campaigns. In addition to the integration of additional data sources, Synthesio also upgraded its image recognition capabilities, powered on the backend through Netra, by providing the most powerful image recognition available in the industry.

"Synthesio's image recognition capabilities now include the Best-in-class logo recognition that drives two times more Twitter and Instagram volume than ever before, as well as a higher level of accuracy, than our competition," said Thibault Hanin, CTO and Co-Founder of Synthesio. "Our new image recognition capabilities include thousands of logos that are already available for immediate activation across all Social Intelligence use cases. We also offer our customers custom sourcing of image recognition in Pinterest, Facebook and Flickr, allowing them the most flexible data offerings available in the industry."

All of the social data additions to Synthesio's platform are available now for current Synthesio customers.

About Synthesio

Synthesio, named the Global Leader by an independent analyst in two reports in Q1 2016 and an Editor's Choice by PC Mag, is a global Social Intelligence platform used by some of the world's top brands, and the agencies that support them. Synthesio is the framework for building Social Intelligence that provides real business results. Whether an organization's social team is built within marketing or crosses multiple departments, business units or geographies, Synthesio helps teams listen to, and analyze, consumer conversations across social and mainstream media within one platform. Founded in 2006, Synthesio has offices in New York, Paris, London, Singapore and Brussels.

Media Contact:

Adam Dalezman

Senior Communications Manager, Synthesio

[email protected]

SOURCE Synthesio

Related Links

http://www.synthesio.com


CAPE MAY, N.J., Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- TEDxCapeMay returns to the Jersey Shore for its sixth season on Sunday, October 15, 2017 to explore "New Depths" with over eight outstanding speakers and performers, each challenged with presenting a novel "idea worth spreading" in 18 minutes. Presenters include musician and humanitarian Wyclef Jean, educator Bettina Warburg, conservation biologist Blaine Rothhauser, musician and social leader Daryl Davis, inventor Gordon Chiu, marine biologist Regina Asmustis-Silvia, anti-slavery activist Richard Lee, and addiction recovery advocate Vanessa Vitolo.

Along with added TED videos, attendees receive snacks, gifts and an open bar lunch reception at the Congress Hall Hotel. Tickets are $60 per person. Student tickets are available for $20 per person.

"This program will touch your heart and blow your mind," says organizer Norris Clark.

Since 2012, TEDxCapeMay has drawn over 1,200 attendees for 57 talks that have been viewed online by over 500,000 people worldwide.

Presenters are announced throughout the year as they are confirmed. Sponsors include Exit Zero Publishing, Midnight Media Group, One Trick Pony, Congress Hall Hotel, Cape May Brewing Company, Chamber of Commerce of Greater Cape May, Nauti Spirits, Cape May Forum and the Lower Cape May Regional Education Association.

For more information, go to TED.com or TEDxCapeMay.com

About TEDx, x = independently organized event

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TED Talks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized. (Subject to certain rules and regulations.)

About TED

TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. Started as a four-day conference in California 30 years ago, TED has grown to support its mission with multiple initiatives. The two annual TED Conferences invite the world's leading thinkers and doers to speak for 18 minutes or less. Many of these talks are then made available, free, at TED.com. TED speakers have included Bill Gates, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sir Richard Branson, Nandan Nilekani, Philippe Starck, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Sal Khan and Daniel Kahneman.

The annual TED Conference takes place each spring in Vancouver, British Columbia. TED's media initiatives include TED.com, where new TED Talks are posted daily; the Open Translation Project, which provides subtitles and interactive transcripts as well as translations from volunteers worldwide; the educational initiative TED-Ed. TED has established the annual TED Prize, where exceptional individuals with a wish to change the world get help translating their wishes into action; TEDx, which supports individuals or groups in hosting local, self- organized TED-style events around the world, and the TED Fellows program, helping world-changing innovators from around the globe to amplify the impact of their remarkable projects and activities.

Follow TED on Twitter at http://twitter.com/TEDTalks, or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/TED.

SOURCE TEDxCapeMay
The Ulu Kinta Water Treatment Plant obtained the raw water supply from the catchment area upstream of Ulu Kinta River. The Water Treatment Plant is fully equipped with the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) System that provides an integrated, real time data acquisition and monitoring system for the production and distribution activities of treated water. The water supply production from the Ulu Kinta Water Treatment Plant is monitored by Ministry of Health with samples analysed by Chemistry Department and overseen by the National Water Services Commission (SPAN), as the industry regulator. The Sultan Azlan Shah Dam was officially opened in 2007 with the aim of increasing the water supply in Kinta Valley to 639 million litres per day in order to meet the water demand until 2020.

Ms. Eliane Van Doorn, Director of Business Development, UBM ASEAN said, "For the 10th edition of ASIAWATER 2018, we have chosen to visit the Ulu Kinta Water Treatment Plant and Sultan Azlan Shah Dam which are both managed by Lembaga Air Perak (LAP). LAP has successfully implemented an effective planning system to ensure sufficient water resources to meet the growing demand for treated water in Perak. The success of LAP is also attributable to the Asset-light structure adopted by the Board with the support of the Federal Government. To date, the board has effectively laid out 10,792 km of piping which contributed clean water supply to 100% of the urban locations and 98% of rural areas in Perak."

The ASIAWATER 2018 central theme 'Partnership for Growth and a Sustainable Water Future' is to promote public, private and community partnership (PPCP) and showcasing the latest technologies and effective solutions in water management and water security.

The event continues to have the support from water management central agencies which includes the Ministry of Energy, Green Technology and Water (KeTTHA), Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (NRE), National Water Services Commission (SPAN) and Department of Drainage and Irrigation (DID).

The 10th edition of ASIAWATER 2018, co-located with the 5th edition of Asia Water Resource Expo (AWARE'18) will be held from 10-12 April at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, Malaysia.

With more than 1,000 exhibiting companies and international pavilions from Austria, China, Denmark, EU, Korea, Singapore, Switzerland, Taiwan, Germany and Water Environment Federation (WEF), the event is expected to welcome over 19,000 delegates and visitors from 48 countries/regions. ASIAWATER 2018 will be accompanied with free-to-attend sessions and technology seminars from local and international experts addressing the opportunities, latest technologies and challenges within the water and wastewater industry.

With over 80 percent of space has already been booked by exhibitors, ASIAWATER 2018 is on track for another success with an excellent turnout. Amongst the exhibiting companies include Ebara Pumps, CNP, Molecor (SEA), Tsurumi Pump, Xylem, Salcon, Prominent, Greendex, Solidium, Arachem, George Fisher and many more.

Notes to Editor

ASIAWATER Expo & Forum is the longest running and leading trade event for water and wastewater industry in Asia. The event is held biennial in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and has continues to be the one-stop regional hub for water experts, industry professionals and major investors from all over the world. The event offers a stream of business opportunities as well as developing Asia's water management and infrastructure.

www.asiawater.org

SOURCE UBM Asia (Malaysia)

Related Links

http://www.asiawater.org


By PTI: Dhaka, Aug 15 (PTI) A 20-year-old militant of the banned Neo-JMB terror outfit responsible for carrying out Bangladeshs worst terror attack was today killed after he detonated explosives in his hotel room to escape a police raid.

The Neo-Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh militant, who has not been identified, killed himself right before a raid by police counterterrorism unit and SWAT on a hotel in Dhakas Panthapath, Inspector General of Police Shahidul Hoque was quoted as saying by Dhaka Tribune.

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The militant had planned to attack processions to Bangabandhu Memorial Museum on the National Mourning Day, police said.

The police have also found leaflets containing militancy propaganda among the deceaseds belongings, the report said.

The incident came as Bangladesh marked an annual national day of mourning to commemorate the assassination of the nations founding leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, in a military coup in 1975. Rahman was Prime minister Sheikh Hasinas father.

The raid was part of an intensified crackdown on militants following the last years Dhaka cafe attack in which 22 people, mostly foreigners and an Indian girl, were killed. PTI UZM AKJ UZM

--- ENDS ---
To celebrate the campaign's launch and to highlight the connections formed through climbing, The North Face will be making a $1M donation to The Trust for Public Land to support public climbing walls in more communities, with a focus on underserved areas and making the sport more accessible to all.

"At The Trust for Public Land, our mission is to create parks and protect land for people," said Trust for Public Land President Will Rogers. "Every park we create is an open invitation for all to enjoy, and we're proud to say we've connected communities to the outdoors  and to each other  since 1972. We're happy to partner with The North Face to make climbing more accessible to more people in neighborhoods nationwide."

The North Face is also partnering with gyms and facilities worldwide to make Aug. 19 a global day of climbing, with free climbing opportunities in cities in the U.S., Europe, Canada, Mexico, and China.

For every person who walks through the door of one of these participating gyms, The North Face will make a $5 donation (up to $50,000) to Paradox Sports, an organization committed to making climbing accessible to people with physical disabilities. Additional climbing activities with athletes will take place in New York, Shanghai and London.

"The North Face has been a passionate partner to the world's climbing community for more than 50 years," said Tom Herbst, global vice president of Marketing at The North Face. "We see walls as a place to unite our communities through the sport of climbing  a sport that requires trust and partnership. Our climbing community is truly global and we believe that communities are stronger when inclusive. Our intent is to inspire others to think more hopefully about the type of community we all want to work and play in."

The North Face has a long history of supporting the climbing community through sponsorship of athletes including Alex Honnold and Ashima Shiraishi, and through the support of non-profit organizations like USA Climbing, The Trust for Public Land, Paradox Sports, the Access Fund and the American Alpine Club that focus on access, conservation and education.

For more information on "Walls Are Meant For Climbing," visit http://www.thenorthface.com/walls #ClimbWalls

About The North Face

The North Face, a division of VF Outdoor, LLC, was founded in 1966 with the goal of preparing outdoor athletes for the rigors of their next adventure. Today we are the world's leading outdoor brand, creating athlete-tested, expedition-proven products that help people explore and test the limits of human potential. We protect our outdoor playgrounds and minimize our impact on the planet through programs that encourage sustainability. The North Face products are available at premium and specialty retail sporting goods stores globally and we are headquartered in California on a LEED Platinum-certified campus. For more information, please visit www.thenorthface.com.

Contact:

Jessica Hollister

Sr. Consumer Communications Manager

The North Face

[email protected]

510.748.2594

SOURCE The North Face

Related Links

http://www.thenorthface.com


Thousands of students enrolled in Lantern after applying for the Second Chance Pell Grant pilot program, which was reinstated in June 2016. The grant allowed for 12,000 incarcerated students across the country to enroll in postsecondary educational and training programs across 67 universities, and the first three students to earn their associate's degree recently graduated from Ashland University in Ohio using the Lantern platform.

"JPay's Lantern created digital education opportunities that never existed. Leveraging a virtual classroom platform, thousands of incarcerated students have taken basic courses, earned college credits and received college degrees," said Jerry McGlone, Interim Director of the Gill Center at Ashland University. "These students have real hope and can even continue their education with Ashland University once released, an invaluable advantage in the reentry process. We couldn't have reached these milestones without a transformative program such as Lantern."

The Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) is the first to implement a state-wide digital educational initiative that utilizes Lantern, providing JPay tablets to more than 50,000 incarcerated individuals. By leveraging Lantern's digital education platform, the student population in 44 facilities has accessed more than 100 GED prep courses and downloaded remediation and enrichment content in general education modules. In addition to structured courses, GDC students have downloaded over 2.2 million KA Lite videos  a free offering through Lantern.

"We believe education is the key to rehabilitation and post-release success. So when we realized we could leverage our extensive network to dramatically expand access to education, it was a no-brainer  we had to pursue it," said Errol Feldman, CEO of JPay. "And while the program's success to date has been gratifying, our goal is to extend the digital education revolution to the entire incarcerated population."

Studies prove that education reduces recidivism. Digital solutions, such as JPay's Lantern, will put tablets in the hands of the incarcerated population so they can use their time served to earn a degree and be productive members of society upon release.

About JPay

JPay, a Securus Technologies Company, designs, builds and deploys its technology to prisons and jails across the country, establishing correspondence to help educate and rehabilitate offenders. Serving more than 1.9 million offenders and parolees in 34 states, JPay makes the corrections process more convenient for offenders and their loved ones, while modernizing processes and increasing intelligence capabilities for corrections facilities. Products include money transfer services, tablets, email and video communications, education, games, music and more.

SOURCE JPay

Related Links

http://www.jpay.com


NEW YORK, Aug. 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Philip R. Shawe, Co-CEO of TransPerfect, is honored to have been invited as a featured speaker at Slator.com's highly anticipated SlatorCon conference, to be held in New York on October 12th this year. As the leading industry publication for translation and language technology, Shawe is extremely proud to have TransPerfect be recognized by Slator as, "one of the industry's most successful companies over the past decade."

Shawe's participation rounds out the field of the influential executives and thought leaders. Beyond Mr. Shawe, the roster of five featured speakers is impressive, and includes the following experts:

Rory Cowan , Chairman, Lionbridge

, Chairman, Lionbridge May Habib , CEO, Qordoba

, CEO, Qordoba Ron Kuehl , Managing Director, Frontenac

, Managing Director, Frontenac Kyunghyun Cho , Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Data Science, New York University

Shawe stated, "As my fellow speakers know well, it is not easy to maintain your position as a thought-leader, visionary, and trailblazer for extended periods of time in our fast-moving and ever-evolving industry. I give them my congratulations, and am personally proud to be featured among them speaking at this year's SlatorCon. Regardless of the language or culture, there is one thing that all people share; we relate to one another through telling stories. I'm pleased to have the opportunity to tell a few relevant parts of my story, journaling 25 years on the front lines of the language industry, and running the day-to-day operations of TransPerfect from only two, to over 4000 professionals."

Shawe concluded, "I am beyond confident that this year's SlatorCon will be one of the most successful industry events of the year, and again, I'm honored to play a small role in what will surely be a lively, thought-provoking conference that will impact the industry for months and years to come."

SlatorCon promises to explore key drivers of the language services and technology industry, including critical topics such as mergers and acquisitions, venture capital, neural machine translation, life sciences, and accelerating translation productivity.

SOURCE Philip R. Shawe
NEW YORK, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- While many people are prone to conduct research or evaluate all potential outcomes when making a decision, new research from Columbia Business School finds that states of uncertainty increase people's reliance on their gut feelings to make judgements and decisions.

"Uncertainty is a natural and unavoidable part of life," says Michel Pham, the Kravis Professor of Business in Marketing at Columbia Business School. "Whether it's deciding what to order for dinner, worrying about your commute, or determining how much to put away for retirement, our findings show that any state of uncertainty increases our reliance on what we feel is the right thing to do." This finding contradicts the popular notion that when they are uncertain, people try to be more logical and rational in their judgments and decisions.

In addition to uncertainty increasing reliance on emotional decision making, the researchers discovered that being in a general state of uncertainty can affect any type of decision, even if the uncertainty in question has nothing to do with the decision at hand. The authors cite previous research showing that uncertainty is a psychological condition that causes discomfort, and that people are hardwired to try to resolve this discomfort by resolving the uncertainty.

Pham elaborates: "For however long it persists, this discomfort can influence all types of decision making, even if the source of the discomfort has no connection to the decision immediately in front of you. In other words: being uncertain about anything can have an impact on everything."

The authors are quick to caution that their findings do not indicate that decision making based on emotions or advanced information gathering is better than one or another. Instead, their hope is that people understand the connection that uncertainty has on decision making, and recognize that our natural instinct is to lean on emotions and feelings in the absence certainty.

The research, Uncertainty Increases the Reliance on Affect in Decisions, published in the Journal of Consumer Research was conducted by Pham and Ali Faraji-Rad, an assistant professor of marketing and international business at Nanyang Business School in Singapore.

BEHIND THE RESEARCH FINDINGS

In a series of six studies, researchers created varied states of uncertainty for more than 2000 participants, and then asked them to make a variety of judgments and decisions.

In two studies, participants who were in states of uncertainty were found to be more influenced by the pleasantness of a commercial's musical soundtrack and the attractiveness of a picture than participants who were not in a state of uncertainty when making judgments.

The same phenomenon held true in another study where participants who were uncertain were more influenced in their evaluations of a fictional juice by previous feelings of disgust that the researchers had induced independently. This later finding led researchers to the conclusion that uncertainty amplifies both positive and negative feelings in judgements and decisions.

HIGH- VERSUS LOW-STAKES DECISIONS

Since many of the studies focused on relatively "low stakes" decisions, the researchers suggest that additional work should be conducted specifically looking at high- versus low-stakes decisions. They portend that:

"Would states of uncertainty prompt consumers to rely on their feelings when deciding on a million-dollar house? This is hard to tell without further empirical evidence. On the one hand, one could argue that when the stakes are very high, uncertainty may lead consumers to adopt a more 'rational' mindset, thereby reducing their reliance on [feelings]. On the other hand, one could alternatively argue that high stakes combined with high uncertainty may encourage people to rely more on what 'feels right' to them."

To learn more about the cutting-edge research being conducted at Columbia Business School, please visit www.gsb.columbia.edu.

About Columbia Business School

Columbia Business School is the only world-class, Ivy League business school that delivers a learning experience where academic excellence meets with real-time exposure to the pulse of global business. Led by Dean Glenn Hubbard, the School's transformative curriculum bridges academic theory with unparalleled exposure to realworld business practice, equipping students with an entrepreneurial mindset that allows them to recognize, capture, and create opportunity in any business environment. The thought leadership of the School's faculty and staff, combined with the accomplishments of its distinguished alumni and position in the center of global business, means that the School's efforts have an immediate, measurable impact on the forces shaping business every day. To learn more about Columbia Business School's position at the very center of business, please visit www.gsb.columbia.edu.

SOURCE Columbia Business School

Related Links

http://www.gsb.columbia.edu


LOS ANGELES, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Vaco Los Angeles, specializing in project consultants and executive search for accounting and technology positions, was ranked #11 on the 2017 Best Places to Work in Los Angeles list, Small Employer Category. With just over 100 companies ranked in the Small, Medium, and Large Business categories, Vaco's ninth year on the list marks an impressive track record of success, including four years placing as #1.

"This annual achievement is important to us because we have seen that retaining expert professionals leads to better service and profitability," said Frances Moreno, managing partner, Vaco Los Angeles.

The Best Places to Work in Los Angeles list is judged by Best Companies Group for the Los Angeles Business Journal. The rankings are based on company programs for benefits, rewards, and retention, as well as on extensive employee surveys, which must be completed by a majority of internal staff regarding leadership, development, relationships, compensation, and overall engagement. The recognition program is dedicated to identifying the best employers in Los Angeles County.

Moreno added, "This award is made possible due to a shared vision of integrating work and life goals of our clients, consultants, and candidates we place. For over 11 years, Vaco has served the Los Angeles community, retaining great talent and clients, and helping businesses continue to be successful. We do not take this for granted. It's a tough list to make and especially in LA. We are grateful."

About Vaco Los Angeles

Vaco is dedicated to developing creative client hiring and project solutions, long-term relationships, and lifelong careers in accounting and information technology. Vaco Los Angeles has been named the #1 Best Place to Work in Los Angeles four times and has also received Gold Stevie Awards for Best Employer and Company of the Year from the American Business Awards. For more information, visit www.vaco.com/Los-Angeles.

CONTACT:

Deborah Jones

Strategies

[email protected]

(714) 957-8880, ext. 113

SOURCE Vaco Los Angeles

Related Links

http://www.vaco.com/los-angeles


Network defenses that don't adequately process and inspect encrypted traffic leave employees, customers and partners vulnerable to cyber attacks. According to a 2016 Ponemon study , 41 percent of attacks in 2016 used encryption to either disguise their entry into the network or hide their connection to a Command and Control server. NSS Labs, Inc. forecasts that as adoption rates continue to climb, 75 percent of web traffic will be encrypted by 2019. A firewall that lacks the processing power necessary to inspect high volumes of encrypted traffic will either need to turn off some security services or compromise throughput in order to manage the burden.

KEY FEATURES:

Dramatically Improved Performance: As validated by Miercom, the new Firebox M Series offers approximately three times the performance of competing products.

Flexibility Through Increased Port Density: All new appliances (except the M370) have an expansion slot for additional ports. 4x10Gb fiber, 8x1Gb copper or 8x1Gb fiber network modules are available as well.

Intel processors with AES-NI and CaveCreek crypto acceleration: New chipsets allow the new M Series appliances industry-leading performance in HTTPS content inspection and fast processing of traffic even with all security services enabled.

SUPPORTING QUOTES:

Brendan Patterson , Director of Product Management at WatchGuard Technologies: "As adoption rates for encryption continue to climb, organizations need to know that their UTM offers performance levels that can process the growing torrent of encrypted traffic, and the security services capable of detecting threats that might be lurking within that traffic. With the new M Series, we offer dramatic improvements in throughput to ensure our customers don't have to choose between performance and security."

Robert Smithers , CEO, Miercom: "Based on results of our testing, the WatchGuard Firebox M370 displayed exceptional performance, outperforming its competitors for stateless and stateful traffic throughput scenarios. Its high-rate, non-degrading performance with security features enabled earns it the Miercom Performance Verified certification."

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

About WatchGuard Technologies, Inc.

WatchGuard Technologies, Inc. is a global leader in network security, providing best-in-class Unified Threat Management, Next Generation Firewall, secure Wi-Fi, and network intelligence products and services to more than 80,000 customers worldwide. The company's mission is to make enterprise-grade security accessible to companies of all types and sizes through simplicity, making WatchGuard an ideal solution for Distributed Enterprises and SMBs. WatchGuard is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, with offices throughout North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America. To learn more, visit WatchGuard.com.

For additional information, promotions and updates, follow WatchGuard on Twitter, @WatchGuard on Facebook, or on the LinkedIn Company page. Also, visit our InfoSec blog, Secplicity, for real-time information about the latest threats and how to cope with them at www.secplicity.org.

NSS Labs, Inc. does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. NSS Labs expressly disclaims any warranties with respect to any research cited herein, including those of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose.

Media Contacts:

Chris Warfield

WatchGuard Technologies

206.876.8380

[email protected]

Anthony Cogswell

Voxus PR

253.444.5980

[email protected]

SOURCE WatchGuard Technologies, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.watchguard.com


WELLS, Minn., Aug. 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Wells Financial Corp. (OTC BB: WEFP), the parent holding company of Wells Federal Bank, Wells, Minnesota, announced that its Special Meeting of Stockholders was held today. At the meeting, stockholders approved the Agreement and Plan of Merger by and between the Company and Citizens Community Bancorp, Inc. Stockholders also approved the proposal to adjourn the Meeting, if necessary, to permit the further solicitation of proxies in favor of the approval of the Merger Agreement.

SOURCE Wells Financial Corp.
LONDON, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Proposed tariff measures add pressure to Zimbabwe's mobile market

Revenue from Zimbabwe's telecom sector has come under pressure from a number of recent regulatory measures and taxes imposed by the cash-strapped government. Nevertheless, the sector shows some promise for coming years, particularly from the mobile sector where mobile penetration has increased rapidly, reaching 110% by early 2017. The three mobile network operators Econet Wireless, NetOne and Telecel Zimbabwe continue to invest in network upgrades to support data services and their expanding m-commerce and m-banking facilities. Telecel was recently acquired by the government from VEON, while the financial demands required for investment has jeopardised resources potentially available to the state-owned telco TelOne, which still holds a de-facto monopoly on fixed-line services in the country.



Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/3249293/



Limitations in international bandwidth for the landlocked country for many years held back development of the internet and broadband sectors, but this has changed since fibre optic links to several submarine cables have been established via neighbouring territories. The expansion of 3G mobile broadband services across the country, and the more recent efforts to provide LTE services, have meant that more than half of the population now has access to the internet.



The mobile market has been hampered by the poor economic climate, exacerbated by regulatory measures affecting tariffs and taxes. The regulator recently proposed floor and ceiling rates for voice and data bundles, ostensibly to help reduce the cost of services for customers. These measures will place further pressure on network operator revenue, which has fallen steadily during the last three years, with a 2.9% fall in 2016 alone.



Considerable progress is being made in rolling out national fibre backbone networks in Zimbabwe, facilitated by the government's efforts to encourage network infrastructure sharing.



Key developments:



Telecom regulator proposes to create a new Virtual Network Operator (VNO) license category;

TelOne planning to deliver FttP to 100,000 premises by 2018, opens two data centres as it shifts focus on being a converged services provider;

Telecel Zimbabwe launches Telecash mobile money service;

Government proposes consolidation of its telecom assets and business units;

Government approves $250 investment to build 600 mobile towers to serve rural areas;

Regulator proposes ceiling price for voice and data services;

Econet Wireless launches Wi-Fi in commuter minibuses;

Universal Service Fund to be used for digital migration program to progress;

TelOne planning to deliver FttP to 100,000 premises by 2018;

Report update includes the regulator's market data to December 2016, telcos' operating and financial data to February 2017, recent market developments.



Companies mentioned in this report:



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By PTI: (Eds: with additional inputs)

Chandigarh, Aug 15 (PTI) A minor girl on her way to attend the Independence Day function in her school today was allegedly abducted and raped by a man in a city park here, the police said.

"The 12-year-old girl was crossing the childrens traffic park, located in the heart of the city, around 8.15 am when she was abducted by the man, aged around 40 years, and sexually assaulted," Eish Singhal, officiating Senior Superintendent of Police of Chandigarh, told reporters this evening.

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The area where the crime took place in the park has thick growth of grass and bushes.

The girl, a student of Class 8 of a government school, was taken to a government hospital in Sector 16 where her medical examination was conducted, the officer said.

Asked about the girls condition, he said, "She is stable but traumatised".

The girl narrated the incident to her parents following which the police was informed and a case, including under the provisions of the POCSO Act, was registered against the accused, who is at large, he added.

"We have rounded up some suspects and they are being questioned. Further probe is under progress," Singhal said.

The police, he said, was also trying to get the footage from the CCTV cameras from the nearby area to identify the accused.

Earlier, there were reports the incident took place when the girl was returning home from school.

Singhal said that the girls statement was recorded before a magistrate and also told police that the accused was not known to her.

Asked if the girl was raped at the knife-point, the SSP said, "We are investigating this claim".

Todays rape incident comes barely over a week after the 29-year-old daughter of a senior IAS officer was stalked by the son of Haryana BJP chief and his friend. PTI SUN/CHS VSD SMJ

--- ENDS ---
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
PM Modi spoke on an array of issues ranging from the recent tragic deaths of children in Gorakhpur hospital to the persisting Kashmir issue.

By India Today Web Desk: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today addressed the nation on the occasion of the 71st Independence Day.

PM Modi spoke on an array of issues ranging from the recent tragic deaths of children in Gorakhpur to the persisting Kashmir issue. Here's what PM Modi said on the occasion.

ON GORAKHPUR

Prime Minister Narendra Modi today mourned the deaths of children in a Gorakhpur hospital in Uttar Pradesh. "Sometimes natural calamities become a challenge," Modi said.

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"People of India stand shoulder to shoulder with those affected due to natural disasters and the tragedy in Gorakhpur," Modi added.

CLIMATE CHANGE

"Good rains help the country flourish," PM Modi said adding that climate change had led to conditions which had affected many parts of the country.

MOB VIOLENCE

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that violence in the name of one's values was unacceptable.

"Violence in the name of one's belief is not something to be happy about. It will not be accepted in India. India is about peace, unity and amity. Casteism and communalism will not help us," he said.

"Violence in the name of one's belief is not something to be happy about. It will not be accepted in India. India is about peace, unity and amity. Casteism and communalism will not help us," he said in his Independence Day speech from the Red Fort here.

CORRUPTION

Prime Minister Modi said that those who have looted the nation and the poor are now not able to sleep peacefully. He also said that those who own "benami" properties were facing difficult times.

"Soon after the Benami Act was implemented, the government has seized benami properties worth Rs 800 crore," he said.

He said his government had implemented the demand for One Rank One Pension (OROP) for military personnel after it had been kept pending for 30-40 years.

SURGICAL STRIKE

Praising the armed forces on the occasion of Independence day, Modi said: "In free India it is very important to protect the country. The surgical strike was a proof to the world about India's strength."

Modi said every soldier, irrespective of whether he was in the Army, Navy or Air Force, was contributing to the country.

"Our soldiers have stood against everything that is against the country such as infiltrators, militants... The world has seen our strength."

TRIPLE TALAQ

"I pay my respects to those women who had to lead miserable lives due to Triple Talaq and then started a movement which created an environment in the whole nation against the practice," said PM Modi.

The Prime Minister said he respected all these women. "I want to tell them that they will succeed as the whole country supports them in this significant step towards women's empowerment."

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EMPOWERING YOUTH

"Change in demand and technology is changing the nature of jobs," said PM Narendra Modi.

"We are nurturing our youngsters to be job creators and not job-seekers," he added.

He also said under the Mudra Scheme many people across the nation have benefited as the government has provided them loans without asking for any guaranty.

WAR AGAINST TERROR

"India's stature in the world is rising. The world is with us in fighting the menace of terrorism. I thank all the countries actively helping us," said PM Modi.

JAMMU AND KASHMIR

Only love and not bullets or abuse can help resolve the dragging problem in Jammu and Kashmir, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

We are committed for the development of Jammu and Kashmir and this is also the resolve of every Indian," said the Prime Minister.

Also Read:

PM Narendra Modi's I-Day speech: Violence in the name of faith is unacceptable

70 years of independence: 10 events that shaped today's India



WATCH | PM Modi unfurls tricolour from Red Fort

--- ENDS ---

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Simon, who has been in the overseas property business for more than 35 years, had this to say: France has always been a hot spot and despite Brexit and all its possible implications, it is still proving to be the country we receive more enquiries about than any other.

While it is still too early to draw any conclusions on the impact of Brexit on Brits investing in France, there has only been a small reduction in the number of purchases made by non-residents.

Last year, British buyers made up a third of all non-resident purchases, which is only just below the previous years figure.

We can see a pattern around the types of people and where they buy in different countries. For example, people who buy in Normandy and Brittany are the types who tend to buy in Costa Blanca and Costa Brava. And the sorts of people who buy in Southern France often go for properties in the Algarve and Costa del Sol. The middle market is the Dordogne and Savoir areas.

Figures do not show an immediate impact because of Brexit and given the timing of the referendum in June, it is likely that many buyers were already committed to buying. We will wait to see how the market develops in the coming months, but we can safely say that France remains a key European location for Brits looking to buy abroad"
The expertise we are adding is significantwere talking about people with 30 or 40 years of experience. They have been offering the same type of knowledge and sound advice Avitus Group customers expect.

Professional business services leader Avitus Group has broadened its reach in the Midwest and on the West Coast with the acquisition of a leading tax firm, Fanska CPA LLC, with offices in Kansas, Missouri and California.

This acquisition strengthens Avitus Groups tax services measurably by adding a number of offices and tax professionals that have exceptional experience and knowledge, says Avitus Group Public Relations Manager Dianne Parker. In turn, these offices will now have the full weight of Avitus Group resources, from best practices to network security, behind them.

Avitus Group has added two dozen tax professionals, including full-time and seasonal tax preparers and tax specialists with extensive experience and longstanding relationships with clients and employees alike.

The expertise we are adding is significantwere talking about people with 30 or 40 years of experience, says Avitus Group Senior Tax Manager Jim Liddell. They have been offering the same type of knowledge and sound advice Avitus Group customers expect for a long time, which makes them a perfect fit.

Avitus Groups newest additions bring a track record of offering tax, accounting and payroll services to some 3,000 clients through offices in Mission, Kansas, Independence, Missouri and Century City, California.

"We are very pleased with the merger and excited to be part of such a great company," says Janet Fanska, CPA. "We are looking forward to the growth and expansion at Avitus Group."

We are investing in an established firm with a strong presence in the Heartland and on the West Coast, says Avitus Group CEO and Chairman Willie Chrans. We know what were getting because their record speaks for itself.

Avitus Group is investing in a complete remodel of a 4,000-square-foot office space in Mission, Kansas, and is set to celebrate its grand opening with an open house and ribbon cutting on September 13. Avitus Group also recently updated its Independence, Missouri office and will hold a grand opening and ribbon-cutting event at its Independence, Missouri office September 12. Both events will help support Noah's Bandage Project for pediatric cancer research at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City. Avitus Group is asking members of the business community to bring a box of fun kids bandaids to the events to donate.

Avitus Group is a worldwide company that simplifies, strengthens and grows businesses by providing back office support (payroll, accounting, taxes, recruiting, information technology, human resources and much more). When a business uses Avitus Group, all of the necessary yet burdensome functions of the business become Avitus Groups responsibility, so the business can focus on what it does best. Avitus Group serves clients nationwide through regional office locations from coast to coast. The company also serves international clients through partner locations around the world.
We recognize that database performance management is an essential need for modern digital businesses, and we look forward to partnering with the VividCortex team as they continue to raise the bar for what businesses can expect from system performance.

VividCortex, the database performance management company that helps businesses improve application performance, reliability, and uptime, today announced that it has closed an $8.5 million Series A-1 round led by Osage Venture Partners (OVP). Bull City Venture Partners also participated in the round, as did all existing investors, including New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and Battery Ventures. As part of the financing, OVP Partner David Drahms has been appointed to the VividCortex Board of Directors. To date, VividCortex has raised $15 million.

"Weve seen constant growth since our founding in 2012, with hundreds of international businesses using our database performance management platform daily to help run their systems more effectively," said Baron Schwartz, founder and CEO of VividCortex. "Earlier this year we expanded our leadership as we entered a new stage of high growth. This latest investment, by both existing investors and new partners, is a testament to our vision, strength of our team, and our ability to deliver tangible business value to our customers."

"We recognize that database performance management is an essential need for modern digital businesses," said Drahms. "And we look forward to partnering with the VividCortex team as they continue to raise the bar for what businesses can expect from system performance."

Schwartz added, "I'm excited to welcome David to our Board. Its been a pleasure to work with the team at Osage over the last few months, and Im looking forward to collaborating closely with them in the future."

About VividCortex:

Most application performance issues originate in the database, but engineering teams lack visibility into the data tier. VividCortexs Database Performance Management platform provides unique insights into database workload and query performance, enabling teams to proactively resolve database issues faster. The result is better application performance, reliability, and uptime. Industry-leading companies like DraftKings, Etsy, GitHub, SendGrid, Shopify, and Yelp use VividCortex to innovate with confidence, visualizing, anticipating, and fixing database performance problems before they impact their applications and customers. For more information, visit https://www.vividcortex.com or follow us on Twitter, @VividCortex.

Media Contact:

pr(at)vividcortex(dot)com
Were excited to see more and more firms realize the value Elegrity brings to the law firm Conflicts of Interest and Business Process space.

Elegrity, Inc., a thought leader for Conflicts of Interest and Business Process Management (Workflow) software for the law firm market, has announced the addition of 5 new Am Law 100 clients since January of 2017.

Three Am Law 100 clients based on the West Coast selected Elegrity because of the companys deep understanding of the legal vertical and its ability to translate that understanding into its software. Our lawyers live and breathe in email and we needed a system that enabled them to incept new business using email and not another app that they were never going to open. One client described the system as analyst empathetic pointing to the systems innovative use of technology in ways approaching machine learning, and its seamless integration with corporate family tree providers to ensure compliance with more complex outside counsel guidelines.

Two clients on the East Coast selected Elegrity because of the companys proven ability to implement on-time and in-budget, enabling clients to realize value within expected timeframes. Elegrity uses its own staff for all of its implementations. That was important because we spoke with multiple other firms who had gone with other vendors that rely on third parties to implement their software. Those firms were 2 and 3 years into their implementations, were far over-budget, and were still not live. We couldnt wait that long to get return on our investment.

Were excited to see more and more firms realize the value Elegrity brings to the law firm Conflicts of Interest and Business Process space. Its been our intention to provide a new level of solution delivery (software and service) to law firms since our inception. This has been a sorely underserviced market, and we intend to shift that experience for our law firm customers. Weve been working in this capacity in the legal space since 2006 and its great to see our passion for innovation and commitment to delivering real value recognized by the market. Were looking forward to continuing to build upon our momentum in this space, said Joy Spicer, CEO & Founder of Elegrity.

Elegrity is the innovation leader in providing software and solutions for the business of running a law firm. Elegritys top selling Elegrity Connect suite of products target Cradle-to-Grave Client and Matter Management (including New Business Intake), Conflicts of Interest, Client/Prospect Intelligence, and Experience Management.

Legal Notices

Copyright 2016-2017 Elegrity, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 160 Pine Street, San Francisco, CA. All trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies.
PC-Doctor, Inc., the global leader in PC and Android system health, released the latest version of its popular diagnostic toolkit today. For the first time, Service Center provides technicians the ability to store and access customer reports in the cloud. This addition of cloud reporting and the concept of team accounts will enable individual technicians, as well as larger organizations, to easily share diagnostic data and work together more efficiently to support their customers.

Computer technicians require access to cutting edge diagnostic tools to troubleshoot the latest systems. Powered with the same technology used by the worlds largest original equipment manufacturers for more than 20 years, Service Center has been enhanced to cover the latest hardware components, platforms and chipsets on PCs, Macs and Android devices. Service Center 11 provides accurate, industry-standard device diagnostics for technicians, repair centers, enterprise IT organizations and managed service providers alike.

The same consistent and accurate technology that household name manufacturers trust is at the core of Service Center, said Kim McKay, Senior Manager of Enterprise Sales & Support for PC-Doctor. For the past 23 years, weve continued to enhance our diagnostics to best serve the needs of our customers. By adding cloud storage capabilities to Service Center 11, were able to move repair shops into the cloud, saving time and money without sacrificing quality.

In addition to cloud storage and integration with the all new Service Center Remote product, PC-Doctor Service Center 11 now includes features such as:



Expanded chipset support, including Intel Kaby Lake and AMD Ryzen

Support for the latest Windows 10 releases

Updated Android diagnostics to support 7.1.2 (Nougat)

Expanded Drive Erase capabilities

OpenGL and Touch Screen testing for Bootable Diagnostics

SMBIOS 3.0 support

SCSI SSD Wear Level testing

Biometrics camera and digitizer testing

Eye Tracker Testing

Expanded IPMI testing

And more

A full list of PC, Android and Mac diagnostics is available on the Service Center website. Visit Service Center 11 (http://www.pcdservicecenter.com/) to view full product updates.

Service Center 11 kits include:

A free cloud account to upload, store and manage test results in a centralized, secure locationfrom anywhere with Internet connection

A multi-purpose USB device with LED indicators and bootable, low-level diagnostics to test systems without a hard drive, optical drive or display

Over 500 scriptable diagnostic tests that run under the latest versions of Windows, DOS, Android, Intel-based Macs, and Linux machines

Customizable test reports, including diagnostics results, system information, company logo, and more

A diagnostic DVD containing Windows, Bootable, DOS, Mac and Android diagnostics.

Optical media for testing CD and DVD drive capabilities

Parallel, serial, USB, audio and Ethernet loopback adapters

Drive erase tools that conform to military standards

A professional case for carrying the kit on-site

Documentation for basic and advanced options

A premier version of the kit is also available, which features POST cards and a power supply tester addition.

Service Center 11 kits start at $329 for the standard kit and $449 for the premier kit. Current Service Center customers who purchased version 10.5 may upgrade free of charge. For more information or to order, visit http://www.pcdservicecenter.com.

About PC-Doctor

PC-Doctor, Inc. has been providing dependable diagnostic tools for over 20 years, with products that are compatible with Windows, Linux and Android. Founded in 1993, PC-Doctor, Inc. is the global leader in PC and Android system health, and contextual messagingoffering the most comprehensive set of diagnostic, system information and software tools available. Several of the world's largest PC manufacturers are PC-Doctor clients, loading tens of millions of copies of its software on their systems every year. For more information about PC-Doctor and its products, visit http://www.pc-doctor.com or call (866) 289-7237. International customers should call (775) 336-4000.

###

 2017 PC-Doctor, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PC-Doctor is a trademark of PC-Doctor, Inc., Reno, NV. All PC-Doctor products are protected by one or more of the following patents: 6,742,148; 6,792,562; 6,829,726; 7,036,129; 7,139,954; 7,155,645; 7,356,744. Other patents pending. All other brand and product names are registered trademarks, trademarks or servicemarks of their respective holders and are gratefully acknowledged. Product specifications subject to change without notice.
A festive evening at Blackstone Federal's Community JAM "The goal of our Community JAM event was to raise awareness for the DC HopeOneSource platforms important mission to help end homelessness in our Nations Capital," Giles Kesteloot, Executive Director, Blackstone Federal

Young rock musicians, stand-up comedy and the HopeOneSource Wolf Pack Awards highlighted Blackstone Federals first-ever Community JAM, a celebration of the transformation and engineering agencys strong commitment to the local community. Humanitarian volunteers, artists, Blackstone Federal employees and community leaders packed Blackstones dynamic headquarters in Arlington, VA, this past Saturday evening for a festive night that put the spotlight on a few outstanding local organizations.

A group of young, talented students from the School of Rock in Vienna, VA kicked the evening off with a few rousing sets of classic and pop rock hits as guests enjoyed beer provided by Port City Brewing in Alexandria.

And as a nod to Blackstone Federals new partnership with Hope With Love, the local non-profit organization behind the DC HopeOneSource platform, Hope With Loves Executive Director Tim Underwood took the stage to present the HopeOneSource Wolf Pack Awards. The awards recognized the exceptional support provided by the HopeOneSource platforms key sponsors and partners, including IEEE, Lockr Encryption and Blackstone Federal.

The goal of our Community JAM event was to raise awareness for the DC HopeOneSource platforms important mission to help end homelessness in our Nations Capital. With over 100 attendees and an evening full of passion and hope, I believe we achieved our goal, said Blackstone Federals Executive Director Giles Kesteloot. Weve all been inspired by this important work and the impact it is already having on our community, and we look forward to continuing the partnership with DC HopeOneSource.

The evening was rounded out with some stand-up comedy by Blackstone Federals own Glenna Gallagher, who joked that her routine has gotten worse because she loves her job so much.

I havent done stand-up in a while because my life is going well, Gallagher reasoned. I love my job. I like my coworkers. Thats not good stand-up material.

Gallagher is also one of several Blackstone Federal employees who volunteers with HopeOneSources development team, for whom a code sprint was held in the afternoon before the Community JAM. As an official partner of Hope With Love, Blackstone Federal hosts regular code sprints to help speed the development of new features within the HopeOneSource platform.

To learn more about the DC HopeOneSource platform and how you can get involved to help prevent and end homelessness in DC, visit dc.hopeonesource.org/form/get-involved.

For more information about how Blackstone Federal can help transform your organization, or if you consider yourself a top engineer, please connect with us at level_up(at)blackstonefederal(dot)com.
HCMC Legal, Inc. (HCMC) and ACC Northeast Chapter (Association of Corporate Counsel, ACC) partnered to provide an interactive, educational experience for legal professionals in Boston, Massachusetts. The event, titled Crossed Wires? Bridging the Generational Communications Gaps Within Your In-House Office, featured guest speaker Dr. Renee Guarriello Heath, who gave an informative lecture about the existence of generational stereotypes and strategies to improve communication between colleagues of different generations in the workplace.

We enjoyed an evening of professional enrichment and relationship building, said Joan Davison, CEO of HCMC. We are thrilled with the high level of interest and engagement, and look forward to building relationships with and serving the legal professionals of Boston. The insight we gained will help us strengthen rapport with colleagues and enhance our work environments. HCMC, the parent company of Hire Counsel and Mestel & Company, is the national leader in attorney placement, temporary staffing, legal staffing, and eDiscovery services since 1987.

It was a pleasure to team up with HCMC to offer a valuable learning experience for our members and the broader Boston legal community, said Julie Duffy, Executive Director for ACC Northeast Chapter. Our attendees learned ways to better communicate with their colleagues as well as about themselves. ACC Northeast Chapter, the organization of choice for in-house counsel in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, offers regular educational programs which cover topics of interest to in-house counsel, using the expertise of the sponsoring firms and that of member panelists.

I am honored to share my knowledge of workplace diversity and generational communication challenges, said Dr. Renee Guarriello Heath. The event brings people of different generations together to openly discuss how to improve communication and expectations of each other. Renee Guarriello Heath (Ph.D., 2005, University of Colorado, Boulder) is a scholar, writer, and lecturer in the area of organizational communication and specializes in collaboration, dialogue, and intergenerational conflict around work-life balance. She has been nominated for the highest teaching honor in the United States--the Carnegie Professor of the Year (2012), and won the most prestigious teaching award at the University of Portland, Oregon (2011).

For more information about HCMC, please visit http://www.hirecounsel.com and http://www.mestel.com. For more information about ACC (Association of Corporate Counsel), please visit https://www.acc.com/chapters/ne/.

About HCMC Legal

HCMC Legal, Inc., the parent company of Hire Counsel and Mestel & Company, is the national leader in attorney placement, temporary staffing, legal staffing and eDiscovery services since 1987. Hire Counsel partners with clients across all industries to manage their dynamic workloads and distinct legal needs. We leverage exceptional talent and technology, deliver superior results consistently and profitably, and help organizations excel in todays new legal economy. Hire Counsel was recently named one of Americas Best Professional Search Firms by Forbes and a Top 250 Company for Flexible Jobs by FlexJobs. Mestel & Company specializes in legal search and recruitment consulting, advancing the careers of individual associates, of counsel, partners, in-house counsel as well as facilitating the movement of groups and complex law firm mergers. Mestel & Company has been named as the winner of the Award for Best Attorney Placement Firm 2016  USA in the CV Magazine Recruitment Awards as well as one of Lawdragons 100 Leading Legal Consultants and Strategists. HCMC is the only 100% employee owned company in the legal staffing and attorney placement industry. For more information, visit http://www.hirecounsel.com and http://www.mestel.com. Follow us on Twitter @HireCounsel and @MestelCompany.

Press Contact:

Alison Chin, Executive Director of Marketing

Hire Counsel

achin(at)hirecounsel(dot)com

646.356.0502
With instances of mobile malware on the rise and GDPR quickly approaching, many industries are now on the prowl for a mobile solution that can foster both security and unrestricted functionality for employees working remotely.

Reston, VA, August 10, 2017  SyncDog, Inc., the leading ISV for mobile application containerization, today announced it has been named One of the 20 Most Promising Enterprise Mobility Solution Providers of 2017 by CIOReview magazine for the second year running. CIOReview is a leading technology publication that discusses enterprise solutions to shape business goals for the future. Technology decision-makers rely on CIOReview to discover and share innovative enterprise solutions from start-ups that address needs unmet by the existing enterprise market.

Were delighted CIOReview has once again included us in this elite list this year, said Jonas Gyllensvaan, SyncDog founder and CEO. With instances of mobile malware on the rise and GDPR quickly approaching, many industries are now on the prowl for a mobile solution that can foster both security and unrestricted functionality for employees working remotely. Our latest release of SentinelSecure, ver. 3.0, ticks both boxes and interested parties can see the solution unveiled at Microsoft Ignite, September 25-29.

CIOReviews award places SyncDog in the company of market leaders such as MobileIron, VMware AirWatch, Verizon Enterprise, and Blackberry, and is accompanied by an article that explores the offerings in SentinelSecure that are setting a new standard in the enterprise mobile app collaboration market. The piece hails SyncDogs tailored approach to customer requirements, and how SentinelSecure preserves peak workflow functionality while securing enterprise data on employees BYOD phones and tablets when working remotely.

For more information, read the CIOReview write-up on SyncDog and SentinelSecure, click here.

To see the CIOReviews full list of 20 Most Promising Enterprise Mobility Solution Providers, click here.

SyncDog SentinelSecure

The SentinelSecure C2 Workspace provides a secure application platform that encrypts and transports data between the enterprise and secure, sandboxed applications running on employees mobile devices. The workspace delivers a highly functional and easy app experience for users, and protects client enterprise networks with a secure, partitioned FIPS 140-2 certified* container on both iOS and Android devices. SentinelSecure secures data both on the device and in transit using AES 256-bit encryption. A full suite of mobile-enabled productivity applications is available in the defense-grade container, including SharePoint, Enterprise Chat, Geo-location Services, DropBox, a Personal Information Management (PIM) suite, Office Suite, Office 365, File Sync, and Secure Mobile App Management & Development functions. SentinelSecure is certified for and can be found in the MobileIron Marketplace.

A full list of applications and additional solution details can be found on the SentinelSecure website here.

See SyncDog and SentinelSecure v. 3.0 at Microsoft Ignite

SyncDog can be found at Microsoft Ignite this year in booth #2254 in Orlando, Florida, providing hands-on demonstrations of the latest release of SentinelSecure C2 (collaborative and containerized) Workspace, ver. 3.0, throughout expo hall hours.

Conference details:

Where: Orange County Convention Center, Orlando, Florida

When: September 25-29, 2017

SyncDog Booth: #2254

Event Information: Link

Registration Link for Microsoft Ignite: Link

About CIOReview

CIOReview offers a ground-breaking platform allowing decision makers to share their insights, which in turn provides both budding and established entrepreneurs with analyses on information technology trends and a better understanding of the environment. For more information, visit cioreview.com.

About SyncDog, Inc.

SyncDog is the leading ISV for building Containerized and Collaborative (C2) mobile IT frameworks that extend app functionality to devices while securing corporate and Government networks from mobile-endpoint threat. SyncDogs flagship solution, SentinelSecure delivers a rich and unimpeded mobile experience for employees working remotely, and supports a multitude of enterprise collaboration apps within a NIST-certified (FIPS 140-2 cert. #2687), C2 Workspace. The C2 Workspace is ideal for organizations that want to deliver a rich mobile app experience across BYOD, CYOD (choose your own device), or other remote device policy.

The SentinelSecure C2 Workspace delivers a host of applications addressing a wide footprint of enterprise workflows including:

Secure Communications

Secure File Management

Secure Internet/Intranet Access

Secure Location-Based Services

For more information on SyncDog and our products please visit http://www.syncdog.com/solutions/.
By India Today Web Desk:

PM Modi spoke on an array of issues ranging from the recent tragic deaths of children in Gorakhpur hospital to the persisting Kashmir issue.

15 August 1947: When Nehru talked of tryst with destiny, Gandhi warned new ministers

On August 15, while Mahatma Gandhi observed 24-hour-fast, offered prayers, a cabinet of ministers was sworn in with Jawaharlal Nehru as the Prime Minister.

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Kamal Haasan reveals Mahanadi was inspired by a real-life conspiracy to kidnap his daughter

Kamal Haasan wrote the 1994 film after he discovered that the house help were plotting to kidnap his daughter.

Happy Independence day India, tweets Pakistan legend Shahid Afridi

Every year, India and Pakistan celebrate their Independence Days within a gap of 24 hours of each other.

--- ENDS ---
Del Sol Color-Changing Clothing and T-Shirt Designs Whether you're on vacation, at the beach or just playing in your backyard, these color-changing products are a sure-way to brighten your day.

Del Sol is a clothing brand that loves the sun as much as the people who wear their shirts and other apparel do. And, it certainly shows  with shirt designs changing in cool ways in the sunlight, reverting back to their original artwork when the wearer returns indoors. In exciting news, the line of shirts recently expanded and fans couldn't be happier with the news.

When it comes to positive energy and healthy fun, there's something about being out in the sun that's near impossible to beat  especially if it's at a sunny beach. Innovative clothing brand Del Sol certainly agrees, being the leaders in apparel that changes color in the sun, something that makes for a very fun and creative conversation piece that actually does involve the weather.

In good news, the already impressive Del Sol catalog recently grew in very cool ways  with a number of new, sure to be popular, vacation and beachwear shirt designs being added to the collection  and they all change colors when out in the sun.

Whether you're on vacation, at the beach or just playing in your backyard, these color-changing products are a sure-way to brighten your day, commented Scott Brady, VP of Communications. Don't miss out on our exciting new designs.

According to Del Sol, some highlights of the additions to their online catalog include: Men's Surf Sketch Classic Tee; Girl's Hibiscus Turtles Beach Cover-Up; Girl's Wild n Free Jersey Tank; Men's Mighty Marlin Jersey Tank; Kid's Mako Shark Crew Tee; and many more.

Beyond high quality and very cool color-changing T-shirts, Del Sol also carry lifetime-guaranteed polarized sunglasses, all kinds of beach and outdoor accessories, and very popular nail polish, nail care products and nail decals in the out in the sun spirit.

All Del Sol's catalog shares a commitment to quality and keeping prices attractive and are supported by a knowledgeable, dedicated customer service team and a lifetime color-change guarantee.

Del Sol is happy to offer free U.S. shipping on all orders over $35.

Reviews and feedback continue to be positive across the board.

Christine S., from New York, recently said in a five star review, I live for the beach and no one is doing better beach shirts and sunglasses than Del Sol. It's too much fun to see the colors change and such a good conversation piece. I even bought a bunch of cool things for my little nephew who is an aspiring surfer  and he's only ten! Fully recommended.

About Del Sol

Del Sol first splashed onto the retail scene in 1994 out of a small cart in Murray, Utahs Fashion Place Mall and has been sticking its color-changing clothing and accessories where the sun shines ever since. Today, Del Sol has grown to more than 100 store locations worldwide in 28 countries, is the worlds leading brand of color-changing apparel and accessories, and one of the most highly promoted merchants onboard Royal Caribbean, Carnival, Princess, Disney, Celebrity, and Norwegian Cruise Lines.
Brooks International welcomes Dr. Michael Wade as a new corporate advisor We welcome Dr. Mike Wade to Brooks International and look forward to leveraging his expertise in our mission to take our company to the next level, particularly in the digital space and in Europe.

Award-winning, global management consulting firm Brooks International (http://brooksint.com) has engaged Michael R. Wade, PhD, in a new advisory role. Dr. Wade is a professor of Innovation and Strategy at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Switzerland and holds the Cisco Chair in Digital Business Transformation. He is the director of the Global Center for Digital Business Transformation, an IMD and Cisco initiative. His areas of expertise relate to strategy, innovation and digital transformation.

Dr. Wade has a wide network of executive-level contacts in Europe through his executive education work at IMD. He also works with top corporate teams on transformation journeys, so has a good sense of the issues that they are facing. In addition, he is one of the foremost experts internationally on digital disruption and transformation and will be invaluable as an advisor to Brooks International in this regard.

As a new corporate advisor, Dr. Wade will be co-authoring informative articles and white papers with Brooks International and adding value to Brooks business development, operations and marketing/PR initiatives, as well as providing his expertise to Brooks Internationals leadership team and on client engagements.

Much of my time is spent working on research, advisory work, and teaching around the business challenges of digital disruption and transformation, said Dr. Wade, who has both Canadian and British citizenships, and works and resides in Switzerland. Digital transformation is a hot topic these days, and frankly speaking, there is a lot of misinformation out there. The traditional consultants are all over it, but few of them know what is really going on, and fewer still understand what to do about it. The fundamental challenge with digital transformation is the same with any transformation  execution, and this is where Brooks excels.

We welcome Dr. Mike Wade to Brooks International and look forward to leveraging his expertise in our mission to take our company to the next level, particularly in the digital space and in Europe, said Brooks Internationals Chief Executive Officer Lui Damasceno.

ABOUT DR. MICHAEL WADE:

Dr. Michael Wade co-directs Orchestrating Winning Performance, Leading Digital Business Transformation and Digital Disruption programs at IMD in Switzerland. He also teaches and has directed custom programs related to strategy and digital business transformation for clients including AXA, Cartier, Credit Suisse, Honda, Vodafone, Maersk, Richemont, NTT, KONE, Zurich Financial and PSA Peugeot Citroen. In addition, Dr. Wade provides consulting services, executive education and expert evaluations to several public and private sector organizations, including IBM, LVMH, Google and Novartis. A British and Canadian citizen, he has lived and worked in Britain, Canada, Japan, Norway and Costa Rica.

Dr. Wade has published multiple works on a variety of topics, including digitization, innovation, information systems strategy, international business and subject matter expert performance. He has more than 50 articles and presentations to his credit in leading academic journals and conferences, such as Strategic Management Journal and MIS Quarterly. One of his articles was among the top-20-cited articles in business, management and accounting worldwide for five years, according to Scopus.

Author of eight books, Dr. Wade also wrote more than 30 case studies based on his experience working with organizations. His latest book is Digital Vortex: How Todays Market Leaders Can Beat Disruptive Competitors At Their Own Game. He is a regular contributor to print media on matters related to the challenges of digitization and managing within a turbulent environment. Bilanz magazine named Dr. Wade one of the top 10 digital thought leaders in Switzerland in October 2016. He also frequently appears in the mainstream media as a commentator.

Dr. Wade previously was the Academic Director of the Kellogg-Schulich Executive M.B.A. Program and Associate Professor at the Schulich School of Business, York University, Canada. He was nominated for teaching awards in the M.B.A., International M.B.A. and Executive M.B.A. programs. He obtained his Honors B.A., M.B.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario, Canada.

ABOUT BROOKS INTERNATIONAL:

Headquartered in West Palm Beach, Fla., with locations in Canada, the United Kingdom and Europe, the award-winning, global professional services firm Brooks International delivers significantly enhanced profits and predictable business performance to Fortune 500 clients worldwide. Brooks International creates and delivers Execution Excellence, achieving clients strategic imperatives by linking financial and operational models, dramatically enhancing execution methods, competencies and capabilities. Brooks International delivers substantial and sustainable organizational, operational and financial improvements, specializing in execution performance capabilities across all industries and sectors.

For more details, visit http://www.brooksint.com, call 561.214.8800 or connect on Facebook or LinkedIn.

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Seven attorneys from Morris County law firm Einhorn Harris have been selected for The Best Lawyers in America 2018.

We are proud of our attorneys, not only for the honor of being recognized once again by The Best Lawyers in America, but for the hard work they do every day, going above and beyond for every client, says Patricia M. Barbarito, Managing Partner at Einhorn Harris.

Barbarito was selected for the 13th consecutive year for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America, in the field of Family Law. She started her law career at Einhorn, Harris, Ascher, Barbarito & Frost more than 35 years ago. Her dedication and compassion to her clients and her devotion to the practice of law have made her one of the most sought-after family law attorneys in the state and continue to set her apart from others in her field. In 2004, Barbarito received the Saul A. Tischler Award from the New Jersey State Bar Association Family Law Section, and in 2016 she was named one of the top 50 Women in Business by NJBIZ.

Bonnie C. Frost was also selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America 2018 in the fields of Family Law and Family Law Mediation. This marks her third consecutive year of inclusion. Since joining the firm in 1985, Frost has practiced in the areas of family law including matters of divorce, custody, domestic violence and paternity issues. Certified by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers to arbitrate family law matters, she handles family law arbitrations, including appellate arbitrations. Frost is the 2012 Recipient of the Saul Tischler Award by the New Jersey State Bar Association Family Law Section, was a 2016 finalist for New Jersey Law Journal Attorney of the Year, and most recently was selected by the New Jersey State Bar Association as the 2016 Clapp Excellence in CLE Award Winner.

For the third consecutive year, Gary R. Botwinick was also selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America in the field of Trusts and Estates and, for the first time, in Closely Held Companies and Family Business Law. Botwinick focuses his practice on taxation, trust and estate planning, estate administration, estate litigation, guardianships, special needs law and business law. He is chair of the firms Taxation/Trusts & Estates Department and a member of the firms Closely Held Business group, and is a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel. Botwinick serves as a Trustee of the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater MetroWest New Jersey, is a member of the Board of the Grotta Fund for Senior Care, and was appointed by Governor Chris Christie as a member of the New Jersey Israel Commission. Botwinick was recently named to the 2017 National Law Journals Divorce, Trusts & Estates Trailblazers List.

Mark Wechsler was selected for the third consecutive year for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America in the field of Family Law. Wechsler joined Einhorn Harris in 1997 and is a partner in the Matrimonial Department. He has served as lead counsel in trials involving child custody disputes; high-net-worth equitable distribution cases, including valuation disputes involving complex businesses and professional practices; extreme income alimony and child support cases; and domestic violence matters. He has appeared in the family law courts of all 21 New Jersey counties. Wechsler has been certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a matrimonial trial lawyer, and has completed the prestigious Arbitration Training Institute course offered by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. He is a past President of both the Morris County Bar Foundation and Morris County Bar Association and the 2016 recipient of the Associations Family Practice Award.

For the third consecutive year, Jason R. Rittie has been selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America in the fields of Closely Held Companies and Family Business Law; Land Use and Zoning Law; and Real Estate Law. Additionally, Rittie was selected to the Best Lawyers 2018 Lawyer of the Year in the Metro Newark area, listing in Closely Held Companies and Family Business Law. Rittie joined the firm in 2002 and became a Partner in 2013. Rittie focuses his practice on complex real estate transactions, particularly in acquisitions and leasing and sale of commercial and residential properties, and represents borrowers, private lenders and banks in commercial and residential finance and mortgage transactions. He also represents property owners and developers in all aspects of land use and zoning. Rittie is Chair of the firms Real Estate Department and a member of its Closely Held Business group. He is an officer of the Knights of Columbus Don Bosco Council #7784, and is a Sir Knight (Fourth Degree) member of the PSD Dominic A. Calabrese Assembly #2716.

Stephen P. Haller and Jennie L. Osborne were both selected for the first year of inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America 2018 in the field of Family Law. Stephen Haller joined Einhorn Harris as a partner in 2004. He is known for being ethical yet relentless in his pursuit of justice for his clients, making him one of the states foremost family law experts. He is never afraid of doing what is right for his clients, and is a formidable courtroom opponent. The hallmark case in Hallers career was his representation of former New Jersey Governor James McGreevey. Mr. McGreeveys original temporary custody hearing granted his daughter less than equal time with him and he believed that equal time would be in her best interests. There were also substantial issues involving parenting time, celebrity goodwill valuation and employment valuation. Haller was also New Jersey counsel to Christopher Rock in his divorce.

Jennie Osborne joined Einhorn Harris in 2004 and was elevated to Counsel in 2012. Her practice is devoted solely to matrimonial and family law, where she vigorously advocates for clients in all matters pertaining to family disputes including divorce, alimony, child support, child custody and domestic violence, among other areas. Given the emotionally wrenching aspects of many family law cases, especially when children are involved, Osborne works tirelessly to create a solid outcome that wont be threatened by multiple challenges and changes in the future. Osborne acted as associate trial counsel to McGreevey in his divorce and custody litigation.

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ABOUT EINHORN HARRIS

Established in 1961, Einhorn Harris, based in Denville, New Jersey, is a comprehensive, full-service law firm devoted to serving a broad range of legal needs. In its more than 50 years in business, Einhorn Harris and its attorneys have earned a reputation for dedication to the community. The firm focuses in many areas of practice including family law, trusts & estates law, tax law, accidents/personal injury, criminal law, real estate law, business law, employment and commercial litigation. http://www.einhornharris.com.

ABOUT BEST LAWYERS

Best Lawyers is the oldest and most respected peer-review publication in the legal profession. A listing in Best Lawyers is widely regarded by both clients and legal professionals as a significant honor, conferred on a lawyer by his or her peers. For more than three decades, Best Lawyers lists have earned the respect of the profession, the media and the public as the most reliable, unbiased source of legal referrals anywhere. Since it was first published in 1983, Best Lawyers has become universally regarded as the definitive guide to legal excellence. Best Lawyers lists are compiled based on an exhaustive peer-review evaluation. More than 83,000 leading attorneys globally are eligible to vote, and to date almost 10 million votes have been registered on the legal abilities of other lawyers based on their specific practice areas around the world. For the 2018 Edition of The Best Lawyers in America, 7.4 million votes were analyzed, which resulted in more than 58,000 leading lawyers being included in the new edition. Lawyers are not required or allowed to pay a fee to be listed; therefore, inclusion in Best Lawyers is considered a singular honor. Corporate Counsel magazine has called Best Lawyers "the most respected referral list of attorneys in practice.
Globalgigs' LTE disaster recovery solution keeps our customers in business if their land based network goes down...

Globalgig announced today that it had received orders for its 4G LTE wireless backup service solution from two major industrial companies. One company, part of a global Fortune 1000 conglomerate, is a leading manufacturer of refrigeration equipment. The other company is a division of a worldwide leader in fluid handling and lubricants. The solution calls for high speed Cradlepoint routers with advanced failover capability to LTE to be assimilated in to the fabric of the manufacturing companys enterprise networks. By adopting the Globalgig solution, the companies are insuring continued connectivity even when their primary fixed line network goes down.

Ernest Cunningham, CEO of Globalgig remarked, We are very pleased that these two diverse Fortune 1000 manufacturing companies have chosen the Globalgig solution for their wireless network failover. One thing they have in common is that if their land based network fails or goes down, they need to stay in business. Globalgig delivers that solution through our wireless primary and failover solution in 190 countries over both 3G and 4G LTE.

Tony Puopolo, VP of North American Channel Sales, Cradlepoint, said, We are pleased to support Globalgig in their efforts to bring outstanding failover and primary wireless solutions to the market. Cradlepoint is the leader in cloud managed networking for industrial applications, and we're excited that enterprises all over the world will benefit from the combination of Globalgigs wireless network and Cradlepoints software-defined 4G LTE technology.

The solution is multi-carrier allowing even more diversity by failing over to not one but up to four LTE networks thereby providing a near foolproof approach to disaster recovery networking. More and more enterprises are adopting LTE in to the fabric of their networks and Globalgig is in position to help them do it quickly and efficiently.

About Globalgig:

Globalgig orchestrates hyperconnectivity for the enterprise business continuum using managed communications solutions. Globalgig provides wireless connectivity across a 190-plus country footprint and offers a full suite of communications services and products including Hosted VoIP, Mobile Device Management, Wi-Fi Hotspots, Remote Office and Backup, Technology Expense Management and IoT/M2M connectivity solutions. Globalgig is a registered brand of iGEM Communications Holdings LLC, which does business as Globalgig. Globalgig is headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, with offices across the U.S., and in London and Sydney.

About Cradlepoint:

Cradlepoint is the global leader in cloud-based network solutions for connecting people, places, and things over wired and wireless broadband. Cradlepoint NetCloud is a software and services platform that extends the companys 4G LTE-enabled multi-function routers and ruggedized M2M/IoT gateways with cloud-based management and software-defined network services. With Cradlepoint, customers can leverage the speed and economics of wired and wireless Internet broadband for branch, failover, mobile, and IoT networks while maintaining end-to-end visibility, security, and control. Over 15,000 enterprise and government organizations around the world  including 75 percent of the worlds top retailers, 50 percent of the Fortune 100, and 25 of the largest U.S. cities  rely on Cradlepoint to keep critical sites, workforces, vehicles, and devices always connected and protected. Major service providers use Cradlepoint network solutions as the foundation for innovative managed service offerings. Founded in 2006, Cradlepoint is a privately held company headquartered in Boise, Idaho, with development centers in Silicon Valley and Kelowna, Canada, and offices in the UK, Australia, and Japan. Learn more at cradlepoint.com or follow us on Twitter @cradlepoint.
The industries that are vulnerable to weather trends can now use weather history data to execute better sales performances Adding weather data to each location can enable the vendor to recommend even more optimal - and ultimately profitable - solutions to their buyers. - Jim Lewis, Founder and CEO of Enhanced Retail Solutions Past News Releases RSS Enhanced Retail Solutions Offers...

Enhanced Retail Solutions Releases...

Retail CIO Outlook Magazine Names...

Enhanced Retail Solutions (ERS), a leading provider of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) retail analytic and demand planning solutions to suppliers, licensors and their retail trading partners, today announced a new feature to their Retail Analytic Software: Twenty years of weather data across the US derived from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations National Weather Service (NWS).

Many products and industries are vulnerable to weather trends which can consequentially cause sales to surge or constrict unexpectedly. The software does this study in an easy and automated fashion and will be rolled out to all Retail Synthesis clients.

More specifically, ERS users can:



Study how temperature and weather conditions may have increased or decreased rates of sale.

Optimize product distribution and shipment timing to a retail chain.

Pinpoint opportunities to optimize sell through or inventory productivity.

Keep historic sales and weather conditions easily accessible.

For those clients that want historical and forward view of weather driven demand, ERS has a partnership with Planalytics, who offers a numerical representation of consumer need for a product or service caused by perceived changes in the weather at a given time or location. Planalytics sends their weather adjustment data to ERS at which point it is added to ERS database. Special fields enlisting a series of complex calculations to add the impact of weather to POS analysis and forecasting.

Manufacturers are being held accountable for understanding retail dynamics more than ever before said Jim Lewis, Founder and CEO of Enhanced Retail Solutions. "Adding weather data to each location can enable the vendor to recommend even more optimal - and ultimately profitable - solutions to their buyers."

About Enhanced Retail Solutions LLC:

Enhanced Retail Solutions is software and consulting firm specializing in Retail Analysis and Demand Planning for manufacturers, licensors and their retail partners. ERS' state of the art software tools and consulting deliver critical data quickly, easily and cost effectively, adding over one hundred million dollars to their clients' bottom line. ERS' broad customer base includes industry leaders in the electronics, consumer products, apparel, footwear, home textile, toy, home decor, home improvement, housewares, jewelry and food industries. Headquartered in New York City, Enhanced Retail Solutions has offices in the Dallas, TX and development in the US, Cork, Ireland and Delhi, India. For more information, visit http://www.EnhancedRetailSolutions.com.
Akos, an award-winning telemedicine provider, and Castle International, an innovator in healthcare that specializes in unique medical services and cost containment solutions, are announcing a strategic partnership to help deliver a seamless and more affordable healthcare experience throughout their global network with the launch of CONNECT powered by Akos. CONNECT members are now capable of taking advantage of the integration between the two businesses. This one-of-a kind partnership allows for the highest level of telehealth solutions and technology anywhere across the globe.

The product integration is an extension of Castle International's CONNECT Network, which offers business and organization members unparalleled access to specialized medical services, including clinical logistics, staffing, aeromedical support through Castle MedFlight, telemedicine, aviation charter and cost containment solutions.

Akos and Castle International share similar goals and care deeply about helping businesses and patients. Together, we will optimize their healthcare network by streamlining the continuity of care through a vast network of medical resources and innovative telehealth solutions." said Dr. Kishlay Anand, co-founder of Akos. "As a leader in digital health care, Akos is an ideal partner that brings an esteemed team of board-certified physicians to Castles already robust health care offering to truly revolutionize the personal medical care experience."

As part of the partnership, CONNECT members will now be able to receive personal medical care from a board-certified physician, through convenient voice or live video consultations via a smartphone or tablet 24/7, 365 days a year, in areas where CONNECT powered by Akos is available.

"Akos' revolutionary platform brings unprecedented technology and connectivity to the CONNECT Network by providing innovative solutions in telemedicine accessibility worldwide," said Jayson Papa, CEO at Castle International. "Through this partnership, our clients, physicians and partner facilities will be integrated more seamlessly, allowing us to bridge the gaps that exist in modern medicine and scale our offerings more than ever before."

CONNECT powered by Akos will officially become available to Castle International CONNECT members in August 2017, increasing their networks nationwide and global capabilities.

For more information about CONNECT powered by Akos, visit http://www.connectsos.com.

ABOUT AKOSMD:

Developed by a team of leading physicians, Akos opened its first virtual healthcare practice in 2016, in Phoenix, Arizona. Named "Startup of the Year" in 2017, Akos powers a new type of virtual practice, offering the first complete HIPAA-compliant healthcare solution for patients, physicians, employers and medical centers across the United States. By combining smart technology, seamless design, a patient-centric approach, grassroots strategy and the collective power of a preferred provider network, Akos is reinventing the traditional healthcare model one virtual call at a time. Available 24/7, 365 days a year, Akos give patients unparalleled access to board-certified physicians in their area via a smartphone or tablet - no insurance or membership necessary. For more information or to download our app, visit http://www.AkosMD.com. For the latest news, health tips and more, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.

ABOUT CASTLE INTERNATIONAL:

CONNECT is a healthcare network that offers businesses and private clients access to specialized medical services including clinical logistics, staffing, aeromedical support, telemedicine, aviation charter and cost containment solutions. We provide our members with access to a true global healthcare network by streamlining the continuity of care through a vast network of medical resources and innovative telemedicine technology, ensuring that those in the CONNECT network get trusted critical care, anywhere. For more information or to download our app, visit http://www.ConnectSOS.com. For the latest news, health tips and more, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.
Delaware County full-service law firm Raffaele Puppio is pleased to announce that partner Michael A. Raffaele has been selected by his peers for inclusion in the 2018 edition of The Best Lawyers in America, one of the legal professions oldest and most respected peer-review publications. Raffaele has been named among the Best Lawyers in America every year for 10 years and has been named among Pennsylvania Super Lawyers.

Raffaele is managing partner of Raffaele Puppio, one of the largest full-service law firms in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. He focuses his practice on family law, including divorce, equitable distribution, child custody and child support, alimony and spousal support, and more. A lifelong resident of Delaware County, Raffaele graduated from St. Josephs Preparatory School before going on to earn degrees from Lehigh University and the Temple University School of Law.

Since it was first published in 1983, The Best Lawyers in America has become widely regarded as a respected reference guide to legal excellence. Best Lawyers lists are compiled based on detailed peer-review evaluations, and lawyers are neither required nor allowed to pay a fee to be listed. Votes were solicited from nearly 83,000 attorneys worldwide; 7.4 million votes were analyzed for the 2018 edition. The standalone Best Lawyers magazine will be distributed in more than 30 leading publications around the country, including The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. A digital edition also will be available.

About Raffaele Puppio  Raffaele Puppio is one of the largest and most established full-service law firms in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Attorneys within the firm are known for their legal prowess among the bench and bar in Delaware County, having decades of experience representing school districts, municipalities, businesses and individual clients, helping to solve legal problems while avoiding future legal issues. The attorneys provide sound legal counsel in the areas of education law, government and municipal services, family law, general litigation, personal injury, commercial real estate and business transactions, elder law, estate administration and planning, and criminal law.

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IT Authorities, a world-class IT Managed Service Provider (MSP) in Tampa, is pleased to announce Jeff Lynn will join the senior leadership team as Chief Operating Officer. Lynn is a seasoned executive bringing nearly 40 years of experience in the technology industry to ITA and its growing customer base.

Lynn most recently served as President of Tribridge, a technology services firm, where he led the strategic direction, service delivery and growth of Tribridge's global operations.

Before joining Tribridge, Jeff had been global COO of Tectura, then the largest Microsoft Dynamics ERP and CRM partner. Prior to Tectura Jeff was Vice President of Dell Professional Services, VP & General Manager of Compaq Professional Services, and VP of Consulting & Services for IBM.

I'm pleased to join IT Authorities at such an exciting time, Lynn said. ITA is growing the size of its customer base, not just in raw numbers, but in the size, complexity and critically of the workloads under our stewardship. The challenges that come with such a large-scale transformation are formidable. But big challenges are what make IT Authorities an exciting place to be.

Lynn begins his tenure as COO on Tuesday, August 15, reporting to Phil LaForge, recently appointed Chief Executive Officer.

Companies cannot deliver on the promise of world class service without world class leaders at the helm, said CEO Philip LaForge. Our customers and coworkers will immediately benefit from Jeffs significant capabilities and leadership style backed up by a history of success at some of the tech industries most revered companies.

Besides his professional work, Jeff gives back by serving as Chair of The CEO Trust in Manhattan. He is Board Member of the Society of International Business Fellows, a Board Member of the MIT Sloan School Club of New York and is on the Board of Visitors of the McDonald Observatory, a research unit of The University of Texas at Austin.

Lynn holds a MS in Management Information Systems from the Sloan School of Management, M.I.T. and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

About IT Authorities: IT Authorities, a world-class IT Managed Service Provider (MSP) based in Tampa, Florida, was founded in 2006. Its 135+-person team is available 24/7 to offer IT services under the managed services umbrella including professional services, cloud services, consulting, procurement, disaster recovery solutions and business continuity solutions to its clients. IT Authorities is passionate about helping businesses increase profit, improve productivity and function with peace-of-mind, being assured that its IT systems are in the most reliable and secure state and their people are being taken care of in a world class manner. Visit http://www.itauthorities.com or call toll free at 813-246-5100 to learn more.
We needed a platform that would unify the posting and promotion of public events, student life activities and career services calendars for easy viewing, said Jane Bird, Creative Manager and Webmaster, Spartanburg Community College.

SchoolDude by Dude Solutions, the leading cloud-based provider of operations management solutions, today announced that Spartanburg (S.C.) Community College is using Event Publisher, an event management platform, to easily schedule, promote and manage campus events.

Offering schools a centralized, shared calendar, Event Publisher is helping the Spartanburg, S.C. college organize student activities, academic calendars, holidays, financial aid deadlines and more. In the past, multiple departments manually updated academic and student calendars, which often created communications disconnects.

We needed a platform that would unify the posting and promotion of public events, student life activities and career services calendars for easy viewing, said Jane Bird, Creative Manager and Webmaster, Spartanburg Community College. By using Event Publisher, we are reducing our previous workload by two weeks, since we no longer have to manually input event details across multiple calendars.

Event Publisher also alleviates time for those staff members responsible for managing pages on the Spartanburg Community College website, instantly giving them important information online or via Excel format.

With Event Publisher, the institutions administrators can create and publish upcoming events on a branded and/or private calendar and share those events with built-in event promotion and social sharing.

Event Publisher is customizable with our colleges branding, so the change was seamless, added Bird. Another huge benefit has been the ease of event posting in one central location across the website and on social media channels, which was very cumbersome before.

Private calendars can be developed with Event Publisher giving only assigned administrators access to publishing tools. Alternatively, private events can be created on a public-facing calendar, only visible when someone is logged in and has permission to view private events.

Additionally, advanced analytics features enable school administrators and event organizers to use data to help track registrations, collections and payments in real time.

Spartanburg Community College is a public, suburban, two-year comprehensive, open-admission institution of higher education serving the citizens of Spartanburg, Cherokee, and Union counties in Upstate South Carolina.

SchoolDude is co-hosting a free Event Management webinar, Recovering Costs from After-Hour Events, with FacilitiesNet on Tuesday, August 22, 2017 at 11 a.m. ET/10 a.m. CT. Please register here.

ABOUT DUDE SOLUTIONS

Dude Solutions, parent company of SchoolDude, FacilityDude and TheWorxHub, is a leading software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider of operations management solutions to education, government, healthcare, manufacturing and membership-based organizations. The company combines innovative technology with operational insight to transform the places people learn, live, heal, work, and play. Today, more than 10,000 organizations are using Dude Solutions award-winning software for facilities, energy, safety, IT and a growing suite of related enterprise applications to increase efficiencies, improve service and save money. For more information, please visit http://www.dudesolutions.com.

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American Veterinary Group With the increasing complexity of running a veterinary practice, we are pleased to partner with Animal Medical Clinic at St. Johns and support Dr. Stewarts passion to provide quality care to the pets in her community," commented AVG CEO Craig Niebur.

American Veterinary Group, a Florida-based network of animal hospitals, is pleased to announce that Animal Medical Clinic at St. Johns has joined the AVG family.

We are delighted to welcome Dr. Dawn Stewart, DVM, and her entire team to the AVG family, commented Craig Niebur, Chief Executive Officer of American Veterinary Group. With the increasing complexity of running a veterinary practice, we are pleased to be able to partner with a hospital like Animal Medical Clinic at St. Johns to provide management resources and support Dr. Stewarts passion to provide quality care to the pets in her community.

At the American Veterinary Group, we understand the issues facing veterinary business owners because our leadership team has been in this industry for over 100 collective years. Founded in 2015, our goal is to be a flexible partner for veterinary business owners at all stages, from younger veterinarians wanting to invest in a practice, to more experienced veterinarians preparing for retirement. Based in Florida, with local team members, we provide ongoing, in-person support to ease the burden of the day-to-day operations of veterinary practices, including in-office staff training, educational and marketing tools, and back office support. We deliver high touch practice management solutions to help veterinarians focus on the needs of their patients, instead of the needs of their business. We are animal lovers above all else, and operate with the motto pet first, client first.

When I opened my veterinary practice 15 years ago, my mission was to provide the highest standard of care for all the pets and animals in our community, said Dr. Stewart. While its critical to stay current with all the latest veterinary technology and innovations, managing the business of being a vet has been taking time away from my passion  caring for our patients and their families. Im thrilled to partner with AVG so I can devote all of my time to providing affordable, passionate, and friendly veterinary care for our community.

We respect the unique personality and culture of each veterinary hospital and understand how important it is to preserve the special relationships that clients have with their vets, continued Craig Niebur. Our veterinary practice partners can attest to our hands-off approach on medical decision-making. AVGs collaborative approach to behind-the scenes management support enables animal hospitals to serve their communities even better.

The partnership with Dr. Dawn Stewart, DVM and Animal Medical Clinic at St. Johns is the sixth animal hospital to join the AVG network and the first one under the leadership of Craig Niebur. Craig is an industry veteran who joined the AVG team in late 2016 to expand the companys veterinary practice offering and network outside of South Florida. Craig has been building out AVGs infrastructure and management team, which now includes industry specialists in all key executive roles.

About American Veterinary Group

Founded in 2015, American Veterinary Group owns and manages a network of veterinary hospitals that treat and protect over 50,000 pets annually. AVG delivers high touch practice management solutions to help veterinarians at all stages of the practice lifecycle, focus on the needs of their patients, instead of the needs of their business. American Veterinary Group is a portfolio company of Latticework Capital and Trive Capital. More information is available at http://www.americanveterinarygroup.com.

About Latticework Capital

Founded in 2014, Latticework Capital is a Dallas, Texas-based private equity group focused on making control equity investments in lower-middle market healthcare companies across the United States. Latticework leverages its over 40 combined years of healthcare experience, as well as its network of industry executives, to help companies and management teams grow and realize their full long-term value. More information is available at http://www.latticeworkcapital.com.

About Trive Capital

Trive Capital is a Dallas, Texas-based private equity firm investing in equity and debt securities with over $1 billion in assets under management. Trive focuses on investing in what it sees as strategically viable middle-market companies with the potential for transformational upside through operational improvement. Trive seeks to maximize total returns to its investors through a hands-on, collaborative partnership with management teams and equity partners. For more information, visit http://www.trivecapital.com.
As per government directives, all the organisers had to implement stringent security measures like helmets, harnesses and body belts.

Mumbai is one of the biggest centres for 'Dahi Handi' celebrations on Janmashtami that marks Lord Krishna's birth.

By Vidya : On August 7, the Bombay High Court accepted Maharashtra government's statement that it would not allow children below the age of 14 years to participate in the 'Dahi Handi' festival.

Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the state government, told the court that as per the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, children below 14 years of age will not be allowed to participate in the festival since the government had in August last year declared 'Dahi Handi' as an adventure sport.

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As per government directives, all the organisers had to implement stringent security measures like helmets, harnesses and body belts, mattresses on the ground to soften the fall besides volunteers ready to rush them to waiting ambulances in case a pyramid collapsed.

However, in Dadar, Prabhadevi and across the suburbs of Mumbai, govindas could be seen at daring heights without safety gear.

Dnyan Bhingardive, one of the organisers from NCP at prabhadevi claimed that they had distributed over 800 headgears among participants. "We have our limitations, we can't give helmets to all govindas across mumbai. We have given to some. We had placed mats as well but they got torn due to the heavy usage since the morning. We will get some more mats now," claimed Bhingardive.

Most of the organisers claimed that they had been asking children under 14 to not participate in the festivities over loudspeakers but kids as old as 10 and 11 could still be seen wearing sponge guards on their heads at several places.

A group of women dahi handi revellers from Vikhroli complained that older kids on top of the pyramids created a lot of pressure for those holding the fort at lower levels of the dahi handi pyramid.

Shervin, a six-year-old from Prabhadevi formed a five-layered human pyramid without any safety harness. Shervin's father said that he hadn't been stopped by organisers from violating orders.

The one thing that could be seen across all the dahi handi festivities was the stationing of ambulances and provisions for first aid.

Also Read:Dahi Handi: Can 5-year-old climb human pyramid in adventurous sport, asks Bombay High Court

Maharashtra government may bring in ordinance to end restrictions on dahi handi celebrations

Also Watch:

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BreakThrough Physical Therapy (BTPT) is proud to announce that Angela Hunter, PT, MPH, has joined the staff at their Rogers Road clinic in Wake Forest and will focus primarily on Pelvic Health.

A native North Carolina resident, Angela graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with her Bachelor of Science in Physical Therapy and her Masters in Public Health. Angela has been a physical therapist for 43 years and has practiced in multiple health care settings throughout North Carolina, including Charlotte, Washington, Rocky Mount, Tarboro.

Angela has extensive education in Pelvic Health and Rehabilitation for both women and men. Her medical and wellness specialties include: bowel and bladder dysfunction, pelvic pain and sexual dysfunction, and pain and weakness during pregnancy and post-partum. She is a member of the American Physical Therapy Associations Section on Womens Health, is a trained practitioner of Trigger Point Dry Needling (TDN), and is a member of the North Carolina Board of PT Examiners. She also represents North Carolina as a delegate to the Federation of State Boards of Physical Therapy.

We are so excited to welcome Angela to the BreakThrough team, said Dr. Jordan Bunn, Wake Forest clinic manager. Shell be a wonderful addition to our staff and I look forward to watching patients benefit from her expertise.

To book an appointment with Angela or another expert physio at BreakThrough Physical Therapys Wake Forest clinic, please call 252.247.2738. For more information about BreakThrough Physical Therapy, please visit BreakThrough-PT.com.

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About BreakThrough Physical Therapy (BTPT):

BreakThrough Physical Therapy is a locally owned private physical therapy practice that prides itself on being the Best First Choice in compassionate musculoskeletal care for patients in Apex, Cary, Cameron, Greensboro, Fayetteville, Kernersville, Morehead City, Oxford, Raleigh, Wake Forest, and Winston Salem, North Carolina. For 10 years, BTPTs physios have provided patients with a wide range of clinical expertise in manual physical therapy, womens health, general orthopaedic conditions and rehabilitation, pediatric physical therapy, trigger point dry needling, and more. For more information, visit BreakThrough-PT.com, find us at Facebook.com/BreakThroughPT, or on Twitter or Instagram at @PTBreakThrough.
No one gains massive success without being obsessed with it.

New York Times Bestselling author and self-made multimillionaire Grant Cardone has announced the most anticipated business growth conference of 2018 to be held at the world-famous Mandalay Bay Event Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. The 2017 event was held in Miami with over 2,200 business people in attendance and over 4,000 watching live online during the event weekend. The 2018 event will have over 8,000 business people in attendance and over 10,000 people watching live online! The event already has over 2,500 people who have already invested in their tickets.

Attendees will not only come away recharged and inspired by this great event, theyll get the mindset necessary to take massive action towards creating the success they desire in all areas of their lives. The conference is being held from February 22nd to 24th, for all ticket holders and an exclusive fourth day on Sunday, February 25th for VIP ticket holders.

Cardone urges people to think big and join him for what is going to be the most memorable, game-changing experience of their life. Top entrepreneurs will be keynoting this world-class venue, with speaker announcements coming soon.

Cardone is a highly respected, internationally recognized business and sales expert, whose passion is to teach others how to sell themselves, their products and services, regardless of economic climate. Additionally, his company consults Fortune 500 companies on how to increase sales revenue by identifying overlooked opportunities. Hell be speaking at the conference himself and is tailoring the experience to be the biggest, most talked about event of the year.

"You want to have proximity to power. Do you get more powerful with 3 days together with some of the greatest minds on the planet? Its time to increase your revenue and connect to power. This is where to invest in yourself, Cardone says.

"The first 10X Growth Conference held in Miami this past March was a huge success, so we decided to make 2018 even bigger! This will be an incredible opportunity for those who are ready to make those resolutions and goals a reality to get face to face, hands-on help by the master," says Sheri Hamilton, COO Cardone Training Technologies.

There are multiple levels of ticket packages being offered for the event, ranging in price from $299 up to $15,000. This event will sell out months in advance. Find out more here.
New EBY Facility

Our business has grown significantly in the past 5 years, and this acquisition allows us to expand our product lines while building more efficiently, said Travis Eby, President of M.H. Eby. It provides the opportunity to bring all of our PA manufacturing operations under one roof, and gives us additional room to grow.

Eby currently operates two production facilities in Lancaster County, PA: the companys headquarters in Blue Ball and a satellite plant one mile away in the Earland Industrial Park. The Earland facility was established in 2014 and enabled Eby to expand its fabrication, truck body assembly, and equipment trailer assembly operations. In addition to being Ebys headquarters since 1984, the Blue Ball facility houses aluminum trailer manufacturing, retail sales, and parts and service.

Shortly after we moved into the Earland facility, we decided that our growth plans were pointing in the direction of a much larger, single facility, Travis Eby continued. The transition to the new plant allows Eby, which operates 7 manufacturing and service facilities in 5 states, to accomplish a number of goals in a single move.

The Earland facility will be phased out over the next year, as equipment is moved to the Ephrata plant. The current headquarters will be retained and serve as an expanded parts and service office, along with housing a sales force concentrating on serving customers in southeastern Pennsylvania and surrounding areas. All PA manufacturing for Eby will be consolidated in the Ephrata facility.

The new facility is located at 502 Alexander Drive in Ephrata. The layout of the plant will work well for our operations, said Gary Musselman, head of manufacturing in PA for Eby. We have ample room for warehousing material, and our fabrication assets will feed the manufacturing lines smoothly and efficiently. We also have plenty of space surrounding the plant for chassis storage and parking, which has often been a challenge as weve grown.

Staging of materials and rigging for fabrication and assembly equipment at the Ephrata facility will begin immediately. For additional information, please contact M.H. Eby at 717-354-4971 or look for updates at http://www.mheby.com.

About M.H. EBY

M.H. Eby is a designs, builds, sells, and services all-aluminum trailers and truck bodies to customers in the agricultural, commercial, and industrial markets. Founded in 1938, Eby is a family owned company operating 4 manufacturing plants and 6 service centers in PA, OH, IN, IA, and SD. The companys products include equipment trailers, livestock trailers, utility trailers, a diverse line of truck bodies, and a wide range of custom products.
This will be Endeavor's first greenfield school, and the team is thrilled with the opportunity to serve this growing, family-centric community.

Endeavor Schools is proud to announce the completion of a brand new Silverline Montessori School in Northwest Houston. Located in the community of Cypress at Towne Lake, the new Silverline Montessori will serve students from infancy through elementary school beginning in August 2017.

Although the Cypress at Towne Lake location is the third Silverline Montessori campus to open in the Greater Houston Area, it will be Endeavor Schools first greenfield project, as it was built from the ground up.

"We are thrilled to be expanding Silverline Montessori into the Towne Lake location, said Ricardo Campo, President of Endeavor Schools. This will be Endeavor's first greenfield school, and the team is thrilled with the opportunity to serve this growing, family-centric community. We look forward to furthering Silverline's great track record, reputation and Montessori program."

For over 16 years, Silverline Montessori has made a positive impact in the Houston community through its campuses in Shadow Creek and Silverlake. With its specifically designed academic programs, Silverline Montessori focuses on nurturing the potential of the whole child and cultivating the growth of a diverse, international community.

The curriculum is built around the Montessori philosophy of allowing children to gain independence through exploration and creative thinking. Silverlines strong commitment to promoting academic excellence has created students who consistently perform one year ahead in assessments.

In addition to a strong academic program, Silverline offers excellent and fun-filled enrichment programs that help develop the whole child. These programs include Spanish, French, physical education, art, music, yoga, and computer classes.

At Endeavor Schools, we have established a standard of excellence when it comes to our learning environment, academic programs, motivated educators, and the safety and security of our schools, said Erik Greenberg, Vice President of Operations. We are very excited to introduce Silverline Montessori to the Towne Lake area in Cypress, and believe our unique school is a perfect fit in this thriving community.

For more information about Silverline Montessori School in Cypress at Towne Lake call 281-373-1200 or visit http://www.silverlinemontessori.com.

About Endeavor Schools

Endeavor Schools is a leading education management company with a family of unique, well-established private schools that serve as pillars to their respective communities in a growing number of markets across the US. Each school subscribes to proven, research-based curricula that is delivered by seasoned educators, and is encouraged to embrace their own uniqueness and tradition. Endeavor Schools supports each schools academic excellence by providing the necessary tools and resources required.

Founded in 2012, Endeavor Schools is headquartered in Miami, Florida. For more information, visit http://www.endeavorschools.com and follow the company on LinkedIn.
Michelle M. Quinn, Esq. As one of the Principals of Hourigan, Kluger & Quinn, I am honored to be named Lawyer of the Year."

Hourigan, Kluger & Quinn PC is pleased to announce that Michelle M. Quinn, Esq. has been named Lawyer of the Year, NEPA Region - Product Liability Litigation, of the 2018 Edition of The Best Lawyers in America, the oldest and most respected peer-review publication in the legal profession. Attorney Quinn has also been named in the following categories: Medical Malpractice Law  Plaintiffs; Personal Injury Litigation  Plaintiffs; Product Liability Litigation  Plaintiffs.

Additionally, six other attorneys at HKQ Law have also been named to the 2018 Best Lawyers List. The following HKQ Lawyers have been named: Richard M. Goldberg: Employment Law  Management; Terrence J. Herron: Corporate Law; Donald C. Ligorio: Personal Injury Litigation  Plaintiffs; Workers Compensation Law  Claimants; Brian Q. McDonnell: Workers Compensation Law  Claimants; Joseph A. Quinn, Jr.: Medical Malpractice Law  Plaintiffs; Personal Injury Litigation  Plaintiffs; Product Liability Litigation  Plaintiffs; Kevin C. Quinn: Medical Malpractice Law  Plaintiffs; Personal Injury Litigation  Plaintiffs.

A Principal at HKQ Law, and a member of its Executive Committee, Attorney Michelle M. Quinn has an extensive history of handling complex cases. She is a member of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum, whose membership is restricted to lawyers who have served as lead counsel in obtaining a seven-figure settlement or verdict.

Attorney Quinn is the past president of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association and served on the Board of Governors of the Pennsylvania Association of Justice for many years. She is past chairwoman of the New Lawyers Section and the Long-Range Planning Committee of PAJ. She also previously served as co-chairwoman of the Pennsylvania Bar Association's Committee on Multi-Jurisdictional Practice.

Attorney Quinn received the Northeastern Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association's first annual Lawrence W. Roth Award "in recognition of her outstanding commitment to NEPTLA, her compassion for clients and exemplary character." She has been named a Pennsylvania Super Lawyer and has been recognized by the National Trial Lawyers as a Top 100 Trial Lawyer for 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. She has also been included in Woodward-White's edition of "The Best Lawyers in America," and has been named by the American Society of Legal Advocates as a Top 100 Litigation Lawyer in the state of Pennsylvania for 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. Attorney Quinn currently acts as spokeswoman for HKQ Kids, a child advocacy organization created by Hourigan, Kluger & Quinn to promote education and awareness about safety issues affecting children.

As one of the Principals of Hourigan, Kluger & Quinn, I am honored to be named Lawyer of the Year. Outstanding dedication, compassion, education and research, and preparation by support staff, as well as the entire HKQ Law team has helped me obtain this honor. We all work toward one goal - results for our clients, says Attorney Michelle M. Quinn.

Since 1987, attorneys at Hourigan, Kluger & Quinn have been named to the Best Lawyers in America list. Lawyers on the Best Lawyers in America list are divided by geographic region and practice areas. They are reviewed by their peers on the basis of professional expertise, and undergo an authentication process to make sure they are in current practice and in good standing. For more than a third of a century, Best Lawyers has been the gold standard of excellence in the legal profession, says CEO Steven Naifeh.We are extremely proud to acknowledge the accomplishments of these exceptional legal professionals, says President Phil Greer.

Best Lawyers has published their list for over three decades, earning the respect of the profession, the media, and the public as the most reliable, unbiased source of legal referrals. Its first international list was published in 2006 and since then has grown to provide lists in over 65 countries.

About Hourigan, Kluger & Quinn, PC

Hourigan, Kluger & Quinn is considered one of the top civil litigation and commercial law firms in Northeastern Pennsylvania. The firms Personal Injury Team, led by Attorney Joe Quinn, has won some of the largest verdicts and settlements in the region's history, totaling over a half billion dollars on behalf of injured clients. HKQ Law was recently recognized for one of the top 20 Verdicts in Pennsylvania, 2015.

The Personal Injury Team focuses on a wide array of personal injury claims and civil litigation, including medical malpractice, auto and truck accidents, aviation accidents, unsafe vehicles, dangerous or defective products, workplace injuries (worker's compensation), construction site accidents, claim denials by insurance companies, dangerous drugs, defective children's products, nursing home abuse and neglect, and falls due to unsafe conditions (slip and fall).

Attorney Joseph A Quinn is one of only 100 attorneys in the United States (and one of only three in Pennsylvania)

honored with membership in the Inner Circle of Trial Advocates, and one of only 500 attorneys worldwide chosen to be a Fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers. He has been a Pennsylvania Super Lawyer every year since the program began and has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America every year since the publication was established in 1987. Best Lawyers also named him top personal injury attorney for Northeastern Pennsylvania and the Lehigh Valley. In addition, Best Lawyers, in conjunction with U.S. News & World Report, has designated HKQ a Tier 1 Best Law Firm for personal injury and medical malpractice litigation in Northeastern Pennsylvania and the Lehigh Valley.

Since the inception of the firm, the Commercial / Corporate Team led by Attorney Allan Kluger has provided comprehensive, integrated legal services to many of Northeastern and Eastern Pennsylvania's largest corporations, businesses, banks, non-profits and institutions, handling matters involving labor and employment, wills, trusts and estate planning, estate administration, elder law, commercial transactions, residential and commercial real estate, zoning, land use and development, telecommunications, mediations and arbitrations, commercial litigation, title insurance, business planning and business succession, corporate/business structuring, employment discrimination law for employers, banking, creditors rights, finance, lender liability defense, covenants not to compete, construction law, mergers and acquisitions and other business matters.
Marfeel, an advertising technology provider that revolutionizes the way publishers create, optimize, and monetize mobile websites, has named Viktor Nordstrom as its new vice president of sales. An entrepreneur and experienced sales and business development executive, Nordstrom brings a global perspective to the company, which has international partnerships with thousands of ad networks and exchanges.

Viktor is a proven leader with a broad scope of sales and business expansion expertise, Xavi Beumala, co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Marfeel says. As a global enterprise, were particularly pleased to tap his multi-cultural experience across Europe, Asia, the U.S., and Latin America. He offers a valuable perspective on the needs of mobile publishers and readers around the world.

Nordstrom has served as business development manager for Fluendo, where he developed sales channels for multi-media products and web tactics for optimizing conversion rates. Prior to that he was senior channel manager for the U.S. and Canada at Openbravo, where he focused on building distribution partnership channels and developing revenue opportunities through inbound marketing. He is the founder of CL3VER, an editing and publishing tool for the creative software and CAD world, and a mentor at Tramit, a multi-channel platform that helps makes public administration more efficient, proactive, participatory, and personalized for every citizen.

Nordstrom holds an MBA in marketing from Stockholm University.

Im excited to join the Marfeel team and contribute to its increasing success as a powerhouse in mobile advertising technology, the new vice president says. Its a true innovator and an effective, fast-moving partner to mobile publishers, and I look forward to helping the company continue to evolve and grow as an industry leader.

About Marfeel

Marfeel is an ad tech platform that revolutionizes the way publishers create, optimize, and monetize mobile websites. Marfeels proprietary technology analyzes publishers unique audiencesuser habits, behavior and usage patternsand dynamically adjusts their mobile site layouts to maximize readership, engagement, page views, loading time, and ultimately ad revenue. Marfeels exclusive partnership with over 20,000 global ad networks and exchange ensure top-paying ads from premium advertisers. Now reaching more than 500 million mobile readers a month, Marfeels mobile website conversion and monetization solution has been recognized by Google and Facebook, leading to strategic alliances with the search engine in 2015, and with the social network in 2017. Selected Marfeel customers include: National Geographic (FR), Dennis Publishing (US/UK), Elle (MX), ABC (US), PopSugar (US), and The Washington Times (US). Marfeel is backed by strategic investors in the mobile space, including Nauta Capital, BDMI and Elaia Partners. To learn more about Marfeel, please visit http://www.marfeel.com.
With offices in Portland, Oregon and Orlando, Florida

Eleven Ball Janik LLP attorneys have been selected for inclusion in the 2018 Edition of The Best Lawyers in America list. Best Lawyers is one of the oldest and most respected peerreview publications in the legal profession. Ball Janik LLP congratulates the following attorneys in their respective practice areas:

Dwain M. Clifford (Litigation  Construction)

Stephen T. Janik (Land Use and Zoning Law; Litigation  Land Use and Zoning; Litigation  Real Estate; Real Estate Law)

Phillip E. Joseph (Community Association Law; Litigation  Construction)

Kevin S. Mapes (Commercial Litigation)

James T. McDermott (Litigation  Construction; Litigation  Insurance; Litigation  Securities)

Jack L. Orchard (Land Use and Zoning Law)

Angela M. Otto (Construction Law; Litigation  Construction)

James C. Prichard (Construction Law)

Adele J. Ridenour (Litigation  Construction)

Christopher M. Walters (Construction Law)

Robert W. Wilkinson (Litigation  Construction)

About Ball Janik LLP

Ball Janik LLP is a Pacific Northwest law firm headquartered in Portland, Oregon, with an office in Orlando, Florida. For over thirty years, Ball Janik LLP has been providing outstanding legal services in the areas of bankruptcy and creditor rights, commercial litigation, construction and design, construction litigation, employment, real estate and land use, insurance recovery for policyholders, and securities litigation.

Ball Janik LLP represents large and small businesses; state, municipal and local governments; associations; schools and universities; and individuals. Ball Janik LLP provides clients an aggressive, skilled, team approach to solve problems and achieve results. Ball Janik LLP has been recognized by Chambers USA, U.S. News & World Report and Best Lawyers, The Best Lawyers in America, and Corporate International. Ball Janik LLPs success and integrity have repeatedly made it one of Oregons Most Admired Professional Firms, according to the Portland Business Journals survey results of CEOs throughout the region.

About Best Lawyers

Since it was first published in 1983, the Best Lawyers in America list has become universally regarded as the definitive guide to legal excellence. Inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America list is based on an exhaustive peer-review survey. Over 52,000 leading attorneys cast more than 5.5 million votes on the legal abilities of other lawyers in their practice areas. Lawyers are not required or allowed to pay a fee to be listed; therefore inclusion in Best Lawyers is considered a singular honor. Corporate Counsel magazine has called Best Lawyers the most respected referral list of attorneys in practice.

Lawyers on the Best Lawyers in America list are divided by geographic region and practice areas. They are reviewed by their peers on the basis of professional expertise, and undergo an authentication process to make sure they are in current practice and in good standing.
Behind the Scenes: The Tales of Military Spouses Making a Difference "When these women and men see a need, they fill it. It was important to me to put these stories together so all Americans know just how very remarkable the people behind our service members are. They are inspiring, said Loken, a military wife and mom.

A new collaboration has brought together 30 military spouses of U.S. Armed Forces to share their experiences of military life in the post 9/11 era. It chronicles Americas all-volunteer force and how they and their families have made a powerful impact in their communities while being a military spouse and all that entails.

Behind the Scenes: The Tales of Military Spouses Making a Difference is a project coordinated by Cara Loken, the 2016 Armed Forces Insurance National Guard Spouse of the Year. The book highlights the men and women who have been contributing to their communities while they and their families meet the challenges facing the very unique circumstances of todays military community.

I kept hearing story after story of the life-changing things that spouses everywhere were doing in addition to meeting and conquering their own day-to-day challenges. When these women and men see a need, they fill it. It was important to me to put these stories together so all Americans know just how very remarkable the people behind our service members are, said Loken, a military wife and mom. Im sure the tales will inspire others to find their own way to have a lasting impact.

Each chapter is written from the perspective of a different military spouse author with a focus on their own personal journey. While the writers are scattered in locations throughout the U.S. and overseas, they all share the common thread of seeing the firsthand evolution of the homefront during continuous wartime operations. The book is also a charitable endeavor. 100% of the proceeds of the sale of the book will go toward charities picked by each author.

This collection of memoirs provides a window into the hearts and minds of our military spouses and is filled with stories of strength, courage and determination, said Lori Simmons, Chief Marketing Officer for Armed Forces Insurance, and sponsor of the Armed Forces Insurance Military Spouse of the Year  Award in addition to numerous military spouse businesses and programs. "Cara and the authors of the book are very important to us and assisting them is AFIs mission.

Behind the Scenes is now available for purchase online on Amazon.

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About Behind the Scenes: There are roughly 1.1 million military spouses of the US Armed Forces spread across communities around the globe. They are entrepreneurs and volunteers, educators and lawyers, authors and elected representatives, stay-at-home parents and advocates. These men and women embody the American dream by sacrificing on behalf of the pursuit of freedom, while chasing bold dreams of their own. Often told are the stories of the selfless service of the heroes in military uniform, but lesser known is the everyday imprint being left on the nation by those who support those service members. This book seeks to capture the inspirational tales of those military spouses who continue to make a difference daily.

To learn more about the project along with biographies on the authors, visit our Facebook page.

To schedule an interview with one of the authors, contact Cara Loken at milspouselegacyproject@gmail.com or:

BP Media Relations, LLC:

Barbara Pflughaupt, 212-707-8181 or Gabrielle Torello, 917-312-2832
On Monday, Aug. 21, the Brody Wilkinson Emerging Artist Series returns to Fairfield Theatre Companys StageOne to feature two up and coming artists from the Athens, Ga. music scene, Easter Island and Oak House. Both indie bands are grounded in the local musical history of Georgia.

Chris Frantz, founder of the Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club and one of the curators of the emerging artist series, recently interviewed members of Easter Island and Oak House to learn more about their roots, influences, and connection to the legendary Athens music scene.

Q: How is the music scene in Athens these days? Is there a particular venue where things are happening?

A: (Easter Island) The Athens music scene is ever evolving, as Athens is a transient college town, and is always springing to life in new ways. In that sense, there is no particular venue that can claim its own scene. There is so much music happening here that you can go out any night of the week, any day of the year, and you might hear something that will change your life. As long as Athens remains an affordable city, it will always be a hotbed for creativity, as well as a launching pad for aspiring bands.

Q: Do you have any connection or friendship with Cindy Wilson of the B-52s?

A: (Easter Island) I have personally known Cindy since around 2009. I had originally met her playing a Beatles cover show for her son's 10th birthday party (he was obsessed with George Harrison at the time). She was so impressed that she asked the band to come back to play at her Halloween party that same year and to let her sing a couple tunes. She sang a version of I Put A Spell On You that gave everyone chills (including myself). The rest, as they say, was history. Our first show was part of a sold out event at The Melting Point in Athens for R.E.M.s 30th anniversary. In the years following, we played several gigs around Athens and Atlanta - mostly just messing around and playing 60s psych covers. At one point we got to play Love Shack at the Chastain Amphitheater and [B-52s frontman] Fred [Schneider] joined us on stage. It was a pretty surreal moment for me given that the song was released when I was all but 5 years old.

When it came time to get serious, Cindy and I started writing original material in 2014, for what would eventually become our full-length release. After three years of hard work, we recently signed with Kill Rock Stars, and couldnt be happier to be working with them. The record will be released in November, and we plan to do extensive touring nationally to support its release.

Q: What is one of your sources of inspiration? Do you have any musical mentors?

A: (Easter Island) At the moment Im really enjoying minimalist ambient piano music - Nils Frahm and Max Richter come to mind. I think these influences have definitely made their way onto the Easter Island record. Ive always loved repetition in music, and the trance-like state that it can induce. I can get just as lost in a hip-hop groove as I can a Krautrock tune, or a Phillip Glass ostinato. Its all the same to me - the compositional intent is the same. At the moment, Im reading a book called The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible by Charles Eisenstein. While Im only on about page 100, Im pretty sure that its the most important book that Ive ever read in my life.

(Oak House) Songwriting usually spawns from reading, listening to classical music or thinking too much (or too little). There is so little chance of originality in music that I try to access nothing during the composition and recording process. Of course, I fail and it sounds like poor. My parents are both inspiring musicians and excellent mentors.

Q: Do you have many young people at your shows, and how do you attract them?

A: (Easter Island) We play an incredible version of Kanyes Runaway, so Im pretty sure thats helped to appeal to the youngins. Athens is a young city, so I think that we attract a younger crowd by default - though generally, I like to think that good music can transcend age! In my opinion, I think that the music industry tends to be pretty youth-obsessed - thats an area that Id like to see the industry change a bit!

Join Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth and record producer Peter Katis for Easter Island and Oak Houses Connecticut debut on Monday, Aug. 21.

Tickets, information, and samples of the music can be found at Fairfieldtheatre.org

About Fairfield Theatre Company:

Fairfield Theatre Company is a highly-acclaimed non-profit performing arts organization located in the heart of downtown Fairfield. FTC presents over 300 concerts and events each year featuring outstanding national talent at FTCs StageOne and at The Warehouse. FTCs venues are widely recognized as being the best places to see live performances in the region. FTCs mission is to connect and enrich the community through the transforming power of the arts. For more information, go to fairfieldtheatre.org.
Weak Password Test

KnowBe4, provider of the worlds most popular security awareness training and simulated phishing platform, surveyed 2,600 IT professionals to find out how they were managing passwords in light of the new changes proposed by the United States National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST). Their findings show that businesses are open to the proposed pass phrase concept suggested by NIST, and illustrate additional opportunity to provide advanced security awareness training to end users to further prevent successful breaches.

NIST Special Publication 800-63B, Digital Identity Guidelines, states in that Many attacks associated with the use of passwords are not affected by password complexity and length. Keystroke logging, phishing, and social engineering attacks are equally effective on lengthy, complex passwords as simple ones. This means that password complexity has failed in practice. Verizon's 2017 Data Breach Investigations Report showed that 81% of hacking-related breaches used either stolen and/or weak passwords, supporting the NIST conclusion.

KnowBe4 surveyed 2,600 IT professionals to further examine how organizations are managing passwords and determine how the proposed pass phrase concept stacks up against methods currently in use. The survey showed that 44% of respondents overall, (large organizations with 1,000+ employees and small to mid-size businesses), think a roughly 25-character pass phrase could work versus 35% who dont believe it to be a viable option for their organization.

Other highlights from the survey include:



Nearly 97% of large organizations have an enforced password policy compared to almost 88% in small to mid-size organizations.

A majority (63%) of organizations do not allow password re-use, however this does not prevent employees from using the same password on multiple sites.

Almost half (49%) of large organizations believe their current password policy is insufficient, while 48% of small to mid-size organizations believe their password policy is good enough.

Large organizations (1,000+ users) prefer multi-factor authentication (MFA) with only 38% stating they do not use it, compared with 62% of small to mid-size organizations stating they do not use MFA.

Passwords are a known weakness in corporate security and have come under more intense scrutiny recently. Most organizations have password enforcement in place, but most arent taking it seriously enough by not enforcing policies beyond the normal number and letter character minimum and not requiring multi-factor authentication, said Stu Sjouwerman, CEO of KnowBe4. It is well-known that employees are the weakest link in security and that includes password usage. IT cant expect employees to put password policies in place on their own. Its an effort that IT must lead.

Bill Burr, former NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) engineer who wrote the password complexity requirement said the 2003 standards had failed in practice. With multiple devices, accounts and websites, the average user has somewhere around 27 discrete passwords to remember.

KnowBe4 encourages companies to test their password enforcement with a free tool to find out how exposed their users are with its Weak Password Test. Additionally, businesses that invest in new-school security awareness training can turn their end users into a human firewall that can identify and prevent a breach regardless of password policies.

You can get the test here: https://www.knowbe4.com/weak-password-test

About KnowBe4

KnowBe4, the provider of the worlds most popular integrated new school security awareness training and simulated phishing platform, is used by more than 12,000 organizations worldwide. Founded by data and IT security expert Stu Sjouwerman, KnowBe4 helps organizations address the human element of security by raising awareness of ransomware, CEO Fraud and other social engineering tactics through a new school approach to security awareness training. Kevin Mitnick, internationally recognized computer security expert and KnowBe4s Chief Hacking Officer, helped design KnowBe4s trainings based on his well-documented social engineering tactics. Thousands of organizations trust KnowBe4 to mobilize their end-users as the last line of corporate IT defense.

Number 139 on the 2016 Inc 500 list, #50 on 2016 Deloittes Technology Fast 500 and #6 in Cybersecurity Ventures Cybersecurity 500. KnowBe4 is based in Tampa Bay, Florida. For more information, visit http://www.knowbe4.com and follow Stu on Twitter at @StuAllard
"We are committed for the development of Jammu and Kashmir and this is also the resolve of every Indian," the Prime Minister said in his Independence Day speech from the Red Fort.

By Indo-Asian News Service: Only love and not bullets or abuse can help resolve the dragging problem in Jammu and Kashmir, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said today while addressing the nation on Independence Day.

"We are committed for the development of Jammu and Kashmir and this is also the resolve of every Indian," the Prime Minister said in his Independence Day speech from the Red Fort .

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Modi said the separatist campaign in the state cannot be resolved by "gaali se" (abuse) or "goli se" (bullet) but by embracing every Kashmiri.

But Modi made it clear that there would be no let up while dealing with the separatists.

At the same, he appealed to the terrorists to join the mainstream. "You have every right to make your voices heard in Indian democracy."

MANY COUNTRIES ACTIVELY HELPING INDIA AGAINST TERROR

The Prime Minister also said that many countries were helping India in the war against terror.

Addressing the nation here on India's Independence Day, the Prime Minister thanked these countries but without naming them.

Also read:

PM Narendra Modi's I-Day speech LIVE: Violence in the name of faith is unacceptable

70 years of independence: 10 events that shaped today's India

15 issues India wants to hear from PM Modi on Independence Day

WATCH | PM Modi unfurls tricolour from Red Fort

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Transition to Trades Team, Partners, & Graduates at the Graduation on August 10, 2017 They have helped more than 150 soldiers stay safe, gain an income, and acquire insurance. This is life changing for military families and our community.

Transition to Trades, an approved Career Skills Program (CSP) developed by Hiller Plumbing, Heating, Cooling & Electrical and U.S. Army Garrison, Fort Campbell, announces national expansion of career placement nationally and receives recognition in U.S. Congress for its dedication to serving veterans.

Transition to Trades, launched on July 5, 2016, allows separating soldiers the opportunity to attend Total Tech trade school (a subsidiary of Hiller, LLC) to learn valuable technical career skills while remaining active duty in the U.S. Army. Total Tech offers a unique approach to technician training through classroom and hands-on laboratory instruction in a 15,000 square foot, state-of-the-art facility. As part of the program, students are guaranteed an employment interview at a Hiller branch location of their choosing. Soldiers desiring to return to their hometowns are provided key industry contact information to aid in employment searches in those respective areas.

Since its inception, Transition to Trades has proudly graduated 156 members from the HVAC, Electrical, and Plumbing trades. Of those graduates,103 soldiers are now employed full-time in the industry, while 23 have reenlisted or gone back to further their education.

Transition to Trades, through its partnerships with PRAXIS S-10 and PriceFixer.com, a national success college and network for contractors, has now expanded to include placement opportunities with over 150 contractors across the United States. With new Army Permissive TDY (Temporary Duty) regulations, soldiers are now permitted to move between the states to attend CSP programs, like Transition to Trades. To accommodate these additional soldiers, the program has plans to expand its trade school significantly over the next year. These changes will allow soldiers from across the United States to participate in the program and relocate to nearly any area of their choosing for full-time employment upon their graduation.

The fourth graduation ceremony, held on Thursday, August 10 in the Army Education Center at U.S. Army Garrison Fort Campbell, KY, marked the completion of the May, June, and July classes for the Plumbing, HVAC, and Electrical trades. The transitioning soldiers were awarded graduation certificates in front of an audience of peers, family, members of the Army, associates from Hiller LLC and Total Tech LLC, government representatives, and the press.

In a welcome letter, Tennessee State Governor Bill Haslam congratulating the programs dedication to continued success for veterans. During the ceremony, Terry Nicholson, CEO of PRAXIS S-10, a national success college for contractors, presented a special award to Teresa K. English and pledged full-time employment opportunities to every program graduate. Additionally, a representative from U.S. Congressman Marsha Blackburns office awarded Transition to Trades members congressional record certificates to commend the programs dedication to serving veterans.

Today, I would like to recognize and honor Hiller Plumbing, Heating, Cooling, & Electrical, Total Tech School, PRAXIS S-10, and the U.S. Army Career Skills Programs for their continual efforts to end veteran unemployment in our region, stated U.S. Congressman Marsha Blackburn in a statement to Congress. They have helped more than 150 soldiers stay safe, gain an income, and acquire insurance, she continued, This is life changing for military families and our community.

The graduations keynote speakers included Jimmy Hiller, founder and CEO of Hiller Plumbing, Heating, Cooling & Electrical, Col. Joseph Kuchan, Commander, United States Army Garrison, Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and Don Miller, Institutional Director of Total Tech, LLC. In addition, student speakers and graduates SGM Bryan Witzel and SSG John Wilkerson and Career Skills Program Coordinator for U.S. Army Garrison, Fort Campbell, Teresa K. English, addressed the audience.

During his remarks to the crowd, program graduate Sergeant Major Bryan K. Witzel described the uncertainty and stress many soldiers face during transitional periods and how the Transition to Trades program offered solace and stability for his family.

The military transition assistance program is good, however, the enduring support of the civilian community and businesses that is what makes these programs great, remarked Witzel. The Hiller and Total Tech teams take great strides to provide personalized assistance to each person, he continued, and I am proud to tell you that because of that assistance, I chose a new career that provides stability and security for me and my family.

Not only are these deserving veterans receiving full-time employment opportunities, but they are truly thriving in these roles as a result of the strong values and work ethic instilled upon them during their service in the Army.

Many Transition to Trades graduates are now working with us at Hiller, remarked Jimmy Hiller, founder and CEO of Hiller Plumbing, Heating, Cooling & Electrical. Their professionalism, dedication to the pursuit of excellence, and integrity have already proven them to be valuable assets to our teams across the region, he continued. I am so thankful for these talented men and women, and I can only imagine that other employers will share in this gratitude.

Transition to Trades is an approved program developed by Hiller Plumbing, Heating, Cooling, and Electrical and the U.S. Army Garrison, Fort Campbell, to train transitioning active duty military service members for new civilian careers as plumbers, electricians, and HVAC service technicians. For more information about the program, visit http://www.transitiontotrades.com or e-mail daphne.frontz(at)happyhiller(dot)com

Hiller Plumbing, Heating, Cooling & Electrical, provides residential and commercial service and repair throughout Tennessee, Southern Kentucky, and Northern Alabama. As the homeowners premier provider of choice with a 100% satisfaction guarantee, Hiller is Tennessees largest residential plumbing, heating, air conditioning, and electrical services provider. Hiller, recently named the fifth fastest-growing private company in Middle Tennessee and Best in Business from the Nashville Business Journal, employs more than 600 associates, boasts a fleet of 470 happy face trucks across 13 locations, and has responded to over 1.4 million service calls. For more information about Hiller, visit http://www.happyhiller.com or e-mail press(at)happyhiller(dot)com.
54 Orange Street Nantucket, MA This impressive home is one-of-a-kind and ready for its next steward to make their own.

Nantucket is filled with rich history and that is apparent as soon as you dock or land. Known as the whaling capital of the 19th century and made famous in the classic novel Moby-Dick, Nantucket was a thriving center of international trade during the height of the whaling era. The Nantucket Historical Association has done an incredible job maintaining the historic integrity of this island and especially its architecture.

In particular, 54 Orange Street remains a historic masterpiece and one of the best examples of 1830s Greek revival architecture on Nantucket. The home was built in 1835 by Captain Charles Grant, the most successful whaling captain of his time. Many distinctive details are still in tact today, including the ionic columns, pediment entry, marble fireplaces and the gorgeous wide plank floors and trim detail.

The six-bedroom property features grand living spaces, large, sundrenched windows and three spacious porches with harbor and Town views. Complete with a formal sitting room, dining room, large kitchen and well-sized bedrooms this is the perfect home for generations. The impressive third floor offers a large, open space with huge wooden beams, full bathroom and spectacular views of the Nantucket Sound from the oversized deck.

In addition to the three main floors of living space, the home has a lower level apartment with interior and exterior access. The property also features a stunning backyard with lush landscaping and overgrown hydrangea bushes, as well as a two-car garage. This impressive home is one-of-a-kind and ready for its next steward to make their own.

About Cam Gammill, Principal Broker  Fisher Real Estate

Cam Gammill has been in real estate since 2009 and quickly established himself as one of the top brokers on island. Having represented clients in over $150 million in transactions, Cam attributes his success to his ability to communicate and connect with people on a personal level. For more information, please call (508) 228-4407, or visit http://fishernantucket.com. The office is located at 21 Main Street, Nantucket, MA 02554.

About Fisher Real Estate

Founded in 2016, Fisher Real Estate Nantucket is a forward-thinking Nantucket brokerage, founded on personal relationships. At Fisher Real Estate, we know that the Island means something different to everyone, and we believe that there is a Nantucket home for everyone. More than just a piece of real estate, Nantucket is a lifestyle.
Starting in July, Cornerstone Credit Union League will begin their annual Credit Unions Care CU Ride motorcycle tour that will travel to cities in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas to deliver stuffed animals to kids at local childrens hospitals. Resource One Credit Union will host the Dallas tour at Resource One Credit Unions Training Center (1200 Sullivan Dr., Dallas, TX 75215). Credit union representatives and community members will gather at the training center on Thursday, August 24 at 9:00 AM and will leave to deliver the toys by motorcycles and vehicles to Childrens Medical Center (1935 Medical District Dr., Dallas, TX 75235).

Resource One Credit Union called upon their members and employees in April and May to help support the CU Ride by asking them to donate a new stuffed animal that would be given out during the event. Resource One Credit Union received an overwhelming response and collected over 750 animals to deliver to patients. In addition to the stuffed animals, Resource One Credit Union will also be hiring a princess and superhero to participate in the CU Ride, help hand out toys, and entertain the children at the event.

This is truly a heartwarming experience, stated Jennifer Grinder, Resource One CSM and DE. When kids visit the hospital, it can be stressful or scary. We are hoping that these stuffed animals can help bring them comfort during their stay, whether it be long or short. We are very excited to be hosting this event and look forward to working with Credit Union Cares in the future.

To find out more about Credit Unions Care or their current initiatives visit http://www.creditunions.care.

The community is encouraged to participate with the free CU Ride event by registering at the link on the Cornerstone Credit Union Leagues website: https://www.cornerstoneleague.coop/cu_ride.html.

About Resource One Credit Union

Resource One Credit Union was originally chartered as Sears Dallas Employees Federal Credit Union in 1936. Over time, the increased demand for more locations and additional products and services prompted the expansion of our product lines and field of membership. Today Resource One proudly serves as a not-for-profit financial institution for the communities of Dallas and Harris counties. Resource One has 11 convenient locations to serve our over 55,000 members. Visit Resource One Credit Unions homepage at http://www.r1cu.org.
Natalie Koonce, Colorado Division President Our goal is to help everyone in the process understand the complex steps of the real estate transaction so the consumer is empowered to make informed decisions.

North American Title Company (NATC) has named Natalie Koonce Colorado division president, overseeing the companys 11 branch offices throughout the state. Koonce most recently served as NATCs vice president and Southern Colorado manager.

Natalie has proved to be a very effective manager in our Southern Colorado region, and we feel extending her oversight to the entire state will further strengthen our presence in all our Colorado communities, said Michael Montalvo, NATC central division president. Her extensive work on our best practices certification and her stellar reputation as an educator in the real estate community make her uniquely positioned to lead our troops, in addition to training and mentoring the next generation of title agents and escrow closers at North American Title.

Koonce will focus on sharing successful techniques with the regional managers to better serve the companys real estate agent, lender and homebuilder customers, as well as enhancing NATCs efforts to provide robust educational offerings to industry professionals, homebuyers and sellers.

I am fortunate to have talented and skilled associates at our branches, said Koonce. My first goal is to provide them with the resources, training and enthusiastic support that will ensure their continued success. I am also acutely aware of how necessary it is to provide a continual flow of educational resources to our customers. Our goal is to help everyone in the process understand the complex steps of the real estate transaction so the consumer is empowered to make informed decisions throughout the process.

A native of Colorado, Koonce began her work in the real estate industry in 1993, spending the first six years managing a branch of one of the largest real estate firms in Colorado Springs. Prior to joining NATC in 2013, she served as an escrow officer for a Colorado Springs-based title company for six years. Previously, she was a branch manager for a national title company.

Koonce is located at 102 North Cascade, Suite 330, Colorado Springs, CO 80903 and can be reached by telephone at (719) 578-4100.

About North American Title

With well over 1,200 associates and a network of branches from coast to coast, North American Title Group, LLC (NATG) is among the largest real estate settlement service providers in the United States. Consisting of both agent and underwriter operations, NATG reported annual gross revenues in fiscal 2016 of $360.2 million. The company also has the resources and stability of being a wholly owned subsidiary of an S&P 500 company with over $15.3 billion in assets as of its fiscal year ended November 30, 2016. North American Titles agency network operates nationally under the name North American Title Co. and similar names (NATC) in 18 states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Virginia, in addition to the District of Columbia. Through our relationship with our expanding affiliate network, NATC provides real estate settlement services in all 50 states. NATG is headquartered in Miami, Florida. To learn more, visit http://www.nat.com.
We believe this innovative technology will help decrease the incidence of pressure ulcers, ultimately helping improve patient-centered care. -- Dr. Alan Pope, chief medical officer, Lourdes Health System

Patients who are bedridden for long periods of time are especially susceptible to pressure ulcers, sometimes called bed sores. These painful ulcers happen when the skin has been put under repeated pressure or stress, reducing blood flow to the affected area.

The incidence of pressure ulcers that occur in hospitals is on the rise, with U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) data showing the condition occurring in 4.5 percent of all hospitalized patients. Whats more, patients who develop pressure ulcers in the hospital are more likely to have longer stays, a higher risk of death and be readmitted within 30 days of discharge.

To help improve patient safety and clinical outcomes, Trinity Health, parent organization of Lourdes Health System, has provided Lourdes with a $382,000 grant to pilot a unique monitoring device called the Leaf Patient Monitoring System. The system is manufactured by Leaf Healthcare of Pleasanton, CA. (http://www.leafhealthcare.com).

While we have made great strides, we continually look for new ways to prevent pressure ulcers, said Alan Pope, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Lourdes Health System. We believe this innovative technology will help decrease the incidence of pressure ulcers, ultimately helping improve patient-centered care.

Other hospitals utilizing the Leaf Sensor technology have reported significant improvements in adherence to patient turning protocols and reductions in hospital-acquired pressure ulcers by as much as 85 percent.

The lightweight, disposable Leaf sensor is placed on the patient's chest. Its triaxial accelerometer then automatically measures the patients position, movement and activity and wirelessly transmits the data to monitoring stations easily viewed by clinical staff.

The Leaf system provides alerts to staff so patients are repositioned according to their individually prescribed turning schedule, and confirms adequate pressure reduction is performed. The sensor registers independent patient movement and automatically adjusts the schedule accordingly, saving staff time when patients reposition on their own.

Alerts can also be set to a specific position to ensure pressure is offloaded for an existing wound or a particular area of concern. In addition, the system stores data which will allow for in-depth reporting on a number of patient mobility variables.

Traditional measures for preventing pressure ulcers include daily visual inspections, changing a patients position every two hours and using items like pillows, foam padding and specialized mattresses to reduce/redistribute pressure.

However, even with traditional measures, some patients remain at-risk for pressure ulcers. These include:



Patients over the age 70 (due to aging skin, greater risk for hardening of the arteries and poor circulation)

Patients with health conditions such as paralysis after stroke or other diseases that make movement difficult

Patients with type 2 diabetes, who have damage to their blood vessels that makes blood flow slow and obstructed

Hospital-acquired pressure ulcers are a major concern to all healthcare providers, said Dr. Pope. Leaf Patient System provides us with a tool to consistently monitor patient mobility and gain accurate information to help improve patient progress. We look forward to this advanced technology helping our patients.

About Lourdes Health System

Lourdes Health System is one of the regions leading healthcare providers, recognized nationally for excellence in clinical care and service to the community. The health system has two acute care hospitals, several community-based ambulatory care centers, and an Accountable Care Organization (ACO), which has over 200 physicians and provides coordinated, comprehensive care across physician practices, hospitals and other healthcare providers. Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center is consistently ranked as one of the top hospitals in the nation for heart care. It is the only hospital in New Jersey, Pennsylvania or Delaware ever to have been awarded the American Hospital Associations top honor for excellence in community outreach services. Lourdes Health System operates Our Lady of Lourdes School of Nursing; LIFE at Lourdes, a program for All-Inclusive Care of the Elderly (PACE); and various outreach programs.

The health system is a member of Trinity Health, with hospitals in 22 states. For more information, visit http://www.lourdesnet.org
Recent reports suggest that marketers lost $7.2 billion to mobile ad fraud last year, and its projected to grow to a staggering $16.4 billion by the end of 2017.

Airpush (http://www.airpush.com), the mobile advertising leader integrated into over 300,000 mobile apps, together with Tapcore (http://www.tapcore.com), the leader in mobile app piracy detection and monetization, today announced a merger aimed at helping mobile developers regain control of their app businesses. Together, the two companies plan to pool resources, technology and industry experience to create an entirely new solution for mobile developers and premium advertisers.

Recent reports suggest that marketers lost $7.2 billion to mobile ad fraud last year, and its projected to grow to a staggering $16.4 billion by the end of 2017. On the other end of the spectrum, it's estimated that nearly 80% of free Android apps have been hacked, while 75% of free iOS apps have been compromised. Considering that revenues from these app stores will reach $21 billion for Google Play alone, and $20 billion for the vast number of third-party Android stores this year, its easy to see that mobile app developers stand to lose billions in hard earned ad revenue as a result.

As a pioneer in the mobile advertising space, Airpush has spent the last 7 years working with mobile publishers and collecting data and insight into the growing problem of app piracy. In helping hundreds of thousands of app developers monetize their efforts, Airpush has been on the forefront of the piracy and fraud issues crippling the industry. With its SDKs embedded on more than 300,000 mobile apps worldwide, the company sits in a unique position to take meaningful action against the problem.

Tapcore, who entered the space in 2015, provides an innovative SDK designed to analyze the legitimacy of mobile app installs. The company aims to turn the rampant problem of piracy into an opportunity for app developers. Tapcores proprietary algorithm is able to track global pirated installs, collect analytics and offers various solutions to engage and monetize these users.

In combining the cutting-edge technology of Tapcore, with the insight and mass developer footprint of Airpush -- the merger creates a unified, laser-focused solution to begin cleaning up the tainted mobile app landscape. Together, both companies are poised to combat both issues head on, while also providing a new solution for developers to truly monetize their users beyond traditional means.

Weve seen first hand the challenges piracy and fraud present in all aspects of the mobile advertising industry and our business specifically, explains Asher Delug, CEO and Founder of Airpush. From ensuring our 20,000+ advertisers maintain the effectiveness theyve come to rely on with our platform, to battling piracy that affects the tens of million of users on our network around the world. Tapcore presents the perfect solution to help tackle these challenges through an extremely well-executed approach that complements our overall market strategy.

Helping eliminate piracy reaches all aspects of the broader market -- from every partner and stakeholder to the immense amount of data that loses integrity as a result. Together, Airpush and Tapcore are perfectly positioned to become a driving force in advancing this movement.

Im extremely proud of what our team has been able to create, and the potential our technology has to truly create a shift in the industry when it comes to anti-piracy and ad fraud, said Stefans Keiss, CEO and Founder of Tapcore. Joining forces with Airpush gives us the reach and platform to truly extend our solution to the masses.

Both companies will remain independent and continue to serve their respective clients, but will combine technology, teams and infrastructure to strengthen the overall effort. The Tapcore and Airpush SDKs will be integrated to provide one, cohesive solution for developers to track, analyze and monetize their users.

The newly merged entity will have new management headed by CEO Stefan Keiss and CTO Dmitry Shkolnikov. Current Airpush CEO Asher Delug will move into the role of Chairman of the Board, while current Airpush COO Inman Breaux will move into the role of President. The combined companies are also in the process of raising a round of investment to aid in its aggressive growth and strategic acquisitions.

About Airpush

Winner of the DataWeek Top Innovator in Advertising Data award and recognized by Forbes as one of Americas Most Promising Companies, Airpush is a worldwide leader in digital advertising solutions. With powerful platforms integrated into over 300,000 mobile app, mobile web, and virtual reality properties, as well as one of the worlds largest consumer data marketplaces, Airpush provides some of the most diverse and highest performing monetization and advertising solutions in the industry. Founded in 2010, the company has approximately 250 employees and offices in Los Angeles and Bangalore, along with sales regions in all major markets. For more information, visit http://www.airpush.com or follow us on Twitter @AirpushAds.

About Tapcore

Tapcores technology allows mobile developers to detect all illegal copies of their mobile applications, collect analytics and offers various solutions to engage and monetize these users. Tapcores unique approach helps mobile developers take back their well-deserved revenue from the illegal installations of their mobile applications. Founded in 2015, the company has more than 50 employees working across 9 countries. For more information, visit http://www.tapcore.com or follow us on twitter @tapcore
TREIA is providing meaningful support to investors in the Triangle Region. Think Realty is glad to partner with this organization and add value for attendees.

The Triangle Real Estate Investors Association (TREIA) will host an event powered by Think Realty for new and experienced investors, August 26 and 27 at the Crabtree Marriott Valley Hotel in Raleigh, North Carolina. Nationally recognized speakers and educators including Ron LeGrand, Steve Down, Brian and Lynette Wolff, Larry Harbolt, Edwin Kelly, Jay Conner and Merrill Chandler will provide training alongside local market experts. Education and speaking topics will include creative methods for buying and selling properties at low-risk levels, buying foreclosures, creating a fortune to rescue your retirement and increasing cash flow. Attendees will also meet service providers and enjoy networking opportunities. Event tickets are $79 and are available at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/treia-expo-and-conference-powered-by-think-realty-registration-34701773940?aff=es2.

Weve brought together some of the top real estate experts in the world to show attendees how to start and expand a profitable real estate business, said Chuck Jurgens, TREIA president. Our attendees are learning from what I like to call normal people in real estate. These folks are former dead-broke auto mechanics, pilots, mobile-home salesmen and plumbers, and they just show that you can be successful in real estate no matter your age, gender, race, color, religion, education level, savings in the bank or location. These speakers will prove it to you.

TREIA is providing meaningful support to investors in the Triangle Region. Think Realty is glad to partner with this organization and add value for attendees. In this business, we all learn from and support one another, said Eddie Wilson, President of Think Realty.

Started in 1997, the Triangle Real Estate Investment Association (TREIA) is a non-profit group aimed at education and promotion of high standards of excellence in real estate investing. TREIA offers regular informational and networking meetings throughout Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Cary and more. Visit http://www.TREIA.com for a calendar of events.

Think Realty is a central education and information resource for new real estate investors and seasoned professionals, providing members with valuable tools that help them optimize their competitive advantage, succeed in the industry, achieve wealth-building goals and live a life of purpose. Think Realty is part of Affinity Worldwide. More information can be found at http://www.thinkrealty.com and http://www.affinityworldwide.com.

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For additional comments or questions please call or email

Laura Chalk, PR Manager

Affinity Worldwide

913-262-1624 x 86172

lchalk@affinityworldwide.com
Diane Sirakovsky, RN, BSN, Founder & Director of Education, Alliance Homecare For more than a decade, Michele and Diane have dedicated themselves to ensuring all Alliance clients and their families receive the best possible care. They continue to be a driving force behind our success and an inspiration to the entire Alliance team.

On September 6, Alliance Homecare co-founders Michele (Leahy) Teter and Diane (ODea) Sirakovsky will be honored at the 2017 Irish America Healthcare & Life Sciences 50 Awards dinner. The dinner is co-hosted by Irish America Magazine and Dublin-based ICON plc, one of the worlds leading clinical research companies.

The Annual Irish America Healthcare & Life Sciences 50 list honors top Irish and Irish American doctors, clinical researchers, pharmaceutical leaders, and medical professionals, highlighting the work they are doing to improve the lives of their communities and the healthcare industry.

Michele Teter and Diane Sirakovsky co-founded Alliance Homecare, a concierge home health care provider serving individuals and families in New York City, Long Island, Westchester and the Lower Hudson Valley, in 2006 with the companys CEO, Gregory Solometo.

There has been a strong tradition of Irish women in the nursing industry dating back to the founding of the state, said Patricia Harty of Irish America Magazine. In honoring Diane and Michele, co-founders of Alliance Homecare, Irish America honors the thousands of Irish nurses who, down through the generations, have given patients the best of care, compassion and solace, whether in hospitals, on the battle fields, or in private practice.

The Leahy family, originally from Counties Kilkenny and Galway, and ODea family, originally from County Clare, emigrated from Ireland in the 1960s.

As Alliance Homecares Director of Patient Services, Michele (Leahy) Teter oversees all nursing cases and coordinates care with case managers to ensure the highest quality of care. She also works directly with doctors and families as a case manager to develop appropriate care plans specific to patients needs. For the past 17 years, Teter has worked at Columbias New York Presbyterian Medical Center on the Neurosurgical ICU. She is responsible for the care of critically ill patients who are often mechanically ventilated and maintained on several cardiac drips. Her continuous assessment of the patient and ability to recognize a change directly impact the plan of care. In 2008, Teter received her CCRN and is now held to the highest standard of critical care. She received a B.S. in Nursing from Dominican College and currently resides in Pearl River, NY.

Diane (ODea) Sirakovsky heads Alliance Homecares caregiver education program the Director of Education. In this capacity, Sirakovsky researches, selects, and evaluates educational material used to provide continuing education for the homecare staff. Prior to Alliance, she worked as a staff nurse in the Neurological ICU at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, gaining experience in the fields of Neurological, Cardiac, Cardiothoracic, Medical, and Surgical intensive care nursing. Sirakovsky was previously a Medical-Surgical Nurse at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, receiving the honor of Medical-Surgical Nurse of the Year from her unit. She started working in homecare in 2003 and continues to care for chronically and acutely ill patients in the home setting. Sirakovsky received a B.S. in Nursing at Dominican College and attended Columbia University for graduate studies in nursing. She currently resides in Orangeburg, NY.

For more than a decade, Michele and Diane have dedicated themselves to ensuring all Alliance clients and their families receive the best possible care, said Greg Solometo, co-founder and CEO of Alliance Homecare. They continue to be a driving force behind our success and an inspiration to the entire Alliance team. I cannot think of two more deserving individuals for this honor.

The 2017 Irish America Healthcare and Life Sciences 50 Awards dinner will be held at the New York Yacht Club, located at 37 West 44th Street in New York, and feature a keynote address from Roche Pharmaceuticals CEO Daniel ODay. For more information or to purchase tickets, contact Kate Overbeck at kate(at)irishamerica.com.

Alliance Homecare is located on the sixth floor of 252 West 37th Street in New York. They can be reached at 1.877.NURSE80 or http://www.alliancehomecare.com. For the latest news and updates, follow Alliance Homecare on LinkedIn, Facebook (@AllianceHomecareNY), Twitter (@alliancehcny) and Google+.

About Alliance Homecare

Alliance Homecare is a concierge home health care company which offers an extensive range of high-quality private home care services to an elite client base in lower New York State which includes: the five boroughs of New York City, Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester and Rockland Counties. Co-founded in 2006, Alliance has a uniquely selective hiring process, known as The Grandma RuleSM. This process ensures Alliance only hires the highest caliber of registered nurses, home health aides and health care professionals, resources the company would be comfortable caring for their own families. These specialized professionals provide best-in-class care for Alliances clients and their loved ones while honoring a strict code of confidentiality. A Licensed Home Care Services Agency (LHCSA), Alliances services include private duty nursing, home health aides, companions, professional care management, physical therapy, and nutritional counseling. To learn more, visit http://www.alliancehomecare.com.

About Irish America Magazine

Irish America magazine is the leading national glossy publication of Irish interest in North America. Since its inception in October 1985, Irish America has become a powerful vehicle for expression on a range of political, economic, social and cultural themes that are of paramount importance to the Irish in the United States. It has helped re-establish the Irish ethnic identity in the U.S. (34.7 million according to the last U.S. census) and highlights the top political and business leaders, artists, writers, organizations, and community figures among the Irish in America. To learn more, visit http://www.irishamerica.com.

About ICON plc

ICON plc is a global provider of drug development solutions and services to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries and is one of Irelands most successful indigenous companies. The company specializes in the strategic development, management and analysis of programs that support clinical development - from compound selection to Phase I-IV clinical studies. ICON currently employs over 12,300 employees in 38 countries worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.iconplc.com.
Stevie International Business Awards I believe its our approach to service that differentiates us from other contractor qualification companies - Allison Garza, Operations Manager, BROWZ

BROWZ, a global leader in contractor prequalification and supply chain management solutions, has been named a recipient of the prestigious Stevie Awards for outstanding support and customer service.

The International Business Awards are the worlds premier business awards program. All individuals and organizations worldwide  public and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small - are eligible to submit nominations. The 2017 IBAs received entries from more than 60 nations and territories.

Nicknamed the Stevies for the Greek word for crowned, the awards will be presented to winners at a gala awards banquet at the W Hotel in Barcelona, Spain on 21 October.

Stevie Award winners were determined by the average scores of more than 200 executives worldwide who participated on 12 juries.

The IBA judges from across the world were highly impressed with the nominations they reviewed this year. With the level of achievement documented in the nominations from 60 nations, the Stevie Awards are proud to honor organizations that demonstrate a high level of achievement in a variety of industries said Michael Gallagher, president and founder of the Stevie Awards.

A record total of more than 3,900 nominations from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry were submitted this year for consideration in a wide range of categories.

Having worked at BROWZ for the last thirteen years, and witnessing firsthand the commitment and support of our employees this is truly a great honor. I believe its our approach to service that differentiates us from other contractor qualification companies, said BROWZ Director of Operations, Allison Garza. We configure our solution to each of our global clienteles unique requirements and provide a dedicated point of contact for every member of their supply chain.

BROWZ operations include global centers of excellence strategically located in Salt Lake City, New York, Toronto, London, Sydney, Perth, and Dusseldorf.

BROWZ CEO, Elaine Beitler concludes, The foundation of our success is built on outstanding technology, and superior support services. At BROWZ, weve created a comprehensive solution that scales to meet the needs of the worlds largest organizations, combining configurable software solutions with dedicated customer support. I believe this model is the reason we continue to see incredible growth, and the reason why the worlds most respected brands select us to qualify their supply chain.

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About BROWZ:

BROWZ ensures that supply chains are safe, qualified, and socially responsible by delivering a comprehensive solution to prequalify, assess, and monitor supply chain compliance based on the unique needs of your business. BROWZ provides comprehensive assessments using patented, configurable technology and expertise, resulting in the site operators confidence of a safer work environment for clients and supply chains around the world. The BROWZ product suite addresses global supply chain needs related to qualifying your supply chain, addressing risk, managing employee-level data, conducting safety auditing, and sourcing new suppliers.

About the Stevie Awards

Stevie Awards are conferred in seven programs: the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the German Stevie Awards, The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, the Stevie Awards for Great Employers and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Stevie Awards competitions receive more than 10,000 nominations each year from organizations in more than 60 nations. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at http://www.StevieAwards.com.
Matt Beecher, CEO, Student Loan Genius Ultimately, Student Loan Genius is bigger than a benefit. Were working with companies, legislators, and institutions whove been around for years and want to help solve real problems...

Student Loan Genius, inventor of Americas first student loan management platform for employees, announced Matt Beecher, fintech industry and venture capital veteran, as its new CEO.

Beecher joins as the company crosses $300 million in student loan debt help offered, increasing its reach by 200% by December 2017. The companys first of its kind solution provides student loan counseling and contributions that help borrowers who work for companies like Pinterest and Twilio reduce payments by an average of $251 each month and shave up to 12 years off repayment.

To get to the next stage, we knew we needed a proven leader who really understands the landscape of fintech and the problem student loans presents, says Josh Pierce, Student Loan Genius co-founder and managing director of Socratic Ventures.

Matt, during his first meetings, expanded our vision on how our technology can change lives. His vision and track record of success at every stage of his career made him the standout for getting us to the next stage.

Beecher, a 25-year fintech innovator and venture capitalist, adds his track record of growing and scaling social impact companies that help Americans tackle major social challenges like investing, insurance, and growing generational wealth. Prior to Student Loan Genius, he served as Managing Director of Redstart Ventures and co-founder of SCS Financial.

The companies who succeed in any space are those who arent afraid to lead when theres no path. Weve spotted a challenge thats too big not to tackle. Beecher said. Ultimately, Student Loan Genius is bigger than a benefit. Were working with companies, legislators, and institutions whove been around for years and want to help solve real problems for Americans, starting with student loans.

With a problem growing by $2,600 every second, the impact of student loans on American lives is expanding faster than any financial problem in our countrys history. From homeownership to retirement, 73 percent of Americans with student loans report delaying a major life goal.

Beecher will lead the Austin-based team and co-founding member of the Student Debt Reduction Coalition with backing from the companys largest investors: Prudential Financial, John Hancock, Socratic Ventures, Village Capital, Kapor Capital, and Capital Factory.

Were just starting to see the impact of the Student Loan Genius platform, says Beecher. This market is about more than refinance and our technologys helping Americans in every income and credit bracket tackle student debt.

To schedule an interview with Matt Beecher, e-mail pr(at)studentloangenius(dot)com or call (443) 955.6826.

###

About Student Loan Genius

Student Loan Genius helps todays most competitive companies, their employees, and legislators unlock financial wellness opportunities by tackling one of their biggest life hurdles: student loans. Inspired by their own personal experiences, the team invented Americas first and complete student loan benefit which helps employees reduce debt and lay the foundation for long-term financial wellness. Learn more at http://www.studentloangenius.com.
Former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has filed three separate appeals in the Supreme Court to review the Panamagate verdict that resulted in his being ousted from the top post.

By Hamza Ameer: Former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has filed three separate appeals in the Supreme Court to review the Panamagate verdict that resulted in his being ousted from the top post.

The three review appeals, in reply to the petitions filed by Imran Khan, Sheikh Rashid and Sirajul Haq, were submitted by Nawaz's lawyer Khawaja Harris.

Harris has also submitted relevant documents concerning the iqama (a United Arab Emirates work visa) that led the judges to declare Nawaz "unfit to hold office".

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Sharif, through his appeal, has argued that the July 28 decision should have been given by a three-member bench since Justice Asif Saeed Khosa and Justice Gulzar Ahmed's jurisdiction had expired after their dissenting judgment on April 20.

WHAT THE APPEAL PETITION SAYS

"By signing the final order of the court" on July 28, Justice Ahmed and Justice Khosa "have actually passed two judgments in the same case, which is unprecedented in judicial history", reads the appeal petition.

Five more appeals are expected to be filed soon by Nawaz's sons - Hassan and Hussain Nawaz, his daughter Maryam Nawaz, Captain Safdar and Ishaq Dar.

The five-member apex bench, which took the unanimous July 28th decision, will hear the review petition.

ALSO READ |

Why Nawaz Sharif's ouster gives Pakistan Army an excuse to take over power

Shahid Khaqan Abbasi elected as Pakistan's interim PM after Nawaz Sharif's exit

Imran Khan derides ousted Nawaz Sharif's choice of successor, his brother

ALSO WATCH VIDEO | It's a very good verdict, says former Pakistan President Musharraf on Sharif's ouster

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Eve came to us at the right time with the right offer ... [her] expertise and position as a respected thought leader in the social media world was the perfect fit to represent our agency."

Addison-based digital marketing agency, Splash Media, acquired nearby Carrollton-based social media marketing agency, Social Media Delivered, in a recent closed-door transaction.

Splash Media was one of six local agencies invited to bid on a full buyout of Social Media Delivered. Despite entering near the end of the bidding process, the company quickly established itself as the leading option and closed the deal in a swift two-week negotiation period.

The acquisition encompasses all existing clientele and personnel of Social Media Delivered, including former CEO and notable public speaker, Eve Mayer, who will now serve as the CMO of Splash Media.

Eve came to us at the right time with the right offer, says John Dankovchik, owner and CEO of Splash Media. Weve been charting a new path for our agency this year with new leadership and aggressive growth goals. Eves expertise and position as a respected thought leader in the social media world was the perfect fit to represent our agency. Her personality match, impressive client roster, and talented team made this deal a no brainer.

Mayer, who was seeking an agency to help expand service offerings beyond her current social media focus, echoed Dankovchiks sentiment.

After my first meeting with John, the decision made itself, says Mayer. I had reached a point where my clients continuously needed services beyond just social media. Splash Media provides the full suite of digital marketing services I was looking for, and the culture fit of the agency and its people sealed the deal.

This acquisition adds a number of notable names to Splash Medias client roster, including well-known retailers, a luxury travel advisory group, and a number of healthcare customers to add to Splash Medias rapidly growing healthcare business unit.

Social Media Delivereds operations will move fully into the Splash Media offices in Addison Circle, where Splash Medias dedicated video production studio is also located. Mayer will lead the agencys internal marketing and new business efforts in her new role as CMO by leveraging her background in the public speaking circuit as well as her notable reputation as one of Forbes most influential women in social media.

For more information on Splash Media contact Nicole Durham at press(at)splashmedia(dot)com or call 972-392-6749.

About Splash Media

Based in the North Dallas suburb of Addison, Texas, Splash Media Group has leveraged its expertise in video and television production since 2005 and launched a social media practice in 2010 that has evolved into one of the leading social media agencies in the world. Operating in 22 countries in 19 native languages and engaging 320 million consumers daily, Splash Media Group provides comprehensive social media services from consulting to full outsourcing. Services include online marketing strategy development, online reputation management (ORM), search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), social media content and community management, content marketing (video and blog creation) and analytics.

About Social Media Delivered

Social Media Delivered offers consulting, training and marketing services specializing in social media campaigns for organizations across all industries whether B2B or B2C since 2008. They leverage the power of LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Snapchat and more to bring the right people together to get our clients goals accomplished. They serve clients from an array of industries including healthcare, finance, hospitality, and retail. Plus Social Media Delivered does it all in English, Spanish and French.

About Eve Mayer

Ranked by Forbes as the Fifth Most Influential Woman in Social Media, Eve Mayer is one of the most respected names in social media. Eve has spoken in over 40 U.S. cities, as well as in Ireland, France, the UK, Australia, Belgium and Iceland at government organizations universities, companies and conference groups, including NATO, Cisco, Vistage, Microsoft, Purdue, and Manchester Metropolitan University.

Eve is the author of Social Media for the CEO and The Social Media Business Equation. Her work in social media has been featured on American Express Open Forum, CIO.com, Forbes, Social Media Today, Mashable, Huffington Post, CNN, Webbiquity, and many others.
I have every confidence that the expert eFolder and Axcient teams will blend the best of both worlds, and create an incredible product family that will be second to none. - Alan Hellbush, President, Where To Start, Inc.

eFolder, the leading provider of data protection solutions for the IT Channel, and Axcient, the recognized leader in Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS) solutions, today announced the value and opportunity their recent merger delivers to channel partners. The comprehensive product portfolio and channel-focused delivery models represent increasing revenue potential for managed service providers (MSPs) and value-added resellers (VARs) seeking to simplify the way businesses protect data, ensure IT infrastructure availability and maximize employee productivity. The combined solutions will continue to meet the needs of businesses from SMBs to the mid-market enterprise.

The recent combination of these two proven innovators brings together more than 300 employees dedicated to state-of-the-art data protection and now supports close to 4,000 channel partners worldwide. With more than 100 employees engaged in research and development, the combined organization will continue to drive technological advancements and deliver game-changing solutions that are set to tilt the backup and data protection landscape in the companys direction. Near-term points of emphasis will include accelerating the development of Axcients Business Recovery Cloud (BRC) product, along with a strengthened Account Management team focusing on the base of MSPs.

Partners are quickly seeing the value of combining the Axcient technology stack with eFolder Replibit, said Kevin Hoffman, Chief Technology Officer of the newly merged Axcient and eFolder. MSPs are sharing with us the potential they see for the combined platform to meet the backup and disaster recovery needs for clients of all sizes and environments, instead of having to use multiple vendors. Physical vs virtual, agent-based vs hypervisor-based, appliance-based vs direct-to-cloud, volume vs file vs application recovery  no one has been able to deliver a unified platform providing all these dimensions of BDR, until now. The API-driven nature of both product suites will allow us to integrate into one platform quickly. Well be working closely with our partners to ensure what is delivered is transformational for their businesses and their clients.

Together, Axcient and eFolder have the innovative technology and delivery model to service the full spectrum of businesses  from SMB to SME with a broad set of solutions designed to maximize IT availability and employee productivity. The eFolder family of products make it simple for MSPs and their SMB clients to protect data, sync and share information, and recover servers, through leading products that include eFolder Replibit, Anchor, and Cloudfinder. Axcient further enables SMBs and mid-market customers to replicate and recover their entire IT infrastructure in less than an hour through its award-winning platforms including Axcient Fusion and BRC. Partners agree and share their accolades and insight into the combined companys new value proposition.

The eFolder leadership team is full of top-quality talent who are well-respected industry veterans. This, combined with their best-of-breed products, means that only the sky is the limit for the opportunity ahead, said Alan Helbush, President, Where To Start, Inc., a managed IT services firm based in San Francisco Bay Area. Every eFolder partner just got stronger as a result of this merger. And, in the end, we all win. There is minimal product overlap and an enormous amount of potential from the combined product families. I have every confidence that the expert eFolder and Axcient teams will blend the best of both worlds and create an incredible product family that will be second to none. I look forward to the opportunities this presents and cannot wait to offer these new solutions to my clients.

The merger between Axcient and eFolder sounds like a good opportunity, said Luis Alvarez, CEO, Alvarez Technology Group, a Connecticut-based technology firm providing IT services, software, hardware, consulting and data security services. Ive worked with both companies, and think theyll mesh very well together in both culture and technology. Through Axcient, Ive been able to recognize improved recovery point objectives and have heard great things about Replibits chain-free technology. Even more, Kevin Hoffman is one of the Channels leading technologists, and since the combined company now owns all Intellectual Property for these solutions, Im excited to see him bring these two powerful platforms together.

Ive been an eFolder partner for almost a decade and have confidently grown my eFolder business over the last nine years, said John Hardwick, President, nXio. Ive been utilizing Replibit for the past 24 months, and migrating away from chain-based products which has massively reduced the amount of time required by my techs to maintain and repair our Clients BDRs. Its a strong move to combine a solid BDR solution with software enabling direct-to-cloud virtualization. Im looking forward to having one vendor to provide these benefits to my clients and technical teams.

The combined eFolder-Axcient company offers a channel-focused delivery model with compelling programs and incentives for MSPs, VARs, system integrators and IT service providers. Programs are designed to deliver mutually beneficial opportunities to derive recurring revenue, attractive profit margins and strong cash flow through the delivery of productivity-enhancing services for small businesses and mid-enterprise customers. For more information, visit: http://www.efolder.net/partners/

About Axcient (@Axcient)

Axcient solves complicated technology problems with powerfully simple cloud solutions to enable businesses to run at their full potential. Axcients cloud-based disaster recovery and data protection platform empowers businesses of all sizes to operate with the resilience and agility of the worlds largest enterprises while dramatically reducing data center footprint, complexity and cost. Thousands of businesses trust Axcient to keep their applications running, their data centers lean and employees productive.

About eFolder (@eFolder)

eFolder delivers cloud business continuity, cloud file sync, and cloud to cloud backup solutions through its network of MSPs, cloud service providers, system integrators, and VARs. eFolder enables its partners to protect and empower business productivity for their clients, and generate highly profitable, recurring revenue. eFolder also empowers cost-effective partner and end-user private clouds, allowing partners to meet the needs of any client, regardless of size or readiness to engage in public cloud services.

###

Contact:

Robert Leake

eFolder, Director of Marketing

rleake(at)efolder.net
International Association of Registered Financial Consultants Making sure that we are all on the same page unites our international presence...IARFC US Chairman H. Stephen Bailey

These Chapters were established through national association affiliates who are typically the most highly visible and extremely qualified financial consultants in their respective country. The typical structure is the formation of two entities  a professional association to serve the consultants and an educational partnership or entity to offer educational programs.

The IARFC has representatives in Australia and New Zealand, Bermuda, Canada, China, Greater Asia, Hong Kong and Macau, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad and the United States. Qualified financial professionals from any country may apply for the Registered Financial Consultant (RFC) designation by meeting the same standards as those in the US with adjustments considering different institutions, educational courses and licensing.

On his current trip, Chairman Bailey will meet with Samuel Yung, Dr. Teresa So and Allan Wan in Hong Kong, Ralph Liew and Jeffrey Chiew in the Philippines and Kai Tu Yuan in Taiwan. These meetings will include visits to potential RFC education program providers, Insurance Commissioner Dennis Fuma in Manila, President of Manulife Ryan Charland, President of Philamlife Aibee Cantos and IMM International in Taipai. In the Philippines he is the Keynote Speaker addressing graduates of the latest RFC program and will attend their graduation.

I am extremely pleased to be meeting with our International Representatives, commented Bailey. Making sure that we are all on the same page unites our international presence. Bailey further commented that continuing education is a major focus on his agenda. Programs for continuing education are a must for an RFC to maintain their designation. To keep their status current, they must renewal their license annually and perform 40 credit hours of CE.

Another focus will be the importance of ethics and perhaps an adaptation of an Ethics Approved Program initiated in the US this past year. We have found our Ethics Approved Program to be highly successful with the US members, related Bailey. Being deemed ethically sound is important to clients and prospects when choosing a financial consultant in any country.

Lastly, Chairman Bailey will extend an invitation for International Chairs to sign up for the IARFC 2018 Biltmore Conference held at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC April 17-19. We see this conference as extremely valuable in networking and exchanging ideas, continued Bailey. To have international attendees would be extremely educational and invigorating.

For more information on the IARFC both US and International, visit http://www.iarfc.org or contact member services at info(at)iarfc(dot)org.
On Friday, August 18, the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT), joined by Martin Knopp, Associate Administrator for Operations, Federal Highway Administration and partners at Royal Truck & Equipment, Kratos Defense and Security Solutions and Colas UK will unveil a first-of-its kind work zone vehicle designed to revolutionize safety for roadway maintenance crews. Customarily positioned behind road construction crews in order to protect workers from the traveling public, the Autonomous Impact Protection Vehicle (AIPV) is a self-driving vehicle that increases work zone safety by removing the driver from a truck that is designed to be hit. The event will feature a press conference with representatives from CDOT, the federal government and all project partners, as well as a demonstration of the AIPV in action during a live roadway striping operation.

What: CDOT and partners unveil the Autonomous Impact Protection Vehicle  the worlds first self-driving work zone vehicle

When: Friday, August 18 at 1:30 p.m. MST

Where: Press Conference  Hilton Fort Collins, Rams Room, 425 W Prospect Rd, Fort Collins, CO 80526

Live Demonstration  right outside the Hilton Fort Collins along Centre Avenue

DOT will livestream the AIPV demonstration at CDOTs Facebook page (facebook.com/coloradodot) and YouTube page (youtube.com/cdotmedia).

Why: Between 2000 and 2014, Colorado experienced 21,898 crashes and 171 fatalities in work zones. According to the Federal Highway Administration, in work zones in 2015, there was a crash every 5.4 minutes, 70 crash-related injuries every day, and 12 crash-related fatalities every week. The Autonomous Impact Protection Vehicle is the worlds first work zone vehicle to use self-driving
As CIOs look to digitally transform their businesses, the network becomes an increasingly critical element of operations.

As CIOs look to digitally transform their businesses, the network becomes an increasingly critical element of operations. Unless organizations change the way they build and operate the network, they will be left with a fragile digital infrastructure that is difficult to change, risky to update, costly to run, and lacking in its ability to keep up with business needs.

David Cheritons session will address how automation and intent-based networking are the keys to an agile, reliable, and more cost effective network. Apstra CEO, Mansour Karam, will also be available at the event for one-on-one meetings to discuss how Apstras vendor-agnostic, intent-based networking system can transform your data center network

WHAT: Transformation to Vendor-Agnostic Intent-Based Networking keynote session on the benefits of intent-based networking.

WHEN: August 30, 2017

WHERE: future:net 2017

Four Seasons Hotel, 3960 S. Las Vegas Boulevard, Las Vegas, NV

WHO: David Cheriton, Apstra Inc. Founder and Chief Scientist

SCHEDULE A MEETING:

The three founders of Apstra, Mansour Karam (CEO), David Cheriton (Chief Scientist), and Sasha Ratkovic (CTO) will be available to meet with customers, prospects and partners at the event. If you will be attending and want to learn more about the Apstra Operating System (AOS), schedule a meeting.
The Air Porter The Air Porter and Air Caddy work as a modular system, helping travelers on long or short flights stay productive and comfortable.

In collaboration with customers and seasoned travelers, San Francisco maker WaterField Designs set out to create the preeminent carry-on system to improve the experience of frequent fliers. The resulting feature-rich Air Porter travel bag and Air Caddy duo facilitates in-case laptop charging, accelerates time through TSA security, and maximizes in-flight leg room while maintaining easy access to essential tech, travel and personal items. Available in tan waxed canvas or black ballistic nylon, each with premium leather accents, the sophisticated Air Porter moves easily from the airport straight to a professional meeting.

What I love about getting customer input on multiple iterations of our design is that we end up with a bag that has unique and thoughtful features that we know will benefit those who use it, explained owner, Gary Waterfield. The Air Porter and Air Caddy work as a modular system, helping travelers on long or short flights stay productive and comfortable.

The Air Porter is a handsome multi-compartment carry-on bag to organize everything needed during a flight. Travel-friendly features include a built-in, padded laptop sleeve sized for up to a 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, plenty of carefully-thought-out pockets, and three carry options: dual handles for a briefcase look, a suspension shoulder strap for carrying messenger style, and a wheeled-suitcase handle pass through for a hands-free carry from curbside to airport gate. The slim, TSA-friendly Air Porter stands on its own under an airline seat leaving ample leg room while maintaining significant capacity for tech items (laptop, phone, chargers, cords, headphones), personal items (wallet, books, toiletries) and travel documents (passport, tickets).

The coordinating Air Caddy zippered pouch is designed with pockets to hold the accessories air travelers need to access easily while seated, such as a smartphone, pen, iPad, book, glasses and snacks. The Caddy is designed to fit into an open-topped front pocket under the Air Porters leather flap during transport and transferred to the airline seatback pocket for convenient in-flight access.

Travel-friendly Air Porter features:



Slim and stands upright under airline seat leaving ample legroom.

Dual main compartments keep tech and personal items separated.

Waterproof exterior zippers and water-resistant lining help block the elements.

Zippered pocket under front leather flap grants quick-but-secure access.

Leather flap closes with magnets at two settings allowing front pocket to be fully or partly packed and remain secured.

TSA-friendly laptop-sleeve compartment opens flat; dual handles facilitate quick grab after TSA screening.

Padded laptop sleeve with corner cut-outs permits laptop charging while inside case.

Water-bottle/umbrella pockets snap closed when not use in keeping bag svelte.

Interior key fob stores home keys for easy recovery after a long return flight.

Availability & Pricing

Air Porter carry on:

Price: $359.

Colors: Black ballistic nylon with oil-tanned, full-grain black leather; tan waxed canvas with naturally-tanned, distressed, full-grain grizzly leather.

Dimensions & weight: 15 x 10.25 x 4.5 inches; 2.4 lbs.

The Air Caddy

Price: $59.

Colors: Black ballistic nylon; tan waxed canvas.

Dimensions & weight: 12 x 7.25 x 1.25 inches; 5 oz.

Air Porter + Air Caddy modular set

Price: $379.

Pre-order today. Shipping begins September 1, 2017.

About WaterField Designs

WaterField Designs is an innovative San Francisco designer and manufacturer of bags and cases for tech-savvy consumers who want to stylishly and responsibly transport their technology. WaterField manufactures custom-fitted, high-quality cases and bags for a full-range of laptop computers, smartphones, tablets, gaming devices and other digital gear. All products are manufactured to exacting standards entirely in San Francisco. More information at "Our Story.

WaterField Designs, Air Porter and Air Caddy are trademarks of WaterField Designs. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Copyright 2017. All Rights Reserved.
Feolas Italian Ristorante & Lounge

Feolas Italian Ristorante, located inside the Thunderbird Beach Resort, in honor of back-to-school month institutes a kids-eat-free policy Mondays through Wednesdays throughout August when patrons dine in, or free delivery on Treasure Island. This is our way of offering mom and dad a little relief during this hectic time, said Sal Feola, owner of Feolas Italian Ristorante.

In addition to a plethora of pizza, signature Feolas menu items include sausage and peppers, veal parmigiana, baked ziti, manicotti Sicilian and baked ravioli. Kids menu classics include penne meatball, lasagna, chicken tenders, mini calzone and mini pizzas.

Feolas prepares its breads, dough and sauces fresh daily, and is revered for its homemade cannoli. Our delicious food will make you swear you were in Italy, noted Sal.

Feolas also annually participates in the Cathedral School of St. Judes Fall Festival. Sals wife, Gina, is a St. Judes Cathedral School alumnus. We love to be out there serving our community with our amazing family, friends and staff, concluded Sal.

About Feolas Italian Ristorante & Lounge

Feolas Italian Ristorante is a family owned and operated business serving the St. Petersburg area since 1999. Their services include dine-in, carry-out, delivery and catering and events with a full-service bar. Feolas features homemade Italian food and dessert. Feolas Italian Ristorante & Lounge is located inside the Thunderbird Beach Resort at 10700 Gulf Blvd., Treasure Island, FL 33706. For more information, reservations, or catering needs, please call (727) 347-8415, or visit http://www.feolasitalianristorante.com.

About the NALA

The NALA offers small and medium-sized businesses effective ways to reach customers through new media. As a single-agency source, the NALA helps businesses flourish in their local community. The NALAs mission is to promote a business relevant and newsworthy events and achievements, both online and through traditional media. The information and content in this article are not in conjunction with the views of the NALA. For media inquiries, please call 805.650.6121, ext. 361.
Freedom Financial Network (FFN)  an innovative, financial services company that enables consumers to overcome debt, build wealth and achieve better financial health  has added a new leader to its recruiting team in Tempe.

Heather Marcom has joined FFN as director of talent acquisition. With more than 18 years of experience in industries including financial services, information technology and health care, Marcom will lead efforts to staff FFNs fast-growing operations.

The company, which opened its Tempe office in April 2006 with six employees, announced plans in January to hire close to 1,000 in Tempe this year. Marcom and her team are focusing on building a high-quality team to serve the companys growing customer base, with new hires in customer service, loan servicing, negotiations, sales, technical operations and underwriting.

To accommodate the growth, FFN will move to a new 300,000-square-foot office campus at 2100 E. Rio Salado Parkway, beginning in April 2018. Occupying two four-story buildings, the new offices will provide almost 33 percent more space than FFNs present operations in Tempe.

I am inspired to work at Freedom Financial Network, says Marcom. My initial focus is to help others understand why I was compelled to join the FFN team. She points to the ability for people of diverse backgrounds and experience levels to build careers at the company and be part of the continued growth path. Our employees confirm that FFN is one of the best places to work in the Phoenix area, she says. As FFN continues to grow, it will offer more and more opportunities for career development.

Before joining FFN, Marcom was vice president of global talent acquisition for R1 RCM in Chicago. She also has served as vice president of talent acquisition for Charles Schwab, manager of talent acquisition for PayPal Global Operations, and regional vice president for Supplemental Health Care in Phoenix. Marcom holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Illinois State University.

Freedom Financial Network, LLC (http://www.freedomfinancialnetwork.com)

Freedom Financial Network, LLC (FFN) is a family of companies providing innovative solutions that empower people to live healthier financial lives. For people struggling with debt, Freedom Debt Relief offers a custom program to significantly reduce and resolve what they owe more quickly than they could on their own. FreedomPlus tailors personal loans to each borrower with a level of customer service unmatched in the industry. Bills.com helps homeowners better understand their loan options and make smarter mortgage decisions.

Headquartered in San Mateo, California, FFN also operates an office in Tempe, Arizona, and employs more than 1,700. The company has been voted one of the best places to work in both the San Francisco Bay area and the Phoenix area for several years.
There are so many individual components of GHS, and many chemical software packages we found only do 10 out of 12 of the components, while CODESOFT can do all 12.  Barry Singelais, President of BeanTown Chemical

TEKLYNX International, the worlds leading barcode and RFID labeling software developer and solutions provider, today announced that TEKLYNX barcode label design software solution, CODESOFT, is becoming a critical software for manufacturers globally. The powerful solution integrates enterprise-wide label printing and RFID technology to increase labeling efficiency, reduce manual operations and meet regulatory compliances.

For leading technology manufacturer LSI Industries Inc., an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) integration with CODESOFT drives labeling efficiency and control for the companys lighting division. Because CODESOFT supports a virtually unlimited number of printers, LSI is able to support the divisions multi-user, multi-facility global environment. The integration also eliminated 6,000 static label files by replacing them with database-driven templates  reducing ongoing file maintenance by 80% and lessening process time from days to minutes.

For leading chemical manufacturer BeanTown Chemical, CODESOFT enabled Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS) compliance and positioned the company to quickly and easily design and print GHS-compliant labels for its over 7,000 products and over 5,500 distinct chemicals. There are so many individual components of GHS, and many chemical software packages we found only do 10 out of 12 of the components, while CODESOFT can do all 12, said Barry Singelais, President of BeanTown Chemical. And with CODESOFT, were able to update pictograms with minimal effort, making it simple to meet existing and emerging GHS regulations.

BeanTown Chemical also leverages CODESOFT to meet US Department of Transportation (DOT) requirements for labeling chemicals in transit because the labeling software is able to interact with an entirely different Microsoft Access database. Weve made a number of changes to the DOT labels, including adding new materials to the database, and the output has flowed seamlessly, comments Singelais.

In addition to features that drive labeling efficiency at LSI and label compliance at BeanTown, CODESOFT includes a variety of other features manufacturers find helpful including: WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get") technology, VBScript (Visual Basic Scripting), RFID label printing and robust formula creation. CODESOFT is available in 25 different languages, can print in virtually any language, supports label printing in a variety of countries, and connects labels to any UNICODE data including text files, databases, and more.

TEKLYNX is the only barcode labeling solution provider to offer subscription licensing  allowing manufacturers to start using TEKLYNX for a low cost of entry  while offering a portfolio of tiered solutions designed to grow with manufacturers over time. To access case studies detailing the successes for LSI Industries Inc. and BeanTown Chemical visit teklynx.com.

About TEKLYNX International

TEKLYNX International is the worlds leading barcode and RFID labeling software developer and solutions provider. An industry innovator for over 30 years, TEKLYNX helps companies operate smoothly and efficiently by implementing labeling solutions that streamline operations while staying ahead of industry-specific compliance and emerging regulations. TEKLYNX is world-renowned for its customer service; offering flexible purchase options, unparalleled service and support, and a comprehensive product offering that grows with companies over time. With operations in the United States, Europe, Japan, Latin America, China and Singapore, more than 630,000 companies in over 120 countries look to TEKLYNX integrated software solutions for their standard of success.

Learn more by visiting teklynx.com, LinkedIn, Twitter @Teklynx, and Facebook.com/TEKLYNXInternational or call 888-629-4444.
By PTI: Srinagar,Aug 15 (PTI)Pakistani troops violated ceasefire on Independence Day today by firing at two places along the Line of Control in Uri sector of Jammu and Kashmir, injuring a woman.

A police official said Hanifa Begum was hit in one leg and an arm by the bullets from across the LoC.

"Pakistani troops resorted to unprovoked firing at two places in Uri sector today," an army official said.

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She was given first aid at a military camp before being moved to a civilian hospital for treatment.

This is for the third consecutive day today that Pakistani troops have violated ceasefire along the LoC in north Kashmir. PTI MIJ AAR

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The move came after the manufacturing council lost seven members: three of whom left on Monday, two on Tuesday, and two on Wednesday amid fallout from his handling of the white-supremacist protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend.

"

Heres how the events unfolded

Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier, the only black business leader in the group, was first to resign on Monday morning after Trump initially failed to explicitly denounce white nationalists.

By the time Trump did so in a televised address on Monday, Frazier was the only one to have stepped down from the council because of the weekend's events.

Later Monday, however, Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank joined Frazier in leaving the council. The sporting-goods CEO said he decided to do so because his company "engages in innovation and sports, not politics."

That same night, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich released a statement saying he too was stepping down from the council.

"Earlier today, I tendered my resignation from the American Manufacturing Council," Krzanich wrote. "I resigned to call attention to the serious harm our divided political climate is causing to critical issues, including the serious need to address the decline of American manufacturing. Politics and political agendas have sidelined the important mission of rebuilding America's manufacturing base."

Trump responded Tuesday to the three departures with a tweet, saying that he has other leaders to take their spots on the council.

Scott Paul, the president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, tweeted shortly after Trump's statement that he will be the fourth executive to leave the council.

"

Less than 15 minutes after the tweet, J&J CEO Alex Gorsky and United Technologies CEO Greg Hayes said they would resign from the council. Gorsky had prior to Trump's news conference on Tuesday said he was staying on. Hayes had not taken a clear stance ahead of his resignation.

"Johnson & Johnson has a responsibility to remain engaged as important policy decisions are made. That hasn't changed. The Presidents most recent statements equating those who are motivated by race-based hate with those who stand up against hatred is unacceptable and has changed our decision to participate in the White House Manufacturing Advisory Council," Gorsky said in a statement. "We will continue to support, advocate and champion policies and programs that make this country and the world healthier, stronger and more united."

GE Chairman Jeff Immelt changed his mind and left the council on Wednesday, issuing a statement after the president's tweet.

Wendell Weeks, CEO of Corning, also annouced he had decided to leave the council after Trump's tweet dissolving the group.

"

Andrew Liveris, Dow Chemical Company,

Bill Brown, Harris Corporation,

Michael Dell, Dell Technologies,

John Ferriola, Nucor Corporation,

Jeff Fettig, Whirlpool Corporation,

said he would remain on the council.

Whirlpool Corp. believes strongly in an open and inclusive culture that respects people of all races and backgrounds," the company said in a statement. "Our company has long fostered an environment of acceptance and tolerance in the workplace. The company will continue on the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative to represent our industry, our 15,000 US manufacturing workers, and to provide input and advice on ways to create jobs and strengthen US manufacturing competitiveness."

left the council

said in a statement

Marillyn Hewson, Lockheed Martin,

said he would remain on the council,

Jim Kamsickas, Dana Inc.,

said in a statement

Rich Kyle, The Timken Company,

Dennis Muilenburg, Boeing,

said he would remain on the council.

left the council in June

Doug Oberhelman, formerly Caterpillar,

I'm resigning from the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative because it's the right thing for me to do,"

Michael Polk, Newell Brands,

said he would remain on the council.

With a large portion of our business in the U.S., including a manufacturing footprint of more than 60 factories and 15,000 employees (and counting), it is in our best interests to have a voice in the conversations that can influence the environment in which we work," said Polk in a statement. "I plan to continue to collaborate with other leaders from diverse industries, who represent a variety of perspectives and beliefs, to help shape strategies and develop policies that foster a more vibrant economy and more jobs in the US."Polk also provided Business Insider with a statement regarding Charlottesville: "We find the events of this past weekend in Charlottesville to be incredibly troubling. There is simply no place in our society for racism of any kind, white supremacy, or Neo-Nazism. The values that form these views are intolerable and completely contrary to everything we hold true as proud Americans. We reject and condemn all that hate stands for and hope that as a society, we can come together as one in this view. For its part, Newell Brands has always been and will always be committed to diversity and inclusion in every aspect of our business."

Mark Sutton, International Paper,

said he would remain on the council.



"I joined the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative in January to advocate for policies that align with our values and encourage even stronger investment and job growth  in order to make the United States stronger, healthier and more prosperous for all people. After careful consideration, I believe the initiative is no longer an effective vehicle for 3M to advance these goals. As a result, today I am resigning from the Manufacturing Advisory Council.

"At 3M, we will continue to champion an environment that supports sustainability, diversity and inclusion. I am committed to building a company that improves lives in every corner of the world."

Wendell Weeks, Corning,

Steve Schwarzman, the CEO of the private-equity giant Blackstone and the leader of Trump's now-disbanded Strategic and Policy Forum  another group of executives from companies such as JPMorgan, PepsiCo, and Walmart  also condemned the events in Charlottesville and said he would remain as head of the forum.

"Bigotry, hatred, and extremism are an affront to core American values and have no place in this country," Schwarzman said in a statement. "I am deeply saddened and troubled by the tragic events in Charlottesville. My heartfelt condolences go out to the victims and their families. As the president said today, I believe we need to find a path to heal the wounds left by this tragedy and address its underlying causes. Encouraging tolerance and understanding must be a core national imperative, and I will work to further that goal."The following CEO's had also left the council because they are no longer in their jobs:
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By PTI: (Eds: Rephrasing intro)

By M Zulqernain

Lahore, Aug 14 (PTI) Pakistans national flag today flew at 400 feet, the highest in South Asia, at the Attari-Wagah border with India to mark the countrys 70th Independence Day.

The 120x80 feet flag is also the largest in the history of the country, Pakistani media reported.

Pakistan Army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa hoisted the flag near the border after midnight last night, kicking off the Independence Day celebrations across the country.

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The flag is said to be the highest in South Asia and the eighth highest in the world.

Gen Bajwa said: "Some 77 years ago, Pakistan resolution was passed in the same city (Lahore). Pakistan came into being on the night of 27th Ramadan - it was a blessed night.

"Today, the country is progressing on the path of the law and the constitution. All institutions are working properly. We will make Pakistan the country of Quaid-e-Azam and Allama Iqbal."

Gen Bajwa enunciated the many challenges Pakistan faced but also tried to drum up the nationalistic sentiment.

"We have rendered many sacrifices - we will never forget our martyrs. We will execute each and every terrorist in Pakistan. I want to tell our enemies, whether they are in the east or in the west, that your bullets will end but not the chests of our jawans [soldiers]."

"I assure you that we will never let you down. Any power that will aim to weaken Pakistan, the Army and all other institutions will foil their attempts."

Other speakers at the event also paid tributes to those killed during the migration to Pakistan. PTI MZ ARK ABH

--- ENDS ---
The ongoing investigation into whether President Donald Trump's campaign colluded with Moscow during the 2016 election gained new traction on Monday when The Washington Post reported that a foreign-policy adviser, George Papadopolous, sent at least six emails during the campaign offering to set up meetings with Russian leaders.

Papadopolous sent the first email to seven campaign advisers in March 2016 with the subject line "Meeting with Russian Leadership - Including Putin." His requests were reportedly met with hesitancy from multiple campaign officials, including retired Navy Rear Adm. Charles Kubic, who voiced concerns about violating both US sanctions on Russia and the Logan Act, a law forbidding US citizens from negotiating with foreign governments without authorization.

Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign chairman and a current subject in the Russia investigation, also expressed concerns about the proposal and rejected Papadopoulos' request for a meeting between Trump and Russian officials in May 2016, according to The Post.

Manafort's rejection stands in contrast to his willingness to accept a meeting with a Russian lawyer weeks later in June, a point that Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor, raised after the story broke.

Mariotti wrote in a series of tweets that perhaps the most important implication of the news was that "everyone on those emails was aware of the concerns expressed in the emails about meeting with Russians, including Admiral Kubic's concern about the legality of meeting with Russia."

"If anyone on those emails later met with Russians or accepted aid from them," Mariotti continued, "the prior emails about concerns could be used to indicate that they knew that the meeting was problematic and potentially illegal but nonetheless persisted."

The meeting Manafort attended in June included Trump's son Donald Trump Jr. and his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner. Also present were Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin; Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian lobbyist and former Soviet military intelligence officer; Anatoli Samachornov, a translator; and Rob Goldstone, the British music publicist who arranged the meeting at the request of Aras and Emin Agalarov, a wealthy Russian family.

The legal issues are very similar, if not the same

What may account for Manafort's rejection of one meeting and acceptance of the other is that Papadopoulos' was "pitched as a Trump-level meeting," said Andrew Wright, an associate professor at Savannah Law School.

In one email in April 2016 to Corey Lewandowski, the campaign manager at the time, Papadopoulos said he had gotten "a lot of calls over the past month" about how "Putin wants to host the Trump team when the time is right," according to The Post.

Papadopoulos followed up on May 4, sending Lewandowski and Sam Clovis, the campaign cochairman, a message he'd received from Ivan Timofeev, a senior official at the Russian International Affairs Council, that Russian officials were open to Trump visiting Moscow.

Clovis replied, "There are legal issues we need to mitigate, meeting with foreign officials as a private citizen," according to the report.

Papadopoulos forwarded the message to Manafort right after he was named Trump's campaign chairman.

"Russia has been eager to meet with Mr. Trump for some time and have been reaching out to me to discuss," Papadopoulos said, according to The Post.

Manafort forwarded the email to an associate and said, "We need someone to communicate that DT is not doing these trips," The Post reported. They then agreed to have someone else handle the response, indicating that it did not require a reply from a senior official like Manafort.

The proposal of a Trump-Putin meeting by Papadopoulos  a lower-level campaign aide who told campaign officials he was acting as an intermediary for the Russian government  is "a very different calculus" than the president's son suggesting a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Wright said, and that may have factored into Manafort's decisions about whether to accept the meetings.

Still, he added, the legal issues about possible violations of the Logan Act and US sanctions against Russia "are very similar, if not the same."

Devastating evidence in a trial

A spokesman for Manafort, Jason Maloni, told The Post that Papadopoulos' email chain was "concrete evidence that the Russia collusion narrative is fake news."

"Mr. Manafort's swift action reflects the attitude of the campaign  any invitation by Russia, directly or indirectly, would be rejected outright," Maloni said.

However, the meeting Manafort attended in June 2016 was described in an email to Trump Jr. from Goldstone as "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." Trump Jr. forwarded Manafort that email chain, in which Goldstone provided more details of the meeting.

"If you're Paul Manafort and your defense is to say, 'I didn't think taking this meeting was a problem,' and then you have the prosecutor showing the jury emails that were sent a month earlier where people are raising precisely those same legal concerns  that's such devastating evidence in a trial," Wright said.

Mariotti agreed.

"I expect those earlier emails to be used against Manafort, who is already in the hot seat after the FBI executed a search warrant at his home," he wrote, referring to Papadopoulos' correspondence. "Although Manafort's lawyer suggests that the emails exonerate him, they appear problematic in light of the later meeting."

Manafort has come under increased public scrutiny after The Post reported last week that the FBI conducted a predawn raid on his home in July.

Agents working with Robert Mueller, the special counsel leading the bureau's Russia investigation, left Manafort's home "with various records," according to The Post.
An Uber engineer had slammed Tesla CEO Elon Musk in texts to Travis Kalanick, Uber's cofounder and former CEO, a court filing shows.

The former engineer, Anthony Levandowski, is at the heart of a lawsuit filed in February by Waymo, Google's sister company focusing on self-driving-car technology. The suit claims that Levandowski, the former head of Waymo, stole intellectual property and trade secrets and used them for Uber's autonomous-vehicle efforts.

Levandowski joined Uber in August 2016 when the company acquired his self-driving-truck startup, Otto. Uber fired Levandowski in May over his refusal to cooperate in the legal case.

A court filing, first reported by IEEE Spectrum's Mark Harris on Tuesday, shows text exchanges between Levandowski and Kalanick while the two were planning the Otto acquisition.

An interesting nugget buried in the texts is a shot Levandowski took at Musk's approach to self-driving-car technology.

"We've got to start calling Elon on his s---," Levandowski wrote in a text in September. "I'm not on social media but let's start 'faketesla' and start give physics lessons about stupid s--- Elon says."

Tesla did not immediately return Business Insider's request for comment.

Levandowski's example was the Tesla CEO's reasoning behind his decision not to use lidar, a notoriously expensive sensor that uses lasers to help self-driving cars detect obstacles.

Musk has said Tesla does not use lidar for its Autopilot technology because lidar cannot penetrate rain, fog, dust, or snow. Instead, Tesla cars are equipped with a radar sensor, which uses radio waves instead.

Waymo, Ford, and General Motors are a few companies equipping their self-driving cars with radar and lidar.

Levandowski also accused Musk of lying about the number of crashes that had occurred while a Tesla car was operating with Autopilot activated.

"Tesla crash in January ... implies Elon is lying about millions of miles without incident," Levandowski wrote in another text in September. "We should have LDP on Tesla just to catch all the crashes that are going on."

Levandowski appears to be referring to a fatal crash on January 20, 2016, in China that may have occurred while Autopilot was activated, The New York Times reported. Tesla removed the Chinese term for "self-driving" from its webpage about Autopilot after a separate crash there in August 2016, Reuters reported.

The court filing does not show any response from Kalanick.
The legal battle centers around Waymo trade secrets allegedly stolen by Levandowski, who worked at Google's self-driving car spinoff, Waymo, before joining Uber following the purchase of his self-driving truck startup in 2016.

The newly released texts detail Levandowski and Kalanick's plans for Uber's self-driving car division and the close relationship they formed over several months.

The texts begin February 13 of 2016, just weeks after Levandowski left Waymo. At this point, Levandowski is working at his self-driving truck startup, Otto.

2/13/16 Levandowski: Was awesome. Lots more to come. We ended up wrapping up our truck testing at 2:30!

2/13/16: We had a close call but no contact with anyone or anything.

This is likely a reference to a testing of Otto's self-driving trucks. Uber acquired Otto in August 2016 and Levandowski joined Uber to lead its self-driving car efforts.

In April, months before Uber would acquire Otto, the acquisition talks seem to be coming along.

4/6/2016 Levandowski: Basically I'd like the freedom to move as needed on the acquisition (and take advice/guidance) but if I can close them within the range we agreed you guys are happy.

4/6/2016 Levandowski: Thanks for understanding on the freedom to operate sounds like the language we should get back will work.

An earlier court filing shows that in 2015, before the bad blood between the companies began, Kalanick was looking to partner with Google on self-driving cars. It looks like those hopes were still alive for Kalanick a year later, but that the deal ultimately didn't work out.

One robot at a time

They also discuss the competition, Elon Musk, with Levandowski writing that "we've got to start calling Elon on his shit" and seemingly suggesting they start a social media cycle branded "faketesla."

9/14/2016 Levandowski: Tesla crash in January which implies Elon is lying about millions of miles without incident. We should have LDP on tesla just to catch all the crashes that are going on. Got this from ford who's debating call him out on his shit.

9/22/2016 Levandowski: Yo! I'm back at 80%, super pumped... we've got to start calling Elon on his shit. I'm not on social media but let's start "faketesla" and start give physics lessons about stupid shit Elon says like this:

lon does have shit

10/20/2016: He's trippin' but might/will blame regulatory as to why it's not available
This will bring the number of licensed banks to 34 after the license of two banks were withdrawn on Monday (August 14, 2017).

These banks are UT Bank and Capital Bank. The GCB Bank has taken over the two banks.

READ ALSO: Here is how to support your distressed relation affected by UT and Capital Bank takeover

Addressing a press conference in Accra on Monday (August 14, 2017) the governor of the Bank of Ghana Dr Ernest Addison said the three banks have gone through all due process and have been licensed for takeoff.

The Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) on Monday suspended UT Bank Limited from entities listed on the countrys stock exchange.

This follows the revocation of UT Bank and Capital Banks licenses. The action, according to the Central Bank has become necessary due to severe impairment of their capital.

READ ALSO: UT Life Insurance not affected by GCB takeover

The two banks have been taken over by the GCB Bank and that the remaining assets and liabilities will be realised and settled respectively through a receivership process to be undertaken by Messers Vish Ashiagbor and Eric Nana Nipah of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

After the takeover, the offices of UT Bank and Capital Bank were rebranded on Monday to reflect the current ownership.
Ghanaian celebrities have not been left out. Some of them have taken to social media to express their opinion on the matter.

Rapper M.anifest put up a post saying when you cant bank on banks

READ ALSO:

Rapper Edem on Twitter was worried about the level of confidence lost in Ghanaian owned business.

Issues like this would continue to make people lose confidence in Ghanaian owned businesses, he said.

John Dumelo was worried some Ghanaians are trolling both banks and their founders or board members on social media.

READ ALSO:

It's sad to hear about the "collapsing" of UT bank and Capital bank. Both indigenous Ghanaian firms. It's also very sad to see fellow...

UT Bank and Capital Bank have been taken over by GCB Bank. The licenses of the two banks have also been revoked.
Mr Agyepong who owns over 40 companies including the countrys largest waste management company, Zoomlion Ghana Limited said he only finds joy in seeing people work and that compels him to build more businesses.

I dont say that Im greedy.

"One company is enough to take care of me and my five children. When I create a business, its because of employment, Mr. Agyepong told Accra-based Joy FM.

READ ALSO: COPEC to hit the streets over controversial towing levy

The business mogul, who also owns SUBAH Infosolutions; the Road Safety Management Services Limited, has been in the news lately over the mandatory tow levy.

Many have condemned the move, saying that it will only create, loot and share.

But Mr Agyepong said his main interest in a business is to enable him to find a solution to some challenges in the economy, especially unemployment.

He said he sees himself as someone trying to create employment for people [and] to create an environment that will make people work.

I consider myself as someone blessed and I have to share the blessing with society.

He expressed worry that the current system in the country does not make it easy for young people to start up a business after college education.

He also touched on competition from foreigners, saying that the unfortunate thing is that you are doing business as a local businessman and at the same time you have foreigners competing with you for the same business.
At a press conference on Tuesday (August 15, 2017) the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GCB, Raymond Sowah said they will retain some staff based on the job skills the employees have.

We shall conduct a skills assessment as part of integration process we need to know that we can bring everyone onboard or not. This is an expanded institution and as we go through the integration we should know what jobs to close down and what jobs to retain, he added.

READ ALSO: BoG licenses three more Banks after two banks collapsed

Employees of UT and Capital banks have been worried about the security of their jobs after GCB bank took over the two banks on Monday.

The employees are a little over one thousand.

GCB bank was given the opportunity to assume ownership of the two banks because according to the Bank of Ghana (BoG) they have severe impairment of their capital.

BoG also revoked the licenses of the two banks while the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) also suspended the listing status of UT Bank.

READ ALSO: Here is how to support your distressed relation affected by UT and Capital Bank takeover

BoG said no staff will be fired yet but reports suggest that the staff of the two banks will be under probation for about six months under GCB before termination of their contracts.

At least a quarter of the workers of both banks will be absorbed while the remaining are likely to lose their jobs.

At the press conference, Sowah said they will not take the integration lightly.

GCB was the most profitable bank last year. We must be doing something right to have gotten ourselves to that position. Banks go through some cycles, some good some bad. We are aware of the needs of the customer base that we have and I also want to assure you that we did not take the decision to assume the management of these two banks lightly. We recognize that there are certain things that we can learn from them and as well as certain things that they can learn from us. And that is why we will ensure that we integrate with these institutions seamlessly so that they can bring whatever good they have to deal with their customers.

He, however, assured the customers of both banks of quality service and a safety of the savings and investments.
This remark follows a disclosure made by the Minister of Defence, Mr. Dominic Nitiwul after his appearance before the Public Accounts Committee over the 2015 Auditor Generals Report.

The Minister revealed that as part of national service scheme next year, 10,000 national service personnel would be selected to embark on military training.

Mr. Nitiwul explained that the leaders of the National Service Scheme have already written to the military to inform them about the exercise.

Speaking to Radio Univers, the PRO of the scheme said the rationale behind this initiative is to align the personnel into the Ghana first mentality of the military.

We have a number of young people coming out of the university and they need some form of orientation towards putting Ghana first. So many things have gone wrong because of our own orientation as individuals Mr. Entiwa explained.

He affirmed that such a training would mean that a great number of young people who would be trained would be discipline and forward-pushers of the national agenda.

Mr. Entiwa also clarified that the collaboration with the Ministry of Defense and the Secretariat to undertake this program was to suggest that the our educational system had failed to disciple students but this training would create an alternate avenue in instilling nationalism into young Ghanaians.

When you are born out of school, you are going into the society as a fresh graduate you be reoriented so that you will learn to put the country first, he said.

Meanwhile, Mr. Entiwa further revealed the intention of the Military to camp the selected few who would be going through the half year military training.
According to the students, government has defaulted in releasing the living allowance over eight months.

The students are therefore calling on the government to desist from delays in payment of scholarship allowances in order to fast track the achievement of academic goals.

READ MORE: Government abandons scholarship students in China

Russia and Ghana have a strong relationship in education as every year some students from Ghana travel to Russia to further their studies especially in the areas of medicine, engineering and other science fields.

The students leader in Moscow Russia, Galodum-bene Pua-bali said all efforts to get the government to ensure that their funds are paid have proved futile.

READ ALSO: Students on govt scholarship in China stranded
He said the directive is to enable the public universities reopen on time for the 2017/2018 academic year.

READ MORE: Mahama Ayariga threatens to sue universities over new fees hike

The minister gave the directive in a speech read on his behalf at the 9th Congregation of the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA).

Some aggrieved students of the Universities, have voiced out their displeasure about the exorbitant fees being charged by the school authorities.

They protested what they term as an insensitive increment in their tuition fees and accused the university authorities of arbitrarily increasing fees every new academic year.

They have called on Parliament to scrutinise the fees before the university is allowed to bill students.

Member of Parliament for Bawku Central, Mahama Ayariga who doubles as the chairman of the Subsidiary Legislation Committee asked public universities to comply with the law by submitting their proposed fees to Parliament.

Mahama said the new charges are illegal since it has no legal basis.

READ MORE: UG students petition Speaker of Parliament against high tuition fees

Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh speaking at the congregation directed all public universities to reverse their fees.

At the congregation, which was on the theme: "Celebrating Professional and Scholarly Excellence for Accelerated Nation Building," a total of 4,007 students graduated, which is the highest in the history of the University.

Out of the number, there were 280 diplomats, 3,255 undergraduate and 472 postgraduate students.

The Vice Chancellor, Professor Abednego Feehi Okoe Amartey, in his speech said the four strategic goals that the University was anchored under his leadership were: Enhancing institutional image and development, improving institutional effectiveness, promoting research and enterprise and effectively competing in the global higher education environment.
By India Today Web Desk: Sony TV's latest venture Pehredaar Piya Ki, a romantic drama, has been courting a lot of controversies, as it shows the union of a 18-year-old female with a nine-year-old child. The show has been criticised on the social media, and according to reports Smriti Irani has written to BCCC (Broadcasting Content Complaints Council) to take action against the show for showing objectionable content.

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The makers of the show, Sumeet and Shashi Mittal recently held a press conference to address the issues pertaining to the show.

While Sumeet asked people to watch the show and then form opinions about it, he also mentioned that most of the negativity around Pehredaar Piya Ki is based on baseless rumours.

Shashi Mittal, the writer of the show, also responded to lead actress Tejasswi Prakash's comparison of the show with American show Game of Thrones.

"Everyone has their own way of interpreting a story. It is possible you are interpreting something differently and I am interpreting the same thing differently," Shashi said.

While explaining the plot of the show, Shashi said that the female lead only marries the child in order to protect him, and to honour the child's father's request. The show has nothing to do with promoting child marriage, the writer added.

"It is a classic case of a judging a book by its cover," Shashi said when asked about people's reaction to the honeymoon sequence.

On being probed about the show's effect on children, Shashi said, "I have a 9-year-old daughter and it really matters from person to person. Every child in a different age group is different. Sometimes a 13-year-old child is innocent, and sometimes that is not the case at all."

Responding to getting a notice from the I&B ministry, Shashi said that they had not received any notice in paper, but added, "Even if it comes, we will present our case to them as we are presenting it you today because we know what we have made and we are confident of our content."

"People who have misjudged have not even watched the show. And I am shocked because they are reacting to one picture that was circulated on social media without the context of the show. No one really has any facts. People are blowing up the matter out of proportion," she said.

Elaborating more on the suhaag raat scene depicted in the show, Shashi said, "I belong to a very traditional and conservative family and I totally understand these things. Whenever we have marriages in our household, we decorate the room of the newly-weds and kids around us are always excited about it. They often ask us questions about it, so why is there so much noise about our show's particular suhaag raat scene? Are we saying that we should stop our children from asking these questions?

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The makers maintained that they would not change the script of the show to please anyone.

Also read: Pehredaar Piya Ki in trouble! Smriti Irani responds to petition to ban the show; writes to BCCC

Also read: Mumbai NGO files a complaint against Pehredaar Piya Ki for promoting child marriage

--- ENDS ---
He pointed out that teachers are part of public servants who are supposed to close at 5pm as mandated by law.

READ MORE: Mathew Opoku Prempeh wants basic school pupils to close at 4pm

Minister of Education, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh has called on the National Council for Curriculum Assessment to review the closing time for basic schools in Ghana.

He has proposed the extension of closing time for basic from 2pm to 4pm.

From his point of view, productivity in the entire country is affected as parents and guardians of the pupils have to leave their various work places to pick up their kids from school.

READ ALSO: Teacher trainee allowance to be disbursed through Students Loan Trust

The extension of the closing time for pupils at first cycle institutions attracted some mixed reactions from some parents and guardians after the hint by the Minister.

The former Director General of GES in an interview on Accra-based Kasapa said "There is no law prescribing that schools should close at 2:00 pm. The law governing our school system says school hours should be from 8:00 am-4:00 pm. Education officials have just relaxed the system in the past that is why we see all these things happening.
According to The Ghanaian Times, Shirley was fined GH600 by an Accra District Magistrate court, in default would serve 14 days imprisonment.

Prosecuting, Nana Akua Annimwaa Thompson of the Trust, told the court, presided over by Dr Worlanyo Kotoltu that Sparrow Productions Limited failed to pay Social Security of workers totalling GH64, 203.52.

The court heard that the company, located at Kokomlemle in Accra, provides advertising services.

The Ghanaian Times reported that Shirley, was not in court last Saturday when judgment was pronounced, but her representative, Kenneth Attoh, a director of the company, was convicted on his admission of guilt.

The court, further ordered the management of Sparrow to settle its indebtedness.

Nana Thompson disclosed that the company was in arrears between September 2011 and June 2016, adding that the employer was notified of her indebtedness, but she did not comply.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Josephine l Osafo-Affum, Legon Branch Manager of SSNIT, said the Trust had begun mass prosecution of defaulters.
The incident happened at Warabeba, a suburb of Ayensudo in the Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abirem Municipality of the Central region.

According to reports, the two had reached an agreement to share the spoils from the hunting expedition, but the accused failed to go by the earlier agreement.

The deceased had reportedly retrieved his gun, but was shot unexpectedly when he was leaving his friends house.

The deceased was subsequently rushed to the Central regional hospital by nearby residents, some of whom upon hearing of the death of the farmer attempted to burn down the house of the accused and his known allies.

The case has been reported to the Elmina police who are on a manhunt for the accused.

Kofi Benya who is currently at large is reportedly in the bad books of the police already for threatening the deceased some time ago. He was made to sign a bond of good behavior.
After receiving a complaint for a company "we investigated the case and have arrested four individuals for unauthorised publication of the fourth episode from season seven," Deputy Commissioner of Police Akbar Pathan told AFP.

He said the four -- accused of criminal breach of trust and computer-related offences -- would be detained until August 21 amid an investigation.

The case was filed by a Mumbai-based company responsible for storing and processing the TV episodes for an app, local media said.

The four arrested were company employees who possessed official credentials giving them access to the episodes, the reports added.

Game of Thrones has more Emmy Awards than any narrative show in history and airs in 170 countries, with viewership figures shattering records across the world.

As well as being a hit globally, it has a massive fan base in South Asia.

Showrunners David Benioff andD.B. Weiss last year announced the shortened run of seven and six episodes for the final two seasons and confirmed the summer return for season seven, a departure from the usual April premieres.
The movie produced by Waisreel Productions also stars Andy Siaw, Amanorbea Dodoo, Susan Musa and Frank Aidam.

Synopsis: "Veiled" is a story of Ekow, a young man who, brought up from the cradle of poverty, loses his sense of self in his fathers quest to sustain his reputation and family.

He is given out at a very tender age to his auntie whos just returned from Nigeria.

Ekow faces a lot of terror during that period due to his aunties continuous sexual and physical abuse. This takes the wheel of his life and makes a turn for disaster.

He lives with that emotional, mental and physical effects of the abuse every day of his life and its eating him up from within.

Yet, he constantly tries to keep it a secret.

Despite the pain and resentment towards his father for supposedly being the cause of his troubles, his love for his sister remains his anchor in life.

Due to his experience as a boy, Ekow is very protective of his little sister Aseye and will do everything to keep her from going through what he ones experienced.
The Minority spokesperson on Finance, Cassiel Ato Forson believes that the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori Atta and Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Ernest Addison must be hauled before Parliament to answer questions on the matter.

The Minority also wants the assurance that depositors will suffer no loss following the development.

READ ALSO: Celebrities react to collapse of UT and Capital Banks

UT Bank and Capital Bank have been taken over by GCB Bank. The licenses of the two banks have also been revoked.

According to the Central Bank, it revoked the licences of UT Bank Ltd and Capital Bank because of the severe impairment of their capital.

Below is the full statement from the Minority:

MINORITY STATEMENT ON THERECEIVERSHIP OF CAPITAL BANK AND UT BANKGood afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen of the press.Thank you very much for honoring the invitation at a very short notice We note that the BOG has approved a purchase and assumption (P&A) transaction between UT Bank, Capital Bank and GCB. This can be viewed as a relatively smooth takeover of the banks rather than the earlier speculation of a simple and forced liquidation which would have had a devastating effect on the economy.The P&A transaction follows other precedent approaches that had been used to deal with difficult banking situations in the country, for example, the setting up of the Non-Performing Assets Recovery Trust (NPART), and the winding down of the Bank for Credit and Commerce (BCC) , Bank for Housing and Construction (BHC) and Merchant Bank.We also note that during the press conference on the P&A transaction, the Governor of the BOG, assured the nation that the approach has a distinct benefit where customers will suffer no losses. The acquiring bank (GCB) will increase its market share while the productive financial assets of UT Bank and Capital Bank will be maintained.We take note the news and urge all depositors and customers of UT Bank and Capital Bank to exercise restraint while we patiently monitor the activities of the acquiring bank (GCB), BOG, and the receivers (PwC).

We strongly urge these three institutions, (BOG, GCB, and PwC), and the Ministry of Finance (MOF) that could assume any ultimate fiscal risks under the Banking laws, to ensure strict adherence to the distinct benefit of the purchase and assumption (P&A) transaction, so that no single depositor losses his or her investment. Needless to say, should this happen, it will result in an unforeseen burden on taxpayers instead of the original owners of UT and Capital Banks.Again, we urge BOG to ensure that the acquiring bank (GCB), which is the largest indigenous bank, with both public and private shareholders, is not overburdened unnecessarily with non-performing loans and impaired assets. We recall that the NDC Government, in recent past years, took a deliberate policy action to pay the TOR debt owed to GCB which helped to restore the Banks balance sheet to its current healthy status, and also not to interfere in GCB's operations. It is our hope that past and future transactions involved in this indirect liquidation will not be clouded in another secrecy, on grounds of market sensitivity.Ladies and gentlemen, it will be recalled that the NDC government introduced a number of structural measures that sought to strengthen the financial sector and to protect depositors. Notably among them is the Ghana Deposit Protection Act, 2016 (Act 931). This Act established the Deposit Protection Scheme (Insurance), the Deposit Protection Fund, and Deposit Protection Corporation. The Act seeks to protect depositors from potential losses resulting from the occurrence of an insured event. It is also to support the development of a safe, sound, efficient and stable banking system in Ghana. We urge the BOG to, as a matter of urgency, start implementing the provisions of this Act without further delay.

The NDC government also enacted the Specialized Deposit Taking Institutions Act, 2016 (Act 930) to facilitate the development of the financial sector, and provide an appropriate and robust legal framework to deal with emerging risk and vulnerabilities in the banking system. The Act addresses supervisory and regulatory gaps to enable the Bank of Ghana superintend over financial service providers in the micro-finance industry. The Act also ensures financial consumer protection, promotion of innovation, and financial inclusion.CONCLUSION: Ladies and Gentlemen of the media, we wish to end with two observations. First, it is important for BoG to further strengthen its supervisory and monitoring responsibilities. It is unimaginable to think that these two (2) banks had won several enviable awards at recent high profile ceremonies.The minority, as a matter of urgency, will be requesting, through the Rt. Hon. Speaker, that the Minister of Finance, and the Governor of Bank of Ghana be invited to brief Parliament about the development and to give assurance that the depositors will suffer no loss.We also urge Bank of Ghana to conduct an investigation as to what occasioned this development.Thank you.
President Akufo-Addo, who received the donation, was grateful to the government and people of India for the kind gesture adding that the synergy between Indian and Ghanaian freedom was deliberate.

The people who began the struggle for our nations freedom were heavily influenced by events in India. Indeed, it was exactly 11 days before the 15th of August that they met in Saltpond to begin the battle for Ghanaian freedom, and they did so because they were conscious of what was taking place in India, he said.

He continued, Many of them, in fact, had close friendships with many of the leading lights of the Indian Nationalist Movement, and thought it would not be right to announce the struggle for Ghanaian freedom after Indian independence. So they did everything possible to assemble in Saltpond, even if it was 11 days before Indias independence.

Nana Akufo-Addo was hopeful that in the course of his and the administration of Prime Minister Modi, Ghana and India would explore further avenues of economic intercourse and development. There is so much our two countries can gain from stepping up the quality of the value of exchanges between our two countries, which currently stands in the region of $3 billion.

On his part, Mr Akbar applauded the policies and programmes being implemented by President Akufo-Addos New Patriotic Party (NPP) government.

He described Akufo-Addo as a father of democracy in Africa, adding that the government and people of India celebrate the on-going contributions made by President Akufo-Addo to Ghanas development.
Some news media in the nation on Monday August 14, 2017 circulated rumours about the sudden demise of owner of multi million business conglomerate, Antrak Group.

However, close nephew to Alhaji Banda disclosed that the rumours were completely out of place and that is uncle was in good health. READ ALSO: Northern Region 3 killed in gory accident at Tinga

When Mr. Banda was interviewed, he said he wasnt surprised about the alegations.

"It is normal for some people to pronounce you dead before Gods appointed time. It happened to prominent chiefs in this country so I do not see it as surprising. But let everyone know that I am not dead. I am alive the former council of state member said.
By Nolan Pinto, Supriya Bhardwaj: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi will be launching Karnataka government's flagship programme 'Indira Canteen' in Bengaluru on Wednesday morning.

This is Rahul's second visit to Karnataka within a week. The Amethi MP had gone to Raichur to address a rally on August 12. BJP chief Amit Shah was also on a three-day tour to Karnataka from August 12.

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Through Indira Canteen, the Siddaramaiah government wants to reach out to the poor and the downtrodden people of the state, said Karnataka Congress secretary Madhu Yashki Goud. "Demonetisation has left a huge impact on the poor people, who are now not able to get two square meals a day. Through the Indira Canteen, which is the flagship programme of Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah, people will be able to get a good meal within Rs 25", Goud added.

According to sources, breakfast will be served for Rs 5, lunch for Rs 10 and dinner for Rs 10 at Indira Canteen. The menu will consist of traditional cuisines, designed by leading chefs of five-star hotels.

FLAGSHIP PROGRAMME AIMED AT REACHING OUT TO POOR

With assembly elections less than a year away, the Congress government through this programme not just wants to reach out to the marginalised sections of society, which includes migrants, government factory workers, auto drivers, taxi drivers and call centre employees, but also create jobs.

Sample this. There are 27 assembly constituencies and 198 wards in Bengaluru. There will be one Indira Canteen in each of the 198 wards. There will be one kitchen in each of the 27 assembly constituencies.

Apart from inaugurating the Indira Canteen in Jayanagar, Rahul Gandhi will address a public meeting at the National College Ground in Shankarapuram.

ALSO READ |

'Rahul Gandhi missing' posters emerge in his Lok Sabha constituency Amethi

BJP leader arrested for attack on Rahul Gandhi's convoy in Gujarat

WATCH VIDEO | Rahul Gandhi to inaugurate Indira Canteen for a hunger-free Bengaluru

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According to the group, all the attacks on Rawlings were calculated at covering up the truth within the party.

The NDC has been bedeviled with lots of controversy following its unexpected loss to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the 2016 elections.

There were accusations and counter accusations among both the grassroots and the top hierarchy of the party as to who should take the blame for the partys defeat.

The latest turmoil has been rekindled by former Deputy Chief of Staff, Valerie Sawyerr in her article published couple of days ago attacking Founder, former President Rawlings and Former Attorney General, Martin Amidu for constantly criticizing the NDC in public even when it was in power.

But the group said events of the recent past have caused some party members to question whether the NDC of today is the same old NDC.

At a press conference addressed by Selorm Hamenoo at Agbozume in the Ketu South District in the Volta region, he said the "NDC has trumpeted over the years for a country devoid of corruption. You will also easily recall the passion with which our founder has fought corruption all his life.

"Unfortunately however, the word "corruption" seems to have become a taboo word within certain circles of the NDC, especially if it comes from the lips of His Excellency former President Rawlings."

READ ALSO: Here is why Mills fired Martin Amidu as Attorney General

"Insulting one of our illustrious sons of the land, Flt. Lt. J J Rawlings, through whose instrumentality we are credited highly on the continent and the world, will result in nothing but a deep seated fracture of our party.
The pro-Leave group  bankrolled by Arron Banks and backed by former UKIP leader Nigel Farage  said it is planning to send a letter to every voter in Hammond's constituency of Runnymede & Weybridge and Rudd's constituency of Hastings & Rye encouraging them to deselect the Tory MPs.

In a press release, the group says "today's Tory party is conservative only in name" and this is an "initiative to excite traditional conservative voters" into "reclaiming their destiny."

The UK government has since the Brexit vote struggled to articulate a unified position on Brexit and in recent weeks has been embroiled in public fall outs over key aspects of Britain's departure, such as a transition period after leaving the European Union and the possibility of importing chlorinated chicken from the USA as part of a free trade deal.

Prime Minister Theresa May has been hampered by a divided cabinet since the shock election result where she lost her majority in Parliament.

Leave.EU said that: "Besides making way for a cabinet aligned and committed to British independence, their removal will open up the prospect of true blue Brexit MPs representing local constituents once again.

"A letter will soon be dispatched to every single voter in both constituencies, making the case for this fifth column in the Tory cabinet to be removed by the only means available to grassroots Conservatives."

Hammond is the Cabinet's leading moderate voice on Brexit and has urged his colleagues to embrace a softer Brexit based on transitional arrangements. The government will release a paper on Tuesday confirming its desire to negotiate a transitional customs union deal in order to protect British business from falling off a cliff-edge.

In the letter that will be sent out to Hammond's constituents, Leave.EU chairman Arron Banks said: "He is part of a cabal of Westminster MPs who believe that if they can delay exit, they can overturn the wishes of the 52% who despite threats from the political classes drew upon the courage of their conviction at the ballot box."
Brian Gardner, an analyst on KBW's Washington research team, said that the conflict between McConnell and Trump has decreased the possibility that Trump and the Republican Party will be able to get their agenda passed anytime soon.

"There's a precedent for this and it's not a good precedent for the administration and Republicans in general," Gardner said.

McConnell and Trump were at odds last week after the majority leader said the president had "excessive expectations" for Congress and that that likely contributed to his frustration with the failure of the Senate healthcare bill and the pace of progress in passing the GOP agenda.

Trump took to Twitter and the media in response, attacking McConnell for not getting the healthcare bill done and even leaving open the possibility that he would ask the Kentucky senator to step down as leader if he did not deliver on Republican legislative priorities.

Gardner pointed to a similar intraparty feud during former President Jimmy Carter's administration that prevented him from implementing large parts of his agenda.

"Jimmy Carter had poor relationships with the Democratic leadership," Gardner told Business Insider. "He was an outsider who had come in during a tumultuous time of post-Watergate, and wanted to pursue a reform agenda in which the Democratic leadership in Congress had not signed onto and didn't back. I think the poor relationships Carter had on the Hill led to him being unable to implement a lot of his agenda."

Interestingly enough, Carter is the last president to have the government shut down while his party also controlled both chambers of Congress. However, these shutdowns were short-lived and did not result in the furlough of federal employees.

If Republicans do not pass a funding bill by the end of September, the government will shut down.

The lack of a strong, unified party leadership makes it harder to bring lawmakers together that are holding out against pieces of legislation.

This was proven during the Senate healthcare debate, in which senators and congressional staffers said Trump was ineffective at best in winning over recalcitrant members.
During the show, Colbert showed a photo of Scaramucci and former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, who also left the administration amid rumors he and Scaramucci were not getting along.

That feud reached a boiling point last month when Scaramucci accused Priebus of leaking information on the inner workings of the White House in a profanity-laced tirade captured during an interview with the New Yorker's Ryan Lizza.

"Were you brought in just to get rid of [Reince Priebus] and Sean Spicer," Colbert asked.

Scaramucci began: "I don't wanna say it that way. I would say "

"Say it like The Mooch, say it like The Mooch," Colbert chided, referring to Scaramucci's nickname. "Give me some Mooch, give me some Mooch, here."

"So The Mooch [of] Long Island would say there was no love lost there," Scaramucci said, amid a raucous applause. "Obviously, look at the picture."

"The weird thing about my relationship with Reince is we were actually pretty good friends when I was a political donor writing checks to the [Republican National Committee]," Scaramucci said.

"But once I became part of the administration or was about to enter the administration, for whatever reason, it was a little more adversarial."

Colbert pressed Scaramucci on his thoughts toward White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, who Scaramucci has publicly criticized in recent days.

"Is Steve Bannon a leaker," asked Colbert.

"I said he was, and I obviously got caught on tape saying he was, so I have no problem saying that," Scaramucci replied.

"If it was up to me, he would be gone," continued Scaramucci. "But it's not up to me."

Colbert also threw some hardball questions towards Scaramucci, based on Trump's initial response in condemning the white nationalist groups connected to the violent protests in Charlottesville, Virginia.

"Why do you think the president of the United States, who you called, 'the most media-savvy person of our times,' would shank a softball like that so hard, when he should have just come out there and condemned the people who were there to start violence," Colbert asked.

"Well, I think there's a couple issues there," Scaramucci said. "He should have been way harsher on that ... He should have condemned white supremacism and neo-Nazis."

Scaramucci left his multibillion dollar investment firm in the hopes of landing a job in the Trump administration earlier this year. He was hired as the White House's communications director last month. His tenure was short-lived after he was forced out 10 days later, following the explosive New Yorker interview.
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In his initial statement on Saturday, Trump pinned the blame "on many sides" while not specifically condemning white nationalists.

After widespread criticism, Trump on Monday made another statement, denouncing neo-Nazis and KKK members as "repugnant" and specifically calling out the "hatred and bigotry" at the rally.

On Tuesday afternoon, however, at a press conference billed as being about infrastructure, Trump doubled down on his assertion that the violence was caused by "bad actors" on both sides. He equated what he called "the alt-left" with the "alt-right" at the rally and said that not all those participating were neo-Nazis or white supremacists.

Trump's new chief of staff, John Kelly, who was brought in to help discipline the White House, looked especially displeased with how the press conference panned out.

Maggie Haberman, a political reporter at The New York Times, said on Tuesday that she had been informed by Trump's staff that he wouldn't be answering questions following the infrastructure announcement  but he "chose to overrule his staff."

Kristin Donnelly, an NBC News reporter, has the photo  Kelly is on the far left:

And Al Drago has another angle:
This was Hutchins' first tweet since his arrest, partly referencing coverage of his apparent party lifestyle that appeared in The Sun:

And here's another:

Hutchins was arrested in early August after the DefCon hacking conference in Las Vegas and detained in the US on six charges of creating malware that would become the Kronos banking trojan.

Hutchins normally lives in Ilfracombe, Devon, and had gained a hero's reputation after halting the devastating WannaCry malware attack earlier this year. The US government accused Hutchins of creating Kronos, which steals people's financial details, and selling it in 2015 via the online darknet AlphaBay.

His arrest sent shockwaves through the security industry, which rallied behind him to raise at least $12,000 (9,200) for his defence. He was released on bail and pleaded not guilty to all six charges at a court in Milwaukee on Monday. Although he was initially barred from using the internet, his conditions have changed to permit him access to a computer and the web. He is also permitted to work.

Hutchins that he couldn't talk about his case, saying that he was making light-hearted comments to avoid discussing it. "I'm still on trial, still not allowed to go home, still on house arrest; but now i am allowed online. Will get my computers back soon," he wrote.

Tarah Wheeler, a security researcher who co-ordinated fundraising efforts, posted a photo with Hutchins released on bail.
Dangote, who made this known during the 2017 Niger State Investment Summit in Minna, said the funds would be used in establishing a large scale rice processing mill to process over 200, 000 metric tonnes of paddy rice.

He said that a state-of-the-art fully integrated sugar refining industry would also be established.

The Dangote Group is committed to invest around 450million dollars over the three next years to establish a large scale rice processing mill for out growers."

Our company is also establishing a state of the art fully integrated sugar industry involving the development of over 30,000 hectares of sugar cane plantation and the production of about 500, 000 metric tonnes of refined sugar."

We are very excited about these investments and look forward to kick starting this mutually beneficial partnership with the government and good people of Niger State, he said.

Dangote, who was represented by Alhaji Mansur Ahmed, noted that the company also planned to invest over one billion dollars in agricultural production and processing of selected commodities like sugar, rice and tomatoes across the country.

According to him, Niger has become the destination of choice for investment in the agricultural sector given its rich and vast arable land.

He said that the company was poised to leverage on that toward a virile agriculture based economy.

Dangote said that the group would also continue to engage governments at the federal and state levels where there were great potential to explore investment opportunities.

The Commissioner for Investment, Commerce and Industry, Mrs Ramatu Yardua said the aim of the summit was to market the state as an investment destination in agriculture considering its enormous potential which were largely untapped.

Yardua said that agriculture was key to moving the country out of recession, adding that the state was committed to creating a conducive and enabling environment for would be investors.
Fowler said this at the 138 Quarterly Meeting of the Joint Tax Board (JTB) on Monday in Abuja.

The theme of the meeting was Administering Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme (VAIDS)  2017 in Nigeria: The role of stakeholders.

Fowler, also the Chairman of JTB said every Nigerian would be held accountable with the introduction of the new scheme.

He said that the so called untouchable citizens were willing to pay tax without forcing them under the scheme.

According to him, the board has received positive response so far on the scheme.

To improve tax compliance, the Federal Government said tax offenders stand to enjoy 29 per cent waiver on overdue taxes if they take advantage of VAIDS.

The VAIDS programme is aimed at reducing tax payers liability and creates more awareness on the statutory function of every working citizen to pay tax.

The scheme which started July 1, offers a window for those who, before now, have not complied with extant tax regulations to remedy their positions by providing them limited amnesty to enable voluntary declaration and payment of liabilities.

Fowler said the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) adopted between the FIRS and State Internal Revenue Service including that of VAIDS had been working very well.

From the point of FIRS, all the money generated is shared between the three tiers of government; the collaboration between states and FIRS is improving."

I hope the collaboration will continue to get better, he said.

Fowler said that the JTB meeting had improved the collaboration between private and public sector.

He said the meeting would focus on the review of VAIDS and actions that would be taken after the implementation of the scheme.

I will also want to thank the stakeholders for all the activities and the Acting President who is in the fore front of the tax drive.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the meeting witnessed the handing over of the outgoing Executive Secretary and Incoming one.

The new Executive Secretary, Mr Oseni Elamah pledged to serve the body and to take it to a greater height.

I pledge to serve you as a body and to also support each of you individually in your various capacities toward the realisation of Joint Tax Board in creating a tax friendly environment."

I will also support you in fulfilling your mandate to optimise revenue for the various tiers of government, Elamah said.

Elamah is the immediate past Chairman of Edo State Internal Revenue Service.

Also speaking, Mr Mohammed Abubakar, the outgoing Executive Secretary of JTB urged the new official to take the board to greater height.

Abubakar, who served for seven years called on the members of the board to support Elamah to enable him succeed.
By PTI: Colombo, Aug 15 (PTI) Sri Lanka today named Thilak Marapona, a former attorney general, as the countrys new foreign minister following the resignation of Ravi Karunanayake amid a corruption scandal.

Marapona, a senior aide to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and a lawyer was briefly the countrys attorney general in 1994.

He serves in the legal advisory team of Prime Minister Wickremesinghe and is a senior member of the United National Party (UNP), the ruling coalitions dominant party.

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Marapana has been sworn in as the new Foreign Affairs Minister before President Maithripala Sirisena.

Ironically Marapona himself had to resign in 2015 over a conflict of interest case from his job as Law and Order Minister. His resignation came after it was pointed out that he was the legal defence of a firm accused of running an illegal floating armory in the southern port of Galle.

Civil society groups have therefore questioned Maraponas appointment as the court case on the floating armory is yet to be concluded.

Marapona served as a government back bencher from 2015 until this years May when he was appointed the Special Assignments Minister.

Between 2001 to end of 2003 Marapona served as the Minister of Defence.

He fills the void created by Karunanayake in the foreign ministry when he resigned last week over his testimony at the presidential commission of inquiry on the alleged Central Bank of Sri Lanka Bond scam that caused millions of dollars of losses to the countrys coffers.

Karunanayake was accused of occupying an apartment paid for by the firm linked to the Bond scam. PTI CORR AMS AKJ AMS

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At least that's what his Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina,told the Nigerian people after almost two months of little communication from the nation's leading gentleman since he flew to the United Kingdom.

Ever since the president flew out of the country on May 7 to resume treatment for an undisclosed illness in London, direct communication has been extremely limited.

While he supposedly recovered from his mysterious illness, the president's team shielded him from the public glare so successfully that rumours that he might be dead started to sound sensible at some point.

Despite their best efforts, constant agitation to be informed about the fate of the president has seemed to force him and his team to make concerted efforts to communicate in dribs and drabs, most usually to the satisfaction of no one.

In light of the president's unpresidented 100 days away from the shores of the country, here's a recap of the times he has communicated (in his own unique way):

1. Sallah greetings from over many seas

Well over a month after President Buhari's departure, amid several calls for a public declaration of his illness and reports that he had suffered from a speech impairment, the president recorded a one minute, three seconds audio message to calm frayed nerves.

If the president's intention was to quash rumours about his dire health status and unite the nation behind him, it was ill-thought-out because it achieved quite the opposite.

The president recorded the message in Hausa, a regional language that automatically sidelines half of the country's population that doesn't speak the president's tongue.

The audio recording was an address to the country's Muslim population on the occasion of Eid-el Fitr celebrations, and while Hausa natives are known to be the most predominantly Muslim tribe in the country, they are far from being the only one.

For good reason, this insensitive oversight only served to anger people who didn't already completely trust the president and gave them even more reason to doubt him.

However, even though no one knew it at the time, it has been the president's single direct communication with the Nigerian people in his 100 days sojourn.

2. 'Thank you' note to Alpha Conde

Two months after he holed up in London, President Muhammadu Buhari penned a letter of appreciation to the President of Guinea, Alpha Conde.

Buhari thanked his counterpart for his prior public request for Muslims and Christians in Guinea to remember the Nigerian President in their prayers.

Perhaps the prayers made the president feel better in ways that made him want to show his appreciation, but he probably should have also penned another letter to the Jigawa state government who had declared a public holiday in the state to enable public servants offer special prayers for his quick recovery.

3. Condolence letter sent to Governor Abdullahi Ganduje

After the death of elder statesman and former Minister for National Guidance, Maitama Sule, president Buhari sent a signed letter of condolence to Kano governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, to commiserate with the state's loss.

The private letter expressed the president's shock at the 87-year-old's death, and extolled his values as Kano mourned its illustrious son. This wasn't the last of the president's public condolence messages.

4. Condolence phone call and letter to Bisi Akande

When Omowunmi Akande, the wife of chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Bisi Akande, died in July, the president felt compelled to call to condole him in a private call.

However, the call was not the end of it as the president also penned a public letter to the former Osun state governor over the "irreparable loss."

It was not the communication Nigerians were clamouring for: it wasn't a resignation letter that many were starting to grumble about, and it wasn't a full health disclosure, or any disclosure that anyone wanted; but, at least, the president had the presence of mind to call a grieving friend.

Maybe he'll work his way down the list to eventually reach Nigerians sometime.

5. Another one...to Governor Rauf Aregbesola

When Osun state governor, Rauf Aregbesola, also lost his mother, Alhaja Saratu,earlier in August, President Buhari was there for him through a condolence phone call.

6. President Buhari is ready to come home!

In what should be the most monumental story to emerge out of the president's controversial stay abroad, President Buhari revealed that he was fit and ready to return to the country.

Right after his doctors give him the green light, that is.

While this is the kind of news that the Nigerian public has awaited over three months, it was a footnote in a video that focused on the president receiving his media team in London.

The video was the first time the president was appearing to the Nigerian people in 97 days in anything other than photographs or an audio recording.

It could have served as the perfect time to talk directly to expectant Nigerians; those who want to see him tender his resignation, as well as those who are backing the Lion King to make a triumphant return to the kingdom.

But he did not seize that opportunity, and more or less resorted to the same gimmick of having his media team handle all the important talking for him.

It's a shame, but there's not much to be done about it that has not been tried before.

It's 100 days without the duly-elected president of the Republic of Nigeria at the helm of affairs, at least not in an official capacity.

It's almost unheard of that a president and his deputy have had the chance to 'celebrate' separate 100-day milestones in office before, but that's a situation that Nigeria has found itself trapped in.
The tragic incident reportedly left over 2,000 Sierra Leoneans homeless.

A statement issued by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, said Buhari called Koroma on Tuesday, August 15.

"In a Tuesday telephone call from London, President Buhari told President Koroma that the hearts of Nigerians are with the people of Sierra Leone at this tragic and painful period in the history of the country," Adesina said in the statement.

"President Buhari prays that Almighty God will comfort those who are mourning loved ones and suffered other losses.

ALSO READ: 12 pictures to remember from Buhari's 100 days absence

"President Koroma thanked President Buhari for his show of concern and wished him good health."
The group, led by entertainer and activist, Charles Oputa, popularly known as Charly Boy, was reportedly attacked with stones after they protested at the popular Wuse market in Abuja on Tuesday, August 15, 2017.

The group was reportedly attacked by hoodlums after their entrance into the market and gun shots were heard in the chaos that ensued.

ALSO READ: Protesters clash in Abuja over absent Buhari

The attack was confirmed by Deji Adeyanju, leader of the 'Concerned Nigerians' group who have also been taking part in the protest.

Taking to his Twitter account , he tweeted, "We just went to Wuse market for mobilization against 100 days event tomorrow & a regular face at Unity Fountain brought thugs to attack us."

Adeyanju also claimed in another tweet that Charly Boy's car was damaged by the thugs that attacked the group.

According to people on the scene, the market was locked down while the police tried to resolve the situation.

On Tuesday, August 8, the group was attacked by the police at Unity Fountain with tear gas cannisters and water cannons, in a move that was roundly criticised by the Nigerian public.

The group has been staging a sit-out protest at the Unity Fountain since Monday August 7, demanding that the president should either return to the country he left over three months ago, or resign from his position.

On Thursday, August 10, pro-Buhari groups, like the Coalition for Good Governance and Change Initiative,marched the streets of Abuja in support of the president who has been out of the country for 100 days.

On Friday, August 11, both groups met at Unity Fountain, and trouble almost broke out before it was promptly contained by the police.

President Buhari left the country on May 7 to resume treatment for an undisclosed illness in London, leaving Acting President Yemi Osinbajo in charge of the country's affairs.
The governor gave the assurance when he paid an unscheduled visit to the corporate headquarters of the Edo Broadcasting Service (EBS) and the Nigerian Observer, publishers of the Observer titles in Benin.

Obaseki, who was taken around the EBS by the Assistant General Manager (AGM) Engineering, Mrs Ameze Osagie, said the state-owned media stations needed to be upgraded, to enable them to compete favourably with similar outfits across the country.

He said the portion of the EBS land that had been encroached upon by land speculators would be recovered, to allow for the installation of modern facilities.
The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, made the appeal on Tuesday, August 15, in a statement.

ASUU commenced an indefinite strike on Monday over alleged FG's breach of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the 2009 FG/ASUU Agreement on financing of state universities; breach of the conditions of service; refusing to honour the Earned Academic Allowance (EAA) and re-negotiation of the agreement.

But Ngige blamed ASUU for not following due process before commencing the indefinite strike.

He said the Union was supposed to give the Federal Government the mandatory 15 days' notice as contained in Section 41 of Trade Disputes Act, Cap T8, 2004.

"In fact, it was on Monday, August 14, 2017, that the office of the minister received a letter dated August 13, 2017, from ASUU, that is, one full day after it commenced the strike," the Minister said.

He said ASUU's letter was to inform the Federal Government that it had started a strike instead of a declaration of intention to go on a strike as contained in the Trade Dispute Act, 2004.

"The Federal Government, therefore, wishes to appeal to ASUU to consider the students who are currently writing degree and promotion examinations, to call off the strike and return to the negotiation table. The Ministry of Labour and Employment will ensure that a time-frame will be tied to the negotiation this time around," the minister said.

ALSO READ: NLC declares supports for academic union's industrial action
He said the military was determined to overcome security challenges confronting the nation, especially in the North-East where the Boko Haram terrorist group had renewed suicide bombings.

He said that in its efforts to end the spate of bombings in the town, the military had undertaken search of residential houses in Maiduguri Township to fish out the hideouts of the insurgents. 

He said that the security agencies were collaborating with each other to tackle the security challenges facing the nation.

The minister said he was in Kano to commission the Kano/Jigawa zonal office of the military health services.
A statement issued on Monday, August 14, by Buhari's spokesman, Garba Shehu, said Jonathan's government was the "most monumental and tragic economic mismanagement recorded in our national history."

Shehu stated this in reaction to a statement credited to Jonathan that he handed a robustly healthy economy to Buhari.

Read the full statement below:

Excellency Jonathan, this is the economy you left behind, in case you have forgotten: With due respects to the former President Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, these are the facts about the economy you left behind, in case you have forgotten.

I hope this will help to erase the wrong statement credited to you at your party, the PDP Convention at the Eagle Square last weekend that you handed to President Buhari a robustly healthy economy.

To the same extent, this should also help to erase yet another false statement by Senator Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi, the Caretaker Chairman of the party, to the effect that under the previous administration there was money but now things are very hard.

Let me start by reasserting an obvious statement, which is that the President Muhammadu Buhari administration was handed an economy ravaged by years of mismanagement and corruption.

It is understandable that Dr. Jonathan kept his comments short, because a cursory look at any sector clearly indicated that he and his Government presided over the most monumental and tragic economic mismanagement recorded in our national history.

The oil sector boomed under his tenure, with oil prices as high as US$ 120 and peace in the Nigeria Delta. Nigeria earned unprecedented dollar revenues. Sadly, that is where the story turns sour. There is nothing to show for the revenues earned, no major capital project was completed, neither power generation, road development, rail or agriculture benefitted from the windfall earnings. Rather the administration presided over the diversion of oil revenues on a such a massive scale, that even without the protection now accorded to Whistle blowers, the then Central Bank Governor blew not only a whistle but a trumpet. He was hurriedly shown the door.

Meanwhile, the acquisition by public officers and their cohorts of private jets, luxury yachts and the accumulation of expensive property portfolios world-wide continued unabated. Indeed the President once celebrated having the largest number of private jets, whilst our youth languished without jobs, our fields stood idle and our factories began the lay off of workers.

Government simply reticulated oil revenue through personal spending by corrupt leaders, wasteful expenses and salaries. This was done rather than investing in what would grow the economy. Economies grow due to capital investment in assets like seaports, airports, power plants, railways, roads and housing. Nigeria can not record a single major infrastructural project in the last 10 years. In short the money was mismanaged.

ALSO READ: Abike Dabiri, Lai Mohammed visit Buhari in London

Such was the looting that even the goose that was laying the golden egg was being systematically starved. The direct contractual costs of oil produced , in the form of cash calls, remained unpaid. The incoming, President Buharis welcome from the oil majors included demand for US$6Bn owed by Nigeria for oil that had already been sold or stolen.

At the inception of the current administration, 21 States were unable to meet their salary bills and the specter of workers arrears had commenced. The PDP solution was the raid the Ecological Fund and selectively grant N2Bn each to the PDP States. It was only aggressive borrowing by the Ministry of Finance under Dr. Okonjo- Iweala that prevented Federal Government from also owing salaries. The economic wisdom of borrowing to pay recurrent bills is a questionable one, particularly as those paid would have included over 45,000 that have subsequently been removed by the Buhari led administration as ghost workers. It also included the lavish costs of chartering private jets, first class travel and other wasteful acts that have been eliminated under this administration.

To compound the problem the government was borrowing heavily and owed contractors, and international oil companies. When this government took over we had accumulated debt back to the level it was before the Paris Club Debt Forgiveness.

All these factors were building up to Nigeria heading for a major crisis if the price of oil fell. Nigeria did not have fiscal buffers to withstand an oil shock.

The oil shock should and could have been foreseen. When Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, ISIS crisis started, it was clear that the United States of America wanted to cut off funds to terror groups by crashing the price of oil. When America granted permission for exploration of oil on land ( Shale) the warning signs were evident, but these were ignored by Nigerias economic managers.

Such was the looting that even the goose that was laying the golden egg was being systematically starved. The direct contractual costs of oil produced, in the form of cash calls, remained unpaid. The incoming President Buharis welcome from the oil majors included demand for US$6Bn owed by Nigeria for oil that had already been sold or stolen.

At the inception of the Buhari administration, 21 States were unable to meet their salary bills and the specter of workers arrears had commenced. The PDP solution was to raid the Ecological Fund and selectively grant N2Bn each to the PDP States. It was only aggressive borrowing by the Ministry of Finance that prevented Federal Government from also owing salaries. The economic wisdom of borrowing to pay recurrent bills is a questionable one, particularly as those paid would have included over 45,000 that have subsequently been removed by the Buhari led administration as ghost workers. It also included the lavish costs of chartering private jets, first class travel and other wasteful acts that have been eliminated under this administration.

In summary Nigeria earned a lot of money when oil prices were high but there is nothing to show for it. Now oil prices have fallen we are suffering.

What could they have done differently?

They could have begun doing the very things that the Muhammadu Buhari administration is doing so painfully now:

1. Fight corruption.

2. Sanitize the huge salary bill by eliminating payroll fraud.

3. Reduce wasteful expenses like First Class Travel and Private jets.

4. Encourage State Governments to reform their spending and build savings or investments.

5. Increase spending on capital projects especially on infrastructure needed to make Nigerian businesses competitive and create jobs.

6. Block the leakages that allowed government revenues to be siphoned into private hands.

7. Focus on key sectors (apart from oil) that can create jobs and or generate revenue such as Agriculture, Solid Minerals, and Manufacturing.

If these things had been done when the oil price was as high as US$120 per barrel, Nigeria would not be in the current predicament.

We would not be suffering now if we had no cash reserves but we had power, or a rail system, or good roads, or good housing. But we dont have money and we dont have the projects either.

Now that the oil has fallen below those levels, it is very difficult to do what is needed but they must be done to save Nigeria. There is no other way if we want to be honest.

If PDP were still in power they would have continued deceiving people, by borrowing to fund stealing and wastage and the problem would have simply been postponed for future generations to face.

One of former President Jonathons specific boasts is that dollar under him was N180 compared to today. With such a line of argument, it is clear why we are where we are. With oil prices as high as $120 the average inflow of dollars each month was high, making it easy to support cheap dollars. However, with oil price plummeting as low as $28, the fundamental laws of supply and demand dictated that the currency would need to adjust since oil was the sole export. It is instructive to note that virtually every major oil exporter has witnessed currency adjustments with the fall in oil price.

The Buhari administration has taken a long term strategic view of supporting a stable naira on both the supply and demand sides. President Buhari has driven Import substitution to reduce demand for dollars to buy things we can produce thereby creating thousands of rural jobs in rice and other staples. In addition, there is a credible plan to diversify our revenue sources away from oil, with a focus on export crops as well as solid minerals, with the release of US$100M fund to develop solid mineral extraction.
Reuters reports that the attack occurred on Tuesday, August 15, at a market in Konduga, a village near the ancient city.

Two other suicide bombers also reportedly blew themselves up at the gate of an internally displaced person (IDP) camp.

The report said no death was recorded in the second attack but many were said to have sustained injuries.

ALSO READ: FG committed to flushing out Boko Haram - Defence minister

This is coming barely 24 hours after the leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau released a video in which he threatened to launch fresh attacks in Maiduguri.

"You are finished! You the people of Maiduguri, we will finish you for choosing the way of the infidels, for embracing democracy," the sect leader had said in the video.
Unidentified persons hurled stones at Modi's car but RJD supremo Lalu Prasad dismissed speculations that any of his partymen was behind the incident.

By Press Trust of India: Unidentified persons today attacked Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi's car near Kala Pahar village in Vaishali district, but the BJP leader escaped unhurt.

Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo Lalu Prasad dismissed speculations that any of his partymen was behind the incident, which took place in an area known to be an RJD stronghold.

It also occurred minutes after Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Assembly and Lalu's son Tejashwi Yadav's motorcade had passed through the area. The RJD leader was on his way to Samastipur to launch the second stage of his programme against the "disintegration" of the erstwhile Grand Alliance government in the state from tomorrow.

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According to Ritesh Mandal, the officer in-charge of the Bidupur police station, unidentified persons hurled stones at Modi's car when he was on his way to the village in the evening.

Preliminary information suggests that the car received some damage but there was no injury to the deputy chief minister, who proceeded to attend the funeral ceremony of ex-BJP MLA Achutanand Singh's mother.

His escort party informed the police about the incident, Mandal said.

Vaishali Superintendent of Police (SP) Rakesh Kumar said Modi was being escorted back to Patna under heavy police protection.

He added that the police would lodge an FIR on the basis of a complaint from either the deputy chief minister himself or from someone from his escort party or anyone else.

The area where Modi's car was attacked is known to be a stronghold of the RJD, the workers and supporters of which are particularly angry with the BJP leader for levelling a series of corruption allegations against Lalu and his family.

Lalu, however, denied an "RJD hand" in the incident and alleged that it was Modi who "orchestrated" it.

"RJD workers do not believe in violence. It (the attack) must have been orchestrated by Sushil Modi with the help of his supporters for political gains," he said.

The RJD chief alleged that the BJP leader was known for his "habit of enacting such dramas".

"Once he had alleged an attack on him by the RJD and put a bandage. When we insisted that he showed the injury by removing the bandage, he did not do as he would get exposed," he said.

Lalu also blamed the district administration for the incident.

"Why did they take Modi through the same place which was just crossed by Tejashwi Yadav? They could have taken him through an alternate route," he said.

The RJD supremo alleged that the BJP leader might have orchestrated the event to divert the attention of the people from his name cropping up in a scam related to swindling of government money by an NGO in Bhagalpur.

ALSO READ |

Nitish Kumar back as Bihar CM in 16 hours, Sushil Modi is his deputy

BJP's Sushil Modi wants EC to disqualify Lalu's son, Bihar Dy CM Tej Pratap for hiding benami assets

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Sushil Modi takes a jibe at Lalu's anti-BJP rally, calls it benami sampatti bachao rally

In veiled attack, Sushil Modi compares Tejashwi Yadav to Nirbhaya rapist

--- ENDS ---
According to Daily Post, Kwankwaso and 10 other Kano State lawmakers dumped the All Progressives Progress (APC) for the opposition camp.

The former governor's action may have been instigated by his ordeal in the APC.

There has been a dispute between Kwankwaso and his successor, Umar Ganduje.

In March 2016, the APC leadership in Kano had accused Kwankwaso of anti-party activities, and initiate a move to suspend him.

The Chairman, PDP caretaker committee, Ahmed Makarfi had recently said three top shots in the APC would soon defect to the party.

ALSO READ: Suspension of Radio staff shows Kwankwaso, Ganduje are still sworn enemies
The Director of Public Relations and Information, NAF Headquarters, Air Commodore Olatokunbo Adesanya, disclosed this in a statement in Abuja.

Adesanya said the week-long programme with the theme: Aeromedical Evacuation and Medical Deployment, began on Monday at the Sam Ethnan Air Force Base, Ikeja.

He said the programme would bring together countries in Africa to simulate a combined security and humanitarian environment.

Declaring the programme open, Gov. Akinwumi Ambode said the combined training was a welcome development.

Ambode said it was an indication that the Nigerian Armed Forces, as represented by NAF, were committed to regional peace and stability through combined training.

I would therefore, like to specially commend the USAF and NAF for organising this programme, which is ultimately aimed at building our capacity to jointly tackle the menace of insurgency within and outside our borders.

It is no news that NAF is one of the leading organisations that have impacted positively on the lives of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the North-East.

In addition to the outstanding performance in their traditional role of defending the territorial integrity of Nigeria, he said.

The Chief of the Air Staff (CAS), Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar, said that the programme could not have come at a more appropriate time than now, considering the great need for proper medical care in and outside the theatre of operations.

According to him, NAF was not unmindful of the effects and aftermath of insurgency on the plight of innocent civilians, including women and children, who often are the unintended victims.

It is for this reason that NAF has embarked on several humanitarian programmes aimed at alleviating the plight of the IDPs.

I believe that the combined training exercise would definitely enhance mutual relationships and interoperability among the participating countries, Abubakar said.

Other activities lined up for the one-week programme include: a static display intended to showcase the arrangement of stretchers in NAF C-130H aircraft and a medical outreach programme for IDPs within the Lagos area.

The director explained that African Partnership Flight was a multilateral, military-to-military engagement designed to enhance African regional cooperation, increase interoperability and build capacity in the aviation sector.
Mr Chinonso Obasi, National President, NANS made the call in a statement made available to newsmen in Abuja on Monday.

It is with deep pain and regret that NANS received the news of another indefinite strike by ASUU over the Federal Governments indifference to their plight.

Nigerian students sees the break down in negotiations as a further proof that political leaders dont care about their future.

 Consequently, we wish to call on the Federal Government to do all it can to get ASUU back to the classrooms.

The demands of ASUU are reasonable and touch on the integrity of government, especially in the light of the fight against corruption, he said.

According to him, NANS finds it hard to believe that past governments would fail to honour agreements with members of ASUU for more than seven years.

Obasi, however, said the association in the light of the foregoing gave the Federal Government 21 days to resolve outstanding issues with ASUU in the interest of longsuffering Nigerian students.

He explained that the students would be forced to bear the brunt of the break down in the negotiation between the union and the government.

ALSO READ: What to do when ASUU strikes

He added that NANS would be meeting in the coming week with leaders of ASUU to find out their irreducible minimum in their demands.

He threatened that if by the expiration of 21days ultimatum, the issue was not resolved, Nigerian students would be forced to ground activities in the country.
Obiano won the party's primary held on Tuesday, August 15, at the Prof. Dora Akunyili Women's Development Centre, Awka.

The total accredited delegates were 1,092 as 11 votes were declared invalid.

Reacting to Obiano's victory, a former national chairman of APGA, Chief Victor Umeh, expressed optimism that the Governor would be re-elected.

ALSO READ: Anambra state remains safe despite attack on worshippers - Obiano

Umeh, who is the Director-General of Obiano re-election campaign organisation, said APGA 's performance under Obiano in the state would guarantee the party's victory in the upcoming election.
Born Olusegun Mathew Okikiola Aremu Obasanjo on the 5th of May 1937, Baba Shege, as he is humorously called, is a former Nigerian Army general who was President of Nigeria from 1999 to 2007.

Before serving twice as nations head of state, Obasanjo was a career soldier.

And as a soldier, he served as a military ruler from 13 February 1976 to 1 October 1979. He was also 'Chairperson of the African Union' from July 2004 to January 2006.

Nigeria during Gen. Obasanjo's civilian rule?

As the beneficiary of the North's intention to pacify the West for Chief M.K.O Abiola's presidential mandate, Obasanjo won the 1999 elections which were the first in sixteen years.

He would spend most of his first term traveling abroad. And as a result, he succeeded in winning at least some Western support for strengthening Nigeria's nascent democracy.

In addition to the support, he also won international praise for Nigeria's role in crucial regional peacekeeping missions in Sierra Leone and Liberia.

On June 12, 2006, during his second term as president, Obasanjo signed the 'Greentree Agreement' with Cameroonian President Paul Biya.

It was this agreement that formally brought the Bakassi peninsula border dispute to a close.

Although a resolution was passed by the Nigerian Senate, declaring that the withdrawal of Nigerian troops from the Bakassi Peninsula was illegal, still, Obasanjo gave the order for it to continue as agreed.

Nigeria's economy under Gen. Obasanjo

Before Obasanjo's administration, Nigeria's GDP growth was considered to be painfully slow. And it has been so since 1987.

However, before the end of his eight years tenure, the GDP growth rate doubled from 3 per cent to 6 per cent.

In addition, Nigeria's foreign reserves rose from $2 billion to $43 billion. He was able to secure debt pardons from the Paris and London club amounting to some $18 billion and paid another $18 billion to be debt free.

It should be stated here that most of these loans were accumulated from short term trade arrears during the exchange control period.

They were not accumulated out of corruption but during a period (1982-1985) when Nigeria operated exchange control regime that vested all foreign exchange transactions on the central bank of Nigeria.

The naira exchange rate to the US dollar and other major currencies during this period was highly regulated and artificially high.

Nigerian importers paid local currency equivalent to the central bank through their local commercial banks but during the oil glut period of 1982-86 when foreign exchange was scarce, the central bank did not have enough foreign exchange to pay for current imports.

As a result of this, a short term foreign trade payment arrear was born. And this was an average of about US$3.0 billion each year.

It was the beginning of 1986 that Nigeria stopped accumulating short term foreign trade payment arrears. (Source: CBN Annual Reports 1983-1986.)

However, towards the end of his second term in office, Obasanjo was entangled in controversy regarding his "Third Term Agenda".

The third term agenda was a plan to modify the constitution so he could serve a third, four-year term as President.

It was not successful, as it led to a political media uproar around the country. He would honorably step down from office after the April 2007 general election.

ALSO READ: Former President reveals shocking secrets about Abacha

How has Obasanjo influenced Nigeria politics?

A Western diplomat once said, "Obasanjo intends to sit in the passenger seat giving advice and ready to grab the wheel if Nigeria goes off course."

And this is an absolute truth.

Obasanjo was appointed or better still became chairman of the PDP Board of Trustees with control over nominations for governmental positions and even policy and strategy.

And with that control, even after his resignation as chairman in 2012, Obasanjo still plays a major role in the political circle of Nigeria.

Starting from his successor, the late Umaru Musa Yar' adua, to Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, and now President Buhari, not one of them would have been able to attain the office of the president without the backing of Gen. Obasanjo.

It was Obasanjo that made it possible for GEJ to succeed against Atiku Abubakar (Obasanjo's vice president) in the 2011 presidential elections.

And this claim is made valid owing to what happened in the 2015 presidential elections.

Even Gen. Buhari of all people would have to go pay homage to Obasanjo at his Otta farm, months before the 2015 elections.

It should also be recalled that In 1999, knowing fully well of the possibility of a military coup, Obasanjo retired ninety-three top officers upon his assumption of office.

After all, the promoted officers that were the beneficiaries of the retirement would be left with no other choice than to pledge their undying loyalty to Baba himself.
The Speaker, Alhaji Salihu Maidaji, announced the decision of the House at a plenary on Tuesday that the removal was endorsed by the 21 members.

"I have received a letter of vote of no confidence in the Deputy House Leader duly signed by 21 members of the Assembly in accordance with Order Six, Section 11, subsection (3) of the Standing Orders of Sokoto State House of Assembly 2014 as amended.

"The signatures of the 21 members that passed the votes of no confidence in Kabiru Ibrahim, member representing Kware as Deputy House Leader are hereby accepted.

"Consequently, we replace him with Alhaji Ibrahim Sarki as the new Deputy House Leader (APC- Sokoto North II)," he said.

In an interview with newsmen after the impeachment, the House Leader, Alhaji Garba Bello (APC- Yabo), noted that the vote of no confidence followed constitutional breaches by Ibrahim.

He accused Ibrahim of engaging in some political activities ahead of the 2019 General Elections in violation of INEC guidelines.
Foreign Minister of Turkmenistan Rashid Meredov discussed with Sushma Swaraj the importance of working on TAPI project and how it can bring about stability, hoping for its actualisation.

By Geeta Mohan: India and Turkmenistan on Friday discussed the TAPI (Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India) pipeline project- a project to bring oil from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan into Pakistan and India that has been in the pipeline for over two decades.

Visiting Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Turkmenistan, Rashid Meredov, while interacting with the media in Delhi said how real the TAPI project is and how it can bring about stability in the region, hoping for its actualisation. A trans-national gas pipeline passing through Pakistani territory to reach India would entail both nations looking at each other's interests and shared economic growth despite being rivals.

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Meredov led a high-level delegation comprising senior officials to participate in the 6th session of the India-Turkmenistan Inter-Governmental Commission (IGC) on Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technological Cooperation. He conveyed to External Affairs Minister and co-chair of the Indian delegation for the IGC, Sushma Swaraj, the importance of working on TAPI. "I informed the External Affairs Minister of our views that TAPI is not just an economic project. I told her that the project will provide strong foundation for peace and stability in Central Asia," Meredov said.

The TAPI project is considered an important initiative to connect energy rich Central Asia with energy starved South Asia and Turkmenistan has been taking the lead on that front. To a question on whether there was any consideration of keeping Pakistan out of the project, the deputy prime minister said that the idea is 'new' to him and that was not the focus right now. "We haven't discussed this so I can't speak about it. We need to focus on the current project," he said.

A statement released by the Ministry of External Affairs read, "The IGC discussions were held in a cordial atmosphere. Sushma Swaraj and Meredov comprehensively reviewed the entire gamut of bilateral relations and took stock of the progress achieved in the areas of energy, trade and economic cooperation, transport and connectivity, security cooperation, civil aviation, information technology, science and technology, cultural and educational matters".

During his visit, Meredov also called on Hon'ble Vice President Venkiaiah Naidu and met minister of finance, defence and corporate affairs Arun Jaitley, minister of road transport, highways and shipping Nitin Gadkari and Minister of state (I/C) for petroleum and natural gas Dharmendra Pradhan.

ALSO READ |

US welcomes ground-breaking of TAPI pipeline

UNSC resolution backs China's 'Belt and Road' despite PoK corridor

Vice President Hamid Ansari, others break ground for $7.6 billion TAPI pipeline

ALSO WATCH | External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to represent India at BIMSTEC Foreign Minister's meet

--- ENDS ---
According to the Punch, the South-West Zonal Publicity Secretary, Rev. Bunmi Jenyo said that the party will start by winning the Ekiti state governorship election.

Ekiti state is governed by Governor Ayo Fayose, who is also the chairman of the PDP Governors forum.

Jenyo also expressed gratitude to all PDP members in the South-West for their firm support during the crisis.

He said The South-West Zone of the Peoples Democratic Party, under the able leadership of the National Vice-Chairman (South-West), Dr. Eddy Olafeso, hereby expresses profound gratitude to all our leaders and loyal members in the zone, especially for standing by the zonal executives throughout our struggles till this day.

The appreciation becomes imperative as your unalloyed support, resilience and doggedness for over 14 months ahead of this well-deserved triumph of truth and justice really showed your love for the membership of our great party and Nigerian citizens in general.

While we look forward to seeing your continuing determination to uphold the cause of justice, equity and good governance in all areas of administration, we cannot but appreciate you for the huge confidence and responsibility reposed in Dr. Eddy Olafeso-led zonal executive.

Without mincing words, the zonal executive members are happily prepared to pilot the political affairs of the South-West states to an enviable height, with a view to salvaging citizens from the shackles of maladministration that is currently obtainable in the ruling All Progressives Congress.

ALSO READ: Fayose launches presidential campaign at PDP convention

The zonal officers are also prepared to heal the wounds of our great party, within and outside the PDP, in each of the six states in preparation for the forthcoming elections in 2018 and 2019.
The General Secretary of the labour union, Dr Peter Ozo-Eson urged the government to honour the agreement it had with the union in 2009.

Ozo-Eson who said he was part of the team that negotiated the FGN/ASUU agreement in 2009 blamed the politicians for refusing to implement the agreement they had with the academic union because their children do not attend Nigerian universities.

He said, I negotiated that agreement on the ASUU side and it took a long time for a decision to be reached. Initially, government backed away, then it reconstituted and gave authority to the Onosode committee and at the end, the agreement was signed, but government has failed to fully implement it.

In 2013, when there was a problem, the NLC had to broker the condition that led to the signing of the MoU. Government again has reneged on its own side of the bargain. So when we say ASUU has gone on strike so many times, we need to put it in perspective to say government has consistently failed to honour its own side of the bargain.

They (government) do this so brazenly and so easily because most of their children do not attend universities here. They are abroad. And that is where the citizens come in. Citizens must be able to hold these people accountable by insisting that their own children have a right to uninterrupted education too and therefore force government to do what is correct so that education can be without interruption.
American, Eric Martinez was in Mexico on vacation with his babe, Cammy Rynae Cuoco when he proposed during a photo shoot in a picturesque cave in Riviera Maya.

After the elation of that proposal, Cammy got another exciting news right there and then  her boyfriend and the photographer, Polly Dawson of Del Sol Photography had planned another photoshoot!

Eric and Polly arranged an underwater, mermaid-themed shoot for her and she totally loved the idea!

My favorite princess was always Ariel from , the super-thrilled Cammy told HuffPost.

Mermaids are magical and get to explore the vast depths of the sea.

And how perfect that I get to have a Prince Eric of my very own.
Libya's navy last week ordered foreign vessels to stay out of a coastal "search and rescue zone" for migrants headed for Europe, a measure aimed at nongovernmental organisations it accuses of facilitating traffickers in illegal migration.

One by one the NGOs halted operations, except the Aquarius. The 68-metre orange boat, formerly used by the German coastguard, sailed alone off the Libyan coast on Sunday.

"For the moment, we are continuing our patrol operation in international waters," said Nicola Stall, search and rescue coordinator for the Aquarius, which is operated by SOS Mediterranee and Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

And so the Aquarius team of rescuers keeps up its two-hour rotation, day and night, to watch for migrants floating on overcrowded and unseaworthy boats.

MSF workers meanwhile check their stocks of medications, while other volunteers give the bridge a fresh coat of paint.

As they wait, they are concerned about the calm sea and the favourable winds of the past few days. Despite such weather conditions, they haven't seen a migrant boat for a week now.

"It's very hard to know what is going on in Libya," says Marcella Kraay, the MSF chief on board. Even during the bad weather in winter, they have never gone more than three weeks without rescuing hundreds of migrants.

"What we're seeing at sea is that it seems fewer small boats are leaving Libya, and those that do leave are intercepted by the Libyan coastguards," she says, adding that they were trying to get Libya to clarify the zone that foreign ships are barred from.

The Aquarius may be joined by vessels from the Spanish charity Proactiva Open Arms, which was expected to resume operations on Monday.

Warning shots

Last week Libyan coastguards frightened off most NGO rescue ships when they fired shots in the air opposite one vessel, warning that they would target it directly the next time.

The Aquarius has an emergency plan so everyone on board can lock themselves in should the ship be boarded.

There are about a dozen people from the two NGOs, from several European countries as well as the United States and Australia.

Sailors volunteer their time to SOS Mediterranee while the MSF team includes doctors as well as logistical and technical people, veterans of humanitarian crises such as the Ebola epidemic and the Iraqi battle at Mosul.

The ship's captain hails from Belarus and the roughly 10 crew members are mostly Slavs, hired with the boat but having chosen to take part in this rescue mission, which has been going on since last year.

At night the Aquarius keeps about 30 miles from the Libyan coast, mainly to avoid fishermen's nets. During the day it moves closer so the coastline is visible, but stays about 24 miles away unless the Italian coastguard calls on them to help with rescues nearer shore.

Six years since a revolution that toppled longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi, Libya has become a key departure point for migrants risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.

'Grave concern'

Italy, which has borne the brunt of the migrant influx from north Africa, has welcomed Libya's decision to bar NGO ships and invest more in its coastguard.

The number of migrants reaching Italy is down compared with last year. So far in August authorities say there have been 1,700 arrivals, far from the 21,300 recorded for the entire month in 2016.

But for humanitarian groups, what happens to migrants returned to or kept in camps in Libya is even more worrying.
The proposed changes would also formally recognize gender and indigenous rights, and make it harder for companies to challenge government decisions that are in the "public interest," she said.

NAFTA talks are scheduled to start Wednesday in Washington and last several months.

Ottawa and Washington have diverged on environmental issues, with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau championing the fight against climate change, and US President Donald Trump announcing his country's withdrawal of the 2015 Paris accord on global warming.

But Canada has continued to cooperate with likeminded US states on climate issues.

"We can make NAFTA more progressive by bringing strong labor safeguards into the core of the agreement," Freeland said, "by integrating enhanced environmental provisions to ensure no NAFTA country weakens environmental protection to attract investment, for example, and that fully supports efforts to address climate change."

Freeland cited the Canada-EU free trade agreement that comes into effect on September 21 as a template for modernizing the country's trade ties with the United States and Mexico.

Freeland also called for changes to NAFTA to take into account technological advances of the past two decades, harmonizing regulations, removing barriers to bidding on government procurement, and allowing greater movement of professionals between the three countries.

She vowed a spirited defense of Canada's supply-managed dairy and poultry industries, and cultural sector, and reaffirmed a demand to maintain a strong dispute settlement system that Trump has said he wants nixed.

According to Canadian government figures, Canada, the United States and Mexico together account for one-quarter of the world's economy, with a combined 470 million consumers.

Trilateral trade has tripled since 1994 to Can$19 trillion (US$15 trillion).

Freeland said that Canada is the United State's biggest customer, buying more from the United States than China, Britain and Japan combined.
"The use of force is not the way," but rather political pressure, Argentine President Mauricio Macri said at a news conference alongside Mike Pence, who is on a tour of Latin American countries.

Trump warned on Friday that he was considering various possible means to resolve the Venezuela crisis, "including a possible military option if necessary."

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro responded by ordering his armed forces to carry out a national exercise next week.

The United States along with Argentina and other regional allies have joined in international calls for Maduro to respect democracy.

He has been tightening his grip on power in response to economic chaos and angry street protests by opponents demanding elections. Nearly 130 people have died in recent months of unrest.

Pence in Buenos Aires reiterated his earlier assurance that the United States preferred diplomatic steps and economic sanctions to pressure Maduro.

ALSO READ: Maduro orders military drill after Trump threat

The US vice president was on the second stop in a tour of Latin America to rally the region over the Venezuela crisis.

He earlier visited Colombia and is due to travel next to Chile and Panama.
But after days of sometimes violent protests and several deaths following the announcement of results late Friday, life showed signs of returning to normal across the country on Monday.

Odinga has lost three previous elections and has claimed he was cheated of victory in the last two.

After the 2007 vote his supporters took to the streets during months of politically motivated tribal violence that left over 1,100 dead. Finally, an internationally brokered compromise led to a coalition government in which Odinga served as prime minister.

In 2013 he challenged the presidential results in court, and lost. But this time, Odinga has so far defied pressure to take his complaints to the court.

On Sunday he told cheering supporters, "We are not done yet. We will not give up. Wait for the next course of action" -- and promised to speak again on Tuesday.

But after nearly a week in which businesses stayed shut and workers stayed home, the capital Nairobi came back to life on Monday, with many unable to afford more time away from their jobs.

"I came to work because I need to eat, I need my children to eat, and I need my grandchildren to eat," said Margaret, 62, a hairdresser in the Kibera slum, an Odinga stronghold.

"They can call us to strike, but at the end of the day, they'll be eating and we won't," she added.

"You know, I am very sad that Raila did not win, but what can he do now? It's over and we want peace."

'The election is over'

Speaking Monday, Kenyatta tried to draw a line under the election and its aftermath. "Kenyans have said that the election is behind them, the majority have returned to work," he said.

He also reached out to Odinga, offering a "hand of peace" and urging him to use legal means to express his grievances, including peaceful demonstrations if he chose not to go to court.

"Just do it peacefully, orderly... As a government we will not allow loss of life, destruction of property and looting, because many, many millions of Kenyans also are desirous to go about their business as before," he said.

At least 16 people have been killed since Friday night, according to an AFP tally, including a nine-year-old girl hit by a stray bullet.

Police have denied innocent protesters have been killed, saying those shot dead had been armed and attacked officers, many while carrying out criminal acts such as rape and looting.

The dispute has plunged Kenya into its worst political crisis since the 2007 post-election violence that laid bare decades-old political and ethnic grievances over access to power and land.

Three of Kenya's four presidents -- including Kenyatta and his father -- have been Kikuyu. The other was Kalenjin.

That leaves Luos, Odinga prominent among them, and other major ethnic groups feeling excluded from power and marginalised for over half a century.

The ethnic nature of Kenya's politics and the deep resentment it breeds, means Kenya is on tenterhooks as it waits to see what Odinga's next move will be.
Urging crowds of refugees at Al-Nimir camp in the Sudanese state of East Darfur to "be strong and hopeful", Filippo Grandi said it was about time leaders of South Sudan ended a war that continued to rage on.

"I must confess that it may be a long term exile" for the refugees who continue to flee from their country every day, Grandi told AFP as he toured the camp, where about 5,000 South Sudanese have taken refuge.

Grandi said the refugees had to remain hopeful of returning to their country, but a lot depended on when South Sudan becomes stable.

"That hope depends on the action first and foremost of the leadership of South Sudan and the opposition," he said.

"They have to start behaving responsibly and thinking of their own people and not only of themselves."

South Sudan's civil war began in December 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy, Riek Machar, of plotting a coup. Since then the war has spread across the country, sweeping up other ethnic groups and local grievances.

Overall the refugee population from South Sudan has reached to about two million, of which more than 430,000 have taken refuge in Sudan, the United Nations says.

Grandi praised Khartoum for opening several "human corridors" to deliver aid directly from Sudan to areas of South Sudan, and for hosting hundreds of thousands of refugees.

However, he said it was time to develop "new models" for aiding refugees, rather than just keeping them in camps.

"For how long can you support these camps?" he said as the United Nations and other aid organisations face increasing financial crunch.
During the incident, which occurred on Sunday, Mugabe, 52, allegedly attacked Gabriella Engels, 20, with an extension cord, leaving her with wounds on her forehead and the back of her head.

"We are dealing with the matter and will get the full report," Police Minister Fikile Mbalula told the local Eyewitness News agency.

"If she came here with her diplomatic passport, she'll have diplomatic immunity. This doesn't mean she cannot be arrested."

Pictures on social media appear to show Engels with a bleeding head injury after the alleged incident in Capital 20 West Hotel in the upmarket district of Sandton.

Mugabe allegedly arrived with bodyguards and accused Engels of living with her sons Robert and Chatunga, both in their 20s, who are based in the city.

"We were chilling in a hotel room, and (the sons) were in the room next door. She came in and started hitting us," Engels was quoted as saying by the TimesLIVE website.

"The front of my forehead is busted open. I'm a model and I make my money based on my looks."

Mugabe, who is 41 years younger than her husband Robert, has two sons and one daughter with the Zimbabwean president.

"There was a criminal case opened in Sandton at Morningside (station) yesterday, but I can not release any name. Right now we have not arrested anybody," national police spokesman Vish Naidoo told AFP.

Foreign affairs spokesman Clayson Monyela said Mugabe's trip was "a private visit so government cannot get involved if an alleged crime is committed."

Sizakele Nkosi-Malobane, a provincial minister in Gauteng province, told Jacaranda FM that the case should be pursued through the courts.

"We hope that it will send a strong message to all leaders who abuse their power and assault innocent people in our country," she said.

Grace Mugabe regularly speaks at rallies in Zimbabwe and is seen as one potential successor to take over from her increasingly frail husband.
Indian television actors love celebrating Independence Day. A few of them shared their favourite memories associated with the special day.

By India Today Web Desk: Just like everyone else in the country, our television stars love celebrating the Independence day. Here are some of their favourite memories associated with this special day:

Suyyash Rai, who is currently seen in the show Pehredaar Piya Ki, revealed that he loves the patriotic environment the day creates, "I remember making national flags during my school days. I enjoy the patriotic environment. Parades are even more interesting."

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While Suyyash is all about flag-hoisting, actress Neha Marda fondly remembers dancing to patriotic songs.

Happy Janmashtami ??? A post shared by Neha (@nehamarda) on Aug 14, 2017 at 3:18am PDT

"I remember making our national flag with my friends. I remember celebrating the morning hours of the day with friends singing and dancing on patriotic songs," the actress said.

TV star Sara Khan used to gift the national flag to everyone on the special day.

From Meerut's fashion show #ssarakhan #poser #walk #work #happiness @slashproductions @nik446 A post shared by sara khan (@ssarakhan) on Aug 13, 2017 at 6:07am PDT

"I have made national flags for many occasions, be it for Independence day or Republic day. I remember I used to sit with my sister and friends to make flags to gift them to people on the day," the actress said.

Looks like everyone of these actors was into making flags on the special day. Actress Tanya Sharma said, "My sister and I have always enjoyed making national flags, and every year we used to have debates and news-reading competitions."

Meri jarurate kam hai Isliye mere irado mein Dum HAI.. Main manU hoon A post shared by Manu Punjabi (@manupunjabim3) on Jul 15, 2017 at 12:56am PDT

Bigg Boss 10 finalist Manu Punjabi also has many memories associated with the day.

"We used to enjoy watching and participating in parades. And greeting people with a Jai Hind made me feel quite proud of our country," the reality star said.

Also read: Suyyash Rai defends his show Pehredaar Piya Ki after Karan Wahi slams it on social media

Also read: Devoleena Bhattacharjee to Suyyash Rai: TV stars reveal their celebrity crushes

--- ENDS ---
The alleged attack threatened to spark a major diplomatic incident between the two neighbouring countries which have strong political and economic ties.

Grace Mugabe, 52, is accused of beating Gabriella Engels, 20, on Sunday evening with an electrical extension cord, leaving her with injuries on her forehead and the back of her head.

"She's not under arrest because she cooperated and handed herself over to the police," South African Police Minister Fikile Mbalula told reporters.

"In terms of foreign citizens, they must understand they have responsibilities, especially those who hold diplomatic passports."

Pictures on social media appeared to show Engels with a bleeding head injury after the alleged incident at the Capital 20 West Hotel in the upmarket Johannesburg district of Sandton.

"I cannot just go to Zimbabwe and beat up people there and then the matter will disappear," Mbalula said.

"From the police side, we have had to act in the interests of the victim, we have opened a case."

According to local media, Mugabe was to appear at Randburg Magistrate's Court at 2:00 pm (1200 GMT).

She allegedly arrived at the hotel with bodyguards and accused Engels of partying with her sons Robert and Chatunga, both in their 20s, who live in the South African city.

"We were chilling in a hotel room, and (the sons) were in the room next door. She came in and started hitting us," Engels was quoted as saying by the Times Live website on Monday.

"The front of my forehead is busted open. I'm a model and I make my money based on my looks."

A future president?

Grace Mugabe, who is 41 years younger than her husband Robert, 93, has two sons and one daughter with the Zimbabwean president.

Sizakele Nkosi-Malobane, a provincial minister in South Africa's Gauteng province, told Jacaranda FM radio that the case should be pursued fully through the courts.

"We hope that it will send a strong message to all leaders who abuse their power and assault innocent people in our country," she said.

Grace Mugabe regularly speaks at rallies in Zimbabwe and is seen as one potential candidate to take over from her increasingly frail husband.

Last month she urged her husband to name his chosen successor, reviving speculation about the race to take over from the world's oldest national leader.

President Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from British colonial rule in 1980.

The succession battle is widely expected to pit Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa against a group called "Generation 40" or "G40" because its members are generally younger, and which reportedly has Grace's backing.

Grace has previously denied harbouring ambitions to take over from her husband, but at other times has said she would be prepared to serve in any political position.

She has taken on a larger public role in recent years, speaking regularly at meetings to drum up support for the president and also heading the women's league of the ruling ZANU-PF party.

In 2014, Grace led a bitter campaign to expel from the party former vice president Joice Mujuru, who had been seen as a favourite to succeed to Mugabe.

In speeches this year the president has often slurred his words, mumbled and paused for lengthy periods.

His reign has been marked by brutal repression of dissent, mass emigration, vote-rigging and a sharp economic decline since land reforms in 2000.
Sinan Acar was attacked with a knife by the suspect, who has not been named, after the man was brought by car for questioning to the headquarters of Istanbul police late Sunday.

Acar later died of his wounds while the suspected IS member was shot dead on the spot by other police officers.

Speaking at a funeral ceremony for the slain officer, police chief Mustafa Caliskan said Acar and his colleagues had prevented a potentially significant attack by arresting the suspect.

"The man arrested was someone who was the subject of an international search," said Caliskan. "We think that a very serious attack was prevented."

"It must be known that in this country people like Sinan will live on," he said at the ceremony also attended by Istanbul governor Vasip Sahin.

It was not immediately clear how the suspect managed to keep a knife while being taken into custody.

At the funeral, Acar's mother, overcome by emotion, was supported by a female police officer, an AFP correspondent said. He will later be buried in his native Bursa region.

Turkey was hit in 2016 by a succession of attacks that left hundreds dead in the bloodiest year of terror strikes in its history.

The attacks were blamed on IS jihadists as well as the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) who have battled the Turkish state in an insurgency lasting more than three decades.

Last month anti-terror officers in Istanbul detained dozens of alleged IS members, several of whom were said to be preparing a "sensational attack" in Turkey, police said.

An attack by a jihadist gunman on an elite nightclub in Istanbul just 75 minutes into New Year's Day in 2017 left 39 people dead, mainly foreigners.

There has since been a lull in similar attacks, but tensions and high security remain in big cities.
Odinga has said he will outline his strategy to contest the vote on Tuesday. Deadly protests appear to have eased but much is at stake for Kenya, one of east Africa's largest economies and its most dynamic democracy.

How did we get here?

The disagreement erupted just hours after Tuesday's vote ended, when Odinga insisted preliminary results being announced by the electoral commission (IEBC) were fraudulent.

Such allegations are not new for Odinga, a veteran opposition leader who has stood for president three times previously.

He placed third in 1997, and in both 2007 and 2013 he cried foul.

The 2007 vote -- which international observers said was riddled with irregularities -- is notorious as it sparked two months of ethnic killings and protests that left 1,100 people dead and 600,000 displaced.

In 2013, he went to court over the elections, and lost.

Despite all that, the 72-year-old is a popular political figure in the country, and his allegations carry weight with his supporters, particularly among his Luo ethnic group who believe they have long been denied political power by Kenyatta's Kikuyu ethnic group.

What are Odinga's complaints?

Odinga's National Super Alliance (NASA) coalition claims that hackers breached the IEBC's electronic voting systems and falsified the results.

Odinga has provided documents allegedly showing a database being manipulated, as well as documents purported to be from the IEBC server showing him to be the true winner.

They also complained they had not seen about 25 percent of the tallying forms meant to back up electronic results streamed directly to the electoral commission's headquarters.

NASA demanded access to the IEBC's servers if they were to accept the results of the vote. The coalition has so far ruled out going to court.

The IEBC, for its part, has denied NASA's claims.

What's happening now?

In poor neighbourhoods in Odinga's western stronghold Kisumu, and in the slums of the capital Nairobi, rioting started immediately after Kenyatta was declared the winner.

At least 16 people have been killed during the protests, mostly by police bullets, including a young girl hit by a stray bullet while playing on a balcony in the Mathare slum. Police say only six have died -- criminals who attacked them.

However by Sunday morning, calm appeared to have returned.

Nairobi, a city of more than three million people, started coming back to life, with businesses cautiously opening after about five days in which businesses were shut and people remained indoors.

What are Odinga's options?

According to law, he has until Friday to file a petition at the Supreme Court, which then has 14 days to hear the case and decide whether the election was valid or not.

However NASA has said this time going to court is not an option, despite pressure from the international community to do so.

If Odinga decides to send his supporters onto the street, he will have to contend with the fact that this is placing them in harm's way.

Nic Cheeseman, a professor of African politics at Britain's University of Birmingham said the state has the "capacity to withstand protests" and would be able to "re-assert control using force relatively quickly."

If no petition is filed, Kenyatta will be sworn in, at the earliest, on August 23.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Odinga said he wanted the United Nations to appoint a team of experts to analyse the election results.

What's at stake for Kenya?

Plenty. Kenya has the highest GDP per capita in the region and its economy has been growing at a healthy five percent every year since 2013. It is also a prime tourism destination in the region.

The vote dispute threatens that prosperity, and the country's image of stability.

"Obviously, everything that happens like that is bad news for the country," Cheeseman said.

Even without the unrest, things were expected to be tough for Kenya over the next year.
She spent nine years looking for her Lebanese birth mother, only to find her living an hour away from the Swiss village where Guigan was raised by her adoptive family.

The process of tracing her birth mother is one that many of those adopted abroad during Lebanon's 1975-1990 war have started.

But such searches are often complicated by reams of false paperwork and secrets that many people would prefer remain buried.

Zeina Allouche, co-founder of the Badael-Alternatives NGO, estimates that at least 10,000 Lebanese children were adopted during the war.

International adoption began before Lebanon's conflict but ballooned during the war, with middle men and local officials aiding the process by producing falsified paperwork, often for a fee.

"It was easy," Allouche told AFP.

"It was a gang time: no laws, no safety, and there was a kind of complicity because people thought this was a good way to save kids."

Guigan's adoptive parents collected her in 1984 and she grew up mostly in Switzerland, knowing she was adopted but with no information on her birth family.

When she was 18, her adoptive parents gave her a file including a "certificate of abandonment" from her birth mother.

"This is where I got very lucky -- her real name was on it," she said.

It was a lead, and more than many adoptees begin with, but it still took Guigan nine years, multiple trips to Beirut, and the help of a Lebanese television crew to find her mother.

'Delicate and taboo'

"I really didn't believe that this could still be possible in this life," she said.

"I did a lot of internal work to prepare myself for the worst. So meeting her and knowing she's alive... was one of the most beautiful experiences I've had."

Sophie, who asked to be identified by a pseudonym, was adopted by a couple living in France in 1966, before the war, and began her search in her 40s.

"I felt the need to fill a profound void, to know the story of my birth," she told AFP.

Armed with her mother's name, she went to Lebanon to research her roots but encountered resistance.

People told her "'You already have a family there! You were lucky to leave here!'," she said.

"They didn't understand why I was looking and it seems to me the subject remains delicate and taboo in Lebanon."

Allouche said many adoptees encountered similar responses. Some were completely rejected by birth families seeking to avoid the perception of scandal.

Badael tries to help in various ways, including the online listings that contain fragments of identifying information, and advice on search methods such as DNA analysis.

That was how Sophie finally found her biological mother: DNA tests with several online companies uncovered a first cousin, who she searched for on Facebook.

That led her to another first cousin who was "completely aware of my existence", she said.

"His father, my uncle, had helped my mother search for me after my birth and in the years that followed."

She learned that her mother had emigrated to Australia and they are now communicating through Sophie's half-sister.

"I'm relieved and so happy to have finally found her," she said.

She has become a strong proponent of DNA analysis and hopes more birth mothers seeking their children begin using it.

'Some kind of closure'

Many wartime adoptions were facilitated by diaspora Lebanese. Terri's adoptive parents turned to a colleague whose mother was living in Lebanon.

"They asked, and she just miraculously found a baby waiting," he said.

Ten-month-old Terri left Lebanon in 1988, and as a child often wondered about his birth and adoption.

"I didn't know what a war was, so I just imagined a big room full of people fighting, and this baby on the floor."

He is desperate to trace his birth mother but has few leads, including a document saying he was abandoned on the doorstep of the Sayidet al-Maunat hospital in Byblos, north of Beirut.

A trip to Lebanon proved fruitless, but tests through the DNA analysis site 23andme revealed a first cousin.

"That's the closest blood relative I've heard of. But he's not really interested in giving me information. He just kind of wished me good luck."

Terri's search is complicated by the fact that he is transgender, having been assigned female at birth but transitioning to male in his 20s.

Badael has registered 2,700 children adopted from Lebanon in its database, and a handful of mothers seeking their children.

Allouche said adoptions decreased after Lebanon's war ended, but the numbers are rising again with the conflict in neighbouring Syria, which has displaced millions.

"I was contacted personally because they thought we could facilitate adoption of Syrian refugees," she said.

She expects Syrians adopted during their country's war will one day undertake the same search as people like Terri, who is still hoping to find his birth mother.

"I feel like there's a blood connection that might be unbreakable and strong... I would really love to meet the person who gave birth to me," he said.
The peacekeeper and a Malian soldier were killed in an attack in the early morning in Douentza, in the central region of Mopti, according to a statement from the UN mission in the country, known by the acronym MINUSMA.

Hours later, six men toting guns and grenades drove up to the entrance of the UN mission's camp in Timbuktu in northwestern Mali, the UN announced in a separate statement.

They opened fire on Malian UN security guards, killing five of them, as well as a policeman and a civilian contractor whose nationality was not specified, the UN said in a separate statement.

A UN source told AFP six guards had been killed, but the statement said one was wounded but had not died.

Two suspected jihadists were killed in the Douentza attack and six in Timbuktu.

The assault underlines the scale of the UN's struggles to contain a death toll among its peacekeepers that has already earned its Mali mission the unwelcome title of the world's deadliest active UN deployment.

Another peacekeeper was lightly wounded in Douentza and six others, as well as a Malian security guard, suffered injuries in Timbuktu, according to the UN statements.

"I don't have enough words to condemn this cowardly and ignoble act a few hours after the terrorist attack we endured in Douentza," said UN Special Representative for Mali Mahamat Saleh Saleh Annadif in a statement on the Timbuktu attack sent to AFP.

"We must combine all our efforts in order to identify and apprehend those responsible for these terrorist acts so that they can answer to their crimes in court," Annadif added.

A Malian security source meanwhile told AFP that the Timbuktu security guards were "killed on the spot," though the attack soon attracted the attention of Malian forces and French helicopters stationed in the area, who fired on the attackers.

On Monday night, reinforcements were deployed to both bases and in the city of Timbuktu itself.

Active in Mali since 2013, the UN mission, known as MINUSMA, is constantly targeted by jihadists that roam northern and central Mali, and has also been beset by operational difficulties including a lack of helicopters and allegations of abuse lodged by the population.

Last week, UN peacekeepers accused former rebel fighters and a rival pro-government militia in the north of the country of having used child soldiers in recent clashes.

In 2012, key cities in northern Mali fell under the control of jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda, who exploited an ethnic Tuareg-led rebel uprising, leading to a French-led military intervention and the eventual deployment of MINUSMA.

Although the Islamists were largely ousted, attacks have continued on UN and French forces, civilians and the Malian army.

Monday's attacks in Mali came hours after an assault in Ouagadougou, the capital of the neighbouring Sahel state of Burkina Faso, where 18 people were gunned down at a restaurant popular with foreigners.

France is pushing for five countries in the western-central Sahara region to form a joint "G5" force to combat jihadism.

It would comprise 5,000 men drawn from Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger.
Several hundred police officers were deployed to escort the march by around 100 members of the All-Polish Youth, a far-right Catholic nationalist group known for its opposition to abortion and gay rights.

The marchers, some wearing all black, touted red and white Polish flags and other green-and-white ones representing the ONR National Radical Camp, a Polish extreme-right party.

Chanting "Fascism is illegal", "Free Warsaw of fascists" and "No Pasaran" ("They shall not pass" in Spanish), around 200 opponents blocked their path, many by sitting down in the middle of the street.

Police used force to remove them, dragging some across the pavement, after verbal requests for them to move went unheeded.

No injuries were immediately reported and a police spokesman said no arrests were made.

"We took action against people whose behaviour disturbed a legal gathering," Warsaw police spokesman Sylwester Marczak told local media.

Poland's criminal code prohibits the promotion of fascist or other totalitarian ideologies.

The All-Poland Youth called the march on Tuesday to mark the anniversary of the 1920 Battle of Warsaw, when Polish forces defeated the invading Soviet Red Army.

Since taking office in 2015, Poland's rightwing populist Law and Justice (PiS) government has provided heavy police protection for street demonstrations organised by groups on the right of the political spectrum, including the extreme right.

Police also used force to remove protesters attempting to block an ONR march in April.

Around 2,000 officers were on hand last Thursday for a monthly march by PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski in memory of his late twin brother, then president Lech Kaczynski, and 95 others killed in a 2007 jet crash in Smolensk, western Russia.

Anti-government activists staged a counter-demonstration, but police outnumbered them four-to-one.

The protesters believe Kaczynski, who insists the crash was no accident, has politicised the tragedy to gain the support of voters who share his views about its cause.

A probe by Polish and Russian investigators conducted before the PiS came to power in 2015 found that pilot error, bad weather and poor air traffic control were to blame for the crash.
Jatupat "Pai Dao Din" Boonpatararaksa, 25, is the latest anti-junta activist to be hit with the country's draconian lese majeste law which bans any criticism of the monarchy.

The law, which carries up to 15 years in jail per charge, has been wielded with increased ferocity under Thailand's military rulers.

He has been held in custody since his arrest in December for sharing a profile of King Maha Vajiralongkorn written by the BBC's Thai-language service in London.

On Tuesday he changed his plea to guilty, his legal team said, a stance that usually trims the sentence of alleged offenders.

"After Jatupat consulted with his family, he pleaded guilty this morning before the court for committing the alleged wrongdoing as charged," Krisadang Nootjaras, one of his lawyers, told AFP.

The court in northeastern Khon Kaen province is expected to sentence him later on Tuesday, he added.

Those charged with lese majeste in Thailand are almost always convicted, often behind closed doors.

Many people arrested for the crime plead guilty hoping for a reduced sentence.

The severity of the charge makes real scrutiny of the wealthy and powerful royal family all but impossible inside the kingdom -- including by the media.

Use of the lese majeste law has generated widespread international criticism, including from the United Nations.

A UN report earlier this year noted that the conviction rate under the law had gone from 75 percent before the 2014 coup to 96 percent last year.

Many of those jailed have been handed record-breaking sentences as long as 30 years, often for comments made on social media.

Jatupat hails from Thailand's northeast, a poor and rural region where anti-military sentiment runs high.

He was awarded a prominent human rights award in South Korea earlier this year.

Vajiralongkorn ascended the throne after the death in October of his father, Bhumibol Adulyadej, who reigned for seven decades.
But in the weeks since the July 26 tweets, the White House has not issued formal guidance to the Pentagon explaining how a ban would work, or what would happen to those transgender troops who have already come out.

Mattis said he had "no doubt" that the White House would be providing additional guidance, and said the Pentagon is giving military input as it studies the issue.

"The policy is going to address whether or not transgenders can serve under what conditions, what medical support they require, how much time would they be perhaps non-deployable, leaving others to pick up their share of everything," Mattis told Pentagon reporters.

"There's a host of issues... it's obviously very complex."

The current Obama-era policy remains in place for now. When pushed on whether the Pentagon will still employ transgender troops, Mattis said: "We are going to study the issue."

He added that the Pentagon had received no White House directions that would "indicate any harm to anybody right now."

In a lawsuit filed in federal court last week, five transgender women from the Air Force, Coast Guard and the Army said they faced uncertainty about their futures, including whether they would be fired or lose post-military and retirement benefits.

The number of transgender troops among America's 1.3 million active duty service members is small, with estimates topping out at 15,000.

Trump's tweeted announcement came with little apparent coordination with the Pentagon and landed while Mattis was on vacation.

Several senior military officials have voiced unease over the policy shift, with the head of the Coast Guard saying he would not "break faith" with transgender personnel.
It said that four people were captured, three from Central Asia and one a Russian citizen.

Three of the men, all from Tajikistan, appeared Monday in court, which placed them in custody for two months on charges of planning an attack as a group, punishable by up to 20 years in jail, as well as weapons offences.

Two of the men made confessions of guilt in court, TASS state news agency reported. Russian television showed the men led into the court bent over with arms handcuffed behind their backs. One had blood stains on his shirt front.

Russian television reported that the Russian national who did not appear in court was the group's leader.

The FSB said it had determined that the attacks were being organised by IS warlords and emissaries who are in Syria, which it identified as T.M. Nazarov and A.M. Shirindzhonov.

Media outlets in Tajikistan reported this month that a man named Todzhiddin Nazarov, also known as Abu Osama Noraka, had appeared in IS video statements from Syria posted on pro-jihadist sites.

'Mother of Satan'

The FSB said officers raided a bomb-making laboratory outside Moscow and captured the group's coordinator, an IS emissary in Russia, as well as an explosives expert and two potential suicide bombers.

Russian television showed FSB footage of the raid on a house in which plainclothes officers are seen pinning two young men wearing black rucksacks to the floor and handcuffing them. It also showed what it said was equipment used to mix chemicals and several semi-automatic weapons.

An FSB officer told RIA Novosti news agency that tests had shown the group had mixed acetone peroxide, an explosive that can be made from easily available household chemicals but is nicknamed "Mother of Satan" because of its dangerous volatility.

Russia regularly announces that it has foiled major terrorist attacks, and recently has emphasised the threat from former Soviet countries in Central Asia, where large numbers of the Muslim-majority populations have gone to fight alongside IS.

The FSB said in July that it had detained seven nationals from Central Asia who were "preparing terrorist attacks" in Saint Petersburg, where 15 were killed in a metro bombing in April.

The alleged perpetrator who died in that attack was born in Kyrgyzstan and later acquired Russian citizenship.
By Shivani Chhabra: Taapsee Pannu's phenomenal choice of fusion-attires has successfully blown us over to an extent that it has compelled us to keep a hawk's eye on every public appearance she makes. The Pink actress has displayed her inclination for Indian fusion-attires, especially sarees, on more than one occasions through her brilliant looks. Here's proof: 5 times Taapsee Pannu showed us how to nail the art of fusion dressing

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While gushing over Pannu's ethereal-yet-chic sarees isn't an alien idea for us, her recent look for a pre-release event of an upcoming Telugu film, Anando Brahma, was utterly confounding. The gorgeous actress turned up at the event in yet another experimental tawny-brown saree that we didn't quite like.

Picture courtesy: Instagram/makeupbyrubybal

From the messy-looking, light-hued, floral-print set off against the muddy primary colour to the striking red border; Taapsee failed to get her look right this time. While the saree in itself wasn't a great choice, it was the ostentatious blouse that pricked our eyes a bit. We admire Taapsee for trying to pull-off a jacket blouse instead of succumbing to classic, old patterns, but we really wish she had toned it down a tad bit. The black, jacket-blouse boasted of a garrish black-white-red floral embroidery, and looked extremely over-the-top, to say the least.

Picture courtesy: Instagram/makeupbyrubybal

Also Read: Taapsee Pannu wore half a saree and half a dress. We're not kidding

The massive floral-print teamed with a gaudily embroidered blouse in three contrasting shades sure didn't make up for a pleasant outfit. Like the saree wasn't already loud enough, Taapsee chose to adorn a bright-yellow bird embroidery on the blouse that was completely uncalled for, and mismatched. What's with the liking for hotchpotch on your attire, Taapsee?

Picture courtesy: Instagram/makeupbyrubybal

With everything turning out to be so shambolic about the outfit, the belt on the saree lost its potential charm, and the purpose of pulling off an experimental blouse failed right there for the actress.

Picture courtesy: Instagram/indian.love

The lovely actress wore absolutely no accessories with smokey-eyes, and that's the only we really appreciate about the look.

Picture courtesy: Instagram/love_indian_actress

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The indigenous Shinto religious shrine has for decades been a flashpoint for criticism by countries that suffered from Japan's colonialism and aggression in the first half of the 20th century.

Abe, a staunch nationalist who wants to see Japan's pacifist constitution amended, visited the shrine in December 2013, but has stayed away since.

His only visit as prime minister sparked fury in China and South Korea, and even earned a diplomatic rebuke from close ally the United States.

A member of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party said Abe had sent the monetary offering this year in his capacity as president of the party, not as prime minister.

His decision not to attend the shrine again this year comes as Tokyo has sought cooperation with Beijing and Seoul over North Korea's nuclear and missile programmes.

Pyongyang last week threatened to test-fire missiles toward the US Pacific island territory of Guam, after US President Donald Trump warned North Korea of "fire and fury".

Kim Jong-Un, the North Korean leader, said early Tuesday he would hold off on the planned missile launch.

Masahiko Shibayama, a party aide to Abe who made the donation on his behalf, said at the shrine that it came from Abe's personal funds, according to private broadcaster Nippon TV.

"Upon direction from (LDP) President Abe, I offered my condolences to the ancestors who sacrificed their lives in the war and reaffirmed my commitment to eternal peace," Shibayama told reporters.

Lawmakers, mostly conservative, say pilgrimages to the shrine are a chance to console the spirits of the dead and pray for peace. But North and South Korea and China consider them painful reminders of Japanese colonialism and invasion during the early 20th century.

Some lawmakers visited the shrine Tuesday, reportedly including LDP member and former defence minister Tomomi Inada, noted for her nationalist views.

The close Abe ally and onetime protege resigned as defence minister late last month over a scandal at the ministry.

Tuesday marks the 72nd anniversary of Japan's surrender on August 15, 1945.
Three planes, 27 fire engines and 120 Spanish firefighters have been helping to battle the blazes since Sunday, said a spokesman for Portugal's National Civil Protection Authority (ANPC).

By midday Monday, six major fires were still burning according to the ANPC website.

The heatwave gripping the centre of the country and the consequent dryness helped provoke the fires in the Santarem, Coimbra and Castelo Branco regions of central Portugal.

In all, 1,300 firefighters are fighting the blaze using some 400 fire engines and around 30 firefighting aircraft. As well as the Spanish help, Morocco sent Portugal one of its firefighting planes.

Spain's assistance came as part of the European Union's civil protection system that provides for mutual aid in emergency situations, said Christos Stylianides, the EU commissioner for civil protection.
Chinese military aircraft have flown near Taiwan's air defence identification zone (ADIZ) on seven other occasions since July.

"We keep on high alert to prevent unidentified or Chinese planes and ships from entering our air and sea space. We urge restraint to maintain peace in the Taiwan Strait," said ministry spokesman Chen Chung-chi.

Taiwan has scrambled aircraft to monitor the Chinese planes each time they have flown near the island.

Relations with China have rapidly deteriorated since the inauguration of President Tsai Ing-wen who refuses to acknowledge both sides are part of "one China".

Beijing considers Taiwan part of its territory and has said it would respond with force if it ever announced a formal breakaway.

Beijing has cut all official communication with Taipei and stepped up pressure on Tsai's government, including staging a string of naval and air drills near Taiwan since last year.

Beijing sent its only aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, through the Taiwan Strait in January during a drill and also in July when it was en route to Hong Kong.

The Mainland Affairs Council, Taiwan's top China policy-making body, also urged restraint on Tuesday and protested Beijing's moves that heighten regional tensions.

"China's provocation and intimidation is unhelpful for long-term development in cross-strait relations," said spokesman Chiu Chui-cheng.
Here is an overview of the worst such attacks in recent years, most of which have been claimed by jihadist groups:

2017

- August 13: Gunmen open fire at a Turkish restaurant in Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou, killing at least 18 people, including eight or more foreigners, and injuring dozens. Two assailants were killed in an assault by security forces. No group has yet claimed responsibility.

- June 18: At least five people are killed when suspected jihadists storms the Kangaba tourist resort popular with foreigners on the edge of Mali's capital Bamako.

- June 14: At least six people are killed when a suicide car bomber targets the popular Posh Treats restaurant in the Somali capital Mogadishu. Al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab claims responsibility.

2016

- March 13: Nineteen people including foreigners are killed when gunmen storm the Ivorian beach resort of Grand-Bassam. Al-Qaeda's North African affiliate, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), claims responsibility.

- January 15: Thirty people are killed, including many foreigners, in an attack on a top Burkina Faso hotel and a nearby restaurant in Ouagadougou. AQIM claims the assault, saying the gunmen were from the Al-Murabitoun group of Algerian extremist Mokhtar Belmokhtar.

2015

- November 20: Gunmen take guests and staff hostage at the luxury Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako in a siege that leaves at least 20 dead, including 14 foreigners. The attack is claimed by AQIM, which says it was a joint operation with the Al-Murabitoun group. Another jihadist group from central Mali, the Macina Liberation Front, also claims responsibility.

- October 31: A Russian passenger jet is downed en route from Egypt's Sharm el-Sheikh resort to Saint Petersburg, killing all 224 on board. The Egyptian branch of the Islamic State group claims responsibility. Russia confirms the crash was caused by a bomb.

- August 7: Malian armed forces storm the Byblos hotel in the centre of the country, ending a hostage-taking by gunmen that leaves at least 13 people dead including four UN foreign contractors.

- June 26: Thirty Britons are among 38 foreign holidaymakers killed in a gun and grenade attack on a beach resort near the Tunisian city of Sousse. The attack is claimed by the Islamic State group.

- March 18: Gunmen kill 21 tourists and a policeman at the Bardo Museum in Tunis in another attack claimed by IS.
In a letter addressed to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and published Tuesday, six humanitarian organisations expressed their "grave concern about the rapid deterioration of the security situation" in the country.

We "request your office take immediate action to prevent the country collapsing into another full-blown conflict", the letter said, adding that "at least 821 civilians have been killed since the start of the year."

The aid groups -- ACTED, Action Contre la Faim (Action Against Hunger), the Danish Refugee Council, Premiere Urgence, the International Rescue Committee and the Norwegian Refugee Council -- said the conflict had exacerbated an already tenuous humanitarian situation in the nation, where more than two million people are going hungry.

"These figures paint a bleak picture of a nation teetering on the brink of catastrophe," the groups said.

They called on the UN to ensure that the MINUSCA peacekeeping mission "has the financial and humanitarian resources" needed to operate in the country and that it "supports Central Africans and their representatives in the implementation of political conflict resolution and peacebuilding processes."

One of the world's poorest nations, CAR was pitched into a war between Muslim and Christian militias in 2013, unleashed when President Francois Bozize, a Christian, was overthrown by a coalition of Muslim-majority rebel groups called the Seleka.

They in turn were ousted by a military intervention led by France, the country's former colonial ruler, which in turn sparked some of the bloodiest sectarian violence in the country's history as mainly Christian militias sought revenge.

Groups on both sides are now fighting for control of natural resources, including gold and diamonds, as well as regional influence after a conflict that saw half a million people flee the country of 4.5 million.

UN aid chief Stephen O'Brien warned last week that renewed clashes showed "early warning signs of genocide" and also urged immediate action to contain the crisis.

In recent weeks, at least 60 people have been killed -- including at least six aid workers from a local branch of the Red Cross -- in fighting between armed groups in Ngaoundaye and Batangafo in the north, Kaga-Bandoro in the centre and Alindao and Gambo to the south, witnesses told AFP.

Aid workers have also been targeted in the fighting, which could force them to withdraw from especially violent areas, the groups said.

"We are painfully aware that any long-term withdrawal would increase the vulnerability of those very people whose survival depends exclusively on our presence and proximity", the letter said.

"But we cannot operate in a country where we are the target, where our staff are continuously under fire."
Trump on Monday signed a memorandum directing US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to determine whether Chinese policies hurt American investors or companies -- with retaliatory measures a possible outcome.

"We will stand up to any country that unlawfully forces American companies to transfer their valuable technology as a condition of market access. We will combat the counterfeiting and piracy that destroys American jobs," Trump said.

"We will safeguard the copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets and other intellectual property that is so vital to our security and to our prosperity.

"Washington will turn a blind eye no longer," Trump insisted.

The president said the US would no longer tolerate Beijing's "theft" of US industrial secrets, long a concern of major foreign corporations seeking a share of the huge Chinese market.

"We will engage in a thorough investigation and, if needed, take action to preserve the future of US industry," Lighthizer said.

China's commerce ministry issued a statement voicing "serious concern" and warning that any US trade protectionism "will definitely harm bilateral trade relations".

"If the US side take actions that impair the mutual trade relations, disregarding the facts and disrespecting multilateral trade rules, China will not sit idle," the statement said.

The ministry said the country "is definitely going to adopt all appropriate measures to vigorously defend the lawful rights and interest of China."

The United States is China's second-largest trading partner after the European Union, but Washington and Beijing have seen their relations grow increasingly fraught since a promising summit between Trump and China's Xi Jinping in April.

Multiple trade disputes

The new intellectual property inquiry joins numerous investigations launched by Washington into Chinese trade practices, notably those concerning steel and aluminum and their national security consequences, which the Trump administration began earlier this year.

However, the start of a US inquiry will not immediately result in open confrontation.

Lighthizer will first need to reach a preliminary finding of unfair practices by China before opening a formal investigation, which could take as much as a year, administration officials said.

The Chinese commerce ministry said the country has "always been paying high attention to intellectual property right protection, continuously perfecting the legislation", and that the progress it has made on that front is "obvious to all".

Since launching his successful run for the White House and then taking office, Trump has frequently accused China of undermining the US economy.

The bilateral US trade deficit with China approached $350 billion in 2016, and Trump has repeatedly blamed Chinese imports for gutting employment in US sectors such as steel.

Last week, Washington announced preliminary sanctions against Chinese imports of aluminium foil. But so far, the US has not imposed heavier trade measures on Chinese goods.

North Korea a bargaining chip?

On Thursday, Trump reiterated the suggestion that he could soften his position on trade if Beijing were to do more to help rein in nuclear-armed North Korea.

"If China helps us, I feel a lot differently toward trade," he said.

China said it would halt iron, iron ore and seafood imports from North Korea starting Tuesday, in accordance with new UN sanctions that Beijing voted to approve.

US administration officials, however, have denied any link between the latest trade action and Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.

Beijing echoed this view Monday, with the foreign ministry saying the two matters were "totally different."

Despite Monday's expected action, Trump has so far refrained from making good on threats of retaliatory trade measures against China.
Hichilema, leader of the United Party for National Development (UPND), has been in custody since April over an incident when he allegedly failed to give way to President Edgar Lungu's motorcade.

Lungu, who narrowly beat Hichilema in last year's presidential election, has dismissed allegations of growing authoritarianism and has accused his rivals of trying to overturn the election result.

Hichilema and five aides "denied the charge of treason and the state has decided to take the matter to Wednesday for trial," UPND spokesman Charles Kakoma told foreign journalists outside the court.

Police officers in riot gear sealed off the court precinct as scores of UPND supporters waited outside.

Kakoma added that Hichilema, who remained in custody, appeared in good health at the brief hearing.

A UPND lawyer, who declined to be named, had said on Sunday that the party expected the charges to be dropped and for Hichilema to walk free at the hearing.

President Lungu invoked emergency powers in July, increasing police powers of arrest and detention after he blamed opposition parties for a string of arson attacks.

Lawmakers suspended

Zambia has enjoyed relative stability since its first multi-party election in 1991.

But last year's election was marked by clashes between supporters of Lungu's Patriotic Front (PF) party and the UPND.

Hichilema, 55, says the vote was rigged and has refused to recognise Lungu as the president.

Parliament has suspended 48 UPND lawmakers after they boycotted an address by Lungu in March.

Police last week released the leader of a smaller opposition party who is a fierce critic of the president after one week in detention.

Savior Chishimba, leader of the United Progressive Party (UPP), was detained by plain-clothed police, triggering further accusations of a crackdown on dissent.

The government has also increased pressure on media outlets that support the opposition, eroding Zambia's reputation as a stable democracy.

Hichilema was arrested after allegedly putting Lungu's life in danger when his convoy failed to make way for the presidential motorcade in a high-speed road drama caught on video camera.

The two men were both travelling to Western province for a traditional ceremony.

Days later, more than 100 armed police surrounded Hichilema's house outside Lusaka, firing tear gas before detaining him and his aides.

Businessman-turned-politician Hichilema has claimed that he was assaulted by police during his arrest and has suffered mistreatment in detention.

Treason is a non-bailable offence in Zambia, with a minimum jail term of 15 years and a maximum sentence of death.

When he was arrested, Amnesty International said that Hichilema and the five other accused were "victims of longstanding persecution" by the authorities, and faced charges that are designed to "harass and intimidate".
WASHINGTON (AP)  Fallout from President Donald Trump's reaction to violent, racial clashes in Virginia over the weekend continued in the business community with another resignation from a federal panel of executives that was created to advise him.

Following the departure of chief executives for Merck, Under Armour and Intel, the president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing stepped down Tuesday.

Scott Paul, in a tweet, said, "I'm resigning from the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative because it's the right thing for me to do."

Once an apolitical appointment, the job of providing advice to the U.S. president has become decidedly more political under Trump, who has attacked those who have stepped down this week.

On Tuesday, Trump tweeted, "For every CEO that drops out of the Manufacturing Council, I have many to take their place. Grandstanders should not have gone on. JOBS!"

Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier, a highly respected businessman and one of only four African Americans to lead a Fortune 500 company today, was the first to tender his resignation Monday.

He was attacked almost immediately by Trump on Twitter.

Then came resignations from Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank and then Intel CEO Brian Krzanich.

Austan Goolsbee, the former chief economist for President Barack Obama, said that the departures suggest that the president's response to the violence in Charlottesville could alienate those who work for the companies, and those who buy the products and services that they sell.

"It's certainly a sign that Trump's more controversial stuff isn't playing well with companies selling to middle America," said Goolsbee, now a professor at the University of Chicago.

There had already been departures from two major councils created by the Trump administration that were tied to its policies.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk resigned from the manufacturing council in June, and two other advisory groups to the president, after the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement. Walt Disney Co. Chairman and CEO Bob Iger resigned for the same reason from the President's Strategic and Policy Forum.

The manufacturing jobs council had 28 members initially, but it has shrunk since it was formed earlier this year as executives retire, are replaced, or, as with Frazier, Musk, Plank, Paul and Krzanich, resign.

Dan Eaton, a business ethics instructor at the San Diego State University Fowler College of Business and a partner at San Diego-based law firm Seltzer Caplan McMahon Vitek, said that while CEOs may feel it is their civic duty to serve the president, their responsibility ultimately is to their shareholders, employees and customers.

"That's something that's always in play, and as a result some companies choose to abstain from getting involved in political roles," he said.

Eaton said that the potential for a public rebuke from a sitting president is not a concern only to those now on advisory panels, but to all who may be asked to serve in the future.

Already, there is a push on social media lobbying other executives to distance themselves from Trump, and resign.

So far, the majority of CEOs and business leaders that are sitting on the two major, federal panels, are condemning racism, but say they want to keep a seat at the table.

"Our commitment to diversity and inclusion is unwavering, and we will remain active champions for these efforts," said a spokesman for Campbell Soup for CEO Denise Morrison. "We believe it continues to be important for Campbell to have a voice and provide input on matters that will affect our industry, our company and our employees in support of growth. Therefore, Ms. Morrison will remain on the President's Manufacturing Jobs Initiative."

Boeing CEO Dennis Builenburg also will remain.

Lawrence Summers, once the chief economist at the World Bank and senior Treasury official, wondered when more business leaders will distance themselves from Trump.

"After this weekend, I am not sure what it would take to get these CEOs to resign," he tweeted. "Demonizing ethnic groups? That has happened."
Two patients died before a doctor could attend them. Outraged by the loss of their loved ones, the family members of the deceased blocked the hospital, causing panic among other patients.

By Pramod Madhav: The Ambur Government Hospital in Vellore, Tamil Nadu, has been facing lack of medical staff for a while now. The residents and activists claim to have raised the issue with the authorities but no progress has been made as yet.

On August 13, two patients were brought to the hospital's emergency ward. Rajkumar, a cab driver, met with an accident on Chennai-Bengaluru road and was rushed to the hospital. However, he was made to wait as there was no doctor available to attend him. Meanwhile, a young girl named Vaishnavi, was also rushed into the emergency ward after she complained of severe chest pain.

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Unfortunately, there was only one doctor available at the hospital then.

Vaishnavi and Rajkumar died before the doctor could attend them. Outraged by the loss of their loved ones, the family members of the deceased blocked the hospital, causing panic among other patients.

"Rajkumar was made to wait for more than 2 hours, and Vaishnavi was left unattended for an hour. There was no one to provide them breathing equipment. That's the reason we are protesting here", said Kumaran, a resident of Aambur.

As a matter of fact, the authorities also accepted their fault in the case. "Due to absence of the doctor, a patient involved in a road accident had died. We'll definitely take action in the matter. The child was already suffering from a heart ailment and she was brought in a critical condition.", explained Shanti, Assistant Director. She also stated that the government is trying to compensate for the lack of staff by outsourcing and the matter should be resolved within a month.

Shanti said, as of now four doctors are present and one will visit every week from Thirupathur and Gudiyatham.

Sources claim that the hospital was supposed to have 16 doctors to handle the patient flow.

However, Health Minister Vijayabhaskar has assured that there are enough doctors and staff present in all the hospitals of Tamil Nadu.

Also Read:

Kamal Haasan urges Centre, TN govt to discuss NEET, says horses can be traded later

AIADMK merger: Now, ex-Tamil Nadu CM O Panneerselvam knocks on PM Modi's door

AIADMK merger plans move on, E Palaniswami meets PM Modi in Delhi

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CHICAGO (AP)  Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner is revising his response to a deadly attack at a white nationalist rally in Virginia after initially refusing to call it an act of terrorism.

The Republican deemed the attack "horrible behavior" but wouldn't call it terrorism Monday when asked repeatedly by reporters in Chicago. The move prompted criticism from Democrats. Rauner later issued a written statement calling it "absolutely an act of domestic terrorism."

Rauner's spokeswoman wouldn't explain the discrepancy.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions says the 32-year-old woman's death in Charlottesville, Virginia, meets "the definition of domestic terrorism" in statute. She was killed when a vehicle barreled through a street filled with peaceful counter protesters Saturday.

The Illinois Senate adopted a resolution Sunday asking law enforcement to recognize white nationalists and neo-Nazis as terrorist groups.
SHIVELY, Ky. (AP)  A Kentucky police officer faces disciplinary action in connection to a Facebook post mocking the death of a woman struck and killed after a car rammed into a counter-protest at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Shively Police Lt. Col. Josh Myers says Officer Morris Rinehardt was placed on paid administrative leave Monday and an internal investigation is underway.

News outlets report the post on Rinehardt's personal Facebook page pictured a car with a caption that says, "When you were born a Challenger but identify as a Ram." The man charged in the Charlottesville rally was driving a Dodge Challenger.

Myers says potential punishment ranges from six days suspension to termination.

A Philadelphia firefighter and a Massachusetts police officer also face disciplinary action for Facebook postings about the rally.
By PTI: (Eds: Updating with more quotes)

By Sajjad Hussain

Islamabad, Aug 14 (PTI) US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson today called up Pakistans Foreign Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif to extend his greetings on the countrys 70th Independence Day, an official statement here said.

According to a statement from Pakistan Foreign Office, Tillerson conveyed the greetings on behalf of the US government and the American people to the government and people of Pakistan.

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He also congratulated Asif for taking charge as Foreign Minister of Pakistan and expressed his desire to work with him towards achieving common objectives.

"Today, the United States joins the people of Pakistan in celebrating this anniversary and our 70-year relationship, as we continue to work together in the years ahead," Tillerson said.

"In an August 14, 1947 message to then Governor General Muhammed Ali Jinnah, President Truman pledged the firm friendship and good will of the United States, saying, The American people anticipate a long history of close and cordial relations with your country," he said.

"In the seven decades since, the United States and Pakistan have worked closely together to advance our mutual interests of democracy, stability, security, and economic development in Pakistan and across the region," Tillerson said in a statement.

Asif said the call from Tillerson on the 70th anniversary of Pakistans Independence Day was an apt reminder of the long history of relations between the two countries.

He said the US had been a partner in Pakistans journey of development, both in the socio-economic and defence sector.

Noting that he would strive in his new capacity to strengthen partnership with the US, Asif said the current leadership of Pakistan was committed to establishing Pakistans vital relations with America.

He underscored the need to build a dynamic and diverse relationship underpinned by mutual trust, sincerity and confidence, the Foregn Office (FO) statement said.

The Foreign Minister said that Pakistan would benefit the most if peace and stability were achieved in Afghanistan as the success and sustainability of Islamabads economic reforms depended on peaceful and stable Afghanistan.

He expressed Pakistans willingness to work with the US once the policy review on Afghanistan is unveiled.

Asif emphasised on the political settlement of the conflict in Afghanistan as common objective of Pakistan and the US.

Tillerson also extended an invitation to Asif for a visit the US. Asif also invited Tillerson to visit Pakistan and the Secretary of State accepted the invitation, the FO statement said.

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Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa today hoisted the largest flag in Pakistans history at Attari-Wagah border near Lahore to mark the countrys 70th Independence Day. PTI SH/LKJ MRJ MRJ

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The 63km project extends the existing 13.6km cross-Bosphorous rail link which opened in October 2013 on both the European and Asia sides. The work involves rebuilding the existing railway, which has been out of use for several years, from the Bosphorous links current eastern terminus at Ayrilik Cesmesi via Pendik (the current limit of rail services from the east) to Gebze, and from the western terminus at Kazlicesme to Halkali. This will add 32 new stations to the five currently operational on the central section.

The existing double-track formation is being expanded to accommodate a third track to enable YHT high-speed trains, which currently terminate at Pendik, to reach Haydarpasa, the former mainline station on the Asian side of Istanbul, and Halkali.

Arslan says the third track will also be used by freight trains at night providing a rail connection for freight across the Bosphorous for the first time.

Arslan says the Ankara - Istanbul journey time by high-speed train will be reduced from a current fastest time of 4h 3min between Ankara and Pendik to just 3 hours to Hydarpasa and 3h 30min to Halkali. The minister also said a 2-hour journey time is envisaged between Ankara and Sivas when the new high-speed line opens.

In addition, Arslan says that project planning for a new high-speed line from Halkali west to Edirne and Kapikule on the Bulgarian border has been completed and tender documents prepared with a view to awarding a contract later this year. We want to finish Halkali - Kapikule by 2022-23, Arslan says.

Our citizens now prefer high-speed trains with 15% of all transport between Ankara and Istanbul, Arslan says. When the YHT line continues to Haydarpasa and then to Halkali, we expect this rate to reach 40%.
Navjot Singh Sidhu is upset with Kapil Sharma for replacing him with Archana Puran Singh, according to reports.

By India Today Web Desk: Kapil Sharma has been hitting headlines lately, and for all the wrong reasons. After postponing and cancelling shoots with Bollywood actors like Shah Rukh Khan and Arjun Rampal, it has been reported that Kapil has made Navjot Singh Sidhu upset with his actions, according to a report in SpotboyE.

While Kapil finally shot with Arjun Rampal, the host made a big change in the said episode. After Sidhu failed to attend the show citing ill health, Kapil replaced him with a special guest for the evening, Archana Puran Singh.

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Yes, you read that right.

Apparently Kapil had asked Archana to fill in for Sidhu, which the latter took offence to, as the two (Archana and Sidhu) don't like each other much, according to the same report.

Sidhu reportedly called Kapil and gave him quite an earful over the incident.

However, neither of them have opened up on the subject.

Also read: Post renewal of contract, Kapil Sharma and his team shoot non-stop

Also read: TKSS: Here's what Arjun Rampal has to say about working with Kapil Sharma

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The 50 shades of vexation venting from self-described captive shippers over delay by the Surface Transportation Board (STB) in considering their petitions to dilute rail regulatory freedoms is matched only by their asserting last year a contradictory 50 shades of encouragement that the Board do just that.

As with so much lately, the reason is Donald J. Trump. Shippers fear the likelihood Trump will nominate for two empty STB seats a pair of free-market zealots hell-bent on further condoning capitalistic acts among consenting adults in contravention of more regulation-minded nominees, which these shipper groups anticipated had Hillary Clinton been elected.

When Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) shepherded into law in 2015 the Surface Transportation Board Reauthorization Act codifying decades-long shipper sought STB reforms, and expanding the STB from three voting members to five, shipper groups were euphoric in anticipation of regulatory decisions going more their way.

The National Industrial Transportation League and other alliances of chemicals, coal and grain shippersfellow travelers in schemes enlisting government to help one pay lessenvisioned a STB gang of five more favorable to their wants than the current gang of three that sided with their assorted grievances against railroads no less than, gulp, 50% of the time.

Self-described captives in the Bible Belt seemed prepared to erect new churches bearing Thunes name; those in California ached to name a legal marijuana variety for Thune; and others sounded ready to label a craft beer in his honor.

Liza Doolittles just you wait admonition to Henry Higgins quite well reflected the then shipper state of grace and patience. The STB of Republican Ann Begeman and Democrats Dan Elliott and Deb Miller should, shippers beseeched, delay decision making on controversial shipper petitions until two new regulators, courtesy of Senator Thunes deliverance legislation, were in place.

Envisioned by these shippers was an enlarged five-member STB anxious to inscribe in a new book of regulatory decisions fresh obligations and restrictions on railroads. Memorializing in regulations the existence of captive shippers was a primary want, accomplished by eviscerating such nonsense as notions of product and geographic competition, which, combined with available alternative transport modes, makes obsolete any definition of shipper captivity.

Oh, what a heretic was that James V. Springrose, a vice president of grain-shipping giant Cargill, who, back in 1979, declared that all shippers have alternatives to rail  the captive shipper is captive only because the alternative charges even higher rates than their rail counterpart.

These shipper groups, clutching rally monkeys portending a changed direction by the gang of five, just knew an augmented STB would never spew such baloney as did STB predecessor Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) in 1966: Shippers are in a position to deny the business to [the railroads] by substituting transportation or product. Hogwash then, hogwash now, they chanted.

Then came Election Day, 2016. No matter ones opinion of politics, personalities or sensitivities, a pejorative certainty abruptly permeated shipper euphoriathat Trump would nominate, and the Senate would confirm, two new regulators not so enamored with the shipper regulatory agenda.

Equally wicked to these shippers was that a third laissez-faire disciple could materialize, as current STB member Deb Millers term expires Dec. 31, meaning Trump could nominate, in addition to two new Republicans for the two vacant STB seats, a Democrat equally enamored with dismantling the administrative state.

Egad. Deja vu. Werent two of the most deregulation-minded members of the old ICCeconomists Darius Gaskins and Marcus AlexisDemocrats? Another former ICC member and Democrat, Betty Jo Christian, had said, The ICC should get out of the business of running railroads and let the marketplace function.

Experiencing the foreboding of Christians in the Coliseum, the Western Coal Traffic League (WCTL) filed with the STB on Aug. 11 a petition (downloadable at the link below) asking the agency to terminate its regulatory freeze in four pending proceedings.

Embracing a faith that past performance is no guarantee of future results, the WCTL is expressing a yen for the devil they know out of greater fear that a new majority will now be solidly in the deregulation camp.

Here are the four proceedings on which action is sought by the WCTL ahead of nomination and confirmation of new STB members:

 Implementing alternative methods to determine maximum allowable freight rates charged so-called captive shippers.

 A long-promised public hearing on a controversial $1 million STB-contracted study to assess the STBs methodology for its Stand-Alone Cost (SAC) test used to determine maximum reasonable rates.

 Evaluating what constitutes revenue adequacy and its influence in attracting capital for new investment in plant and equipment, as the determination affects maximum freight rates.

 Setting standards under which railroads may impose fuel surcharges, especially on so-called captive shippers.

Also sought by the WCTL in its Aug. 11 petition is more-prompt STB action on a pending NITL petition to permit so-called competitive switching at certain sole-served facilities, which would allow shippers a second railroad choice. Other than chemicals shippers at limited locations with belt-like railroads performing switching, it is not clear just what other shippers could benefit or how such switching would work.

The WCTL, waving the justice delayed is justice denied slogan, could alternatively summoned the promise of former President Benjamin Harrisona U.S. Senator when railroad regulation was first debated in 1887: What we want of a commission is a tribunal to which a man who thinks he has a grievance against a railroad company can go and tell his story and then go home and attend to his business and the commission will do the rest.

In fact, the STB is doing just thatbut not on the shipper-preferred time table. There are no statutory deadlines attached to the four proceedings the WCTL seeks to hasten.

Railroads would do well to remind Begeman, who controls the docket, of an observation by the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia when teaching law at the University of Chicago: Deregulation is not just a matter of altering government activity; rather, it represents a fundamental shift in social philosophy from government interventionism toward  willingness to rely on the free market to benefit society.

Looking at this latest regulatory kerfuffle from afar, it hosts an element of the perennial New York Yankees-Boston Red Sox rivalry. Indeed, decades ago, ICC Commissioner Clyde B. Aitchison observed that transportation rate disputes began when one primitive man undertook to carry the belongings or person of the other across a stream or along a trail and the two haggled over the barter.
Canadian Pacific Railway played an important role in shaping Canada into the nation it is today, a nation celebrating its 150th anniversary. CPs Canada 150 special, a rolling celebration of Canadian history and culture, will wind up a three-week tour on Aug. 20 in Ottawa, the countrys capital city.

Iconic EMD F-unit diesel-electric locomotive CP 1401 (built in 1958) is leading the train, powering more than 10 beautifully restored Royal Canadian Pacific heritage cars. These cars are historical treasures and have hosted some of Canadasand the worldsmost influential minds including Canadian author Pierre Berton; Princess Elizabeth and Prince Phillip (pre-coronation); and Sir Winston Churchill, CP notes on its website.

CP said a highlight at each stop is the opportunity to take part in decorating a special railcar named the Spirit of Tomorrow: Children are invited to write their hopes for the Canada of tomorrow on a commemorative card. Each will be affixed upon the railcar and as the CP Canada 150 Train makes its journey across the country, the Spirit of Tomorrow will come alive.

The CP 150 journey began in late July in Port Moody, B.C. From there, it worked its way eastward on CP main lines, stopping in Revelstoke, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Regina, Winnipeg, Thunder Bay, Sudbury, Hamilton, Toronto, Montreal, and finally, Ottawa.
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Cyprus extradites Russian citizen charged with murder organization

MOSCOW, August 15 (RAPSI)  Russian national charged with organizing a murder has been extradited from Cyprus, the Prosecutor Generals Office announced on Tuesday.

Investigators believe that an unidentified person asked the accused to secure him against wrongdoing of his acquaintance between June and December 2001. The defendant could not persuade the acquaintance and decided to organize his murder. He found perpetrators who killed the victim in 2002.

The alleged organizer received 50,000 rubles ($835) for his services and fled. He was put on the federal wanted list in August 2013, and on the international wanted list in August 2016.

In April, he was found in Cyprus. Russias Prosecutor Generals Office sent the extradition request for the accused which was granted by Cypriot authorities.
Yugra seeks to join Prosecutor Generals Office to its dispute with Central Bank

Context Russian Central Bank withdraws license from top 30 bank

MOSCOW, August 15 (RAPSI) - Yugra bank, one of the top 30 banks, has asked the Moscow Commercial Court to join the Prosecutor Generals Office to its dispute with the Central Bank of Russia, RIA Novosti reported Tuesday.

On July 10, the Central Bank imposed temporary administration represented by the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) in the bank for six months and a three-month moratorium on creditor claims. The DIA was ordered to conduct Yugras status inquiry. The bank managers powers have been suspended for six months as well.

These measures were applied because of Yugras financial uncertainty and threat to interests of its creditors and depositors, according to the regulator.

Yugra has filed a motion to declare the Central Banks orders illegal.

The Prosecutor Generals Office challenged two Central Banks orders on Yugra on July 19. According to prosecutors, the warrants were issued unreasonably because the regulator had not revealed violations of statutory requirements by the bank during the checks and supervision.
Prosecutors appeal return of Khrunichev Space Centers $6 mln embezzlement case

MOSCOW, August 15 (RAPSI)  Prosecutors in the criminal case over embezzlement of 360 million rubles (about $6 million) at the Khrunichev Space Center have appealed a court ruling to return the case, RAPSI learnt from Moscows Dorogomilovsky District Court on Tuesday.

The case was returned to prosecutors on Tuesday for unspecified reasons.

In December 2016, the court began hearings in the criminal case against other high-ranking managers of the center over embezzlement of 360 million rubles (about $6 mln). Charges were brought against Vladimir Nesterov, former director general of the space center. Investigators believe that Nesterov organized a criminal group to embezzle government funds from the center in 2007. It included Mikhail Yakushin, the centers chief accountant, Dmitry Dyakonov, head of the Ekopravo economic and legal consultancy, and several other unidentified persons.

Investigators believe that the criminal group members signed fraudulent contracts with Ekopravo, paying the organization 22,000 each month for services that were not actually provided. As a result, more than 360 million rubles were allegedly embezzled from the Center's funds, and numerous false financial and accounting documents were made to conceal the fraud.

The Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center is one of the country's leading space enterprises. Currently the research centers main priority is construction of Proton and Angara space rockets. In 2014, it was revealed that enterprise faced financial troubles.
Russian mobile operator MegaFon files lawsuit against antimonopoly watchdog

MOSCOW, August 15 (RAPSI)  One of the Russian largest mobile operators, MegaFon, has filed a lawsuit against the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) with the Moscow Commercial Court, according to commercial courts database.

In late July, the watchdog opened antimonopoly cases against MTS, MegaFon, VimpelCom (Beeline brand) and T2 Mobile (Tele2 brand) over alleged violation of competition legislation. The cases will be considered on September 26, 28 and 29.

Earlier, the watchdog announced that actions of MTS, MegaFon, VimpelCom (Beeline brand) and T2 Mobile (Tele2 brand) may have violated the competition law by setting different prices for mobile phone service in customers home region and in roaming on the territory of Russia.

The watchdog issued warnings to the mobile operators prompting them to eliminate unreasonable difference in prices.

On Monday, MegaFon announced that it plans to file a claim against FAS to declare the watchdogs order illegal.
Two-year-old Chandrashekhar accidentally fell into the borewell, which was abandoned in Ummadivara village under Vinukonda rural mandal of Andhra Pradesh's Guntur district.

Rescue operations on to pull two-year-old Chandrashekhar out of the borewell in Guntur.

By Ashish Pandey: A toddler fell into a borewell in Andhra Pradesh's Guntur district on Tuesday.

Two-year-old Chandrashekhar accidentally fell into the borewell, which was abandoned in Ummadivara village under Vinukonda rural mandal of the district.

Two-year-old Chandrashekhar's parents.

Rescue operations were launched as soon as the administration learnt about the incident. An NDRF unit is also assisting them.

Chandrashekhar got stuck around 20 feet inside the borewell from the ground level. The borewell is around 200 feet deep.

The borewell into which the toddler fell.

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Meanwhile, Bala Hakkula Sangham, an NGO that works for child rights, has strongly condemned the incident and lashed out at the cavalier attitude of local officials for not closing unused borewells, which were increasingly becoming a death trap.

Andhra Pradesh Home Minister N. Chinarajappa is monitoring the rescue operations.

ALSO READ |

Hyderabad: Toddler crushed by sister's school bus

Telangana: Toddler sleeps in dead mother's lap, unaware of her demise

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When President Salinas Gortari signed the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement for Mexico in 1992, he provided certainty and stability for investors hoping to benefit from Mexicos emerging manufacturing base. The trade deal locked in the benefits of domestic economic reforms and liberalization introduced in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The steady flow of foreign investment that followed turned Mexico into a manufacturing powerhouse.

When negotiators from Mexico, Canada, and the United States start talks on Wednesday to renegotiate aspects of the 23-year-old agreement, they too hope to lock in recently won gains in Mexico that are of enormous interest to all parties. One priority must be to defend hard-won reforms in Mexicos energy sector -- reforms meant to change a sector that was closed and monopolistic for 75 years. Since U.S. President Donald Trumps inauguration in January, a broad-based movement has emerged that aims to defend two decades of free trade in the region and to insist on the urgency of doing no harm during renegotiation. NAFTAs defenders have managed to influence a change in language: Where commentators once spoke of renegotiating a pact Trump characterized as the worst trade deal signed by the United States, the negotiations are now widely framed as an opportunity to modernize a venerable trade deal so that it more accurately reflects the needs and priorities of the 21st century economy.

The North American energy sector has adjusted its own approach. Oil and gas companies pushed hard to leave the agreement untouched, but once Trump notified the U.S. Congress that he intended to enter into talks, there emerged an unrelenting focus on the need to protect key elements of NAFTA. Early in the Trump administration, there was a fear that Congress might approve measures leading to a 20 percent tax on oil entering the U.S. market, and risking retaliatory measures from Mexico. Initially lauded by President Trump and the Republican Party, this option was recently discarded by Congress and is unlikely to be resurrected soon.

Promoting Energy Trade and Investment



Two other elements in the NAFTA negotiations stand out regarding Mexicos energy sector. The first is an emphasis on the importance of Mexico as an energy market for the United States. Although Mexico has traditionally been a net exporter of hydrocarbons to the United States, that situation has reversed since 2014. This is due in part to declines in crude oil production combined with low crude oil prices, but also due to rising Mexican imports of natural gas and refined products. This growth is largely due to the reform process, which has driven investment in new natural gas-powered electricity generation and the retail gasoline market. By 2016, the United States registered close to a $10 billion surplus in its energy trade with Mexico. Trump has spoken repeatedly about the need to assert U.S. energy dominance, and the growing importance of Mexicos post-reform natural gas and fuels markets has surely not gone unnoticed.



A second element of focus for the hydrocarbons industry is the dispute settlement mechanisms included in the agreement. These mechanisms, especially Chapters 11 (which provides investor-state dispute settlement) and 19 (on state-state dispute settlement), ranked among Trumps favorite rhetorical targets. Both chapters have been useful in defending the interests of the U.S. government and American companies, but the Trump administration sees them as an encumbrance and a limit on U.S. sovereignty.

For the oil industry in Mexico, Chapter 11 in particular has been of critical importance in providing confidence for U.S. and Canadian firms. These firms know that their multi-billion dollar investments are protected under NAFTA provisions. This is especially vital now, as Mexicos July 2018 elections may bring to power a president who is unfriendly to the new energy model. These chapters have substantial support in the trilateral negotiations: Mexico and Canada have both emphasized the importance of the energy trade. Mexico has specifically called for a modernization of NAFTAs energy chapter (chapter 6) -- in particular the reservations made under Annex 602.3, whereby Mexican oil and gas were excluded from the agreement.



Although the United States has not identified energy as a priority among its objectives, it nonetheless seeks to preserve and strengthen investment, market access, and state-owned enterprise disciplines benefiting energy production and transmission and support North American energy security and independence, while promoting continuing energy market-opening reform. Mexicos own statement of objectives uses language on energy that is consistent with this.

There is much at stake in the upcoming talks, and the North American oil and gas industry appears to be well positioned to defend its interests. However, it is essential that a positive result not be taken for granted. To lock in the benefits of Mexicos new energy model, investor protections must be enshrined into the agreement, and access to regional energy markets must be guaranteed.
The base in Somalia will be Turkey's second overseas installation, but it will be focused more on assisting Somalia than demonstrating Turkish military capabilities.

As Turkey expands its geopolitical and economic presence in the Middle East and East Africa, the projection of power through the military will be a key part of this growth.

The development of overseas military capabilities will lead Turkey into competition with other countries, such as the United Arab Emirates, that have embarked on a similar path.

With a new military camp in Somalia, Turkey is strengthening its ties to the East African country while extending its reach as a regional power. Turkish forces are expected to get to the installation, which has been under construction for about two years, sometime this month. Their arrival comes soon after the deployment of Turkish forces to a larger base in Qatar. While Ankara has been operating military facilities in northern Iraq, the Qatari and Somali bases are the first of its military installations hosted by allied states. And as Turkey pursues its interests throughout the region, it no doubt will run into like-minded countries, such as the United Arab Emirates.

Unlike the base in Qatar, the facility in Mogadishu will be primarily occupied with military training, and the training of Somali soldiers, in particular. Current plans do not include the deployment of a Turkish contingent capable of conducting military operations. Instead, about 200 Turkish soldiers will train up to 10,000 Somali National Army troops.

But the long-standing relationship between Ankara and Mogadishu is not based solely on the benevolent actions of Turkey. Turkish aid organizations, a Turkish hospital in Mogadishu and educational opportunities for Somali civilians have given Turkey a prominent position in Mogadishu. But the Turkey-Somalia relationship is closely tied to the economic interests of Turkish corporations that seek to develop and manage infrastructure in Somalia. For example, the Turkish company Albayrak manages the Mogadishu seaport, and Turkish companies have made bids to do the same in the southern port city of Kismayo.

Rubbing Elbows

However, Turkey is not the only country looking to build this kind of relationship with Somalia; the United Arab Emirates has been pursuing the same contracts. Both Turkey and the United Arab Emirates are aware that Somalia sits on some of the world's major shipping lanes, and they see opportunities to build seaports and other transport infrastructure. These factors, as well as the Somali government's need for outside help, make it a logical target for development by the United Arab Emirates as well. For example, Emirati company SKA Air & Logistics runs the Mogadishu airport, and UAE companies have competed for the development of the port and airport in Kismayo. In fact, the United Arab Emirates preceded Turkey in Somalia and has been operating a military training facility in Mogadishu since 2015. The UAE-taught Somali forces are considered some of the most reliable and well-trained in the regular Somali National Army, which is why they were put in charge of security for the city of Mogadishu several months ago.

Turkish and Emirati Bases Overseas

Of course, the competition between Turkey and the United Arab Emirates isn't limited to Somalia. The deployment of about 250 Turkish troops and 30 armored vehicles and artillery pieces to Qatar plays into the regional crisis involving the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Turkey, which competes for a dominant position in the region with these Gulf states, has supported Qatar not only with its military deployment, but also through economic support during the trade embargo implemented by some GCC members. The Turkish deployment in Qatar is still in an early stage, but some Turkish officials have suggested it could reach up to 3,000 troops and include fighter aircraft and naval vessels. If it does, Turkey would have a noteworthy combat capability in the Persian Gulf.

Emirati Ambitions

On the other side of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates has begun building several permanent military bases near the Bab el-Mandeb strait during the past year. The conflict in Yemen has been a significant driver of these efforts, though the quantity and permanent nature of the bases suggest that the United Arab Emirates is more focused on its long-term geopolitical position than a short-term military operation.

The United Arab Emirates, moreover, already operates a base in Eritrea that serves as a logistical hub for ground forces in Yemen, though the installation also hosts aircraft and will soon have a dock for naval vessels. The United Arab Emirates has been observed building similar facilities at Perim Island in the Bab el-Mandeb strait itself, and there are plans for a base in Berbera, Somaliland. Combined, these positions will give the United Arab Emirates three full-fledged military bases at or near the Bab el-Mandeb strait while providing access to the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. The UAE training center in Mogadishu will complement these positions, even if it doesn't have the same military capabilities.

As Turkey and the United Arab Emirates develop their military and economic ties throughout the Middle East and East Africa, their military and economic competition is likely to intensify. In the short term, however, the Turkish presence in Mogadishu will give a much-needed boost to the stability of Somalia and the security forces that the United Arab Emirates has helped to build.
Property details:

ATTENTIONYOU ARE BIDDING ON THE DOWN PAYMENTPLEASE REVIEW THE ENTIRE LISTING THOROUGHLY Here's an awesome 20.4 Acres of vacant land in Termo (Lassen County), 30 miles north of Susanville. This area is rich in agriculture, good soil, and plenty of underground water. There is good access right to the lot via Prairie Road to Chukkar Rd. See several nice clear maps & directions provided below, demonstrating exactly what I just described.Pictures were taken on 2 separate site visits, Spring and Fall....

Price: $ 273 Seller State of Residence: California Zip/Postal Code: 96132 Type: Vacant Land Area Acreage (acres): 20.00 City: Termo State/Province: California Property Address: Chukkar Road Zoning: Residential, Agricultural Location: 961**, Termo, California

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By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 08/14/2017



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Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.
By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 08/15/2017



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By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 08/15/2017



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Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.

eliminated Robert Green and his All-Star partner Jasmine Harper, which determined the fourteenth season's Top 9 dancers, during Monday night's broadcast on Fox.Based on home viewer votes following last week's Top 10 performance show, Robert fell into the bottom-three dancers with Sydney Tormey -- who is partnered with All-Star Paul Karmiryan -- and Logan Hernandez, who is paired with All-Star Allison Holker judges Nigel Lythgoe, Vanessa Hudgens and Mary Murphy then were forced to choose which contestant was going to be sent home. Although the judges did not arrive at a unanimous decision, the panel sent Robert packing."In dance, I can be myself... It's made me feel alive. I'm here to just share myself. I love evolving and I love self-expression. I think that's the most important thing in this life," Robert said in his final words."I'm super proud of you," Jasmine told Robert in a pre-recorded video package. "Thank you so much for being the most amazing partner ever."When the judges deliberated on the bottom three, Nigel announced the panel was shocked by the voting results since they're all great dancers. However, Nigel noted the judges will probably be shocked by the results every week since the Top 10 is so talented.Nigel, Vanessa and Mary first saved Logan because they said he showed what he's capable of. Logan was also at a disadvantage going into the results because Allison couldn't perform onstage with him last week due to injury.The judges then declared Sydney was safe because although she wasn't strong last week, she showed a whole different side of herself this week.During Monday night's show, each of the Top 10 contestants performed twice -- once with his or her All-Star partner in a style picked at random as well as a solo in the dancer's preferred style.Robert and Jasmine danced a contemporary routine choreographed by Stacey Tookey last night. Logan and Allison took the stage with a futuristic jazz routine choreographed by Brian Friedman. And Sydney and Paul danced a contemporary routine choreographed by Jaci Royal.The Top 9 is comprised of Logan and Allison, Sydney and Paul, Dassy Lee and All-Star Fik-Shun Stegall , Kiki Nyemchek and All-Star Jenna Johnson , Kaylee Millis and All-Star Cyrus Spencer, Mark Villaver and All-Star Comfort Fedoke, Lex Ishimoto and All-Star Gaby Diaz, Koine Iwasaki and All-Star Marko Germar, and Taylor Sieve and All-Star Robert Roldan.
By PTI: refugees

By Yoshita Singh

United Nations, Aug 15 (PTI) UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is concerned about Indias plans to deport Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, his spokesperson has said, underlining that refugees should not be returned to countries where they fear persecution once they are registered.

Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju had told parliament last week that the central government had directed state authorities to identify and deport illegal immigrants, including Rohingyas, who face persecution in the Buddhist- majority Myanmar.

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"Obviously, we have our concerns about the treatment of refugees. Once refugees are registered, they are not to be returned back to countries where they fear persecution," Guterres deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters here yesterday.

Haq was responding to a question on Indias plans to deport Rohingyas from Myanmar regardless of whether they are registered as UN refugees or not.

Haq said UN principles of non-refoulement applies in this case. According the these principles, no nation shall expel or return a refugee in any manner to territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.

When asked which agency would convey this message to India, Haq said the first point of contact will be through the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Rijiju had said that according to available data, more than 14,000 Rohingyas, registered with the UNHCR, are presently staying in India.

"However, some inputs indicate that around 40,000 Rohingyas are staying in India illegally and the Rohingyas are largely located in Jammu, Hyderabad, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi-NCR and Rajasthan," he had said.

The Home Ministry had said that infiltration of (Rohingyas) from the Rakhine state of Myanmar into Indian territory, especially in recent years, besides being a burden on the limited resources of the country, also aggravates security challenges posed to India. PTI YAS ASK AKJ ASK

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By PTI: poverty by 2036

(Eds: incorporating details of CMs programme)

Bhubaneswar, Aug 15 (PTI) Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who suddenly felt unwell during the Independence Day function here because of humidity, today expressed hope that poverty would be eradicated from the state by the year 2036.

"I am hopeful that poverty can be completely eliminated from Odisha by 2036, on the occasion of completion of 100 years of formation of Odisha as a separate state," Patnaik said in his Independence Day speech.

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But, after unfurling the national Tri-colour at the state-level parade at Mahatma Gandhi Marg, the chief minister was visibly unwell while delivering the address and was seen slowing down towards the end of his speech.

Despite that, he remained at the parade venue and took salute. He, however, recovered soon after and attended other scheduled programmes elsewhere.

"The Chief Minister suddenly did not feel well due to humidity. Now he is completely OK," an official of the Chief Ministers office said.

Patnaik later said in his twitter handle that he had felt dehydrated.

"Should have had adequate water for parade in sunny humid condition. Felt bit dehydrated. Perfectly fine now with two glasses of nimbu pani," Patnaik tweeted.

"Attending rest of days programs. Must tell all you kids out there to drink adequate water before going out in sun. Thanks for your wishes," he said in the tweet.

While returning home from the function, the chief minister went to Capital Hospital where doctors examined him and said his health condition is perfectly alright.

In his Independence day speech, Patnaik said poverty has reduced by 25 per cent through various programmes of the BJD government.

Stating that the country is celebrating 200 years of Paika Rebellion, Patnaik said this was the first struggle for independence against British rule.

Paikas were peasant militias of the Gajapati rulers of Odisha who revolted against the British in 1817.

Patnaik said he salutes the great sons of the soil and gain inspiration from their ideals, values and selfless devotion to the motherland.

Patnaik called on the people to work in tandem and take the state and the country to the heights of development with peace, prosperity and inclusive growth. PTI AAM SKN NN

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With white nationalists already planning future rallies in Texas and other states across America, we cannot afford to stay mute. Speak out for Charlottesville before similar problems arrive in Athens.
India is free, certainly, and has been so for 70 years. But are Indians free-spirited? asks Shreekant Sambrani.

The hype about the 70th anniversary of Independence is growing daily. Though a little older than 'midnights children', I can justifiably claim to have grown up in and with independent India. Hence I crave the readers' indulgence for some personal reflections.

I first encountered what we now call identity politics very early on, even before I started school. My father was offered an out-of-turn promotion in early 1948 because our last name was commonly associated with a shoemaker community of the area.

He politely said that he would abide by the rules and wait his turn, which was late in coming. He never regretted that decision.

My grandmother had adopted my father and his siblings. She was a pious child widow, had shaved her head and diligently observed every ritual imposed on her. She also managed her sizeable landholdings by working closely with her chief tenant, a Muslim of her age.

When he visited us with the harvest, he was accorded all respect due to a family elder, although he never stepped beyond the outer parlour of the house.

No one thought this odd in the least, leave alone as deserving opprobrium. This was in Dharwar district of north Karnataka, later to emerge as a hotspot of communal tension.

I attended ordinary government-aided schools. Family background was irrelevant. Everyone took umbrage at being asked about caste.

My Sanskrit teacher introduced us to Panini and Bhaskaracharya and the elegance of their work. He called them, not the myriad myths, our true heritage.

The science teacher began with the story of Newton's apple, which became a life-long hook. One day in 1955, he told us that he couldn't teach that day, because his god, Albert Einstein, had died.

I questioned the history text version of the Scythian origins of the Rajasthanis and still got top grade. Marks were precious, but using tuitions and guidebooks was a stigma never to be admitted.

A score of 80 per cent almost assured a place in the state merit list.

I was among the earliest students of Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. The IITs were considered elite institutions not because of the social status of their students -- most of us were from salaried middle class families  or their fees -- Rs 200 a year as tuition was laughably low even in the 1960s.

They earned that reputation because of their up-to-date curricula, rigorous academic discipline and top-notch young faculty, some (not all) with degrees from well-known universities abroad.

So heady was the atmosphere that we spent entire nights debating whether god was really a universal equation of state not fully understood as yet, decades before we heard of unified string theories of everything.

That education helped us fit seamlessly into universities abroad. We went there on our own steam, without bankrupting our families.

When I returned to teach at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, in 1971, I found the IIT culture alive and thriving there. The austereness of the Louis Kahn-designed structures matched our lifestyles.

Faculty and alumni salaries were rooted in Indian ground reality, which no one minded.

We took great pride in being called and respected as teachers.

Things began changing soon thereafter, and rapidly so after the 1990s.

The Emergency shook us to the core, but the euphoria of 1977 did not last long in the already devalued polity.

I was shocked to hear the central services probationers call some of their colleagues 'scheds', a derogatory reference to their origin.

Aspirations outpaced incomes, and frustration caused immediate income to be the sole criterion for career choice.

Means to achieve that end became far less important.

India today is as different from the one I grew up in as chalk is from cheese.

We have enshrined the right to education.

The number of school and college graduates has grown by order-of-magnitude, but what they have learnt is questionable.

The landscape is dotted with IITs and IIMs, but precious few are worthy of the appellation.

We have every manner of goodies available, at a price of course.

The world is in our living rooms and on mobile phones thanks to electronic and social media.

We do not need the prime minister's rallies abroad to know that India has arrived.

In this India, strangers think nothing of asking me right off about my regional and community origins because of the odd surname.

My provenance defines my identity, not my capabilities.

Chatter is incessant, but people hesitate to voice divergent views.

When we sold our house in 2001, a well-known doctor showed interest. He told me that this was a favour, because a Muslim family in the neighbourhood had depressed the market.

A respected former chairman of two public sector banks (now no more) told me in 2002 that he saw nothing wrong in what was happening then in Gujarat.

It saddens me most that our offer to tutor young children in our neighbourhood has no takers, most likely because the parents think we will not prepare them for the examinations and would be disruptive. They wear as badges of honour the number of tuitions their wards have and their costs.

India is free, certainly, and has been so for 70 years. But are Indians free-spirited?

IMAGE: A common scene in Mumbai before Independence Day or Republic Day. Photograph: Hitesh Harisinghani/Rediff.com
Seventy-three years ago, at the stroke of the midnight hour, a nation was born.

India's struggle for freedom is one of the most unique and compelling stories of the 20th century.

As we celebrate this momentous occasion, some photographs etched in history.

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Mahatma Gandhi and Sarojini Naidu, with a garland, during the Salt March protesting against the government monopoly on salt production in 1930.

The Salt March also known as the Dandi March was an act of civil disobedience led by the Mahatma.

Thousands of Indians followed him from Ahmedabad to the coast, a distance of some 240 miles.

The march resulted in the arrest of nearly 60,000 people, including Gandhi.

Britain had kept India's salt trade under its thumb since the 19th century, forbidding natives from manufacturing or selling it and forcing them to buy it at high cost from British merchants.

Since salt was a nutritional necessity , Gandhi saw the salt laws as an inexcusable evil.

Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images



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Gandhi, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel during the 51st Indian National Congress.

Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images

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Gandhi leaves the home of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, founder of the Muslim League, en route to the Viceroy's Lodge in Delhi on November 24, 1939.

Jinnah had originally been dubious about the practicability of Pakistan, an idea that the poet and philosopher Muhammad Iqbal had propounded to the Muslim League conference of 1930, but before long he became convinced that a Muslim homeland on the Indian subcontinent was the only way of safeguarding Muslim interests and the Muslim way of life.

Thus, the birth of Pakistan and Partition.

Photograph: Kulwant Roy/Topical Press Agency/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

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Gandhi leaves Maor Ville, his Simla residence, during the Leaders Conference in 1942.

He is helped to his car by his physician Dr Sushila Nayyar.

Photograph: Fox Photos/Getty Images

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Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru deep in conversation at the All-India Congress Committee meeting in Bombay in 1942.

Photograph: Central Press/Getty Images

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June 3, 1947, at a conference in New Delhi, Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last British viceroy of India, disclosed Britain's partition plan for India to Nehru and Jinnah.

Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images

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Mountbatten, his wife Edwina and Jinnah at the Viceroy's House, now Rashtrapati Bhavan, April 9, 1947.

Photograph: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

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The presentation of colours to the Bombay Home Guard, part of the celebrations of Independence Day in Bombay.

B G Kher, the Bombay Premier, salutes the flag.

Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images

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Indians, free at last from the yoke of British rule, celebrate Independence in Calcutta.

Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images

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Nehru delivers his Tryst with Destiny speech, one of the greatest speeches of the 20th century.

Photograph: William Stacey/Fox Photos/Getty Images

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One of the 30 special trains leaving New Delhi station which took Pakistan government staff to Karachi.

Muslim League guards stand to attention in honour of the departure.

Photograph: Keystone Features/Getty Images

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The burned-out Hall Bazaar shopping street after communal riots in Amritsar during Partition.

Fighting took place between the city's Muslim population (around 50 per cent), anxious for Amritsar to be incorporated into Pakistan, and the other, Sikh and Hindu, half of the inhabitants, who supported incorporation with India.

Photograph: Keystone Features/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Indian border guards on Tuesday frustrated an attempt by Chinese soldiers to enter Indian territory along the banks of famous Pangong lake in Ladakh resulting in stone pelting that caused minor injuries to people on both sides, officials said.

Soldiers of the People's Liberation Army tried to enter the Indian side in two areas--Finger Four and Finger Five-- twice between 6 am and 9 am.

But on both the occasions their attempts were thwarted by alert Indian troops, they said.

After Chinese troopers found their path blocked by Indian soldiers who formed a human chain, they began hurling stones, prompting a swift retaliation by Indian border guards.

Personnel from both sides received minor injuries and the situation was brought under control after the customary banner drill under which both sides hold banners before stepping back to their respective positions.

No meeting, but sweets exchanged at Nathu La There was no ceremonial meeting between officers of the Indian and Chinese armies on the Independence Day on Tuesday at the strategic Nathu La border amid the continued standoff at Doklam, but personnel from two sides exchanged sweets. The Army and ITBP personnel took part in the informal exchange of sweets at Nathu La, barely 25 km from Doklam where the two armies are face-to-face for over two months now, Army sources said. Earlier, a ceremonial meeting used to take place between the two sides on India's Independence Day which was attended by officers of the Chinese Army. The Army also celebrated the occasion by distributing sweets to the local people.

An Army spokesman in New Delhi declined to comment on the incident which came amid continued stand-off between the armies of the two countries at Doklam in Sikkim.

Chinese troops had managed to enter up to Finger Four area in the region from where they were sent back. This area has been a bone of contention between India and China as both claim it to be a part of their territory.

When the Indian side staked claim to the area during negotiations in late 1990s, the Chinese army constructed a metal-top road and insisted it was part of Aksai Chin, which is under the latter's control, officials said.

China had constructed a road up to Finger Four which falls under Siri Jap area and is five km deep into the Line of Actual Control.

Earlier, the Chinese patrols used to come frequently from the northern and southern banks of this lake, whose 45 km stretch is on the Indian side while 90 km is on the Chinese side.

Indian forces are now armed with high-speed interceptor boats, bought from the US, which can accommodate nearly 15 soldiers and are equipped with radars, infra-red and GPS systems.

These boats are said to be as good as Chinese vessels and are used to conduct reconnaissance and area domination patrols.

The situation along the banks of the lake has always remained volatile with Chinese troops being intercepted by Indian Army patrol several times after the three-week long stand-off in the Depsang plains of Daulat Beg Oldie (DBO) in May 2013.

Representative image.
'...and the government is suppressing the truth.'

Sahil Makkar reports from the BRD Medical College Hospital in Gorakhpur where 60 children have died in a week.

IMAGE: A child receives treatment in the encephalitis ward at the Baba Raghav Das Medical College Hospital where 60 children have died over the past week. Photograph: PTI Photo

Gorakhpur, a little town in eastern Uttar Pradesh with a population of more than 600,000 people, came into the limelight a few months ago as Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's Lok Sabha constituency.

Last week, it was among the most searched places online for the death of 60 children in less than a week at the biggest hospital in Gorakhpur.

While the scene of the tragedy -- the Baba Raghav Das Medical College -- is under the global scanner for negligence, the locals are still able to contain their anger though some are screaming 'murder' amid an air of suspicion all around.

As VIPs (primarily politicians from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party as well as the Opposition) criss-cross the town at regular intervals either for damage control or mileage, while blocking arterial roads, parents and relatives of the dead children grieve, mostly unnoticed by the authorities.

While Adityanath surveyed the hospital on Sunday, August 12, it was the turn of former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav on Monday.

280 Approximate number of children the hospital's paediatric department treats

Zaid Khan, one of the unlucky parents, broke down at the burial site of his five-year-old daughter Kushi, who allegedly died of encephalitis on Friday, August 11 -- a day after oxygen supply snapped at the paediatric department of the BRD Medical College.

Kushi was among the 60 children who died in the past five days in the hospital.

"Kushi received oxygen for a short time. But when the supply snapped, the doctor asked us to use the ambu (self-inflating bags). She died two hours later. They say it was encephalitis," Khan recalls the night when he lost her daughter on bed number 38 of ward 12.

He witnessed the deaths of two more girls in the same ward due to lack of oxygen.

"It is murder of our children and the government is suppressing the truth," says Khan who wanted his daughter to study in an English medium school.

Now his only hope for justice lies with the media, which has been camping outside the hospital since the news of tragedy broke.

At the hospital, doctors and the state administration are trying to convince people that shortage of liquid oxygen was not the cause of death. But there is a buzz in the town, doubting the suspension of BRD medical principal Dr Rajeev Mishra and the police hunt of the gas supplier at a time when the state government is claiming the deaths are because of vector-borne diseases, especially encephalitis.

"Everything seems fishy here," says Rakesh Sinha, a 28-year-old driver from neighbouring Bettiah district in Bihar.

Sinha has been staying outside the paediatric department, part of it located on the ground floor and the remaining on the first floor of this 950-bed hospital, for the past one month for the treatment of his three-year-old son Ankush.

Sinha points at the absence of fans and non-operational centralised air-conditioning for the past one month.

"How will a patient recover in such a condition?" asks Meena Kumari, a resident of Kushi Nagar, who like Sinha has been staying outside the paediatric department for several days for treatment of his son.

IMAGE: Parents weep as their children are treated for encephalitis in the hospital.

The hospital looks like a run-down building with garbage strewn all across. Photograph: PTI Photo

Things have not changed despite many high-profile visits, including those from Adityanath and Union Health Minister J P Nadda.

1,000 Number of people who died of encephalitis in Gorakhpur in 2005

The hospital looks like a run-down building with garbage strewn all across, despite the Swachh Bharat mantra. Poor drainage has made things worse in the rainy season.

In fact, many doctors have already taken ill because of infection.

"It is a low-lying area and is prone to many diseases. I will look into all aspects," says Dr P K Singh, the newly appointed principal of the BRD Medical College.

But neither the deaths nor the lack of facilities has stopped patients from seeking admission in the hospital. Even from neighbouring districts.

Around 50 children were admitted to the paediatric department on Friday, a day after the first news of death due to shortage of oxygen made headlines.

The paediatric department has a strength of 210 beds and it keeps around 250 to 280 children at any given point.

At the hospital, medical staff at the neonatal intensive care was found hustling from one bed to the other to arrest the rising death toll.

Dr Mahim Mittal, in charge of the medicine department, says encephalitis is endemic in this region and the months of July, August, September and October are the peak time for this vector-borne disease.

The encephalitis virus is found in pigs and dead birds from where it gets into mosquitoes and then into human beings.

The location of the BRD Medical College is such that it caters to the demand from both urban and rural areas.

About 4,500 to 5,500 patients come to the OPD (outpatient departments) daily.

The hospital also gets anywhere between 2,500 and 3,500 patients of encephalitis every year from 16 adjoining districts, including Basti, Azamgarh and Kushinagar.

"It is one of the biggest territory hospitals in the region and people only come to us when they have tried every other way to get treatment. We usually don't get much time to treat them," Dr Mittal says, referring to the high mortality rate because of encephalitis.

The last outbreak of encephalitis in Gorakhpur was reported in 2005, when around 1,000 people died.

Back at the hospital, a high-level team probing the incident is busy collecting documents on deaths over the years, expenditure and various tenders floated by the medical college.

"I am thinking of transferring all staff of the medical college because they are not giving us the relevant files for investigation," says a visibly upset K K Gupta, director general medical education of Uttar Pradesh, hinting at rampant corruption.
'I will join the armed forces like my father,' says Arna Kumar, 6, whose father CRPF Commandant Pramod Kumar was killed by terrorists last Independence Day.

Text and Photographs: Umar Ganie

IMAGE: Neha Kumar hoists the national flag. She says she is proud of her husband Pramod Kumar who laid down his life for the nation.

The wife and six-year-old daughter of slain Central Reserve Police Force Commandant Pramod Kumar unfurled the tricolour at the CRPF battalion camp in Srinagar where exactly a year ago he saluted the national flag and was killed minutes later in an encounter with terrorists.

Pramod Kumar was awarded the Kirti Chakra, the nation's third highest honour for gallantry in peacetime this Independence Day.

To honour their fallen comrade, the CRPF invited Neha Kumar and Arna Kumar, the late CRPF commandant's wife and daughter from their home in Jharkhand, to hoist the tricolour at the 49th Battalion headquarters at Karan Nagar in Srinagar.

After unfurling the flag, an emotional Neha, who wants to join the CRPF, said it was a tough decision for her to come to Srinagar where her husband was killed.

"It is my first visit to Kashmir," she said. "Somehow, I decided to come and celebrate Independence Day with the jawans and officers."

IMAGE: Neha and Arna Kumar present sweets to jawans after unfurling the flag at the 49th Battalion headquarters at Karan Nagar in Srinagar.

"His sacrifice has been recognised which is a great thing for me. Announcing the Kirti Chakra for my late husband has added to my pride," she said.

"I miss my dad a lot," Arna said. "When his absence pains me beyond limits, I go to the room where we have kept his portrait and sit in front of it."

"I will join the armed forces, just like my father," the child added.

IMAGE: Neha and Arna Kumar pay homage to Pramod Kumar who was posthumously awarded the Kirti Chakra for his heroism.

Recalling the day Pramod was killed, Neha said when she phoned her husband several times and there was no response she "became apprehensive but thought he was busy in the flag hoisting ceremony."

"When I wasn't able to get through to Pramod I called up the control room. A jawan handed over the phone to another who kept crying and was unable to say a word to me. Then, the other jawan told me, 'Sahab ko goli lagi hai (Sir has been hit by a bullet)'."

When Neha discovered that her husband had been shot in the head she feared the worst.

IMAGE: Both Neha and Arna want to serve in the armed forces.

At 11.30 am, August 15, 2016, the phone rang.

"The officer asked me to give the phone to someone else. I know when they ask for another person, it's to give bad news," she said, adding that she called her brother-in-law to take the call.

Pramod Kumar had made the ultimate sacrifice for the motherland.

He had been posted to Srinagar in April 2014 and was promoted as a commandant on July 12, 2016.

A native of Patna in Bihar, a resident of Jamtara in Jharkhand, the officer had been thrice decorated with the CRPF director general's commendation in 2011, 2014 and 2015.

He had served in the Special Protection Group for three years.

That dreaded morning Last August 15, Pramod Kumar hoisted the flag between 8:30 am and 8:40 am and in his speech remarked that with India clocking 70 years of its freedom, the responsibility on the security forces had increased and they would have to effectively tackle terrorists and incidents of stone pelting in the Kashmir valley. Just before he ended his speech, Kumar, in a recorded video of the event, is seen looking at his watch and heard saying, 'It is an important day,' unaware of the fate that awaited him. Minutes later, he was killed at Nowhatta Chowk fighting terrorists. Realling the events of last year's Independence Day, a CRPF officer said, the wireless set in the CRPF control room crackled informing the paramilitary force that terrorists had hurled grenades and fired at four sites in Srinagar -- Nowhatta Chowk, Gojwara Chowk, Bata Gali and Khaniyar Chowk. Kumar, along with a small team, dashed out in a bullet-proof vehicle. "The terrorists were still firing. Kumar led from the front, but was shot grievously," the CRPF officer said. He was rushed to the army's 92 base hospital in Srinagar where he succumbed. Kumar and his team killed two foreign terrorists before he was shot in the head.

Additional inputs: PTI
About 1.82 lakh people have been evacuated to safe places by rescue teams in last 48 hours. M I Khan reports from Patna.



IMAGE: A view of a flooded village in West Champaran district of Bihar. All Photographs: PTI Photo



As many as 56 people have lost their lives in Bihar due to flooding in the state so far, officials of the state disaster management department said on Tuesday.

The officials said the flood situation in the state has worsened and there is little chance of respite by Wednesday.

"So far 56 people died due to floods," they said.

IMAGE: A truck drifts off the submerged NH 28 at flooded Ramgadhwa in East Champaran.



Reports reaching Patna said that flood victims in the worst-hit districts of Kishanganj, Araria, Katihar and Purnea staged protests at different places against alleged negligence of the officials in providing relief to them.

According to a report by a local Hindi news channel, flood victims in these districts have complained that neither relief reached them nor any official approached them for evacuation.

It said that Kishanganj district headquarters is cut off from the rest of the district after roads connecting it washed away in the floods.

Situation is more or less similar in Araria, Purnea and Katihar with stories of painful suffering and struggle for survival by flood victims reported.

IMAGE: A damaged railway line in flood-hit Katihar district.



Unconfirmed reports reaching Patna put the death toll at 90.

Bihar disaster management department officials said that nearly 70 lakh people in 895 panchayats under 86 blocks in 15 districts have been affected by the floods in the state.

According to them, about 1.82 lakh people have been evacuated to safe places by the rescue teams in last 48 hours and government has set up 254 relief camps in which 45,120 people have been provided shelter in flood-hit districts.

The state government has deployed Army personnel, Air Force helicopters, National Disaster Response Force and State Disaster Response Force teams along with its officials to speed up rescue and relief operations.

IMAGE: Flood-affected villagers shift with their belongings in Purnea district.



Disaster management department principal secretary Pratyaya Amrit said the government has deployed four Army teams, 22 NDRF and 15 SDRF teams for relief and rescue operations.

The state government has cancelled leaves of doctors and health department officials in the affected districts.

He admitted that thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes after flood waters entered their villages and have taken shelter at high places, including school buildings, and awaiting evacuation to a safe place by the administration.

IMAGE: People at a flooded village in East Champaran district.



With major rivers in northern Bihar rising menacingly at several districts following heavy rains and discharge from Nepal, in last three days, the flood situation has become grim.

"Rising Mahanannda river has breached its embankment at two places in Katihar district. Kamla Balan breached its embankment in Darbhanga district, and Gandak also breached its embankments in East and West Champaran districts, officials of state water resources department said.

IMAGE: A villager carries grains on a banana raft as he shifts from a flooded village in Araria district.



The swollen Kosi, Gandak, Bagmati, Mahananda, Kamla Balan and Ganga rivers are posing a threat to their embankments and giving sleepless nights to people in several other districts including Muzaffarpur, Supaul, Sheohar, Gopalganj, Sitamarhi Araria and Saharsa.
Last updated on: August 16, 2017 16:42 IST

Soaked in patriotism, Indians marked the country's 71st Independence Day with the tricolour fluttering high and the national anthem reverberating at various spots across the nation.

Heres a glance at how the country celebrated.

Children carry posters of freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose during the celebrations on the occasion of 71st Independence day at Parade Ground in Bengaluru. Photograph: Shailendra Bhojak/PTI Photo

A group of youngsters celebrate at Rajpath on the occasion of 71th Independence Day in New Delhi. Photograph: Vijay Verma/PTI Photo

BJP president Amit Shah distributes sweets to security personnel after hoisting the national flag during the nations 71st Independence Day celebrations, at BJP headquarters in New Delhi. Photograph: Vijay Verma/PTI Photo

Jammu-Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti inspects the guard of honour during Independence Day celebrations in Srinagar. Photograph: Umar Ganie/Rediff.com

Muslim children along with their teachers celebrating Independence Day at a madrassa in Bhopal. Photograph: PTI Photo

All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen's Asaduddain Owaisi hoists the national flag at Madina in Old city Hyderabad. Photograph: Snapsindia

Congress president Sonia Gandhi salutes the Tricolour after its hoisting during celebration of the 71st Independence Day at the party headquarters in New Delhi on Tuesday. Photograph: Manvender Vashist/PTI Photo

Madhya Pradesh Police personnel fire in the air during Independence Day celebration at Motilal Nehru Stadium in Bhopal. Photograph: PTI Photo

Various schools unfurl the Tricolor in flood-hit Morigaon district in Assam. Photograph: ANI/Twitter

Children hold tricolor flags during the 71st Independence Day celebrations at the Congress headquarters in New Delhi. Photograph: Manvender Vashist/PTI Photo
Here are some glimpses of the Independence Day celebrations at the Red Fort.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, wearing an orange and yellow turban, addressed the nation on Independence Day. In his speech, which was his shortest in the last four years, he spoke of creating a 'New India' in which women and the youth could realise their dreams. He also spoke of an India, which would be free of casteism, communalism and terrorism. Photograph:@PIB_India/Twitter

The Tricolour flutters in the air while PM Modi delivers his speech from the ramparts of Red Fort. Thousands of people came out to listen to the prime minister speak. VIPs such as former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and several Cabinet ministers were in the crowd listening attentively. Photograph:@PIB_India/Twitter

Prime Minister Narendra Modi stands at attention while the national anthem is played. Modi concluded his speech with the chants of 'Bharat Mata ki Jai', 'Vande Mataram' and 'Jai Hind.' Photograph:@PIB_India/Twitter

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inspects the Guard of Honour at Red Fort, on the occasion of 71st Independence Day. Photograph:@PIB_India/Twitter

This year, the army was chosen as the coordinating service. The Guard of Honour was commanded by Lt Col Dheeraj Singh of the Indian Army. The Army contingent was drawn from the 8th Jammu & Kashmir Light Infantry (Siachen) and was commanded by Major Sourav Goswami. The Navy contingent in the PMS Guard was headed by Lt Cdr VV Krishnan, while Sqn Ldr Salil Sharma lead the charge of the Air Force contingent. Photograph:@PIB_India/Twitter

Prime Minister Narendra Modi makes his way to the dais to deliver his speech -- his fourth Independence Day speech. Photograph:@PIB_India/Twitter

Modi greets school children after addressing the nation from the historic Red Fort during Independence Day celebrations in Delhi. Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters

This was PM Modi's shortest Independence Day speech at 57 minutes. Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters

>> Modi keeps his promise, keeps I-Day speech shortest
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat on Tuesday unfurled the national flag at a school in Keralas Palakaad defying a district administration order that only elected representatives, school authorities or government officials could hoist the tricolour at the government-aided institution.

Palakaad District Collector P Marykutty issued an order late Monday night stating that since Karnagi Amman school is government-aided, only elected representatives or school authorities could hoist the flag as per protocol, police said.

However, the RSS chief arrived at the school and unfurled the tricolour, they said.

The DC said the administration will take action in the matter. We will give instruction to the police to register a case, she said.

Bhagwat is in the state to take part in a two-day meeting of the Sangh which began on Monday. The state has witnessed political violence involving activists from the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist and the RSS.

Addressing the students, Bhagwat said, It is our duty to remember the sacrifices and hard efforts of those who laid down their lives during the struggle for Independence. We have to bring that dedication to our lives.

Our independence is very sacred thing for us. We have to protect it, he added.

Bhagwat pointed out that India did not get Independence in a day and that it was not the decision of the foreign government to do so.

Since 1857-1947, our leaders strove to get our Independence and they sacrificed everything, he said.

Photograph: Amit Dave/Reuters
By PTI: Lucknow, Aug 15 (PTI) Madrassas in the capital city today celebrated the 71st Independence Day by unfurling the tricolour and reciting national anthem, even as the Uttar Pradesh governments recent order of videography of the celebrations created "confusions" among the Islamic schools.

Though many madrassas paid heed to the order, many other claimed that they never received any official word on the celebrations.

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Maulana Khalid Rasheed Firangimahli, head of Darul Uloom Firangimahal, said, "The Independence Day was celebrated in the madrassas traditionally with unfurling of national flag, recital of national anthem and distribution of sweets among students."

On being asked about the state directives on videography of the celebrations, the cleric said some of the Muslim religious schools have been doing it for their records, while some other madrassas chose to avoid the order.

According to the government circular, flag hoisting and recitation of the national anthem should take place at 8 am on the Independence Day in all madrassas. Apart from this, the Islamic schools were also directed to videograph the events organised to mark the day.

Firangimahli, who is also a member of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, said an "unnecessary hype" has been created with regard to the government order as the madrassas have always been celebrating Independence Day with fervour and gaiety.

To a question on madrassas of the Barelvi sect deciding against singing Jana Gana Mana on the occasion, the Maulana said the statement could be that of an individual as "the national anthem has been sung ever since independence in madrassas".

He, however, noted that the BJP-led state government should not have issued the order specifically for madrassas, but for all schools, colleges and universities.

Echoing similar views, Ashraf Usmani, spokesman of the Darul Uloom Deoband, said like in the past, the day was celebrated by unfurling of tricolour and singing of the national anthem.

"We have been celebrating the day in this manner earlier too...," he said.

On the videography directive, Usmani said none of the madrassas he knew had received the government circular nor was there any need to give an "evidence" of the functions.

"This is the function of our freedom, why will we not celebrate it," he asked.

In Bareilly, a majority of madrassas celebrated the day by unfurling the national flag, but some of them desisted from singing the national anthem.

Meanwhile, the Barelvi sects call yesterday for defying the government order evoked a mixed responses from the madrassas under it.

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"There was a mixed response to the decision to defy the government order," Maulana Shahbuddin Rizvi, national general secretary of All India Jamat Raza Mustafa, said.

Minority Welfare Officer of Bareilly, Jagmohan Singh said a report on the recitation of national anthem and videography of Independence Day events in madrassas was being sent to the government.

District Magistrate R Vikram Singh had promulgated prohibitory orders in the district last night after a few Muslim organisations decided to defy the government order. PTI SAB SMI SRY

--- ENDS ---
The British administration ignored the mounting evidence of violence between Hindus and Muslims...

Military historian Barney White-Spunner traces the countdown to the tragedy in his book, Partition.

IMAGE: A nurse with child victims of communal violence in Amritsar during the Partition of British India, March 1947.

The children's mother was stabbed to death in the riots and they were rescued by a British military patrol and taken to the hosptal for safety.

Fighting took place between the city's Muslim population (around 50 per cent), anxious for Amritsar to be incorporated into Pakistan, and the other, Sikh and Hindu, half of the inhabitants, who supported incorporation with India. Photograph: Keystone Features/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

The monsoon should have arrived by the end of July, that deluge of rain 'when nature is washed green and breathes again' and when 'for a few days, cool air and the smell of damp earth are blessings beyond price', but it didn't.

The terrible, humid, cloying, all-enveloping heat just continued as if it would never end.

There was nowhere to escape it.

One of those it affected most was Cyril Radcliffe, a man who had never been east of Gibraltar, and who was now ensconced in a bungalow on the viceroy's estate. He had two weeks to finalise drawing the Partition lines on the maps of Bengal and the Punjab.

Christopher Beaumont had been appointed as his secretary and minder. He had applied for a position in Palestine and thought that he had left India for good when he was asked to take the job on.

He arranged to meet Radcliffe in the air terminal beside London's Victoria station.

He was worried as to how he would recognise him.

The BOAC lady suggested that he should wear a badge with his name on it, but Beaumont, an old-fashioned man, was appalled at the vulgarity of the idea as he was by her subsequent suggestion that he should make an announcement 'over a thing called a Tannoy'.

In the end he simply approached the most intelligent looking man in the room.

At first he found Radcliffe 'a rather arrogant man, very self important, almost pompous, unemotional. I never heard him laugh very much'.

'Meeting him,' thought Mountbatten's press secretary Alan Campbell-Johnson, 'was a cold experience'.

However, they agreed that he had both a formidable mind and that he was totally incorruptible.

Beaumont later 'formed an affection for him' although he never knew whether this was reciprocated.

The first task Beaumont was given was to scour the bazaars for wine, preferably white; he managed to find some cases of Alsatian which seemed to cheer Radcliffe up as he started work.

Radcliffe and Beaumont had an assistant secretary, Rao Sahib V D Ayer, a Hindu in the ICS.

IMAGE: The Radcliffe Line: How Pakistan was carved from India. Photograph: Kind courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Beaumont found the two panels of judges assigned to sit on the respective Boundary Commissions were 'not much help as they always divided along communal lines'.

There had been open sessions in court, but again the arguments presented went almost entirely based on whether the person advancing them was Hindu or Muslim. There was little objectivity.

'Drawing the line was always going to be impossible to make acceptable and Partition of the Punjab was always going to be acrimonious,' Beaumont continued, 'It was a tremendously difficult job as the villages were all mixed up, especially the areas around Lyallpur, Ferozepore and Ludhiana.'

The problem was made so much worse because 'there was not enough time. It was rushed through. Much more thought should have gone into it, more advice taken', but there was no time.

Beaumont had always been 'hugely impressed' by Nehru, for whom he had worked in the foreign ministry. 'He was very able, very easy to work with,' but he was also emotional and 'he got the Punjab wrong -- he didn't really understand the Punjab. He didn't believe the slaughter would occur and he persuaded Mountbatten it wouldn't happen -- so Mountbatten disregarded men like (Sir Evan) Jenkins (then governor of Punjab) who really knew what was going on...'

Jenkins briefed Mountbatten and the political leadership in Delhi again on the situation in the Punjab on August 4.

Casualties in July, he estimated, had been 4,632 killed and 2,573 seriously injured, with three times as many in the rural areas as in the towns.

His figures were, he admitted, almost certainly inaccurate as his administration was breaking down and the true figures were probably far higher...

IMAGE: Edwina Mountbatten tours the riot-affected localities in Amritsar in May 1947. Photograph: photodivision.gov.in

On August 5, what was left of the Punjab police Criminal Investigation Department reported that a major instigator of the Punjab disturbances was Pritam Singh, an ex- Indian National Army man who had been one of those trained by the Japanese at their Penang spy school and landed in India by submarine.

Master Tara Singh was also, the CID believed, heavily implicated in the violence.

He was 'completely one track on the subject of taking revenge on the Muslims' and there was a Sikh plot to kill Jinnah in Karachi on August 15.

'The Sikh leaders,' the report concluded, 'had lost control of their people...'

(On) August 7, Major General Pete Rees, the commander of the Punjab Boundary Force, flew over the area between Amritsar and Lahore in a light Auster reconnaissance aircraft.

His task, he wrote, was not an 'enviable one and I can't please everyone. I am bombarded with demands to take over control, to show ruthlessness and to string up the malefactors from the lamp posts'.

He was confident of his sepoys who were in 'good fettle' but it 'was a trying time for all'.

The temperature even in the shade averaged 100 degrees (38 degrees Celsius) and the 'night minimum' was 80-90 degrees (27-32 degrees Celsius). 'This is especially trying to Mohammmedans keeping the annual month's fast of Ramazan which this year is July 19 to August 16', but he guessed, 'our task is only a month or two after August 15'.

The Indian Army had, he thought, 'been a shining example of moderation, unity and solidarity' at a time when the mutual bitterness and hatred in the Punjab was growing so rapidly.

His troops would not be reassigned to their respective new national armies until after their task was complete and they were to work directly to (Field Marshal Claude) Auchinleck as supreme commander under the authority of the Partition Council as agreed in June.

But his force was totally inadequate for its task even given the limited role envisaged for it in that first week of August.

IMAGE: In this photograph taken on September 27, 1947, at the Kingsway refugee camp in Delhi, children help themselves to the rice provided for their meal. Photograph: photodivision.gov.in

His 20,000 odd men were to police an area of 37,500 square miles in the central Punjab, the 12 districts that had been identified as disputed by Radcliffe.

It was an area about the size of Ireland, and with a population of 14.5 million, divided, like the rest of the province, in the proportion of 55 per cent Muslim, 25 per cent Hindu and 20 per cent Sikh.

He deployed his brigades, each under strength at about 4,000 men, with one covering Amritsar and Gurdaspur; a second in Jullundur and Hoshiarpur, a third in Lyallpur and Sialkot, the fourth in Ferozepore and the fifth, alongside his own headquarters, in Lahore.

He had very little mobility and just one under-strength cavalry regiment.

There was, thought (ICS officer) Penderel Moon, 'remarkable faith in the projected Boundary Force'.

He did not share it. He thought the Sikhs were bound to attack the Muslims as soon as they had the opportunity. Either they would wait until the PBF was withdrawn or, if it was ineffective, they would simply ignore it.

A Sikh major on his way to join it, and with whom he shared a railway compartment, agreed. He thought that a large proportion of the troops would be 'infected by the communal virus' and that anyway it lacked the mobility it needed to cover its vast area of responsibility.

Moon and he thought that a force of 50,000, which was the figure he had heard the PBF was intended to be, would be pushed to do the job even if they were all mobile and totally reliable.

They agreed that it would take at least the four divisions Jenkins had been persistently recommending.

'By the time I got back to Bahawalpur,' Moon concluded, 'I had written off the Boundary Force completely'.

Sir Evan Jenkins had not given up.

The last dispatch from this most clear-thinking and well-informed governor was on August 13.

He pointed out once more that the PBF was responsible for 17,932 villages. It was imperative Rees's force was reinforced by at least another two divisions, effectively doubling it.

'The lesson,' he continued, 'is that once the inter-locked communities begin to fight over the countryside, the only remaining remedy is to employ a very large number of troops'.

IMAGE: Three wounded policemen receivE treatment following the riots in Lahore, when Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims clashed over the decision to incorporate the western region of Punjab into Pakistan. Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images

The police were now almost totally ineffective.

A new Hindu police superintendent had arrived in Amritsar.

His first act was to disarm all his Muslim officers. This not only created a sense of panic, but led to a third of the police deserting.

Amritsar itself now needed a lot more troops to replace them, two full-strength brigades instead of the single under-strength one Rees could spare...

The army needed to take over railway security, a task that repeated exercises and studies had recommended as essential in the event of widespread internal disorder.

Major General Hawthorn, the deputy chief of the Indian General Staff, so a very senior officer whose opinion should have carried weight, visited the Punjab on August 11 and recommended that air patrols were also essential.

He estimated the killing at a daily average of one hundred people.

Auchinleck did not receive his report well. He pencilled in the margin: 'There are very few aircraft for the job required of them. It is quite impossible to provide air standing patrols'.

Yet there were aircraft, a lot of them with pilots who, after Nehru's and Patel's spat over how the squadrons would be divided, were available to fly them.

The operational machinery was also there to deploy them, precisely why the Joint Defence staff had been established.

There were then those 30,000 British troops, who could supposedly only be used to protect European lives, now sweltering bored in their barracks, alongside their 35,000 Gurkha colleagues.

But there was no willingness by Auchinleck, obsessed with the reorganisation of the army or, as he saw it, its demise, to use them nor any pressure on him to do so.

Nehru did not understand the military, Jinnah's attention was now on Karachi and Dacca, and Mountbatten was wary of crossing a military who he always worried would not listen to him.

He was, V P Menon thought, 'overwhelmed with the idea that the army and the services might not take his advice'.

Rees's inadequate PBF was left to face the coming holocaust unaided.

Excerpted with permission.

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'Those days, none of the leaders thought of amassing wealth.'

'All of them wanted to sacrifice their all for the country.'

'There are many who didn't have any money, but sacrificed their lives for the country.'

'There are many who spent their own money and worked for the country.'

'There are many more about whom we do not even know what they had done; they did everything so silently and selflessly.'

In 2002, when Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier spoke to Dr Sarojini Varadappan, the late Tamil Nadu chief minister M Bhaktavatsalam's daughter was 81 years old.

A young witness to the struggle and hardship her father and other prominent leaders from south India underwent during the Quit India movement, Dr Varadappan recalled those tension-filled days in a feature first published on Rediff.com on August 7, 2002:

There were three major movements during that period; the Civil Disobedience Movement, the Non-Cooperation Movement and, finally, the Quit India Movement.

During our childhood, we hardly saw our father. Most of the time, he was either away or in jail. As a matter of fact, my sister (former Union minister Jayanthi Natarajan's mother) was born when my father was in jail during the Civil Disobedience Movement; he saw her only when she was three!

There was a kind of unknown fear in the minds of us children all the time. We didn't know what news awaited us when we came back from school.

We were so frightened those days that we always expected some bad news. One day, when we reached home, we were told our father was arrested and taken to jail.

I want to tell you about an incident that took place when we were still in school; I think it was during the Civil Disobedience Movement.

As we were returning home, we saw a big crowd in front of our house. We were frightened because we also saw many policemen.

In those days, if the police were suspicious of anyone, they would search their house and a search party was at our house that day. They ransacked the place even though only my mother was at home at the time.

I still remember how they destroyed a portrait of Bhagat Singh, which my father had kept in his office room. That was the only objectionable thing they had managed to find.

I was 20 years old when the Quit India Movement began, but everything is still fresh in my mind. Several members of my family were in prison during that period.

My father Bhaktavatsalam and his uncle Muthuranga Muthaliar were in jail. As was my maternal uncle Alagesan who had been to Dandi and joined the Salt Satyagraha movement when he was in college.

As he was very young, Mahatma Gandhi asked him to go back and join Rajaji (Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, the first Governor General of Independent India). So he participated in the Salt Satyagraha movement at Vedaranyam.

In 1942, the three of them and many other leaders had gone to Bombay to attend the All India Congress Committee meeting. It was there that they decided to start the Quit India Movement. After the meeting, all them boarded a train to return to Madras.

It was late in the night and my brother had gone to receive my father and uncles at the railway station. But they, along with other Congress leaders like Satyamoorthy, Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy and V V Giri (both later Presidents of India), were arrested the moment they got down from the train.

K Kamaraj was arrested at Avadi even before the train reached Madras.

We were eagerly waiting to see my father and were shocked at the news. We came to know the police would not take them to Vellore jail that night. They were kept at the Nungambakkom police station. I get upset even today when I pass the station.

My father's uncle told the police he would only eat food cooked at home as it was amavasya, Finally, the police relented. We were allowed to go there with food and thus got a chance to meet our father.

The very next day, all of them were taken to Vellore jail. On all the previous occasions, the police used to allow us to meet the prisoners once a month. It used to be a Saturday.

We used to go to Vellore in a car. The big gate would be open on that day. All the A class prisoners would be brought into a big hall where we would meet them for half an hour.

When he was kept in Trichy jail on an earlier occasion, we used to go to Trichy by train, stay there, meet him for half an hour and come back.

My mother even visited him when she was eight months pregnant with my sister. I was 11 years old then.

The Quit India Movement was so revolutionary that the police did not allow any meetings with the prisoners. Earlier, they used to even censor the letters. Sometimes, we used to get letters from our father with certain portions tarred! They would censor whatever they felt was objectionable.

But during the Quit India movement, the prisoners were not allowed to send letters either. The police didn't want us to know where they were. Despite all this, we would manage to get some news about them.

A month or two passed like this. Then, Satyamoorthy's daughter Lakshmi, who was studying at Annamalai University, heard that the senior leaders would be moved from Vellore. She rushed to our house to give us the news.

It was 11.30 at night. She told us they would be brought to Central Station in the morning, but didn't know where they would be taken from there.

Early in the morning, we made lots of idlis, sambhar and coffee and went to Central Station. But the police were rude and would not let us meet the prisoners. We pleaded with them.

Then, we saw the carriage kept far away from the platform. After hours of begging, they finally allowed us to meet them and feed them.

No one -- neither my father or uncles or Satyamoorthy -- knew where they were being shifted. We were given only half an hour with them. Then the police came and drove us away.

It was only 10 or 15 days later that we got a letter from my father. He said they were first taken to Nagpur and then moved to Amravati in Maharashtra in a police van. There was no way we could send any mail to him.

Satyamoorthy, who was very fond of his only daughter, perhaps missed her and had a massive heart attack. He was sent back on parole and was soon admitted to hospital. He wanted to see his daughter's wedding before his death. So the wedding was fixed, but the poor man passed away before it could take place.

This was how our life was in those days!

My father and the others were released in 1944, I think. Anyway, we didn't see him for many years. As soon as he was released, he came straight home. Soon after, an interim government was formed and he became a minister in the Prakasam ministry.

The Hindi Prachar Sabha was the hub of all activities in those days. It was there that letters from leaders like Aruna Asaf Ali, Achyut Patwardhan, etc, came to youngsters from all over India.

Young pracharaks distributed the letters, pamphlets, etc, without the knowledge of the police.

I still remember how the police searched for Bal Gangadhar Apte, a young Maharashtrian pracharak who had gone underground to prepare materials to be distributed.

After hiding at many places, Apte came to our house, which was just behind the Hindi Prachar Sabha and hid there.

Whenever we had a visitor, he would go to another room and lock himself up. He was with us for a month, but nobody knew about his presence. We children quite enjoyed having somebody stay 'underground' at home.

One of the sub-inspectors from the nearby police station was my mother's classmate. He used to visit us often to enquire after our father and, whenever he came, he would spend at least an hour talking to my mother.

One day, he bragged, 'You know this man Apte has gone underground, but we will catch him soon, wherever he is. He doesn't know our strength.' Apte was hiding in the next room. We had to struggle hard to control our laughter.

Though I didn't go to jail, I had the good fortune to participating in the freedom struggle by attending meetings, grouping youngsters, organising prayer meetings and working for others.

When Mahatma Gandhi came here soon after his release from jail, I was one of the thousand volunteers serving him. He stayed in one of the cottages inside the Hindi Prachar Sabha and only those who knew Hindi -- I was one of them -- had the privilege of serving him.

Every evening, we used to have a prayer meeting that would be attended by thousands of people. There was no police to control the crowd; we did all that. When Gandhiji said 'Do minute ki shanti (Two minutes of silence)' there would be pin-drop silence.

I do not know what kind of magic he had, but people listened to him. The magnetic power he had was amazing.

After the meeting, all the volunteers had to move around with a hundi (collection box) to collect money for Harijan welfare.

After the prayer at seven, we would go to the cottage and deposit all the hundis.

Early in the morning, Gandhiji would sit on the veranda in an easy chair. We would sit down and start counting the money we had collected.

Every single paisa was accounted for and it was done every day.

It was a great lesson for me. This is how I learnt accountability and credibility and it has helped me a lot in my activities as a social worker.

I also learnt punctuality and simplicity from him.

In those days, none of the leaders thought of amassing wealth. All of them wanted to sacrifice their all for the country.

My father was a minister for 25 years before he became chief minister, but he would sell some of our property to cover the election expenses every five years. Fortunately, we had land to sell.

Similarly, when Kamaraj was released from jail after the Quit India movement, he had nowhere to stay. So he stayed with us in our small house for one month! That was how the leaders of yesterday lived.

There are many who didn't have any money, but sacrificed their lives for the country.

There are many who spent their own money and worked for the country.

There are many more about whom we do not even know what they had done; they did everything so silently and selflessly.

But the country has forgotten all of them.

Having seen those leaders, I am very disappointed with the way things are going today.

The children of today have no faith in politics or political leaders. They do not know much about the freedom struggle. It could also be because we and our leaders failed to teach the second generation about the freedom movement.
By PTI: New Delhi, Aug 15 (PTI) Soaked in the spirit of India, US Charge dAffaires in New Delhi MaryKay Carlson today wore a Kanjeevaram saree for the Independence Day celebrations at the Red Fort and said "America is proud" to be a partner of this democratic country.

The American envoy took to Twitter to greet Indians on the 71st Independence Day and even wrote a line in Hindi, underlining the Indo-US cultural ties.

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In a video message shared on social media, Carlson quoted first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehrus famous Tryst With Destiny speech of 1947 and said, "70 years later Indias democracy is going strong and the US is proud to be its partner."

"Heres to at least another 70 years of US-India dosti," she said.

Earlier this month, the American diplomat had visited the Khadi Viliage Industries Association (KVIC) outlet in Connaught Place area, and picked up a few sarees for the August 15 celebrations.

"I had put up a social media poll on the four sarees I had chosen and Kanjeevaram won overwhelmingly. So, I wore that to Independence Day celebrations," she said.

Her other choices were Tassar, Dupion and Jamdani. She chose the Kanjeevaram for attending celebrations at the Red Fort in the morning where a host of other foreign dignitaries were also present.

In a series of tweets in the evening, she shared that she was wearing a Tassar saree for the At Home event at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

She later also shared a picture of her in the Tassar saree while she exchanged greetings with President Ram Nath Kovind.

Tassar, she said, had finished second on the Twitter saree poll.

Carlson, who wore this Indian attire for the first time, said ever since she arrived in Delhi, she was "enchanted" by sarees but didnt know much about them.

The diplomat said it was its sartorial quality and the regional variety that prompted her to choose a saree for the occasion.

From Pakistan, Acting High Commissioner Syed Haider Shah and wife Palwasha Haider attended the grand event. Defence advisor, Air attache and Naval attache at the High Commission also attended. PTI KND CPB AAR

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Burma: Drop charges against Mandalay farmers and land rights defenders

Publisher International Federation for Human Rights Publication Date 14 August 2017 Cite as International Federation for Human Rights, Burma: Drop charges against Mandalay farmers and land rights defenders , 14 August 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5991a1094.html [accessed 13 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Burmese authorities should immediately drop all charges filed against 11 farmers and two land rights defenders over a protest against land confiscation in Mandalay Region, the Observatory (FIDH and OMCT) said today.

On 23 October 2016, police arrested 11 farmers and activists Toe Gyi and Myo Win, leaders of the Mandalay-based Farmers Network Interest of Farmers and Labor (FNI-FL), for their involvement in a plow protest (a form of protest where farmers continue to till disputed land to signify their claim to ownership over it) on 8 October 2016 in Pyinsar Village, Pyin Oo Lwin Township, Mandalay Region. The military began confiscating land in the area without compensation in 1998 and then sold large tracts of it to private companies and business executives with ties to the then ruling military junta for a coffee plantation project.

The arrest of the 13 stemmed from charges filed against them by two private companies - Cooperative Bank and Ar-raw Gyan Pharmaceutical - and local businessman Kyu Zin, who claim ownership of the land. The complainants alleged that the plow protest had caused them to sustain financial losses.

The 13 were charged on 24 October 2016 under Articles 114 (abetment), 353 (assault of a public servant), 392 (robbery), 427 (mischief), 447 (trespass), and 506 (intimidation) of the Criminal Code. After spending four months in detention, they were granted bail on 23 February 2017. On 1 June 2017, Pyin Oo Lwin Township Court revoked their bail and issued arrest warrants.

Over the past two years, local farmers have held protests and set up makeshift tents on land plots in Pyin Oo Lwin Township to claim their ownership of the land. In another case, on the night of 28 July 2017, police raided a sit-in protest on 62nd Street in central Mandalay and arrested eight protest leaders and three farmers. They were charged under Articles 19 and 20 of the Peaceful Gathering and Demonstration Law, before being released on bail the next day. Since June 2017, hundreds of farmers in Mandalay Region have protested and called on the authorities to drop charges against farmers, release those who have been arrested, and return confiscated farmland to its original owners. Nearly 500 villagers in central Mandalay Region are currently being prosecuted in cases related to land confiscation.

The Observatory urges the Burmese authorities to ensure farmers can fully exercise their right to freedom of peaceful assembly in line with international standards. The two organizations also call on the government to ratify the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) as a matter of priority. Burma signed the ICESCR on 16 July 2015.

The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (the Observatory) was created in 1997 by FIDH and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT). The objective of this program is to prevent or remedy situations of repression against human rights defenders. FIDH and OMCT are both members of ProtectDefenders.eu, the European Union Human Rights Defenders Mechanism implemented by international civil society.
Morocco: Dozens arrested over mass protests in Rif report torture in custody

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 11 August 2017 Cite as Amnesty International, Morocco: Dozens arrested over mass protests in Rif report torture in custody, 11 August 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59929fc54.html [accessed 13 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

At least 66 people detained over mass protests in Morocco's northern Rif region have reported suffering torture and other ill-treatment in custody including being heavily beaten, suffocated, stripped naked, threatened with rape and insulted by police, sometimes to force them to "confess", said Amnesty International.

The organization is calling on Morocco's authorities to ensure a thorough, independent and impartial investigation into their claims, and for any "confessions" extracted under duress to be excluded from trial proceedings. One protester is also under investigation for "falsely reporting" that police tortured him.

"These protesters took to the streets calling for social justice and better services and yet have faced torture and other ill-treatment, in the form of brutal beatings, rape threats, insults and other abuse. It is vital that the authorities thoroughly investigate these claims and that those behind this reprehensible abuse are brought to justice," said Heba Morayef, North Africa Research Director for Amnesty International.

Since May 2017, police have arrested more than 270 people over the Rif protests, many of them arbitrarily, including peaceful activists and some journalists. The overwhelming majority are in detention, and many have already been sentenced to prison terms for protest-related charges. At least 50 are currently being investigated on state-security charges and one on terrorism charges. Some could face up to life in prison.

On 7 August the authorities announced the death of protester Imad el-Attabi, who had been in a coma after being critically injured in the head during demonstrations in Al Hoceima on 20 July. The authorities have announced that they are investigating the circumstances in which he was injured.

Some detainees had visible injuries when they emerged from police custody and first appeared before prosecutors, according to five lawyers who were present. They said at least 28 of the detainees they represented told prosecutors and judges they had been tortured, and sometimes forced into signing documents without reading them.

On 3 July, detained protester Omar Bouhrass told the investigating judge at the Casablanca Court of Appeals that he had been tortured. According to his lawyer, Bouhrass said that police beat him while ordering him to say "Long live the King", stripped him of his underwear, broke two of his teeth, and threatened and insulted him following his arrest in Al Hoceima. The court ordered that he undergo a medical examination but his lawyer was not informed of any official investigation. Instead, he now faces an additional charge, which could result in a prison sentence, after judicial authorities opened an investigation against him for "false reporting" against the police.

"No one should face imprisonment for plucking up the courage to tell a judge that police beat and humiliated them in custody," Heba Morayef said.

"By prosecuting those reporting such abuse, instead of protecting them and properly investigating their claims, Morocco's authorities risk silencing dozens of torture survivors."

Moroccan courts have imprisoned activists for reporting torture in the past, deeming such reports offensive to the police. Article 264 of the Penal Code punishes "false reporting" with up to a year in prison and 5,000 Moroccan dirhams (about $US530) in fines.

Detained activist Rabie Lablak told two lawyers and his brother that police tortured him following his arrest on 28 May. He said they suffocated him by stuffing a cloth soaked with a foul-smelling liquid into his mouth, then stripped off his clothes and brought in masked men who threatened to gang rape him then rape him with a bottle, if he did not sign the interrogation reports. His health deteriorated after he staged a 36-day hunger strike to protest his arrest and ill-treatment.

Leading protester Nasser Zefzafi also told the Casablanca Court of Appeals that police officers beat him in custody and threatened to rape his elderly mother in front of him, according to his lawyer. He and five other protest leaders remain detained in prolonged solitary confinement while being investigated on state-security charges, taking a dramatic toll on their psychological well-being. Prolonged solitary confinement (lasting more than 15 consecutive days) is prohibited under international standards on detention because it amounts to torture or other ill-treatment.

In early July, extracts from a confidential report by Morocco's National Human Rights Council (CNDH) leaked to the media, revealed that the CNDH had investigated 36 cases of reported torture or other ill-treatment and recommended thorough judicial investigations. On 12 July, the Minister of Justice and Liberties revealed that 66 medical examinations had been ordered.

Five lawyers told Amnesty International that the medical examinations were carried out several days after they were ordered, by which point injuries had started to heal. Some also expressed concern that the examinations did not rely on x-rays or other medical imagery and that no psychological evaluations were carried out.

One lawyer told Amnesty International that the General Crown Prosecutor at the Al Hoceima Court of Appeals has since opened investigations in at least 23 cases of alleged torture. However, the Courts of First Instance and Appeals in Al Hoceima have convicted Rif protesters without awaiting the conclusion of these investigations. The courts failed to exclude statements that may have been extracted under torture or other ill-treatment, lawyers said.

Morocco is a state party to international treaties prohibiting torture and other ill-treatment and is legally obliged to impartially investigate all such allegations, hold those responsible accountable, and provide reparation to victims. No statements made under duress should be admitted as evidence in court.

The Rif popular movement calls for social justice and improved public services in the long-marginalized northern region. Defence lawyers say many are facing trumped-up charges because of their peaceful protest, dissent, or online coverage of the demonstrations.

At least 41 people were pardoned on 29 July, the anniversary of King Mohammed VI's accession to the throne. However, the majority of those facing trial, including seven journalists, remain behind bars.

"The royal pardons were a welcome step but do not go far enough. Morocco's authorities must now release all those detained solely for exercising their human rights to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression both online and offline," said Heba Morayef.

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
South Africa: Five years on, Marikana victims still wait for justice

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 14 August 2017 Cite as Amnesty International, South Africa: Five years on, Marikana victims still wait for justice, 14 August 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5992a0854.html [accessed 13 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Victims of the bloody tragedy at Marikana, in which 34 protesters were killed and at least 70 were injured by members of the South African Police Service (SAPS) during a mining strike, are still awaiting justice five years on, Amnesty International said today.

The organization is calling on the South African authorities to ensure that those suspected of criminal responsibility in relation to the 2012 killings are brought to trial, and that the victims and their families receive reparations, including adequate compensation.

"The tragedy of the Marikana killings is compounded by the shocking fact that no one responsible for the bloodshed has yet been held accountable," said Shenilla Mohamed, Executive Director of Amnesty International South Africa.

"If the South African government wants to demonstrate that it is committed to truth and human rights, it needs to ensure that the wheels of justice start turning far faster than they have done over the past five years."

In June 2015 the Farlam Commission, which was set up by the South African government to look into the circumstances of the killings, recommended a full investigation under the Director of Public Prosecutions, with a view to ascertaining the criminal liability of members of the SAPS who were involved in the events at Marikana.

In December 2016 President Jacob Zuma announced that criminal charges would be brought against senior police officers involved in the killings.

In March 2017, police watchdog the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) idenitifed 72 police officers for prosecution in relation to their roles in the killings at Marikana. The dockets were submitted to the National Prosecuting Authority in May.

To date, however, no police officers involved have been prosecuted.

Justice delayed - victims speak out five years later

In July 2017, Amnesty International met with some of the victims of the shootings and their families at Nkaneng informal settlement near Lonmin's Roland shaft, where they still live in inadequate housing and squalid conditions.

In the 2016 report, 'Smoke and Mirrors: Lonmin's failure to address housing conditions at Marikana', Amnesty International revealed how the company that owns the mine, UK-based Lonmin Plc, had committed to constructing 5,500 houses for workers by 2011 under its 2006 Social and Labour Plan (SLP).

The appalling housing conditions faced by Lonmin employees, along with grievances over low pay, were among the main drivers of the strike.

Many of the individuals Amnesty International met expressed their anger and disappointment that so little had changed in the five years since the killings.

Former Lonmin employee *Johannes Khwedu, whose childhood friend was killed at Marikana, said he was appalled there had been no action against the police who shot the protesting miners in front of international television cameras.

"How can they kill so many people without consequences? The government must arrest those who killed them," he told Amnesty International.

*Justin Kolobe, a former rock drill operator at Lonmin mine who survived the shooting but was permanently paralysed, is still waiting for both justice and reparation. He lays the blame squarely on the South African government for the lack of progress.

"There is nothing happening to the people who shot us. This is the work of the government. If they don't want anything to happen, it won't happen. Forget it," he said.

*Sarafina Jobe lost her husband, a Marikana employee, in the shootings and is struggling to feed and support her family without the R2850 (US$215) he would send home each month.

She told Amnesty International: "I feel a real pain sometimes when I think that he is gone. My heart beats quickly, my chest hurts and I get a headache when I think about it at night. We want compensation, and we want to know how our husbands died, who killed them and for what reason. That is the only way to recognize that we lost a soul, and that he cannot ever be replaced."

*Their real identities have been changed to protect them from reprisal attacks.

Background

On 16 August 2012, the South Africa Police Service (SAPS) fatally shot 34 men at Marikana. More than 70 others sustained serious injuries.

The men were Lonmin employees and had been engaged in strike and protest action over pay and conditions at the mine.

Independent and state forensic pathologists who undertook the post-mortems on the 34 men killed on 16 August found that 30 of them died as a result of injuries caused by police high-velocity ammunition from R5 assault rifles. The fatal injuries in three other cases were caused by handgun ammunition and in one case by shotgun ammunition.

The killings on 16 August came amid rising tension in the days leading up to the strike.

Three striking mineworkers were killed by police on 13 August and two Lonmin security personnel, two police officers and three non-striking mineworkers were killed - allegedly by people within the strikers' group - between 12 and 14 August.

In August 2017, the National Prosecuting Authority postponed indefinitely the trial of 17 strike leaders linked to the killings that took place between 12 and 14 August 2012.

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
Disclaimer

This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.
Uzbekistan: UN Staffer Free After 11 Years

Publisher Human Rights Watch Publication Date 14 August 2017 Cite as Human Rights Watch, Uzbekistan: UN Staffer Free After 11 Years, 14 August 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5992a1b34.html [accessed 13 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Erkin Musaev, a United Nations employee and former government official, tortured and unjustly jailed for 11 years in Uzbekistan, was finally freed on August 11, 2017, according to his family, Human Rights Watch said today. Musaev had been imprisoned since 2006 and was granted early release on orders of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, the family said.

Mirziyoyev should release all those imprisoned on politically motivated charges and ensure effective investigations into the torture of detainees, including Musaev, Human Rights Watch said.

"Erkin Musaev's release is a joyous occasion for him and his family, but Musaev's 11-year ordeal won't end until those who tortured him are brought to justice," said Steve Swerdlow, Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. "President Mirziyoyev should see to it that all torture of detainees finally ends and all victims get a remedy."

Musaev is the fifth political prisoner released since Mirziyoyev became acting president in September 2016, following the death of the long-time authoritarian leader Islam Karimov in August. During his campaign, Mirziyoyev promised increased accountability to citizens, and acknowledged the lack of reform in key aspects of Uzbekistan's society, including the economy and the criminal justice system.

Since assuming office in December, Mirziyoyev has taken modest steps to loosen some restrictions on free expression, and openly criticized prosecutors for abuse of power in certain cases. He also announced plans to abolish exit visas, which improperly restrict the right of citizens to leave the country. But Mirziyoyev has taken few steps to free prisoners held on politically motivated charges.

Mirziyoyev should direct the relevant authorities to effectively investigate allegations that Musaev was tortured, and that his conviction and sentence were based on proceedings that violated basic fair trial standards, Human Rights Watch said. The Uzbek government should also immediately and unconditionally release the other peaceful activists and human rights defenders who remain in prison following politically motivated and unfair trials.

Musaev, now 50, was a UN employee and a former Uzbek government official in the Defense Ministry's foreign trade department. He was involved in international cooperation programs with Western governments, including the US and the EU, for which authorities later accused him of espionage.

Musaev participated in a US government-sponsored exchange program in the mid-1990s, and in the late-1990s worked as a diplomat for the Uzbek government in Brussels. He later worked in Uzbekistan as a project manager for the UN Development Program's "Border Management in Central Asia" project.

On January 31, 2006, border guards arrested Musaev at Tashkent airport, after allegedly uncovering a disk among his belongings containing "state secrets." Musaev wrote to his father that officials had planted the evidence during the search. In its 2007 Human Rights report on Uzbekistan, the US State Department reported that Musaev was tortured in detention, which included severe beatings to his head, chest, and feet, and held for two months without access to a lawyer or any visitors.

A joint letter from the UN special rapporteur on torture and the head of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to then-President Karimov said that one beating by prison officials broke Musaev's jaw. Authorities also coerced him to sign a confession that he had engaged in espionage for the US, the UK, and the UN.

Authorities initially charged Musaev with high treason and sharing government secrets. On June 13, 2006, a Tashkent military court sentenced him to 15 years in prison. The day after his conviction, he was also charged with abuse of power and neglect of duty, and another year was added to his sentence. In the ensuing years, Musaev's relatives reported to journalists and US embassy officials that Uzbek authorities continued to periodically torture him, including one episode in which he was beaten so badly after refusing to provide false testimony that he was hospitalized as a result of significant blood loss. A court later tried and convicted him in another case in which he had been originally called as a witness, adding four years to his sentence.

In May 2008, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention held that Musaev's imprisonment was "arbitrary", and in contravention of several international treaties to which Uzbekistan is a party. By February 2011, authorities had transferred Musaev to a high security prison in Navoi province and his body showed signs of burns and other wounds.

In June 2012, the UN Human Rights Committee issued its decision that the Uzbek government had tortured and otherwise ill-treated Musaev and violated his rights to liberty, security, and fair trial under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (articles 7, 9 and 14 respectively). The committee called on Uzbekistan to provide him with an effective remedy for the violations. But Uzbek authorities ignored the ruling, and Musaev remained in prison.

"Musaev suffered harrowing torture at the hands of Uzbek authorities, and his story is just one of thousands of victims of arbitrary imprisonment and ill-treatment," Swerdlow said. "Uzbekistan's international partners, including the US and the EU, should use every means of influence at their disposal to reiterate their calls to President Mirziyoyev to release everyone being held unlawfully and arbitrarily under international standards."

Copyright notice:  Copyright, Human Rights Watch
The conflict in Kasai, DRC

Publisher IRIN Publication Date 15 August 2017 Cite as IRIN, The conflict in Kasai, DRC, 15 August 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5992b61c4.html [accessed 13 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Militia attacks and army reprisals have uprooted 1.4 million people in a previously stable region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The conflict has helped double the number of displaced people in the country in the year to June. The Catholic Church reports killings of over 3,000, amidst UN reports of mass graves and widespread abuse of civilians.

Refugees have fled to Angola, agricultural land lies idle and humanitarian agencies are ringing the alarm bell at the prospect of food shortages and continuing violence.

The clashes have pushed the DRC to the top of an unenviable league table: it is the country with the most internally displaced people (IDPs) in Africa. At the end of June, 3.8 million people out of the DRC's population of 75-85 million were displaced, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Just 12 months ago, the figure was 1.7 million.

Stephen O'Brien, the UN's Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, told IRIN that "there has been this new, very serious spread of humanitarian need as a result of the massive escalation in violence in different areas" in the DRC.

Grand Kasai is a central region until recently spared the intercommunal conflict that in recent decades has terrorised other parts of the country, most notably the eastern provinces.

However, according to Medecins Sans Frontieres, in under a year, Grand Kasai "has transformed from a peaceful area in a troubled country to the epicentre of one the most serious humanitarian crises in the world".

Since August 2016, 1.4 million inhabitants of Grand Kasai-which encompasses five of the DRC's 26 provinces-have been forced from their homes, escaping violence perpetrated by a variety of militias and the Congolese government. 850,000 children are among them, according to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), and nearly one million people have been displaced during the course of this year.

Why has this formerly sedate region exploded and who is responsible?

A customary dispute gets out of hand

The origin of a conflict which has caused wholesale misery in an area the size of Germany was relatively humdrum: a disagreement over traditional authority in several villages in Kasai-Central province.

In 2012, Jean-Pierre Pandi returned home from South Africa to succeed his deceased uncle as the sixth 'Kamwina Nsapu', one of the main customary chiefs in Dibaya territory in Kasai-Central. Such chiefs play an important role, exercising considerable control over land and administration in their domains. Supposedly apolitical and selected according to traditions, they nonetheless need to be recognised by the central state, a requirement which encourages chiefs to support the regime and the government to endorse biddable claimants.

In Grand Kasai the interplay between customary authority and President Joseph Kabila's administration is particularly complex because the region is an opposition stronghold.

Kinshasa refused to officially recognise Pandi and last year he adopted an increasingly belligerent tone against the government, which he characterised as illegitimate and foreign. (Many of Kabila's opponents claim that he is a Rwandan occupier.) Tensions escalated in April 2016 when the provincial authorities visited Pandi's chiefdom while he was in South Africa to search for weapons and he later accused the soldiers of defiling sacred objects and attempting to rape one of his wives.

Pandi urged his followers to destroy the symbols of the state, such as public buildings, and drive out its agents. On 12 August 2016, he was killed at his home during clashes between his fighters and security forces. The government says that it wanted to arrest Pandi and he was shot accidentally but other sources talk of troops mutilating the chief's corpse.

Following Pandi's death, the violence took on a new dimension as Kamwina Nsapu, the name adopted by a militia made up of Pandi's followers, intensified its attacks against the state and spawned new iterations -professing similar grievances against the national authorities-in other parts of Grand Kasai. According to a leaked UN report seen by Reuters, the "conflict moved away from an insurrection of a specific community towards a larger upheaval, spreading the Kamuina Nsapu label far beyond its initial confines". Clashes occur almost daily, according to the UN.

Assaults targeted large towns such as Kananga, Tshikapa and Tshimbulu, as well as smaller villages, as the fighting spread from Kasai-Central to the provinces of Kasai, Kasai-Oriental, Sankuru and Lomami.

The ferocious response of the Congolese armed forces has earned widespread condemnation.

Violations on all sides

Throughout the conflict, the United Nations has criticised Kamwina Nsapu for recruiting children, as well as for attacking state installations and employees, while the government describes the militia as a terrorist group.

In June, Marie-Ange Mushobekwa, the human rights minister, told the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) that during initiation ceremonies Kamwina Nsapu members cut people's throats and drink their blood.

Some of the 12,000 IDPs at Komba camp on the outskirts of Tshikapa, a city in Kasai province, can attest to Kamwina Nsapu's brutality. Koloma Kiwunga's village was invaded in April. "They made women and children enter their houses and then they burned them", she told IRIN.

"Kamwina Nsapu burned everything we had They hunted us and butchered our brothers and our children", said Peter Mosanto, who fled at the same time.

The DRC's military has been accused of deploying disproportionate force against the militia and those considered sympathetic to it. Videos filmed by soldiers have emerged showing the military unloading their automatic weapons into men, women and children who are unarmed or equipped only with sticks and knives.

According to the UN's Joint Human Rights Office (UNJHRO), the army and police carried out at least 185 extrajudicial executions, including 16 women and 53 children, in just three towns in Kasai-Central during March and April this year.

The military has rejected allegations that troops have routinely responded with excessive violence and point out that in early July a court convicted seven soldiers caught on video murdering suspected militia members.

The UN also says that it has so far discovered 80 mass graves in three provinces of Grand Kasai and has attributed most of them to the Congolese army. According to the UNJHRO, up to 30 June 2017 the organisation "had identified a total of 42 mass graves [an additional 38 sites were announced in July]  the majority of which were reportedly dug by elements of the FARDC [DRC Armed Forces] following clashes with alleged militiamen".

Jose Maria Aranaz, UNJHRO's director, told IRIN that "witnesses" had informed his staff that the military are responsible for the the graves. In March, a Reuters reporter interviewed people in Kasai-Central who claimed to have seen army vehicles dumping bodies at the graves.

The government has countered these allegations by blaming the militia for the mass graves and claiming that some sites identified by the UN are in fact empty.

The evolution of a complex conflict

Whereas in the early months Kamwina Nsapu principally targeted the state-the military, police and government officials-newer militias appear more motivated by killing and expelling members of other ethnic groups. "The reporting I have been given shows that there has been a proliferation of groups", UN humanitarian chief Stephen O'Brien told IRIN during a visit to Grand Kasai in July.

During interviews with IRIN, several IDPs at Komba camp, nearly all of whom are Tchokwe or Pende, conflated the militia and the Luba people, saying that they had been attacked on ethnic grounds. "The Luba people we call Kamwina Nsapu chased the Pende and Tchokwe from their homes", Ndala Sabin told IRIN.

A harrowing new development has been the emergence of Bana Mura, a largely Tchokwe militia, which has been accused of killing and mutilating hundreds of Luba and Lulua civilians, while receiving support from the government. In June, Zeid bin Ra'ad Zeid al-Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, updated the HRC on testimony gathered from Luba and Lulua refugees who had sought safety in Angola. According to Zeid, "my team saw children as young as two whose limbs had been chopped off; many babies had machete wounds and severe burns At least two pregnant women were sliced open and their foetuses mutilated."

He added that "victims also reported that members of local units of the Congolese army and police  have accompanied some Bana Mura attacks, and said some state agents are involved in arming and directing the militia".

Furthermore, according to the confidential UN report seen by Reuters, Kamwina Nsapu itself has split into "pro- and anti-government factions".

Casualties

It is difficult to know with any certainty the number of people who have died as a direct result of the conflict but some organisations have put forward their assessments.

In late June, the Catholic Church said that at least 3,383 people had been killed by Kamwina Nsapu and Congolese security forces in Grand Kasai. A month earlier, Delly Sessanga, an influential opposition parliamentarian, published an investigation stating that the violence had caused the deaths of 3,307 people in two provinces (Kasai-Central and Kasai) since August 2016.

The UN's official statistics are far lower. According to the UNJHRO, in the first six months of 2017 "at least 428 people, including 17 women and 140 children, were killed by the FARDC and at least 37 people by Kamwina Nsapu". However, the same report clarifies that "the UNJHRO thinks that human losses  during this period are in reality much higher".

Aranaz, UNJHRO's director, told IRIN that "our figures are too conservative as we only report verified information", adding that "particularly in the beginning of the conflict we had our access restricted which impeded the verification".

The humanitarian impact

While the death toll remains unclear, there can be no doubts that Grand Kasai faces an acute humanitarian crisis.

According to OCHA, only 156,000 of the 1.4 million IDPs received emergency assistance from new funding this year; people interviewed by IRIN at Komba camp said that they had not benefitted from any humanitarian support.

The World Food Programme has said that 42 percent of households in Kasai, Kasai-Central and Kasai-Oriental are food insecure.

According to the Norwegian Refugee Council, "a massive food crisis now threatens to shatter this fragile situation [as] the first two shorter planting seasons this year in the Kasai region have largely been missed, and people are rapidly running out of food to sustain themselves".

The emergency in Grand Kasai took the world by surprise. The UN and NGOs have had to scale up operations quickly-and often from scratch-and are hamstrung by lack of resources. This year OCHA has appealed for international donors to provide $748 million for its DRC-wide humanitarian response plan and in April launched a $64.5 million flash appeal exclusively for Grand Kasai.

Seven months through the year, they are financed at only 24 percent and 11 percent respectively. According to OCHA, this represents its lowest funding level of the past 10 years in the DRC.

As a senior OCHA official stated in early July, "we can redeploy our staff, fly in new expertise, distribute food and medicine in all corners, but without money, we won't be able to respond to the level that we need to". At the end of his visit to DRC, O'Brien told local journalists that it "is not just insufficient-it is unacceptable for the global community to leave this very real suffering of the Congolese people unaddressed."
Growing Military and Regional Cooperation Inaugurates New Era in Russian-Turkish Relations

Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Orhan Gafarli Publication Date 2 August 2017 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 103 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, Growing Military and Regional Cooperation Inaugurates New Era in Russian-Turkish Relations, 2 August 2017, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 103, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5992bd364.html [accessed 13 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with his Russian counterpart, President Vladimir Putin, at the G20 summit, held in Hamburg, Germany, on July 8. Their conversation during the meeting encompassed two main themes: First, the two leaders discussed issues related to the economy, military and energy, and the second major topic pertained to negotiations on the regional issues encompassing Syria, Iraq and the Gulf Crisis (NTV, July 8).

Over the past three to four months, Turkey and Russia have taken serious steps to bolster their bilateral relations as well as extend their cooperation on resolving regional problems. This progress truly kicked off in earnest on May 3, after Erdogan's meeting with Putin in Sochi. After this visit, Turkey's relationship with Russia progressed significantly in three directions.

First, Gazprom, the largest (and state-owned) natural gas company in Russia, officially began construction of the Turkish Stream pipeline in the Black Sea, on June 24 (Milliyet, June 24).

Second, Russia eliminated its sanction on Turkey, which Moscow had adopted following Turkey's downing of a Russian Su-24 bomber that crossed into Turkish airspace from Syria. Most of those restrictions on Turkish products were lifted within a month of the two leaders' meeting in Sochi. The decree signed by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, on June 2, dropped Moscow's ban on Turkish vegetables and fruit other than tomatoes, while also lifting restrictions on Turkish companies to carry out construction work in Russia (Sabah, June 2). On the other hand, it should be emphasized that Moscow did not ease the visa application process for Turkish businessmen and citizens.

Third, Putin and Erdogan's discussion on military cooperation culminated in Turkey's purchase of the advanced S-400 Triumf long-range, anti-air missile system from Russia. According to initial reports, Russia quoted a price of $500 million for the missile system (RBC, May 5). But throughout June, the Turkish media continued to probe the details of the S-400 sale. Nuri Alibol wrote in his column for Turkiye Gazetesi that "Russia and Turkey agreed on a two-battery system with 240 missiles as well as search-detection-tracking and guidance radars for $2.5 billion." Importantly, the arms deal includes a technology-transfer component: Turkey and Russia will jointly produce the second of the two purchased S-400 batteries (Turkiye Gazetesi, June 9). Putin's military defense advisor, Vladimir Kojin, stated, on June 29, that the parties agreed on the sale of the S-400 and there was also a talk about Ankara opening a line of credit for this purpose. If this agreement is implemented as planned, Turkey will be the first North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member to integrate the S-400 into its defense system (Milliyet, June 29).

At the same time, Turkish-Russian negotiations have been ongoing regarding a possible agreement over the issue of Kurds in Syria's Afrin regionnamely, the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and the Democratic Union Party (PYD), a group with links to the Turkish-based terrorist organization Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK). On June 18, during the operation around Raqqa by the United Statesled coalition forces, an Su-22 fighter-bomber flown by the Syrian regime was shot out of the sky by a US F/A-18 Super Hornet. This greatly disturbed the Russian government, particularly because the shoot-down of the Syrian aircraft was allegedly requested by PYD/YPG forces fighting on the ground. At that time, the Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad were seeking to halt the expansion of the PYD/YPG around Raqqa (Milliyet, June 19). A week or so later, an incident erupted between the YPG and Turkish-backed forces operating in northern Syria. Consequently, the Turkish Armed Forces fired on Kurdish PYD/YPG rebel targets in the Afrin region, close to the Turkish border. Conspicuously, Moscow stayed silent regarding Turkey's attack (Reuters, June 28), suggesting the Russian government wants to push the PYD/YPG and other armed groups in Afrin to cooperate with al-Assad and submit to the regime in Damascus (Star, July 3). After the clashes between Turkey and the YPG in Afrin, PYD leader Salih Muslim made a statement, in Kobani, that he is ready to cooperate with Russia (Aksam, June 28).

Until recently, the Syrian Kurdish issue seriously divided Moscow and Ankara (see EDM, February 15). Two main reasons explain why these governments have now moved much closer together when it comes to the Kurds in Syria. First, both Ankara and Moscow oppose the formation of a Kurdish-controlled land corridor between Kobani and Afrin. And second, Russia and Turkey are deeply concerned about military cooperation between the Pentagon and the PYD/YPG: Russia does not want to lose its influence over the Kurds, while Turkey does not want to see an autonomous PYD/YPG entity on its border with Syria.

The process to reestablish relations between Russia and Turkey, first launched on August 9, 2016, continues to this day. The two sides are increasingly pushing to improve bilateral relations as well as looking to find common ground when it comes to addressing regional issues. It is important to note a difference in approach between Moscow and Ankara, however. While Turkey wants to deal with bilateral and regional issues separately, Russia tends to view the full spectrum of its relations with Turkey as one interconnected whole. This divergence in expectations when it comes to their relationship has somewhat slowed progress on the Russian-Turkish rapprochement. Yet, for now, common interests continue to push the two countries closer together.

Copyright notice:  2010 The Jamestown Foundation
In Moscow, Trump Portrayed as Victim of US-Russian Confrontation

Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Pavel Felgenhauer Publication Date 3 August 2017 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 104 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, In Moscow, Trump Portrayed as Victim of US-Russian Confrontation, 3 August 2017, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 104, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5992bf4f4.html [accessed 13 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Link to original story on Jamestown website

This week (August 1), US diplomatic staff in Moscow evacuated a residence (dacha) and a tattered warehouse complex in in the capital city as part of a delayed tit-for-tat retaliation for an expulsion of Russian diplomats last December and the seizing of Russian country residences (dachas) in Maryland and Long Island. Washington had seized the properties and expelled those Russian embassy personnel as punishment for Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 US presidential elections. The US dacha in the Serebryany Bor Moscow River estuary recreation zone is one of a number of ambassadorial buildings that the Soviet authorities provided to foreigners many decades ago. Serebryany Bor was then on the outskirts of Moscow, but now it is a quiet wooded area deep in the middle of a sprawling megacity of concrete high-rises. The relatively small, one-story wooden US bungalow-style Serebryany Bor dacha was apparently used for barbeque parties. Its confiscation, though unpleasant, will hardly impede US diplomatic activities in Russia. Much more hindrance could be inflicted by the Russian demand to dramatically cut the number of personnel at the US embassy and consulates in Russia to 455 by September 1, 2017. According to President Vladimir Putin, some 755 US staff persons must be cut, but the US authorities should decide themselves whom to recall or fire. Apparently, only 25 percent of the estimated 1,200 US staff in Russia are US citizens-the rest being local Russian employees. Washington could theoretically not recall any of its diplomats at all, but mass fire Russians instead. Of course, a severe reduction in support personnel would undoubtedly slow down the work of the embassy and, in particular, its visa department (Kommersant, August 1).

In late July, Putin announced Moscow will figure out its response to the US sanctions bill after its final text is published (TASS, July 27). In fact, the tit-for-tat response was announced and the takeover of US diplomatic property in Moscow accomplished after the Senate voted 98 to 2 in favor, but before President Donald Trump signed the bill. That could have been a deliberate attempt by the Kremlin to separate the "good" Trump from the "Russophobe Congress." Russian officials and the press have been portraying Trump as a victim of the Washington establishment, who has been forced to sign a sanction bill against his better judgment. In a signing statement, Trump complained about the sanction law infringing on his Constitutional foreign policy presidential prerogatives. It is hoped in Moscow the Trump administration will refrain from implementing parts of the sanction law it does not like and that the US president may yet resist the anti-Russian Congress (Kommersant, August 3). A Trump Tweet on August 3 seems to agree with the dominant opinion in Moscow and has been widely quoted: "Our relationship with Russia is at an all-time & very dangerous low. You can thank Congress" (Interfax, August 3).

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, in a Facebook post, pitied Trump: "The administration has demonstrated its powerlessness and has been humiliated by handing over executive power to Congress, which changes the balance of power [in Washington]." In Moscow, the parliament is a powerless rubber stamp institution, subservient to any Kremlin whim; thus, Trump bowing to the joint will of Congress is seen as an ultimate humiliation. According to Medvedev, "The new sanctions are a move to reduce Trump, and other [similar moves] will follow with the ultimate aim to remove him from power." A trade war has been declared on Russia, and any hope of improving relations has been lost, continues Medvedev, "Sanctions will now last for decades, while relations will be strained no matter who is in charge of the White House" (Interfax, August 2).

According to Senator Alexei Pushkov, a former chair of the Duma Foreign Relations Committee, Russia and the US still carry on limited security cooperation in Syria, and diplomatic relations have not yet been severed. But relations are progressively growing worse and the "unthinkable"-a possible direct US-Russian military confrontation-"is being discussed by experts behind closed doors," he claimed (Militarynews.ru, August 2). Russian Senator Frantz Klintsevich, the deputy chair of the Federation Council Committee on Defense and Security, told journalists, "Despite all their differences, Russia and the US must continue security interactions to prevent a global [nuclear] war" (Militarynews.ru, August 2). The pro-Kremlin Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, who after sending his loyal Kadyrovtsi fighters to serve in Syria as Russian Military Police, has been pushing to have an imprint on Moscow's foreign policy. Speaking with journalists, he declared, "Russia will survive US sanctions and prosper, but they [sanctions] will come back to hurt America and create splits with its European allies" (Interfax, August 2). The possible weakening of transatlantic ties has been a longtime Russian strategic dream, and there is now widespread hope in Moscow it may be happening soon.

Reports that Washington could be considering providing the Ukrainian military with anti-tank and possibly anti-aircraft guided missiles have raised alarm in Moscow. The Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov called on "all nations interested in defusing the conflict [in Ukraine] to refrain from actions that may provoke an increase in tensions" (Interfax, August 1). Russian experts believe Washington may indeed decide to ship arms to the Ukrainians, "though Europe will not like that, but it cannot decisively influence American decision-making." Russia would, in turn, send more modern arms to the pro-Russia Donbas separatists (Moskovsky Komsomolets, August 2).

During the Cold War, the relatively nonviolent or "cold" standoff between East and West was in direct contact between the two blocks in Europe. But all over the world-in Korea, Vietnam and Indochina, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America-there were almost constant proxy wars in which Russian and US military operatives also often clashed, though mostly unofficially. Today, a new cold war front seems to be crystalizing in the Baltics and Poland, where the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Russian forces face each other in something reminiscent of a direct non-combative standoff. The main theater of a "hot" East versus West proxy war, in turn, could become Ukraine. The coming next several weeks of August will be decisive: Will the downturn in relations between Moscow and Washington translate into an upsurge of fighting in Ukraine? Or will the summer fighting season, which ends as September turns into October, continue to be characterized by fairly minor clashes along a relatively stable Donbas front line?

Copyright notice:  2010 The Jamestown Foundation
Armenia and Azerbaijan's Evolving Implicit Rivalry Over Nakhchivan

Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Eduard Abrahamyan Publication Date 3 August 2017 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 104 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, Armenia and Azerbaijan's Evolving Implicit Rivalry Over Nakhchivan, 3 August 2017, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 104, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5992c0234.html [accessed 13 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Link to original story on Jamestown website

The unprecedented escalation of violence, in April 2016, on the Line of Contact in the breakaway region of Karabakh had, in part, kick-started a new round of military preparations between Armenia and Azerbaijan (see EDM, April 6, May 5, 2016). But as bloody incidents along the Armenia-Azerbaijan state border and in Karabakh have intensified, another historically contested regionNakhchivanmay yet re-emerge as an additional sore point between Yerevan and Baku. With everyday stresses there significantly less intense compared to Karabakh, the Nakhchivan dimension of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict is often downplayed by many security experts.

Nakhchivan once had a mixed population of about 60 percent and 40 percent Azerbaijanis and Armenians, respectively. Thus, together with Karabakh, Nakhchivan has been the subject of Armenian-Azerbaijani contestation dating back to the second decade of the 20th century. And in recent months, politico-military activities in and surrounding the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic are steadily triggering a resurgence of the nearly hundred-year-old contest over this 2,100-square-mile landlocked exclave, sandwiched almost entirely between Armenia and Iran.

On June 12, Azerbaijan and Turkey launched a joint, large-scale military tactical exercise in Nakhchivan (Anadolu, June 12). These exercisesaimed at developing bilateral interoperabilityfeatured both offensive and defensive combat operations and involved about 5,000 personnel, 250 armed vehicles, as well as 500 other military vehicles and combat helicopters (Apa.az, June 16). This is the third such joint exercise in Nakhchivan since 2012.

Azerbaijan's most steadfast security partner, Turkey, is linked to Nakhchivan via a roughly 12-kilometer-long borderline. The two countries' strategic relationship in the security sector is regulated by the Agreement on Strategic Cooperation and Mutual Support, adopted in 2010. Because of this treaty, Azerbaijan relies heavily on Turkey's firm willingness to assist in cementing Nakhchivan's defensibility and resilience (Haqqin.az, June 19). But for Yerevan, any such activities pertaining to the Azerbaijani exclave represent a growing security threat evolving in Armenia's strategic rear. Therefore, politico-military developments in Nakhchivan, like last June's joint military maneuvers, have been particularly irritating to Yerevan, whose security outlook is strongly shaped by historical experience.

The Ankara-Baku alliance presumes that the Turkish military can be deployed to Azerbaijan in a crisis. However, Armenian diplomats have repeatedly asserted that this is not legally applicable to the Nakhchivan exclave, invoking stipulations found in the October 1921 Treaty of Kars (News.am, April 18). Yerevan argues that this Russo-Turkish accord, along with the earlier Treaty of Moscow (March 1921, also between Soviet Russia and Turkey), in fact illegally drew the borders of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia without the consent of the three newly Bolshevik-occupied nations. So although Nakhchivan is today internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, Armenian society continues to view this region as an inherent part of Armenian cultural and historical heritagemuch like Karabakh. This sense prevails despite repeated cases of destruction of Armenian cultural heritage sites in Nakhchivan since 2001 (PanArmenian, March 3, 2014).

Armenian diplomat Arman Navasardyan has been urging Yerevan to take a much more hardline stance when it comes to Nakhchivan. In particular, he has suggested trying to draw the United States' attention to the growing Turkish-Azerbaijani military activities at Armenia's backdoor. According to Navasardyan, "Armenia ought to recalibrate its military-strategic posture vis-a-vis Nakhchivan's current role" in the regional security environment (168.am, April 28). More recently, in a conversation with this author, former Armenian ambassador to Canada Ara Papyan stressed the importance of "fostering a foreign policy agenda in an effort to attain certain recognition of Armenia's legitimate political rights regarding Nakhchivan." In a bid to question the legitimacy of the two aforementioned early 20th century Russo-Turkish treaties, some Armenian politicians and diplomats assert that "prior to the illegal Russo-Turkish accords, the British, while evacuating [their forces] from the Caucasus in 1919 [following the end of World War I], ceded Nakhchivan to Armeniaan Entente ally" (Author's interview, July 17).

While military clashes between Yerevan and Baku have tended to cluster mainly around Karabakh, the Nakhchivan segment of the Armenia-Azerbaijan state border has remained unpredictable and fraught with explosive potential. Periodic skirmishes around Nakhchivan are nothing new. Notably, clashes erupted there in 20142015, leaving at least four Armenian soldiers dead (RFE/RL, June 6, 2014; 1in.am, June 27, 2015). In retaliation, the Armenian side reportedly succeeded in entrenching itself in nearby high ground, thereby attaining strategic positional advantage overlooking Nakhchivan City. As a result, Armenian Armed Forces gained the ability to directly observe as much 50 percent of the autonomous republic's territory (Horizon Weekly, July 27, 2015).

A distance of only 50 km separates Yerevan's suburbs from Nakhchivan, enabling Azerbaijani rocket artillery stationed there to reach the Armenian capital. Further concern for Armenia stems from the fact that a strategic highway that connects the north of the country with its southern provinces in some parts passes particularly close to the border with Nakhchivan. A military encroachment on this important but vulnerable artery by Azerbaijani forces could seriously interrupt Armenia's physical connection with its amicable southern neighborIran. Moreover, this would leave exposed the western flank of the de facto "Republic of Artsakh" (the self-proclaimed official name of the separatist Nagorno-Karabakh Republic).

Since the ceasefire regime established in Karabakh in 19941995, the Nakhchivan region has undergone a strategic transformationfrom a defensive stronghold to a formidable bridgehead from which locally stationed, self-sufficient military forces could conduct a variety of combat operations. In late 2013, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev established the Nakhchivan Separate Army on the basis of the Fifth Army Corps (Trend, December 20, 2013). Azerbaijan further massed its forces in the region by adding two newly formed infantry units and boosting the rocket artillery arsenal. The newly formed artillery brigade service is equipped with Turkish-manufactured T-300 Kasirga (180 km range), T-122 Sakarya (40 km range) and Russian-supplied 9K58 Smerch (6090 km range) multiple rocket launchers. To counter this threat, Armenia retains two Army Corps with two rocket artillery brigades, tank units and up to five Motorized Infantry Regiments stationed all along the perimeter of the Azerbaijani exclave (Regnum, January 14).

Nakhchivan represents an "Achilles Heel" for both Armenia and Azerbaijan. And the dynamic security environment around this exclave turns the region into a potential "powder keg" where a new stage of fighting could erupt. Therefore, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) Minsk Groupcharged with resolving Armenia and Azerbaijan's standoff over Karabakhshould not lose sight of the two countries' mounting tensions over the frequently overlooked Nakhchivan.

Copyright notice:  2010 The Jamestown Foundation
'Railroad Wars' Intensify in South Caucasus

Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Paul Goble Publication Date 1 August 2017 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 102 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, 'Railroad Wars' Intensify in South Caucasus, 1 August 2017, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 102, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5992c5d24.html [accessed 13 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Link to original story on Jamestown website

The competition between two rail corridor projects in the South Caucasus-the north-south one, long promoted by Moscow, and the east-west one backed by China, Central Asia and the West-has been intensifying. Recently, one Armenian analyst has gone so far as to speak about the outbreak of "railroad wars" in the region, a term of art seldom used anywhere since the years before World War I in the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East more generally (Iarex.ru, July 27, 28, 31).

But if the term seems anachronistic, it is fully applicable today argues Vage Davtyan, a researcher at the Slavic University in Yerevan. As he notes, the outcome of this competition will determine the geopolitical futures not just of the three countries in the region-Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia-but also that of their respective backers, who will either win big or lose big as a result. The political problems that must be overcome and the enormous sums of money that must be found to realize either the north-south or the east-west corridor are profound. And this makes it difficult to predict which transit corridor will win, Davtyan suggests (Iarex.ru, July 27). As a result, one country in the region, Azerbaijan, is trying to hedge its bets by seeking to participate in both projects (Iarex.ru, July 28).

Until the collapse of the Soviet Union, the north-south corridor was the only game in town, Davtyan says. The Russians ran a rail line along the western shore of the Caspian already in the 19th century, hoping to gain access to Persia; and the Soviets added a second line on the shore of the Black Sea in 1942, in order to secure military assistance from the Western allies. Moscow developed the rail network of each of the three republics in the region in terms of that north-south imperative. And by the end of Soviet times, Moscow had electrified almost all of this regional rail network except for two segments in Armenia (Iarex.ru, July 27).

With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the three newly independent South Caucasus countries were forced to adapt to "new economic realities and develop their own tariff policies." But each of these was complicated by the Karabakh war, the closure of the Armenian-Turkish border, and the conflicts between Georgia and Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Moreover, they were further challenged by the entrance of the United States, the European Union and China as extra-regional players who promoted an east-west rail line corridor just as they had backed the construction of east-west pipelines previously (Iarex.ru, July 27).

The disruption of Soviet-era rail connections, Davtyan points out, had unexpected consequences. First of all, shippers could not move cargo along the entire route by rail alone, and thus they shifted to intermodal means. Second of all, that shift boosted the cost of moving raw materials, goods and people in the region. Davtyan gives the following example: it now costs more to move cargo from the Georgian port of Poti to Yerevan than it does to ship the same cargo from China to Poti in the first place. Unless this problem is addressed, he says, it will hold back the economy not only of Armenia but of Georgia and Azerbaijan as well (Iarex.ru, July 28).

Yerevan has looked to Moscow and its north-south project for the last decade, even to the point of allowing Russian Rail to take effective control of Armenian rail lines. But Russia lacks the funds to build the north-south route on its own. Iran initially promised to pay for much of it but has now rescinded that offer. And as a result, Yerevan has been more open to taking part in east-west projects, something that would require some resolution of the Karabakh dispute with Baku. That is unlikely to happen anytime soon, but Yerevan's new willingness to think about the east-west project shows that the situation in this railway war, as stagnant as it may appear to outsiders, is having an effect (Iarex.ru, July 28).

Continuing the "balanced" foreign policy approach of former president Heydar Aliyev, Baku is also interested in being part of both these projects, and is in a better position than Yerevan or Tbilisi to provide financing. Indeed, at least since 1998, the Azerbaijani authorities have seen their country as the natural intersect point between the north-south line Russia wants and the east-west one China and the West would prefer (Iarex.ru, July 31).

But Azerbaijan faces potential competition from a different north-south corridor than the one it now sits astride. Moscow, Yerevan and Tehran are discussing the possibility of building a rail link between Iran and Armenia, one that would become "a potential competitor of the Kazvin-Resht-Astara road." At present, this project, which is estimated to have a $3 billion price tag, is on hold because of economic difficulties in Russia and Iran and because of uncertainties about the reopening of rail connections between Georgia and the Russian Federation. Without that happening, an Iranian rail link into Armenia alone would not be profitable (Iarex.ru, July 31).

Because of these financial difficulties and because the various military-political and ethno-national conflicts in the south Caucasus threaten to keep that region a wall rather than a bridge for outsiders, neither of the competing rail projects may be fully built anytime soon. But articles like Davtyan's suggest that just below the surface, there are serious economic and political struggles going on. And as economic and political divides deepen, they are becoming more rather than less serious in this new "railroad war."

Copyright notice:  2010 The Jamestown Foundation
Opposition Party's Report on Russia's Syria Campaign Costs Dismissed by Government

Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author John C. K. Daly Publication Date 31 July 2017 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 101 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, Opposition Party's Report on Russia's Syria Campaign Costs Dismissed by Government, 31 July 2017, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 101, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5992c6534.html [accessed 13 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Link to original story on Jamestown website

In September 2015, embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad officially requested Russian assistance, citing the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation signed by Syria and the USSR in 1980, with Russian President Vladimir Putin immediately agreeing, offering diplomatic, economic and military support that continues to the present day. Russian political opposition has recently begun to use the cost of this support as a political issue. On July 20, the Russian business journal Vedomosti published an analysis by the opposition Yabloko party, which put a price tag on Russia's Syrian campaign. Yabloko estimated that Russia's military intervention, which began in September 2015, cost 108-140.4 billion rubles ($1.83 billion-$2.38 billion) (Vedomosti, July 20). Seeking to bolster its credibility, Yabloko said that it used the same methodology as the RBC news website did for its March 2016 estimate. The Russian ministry of defense's push-back was immediate; the same day that the Vedomosti article appeared, Major-General Igor Konashenkov, Chief of the Directorate of Media Service and Information of the Ministry of Defense, told reporters, "We shall once again have to disappoint all the former and future failed accountants and analysis of military spending. The expenditure on the operation of the Russian Aerospace Forces in the Syrian Arab Republic does not exceed the Russian Defense Ministry's budget for routine combat and operational training of the troops" (Moskovskii Komsomolets, July 20, 2017). The ministry of defense did not provide its own statistics to counter those in the report.

The Yabloko report highlighted the paucity of official government data on the cost of Russia's intervention in Syria. In the absence of official pronouncements about the cost, Russian and foreign journalists were largely forced to rely upon non-Russian sources, which in turn were utilized by the Russian media. Two months after the deployment began, on October 20, 2015, The Moscow Times published an analytical article utilizing data it commissioned from a British defense publisher (The Moscow Times, October 20, 2015). When the newspaper requested operational cost data on Syria from the ministry of defense, it received no reply. Britain's respected The Economist magazine followed the same model, adding that Vasily Kashin from the Moscow-based Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies estimated the annual costs of Russian intervention in Syria at $1 billion to $2 billion annually (The Economist, October 30, 2015).

The Syrian campaign has been Russia's first military operation beyond the boundaries of the former USSR since the end of the Cold War. The Russian government has not been completely silent on the cost of its Syrian operations, but the information released thus far has been sparse, episodic and incomplete, and according to Western analysts, an underestimation of the actual expenses. The first official pronouncement by a senior Russian official occurred almost two months after The Moscow Times article appeared-when, on December 9, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev called the defense ministry's expenditures on Syria "a secret," but added that they were within the ministry's budget (TASS, December 9, 2015).

Subsequently, in March 2016, during a meeting with Russian Civil Air Corps officers, Russian President Vladimir Putin reported that the first six months of the military operation in Syria cost 33 billion rubles ($464 million) (RT, March 17, 2016). Analyzing the expenses involved in the deployment, the commander-in-chief noted that while the operation required certain expenses, "the bulk of them-about 33 billion rubles-was already contained in the budget of the ministry of defensefor training exercises and combat training." Putin added that these funds were simply "redirected" before concluding that "no one has come up with a more effective way of preparing and honing skills than real fighting" (Moskovskii Komsomolets, March 17, 2016).

Until the appearance of the Yabloko analysis and the subsequent response by the ministry of defense, the comments of Medvedev and Putin remained the sole official remarks on the cost of Russia's Syrian operations. Even as the Russian ministry of defense remains reticent to disclose operational costs, the Syrian deployment has provided it with a number of benefits; it has allowed Russia to test new equipment in battle and given its soldiers operational experience that would increase their operational battlefield capability. It has also boosted opportunities for Russian armaments and exports, as it has provided a vivid demonstration of Russian military equipment for prospective overseas customers.

That the Yabloko party had a political agenda behind the release of its statistical report is evident in the choice of wording, which includes such phrases as "meaningless operation" and "senseless, bloody and costly operation" (Yabloko.ru, July 20). Behind Yabloko's release of its Syrian report is its anti-war "Time to return home" campaign, conducted in 40 regions of the country. Yabloko argues that the money wasted in Syria should be redirected to developing the national economy, infrastructure, medicine, education, and to increase pensions and social benefits. The campaign, which began on June 19, has managed to collect more than 50,000 signatures (Press Statement, Yabloko party, July 17).

While Russia intervened in Syria in September 2015 to help al-Assad and quell the armed unrest against his regime, many elements of which had foreign financial and logistical assistance, the campaign's larger strategic benefits for Russia included curbing US influence in the Middle East while projecting increased Russian military power into the volatile region to a historically unprecedented degree. As the Russian armed forces signed in January a 49-year lease with Syria, giving the navy use of the port of Tartus and the air force use of Hmeymim air base, queries about the cost of Russia's military operations in Syria will likely grow with time.

Copyright notice:  2010 The Jamestown Foundation
Russia Launches 'Summer Offensive' in the Domain of Information and Cyber Security

Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Sergey Sukhankin Publication Date 1 August 2017 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 102 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, Russia Launches 'Summer Offensive' in the Domain of Information and Cyber Security, 1 August 2017, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 102, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5992c6f44.html [accessed 13 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Link to original story on Jamestown website

The Russian parliament (Duma) adopted a piece of legislation, on July 21, which virtually outlaws anonymous communication over Internet-based instant messengers (IM) (Rosbalt.ru, July 21). The new law forces all IMs operating in the Russian Federation to:

- identify users by their actual telephone number;

- store and protect data pertaining to the identification of its users;

- block the delivery of messages that contain information that fails to comply with normative acts and laws of the Russian Federation; and

- restrict the delivery of messages at the request of the Russian government.

Moreover, a week earlier, on July 12, the Duma adopted a package of laws (three in total) to regulate the protection of Russia's critical informational infrastructure against viruses and cyberattacks (Rosbalt.ru, July 12). In order to achieve this goal, the legislation stipulates the creation of a system (directly controlled by government agencies) to detect, warn and liquidate virus threats and cyberattacks against online information resources. These new laws also introduce severe punitive measures. For instance, anyone responsible for hacker attacks (and the creation of hostile online software) will be punished with up to ten years in prison and a fine of 1 million rubles (approximately $16,000). Whereas violations of rules and regulations pertaining to the storage, processing and transmission of protected information will be punished by six years of imprisonment. Both sets of laws come into legal force on January 1, 2018.

The newly adopted laws were marked in Moscow by a demonstration, on July 23, which drew more than 800 people protesting against the restrictive measures governing online activities. Interestingly, the march took on an explicitly political character. The majority of the assembled protesters carried posters critical of President Vladimir Putin and shouted slogans such as "Shame," "Freedom of speech everywhere and always," "Russia without Putin," "Say no to Roskomnadzor [the Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media]," and "Putin lies." In addition, the demonstrators demanded the freeing of activist Dmitry Bogatov, who was incarcerated for allegedly helping to organize the anti-government and anti-corruption protests in April (Dozhd, July 23).

The two most recent decrees on information and cyber security should be seen as the continuation of a broader Russian campaign pertaining to online activities. In March, LinkedIn Corporation announced that it had failed to reach a consensus with Russian authorities over the company's refusal to localize the private data of its users (whose number reached approximately five million in 2016). This enables Rosmondanzor to continue blocking the professional career-focused social network on the Russian market (Kommersant, March 9). On the other hand, Twitter, one of the largest global social networks operating on the Russian market, had "agreed" to start localizing its users' personal data in Russia. It is expected to complete this process by the middle of 2018 (Kommersant, April 19).

On May 30, Russian official sources revealed that Belgorod Oblast was chosen for a unique experiment: it is to become the first Russian region where the so-called "cyber-squads" (kiberdryzhiny) project will be launched (Rosbalt, May 30). Russian sources contend that these formations will be tasked with searching for "adverse" and/or "illegal" information found on domestic Internet sites. The decree, signed by the local governor, Evgenii Savchenko, explicitly states that these units will be concerned with the "formation of positive content [the meaning of this notion is not specified]" and the "stimulation of 'social projects' in the domain of information security." Another task assumed by the kiberdryzhiny is defined as "participating in elaborating methods to counter information and cyber crimes and offences"; this is to be conducted jointly with other governmental forces, agencies and institutions. Particular emphasis is placed on recruitment of and cooperation with a younger generation of Russians. For instance, the project will be coordinated by the "Center of Youth Initiatives," which is on the payroll of the regional Youth Policy Management Department. The work of the Center will focus on daily analysis of data collected by the "cyber squads." The main goals are "protecting young Russians from harmful information, [and] the elimination of extremist content, child pornography and gambling." Yet, considering how legal charges of "radicalism" and "extremism" are frequently applied in Russia (see EDM, May 21), the genuine tasks of the Center might be rather different.

Meanwhile, the cyber security powers that were expected to be granted to the Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia) (see EDM, March 21) are now coming to pass-despite initial dismissals by Russian officials. On May 19, Colonel General Sergey Melikov (the organization's first deputy director) announced that the Rosgvardia will begin training IT specialists and personnel specifically tasked with monitoring online social networks (Interfax, May 19). Melikov also admitted that these units are already operating under the umbrella of the Perm Military Institute. Moreover, he emphasized that IT and information security should now be seen as the main priority of the National Guard (Rublacklist.net, May 19).

Finally, on July 26, it was announced that the Russian Duma may adopt new amendments in the fall of 2017 regarding fines for spreading "illegal content and the dissemination of false information on social networks" (Vedomosti, July 26). The ruling United Russia party is vigorously promoting this proposed legislation and particularly wants to see it applied to so-called "foreign" social networks.

Clearly, Russia is intensifying its previously launched effort to centralize control over the domestic cyber and information space. And the latest legislation and developments look to be even more far-reaching than earlier laws and regulations. Aside from employing increased numbers of Russians-from youth to IT professionals to members of the Rosgvardia-in order to more effectively strangle the domestic information space, Moscow now looks ready to launch an offense against so-called "foreign" social networks. If successful, this would be a potential game-changer in the process of gradually eroding the Russian population's connection to the outside world.

Copyright notice:  2010 The Jamestown Foundation
One UN peacekeeper killed, another injured in coordinated attack on mission base in central Mali

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 14 August 2017 Cite as UN News Service, One UN peacekeeper killed, another injured in coordinated attack on mission base in central Mali, 14 August 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5992c7c54.html [accessed 13 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali today confirmed the death of a national soldier and one UN peacekeeper in an attack by non-identified gunmen.

We mourn the loss of a United Nations peacekeeper killed in Mali earlier this morning while serving with our UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission (MINUSMA) following at attack by armed assailants to a MINUSMA camp in the town of Douenza, MINUSMA said in a note on social media.

A second UN peacekeeper was injured in the attack, the Mission added.

Today, around 5:30 am, the MINUSMA camps in Douenza, Mopti region, have been the target of an attack coordinated by unidentified gunmen, the UN Mission said in a statement in French.

A first group of assailants fired at a MINUSMA camp from an adjacent hill. In reaction, the Malian armed forces, established in the vicinity of the camp, retaliated. A second group walking on foot to the other MINUSMA camp opened fire. The peacekeepers have responded and two assailants have been killed, the UN Mission added.

It noted that MINUSMA condemned in the strongest terms this revolting terrorist attack.

The Mission reiterated its determination to continue to fulfill its responsibilities in support of Mali and its people in order to contribute to the achievement of lasting peace and stability.
UN chief Guterres condemns terrorist attack in Burkina Faso

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 14 August 2017 Cite as UN News Service, UN chief Guterres condemns terrorist attack in Burkina Faso, 14 August 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5992c98e4.html [accessed 13 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has condemned the terrorist attack carried out yesterday in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso.

The Secretary-General stresses that there can be no justification for such acts of indiscriminate violence, said his Deputy Spokesperson, Farhan Haq, in a statement.

Further to the statement, Mr. Guterres extended his heartfelt condolences to the Government and people of Burkina Faso and wished a speedy recovery to the injured.

Media reports suggest that gunmen killed nearly 20 people and wounded several others during an overnight attack on a restaurant in Burkina Faso's capital.

The Secretary-General reiterated the UN's support to Burkina Faso in its fight against violent extremism and terrorism.

He also reaffirms the Organization's commitment to the countries of the G5 Sahel as they scale up efforts to tackle multiple security challenges in order to promote peace and development in the sub-region, concluded the statement, referring to the so-called Group of Five (G5) countries  Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger  that have deployed a joint force to tackle the threat of terrorism, as well as the serious challenges posed by transnational organized crime in Africa's restive Sahel region.
Iran: Scheduled execution of man arrested as teenager is an all-out assault on children's rights

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 15 August 2017 Cite as Amnesty International, Iran: Scheduled execution of man arrested as teenager is an all-out assault on children's rights, 15 August 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5992caa94.html [accessed 13 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

The planned execution on Wednesday morning of Mehdi Bohlouli, who was only a child at the time of the crime, just days after the hanging of another man arrested as a child, is a sickening act of cruelty that must be stopped immediately, said Amnesty International today.

Mehdi Bohlouli was transferred to solitary confinement in Raja'i Shahr Prison in Karaj, near Tehran, on Monday morning. His family have been told to go to the prison for their final visit today. He has spent more than 15 years on death row. It follows the execution last Thursday (10 August) of Alireza Tajiki, who was just 15 at the time of his arrest.

"By scheduling this unlawful execution when the world is still expressing outrage about Alireza Tajiki, the Iranian authorities are effectively declaring to the international community that they have no shame in remaining the world's top executioner of those who were children at the time of the crime. The head of Iran's judiciary must immediately intervene and stop this execution from taking place before Iran's cruel justice system takes yet another life," said Magdalena Mughrabi, Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.

"The latest round of executions of individuals for crimes committed while under 18 shows that the sickening enthusiasm of Iran's justice system for the death penalty knows no bound. This is nothing short of an all-out assault on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child."

Mehdi Bohlouli was sentenced to death by a criminal court in Tehran in November 2001 after he was convicted of murder for fatally stabbing a man during a fight. He was 17 when the crime took place and has spent his entire young adult life on death row. This is the fourth time that he has been scheduled for execution and transferred to solitary confinement. The last time was in April 2017, when a postponement was announced the day before the scheduled execution date. In January 2017, his request for a retrial was denied.

Iran is one of the last countries in the world that still uses the death penalty against juvenile offenders. In January 2016, Amnesty International published a report which found that despite piecemeal reforms introduced by the Iranian authorities in 2013 to deflect criticism of their appalling record on executions of juvenile offenders, they have continued to condemn dozens of young people to death for crimes committed when they were below 18 years of age.

Since the beginning of this year, Iran has executed at least four individuals who were under the age of 18 at the time of the crime. As of August 2017, Amnesty International had identified the names of at least 89 individuals on death row who were under the age of 18 when the crime was committed.

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
Last August, Baotou Iron and Steel Group (Baogang Group), an iron and steel State-owned enterprise based in Baotou city, Inner Mongolia autonomous region, signed a contract for seamless pipe supply with the construction project for Beijing Daxing International Airports main terminal.

Ive been cooperating with Baogang for more than ten years. With their unique rare earth metal-based high toughness and variety of types, the seamless steel pipes have been widely used in airport and exhibition hall construction projects, said Chen Rongxing, representative for Baogangs products in the East China region.

Chen Rongxing, representative of Baogangs products in the East China region, shows Baogangs seamless steel pipes to a visiting journalist. [Photo/chinadaily.com.cn]

Chen added that Baogang had supplied their seamless pipes to more than thirty projects, including the Birds Nest, the National Stadium, Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport and Beijing South Railway Station.

Rendering of Beijing Daxing International Airport [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Covering an area of 2,680 hectares (6,600 acres), Beijing Daxing International Airport, a planned new international airport serving Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, is scheduled for completion in 2019.

To date, about 12,000 tons of seamless pipes have been used in the project, 80 percent of the total seamless pipe-use, said Wang Deming, quality director of the seamless pipes.

The main terminal of the new airport is under construction. [Photo/chinadaily.com.cn]

Wang pointed to the seamless pipes applied to the main construction body, saying, With the use of the seamless pipes, the largest span length reaches 120 meters, which reduces welding costs and improves construction stability.

An official from Baogang Groups publicity department told chinadaily.com, Our clients are particularly satisfied with our product, especially our seamless steel pipes. And follow-up orders are under discussion.

Seamless steel pipe workshop in Baogang Group. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Baogang is the largest steel business based in the autonomous region, and one of the oldest iron and steel industrial bases in China, with a large production volume of iron and steel, and the largest scientific research and production output of rare earth metals in China.

Baogang can produce 55 varieties and 1,112 specifications of steel products such as slab, heavy rail and seamless pipe to meet the demands of domestic and overseas markets. Their seamless steel pipe in particular has recently received widely favorable responses. Ranging from 60mm to426mm, it has all the features consumers desire.




Kenya: Attempts to shut down human rights groups unlawful and irresponsible

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 15 August 2017 Cite as Amnesty International, Kenya: Attempts to shut down human rights groups unlawful and irresponsible, 15 August 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59930a6e4.html [accessed 13 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Responding to attempts by Kenya's NGO regulator to shut down two human rights organizations - the Kenya National Human Rights Commission (KHRC) and the African Centre for Open Governance (AfriCOG) - Michelle Kagari, Amnesty International's Deputy Regional Director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes, said:

"The NGO Coordination Board's decision must be seen for what it really is - a cynical attempt to discredit human rights organizations. This is an unlawful and irresponsible move in this critical post-election period.

"This assault on human rights groups must be immediately halted. The Kenyan authorities must rein in the NGO Coordination Board and not allow such grotesque witch-hunts to take place."

Background

The NGO Coordination Board announced it was deregistering the KHRC on 14 August, accusing the organization of operating illegal bank accounts, failing to pay its taxes, employing foreigners without work permits, and making secret payments to its board members, one of whom is the director of Amnesty's East Africa regional office.

On 15 August, it sent a separate letter to the Director of Criminal Investigations accusing AfriCoG of failing to register as an NGO, and asking him to close it down and arrest its directors and members.

Both organizations have been involved in election monitoring in recent weeks.

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
Kenya: Protect right to free expression in wake of contested elections

Publisher Article 19 Publication Date 15 August 2017 Cite as Article 19, Kenya: Protect right to free expression in wake of contested elections, 15 August 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/599312834.html [accessed 13 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

On 8 August, Kenyans went to the polls to decide their next President and choose Members of County Assemblies, Members of the National Assembly, Women Representatives, Members of Senate, and Governors. There were eight presidential candidates, including frontrunners incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta, and opposition candidate Raila Odinga. On Friday 11 August, despite uncertainties during the week and claims from Odinga of manipulation of the results to favour his competitor , the electoral management body, the Independent Elections and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), declared that Kenyatta had won a second term.

ARTICLE 19 welcomes the peaceful conduct of the elections, and the largely free and fair election process that saw an estimated 79.4 per cent of the 19,611,423 registered voters cast their vote. This was in spite of concerns around voter registration process that left out many eligible citizens, limited voter education.

This year's election marks a significant improvement on past general elections in the country, and ARTICLE 19 observed that the voting process was by and large transparent, free and fair, and adhered to principles of human rights and democracy. ARTICLE 19 election observers as well as international and regional observers noted that the process went well apart from a few reported minor incidents.

In light of the allegations made the National Super Alliance (NASA) regarding the alleged hacking of the Kenya Integrated Elections Management System (KIEMS) and manipulations of the voter results transmission system, ARTICLE 19 recommends that the IEBC commission an independent body to undertake a comprehensive review and makes public the findings as soon as possible. ARTICLE 19 recommends that the IEBC ensures greater clarity and transparency in the process of verification, transmission and tabulation of votes and proactively discloses relevant information in a formatsthat citizens can use to verify the results.

While this year's election has not seen a return to 2007's post-election violence, which saw more than 1,200 people killed and hundreds of thousands displaced, at least 24 people have been killed in election related violence since the vote. We call on Kenyan security forces to respect the right to peaceful protest and avoid the use of excessive force against protestors.

There have also been reports of journalists being harassed, beaten and detained for covering protests since the vote, including journalist Caleb Kingwara, who was attacked by youths allegedly affiliated to a candidate for a gubernatorial seat.

In June 2017, ARTICLE 19 and Human Rights Watch documented a worrying increase in harassment of journalists in Kenya in the run-up to the elections. We urge Kenyan security forces to ensure journalists are able to carry out their work and report on the election process and protests around it, and protect the public's right to information at this critical time. All attacks on journalists must be fully and effectively investigated and perpetrators brought to justice, to address ongoing impunity for attacks on the press.

Despite the overall success of the vote, ARTICLE 19 is concerned about the high number of spoilt and rejected votes. It is estimated that about 400,000 votes (including 81,685 on the presidential poll) were rejected.. This reflects a need for the IEBC to embark on more rigorous voter education to ensure that every citizen is able to participate fully in the elections process and that their vote counts.

Our monitors also noted that there is a lack of clarity on the handling of voters who need assistance such as the very old, the sick and people with disabilities. Issues such as access to stations and booths, and appropriate and effective voter assistance should be addressed. The IEBC must develop concrete guidelines on voter assistance and ensure full access to polling booths for all.

As opposition calls for strikes against the vote continue, ARTICLE 19 calls on the Kenyan government to respect the right to freedom of expression and information by ensuring the right to protest is protected, and journalists are able to carry out their work without threats or arrest.

Copyright notice: Copyright ARTICLE 19
New order on the border: Can foreign aid get past Syria's jihadis?

Publisher IRIN Author Aron Lund Publication Date 15 August 2017 Cite as IRIN, New order on the border: Can foreign aid get past Syria's jihadis?, 15 August 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59932f634.html [accessed 13 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Radical jihadis have cemented their dominance over northwestern Syria with the victory last month of Tahrir al-Sham over its main rival, the Turkish-backed Islamist group Ahrar al-Sham. But the two million civilians in the region may pay the price for that win as aid agencies rethink their strategies.

International donors and aid professionals in Turkey have long been worried by jihadi influence on the Syrian side of the border, where Islamist factions have been running rival governance projects and tried to influence aid distribution. Tahrir al-Sham and Ahrar al-Sham both operated civilian bodies that organised road repairs, electricity, food distribution, and other services.

In March, internal conflicts saw Tahrir al-Sham clamp down on an Ahrar-aligned group channelling aid from Turkey. Soon after, Tahrir al-Sham tried to extend its influence over Idlib's financial infrastructure and money transfer offices, which handle salary payments from donors abroad, as noted in a recent report by the American Syria expert Sam Heller.

The fact that Tahrir al-Sham is widely listed internationally as a terrorist entity and Ahrar is not now has major repercussions. A terrorist-designated group trying to control aid distribution and salary payments in Syria is unacceptable to the international aid community. "We're all bound by sanctions lists," an official with a Western donor government told Heller. "We can't work with organisations linked to a listed entity."

After Tahrir al-Sham's defeat of Ahrar on 21 July, its military hegemony quickly rolled over into civilian sectors, with Tahrir-run service bodies knocking their Ahrar-backed counterparts out of business. For example, Ahrar's organisation for electricity provision in Idlib was folded into a similar group created by Tahrir on 29 July.

Most importantly, the jihadis seized Bab al-Hawa, the main border crossing between Turkey and Syria's northwestern Idlib Province, which has been in opposition hands since mid-2012.

While Ahrar's control over Bab al-Hawa was not unproblematic, having a terrorist-designated group like Tahrir in control of this logistical bottleneck is a potential deal-breaker for international donors. Turkey, too, considers Tahrir al-Sham a terrorist group and has limited traffic through the crossing.

For now, the jihadis seem willing to rule with a light touch by Syrian standards, leaving local aid and governance arrangements in place to avoid a clash with Western nations, humanitarians, and the UN system. But there is no longer any question who is ultimately in charge - in Idlib, as elsewhere, political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

Sustaining a democratic opposition or subsidising a jihadi emirate?

Right now, foreign donors are taking stock of the situation, trying to figure out how to bypass Tahrir's political and military dominance and whether doing so is really worth the effort.

Emergency humanitarian assistance such as food or medicine will likely continue to flow through Bab al-Hawa, unless the jihadis make a self-destructive move. "There are some relatively clear tripwires that will panic donors and get humanitarian aid cut off, but so far Tahrir al-Sham seems to have been smart enough to avoid triggering them," Heller told IRIN. "If Tahrir al-Sham starts openly, systematically interfering in relief distribution, donors are going to cut off support."

Political stabilisation assistance outside the UN framework, which has been delivered by Western and Arab nations to select opposition structures, is at greater risk of being cut.

In Idlib, the UK has led the way on this type of support, though many other nations have contributed too. The centrepiece of this effort has been to fund and empower Idlib's local councils, which provide villages and towns with some semblance of political representation while also functioning as service implementers and aid distributers: handing out subsidised food and fuel, paying municipal salaries, fixing potholes and collecting garbage, coordinating aid groups, running clinics and schools, and so on.

Donors have also put money into high-visibility, opposition-branded civil society and media activism as well as emergency services like the Free Syria Police and Syria Civil Defence, better known as the White Helmets. Most of these efforts are carried out in deliberately visible collaboration with Western-friendly, anti-jihadi actors such as the Turkey-based National Coalition and its governance body, the Syrian Interim Government, in order to cultivate a constituency for them in opposition-held Syria.

The results have been mixed at best, with some support also benefiting jihadi groups. Nevertheless, political aid from the UK and other nations has helped pro-Western and democratic strands of the opposition survive inside otherwise inhospitable Islamist-run regions of northwestern Syria.

However, if Idlib's foreign-backed activist groups and local councils cannot throw off the jihadi yoke, and if they also have no plausible future under the government of President Bashar al-Assad, the original logic behind supporting them is no longer there. Continued support will then come to be seen as a strategic dead end or, worse, as a subsidy for Idlib's jihadi rulers.

It may take some time for the situation to shake out completely, but it is highly unlikely that a Tahrir al-Sham-dominated Idlib will receive Western-funded stabilisation and governance aid indefinitely. Neither Americans nor Europeans are interested in bankrolling the civil service of a jihadi emirate, and that is increasingly what Idlib looks like to them.

"Idlib Province is the largest al-Qaeda safe haven since 9/11," said Brett McGurk, who heads US efforts against the so-called Islamic State, at a Middle East Institute panel last month.

As a result, northwestern Syria is abuzz with rumours about impending aid cuts. For Syrians who live there, or whose families do, it is a deeply unnerving thought.

"The northern region is directly dependent on foreign aid since it is more or less encircled," an activist involved with Idlib opposition and aid operations told IRIN. "If you were to stop that aid you would expose the people to an incredible amount of brutality and horror, especially the already-exposed medical care and infrastructure."

Private donors fear jihadis, and being seen as jihadis

The activist was more hopeful about the prospect for support from non-state donors. "Privately-funded aid won't cease to work," he told IRIN. "It is implemented by local actors on the ground who act and work in spite of the circumstances."

In many cases, that is probably true, but private aid groups are worried too. Even some Islamist aid groups seem deeply concerned by Tahrir al-Sham's growing dominance, either because they fear being shut down by the jihadis or because they're afraid that Tahrir's terrorist designation will rub off on them.

"Of course, it is very hard having them there," said Karim Ben Daher, a member of the Sweden-based Islamic Charity Center, which funds a privately run hospital in Idlib Province. "Before, the other groups in that area, like the Islam Army or Ahrar al-Sham, provided a kind of security," he told IRIN in a recent interview. "You could have them as protection when you were there. But now we don't know what's going to happen."

The hospital backed by Ben Daher's group is located in Aqrabat, near the Turkish border. "It's in this little village that has its own local council and the armed groups never ran things there," Ben Daher said. "But it is close to Saraqeb and Sarmada, where they were fighting recently. It is also close to the Bab al-Hawa crossing, which was previously controlled by Ahrar al-Sham. Now I guess it is controlled by Tahrir al-Sham, even though it is a little unclear at this point."

Ironically, although Ben Daher opposes the jihadi militants on both religious and political grounds, he fears that Western governments will lump him in with Tahrir al-Sham. "If you work in an area controlled by a terrorist-listed group, you will be branded suspicious," he told IRIN. "We can try to wave this problem away as much as we like, but that's unfortunately how things are."

How will Tahrir al-Sham manage Bab al-Hawa?

The Bab al-Hawa crossing was shut down during the intra-rebel violence on 19 July, causing an immediate spike in prices in Idlib. After reopening on 25 July, Bab al-Hawa is nominally run by a group of neutral civilians, but the current administration is widely understood to serve Tahrir al-Sham, just as it previously obeyed Ahrar al-Sham.

Who controls the crossing matters - a lot. Transports through Bab al-Hawa accounted for two thirds of all international cross-border aid from Turkey in 2016, according to Linda Tom, a Damascus-based spokeswoman for the UN emergency aid coordination body, OCHA. In an email to IRIN, Tom described the crossing as "extremely important", explaining that millions of civilians have received humanitarian assistance through Bab al-Hawa in the past year alone, making it a "lifeline for civilians in northwestern Syria".

Until ousted from the crossing in July, Ahrar al-Sham derived both money and influence from Bab al-Hawa, where it was able to regulate the civilian trade - the Bab al-Hawa administrators even sought to weed out purportedly counter-revolutionary and un-Islamic literature. But although Ahrar al-Sham had excellent relations with Turkey and isn't internationally sanctioned, there were limits to how much the group could interfere with traffic without provoking a backlash.

In particular, the Ahrar al-Sham leaders are said to have been careful about causing problems for humanitarian transports, and they generally appear to have respected the red lines drawn by foreign donors. But the group reportedly siphoned off millions of dollars from commercial traffic and high-value goods like construction material.

Tahrir al-Sham had surely hoped to maintain arrangements established by Ahrar after seizing Bab al-Hawa, but the jihadis' hostile relationship to Turkey and the outside world makes that difficult. On 30 July, the group issued a statement pleading for aid to continue, saying it will facilitate humanitarian work and uphold a "principle of neutrality and independence". Aid groups say they have so far not been forced to pay for passage into Idlib.

"It seems they're aware of the terms of this debate," Heller told IRIN. "They understand humanitarian principles of neutrality and independence enough to voice their commitment to them, although who knows, they might end up violating them anyway."

Heller noted that despite Tahrir al-Sham's extreme politics, the group is far from the worst offender when it comes to aid theft and exploitation in Syria. "In some respects they've been better than other armed factions - they've provided security in their areas, instead of anarchic predation. Hopefully, they keep that up."

The question is whether they can afford it. If Tahrir al-Sham wants to hold the Syrian army at bay while also administering a functioning regime in Idlib, it will need money. And if the jihadi takeover persuades anti-Assad governments to stop sending stabilisation funding, paying local council salaries, and feeding ammunition into the insurgency through Free Syrian Army factions, then the group will need even more money to develop and defend the area.

Tahrir al-Sham already gets under-the-table support from private Islamist donors in the Gulf anhttp://swiged076.unhcr.local/cgi-bin/texis.exe/refworld/rwcmsd it has made money from kidnappings and other illicit activity, and by taxing some economic activity inside Syria. But it doesn't seem to have the sort of financial base that could sustain the entirety of insurgency and administration in Idlib if Western, Turkish, and Arab support is scaled down. Should Idlib's front lines or internal stability begin to buckle, the jihadis may be forced to throw caution to the wind and really sink their teeth into the civilian aid sector and the traffic through Bab al-Hawa.

But would even that raise enough funds? Siphoning resources from Bab al-Hawa is unlikely to be as profitable as it was for Ahrar al-Sham. In what seems like a deliberate strike at Tahrir's economic base, Turkey just banned the crossing from bringing in taxable high-value construction materials like cement and steel.

And although Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says "food, medicine, and clothes" will be allowed in under Turkey's tightened regulations, that could change. If Tahrir al-Sham tries to finance its military-political project by confiscating aid, subjugating foreign-backed local councils, or diverting salaries and cash flows, the jihadis risk sawing off the branch they're sitting on - not to mention triggering a humanitarian disaster for the two million civilians in need.
Iran: Raising the Death Penalty Bar

Publisher Human Rights Watch Publication Date 15 August 2017 Cite as Human Rights Watch, Iran: Raising the Death Penalty Bar, 15 August 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/599330f74.html [accessed 13 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

The Iranian parliament on August 13, 2017, approved a long-awaited amendment to the country's drug law that significantly raises the bar for a mandatory death sentence, Human Rights Watch said today. The amendment, which the parliamentary judiciary commission revised four times, is a step in the right direction despite being more limited than a December 2016 draft amendment that sought to outlaw the death penalty for most nonviolent drug related offenses.

Iran has one of the highest rates of documented executions in the world. According to Amnesty International, in 2016 alone, Iran executed at least 567 individuals, including at least two who were children when they allegedly committed their crimes. When submitting the new draft law to the parliament, Hassan Noroozi, the spokesperson for the parliamentary judicial committee, stated that 5,000 people are currently on death row for drug offenses in Iran, the majority between the ages of 20 and 30.

"If the amendment becomes law, it could save hundreds of people from execution who never should have been on death row in the first place," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "Even Iranian officials admit the ineffectiveness of capital punishment for combating drugs, and the parliament should next outlaw capital punishment for all drug offenders, and then end all executions."

For the bill to become law, the Guardian Council, a body of 12 Islamic jurists, must approve it, agreeing that the bill is in accordance with Iran's constitution and their interpretation of sharia law.

Under Iran's current drug law, nonviolent offenses, including possession of as little as 30 grams of synthetic drugs such as methamphetamines, as well as trafficking, possession, or trade of more than five kilograms of opium or 30 grams of heroin carries a mandatory death sentence.

The approved amendment changes the punishment for drug offenses that previously carried the death penalty or life in prison to a prison term of up to 30 years. However, it still mandates the death penalty if the accused or one of the participants in the crime used or carried weapons and intended to use them against law enforcement agencies. The death penalty would still apply to a leader of a drug trafficking cartel, anyone who used a child in some way to traffic drugs, or anyone facing new drug-related charges who had previously been sentenced to execution or 15 years to life for drug-related offenses.

After facing pushback from Iran's judiciary and the Interior Ministry's drug control headquarters, parliament altered the amendment to maintain the death penalty for nonviolent charges of "production, distribution, trafficking, and selling" drugs. However, the amendment raises the amounts of drugs involved to more than 50 kilograms of "traditional" drugs such as opium or two kilograms of synthetic drugs such as methamphetamines. It also restores the death penalty for possession, purchase, or concealing more than three kilograms of "synthetic drugs."

Despite the prospect of reform, the authorities have continued executing people on drug-related offenses. On July 20, Human Rights Watch called on Iranian authorities to immediately halt these executions while the amendments await final approval.

Human Rights Watch has repeatedly documented serious violations of due process, torture, and other violations of the rights of people accused of drug offenses, including in Ghezel Hesar prison in Karaj. Prisoners have told Human Rights Watch that authorities routinely blindfold and beat detainees and force them to sign confessions. Prisoners also said that court-appointed lawyers are not allowed to be present during interrogations or to meet privately with their clients, and that they are allowed only to submit written statements in their clients' defense.

Under article 6(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Iran has ratified, in countries that still retain capital punishment, the death penalty may be applied only for the "most serious crimes." The United Nations Human Rights Committee, which interprets the covenant, has said that drug offenses are not among the "most serious crimes," and that the use of the death penalty for such crimes violates international law. Human Rights Watch opposes capital punishment in all circumstances because it is inherently irreversible and inhumane.

"The Guardian Council shouldn't wait a moment longer to approve reforms and take a first step to curbing Iran's execution epidemic," Whitson said.

Copyright notice:  Copyright, Human Rights Watch
Libya: ICC arrest warrant for Special Forces commander raises hopes for justice

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 15 August 2017 Cite as Amnesty International, Libya: ICC arrest warrant for Special Forces commander raises hopes for justice, 15 August 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/599333344.html [accessed 13 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Responding to news that the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant today for the arrest of Mahmoud el-Wefelli, who is accused of war crimes for actions committed while he was Field Commander of the Special Forces

Brigade (Al-Saiqa) affiliated to the Libyan National Army (LNA), Amnesty International's North Africa Research Director Heba Morayef said:

"Today's decision by the ICC is a significant step towards ending the rampant impunity for war crimes in Libya. Mahmoud al-Werfelli led an army unit that is accused of atrocities, including the extrajudicial executions of unarmed and defenseless captives.

"The Libyan authorities must urgently comply with this arrest warrant and hand Mahmoud al-Werfelli over to the ICC to face his accusers in a fair trial. This warrant sends a clear message that those who commit or order horrendous crimes are not above the law and will not go unpunished.

"By failing to hold to account those responsible for crimes committed in Libya in recent years, the Libyan authorities and the international community have emboldened the parties to this conflict to act with complete disregard to human life and international law. We strongly urge the ICC to expand its investigations in Libya and include other crimes being committed every day throughout the country."

Amnesty International continues to document violations of human rights in Libya and has previously reported on war crimes committed by the LNA.

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
London, England -- (ReleaseWire) -- 08/15/2017 --Lukasz Zelezny a prominent Social Media speaker and Search Engine Optimization expert is highly delighted to announce that he has successfully acquired the seo.london domain. Zelezny's acquisition of SEO.London domain is the next step in the domination of the online marketing space in the United Kingdom. For Zelezny who has lived and worked in London for the last ten years, the acquisition of seo.london domain is a natural step towards effective performance and portrays a bright future; however, the final form of what will be launched on seo.london domain is not decided yet. Zelezny's acquisition of seo.london domain comes on the heels of his acquisition of socialmedia.pl in December 2015; a domain which is now holding a popular polish social media oriented news portal.



"SEO.London is a perfect domain for the search engine optimization and online marketing business which remains my job, lifestyle and hobby. The Search Engine Optimization industry in London is very strong basically because London is a massive European business hub and I believe it will remain so even post Brexit UK. The acquisition of SEO.London domain remains crucial and critical to the effective consolidation of my speaking efforts across London, UK, and Europe" said Zelezny.



The SEO.London domain coupled with Zelezny's 15 years experience in the Search Engine Optimization industry no doubts will ensure added value and effective performance. It will create a veritable platform to enable Zelezny to offer his best to his valued customers. "I am delighted and very pleased that I successfully acquired the domain especially knowing that there were a lot of agencies that were in consideration of purchasing this domain," stated Zelezny.



When asked how he intends to use the domain; Zelezny replied, "I am not yet fully precised on the direction I am going to go with launching the website - SEO.London. I am trying to follow the happenings in the industry; so I am considering making the domain a Business to Business (B2B) as well as a Business to Customer (B2C) domain with possible job board, industry news, and reviews."



About Lukasz Zelezny

Lukasz is a conference speaker, search awards judge and top 10 social media influencer in the UK. To enable him to offer the best to his esteemed customers, Zelezny spends a lot of time keeping up to date with the changes in online marketing strategy and advancement in the technology within the Search Engine Optimization industry.



Lukasz started working in the Search Engine Optimization industry around the year 2000 while living in Poland. In 2007 he moved to London, UK and has since been responsible for the organic performance of a number of companies including HomeAway, Thomson Reuters, The Digital Property Group, Fleetway Travel.



Social Media become his area of expertise from 2010. In 2015 he traveled about 75,000 km speaking at many conferences including ClickZ Shanghai China, ClickZ Jakarta Indonesia, SiMGA Malta, SES London in the United Kingdom as well as other conferences held in Europe such as Marketing Festival in Brno, Brighton SEO in Brighton, and UnGagged in London.



Every year he actively participates in 10 to 20 events as a keynote speaker. Additionally, he organizes workshops where he shares tips concerning effective SEO, Social Media, and Analytics. He graduated from the Silesian University of Technology with a BA in Marketing.



For more information about Lukasz Zelezny visit: https://zelezny.uk/.



Contact:

Lukasz Zelezny

044 7891 173 471

Lukasz@Zelezny.co.uk

https://zelezny.uk/
Body cameras for the Mooresville Police Department have arrived. Find out when they will be used.
Cambodian police conduct a search of the headquarters of the opposition Khmer Power Party in Phnom Penh, Aug. 15, 2017.

More than 50 Cambodian police officers conducted a search of the Khmer Power Partys headquarters in the capital Phnom Penh on Tuesday, after its president was arrested on charges of insulting the military.

The police checked computers and seized documents at the office in Tuol Kouk District two days after the political partys president Sourn Serey Ratha was arrested on Aug. 13 for posting Facebook messages offensive to the Cambodian Armed Forces.

Sourn Serey Ratha was charged with three counts of incitement, including insulting the military, for a perceived disrespectful online post he made on Aug. 12 in which he accused generals of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces of enjoying air conditioning and female companionship while rank-and-file soldiers did the fighting and dying.

Cambodian-American Sourn Serey Ratha founded the pro-American party in March 2010, though it did not officially register as a political party until five years later. The Khmer Power Party (KPP) advocates the abolishment of Cambodias monarchy and the establishment of a new regime as the second Khmer Republic.

Authorities have suspected Sourn Serey Ratha of having connections to Khmer National Liberation Front (KNLP) leader Sam Serey, who mentioned Sourn Serey Rathas name in a Facebook post on Aug. 13.

The Cambodian government considers the KNLF a hostile political group that seeks to topple Prime Minister Hun Sen and the ruling Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP) government.

I condemn Vietnam and the puppet regime of Hun Sen for arresting the president of the Khmer Power Party for just voicing his opinion on Facebook, Sam Serey wrote in his post.

Sourn Serey Rathas arrest is politically motivated because the Khmer Power Party has connections with and supports the Khmer National Liberation Front, he wrote.

It is unequivocal that the Cambodia-Laos dispute is a political game to divert peoples attention from the human rights abuses committed by the government, he wrote in a reference to Lao soldiers recent occupation of an area south of the Sekong River claimed by both Laos and Cambodia.

On May 5, the spokesperson for the Ministry of National Defense blasted RFA for an article it published the day before about the presence of Lao soldiers in Cambodian territory, calling it fake news.

Last week, however, Hun Sen acknowledged that Lao soldiers had been on Cambodian soil since April.

The troops left the disputed zone following a meeting on Aug. 12 during which Hun Sen and Lao Prime Minister Thongloun Sisolith pledged to work to reduce tensions.

Politically motivated

Suong Sophorn, acting president of the KPP and a former opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) candidate who defected to the KPP on Aug. 9, said he considers the raid of the partys headquarters to be politically motivated.

He also said it was not appropriate for authorities cite the Facebook post by Sam Serey as the basis for the search.

As someone with a background in law, I dont think a letter by so-called KNLF president Sam Serey should be used to implicate Sourn Serey Ratha, he said. As the acting president of the KPP, I strongly reject such a letter.

Sourn Serey Ratha is being detained in Phnom Penhs notorious Prey Sar prison after being charged on Monday.

His trial is scheduled for Aug. 24.

Reported by Savi Khorn for RFAs Khmer Service. Translated by Nareth Muong. Written by Roseanne Gerin.
A United Nations rights envoy met with activists involved in a long-running dispute at a lake community in Cambodias capital Phnom Penh Tuesday as they marked the one-year anniversary of the jailing of one of their leaders.



Rhona Smith, the U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia, met with the residents of the Boeung Kak Lake community as they gathered for a vigil honoring Tep Vanny, who was arrested on Aug. 15, 2016 and sentenced to two and a half years in prison in February.



Bov Sophea, one of the Boeung Kak activists, told RFAs Khmer Service that the group was pleased Smith had made time to meet with them on the eighth day of her 10-day visit to investigate the rights situation in Cambodia, with a special emphasis on the rights of childrenpart of her focus on discrimination and marginalized groups.



We told her about our concerns regarding Cambodias judicial system, which is used to persecute us, she said.



Several representatives of our committee, including a 77-year-old woman, have been charged. They can jail us anytime they want  We are double victims of land grabbing and eviction, and mistreatment by the authorities. We are very saddened by our very bad treatment by the courts.



Bov Sophea expressed hope that Smith would communicate the concerns of the Boeung Kak Lake activists to the international community.



The rights envoy also met with Tep Vanny in prison Tuesday, before visiting the jailed activists 13-year-old daughter, Ou Kong Panha.



Smiths visit to Boeung Kak Lake came a day after the activists sent the second of two petitions in a week to the U.N.s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, asking for its help in obtaining the release of Tep Vanny, and on the same day the group sent a similar petition to eight foreign embassies in Cambodia.



The activists said they plan to deliver another petition on Tep Vannys behalf to several government institutions in coming days.



Activists case



Tep Vanny came to prominence as an activist fighting the Boeung Kak land grab, when some 3,500 families were evicted from a neighborhood surrounding the lake. The lake was later filled with sand to make way for a development project with close ties to Prime Minister Hun Sen and the ruling Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP).



She has also been active in urging an independent investigation into the July 10, 2016 shooting death of Kem Ley, a popular social commentator and frequent government critic.



On Feb. 23, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court sentenced Tep Vanny to two years and six months in prison on charges of aggravated intentional violence in connection with a 2013 protest she held in front of Hun Sens home that ended in violence.



While the protest occurred in 2013, the court prosecutor reactivated the case and charged Tep Vanny in August last year after she was arrested for participating in another demonstration.



On Aug. 8, Cambodias Appeals Court upheld the Municipal Courts ruling, which was issued following a trial in which the prosecution failed to produce any witnessespreventing cross-examination by the defenseand which is widely seen as politically motivated.



Defense witnesses maintain that security forces launched an attack against Tep Vannys group in 2013, leaving some protesters wounded, knocked unconscious, or with lost teeth, while others suffered broken arms. Tep Vanny was also injured in the confrontation.



On Monday, a group of 64 domestic and international civil society organizations issued a statement calling Tep Vannys imprisonment grossly unjust and demanding that the government end its harassment of Tep Vanny and other Boeung Kak Lake activists through arrests, prosecution and imprisonment.



Reported by Vuthy Tha for RFAs Khmer Service. Translated by Nareth Muong. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
Raphael Wong (C), deputy head of the pan-democratic League of Social Democrats party, chants slogans during a protest on China's National Day of celebrations in Hong Kong, Oct. 1, 2016.

Hong Kong's court of appeal on Tuesday jailed a group of environmental protesters who broke into the city's legislature over government plans to build on rural land.

Those jailed included Raphael Wong, deputy head of the pan-democratic League of Social Democrats party, and Ivan Lam of Demosisto, a party formed by former leaders of the 2014 pro-democracy movement.

The group had already been found guilty of "unlawful assembly" and handed community service sentences by a magistrate, but the city's department of justice appealed on the basis that the sentences weren't stiff enough.

Twelve of the 13 activists were jailed on Tuesday for 13 months, while the 13th received a sentence of eight months.

They were protesting a controversial development plan for the northeastern part of the New Territories, which would have seen the displacement of thousands of rural residents and the demolition of several farming communities to make way for high-density residential areas.

Campaigners have argued that the government's North East New Territories Development Plan is based on flawed estimates of future population growth and includes scant provision for lower-income groups.

The loss of farmland would make Hong Kong entirely dependent on imported produce, while only property moguls will benefit from the luxury residential project.

The prosecution told the court how the group had attempted to storm the Legislative Council building, using objects such as bamboo sticks to try to force open the doors, government broadcaster RTHK reported.

The Court of Appeal "agreed that deterrent sentences were needed," it said.

Plans to appeal

Former lawmaker Leung Kwok-hung, who was stripped of his seat after a controversial intervention from China's parliament last year, hit out at the sentencing.

"It is heavy-handed sentencing and I think its a matter for the magistrate to decide what is a suitable penalty because the magistrate is the only one who went through all the evidence and defense," Leung told journalists.

He said the group plans to appeal to a higher court.

Demosisto said the Hong Kong government has resorted to "authoritarian practices" in a case where the protesters had already served their sentences.

"The Department of Justice redefined the protest as a riot in its endeavor to suppress opposition figures," the party said in a statement on Tuesday.

"This is a serious degradation of the citizens' call to protect their own terrain and their pursuit [of] more democratic urban planning," it said.

The party said protesters would continue with civil disobedience in spite of political persecution that is "getting worse by the day."

Reported by RFA's Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Gao Zhisheng, who was under house arrest in the northern province of Shaanxi, hasn't been seen or heard of since Sunday, amid growing fears for his safety.



Dissident rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, who has been under house arrest since his release from prison in August 2014, is "missing" from his cave dwelling in a remote village in the northern Chinese province of Shaanxi.



Gao, 53, went missing from his home near Shaanxi's Yulin city, early on Sunday morning, his U.S.-based wife Geng He told RFA.



"We haven't been able to contact my husband for two days now, and we are very worried," Geng said. "I tried calling him at 5:00 a.m. my time on Sunday, and I couldn't get through."



"Eventually, I managed to get in touch with his older brother, who said he went to call him to eat at 8:00 a.m. on Sunday. He said he called several times but there was no answer."



"He eventually went into the room, but there was nobody there," Geng said, adding that the local authorities are out looking for him.



"Police from the local village and from Yulin city are out scouring the hills and countryside for him, which makes me very worried," she said. "I am very scared."



'Emotional collapse'



Geng, who fled to the U.S. with the couple's two children after Gao's last "disappearance" in 2009, said the loss of contact with their father is having a profound impact on them.



"For the past three years, we have only managed sporadic phone calls with him, which at least were a form of reassurance for us as a family and for the kids," she said. "We had come to rely on them."



"Now that I know he has disappeared, I am in a state of emotional collapse."



A Xi'an-based friend of Gao's who asked not to be identified said none of his friends in the city had managed to contact him as of Tuesday afternoon.



"It's very mysterious what is going on this time," the friend said. "If he has been taken away by the state security police, his family should know about it. But suddenly, he's just not there any more."



"His family have no clue. We really don't know what is behind this disappearance," he said. "We shall just have to wait and see."



Links to interview



Gao, once a prominent lawyer feted by the ruling Chinese Communist Party, has been repeatedly denied permission by the Chinese police to see a dentist for treatment after losing several teeth to torture and neglect during his incarceration.



Social media posts suggested his disappearance might be linked to an interview Gao gave recently to Hong Kong's Chengming Magazine, in which he talks about "the destruction of the Communist Party and President Xi Jinping's mission."



Gao has also published a book detailing the torture he endured at the hands of the authorities during his time in prison, and has described being repeatedly tortured when he was secretly jailed at a "military site" during one of many disappearances.



Gao's memoir details the torture he endured at the hands of the authorities during his time in prison, as well as three years of solitary confinement, during which he said he was sustained by his Christian faith and his hope for China.



Activists say his continuing house arrest even after being "released" from jail mirrors the treatment meted out to fellow rights lawyers and activists detained in a nationwide police operation since July 2015.



His friends had previously said he is unlikely to regain any measure of freedom before the ruling Chinese Communist Party's 19th congress later this year.



Gao began to be targeted by the authorities after he defended some of China's most vulnerable people, including Christians, coal miners, and followers of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement.



Reported by Wang Yun for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Hai Nan for the Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.




Freedom of worship was harshly restricted again in China and Myanmar last year, with religious believers in China jailed and Muslims and Christians in Buddhist-majority Myanmar harassed by government and citizens groups, the U.S. State Department said in an annual report released on Tuesday.



In Vietnam, meanwhile, government authorities continued to harass religious groups, though the severity of their treatment varied from region to region and among the central, provincial, and local levels, according to the report.



In China, the State Departments 2016 International Religious Freedom Report said, state authorities physically abused, detained, arrested, tortured, sentenced to prison, or harassed adherents of both registered and unregistered religious groups.



Authorities in the countrys coastal Zhejiang province continued a campaign begun in 2014 to tear down Christian structures, including 600 crosses destroyed by the end of the year, while several church leaders resisting the demolition were detained and prosecuted.



Throughout the country, there continued to be reports of deaths, in detention and otherwise, of religious adherents, the report said, with the banned spiritual group Falun Gong reporting that dozens of its members had been killed.



Tibetans, Uyghurs repressed



Meanwhile, Tibetan Buddhists and Uyghur Muslims in China were severely repressed during the year and were discriminated against in employment, housing, and business opportunities, the State Department said.



In western Chinas Sichuan province, authorities demolished thousands of monastic dwellings in the Larung Gar Buddhist Academy and expelled their occupants, while in northwestern Chinas region of Xinjiang, Uyghur children were barred from religious study, and restrictions were imposed on Muslim dress and practice deemed extremist.



In December, a Xinjiang court sentenced a Christian woman, Ma Huichao, to three years in prison for gathering a crowd to disturb public order after holding a Bible study in her home in [the regional capital] Urumqi, the State Department report said.



A fellow congregant said that the Bible study was not a formal gatheringthere were no pastors present and there were only a few people reading the Bible in Mas home.



Churches, mosques blocked



In Myanmar, government authorities and nationalist Buddhist groups restricted the religious rights of Muslims and Christians, delaying permits to build houses of worship and in some cases halting the construction of mosques opposed by Muslim communities Buddhist neighbors.



There were reports of killings, sexual abuse, arbitrary arrest, burning of structures, [and] continued detention of Rohingya Muslims, the State Department said.



[However], because religion and ethnicity are often closely linked, it was difficult to categorize many incidents as being based solely on religious identity.



Meanwhile, religious and community groups in Myanmar worked throughout the year to counter hate speech and foster dialogue by hosting interfaith events and calling for legislation aimed at promoting religious harmony, according to the report.



Believers assaulted



In Vietnam, government authorities continued last year to restrict the activities of religious groups, assaulting and detaining church members, restricting their travel, and confiscating church land for development projects.



Groups not registered with the state were especially severely treated, the State Department said.



In January 2016, the head pastor of the unregistered Montagnard Degar Evangelical Church in Gia Lai province died from internal injuries inflicted in a police beating the month before, while a Mennonite pastor serving an 11-year prison term for undermining state unity was beaten by guards in February.



The pastors wife said that he and other prisoners had previously found bits of glass and copper wire in their prison food, according to the report.



Raids were also made on Catholic churches, unregistered Buddhist temples, and Bible study groups, with church leaders and parishioners sometimes beaten by assailants dressed in plain clothes but apparently supervised by police.



Government treatment of religious groups varied from region to region and among the central, provincial, and local levels, though, the report said.




A judge in south-central Myanmars Bago region granted bail on Tuesday to a former student activist charged with defamation by the countrys powerful military, his attorney said.

Aung Htet was released on bail by the Taungoo township court because of injuries he sustained in prison, Robert San Aung said, though he did not mention the amount of bail paid.

Another prisoner at the township jail hit Aung Htet with a stone, the lawyer said, blaming the attack on lax supervision by guards and accusing prison officials of orchestrating the incident by placing rocks in the jail cell to facilitate the attack.

Nyi Nyi Naing who is a deserter and is in prison for robbery hit Aung Htet with a stone, he said. Hes got several injuries on his head.

He showed up at court for the hearing, and the judge checked his wound and accepted his doctors recommendation to grant him bail, he said.

A lieutenant colonel in the militarys Southern Command filed a lawsuit on Aug. 1 against Aung Htet and a man named Victor, both former members of the Student Union of Taungoo, accusing them of inciting unrest, according to the online journal The Irrawaddy.

At the time, authorities issued a warrant for the arrest of Victor, who was traveling but was expected to turn himself in to the police when he returned to Taungoo, The Irrawaddy said.

Victor still remains at large, however.

Aung Htet and Victor, who are also leaders of a music ensemble called the Kaytu Oh-Way Thangyat Group, were charged under Section 505(b) of the Penal Code for defaming the military in a song they composed and sang during the Thingyan water festival in Taungoo in April.

The song called for changes to the countrys 2008 constitution which was drafted by a military junta.

The provision sets a maximum punishment of two years imprisonment, a fine, or both for those who make, publish, or circulate a statement, rumor, or report with the intent to cause fear or alarm in the public whereby someone may be induced commit an offence against the state or disrupt public tranquility.

The provision usually does not allow for bail to be granted.

The date of Aung Htets next trial is unknown.

Defamation complaint against Reuters

In a related development, Yangon regions Chief Minister Phyo Min Thein on Monday filed an official complaint against Reuters news agency, accusing it of defamation.

He cited an article Reuters published on Aug. 6 with the headline Suu Kyis Man in Yangon Under Fire Over Transit Deal With China that questioned the transparency of the Yangon regional governments deals to import buses from China.

Phyo Min Thein also asked the Myanmar Press Council to take action against Reuters local bureau because he says the story wrongly accused him of malfeasance in the public transportation deals, said the councils vice chairman Aung Hla Tun.

We have to ask the chief minister what he wants, and which facts have offended him, he said. He wants to take action against Reuters, but what kind of action does he want? Does he want [Reuters] to make a correction if something is wrong?  We have to go over this step by step.

Phyo Min Thein told the council that the article was factually incorrect and that Reuters failed to verify the information in it with him, though the news agency said it in the report that the chief minister had declined several requests for interviews, The Irrawaddy reported, citing Aung Hla Tun as its source.

The complaint is the second one that Phyo Min Thein has filed against a news outlet.

In November 2016, he filed a case against Htut Aung, chief executive officer of Eleven Media Group, and Wai Phyo, chief editor of the Daily Eleven newspaper, because of an editorial they published accusing him of receiving a U.S. $100,000 watch from an unnamed drug tycoon who was later awarded a lucrative contract for a city transit project.

The editorial appeared in the Nov. 6 issue of Daily Eleven and was posted on Than Htut Aungs Facebook page, and the two men were charged with defamation under Section 66(d) of Myanmars Telecommunications Law.

The section prohibits use of the telecom network to defame people and carries a jail sentence of up to three years and a fine for those who violate it.

Journalists and rights groups charge that those in power have been increasingly using repressive laws such as Section 505(b) of the Penal Code and Section 66(d) to silence their critics.

Some rights groups believe that Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmars de facto leader who is widely touted as a democracy icon in the West, has failed to live up to expectations for increased freedom of the press under the current National League for Democracy government, which has been in power for nearly 17 months.

By Thiri Min Zin and Waiyan Moe Myint for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Authorities in western Chinas Sichuan province have begun demolishing 2,000 residences of Tibetan clergy at the Yachen Gar Buddhist Center and are set to expel an equal number of monks and nuns from the complex by the end of the year, according to Tibetan sources in the region.



Chinese authorities ordered the demolition of 2,000 houses of monks and nuns at Yachen Buddhist Center  [by the end of] this year, one source told RFAs Tibetan Service recently, speaking on condition of anonymity.



The demolition began on Aug. 8 and the work is said to be ongoing at Yachen Gar, while the same number of monks and nuns [2,000] are also to be expelled from the Buddhist center this year alone.



Sources said that the monks and nuns had been ordered to tear down any homes built with wooden materials, and that demolition workers would be sent by the local authorities to raze any concrete structures in the area. One nun is said to have been injured in the demolition.



Yachen Gar, located in Kardze (in Chinese, Ganzi) prefectures Palyul (Baiyu) county and founded in 1985, until recently housed an estimated 10,000 monks, nuns, and lay practitioners devoted to scriptural study and meditation.



In April, sources told RFA that authorities had demolished at least 200 tents set up by Tibetan pilgrims visiting Yachen Gar to receive teachings and accumulate merit, citing difficulties posed by the encampments to the orderly management of the complex.



Following the beginning of the demolitions last week, a senior lama at Yachen Gar issued an appeal to the monks and nuns at the complex to exercise patience and tolerance.



About 2,000 houses will be demolished this year and around same number of monks and nuns will be asked to leave the complexthis is an order from the powerful authorities and cannot be resisted, just as falling boulders from a mountain cannot be stopped, the lama said.



Most important is to remain humble and adhere to proper conduct, and things may get better. Also, it is important for all monks and nuns to take care of their health, he added.



The monks and nuns should exercise patience and tolerance under the stress of the demolitions and expulsion ordersthis is crucial.



Another Tibetan from the region, who also asked to remain unnamed, told RFA that the new order had placed tremendous stress and hardship on Yachen Gars Buddhist community.



The demolition will cause a great amount of stress, as many monks and nuns will lack accommodations and be forced to leave, the source said.



Yachen monks and nuns are solely focused on Buddhist practice and not involved in any form of politics, he added.



Restricted access



Authorities have been restricting access to the sprawling complex and areas nearby, with foreign visitors drawing particular scrutiny from police, sources told RFA in earlier reports.



In April, following the demolition of the pilgrim tents, sources told RFA that Chinese surveillance and other tightened security measures at Yachen Gar had become growing causes of concern for the centers resident monks and nuns, and that it was increasingly difficult for news about the complex to reach the outside world.



They said that while Yachen Gar has internet service, residents had been reluctant to speak out about what was happening at the complex for fear of retaliation by authorities.



Restrictions on Yachen Gar and the better-known Larung Gar complex in Sichuans Serthar (Seda) county are part of an unfolding political strategy aimed at controlling the influence and growth of these important centers for Tibetan Buddhist study and practice, the Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) said in a March 13 report, Shadow of Dust Across the Sun.



[Both centers] have drawn thousands of Chinese practitioners to study Buddhist ethics and receive spiritual teaching since their establishment, and have bridged Tibetan and Chinese communities, ICT said in its report.



At the end of June, a senior abbot at Larung Gar said that Chinese authorities had destroyed 4,725 monastic dwellings over the course of a year at the complex, with a total of more than 7,000 demolished since efforts to reduce the number of monks and nuns living at the sprawling center began in 2001.



The abbot said that more than 4,828 monks and nuns had also been expelled since 2016, with many forced back to their hometowns and deprived of opportunities to pursue religious studies.



Many thousands of Tibetans and Han Chinese once studied at Larung Gar Academy, which was founded in 1980 by the late religious teacher Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok and is one of the worlds largest and most important centers for the study of Tibetan Buddhism.



Reported by Kunsang Tenzin and Lhuboom for RFAs Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
DURHAM, N.C.  Protesters in North Carolina toppled a nearly century-old statue of a Confederate soldier Monday at a rally against racism.

Activists in Durham brought a ladder up to the statue and used a rope to pull down the Confederate Soldiers Monument that was dedicated in 1924. A diverse crowd of dozens cheered as the statue of a soldier holding a rifle fell to the ground in front of an old courthouse building that now houses local government offices.

Seconds after the monument fell, protesters began kicking the crumpled bronze monument.

"I was a little bit shocked people could come here and come together like that," said Isaiah Wallace, who is black.

Wallace said he watched as others toppled the statue. He hopes other Confederate symbols elsewhere will follow.

"I feel like this is going to send shockwaves through the country and hopefully they can bring down other racist symbols," he said.

The Durham protest was in response to a white nationalist rally held in Charlottesville over the weekend. Authorities say one woman was killed Saturday after one of the white nationalists drove his car into a group of peaceful counterprotesters.

Charlottesville activists plot to tear down statue themselves; Confederate group says city brought violence on itself CHARLOTTESVILLE  Jamie Dyer had been on the fence about whether a large statue of Robert E. Lee that looms over a small city square in the ce

Although the violence in Virginia has prompted fresh talk by government officials about bringing down symbols of the Confederacy around the South, North Carolina has a law protecting them. The 2015 law prevents removing such monuments on public property without permission from state officials.

In response to the statue in Durham being torn down, Democratic North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper tweeted: "The racism and deadly violence in Charlottesville is unacceptable but there is a better way to remove these monuments."

After the statue fell, several dozen protesters congregated on the street in front of the old courthouse. Some took pictures standing or sitting on the toppled soldier, in front of a pedestal inscribed with the words "In Memory of the Boys Who Wore The Gray." Police cruisers blocked off the street, and officers looked on  some filming. As it got dark, rally participants began to peacefully disperse.

Robin Williamson, who works downtown, arrived in the area about an hour after the statue came down. Williamson, who is black, said he can sympathize with people who are upset with the state of racial discourse in the country.

"People feel that with Donald Trump as leader, racists can be vocal," he said.

He said that while Confederate monuments have been defaced in other cities, it was surprising to see an entire statue brought down by protesters.
The Bell 407 helicopter that crashed and burned outside Charlottesville on Saturday, killing two Virginia State Police pilots, sustained substantial damage seven years ago after completely losing power in an incident that ended in a hard landing seven minutes after takeoff, according to a National Transportation Safety Board report.

The 2010 rough landing in Abingdon, which caused the aircraft to bounce once on the ground, resulted in its fuselage being crushed and the partial loss of one of its vertical stabilizers, the report says. Neither the pilot nor the co-pilot was injured in that landing, said state police spokeswoman Corinne Geller.

The NTSB determined that the likely cause of the 2010 crash was the improper repair of an engine component by a repair facility, which resulted in a complete loss of power, according to the report.

It couldnt be immediately determined whether the 2010 incident and faulty repairs figure into the NTSBs investigation of Saturdays fatal crash. A preliminary report of the facts and circumstances of Saturdays crash will be available in two to three weeks, the NTSB said.

In 2010, the NTSB report stated: Contributing to the accident was the failure of the repair facility to recognize that an improper repair had been accomplished, which allowed the component to be placed into service.

The investigation revealed that a circular metal deflector plate was found fragmented in the helicopters turbine section, and that the required circumferential fillet weld between the aircrafts combustion liner and deflector plate had not been performed.

Only the preliminary positioning welds attached the deflector plate to the liner, and those welds failed during normal engine operation, the report said.

The investigation was unable to determine the specifics of why the repair facility replaced, inspected and approved the deflector plate, an NTSB investigator wrote.

Although 19 months had transpired between the improper repair and the liners failure, the investigation did not locate any information that indicated that either the repair facility or the Federal Aviation Administration principal maintenance inspector for the repair facility was aware that the maintenance personnel at the repair facility had accomplished a procedure that it was not authorized to conduct.

The name of the repair facility that conducted the unauthorized repairs resulting in engine failure of the 2010 crash is not clear in the report.

After the repair facility was advised of the deflector plate failure due to the improper repair, the facility identified 19 other assemblies that had a known or suspected improper repair. Those assemblies were recalled from their customers and no additional in-service failures occurred, the 2010 report said.

Geller, the state police spokeswoman, said Monday: Following that (2010) incident, the damage to the helicopter was fully repaired by Bell Helicopter.

On Saturday, Lt. H. Jay Cullen, 48, of Midlothian and trooper-pilot Berke M.M. Bates, 40, of Quinton were killed when the same helicopter, manufactured in 2000, crashed in Albemarle County about 50 minutes after leaving the Charlottesville airport.

The helicopter was one of two state police choppers that had been circling over Charlottesville as violence broke out before the scheduled white nationalist rally and after police canceled the event as an unlawful assembly. A police spokeswoman said Cullen and Bates were assisting police personnel on the ground by forwarding them the aerial optics.

The NTSB said the helicopter was flying over downtown Charlottesville at 4:04 p.m. and engaged in mission-related activities there until 4:42, when it left to provide support for a motorcade carrying Gov. Terry McAuliffe.

The first 911 call reporting the crash was received at 4:44 p.m.; the choppers vertical flight path was about 45 degrees when it descended into trees, the NTSB said.

Cullen, the pilot, was the commander of the departments 33-year-old Aviation Unit. Bates, the co-pilot, previously served on McAuliffes protection unit.

Cullen was not aboard the helicopter during the 2010 incident, Geller said. Bates became a trooper-pilot in July.
A journalist from a local television station was assaulted Sunday night while filming a protest in Richmond following violent clashes in Charlottesville.

WTVR CBS 6 reported that one of its photojournalists, who was not working at the time, was filming on a camera phone when a protester began harassing him, knocked the phone out of his hand, and then was hit in the back of the head with some type of blunt object. The reporter, who has not been identified, received four staples in his scalp at a hospital, the station reported.

Multiple other injuries were also reported, police said.

One person was arrested during Sunday nights protests, but it was not related to the assault on the journalist, police said. On Monday, police did not identify the person arrested but confirmed the person was charged with disorderly conduct and released at the scene.

Serving in a state capital, the Richmond Police Department has years of experience dealing with all manner of rallies, parades, demonstrations and protests. Our goal is to allow citizens to express their First Amendment right to speak their minds while protecting and maintaining the safety of the general public, Police Chief Alfred Durham said in a statement.

At times, demonstrators chanted Cops and the Klan go hand in hand and messages that its time for Richmond to take down its Confederate statues.

Police officers followed the protest in cars with blue lights on.

Several protesters stopped journalists from filming and cursed at anyone filming it, telling them to instead film the police.
Update 8:09 a.m.: Bragdon Bowling is withdrawing his request to the state to hold a Sept. 16 rally at the Robert E. Lee statue on Monument Avenue.

Bowling said by email Tuesday morning that "due to the potential for violence after Charlottesville, the rally on Sept 16 will not be held."

"I do not want to be part of an event where people are hurt or killed," Bowling said. "Our purpose is to save monuments, not be engaged in social and racial issues."

Earlier: A Confederate heritage advocate who wants to hold a rally on Sept. 16 at the Robert E. Lee statue on Monument Avenue in Richmond said Monday that he doesnt want violent people or members of the KKK showing up  and if police cant ensure that a monument-protection rally would be safe, he would consider withdrawing his request.

Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney said he was aware of a pending application with the state for the rally.

The city will be prepared for whatever may happen, but the decision on whether a rally will take place lies with the Virginia Department of General Services, Stoney said.

I would make the request that in light of the events that happened in Charlottesville that we take a deep look at whether or not this is something that should go forward on Sept. 16, Stoney said.

Bragdon Bowling, who is asking the state for permission to hold the monument-heritage rally, said that things have changed somewhat thanks to the Charlottesville problems, so were kind of reviewing.

Im not saying well call it off. I kind of have to watch and see what goes on, he said. I dont want to see David Duke at this rally, I dont want to see Antifa, I dont want to see Black Lives Matter. I dont want them there.

If the rally does happen, Bowling said, Id want police to separate the crowd, which they didnt do very well in Charlottesville.

The last thing we ever would want would be any of these nuts  right or left  coming to Richmond causing trouble, he said.

According to Bowlings application, he has invited Corey Stewart, the chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, who made protection of Confederate monuments and the Confederate flag a central issue in his campaign this year in the GOP primary for governor. Stewart narrowly lost the June primary to Ed Gillespie. He is now seeking the Republican nomination to run against U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., in 2018.

Stewart has ties to Jason Kessler, who coordinated the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville on Saturday; Stewart appeared at a news conference with Kessler in Charlottesville in February.

Sadly, pundits and academics in media will use the events in Charlottesville as yet another excuse to silence and punish the speech of those with whom they disagree, Stewart said in a statement Sunday.

We can expect to see more bans of opposing thought, labeling of conservative ideas as bigoted, and limited government initiatives scapegoated as the cause of further destruction of U.S. history.

Stewart said in an interview Monday that should the rally happen, he hasnt decided if hed attend.

We dont know yet. Frankly, I dont trust (Gov. Terry) McAuliffe to order an adequate amount of protection. He never condemned the violence that was perpetrated by Antifa. ... His condemnation was one-sided, Stewart said. And to that extent I think hes kind of emboldened these far-left-wing groups to continue to attack conservatives.

When asked what he thought of neo-Nazis and members of the Klan who went to Charlottesville, Stewart replied, I detest them.

He added: All violence should be condemned. All political violence should be condemned.

Bowling said Stoney is being divisive.

If Richmond adds context to the monuments, its like opening the door to removal of the statues, he said. Stoneys viewpoint that these people were white supremacists or whatever, a few years later youll have the black people in the city saying, Why do we have these monuments to these racists, and ... theyre going to want the whole thing down after looking at those tablets for a couple of years.

Bowling clarified that he meant both black and white people who support relocation of Confederate monuments.

Bowling was among many who opposed the placement of a statue of Abraham Lincoln and his son Tad at Tredegar Iron Works in 2003. The statue was controversial for many in the former Confederate capital.

They have no concept of history and how it might be the wrong place to put the statue, Bowling, then the Virginia division commander of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, told The New York Times. As a Southerner, Im offended. You wouldnt put a statue of Winston Churchill in downtown Berlin, would you? Whats next, a statue of Sherman in Atlanta?

U.S. Rep. A. Donald McEachin, D-4th, said he doesnt want violence and hate in Richmond.

We are a society governed by the First Amendment. They have a right to march but what they dont have a right to do is to incite violence, so well be prayerful that wont happen in Richmond, he said.

Richmond Police Chief Alfred Durham said in a statement Monday that his department has already begun planning for the potential rally at the Lee monument, and for counterprotests.

We will be prepared, he said.
A Henrico day care worker was acquitted recently of a charge that she assaulted an 11-month-old girl in her care in September.

A jury last week found Tanya Dawson, 43, not guilty of assault, but the jurors could not come to a unanimous verdict on an additional charge of operating an unlicensed day care. Henrico Circuit Judge Lee A. Harris Jr. declared a mistrial on the licensing charge.

During a two-day trial , Harris also threw out a felony child neglect charge. Harris found the childs wounds, which prosecutors said included bruising and an abrasion on her right thigh and hip area, didnt fit the definition of a serious injury needed to support that charge.

The mother of the 11-month-old testified at the trial that the injuries were discovered after she picked up her daughter on Sept. 29 from Little People Academy in the 6000 block of Brook Road. The woman said her mother-in-law spotted the wounds during a diaper change. The girls mother said she reached out to Dawson, adding that the day care worker told her she didnt know what happened.

Dawson repeatedly told investigators she did not cause the marks on the child. But at the end of police questioning, Dawson agreed to write a letter to the parents.

Dawson wrote she that she had quickly grabbed the child out of a crib and the girls leg hit the crib. Dawson also wrote in the letter that she dropped the child as she was putting the girl in a swing.

Toni Randall, a deputy commonwealths attorney for Henrico, cited passages of the letter in court, noting that Dawson apologized for the hell the situation put them through.

But in testimony, Dawson took back the statements she made in her letter. Under questioning from her attorney, Dawson said she did not drop or spank the girl.

I know I did not put my hands on that kid, Dawson said.

Dawson said she wrote the letter because Henrico police Detective Jennifer Clark suggested that if she did so, she would not go to jail and the worst she would face was a parenting or anger management class.

But Clark testified that she never told Dawson that she would not go to jail if she wrote the letter.

Ultimately, what (Clark) was able to do is get the defendant to admit what she had done, Randall said.

Marc Boyko, Dawsons defense attorney, said his client only wrote the letter after undergoing five hours of interrogation where she repeatedly denied wrongdoing until the end.

She felt helpless. She felt like she didnt have a choice, Boyko said.

The defense attorney acknowledged the business was operating without a license, but he suggested his client was more of an employee, rather than a business owner who could be held responsible for that situation. Boyko said Dawsons daughter, Samantha Tolson, has said she was the owner of the business. The defense attorney also said Tolson came up with the idea to start the day care facility and was the only one with access to its bank accounts.

Tolson pleaded guilty in March to four counts  two charges of operating a day care without a license and two charges or providing false statements to investigators from the state Department of Social Services. She avoided jail time.

Randall said Dawson was more than just an employee, noting that the defendant invested in the business. Dawson estimated she and her husband contributed roughly $40,000 in financial backing for the venture. Randall also said Dawson was involved in at least one hiring decision.

Boyko called to the stand numerous parents who had left their children in Dawsons care while she provided child care out of her house prior to starting work at Little People Academy. The parents said she provided excellent care.

Randall said she didnt doubt that Dawson was a great child care provider while caring for children at her home, but the prosecutor said Dawson got overwhelmed while handling too many responsibilities at the new day care business, a situation that Randall said culminated in an assault on the 11-month-old.

I think the defendant ended up being a victim of the circumstances she and her daughter created, Randall said. She snapped.

The mother of the 11-month-old said she was not aware that the facility, which was operating out of a storefront, did not have a license and that she would not have sent her child there had she known.
Firefighters from Richmond and Henrico and Chesterfield counties were sent to Charlottesville to relieve crews who worked through the violent clashes during protests this weekend.

Several fire departments from the surrounding regions have voluntarily sent their employees to cover Charlottesville Fire for the day in order to provide us with a day of rest following the events of the past weekend, the Charlottesville department posted on Facebook. A huge thank you to all of our brothers and sisters at Henrico Fire, Harrisonburg Fire, Richmond Fire, Staunton Fire, Lynchburg Fire, and Chesterfield Fire. Lexington, Roanoke, Stafford, and Prince William County are also providing medic coverage to allow our family at Charlottesville-Albemarle Rescue Squad to have a day of rest and spend time with family.

A Richmond unit was deployed at 4 a.m. Saturday through about noon Sunday, according to Fire Marshal David Creasy, a spokesman for the citys fire department. The unit included a truck staffed by three people.

Another Richmond unit, as well as crews from Henrico and Chesterfield, covered 24-hour shifts starting Monday morning.

Creasy said none of the Richmond crews dealt directly with protesters; instead, they filled in responding to typical fire and EMS calls for service in Charlottesville.

Fire departments have a mutual-aid agreement statewide, Creasy said. When incidents requiring large-scale response happen, the departments request the crews needed from the Virginia Emergency Operations Center, which then disperses the request among other municipalities. That way, the impact is spread out.

No Richmond fire stations were affected by the crews going to Charlottesville, he said.
A Richmond man was charged Monday with carrying a loaded semi-automatic pistol in his carry-on bag at Richmond International Airport, the ninth air traveler to be caught with a weapon this year.

A Transportation Security Administration officer detected the .380-caliber handgun, loaded with six rounds, as the mans bag passed through an X-ray machine at a security checkpoint.

TSA officers immediately contacted Richmond Airport Police, which confiscated the firearm and arrested the man on state weapons charges.

Weapons  including firearms, firearm parts and ammunition  are prohibited in carry-on bags, but they can be transported in checked luggage under certain circumstances.

The number of travelers allegedly caught with firearms at RIC is on pace to break a record, which was newly set last year when 10 travelers were charged.
Student performance on state Standards of Learning tests held relatively flat across the state and region last year, with Richmond Public Schools remaining among the worst-performing divisions in Virginia.

Data released Tuesday by the Virginia Department of Education reflect one bright spot and more bad news for the citys schools at a time when ink is drying on a monitoring agreement with the state that requires all 44 division schools to meet full accreditation requirements within the next decade. Right now, 17 do.

Although the number of public school students passing state accountability tests largely stayed steady or ticked up across Chesterfield, Hanover and Henrico counties, Richmond saw a 2-point dip in reading, to 58 percent, a 4-point drop in math, to 54 percent, and a 5-point loss in science, to 59 percent.

Writing pass rates for city students rose 8 percentage points, from 45 to 53, placing Richmond second from the bottom in that category. Richmonds divisionwide totals left the system within the bottom three performers of all reporting entities for each of the five core subjects.

Its unacceptable, School Board Chairwoman Dawn Page said of Richmonds overall results. Im not surprised. Theres much work to be done.

Interim Superintendent Tommy Kranz did not respond to an interview request.

Former Superintendent Dana Bedden, who stepped down in June, said in an email: Schools should be about more than passing a test. For the benefit of the students and families being served, I hope whatever plans are developed for academics, facilities and other areas is based upon authentic research, includes consideration of social-emotional learning/trauma needs and has the necessary resources provided for several years to create systemic change. Systemic change will not occur in one, two or three years or as the result of focusing on a test as the measure of school success.

Students across the state gained ground on writing tests, with pass rates rising from 77 to 79 percent. Eighty percent received proficient or advanced scores in reading, and 79 percent passed in math, the data show.

The numbers follow a trend of recovery from low scores following the introduction of more rigorous statewide accountability testing in 2012 and 2013. Measures for grading student achievement are expected to change in the 2018-2019 academic year, as the Virginia Department of Education implements revised state criteria and shifts to a new accountability system under the federal successor to No Child Left Behind.

This long-term, upward trend is far more important than a snapshot for a single year and reflects the hard work of thousands of teachers, principals and other educators and their dedication to helping students meet high expectations, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Steven R. Staples said in a release.

Statewide totals reflect stability overall, but year-over-year performance across some core subjects and schools varied widely. At Petersburg High School, math performance toppled from a 90 percent pass rate in the 2015-2016 academic year to 58 percent last school year, data show.

Pass rates at Walnut Hill and J.E.B. Stuart elementary schools increased across the board, but the Petersburg division saw drops overall in several core subjects: History pass rates were down 5 percentage points to 61; science, down 7 percentage points to 58; and math, down 11 percentage points to 52 percent, overall. Reading pass rates held steady at 60 percent and student writing performance increased by 9 percentage points, to 56.

In Richmond, students at the alternative school achieved double-digit increases in all five core subject areas, with boosts of 50 percentage points or more in English, writing, math and science pass rates.

The citys top-performing George W. Carver Elementary School saw dips of 10 percentage points or more in reading, history, math and science pass rates, but still far outperformed Richmonds other public elementary schools.

Some long-struggling schools in the citys East End continued to grapple with low scores this year. Although Martin Luther King Middle saw some gains, only pass rates for one core subject  history  exceeded 30 percent. At Armstrong High, fewer than half of students passed grade-level tests for any core subject area.

Gaps in student performance that persisted across the state and region for years held true in 2016-2017. Disparities remain between overall student performance and the performance of students across some state-monitored categories: students with disabilities, African-American students, Hispanic students and economically disadvantaged students all passed subject area tests at rates below the overall average.

Black students passed at rates 13 percentage points lower, on average, than the statewide totals for math, reading, science, history and writing. The gap was nearly equal for economically disadvantaged students, 10.6 points lower for Hispanic students, and about 32 percentage points lower for students with disabilities. English-language learners, although outpaced by statewide averages, posted slight gains in all five core subjects.

Were encouraged that we see some positive gains statewide, but were reminded that we have a long way to go, Staples said.

The achievement gap for black students locally was widest in Hanover, which boasted the regions highest overall scores but had a 15-point difference in average pass rates between black students and division totals. Those scores, and the scores of economically disadvantaged and Hispanic students, meet or exceed statewide averages, but hard work remains, said division Superintendent Michael Gill.

We remain committed to further closing the achievement gap by maintaining our focus on equity, Gill said through a spokesman. This is an area of emphasis at all levels throughout the division that will help to ensure all students are provided with the necessary resources and supports to be successful.

Still, Gill said he was happy with the countys overall pass rates: 90 percent for history, 87 percent for math and science, 86 percent for reading and 84 percent for writing.

Henrico County Public Schools inched up 1 percentage point apiece in reading, writing, history and math, to 79 percent, 76 percent, 87 percent and 78 percent, respectively. Science pass rates dipped by 1 percentage point, to 83.

Our greatest area of need is at the middle school level where were moving ahead with a planned transformation that will reshape the way instruction is delivered, division spokesman Andy Jenks stated in an email. Well be developing a curriculum that further integrates STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics), providing more professional development opportunities for teachers at that level, and working with our School Board and school communities to get feedback and new ideas along the way.

Chesterfields pass rates exceeded state averages overall and either slightly increased or kept pace with last year. The county saw the greatest year-over-year bump in writing, with a 4 percentage point increase, to 80 percent. Math and science pass rates remained unchanged, at 83 percent and 84 percent, respectively. History pass rates increased by 1 percent, to 87 percent.

The only subject where fewer Chesterfield students passed was in reading, which dropped slightly from 84 percent to 83 percent. Compared with figures from two years ago, almost all of the countys pass rates increased. The exception was in history.

Chesterfield touted progress toward closing gaps for economically disadvantaged students, black students, English-language learners and students with disabilities in a release, but challenges remain. Pass rates for African-American students were 10.6 points lower across five core subjects than for the division overall, state data show.

Some pass rates among other county students trailed that of Asian and white students by nearly 20 percentage points. For example, 90 percent of Asian and white students passed the reading portion of the SOL, while 76 percent of Hispanic and 73 percent of African-American students passed in that subject area.

A key focus of our work is closing achievement gaps where they exist, division spokesman Shawn Smith stated in an email.

The state Education Department plans to announce accreditation results next month, according to a release.
A Charleston-area man has been fired from his job as a welder and mechanic after a New York Times photograph of him at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville was circulated on social media.

Nigel Krofta, 27, of Ridgeville, S.C., was pictured standing at the rally with James A. Fields, 20, who is accused of killing Heather Heyer, 32, when the 2010 Dodge Challenger he allegedly was driving plowed into a group of anti-racist counter-protesters Saturday.

Krofta was also photographed multiple times by Times-Dispatch photographer Shaban Athuman.

WCSC in Charleston reported that Limestone & Sons Inc. fired Krofta after they became aware he supported the white nationalist movement. The company posted a statement on their Facebook page on Monday after noon that said they "would like to take this time to assure our friends and our customers that we do not condone the actions of people involved in this horrific display that has taken place in Charlottesville."

Krofta told The Post and Courier in Charleston "I am not ashamed of standing for what I believe in. Every man has a duty to determine for himself what he believes is right and wrong."

Krofta also told the Charleston paper that he has no formal ties to Fields, and that the two only made small talk during the rally.

Krofta isn't the only person feeling an online backlash as a result of participating in the weekend's events in Charlottesville.

Peter Cvjetanovic, a 20-year-old college student, was photographed shouting with a group of torch-wielding protesters Friday during a march through the University of Virginia campus. Cvjetanovic said in a television interview that he didn't expect the photo to spread as widely as it did.

But spread it did. And thousands of people signed an online petition to have him kicked out of school. Cvjetanovic told a local TV station that he is "not the angry racist they see in that photo," but a white nationalist who cares for all people.

The University of Nevada in Reno confirmed Monday that Cvjetanovic is a student there. Spokeswoman Kerri Garcia said the university is "still monitoring the situation and reviewing information."

A message left for Cvjetanovic through the school was not returned. There was no telephone listing available for him in Reno.
CHARLOTTESVILLE  Jamie Dyer had been on the fence about whether a large statue of Robert E. Lee that looms over a small city square in the center of downtown should be removed.

By Monday, all doubt had evaporated. Dyer and a half-dozen city activists circled the bronze likeness of the Confederate Civil War general, pondering how they might tear down the memorial themselves.

They considered hitching burly ropes and chains and using a vehicle  a bulldozer, perhaps?  to pull it down or at least badly damage it. A few paces later, they wondered whether they could melt parts of it with welding torches. Then they discussed whether some kind of acid might be able to melt it away.

Its going to happen, promised Dyer, a scruffy local artist. This is a beautiful equestrian statue, and I dont want to be like the Taliban or the Bolsheviks, but this has got to go. If the city does not move it, we will. Lickity-split.

For Dyer and many around the country, the statues presence as a rallying point for white supremacists immediately heightened the urgency with which they felt Confederate memorials needed to be taken down. The white nationalist rally Saturday was organized by Charlottesville resident Jason Kessler to protest the citys decision to remove the statue, a process currently mired in a lawsuit.

On Monday night, protesters in Durham, N.C., used ropes to topple a statue in their city. And in Baltimore, Mayor Catherine Pugh said she has contacted two contractors about removing four statues in her city, and the City Council unanimously endorsed a resolution to destroy them.

Over the weekend, the mayor of Lexington, Ky., announced plans to remove two Confederate statues there. And on Sunday, a statue in Atlanta was damaged, a chunk broken off by protesters in an act not unlike what activists the activists in Charlottesville are mulling.

The reaction, however, is anything but unanimous.

Richmonds mayor, Levar Stoney, a rising star in the state Democratic party with aspirations for higher office, on Monday reiterated his dedication to the moderate path he has charted. Stoney, who is seeking to add context to the citys array of Confederate memorials, called Saturday's events in Charlottesville awful and the statues offensive but said his view had not changed.

Further to the right, a spokesman for the Virginia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans condemned Saturday's violence and stressed that his group had no affiliation with the racists who protested. But he said the blame for the weekends events rested squarely with Charlottesville officials.

It is a completely self-inflicted wound by the city of Charlottesville, said B. Frank Earnest Sr. in a telephone interview. The group has also been active in opposing Stoneys plan to add context the Richmond monuments. They started this in the first place. Because all the cities in Virginia that had not brought up any issues over their monuments have not had any of this going on in their cities.

That perspective was apparent on the ground in Charlottesville.

In the same park where activists had earlier been plotting to tear down the Lee statue themselves, an older man in a suit and a tie adorned with the Virginia state sea, yelled Monday evening at City Councilman Wes Bellamy. The councils only black representative, Bellamy spearheaded the push to remove the statue.

You started this. Heather Heyer died because of you, said Michael C. Lucas, invoking the 32-year-old woman killed in Saturdays car attack, denouncing what he called Bellamys anti-Confederate bigotry. He clutched laminated copies of letters written by Lee and said he was in the park because Im a Virginian who respects history.

During a small prayer circle for Heyer taking place just across the park, an older woman who declined to give her name complained about the efforts to take down the statue, also suggesting that the city had brought the violence on itself.

How is this statue harming anyone? she said.

The group responded politely but firmly. Its a symbol of white supremacy, answered Kella Cappa, a local real estate agent.

After the prayer circle, which Bellamy participated in, the councilman brushed off comments and called the assertion that the city brought the issue on itself absurd and dangerous.

This has become a gathering place for hateful people, he said. It needs to be removed expeditiously.
CHARLOTTESVILLE  Jamie Dyer had been on the fence about whether a large statue of Robert E. Lee that looms over a small city square in the center of downtown should be removed.

By Monday, all doubt had evaporated. Dyer and a half-dozen city activists circled the bronze likeness of the Confederate Civil War general, pondering how they might tear down the memorial themselves.

They considered hitching burly ropes and chains and using a vehicle  a bulldozer, perhaps?  to pull it down or at least badly damage it. A few paces later, they wondered whether they could melt parts of it with welding torches. Then they discussed whether some kind of acid might be able to melt it away.

Its going to happen, promised Dyer, an artist. This is a beautiful equestrian statue, and I dont want to be like the Taliban or the Bolsheviks, but this has got to go. If the city does not move it, we will. Lickity-split.

For Dyer and many around the country, the statues presence as a rallying point for white supremacists immediately heightened the urgency with which they felt Confederate memorials needed to be taken down. The reaction, however, is anything but unanimous.

A spokesman for the Virginia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans condemned the attacks and stressed that his group had no affiliation with the racists who protested. But he said the blame for the weekends events rested squarely with Charlottesville officials.

It is a completely self-inflicted wound by the city of Charlottesville, B. Frank Earnest Sr. said in a telephone interview. The group has also been active in opposing Richmond Mayor Levar Stoneys plan to add context to the Richmond memorials. They started this in the first place. Because all the cities in Virginia that had not brought up any issues over their monuments have not had any of this going on in their cities.

During a small prayer circle taking place just across the park for Heather Heyer, the counterprotester who died, an older woman who declined to give her name complained about the efforts to take down the statue, also suggesting that the city had brought the violence on itself.

How is this statue harming anyone? she said.

The group responded politely but firmly. Its a symbol of white supremacy, answered Kella Cappa, a local real estate agent.

City Councilman Wes Bellamy, the councils only black representative who spearheaded the push to remove the statue, brushed off the criticism.

This has become a gathering place for hateful people, he said. It needs to be removed expeditiously.
Confederate heritage advocate Bragdon Bowling is withdrawing his request to the state to hold a Sept. 16 rally at the Robert E. Lee statue on Richmonds Monument Avenue after white supremacists caused violence in Charlottesville over the weekend.

Bowling said by email Tuesday that due to the potential for violence after Charlottesville, the rally on Sept. 16 will not be held.

I do not want to be part of an event where people are hurt or killed, Bowling said. Our purpose is to save monuments, not be engaged in social and racial issues.

Bowling made a request several weeks ago to the state Department of General Services to hold the rally. The state had not yet made a decision on it.

Bowling, of Richmond, said Monday that he would consider withdrawing the request if police could not ensure the rally would be safe and opposite sides would be separated. He said his goal was a rally about monument preservation and that he did not want former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke or extremist groups attending.

In an interview Tuesday, he referenced the death of Heather Heyer, the 32-year-old woman who was killed Saturday in Charlottesville when James Alex Fields Jr., 20, of Ohio, who had attended the Unite the Right rally, allegedly plowed his car into a group of anti-racist protesters.

I thought that was awful, and I dont want anything like that at our rally because thats not what were all about it, Bowling said. He also realized that anyone wanting to attend his rally and cause trouble had several weeks to plan.

Bowlings application said Corey Stewart, who nearly won the GOP nomination for governor this year, had been invited to attend.

Bowling said he remains concerned that Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney wants to add context to the citys Confederate monuments.

I still think that theres plenty of criticism to be levied against that commission that the mayor put together, Bowling said.

Stoney, who had said the city would be prepared for a rally, said Monday that the events in Charlottesville did not change his position that Richmonds Confederate monuments should remain where they are. But the news that Bowling had withdrawn the request was no doubt a relief.

The mayor believes Mr. Bowling made a sensible decision, Stoney spokesman Jim Nolan said in a statement.

So did Phil Wilayto of the Defenders for Freedom, Justice and Equality, a Richmond civil rights group, who said revulsion over Confederate statues has exploded since the events in Charlottesville.

This is an historic moment for Mayor Stoney. Is he going to follow the lead of other mayors across the country, or is he going to continue to say these should stay right where they are with a few signs around them? Wilayto said. One way or the other, theyre going to come down.

The only question is, is the city going to show moral leadership on this issue?

Jennifer O. Crosland of Richmond, who grew up in Charlottesville, was among those who attended a vigil in Richmond on Sunday evening following the violence. She said she believes white supremacists are using the Confederate monuments to recruit more members.

They decided to, I think, create a race riot over monuments, she said. But I dont think its about the monuments. ... Its about exposure. To find a way to use the monuments as exposure.
Richmonds rendezvous with a partial solar eclipse is less than a week away, and we can be cautiously optimistic about having fair weather on Monday afternoon.

If there are any clouds, it shouldnt be the result of a tropical system.

Tropical Storm Gert  the only active system in the Atlantic  was centered 370 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras on Monday evening, but it is no threat to land. Gert showed signs of better organization on Monday and is likely to be a Category 1 hurricane by Tuesday morning with sustained wind speeds above 74 mph.

It is moving to the north as it rounds the western edge of an area of high pressure. On Tuesday afternoon, it will make its closest approach to North Carolinas coast, but the center will be a safe 250 to 275 miles offshore.

The storm could further intensify by late Tuesday or Wednesday, possibly reaching Category 2 or 3 strength.

By Wednesday, Gert will accelerate to the northeast ahead of an upper-level trough and lose tropical characteristics somewhere southeast of Newfoundland on Thursday.

It will not hit land, but it will whip up heavy surf and make rip currents a serious threat in North Carolina and the Mid-Atlantic through midweek.

Another cluster of thunderstorms that emerged from the western coast off Africa may strengthen into another tropical storm over the next several days as it moves westward with the trade winds, but it is far too early to know where it will ultimately go.

The next name on the list is Harvey.

Mondays eclipse could come with a few clouds

There are now useful indications about how the weather patterns will look when we experience a partial solar eclipse on Monday, but there are still some details to sort out.

The moon will cover 86 percent of the sun over Richmond at 2:44 p.m. Monday, and eclipse watchers would be disappointed if the sky is overcast.

Some patchy mid- and high-level clouds cant be ruled out yet, but a thick, low overcast is a small probability if the forecast stays on track.

The large details, however, are favorable for at least partial cloudiness, if not mostly clear skies.

High pressure ought to be building down into the state by Sunday or Monday, which would bring fair weather and push a weak front with clouds and storms farther south into North Carolina.

Temperatures wont exactly turn cool and comfortable behind the front. Its likely well have mid- to upper 80s during Monday afternoon, which is normal for mid-August.

Forecasting clouds several days in the future is, in a word, nebulous, so well revisit Mondays forecast in detail later this week and over the weekend.

Reminders:

The moon will not cover enough of the sun to make things totally dark in Richmond. That will happen only in the path of totality, which will be in a line between Oregon and South Carolina.

It will

not

be safe to look directly at the sun here, unless youre using certified protective glasses, or an indirect viewing method like projecting light through a pinhole and onto a surface.

Refer to our stories on Richmond.com for more details about the eclipse, viewing events and where to find safety glasses.
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Advance Auto Parts reported Tuesday that sales during the companys second quarter increased slightly, profit declined and sales in stores open at least one year were flat when compared to the same 12-week period last year.

Advance predicted that sales at these stores during the remainder of fiscal 2017 would drop between 1 percent and 3 percent. That revised guidance apparently played a role in a plunge Tuesday morning in the companys stock price, which had fallen by more than 20 percent by 11 a.m. to about $84 a share and closed at $87.08.

Advance, a leading seller in North America of automotive aftermarket parts, said sales during the second quarter that ended July 15 increased by about 0.3 percent to $2.26 billion.

The company reported profit of about $87 million, or $1.17 per diluted share, compared to a profit of about $124.6 million, or $1.68 per diluted share, during the second quarter of 2016.

During a conference call with industry analysts, Tom Greco, Advances president and CEO, described industry headwinds affecting the company and its competitors.

Among other factors, Greco cited economic uncertainty for low-income consumers tied in part to a year-over-year increase in gas prices that has led to less of an increase in miles driven to date in 2017 than in 2016 or 2015.

In addition, he said, two consecutive mild winters, combined with a spring and summer that have been cooler than last year, impacted certain categories like shocks and struts  as well as air conditioning.

On July 26, Advance competitor OReilly Automotive reported results from its second quarter. CEO Greg Henslee said a second mild winter did not generate the rate of parts failure we would normally expect through this part of the year and said continued soft consumer demand across the aftermarket parts industry affected results.

Advance remains headquartered in Roanoke. Yet most key executives work in Raleigh, North Carolina, which was the former headquarters of General Parts International, whose brands included Worldpac and Carquest.

Advance acquired General Parts International in January 2014. Industry analysts predicted Advance might struggle to integrate the companies and their supply chains.

Advance executives have acknowledged that combining the companies has presented challenges.

In late June, Advance confirmed there had been layoffs in preceding weeks. The company reported changes in its field, supply chain and corporate support functions, which in some cases, resulted in position eliminations.

Advance said the changes affected 475 positions but did not clarify whether all 475 had been cut or how many jobs in the Roanoke region were affected.

On Monday, Laurie Stacy, a spokeswoman for Advance, said jobs in the Roanoke region totaled about 1,200, with workers employed at company offices, a distribution center and stores. The total was the same reported in May, before the restructuring confirmed by Advance in June.

Advance reported Tuesday that, as of July 15, the company operated 5,073 stores and 131 Worldpac branches. It said it employed about 73,000 people, a total reported in May to be about 74,000. Advance also serves about 1,250 independently owned Carquest stores.

In an email, Stacy addressed the drop in employment from the number reported in May.

Headcount is an approximate number that changes over time based on open and seasonal positions, Stacy said. The headcount of 73,000 reported in todays earnings release was as of the close of second quarter on July 15, 2017, and includes all occupied positions. The headcount of 73,000 does not include open positions.

Advances customers include professional mechanics as well as do-it-yourself consumers. The company has worked to increase its share of the commercial market as the DIY market has waned, partly because of the complexity of modern automobiles.

A July 29 article in Barrons by Vito Racanelli suggested there are reasons to be cheerful about Advance Auto Parts outlook. Among other things, Racanelli noted, commercial auto parts customers, such as repair shops, account for nearly 60 percent of Advances sales, a higher percentage than competitors OReilly Automotive and AutoZone, he said.

Some industry observers say Amazon could divert auto parts sales from Advance and competitors. Yet analysts note too that repair shops and do-it-yourselfers often want parts quickly, preferring delivery in minutes or hours instead of days or even overnight.

Nathan Shipley, an automotive industry analyst with The NPD Group, has said numerous factors are influencing the aftermarket auto parts industry. He said consumers are migrating toward buying parts online if not immediately needed. He said longer intervals between oil changes are reducing visits to auto parts stores and suggested Millennials are becoming the new core consumer target.

Advance stock trades on the New York Stock Exchange. Before Tuesday, the companys 52-week low price was $99.13 and the 52-week high was $177.83. On Tuesday, Advance shares closed at $87.08, a drop of more than 20 percent from the previous days close.
Student scores on Virginias reading and math tests were mostly flat this year but most schools in the Roanoke and New River valleys again exceeded state averages.

The 2016-17 test scores, released Tuesday by the state education department, show pass rates leveling out after several years of increases as schools rebounded from the introduction of tougher tests.

State Superintendent Steve Staples emphasized the importance of the longer trend over this years results.

Students continue to perform at substantially higher levels on the commonwealths rigorous assessments in mathematics, English and science than when these tests were first introduced in 2012 and 2013, Staples said in a statement. This long-term, upward trend is far more important than a snapshot for a single year and reflects the hard work of thousands of teachers, principals and other educators and their dedication to helping students meet high expectations.

Statewide, 80 percent of students achieved proficient or advanced scores in reading, the state reported, and 79 percent passed in math, compared with 80 percent in both subjects the prior school year. Writing scores improved, history and social science scores held steady and science scores dropped.

The states tests measure how well students perform on end-of-year tests, which are given in grades three through eight.

For now, test scores are the primary way the state determines whether schools are accredited (at the high school, graduation rates are also a factor). The Virginia Board of Education has proposed revisions to the accreditation standards that would also take into account achievement groups between students, chronic absenteeism, drop-out rates and college and career readiness.

Accreditation ratings will be released in September.

Local trends more or less mirrored the state ones. Other than Radford City Schools, which posted 5- and 6-percentage point gains in math and reading, most area districts held steady or posted slight differences in passing rates  except in writing. There, some districts showed significantly larger improvements in the tests that are taken by eighth-graders and high school students.

Craig and Franklin counties and Roanoke all improved writing scores by more than 7 percentage points. In Franklin County, those gains came after the district turned an eighth grade semester-long English course into a yearlong one, giving students more time to prepare.

In Roanoke, the district made writing instruction a focus of professional development for teachers, said Julie Drewry, the citys executive director of school improvement.

That deliberate, intentional focus on the writing really paid off for us, she said.

Its not clear what effect retesting had on passing rates across the region or state. Every district in the Roanoke and New River valleys took advantage of a 3-year-old provision that allows students to retake a test if they miss the passing score by a narrow margin.

Districts in Floyd, Franklin and Montgomery counties and Radford and Roanoke cities also took advantage of a provision that allows students to retake a test if they score below that narrow margin but have an extenuating circumstance.

Statewide last year, retesting accounted for an average increase in pass rates by 4 percentage points in reading and 5 points in math.

In Roanoke this year, retakes continued for more than two weeks after the last day of school, clustered primarily in two schools: Westside Elementary and Lucy Addison Middle School.
BEDFORD  David Grant waited outside to pick up his granddaughter from her first day of eighth grade at Bedford Middle School. Grant then was going to head to Liberty High School to pick up his grandson.

This school year will be the last year students attend the middle school at 503 Longwood Ave. Next year, Bedford Middle School students will attend the new Liberty Middle School, which currently is being built adjacent to Liberty High School. Grant said that will be more convenient for picking up students from both schools.

Im pretty much glad, because we have a grandson in the fourth grade, Grant said about the new middle school for next year. Itll be nice for him. I think this [Bedford Middle] school needed upgrading. Its pretty old.

The middle school building is 89 years old. Bedford Middle School was Bedford High School for 36 years until 1964, according to the schools website. From 1964 to 1989, the building was an elementary school.

Since 1989, the school has served as Bedford Middle School.

Bedford Middle School, which currently has students in sixth through eighth grades, has about 572 students, but that number doesnt include first-day registrations, Principal Rhetta Watkins said.

The first day was about welcoming and supporting students as they learned their schedules, she said.

Right now, we are just starting with the enthusiasm of beginning a new school year, Watkins said. So we are not thinking about the end right now. Were more concerned about the beginning and making sure the children make it home safely. But Im sure as time gets closer, it will become more of a reality.

Watkins said commemorative plans are being made for later in the school year.

She also said the back-to-school orientation Thursday was well attended.

Virginia Brothers, who has worked at the middle school for three years as a paraprofessional, said this is her first year as a teacher. She is a social sciences teacher for sixth and seventh graders. During orientation, students were able to see her classroom for the first time.

One young man darkened my door and shouted, Ms. Brothers, you finally have your own classroom, so they are very excited, Brothers said.

Jessica Geyer, seventh-grade civics and economics teacher, said this will be her 16th year teaching and her third year at Bedford Middle School.

One of the exciting things throughout the school year is seeing what the students produce and then being able to showcase that, Geyer said. So while we do spend a lot of time organizing our rooms and hanging up decorations, I think the most exciting [thing] is seeing what the students are able to create throughout the school year.

The town of Bedford owns Bedford Middle School and currently is soliciting formal proposals to either purchase or lease the property, Town Manager Bart Warner said.

Warner said the town plans to have a public meeting sometime in November to discuss the different proposals, and the council could decide what to do early next year.
In reality, though, Iran needs the nuclear agreement more than the West does. Tehrans failing economy was boosted when sanction were lifted following the deal, and its leadership is spending billions of dollars in Syria and and elsewhere in the region. That sanctions relief continue under the nuclear agreement is critical to Tehran.

Although the regime claims that the US violated the nuclear agreement, Washingtons new sanctions are a response to Tehrans ballistic missile program. Tehran has fired at least 10 ballistic missiles since the nuclear agreement was signed, which is in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2231. These sanctions also target the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The sanctions have nothing to do with the nuclear agreement, which addressed only Tehrans nuclear program.

Regarding Tehrans performance under the deal, US president Donald Trump pointed out, They are not in compliance with the agreement and they certainly are not in the spirit of the agreement, and I think youll see some very strong things taking place if they dont get themselves in compliance.

According to a report by The Institute for Science and International Security, Irans Atomic Energy Organization recently made an attempt to purchase tons of controlled carbon fiber. The report said, This raises concerns over whether Iran intends to abide by its JCPOA commitments. In particular, Iran may seek to stockpile the carbon fiber so as to be able to build advanced centrifuge rotors far beyond its current needs under the JCPOA, providing an advantage that would allow it to quickly build an advanced centrifuge enrichment plant if it chose to leave or disregard the JCPOA during the next few years.

Recently, Tehran exceeded the amount of heavy water it is permitted to hold under the terms of the JCPOA for a second time. Heavy water is used for the development of nuclear weapons.

The German state of Baden-Wurttemberg, states in another intelligence report, Regardless of the number of national and international sanctions and embargoes, countries like Iran, Pakistan and North Korea are making efforts to optimize technology products and scientific knowhow in the field of developing weapons of mass destruction as well missile technology.

German companies in Rhineland-Palatinate were contacted in illegal procurement attempts by Pakistan, North Korea and Iran. The procurement attempts involved goods that were subject to authorization and approval on account of legal export restrictions and UN embargoes. These goods, for example, could be used for a states nuclear and missile programs, was revealed in another state intelligence report.
Some lawmakers chanted, death to America as the bill was passed, according to state media.

There is no way to know how much money is truly being spent on missile and terror programs because the Iranian regime does not report funding for its military or for its paramilitary operations.

In response to the Trump administrations levying of new economic sanctions and public statements promising to rip up the nuclear deal, President Rouhani was quoted as saying by the Iranian Students News Agency, Anyone who harms the accord harms himself and his country, he added, everyone will side with us and against the person who wants to weaken it, meaning the other signatories to the deal including Germany and France, which have expressed their support for its continuation.

This push follows North Koreas push into launching ballistic missiles capable of reaching the U.S. mainland, as well as intelligence reports that North Korea now possesses at least one nuclear device capable of being mounted on a missile, and North Koreas threats to turn waters around the island of Guam and home to a sprawling U.S. naval base into a sea of fire with multiple missile strikes.

Iran got a head start on missile development through North Koreas licensing of its missile technology the regime, who provided a source of cash to the North Korean regime, the most isolated and sanctioned nation in the world. Kim Yong Nam attended Rouhanis swearing in ceremony last week, signaling that kingdoms close ties with the Iranian regime.

David French explained in his article in the National Review, that the connections between North Korea and Iran extend beyond building a missile fleet together. The 1994 Framework Agreement between North Korea and the U.S. was very similar to the Iran nuclear deal. Like the Iran Deal, it sought to halt the pursuit of nuclear weaponry and bring that nation back into the global community. It also allegedly had enough safeguards to prevent cheating. French writes that, Unfortunately, North Korea cheated. It maintained a secret uranium-enrichment program, and the deal collapsed soon after the Bush administration confronted the North Koreans with evidence of their noncompliance. He points out that, given this history, the Iran Deal may have been the worst possible model, as it demonstrates that relying on trust to verify a nuclear agreement fails miserably when the regime in question cant be trusted in the first place.

The belief that Iran would moderate its behavior with the nuclear deal passed have been proven false. The world must now live with the Iranian missile threat.
CHARLOTTESVILLE  An Ohio man accused of plowing a car into a crowd of activists in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday, killing one person and injuring 19, was denied bail Monday in his first court appearance.

James Alex Fields Jr., 20, appeared via video conference from jail. He is accused of killing Heather Heyer, 32, when the 2010 Dodge Challenger he allegedly was driving plowed into a group of counterprotesters at Fourth and Water streets following the intense and violent white nationalist rally protesting the citys decision to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from a public park.

Of the people injured in the car attack, 10 have been released and nine are in good condition, University of Virginia Health System spokeswoman Angela Taylor said Monday.

Fields, according to records from the Florence Police Department in Kentucky, was previously accused of beating his mother and threatening her with a knife in 2011. The mother, Samantha Bloom, who is disabled and uses a wheelchair, told police he stood behind her wielding a 12-inch knife.

Bloom said that in another incident in 2010, Fields smacked her in the head and locked her in the bathroom after she told him to stop playing video games. Bloom told officers Fields was on medication to control his temper.

In court Monday, Charlottesville District Judge Robert Downer told Fields that the public defenders office would typically represent him, but that a relative of an employee was injured in the crash and the office had informed him that it could not take him as a client.

Instead, he appointed Charles Weber from a list of possible court-appointed attorneys. Downer described Weber as very experienced and set an Aug. 25 hearing to reconsider bond once Fields has had an opportunity to consult with Weber.

Weber is a plaintiff in the lawsuit against the city regarding the removal of Confederate statues. In 2013, Weber ran for the Charlottesville City Council as a Republican.

Im going to make a decision that you could not have a bond until you see your attorney, the judge said in appointing Weber to represent Fields.

Fields has been charged with second-degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding and one count of failing to stop at the scene of an accident that resulted in a death.

Fields appeared calm throughout the hearing. Hair neatly parted and wearing a jail jumpsuit, he stared at the camera, periodically looking down and sniffling. He answered most of Downers questions by saying yes, sir or no, sir.

He told the judge he could not afford an attorney. He said he earned $650 every two weeks and identified his employers as Securitas and Ohio Omni.

Downer and the commonwealths attorney office described the Aug. 25 hearing as a control date.

Commonwealths Attorney Dave Chapman said in a statement that a control date is one of which a more informed decision can be made concerning the scheduling of a preliminary hearing. The timing of a preliminary hearing may be affected by many factors, including the availability of witnesses and the results of any forensic testing.

Addressing the future course of the case, the office said city police will complete a full and fair investigation and that final decisions regarding the charges will not be made until its complete.

Before then, we will not engage in public discussion or speculation about new or additional charges, Chapman said. Our pretrial comments are limited to court proceedings.

According to reports, Fields was fascinated with Nazism and idolized Adolf Hitler. A former high school teacher, Derek Weimer, said Fields was singled out in ninth grade by officials at his Union, Kentucky, school for his deeply held, radical beliefs on race.

Keegan McGrath, 18, who said he was roommates with Fields on a class trip to Europe in 2015, said Fields referred to Germany as the Fatherland.

Weimer described Fields as an average student, but with a keen interest in military history, Hitler and Nazi Germany.

Once you talked to James for a while, you would start to see that sympathy toward Nazism, that idolization of Hitler, that belief in white supremacy, Weimer said. It would start to creep out.

Fields enlisted in the Army and reported for basic military training camp in August 2015, Army Lt. Col. Jennifer Johnson said. The spokesman added that Fields was released from active duty four months later due to a failure to meet training standards.

Outside the courthouse Monday, two men shouted that the melee over the weekend was not the fault of the white supremacists who massed in the city. Instead, they blamed it on the city council, for attempting to remove the statue.

The two men were swarmed by national and local media and eventually shouted down by several Charlottesville residents.

The Associated Press and The (Charlottesville) Daily Progress contributed to this report.
RICHMOND  Confederate heritage advocate Bragdon Bowling is withdrawing his request to the state to hold a Sept. 16 rally at the Robert E. Lee statue on Monument Avenue in Richmond after white supremacists caused violence in Charlottesville over the weekend.

Bowling said by email Tuesday morning that due to the potential for violence after Charlottesville, the rally on Sept. 16 will not be held.

I do not want to be part of an event where people are hurt or killed, Bowling said. Our purpose is to save monuments, not be engaged in social and racial issues.

Bowling made a request several weeks ago to the state Department of General Services to hold the rally. The state had not yet made a decision on the request.

Bowling, of Richmond, said Monday that he would consider withdrawing the request if police couldnt ensure the rally would be safe and opposite sides would be separated. He said his goal was a rally about monument preservation and he didnt want the former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke or extreme groups attending.

In an interview Tuesday, he referenced the death of Heather Heyer, the 32-year-old woman who was killed Saturday in Charlottesville when a 2010 Dodge Challenger plowed into a group of counterprotesters.

The cars alleged driver, James Alex Fields Jr., 20, of Ohio, has been charged with second-degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding and one count of failing to stop at the scene of an accident that resulted in a death.

I thought that was awful and I dont want anything like that at our rally because thats not what were all about it, Bowling said. He also realized that anyone planning to attend his rally and cause trouble had several weeks to plan.

Bowlings application said Corey Stewart, who nearly won the Republican nomination for governor, had been invited to attend.

Bowling said he remains concerned that Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney wants to add context to the citys Confederate monuments.

I still think that theres plenty of criticism to be levied against that commission that the mayor put together, Bowling said.

Stoney had said the city would be prepared for a rally and said Monday the events in Charlottesville didnt change his position that Richmonds monuments should remain where they are. But the news that Bowling had withdrawn the request was met with approval.

The mayor believes Mr. Bowling made a sensible decision, Stoney spokesman Jim Nolan said in a statement.

So did Phil Wilayto of the Defenders for Freedom, Justice and Equality, a Richmond civil rights group, who said revulsion over Confederate statutes has exploded since the events in Charlottesville.

This is an historic moment for Mayor Stoney. Is he going to follow the lead of other mayors across the country or is he going to continue to say these should stay right where they are with a few signs around them? Wilayto said. One way or the other theyre going to come down. The only question is, is the city going to show moral leadership on this issue?
MEMRI

The latest issue of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's (AQAP) magazine, Inspire, calls for attacks on U.S. railways and transit systems and goes as far as including many steps to help carry out acts of terror.

A summary of the 100-page issue was provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a non-profit which translates many publications originating in the Middle East to English. MEMRI says the issue was published on Aug. 13 and was distributed by the Telegram channel of AQAP and other pro-Al-Qaeda channels.

It seems the U.S. rail system is being targeted for two reasons: Perceived lax security and perceived ease at which single operatives can carry out an attack.

This edition of the magazine is the first published in nine months and the editor, Yahya Ibrahim, writes that the idea of derailing trains has been researched for more than a year in order to come up with a profound yet simple method that would allow a single terrorist to cause destruction.

The magazine includes an article by AQAPs chief bomb-maker who explains targeting mass transportation will undermine public security in addition to causing economic harm. One of the more disturbing articles, written by AQ Chef provides instructions for a DIY derailing tool, as well as instructions on where it should be placed on the tracks. Additionally, the article specifies many busy passenger routes across the country and provides a map.

The U.S. Transportation Safety Administration said it was aware of the magazine and had been in contact with freight and passenger rail providers on how to protect their systems.

Additionally, the New York Police Departments Counterterrorism unit sent a series of tweets addressing the magazines publication:

Weve known about the content & threats presented in the current issue of AQAPs Inspire 17 prior to its release

Our assets are strategically deployed throughout the city & can redeploy at a moments notice, based on up-to-the-minute intelligence

We continuously monitor intelligence reports from around the world and how they may affect New York City

Our robust multi-layered counterterrorism apparatus is designed to protect our air, land, waterways and railways in #NYC
AAR

U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) was honored Aug. 14 with the Railroad Achievement Award by the Association of American Railroads (AAR) and GoRail.

AAR says the award is given periodically to members of Congress who have shown leadership on policies that help ensure the vitality of railroads in the United States. The Railroad Achievement Award was launched in May 2017 with Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Bill Nelson (D-FL) jointly recognized as the inaugural award recipients.

The organizers explain that award winners, such as Rep. DeFazio, have particularly shown an understanding of the distinct role railroads play in the American economy and the need for safe and efficient operations made possible through sustained investment.

Rep. DeFazio is the Ranking Member of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, a position AAR President and CEO Edward R. Hamberger says allows him to understand the critical role railroads play in the nations economy.

Freight railroads serve almost every industrial, wholesale, retail and resource-based sector of the economy and provide firm footing for the vast majority of passenger and commuter rail in this nation, said Hamberger. [Rep. DeFazios] leadership was especially evident in passing the Fixing Americas Surface Transportation (FAST) Act in 2015, the first long-term surface transportation bill in a decade, which included several key railroad provisions, such as Amtrak reauthorization.

Rep. DeFazio is also credited with many state-level rail accomplishments, such as helping secure a grant for the Oregon International Port of Coos Bay to purchase an abandoned rail line, as well as additional funding to rehabilitate the line. His work with the Coos Bay Rail Link earned him a locomotive named in his honor.

In prepared remarks introducing Rep. DeFazio, GoRails Nate Kaplan discussed the critical safety enhancements made possible through the FAST Act. Kaplan also pointed to the reauthorization of the Surface Transportation Board (STB) in 2015 and applauded the broad representation of the rail sector at the event, including western rail carriers BNSF Railway and Union Pacific, shortline Genesee & Wyoming, Oregon-based rail suppliers and the host, of Willamette Valley Company (WVCO), a major local employer and international transportation supply and technology company.

Communities and companies all across America benefit from an innovative freight rail industry that invests more than 40 cents of every revenue dollar back into the nations rail network, said GoRail President Russell McGurk. Making this possible are sound public policies and elected leaders like Congressman DeFazio with the foresight to enact and protect those policies.

Rep. DeFazio accepted the award at WVCOs manufacturing facility and the event was coordinated by the Railway Engineering-Maintenance Suppliers Association (REMSA).

Congressman Peter DeFazio has long been a strong advocate of the rail industry, the State of Oregon and especially, Lane County, added John Murray, vice president of WVCO. Willamette Valley Company is honored to host this award presentation.

It was our pleasure to join our industry counterparts in honoring and thanking Congressman DeFazio for his continued leadership on vital transportation and infrastructure issues, said David Tennent, executive director & CEO, REMSA. We look forward to continuing to unite railroads and suppliers to advocate for sound, fact-based policies that will continue to create jobs and growth across the United States.
(Agencia CMA Latam) - Colcap, the main index of the Colombian Stock Exchange, ended slightly lower (-0.04%) Monday at 1,462.44 points, with shares presenting a mixed performance amid quarterly corporate results, tensions between the United States and North Korea and expectation with Colombia's GDP data, due Tuesday.

Cementos Argos closed stable after reporting a net income of 73 billion pesos at the end of the second quarter, a 70% drop compared to the same period in 2016. According to Alianza Valores, the results were seen as negative by the market.

Canacol Energy reported the update on the Picoplata 1 well in Colombia, where it explained that the operation, completed in July 2017, was successful in producing light crude. However, the oil price decline abroad weighed, and the company's shares fell by 2.39% each.

Grupo Argos closed with a 0.41% drop after signing an agreement to sell 50% of its stake in the Company of Associated Ports of Colombia (Compas) to an investment fund managed by the Goldman Sachs Business Banking Division.

Avianca, meanwhile, rose by 0.96% after reporting an agreement with Singapore Airlines to share codes on their flights to and from Barcelona and London from September 2017.

Meanwhile, the locally traded US dollar closed at 2,967.95 Colombian pesos, marking a 0.23% fall, maintaining the bearish trend caused by geopolitical tensions.

For Tuesday, investors will pay attention to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the supply in the second quarter and the Colombian economic growth.

by Agencia CMA Latam

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Economic News

What parts of the world are seeing the best (and worst) economic performances lately? Click here to check out our Econ Scorecard and find out! See up-to-the-moment rankings for the best and worst performers in GDP, unemployment rate, inflation and much more.
(Agencia CMA Latam) - Argentina's ruling coalition Cambiemos victory in the primary legislative election held yesterday is a good result for Mauricio Macri's government and increases the chances of a win in the final parliamentary elections in October and the upcoming 2019 presidential elections, said Brazilian investment bank BTG Pactual in a recent report.

BTG believes that former President Cristina Kirchner, whose political coalition recorded a virtual tie with the Cambiemos' candidate in the Province of Buenos Aires, is strong to survive politically, but not enough to lead the Peronism - a reason why the Peronist landscape is likely to remain divided for two more years.

Some of the leaders of another Peronist faction (such as Sergio Massa of the Frente Renovador or the governor of Cordoba, Juan Schiaretti) are unlikely to become leaders of the opposition after yesterday's weak results. Only the governors of Salta and Tucuman (Juan Manuel Urtubey and Juan Luis Manzur) did well in their provinces, validating their chances of fighting for the Judicialist Party (Peronist) leadership.

BTG expects that in October the results for Mauricio Macri's government may be better, since the anti-Kirchner vote could be even stronger in the final elections, according to polls.

Meanwhile, Massa's support could continue to weaken, which would favor Cambiemos. On the other hand, Cristina Kirchner could obtain votes from the supporters of the Frente Cumplir, headed by the ex-minister of Interior Florencio Randazzo, who was fourth in the provincial election, behind Massa.

However, BTG indicates that the economic and infrastructure recovery will also help the government, given that the economic recovery should remain in the period, helping Macri. If Sunday's proportion were repeated in October, the government would add 8-9 senators, depending on the final result of Buenos Aires, and about 15 members of the lower house, from 89 to 104, but still far from the required 129 chairs to form a majority.

by Agencia CMA Latam

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What parts of the world are seeing the best (and worst) economic performances lately? Click here to check out our Econ Scorecard and find out! See up-to-the-moment rankings for the best and worst performers in GDP, unemployment rate, inflation and much more.
CargoLogicAir, Britain's only all-cargo airline, will begin service this month out of Bush Intercontinental Airport in the city of Houston. The deal reportedly was finalized during Mayor Sylvester Turner's European trade mission in July.

In a statement, CargoLogicAir or CLA announced its plan to launch its first scheduled cargo route on August 19, connecting the UK and Mexico. CLA's Boeing 747-400 freighters will arrive in Houston on a route from Mexico City. There will be operations between Houston and Frankfurt, Germany, and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates on Thursdays and Sundays.

CLA's flights will depart from its base at London Stansted Airport every Wednesday and Saturday. Flights will operate to Mexico City International Airport through Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

Turner reportedly said in a statement, "The new CargoLogicAir flights add important connectivity to further develop Houston's international trade."



CLA, which will offer a total cargo capacity of over 200 tonnes a week on its new routes, has also appointed AirCargoAmericas as its GSA partner in the U.S.

Dmitry Grishin, CEO of CargoLogicAir, said, "The arrival of our third 747 freighter means we are ready to begin our scheduled cargo operations and we are confident the routing we have chosen will appeal strongly to customers moving car spares, hi-tech, energy, aerospace and healthcare products."

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
[August 14, 2017] UrtheCast Announces the Signing of a Contract exceeding $100M for the Delivery of a SAR-XL Satellite as an "Accelerator Mission" for the OptiSAR Constellation

VANCOUVER, Aug. 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - UrtheCast Corp. (TSX:UR) (the "Company") announced today that it has entered into a contract with a confidential customer for the development and delivery of a dual-frequency stand-alone Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) operational-class satellite as an "accelerator" for the OptiSARTM Constellation. The exact amount of the contract is not being disclosed at this time for confidentiality and competitive reasons, but the Company can confirm that it is a substantial contract worth in excess of one hundred million Canadian dollars. The contract is for the delivery of the SAR spacecraft, key elements of the ground segment, namely the mission control and planning system and the SAR processor, and in-orbit operations support, but does not include the price of the launch or insurance (which are the customer's responsibilities). This confidential customer has previously signed an MOU with the Company for the OptiSAR Constellation. The contract is subject to the customer obtaining final government appropriation approval and to UrtheCast and its suppliers obtaining technology transfer export permits on terms agreeable to the customer. Subject to these conditions being met, work on the program is anticipated to begin in early 2018, for launch in late 2020. Payments by the customer to UrtheCast under the contract are conditional on the Company successfully reaching various program delivery milestones. As part of the deliverables under the contract, UrtheCast has also agreed to provide elements of the satellite ground segment and post-launch maintenance and operational support, each to be further detailed and extended in separate definitive contracts. Using the same SAR technology that the Company has been developing for the OptiSAR constellation, this contract will allow UrtheCast to accelerate both the operationalization of its SAR technology and the start of our SAR data services business. The contract enables the Company to build and launch a SAR satellite as a precursor mission (or "accelerator") to the OptiSAR Constellation and to thereby demonstrate its high-capacity, high-throughput, fully-operational class capability with an unprecedented range of imaging modes and scientific-grade data quality. Under the contract, the parties have agreed to enter into a separate definitive contract to provide UrtheCast with the exclusive commercial distribution rights to the customer's unused satellite imaging capacity outside specified regions on a shared 50/50 net revenue basis, allowing the Company to sell the SAR-XL data and SAR-derived services in advance of the deployment of the OptiSAR constellationthe date of which is now pushed out by at least a year. "This contract is a big win and a huge opportunity for us," stated UrtheCast's President and CEO, Wade Larson. "The execution of the accelerator program will demonstrate to prospective OptiSAR customers that the technology is build-ready and give them the confidence that we are able to carry out programs of this scale. Building and delivering this accelerator SAR satellite will validate our technology, substantially reduce our financial, programmatic and operational risks, and get us into the business of selling SR-XL data sooner than we were anticipating. Subject to final approvals, we'll soon be customer-funded to build our first operational-class SAR mission."



As previously disclosed, UrtheCast believes its SAR technology, for which it has filed multiple patents, will be the world's first "5th Generation" space-borne SAR technology. Both multi-frequency and fully-digital, the Company's SAR technology allows for significant operational flexibility. With six independent apertures, the accelerator SAR satellite is expected to be the first SAR satellite ever to fly more than two independent apertures. Having six apertures will provide several advantages over existing systems, including improved data quality and spotlight-class higher resolution in full stripmap mode, which enables significantly more coverage capability at high resolution than is currently commercially available. The Company today is also disclosing that the OptiSAR technology, which is now in its third design iteration, could be configured in future missions to image simultaneously in three bands (for example, X, S, and L), which is believed to be another world's-first achievement and is covered in our patent filings.

Funding for the development of UrtheCast's SAR technology has to date come from our own funds and from our customers, including the Government of Canada: the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), the Department of National Defence (DND), and Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED). About UrtheCast Corp. UrtheCast Corp. is a Vancouver-based technology company that serves the rapidly evolving geospatial and geoanalytics markets with a wide range of information-rich products and services. The Company operates Earth Observation (EO) sensors in space, including two satellites, Deimos-1 and Deimos-2, to produce imagery data that is displayed on UrtheCast's cloud-based web platform and sold to partners and customers. Through its subsidiary, Deimos Imaging, UrtheCast processes and distributes imagery data and value-added products on behalf of the PanGeo Alliance, a network of eight satellite operator s with a combined 15 medium- and high-resolution EO sensors. UrtheCast is also developing and expects to launch two EO satellite constellations: the world's first fully-integrated constellation of sixteen multispectral optical and SAR satellites, called OptiSAR, and an eightsatellite constellation designed to capture high-quality, medium-resolution optical imagery of the Earth's entire landmass (excluding Antarctica) every day, called UrtheDaily. Together, the Company believes these constellations will revolutionize monitoring of our planet with medium- and high-resolution, high-coverage and high-revisit imagery in all weather conditions. Common shares of UrtheCast trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange as ticker 'UR'. Forward Looking Information This release may contain certain "forward-looking statements" and certain "forward-looking information" as defined under applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking statements and information can generally be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "may", "will", "expect", "intend", "estimate", "anticipate", "believe", "continue", "plans" or similar terminology. Within this release forward-looking statements may include, without limitation, statements with respect to UrtheCast's future plans, strategies and objectives, timing of milestones, including in respect of the planned OptiSAR and UrtheDaily satellite constellations; the potential precursor program to the OptiSAR Constellation; projected revenues, future trends, opportunities and growth in UrtheCast's industry; UrtheCast's ability to maintain and enhance its competitive advantages within its industry and in certain markets; new product functionality and suitability; projected operating expenses and capital expenditures. Forward-looking statements and information are subject to various known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the ability of the Company to control or predict, that may cause the Company's actual results, performance, timing, milestones or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied thereby, and are developed based on assumptions about such risks, uncertainties and other factors set out herein, including, without limitation, any delays or failures in the design, development, construction, launch and operational commissioning of the proposed UrtheDaily and OptiSAR constellations; the Company being unable to adequately finance the development, building, launch and commission of the UrtheDaily and OptiSAR constellations, uncertainty on whether any unused capacity from the precursor SAR satellite will be available to UrtheCast; interruptions to or failures of UrtheCast's infrastructure; legal and regulatory changes or the prevention of the export of certain technologies related to the OptiSAR Constellation by government regulators with jurisdiction over UrtheCast; the ability of UrtheCast to obtain qualified employees, contractors and subcontractors, as well as those factors and assumptions discussed in UrtheCast's annual information form dated March 27, 2017, (the "AIF"), which is available under UrtheCast's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. Forward-looking information is developed based on assumptions about such risks, uncertainties and other factors set out herein, in the AIF, and as disclosed from time to time on UrtheCast's SEDAR profile. UrtheCast undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements except as required by Canadian securities laws. Readers are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information except as required by applicable law. Such forward-looking information represents management's best judgment based on information currently available. No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed and actual future results may vary materially. Accordingly, readers are advised not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements or information. SOURCE UrtheCast Corp.

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Gas and engineering company Linde Group (LDE.L,LNAGF.PK), regarding the planned merger between Linde and Praxair, announced Tuesday that the acceptance period for the exchange offer starts on August 15 and ends on October 24.

Linde shareholders will receive 1.54 shares in the new holding company Linde plc for each tendered Linde AG share.

Linde said its shareholders with immediate effect may tender their shares under the terms of the exchange offer launched by the new holding company. The German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority has reviewed the relevant offer document and approved its publication.

Aldo Belloni, Chief Executive Officer of Linde AG, said, "Our shareholders now have the historic opportunity to make an active decision to exchange their shares and thus become part of a new global gases group. As a result, they will benefit not only from the direct increase in value from the expected synergies but also from the attractive growth opportunities offered by the merged company."

Praxair has scheduled a special meeting of Praxair shareholders to seek the adoption of the Business Combination Agreement and the approval of the Praxair merger. The meeting is currently envisaged to be held on September 27 at Praxair's headquarters.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Early signals are mixed for Canadian stocks Tuesday morning, with in a better mood this week as North Korea pulled back its threat to attack territories in the Pacific.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un opted not to give the order to launch missiles, but instead "would watch a little more the foolish and stupid conduct of the Yankees."

Still, falling commodities prices have weighed on Canadian stocks this week. Gold slipped on diminished safe haven appetite, while oil prices have dropped below $48.

Delta Air is eyeing New York and Los Angeles as the main bases for Bombardier Inc.'s (BBD.B.TO) new jetliner next year, Bloomberg report.



Bombardier delivered its first Learjet 75 to a customer in Brazil and won a contract for the first monorails in Thailand.

Canada's Husky Energy (HSE.TO) will acquire the Superior Refinery, a 50,000 barrel per day permitted capacity facility located in Superior, Wisconsin from Calumet Specialty Products Partners, L.P. for $435 million US in cash.

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Market Analysis
[August 14, 2017] TSS, Inc. Reports Second Quarter 2017 Results

ROUND ROCK, Texas, Aug. 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- TSS, Inc. (Other OTC: TSSI), a data center and mission critical facilities and technology services company, reported results for its second quarter ended June 30, 2017. Second Quarter Highlights: Second quarter 2017 revenue of $4.2 million compared with $7.0 million in the second quarter of 2016 and $4.4 million in the first quarter of 2017.

compared with in the second quarter of 2016 and in the first quarter of 2017. Gross margin of 42% in the second quarter of 2017 compared with 31% in the second quarter of 2016.

Reduced selling, general and administrative expenses by $0.5 million or 25% compared to the second quarter of 2016.

or 25% compared to the second quarter of 2016. Achieved operating income of $74,000 in the second quarter of 2017 compared to an operating loss of $60,000 in the second quarter of 2016.

in the second quarter of 2017 compared to an operating loss of in the second quarter of 2016. Net loss of $24,000 or $0.00 per share in the second quarter of 2017 compared to a net loss of $169,000 or $(0.01) per share in the second quarter of 2016.

or per share in the second quarter of 2017 compared to a net loss of or per share in the second quarter of 2016. Adjusted EBITDA of $223,000 compared with Adjusted EBITDA of $197,000 in the second quarter of 2016. "We feel we have aligned our business properly and have now recorded five consecutive quarters of positive Adjusted EBITDA." said Anthony Angelini, President and Chief Executive Officer of TSS. "We anticipate increasing revenues and profits in the second half of the year as the focus on growth within our core services begins to play out. Our market opportunity remains large and we see positive underlying trends within the services we are focused on delivering." Quarterly Conference Call Details The Company has scheduled a conference call to discuss the second quarter 2017 financial results for Monday, August 14, 2017 at 4:30 PM Eastern. To participate on the conference call, please dial 877-691-2551 toll free from the U.S., or 630-691-2747 for international callers. The conference code is 45376153#. Investors may also access a live audio web cast of this conference call under the "events" tab on the investor relations section of the Company's website at http://ir.totalsitesolutions.com/events.cfm. An audio replay of the conference call will be available approximately one hour after the conclusion of the call and will be made available until September 13, 2017. The audio replay can be accessed by dialing 1-888-843-7419 in the U.S. or 630-652-3042 toll free then enter conference ID number 4537 6153#. Additionally, a replay of the webcast will be available on the Company's website approximately two hours after the conclusion of the call and will remain available for 90 calendar days. About Non-GAAP Financial Measures Adjusted EBITDA is a supplemental financial measure not defined under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). We define Adjusted EBITDA as net income (loss) before interest expense, income taxes, depreciation and amortization, impairment loss on goodwill and other intangibles, stock-based compensation, and provision for bad debts. We present Adjusted EBITDA because we believe this supplemental measure of operating performance is helpful in comparing our operating results across reporting periods on a consistent basis by excluding non-cash items that may, or could, have a disproportionate positive or negative impact on our results of operations in any particular period. We also use Adjusted EBITDA as a factor in evaluating the performance of certain management personnel when determining incentive compensation. Adjusted EBITDA may not be comparable to similarly titled measures reported by other companies. Adjusted EBITDA, while providing useful information, should not be considered in isolation or as an alternative to net income or cash flows as determined under GAAP. Consistent with Regulation G under the U.S. federal securities laws, Adjusted EBITDA has been reconciled to the nearest GAAP measure, and this reconciliation is located under the heading "Adjusted EBITDA Reconciliation" following the Consolidated Statements of Operations included in this press release. About TSS, Inc. TSS provides a comprehensive suite of services for the planning, design, deployment, maintenance, refresh and take-back of end-user and enterprise systems, including the mission-critical facilities they are housed in. TSS provides a single-source solution for enabling technologies in data centers, operations centers, network facilities, server rooms, security operations centers, communications facilities and the infrastructure systems that are critical to their function. TSS's services consist of technology consulting, design and engineering, project management, systems integration, systems installation and facilities management. For more information, visit www.totalsitesolutions.com or call 888-321-4877. Forward Looking Statements This press release may contain "forward-looking statements" -- that is, statements related to future -- not past -- events, plans, and prospects. In this context, forward-looking statements may address matters such as our expected future business and financial performance, and often contain words such as "guidance," "prospects," "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "plans," "believes," "seeks," "should," or "will." Forward-looking statements by their nature address matters that are, to different degrees, uncertain. Particular uncertainties that could adversely or positively affect the Company's future results include: our independent registered public accounting firm's reports on our 2015 and 2016 financial statements contain an explanatory paragraph that expresses substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern; we may not have sufficient resources to fund our business and may need to issue debt or equity to obtain additional funding; our reliance on a significant portion of our revenues from a limited number of customers; risks relating to operating in a highly competitive industry; risks relating to the failure to maintain effective internal control over financial reporting; risks relating to rapid technological, structural, and competitive changes affecting the industries we serve; risks involved in properly managing complex projects; risks relating to the possible cancellation of customer contracts on short notice; risks relating our ability to continue to implement our strategy, including having sufficient financial resources to carry out that strategy; risks relating to our ability to meet all of the terms and conditions of our debt obligations; uncertainty related to current economic conditions and the related impact on demand for our services; and other risks and uncertainties disclosed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2016. These uncertainties may cause our actual future results to be materially different than those expressed in our forward-looking statements. We do not undertake to update our forward-looking statements.







TSS, Inc. Consolidated Balance Sheets (In thousands except par values)









June 30,

December 31,







2017

2016







(unaudited)



Assets









Current Assets







Cash and cash equivalents

$ 1,026

$ 2,152

Contract and other receivables, net

1,195

2,389

Costs and estimated earnings in excess of billings on uncompleted

contracts

300

539

Inventories, net

122

59

Prepaid expenses and other current assets

383

252

Total current assets

3,026

5,391 Property and equipment, net

436

544 Goodwill



1,907

1,907 Intangible assets, net

633

704 Other assets



112

30

Total assets

$ 6,114

$ 8,576 Liabilities and Stockholders' Equity





Current Liabilities









Convertible notes payable, current portion, net

$ 100

$ 246

Borrowings under receivables factoring agreement

284

737

Accounts payable and accrued expenses

2,940

5,319

Billings in excess of costs and estimated earnings on uncompleted

contracts

3,088

2,818

Total current liabilities

6,412

9,120 Convertible notes, less current portion, net

845

825 Other liabilities

23

62

Total liabilities

7,280

10,007 Stockholders' Equity (Deficit)









Preferred stock- $.0001 par value; 1,000 shares authorized at June

30, 2017 and December 31, 2016; none issued

-

-

Common stock- $.0001 par value, 49,000 shares authorized at June

30, 2017 and December 31, 2016: 16,316 and 16,370 shares issued

at June 30, 2017 and December 31, 2016, respectively

2

2

Additional paid-in capital

68,559

68,522

Treasury stock 759 and 748 shares at cost at June 30, 2017 and

December 31, 2016, respectively

(1,533)

(1,532)

Accumulated deficit

(68,194)

(68,423)

Total stockholders' equity (deficit)

(1,166)

(1,431)

Total liabilities and stockholders' equity (deficit)

$ 6,114

$ 8,576

















TSS, Inc. Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations (In thousands except per-share values, unaudited)











Three Months Ended June 30,

Six Months Ended June 30,









2017

2016

2017

2016 Results of Operations:



















Revenue





$ 4,198

$ 7,029

$ 8,587

$ 14,704

Cost of revenue, excluding depreciation and

amortization

2,444

4,861

4,974

11,231

Gross profit, excluding depreciation and

amortization

1,754

2,168

3,613

3,473

Operating expenses:



















Selling, general and administrative

1,555

2,077

3,298

4,329

Depreciation and amortization



125

151

263

298

Gain on sale of business component



-

-

(321)

-

Total operating costs



1,680

2,229

3,240

4,627

Operating income (loss)



74

(60)

373)

(1,154)

Interest income (expense), net



(74)

(111)

(151)

(191)

Other income (expense), net



(3)

2

(3)

9

Income (loss) before income taxes



(3)

(169)

219

(1,336)

Income tax expense



21

-

(10)

-

Net income (loss)



$ (24)

$ (169)

$ 229

$ (1,336) Basic and diluted loss per Share:



















Net income (loss) per share



$ (0.00)

$ (0.01)

$ 0.01

$ (0.09)







































TSS, Inc. Adjusted EBITDA Reconciliation (In thousands, unaudited)







Three Months Ended June 30,

Six Months Ended June 30,





2017

2016

2017

2016



















Net income (loss)

$ (24)

$ (169)

$ 229

$ (1,319)



















Interest income (expense), net 74

111

151

175 Depreciation and amortization 125

151

263

298 Income tax expense

21

42

(10)

61 EBITDA profit (loss) $ 196

$ 135

$ 633

$ (786) Stock based compensation

27

62

37

134 Provision for bad debts

-

-

2

5 Adjusted EBITDA

$ 223

$ 197

$ 672

$ (647) View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/tss-inc-reports-second-quarter-2017-results-300503927.html SOURCE TSS, Inc.

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[August 15, 2017] KudanSLAM: 3D Recognition and Position Tracking Software Is Now Ready for the Market for Autonomous Car, Drone, Robotics

Kudan, Inc. has succeeded to develop real time 3D mapping and position tracking via camera, called "KudanSLAM*1", and started to provide its technology to the market such as Autonomous car, ADAS*2, Drone, Industrial and Personal Robots in addition to the existing AR/VR industries. SLAM, is the software technology, which is capable of 3D mapping and position tracking. It provides computers the ability of "computer vision" to acquire, process, analyse and understand digital images as well as the ability to map its 3D environment, objects, and understand its location within it. This "Computer Vision" technology can be used for any industries such as Autonomous car and Robotics. Kudan has been developing tracking space and object technology through AR. As a result, Kudan succeeded to develop practicable and next generation algorithm, which would replace the existing SLAM such as ORB and PTAM*3 SLAM base, and apply those technology to be ready for the market. Kudan, as a SLAM's leading company, aims to spread use of KudanSLAM which is to be embedded on all image-related devices with camera, in any fields such as Autonomous car, ADAS, Drone and Robotics in addition to the existing AR/VR area. Key features of KudanSLAM Hardware friendly: flexible with camera setup including monocular, rolling shutter, and other sensors. Ready to be embedded on processor any other tech architecture

flexible with camera setup including monocular, rolling shutter, and other sensors. Ready to be embedded on processor any other tech architecture High speed / Low consumption: less than 5% of mobile CPU consumption

less than 5% of mobile CPU consumption High tracking accuracy: 1mm-1cm *4

1mm-1cm Robustness: Capable to work under severe lighting condition and with unpredictable movement 1 SLAM: Simultaneous Localization and Mapping, enables real-time 3D mapping and position tracking

2 ADAS : Advanced Driver Assistance System

3 ORB,PTAM SLAM : The existing open source SLAM algorithms

4 Kudan research: The accuracy is proportional to the distance between the camera and the recognition target. 1mm to 1cm accuracy in 1m distance by smartphone spec camera. === KudanSLAM Use scene === 1) Autonomous car / ADAS -KudanSLAM is ready to be also combined with internal sensor and LiDAR and that leads to realize further robustness and more precise position tracking.

-It would be useful for monitoring both front and back, which is not to be effected by environmental noise, also useful for parking assistant, which needs precise position tracking with a few centimeters difference.

(demo) KudanSLAM building a 3D map using a car camera

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EE-QvVTMTdY 2) Drone -Despite low-end camera of Drone, it enables to recognize object and position tracking precisely with 1mm to 1cm accuracy.

-Robust with severe lighting condition, occlusion and unpredictable movement.

(demo) KudanSLAM building a 3D map using a drone camera

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDJ6aFsPWN4 3) Robotics -Even without outside sensor, KudanSLAM enables robot to work independently, which makes the robot work freely, without any specific facility and environment. 4) VR/AR/MR -Even without marker, KudanSLAM enables to display absolute position tracking. It enables to display the specific AR at the specific place, and share the same AR image with the other person.

-Navigation without GPS is available, such as indoor and inside of the factory.

-KudanSLAM enables to track the headset holder's position and eye tracking, which would be utilized as data analysis of the effective operation.







Comparison chart of SLAM specification Technical Strength: Practicality KudanSLAM performs with high speed/low consumption, high accuracy and

high robustness at any setup required Performance comparison with open source algorithms*1 KudanSLAM PTAM ORB Processing time/

computing foot-print (ms for a single tracking frame) 1 15 30 Tracking accuracy

(mm in 1m distance) 1 30 10 Mapping accuracy

(mm in 1m distance) 1 50 20 Occlusion (minimum % of fields of view

required for workable tracking) 10 50 20 *1: Original evaluation using 2014 Macbook Pro and Duo3D

(https://duo3d.com/product/duo-minilx-lv1)

About Kudan Kudan was established in 2011 in UK, after developing AR, Kudan has been researching and developing SLAM technology and provide its technology. Kudan SLAM features are versatile and applicable to not only mobile devices such as AR/MR/VR, but also used for Autonomous car, Robotics. As a SLAM's leading company, Kudan's hardware-agnostic technology is ready to be embedded on all image-related devices and platforms in years to come. Corporate Profile Representative Director: Tomohiro Ohno

Japan Office: 6-27-45, Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo

URL: https://www.kudan.eu/ View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170814006077/en/

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[August 15, 2017] Asia-Pacific 5G Markets 2017-2022 with 2016 as the Base Year

DUBLIN, August 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The "5G in Asia-Pacific, Forecast to 2022" report has been added to Research and Markets' offering. The market trends are analyzed for a study period of 2017 to 2022, with the base year being 2016. The study leveraged on primary research through interviews with 4 out of 5 radio access network equipment vendors supported by extensive secondary research and validated by key industry experts. A carefully curated selection of MNOs across Asia-Pacific was interviewed to get a more accurate view of the industry from within. The timeframe covered is from 2017 to 2022, of which the forecast period is from 2018 to 2022. 5G is on its way. It may be closer to 2019-2020 for some but for others, it may be 2023-2025 before it materializes. In all the countries that are frontrunners of 5G in Asia-Pacific, 5G is benefiting from local government support coupled with local demand or at least the potential for demand for 5G services. The demand may be incentive or market driven. The drive for governments and industry regulators to push for faster internet speeds through 5G comes from the angle of its potential contribution towards a country's economic growth and digital economy transformation. Industry regulators need to understand what 5G is and why the right regulatory strategy will be essential to the success of 5G. For mobile network operators (MNOs), markets are saturating, competition is increasing, and revenues and/or profitability, especially from traditional core services, is declining. MNOs are under pressure to seek out new revenue streams that can be derived from innovative new services and the reduction in cost to serve. 5G will trigger a quicker transition to distributed, cloud native networks that leverage on NFV, SDN, and MEC to reduce cost to serve and improve on efficiency and profitability for MNOs.

Further, with 5G offering latency below 1ms and larger bandwidths, mobile networks can gain an edge over fibre networks and regain competitiveness. This study covers the challenges and issues with 5G as well as the growth opportunities within the ecosystem and will be beneficial to strategists and marketeers to aid in formulating a 5G strategy and corresponding go-market or GTM plans. Industries benefiting from 5G, for example, cloud, software, network equipmnt manufacturing, and IoT applications/sensors, will find this study useful.



Key Questions This Study Will Answer: What is 5G and what are the major features of 5G?

What are the likely frequencies and spectrum considerations?

When will 5G be available for rollout and what is the optimum timing for 5G?

How big will the market be for 5G?

What are the likely use cases?

Why should MNOs implement 5G and what is the best approach to deploying 5G? Key Topics Covered:

1. Executive Summary



2. 5G Market Overview



- Market Definitions

- Key Questions This Study Will Answer

- What is 5G-5G is an Anticipated Positive Disruption to Industries

- What is 5G-5G is a Departure from Previous Generations

- What is 5G-5G Goes Beyond 4G

- What is 5G-5G is Evolving Along Distinct Tracks

- What is 5G-5G Adds New Concepts Within the Network

- What is 5G-5G will Require Multi-mode/Connectivity Smartphones

- What is 5G-5G Means New Challenges and Issues

- 5G Standardization-Global Coordination Through 3GPP

- 5G Standardization-5GAA the First Vertical Association

- 5G Standardization-5GAA Fosters Cross-Collaboration

- 5G Spectrum Considerations-Regional Outlook

- 5G Spectrum Considerations-Regulatory Strategy

- 5G Networks-Support from Pre-5G Technology

- 5G Networks-Update on NFV and SDN Market Trends

- 5G Network-Implications for MNOs

- 5G Network-Rollout Strategy

- 5G Networks-Regional Outlook on Rollout Strategy

- 5G Timeline-5G is Evolving With Time

- 5G Timeline-When will 5G be Available for Rollout?



3. Drivers and Restraints-Total 5G Market



- Market Drivers

- Drivers Explained

- Market Restraints

- Restraints Explained



4. Forecasts and Trends-Total 5G Market



- Forecast Assumptions

- Subscription and Service Revenue Forecast

- Subscription and Service Revenue Forecast Discussion

- Percent Service Revenue Forecast by Country

- Percent Service Revenue Forecast Discussion by Country



5. 5G Market Updates



- Heat Map of 5G Activity Across Asia-Pacific

- Global Benchmarks-US First to Allocate 5G Spectrum

- Global Benchmarks-A Divide and Conquer Approach

- Global Benchmarks-The EU is Lagging Behind in 5G

- Global Benchmarks-Telcos in Europe are Behind Asia-Pacific

- Global Benchmarks-Samsung Driving 5G

- Asia-Pacific Developments-Developed Nations

- Asia-Pacific Developments-Developing Nations

- Asia-Pacific Frontrunners-South Korea

- Asia-Pacific Frontrunners-Japan

- Asia-Pacific Frontrunners-China May Be First to Launch 5G

- Asia-Pacific Frontrunners-China Mobile

- 5G Complementing LPWAN-LPWAN Implemented First

- 5G Complementing LPWAN-5G Networks Next

- 5G Complementing LPWAN-Europe Case Study

- 5G Complementing LPWAN-NB-IoT versus LoRaWAN



6. 5G Potential Use Cases



- 5G Potential Use Cases-A Snapshot

- 5G Potential Use Cases-IoT

- 5G Potential Use Cases-IoT Spending by Verticals

- 5G Potential Use Cases-IIoT

- 5G Potential Use Cases-Connected Vehicles

- 5G Potential Use Cases-Connected Vehicles US Case Study

- 5G Potential Use Cases-AR and VR

- 5G Potential Use Cases-AR/VR in Tourism

- 5G Potential Use Cases-AR/VR in Education

- 5G Potential Use Cases-AR/VR in Workforce Management

- 5G Potential Use Cases-AI for Drones

- 5G Potential Use Cases-Voice Services

- 5G Potential Use Cases-Video Services



7. Growth Opportunities and Companies to Action



- Growth Opportunity 1-IoT and IIoT

- Growth Opportunity 2-Software and Applications

- Growth Opportunity 3-Cloud and Mobile Edge Computing

- Growth Opportunity 4-Local Government Agendas

- Growth Opportunity 5-Mobile Network Hardware

- Growth Opportunity 6-Key Verticals

- Strategic Imperatives for Success and Growt Companies Mentioned

AT&T

Alcatel-Lucent

Aug That

Augment

Blippar

China Broadcasting Network

China Mobile

China Telecom

Daqri

Educreations

Explain Everything

Far EasTone

Fujitsu

Intel

KDDI

KT

M1

NEC

NTT DoCoMo

Qualcomm

Quiver

5GAA

Starhub

T-Mobile

Taiwan Star

Telkomsel

U Mobile

Unicom

Verizon

Vodafone

Yelp

ZTE For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/5xknds/5g_in

Media Contact: Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

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Aug-14-2017 22:13 TweetFollow @OregonNews Oregon National Guard Soldiers and Airmen Soon to Deploy to Fire near Crater Lake Operation Plan Smokey stipulates how Oregon National Guard members are utilized to assist in firefighting efforts.

After completing their refresher firefighting training they will deploy to a fire burning near Crater Lake.

Photo: Oregon National Guard

(SALEM, Ore.) - More than 100 Oregon National Guard members, activated by Oregon Governor Kate Brown to assist with ongoing firefighting efforts in southern Oregon, are scheduled to complete their refresher firefighting training at the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training (DPSST), in Salem on Tuesday. The group, comprised of Citizen-Airmen and Citizen-Soldiers from Oregon Air and Army National Guard units across the state are scheduled to deploy to the High Cascade Complex in southern Oregon on Wednesday, August 16, 2017. The Department of Public Safety Standards and Training (DPSST) operates the Oregon Public Safety Academy, which spans more than 235 acres in Salem, Oregon. The academy is nationally recognized for its innovative training programs and active stakeholder involvement. DPSST implements minimum standards established by the Board on Public Safety Standards and Training for recruitment and training of city, county and state police, corrections officers, parole and probation officers, fire service personnel, emergency telecommunicators and private security providers. DPSST conducts public safety training throughout Oregon and at the central academy in Salem; certifies qualified officers at various levels from basic through executive; certifies qualified instructors; and inspects and accredits training programs throughout the state based on standards established by the board. The Oregon National Guard has an ongoing agreement with the Oregon Department of Forestry known as Operation Plan Smokey, which stipulates the details of how Oregon National Guard members will be utilized to assist in annual firefighting efforts. This agreement is reviewed annually by leadership of both agencies. Source: Oregon National Guard _________________________________________

Oregon | Health | Environment | Military | Most Commented on





Articles for August 14, 2017 | Articles for August 15, 2017
[August 15, 2017] Razer Launches The Ultimate Wireless Notebook Mouse For Productivity And Performance

IRVINE, Calif., Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Razer, the leading global lifestyle brand for gamers, today announced the Razer Atheris, the ultimate wireless notebook mouse with the world's longest-lasting battery life1 and lag-free wireless gaming-grade performance. Designed for mobile work and play to outlast any competition, the Razer Atheris offers up to 350 hours of continuous use on a single pair of AA batteries, providing power for even the most enduring boardroom meetings or intense gaming sessions. The Razer Atheris is equipped with Razer's proprietary wireless Adaptive Frequency Technology (AFT) providing industry-leading transmission for the most reliable, stable connection. AFT is enabled through a compact USB dongle that stores away conveniently in the mouse, and Bluetooth LE connectivity is also available for devices without a USB port. With a 7200 DPI optical sensor, the Razer Atheris is capable of blazing accuracy across multiple high-resolution monitors and provides the unfair advantage when it comes to work or play. Sporting a sleek and compact ambidextrous design, the Razer Atheris is suitable for both right and left-handers. "We created the Razer Atheris to be the ultimate mobile productivity mouse  allowing users to bring their A-game in any situation whether it's in the boardroom or the gaming arena," says Min-Liang Tan, Razer co-founder and CEO. "The Razer Atheris outperforms and outlasts the competition with unparalleled reliability." The Razer Atheris is available now at RazerStore.com. It will be available worldwide in Q4. For more information, visit https://www.razerzone.com/gaming-mice/razer-atheris Price:



U.S. $49.99 / EU 59.99 Availability:

Razerzone.com  15 August 2017, 8am Pacific Time

Worldwide  Q4 2017

Product features: 350-hour continuous use on a single pair of AA batteries (On Bluetooth mode)

7,200 DPI optical sensor

Dual connectivity

In-built Bluetooth (BLE)



2.4 GHz connection with Adaptive Frequency Technology

Ambidextrous ergonomic form factor

Compact and mobile ready (Dongle fits in the mouse, no extra carrying case required)

Five independently programmable Hyperesponse buttons

Approximate size: 99.7 mm / 3.9 in (Length) X 62.8 mm / 2.5 in (Width) X 34.1 mm / 1.35 in (Height)

Approximate weight 66g / 0.14 lbs (Excluding batteries) For more information about the Razer Atheris, please visit https://www.razerzone.com/gaming-mice/razer-atheris Images: Razer Atheris press images ABOUT RAZER: Razer is the world's leading lifestyle brand for gamers. The triple-headed snake logo trademark of Razer is one of the most recognized icons in the global gaming community, and the company has a fan base that spans every continent. Razer has designed and built the world's largest independent gamer ecosystem of hardware, software and services with over 35 million users. Razer's award-winning products include hardware such as high-performance gaming peripherals (for the PC and console platforms), the Razer Blade line of gaming laptops; software such as Razer Cortex (a game optimizer and launcher); and services such as Razer zGold (a virtual credit service and payment engine for gamers). The company additionally provides audio-visual certification through its subsidiary THX Ltd. The company has a global footprint with 9 offices worldwide and is recognized as the leading gaming brand in the US, Europe and China. Founded in 2005 and dual-headquartered in San Francisco and Singapore, Razer is backed by institutional investors such as IDG-Accel, Intel Capital, Digital Grid and Horizons Ventures. 1 Among mobile productivity mice with gaming-grade features. As of 1 Aug 2017. Press Contacts: Americas

Kevin Scarpati

[email protected]

Europe/Africa

Jan Horak

[email protected]

Asia Pacific

Nicholas Ferguson

[email protected]

China

Evita Zhang

[email protected] Razer - For Gamers. By Gamers. View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/razer-launches-the-ultimate-wireless-notebook-mouse-for-productivity-and-performance-300504261.html SOURCE Razer

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LOS ANGELES (AP)  A roundup of news from the closing day of the Television Critics Association summer meeting, at which TV networks and streaming services presented details on upcoming programs.

KILLING VERSACE

Ricky Martin said he reassured Gianni Versace's longtime partner Antonio D'Amico that the pair will be treated respectfully in a TV drama about Versace's 1997 murder.

"I'll make sure people fall in love with your relationship with Gianni," Martin, who plays D'Amico in FX's "The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story," recounted telling him.

Martin said he spoke by phone Wednesday to D'Amico after he had publicly criticized the series for what he called inaccuracies. It's in production and set to air in January.

Executive producer Ryan Murphy, taking part in a panel discussion Wednesday with Martin and others working on the project, said D'Amico may have been judging it based on a paparazzi photo snapped during filming outside Versace's Miami Beach mansion. It's where the famed fashion designer was shot by serial killer Andrew Cunanan.

But Murphy said the series is a drama and not a documentary, adding, "you have to be respectful but make it your own." It's part of his "American Crime Story" anthology that began with the Emmy-winning "The People v. O.J. Simpson."

___

PEAKS AND VALLEYS

The peak TV era of expanding programming choices is at risk of moving into an ominous state of monopoly, FX Networks CEO John Landgraf said.

Viewers and those who make shows could be the ultimate losers, he said.

"I don't want artists to find themselves in a situation where there's only two buyers that matter," Landgraf told a TV critics' meeting Wednesday.

Painting a dark picture of the broader U.S. economy, he argued that it's beset by a lack of market regulation that has allowed "one sector after another to be swallowed by a single company or a tiny handful of companies," from airlines to retail to social media.

FX Networks and others are in a battle with newcomers including Netflix, Amazon and Apple TV that operate under an economic model that rewards increasing the scale of domination over current profits, Landgraf said.

____

MUM'S THE WORD

The women of "American Horror Story: Cult" came to Fox Studios promote the new season for an audience of television critics Wednesday, but they couldn't actually say anything about the show.

Stars Sarah Paulson, Alison Pill, Leslie Grossman, Adina Porter and Billie Lourd gave vague answers to critics' questions and apologized for saying so little. The actresses appeared alongside makeup artist Eryn Krueger Mekash, costume designer Lou Eyrich and executive producer Alexis Martin Woodall.

Here's what they could reveal: "Cult" involves a lesbian marriage, a broadcast journalist and what Woodall described as "an exciting trip to the grocery store."

"As with all good horror and suspense, knowing less is actually so much more because it's going to unfold for you," she said.

Though show creator Ryan Murphy has said "Cult" was inspired by the election of President Donald Trump, Woodall said the seventh self-contained installment in the "American Horror Story" anthology "is more about the world around us."

"This particular season has a streak of paranoia that I think is infectious," said Pill.

____

LOUIS 'LOUIE'

Louis C.K. says if he resumes his FX comedy series it won't be the same because he's changed.

The comedian told a TV critics' meeting Wednesday that he's no longer the guy with the "stained black T-shirt" he portrayed on "Louie," who was grappling with life and his career.

FX Networks CEO John Landgraf said that the show likely would reflect C.K.'s success, which includes producing the FX series "Baskets" and "Better Things."

But Landgraf refrained from predicting the fate of "Louie." He said it's possible there will never be another season or, conversely, multiple seasons over 30 years.

The last season of "Louie," its fifth, aired in 2015.
Dear Editor

Re: Looking in the mirror, Samoa!

Michael, I read your comments with much agreement, however the mirror needs us to reflect on some of the more basic aspects of life in Samoa too.

The violence you highlight is the visible part of the iceberg, with the day to day theft, cheating, lying and other un-Christian acts going on as if it was normal and acceptable. Frankly, it is not and may indeed be the foundation that the other visible problems you refer to are built upon.

As a Palagi, I expect to get ripped off every now and then, putting up with it because it is usually minor, however the blatant ripping off of all Samoans by their own should not be acceptable.

For example a new petrol station that has recently opened seems to not fill your tank as much as others for the same money, so today when I took a 20 litre drum to be filled, they managed to get 23.4 litres into it according to the shiny new pumps. I brought this unbelievable situation to the attention of the attendant who promptly passed me onto the manager, who almost immediately apologised and charged me the correct $47 instead of the indicated $55.

Now, this wasnt a Stupid Palagi getting overcharged, but a case where everyone who purchased petrol there was being overcharged by 10-15%. So much for looking after the interests of the poor Samoans...

Another example is the theft by employees, particularly those Housekeepers who take it upon themselves to steal anything and everything that isnt locked away, including my wifes underwear and my sons clothes. I cant count how many times Ive seen people walking in the village wearing my familys missing clothes.

It seems that the churches preach redemption on Sunday, sin on Monday here in beautiful Samoa. Fix the underlying problems and maybe the bigger issues will be easier to address.

Stupid Palagi
E sui faiga ae tumau faavae was the wisdom behind the seventh edition of the Measina a Samoa book that was launched last Friday August 11th at the Centre for Samoan Studies.

The keynote address was delivered by the Chair of the Measina a Samoa Conference, Professor Fui Asofou Soo, who gave an overview of what can be expected in this latest edition.

Mainly it will focus on the continuation of discussions from the previous conference, particularly on the written Samoan language and the relevance today in using diacritics and also about the issue surrounding the erosion of power of the Sao title in relation to those with supporting titles conferred by the Sao.

In an interview with the Samoa Observer, Professor Fui Asofou Soo explained,

Its a continuation of discussions that we have had in other Measina Conferences before. A lot of those things, one of which is the conversation on the language and what I just said is, where are we now? In terms of the decision by our Language Commission on the question as to whether we use (or not) diacritics in the way we write.

While the decision by the Language Commission about the use of diacritics was very broadminded (which reflected in the contributions) Professor Fui Asofou Soo raised a point that while tolerant, this opens us up to another set of consequences and that perhaps the next conversation will be about how the Samoan language (at least in written form) can be standardized.

The decision now in the Language Commission is; use it when you feel its necessary to use, so the question I was posing is - who makes that decision? Me who is writing?

Or the person whos reading my writing? And because theres not been an answer to that question, you look at the new publication, everything is written differently.

A lot of people put in the diacritics and some put them in occasionally and some dont. So, one of the points I was making was the whole point of a Language Commission is to standardize the language - a standard way of writing so that everyone knows what everyone is on about. 

Fui readily acknowledges that culture evolves over generations and its only natural that people adapt to their environment but cautions against losing our central value system that our culture is built on.

He pointed out that collectively we were beginning to accept the reality of Sao titles but no one ever expected to see the Sao title to be on the losing side where their power of authority was contested in the Land and Titles court.

The other thing I raised, relates to the whole thing about Matai titles. The understanding has always been that the supporting titles are conferred by the Sao title holder according to the report from the Land and Titles court, there have been cases where the lesser titles have contested their rights in court (in terms of authority) and the court in some cases has ruled in favour of the lesser title holders, throwing into limbo the whole thing about family, where are we heading?

Are we still having that family unit or is this a symptom of the whole thing disintegrating in a way where we will end up with a very individualistic society, just me and me? No more communalistic thing about the title and the family.

Moving forward, Fui hopes that this latest edition of Measina A Samoa opens up the opportunity to seriously sit down at the next conference and come up with meaningful solutions by deciding unequivocally which areas of our culture and customs we want to maintain while being careful that we are not imprisoned in our own customs which need to be relevant in order to support us.
Life is all about moving forward; a firm opinion from Esau Nofoilo of Fasitoo uta.

In recent years, we have seen so many changes in our country which affect teenagers.

I personally think that life is moving too fast. I dont mean to judge, but youth nowadays are just blindly accepting foreign trends.

Yes its fast but we need to move forward in a thoughtful way; not a thoughtless way.

Esau lives in Fasitoo uta with his parents and four siblings.

He dedicates his life to taking care of his family.

Hes 27 years old, devoted to working on the family plantation.

He loves helping his mom out with the days chores.

Esau believes in living life in the Samoan way because its easy and affordable.

I love my family and that is most important.

I know for a fact that the cost of living is expensive, but if youre from a strong family that believes in unity and works together, I dont see any struggle about it.

Instead, just enjoy life to the fullest, he said.

Esau is a very determined person. He enjoys life because he wants to hold on to the spirit of being a true Samoan. He is fully committed to church and believes in the power of prayer because he says it conquers everything.

I love the way Im living my life at the moment; I know its hard sometimes but its peaceful.

Asked if he hopes for a family of his own, Esau said yes.

I want to build a family of my own but not now, not yet.

Right now, Im just focusing on taking care of my parents and helping them in any way I can.

Esau is from a stable family, they have good access to water and electricity and his siblings are also employed in government jobs.

Esaus only concerns about life are the changes that are challenging Samoa these days.

I believe that one of the reasons why our Samoan people are behaving like savages these days is because of too much influence from global trends.

It is therefore even more important to make the right choices. These choices will lead us into a stable future, said the 27 year old.
The claims by the family of a prisoner found dead at Tafaigata last week should be investigated. Its imperative the relevant authorities get to the bottom of this matter, find out what happened and what led to the death of Siliva Aualiitia.

While it is too early to draw any conclusions, we believe the sooner we find the truth, the better it would be for everyone involved.

Folks, Siliva might have been a prisoner, but he was also someone who was loved by his family. His life is precious just like all other lives out there.

So far weve heard two versions of the story.

One side of the story is that the young man who was jailed for assault had escaped and was later found dead behind the prison. The Samoa Prison and Correction Services suspect he might have committed suicide.

The other side of the story, of course, is a lot more disturbing. During an interview with the Samoa Observer last week, Silivas family rubbished reports. The grieving mother, Teevao Tivalu, said they suspect Siliva was beaten since his body sustained multiple bruises on his face, legs and hips.

When we visited him at the morgue, I almost fainted and I didnt want to look at my sons face, she said. Part of his face was decomposed, his lips were swollen, his forehead was badly bruised and his buttocks suffered cuts, as if he was being dragged.

Are those the signs of someone who had committed suicide? I dont think so.

This was apparently not the only issue.

Every time we visited him, he would always complain of the pain so we informed the Assistant Commissioner of Prison, Ulugia, about my sons situation so that they would be aware of it, said Mrs. Tivalu.

We also requested with Ulugia if it was possible for my son to serve home detention so that we can take him to the hospital for treatment, but Ulugia said they are actually in contact with a doctor named Isaia and that his name was on the waiting list. So this was sometime in February this year. Now look, its August and this has now happened.

Mrs. Tivalu added that receiving the news about Siliva was the most difficult thing to bear.

We were told that if we wanted to see his body we have to get an okay from the Police station at Tuanaimato first. So we did all that and then we went to the morgue. When the staff brought his body out, it was an unbelievably gruesome sight, she said. For someone who had committed suicide, he should never have looked like that. If I didnt know Siliva, I wouldnt believe that it was him who was on that bed.

From what we saw that day, we did not agree with what the Police said, that he had committed suicide, because of the marks he had on his body.

Even after we cleaned him up, everything became clear that he was beaten. From his head down to the tip of his feet, they all sustained bruises.

The grieving mother told the Samoa Observer that they would be suing the Prison and Correction Services as well as the National Health Services.

I will fight until I get justice for my son because if we dont, then we will never know what is really going on behind those bars.

The mother has a legitimate point. Say for conversation sakes that he was killed as the family alleges, it means the killer is obviously out there and he or she will do it again. Besides, nobody has the right to take anyones life, regardless of the reason.

And up there at Tafaigata Prison, we know there is a history of mysterious deaths -- including some that have remained unresolved. Names like Perry Tuilaepa and Hans Dalton immediately come to mind. Both men were mental health patients whose deaths were blamed on suicide.

Dalton had lost his medication during Cyclone Evan while on holiday in Samoa. After suffering an episode, he was taken to Tafaigata Prison. The next day he was found dead in a gallon drum of water.

Perry Tuilaepa suffered a similar fate in 2011. The Police also put his death down to suicide.

Ironically, just yesterday, five years after Daltons death, the family spoke with TVNZ News where they said that after all those years, there is still no closure for the death of their loved one.

We feel there is a lot of unresolved issues and the people who did this to Hans have not been held to account, Daltons sister, Natasha Dalton said. So truth and justice has not been upheld in Hans case.

Well, the same thing can be said about Perry Tuilaepa and now Siliva Aualiitia.

We cannot ignore these deaths and pretend they are normal. The truth is the only thing that will set us free. What do you think?

Have a safe Wednesday, Samoa, God bless!
[August 15, 2017] FASTSIGNS Recruiting Franchise Candidates At National Business Media Show In Secaucus Aug. 17-19

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FASTSIGNS International, Inc. is the largest sign and visual communications franchisor in North America, and is the worldwide franchisor of 660 independently owned and operated FASTSIGNS centers in nine countries including the US, Canada, England, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Grand Cayman, Mexico and Australia (where centers operate as SIGNWAVE). FASTSIGNS locations provide comprehensive sign and visual graphic solutions to help companies of all sizes and across all industries attract more attention, communicate their message, sell more products, help visitors find their way and extend their branding across all of their customer touch points including decor, events, wearables and marketing materials. Learn more about sign and visual graphic solutions or find a location at fastsigns.com. Follow the brand on Twitter @FASTSIGNS, Facebook at facebook.com/FASTSIGNS or LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fastsigns.







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View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fastsigns-recruiting-franchise-candidates-at-national-business-media-show-in-secaucus-aug-17-19-300504720.html SOURCE FASTSIGNS International, Inc.

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Dear Editor,

Re: Moataa Village stands by decision

Where does Government start and village councils begin in terms of the rule of law?

This is a very sensitive issue and has led to some very serious confrontations between government and village councils over time.

Magiagi vs Govt with power generation, Satapuala and the airport land, Siumu and the Tiavi land, village houses burnt to remove follows of different sects of Christianity, villagers beaten and at worst killed at the direction of the village council, business prevented from operating in contravention to the laws of Samoa such as this case etc etc.

How will this be resolved? In court most likely.

Tanugamanono and the burning of the home, destruction of property etc is a classic case for those who remember.

This case however highlights the problematic issue of self-government within government and the laws or guidelines for implementation.

It demonstrates that a higher level of management is required to harmonize Government and Village governance to ensure consistent and legal enforcement of law, particularly where investment in employment generating businesses is concerned.

Have we fallen asleep at the wheel so to speak where this governance issue is concerned? I personally dont think so.

The close relationship of Ministries working through village councils is a proven, generally harmonious and successful arrangement.

Pushing government agendas where violence in the home is addressed, health care education, environmental concerns etc works well.

Can we do it better and what would doing things better look like?

I have pondered this often and it seems that we have reached a stage where the creation of standard laws and powers across all villages could be considered. Development of a book of laws and powers that the village council can administer. Consideration of the creation of village taxation systems to enable the provision of services such as rubbish collection/collation and disposal points, etc (not popular I know but something to think about).

Just some thoughts.

Edwin Tamasese
The Ministry of Health has issued an alert about an outbreak of dengue fever in the country.

It follows 25 positive cases, with two of them suspected to have led to deaths. These cases are being investigated.

But alarm bells have been raised in an public notice issued during the weekend and obtained by the Samoa Observer.

The notice dates 12 August 2017. It says that the National Disease Surveillance and International Health Regulations Division has been notified of severely ill cases from Tupua Tamasese Meaole Hospital.

The Current Surveillance Information indicates that between 7th  11th August, Surveillance has been informed by doctors at Intensive Care Unit, Acute 8 at the T.T.M.H. and P.H.C. at Leulumoega Hospital of what appears to be an outbreak of dengue like illness (D.L.I.).

There is still unclear consensus of what we may be seeing, as investigations continue.

I.C.U. & A.C.8. reported sudden increased cases with following common signs and symptoms: prolonged illness over several days with severe headaches; nausea and vomiting; abdominal pains; fevers of over three days duration; generalized body weakness; at least one case reported joint and muscle pains; and a finding of low platelet count.

Recent lab requests for August alone reported 54 requests, with 25 positive dengue cases.

We are continuing to investigate and monitor other information as they become available.

We also continue to collaborate with World Health Organization for further assistance, reads the M.O.H. notice.

They also issued preventions to protect the public from this outbreak.

The Ministry of Health continues to advocate for general hygiene in the home and source reduction of mosquito breeding sites; drain long standing water; clean-up rubbish around living areas; avoid mosquito bites by the use of adequate clothing for protection; use of mosquito repellents and use mosquito nets and plant insect repellent plants around the house, for added prevention.

We continue to work with clinicians in notifying cases to M.O.H. Surveillance through early warning by phone/email and filling out the Syndromic Surveillance Forms in the G.O.P.D., E.D., Wards and Surveillance sites.

At times of an outbreak, clinicians are asked to fill out a daily line list of cases. Officers will collect them for verification and follow-up response. Contact numbers are important for follow-up."

The public are advised to see a doctor, as soon as possible, when symptoms arise.
The Governor of the Central Bank of Samoa, Maiava Atalina Ainuu-Enari, has yet again warned members of the public to be vigilant to protect themselves against scams and the work of con artists.

Speaking to the Samoa Observer yesterday, she reminded that scammers are imaginative, manipulative and are not afraid to lie their way into conning innocent victims.

Maiava confirmed that there have been many cases in Samoa where people have been fooled.

One such case involved a Samoan woman who thought she had found love online.

She had been in contact with the scammer (via email, Facebook and on the phone) for quite some time, she said. Finally, he convinced her to remit AUD$17,000 as payment for costs and fees so that he could come and meet her in person.

She processed two money transfers of AUD$8,500 each.

He never showed up and finally, she realized that this was a scam, yet she spent all that money.

But scammers dont just target individuals.

A bank recently received instructions via email from a local company to remit funds overseas as payment for construction supplies.

An invoice and an authorisation letter signed by the authorised signatories of the company were provided to support the payment.

The bank processed the payment, but later discovered that the supporting documents were fake.

But it was too late.

The bank tried to recall funds from the correspondent and beneficiary bank, but unfortunately, the scammer got hold of these funds beforehand and the company lost thousands.

In another case, the customer of a local bank had SAT$19,500 taken from her account.

She enquired with the bank for an explanation on her missing funds. The bank conducted its own investigation and discovered that 13 transactions of SAT$1,500 each were debited from the customers account and credited into five different account holders of the same bank.

These five account holders were interviewed by the bank and had been in contact with the scammer, either via Facebook or by phone.

They were told to expect money in their accounts. All they had to do was to keep 10 percent as commission and remit the remaining balance to a given destination, using a money transfer operator.

According to Maiava, scams come in all shapes and forms.

Scams do not always involve large amounts of money. There are lotteries, sweepstakes, promotions and competitions.

Also with banking, credit cards and online accounts, as well as money transfer requests -- internet spams, malicious software, internet shopping, business supplies, dating and romance, jobs and employment.

The Governor pointed out that common sense should be applied when in doubt.

You didnt pay for a lottery ticket yet all of the sudden you have won the lottery and you have to pay a certain percentage to get your full lottery win... it just does not make sense.

Maiava added that scams do not discriminate.

The perpetrators are professionals and they demand urgency and confidentiality. Just remember: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!

Another recent case involved the lottery.

The victim received a winning lotto notification from a company in the U.K. She was advised (by the scammer) to pay all fees and charges, in advance, in order to process her winning.

She even had to borrow from the bank to settle endless fees. After paying so many fees, she received a partial payment check of US$20,000.

She presented the cheque to the bank for clearance and encashment. Later on, she was told that the cheque was a fake.

There are also people selling different types of scams. Recently, two individuals, who claimed to be representatives of an international investment company, came to Samoa and conducted promotions on a digital currency product.

They presented their investment proposal to different organisations and village communities, Maiava explained.

Innocent investors were attracted to their investment plan -- that is, invest money and within a very short period of time, earn ten times more in return. As such, people invested their money in the scheme.

Later on, it was proven that the scheme was too good to be true and these two individuals are now serving time at Tafa'igata Prison.

Maiava said scam artists are always on the look out for ways to fool unsuspecting members of the public.

We have been working with the local banks and money transfer operators to look for signs of a scam when people come in to send money to off-island accounts.

The bank tellers, who are the frontliners, are the ones who should know almost immediately their customers are sending money to scammers, by asking questions.

Sometimes our people are stubborn and despite advice against sending the money, they tell the tellers that its their money and they will do what they want with it.

Sure enough, a week later they come back and by the time we get in to it, we find out the off-island account has been dissolved. That is why our people need to be vigilant and apply common sense, especially when sending money off island.

Lastly, Governor Maiava said no one is immune -- even highly intelligent people.

A recent case involved a lawyer.

Please, if you are unsure, come into our office we are more than happy to look into the matter for you to make sure this is not a scam, she said. This is one task that our office is keen on, to reduce the amount of people falling into scams especially from online and overseas.
Jenny and Ralf Andrew, from Brisbane, Australia, are in Samoa for a very special visit.

Here to celebrate their 55th anniversary, they chose Samoa for a very special reason.

It dates back to their childhood.

Jenny and Andrew have shared a dream that they wanted to achieve one day and by good fortune, that dream involves someone who is a big part of Samoa.

We chose to come because when we were children, we were in the same class at school. And we had this reading book and it tells a poem about Robert Louis Stevenson called Under the wide and starry sky.

We said, wherever this is, one day were going to see that.

It might have taken many, many years, but that doesnt matter.

So it took us a long time to get here, but were here now and we will be visiting Robert Louis Stevenson soon, Jenny said.

The couple are staying at Taumeasina Island Resort.

The weather is very hot but then you have to get out during the coldest part of the day so you can wonder around every block.

We like walking so we always walk this way and watch the lights and boats at night. We also walk here to watch the Mulivai Cathedral.

Samoa is just fantastic.

I think one of the best things about Samoa we have witnessed is the life of families; I mean, I think everyone is just so family oriented and we love seeing that tradition of having the father as the head of every family.

The couple have absolute admiration about the way Samoans live.

I think growing up, we always love Pacific Island people; they are very welcoming.

I mean, we have been to Fiji and Vanuatu -- and now Samoa -- and its all the same personality, the people are so lovely.

Although this is their first time being in the country, they promise it will not be the last.
The Head of State, His Highness Tuimalealiifano Vaaletoa Sualauvi II, received visitors from Indonesia, yesterday.

They included the Ambassador of Indonesia to Samoa, Tantowi Yahya, the Senior Advisor of Strategy Issues to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Djauhari Oratmantun, and other senior Indonesian delegates.

The purpose of the visit was two-fold. Firstly, it was to congratulate His Highness Tuimalealiifano on his recent appointment.

Secondly, it was to announce their assistance for Samoa and talk about trade opportunities.

We had a very fruitful meeting with Prime Minister Tuila'epa Sailele Malielegaoi during his book launch in Wellington, last week, said Mr. Yahya.

We shared with him a lot of what has been established and what will be established in the future.

Part of this includes the donation of an ambulance for the Tupua Tamasese Meaole Hospital.

Hopefully, it can be delivered in a month from now, said Mr. Yahya.

We also invited the Prime Minister to attend our 72nd independence anniversary in Jakarta, however due to the very short notice, he cannot make it.

Ambassador Yahya said they want to increase Indonesias cooperation with Samoa, including trade and other areas.

We have been thinking for so long about the possibility of direct trade between Indonesia and Samoa. As you understand, we have some products in the market, especially food, drinks and other commodities in supermarkets and wholesalers, that are not from Indonesia but are directly from Australia and New Zealand, he said.

I was in Jakarta a week ago and I managed to have meetings with several traders and exporters and they have agreed in doing direct exportation from Indonesia to Samoa. We even have a plan for making Samoa the heart of distribution for the South Pacific Islands.
Cultural historian, Dr. Patricia OBrien, of the Australian National University, will discuss her research for her new book 'Tautai: Samoa World History and the Life of Taisi O.F. Nelson', today.

This will happen during a public seminar at the Samoan fale of the National University of Samoa (N.U.S.), hosted by the Australian High Commission, in partnership with the N.U.S. Centre of Samoan Studies.

The seminar will start at 5.30pm.

Tautai is a biography of Taisi O.F. Nelson, one of the founding leaders of the Mau Movement for Samoan independence from colonial rule.

Using private papers and interviews, Dr. OBrien tells a deeply compelling account of Taisis life lived through turbulent decades.

By following Taisis story, readers also learn a history of Samoas Mau movement that attracted international attention.

Dr. OBrien started work on this project in Samoa in 2012.

She worked closely with the extended Taisi family, headed by the former Head of State of Samoa, Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese Efi -- Ta'isis eldest grandson.

The Australian Government funded Dr. OBriens research for the book through an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship Grant.

Tautai takes the story of Taisi to a wider international community, who collectively stand to benefit from his life story.

The book will be officially launched this Saturday.
Think a minute In 1951, a nuclear disaster almost took place at a nuclear power plant in Canada. The core reactor had melted down, so it had to be taken apart before more deadly radiation escaped into the nearby community. The challenge was to quickly find the right person who was both highly trained and also willing to do such a dangerous job that could kill him.

Then a 26-year-old lieutenant in the United States Navy, who was highly trained in nuclear physics and reactor technology, rose to the challenge. He had top security clearance at the headquarters of the Atomic Energy Commission in Washington D.C., so he was flown to the nuclear power plant in Canada where the accident had happened.

There he led a team of trained technicians as they quickly practiced each precise step of taking apart the melted down reactor. Finally, wearing special radiation-resistant clothing and armed with only the tools in his hands, the lieutenant went where no human being had gone before: a melted-down nuclear reactor core.

He had to take the reactor apart perfectly, with each step taking no longer than one minute and 30 seconds. In that amount of time, this young lieutenants body was exposed to the maximum allowable radiation for a human being for an entire year!

So his swift and skillful work was crucial to his own survival. He had no time for even one small mistake of fumbling for a needed part or tool. Both his life and the lives of many others were depending on him.

But he not only survived, he succeeded! And not only at that challenging job, but many others throughout his life. For that young Navy lieutenant, who saved countless lives by skillfully and bravely going where no human in history had gone before, went on to become president of the United States: Jimmy Carter.

Remember, what we become in the future is determined by the choices we make today -- and every day. We must choose to do the right thing and be our very best, no matter what the cost or risk.

If we keep doing the next right thing, it becomes our daily habit and character that continually brings us greater success in life. So wont you ask Jesus to forgive you for not living the way you know you should, and to help you start living His right, best way, every day? Just think a minute
Betting that people will need more help than ever troubleshooting their increasingly digitally connected lives, CellSavers said Tuesday it is expanding its purpose beyond on-demand smartphone repair to push-button help with other technology chores, including smart-home product installation and TV mounting.

To reflect these new services, the company is also changing its name to Puls.

Founded in 2015, CellSavers positioned itself as an Uber-like service for accident-prone iPhone and Android users with cracked screens or other issues. It originally promised to dispatch a qualified technician to a persons location  home, work, office, bar or other venue  within 60 minutes to repair smartphones and tablets on the spot.

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The freshly rebranded Puls has a similar mission, albeit with a broader reach that extends to most digital devices in the home, making it the on-demand version of Best Buys Geek Squad. Now the companys technicians, who work as independent contractors, can be summoned for same-day service for device demonstration, installation, setup, support and, of course, repair.

Puls, headquartered in San Francisco, operates a San Diego office with 22 employees, including President and Cofounder Itai Hirsch. Puls expects to double the headcount across its headquarters, San Diego satellite and Tel Aviv outpost in the next year.

The company also announced Tuesday a $25 million financing round, bringing its total to $43 million. The latest round was led by Red Dot Capital Partners and included Samsung Next, Maverick Ventures, Kreos Capital, Sequoia Capital and Carmel Ventures.

Puls is available to consumers in 40 U.S. markets, though the company plans to use its new cash pile to extend service to more markets.
A leading neo-Nazi website continued to be accessible Monday despite efforts by website registration companies Google and GoDaddy to oust it after it mocked the woman killed in a deadly attack at a white nationalist rally in Virginia.

Google said Monday that it was canceling the domain name registration of the Daily Stormer for violating its terms of service. The registration had moved there after GoDaddy tweeted late Sunday night that it had given the Daily Stormer 24 hours to move its domain to another provider, also because the site had violated GoDaddys terms of service.

GoDaddy spokesman Dan Race said the move was prompted by a post on the site about Heather Heyer, who was killed Saturday when a car plowed into a group of demonstrators in Charlottesville. The post, written by the Daily Stormers publisher, Andrew Anglin, called her fat and childless and said, most people are glad she is dead, as she is the definition of uselessness.

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Given their latest article comes on the immediate heels of a violent act, we believe this type of article could incite additional violence, which violates our terms of service, Race said in an emailed statement.

Shortly after Scottsdale, Ariz.-based GoDaddy tweeted its decision, the site posted an article claiming it had been taken over by hackers associated with Anonymous and would be shut down. It was briefly down Monday before becoming accessible again.

One of the Daily Stormers contributors said the post about the site being taken over was just a prank.

Were a convivial publication. We have a lot of fun with it, said Andrew Auernheimer, a notorious hacker and Internet troll who writes for the site.

Auernheimer, known online as weev, said GoDaddy had not contacted the Daily Stormer to explain its decision. He said the site has an alternate domain name that it can use if GoDaddy cancels its service.

Well get it taken care of, Auernheimer said. If we need a new domain, well get a new domain.

GoDaddy isnt the Daily Stormers host, which means the sites content isnt on the companys servers, Race said. Only the domain is with GoDaddy, Race added.

However, canceling a domain name has the effect of making a website unreachable, regardless of where its hosted.

Anglins site takes its name from Der Sturmer, a newspaper that published Nazi propaganda. The site includes sections called Jewish Problem and Race War.

The Daily Stormer is infamous for orchestrating online harassment campaigns carried out by its Troll Army of readers. Its targets have included prominent journalists, a Jewish woman who was running for a California congressional seat and Alex Jones, a radio host and conspiracy theorist whom Anglin derided as a Zionist Millionaire.

In April, a Montana woman sued Anglin after her family became the target of another Daily Stormer trolling campaign. Tanya Gershs suit claims anonymous Internet trolls bombarded Gershs family with hateful and threatening messages after Anglin published their personal information in a post accusing her and other Jewish residents of Whitefish, Mont., of engaging in an extortion racket against the mother of white nationalist Richard Spencer.

The Daily Stormer used a crowdfunding website, WeSearchr, to raise more than $152,000 in donations from nearly 2,000 contributors to help pay for Anglins legal expenses.

Other Internet services have taken similar action against the Daily Stormer since Anglin founded it in 2013. In 2015, Anglin said PayPal had permanently banned him from using the service. And he complained in January that a Ukrainian advertising company had banned them, leaving an Australian electrician as the sites only advertiser.

To read the article in Spanish, click here

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UPDATES:

3:40 p.m.: This article was updated throughout with Googles move and additional details.

This article was originally published at 7:20 a.m.
[August 15, 2017] GTL Continues Support of BEST Entrepreneurship Program

RESTON, Va., Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- GTL, an innovation leader in correctional technology, education solutions that assist in rehabilitating inmates, and payment services solutions for government, today announced it will continue the commitment to entrepreneurship which began with IDS' and the Nashe family's involvement in the Building Entrepreneurs for Success in Tennessee (BEST), a program of the Nashville Entrepreneur Center (EC). Since its inception in 2014, the BEST program has had continued accolades after graduating three cohorts of student inmates and setting them on a path towards personal achievement as they work to successfully reenter society. The program has been effective in reducing recidivism rates for several reasons. The BEST program incorporates a wide variety of volunteers, professors, community leaders, business people, and professional speakers who regularly engage the program participants by sharing their entrepreneurial stories. When an inmate enters the BEST program, the first three months are spent on character development. Subsequently, inmates develop their own personal business plan. Through a partnership with a local university, a class of students visits the prison once a week to help the BEST students develop and fine tune these plans. Program participants also learn how to use software such as Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, as well as participate in classes around financial literacy and business education principles. "BEST emphasizes the need for every student to become a confident and competent public speaker," said Karen Vander Molen, Program Director at BEST. "An important part of the curriculum is teaching students how to create and deliver a speechby the end of the program, every student must deliver 10 speeches. This is an opportunity for students to practice effective public speaking and, concurrently, learn how to listen and understand other people, which is key when searching for and maintaining a job upon reentry." "Since 2014, IDS has supported and provided tablets to the BEST program," said Dr. Turner Nashe, GTL Senior Vice President of Education Services. "As an entrepreneur, I know that the path to personal success begins by learning the free enterprise system and the ways to succeed in it." In February of this year, Dr. Nashe and his wife, Phylanice Nashe, J.D., personally donated $100,000 to the BEST program which was recognized at a celebration event in March. "Former inmates have a difficult time finding employment," continued Dr. Nashe. "Teaching entrepreneurial skills can help make inmates self-sufficient, alleviating the stress of job applications and employment rejection. We are paving an a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10Lf8byFEXY&t=304s" rel="nofollow">inmate's path to success by providing support to organizations such as BEST."



The BEST program is comprised of four phases: Phase One  BEST seeks to empower individuals with self-knowledge, presentation, conflict management, negotiation, cooperation, planning, technology, goal-setting, and decision making skills. Inmates also participate in a recognized public speaking program that equips them with speaking, listening, and critical evaluation skills.

Phase Two  Business, financial literacy, and entrepreneurial skills are taught. Mentors from a recognized business program and students of entrepreneurship from a local university assist the participants as they each develop their own business plan.

Phase Three  During post-graduation and pre-release, BEST continues through book studies, newsletters to members of the BEST community, and meetings when possible.

Phase Four  Upon release, former inmates can tap into the network of BEST partners as they return to the community, ready to be contributing members of society as employees or business owners. "Now that IDS is part of the GTL family, we look for new ways to promote and help enhance the BEST program and other programs that put inmates on a path of personal achievement," concluded Nashe.

GTL's entire solution suite will be showcased from August 2022 in booth 301 at the American Correctional Association's 147th Congress of Correction in St. Louis, Missouri. GTL will also have its Technology in Motion tour vehicle on display inside the exposition hall at the ACA conference. The Technology in Motion vehicle includes the latest hardware, software, and connectivity to enable comprehensive hands-on demonstrations of the full range of offerings for the corrections, education, and government sectors. About GTL

GTL leads the fields of correctional technology, education, and government payment services with visionary solutions and customized products that integrate seamlessly to deliver security, financial value, and operational efficiencies while aiding inmate rehabilitation and reducing recidivism rates. With the recent acquisition of Telmate, GTL has strengthened its suite of solutions for the corrections industry and expanded its community corrections portfolio with Telmate Guardian, a smartphone-based GPS monitoring solution. As a trusted industry leader, GTL provides services to over 2 million inmates in more than 2,500 correctional facilities in the United States and Canada, including 33 U.S. departments of corrections, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and many large city/county/provincial facilities. GTL is headquartered in Reston, Virginia, with an employee presence throughout North America. To learn more about GTL, please visit www.gtl.net or social media sites on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube . About BEST

Cohort 1, the pilot class of the BEST program, started on October 21, 2014 with 22 men. All classes were held at the Charles Bass Correctional Complex, just west of downtown Nashville, Monday through Friday, six hours per day. Eighteen men graduated on April 24, 2015, each with his own business plan. Eighty-three volunteers donated 1,929 hours during the six-month program. Cohort 2, included 19 women from three Tennessee prisons who meet at the Tennessee Prison for Women in Nashville. We used the electronic tablets provided by partner Innertainment Delivery Systems to deliver curriculum, including the Nashville Entrepreneur Center PreFlight materials. Eighty-nine volunteers shared their expertise and passion to change lives. Seventeen women completed the program. Cohort 3 began October 17, 2016 at the Tennessee Prison for Women with 20 women. Seventeen women graduated April 28, 2017, each having completed her business plan. This cohort's plans range from "All Things Honey" to "DiNardo Scrubs" custom cleaning service. They have completed their 10 speeches attaining the Toastmasters International "Competent Communicator" certification. Their Toastmasters skills were on display at Graduation. To learn more about BEST, please visit http://www.ec.co/best. Press Contact: Vinnie Mascarenhas

703-955-3894

[email protected] View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/gtl-continues-support-of-best-entrepreneurship-program-300504743.html SOURCE GTL

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Blessed by some, blistered by others, the 23-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement  known as NAFTA  faces a renegotiation process that begins Wednesday in Washington D.C.

But with commercial exchange between San Diego and Tijuana estimated at $2.1 million per day, every thrust and parry in the talks among trade representatives from the U.S., Mexico and Canada will be watched intently by many local businesses, unions and economists.

Its a very big deal based on the relationship that has been established over many years between Baja and San Diego, said Gustavo de la Fuente, executive director of the Smart Border Coalition, a San Diego-based nonprofit that works on reducing lengthy border wait times that impede economic growth.

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In this region, a lot of business ties  are also family ties, de la Fuente said. For our region, this is a very significant event.

Since NAFTA went into effect in January 1994, trade among the U.S., Mexico and Canada has quadrupled to more than $1 trillion.

But the deal has been criticized by labor unions who say it has cost the U.S. manufacturing jobs and environmental groups who say the agreement doesnt go far enough to advance climate and human rights goals.

The NAFTA talks come after President Donald Trump, who on the campaign trail often called the agreement a disaster, had U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer formally open discussions earlier this year.

While Trump has threatened to pull out of NAFTA  last month the president told the Wall Street Journal, Maybe well have to terminate it  Lighthizer indicated in a letter to Congress this summer that the administration is looking to revise NAFTA, rather than blow it up.

For example, there was no mention in the letter of a 20 percent tax on imports from Mexico and other countries with which the U.S. has a trade deficit.

The U.S. has a $62.7 billion trade deficit with Mexico and an $8 billion surplus with Canada. The talks in Washington mark the first renegotiation of the agreement.

James D. Hamilton, economics professor at UC San Diego, said he hopes there is nothing too radical in any potential changes to the agreement.

I think NAFTA has benefited the U.S., Canada and Mexico, Hamilton said. My hope would be that we dont see something that is significantly destabilizing for the economies of the three nations.

The talks in Washington run through the week but that is only the start of the process. Negotiations will also be held in Mexico and Canada and any final agreement will have to be approved by the legislative or parliamentary branches of each country.

Sempra Energy, the Fortune 500 company based in San Diego, is also watching the NAFTA talks closely.

In the past four years Mexico has undertaken a massive effort to reform its energy sector, stripping its state-run oil and natural gas giants of their monopoly status. That has opened the door for investment from international companies, many from the United States.

Sempra has a subsidiary in Mexico, IEnova, that has reached agreements on projects ranging from natural gas pipelines to renewable energy to liquid fuels.

In 2016, IEnova completed more than $5 billion in transactions, including an energy infrastructure project worth about $1.1 billion.

Sempra Energy Executive VP Dennis Arriola (center) appears before the House Ways and Means Committees Trade Subcommittee about NAFTA reform on Capitol Hill July 18, 2017 in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

Last month, Dennis Arriola, executive vice president for corporate strategy and external affairs at Sempra, appeared before a subcommittee on Capitol Hill regarding a NAFTA makeover.

Our investments in Mexico have made excellent business sense, Arriola said. Investing in Mexico has also been a natural geographic extension of our business. Our San Diego operations share a border with Mexico. We are tied together economically, environmentally and culturally.

Since Mexicos oil and gas operations were still nationalized when NAFTA went into effect in 1994, energy in Mexico is not a part of the original agreement.

That is expected to change and energy companies are anxious to make sure any renegotiation includes provisions that do not disrupt their investments.

A growing energy trade partnership is a win-win outcome for both the U.S. and Mexico, Arriola said. If negotiators can preserve these benefits while finding consensus to modernize and improve the agreement, North America will become an even more integrated and powerful energy market in the years to come.

Natural gas exports from the U.S. to Mexico have dramatically increased in recent years, having reached near-record levels in the first five months of this year.

David Crisostomo, an associate director based in Mexico City for the energy analysis firm IHS Markit, said a NAFTA renegotiation is unlikely to disturb energy markets.

Gas exports for the U.S. to Mexico are a key market outlet, Crisotomo said while taking part in a conference at UC San Diego in May. So I dont think you want to touch that.

Business is brisk north of the border too.

Canada is the largest energy trading partner of the U.S., with transactions in 2013 estimated at $140 billion. More than 80 pipelines and 30 electricity transmission lines connect the two countries.

But there are hurdles.

It took three years of talks to wrap up the original agreement but the partners have expressed hope of completing negotiations by early next year, ahead of mid-term elections in the U.S. and a presidential election in Mexico.

The early front-runner in the Mexican presidential race is Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a left-wing populist who has called for putting Mexicos energy reform policies to a referendum.

Labor unions have long opposed NAFTA.

Since its implementation, hundreds of thousands of workers in the U.S. and Canada have lost their jobs as company after company have moved production to Mexico, a country where fundamental human rights do not exist, said Robert Martinez Jr., president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

Teamsters president James P. Hoffa said NAFTA has been ineffective in enforcing basic labor rights, especially in Mexico.

Cross-border trucking has been a major concern of local Teamsters, who say trucks coming from Mexico are substandard and the drivers are not required to abide by the rules, licenses and training that U.S. drivers have to follow.

Freight truck pass through Mexican Customs before entering the United States at the Otay Mesa port of entry on May 11, 2017. President Donald Trump has vowed to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and reduce the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico. (John Moore / Getty Images)

Victor Torres, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 481, said labor protections and the right for workers in Mexico to organize need to be tackled.

In the original NAFTA agreement, these were not even addressed at all and if they were addressed they were in the weakest language possible, Torres said. So these things need to be tightened up in the renegotiation. Its almost like we should rewrite the whole thing.

Many environmental groups dont like NAFTA either, arguing the deals incorporation of environmental side-agreements is toothless and that NAFTAs Chapter 11 provision gives corporations too much power.

If Trumps cabinet full of corporate polluters and Wall Street billionaires is any indication of what he has planned, his NAFTA redux will likely include even more handouts to the corporations that have used NAFTA to profit off of Americans misfortune for more than 20 years, said Sierra Club executive director Micheal Brune.

The Smart Borders Coalition wants what it calls a modernized NAFTA to help accelerate the flow of cargo, pedestrians and vehicles between the U.S. and Mexico at places like the San Ysidro and Otay Mesa ports of entry.

The coalition filed its recommendations as part of the federal governments comment period.

What compels us is the very long wait times that we have seen on the border, over many years, de la Fuente said. It is important for us that people can get across the border northbound and southbound faster.

A report from the San Diego Association of Governments estimated that traffic congestion and delays on the border cost the economies of San Diego County and Baja California an estimated $6 billion a year in gross output.

Theres been a lot of political posturing, we understand that, de la Fuente said. But that doesnt mean that the agreement cant be updated in a way that benefits both countries.

Business

rob.nikolewski@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1251 Twitter: @robnikolewski

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Discounts are in addition to state, federal EV incentives

Driving a new 2017 Nissan Leaf EV or BMW i3 EV just got a $10,000 jump start from San Diego Gas & Electric. Those considering one of these battery-powered cars can bring a copy of their SDG&E bill and the Nissan or BMW discount flyer (links below) to a participating dealership.

And low- to moderate-income families can benefit even more.

The discounts, available at any BMW or Nissan dealership in SDG&Es territory, are on top of existing state and federal EV incentives, which can total another $10,000 in savings, SDG&E says. The offers are good through Sept. 30, 2017, or until inventories run out. (If your name is not on the SDG&E bill, but you live in the same household, bring in the bill with your drivers license to show proof of residency.)

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These special promotions are funded by the automakers and no SDG&E ratepayer funds are used, an SDG&E spokeswoman said.

Nissan has been working with utility companies, universities and municipalities on these programs, said Nissan spokesman Josh Clifton. Its not a nationwide campaign, but we are working in various regional markets on these opportunities.

The 2017 Leaf has a 107-mile driving range and a starting price of $31,565, which includes the $885 freight charge but no state or federal incentives. (The 2018 Leaf will be a redesigned model.)

The BMW i3 starts at $43,395 and has an electric driving range of 114 miles; pricing includes the $995 freight charge but no state incentive or federal tax credit. (The 2018 models will have no major changes.)

Buyers of the Nissan Leaf and BMW i3 models are eligible to receive $7,500 in federal tax credits. But what had been a standard California rebate of $2,500 for pure electric vehicles has already been used up for the year. Instead, there is a $4,500 rebate program (the standard rebate of $2,500 plus an additional $2,000 ) as an incentive for low- to moderate-income families, as long as they meet the governments poverty-level guidelines. Currently, that income level ranges from $36,180 for a single-occupant household to $73,800 for a family of four to $123,960 for a family of eight. Learn more at Cleanvehiclerebate.org.

Other applicants can apply to be on a waitlist for standard rebates (which is $1,500 for a plug-in hybrid and $2,500 for an all-electric car), pending additional state funding of the program.

Download the Nissan flyer here: tinyurl.com/NissanLeafFlyer

Download the BMW flyer here: tinyurl.com/BMW-SD-EVflyer

Info: sdge.com/EVDiscount.

EV Day San Diego

National Electric Drive Week will be Sept. 9-17 and SDG&E is helping to stage what it calls the largest EV test drive event to date in San Diego.

EV Day San Diego will run from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sept. 9 at Qualcomm Stadium. The free event will have more than 30 electric vehicles available for testing on two courses. There also will be electric bicycles to try out and among the test drives will be displays of heavy electric workplace equipment and technologies. Motorists contemplating an EV will be able to learn about state EV rebates and federal incentives, charging an EV at home or at public stations and solar charging options.

Also featured will be an EV Tailgate area for owners who want to display their EV and talk to attendees about the experience. A family fun zone will have mini electric cars (presented by the San Diego Fire Rescue Foundation), face painting, food trucks, a DJ and shade tents.

Info: sdge.com/electric-vehicle-day
The Fallbrook Community Center is hosting a blood drive for the nonprofit San Diego Blood Bank from 12:30 to 5:30 p.m. Aug. 24 in the centers parking lot at 341 Heald Lane.

Donors must meet be 17 or older (age 16 requires parental consent) and weigh at least 114 pounds and be in good health.

Donors should drink plenty of fluids before donating. Maintain usual eating habits on the day of donation, avoiding fatty foods if possible. All donors must show picture identification upon signing up to donate.

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One pint of blood, which is the amount volunteers typically give when they donate, can save up to three lives, according to the San Diego Blood Bank. Since blood is always needed, volunteers are asked to give blood for patients, such as those going through cancer or trauma.

Donors are encouraged to schedule an appointment, but walk-ins are also welcome. To schedule an appointment, call 1-800-4MY-SDBB (1-800-469-7322) or visit SanDiegoBloodBank.org.
Eight days and counting until the Great American Total Solar Eclipse. Its been 38 years since the last time the celestial wonder darkened the skies in North America and folks from around the world are gathering in droves.

It happens on Aug. 21 and you can see it from anywhere in the country, only there are degrees of what they call obscuration.

There is what is known as the path of totality, a narrow strip of 70 miles extending from Salem, Ore., to Charleston, S.C., where the sun will be 100 percent shielded. Here in San Diego, the level of obscuration will be only 62 percent.

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And thats why people like my brother from Brooklyn, whose obscuration level is at 72 percent will be flying to Idaho, one of the premium locations, to get the optimum view. Joining him will be cousins from Budapest, Hungary, plus more kin from as far away as Holland and Germany to witness the two-minute, 27-second phenomenon.

They rented a house in Island Park, Idaho, over a year ago. I was asked to join them, but Im opting to stay home and watch on TV.

What if its cloudy? I question.

Meanwhile the rest of the gang has their airline tickets, cameras, binoculars, telescopes and eye protection in the ready. The big migration starts next week when a dozen relatives from four countries converge.

Coincidentally, right here in San Diego, another spectacle occurred just yesterday when our 2-year-old granddaughter, for the first time in her life, delivered a surprise into the commode instead of her pants.

We got a phone call from my son heralding the news. Penny pooped in the toilet, he yelled excitedly. You gotta come see this, he urged while the distinct sound of cheering can be heard in the background.

So we hopped in the car to drive over to my sons house, because its one thing to opt out of seeing the moon obscure the sun, but theres no way we could afford to miss the sight of a log floating in the latrine. Not if its your granddaughters first.

Besides, my sons home is only 5 miles from ours and takes us less than ten minutes to get there, versus the eclipse site some 1,000 miles and 15 hours away.

By the time we got there, a small crowd had gathered. The bathroom was too small to accommodate everyone, so several folks were left out of the path of totality. But, grandpa had special privileges and was ushered through the throng to a prominent viewing location reserved for immediate members of the family. Without the aid of eye protection, I peered directly into the toilet.

I applauded my granddaughter, then gave my son a knowing smile as he wiped a tear from his eyes.

The next North American total solar eclipse arrives in seven years on April 8, 2024. Pennys miracle can be seen again tomorrow.

Contact humor columnistIrv Erdos at IrvErdos@aol.com.
Escondido police Detective Ryan Hicks was picked as Officer of the Year at the annual Scottish Rites award ceremony.

Hicks, a narcotics detective in the Special Investigations Unit, was recognized for his outstanding work in conducting numerous investigations.

The award cited one example last year when Hicks found out that occupants of a home were selling narcotics. Area residents were fed up with all of the drug-related activity associated with the house and called the police for help. Hicks gathered enough information to obtain a search warrant, which led to the the seizure of heroin and methamphetamine along with more than $7,600 in cash and a rifle. Five suspects were taken into custody.

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Code Enforcement declared the house uninhabitable. As a result of the investigation, the house was sold, brought up to code, and is now occupied by a family.

Hicks was also named a finalist for the San Diego County Law Enforcement Officer of the Year.

Each year, since 1992, a committee of Scottish Rite members with law enforcement backgrounds select an Officer of the Year from police departments throughout San Diego County based on outstanding accomplishments in the performance of duties during the past year.

The annual award was first presented 25 years ago to each police department in the county, the Sheriffs Department, the Harbor Police, and the Highway Patrol and has since grown to include the police departments of the San Diego Unified School District along with several college district departments.
The Chula Vista City Council recently held a community workshop at City Hall to consider the pros and cons of marijuana regulation in the city.

The Aug. 3 dialogue included current state cannabis laws and the future of local regulation regarding cannabis.

The discussion followed a report from city staff members and the chief of police about initial impressions from of a recent trip by city staff and some council members to Colorado to see how the state handles the legalization of marijuana.

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They visited Aurora, where voters approved retail and manufacturing uses for cannabis.

In November 2016, California voters passed Proposition 64, which made it legal for individuals age 21 and older to immediately use and grow marijuana with the sale and taxation of recreational marijuana beginning January 1, 2018.

However, while state laws govern personal marijuana activity, including use, possession and cultivation, local municipalities still have authority to allow and regulate or prohibit all commercial activity in cities.

After a near-three-hour discussion, the City Council asked staff members to return with a written summary of the trip, including associated staff costs from finance, code enforcement, planning and building, police and fire departments, administration and the city attorney office.

Currently Chula Vista has a temporary moratorium on all marijuana sales and manufacturing of marijuana.

Despite that, dispensaries might operate within the city limits until city officials are able to shut them down.

City Attorney Glen Googins said that having a criminal prosecution team as other cities do, would allow the city to be more efficient in shutting down the illegal businesses.

We have the legal authority to criminally enforce our municipal code, I just dont have the lawyers or expertise in house to be able to do it, he said.

Googins estimated a cost of between $300,000 and $400,000 a year for that additional staffing alone.

City officials said its too early to estimate the cost of police officers and administrative expenses. However, Chula Vista Police Chief Roxana Kennedy said it would take a significant number of officers to address all the issues.

As you can imagine, being the chief of police I have huge concerns in regards to any type of establishment where I believe the activity there could create challenges for us in law enforcement, she said.

The Police Department has roughly .85 officers per every thousand residents, the lowest she said in the county and perhaps the state.

There are currently eight states; Alaska, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Washington, Maine Massachusetts, Nevada and Oregon, that have legalized recreational cannabis.

Out of the 50 states, 29 have legalized medical cannabis through a combination of ballot measures and senate bills.

In San Diego County, San Diego, La Mesa and Lemon Grove currently allow some type of commercial marijuana activity.

San Diego city officials estimate that recreational cannabis will bring in $22 million in revenue from gross receipts from taxes by mid-2019.

Despite the significant revenue, Chula Vista officials need to figure out if the financial benefits from taxes would outweigh any potential harm to their community.

Staff members reported challenges of legalization such as an increased concern of homelessness, hospital and poison control calls mostly for youth who consumed edibles, and traffic accidents and fatalities.

The City Council added its concerns regarding youth access, illegal deliveries, marijuana potency, the lack of staff and resources, the citys image, public health, safety and environmental effects.

Currently in Chula Vista, limited personal use and possession of roughly 1 ounce of medical marijuana is allowed in Chula Vista for people 21 years and older, who can also possess, process, transport, purchase, obtain or give it away to people at least 21 years old without compensation.

For concentrated cannabis the amount is lowered to 8 grams.

A person can have no more than six living plants on the grounds of a single private residence. Anything more than 28.5 grams has to be kept in a private residence locked up and not publicly visible. The city does have the authority to ban outside cultivation.

Numerous public speakers stated their approval and opposition to marijuana regulation in the city.

When you cant regulate something one of the problems you have is corruption, said John Redman, executive director of Californians for Drug Free Youth. Im here to ask you to take a cautionary approach because once you opens Pandoras Box it is very, very difficult to go back.

Chula Vista resident Alan Cassell, whos also a business owner, spoke in favor of it.

In part my personal views are that through regulation of this process it allows us a little more clear cut definition of what is legal and what is illegal, he said.

Councilman Steve Padilla said the reality is that if a juvenile or adult wants access to marijuana theyre going to get it.

The question is, are they going to have a place in their community where they can get it from a retailer where theres some regulation that we get to weigh in on or are they going to get it from the black market? he asked.

City staff members are expected to return to the City Council with more answers and research on the subject within 90 days.
Wolfgang Wolf Berger, a Scripps Institution of Oceanography researcher whose big insights about tiny fossils helped reveal the history of the worlds oceans, has died at 79.

The paleoceanographer died in San Diego on Aug. 6, Scripps said. A cause of death was not disclosed.

For more than 40 years, Berger helped define and advance paleoceanography, which encompasses some of the most complex systems in nature, including the circulation of ocean currents and the scattering of marine fossils in deep, dark waters.

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He was particularly well-known for his investigation of marine fossils and plankton, using them to examine how Earths climate, oceans and atmosphere changed over time.

Bergers sleuthing began in Germany, where he was born Oct. 5, 1937. He earned a bachelors degree in geology at the University of Erlangen in 1961 and a masters degree at the University of Colorado in 1963. He ended up at UC San Diego, where he earned a doctorate in oceanography at the universitys Scripps Institution in 1968.

He joined the Scripps faculty in 1971, where he became known for his philosophical way of teaching as well as his research.

Scripps researcher Aaron Thode said in statement that Berger had a very distinctive teaching style  hed sit and ask us one question after another, about why we thought a certain phenomena took place in nature, in the the manner of Socrates.

He had the air of a very patient man, albeit one [who] always seemed mildly disappointed with our answers, Thode said.

Larry A. Mayer, a marine researcher at the University of New Hampshire, said in a statement that Berger was a demanding adviser and mentor. He had a remarkable mind with an amazingly intuitive feel for how the ocean (and indeed the entire earth system) worked.

It was always a humbling experience to discuss science (or almost anything) with Wolf  he had a steel-trap mind for facts, and if he did not know the facts [he] would derive the answer from first principles, Mayer said. It was well worth the feelings of inadequacy to be privy to his remarkable insights.

Bergers poetic and philosophic nature spilled over into the emails he wrote to the faculty when he served as interim director of Scripps in 1996 and 1997.

Berger also was the author of a popular textbook, The Sea Floor, as well as Walk Along the Ocean, a guide to the shoreline of northern San Diego County. He also wrote the childrens book Feed Me: The Story of Penny the Penguin Chick.

Berger is survived by his wife, Karen; children, Karl and Katrina; and five grandchildren, Brianna, Lukas, Kaleb, Rohan and Clara.

Robbins writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune
The Navy continues to probe the crash of a strike fighter that crashed in the Persian Gulf nation of Bahrain on Saturday afternoon.

Officials say that an F/A-18E Super Hornet launched from the aircraft carrier Nimitz suffered a malfunction in one of its engines around 12:40 p.m. Saturday while midair and tried to divert to Sheik Isa Air Base on the southern tip of Bahrain.

Unable to make it, the unnamed pilot made an emergency landing at Bahrain International Airport on the northern portion of the island, but the engine problem prevented the jet from stopping, according to a Navy statement sent to The San Diego Union-Trbiune on Monday. The pilot safely ejected from the cockpit and the plane skidded off the runway.

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The twin-engined Boeing Super Hornet was assigned to Strike Fighter Squadron 146, the Blue Diamonds of Naval Air Station Lemoore in Californias Central Valley.

Bahrains Ministry of Transportation and Telecommunications canceled nine flights and the tarmac remained closed for more than two hours on Saturday while crews cleaned up the damage.

The Navy marked it as a Class A Mishap because it caused at least $2 million in damage to the aircraft.On July 16 while the Nimitiz was sailing across the Bay of Bengal, an F/A-18F from the Black Knights of Lemoores Strike Fighter Squadron 154 experienced a borescope glitch, sparking an engine fire. It also has been reported as a Class A Mishap and remains under investigation.

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Vice Adm. Tom Rowden, the SWO Boss who helms Naval Surface Forces, kicked off the Surface Warfare Summit on Tuesday at Naval Base Point Loma with a plea for his officers to get smarter and meaner as they train to fight a potential 21st century sea battle.

The second annual conference gathers more than 200 Navy commanders, defense industry tycoons and academicians to three days of talks on how to adapt Americas Navy to wage war. Much of the forum is classified but focuses on what Rowden calls the T4  tactical excellence, nimble and savvy talent, cutting-edged tools that sense and then destroy enemy forces and the realistic training that puts all of the other elements together.

The message Id want people to take away from this summit is how far weve come over the past few years, Rowden said. This conference is designed to create an environment that brings a wide range of disparate entities together to help each other understand the future we face and how well confront it. The idea we like here is, All are smarter than one of us. We have the opportunity this week to talk about the challenges but also how well mitigate our weaknesses and exploit the weaknesses of our potential enemies.

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The organizing principle corralling the conference is distributed lethality, a concept tied to Rowden and evangelized throughout the surface Navy through some of the brightest junior officers he recruited.

The blueprint for distributed lethality was sketched out at the Rhode Island-based Naval War College but blossomed under Rowden, a career surface warfare officer who came of age during the Cold War and later commanded the destroyer Milius, Destroyer Squadron 60 and multiple carrier strike groups.

The detailed tactics and operations that will flesh out the concept are being refined daily, but in general distributive lethality seeks to widely disperse warships to put a potential enemy at risk of destruction from many different vessels.

Rowden wants the surface fleet to be deployed forward, on the cusp of potential conflict, not only to respond quickly and ruthlessly to challenges at sea but also to be a visible show of American force.

That transparency can deter foes by leaving no doubts about Navy capabilities and presence.

Rowden realizes that if deterrence fails and America must go to war, sailors are going to have be not only competent at their jobs but also tough  capable of taking a punch from the enemy, repairing the damage and then aggressively hunting down that foe to kill it or drive it from sea battle.

Rowden and other commanders often shy away from naming the potential enemies these strike groups might fight, but the opening day of the conference spotlighted speeches by Toshi Yoshihara, a senior fellow at the nonprofit Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments; plus Thomas Fedyszyn and Richard A. Moss, both professors at the Naval War College.Yoshihara is one of the worlds foremost experts on the Chinese navy. The professors specialize in analyzing Russias military.

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Should the mother of a fallen soldier be allowed to stay in the United States  despite a deportation order and a criminal past  so she can be near her daughters grave?

Capt. Jennifer Moreno, a 25-year-old Army nurse, was killed in action in Afghanistan in October. A San Diego native, she died while serving with Army Rangers as part of a female liaison team. She is buried at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery and was posthumously awarded a Bronze Star for combat valor.

Her mother, Maria Cordova, is in federal custody in downtown San Diego following a drug conviction. She was scheduled for deportation Tuesday, but her lawyer filed an emergency appeal. Immigration officials could still send Cordova back to Mexico Wednesday if they reject the appeal.

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Cordovas three surviving adult children  one of them an active-duty Army tank mechanic with multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan  are asking U.S. officials for leniency to allow their mother to remain in San Diego.

The heartstrings nature of the case has attracted the attention of Morenos former commanders and U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine.

I think losing a daughter is more than enough to repay that, said Jearaldy Moreno, 24, a University of California at Los Angeles student before taking time off to help her mother.

But some secure borders advocates say Cordovas story of illegal entry and crime is not persuasive, despite her familys sacrifice.

Cordova, 47, was serving a year sentence for a felony drug charge when her daughter was killed Oct. 6.

She was convicted of transportation of cocaine, her second drug offense in 20 years, according to her lawyer. She was allowed a months leave from Las Colinas Detention Facility in Santee to attend the memorial services.

Released Monday, she was immediately moved to federal custody, pending deportation to Tijuana.

She had lived in San Diego without proper immigration status since the 1990s, according to her lawyer and family members.

Cordova first entered the United States at age 17 without the proper paperwork, but she eventually got a green card through a Reagan administration amnesty program, they said.

She lost her legal residency and was deported following a 1992 felony conviction for drug possession with intent to distribute. Her daughter Jearaldy said a cousin living at the family home was the focus of the drug case but her mother got ensnared.

Now, Cordovas family has asked U.S. authorities to allow the grief-stricken mother to stay in the United States on humanitarian grounds.

Her attorney, Danielle Rosche, said immigration officials could grant a one-year stay of deportation that could be renewed indefinitely. In that time, Cordova could apply for a special visa for crime victims, as her late husband was abusive.

All were asking is for my mom to be able to stay next to my sisters grave without looking over her shoulder for immigration, said 27-year-old Ivan Moreno, Cordovas son and an Army sergeant at Fort Riley, Kansas.

Through her lawyer, Cordova responded to questions from U-T San Diego on Tuesday.

About the 2013 drug conviction, she said, I had repented and was ready to accept being deported, but now everything has changed.

Cordova said she wants to be near her fallen daughter and other military families who are grieving.

I need to be here with other people who understand what Ive suffered and can help me through it, she said. I know that if Im not here, nobody will visit my daughters grave. Her fathers gone and her brother and sisters dont live here. I dont want her to be abandoned.

Hunter -- a Marine combat veteran who has taken a tough stand on immigration policy -- saw reason to ask federal authorities to consider the familys pleas for leniency.

This case was brought to our attention by a command of the armed forces and after quick review, Representative Hunter determined the circumstances were unique and required special consideration, said his spokesman, Joe Kasper, on Tuesday.

This is a family that has given back to this nation through military service, not just through Jennifers service and sacrifice, but also in the case of her brother who has served multiple combat tours.

Kasper called Cordovas drug convictions unfortunate.

The communications director for San Diegans for Secure Borders said he has compassion for anyone who is suffering, regardless of immigration status.

Still, spokesman Rob Luton said, Our coalition would advocate that this person be deported. Because they not only violated immigration law, but they committed other crimes while here, which makes them an absconder.

The San Diego office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement didnt comment by deadline on Tuesday.

A spokeswoman said no statistics are available on how many requests have been made or granted for stays of deportation based humanitarian grounds.

If she didnt have the drug convictions, Cordova would likely be eligible for legal status because of her childrens military service, her lawyer said.

As it stands, the discretion to grant a stay rests with the U.S. immigration field office director in San Diego, Rosche said.

And Cordovas case is apparently unusual because of her daughters payment in blood.

Where families have served honorably in the military, thats a common scenario, Rosche said.

But actually being killed in action is a totally different thing. Ive reached out to other colleagues, especially ones who work on military issues in other parts of the country, and no one had this scenario before.
The embattled leader of the regions top transportation agency, Gary Gallegos, could step down as early as this Friday.

The executive director of the San Diego Association of Governments sent a letter Monday asking the agencys board of directors to waive a 120-day advance notice requirement and allow him to resign by the end of the week.

Last week, Gallegos, 57, said that he planned to retire by the end of the year.

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The news comes in the wake of revelations that the agency bungled billions in revenue projections and potentially tried to cover up the scandal.

It is with a heavy heart that I write to inform you that I have decided to retire from SANDAG, Gallegos wrote. It has been an honor and a privilege to serve as your executive director for the past 16 years.

The region is facing change and that change is going to require new leadership to build consensus and position San Diego to take advantage of future opportunities, he added.

One of his strongest allies, county Supervisor Ron Roberts, released the letter to the news media with a statement lauding Gallegos.

Gary has built consensus among a diverse regional board to deliver what for San Diego County is an unparalleled list of transportation projects, both completed and in the works, wrote Roberts, who also chairs the agencys 21-member board of elected officials from around the county.

Roberts said that the agency will start a national search for a replacement.

The board hired the Los Angeles-based law firm Hueston Hennigan earlier this year to look into whether the agency intentionally over-hyped revenue projections for Measure A, a half-cent sales tax increase rejected by voters in November. SANDAG initially said the levy would bring in $18 billion over 40 years for highway and transit projects, later admitting the estimate was off by billions after the Voice of San Diego and then other media questioned the numbers.

In August, the firms investigation found that Gallegos and SANDAGs former chief economist, Marney Cox, didnt intentionally oversell the tax proposal. However, the report found that when SANDAG staff members raised concerns that projections could be too optimistic, they ran into a culture of hubris among the agencys top leaders.

The investigation also found that Gallegos oversaw the hiding and potential destruction of emails amid media inquiries ahead of the public vote.

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Customs and Border Protection spent an estimated $5 million on lie detector tests for job applicants who had admitted to drug use or criminal behavior that disqualified them from being hired.

The finding came in a new report from the Inspector General for Homeland Security, which faulted the agency for wasting time and money on job applicants who had no chance of working in border law enforcement.

It also comes at a time when the agency is gearing up to hire an additional 5,000 agents for the Border Patrol  a separate agency that falls under the control of CBP  as part of President Donald Trumps plan to beef up border security and crackdown on unauthorized immigration.

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The agency pushed back against the findings in the report, questioning the $5 million cost and contending that when considering job applicants, the agency takes a whole person approach that considers a range of variables, some of which could cancel out a checkered past.

It also noted that the auditors acknowledge that the report issued Aug. 4 is a draft alert and a full statistical analysis of all the cases is forthcoming.

The report looked at a sample of polygraph exams administered to applicants from 2013-16, when the agency spent $72 million on 32,847 lie detector tests.

Auditors wrote that the agency ended up administering lie detectors to 2,300 applicants who had provided disqualifying information on employment applications or during interviews conducted before the exam is given, auditors concluded.

The report looked in detail at 71 cases of job seekers who had made what it described as unsuitable pre-test admissions.

These included admitting to drug use, drug smuggling, human trafficking and having close, personal relationships with people who commit such crimes.

Despite those admissions the agency went ahead and administered the test, which costs about $2,200 each.

One job applicant admitted to participating in the gang rape of an intoxicated and unconscious woman. Such admissions disqualify someone from working at the agency, but the report faulted CBP for continuing to process the job applicant.

That inefficiency wastes money and resources. The report criticized the agency for not having a process to identify and remove applicants from consideration before the polygraph is given.

In response CBP said that the whole person review for an applicant looks at many factors, including how serious the misconduct was, or how long ago it took place.

The agency said the majority of cases reviewed by the auditors were instances when the agency did not have enough information under the whole person standard to disqualify an applicant.

It also said it recently began regularly using adjudicators  officials who review the lie detector results to determine if someone is suitable for work  when the test is given to more quickly wash out applicants.

Effective June 2017, all polygraph examiners were notified that they are required to use on-call adjudicators when potentially disqualifying information is received at any time during the polygraph examination process to seek guidance regarding whether testing should continue or should be halted, the agency said in a written statement.

Auditors with the Inspector General have taken a closer look at CBP hiring practices, both before and after Trumps call for more agents. A report last fall on overall hiring by DHS agencies noted it took 282 days, about nine months, to hire a single Border Patrol agent. That was an improvement from 2013, when it took 420 days.

In a July report auditors said that to meet the goal of hiring 5,000 agents CBP would need about 750,000 applicants. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which Trump ordered to hire 10,000 more agents, would need to get 500,000 applications.

Even if the agencies could attract that staggering number of applicants, the report said CBP and ICE dont have nearly enough human resources workers to process the surge. CBP would need at least 3,000 new human resources staff.

Congress required polygraph tests in legislation signed into law in 2011. The requirement was a response to a wave of corruption cases that had dogged the agency during a hiring spree from 2003 to 2009 that doubled the size of the Border Patrol and CBP.

During the surge, hiring standards were lowered, training shortened and background checks were delayed or not done at all. Trumps call for another surge has been met with warnings from the Inspector General and outside critics that agency not repeat errors from the past.

The polygraph exam requirement has been an obstacle. The Associated Press reported in January that two of three applicants failed the exam  twice the failure rate of other law enforcement agencies. A bill is pending in Congress that would waive the polygraph requirement for certain applicants who had experience in law enforcement or the military and who had passed background checks.

Twitter: @gregmoran

greg.moran@sduniontribune.com
Eleno Max Quinteros Jr. of Chula Vista took a plea deal in San Diegos federal court on Thursday to charges that he made false statements to get green cards for some of his companies employees.

In the plea agreement, Quinteros, a 45-year-old airline staffing company executive, said he collected $560,000 from an estimated 85 airline mechanics to help them get legal permanent residency in the U.S., according to a news release from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. On the employees visa applications, he had to certify that he did not receive money for sponsoring their green cards because it is illegal for employers to charge employees for sponsoring a green card.

Quinteros pleaded guilty to one count of making a false statement, and he admitted in the plea deal that the practice had involved over 25 immigration documents.

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Not only do schemes like this potentially rob deserving immigrants of benefits they rightfully deserve, they also create a security vulnerability that could be exploited by criminals and others who pose a danger to our community, said Joseph Macias, special agent in charge of ICEs Homeland Security Investigations in Los Angeles, in a statement.

Quinteros used some of the money to pay the costs of filing immigration paperwork and pocketed the rest through methods meant to avoid detection, like using his wifes bank account or blank money orders, according to court documents.

Legal permanent residency is not for sale, said Alana Robinson, acting U.S. attorney, in a statement. This office is dedicated to fighting immigration fraud and prosecuting those who hawk lawful immigration status for their own personal financial gain.

Quinteros recruited the mechanics from Mexico to work for two Arizona-based airline staffing companies for which Quinteros served as vice president, according to the indictment. The companies were not named in the case though court documents indicate that he was a part-owner of one of the companies.

He is scheduled for sentencing in November.

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The killing of a protester in Virginia and the White Houses slow and equivocal response to white supremacists has prompted calls from San Diego politicians for a greater effort to denounce bigotry.

I cant believe that we have to reassert that Nazis are bad, La Mesa Councilman Colin Parent said.

At a news conference on Tuesday, Parent and other county Democrats called for more direct confrontation of hateful ideologies. They criticized President Donald Trump for not immediately and decisively condemning white supremacists who engaged in a violent rally in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend.

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Racists and anti-semites are out there, and Donald Trump has give them active permission to put their hate on display for everyone to see, not just in that state, not just in this country, but in the world, said state Sen. Toni Atkins, D-San Diego. He has given tacit approval to intolerance, discrimination and violence. We have to be clear about that.

Charlottesville showed that overt racism has become acceptable in some circles, San Diego Councilwoman Myrtle Cole said.

It went stealth for a little while, but it came back, she said. Anti-black bigotry emerged more stongly when Barack Obama was elected president, and became strikingly confrontational during Trumps campaign, she said.

The president that we have, he makes it OK to be racist, a bigot, she said.

Trump has rejected the notion that he is a racial bigot. He was roundly criticized for his initial response to the Charlottesville attack over the weekend and again following a news conference Tuesday. Some Republicans have also criticized his comments.

We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides, the president said over the weekend.

Trump should have merely condemned white-nationalists, Atkins said.

His response was to draw a moral equivalence between people who peacefully protest against discrimination and people who proudly advocate white supremacy, give Nazi salutes, and parade through the streets with torches, she said.

Sandy Atkinson of Oceanside holds a photo of Heather Heyer at the weekly protest rally in front of U.S. Rep. Darrell Issas Vista office on Tuesday. Heyer was killed last Saturday, after a car crashed into demonstrators protesting at white supremacy rally in Charlottesville, Va. (Howard Lipin/San Diego Union-Tribune)

On Tuesday  after the San Diego news conference  Trump also blamed counterprotesters for initiating violence and reiterated his view that both sides were at fault.

Others said they appreciate that Trump said that racism is evil on Monday, but found it unacceptable that he only did so after two days and mounting political pressure.

Some Republicans also condemned the attack and bigotry.

I am sickened by the despicable display of intolerance, violence, and hatred in Charlottesville this weekend, said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista. We must denounce white supremacy, bigotry, and their ancillary evils without hesitation and seek a more peaceful path forward for our nation.

In Vista, more than 200 demonstrators started a weekly gathering in front of Rep. Darrell Issas office by singing the national anthem, followed by a moment of silence for the victims of the Charlottesville violence. Some held up photos of Heather Heyer, the woman who was killed.

The Tuesday rallies are primarily attended by a few hundred people protesting the policies of President Donald Trump, and who say they want to vote Issa, a Republican, out of his 49th District House seat. But in recent weeks, several Trump and Issa supporters have turned out to counter-protest.

And as they held the moment of silence, both sides kept quiet, with hats off and heads down.

Once that was over and the rally began, the noise on both sides started. But there were no conflicts.

The California GOP released a statement renouncing bigotry and violence. The invocation for the county Republican partys monthly meeting on Monday largely focused on Charlottesville, and there was an intercession for healing, comfort and forgiveness.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, did not comment on Charlottesville, a non-response that national Democrats criticized. His office did not respond to a request for comment for this article on Tuesday.

While Democrats want more to be done to confront racism, the partys members in the state Legislature will continue to push legislation that change how bail is set, improve schools and public education, and address racial profiling, Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, said.

Unfair laws create perceptions that some groups are disproportionately committing crimes, which help spur racist demonstrations like the one in Charlottesville, she said.

That reinforces the negative attitude of how you treat them, she said. These marches and these attacks, theyre a manifestation of pur public policies.

The San Diego Human Relations Commission will also discuss Charlottesville and consider if any changes to city law or policies are necessary, said Stephen Groce, the chairman of the commission. The advisory board will meet on Wednesday.

Staff writer Teri Figueroa contributed to this report.

Twitter: @jptstewart

joshua.stewart@sduniontribune.com

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A Mexican man who crashed an SUV while trying to elude the U.S. Border Patrol, injuring himself and six other unauthorized immigrants, was sentenced to four years in prison Monday, the U.S. Attorneys Office said.

Miguel Angel Tejada Loaiza, 21, pleaded guilty at a May 23 hearing in San Diego federal court to transporting unauthorized immigrants.

A month earlier, on April 23, he led a Border Patrol agent on a 6-mile chase that ended when he veered off state Route 125 near Birch Road, struck the end of a guardrail and rolled down an embankment. Tejada and his six passengers  who prosecutors said were in the United States illegally  were taken to hospitals.

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One passenger later claimed Tejada crashed intentionally, telling authorities that when he saw a Border Patrol agents lights behind him, Tejada deliberately sped up and purposely jerked the wheel of the vehicle to cause it to roll over, according to a complaint filed in federal court.

Agents first spotted the Ford Explorer parked along Alta Road, about a mile east of the Otay Mesa Port of Entry and 2 miles north of the Mexico border. One agent heard yelling and saw the driver, later identified as Tejada, signaling for people to get into the SUV, the U.S. Attorneys Office said.

The Explorer headed west on Otay Mesa Road and an agent driving east spotted the SUV and made a U-turn. The Explorer sped up and drifted toward the center median, according to the complaint.

When the agent trailing the SUV attempted to pull over the driver about 11:45 p.m., the Explorer kept going. The driver reached state Route 125 and headed north.

Before the SUV reached Birch Road, the driver made a sharp right turn, causing the Explorer to crash.

The impact threw two passengers out of the SUV. One of them required back surgery and was on a ventilator for more than three weeks, the U.S. Attorneys Office said. The second was a juvenile who suffered cuts to his face and neck. Other passengers were leaning against the wreckage or standing nearby.

In court, Tejada admitted his passengers were going to pay others up to $5,000 to be smuggled into the U.S. and transported.

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Firefighters put out a brush fire off state Route 52 Monday night well before it reached homes on a hill that was charred, a San Diego fire official said.

Motorists on the freeway reported seeing flames and smoke off the right shoulder of the eastbound lanes near Regents Road about 7 p.m. The blaze was moving up the hillside along the freeway, but firefighters quickly got it under control, said San Diego Fire-Rescue Department spokeswoman Monica Munoz.

She said firefighters staged near the houses on Arroyo Lindo Avenue to ensure the blaze wouldnt reach the homes, Munoz said.

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(The fire) didnt get close to the homes at the top, but they did that as a precautionary measure, Munoz said.

Crews put out hot spots until about 8 p.m.

The blaze burned about 15 feet by 27 feet of brush. The cause was under investigation.

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A 35-year-old man pleaded guilty to arranging the smuggling of methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin destined for San Diego that was stashed in four semi-trucks, the U.S. Attorneys Office said.

Between March and August of 2015, Mexican authorities stopped the trucks and seized the drugs, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorneys Office.

Jesus Manuel Salazar Nunez was charged in an indictment on Sept. 15, 2015  the same day a warrant for his arrest was issued. He was arrested the next day when he flew into Atlantas international airport from Guadalajara, Mexico, the U.S. Attorneys Office said.

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Agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration had intercepted communications in 2015 between Salazar and others who planned to have semi-trucks transport hundreds of pounds of meth, cocaine and heroin from the Mexican state of Sinaloa to Tijuana, the U.S. Attorneys Office said. Plans included hiding the drugs among canned food, frozen shrimp, boxed vegetables and drinks.

At a warehouse in Tijuana, the narcotics were distributed to couriers, then smuggled into San Diego, the U.S. Attorneys Office said.

In pleading guilty, Salazar admitted he arranged to smuggle drugs in four truckloads. The trucks were intercepted later by Mexican authorities:

Roughly 285 kilograms of meth, 3 kilograms of heroin and 11 kilograms of cocaine were discovered in a trailer on March 25, 2015.

In two semi-trucks stopped April 28, 2015, authorities seized a combined 422 kilograms of meth, 38 kilograms of heroin and 4 kilograms of cocaine.

On Aug. 21, 2015, 165 kilograms of meth were found in a trailer.

Salazar is scheduled to be sentenced before U.S. District Court Judge Dana Sabraw on Nov. 9.

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Wolfgang Wolf Berger, a Scripps Institution of Oceanography researcher whose big insights about tiny fossils helped to reveal the history of the worlds oceans, died on August 6. He was 79.

Mr. Bergers passing was announced by Scripps, which says the paleoceanographer passed away in San Diego. The cause of death was not disclosed.

For more than 40 years, Mr. Berger helped define and advance paleoceanography, which encompasses some of the most complex systems in nature, from the circulation of ocean currents to the scattering of marine fossils in deep, dark waters.

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He was particularly well known for his investigation of marine fossils and plankton, using them to examine how Earths climate, ocean and atmosphere changed over geologic time.

Mr. Bergers sleuthing began in Germany, where he was born in October 1937. He earned a bachelors degree in geology at the University of Erlangen in 1961, then went on to earn a masters degree at the University of Colorado in 1963. He ended up at UC San Diego, where he earned a doctorate in oceanography at Scripps in 1968.

He joined the Scripps faculty in 1971, and became known for his philosophical way of teaching as well as his research.

Scripps researcher Aaron Thode said in statement that Berger had a very distinctive teaching style  hed sit and ask us one question after another, about why we thought a certain phenomena took place in nature, in the manner of Socrates.

He had the air of a very patient man, albeit one (who) always seemed mildly disappointed with our answers.

Larry A. Mayer, a marine researcher at the University of New Hampshire, said in a statement that Mr. Berger was a demanding adviser and mentor. He had a remarkable mind with an amazingly intuitive feel for how the ocean (and indeed the entire earth system) worked.

It was always a humbling experience to discuss science (or almost anything) with Wolf  he had a steel-trap mind for facts and if he did not know the facts (he) would derive the answer from first principles. It was well worth the feelings of inadequacy to be privy to his remarkable insights.

Mr. Bergers poetic and philosophic nature spilled over into the emails he would write to the faculty when he served as interim director of Scripps during parts of 1996 and 1997.

Mr. Berger also was the author of a popular textbook, The Sea Floor, as well as Walk Along the Ocean, a guide to the shoreline of northern San Diego County. He also wrote the childrens book Feed Me: The Story of Penny the Penguin Chick.

Mr. Scripps officials said Berger is survived by his wife, Karen; children, Karl and Katrina; and five grandchildren, Brianna, Lukas, Kaleb, Rohan and Clara.

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gary.robbins@sduniontribune.com
A California appeals court has declined to dismiss a case against the state utilities commission, which has refused to release emails between the Governors Office and regulators discussing the failed San Onofre nuclear plant.

The 1st District Court of Appeal rejected the California Public Utilities Commissions request to throw out a claim by San Diego consumer attorney Michael Aguirre, who has been fighting for release of the emails for two-plus years.

Appellate judges instead invited commission lawyers to file an opposition petition within 30 days to explain why the emails should not be released under a California Public Records Act request filed in early 2015.

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Commission spokeswoman Terrie Prosper did not immediately respond Tuesday to a request for comment.

The commission has argued the emails to and from the Governors Office are not required to be released because they are privileged communications.

With the CPUCs 2  year stall tactics now over, we look forward to judicial review of its decision to withhold records critical to understanding the extent of obstruction of justice at the CPUC that resulted in utility customers being forced to pay over $3.3 billion for the defunct San Onofre nuclear plant, said Maria Severson, Aguirres law partner and lawyer in the case.

In court papers, Aguirre argued there is no privilege exception to the public-records law when fraud or other crimes may have been committed. Aguirre alleges the emails could show collusion between the Brown Administration and regulators who are supposed to act independently from politics.

He said the commission improperly allowed Southern California Edison and minority plant owner San Diego Gas & Electric to charge customers $3.3 billion for the failed power plant north of Oceanside. He said the plant shut down in 2012 due to utility errors, by no fault of ratepayers.

Aguirre filed a separate lawsuit in federal court over the commissions 2014 decision to allow Edison and SDG&E to charge ratepayers the $3.3 billion in closure costs. That case led to a mediation effort although no agreement has been reached.

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jeff.mcdonald@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1708 @sdutMcDonald
A rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend organized by white nationalists intending to protest the planned removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee quickly turned into a violent clash with counterprotesters that left one woman dead and 19 others injured when one man sped a car into a crowd.

Now Confederate statues and monuments across the South are in the spotlight, including one in Durham, North Carolina, that was yanked down by protesters Monday evening.

After Charlottesville, protesters racist and anti-Semitic chants reverberated around the country as photos and videos of men with Confederate flags ricocheted across the national news and social media.

RELATED: After Charlottesville, Texas A&M cancels 'white lives matter' rally on campus

In the aftermath, Attorney General Jeff Sessions called for a federal investigation, and other cities with Confederate-era statues across the South were thrust into the spotlight again. Heres what you need to know.

Whats the story behind the statue in Charlottesville?

Police stand watch near the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in the center of Emancipation Park the day after the Unite the Right rally devolved into violence August 13, 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The Charlottesville City council voted 3-2 in February to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

The statue  erected in 1924  is still in place after a judge blocked its removal while a lawsuit that was filed by a group of city residents who want the statue to remain proceeds.

Our focus steadily remains on the preservation of this historically and artistically significant monument of Virginian Robert E. Lee, the Save the Robert E. Lee Statue group said on Facebook last week. This matter will be resolved through the proper channel  the judicial system  and not in the streets of Charlottesville.

A similar protest was held at the statue in May with nationalists holding torches.

This event involving torches at night in Lee Park was either profoundly ignorant or was designed to instill fear in our minority populations in a way that hearkens back to the days of the KKK, Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer said at the time. I want everyone to know this: We reject this intimidation.

On Friday night, a group gathered again with torches in the dark surrounding the statue ahead of its planned rally Saturday.

Have other cities removed statues?

n this Friday, May 19, 2017, file photo, workers prepare to take down the statue of former Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, which stands over 100 feet tall, in Lee Circle in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

Many city leaders in the South began reassessing Confederate-era monuments in 2015. Critics say such monuments represent an era of racial injustice while supporters say theyre important parts of history.

At least 60 publicly funded symbols have been removed or renamed since a mass shooting in Charleston, South Carolina when a white supremacist shot and killed nine African-Americans inside a church.

On Monday, crews were working to remove a statue in downtown Gainesville, Florida, as part of a plan that has been in place to remove it.

Among other such examples, in San Diego, a decision was made last year to rename Robert E. Lee Elementary School. It is now known as Pacific View Leadership Elementary School.

Whats going on with remaining monuments?

The events in Charlottesville over the weekend inspired several moves across the South.

On Saturday, Lexington, Kentucky mayor Jim Gray announced plans to move Confederate monuments in the city.

Sunday, the mayor of Louisville, Kentucky, announced a panel would review the citys public art and make a list of any pieces considered to represent bigotry, racism or slavery.

Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh made a similar announcement on Monday saying she wants to remove all of the citys Confederate-era monuments. She hopes to move them to cemeteries in Maryland where Confederate soldiers are buried.

Also in Maryland, House Speaker Michael E. Busch announced on Monday that its time to remove a Confederate statue from the grounds of the statehouse.

It's the appropriate time to remove it, he said. Leaving it in place after white supremacists openly rallied would send a message that we condone what took place, that slavery is alright.

The City Council president of Jacksonville, Florida, on Monday called for the city to begin a process to remove Confederate monuments from public property.

I intend to propose legislation to remove Confederate monuments, memorials and markers from public property to museums and educational institutions where they can be respectfully preserved and historically contextualized, Anna Lopez Brosche said.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster on Monday condemned the violence in Charlottesville but said he doesnt think any Confederate monuments in the state will come down.

"We have been over these issues over the years," McMaster said, according to the The Post and Courier. "I think our people are different."

South Carolinas state legislature voted to remove a Confederate flag from its statehouse grounds one month after the deadly, racist attack on Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015. Photos of the shooter posing with the Confederate flag symbol emerged shortly afterward.

In Atlanta, Georgia, Lexington, Kentucky and elsewhere, Confederate statues were found to be vandalized over the past weekend. Take a look.

Municipal workers attempt to remove paint from a monument dedicated to Confederate soldier John B. Castleman, that was vandalized late Saturday night in Louisville, Kentucky, U.S., August 14, 2017. (REUTERS/Bryan Woolston)

A statue depicting a Confederate soldier in Piedmont Park in Atlanta is vandalized with spray paint Monday, Aug. 14, 2017, from protesters who marched through the city last night to protest the weekend violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

A counter protest was held at a Confederate statue in Washington, D.C. on Sunday.

Demonstrators hold signs while standing in front of the statue of Confederate General Albert Pike on August 13, 2017 in Washington, DC. (ZACH GIBSON/AFP/Getty Images)

The battle continues from city councils to state legislatures.

A few examples: A state law kept the city of Memphis from moving a statue of a Confederate lieutenant last year. Alabama passed the Memorial Preservation Act this year prohibiting making changes to standing monuments including those related to the Confederacy. A group supporting the preservation of Confederate monuments applied for a permit to hold an event at another monument of Robert E. Lee, this one in Richmond Virginia, on Sept. 16.

This Tuesday June 27, 2017, photo shows the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee that stands in the middle of a traffic circle on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Va. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

Email: abby.hamblin@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @abbyhamblin
Several top U.S. executives have left President Donald Trump s American Manufacturing Council in the days following a deadly white nationalist protest in Charlottesville, Virginia because of the presidents response to it.

The presidents initial response to the violent rally on Saturday featuring Confederate and Nazi symbols and slogans broadly condemned hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides. Following criticism, the president was more specific on Monday, saying: Racism is evil, and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.

Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier resigned from Trumps manufacturing council early Monday before Trumps second response to the violence in Charlottesville. Others left after Trumps second public statement.

Richard Trumka and Thea Lee of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) made their decision to leave the council late Tuesday after Trump made a third statement doubling down on his initial statement about Charlottesville.

Read about that here.

President Trumps remarks today repudiate his forced remarks yesterday about the KKK and neo-Nazis, ACL-CIO president Trumka said. We must resign on behalf of Americas working people, who reject all notions of legitimacy of these bigoted groups.

In the order in which they resigned, heres who they are and why they say theyre leaving.

Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier

Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich

In his full statement on Intels official blog, Krzanich said he wanted to call attention to the serious harm the divided political climate is causing to issues like manufacturing, adding that he feels that every issue is now politicized to the point where significant progress is impossible.

My request  my plea  to everyone involved in our political system is this: set scoring political points aside and focus on what is best for the nation as a whole, he added. The current environment must change, or else our nation will become a shadow of what it once was and what it still can and should be.

Alliance for American Manufacturing President Scott Paul

Richard Trumka and Thea Lee, AFL-CIO

What has President Trump said about the departures?

As Frazier was the first to go, he was called out on Trumps Twitter page.

Politico points out that just last month, the president called him a great, great business leader.

After others followed Frazier in leaving the council, Trump said this:

So whos left on the manufacturing council?

Most members havent left, but a few of them released statements about Charlottesville. Here are the names of those still on the council and a few statements from remaining individuals on the group.

The AFL-CIO has unequivocally denounced the actions of bigoted domestic terrorists in Charlottesville and called on the president to do the same, a spokesman from AFL-CIO said on behalf of CEO Richard Tumka. We are aware of the decisions by other members of the Presidents Manufacturing Council, which has yet to hold any real meeting, and are assessing our role. While the AFL-CIO will remain a powerful voice for the freedoms of working people, there are real questions into the effectiveness of this council to deliver real policy that lifts working families.

Heres the statement from a General Electric spokesperson:

"GE has no tolerance for hate, bigotry or racism, and we strongly condemn the violent extremism in Charlottesville over the weekend. GE is a proudly inclusive company with employees who represent all religions, nationalities, sexual orientations and races. With more than 100,000 employees in the United States, it is important for GE to participate in the discussion on how to drive growth and productivity in the U.S., therefore, Jeff Immelt will remain on the Presidential Committee on American Manufacturing while he is the Chairman of GE."

Campell Soup Co. said this on behalf of its CEO:

"The reprehensible scenes of bigotry and hatred on display in Charlottesville over the weekend have no place in our society. Not simply because of the violence, but because the racist ideology at the center of the protests is wrong and must be condemned in no uncertain terms. Campbell has long held the belief that diversity and inclusion are critical to the success of our business and our culture. Our commitment to diversity and inclusion is unwavering, and we will remain active champions for these efforts. We believe it continues to be important for Campbell to have a voice and provide input on matters that will affect our industry, our company and our employees in support of growth.

These are the remaining members of the manufacturing council:

Andrew Liveris, The Dow Chemical Company

Bill Brown, Harris Corporation

Michael Dell, Dell Technologies

John Ferriola, Nucor Corporation

Jeff Fettig, Whirlpool Corporation

Alex Gorsky, Johnson & Johnson

Greg Hayes, United Technologies Corp.

Marilynn Hewson, Lockheed Martin Corporation

Jeff Immelt, General Electric

Jim Kamsickas, Dana Inc.

Rich Kyle, The Timken Company

Denise Morrison, Campbell Soup Company

Dennis Muilenburg, Boeing

Michael Polk, Newell Brands

Mark Sutton, International Paper

Inge Thulin, 3M

Wendell Weeks , Corning

Mark Fields of Ford Motor Company, Mario Longhi of U.S. Steel, Doug Oberhelman of Caterpillar and Klaus Kleinfeld of Arconic previously stepped down when they left their respective companies.

This isnt the first time Trump has lost members of an advisory board after controversial political moves. CEO Elon Musk and Walt Disney CEO Robert Iger left the presidents business advisory group, in June, over Trumps decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord. Musk also left the manufacturing council at the time.

Well update this page if any additional changes are made this week.

Email: abby.hamblin@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @abbyhamblin
President Donald Trump elicited strong reactions Monday after saying he was seriously considering granting a pardon for Joe Arpaio , the former Arizona sheriff found guilty of criminal contempt late last month for defying a 2011 court order to stop profiling Latinos in his Arizona jurisdiction of Maricopa County.

It would be Trumps first official pardon.

For context, among the last four presidents, only President George H.W. Bush (nine) issued any pardons in his first year in office. Individually, they all issued dozens and even hundreds of pardons over time, but Presidents Bill Clinton , George W. Bush and Barack Obama granted none so quickly.

I am seriously considering a pardon for Sheriff Arpaio, Trump told Fox News on Sunday. He has done a lot in the fight against illegal immigration. Hes a great American patriot, and I hate to see what has happened to him.

Trump, who received Arpaios endorsement during the 2016 primaries, retweeted the Fox News story on his personal account.

The presidents comments came a day after white supremacists gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia, where one woman died and at least 19 others were injured when a vehicle rammed into counter-protesters Saturday.

Trump was initially reluctant to denounce white supremacists and hate groups like the KKK and neo-Nazis, but he did so on Monday following intense public pressure. As a result, some people criticized Trumps talk of an Arpaio pardon, saying it could be seen as a friendly gesture to anti-immigrant idealogues and hate groups.

In a statement, the American Civil Liberties Union called such pardoning an official presidential endorsement of racism.

Then-sheriff Arpaio endorsed Trump for president on January 2016. Trump saw eye-to-eye with Arpaio on border issues given the former sheriffs tough approach to cracking down on unauthorized immigrants in his jurisdiction.

That approach earned him the title of toughest sheriff in America. Last month, a federal court found the former Maricopa County sheriff guilty of defying a 2011 court order to stop profiling Latinos. Arpaios rhetoric during his re-election campaign, which he lost in 2016, was used against him in court.

Related: Joe Arpaio guilty of criminal contempt. What's next? Jail time or a pardon?

Arpaio, 85, could face up to six months in jail, the Arizona Republic reported. His sentencing hearing is set for Oct. 5.

News of Trumps pardon consideration drew encouragement from those on the right where the conversation has been less about the incidents in Charlottesville and more about Arpaios work as sheriff. Arpaio was praised by some as a faithful public servant who was simply upholding the law.

Despite support from his supporters on this issue, could the events of Charlottesville pressure Trump to avoid pardoning Arpaio? This seemed unlikely given his remarks to Fox News and reports that the president might soon be visiting Arizona for an event rally there.

Under the U.S. Constitution, the president has the authority to pardon those who have committed offenses against the United States. Arpaio must apply for a pardon request, which is reviewed by the justice department. However, it is unclear whether Arpaio has made such request.

Presidential pardons are not rare but they vary in numbers from president to president. Barack Obama, for example, set a record for the number of pardon and commutation petitions he granted as president, a total of 1,927, or about 10 percent of the total number of petitions received, according to the Justice Department.

By contrast, George W. Bush granted only 189 pardon petitions during his two terms in office; Bill Clinton issued 396 in the 1990s; and George H.W. Bush issued only 74 in his single, four-year term.

With Obama as the exception, those pardons pale in comparison to the number issued by Richard Nixon, who issued 863, and Lyndon B. Johnson , who issued 960.

Have some thoughts to share?

Join me in a conversation: Shoot me a private email with your thoughts or ideas on a different approach to this story. As always, you can also send us a tweet.

Email: luis.gomez@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @RunGomez

Read The Conversation on Flipboard.
Memo to McDonald's customers: The fast food giant is accepting hugs for free food this week, but it is no kangaroo food court.

Literally. You will be asked to leave if you bring in your kangaroo.

A Wisconsin woman was kicked out of a Beaver Dam McDonalds last week after she brought her baby kangaroo inside the restaurant and claimed it was a service animal.

Beaver Dam police Officer Rich Dahl told the Associated Press that the woman said the marsupial, which was wrapped in a blanket and tucked in a baby car seat, helped her cope with emotional distress and that she had a doctors letter to prove it.

Jimmy the kangaroo.

After somebody complained, (Complain? I would be taking selfies!) police arrived and the couple left the eatery.

The owners of the kangaroo said they didn't do anything wrong and they were not cited.

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Larry Moyer and his wife Diana actually own five kangaroos. He told WISN TV that the couple often take the youngest, named Jimmy, into public with them. He said the unusual pet gets a lot of attention and that people like to pet him.

He admitted to the television station, however, that Jimmy was not a service animal but rather a therapy pet that comforts his wife as she battles cancer.

It's a friend for her, a companion and we have a little car seat and stroller, Moyer said.

According to WISN, Wisconsin law says that an animal must be individually trained or is being trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of a person with a disability," to be covered under disability laws.

For its part, McDonalds issued a statement saying the company had investigated and took steps to remedy the situation and that their policy is to make their restaurants accessible to all customers, including those with disabilities and special needs."

So will a kangaroo ever be considered a service animal? When pigs fly. Oh wait. Someone tried that already.

In November, a woman was kicked off a US Airways flight after bringing her emotional support pig onboard. The porker promptly pooped and the crew asked her to leave. One of the passengers reeling from the stench was quoted as saying "We needed an emotional support animal after that."

This little piggy did not stay home

And then there was this.

Kangaroo rock?

Kangaroos and pigs aren't the only unusual animals offering emotional support.

In Ohio, an Army veteran who served almost a year in Iraq with the National Guard, was fined for keeping six ducks as emotional support animals. Darin Welker, who said he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, said the birds help him cope with pain he suffers from a back injury he suffered while deployed. He was fined $50 for violating an ordinance that prohibits farm animals at his home and he vowed that he will appeal.

Cant leave this kangaroo caper without including this video of two of the big guys duking it out on an Australian street. Because greatness.
SAN DIEGO  Former Pro Bowl receiver Chris Chambers went from one AFC West Division team to another this week in part because of an ongoing off-the-field situation involving his ex-girlfriend and his wife.

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The issue dates back at least seven months and includes an extramarital affair, a pending divorce, Chambers request for a restraining order against his ex-girlfriend and several lurid text messages from the woman to his wife, court records show.

Ultimately, Chambers  who admitted the Chargers had told him they had concerns about his personal situation  was released Monday, during a season in which his production was significantly down. He was claimed by the Kansas City Chiefs on Tuesday.

Chambers, 31, said Monday that I guess it created a distraction upstairs. ... They know a little too much of my life, and they used it against me.

On April 7, Chambers wife, Christina, told San Diego Police she was being harassed by Stacey Saunders, 27. Chris Chambers acknowledged in court documents in June to having an affair with Saunders.

In April, San Diego Police reported that Chambers wife said that a woman who was having a relationship with her husband was calling (Christina) Chambers on her cell phone. No charges were filed, but the San Diego County District Attorneys office is reviewing a harassment case involving Saunders.

On June 2, Chris Chambers requested a temporary restraining order against Saunders. It would have required Saunders to stay at least 100 yards away from Chambers and his family.

Beginning in April, Ms. Saunders became aware that our affair, now broken off, was known to my wife, Chambers wrote. Since then she (Saunders) has launched an incessant attack verbally on me, and now my wife, her mother and sister. All calls, text messages and e-mails are abusive, vulgar and irrational. They have begun to mention intimate details of my life such as my son, home address, and family member locations.

A hearing was scheduled June 23 in San Diego Superior Court. Judge Lisa Foster dissolved the request for the restraining order when neither party showed up.

A week later, Chris Chambers filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. The couple have a 2-year-old son and have been trying to work out custody, child support and spousal support arrangements.

Unfortunately, this is a serious legal matter and I cannot comment at this time, Christina Chambers wrote Tuesday in an e-mail to the Union-Tribune .

Saunders could not be reached. Chambers didnt return calls seeking further comment. The Chargers have declined to go into details about Chambers off-the-field situation.
MATTOON -- Carolyn Cloyd, Executive Director of the United Way, spoke to the Exchange Club of Mattoon about the Illinois Run for the Fallen that takes place at the Charleston High School Track. It is a free, non-political event honoring fallen Illinois service members that have fallen in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is the ninth year it has taken place at Charleston. Participants can walk or run one mile in memory of someone who died in these wars. There will be five more fallen to be honored this year.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP)  U.S. Customs and Border Protection agreed to pay $475,000 to a New Mexico woman who accused agents of forcing her to undergo body cavity probes and then got charged for the exams, civil liberties advocates said Thursday.

The settlement in the case, which drew national attention three years ago, also will require new training for hundreds of customs officers, American Civil Liberties Union affiliates in Texas and New Mexico said.

The woman, a 54-year-old U.S. citizen, was brutally searched by agents in December 2012 after a drug-sniffing dog jumped on her at an El Paso checkpoint, according to a 2013 lawsuit. The woman, who was not named, was returning from a visit with a recently deported family friend in Cuidad Juarez, Mexico.

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Agents strip-searched her and did cavity searches but found no evidence of drugs, court documents said.

The woman was transported in handcuffs to the University Medical Center of El Paso, where she was subjected to an observed bowel movement, a CT scan and vaginal exams without a warrant, the lawsuit said. No drugs were found on the woman despite six hours of intrusive searches, the ACLU said.

The hospital then charged her $5,000 for the tests, her attorney said. University Medical Center settled with the woman for $1.1 million in 2014.

CBP officers are expected to conduct their duties in a professional manner and to treat each traveler with dignity and respect, according to the agencys website. The website says agents use diverse factors to refer individuals for targeted examinations.

A Customs and Border Protection spokesman confirmed the settlement.

The settlement should not be taken as an admission of liability or fault. The settlement was entered into by both parties in order to compromise on disputed claims and avoid the expenses of further litigation, the U.S. Customs & Border Protection said in a statement.

The four ACLU affiliates at the U.S.-Mexico border sent letters Thursday to 40 health care providers that cover 110 facilities detailing the rights and responsibilities of hospital personnel when confronted by federal agents who request body cavity searches.

While we are pleased to have obtained justice for our client, this is really a victory for residents of border communities, who shouldnt have to fear interactions with the thousands of border agents in their midst, said Rebecca Robertson, ACLU of Texas legal and policy director.

___

Follow Russell Contreras on Twitter at https://twitter.com/russcontreras. His work can be found at https://bigstory.ap.org/content/russell-contreras.
SPRINGFIELD -- The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) has announced the eligibility guidelines for students to receive free and reduced-price lunch, breakfast, and after-school snacks through the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program. The policy took effect at the start of the 2018 fiscal year on July 1, 2017. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) sets the policy for each fiscal year to reflect any changes in the federal poverty guidelines.

The National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program are funded by USDA and administered by ISBE. Free and reduced-price meals ensure access to nutritious meals and snacks for families unable to pay the full price.

Healthy students are better learners, said State Superintendent of Education Tony Smith, Ph.D. Many of our students count on these nutritious meals to fuel them to reach their full potential. Our vision for schools is that they support students cognitive growth, social and emotional development, and physical well-being. ISBE is very proud to administer school nutrition programs in Illinois.

The USDAs Fiscal Year 2018 Income Eligibility Guidelines, detailing the household size and income criteria that determine students eligibility to receive free and reduced-price lunch, breakfast, and after-school snacks through the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program, are available on the ISBEs website at https://www.isbe.net/Documents/IEG-18.pdf.

USDA provided the following information for families and guardians seeking free or reduced-price meals for students:

Children from households that meet federal guidelines are eligible for free or reduced-price meal services. Complete one application per household for all children that attend the same school district.

All meals served must meet the U. S. Department of Agriculture meal requirements. However, if a child has been determined by a doctor to have a disability and the disability would prevent the child from eating the regular school meal, this school will make substitutions prescribed by the doctor. If a substitution is needed, there will be no extra charge for the meal. If you believe your child needs substitutions because of a disability, please contact the school for further information.

Application forms are being sent to all homes with a letter to parents or guardians. To apply for free or reduced-price meal services, households must complete the application as soon as possible, sign it, and return it to the school. Additional copies of the application form are available in the principals office in each school. Households should answer all applicable questions on the form. An application which does not contain all the required information cannot be processed and approved by the school. Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) participants may be eligible for free/reduced-price meals and are encouraged to complete an application for meal benefits.

The required information is as follows:

SNAP/TANF HOUSEHOLDS: If the school provided you a letter that stated your child(ren) is eligible for free meals via the direct certification process, you do not have to complete this application to receive free meal benefits. Households that currently receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) for their child(ren), only have to list the child(ren)s name and at least one SNAP or TANF case number and sign the application. If at least one SNAP/TANF case number is provided for any household member, then all children listed on the application are categorically eligible for free meals. Applications listing LINK card numbers cannot be used for free or reduced-price meals.

ALL OTHER HOUSEHOLDS: If a households income is at or below the level shown on the income scale, children are eligible for either free or reduced-price meal services. Households must provide the following information: (1) the names of all household members; (2) the last four digits of the Social Security number of the adult household member signing the application, or indicate if the adult does not have a Social Security number; (3) the amount of income each household member received last month, how frequently it is paid, and where it came from (wages, child support, etc.); and (4) the signature of an adult household member.

The information on the application may be checked by school or other officials at any time during the school year.

Households may apply for benefits at any time during the school year. Households that are not eligible now but have a decrease in household income, an increase in household size, or a household member becomes unemployed, should fill out an application at that time.

Homeless, migrant, runaway youth, Head Start and foster care children, are categorically eligible for free meals. Please follow instructions and return form to school.

Households that do not agree with the ruling of the official may wish to discuss it with the school. Households also have the right to a fair hearing.

Civil Rights Non-Discrimination Statement

In accordance with federal civil rights law and USDA civil rights regulations and policies, the USDA; its agencies, offices, and employees; and institutions participating in or administering USDA programs are prohibited from discriminating based on race, color, national origin, sex, disability, age, or reprisal or retaliation for prior civil rights activity in any program or activity conducted or funded by USDA.

Persons with disabilities who require alternative means of communication for program information (e.g., Braille, large print, audiotape, American Sign Language, etc.) should contact the agency (state or local) where they applied for benefits. Individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing, or have speech disabilities may contact USDA through the Federal Relay Service at 800-877-8339. Additionally, program information may be made available in languages other than English.

To file a program complaint of discrimination, complete the USDA Program Discrimination Complaint Form (AD-3027) found at https://www.ascr.usda.gov/how-file-program-discrimination-complaint and at any USDA office or write a letter addressed to USDA and provide in the letter all of the information requested in the form. To request a copy of the complaint form, call 866-632-9992. Submit your completed form or letter to USDA by:

Mail: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, 1400 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, D.C. 20250-9410;

Fax: 202-690-7442; or

Email: program.intake@usda.gov.

This institution is an equal opportunity provider.
EFFINGHAM -- HSHS St. Anthonys Memorial Hospital will host its next monthly "Walk With a Doc" walking program at 9 a.m. Saturday at the TREC Trail.

Walkers should meet in the Effingham Performance Center parking lot. For those unable to walk on the trail, a doctor will be available to walk with them in the EPC parking lot.

Participants will walk with Dr. Ryan Jennings, who is St. Anthonys chief medical officer, and other health care professionals, who will provide support to the walkers and answer questions during the walk.

This is a free program, and pre-registration is not required. Walks will be held monthly on the third Saturday of each month. When there is inclement weather, the walks will be held at the Village Square Mall.

For cases of inclement weather, check the hospitals Facebook page at www.facebook.com/StAnthonysMemorialHospital or listen to local radio stations for notices about cancellation or changes in location.

Walk With a Doc was created by Dr. David Sabgir, a cardiologist who practices at Mount Carmel Health Systems in Columbus, Ohio. He has been walking every weekend since 2005. The expansion and support of the program is thanks to Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

For more information about St. Anthonys Memorial Hospital, visit St. Anthonys website at stanthonyshospital.org. To learn more about the Walk With a Doc program, visit walkwithadoc.org.
Pune, Maharashtra -- (SBWIRE) -- 08/15/2017 -- Asha Care, an initiative by Founder and Chairman-George Molakal, who used his funds to provide a stipend for widows across multiple states in India to educate and re-skill them and also provide an immediate cushion to the family for their basic needs and educational support of the children. This has slowly grown with more widows and children under the program, and now George is reaching out globally to angel investors for supporting widows.



Asha Care- Empowering Widows Worldwide:



The World Widows Report shows that discrimination against widows is deeply ingrained in cultures across all continents, resulting in loss of inheritance, extreme poverty, gender-based violence, child labour, and discrimination against girls, increased infant mortality and numerous other severe consequences which directly affect almost a billion people around the world. Significant change in these patterns will only come about if the underlying causes are directly addressed through legislation, education and empowerment.



Asha (Hope) Care aims to provide a platform for the widows to get simple skills training so that can do some job, such as weaving, tailoring and other home based skills for women based entrepreneurship. The platform also provides a monthly stipend for three years for stabilizing themselves and getting back a steady income to look after their families and society.



The Asha Care platform has covered multiple states across India, including Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, Orissa, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu. It is now set to go global with entry in South Africa, Malaysia and Nairobi. The current operations are in low scale and with more widows looks for support, the work scale is also growing along with funding requirements. Asha Care is working with several NGO's for imparting skills training, identifying the widows and establishing the care and education of the children.



About Asha Care

Asha Care is India's first platform to care for widows who have lost their husbands due to illnesses, suicides, and various other tragic events. Widows in rural India are usual home makers, and with the loss of the husbands, they have no income to support the daily living needs, basic food necessities and education for children and healthcare. In such situations, children drop out from schools to start working to earn daily bread for their families. This is tragic and its melts one's heart to see a family with hope for the future, lose its balance because the main breadwinner has suddenly died.



Contact:

Commerzone IT Park,

Building No 2, Office No. 305,

Samrat Ashok Path, Off Old Airport Road Yerwada, Pune 411 006, India

http://www.ashacare.org

Email: vkhengat@ashacare.org
Lewes, DE -- (SBWIRE) -- 08/14/2017 -- The United States Digital Thermostat Market Research Report Forecast 2017-2022 is a valuable source of insightful data for business strategists. It provides the Digital Thermostat industry overview with growth analysis and historical & futuristic cost, revenue, demand and supply data (as applicable). The research analysts provide an elaborate description of the value chain and its distributor analysis. This Digital Thermostat market study provides comprehensive data which enhances the understanding, scope and application of this report.



This report provides comprehensive analysis of

Key market segments and sub-segments

Evolving market trends and dynamics

Changing supply and demand scenarios

Quantifying market opportunities through market sizing and market forecasting

Tracking current trends/opportunities/challenges

Competitive insights

Opportunity mapping in terms of technological breakthroughs



The Major players reported in the market include:

Ascon TECNOLOGIC

SIEMENS

Seitron

Fr. Sauter AG



Reasons for Buying this Report

- This report provides pin-point analysis for changing competitive dynamics

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- It helps in making informed business decisions by having complete insights of market and by making in-depth analysis of market segments



Spanning over 124 pages "United States Digital Thermostat Market Research Report Forecast 2017 to 2022" report covers Digital Thermostat Market Overview, United States Economic Impact on Digital Thermostat Industry, United States Digital Thermostat Market Competition by Manufacturers, United States Digital Thermostat Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by Type, United States Digital Thermostat Market Analysis by Application, United States Digital Thermostat Manufacturers Analysis, Digital Thermostat Manufacturing Cost Analysis, Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers, Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/Traders, Market Effect Factors Analysis, United States Digital Thermostat Market Forecast (2017-2022), Appendix. The report covered companies are - Ascon TECNOLOGIC SIEMENS Seitron Fr. Sauter AG



Please visit this link for more details: http://www.marketresearchreports.com/sp-consulting/united-states-digital-thermostat-market-research-report-forecast-2017-2022



Find all Thermostat Reports at: http://www.marketresearchreports.com/thermostat



Related Reports;



Global Digital Thermostat Market Research Report Forecast 2017 to 2022; visit at - http://www.marketresearchreports.com/sp-consulting/global-digital-thermostat-market-research-report-forecast-2017-2022



Europe Digital Thermostat Market Research Report Forecast 2017 to 2022; visit at - http://www.marketresearchreports.com/sp-consulting/europe-digital-thermostat-market-research-report-forecast-2017-2022



China Digital Thermostat Market Research Report Forecast 2017 to 2022; visit at - http://www.marketresearchreports.com/sp-consulting/china-digital-thermostat-market-research-report-forecast-2017-2022



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[NEW YORK] Converting forests into farms is not economically viable except in selected regions, says a global study.



Published last month (July) in PLoS Biology, the study by researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) examined deforestation in more than 50 countries in the tropics between 20002012, and identified regions where deforestation is most and least beneficial.



According to Luis Roman Carrasco, lead author of the study and assistant professor at the NUS faculty of science, the study was undertaken to help policymakers realise whether their deforestation strategies made economic sense and how these could be modified to avoid inefficient loss of natural resources.

If you consider biodiversity as well as carbon and ecosystem services, youd probably tend not to favour much deforestation at all. William Laurance, Centre for Tropical Environmental and Sustainability Science

Areas where benefits from agricultural conversion costs are higher than deforestation were identified as the Atlantic Forest (mostly coastal Brazil), the Gulf of Guinea and Thailand. These areas have high potential yields, low production costs, high prices for the produce and have market accessibility to trade centres such as cities.



In contrast, deforestation in Latin America, insular South-East Asia (which include Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Timor Leste) and Madagascar derived low agricultural benefits and high environmental costs.



The team analysed deforestation and crop distribution and studied the trade-offs among agricultural benefits, carbon emissions and losses of multiple ecosystem services, which are benefits obtained by people from ecosystems such as forests. These benefits include carbon sequestration, flood protection and water purification.



The findings show that while agricultural gains are US$32 billion to US$53 billion per year, the environmental damage caused by tropical deforestation during this period amounts to future annual losses of US$107 billion to US$135 billion per year. On the whole, tropical deforestation generates large economic losses, Carrasco notes while also pointing out that subsequent erosion from conversion was not even factored into the analysis.

Having created this global map of trade-offs between agriculture and the benefits provided by tropical forests, we will now be looking into integrating these maps with market models to understand how changes in land use could lead to changes in prices and affect consumers, and other indirect impacts on deforestation, he says.



We are hoping that governments realise that deforestation has large, unrecognised costs in the form of lost ecosystem services. Land use planning decisions that ignore these costs are bound to be inefficient and harmful for local communities and humanity as a whole, Carrasco adds.

William Laurance, director of Australias Centre for Tropical Environmental and Sustainability Science, says that even in the absence of biodiversity values, most tropical forest lands are worth more as intact forests than felled and converted into agriculture.Even the areas identified in the study as suitable for deforestation, Laurance notes, are full of critically endangered species. If you consider biodiversity as well as carbon and ecosystem services, youd probably tend not to favour much deforestation at all.

David Edwards, senior lecturer in conservation science, University of Sheffield, UK, believes that agricultural enterprises tend to measure predicted profits against costs of land, taxes, labour and inputs. But through deforestation, they also create negative externalities  costs incurred by society, not the company.



What is needed, Edwards says, is a step change in how food is produced across the tropics to prevent further deforestation and thus slow climate change, save biodiversity and continue the flow of ecosystem services that people require.

This piece was produced by SciDev.Nets Asia & Pacific desk.
Currently, one of the most burning problems on Earth is the climate change. The million dollar question is whether the world is doing enough to tackle this situation or not.

According to Epeak World News, several countries have taken some important steps to address this issue. But recent studies have suggested that more concrete steps are essential to tackle the impacts of the climate change. A study, available in the popular journal Nature Climate Change, reveals 95 percent possibility regarding the rise in the Earth's temperature by 2-degree Celsius. The study has even indicated only one percent possibility that the temperature would remain less than the 1.5-degree Celsius.

To deal with climate change the carbon intensity reduction should be addressed more quickly than the recent past to keep the warming below 1.5-degree Celsius. Another study published in the Nature Climate Change stated that the rise of the temperature on Earth by two degrees Celsius is imminent by 2100. The study reported that the decrement of the fossil fuel use could not even stop this increment of the heat. The emission of the greenhouse gases for more 15 years will create the probability of the rise of temperature by 3-degree by 2100.

Last month the Union of Concerned Scientists released an important study related to the climate change. The study says cities located along the Jersey Shore and parts of South Louisiana, North Carolina, important neighboring areas could face an inundation by 2035. Cities like Texas, Florida, South Carolina, and others could become inundated by 2060. More than fifty cities with a population of 100,000 and above will probably be affected by the end of the current century.

The study points out that the U.S. can tackle this situation by reducing the emissions that can increase the temperature. This step could be very helpful to limit the climate change. Proper initiatives should be enabled to decrease the emissions and temperature and to achieve the goals as mentioned by the Paris Climate Agreement. This step could slow down the rise of the sea level and simultaneously can save nearly 380 communities from the impacts of the climate change.

It is not the U.S. that is experiencing the impacts of the climate change. Several other countries like India are also facing the wraths of this severe problem. In India, climate change hampered the harvest and left many farmers in poverty. This situation ultimately led them to commit suicide.

The important fact is many countries have already taken some initiatives to address the climate change. By 2040 the U.K. will ban the diesel and petrol cars. Ministers will create a $332 million fund to help the local councils to tackle the pollution from the diesel vehicles. According to The Guardian, by 2025 Norway plans of allowing the sales of hundred percent electric cars.

The Netherlands also aims to ban the use of the diesel and the petrol cars by 2025. In spite of these steps, experts opine that these efforts are not enough. Brazil, France, Italy, three leading economies of the G20, are closest to meet the target to keep the temperature below 2- degree Celsius by 2100. The richest economies in the world should be more active to address the climate change issue.
Moultrie County Historical and Genealogical Society to meet

SULLIVAN -- The Moultrie County Historical and Genealogical Society will hold their monthly general meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Heritage Center in Sullivan.

Charlie Steck, the societys program chairman, will present a DVD on the Hayloft Gang and its WLS Barn Dance. This program was broadcast every Saturday night on WLS-AM out of Chicago and was a variety show that brought traditional folk music and country humor to entertain folks across the countryside.

From its first broadcast in 1924 to its last in 1960, the National Barn Dance served as a special treat to rural folk who at times were very unsure what the future held for them.

Make and Take Craft Day to be held at Charleston Library

CHARLESTON -- Cool off with crafts at the Charleston Carnegie Public Librarys Make and Take from 10:30 a.m.-4 p.m., or while supplies last, Saturday in the KidSpace Atrium.

Kids under eight should attend with a parent or guardian. This is a free family program, open to the public. A library card is not needed to attend. For further information, call 217-345-1514 or visit www.charlestonlibrary.org.
In the past 18 months I have written four letters concerning obtaining and retaining quality teachers in our public school system. We have made no progress in this area for decades because our state government has not addressed any of the real problems. It has only enacted gimmick programs such as the useless Rural Teacher Recruiting Initiative and TERI.

Let's start with the state retirement program. There has never been an effective long-term plan for the state retirement fund, and the fund has been woefully mismanaged. Now there is a projected long-term shortfall of $20 billion, and our legislature has tackled this problem with another stop-gap measure that will cost the taxpayers more money and will not work.

Public school teachers' wages are inadequate. The AP article "Up to 7,500 SC teachers, workers could quit next year" in the Morning News of June 25 stated that state worker wages in South Carolina are 15 percent below wages paid in other states and are 18 percent below wages in private-sector jobs. This article also stated that state workers who draw retirement are limited by state law to the amount they can earn. This law is counter-productive, so change it. This is a no-brainer, unless retaining teachers is not the true goal.

Social Security is a factor that was not addressed in the AP article. People who draw early SS retirement are limited to the amount they can earn without taking a penalty. When a person reaches full retirement age, there is no limit; but for most people full retirement age is 66 or 67. This is precisely why I did not start to draw SS until I was 70 and it reached the maximum.

Public school teachers must jump through all sorts of hoops to get their certifications. Some of the rules are ridiculous. If they existed in industry, then industry would have the same problems.

Some rules cannot be helped at the state level, because they are mandated by the federal government. I have said several times that we must get the federal government out of education if we are to be successful at an affordable cost.

The environment in public schools is not conducive to retaining the best teachers. We must restore discipline to the classroom. Why our citizens tolerate the discipline problems in public schools is beyond me. Remove disruptive students so other students can learn.

Get rid of teachers administrative duties so that they can teach.

Get rid of school board members who use the position for their own gratification or to promote their own agendas.

Put the education money into the materials and personnel required for education rather than into empire-building.

Get rid of the House Education and Public Works Committee and establish a House Education Committee. The proposal to make the state superintendent of education a cabinet position rather than an elected position is excellent.

Our government must get busy and do something other than talk and appoint committees. If we do not address all of the pertinent issues, there will be no progress. Piecemeal legislation does not get the job done.

LAWRENCE D. WEBER

Quinby
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.
This is an important article I want to share from Extension Educator Kathy Sweedler:

On a good day, I wonder if my family hears what I say or if all they hear is "blah, blah, blah!" However, when I talk about what I want to happen if I'm in an accident, hospitalized or die, I'm sure some of my family completely blocks my words. That's why I think it's so important that I write down how I want my health and my property handled if I can't talk for myself.

Luckily, we have legal documents that we can use to communicate our wishes. Writing down what's important to us helps:

communicate exactly what we want, and

reminds people of our wishes in stressful times.

It means that difficult decisions do not have to be introduced and made when we're stressed. We can think through these decisions before events occur and likely end up with better decisions. It's challenging to make good decisions during emotional times.

Two commonly used legal documents are power of attorney -- of property and of health care. A durable power of attorney for property allows you to designate another person to handle and make decisions about your finances including investments, bank accounts, property, and any other money management tasks like paying bills. With a power of attorney for property, you can set boundaries for how specific or broad it is. Choose this individual or agent very carefully. Think about someone you can trust implicitly with your money and is knowledgeable about finances.

When you establish a power of attorney for yourself, then you get to choose who this person is rather than needing a court-appointed attorney, assuming the need arises. You can change or cancel power of attorney powers if you want to in the future.

You can also choose to have a power of attorney for health care. The person who you designate as your power of attorney can make medical decisions for you if you are unable to do so. We often think only someone elderly needs this kind of document but accidents can happen to anyone. Young people can be unable to make a decision due to pain medication just as older people can be unable to speak for themselves in this situation.

Another health-related, legal document to be aware of is the Do-Not-Resuscitate (DNR)/Practitioner Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) Form. This document is relatively new and expands upon the DNR that you may have heard of before. As stated on the Illinois POLST form, you complete this form given your current state of health, and it allows you to state your wishes about CPR, other medical interventions and medically administered food (including feeding tubes) given different situations. You may be asked to sign this document if you need surgery or are admitted to a hospital.

To see examples of health care advance directives go to the Illinois Department of Public Health website at http://dph.illinois.gov.

This discussion is not legal advice. I strongly encourage people to talk to a lawyer. Lawyers ask questions, consider people's complete situation, and can then recommend the most suitable documents to meet needs. Another legal document to ask about is a will. A will states who will receive your property if you die. In addition, you can name who you'd like to be the guardian of your children.

Ninety percent of people say that talking with their loved ones about end-of-life-care is important. However, only 27 percent have actually done so, according to The Conversation Project. The Conversation Project has a Conversations Starter Kit that may be helpful to you online at http://theconversationproject.org/starter-kits.

These conversations can be very challenging. Talking about your wishes -- and writing them down -- can help reduce the likelihood of loved ones feeling burdened or guilty, and reduce family conflict. To help you start your planning, you can download a free Action Plan from University of Illinois Extension online at http://web.extension.illinois.edu/cfiv/downloads/71340.pdf.
CHARLESTON -- A woman who was accused of taking part in a plan to make methamphetamine can avoid a record of a conviction with the agreement reached in her case.

Melanie A. Shaffer, 44, whose most recent address on record is an apartment on South 17th Street in Mattoon, pleaded guilty to a methamphetamine possession charge.

The charge accused Shaffer of having the drug in August 2015 and the original methamphetamine conspiracy charge against her was dismissed

The agreed-to sentence was two years of first offender probation, which can lead to no record of a conviction if completed successfully.

Probation terms included an evaluation to determine substance abuse treatment needed and a requirement that Shaffer follow its recommendation. She was also ordered to pay about $750 in fines and court fees.

Coles County Circuit Judge Brien O'Brien sentenced Shaffer by accepting the terms of a plea agreement that Assistant Illinois Attorney General Barry Schaefer and county Assistant Public Defender Jesse Danley recommended.

The Attorney General's office prosecuted Shaffer and the others accused because they were indicted by what is called a statewide grand jury.

The grand jury can consider charges against people suspected of criminal activity in more than one county. The cases are then prosecuted in one of the counties in which the crimes allegedly took place.

Shaffer and five other suspects were indicted in 2015 and accused of working together to obtain methamphetamine ingredients in Coles County and other counties.

Shaffer's case was the last of the group to conclude and all of them resulted in guilty pleas. Most received probation sentences and the only prison term was ordered against a woman who also admitted to other crimes.

In other Coles County drug cases, guilty pleas were also entered by:

Sylvia C. Martinez, 28, for whom court records list an address of 1612 Lafayette Ave., Mattoon, to a charge of possession of a controlled substance alleging she had a prescription medicine on April 21.

Charges accusing Martinez of having methamphetamine on the same date and on July 22 were dismissed and she was placed on probation for 2 1/2 years.

Terms of the sentence included a substance abuse treatment evaluation and payment of about $1,400 in fines and court fees.

Jail time was stayed, meaning Martinez won't have to serve it if she follows her sentence's other requirements.

Circuit Judge Teresa Righter accepted a plea agreement that State's Attorney Brian Bower and Public Defender Anthony Ortega recommended.

Otis D. Lynch, 29, with an address on record in Springdale, Ark., to a methamphetamine possession charge alleging he had the drug in his vehicle during a traffic stop in Mattoon on April 26.

A possession with intent to deliver charge was dismissed. Terms of Lynch's two-year probation sentence include a substance abuse treatment evaluation and payment of just more than $2,000 in fines and court fees.

O'Brien accepted a plea agreement that Assistant State's Attorney Joy Wolf and Danley recommended.
MATTOON -- The Mattoon School district mistakenly received property tax money for several years from Shelby County that should have gone to Okaw Valley, and the county and the two districts have planned to remedy that.

Larry Lilly, Mattoon superintendent, said the district received word some time ago that the district had been getting more than it should have from Shelby County. He said the county officials discovered the mistake in their office and proceeded to notify both districts.

Since that time, the two school districts have been working out an agreement to return money owed to Okaw Valley, and that agreement is scheduled to be voted on at the Mattoon School Board meeting today.

The meeting, regularly on the second Tuesday of every month, had been moved this month to 7 p.m. today in the Mattoon schools administrative building, 1701 Charleston Ave.

The agreement that is up for a board vote stipulates that the Mattoon district will return $65,000 over the next 5 years, which rounds out to approximately $13,000 a year, Lilly said.

Mattoon and Okaw Valley both receive property taxes from the Shelby County area, however, Mattoon had accidentally been given more than they were owed and that should have been earmarked for Okaw Valley.

Also on the docket for the meeting, a Kansas man will be presenting posters to the board stressing Christian heritage in the U.S. and U.S. government.

Fred Kubicek of the One Nation Under God project said the goal of the poster, which contains more than 100 quotes about God by the nation's founding fathers and documents, is to serve as a reminder in his project page on Kickstarter, a crowd funding website.

"(The poster) provides, not only overwhelming evidence for our Christian heritage but being viewed over and over again will not be forgotten," he said in the video.

In the video, Kubicek, a former Kansas Treatment Learning Center teacher, asserts that the poster is meant to "remind everyone that the America was founded on Godly principles."

"Since the 1960s, politicians, mainstream media, activist judges have done everything within their power to remove every vestige of our Christian heritage," he said.

Lilly said he was told Kubicek plans to present to other school districts in the area.
A recent review of an embattled federal research facility in south-central Nebraska has prompted renewed criticism from animal rights activists.

During a July visit to the U.S. Meat Animal Research Center in Clay County, a team of inspectors from the U.S. Department of Agriculture noted four issues that required "immediate attention," according to their Aug. 4 inspection report.

The findings included:

* A lamb, two bovines and "numerous" swine with untreated injuries that caused them to be lame.

* Lack of clear documentation showing animals were checked every day, and health issues that were noted but not conveyed to the center's attending veterinarian.

* Animals in the center's feedlot showing signs of heat stress. Temperatures in the area reached 100 degrees the day of the inspection, July 11.

* Several fights between pigs in a shared enclosure, and swine with scratches, scrapes and wounds.

The USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service noted in its report that the issues were addressed immediately by staff on site, and it complimented administrators on their efforts to improve communication, training and facilities.

Still, the Washington, D.C.-based Animal Welfare Institute described the findings as "appalling" and called on Congress to permanently revoke the center's funding.

Despite over two and a half years of adverse publicity and multiple site visits, the facility continues to severely mistreat the animals under its care," said Cathy Liss, Animal Welfare Institute president.

The center came under fire in 2015, after a New York Times article described suffering, neglect and unnecessary animal deaths there as part of experiments seeking to increase meat industry profits.

Then-U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack ordered a temporary halt to new research projects at the facility that March, and while a December 2016 audit report by the USDA's Office of Inspector General found no evidence of systemic animal abuse, it criticized the center for failing to prioritize animal welfare policies.

The Agricultural Research Service, the USDA entity that oversees the center, says the most recent findings are helping guide its continued progress.

"We have made tremendous improvements during the past two and a half years and are dedicated to building a stronger animal health culture across our agency," the agency said in a statement.
Nebraska resident Cynthia Milligan, who is the longest-serving member of Wells Fargo & Co.'s board of directors, will resign at the end of the year.

The departure of Milligan, who is a former dean of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's College of Business, was one of several moves the company announced Tuesday.

Wells Fargo said Elizabeth Betsy Duke will take over as chair of its board next year, replacing Steven Sanger. Susan Swenson also will resign her seat.

Juan Pujadas will join next month as an independent director, and the bank changed leadership of some of its board committees, the San Francisco-based company said in a statement Tuesday. Mary Jo White, the former head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, helped the board on its review, which came after low levels of approval at the firms annual shareholder meeting in April.

Wells Fargo has been reeling from a scandal that emerged last year in which the company acknowledged that it may have opened millions of unauthorized deposit and credit-card accounts. Stories of tellers struggling to hit untenable goals to keep jobs, clients finding mystery dings on credit reports and bosses ignoring -- or even encouraging -- abuses over a decade prompted hearings in Capitol Hill, a leadership shakeup and executive pay cuts.

Calls for changes on the board intensified last month after the bank said 500,000 clients might have unwittingly paid for protection against vehicle loss or damage while making monthly loan payments, even though many drivers already had their own insurance policies. Sanger, 71, took over the chairman role last year while Tim Sloan became chief executive officer after John Stumpf stepped down from both roles under pressure from lawmakers.

Betsy was the unanimous choice to lead the board as it continues its focus on strengthening oversight and rebuilding the trust of shareholders, customers, and other stakeholders, Sanger said in the statement.

Duke, 65, was a governor at the Federal Reserve from 2008 to 2013. She previously ran the American Bankers Association, after a career in the industry that included being CEO of Bank of Tidewater, a 10-branch Virginia lender that became part of Wells Fargo through a series of mergers.

Milligan, who now lives in Omaha, has been a Wells Fargo board member since 1992.
Majestic Princess will continue sailing from Shanghai throughout 2017 and until the end of March 2018. The ship will then provide homeport cruises from Taiwan beginning mid-March 2018 through mid-July, a Princess Cruises spokeswoman said.

After that, Majestic Princess will return to Shanghai for summer 2018 before positioning to Australia at the end of August to operate in the austral summer there until March 2019. Then it's back to Shanghai.

The deployment changes seem to spring from the desire to expose new markets to the line's latest and greatest vessel.

The spokeswoman told Seatrade Cruise News the company is pleased Majestic Princess is being 'so well-received with the ship sailing with high guest load factors during her inaugural Asia homeport season.'

The Taiwan deployment follows the line's desire to provide 'our newest and best product to guests in key homeport markets,' the spokeswoman added.

'Princess Cruises remains committed to deployment in mainland China, as well as other homeports in the region,' she said, 'and will increase our presence within Asia as we continue to review our options throughout the region over time.'
Online lodging rental company Airbnb is predicting big business for Nebraska cities and towns in the path of Monday's total eclipse.

The company said Tuesday that its data is showing more than 1,400 eclipse-related bookings in the state, which will be worth a combined $166,000 for the hosts.

Lincoln has the most Airbnb bookings at 167, but it is followed closely by much-smaller cities Scottsbluff and Alliance, with 165 and 159 bookings. The tiny town of Tryon, which has 150 people, has the fourth-most Airbnb rentals, with 79.

Airbnb noted that many of the Nebraska towns located in the eclipse's path of totality have no hotels.

The company said that 77 percent of those hosting via Airbnb during the eclipse in Nebraska towns on the path will be doing so for the first time.
Isaac Reeves, 19, Nebraska State Penitentiary, escape from custody, assault by confined person, Buffalo and Douglas counties, in prison since June 2017. Before that he was at Nebraska Correctional Youth Facility from November 2013. He has depression, panic and anxiety attacks, and probable post-traumatic stress syndrome and psychotic and hypermanic symptoms.

He has been pepper-sprayed by staff at the youth facility and spent significant time in five-point restraints, including several days following a suicide attempt, and another time for five to six days.

During four to five days of five-point restraints at Nebraska State Penitentiary, he was mocked and punished for soiling himself.

At the youth facility, he spent significant time in isolation, and during one period was fed only nutraloaf, a bland, brownish loaf of ground up food, for 10 consecutive days as punishment for throwing a food tray. He often elected not to eat the nutraloaf.

He tried to kill himself three times in isolation, including attempting hanging, stabbing with a weapon made from a metal light switch, and biting his own wrist to the bone.

He was placed in isolation repeatedly for talking about suicide, and lost about 30 pounds there. He has daily anxiety attacks and night terrors. He is afraid to accept mental health care and medications because he fears he would be required to go back to the Diagnostic and Evaluation Center.
As a woman working in the tech field, Ronda Bergman is something of a rarity.

The 48-year-old fell in love with tech when one of her college counselors pushed her to take a programming class. Outside the joy of the work itself, however, her past 18 years working as a programmer haven't always been professional bliss. From a programming professor who treated her differently than her male classmates to awkward, all-male workplaces, being a female developer  even in progressive Ann Arbor has been a challenge.

"I actually had the owner of one company tell me he almost didn't hire me because I was a woman," Bergman says.

Women hold just 25 percent of computing jobs, and recent news has highlighted the prevalence of toxic work environments for those women in some of the biggest tech companies. But here in Ann Arbor, Bergman says, things are actually getting better for women in tech.

"It's definitely improved. There's much more acceptance," she says. "It varies depending on the company, but the bigger companies are definitely improving."

How Ann Arbor measures up

Bergman is uniquely positioned to understand how the Ann Arbor tech community is progressing in terms of gender diversity  or at least in its acceptance of the idea of gender diversity. In addition to being a software artisan for Pillar Technology, she is the cofounder and leader of Ann Arbor's chapter of Girl Develop It (GDI), which organizes tech training and networking opportunities for local women. Of nearly 60 GDI chapters nationwide, Ann Arbor is behind only New York and San Francisco when it comes to revenue, number of students, and support from local businesses.

"Every year the GDI chapters get together and we often have people say, 'What's the secret? Why is Ann Arbor so successful?'" Bergman says. "We have more companies willing to host classes than we can even use.

"Even the companies that are struggling with their numbers [of female employees] reach out to us because they want to help. They say, 'Let us help you so we can have women to hire.'"

Avery Williamson has lived in Ann Arbor working as a delivery lead for Atomic Object for just three months. But already the local tech community feels different to her from her hometown of Philadelphia and other tech hubs with which she's familiar.

"I feel like it's a very open, inclusive, positive tech environment. It's not quite as competitive," Williamson says. "Maybe that's a Midwestern attitude."

Local companies making changes

Of course, an attitude of inclusion is different from inclusion in practice. Bergman says small local companies are still apt to have just one or no women among their ranks. But the larger companies, she says, tend to be improving.

Pillar, Bergman's employer, is now 21 percent female. About a third of Ann Arbor-based Duo Security's more than 450 employees, and about 30 percent of its leaders, are female.

It's not an accident. Duo offers generous benefits intended to support employees' family lives, professional development, and ambitions outside of work. These efforts are intended to disrupt an industry plagued by a narrow set of talent by being "kinder than necessary." This core value happens to help Duo attract and retain women  and meet its business goals.

"We believe if you do the right things, you get the right results," says Duo Security CEO Dug Song. That result is creating a better product by having genuine empathy for their diverse set of customers. "That degree of empathy is hard to come by unless you have an ability to integrate many different perspectives, experiences, frameworks, and world views within your organization."

Grand Rapids-based Atomic Object is making a concerted effort to increase the gender diversity of its workforce, including its Ann Arbor office. While the company used to have just one woman among 20 employees, it is now up to 15 women among 60.

While only three of Atomic Object's 15 Ann Arbor employees are women, the company's female hiring initiative continues. Atomic Object has reworded job descriptions and changed its benefits to better appeal to women, and the company has also started a two-year career development program that has attracted an outsized number of female participants.

These types of mentorship opportunities seem to not only help attract, but also retain, female employees. Pillar has been successful with an apprenticeship program, as well as looking for employees among non-traditional candidates, such as those who have completed GDI courses or training programs like Grand Circus Detroit. Because many women go into tech as a second career, Bergman says these are excellent sources of female tech talent.

Ann Arbor women supporting Ann Arbor women

Tech CEOs aren't the only ones focused on increasing the numbers of women in tech locally. Ann Arbor women are working to support each other. While attracting women to the tech field is one challenge, those women may still wind up in careers in which they feel isolated and unsupported by their employers.

Bergman attributes her career longevity to stubbornness, but she hopes a new generation of female tech workers won't have to grin and bear an unfriendly industry  hence her commitment to GDI.

"There are women who come out and are feeling frustrated with their situation, and you sometimes have to talk them off of the ledge," she says. "To have someone else say, 'What you're feeling is normal. We've experienced it as well,' that can just be huge. If we can help keep a few women from leaving the field, I think we are doing our job."

The logic is that the more women there are in Ann Arbor's tech scene, the more women the community will attract. More women in high tech leadership positions is a key piece of that strategy. That's one reason why Duo regularly invites nationally recognized female tech leaders to its monthly Tech Talks series, which is open to the community. Representation in leadership matters.

Bergman is proving that out, closer to her own home. As rare as being a 20-year female veteran of the tech industry is, Bergman is now something even rarer: one half of a mother-daughter pair of tech pros. Because her daughter Erin was raised in a home where technology was just Mom's job, the field was naturally attractive from an early age. Erin and Ronda now work at Pillar together.

The Ann Arbor tech community certainly hasn't achieved diversity nirvana. While awareness of the need for more women in tech is increasing, many local companies still have few or no women among their ranks. Diversity of race, ethnicity, age, and sexual orientation are often lagging behind even gender diversity.

But Williamson says the community is at least moving in the right direction.

"What excites me about Ann Arbor is that it seems like there is a critical mass of people who are interested in change and interested in making it a more inclusive place to live and to work," she says. "I think change around women in tech is going to happen at the people level. It's not going to happen in board rooms or huge edicts."

From female tech pros supporting each other to local companies making efforts to retain more women, it seems that's exactly how the change is happening in Ann Arbor.



Natalie Burg is Concentrate's senior writer.



All photos by Doug Coombe.
Press Release

August 14, 2017 GRACE POE ON LTFRB ORDER TO SUSPEND UBER The decision of the LTFRB to suspend Uber is both cruel and absurd, to say the least. I am aghast that this agency that committed before the Senate to resolve the issues has just imposed a cure that will only make the disease much worse. It does not solve the problem, but further exacerbates the problem of having an utter lack of safe, reliable, and convenient transportation options for our people. The issue is not about roadworthiness but one that involves a mere administrative violation, which should have merited a corresponding administrative penalty. The penalty should not further prejudice the public and place the riders' wellbeing at risk by limiting their options. The ruling disenfranchises close to 200,000 riders a day with the imposition of a blanket suspension against the operation of Uber along with all its accredited vehicles for one long month. Our people deserve to have options when it comes to choosing convenient, safe, and reliable transportation services to brave the daily punishing traffic jam. The suspension order is a defiance of the LTFRB officials' commitment to provide a solution to the issues surrounding TNVS operations that will be for the benefit of the riding public. When the Senate Committee on Public Services, during the last hearing, asked them to straighten out issues with the Transport Network Companies by October, the committee did not mean for them to suspend the operations of any TNC. I was wrong to think that the LTFRB was on the same page with the Committee on how to come up with remedial rules pending the crafting of pertinent legislation. Why can't the LTFRB be innovative in coming up with an appropriate penalty that is fair and that will not prejudice the riding public? Is there no other less crippling penalty at our disposal? Thirty days is a long time. Could not the LTFRB just consider imposing a fine commensurate to whatever violation Uber has committed? Or at worst, just consider suspending the units that the agency said were accredited much later after having determined their identities? Without reliable public transportation, those who depend on Uber for their daily commute will have to find an alternative or revert to their long and usual daily grind. Was the interest of the riding public, that is now compromised and jeopardized, ever factored in when the LTFRB came up with the suspension order? The LTFRB is well aware that even Uber's competitor admits that it is unable to service all those who try to book with them. Thus, I will call the LTFRB officials for an urgent meeting at the Senate this Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. to resolve this issue as public interest requires that we exercise congressional oversight over this public harm that is sure to befall our people.
Nancy lauds DOLE move to ban high heels, provide rest periods for female workers

Senator Nancy Binay on Tuesday lauded the plan of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) to craft a policy that would ban the wearing of high heels in the workplace and provide female workers with rest periods from long hours of standing.

"This move will provide Filipina workers suffering long hours of standing on high heels without breaks with much needed respite. A good example of these workers are salesladies who brave several hours of service without sitting breaks while teetering on several inches of heels," she said.

Earlier this month, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III was quoted in news reports saying that he has ordered the Occupational Safety and Health Center (OSHC), the Bureau of Working Conditions (BWC) and the Bureau of Special Working Concerns (BSWC) to craft the said policy.

"It is simply unfair to force female workers working in these establishments to wear high heels and stand for long hours without sitting, when these expose them to various safety and health hazards. Sadyang masakit sa paa gamitin ang mga high heels na ito at lalong delikado ang magtrabaho nang suot ang mga ito dahil maaari itong maging sanhi ng injury dahil sa pagkakadulas at tapilok," Binay said.

"Kaya nga isang malaking hakbang tungo sa makataong pagtrato sa mga kababaihan sa kanilang pinagtatrabahuhan ang polisiyang ito," added the senator, who has long called for 15-minute sitting breaks for salesladies in a proposed measure which she has refiled yet again this 17th Congress.

Originally filed when Binay first took office as senator, Senate Bill No. 1173 aims to amend Section 132(A) of the Labor Code by requiring owners and operators of malls, department stores and similar establishments to grant their female employees assigned in sales 15-minute rests every two hours of continuous and uninterrupted sales and store operation assignments.

"Dapat komportable at ligtas 'di lamang ang lugar kung hindi maging ang kasuotan ng mga kababaihang nagsusumikap para sa kanilang mga pamilya. Kailangan hayaan silang makapagsuot ng komportableng sapatos, mabigyan ng mauupuan at panahong makaupo matapos ang napakatagal na oras ng pagtatrabaho," Binay urged.
Press Release

August 15, 2017 Senate lauds Landbank's 2017 Gawad PITAK winners The Senate today adopted four resolutions commending farmers and cooperatives that won Landbank's 2017 Gawad sa Pinakatanging Kooperatiba (Gawad PITAK) for their roles as "agents of growth in the countryside." Proposed Senate Resolutions (PSR) No. 459, No. 460, No.461, and No. 462 were introduced by Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri, chairman of the Senate Committee on Cooperatives and chairman of the Board of Judges that selected this year's winners. "The Senate of the Philippines proudly joins the Landbank of the Philippines in acknowledging the vital role of farmers and cooperatives in our nation's social and economic progress by stimulating development at the grassroot level," the resolutions said. The Gawad sa Pinakatanging Kooperatiba or Gawad PITAK is an annual search undertaken by Landbank "that recognizes cooperatives which exemplified the social responsibility of being agents of growth in the countryside." "Launched in 1990, the Gawad PITAK is the country's most prestigious award for cooperatives and is awarded to Land Bank-assisted cooperatives in the country that serve as effective channels in providing support, financial or technical to the economic endeavors of small farmers, fisher folk and other marginalized sectors of society," according to Zubiri. Resolution No. 459 commended the five winners of the 2017 Gawad PITAK most-outstanding agriculture-based cooperatives led by the Bontoc Multi-Purpose Cooperative of Bontoc, Southern Leyte (1st place), Libacao Development Cooperative of Libacao, Aklan (2nd place), Batangas Sugar Planters Cooperative Marketing Association of Balayan, Batangas (3rd place), Bantug Agricultural Multi-Purpose Cooperative of Talavera, Nueva Ecija (4th place) and Kooperatiba Naton Multi-Purpose Cooperative of Tigabuan Iloilo (5th place), and the most outstanding non-agriculture-based cooperatives led by the Abra Diocesan Teachers and Employees Multi-Purpose Cooperative of Bangued, Abra (1st place), Pinoy Lingap Damayan Multi-Purpose Cooperative of Virac, Catanduanes (2nd place), Watchlife Workers Multi-purpose Cooperative of Mariveles, Bataan (3rd place), Providers Multi-Purpose Cooperative of Naguilian, Isable (4th place), and the Golden Group Gabay Puhunan Brotherhood Multi-purpose cooperative of San Fernando, Pampanga (5th place). Resolution No. 460 also commended the 2017 Gawad PITAK Hall of Fame awardees Buenavista Development Cooperative (agriculture-based category) of Buenavista, Guimaras and Sacred Heart Savings cooperative (non-agriculture based category) of galimuyod, Ilocos Sur. Resolution No. 461 commended the 2017 Ginintuang Gawad PITAK awardee, the Nagkakaisang Magsasaka Agricultural Primary Multi-Purpose Cooperative of Talavera, Nueva Ecija. Resolution No. 462 commended farmer-entrepreneur Cesario Tabago of Moncada, Tarlac for being named the 2017 Ulirang Magsasaka by the Landbank of the Philippines. Apart from Zubiri, AGAP Partylist Representative Rico Geron, chairman of the House Committee on Cooperatives, Landbank CEO Alex Buenaventura, Agriculture Secretary Manuel Pinol, Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael Mariano, and Cooperative Development Authority Chairman Orlando Ravanera were also part of the Board of Judges for the said annual search.
Press Release

August 15, 2017 Villar pushes assistance package for farmers affected by bird flu outbreak Sen. Cynthia Villar said an assistance program should be immediately implemented to help farmers, especially the small backyard livestock growers, who are affected by the bird flu outbreak in San Luis, Pampanga. Villar, chair of the Committee on Agriculture and Food, said apart from the financial assistance package being prepared by the Department of Agriculture (DA), alternative livelihood sources should also be made available to farmers who will not have a source of income for the next 4 to 5 months. "I am praying with the farmers that this outbreak will be contained and will be prevented from spreading to other areas," Villar said. In a press conference, DA Secretary Emmanuel Pinol announced that a compensation of P80 per head culled and a loan assistance of P25,000 will be given to farmers. Dr. Arlene Vytianco, head of the Animal Disease Center, said culling operation for 200,000 infected fowls will be completed by Thursday and it will take a minimum of 90 days before growers could start raising fowls again pending quarantine, disinfection and monitoring procedures. "In support of other Pampanga poultry raisers, we should emphasize that not all Pampanga fowls are infected. In fact, as confirmed by experts, only nine commercial farms, four quail farms and four duck farms in San Luis are infected by the virus," Villar said. Villar said she is hopeful that the outbreak would not cause a significant gap on supply of chicken and poultry products that local raisers in different parts of the country could not fill up.
James Curtright, 52, Lincoln Correctional Center, two counts of first-degree murder, Lancaster County, in prison since July 1986. Curtright is deaf and relies on American Sign Language and an interpreter.

He does not have access to timely, meaningful, needed mental health care because of a lack of sign language interpreters or mental health staff able to sign. He cannot understand television or video programming, including instructional videos provided, because there is no captioning. He was denied access to TDD/TTY machine, so has been unable to make phone calls to his family and friends.

He has been denied jobs, would be unable to report if he was a victim of sexual assault, as per the Prison Rape Elimination Act, because he could not call a hotline, and would not be able to hear fire or tornado alarms.
Jason Galle, 42, Nebraska State Penitentiary, receiving stolen property, assault on an officer, use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony, Douglas County, in prison since February 2010. He has been diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and paranoid schizophrenia, and been hospitalized for a psychotic break.

He has chronic pain and mobility limits after being shot in the leg during his arrest. He has not been approved for surgery to remove bone fragments and set the fracture. He frequently skips meals in order to avoid walking. His crutches and cane were taken away a year ago because the department did not think he was using them enough.

He has no grab bars in his cell or shower. He must go up and down stairs to get to his cell or medical appointments. He rebroke his leg and cannot stand unassisted.

He was placed in five-point restraints in 2012, and will not seek mental health treatment for fear of being restrained again.

He was housed in isolation at times during 2012 to 2014 for attempting to commit suicide. He was on a prescription medication, but when he failed a drug test his medication was stopped, which caused severe withdrawal. Despite not having failed a drug test for 12 to 18 months, he has not been reapproved to take medication.
Antiwar protest: Demonstration against the possibility of war with North Korea. Event is from 5 to 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at Powell and Market streets, San Francisco. For informa-tion: www.ANSWERsf.org

Voter registration: Volunteers will help new U.S. citizens register to vote after swearing-in ceremony. Sponsored by Democracy Action, which works to advance Democratic candidates. From 10 a.m. to noon Thursday outside the Paramount Theater, 2025 Broadway, Oakland. For information: https://demaction.us

Urban Shield: Panel discussion on reforming Urban Shield. Panelists include David Muhammad, former Alameda County chief probation officer, and Reggie Lyles, a retired Berkeley police executive. Event is from 3 to 5:30 p.m. Saturday at the South Berkeley Senior Center, 2939 Ellis St., Berkeley.

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.

Peoples budget: A discussion of progressive, alternative budget priorities on the state and federal levels from 7 to 9 p.m. Aug. 24 at the Unitarian Universalist center, 1187 Franklin St., San Francisco. For information: www.facebook.com/PDASanFrancisco/?...

Virginia candidate: The Sister District Project is raising funds for Kathy Tran, who is running for the Virginia House of Delegates, by hosting a discussion with Rita Bosworth, the Sister District Project founder, and former Assemblyman Ted Lempert. The event is from 7 to 9 p.m. Aug. 31 at the Half Moon Bay Brewing Co., 390 Capistrano Road, Half Moon Bay. For information: www.goo.gl/d2KVLu

Town hall: Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, holds a town hall at 7 p.m. Sept. 15 at Dance Palace, 503 B St., Point Reyes Station.
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The violence and death sparked by white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va., last weekend was, to most people, a frightening look into a fringe hate-group philosophy that experts say is resurgent across the country.

But the images of Ku Klux Klansmen marching and a reported Nazi sympathizer allegedly driving his car into a crowd of counter-protesters  killing a woman and injuring at least 19  suggest a cultural rift is stretching from the old plantation homes in the south, across the Great Plains all the way into the liberal enclaves in the Bay Area.

With the mayhem in Virginia still fresh, white nationalists are reportedly planning rallies in San Francisco and Berkeley later this month, raising questions about how the events should be handled or confronted.

Whats happening now is that since the change of the administration in Washington, these folks think they have a right to come out and assert themselves, said George Holland, an Oakland lawyer and president of the local branch of the NAACP. They are trying to bait people into physical violence. They come armed and prepared to fight.

President Trump denounced the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis on Monday after being widely criticized for an earlier denunciation of violence on many sides. He said the Justice Department had launched a civil rights investigation into the killing of a counterprotester at the rally.

The Virginia mayhem echoed a demonstration in Berkeley on April 15 that was led by Nathan Damigo, who was also one of the Virginia organizers. The 31-year-old white supremacist who grew up in Silicon Valley was caught on video punching a dreadlocked woman in the face during the Berkeley clash.

Damigo claimed he punched the 19-year-old woman because she was a threat, and he has not been charged. On Monday, he told The Chronicle that police were to blame for the violence during the Charlottesville protest, which started as a demonstration against the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

He said police ignored a permit and kicked his group out of the park, running them through a gantlet of counter-protesters wielding bats and sticks. He did not take any responsibility for the death of 32-year-old Heather Heyer, who was run over by a car that was driven through a crowd. James Alex Fields Jr., 20, of Maumee, Ohio, was arrested on second-degree murder and other charges.

Damigo said Fields may have been caught in the middle of a violent crowd, panicked and lost control of the vehicle.

We simply dont know what the intent was, said Damigo. I do feel that the blood rests in the hands of local law enforcement as well as the city officials in Charlottesville, because (they) created a scenario that created chaos and violence.

Leah Millis/The Chronicle

Damigo argues that an anti-white culture has developed in the United States that is destructive and harmful to society.

Diversity is divisive, he said. The idea that we are going to unite around some abstract principle  democracy, freedom or love  that simply is not going to work.

His view appears to be spreading.

There are tens of thousands of neo-Nazis and white supremacists in the U.S., and they seem to have formed alliances with other fringe groups like militias who are sympathetic, said Jack Glaser, a social psychologist and professor at UC Berkeley who studies prejudice and discrimination.

A permit has been issued for a Patriot Prayer group to gather Aug. 26 at Crissy Field in San Francisco, according to Sonja Hanson, a spokeswoman for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The group is ostensibly religious, but its purpose is really an attempt to provoke black-clad ideologues on the left into acts of violence, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups.

The park will review and assess safety, Hanson said. Were planning accordingly.

Noah Berger/Special to The Chronicle

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee said he does not condone hate speech, bigotry or violence, but noted that the gathering will be on federal land and that the U.S. Constitution protects the groups right to express an opinion, limiting his ability to respond.

I ask that when they chant of hate, San Francisco chants of love, Lee said.

Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin said another group, No Marxism in America, is planning an event on Aug. 27 at Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park in Berkeley, the site of earlier clashes between far-right groups and black-clad counter-protesters. The group has not yet applied for a permit, but police are making plans to respond should the gathering turn violent, he said.

We will be prepared to keep our community safe and prevent any destruction of property, Arreguin said. In light of what happened in Charlottesville over the weekend, he said, Im deeply concerned.

If this was really about freedom of speech  the city of Berkeley welcomes freedom of speech, he said. This isnt about that. This is about confrontation. This is about people coming to commit violence and spout hate speech and promote bigotry and promote white supremacy.

Such groups are strategically targeting Berkeley, San Francisco and the college town of Charlottesville because people there are liberal and likely to rise up in response. Its an old neo-Nazi tactic that goes back to an attempt in 1977 by the National Socialist Party of America to march on Skokie, Ill., where many Holocaust survivors lived.

Theyre trying to agitate a lot of people into reacting to them, said Lecia Brooks, an Oakland native who has studied the white supremacist and alt-right movements for the Southern Poverty Law Center. And they know that there is a lot of (anti-fascist groups) in these places, too, who will try to confront them.

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 Southern Poverty Law Center counts 79 hate groups in California out of 917 it is tracking nationwide.

Theyre strong (in California). Id say theyre very strong, Brooks said, noting that Damigos white supremacist group Identity Evropa is one of those on the rise. Theyre determined to make a name for themselves.

Last week, Brooks co-authored a Southern Poverty Law Center guide on what to do when such groups come to a campus or city.

Alt-right personalities know their cause is helped by news footage of large jeering crowds, heated confrontations and outright violence at their events. It allows them to play the victim and gives them a larger platform for their racist message, according to the guide. Denying an alt-right speaker of such a spectacle is the worst insult they can endure.

Nonviolent opponents of hate groups should discourage anti-fascist groups from attending these events, Brooks said. The self-described alt-right thrives on physical confrontations and they get disappointed if the antifa doesnt show up, Brooks said.

When anti-fascist groups show up and start mixing it up with the hate groups, she said, media accounts often describe a clash instead of focusing on the hate groups. The hate groups chalk that up as a win because they have created chaos.

Arreguin said city and law enforcement officials have tried to ask anti-fascist groups not to attend alt-right events, but they showed up anyway.

The antifas feel that they have to come and have to confront them, Arreguin said. So you have two sides who are so passionate and ideological about what they believe in that its hard to talk some sense into them.

Glaser said having a black president for eight years angered many racists, and Trump emboldened them with his anti-immigration campaign speeches and, most recently, his delay in condemning white supremacist violence.

But Glaser characterized the latest uprisings as more the last gasp of a once mighty minority than the resurgence of white supremacy in America.

There are always going to be extremists like this, but I don't think there is a mass movement toward white supremacy, Glaser said. If anything, there has been an awakening, a greater recognition of the problems racial minorities face, and this is, in part, a backlash to the awakening. You can see it in their rallies where they chant, You will not replace us. They are feeling threatened.

Chronicle staff writer Kurtis Alexander contributed to this report.

Peter Fimrite and Joe Garofoli are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: pfimrite@sfchronicle.com, jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com
It was midday Saturday when Joey Saladinos phone started ringing with threats.

A Twitter account dedicated to pointing out racism, @YesYoureRacist, circulated pictures and names of people who appeared to have participated in the weekends white-supremacy march in Charlottesville, Va. While many exposed did not deny their participation, Saladino  better known as Joey Salads on YouTube  was 1,300 miles away in Jamaica.

People took a photo (from six months ago) out of context, saying that I was at the riots, Saladino said. The news spread like wildfire. ... I was getting death threats, and messages saying Im a disgusting human.

Though he was targeted in error, Saladino was a subject of doxxing  the increasingly common practice of publishing documents about a persons identity with the intent of shaming him or her. As Google, Facebook, Twitter and Reddit have made it increasingly easy to identify  or misidentify  someone, online activists across the political spectrum have been adopting the tactic as part of their arsenal, seeking to get people they disagree with fired, ostracized or worse. And it raises fresh questions about the balance between free speech and privacy in the Internet age. In that tug-of-war, civility is collateral damage.

We have very few real privacy rights in this country, said attorney Ted Claypoole, an expert on data security. We have certain rights as it relates to types of information  financial, health care  but in general, this country is based on free speech.

The Charlottesville demonstrations began Friday night in opposition to the citys decision to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. They escalated Saturday to a bloody clash with counterprotesters. A 32-year-old woman, Heather Heyer, died after she was hit by a car that plowed into a crowd of those rallying against the extreme-right march. The driver, James Alex Fields Jr., 20, has been charged with second-degree murder.

The @YesYoureRacist Twitter account, run by Logan Smith of Raleigh, N.C., not only criticized people for being at the rally but also mentioned some of their employers. A Bay Area man named Cole White lost his job as a result of the exposure. His employer, the dining chain Top Dog of Berkeley, said White voluntarily resigned.

We do not endorse hatred or any illegal conduct. It simply is not part of our culture, the restaurant said in a statement. We do respect our employees right to their opinions. They are free to make their own choices but must accept the responsibilities of those choices.

Peter Tefft, who was singled out on social media for being at the rally, was denounced by his father, Pearce Tefft of Fargo, N.D., who wrote in an open letter that he wishes to loudly repudiate my sons vile, hateful and racist rhetoric and actions.

Doxxing was also a factor in Googles handling of an employees controversial July memo denouncing the companys attempts to diversify its workforce. The identity of the author, software engineer James Damore, was soon revealed online, and he was subsequently fired.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai called a companywide meeting to discuss the issue. He canceled the meeting Thursday after employees expressed concern that they would become targets of harassment if they spoke publicly about the memo. Already, some Google employees who had criticized Damore had been named by right-wing sites.

In February, a scheduled appearance by right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos caused riots at UC Berkeley, leading to the events cancellation. Members of the group that invited Yiannopoulos had their contact details exposed online. Naweed Tahmas, a vice president of the Berkeley College Republicans, said his group was inundated with death threats and other abuse following the protests. Tahmas even had drinks thrown at him.

Its a shameful tactic, he said. They not only try to find all of the details about your life, they also send you messages threatening your life and sending slanderous emails to your employers.

Tahmas recognizes that in todays world, nothing is really private. But, he added, people on social media take it a step ahead.

Doxxing, short for dropping dox, or documents, originated as a revenge tactic among computer hackers in the 1990s, according to Wired magazine. In that scene, ripping away anonymity was seen as an effective way to disarm an adversary. More recently, doxxing has emerged as a general tool of harassment in cultural and political disputes like 2014s GamerGate campaign against diversity in video games and the protests against police violence in Ferguson.

While experts say exposing peoples identities online is generally legal, someone whose identity has been revealed incorrectly or who has been put in harms way by being identified may have a legal basis to sue. Others worry that the constant threat of exposure could have implications on the publics desire to participate in public discourse.

The biggest issue is going to be the self-policing of their thoughts and ideas, said Jeremiah Grossman, chief of security strategy at SentinelOne, a Palo Alto software firm.

The fear of exposure is nothing new: People with radical ideas  such as the KKK  used to cover their faces so people wouldnt know if it was the doctor, or the judge, or the plumber in the community, Claypoole said.

But what is new is the speed with which the Internet can rip off the veil of anonymity and point a fire hose of vitriol.

Smith, the man behind @YesYoureRacist, told the News & Observer that he, too, had been receiving death threats. Most are from little-followed Twitter accounts, but they are incautious in their invective.

Theyre not hiding behind their hoods like they did before the civil rights era, Smith told the paper.

Trisha Thadani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: TThadani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @TrishaThadani
A federal judge Monday blocked LinkedIn Corp.s efforts to prevent a San Francisco startup from using information gleaned from users profiles.

In granting HiQ Labs Inc.s request for a preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen said the company presented convincing arguments that LinkedIns primary motivation was to shut down a competitor rather than protect user privacy as the social media giant had claimed.

HiQ Labs makes software that analyzes data from public LinkedIn profiles to help employers determine which workers are likely to leave or stay. But Chen noted that LinkedIn, owned by Microsoft Corp., often sells user data to recruiters even though it accuses HiQ of violating consumer privacy.

HiQ has raised serious questions as to whether LinkedIn, in blocking HiQs access to public data, possibly as a means of limiting competition, violates state law, Chen wrote.

LinkedIns professed privacy concerns are somewhat undermined by the fact that LinkedIn allows other third parties to access user data without its members knowledge or consent, he wrote.

In recent years, Silicon Valleys most powerful companies have been cracking down on firms they suspect of data scraping, the practice of extracting information from social media accounts or websites such as Yelp or Wikipedia. LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook view scraping of the data generated by their users not just as theft  they sometimes charge to license data  but also as a violation of their users privacy.

In May, LinkedIn sent HiQ a letter demanding that it stop using LinkedIn data. HiQ argues that the data are already public. Without it, the company said, it will go under, an argument supported by Chen.

HiQ unquestionably faces irreparable harm in the absence of an injunction, as it will likely be driven out of business, Chen wrote.

There are big issues at stake about who ultimately controls information.

Data analytics has becoming a rapidly growing industry as companies seek ways to analyze large amounts of information so they can make smarter business decisions. Since Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have collected an enormous amount of user data, they have sought to control access to it, even though that information is often public.

LinkedIn recruited Donald Verrilli, a former solicitor general for the Obama administration who has argued major cases before the Supreme Court. Famed Harvard law Professor Laurence Tribe is advising HiQ.

LinkedIn did not immediately return a request for comment. The company will now have to decide whether to reach some sort of agreement with HiQ or go to trial.

Thomas Lee is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: tlee@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ByTomLee
That Craigslist ad posted by a San Francisco couple looking for a personal assistant that went viral last week is definitely wacky. But it also provides an object lesson in what employers can  and should not  say when theyre hiring household help in California.

There are some things in there that would be problematic if they are covered by civil rights laws, said attorney Chaya Mandelbaum, a partner with Rudy Exelrod Zieff & Lowe who represents employees. But Californias Fair Employment and Housing Act, which prohibits employers from discriminating against employees and job applicants based on a long list of protected categories, applies to employers with five or more employees. Most people hiring household help have fewer than five.

The ad was posted by an unidentified couple who describe themselves as fortysomething biotech workers who dont have time to cook, do laundry or dishes, put away groceries, keep cut flowers alive, schedule appointments, return merchandise, wait on hold for customer service, teach the dog tricks, hem pants, haul stuff to Goodwill, hang pictures, reorganize the closet, polish fingernails or research investment opportunities.

Theyre looking for someone who can do all that while possessing the personality of the Dalai Lama combined with a Fortune 500 CEO.

You aren't dramatic and you aren't having regular melt-downs. You're warm, welcoming, and always down for a good time, the ad says. The person cant be tightly wound, nor lazy or sloth-like. The applicant must be level-headed, down-to-earth, humble and always willing to admit when you're wrong. He or she cannot be stubborn or defensive and must be confident, empathetic and detail-oriented.

The nearly 1,800-word post sounds, in parts, more like a personals ad than a job listing. You enjoy making things smell nice, it says. You are generous with your attention and love.

It even states a dress code, depending on the persons style: e.g. you're bohemian chic but avoid the giant wedges that will prevent you from hustling around town.

The pay was originally advertised at $25 to $30 per hour, but the couple changed it to $15 to $35 due to high demand. The hours are about 40 per week, but the assistant must be on-call 24/7 for emergencies.

The applicant cant be a smoker or have more than five alcoholic drinks per week. Bonus points are given if the person has long hair and knows how to gently untangle knots, can make one-of-a-kind wood furniture pieces, can swim well in the ocean and is physically strong.

As strange as these requirements seem, only a few could pose legal problems, experts say.

The California labor code prohibits employers of any size from taking adverse employment action against employees for lawful nonwork activities, said Bob King, founder of Legally Nanny, a household-employment law firm in Irvine. Because smoking and drinking alcohol is lawful, prohibiting those activities outside of work would violate the code, he said.

The no past criminal record requirement is questionable, Mandelbaum said.

Under the state labor code, employers cannot consider or ask job applicants about certain offenses, including any arrest or detention that did not result in conviction; any conviction in which the record has been sealed, expunged or eradicated; any participation in pretrial or post-trial diversion programs; or any nonfelony conviction for marijuana possession that is more than 2 years old.

These laws apply to employers of any size. Saying no past criminal record could be deemed overly broad, Mandelbaum said.

San Franciscos Fair Chance Ordinance has seven stricter rules regarding arrest and conviction records, but it applies only to employers with 20 or more employees.

Californias Fair Employment and Housing Act prohibits employers with five or more employees from discriminating against applicants and employees because of their race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, mental or physical disability, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, medical condition, genetic information, or marital, military or veteran status.

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

A larger employer that said an applicant must be physically strong, could be violating both the California act and the Americans with Disabilities Act (which applies nationwide to employers with 15 or more employees), King said.

A covered employer can state essential job functions, such as the ability to lift 40 pounds, and ask whether an applicant can perform these functions with or without accommodations. But you cant say (the person must be) physically strong, King said.

Often, parents will say, I want a young nanny in her 20s or 30s or I want a Mexican nanny. That would be illegal if they had five or more employees, but OK if they have fewer. Families can get away with all kinds of crazy stuff companies cant, King said.

Employers of all sizes also must comply with wage and hour laws, including minimum wage and overtime requirements.

As for being on call 24/7, it depends on what that means, Mandelbaum said. On-call hours at a work site must be paid for, the state Division of Labor Standards Enforcement says. Whether employers must pay employees for on-call hours off the work site depends on what kind of geographic and other restrictions they impose.

Kathleen Pender is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: kpender@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kathpender
There is a difference between men and women. If there was any doubt, it was proved on the sales floor of a huge furniture warehouse a couple of weeks ago.

My wife and I were looking for a sofa for our family room. Not the living room, where my wifes frou-frou taste might make some sense. I'm talking family room, where comfort is, or should be, king.

We were wandering through a sea of couches and chairs. She wasnt finding anything that met her snooty standards, and I wasnt paying much attention. Finally, she stopped at a white sofa that I would easily ruin with beer, wine and food stains in weeks, if not days.

How do you like this one? she asked, even though she knew the answer.

Well, lets see, I replied as I plopped down on the most uncomfortable sofa ever built. It would be a lovely choice for a Tibetan monk.

We moved on. We needed to find something where we could compromise her need for style and my need for comfort. It wasnt going to be easy. She stopped at a few more Queen Victoria/Ben Franklin torture couches, which I quickly nixed, and I didnt even bother gravitating toward the more comfortable couches, because I knew I had virtually no chance.

Then we stumbled on nirvana, at least for me. There it was, sitting by itself, on sale, with no one around it. A faux leather, plush, cushy sofa set, with a big sign saying I RECLINE.

Dont even think about it, said my wife, but it was too late. I plopped onto the sofa and sank deep into its bosom. As my wife tried to pull me up, I glanced to my left, and there was the most beautiful sight a man has ever seen, built right into the armrest.

ITS GOT DRINK HOLDERS! I cried.

Come on, lets go, she pleaded. Well find something thats a little more comfortable than the ones I looked at so far.

I wasnt listening. I reclined the couch and practiced reaching for my imaginary beer as I watched my imaginary sporting event. I wasnt going anywhere. Especially when I realized the arm rest lifted up and there was STORAGE underneath.

I can put food in here! I exulted. And the remote. This is the best couch Ive ever seen. Can I have it? Please, please, please!

I realized I was beginning to sound like I was 5 years old begging my mother to buy me a new toy. I thought about it for a second, and decided to continue. It worked then  no reason it shouldnt work now.

Come on, PLEEEEEZE, I pleaded. You can get anything you want for any other room  I dont care. I wont ask for anything else. I promise. Just give me this reclining, drink-holding, full-storage couch. PLEEEEZE.

I managed to get her to sit next to me, with the dual drink holders right between us. She wasnt impressed. Or maybe because her section of the couch didnt recline. I offered her my seat, but she had no interest in moving. She just sat there, her head in her hands. I dont think she looked very relaxed.

Its hard to deny the one you love something they want more than anything in the world. I think she was making that realization. Thats why her head was in her hands.

I didnt even have to throw a tantrum. Fine, she finally said. I give up. Buy it.

WAHOO! I cried. Think of the fun well have watching movies together, a glass of wine sitting in our drink holders, peanuts in our storage compartment, me reclining ...

She was pretty silent as we walked up and paid for it and arranged delivery. But she perked up when we stopped for gas on the way home and she went into the gas station store to use the restroom, which had a small seating area/cafe attached.

When she came back to the car, she smiled for the first time since our illustrious purchase. Guess what I saw outside the bathroom? she asked, not waiting for an answer. Your couch. Complete with drink holders.

I think she was making a point, but I didnt care. All that mattered to me was that we had a new name for my beautiful couch.

It will forever be known as The Arco Lounger.

Nick Hoppes column appears Tuesdays in Datebook. Email: NickHoppe61@gmail.com
While bulletins from Charlottesville, Va., Pyongyang and Bedminster, N.J., horrify serenity-seeking Americans, let us ponder the last gasps of vacation and its possibilities:

Given the situation with North Korea and the possibility of a larger conflict, emails James Patterson, I advise your readers thinking of a trip around the world to take it while its still there.

Jeff Parrott cant get our hard-driving president off his mind. He quotes the lyrics of Mose Allison: Yknow if silence was golden/ You couldnt raise a dime/ Because your mind is on vacation and your mouth is/ working overtime. Meanwhile, Vanity Fairs Emily Jane Fox reports that President Trumps vacation  interrupted by a day in D.C.  in Bedminster is not making a big splash. If anything, people in town are flattered that the president chose our town, but they see it as a non-event, Mayor Steven Parker told her. Parker left on his own vacation a day after Trump arrived.

And then there are the eclipse watchers who will be heading off for the celestial view: John Joss heard from his friend Christopher Springmann in Oregon, who emailed, Salem, our local backwater version of the Sacramento state capitol, is girding for what looks like the end of the world as we know it. (See above; this seems to be a theme today.)

The OHP (pronounced Oh-Hip), the highway patrol, replete with Smokey the Bear gender-free campaign hats, is warning motorists, all 5 million of them, not to stop on Highway 5 to experience the eclipse. There will be consequences.

P.S. As to vacationing in San Francisco, according to Stannous Flouride, historian and tour guide of the Haight-Ashbury, that neighborhood is the No. 2 tourist destination in San Francisco. No. 1 is Pier 39.

In additional vacation notes, Ed Rose, who was in Vancouver and Victoria, sent a photo outside a restaurant: Vegans With Loose Morals Welcome.

And then there are overheards:

If youre not in first class, youre in the back of the plane. Man in first class to seatmate, overheard aboard a flight leaving SFO by Roger Thornhill.

The advantage to first class is you dont have to deal with exit-row seats. Passenger to passenger, overheard aboard flight from Portland, Ore., to SFO by Thornhill, a sharp-eared traveler.

The plane we were considering was $12 million, but the advantage was that it could fly outside the country. Woman to woman, overheard in Aspen, Colo., by Renee Goldhammer.

Can you see me now? No, I am not dressed as a cow. I am a zebra. Music lover dressed like zebra, on cell phone at Outside Lands, overheard by Liam Mayclem.

Fred Reiss suggests that Trump wants North Korea to launch a nuclear attack on L.A. and San Francisco to ensure that hell get the popular vote in the next election.

And Paul Brenner overheard the conversation between two men in the Peninsula Infiniti service waiting room: Isis, North Korea and the Dodgers are all having good years, said one to the other.

Outdoor pianos, a concept in full crescendo, are a much more welcome addition to the outdoor scene than, oh, vaping smokers. PianFrancisco has one piano it has hauled around for outdoor concerts at a variety of locations  last was in early August, atop Bernal Heights. If you want to be on the mailing list for future performances, sign up online at www.pianfrancisco.com.

Meanwhile, Maureen Hanlon says that there was a piano in the lobby when she was a patient at the old Oakland Kaiser Hospital, but when my kids came to visit they were a little surprised to find the song they heard was Eric Claptons Tears in Heaven.

As to the names on equipment at Keefe Kaplan Maritime in Richmond and Sausalito  mentioned herein a few days ago  there are a few to add: Penny Harrison sent word of Herb Crane, in the Richmond boatyard. Theres also a Herb Crane Jr. at the companys Sausalito branch, and a Patty Hoist (which works in conjunction with William Randolph Hoist) in Richmond.

To mark the 40th anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley on Wednesday, Aug. 16, the Make-Out Room is hosting a live band playing Elvis songs, a choice of faux-but-loving Elvises singing, as well as a nutritional treat: peanut butter and banana bites served at midnight.

Leah Garchik is open for business in San Francisco, (415) 777-8426. Email: lgarchik@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @leahgarchik

Public Eavesdropping

I hate him more than her.

Woman to man, overheard at Zuni by Ken Maley
The accolades keep pouring in for chef/owner Brandon Jews year-old restaurant, Mister Jius. The Chinatown destination was listed as #3 on Bon Appetits Hot Ten, a list identifying the countrys 10 best restaurants. Last year, it was Lord Stanley in the #3 spot; in 2015, both Als Place (#1) and Rintaro (#8) were the Bay Area representatives.

Mister Jiu's debuted in the summer of 2016 as one of the first restaurants in the city to depict Cantonese food through the lens of modern California cuisine (Michael Bauer gave it two and a half stars). It was Chinatowns most most ambitious restaurant opening in decades, at the time -- for more on Jew's journey to open the modern, forward-thinking project in the former Four Seas space, read Jonathan Kauffman's definitive 2016 profile of the restaurant.
The Trump administration has illegally rolled back rules for regulating toxic chemicals in food, drinking water and work sites, environmental groups said Monday as they asked a federal appeals court in San Francisco to intervene.

The rewritten regulations, overseen by a former high-level chemical industry official with head-spinning conflicts of interest, will leave children, communities and workers vulnerable to dangerous chemicals, Eve Gartner, a lawyer with the environmental legal group Earthjustice, said after filing the legal challenge last week in the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Other advocates have filed separate challenges to the rules in federal appeals courts in New York and Richmond, Va. The suits will be consolidated in a single nationwide case.

The rules implement changes that Congress passed last year to broaden the scope of the Toxic Substances Control Act, a 40-year-old law regulating uses of tens of thousands of chemicals sold in the United States. The new law increased the Environmental Protection Agencys authority to review the safety of all chemicals in the marketplace, to restrict or ban chemicals found to pose serious threats, and to require new products to meet safety standards before being sold.

According to Earthjustice and the groups it represents, however, rules drafted by President Barack Obamas EPA before he left office in January have been substantially weakened by the agency under President Trump.

Among the changes, their legal challenge says:

The EPA can now decide which uses of a chemical it should study. The Obama draft rules would have required the agency to examine all known, intended, reasonably foreseen ways in which the chemical is used and all populations it could affect.

The EPA will have broad authority to classify a chemical as a low priority for analysis and regulation. The draft rules would have limited that authority and would have classified all chemicals as high priority unless the agency expressly made a contrary finding.

Chemical companies will get a big say in deciding which chemicals receive priority in undergoing federal scrutiny.

The new law allows manufacturers to ask the EPA to analyze specific chemicals. The Obama administration proposed requiring those manufacturers to provide all information about a chemicals uses and the people who would be exposed, and required the agency to first consider substances that posed a high risk. The revised rules allow companies to request analyses of chemical uses that are of interest to the manufacturer, and allow the agency to consider them in the order they were received.

The EPAs new rules fail to protect consumers by exempting key sources of exposure to risky chemicals, said Melanie Benesh, a lawyer with the Environmental Working Group, one of the plaintiffs in the Ninth Circuit case. Others include the Sierra Club and the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Benesh said the Trump administration agency, in overhauling the earlier draft of the rules, acceded to complaints from the major industry organization, the American Chemistry Council. Its former senior director for regulatory science policy, Nancy Beck, is now a high-ranking EPA administrator.

Beck has removed herself for a year from specific cases involving her former employer, but not from rule-making that affects the chemical industry, according to her statement obtained by Beneshs organization.

At the chemistry council, Beck was personally writing comments and letters to EPA about these rules, appeared at a public hearing and told EPA what she wanted to see, said Gartner, the Earthjustice attorney. Then, lo and behold, shes the person with authority to finalize these rules.

Asked for comment on the court cases, EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman said the agency is still reviewing the substance of the challenge, but is prepared to vigorously defend these important rules. We welcome working with all stakeholders in a constructive way.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko
A former university educator and attorney has announced her bid to represent north-central Douglas County in the Nebraska Legislature.

Wendy DeBoer, 43, is running for the District 10 seat being vacated by state Sen. Bob Krist, who is ineligible for re-election in 2018 because of term limits. The district includes Bennington and parts of Omaha and unincorporated Douglas County.

A Democrat, DeBoer is the first announced candidate for that seat in the officially nonpartisan Legislature.

DeBoer grew up in the Maple Village area and returned to Omaha about a year ago while continuing doctoral work with Syracuse University in New York.

She's a newcomer to politics, but has worked in Kansas City as an attorney and served in religious and academic leadership roles for much of her life.

She taught philosophy and religious studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha for several years, and is completing her doctorate in Christian theology. She has also been active in several Lutheran churches throughout her lifetime.

DeBoer said improving state support for public education would be her main focus if elected.

"Strengthening our public schools is the first step to creating good, higher-paying jobs, and a strong local economy, she said.
On Monday, at long last, President Trump named the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other tiki-torch-brandishing dead-enders whose Robert E. Lee rally escalated to murder in Charlottesville, Va. As I said on Saturday, he declared, we condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence. The trouble is that Trump said no such thing on Saturday.

What Trump condemned Saturday was hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides  on many sides, which is another way of condemning no side. That it took him two days to correct this allowed German Chancellor Angela Merkel, among others, to beat him to it. So the head of the country that invented Nazism was quicker to condemn it than the president of the country that finally defeated it.

In fact, by the time Trump officially rebuked Nazis, Klansmen and company, it had already been done more effectively by everyone from Fox News to Ted Cruz. The White Houses own ragtag communications team clearly recognized the problem, having tried on Sunday to reverse-engineer an appropriate response from the presidents actual, inappropriate one: The president said very strongly in his statement yesterday that he condemns all forms of violence, bigotry and hatred, and of course that includes white supremacists, KKK, neo-Nazi and all extremist groups.

Of course? The presidents alleged clarity was belied by his confederates rush to revise and extend his remarks. Of course it was terrorism, national security adviser H.R. McMaster said of the killing of a counterprotester on NBCs Meet the Press Sunday. As for his boss condemnation of white supremacists, he said, I know its clear in his mind.

The presidents beloved daughter Ivanka, a convert to Judaism, nevertheless saw fit to make it clearer, tweeting on Sunday: There should be no place in society for racism, white supremacy and neo-nazis. So did Vice President Mike Pence, who defended Trump and attacked the media but still managed to condemn racist violence in more explicit and unequivocal terms than the president. Even Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who is named after two heroes of the Southern secession and not known for his civil rights advocacy, was able to muster a clearer rejection of the extremists than Trump did until Monday.

Americans rely on our presidents, the only officials elected by the nation at large  or, in Trumps case, a constitutional facsimile thereof  to censure racism, extremism, violence and other wrongs, even if such wrongs go without saying for most of us, to reinforce their rejection by the society as a whole. Trumps begrudging, belated condemnation of the Charlottesville violence had all the moral force of an insincere apology pried from a petulant child. What was powerful, unmistakable and disturbing was his original omission.

This commentary is from The Chronicles editorial board. We invite you to express your views in a letter to the editor. Please submit your letter via our online form: SFChronicle.com/letters.
New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, in a historic speech explaining the removal of Civil War statues from his city in May, said, The Confederacy was on the wrong side of history and humanity. Last week, fierce right-wing forces brandishing Nazi regalia took a life and injured 19 people. They didnt absorb Landrieus message.

Civil libertarians remind us there is almost no hate-speech exemption to the First Amendment. Now, quietly flying under the radar, there is a crackdown on such speech. U.S. social media companies operating in Germany face fines of as much as $58 million if they fail to delete illegal, racist or slanderous comments and posts after a law prohibiting such messaging passed in June.

For months, Facebook, Google, Twitter and others dragged their feet in screening such content, but now have come to their bottom-line senses. They will no longer post Nazi symbols, Holocaust denial commentary, clearly inflammatory speech or incitement to violence.

Facebook announced that it would nearly double to 7,500 the number of employees worldwide devoted to clearing its site of flagged material. Facebook and Google are taking steps even in the United States to limit the spread of extreme messaging. Kudos to Google for having separated an engineer from his employment for having written and disseminated a manifesto stating that women dont have the biological wiring to do coding.

Germany has some of the most stringent antihate laws in the world: Germans apparently have paid attention to their history. Germanys justice minister said the new rules that apply offline would be equally enforceable online.

Moreover, the European Union ministers approved a plan this spring that will require social media platforms and online video hosts to block and remove from their platforms hate speech, incitement to hatred and content justifying terrorism.

Canada, Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, South Africa, Australia and India all have laws banning hate speech. The U.S. mind-set, deeply rooted in law and culture, has a more individualistic approach. In short: Im an American, so I can say what I want.

Others complain that it would be undemocratic for the government to regulate speech. The Federal Communications Commission for many decades, however, has taken issue with obscene, indecent, profane comments and banned them. How ironic that ones average swear word is verboten on the airways, but ethnic nastiness is not.

In 1983, a New York judge dismissed a libel case brought by several Puerto Rican groups against a business executive who had called food stamps basically a Puerto Rican program. How far have we come in 34 years? The 2016 presidential nominee, Donald Trump, labeled Mexican immigrants a bunch of rapists and went on to win the presidency.

Free speech must be defended. However, given the enormous demographic changes in our country, isnt it time to rethink the public permissive use of hate speech? Would it help our society to advance to make my freedom more important than the hatred and disrespect spewed at the other? In other words, what about the victims freedom to live without fear and insult?

There is evidence of a cultural shift in how hate speech is viewed. The stunning 3 million-person march led by women in pink pussy hats in January had a visceral connection to Trumps hate speech. Signs in Bay Area windows reading Hate-free zone clearly applied to both acts of violence and speech.

Perhaps our growing rainbow nation will dramatically shake up patterns of behavior once found acceptable, and make them, well, totally unacceptable. Would it not be appropriate for us, given our blighted past, to move in the direction of being a kinder, gentler people by finding ways to eventually vanquish hate speech?

Kathy Lipscomb of San Francisco works on tenants rights issues.
A hearing to help determine the fate of the medical license of Lincolns top trauma surgeon, scheduled for Tuesday, has been postponed until October.

Dr. Reginald Burton requested the continuance Monday, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services.

The state earlier this month temporarily suspended Burtons medical license, saying his "continued practice at this time would constitute an imminent danger to public health and safety."

An investigation of Bryan Health's former medical director of trauma revealed multiple complaints by his former co-workers, many of them focused on Burtons insistence on treating young male patients.

The states 15-page petition to suspend his license includes accusations that Burton performed medically unnecessary genital exams and a rectal exam; that he frequently insisted on inserting catheters in male patients, even if there wasnt a medical need; that he took cellphone pictures of the genitalia of male patients without their consent; and that he touched the penises of unconscious patients.

Burton was escorted from Bryan Medical Center in late September and resigned in December.

On Sunday, his lawyer said the states petition was fueled by innuendo and gossip, but it did not contain a single allegation of patient injury or complaint.

Ohio attorney Wayne Waite called the complaints against Burton an attempt to drive his client, who is gay, out of town. The complaint is based almost entirely on the fear of working with someone with a different sexual orientation," Waite said.

The 57-year-old Burton joined Nebraskas busiest trauma center in 2002, and was celebrated for saving lives in some of the regions highest profile tragedies. He testified at the Legislature in favor of helmet requirements and stricter seat belt laws, and he recently trained first responders on treating victims of mass shootings.
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Napa Valleys Duckhorn Wine Co. has acquired Calera Wine Co., the pioneering Central Coast Pinot Noir producer. The sale includes the Calera brand, winemaking facility, tasting room, estate vineyards and all inventory. Terms of the sale were not disclosed.

Im 73 years old, and Ive been doing this job for 42 years, said Caleras founder and owner Josh Jensen, noting that none of his three adult children had decided to join the family wine business. Without an heir, I just wanted to make sure that when the day comes that Calera were to be sold, that Id be able to be there to pick the best of the best to carry on the baton. And Im just delighted that Duckhorn was interested.

Duckhorn wasnt looking to buy a winery, said longtime President and CEO Alex Ryan, but when we happened to come across an extraordinary brand, we had no choice but to consider it.

Duckhorn and Calera have a good deal in common. Both released their first wines  Merlot and Pinot Noir, respectively  in 1978. Both wineries founders, Dan Duckhorn and Jensen, have been named Chronicle Winemakers of the Year  Duckhorn in 2005, Jensen in 2007. The families have long been friends. We used to go to San Ysidro Ranch together every New Years Eve, Jensen said.

Calera was the result of Jensens longtime quest for limestone in California  the soil type that undergirds the vineyards of the French region of Burgundy, Pinot Noirs famous home. Duckhorn gets the 85 acres of vines that Jensen planted in the Mount Harlan American Viticultural Area. (The government-approved viticultural area designation allows winemakers to list the origin of the wine on bottles.) Calera produces about 35,000 cases of wine every year.

During the last four decades, while Jensen remained focused on his little slice of the Gavilan Mountains, the Duckhorn enterprise grew to a wine empire of modest size. What Dan and Margaret Duckhorn started in 1976 in St. Helena expanded to 600 vineyard acres and five additional wineries: Goldeneye, Paraduxx, Migration, Decoy and Canvasback. The companys total output is about 800,000 cases, with over half of that coming from Decoy, a lower-priced brand.

In the past decade, Duckhorn has been sold twice to private-equity firms: in 2007 to San Franciscos GI Partners for a reported $250 million, and in 2016 to TSG Consumer Partners, also of San Francisco. The last sale was rumored to be for $600 million.

This is the first winery acquisition for Duckhorn.

Jensen will join Duckhorns board of directors. He has signed a four-year consulting contract and will remain very active in operations, he said. All Calera staff will remain, including winemaker Mike Waller.

I believe that Josh and a very small group of pioneer winemakers gave California the right to play in the world of luxury Pinot Noir, said Ryan. He introduced coastal California Pinot to the world. And weve all been lucky enough to follow in his footsteps.

Esther Mobley is The San Francisco Chronicles wine, beer and spirits writer. Email: emobley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Esther_mobley Instagram: @esthermob
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When Oakland nurse Maria Mendoza-Sanchez noticed an incoming call Tuesday afternoon from Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the mother of four waved her family into her bedroom and put the phone on speaker.

She knew there was a chance, albeit a small one, that she would receive an 11th-hour piece of good news  one that would spare her from having to split up her family by moving to her native Mexico with her husband and youngest child Wednesday under a federal deportation order.

But Feinstein, D-Calif., told Mendoza-Sanchez, as she stood surrounded by loved ones, that immigration authorities had denied the request for a stay for her and her husband, who have lived in the U.S. for more than two decades but do not have legal status.

She said she was sorry she couldnt do anything, Mendoza-Sanchez said.

The room fell quiet.

Im already tired of fighting, fighting, fighting, she said. What can I do? I did everything I could and Im exhausted. This has been a battle that took everything out of me.

The couple and their 12-year-old son, Jesus, who is a U.S. citizen by birth, will catch a flight to Mexico City Wednesday evening  a flight they had pushed back one day in hopes of winning a late reprieve from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE.

They will start a new life while leaving behind daughters, ages 16, 21 and 23. The plan is for the older girls to raise the youngest, seeing her through two more years of high school.

The familys attorney, Carl Shusterman, said Tuesdays denial of the stay request, which had been filed Friday, was a tragedy. He said ICE officials had indicated they couldnt make an exception for her. If they did, they would have to make an exception for other people, too.

ICE officials did not comment Tuesday, but an agency spokeswoman defended the deportation order last week, saying the familys case had gone through a lengthy review in immigration courts and, neither of these individuals has a legal basis to remain in the U.S.

Mendoza-Sanchez is a nurse in the oncology and cardiology wing of Highland Hospital, and neither she nor her husband, truck driver Eusebio Sanchez, has a criminal record. Their removal after many years reflects the contours of an immigration crackdown under the Trump administration, in which nearly all immigrants without documentation are eligible for deportation.

One immigration expert said the denial of the stay was indicative of clear shifts in the governments approach to deportation. In past cases that received attention from the media and opposition from local politicians, ICE would often change course, fearing negative publicity, said Pratheepan Gulasekaram, a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law.

ICE is sending a message with this removal, he said. Everybody is potentially a target.

In May, the couple were told by immigration officials that they had three months to arrange their travel to Mexico, and they decided the best option was to split up the family. The two younger daughters are U.S. citizens, while the older daughter, Vianney, is protected by the governments Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Feinstein, who met with the family last week after reading a front-page Chronicle story about the case, said she would introduce a private bill in September to help the family gain permanent residence. However, such bills are rarely signed into law.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf on Tuesday called on ICE to reverse the deportation, saying Mendoza-Sanchez represents the best of Oakland.

At Mendoza-Sanchezs home, everything was set for the big move. Duffel bags, backpacks and suitcases lined the living room floor, ready to be packed into a van and taken to the airport. But by delaying the flight, the family gained a little more time together.

Theyre not leaving today at least, said the 21-year-old daughter, Melin, a UC Santa Cruz senior. We have one more day with our parents.

Her mother recounted that as she worked her regular night shift at the hospital Saturday, a patient facing surgery told her, Can you believe whats happening to this nurse here? Maria? Its horrible.

Mendoza-Sanchez said she laughed and responded, Thats me! Im that nurse!

The patient was surprised, and followed up: How are you able to tell me jokes and try to keep me calm while you have all of this going on?

This is my passion, Mendoza-Sanchez recalled telling the patient. Im doing what I love. Whenever Im at work, I leave whatever is happening to me outside.

After a nap following Feinsteins Tuesday call, Mendoza-Sanchez sent a message to her nursing colleagues, with whom she had become close. Many of them attended a rally Monday at the hospital to support her.

You are the most beautiful friends anyone could ask for. Working with you has been a wonderful experience. I wish you guys the best in everything you do. I will miss you very much, she wrote. I am sorry if I caused any kind of emotional pain. God bless you guys.

Hamed Aleaziz is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: haleaziz@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @haleaziz
Google reportedly has bought Senosis Health, a Seattle startup that has created smartphone apps that help people monitor such things as their pulmonary function and hemoglobin counts. GeekWire reported on the deal, citing anonymous sources, but no details were available on the purchase price or where Senosis would fit within Googles parent company, Alphabet.

Number of the day

$7 billion

Thats how much Netflix will spend on original programming next year, its chief content officer told Variety. The streaming service spent more than $6 billion last year, Ted Sarandos said in an interview with Variety, which has named him showman of the year. Licensed content still makes up the majority of that available on Netflix, Sarandos said. Were still a couple years from seeing it go 50-50.

Instant gratification

takes too long

Need those chips fast? If you are on the UC Berkeley campus, Amazon has you covered. On Tuesday, the company began offering a service that lets Prime members near college campuses in five cities pick up snacks, cold drinks or phone chargers within two minutes of ordering them online. Instant Pickup is the latest move by the e-commerce giant to expand its physical locations. The sites are also in Los Angeles, Atlanta, College Park, Md., and Columbus, Ohio. More locations are planned.

Daily Briefing is compiled from San Francisco Chronicle staff and news services. See more items and links at www.sfgate.com. Twitter: @techchronicle
Photo by Grace L. on Yelp

A new cafe, breakfast and brunch spot has debuted in the neighborhood. Located at 4555 California St. (between 7th Ave & Cornwall St) in the Inner Richmond, the fresh arrival is called Beanstalk Cafe.

This new addition to the neighborhood, which joins the original Beanstalk location in Nob Hill, serves a unique array of pastries, sandwiches and more, including a breakfast sandwich on a "cragel" (croissant-bagel hybrid topped with cream cheese). There's a large selection of coffee drinks as well, including pour-over coffees, a drip coffee of the day, and espresso-based options.
A famed jazz musician is on the hunt for a saxophone that he left in a San Francisco taxi after a performance Saturday night.

Donald Harrison, who according to his website pioneered the "Nouveau Swing" style of jazz, said in a Facebook post that he left the instrument in a Flywheel taxi after a show at the Boom Boom Room. The musician said he paid in cash, thus the driver could not be tracked down.
The first day of school is right around the corner and while this big day is exciting for many parents and kids, it can send others into a panic. Parents worry their children will feel abandoned and be scarred for life, while kids are overwhelmed by the transition and separating from their parents.

For some advice on this topic, SFGATE reached out to Chad Slife, a principal at Dr. William L. Cobb Elementary in San Francisco. Slife says he's especially empathetic to the issue of separation anxiety because he was that kindergartener who ran out of the school crying.

"I always tell parents this," Slife says. "And I went on to become valvedictorian at my high school and now I'm a principal." In other words, he obviously went on to love school.

We also spoke with Sasha Albani, a licensed marriage and family therapist with a private practice in San Francisco. Albani has helped many parents ease their children's anxiety around school and is currently preparing her 2-year-old for her first day of preschool.

Here are Slife and Albani's tips aimed at children entering preschool and elementary school:

Preparing for the first day

Visit the school. "Once you get your enrollment, come on a school tour, walk the halls, find the bathrooms, find the cafeteria," says Slife. "But don't show up unannounced. Call or email the school to ask if you can come by."

Even just driving by the school when you're in the area in the days leading up to the first day can be helpful. "We drove past my daughter's school this weekend and looked at the playground. Asked her, 'Who do you know there?' It's becoming part of her language and I'm trying to help her create an image of what it's going to look like."

Talk about the first day. "I think it's really important to be making sure that you're having some conversations with your kid leading up to the first day and making it a really exciting thing," Albani says. "Not wanting them to be afraid of this thing that's about to come up and talking about this cool thing...they're going to make new friends."

"Try finding some books about kids going to school," she adds. "Just trying to making the first day something that's exciting and talking about it."

Ask your child questions, Slife advises: "What are you going to do at school? How do you feel about school? Are you excited? Are you scared?"

Go school shopping. "Take them on a shopping trip that makes them feel like they're starting a new thing," says Slife. "A new backpack goes a long way and it's kind of ceremonial."

Organize play dates. "I always encourage these, especially for the younger grades," Slife says. "You want them to make friends so they at least have a buddy to start school."

On the first day

Eat breakfast. Your child will be emotionally stronger if he has eaten a healthy breakfast with protein, such as a bacon and eggs or a bagel with peanut butter.

Slife recognizes that for some families a hot breakfast at home is difficult to accomplish "I think the best way is to have food that's on the go," he says. "Always have granola bars and fruit on hand. A banana eaten in the car is better than nothing."

Stay calm and keep your own anxiety under control. "I have so many parents where it's hard to separate out what's their anxiety and what they're projecting onto their kid," Albani says. "Is this your own fear or is it their fear? Is this what I need or is this what they need?"

Remember that you know your child best. When deciding when and where to say goodbye, Slife advises parents to consider how their child handles transitions. "Listen to your child and find a place where you feel comfortable and they feel comfortable," he says. "You have to find that ground."

He adds: "The first few days of school we let parents stay on the yard, and some parents, if their schedule allows and the teacher permits it, then yes they can come into the classroom for a little bit. Then the child sees the home to school connection. They see they know my classroom, they know my teacher. You know best if your child needs this gradual release."

Know that it's OK to leave your child crying. "Parents often don't have faith in their kids' ability," Albani says. "There are parents who always step in and rescue their child. It's OK for your kid to cry. As long as you say something like, 'I know this is difficult and I'm going to come and get you at the end of the day and I'll be so proud of you.'"

Albani emphasizes that it's important to work through this issue when children are young and "take the Band-aid off" because if you don't, you could be dealing with it when your child is older.

"There's this whole anxiety around school that ends up in school refusal," she says. "You need to be able to leave your kid there crying. It's easier to deal with this when they're young rather than when they're 13 years old and refusing to go to school."

Don't miss: SFGATE news producer Amy Graff will be discussing ways to ease your child's anxiety on the first day of school on KTVU's "Mornings on 2" on Tuesday, Aug. 15 at 9:20 a.m.
Associated Press

Ingrid Goes West is an ideal vehicle for Aubrey Plaza, in that it taps into everything we know she can do and challenges her to do other things that she hasnt done before. This is a comic actress who is particularly good at playing people who are trying to get away with something, whose manner suggests one thing but whose eyes tell us something else. Here she gets to play that situation in virtually every scene  to comic effect, mostly, but with moments of drama seeping in as well.

This is an assured first feature film from director and co-writer Matt Spicer, who is 33 and thus young enough to understand the social media bubble that his lead character inhabits. At the start of the film, Ingrid (Plaza) is boiling over with rage as she sits in a car and looks at a friends Instagram entries. We soon realize that she is parked outside the wedding of that friend. Ingrid gets out, marches up to the bride, who is horrified to see her, and sprays her with Mace.
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Two of the most violent films from 1971 will screen at the Castro Theatre: Stanley Kubricks A Clockwork Orange and Sam Peckinpahs more disturbing Straw Dogs, which screens in a 35mm IB Tech Print.

Straw Dogs centers on a meek mathematician (Dustin Hoffman) who moves to an English village with wife Amy (Susan George) to escape America. But the brawny local men begin to harass them, climaxing in the infamous sequence where two of the men, including Amys former boyfriend, gang-rape her. Hoffman is forced to defend their house in the vicious finale.
DURHAM, N.C.  Protesters will face felony charges for toppling a nearly century-old Confederate statue in front of a North Carolina government building, the sheriff said Tuesday.

Durham County Sheriff Mike Andrews said some of the protesters who tore down the statue Monday had been identified, and investigators were preparing arrest warrants.

But across the South, leaders are rethinking what to do with the controversial monuments.

In Gainesville, Fla., workers hired by the Daughters of the Confederacy chipped away at a Confederate soldiers statue, loaded it quietly on a truck and drove away with little fanfare.

In Baltimore, Mayor Catherine Pugh said shes ready to tear down all of her citys Confederate statues, and the city council voted to have them destroyed. San Antonio lawmakers are looking ahead to removing a statue from a prominent downtown park.

The deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., is accelerating the removal of Confederate monuments in cities across the nation in much the same way that a 2015 mass shooting by a white supremacist led to the end of the Confederate flag being flown on public property.

We should not glorify a part of our history in front of our buildings that really is a testament to Americas original sin, Gainesville Mayor Lauren Poe said Monday after the statue known as Old Joe was returned to the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which erected it in 1904.

Some people refused to wait. Protesters in Durham, N.C., used a rope to pull down a nearly century-old statue of a soldier holding a rifle in front of an old courthouse.

Many officials who were horrified by the events that killed one person and injured dozens more Saturday in Charlottesville soon began publicizing plans to remove statues.

Jesse J. Holland and Jonathan Drew are Associated Press writers.
NEW YORK  After years of decline, teen deaths from drug overdoses have inched up, a new U.S. government report shows.

The drop in teen deaths had been a rare bright spot in the opioid epidemic that has seen adult overdose deaths surge year after year, fueled by abuse of prescription painkillers, heroin and newer drugs like fentanyl.

This is a warning sign that we need to keep paying attention to whats happening with young people, said Katherine Keyes, a Columbia University expert on drug-abuse issues who wasnt part of the study.

Its not clear why teen overdose deaths increased in 2015 or whether the trend will continue, said lead researcher Sally Curtin of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC released the report Wednesday focusing on adolescents ages 15 to 19.

The overdose death rate rose to 3.7 per 100,000 teens in 2015, from 3.1 in 2014. Most of the deaths were accidental and were mainly caused by heroin, researchers found.

Clearly, drug overdoses have been a far smaller problem in teens than in adults. Tens of thousands of adults die from overdoses each year compared with about 700 to 800 teens.

Another difference: Unlike adults, teen overdose deaths have not been climbing every year.

To their surprise, CDC researchers found that teen overdose deaths actually fell after 2008, and dropped as low as about 3 per 100,000 during 2012 through 2014.
With less than a week before a total solar eclipse traces its shadow across the nation, scientists, amateur astronomers and wayfaring mystics are feverishly watching the forecast, hoping the rare celestial event isnt a bust.

But on the West Coast, where the eclipse will come into view Monday morning, forecasters are starting to see some bad omens.

Early computer models suggest cloudy skies are likely along the coast, from the path of totality, where the moon will pass entirely in front of the sun, in Oregon to the Bay Area, where the moon will cover about 75 percent of the sun.

We will have some clouds around, said Matthew Cullen, a meteorologist with National Weather Services Portland, Ore., office. In the Pacific Northwest, we see morning clouds that burn off, but just how many clouds, where they will be, and how long they stick around  those are the big questions we have.

Even if there are clouds, the eclipse will still produce an eerie daytime darkness that will be less noticeable farther from the path of total coverage.

The total eclipses path will run across the contiguous United States from Oregon to South Carolina, with points to the north and south experiencing various levels of partial eclipse. The event marks the first coast-to-coast total solar eclipse since 1918 and the first to touch any part of the lower 48 states since 1979.

With Oregon offering the West Coasts best viewing, up to 1 million people  many from California  are expected to converge there by the roughly 10:15 a.m. start time. Eclipse tourism has already been a boon to the states economy, and hotels up and down the coast are at or near capacity.

Some of Oregons eclipse chasers arent taking any chances on the possibility of clouds and are heading inland to towns like Madras, Mitchell or Prairie City, where clear skies are forecast.

The best spots in the Bay Area, should there be cloud cover, will likely be the inland East Bay valleys or on peaks like Mount Tamalpais, Mount Hamilton or Mount Diablo.

A last-minute scramble for higher ground in California could cause serious traffic problems around the peaks and on roads heading east. The highway patrol is urging drivers to be patient.

Transportation officials in Oregon are already planning for major traffic problems. If the clouds dont burn off and everyone on the Oregon coast suddenly breaks for high ground, the congestion would only worsen.

People are watching the weather keenly right now, said Lorna Davis, director of the chamber of commerce in Newport, Ore. It can change day to day or even hour to hour. Thats the nature of the coast weather.

The good news is there are no major storms forecast for Monday. A cloudy coast in August is typical weather for Oregon  just like San Franciscos famous Fogust.

Whats more, clouds are no certainty. Forecasting storms is challenging enough one week out. Predicting what clouds will look like seven days in advance is even tougher.

The forecast will likely change as the models come into agreement, Cullen said. In the meantime, what we know now is we are not seeing any signs of heavy rain.

If Mondays eclipse gets clouded out, the next total solar eclipse in the U.S. will be in 2024.

Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky
As the Trump administration prepares to open negotiations to "modernize" the North American Free Trade Agreement, Gov. Pete Ricketts on Tuesday urged U.S. negotiators to prioritize growth in market access for U.S. agricultural and manufacturing goods.

"It is crucial that these discussions at a minimum maintain the provisions that have helped make Canada and Mexico Nebraska's top trading partners," the governor said.

"Both of these markets are vital to growing Nebraska," Ricketts said.

"The president has delivered before, and I'm confident he and his team can deliver during the upcoming negotiations."

President Donald Trump threatened to withdraw the United States from NAFTA during his presidential campaign, then called for renegotiation of the treaty before settling on language that focused on "modernizing" the trade agreement.

Negotiations to consider changes in the 1993 trade pact with Canada and Mexico are scheduled to begin Wednesday.

Ricketts recently returned from a trade mission to Canada that was designed in part to dramatize the importance of NAFTA to Nebraska.

"There are still opportunities to reduce or eliminate tariffs on dairy, poultry, eggs and wine, as well as other non-tariff barriers on products such as ethanol," the governor said.

"Nebraska's economic growth is largely dependent on free and fair trade with foreign nations," Barry Kennedy, president of the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said in an accompanying statement.

In 2015, Nebraska exported $8 billion of goods, he said, and more than $6 billion represented manufacturing products.

"From an agricultural perspective, it is imperative that NAFTA negotiations stand firm on the principle of maintaining and even expanding the market access our agricultural products have with both Canada and Mexico," Nebraska Farm Bureau President Steve Nelson said.
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A Los Angeles-based tech company is resisting a federal demand for more than 1.3 million IP addresses to identify visitors to a website set up to coordinate protests on Inauguration Day -- a request whose breadth the company says violates the Constitution.

"What we have is a sweeping request for every single file we have" in relation to DisruptJ20.org, said Chris Ghazarian, general counsel for DreamHost, which hosts the site. "The search warrant is not only dealing with everything in relation to the website but also tons of data about people who visited it."

The request also covers emails between the site's organizers and people interested in attending the protests, any deleted messages and files, as well as subscriber information - such as names and addresses - and unpublished photos and blog posts that are stored in the site's database, according to the warrant and Ghazarian.

The request, which DreamHost made public Monday, set off a storm of protest among civil liberties advocates and within the tech community.

"What you're seeing is pure prosecutorial overreach by a politicized Justice Department, allowing the Trump administration to use prosecutors to silence critics," Ghazarian said.

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in the District of Columbia, which sought the warrant, declined to comment. But prosecutors, in court documents, argued that the request was constitutional and there was no reason for DreamHost not to comply.

The search warrant was issued July 12 by a Superior Court judge in the District of Columbia and served on DreamHost on July 17.

The request marked an escalation from January when prosecutors investigating the protests asked DreamHost to preserve records and issued a subpoena for a limited set of data on the site. The company complied with both requests, Ghazarian said.

In April, the federal government charged more than 200 people in connection with the protests that injured six police officers and damaged store windows and at least one vehicle. The charges included property damage and assault.

After the search warrant was served, DreamHost raised concerns with Assistant U.S. Attorney John W. Borchert, according to court documents. The company thought the request was overbroad and that it sought information - such as draft blog posts - in violation of the 1980 Privacy Protection Act.

Prosecutors responded July 28 with a motion to compel the company to turn over the data on DisruptJ20. "That website was used in the development, planning, advertisement and organization of a violent riot that occurred in Washington, D.C. on January 20, 2017," U.S. Attorney Channing Phillips said in the motion. DreamHost's concern about breadth "simply is not a sufficient basis . . . to refuse to comply with the warrant."

The prosecutors also argued that the warrant identified the "precise categories of information" that DreamHost must provide and "precise limitations" on the information that the government may seize. They also argued that the Privacy Protection Act does not preclude the government from seizing even "protected" materials with a search warrant.

On Friday, DreamHost filed a reply arguing that the warrant's breadth violates the Fourth Amendment because it failed to describe with "particularity" the items to be seized. Asking for "all records or other information" pertaining to the site, including "all files, databases and database records" is far too broad, the company said.

The warrant also raises First Amendment issues, it said. Visitors to the protest site should have the right to keep their identities private, but if they fear that the Justice Department will have information on them, that will chill their freedom of speech and association, the company argued.

Mark Rumold, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that no plausible explanation exists for a search warrant of such breadth, "other than to cast a digital dragnet as broadly as possible."

He said that the government appears to be investigating a conspiracy to riot, "but it's doing it in a blunt manner that does not take into account the significant First Amendment interests."

Even people who were nowhere near Washington on Inauguration Day who visited the website will have their data "swept into a criminal investigation," he said.

A hearing is scheduled for Friday in Superior Court before Judge Lynn Leibovitz.
Stephen Lam/Special to The Chronicle

Mathew Sumner/Special to the Chronicle

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A 48-year-old man was shot and killed early Monday in San Franciscos Bayview neighborhood, police said.

The victim, who was not identified because authorities are yet to notify his family, was shot on the 2600 block of Jennings Street around 2:15 am., police said.

MORE: Drone footage shows whales surrounding boat in Monterey Bay

Investigators did not immediately release details on the circumstances of the slaying or a possible motive.

No suspect was identified or arrested.

Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: ESernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky
OMAHA  A 42-year-old Iowa woman who was convicted of killing her romantic rival has been sent to a Nebraska prison for life.

A Douglas County judge sentenced Shanna Golyar in Omaha on Tuesday. She'd been found guilty of arson and first-degree murder after a nonjury trial. Prosecutors said she killed 37-year-old Cari Farver, who was last seen in Omaha in November 2012. Her body hasn't been found.

Police say Golyar posed as Farver online and by phone for years after Farver's disappearance and also posed as other people confessing to having killed Farver. An officer testified that Farver had been dating Golyar's ex-boyfriend for some weeks when she disappeared.

Golyar's lawyer argued that prosecutors presented no evidence that a homicide occurred: no body, no murder weapon and no crime scene.
"Those that capture our hearts" by Nebraska by Heart artist Sue Kalicki from Omaha was created and sponsored as homage to the unbreakable bond between pet owners and their animals.

Typical to pop-art style, Kalicki was inspired to make this heart to celebrate and elevate a simple subject, while grabbing the attention of its viewers. On the front, a big, bright blue Labrador retriever is shown looking to the sky, or as one can imagine, into its owner's eyes. On the back of the heart sits a purple cat with piercing, green eyes. The base of this heart is filled with pawprints in a range of vivid colors reading, Those that capture our hearts leave their paw prints on us forever across the back.

In writing what inspired her to make this heart, Kalicki mentions the unconditional love pets provide.

Anyone who has adopted a pet knows that look  the one that pleads with us, Take me home ... The bond between pets and their humans is one that stands the test of time. Their paw prints are forever imprinted on our hearts. This design celebrates two beloved pets, and the connection we have with them.

The connection is one Dan Bauerly and his golden retriever, Yeager, know very well. Bauerly is a quadriplegic who was injured in a car accident in May of 2000 when he fell asleep at the wheel on his way to a job interview in Kansas City. Four years later Bauerly acquired his service dog, Yeager.

Through the years of having Yeager as my companion, he has helped me with simple daily tasks such as picking items off the floor, opening doors, and emergency situations," said Bauerly. "More than anything, he provided a bond unlike anything I've ever experienced.

Yeager has always given him the confidence needed to deal with whatever life threw his way, he added. Yeagers approachable and social nature has enabled Bauerly to meet new people and make new friends.

In Yeagers old age he has been dealing with what Bauerly describes as old dog issues such as arthritis, hip dysplasia, and seizures. He receives daily medication to manage pain and seizures which allows him to continue accompanying me to my job.

Most recently, Yeager developed a sore on his back that became infected, requiring additional medical attention. The costs of these medications were more than Bauerly could afford. In order to allow Yeager to live a longer, more comfortable life, Bauerly turned to Sadie Dog Fund for financial relief.

Sadie Dog Fund, a local 501(c)(3) founded by patron Pam Hoffman, keeps Nebraska families together through education, prevention, and emergency grants. With the belief that dogs are family, Sadie Dog Fund helps Nebraska dogs with lifesaving surgeries and treatments that are too costly for their family.

In addition to paying a tribute to the patrons 501(c)(3) nonprofit, unbeknownst to artist Sue Kalicki, the dog and cat she painted bear a close resemblance to the sponsors beloved pets, Gypsy and Elvis.

Through Nebraska by Heart, Sadie Dog Fund plans to continue helping many Nebraska families' hearts be captured. As a beneficiary, Sadie Dog Fund will receive one-third of the proceeds from each heart sold at auction Friday, Oct. 6 at Haymarket Park.
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YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK  Pierre Celotto and Aurene Humbert had a definite vision in mind when they booked a summer vacation that included a day in Yosemite Valley.

Urged on by breathtaking photographs and nature documentaries, the Parisians said, they looked forward to serene walks along trails where pine trees threw shadows across streams and picturesque meadows teemed with wildlife.

When they arrived at the park on a recent Saturday, Celloto, 31, and Humbert, 29, were greeted by the reality: diesel smoke, honking horns and miles-long processions of buses and cars.

It was close to 10 a.m. when Humbert, her face long and her voice desperate, approached a ranger. Please, sir, do you know a place to park? You cant imagine how upset we are.

The ranger was sympathetic, but not much help: Keep looking; you might get lucky.

Despite promises of a far less cluttered and confused Yosemite made in a 2013 management plan  an effort to address the congestion without limiting the number of tourists  more vehicles than ever, up to 8,200 on a summer day, are clogging the valley known for its granite cliffs and waterfalls.

ALSO Yosemite fire near Wawona grows to 900 acres

On especially busy weekends, visitors who must wait just to pay an entrance fee of $30 per car may find themselves diverted to alternative routes away from the valley or back out of the park.

On the day Celotto and Humbert arrived, signs at the parks main entrances warned of delays of three hours or longer. Traffic in a new roundabout near Yosemite Valley Lodge had slowed to a crawl. Nearby, dozens of cars were parked haphazardly in a quarter-acre site designated off-limits because it was being restored to meadowland.

Along a 2-mile stretch of Highway 41 leading from the world-famous Tunnel View down to the valley floor, hundreds of cars were stranded in gridlock.

Very significant traffic congestion is a truly hard dilemma were faced with, said Chip Jenkins, acting superintendent of Yosemite National Park. Getting stuck in a line of cars for two to three hours after entering the gate is not the kind of quality experience we want people to have.

The statistics are not comforting. In 1986, the number of people visiting Yosemite was about 3 million. It took until 2015 to reach 4 million. A year later, the number had soared past 5 million. But with only 6,500 available parking spaces, according to officials, incidents of road rage and reported traffic accidents are up  along with miserable experiences shared on Yosemites Facebook page.

Traffic jams are choking one of our most cherished natural wonders, said John Buckley, executive director of the nonprofit Central Sierra Nevada Environmental Resource Center. Maybe its time for a federal court judge to decide whether Yosemite is violating its own management plan.

But adjusting the flow of visitors in a national park only a five-hour drive from 18 million people in Southern California would not be simple. And tourism in Yosemite  the heart of the Sierra Nevada economy  generates an annual cumulative benefit to the region of about $686 million, officials said, directly supporting nearly 8,000 jobs.

Buckley, like many conservationists, supports the creation of staging areas outside the valley where visitors could park and board shuttle buses.

However, Mark Thornten, a former member of the Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors, dismisses that concept as impractical, even un-American.

Traveling through Yosemite is supposed to be an adventure experienced by people in their own cars and on their own schedule, he said. To be blunt: Buses are socialism and cars are free choice.

Yosemites traffic problems date to the late 1950s, when thousands of motorists began jamming the valley to view the fire fall  a spectacle in which a cascade of hot coals was shoved over Glacier Point to the valley floor 3,000 feet below.

The show was canceled in 1968, mainly in an attempt to ease congestion. Later, a one-way traffic pattern was established in the valley, a reservation system was adopted for campgrounds, and free shuttle buses were introduced inside the park.

In 1980, the National Park Service quietly shelved a controversial proposal to remove all auto traffic from the valley in favor of a park-and-ride mass transit system.

This summer, officials started an experimental program that makes 150 parking spaces near Yosemite Falls available by reservation during the four weekends in August  the parks busiest month. The daylong reservations can be booked online for a $1.50 service fee.

Yosemite is one of a growing number of national parks experimenting with transportation strategies to reduce crowding.

At Utahs Zion National Park, where tens of thousands of visitors once fought over 400 available parking spaces each day during the peak season, a mandatory shuttle system began operation in 2000.

Later this year, Arches National Park in Utah is expected to approve a traffic congestion plan that calls for more shuttles to curb habitat destruction caused by double- and triple-parking. In September, Southern Californias Joshua Tree National Park plans to begin a long-awaited shuttle service.

The ultimate answer to the groundswell of disappointment among visitors is going to require a lot of hard work and public involvement, said Kathleen Morse, Yosemites chief planner.

In the meantime, with no place to park, many of the 50,000 visitors a day who roam Yosemite Valleys geological wonders on summer weekends will be forced to take snapshots through the windshields of their cars to prove they were there.

Then theres Ernest Smith, 63, who photographed the rivers of cars streaming into Yosemite Valley from a vantage point normally used to capture souvenir images of Half Dome and El Capitan.

Scrolling through the images on his digital camera, the San Diego resident offered this summation: This place is insane.

Louis Sahagun is a Los Angeles Times writer.
In one of my favorite scenes in HBO's "Silicon Valley," a comedy series about the world of computer engineers, a male engineer injects himself into a meeting between two female investors to explain, of all things, "something called 'mansplaining,' ladies."

They view him with silent, chilly bemusement as his condescending and patronizing manner unintentionally demonstrates "mansplaining," a term invented by a woman, even as he tries to explain it.

That scene came to mind amid Google's recent diversity drama in its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters in the real Silicon Valley.

Quite frankly, I wish Google had not fired computer engineer James Damore this past week for writing an internal memo. The memo argued that the notorious gender gap at Google, where techs are 80 percent male despite Google's liberal diversity policies, and other computer-age firms might be explained by biology.

You may have heard through some of the news coverage that he wrote a 10-page, 3,000-word "screed" of an argument against the notion that women are not as qualified as men.

He didn't. Quite the opposite, his critique of Google's diversity policy cites various research into male-female differences and argues that maybe women simply aren't as interested in tech, engineering or leadership positions as men are.

He takes studies that found, for example, that men are more interested in things and how they work while women are more interested in people and relationships. He cites studies that found women as a group to be more social and artistic and less tolerant of the stress that comes with high-pressure jobs.

Yup, he's wading into some pretty thick goo with that argument. His paper reminds me of the dust-up around "The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life," the 1994 book by Charles Murray and Richard J. Herrnstein that controversially tried to link intelligence to class and race.

I thought that book was wrong, too. So did scholars far more expert than I am. Yet I don't deny that such theories of evolutionary psychology are rampant and need to be argued openly, not censored and driven underground to fester without intellectual challenge.

I feel the same about Damore's memo. He draws a lot of broad conclusions that he claimed were backed up by studies.

His research was too thin to sufficiently support his questionable and inflammatory conclusion. He walks out on some thin ice, for example, to suppose that women are more prone to "neuroticism," or higher anxiety and lower stress tolerance for competitive, high-pressure jobs. Exceptions to that scenario are plentiful.

For example, Damore's memo omits evidence that bias, conscious and unconscious, still holds women back in the tech fields.

A study by university computer students last year, for example, looked at 3 million "pull requests" for computer code at GitHub, an open-source repository of codes with which users can build software. The study found that "code written by women was requested at a higher rate (78.6 percent) than code written by men (74.6 percent)," according to The Guardian, as long as the gender of the woman was not revealed. When the code author's gender was revealed, the acceptance rate dropped to about the same as men.

That study hardly settles every argument, but it does offer evidence of how women can, as a group, receive less reward for the same or superior effort. Like Damore's memo, it invites more discussion like what Google's diversity program seemed to offer Damore, until the discussion he brought up ruffled too many feathers.

In fact, it was with that in mind that Damore titled his memo "Google's Ideological Echo Chamber." He calls for more diversity, not less, and even concludes with suggestions for what he calls "non-discriminatory ways to reduce the gender gap" and increase the diversity of views in Google's diversity programs and policies.

Firing Damore makes a martyr of him. To figures of the "alt-right" movement (a rebranding of new Nazis, in my humble opinion), he became an instant hero, another sacrificial white male victim of liberal, pro-diversity "Social Justice Warriors," the alt-right label for those of us who think our society benefits from its diversity.

We Americans can find even more ways to make diversity work for us, not against us, as a society. But first we need to talk.

And, when others make their case, we need to listen -- and maybe learn to be better explainers.
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SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)

Two men jogging in San Francisco's Mission District early this morning were attacked and shot at on the street, police said.

The men, both 23, were jogging on 22nd Street near Mission Street toward a group of three men around 2 a.m. when one of the suspects punched one of them for no apparent reason, police said.

MORE NEWS: Furor grows over SF right-wing rally plans

The victims ran away, and the suspect pulled out a gun and shot at them before driving away in a vehicle with the two other suspects, according to police.

The two victims were uninjured.

No arrests have been reported in the case as of this morning.
When it comes to protecting our constitutional rights, the nations top cop could learn a thing or two from Nebraska.

At issue is civil asset forfeiture, a controversial practice that allows the government to permanently seize private property suspected of having been used in committing a crime or of being the proceeds of a crime. The practice has become controversial because owners of seized property are often never charged with a crime, much less convicted, by a court of law.

Due process is a basic tenet of American society; we are all equal under the law and are innocent until proven guilty. The practice of civil asset forfeiture is an affront to these basic principles and violates our constitutional rights. Government that has the power to confiscate private property without so much as a hearing or criminal trial is too powerful and must be curtailed.

Nebraska has been a leader in efforts to curb and reform the practice. In 2016, Gov. Pete Ricketts signed into law a bill introduced by Sen. Laura Ebke eliminating civil asset forfeiture and requiring a criminal conviction in order to forfeit property.

This seems obvious, but, when Nebraska adopted our new law, we became one of only nine states in which the government must convict a person before taking their private property.

Unfortunately, at a time when more elected officials should be following Nebraskas lead, just last month U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced plans to expand civil asset forfeiture. Its easy to see why politicians are attracted to forfeiture; its a lucrative business. Nebraska alone brought in more than $48 million in cash, automobiles and other property from 2000 to 2013.

As the Institute for Justice points out, This financial incentive creates a conflict of interest and encourages the pursuit of property instead of the pursuit of justice. A shocking 2014 study gave weight to this observation, showing that through asset forfeiture, government officials nationwide took more property from citizens than burglars did.

People from both sides of the political spectrum have rightly attacked the unfair practice as a violation of property and due process rights. A Cato Institute poll last year shows 84 percent of Americans from all demographics oppose civil asset forfeiture.

Change was on the horizon. Both major political parties called for civil asset forfeiture reform in their platforms last year. In 2015, the federal government imposed serious limits on the practice. States from Arizona to North Carolina joined ranks with Nebraska and passed critical reforms.

But then, last month, Sessions brought the steady drumbeat of change to a stunning halt. He announced plans to develop policies to increase forfeitures. In defense of his questionable reversal, he said no criminal should be allowed to keep the proceeds of their crime.

We can all agree that criminals ought to pay for their crimes. But it is as important, if not more important, that the constitutional right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.

The Justice Departments new policy disregards the will of voters, permitting law enforcement to take property without a criminal conviction even in states that passed laws prohibiting this practice.

A basic precept of a constitutional republic is that no citizen can be treated as a criminal by their government without first being convicted of a crime. Civil asset forfeiture lets government, not the rule of law, determine who is guilty and who is innocent. This runs contrary to the American concept of justice and is why our organization will work to reform this disturbing government overreach.

The attorney general should take a page out of Nebraskas book and require a conviction prior to forfeiture. That way, he can prevent criminals from keeping their ill-gotten gains, and uphold his sworn oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. Right now, were falling short of the ideal this nation was built on.
Whiteclay no longer represents a river of alcohol flowing from Nebraska into South Dakota and the dry Pine Ridge Reservation adjacent to it.

But the legacy of the unincorporated community long known as the Skid Row of the Plains will linger for much longer. Millions of cans of beer poured across the state line each year, proliferating rampant substance abuse, high unemployment and a life expectancy among the shortest in the Western world.

What lies beyond Whiteclay is still to be determined.

A special report in Sundays edition of the Journal Star, Beyond Whiteclay, detailed the stories of the Native people of Pine Ridge, the Oglala Lakota whose lives have been indelibly shaped by the impact of four beer stores in Nebraska ordered closed by state officials.

These residents tell of hope and heritage, of love and loss. All offer lessons for a future without the Whiteclay of years past  though decades of damage cannot be easily undone.

A new generation of Lakota leaders has encouraged and grown participation in tribal traditions. Healers and counselors strive to save the lives of young Pine Ridge residents after a wave of suicides. Native entrepreneurs and business owners have proposed new ventures. All aim at turning the tide on generations of chemical dependency and broken families.

From the ashes of the old Whiteclay, something will no doubt rise. What it will be remains uncertain, even as its chief export, alcohol, remains available elsewhere in Sheridan County and the surrounding area.

The scourge of alcoholism that has devastated Pine Ridge for generations isnt  and cant  be wiped off the map overnight.

The nearby cities of Rushville and Gordon are among those seeing major spikes in liquor sales since Whiteclays beer-only stores were shut down in late April. But the vagrancy and panhandling that plagued Whiteclay havent trickled down the two-lane highways into municipalities that braced themselves by passing ordinances to prevent such behaviors.

Though these Nebraska towns are yet to see the problems that defined Whiteclay, it doesnt mean the troubles have disappeared. Pine Ridge residents still beg for rides and money to go to Rush, as they call it, to feed their addiction, one that has touched every corner of their community.

As 18-year-old Cailee Ferguson told the Journal Star: Pine Ridge isnt a bad place. Its just a broken place.

Whiteclay played a large role in shattering lives and families on the reservation. Now, with its notorious industry shuttered, these cracks must be mended  and Nebraska must join with Native leaders to continue their efforts in creating a positive path forward.
Richard Griswold, 53, Tecumseh, second-degree murder, use of a firearm to commit a felony, Gage County, in prison since June 2008. He has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.

He has multiple disabilities including chronic hip pain since a hip replacement surgery and has not been granted surgical or medical procedures to repair his hip. Pain relievers are ineffective.

He displayed symptoms of ALS (Lou Gehrigs disease) in 2012, including tremors and difficulty swallowing, but was not seen by a neurologist until August 2015. ALS was ruled out, but no formal diagnosis has been made.

He has been overmedicated with amitriptyline, an antidepressant. He has experienced kidney and liver disease, and been told by medical staff he is suffering from kidney failure.

He is legally blind in one eye. Assistive items sent by the Nebraska Commission for the Blind have been withheld by the department for months. He was housed in isolation from January 2012 to June 2015.
RACINE  As the investigation into the shooting death of 20-year-old Dashaun Jordan continues, another arrest related to the case was made Monday by Racine police.

Police Sgt. Adam Malacara confirmed late Monday that a person of interest has been picked up in the case, but the persons name and the level of involvement was not released to the media.

Jordan, also known as 2-3 by his friends, was found shot to death just before midnight Aug. 6 in an alley south of 16th Street between Phillips and Murray Avenues.

The next day, 17-year-old Rytrell Earl was arrested and charged with first-degree intentional homicide as a party to a crime and four counts of attempted first-degree intentional homicide as a party to a crime.

Police say Jordan was shot in a drive-by shooting when Earl, a known gang member, thought Jordan was a member of a rival gang. Jordan had no gang ties, according to police.

Less than half a block away from the shooting site, concerned residents joined the Third District Concerned Citizens Neighborhood Watch group meeting Monday night at the Polzin Community Policing House, 1900 16th St., for an update on the homicide and other news.

During the meeting  the first of the organization since the homicide  Community Policing Unit Officer Tim Cisler announced the arrest.

Ed Miller, executive director of Racine Revitalization Partnership, asked if the vacant house near the crime was a concern for police.

It seems like all these gun crimes occur around vacant houses. The trouble occurs because there is no neighbors around to call these things in and report criminal activity, Miller said.

Cisler said there are vacant properties in problem neighborhoods, but there is more at work when it comes to the cause of violent crimes.

The (Jordan) homicide did not occur at the vacant house, Cisler said.

Role of cameras

According to the criminal complaint, neighborhood cameras that captured the image of the suspects vehicle was a key factor in the arrest. Cameras are something Cisler said can be used for suppression of crime.

Our camera truck does suppress shots fired calls. Its been an effective tool. People know that they (cameras) are out there. You can focus in an area to better assist police. (But) alleys are tough, Cisler said.

Susan Feehrer, program director for the Racine Neighborhood Watch Inc., asked residents to register their home security systems to help out police with a network of private cameras so investigators can use images to solve crimes.

When you register your camera with the Police Department the only time they will contact you is if there is an issue in your neighborhood and they may want to view any camera that you have. It saves time, Feehrer said.

Jordans homicide investigation started with a call from a resident reporting shots fired in the area, according to police. Neighborhood Watch block captain Amanda Hipper said residents need to partner with the police to stop crime like Jordans homicide.

Were not resigned to it. Were realistic about it. We know crime is happening and we have wonderful police officers protecting us, but not enough of them to go around. We cant put it all on the Police Department. There is not enough of them. There is only so much you can do, Hipper said.

Vigil grows

As the neighborhood heals from the act of random violence, the alley where Jordan died has become a memorial to him that is growing nightly.

Some neighbors who live along the alley have joined in on the nightly vigils, lighting candles of their own as the graffiti messages of love and support for Jordan have been scrolled on the brick walls up and down the alley between 16th and 17th streets.

Samuel Wilson-White, Jordans music mentor who helped promote his rap music and was around him growing up, told The Journal Times hes been out to the vigils and has lit candles with the community.

I support all of them, he said.
RACINE  From the cabin of a Cessna Skyhawk a few thousand feet in the air, Racine looks pretty small.

(Flying) is kind of like being free, said Autumn Cannalte, 18, a Horlick High School senior. When youre up in the sky, I guess you have the controls and everything, but you get to see Gods creation.

Cannalte was one of twelve, straight-A students who came from as far as Massachusetts to John H. Batten International Airport, 3239 N. Green Bay Road, to participate in the Young Aviators program, which teaches 14- to 18-year-olds science, technology, engineering and math skills  and yes, flight skills, too.

Working through a mix of classroom presentations, simulator routines and hands-on flight time, students attended the program every day from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Intense week

What sparked Cannaltes interest in the program was a flight with a neighbor last summer. Though its a little too late for her to take up Horlicks aviation academy path, she said Young Aviators should help satisfy her desire to fly; she plans on attending college for teaching, but she sees being a pilot as a fallback.

The cost per student for the program is $3,000, but donations help offset the cost for each individual. Every student accepted gets a $2,200 scholarship, bringing their contribution to $795.

Every candidate goes through an interview process where the Young Aviators board of directors screens them in a way similar to potential employers.

Its an intense week, Young Aviators President Steve Myers said. We really kind of keep them busy, and we stimulate them very much. The rewards for us are that, at the end of the week, we have changed the looks, the attitudes and  maybe in some cases  the life of these kids.

Throughout the course of the week, students get about 5 hours behind the controls of a plane. A piloting license requires 40 hours of experience, so the program modestly helps aspiring aeronauts achieve their prerequisites, much like driving lessons do.

Other skills, too

Students also learn handyman skills, something that most of them have never experienced, Myers said. They each make their own wing leading edge piece  essentially a brace to help reinforce wings  and put a clock inside as a keepsake.

Most of the kids coming through our program now have never even held a tool, Myers said. They start with a flat piece of aluminum and, in 5 days, they turn this piece of aluminum into a complex, real airplane component.

Myers said that the components students make typically end up on a fireplace mantle as a proud display of their work. Whenever he talks to alumni, he said they invariably say crafting the edge piece was one of their favorite parts of the program.

Giving back

Some kids, such as Mason McGuire, 17, even return to help out in subsequent years.

I learned so much, said McGuire, who graduated from the program in 2015. I thought, Wouldnt it be great if I could come back and do for more kids what these guys have done for me?

Curiously, McGuire is not a Racine native. He lives in Madison and stays with his aunt in New Berlin, making the 35- to 45-minute drive to Batten Airport daily. Barring helping the new kids out, McGuire said the addictive nature of flying and the tight-knit pilot community are enough to keep him coming back.

The birds-eye view is incredible, McGuire said. You see the entire world. Everything looks so small from the sky, and insignificant. It makes you think about the things that really matter when youre up there and you see the whole sky and the entire world beneath you  and you laugh at the people stuck in traffic.
RACINE  House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is scheduled to host a town hall meeting in Racine next week, one which will have a live audience.

The town hall, scheduled to take place at 8 p.m. Aug. 21 at the Racine Theatre Guild, 2519 Northwestern Ave., is to be televised on CNN and anchored by CNNs Jake Tapper. According to a release from Ryans office, the speaker will take questions from his constituents and the release specifically highlighted the need for transformational tax reform as being a key topic for the event.

Im always looking for new opportunities to hear from with the people I work for here in the 1st District, said Ryan. Their priorities and concerns inform the work I do in Washington, and Im excited to continue the dialogue at this event.

According to the release, the town hall will air on CNN, CNN en Espanol, CNN International, and will be carried by CNNs SiriusXM Channel 116 and the Westwood One Radio Network. CNN will be in charge of attendance for the event and is inviting people of Wisconsins 1st Congressional District to fill the audience, although no specifics were released on how to RSVP for the event.

The Theatre Guilds website says its facility has 378 permanent seats with 14 spaces for wheelchairs or portable seating.

Ryan has been criticized by some for not holding live meetings with constituents. Among those being critical has been U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., who represents the Madison area. Pocan presided as a stand-in at a town hall meeting in Kenosha on July 8 organized by local Democrats.

Ryans Republican colleague, U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner, who represents parts of suburban Milwaukee, has held several live-audience meetings, sometimes enduring catcalls in the process.

Ryan, whose district includes all of Racine County, has held call-in town hall meetings. Ryans staff has cited security concerns as a reason for discontuining live town hall meetings.

As House speaker, he is second in line to the presidency after the vice president.
One of the many story lines of Cherrie Moragas The Mathematics of Love follows an octogenarian with dementia. Peaches (Rose Portillo) cant remember where she is, why shes there, that her kids have long grown up or that Daughter (Sarita Ocon) lost a partner two months ago. Celebrating her 50th wedding anniversary with Poppa (George Killingsworth) in the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel, she compulsively scrubs toilets and folds towels, thinking shes still the hired help she was in her youth at a Tijuana casino.

Portraying a character with memory and cognitive problems is one thing. But as a whole, this world premiere, seen Sunday, Aug. 13, at Brava Theater Center, is just as fuzzy and impenetrable as Peaches own ramblings.

The Mathematics of Love, which Moraga also directs, is the kind of show you try your darndest to like. Blending eras, it weaves together the many ways indigenous and Latina women, throughout centuries, have been enslaved. Malinxe (Veronica Maynez), an Indian sold into slavery to Hernan Cortes by her mother (also Portillo), goes on to translate for him, helping him conquer the Aztecs, and become his lover.

Time-traveling to the 18th century, when she checks into that eras version of the Biltmore, Mission Spa and Towers, she has her own slave, Girl (Portillo once again), who jockeys for space on a sleeping mat with Nana (Carla Pantoja), a stinky-footed hotel staffer and the only character to remain roughly the same, no matter the epoch of the moment.

In childhood, Peaches wasnt exactly sold by her mother to the predatory casino owner, the towns bossman, la tortilla and el frijol para la familia. But she, too, might as well have been; Amado (Carlos Aguirre) recalls Peaches mother watching as she trudges into his clutches. If Daughter seems comparably better positioned  shes empowered enough to be studying for a nursing exam  she, too, is oppressed. She doesnt get credit for anything she does for her parents, not even a first name, whereas her unseen brother is called God. Her lesbianism and her gender both get scorn.

If the project here is worthy, and very much of a piece with Moragas canon of work as a leading Chicana playwright, the text and the direction both lack focus. Its not just that its hard to tell which era or eras were in, or which of her many characters an actor is supposed to be playing; nobody seems to actually want to be in the hotel.

Each time characters suggest they care about something  that God might arrive soon, that Nana might tell Girl a secret, that Poppa, recoiling from Peaches barbs, has lost his appetite  its importance magically dissolves within a line or two. All thats holding them there, and making them obliquely tell their stories, is the playwrights hand.

The talented cast show glimmers of greatness. Pantojas Nana can tell someone off just in the way she silently plunks a straw in a glass, and Ocon, in a mostly thankless role, makes hurt into a whole range of experience. But often, actors withhold rather than fully own. With rules and stakes so unclear, they speak as if to tentatively shine a flashlight into the darkness.

Cathie Andersons lighting design offers one of the shows foremost pleasures. The Biltmores ceiling beams reflect magentas, bronzes and marigolds against a turquoise backdrop, endowing the world of the play with the faraway, slightly sad and kitschy feel of a well-appointed fish tank.

Those well-chosen hues cant much mitigate the shows pace, though. If at first its disarming and refreshing to be at a show that lets its characters take their time padding in and out, before long you might get the urge to go Frederick W. Taylor on the play and shave away minutes and minutes of unnecessary silence. But even a more efficient Mathematics still wouldnt add up.

Lily Janiak is The San Francisco Chronicles theater critic. Email: ljaniak@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @LilyJaniak

The Mathematics of Love: Written by Cherrie Moraga, with Richard A. Bracho. Directed by Cherrie Moraga. Through Aug. 27. Two hours, 10 minutes. $22-$40. Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St., S.F. (415) 641-7657. www.brava.org
Former California governor and big-screen personality Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Sunday that he would be donating $100,000 to a Jewish human rights nonprofit, saying the white nationalist demonstrations in Charlottesville, Va. over the weekend left him "horrified."

"There is no white America  there is only the United States of America," he wrote in a public Facebook post. "You were not born with these hateful views  you can change, grow, and evolve, and I suggest you start immediately."

The money will go to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Los Angeles-based nonprofit also behind LA's Museum of Tolerance. The Center conducts research on the Holocaust and "confronts anti-Semitism, hate and terrorism," according to its website. Schwarzenegger closed his post by urging his 16 million Facebook followers to donate to their own favorite anti-hate organizations.

After a woman was killed at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville on Saturday, politicians and public figures from across the political spectrum took to social media to denounce the rhetoric espoused by white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups. President Donald Trump responded to the incident with general statements via Twitter, drawing sharp criticism, until he explicitly rebuked the attackers on Monday.

"Racism is evil, and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs," he said, "including the K.K.K., neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans."

Schwarzenegger may no longer be the "Governator," but the 70-year-old Austrian-Americas actor and politician has scarcely retreated from public life. When not acting or promoting his crusade against gerrymandering, he has maintained a fiery feud with Trump, often trading barbs with him over Twitter.

Though both Schwarzenegger and Trump are technically Republicans, they have never been politically compatible. After Trump moved to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accords, Schwarzenegger, an environmental activist and an architect of California's current "cap-and-trade" carbon emissions regulations, called on Republicans to "stop lying to the people!"

Much of their personal animus towards each other can be traced to Schwarzenegger's short-lived stint as host of The Apprentice. Trump mocked the show's low ratings, kicking off a months-long back-and-forth between the two men.
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On August 21, a solar eclipse will pass over the United States. It will begin in the early morning over Hawaii, extend past Alaska and continue all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. Residents of every state will have the chance to view the moons shadow cover at least part of the sun.

The ultimate spectacle of totality, in which the moon blocks out all but the wispy solar atmosphere, or corona, will appear as a band 60 to 71 miles wide, taking about 90 minutes to travel across 14 states, from Oregon to South Carolina. Along that path, complete darkness will last for up to 2 minutes, 40 seconds.

Millions of spectators -- including hundreds of professional and amateur astronomers -- will gather under the path for the opportunity to experience the event.

Beyond the spectacle, theres a key scientific question: What can astronomers possibly discover from solar eclipses that they havent learned already? After all, theyve been analyzing eclipses for at least 300 years. And at least two occur every year, many in reachable parts of our planet.

The answer to the question: A lot.

If you were a heart surgeon allowed to look inside a human heart only for two minutes every two years, youd look again if you got a chance two years later, explained Jay Pasachoff, an astronomer at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, who is preparing to observe this eclipse, his 66th, from Salem, Oregon.

The sun is different every time, he added. Were back in a solar minimum for the first time in about ten years. Thats the time of least activity on the sun during the roughly 11-year solar cycle.

Just as important, methods of observing eclipses continue to improve.

We have all kinds of new instrumentation, Pasachoff said. Well get more sensitive views at higher speed.

The instrumentation includes improved infrared imaging tools and other new means of studying magnetic fields in the sun.

Researchers plan to use ground-based telescopes and radars, aircraft, balloons, and orbiting satellites to collect data during the hour and a half the eclipse takes to travel across the U.S.

That data will provide fresh understanding of the sun and its surroundings.

This is a natural controlled experiment that nature has provided to us, said Madhulika Guhathakurta, an astrophysicist at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who is the space agencys lead scientist for the eclipse. We have a tremendous opportunity to collect ground-based observations on the effects of cutting off solar radiation.

Although the period of totality at any single location is brief, the eclipse's path over so many accessible viewing sites will allow astronomers and their scientific colleagues to combine data collected at many different points. And the number of observing sites will ensure tangible observations despite cloudy weather that might obscure the event in some regions.

That will hardly appeal to observers who miss the show. The problem is that you dont get a second chance, said Paul Bryans of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, who will be studying his first eclipse from Casper, Wyoming.

Bryanss group is one of several that will focus on the corona, the wispy solar atmosphere that the suns light overwhelmingly outshines, making it visible only during eclipses.

The corona puzzles astronomers because its temperature increases from about 5,500 degrees C at the solar surface to millions of degrees farther out. Intuitively, temperatures should decrease with distance from the hot sun.

For me and a lot of others, one of the biggest topics is why is the corona so hot? said Amir Caspi of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

Astronomers have two main theories for the strange behavior. Either what are called Alfven waves transfer heat along magnetic fields in the corona or huge numbers of tiny explosions called nanoflares combine to create a huge heating effect.

To try to differentiate between the theories, Caspis team will use cameras in the nose cones of NASA WB-57 jets to take high-speed, high-resolution videos of the corona as they fly along the path of totality. That will allow us to see motion and waves that would be invisible from the ground, Caspi said.

Bryans, meanwhile, will use three instruments -- an interferometer, an infrared camera and a polarizing camera -- to study the infrared part of the corona. Thats because infrared wavelengths are more sensitive to magnetic fields, he explained.

The study could help astronomers better understand space weather and its potentially disruptive impact on communications and the power grid.

We want to predict when we can prepare for solar eruptions by putting satellites in safe mode and shutting down power grids, Bryans said. We want to measure these magnetic fields to find the structures most likely to erupt.

But eclipse observations wont focus entirely on the sun and its corona.

Well be making measurements on how the abrupt shutting off of sunlight affects Earths atmosphere and generates gravity waves, Pasachoff said.

Douglas Drob and Joseph Huba, atmospheric physicists at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., will use observations from satellites and instruments on and launched from the ground to study the physics of Earths upper atmosphere as its temperature falls during the eclipse.

We want to use the eclipse to see if our current models of the upper atmosphere hold up, Drob said. Those models form the bases of calculations of the upper atmospheres effect on such effects as satellite drag and radio communications.

Eclipse experiments even extend to zoology. The California Academy of Sciences offers an app, iNaturalist, that anyone can download to study the eclipses influence on the behavior of living things.

The academy asks citizen scientists who use the app to select individual animals or plants and observe and photograph their behavior 30 minutes before and after the eclipse and during totality itself. The data and photos will provide the academy with detailed records of organisms behavior during eclipses; at present, such records are largely anecdotal or obtained only from captive animals.

Another non-astronomer -- retired California physicist Don Bruns -- plans to repeat the most famous eclipse experiment of all: British astronomer Arthur Eddingtons confirmation on May 29, 1919 that the sun's gravity bends the light of other stars, as predicted in Albert Einsteins general theory of relativity.

Bruns has equipped a telescope to take very precise images of stars during totality. Those will indicate the extent of deflections in their apparent position, caused by the sun. But Einstein fans shouldnt worry -- multiple other astronomical and non-astronomical experiments have consistently confirmed the general theory.

What about those unfortunate scientists who miss this months eclipse because of poor weather or other circumstances?

They wont have too long to wait for the next one. They can prepare for eclipses in Chile and Argentina in 2019 and 2020. And if they want to stay stateside, a total solar eclipse will travel from Texas to Maine in 2024.

This article originally appeared on Inside Science.
RACINE  Justin Turners phone started to blow up on Sunday.

People were calling and texting him about something completely unexpected: a local demolition contractor had found his great-uncle Albert Buck Weavers Purple Heart in the attic of his parents former home at 1937 Racine St.

A couple of my friends called me and told me, Turner said. I was so surprised that they even found it with all the rubble and all of that.

Turner, 56, who lives in Racine, works as a refuse collector for the city. His father, Kenneth, who died in 2014, used to own the house and would talk about his uncle with his six children.

My dad would tell us stories from years ago, Turner said. He had told us some stories, but I had no idea that he had possession of that Purple Heart.

According to an obituary in the May 25, 1945, edition of the Wisconsin State Journal, Weaver was killed in action in Austria on May 4 of that year. Weaver served in World War II for more than two years, according to the article, and had three other brothers in the service.

The obituary also states that Weaver was believed to be the first black soldier from the Madison area killed in World War II. Weavers wife, Audrey, whose maiden name was Turner, was from Racine, according to the obituary.

She lived to be 89 years old, Justin Turner said.

According to Turner, his father had fallen behind on his taxes when he died and the family couldnt afford to keep the house. He said the Purple Heart will go to his oldest sister, Shawn McClairn, who lives in Chicago.

Shell be the one that gets the Purple Heart because she has all of our family stuff of sentimental value, he said.

Dan Macemon, the contractor who found the Purple Heart, is looking forward to returning the war medal to the Turner family as soon as possible.

Id be honored to give it to them, he said. This is a first for me. Id love to do that.

Turner is hoping he can get as many of his siblings together as he can to be on hand to receive his great uncles honor.

It was just a major surprise, a blessing, he said.
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DAKAR, Senegal  The bodies floated down the streets and piled up at the morgue, where the coroners struggled to find room for all of the dead.

An already devastating flood the day before produced even more anguish on Tuesday in Sierra Leone as residents of Freetown, the capital, dug through the mud in search of missing family members.

The Red Cross said hundreds of people had been killed and 600 were missing after torrential rains early Monday caused mudslides and transformed city streets into fast-moving rivers of muddy water, washing away everything in their path.

One worker at the citys morgue, who was not authorized to speak to reporters, said he had seen as many as 400 bodies there.

Residents of the poor communities built into the capital citys unstable hillsides suffered the most. Their homes  shacks, really  were quickly buried or violently swept away in the deluge. Aid groups estimated that 3,000 people had been left homeless.

On Tuesday, Save the Children, an aid organization, said that one of its staff members and his young children were among the hundreds missing. Many were thought to be entombed under tons of mud.

President Ernest Bai Koroma said in a televised address to the nation that he was very disturbed by this national tragedy, and promised to create an emergency response center in Regent, a neighborhood where dozens of people were thought to be trapped inside homes buried under soaked earth cleaved from the hillside.

Let me assure you that my government is fully engaged on this situation, the president said, advising people to remain calm and avoid areas still vulnerable to slides.

Despite the presidents pledge, it was clear that rescue and cleanup efforts would take time. Recovery teams lacked the appropriate equipment to dig through the extensive mud and debris. Phone and power outages spread across the city, and some roads were impassable. Homes that were still standing were caked in mud and coated with debris.

We are also fearful of outbreaks of diseases such as cholera and typhoid, Abu Bakarr Tarawallie, a spokesman for the Sierra Leone Red Cross Society, told Reuters. We can only hope that this does not happen.

The Freetown morgue had reached capacity on Monday, but bodies kept arriving on Tuesday. They were stacked outside, where residents gathered to try to identify missing family members.

The stench was overwhelming. Mohamed Koroma, a university student in Freetown who visited the morgue on Tuesday, said people had to cover their faces with masks.

Jaime Yaya Barry and Dionne Searcey are New York Times writers.
BADOUSH, Iraq  Thousands of Iraqis have fled an Islamic State-held town west of Mosul as Iraqi and coalition warplanes step up strikes ahead of a ground offensive to drive out the militants.

Tal Afar and the surrounding area is one of the last pockets of Islamic State-held territory in Iraq after victory was declared in July in Mosul, the countrys second-largest city. The town, about 93 miles east of the Syrian border, sits along a major road that was once a key Islamic State supply route.

On Monday, hundreds of exhausted civilians were brought by Iraqi army trucks from the front line to a humanitarian collection point just west of Mosul. Many described a harrowing journey of a day or more from Tal Afar, with no food or water.

Jassem Aziz Tabo, an elderly man who arrived with his 12-member family, said he had left Tal Afar months ago and gone to a village on the outskirts to escape hunger, air strikes and violence from the militants.

Those who tried to escape were captured and shot in the head. They killed my son, he said. He tried to escape, he was caught and they killed him.

He said severe shortages have caused the price of food to skyrocket in Tal Afar, which has been besieged by Iraqi forces for months, with 2.2 pounds of sugar selling for $50.

There was nothing. We were eating pieces of bread with water, he said.

Alia Imad, a mother of three whose family paid $300 to a smuggler to lead them to safety, said there is no drinking water left in the town. Most people drink water thats not clean. The majority are surviving on that and a bit of bread, she said.

The group she was with had come under fire during their escape from the militants, she said. A woman was killed, and they had to bury her by the road.

Lise Grande, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator, said conditions in Tal Afar are very tough.

Thousands of people are leaving, seeking safety and assistance. Families escaping northeast are trekking 10 and up to 20 hours to reach mustering points. They are exhausted and many are dehydrated when they finally arrive, she said.

Lt. Gen. Anwar Hama, of the Iraqi air force, said that air strikes this week have targeted Islamic State headquarters, tunnels and weapons stores.

But Iraqi forces, closely backed by the U.S.-led coalition, are not expected to push into the town for a few more weeks, according to an Iraqi officer overseeing the operation. He spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Balint Szlanko and Qassim Abdul-Zahra are Associated Press writers.
WASHINGTON  The Trump administration denounced the Islamic State group on Tuesday for carrying out genocide against Christians and other religious minorities in areas under its control.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the group is clearly responsible for genocide against Christians and Yazidis in Iraq and Shiite Muslims in Syria and elsewhere. His comments were made as the State Department released its annual report on international religious freedom.

Tillerson said he was making the pronouncement to remove any ambiguity about previous genocide assertions made by his predecessor, John Kerry, who in March 2016 determined that genocide was occurring in Islamic State-held areas but was criticized by lawmakers and religious groups for not declaring that genocide was taking place earlier. Neither administrations genocide determination carries with it any legal obligation for the U.S. or others.

ISIS has and continues to target members of multiple religions and ethnicities for rape, kidnapping, enslavement and death, Tillerson said in presenting the report, using the acronym of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

ISIS is clearly responsible for genocide against Yazidis, Christians and Shia Muslims in areas it controlled. ISIS is also responsible for crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing directed at these same groups, and in some cases against Sunni Muslims, Kurds and other minorities, Tillerson said. The protection of these groups  and others who are targets of violent extremism  remains a human-rights priority for the Trump administration.

The religious freedom report, which is mandated by Congress, covers 2016 and does not address the Trump administrations decision to temporarily halt the admission of all refugees, many of whom are fleeing religious persecution. The administration has appealed challenges to the suspension of those admissions to the Supreme Court.

In addition to the Islamic State, Tillerson and the report called out Bahrain, China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Turkey for persecuting, stigmatizing or otherwise restricting the rights of religious minorities.

Matthew Lee is an Associated Press writer.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates  An unarmed Iranian drone shadowed a U.S. aircraft carrier at night and came close enough to F-18 fighter jets to put the lives of American pilots at risk, the Navy said Tuesday, reporting the second such tense encounter within a week.

The Iranian Sadegh drone flew without any warning lights during the encounter Sunday night with the aircraft carrier Nimitz, said Lt. Ian McConnaughey, a spokesman for the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet.

The drone did not respond to repeated calls over the radio and came within 1,000 feet of U.S. fighters, he said.

That created a dangerous situation with the potential for collision and is not in keeping with international maritime customs and laws, McConnaughey said in a statement.

The drone was unarmed, the lieutenant said, though that model can carry missiles.

Irans military and state-run media did not immediately report the incident, which came after a similar encounter Aug. 8, in which the Navy said an Iranian drone came within 100 feet of an F-18 preparing to land on the Nimitz. Iranian vessels and U.S. warships have also had tense encounters in recent months.

President Trump has threatened to renegotiate the nuclear deal struck by his predecessor amid new sanctions targeting Iran over its ballistic missile tests.

So far this year, the Navy has recorded 14 instances of what it describes as unsafe and/or unprofessional interactions with Iranian forces. It recorded 35 in 2016 and 23 in 2015.

Jon Gambrell is an Associated Press writer.
Love, anger at Santa Fe rally

Santa Feans held a rally last night in solidarity with victims of racist terror attacks in Charlottesville. The event was a mixture of support for the Virginia victims and anger at what some felt was ongoing racism in Santa Fe. Some in the crowd chanted to end the Entrada de Don Diego de Vargas, which is a traditional part of Fiestas and celebrates Spanish colonists' reconquering of Santa Fe in 1692. Others pointed to Santa Fe Police Sgt. Troy Baker's tenure on the city's police force; SFR revealed in February that Baker posted hateful memes on his Facebook page, including one that pictured a car going after protesters and the caption "All lives splatter."

Neo-Nazi leader grew up in New Mexico

Dillon Hopper, who calls himself the commander of the neo-Nazi Vanguard America group, is from New Mexico. According to The Guardian newspaper and online outlet Splinter News, James Fields marched with Vanguard America before getting in his car and killing protester Heather Heyer. Hopper grew up as Dillon Irizarry, but changed his name in 2006 in a Roswell court. He was recently in New Mexico to deal with the death of his mother.



Dona Ana GOP chair's future uncertain

A day after he posted, then took down, comments criticizing "leftist" protesters for creating racially motivated violence, the chairman of the Southern New Mexico county's Republican party still held his post. Some called for Roman Jimenez to step down and the state Republican Party condemned his statements.



Former state GOP chair running for Congress

Monty Newman, former mayor of Hobbs and head of the state Republican Party, is running for the 2nd Congressional District seat, which is being vacated by Congressman Steve Pearce as he runs for governor. Newman will take on State Land Commissioner Aubrey Dunn in the Republican primary. Several Democrats have announced their candidacies for the seat.

Silver City art find

It's been a while since anyone uncovered anything this valuable in the southwestern New Mexico town. A Silver City antique shop owner somehow ended up with a stolen Willem de Kooning painting likely worth about $150 million. The painting was stolen from the University of Arizona in Tucson 31 years ago.



Flagship Foods expands in NM

The company that brings you 505 Southwestern brand chile products is now bringing New Mexico about 200 more jobs. The Colorado-based business (we know, we know) made the announcement yesterday. It's getting half a million bucks from a local economic development grant.



Varela in hospice

Luciano "Lucky" Varela, a longtime Santa Fe legislator and titan of the state's budgeting process, is in hospice care, his son says. Varela's health has been waning and he suffered a heart attack this past winter. Be well, Lucky.



State cuts could have negative effect on NM's bottom line

The vacancy rate at New Mexico's Tax and Revenue Department is about 25 percent. That's pretty high, and lawmakers are worried it's creating inefficiencies. What's that? You're not surprised by inefficient government? We hear you, but the concern is that New Mexico is missing out on tax collection because of it. Fewer taxes coming in means more cuts, and ... well, you get the picture.



Thanks for reading! The Word thinks its a good day for a long, quiet hike. Or just a long, quiet moment spent sitting outside. Here's hoping you can find one.



Subscribe to the Morning Word at sfreporter.com/santafe/signup.

Santa Fe Reporter
12500 N.E. Tenth Place  Bellevue, WA 98005  JPFO.org  800-869-1884  info@jpfo.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  Aug. 14, 2017

JPFO Gun Confiscation Clock Moves Closer to Midnight

Trump Sleep, Bloomberg Cash, Spell Trouble for Gun Ownership

The symbolic Gun-Confiscation Alarm Clock, which tracks the overall threat to Americas right to keep and bear arms, has inched closer to midnight.

The Gun Confiscation Alarm Clock

Maintained by Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, they see heavily funded state efforts to curtail the right to arms by former NY mayor Michael Bloomberg having a dangerous effect. Coupled with a false sense of security gun-rights advocates feel after electing loudly pro-Second Amendment president Donald Trump, increases the actual threat.

Two strong pro-gun-rights bills introduced immediately after Trumps election have stalled. With Trump under withering attacks by democrats, a compromised media, constant fake news and a distracted Congress, any chances for advances there seem remote. The bills would relax sale of hearing-protection gun mufflers, and would make firearm carry licenses valid nationwide, a dearly sought goal of the firearms community. Presently, so-called right-to-carry licenses terminate at state lines.

Bloombergs millions have created multiple new anti-gun-rights state clubs pressing for repeal of existing civil-rights protections. New bills theyre promoting, which pro-rights proponents say infringe on the Bill of Rights, include national registration of gun owners and their gear, misleadingly labeled loophole or background bills, with no impact on crime.

When you actually read the bills Bloomberg and his paid allies propose, you find gun-owner registration schemes, regardless of what the media calls them, says Boyd Kneeland, a spokesperson for the group. Alan Korwin, a nationally recognized expert on gun laws and consultant to JPFO concurs, noting, The last bill, Manchin-Toomey, authorized national registration and would have made felons of anyone who handed a gun to a friend, but this went unreported in the frenzy to push it into law. With Bloombergs money, a cadre of misinformed moms fearfully marching in lock step, and rights advocates lulled into complacency, the threat to gun rights is greater than most people recognize, Korwin says. A one-minute shift in the clocks hands may be too modest, he believes. JPFOs Bill of Rights Sentinel newsletter comes out this month.

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Back to Top


STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- More than 70 people gathered at Tompkinsville Park Monday night to hold a candlelight vigil for the people killed in Charlottesville Virginia over the weekend.

The group gathered near the park around 8 p.m., proceeded to walk around the park with candles lit, and closed out the event by singing a series of songs.

Kate Rose Gainey, of Sunnyside, organized the event and said she felt it was important to gather like-minded people together after a group of white supremacists marched in Virginia Friday night and Saturday.

The individuals, who were there to protest against the removal of confederate General Robert E. Lee, came into confrontation with counter-protesters, leading to several incidents of violence.

That violence culminated when one of the alleged white supremacists drove his car into a group of the counter-protesters, and killed 32-year-old Heather Heyer.

Gainey said it was important to her to bring everyone together in a display of solidarity and love.

"I wanted to empower love, because hate is feeling really strong right now," she said.

After starting the Facebook event, Gainey said she was unsure of what kind of turnout there would be, but said it showed how many people feel the way she does about what happened over the weekend.

"That's not my America," Gainey said. "This is my America. People from all walks of life coming together."

David Jones, of St. George, said he attended the event as a representative of Councilwoman Debi Rose's office. He said the Councilwoman could not be present due to an emergency.

He said that what happened over the weekend felt like "stepping back in time."

South Shore City Council candidate Dylan Schwartz said it was difficult seeing 6,000 people, who he says want him and his fiance dead, marching through the streets of Virginia.

"How can a gay person, how can a Jewish person, reconcile with people who believe we are inferior?" the Bay Terrace resident asked.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The Staten Island native killed in a car crash in Liberia last month has been brought home, her family told the Advance Tuesday.

Princess Yates, 19, was killed in Monrovia, the capital of the West African nation on Thursday, July 21, a little more than a month before her 20th birthday, Princess' mother, Oretha Bestman-Yates said.

Her father, Prince Yates, said she was brought back to the United States on Monday from the country.

"She was very soft spoken, very loving, and she had a beautiful smile," Yates said.

The family had asked for financial assistance to cover the $40,000 in costs to bring Princess home from Liberia.

Her father said the donations from people were "very helpful" in accomplishing their goal.

Princess was in her parents' native country with family, and was supposed to spend the weekend with her grandmother, who turned 90.

Bestman-Yates, who previously served as president of the Staten Island Liberian Community Association, said she dropped her daughter off at an event for Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf at Monrovia's city hall the night she was killed.

"It was the last time I saw her," she said.

Spelman College, in Atlanta, where Yates attended university, released a statement about Yates, who was an environmental science, dual degree engineering major.

Her father said she was "very passionate about the environment."

In addition to her parents, Princess is survived by brothers Prince Jr. and Jordan, and sisters Natasha Jackson and Emily.

A viewing will be held Friday in Christian Pentecostal Church at 900 Richmond Road from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.

A funeral mass will be held Saturday at 8 a.m. at the church, and she will buried inMoravian Cemetery, New Dorp.

Would you like to comment on this report? Click here to join in the conversation.
Most people understand that while freedom of speech enjoys robust protection under the First Amendment, that right, like every other constitutional privilege, is not absolute. Some restrictions on speech are not only lawful but essential to the protection of ordered liberty. That's why criminal statutes can proscribe such things as sexting, cyberbullying, the production and dissemination of child pornography, and making threats of violence against people and places either traditionally or on social media. Similarly, words accompanying historically-defined offenses such as assault and arson can form the basis for elevating them to hate-crime status in today's legal landscape.

From a civil perspective, limitations on speech are inherent in a variety of legal actions, including suits for copyright and trademark infringement, tortious interference with contract relations, hostile workplace claims, civil rights actions, defamation, and the intentional infliction of mental distress.

A 19th century children's rhyme, reiterated over generations with minor variations, asserts that "sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never harm me." It endures to this day as a popular way to teach kids to ignore the taunts of insensitive peers. Now, however, that reassuring maxim is widely regarded as untrue. Words can not only do harm, but great harm. Indeed, words can be the proximate cause of a person's death.

Baseless criticism

That's precisely what happened three years ago in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, where 18-year-old Conrad Roy, an emotionally-distraught, pathetically-vulnerable young man, was unrelentingly goaded into committing suicide through a barrage of taunting text messages sent by his girlfriend, Michelle Carter. When she was convicted of involuntary manslaughter after a bench trial last month, the American Civil Liberties Union was outraged, claiming that Carter's conduct, while repugnant, enjoyed "free speech protections." The intractably left-wing civil rights outfit, whose kooky conception of America's Constitution never ceases to amaze, is thus either woefully ignorant of the well-established limitations on free speech, or so reflexively hostile to them that it simply pretends they don't exist.

Matthew Segal, legal director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, carried the nonsense even further. Overlooking the extraordinary facts of the case, he warned that Carter's conviction "could chill important and worthwhile end-of-life discussions between loved ones across the Commonwealth."

On Aug. 3, Carter, now 20, was sentenced to a remarkably lenient 15 months in a county jail, angering prosecutors who, citing her unfathomably cruel suicide campaign and lack of remorse, had sought a term of imprisonment of between seven and 12 years. On the other side, Carter's lawyer vowed to appeal, telling the New York Times that she "will be vindicated" because "words alone are not sufficient to establish manslaughter." She remains free pending appeal.

Misstated issue

The case has been widely covered by the media. Now, as it moves into the appellate courts, reporters and commentators are focusing on the issue framed by Carter's attorney: Can mere words sustain an involuntary manslaughter conviction? That, however, is not the issue at all, because Massachusetts's highest court has already answered that question in the affirmative. The ruling came in a lengthy July 2016 decision rejecting Carter's claim that the indictment was legally insufficient because her conduct "did not extend beyond words."

The court had no difficulty reaching that conclusion on the sickening facts of this case. The grand jury reviewed voluminous text messages indicating that Carter was aware of Roy's history of mental illness, including a prior suicide attempt, but nonetheless encouraged him to kill himself, instructed him as to when and how to do it, and chastised him when he delayed doing it. The court summed up the theme of those text messages in a phrase Carter used four times between July 11 and July 12, 2014, the day he killed himself: "You just [have] to do it."

Overcoming the will

So Roy filled his truck with carbon monoxide by using a portable water pump while Carter, 30 miles away, texted him to remain in the vehicle. After his death, Carter told a friend that, at one point, Roy had gotten scared and exited the vehicle. As the court noted, however, she "commanded him to get back in," words that became the proximate cause of his death because they "overbore [his] willpower." Carter was well aware of the pivotal role she played in effecting Roy's suicide, as prior to it, she unsuccessfully sought to have him delete the text messages between the two.

Perhaps anticipating the kind of criticism its ruling would provoke from groups like the ACLU, the court expressly noted that the case was easily distinguishable from situations where caring, compassionate family members have frank discussions with a terminally-ill loved one about end-of-life options.

If Carter does prevail on appeal, it won't be because the Massachusetts courts conclude that words can't kill. For they certainly can. And in this case they certainly did.

[Daniel Leddy's column appears each Tuesday on the Advance Editorial Page. His e-mail address is column@danielleddylaw.com. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/LegalHotShots.]
From classroom to dorm, dining hall to downtown, concerts at the Zankel to Frisbee on the green, each summer high schoolers in Skidmore's Pre-College Program are immersed in opportunities that enrich their lives and prepare them for college later.



Since 1968 Skidmore has welcomed high school sophomores, juniors and seniors to a five-week session that first launched as the immensely successful Summer Six arts program and then broadened in 1972 to offer liberal arts courses for outstanding teenagers alongside Skidmore undergraduates. Now students can enroll in two liberal arts or studio art courses, or one of each, for a total of up to 8 credits that may transfer to virtually any college they attend later. They can study in fields such as sociology, religion, biology and writing, as well as drawing, painting, casting and printmaking. They are expected to keep pace with the college students also taking the classes, including completing the reading, writing, studio or lab assignments. Along the way, the faculty have opportunities to get together and discuss how to create successful learning environments for diverse classrooms.



Precollege students Wenqin He and Andrew Vella join precollege

classmates on the lawn of the Saratoga Performing Arts Center Precollege students Wenqin He and Andrew Vella join precollegeclassmates on the lawn of the Saratoga Performing Arts Center

In addition to classroom work, precollege students engage in optional community service, such as woodland trail cleanup or hand-crafting cards for nursing home residents; side trips, such as a New York City Ballet matinee at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center or the Great Escape adventure park; and sampling of Skidmore's busy summer schedule of lectures, readings, concerts, exhibits and other events.



The on-campus experience is designed to offer "academic rigor and a social environment that fosters opportunities to meet peers with diverse viewpoints and backgrounds," according to the program's director, Michelle Paquette-Deuel. She adds that sharing a residence hall "fosters community and helps students learn to be self-disciplined and manage their time" between work and play. Living with them are residence advisors (specially trained Skidmore students), helping to ensure that daily life enhances the academic experience, and vice versa, for teens who may be away from their parents for the first time.



This year 67 students from across the U.S. and around the world participated in the Pre-College Program. Many came from underserved high-school environments or will be the first-generation college student in their family. Paquette-Deuel notes, "They are high-achieving, but will benefit from the head start of being at a residential college before they matriculate." Typically, she reports, they perform very well, making the professors and college students "happy to have them here and to exchange insights, ideas and perspectives with."



About half the precollege attendees end up applying to become Skidmore students. Wenqin He, from Shandong, China, came to the precollege program with concerns about her lack of background in a classroom where English is spoken. But it went so well that she's pleased to be enrolling as a full-time Skidmore student this fall.



"I wanted to enjoy my last summer before college," she says. "I love this place. It's really beautiful. I like walking around the campus after dinner. Sometimes I see rabbits and squirrels. There are no tall buildings here, but there are many trees and even a forest. I like living in nature." Also, she notes, "Saratoga Springs is really different from my hometown."



She studied human geneticsshe says it was exciting to work in a college labwith a professor who will become her academic advisor when she starts regular classes in the fall. Realizing that "the challenge is to adapt a new lifestyle," she took advantage of the residential experience to figure out how to budget for her personal supplies and how to use appliances such as a clothes dryerboth firsts for her. Now she says, "In the fall I am going to focus on my college study, and also make some friends with whom I have similar interests."



Andrew Vella of New York City attended Skidmore's Pre-College Program after considering several others. He and his family were so impressed by its support and openness, including for his cerebral-palsyrelated mobility issues, that he returned to the program again this year. He also applied and was accepted to enroll as a freshman in the fall. This summer he took a course in religion and culture and a course in media and film studies, both of which he found challenging, stimulating and fun. The program underscored for him that Skidmore is "a wonderful campus in a great town," he says, adding that he really enjoyed cultivating a peer group.



Vella, whose long-term goal is to become a doctor, has advice for other precollege students: "Don't be afraid to say 'hi' to people. Also, don't be afraid to get a little lost; you'll find new places!" Helen Edelman '74
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Assess the situation fast

The torrential rain that triggered massive floods and landslides has inundated thousands of hectares of farmland in the southern Tarai belt, also known as the countrys food basket.
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When fashion designer Naomi Hogie received an email out of the blue asking her to showcase at Milan Fashion Week, she figured it was a scam.

"I actually read it five times before I reacted, and I was convinced it was spam, or it was some joke someone was playing on me," she said.

Canberra designer Naomi Hogie of Naomi Peris Bridal has been invited to showcase at Milan Fashion Week. Credit:Karleen Minney

"I thought it was the sort of thing where a Nigerian prince was trying to get my money."

The Canberra designer, who runs label Naomi Peris Bridal, did a bit of research on the company - "just to be safe" - and realised it was nothing to laugh at after all.
Business owner Paul Cairns fears the stalemate between owners and residents could kill the Curtin shops. Credit:Jamila Toderas

More rain on the cards this morning, although it is likely to ease off as the afternoon rolls around. A maximum forecast temperature of 14 degrees, after an overnight low of 10 degrees.

The first business affected by the failed Curtin Square redevelopment has closed, with fears that more shops could soon go the same way.

Bookshop and cafe Beyond Q closed its doors on Sunday and has begun moving its 186,000 items from its current home at 44 Curtin Place to a new premises.

Some Curtin Place tenants have been told to vacate by September 30, while others will have until the end of the year to find new premises.

Katie Burgess has more.

Brumbies stalwart pays emotional tribute to fans
Chinese govt to provide one million US dollar as emergency fund

Chinese government has announced a donation of one million US dollar as emergency fund, expressing its sadness over loss of lives and properties in the floods and landslides in Nepal.
The first business affected by the failed Curtin Square redevelopment has closed, as some fear the southside suburban shops could go the same way as those in Giralang.

In February, ACTPLA knocked back the Haridemos' family's bid to transform the ageing 44 Curtin Place into a six-storey, mixed-use building because it was too large for the site.

Simon Maddox, Owner of Beyond Q bookshop, said it was bittersweet moving away from the community that had embraced his business for 15 years. Credit:Jamila Toderas

Residents had been told if the development bid was quashed the building, which houses an artisanal grocer, chemist and Nepalese restaurant among other businesses, would be hoarded up indefinitely once its leases expired.

Some tenants have been told to vacate by September 30 while others will have until the end of the year to find new premises.
The ACT government collected almost $80 million more in stamp duty in the last 12 months than it did in 2012, despite five years of tax reform aimed at phasing out the tax.

In 2012, the government began a 20-year program to phase out stamp duty on property sales and tax on insurance. The revenue is being replaced by increases to rates.

Chief Minister Andrew Barr on Tuesday, after announcing the fuirst balanced budget result in five years. Credit:Karleen Minney

But stamp duty has been cut slowly and house prices have increased dramatically. As a result, the government collected $316 million in stamp duty in 2016-17, which is 32 per cent more than the $239 million in 2011-12, the year before tax reform began.

The figures were provided after Chief Minister Andrew Barr delivered the first balanced budget result in five years, for 2016-17, and as the ACT parliament debated the 2017-18 budget on Tuesday.
The University of New South Wales wants to redevelop part of the Canberra Institute of Technology's Reid campus and a prime slab of land on Constitution Avenue into a second Canberra campus.

The university has 3200 students enrolled at its campus at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Campbell.

Chief Minister Andrew Barr (centre) announces UNSW plans to set up a new city campus. Mr Barr walking along Constitution Avenue with higher education minister Meegan Fitzharris and UNSW Canberra rector Professor Michael Frater UNSW Canberra rector. Credit:Karleen Minney

However UNSW Canberra rector Michael Frater revealed they were in talks with the ACT government about bringing up to 10,000 more students to the capital within the next three years with new courses and an innovation precinct, where researchers would work hand-in-hand with industry.

"We've been looking at what our presence in Canberra should look like in future," Professor Frater said.
Fifty thousand Australian cars still contain early "alpha" versions of Takata airbags, which have the potential to rupture in one in two cases.

Toyota, Lexus, BMW, Honda and Nissan vehicles all contain the potentially lethal airbags. They have been shown to fail in 50 per cent of laboratory test deployments, compared to the one-in-400 failure rate of most Takata airbags, consumer group Choice has reported.

The manufacturers are among 14 affected in Australia by a worldwide recall of Takata airbags, which have now killed 18 people and injured more than 180 worldwide.

"Alpha" airbags are between 11 and 16 years old. While most have already been recalled in 150,400 vehicles, 51,136 still remain, with Choice alleging most car owners will have been uninformed, despite car makers "being aware of the increased risks for at least a year."
Melbourne's most famous furniture magnate Franco Cozzo is branching out into property development.

His long-held inner city land holdings in Footscray and Brunswick are ripe for reinvention as the apartment boom rolls out across the metropolitan area.

Mr Cozzo has plans for a four-storey addition  drawn up by architects Fender Katsalidis  to the Brunswick store on the corner of Victoria Street at 466-474 Sydney Road.

And in Footscray, Mr Cozzo's furniture shop at 54-58 Hopkins Street looms prominently over the suburb's vibrant business district and train station but a swag of apartment and office towers are competing for attention.
When a company announces a $300 million share buyback, misses key financial targets and reveals its chief executive is selling shares, it's a sign the party is over.

And so it was for pizza giant Domino's, which suffered a huge share price rout within minutes of the market opening on Tuesday.

No matter what spin chief executive Don Meij tried to put on the group's numbers, the market wasn't buying it.

Some of the early comments from broker sales desks included: "DMP not good", "FY17 Miss, FY18 Guidance light = Stock Lower", "Miss, Miss, Miss" and "weaker across the board, stock to trade lower".
"Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President's Manufacturing Council, he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!"/ Later, Trump renewed his criticism of Merck, tweeting: "@Merck Pharma is a leader in higher & higher drug prices while at the same time taking jobs out of the US. Bring jobs back & LOWER PRICES!" The silence from the larger CEO community about Trump's reaction to the situation in Charlottesville has been remarkably conspicuous, even as one of their own has now been attacked online by the President.

By Monday evening, at least two other CEOs had stepped forward: Kevin Plank, founder of Under Armour, announced on Twitter that he was resigning from the American Manufacturing Council, saying, among other things, that his company "engages in innovation and sports, not politics". He did not refer to the President, though. Plank was followed shortly after by Brian Krzanich, the Intel chief executive, who announced on the company's website that he would step down from the council as well. "I resigned because I want to make progress, while many in Washington seem more concerned with attacking anyone who disagrees with them," he said.

But with the exception of Frazier, none appear to have directly condemned the President's choice of words, which have been a lightning rod for Americans from many quarters, even among many Republican lawmakers and Trump supporters. At a news conference Monday, after a barrage of blistering criticism, the President said "racism is evil". As the day wore on, several executives, including Meg Whitman of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, made statements in support of Frazier, while others - including Tim Cook of Apple, and the Business Roundtable, which represents some 200 CEOs - condemned the racism on display in Charlottesville.

But notably, not one executive on any of the President's various councils said anything directly about the President, nor resigned either in solidarity with Frazier or in protest of Trump's words. The statements from American chief executives that came closest to criticising Trump's language came from Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs and Krzanich of Intel. Blankfein tweeted on Monday morning: "Lincoln: 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' Isolate those who try to separate us. No equivalence w/ those who bring us together." (Blankfein is not on any of the President's councils, which may make it easier for him to be critical.) Krzanich put it this way: "There should be no hesitation in condemning hate speech or white supremacy by name. #Intel asks all our countries leadership to do the same."

Marc Benioff of Salesforce aimed at Trump with a sarcastic post, saying: "Thank you @realDonaldTrump for calling to Love thy neighbour, value equality, & calling evil by name." But how can so many other American business leaders and senior executives remain quiet about the President's reaction? Where is the moral courage to stand up? After all, most companies these days spend countless hours talking about their culture and values.

Just last week, Google publicly fired one of its engineers within days of his writing a memo that questioned whether "personality differences" between men and women led to there being fewer women engineers in the technology industry. How can people like Adebayo Ogunlesi, a lead director of Goldman Sachs and an infrastructure investor, remain a member of Trump's Strategic and Policy Forum - a role highlighted on Ogunlesi's company biography? How could Ogunlesi, an immigrant from Nigeria who was a clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall of the Supreme Court, stay silent? As Marshall himself famously said, "Where you see wrong or inequality or injustice, speak out, because this is your country. This is your democracy." Ogunlesi declined to comment, through a spokesman. What about Indra Nooyi, the Indian-born chief executive of PepsiCo? She is a member of the President's business council and has long been a vocal advocate for minorities. The company said this year that it "does not tolerate bigotry or hate in any form".
Like many offspring of Kiwis the world over, I woke up this morning to discover I was a New Zealand citizen. We've always known our father was a Kiwi  born just outside of Christchurch in 1934  but when he moved here aged 15 we thought that was the end of it. Until this week, when Barnaby Joyce discovered that his Kiwi citizenry by descent, may bar him from sitting as a parliamentarian.

But let me tell you, and Barnaby Joyce, there's an upside to everything. Especially a new found citizenship.

New Zealand's All Blacks perform the haka. Credit:Reuters

1. There's never been a more exciting time to be a New Zealander. Think of all those New Zealand firsts we can now lay claim to: first country to give women the vote, way back in 1893, the first Anglican women were ordained to the priesthood in New Zealand in 1977. Sydney still hasn't deigned to do this.

2. Forget the same sex marriage debate. When my siblings and I reclaim our birthright  we can forget about the postal vote and hand wringing over this issue in general. "Would be great if one of us were gay cause that way we could get legally married," as my sister said.
"We will not be replaced!" It sounds like the rallying cry of Luddites smashing machines, fighting the inevitable forces of progress. Instead, it was the chant ringing out over Charlottesville, Virginia, this weekend as white nationalists assembled to defend the statue of Robert E. Lee, the general who led the Confederate Army in rebellion against the US during the Civil War.

The chant itself is pathetic. By the time someone's shouting "we will not be replaced!" odds are they already have been. That's not entirely true of white men in America (see the recent ascendance of a grossly unqualified white man to the top political position in the country). But it is true that the vision of white nationalism that comes wrapped in Confederate and Nazi flags  the vision of white nationalism on display in Charlottesville this weekend  is a last-ditch effort to grab a rapidly disappearing past.

That doesn't mean, however, that it isn't important.

For one thing, the white nationalists who descended on Charlottesville cannot be considered fringe extremists, not so long as Donald Trump is in the White House. Consider his administration: Senior adviser Steve Bannon, who turned his right-wing website Breitbart into an outlet for the alt-right. Deputy assistant Sebastian Gorka, who has spent his career enmeshed with the Hungarian neo-Nazi group Vitezi Rend. Senior adviser Stephen Miller, who spent time with alt-right leader Richard Spencer in college and now is the administration's leading advocate of restrictions on legal immigration. If the white nationalists at Charlottesville were fringe, so too is the President of the United States.
Death toll in Tarai floods reaches 120

The death toll from floods and landslides across the country over the past four days has reached 120 and at least 35 people have been missing, the Ministry of Home Affairs said on Tuesday.
Forget about whether or not the ALP may have colluded with a foreign power to undermine the Turnbull Government.

Don't lose sleep over what needs to be done to repair the slow motion train wreck that has been the Section 44 saga now threatening to take down deputy Prime Minister and Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce.

The most important question that needs to be addressed right here and now is whether or not the Coalition Government is legitimate.

That is the core issue facing the electorate in what is shaping up to be the most serious crisis facing this government to date.
Common sense tells me that a sex abuser would be even less likely to present for confession if he knew that the confessional seal did not apply. The royal commission has told us time and again that these offenders tend to be devious and deceptive. A sex abuser, like any penitent, is free to seek out a confessor in a confessional behind a grille where his identity would never be disclosed or known. If the seal of the confessional were maintained, there is a chance, just a chance, that a child sex abuser might be convinced by the priest to turn himself in. Take away the seal, and that ever so slim chance will be snuffed out.

The church's canon law stipulates that "it is absolutely wrong for a confessor in any way to betray the penitent, for any reason whatsoever" and that "the confessor is wholly forbidden to use knowledge acquired in confession to the detriment of the penitent". The seal of the confessional applies strictly to the sins confessed by the penitent. It does not apply to information given to the priest about the sins or actions of someone other than the penitent.

At the royal commission hearings, much was made of the example of Sally, the little girl who presents at confession and confesses that she stole the jelly beans. She also tells the priest that she was interfered with by a family member. The priest bound by the seal of the confessional can never disclose that Sally stole the jelly beans. But the seal of the confessional does not apply to Sally's revelation of abuse. As a priest, I am at liberty and am subject to the same legal obligations in relation to that revelation as I would be if Sally made the claim to any other adult while walking down Pitt Street.

Those who advocate the abolition of the seal of the confessional have a mistaken understanding of how confession is actually practised in the Catholic Church. If the law is changed, abolishing the seal of the confessional, I will conscientiously refuse to comply with the law because in good faith I will be able to claim that it is a bad law which does nothing to protect children and which may take away the one possibility that a sex offender will repent and turn himself in, making the world that little bit safer for vulnerable children. I will console myself with the thought that if police learn of my "wrongdoing", it will be because the confessing abuser has voluntarily turned himself in.

Father Frank Brennan SJ is chief executive of Catholic Social Services Australia.
Joyce has acknowledged that he is a citizen of New Zealand. The apparent effect of section 44 is that he cannot be a member of the federal Parliament, and was not validly elected at the 2016 federal election.

Turnbull's comments are also unwise because it is far from clear that the High Court will decide in Joyce's favour. Section 44 of the constitution states that a person cannot sit as a senator or a member of the House of Representatives if they are "a subject or a citizen  of a foreign power".

The separation of powers in Australia depends upon leaders not prejudging the courts. Doing so is disrespectful to the judicial arm of government, and can get politicians into hot water under the laws of contempt. In this case, any suggestion that Turnbull may have crossed that line is removed by the fact that he said the words in Parliament. Ancient laws prevent anything said in Parliament from being called into question in a court.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull may come to regret his bold statement that Barnaby Joyce is "qualified to sit in the house and the High Court will so hold". For an accomplished lawyer normally so careful about such matters, Turnbull was insensitive to the role of the High Court as the independent and final arbiter of these matters.

The government will seek to prevent this by arguing for qualifications and exemptions not found in the words of section 44. The High Court has taken this path before. In 1992, it found that a dual citizen can remain in Parliament if he or she has taken reasonable steps to divest themselves of their foreign nationality. This means that a person is not disqualified where another country refuses to let them renounce their foreign citizenship or imposes impossible or unreasonable barriers to this.

Joyce's legal team may say that the High Court should further qualify section 44 so that it does not apply where a person is a foreign citizen due to descent or where the person is unaware they are a foreign national. Attorney-General George Brandis has suggested that the government is confident Joyce will not be disqualified due to his "unawareness".

I am not so convinced that this argument will win the day. The normal rule is that ignorance of the law is no excuse. Joyce's situation is different from that of Matt Canavan, who may have had no reason to know that his mother had signed him up for Italian citizenship. But why should Joyce be excused when he knew his father was born in New Zealand, and a quick check of that nation's laws would have revealed he was also a citizen?

Joyce is in a like position to Greens senators Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters, both of whom resigned once they discovered they were unwitting nationals of New Zealand and Canada respectively. At best, Joyce might argue his situation can be distinguished because his citizenship was attained by descent rather than birth in a foreign nation.

For Joyce to win his case, he will need the High Court to read section 44 in a way that departs from what the words of the section suggest. Where the court has done this, it has come under political attack. Ironically, the government will need to argue for the sort of creative approach that prior coalition leaders, such as former prime minister John Howard, have derided as judicial activism.
At the White House on Monday, Donald Trump finally, and apparently reluctantly, addressed the racist cause of the violence that led to the deaths of three people during the so-called Unite the Right rally in the town of Charlottesville, Virginia.

Rather than reassuring his divided nation and party, rather than offering comfort to the families of the dead, the President's statement served to confirm the worst fears for Trump's presidency rather than the greatest hopes.

A portrait of Heather Heyer, killed when a vehicle drove through anti-Nazi protesters in Charlottesville. Credit:Courtland Wells

The rally on Saturday was attended by white supremacists and neo-Nazis protesting against the removal of Confederate statues. One man was filmed marching with a Nazi salute, yelling "Heil Trump" to onlookers.

Scuffles with counter-demonstrators had ended by the time a young man with known far-right affiliations drove into a crowd of those counter-demonstrators, killing a woman.
At the White House on Monday, Donald Trump finally, and apparently reluctantly, addressed the racist cause of the violence that led to three deaths during the so-called Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Rather than reassuring his divided nation and party, rather than offering comfort to the bereaved, the President's statement served to confirm the worst fears for his presidency rather than the greatest hopes.

Saturday's rally was attended by white supremacists and neo-Nazis protesting against the removal of Confederate statues. One man was filmed marching with a Nazi salute, yelling "Heil Trump" to onlookers. Scuffles with counter-demonstrators had ended by the time a young man with far-right affiliations drove into a crowd of those counter-demonstrators, killing a woman.

Donald Trump speaks out against white supremacists on Monday. He had ignored calls to do so on Sunday. Credit:Bloomberg

In a statement on Saturday, the President failed to address the overt racism of the event, and drew a false equivalency between the opposing groups, decrying the violence "on many sides". He called upon Americans to "cherish our history". This was rightly read as a sympathetic signal to those who supported the Confederate monuments. "No condemnation at all," wrote the co-founder of one neo-Nazi website. "Really, really good. God bless him."

On Sunday Mr Trump ignored calls from across the political spectrum to condemn the racist groups. Finally on Monday he made a statement in which he first celebrated his economic achievements, before adding: "Racism is evil, and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans."
If the current furore engulfing Federal Parliament was about politicians' travel expenses, and not dual nationality, the media would be baying for the blood of those who had done the wrong thing.

Instead, there has been a chorus of calls from some media commentators to change the Constitution to allow dual nationals to stand for and occupy seats in our nation's Parliament.

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has been revealed to be a New Zealand citizen. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

This is absurd, and shows how captive some commentators are to the system on which they comment.

Let's be honest about this; changing the system would merely make it easier for politicians to get elected, and not more onerous. If the media seriously believe its role is to hold politicians, as a class of people to account, then now is the time to do so.
The Barnaby Joyce citizenship crisis has sparked a diplomatic brawl between Australia and New Zealand, with Foreign Minister Julie Bishop declaring she would find it hard to trust a NZ Labour government if it had any role in trying to bring down the Turnbull government.

While New Zealand's Minister of Internal Affairs Peter Dunne has confirmed it was Fairfax Media's investigation that led to the discovery of Mr Joyce's dual citizenship and the subsequent political crisis, the Turnbull government has seized on claims that an Australian Labor figure made contact with a NZ Labour MP on the issue.

NZ Labour leader Jacinda Ardern confirmed on Tuesday that her frontbencher Chris Hipkins was involved.

"Yes, someone from the ALP put some legal question to him around citizenship. No mention was made of anyone's name, no rationale for any particular case being pursued was ever raised," Ms Ardern said. "He asked the questions without knowing how that might be used and has made it very clear, in hindsight, had he known how it would be used, he would not have asked the questions."
Coalition MP Ann Sudmalis has moved to quash doubts about her citizenship, issuing a statement late on Tuesday that she had been assured by the UK Home Office that she did not hold, and had never held, British citizenship.

As the citizenship crisis engulfing the Federal Parliament deepened, and just a day after Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce announced he was a dual national of Australia and New Zealand, Ms Sudmalis  the member for Gilmore in NSW  was forced to urgently clarify her status with the British government.

In turn the government turned its sights on Labor on Tuesday, demanding the opposition provide documentation for four of its MPs  Tony Zappia, Maria Vamvakinou, Justine Keay and Susan Lamb.

The government has also suggested Tanya Plibersek, Penny Wong and Anthony Albanese have questions to answer about their citizenship status.
But he said Mr Corbyn would never win government for as long as voters did not trust him with their taxes. "I don't think hard-left socialism is the answer," he said. "I don't think it will be possible to win an election and govern from the far-left... I don't think that the rules of politics have been suspended to that degree." Mr Balls said despite the nationalist movements sweeping the United States and Britain, the only way to address some of the issues driving inequality - like multi-national companies shifting their profits to minimise their tax - was through more global cooperation, not less. "That is impossible to solve country-by-country, it's got to be solved internationally," he said, and insisted domestic populist backlashes against unfairness would force potential rogue states offering themselves as low-tax havens to fall into line. Balls remains a public figure

Mr Balls has remained in the public eye in Britain since his forced retirement from politics when he lost his seat in the 2015 election. Mr Balls was a key player in the Blair government serving as top advisor to former Chancellor Gordon Brown and was instrumental in making the Bank of England independent, keeping Britain out of the Euro and convincing voters to pay more taxes for the National Health Service (NHS). After entering politics in 2005 he rose to the position of cabinet minister and in opposition was the shadow chancellor. In 2010 he came third in the Labour leadership contest won by Ed Miliband, who also beat his brother David Miliband. Last year he appeared on the BBC's reality television dancing competition Strictly Come Dancing. His performance to the global smash hit Gangnam Style has had nearly 1 million views on YouTube.

In 2016 he also published his autobiography Speaking Out which he wrote entirely by dictation and currently writes on a variety of political, economic and lifestyle topics for the British media including as a restaurant critic and first-time Glastonbury music festival-goer. Mr Balls is married to the Labour MP Yvette Cooper, who came third in the leadership contest won by Mr Corbyn in 2015. Corbyn needs to change In the months before the 2017 election Ms Cooper was emerging as a potential replacement for Mr Corbyn. Labour sources told Fairfax Media at the time that the party conference scheduled in September would have been a chance to force changes to the way the leader is selected, that currently favour the party's more left-wing membership, compared to its more centrist parliamentary party. But Mr Corbyn solidified his position with his much better-than-expected performance during the election, gaining 30 seats and a 9.5 per cent swing to Labour.

Jeremy Corbyn came closer to winning the last UK election than most people predicted. Credit:Bloomberg Mr Balls said Mr Corbyn would lead Labour to the next general election, expected in 2022, but warned he would "have to pass a much higher threshold next time around." "I want Labour to win, and I don't think Labour will win unless he learns some of those lessons, more of the same isn't going to be enough." "I think the next general election will be fought between a new Conservative leader who I expect will have learned from the failure of Theresa May at this general election but I think the expectation is that the Labour leader will be Jeremy Corbyn, so it will be a tougher task next time around and I think more of the same isn't going to be enough." He cited the Blair government's success in entrenching higher taxes to pay for the NHS as an example of why centrism in politics is vital, saying the most enduring reforms are those that end up being supported by both sides.

Free movement and Brexit Mr Balls said Australians might find it difficult to grasp the factors, specifically the revolt against free movement, that drove Brexit, given Australia's approach to migration and bias towards skilled workers. Mr Balls campaigned for remain but said the factors for Britain's vote to leave were the result of the failure of policy-makers to predict how free movement would spark mass economic migration. He said the Blair government miscalculated the effects of the European Union's rapid expansion in 2004, when Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia joined. "We thought the numbers of people who would be moving would be small and that was a big miscalculation, for a country that has managed migration for a long time like Australia that might seem a bit odd," he said. "One of the lessons you have to learn is that you don't always see the risks that are at the end of your nose," he said.
Dharan reeling under acute shortage of drinking water

Various places of Dharan have been reeling under acute shortage of drinking water for the past four days after the floods triggered by incessant rainfall swept away pipelines and water sources.
Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop has sparked an unprecedented diplomatic brawl with New Zealand's opposition by accusing it of conspiring to bring down the Turnbull government, declaring she will not be able to trust it if it wins power next month.

Ms Bishop's was quickly accused of risking Australia's relationship with one of its closest allies after the extraordinary intervention in New Zealand's impending election, which earned a sharp rebuke from the NZ Labour leader Jacinda Ardern.

A Fairfax Media investigation into Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce confirmed on Monday he was a dual New Zealand national, which could disqualify him from Parliament. Mr Joyce referred himself to the High Court, plunging the government into fresh crisis.

But the government sought to turn the tables on Labor on Tuesday, seizing on claims an ALP staffer had recently made contact with an New Zealand Labour MP about the issue.
Has Australia just declared war on brave little New Zealand, or at the least, its Opposition Labour Party?

Is Australia's Opposition Leader, Bill Shorten, the southern hemisphere's version of wicked Vladmir Putin, using "foreign powers" for his own ends?

And, without meaning to be mean, is New Zealand really a "foreign power", and a potentially hostile one at that?

Improbable as any of these propositions sound, you'd have to conclude - after listening to Australia's Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, at full splendid flight - that they are the new realities.
While the fashion industry is wont to use cutesy, inoffensive (yet often really quite offensive) terms to describe people that sit outside of their prescribed norm  "curvy", "exotic" etc.  the beauty industry calls it like it is.

Both are problematic in their own way.

Helen Mirren stars on Allure magazine's September issue cover. Credit:John Salangsang

In the beauty world there are "anti-ageing" issues of magazines and practical advice on things like "How to Get Rid of Cellulite" and "19 Ways to Deal With Dark Circles and Under-Eye Bags". And, once you get past the guff on the packaging (my shower gel, for example, offers rather insipid advice on how wisdom comes when we take note of our surroundings), beauty products ultimately say what they do on the tin. Or at least what they purport to do. You know, "decrease fine lines" and "reduce dark spots" and "increase dewiness". (Okay, that one is a bit iffy.)

So it's interesting that Allure magazine in the US have launched their new mission statement: a ban on the word "anti-ageing".
Most people wouldn't defecate on the shrine to unknown soldiers at the Australian War Memorial, picnic in front of the Mona Lisa, scale the spire of St Mary's Cathedral or urinate on the wailing wall in Jerusalem.

These are sacred or special places, maybe not to us individually but to others with different beliefs and cultures that we respect.

Vintage souvenirs for tourists who climbed Ayers Rock, which is now known as Uluru.

But every day as many as one in three visitors to Uluru disregard the traditional owners' requests to keep off the rock  a deeply spiritual place to them  and climb this sacred site, which should be as special to white Australians as it is to its Indigenous owners.

Even if you have never read or heard anything about Uluru before, it is hard to miss the signs in English and other languages at the base urging visitors to stay off the rock and on the ground.
It was another hot August night for Sydney residents with the temperature warmer at midnight than it was at midday on Tuesday.

Sydney residents awoke on Wednesday to temperatures that were up to 20 degrees above average for this time of year in some parts of the greater metropolitan region.

But the run of warm, sunny days is set to finish with wild winds blowing across the city, causing havoc and bringing cooler temperatures.

Data from the Bureau of Meteorology shows the temperature at Observatory Hill barely dipped below 20 degrees overnight, topping 22 degrees at sunrise.
A 17-year-old Sydney driver who walked away unscathed from a potentially deadly car crash on the Sea Cliff Bridge last year has had a second windfall inside the courtroom, keeping his licence and avoiding a penalty for his negligent driving.

Michael Nedelkovski's Toyota Hilux ute was left hanging precariously close to the edge of the cliff, 100 metres above the ocean, after he lost control of the vehicle while travelling northbound onto the bridge around 12.30am on November 26 last year.

Michael Nedelkovskis Toyota Hilux ute was left hanging precariously close to the edge of the cliff.

The Hilux veered across the roadway and crashed through two steel safety barriers before flipping multiple times as it rolled down the steep embankment and came to rest on the cliff ledge.

The court heard a sturdy tree was the only object that prevented the vehicle from plummeting to the rock platform below
Jim Longley, a top NSW public service CEO, has resigned his post months after Fairfax revealed he was at the centre of a charity payments scandal that is now the subject of an inquiry.

Mr Longley was one of 10 directors who over a decade shared in $2.5 million of "consulting fees" for standing on the board of RSL LifeCare a major charity nursing home provider that receives donations from the public which was founded in volunteer labour.

Jim Longley will step down by the end of the year.

The former state Liberal MP announced he would resign as both CEO of the $2.7-billion Department of Ageing, Disability and Home Care and RSL LifeCare on Tuesday.

"I have decided to take the opportunity to pursue a two year post-graduate degree in the United States with my wife early in the new year," Mr Longley said in a letter to members of the charity
Queensland is in for a scorcher over the next two days, with temperatures expected to climb up to 10 degrees above average, and Ekka patrons being encouraged to consider the show's evening sessions if they are deterred by the unseasonal heat.

Organisers are arming patrons with extra umbrellas, more water fountains and sunscreen at the entry gates to beat the heat.

Ekka patrons will have extra umbrellas, more water fountains and sunscreen on entry gates to help combat the 30-degree temperatures expected on People's Day. Credit:Darren England - AAP

People's Day was expected to hit a top of 30 degrees, more than 8 degrees above the August average, and Thursday was forecast to reach 31.

Bureau of Meteorologist forecaster Julian De Morton said the last time Brisbane hit 30 degrees during August was in 2009, when the mercury showed a top of 35.4 degrees.
A Gold Coast woman wasn't breathing for almost three-quarters of an hour before she was attended by staff at a hospital mental health unit, a pre-inquest hearing has been told.

Renae Jean Mann, 43, died at the Gold Coast University Hospital on May 14, 2014, almost 24 hours after it's believed she took an overdose of prescription medication.

A nurse's account of the events around the death of the patient was contradicted by footage, the pre-inquest hearing was told. Credit:Joe Armao

At Southport Magistrates Court on Tuesday, the hours before Ms Mann's death were outlined before an inquest is scheduled to begin in September.

The hearing was told Ms Mann had been monitored by the hospital emergency department for almost 12 hours before she was moved to a mental health pod to undergo a psychiatric assessment.
Docs begin relay hunger strike in Dharan to express solidarity with Dr KC

Doctors at BP Koirala Institute of Health and Sciences on Tuesday began an eight-hour relay hunger strike to express solidarity with Dr Govinda KC.
The "largest flu outbreak" in years is sweeping Queensland, with experts warning this year could see the state struck down with the most cases recorded.

"I think it's clear this is worse than in previous years," public health physician professor Paul Van Buynder of Gold Coast Health said.

Queensland is on track for a record flu season. Credit: AP

"I'm confident that this isn't just our biggest recorded year, but also the largest flu outbreak we've seen for quite some time."

Members of the non-profit Immunisation Coalition warned that with 71,256 lab confirmed cases nationally and 19,216 in Queensland, this year had the potential to set records.
A suspicious device at a water treatment plant west of Brisbane, has been deemed safe by the bomb squad.

Police were called to the Mt Crosby water treatment plant on Allawah Road in Chuwar about 3.30pm, before the bomb squad arrived about 5.15pm.

Scenes of crime officers investigated the origins of the package on Tuesday evening and deemed the incident non-suspicious. Credit:7 News Brisbane - Twitter

The plant's workers self-evacuated mid-afternoon, after a supervisor found the device at what has been described by a police spokeswoman as the "west bank water pump station on the ground floor".

However, the bomb squad examined the device and found nothing dangerous, giving the all-clear about 6.30pm.
3AW's Pat Mitchell is reporting the blockade has been delayed to midday. It was tipped to begin at 8am.

It's understood drivers went into a meeting with airport management at 8am and had planned to protest depending on the outcome.

Several tow trucks are at the airport ready to remove taxis.

Drivers are up in arms following the opening of an UberX rank at Melbourne Airport.
Melbourne Airport is opening UberX wait zones for passengers travelling to and from the airport.





Victorians will be able to ride with UberX to and from Melbourne Airport. Credit:Shutterstock

From Wednesday, passengers at terminals T1, T2 and T3 will be able to use an UberX pick-up zone at Lane 1 of the main terminal forecourt.

The pick-up zone for terminal T4 passengers will be at Level 2 inside the Transport Hub.
A Perth man who killed three passengers including his brother in a high speed car crash was affected by the drug methamphetamine at the time.

Matthew John Conduit, aged 25 when the crash occurred in December 2015, drank alcohol and smoked the drug ice after finding out he would lose his job because his employer had gone bankrupt, the District Court of WA heard.

A Canberra man is on trial in the ACT Supreme Court this week accused of sexually assaulting his partner in their home. Credit:Louie Douvis

Mr Conduit, of South Lake, changed his plea from not guilty to guilty this week on three counts of dangerous driving causing death.

He wept in court as details were read out of the crash in Perth in which the car reached estimated speeds of 180kmh.
A 12-year-old boy has been mauled by a pet bull-mastiff cross at a family friend's home in Kenwick on Sunday night.

Nine News Perth reporter Alice Pooley said the dog's owner Katrina Haywood believed the boy woke Snowy, a two-year-old bull-mastiff cross breed, when he startled and latched onto the child's face and body, biting him repeatedly.

"The dog was asleep on my bed when my friend's son came in and sat on the bed," Ms Haywood, a mother as well, said.

"He must have startled him and before I knew it he latched onto his face.
A Broome woman in a serious condition after she was run over by a car while sleeping in a swag on Cable Beach is reported to have been run over by her own vehicle.

Libby Gross, 39 had been camping with a group of friends at the popular tourist destination, and had turned in for the night.

Pennie Gross (left) and her sister Libby (right). Credit:Facebook

She was then seriously injured after she was struck by a Toyota Landcruiser driving on the beach, and was rushed to Broome Hospital for treatment, then flown to Perth by the Royal Flying Doctors Service.

Her sister Pennie Gross told ABC news that she was trapped in her swag for half an hour before she was found.
Beijing: China has passed the baton to a younger generation to solve the world's most intractable diplomatic dilemma - North Korea.

Kong Xuanyou, 58, quietly took over from the 71-year-old Wu Dawei as China's special envoy on North Korea at the start of August.

Mr Kong is ethnically Korean, speaks Korean, and has been tasked with leading China's efforts to restart six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear and missile program.

The career diplomat and assistant foreign minister is also fluent in Japanese, and is a former ambassador to Vietnam.
President Donald Trump's war with CNN went off the rails Tuesday morning after he retweeted an image of a Trump train running over a CNN reporter, then quickly deleted it after the meme sparked criticism as inappropriate, particularly coming just days after the Charlottesville violence.

Mr Trump was in the middle of a morning tweetstorm when he sent the image, posted by a supporter who added "Nothing can stop the #TrumpTrain!!," to his nearly 36 million followers.

The president quickly deleted his handiwork but not before the original tweet had been retweeted hundreds of times and was captured on screenshots.

Mr Trump's promotion of the image came three days after a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville that turned into a violent clash between the supremacists and counter-protesters that led to the deaths of three people. A driver slammed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring at least 19 others; a 20-year old man who has reportedly espoused neo-Nazi views has been charged with second-degree murder in the case. Two police officers were killed when their helicopter crashed.
Women from Nigeria stand at the deck of the rescue vessel Golfo Azurro after being rescued by aid workers of Proactiva Open Arms off the Libyan coast on August 1. Credit:AP Until the dramatic slump in numbers, 2017 had looked like it was going to set a new record for arrivals. In total there have been 2408 migrant deaths in the Mediterranean so far in 2017, and 96,861 arrivals in Italy  a 3 per cent drop on the same period the year before. Marcella Kraay, MSF project coordinator on the Aquarius. Credit:MSF According to Frontex, Europe's border agency, some of the fall is down to bad sea conditions in the first half of July, and fighting in Sabrata, a part of Libya where many migrant boats depart.

But a more active Libyan coast guard has also deterred people smugglers from sending out boats with migrants, it said on Monday. According to one estimate, in recent weeks the coast guard turned back 10,000 people in boats before they reached international waters. The IOM has also speculated it might be a sign that a deal with Niger on fighting people smuggling was starting to work, with fewer people crossing into Libya from the sub-Saharan country. And it also draws attention to an agreement with tribal leaders in a key transit area for migrants in southern Libya. "The impression is that the stock of those who want to leave Libya is running out," the IOM's EU director Eugenio Ambrosi told Politico last week. The lull has also coincided with a decrease in the number of NGO rescue vessels on the lookout in the rescue zone.

On Saturday, the MSF suspended rescue missions for its ship Prudence, saying Italian authorities had "warned MSF about security risks associated with threats publicly issued by the Libyan coast guard". They accused European and Libyan authorities of imposing a "blockade on the ability of people to seek safety". Then on Sunday German aid group Sea-Eye also suspended refugee rescue operations, citing security concerns over the Libyan government's "explicit threat against the private NGOs". "We leave behind a deadly gap in the Mediterranean," founder Michael Buschheuer said. And on the same day, Save the Children announced its rescue ship Vos Hestia was heading for Malta, where it will dock while they assess the safety implications of recent developments.

"Reports of the Libyan Navy's intention to control the international waters in which Save the Children searches for stricken vessels and rescues those at risk of drowning, is of great concern when considering the safety and security of our staff, ship and ability to carry out rescue missions effectively," they said in a statement. Operations director Rob MacGillivray said "the necessary pause in operations from charity rescue ships likes ours and others will undoubtedly put lives at risk. Search and rescue capacity is diminishing but the need continues." On Thursday the Libyan navy ordered foreign vessels out of a search and rescue zone it was planning to put in place outside its territorial waters, which Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano welcomed as "a signal that the balance is being restored in the Mediterranean". But aid workers such as Kraay and MacGillivray say those "rescued" by Libyan ships will be taken back to a cycle of abuse and extortion. They have seen evidence of mistreatment all over the bodies of those they rescued. Kraay has seen "a lot of diseases that are the result of neglect and bad hygiene, a lot of infections, pneumonia and bronchitis. We see wounds that have been neglected, the result of torture or gunshots or that happened by accident and were neglected. We see skins diseases and quite a lot we see the victims of sexual violence".

Another aid organisation, Sea-Watch has not been operating rescues since mid-July because its ship had technical problems. They hope a new ship will be ready in September. But they are not sure if they will end up using it  saying it is becoming increasingly difficult to carry out their mission. "Obviously we have to evaluate what the risk is [of putting to sea]," Sea-Watch spokeswoman Theresa Leisgang said. "The Libyan coastguard have now threatened to use violence against those who enter into their search and rescue zone, but it's still not quite clear what zone they are referring to and we can never be quite sure whether they adhere to international law or not." Leisgang said the group did not believe migrants should be blocked from fleeing abuse and violence in Libya. "We don't want another Australian case in Europe," she said.
Dr KC falls unconscious twice today

Dr Govinda KC, who has been staging hunger strike for the past 23 days, fell unconscious for two times on Tuesday.
Nevertheless, the movement suggests North Korea could be readying for a launch within the next two days, CNN reported. Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis Credit:AP Kim has ordered the army should always be fire-ready should he make a decision for action, the country's official news agency says. "The United States, which was the first to bring numerous strategic nuclear equipment near us, should first make the right decision and show through actions if they wish to ease tensions on the Korean peninsula and prevent a dangerous military clash," Kim was cited as saying in the report by KCNA on Tuesday. A file photo of what North Korea says was the launch of a Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile in early July. Credit:AP

The comments come after US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said the United States would know the trajectory of a missile fired by North Korea within moments and would "take it out" if the missle looked like hitting the US Pacific territory of Guam. US officials and South Korean President in recent days have played down the risk of an imminent conflict after Washington and Pyongyang exchanged fiery rhetoric last week. US President Donald Trump Credit:AP But Mattis told reporters on Monday that war could break out if North Korea were to fire a missile at the US. "If they fire at the United States, it could escalate into war very quickly," Mattis said.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has made more threats against the US. Credit:AP Defense Secretary Jim Mattis warned that it would be "game on" for war if North Korea fired missiles that hit the US or its territories, including the Pacific island of Guam. "It could escalate into war very quickly -- yes, that's called war," Mattis told reporters Monday at the Pentagon. "If they shoot at the United States, I'm assuming they hit the United States -- if they do that, then it's 'game on."' Asked if he considers Guam part of the US, he said, "Yeah, it sure is." But South Korean President Moon Jae-in said on Tuesday there would be no military action upon the Korean peninsula without Seoul's consent and that the government would prevent war by all means. "Military action on the Korean peninsula can only be decided by South Korea and no one else can decide to take military action without the consent of South Korea," said Moon in televised comments.

The President was making an annual speech to commemorate the 72nd anniversary of the nation's liberation from Japanese military rule that began in 1910 and ended in 1945. "The government, putting everything on the line, will block war by all means," Moon said. About 7000 US military personnel and their families are on Guam, an unincorporated US territory with a total population of 170,000. The strategic outpost is about 3400 kilometres south-east of Pyongyang. Mattis was vague about what would happen if missiles were launched toward Guam but splashed into the sea. He said US surveillance would know whether the missiles would hit land within moments of their launch. "I need a certain amount of ambiguity because I'm not going to tell them what I'm going to do in each case," Mattis said. Mattis cautioned reporters not to portray his words as a virtual declaration of war. He said that "is up to the President, perhaps up to the Congress. The bottom line is we will defend the country from an attack."

Marine General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, reaffirmed the US commitment to protect South Korea after a meeting with Moon , spokesman Park Su-hyun told reporters in Seoul on Monday. "Dunford told Moon everyone hopes to resolve the current situation without going to war," Park said. Other administration officials also have sought at least a temporary halt in the war of words between Trump and Kim, which sparked fears that a miscalculation could lead to an actual military conflict. Global stocks gained and volatility receded Monday as the prospect of war between the two countries appeared to cool. European Union Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini called in a statement Monday for North Korea to "refrain from any further provocative action." She said the EU "and its member states will strengthen their diplomatic work by reaching out" to the North and South Korea, the US, China, Russia and Japan. In a joint commentary in the Wall Street Journal, Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said "the US is willing to negotiate with Pyongyang," but appeared to reject China's "suspension-for-suspension" proposal, in which North Korea would halt further nuclear and missile tests in return for the US and South Korea simultaneously stopping joint military exercises in the region. "Given the long record of North Korea's dishonesty in negotiations and repeated violations of international agreements, it is incumbent upon the regime to signal its desire to negotiate in good faith," they wrote.
Washington: A crowd toppled a bronze Confederate statue in front of a county administrative building in Durham, North Carolina, on Monday evening, as throngs of "anti-fascist" groups gathered there days after white nationalist-fueled violence turned fatal in Virginia.

Derrick Lewis, a reporter from the local NBC affiliate WNCN, posted a video to Twitter at 7.15pm showing the statue crashing to the ground in front of the old Durham County Court House during what organisers billed as an "emergency protest".

With a strap tied around the neck of the statue, protesters spat, kicked and gestured at the mangled figure after its base was ripped from the granite block.

The statue, which depicts a uniformed and armed Confederate soldier, stood atop an engraved pedestal that read, "In memory of 'the boys who wore the gray". " It was erected in 1924 and stood four metres tall, according to a memorial database. One side of the granite pedestal depicts a Confederate flag.
PHILIPSBURG:--- On Friday the 11th of August 2017, Safe Haven Foundation Managing Director, Miss Cassandra Richardson, met with the Justice Minister Rafael Boasman and Mr. Benjamin Ortega of I-Novus to discuss the upcoming events surrounding the awareness campaign to eradicate domestic violence, an unfortunate phenomenon observed internationally. The event themed "Fatherhood, Eradicating Domestic Violence: the need to father with purpose and love" is part of a series of educational events coordinated by Safe Haven.

During this meeting, the parties expressed the need to promote, collaborate and eradicate Domestic Violence. especially in our community on St. Maarten.

The Minister gave workable solutions to the various examples that we are facing in the community with regards to violence and in particular the crimes being committed by young men. Richardson commented that the link between domestic violence and youth criminality is not a far fetched one." She elaborated," children who grow up in dysfunctional homes where (physical and verbal) violence is experienced consistently are susceptible to using violence as children and as adults when they become older".

In response and acknowledgment to social initiatives being done on the island but that is struggling to find synergy, Minister Boasman commented, "working together is great, yet ensuring that all processes and procedures are in place to successfully complete and stimulate the various initiatives are just or even more of an importance".

The meeting ended with the Ministers commitment to advocate, and encourage the various departments headed by the Ministry of Justice, i.e. police, immigration, and customs departments, and prosecutors office, and his proclamation to attend this worthy and much-needed lecture.

Miss Richardson gave details of the process of Safe Haven's directives and challenges they face. She also shared further plans on how the Justice Ministry and in particular Police and Social agencies can work together to better the process of safeguarding the person(s) affected by domestic violence, including the most vulnerable -- the children.

Mr. Ortega who recently signed an MOU for 3 years with Safe Haven explained the working relationship and the importance of getting the community involved in not only this initiative but stopping domestic violence through showing and doing better in the community.

On the 23rd of August, there will be a free and open to- the-public lecture that will be held at the Port of St. Maarten from 6 PM, with various key note speakers on the subject of being a good father and eradicating domestic violence.

Key note speaker for this evening will be Mr. Wendell De Leon from Trinidad.

Mr. De Leon, who is a former police officer with the Trinidad and Tobago Police Department after leaving his police career acquired his Masters of Social work degree and has credentials as a behavioral therapist. Mr. De Leon's key interest is that of fatherhood and working with disenfranchised youth and helping families to build stronger and positive family structures.

For more information about this event please contact Safe Haven management via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or Mr. Ortega via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
PHILIPSBURG:--- Our governing program for 2016-2020 is entitled, Stability for Prosperity. It is anchored on five strategic objectives, all of which can only be achieved by upgrading our government apparatus. We are not even one year into this governing period yet and we can see that various initiatives that are geared towards a profound transformation of our society are already taking shape. One of those initiatives is why we are gathered here today. Nobody knows the challenges that this coalition government faces better than the civil servants who do their utmost day in, day out, to give professional support to government. Civil servants are the guarantors of continuity in government, and without such continuity, we cannot really speak of stability.

It is therefore logical that in pursuing our vision of a strong, proud, healthy and resilient nation, we should equip our civil servants, particularly those who are tasked with giving the required advice on government policy, with the necessary tools to enable them continue discharging their duties as efficiently and as professionally as possible.

This is the reason this project was initiated. The Basic Law Course which started this morning will address the fundamentals of our governmental operations and provide participants with the necessary legal education and training that will ensure that they can continue to improve their performance in every aspect of their professional duties and offer the highest level of quality service to our citizens, partners, and international counterparts.

I am, therefore, very happy to note that over 100 persons have already registered for this Course. This is a clear indication of their commitment to professional and personal development that will surely result in an improved service-based sector. I know that many more would have liked to register for this Basic Legal Course, but unfortunately, we cannot shut down government to allow every civil servant to participate in the course.

The large number of participants is the reason why the Course has been organized into three classes per module instead of one. The program will last a total of five weeks of intensive training which will end in November with graduation set for December.

By then, as you all know, the Law School, the brainchild of Minister of Finance, Mr. Richard Gibson, would have gotten off the ground. Minister Gibson founded and led one of the most successful law firms on the island and also served as minister of constitutional affairs in the now defunct Netherlands Antilles. He is very passionate about helping St. Maarteners enter into the legal field and hopefully the credits obtained in this Basic Legal Course can be acceptable in the new Law School for those of you who may be interested in taking this to a higher level.

As a young and growing nation that will be just seven years old in a couple of months, it is imperative for our future development to have our own cadre of lawyers and legal professionals and a civil service corps that has a functional knowledge of how our system of government works. In fact, one of the core responsibilities of the Ministry of General Affairs which I head is the preparation, publication, and management of the laws and regulations of the country, as well as giving legal advice.

It is a well-known fact that the vast majority of our laws are initiated and drafted by the executive branch of government for passage by Parliament. This requires that those who prepare these laws and those who give advice on them are well-versed in the legal processes and procedures and have the necessary skills to do their jobs in a way that would reflect the strengths of our young country.

Another important responsibility of the Ministry of General Affairs is ensuring an effective, efficient, trustworthy and client-friendly service to the governmental organization, business sector, citizens and other private sector organizations that make up the community of Sint Maarten, in addition to taking care of external communication pertaining to government policy in general.

Initiatives like this Basic Legal Course are therefore necessary to maintain the required level of professionalism and transparency in the public sector that are indispensable for good governance.

Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family, said Kofi Annan, former U.N. Secretary General. I consider our civil servants as members of a tightly-knit family that knows the value of knowledge and values the use of the power that comes with it in a judicious, fair, and equitable manner. I am convinced that government is doing the right thing with this kind of initiative because no other investment yields better dividends than an investment in knowledge that is put to good use.

I hope and expect that participants in this Basic Legal Course will put the knowledge they acquire to the best use possible thereby contributing to the transformation of the Civil Service corps into the vector of change that will benefit the people of our beloved island.

I am proud of the excellent work done in organizing this course by the Project Team led by the Secretary General of the Ministry of General Affairs, Mr. Hensley Plantijn, ably assisted by Jennifer Fer, Head of the Legal Affairs and Legislation Department, drs. Bas van den Bosch, sector head of Legal Affairs, and Tytania Archangel also of the Legal Affairs Department.

Congratulations to all participants for taking this very important step and success with the course.

Prime Minister William V. Marlin.
PHILIPSBURG:--- Environmental Protection in the Caribbean (EPIC) Foundation has hit the ground running on a new project to restore keys areas of biodiversity on St. Maarten. With funding from the European Unions (E.U.) BEST 2.0 program, EPIC aims to restore areas within three characteristically different sites located at: Rainforest Adventures in St. Peters, Seaside Nature Park in Cay Bay and Little Key in the Simpson Bay Lagoon. Along with restoration, the project will also support education and outreach activities, including presentations and field trips to the restoration sites focused around the importance of biodiversity. EPICs Project Coordinator, Kippy Gilders, will oversee the project's activities.

Biodiversity can be defined as the variety of life that is found in a particular area. The European overseas regions and territories host over 70% of the E.U.s biodiversity. Despite the importance of these areas, they are highly vulnerable to a number of threats such as pollution and development. The three restoration sites represent ecologically important areas on St. Maarten that have become degraded by past human activities. Years of agriculture have stripped the sites at Rainforest Adventures and Seaside Nature Park of their original forest composition and this project aims to restore some of what was lost. Meanwhile, mangrove propagules will be planted at Little Key. Restored sites will offer valuable habitat for reptiles, fish, birds, insects and spiders.

The first task of the project has been to conduct baseline assessments of the plant structure at each site. The assessment was conducted by Dr. Ethan Freid, the Chief Botanist at the Leon Levy Native Plant Preserve on Eleuthera, and will be used to decide which plants should be introduced at each site. Mark Yokoyama of Les Fruits des Mer conducted the reptile, amphibian, and invertebrate assessment. This assessment describes those animals present on the sites before restoration. Then at the end of the project, the same assessments can be repeated to scientifically conclude that the sites have become more biodiverse as a result of the project.

As the project continues, EPIC will reach out to schools, community groups, government departments, and businesses to promote habitat restoration and conservation. The value of biodiversity will be revealed through presentations, activities, field trips, and volunteerism. Citizen-scientists will help monitor plant growth and health. Planting of the tree saplings will occur in November of this year to be followed by a nature trail within the restoration area. With a clearly marked path and informational signs, this will be the first nature trail of its kind on St. Maarten!

This project, Restoration of Key Biodiversity Areas of St. Maarten, is supported by the BEST 2.0 Programme funded by the European Union. For more information or to become a volunteer, contact Kippy Gilders at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , +1 (721) 545-3009, or surf over to: www.epicislands.org.
Dr KCs supporters, police scuffle in Baneshwor

Supporters of agitating Dr Govinda KC scuffled with security personnel on Tuesday when the former tried to enter into the prohibited zone outside Parliament Building in Baneshwor, Kathmandu.
Everything you need to know about No. 20 Notre Dame's game vs. Navy Saturday in Baltimore
Dr KCs unfeasible demands can't be addressed: UML

The main opposition party CPN-UML has urged the government to address agitating Dr Govinda KCs demands that can be fulfilled.
Flood toll soars to 91, victims await relief

The death toll from floods across the country over the past four days has reached 91, the Ministry of Home Affairs said on Monday. At least 38 people are missing.
Floods shave Rs2.9b off farm sector: Govt

The farm sector is expected to suffer losses to the tune of Rs2.86 billion due to flash flood triggered by heavy rainfall in the Tarai districts since last Thursday, according to preliminary estimates of the Ministry of Agricultural Development.
Floods throw life out of gear in Saptari (in photos)

Floods have thrown life out of gear in various parts of Saptari district. People have been left with nothing but the clothes on their body.
Algiers (Algeria), August 15, 2017 (SPS) - The Speaker of the Saharawi National Council (Parliament), member of the National Secretariat of the Frente POLISARIO, Jatri Adduh, affirmed at his conference 'The contribution of the Saharawi solution in the promotion of security and stability in the region, "organized by the forum of the Algerian newspaper" Achaab "that" the continuation of the blockade of the Western Sahara conflict is a danger to regional and international security. "

"It is not only the Saharawis that call for a speedy resolution of the conflict. The international community also demands it and is reflected in UN Security Council resolutions and UN Secretary General reports," Adduh said before assuring that the Saharawi issue "is in the agenda of the highest European and African bodies ", as well as the" legal aspect, as demonstrated by the European Court ruling last year ", which prevented the exploitation of natural resources by Morocco without the" consent of the only representative of the Saharawi people, the Frente POLISARIO. "

SNCs speaker clarified that the UN-sponsored settlement efforts since 1988 are based on the principle that "the resolution of the issue is the exercise of the Saharawi people's right to self-determination," and that "it remained Morocco clearly hindered all attempts to the solution. "

The Saharawi official criticized Morocco's negative role in security as "it is involved in drug trafficking along the Algerian and Saharawi border, as well as illegal migration to Spain."

On the other hand, Jatri Adduh reiterated the strong desire of the SADR to collaborate with all the mechanisms of the African Union, either its Special Envoy or the Committee of Wise Men, in the search for a negotiated solution.

Finally, he called on Europe, and especially France, to change its stance on the conflict, on the grounds that "it is one of the members of the Security Council that hampered the efforts of the Council in the solution." SPS

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DANBURY  The shareholders now have their say in the proposed $67 billion merger between industrial gas companies Praxair and Linde AG.

Munich, Germany-based Linde announced that the 10-week acceptance period started Tuesday and will run through Oct. 24. Linde needs 75 percent of its shareholders to tender their stock.

Danbury-based Praxair announced Monday that it will hold a shareholder meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 27, at which a simple majority vote is needed.

The merger would create the worlds largest industrial gas company with revenue of $30 billion. It would create a new holding company, called Linde plc. that would be incorporated in Ireland with board meetings held in the U.K.

Linde and Praxair would retain their respective headquarters in Germany and Danbury. Praxair earlier this year moved into new headquarters in Berkshire Park in Danbury, a building it purchased from GE Capital. Praxair CEO Steve Angel would become the CEO of Linde plc and be based in Danbury.

During the acceptance period, Linde shareholders will get 1.54 shares in the new company for each Linde AG share tendered.

Our shareholders now have the historic opportunity to make an active decision to exchange their shares and thus become part of a new global gases group, Aldo Belloni, CEO of Linde AG, said in a statement. As a result, they will benefit not only from the direct increase in value from the expected synergies but also from the attractive growth opportunities offered by the merged company.

Praxair announced that the registration statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission with Linde was declared effective as of Monday. The filing occurred on June 5.

Praxairs shareholders of record as Aug. 8 may vote at the shareholders meeting on Sept. 27. Praxair said in a statement that its board of directors unanimously recommends that its shareholders vote for the merger.
Govt adopts one-door policy for relief distribution

The government has adopted a one-door policy for distribution of relief materials in the flood and landslide affected areas, imposing restrictions on non-governmental agencies and individuals from dispensing support without coordination with the authorities.
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STAMFORD  A plan to install a high-speed rail line slicing through Fairfield County neighborhoods will likely never become a reality and should be ditched in favor of improving the existing tracks, local leaders say.

I am happy theyve made the decision to run high-speed rail through this part of the state. I am not happy about the lines they drew with their crayons running through various neighborhoods, Stamford Mayor David Martin said of the Federal Railroad Administrations proposal.

At the same time, I want these investments to take place (in Metro-North). Fundamentally, the investment we need is in Metro-North or were going into a decline over a long period of time.

Martin and the four other chief elected officials of communities directly affected by the proposed alignment criticized the plan as destructive to their neighborhoods during a forum Tuesday at the Stamford Government Center.

The proposal, revealed last month, is part of a larger $150 billion project to add hundreds of miles of tracks between Washington and New Haven, and between Boston and Providence, R.I.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who organized the forum, and state Department of Transportation Commissioner Jim Redeker told the concerned local officials that the plan to realign the tracks from New Rochelle, N.Y., to Greens Farms in Westport will likely never happen.

The cost of this selected alternative would be so staggering in terms of the economics, the likelihood is there will be a focus on the existing route, Blumenthal said.

Redeker said in addition to community opposition to the plan, the FRAs own marketing research found potential passengers surveyed would prefer improvements to the existing rail system instead of the high-speed project.

(High-speed rail) didnt make sense as a cost-to-benefit matter compared to improving the existing system, Redeker said of the analysis. Affordability and frequency is what the public market demanded after they (FRA) did their research  not high-speed rail. It was, I need something I can use on a regular basis and frequency is more important than high speed.

The plan to increase train capacity and high-speed service calls for new rail segments through Greenwich, Stamford, Darien, Norwalk and Westport, departing from the existing Metro-North tracks to avoid the New Haven Lines slowest area.

Few specifics have been released, but a December 2016 FRA map labeled preferred alternative shows new tracks beginning in New Rochelle that would veer off the existing line in Greenwich to accommodate a new Cross-Westchester Station and wend its way through a looping pattern to the Stamford station.

Greenwich First Selectman Peter Tesei said the economic benefit of the new tracks is not clear. In Greenwich, historic preservationists have been meeting since earlier this year about the potential destruction of properties along the Interstate 95 corridor, Tesei said.

I think the key concerns are the bypass and if in fact we can focus on the cost benefit of the need for the bypass compared to bringing the existing rail up to good repair, Tesei said. Hopefully, we can determine that.

Connecticuts transportation investment plans are centered firmly on a backlog of state of good repair projects and Gov. Dannel P. Malloys $100 billion, 30-year plan to modernize the states rails and highways.

There is no bypass or state of good repair choice. There is no choice not to do the state of good repair projects, Redeker said.

Blumenthal said the existence of the bypass proposal could delay federal funding needed to maintain or improve the existing line.

My fear is the continued presence of this selected alternative as an option will detract from the money we have to improve the existing route if there isnt a decision by the federal government(to not do it), Blumenthal said. It could delay money for a state of good repair.

Considering the various obstacles standing in the way of the track proposal, Martin said he is not rushing to determine what specific neighborhoods and landowners would be impacted.

That would be the common political move, but the reality is I trust what the senator said is that a line that plows a completely new corridor from here all the way through Connecticut to Westport is just not going to happen, Martin said. Lets not all run around like crazy people getting people fired up fighting for some victory weve already won. It just doesnt work.

Darien First Selectman Jayme Stevenson said her town would likely be the most impacted by the plan because the line appears to go through the central commercial district.

Stevenson said the circulated map already has developers and investors in the towns balking.

Stevenson also said higher rail speeds will not improve the economy unless there is a continued investment to reduce traffic on I-95.

We may not be here to see it because some of these projects take 20 or 30 years, Stevenson said. However, (the Record of Decision) is driving investment decisions today. When commercial developers see those rudimentary lines of crayon going through sections of land, they may have made investments and they change their thinking. We may have some comfort that this is theoretical, but people making investments have a different viewpoint.

mcassidy@stamfordadvocate.com
Successful individuals are known for sharing similar habits such as waking-up early, saving, providing value to others, and taking calculated risks. But, sometimes the person or the habits aren't 100 percent understood - no matter how much you think you know about them.

Heres a look at 20 secret facts about billionaires that most of us dont understand.

1. Theyre not fearless.

Every successful billionaire reached that status because they werent afraid to put everything on the line and boldly step into the unknown. However, that doesnt mean that they dont worry. Having a little bit of pessimism allows you to spot any flaws in your business that you otherwise may have overlooked.

As Bill Gates once said, In business, by the time you realize youre in trouble, its too late to save yourself. Unless youre running scared all the time, youre gone.

Related: 21 Weird Things We've Learned About Bill Gates

2. They care for their health, not just their wealth.

Its no secret that taking care of yourself is an essential part of being successful since it reduces stress and prevents you from getting sick all of the time. In other words, if youre stressed out and battling health concerns all the time -- how can you focus on your business?

But, as Justine Musk, the ex-wife of Elon Musk, explains on Quora, there are a number of other reasons why you should take care of yourself:

It helps to have superhuman energy and stamina. If you are not blessed with godlike genetics, then make it a point to get into the best shape possible. There will be jet lag, mental fatigue, bouts of hard partying, loneliness, pointless meetings, major setbacks, family drama, issues with the significant other you rarely see, dark nights of the soul, people who bore and annoy you, little sleep, and less sleep than that. Keep your body sharp to keep your mind sharp. It pays off.

Related: Elon Musk Reportedly Gave His Assistant a 2-Week Test When She Asked for a Big Raise -- What Happened to Her Is an Important Lesson in Salary Negotiations

3. Theyre comfortable outside the box.

I believe you have to be willing to be misunderstood if youre going to innovate, said Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. What Bezos is talking about is the fact that if all of your ideas were easy to digest, then everyone else would be doing the same exact thing. Successful billionaires have figured out how to take those off-the-wall ideas and connect them to everyday life.

Related: 5 Things Jeff Bezos Does Other Than Work

4. Think like a hacker.

Hackers arent always those nefarious individuals looking to steal sensitive information for their own gain. As Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a letter to potential Facebook investors, The Hacker Way" is an approach to building that involves continuous improvement and iteration. Hackers believe that something can always be better, and that nothing is ever complete.

Related: 20 Weird Things You Didn't Know About Mark Zuckerberg

5. They borrow money before they need it.

This may sound like the most counter-intuitive advice ever, but think it through. Its more difficult to borrow money when youre struggling and it helps you build liquidity. Tim Fertitta, who built a restaurant and hospitality empire from a $6,000 loan, explained to CNBC that borrowing money when times are good guarentees youll have cash on hand when times are tough.

Related: 4 Reasons Why Borrowing Money Is Usually Better Than Giving Up Equity

6. Embrace the crazy.

When you innovate, youve got to be prepared for people telling you that you are nuts," says Larry Ellison. And, thats not a bad thing. Its actually an indication that youre onto something. Again, youre not going to succeed when everyone is doing the same thing. Adopt and accept different thinking, (think outside the box) and embrace the crazy.

Related: 5 Ways to Turn a Crazy Idea Into an Awesome Reality

7. They recognize opportunity but dont have all the answers.

Just because you have a well-thought plan doesnt mean that its going to work. You never know when either disaster or opportunity will strike. As Eric Schmidt, former CEO and current executive chairman of Google said in a commencement address at Carnegie Mellon University in 2009, "its all about recognizing opportunity."

Dont bother to have a plan at all. All that stuff about planning -- throw that out. It seems to me that its all about opportunity and making your own luck. You study the most successful people, and they work hard and they take advantage of opportunities that come that they dont know are going to happen to them. You cannot plan innovation, you cannot plan invention. All you can do is try very hard to be in the right place and be ready.

Related: Google's Eric Schmidt: To Maximize Persistence, Do This

8. They'll take a dare.

To a contrarian like me, constant advice not to do something almost always starts me quickly down the risky, unpopular path, said Michael Bloomberg.

When a billionaire is told that something cant be done, they accept the challenge to prove their naysayers wrong- even if it didnt make them popular among their peers.

Related: Michael Bloomberg to Grads: You May Hate What I Stand For, But Don't Repress Me

9. Think hard about what can go wrong.

As Michael Simmons writes in an article for Medium, Until I read billionaire Charlie Mungers Poor Charlies Almanack, I thought the key to success was creating a vision, setting goals, and working hard toward them every day.

However, Charlie Munger, Berkshire Hathaway vice-chairman and long-time Warren Buffett business partner, argues otherwise and believes in, thinking through what can go wrong.

As Munger explains:

Invert, always invert: Turn a situation or problem upside down. Look at it backward. What happens if all our plans go wrong? Where dont we want to go, and how do you get there? Instead of looking for success, make a list of how to fail instead  through sloth, envy, resentment, self-pity, entitlement, all the mental habits of self-defeat. Avoid these qualities and you will succeed. Tell me where Im going to die so I dont go there.

10. Investing in yourself is not splurging.

Billionaires are known for being disciplined and frugal. But, there is one exception; investing in yourself and the people around you. Whether its purchasing a new computer, going on a vacation, or learning a new skill, investing in yourself can make you more productive and encourages a healthy work-life balance.

As Patrick Soon-Shiong, founder of the biotech startup NantHealth, says, Invest in yourself and the people you believe in.

Related: No Other Investment Compares to the One You Make in Yourself

11. They have to make sacrifices.

Along their journey, billionaires had to make some serious sacrifices that arent always ideal. Take Nick Woodman the founder of GoPro, for example. "To get GoPro started, I moved back in with my parents and went to work seven days a week, 20 hours a day. I wrote off my personal life to make headway on it."

12. They're comfortable not being the smartest person in the room.

Billionaires are intelligent and skilled, but that doesnt mean that they have to be the smartest person in the room. In fact, as Michael Dell once said, Try to never to be the smartest person in the room.

Instead of being threatened by people who are experts, billionaires thrive on learning from people who are experts so that they can eventually become experts themselves in that area as well.

Related: Why the Five People Around You Are Crucial to Your Success

13. Work with people they already know.

Theres a lot of emphasis on networking. However, instead of cold-calling influencers, prospective clients or investors or networking at parties and events, people like Reid Hoffman have realized that one of the keys to success is by working with your closest allies.

As explained in Fortune, having an ally allows you to regularly consult them when you need advice and share and collaborate on opportunities together. Theres a reason why the PayPal Mafia has become some of the richest group of people in Silicon Valley.

14. Many had a headstart.

Ben Mezrich, author of "The Accidental Billionaires" and "Bringing Down the House," has said that, "The first trick to becoming a billionaire is being born a millionaire."

While billionaires like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg came from middle-class families, thats not exactly the same thing as being born into the Walton family. In fact, research has found that 65 percent of billionaires are actually self-made.

15. Its still a boys club.

Although the number of women business owners and entrepreneurs is growing rapidly, and theyre finding a great deal of success, a whooping 88 percent of the total population of the worlds ultra high net worth (UHNW) are male.

Related: 5 Important Business Lessons You Can Learn From Billionaire Oprah Winfrey

16. Billionaires will spend big to influence elections and change public policy.

Youve probably heard about the millions of dollars that Charles and David Koch poured into elections over the years or how Michael Bloomberg and Mark Zuckerberg tried to persuade Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform. The fact of the matter is that they werent successful since money doesnt always equate political power.

Billionaires looking to change public policy are usually taken at the state and local level.

17. They delegate.

Billionaires definitely grab the spotlight, but without an amazing team behind them, whether its their spouse or employees, they wouldnt be where they are today.

As Richard Branson has said, As much as you need a strong personality to build a business from scratch, you also must understand the art of delegation. I have to be good at helping people run the individual businesses, and I have to be willing to step back. The company must be set up so it can continue without me.

Related: Do You Sleep More Than Elon Musk, Mark Cuban, Sheryl Sandberg and Other Leaders?

18. They focus on one job.

When you think of billionaires you think that they made their fortune by focusing on just one job. For example, when you think of Warren Buffett you think of him as only an investor. When you think of Steve Jobs you think of the brains behind the iPhone.

The truth is, theyve worn multiple hats and have juggled numerous responsibilities. As John Catsimatidis, owner, president, chairman, and CEO of Gristedes Foods, once said, In your company or industry, work every job in that industry. Its the only way of having a complete understanding of your people and your company.

Related: Why Smart People Don't Multitask

19. They stay true to their roots.

We often assume that successful people forget where they came from and head for greener pastures. However, they actually stay true to their roots in order to remain humble. Warren Buffett has remained in Omaha, Nebraska and Amancio Ortega built his billionaire business Zara in his small hometown of La Coruna, Spain.

20. They dont concentrate on achievements.

Celebrating small victories is one often considered one of the most effective ways to motivate yourself, and your team. However, as Ingvar Krampad, says, The most dangerous poison is the feeling of achievement. The antidote is to every evening think what can be done better tomorrow.

Billionaires arent complacent, no matter how successful they are. Theyre always innovating and looking for the next big thing.

Related:

20 Truths About Billionaires That Nobody Understands

The World's 10 Richest Black Billionaires

15 Times Elon Musk Had the Best Response



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved



This article originally appeared on entrepreneur.com


Govt to work with local level on water supply

The Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation has asked local governing bodies in the Valley to take initiatives for supplying clean and hygienic drinking water.
Indian Embassy observes 71st Independence Day of India

On this occasion the 71st Independence Day of India, India has gifted 30 ambulances and six buses to various hospitals, non-profit charitable organisations and educational institutions of different districts in Nepal.
Market monitoring drive stepped up

The Department of Supplies Management (DoSM) said it had started aggressive market monitoring in the Kathmandu Valley due to the possibility of black markets emerging following supply disruptions caused by floods in several Tarai districts.
Minister Sharma at TIA to inspect supply of relief

Home Minister Janardan Sharma on Tuesday reached the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA), Kathmandu, to inspect the supply of relief to the regions affected by floods and landslides.
Obviously frustrated, local tattoo artist Nicholas Natale wondered about the competence of members of the Gering City Council in not understanding their own rules.

The confusion occurred over whether to approve or deny amending the citys zoning to allow for tattoo parlors as an exemption in the citys downtown business district.

Natale had already approached the Gering Planning Commission about the exemption that would allow him to open a tattoo parlor at 1040 O St. in downtown Gering. His petition was approved by a 5-1 vote and the recommendation was forwarded to the city council for consideration at its Aug. 14 meeting.

Gering City Engineer Paul Snarr said existing zoning prohibits tattoo parlors as permitted zoning or as an exemption in the downtown district. Natales application would have amended that zoning to allow for tattoo parlors.

Natale explained his positon to the council, saying he was unable to fund a suitable location in an area zoned for highway commercial because of the sterile environment he needed to operate. His business relies on foot traffic, which would better fit in the downtown area, he said.

Natale also cited the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that ruled tattooing is a protected industry under freedom of speech in the First Amendment to the Constitution. Consequently, tattoo parlors couldnt be banned from operation in cities.

Gering City Administrator Lane Danuelzuk reviewed the citys history in dealing with regulatory changes and other exemptions.

Its discriminatory to use zoning to affect a certain use or business, he said. We have two zoning districts in Gering already that allow for tattoo parlors by permitted use or use by special exception. Thats not discriminatory.

Danielzuk also read the record from a 2006 Planning Commission meeting. In it, then City Administrator Gary Rimington said the city cannot tell tattoo parlors they cannot locate in the city, but the city can tell them where they can locate.

If the council voted to deny this application, it wouldnt be discriminatory, he told members.

After the council accepted the testimony into the record, they moved on whether to approve or deny Natales request for a zoning change.

Weve gone to great lengths to put together a comprehensive plan for what we want downtown to look like, councilmember Julie Morrison said. We need to be mindful of this when we vote.

Councilmember Dan Smith motioned to deny the request, but with member Philip Holliday absent, the vote was 4-3 and failed for lack of a majority.

The council then took a five-minute break to confer with counsel over confusion of what the vote meant and whether a motion to approve could be made.

Member Ben Backus then moved to approve for reasons of closure. The vote was identical with Dan Smith, Susan Wiedeman, Pam ONeal and Julie Morrison voting to deny. Voting to approve were Troy Cowan, Michael Gillen and Ben Backus.

Im tired of hearing about Gering turning down new business opportunities, Natale told the media after the meeting. Not knowing how to vote shows their level of competence to run the city. I guess Ill have to move forward in a different direction.
A 19-year-old man will face charges on accusations alleging he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl.

Authorities charged Kobe Paez, 19, of Scottsbluff, in July with first-degree sexual assault on a minor, a Class II felony, and enticement by electronic communication device, a Class IV felony, according to court documents. Judge Russell Harford heard testimony Monday in a preliminary hearing, a hearing to determine if enough evidence exists for Paez to face trial.

According to an arrest affidavit filed in the case, an investigation began when a Scottsbluff Police officer responded on July 11 to a disturbance at a Scottsbluff residence involving a 14-year-old girl and a 19-year-old man. The girls mother had advised that the man, identified as Paez, had been messaging with her daughter, and that Paez had come over to her home to see the girl after she had sneaked out of the house. Another girl found the two outside, and Paez, allegedly ran away.

While the officer was at the house, Paez returned to get his vehicle. Paez claimed he had just met the girl earlier in the day and left as soon as he found out she was only 14, the officer says in the arrest affidavit

The next day, the girls mother reported to police that the girl had been sexually-assaulted. According to the arrest affidavit, the girl allegedly disclosed to an aunt that she had unprotected sex. The girl was interviewed by police and disclosed she had sex with Paez and she says she had disclosed her age before having sex with him.

On July 13, police attempted to interview Paez, but Paez and his father advised they needed an attorney.

Police obtained pictures from a tablet used by the girl, which showed discussions of a sexual nature.

Paez is currently free after posting 10 percent of a $110,000 bond. He is scheduled to be arraigned in district court on charges Friday at 1 p.m.
Two people faces charges after a Nebraska State Patrol trooper stopped a driver on Highway 88 for speeding and drugs were located in the vehicle Saturday.

Keith Grant, 29, was taken into custody on charges of possession of controlled substance, driving under the influence of drugs (second offense), unlawful acts relating to drugs, no operators license, no proof of insurance, possession of less than an ounce of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of an open container, speeding and no valid registration.

Katherine Murphy, 24, was arrested on charges of possession of a controlled substance, unlawful acts relating to drugs, possession of marijuana less than an ounce and possession of drug paraphernalia. Grant and Murphy were scheduled to be arraigned on charges in the case on Monday.

According to an arrest affidavit, a Nebraska State Patrol trooper had been traveling west on Highway 88 near mile marker 12 when she observed an eastbound vehicle traveling in excess of the posted speed limit. The trooper stopped the vehicle and Grant was identified as the driver. The trooper described Grant as appearing to be under the influence, having blood shot and watery eyes and nervous to the pont that he was physically shaking, according to the arrest affidavit.

Grant advised that he had taken prescription medication for anxiety. The trooper administered field sobriety tests and Grant allegedly showed impairment. A preliminary breath test also allegedly showed the presence of alcohol and Grant was placed under arrest.

Deputies from the Scotts Bluff County Sheriffs Department responded,to assist. A deputy told the trooper that he believed Murphy, who was a passenger in the car, to be under the influence. The trooper instructed the woman that she needed to step out of the vehicle so that it could be inventoried and told the woman to call for a ride for her and her child. As Murphy got out of the car, she indicated she wanted a bag and a brown back pack. When deputies looked in the bag, acetaminophen containing oxycodone hydrochloride was found. In the back pack, deputies reported finding a marijuana smoking pipe with residue, a second smoking pipe with residue and 1.1 grams of marijuana in a plastic baggie.

Murphy was also placed under arrest.

A child was taken into protective custody while authorities investigate if abuse and neglect related to substance abuse were involved in the case.
None of the newspaper columns I have submitted have generated more response than the one I wrote during the week of July 4 on LR 3. LR 3 is the Legislative Resolution introduced by Sen. Burke Harr of Omaha in January to redesign the Nebraska State flag. Besides what has been written in the newspapers, I have received more positive feedback from the public on this article than on any other. Nevertheless, I feel the need to respond.

Last week Sen. Harr said that he never orchestrated the flying of the Nebraska state flag upside down at the capitol building in Lincoln. I have no reason to doubt Sen. Harrs word, nor do I wish to judge his intentions on this matter. I believe he is telling the truth. I have always known Sen. Harr to be an honest and upstanding man, so I thank him for clarifying this matter.

When it comes to evaluating what constitutes a fact, however, I must take issue with Sen. Harr. By definition, a fact is something which has actual existence. In other words, something which is factual has a presence in physical reality. Legislative facts, then, exist within a written piece of legislation. This definition is important because Sen. Harr would have us believe that his immaterial thoughts and his good intentions somehow constitute legislative facts, but they do not. Let me explain.

Last week Sen. Harr accused me of getting two facts wrong. The first wrong fact was the issue regarding the flag flying upside down at the State capitol. While I did not get the fact of the flag flying upside down wrong, I was mistaken about who actually raised it. The second fact that Sen. Harr accused me of getting wrong, however, was the associated cost of redesigning the Nebraska State flag. Sen. Harr stated that the associated cost of $250,000 would be a valid concern if only it were true. Well, it is true after all.

I would now like to respond to Sen. Harr on a purely factual basis  his word, not mine. First, Sen. Harr said in his recent article that LR 3 only creates a task force to have a conversation about design. This is not factually true at all. LR 3 states explicitly: The task force shall develop a recommendation for the design of a new flag for the State of Nebraska which conforms to the flag design principles of established vexillologic organizations. LR 3 says absolutely nothing about starting a conversation, nor does it say anything about the possibility of redesigning the flag. Furthermore, we should never be so naive as to think that a task force of this kind would ever come back to the table with a recommendation of not changing the design of the flag. So, Sen. Harr would have us believe that his mental ideas or his good intentions about the task force possibly redesigning the flag should somehow count as legislative facts when they do not.

Concerning the cost of redesigning the Nebraska State flag, I want the constituents of Legislative District 47 to know that there is no substantive difference whatsoever between LB 954, which was introduced back in 2002, and LR 3, which was introduced by Sen. Harr last January. These two pieces of legislation are almost identical, save for the reasons Sen. Harr included for changing the flag design provided by the Vexilogical Association. Both LB 954 and LR 3 call for a task force to redesign the flag, and neither piece of legislation ever stipulated how the flags were to be purchased and distributed. Sen. Harr does not know how much LR 3 will cost the taxpayers of Nebraska because the fiscal note has yet to be released. However, when LB 954 was introduced back in 2002, the fiscal note estimated the cost of purchasing and distributing 5,000 to 10,000 flags at somewhere between $200,000 to $400,000. So, my estimate of $250,000 was a conservative estimate.

Once more, Sen. Harrs idea of replacing the old flags with new ones on an as needed basis is found nowhere in LR 3, nor has he submitted any amendments to this effect. Conversations he has had with editors at the Omaha World-Herald simply do not count as legislative facts. If LR 3 had been passed into law this year, the flags would not have been distributed on an as-needed basis because no such language exists in LR 3 nor in any amendments. Furthermore, I do not believe that such an idea would significantly reduce the cost of purchasing and distributing 5,000  10,000 new flags over time. In 2002 the fiscal note attached to LB 954 put the individual cost of an all-weather outdoor nylon flag at $40 each. Today, these same flags retail at $55 each. Once you do the math, you will see that I underestimated the lowest cost by $25,000 just to be fair.

The State does not pay to replace flags at our public schools. This expense would get added onto our property taxes. Therefore, I thank Sen. Harr for expressing his interest in lowering property taxes and I look forward to working with him to find a solution which will benefit both our rural as well as our residential communities. So, let us continue to honor the Nebraska State flag, which was designed by our forefathers back in 1925.
A little over 13 years ago, my wife and I launched an adventure that is now coming to a close.

The adventure started after a Gering Business Club meeting. I was the editor at the Gering Courier at the time, writing editorials encouraging people to invest in Gering by starting local businesses.

At the close of the meeting, I was talking with Rick Keller and Larry McKee. They challenged me to put my money where my mouth was. Rick even volunteered to help guide me through the start-up of a coffeehouse. At the time, Gering didnt have one and I was not going to open a business that would be in competition with any established business.

I remember pitching the idea to my wife. At first, she wasnt all that crazy about it. She had a good job as a creative service person at the Star-Herald. The idea was I would keep my job and she would give up her job to run the business.

Somehow, I convinced her.

So in July of 2004, the Daily Grind Coffeehouse opened its doors under the leadership of my beautiful bride, Linda.

Our goal was to provide great coffee and a great place for the community. We knew very little about running a business, but we jumped in head first and learned as we went along.

Linda did a great job learning to run the business, deal with employees and establish a coffee shop with a great reputation for serving top-quality drinks and food.

It has been a great adventure.

We have been blessed to meet and serve some great customers over the 13-plus years. Many have become friends. Those friends will be the ones Linda will miss more than anything.

I dont want to disappoint them, Linda told me when we first talked about closing the doors about a year ago when she was diagnosed with stage one ovarian cancer.

Today, she is cancer free, but she is still struggling to regain her strength and energy.

It is time for her to slow down and focus on her health.

Looking back over the years and considering the original idea, investing in Gering, we have no regrets. If we could do it again, we would. We would do a few things differently, hindsight is always 20/20.

One thing we wouldnt change is the long list of baristas who have worked for Linda over the years. For many, it was their very first job.

In America there are over 28 million businesses, according to the Small Business Association. Since 1995, these businesses have created more than 65 percent of the new jobs in the United States.

Of these small businesses, 30 percent fail, according to the SBA, in their first two years. Fifty percent will close their doors in their first five years and 66 percent will call it quits during their first 10 years.

Linda is among the 44 percent who stayed open longer than 10 years.

Owning your own business is a dream not everyone gets to experience. The experience offers both highs and lows.

There were times when we questioned our sanity. Other times, we would walk into the shop, smell the coffee and feel very thankful.

Gering offered us some great customers.

As the end draws near, I am glad I took the challenge Rick and Larry put forth. I am very grateful for all the mentoring Rick offered in the startup and over the years.

It is hard to close down a dream, but it was a dream my wife and I lived out together. She did a great job over the years, and now its time for her to focus on her health.

So after 13-plus years, unless someone steps in to buy it at the last minute, the doors of The Daily Grind Coffeehouse will close at 3 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 1.
Shakya is the founder CEO of beed, an international management consulting and advisory firm. He is the author of Unleashing Nepal and Unleashing The Vajra.
This page is archived. Data published after 5 April 2022 can be found on the renewed website. Go to the new statistics page

Published: 15 August 2017

Turnover in manufacturing increased by 8.3 per cent in the March to May

According to Statistics Finland, turnover in manufacturing in the March to May period was 8.3 per cent higher than in the corresponding period of the year before. Domestic sales grew by 6.3 per cent and export turnover by 9.8 per cent from one year ago.

Three months' year-on-year change in turnover in manufacturing (C) sub-industries (TOL 2008)

Turnover went up from the corresponding period of the previous year in all manufacturing (C) sub-industries . Turnover increased most in the chemical industry, by 13.7 per cent, and in the metal industry, by 9.9 per cent. The growth was slowest in the food industry, 1.5 per cent and in the textile, clothing and leather industry, 4.3 per cent.

Three months' year-on-year change in turnover in main industrial categories (TOL 2008)

The turnover of all other main categories of manufacturing industries also grew year-on-year. Turnover grew strongest in the industry of mining and quarrying, 27.1 per cent. Turnover in electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply grew by 6.7 per cent and in water supply, sewerage, waste management and remediation activities by 6.4 per cent from one year ago.

The index of turnover in industry describes enterprises whose main industry is manufacturing. The calculation of the indices is based on the Tax Administrations self-assessed tax data which are supplemented with data obtained with Statistics Finlands sales inquiry. The monthly turnovers of manufacturing enterprises can vary considerably, especially in the metal industries. The variation is mainly due to invoicing practices. The final invoice for major machinery deliveries and projects may be recorded in the sales of one month, even if the delivery had required the work of several months or years.

Changes in the Tax Administrations self-assessed tax data have not so far had an effect on the data of turnover indices

The effects of the changes in the Tax Administration's self-assessed tax data have been analysed in Statistics Finlands turnover indices. Based on the analyses, the changes have thus far not been found to have significant effects on enterprises VAT reporting in terms of statistics production. More information about this in Changes in the periodic tax return data used in turnover indices.

Source: Index of turnover in industry 2017, May, Statistics Finland

Inquiries: Maija Sappinen 029 551 3348, Kirsi-Maaria Manninen 029 551 2681, myynti.teollisuus@stat.fi

Director in charge: Sami Saarikivi

Publication in pdf-format (367.6 kB)

Updated 15.8.2017

Referencing instructions: Official Statistics of Finland (OSF): Index of turnover in industry [e-publication].

ISSN=1798-596X. May 2017. Helsinki: Statistics Finland [referred: 13.11.2022].

Access method: http://www.stat.fi/til/tlv/2017/05/tlv_2017_05_2017-08-15_tie_001_en.html
The Iredell County Register of Deeds Office recently assisted with the states first eMortgage purchase transaction. North State Bank; Brady & Kosofsky, PA; DocMagic; Simplefile; and World Wide Notary worked together to close the deal. The entire process took a total of 46 minutes.

The loan was originated by North State Bank and closed by the Matthews-based law firm Brady & Kosofsky.

The buyer and seller each executed closing instruments and financing documents with a biometric signature pad, which helps protect parties from fraud and forgery. The use of electronic signature and notary technology coupled with robust legal framework provided by North Carolina State Law makes it possible for lenders to make safe loans within the guidelines of the new TRID guidelines.

The homebuyers were at a Keller Williams Office in Mooresville and the eSigning agent, who is also an eNotary, was present along with the real estate broker. The closing attorney, who was at his Matthews office 45 miles south, was present via video to preside over the transaction. The Register of Deeds Office in Statesville is approximately 55 miles away from the attorneys office. The seller physically signed the closing materials last week before leaving town.

Ron Wyatt, Iredell County Register of Deeds, said assistant Joyce Bess enjoyed being a part of a historical moment. Bess made two suggestions to the NC Secretary of States Office: darken the seal and enlarge the signatures. Wyatt added it was good that Iredell County, which was the first Register of Deeds Office in the State to do an eRecording in October 2008, was once again being recognized for advancing technology to make for better customer service.
A white University of Kentucky student accused of physically assaulting a Black student worker while repeatedly using racial slurs says she will withdraw from the school. The decision announced Tuesday by a lawyer for 22-year-old Sophia Rosing came after hundreds of students rallied on campus the night before. News outlets report the students called for unity and for the university to quickly address the situation. Officials say Rosing has been charged with assault, public intoxication and disorderly conduct. She pleaded not guilty during an arraignment Monday afternoon. The altercation at Boyd Hall was captured on video and posted to multiple social media platforms.
By MARK EVANS mevans@stegenherald.com Westover and Smith roads, on the far western edge of the county, will get paving priority for 2023. Country commissioners and Scott Schmieder, county road and bridge foreman, decided at last Thursdays commission meeting to go ahead and seal up that corner of the county. That way, graders will not have
Nepal, China seal agreements on petroleum products survey, investment & promotion

Nepal and China have sealed three important agreements with long term impact on Nepal's socio-economic development.
National Defence Minister Adrian Tutuianu stated on Tuesday that he will send to Parliament, this autumn, the draft law regarding the acquisition of corvettes for the endowment of the Romanian Naval Forces, a document which currently undergoes approvals, at the relevant ministries. "I had more talks with the President and I have informed him about what we are preparing at the National Defence Ministry [MApN]. I want to mention that the bill regarding the purchase of corvettes is ready, it already was submitted for approvals to the relevant ministries and we are to send it to Parliament this autumn. The upgrading programme of frigates and other endowment that are part of all that means equipping our fleets with modern weapons is tightly connected to this programme," Tutuianu stated in Constanta, at the end of festivities dedicated to the celebration of the Romanian Navy Day.

The National Defence Minister also said that the interest is that "a great deal of what a corvette means" be produced by the national industry. "The interest is the same, a good deal of what a corvette means be produced in Romania. We want them to be produced in Romania, a great deal of it, probably we cannot produce everything. We have a big delay, but as I have always said, I will say it today, the economic development is the best guarantee of security," Tutuianu mentioned.

In this context, the National Defence Minister refused to discuss about the possible offers received from potential suppliers and military ships builders.

Agerpres...
President of the Senate Calin Popescu-Tariceanu thanked Romanian sailors for their professionalism on the occasion of the Romanian Navy Day. "Today, Romanians celebrate the Assumption of Mary, one of the greatest Christian feasts. For Romanians, 15 August has a double meaning, being also the Romanian Navy Day. In this great day, I thank our sailors for their devotion and professionalism, for the commitment and courage they proved in defending independence and sovereignty. The Navy Day offers us the occasion to show our respect towards an elite body of the Romanian Army, a true ambassador of our country. Many happy returns to Romanian sailors!," Calin Popescu-Tariceanu wrote on his Facebook page.

Over 12,000 persons were present on Tuesday at the esplanade of the Fleet Command and the Tomis Harbor in Constanta, in order to attend the exercise performed by the Romanian Naval Forces, with the participation of 30 ships and boats, 12 aircraft and 3,000 servicemen, on the occasion of celebrating the Romanian Navy Day. The celebration started with the greeting of President Klaus Iohannis by the honor guard with 21-gun salute, simultaneous with the national anthem of Romania being played and the tricolour flag being hoist to the mast.

Agerpres...
Nepali, Chinese companies sign deals worth $21.165m

Nepali and Chinese companies have signed 33 trade agreements worth around $21.165 million.
KYOTO, Japan  The global push among automakers to produce ever-lighter vehicles is leading some suppliers in Japan to turn to wood as a steel substitute.

Japanese researchers and auto component makers say a material made from wood pulp weighs just one-fifth as much as steel and can be five times as strong.

The material  cellulose nanofibers  could become a viable alternative to steel, they say, although it faces competition from carbon-based materials and remains a long way from being commercially viable.

Reducing the weight of a vehicle will be critical as manufacturers move to bring electric cars into the mainstream. Batteries are an expensive but vital component and a lighter car requires less battery power.

"Lightweighting is a constant issue for us," said Masanori Matsushiro, a project manager overseeing body design at Toyota Motor Corp.

"But we also have to resolve the issue of high manufacturing costs before we see an increased use of new, lighter-weight materials in mass-volume cars."

Researchers at Kyoto University and major parts suppliers such as Denso Corp., Toyota's biggest supplier, and DaikyoNishikawa Corp., are working with plastics incorporated with cellulose nanofibers  made by breaking down wood pulp fibers into several hundredths of a micron (one thousandth of a millimeter).

Cellulose nanofibers have been used in a variety of products ranging from ink to transparent displays, but their potential use in cars has been enabled by the "Kyoto Process," under which chemically treated wood fibers are kneaded into plastics while simultaneously being broken down into nanofibers, slashing the cost of production to roughly one-fifth that of other processes.

"This is the lowest-cost, highest-performance application for cellulose nanofibers, and that's why we're focusing on its use in auto and aircraft parts," said Kyoto University Professor Hiroaki Yano, who is leading the research.

The university, along with auto parts suppliers, are currently developing a prototype car using cellulose nanofiber-based parts to be completed in 2020.

"We've been using plastics as a replacement for steel, and we're hoping that cellulose nanofibers will widen the possibilities toward that goal," said Yukihiko Ishino, a spokesman at DaikyoNishikawa, which counts Toyota and Mazda Motor Corp. among its customers.

Automakers are also using other lightweight substitutes. BMW uses carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRPs) for its i3 compact electric car and its 7 series, while high-tensile steel and aluminum alloys are cheaper and recyclable.

Yano said he was inspired in his research by a photo of the "Spruce Goose," a cargo plane made almost entirely of wood in 1947 by U.S. billionaire entrepreneur Howard Hughes. At the time, it was the world's largest aircraft.

"I thought that if Howard Hughes could find a way to use wood to build a massive plane, why not use wood to make a material that was as strong as steel," he said.

The cost of mass producing a kilogram of cellulose nanofiber is currently around $9.

Yano aims to halve that cost by 2030, which he says will make it an economically viable product. High tensile steel and aluminum alloys currently cost around $2 a kilogram.

Industry experts expect carbon fiber prices to fall to around $10 per kilogram by 2025.

Analysts say high-tensile steel and aluminum will be the more popular alternative for many years to come, considering parts makers would need to overhaul production lines and figure out ways to fasten new materials like cellulose nanofiber onto other car parts.

Anthony Vicari, an applied materials analyst at Lux Research in Boston, said it "would be a big deal" though if Yano's projections prove to be correct.

But for now, it remains "a very big 'if,'" he said.
NMA warns of stern protest, demands decisive dialogue to save Dr KCs life

Nepal Medical Association has warned that it will resort to stern protests if the government failed to create an environment to end the hunger strike of TUTH senior surgeon Dr Govinda KC by holding decisive dialogue.
Lawyers for a Missouri death row inmate scheduled to die next week have asked the Missouri Supreme Court to stop the execution because of new evidence found in the case. They are also asking Gov. Eric Greitens for clemency.

Marcellus Williams is scheduled to die by injection at 6 p.m. Tuesday for the fatal stabbing of former Post-Dispatch reporter Lisha Gayle at her home in University City in 1998.

But new tests show that DNA found on the knife did not match Williams, said his attorney, Kent Gipson of Kansas City. The DNA matches an unknown male, according to an analysis by Greg Hampikian, a biologist with Boise State University.

Representatives for Greitens, the Missouri Department of Corrections and Attorney General Josh Hawley could not be reached for comment.

Williams lawyers are asking for the court to appoint a special master to hear his claim of innocence or to vacate the death sentence and order his sentence commuted to life in prison.

Williams is also serving time for unrelated crimes.

The states high court had already put off Williams execution after his lawyers requested additional time to conduct the additional DNA testing.

Williams was convicted of killing Gayle, 42, at her home in the gated Ames Place neighborhood on Aug. 11, 1998. The prosecution said Williams was burglarizing the home when Gayle, who had been taking a shower, surprised him. She fought for her life as she was stabbed repeatedly.

A jury convicted Williams at a trial in 2001. He was sentenced to death by St. Louis County Circuit Judge Emmett M. OBrien.

The judge also ordered Williams to serve consecutive terms of life in prison for robbery, 30 years for burglary and 30 years each for two weapons violations.

Gayle was a Post-Dispatch reporter from 1981-92. She left the paper to do volunteer social work with children and the poor.

Williams attorneys have claimed that the case against him was built solely on contradictory testimony from two snitches  his former girlfriend, Laura Asaro, and a former cellmate, Henry Cole  who were out for a $10,000 reward.

No forensic evidence ever pointed to Williams, who has maintained his innocence throughout, his lawyers have said.
CARLYLE, Ill.  A 17-year-old boy has been convicted of fatally punching a classmate during a party last spring.

A Clinton County judge announced the verdict Tuesday convicting the boy of involuntary manslaughter for the April 23 death of Jacob Arter, 18, of Breese.

The Belleville News Democrat reports the fight happened at a rural clubhouse where about 100 high school and college students had gathered.

The juvenile told police he feared for his life when he punched Arter. But a witness testified that Arter didn't want anything to with a fight and didn't even raise his hands.

The 17-year-old was allowed to remain under house arrest until his sentencing, which was scheduled for Oct. 5.
ST. LOUIS COUNTY  A St. Louis County man was sentenced Monday to 20 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to rape and armed criminal action.

Jacques Malone, 24, of the 2000 block of Victorian Village, was charged with raping a female relative at knifepoint on July 1, 2015, at his home in the 2000 block of Victorian Village Drive in the Spanish Lake area.

Prosecutors dismissed counts of sodomy, armed criminal action and burglary in exchange for his guilty pleas to the other counts. St. Louis County Circuit Judge Nancy Watkins delivered the sentence Monday.
Normalcy returns to Sauraha

Life is gradually coming back to normal in the famous tourist hub of Sauraha in Chitwan after water level, which had gone up due to incessant rain and floods, started subsiding.
ST. LOUIS  While many states try to reverse incarceration rates, Missouri is held back by thousands of offenders returning to prison each year for not honoring the terms of their early release.

The revolving door from parole violations isnt unique to the Show-Me state. But a new class-action lawsuit filed Monday alleges that the parole revocation process is a sham and byzantine because hearings are often never held and Missouri Department of Corrections officials dont provide attorneys.

Plaintiffs are constantly rotated in and out of the prison system  often at the result of non-criminal technical parole violations, and often based upon unsubstantiated accusations that the parolee committed a new criminal offense, according to a copy of the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri.

The vast majority of parolees in the State of Missouri need and are entitled to appointed counsel to help them navigate these arcane proceedings. Yet, as a matter of practice, procedure, and custom, the Defendants systematically deny indigent parolees their right to counsel.

Instead, the lawsuit claims, parolees often dont speak on their own behalf, nor present evidence or cross-examine witnesses during parole revocation proceedings to which they are also constitutionally entitled.

Six inmates are named as plaintiffs in the 36-page lawsuit, including one from St. Louis, as well as all similarly situated individuals.

Defendants are Anne Precythe, director of the corrections department; Kenneth Jones, chairman of the Board of Probation and Parole; and other members, including former board member Don Ruzicka.

The corrections department said it doesnt respond to questions about matters under litigation.

The lawsuit is the fifth that attorneys from the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center at St. Louis said it has filed against the agency in eight months. A case in June led to Ruzickas resignation, after revealing a state investigation that said Ruzicka toyed with inmates at parole hearings by trying to trick them to say song titles and words such as biomass and platypus.

MacArthur Justice Center director Mae Quinn said the corrections department has been allowed to get away with far too much over the years. She said an underfunded public defender system was part of the problem.

Unlike other states that have public defender systems with institutional reform units that can routinely push back against problematic practices, our state PD system is ranked 49th in the country for funding, she said. This results in watered down and anemic advocacy that has no ability to serve as a check on the system.

Gov. Eric Greitens, a Republican, has also put a target on the states largest agency, claiming Precythe, the new director, inherited a mess. A large task force was formed to develop legislation to improve the prison system and reduce recidivism.

Ernie Lewis, executive director of the National Association for Public Defense, said a vigorous public defender system can do a lot to reduce mass incarceration, but said states such as Missouri are starving workloads.

While the Supreme Court established that parolees are entitled to some level of due process, he said, the high court has not definitively established the right to counsel. He said states handle parole revocation cases differently.

Given that a significant percentage of people in prison are there on parole revocations, and further given that we incarcerate 2.3 million plus, this is an area ripe for challenge throughout the country if we are to make the right to counsel come alive for these persons, he said.

In Missouri, more than 32,000 inmates are now spread across 21 prisons; 59,000 offenders are supervised in the community, including 15,000 on parole.

According to the most recent lawsuit, alleged flaws in the departments parole revocation system has led to the arbitrary imprisonment of thousands of people.

There were about 250 parole revocation hearings between March 2014 and March 2017, the suit claims, yet there were many more proceedings because the vast majority of individuals facing parole violations are never given any kind of formal hearing, but instead supposedly waive such rights without being provided with access to counsel or knowingly and intelligently assessing the risks involved with such waivers.

The lawsuit estimates the parole board revokes somewhere between 3,000 to 7,000 cases a year, but the paperwork seems incomplete or, in some cases, inaccurate.

In a random sample of 25 parole revocation cases handled between Dec. 1, 2016 and Feb. 28, 2017, no preliminary hearings were held, even though there were waivers in 10 cases, according to the lawsuit. No revocation hearings were held, even though waivers appear to have been processed in just eight cases.

Stephanie Gasca, 30, who has been homeless and battled substance abuse and mental health challenges, is named in the lawsuit as a typical example of how parole revocation cases are handled. Eight months pregnant in June, she was taken into custody by parole officials and held in the Greene County Jail.

The lawsuit says a parole warrant was issued for Gasca right after she left a residential drug treatment program. Gasca was allegedly held in jail for several days without prenatal or mental health care. When a parole officer showed up, the officer apparently didnt inform her of a right to counsel and led Gasca to believe it was in her best interest to answer questions and waive formal proceedings.

Instead of ending up on house arrest, as Gasca had hoped, she was transferred to the Womens Eastern Reception and Diagnostic Center in Vandalia, where she gave birth to a boy July 11.

While awaiting determination about her alleged parole violation in prison, Gascas mother is caring for the baby.
ST. LOUIS  The owner of a St. Louis daycare business pleaded guilty to one felony count of tax evasion Tuesday and admitted avoiding between $100,000 and $250,000 in taxes on money she'd taken from the company, the U.S. Attorney's office said.

Gwendolyn Hampton, 38, of St. Louis, took $1.3 million on cash and cashier's checks out from the business account between 2009 and 2013, prosecutors said.

She was indicted on five counts of tax evasion in U.S. District Court in St. Louis in January and is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 15.

State records show Hampton Academy locations at 6144 Page Avenue and 8940 Riverview Drive.
JEFFERSON CITY  Interest appears to be growing in reinstating an elected board to govern St. Louis Public Schools.

Members of the districts appointed Special Administrative Board, also known as the SAB, and the districts powerless elected school board have indicated they want to proceed in transitioning power from the SAB.

The administrative board has been in power since 2007, when the Missouri Board of Education revoked the St. Louis districts accreditation and installed the appointed board under state law.

The law says its up to the state board to decide when to disband the transitional school district that allows for the SAB. The state board renewed the administrative board last year to last until June 2019.

But at its meeting Tuesday, the state Board of Education said it would step back and let the two St. Louis boards decide what the transition would look like.

According to state law, one of the SABs duties includes exploring alternative forms of government for the district.

The two different boards have a different idea on how this thing should happen, and we need to back off and let them make their decision as to how its going to happen because we dont have the authority to tell them what they need to do, state board Vice President Victor Lenz said Tuesday. The only authority we have is to say one board or the other is going to run.

In a letter to the elected board dated June 26, the SAB invited elected board President Susan Jones and one other board member to begin participating in the SABs regular meetings. The elected board members would have no voting or decision-making power, but they would be able to ask questions and present the elected boards opinions.

The SAB also said it wants to hold more joint meetings with the elected board to invite community input on a transition of governance. The two boards havent held a joint meeting since March of last year.

We believe exploring alternative forms of governance represents the final unmet responsibility of the SAB and we look forward to receiving community input as we move through this process, the SAB wrote in its letter.

In May, the elected board swore in two new members and bid farewell to Bill Monroe, who was a controversial figure on the board. Talks about a governance transition were also spurred along by the districts reaccreditation in January.
JEFFERSON CITY  In his first eight months in office, Gov. Eric Greitens has called two special sessions of the Missouri Legislature.

But could the Legislature call one of its own?

Two Republican lawmakers told the Post-Dispatch there are murmurs that another special session is possible  even though the scenario is unlikely.

Two other Republicans said they did not hear of the possibility, but that talks of a special session could be on the table as House Republicans gather at the Lake of the Ozarks for an informal caucus later this week.

At issue is an 11th hour funding fix passed by lawmakers in May halting proposed eligibility restrictions from taking place for those seeking in-home and specialty medical services through Medicaid.

House Committee Bill 3 would have allowed the state to sweep $35.4 million in unused funds from other state accounts to make continuing services possible. Greitens vetoed the measure, calling it an "unconstitutional, one-time, fake fix to a real problem."

So without his signature, the state's $27 billion budget tightens eligibility requirements. The new restrictions leave an estimated 8,000 Missourians out of luck.

Lawmakers could try to override the governor's veto, but the deal  negotiated in the Senate and volleyed over to the House near the close of session  passed the lower chamber with only 83 votes, short of the 109 needed to overrule the governor.

According to the state Constitution, three-fourths of all House members and three-fourths of all senators would have to sign on to convene a special session.

Sen. Ryan Silvey, R-Kansas City, was one of the architects of the deal.

"I've heard there are some in the advocacy community that would like us to do that, but I don't know how much traction it's getting," Silvey said of calling a special session. "A special session dealing with that topic would at least provide an opportunity for the governor to support something instead of just opposing our override."

"Ive heard rumblings about it but I dont think it's likely," state Rep. Scott Fitzpatrick, a Shell Knob Republican, said of the possibility of a special session. As House budget committee chairman, he brought the last-minute fix to the House floor in May, though he voted against it.

Rep. Holly Rehder, R-Sikeston, said she had not heard of anyone floating a special session, but said she would nonetheless vote to convene one if given the chance.

"I think the most common-sense approach would be to do a special session," she said, "to put our heads together and think of a way to get these services funded."

Rehder said the special session would theoretically coincide with the Legislature's annual veto session in September while lawmakers are in town.

"If that discussion is to be had we'll have it internally next week," Rep. Elijah Haahr, R-Springfield, said last week of the Lake of the Ozarks meeting.

Another route could be through the rule-making process. In theory, the House-Senate Joint Committee on Administrative Rules could take action against the new regulations, authored by the state Department of Health and Senior Services.

According to state statute, the committee would have to demonstrate the department issued arbitrary or capricious rules, overstepped its authority, or violated state law  difficult to prove because the agency wrote the rules based off budget language passed by the Legislature.

Despite the difficulties with any possible routes, two lobbyists told the Post-Dispatch they are working behind the scenes to advocate for a reversal.

Nikki Strong, executive vice president of the Missouri Health Care Association, emphasized how "devastating" the cuts are to those who depend on the services.

"We're focusing, you know, on restoring these cuts," Strong said. "Because these cuts are devastating."

She said an override is unlikely. Without that possibility, Strong said "that's a good question" when asked how else the Legislature could address the cuts.

She and Jay Reichard, a lobbyist for Pyramid Home Health Services, said it was not in their purview to publicly call for a special session, but they did not dismiss the possibility that someone else would.

"I think it's just my job to talk to legislators about our concerns," Reichard said, "and then hopefully they will figure out a path."
CREVE COEUR  Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens used a meeting Tuesday with the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. to call out "anti-Semitism, neo-Nazism" and other hate ideology on display in Charlottesville last weekend

"What we've seen in Charlottesville (was) white supremacism, racism, anti-Semitism, neo-Nazism," said Greitens.

It was the kind of deliberately specific language that President Donald Trump initially failed to use in condemning to violence last weekend, prompting him to issue a second, stronger statement Monday.

Greitens, a Republican and Missouri's first Jewish governor, recalled how Missourians reacted with cleanup efforts after the vandalism of a Jewish cemetery in University City in February.

"We had thousands of people who actually came together in the face of a terrible act" and transformed it into "a beautiful act of service."

Greitens' comments came before the news of Trump's additional comments on Tuesday, in which the President doubled down on his original claim that both the white supremacist protesters and the counter-protesters who opposed them share blame for the violence that left one counter-protester dead.

Greitens appeared with Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer at the Danforth Plant Science Center in Creve Coeur for a business roundtable, discussing Israeli businesses and investment in Missouri.

Dermer noted that President Harry Truman, a Missouri native, was the first world leader to formally recognize Israel.

Greitens was scheduled to host Dermer for dinner in the Governor's Mansion in Jefferson City.
JEFFERSON CITY  Republicans who control the Missouri Legislature moved with lightning speed this year to send a long-sought right to work law to newly minted GOP Gov. Eric Greitens.

But by sending the anti-labor measure to the governors desk in early February, they gave unions more time to try to stop it.

On Friday, the effects of the GOPs quick action will be on display when a coalition of labor groups led by the Missouri AFL-CIO submits an estimated 300,000 signatures of people who want to put a question on the November 2018 ballot asking voters if they want the new law.

Had Republicans waited until the end of the legislative session in May, the unions would have had three fewer months to collect the required number of signatures needed to put the right to work law on hold.

Sen. Bob Dixon, R-Springfield, was among those bemoaning the early winter rush.

We gave the opposition more time to collect signatures and put it on the ballot for a vote because we got in a hurry. And now weve shot ourselves in the foot, Dixon told his colleagues during a speech on the Senate floor last month.

Under the new law, workers cannot be compelled, as a condition of employment, to join or to pay dues to a labor union. Greitens has claimed the change as a signature achievement in his brief political career.

While the governor says it will bring jobs to Missouri, union members say right to work will result in worse wages, benefits and workplace safety for the states middle class.

A spokeswoman for the We Are Missouri coalition that backed the signature drive, Laura Swinford, acknowledged Monday that the extra time may have benefited their cause.

If that gave us a few extra weeks, Im sure it didnt hurt, Swinford said.

But she added that she believes enough signatures would have been collected if the time frame had been shorter.

If it had been smaller, I think we would have been as successful, Swinford said.

The move to hold a referendum on right to work is a seldom-used tool in Missouri law that allows residents to block legislation before it goes into effect.

A historical review of the maneuver shows it could be successful if it goes forward.

The last time Missouri voters faced a similar ballot initiative was in 1982 when they rejected a proposed law that would have allowed larger trucks on the states major highways.

In the 26 similar referenda dating to 1914, voters rejected all of the laws but two.

On Friday, We Are Missouri is planning to hold a rally in the Capitol and then march to the secretary of states office to drop off the petitions.

A legal battle has been underway between pro-business groups and labor over the wording of the referendum. Right-to-work supporters have asked the Missouri Supreme Court to intervene.

Money also is pouring into the effort on both sides. Greitens nonprofit, for example, recently gave $100,000 to a political action committee that is working to upend the referendum.

One of the organizations receiving money to fight the unions dismissed the effect of the timing of the legislative action.

Whether they have six months or six days, national labor groups will stop at nothing to obstruct Right to Work because it takes power away from union bosses and empowers Missouri workers, said Kristin Davison of the Kansas City-based Liberty Alliance. Missourians elected a pro-Right to Work governor and Legislature who kept their promise to begin passing pro-jobs, pro-worker reforms on Day One.

Unions representing the Teamsters, carpenters and plumbers have pitched in to We Are Missouri with five- and six-figure contributions.
Missouri state Treasurer Eric Schmitt has decided not to seek the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill for the U.S. Senate next year, further clearing the way for a possible run by state Attorney General Josh Hawley.

Schmitt, among the most prominent of Republicans who have been potential Hawley opponents for the nomination, released a statement Tuesday taking himself out of the race and endorsing Hawley.

I believe it is time for all of us to unite behind one candidate to be the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, which is why I am supporting Attorney General Josh Hawley, Schmitt said in the statement.

The GOP nominee chosen in next Augusts primary will face the two-term McCaskill in the November 2018 general election. McCaskill is being heavily targeted by the national Republicans, who believe she is vulnerable because of Missouris shift to the right in recent years.

Hawley hasnt formally declared his candidacy but he has said he is considering it and he has launched an exploratory committee to begin raising money.

Top Republicans in Missouri and nationally are encouraging him to run.

Club for Growth, the national conservative super PAC, has raised $10 million in support of a potential Hawley run, according to a report Monday in Politico.

State and national Democrats also have been focused on Hawley, 37, repeatedly reminding voters that the political novice was just sworn in as attorney general in January after a campaign in which he chided career politicians for climbing from one position to another instead of focusing on their current jobs.

Prior to Schmitts exit, Republican U.S. Reps. Ann Wagner and Vicky Hartzler both considered and then begged off running for the Senate nomination.

Others still running or considering it include state Rep. Paul Curtman, a Republican from Franklin County; Mizzou economics professor Aaron Hedlund; former Missouri Republican Party Chairman Ed Martin; retired Air Force pilot Tony Monetti of Warrensburg; and Austin Petersen of Kansas City, who ran for president last year as a Libertarian.
JEFFERSON CITY  Its been more than a month since Gov. Eric Greitens slashed $251 million in state spending, but it remains unclear how tens of millions of that will be cut.

At the Missouri Department of Social Services, top officials acknowledged Tuesday that they have not formally identified how they plan to withhold $30 million in spending in order to comply with Greitens June 30 order.

That is something we are still working on, said Valerie Huhn, acting deputy director of finance for the agency. Were doing a lot of different internal looks.

That lack of detail rankled Sen. Rob Schaaf, a St. Joseph Republican who has been a frequent critic of Greitens.

Im quite concerned, Schaaf said Tuesday. I would like it to be when the governor decides to withhold $30 million that he knows exactly where that money is coming from.

The senators remarks came at a meeting of the Mo HealthNet Oversight Committee, which monitors the states Medicaid and managed care health insurance programs.

On June 30, Greitens announced that lagging state tax revenues would require him to withhold $251 million in spending in the states $27.6 billion budget. While much of the spending he targeted was for specific programs or projects, he said the reduction to the Department of Social Services would come from officials finding efficiencies in the department.

Although agency officials said they could not provide a list of those "efficiencies," they told the panel that there are good signs on the fiscal horizon that could ease the pressure to cut.

Jennifer Tidball, the acting director of the states Medicaid program, said prescription drug costs arent growing as quickly as expected after years of skyrocketing growth.

We are seeing no increase whatsoever in pharmacy, Tidball said.

In addition, there are fewer people enrolled in the states managed care program.

On July 1, the state expanded its managed care program to cover the entire state and projected 750,000 children and families would enroll.

But, as of Aug. 11, total enrollment was at 728,814.

Were actually seeing a decline in our caseload, Tidball said.

It is not clear why fewer than expected are using the managed care program. Tidball said it is too early to begin assessing data on enrollment.

But, Tidball added, officials are collecting information to help decide how to reduce spending to meet Greitens' directive.

Ive got a really long list right now, so its not like people arent working on it, Tidball said. We want to be cautious as we proceed.
Over 35 taken ill with diarrhoea and dysentery in Mahottari

More than 35 people from the Musahar community have been taken ill since Sunday evening in the flood affected Bhangaha village of Mohattari district.
Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Florida, criticized White House aides Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller by name on Monday evening, arguing that it's "pretty clear" the two staffers think alt-right groups "should be accommodated."

The GOP congressman's comments follow a weekend of unrest and violence in the United States as demonstrators took to the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday, where a white supremacist rally was scheduled to take place.

One person died and several more were injured when a car drove through a crowd of counterprotesters.

"I think that the President would go a long way toward improving his approval rating if he starts listening to others, not those who have taken him down this path," Curbelo said in an interview on CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront" Monday evening. But when asked if the aides should be fired, Curbelo said: "I don't know if they need to be fired, maybe they need to be marginalized, maybe the President just needs to start taking advice from the right people."

When asked if he thinks "there's more than one person who supports the alt-right in the President's inner circle," Curbelo said: "I do believe so."

The decision to name Bannon, who formerly was the editor of right-wing news website Breitbart, as chief White House strategist was praised by many white nationalist leaders. Curbelo said Monday that Miller has also been tied to ideologies of the alt-right -- a white supremacist movement that Trump himself has disavowed.

In the wake of the Charlottesville violence, many activists on Twitter demanded that Bannon and Miller step down.

"I'm not saying these people are racists, I'm not saying that they want to advance a racist agenda, but it is pretty clear that they believe that these groups should be accommodated," Curbelo said.

A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment when asked about Curbelo's comments about a desire to accommodate such groups.

Monday, Trump spoke from the White House denouncing the violence and racist rhetoric, however, some said the comments were not enough and came two days too late.

"Racism is evil -- and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans," Trump said.
Gov. Eric Greitens and state Republican legislators have decided to lower St. Louis newly implemented minimum wage. That means more than 31,000 hardworking people could lose as much as $400 when the hourly minimum wage drops from $10 back to $7.70 at the end of August. Its the second time in U.S. history that lawmakers have lowered the minimum wage for working people.

Its the latest, cruelest act by Jefferson City Republicans in their long war against workers winning higher pay. In 2015, St. Louis passed an ordinance to gradually raise the $7.70 hourly minimum wage  which had only increased 40 cents in the last seven years. Instead of applauding a raise that would improve peoples lives, business lobbyists held up the law with lawsuits. And after workers finally won their day in court and got their $10 per hour in May, Republican legislators rammed through HB 1194, which nullified the increase. Last month, Gov. Greitens made the heartless decision to allow the bill to become law.

Republican politicians in Jefferson City may be dead-set on moving us back, but we as a community still have the power to come together and chart the way forward. Thats why Im urging employers in our city to Save the Raise.

Despite obstruction from Jefferson City, all St. Louis employers still have the power to pay the fair wage of $10 per hour after Aug. 28. And theres a sound economic reason to do so.

Raising the wage means workers paying the bills on time, putting food on the table and having a little extra money to spend. Studies have shown the more money working people have in their paychecks, the more they can spend locally, making our economy stronger for everyone.

Every year, Missouri taxpayers shell out $2.4 billion to cover the cost of public assistance for low-wage workers. Without a raise for minimum wage workers, taxpayers will continue to be left on the hook while big companies in our area get a free pass.

Without a raise, St. Louis rising income inequality will continue to grow  as will the instability it causes. Over the past decade in St. Louis, wages for white-collar workers like engineers and lawyers have risen, while real wages for blue-collar workers and service workers have shrunk by 7.1 percent and 8 percent, respectively. Its getting harder and harder to get ahead in our city if youre already on the margins.

Crime, an issue that urgently needs to be addressed in St. Louis, is closely connected to income inequality.

Shortly after deciding to take away workers raises, Gov. Greitens announced a plan to fight crime that would increase police presence on our highways and rack up taxpayer bills, but ignore the root causes of crime in St. Louis communities: crushing poverty, deep inequality and a lack of opportunity.

Workers protested his event, rightfully asking the governor: How can you be serious about fighting crime in St. Louis when you want to rip money out of our pockets and food out of our childrens mouths?

As influential members of the St. Louis community, local employers have the power to help tackle crime by saving the raise for their employees. Creating good jobs is a real solution to making our communities strong and safe, by providing opportunities to the families getting left behind by the governor and Jefferson City politicians.

Missouri Republicans, although supposedly the champions of small government, have overreached and tried to take away the voices of St. Louis voters. By pledging to Save the Raise, employers in St. Louis should send a message to Jefferson City that a $10 per hour wage is good for their business, good for Missouris working families and good for the citys economy and safety.

Let the obstructers in Jefferson City keep obstructing, because employers can and should take matters into their own hands and move the city forward.

State Rep. Bruce Franks Jr. is a Democrat from St. Louis.
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Banned driver Scott Docksey deliberately rammed a police car and drove straight at another during a lengthy chase.

The 28-year-old  who has five previous convictions for dangerous driving  was disqualified from driving and uninsured when police followed the van into Little Chell Lane, Tunstall.

The officer pulled up 10 feet behind the van as it came to a stop. But Docksey reversed and deliberately rammed the police car.

Following a chase, another police car tried to block the road and the defendant drove straight at it causing 3,000 damage.

Now Docksey has been jailed for 20 months and banned from driving for five years at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court .

Prosecutor Paul Spratt said the defendant was driving a van in Tunstall at 5pm on July 11 when police became aware it was uninsured.

Mr Spratt said: "It turned into Little Chell Lane. The officer pulled up 10 feet behind it as the van came to a stop. The defendant put his van in reverse and deliberately rammed in the police vehicle. It caused some damage to the police car and some injury to the officer."

The court heard the defendant drove off and was followed for five miles as he travelled down residential streets at 50mph, contravened no entry signs, and went the wrong way around a roundabout before another police car tried to block off James Brindley Way.

Mr Spratt added: "He made a deliberate decision to drive straight at the police car which contained two officers. He collided with it causing 3,000 worth of damage. He continued for about 100 yards before he collided with a kerb and a street light."

The defendant was found with 20 worth of cocaine on his arrest.

Docksey, of Century Street, Hanley, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, driving without insurance, driving while disqualified and possession of a class A drug.

Duncan Craig, mitigating, said the defendant regrets his actions.

Judge Paul Glenn told Docksey: "You deliberately reversed the van into the police vehicle. You drove at excessive speed in a built up area, collided with a parked vehicle, contravened no entry signs, went the wrong way around a roundabout and deliberately crashed into a second police vehicle.

"This was a highly dangerous course of dangerous driving. It could have had serious consequences."

Docksey must take an extended test before he can drive again.
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Major plans have been revealed to build nearly 1,000 state-of-the-art student flats with a cafe and shops as a university expands.

Developer JEDS Investments wants to bulldoze buildings on the former Stoke-on-Trent College Cauldon Campus site, in Shelton, to make way for three high-rise blocks containing 939 apartments.

If approved, there would also be a bistro and convenience store on the ground floor, along with a gym, laundry, cinema, IT room, games area and study pods.

Around 23 parking spaces and storage for 236 bikes would also be provided.A JEDS Investments spokesman said: "The proposed scheme will develop this vacant land at a key setting within the city and provide a positive contribution to the local community. The buildings are carefully designed to create valuable use of a neglected site at this important location."

The need for more accommodation has arisen after the closure of Staffordshire University's Stafford campus with an extra 2,400 full-time students arriving in the Potteries at the start of the 2016/17 academic year taking the total to 13,000.

Since the announcement, the university has been investing millions of pounds in transforming its Stoke campus into a major destination for students from across the UK.

The College Road site lies next to the Grade II*-listed Hanley Park and is close to the Grade II-listed St Mark's Church.

A heritage statement supporting the application says: "The present buildings upon the site are of interest primarily in the historical sense as 1950s replacements of earlier industrial structures, pioneering a change in character of College Road from industrial to educational.

"Their visual contribution to the character of Hanley Park Conservation Area and Caldon Canal is neutral at best. The regeneration of the site will provide much-needed student accommodation within the precincts of the college."

Residents and businesses today welcomed news that high-quality student accommodation is set to replace the empty buildings.

Mark Lawton, aged 36, manager of JD's Off Licence, said: "Having 1,000 more student flats will be good for the area and good for us with more students spending money. It will be brilliant."

Resident Maria Parry, aged 22, of Shelton, said: "The more people in Shelton the better. It will make the area busier and more vibrant. It will be good for the shops to have more students around here spending their loans. Having nice new flats will be better than an old unused building."

If approved, the blocks would be five to eight storeys high and include a total of 633 self-contained studio flats, 280 'cluster units' with communal kitchen and lounge areas and 26 accessible units.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council will make a final decision in the next few months.
Parties bicker as Dr KCs health deteriorates

Political parties were at odds on Monday over the Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences (MMIHS), as condition of Dr Govinda KC, who has been on a hunger strike for the last 22 days, further deteriorated with doctors warning of severe health complications.
Birmingham Road in Stratford-upon-Avon. Photo: Mark Williamson.

TESCO has not been asked for a financial contribution to the planned slip road into its superstore in Stratford despite having plans to build one itself, the Herald can reveal.

Warwickshire County Councils cabinet has approved the spending of 3.5million on a long-talked-about package of improvements to ease congestion on Birmingham Road and has confirmed work will be carried out during 2019 and 2020.

In documents presented to the council's the cabinet, council officers admitted that the slip road will have a positive effect on Tesco, but said there was no external funding providing any contribution to the delivery of the scheme.

A slip road into the Tesco car park was first proposed in 2011 as part of the companys plan to extend the store, and it would have been funded by the supermarket giant.

Planning documents from back then even make reference to how the slip road would help ease congestion generally on Birmingham Road, as well as benefitting its customers.

But Tesco has confirmed that plan has now been dropped, with planning permission having lapsed last year and the land required for the extension having been sold off.

A county council spokesman defended the decision not to approach Tesco for money towards the cost of its plan for a slip road.

The corridor improvements will help businesses along the corridor generally so it wouldnt be appropriate to ask for a contribution from a single business.

Whilst the slip road will help access to the Tesco site, the main purpose for including this as part of the scheme is because of the benefit that this slip road provides to the corridor as a whole.

Firm details of the long-talked-about scheme that the council hopes will ease congestion on Birmingham Road have also been confirmed.

The road will be converted into two lanes inbound and one outbound. It is currently the other way round.

To do that the stretch between Regal Road roundabout and Hamlet Way will need to be widened in places by narrowing the footpaths where necessary, while the road markings will simply be re-painted on the section between St Peters Way and Joseph Way.

Also planned are the relocation of the pedestrian/cycle crossing to opposite the main pedestrian entrance to the Maybird, an improved shared use pedestrian/cycle lane between Arden Street and Western Road, including widening the footpath and cycle lane by approximately one metre into the existing cycle lane, renewed cycle lanes and logos between Windsor Street and Arden Street, and a widened footpath on the approach to Arden Street junction to enable a continuous cycle lane.

The scheme is the product of the series of transport summits that have been held over the past three years and led by MP Nadhim Zahawi.

It appeared in doubt in February when a bid for 2.7million from the Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) was rejected, after widely expected to be forthcoming.

But the county council agreed to dip into its own funds to stump up the money.

However, a bid for 2.5million has also been submitted to the Department for Transport, with a decision expected in November.

The report to councillors appeared to offer justification for the spending of money from the county councils own coffers.

It says: The proposal provides a clear link to Stratfords local plan and there is evidence provided in the business case as a result of modelling that accessibility would be improved.

There is a reputational risk of not supporting the project as public consultation on highways developments in the area has already been undertaken and was identified as the second highest priority.

The local MP is also publicly supportive of the scheme.
Steven Cook.

A CONVICTED child abuser was found to have been using his phone to take pictures of children outside schools and in parks near where he lives before being arrested for being in possession of thousands of indecent images of children, writes our court correspondent.

Steven Cook was branded a danger by a judge after he pleaded guilty to three charges of making indecent images of children, three of distributing images and also admitting being in breach of a sexual offences prevention order.

After ruling that he poses an on-going risk to children, a judge gave him an extended prison sentence and ordered him to register as a sex offender for life.

And the 36-year-old, of Lakin Road, Warwick, was jailed for four years, of which he will have to serve at least two-thirds before the Parole Board considers his release.

He will only be freed before serving the whole term if it is considered safe to do so, and will be on licence for the rest of the sentence and for a further four years  during which he can be recalled to prison if his behaviour gives cause for concern.

Prosecutor, Rebecca Wade, said that in 2006 Cook had been jailed for 12 months for indecent assault and gross indecency with a 13-year-old girl.

As a result, he had also been ordered to register as a sex offender for ten years, but he failed to comply with the registration requirements on three occasions.

He was dealt with for that in 2013 when magistrates also made him subject to a sexual offences prevention order under which he was banned from having unsupervised contact with children.

As a convicted sex offender Cook was monitored by a police offender manager who would visit him at his home.

On one unannounced visit in February this year, after a general chat, and the officer then asked to see his mobile phone. But as Cook picked it up to hand it over, he tried to delete something from it.

The officer took the phone from him and saw an image of a girl in her very early teens in a low-cut dress, and online chat with girls as young as five, some referring to him as daddy.

Cook was asked if he had another phone, and claimed he did not, but a second one was found and seized, together with a laptop computer, a tablet and a number of memory cards.

He denied that he was sexually attracted to children, and although he accepted recording images of children outside schools and in parks in Warwick on average once a day he said they were not indecent.

Cook agreed that, in breach of the sexual offences prevention order, he had formed a relationship with sisters aged eight and 13 in Canada, taking part in unsupervised online chat with them several times a day.

He claimed that apart from what was on that phone, his other devices and the memory cards were clean.

But on them police experts found a staggering 1,195 still images and 340 movies classed as being in category A.

There were also 1,037 stills and 182 movies in category B, and 3,563 stills and 118 movies in category C.
Power restored in most districts in eastern Nepal

Power has been restored in almost all districts in eastern Nepal as most of the damage caused to the distribution system by floods resulting from last weeks torrential rains has been fixed, the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) said.
unmen attacked a United Nations (UN) base in central Mali on Monday, wounding a UN peacekeeper and a Malian soldier, local officials and soldiers said.

The suspected terrorists fired on the UN mission at Douentza from a hill, a local elected official told AFP.

Malian troops repulsed the attackers, who lost two of their own men in the raid, he added.

The terrorists targeted the peacekeepers of MINUSMA (United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali), said another local official.

A Malian military source, confirming the attack, said reinforcements had been sent to bolster security in the town, he added.

Last week, UN peacekeepers accused former rebel fighters and a rival pro-government militia in the north of the country of having used child soldiers in recent clashes.

On Friday, nine child soldiers aged 15 to 17 were handed over to UN peacekeepers in the northern city of Kidal.

In 2012, key cities in northern Mali fell under the control of militant groups linked to Al-Qaeda, who exploited an ethnic Tuareg-led rebel uprising.

Although the terrorists were largely ousted by a French-led military operation, attacks have continued on UN and French forces, civilians and the Malian army.

The armed groups accused of abuses by the UN operate in areas where Mali's army is absent or has a very limited presence. Allegations of collusion between the former rebels and militants continue to circulate.
Israels Minister of Education, Naftali Bennett, tweeted on Monday that any rocket fired into Israel by Hezbollah will result in a declaration of war by the Tel Aviv regime.

Hezbollah rockets fired into Israel is a declaration of war, the Israeli minister tweeted.

Furthermore, the Israeli minister claimed that Hezbollah is a part of the Lebanese government, which makes Lebanon a legitimate target if a war to break out.

Bennetts comments come just days after Hezbollahs Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah congratulated his forces on their victory against the IDF in the 2006 War.
Reconstruction of historic nine-storey palace underway

The reconstruction of the historic nine-storey palace at the Hanuman Dhoka Durbar Square - a world heritage site - has been launched two years after the massive earthquake inflicted considerable damages on its structure.
RJP-N lawmakers to donate a month's salary for flood victims

The Rastriya Janata Party-Nepal (RJP-N) has decided to donate relief amount tantamount to one month's salary of its all lawmakers for flood victims.
Sharma faces Special Court summons

The Special Court is preparing to issue a notice in the name of Chudamani Sharma, the suspended director general of the Inland Revenue Department, to face a trial in the court on a corruption case filed by the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority.
Rotorua Police are continuing to investigate the disappearance of Raymond and James Fleet, who have not been seen for more than a week.

The uncle and nephew were reported missing on Tuesday, August 8.

Rotorua investigations manager Detective Senior Sergeant Mark Van Kempen says the matter is now being treated as suspicious.

Their disappearance is completely out of character for both of them, he says.

Their family is distraught and do not have any reason to believe Raymond or James would willingly leave.

Since they were last seen at home on Monday, August 7, there has been no communication from either of them.

We remain concerned for their wellbeing as there have been no sightings of them either.

Rotorua Police ask anyone with any information which may assist with finding James and Raymond to make contact immediately.

Information may be shared in confidence with Rotorua Police on 07 349 9400.

Alternatively, information may also be shared anonymously with Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

The family is receiving ongoing support at this distressing time.

Descriptions

Raymond Joseph Fleet is described as Caucasian and 51 years old. He has a thin to medium build and is 175cms tall (57). He has a receding hairline, with short brown hair and a moustache.

He has hazel/green eyes and has a tattoo of a bird on his back. He usually works driving trucks.

James David Fleet is described as Caucasian and 25 years old, of medium build, with thick wavy dark brown shoulder length hair.

He is 172cms tall (56), has hazel/grey eyes and has tattoos along his right arm of crossed rifles under a Codys symbol and a dragon-looking tattoo down his right forearm to his hand.
A Rotorua artist who has a holistic approach to fashion is set to hold her first solo show at New Zealand Fashion Week later this month.

The collection by 29-year-old designer Adrienne Whitewood (Rongowhakaata) titled Ta (meaning to print) acknowledges the artistic disciplines of Maori art from mediums, such as Nga Mahi Whakairo (carving), Raranga (weaving) and Tukutuku (woven lattice work).

The Ta collection features prints inspired by the people of Te Arawa both through names of designs and through patterns that are used on a range of garments including dresses, blouses, trousers, overcoats and eveningwear.

While primarily a womenswear label offering a contemporary take on traditional Maori prints, the Fashion Week show will have the launch of a menswear line too.

There has been a lot of demand from men who have bought items for their partners, and are also seeking out something for themselves, says Adrienne.

Im really excited to be able to meet that demand with a range of shirts featuring these fantastic Te Arawa-inspired prints.

Being Rotorua-made is a key element not only in Adriennes clothing production but also design.

The prints used in Ta are drawn from Tukutuku panels in the Tamatekapua wharenui (main meeting house) which overlooks the Ohinemutu marae, weaving patterns used at Rotoiti (the eastern part of Rotorua), and from a series of works in 1909 by the late carver Te Rahui of Rotorua.

Additionally, each print holds a significant meaning and it is this complete picture of wellness that Adrienne aims to incorporate into her clothing.

The Torakaraka weaving pattern represents the warding off of harmful influences and the Niho Tukutuku print promotes strength and moving together in harmony.

This focus on creating garments that are both visually and spiritually healing was partly inspired by Adriennes tour through Fiji, Samoa and Hawaii in early 2017 to meet other indigenous designers.

I met with a designer in Hawaii, Manaola, who would ask his customers about their personality and then find them a print to match, says Adrienne.

We are seeing a big trend now in fabrics that have healing properties, that are visually and spiritually healing. All the garments I design have a meaning behind them and in that way I can offer my customers an emotional connection to indigenous design.

Further drawing on the holistic significance of her designs, Adrienne has teamed up with Rotorua jeweler Juliet Ramson of Found Jewellery for a collaboration inspired by the patu (short-handled club), which represents strength.

Adrienne has shown her work at Fashion Week since 2010, as part of collaboration shows, and won the NZFW Miromoda Supreme award in 2013.

This is her first time showing off her high-end Maori fashion at a solo exhibition and she hopes the audience falls in love with holistic design as much as she does.

Ive seen steady growth in the Maori design market and I have found my niche with the prints and the stories behind them, says Adrienne.

I knew that to launch my first print range, I needed a solo show, so that I could best share the Adrienne Whitewood narrative which is creatively Maori and uniquely Rotorua.

I am so excited to share the Ta collection on the Fashion Week stage and to bring the label to an even wider audience.

On top of her print range, Adrienne has also teamed up with Pure Source to create new packaging for their Rotorua Thermal Mud products.

The triangular patterns are inspired by the traditional Maori art form of Taniko (twining) and the print is an interpretation of the Aonui pattern, which refers to the pursuit of knowledge about the natural world.

Her range will be available from Pure Source stockists from September 2017.

The New Zealand Fashion Week will be held from August 30 to September 3 at the ANZ Viaduct Events Centre in Auckland.
Indian students at Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology celebrated 70 years of their countrys independence today.

Celebrations were held at both the Windermere campus in Tauranga and the Mokoia campus in Rotorua.

The event at Windermere began with the raising of the Indian flag at 9am and was followed by samosas, ladoo and chai tea. The students then put on a series of colourful and energetic dances, including a routine to an Ed Sheeran song.

The event was also attended by staff and students from the Diploma in Engineering programme.

Graeme Rennie, Head of International at Toi Ohomai, says the day is important for Indians.

This is the 70th anniversary of Indian Independence Day so its especially important to our Indian students and community. It gives us all a chance to celebrate Indian culture with dances, songs and food from their home country.

The Indian independence movement from British rule is generally considered to have begun in 1857, with the Indian Mutiny, and gained traction from the 1920s with the influence of Mahatma Gandhi and his policy of peaceful resistance.

India was finally granted independence in 1947, at the same time as Pakistan, which received the Muslim-majority regions on the subcontinents western and eastern flanks.

East Pakistan eventually seceded in 1971 with Indias help, to form the modern nation of Bangladesh.
Two weeks ago, I shared details about the origin of names in Smyth County. We often wonder how streets, towns and neighborhoods were bestowed with certain names. I know that the topic of Scratch Gravels origin has come up at many of our family gatherings. Four generations of my family have lived in this section of Smyth County.

The name is unique. There was even a song written about Scratch Gravel. It was recorded by a band named Special Consensus. The album was Grammy-nominated for Best Bluegrass Album in 2013. Upon listening to the song, I couldnt help but wonder if there was another road by this name, somewhere else in the country. Scratch Gravel Road was written by Becky Buller. After some research by a friend of mine, Teresa White Williams, Becky reported that the song was, indeed, inspired by our very own Scratch Gravel Road. She used to live here and performed in the Appalachian Trail band with Carson Cooper, of Coopers Morrell Music, in Marion.

In my last column, I reported one theory about the origins of the name Scratch Gravel. Clara Hill Carner, Smyth County historian, and Katrina Umberger, said that the name was given because of the rocky nature of the ground. Early residents had to scratch hard to make a living or to make crops grow in the rock. I had heard another theory  that the name came from chickens scratching in the gravel of the road. Since my column published, Veralene Dunford wrote to tell me of another story surrounding the name. The Rev. Billy Dean, longtime resident of Scratch Gravel, told her that when the CCC workers came from different places to work, they began to court the local girls. The local boys got mad and would pick up gravels and throw at them whenever they could. So, they began calling this area Scratch Gravel. As you can see, there are many different theories about the origin of this particular section of Smyth County.

The July 1, 1976, issue of the Smyth County News presented theories about the names of some other sections of our county.

Seven Mile Ford, which, according to the slogan on old automobile license tags, is the only place in the world with that name, was named because a distance of seven miles separated the ford at the home of the Arthur Campbells (the countys first permanent settlers) on the Middle Fork, in Marion, and the ford at the home of General William Campbell, at Seven Mile Ford.

Chilhowies name was suggested by George W. Palmer. Chilhowie was an Indian expression meaning valley of many deer. The Indians first used the expression in connection with the area in the Middle Valley, between Seven Mile Ford and Marion, a few miles up the river from the present Chilhowie.

Smyth County was named for General Alexander Smyth, who served as an officer in the War of 1812 and as a Virginia congressman for eleven years.

The countys first pioneer, Stephen Holston, planted corn near the head spring of the middle fork of a three-forked river and then explored the river down to Natchez. The river, which before his exploration had been called the Indian River by some, the Cherokee River by the French, and the Hogoheegee River by the Indians, became the Holston River after his exploration. The Holston River has forks in the three valleys of Smyth County  the North Fork, flowing through Rich Valley, the Middle Fork running through the Middle Valley, which is the widest of the three valleys, and the South Fork, flowing through the Rye Valley.

Rye Valley was named because of the wild rye found growing there by early settlers.

Several places in Smyth County have descriptive names. Blue Springs, being so deep, it had a very blue color, has fascinated people for many years. According to legend, people in the early days of the settlement used to let down long bed cords (ropes used as bed springs), in attempts to find the bottom.

Sulphur Springs was named because a resort area grew up around a sulphur spring in the woods. At Cedar Springs, a house belonging to the Keesling family sat near a spring amid shade trees and was very picturesque, with its spring house and water mill. The trees and the spring gave the place its name.

The descriptive name of Saltville was adopted only after the area had been called several different things, throughout the years. Named for the salt deposits, the town was first known as Buffalo Lick. The name describes the activity for which the area was first known  that of a salt lick for the animals in the area. The present roads leading into Saltville follow the old buffalo trails. The buffalo chose the easiest paths out of the valley, through the hills. Saltville then became known as Prestons Salines because General Francis Preston made salt there and his wife, daughter of General William Campbell, owned the land. It was later called Saltville and incorporated as such in 1894. The salt industry stayed in the community until 1904, when Mathieson shut down its salt plant.

In the early settlement of Saltville, much of the valley was covered by water and served as an easy access to a saline solution. Early Indians, searching game, could easily follow the tracks of the animals into the lake area and quickly kill their supply. As surveyors came through the area, looking for prospective lands, they found these Indians making salt from the lakes edge.

Slabtown Hollow, in Saltville, supposedly received its name because of a barrel factory, which was located in the area. The logs from nearby woods were cut into slabs for use in making the barrels. In another part of Saltville, a point at the top of a grade is known as Slaughters Pen Hill because the Mathieson Alkali Plant once had a slaughter pen there.

Henrytown was named for a Mr. Henry, who worked at the Mathieson Alkali Plant. Hart Spring Hollow was named for a family named Hart. Allisons Gap got its name from the many families living in the gap between the hills. Perryville was so called because of a chemist named Perry, who worked at Mathieson. Across the hills from Henrytown, is Plasterco, named for the plaster underground and the gypsum plant, which mined it. Another section of Saltville is called British Row because Mr. Mathieson built a row of houses there, to accommodate a group of skilled workers who came from England to work at the plant. Above Saltville, Tannersville was named for a tanning industry. There, leather was tanned and shoes put together with wooden pegs.

In the North Fork Valley, Broadford is an area where the Laurel Fork, emerging from a gorge in the mountains, spreads out to run through fertile bottom land and then into Holstons North Fork. Just above Broadford, Rich Valleys rich, fertile land suggested its name.

What is the name origin of your community or your street? Do you know any other stories about the communities within Smyth County? If so, I may be contacted at 685-6589 or by email at mwlinford@yahoo.com.
Smart got a 51.4% market share by the end of June 2017 while Globes share was at 48.2%, representing a 2% drop from its share during the end of 2016

Smart Communications beefed up and streamlined its prepaid and postpaid packages, making them more enticing to Pinoy mobile consumers

Following its efforts to improve its prepaid and postpaid offerings, Smart has managed to retake the lead from its erstwhile rivalto become the leading mobile services provider in the country as of Q2 2017.According to a recentreport ( source ),After it lost the top spot to Globe in January 2017,. To be specific, the MVP-company added more mobile data allocation to prepaid promos all while includingexperience to some packs. Likewise, Smart started to bundle high-end or flagship-level smartphones across the board, even to entry-level and midrange postpaid plans.References:By the end of 2016, Smart had 62.76 million customers compared to Globe's 62.8 million. Fast forward to March 2017, Smart's total subscriber base grew to 63.1 million while Globes figures dropped to 58.6 million.Mark Milan Macanas, the founder and sole blogger running TechPinas.com, is currently an Online Ambassador and Digital Influencer of Smart Communications.
Unlike in the anime and mainline entries, "Gotta catch 'em all" is a phrase you simply won't find on Pokemon GO, because such a feat is simply not possible.

Niantic has been somewhat slow, though earnest, about adding The Pokemon Company's huge roster of pocket monsters in Pokemon GO. The latest were the three Legendary birds  Zapdos, Moltres, and Articuno  pleasing fans who have long complained about the lack of Legendaries in the still wildly popular app.

This time, it's Mewtwo's turn to hit the game.

In a Pokemon GO Stadium event in Yokohama, Japan Monday, Aug. 14, players battled against perhaps the most sought-after Pokemon in the franchise. Thousands came, some successfully catching it. Niantic has now also confirmed that Mewtwo will be heading stateside via the Exclusive Raid Battle feature.

How To Catch Mewtwo In 'Pokemon GO'

Again, Mewtwo will only be catchable via Exclusive Raid Battles, which Niantic says will "periodically appear" at gyms worldwide. Exclusive Raids are slightly different from standard Raid Battles because the trainers must be invited to one first. There are other requirements: trainers must have successfully completed a raid recently, specifically by beating the Raid boss at the gym where the Exclusive Raid Battle will take place.

Niantic says it will offer trainers an advance warning regarding details about the Exclusive Raid Battle so trainers can coordinate among themselves before taking on the Raid boss.

The Exclusive Raid Battle will debut with Mewtwo, but Niantic confirms other Pokemon may also start to hatch from eggs found during such battles "over the next several weeks."

When Will Mewtwo Arrive?

Niantic says you can expect Mewtwo in the coming weeks. It's too early to offer tips on catching the Pokemon, but if the event in Japan is any indication, then Mewtwo might not be a difficult catch. It seems to have gone down fairly easily during the event, in fact. A 100 percent catch rate makes the final stretch of the Exclusive Raid Battle easier, of course. We'll see what happens when Mewtwo reaches stateside.

Meanwhile, the three Legendary Birds along with Lugia may still be caught until Aug. 31, so while waiting for Mewtwo, watch out for any of these Pokemon in a Raid Battle near you. That is, of course, if you still haven't managed to catch any of them.

Pokemon GO has certainly been making some noise these past couple of weeks, but not always favorably. Its anniversary event in Chicago was seen as a massive disaster, prompting Niantic to issue full refunds and multiple statements about what went wrong.

Thrilled about Mewtwo finally arriving in Pokemon GO? Tell us in the comments section below!

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Chris Lattner, who created the Swift programming language and stayed at Apple for many years, has now announced that he's joining Google Brain, Alphabet's research unit for artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Lattner announced the move via Twitter Monday, Aug. 14, stating he will start next week. He will resign from his post as Tesla's head for the autopilot program. Lattner actually left in June, saying Tesla wasn't a good fit for him.

"I'm super excited to join Google Brain next week: AI can't democratize itself (yet?) so I'll help make it more accessible to everyone!" Lattner tweeted.

At Google Brain, Lattner will work on a software language called TensorFlow, a system Google designed to simplify the programming steps for AI, reports Bloomberg. Google released TensorFlow for free last year, making the software a way for the company to profit from AI. Also, last May, Google introduced a custom machine learning chip called TPU that's specifically for the software, and it says the chip is 30 times faster than traditional CPUs.

Chris Lattner's Contributions To Apple

Lattner, who studied computer science at the University of Portland, joined Apple in 2005 after co-authoring LLVM, a collection of modular and reusable compiler and toolchain technologies. His work was crucial in innovating Xcode, Apple's OpenGL implementation, and he led the rollout and development of Swift.

In 2016, Lattner was recognized by Wired as one of the "25 geniuses who are creating the future of business." That list included Stephenie Landry, VP of Amazon Prime Now; Randal Kirk, Intrexon CEO; Lisa Nishimura, Netflix's VP for original documentaries and comedy; and more.

Lattner left Apple in January and joined Tesla. He stayed for six months and left in June, as mentioned. He said he and Tesla CEO Elon Musk both agreed that they did not work well together, hence, his departure.

Google Brain

Google Brain focuses on practical application of AI and machine learning across Google's products and apps. According to its website, Members of Google Brain can set their own research agenda, "with the team as a whole maintaining a portfolio of projects across different time horizons and levels of risk."

Google adopts an open culture with regard to its research because it believes that doing so will lead to a healthy exchange of ideas. To that end, Google Brain says it presents its research regularly at top academic conferences and releases some of its tools as open source projects.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Public health officials in Coconino and Navajo counties in Arizona issued a warning after tests found fleas in the northern parts of the state positive for Yersinia pestis. The bacteria is known to have caused the bubonic plague, the infectious disease that killed millions of people during the Middle Ages.

The Plague

Authorities urged the public to take precautions to reduce their exposure to the disease, which can be transmitted by fleas, rabbits, rodents and predators that prey on these animals.

"An abundance of active prairie dogs doesn't indicate disease is present. However, a sudden die-off of prairie dogs and rodents, may be an indicator of plague. Persons noticing a sudden die-off of rodents or rabbits are urged to contact the Navajo County Health Department," reads Navajo County Health Department's public advice.

The disease can spread when humans and other animals get bitten by an infected flea. It can also be transmitted by direct contact with an infected animal. The plague can be transmitted through body fluids such as respiratory droplets so it is possible to contract the bacteria when handling tissue or fluids of animals with the illness. The disease may spread throughout the bloodstream (septicemic), or may affect the lungs (pneumonic).

"Out of the human cases with bubonic plague, around 10% develop pneumonic plague, meaning the infection continuing to spread in the organism gets into their lungs," WHO said. "People in close contact with pneumonic cases can be directly contaminated by respiratory droplets, such as from coughing."

For those who have concerns that they may have been exposed to the illness, the symptoms of plague in humans typically appear between two and six days after exposure. Symptoms include chills, fever, weakness, headache, muscle pain and swollen glands in the limbs, armpits or groins.

Disease That Killed Millions Centuries Ago Persists

The disease was once known as the Black Death likely because of the dark patches caused by bleeding under the skin. It swept through Europe 700 years ago and left about 25 million people dead. The number is equivalent to a third of Europe's population. It also killed millions in Hong Kong and China.

Even centuries later, the disease periodically emerges in some parts of the globe albeit at a relatively minor level. The plague can persist in rodent populations for a long time sans affecting humans but there is the possibility it can re-emerge in human population.

In 2015, WHO recorded 320 cases of plague worldwide. Of these, 77 resulted in death. The typical number of human plague cases in the United States, on the other hand, is 17 per year. The disease is curable with antibiotics if diagnosed and treated early.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
On November 11, the EU announced the renewal, until November 14, 2023, of the sanctions against officials linked to the Administration of Nicolas Maduro. | Read More
Albemarle is moving more of its operations to North Carolina as a closure looms for its downtown Baton Rouge office, where about 200 workers are housed by the specialty chemical maker.

Albemarle executives told workers about the move on Monday. The exact number of workers leaving Baton Rouge is not known at this time, said spokeswoman Susan Richardson. The lease on Albemarle's downtown office expires in late 2021.

Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Don Pierson said Albemarle's $5.7 billion acquisition in 2015 of Rockwood Holdings, a major lithium producer, set the stage for Albemarle's corporate headquarters relocation to Charlotte to be near those operations.

"Essentially, this is another step in the move that began in 2015," Pierson said.

LED didn't get a chance to convince Albemarle to keep its headquarters and those jobs here, he said.

Albemarle is adding a new campus in Kings Mountain, North Carolina  the site of its lithium-only production facility  to house its integrated business operations and engineering functions. The company announced Monday in Charlotte that it is adding 170 jobs at Kings Mountain and 30 jobs in its Charlotte headquarters.

"The Tower" at 451 Florida St. in Baton Rouge is currently the service center for Albemarle's corporate functions, which include engineering, information technology and logistics, according to the company's website.

It has been nearly two years since Albemarle announced it was moving its corporate headquarters from Baton Rouge to Charlotte. The company made the move last year. At the time, Albemarle officials said the company would still have about 500 employees in Baton Rouge: 250 downtown providing support operations and a similar number doing research and development and manufacturing operations at its Process Development Center on Gulf States Road.

Pierson said LED has every reason to believe Albemarle will continue operating the research and development and production facilities.

Adam Knapp, president and chief executive officer of the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, said Albemarle's decision to leave downtown Baton Rouge was disappointing, but not entirely unexpected after the company decided to move its headquarters out of the city.

"Todays announcement underscores the importance of continued focus on economic development as well as a continued focus on existing companies in the region, as transitions occur all the time, Knapp said.

At one point, Albemarle took up 10 floors of the 21-story Chase South Tower and had more than 600 employees in the building. In recent years, the company's footprint downtown has dwindled.

Were sorry to see them go, theyve made a great contribution to the city over the years, said Davis Rhorer, executive director of the Downtown Development District. Rhorer said the DDD will work with the owners of the building to find tenants for space being vacated by Albemarle.

The companys decision to reduce its Baton Rouge presence is just one of those sorts of things that happens in the private sector, when cities compete to host corporate headquarters, Rhorer said. He noted that downtown remains busy, despite Albemarles decision to leave. The Water Campus, a public-private development that aims to be an international center for coastal education and research, is under construction on Nicholson Drive, between downtown and LSU. By the end of the year about 400 people are expected to be working in the facility and more tenants are in the works.

Albemarle cites Charlotte, N.C.'s 'big-city feel,' other advantages to moving headquarters from Baton Rouge Specialty chemical maker Albemarle Corp. is moving its headquarters and some operations from

On Monday North Carolina approved a $4.3 million grant for Albemarle, paid over 12 years, if the company creates the required jobs there, according to the Charlotte Observer. The headquarters relocation was cinched in 2015 with the help of a $2 million state incentives package.

Richardson said Tuesday that the latest move builds on Albemarle's continued transformation.

In the past few years, Albemarle has more than doubled market capital, expanded its global footprint, integrated new teams, added capacity, divested non-core assets and relocated its corporate headquarters, she said.

Albemarle now has three main lines of business:

 Lithum used in batteries, glasses, lubricants and chemicals.

 Refining solutions, which are the catalysts used in oil refining.

 Bromine specialties, whose applications include flame retardants for electronics and construction materials, water treatment, plastics and synthetic rubber.

The latest move means more jobs will move from Baton Rouge to Kings Mountain and other Albemarle sites during the next several years, she said.

Baton Rouge served as Albemarle's corporate headquarters from 2008 to 2016, after a move from Richmond, Virginia, in exchange for an estimated $7.9 million in state and local incentives. Before officially declaring Baton Rouge as its headquarters, the city had long been an administrative office center for Albemarle. Formerly a Virginia paper manufacturer, Albemarle entered Baton Rouge in 1962 with a $200 million purchase of the Ethyl Corp., a name it assumed until the specialty chemical business was spun off as Albemarle Corp. in 1994.

Becoming the official Albemarle headquarters in 2008 brought 30 high-salaried employees and an additional $7 million in annual payroll to Baton Rouge, while retaining approximately $43 million in existing payroll, Pierson said. Albemarle exceeded its job and payroll obligations to the state for the corporate headquarters relocation. The company also invested more than $26 million in new headquarters, production and research and development project expansions over that period, he said.
A 25-year-old Pride man, who was arrested in a juvenile rape in July, was arrested again Monday in the unrelated molestation of a 16-year-old girl about three years ago, according to the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office.

Nicholas Waxley sexually molested the child on two occasions, his arrest report says.

The girl told authorities she felt "she had no other option but to do what he wanted," the report says. When Waxley began telling her to engage in the sexual acts, she told investigators, she "told him she did not want to do it," the report says.

Waxley, 15884 El Ranchitos Drive, was booked into Parish Prison Monday morning on a count of molestation of a juvenile.

In July, Waxley was booked on a count of crimes against nature after he was accused of raping a juvenile, then buying her a contraceptive pill, according to his prior arrest report. Waxley posted bail in that arrest.

The victim's statements from that investigation led authorities to this victim, who spoke with authorities in early August, the report says. The two victims' assaults happened around the same time three years ago, the report says.
After a month of discussion, the Central School Board members finally agreed Monday to the text of a short advertisement to run in the The Advocate announcing the vacancy created by outgoing Central Schools Superintendent Michael Faulk.

The ad will also appear on the Central school systems website as well as the websites of the Louisiana School Boards Association and the states Teach Louisiana job page.

Central plans to advertise soon to replace outgoing schools superintendent Faulk Central school board members are nearly finished composing a short advertisement to run in t

The bare bones ad specifies that Faulks replacement will earn a salary of between $117,500 and $135,000 a year, plus car allowance, related insurance benefits, cell phone allowance and incentives to meet performance objectives.

Applicants can either apply online on the school districts website or print it out and apply by mail. The application form will be posted online in a few days when the ads start running. The deadline is Oct. 11 and mailed-in applications must be postmarked by that date.

Board President David Walker said he plans to open all the applications a few days after that date, once all the mail applications are in, and make the names public. Then the board will start the vetting process.

Board member Sharon Browning, who heads the boards personnel committee, said shes hoping to quickly make a permanent selection.

If we get a good number of applicants and they are quality applicants, we hope to fill the position, Browning said.

Faulk announced his resignation June 26 and it takes effect Dec. 31. He has accepted a new position as executive director of the Louisiana Association of School Superintendents. Faulk is the first and only school superintendent Central has had since it broke away from East Baton Rouge Parish public schools in 2007.

Central begins search to replace departing schools superintendent Michael Faulk The search to replace outgoing Central Schools Superintendent Michael Faulk will wait two mo

On Monday, the board also released Faulks 10th and final job evaluation and, like evaluations past, it was a strong one.

Faulk, who is entering his 46th year as an educator and 24th as a school superintendent, earned final composite score 2.83 on a 3-point scale, roughly the same as hes earned in the past.

On July 31, the board met behind closed doors to discuss Faulks evaluation.

There were nothing but accolades heaped on him, Browning said.

Faulks clean tenure also stood out to Browning.

Under his leadership there has never been any hint of impropriety nor hint of favoritism, and that is so unusual in Louisiana, she said.
Gov. John Bel Edwards and U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson continued discussions Tuesday about clearing red tape that has stymied the state's recovery from last year's historic floods.

Edwards, a Democrat, has repeatedly called upon HUD to provide relief from federal regulations that say homeowners who received Small Business Administration funds cannot access other kinds of federally funded grant dollars available.

In a letter given to Carson, Edwards said more than 18,000 Louisiana homeowners received SBA loans, which must be repaid. Money from the federally supported Restore Louisiana Homeowner Program does not.

"This is, perhaps, the single biggest change we can make to support homeowners," Edwards wrote in the letter. Edwards said he believes that HUD can fix the issue in its own policies.

Edwards also called upon President Donald Trump's administration to address the issue of required environmental reviews, which Congress must change.

"These costly, unnecessary reviews are taking away funds that could otherwise be used by homeowners to rebuild, mitigate against future floods, or help small businesses reopen their doors," Edwards wrote.

Today I got the chance to discuss Louisiana disaster recovery with @LouisianaGov pic.twitter.com/mLWkQoPYOL  Ben Carson (@SecretaryCarson) August 15, 2017

Read Edwards letter to Carson.
After many years in the Louisiana Legislature, Sharon Weston Broome has to know that one of the worst signs for an official is to be in the sights of John N. Kennedy.

As Stormy Petrel, which might as well have been his official title, the state treasurer made a career out of criticizing others, flying caustically above the OB markers of his own relatively limited role in the State Capitol.

After many years, and three attempts, Kennedy has been promoted to the U.S. Senate. And he continues to meddle in state politics, as though he never left for Washington; he is a political albatross from the The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

And now, with the Senate and the federal government in chaos, Kennedy has cast a beady eye on the minuscule contracts in Baton Rouge for the likes of Arthur "Silky Slim" Reed.

Broome must know that this does not bode well.

There are different phases of the John N. Kennedy School of Scapegoating. Usually, there is an appearance of fact-finding before hen-pecking the data; this month, he has quick-stepped to the beating phase.

These actions call into question the tactics your administration is using to fight the ever-increasing violent crime rate in Baton Rouge, Kennedy wrote in his first letter to Broome about BRAVE.

+4 BRAVE contract recipients push back against criticism at Metro Council meeting People who received recent contracts in the Baton Rouge Area Violence Elimination anti-gang 

The wonder is that Kennedy is leaving in qualifying adverbs in sentences referring to the seemingly blatant waste of our federal tax dollars.

The new mayor-president simply cannot win in the BRAVE battle. On the one hand, she is publicly committed to continuing it, and influential members of the community  such as District Attorney Hillar Moore  see it as a great success in curbing juvenile crime in the mayors turf of north Baton Rouge.

On the other hand, the mess surrounding its administration has her, in the words of aide James Gilmore, in constant "clean-up and asking-for-forgiveness mode since we took office.

If one can say that Broomes relationship with her predecessor was not already poisoned, Kip Holden is positively scabrous at her suggestion all the administrative screw-ups came on his watch.

Finally, there seems almost no way for the mayor to clear the air.

The program is being mischaracterized, in part by Kennedy, who is less than scrupulous when it comes to sinking his claws into the data of others. The 63 youths served at what was said to be a cost of $30,000 apiece are only part of the BRAVE initiative, and to reduce the various costs of research and interventions into that kind of factoid is easy grist for Kennedy and other critics.

Rather, it was intended to be intensive intervention after the more threatening rounds of call-ins for youths identified as potential troublemakers, warned off of crime; the money spent on data at LSU is a lot of the cost. That is a critical component if youre going to have a data-driven approach to fighting the gang problem.

If thats not enough, the since-canceled contracts to agitators like Silky Slim are fodder for the criticism.

The administration is aloof. That's not necessarily a bad thing, given the hothouse atmosphere at the Municipal Building these days, but the new mayor seems to absent herself from Metro Council meetings when controversial subjects are apt to arise.

Where is Broome when something like this is said at a Metro Council meeting: I know what it means to get a call at 3 o'clock in the morning: come get me, my mom just overdosed. Come get me, my dad just hit my mom, Tremaine Sterling patronizingly lectured the officials. He runs the 29:11 mentorship program and received a recent $5,000 BRAVE contract. We spend time in the community. We deserve to get a piece of the pie.

Whoever was present representing the mayor might have stood up right then and disavowed the notion that BRAVE contracts are a pie divided by the politically deserving of the African-American community. No one did, and can anyone doubt that Kennedy will swoop on that one?

Email Lanny Keller at lkeller@theadvocate.com.
Sunday was a difficult day for me. I am usually excited about Sunday morning. As an African Methodist Episcopal pastor in Baton Rouge, Sunday should be a time of celebration and joy.

Why was it a difficult day? First, the violence in Virginia reminds me of the hate and racism that has been in the very fiber of this country. Last year, a young man entered a Bible study on Wednesday in Charleston, South Carolina, and murdered nine parishioners. Emmett Till, Jimmie Lee Jackson and Viola Liuzzo all lost their lives fighting for justice and equality. We all should be upset about the public display of hate.

Someone wrote, "For evil to continue to exist, good people remain silent."

+4 Pressure mounts on Trump to condemn white supremacists after violence in Charlottesville WASHINGTON (AP)  President Donald Trump is facing pressure from both sides of the aisle for

Secondly, it was difficult, because we should have grown beyond such hatred. The Rev. Martin Luther King said, "One should not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of character."

We know how a community divided looks. We are working hard to heal the Baton Rouge community, one person at a time. One Sunday, a majority African-American congregation, Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, worshiped with a majority white congregation, St. Alban's Episcopal/Anglican Church on the LSU campus. We came together, because of our oneness in faith and commitment to the gospel of Christ. I remarked, "Enough is enough; we will heal our city."

Lastly, Sunday was difficult because persons were injured and killed due to hate. I cried because of the violence. I have a daughter who believes in justice and equality, and I cried because someone lost a daughter and someone lost a father. As a person of faith, God calls me to promote peace, but also to speak "truth to power." I know how hate feels. Our daughter came home one day in tears because someone told her "black girls cannot go to this particular school in Baton Rouge." In the midst of her tears, I told her, "You will attend, and you will do well."

Our daughter graduated with honors. Sunday was difficult, but I still have hope.

Why? Because our faith teaches us to be hopeful. Yes, Sunday was difficult, but there is always a Monday.

Herman O. Kelly Jr.

pastor, Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church

Baton Rouge
When 95-year old Helen Plummer, of Baton Rouge, died earlier this year, her family was surprised to learn that she had a will. Much of Plummers will is unremarkable. It leaves her modest estate to two young great-grandchildren, in trust, to help pay for college education.

Other aspects of Plummers will, however, are quite peculiar. The will names Tasha Clark-Amar  a woman apparently unknown to Plummers family as executor and trustee of Plummers estate. The will also provides that Clark-Amar is entitled to be paid $500 per month for her services as trustee  an amount that seems extraordinary given the modest size of the estate.

Our Views: Southern should release records Universities are supposed to answer to their root word, universe, a name meant to suggest 

The will names Dorothy Jackson  the attorney who prepared the will  as attorney for the will and trust. This provision is unenforceable in Louisiana, but it is not necessarily unusual.

If that was the end of the story, Plummers will would not be an issue of public concern. But Clark-Amar and Jackson are public servants whose considerable salaries (much like my own) are largely paid for by taxpayers and/or tuition dollars. Both women provide free services to senior citizens as part of their official duties  and it is in that capacity that both women apparently became acquainted with Plummer. It is also in that capacity that both women apparently assisted in the preparation of a will that sought to benefit them both financially. Such conduct, if true, is reprehensible and perhaps worse. It is also an unfortunate stain on the reputations of the many public servants and attorneys who devote their careers to helping and protecting others.

When these troubling allegations came to light, one would have expected these public figures to apologize, to make restitution, and to beg the public and Plummers family for forgiveness. Instead, Clark-Amar sued Plummers family for defamation and sought an injunction seeking to silence their outrage. Now, Jackson seeks to be paid the hefty sum of $10,000 by Plummers estate for work that should have been done pro bono. To suggest that this conduct is outside the bounds of professionalism is an understatement. It strains the bounds of human decency. As a lawyer and an educator, I am appalled. As a citizen and a taxpayer, I am simply stunned that the institutions employing these individuals continue to do so.

This letter is an expression of my personal opinions and is not made on behalf of LSU or the Law Center.

Elizabeth R. Carter

LSU law professor

Baton Rouge
A brief embrace, a case of mistaken identity and suspicions of infidelity prompted a drunken one-punch that shattered a man's jaw at a Civic nightclub in the early hours of the morning.

The impulsive blow broke the victim's jaw in two places and left the victim in "agony". Doctors had to insert six screws and two plates to fix the damage.

Ryan Anthony Myles had knocked back more than a dozen beers in the hours before he arrived at Academy on Bunda Street with his then-partner and three friends on October 23 in 2016.

The couple were walking downstairs to the club's main dance floor when his girlfriend had greeted the victim and leaned over to give him a quick hug about 2am.

Myles, then aged 23, soon formed the belief the man was his girlfriend's ex-partner and she had cheated on him.
Toby Greene's midair kick to the face of Luke Dahlhaus was unsavoury but fell outside the description of an offence worthy of an AFL ban, Jimmy Bartel says.

The match review panel's decision to fine the Greater Western Sydney forward for the incident, which left his Western Bulldogs opponent with a bleeding lip, has divided opinion.

The MRP charged Greene with engaging in misconduct over the studs-up high kick in an aerial contest during the Giants' win over the Bulldogs on Friday.

He is set to escape with a $1500 fine, avoiding his third suspension this season.
The federal government should consider banning wages paid in cash and granting tax concessions for non-cash business models, according to KPMG.

Its submission to the Turnbull government's Black Economy Taskforce also suggests another tax amnesty  this time for employers and/or workers if they come forward and admit they've taken illegal cash payments in the past.

The firm has called for a national campaign  backed by business, trade union, social services and civil society leaders  to stamp out Australia's black economy. KPMG tax partner Grant Wardell-Johnson there had been an acceptance of the black economy based on a perception "everyone-is-doing- it".

The cash economy is thought to account for around $21 billion or 1.5 per cent of GDP, according to the Australia Bureau of Statistics. Black Economy Taskforce chairman Michael Andrew  who has described the illegal cash economy as "almost a national sport"  has said that around $15 billion of that is revenue that has been untaxed or overpaid welfare benefits.
Pauline Hanson's One Nation party has given the government's media reforms "conditional support" in exchange for a $12 million boost to community radio funding and changes to the ABC, including a greater focus on regional areas, more financial transparency and increasing its political impartiality.

The government will also conduct an inquiry into the ABC's competitive neutrality - whether it is using taxpayer funding to undermine commercial players - and to "legislate a requirement for the ABC to be 'fair' and 'balanced'", according to a post on One Nation's Facebook's page on Tuesday.

The party has also requested a register of foreign ownership interests in media companies.

"If any foreign ownership is at 2.5 per cent it must be on a public register," Senator Hanson said on Tuesday evening.
Government is no business to be in if you're not very good at politics, nor up for the fight.

As the Coalition's citizenship-slash-legitimacy woes accumulate, so too do the holes in its defence and the contradictions in its statements.

Monday was bad, but Tuesday was a disaster - a fact written on the shell-shocked faces of government MPs all through question time.

The opposition, which deployed ridicule with chilling effect, is having a field day as senior ministers bluster embarrassingly about trans-Tasman conspiracies to "steal" government in tactics amounting to "treachery".
Okay, time for me to call it a day. What happened?

various government ministers accused the opposition of treachery for colluding with the New Zealand Labour Party to attempt to bring down the Australian government ;

for ; Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said she might not be able to trust a New Zealand Labour government because of this;

said she because of this; the New Zealand Labour Party (which faces an election shortly) said it had some communication with an Australian Labor staffer about the matter but only a general question about citizenship was asked in the New Zealand parliament;

(which faces an election shortly) said it had some communication with an Australian Labor staffer about the matter but only a general question about citizenship was asked in the New Zealand parliament; the Australian staffer was later revealed to be Labor frontbencher Penny Wong's chief-of-staff ;

Australian staffer was later revealed to be ; despite this sideshow the government's near hysterical campaign about traitors has not gone down well ;

; it also threatened to go after Labor MPs with possible citizenship issues;

with possible citizenship issues; Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce told question time his New Zealand citizenship has been renounced ;

told question time his ; the High Court will hear the case on August 24;

will hear the case on August 24; the government's media reforms have a better chance of passing the Senate ;

; this is because One Nation will support the changes in exchange for things such as amending the charter of the ABC and requiring the national broadcaster to disclose the salaries of its highest paid presenters ;

in exchange for things such as and requiring the national broadcaster to ; oh and the government lost a vote in the House of Representatives. Again.

It doesn't sound at all crazy when I put it like that, does it?

My thanks to Andrew Meares and Alex Ellinghausen for their super work and to you for reading and commenting.

You can follow me on Facebook.

Alex, Andrew and I will be back in the morning. Until then, safe travels.
Jennifer Lawrence has joined social media users sharing pictures of the white nationalist rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend, with the intention of identifying those who took part.

The Silver Linings Playbook actress shared four photographs of the rallies to her Facebook page, which has 16.5 million followers.

Jennifer Lawrence has condemned the Charlottesville violence. Credit:AP

"These are the faces of hate," Lawrence wrote. "Look closely and post anyone you find."

Addressing those who participated in the rallies, she added, "You can't hide with the internet you pathetic cowards!"
Large Australian companies will be required to report annually on measures they are taking to combat modern slavery, under proposed new laws designed to thwart trafficking and forced labour.

With figures suggesting that almost 4500 people are trapped in some form of slavery in Australia  and millions more are victims around the world  the Turnbull government will soon force big business to scrutinise their supply chains in a bid to ensure companies are not complicit.

Justice Minister Michael Keenan wants large companies to make annual Modern Slavery Statements Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Slavery includes human trafficking, debt bondage and forced labour.

Under the legislation, companies with an annual turnover of at least $100 million will be asked to publish "Modern Slavery Statements" and will be held to account on a publicly accessible central repository.
The jurors held a photo of the baby girl in their hands, showing her round cheeks, delicate features and closed eyes.

It could have been a photograph of a sleeping newborn, if not for the large bruise on her forehead.

The mother and father of a baby who died of brain and spinal injuries in 2014. Credit:Facebook

She was lying dead on a hospital bed, having been found her in her crib with irregular breathing one August morning in 2014.

Soon the court filled with the sounds of a triple zero call, in which the baby's mother could be heard trying to resuscitate the girl, who was born prematurely eight weeks earlier, weighing just 2.75 kilograms.
A Sydney law graduate who argued his command of the English language was too limited to be a juror was knocked back by the Supreme Court and ordered to continue deliberations in a murder trial, according to a judgment published after the guilty verdict.

The decision, delivered on July 26 but made public after the verdict on August 4, revealed a juror in the murder trial of Sydney man Sateki Siale asked to be discharged from the jury after the first day of the trial.

The juror, known as number 110-72, telephoned the sheriff's office that night "and informed the recorded message that he was concerned about ... his ability to continue as a juror in light of his limited English language skills", Justice Peter Garling said.

The defence argued the juror should be discharged and the trial should proceed with an entirely new panel of jurors.
Building a diverse workplace Also taking steps is edu-tech start-up OpenLearning, which credits most of its success to having a diverse workplace with a mix of backgrounds. Nick La of Weploy says 'bro culture' can hamper growth. "I studied software engineering at university then went on to work as a developer in some of Australia's largest corporates," says OpenLearning chief executive Adam Brimo. "I noticed the technology and dev field can have a strong 'bro culture'." After launching OpenLearning  a social online learning platform  in 2012, Brimo restructured to focus on community, inclusivity and having fun. He has employed several women in the traditionally male-dominated organisational arms.

Vanessa Doake is the founder of Code Like a Girl. Brimo says maintaining OpenLearning's culture across its Sydney and Kuala Lumpur offices has been easier because of the diversity in the start-ups team. "It has minimised cultural barriers many businesses looking to expand globally often face," he says. We can't enact change if we don't identify and call out bro culture. This kind of behaviour is not acceptable and must be addressed. Nick La According to Brimo, OpenLearning previously raised $5 million in funding and is finalising another capital raising round.

OpenLearning has more than 750,000 students worldwide. The company now employs 63 staff across Sydney and Kuala Lumpur  23 male, 40 female. As well, more than two-thirds of its staff are multilingual. "It's not simply about meeting quotas in my eyes, I genuinely believe that gender-diverse teams made up of people from a host of backgrounds produce the most creative, innovative work," he says. "Having diversity ingrained in our culture was a strategic move when we started the company, but it has progressed quite organically as we've grown." Identifying and calling out bro culture Nick La, co-founder of on-demand recruitment platform Weploy says the "bro culture" can hamper an enterprise's growth.

He says to combat the bro culture, SMEs should start with recognising and understanding the problem. "We can't enact change if we don't identify and call out bro culture. This kind of behaviour is not acceptable and must be addressed. "To make any kind of change however, we need to encourage a mindset shift within organisations. We need more emphasis on how both females and males can learn to recognise and address unconscious biases and actively promote inclusive environments." La says Weploy received $1 million in seed funding, and is growing exponentially month on month and surpassing its goals. "Women currently make up 85 per cent of our community  a figure we're exceptionally proud of." So how far does employing women in male-dominated organisational arms go to eliminating the bro culture in workplaces?

"You can hire as many women as you like; however, if your start-up has a problem with bro culture, you'll also have a problem with staff retention," La says. "Addressing diversity starts with recruitment. However, leaders need to actively work to ensure we're creating attractive and supporting environments for staff to thrive in." If we want more women in tech, we need to encourage young women to consider careers in STEM, he says. "Programs like Code Like a Girl and Women Who Code that focus on this aspect are highly valuable and real drivers of positive change. "For that reason, Weploy recently partnered with Girl Geek Academy to support their annual SheHacks Hackathon." Leadership support needed Vanessa Doake, co-founder of Code Like a Girl, an award-winning initiative that provides Australian girls with the support and tools to flourish in the world of coding, says shifting culture isn't easy because some key challenges exist, such as lack of leadership support.

"If there isn't unanimous support at a leadership level, and leaders aren't demonstrating cultural values of diversity and inclusiveness, including the board, changing culture will be difficult," says Doake, who has six years' experience in HR. "Culture isn't created, or changed, when an organisation creates policies, but only when leaders live those policies on a day-to-day basis." Doake says another challenge SMEs face is articulating acceptable behaviour. "It's often said that culture is more often defined by what you don't do, rather than what you do." She stresses the need to invest in training. "A great starting point is 'unconscious bias', and continue with 'emotional intelligence' training  this is particularly important for managers." Doake also says companies need feedback. "Develop methods for soliciting employee feedback (with the option of employee anonymity)."
A flick knife being opened could be heard seconds before a Melbourne police officer fatally shot a man during a fight, a trial has heard.

Timothy Baker was a leading senior constable when prosecutors allege he murdered Vlado Micetic, a motorist the policeman pulled over in Union Street in Windsor on the night of August 25, 2013, when he saw the driver's car had stolen number plates.

Timothy Baker (left) outside the Melbourne Supreme Court last month. Credit:Luis Enrique Ascui

The Supreme Court has heard the two men struggled when Mr Baker tried to arrest Mr Micetic, and that the policeman fired three shots. Mr Micetic, 44, died in hospital.

Mr Baker, 46, has pleaded not guilty to murder. He claims he saw Mr Micetic pull a knife during the struggle and shot him in self-defence.
On another occasion the father took his daughter to a confessional room, where Ridsdale was again waiting. Ridsdale pleaded guilty to buggery in relation to the charges against the girl. The victim, who now experiences "crippling" flashbacks and has been consumed by fear most of her life, told the court the offending had caused her hurt, anger, rage and disgust. "I feel like a piece of meat handed around for anyone to take a bite of," she said in a victim impact statement read to the court by the prosecutor. The woman said sadness had felt normal throughout her childhood, and that her brain had not developed properly because of the abuse, which in turn affected her ability to learn and dream of a future. "Good things just didn't happen to me," she said.

Mr McWilliams said Ridsdale abused his position as a priest to befriend and then abuse the children, who were aged between six and 13. Some of the children were altar boys while others knew him as a family friend. Ridsdale is already serving a long jail term after previously being convicted of sexually assaulting more than 50 children. The royal commission heard in 2015 that it was unclear how many children he had abused over the years, but that he was able to continue his crimes when the church shuffled him from parish to parish despite its knowledge about him. Mr McWilliams said one boy recalled being raped several times, and the abuse worsened when the boy's father was sick in hospital. After one assault, Ridsdale told him: "Don't tell your mum or dad, or your dad could die".

That victim addressed the court and told Ridsdale his conduct had been "despicable", and that the abuse had destroyed relationships within his family. "I hate the limitations you have put on my life," the man said. Ridsdale had his head bowed. Ridsdale, the court heard, told another boy he raped: "God will forgive all of your sins". He also told the boy that God would punish his family if he told anyone. Nine of the victims were in court on Tuesday, while another appeared before the court via video link from prison.

At the start of the hearing, defence counsel Tim Marsh said Ridsdale had fallen and fainted on Tuesday and had been advised by medical staff he shouldn't attend court but he insisted he wanted to be there. Mr Marsh said Ridsdale knew what he was doing was wrong and took advantage of the venerated position clergy were held in at the time. Ridsdale was "clearly a repugnant figure to many", who would welcome the prospect of the 83-year-old dying in jail, Mr Marsh said. But he called on Judge Lawson not to change Ridsdale's current earliest possible parole date of April 2019. In 2015, Ridsdale told the royal commission he was sexually abused as a child.

One of his victims urged Judge Irene Lawson to consider the impact of Ridsdale's crimes before she handed down her sentence. "I am in my 36th year of a sentence for a crime I did not commit. My sentence is for life," he said. The man has depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder and said his struggles had cost him his marriage and career. He blamed himself for once getting caught alone with Ridsdale, having been warned about the priest by other children. "I am a survivor. I am good at surviving but not good at living ... I desperately want to stop surviving and start living," he said.

Judge Lawson choked back tears as she told the man he was not responsible for something that happened when he was a nine-year-old boy. Judge Lawson will sentence at a later date. In 2014, Ridsdale had his jail term extended when he pleaded guilty to more sex crimes against children. The latest admissions mean his jail term could be again increased and he could die in prison. The hearing continues.
A "very gentle and respected" accountant who was stabbed to death near his home on Good Friday may have been the victim of mistaken identity, police believe.

The body of Bo Wang, 29, was found near the stairway to his Notting Hill apartment complex at 9.30am on April 14. He had been stabbed multiple times.

Investigators checking Mr Wang's background for any possible motive for the slaying have so far found nothing and now suspect the accountant was mistaken for another person.

Mr Wang, a Chinese national, arrived home at 11pm on April 13 after going out for dinner.
A Melbourne council has voted to stop referring to January 26 as Australia Day in a move that has come under fire from Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull who says he is "deeply disappointed" by it.

Yarra City councillors on Tuesday night voted to stop referring to January 26 as Australia Day and to cease holding any citizenship ceremonies on that day from 2018.

What do you think? Take our poll below

Mr Turnbull said the council's attack on Australia Day was a repudiation on the values it celebrates, "freedom, a fair go, mateship and diversity".
The New England Holocaust Memorial in downtown Boston was vandalised by a 17-year-old who was immediately tackled by bystanders and held until police arrived, police said.

The teen hurled a rock through a glass panel etched with numbers, representing those tattooed on the arms of the Jews and others in the concentration camps operated by Nazi Germany, police said. The panels are affixed to six glass towers, each 16 metreshigh.

It was the second act of vandalism in less than three months at the site, located in Carmen Park near historic Faneuil Hall. The suspect in Monday's incident was charged with wilful destruction of property.

Boston police department's civil rights unit is investigating whether the act was a hate crime but didn't shy away from acknowledging the timing of the act and its possible relation to the past weekend's violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Brexit secretary David Davis. Credit:Bloomberg The paper also sets out two alternatives for a permanent customs arrangement with the EU. It does not say which the government prefers, calling them "two broad approaches the UK could adopt" depending on negotiations with the EU. Under one, a "highly streamlined customs arrangement", the UK and EU would use "technology-based solutions" to make it easier for businesses to satisfy new requirements and procedures when moving goods across the border. "I warned of the great Brexit betrayal two weeks ago. It is now official government policy": Ex-UKIP leader Nigel Farage. Credit:Bloomberg Under the other, the UK would sign a "new customs partnership" with the EU that would eliminate the need for a border  for example mirroring EU requirements for imports from the rest of the world where the final destination is the EU.

International Trade Secretary Dr Liam Fox said leaving the customs union would allow Britain to generate "fully independent trade policy". "We will seek a new customs arrangement that ensures that trade between the UK and the EU remains as frictionless as possible and allows us to forge new trade relationships with our partners in Europe and around the world," he said. A European Commission spokesman they would study the UK position paper ahead of the next round of negotiations at the end of August. However they do not want to start talking about customs plans until they have made more progress on talks over the "divorce bill"  an agreement on the Brexit financial settlement as well as issues including the rights of EU citizens in the UK. "We take note of the UK's request for an implementing period and its preferences as regards the future relationship, but we will only address them once we have made sufficient progress on the terms of the orderly withdrawal," the spokesman said.

"An agreement on a future relationship between the EU and the UK can only be finalised once the UK has become a third country 'frictionless trade' is not possible outside the single market and customs union." The EU is also working on a position paper on the customs union. Mr Davis said during the transition period Britain would be able to negotiate new trade deals. "We should be able to have an arrangement where we can do the negotiations, sign it off, but not enter into effect," he said. But former European commissioner for trade Karel de Gucht told the BBC he doubted the EU would agree to a temporary customs union if it also meant Britain could start working on other trade deals.

Otherwise the EU would effectively be agreeing to help the UK undercut EU tariffs, he said. Instead, he predicted, the EU would want the UK to stay in the customs union on its own terms: paying contributions to the EU budget and not seeking to sign other trade deals. "It's a quagmire, you know," he said. Ireland's EU commissioner Phil Hogan told the Financial Times that Dublin could block a customs deal unless the problem of the Northern Ireland border was satisfactorily solved. "There's a high level of delusion in London at the moment about what is required to be done," Mr Hogan said.

The government is expected to publish its plan for the border on Wednesday. The customs plan is being seen as a concession towards a 'soft Brexit' that has been sought by companies and other groups worried about the impact of a rushed exit from Europe. The Federation of Small Businesses said it "would give small businesses the time they need to prepare for new customs arrangements, which is very welcome". Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage said "I warned of the great Brexit betrayal two weeks ago. It is now official government policy."
The Brazos County Commissioners Court authorized an immediate 90-day burn ban beginning Tuesday.

We havent had to do this in a really, really long time, Michele Meade, Brazos County emergency management coordinator, told the commissioners before recommending the ban. Meade estimated that there hasnt been a burn ban in the county for more than a year.

Meade said her office found that soil drought numbers increased for the surrounding counties, despite recent rainfall, and that without significant rain, moisture levels have been dropping.

According to a Fire Danger Report released from the Brazos County Department of Emergency Management, numbers from the Keetch-Byram Drought Index -- used to determine forest fire potential -- were listed at an average of 597 in Brazos County. Leon County had the highest KBDI average in the Brazos Valley, at 614.

As of today, there are 80 counties in the state enforcing burn bans, including Bastrop, Caldwell and Robertson counties, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service. Most of these counties are in West or Central Texas.
The man who died Monday morning in a single-vehicle rollover on Texas 21 was a 30-year-old construction worker who lived in Houston.

According to Texas Department of Public Safety officials, Jonathan Escobar, 30, and Edi Perez, 24, were on their way to get breakfast tacos for their fellow construction workers stationed at a nearby worksite when their eastbound pickup veered off the road and flipped several times. DPS spokesman Jimmy Morgan said Perez, the driver, over-corrected and lost control just before 10:30 a.m.

The crash was about 1 1/2 miles west of Bryan.

Perez, who was wearing a seat belt, was taken to a hospital for non-life-threatening injuries. Escobar had not been wearing a seat belt at the time of the crash and was ejected from the vehicle, Morgan said. He was pronounced dead at the scene using an ID from Mexico.

"As far as identification, that's the only thing they could find," Morgan said, noting that both men have registered addresses in Houston.

Morgan said DPS troopers, assisted by the Brazos County Sheriffs Office, closed the road for around three hours for a preliminary investigation, but an accident reconstruction could be coming at a later date.

The crash continues to be under investigation.
Citing safety concerns, Texas A&M officials said Monday that a white supremacist group will not be permitted to host a rally on campus next month -- a decision the event organizer said would be met with legal action.

The move follows pleas made Monday by state legislators and former Texas A&M students to university officials to prevent the group from staging the demonstration in the free speech area of campus outside Rudder Tower.

The event -- which had been planned for Sept. 11 -- was announced Saturday, within hours of a white supremacist rally called Unite the Right in Charlottesville, Virginia, that turned violent, leaving dozens injured and one counter-protester dead after a driver plowed into the crowd.

Richard Spencer, who was behind the weekend event in Virginia, was met with overwhelming opposition -- and police presence -- when he delivered a speech inside the Memorial Student Center on the Texas A&M campus in December. Texas A&M changed its policy after that so no outside individual or group could reserve campus facilities without the sponsorship of a university-sanctioned group. Spencer was invited to A&M by Preston Wiginton, a man who briefly attended the university.

"None of the 1,200-plus campus organizations invited Preston Wiginton nor did they agree to sponsor his events in December 2016 or on September 11 of this year. With no university facilities afforded him, he chose instead to plan his event outdoors for September 11 at Rudder Plaza, in the middle of campus, during a school day, with a notification to the media under the headline 'Today Charlottesville, Tomorrow Texas A&M,'" according to a statement released by A&M that announced it was canceling Wiginton's reservation.

"Linking the tragedy of Charlottesville with the Texas A&M event creates a major security risk on our campus. Additionally, the daylong event would provide disruption to our class schedules and to student, faculty and staff movement (both bus system and pedestrian)," according to the statement.

Wiginton said Monday evening he had not yet been personally notified of the cancellation and complained the decision only came after state lawmakers put pressure on A&M officials to prevent the rally. He said "there will be lawsuits involved" because "obviously our First Amendment rights are being violated."

State Rep. John Raney, R-Bryan, announced from the floor of the House of Representatives at the Texas Capitol late Monday afternoon that the A&M System canceled the rally. A statement from the university did not specify who made the decision.

Raney and Rep. Kyle Kacal, also a Republican from Brazos County, said they were frustrated by the effort to bring such an event to Aggieland.

Kacal said in a statement it is "disgusting that the same white supremacist groups which caused the tragic violence in Charlottesville are now planning another hate rally," and that the ideals espoused by the event's supporters "are counter to the very ideals that we believe in and hold dear as Aggies and Texans."

Raney said he respects the freedom of speech afforded to "assemblies of this abhorrent nature," but he encouraged support for the counter-rallies planned by students to oppose the event.

"I urge all Aggies and citizens of Bryan-College Station to unite in showing this group that they are not welcome in our community," Raney said in a statement before the event was canceled.

Both Raney and Kacal applauded the move to cancel the event and said they believe it is in the best interest of the campus community and its safety.

"The safety of the students is our primary concern," Raney said. "I support what Chancellor [John] Sharp and the university have done."

Kacal said while he is a supporter of the right afforded by the First Amendment, "there is no place in this world that hate and violence should be tolerated, let alone on a college campus."

"I'd like to thank university officials as well as our local law enforcement for their efforts in keeping our campus and community safe while repudiating acts of violence and hatred so that the tragedies of Charlottesville are not repeated," Kacal said.

Texas Sen. Charles Schwertner also expressed his concerns over the weekend.

Schwertner said although the First Amendment protects the group's right to assemble in a public space, he counted himself among those who plan to be vocal in their opposition to the message of the event.

"The racist and bigoted hate speech promoted by these groups does not reflect the values of Texas A&M University or the people of Texas and it should be loudly and consistently condemned by all responsible voices of our society," Schwertner said Sunday on Twitter. "While the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the right of these groups to assemble and espouse their hateful and narrow-minded worldview, it also protects my right to publicly speak out against it -- and that's exactly what I plan to do when these groups come to College Station next month."

State representatives from Bryan-College Station weren't the only ones expressing disappointment that the hate group planned to return to campus -- alumni of Texas A&M have been reaching out to The Association of Former Students to make their opinions known.

Kathryn Greenwade, vice president of The Association, said the alumni organization received between 50 to 100 phone calls and emails from former students expressing concerns about the event.

"They don't want this group associated with Texas A&M," Greenwade said.

She said while most "understand the limitations of a state university" in dealing with situations such as this, there are some who are unaware of the restrictions.

Wiginton said he felt the move to cancel the rally only exemplified the declining status of the white male in American society. He said while students "rolled out the red carpet" during a Black Lives Matter event last year, he believes it is unfair that "students want to build a human wall to keep us from even stepping foot on the university."

"This is Selma, Alabama, again," Wiginton said. "In 2017, whites are in the 1960s, where we're going to have to fight for our civil rights again. What's next, do we sit on back of the bus?"

Adam Key, a graduate student who was organizing one of the two protests, applauded the decision by A&M officials.

"Preston Wiginton claims that the university did so because they do not care about white people," Key said. "In truth, the university cares about the safety of every student. It is clear that the event posed a danger to the student body, and Texas A&M did the right thing to protect its students."

Key said he plans to turn his protest event into a celebration of diversity and inclusion in the same space Wiginton's rally was to be held.
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NEWTOWN  Its not everyone who discovers their vocation by having their back fractured by a cow. But thats precisely how then-16-year-old Karin LaBanca found herself on a career path that led her to be both the owner of Newtown-based Fisio Physical Therapy & Wellness LLC and the landlord of her building at 141 Mount Pleasant Road.

It happened while I was working on our familys dairy farm in Deansboro, N.Y., LaBanca recalled. I was trying to get the cow out of a stall and got crushed into the side of the barn.

Thanks to what she terms an ill-informed internist, it took six months for X-rays to be run on LaBanca, at which point it was found that she had several fractures. Recovery eventually led her to physical therapist Sandy MacKinnon in nearby Hamilton for twice-weekly sessions that lasted six months.

I thought, What a great career she has, helping to make people feel better, she said. I ended up working for her as an aide, and she became my mentor.

In fact, LaBanca followed in MacKinnons footsteps and graduated with a bachelors degree in physical therapy from Russell Sage College in Troy, N.Y., in 1994  47 years after MacKinnon had done the same.

Were friends to this day, LaBanca said. Shes now 82 years old, and we still talk often.

She returned to college at Quinnipiac University to obtain a masters degree in orthopedics in 2001, and received a doctorate in physical therapy from Creighton University in 2007. LaBanca had relocated to Newtown in 2003 when her husband Frank became a science teacher at Newtown High School; hes now the principal at Westside Middle School Academy in Danbury.

Working steadily at various hospitals and clinics, it was only when she was laid up after foot reconstruction surgery in 2010 that entrepreneurship first entered the picture.

Having learned of a closing physical therapy clinic in Hamilton, her father David Williams bought its equipment for her for $5,000 and shipped it to Newtown. LaBanca said it sat in her driveway for 15 months while she recuperated and began learning about starting a business, leading to the opening of Fisio in 2011.

I had 10-and-a-half years of college, but hadnt taken one business course, she said. I did a lot of studying, had a lot of conversations and found what a great resource the Womens Business Development Council (based in Stamford) can be. But it still involved learning about the hidden costs of operating a business, about unemployment insurance, workers comp, labor laws  It really was a trial by fire.

Originally located at 53 Lake Ave. Extension in Danbury, Fisio moved to its present location last December after her husband spotted the vacancy in the Mount Pleasant Road building, which also houses Handyman Connection and Gift of Gab Speech & Language Services.

We ended up buying the building since it represented another income stream, she said, adding that the rent essentially pays for the mortgage. Fisio takes up roughly 2,000 of the buildings 3,300 square feet.

Fisio is the Brazilian slang word for physical therapy. As a Rotary Club exchange student, LaBanca went to Sao Paulo at the age of 18, where her experiences included working for one host family member who was a physical therapist. The proximity to the roughly 5,500 Brazilians who live in Danbury helps LaBanca draw patients and allows her to continue exercising her Portuguese language skills, she said.

As opposed to many physical therapy practices, Fisio operates six private rooms  one of which is rented to a massage therapist  allowing LaBanca, physical therapist Ashley Witson and her support staff to see up to six patients at once for 45-minute sessions; larger centers can have dozens of bodies in one big room, all competing for attention during their 30 minutes of therapy, she said.

Such a private approach creates more of a rapport with our clients, LaBanca said. Were not necessarily interested in volume, but in providing a fun, relaxing atmosphere that people seem to like.

LaBanca said that in 2016 Fisio saw 3,831 patients, for a gross income of $322,000 that included $5,000 in product sales and $18,000 in rental income.
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WASHINGTON  On Jan. 10 this year, Yeni Cortes, of New Haven, chased retired Marine Corps General John Kelly down a congressional hallway, telling him of her status as a dreamer and her hope of continuing the life shes lived in Connecticut since age 2.

On Tuesday, Cortes was back in Washington along with 100 or more fellow Connecticut dreamers  youthful undocumented immigrants brought to this country as young children  to celebrate the fifth anniversary of then-President Barack Obamas Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals executive order.

My parents did nothing wrong in bringing me here from poverty in Tlaxcala, Mexico, said Cortes, 19, a graduate of Career High School. ``With DACA, I can pay back everything they did for me.

The dreamers from Danbury, Bridgeport, Norwalk, New Haven, Stamford, Greenwich and elsewhere in the state joined a thousand or so others at a demonstration in front of the White House.

They hope to convince President Donald Trump (and Kelly, now White House chief of staff but former head of the Department of Homeland Security) to maintain DACA and prevent deportation of the estimated 800,000 dreamers now in the U.S.

The Connecticut delegation displayed a banner, Make the Road, Connecticut, with the Spanish words dignidad, communidad y poder below.

They witnessed 25 demonstrators submit to peaceful arrest for sitting down in front of the White House.

Approaching a deadline

Although Trump promised during the campaign to deport all undocumented immigrants, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have stepped up their activities since Inauguration Day, the fate of DACA is unclear.

A coalition of 10 red states led by Texas state Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued the federal government, demanding that Washington rescind DACA by Sept. 5.

Trump has indicated he has little interest in deporting dreamers, but the administrations response to the deadline remains uncertain.

Camila Bortolleto, 29, of Danbury, came here in 1998 with her parents as a 9-year-old. She majored in biology at Western Connecticut State University, but has not been able to work in her field because of federal immigration law requiring proof of citizenship or legal status.

Theres a thousand people here  that gives me hope, said Bortolleto, one of the Connecticut delegations organizers. I know my community will fight to make something happen.

Karen Gomez, 24, of Greenwich, traveled in the wee hours on buses organized by Connecticut Students for a Dream, accompanied by her boyfriend, Alex Guzman, of Norwalk.

Gomez came to the U.S. at age 6 from Mexico City. Guzman, 23, a personal trainer and tae kwon do black belt born in Miami, went to show support for Gomez.

President out of town

It was hard for me, Gomez said of her early years here. I was an outcast. I did not know the culture. I was lost.

But she persevered in school, learned English and is now a student at Norwalk Community College with plans to attend Western Connecticut.

I am very positive that this will come through, she said. Many of us are married, and many of us have kids here. I feel like theres no way we cant win this.

Trump was in New York on Tuesday at his Trump Tower office, rather than at the White House. Most of his senior staff, including Kelly, have been at his side during an extended vacation at Trumps golf resort in Bedminster, N.J.

But if Kelly were to stroll out of the White House and encounter Cortes, what would she say to him?

You and the president have a choice to make about DACA, Cortes said. Do you save this protection and work permits for me and nearly a million other DACA beneficiaries? Or will you throw us into poverty, kick us out of our jobs and release your deportation agents on us? You cannot pass the responsibility to someone else.

Staff writer Cedar Attanasio in Connecticut contributed to this report. dan@hearstdc.com
More than $1.7 million has been awarded to 16 health centers, including those with offices in Bridgeport, Norwalk and Stamford.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced the grants Tuesday in a news release, adding that health centers will use these funds to further improve the quality, efficiency, and effectiveness of the health care delivered to the communities they serve. This announcement comes during Health Center Week.
Developments in the Chinese technology sector, and cross-border investment, are opening important doors for U.S. startups. As the general manager of the first U.S.-China technology incubator platform and an observer of U.S.-China cross border investments and entrepreneurship, I'm often asked about key investment trends, issues and tips on how U.S. entrepreneurs can navigate their companies in this new reality.

Related: China's Effect on the U.S. VC Game

Here are some of the trends I see, and how American entrepreneurs can take advantage:

Trend 1: Chinese companies are seeking innovators for acquisition -- and looking beyond their own backyard.

After years of growth, Chinese venture capital and technology industries had a downturn in 2016 due to the failure of Online to Offline (020) businesses. O2O was supposed to create a plethora of unicorn companies, but that didnt happen. True, there were some successes: DidiKuaidi, LittleRedBook, and Yingke live-streaming.

But many new businesses failed to anticipate the time, money and resources needed to acquire users and compete with large internet and mobile companies, like Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent, which were also deploying O2O strategies.

With little competition from unicorn companies, theres now fierce competition among these giants to gain a leadership position in China and other regions. The result: I see this trend opening the door for more Chinese investment into the United States, as Chinas tech giants race to acquire companies that further strengthen their monopolies. Acquisition is, in fact, favored over building from scratch.

Related: China is Now Inviting Entrepreneurs to its Newest Investment Hub Guizhou

Tip: If youre looking for funding, you have more options than ever. Chinese investors are supporting innovators creating disruptive technologies. And theyre putting hard cash into those companies. Just look at unicorn companies like Zoox, Tesla, SpaceX, Hyperlook, Uber, and Airbnb -- their funding isn't coming just from U.S. investors.

Hot industries include augmented and virtual reality, artificial intelligence, robotics and autonomous vehicle applications. And, of course, many of these technologies are being developed in Silicon Valley.

Trend 2: M&A teams and venture capital funds are taking hold at Chinas tech companies.

Beyond their growing U.S. presence, focused on R&D, business development and marketing, Chinese tech giants are investing and creating their own venture funds.

In 2013, Tencent invested $330 million in U.S. game developer Epic Games, and now owns 48.4 percent of the company. According to Forbes, the company also invested in four of Chinas largest technology venture deals, in 2014. More recently, Baidu announced Baidu Capital, a $3 billion investment fund focused on mid-to-late-stage deals in the internet sector. I believe these types of activities will continue, though they have slowed down in 2017.

Tip: While their overall approach is the same, Chinese investors operate differently: Chinese venture capitalists, I believe, are more practical than their U.S. counterparts because they come from a highly competitive domestic market. Their expectations are higher regarding a company's growth and the founder's ability to achieve healthy business metrics.

Chinese VCs possessing business backgrounds in banking and business similar to those of U.S. VCs also usually co-invest at Series A or B rounds, or later. They have more data about companies at later stages, making this an easier decision because it requires less work; that's important when youre doing deals remotely.

The exception is consumer technology. That's a field where some Chinese VCs are willing to take more risks. Many of these investors witnessed Chinese consumer tech companies that started with tiny or even negative margins, then became enormously successful. Those companies grew so fast they had to raise a huge amount of money right at the start.

This aggressive approach has carried over into how some VCs approach acquiring companies in markets beyond China. That, however, is starting to change based on the experiences investors are having.

Further, corporate and strategic investors from China take more risks. They look at their existing businesses, see whats lacking and find whats better in terms of innovation and technology. They are more likely to bet big on moon-shot projects regardless of the tremendous technological and market risks. Theyre also more likely to invest big in companies building new platforms without substantial near-term revenue. Magic Leap is such a company that raised a lot of money from China.

Chinese angel investors typically are high net worth individuals and successful entrepreneurs, themselves. They may do deals at early stages, but as is widely known, given the restrictions on investment flow, U.S. dollars are hard to come by, so participation may be limited at this time.

Trend 3: Cross-border investment is slowing with Chinese regulatory tightening.

An additional trend is that in the last few years, a large amount of cash has flowed out of China into real estate and technology. The Chinese government has taken greater steps to regulate these transactions, including temporarily forcing all applications of foreign deals to slow down. Applications are being looked at with more scrutiny, and big investments are being temporarily suspended.

Although its difficult for Chinese investors to get their RMBs (short for Renminbi, China's currency) out of the country right now, dont expect investment flow to completely shut down. Stronger policies to control the flow will lead to a healthier cross-border investment environment.

The inancial Times reported that more than $75 billion of overseas deals was canceled due to regulatory tightening and foreign exchange controls, resulting in only 30 Chinese acquisitions of European and U.S. companies. Canceled transactions in 2015 totaled about $10 billion and increased seven-fold in 2016.

According to the People's Bank of China and China Foreign Exchange Trade System, foreign exchange reserves fell $320 billion last year. To maintain reserve levels, Chinese-funded enterprises may find new obstacles to overseas acquisitions.

Yet, a caveat here: While so many deals were canceled, Rhodium Groups Baker McKenzie reported that China's investment in North America and Europe still reached a record $94.2 billion, with U.S. investments tripling.

Related: The Goldilocks Test: Why China Is Just Right

Investment interest, meanwhile, doesnt look to be dipping any time soon. I believe this tightening is temporary, as the government puts more sound processes in place to handle investment outflow and ensure foreign deal validity. In the long run, better transaction processes would benefit only cross-border investments.

Tip: Keep calm and go with the flow. How much such investment will slow down is tough to predict. Also, its unpredictable when the Chinese government will re-instate cross-border investment activity, given the state of U.S. and China trade relations with the Trump administration. As a best bet, my suggestion is that startups will do well to find investors with a footprint in both the United States and China.

Cross-border investment opens the door to a world of opportunities -- in China and globally. Chinas transnational companies are truly reshaping global business and competition. So, if yours is a company interested in Chinese investment, embrace the opportunity to see how those Asian transnational companies are innovating new business models and products. This will help you better compete in the global economy.

Related:

If You're a Startup Looking to Capitalize on U.S.-China Border Investments, Here's How

Silicon Valley? Try Silicon Worldwide.

A Woman Got Caught Allegedly Trying to Smuggle 102 iPhones Into China by Strapping Them to Her Body



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved



This article originally appeared on entrepreneur.com


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DARIEN  Police arrested a 24-year-old New York man suspected of robbing two Chase Bank branches in Darien, as well as additional banks throughout Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Alpha U. Jalloh, of New England Thoroughway in the Bronx, was taken into custody by Darien Police Aug. 14, extradited from New York City on charges of second-degree robbery, second-degree larceny and third-degree burglary with the inference of a firearm. The charges are related to the June 12 robbery of a Chase Bank in Darien.
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When you think of what's hot in interior design right now, do your dad's wingback chairs and grandma's ornate chandeliers come to mind? Well, maybe they should. A new study by Joybird, a custom furniture company, revealed that Victorian is the interior design style that wins the popularity vote in more U.S. states than any other decor style.

But hold off on a full "Age of Innocence" home makeover. Crown molding and floral wallpaper might reign supreme in 10 states, but that doesn't mean stuffy Victorian style is on the rise across the country. In fact, trendsetting states such as California and New York actually preferred transitional and contemporary styles, respectively.

"Traditionally, home styles begin on either coast and work toward the center of the country," says John B. Chadwick Jr., an interior designer in New York City.

The study compared the most-searched interior design terms in each state, based on Google Trends data over the past 12 months.

The states where Victorian style is No. 1 are Nevada, Nebraska, Missouri, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Maine, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Delaware.

Bohemian, the No. 2 style, was the top search term in nine states: Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, West Virginia, New Hampshire, and New Jersey.

Take a look at the rest of the most searched styles in the chart below.

Victorian style reigned supreme in the greatest number of states, followed by bohemian and contemporary.

Joybird

Contemporary and transitional styles dominate on the coasts

Anyone who wants to stay on the pulse of the next big thing in design has long known to look to New York and California, and the study confirms it.

"The design and fashion industries and other businesses on the East and West coasts help drive the trends," says Bonnie J. Steves, an interior designer in New York City.

Of particular interest to many design mavens is contemporary style, which has taken root in New York. The style encompasses a range of different trends developed in the latter half of the 20th century, featuring rounded lines and a mix of bold and neutral shades.

"Contemporary style in particular will permeate in coming years," says Steves. "We live in such a connected, digital society that someone can see something that's trending in New York and immediately have access to it in Kansas City."

Contemporary was also the top searched style in Texas. Houston-based architect and interior designer Lauren Rottet says she has been seeing a lot more homes spotlighting the style being built in the Houston and Dallas areas.

"All the 30-somethings I know are very contemporary or Mid-Century Modern," she says. "I think the home [reality] shows may be influencing this."

Photo by New Generation Home Improvements - Contemporary kitchens like this one are trending in states such as Texas, New York, and Virginia.

The transitional style favored in California is a more accessible look that melds two different aesthetics: modern and traditional.

"Transitional has some key elements of classic, timeless design but offers modern convenience with simple lines and profiles," says Eric Tsai, director of marketing for Joybird. "People in California seem to like the mix and match of old and new more than staying within a defined style."

"California culture is one of constant transitions," says interior designer Linda Kitson of Summit, NJ. She favors such features as whitewashed oak beams, natural light, and bronze-framed windows.

Photo by R.P. Morrison Builders, Inc. - This transitional living room in Portland, ME, perfectly balances a number of styles into one crowd-pleasing space.

Is coastal on the way out?

South Carolina was the only state where coastal was the most searched style, which could indicate that people in general are cooling to the trend.

"It is surprising to me that coastal was only popular in one state," says Steves. "I thought it would have been big in Maine, Rhode Island, Florida, and Massachusetts around Cape Cod."

How does your home's style stack up against the most popular style in your state? Check out the list below.

Alabama: Bohemian

Alaska: Bohemian

Arizona: Traditional

Arkansas: Shabby chic

California: Transitional

Colorado: Industrial

Connecticut: Victorian

Delaware: Victorian

Florida: Contemporary

Georgia: Bohemian

Hawaii: Traditional

Idaho: Shabby chic

Illinois: Contemporary

Indiana: Victorian

Iowa: Industrial

Kansas: Contemporary

Kentucky: Traditional

Louisiana: Shabby chic

Maine: Victorian

Maryland: Contemporary

Massachusetts: Transitional

Michigan: Industrial

Minnesota: Mid-Century Modern

Mississippi: Shabby chic

Missouri: Victorian

Montana: Bohemian

Nebraska: Victorian

Nevada: Victorian

New Hampshire: Bohemian

New Jersey: Bohemian

New Mexico: Art Deco

New York: Contemporary

North Carolina: Contemporary

North Dakota: Bohemian

Ohio: Industrial

Oklahoma: Vintage

Oregon: Industrial

Pennsylvania: Vintage

Rhode Island: Vintage

South Carolina: Coastal

South Dakota: Western

Tennessee: Shabby chic

Texas: Contemporary

Utah: Modern farmhouse

Vermont: Vintage

Virginia: Contemporary

Washington: Mid-Century Modern

West Virginia: Bohemian

Wisconsin: Industrial

Wyoming: Western

The post The Most Popular Interior Design Styles in Each State appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com.
Investigators with the Nebraska State Patrol have arrested a Grand Island man for arranging to have sex with a 12-year-old girl.

Jeremy C. Doudney Sr., 44, of Grand Island, was arrested and lodged in Hall County Jail on suspicion of Enticement by Electronic Communication Device.

The incident was first reported to State Patrol around 11 a.m. Monday, when a family reported that a man had begun a sexual conversation with their daughter through Facebook. The girl initially tried to end the conversation by telling the man she was 12-years-old. When the man persisted, she told her parents and NSP was alerted.

The girl turned-over her Facebook account to a State Patrol investigator who is trained in undercover operations for online internet crimes against children. Posing as the girl, the NSP investigator continued the conversation and was able to identify the suspect through pictures posted on his Facebook page. The messages from the suspect continued to be sexual in nature and he eventually asked the NSP investigator, whom he believed to be a 12-year-old girl, to meet at Pier Park in Grand Island. The investigator and other officers with NSP met the suspect at the park and took him into custody shortly after 2:00 p.m. NSP was assisted by the Grand Island Police Department Patrol Division.

The Nebraska State Patrol urges parents to check their childrens Facebook accounts for suspicious activity that could be linked to this case and report it to Nebraska State Patrol Troop C Investigative Services in Grand Island at (308) 385-6000.
With the solar eclipse less than a week away, all eyes will be closely focused in the upcoming days on what the weather will be next Monday.

Here in Grand Island, the partial eclipse of the sun by the moon will begin at 11:34 a.m. with the total eclipse beginning at 12:58 p.m. and ending at 1:01. The partial eclipse will end at 2:26.

The eclipse path  approximately 70 miles wide  crosses the country from Oregon to South Carolina. Grand Island is near the center line of that path. Statistically, according to the National Weather Service in Hastings, temperatures are in the upper 80s on Aug. 21, with a heat index of about 90 degrees. Currently, the weather bureau predicts conditions will most likely be dry, but at least some cloud cover is likely to be around. Generally, winds would be from the south between 10 to 15 mph.

The weather service will be updating the eclipse day forecast on a daily basis throughout the week. On Monday, the weather service said the cloud cover impact will be limited to moderate. Rain, thunderstorm and lighting potential is limited and the chance of winds at more than 20 mph is limited.

Thousands of people are expected to be in Grand Island for the event. Many of those visitors will be arriving during the weekend to take advantage of the many pre-eclipse events taking place throughout the area.

According to the weather service, theres a 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly after 1 p.m., and it will be mostly sunny, with a high near 82, on Friday. On Friday night, theres a 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms before 1 a.m. It will be partly cloudy, with a low of about 61.

For Saturday, it will be sunny, with a high near 84. Saturday night will be partly cloudy, with a low of about 64.

The day before the eclipse, Sunday, it will be sunny, with a high near 85.

According to the weather service, weather models have been indicating there might be a weak ridge or slightly zonal to southwesterly flow in place across the region to start next week.

This could mean a variety of things, including some clouds, a few showers or a thunderstorm along with near seasonal temperatures Monday afternoon, according to the weather services area forecast discussion on Monday.

As a better consensus among the model data develops to give forecasters more certainty in the forecast, the discussion said given the timing of the eclipse during the very early afternoon hours, odds are dry weather should prevail next Monday morning/afternoon, although some passing clouds cannot yet be ruled out.

One thing for certain is that if the sky is totally covered with clouds, it will still turn dark regardless. But if it is a cloudless day, eclipse viewers will see the suns corona when the moon covers the sun for more than 2-1/2 minutes. The eclipse will create a halo around the unseen moon and a 360 degree sunset that will be the light coming in around the horizon, from beyond the moons shadow, appearing in pinkish-orange hues, said Dan Glomski, an educator and astronomer at the Edgerton Explorit Center in Aurora.

Glomski said the temperature could drop as much as 15 degrees, two planets will be in view, Venus and Jupiter, and some stars will be visible, such as Sirius, which is usually the brightest star in the night sky.
Members of the Northwest school board began their stretch run for the 2017-2018 school district budget Monday night at the August school board meeting.

Northwest Public Schools Business Manager Sharon Placke laid out the proposed budget for the board. The new general fund levy is scheduled to drop to just over 82.2 cents per hundred dollars of property valuation, compared to just over 88.2 cents for the 2016-17 school year. The new levy would raise an estimated $8.34 million for the general fund, which is a decrease of $606,000 for the coming year.

The estimated building fund levy is just over 4.08 cents per hundred dollars of valuation, which is expected to bring in a total $414,000 or about $101,000 more than it did for the 2016-17 school year.

Northwest Public School Superintendent Matt Fisher told the board that they should begin to look at increasing building funds in future years. Fisher anticipates the districts need will continue to grow as district buildings age.

As stated in a previous Independent story, the proposed levy for the qualified capital purpose undertaking fund or QCPUF is just under 2.44 cents, which should generate $247,500 in property taxes. The proposed bond fund levy is just over 2.98 cents, which is expected to generate $317,140 in property taxes.

That places the total tax bill for the Northwest school district at more than $9.32 million, which would be $505,000 less than the total tax bill for the 2016-17 budget year. The total levy  general fund, building fund, qualified capital purpose undertaking fund, and bond fund  is estimated just under 91.74 cents per hundred dollars of valuation compared to 96.71 cents per hundred for the 2016-17 fiscal year.

Placke said everything is an estimate for the upcoming budget year as the district does not have its final valuation.

The district covers parts of Hall, Howard and Merrick counties. She said she should receive those final evaluations later this week and will send them to board members to prepare for the upcoming budget workshop on Wednesday, Aug. 23. At the workshop, board members will make budget recommendations.

The 2017-18 property tax askings, property tax levies and budget will be officially set after the board conducts public hearings on Sept. 11. Those hearings must be preceded by legal advertisements that show the proposed property taxes, property tax levies and budget. If any changes are made as a result of its official public hearings, the board will be required to publish another round of legal advertisements and conduct a special meeting to officially adopt any revisions.

In other business, the board approved parent involvement and student fees policies after public hearings were held for each prior to regular meeting.

The board also approved a co-op wrestling agreement with Heartland Lutheran High School. Fisher expects between two and four Heartland Lutheran wrestlers to join the Northwest program. He said there will be no impact on NWHS wrestling program as the result of the co-op.

During the public comment section of the board meeting, Randy Stueven raised concerns about electrical and humidity problems at the districts 1-R school. Fisher said during the meeting that he will look into those concerns expressed by Stueven.

Stueven also was concerned about the length of time people were allowed in making public comments during the board meeting. It was the recommendation of the state school board association to limit public comment to three minutes. Stueven said he was concerned that three minutes is not adequate in allowing constituents of the district to comment. The board changed its policy to five minutes as Stueven requested.
An early Sunday morning fire at 407 E. Maple in Harvard has left a family of three temporarily homeless because of fire and smoke damage to the residence.

Harvard Volunteer Fire Department Chief Eric Cox said firefighters were called out to the fire at about 1 a.m. Sunday. He said the fire marshal arrived at the scene at about 2 a.m. and the marshals preliminary investigation showed that the fire started in the basement, caused by an electrical surcharge into the home.

Cox said the fire marshal is investigating the possibility that a strike from a lightning storm that was moving through the Harvard area at the time sent the electrical surcharge into the home, causing a short in the basement and sparking the fire.

He said people in the neighborhood indicated they could smell smoke in the neighborhood, but could not find any fire. Nobody was in the house when the fire started because the family had just gotten home.

Cox said the family, which saw the fire coming through the floor, was responsible for calling in the report to the fire department. The family includes two adults and a child.

There was a lot of smoke damage, said Cox, who noted the smoke damage went through the entire home. They were pretty fortunate. It (the fire) burnt through the water line and the water line put out most of the fire before we got there.

He noted the water line in the basement was not part of a fire suppression system, but it worked out that way.

Cox said Harvard firefighters went into the home to put out the fire in the first-floor living room area and extinguished the rest of the smoldering stuff in the basement. One room in the basement was completely burned, with a couple of smaller rooms in the basement starting to burn before the water line put out the fire.

It kept it from spreading throughout the basement, he said.

Cox said there was also was fire damage in the first-floor living room.

The American Red Cross in Grand Island issued a press release saying it was assisting the family following the fire at its home.

Cox said he was the last firefighter on the scene, leaving shortly after 5 a.m. after everyone was assured that everything was fully extinguished. Firefighters also used fans to remove smoke from the residence.

He said the fire and its exact cause remain under investigation by the fire marshal.
Police/Sheriff

Anyone with information about any crime in the state may call the Grand Island-Hall County Crime Stoppers, (308) 381-8822. Callers will remain anonymous.

A reward of up to $1,000 will be paid after law enforcement agencies have determined the seriousness of the crime and the usefulness of the information.

Inmate custody status can be obtained by calling the VINE hotline at (877) NE 4 VINE or by visiting www.vinelink.com. Information is available 24 hours a day.

If you see a crime happening, call the Grand Island-Hall County Emergency Center  911.

Grand Island Police

The following felonies were reported:

 Luka Wankok was arrested at 1808 S. Locust for a fourth shoplifting offense Saturday morning at Walmart.

 Thomasyna Hall was arrested for making terroristic threats Friday night at 2316 N. Park.

 Jal Mamed was arrested for tampering with physical evidence Sunday morning at 3121 N. Front.

 Ricardo Carrillo was arrested for domestic assault Sunday morning at 810 N. Elm.

 Bucks Moving and Storage reported an attempted burglary Saturday at 3414 W. Capital.

 Mary Story reported an attempted burglary Saturday at 816 W. Second.

 John Schroeder reported the theft of a trailer Saturday morning at 1985 Citation Way.

 Brianna Conaway was arrested Sunday night for possession of a controlled substance at West First and South Walnut.

 Jeff Bell was arrested Sunday at Goodwill Industries for a counterfeit $20.

 A 25-year-old female was arrested Sunday night at 2405 N. Howard for leaving a personal injury accident.

Hall County Sheriff

Law enforcement arrested five people on warrants in eight cases. There were 84 calls for service.

For more information visit www.hallcountyne.gov and click on the sheriff link.

 Chad Olson at 4215 W. Airport Road reported a burglary Saturday morning. One male was arrested.

 Troy Sidak of ONeill reported a burglary Saturday at 140 Apollo Ave.

 The post office in Cairo reported criminal mischief Friday morning.

 Maxs Thunder Road at Bosselman Travel Center reported trespassing Saturday morning. One male was arrested.

Court report

Hall County Court

 Jeff P. Bell, 53, Grand Island, was charged with committing first-degree forgery on Sunday. Preliminary hearing set for 9:30 a.m. Aug. 30.

 Luka G. Wankok, 24, Grand Island, was charged with theft by shoplifting totaling $0 to $500, third or subsequent offense, on Saturday. Preliminary hearing set for 2 p.m. Sept. 1.

 Thomasyna M. Hall, 23, Grand Island, was charged with two counts of making terroristic threats on Friday. Preliminary hearing set for 3 p.m. Aug. 21.

 Brianna E. Conaway, 20, Central City, was charged with possessing a controlled substance and possession or use of drug paraphernalia, both on Sunday. Preliminary hearing set for 2:30 p.m. Oct. 10.

 Ricardo Carrillo, 48, Grand Island, was charged with intentional domestic assault causing bodily injury to ones intimate partner, tampering with a witness, informant or juror and three counts of committing child abuse negligently with no injury, all on Sunday.

 Michael A. Morales, 22, homeless, was charged with committing two counts of burglary, both on Aug. 7. Preliminary hearing set for 10 a.m. Oct. 17.
Several communities in Nebraska were shocked last week when their lone air carrier, PenAir, announced that it would no longer be serving those towns.

Alaska-based PenAir filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization a week ago and announced it is closing its Denver hub. PenAir flew between Denver and North Platte, Kearney and Scottsbluff in Nebraska.

Those three Nebraska cities are now scrambling to find a replacement.

We were caught off guard, Mike Sharkey, manager of the North Platte Regional Airport, told the North Platte Telegraph.

PenAir flew Essential Air Service routes between Denver and North Platte, Kearney and Scottsbluff, as well as Liberal and Dodge City, Kan.

Because of the terms of PenAirs contract, it is required to continue providing service until a suitable replacement is found and can provide daily flights to Denver, Sharkey said.

Essential Air Service funding is crucial in providing air service to small communities. Without that help from the federal government, airlines couldnt afford to make flights to rural communities.

However, as the PenAir case shows, even the EAS funding is no guarantee that those flights will be successful. And, as the PenAir case also shows, an airline can be struggling for a number of reasons that will force them to pull out of EAS routes.

These three Nebraska communities had high hopes for PenAir as the previous airline serving them, Great Lakes, had struggled to provide reliable service.

Now their air service has taken another hit with PenAir pulling out.

All of this illustrates how fortunate Grand Island is to have the air service it has with flights provided by Allegiant Airlines to Las Vegas and Mesa/Phoenix and flights by American Eagle to Dallas.

The American flights are Grand Islands EAS routes. They have proven popular with travelers as the flights are almost always close to full and travelers have found that in Dallas they can make connections to almost anywhere.

PenAirs pullout from Denver shows once again the great judgment and foresight that Central Nebraska Regional Airport officials have shown. They have worked closely with Allegiant to make sure those flights are a success. And they made the right decision in choosing Dallas as the destination for its EAS routes.

While other central and western Nebraska airports are struggling, Grand Island travelers are fortunate to continue to have outstanding service right here in Grand Island.
It's not over. Thousands of uncounted ballots remain in Bucks, Montco

Bucks County officials do not anticipate all ballots cast Tuesday will be counted - or not - until next week. Leaving House key races in limbo
This past week has been busy for many families as they prepare to start another challenging school year. As children ready their school supplies and teachers their lesson plans, the Edwardsville Police Department would like to remind drivers about the importance of traffic safety during the school year. The new school year will bring about more pedestrians, cyclists and, of course, those big yellow busses.

Drivers are reminded to keep a watchful eye out for school children crossing the roadway and to be mindful of stopped school busses as kids hurry on and off the vehicles. Edwardsville police officers are committed to traffic safety and will be focusing our efforts in school zones, bus stops and school routes of travel. Along with many local police agencies, Edwardsville police have joined with the Illinois State Police and will participate in school safety directed patrols between August 14th and September 1st .
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Linkedin A. Kurniawan Ulung (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, August 15, 2017 10:20 1916 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aca0506 4 Art & Culture Textile-Museum,textile,exhibition Free

As people raise the countrys flag to mark Independence Day on Aug. 17, the Meraki artisan group is celebrating the special occasion the way they know best  by using threads and needles to pay tribute to freedom fighters.

The group came up with the idea to hold a textile exhibition at a museum in Jakarta in March with its members showcasing varied works using shades of red and white, the colors of the countrys national flag.

Red and white unite us. Unity in diversity, said Meraki member Lita Jonathans, who also leads the research and development division of Wastra Indonesia, an organization founded in January 2016 that preserves Indonesian fabrics.

The organization, along with the Jakarta Tourism and Cultural Agency, opened the Merah Putih (Red and White) exhibition, which runs until Aug. 26, at the Textile Museum in Jakarta.

Over 100 artisans, ranging from weavers and batik makers to quilters, are displaying over 210 red-and-white handcrafted woven fabrics, batik and patchwork quilts from around the country.

Echoing the principle of Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (Unity in Diversity), the quilts stole visitors attention during the exhibitions opening day on Saturday mostly because they were beautifully crafted and depict public figures, such as Indonesias first president Sukarno and former Jakarta governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama.

Up close: A visitor looks at quilts depicting Indonesias first president Sukarno (left) and former Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama. (JP/A. Kurniawan Ulung)

One quilt depicts traditional Independence Day events, such as the cracker-eating race, the pacu karung (sack race) and the panjat pinang (slippery pole climbing) game.

Quilter Wien Wardana, who helped organize the exhibition, said each quilter depicted in their works their own interpretation of how they defined Independence Day and what they did to promote unity in diversity.

Wien chose the popular lone star pattern and surrounded it with fruits and leaves, which she said symbolized prosperity.

Quilter Wiwik Winarni named her work Mariners Compass to pay tribute to ancestors who were sailors in Indonesia, the worlds largest archipelagic country.

Wiwik, who owns the Melati Patchwork studio in Bekasi, West Java, said that for Mariners Compass, she used a traditional paper-piecing technique to create designs that were directly stitched onto a paper pattern that served as the foundation.

Meraki artisan group, along with the Jakarta Tourism and Cultural Agency, opened the Merah Putih (Red and White) exhibition, which runs until Aug. 26, at the Textile Museum in Jakarta. (JP/A. Kurniawan Ulung)

I learned this technique from a certified instructor in Melbourne, Australia, in October last year, said Wiwik, who has practiced the art of quilting since 1999.

Vintage quilts are also being displayed at the Textile Museum, such as a double wedding ring quilt by Sri Halimah, who made it for her daughter as a wedding present.

Another participant, Lita, who lives in Jakarta, is showcasing woven fabrics with freestyle motifs, which is different from fabrics from East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), where weaving is a tradition and woven fabrics are used as both an item of clothing and a dowry.

Due to a lack of weaving teachers in Jakarta, she said she felt compelled to learn basic weaving skills by reading books and browsing YouTube.

Fascinated: Actress Christine Hakim (left) and her friends attend the Merah Putih exhibition. (JP/A. Kurniawan Ulung)

In Jakarta, weaving is something new. We started doing it in the last two to three years, said Lita, who teaches weaving to nearly 30 housewives at her house.

During the exhibition, Wastra Indonesia also holds discussions, including one on Aug. 15 on Jambi batik. On Aug. 16, Hiyashinta Klise, the founder of Lamerenan Tenun Tanimbar, is scheduled to give a talk about her efforts to empower women weavers on the Tanimbar Islands in Maluku and about preserving heritage there.

The organization also holds various workshops, such as one on kinchaku, a traditional Japanese drawstring bag worn like a purse or handbag, on Aug. 22, and one on shibori, a Japanese manual resist dyeing technique that produces patterns on fabric, on Aug. 26.

To thank the Textile Museum during Indonesias 72nd Independence Day, Wastra Indonesia gave them a quilt made by 72 quilters from numerous cities, including Pekanbaru in Riau, Medan in North Sumatra, Wonosobo in Central Java and Malang in East Java. Each quilter created a small piece of quilt at home and we combined 72 small quilts into this one big quilt, Wien said.

A textile exhibition by Meraki artisan group celebrates Indonesia and its diversity. (JP/A. Kurniawan Ulung)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, August 15, 2017 18:06 1915 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97acaf822 1 Health depression,mental-health,Instagram,stress,#depression,health,#health Free

If your Instagram is filled with photos with darker, bluer and grayer hues, you may want to check the state of your mental health, as a recent study has shown it could be a sign of depression.

Scientists had analyzed over 40,000 Instagram photos from 166 people who volunteered their mental health records in a study published on EPJ Data Science earlier this month. Approximately half of the participants revealed they had been diagnosed with clinical depression in the last three years.

By uploading the Instagram photos into a computer program, researchers found that individuals with a depression history tend to post picture with tones that are more blue, darker and grayer, as opposed to vibrant colors. Further, pictures with faces in it tended to be fewer faces per photo.

The program was also able to identify individuals who were previously diagnosed with depression, which was correct in 70 percent of the time.

"This points toward a new method for early screening of depression and other emerging mental illnesses, says co-study-author Chris Danforth, a professor at the University of Vermont, in a press release.

Read also: Study suggests a good night's sleep can help prevent depression

"This study is not yet a diagnostic test, not by a long shot, but it is a proof of concept of a new way to help people," he added.

This study also provides an important note, that artificial intelligence can be used to help detect psychiatric illness in the future.

"Patients may shy away from mental health issues when speaking to their general physician and feel less stigmatized in front of a computer. Additionally, physicians may not follow a very specific set of formulated questions as done by a computer," Joe Taravella, a PhD and clinical psychologist, told Yahoo Beauty. "We need to move beyond the checklist screening and create the comfort of an open and honest dialogue to enhance patient physical and mental health.

However, scientists are also aware that the use of technology must be done with great caution and that it does not simplify the diagnosis solely on the basis of one's footprint in social media.

"For many people, using social media is now second nature and forms a part of our daily lives, so being able to integrate mental health support within these platforms offers exciting possibilities," said Chloe Grass-Orkin of Rethink Mental Illness, as quoted by Buzzfeed. (liz/kes)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, August 15, 2017 13:02 1916 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aca3d42 1 Business spending-behaviour,economic-growth,Darmin-nasution,comments Free

Coordinating Economic Minister Darmin Nasution has acknowledged the government was late in learning about shifts in spending patterns, particularly among middle-class citizens, who have started spending more on leisure activities.

We have not suitably considered the shifting trend in our policies. We need to start developing tourism destinations, such as improving the condition of our national parks, Darmin said in Jakarta on Monday.

He said there had been a shift in consumption patterns from retail consumption to leisure activities.

Meanwhile, economist Ari Kuncoro of the University of Indonesia said the government had to be more serious about developing the nation's tourism industry, by improving the connectivity and accessibility of all tourist destinations across the country.

Read also: Worrying economic signs

The government must utilize this growing trend toward leisure activities by improving infrastructure, such as repairing roads connecting to tourism destinations, he said.

Such a trend can positively contribute to economic growth through its multiplier effects including the creation of various new economic activities, he added.

This trend is part of a change in consumption patterns. Many people who work in hotels and restaurants benefit from the trend, he said.

Data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) shows that spending in the restaurant and hotel sector grew by 5.87 percent year-on-year (yoy) during the second quarter of this year, up from 5.51 percent in the same period last year. (rdi/bbn)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, August 15, 2017 19:15 1915 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97acb38ed 1 National haj,haj-pilgrimage,haj-pilgrims,haj-quota,haj-pilgrim-departure,ICMI,JimlyAsshiddiqie,Religious-Affairs-Ministry Free

The Association of Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals (ICMI) has suggested the government cooperate with countries that do not use their full haj quota. ICMI chairman Jimly Asshiddiqie said strengthening coordination to use vacant haj seats belonging to other countries was a positive thing and would not violate the law.

He was speaking in response to a recent illegal dispatch of would-be haj pilgrims.

We can coordinate [haj quotas] for Southeast Asia, for instance. So, Indonesia may get an additional quota from [unused haj seats of] other countries, said Jimly in a statement on Monday.

He highlighted the Religious Affairs Ministrys stance on the haj quota, in which he said the ministry should be more open to availing of opportunities. Only with that, he said, could people meet their religious obligation to go on the haj.

As reported previously, immigration authorities foiled the illegal dispatch of 40 would-be haj pilgrims at Sultan Hasanuddin International Airport in Makassar, South Sulawesi, on Aug.10.

Religious Affairs Ministry fund management director Ramadhan Harisman recently said it took up to 30 years for an Indonesian to go on the haj after registering for it.

"Such a long waiting time is because Indonesia has a haj quota of only 211,000 seats every year, he said, adding that this year, the ministry was sending 221,000 pilgrims as Saudi Arabian authorities had allocated 10,000 additional seats for Indonesians. (yon/ebf)
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Linkedin Stefani Ribka (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, August 15, 2017 10:57 1916 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aca1ab4 1 Business Indonesia,Vietnam,Trade,investment,Enggartiasto-Lukita Free

Trade Minister Enggartiasto "Enggar" Lukita has urged Indonesian businesspeople to cooperate with Vietnam to boost trade and investment, instead of competing with the country.

The cooperation includes investing in Vietnam to sell more products to countries that Vietnam has free trade agreements (FTA) with, said the ministry at the sixth Indonesia-Vietnam Joint Commission on Economics, Scientific and Technological Cooperation (JC-ESTC) in Hanoi over the weekend.

We need to invest in Vietnam not only because it has 93.3 million people [third biggest country in terms of population in ASEAN], but also because of the other countries that have bilateral FTAs with Vietnam, he said in a press release.

Some Indonesian firms run businesses in Vietnams property, cement and coal sectors while Vietnamese firms are interested in Indonesias coal industry.

Indonesia has seen a trade deficit with Vietnam from 2012 to 2016 with the deepest deficit of US$966.5 million in 2014 before easing to $182.6 million, last year.

Total trade reached $6.2 billion last year, with Indonesia exporting $3 billion, dominated by copper, pepper, ground fruits, coconuts, coal, palm oil and its products.

In the first five months this year, nevertheless, Indonesia has managed to book a trade surplus of $5.1 million. (bbn)
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Linkedin Anton Hermansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, August 15, 2017 12:59 1916 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aca3131 1 Business bekraf,documentary,film Free

The Creative Economy Agency (Bekraf) is to host Docs By the Sea, an international documentary film forum, in order to connect Indonesian filmmakers to the global cinematic community, the agency has announced.

The forum will be held from Aug. 29 to 30 in Bali, Bekraf vice chairman Ricky Joseph Pesik said on Monday, adding that it would feature 25 film projects: 10 by Indonesian filmmakers, 10 by Southeast Asian filmmakers and five by filmmakers from other countries.

"With this festival, Indonesian filmmakers will meet with decision-makers. Hopefully, they can obtain sustainable funding, because money is still problem in documentary filmmaking," Ricky said at Monday's press conference in Jakarta.

He also hoped that in four years, the forum would become one of the major international events for documentary films.

Asian forums for documentary films currently include the CNEX China Documentary Forum (CCDF) in China, Tokyo Docs in Japan and Incheon Docsport in South Korea.

Documentary filmmaker and In-Docs program director Amelia Hapsari said Indonesia filmmakers generally had to send their documentaries to international festivals to obtain funding, but with Docs By The Sea, they would not need to go overseas.

"Usually, I have to send my movies to the International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam (IDFA) or to Tokyo Docs or to Incheon Docsport, but now those communities will come here," said Amelia.

The forum is supported by the Ford Foundation Indonesia through In-Docs, the US Embassy, the Netherlands' Erasmus Huis, and Germany's Goethe-Institut Indonesia. They will facilitate the arrivals of senior filmmakers and decision makers from their home countries. (bbn)

Topics : bekraf documentary film
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Linkedin Ali Noorani (Agence France-Presse) Tehran, Iran  Tue, August 15, 2017 19:30 1915 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97acb3d75 2 World Iran,Nuclear,Hassan-Rouhani,parliament,negotiation,US,sanctions,trump Free

President Hassan Rouhani warned on Tuesday that Iran could abandon its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers within hours if the United States keeps on imposing new sanctions as he outlined plans for his new term.

In a speech to parliament, he also hit out at US counterpart Donald Trump saying that he had shown the world that Washington was "not a good partner".

Rouhani's comments come with the nuclear deal under mounting pressure after Tehran carried out missile tests and strikes, and Washington imposed new sanctions -- with each accusing the other of violating the spirit of the agreement.

Rouhani warned that Iran was ready to walk out of the deal, which saw the lifting of most international sanctions in return for curbs on its nuclear programme, if Washington persisted.

"Those who try to return to the language of threats and sanctions are prisoners of their past delusions," he said in the televised address.

"If they want to go back to that experience, definitely in a short time -- not weeks or months, but in the scale of hours and days -- we will return to our previous situation very much stronger."

He said Iran did prefer to stick with the nuclear deal, which he called "a model of victory for peace and diplomacy over war and unilateralism" but that this was not the "only option".

Rouhani said Trump had shown he was an unreliable partner not just for Iran but for US allies.

"In recent months, the world has witnessed that the US, in addition to its constant and repetitive breaking of its promises in the JCPOA (nuclear deal), has ignored several other global agreements and shown its allies that the US is neither a good partner nor a reliable negotiating party," he said.

He highlighted Trump's decisions to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement and international trade deals.

Iran's parliament on Sunday approved more than half a billion dollars in funding for the country's missile programme and foreign operations of the elite Revolutionary Guards in response to the new US sanctions.

Rouhani also spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday night, vowing to build on their joint military efforts across the region.

"Tehran welcomes the active presence of Russia's investors... in major infrastructure projects including in the fields of industry and energy," his office said.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, August 15, 2017 13:52 1916 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aca6c9d 1 Business taxation,relaxation,spending,consumption Free

Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) chairman Rosan P. Roeslani has suggested that the government temporarily relax certain taxes to encourage people to spend.

Why doesnt the government give an incentive to spend by temporarily cutting value-added taxes (PPN) or luxury tax (PPnBM) for one or two weeks? said Rosan in Jakarta on Monday.

This is about how to raise consumer confidence, he noted.

Data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) reveals that household consumption, which accounts for more than half of Indonesias Gross Domestic Product (GDP), grew 4.95 percent year on year (yoy) in the second quarter this year.

The figure is a minimal increase from the 4.94 percent yoy growth recorded in the first quarter.

Indonesia saw economic stagnation of 5.01 percent in the first half of this year, compared to 5.06 percent in the same period last year.

Rosan said the decline in consumer spending was a result of a lack of consumer confidence, rather than a weakening of peoples purchasing power.

He said the lack of consumer confidence was caused by several factors, including rising political tensions that were reflected on social media, and a lack of inter-ministerial coordination to maintain a stable investment and business climate. (mrc/bbn)

Topics : taxation relaxation spending consumption
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Linkedin News Desk (The Statesman/ANN) New Delhi  Tue, August 15, 2017 09:00 1916 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97ac99063 2 World #India,#Uttarakhand,#landslide,#landslides,#flooding Free

At least 28 people are feared dead in landslides triggered by cloudbursts in Pithoragarh district in Uttarakhand . The incident took place in the wee hours of Monday at Mangti Nala and Malpa. The landslip smothered an army base camp at Mangti Nala killing two Junior Commission Officers (JCOs) and five jawans.

The rescue teams of the Kumaon Squad, ITBP, SSB, NDRF and SDRF were delayed because of the extensive damage. According to reports, at least 14 people including 2 JCOs, 5 Jawans and 7 porters were killed in the landslide near Mangti Nala. But the Uttarakhand government officially claimed that one person had died and eight were missing at Mangti Nalla. Information gleaned from local people, via mobile phone operating on Nepali SIM cards, however, put the toll at 14 at Mangti and 14 at Malpa.

The state remained tight lipped on the number of deaths at Malpa. Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat, who flew to the rain-hit areas on Monday with finance minister Prakash Pant, said there was "no clarity on the number of deaths at Malpa.

The Sinkhola bridge was washed away disrupting the Kailesh Mansarovar Yatra. D.K Sharma, Officer on Special Duty (Tourism) of Kumoan Mandal Vikas Nigam, said, We are looking at an alternative route. Our pilgrims on the Indian and Chinese sides are safe. Two batches of Mansarovar pilgrims on the Indian side could proceed to the Chinese side, he said.

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This article appeared on The Statesman newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, August 15, 2017 22:21 1915 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97acb4d18 1 City North-Jakarta,pole-climber,sutet Free

Agustinus Woro, who is infamous for climbing advertising hoardings and electricity towers, has been on top of an electricity tower on Jl. Yos Sudarso in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, since Monday.

Agustinus appeared to be haranguing crowds of onlookers below with a loud-hailer but it was unclear what he was actually saying.

The man took similar action in May when he climbed a 15-meter advertising hoarding in Setiabudi, South Jakarta. He hung a banner from the hoarding calling for the dissolution of political parties.

He climbed another hoarding in Slipi, West Jakarta in February, carrying four banners stating Orphans are victims of crazy gambler army, Adonara man shot dead, People, Densus 88, terrorist and Dissolve, close prisons.

The motive behind the current action remains a mystery.

Get down! Are you looking for attention? Thats dangerous, one resident shouted at him.

According to an official at the scene, Agustinus carried food in a bag and slept in a makeshift hammock slung between two poles. (wnd)
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Linkedin Hwang Sunghee (Agence France-Presse) Seoul, South Korea  Tue, August 15, 2017 18:30 1915 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97acb1340 2 World North-Korea,Nuclear,US,tension,Guam,kim-jong-un,trump Free

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un said Tuesday he would hold off on a planned missile strike near Guam, but warned the highly provocative move would go ahead in the event of further "reckless actions" by Washington.

Some analysts suggested Kim's comments opened a possible path to de-escalating a growing crisis fuelled by bellicose words between US President Donald Trump and the North Korean leadership.

Their recent exchanges were focused on a North Korean threat to fire a volley of four missiles over Japan towards the US territory of Guam, which hosts a number of strategic military bases.

The North's official KCNA news agency said Kim was briefed on the "plan for an enveloping fire at Guam" during an inspection on Monday of the Strategic Force command in charge of the nuclear-armed state's missile units.

But Kim said he would "watch a little more the foolish and stupid conduct of the Yankees" before executing any order.

If they "persist in their extremely dangerous reckless actions on the Korean peninsula," then North Korea would take action "as already declared," he was quoted as saying.

"In order to defuse the tensions and prevent the dangerous military conflict on the Korean peninsula, it is necessary for the US to make a proper option first," he added.

Kim's remarks would appear to bring into play the large-scale military exercises held every year by South Korea and the United States that are expected to kick off later this month.

The North has always denounced the drills as provocative rehearsals for invasion and has in the past offered a moratorium on further nuclear and missile testing in exchange for their cancellation -- a trade-off promoted by Pyongyang's main ally China, but repeatedly rejected by Washington and Seoul.

Some analysts said Kim was seeking a similar quid-pro-quo this time around, using the Guam missile threat as leverage.

"This is a direct invitation to talk reciprocal constraints on exercises and missile launches," said Adam Mount, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

John Delury of Yonsei University in Seoul said Kim was "de-escalating, putting Guam plan on ice" -- at least for now.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, August 15, 2017 13:49 1916 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aca5f7d 1 Business SaltProduction,sofyan-djalil,idle-land,NTT Free

The government is to issue an order to a company controling 3,700 hectares of idle land in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) to turn the property into a salt production facility, said Agrarian and Spatial Planning Minister Sofyan Djalil said on Monday.

Sofyan said the company, PT Panggung Guna Ganda Semesta (PGGS), held a certificate for the right to cultivate land (HGU) that was issued in 1992 and would expire in three months.

He advised the company to find a partner, such as state-owned salt producer PT Garam or another company interested in investing in the salt industry, within 90 days.

If Panggung Guna does not find a partner, we will revoke its certificate, he said, adding that the government encouraged Panggung Guna to establish the partnership under a B2B arrangement.

Recently, the Agrarian and Spatial Planning Ministry authorized PT Garam to turn a 225-hectare plot of land in NTT into a salt farm in cooperation with local framers. PT Garam has so far developed 400 hectares of land in NTT for salt production in partnership with local farmers.

Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan said earlier that the government would apply a technology developed by the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) to produce salt on 22,000 hectares of idle land.

In recent weeks, salt has disappeared from the market, forcing the government to import 75,000 tons of the commodity from Australia to temporarily meet domestic demand. Indonesia imported 2 million tons of salt last year. (dis/bbn)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, August 15, 2017 14:44 1916 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aca8399 1 City bogor,sex-industry,WhatsApp,prostitution Free

Bogor Police in West Java arrested six alleged online pimps at a hotel in Sentul, Bogor regency on Monday.

The polices spokesperson Adj. Comr. Ita Puspitalena said that two perpetrators, identified as JS, 46, and OR, 27, were the main actors in the business.

The other four perpetrators deliver [the prostitute] and find customers through Whatsapp [messaging application], Ita said as reported by tribunnews.com.

Besides, the police also secured and would questioned nine victims aged 20 to 33 years old who lived in the pimps shelter.

The pimps offered their customers massage and sexual services at between Rp 900,000 (US$67.5) to Rp 2 million.

These perpetrators send the picture of the victims through Whatsapp to negotiate with their customers, Ita said.

The police confiscated evidence of three packs of contraceptive pills, money of Rp 5 million and two motorbikes used by the perpetrators to deliver and pick up the victims. (wnd)
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Linkedin Farida Susanty (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, August 15, 2017 14:53 1916 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aca91d7 1 Business Train,airport-railway,PT-KAI,PT-INKA Free

State railway operator PT Kereta Api Indonesia (KAI) on Monday evening welcomed the first train set to operate as an airport train connecting the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Banten to two stations in Jakarta.

"The first train has arrived and the rest will come in September," KAI president director Edi Sukmoro said in Jakarta on Tuesday.

A total of 10 trains will be operated along the airport railway, each able to transport up to 270 passengers per trip.

The rolling stocks were produced by Canadian multinational aerospace and transportation company Bombardier Inc. along with state-owned train manufacturer PT INKA. They cost about US$70 million.

The airport track will connect the airport with Manggarai Station in South Jakarta and Kota Station in West Jakarta. The whole track will run along a 36.4-kilometer line.

The train is expected to help the increasing number of air passengers cut their travel time as they currently have to pass through toll roads that are frequently affected by traffic congestion. (bbn)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, August 15, 2017 08:52 1916 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97ac97f1d 1 Business Agung-Podomoro,reclamation,court-ruling Free

Publicly listed property giant PT Agung Podomoro Land (APL) may breathe a sigh of relief after the Supreme Court allowed the company to continue with construction work on Islet G, one of 17 islets to be created in the Jakarta Bay.

With its decision on Saturday the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (WALHI) and the Peoples Coalition for Fisheries Justice Indonesia (Kiara).

The decision reaffirmed a decision by the Jakarta Administrative Court that had rejected the two plaintiffs appeal against the Jakarta Government, which had issued a permit for the island construction, as the defendant in the dispute.

APL subsidiary PT Muara Wisesa is in charge of building the 161-hectare islet. According to APLs financial statement released in June, the companys asset in the islet are worth Rp 2.54 trillion.

The statement also explains that the company had talked to legal consultants and considered that it had suffered no material losses apart from the delay on the islets construction.

Nevertheless, APL refrained from commenting on the verdict. You may ask the policymakers [the Jakarta administration]. We as developers only follow them, said APL head of investor relations Wibisono, as quoted by kontan.co.id.

Meanwhile, Investa Saran Mandiri director Hans Kwee said certainty on the islets development would help improve the companys prospects as well as its stock price. [dea/bbn]
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, August 16, 2017 00:34 1915 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97acb5a5b 1 Politics 2019-elections,2019-legislative-election,budget,voter-turnout,LIPI,state-budget,infrastructure,infrastructure-development Free

The 2019 legislative election will likely see a lower voter turnout if the House of Representatives insists on asking for a larger budget to construct a new building and apartments for its members, a political expert has said.

Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) senior political analyst Syamsuddin Haris said the Houses insistence would impact the public, which might be angered by the lawmakers behavior.

The people might be disappointed, so the potential of election abstainers, known as golput, will likely be higher in the 2019 legislative election. The government should reject the demand [for a budget increase]. There are many other priorities, such as infrastructure and efforts to reduce social discrepancies, that House members still need to pay close attention to, Haris said as quoted by kompas.com in Jakarta on Tuesday.

The expert said he saw no reason in the Houses insistence for more money to add facilities for its members.

The House has [shown] a poor work performance, so the institution doesnt deserve to ask for more facilities, said Haris.

He also considered the request improper, especially in the countrys current condition, when the state budget is limited and the government was still focusing its attention on infrastructure development.

Millions of people are still struggling to fight against poverty, so its quite immoral if the House wants [more funds], Haris said.

The House has demanded a Rp 7.2 trillion (US$539 million) increase from the 2018 state budget. (foy/ebf)
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Linkedin Tonette Orejas (Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN) Candaba  Tue, August 15, 2017 08:30 1916 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97ac96a93 2 SE Asia #Philippines,#AvianFlu,#BirdFlu,#outbreak Free

As the Philippine government tries to quarantine the fowls within the seven-kilometer radius where the bird flu outbreak started to prevent the spread of the virus, even duck raisers are affected.

The 1.7 million ducks fattened up by Benedicta Baylon and 126 other raisers in Barangay (village) Bahay Pari here produce an average of one million eggs daily.

But since Saturday, a day after Agriculture Secretary Manny Pinol announced an outbreak of avian flu in San Luis town, buyers have canceled orders for outlets in Metro Manila, the Visayas and Mindanao, Baylon said.

On Sunday, Gov. Lilia Pineda asked Pinol to lift the quarantine imposed within a 7-kilometer control area of the infected town.

We lost our buyers, there are no more orders, said Baylon, chair of Candaba Duck Raisers and Farmers Multipurpose Cooperative.

The quarantine has resulted in a glut of 2 million eggs. At the farm gate price of P7 each, the losses amount to P14 million (US$273,000), excluding the cost of buying live ducks at P250 each as well as feeds.

Baylon, 50, said that in her 20 years in the business, this was the only time she had incurred zero sales.

We should not be suffering, she said.

Barangay Bahay Pari is 12 km from San Luis. The Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) tested farms in the barangay and concluded it was not infected.

At stake is a P1-billion industry employing more than 100 workers, Baylon said.

Like her, several duck raisers try to reduce losses by converting their produce into salted eggs.

Candaba Mayor Danilo Baylon said quarantine checkpoints stopped the raisers from transporting their produce as a result of an Aug. 11 BAI memorandum that imposed a temporary ban on the movement of live domestic and wild birds and their products, including poultry meat, day-old chicks, eggs and manure from Luzon to the Visayas and Mindanao.

In Minalin, considered the egg capital of Luzon, Mayor Edgar Flores said traders had become apprehensive because of low sales.

He said there should be no real or imagined scare because Minalin is outside the 7-km control area.

Our layers [egg-laying chickens], broilers [fresh chickens grown in 45 days] and ducks grown in backyards have shown no symptoms of bird flu, he said.

He urged the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health to declare the produce in Minalin to be safe for consumption.

Minalin has one million layers and 50,000 broilers.

On the strength of a state of calamity declared by the provincial legislative board, Pineda ordered veterinarians, sanitary engineers and mayors to inspect poultry farms and determine their compliance with proper hygiene and waste disposal practices.

She also asked local councils to pass ordinances authorizing mayors to revoke the business permits of owners who did not report incidents of animal diseases and violated environmental standards.

In San Luis, men in Barangay San Carlos refused to help BAI teams destroy chickens, quails and ducks infected or exposed to avian flu, although a days job would earn them P500 from the local government.

On Sunday, culling of chickens proceeded at full blast on eight farms.

After the culling of 131,500 chickens, quails and ducks on 13 farms, the 1-km danger zone will remain under a state of quarantine for three months.

Topics :

This article appeared on the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post
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Linkedin Yoon Min-sik (The Korea Herald/Asia News Network)  Tue, August 15, 2017 13:08 1916 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aca44fc 2 News South-Korea,Seoul,Palace,travel,tourism,Changdeokgung Free

The Joseon-era palace of Changdeokgung will be offering evening tours from Aug.31 to Nov. 5, the Cultural Heritage Administration said Monday.

According to the state-run agency, the Moonlight Tour at Changdeokgung Palace commences at 8 p.m. and lasts about two hours.

The tours will be held from Thursday to Sunday each week, and will be held twice a day on Oct.7, Oct.14 and Oct.21. On those days, the first tour will start at 7 p.m., and the second tour at 8:00 p.m.

The tour will include a photo shoot with palace guards clad in traditional garments, performance of traditional music and tour of the palace grounds led by a tour guide. Tours will be provided in Korean, English, Chinese and Japanese.

The tickets will be made available online at 2 p.m. Thursday at Interpark. Foreigners can book the tickets at http://ticket.interpark.com/Global.

Read also: Seoul unveils citys first highway-turned-park

Due to limited space of the venue, up to 100 people can participate in each tour. One person can book up to two tickets.

For the disabled and senior citizens aged 65 or older, 10 tickets per tour can be booked by phone.

Tickets cost 30,000 won (US$26.31) per person.

Koreans can join the tour on Thursday, Friday and Saturday while foreigners can visit on Sundays.

Changdeokgung, built in 1405, is the only Joseon period palace designated as part of UNESCO World Cultural Heritage. It was inscribed to the list in 1997.

Topics :

This article appeared on The Korea Herald newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post
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Linkedin (Pesona Indonesia) Jakarta  Tue, August 15, 2017 16:11 1916 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97acabbf2 2 News saman-dance,aceh,Aceh-dance,traditional-dance,Tourism-Ministry-Pesona-Indonesia,tourism-ministry-wonderful-Indonesia,MURI,Indonesian-Museum-of-Records,record-breaking Free

An event dubbed "10,001 Saman Dancers" on Aug. 13 brought together up to 12,262 dancers at the Thousand Hills Stadium in Blangkejeren city, Gayo Lues, Aceh.

The event was added into the Indonesian Museum of Records (MURI) for the most Saman Dance participants.

Aceh Tourism Agency head Reza Pahlevi said the traditional dance had previously earned a MURI record for the same category in 2014 with 5,057 people. It was awarded after UNESCO enacted Saman Dance as a Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2011.

This event is a collaboration between Aceh and Gayo Lues administrations. After being awarded as a world heritage by UNESCO, Saman Dance doesnt just belong to the people of Gayo Lues, but also to the world; let's preserve it together, said Reza.

Read also: Why you should consider Aceh for your next trip

Gayo Lues Regent Ibnu Hasyim hoped the event could also served as a reminder of Syekh Samman.

This 10,001 Saman Dancers event will remind people, especially the youngsters of Syekh Samman, who made the country proud through his works, said Ibnu.

Saman Dance is a traditional dance from Tanoh Rencong. It is one of the dances that are being taught at schools.

Performing this dance requires a full concentration. It begins with slow swaying movements at first and then goes faster and faster toward the end.

Saman Dance has a high difficulty level; mastering it requires a high physical endurance, quick and synchronized body movement between dancers and understanding of the song, Ibnu said.

Its not only how fast the movement is, but also how these dancers can still stay in-sync while performing in high speed, which is why practice and discipline are required in order to perform a fascinating Saman Dance, Ibnu added. (kes)
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Linkedin (Pesona Indonesia) Jakarta  Tue, August 15, 2017 17:09 1915 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97acad52b 2 News Tourism-Ministry-Pesona-Indonesia,tourism-ministry-wonderful-Indonesia,Sanur-Village-Festival,Sanur,bali Free

The five-day Sanur Village Festival (SVF) 2017 that ran from August 9 to 13 managed to generate more than Rp 45 billion in monetary transactions in the surrounding area of Maisonette Area Inna Grand Bali Beach, the festivals venue.

The economic impact is huge, all food and beverages stalls were always crowded with people and everyone was shopping, said Sanur Village Festival committee head, Ida Bagus Gede Sidharta.

Throughout the five days, there were about 100,000 tourists who came to SVF, if one person spent Rp 500,000 ($50), the total spending could reach billions of Rupiah, around Rp 45 billion, Ida added.

Read also: Bali declared world's top destination for 2017

The number Rp 500,000 is a minimum spending for a tourist, international tourists usually can spend up to Rp 850,000 per person.

Tourism Ministry's Archipelago Marketing Development deputy Esthy Reko Astuti said that the event attracted plenty of tourists from Europe.

Jon Clark, a tourist from the United Kingdom was very happy that he was welcomed with a festival while vacationing in Bali.

I really like it, Sanur Village Festival is really fun, he said.

Meanwhile, another tourist from the United Kingdom named Chloe gave praises to Balinese delicacies, The food is delicious and everything is affordable. I fell in love instantly with Bali, said Chloe. (asw)
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Linkedin (Pesona Indonesia) Jakarta  Tue, August 15, 2017 15:09 1916 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aca972c 2 News Tourism-Ministry-Pesona-Indonesia,tourism-ministry-wonderful-Indonesia,Independence-Day,#IndependenceDay,tanjung-lesung,flag Free

Special Economic Zone (KEK) Tanjung Lesung has a unique way to commemorate the 72nd anniversary of Indonesias Independence Day.

On August 17, the holiday spot is set to hold an underwater flag raising ceremony at Tanjung Lesung Beach Club.

According to Kawasan Tanjung Lesung manager, Poernomo Siswoprasetijo, 20 divers and 200 participants from Saka Pariwisata will take part in the ceremony that is scheduled to be held at 9 a.m. local time.

Read also: Banten's Sawarna: A hidden paradise facing the Indian Ocean

These divers will be standing in a formation just like a regular flag ceremony. There will be a ceremonial inspector, ceremony leader, and flag bearers. Indonesia Raya national anthem will be sung when the red-and-white flag is about to be submerged in the water, said Poernomo.

The ceremonys attendees will include stakeholders from Banten and 200 people from Saka Bahari in Pandeglang regency.

Prior to D-day, there will be a training for diving-activity tour guides on August 16 with 200 people from Saka Pariwisata are scheduled to join.

Up until the 80s, Tanjung Lesung was relatively unknown and called as a virgin beach. It wasnt until the 90s that Jakartans started visiting Tanjung Lesung which eventually earned the Venice of Indonesia moniker.

Read also: Indonesia announces 10 new destination brands

The place is located in Tanjung Jaya village, Banten Province and it stretches for 15 kilometers and surrounded by white sand and greeneries.

Ocean waves at Tanjung Lesung are not too extreme, making it enjoyable for people to swim. There are several snorkeling spots where visitors can explore coral reefs, jellyfishes, and other sea creatures.

When the Serang  Panimbang toll road is done, the travel time from Jakarta to Tanjung Lesung will be shorter, it will give more access to Tanjung Lesung and improve its marine tourism. This Independence Day celebration will become an interesting activity for tourists to come to Tanjung Lesung, said tourism minister Arief Yahya. (asw)
Correction: This story was modified on 8/15/2017 to reflect that Upsilon Ventures does not currently operate the facilities at Bryant Park.

It looks like the city has settled on an operator for the long-shuttered comfort station at Allen and Delancey streets. The Parks Department is hoping to sign a 20-year lease with the company that runs restaurants and event spaces in parks and other public facilities across the city.

According to a memo sent to the Manhattan Borough President and Community Board 3, the city is preparing to make a deal with Upsilon Ventures, a development and production firm located on Madison Avenue.

The memo, provided to us by the Parks Department, stated that the city is, seeking Franchise Concession Review Committee approval to negotiate a Sole Source License Agreement with Bryant Park Market Events, LLC / Upsilon Ventures for the renovation, operation and maintenance of a food service facility (inside the vacant Allen Street comfort station). The lease is not considered a major concession, which apparently means that no public hearing will be required. The committee must give the go-ahead to begin formal negotiations.

[If you want to read more about the citys Franchise Concession Review Committee, and how concessions of this type are handled, click here.]

In July of 2016, the city issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the Allen Street bathhouse, which was abandoned 60 years ago when the elevated train was dismantled. It called for a food service operation in the space. The city earmarked $2 million in public funds to renovate the pedestrian mall between Delancey Street and Rivington Street. The RFP called for the future operator to be responsible for renovating the old building, and to reopen the public bathrooms. Those renovation costs have been estimated at $1 million.

The Parks Department received quite a bit of pushback from the community board. Some community members said there is clearly no need for another food/beverage business in an area already saturated with nightlife options. Others noted that a local visioning process several years ago called for the comfort station to be activated as a community space, perhaps for bicycle repair and educational programs. Some language about bicycle repair did make its way into the RFP.

On its website, Upsilon Ventures says it, is a project development, marketing, hospitality, and production firm specializing in public-private partnerships and the use of public spaces and real estate for iconic attractions, sponsor activations, events, consumer engagement, temporary retail, and other revenue generating opportunities. It formerly operated the Winter Village and ice rink in Bryant Park. It was awarded a contract for the ice rink at Prospect Park and is a consultant for the events space at the World Trade Center. Upsilon Ventures is also behind the Big Apple BBQ Block Party, among other projects.

City and Upsilon Ventures representatives will appear for Community Board 3s parks committee in September of October. A request for more details from the company went unanswered. So it remains to be seen exactly what the firm has in mind on the Lower East Side.
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.

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Follow the law. That was the battle cry from local residents and tenant organizers this morning outside the offices of the Department of City Planning. The agency is now evaluating proposals for three gigantic towers that developers are seeking to build in the Two Bridges area.

On Friday, attorneys for the Community Development Project of the Urban Justice Center fired off a letter to City Planning Director Marisa Lago. It called on her to overturn a decision from her predecessor, Carl Weisbrod, one year ago that circumvented a full community and City Council review of the Two Bridges mega-towers. If the buildings are approved as part of a deficient process, the letter warned, our clients (local tenants and two not-for-profit groups), will exercise their right to seek judicial review.

A joint environmental review is now underway for the towers, which include a 77-story building from JDS Development Group at 247 Cherry St.; 62 ad 69 story towers from L+M Development Partners and the CIM Group at 260 South St.; and a 62-story building by the Starrett Group at 259 Clinton St. The building sites are all be located in the Two Bridges Large Scale Residential Development (LSRD) area. Last summer, city officials rejected a request from City Council member Margaret Chin for a full land use review (ULURP) in the Two Bridges neighborhood.

The attorneys, represented today by Paula Segal, allege that the decision from the agency reflected a faulty and illegal interpretation of the citys zoning resolution. They say that no new development can occur in the LSRD without new special permits, and no permits may be issued until the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (UPURP) is completed. The department, the attorneys argued, used an irrelevant section of the zoning resolution in finding that the new projects only amounted to a minor modification of the LSRD. [Read the full letter at the end of this story.]

Todays event was led by Good Old Lower East Side (GOLES) and the CAAAV, organizations working with local residents. The Urban Justice Center is representing the two not-for-profit groups, TUFF-LES (a coalition formed by tenant associations in the Two Bridges area) and the Lands End 1 Tenant Association. They were joined by representatives of Council member Chin and U.S. Rep. Nydia Velazquez. At a rally held last month, Chin and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer first threatened a lawsuit if the city refused to reconsider the ULURP request.

The DCP is trying to push this project through using a process that circumvents the law and democratic procedure, said GOLES organizer Jessie Ngok. Community members have a right to weigh in on the impact to their neighborhood. DCP should not silence them.

Chin, Brewer, Velasquez and Assembly member Yuh-Line Niou sent a separate letter to City Planning today. Time and again, they wrote, we have looked to the Department of City Planning to provide the proper pathways for approval in this process, and to ensure that a thorough and transparent public review would occur. They added, We believe there are strong legal arguments against directing the developers to submit minor modifications, and enthusiastically support the efforts of our constituents for a full review of these proposed changes to the LSRD

In the past, City Planning officials have insisted that, the modifications sought for the Two Bridges sites do not trigger a ULURP and that, there are no grounds under which a ULURP could legally be required. They have argued that the environmental review offers local residents ample opportunity to raise concerns about the new projects.

Earlier today, City Council candidate Christopher Marte appeared with community members in the Two Bridges area. He is one of three challengers trying to unseat Margaret Chin in the Sept. 12 Democratic Primary. In a prepared statement, Marte reiterated charges hes levied in the past, saying Chin should have done more years ago to stop rampant development. Today she is rallying outside of DCP, said Marte, to protest towers that wouldnt even have been imagined if she had supported the community-based rezoning plan (as envisioned by the Chinatown Working Group). Today she stands with those who have been on the front line of this fight for years. It is right that she is there for her constituents. But it is too little and it is too late.

Also appearing at the Marte rally was Tanya Castro-Negron, tenant association president at Lands End II, one of the developments that would be most impacted by the new projects. Castro-Negron is part of a group called Lower East Side Organizing Neighbors (LESON), which first raised questions about City Plannings alleged mishandling of the Two Bridges projects back in May. Today Margaret Chin and her supporters are protesting DCP, said Castro-Negron, with the same challenge made by the LESON group They are asking LESON and the community to support their action but would not (support) the communitys efforts presented months ago.

We went into great detail regarding the political back-and-forth over the Two Bridges projects in an earlier story. You can read it here. In short, Council member Chin has stated that she could not have unilaterally approved the Chinatown Working Group Plan, since the support of the City Planning Commission is required. DCP has called the zoning proposal excessively broad.

The Department of City Planning will likely not vote on the Two Bridges proposals until the end of this year. A lawsuit would not occur until that vote happens.

Editors note: The original version of this story indicated that City Council candidate Christopher Marte appeared with supporters in the Two Bridges area to criticize Council member Chin. It was later brought to our attention that not all community members appearing with Marte are supporters of his candidacy. The story has been changed to reflect this fact.

Letter to Department of City Planning: Two Bridges Development by The Lo-Down on Scribd
The Mental Health Fringe Award will be presented to the fringe act that best explores mental health during the festival.

The awards recipient will be invited to perform at the 2018 Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival.

The award will be judged by a panel of experts including Alan Bissett, a well-known playwright, Linda Irvine, a programme manager for NHS Lothian, Andy Arnold, artistic director of the Tron Theatre, as well as Rebecca Monks and Mark Fisher, two theatre critics.

Andrew Eaton-Lewis, the Mental Health Foundations arts lead, said about the award: Mental health has been a prominent theme at the Edinburgh Fringe for the past couple of years, thanks to memorable and acclaimed shows like Bryony Kimmings Fake It Til You Make It, Felicity Wards 50% More Likely To Die, and Richard Gadds Monkey See Monkey Do.

"We hope this award will encourage artists of all kinds to continue to make this kind of work, which is really important in opening up conversations about what can be very difficult and personal subjects, and which can often have a transformative effect on public attitudes towards mental health.

Eaton-Lewis continued: We have already identified a list of shows at this years Edinburgh Fringe that explicitly addresses mental health, but it will also be fascinating to see how the subject comes up in other shows across the festival, given the anxious times that we are living in.

Furthermore, the Mental Health Foundation will be hosting an event for those performing at the festival: "Mental Health is a Fringe Issue, allowing performers that are exploring mental health in their shows to share experiences in a mutually supportive environment."

1pm and more information can be found here. This event will take place on the 14th of August atand more information can be found

The Mental Health Fringe Award will be presented at the Scotsman Fringe Awards on August 25th.
James Damore, the former Google employee who was fired for claiming that women are less biologically fit to become leaders in the tech industry, has said it is hard to regret sharing his views.

The 28-year-old Ivy League graduate provoked widespread anger  in Silicon Valley and beyond  over his now-viral 10-page internal document, which criticised Googles ideological echo chamber, claiming the company shamed political dissenters.

The detailed memo stated that discrimination to reach equal representation is unfair, divisive and bad for business, suggesting that biological differences between women and men, not discrimination, explain why there is a lack of equal representation in tech and leadership.

Im doing an AMA under /r/JamesDamore tomorrow at 1PM PST/4PM ET. Come dispute my claims, show your support, or ask nerdy chess questions . pic.twitter.com/PEPoME3a0g  James Damore (@Fired4Truth) August 12, 2017

Damore was fired after chief executive Sundar Pichai said the memo violated the search engines code of conduct and enhanced harmful stereotypes in our workplace.

A week after being let go, he took to Reddit to host an Ask Me Anything (AMA) thread, in which he was met with considerable support from Redditors, including several claiming to be women.

Redditor Dasignint asked Damore whether he was a little naive to talk about biological differences in such a context, to which he responded: I assumed that Google engineers would be more data/science-driven than they apparently are.

I also underestimated the power of shaming (i.e. it was politically impossible for many people, especially upper management, to support me).

He added: I think/hope that my document will have positive effects on Google for the future, so its hard to regret doing it.

Google chief executive Sundar Pichai (Eric Risberg/AP)

The Harvard graduate also told the discussion website that he did not expect to be fired, and said he received a milder reaction when he canvassed his views weeks earlier to diversity programs and individual Googlers at the firm.

The software engineer, who worked at Googles Global HQ in Mountain View, California, said several colleagues had come forward with support for his document, but feared being open about their views for fear of reprisals.

He took aim at the media, saying he believed mainstream outlets had distorted his views and depicted him as a misogynist. In the same thread, he also criticised the Girls Who Code initiative, claiming it continued the women are victims narrative.

He also confirmed that he is pursuing legal action, and has been advised he can win it, although he has been told not to discuss the proceedings too much.

Googles headquarters in Mountain View, California (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP)

Damore, who had worked at Google since 2013, admitted that on the day the memo was reported on, he resorted to working from home after receiving personal threats, and said he felt too awkward to work at his own desk at the Google campus.

A crowdfunding page on WeSearchr has raised more than $47,000 (36,000) of a $60,000 total to help Damore fight Google. The financing website has been known to champion causes of the alt-right and was set up by far-right journalist Charles Johnson.
Saturday 12th August was World Elephant Day, an internationally recognised annual event dedicated to the preservation, protection and appreciation of some of the most beautiful mammals we have.

Although the largest land mammal are some of the most popular amongst wildlife enthusiasts, travellers and interior decorators, here are some top fun facts that you might not know about these majestic creatures.

Male elephants leave the herd between the ages of 12 and 15

These teenage lads prefer to lead a bachelor lifestyle and part ways from their families very early in life, whereas the females remain loyal to their herd in tight family groups of female relations. The eldest female leads the group, despite what The Jungle Book has lead us to believe.

The elephant is one of only a few mammals that can't jump

Something else that we were deceived by the likes of Dumbo and company - elephant's cannot jump, and this is simply because they have no need to. Elephants keep safe in the presence of predators by remaining close to the protective herd and relying on their sheer size, rather than jumping like other animals would to avoid a predator.

Elephants purr like cats as a means of communication

The elephant has quite the vocal range. As well as the iconic elephant trumpet that we all know and love, they can also produce a low rumbling that is so low that it is undetectable to the human ear. We can tell from a physical buzzing, and this is how the elephants have a chat.

Elephants' eyes are small and their eyesight is poor

This might be the only thing small about them, but elephants tend to navigate with their trunks as they walk through forests as their eyesight is poor.

The elephant's trunk has 150,000 muscle units and can hold over two gallons of water at a time

Despite popular misconception, elephants do not drink through their trunks, but use them as tools to drink with, by filling it with water and propelling it into their mouths like a hose.

They consume as much as 300-495 pounds of food per day

No matter how much you can chow down during a Netflix binge, elephants can top that as the largest terrestrial animal. They can weigh up to 16,500 pounds as they have to consume a lot of fuel to power a body of that size. Wild elephants can eat plants of all sizes as well as fruit, grass and bamboo, and spend much of their time searching for their next meal.

The oldest known elephant in the world lived for 86 years. The average lifespan of an elephant is from 50 to 70 years.

Living almost all long as humans, elephants are truly fascinating creatures that we must work hard to protect from extinction. An Asian elephant name Lin Wang was the world's oldest elephant on record, who died in 2003 at Taipei Zoo in Taiwan.

There are an estimated 15-20,000 captive elephants around the world, most of which live in harsh conditions.

We must be aware and vigilant towards tourist attractions that subject elephants to cruel methods within taming rituals. These could include elements of torture, with the creatures being subjected to confinement, chaining, forced starvation and beatings from a bullhook, as young as within infancy. Many encourage tourists to opt for a more distant and relaxed approach to elephant experiences, and less intrusive alternatives to riding elephants.

There are only two distinct species of elephant left in the world: the African elephant and the Asian elephant

There are so many ways that you can get up close and personal with these fascinating mammals, and there are still many destinations around the world in which you can find them, despite their endangered status.

Here are some of the best places to see the beautiful creatures in the wild, just as they should be.

Borneo

Borneo is home to pygmy elephants, and it is debated as to whether these creatures are native to Borneo or descendents of those given to the Sultan of Sulu in the 18th century. They travel in herds of up to 70, so they shouldn't be too hard to spot along Sabah's longest river, the Kinabatangan, which you can access by foot or on a river cruise.

Deforestation has taken its toll on this area, so you can even spot other wildlife such as orang-utans, proboscis monkeys and monitor lizards amongst the foliage.

You can also find elephants within the Danum Valley or the Tabin Wildlife Reserve in Borneo.

Botswana

This is home to one of Africa's greatest wildlife viewing spots, with more than 100,000 elephants- more than anywhere else in the world. This is due to the preservation of ancient migration routes, creating a space for wildlife to roam free and in sight of wildlife enthusiasts.

Chobe National Park is the most famous spot to find elephants, with a river cruise being the best way to see them.

This area is a wildlife haven, where sightings of buffalo, zebra, giraffe, lion, leopard and wild dogs are common.

India

Up to 350 elephants can be found within the far north of the Corbett National Park in India.

You can also find the majestic creatures at the Periyar Wildlife reserve in Southern India, and is one of the most popular of its kind.

Indonesia

You can find the Sumatran elephant, a critically endangered subspecies, in the Tesso Nilo and Way Kambas National Parks in Indonesia.

Keep in mind that there is no native elephant population here, so the elephant camps in Bali exist purely for tourism.

Kenya

Although half of its elephants were lost in the 1970s, Kenya's elephant population is increasing, and here you can find some of the most beautiful landscape backgrounds home to wild elephants in the world. If you're going to search for some elephants, you might as well do it at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro.

Thailand

Visiting the Elephant Nature Park in northern Thailand is the perfect opportunity to get up close to elephants in a natural environment, designed to provide elephant-friendly tourism. The park rescues elephants from camps and circuses where they have been subjected to mistreatment and is home to more than 35 elephants. You can walk with them, watch them and even bathe.

Or if you want an even more natural approach, spend a night in a tree house that reserves offer and catch a glimpse of one of the 2,000-3,000 elephants that roam in the jungle.

Zimbabwe

If you've ever fancy volunteering and working on projects to support wild elephants and other endangered animals such as rhinos, there are many around Victoria Falls and within central Zimbabwe, which conduct behavioural observation and provide conservation education with local communities and schools.

Zimbabwe has a population of up to 60,000 elephants, around 44,000 of which can be found in the Hwange National Park. During the dry season (July to October) this is the perfect spot to see hundreds of elephants and lots of other wildlife.

Nepal

Chitwan and Bardiya National Park are some of the best places to find elephants in Nepal, where you can jump aboard an elephant safari run by conservationists aiming to protect and nuture their growing populations.

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka is proud to be the home of the largest subspecies of the Asian elephant, and names it as the national animal of Sri Lanka. You can find them in national parks such as Yala, Udawalawe, Wilpattu and Minneriya, and within rescue initiatives such as The Elephant Transit Home, which rescues injured or orphaned infants and rehabilitates them.
Romance and tranquillity are both synonymous with Liguria, Italys stunning northern coastal region. Commonly referred to as the Italian Riviera, Liguria is anchored by the capital of Genoa and is also home to tiny towns and villages that drip Italian essence , such as Portofino and Sestri Levante.

When exploring Liguria, its best to base yourself in the coastal Genoa, which acts as the gateway to the Italian Riviera. Genoa isnt Italys most glamorous city, and nor has it ever been destined to be, but hotel rates and restaurant prices are certainly more affordable here than elsewhere in Liguria.The city is also conveniently serviced by an international airport with flights from the UK operated by both British Airways and Ryanair. Built as a key strategic port centuries ago, Genoa is still the second largest port on the Mediterranean today. Whilst it is often overlooked as a destination, and there are other far more pleasing parts of Liguria for you to enjoy, Genoa does boast innumerable museums and galleries should you want to soak up some culture and you can conveniently rent a boat or go on a tour of the region directly from the harbour.

The city is also conveniently serviced by an international airport with flights from the UK operated by both British Airways and Ryanair. Built as a key strategic port centuries ago, Genoa is still the second largest port on the Mediterranean today. Whilst it is often overlooked as a destination, and there are other far more pleasing parts of Liguria for you to enjoy, Genoa does boast innumerable museums and galleries should you want to soak up some culture, and you can conveniently rent a boat or go on a tour of the region directly from the harbour.

You absolutely have to hit the Cinque Terre; a collection of five small yet perfectly formed fishing villages. Sitting on the edge as rugged landscapes meet the Ligurian Sea, with its signature colourful buildings that have come to define the Italian Riviera, the Cinque Terre is easily Ligurias most iconic sight. The isolated villages hark back to the past and whilst they can only be driven to on long, winding mountainous roads, they are easily accessible from Genoa by train.

The villages, made up of Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso, can only be described as a rustic fairy-tale. Wander the quiet streets taking in both the natural and manmade sights, before having a meal at a restaurant by the sea as you watch the boats drift by and absorb the cries of the birds above. There are also numerous hiking trails to enjoy, and gazing upon the rainbow villages from a distance is a must.

With its picturesque harbour, you must also visit Portofino. Portofino is perhaps the most well-known town in Liguria and has been featured as a symbol of romance in countless Hollywood films. Romance and the Italian Riviera are tantamount.

Larger than many of the other fishing villages on the coast, theres something extra special about Portofino. A devoutly Catholic region, intricate churches sit by pastel coloured homes next to a gentle sea. If you go scuba diving in Portofinos harbour, youll find a bronze statue of Jesus Christ, submerged underwater in memory of the first Italian to use scuba gear, Dario Gonzatti. Portofino is also situated just a bus-ride away from some of Liguria's finest beaches and hiking trails.

Dont forget to make a stop off at Sestri Levante, too. A favourite of Italians rather than international tourists, Sestri Levante has grown in recent years and now has developed both an old town and a new town. Sestri Levante is made up of two dreamily named bays; Portobello (The Bay of Silence) and Baia delle Favole (Bay of Fairy Tales). There is much to explore here, the ever-changing architectural styles reflective of the town changing hands between different rulers .

Liguria has so many uniquely Italian towns and villages to explore. Dramatic cliff faces, enticing sea and friendly people all characterise this enchanting corner of the world. All this comes at a price though and it isnt cheap. Whilst Liguria thrives during the height of the summer season, visit later on in September for fewer crowds, cheaper prices and an experience that you wont ever forget.
Since the franchise began in 2001, Wet Hot American Summer has proved notoriously popular with a particular audience for its unrealistic storylines and unapologetically goofy jokes.Indeed, after gaining somewhat of a cult following, the series' latest instalment, Wet Hot American Summer: 10 Years Later, was hotly anticipated to provide more of the same alternative comedy. And to be fair, the sequel does indeed provide an eight episode ride, crammed full of more absurd story lines and utterly ridiculous gags than ever before.Fans of the franchise will be happy to see the return of the talking can of beans, previously known as Mitch, as well as the lovable yet ill-equipted camp cook Gene (Christopher Meloni). However, not everyone is back for this second re-outing since the original, with a strange yet "subtle" actor change coming into play for the character of Ben. Adam Scott takes over from Bradley Cooper, with the change in likeness written off in true Wet Hot American Summer style as the wondrous effects of a nose job. While the mini Parks and Recreation reunion between Scott and Amy Poehler is a quaint touch for some, the changed dynamic in a series that has been held up by it's insane ensemble of comedy stars is hard to get past. Opening with a brief look back at the character's previous escapades at Camp Firewood, the first epsiode sets the tone well, seemingly offering the perfect balance of silly comedy and gripping storylines. However, despite its promising opening episode, the ensuing comedic frenzy which had been promised is increasingly difficult to find as the series goes on - save a few scenes which offer a glimpse into the franchise's previous hilarity. Indeed, by the end of the series, it is increasingly hard to remember why Wet Hot American Summer was ever a hit. With half baked character development and a plot which leaves vast, inexcusable holes in the story line, the new series is simply too far from reality - even for a show which has always been proudly kooky. Special mention should be given to the final episode, which is by far the worst of the eight, for wrapping up the reunion with an entirely disappointing plot twist which essentially cancels out much of the action. Ultimately, while established fans may well stick with this out of loyalty for the franchise - enjoying a few sparse moments of brilliance - this sequel is simply a joke too far.
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Home >Camera Enforcement > Revenue from Cameras > US DOT: No School Bus Passing Fatalities In 2015
Amid a confrontation between Trinamul Congress and the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre over the manner of celebrating Independence Day, the BJP on Monday hit out at West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for playing politics over the issue.

The two parties, which have not been maintaining cordial relations since TMCs open protest over demonetisation, have now crossed swords over a recent Central government circular.

The circular called for creating a mass buzz around Prime Minister Narendra Modis New India Mission. Towards that end it called for administering a Sankalpa se Siddhi vow to all students across the country. TMC chief Mamata Banerjee, however, said there was no need for following the circular in her state.

Reacting to Banerjees stand, BJP spokesman GVL Narasimha Rao said, Mamata Banerjee is wont to opposing the Central government on all its measures aimed at improving the lot of the common people in West Bengal. It is high time that the chief minister stops playing politics over the issue of patriotism.

Rao said, The circular only seeks to inculcate the spirit of patriotism among students and encourage them to celebrate the Independence Day and remember the freedom fighters who sacrificed their lives for the country.

The BJP leader advised Banerjee to refrain from indulging in politics over the Independence Day celebrations as the people of West Bengal would never forgive her for this. He said Bengal has been the birth place of a large number of freedom fighters who laid down their lives fighting for Indias freedom from the British colonial power.
Efforts at uniting the two AIADMK factions, one led by former Tamil Nadu chief minister O Panneerselvam and another by Chief Minister E Palaniswami, continue with Panneerselvam meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday morning.

Even as this exercise was on, 53-year-old T T V Dinakaran, nephew of V. Sasikala who is currently in jail in Bengaluru on charges of corruption, is holding a rally in Madurai to mobilise support for his faction of the party.

Panneerselvam told the media that the meeting with the PM was nothing but a courtesy call, but according to sources he discussed the hurdles he would face if the two factions of the AIADMK were merged. We updated PM Modi about the political crisis in Tamil Nadu, Panneerselvam said.

The BJP and the ruling NDA government have been pushing for an AIADMK merger between the two factions.

According to sources, Panneerselvam has been offered the post of Deputy chief minister, but he wants to hold the Home and Public Works Department portfolios too ~ currently held by the chief minister.

Dinakaran claims that he has the support of 16 MLAs, Panneerselvam has 11 MLAs and E Palaniswami has the support of 123 MLAs. It takes a majority of 118 MLAs in the legislative assembly to form the majority. If MLAs choose to jump to the Dinakaran camp dropping EPS numbers, then an AIADMK merger is inevitable.

Moreover, according to sources, BJP wants the merger to firm up before party president Amit Shah visits Tamil Nadu this month-end.
In its effort to provide more teeth to Indian security, the Central government has procured specialised trained dogs from Israel that have the capability to sniff explosives and armed suspects from a distance. Sources said the government has ordered around 30-35 such dogs at a cost of around Rs 150 crore that will give a fillip to the Special Protection Group that provides security to the Prime Minister, former Prime Ministers and their families wherever they are.

Sources said the special variety of dogs are from the Oketz canine unit of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). These dogs are Belgian Shepherds that can attack an enemy while still being small enough to be picked up by its handler, sources said. Senior government officials said due to increased threat perception of the Prime Minister, this arrangement has been made.

While no estimates have been provided, it is believed that tens of thousands of dollars are required for its training and maintenance of these dogs. Sources also indicated that the Prime Ministers office has asked the defence and home ministry to upgrade Indian training infrastructure and make a proposal to train Indian security dogs to that level, so that they can be used to guard the borders.

This is not the first time that Israeli armed forces have extended security to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It has been learnt that the worlds best investigative agents from Israels Mossad and MI5 had been dispatched to Turkey during Modis stay to attend the G20 summit.
There would be a hypocritical ring to attempts at self-adulation on the 70th anniversary of Independence when headlines scream about negligence-triggered deaths in a Gorakhpur hospital.

Worse is the state governments deliberate underplaying the tragedy, and the Centre offering a token response ~ the underlying message being that every situation is now assessed through a political prism, and that the plight of the afflicted people is of less concern to the government than the fallout on the party in power.

Just five months ago UP voted the BJP to power in the hope that the traditionally mal-administered state might be unshackled from the sloth that has characterised its governance: that hope has been negated by the spate of deaths in the BRD Medical College Hospital on the home turf of chief minister Yogi Adityanath.

That non-payment of bills to the suppliers of life-supporting oxygen is suspected to be the prime cause of the deaths exposes the quality of governance provided by a chief minister hand-picked by the BJP leadership.

For while the administration in the state continues to wallow in incompetence, the new government is terribly eager to promote the saffron culture ~ little need to detail evidence of that. Will the suspension of the college principal, or an inquiry by the chief secretary suffice to address such a grave situation, will the token expression of concern from New Delhi remedy the lack of governance?

These are queries that will drown out much of what Narendra Modi may offer from the Red Fort this morning. Words and slogans are meaningless when sick children are starved of oxygen in a key hospital in a major town. The lesson that is unlikely to be learned is that winning an election is the beginning and not the end of political action.

The choice of the UP chief minister has certainly consolidated the partys gains in the polls in March, and Yogi Adityanath continues to lead a BJP-march. Yet even within his party there are rumblings about his being out of his depth in the administrative sphere ~ a tendency noticed in other BJP success-stories in Maharashtra and Haryana. This only establishes that the Modi-Shah formula runs out of currency once a government is installed.

The focus is skewed: a point reconfirmed by a minister in UP citing statistics to suggest that there had been as many deaths in the past too.

The Congress, Samajwadi and BSP politicians swim in the same filthy waters when proving that our leaders specialise in baking cakes on funeral pyres. There may a high degree of cynicism to the suggestion, but it would not be irrelevant ~ even if it is irreverent ~ to ask how far has the nation progressed since 1947 when human life comes as cheap as in Gorakhpur?
India is celebrating seventy years of independence. Over the years, state borders have been changed or states carved from larger states as the need arose to meet the aspirations of masses.

The boundaries of J-K, the most diverse state of the nation, have remained unchanged, though it should ideally have been split into manageable entities. Arguments on accession versus merger are the main cause for this restriction. J-K is the only state which acceded to India, but did not merge.

Thus, the state continues to have its own flag, constitution and traditional boundaries. After seventy years of independence, it is time the state became a part of the union, like all others. Maintaining its status under the pretext of Articles 35A and 370 is an idea which has outlived its utility.

The initial reason for including these articles appears to be lost in time; however it can be safely deduced that the logic was to maintain the cultural identity of the state and that its citizens should not lose any advantage by becoming Indian nationals.

This logic has been twisted and turned to indicate a desire of the Centre to change the demography of the valley, which is unacceptable to the locals. This thought is wrong in many ways. The J-K high court had ruled in October 2015, that article 370 is permanent, beyond amendment, repeal or abrogation.

This was struck down by the Supreme Court within a short time when it stated that it can be removed by Parliament. This implies recommendations for the same flowing from the J-K legislature, an action unlikely in the near future.

Thus, the battle shifted to Article 35A. This article has been discriminatory in many forms even for its own populace. While women who marry outside the state lose their rights, men are permitted to do so.

Kashmiris who migrated to Pakistan remain citizens for two generations, while those who migrated from Pakistan are denied rights. By losing rights, they are unable to own property, seek government jobs, college admissions, aid and scholarships.

The battle is now in the Supreme Court, repercussions of which are already being felt across the state. Possible removal of Article 35A has created such fear within valley based political parties, that they have not only joined hands to fight the case, but have also threatened the nation.

Farooq Abdullah claimed that removal of the article would see riots of a scale never witnessed before, while Mehbooba Mufti stated that there would be no one to hold the national flag in the valley.

Omar Abdullah announced plans to begin an awareness campaign on the article in the valley. Pakistan has joined the chorus by stating India plans to change the demography of the region. All this to justify a wrong and brainwash the population of the valley. In seventy years of the existence of the article, residents of Jammu and Ladakh could always purchase land and property in the valley. There was no such movement.

The valley demography has remained unchanged. After the ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pundits in the early 1990s, the properties of those migrating were bought by local Kashmiri Muslims, not by residents of Jammu. Thus, the demography changed in the reverse direction, rather than as being projected. The state has only witnessed migration towards Jammu. The valley refused to allocate land for returning Kashmiri Pundits, ex-servicemen of the state and migrants from Pakistan.

Large numbers from the valley have brought properties in Jammu, alongside Rohingyas and Bangladeshis and are migrating there, changing the demography of the Jammu region. Jammu desperately desires removal of the article as it also prohibits development and infusion of funds. Political parties presently threatening the government on the issue of Article 35A, represent the valley.

They are unwilling to even seek a consensus with their coalition partners, knowing that views are at variance. Thus, NC and PDP are taking a decision for the state, while representing only a small part of it, as the valley is far smaller in size and population in comparison to the Jammu region.

None of them have ever explained to the residents of the state the benefits of complete merger with the Union which include flow of capital, development, improvement of facilities etc. The issue is being converted into a religious one.

The valley is worried about a change in its Muslim majority status. There are also claims that only Hindus in the Jammu region desire its removal, not Muslims, a claim which is false.

By playing the religious card, the aim appears to be to stall the issue. Mehbooba Mufti even rushed to Delhi to seek the intervention of the Prime Minister. India is a democracy; hence the government must consider the will of the people before it takes a decision.

The state government cannot consider only the valley when it seeks to oppose court directions against the article. It must take the opinion of the rest of the state. This can be done by two options. The first is through an all-party meeting seeking to obtain a wider consensus. The PDP is avoiding it knowing that the BJP, with a strong hold on Jammu would never agree.

Further, this was also a part of the BJP election manifesto, hence it swept to power. The second option is to conduct a referendum across the state on the issue. Here again, valley-based political parties are scared as the chances of obtaining majority appear dim.

This fear riding deep within the PDP and NC is evident when enemies suddenly turn into allies. Thus, their actions are clearly prejudiced, politically motivated and illogical. There is clearly a need to seek a wider political consensus on the issue by opening it for debate across the state.

Ideally, solutions need to be found for meeting the aspirations of the people of different parts of the state who have varying opinions on the removal of the article.

The valley cannot hold the rest of the state to ransom, nor can valley-based political parties ignore the rest of the state for their own survival.

(The writer is a retired Major-General of the Indian Army.)
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Florida on Monday, sending the US space firms last new first-generation Dragon cargo ship to the International Space Station.

The Falcon 9 rocket, with the Dragon spacecraft sitting on the top, blasted off from a launch pad at NASAs Kennedy Space Center, Xinhua reported.

About eight minutes later, SpaceX successfully landed the rockets first stage at the companys Landing Zone 1, just south of the launch site at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, as part of its effort to develop fully reusable rockets.

Previously, SpaceX has successfully recovered 13 first stages, five on land and eight at sea.

Mondays flight was the 12th of up to 20 missions to the space station that SpaceX will fly for NASA under a multi-year commercial re-supply services (CRS) contract.

It also marked the last time SpaceX launches a brand-new Dragon 1 vehicle and the remaining CRS missions will fly only reused ones, an official from SpaceX said.

A variant of the Dragon spacecraft, called Dragon 2, is currently being developed for the US-based crew transport to and from the space station, the company said.

For this mission, Dragon was filled with over 2,900 kilograms of supplies and payloads, including critical materials to directly support dozens of the more than 250 science and research investigations that will occur during the next six months.

Im happy to say 75 per cent of that total mass is headed toward our research community, Dan Hartman, deputy manager of NASAs space station programme, said.

In addition, the cargo included a Hewlett Packard Enterprise supercomputer, which is part of a year-long experiment to test how a system like this would operate in deep space for about a year, which is roughly the length of time needed to travel to Mars.

If everything goes well, the Dragon spacecraft will arrive at the space station on Wednesday, where it is expected to stay for about one month.

Then, in mid-September, the spacecraft will return to Earth with results of earlier experiments, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California.
China has responded positively to an appeal by Nepal for immediate resumption of the Araniko Highway  the main road that links Nepal with Tibet and China  and, during talks between top Nepali leaders and visiting Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang, Beijing has also agreed in principle to upgrade the trade highway.

China has also announced a donation of $1 million as emergency fund to tackle the damage wrought by the recent floods in Nepal, the Kathmandu Post reported.

The Araniko Highway was hit badly in the 2015 earthquake and was also affected by landslides, leading to China closing down the route.

The road is of crucial importance to Nepal as it carries a very large amount of goods from China.

In March this year, China handed over the Araniko Highway to Nepal after completing repairs.

The 114-km highway from Kathmandu to Tatopani in Sindhupalchok district was damaged at five different places in the 2015 earthquakes, disrupting vehicular movement. The highway was repaired with Chinese grant assistance of Rs.760 million.

Chinese construction company China Railway Sisuju Group Corporation had repaired the damaged sections of the highway.

The Araniko Highway was constructed in 1960 with Chinese grant assistance. Nepal joined Chinas Belt Road Initiative (BRI) in May, and the Chinese have voiced interest in building a railway network up to Kathmandu.

Chinese Vice Premier Wang made the announcement of the flood aid during the Nepal-China Deputy Prime Minister-level meeting here on Tuesday. Deputy Prime Minister Bijay Kumar Gachhadar represented Nepal at the bilateral meeting.

The two countries have sealed three important agreements with long term impact on Nepals socio-economic development.

The agreements were reached on three different domains  Economic and Technological Cooperation, China-Aid Oil and Gas Resources Survey Project and Framework Agreement on Promotion of Investment and Economic Cooperation, the Kathmandu Post reported.

The agreements were inked in the presence of Wang, Deputy Prime Minister Gachhadar, DPM and Foreign Minister Krishna Bahadur Mahara, and Chinese Ambassador to Nepal Yu Hong.

Speaking to the Rastriya Samachar Samiti national news agency, Finance Secretary Shanta Raj Subedi said the agreements reached with China would make significant contributions in the countrys socio-economic transformation.

The agreements straddle a wide range of projects including a feasibility study on natural gas and petroleum products in Nepals mountainous, hilly and the plains of Terai region including its survey and excavation. The two countries have reached agreements on establishment of hydro power projects and transmission lines and necessary steps for the economic and technological development.

China has responded positively towards an appeal made by the Nepal Government on immediate resumption of the Araniko Highway  an old route connecting the two countries  following an obstruction in the aftermath of the earthquake. China has also agreed in principle to upgrade the highway, the Kathmandu Post said.

Though the meeting also discussed matters relating to the construction of physical infrastructure projects such as bridge construction at Timure (on the border with China) of Rasuwa and the Kerung (on the border)-Kathmandu-Lumbini Railway, no concrete decision was taken.

The Chinese side is positive over the matter, but extensive talks and discussions are essential as a single round of talks is not enough to finalise all issues. They (the Chinese side) are positive towards our priorities of national development, Secretary Subedi added.

Deputy Prime Minister Gachhadar hosted a luncheon in honour of the Chinese delegation on Tuesday. Members of the Council of Ministers and other government secretaries also attended the meeting.
Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain met visiting Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang here on Monday and held discussions on consolidating the friendly ties between the two countries.

Hussain extended gratitude to China for sending a delegation to attend the 70th anniversary celebrations of the independence of Pakistan.

Pakistan and China are iron friends, he said, noting that Pakistans friendship with China forms the foundation of Pakistans foreign policy.

Hussain said Pakistan will continue to firmly support China on issues concerning Chinas core interests, and enhance cooperation with China on international and regional affairs.

The Pakistani President also pledged that Pakistan will actively join the Belt and Road Initiative and promote the construction of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

Wang, for his part, said the relationship between China and Pakistan has maintained sound and stable development and become a model of country-to-country relations since they forged diplomatic ties 66 years ago.

China is ready to make joint efforts with Pakistan to implement the important consensus reached between the leaders of the two countries, continue to deepen strategic mutual trust, and understand and support each other on issues concerning each others core interests, Wang said.

The Chinese Vice Premier also mentioned boosting cooperation with Pakistan on counter-terrorism, security, and promoting people-to-people exchanges.

He said the two sides should further enrich the connotation of the China-Pakistan all-weather strategic cooperative partnership and pass the friendship from generation to generation.

On Sunday, Wang met Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on deepening pragmatic cooperation between the two countries in various fields.

Proposed by China in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative refers to the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.


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The last days of the Newfie Pride

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US President Donald Trump directed the US Trade Representative (USTR) Robert Lighthizer to examine China's intellectual property practices, despite worries about potential harm to China-US trade ties.

"Ambassador Lighthizer, you are empowered to consider all available options at your disposal," Xinhua news agency quoted Trump as saying at the White House before signing an executive memorandum authorising Lighthizer to examine the issue.

The USTR will determine "whether to investigate any of China's laws, policies, practices or actions" that "may be harming American intellectual property rights, innovation or technology development" under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, according to the memorandum.

If Lighthizer decides to go ahead with an investigation, the US would first consult with China and the investigation process could take as long as a year, senior administration officials told reporters.

"This will be one of USTR's highest priorities, and we will report back to the President as soon as possible," Lighthizer said on Monday.

While it's not clear whether or when Lighthizer would launch Section 301 investigation into alleged China's IP practices, the move has raised grave concerns about potential bigger trade conflict between the two largest economies of the world.

China's Ministry of Commerce on Tuesday expressed "grave concerns" about the memorandum.

"We hope the US trade representative respects facts and acts with prudence," a ministry statement said.

If the US side fails to respect basic facts and multilateral trade rules, and takes measures that harm bilateral economic and trade relations, "China will definitely not sit by, but take all appropriate measures to resolutely safeguard its legitimate rights and interests", it said.

China has urged the US to objectively evaluate Beijing's progress in protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) and resolve the differences with China through dialogue and consultation.

"With the increasingly interwoven interests between China and the US, a trade war will lead nowhere and neither side will win," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said on Monday.

China has always attached importance to protecting IPR by formulating laws and regulations, cracking down on violations and raising public awareness of IPR, Hua said.

Section 301, once heavily used in the 1980s and the early 1990s, allows Trump to unilaterally impose tariffs or other trade restrictions against foreign countries. But the US has rarely used the trade tool since the WTO came into being in 1995.






The Afghan Taliban has sent an "open letter" to US President Donald Trump, calling on the United States to leave Kabul rather than increase the number of troops to end America's longest war of 17 years in Afghanistan.

Through a letter, Taliban militants has urged Trump to interact with Afghans "generously" instead of imposing war, study the "historical mistakes" of his predecessors and withdraw troops from Afghanistan completely.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid has sent a copy of the letter to the media.

Mujahid advised Trump to avoid giving the responsibility of formulating US' Afghan policy to his military but rather, announce the immediate withdrawal of US forces and not an increase in troops as the Trump administration has planned.

Trump, frustrated that the US is losing war in Afghanistan, is now considering to replace Gen. John Nicholson, who has been commander of US forces in Afghanistan since March 2016. In February, Nicholson was the first to call the war a stalemate and said he needed a few thousand more troops to break it.

About 1,600 words long letter drew attention of US president, saying that pulling out of Afghanistan would "truly deliver American troops from harm's way" and bring about "an end to an inherited war."

Terming Afghanistan as 'a mess' that he took over from the previous administration, Trump said that his administration is getting close to a decision on an updated strategy for the war in Afghanistan.

US Defence Secretary James Mattis has indicated that Trump's new strategy for Afghanistan would have a regional context, including a Pakistan angle. The new Afghan strategy may include sending close to 5,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and also changing somewhat what the troops on the ground are doing right now".

The Afghan government was assessed by the US military to control or influence just 59.7 per cent of Afghanistan's 407 districts as of February 20, a nearly 11 percentage-point decrease from the same time in 2016, according to data released by the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, the Dawn reported.

US National Security Adviser Gen H.R. McMaster conveyed the stern message of Trump to Pakistan to change its 'paradoxical' policy of supporting the Taliban, Haqqani network and other militants who are causing the country great losses.

The US officials have often accused Pakistan of helping the militants, a charge Islamabad vehemently denies, but this marks the first time that the allegation has been attributed to President Trump.
A New York City police dog is recovering after falling through a ceiling during a raid last week.

According to police, the German shepherd named Timoshenko was injured while searching the attic of a Brooklyn home Thursday. Police say the K-9 led officers to several weapons that included an assault rifle, shotgun and semi-automatic pistol before falling through the ceiling of the Red Hook home.

Authorities say Timoshenko received seven stitches at a nearby animal hospital.

Police say 61-year-old Agron Haskaj was arrested on multiple weapons charges after the raid. It wasnt clear if Haskaj had an attorney.

Timoshenko is named after Officer Russel Timoshenko who died in the line of duty in 2007.

Last night / search warrant #K9 Timoshenko recovered these guns but also fell thru a ceiling. 7 stitches & hes recovering @ home #GoodBoy pic.twitter.com/KoE2ZPBgvE  NYPD Special Ops (@NYPDSpecialops) August 12, 2017

(AP)
President Donald Trump went home to Trump Tower on Monday for the first time since his inauguration, with a throng of chanting protesters awaiting  but never seeing  him.

Thousands of demonstrators roared shame, shame, shame and not my president! while watching for Trumps motorcade along Manhattans Fifth Avenue, but it ultimately approached from another direction. A far smaller crowd of Trump supporters also awaited him.

Onlookers who did see the motorcade greeted it with cellphone cameras and a few obscene gestures.

By the tower, some protesters carried signs with such messages as impeach and the White House is no place for white supremacy. Chants including love, not hate  thats what makes America great and New York hates you! echoed off the surrounding buildings. Nearby, an inflatable, rat-like caricature of Trump stood by The Plaza hotel.

Adam Vazquez had protested at Trump Tower on Election Night and said he returned because he felt the country had hit a pivotal point, particularly after the white supremacist rally that descended into violence Saturday in Charlottesville, Virginia. The Republican presidents initial condemnation of bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides spurred two days of pressure to specifically denounce white supremacist groups, which he did Monday.

It shows you that the president, in a time of crisis, could not step up, said Vazquez, a 26-year-old video and content producer. That is something we have to take note of, coming out tonight and showing that this is not OK.

Meanwhile, about two dozen Trump fans near The Plaza chanted God bless President Trump and carried American flags and signs with such sentiments as now is not the time for divisiveness.

We are here to show President Trump  that he has a lot of fans here, even in liberal New York City, even in Manhattan, said Ariel Kohane, a 46-year-old member of a group called Jews for Trump.

He said he supported the president because of his views on national security, immigration and fighting radical Islamists and crime, among other issues. The anti-Trump protesters, to him, are left-wing, liberal Communist snowflakes.

With supporters and anti-Trump demonstrators penned behind police barricades across the sidewalk, both sides yelled at each other, Go home!

A block south of Trump Tower, police officers with bullhorns confronted protesters pressing against and straining the barricades, telling the demonstrators to step back. Police said two people were arrested for disorderly conduct amid the protests but didnt say where or when.

Police stationed sand-filled sanitation trucks as barriers around Trumps signature skyscraper and layers of metal police barricades around the main entrance.

After Trump was elected, security around the tower ramped up dramatically, with barricades and checkpoints manned by scores of uniformed police officers. The security precautions have been lessened somewhat in Trumps absence but still have inconvenienced residents and business owners in the busy area, home to stores such as Tiffany and Louis Vuitton.

Trump, a native New Yorker, said Friday that he had stayed away since January because he realized the impact of the street closings and other aspects of a presidential visit.

I would love to go to my home in Trump Tower, but its very, very disruptive to do, he said.

And protesters, including City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, were not welcoming him.

Gabby Parra, a 17-year-old high school senior from Teaneck, New Jersey, said she did not have the proper words to describe her dislike for Trump. She said she feels the president dehumanizes minorities, noting that he launched his campaign by portraying Mexico as a source of rapists and murderers coming into the U.S.

The Rev. Jan Powell, a retired minister of the United Church of Christ, is troubled by Trump, too, and particularly resented his response to the violence in Virginia.

Still, she said, I pray for him every day. We are both human beings.

(A{)
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is putting together a proposal to charge motorists more for entering the most congested parts of Manhattan.

The proposal would impose congestion pricing, an idea increasingly popular around the globe that aims to discourage vehicular traffic in dense urban areas while also raising money for mass transit.

The Democratic governor hasnt released any details yet, but any congestion pricing plan will likely face big political challenges, especially from representatives of New York Citys outer boroughs and the suburbs. Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed his own congestion pricing plan several years ago, but it quickly fell apart under opposition in Albany.

Congestion pricing is an idea whose time has come, Cuomo said, according to The New York Times.

Cuomo told the paper that his administration is reviewing problems in the previous congestion pricing plan and working to make it acceptable to commuters from the suburbs and outer boroughs.

City and state officials are considering several approaches to fixing the citys beleaguered transit system, now beset by mounting delays, outages and other problems. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, has proposed a tax on the wealthiest New York City residents to raise money.

The mayor has pushed back when asked about congestion pricing, adding last week that these proposals to-date never had any political viability.

Ive never been in favor of those proposals because I havent seen one that I thought was fair particularly to folks in the outer boroughs, he said on Fox 5 television. I dont really see a scenario where that gets taken seriously.

Transit advocates say congestion pricing has been adopted elsewhere in the world, such as London. John Raskin, executive director of the Riders Alliance, an organization of city subway and bus riders, called congestion pricing a fair and sustainable way to raise billions of dollars for the system.

Gov. Cuomo is right that the politics of transit funding have shifted, Raskin said. Riding public transit has become such a miserable experience that New Yorkers are ready to embrace bold solutions, as long as we have faith they will really lead to safer, more reliable commutes.

(AP)
MBABANE  Du Van Developers allegedly wanted to be paid an extra E10.5 million for the SASCCO commercial building.



The construction company and government had allegedly agreed on E12.5 million. Du Van Developers is challenging the liquidation of Kwakitsi Investment as a subsidiary company of SASCCO. Kwakitsi investment is opposing the application stopping the final liquidation of the company.



According to Kwakitsi Investment Managing Director Grace Dludlu, she alleged that the cause of action between the parties involved failure to pay fees for the construction of the building in the Mbabane CBD behind the New Mall. The first respondent (Du Van Developers) wanted to be paid a disputed E12 693 646.68 capital plus a further disputed exorbitant interest of E10 510 836.04 incurred in seven years, alleged Dludlu.



Barely four months after the building was signed over to the Swaziland Government, the SASCCOs subsidiary company, Kwakitsi Investments, has filed an application against Du Van Developers, and liquidator Paul Mulindwa.

Kwakitsi Investments is seeking an order that the claim of Du Van Developers be deemed to have been settled at E12.5 million as full and final settlement as per the agreement it entered with government on April, 18 2017.

They are further seeking an order directing that the appeal that was filed by Du Van challenging the liquidation deemed to have been abandoned. In her founding affidavit, Dludlu alleged the latest move by the first respondent (Du Van Developers) was an afterthought as it accepted the offer.



Du Van is yet to respond to the new allegations. Dludlu alleged that the Director of Du Van Developers, Maurice Du Pont, wrote a proposal to Cabinet, pleading that the government buys or completes the building so that he could pay building fees that he had incurred. The third respondent (government), through cabinet, has not been advised of the u-turn made by Du Pont who approached the head of cabinet that he wishes to resile from the agreement that he signed for the E12.5 million as full and final settlement of his claim, Dludlu alleged.



SASCCO is the Swaziland Association of Savings and Credit Cooperative and it entered into an agreement with Du Van Developers (PTY) Limited in respect of the building, which has been lying idle since 2005.

According to the company (Kwakitsi Investments), they have the legal right to institute the action without the assistance of Mulindwa (liquidator) who is also the second respondent because both Mulindwa and Du Van Developers have settled the claim of the former by accepting payment of its claim as full and final settlement of the matter.
LOBAMBA  The Swaziland Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (SPTC) could within 14 days lose its monopoly in being the only backbone infrastructure (gateway) provider in the electronic communications industry.



This follows a motion that was passed by the House of Assembly calling upon the Minister of Information, Communication and Technology, Dumisani Ndlangamandla, to within 14 days bring an Amendment Bill on the Electronic Communications Act of 2013, particularly Section 53, which gives SPTC monopoly in the provision of backbone infrastructure.



The motion was moved by Mangcongco MP Patrick Motsa, who said all players in the communications industry must have a level playing field. He said in Swaziland, SPTC was the one in charge of the backbone infrastructure, which was not fair as it made the provision of services such as data and internet very expensive.



He said Swaziland was the second most expensive communications provider in Africa with the most expensive being South Sudan.

He said according to research, countries like Botswana were very cheap because in that country, a megabyte sold for about P1 500 (Pula). In Swaziland this cost is at a shocking E15 000, which makes it clear that communications will always be expensive in the country, said Motsa. He said the expensive cost was pushing away foreign direct investment as investors always chose other countries.



He was supported by Mhlume MP Sifiso Pitso Magagula who said other service providers must be allowed to go and purchase the infrastructure from other wholesalers instead of SPTC being the only entity that could provide such. They just mustnt be forced to go to SPTC, he said.



Meanwhile, Mayiwane MP Eric Matsebula said the country had been saved by the introduction of Swazi Mobile in the reduction of cellphone communications rate. Sisitwe ngumzala Swazi Mobile who brought in competition, said Matsebula referring to the new mobile company as a cousin.



Matsebula said it was critical that the Act was amended because the SPTC monopoly ensured that everything, including bank services became expensive because of this gateway.

These companies are forced to go to one place and that is why when we experience network blackouts, the whole country is in trouble, he said.


Limkokwing student, Sambulo Mabuza who was allegedly murdered by colleagues. (Courtesy Pic)

MANZINI  While two Limkokwing University of Creative Technology students were buried this weekend, another family was viewing the body of a scholar from the same institution, who was allegedly murdered.



The family of Sambulo Mabuza (27), a Multi-Media first year student, is adamant that he was murdered by a colleague from the same university, as he had revealed on the day he left home that he would be meeting with the fellow student regarding a debt of E500 allegedly owed to him.

Sambulos body was retrieved from a dam a week after he had gone missing.

Suspicions are to the effect that he was assaulted before he died as his family claims that his face was completely disfigured.



He had told his girlfriend, whom he was with on the day, that there were people who were harassing him over some allowance money they owed him. Since the university is currently closed, the girlfriend had visited him at home in Gege. When he took the girlfriend to the bus station, the same people continued calling him and issuing threats. Sambulo then told his lover that he would be meeting them on the day and indeed he did, Sambulos brother, Sibusiso Dlamini, a nurse at the TB National Hospital, alleged.



Dlamini added that after the girlfriend had left him on Saturday July 29, Sambulo kept on calling the family and allegedly gave them orders on which cow to slaughter during his funeral service as he had suspicions that the people who owed him money would kill him.

Indeed he was spotted hanging with the same students and having alcoholic beverages in a bar in Nhlangano on the same Saturday night. What happened after the meeting remains a mystery. However, we do know if he ended up with the said students because when one family member called him, he said he was having drinks with them at the popular bar, Dlamini added.



After Sambulo failed to return home, the family became suspicious and decided to report the incident at Gege Police Station. It was gathered that he was reported as missing at the police station.

A week later, on August 5 (Saturday), while the family was still searching for him, they were led to a morgue in Nhlangano, where they identified Sambulos body.



Upon arrival at Nhlangano Police Station, we were informed that the body was retrieved by the police in a dam called KaNing, situated near the popular bar on the following day, which was a Sunday.


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By Naeisha Rose

City Councilman I. Daneek Miller (D-St. Albans) secured over $5 million for technology, 11 schools, parks and a hospital in the capital projects budget for 2018.

He also allocated money for health, security, fitness and auditoriums, as well as upgrades for three playgrounds, a hospital and two other organizations as well as the creation of a business workspace.

The capital budget covers investments in facilities and infrastructure from funds set aside by the city.

These capital projects will help ensure residents today and into the future will have the opportunities to enjoy the community we all had a hand in building, said Miller. Funding was allocated to a variety of projects to enhance services that are being delivered, enabling families to enjoy the many cultural and recreational activities we have, stay healthy, and give our young scholars the skills they need for the 21st century.

The Greater Jamaica Development Corporation, a group responsible for finding ways to enhance Jamaica, will receive $300,000 for a business co-working space, according to Miller.

Investments by our elected leaders, like Council member Miller, are attracting private investment to Jamaica, development activity and jobs, which has increased the number of visitors to the area, said Hope Knight, president and CEO of the Greater Jamaica Development Corporation.

Conlon Lifhe Towers, a NYCHA apartment complex, will receive $220,000, according to the District 27 councilman.

Queens General Hospital will receive $600,000 for an Intervention Radiology Suite, according to Miller.

The new capabilities will enable surgeons at NYC Health + Hospitals/Queens to perform minimally invasive, targeted treatments using imaging guidance, said Chris Roker, CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals/Queens.

Interventional Radiology procedures offer less risk, less pain, and less trauma for the patient.

Haggerty, Cambria, Montbellier and Wayanda Parks will receive $400,000 in fitness equipment, according to Miller.

His dedication and commitment to the quality of life in our community is beyond reproach, said Jacqueline Boyce, the executive director of the Southern Queens Park Association.

Wayanda Park and PS 136 will receive playground upgrades. PS 136 and IS 8 will receive auditorium upgrades. PS 268 will have its first ever playground. PS 268 and IS 59 will both have gym upgrades. IS 59 will also have cafeteria renovations. This adds up to $1.46 million, according to Miller.

There will be new technology, and tech upgrades for PS 811, PS 82, PS134, and Riverton Charter School totaling $510,000. Humanities and the Arts High School will receive $105,000 in laptop carts. The PA system at PS 37 will receive a $250,000 facelift. PS 268s dance studio upgrade will cost $35,000. PS 268 will receive $200,000 in touch screen computers and a lab. Both IS 238 and PS 268 will receive security cameras and the intermediary school will also receive laptops, this totals $225,000.

We are happily anticipating the installation of security cameras in strategic areas of the school, said the principal of PS/IS 268 Lisa Grant Stewart. A wooden spring-floor for our dance studio will allow our students to safely twirl and leap as they express their creativity. The gym upgrade will enhance our commitment to health and fitness. Additionally, the new computer lab will allow students opportunities to learn Coding, Robotics, and more,

The most expensive single item on the budget was a $1 million fitness room expansion at Roy Wilkins Park, according to Miller.

Much thanks and appreciation goes to Councilman I. Daneek Miller for his support and allocation of capital funds for the upkeep and beautification of the SQPA/Roy Wilkins Park, Boyce said.
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By Bill Parry

Immigration organizations joined U.S. Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-Jackson Heights) in denouncing President Donald Trumps endorsement of an immigration plan that would drastically limit opportunities for immigrants to come to the United States legally.

The GOP legislation, known as the Reforming Immigration for a Strong Economy Act, would reduce the number of people who receive legal permanent residence by 50 percent over the next decade and move the United States to a merit-based immigration system where education and English proficiency would be considered.

As a candidate, I campaigned on creating a merit-based immigration system that protects U.S. workers and taxpayers, and thats why we are here today, President Trump said last week. He claimed the measures would reduce poverty, increase wages, and save taxpayers billions of dollars.

The legislation faces an uphill battle in the Senate, where it will need 60 votes to pass.

Crowley, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, agreed the immigration system needs to be fixed, but it must be done through comprehensive reform.

This so-called merit-based proposal from congressional Republicans and President Trump falls far short of that goal, Crowley said. It will shut out immigrants who are seeking a better life in America, without considering their history, their familial ties to the U.S., or their potential to contribute to the nation. This is nothing short of an anti-immigrant and anti-family proposal from the GOP. I will work hard to ensure it is dead on arrival.

The New York Immigration Coalition, an umbrella policy and advocacy organization for nearly 200 groups in New York state that work with immigrants and refugees, agreed with Crowley.

Trumps plan to slash legal immigration is just another senseless attack on our countrys values, the coalitions executive director, Steven Choi, said. Trump doesnt get that immigrants are good for America  good for our economy, our families and our communities  and this plan is just a mean-spirited fallback to vitriol and division. Americans will not be richer or safer if we stifle the labor force and drive families apart. This is not who we are as a nation, and we will continue to fight back against the Trump administrations self-defeating agenda.

The New York-based Hispanic Federation, one of the nations largest organizations supporting the Latino community, called the legislation a targeted, callous and foolish plan to curtail immigration to the United States.

The RAISE Act is nothing more than a return to the failed and cruel quota system of the early 20th century when anti-immigrant leaders in Congress closed our country off to immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. Then, as now, the sponsors of this shameless piece of nationalist legislation framed their plan as an attempt to stabilize the American economy and promote assimilation, the federation said in a statement. The RAISE Act is an extremist proposal that will keep families apart, punish the poor, and hurt the American economy by denying businesses access to essential workers. The United States must reform its immigration system, not destroy it.
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Mayor Bill de Blasio and state Assemblyman Francisco Moya (D-Jackson Heights) marched together during the Ecuadorian Day Parade Sunday along Northern Boulevard in Jackson Heights. Before the parade stepped off, de Blasio and Moya formally endorsed each other at the Antioch Baptist Church in Corona, citing their shared support of protecting immigrants, building affordable housing and fighting for progressive causes.

De Blasios main challenger is a Staten Island Republican and Moya has tossed his hat into the ring for a City Council seat.

Francisco Moya has spent years fighting for this community in the state Legislature. He has proven time and again his commitment to ensuring that every family has the tools they need to succeed, by working to expand access to affordable housing, supporting our public schools, and reforming our criminal justice system, de Blasio said. This is the kind of leadership that we deserve to have in the City Council and with Francisco Moya as our next Council member for the 21st District, we will have a true champion in city government.

The Mayor will face a challenge by presumptive-Republican nominee state Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis of Staten Island. She made a brief appearance earlier at the Ecuadorian Day Parade before leaving for Manhattan to march in the Pakistan Day Parade.

Our city has been fortunate to have Mayor Bill de Blasio at the helm these last four years, Moya said. I am honored to receive Mayor de Blasios endorsement of my City Council candidacy and I am equally honored and excited to endorse him in his own re-election campaign.

Moya will face Hiram Monserrate, a former state senator and City Council member, in the Sept. 12 Democratic primary in a race to replace retiring City Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras-Copeland (D-East Elmhurst). Monserrate dismissed Sundays dual endorsement.

I predict the mayors seal of approval on Moya wont affect the election mainly because Moya is a puppet of the political insiders and the real estate developers and the community already knows about him, Monserrate said.

Safe streets advocate Cristina Furlong and former City Hall staffer Erycka Montoya were removed from the ballot after Moyas campaign challenged their petition signatures. Both had hearings Tuesday at Queens Civil Court but failed to get the city Board of Elections decision overturned.

Its sad that Moya needs to kick off the only two women in this race in order to feel like he has a chance to win, Monserrate said. I was very supportive of both Montoya and Furlong getting on the ballot. Both deserved the opportunity to run. Its just sad.

Montoya said her experience caused a roller coaster of emotions and she was exploring ways to get back on the ballot. Furlong said the two women might revive their grass-roots campaigns as Independents.

It would be difficult because we would have to get all new signatures by Aug. 22, Furlong said. What is disappointing is I was really feeling like I was gaining some traction. I dont want to give up, but you have to consider whats feasible.
Dozens held signs and waved Guam\s flag during a rally for peace in the U.S. territory.

Monday\s demonstration came days after North Korea threatened to fire four intermediate-range missiles into the ocean near Guam. The protest also followed a week of heated exchanges between Pyongyang and Washington.

Participants chanted "Peace, not war, that\s what our island is for." Demonstrators sang Guam\s hymn and blew kulo or shell trumpets.

Melvin Won Pat-Borja says many people in the community are frustrated, scared and worried. The 35-year-old says it\s not a good feeling to have your life threatened.

Last week President Donald Trump declared the U.S. military "locked and loaded" and said he was ready to unleash "fire and fury" if North Korea continued to threaten the United States.

SOURCE: AP
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Monday ordered his armed forces to carry out a national exercise next week in reaction to a threat of possible US military action voiced by President Donald Trump.

"I have given the order to the armed forces\ joint chiefs of staff to start preparations for a national civil-military exercise for the integrated armed defense of the Venezuelan nation," he told thousands of supporters in a Caracas rally.

The drill was to take place August 26 and 27.

Maduro\s government has seized on Trump\s warning last Friday that he was looking at a range of scenarios against Venezuela, "including a possible military option if necessary."

The Maduro administration says Trump\s move bolsters its oft-repeated claim that Washington has designs to grab control of Venezuela\s proven oil reserves, the largest in the world.

Trump\s threat, in response to Venezuela\s deepening economic crisis and Maduro\s moves toward what the US labels a "dictatorship," was rebuffed by all of Latin America  even countries opposed to Venezuela.

The US Defense Department said Monday it had received no orders from Trump to ready any sort of military action against Venezuela.

US Vice President Mike Pence, who is touring allies in Latin America to marshall joint action against Caracas, said he hoped a "peaceable solution" would be found.

SOURCE: AFP
At least 312 people were killed and more than 2,000 left homeless on Monday when heavy flooding hit Sierra Leone\s capital of Freetown, leaving excavators to pull bodies from rubble and overwhelming the city\s morgues.

An AFP journalist saw several homes submerged in Regent village, a hilltop community, and corpses floating in the water in the Lumley West area of the city, as the government held an emergency meeting to plan its response to one of the worst natural disasters ever to hit the city.

Red Cross spokesman Patrick Massaquoi told AFP the death toll was 312 but could rise further as his team continued to survey disaster areas in Freetown and tally the number of dead.

Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries in the world, according to UN indicators.

"I counted over 300 bodies and more are coming," Mohamed Sinneh, a morgue technician at Freetown\s Connaught Hospital, told AFP, having earlier described an "overwhelming number of dead" at the facility leaving no space to lay out every body.

Many more of the dead were taken to private morgues, Sinneh said.

Sierra Leone\s military, police and Red Cross volunteers were meanwhile deployed in an all out effort to locate and rescue citizens trapped in their homes or under rubble.

Images obtained by AFP showed ferocious, churning dark-orange mud coursing down a steep street in the capital, while videos posted by local residents showed people waist- or chest-deep in water trying to cross the road.

The Sierra Leone meteorological department did not issue any warning ahead of the torrential rains to hasten evacuation from the disaster zones, AFP\s correspondent based in Freetown said.

Fatmata Sesay, who lives on the hilltop area of Juba, said she, her three children and husband were awoken at 4:30 am by rain pounding on the mud house they occupy, which was by then submerged by water.

"I only managed to escape by climbing to the roof of the house when neighbours came in to rescue me," she said.

"We have lost everything and we do not have a place to sleep," she told AFP in tears.

Deputy Information Minister Cornelius Deveaux confirmed President Ernest Bai Koroma had called a national emergency, and said his own boss, Information Minister Mohamed Bangura, was in hospital after being injured in the flooding.

Deveaux said "hundreds" of people had lost their lives and had properties damaged, and promised food and other assistance for the victims.

He called on the public to remain calm with rescue efforts underway.

The scale of the human cost of the floods was only becoming clear on Monday afternoon, as images of battered corpses piled on top of each other circulated and residents spoke of their struggles to cope with the destruction and find their loved ones.

Meanwhile disaster management official Vandy Rogers said that "over 2,000 people are homeless," hinting at the huge humanitarian effort that will be required to deal with the fallout of the flooding in one of Africa\s poorest nations.

Freetown, an overcrowded coastal city of 1.2 million, is hit each year by flooding during several months of rain that destroys makeshift settlements and raises the risk of waterborne diseases such as cholera.

Sasha Ekanayake, Save the Children\s Sierra Leone Country Director, said the immediate priority was to provide shelter and protect residents, especially children, from the spread of deadly waterborne diseases.

"We are still in the rainy season and must be prepared to respond in the event of further emergencies to come," she said in a statement.

Flooding in the capital in 2015 killed 10 people and left thousands homeless.

Sierra Leone was one of the west African nations hit by an outbreak of the Ebola virus in 2014 that left more than 4,000 people dead in the country, and it has struggled to revive its economy since the crisis.

About 60 percent of people in Sierra Leone live below the national poverty line, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The country ranked 179th out of 188 countries on the UNDP\s 2016 Human Development Index, a basket of data combining life expectancy, education and income and other factors.
At least 175 people have died and thousands have fled their homes as monsoon floods swept across Nepal, India and Bangladesh, officials said Monday, warning the toll could rise as the extent of the damage becomes clear.

Three days of relentless downpours sparked flash floods and landslides that have killed at least 80 people in Nepal, 73 across northern and eastern India and 22 in Bangladesh.

Around 200,000 people are living in emergency camps in Assam in northeast India, which suffers frequent flooding during the annual monsoon rains.

Another 15,000 have had to leave their homes in the eastern state of Bihar, which borders Nepal and where one official said seven rivers were at danger levels.

Large parts of the state were submerged in 2008 when a river burst its banks across the border in Nepal, with the two countries trading blame for the disaster.

All trains to the northeast have been suspended until Wednesday, with sections of the track completely submerged in water, Indian railway spokesman Anil Saxena told AFP.

In Nepal, ariel photos taken by an AFP photographer showed huge swathes of land in the southeast still underwater Monday afternoon.

Police said over 48,000 homes have been totally submerged by the floods across Nepal\s southern planes.

As emergency workers struggled to reach far-flung areas, the country\s home ministry said another 36 people were missing, presumed dead, revising down an earlier count after more bodies were found.

The Nepal Red Cross warned that shortages of safe drinking water and food could create a humanitarian crisis in the impoverished Himalayan country.

"In many parts of the country there is a scarcity of safe drinking water creating a high risk of health hazards," spokesman Dibya Raj Poudel told AFP.

"Several villages and settlements are unreachable. Telecommunications, mobile phones are still not working so it is difficult to give a full assessment."

A local volunteer in Saptari district  one of the worst affected areas  said the water level was receding but many people were still stranded on higher ground.

"Water level has decreased a little bit but families still cannot return home. They are taking shelter in sheds. What people need now is clean drinking water and food," volunteer Dipak Kumar Yadav told AFP.

On the outskirts of Janakpur, in southeastern Nepal, local residents were sheltering in a local temple after the flood waters had totally destroyed their basic mud homes, though the water had mostly receded.

In India, emergency workers were scouring the area hit by a massive landslide that swept two passenger buses into a deep gorge on Sunday, killing at least 46 people in the mountainous northern state of Himachal Pradesh.

In the neighbouring state of Uttarakhand  which also borders Nepal  three people were killed in a landslide late Sunday triggered by heavy rains, local police official Ajay Joshi told AFP.

Bangladesh deployed troops to shore up embankments in the north of the country, where flooding has killed 22 people.

Local government administrator Kazi Hasan Ahmed told AFP up to 700,000 people had been marooned by flood waters after rivers burst their banks following days of heavy rain.

"We\ve not seen such severe floods in Dinajpur since 1988," he said, referring to the worst-hit district.

"The town protection embankment was washed away by flood water, submerging most of the main town."

The government\s Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre warned that water levels in some major rivers would continue to rise over the next 72 hours, raising fears the flooding could spread.

In Nepal, the worst of the flooding was in the southern lowlands known as the Terai, the country\s most fertile region and home to much of its agriculture.

"We are getting reports that about 70 percent of agriculture area in the Tarai is inundated," said Shankar Sapkota, senior agricultural economist with the government.

"Paddy fields, vegetable plantation and fish farms have been affected but right now we cannot confirm the extent of damage."

Nearly 150 people have been killed in Nepal since the beginning of the rainy season in late June.

The rains are now expected to shift westwards and authorities in Nepal have begun evacuating 74,000 people from a vulnerable western district.

Hundreds have died in torrential rain, floods and landslides in neighbouring India during the monsoon, which hits the country\s southern tip in early June and sweeps across the nation, lasting into September.

SOURCE: AFP
Suspected Islamist militants killed at least 18 people and wounded several during a raid on a restaurant in Burkina Faso\s capital overnight, but security forces shot dead both attackers and freed people trapped inside the building.

"This is a terrorist attack," Communications Minister Remi Dandjinou told a news conference on Monday.

Burkina Faso, like other countries in West Africa, has been targeted sporadically by jihadist groups. Most attacks have been along its remote northern border with Mali, which has seen activity by Islamist militants for more than a decade.

A Reuters witness saw customers running out of the Aziz Istanbul restaurant in central Ouagadougou as police and paramilitary gendarmerie surrounded it, amid gunfire.

Canada\s Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said two Canadians were among the dead and French Foreign Affairs minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said a French citizen was killed.

Lebanon\s interior ministry said three Lebananese died, including one who was also a Canadian national.

Earlier, Burkina Faso Foreign Affairs Minister Alpha Barry said at a news conference that seven Burkinabes, two Kuwaitis, a Nigerian, a Senegalese and a Turk were also among at least 18 killed.

French President Emmanuel Macron discussed the situation with Burkina Faso President Roch Marc Kabore, his office said, including the role of a new multinational military force aimed at fighting Islamist militants across the vast Sahel region of Africa.

A woman said she was in the restaurant celebrating her brother\s birthday when the shooting started.

"I just ran but my brother was left inside," she told Reuters TV as she fled the building.

For many it was a grim echo of a similar attack on a restaurant and hotel in Ouagadougou in January 2016 in which 30 people were killed. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) claimed responsibility.

AQIM and related Islamist groups were largely confined to the Sahara desert until they hijacked a rebellion by ethnic Tuareg separatists in Mali in 2012, and then swept south.

French forces intervened the following year to prevent them taking Mali\s capital, Bamako, but they have since gradually expanded their reach across the region, launching high-profile attacks in Bamako, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast, as well as much more frequent, smaller attacks on military targets.

Gunmen attacked a U.N. peacekeeping base in Mali\s northern city of Timbuktu on Monday, the peacekeeping mission said, adding that it had deployed a rapid response force with helicopters to the scene.

In another incident on Monday, armed men opened fire on U.N. peacekeepers and Malian troops in Douentza, central Mali, killing a Malian soldier and wounding two Togolese peacekeepers, army spokesman Diarran Kone said by telephone.

A new al Qaeda-linked alliance of Malian jihadist groups claimed an attack in June that killed at least five people at a luxury Mali resort popular with Western expatriates just outside Bamako.

"I am speechless," Abdoulaye Bance said on a street near the Ouagadougou restaurant, where shops and banks were shuttered up and traffic light.

"It is not the first time this is happening in our country. There are many victims. There is a feeling of despair."

African nations launched a new multinational military force last month to tackle Islamist militants in the Sahel region, a huge band of territory that fringes the Sahara desert and stretches right across North Africa. However, the force will not be operational until later this year and currently faces a budget shortfall.

Macron\s office said he and Kabore agreed it was "imperative" to speed up the force\s implementation.

"They will have further contact with each other in the coming days, as well as with other regional heads of state over the progress of this plan," it said in a statement.

Some observers see the initiative by Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad as forming the basis of an eventual exit strategy for around 4,000 French troops now deployed to the volatile region. But Macron said Paris had no plans to withdraw them.

SOURCE: REUTERS
Bridgewater looks to become a regional nightlife hub in western PA

Bridgewater bars offer patrons a nightlife experience that is unique from any other in western Pennsylvania
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ALBANY  Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday he will push to add inciting to riot and rioting that targets a protected class of people to the state hate crimes statute, a response to violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend.

Dubbed the Charlottesville Provisions, penalties for rioting and inciting to riot would be increased. Rioting under the hate crimes law would come with stiffer felony penalties, while inciting to riot under the hate crimes law would become a felony (up from a misdemeanor).

Hate crimes statute protects those who are targeted because of a perception or belief about their race, color, national origin, ancestry, gender, religion, religious practice, age, disability or sexual orientation.

Cuomo also called on legislators to extend human rights law protections to public school students so that the state Division of Human Rights would be able to investigate bullying, harassment or other discrimination by public school students.

A 2012 state Court of Appeals decision found that public schools are not covered under the definitions in human rights law that gives the state the ability to investigate such incidents.

"The ugly events that took place in Charlottesville must never be repeated, and in New York we're going to stand united against hate in all of its forms," Cuomo said in a statement. "Our diversity is our strength and this legislation will help protect New Yorkers and send a clear signal that violence and discrimination have no place in our society. New York is one community and one family, and we will never stop fighting to ensure the safety and equal treatment of all New Yorkers."

Lawmakers are not set to return to the Capitol to act on legislation until January.

Since the weekend, Cuomo has been responding to the events in Charlottesville through different methods.

On Monday, he signed legislation that adds community centers to the list of public places where people who commit certain crimes, including making a false bomb threat, can face stiffer penalties. Originally crafted in response to bomb threats made to Jewish Community Centers in New York and elsewhere in the country, Cuomo said the Charlottesville violence demonstrated a need to stand against bias and hate.

On Sunday, he circulated a petition calling on President Donald Trump to "clearly and unequivocally condemn and denounce the violent protest organized by the white supremacists and neo-Nazis, including Richard Spencer and Jason Kessler, with support from David Duke."

"President Trump must immediately call this for what it is  no cover, no euphemisms," the petition states. "This was a terror attack by white supremacists."

Trump said Monday that those who acted criminally "in this weekend's racist violence" will be held accountable. In remarks at the White House, he singled out the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and others who "are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans."

mhamilton@timesunion.com  518-454-5449  @matt_hamilton10
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ALBANY  Thirty-two years after 22-year-old University at Albany student Karen L. Wilson disappeared, the State Police are still searching for answers.

Wilson was last seen at 7:20 p.m. March 27, 1985, leaving the Tanning Hut at 1670 Central Ave. in Colonie. Investigators have not confirmed a possible sighting of Wilson later walking towards the college along Fuller Road.

Troopers launched an extensive foot, dog and helicopter search near Rensselaer Lake, also know as the Six Mile Waterworks, in the days after Wilson vanished but turned up no evidence.

Wilson was an unpaid, full-time intern for state Assemblyman Samuel Coleman and a UAlbany senior at the time of her disappearance.

No trace of her has ever been found, and the prevailing theory among Capital District police investigators is that the 22-year-old woman was abducted and murdered.

For Raymond and Jennie Wilson, the mysterious disappearance of their daughter resulted in endless days of heartache, anxiety and suffering.

"It's a thing that hangs over your life all the time," Jennie Wilson said in a 1992 telephone interview from her California home. "We don't think she's alive, but there is still the 'what if?' What if someone has her? The scary part is, there might never be an end to this."

Wilson is described as a 5-foot-3 white woman with brown eyes and light brown hair, weighing 114 pounds. She was last seen wearing a quarter-length cream-colored raincoat, faded blue jeans and blue backpack.

Anyone with information is asked to call State Police in Latham at 518-783-3211.
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Albany

Five scientists whose work helped develop the revolutionary gene-editing technology CRISPR will share the 2017 Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research.

The decision by the Albany Prize National Selection Committee to award the $500,000 prize to these researchers stands out from recent announcements of the prestigious award, which have acknowledged scientists for groundbreaking work leading to current medical advances. While developments using CRISPR have exploded this year, its use in humans remains a promise, but one with far-reaching effects.

"The committee saw this technology as having huge potential for eradicating human disease," said Dr. Vincent Verdile, dean of Albany Medical College and chair of the prize committee.

CRISPR (pronounced "crisper") stands for "clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats." It is a DNA sequence that simple bacteria use to defend themselves against viruses by snipping out part of the virus DNA so it can be recognized by the bacteria's own immune systems. The technology based on it lets scientists "edit" genes at specific locations by removing, adding or altering parts of the DNA sequence.

In the last year, CRISPR technology has been used to remove a gene linked to heart disease from human embryos and to create a cancer-killing gene that shrinks tumors in mice. Last week, scientists revealed in the journal Science that they had created piglets stripped of viruses that could cause disease in humans; the technique could open the door for eventual transplantation of livers, hearts and other organs from pigs to people.

The scientists who will share the Albany Prize are:

Emmanuelle Charpentier of the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Germany. Charpentier is co-inventor and co-owner of the intellectual property comprising the CRISPR gene-editing system, and co-founder of two companies developing the technology for biotech and biomedical applications.

Jennifer Doudna of the University of California, Berkeley. Five years ago, Doudna described a simple way of editing the DNA of any organism using an RNA-guided protein found in bacteria.

Luciano Marraffini of Rockefeller University in New York City. Marraffini discovered that CRISPR works by severing DNA and was the first to propose that it could be used to edit genes in organisms other than bacteria. With Feng Zhang, he performed the first successful CRISPR gene-editing experiment in human cells.

Francisco J.M. Mojica of the University of Alicante in Spain. Mojica's work has led to the development of tools used in the genetic manipulation of any living being, including humans.

Feng Zhang of the Broad Institute of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. Zhang pioneered the development of gene editing tools for use in human cells from bacterial CRISPR systems.

The Albany Prize Committee's selection of five scientists to share the award this year reflects an increasing trend in science toward collaboration, where information is shared and groups of researchers move knowledge forward in ways that no one of them could do alone, Verdile said. It's a major change since the days when a single scientist would be credited with, say, the discovery of a vaccine.

"That's more of where the future of biomedical research is going  what's good for the good of mankind, not me personally," Verdile said.

News reports in recent years have focused on the ethical aspects of CRISPR technology, which in addition to its potential to prevent devastating diseases, could also be used for cosmetic purposes or have unintended consequences that affect the descendants of the person whose genes are edited. The Albany Prize Committee did not consider such "what if" scenarios, Verdile said, leaving those conversations for future ethicists and policymakers as specific medical techniques are developed.

The Albany Prize, one of the nation's largest for science and medicine, was established in 2000 by the late Morris "Marty" Silverman, a New York City businessman and philanthropist who grew up in Troy. A commitment of $50 million from the Marty and Dorothy Silverman Foundation allows for the prize to be awarded annually for 100 years.

Albany Med released the 2017 award recipients' names Tuesday morning. The recipients will formally receive their awards at a Sept. 27 ceremony in Albany.

chughes@timesunion.com  518-454-5417  @hughesclaire
SCHENECTADY  A woman has pleaded guilty to welfare fraud carried out by concealing the fact that she lived with and was married to the father of her three children, according to state Inspector General Catherine Leahy Scott's office.

Victoria Bell (also known as Victoria Pacheco) of Eastern Parkway pleaded guilty Tuesday in Schenectady County Court to third-degree welfare fraud, a felony. The 36-year-old will be required to pay $51,709 in restitution for the food stamp and Medicaid benefits she improperly received. She is also expected to serve five years of probation and 75 hours of community service.
Washington

Rupert Murdoch has repeatedly urged President Donald Trump to fire him. Anthony Scaramucci, the president's former communications director, thrashed him on television as a white nationalist. Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser, refused to even say he could work with him.

For months, Trump has considered ousting Steve Bannon, the White House chief strategist and relentless nationalist who ran the Breitbart website and called it a "platform for the alt-right." Trump has now relegated Bannon to a kind of internal exile, and has not met face-to-face for more than a week with a man who was once a fixture in the Oval Office, according to aides and friends of the president.

So far, Trump has not been able to follow through  a product of his dislike of confrontation, the bonds of friendship forged during the 2016 presidential campaign and concerns about what mischief Bannon might do once he leaves the protective custody of the West Wing.

Despite his marginalization, Bannon consulted the president repeatedly over the weekend as Trump struggled to respond to the neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. In general, Bannon has cautioned the president not to criticize far-right activists too severely for fear of antagonizing a small but energetic part of his base.

But what once endeared him to the president has now become a major liability. After the president waited two days to blame white supremacists for the violence in Charlottesville, there is new pressure from Trump's critics to dismiss Bannon.

"I don't think the White House has a chance of functioning properly as long as there's a resident lunatic fringe," said Mark Salter, a longtime adviser to Sen. John McCain. At best, he said, Bannon seems willing to "tolerate something that's intolerable" in Trump's base.

Bannon also has several admirers, including Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C. and the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, who said that without Bannon, "there is a concern among conservatives that Washington, D.C., will influence the president in a way that moves him away from those voters that put him in the White House."

And Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa and an immigration hard-liner, said that shoving out Bannon would leave conservatives "crushed."

Washington

Rupert Murdoch has repeatedly urged President Donald Trump to fire him. Anthony Scaramucci, the president's former communications director, thrashed him on television as a white nationalist. Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser, refused to even say he could work with him.

For months, Trump has considered ousting Steve Bannon, the White House chief strategist and relentless nationalist who ran the Breitbart website and called it a "platform for the alt-right." Trump has now relegated Bannon to a kind of internal exile, and has not met face-to-face for more than a week with a man who was once a fixture in the Oval Office, according to aides and friends of the president.

So far, Trump has not been able to follow through  a product of his dislike of confrontation, the bonds of foxhole friendship forged during the 2016 presidential campaign and concerns about what mischief Bannon might do once he leaves the protective custody of the West Wing.

Not least, Bannon still embodies the defiant populism at the core of the president's agenda. Despite his marginalization, Bannon consulted the president repeatedly over the weekend as Trump struggled to respond to the neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. In general, Bannon has cautioned the president not to criticize far-right activists too severely for fear of antagonizing a small but energetic part of his base.

But what once endeared him to the president has now become a major liability. After the president waited two days to blame white supremacists for the violence in Charlottesville, there is new pressure from Trump's critics to dismiss Bannon.

"I don't think that White House has a chance of functioning properly as long as there's a resident lunatic fringe," said Mark Salter, a longtime adviser to Sen. John McCain. At best, he said, Bannon seems willing to "tolerate something that's intolerable" in Trump's base.

Bannon also has several admirers, including Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C. and the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, who said that without Bannon, "there is a concern among conservatives that Washington, D.C., will influence the president in way that moves him away from those voters that put him in the White House."

And Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa and an immigration hard-liner, said that shoving out Bannon would leave conservatives "crushed."

Bannon, who adamantly rejects claims that he is a racist or a sympathizer of white supremacists, is in trouble with John Kelly, a retired Marine general and the new White House chief of staff. Kelly has told Trump's top staff that he will not tolerate Bannon's shadowland machinations, according to a dozen current and former Trump aides and associates with knowledge of the situation.

Bannon's alleged crimes: Leaking nasty stories about McMaster and other colleagues he deems insufficiently populist, feuding bitterly with Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner and creating his own cadre within the West Wing that operates outside the chain of command.

One of his main sins in the eyes of the president is appearing to revel in the perception that he is the mastermind behind the rise of a pliable Trump. The president was deeply annoyed at a Time magazine cover article that described Bannon as the real power and brains behind the Trump throne. Trump was equally put off by a recent book, "Devil's Bargain," by the Bloomberg Businessweek writer Joshua Green, which lavished credit for Trump's election on Bannon.

Others say Bannon's continued presence in the White House is not serving the president's interests.

"He's got to move more into the mainstream, he's got to be more into where the moderates are and the independents are," said Scaramucci, referring to the president, in an interview Sunday on ABC's "This Week." "And so if he does that, he'll have a very successful legislative agenda that he'll be able to execute. And if he doesn't do that, you're going to see inertia and you're going to see this resistance from more of the establishment senators that he needs to curry favor with." Scaramucci is on friendly terms with Kushner.

Others say the problem is not Bannon's closeness to the far right, it is that he has not done enough for them.

"I do think he's in trouble, but it's trouble of his own making," said Roger J. Stone Jr., Trump's sometimes adviser, who has publicly criticized Bannon as ineffective. "I don't know why conservatives would be upset about him being fired. He has not delivered for them."

Top administration officials like to joke that working for Trump is like toiling in the court of Henry VIII. Mick Mulvaney, the president's budget director, recently handed out copies of the play "A Man for all Seasons," about the last years of Sir Thomas More, Henry's religiously zealous chancellor, who was executed for failing to fulfill his monarch's directive to get him a divorce from Anne Boleyn. Bannon read it, according to a person familiar with the situation, and was amused when an associate compared him to More.

From the start, Bannon, 63, has told people in his orbit that he never expected to last in his current position longer than eight months to a year, and hoped to ram through as much of his agenda as he could while he stood in the president's favor. More recently he has told friends that he is working in the White House one day at a time, and constantly asks himself whether he could better pursue his to-do list  including cracking down on legal and illegal immigration  on the outside.

Bannon's ability to hang on as Trump's in-house populist is, in part, because of his connections to a handful of ultrarich political patrons, including Sheldon Adelson, the pro-Israel, Las Vegas-based casino magnate.

He is especially close to the reclusive conservative billionaire Robert Mercer and his daughter, Rebekah, who is a frequent sounding board for Bannon. In April, Mercer received assurances from Trump that he was not about to fire Bannon over his war with Kushner and moderates like Gary Cohn, the chairman of the National Economic Council and a top Trump adviser.

But Trump still publicly flayed Bannon, insulting him as a guy "who works for me." It was a far cry from the lofty status Bannon enjoyed when he joined Trump's faltering campaign in August 2016, when as a rich former investment banker he enjoyed the status of a near-peer and hell-raiser who shared his candidate's daredevil approach to politics.

Still, Bannon is a survivor. He has been left for dead before. Trump is mercurial, and can easily change his mind.

This spring, as Kushner pressured Trump to fire Bannon, the president shot back at his son-in-law. He was not going to get rid of him, he said, just because Kushner wanted him to go.
Sept-Sorts, France

A man believed to be under the influence of drugs  and possibly suicidal  deliberately rammed his car into a pizzeria east of Paris on Monday night, killing an adolescent girl and injuring her younger brother and 12 others, authorities said.

The driver was immediately arrested in what was the latest of several attacks in France and elsewhere using a vehicle as a weapon. The local prosecutor said the man's actions in the attack in Sept-Sorts were clearly deliberate, but not terrorism-related.

The girl and her brother were among restaurant patrons eating on the outdoor terrace of Pizzeria Cesena when a man in a BMW accelerated toward them, an official with the national gendarme service told The Associated Press. Some officials said the girl was 13, while the prosecutor said she was 12.

The girl died immediately, and her brother's injuries were considered life-threatening, according to a gendarme official.

Deputy regional prosecutor Eric de Valroger said a 3-year-old boy was flown by helicopter to France's premier children's hospital in Paris and 12 other people were also hospitalized, four in serious condition.

Speaking to reporters near the attack site, de Valroger said he had opened a homicide investigation. At this stage, he said, "I rule out a terrorist motive."

He called it "highly probable" that the driver was under the influence of drugs and that he left the road and deliberately aimed his car at restaurant-goers. De Valroger identified the attacker as a 31-year-old from the nearby town of La Ferte-sous-Jouarre.

The suspect is believed to have tried to kill himself last week, French Interior Ministry Pierre-Henry Brandet said on BFM television. Brandet said the man was not known to intelligence or police.

Explosives experts combed the area and found no weapon other than the car itself, according to the prosecutor.

Witnesses were being given emergency counseling.

A police official said authorities were not searching for accomplices, and a security official said there was no evidence of a political or Islamic extremist motive.

The targeted pizzeria is in a shopping zone in the small town of Sept-Sorts, east of Paris near Champagne country. Police cordoned off a large area, and BFM reported that a nearby Chinese restaurant was requisitioned to take in victims and survivors.
There should be a renewed push to ensure the N24 road connecting Limerick to Waterford is upgraded to a motorway bypassing Tipperary town, according to Councillor Eddie OMeara.

The Fethard area based Councillor said its just as important to get the route upgraded from Tipperary town to Rosslare, as it is from Limerick to Tipperary town, due to the potential chaos emanating from Britains exit from the EU ( brexit ).

If you exit through Dublin port, youll have to go through the British zone, and back into the Eurozone, said Cllr OMeara. Whereas if you exit through Rosslare to Le Havre, Cherbourg, youre still within the Eurozone, so you have no customs. Its vitally important for exports, and common sense would say thats the way to go.

The motorway would bypass Tipperary town, currently struggling with heavy traffic and lorries in the town centre. Cllr OMeara also said food exports are the lifeblood of Tipperary, and, including such big names as ABP in Cahir, Glanbia, and Dawn Meats in Waterford, all lie along this route to Rosslare. There are reports that a ferry company operating out of Rosslare, is in the process of securing ownership of a superferry for a route to the Continent. It would have twice as many trucks, said Cllr OMeara.

There should be a joint meeting with colleagues in Piltown Municipal District, New Ross, and Wexford, to explore the possibility of a joint delegation to government concerning the route.

We (Tipperary Co. County) do meet with Piltdown regularly. It's now a question of coming together and upping the ante. To me, it's a no-brainer.

Cllr O'Meara said a Tipperary delegation has already made representations to the Minister for Transport Shane Ross regarding the N24 from Tipp town to Limerick, but there needs to be a second delegation concerning Tipperary to Rosslare.

There's a saving of 400m by going from Limerick to Cahir, rather than from Limerick to Cork. And another 400m would go a long way towards Waterford.

Cllr O'Meara said that route would open up access to the Mid-West and benefit everybody. It would be a massive construction project.
Port Houston Commission Renews Group Medical Insurance

The Port Commission of the Port of Houston Authority met in special session today to act on business matters, and approved the renewal of the Port Authority's 2018 group medical insurance coverage provided by Aetna Life Insurance Company.

The Port Commission is scheduled to next meet in regular session on Tuesday, September 26 at 9:00 a.m.

About Port Houston

For more than 100 years, Port Houston has owned and operated the public wharves and terminals of the Port of Houston - the nation's largest port for foreign waterorne tonnage and an essential economic engine for the Houston region, the state of Texas, and the nation. It supports the creation of nearly 1.175 million jobs in Texas and 2.7 million jobs nationwide, and economic activity totaling almost $265 billion in Texas - 16 percent of Texas' total gross domestic product - and more than $617 billion in economic impact across the nation. For more information, visit Port Houston's website at: www.porthouston.com.







View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170814006024/en/
[August 14, 2017] MRSI Systems Launches High Speed Die Bonder for Photonics High Volume Manufacturing

BILLERICA, Mass., Aug 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- MRSI Systems, a leading manufacturer of fully automated, ultra-precision, high speed die bonding and epoxy dispensing systems, is launching a new High Speed Die Bonder, MRSI-HVM3, to support our photonics customers' high volume manufacturing requirements. The MRSI-HVM3 is in full production and we are shipping to customers worldwide. Scaling Imperatives Our customers need to scale up manufacturing to unprecedented levels for advanced applications such as data center, telecommunication upgrades to 100G+, 5G wireless, IoT, and advanced optical sensors. Today, high volume manufacturing of photonic, sensor, and semiconductor devices demands a die bonding system that can deliver industry leading speed without sacrificing high precision and superior flexibility. Our new MRSI-HVM3, a high speed, flexible, 3 micron die bonder, has been built to address this challenge. This new system leverages a well-defined set of MRSI's core competencies, built up over 30 years, in the areas of system design, software development, machine vision, motion control, industrial automation, and process solutions. Customer Outcomes As Dr. Yi Qian, Vice President of Product Management, states, "The new MRSI-HVM3 incorporates the latest hardware and software innovations. Equipped with ultrafast-ramp eutectic stations, it deploys multiple levels of parallel processing utilizing dual gantries, dual heads, dual bonding stages, and "on-the-fly" tool changes. Used across all products, MRSI's platform software makes it easy for users to change process settings on their own for new parts, new processes, and new products. These features provide our customers with best-in-class throughput for capacity expansion; high accuray for high-density packaging; and unmatched flexibility for multi-chip multi-process production in one machine. Ultimately the system will generate great ROIs for customers. The MRSI-HVM3 high speed die bonder supports many applications including chip-on-carrier (CoC), chip-on-submount (CoS), and chip-on-baseplate or board (CoB)."



"MRSI Systems has been serving optoelectronic and microelectronic customers for the past 33 years and understands their requirement to scale efficiently in today's fast paced marketplace. MRSI is pleased to meet these needs with the launch of our new high speed die bonder for high volume manufacturing of photonics packaging," said Mr. Michael Chalsen, President, MRSI Systems. Private Demonstrations at CIOE

MRSI Systems is exhibiting at CIOE with our Chinese Representative CYCAD Century Science and Technology (Booth #1C66) in Shenzhen, September 6-9, 2017. There will be private demonstrations of the MRSI-HVM3 performing CoC eutectic and epoxy bonding. Please reach out to your MRSI contact to ensure you have an opportunity to see the capabilities of this exciting new product. About MRSI Systems MRSI Systems is a leading manufacturer of fully automated, high-precision, high-speed die bonding and epoxy dispensing systems. We enable customers to optimize the performance of their process including yield, throughput, and uptime by building systems that use our unique expertise. In summary, this includes our proprietary software, proven hardware, deep process knowledge, state-of-the-art manufacturing, and a world-class customer service team. MRSI's systems are built on common platforms that can be configured to meet specific customer requirements. These platforms are designed to be scalable for R&D prototyping, pilot production and high volume manufacturing. Our solutions deliver the best financial returns in the industry while integrating seamlessly into our customer's production. Markets include Telecom/Datacom (Data Center), Aerospace & Defense, Medical Devices, Computers and Peripherals, and Industrial. Since 1984, we have been recognized as the standard of the industry, delivering our solutions to leading optoelectronic and microelectronic customers worldwide. Our headquarters is located in Billerica, MA in the greater Boston area. Our sales are supported by a global network of direct service and support professionals, located in China, Taiwan, Singapore, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Israel, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United States.

For more information visit: www.mrsisystems.com. MRSI Systems Media Contact

+1 (978) 667-9449

[email protected] View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/mrsi-systems-launches-high-speed-die-bonder-for-photonics-high-volume-manufacturing-300504088.html SOURCE MRSI Systems

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Bird Marella Issues Notice of Filing

Bird, Marella, Boxer, Wolpert, Nessim, Drooks, Lincenberg & Rhow, P.C. today issued the following notice of filing:

Today the creator and four producers of the television series The Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead, and The Talking Dead filed suit in Los Angeles Superior Court against AMC Film Holdings and AMC Networks Inc., among other parties, alleging in part:

(1) Breach of Contract;

(2) Inducing Breach of Contract;

(3) Violation of Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code  17200; and

(4) Secondary Liability for Violation of Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code  17200

The Plaintifs in the California action and a to be filed New York action include Robert Kirkman, who created the Walking Dead comic books and acts as an executive producer for the television series, executive producer Gale Ann Hurd, executive producer David Alpert, and former executive producers Glen Mazzara and Charles Eglee.







The case is BC672124. The complaint can be accessed here: http://www.birdmarella.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Complaint.pdf.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170814006053/en/
[August 14, 2017] Global Radio Frequency Identification Devices (RFID) in Healthcare Market-Analysis and Forecast, (2017-2021)(Focus on Component, RFID Tags, Country Analysis, Application and Competitive Landscape)

LONDON, Aug. 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Description

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a wireless technology which aligns with radio frequency waves to track the tags attached to the objects and people. In healthcare, RFID technology helps in monitoring patient, real time tracking of assets, medication authentication, wait time monitoring, and hand washing, among others. The main reasons or factors driving the growth of RFID technology market in healthcare include price, capability and size.





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As the price of RFID technology is showing a constant downfall, its demand has been extensively increasing in healthcare (both private as well as government hospitals). RFID market in healthcare is projected to experience a remarkable growth in the next 5 years.



The report constitutes of an extensive study of RFID technology in the healthcare market. It includes a thorough analysis of different types of components using RFID technology in healthcare. RFID technology in healthcare market has further been segmented in terms of application, which helps in understanding the need of deploying RFID technology into different applications.



It further explains the driving factors, challenges and growth opportunities of RFID technology in the healthcare market. Major players have been identified on the basis of portfolio diversification related to RFID enabled technology, geographical presence and developments related to RFID technology in healthcare.



The market report presents a detailed and investigative study of the entire market and provides a comprehensive insight into various forms of developments, trends and key participants. While highlighting the key driving and restraining forces for this dynamic market, the report also provides a comprehensive section on competitive landscape, market share analysis, competitor benchmarking, and their positioning within the global RFID in the healthcare market.



A detailed section of company profiling has been incorporated in order to understand the players' strategic behavior. The RFID technology in healthcare market is further explained and analyzed on the basis of geography, which has been categorized into four regions namely: North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Rest of the World. Moreover, the country analysis has also been done in order to have a clear picture of RFID technology in the healthcare market. The growth rate of various countries has been calculated based on the country's frequency in adopting RFID technology in the healthcare market, ongoing developments in the regions by the government as well as the private entities.



The answers to the following key questions can be found in the report:

- What is the size, in terms of revenue, of RFID in Healthcare market in 2016, and growth rate during the forecast period, 2017-2021?

- What are different type of components for RFID products in Healthcare by respective manufacturers?

- What is the revenue generation of RFID in Healthcare being utilized by different end-use applications in 2016 and their growth prospects?

- How increase in a number of RFID Tags is affecting the growth of RFID in Healthcare market?

- What is the market size of RFID in Healthcare on the basis of different regions?

- What are the key trends and opportunities in RFID in Healthcare market, pertaining to countries included in different regions?

- How attractive is the market for different stakeholders present in the market by analyzing the futuristic scenario of RFID in Healthcare market?

- What are the major driving forces that tend to increase the demand for RFID technology in Healthcare during the forecast period?

- What are the ajor challenges inhibiting the growth of the global RFID in Healthcare market?







- What is the competitive strength of key players in the RFID in Healthcare market by analyzing through a market share analysis and competitive benchmarking model?

- Who are the key market players in the market, along with their detailed analysis & profiles?



Executive Summary

At present, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology in healthcare has a potential to create competitive advantage through automatizing and simplifying the collection of data.





It helps various hospitals to track assets accurately and real time monitoring of key indicators which further allows higher visibility in the healthcare operations. However, the benefits of RFID technology in healthcare depends largely on how well it integrates within a hospital's premises.



A decision of deployment of RFID technology is entirely a management decision which solely depends on cost-benefit analysis. Moreover, RFID technology needs to be economically beneficial in order to effectively function for long- term purposes.



RFID is an automated device technology which helps in storing as well retrieving data without even scanning the data source. Initially, RFID technology was majorly helpful to improve the supply chain process. However, it further extended its base into manufacturing, retailing, military, traffic management and healthcare among others. Majority of the companies across the globe have experienced exponential growth and possess the capability to further transform business productivity to an advanced level.



The factors driving the growth of RFID technology market in healthcare include price, capability and size. As the price of RFID technology is declining, its demand is extensively increasing across all the verticals including healthcare, retail, transportation and defence among others. However, even with such enormous growth, RFID technology in healthcare market is facing a number of challenges which include security and privacy concerns, large amount of initial installation costs and lack of skilled professionals.



The global healthcare RFID market is anticipated to reach $4.1 billion by 2021 growing at a CAGR of 21.64% during the forecast period between 2017-2021. The growth in RFID in healthcare market over the period 2017-2021 is expected to be primarily supplemented by factors such as increasing need of patient monitoring due to increasing geriatric population, advancement of product development and increasing support by government for adoption of RFID technology.



Furthermore, the future of RFID in healthcare market is expected to be favorable on account of impelling demand due to research and development activities being carried out in companies, expanding internet connectivity along with rising rate of mobile adoption.



At present RFID tags and RFID readers leading the components segment in RFID in healthcare. It is expected that RFID tags as well as RFID readers will going to be the forerunner in the forecast period as well. This is generally due to increase in the demand for advanced technology in healthcare across the globe and continuous declining prices of RFID tags.



Within application, currently inventory management is showing the largest share in the total revenue of RFID in healthcare. Similar pattern is expected to be maintained in the forecast period as well. The major reason behind this is due to the loss incurred by hospitals in terms of surgical assets misplacement. Moreover, it is expected that in future, number of patients is going to increase who ultimately needs proper medication and care.



The market is dominated by North America and Europe however, Asia-Pacific is expected to grow at the highest rate in the forecast period. The dominance of North American region is attributed to the increasing adoption of RFID based products due to features such as low power consumption and high efficiency. Within Asia-Pacific region, the rapid growth is on account of the support from Government in terms of tax exemptions, huge investment in R&D, rising spending on healthcare sector, along with support from private entities for the installation of RFID based technology in healthcare.



Furthermore, players in RFID in healthcare market have also invested considerably towards R&D for advancement of this market. Market Players such as IMPINJ and Tagsys RFID Group are expected to invest in millions in RFID technology in order to expand their market share. Other leading players such as Dolphin RFID Pvt. Ltd., and ThingMagic, Inc. have also set up separate divisions for R&D in RFID in healthcare to innovate their product offerings and compete with other leading players in the market.



Over the years, most of the well-known players are showing their interest in RFID technology in healthcare market. Players like GAO RFID, IMPINJ, CAEN RFID, STid RFID and Smartrac N.V., among others are investing in RFID technology in healthcare market to a large extent in order to improvise on their products as well as to capture a major market share.



Investments into developing economies like India , China and Japan , among others and monitoring of consumables are the major handful of opportunities that RFID technology in healthcare market is lined up with in the coming future.



Developed economies including U.S., Germany , France , and U.K., among others have initiated the process of incorporating RFID technology into their healthcare segment. Moreover, with the growing awareness towards health in developing economies ( Asia-Pacific ), various technological advancements have already been initiated in the healthcare which is further going to increase the demand for RFID technology in the healthcare sector.



Countries Covered

North America

U.S.

Canada

Europe

Germany

France

U.K.

Rest of Europe

APAC

China

India

Rest of APAC

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[August 15, 2017] Funding Societies Joins Prestigious IACPM and Welcomes Risk Expert Terry Tse to Board of Directors

SINGAPORE, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Funding Societies has become the first and the only peer-to-peer (P2P) lending company to attain membership at the International Association of Credit Portfolio Managers (IACPM), a prestigious forum for credit risk management. In addition, risk expert Terry Tse joins Funding Societies' Board of Directors. Mr. Tse is the former Chief Risk Officer of Dianrong -- one of China's leading P2P lending platforms. Together with sister platform Modalku, Funding Societies is currently the biggest SME loan crowdfunding platform in Southeast Asia, with operations in Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Recently, Funding Societies has also become the only Southeast Asian digital lender to be selected by CB Insights to the Fintech 250, a list of 250 top private companies changing the face of financial services around the world. Kelvin Teo, co-founder and CEO of Funding Societies said, "We believe in cutting-edge innovation. As FinTech is a knowledge-intensive industry,being admitted into IACPM enables us access to credit portfolio research and forums with leading banks and financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs, DBS and Citigroup for continuous innovation."



"We are also honoured to have world-class risk expert Terry onboard. His vote of confidence and guidance are invaluable, as we mature into a world-class platform for the safety of our investors and service to our SME borrowers," he added. Before serving Dianrong, Terry Tse has also spent many years in consulting and banking with Oliver Wyman and Deutsche Bank respectively. He currently serves as the Senior Vice President of Lian Lian Pay and is responsible for its international business development.

Funding Societies connects Singapore SMEs with investors through an online marketplace. Individuals and institutions can invest into SME loans and earn returns of up to 14% per year, higher than typical deposits, bonds and traditional instruments. Meanwhile, SME borrowers can obtain up to SGD 1 million in unsecured loans and invoice financing, through a simple online process with fast approval. As of July 2017, Funding Societies has crowdfunded more than SGD 50 million and 700 SME loans in Southeast Asia. About Funding Societies Founded in 2015, Funding Societies offers a digital platform that enables SMEs to get unsecured loan and invoice financing, crowdfunded by individual and institutional investors. It is licensed and operational in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, where it is known as Modalku. Backed by Sequoia Capital, it has been recognized by various institutions as a leading start-up and is one of the largest digital lending platforms in Southeast Asia. It believes in helping the under-served and making a positive impact in Southeast Asia. Visit our website at fundingsocieties.com

Our story at https://www.sutori.com/story/funding-societies CONTACT: Vikas Jain,

Marketing Director

O: (65) 62210958

M: (65) 97215431

[email protected] Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20170815/1920374-1 SOURCE Funding Societies

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[August 15, 2017] Vaco Los Angeles Makes Best Places to Work List for 9th Consecutive Year

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Vaco Los Angeles, specializing in project consultants and executive search for accounting and technology positions, was ranked #11 on the 2017 Best Places to Work in Los Angeles list, Small Employer Category. With just over 100 companies ranked in the Small, Medium, and Large Business categories, Vaco's ninth year on the list marks an impressive track record of success, including four years placing as #1. "This annual achievement is important to us because we have seen that retaining expert professionals leads to better service and profitability," said Frances Moreno, managing partner, Vaco Los Angeles. The Best Places to Work in Los Angeles list is judged by Best Companies Group for the Los Angeles Business Journal. The rankings are based on company programs for benefits, rewards, and retention, as well as on extensive emplyee surveys, which must be completed by a majority of internal staff regarding leadership, development, relationships, compensation, and overall engagement. The recognition program is dedicated to identifying the best employers in Los Angeles County.



Moreno added, "This award is made possible due to a shared vision of integrating work and life goals of our clients, consultants, and candidates we place. For over 11 years, Vaco has served the Los Angeles community, retaining great talent and clients, and helping businesses continue to be successful. We do not take this for granted. It's a tough list to make and especially in LA. We are grateful." About Vaco Los Angeles

Vaco is dedicated to developing creative client hiring and project solutions, long-term relationships, and lifelong careers in accounting and information technology. Vaco Los Angeles has been named the #1 Best Place to Work in Los Angeles four times and has also received Gold Stevie Awards for Best Employer and Company of the Year from the American Business Awards. For more information, visit www.vaco.com/Los-Angeles.

CONTACT:

Deborah Jones

Strategies

[email protected]

(714) 957-8880, ext. 113 View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/vaco-los-angeles-makes-best-places-to-work-list-for-9th-consecutive-year-300504234.html SOURCE Vaco Los Angeles

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[August 15, 2017] LGC Capital Offers Global Medical Cannabis Industry Year Round Low-Cost Contract Growing And Manufacturing Services From Its High Security And Bonded State-Of-The-Art 40,000 m2 Facilities At Durban's International Airport In South Africa

MONTREAL and DURBAN, South Africa, Aug. 15, 2017 /CNW Telbec/ - LGC Capital Ltd. (TSXV: QBA) ("LGC" or the "Company") announces that it will now be offering contract medical cannabis growing and processing services to any licenced jurisdiction that can offer medical cannabis. LGC and its JV Partner AfriAg are fully licenced to grow and transport medical cannabis from South Africa. The partnership will target international markets looking to save on capital and operating costs and increasing their year round production capacity by growing, refinining and exporting their products from the 40,000 metre2 growing facility at the Dube TradePort Agrizone complex, which is located within the secure and bonded airport prescinct of Durban's King Shaka International Airport in South Africa. The fact the facitliy is bonded opens up the partnership's ability to export to the international cannabis marketplace. LGC and AfriAg (Pty) Ltd can offer year round contract growing and manufacturing services from its current facilities, which feature a purpose built 40,000 m2 temperature-regulated and humidity-controlled greenhouse (all of which is under glass), with refrigerated pack houses, laboratories and offices. This complex is regarded as the most eco-friendly and high-tech agricultural facility in Africa. "Apart from LGC now looking at new licensed medical cannabis investment opportunities in the Asia-Pacific Region, we are working hard towards significantly expanding our medical cannabis footprint further in to the southern African region." said John McMullen, LGC Capital's CEO. "At LGC we are excited for this unique opportunity in South Africa as LGC and its partners already have a pre-built glasshouse and greenhouse infrastructure, abundant clean water supply, some of the best heat growing units globally for agriculture, a very competitive labour market and some of the lowest electricity unit costs in the world. LGC and AfriAg can today provide licensed cannabis growers anywhere in the world (in particular the northern hemisphere where costs are high due to severe winter climatic conditions) with a low cost, fully custom, bonded growing and manufacturing platform designed to reduce their capital expenditure, operating costs and increase their speed to not only their domestic licensed markets but to a more global market place through fully bonded and secure facilities." LGC, and its JV Partner in the global medical cannabis sector, AfriAg (Pty) Ltd, recently announced on 18 July 2017 that it had signed agreemnts to acquire a 60% beneficial interest in the House of Hemp (Pty) Ltd, which is South Africa's one-stop authority on all things hemp and cannabis.



Based in Block "D" of the Dube TradePort's Agrizone Complex at Durban's King Shaka International Airport, the facilities feature 40,000 m2 of secure, temperature-regulated and humidity-controlled greenhouse under glass, with refrigerated pack houses, laboratories and offices. This complex is the only licensed indoor growing facility in South Africa and Dube's AgriZone is regarded as the most eco-friendly and high-tech agricultural facility in Africa and is where House of Hemp is planning to ramp up Research & Development of high-CBD medicinal grade cannabis. About House of Hemp:

House of Hemp is now a member of the National Hemp Foundation (NHF) and has served as the convener of the NHF's Human Resource Development Group (in the first phase). House of Hemp is currently the coordinator of the NHF's Private Sector Working Group. Licensed in 2010, House of Hemp became the first private company to be awarded an exclusive permit from the Departments of Agriculture and Health to legally cultivate and process hemp in South Africa. Because House of Hemp wanted to reliably expand into the budding industrial market, the company sought an exclusive permit from the Departments of Agriculture and Health to not only import hemp, but also to legally cultivate and process it in South Africa. In 2010, the House of Hemp became the first private company to be awarded such a permit. As well as supplying hemp fibres and oils, the House of Hemp conducts research and supplies by-products like tow, biomass, dust and seedcake. These have enormous promise, as sustainable replacement materials for a variety of industries globally. In 2015, House of Hemp partnered with the South African Department of Agriculture & Health. Other key Partnerships established in the same year include the University of the Free State, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), the Agricultural Research Institute (ARC); the National Agriculture Marketing Council (NAMC); it is owing to these key partnerships that House of Hemp was able to begin conducting research into medical cannabis. About LGC Capital LGC Capital Ltd. is a Canadian incorporated public company listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV: QBA). LGC Capital's objective is to become a diversified business group with core business divisions that provide shareholders with exposure to a diverse range of businesses, products and services, many of which have some exposure to high growth Cuban business opportunities and some that have no exposure to Cuba at all. LGC Capital now plans to enter into the agricultural space in southern Africa through its new joint venture with AfriAg. About AfriAg AfriAg (Pty) Ltd is a global agriculture and agri-logistics specialist, and provides crop growing and logistics solutions, food marketing and bespoke distribution services, by road, air and sea, to many major food retailing and wholesale corporations around the world. AfriAg (Pty) Ltd is 40% owned by London listed AfriAg Global PLC. FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This press release may contain forward-looking statements with respect to LGC Capital Ltd. ("LGC"), its Joint Venture with AfriAg, its investment in House of Hemp, and LGC's operations, strategy, investments, financial performance and condition. These statements generally can be identified by use of forward-looking words such as "may", "will", "expect", "estimate", "anticipate", "intends", "believe" or "continue" or the negative thereof or similar variations. The actual results and performance of LGC, the Joint Venture with AfriAg and the investment in House of Hemp could differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Such statements are qualified in their entirety by the inherent risks and uncertainties surrounding future expectations. Some important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations include, among other things, general economic and market factors, competition, changes in government regulation and the factors described under "Risk Factors and Risk Management" in LGC's Management's Discussion and Analysis for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2016, as filed on SEDAR (www.sedar.com). The cautionary statements qualify all forward-looking statements attributable to LGC, the Joint Venture, and persons acting on their respective behalves. Unless otherwise stated, all forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release and LGC has no obligation to update such statements, except to the extent required by applicable securities laws. Caution Regarding Press Releases

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. SOURCE LGC Capital Ltd

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[August 15, 2017] 111 Dorsey Lawyers Selected for Inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America 2018 and 2018 Lawyers of the Year

International law firm Dorsey & Whitney LLP announced today that 111 lawyers in 14 of the Firm's offices were recently selected by their peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America 2018. In addition, 14 lawyers from the Firm's Des Moines, Minneapolis, Missoula and Salt Lake City offices have been named Best Lawyers 2018 Lawyers of the Year. Listed below are the Dorsey lawyers named as 2018 Lawyers of the Year and 2018 Best Lawyers, the specialties in which they are named, the first year they were listed as a 2018 Best Lawyer and their office location. Best Lawyers 2018 Lawyers of the Year: David D. Grossklaus

Des Moines-Public Finance Law

Des Moines-Public Finance Law Alissa Smith

Des Moines-Health Care Law

Des Moines-Health Care Law Annette W. Jarvis

Salt Lake City-Litigation-Bankruptcy

Salt Lake City-Litigation-Bankruptcy Milo Steven Marsden

Salt Lake City-Litigation-Securities

Salt Lake City-Litigation-Securities William B. Prince

Salt Lake City-Natural Resources Law

Salt Lake City-Natural Resources Law Nolan S. Taylor

Salt Lake City-Securities/Capital Markets Law

Salt Lake City-Securities/Capital Markets Law Michael J. Ahern

Minneapolis-Administrative/Regulatory Law

Minneapolis-Administrative/Regulatory Law B. Andrew Brown

Minneapolis-Litigation-Environmental

Minneapolis-Litigation-Environmental Jocelyn Knoll

Minneapolis-Litigation-Construction

Minneapolis-Litigation-Construction Michael A. Lindsay

Minneapolis-Litigation-Antitrust

Minneapolis-Litigation-Antitrust Robert A. Rosenbaum

Minneapolis-Mergers & Acquisitions Law

Minneapolis-Mergers & Acquisitions Law Jay L. Swanson

Minneapolis-Corporate Governance Law

Minneapolis-Corporate Governance Law Thomas D. Vander Molen

Minneapolis-Non-Profit/Charities Law

Minneapolis-Non-Profit/Charities Law Jack Manning

Missoula-Corporate Law The Best Lawyers in America 2018: ANCHORAGE, AK Robert C. Bundy (2005)

Bet-the-Company Litigation

Commercial Litigation

Criminal Defense: General Practice

Criminal Defense: White-Collar

Litigation-Antitrust

Litigation-Environmental

(2005) Bet-the-Company Litigation Commercial Litigation Criminal Defense: General Practice Criminal Defense: White-Collar Litigation-Antitrust Litigation-Environmental Louisiana W. Cutler (2007)

Employment Law-Management

Land Use and Zoning Law

Litigation-Labor and Employment

Municipal Law

(2007) Employment Law-Management Land Use and Zoning Law Litigation-Labor and Employment Municipal Law Katherine Demarest (2018)

Native American Law

(2018) Native American Law Michael R. Mills (2003)

Bankruptcy and Creditor Debtor Rights/Insolvency and Reorganization Law

(2003) Bankruptcy and Creditor Debtor Rights/Insolvency and Reorganization Law Richard M. Rosston (2006)

Corporate Law

Mergers & Acquisitions Law

Real Estate Law COSTA MESA, CA (News - Alert) Juan C. Basombrio (2007)

Litigation-Antitrust

(2007) Litigation-Antitrust Gabrielle M. Wirth (2007)

Employment Law-Management

Labor Law-Management

(2007) Employment Law-Management Labor Law-Management Dennis Wong (2011)

Banking & Finance Law DALLAS, TX Larry A. Makel (2007)

Equipment Finance Law DENVER, CO Whitney A. Holmes (2006)

Corporate Law

(2006) Corporate Law Lee F. Johnston (2012)

Litigation-Intellectual Property

Litigation-Patent

(2012) Litigation-Intellectual Property Litigation-Patent Lee R. Osman (2007)

Litigation-Intellectual Property

Litigation-Patent

Technology Law

(2007) Litigation-Intellectual Property Litigation-Patent Technology Law Lisa A. Osman (2016)

Trademark Law

(2016) Trademark Law Kenneth G. Sam (2013)

Securities/Capital Markets Law

(2013) Securities/Capital Markets Law Greg Tamkin (2017)

Litigation-Intellectual Property

Litigation-Patent

(2017) Litigation-Intellectual Property Litigation-Patent Paul G. Thompson (2014)

Corporate Law

(2014) Corporate Law Tucker K. Trautman (1989)

Bet-the-Company Litigation

Commercial Litigation

Litigation-Antitrust

Litigation-Intellectual Property

Litigation-Patent

Litigation-Securities DES MOINES, IA David L. Claypool (2003)

Public Finance Law

(2003) Public Finance Law David D. Grossklaus (2005)

Public Finance Law

(2005) Public Finance Law Robert E. Josten (2003)

Public Finance Law

(2003) Public Finance Law Cristina Kuhn (2013)

Public Finance Law

(2013) Public Finance Law Edwin N. McIntosh (2007)

Health Care Law

(2007) Health Care Law William Miller (2016)

Commercial Litigation

Litigation-Labor & Employment

(2016) Commercial Litigation Litigation-Labor & Employment Alissa Smith (2015)

Health Care Law

(2015) Health Care Law David A. Tank (2007)

Commercial Litigation FARGO, ND Sarah Andrews Herman (1995)

Employment Law-Management

Labor Law-Management

Litigation-Labor & Employment MINNEAPOLIS, MN Jonathan B. Abram (2007)

Securities/Capital Markets Law

(2007) Securities/Capital Markets Law Michael J. Ahern (2010)

Administrative/ Regulatory Law

Government Relations Practice

(2010) Administrative/ Regulatory Law Government Relations Practice Timothy B. Arends (2013)

Employee Benefits (ERISA) Law

(2013) Employee Benefits (ERISA) Law Jeffrey Bauer (2018)

Employee Benefits (ERISA) Law

(2018) Employee Benefits (ERISA) Law b>William J. Berens (1993)







Trusts & Estates

Trusts & Estates B. Andrew Brown (2007)

Litigation-Environmental

(2007) Litigation-Environmental Elizabeth C. Buckingham (2010)

Copyright Law

Trademark Law

(2010) Copyright Law Trademark Law Robert E. Cattanach (2008)

Litigation-Environmental

(2008) Litigation-Environmental Dan Colton (2018)

Mining Law

(2018) Mining Law Ken Cutler (2006)

Corporate Law

Mergers & Acquisitions Law

(2006) Corporate Law Mergers & Acquisitions Law Ross D'Emanuele (2017)

Health Care Law

(2017) Health Care Law Skip Durocher (2013)

Commercial Litigation

Native American Law

(2013) Commercial Litigation Native American Law George G. Eck (2011)

Commercial Litigation

Litigation-Environmental

(2011) Commercial Litigation Litigation-Environmental L. Joseph Genereux (2007)

Banking & Finance Law

(2007) Banking & Finance Law Laura K. Graf (2018)

Real Estate Law

(2018) Real Estate Law LB Guthrie (2006)

Real Estate Law

(2006) Real Estate Law Mark E. Hamel (1995)

Real Estate Law

(1995) Real Estate Law Timothy S. Hearn (2009)

Corporate Compliance Law

Corporate Governance Law

Securities/Capital Markets Law

(2009) Corporate Compliance Law Corporate Governance Law Securities/Capital Markets Law Paul W. Heiring (2016)

Litigation-ERISA

(2016) Litigation-ERISA Stuart Hemphill (2016)

Litigation-Intellectual Property

(2016) Litigation-Intellectual Property Nathan E. Honson (2013)

Tax Law

(2013) Tax Law J David Jackson (2016)

Commercial-Litigation

(2016) Commercial-Litigation Mark R. Kaster (2010)

Administrative/Regulatory Law

(2010) Administrative/Regulatory Law Jocelyn Knoll (2016)

Construction Law

Litigation-Construction

(2016) Construction Law Litigation-Construction Bridget A. Logstrom Koci (2008)

Litigation-Trusts & Estates

Trusts & Estates

(2008) Litigation-Trusts & Estates Trusts & Estates Peter M. Lancaster (2011)

Litigation-Intellectual Property

Litigation-Patent

(2011) Litigation-Intellectual Property Litigation-Patent Thaddeus R. Lightfoot (2007)

Environmental Law

Litigation-Environmental

(2007) Environmental Law Litigation-Environmental Jay R. Lindgren (2006)

Land Use & Zoning Law

Public Finance Law

(2006) Land Use & Zoning Law Public Finance Law Michael A. Lindsay (2008)

Litigation-Antitrust

(2008) Litigation-Antitrust Stephen P. Lucke (2010)

Commercial Litigation

Litigation-ERISA

(2010) Commercial Litigation Litigation-ERISA Edward B. Magarian (2011)

Litigation-Antitrust

(2011) Litigation-Antitrust Saiko Y. McIvor (2010)

Immigration Law

(2010) Immigration Law David Meyer (2018)

Real Estate Law

(2018) Real Estate Law Ryan E. Mick (2018)

Litigation-Labor & Employment

(2018) Litigation-Labor & Employment Peter Nelson (2017)

Banking & Finance Law

(2017) Banking & Finance Law Steven C. Nelson (2013)

Mergers & Acquisitions Law

(2013) Mergers & Acquisitions Law Barry Newman (2018)

Trusts & Estates

(2018) Trusts & Estates Robert J. Olson (News - Alert) (2013)

Construction Law

Real Estate Law

(2013) Construction Law Real Estate Law Neal N. Peterson (2017)

Health Care Law

(2017) Health Care Law Michael J. Radmer (2007)

Mutual Funds Law

(2007) Mutual Funds Law Melissa Raphan (2009)

Employment Law-Management

Litigation-Labor & Employment

(2009) Employment Law-Management Litigation-Labor & Employment Robert A. Rosenbaum (2006)

Corporate Compliance Law

Corporate Governance Law

Corporate Law

Mergers & Acquisitions Law

(2006) Corporate Compliance Law Corporate Governance Law Corporate Law Mergers & Acquisitions Law Eric A. Ruzicka (2016)

Construction Law

(2016) Construction Law Bob A. Seng (2018)

Employee Benefits (ERISA) Law

(2018) Employee Benefits (ERISA) Law Mary J. Streitz (2012)

Native American Law

Tax Law

(2012) Native American Law Tax Law Jay L. Swanson (2007)

Corporate Compliance Law

Corporate Governance Law

Corporate Law

Mergers & Acquisitions Law

(2007) Corporate Compliance Law Corporate Governance Law Corporate Law Mergers & Acquisitions Law Thomas W. Tinkham (1989)

Commercial Litigation

(1989) Commercial Litigation Bryn R. Vaaler (2013)

Corporate Law

(2013) Corporate Law Thomas D. Vander Molen (2008)

Non-Profit/Charities Law

Public Finance Law

(2008) Non-Profit/Charities Law Public Finance Law Steven J. Wells (2012)

Commercial Litigation

Franchise Law

(2012) Commercial Litigation Franchise Law RJ Zayed (2015)

Criminal Defense: White-Collar

Litigation-Intellectual Property MISSOULA, MT Jack Manning (1999)

Corporate Law

Securities/Capital Markets Law NEW YORK, NY

Sandra Edelman (News - Alert) (2007)

Litigation-Intellectual Property

Litigation-Patent

(2007) Litigation-Intellectual Property Litigation-Patent Bruce R. Ewing (2005)

Litigation-Intellectual Property

Trademark Law

(2005) Litigation-Intellectual Property Trademark Law Jonathan M. Herman (2012)

Litigation-Trusts & Estates

(2012) Litigation-Trusts & Estates Susan Progoff (2011)

Litigation-Intellectual Property

(2011) Litigation-Intellectual Property Richard H. Silberberg (2007)

Arbitration

Mediation

(2007) Arbitration Mediation David C. Singer (2010)

Employment Law-Individuals Employment Law-Management Litigation-Labor & Employment PALO ALTO, CA Stephen T. O'Neill (2018)

Bankruptcy and Creditor Debtor Rights/Insolvency and Reorganization Law SALT LAKE CITY, UT Alan W. Bell (2010)

Corporate Law

Mergers & Acquisitions Law

(2010) Corporate Law Mergers & Acquisitions Law Bryon J. Benevento (2006)

Personal Injury Litigation-Defendants

Product Liability Litigation-Defendants

(2006) Personal Injury Litigation-Defendants Product Liability Litigation-Defendants Peggy Hunt (2008)

Bankruptcy and Creditor Debtor Rights/Insolvency and Reorganization Law

(2008) Bankruptcy and Creditor Debtor Rights/Insolvency and Reorganization Law Annette W. Jarvis (2005)

Bankruptcy and Creditor Debtor Rights/Insolvency and Reorganization Law

Litigation-Bankruptcy

(2005) Bankruptcy and Creditor Debtor Rights/Insolvency and Reorganization Law Litigation-Bankruptcy Milo Steven Marsden (2010)

Bet-the-Company Litigation

Commercial Litigation

Litigation-Securities

(2010) Bet-the-Company Litigation Commercial Litigation Litigation-Securities David Marx (2014)

Corporate Law

(2014) Corporate Law William B. Prince (2006)

Natural Resources Law

Oil & Gas Law

(2006) Natural Resources Law Oil & Gas Law Nolan S. Taylor (2006)

Corporate Law

Mergers & Acquisitions Law

Securities/Capital Markets Law Venture Capital Law Michael F. Thomson (News - Alert) (2011)

Bankruptcy and Creditor Debtor Rights/Insolvency and Reorganization Law

Litigation-Bankruptcy

(2011) Bankruptcy and Creditor Debtor Rights/Insolvency and Reorganization Law Litigation-Bankruptcy Steven T. Waterman (2006)

Litigation-Bankruptcy

(2006) Litigation-Bankruptcy Randon W. Wilson (2006)

Corporate Law

Mergers & Acquisitions Law SEATTLE, WA Christopher J. Barry (2009)

Corporate Law

Mergers & Acquisitions Law

Securities/Capital Markets Law

(2009) Corporate Law Mergers & Acquisitions Law Securities/Capital Markets Law Terrence I. Danysh (2011)

Land Use & Zoning Law

(2011) Land Use & Zoning Law Elizabeth J. Deckman (2013)

Employee Benefits (ERISA) Law

(2013) Employee Benefits (ERISA) Law Michael W. Droke (2007)

Employment Law-Management

Labor Law-Management

(2007) Employment Law-Management Labor Law-Management Gary R. Duvall (1995)

Franchise Law

(1995) Franchise Law Peter S. Ehrlichman (2007)

Commercial Litigation

Litigation-Intellectual Property

Litigation-Labor & Employment

Litigation-Real Estate

Litigation-Securities

(2007) Commercial Litigation Litigation-Intellectual Property Litigation-Labor & Employment Litigation-Real Estate Litigation-Securities Kimton N. Eng (2011)

Patent Law

(2011) Patent Law Joseph M. Gaffney (1995)

Trusts & Estates

(1995) Trusts & Estates Aaron Goldstein (2018)

Employment Law-Management

(2018) Employment Law-Management John D. Hollinrake Jr. (2012)

Tax Law

(2012) Tax Law Walter Impert (2018)

Trusts & Estates

(2018) Trusts & Estates J. Michael Keyes (2013)

Commercial Litigation

Copyright Law

Litigation-Intellectual Property

Litigation-Patent

Patent Law

Trademark Law

(2013) Commercial Litigation Copyright Law Litigation-Intellectual Property Litigation-Patent Patent Law Trademark Law Marianne O'Bara (2007)

Employee Benefits (ERISA) Law WASHINGTON, DC Thomas O. Gorman (2010)

Litigation-Securities

Securities Regulation WILMINGTON, DE Eric Lopez Schnabel (2016)

Bankruptcy and Creditor Debtor Rights/Insolvency and Reorganization Law Since it was first published in 1983, Best Lawyers has become universally regarded as the definitive guide to legal excellence. Best Lawyers lists are compiled based on an exhaustive peer review evaluation. Over 83,000 leading attorneys globally are eligible to vote, and Best Lawyers has received more than 13 million votes to date on the legal abilities of other lawyers based on their specific practice areas around the world. For the 2018 Edition of The Best Lawyers in America, 7.3 million votes were analyzed, which resulted in almost 55,000 leading lawyers being included in the new edition. Lawyers are not required or allowed to pay a fee to be listed; therefore inclusion in Best Lawyers is considered a singular honor. The lawyers listed in Best Lawyers do not decide in which legal specialties they are listed. They are included in specialties as a result of the votes they receive from their peers. The specialties listed are based on information from a variety of sources. For more information, visit the Best Lawyers website. About Dorsey & Whitney LLP

Clients have relied on Dorsey since 1912 as a valued business partner. With locations across the United States and in Canada, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, Dorsey provides an integrated, proactive approach to its clients' legal and business needs. Dorsey represents a number of the world's most successful companies from a wide range of industries, including leaders in the banking, energy, food and agribusiness, health care, mining and natural resources, and public-private project development sectors, as well as major non-profit and government entities. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170815005702/en/

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[August 15, 2017] Cambridge Epigenetix and NuGEN Technologies Sign Partnership Agreement to Combine Leading Technologies in Epigenetics Research

Cambridge Epigenetix (CEGX) and NuGEN Technologies, leaders in innovative epigenetic technologies, today announced that they have entered into a partnership agreement to integrate the CEGX TrueMethyl technology for oxidative bisulfite sequencing (oxBS-Seq) with NuGEN's innovative NGS library preparation kits. The signing of the agreement will enable CEGX to focus on its epigenetic biomarker discovery programmes, both in-house and in partnership with leading biopharma companies, and will further strengthen NuGEN's epigenetics portfolio of whole genome Methyl-Seq, Reduced Representation Bisulfite Sequencing (RRBS), and patented SPET target enrichment systems. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170815005705/en/ The epigenetic DNA modifications 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) and 5-methylcytosine (5mC) play very different roles in gene regulation. Cambridge Epigenetix enhanced the appreciation of 5hmC through the introduction of its TrueMethyl oxBS-Seq system. Their developments have enabled researchers to further elucidate the role of DNA methylation in disease occurrence and progression, highlighting the potential for such epigenetic marks in the development of improved diagnostic and prognostic assays. The integration of TrueMethyl oxBS and NuGEN's patented library preparation technologies will broaden the scope of accessible samples for the detection of these emerging markers.



Jason Mellad, CEO at Cambridge Epigenetix, commented: "This partnership will enable both CEGX and NuGEN to leverage our strengths to facilitate advances in the epigenetics field. CEGX is committed to realising the promise of epigenetics through the development of improved, minimally invasive diagnostic and prognostic tests for accurate and early detection of a range of diseases, including cancer. We are working with leading biopharma companies as well as progressing our own high-value internal programmes, applying our expertise and advanced proprietary technology for robust biomarker identification, particularly from liquid biopsy samples. NuGEN's reach and reputation for delivering high-quality genomics solutions to the market makes them the ideal partner to further develop TrueMethyl technology to deliver a range of new products to enhance epigenetics research." Nitin Sood, CEO at NuGEN Technologies, said: "We are delighted to be working with CEGX to provide the tools to improve the understanding and appreciation of epigenetics in cellular function. The goal of all of our products has always been to maximize the information that our customers obtain from their nucleic acid samples. By combining the TrueMethyl oxBS technology with our NGS library preparation kits, we will provide our customers with whole genome and targeted methylation products to unlock the tremendous potential of epigenetics. The combination provides access to more detailed, higher resolution epigenetic information in an integrated, cost-effective solution. The technology complements our Methyl-Seq and Single Primer Enrichment Technology product lines, and we are delighted to provide researchers with the most comprehensive solution for epigenetics research."

New products resulting from this partnership are anticipated by the end of the year and will be available directly from NuGEN. TrueMethyl products should still be ordered through CEGX until further notice. For more information about TrueMethyl, including how to order, please visit https://www.cambridge-epigenetix.com/products. Notes to Editors About Cambridge Epigenetix Cambridge Epigenetix's mission is to improve health through the routine measurement of the epigenome. Cambridge Epigenetix utilizes innovative technologies, often based on fundamental chemistry, to detect the epigenetic biomarkers that will be most useful in clinical settings. Spun-out of the University of Cambridge in 2012, the Company was founded by Professor Sir Shankar Balasubramanian (co-inventor of Solexa sequencing) and Dr Bobby Yerramilli-Rao to commercialise its founding technology, oxidative bisulfite sequencing (oxBS-Seq), which enables users to quantify, and discriminate between, functionally-distinct DNA modifications - impossible with traditional bisulfite methods. Cambridge Epigenetix is a privately held company headquartered in Cambridge, UK, supported by several high-profile investors: GV (Google (News - Alert) Ventures), Sequoia, Syncona, New Science Ventures and the University of Cambridge. The Company is seeking partnerships across a broad range of applications in life sciences, as well as developing its own pipeline. For more information, visit www.cambridge-epigenetix.com. About NuGEN Based in San Carlos, California, NuGEN Technologies, Inc. provides innovative NGS and genomic sample prep products for a broad range of sample types including RNA and DNA from whole tissues, FFPE samples, single cells and liquid biopsies. NuGEN's products offer rapid and simple workflows designed to reduce time and cost per sample. NuGEN products are used by 1000s of customers in basic research, applied markets and molecular diagnostics. NuGEN products are manufactured under stringent quality controls (ISO 13485). NuGEN provides sales and technical support staff in North America, Europe, and Asia. To learn more about NuGEN, visit www.nugen.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170815005705/en/

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[August 15, 2017] Dallas Innovation Alliance Welcomes Dallas-based Cybersecurity Partner entegra technologies

Today, the Dallas Innovation Alliance (DIA), a 501(c)(3) Public/Private Partnership dedicated to the design and execution of a multi-phased smart city strategy for Dallas, announced entegra technologies inc. as the newest commercial partner, focused on smart infrastructure cybersecurity. The DIA will leverage entegra's expertise, and use the unique EntegraBLU cyber security solution to help support the DIA's efforts and maximize the impact of ongoing and future projects in the smart cities initiative. Establishing cybersecurity design and infrastructure is an essential component in implementing Internet of Things networks and capabilities. "We at entegra technologies are honored to be chosen as part of DIA's Smart City initiative," said Nancy Shemwell, Chief Executive Officer for entegra technologies. "The power of this Public/Private Partnership shows real vision, creating value for Dallas and North Texas, and serves as a model for other cities across the country. With our EntegraBLU solution we are dedicated to providing leading edge technology solving the cyber security issues with industrial controls systems and the associated IoT elements, key components throughout the cities infrastructure." The DIA seeks to address key challenges faced by Dallas, and cities around the world, around aging infrastructure, strained natural and fiscal resources, and increased density in the urban core, while providing the technology, data, and connectivity needed to power the future for all Dallasies. The DIA operates from the definition that a smart city is one where technological and social infrastructures accelerate economic development, increase resource efficiency, and most importantly, improve quality of life. Through the support and collaboration of its members like entegra technologies, inc., the DIA is committed to advancing transformative change in the city of Dallas while increasing the domestic and global profile of the great innovators and ideas that reside in Dallas.



"Cybersecurity is a critical and integral component in establishing smart infrastructure and Internet of Things (IoT) networks," commented Jennifer Sanders, Executive Director of the Dallas Innovation Alliance. "As uncharted territory for many cities, having the proven expertise of companies like entegra technologies is essential in the design of these next-generation projects that can bring enormous benefit to infrastructure and service delivery. After we were introduced to entegra's work by our partners, we were thrilled to welcome another home-grown company to the DIA as we continue our work to build smart cities in Dallas." About the Dallas Innovation Alliance (DIA)

The Dallas Innovation Alliance (DIA) is a public-private partnership dedicated to the design and execution of a smart cities plan for the City of Dallas, leveraging social and technological infrastructures to accelerate sustainable economic growth, resource efficiency, and importantly, improve quality of life for citizens. Its mission is to develop a scalable smart cities model for the City of Dallas that leverages the region's distinctive strengths and leaves a legacy of innovation, sustainability and collaboration for future generations. DIA support is led by Foundational Partner AT&T, Pivotal Partner Cisco, Lead Partners Gardere and Current, Powered by GE, Partners AECOM, IBM (News - Alert) and Universal Mind, and Lead Community Partner United Way of Metropolitan Dallas. Members of the Dallas Innovation Alliance include: City of Dallas, Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART), Visit Dallas, Dallas Entrepreneur Center (DEC), Dallas County, Dallas Regional Chamber, Downtown Dallas Inc., The Real Estate Council (TREC), Texas Research Alliance, CIVIQ Streetscapes, Deloitte, EB Systems, Ericsson, IBM, Microsoft, Park Hub, Philips and Schneider Electric (News - Alert). For more information, please visit www.DallasInnovationAlliance.com. About entegra technologies, inc. entegra technologies inc. is a cyber security technology and managed services company based in the Dallas/Fort Worth Area. Offering a fully integrated portfolio of cyber security solutions for the Internet of Things (IoT) and edge devices and utilizing patented, ultra-configurable mobile computing designs and proven cyber security software. entegra technologies inc. delivers a TPM 2.0 service, the highest level of cyber security rating available. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170815005979/en/

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Where do you take your phone? If you're anything like us, the answer is probably "everywhere." The doctor's office, the grocery store, the movie theater, and basically anywhere else you go, your phone is probably with you. Because your phone is always with you, and because many services rely on location information, chances are good that a detailed history of your goings-on is sitting in a bunch of servers who-knows-where. Microsoft, Google, and other tech companies have asked the Supreme Court to make sure police need a warrant to access that history.

The companies made their position clear in an amicus brief filed on August 14. The brief was submitted in support of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and its efforts to defend a man whose location history was obtained by police without a warrant. Police were able to use this information, which spanned across several months, to convict the man of a robbery. Now the ACLU wants the Supreme Court to say that location data collected by cellphones has the same Fourth Amendment protections as equally sensitive information gathered via other means.

In their filing, the companies said they "believe the Court should refine the application of certain Fourth Amendment doctrines to ensure that the law realistically engages with Internet-based technologies and with people's expectations of privacy in their digital data." Put another way: They want Fourth Amendment protections to keep pace with changing technologies so people don't have to worry about their data being handed over to police without a warrant. How the data is generated and collected doesn't matter as much as what it describes and when police can access it.

Tech companies aren't the only ones supporting the ACLU in this case. The organization said that advocacy groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Cato Institute, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) have expressed their support. The ACLU said in a blog post:

'The number and variety of organizations and experts filing represent the widespread recognition that your cell phones location history is your own business, and the government needs to have a good reason to get its hands on it,' said ACLU attorney Nathan Freed Wessler. 'In particular, the tech firms are sending a very clear message that the law needs to catch up with the technology that is now an integral part of our everyday lives.'

You can find out more about the ACLU's arguments in the opening brief it filed with the Supreme Court last week. The organization said this case will be heard in the fall.

Here's the list of tech companies that signed off on the amicus brief:


Samsung released its third generation Portable SSD series today with the new T5. The drives are the same size as the previous generation, cost about the same as before, and still top out at the same 2TB of storage capacity.

This is the first retail product to feature Samsung's fourth-generation V-NAND technology with 64-layers in a vertical stack. The flash allows Samsung to produce more NAND die per wafer, but don't expect a price reduction at your local brick and mortar store. Samsung plans to sell the series at or near the same price points as the previous generation products.

Swipe to scroll horizontally Product T5 250GB T5 500GB T5 1TB T5 2TB Pricing $129.99 $199.99 $399.99 $799.99 Interface USB Type - AUSB Type - C USB Type - AUSB Type - C USB Type - AUSB Type - C USB Type - AUSB Type - C Protocol USB 3.1 Gen 2 USB 3.1 Gen 2 USB 3.1 Gen 2 USB 3.1 Gen 2 Sequential Read Up To 540MBps Up To 540MBps Up To 540MBps Up To 540MBps Sequential Write Up To 515MBps Up To 515MBps Up To 515MBps Up To 515MBps Warranty 3 years 3 years 3 years 3 years

The series starts out at just $130 for the 250GB model and escalates quickly to nearly $800 for the massive 2TB drive. Samsung includes USB Type-A and Type-C cables that allow the device to operate on the latest USB 3.1 Gen 2 standard as well as older USB standards. Inside the drives is a SATA 6Gbps SSD, so you'll see a slight performance increase via USB 3.1 Gen 2 over Gen 1, which operates at 5Gbps. You will not be able to take advantage of the full 10Gbps Gen 2 performance, though.

The T5 series ships with a standard 3-year warranty.



Other new features include a full aluminum chassis and some additional color for the Portable SSD T5 lineup. The 250GB and 500GB ship in what Samsung calls Alluring Blue, a color introduced in the company's phone. The 1TB and 2TB drives ship in Deep Black. We really like the Alluring Blue color and wish Samsung would release it in all capacity sizes.



We planned to have a review out this morning to sync with the NDA lift but ran into an issue with one of our drives. Samsung sent us a replacement that arrived today. You can expect a full review in the coming days.

Even though the Portable SSD T5 is very similar to the T3 series released last year, users will see a modest performance increase with the newest product. The increase comes from the new 64-layer flash and the faster USB bus. We measured right around a 50MBps increase in queue depth 1 writing 128KB sequential data. That doesn't give existing T3 owners much of a reason to upgrade, but it allows new shoppers to gain a little more speed for the same dollar amount by using the latest technology.



MORE: Best SSDs



MORE: How We Test HDDs And SSDs



MORE: All Storage Content
Chalked swastika found on Avila University campus considered hate crime Avila University officials are investigating an incident on campus that they are calling a hate crime.

The chalked offensive symbol washes off with water BUT evokes a nasty legacy and serious federal allegations. Checkit:
KANSAS CITY ANTIFA RALLIES LOCAL SUPPORT AND PROTESTER KILLED OVER THE WEEKEND!!!

The Kansas City struggle against hateration kicks into high gear after a weekend of deadly and violent culture war confrontation.To wit and the latest from. . .There's also aAs always, it's best to let the group speak for itself as "antifa" is loosely comprised of local associations like theand more . . .Heather Heyer became a hero and a martyr to all working and oppressed people on August 12 in Charlottesville, VA. Heather was participating in a counter-demonstration of a large white supremacist, alt-right and neo-nazi rally that recently captured national attention.To honor the memory of Heather and all our wounded soldiers from Charlottesville, we are calling on all anti-fascists and community members who oppose fascism to gather for a solidarity and remembrance rally, at the same time and location that some of our area white supremacists are planning a hate rally of their own.Many of you will remember ACT for America* from the recent "March Against Sharia" on June 10. This anti-Islam hate group and white supremacist front will be holding one of their white supremacist hate rallies, disguised as a pro-America 9/11 memorial rally,Our martyrs deserve better than candlelight vigils. We welcome people who are pissed or sad or angry, and ready to unleash all your fury, sadness, and despair from this past weekend's event onto these local white supremacists who are aligned with the murderous far-right that attacked our comrades in Charlottesville**.Bring flags, bring placards, bring signs, etc. that convey messages of solidarity with Charlottesville and our martyr Heather Heyer.Our primary concern for this demonstration is safety and security, which we will put a lot of effort into so that the people on our side can feel safe. Our aim is to make this rally safe for everyone in attendance, whether you're a militant anti-fascist, or just an average person who wants to show some support for the folks in Charlottesville. All who oppose what happened in Charlottesville are welcome.Our goals at this rally can be summed up as:1. To take the emphasis off the fascist rally, and put the empahasis on a message of solidarity with Charlottesville, and a remembrance of the martyr Heather Heyer.2. To keep the fascists pinned back behind police lines and fences, and unable to march. When fascists feel safe enough to march, they will only grow in numbers.3. To obscure and drown out their message, again, focusing our message on Charlottesville and anti-fascism.4. To further develop organized anti-fascism in KC, and to network with less experienced anti-fascists and community members to help them get organized, so we can prepare ourselves in case something like what happened in Charlottesville ever occurs here.###########Developing . . .
Will these tactics work???

Legislators meet and talked a good game about switching up tactics . . .Here's the most comprehensive report on their efforts . . .There are a few good ideas here like higher pay and limiting inmate movement . . . Relying on ankle bracelet tech to save the County might be too helpful.You decide . . .
The occupancy rate for popular destinations of the wealthy is close to 100 percent for the rest of the summer,

With another record tourism season underway  even as reports said half of Greeks during a seven-year-long crisis cant afford a weeks vacation in their homeland  theres a scramble among the rich to find rooms at 5-Star hotels and luxury resorts.

The occupancy rate for those popular destinations of the wealthy is close to 100 percent for the rest of the summer, Kathimerini said it had found in a survey. One of the biggest online travel agents has put the average occupancy rate for luxury accommodation on Santorini, Corfu and Rhodes at about 99 percent.

On Myconos, the average occupancy rate is 97 percent, while at the Cretan resort of Elounda it is 89 percent despite charges that are prohibitive for all but the rich.

The price of a double room at a five-star hotel on Santorini for five nights between Aug. 11-16 is 40,000 euros ($47,011) or some $9,404 a night. On Corfu, the equivalent is 15,244 euros ($17,916) while on Myconos, a favorite place for half-naked college girls dancing on nightclub table tops, it is 11,647 euros ($13,688), at Elounda 7,640 euros ($8979) and on Rhodes 6,200 euros, about $7286.

According to recent data released by the Hellenic Chamber of Hotels, 444 luxury hotels operate in Greece, out of a total 9,730 units. Their total capacity runs to 67,407 rooms that can sleep 137,210 people. The total number of hotel rooms in Greece is 407,146, which can provide accommodation for up to 788,553 people.

Most five-star hotels can be found in the southern Aegean, which has 144. Crete is next on the list with 97 five-star hotels, which have 18,844 rooms that can provide beds for 40,742 visitors.

Based on research carried out by National Bank (NBG), the proportion of high-income tourists visiting Greece fell from 27 percent of the total in 2008 to 23 percent in 2016 before this years big bump up.
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A project to build the first Iranian university in Iraq named Al-Mustafa Al-Amin was launched at a ceremony in Kadhemein on Monday, a report said.



The university will house five faculties, including experimental sciences, humanities and Islamic sciences, Abdollah Hassani, head of universitys board of trustees and vice chancellor for administrative and financial affairs, was quoted as saying in the Irna report.



Faculties of literature, jurisprudence and law will be set up in the first stage of the project, he said.



Hassani further noted the university will be constructed over an area of 22,500 sq m and it is expected to host 3,000 students initially.



Meanwhile, Irans Cultural Office in Iraq was quoted as saying that the two neighbouring states have so far signed more than 50 scientific and academic memoranda of understanding and over 3,000 Iraqi students are studying in Iranian universities.
ASGC, one of the leading construction groups in the UAE, is increasing the deployment of drones and 3D scanning across its project portfolio with the two technologies set to revolutionise and streamline the construction process.



The inclusion of these highly-advanced solutions into the construction industry comes as part of ASGCs technology-driven strategy, fronted by its newly-appointed chief information officer Herbert Fuchs.



More than 85 per cent of ASGCs projects, including developments such as Harbour Views, Mediclinic, Arena, and the Mohammed Bin Rashid Library are being monitored using drone technology, an approach that will lead to better control of the project progress, the company said.



Today, all of ASGCs outdoor projects are monitored by drones, and the company plans to increase investment in such initiatives by expanding its fleet of trained pilots and mobilising advanced cameras to improve feedback quality. These efforts will soon be enhanced by the integration of high-definition CCTV and 360-degree video-capturing technologies, which will open up new opportunities in the monitoring and analytics of various aspects in the lifespan of an ongoing project and the planning of future business, it said.



Drones are being used to conduct site surveys in the initial stages of a project and together with stationary video capturing technology, these are used to monitor construction progress. They also take measurements and carry out spot checks on challenging projects, thereby enabling ASGC to further reduce the risk of accidents and, at the same time, considerably optimise time and cost, the company said.



The firm is also ramping up deployments of 3D scanning technology, a new addition to the construction industry that uses 3D laser scanning to create models of existing buildings for renovation or expansion projects. The scanner creates the blueprints of a detailed model that serves as a progressive overview on the project.



ASGC premiered this technology and it is currently being deployed by ASU, a key contractor of mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) services and part of ASGC Group, at the Dubai Mall expansion.



Fuchs said: Technology has an increasingly important role to play in the construction industry, with creative applications of the latest solutions enabling us to become more productive, more efficient and more cost-effective in how we deliver our work. ASGC believes early adoption of the latest breakthroughs in technology is crucial in implementing our vision of remaining at the forefront of the industry by integrating 'digital' into each phase of our business and operation. - TradeArabia News Service


Search News Archive : Fast Travel News Promotion Via Search, Social Media + Email Follow Us On : ACACIA AFRICAS SPRINGTIME DEALS PROVE POPULAR WITH SUN STARVED BRITS Industry: Travel Offers

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CONTACT INFORMATION Name: Sam Ward Company: Acacia Africa Phone: 020 7706 4700 Email: mseven7studio@gmail.com Web: PRESS RELEASE TAGS
New Delhi, August 15

The civil services preliminary examination to select IAS and IPS officers among others has been scheduled to be held on June 3 next year, the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) has said.

Except for this year's test, which was held on June 18, the preliminary tests for 2016, 2015 and 2014 were held during the month of August, as per UPSC records.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

The preliminary exam for 2013 was held on May 26.

The civil services preliminary examination, 2018, is scheduled to be held on June 3, as per the UPSC's programme of examinations for 2018.

The notification for next year's exam will be issued on February 7. The last date for receipt of applications would be March 6, 2018, it said.

The civil services examination is conducted annually by the UPSC in three stages -- preliminary, main and interview -- to select officers for Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and Indian Police Service (IPS), among others.

The number of vacancies to be filled on the result of the 2017 civil services examination is expected to be approximately 980 which include 27 vacancies reserved for those in physically handicapped category.

The result of civil services preliminary examination 2017 was declared on July 27.  PTI
Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 15

In a serious turn to the existing tensions between India and China, troops of the two sides clashed on Tuesday, with both pelting stones and hitting each other. Men on both sides were injured.

This was the first such incident in several years.

Sources confirmed that the incident occurred when land-based patrols of both sides came face to face north of the Pangong Tso (lake) in eastern Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday. It is an area claimed by both countries and is one of the spots where the two countries fought pitched battles during the 1962 war.

The Pangong Tso, a 135 km-wide glacial-melt lake, straddles both countries. It has boat patrols from either side. The land patrols are different from these.

The spurs of the mountains forming the northern bank of the lake are militarily termed as fingers. On a west-to-east axis, India claims territory till Finger 8, but is in physical control till Finger 4. The aerial distance between the two fingers is about 15 km. The land north of these mountains is disputed.

Land patrols of both sides often come face to face and a drill is followed to disengage. This includes unfurling of a banner, asking each other to withdraw. This is the first step.

New Delhi has asked for a report as the pelting of stones is considered a serious matter. It is not clear who started the stone pelting or how it was triggered.

A flag meeting could be held between brigade commanders of either side at the Spanggur Gap, the designated meeting point south of the Pangong Tso.
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 15

The Punjab Urban Planning and Development Authoritys (PUDA) website link for Real Estate Regulatory Authority was found to be hacked on Tuesday with Pro-Pakistan slogans defacing the webpage.

A group calling itself PHC, Kashmir Chapter, had allegedly hacked the website.

A picture of militant Burhan Wani, who was gunned down last year, was also posted on the website.
Dehradun, August 15

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat on Tuesday unfurled the national flag and led the 71st Independence Day celebrations in the state.

He also administered an oath for maintaining moral values to government officials and employees.

Governor Krishan Kant Paul also greeted the people on the occasion and said everyone should be proud of the fact that the state had become open defecation free.

He also unfurled the national flag at the Raj Bhavan and planted a sapling to mark the occasion.

Director General of Police Anil Kumar Raturi hoisted the flag at the police headquarters and administered the oath of national integration and unity to police officials and personnel present.

Policemen were also given various medals for performance on duty and valour. IANS
Islamabad, August 15

Pakistans ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday filed three separate appeals in the Supreme Court to review its verdict in the Panama Papers case that resulted in his disqualification.

A five-member Supreme Court bench last month disqualified Sharif for dishonesty and ruled that corruption cases be filed against him and his children over the Panama Papers scandal, forcing the prime minister to quit.

Sharifs lawyer Khawaja Harris filed the three review appeals, in reply to the petitions filed by Imran Khan, Sheikh Rashid and Sirjul Haq, in the Lahore registry of the apex court.

The decision to file the appeal against the verdict was taken before 67-year-old Sharifs road journey from Islamabad to Lahore but the legal team took time to prepare the case.

Harris also submitted relevant documents concerning the iqamaa United Arab Emirates work visathat led the judges to declare Sharif unfit to hold office, Dawn reported.

Sharif has argued that the July 28 decision should have been given by a three-member bench since Justice Asif Saeed Khosa and Justice Gulzar Ahmeds jurisdiction had expired after their dissenting judgment on April 20, the paper said.

By signing the final order of the court on July 28, Justice Ahmed and Justice Khosa have actually passed two judgments in the same case, which is unprecedented in judicial history, reads the appeal petition, according to the paper.

Sharif also chaired a meeting of party leaders at his Raiwind estate in Lahore to prepare a strategy for his campaign to contact the masses over his disqualification.

The meeting was attended by Hamza Shahbaz, Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif, Railways Minister Saad Rafique, and Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah, among others.

National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq told the media after the meeting that he still considered Sharif his prime minister.

Sadiq said Sharif would fight for his rights but he would not create any tension between the national institutions.

Sharifs plan is to go to the public and garner support for his plan to bring changes in the country for sanctity of the vote, the speaker added.

The ousted prime minister has repeatedly said that he will strive hard to replace Pakistans old and flawed system with a new law which would put an end to the unceremonious ouster of the prime ministers.

He also seeks accountability from military dictators and judges who, he said, have been sending prime ministers packing home in the last 70 years. PTI
Despite how easy it is to install electronic logging devices and having the ability to use an app to log time, it still takes fleet management and drivers generally a couple of months to get comfortable with the technology, advises Tom Reader of ELD supplier J.J. Keller. Photos: J.J. Keller

To loosely paraphrase what John Wayne barked at the dawn of a long day in The Cowboys, if you havent started gearing up to comply with the new ELD rule, you could end up burning more than daylight.

When it comes to complying with the electronic logging mandate, fleets and drivers alike are now well into the eleventh hour before the new rule kicks in. That will be just about four months from now, on Dec. 18.

Come that day, all carriers subject to the ELD rule will have to convert from using paper logs or logging software to a registered ELD if they do not have an automatic on-board recording device in use. And those using AOBRDs prior to the mandate will only be able to keep using them until Dec. 16, 2019.

The other key part of the rule applies to ELD suppliers, which must ensure their devices conform to technical specs set by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, self-certify those devices, and register them with FMCSA.

FMCSA last year advised carriers and drivers that before buying an ELD, they should confirm that the device is certified and registered with FMCSA...Devices not vendor-certified by manufacturers and registered with FMCSA may not be compliant with the FMCSRs.

Something critical to grasp is that the rule will not be stopped or even delayed at this point. The last, best hope to stave off the mandate came on June 12 when the Supreme Court denied the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Associations petition that it rule on whether the regulation violates the Fourth Amendment right to privacy of truck drivers.

In crafting the ELD rule, FMCSA took great care to avoid potential harassment issues for drivers, explains Pete Allen, executive vice president of MiX Telematics. The Supreme Court has essentially sent a message saying that the ELD mandate is legal and fleets are expected to comply.

The days of assuming that something will stop the ELD rule are over, says Avery Vise, president of compliance-support firm TransComply. There is no path left through the courts. And it is only remotely possible that any anti-ELD measure introduced in Congress this year will become law. And even if one did, it would be nearly impossible for it to be in place before the mandate kicks in.

Unwelcome as the mandate may be to some, its high time to get in the ELD game one way or another. If you have not already, youd better pick a device and get used to running with it  or risk being shut out of trucking altogether.

According to Allen of MiX Telematics, in recent weeks the ELD supplier has received numerous requests from fleets concerned about meeting the compliance deadline. Its not too late to get started, he says, but soon it will be tough to find a vendor who can handle an implementation before the end of this year.

Tom Reader, director of marketing  ELDs, Forms, and Services for J.J. Keller & Associates, says to bear in mind there are a scant few types of drivers who will be exempt from this far-reaching rule:

Drivers who are required to complete paper logs on eight or fewer days out of the last 30 days; these include short-haul drivers and intermittent drivers

Drivers operating a power unit that is part of a driveaway/towaway shipment

Drivers who are driving or towing a recreational vehicle that is part of a driveaway/ towaway shipment

Drivers who are operating vehicles older than model year 2000  and that must be verified via the vehicles VIN number

Generally speaking, if a driver filled out a log book before the mandate, the driver will need to use an ELD unless one of the items above applies.

Reader says theres a definite uptick in fleets purchasing ELDs. We perform quarterly surveys of our customer base, and over half of smaller fleets are still holding off on purchasing. Fortunately, many to most of the larger fleets have either installed or are taking active steps to install ELDs.

But he cautions that despite the ease of installing devices and the ability to use an app to log time, it still takes fleet management and drivers generally a couple of months to get comfortable with the technology.

Drivers use apps all the time on their smartphones, so thats not the issue, Reader continues. Its understanding how the ELD affects productivity and daily routines. Many drivers have said the ELD actually improves their productivity, but it simply takes time to figure out how the technology changes the work day.

Its not a driver-only transition, says Tom Cuthbertson of Omnitracs. Dispatchers need to understand what personal conveyance use and yard time means, and maintenance personnel have to understand the eight-day requirement. The training needed by all will vary based on [fleet] size and complexity.

How do you know a device is ELD-compliant?

One of the stumbling blocks to the quick adoption of electronic logging devices compliant to the new rule has been the question of how  or when  users can be certain that the mandated devices will be able to electronically transfer data files of records of duty status for review by law enforcement officials who use portable computers.

The rule requires that ELDs must be able to transmit hours-of-service information to portable computers via several methods (wireless web/email, USB2.0, and/or Bluetooth). However, many major suppliers of electronic logs in use today were waiting to self-certify and cited concerns about the lack of a way to test those data files to be sure they could be read by enforcement personnel. (ELDs must also provide either an on-screen display of the drivers sequence of duty status entries or a printout of the same.)

In July, it appeared that those concerns were finally being addressed. John Seidl, transportation consultant with Integrated Risk Solutions and a former Wisconsin state trooper and FMCSA investigator, alerted HDT that FMSCA had just come out with an ELD File Validator on its ELD-specific website.

The agency states online that ELD suppliers can use the tool to ensure their ELD output file conforms to the technical specifications in the ELD rule. FMCSA notes that using the File Validator is not a mandatory step of the self-certification process [for suppliers], but it will make the process go as smoothly as possible.

Seidl sees another use for the tool: When selecting a device, motor carriers should request a data file now from their ELD supplier and do their own test to ensure ELD compliance. Its a great way to verify if a vendor that has already self-certified has a compliant data file to transfer, per the ELD rule. If the data file does not work, do you really have an ELD?

He adds that those vendors that still have not self-certified may be able to provide the data file at this point  but you the customer have to ask them.

Still, the whole picture of what device registration is meant to accomplish remains cloudy even at this late date. Critics note that being registered on the FMCSA website may not guarantee a device will prove compliant as an ELD in actual use. Tom Cuthbertson, vice president of regulatory affairs for Omnitracs, calls the system FMCSA set up a registration process; not a certification process. And Integrated Risk Solutions Seidl puts it this way: You just have to say its an ELD to put it on the list.

TransComplys Vise cautions that using an ELD on the list of self-certified devices doesnt provide that much comfort. He says the agency is not routinely verifying that these devices are compliant and FMCSA  by its own admission  is not revoking the registration of any devices until after the December 18 compliance date. Moreover, if a registered ELD ultimately is found to be non-compliant, motor carriers using it will have just eight days to replace it.

Noting that some of the largest suppliers of electronic logs have yet to register any ELDs with FMCSA, Vise suggests that carriers consider installing AOBRDs that could be upgraded to ELD standards without replacing hardware. Also, because carriers are incurring some risk in the case of non-compliance, they should seek language in ELD vendor contracts that provide damages in the event FMCSA revokes registration. If a vendor is unwilling to even consider such language, that could be a red flag  especially in the case of vendors that dont have an established reputation.

Reader of J.J. Keller, which has several ELDs registered with FMCSA, says that while the company continues to have regulatory clarification questions for FMCSA, we have confidence in our interpretation of the regulations as they stand, which is why weve self-certified to be on the [agencys] list.

The rule ultimately is about driver safety, but its not a driver-only transition, says Cuthbertson. For example, dispatchers need to understand what personal conveyance use and yard time means, and maintenance personnel have to understand the eight-day requirement. The training needed by all will vary based on the size and complexity of the trucking operation. And policies will need to be set across the carrier to address such specifics as criteria for editing log entries.

David Heller, vice president of government affairs for the Truckload Carriers Association, notes that fleet size and device platform will determine how long it takes to get up to speed with the mandate. Large fleets are already done with it; smaller fleets that arent are probably looking for user-friendly devices.

As to enforcement, hes experiencing a little heartburn as the compliance date approaches. Were a 50-state country and no two states are alike. That means some will be more ready than others for enforcement. But make no mistake  enforcement of the rule will begin on Dec. 18.
Thom Albrecht discusses the disruption of ecommerce on the trucking industry during the in.sight User Conference + Expo. Photo: Jim Beach

TMW Systems introduced TruETA at the TMW Systems and PeopleNet in.site User Conference + Expo in Nashville, Tennessee. The trip planning and execution tool calculates estimated time of arrival for each stop along a commercial trucks route.

Available to users of TMWs Innovative IES, TMW.Suite, TMWSuite, and TruckMate transportation management solutions, TruETA is a cloud-based solution that automates the calculation of estimated time of arrival based on current vehicle position, PeopleNet driver hours of service, and real-time and predictive traffic patterns. The solution also generates red-yellow-green alerts indicating the likelihood of each vehicle to meet its customers scheduled delivery times, reducing the need for dispatcher-driver phone calls and mobile communications messages.

Commercial and private fleets can use TruETA to help reduce operating costs while improving on-time delivery performance, according to company officials. The tool replaces the local knowledge and manual data entry with automated, fact-based calculations derived from current vehicle location, updated hours of service information, and the PC*Miler industry-standard commercial truck routing engine from ALK Technologies, which includes real-time and predictive traffic speeds along each assigned route. In addition, TruETA uses the ALK Maps commercial mapping platform to visualize live traffic flows, as well as weather overlays of current conditions including radar, cloud cover, alerts and road surface conditions, to quickly identify potential scheduling issues.

TruETA also accounts for required driver rest breaks and calculates remaining hours of service at each destination with PC*Milers hours of service planning engine to support accurate, advanced plans.

Hitting the customers delivery window is no longer an aspirational goal for carriers  it is imperative from a customer service score and financial standpoint, said Ray West, senior vice president and general manager, TMS solutions for TMW. TruETA helps eliminate much of the guesswork and manual data that comes with the trip planning process, and helps fleets reduce the risk of a dissatisfied customer.
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One of Tulsas biggest marketing tools has just gained altitude.

Tulsas Tulsa International Airport and surrounding off-airport and aviation and aerospace businesses in the Tulsa Metropolitan Statistical Area generate an annual economic impact of $11.7 billion, a report shows.

Nobody saw these numbers this big, Tulsa Airports CEO Mark VanLoh said. Nobody guessed it. So its fantastic. Were going to shop it for all its worth.

According to an Oklahoma Aviation & Aerospace Economic Impact Study released Monday, on- and off-airport activity in the Tulsa MSA also produce 58,917 jobs, $3 billion in annual payroll and $8.5 billion in annual spending.

Jones Riverside Airport has an annual economic impact of nearly $95 million.

 You have the big boys here and all their suppliers want to be near them, VanLoh said Tuesday before a news conference at Tulsa International Airport. Were saying we have all this property. Were ready for you to come.

And were starting to see some interest. Were starting to see other companies looking at expanding that are already here. We just want to keep this going. If youre going to be good at something, run with it. And we are good at aerospace.

All told, aviation and aerospace businesses in the state generate $43.7 billion annually in economic activity, according to the Oklahoma Aeronautics Commission report, making aviation and aerospace the second-largest economic engine in the state behind oil and gas.

Since 1994, the industry has grown by 250 percent, said Vic Bird, director of the Oklahoma Aeronautics Commission. Of the $43.7 billion in economic activity, some $19.3 billion came from military aviation, according to the report.

When you talk about the history of aerospace and aviation in Tulsa, you think about people who are early pioneers in our city, who saw airplanes and thought that we should have one of the first airports anywhere in the world, Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum said.

 But that was the mindset that we had in Tulsa, recognizing the value of aerospace and aviation, investing in it and really building a whole industry here in our community around it. These numbers bear the wisdom of those pioneers out.

The state has about 1,100 aerospace and aviation business-related companies. The average salary in aviation and aerospace is just over $73,000, according to the report.

In a two-part look at Oklahomas public airports, including civilian and military, the study measured the total economic impact of each individual airport and then combined these individual airport impacts to determine the overall economic impact of the 109 airports in the Oklahoma Airport System and the states three Air Force bases: Altus, Tinker and Vance. The last comprehensive study of the states airport system was conducted in 1994.

To make the study possible, the aeronautics commission received a $245,000 system-planning grant from the Federal Aviation Administration. The agency was then able to match that amount with its own funds and received additional financial support from the Oklahoma City Airport Trust, Tulsa Airport Improvement Trust and the Tulsa Regional Chamber.

Tulsa International, which offers nonstop service to 17 cities, supports 18,369 direct jobs. In the Tulsa MSA, 286 businesses are related to aviation or aerospace. Tulsa is home to American Airlines largest maintenance facility, as well as NORDAM, a notable manufacturer of aviation equipment, and the Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology. Also, Oklahoma Air National Guards 138th Fighter Wing is based on the northeast corner of the airport.

With 15 capital improvement projects planned for fiscal years 2018-22, the Tulsa airport has plans to spend $86 million, according to the study.

Terminal building rehabilitation will upgrade the fire suppression system, reduce unscheduled maintenance on utilities by improving utility racks, replace aging escalators and replace the terminals roof. The terminal building rehabilitation will cost $11.5 million, with 85 percent of the funding from the airports collection of passenger facility charges.

Other projects include taxiway reconstruction and runway safety area improvement.
Jennifer Burton owns an electronic cigarette and liquids store heavily damaged by the tornado that tore through midtown Aug. 6.

Its a shell right now, she said of Vape This, which occupies a leased space in the 4300 block of South Sheridan Road.

Burton had insurance for the contents of her business but not for employees wages or loss of income, the latter of which she estimated at $15,000 a week for the idled location.

It doesnt take very long when you lose that (space) to feel it, said Burton, whose business and five Tulsa employees have moved to a Vape This location in Broken Arrow.

Burton was among many business owners who attended a midtown meeting Tuesday with officials of the U.S. Small Business Administration, Tulsa Area Emergency Management Agency and the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management.

One of the things that this is designed to do is to help us gauge the overall impact to the business community, said Joe Kralicek, deputy director of the Tulsa Area Emergency Management Agency.

The EF2 twister damaged scores of businesses and homes when it swept across 41st Street near Promenade Mall. Among the buildings most heavily damaged was Remington Tower.

One of primary concerns of course, is Remington Tower because there was such unique and difficult damage there, said Carl Gaspari, a deputy field operations manager for the SBA.

We werent able to get with a lot of the tenants there so we could make some determination and assessment of damages that they may have suffered in their businesses. Were here (Tuesday) to fill that gap and see if we cant get more information for the assessment.

The SBA is collecting data to see if business owners, renters and homeowners qualify for low-interest loans to help with disaster recovery. For an area to qualify, at least 25 businesses, renters or homeowners must have suffered uninsured or uncompensated losses of 40 percent or more of the value of the property, Gaspari said.

Power has been restored and air conditioning has been turned on to control moisture and humidity at Remington Tower, a spokeswoman for the buildings owner said.

A restoration team from Dallas has been working 24/7 since Friday morning to secure the structure, said Bill Sharpe, regional manager of Jansen Adjusters International.

Our primary goal right now is to get it safe enough for people to go in and get their stuff out, he said.

An engineering determination on the structural viability of the building could take weeks, Sharpe said.
The controversial memo that resulted in the firing Monday of its author, a Google engineer, has already stirred up fiery debate about gender stereotyping, corporate diversity efforts and politics in the workplace.

Now that the engineer has been terminated, social media has erupted with questions about free speech and the protections that are offered in the workplace.

But that discussion underscores a common misunderstanding among employees, say experts on labor law. The First Amendment protects people from adverse actions by the government, but it does not generally apply to actions by private employers.

Its a common misconception  I hear employees raise it all the time, said Jonathan Segal, a Philadelphia-based employment lawyer. People dont have a right in the workplace to say anything they want.

Debra Katz, a Washington, D.C.-based lawyer who often represents employees in discrimination cases, called the level of misunderstanding tremendous, even though many people know there are limits on what they should and shouldnt say at work. Public sector employees, who work for the government, have more protections, she notes.

Under the doctrine of at will employment, she said, employers can fire workers at any time for any reason as long as its not an illegal reason.

The confusion has only grown as politics has become hyper-polarized and social media has given employees platforms to broadcast their views to the world.

More and more, political and diversity issues are converging and its creating disruptions and potentially impermissible comments, Segal said. Ive seen it on both sides of the political aisle.

Legal experts note that there are some workplace protections on speech. A relevant one, in the case of the Google engineer who has been identified in media reports as the memos author, James Damore, is that the National Labor Relations Act does protect workers who engage in concerted activities for their mutual aid or protection.

In other words, said James McDonald, the managing partner of the Irvine, California, office of the employment law firm Fisher Phillips, it has to be apparent that an employee is speaking for a group of employees, like saying Im a spokesperson, or at least be an invitation to engage in concerted activity.

Yet the memo, he said, reads like one persons critique of Googles management philosophy as opposed to a call to action for co-workers to rise up and protest. Damore, according to a report in Reuters, has said he is exploring his legal remedies and that he submitted a charge to the U.S. National Labor Relations Board prior to his termination.

A Google representative said the company does not comment on individual cases or employees but said the company determined that the portion of the post that references gender stereotypes violates its code of conduct and policies against harassment and discrimination.

Damore did not respond to a message sent to his LinkedIn profile or a Harvard web page with the same name.

In a message published Monday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai opened by saying that we strongly support the right of Googlers to express themselves, and much of what was in that memo is fair to debate, regardless of whether a vast majority of Googlers disagree with it. But to suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not okay. It is contrary to our basic values and our Code of Conduct.

Even if Damore established that his memo amounted to concerted activity, said William Gould, a professor emeritus at Stanford Universitys law school and a former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board, Google may still be able to assert that the speech crosses a line on stereotypes about women, and that it was disruptive and could create a hostile work environment.

He also notes that if Damore were able to prove that he was fired because he filed a charge with the NLRB, that would be a violation of the law regardless of the charges merits.

Gould also said that there have been decisions in California and in a handful of other states that said that when employees pursue subject matter that is in the interest of public policy, they are protected by common law, he said, such as an employee who speaks out for believing an employers health and safety is not meeting government regulations.

If he were speaking simply about the appropriateness of affirmative action that might be a different matter, he said, but he appears to be speaking about women in a stereotypical, inflammatory way.

In the memo, Damore wrote that I strongly believe in gender and racial diversity, and in a reply to the public response, wrote that I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and dont endorse using stereotypes. When addressing the gap in representation in the population, we need to look at population level differences in distributions.

Even if the First Amendment generally doesnt protect employees in the workplace, lawyers say, that doesnt mean employers are generally looking to regulate workers speech. It tends to generate more complaints, it tends to lead to inconsistent enforcement, it tends to create problems, McDonald said.

Still, the confusion remains. Many people assume that you have First Amendment protections, but the First Amendment only protects you from government restrictions of speech, Katz said. The cases are legion where employees get fired for saying things that their employer disagrees with.
Greenheck Group, a Wisconsin-based manufacturer, plans to build a manufacturing facility in northeast Tulsa, initially bringing 75 jobs by the summer of 2018 and setting the stage for more, it announced Tuesday.

In a Tulsa Regional Chamber news release, the company said it plans to break ground later this year and credited the areas workforce as the reason for the Tulsa expansion.

The company plans to build two facilities  one for its brand of commercial kitchen ventilation systems and another for its tempered air products line  with the commercial kitchen facility coming first.

CEO Jim McIntyre said in a statement: Tulsa is the ideal location for our new Greenheck Group campus. The central location, the robust and growing business sector, and ready access to a smart, talented workforce were all key factors in our decision. In addition, we were impressed by the strong leadership and collaboration between the city of Tulsa, the Tulsa Regional Chamber, the Cherokee Nation, the state of Oklahoma, and the local technical colleges.

He added, We are looking forward to breaking ground, opening our doors and becoming part of the Tulsa community.

According to its website, Greenheck makes fans, dampers, louvers, kitchen ventilation hoods, and energy recovery and make-up air units.

The company could grow more in Tulsa as needs dictate, the news release says.

The announcement is another coup for area economic development officials who have been touting the regions efforts to expand the economic base and the economys recovery from the energy downturn.

Were thrilled that Greenheck Group sees potential for future growth in the Tulsa region, said Mike Neal, president and CEO of the Tulsa Regional Chamber. Greenheck is an exemplary corporate citizen, and their commitment to their employees  evidenced by extremely low turnover rates  is unparalleled.

We look forward to continue helping Greenheck Group establish itself in the Tulsa community.
One of Jamie McCoys roles is to follow underground rock formations that trap natural gas or oil.

The other is to oversee the financial side of Canyon Creek Energy and manage investor relationships for the 5-year-old company.

As we started raising money for this company, we had a drilling project in hand, said the chief financial officer and vice president. We had something to work on and knew what we would be doing.

We have assets in place when we contact investors. We say this is an area where an investment can be made today. There is no question about what we are going to do with the investors money.

McCoy is part of a 13-member exploration and production team that combines talents to drill horizontal oil and gas wells in unconventional shale in the mid-continent region  specifically the Arkoma Basin in southeast Oklahoma.

We have spent the past 3 years developing the project, and we let the geology lead us to where we need to go, he said.

The Arkoma Basin is in the southeast part of Oklahoma, specifically in Hughes, Coal and Pittsburgh counties. Canyon Creek Energy has been acquiring acreage in Hughes County, although other areas are being carefully watched.

An organization that tracks drilling throughout the state shows Hughes County was the most leased county in the state last month.

A resurgence of drilling activity has occurred in the area, and now 10 rigs are running, including one of Canyon Creeks. That compares to only two drilling rigs a year ago.

That uptick has resulted in six or seven new private equity-backed interests during the past year, he said.

Oil and gas drilling activities in the central part of the state  in Kingfisher, Grady, Garvin and McLain counties  have drawn headlines, McCoy said. Entry costs (acreage leasing) have gone up compared to the Arkoma Basin. Technology and a better understanding of reservoirs make it possible to work in that basin and get significantly higher production than three to five years ago.

McCoys role is to work with investors and demonstrate the investment potential.

Part of the companys strategy is to lease as much acreage in its area of interest as possible.

The management team sees additional formations in the Arkoma Basin  beyond the Woodford Shale that has been traditionally drilled  that can provide an additional upside for investors.

Technical support makes it possible to find what appears to be a good area and lease the acreage accordingly.

The nature of our business is to create value and have steps along the way to monetize that, he said. In the right circumstances, we would do that with the idea that we would invest in future projects.

The Arkoma Basin has unconventional formations. It is a tight rock with low permeability. Wells are drilled vertically to between 5,000 or 6,000 feet, then horizontally for 5,000 to 10,000 feet to tap those tight natural gas and oil reserves.

Production is 50 percent natural gas and 50 percent oil and a combination of natural gas liquids. Oil production from area wells is somewhat uncommon and is another reason the firm is attracted to the area.

The NGL market has allowed Canyon Creek Energy to extract more value in recent years, he said.

Despite the volatile energy prices, McCoy said the firm is dedicated to the Arkoma Basin and occasionally looks to other producing areas in the state.

Members of the executive management team  CEO Luke Essman; McCoy; Danny Jacobs, vice president and head of engineering; Jenni Kessler, vice president and head of geology; and Steve McNamara, vice president of the land department  have between 13 to 18 years of industry experience and have reviewed growth options elsewhere.

It doesnt behoove us to go beyond the Arkoma Basin at this time, he said. We keep our eyes open to understand opportunities. But we feel like we have a pretty full plate and enough running room, so we dont need to stray to far from our focus. The drilling results to date keep us excited about the potential of what is out there.

McCoy said the management team is committed to growing the company so it can sustain employment in Tulsa even as other energy companies leave.

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The probability of a magnitude 5.0 earthquake in Oklahoma this year is as high as 80 percent, with no evidence to suggest the state will revert to pre-2009 seismicity levels by 2025, according to a research paper published Wednesday.

Appearing in Science Advances, the latest research by the University of California Santa Cruz and the Oklahoma Geological Survey finds that a previous study substantially underestimates the states induced seismicity risk. A Stanford University study published in the same journal in November reported a 37 percent chance of a 5.0 occurring in 2017, with seismicity approaching historic levels within a few years.

The new studys authors agree with the Stanford studys pronouncement that the rate of smaller quakes is decreasing.

But moderate quakes arent quite adhering as strongly to that downward trend, according to the UC Santa Cruz and OGS study. Nor will Oklahoma return any time soon to its tectonic history of about two felt earthquakes a year, considered in this context to be magnitude 3.0 or stronger.

In July alone, there were 35 of at least 3.0 magnitude, and four of at least 4.0 so far in 2017.

The rate of Oklahoma seismicity appears to be decreasing, co-author Emily Brodsky, professor of earth and planetary sciences at UC Santa Cruz, told the Tulsa World. However, a moderate earthquake rate remains high and is expected to remain high until at least 2025.

Lead author Thomas Goebel noted that the analysis finds a 37 percent to 80 percent probability of a 5.0 or stronger earthquake in 2017. That probability range in 2025 is still elevated at 5 percent to 40 percent.

Goebel, a postdoctoral fellow at UC Santa Cruz, called the Stanford studys conclusion on how soon historic seismicity rates will return problematic.

Goebel noted the importance of continuing to seismically monitor the state and further develop research and understanding behind the mechanics of induced earthquakes.

Predicting the future rates is very difficult and lots of uncertainties are in it, Goebel cautioned.

Along with input from OGS seismologist Jake Walter and hydrologist Kyle Murray, the UC Santa Cruz seismologists used the same statistical model developed by the Stanford geophysicists to come to their differing probability findings.

When we apply their model and carry that forward with some of those more realistic values, even in 2025 were nowhere near approaching tectonic values  tectonic being about two felt earthquakes per year, Walter said.

The UC Santa Cruz and OGS scientists also write that the Stanford model is not able to predict several moderate earthquakes that have already happened.

(T)hus, the probability of future damaging earthquakes may also be underestimated, they conclude.

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The Tulsa City Council will discuss and take possible action on a jail-services agreement with the Okmulgee County Criminal Justice Authority at a special meeting Wednesday.

Councilors said Mayor G.T. Bynum asked that the item be put on the agenda. It apparently is related to a proposal he said he would make by the end of August regarding the ongoing fight over the cost of housing municipal prisoners in the Tulsa Jail.

Regarding the citys jail utilization, I will present my recommended approach to the Tulsa City Council on Wednesday during their special meeting, Bynum said in a statement. Out of respect for my colleagues on the council, I want them to hear this proposal directly from me first and will therefore not have any comment prior to that meeting. I will be available for comment after that meeting concludes on Wednesday.

Last week, Tulsa County commissioners voted to extend the $69-a-day rate charged to hold municipal prisoners in the Tulsa Jail to all municipal inmates, including those also held on state charges, beginning Sept. 1.

By charging the city for inmates held on so-called mixed state and municipal charges, the county effectively doubles the amount the city has paid in recent years to use the jail, from about $700,000 to $1.4 million annually, as previously reported.

The city currently pays only for prisoners held exclusively on municipal charges.

Tulsa County Sheriff Vic Regalado, at a news conference late Tuesday afternoon, said the citys proposal caught him by surprise, but that losing the citys prisoners wont sink our ship financially.

My concerns are how this affects the citizens of Tulsa, from a financial standpoint, from a public standpoint and from an efficiency standpoint, Regalado said.

Several times, Regalado said the citys and countys inability to reach an agreement on the citys use of the jail has been a failing of both.

I find it reprehensible we cannot come to a conclusion and put this thing to bed, he said.

Regalado has had no role in the negotiations between city and county, but said the $69-a-day per diem sought by the county for all prisoners held on municipal charges is not out of bounds.

Prisoners held on only municipal charges typically account for about 1 percent of the jail population. Those held on mixed charges generally total about 10 percent.

It was not clear prior to Bynums presentation planned for Wednesday whether the proposal involved inmates with mixed charges, the inmates with municipal charges only or some other arrangement.

Regalado said the citys decision casts into doubt agreements that allow the county to use a city facility for a court holding area and the city-operated 911 call center.

The supporting material for the special meeting agenda item, available on the councils website, says the Okmulgee Jail will accept inmates with only municipal charges at a cost of $48 per prisoner, per day.

Okmulgee County will provide transport to and from the facility up to twice daily at the federal rate of mileage per trip, according to the backup material.

The trip from the Tulsa Jail to the Okmulgee County Jail is about 40 miles and takes about 45 minutes to travel, according to the Google Maps app.

The amount expected to be encumbered in the budget is $100,000, according to the backup materials.
A Mounds man was killed when the car he was driving crashed while being pursued by a sheriff's deputy early Tuesday, authorities said.

The Oklahoma Highway Patrol identified the dead man as Adam Johnson, 37.

Johnson ran a stop sign shortly after midnight in the area of Hectorville Road and North 250 Road, Okmulgee County Sheriff Eddie Rice said. A deputy attempted to stop the car, but it reportedly fled.

The deputy pursued the car, a 2004 Cadillac, until it ran off a road and crashed about five miles south of Glenpool, according to a crash report.

A passenger, Tracy Frescatore, 31, of Mounds, was injured and transported to a Tulsa hospital in unknown condition, the report states.

The car hit a utility poll and went through a fence before rolling several times and coming to a rest on its top, the report states.

"There was nothing left of the vehicle," Rice said. "This was one of the most horrific crashes I've ever seen."

Johnson, who troopers said was not wearing a safety belt, was ejected about 57 feet from the car.

Troopers said Frescatore was wearing a safety belt.
A former Turley minister was sentenced Monday in Tulsa federal court to a four-year, nine-month prison term after pleading guilty earlier to what is believed to be a unique type of child pornography offense.

Ronald Eugene Robinson pleaded guilty May 9 to one count of accessing with intent to view child pornography on an Internet website.

Chief U.S. District Judge Gregory Frizzell sentenced Robinson, 63, to prison after hearing graphic testimony about comments purportedly made by Robinson in a child pornography internet chat room, as well as requests from his attorney and others that he be sentenced to probation instead.

Robinson has been in custody since his arrest March 30.

Frizzell noted that he believed this was the first time he had sentenced someone for such a charge, saying others believe this might be part of a trend.

The charge stems from Robinsons watching video recordings of child pornography that was live streamed on a website that he and others could simultaneously view and comment upon at the same time via typing on a keyboard.

John Perez, a special agent for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations, testified that while a forensic examination of Robinsons home computer found no child porn images, it did find logs that linked him to child pornography chat room activity.

During one session, someone with a user name linked to Robinson typed perfect age to rape hard while a video of a boy who appeared to be younger than 15 exposed his penis to a web camera, according to Perez.

A grand jury indicted Robinson April 4 .

The same investigation resulted in the arrest and guilty plea of a former Tulsa Christian home-school alliance principal. Jeffrey Richard Goss, 56, pleaded guilty in June to accessing with intent to view child pornography via an online video chat room. He is scheduled to be sentenced in September.

Robinson was the director of A Third Place Community Foundation, which operated the Welcome Table Community Center food pantry, located in a former church building at 5920 N. Owasso Ave. in Turley.

Robinsons attorney, Scott Graham, said that while what his client typed in the chat room might have been morally offensive, there is nothing illegal with what he was typing and there was no evidence that he ever acted on his statements.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Graham said, Mister Robinson uses his creative writing ability to exorcise some of his demons.

Graham noted in a court filing that Robinson has two masters degrees, one in divinity and another in fine arts with an emphasis in creative writing.

Robinson apologized to the judge and others involved in the case, as well as to his supporters. Eleven women, including his wife, and four men, attended the sentencing hearing.

It was horrible to go to that website for fantasy chat, Robinson said, reading from prepared remarks, adding that he was sickened by his behavior and not just because it led to his arrest.

His wife told the judge that while she had been unaware of his activities until he sought treatment, she called her husband a good man with a bad problem.

In requesting probation, Graham asked Frizzell to consider the lighter sentence for Robinson due to a host of factors, including his age, a lack of criminal history, and because his age and health would make him susceptible to abuse while in prison, court papers filed on his behalf state.

Robinson viewed the pornography on his computer in 2015. In 2016, he sought mental health treatment for his pornography addiction, prior to realizing he was under investigation by authorities.

If placed on probation, Mr. Robinsons continued participation in his previous sex offender treatment program and counseling can be made mandatory and immediate, the filing states. A lengthy term of probation is satisfactory to protect the public.

Prosecutors opposed the request for probation.

Robinson will also have to serve 10 years of post-custody supervised release and be required to register as a sex offender.
The Oklahoma Attorney Generals Office will ask an appellate court to reconsider the ruling it made in a death-penalty case last week, saying the decision has the potential, if it stands, to heavily affect the states criminal, civil and regulatory authority.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver granted a request by the state of Oklahoma on Tuesday for additional time to file its petition for a rehearing in a lawsuit involving convicted murderer Patrick Dwayne Murphy.

A three-judge panel of the court ruled Aug. 8 that Murphy, who was sentenced to death, should have been tried in federal court for the 1999 murder and genital mutilation of a man in McIntosh County because Murphy was Native American and the death occurred in Indian country.

The Attorney Generals Office will request a rehearing before the entire 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, spokeswoman Terri Watkins said.

The court granted the attorney generals request, submitted Monday, that it be given until Sept. 21 to file the rehearing petition.

The murder victim, George Jacobs Sr., 49, died in 1999 along a McIntosh County road, and the appellate court determined that the location was within the Muscogee (Creek) Nations boundaries, a region that spans 11 Oklahoma counties and includes most of the city of Tulsa. The court determined that the Creek Nation reservation, which existed before Oklahoma achieved statehood, had never been disestablished by Congress.

In requesting more time to file a rehearing petition, the Attorney Generals Office notes that it will take considerable time to review the 126-page opinion and relevant case law to formulate the best concise presentation for rehearing.

It is anticipated that the petition for rehearing will be based both on arguments related to the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 and on the merits of the reservation question, both of which are quite complex, a request signed by Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Crabb states.

The Attorney Generals Office also notes in its request that the ruling presents an important question beyond the validity of Murphys conviction and death sentence.

If this courts opinion stands, other criminal defendants in Oklahoma (past, present and future) may argue that the state lacks jurisdiction to prosecute criminal cases over areas that are home to over a million Oklahoma citizens, the request states. There also exists the potential for changes in the states civil and regulatory authority.

Various lawyers have said the ruling could have far-reaching effects on both Oklahoma criminal and civil law if it is allowed to stand.

A defendant in another criminal case has already cited the ruling as part of his defense.

An attorney for former Tulsa Police Officer Shannon Kepler filed a motion in state court on Friday asking that his murder case be dismissed, citing Keplers Creek Nation citizenship and the Murphy appellate court ruling.

The Creek Nation hailed the ruling, saying it affirms the right of the Nation and all other Indian Nations to make and enforce their own laws within their own boundaries.

Rehearings before the entire 10th Circuit are often requested, but seldom granted, a procedural guide published on the courts website states.
A man who was released from prison in mid-July after pleading guilty to indecent exposure charges was arrested on allegations he exposed himself to several women in the weeks following his release.

Robert Nicholas Long, 19, of Broken Arrow, allegedly stood in his driveway Monday morning and masturbated in view of two women, according to a probable cause affidavit. Long allegedly stood in his driveway, located on West South Park Street in Broken Arrow, and exposed his genitalia until the first woman left.

He allegedly walked to his mailbox, turned to face another woman and began masturbating, according to the affidavit.

Police allege Long spontaneously uttered statements, asking if he was going back to prison and stating he only scratched his genitalia.

During the investigation, police connected Long to a third incident that occurred about two weeks after his release following eight months in prison.

Long allegedly exposed himself on July 29 to a woman in a stairwell at a strip mall, located in the 700 block of West New Orleans Street in Broken Arrow.

Long pleaded guilty in November 2016 to two counts of indecent exposure, according to court records. He was sentenced to 10 years, with two to be served in prison and eight years to be served on probation. He was released July 14, according to Oklahoma Department of Corrections.

Police booked Long into Tulsa Jail on three complaints of indecent exposure after a former felony conviction. He is being held in lieu of a $30,000 bond, according to jail records. Long is scheduled for an Aug. 21 court appearance.

According to a police news release, potential victims of Long's who have not reported the incident are asked to call detective Rhianna Russell at 918-451-8200, ext. 8743.
Telling people what they wanted to hear was not Ronnie Hills style.

He had no pretensions about himself or anyone  no phoniness, said Alasdair Hill, Ronnies brother.

Whatever your walk of life, he had no problem expressing to you what he was thinking.  (Ronnie) was nothing if not brutally honest.

This week, Alasdair and other family members are asking for a little more brutal honesty.

They want a hit-and-run driver, who police say was responsible for Ronnies death, to come forward and tell the truth about what happened.

According to police, Ronnie Hill, 30, was killed Friday night in northwest Tulsa while riding his bicycle.

The vehicle that struck him  about 9 p.m. in the 2300 block of West Edison Street  was traveling west and did not stop.

Hill, who did not own a car and used his bicycle for transportation, was pronounced dead at the scene.

It wont bring my brother back, but it would give the rest of us peace and answer questions, Alasdair Hill said of finding the driver. I just want to know what happened.

In the meantime, family and friends, who are still in shock, are remembering their lost loved one.

A memorial service for Ronald Michael Peter Ronnie Hill has been set for 6:30 p.m. Friday at Schaudts Funeral Home in Tulsa. An after-party to celebrate his life is also being organized, with details to be announced.

Describing his brother, who was nine years his senior, Alasdair Hill said, Ronnie was the kind of guy who said what everyone else was thinking but were afraid to say.

His funny way of delivering it somehow overcame any momentary awkwardness, he added.

Among his passions were video games and music.

A regular patron of Vintage Stock who avidly traded vintage cartridges with other gamers, he loved everything about video games  the storylines, everything, Alasdair said. He always wanted to be a game designer.

Ronnie also played guitar and once was a member of a popular area deathcore metal band.

More than anything, Alasdair added, Ronnie loved to laugh.

He relished irreverence generally, he said.

His brothers favorite television show was Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and he enjoyed the total shock of the shows humor.

Ronnies own irreverence and bluntness sometimes rubbed people the wrong way and led to disagreements, Alasdair said.

But underneath it all was a sensitive heart, and those who got to know him loved him, he added.

People could come to him with real problems  whether it was his own brother or just someone who sat next to him at a bar, Alasdair said.

The oldest of three brothers, Ronnie Hills youth was divided between Kiefer and Tulsa. He attended Summit Christian Academy in Broken Arrow and later graduated from Union High School.

His survivors include his parents, Peter and Michelle Hill; and his two brothers, Alasdair Hill and Hamish Hill.

Anyone who saw the crash or the fleeing vehicle, or who has other information about the collision, is asked to call Crimestoppers at 918-596-COPS (2677).
A public meeting will be held Tuesday for residents to speak with state agency personnel about expanded cleanup of contamination at the Tar Creek Superfund Site in Ottawa County.

Department of Environmental Quality representatives will be available to discuss issues and answer questions related to the upcoming residential remedial activities planned for the site and sampling to be conducted in the area, according to the DEQ.

The meeting will be at 6:30 p.m. at the Ottawa County Courthouse Annex, 123 E. Central Ave., in Miami.

There have been residential yard cleanups in the past, said DEQ spokeswoman Erin Hatfield. This is an expansion  throughout the county.

The 2,500-square-mile Tri-State Mining District, which includes portions of Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri, contains remnants of lead and zinc mining that began around 1848 and continued until the 1970s, leaving widespread contamination.

Numerous piles of waste, called chat, were left as a byproduct of the mining, and cave-ins of homes and roads have occurred.

Cleanup at the Tar Creek Superfund Site has been ongoing since the 1980s.

The program has included millions of dollars in federal and state buyouts of area residents, and the towns of Picher and Cardin were officially dissolved.

Hatfield said that while the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has conducted cleanups of residential areas in the past, the upcoming activity will mark the first time for DEQ to lead the remediation process.

She said cleanups will be conducted as follows:

 First, samples will be taken. Depending on the results, contaminated material will be removed.

 If the contaminated material is soil, it will be removed and replaced with non-contaminated soil and sod.

 If the contaminated material is in a driveway, it will be removed and replaced with limestone.

Due to the widespread practice of using chat as general fill material, lead contamination is common throughout Ottawa County and has contributed to human health and environmental concerns in the area, DEQ stated in a news release.

Due to the overwhelming size and complexity of the site, it is divided into multiple  units, the release says.

In addition to Tuesdays meeting, DEQ representatives will be on hand at a booth during the Ottawa County Fair on Aug. 24 and 25, Hatfield said.

For more information about the Tar Creek Superfund Site, residents may contact Brian Stanila, DEQ project manager, at 405-702-5138 or Ramsey Mauldin, DEQ project manager, at 405-702-5129.
Filming is underway in Sydney on a gay rights movement telemovie, Riot, for ABC.

Dramatising Australias 1970s Gay Rights Movement and the individuals who were unwavering in their fight for decriminalisation, recognition and equality, it stars Damon Herriman plus Xavier Samuel, Kate Box and Jessica de Gouw.

Written by Greg Waters, produced by Werner productions and directed by Jeffrey Walker, the project will shoot in Sydney over the next 4 weeks.

ABC Head of Scripted Production Sally Riley says It could never be more relevant than now to tell this story of identity, courage and love as a marginalised community finds its voice and rises up to fight oppression and injustice. With a cast as extraordinary as this, Riot promises to be a stirring, landmark television event in time for the 40th anniversary of the birth of Mardi Gras.

On behalf of Werner Film Productions, writer Greg Waters expressed that At a time when the struggle for LGBTQ rights is far from over, it was a privilege to explore the lives of pioneering activists who sacrificed so much to drag Australia towards equality.

It will air in 2018.

Lance Gowland is a devoted activist, steadfast and dedicated to actively fighting for his beliefs while juggling family, work and relationships. With the system against them and ever present adversity, Gowland and his fellow activists decide to come out fighting in their celebration of diversity.

An important, integral and inspiring part of LGBTQ history in Australia and the world, Riot explores the origins of the activism that led to Australias most famous street parade.

Riot will examine a hugely significant milestone in Australian history that is both culturally and socially important. said Sally Caplan, Head of Production at Screen Australia. Next year will mark the 10th anniversary of Lance Gowlands passing and in the safe hands of Joanna Werner and Louise Smith  who have an exceptional track record for creating high quality local drama  now is the perfect time to tell the story of this iconic and highly effective activist.

Create NSW CEO Michael Brealey said, Riots true tale of the rich LGBTQ history in Sydney will undoubtedly strike a chord across the country. As we strive to increase the awareness, voice and participation of under-represented groups across the Australian screen and industry, were excited to be a part of this production and look forward to its timely premiere next year.
Seven returns First Dates UK to Tuesdays from tonight, picking up with S2E3.

It moves into the slot where Yummy Mummies was screening a week ago.

Rajan is back, and hes looking to get lucky on his fourth try, this time with lovelorn Corinne, who seems to meet all the wrong men. Beauty Shakira is on her first-ever first date in this forum, nervously waiting to meet the equally jittery Xany. Meanwhile, young party animal Devon gets to the bar in need of a very large drink, but her date, debonair Will, is a teetotaler. Purdey fancies the well-toned arms of her Aussie date, Matt, but refuses to kiss him. Heavy metal fan Dan berates lovely Angela for liking all sorts of music. And gentlemanly retiree John hopes to find understanding and empathy in his date.

9:45pm Tuesday August 15 on Seven.
A group of Central African refugees in Ndu, in DRC Bas Uele province. Several thousands of refugees have fled Central African Republic for the North of the Democratic Republic of Congo since May 2017.  UNHCR/Simon Lubuku

KINSHASA  UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is concerned about the ongoing influx of asylum seekers from the Central African Republic (CAR) into remote areas of the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where very few humanitarian actors are present.

The latest major population movement was reported by authorities in the town of Yakoma in DRCs northern province of Nord-Ubangi, where over 10,000 people have arrived since last week. They fled insecurity in the area around Bema in CAR, to the nearby Congolese town of Yakoma.

The influx from CAR continues also in other border areas in the Congo, many of which are difficult to access due to the lack of roads. The new arrivals add to some 65,000 asylum seekers who arrived in DR Congo since mid-May 2017 and 103,000 registered refugees, who have come to DRC since the beginning of the crisis in CAR in 2013.

In order to respond to the worsening humanitarian situation in the arrival areas, UNHCR has distributed essential household items to 9,754 persons in Yakoma, Limasa and Satema in DRCs northern Nord-Ubangi province between 5 and 8 August. They received buckets, sleeping mats, blankets, mosquito nets and kitchen sets. UNHCR is currently shipping more relief items to the area. Since the new arrivals stay with local families, it will also support the host communities, which struggle to access drinking water and medical services.

DRCs asylum body, the National Commission for Refugees, is meanwhile registering the asylum seekers who arrived over the past months.

So far, UNHCR has received 7 % of the 55.3 million US dollars it needs to assist the Central African refugees in DRC. Among its major donors for the response to the CAR crisis in DRC are the European Union, Japan, and the United States of America.

Media contacts:
Families who fled militia attacks in Kasai Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo arrive at the newly established Lovua settlement in northern Angola.  UNHCR/Rui Padilha

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and partners have begun relocating over 33,000 Congolese refugees from over-crowded reception centers in northern Angola to a newly established settlement in Lovua  some 100 km further inland from the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Nearly 1,500 refugees have been relocated from the Mussunge reception centre to the new site since Tuesday (August 8) in arranged transport.

Since April this year, Congolese refugees have been receiving humanitarian assistance at Cacanda and Mussunge temporary reception centres as well as in surrounding communities around Dundo - the capital of Lunda Norte Province.

The Angolan Government has allocated about 33 km2 of land to set up Lovua settlement to improve the living conditions of refugees. All refugees will receive a plot of land to build shelters and grow food to supplement their food rations. The new settlements distance from the border will help in maintaining the humanitarian and civilian character of the site.

Since March this year, thousands of Congolese have fled the violence and ethnic tensions in the Kasai region of the DRC to northern Angola. While the security situation in the Kasai region remains volatile, the Angolan authorities and UNHCR with partners are ready to provide protection and assistance for up to 50,000 Congolese refugees by the end of 2017 at Lovua.

UNHCR with other humanitarian agencies launched an appeal in June for US$65.5 million for Angola to provide life-saving protection and assistance to Congolese refugees from Kasai. So far, only 32 per cent of the required funds have been received. Additional funding is urgently needed to continue developing infrastructure and services for refugees in Lovua settlement.

Angola Inter-Agency Refugee Appeal and latest operational updates



For more information on this topic, please contact:
UW Bulletin Introduces Rogers Research Site, Post-Fire Studies

A decorated U.S. Army officer quietly bequeathed his 320-acre mountainous property to the University of Wyoming in 2002. Since then, UW faculty members and students, in an equally quiet manner, have been conducting studies relating to the improvement of forestry and wildlife resources in Wyoming and beyond.

Several of the research teams are now in the final stages of completing peer-reviewed bulletins detailing their investigations, including the restoration of ponderosa pine forest following a high-intensity wildfire in 2012.

Their studies are being conducted on land that was willed to UW by Col. William C. Rogers, who retired to southeast Wyomings rugged Laramie Mountains after his distinguished career in the military, which took him to the Western Front during World War II.

An overview of the research, a story about the most interesting Rogers and details about the land he donated to UW -- now called the Rogers Research Site (RRS) -- are in RRS Bulletin 1, Introduction to the University of Wyomings Rogers Research Site, north Laramie Mountains, Wyoming, the first publication in the RRS series. In the coming weeks and months, additional bulletins will be released to the public that showcase early planning efforts and studies at the property near the prominent Laramie Peak northwest of Wheatland.

The land is under management of the Wyoming Agricultural Experiment Station (WAES) and one of its four research and extension centers, the James C. Hageman Sustainable Agriculture Research and Extension Center (SAREC) near Lingle.

We are grateful to the estate of Col. Rogers for providing the university with the resource to learn more about forested lands in southeast Wyoming and to conduct research relating to our states wildlife and forest resources, says SAREC Director John Tanaka, professor of rangeland ecology and watershed management in the UW College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

We also are appreciative of the many UW faculty, staff and student researchers, in collaboration with others, who have participated in the restoration of the property and data collection, Tanaka says.

When Rogers bequeathed his property to UW, the site and surrounding public and private lands were covered predominantly by ponderosa pine, which provided habitat for a rich array of resident and migratory wildlife species, including elk, mule deer, bighorn sheep and wild turkey.

Upon the start of collecting baseline information from the site, including vegetation and soils mapping, the Arapaho Fire swept through and killed most of the trees, changing the research focus to what we can learn about post-fire restoration on these kinds of sites, Tanaka says.

The thick-barked ponderosa pine has evolved to survive low-intensity ground fires, but the high-severity Arapaho Fire, which occurred during a significant drought, killed the majority of ponderosa across the nearly 100,000 acres it burned.

One study at RRS is testing the best management practices for a post-fire ponderosa pine restoration site, while another is investigating whether changes in soil following wildfire affect the regrowth of ponderosa pine and other vegetation.

WAES is very thankful to Dr. Steve Williams for leading the establishment of the restoration treatments and initial data collection, and to Robert Waggener for seeing the multiple publications come through to fruition, Tanaka says.

Williams, a professor emeritus in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, and Waggener, a part-time editor for WAES, co-wrote RRS Bulletin 1.

The Rogers property was an unusual gift to the state and to UW. The site becoming a part of WAES was timely, in that interest at local, state, national and international levels has become more and more focused on forest health and fire control, Williams says. In our country, the Western forests have become, in many places, decimated by pine bark beetle infestations. As summers have become longer and drier, forest fires have become apparent and devastating.

Williams adds, The donation of the Rogers property to UW and the state was an unparalleled generous and timely gift. Our challenge is to use the property wisely for the people of the state and, in doing so, honor the desires of Col. William C. Rogers.

In addition to bequeathing his Triple R Ranch to the university, Rogers gifted about $4 million to UW to benefit a variety of programs, departments and causes, among them theater, dance, social justice, campus beautification and forestry/wildlife research.

Rogers was born in 1906 in Newport News, Va.; earned a bachelors degree in liberal arts from the Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, Va., in 1927; and was called to active duty with the U.S. Army in 1942. He served in Europe, Africa, Iran and Korea, overseeing such missions as keeping railroad supply lines open to Russia.

After retiring from the military in 1962, Rogers spent much time on his property in the Laramie Mountains, on a farm in Nebraska and in Mexico, where he researched the Tarahumara Indians. He would spend the last years of his life in Carmel, Calif., where he died in 2003, at age 96.

Bulletin 1 and upcoming publications in the series can be viewed or downloaded by going to www.uwyo.edu/uwe and typing Rogers Research Site into the search bar.

A limited number of hard copies of the first two bulletins will be available to those attending the SAREC Field Day (2753 State Highway 157 near Lingle) from 4-8 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 24.

For more information about the SAREC event, research at RRS and the bulletins, call (307) 837-2000 or email sarec@uwyo.edu.


Named as one of the Top 10 Haunted Houses in the nation by USA Today and recognized as one of the best haunted attractions in the world by Travel Channel, Fright Dome is celebrating its 15th Anniversary on the Las Vegas Strip (Photo credit: Fright Dome). Named as one of thein the nation by USA Today and recognized as one of the best haunted attractions in the world by Travel Channel,is celebrating itson the Las Vegas Strip (Photo credit: Fright Dome).

Beginning Friday, Sept. 29, Fright Dome will take over all five acres of The Adventuredome theme park at Circus Circus Las Vegas transforming, it into an immersive and terrifying attraction featuring six haunted houses, multiple scare zones, thrill rides in the dark and more.

What an honor it has been for Fright Dome to call Las Vegas home for 15 years, said Jason Egan, owner and creator of Fright Dome. What started as a local event has grown into something that attracts visitors from all over the world. Our dedicated fans are the reason Fright Dome has been so successful, so it was only fitting that to celebrate the anniversary we brought back some of the classics that fans always ask for. 2017 promises to be a year to remember, with a few more big announcements to come about what other exciting things my team is working on.

New for this season, Egan is treating fans to the largest haunted house in the events tenure, appropriately named Zombie City. For the inaugural launch of the acclaimed haunted attraction in 2003, Egan and his team began implementing zombies into scare zones and haunted houses.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the event in 2012, Egan teamed up with the late godfather of horror George A. Romero to infuse a new level of zombie-themed scares. Now just a mere five years later, Egan and his team will honor the teachings of their idol with more than 15,000 square feet of zombie metropolis. Guests will be hunted as they make their way through the virus-filled city of the dead.

Known for its dark-twist on Christmas and all things Krampus-lore in years past, the 2017 season also will see Fright Dome take on a variety of festive holidays in its innovative new Happy Hell-idays house. Something wicked lurks within as Egan and his team of experts bring to life the most dreadful of celebrations, including Valentines Day, St Patricks Day and more. From the blood-stained teeth of the Easter bunny to a Thanksgiving feast where guests may become the main course, this creative addition to the Fright Dome lineup is guaranteed to test even the bravest of festive souls.

Equally as exciting, and available exclusively to guests upgrading to Fast Pass or a VIP tour this season, is the new isolation-style haunted house Lights Out. Upon entering the attraction, guests will immediately be divided from their group and be handed an old flashlight to aid them as they wander through the darkness alone. Separated from everything and everyone, guests will have to rely on their flashlight to illuminate the dreadful inhabitants lurking around every corner.

Whats more, making their return to commemorate 15 years of terrifying mazes are fan-favorite houses Chainsaw Massacre and Killer Clowns in 4D. Lastly, another original creation from Egans all-star team, HEX, will make its debut for the 2017 event.

In addition to the six haunted houses and unsettling scare zones, Fright Dome guests can experience all of the thrill rides and games that The Adventuredome theme park has to offer in the darkness and fog, including two roller coasters. Coaster-lovers will dive into the gloom on The Adventuredomes El Loco, an adrenaline-pumping adventure complete with G-drops, gravity-defying turns and over-the-edge twists. The theme parks second roller coaster, Canyon Blaster, takes them through a double loop and double corkscrew shrouded in shadow.
Vinamilk is one of the divested enterprises this year. - Photo tapchitaichinh.vn

The Corporate Finance Department, under the Ministry of Finance, reported that the total real value of these 26 enterprises is VND71.88 trillion (US$3.16 billion), of which VND18.3 trillion belongs to the State.

As per the approved plans, the 26 enterprises have a combined charter capital of around VND22.63 trillion, of which the State holds VND11.06 trillion, shares worth VND6.5 trillion will be sold to strategic investors, VND156 billion to the enterprises workers, VND16 billion to trade unions, and VND4.87 trillion will be put up for auction.

During the reviewed period, SOEs divested almost VND3.7 trillion, bringing in around VND15.77 trillion.

According to the department, the equitisation process of SOEs has yet to meet expectations.

To speed up equitisation for the rest of the year, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has to accelerate the sale of State-owned capital in Ha Noi Beer Alcohol and Beverage Joint Stock Corporation (Habeco) and Sai Gon Beer-Alcohol-Beverage Corporation (Sabeco), and ensure that it is complete before December 1.
illustration photo

Accordingly, 20 goods and services will be subjected to State monopoly as follows:

1. Goods and services used for defense and security purposes;

2. Production, trade, import-export and transit transport of industrial explosives;

3. Production of gold bars;

4. Export-import of material gold for making gold bars

5. Issuing state lottery;

6. Import of cigarettes and cigars (exclusive of duty-free stores);

7. Management, export-import, purchase, sale, storage and preservation of goods named in the national reserves list;

8. Money printing and minting;

9. Issuance of Viet Nams postal stamps;

10. Production, export-import, purchase, sale, transport and storage of reworks and supply of related services;

11. Transmitting and controlling the national power grid; construction and operation of multi-purpose hydropower plants and nuclear power facilities of special socio-economic importance;

12. Public services ensuring navigation safety (operation of lighthouses and public navigational passages);

13. Management and operation of coastal information facilities;

14. Services related to fly control, aviation information and aviation search & rescue;

15. Management and exploitation of national and urban railway infrastructures invested by the State, exclusive of maintenance services;

16. Management and exploitation of inter-provincial, inter-district irrigation and water supply systems for agriculture, and sea embankments;

17. Supply of forestry services in special-use forests, exclusive of forests for sightseeing that the State leases to economic organizations to protect and develop for tourism purposes;

18. Publishing, exclusive of printing and distribution activities;

19. Maintenance, management and exploitation of public postal service networks;

20. Supply of public services for newspaper publishing.

The decree points out that the State only holds monopoly in essential goods and services that are related to defense and security and national interests or in areas which the private sector does not wish to operate in or is not capable of doing.

The decree shall take effect since October 1, 2017.
VPBanks stock (VPB) has been heating up on the OTC platform in preparation of the official listing. With the official listing price of VND39,000($1.72) per share, investors have been racing to buy VPB shares on the OTC market at the price VND36-38,000 ($1.58-1.67).

Since the end of 2016, VPBs price has almost quadrupled, from VND10,000 ($0.44) to 38,000 ($1.67) per share. If the reference price of VND39,000 ($1.72) is kept when officially listed, VPB will have a capitalisation value of VND52 trillion ($2.29 billion). This makes VPB the number one bank stock in terms of price and fourth in terms of capitalisation value.

Banking sector bussiness results in 2016

Recently, bank stocks have been growing well and attracted special interest from investors. Early this year, Vietnam International Commercial Joint Stock Bank (VIB) joined the stock market with a reference price of VND17,000 ($0.75) per share, which has subsequently grown to VND22,000 ($0.97).

Similarly, LienVietPostBanks LPB also caused an uproar the moment a plan for listing was announced. LPB is currently being traded on the OTC market at VND 13-14,000 ($0.57-0.62) per share, doubling its price since 2016.

Among the bank stocks recently listed or to be listed, only KienLongBanks KLB has remained relatively unchanged with its listing price at VND10,000 ($0.44) per share, while the rest have all been growing relatively strongly.

The growing price of bank stocks has encouraged many financial institutions to hasten their plans for public listing. Since the start of the year, VIB and KienLongBank have officially been traded on UPCoM. VPBank will officially list later this week, followed by LienVietPostBank sometime later. At least eight other banks are reported to be planning their officially listings later this year or next year.

The government has issued directions requiring all banks to list on stock exchanges to increase transparency in share transactions and financial reporting.

Being able to anticipate the listing of good banks has been quite profitable to many investors, since the OTC price of businesses usually rises sharply right before official listing. This is the reason why some bank stocks, such as VPB and LPB, among others, rose between 100 and 300 per cent in just the last eight months.

However, because of the sharp increase in prices, it is only sensible to ask whether these bank stocks might be overvalued, especially those of the soon-to-be-listed banks.

According to many securities companies, bank share prices can be assessed quite accurately based on the price-earnings ratio (P/E). For example, VPBs shares currently have the highest price in the market, but it also has the highest earnings per share (EPS) in the banking sector, at VND4,485 ($0.2) in 2016 and VND2,525 ($0.11) in the second quarter of 2017.

VPBanks Return on Average Equity (ROAE) was 25.7 per cent in 2016, also the highest in the market so far.

These securities companies warned that when considering bank shares, investors should consider the banks business situation, especially their business strategy, profitability, and bad debts.

According to experts, in the later months of 2017 and in 2018, the banking sector still has positive profit outlook, which means the price of shares will likely continue to rise.
The Ede ethnic minority in the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong. A massive influx of migrants from remote northern provinces to the Central Highlands region has put intense pressure on the local population and has hindered socio-economic development.

The Central Highlands is considered a promising destination for migrants because of favourable weather conditions and rich basalt soil. Such movement can be prompted by State policy or out of economic need.

In Dak Nong Province, home to vast areas of land and forests, migrants move into natural and protected forests, encroaching on land for production or putting up tents illegally.

Five years ago, some households moved into zones 1644 and 1645 of Hop Tien co-operative in Quang Son Commune, Dak Glong District to live and hunt.

Now, up to 126 households are living in the area, causing increased damage to forest land.

Nguyen Anh Duc, director of Hop Tien co-operative said that members of the households had damaged the vehicles of forest rangers and attacked them using homemade weapons, such as guns and spears. Faced with such an aggressive reaction, and severely outnumbered, forest rangers and local authorities felt the situation was hopeless.

Meanwhile, in Dak Lak Province, local authorities are concerned about the pressure on the local population caused by free migration.

During the 40 years from 1976 to 2016, more than 59,000 households with some 290,000 inhabitants of 60 provinces and cities nationwide migrated to 15 districts and towns of Dak Lak Province. They live among the local ethnic community or in the area under the free migrant stabilization programme.

The provincial agricultural sector pointed out that the migrants are mostly ethnic minority groups from disadvantaged northern mountainous area. Despite the advantages of labour supply and diverse cultural identities for the province, the free movement of migration has put pressure on socio-economic growth.

Nguyen Van Tam, chairman of Cu Pui Communes Peoples Committee in Krong Bong District said that in six out of 13 villages with more than 7,000 migrants, the high rate of third children being born is a big problem.

He said that local officers who are also from ethnic groups went to each house to explain to migrants the negative consequences of having third children. But many people still believe that the more children they have, the richer they will be as the sons will help them with farming.

For this reason, the dissemination of information has not been effective, he said.

Firm and soft solutions

Le Quang Dan, deputy director of Dak Nong Provinces Department of Agriculture and Rural Development said that migrants destroying forests and erecting tents in restricted areas is illegal.

There are many reasons for deforestation but based on investigations at migration hot spots, we have seen that some groups of migrants are responsible. Police are investigating the worst spots so that punishments can be enforced, he said.

The engagement of local authorities over the past years in ending free movement in the Central Highlands region has reduced the number of migrants. However, the situation has become more complex.

Y Giang Gry Nie Knong, vice chairman of Dak Lak Province said that the State remains passive in stabilising the lives of migrants, leading to bankrupt provincial planning.

He said that there needs to be stronger collaboration between localities from which migrants move from and the ones they move to.

The Government and sectors should pay more attention to northern mountainous provinces to stabilise production, improve locals incomes and address social welfare to limit and look at ending uncontrolled migration.

Disadvantaged localities which lack long-term production conditions must report to the Government to have migration planning put in place following annual State plans, he said.

For long-term solutions, the Central Highlands regions Steering Committee has asked provincial peoples committees to step up the management of free migrants and put in place plans to stabilise their lives.

The committee has proposed that the land use purpose of the forest land encroached by migrants should be switched. It is proposed that the land lots are handed over to local authorities for management or forestry companies. Then the companies will rent the land out to migrants.
Residents struggled to traverse roads that were turned into churning rivers of mud after Sierra Leone's capital of Freetown was struck by heavy rains, photo: AFP

An AFP journalist at the scene saw bodies being carried away and houses submerged in two areas of the city, where roads turned into churning rivers of mud and corpses were washed up on the streets.

Red Cross spokesman Patrick Massaquoi told AFP the death toll was 312 but could rise further as his team continued to survey disaster areas in Freetown and tally the number of dead.

Mohamed Sinneh, a morgue technician at Freetown's Connaught Hospital, said 180 bodies had been received so far at his facility alone, many of them children, leaving no space to lay what he described as the "overwhelming number of dead".

Many more bodies were taken to private morgues, Sinneh said.

Images obtained by AFP showed a ferocious churning of dark orange mud coursing down a steep street in the capital, while videos posted by local residents showed people waist and chest deep in water trying to traverse the road.

Fatmata Sesay, who lives on the hilltop area of Juba, said she, her three children and husband were awoken at 4.30am by rain beating down on the mud house they occupy, which was by then submerged by water.

She managed to escape by climbing onto the roof. "We have lost everything and we do not have a place to sleep," she told AFP.

PILES OF CORPSES

Local media reports said a section of a hill in the Regent area of the city had partially collapsed, exacerbating the disaster.

Other images showed battered corpses piled on top of each other, as residents struggled to cope with the destruction.

Meanwhile disaster management official Candy Rogers said that "over 2,000 people are homeless," hinting at the huge humanitarian effort that will be required to deal with the fallout of the flooding in one of Africa's poorest nations.

Freetown, an overcrowded coastal city of 1.2 million, is hit each year by flooding during several months of rain that destroys makeshift settlements and raises the risk of waterborne diseases such as cholera.

Flooding in the capital in 2015 killed 10 people and left thousands homeless.

Sierra Leone was one of the west African nations hit by an outbreak of the Ebola virus in 2014 that left more than 4,000 people dead in the country, and it has struggled to revive its economy since the crisis.

About 60 per cent of people in Sierra Leone live below the national poverty line, according to the United Nations Development Programme.
Gold-plated horses, the symbol of success and promotion, a popular corporate gift

Visitors to Singapore always seize the chance to find luxurious and exquisite gifts from RISIS as mementos of lifelong personal and business relations.

From now on, RISIS lovers no longer have to travel to Singapore since a plentiful choice of the companys exquisite jewellery will be waiting for them right in Vietnam when visiting VietinBank Gold and Jewellery Showroom, located at Saigon Trading Centre, L1-15 Le Loi, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City.

As an Asian market leader in the field of high-end gifts, for over 40 years, RISIS has been constantly adding to their collection many unique gold-plated products inspired by Asian cultural themes of blessing and prosperity.

The iconic gold-plated orchid

One of the most iconic products of RISIS are the plated orchids. Besides being the national flower of Singapore, the orchid is one of the most beautiful flowers in the world. RISIS gold plated orchid products use 24K gold.

These golden flowers are then used to make stunning jewellery, like earrings, pendants, necklaces, and brooches, as well as formal corporate gifts, such as card and pen holders, display plates, and picture frames.
The decree will make sure less buyers get their fingers burnt

Among the big projects to be launched is An Khanh New City Developments sale of its first phase this quarter. The mega $2 billion project is developed by South Koreas Posco E&C and Vietnams Vinaconex, located in Hanois Hoai Duc district, along the Thang Long Boulevard.

Scheduled for completion in 2013, the city is expected to supply 6,440 apartments, equivalent to 392,319 square metres of accommodation, enough for 30,000 people.

Even though Hoa Phat Group, the investor in a more than 1,000 apartment Mandarin Garden in Cau Giay districts Tran Duy Hung road, refused to release its launching time, real estate experts predicted the project would be soon launched.

At the beginning of this month the CT7D, located in Le Van Luong street and invested by Nam Cuong Group and the FLC Landmark Tower of FLC Group will also be launched, with a total of 200 units and prices ranging from VND23 million ($1,200) to VND28 million ($1,470) per square metre.

In Gia Lam district, over the Red River, the second lot of Rung Co Residentials belonging to the Eco Park is also being launched, with around 1,500 apartment units.

In addition, Victoria Van Phu, Star City, Diamond Tower and Song Da City View will also add apartments to the mix.

Real estate consultant CBRE Vietnam expected that there would be 3,000 units in Hanoi launched this quarter, compared to 1,950 units in the third quarter. There were more than 4,600 units launched in the second quarter.

This decline, according to CBRE Vietnam, could be due to the Decree 71, effective on August 8, 2010 providing guidance on the Housing Law, which caps the proportion of units sold via capital contribution contracts at 20 per cent with the remaining 80 per cent sold on transaction floors.

This decree, CBRE Vietnam said, had put a pressure on developers with low financial capabilities and enhanced market transparency.

However, CBRE Vietnam executive director Richard Leech said new project launches would continue trending towards more affordable options.

With the opening and improvement of major infrastructure routes, the capitals western and southern districts are attracting new residents with easier access for commuting into the core urban districts, Leech said.

He said that the Decree 71 was expected to benefit the market by enhancing transparency, placing pressures on developers with low financial capabilities, lessening the threat of price bubbles and limiting speculative forces.

Tran Nhu Trung, Savills Vietnam associate director, said the Decree 71 had showed off its advantages to clearly regulate five types of mobilising capital investment. However, Trung said the procedures to implement Decree 71 were still complicated and wasted customers time and energy.

The more simple it [decree] regulates, the more it is practical in the real life, Trung said.
The US Naval Facilities Engineering Command Europe Africa Southwest Asia (NAVFAC EURAFSWA) is going to set up eight units to training Special Moldovan forces at Bulboaca.

According to the tender, the eight units include a school, a service station, a residential centre and a hotel.

According to the Russian Prime Minister, Dmitry Rogozin, preparations are being made for a new conflict between Moldova and Transnistria. This is comparable to the one organized by Nato right in the heart of Europe in 1992 [1].
According to the EUs internal documents published by The Times, in December 2016 the European Commission set up a special fund to fight political parties that were in favour of leaving the European Union.

Three million euro have already been allocated to 84 projects in all member states including the United Kingdom which voted on 23 June 2016 to leave the European Union.

Unbeknown to their citizens, it is the member states that are funding this programme of propaganda.


In May 2017, Thierry Meyssan appeared on Russia Today and explained where the South American elites were going wrong in their fight against US imperialism. He insisted that there has been a sea-change in the way the US now wages armed conflicts and we now need to radically rethink how we should defend our homeland.

The operation to destabilize Venezuela continues. The first phase: violent gangs demonstrating against the government killed passers by, as if citizenship created no bonds between them. The second phase: the major food suppliers organized food shortages in the supermarkets. Then some members of the forces attacked several ministers, called for a rebellion and now have retreated into hiding.

Of course the international press never ceases to hold the regime responsible for the deaths of demonstrators. Yet it is a fact that a number of videos testify that these demonstrators were deliberately assassinated by demonstrators themselves. No regard is paid to this and on the basis of this false information, the press then proceeds to qualify Nicolas Maduro as a dictator just as it did six years ago with respect to Muammar Gaddafi and Bashar el-Assad.

The United States has used the Organization of American States (the OAS) as an arm against President Maduro just like it once used the Arab League against President al-Assad. Caracas, not expecting to be excluded from the Organization, denounced this method and left of its own accord.

Maduros government has however two failures on its balance sheet:

the vast majority of its voters did not go to the polling stations for the legislative elections of 2015, allowing the opposition to sweep a majority in Parliament.

it was caught out by the crisis of food products, even though the same thing had been organized in the past in Chile against Allende and in Venezuela against Chavez. It required several weeks to put in place new circuits to provide food.

In all likelihood, the conflict that begins in Venezuela will not be held back by its borders. It will ooze out, embracing the entire North West of the South American continent and the Caribbean.

An additional step has been taken with military preparations against Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador following Mexico, Colombia and British Guyana. The team responsible for co-ordinating these measures is from the former Office of Global Democracy Strategy. This was a unit established by President Bill Clinton, then continued by Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz. Mike Pompeo, the current director of the CIA, has confirmed that this unit exists. This has led to rumours in the press, followed up by President Trump, of a US military option.

To save his country, President Maduros team has refused to follow the example of President al-Assad. Maduros team thinks that there is no real comparison between what is happening in Venezuela and Syria. The United States, the principal capitalist power, would set off to Venezuela to steal its oil, according to a plan that has been repeatedly played out in the past on three continents. This point of view was given further weight by a speech that Evo Morales, Bolivias President, recently delivered.

Let us recall that in 2003 and 2011, President Saddam Hussein, the Guide Muammar Gaddafi and a number of President Assads advisors reasoned similarly. They thought that the US would attack the following states in succession: Afghanistan and Iraq, then Tunisia, Egypt and Libya and Syria. And why? For the sole reason of bringing about the collapse of regimes that were resisting its imperialism and controlling hydrocarbon resources in an expanded Middle East. A number of anti-imperialist authors cling to this analysis today. So for example, they use it to try to explain the war against Syria by reference to the interruption of the Qatari gas pipeline project.

Now, this line of thinking is turning out to be false. The US is not looking to reverse progressive governments (Libya and Syria), nor to steal the regions oil and gas. Its intent is to decimate States, to send people of these countries back to a pre-historic time where man did not love his neighbour as God loved him but would pounce like a wolf upon his neighbour [Translators note: the literal translation of the French original is: man was a wolf for man].

Has toppling the Saddam Hussein regime and the regime of Gaddafi brought peace back to these states? No! Wars have continued even though government of occupation has been set up in Iraq, then a government composed of other governments in the region including those who collaborated with the imperialists opposed to national independence. Wars are still being waged. This surely evidences that Washington and London had no intention of toppling these regimes nor defending democracy. These were transparent covers for their true intentions which were to eliminate the people in these states. It is a basic observation that rocks our understanding of contemporary imperialism.

This strategy, radically new, was taught by Thomas P. M. Barnett following 11-September 2001. It was publicly revealed and exposed in March 2003  that is, just before the war against Iraq in an article in Esquire, then in the eponym book, The Pentagons New Map. However, such a strategy appears so cruel in design, that no one imagined it could be implemented.

Imperialism seeks to divide the world in two. One part will be a stable area which profits from the system while in the other part a terrifying chaos will reign. This other will be a zone, where all thought of resisting has been wiped it; where every thought is fixated on surviving; an area where the multinationals can extract raw materials which they need without any duty to account to anyone.

Since the eighteenth century and the British Civil War, Western development has been triggered by its attempt to do all it can to avoid chaos. Thomas Hobbes taught us to support the thinking of the State rather than risk experiencing this torment for another time. The notion of chaos only returned to us with Leo Strauss, after the Second World War. This philosopher, who has personally trained a number of personalities within the Pentagon, intended to build a new form of power by plunging part of the world into hell.

Jihadism inflicted onto an expanded Middle East has shown us what is chaos.

While President Assad reacted as anticipated to the events of Deraa (March  April 2011), by sending his army to quell the jihadists of the Mosque al-Omari, he was the first to understand what was happening. Far from increasing the powers of the forces to maintain order to repress the aggression sourced from abroad, he equipped his people with the means to defend their homeland.

First: he lifted the state of emergency, dissolved the special courts, freed the Internet communications and forbid the armed forces to use their arms if to do so would endanger the lives of innocent civilians.

When Assad took these decisions he was clearly not going with the flow. And these decisions were ladened with consequences. For example, at the time of the attack of a military convoy at Banias, soldiers held off using their weapons in self-defence; they preferred to be mutilated by the bombs of their attackers and occasionally die, rather than to fire, risking injuring inhabitants that were looking at them being massacred without intervening.

Like many at this time, I thought that the President was too weak and his troops too loyal; that Syria was going to go down. However six years on, Bashar el-Assad and the Syrian armed forces met the challenge. While at the beginning the soldiers have struggled alone against foreign aggression, gradually, every citizen came on board, to defend the country.

Those who were not able to or who did not want to resist, went into exile. It is clearly the case that the Syrian people have greatly suffered. That said, Syria is the only State in the entire world, since the Vietnam War, to have resisted until imperialism tires itself out and surrenders.

Second: faced with this invasion of a multitude of jihadists, from Muslim populations all over the world  Morocco to China, President Assad took the decision to abandon part of his territory to save his people.

The Syrian Arab Army confined itself to the useful Syria, that is, to the cities. It abandoned the countryside and the deserts to the attackers. Damascus kept supervising, uninterruptedly, the provision of food to every region under its control. Contrary to an idea accepted by the West as common knowledge, the only areas where there is famine are those areas under Jihadi control and in the cities that it has besieged; the  foreign rebels (forgive this oxymoron), supplied by humanitarian associations, use the distribution of food packages as a means of making starving populations submit to them.

The Syria people have seen for themselves how the Republic alone assumed the role of feeding them and protecting them. The Muslim Brotherhood and their jihadists played no part.

Third: In a speech delivered on 12 December 2012, President Assad traced, how he intended to remake political unity in his country. Of special mention, he pointed out the need to draft a new constitution and to submit it to adoption by a qualified majority of his people then to proceed to democratically elect all institutional officials, including of course, the President.

At that time, the Westerners mocked the claim of President Assad to call elections when the war was at its bloodiest. Today, all diplomats involved in resolving this conflict including the UN, support Assads plan.

While Jihadi commandos were freely roaming the entire country, notably Damascus, and were murdering politicians even invading their homes where their families were, to do so, President Assad has encouraged dialogue with nationals who oppose him. He guaranteed the security of the liberal Hassan el-Nouri and the Marxist Maher el-Hajjar so that they too, might risk presenting themselves at the presidential elections in June 2014. Despite an appeal to boycott issued by the Muslim Brotherhood and Western governments, despite jihadi terror, despite the fact that millions of citizens were exiled abroad, voter turn out (of those present) was 73.42 %.

In the same way, from the beginning of the war, he created a ministry for National Reconciliation, something never seen before in a country where war is going on. Assad handed the ministry over to Ali Haidar, the President of PSNS, an allied party. He negotiated and concluded thousands of agreements taking into account the amnesty of citizens who had taken arms against the Republic and their integration in the Syrian Arab Army.

During this war, President Assad has never used force against his own people. This is so, despite the allegations of those who freely accuse him of widespread torture. So, let me be clear: he has never set up mass executions nor mandatory conscriptions. It is always possible for a young man to avoid his military obligations. Administrative procedures allow any male citizen to evade national service if he does not desire to defend his country with weapons in hand. Only the exiled who have not had the occasion to pursue these procedures may find themselves in violation of these laws.

For six years, President Assad has not stopped on the one hand, making an appeal to his people, asking them to thrust upon him obligations, and on the other hand, trying to feed them and to protect them, as far as he is able. He has always assumed the risk of giving before receiving. That is why today, he has won the confidence of his people, and can count on their active support.

South American elites are wrong to pursue the fight of the previous decades for a fairer distribution of their wealth. The battle which they must focus is no longer one where the majority of the people and small class of privileged individuals are on opposite sides.

The choice put to the peoples of the expanded Middle East and to the people of South America is this: aut defendendum vobis patriam est aut morendum vobis est (you must either defend your homeland or die). It is this question that they will have to respond to.

The facts prove it: the number one priority of imperialism today is no longer plundering natural resources. Imperialism, unscrupulous, dominates the world. Yet now its vision has expanded to wiping out people and to destroying the societies in the regions where it is already exploiting resources.

In this iron era, the Assad strategy alone allows us to stand tall and free

(To be continued)
From now on Iranian Justice establishes itself as a power capable of challenging any political party.

On 16 July 2017, Hossein Fereydoun, brother of Irans current President, Shiekh Hassan Rohani, was arrested for corruption. He is charged with receiving 18 million dollars for placing an important figure on Bank Mellats board of directors. He was released on bail the following day after paying bail set at 10 million dollars.

In 2015, the former Vice President of Ahmadinejad, Hamid Baghaei, was arrested and imprisoned without the slightest explanation being offered. He was detained for six months, then freed, still without any explanation. In 2013, he had been prohibited from standing for President of the Republic because the Council of Guardians of the Constitution judged him a bad Muslim (sic).

Hamid Baghaei has just been arrested again, and once again, without any explanation. After 18 days of imprisonment and the payment of bail set at 6 million dollars (collected from members of his party), he has been released. During his detention, he had been hospitalized and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was prohibited from visiting him. The Attorney General has just indicated that as the former president is complaining of the way he was treated, an action could be brought against him for insulting the judiciary (sic).

The parties of Hassan Rohani and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are positioned on opposite sides, neutral magistrates being placed above the fray. However it escapes no one that the head of the Islamic judicial system, Sadeq Larijani (on the right in the photo), is the brother of the President of Parliament, Ali Larijani (on the left), leader of a third political party, a party which, has no connection with justice.
A bit more than 500 Kurds that converted to Christianity have just fled Iran.

They think that Hassan Rohanis government has no problem in tolerating those who have been Christians for a long time, but that it comes down heavily on those who have converted. This is because the party views recent converts as infidels - traitors to Islam, who, have passed over to Christianity because they are under Western influence.

Now, following the political hardening of Shiite Iran, many Iranian Kurds have abandoned Sunni Islam which they consider to be an intolerant and cruel religion. They are now converting to what they consider to be the other local religion, Christianity.

These Kurds have crossed the border and thus they find themselves then in Turkey, a country that would hardly be more accepting of them. For on President Erdogans initiative, the State is confiscating one by one, every monastery and church in the country.
Photo: Brianna Stello/Bravo

The four Boston Teamsters accused of attempting to extort Top Chef by threatening violence if they werent hired for no-show jobs have been acquitted. A Boston jury of nine women and three men deliberated for 19 hours, according to Deadline. The men  Local 25 Teamsters John Fidler, Daniel Redmond, Robert Cafarelli, and Michael Ross  were found not guilty after their attorney argued that their picket-line demonstration was part of a labor dispute.

In June 2014, Top Chef was filming in the Boston suburb of Milton, when the men set up a picket line. When Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi arrived to film, one man threatened to smash her pretty face in, and Lakshmi said she was paralyzed by fear because of the encounter. Miltons Deputy Police Chief also told Deadline that a group of men slashed the tires on 14 cars owned by crew members. While those four men were found not guilty, a fifth Teamster named Mark Harrington pleaded guilty to the same charges last December. He was sentenced to six months of home confinement.
Depp. Photo: Johannes Eisele /AFP/Getty Images

Johnny Depps extended legal battle with his money managers has gotten a fresh wrinkle, one reportedly planted by Depps legal team. The IRS, SEC, and Department of Justice are investigating the Management Groups operations, according to The Wall Street Journal. Sources told the paper that federal investigators are looking into possible fraud and money laundering by the Management Group, the business management firm operated by Joel and Rob Mandel. According to The Hollywood Reporter, however, TMG has not been contacted by any of the agencies which are said to be conducting a probe. When reached by THR, the agencies either declined to comment or did not reply.

So what does Depp have to do with this? Sources told THR that the actors lawyers case was shopped around to multiple federal agencies before news of the probe was leaked to the Journal. Since the beginning of this year, Depp has been involved in a protracted legal battle with TMG: Hes alleging they mishandled his money and is suing them for $25 million; they say he was aware his spending was out of control and are countersuing. In 30 years of business, no current or former client of TMG has raised any issue, other than Johnny Depp who continues to spread malicious, unfounded lies about the company, TMG attorney Michael Kump said in a statement on Tuesday. TMG will vigorously defend and defeat all of Depps fabricated claims.
Remember last week when we were staring down an international nuclear incident? The news cycle is spinning so fast now, its about to break the sound barrier. Which is at least part of the reason why Jimmy Kimmel, among many others, wants to take a beat to address the length of time it took for President Trump to specifically condemn racists and Neo-Nazis following the white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that ended with one person dead and over a dozen injured, rather than place blame on the many sides that were present. Its not exactly a controversial stance, Kimmel said of denouncing Nazis and Klan members. Its not like we asked him to come out against puppies. Honest to god, lets not get ahead of ourselves. Its only August. If theres ever going to be some kind of racist puppy uprising the president has to publicly denounce, its definitely going to happen this year.
Its hard to make jokes about the news when the news is a nonstop deluge of raw informational sewage. What can you possibly make with that? Puns? Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers decided they werent going to even try to write goofs for their monologues last night, instead offering heartfelt and, in Meyerss case, scathing reactions to this weekends white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, the violence that it spawned, and President Trumps delayed rebuke of the racists and neo-Nazis who took part. Its important for everyone, especially white people, in this country to speak out against this, a choked-up Fallon said on The Tonight Show. Ignoring it is just as bad as supporting it. He also honored Heather Heyer, the woman killed by a white supremacist who drove through a crowd of protesters at the rally; 19 others were injured. We cant do this, concluded Fallon. We cant go backward.

Seth Meyers was somewhat less solemn, but significantly more angry, on Late Night last night, pointing out that POTUSs slow move to condemn white supremacy came after making a political name for himself by suggesting former president Barack Obama was born in Kenya, calling Mexicans rapists, hiring Steve Bannon, and so on and so forth ad nauseam. You can stand for a nation or you can stand for a hateful movement. You cannot do both, Meyers concluded. And if you dont make the right choice, I am confident that the American voter will.
Kara Walker. Photo: Getty Images

Kara Walker, who has become known as both an artist and a public figure since the success of her sugar sphinx, introduces her next show with an artist statement about how she doesnt really want to write another artist statement. I know what you expect from me and I have complied up to a point, Walker says in advance of a show of paintings and drawings at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. from September 7 to October 14 this fall. But frankly I am tired, tired of standing up, being counted, tired of having a voice or worse being a role model. Tired, true, of being a featured member of my racial group and/or my gender niche. Walker continues:

Its too much, and I write this knowing full well that my right, my capacity to live in this Godforsaken country as a (proudly) raced and (urgently) gendered person is under threat by random groups of white (male) supremacist goons who flaunt a kind of patched together notion of race purity with flags and torches and impressive displays of perpetrator-as-victim sociopathy. I roll my eyes, fold my arms and wait. How many ways can a person say racism is the real bread and butter of our American mythology, and in how many ways will the racists among our countrymen act out their Turner Diaries race war fantasy combination Nazi Germany and Antebellum South  states which, incidentally, lost the wars they started, and always will, precisely because there is no way those white racisms can survive the earth without the rest of us types upholding humanitys best, keeping the motor running on civilization, being good, and preserving nature and all the stuff worth working and living for?

Anyway, this is a show of works on paper and on linen, drawn and collaged using ink, blade, glue and oil stick. These works were created over the course of the Summer of 2017 (not including the title, which was crafted in May). Its not exhaustive, activist or comprehensive in any way.

The show itself also comes with a similarly unconventional teaser:

Sikkema Jenkins and Co. is Compelled to present The most Astounding and Important Painting show of the fall Art Show viewing season!

Collectors of Fine Art will Flock to see the latest Kara Walker offerings, and what is she offering but the Finest Selection of artworks by an African-American Living Woman Artist this side of the Mississippi. Modest collectors will find her prices reasonable, those of a heartier disposition will recognize Bargains! Scholars will study and debate the Historical Value and Intellectual Merits of Miss Walkers Diversionary Tactics. Art Historians will wonder whether the work represents a Departure or a Continuum. Students of Color will eye her work suspiciously and exercise their free right to Culturally Annihilate her on social media. Parents will cover the eyes of innocent children. School Teachers will reexamine their art history curricula. Prestigious Academic Societies will withdraw their support, former husbands and former lovers will recoil in abject terror. Critics will shake their heads in bemused silence. Gallery Directors will wring their hands at the sight of throngs of the gallery-curious flooding the pavement outside. The Final President of the United States will visibly wince. Empires will fall, although which ones, only time will tell.

By all accounts, that sounds like a fairly accurate summary, though it wouldnt hurt to see the show for yourself.
After his memorable (and memorably brief) turn as White House communications director, Anthony Scaramucci stopped by The Late Show last night to explain himself, and attempt to explain our president, to Stephen Colbert. Though Scaramucci said that Trump had taken too long to outright condemn neo-Nazis after their violent rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, this weekend, he stood by the president and insisted  somewhat contradictorily, according to Colbert  that Trump is both incredibly media savvy and deserves sympathy for adjusting to the rigors of a new job.

Scaramucci also let loose on key Trump adviser Steve Bannon, though not with as much verve as he did in his infamous call to the New Yorker. He told Colbert that, if it were his decision, he would fire Bannon, suggested that Bannon may be the source of White House leaks, and added that he does not like his toleration of white supremacists. Scaramucci adds that hes pretty sure that Bannon isnt actually capable of autofellatio, and that he himself is not capable of doing it either.
Drake. Photo: Johnny Nunez/Getty Images for Remy Martin

Drake has had one amazing run, all told: Since debuting on the Hot 100 with his breakout hit Best I Ever Had on May 23, 2009, the Toronto artist has had at least one song on the charts every single week. Until now: As Chart Data reports, this week will break his streak. For the first time in 430 (!) weeks there wont be a single Drake song in sight on Billboards central chart. Drake has always had tremendous range in terms of music, but whether its street-claiming thumpers, romantic crooners as clinging and sweet as caramel, dazed and confused catalogues of career success, Meek Mill diss tracks, or deft collaborations with Jamaica and Nigerias leading lights, not one is to be found.

It feels like the end of an era. Just as the swift rise of Best I Ever Had (whose No. 2 peak was Drakes best ever until last years chart-crowning One Dance) announced an aesthetic that felt like it would always be there for you, Drakes disappearance is a sure sign that the thrill in his variety show is gone. Its quite possible that he just doesnt enjoy making music anymore, and who can blame him? Endless feuds and controversy seem to have worn Aubrey Graham down: As anyone listening closely to Marchs More Life could tell, resignation had crept into his tone. Drained by persistent allegations of ghostwriting and cadence theft and a struggle against Kendrick Lamar and Jay-Z as secretive as it was unwinnable, Drake seemed prepared to tap out, at least temporarily: Maybe getting back to my regular life will humble me / Ill be back in 2018 to give you the summary, he mused on the final bars of More Life closer Do Not Disturb. Aside from the release of a few tepid loosies (the best of which, Signs, sits at No. 43 presently on the R&B/Hip-Hop charts), hes been as good as his word. Hes a tremendous star still, but its seems hes hit his limits: After all, stars are never more huge than the moment before their collapse.

In a way, making an exit is the smartest thing Drake can do. Its a short step from being ubiquitous to being played out. Retreating will allow his fans and even his detractors to miss him, something thats impossible when hes always in the spotlight. (And Drake loves nothing more than to be missed by people.) Admitting that hes overstretched and regrouping will give him the time and calm required to adopt a new tone, sound, and image. Things he desperately needs, by the way: Times have changed, and Drakes apolitical, career-focused equivocations seem as ill-suited for the Trump era as they were a perfect fit for the Obama years  its striking how those 430 weeks from 2009 to 2017 match up with with the period of the 44th presidents administration. Obama, too, has been keeping out of the public eye recently, and given Drakes stated admiration for, and deep affinity with, the ex-president, it makes sense that he would follow suit.

Much like Obama, hell be back eventually: At last weeks OVO Fest, Drake announced that he was recording a new album in Toronto. Heres hoping that his time off the map will give him the keener perspectives (views, even) that a life spent performing under constant scrutiny never could. Still, even if he ends up having learned nothing and forgotten nothing, his chart dominance was impressive. He was never quite Gods gift to music, but so far as music journalists in search of new angles go, he really is the best well ever have.
Photo: Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images

Finally, a solid reason to do the very European double-header of The Trip to Spain and Dunkirk without worrying about how much money youll have to ration for popcorn. MoviePass, the subscription-based service from Netflix co-founder Mitch Lowe that prides itself on allowing cinephiles to see all major movies in all major theaters for a low monthly cost, has announced that its prices are now even lower, and we mean reaaally low: $9.95. In laymans terms, that means for just under $10 a month you can see an unlimited number of movies at any cinema near you, although the company clarifies that the maximum number of movies you can see per day is one. (Still, pretty amazing, huh? Thats less than a single ticket in most cities.) Bloomberg notes that the previous per-month price of membership hovered around the $30 mark and that Lowe hopes the price drop will help revitalize the sluggish theater industry. Next up: PopcornPass. Think about it, Mitch!

Update, August 16: Because we cant have nice things, AMC Theatres is threatening to take legal action against MoviePass. In a statement to Variety, the theater chain referred to MoviePass as a small fringe player that is not in the best interest of moviegoers, movie theatres and movie studios. AMC, which partnered with MoviePass in 2015 on an early test run of the service, says its now looking into ways to legally prevent MoviePass from being used at its theaters  though the company says it doesnt oppose all subscription services  and questions the sustainability of the reduced price point. Lowe tells Variety hes worried AMCs comments will make MoviePass customers think they cant use the service at AMC locations, which he says they currently can.

In a new interview with Variety, Lowe says that, unlike AMC, other cinemas are open to accepting MoviePass: We talked to the independents and the majors, the other two big guys [Regal and Cinemark] and they feel completely different. They all are taking a wait-and-see attitude, but they are positive about what we are doing. They welcome anybody who has figured out a way to get people back to the movies. He also notes that the only way AMC could block MoviePass at their theaters is to stop taking MasterCard, which MoviePass says it uses to pay full price for all the tickets it buys and Lowe claims AMC and its credit card processor agreed to accept. I dont think you can cancel that agreement without severe penalties, he says. I think it was all bluster. But this was the last thing we would have wanted for what we hope to be a partner.

Update, August 23: With news of its price drop, MoviePass has more subscribers than ever before. Per Deadline: In the two-day period after the movie ticket subscription service announced a drop in price to $9.95 a month, it raised its sub level to more than 150,000, passing the target set for late 2018, according to data firm Helios and Matheson Analytics which agreed to buy MoviePass. Whether exhibition chains  including and especially AMC  will continue to do business directly with MoviePass remains to be seen, but H&M CEO Ted Farnsworth said the growth in subscriptions reinforces our belief that we will disrupt the motion picture industry as we know it.
Arizona-based Empereon Marketing may receive $150,000 in incentives from the Waco City Council and McLennan County Commissioners Court during meetings Tuesday, with 750 jobs and $2.6 million in improvements to a call center in Lacy Lakeview hanging in the balance.

Empereon proposes to establish a call center at 1205 North Loop 340, where General Dynamics Information Technology recently ceased operations, eliminating more than 800 jobs.

The company has pledged to create and retain 750 full-time jobs by Sept. 1, 2019, with 83 managerial positions included in that number paying at least $12 an hour, according to information in the Waco City Councils agenda packet and McLennan County Judge Scott Felton.

Those filling the balance of the jobs will be paid at least $10 an hour, a figure that does not include the value of benefits, Felton said.

With city and county approval, Empereon will receive $150,000 from the Waco-McLennan County Economic Development Corp. fund for meeting employment goals and making $2.6 million in personal property upgrades.

We envision quite an extensive investment in that building and in the community, considering the new computers and infrastructure, as well as the personnel, said Toby Parrish, senior vice president of inbound operations for Empereon, speaking by phone.

He said Empereon was impressed with the quality of the workforce General Dynamics is leaving behind, which is the main reason we were interested in that facility. We have had representatives in Waco meeting with the former staffers and have been collecting resumes. We definitely will give these former staffers priority when it comes to hiring.

Parrish said Empereon hopes to quickly begin operating the center, but a lot of the timing is out of our hands. We are at the mercy of others trying to complete tasks, especially the installation of electronic equipment.

Kris Collins, senior vice president for economic development at the Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce, said she believes activity will commence before the end of the year, though I cant speak for the company.

Collins said for months she pursued Empereon as a replacement for General Dynamics Information Technology. Meanwhile, Waco real estate agent Brad Davis helped broker Empereons lease of the building.

We have been in business 20 years, and this is our second location in Texas, the other being in the Houston suburb of Alvin, Parrish said in an interview when Empereon was considering the Lacy Lakeview location. We love the work ethic and talent the state offers, and our arrival in Greater Waco is part of our Texas initiative.

He said in an interview Empereon hopes to serve at least two Fortune 500 clients at the call center, which will take inbound calls relating to everything from customer service to technical support.

Empereon, he said, has gained a reputation for promoting from within and offering opportunities for career advancement.

About 95 percent of our leaders come from the phones, he said.

Besides potentially collecting $150,000 from the Waco-McLennan County Economic Development Corp., Empereon also has received a $50,000 pledge from the city of Lacy Lakeview, Felton said.

The building to become an Empereon site was first used as a call center by Blue Cross Blue Shield, which invested more than $10 million in 2002 to transform a former Kmart building. Its lease expired in early 2013, and it chose to let nearly 300 employees work at home with computers.

McLennan County commissioners meet at 9 a.m. Tuesday at the county courthouse, while the Waco City Council will conduct a work session at 3 p.m. in the Bosque Theater of the Waco Convention Center, where it will hold a business session and vote on the Empereon item at 6 p.m.

Also at the business session, the council will hold a public hearing on the proposed 2017-18 city budget of $312 million and the tax rate of 77.6 cents per $100 in property valuation, which represents no change from the existing rate, said city budget officer Laura Chiota.
New principal chosen for Harmony Science Academy ahead of Waco expansion As Wacos Harmony Science Academy prepares to split in half and expand into a new campus by 

Wacos second Harmony public charter school is about a week away from opening, and the campus is already bursting at the seams in terms of student enrollment, Harmony School of Innovation officials said.

Classes start Monday, and teachers and staff started moving in last week to set up classrooms in the former H-E-B grocery store building at the corner of Valley Mills Drive and Dutton Avenue. Campus officials have held a student orientation, allowing families to explore the new school for the first time.

The campus will accommodate 504 seventh- through 12th-grade students in its first year, Principal Samuel Beyhan said. Thats an increase of more than 100 students from when the grades were housed at the Harmony Science Academy campus last year, along with kindergarten through sixth-grade students, he said.

Opening a new campus is very exciting, said Beyhan, who previously served as principal of Harmony Science Academy. Sometimes there have been some long days and long weekends trying to make it through to orientation for our students.

Harmony Public School officials bought the 47,000-square-foot building last August and broke ground on the campus March 30. Mazanec Construction workers have spent the last few months adding hallways, classrooms, offices and a gymnasium to the vacant store. The only area not renovated is a set of H-E-B restrooms toward the front of the building, local Harmony spokesman Noey Meza said.

It is the 49th Harmony Public School campus in Texas.

We were just overwhelmed and flattered we got this project and honored to be able to turn this old building into a great educational facility, you know? construction project supervisor Jimmy Clark said. Its 110 percent different. Im excited for the staff and students to be satisfied with what weve done to the building, and it meets all their needs.

Assistant Principal Cheryl Irwin grew up just down the road from the new campus and remembers going to the grocery store in years past, she said. Now she finds it fascinating how her career has led her back to a familiar place with new meaning, she said.

My favorite part is our outside patio area of the cafeteria, Irwin said of the area that once served as an unloading dock for trucks. They can go eat lunch outside, and eventually (Beyhan) wants to get it covered. Hopefully, the first day will be as smooth as we can make it.

The campus has about 28 classrooms, she said.

This is my 10th year with Harmony (in Waco), and Ive watched it go from two hallways to now two buildings, said Nicolas Ocampo, the schools social studies department chair. This will be good for both campuses, because you have such unique needs for both groups. We can really cater to what the student population really needs.

Depending on how quickly enrollment grows, school officials want to eventually move the gym into a separate building, Irwin said.

For now, though, employees are focused on settling in and helping students familiarize themselves with the campus. School officials will also host a meet-the-teacher night Friday ahead of classes starting Monday, Beyhan said.
The proprietor of a Waco massage parlor was arrested last month after a lengthy investigation into suspected human trafficking offenses at the business, an arrest affidavit states.

Gui Ning Li, 46, of Dallas, was arrested July 13 in Dallas County on a McLennan County warrant charging aggravated promotion of prostitution. The second-degree felony charge stems from an ongoing investigation that started in 2015 and led detectives to raid Twin Oriental Massage Therapy in late May.

According to the arrest affidavit, McLennan County Sheriff's Office detectives conducted undercover surveillance at the business at 1537 Wooded Acres Drive.

"Surveillance on Twin Oriental has previously been conducted, beginning in 2015 for various periods of time," the affidavit states. "During all periods of surveillance, the only persons entering the establishment are male."

A detective who was operating undercover visited the business for a massage, the affidavit states. A woman, who asked the undercover detective to whisper, offered a sex act for additional money after the massage, which the detective refused, according to the affidavit.

Another undercover detective was also offered sex services at a later date, providing evidence of an ongoing operation, according to the document. On May 30, detectives raided the business, which was in space leased to Li.

Li also rented a nearby apartment where at least two female employees were living, the affidavit states.

"During interviews with the employees, it was determined that Gui Ning Li is the 'boss,' who they pay money to, including money made at the parlor, and rent for living at the apartment," the affidavit states.

Additional investigation after the raid led to detectives issuing an arrest warrant for Li. He was arrested in Dallas County before he posted bond and was released from custody.

"Twin Oriental has been operating in Waco for a very long time, so for years this individual has capitalized on the victimization of immigrant women," Detective Joseph Scaramucci said.
McLennan County, state and federal authorities are investigating a former nurse from McGregor, who authorities say wrote threatening letters to two judges and his former attorneys.

Scott Eldred Coalwell, 45, who is serving a six-year prison sentence for stalking a man in San Antonio, was transferred to the McLennan County Jail recently after state prison officials intercepted letters from Coalwell that they say threatened 19th State District Judge Ralph Strother and Waco attorney Darren Obenoskey.

Strother placed Coalwell on deferred probation in 2015 after Coalwell pleaded guilty to online solicitation of a minor. Obenoskey was his attorney.

Since the threatening letters were intercepted, McLennan County prosecutors filed a motion in July to adjudicate Coalwells guilty plea  or to essentially revoke his probation  in the online solicitation case.

Included in the motion to adjudicate guilt are the allegations of the threatening letters and charges that Coalwell failed to pay a variety of court-related fees, fines and other costs.

A hearing on the motion is set for Sept. 11. Strother has recused himself from hearing the case because of the threatening letters.

The judge declined comment on the matter.

In a letter to Strother, Coalwell says the judge never so much as had the common decency to reply to other letters he wrote him shortly after he was placed on probation. He said a federal marshal explained to him that Strother probably never saw the letters, but his staff receives them.

So it was not supposed that you ignore me on purpose, but your court does. Its all the same to you, but with me it makes me count you and your staff as my enemy, the letter states. Its not easy for me to put someone on my enemy list. You have to be pretty offensive before I even think that way.

He said he wanted Strother to know of his new status on his enemy list, which he said goes back 25 years.

Nothing will happen to my enemies until I dont care about anything, Coalwell wrote. Then it will get messy and personal. It doesnt get more personal then.

I am making plans on seeing you again, as soon as I am able. Because I have learned one thing. Nobody will do anything about my charge unless I violate the terms of my probation, the letter states.

The letter continues, predicting that Coalwells case will be dismissed. He said he will then tally up the judges debt and estimates he will owe him for at least three years plus damages.

Dont worry. I wont try to drag you back into your arena. I will see you in my arena, the letter says.

Obenoskey said San Antonio officials, including the U.S. Marshals Service, also are investigating Coalwell after a judge and Coalwells attorney in San Antonio also received threatening letters from Coalwell while he was in prison.

Coalwell was sentenced to six years in prison in 2016 after he sent multiple threatening text messages to a man in San Antonio who Coalwell thought stole household items from him.

Obenoskey said Coalwell made arrangements to work as a contract nurse in Afghanistan and gave many of his belongings away to the man in San Antonio. The job fell through and Coalwell demanded the man return the items, but the man refused, Obenoskey said.

That conflict produced the stalking conviction.

Obenoskey said he made Coalwells enemies list because Coalwell thinks Obenoskey should have gotten his case dismissed, despite Coalwells decision to plead guilty to the charge.

Coalwells letters wouldnt have concerned Obenoskey that much, he said, until the most-recent letter in April mentioned the attorneys family.

I know he is not out right now, so I am not too concerned, Obenoskey said. If he was out, I might be more concerned.
WAVERLY  City lawmakers voted last week to declare a portion of Waverlys zoning jurisdiction blighted and substandard, making a path forward for any development that could occur in the area.

The land under blight consideration lies mostly north of Waverly Road and east of 148th Street. Land on the south side of Highway 6 east of the city is also included in the redevelopment area. Surveyors studied 1,093 acres overall.

Among the 27 parcels included in the study are six farmsteads, a livestock facility, industrial business and tracts of undeveloped land.

Council members voted unanimously to blight the area.

Substandard factors have a strong presence in the redevelopment area, according to the study prepared by Hanna:Keelan. According to state law, the four substandard factors are dilapidation/deterioration; age or obsolescence; inadequate provision for ventilation, light, air, sanitation or open spaces; and the existence of conditions which endanger life or property by fire or other causes.

Of the 43 structures within the area, the study found 22 to be deteriorated or dilapidated. Twenty-two of the buildings were also found to 40 years or older, with an average age of 78 years for all 43 structures. Due to the buildings age and condition and a lack of access to municipal water sources, surveyors deemed there to be a high fire risk in the area.

The vote came after a hearing in which members of the public expressed their support or opposition to the declaration. Two peo-ple spoke during the hearing, one against the move and the other in support.

Brandon Koll spoke in opposition.

Were opposed to the expansion of our blighting in the city for the use of industrial development, he said. I think the areas too large.

Koll said the council should focus on the interior of the city rather than the extraterritorial areas.

He was also critical of tax increment financing (TIF). Blighting an area is a prerequisite for using TIF under Nebraska law.

I think we could bring businesses here without giving them everything, Koll said. I think we need to focus on areas that are already in the blighted area that we have.

Developer Bob Benes spoke in favor of the declaration.

These big companies, if you want them, youve got to incentivize them to come here, he said. You have to give them corporate tax relief, you have go to give them economic tax relief.

Benes worked with the city on the first Tractor Supply Company development many years ago.

Its a great tool, it doesnt work for every situation, Benes said. I think its a great tool. Just use it wisely.

Council President John Hestermann said there were no plans on the radar for the use of TIF. If plans were to develop, the council would take residents concerns to heart.

I feel for them, Hestermann said. I understand, I hear their concerns. However, once they understand, a lot of their concerns tend to become not very big concerns. Its all heavily regulated. Theres a lot of rules we have to follow. Were not just winging it when it comes to TIF.

Hestermann said the vote was simply a way for the city to prepare for any potential business development.

From a personal standpoint, I feel this blight and substandard study is a very good way for us as a city to prepare for future development and to be ready should we have a developer or corporation or someone come along and want to do something, he said. We have our ducks in a row.

He also said the council is careful in what businesses it courts for the city.

We glean out the ones we dont feel would be appropriate for our city, he said. We dont just invite everybody. We try to be careful with what were doing.

The council also voted to remove Lawson Park from the blighted Redevelopment Area No. 1.
Waverly City Council Minutes

The Waverly City Council met on Tuesday, August 8th, 2017 in the City Office Meeting Room. The meeting started at 7:02 p.m. Present were Mayor Mike Werner, Council Members Joe Dalton, Chad Neuhalfen, John Hestermann, and Greg Rickers. Other City Officials present were Assistant City Attorney David Bargen, City Administrator Stephanie Fisher, and City Clerk/Treasurer Ginger Neuhart. Also present was Brandon Koll, Bob Benes, John Toy, and The News Reporter Michael Wunder. The Mayor referenced the Open Meetings Act poster on the wall.

Agenda items the Council took action on:

1. Approved the Minutes of the July 25th, 2017 City Council Meeting.

2. Approved the July 2017 Budget and Treasurers Reports

3. Held a Public Hearing on the Blight and Substandard Determination Study and the General Redevelopment Plan for Redevelopment Area #2, and the removal/deleting of Lawson Park from Redevelopment Area #1.

4. Approved the Claims for Payment in the amount of $ 103,149.63.

5. Motioned the adoption of Resolution No. 17-11 removing certain property from an area previously declared to be Blight and Substandard.

6. Motioned the adoption of Resolution No. 17-12 declaring portions of the City of Waverly to be Blighted and Substandard, and areas to be designated a Redevelopment Project Area to be Blighted and Substandard, pursuant to the Nebraska Community Development Law.

7. Motioned to approve the third and final reading of Ordinance No. 17-08 to annex a part of the SW  of Section 15, Township 11 North, Range 8 East of the 6th Principal Meridian, Lancaster County, Nebraska.

8. Motioned to approve the third and final reading of Ordinance No. 17-09 to annex a tract of land composed of a portion of Lot 1, Block 5, Anderson North Park 4th Addition, Lot 2, Block 5, Anderson North Park 4th Addition, Lots 1 through 6, Block 6, Anderson North Park 4th Addition, Lots 1 through 7, Block 7, Anderson North Park 4th Addition, and Lot 16 through 20, Block 8, Anderson North Park 4th Addition, all located in the Northeast quarter of Section 16, Township 11 North, Range 8 East of the 6th P.M., Lancaster County, Nebraska.

9. Motioned to approve the third and final reading of Ordinance No. 17-10 to annex a tract of land composed of a portion of Lot 190 I.T. located in the Northwest Quarter of the Northeast Quarter of Section 16, Township 11 North, Range 8 East of the 6th P.M., Lancaster County, Nebraska.

10. Motioned to approve the second reading of Ordinance No. 17-11 to annex a part of Lot 59, I.T., located in the SW  of Section 15, Township 11 North, Range 8 East of the 6th Principal Meridian, Lancaster County, Nebraska.

11. Motioned to approve Change Order No. 1 in the amount of $ 38,621.15 for Commercial Contractors Equipment, Inc. for the Ash Hollow Dry Dam.

12. Motioned to approve entering into an Agreement between Waverly Emergency Services and the Lincoln/Lancaster County EMS Oversight Authority, Inc. under Tier 3 with the annual fee of $800.00.

13. Motioned to postpone entering into an Agreement between the Rural Fire Districts and Villages and the City of Lincoln for EMS Services until the August 22nd, 2017 City Council Meeting.

14. Motioned to approve the removal of the sidewalk easement in Anderson North Park 4th Addition.

15. Reviewed the 2017-2018 proposed Budget.

16. Received Committee Reports.

17. Meeting adjourned at 7:43 pm.

A copy of the entire minutes is available at the City Clerks Office, Monday through Friday 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Ginger R. Neuhart

Clerk/Treasurer

Advance Auto-ex 7.02; All Roads Barr-ex 820.50; Aramark-ex 40.00; Aspen Builders-ex 940.00; Barco Products-ex 58.54; Black Hills-ex 101.89; Blue Cross/Blue Sh 7,287.09; Carquest-ex 226.37; Charter Comm-ex 14.88; Colonial Life-ex 128.08; CS Concrete-ex 151.00; Dearborn Nat.-ex 85.15; EMS Billing-se 554.34; Fastenal Co.-ex 152.26; Hamilton-ex 8.62; Hawkins-ex 1,045.33; HD Supply-ex 6,737.31; IRS-ex 7,885.85; John Deere-ex 89.66; Landscape Alter. 1,653.75; League of Munic. 9,349.00; Life-Assist-ex 133.38; LES-ex 12,096.98; Lincoln Lock-ex 169.25; Menards-ex 81.46; Midwest Co-Op-ex 95.05; Millard Lumber-ex 78.33; NRWA-ex 225.00; NE Child Sup.-ex 308.75; NE Dept. Of Revenue 18,998.00; NE Dept. Of Revenue 1,930.81; Northwestern-ex 3,442.74; Office Depot-ex 197.96; Olsson Assoc.-ex 545.01; Pavers-ex 107.73; Petty Cash- ex 163.34; Quick Connect-ex 801.70; Quik Dump-ex 390.00; Rachelle Rider-ex 70.00; U.S. Bank Finance 134.25; U.S. Post Office-ex 585.38; USA Blue Book-ex 156.40; Waverly Plbg-ex 287.82; Wellmark BCBS-ex 90.14; Wells Fargo-ex 316.97; Windstream-ex 100.82; Payroll-se 24,305.72. Total 103,149.63.
Queensland Nickel's government-appointed liquidators claim Clive Palmer has demonstrated a "habitually cavalier attitude" as a corporate director, evasiveness about his personal finances and an ability to move money out of Australia.

The allegations come from the affidavit of liquidator Stephen Parbery, filed in the Queensland Supreme Court this month, as part of a legal bid to freeze almost $220 million of Mr Palmer's personal assets.

Clive Palmer speaks to media after his court appearance earlier this month. Credit:Dan Peled/AAP

"Mr Palmer's conduct as a director of QNI (and indeed of the other entities he controls, with which the proceedings are concerned) demonstrates a habitually cavalier attitude to the duties he, as a director, owes to those companies, their shareholders and creditors," the PPB Advisory partner's affidavit reads.

He also claims Mr Palmer hasn't produced current evidence of his financial position "despite Federal Court orders" to do so.
If he is, the government may well fall, having lost its majority in the House of Representatives. In that case, the task will fall to its successor.

After persistent probing by the Herald, Mr Joyce has admitted that he may hold New Zealand citizenship, and may thus be in breach of section 44(i) of the constitution and ineligible for election to the Australian Parliament.

If it was not clear before, the situation of Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce must now have made it obvious to the Turnbull government that, if it survives, it will have to begin the process of amending the constitution's provisions on the eligibility of MPs.

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce during question time on Monday. Credit:Andrew Meares

Constitutional reform is not something any federal government these days views with much enthusiasm. Failure is highly likely. To pass, a referendum must gain a majority of votes, plus a majority in more than half the states. That sets the bar so high that any serious campaign against a proposal will see it fail. And oppositions are often willing to campaign against proposals they actually agree with just to frustrate the government of the day.

Even so, it would be churlish in the extreme for this opposition to campaign against reform when recent history has shown it is so obviously necessary.

Four MPs  three senators and now one member of the lower house  have either admitted they have breached section 44(i), or have asked for an adjudication of their status. The section bars citizens of other countries from parliament. (Other subsections, to do with pecuniary interests or offices of profit under the Crown, have also caused other senators difficulties.)

The basic principle of section 44(i)  that MPs should be Australian citizens, not citizens of any other country  is sound. Some may argue that in this multicultural age of increasing globalisation, dual citizenship is becoming more and more common, and our parliament should accept, and reflect, the trend. That view is flawed. Australian voters naturally expect their parliamentary representatives to be from this country and to represent its, and their, interests, not those of any other country.
Three days later it was a very different story. My baby suckled for hours at a time, only to pass out, exhausted, for an hour before needing to feed again. She had lost about 13 per cent of her birth weight. When a midwife gently suggested we offer some formula, I felt sick. She may as well have been suggesting I give my baby Coca-Cola.

I did everything by the book. Within minutes of my baby's first breaths I held her to my chest and watched her tiny mouth begin to suckle. As a health writer and medical student I was very pro-breastfeeding. I'd done classes before birth and read the long lists of everything breastfeeding had and could do compared with formula. I had also naively accepted maternity care's new dogma: that people who didn't breastfeed weren't really educated, interested, or, worse, had been tricked by the marketing of wicked formula companies.

Not every mother will exclusively breastfeed successfully. Credit:Belinda Pratten

I began begging breast milk from close friends, subjected my daughter to (controversial) surgery to cut a tongue-tie, was told to limit her formula to tiny amounts that left her constantly screaming for food, and took large doses of a stomach medication that causes lactation as a side-effect. Nothing worked. Instead of bonding with my daughter, every feed became a torture, her screaming and scratching at my breasts.

Trying to get evidence-based advice was almost impossible. You are told you "can't overfeed a breastfed baby" (breasts, of course, could never possibly not work perfectly), but you are terrified of overfeeding with formula and unsure of how to manage both. I still grimace every time I have to reveal my dirty formula secret to a new health professional; am left distraught from an arched eyebrow or disapproving tone.

Thankfully, the Australian Medical Association has recognised we have a problem. It has released a new position statement which says that, despite breastfeeding being optimal, "there must be a balance between promoting [it] and supporting mothers who cannot or choose not to".

AMA President Michael Gannon says mothers who use formula may feel a sense of guilt or failure "and it is important that their GPs and other medical practitioners reassure them about the efficacy and safety and work to remove any stigma". Our obsession with breastfeeding is not only hurting women, it may be putting babies at risk, and if it is not checked could lead to a backlash. Already in Britain, campaigns such as "Fed is Best" are focusing on preventing extreme cases in which breastfed babies have been seriously injured or died from undernourishment.
Radio personality Fifi Box has spoken publicly for the first time about being sexually assaulted during an interview with a "high profile" male celebrity more than a decade ago. Box who detailed the incident on The Fifi, Dave, Fev & Byron Show, said that the celebrity, who was twice her age, "grabbed" her head and "forced it down into his crotch."

The 40-year-old was inspired by Taylor Swift's countersuit against DJ David Mueller, who allegedly groped the pop-star during a meet-and-greet, to share her story. Mueller, who initiated the litigation, had his case against dismissed.

Fifi Box spoke out after Taylor Swift fronted court to counter sue DJ. Credit:Wayne Taylor

Box, a mother-of-one, said Swift's case made her reflect on her own experience of sexual assault in the workplace.

"I can say that I've found myself, as a young woman particularly working in the media, in situations where I've found myself uncomfortable," she revealed on her Fox FM Melbourne radio show on Monday morning.
A man who was pictured feasting on an extravagant cheese platter while watching an AFL match at the MCG has spoken up, revealing he even had some smoked trout hidden in his bag.

While most AFL fans were tucking into meat pies and hot chips, Melbourne man Ned Trumble said he and his friends decided to "take it up a level" and feast on a stadium of snack of culinary delights including soft cheeses, baguettes and smashed avocado.

The group of distinctively-dressed friends, believed to be former students of Geelong Grammar School, were pictured in the exclusive MCC stand while supporting the Melbourne Demons.

"It was a bit of a smorgasbord, some semi sun-dried tomato, some green olives, some de Beaux -French Blue, avocado, some nice baguettes... we did actually have smoke trout in the bag but we didn't want to take it out because we thought it might be a bit smelly," Mr Trumble told Triple M on Monday evening.
Washington: Rupert Murdoch has repeatedly urged President Donald Trump to fire him. Anthony Scaramucci, the president's former communications director, thrashed him on television as a white nationalist. Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser, refused to even say he could work with him.

For months, Trump has considered ousting Steve Bannon, the White House chief strategist and relentless nationalist who ran the Breitbart website and called it a "platform for the alt-right." Trump has now relegated Bannon to a kind of internal exile, and has not met face-to-face for more than a week with a man who was once a fixture in the Oval Office, according to aides and friends of the president.

So far, Trump has not been able to follow through -- a product of his dislike of confrontation, the bonds of foxhole friendship forged during the 2016 presidential campaign and concerns about what mischief Bannon might do once he leaves the protective custody of the West Wing.

Not least, Bannon still embodies the defiant populism at the core of the president's agenda. Despite his marginalisation, Bannon consulted the president repeatedly over the weekend as Trump struggled to respond to the neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. In general, Bannon has cautioned the president not to criticise far-right activists too severely for fear of antagonising a small but energetic part of his base.
By West Kentucky Star Staff Aug. 15, 2017 | 07:56 AM | MCCRACKEN COUNTY, KY

A traffic stop early Tuesday morning led to drug charges for a Brookport, IL man.

According to the McCracken County Sheriff's Office, deputies stopped a van on North 8th Street near the Brookport Bridge for an equipment violation. During the course of the traffic stop, deputies learned that a passenger in the van, 29-year-old John Stevens, had an outstanding bench warrant out of McCracken County District Court for failure to appear.

Deputies arrested Stevens on the bench warrant, and through further investigation, they reportedly discovered that Stevens had suspected methamphetamine, oxycodone pills and assorted items of drug paraphernalia.

Stevens was booked into the McCracken County Regional Jail on charges of possession of methamphetamine, possession of controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia and prescription controlled substance not in the proper container.
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By The Associated Press

Aug. 15, 2017 | LOUISVILLE, KY

By The Associated Press Aug. 15, 2017 | 03:45 PM | LOUISVILLE, KY

A former Kentucky high school principal has pleaded guilty to child pornography charges stemming from uploaded nude images of a student whose cellphone he confiscated.



The U.S. attorney's office in Louisville said 37-year-old Stephen Kyle Goodlett of Elizabethtown pleaded guilty Tuesday to transporting and possessing child pornography. Goodlett was principal of LaRue County High School from 2013 until he was fired last October.



The plea agreement said Goodlett was principal when the person making the complaint was a student there and had access to her nude images when he confiscated the phone. It also said the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children notified Kentucky State Police that Goodlett's online file storage account included images of the complainant and another minor female.



Goodlett is to be sentenced in U.S. District Court on Oct. 20. He faces additional state charges.
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Caves in the Desert by George Woodcock is the story of his 1987 journey through northern China with the intent of visiting Buddhist centres, and took in the caves at Yungang and Dunhuang on the Silk Road. The easy-to-read story is a fascinating piece of travel literature.

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Jennifer L. Barness, 52, of Winona, pleaded guilty to possession of drug paraphernalia and entered a 2-year deferred prosecution or sentencing agreement on a felony charge of possessing methamphetamine. Barness was ordered to serve a year of probation, avoid alcohol and bars, undergo assessment for alcohol or substance abuse, and comply with counseling as recommended by the state Dept. of Corrections.

Gene L. Swenson, 34, of Buffalo City, case motion hearing scheduled Oct. 12 on charges accusing him of domestic abuse disorderly conduct, possession of methamphetamine, second offense possession of THC, and possession of drug paraphernalia. Swenson entered not guilty pleas in April. The hearing also includes Swensons initial appearance on a charge of felony bail jumping.

Joseph A. Meyers, 21, of Nelson, probation agreement amended by judge to give Meyers until Oct. 15 to satisfy payment of financial obligations the court ordered in 2014 when Meyers was placed on probation for his involvement in a series of business burglaries and thefts in the C-FC and Alma areas. If court bills are not paid by the deadline, Meyers must serve 10 days in jail, the court ruled.

Steven A. Rongholt, 44, of Mondovi, plea hearing re-scheduled to Sept. 8 on charges accusing him of disorderly conduct involving domestic abuse, and third offense operating while intoxicated. Rongholt pleaded not guilty in June.

Haylee M. Queensland, 20, of Byron, Minn., pleaded not guilty to a felony drug charge accusing her of possession with intent to deliver 3 to 10 grams of amphetamines. A case status conference was set for Oct. 12.

Samantha L. Ewing, 36, of St. Charles, Minn., pleaded not guilty to drug charges accusing her of possessing methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia. A case motion hearing was set for Oct. 13.

Mitchell L. Seifert, 34, of Cochrane, arraignment hearing scheduled Oct. 5 on a drug charge accusing him of felony possession of methamphetamine.
The grand opening of the Minnesota Capitol building drew citizens from all over the state to tour the restoration of the century-old building.

The effort focused on updating the building to 21st century standards while restoring pieces of the past to their former glory. After three years and $310 million spent, the end result is open for the public to enjoy.

It is the third capitol building that the state of Minnesota constructed, being finished in 1905. Cass Gilbert, the architect, built it to be the peoples palace to serve the needs of all citizens.

The only Capitol that compares to this is the nations Capitol, said Winonas state Rep. Gene Pelowski.

The Capitol was a series of firsts, serving as an art museum as well as being the first sizable public building in the state to have electricity. Prior to restoration, much of the old circuitry was still in use, making the need for modernization even more necessary.

The heating and ventilation system was also overhauled to increase efficiency and functionality. Other improvements, such as complete handicap accessibility, a total of three elevators, and bathrooms on every floor were welcome accommodations to visitors and legislators alike.

The grand opening held outdoor festivities such as a stage for music and dance performances.

Inside, visitors were amazed by the massive structure that opened up before them.

Valerie Schmidt, a visitor, found herself immersed in the information and craftsmanship of the restored building.

Im enthralled, Schmidt said. Its almost too big to walk through in a day.

Throughout the building, detailed statues commemorate people that established the state over a century ago.

One sculpture, The Spirit of Government in the house of representatives chamber, shows a divine figure that represents the newly established North Star State. The woman is flanked by Native Americans on one side and Union pioneers on the other, with an underlying caption that reads The trail of the pioneer bore the footprints of liberty. The image is meant to depict the main forces that made the state of Minnesota a reality.

Winonas contribution to the restoration efforts lies in the basement. Beforehand, the area was inaccessible to everyone but maintenance personnel. Now, renovation has opened the area to visitors. The basement walls were constructed with limestone shipped from Winona Countys slice of the Driftless Region. Pictures of the workers that made it happen were hung on the walls, adding to the Capitols function as a museum.

Aside from the internal repairs needed, outside elements had taken their toll, with 40 percent of the marble on the exterior needing to be replaced. The years of Minnesota winters and city pollution had made its original appearance unrecognizable.

This wasnt just an issue of aesthetics, but a threat to the historically valued items inside. The ceiling was riddled with leaks that damaged the interior as well as the artwork resting on the walls. The rotted rooftop has now been replaced with copper, tin and tile that will effectively keep outside elements out.

According to Pelowski, If we hadnt done it, some things would have been lost forever.

Civil War paintings, a source of controversy among Minnesotans, hung in the governors reception room, or the living room of Minnesota as the tour guide referred to it. Some argued the paintings should be removed in order to represent Minnesota as it is today. Others claimed that the restoration effort was supposed to show the room as it was originally.

The 1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment was one of the first troop units of the Union to be called at the beginning Civil War. The unit suffered more than 80 percent casualties at the Battle of Gettysburg alone.

The pictures depicted four major battles with graphic imagery conveying the chaos of the conflict. They included the battle of Nashville, Missionary Ridge, the second day of Gettysburg, and the battle of Vicksburg.

The decision for the paintings to remain was based on the commitment to restore the Capitol to the authentic state that existed over a century ago. Some paintings were moved to different areas of the building after surviving family members said that their ancestors in the paintings had been misrepresented.
When we talk to our friends and neighbors who are on Medicare, they are happy with it and sure dont want to give it up. The same is said by veterans who use Veterans Administration healthcare. Social Security is another popular government run program. We need to build on this success.

During an Addressing the Rural Health Care Dilemma panel discussion held at Farmfest in Redwood Falls earlier this month, Minnesotas Commissioner of Human Services, Emily Piper, spelled out ways that another government run program, Medical Assistance (a healthcare program for Minnesotas poor) is helping to control healthcare costs. One of the innovations that is part of Medical Assistance is called value based care. This initiative rewards improved outcomes for patients, rather than paying by volume of visits. Although it has only been used on a trial basis, this approach has already saved $200 million in three years. This is evidence of a government program that gets better health outcomes and saves money in part because it deals with a high volume of people and is accountable to Minnesota for the money it spends.

One of the biggest concerns family farmers and small businesses face is the high cost of health insurance in the individual market, with no real relief in sight. And for those with insurance, theres no guarantee the policy will cover care at the nearby clinic. Commissioner Piper said that Minnesota should give more serious consideration to Governor Mark Daytons proposal to offer an opportunity for people on the individual market to a buy into MinnesotaCare. Through MinnesotaCare, people could get a health insurance policy that is 15 percent cheaper than whats offered by companies, with lower deductibles, more comprehensive benefits, and wider networks (more choice on doctors and hospitals).

Such an option uses the states volume buying power to get more affordable insurance to Minnesotans, which is especially important for farmers who make use of the individual market. During the 2017 session of the Minnesota Legislature, the Republican majority rejected this proposal in favor of giving $542 million in taxpayer dollars to insurers in the hope that they will lower premiums. It is time to demand our legislature not throw all its support behind corporate insurance, but instead recognize the economic value of public programs like MinnesotaCare.

We should be utilizing our states purchasing power to create a very large pool of patients to lower costs. This could easily be done through MinnesotaCare. Private insurance companies would then face the challenge of matching or exceeding what MinnesotaCare offers people on the individual market, injecting more healthy competition into the marketplace. Right now, insurance companies are holding the Minnesotans who must buy insurance in the individual private market hostage.

It is similar to the same monopoly situation that farmers face when purchasing seed corn. With just a few companies left selling seed, we have seen that, despite our corn crop prices falling to less than half of what they were a few years ago, our seed costs have not gone down one bit. Why? Because, just like in healthcare, the idea of a fair, competitive market situation in the seed business is a myth.

We dont need to accept such an unfair takeover of the marketplace. In the case of healthcare, we can use the state purchasing power of a large pool to get quality, affordable healthcare to more rural Minnesotans.
Millions of Americans are traveling to a narrow stretch of land spanning from Oregon to South Carolina in preparation for Mondays solar eclipse.

Those making the trek will be in the direct path of the first total eclipse of the sun in the United States since 1979. The rest of the country will witness a partial eclipse, with maximum coverage occurring around 1:15 p.m. for about two minutes in south-central Wisconsin.

Madison Astronomical Society President Thomas Ferch said he and other members of the organization will travel to Missouri to view the celestial occurrence. Ferch said the trip is not his first journey to view a total eclipse, as he and his late wife made the trip to Bowbells, North Dakota, during the last event 38 years ago. This time, hell witness the eclipse with his four-year-old granddaughter.

Ferch said being in the path of totality  or total darkness as the moon passes between the sun and the earth  is a strange experience.

When youre in total darkness, you look around and you can see how light it is all the way around the periphery (of the moon), he said. You look up, and you see the sun, you see the corona, you see the prominences, and the flares on the sun that become visible when the sun is eclipsed by the moon. You are able to see the planets and the brighter stars as well.

While Baraboo residents wont experience the eerie phenomenon of day becoming night, theyll see a significant portion of the sun eclipsed by the moon. Jim Lattis, director of the University of Wisconsin Madisons Space Place astronomy outreach center, said about 75-80 percent of the sun will be covered, depending on the location in Wisconsin.

Its not going to be like night turning into day, he said. If you were indoors, and you werent watching the sky, you would probably just notice that the light was dimmer and conclude that it had gotten cloudy.

Because the sun wont be completely covered, looking directly at the partial eclipse can cause retinal damage. Lattis said its important to view the eclipse through special solar filters, which can be purchased as glasses or handheld solar viewers. Viable filters should be marked as meeting ISO 12312-2 international standards. Both the Baraboo Public Library and Walmart are out of the special glasses, but they can be ordered online.

If finding solar filters becomes an issue, Lattis said a pinhole viewer is a safe alternative and can be made at home. Similar to a pinhole camera, the device filters sunlight through a small hole in a box, index card or tinfoil. An image of the sun is projected through the small aperture onto another surface, which is safe to view.

The variations are endless, and its entirely a question of ones own handiness and willingness to put together a little device, Lattis said.

While eclipse viewing events are sparse in Baraboo, the Ruth Culver Community Library in Prairie Du Sac will hold a solar eclipse program for kids beginning at 11 a.m. Monday. During the event, kids will receive safety glasses, learn about the cosmic occurrence and watch a livestream of the event from the West Coast.

Lattis said its important for both children and adults to understand and appreciate the work of past scientists that allow humans to accurately predict the celestial phenomenon.

Even a partial eclipse puts right before us the celestial mechanics that keeps the universe working the way we see it, he said. People should know that we can tell you when to the minute this is going to start and end because we understand now how the universe works at that level.
A Dodge County 4-H member shared his skills with another youth at a new swine event Aug. 3 at the Wisconsin State Fair.

The All for One Swine Show offered youths with an intellectual disability the chance to gain the real-life experience of showing a pig in a fun fair environment. The show was modeled after a similar event held at an Oklahoma fair.

The fair sought out Junior Gilt exhibitors to be mentors and allow All for One participants to work with their well-trained pigs. Andy Boschert of Beaver Dam volunteered himself and his 6-month-old Duroc pig, Rosie.

Andy, 16, said he was immediately on board with the event.

Right when I heard about the program, I was into it because it was a good idea, he said. It gives other kids and myself an opportunity to do something different.

Each child with special needs was paired with a team of mentors and received a crash course in showing pigs. Mentor responsibilities included teaching the All for One participants about basic animal husbandry, how to prepare a pig for show, showmanship skills, basic facts about pigs and having fun.

Andys team included volunteers from Jefferson and St. Croix. They mentored 12-year-old Cody Di Giacinto of Wauwatosa.

We started teaching Cody by having him get friendly with the pig. He also got to choose a name for the pig, so Rosie was temporarily named Alexa, Andy said. The pig was washed and groomed. He walked her and took her for a practice round.

Andy said the main thing they taught Cody is to keep the pig moving. You need to show the judge different views of the pig, he explained. The judge is looking for structure and soundness. Cody learned how to get the pig to keep its head up.

Codys mother, Kelly Di Giacinto, said her son is an athlete involved with Special Olympics and they received information about the All for One event through that organization. She signed Cody up because he loves animals and is a huge fan of the fair.

It was an awesome way for a city kid and country kid to get together. And there was great potential for them to learn from each other, she said.

Kelly said Cody had a blast giving Rosie a bath, and he had a chance to work on his speaking skills by sharing some pig facts with the judge.

Seven children from the greater Milwaukee area were mentored. The judge assessed the mentors, participant and pig working as a cohesive unit. All received a large Grand Champion purple ribbon at the conclusion of the event. They were also given a T-shirt, a stress ball in the shape of a pig and an animal brush.

Cody is so proud of his big ribbon, Kelly said. He was really lucky to have Andy as a mentor because he was truly interested in Cody. Now he wants to visit Rosie at the farm.

Andy also showed Rosie in competition at the Wisconsin State Fair. I won my class and then I competed in the overall and won Reserve Champion Duroc Gilt, he said.

As a member of the Leipsic 4-H Club, Andy will show hogs and lambs and one breeding stock at the Dodge County Fair. Pig and sheep market judging takes place Wednesday.
Vandalism  Friday at 6:42 a.m., someone at St. Katherine Drexel, 503 S. Spring St., reported that someone was on the roof.

Suspicious  Friday at 10:47 a.m., a couple of children were spotted with a bow and arrows walking along Beaver Dam River. The children were advised of an ordinance and moved along.

Fire  Friday at 4:31 p.m., police assisted Beaver Dam Fire Department with a house fire in the 500 block of East Mill Street.

Animal  Friday at 4:34 p.m., a woman in the 200 block of Hamilton Street told police that a dog attacked her dog.

Hit and run  Friday at 6:21 p.m., a woman reported that a coworkers vehicle was hit in the 1800 block of North Spring Street.

Vandalism  Friday at 6:35 p.m., someone at Washington Elementary School, 600 Grove St., told police that there was inappropriate graffiti on a slide.

Accident  Friday at 6:52 p.m., a woman reported that she backed into a pole at the Fleet Farm car wash, 1815 N. Spring St.

Drugs  Friday at 8:03 p.m., someone reported drug activity in a restroom at Tahoe Park.

Break-in  Friday at 11:41 p.m., a woman in the 100 block of Elm Street told police a Playstation 2 was stolen.

Fight  Saturday at 1:06 a.m., someone reported a fight in a parking lot located in the 200 block of Front Street.

Intoxicated person  Saturday at 2:30 a.m., a traffic stop near the East Mill Street and Healy Avenue intersection resulted in police citing a 35-year-old with speeding and operating a vehicle while intoxicated.

Theft  Saturday at 2:32 a.m., a woman reported the theft of narcotics from her purse in the 100 block of Evergreen Lane. A 43-year-old woman was cited with possession of drug paraphernalia and will be referred for theft.

Accident  Saturday at 11:32 a.m., there was a two-vehicle accident in the 1600 block of North Spring Street.

Animal  Saturday at 12:19 p.m., a dog bit someone in the 100 block of Pearl Street.

Theft  Saturday at 12:42 p.m., a woman at Wal-Mart Supercenter, 120 Frances Lane, told police that a person stole her wallet and charged her bank. She later found the wallet.

Theft  Saturday at 5:02 p.m., a man reported that someone stole money from him in the 800 block of Madison Street.

Hit and run  Saturday at 8:09 p.m., a vehicle hit a light pole and fled the scene near the Stone Street and University Avenue intersection.
ARLINGTON  Call it manure. Call it organic fertilizer. Call it by names that would earn you the epithets potty mouth, toilet tongue or latrine lips.

But dont call it waste.

George Koepp, agricultural agent for the University of Wisconsin-Extension Columbia County, says the droppings that pile up on livestock farms  cow manure, hog manure, sheep manure, poultry manure  have great value to farmers who know how to use them wisely.

Were returning what the animal did not use back to the land, said Koepp, who is the co-chairman of the planning committee for the North American Manure Expo, scheduled for Aug. 22-23 at the University of Wisconsin Arlington Agricultural Research Station in southern Columbia County.

About 1,000 people from all over the United States and Canada  principally farmers and specialists in manure hauling and application  are expected to gather for the free event, which includes demonstrations and tours to showcase the latest innovations in fertilizing fields organically.

The theme of the annual event, according to Koepp, focuses on innovation, research and solutions.

The use of animal droppings in crop cultivation is as old as agriculture itself.

But theres plenty to learn, said Richard Halopka, co-chairman of the planning committee and crops and soil agent for the UW-Extension Clark County.

Manure, Halopka said, is a tool in the toolbox for farmers who want to save money and save the environment  and who dont want to spend time hauling away what their animals leave behind.

Starting in about 2008, Halopka noted, supply and demand pushed the price of chemical fertilizers into the range of $1,000 per ton, making manure a cost-effective alternative.

And there are new ways to store, process and apply it, while ensuring that it stays on the field and doesnt contaminate groundwater or streams.

For example, a series of field demonstrations, starting at 1 p.m. Aug. 23, will show ways to infuse manure into fields where the crops already are growing.

Typically, Koepp said, an environmentally-conscious Wisconsin farmer will apply manure to fields in the spring before planting, or in the fall after harvest.

But innovative implements allow the manure to be knifed into the soil after the plants have taken root, and the roots can hold the manure on the field, so that less of it leaches into the water supply.

Manure Expo participants can choose from one of three tours on the morning of Aug. 22. Theres a $20 fee for the tours; aside from that, the expo is free.

The tours will go to:

Statz Bros. Inc. near Marshall, where the farm includes a 4,000-cow manure digester that generates electricity from manure gases, as well as methods of recycling cattle bedding and storing liquid manure in a lagoon.

The Arlington Agricultural Research Station, where a three-part tour will explore a study of manure runoff with various types of tillage; the processing of manure from the stations dairy and swine operations and the processing and recycling of the sand beds in the dairy barn.

Endres Composting near Waunakee, where composted dairy cow manure is applied to alfalfa fields, and manure is recycled for use as bedding.

The expo also will include a trade show featuring the latest in manure handling, processing and application.

And, there will be T-shirts available.

What those shirts will say, Koepp said, is a secret that will be unveiled when the show starts.

Before the event, there was an electronic survey posted on the events website, www.manureexpo.org, where participants were invited to vote on their favorites among numerous suggested manure-related quips.

The expo is owned by the Professional Nutrients Applicators Association of Wisconsin, but this is the first time since 2012 that it has returned to Wisconsin when it was held near Prairie du Sac. The first show was held in Nebraska in 2011. Last years show was in Ohio, and next years will be in South Dakota.

James Foley, chairman of Columbia Countys town of Leeds, said hes been getting calls from southern Wisconsin residents who are concerned about possible odors and traffic emanating from the Manure Expo.

Theres no need to worry, Koepp said, because the demonstrations will be confined to the Arlington Agricultural Research Stations fields, and there wont be the type of full-scale manure spreading that typically happens in spring and fall.

Youll hardly know were here, he said.
Donald R. Smith, retired Lt. Col. USAF, 95, of Westfield, died at Divine Savior Healthcare in Portage following a car accident on Aug. 13, 2017.

Donald was born Jan. 20, 1922, to Robert and Lydia Smith. He grew up on a farm in rural Oxford, and learned the value of hard work. He attended a one-room schoolhouse and graduated from Oxford High School. One day while doing farm chores he spotted an airplane on the horizon and dreamt that he would fly a plane someday. Donalds first job was in the bridge maintenance department with the Soo Line Railroad in Stevens Point. Donald met his second wife, Mary Barbara Borden, a nurse from New Milford, Connecticut, while stationed in Puerto Rico. They were married in 1969.

During WWII, Donald volunteered for the United States Armed Forces. He was commissioned an officer, obtained his dream of flying planes and earned his aviator wings. His aeronautical career started in smaller single occupant aircrafts, and then progressed onto the B-17 bombers, cargo and troop aircraft carriers, C-54s, C-124s, and C-130s. He was the maintenance-in-charge officer for the C-5s (Americas largest cargo jet aircraft). He attended specialized flight training schools and became a pilot in a Flying Fortress B-17 bomber crew and was sent to Molesworth, England. In June 1944, he joined the 8th Air Force, in the 427th Squadron, part of the famed 303rd Bombardment Group (H), the outfits nickname was the Hells Angels. He flew 34 combat missions over Nazi-held territory and received the Bronze Star, Air Force Commendation, Air Force Air Medal with six oak leaf clusters and the Meritorious Service Medal with one oak leaf cluster during his military career.

During the Korean Conflict, Donald returned to active duty flying C-54s in support and re-supplying missions thoughout Asia. He flew C-124s during peacetime all over the world to include stateside bases, Europe, polar sites in Alaska and far northern Canada along Americas outer radar perimeter, the DEW line (Defense Early Warning) network. He also participated in large military exercises in conjunction with the U.S. Army by flying and transporting soldiers, paratroopers and their equipment during the Bright Star/Pine Cone No. 1 and No. 2 maneuvers. In the C-130s he flew with the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, the Hurricane Hunters. He gained additional duties and responsibilities as an aircraft maintenance officer and spent tours of duty at Donaldson AFB, Greenville, South Carolina; Hunter AFB, Savannah, Georgia; Ramey AFB, Puerto Rico; Scott AFB, Belleville, Illinois; and Phang Rang AFB, South Vietnam. His last assignment was maintenance-in-charge officer of the C-5s at Dover AFB, Delaware. He retired from the Air Force after 32 years of service with the rank of lieutenant colonel as a veteran of three wars (WWII, Korea and Vietnam). He was the 2012 military honoree at the 71st Black Hills Motor Cycle Rally in Sturgis, South Dakota.

After his retirement, Donald and Barbara moved into the Woodland Hills subdivision in Black Hawk, South Dakota. They held annual neighborhood picnics and get-togethers in their front yard under the giant Ponderosa pine trees. In his civilian life, Donald became heavily involved in community affairs or events and he was often the driving force behind getting projects accomplished. He served on the subdivisions water board and attended several committee meetings with county officials, with like-minded homeowners and sympathetic supervisors of Meade County, to help persuade them to blacktop the only entrance to their subdivision. He was also a member of the Meade County HUD elder care. South Dakota Gov. Bill Janklow presented him with the Jefferson Award for meritorious service to his community. Donald had a knack for construction and for doing improvement projects. He built six houses in Woodland Hills and a warehouse that became the Old Glory Fireworks Co., and more recently the Ranch Restaurant. He helped with the fabrication of the stone portal pillars at the Piedmont Cemetery. Donald was also instrumental in the planning, building and completion of Our Lady of the Black Hills Catholic Church. He was very busy and supported all church fundraising activities and served in leadership positions on many committees.

Donalds hobbies included being a second-generation beekeeper and he was named the Delaware state bee inspector. He gave away jars of honey to his neighbors and friends. He was known as Sundown at the regular Thursday night poker gatherings. He always enjoyed the banter and brinksmanship required in a spirited game of cards. He dabbled in the stock market and was an astute investor in real estate. He volunteered his time driving friends and veterans to and from their medical appointments and he dispensed medications at Ellsworth AFB in Rapid City, South Dakota. Donald was truly a one-of-a-kind person who made a big difference in this world through his good works and deeds and his can do positive attitude. He will be greatly missed by all who shared time with him.

Donald is survived by sons, Darrell of Baraboo and Steven (Sherry) of Erin; two grandchildren, Michelle Smith Lipenski of Hartford and Jennifer (Joseph) Rodriguez of Waukesha; four great-grandchildren, Madison, Mason, Austin and Able; brothers, Durwin of Westfield, and John (Carol) of Oxford; a cousin, Dorothy Wohlfert of Oxford; and other relatives. Donald was preceded in death by his parents, Robert and Lydia Smith; the mother of his children, Marion Ginther; second wife of 45 years, Mary Barbara Borden; daughter, Susan of Wauwatosa; daughter-in-law, Virginia Murray-Smith; a sister, Lona (Donald) Drew; and other relatives.

A memorial visitation for Donald will be held from 9 to 10:45 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 19, at Steinhaus-Holly Funeral Home, Westfield.

A Memorial Mass of Christian Burial for Donald will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 19, at Good Shepherd Catholic Church, Westfield, with the Rev. Paulraj Sellam officiating. Full military honors will be presented by Westfield Area Veterans following Mass on Saturday at the church. You are welcome to join the family at a celebration of life luncheon following the ceremonies in the lower level of the church.

A memorial service will also be held at a later date in South Dakota and inurnment will be next to his wife, Barbara, in the Black Hills National Cemetery near Sturgis, South Dakota.

In lieu of flowers, please consider making donations to the American Heart Association, Marquette County EMS Association, Shriners Hospitals for Children or your favorite charity. Steinhaus-Holly Funeral Home and Cremation Service of Westfield is serving the family. For online obituaries and condolences, visit www.steinhaushollyfuneralhome.com.
Shark Tank rewards entrepreneurial solutions to real-world problems

Sharks Announce Winners Borah Kim

Mapping Ethnic Minority Violence Stephen Salpukas

Shark Tank Stage Stephen Salpukas

Rebecca Latourell Rebecca Latourell of AidData was the emcee Stephen Salpukas

Sharks Listen to Presentations Stephen Salpukas Photo - of - Hide Caption

The dazzling set, cameras, dramatic lighting and air of expectation were comparable to its television namesake, but the third annual Shark Tank, hosted by The Institute for the Theory and Practice of International Relations (ITPIR) in Commonwealth Auditorium on Aug. 3, gave the concept a uniquely W&M spin.



Whereas the Mark Burnett-produced reality show attracts viewers with promises of multi-million investments, sparkly marketing campaigns, Scrub Daddy sponges and pheromone-infused hair products, ITPIRs Shark Tank drew a robust audience and impressive panel of sharks not only because of what it promises but also what it delivers: student-faculty partnerships using their creativity, skill and interests to find innovative solutions to international challenges, thanks in large part to generous private funding. As ITPIR Co-Director Mike Tierney said in his introduction, ITPIR incubates student-faculty research projects that are international, interdisciplinary and policy relevant. One of my favorite ITPIR programs is the Shark Tank  Their ideas and sweat equity actually provide the foundation for many existing projects here at ITPIR.

Whos to say that isnt at least as important as the Simply Fit Board - The Workout Board with a Twist?

The sharks

The Sharks, or panel of judges, assembled for the event were W&M alumni and distinguished experts in their fields:

Ambassador Thomas Shannon, Jr. '80, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs

Ellen Stofan '83, D.Sc. 16, former Chief Scientist of NASA

Thomas Benedetti '92, co-founder of and Partner at Blue Heron Capital, and

Alena Stern '12, senior program manager at AidData

The pitches

The seven projects presented over the course of two hours were the culmination of a 10-week course on Policy Entrepreneurship taught by ITPIR staff members David Trichler, Rebecca Latourell, Duenya Hassan and Jake Sims. The students brought a variety of majors, backgrounds and interests to their approaches, and the seven projects were as creative and thoughtful as they were different, showing that the good data is applicable to multiple disciplines and areas of analysis.



Using storytelling and compelling graphics, they described how they would use data to improve decision making and understanding.

"Why Microfinance Needs Machine Learning" (Abby Bilenkin 20, Vincent Taday 20; Mentor: Siddharta Ghose)

Abby Bilenkin started the afternoon with a presentation about microfinance and machine learning. Her partner, Vincent Taday, was not able to join her, but she didn't miss a beat. On a cursory level, even outside the development field, most people are familiar with microcredit and microfinance, but the question addressed by Bilenkin and Taday is how to measure the actual effectiveness. They identify two issues: the repayment rate of microloans could be higher, enabling more loans to more people; and data scientists bring different skills than professionals in microfinance and could improve the efficiency of the process. In their minds, repayment rate misses the point. The goal should be wealth creation, and their proposal would help predict whether a microloan would also positively impact the local economy.



They posit that machine learning algorithms predict loan repayment more accurately than human evaluators. Machine learning is used in conventional banks, and computers are better than people at reducing mistakes by 13.7 percent.



Questions from the judges mostly concerned how to identify and choose the best datasets, and one question was if the project would put single women at a disadvantage, since there is very little data about them. Bilenkin had clearly thought about that, and said they, too, were concerned and were going to incorporate that thinking in their algorithms, much the way it is done in affirmative action. When the issue of potential predatory lending in South Africa was raised, Belikin responded: I was just reading an article about that in the Guardian. And then she proceeded to discuss the concerns and how they were going to address them in their project.

"Comparing Donor and Recipient Priorities" (Allie Cooper 19 and Chris Elsner 20; Mentor: Jake Sims)

Allie Cooper and Chris Elsner focused on the lack of accountability and relevance to recipient priorities in foreign aid. Using the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals as a guide, the goals and targets were formulated to stimulate action over the next 15 years in areas of critical importance for humanity and the planet and range from No Poverty (#1) to Gender Equality (#5) and Partnerships for the Goals (#17).



Cooper and Elsner propose creating the first map for SDGs for three countries: Colombia, Malawi and Uganda. They would rank the donors and their effects. Stofan led the questioning by noting the overlap of the SDGs would make it difficult to narrow down to a goal, and had the students considered concentrating on just a few of the goals. Their response was that they would be coding to the goal level, using the SDGs as broad guidelines. Other questions involved how to weed out the appropriate data and also to differentiate, as Stern noted, the difference in the specialization of a donor from the goal of the recipients. Stofan cautioned that it would be important to focus on the achievable. Elsner clarified that the goal was to map out where the gaps are as a tool for donors to see. Shannon pointed out that accountability and meeting felt needs were the most difficult issues in the field. Elsner responded that his goal is to publish what they find and make the information available.

"Indexing Taxation" (George Moss, UVA 20 and Caroline Nutter 18; Mentor: David Trichler)

If the statement Tax capacity is essential to the macroeconomic, social and institutional development of all countries is a bit intimidating, this project can best be summed up this way: Helping Countries Help Themselves.



Their project analyzes how countries and localities collect taxes. The premise is that in the developing world, because there are not effective means of collecting taxes, the countries have more means at their disposal than theyre able to access. The tax revenue is 10-20 percent of GDP in developing countries versus 40-50 percent of GDP in developed countries. They estimate the equivalent of $100 billion is lost in tax revenue each year.



Moss and Nutter want to create a tax capacity index to be used by public finance researchers, policymakers and practitioners for benchmarking domestic resource mobilization. It will consist of downloadable data in a public domain thats accessible and user-friendly.



Shannon pointed out that it is important to find indications of corruption and poor business activity, but that its hard to find data: I know, because Ive looked, he said.



Shannon also remarked that with Moss from UVA and Nutter from W&M combining forces, Thomas Jefferson would be pleased.

"Mapping Food Insecurity" (Maxim Maiello 19 and Elizabeth Sutterlin 20; Mentor: Rebecca Latourell)

If you want to show that your project is worth doing, it surely doesnt hurt to start your presentation by quoting an expert. Food deserts are not unique to developing countries  many urban and rural parts of the U.S. struggle with the same problems  and this project addresses the need for data to diagnose the issues. Maiello and Sutterlin started their presentation about the need for their project by quoting Arif Husain, chief economist and head of food security analysis service at the United Nations World Food Programme. In an email exchange, Husain told them that data (on food insecurity) is sparse at best. Domestic urban growth stresses the food supply and forces vulnerable populations to rely on informal food sources without nutritious or economic options. Such food vendors are unmapped and understudied.



Maiello and Sutterlin will focus on Hyderabad, India, to locate and map the locations of food vendors and other markets. Using cell phone data of food-insecure populations, they will map the routes between homes and food sources in order to help improve access to food by identifying the most in-need neighborhoods and city sectors; targeting efficient locations for food aid; and recommending improvements in planning for urban planners and city officials. Stofan suggested focusing on the vendors rather than trying to glean information from the customers, and the other Sharks also advised them to consider what kinds of information theyll be tracking and what it will indicate.

"Global Media Perceptions of U.S. Foreign Policy (Katherine Armstrong 20 and Jack Shangraw 20, Mentor: Marcus Holmes)

This proposal is based on the premise that the success of U.S. foreign policy is influenced by Americas soft power. Although there is some ad hoc monitoring of opinion, Armstrong and Shangraw propose using web-scraping and sentiment analysis to track real-time attitudes towards the U.S. in foreign media. They would be creating a real-time trends map from their Sentiment Tracking Tool, which does not currently exist. With this information as context, U.S. policymakers and implementers will be better able to convey U.S. interests abroad and observe the impact. The Sharks asked about the value of following media outlets as opposed to social media or other data. Armstrong and Shangraw explained that they would begin by identifying the key media outlets to track, and that they would also compare it with public opinion polling to get a balanced sense of the mood in a country.

"Identity Messaging and Environmental Development" (Michael Giovanniello 20 and Anatoly Osgood 20; Mentor: Dan Maliniak)



Environmental sustainability and climate change mitigation projects are often hindered by the inability to convey their impact or urgency. Giovanniello and Osgood offer this hypothesis: If individuals perceive their group as prioritizing climate change action, they will have higher support for local environmental development projects. With methodologies developed to understand how political identity impacts ones climate change knowledge, they will examine the effect of social connotations on making environmental development efforts more relevant to communities. Their hope is to show how group-identity increases support, which could improve communication strategies through all development fields. They intend to travel to Nicaragua, where they already have contacts in the Peace Corps. Shannon reflected that having outsiders or foreigners deliver aid in the Ebola crisis caused some resistance among local populations, and Stofan suggested a way to engage local farmers would be to ask them what they are noticing, creating common ground and a starting point for exchange and discussion.



"Tracking Targets: Identifying Ethnic Minority Violence" (Sami Tewolde 19 and Lincoln Zaleski 20; Mentor: Dan Runfola)

Tewolde and Zaleski took the stage with a clear definition of the problem: Data on ethnic minority violence is scattered. Organizations are aiming in the dark because theres also a lack of access to where this ethnic violence occurs. Their solution is the creation of a tool that will bring critical geospatial information to organizations that affect change. They can do a basic two-dimensional map of the acts of violence, but their hope would be to create a much more versatile and data-rich interactive map. They had already investigated potential users or customers. They asked organizations if it would be useful and they got a resounding yes: A geocoded map of ethnic violence would be an essential tool for the international community. ... This is not something we already have, and we need to. - Arslan Malik (former UN peacekeeping senior policy advisor); and A geocoded map would be extremely useful ... and this is an enormously important area." -Johanna Birnir (director, All Minorities at Risk).



They see the potential of the project as a building block and ongoing tool for analysis. It also is a widespread problem with a large scale population impact. Ethnic discrimination or violence affects all countries in Asia and the Middle East but three. Millions of people are affected.

Winners

"Indexing Taxation: A Measurement Index of Tax Capacity in over 190 Countries," by George Moss (UVA '20) and Caroline Nutter '18, was fully funded at $5,000.

"Tracking Targets: Identifying Ethnic Minority Violence," by Sami Tewolde '19 and Lincoln Zaleski '20, was fully funded at $8,340.

"Group-Identity Messaging and Support for Environmental Development Projects," by Michael Giovanniello '20 and Anatoly Osgood '20, was funded at $6,660.

The future

After the seven impressive research pitches, the Sharks had a difficult deliberation and split the $20,000 between three teams, who will begin their research in the fall:

In his questioning of Belikin, Shannon asked her what she would consider success. She thought for a moment and responded: It would be that we were using research to apply to the real world  that this research was used somewhere and helped people.



What Belikin expressed so well is true for all the students and their projects. As Tierney said at the beginning of the afternoon: Our researchers apply social science methods to real-world problems. We seek to teach through research, to create new knowledge, and to have an impact in the world.




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Russia charts 40 years of icebreaker progress

15 August 2017

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Russia is this week celebrating the historic achievements of its nuclear-powered icebreaker fleet and has also announced project milestones for its latest vessels. The Arktika was the first surface vessel to reach the North Pole, on 17 August 1977. The seventh and largest Arktika class icebreaker - 50 Years of Victory - entered service in 2007 and is now on its way to the North Pole to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Arktika's expedition.

50 Years of Victory (Image: Atomflot)

50 Years of Victory - which is 25,800 dwt, 160 m long and 20 m wide, and is designed to break through ice up to 2.8 m thick - left the port of Murmansk on 13 August. It aims to reach the North Pole on 17 August when the Russian Federation flag will be hoisted in memory of the Arktika's pioneering captain, Yury Kuchiyev, and his crew.

During the expedition, the icebreaker will host a conference dedicated to the future of the Arktika fleet, environmental protection of the Arctic region and the development of year-round navigation along the Northern Sea Route. Members of the original crew, parliamentarians, veterans of Atomflot and representatives of the state nuclear corporation Rosatom will attend the conference.

Atomflot Director-General Vyacheslav Ruksha said yesterday the voyage has two meanings. "We are paying tribute to the Arktika's legendary campaign and expressing our gratitude to our veterans. We are also demonstrating that, today, after 40 years of successful work in the western sector of the Arctic, modern Russia is ready to perform such global tasks as ensuring year-round navigation along the Northern Sea Route. The construction of new universal nuclear icebreakers will serve this purpose."

50 Years of Victory is scheduled to return to port on 23 August.

Atomflot, a subsidiary of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, said yesterday that Kuchiyev's achievement was comparable to "the first human's journey into outer space", referring to Yury Gagarin's orbit of the Earth in the Vostok spacecraft on 12 April 1961.

"The Arktika expedition, which took seven days and eight hours to complete and crossed 2528 miles, practically proved the possibility of year-round navigation on the shortest routes of the Arctic Ocean, as well as the possibility of transit passage of the Northern Sea Route," it added.

Progress

Rosatom's nuclear fuel manufacturer subsidiary TVEL has announced its delivery of a batch of fuel assemblies for a universal nuclear icebreaker of the new generation of Arktika. The fuel assemblies, which were produced by TVEL's Chepetsky Mechanical Plant (ChMZ), consist of "seamless narrow-walled hexagonal pipes of zirconium alloy" with a wall thickness of about 1.6 mm, TVEL said yesterday.

They are a "unique and exclusive technology", which ChMZ have produced for the first time, together with scientists from the AA Bochvar Research Institute of Inorganic Materials (VNIINM), which is another Rosatom subsidiary. The fuel assemblies will be assembled by TVEL's Mashinostroitelny Zavod (Elemash) plant. The fuel is intended for use in RITM-200 reactors.

In January 2013, Rosatom called for bids to build two more of these universal icebreaker vessels (project 22220), for delivery in 2019 and 2020, and in May 2104 a contract for RUB84.4 billion was signed with United Shipbuilding Corporation. In August the same year, Russian regulator Rostechnadzor licensed Baltijsky Zavod Shipbuilding to install the RITM-200 reactor units from OKBM Afrikantov for the pilot model. The keel of the first, Arktika, was laid in November 2013, and that of the second, Sibir, in May 2015.

ZIO-Podolsk, part of Rosatom's engineering division Atomenergomash, said yesterday it had completed the assembly of the integrated building of the RITM-200 reactor for Sibir with the installation of steam generator "cassettes". Produced by JSC Afrikantov OKBM, each of the 12 cassettes weighs almost one-and-a-half tonnes. Now the reactor structure is being prepared for hydraulic testing, ZIO-Podolsk added.

RITM-200 reactors have 175 MWt each and are deigned to deliver 60 MW at the propellers via twin turbine-generators and three motors.

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Call for government to revitalise US nuclear industry

15 August 2017

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The US government should hold "a structured conversation" with the country's nuclear industry on ways to restore and develop the sector, according to an essay from Mark Hibbs, senior fellow of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's nuclear policy program.

"The pending bankruptcy of Westinghouse, announced five months ago, could have far-reaching strategic impact on US exports and on the economic viability, safety, and security of nuclear power installations in the United States and beyond," Hibbs says.

However, he notes that the Chinese and Russian nuclear industries "appear immune to and poised to capitalise on the problems that have beset Western firms". Both countries have ambitious plans to export their nuclear power technology around the world.

"There are four basic reasons why nuclear power plant exporters and their governments in the United States and other western countries should be keenly concerned about China's and Russia's understandably ambitious forays into future nuclear power plant markets," according to Hibbs.

Firstly, he notes that both Chinese and Russian companies planning to build reactors abroad are state-owned enterprises (SOEs), which puts them at a competitive advantage. "The US nuclear industry is a strategic industry, but Westinghouse and GE are privately owned companies, not SOEs," he says. However, he suggests a federal government bailout of Westinghouse is "neither likely nor desirable". He suggests, "The polarised political culture in Washington will prevent other, constructive partial solutions, such as the imposition of a carbon tax that would make nuclear power more cost competitive with other sources of energy."

Hibbs says China and Russia also have "strategic trade penetration". Both Beijing and Moscow have signed memorandums of understanding and other bilateral agreements with potential customer countries. These will provide them "access to strategic decision-making in these countries concerning technology, energy, and foreign policy for decades to come".

The governments of China and Russia are also committed to their nuclear power technology, the essay continues. "Countries that import nuclear power plants commit to managing this technology over a project life cycle of a hundred years. They will be less inclined to buy turnkey wares from partners that do not inspire confidence that they will be using nuclear power for more than one or two decades." During the last 20 years, while China and Russia built dozens of reactors at home over, leading Western vendors virtually stopped constructing new units. "Western firms' long-term loss of domestic expertise and political support will negatively ripple across their entire supply chain, and both the economics and the safety of installations operating in these countries may in coming years be threatened," Hibbs suggests.

He also warns the USA could lose its leadership in international nuclear governance "in the face of a future shift towards newcomers and away from established nuclear technology-owning countries".

Western nuclear power companies want their Chinese and Russian competitors to "engage fairly", Hibbs says. However, they do not want "to sacrifice the real benefits that come from partnering with Chinese and Russian industry, led off by market access and opportunities to take advantage of non-Western firms' genuinely lower factor costs".

The Trump administration, he says, should discuss with the US nuclear industry what steps the government should take to "enhance US nuclear exports and encourage a level international playing field for exporting nuclear equipment, material, and technology, especially to risk-bearing destinations".

"This might lead the White House to make better use of the US Export-Import Bank and to establish bureaucratic lines of authority to favour a more coordinated and strategic view in the federal government about nuclear trade."

Commenting on the essay - titled Does the US Nuclear Industry have a Future? - Ted Jones, director of supplier programs at the Washington, DC-based Nuclear Energy Institute, said: "The US nuclear industry has been competing not just against foreign companies but also against their governments - which seek the unique strategic benefits of a nuclear energy supplier. For our nation, much more is at stake than billions in US nuclear exports and tens of thousands of American jobs."

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NRC issues order to Westinghouse fuel facility

15 August 2017

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The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has issued a confirmatory order to Westinghouse following the May 2016 discovery of an accumulation of uranium-bearing material at a fuel fabrication facility. The regulator has said it will not issue a civil penalty or cite the company for violations because of the commitments Westinghouse has made under the order.

The accumulation of uranium-bearing material in a scrubber system, which is designed to remove unwanted material from a number of plant processes, was discovered by plant employees during an annual maintenance shutdown at the Columbia facility in South Carolina in May 2016. Analysis of the material indicated that the scrubber contained the equivalent of about 100 kg of uranium, exceeding the mass limit of 29 kg set in its criticality safety evaluation. The scrubber, which had already been returned to service by the time the analysis was completed, was shut down on the discovery that the mass limit had been exceeded.

The NRC in August 2016 issued a confirmatory action letter, outlining Westinghouse's commitments to ensure the causes of the uranium build-up were adequately identified and evaluated, and to implement appropriate corrective actions to improve the performance of its nuclear criticality safety program. Some of those actions have already been completed and others have been incorporated into the new confirmatory order.

The NRC carried out an augmented inspection at the facility in September 2016, which identified several violations of regulatory policy, with a follow-up inspection in February 2017. Westinghouse then elected to participate in the NRC's Alternative Dispute Resolution process, in which a neutral third party assists in reaching an agreement on enforcement actions. The confirmatory order, dated 9 August, is the result of a settlement under that process.

"Under the order, Westinghouse has taken and agreed to take a number of corrective actions, including a survey of the safety culture among employees at the site, improvements and modifications to scrubbers and other systems to minimise the likelihood of a similar accumulation, and development of additional methods to provide early indications of abnormal accumulations," the NRC said.

"In consideration of the commitments contained in the order, the NRC will not issue a civil penalty or cite the company for the violations, although Westinghouse officials acknowledged that the violations occurred," it continued. "The company has also agreed to provide the NRC with a notification letter once it has completed the terms of the order and the basis for concluding that the order has been satisfied."

The Columbia Fuel Fabrication Facility is part of Westinghouse's fuel and components manufacturing business with commercial nuclear fuel manufacturing facilities, product engineering and testing laboratories, and fuel marketing and contract administration functions at the South Carolina site. The company received NRC authorisation to restart operations in the affected area of the facility in October 2017.

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Oak Ridge ships first TRU waste since 2012

15 August 2017

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The US Department of Energy's (DOE) Transuranic Waste Processing Center, at Oak Ridge in Tennessee, has sent its first shipment of processed and treated transuranic waste since 2012 for permanent disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), in New Mexico.

Transuranic Waste Processing Center employees celebrate the first shipment from Oak Ridge to WIPP since 2012 (Image: DOE)



Transuranic, or TRU, waste consists of materials and debris contaminated with elements that have a higher atomic mass than uranium. The majority of Oak Ridge's inventory of TRU waste originated from previous research and isotope production missions at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Much of the waste had originally been scheduled for shipment to WIPP in 2014, but in February that year WIPP operations were suspended following an underground truck fire and an unrelated radiological event. The New Mexico facility - the USA's only repository for the disposal of TRU wastes from military programs - resumed operations in January following the implementation of a stepwise recovery plan estimated to cost $242 million up to the restart of operations, not including the cost of new permanent ventilation and a new exhaust shaft.

WIPP resumed operations with the emplacement of waste that had been stored at an on-site facility. It received a shipment - from the DOE's Idaho site - in April, and was expected to receive some 128 shipments in total from Idaho, Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, Savannah River Waste Control Specialists by January 2018. The facility is now receiving around four shipments per week.

Jay Mullis, acting manager of the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management, said the resumption of shipments had been an important priority due to the large inventory of processed waste stored in facilities at the Tennessee site. "These shipments will remove risk from our site and help fulfill our commitments to the state of Tennessee," Mullis said.

With operations at WIPP ramping up, Oak Ridge anticipates making multiple shipments each month. The exact allocation and sequence for shipping depends on the emplacement rate at WIPP, operational needs at the WIPP and sites, and logistical issues, such as weather, that affect shipping.

The Transuranic Waste Processing Center, operated by North Wind Solutions under contract to the DOE's Oak Ridge Office, is a regional centre for the management, treatment, packaging and shipment of its TRU waste legacy inventory. The centre is also responsible for managing and treating low level and mixed low level radioactive waste generated at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The WIPP repository, located about 26 miles (42 km) from Carlsbad in south-east New Mexico, was constructed in the 1980s and has received over 11,900 shipments of TRU wastes since it began operations in 1999. The waste is emplaced in 2,150 feet (655 metres) underground in rooms mined from a 2000-foot-thick salt bed.

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The world has seen a great number of atrocities over time; however, not all of them are talked about. Below are a list of catastrophic events which, for the most part, have fallen fall under the radar despite their remifications.

10. 1931 Floods in China

China has been a site of a number of terrible floods throughout history. Deaths resulting from the 1931 floods in particular were extremely drastic, and estimated at between 145,000 and 4,000,000 people. The floods happened after the drowning of three of China's major rivers, the Yellow River, the Yangtze River and the Huai River. In this particular year, it is believed that the weather conditions were severe with heavy rains, plenty of snow and cyclones being rampant in the country. The tragic floods caused death both directly and indirectly as food sources were destroyed making people starve to death.

9. 1977 Tenerife Airport Disaster in the Canary Islands

On March 27, 1977, a disaster occurred in the Canary Islands which claimed several lives. This disaster involved two passenger jets which came head to head on the runway. At 583 lives lost, it is the largest aviation disaster to have ever occurred after the September 11 terrorist attacks. The collision came as a result of abrupt diversion of the aircrafts from the airport due to a bomb that exploded within the airport.

8. 1985 Japan Airlines Flight 123 in Japan

This disaster occurred when the Japanese Airline flight 123 exploded and later crashed into mountain ridges located 100 kilometers from the county's capital of Tokyo. This disaster is linked to a mechanical problem developed by the aircraft which is said to have occurred due to a faulty repair done on the aircraft. The disaster claimed several lives inclusive of cabin crew members, the pilots and the passengers, the total number adding up to 509. On the world records, the natural disaster is recorded as the third deadliest after the Tenerife airport accident which claimed 583 persons and terrorist attacks of September 11.

7. 1948 Earthquake in Turkmenistan

Earthquakes are one of the most disastrous types of natural disasters that can occur. Although this 1948 incident claimed many lives, it is seldom spoken about. The area most intensely hit by the earthquake was Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan. At the time of the event, Turkmenistan was a part of the USSR. The damage of the disaster overflowed into the surrounding villages. Property, the lives of people as well as animals were lost and the infrastructure destroyed. Around 110,000 people lost their lives in the earthquakes.

6. 1976 Earthquake in Guatemala

The events of this devastating earthquake is traced to the Motagua fault that is geographically located in Guatemala. The disaster occurred on February 4,1976. Not only did the earthquake claim lives but it also affected the infrastructural development in the region. The timing of the earthquake, which occurred when many people were sleeping, contributed to the death toll of 23,000.

5. 1871 Fire in Peshtigo, Wisconsin

This Wisconsin fire is said to have claimed the lives of between 1500 to 2500 persons. The natural disaster involved a forest fire that took place in the Peshtigo Forest in 1871. The major reason why the unfortunate event went silent is argued to be the simultaneous Chicago fire which was then more broadcast and focused on. The real and actual cause resulting into the fire is still unclear and several theories have been put forward to explain the wildfire.

4. 1970 Cyclone in Bangladesh

The people of Bangladesh will concur that this natural disaster was among the most unfortunate disasters to ever hit them yet little is said or known about it. The natural disaster claimed a sizable number of the population at the time. The disaster occurred due to the presence of a tropical cyclone which caused a severe storm which swept across the area of Bangladesh causing destruction and loss of lives along its path. The storm was indeed dangerous as the wind of the storm moved at a speed of 185km/h. The incident claimed the lives of a staggering 300,000 to 500,000 people.

3. 1984 industrial disaster in Bhopal, India

This natural disaster in India involved a gas leakage from a American-owned pesticide plant in the area of Bhopal. This occurred in 1984. The gas leakage exposed those nearby to dangerous and harmful methyl isocyanate gas. This gas affected and caused the demise of 2,259 persons. The death toll rose rapidly due to the penetration of the toxic gas into the shanty areas located close to industrial plant where several people have their homes.

2. 1970 Earthquake in Yungay, Peru

Peru, an area prone to earthquakes, experience a disastrous seismic event in May of 1970. This natural occurrence claimed several lives and massive property destruction. The earthquake triggered the movement of debris avalanche which then buried the town of Yungay, claiming 20,000 lives.

1. 1975 Floods in China

This natural occurrence in the republic of China claimed 171,000 lives and displaced even more. The floods were as a result of failure of the dam that was being constructed in the region of Henan province. The dam foundation was laid along River Ru. The irony in this incidence is that the dam itself was being constructed to control flooding in the area but ended up causing severe flooding itself hence causing loss of lives. The event however is not widely talked about as few people recognize its occurrence.
For citizens living in many countries of the European Union, an annual one-week vacation is seen as a necessity, and these citizens go for holidays either in local establishments or even in other countries. However, in some countries in the EU, a large percentage of their citizens are not able to go for vacations primarily due to financial constraints. In countries such as Romania, Croatia, and Bulgaria, more than half of the citizens do not go for at least a one-week vacation per year.

1. Romania (66.6%)

Romania had the highest percentage (66.6%) of its population who could not afford a seven-day annual holiday. There are a few pointers which support these findings in Romania. One of the reasons behind the high percentage in Romania could be the poverty in the country as a vacation cannot be a priority to people living under the poverty line. Romania is among the poorest countries in the EU with the economy struggling after the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in the late 20th century. About 13.8% of Romanian citizens live in absolute poverty with the majority being the people living in the rural regions. The country was also identified in 2014 as having the highest relative poverty of any member country of the European Union. The employment rate in Romania could be another factor that could explain why its citizens find it difficult to go for an annual vacation. The unemployment rate in Romania is about 5.3%. Obviously, these unemployed citizens are not able to go for annual vacations.

2. Croatia (62.8%)

Croatia was second on the list with 62.8% of its citizens not being able to afford a one-week annual vacation. For one to know the reason behind this worrying statistic, one needs to have an in-depth analysis of the Croatian economy. The Croatian economy is heavily reliant on it service industry which accounts for 70% of its $58.330 billion GDP. The economy is just recovering from its worst period which began after the collapse of socialism and persisted during the Croatian War of Independence. About 19.4% of Croatias population lives below the poverty line which is an indication of the high level of poverty in the country. The unemployment rate in Croatia which is currently at 10.8% is another factor behind Croatias second position on the list.

3. Bulgaria (56.4%)

Over half of citizens of Bulgaria also do not see the necessity of having an annual one-week holiday with the data from the report putting the percentage at 56.4% of Bulgarian citizens. A quick check on the economic situation of Bulgaria can help in establishing the reason behind such high percentage. Bulgaria is classified as an upper-middle-income country with a GDP of over $143.1 billion. However, most of the Bulgarian citizens do not feel the impact of the economic growth as the country has 22% of its citizens living below the poverty line. Other reports put the percentage of citizens living in poverty at 35% of the population.

Factors Influencing The Ability To Spend On Vacations

Unemployment and high poverty levels are the main reasons why some European citizens do not go for annual one-week vacations as the poor and people with no jobs are not able to cater to the financial burden. However, there are other factors that can prevent people from going for vacations including the work ethic of citizens whereby people work for numerous shifts throughout the year, taking no vacations despite having the financial capacity to go for at least one in a year.
Naked woman in garbage truck

By: Mason White WorldWideWeirdNews.com

Numerous people rescued a naked woman who jumped into a full garbage truck, according to police in Malta.

Paceville police said that the incident unfolded on Sunday, at around 6:45 a.m.

According to the police investigation, the woman, who was not identified, is not a citizen of the country. She is from Italy, and came to the city to visit its numerous nightclubs.

When the garbage truck collected the trash of the Havana nightclub, the naked woman jumped into it.

A police officer at the scene attempted to pull the woman out of the garbage truck, but she pushed him away.

People at the scene, gave the woman some clothes, but she threw them to the ground.

Several people assisted three police officer to remove the woman from the garbage truck.

She was handcuffed, put on a stretcher and taken to the Mater Dei hospital by an ambulance.

The woman appeared to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
Public invited to arson reduction event in Caia Park today

This article is old - Published: Wednesday, Aug 16th, 2017

An event aimed at highlighting the dangers of arson and how communities can work together with the police to combat the crime, will take place in Caia Park today.

North Wales Police with the support of other agencies will host the arson reduction event at the Parade shops on Prince Charles Road between 10am and 3pm .

Officers will be on hand to discuss the dangers of arson and measures people can take to minimise the risk of becoming a victim. There will be a confidentiality information box on display for people to give information.

Sgt Sue Richards said: Arson blights lives and communities. We would encourage residents to come along to see how together we can combat this crime and make our communities safer places to live.
Earlier this month, the Baltimore public defenders office released footage showing several Baltimore police officers appearing to collude while planting drugs at a traffic stop.

The new video was taken during a traffic stop last November and made public early this month. Shamere Collins, 35, was pulled over after a police officer allegedly witnessed her passenger conduct a drug deal. In the video, several officers are shown to be searching the front drivers side of Collins car, then the camera goes off, then on again, without explanation.

In the next video clip, an officer asks if the drivers side area has been searched, only then to find a bag of marijuana and heroin in the area that had been searched thoroughly in the previous clip.

Collins attorney, Josh Insley, released the footage stating it showed officers engaging in what appears to be the staged recovery of narcotics. In an interview with NBC, Collins admitted to recreational marijuana use but was dumbfounded when police pulled heroin from her car. My mindI went numb-likeI didnt know what was going on, she said. They [were] telling me I was facing time and all this ... so its like I felt numb. I didnt know what to do.

The footage came just a week after a previous video, again released by the public defenders office, showed an officer planting a bag of pills under a pile of garbage in an alley as two other officers looked on. The officer planting the drugs in the first video has been suspended while the other two are on administrative leave. As a result, 41 drug and gun cases that relied on the officers testimony were dropped.

In both videos, officers are unaware that their body-cams are set to record a continuous 30-second loop to capture the moments before an officer chooses to begin recording. In the first video, the first 30 seconds show an officer plant pills in an empty can only to find it later in the clip. In the second video, the officers wait for 30 seconds, then, as if on cue, begin speaking and searching.

Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis issued a memo that stated officers should not attempt to recreate the recovery of evidence. In response, the public defenders office released a statement saying the footage clearly shows multiple officers working together to manufacture evidence.

Baltimore, just an hours drive from the US capital, has seen a sharp surge of police corruption and brutality in recent years. In 2015, Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man, was abducted by police and taken for a rough ride in the back of a police van, causing a spinal injury that led to his death. The brutal killing set off protests against police violence throughout Baltimore, leading public officials to call a state of emergency and imposing martial law in the city.

Democratic Party officials, fearful that popular anger would break out of their control, sought to direct protests behind the states efforts to prosecute the six police officers involved in Grays death. The state failed to obtain a guilty verdict for a single officer.

Last year, the Obama Department of Justice carried out an investigation of the Baltimore Police Department that found there is reasonable cause to believe that BPD engages in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the Constitution or federal law. In March of this year, seven officers were indicted on charges of racketeering. The Baltimore Sun reported they are accused of shaking down citizens, filing false court paperwork and making fraudulent overtime claims.
Two gunmen allegedly linked to the Islamic State organisation killed 18 and wounded 7 in an attack on the Istanbul restaurant, which is commonly frequented by foreigners in the capital of Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou. This attack is a consequence of the war for regime change carried out by NATO and its Islamist allies in Libya six years ago, which has spread since across the Sahel.

There were at least seven Burkinabes and eight foreigners among the dead, said Foreign Minister Alpha Barry. Besides the seven Burkinabes, there was a Frenchman, a Canadian, a Senegalese, a Nigerian, a Turk, and two Kuwaitis, Barry stated, adding that there were also three victims who have yet to be identified.

No organisation has claimed responsibility for the attack, but press reports stressed that the modus operandi recalled that of the attack on the Capuccino cafe last year, only 200 metres away from the Istanbul restaurant. That attack claimed 29 lives and was claimed by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

A gendarmerie (military police) official told AFP that according to multiple witnesses, at least two assailants arrived on a motorcycle around 9 p.m. with Kalashnikov rifles and opened fire on the Istanbul restaurant. The restaurant, situated on a major thoroughfare, Kwame Nkrumah Avenue, is well known for serving a largely expatriate clientele.

Both gunmen were shot and killed. The two assailants were young, wearing jeans and armed with Kalashnikovs, said the police official. The captain and spokesman for the gendarmerie, Guy-Herve Ye, told Le Monde that they hid in the building [where the Istanbul cafe is located] and as the security forces thought they might have hostages, this dragged out the intervention, which terminated around 4 a.m., when both men were neutralised at the back of the building.

Burkina Fasos president, Marc Christian Kabore, said he condemned with the greatest firmness the repugnant attack which has bloodied Ouagadougou, insisting that Burkina Faso will rise up from this test, because its valiant people will resist terrorism without any concessions.

In a communique, Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, the former colonial power, condemned the terrorist attack. The Elysee presidential palace added that French and Burkina authorities remained in close contact throughout the night, and Macron and Kabore spoke Monday morning. The French president wrote that Macron stressed his solidarity in the new tragedy facing Burkina Faso and reiterated his determination to deepen ties between the two countries.

France Info editorialist Anthony Bellanger wrote that Burkina Fasos ex-president, Blaise Compaore, had established a sort of non-aggression pact with the jihadist groups in the region. They had tables and hotel rooms available to them in Ouagadougou, and negotiations for the release of hostages, for instance, often took place in Burkina Faso. In exchange, the rule was: no attacks. It was not a big secret, everyone knew it in the region. But ...no more Compaore, no more sanctuary for terrorists, no more suites reserved at hotels in the capital, and the jihadists began striking at the heart of Burkina Faso.

Bellanger added, In January 2016, a few days after the installation of the new government, they killed 30 people in the same place as the current attack. The message was clear at the time and it is clear today, as the trial in absentia of Blaise Compaore just opened in April.

Frances so-called war on terror in Mali and the broader Sahel region is a pile of lies. While the Socialist Party (PS) government of President Francois Hollande invoked humanitarian reasons to launch the Mali war, sending thousands of soldiers to fight jihadist militias leaving Libya, Frances ally in Burkina Faso was serving as a sanctuary for negotiations with the Islamist militias without any overt criticism emerging of Compaores regime.

The Mali war was one of the devastating consequences of the regime-change war NATO waged in Libya in 2011. The fall of Muammar Gaddafis regime spread war across the region. Starting in January 2012, the Tuareg-nationalist National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) militia launched an insurrection against the Malian state, taking over parts of northern Mali. After a March 2012 coup in the Malian capital of Bamako, they were able to profit from the chaos in the Malian army and take over the cities of Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal.

Starting in January 2013, Paris sent waves of troops to the region with the support of Washington. Operation Serval, the French invasion of Mali, served as the spearhead of a major expansion of French militarism in its former colonies in West Africa. In exchange for French aid to stabilise northern Mali and fight various rebel militias, Paris demanded and received the right to deploy its troops throughout the country. Its aim is to re-establish the colonial order first established by French imperialism in the region at the end of the nineteenth century.

Compaore, who had ruled with French support for decades, was forced to abandon power in 2014 at Frances request after opposition parties calls for demonstrations unleashed mass protests and riots. The protests were called against Compaores attempt to amend the constitution to run for a fifth term in office. The opposition was horrified, however, when a protest call designed to strengthen its position in the political establishment provoked a broader response. It rapidly sought to re-establish control of the situation, negotiating an accord with elements of the Compaore regime.

Compaore fell as the Islamic State militia was preparing a series of deadly terror attacks in Paris in 2015, and the various Islamist militias subsequently lost the support they had enjoyed in Burkina Faso. The attacks now carried out by the Islamist forces are the bloody consequences of these reactionary manoeuvres of French imperialism and its neocolonial client states in Africa.
The rampage through Charlottesville, Virginia last weekend by hundreds of neo-Nazis did not come as a surprise to the Trump White House. On the contrary, both the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reported the mounting threat of violence by white supremacist groups more than three months ago.

According to a document obtained and made public by Foreign Policy magazine on its web site Monday, the FBI and DHS issued a joint warning that white supremacists had already carried out more violent attacks than any other US-based groups over the past 16 years and likely will continue to pose a threat of lethal violence over the next year.

The eight-page intelligence bulletin was issued on May 10, 2017. Its significance was underscored two weeks later when a white supremacist carried out a murderous assault on a Portland, Oregon commuter train, killing two men who tried to prevent him from harassing two Muslim women, one of them wearing traditional dress.

The report, titled White Supremacist Extremism Poses Persistent Threat of Lethal Violence, found that US neo-Nazis were responsible for 49 homicides in 26 attacks from 2000 to 2016 more than any other domestic extremist movement, including Islamists inspired by ISIS or Al Qaeda.

The targets of the white supremacist extremists (WSE in FBI jargon) in 2016 alone included blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Muslims and Jews. They were stabbed, shot, beaten and in one case attacked with a hatchet. There was one death, numerous injuries, and one attempted mass casualty attack that was detected and disrupted by local police.

The perpetrators included members of racist skinhead groups, Klan members, and individuals who lacked group affiliations. Racist prison gangs and individuals recruited over the Internet were involved in some of the attacks.

The FBI-DHS bulletin explained that the targets were not selected exclusively on a racial basis: A review of incidents since 2000 shows racial minorities have been the primary victims of WSE lethal violence. The second most common victims were other Caucasians, including the homeless, drug dealers, sex offenders and other white supremacists perceived as disloyal 

In language that is eerily predictive of the Charlottesville attack, the bulletin continues, Although plot-derived mass-casualty violence remains possible, we judge it more likely that violence will continue to be spontaneous and involve targets of opportunity.

The FBI-DHS bulletin makes nonsense of any suggestion that the deadly attack in Charlottesville could not have been foreseen. It was precisely as described in the report, involving a target of opportunity taking place on the outskirts of the largest assembly of neo-Nazis and white supremacists in recent US history.

There is no doubt that the FBI and DHS were heavily engaged in monitoring the actions of the fascist rioters in Charlottesville and had undercover agents active in their ranks. They would have been well aware of the danger of cars driven at high speed into crowds, not only because this has been a well-publicized technique of ISIS-linked terrorist attacks in Europe, but because an All Lives Splatter decal, threatening automobile attacks on demonstrators against police violence, has been widely circulated on right-wing and pro-police web sites.

The secretary of the Department of Homeland Security at the time the May 10 bulletin was issued warning of white supremacist violence was retired General John F. Kelly, who was recently chosen by Trump to serve as White House chief of staff. Thus, an official with detailed, intimate knowledge of the imminence of ultra-right violence has been standing at Trumps side for the past three weeks.

If Kelly had been monitoring the activities of the fascist right from the outside, so to speak, other top Trump aides, including chief political counselor Stephen Bannon, speechwriter and adviser Stephen Miller, and counterrorism counselor Sebastian Gorka, had multiple contacts from the inside.

It was Bannon who boasted he had made his Breitbart News web site the political home of the alt.right, the respectable label for white supremacist elements. Miller echoed the language of the Nazis when he branded critics of Trumps proposed 50 percent cut in legal immigration as cosmopolitans. Gorka only a few days ago, in the course of a political rant against Muslims, declared that there was no such thing as a lone wolf terrorist and that white supremacists were not a threat to anyone.

According to the New York Times, Bannon and Miller were in meetings with Trump throughout Saturday, where they insisted that he issue an even-handed statement that would condemn supposed left-wing violence as well as the obvious right-wing violence.

This is the context in which one must evaluate Trumps grudging 600-word statement Monday, dragged out of him by political advisers and congressional Republicans, making perfunctory, stilted and obviously insincere criticisms of neo-Nazis, white supremacists and the KKK for the violence in Charlottesville.

It was widely noted that Trump required 48 hours of nonstop public shaming before he would distance himself even verbally from the neo-Nazis. Until then, he had equated the victims and the attackers in Charlottesville, condemning violence and intolerance on many sides.

The substance of the actions announced was extremely limited. Trump said after meeting with FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Jeff Sessions that the Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation into the deadly car attack that killed one innocent American and wounded 20 others. This suggests that the probe will be limited to James Alex Fields, the driver of the car, and that the organizers of the fascist demonstration, which included the mobilization of dozens of heavily armed gunmen in militia dress, will go scot free.

Trump read the statement from a teleprompter and refused to take any questions. He again refused to take questions from reporters at a later White House event to announce anti-China trade measures.

No prominent Democrat has demanded that Trump shed his coterie of White House pro-fascists, even after the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, which includes a half dozen establishment civil rights organizations, issued a statement Sunday calling for the firing of Bannon, Miller and Gorka.

Meanwhile the Trump reelection campaignalready raising funds and conducting operations more than three years before the 2020 electionreleased its first campaign ad, a 30-second commercial that brands both Democrats and media figures as the presidents enemies. The tone and content of the ad demonstrate that the appeal to ultra-right and fascistic forces will be the axis of Trumps efforts to mobilize support now and in 2018 and 2020.
The law to moralize political life, approved August 3 and 9 by the two houses of the French parliament, is a desperate and farcical attempt to spread illusions in a political establishment that is nothing more than a tool of the banks and the financial oligarchy.

The campaign to re-establish confidence that produced this law began after the Penelope affair, launched against conservative candidate Francois Fillon over his pro-Russian positions, but which revealed endemic corruption in the French ruling elite. The drafting of the bill was given over to Francois Bayrou, the leader of the Democratic Movement (MoDem), who has since resigned as charges surfaced that his party illegally organized no-show jobs at the European Parliament.

The law was approved last Wednesday by a vote 412 to 74 with 62 abstentions. Most conservative The Republicans (LR) deputies voted against; Jean-Luc Melenchons Unsubmissive France (UF), the Stalinist French Communist Party, and the New Left group (Socialist Party and allies) abstained. After the vote, the deputies gave the government a standing ovation.

The law is a purely cosmetic measure aimed at covering up the most embarrassing faults of the system, while giving the financial aristocracy all the powers it needs to buy the parliament. Sections of the law do, however, give a revealing look at the practices of the French regime.

The suppression of the parliamentary reserve, a 150 million slush fund placed at the disposal of the deputies and senators to fund various retinues in their districts, could not be avoided; otherwise the entire exercise would have been discredited. It was in part motivated by the fact that its distribution was creating growing tensions within the political establishment. It was opposed by LR, which apparently had the most to lose.

The measure on the official and pervasive lobbying activities of major corporationswho each year pay out considerable sums of money that are rarely declared and produce amendments that are then submitted by parliamentariansis a corrective that will correct nothing. The ban on lobbyists paying the salaries of advisors of the president, of parliamentarians, and of members of ministerial staffs will not prevent the financial aristocracy from making the laws. A deputy will no longer be authorized to participate himself in lobbying activity.

Parliamentarians lucrative consulting activity will not be banned, but will be subject to certain restrictions. A member of parliament will not be able to engage in consulting during his or her term in office, or to advise firms bidding for state contracts. Otherwise, everything remains the same as before.

As for pantouflage, the revolving door between top jobs in the state bureaucracy and in finance and industryof which president Macron, a former Rothschild banker, is a classic examplethe law changes nothing.

The new law prevents parliamentarians from financing a close relative via an advisor position, though they can hire nephews, nieces, cousins or members of the families of other deputies. In this case, they are simply obliged to report it to the High Authority for the Transparency of Public Life. A priori, nothing prevents a pair of parliamentarians from financing each others families: they will only be required to state that they are doing it.

Expenses up to 5,840 per month will no longer be paid to National Assembly deputies. They have 5,782 monthly salary, a credit line of 9,500, the right to up to 2,800 monthly for local salaries, the right to travel first class in trains and to take taxis and flights (up to 80 per year) for free. Previously they had to give their word that this was being used for their official functions. Now expenses will only be reimbursed if the deputies provide receipts.

At the same time, the law reintroduces the famous Bercy lock, which gives the Finance Ministry at Bercy, instead of the justice system, the right to investigate budgetary infractions. This makes the ministry a key tool for factional political warfare.

For the financing of political parties, the government is creating by decree a Bank for Democracy, to regulate party financing and prevent scandals like the Liliane Bettencourt affair, in which LR presidential campaigns received illicit funding directly from Frances wealthiest woman. Public subsidies, as before, will be based on how many parliamentarians belong to the respective parties, thus favoring the established parties. It is safe to say that this banks loans will not in any way hamper the financial aristocracys financing of parties that are favorable to it.

The moralization law is an attempt to give limited political credibility to a political establishment and parliament directed controlled by the ruling elite and led by cabals that are nostalgic for the monarchy and the Nazi-collaborationist Vichy regime and aspire to build a police state. This system of representation is largely rejected by the population, and above all by the working class, as was shown by the massive abstention in both rounds of the June legislative elections.

As social inequality reaches ever more monstrous proportions, it is less and less compatible even with the trappings of democracy. The pretense of moralizing the French capitalist class is absurd. It is an operation intended to give a veneer of legitimacy to the attacks on basic social and democratic rights that Macron aims to impose, with his unilateral decrees to rewrite French labor law and his creation of a permanent state of emergency.

Jean-Luc Melenchons Unsubmissive France (LFI) participated in this operation, trying to provide another layer of whitewashing to the ruling elite, proposing various amendments to the bill. LFI did everything it could to insist that citizen control over the parliament is possible. Melenchona close collaborator of the late president Francois Mitterrand, the founder of the PS and master of political corruptionproposed to pay parliamentarians the minimum wage and give the citizens the right to recall them at any time.

Melenchon personally tried to participate in talks with Bayrou on modifying the bill after the May presidential election. LFI ultimately abstained, however, after having suggested at the end of July that it would oppose the moralization law by presenting two censure motions.

LFIs main concern was that the veneer of morality was too thin and already beginning to crack. Clementine Autain of LFI told France Info: We voted for a certain number of things, but what bothers us is that this law will not allow us to address the basic issue, which is the massive popular distrust of the political system and institutions. So we abstained, because that is our way of saying that we are not happy.

Melenchon hopes to profit from this cynical word-juggling. His perspective for a parliamentary opposition to Macron, alongside toothless street protests policed by the union bureaucracies and various NGOs, is based on this conception of parliament as an institution that can be pressured to fight for marginal modifications and improvements in social conditions.
The eruption of Nazi violence in Charlottesville, Virginia over the weekend has come as a shock to millions of people in the United States and around the world. The images of pro-Nazi white supremacists assaulting counter-protesters and the brutal murder of 32-year-old Heather Heyer have exposed the socially and politically rancid state of American society. Nazi thugs rampaged through a university town and terrorized students and other residents while smirking policemen stood by and winked their encouragement to the attackers. The country that presumes to preach morality to the world and holds itself up as the beacon of law and democratic stability is breaking apart at the seams.

There is a vast difference between the deep-felt anger of millions of ordinary people over the events in Charlottesville and the formal hand-wringing and hypocritical condemnations of violence by politicians from the Democratic and Republican parties and the corporate media. Their statements reek of insincerity. Their pro forma denunciations of the violence in Charlottesville are devoid of any serious examination of the underlying social and political conditions out of which it arose.

Typical was Mondays editorial (The Hate He Dares Not Speak Of) in the New York Times, which speaks for the Democratic Party. The editors criticized Trump for not condemning the white supremacist groups responsible for the violence. They declared that Trump is alone in modern presidential history in his willingness to summon demons of bigotry and intolerance in service to himself. The president is clinging to white supremacists, the editors added, in his desperation to rescue his failing presidency.

Were it not for Trump, the Times implies, the streets of America would resound with hymns of brotherly love. But the Evil Trump interpretation of history explains nothing. The swaggering thug in the White House is, like the violence in Charlottesville, a symptom of a deep and intractable crisis.

As a political and social phenomenon, fascism is a product of capitalism in extreme crisis. Analyzing the rise of the Nazi movement in Germany in 1932, Trotsky explained that the ruling class turns to fascism at the moment when the normal police and military resources of the bourgeois dictatorship, together with their parliamentary screens, no longer suffice to hold society in a state of equilibrium Through the fascist agency, capitalism sets in motion the masses of the crazed petty bourgeoisie and the bands of declassed and demoralized lumpenproletariatall the countless human beings whom finance capital itself has brought to desperation and frenzy. (What Next? Vital Question for the German Proletariat)

Fascism is not yet a mass movement in the United States. The national mobilization of far-right organizations to oppose the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee drew only several hundred people.

Notwithstanding their limited support among the broad mass of the population, however, these reactionary elements enjoy the backing of powerful sections of the state, including the White House itself. They have the financial support of billionaire backers (Stephen Bannon, Trumps fascistic chief strategist, has developed close ties to hedge fund executive Robert Mercer). And they have the active sympathy of significant sections of the police and military apparatus.

Throughout his campaign and his first seven months in office, Trump and his fascistic advisors have pursued a definite political strategy, based on the belief that they can exploit widespread social anger and political disorientation to develop an extra-parliamentary movement to violently suppress any popular opposition to a policy of extreme militarism and social reaction.

However, Trump is less the creator than the outcome of protracted economic, social and political processes. His administration, composed of oligarchs and generals, arises out of a quarter-century of unending war, four decades of social counterrevolution and the increasingly authoritarian character of American politics. Torture, drone assassinations, wars of aggression, police murderoverseen by both Democrats and Republicansform the backdrop to the events in Charlottesville.

Trumps greatest asset has been the character and orientation of his political opponents within the ruling class. He defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election because the Democrats ran as the party of the status quo, the embodiment of complacency and self-satisfaction. Since the election, their opposition to Trump has been oriented entirely to the intelligence agencies and the military, where fascist elements flourish, on the basis of demands for a more aggressive policy against Russia. They are unable and unwilling to advance a program that can command any significant popular support since they represent an alliance of Wall Street and privileged layers of the upper-middle class.

Trump has been able to win a certain base in regions of the country that have been devastated by deindustrialization, profiting from the reactionary role of the trade unions, which long ago abandoned any opposition to the demands of the corporations, promoting instead the poisonous ideology of economic nationalism. The American first agenda of the Trump administration has found fertile ground among the privileged and thoroughly corrupt trade union executives.

An additional ideological factor has served to fuel the rise of white nationalist organizations: the legitimization of explicitly racialist politics by the Democratic Party. While the Democrats and their media affiliates have denounced the openly racist actions of the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, the fact remains that the white nationalists have been aided and abetted by the relentless promotion by the Democratic Party and its allies of race as the primary category of social and political analysis.

Endless columns and articles have appeared in the pages of the New York Times and other publications promoting the concept of whiteness and white privilege. It was Times columnist Charles Blow who, in a June 2016 column denouncing the film Free State of Jones, attacked the white liberal insistence that race is merely a subordinate construction of class. As the World Socialist Web Site commented at the time, Blow is not a fascist, but he thinks very much like one.

The obsessive fixation on racial politics, from the Democratic Party and the fraternity of pseudo-left organizations that operate in its orbit, reached a peak in the election campaign of Hillary Clinton, which was organized on the principal that all social problems are reducible to race and racism, and that the grievances of workers who are white are the product not of unemployment and poverty, but of racism and privilege.

The racialist interpretation of politics, culture and society by the Democrats was politically convenient in that it served to divert attention from the issues of social inequality and war, while blaming white workersnot the capitalist system and the ruling classfor the election of Trump.

As the Trump administration was intensifying its cultivation of fascistic forces over the past several months, Googlein alliance with those sections of the state particularly associated with the Democratic Partywas implementing a program of censorship targeting left-wing and progressive websites, above all, the World Socialist Web Site. The response of all factions of the ruling class to the social and political crisis that has produced Trump is to seek to block and suppress any challenge to the capitalist system.

Long historical experience has demonstrated that fascism can be fought only through the mobilization of the working class on a socialist and revolutionary program. The fight against the extreme right must be developed through the unification of all sections of the working class, of all races, genders and nationalities. Opposition to fascism must be connected to the fight against war, social inequality, unemployment, low wages, police violence and all the social ills produced by capitalism.

So long as the interests of the working class are not articulated and advanced by taking on an independent political form, it is the forces of the extreme right that will benefit. The urgent task is to build a revolutionary leadership in the working classthe Socialist Equality Party.
East London residents demonstrated Saturday against Labour Party-run Newham Borough Councils attacks on the right to decent, affordable housing.

They marched from Ferrier Point tower block in Canning Town to Tanner Point in Plaistow. Tower Point has the same flammable cladding as Grenfell Tower, which was a central factor in the rapid spread of the June 14 fire. From there marchers proceeded to the Carpenters Estate, which is earmarked for demolition.

The March of the Towers was organised by the Focus E15 Mothers campaign. Health workers, including mental health workers, social workers and teachers participated in the march in solidarity.

At the Carpenters Estate rally, an SEP member explained the criminal character of the Grenfell Tower inferno and urged people to attend the SEP public meeting in London on Saturday August 19 entitled Grenfell FireSocial Murder: A crime against the working class. (see details below)

Newham Council is removing residents in Carpenters in order to give the land to private developers for luxury private schemes. The council is also refusing to house the homeless in the Carpenters Estate even though there are 400 vacant houses available.

Years of deregulations, privatisation, cutbacks and the slashing of social housing by successive Labour and Conservative governments resulted in the Grenfell inferno, which brought to light in a tragic manner the housing crisis and terrible social conditions facing working class families in London and across the country. Slum-like conditions face those who have been relocated, but have elected to remain within the Newham Borough. Residents have suffered rent hikes alongside the use of cheap cladding.

At Tanner Point tower, a resident, Charlotte, read a letter to protesters that she received on July 20 from the council. This told residents that the building they lived in had the same cladding as Grenfell Tower. Charlotte said that she is now living with a bath filled with water and a blanket near the bath because if there is a fire she will wrap her child in a wet blanket and try to escape.

A Socialist Equality Party team distributed hundreds of leaflets inviting those at the protest to attend its public meeting in London.

Chantelle Dean, an unemployed mother of one who lives in private accommodation in Newham, has been fighting the threat to evict her and the ill treatment she has received at the hands of Newham Council since January.

She said, I was being evicted by a private landlord. That place was given to me by the Newham council in 2013 when my son was born. He wants me to leave and I got a Section 21. Thats the first protocol you get when they want you evicted. Then you have two months. The council said you cannot leave and you have to stay. I told them that I am afraid I am going to get court costs as the landlord was sending threatening texts. He was saying things like You are going to be billed for this and I am going to take you to court. I have got proof of councils emails saying Do not worry you wont be billed and if you leave it wont help you at all.

Then I was taken to court and the council said it was nothing to do with them. I had to pay 350 in court costs. I had to pay it to my landlord directly. The council shut me down at every single turn.

When I told them about the situation with my son they did not consider it. Ive got medical issues to do with my back spasms and I get help from my mother. They said to me that they would assess my case only on my medical merits. If they think it adequate then they will keep me in Newham. If they dont they will send me out of Newhammore than likely to Birmingham or Manchester. I am not seen as a priority as I dont work at the moment. Ive got a degree and I want to work when my son starts going to school. I dont want to be on benefits. If they send me out of London I will lose all my support network of family and friends.

This whole process is a disgrace. It is very stressful physically, emotionally and mentally. My son and I lived in limbo for more than eight months. I know it is not only me. So many poor working-class families are facing the same sort of situations as a result of the lack of social housing, privatisation and cutbacks. This is widespread. This is definitely social cleansing! That is why I am trying to stand up against this.

We all know that the Grenfell Tower fire was bound up with social cleansing. It is an area that they see as potential development. It is in the middle of a rich area. They want the poor shifted out of that area. When you lose everything they think they can put you anywhere.

Youve got luxury empty apartments there. They dont want to put the survivors in them because they want to sell these apartments to foreign wealthy investors. What about the people living in London? We need somewhere to live as well. When you look around here I can imagine Grenfell Tower. Around there as well, how many new builds are they selling to rich foreign investors? They dont give them to the people who need them. On the Carpenters Estate, theyve got 400 homes empty. They want it to be demolished! I think we the people need to step up for a solution now.

Mr and Mrs Ismail attended the march with their three children. They are housing and human rights campaigners and have provided free legal support to those in the Newham area facing eviction. They now face their own legal case and have been placed in emergency accommodation.

Mr Ismail said, We first lived in Stratford, and then we got evicted and re-housed in north London. The council tried to send us to Birmingham, Lancashire, Scotland and to so many other areas. We fought against that and we know many other families are facing the same type of problems. We are trying to make them aware of the injustice they face at the hands of councils and authorities. We want people to come out and fight against these attacks and we are standing with them. At the beginning we didnt have many with us. Now people are starting to realise that they can fight back. We believe that they are trying to push people out of London.

We are under an imperialist and capitalist system with minority control of everything. They want to privatise everything to make money. They will do anything to make money and human lives are of no matter to them. Councils can run properties as public properties, but they dont want to do it anymore. There are networks of private companies working with councils profiteering from the privatisation of social housing.

Public Meeting

Grenfell FireSocial Murder: A crime against the working class

Saturday August 19, 2:30 p.m.

Harrow Club

187 Freston Rd

London, W10 6TH (nearest Tube: Latimer Road)

Facebook event
A deep-going crisis wracking the entire political establishment reached a new level of intensity yesterday. Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce was referred to the High Court, the countrys supreme court, for potential disqualification as a member of parliament because he is a dual citizen of both Australia and New Zealand.

Joyces admission that he is a New Zealand citizen throws into doubt the survival of the unstable Liberal-National Coalition government. Not only is he the deputy prime minister and the leader of the National Party, the rural-based coalition partner, but the loss of his vote would leave the government without a majority in the House of Representatives.

Joyce has become the fifth MP to be referred to the High Court since parliament resumed last week from its winter recess. The first four, however, were from the Senate and so had no direct effect on the governments precarious one-seat majority in the lower house.

The disqualifications affair is still widening. The government is today threatening to refer seven Labor Party opposition MPs to the High Court, claiming they have failed to produce documents to prove they are not entitled to citizenship of other countries.

The furore began last month, in still unclear circumstances, when two Greens senators quit their seats after it was revealed they had dual citizenship. At least 50 MPs are now having their eligibility called into question. Section 44(i) of the 1901 Constitution is an anti-democratic provision, declaring ineligible anyone entitled to citizenship of another country, even by birth or descent.

The High Court is not scheduled to hear the cases until October, leaving a cloud over the government. If Joyce is disqualified, he could stand for re-election at a by-election for his seat if he renounces his New Zealand citizenship in the meantime. But there is no guarantee that Joyce would win the seat again, given the governments growing unpopularity.

For now, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is refusing to stand Joyce aside as a minister despite the High Court proceedings. In parliament yesterday, Turnbull effectively sought to preempt the courts ruling, declaring: The Deputy Prime Minister is qualified to sit in this house and the High Court will so hold. Legal experts, however, warned that Joyces case was by no means certain, and that Turnbulls statement put him in danger of coming into conflict with the court.

Joyce said his father was born in New Zealand before migrating to Australia in 1947. This made Joyce automatically a New Zealand citizen under that countrys law. He is the second National Party cabinet member to fall foul of section 44(i). Resources Minister Matt Canavan last week stood aside from the ministry, but did not resign from the Senate, after it was revealed that his mother, who is of Italian descent, had registered him as an Italian citizen. Unlike Canavan, Joyce has refused to relinquish the deputy prime ministership, or abstain from voting in parliament. Turnbull has backed his stance.

Todays Australian published the names of 50 MPsnearly a quarter of the total membership of the two houseswhose eligibility is in question, either because they were born overseas or had at least one parent born overseas. The net could be cast ever wider because some countries automatically give citizenship rights to people if one of their grandparents was born in that country.

The level of judicial involvement in potentially disqualifying MPs is already unprecedented. So far this year, four MPs have been removed under various parts of section 44 of the Constitution. Another fourJoyce, Canavan, Assistant Health Minister David Gillespie (a National Party MP) and One Nation Senator Malcolm Robertsare facing High Court proceedings and three more narrowly avoided it after facing contempt of court charges.

If Joyce is ruled ineligible, the Coalition could try to hold onto office with the support of one or two independents in the House of Representatives who last year pledged to maintain financial supply and confidence, except in extraordinary circumstances.

Underscoring the depth of the developing political and constitutional crisis, however, Turnbull is reportedly considering asking the governor-generalthe British Queens representativeto prorogue (suspend) parliament if Joyce is disqualified. By this move, the governor-generals power would be used to discontinue parliament, without dissolving it, until after the by-election, preventing a vote of no-confidence in the meantime.

It would not be the first time Turnbull had taken this rare step. In April last year he asked Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove to prorogue parliament for three days and then summon a new parliamentary session to vote on blocked bills. That provided a trigger for last years July 2 double dissolution election of both houses of parliament.

Turnbull called that election in what became a disastrous attempt to break through a parliamentary logjam. Key bills to slash health, education, welfare and other social programs had been stalled in the Senate since the 2013 budget. This was because of the fears of the Labor, Greens and minor party senators that if they voted for the measures they would be committing electoral suicide.

The election backfired badly for Turnbull, who had promised the corporate elite that he would find the means to end the impasse. As a result of the election, the government was reduced to a one-seat majority in the lower house and currently holds just 29 of the 76 seat Senate.

This context helps explain the acuteness of the current turmoil. The possible loss of MPs, even senior ministers, would not be so critical if not for the governments fragile majority. Moreover, it points to the underlying crisis that has wracked the ruling class and its political servants over the past decade.

Since the landslide defeat of the Howard Coalition government in 2007, no prime minister has lasted a full three-year term. Labors drive to impose on the working class the burden of the 2008 global financial breakdown led to the near-defeat of the Gillard government, which staggered on as a minority government, backed by the Greens, from 2010 to 2013. Turnbull ousted his predecessor, Tony Abbott as Liberal leader and prime minister, in September 2015 amid intense frustration in business circles over stalled austerity measures.

Today, the popular hostility to all the major parliamentary parties is even more intense. Millions of working people are already experiencing falling wages, the elimination of full-time jobs and declining basic services, yet much worse lies ahead. The economy is threatened by a potential collapse of a five-year property bubble on top of the implosion of the mining boom. Big business is increasingly insisting that the government must push ahead with cutting social spending and corporate taxes.

At the same time, there is the looming prospect of involvement in a US war with North Korea, which could have devastating human and economic consequences and generate widespread anti-war sentiment. The turmoil over dual citizenship is a symptom of a parliamentary order breaking down under the weight of immense social and class tensions.

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An anti-democratic witch-hunt in Australia over dual citizenship

[10 August 2017]
The New York Times last week published a draft scientific report warning of the dire consequences of climate change amid fears the Trump administration will suppress the findings. The report, part of a thorough review and assessment by US government climate scientists, directly contradicts assertions of the Trump administration that seek to minimize or deny the impact of man-made climate change.

The response by administration officials, if anything, validates the concern of those who provided the Times with the draft that the threat of censorship is real.

The published draft was part of the US governments fourth National Climate Assessment, which is mandated by Congress every four years and parallels international efforts by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It surveys and connects the various disciplines relevant to climate change, highlighting the important conclusions and gaps in understanding. It also details the consequences of climate change already observed throughout the country.

Like earlier assessments, the report states unequivocally that global climate is changing and that the warming of the past several decades is primarily due to human activities. Thousands of studies conducted by tens of thousands of scientists around the world have documented changes in surface, atmospheric, and oceanic temperatures, melting glaciers, disappearing snow cover, shrinking sea ice, rising sea level and an increase in atmospheric water vapor, reads the draft. Many lines of evidence demonstrate that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse (heat trapping) gases, are primarily responsible for the recent observed climate changes.

The authoritative assessment is the product of more than 300 scientists from academia and 13 federal agencies, many of which are now headed by allies of the most heavily polluting industries and intransigent opponents of policies to reduce carbon emissions. Most notably, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt has launched a campaign to undermine the scientific conclusions highlighted in the National Climate Assessments.

In response to the publication of the draft report, Pruitt kept open the option to rewrite the findings. While on tour last week to oil and gas industry chiefs, he spoke on a Texas radio show declaring the EPA will review the accuracy of the assessment. Frankly this report ought to be subjected to peer-reviewed, objective-reviewed methodology and evaluation, he said, adding, apparently with a straight face, Science should not be politicized.

Yet, EPA staff scientists have already reviewed and signed off on drafts of the 700-page report. The review process, as Rutgers University scientist and lead author Bob Krup explained to Politico, is a much more extensive process than a usual peer review, which does not typically come out as a paperback book. Erick Davidson, president of the American Geophysical Union, added that the report was based on 50-some years of published research, and each of those papers went through its own peer review.

The call for additional peer-review and against politicizing science by Pruitt makes no sense outside of providing phony justifications for attacking climate science. The new EPA boss has made clear that he rejects scientific consensus that attributes to human activity the cause of rising temperatures. While calling into question the National Climate Assessment, Pruitt is preparing a red team, blue team debate in an attempt to elevate and legitimize climate-change denial. EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman justified the exercise by remarking that climate science is constantly changing. A new, fresh, and transparent evaluation is something everyone should support doing, she said. The agency has also begun dismantling the few existing climate regulations, including limits to power plants, oil and gas drilling, and cars and trucks.

It is not only Pruitts EPA that is engaged in an offensive against climate science. The Department of Energy retweeted an op-ed by the libertarian Cato Institute that claimed Secretary Rick Perry is in the midst of a fight with climate scientistsand winning. The Department of Interior under Secretary Ryan Zinke recently reassigned dozens of staff, including Joel Clement, who went public after being involuntarily reassigned from studying the impact of sea level rise on native tribes in Alaska to accounting royalties from the oil and gas industry.

Nonetheless, the impacts of climate change continue to intensify. On the same day as the draft report was published, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) confirmed that 2016 was the warmest year on record. Temperatures will continue to increase in the long term even if carbon dioxide emissions are drastically cut. If not, the report notes, average global temperatures could rise as much as 9 degrees Fahrenheit (5 Celsius) or more by the end of this century.

The report also evaluated recent scientific developments and controversies. It debunked the idea of a hiatus, or prolonged pause in temperature increases. The surface and tropospheric temperature records do not support the assertion that long-term (time periods of 25 years or longer) global warming has ceased or substantially slowed, a conclusion further reinforced by recently updated and improved datasets.

This assessment also concluded that the science attributing the causes of extreme events is rapidly advancing. Droughts, heat waves, and flooding are among the most serious consequences of climate change. Examples of those tied to climate change include the European heat wave in 2003 and extreme temperatures in Australia in 2013. The report concludes that frequency and intensity of extreme temperature events are virtually certain to increase in the future.
The World Socialist Web Site invites workers and other readers to contribute to this regular feature by writing to comments@wsws.org.

Ontario, Canada aerospace workers occupy factory

Facing a shortfall in their pension plan, workers at Northstar Aerospace in Milton north of Toronto occupied the plant last week for two days and set up picket lines in protest as production at the facility winds down. The occupation began August 10 and shutdown production. There are about 200 workers employed at the facility.

Workers had been told that funding for their pensions would be short 24 percent and representatives for Unifor, the union that represents them in negotiations, said the company, which is preparing to close the plant, was refusing to negotiate. The company has claimed that it doesnt control management of the pension and that the shortfall was the responsibility of the union.

Heligear Canada Acquisition Co., which owns assets of the Northstar plant in Milton, plans to shutter the facility in the coming weeks. Unifor has a history of organizing protests such as this to defuse workers anger to maintain the unions authority. Unifor has refused to mount a struggle to defend the workers jobs, limiting the struggle to the question of pensions and then quickly shutting it down.

Nova Scotia newspaper strike ends in defeat

After 19 months on strike workers at the Chronicle Herald in Halifax, Nova Scotia have been handed a concession-laden deal by their union, the Halifax Typographical Union (HTU), which is part of the Communications Workers of America Canada (CWA Canada) that will also eliminate half their jobs.

In addition to the layoffs the new eight-year contract contains a wage rollback of 5 percent and an increase in work hours, but with some wage increases over the life of the deal. In addition the new contract will mean cuts to pensions, vacation pay and sick leave. With only 27 of the original 61 workers who went out on strike returning to work, a number of the replacement workers that took over during the strike will remain on the job.

Latin America

Colombian hospital workers continue strike over unpaid wages

Nurses, doctors, auxiliary workers, specialists and other employees at Colombias University Hospital of Santander (HUS), have been on partial strike since August 5 (see 8 August Workers Struggles), despite claims by HUS management that there is normality in the attendance to patients.

The workers counter that external consultations, dispensing of medication, appointments with specialists and examinations are paralyzed up to 60 percent. They vow to continue with their Plan Tortuga (Turtle Plan) until they are paid in full for the three months of wages that they are owed.

Colombias health care system is in a state of crisis. Santander governor Didier Tavera Amado blamed the so-called Health Provision Entities, known as EPSs, businesses that sell health service packages to the public, and contract such services with healthcare-providing institutions in the Public Hospital Network. There is rampant EPS nonpayment to the hospitals; EPSs owe some 300 billion pesos (US$100.84 million) to HUS hospitals.

Bolivian university workers strike over reduction in bonus, maltreatment

Workers at the Gabriel Rene Moreno Autonomous University (Uagrm) in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia stopped work August 7 as the rectory continued to show intransigence over their demands. Some strikers occupied rectory offices and declared themselves in permanent vigil. Union officials locked the entrance to the campus and began a hunger strike.

The Uagrm union has submitted a 14-point petition that includes the full payment of a seniority bonus that the rectory had reduced. It is also calling for wage adjustments and better treatment of workers. Cleaning and security workers are demanding the firing of one manager, whom they accuse of abuse, verbal aggression and discrimination.

The conflict at Uagrm has been ongoing this year. After a number of 24-hour and 48-hour strikes, Uagrm authorities signed an agreement with the union on June 30. However, they have not honored it. In addition, they have not responded to the petition and have declared the strike illegal. The rectory claims that it has complied with all the June 30 provisions and Uagrms legal team has submitted a lawsuit against the union directors.

Uruguayan anesthesiologists to strike again over salary demand

After their three-day strike on August 2-4 (see: 8 August Workers Struggles) failed to get a response from Uruguays State Health Services Administration (ASSE), the Surgical Anesthesiologists Syndicate (SAQ) has called for another limited walkout. On August 12, the SAQ announced that its members would stop work from the 21st to the 23rd to again press their demand that ASSE match their salaries to those of the private sector. Contradicting ASSEs statement that it has done so already, the SAQ accused it of trying to confuse the public, when in fact their salaries have suffered a decline of 36 percent from 2011 to 2017.

As before, the strike will affect attention in policlinics, as well as non-oncological surgeries, but visits with admitted patients will be maintained.

Argentine technical and scientific workers strike over contract violations, other issues

Workers for the headquarters of Argentinas National Industrial Technology Institute (INTI), located in Buenos Aires provinces Miguelete Technology Park, staged a one-day strike on August 8. The INTI State Workers Association (ATE INTI), which called the strike, denounced the agencys syndical persecution, labor insecurity and corruption.

INTI is a federal agency in charge of the development of industrial technology. About 2,100 scientists and technical personnel work for INTI.

In a statement, ATE INTI described the walkout as a response to the systematic violation of the Collective Labor Agreement by the authorities, delay in salaries, and the imposition of attendance control [presentismo], a disciplinary and flexible intent that principally punishes female employees. An ATE delegate further denounced the diversion of funds and the emergency in security and hygiene that is endured at INTI.

The strike had been originally planned for August 7, but management closed the building that day, claiming that there was no water for maintenance tasks and that it had notified the workers beforehand. ATE disputed the claim, calling the closure an unprecedented deed in the 60 years in the life of the Institute.

Haitian motorcycle taxi drivers protest fees, security measures

Motorcycle taxi drivers in Port-au-Prince, Haiti took to the streets August 7 in protest against a new fee and mandatory gear imposed by the city authorities. The requirements put the drivers in a Catch-22 situation. If they cannot pay the fee of 1,750 Gourdesabout US$28they cannot ply their trade. In addition, the government mandated that the drivers buy helmets and identified t-shirts, which are also out of reach for many of the drivers.

Poverty-stricken Haitians can obtain a small motorcycle with a loan, and use it to carry passengers (oneor moreat a time) to earn about US$200 per month, out of which US$40 is subtracted to repay the loan.

As paltry as the earnings are, few jobs for poor working-class Haitians pay as much. The risk is high, however, not only for the driver and the passenger, but for pedestrians who have the misfortune to get in their way on chaotic city streets. Accidents are a common occurrence.

The protesting drivers asked the mayor of Port-au-Prince to help them.

The United States

Seattle-area cement mixer drivers strike over stalled contract talks

Concrete truck drivers for CalPortland struck company locations in Seattle, Kenmore, and Snoqualmie in Washington state, August 11 over unfair labor practices. Teamsters Local 174 represents a total of 294 cement mixer drivers and support employees at five different sand and gravel companies in the Seattle area and admitted that negotiations with all of them have broken down but only targeted CalPortland for strike action as the worst offender.

The Teamsters unfair labor practice charges claim CalPortland refused to bargain in good faith, refused to provide information necessary to continue negotiations, and rejected union proposals without explanation or counter offer. A statement by CalPortland attacked workers for walking off the job and leaving dozens of projects incomplete resulting in tens of thousands of dollars in damages throughout the City of Seattle and the surrounding area and called union proposals economically unsustainable.

According to the Teamsters, the concrete drivers make less money than all other trades in the construction industry. New mediated talks are to restart with all companies on August 15.
(WTXL) - 20-year-old James Alex Fields Jr. rammed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters.

Two Virginia State Troopers died in a chopper crash while responding to the area.

The violence in Charlottesville, Virginia over the weekend stirs political controversy and an outpouring of grief for those who lost their lives.

"We need to be doing everything we can to be healing, calming forces in our communities.We definitely need to take this as a lesson and we need to step back and come together to come up with strategies," said Delaitre Hollinger, Vice President of the NAACP Tallahassee Branch.

Today, President Donald Trump is condemning the Neo-Nazi and white supremacist violence.

WTXL ABC 27 political contributor, Doctor Richard Murgo, says it was important for the president to show stability.

"It was certainly necessary. It was well placed and certainly most people including his staff and republicans are glad he made the statement, but yes a lot of people are saying it wasn't his initial statement, that it is two days to late. We look to our president to be stable, be metered, and to cast negative light on these things," said Richard Murgo, Ph.D.

The Chief of Police in Charlottesville says he regrets the loss of three lives and the violence that, in many ways, still grips the often quiet college town in Virginia.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - Every one is getting ready for the eclipse next week.

But first make sure to get the right kind of glasses if you plan on watching the upcoming total solar eclipse.

Experts say the safe ones need to have the so-called "ISO certification" displayed on them.

NASA recommends only the brands approved by the american astronomical society. The organization has the list of vendors that sell approved glasses on its website.

Experts say you should not try to watch the eclipse with naked eye, unless the sun is completely covered by the moon.

They also say that regular sun glasses do not provide enough protection.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - Floridians are owed nearly $1 billion worth of unclaimed federal savings bonds, according to the state chief financial officer.

Nationally, Americans are owed $19 billion.

Often given as gifts, many people forget they have savings bonds or lose the paperwork while waiting for them to mature.

The U.S. Treasury spends little to no effort in tracking down the rightful owners, the CFO's office suing the feds last year in order to gain access to information on the bonds.

In a similar case, a federal court sided with the state of Kansas last week.

CFO spokesperson Ashley Carr says Floridians deserve to know whether or not they have an unredeemed bond.

"Right now, no one really has the information other than the original owner or who it was purchased for," Carr explained. "We are working to make sure that someone else like the states have the information so that we can serve to inform those original owners of information that they might not have."

Carr hopes soon the unclaimed U.S savings bonds can be searched for through the state's unclaimed property website.

Currently, you need either the original paper bond or serial number in order to get your money.
You are the owner of this article.
The leader of the Islamic Movement's outlawed northern branch, Sheikh Raed Salah, was arrested early Tuesday morning on suspicion of inciting terrorism. The Rishon Lezion Magistrate's Court extended Salah's remand by three days.

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Salah was arrested for remarks delivered in a speech last month at the funeral of three Israeli Arab gunmen who killed two police officers at the Temple Mount. In the speech, he praised the attackers and exhorted others to follow their example.

Salah told reporters in the courtroom that his arrest was part of a political witch hunt against him.





Salah at court (Photo: Motti Kimchi)

"I told the investigators I teach at mosques, and I told them (my remarks) were Islamic insights we got from the Sunni Quran," Salah said during his court hearing.

"You are not prosecuting me, you are prosecuting the Quran. What you're doing is an expression to the continued persecution of our public by the Israeli government. This is political persecution. This is an attempt to get the media to talk about my arrest."

Sheikh Raed Salah (Photo: Reuters)

Salah's lawyer, Mustafa Mahamid, blamed the police of "presenting a partial and distorted picture of the investigation material to the judge. The judge stated this specifically."

Elaborating on the allegations, the lawyer said that "incitement is attributed to the sheikh over three speeches or sermons he gave. The sheikh claims these were religious sermons, that he was quoting from the Quran, and that those quotes were not incitement and the Quran cannot be viewed as inciting material."

Mahamid claimed the allegations were "a storm in a teacup," asserting "this investigation is being done under pressure from the political echelons."

A large police force arrived at the Mahajina neighborhood of Umm al-Fahm early Tuesday and arrested Salah following a joint investigation of the Israel Police and the Shin Bet, which was conducted at the behest of Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit.

Police reported that "on several different occasionsall of them taking place after the (Islamic Movement's) northern branch was outlawedthe inciter made public comments relating to the movement's worldview, and some of his statements were published in the media as well. An examination of all the material raises suspicion (security) offenses were carried out and, as a result, an investigation was authorized."

The wife of the sheik, Um Omar, said, "Twenty policemen came into the house and took the computer and told my husband to prepare himself for his arrest. I do not know the reasons for this decision. However, all these steps will not change our path."

An activist in the Islamic Movement claimed that "this is political persecution. They are constantly trying to blame the sheikh for incitement, but there is no basis to all this. The sheikh always tries to calm things down and does not call for riots as they claim. It is better that they stop the racists who incite against the Arab citizens, like (Defense Minister) Lieberman and others. Unfortunately, this country is only looking to persecute us at all costs. What matters to them is that the sheikh is in jail."

The police raid. Mahajina, Umm al-Fahm

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan told Israel Radio that Salah is "a danger to the public" for encouraging "radicalism and despicable acts of murder," while Arab-Israeli lawmakers called for his immediate release.

MK Jamal Zahalka (Joint List) said the arrest was "vengeful" and "political" in nature and "meant to silence (Salah) in an effort to limit and minimize the Arab public's freedom of political activity."

"I call on all those who oppose fascism to wake up and protest. These arrests won't deter us and we will continue with our just struggle to defend the Al-Aqsa Mosque from an insane government that supports actions meant to harm the mosque," Zahalka added.

In January 2017 Raed Salah was released from prison after serving nine months following his conviction for inciting violence and racism in a sermon he delivered in east Jerusalem in 2007. Hundreds of Umm al-Fahm residents greeted him with celebrations and fireworks.

In November 2015, the Security Cabinet declared the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel an illegal organization, particularly due to its connections to Hamas. This meant that the movementled by Sheikh Raed Salahwas outlawed, any property belonging to the organization may be confiscated and any body or person that either belongs to this organization, provides it with a service or operates on its behalf is committing a criminal offense and is subject to imprisonment.
Talia Friedman, 23, daughter of US Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, officially immigrated to Israel on Tuesday morning, together with 232 other new Israeli citizens.

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Ambassador Friedman greeted his daughter when she disembarked at Ben Gurion Airport, saying, "We are so proud of her and love her very much; we only want her to be happy. She loves Israel and our whole family loves Israel."

Talia Friedman celebrates her immigration to Israel (:  )

X

Talia Friedman and her parents (Photo: Itamar Eichner)

Friedman is a nurse and until now, has worked at a New York hospital. "I hope she will bring aid to those who need her here in Israel," said her father.

Ambassador Friedman added that Talia "always wanted to move to Israel. She is fulfilling her dream and the whole family is proud of her. We're here to welcome here, to hug her and wish her the best of luck in Israel."

Photo: Itamar Eichner

Photo: Itamar Eichner

Talia immigrated to Israel with the help of the Nefesh B'Nefesh organization, which promotes, encourages and facilitates Jewish immigration to Israel. She plans on making her home in Jerusalem.

Together with Friedman arrived 75 children, 21 families and 99 other young men and women, 72 of who will volunteer for IDF service as lone soldiers.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is sending a security delegation to the United States that will include Mossad director Yossi Cohen.

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American news site Axios reports that the delegation will arrive in Washington later in the week and will meet with National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, his deputy Dina Powell, US Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt and other senior officials.

Mossad chief Yossi Cohen (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)

According to the report, the meetings will not deal with renewing negotiations with the Palestinians, but rather the security situation in Syria and Lebanon.

President Trump's son-in-law and close advisor Jared Kushner, together with Greenblatt, helped organize the visit.

The visit comes after Netanyahu warned of Iran's expanding regional influence, particularly in Syria.

Following a briefing about security challenges facing Israel, Netanyahu said, "I'll give you a summary in one sentenceISIS going out, Iran coming in. Simple. We're mostly talking about Syria.

"Our policy is clear: We firmly oppose to the military buildup of Iran and its proxies, primarily Hezbollah, in Syria. We will do whatever it takes to protect Israel's security," he stressed.
NEW DELHI -- A suspected Islamist militant was killed in an explosion inside a hotel in Bangladesh's capital during a raid Tuesday on an alleged hideout.

Police chief A.K.M. Shahidul Hoque said that the man died in the explosion during the raid that began early Tuesday.

Police identified the man as Saiful Islam, a college student. Details of his allegiance to any Islamist groups were not immediately clear.
Iran could abandon its nuclear agreement with world powers "within hours" if the United States imposes any more new sanctions, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday.

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"If America wants to go back to the experience (of imposing sanctions), Iran would certainly return in a short timenot a week or a month but within hoursto conditions more advanced than before the start of negotiations," Rouhani told a session of parliament broadcast live on state television.

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani (Photo: AFP)

Iran says new sanctions that the United States has imposed on it breach the agreement it reached in 2015 with the United States, Russia, China and three European powers in which it agreed to curb its nuclear work in return for the lifting of most sanctions.

The US Treasury imposed sanctions on six Iranian firms in late July for their role in the development of a ballistic missile program after Tehran launched a rocket capable of putting a satellite into orbit.

In early August, US President Donald Trump signed into law new sanctions on Iran, Russia and North Korea passed by the US Congress. The sanctions in that bill also target Iran's missile programs as well as human rights abuses.

The United States imposed unilateral sanctions after saying Iran's ballistic missile tests violated a UN resolution, which endorsed the nuclear deal and called upon Tehran not to undertake activities related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such technology.

It stopped short of explicitly barring such activity.

Iran denies its missile development breaches the resolution, saying its missiles are not designed to carry nuclear weapons.

"The world has clearly seen that under Trump, America has ignored international agreements and, in addition to undermining the (nuclear deal), has broken its word on the Paris agreement and the Cuba accord...and that the United States is not a good partner or a reliable negotiator," Rouhani said.

Trump said last week he did not believe that Iran was living up to the spirit of the nuclear deal
RIYADH -- Saudi Arabia and Iraq plan to open the Arar border crossing for trade for the first time since 1990, when it was closed after the countries cut ties following Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, Saudi local media reported on Tuesday.

Saudi and Iraqi officials toured the site on Monday and spoke with Iraqi religious pilgrims, who for the past 27 years had access to the crossing only once annually during the haj season, the Mecca newspaper reported.

The governor of Iraq's southwestern Anbar province, whose staff was on hand for the ceremonies, said the Iraqi government had deployed troops to protect the desert route leading to Arar and called its opening a "significant move" to boost ties.

"This is a great start for further future cooperation between Iraq and Saudia Arabia," said Sohaib al-Rawi.

The announcement follows a decision by the Saudi cabinet on Monday to establish a joint trade commission with Iraq.
After the Western Wall egalitarian area plan was cancelled in June and caused a rift with Diaspora Jewry, the issue of prayers at the Western Wall is expected to heat up again next week, as non-Orthodox organizations intend to conduct a protest prayer at the Western Wall plaza.

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The event is scheduled for next Wednesday, the second day of the Hebrew month of Elula religiously significant time in Judaism, reserved for prayers of repentance in preparation for the holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

Women of the Wall blowing the shofar (Photo: Yariv Katz)

The Women of the Western Wall, the Reform Movement and the Conservative Movement are planning to arrive at the Western Wall plaza and will hold a joint-gender prayer session and blow the shofara ceremonial ram's horn used for Jewish religious purposes.

According to the ruling of the Jerusalem District Court, Women of the Western Wall are permitted to read a Torah scroll in the women's section of the Western Wall.

However, the rabbi of the Western Wall forbids them from inserting Torah scrolls into the plaza. For this reason, women actively attempt to smuggle Torah scrolls into the plaza.

Several MKs from Meretz and the Zionist Union are expected to arrive at the Western Wall in order to strengthen the members of the liberal streams of Judaism.

Ultra-Orthodox at the Western Wall (Photo: AFP)

Two months ago, the government froze the Western Wall egalitarian area plan, which it approved in early 2016.

At first, the ultra-Orthodox members of the coalition tacitly agreed to the plan, which included the establishment of another prayer area, shared by men and women, at the southern portion of the wall. However, pressures by the ultra-Orthodox sector caused those politicians to renege on their agreement, and the government's decision was never implemented.

One of the reasons for the plan was the Rosh Chodesh (beginning of the month) prayer that the Women of the Western Wall have been doing for many years. As part of the plan, the women agreed to transfer their prayers to the plaza.

Now, with the plan frozen indefinitely, members of the reform and conservative Jewish movements are renewing their struggle against the Orthodox movement's hold on the holy site.

Women at the Western Wall (Photo: Reuters)

"Once the government abandons the path of compromise, we return to act for the realization of our way of praying as we did at the Western Wall," said Gilad Kariv, Executive Director of the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism. "Blame for the escalation of the situation and the tension lies entirely with the prime minister, who lacked the required leadership to implement his government's decision."

"The most national government, on the face of it, is also the government that caused the biggest crisis Israel ever faced with Diaspora Jewry," said Yizhar Hess, Executive Director and CEO of the Conservative Judaism movement. "We hoped the government would find an honorable solution, but we were wrong. Or misled. We are waiting for a hearing at the High Court of Justice at the end of this month, and in the meantime, we shall arrive at the Western Wall at Rosh Chodesh Elul."

"Canceling the plan will not stop us," said Anat Hoffman, director of Women of the Wall. "As long as a proper solution is not found, we intend to continue to pray at the women's section, as the court's decision allows us to do. If legislation is passed that turns our prayer into a criminal offense, we will be ready to see it through to the end, including prison."
The Israeli government has yet to implement a significant portion of a benefits plan for IDF reservists, according to a report by the Citizen's Empowerment Center in Israel (CECI).

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The CECI, an organization that deals with improving the efficiency of government and public sector procedures, examined the implementation of the government's decision from May 2016 to increase benefits to reservists.

The government decision included a change in the definition of a 'reserve soldier' to include anyone who has served at least 20 days of reserve duty in the last three years.

IDF reservists (Photo: DF)

In December 2016, a committee of directors-general from relevant government ministries convened to formulate a benefits plan for soldiers, which was approved by the government in April 2017.

CECI found many of the decisions detailed in the approved plan have not been implemented.

For example, the decision to give reservists in active service a discount of up to five percent in municipal taxes never went into effect. Interior Minister Aryeh Deri issued a directive to his ministry on the topic, and the government decided to amend regulations to include that discount, but it did not happen.

Another decision to better accommodate university students who are called up for reserve duty during times of emergency was also not implemented. Minister of Education Naftali Bennett was supposed to instruct the Council for Higher Education to examine the need to establish special accommodations for reservist students. While discussions on the topic did take place, a final decision has not been made.

Another important benefit that never came to be was an exemption from paying some fees to the Justice Ministry. This includes fees for registering a mortgage for one's first apartment, fees for legal aid from public defenders, and fees under the Audit Regulations, among others. This exemption was supposed to have already come into effect, but according to the report it is still under examination at the Justice Ministry.

Photo: IDF

Meanwhile, some benefit plans have been implemented, including the Perach scholarship for reserve soldiers, which pairs up children from underprivileged backgrounds with university students who act as their tutors. An active tutor who also did at least 10 days of reserve duty a year will be entitled to a grant worth 50 percent of the scholarshipsome NIS 2,600in addition to the scholarship itself.

Another decision to extend the period of aid offered to released soldiers by the Fund for Guiding the Discharged Soldiers was also implemented.

The Interior Ministry said in response to the report, "The government has changed the wording of the instructions to the interior minister since the decision passed. The last change in the government's guidelines was a few months ago, and the ministry is currently working on amending the municipal tax regulations accordingly."
AMMAN - Western-backed Syrian rebels said they had shot down a Syrian military jet on Tuesday in a desert area in southern Syria near the border with Jordan, where the army had recently advanced and seized border posts.

Saad al Haj, spokesman for the Osoud al Sharqiya rebel group leader, told Reuters the rebels had shot down the Russian-built MiG using anti-aircraft guns.

"It was downed in Wadi Mahmoud in eastern Sweida countryside. The wreckage fell in the area and we think the pilot has dropped in a parachute. The search is going on to find him," said al Haj, whose group is one of two major rebel groups that operates in the area.

Syrian officials could not immediately be reached for comment. Reuters could not independently confirm reports of the downed plane.
Switzerland's tourism office on Tuesday decried an "unfortunate" incident in which a small Alpine hotel posted a sign asking "Jewish guests" to shower before swimming in the hotel pool.

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The Simon Wiesenthal Center demanded the closure of the Paradies Arosa hotel in the eastern town of Arosa, and issued a statement on Tuesday calling on "the broader Jewish community and their Gentile friends to blacklist this horrific hotel." On Twitter, Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely called for "justice" against the hotel's management.

Officials said the hotel had apologized for the incident and taken the sign down.

Swiss Tourism spokesman Markus Berger called the sign unacceptable, adding: "It always needs to stay in perspective: This is one unfortunate incident."

Under "To our Jewish Guests," the sign read: "Please take a shower before you go swimming. If you break the rules, I am forced to cloes (sic) the swimming pool for you. Thank you for your understanding."

Tzipi Livni, a former Israeli foreign minister, posted an image of the sign on her Facebook page and wrote that "there can be no tolerance and no indifference" to anti-Semitism and racism, in comments that also alluded also to violence around a white supremacist rally in Virginia in the United States.

We "must not let there be a place in the free world for Nazi flags or Ku Klux Klan masks or ugly signs in hotels directed at Jews only," she wrote. "We cannot allow acts of hate against Jews around the world to become normal."

Hotel management did not immediately respond to an e-mail from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Berger cited a recent trend of Orthodox and other Jews traveling to four Alpine villages in the area in the summertime, including Davos. He said didn't know the origin of the trend, but that numbers "definitely in the thousands" have grown in recent years. He said many area hotels serve kosher food, and that Jewish guests "feel well-treated" there.

"It's just this one lady at this one hotel who was not on top of the situation," Berger said. "It's an isolated incident that doesn't need for greater action to be taken."

Switzerland's foreign ministry, responding to a request for comment from The Associated Press, said that it has been in touch with the Israeli ambassador and "outlined to him that Switzerland condemns racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination in any form. Switzerland has been strongly committed for yearsas it is at the moment, for example, within its presidency for the International Holocaust Remembrance Allianceto raise awareness to the dangers of racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination."
A crowdfunding campaign raised over NIS 1 million for police officer Tzipi Yaakobiyan, who was paralyzed as a result of a terror attack at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem a year ago.

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Yaakobiyan was working as a police officer at the Shalem police station in east Jerusalem. As she was making her way to work with a colleague one morning, terrorist Ayman al-Kurd attacked her and stabbed her in the neck.

Yaakobiyan spent several weeks in the hospital in serious condition in a medically induced coma. Upon recovering, she began the long and difficult rehabilitation process. She recently described the operations she had to undergo and the ramifications of the injury when testifying against her attacker. "I have no feeling in my legs, my back, and my chest. My hands are very weak," she said.

Tzipi Yaakobiyan (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)

Tzipi is wheelchair-bound and requires constant care and an accessible home with the proper facilities. Her home also has to be close to Hadassah Medical Center and the Jerusalem center for disabled veterans.

The few apartments that might be able to meet her needs cost about NIS 1 million more than the family can afford, even with the aid from the Defense Ministry.

When Uri Shechter, who heads the Shoreshim Department at the Tzohar organization, heard about Tzipi's story, he launched a campaign to raise the needed money. The campaign surpassed the NIS 1 million goal on Tuesday.

Tzipi Yaakobiyan (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)

"This morning, one of the employees at the hospital came to see me, all smiling and happy, and showed me that we surpassed NIS 1 million. It's impossible to describe how I feel. We didn't believe we'd get there," Yaakobiyan said. "When we started the campaign, we knew our goal was high, we didn't expect to reach it because it seemed impossible. I'm really excited to learn we reached it."

She thanked all of those who "donated, promoted and supported (the campaign) along the way. Without knowing me and only hearing my story, they chose to give their supportthis isn't something I take for granted. Thank you."

The campaign has a little over 24 hours left to go. "Every shekel that adds up is a shekel that will help us: in mortgage payments, in expensesand there are a lot of expenses. We'll be happy with any help we get," she said.

Yaakobiyan and her family are now waiting for the Defense Ministry to transfer the funding for them to buy an accessible home, so she could finally leave the hospital.

Shechter, who started the campaign, said, "Putting politics aside, we once again discovered we have a wonderful nation that could be counted on. Now all we have left is to wish Tzipi, her husband and children good luck on their new journey. May it be as happy as possible."
The Environmental Protection Ministry approved Tuesday a plan to empty the ammonia tank in Haifa.

The plan was submitted at the request of the court, which determined the tank must be emptied by September 18.
As the United States and North Korea exchange threats of nuclear annihilation, Palestinian President Mohamoud Abbas sent the leader of the isolated nation a telegram congratulating him for "Liberation Day," when both North and South Korea celebrate their liberation from Japanese colonial rule.

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In an official letter to Kim Jong-un, Abbas said the Korean people "sacrificed the most precious sacrifices for its freedom and honor" and expressed his appreciation to the support North Korea has shown the Palestinian people in their fight for freedom.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and North Korea dictator Kim Jong-un (Photos: AFP, AP)

Abbas also expressed hope the "historical friendly relations between Palestine and North Korea and their two peoples will continue to develop and grow" and wished Kim "all health and happiness."

His greeting, published by the state-run Wafa news agency, made no mention of North Korea's nuclear threats or dispute with the US.

The Palestinian leader also sent a greeting to the President of South Korea, Moon Jae-in, for Liberation Day as well, wishing the country prosperity and stability.

He also expressed hope to strengthen bilateral ties between the Palestinian Authority and South Korea, and likewise expressed his appreciation of the country's contribution to the Palestinian economy and its support in building Palestinian institutions.
YORK  Christopher Johnson, an attorney with the Svehla Law Offices in York, has been named the new York County Attorney.

The York County Commissioners approved his appointment Tuesday morning.

Johnson will fulfill the position through the end of 2018, which was the position formerly held by York County Candace Bottorf who recently resigned to take a lead position with the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services.

Johnson earned his bachelors degree in political science, in the honors program, from the University of Nebraska-Omaha in 2011. He graduated from the University of Nebraska College of Law in 2013.

He has practiced in the areas of criminal, juvenile and family law, civil litigation and as a guardian ad litem.

York County Commissioner Kurt Bulgrin said he and Commissioner Chairman Jack Sikes conducted a number of interviews before bringing forward the recommendation to appoint Johnson.

Bulgrin read Johnsons acceptance letter into the record, because Johnson was unable to attend the meeting as he was representing clients in court proceedings.

It was recognized that Johnson has been working in the area of criminal defense and would now be transitioning into the position as prosecutor.

After consultation with the Nebraska Counsel for Discipline and the partners at my current employer, I anticipate that my first day as York County Attorney shall commence on Aug. 21, which provides for an amount of time to ensure that my clients receive notice and an amount of time for me to ethically transition offices. It has been my distinct honor to work for Svehla Law Offices and I look forward to serving the citizens of York County as their county attorney.

I was very impressed with him, Bulgrin said. He has court room experience.

He has also worked well with the county attorneys office and with Benjamin Dennis, our deputy county attorney who has been the acting county attorney for the past few months, Sikes said. He also has worked with both judges. Hes straight forward and very knowledgeable.

The only possible downside would be conflict issues with the people hes already defended, said Commissioner Randy Obermier.

Dennis said that will be considered on a case-by-case basis and I think we have a pretty good handle on potential future conflicts. We will protect the county and do the right thing.

Remedies for conflicts could be using other attorneys as special prosecutors, which are already done when conflicts arise.

We will do whats right by the county, Dennis said. Conflicts are also an issue as we are part of the community and regarding the people we work with. We started discussing the transition and we are excited to start working together next Monday.

We need to thank Benjamin for stepping up during the interim, Bulgrin said.

You have done a really good job, Sikes said to Dennis.

I appreciate that and I appreciate the opportunity to work for York County, Dennis said.

The commissioners also agreed to pay Dennis the county attorneys salary for the time he has served as lead attorney during the interim.

Dennis will continue to be the countys deputy attorney and the zoning administrator.

Johnson will be sworn in on Monday, Aug. 21. The time of the ceremony has not yet been determined.
YORK  Domingo P. Garriott, 50, of York, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of first degree sexual assault of a child.

Arraignment proceedings were held Monday morning in York County District Court.

Garriott appeared with his attorney, York County Public Defender Nancy Waldron, before Judge James Stecker.

Judge Stecker explained to Garriott that each count against him is a Class 1 B felony, which carries a possible sentencing range of 20 years to life in prison, if convicted.

Also, if convicted, he would have to comply with the Nebraska Sex Offender Registry.

According to court documents, Garriotts arrest was made after an investigation by the York Police Department. During the investigation, the alleged victim was examined by Bryan West Hospital in Lincoln and interviewers said they believe the victim had been repeatedly sexually assaulted over a period of time, according to the affidavit filed with the court.

No other information can be published about the case due to its graphic nature and in an effort to protect the identity of the alleged child victim.

A jury trial has been set for mid-November.

Waldron asked for a bond reduction saying Garriott has never had a failure to appear and has no prior felonies on his record.

He has lived here for the last 20 years, has a job and could stay in Lincoln if he was released from jail, Waldron said.

It is the states position, based on the seriousness of the charges, that the current bond is appropriate, said acting York County Attorney Benjamin Dennis.

Judge Stecker agreed and denied a bond reduction, with consideration of the seriousness of the charges.
This has been a long time in the making, but in our continuing pursuit to bring only the best of firearms, 2nd Amendment and defence related news to our readers, we are very excited to announce the next step in our evolution as a company.

As of 2020, Minuteman Review is now the proud owner and operator of Your Defence News, a website with a long history of breaking huge news stories and investigative journalism.

We hope you are equally as excited as us.

This means that now the teams of Minuteman can combine with the firepower of Your Defence News to stay at the absolute forefront for our readers.

Keep an eye. Big things are coming soon. We couldn't be more excited.

In the meanwhile, here are some of our most popular posts and categories to keep you busy.

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Zabka, Warszawa, 166 m2

Lokal znajduje sie w budynku apartamentowym Unimax Development w inwestycji Viva Vitolin, przy ul. Grochowskiej 87 w Warszawie. Bedzie dostepny w 4Q 2023 roku (podpisanie umow przeniesienia wasnosci).
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Washington, DC - Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, "On behalf of the Government of the United States of America, I would like to congratulate the Pakistani people as they celebrate their 70th anniversary of independence.

"In an August 14, 1947 message to then Governor General Muhammed Ali Jinnah, President Truman pledged the firm friendship and good will of the United States, saying, The American people anticipate a long history of close and cordial relations with your country. In the seven decades since, the United States and Pakistan have worked closely together to advance our mutual interests of democracy, stability, security, and economic development in Pakistan and across the region. Today, the United States joins the people of Pakistan in celebrating this anniversary and our 70-year relationship, as we continue to work together in the years ahead."
Living Section

San Luis, Arizona - Calling all artists! In observance of Hispanic Heritage Month, the San Luis Library will host their 4th Annual Art Exhibition, featuring the artwork of local artists, from September 14th through October 14th. All ages welcome! There is no charge to participate.

Artists must submit a description of their artwork, a brief biography, and a contact phone number and e-mail address. The form is available online at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/sanluisart2017 Artwork must be brought to the library by 7:00 p.m. Thursday, September 7th.



The San Luis Library is located at 1075 N 6th Avenue in San Luis, AZ. For more information, contact Carmen Spaniard at (928) 627-8344 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Vijayawada: A two-year-old child fell into a borewell in Andhra Pradesh's Guntur district on Tuesday afternoon and efforts were continuing late in the evening to rescue him, police said.



After the boy, Chandrasekhar fell into the abandoned borewell in Ummadivaram village in Vinukonda 'mandal', personnel of the National Disaster Response Force, police, and other rescue workers were pressed into service to rescue him.



In an operation that was continuing for over six hours when last reports came in, the rescue workers were digging a crater parallel to the borewell.



The rescue workers also inserted oxygen tubes into the pit to help the child breathe and were using cameras to ascertain the depth at which he may be stuck.



Agriculture Minister P Pulla Rao, District Collector Kona Sasidhar, and senior police officials were supervising the operation.



Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu spoke to the district officials on phone and directed them to take all steps to rescue the child.
Patna: As many as 56 people have died due to floods in Bihar so far, Additional Secretary Disaster Management Department of Bihar Anirudh Kumar said on Tuesday.

He said that 20 died in Araria, eight in Kishanganj, three in East Champaran, nine in West Champaran, three in Darbhanga, three in Madhubani, five in Sitamarhi, four in Madhepura and one Sheohar.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday took stock of flood affected areas in the state and assured that the relief and food camps were being conducted in the area for those in need.

"The relief and food camps were conducted in the area. I have also called a meeting now so that I can order them what is to be done next. Tomorrow, we will send chief secretary of Disaster Management, road construction department, Rural Works Department and all DMs to assess situation. The rescue and relief operation have been going on. We had asked for IAF helicopter to distribute food packets," he said.

Yesterday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to Nitish over the phone regarding the flood situation in Bihar.

The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) took to Twitter saying that, "PM @narendramodi has spoken to Bihar CM @NitishKumar regarding the flood situation in parts of the state.

Prime Minister Modi also expressed his grief for the affected people and assured that the situation is being monitored. "My thoughts are with all those affected by floods in parts of Bihar. The situation is being monitored closely".

Three columns of Army were deployed in flood-hit Katihar district for the relief and rescue operation.

The central help came after Nitish sought help of the Army and Air Force as the flood situation worsened in the state.

Overflowing rivers from Nepal have played a major spoilsport in four northeastern districts - Kishanganj, Araria, Purnia and Katihar.

Supaul, Saharsa, Bagha, Gopalganj, Madhubani, Sitamarhi, Khagaria, Darbhanga and Madhepura districts are the other districts which have been affected by floods.

Lakhs of people have been affected in these districts.
Vadodara: Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani on Tuesday announced the setting up of ten industrial estates for small industries, financial aid to fishermen, and free Wi-Fi to educational campuses.

Rupani was speaking after unfurling the national flag at a state-level function organised here on the occasion of 70th Independence Day.

The announcements made by Rupani include setting up of ten Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) estates for small industries under plug and produce model, extending Rs 25 per litre assistance on diesel to small fishermen for their fishing boats, and a public private partnership (PPP) model to dredge fishing ports for their maintenance.

He also announced to provide Rs two lakh immediate financial assistance to the kin of the fishermen who goes missing in the sea, so that their families do not have to wait for seven years for the missing fishermen to be declared dead to avail financial assistance.

The money will be disbursed as an interim relief from the chief minister's fund, said Rupani.

Rupani also said his government will work towards making all college and university campuses free Wi-Fi zone, so that students can emerge as global students and connect to the world.

He also reminded the public of the work done by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi in taking the state to a great height as the then chief minister, setting the benchmark for other states to emulate.

Rupani also mentioned the recently enacted stringent rules for the slaughter of cow and its progeny, as well as efforts to regularise school fees which he said will help poor and middle class families.
New Delhi: Recently, US envoy MaryKay Carlson embarked on a special saree search on Twitter. The Charge d'Affaires at the US Embassy in New Delhi, Carlson wanted to celebrate Indian Independence Day 2017 with a gorgeous saree.

The hastag #sareesearch won all hearts, with Twitterati taking it upon themselves to find the best saree for Carlson. Today, she finally wore the saree of people's choice and tweeted a picture of it.

But before that, here's how the #sareesearch unfolded on social media.

It all started on August 4, when Carlson took to Twitter asking all to vote for the best saree out of four. Her choices were: Jamdani, Kanjeevaram, Tussar and Dupion Silks.

It was hard to narrow down my #SareeSearch to only four. Watch the video to see my choices. #WeWearCulture @minmsme @ChairmanKvic pic.twitter.com/hj7AWXO6Br  MaryKay Loss Carlson (@USAmbIndia) 4 August 2017

Ideas started pouring in from all across the country.

Soon, Carlson's search for saree ended, but she decided to keep it a surprise. Instead, she tweeted:

Now that my #SareeSearch is over, Im working on the blouse-what amazing options! Thanks for the helpful ideas &suggestions! #WeWearCulture pic.twitter.com/aBpsHdAm4j  MaryKay Loss Carlson (@USAmbIndia) 12 August 2017

Thanks for helping w/ my #SareeSearch. Great feedback- Ive learned so much! Check back on #IndependenceDay to see which saree won the poll! pic.twitter.com/yFgQCjvIMo  MaryKay Loss Carlson (@USAmbIndia) 10 August 2017

Finally, today, Carlson wore the saree of voters' choice and tweeted a picture of herself to her followers:

The winner was a beautiful and classic red Kanjeevaram silk saree.

Twitterati loved Carlson's saree debut. Magnificent mam. You look great in the saree, Maam!! Looking Gorgeous!!! Sincere gratitude for embracing our culture on this auspicious day, are some of the compliment Carlson received on Twitter.
New Delhi: Supreme Court Chief Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar on Tuesday said every citizen should be proud of his or her religious and ethnic identity while being equally proud of their Indian identity.



"Everyone should be proud of his religion and ethnicity and this is what the Constitution is all about," the Chief Justice said, pointing out that he was "proud to be a Sikh by birth and religion".



Khehar said this while speaking at an Independence Day function organised by the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) here. He touched on various issues including widespread perception that the children of judges enjoyed edge over others in judicial appointments.



Describing as unfounded the media reports which said that his son has found place in the list of Punjab government lawyers, he said that "What (at times) appears to be the blatant misuse of authority, may not be so."



Khehar said this referring to SCBA president R.S. Suri who had said that the panels of government lawyers are full of sons and kins of judges and they had edge over others in judicial appointments.



Telling Suri, "Mr. President don't say that", Khehar said that there were "wise children of judges, Dalits, Brahmins and belonging to other communities and all are together for achieving what they want".



Speaking on the occasion, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said "India is secular not because of its secular Constitution but because of its secular heritage", while pointing out that "every faith needs to be protected".



Asking the audience to remember the unsung heroes of the freedom struggle who laid down their lives for the country's Independence, Prasad said there was "shortcoming and weakness" but he could see a new India emerging with self-confidence.



However, the Chief Justice said it is not only those who laid their lives who should be remembered but even others who had contributed to the cause of country's freedom and suffered at the hands of British colonialists.



On judicial appointment, Prasad said that as of now they have appointed 75 judges to various high courts in 2017 and hoped that in the remaining months they would appoint more. He said in 2016 they had cleared 126 names for appointment to high courts.



Complimenting all the three organs of state for the "dramatic achievements since independence", Attorney General K.K. Venugopal said it was incumbent on the three wings to extricate the country out of endemic poverty.



Describing poverty as the greatest challenge to human rights, Venugopal said: "If poverty is endemic then what is the purpose of human rights. Does right to free speech, free movement within the country have any meaning."



Quoting the incumbent Pope Francis, he said: "Human rights are not only violated by terrorism, repression or assassination, but also by unfair economic structures that creates huge inequalities."



He also quoted late South African President Nelson Mandela who had said, "Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life. While poverty persists, there is no true freedom."



Flagging the issue of children of judges enjoying edge over others for appointment to high court benches, SCBA President Suri said that more and more judges of high courts should be appointed from the Supreme court Bar as they have good exposure and would elevate the standards of high courts.



In his welcome address, SCBA Vice President Ajit Kumar Sinha called for "refining and rebuilding the national character".


New Delhi: A minor scuffle took place between the Indian and Chinese forces on Tuesday after the former stopped the Chinese People's Liberation Army troops from crossing the Line of Control (LAC), according to PTI.

The scuffle lasted for at least 30 minutes, said a report.

The development took place after the Chinese PLA tried to cross the Line of Actual Control at Pangongtso at Ladakh today. However, they were interrupted by the Indian forces and were sent back.

Soldiers on both sides were injured in stone pelting during the confrontation, said officials.

Meanwhile, the Indian government is planning to raise the issue with its Chinese counterparts in a flag meeting on Wednesday.

The latest incident comes in the wake of a stand-off between Indian and Chinese troops along the border in Sikkim.



A ceremonial Border Personnel Meeting on the Indian Independence Day was also not held this time as the Chinese side did not respond to a communication from the Indian side.


Washington: US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have agreed to enhance peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region, the White House said on Tuesday.

The have decided to establish a new two-by-two ministerial dialogue, which would elevate their strategic consultations

Trump had spoken with PM Modi last night to greet him on the eve of India's Independence Day.

PM Modi had tweeted about it saying:

Appreciate the warm felicitations from @POTUS, who called this evening to convey Independence Day greetings. Thank you @realDonaldTrump.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 14, 2017

During the phone call, Trump welcomed the first-ever shipment of American crude oil to India, which will begin this month from Texas.

He pledged that the US would continue to be a reliable and long-term supplier of energy to India, the White House said in a readout of the phone call between the two leaders.

"The leaders resolved to enhance peace and stability across the Indo-Pacific region by establishing a new two-by- two ministerial dialogue that will elevate their strategic consultations," the White House said, as per PTI.

Trump had recently warned North Korea that it would face "fire and fury" if it attacked the United States, while the North threatened to test-fire its missiles over Japan and towards the US Pacific island of Guam.

(With PTI inputs)
New Delhi: President Ram Nath Kovind will honour 112 heroes of India's armed forces with gallantry awards, including five Kirti Chakras, given for extreme valour and self-sacrifice, on the occasion of 71st Independence Day on Tuesday.

The five Kirti Chakra recipients are Major Preetam Singh Kunwar (Garhwal Rifles), Havildar Giris Gurung (Posthumous, Gorkha Rifles), Major David Manlun (Naga Regiment), CRPF commandant Pramod Kumar (Posthumous) and CRPF commandant Chetan Kumar Cheeta.

The supreme commander of the armed forces will also give away 17 Shaurya Chakras, 85 Sena Medals, three Nao Sena Medals and two Vayu Sena Medals.

The president has also awarded Mention-in-Despatches to 40 army and air personnel for their significant contributions in military operations.

These awards include two for Operation Meghdoot, 32 for Operation Rakshak, four for Operation Orchid and one each for Army Headquarters and Air Force, the government said on the eve of I-Day.

Earlier, addressing the nation on the eve of 71st Independence Day, President Kovind said it is time the citizens take inspiration from those who gave their lives for the nation and move forward.

Acknowledging the hardships faced by the country's security forces in the line of duty, the president said, "Our soldiers who guard our borders are not just doing their duty; they are displaying an extra degree of selflessness."

CRPF commandant Pramod Kumar was killed in an encounter immediately after unfurling the flag at CRPF Srinagar office on August 15th last year.

Another Kirti Chakra nominee Chetan Kumar Cheeta was wounded during a joint operation in the Hajin area of North Kashmir's Bandipora district on February 14 this year. He survived nine bullet injuries.

Havildar Giris Gurung, also a Kirti Chakra recipient, was martyred during a counter-infiltration operation along the LoC in Kashmir's Kupwara on May 20.

The Kirti Chakra is the second highest military award given in peacetime for bravery and sacrifice, while the Shaurya Chakra is the third highest decoration in order of precedence of peacetime gallantry awards. Sena, Nao Sena and Vayu Sena medals are given for exceptional devotion to duty or courage.

'Mention in dispatches' is given for meritorious services and gallantry which are not of a sufficiently high order to warrant the grant of gallantry awards.

On Monday, the president also approved Police Medals to 990 personnel, with Chhattisgarh's elite Special Task Force Platoon Commander Shankar Rao posthumously named for the President's Police Medal for Gallantry.

Rao, called Fighter Rao' by his colleagues, showed exemplary courage during a Maoist ambush in Sukma district on April 11, 2015, in which his six other colleagues were also killed and 10 injured.
New Delhi: IIT-Kharagpur professor Rajeev Kumar, who was given compulsory retirement after he exposed flaws in the IIT entrance exam, can now have a sigh of relief, courtesy former President Pranab Mukherjee.

Days before he demitted office last month, Mukherjee had ordered setting aside of the penalty imposed on Kumar.

The HRD Ministry had last week issued orders to the IIT- Kharagpur Director to comply with Mukherjee's decision.

"I am directed to refer to the appeal dated September 3, 2014 filed by professor Rajeev Kumar and to say that the President of India, in his capacity as the Visitor of IIT- Kharagpur,...Has set aside the penalty of compulsory retirement imposed on him," read the HRD Ministry order.

Kumar, when contacted, refused to comment on the issue.

IIT-Kharagpur had suspended Kumar for "misconduct" in May 2011  the same year the Supreme Court had lauded him as a "unsung hero" for his efforts to reform the IIT Joint Entrance Examination (JEE), which has since been re-christened as JEE Advanced.

He was accused of "damaging the reputation of the institute" by levelling allegations on issues ranging from irregularities in the purchase of laptops to rampant copying by students during examinations.

The institute set up a probe panel that found him guilty. In 2014, the IIT decided to hand him compulsory retirement.

Kumar, who alleged that the panel was biased, moved the Delhi High Court and obtained a stay on the IIT's decision. He also appealed to the President requesting that the decision be quashed.

The appeal against the retirement order has been pending in the Delhi High Court.
Lucknow: Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has directed officials to ensure early return of the 12 bodies of Uttar Pradesh residents who perished in the Himachal land slide in Mandi district, an official said on Tuesday.

Mourning the dozen deaths from two families of Mau district, Adityanath asked the district administration to contact the bereaved families.

He advised the officials to coordinate the return of the mortal remains of the victims as per the wishes of the families of Surya Dev Singh and Rana Pratap Singh.

Seven children and five adults belonging to the two families were among the 46 killed in the landslide on Saturday when a massive pile of earth swallowed a 150m stretch of road burying three homes, two buses and a bike.
New Delhi: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on Tuesday said that Independence Day is for the entire nation to celebrate and it is not for any particular political party.

RSS leader Rakesh Sinha told ANI that "RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat has hoisted the tricolor in a school despite the obstacle created by the communist government in Kerala. The freedom movement is a national festival, it is not a ritual and a state festival. Independence Day is for whole nation not only for any particular political party.

"He added that the RSS has been working from last 90 years with just one objective that people in all dimensions must be away from casteism and liberalism.Senior RSS leader M.G. Vaidya said that in Kerala there is government of communists and in the area of communist they don`t give importance to other ideologies.

"Mohan Bhagwat was not given the permission to hoist the flag in the school but as I got to know he hoisted the flag in a school. It`s good that they realized their mistake very soon and gave him the permission," he added.

After a major setback, RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat finally hoisted the national flag in Karnakkiyamman School here, on Tuesday, to mark the 71st Independence Day of India.

Earlier in the day, he was not allowed to hoist the tri-colour after the District collector issued a memo to the school, categorically stating that it was inappropriate for a political leader to hoist the national flag in an aided school.

The District collector added that only a teacher or elected representative of the people was allowed to do so.However, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) challenged the Collector`s decision; standing affirmative that Bhagwat would hoist the flag.

India on Tuesday celebrated its 71st Independence Day. Prime Minister Narendra Modi unfurled tri-colour at the historical Red Fort in New Delhi.In his address, Prime Minster Modi vowed to fight terrorism, corruption, casteism, and communalism.

The Prime Minister also opined that the country, in unison, can bring a positive change.
By Dr Subhash Chandra



On August 9, 2017 we celebrated 75 years of Bharat Chhodo call by Gandhi-ji. We also passed a unanimous resolution in the Upper House of Parliament which stated that we express and put on record our gratitude to the lakhs of people who gave their lives for freedom and also to those thousands who led the Freedom Movement. It further said that we make a pledge towards creating a Secular, Clean, Poverty-Free India in the coming time.

I was sitting and watching the Honourable Members speaking on the proposed resolution. Most were speaking as per the ideology/belief of their respective political parties. They also registered their grave concerns on todays political situation, often indulging in party rhetoric. Some even reminded the august House as to how elders in their own families participated in the freedom struggle.

Hardly anyone remembered the sacrifices made by people like Bhagat Singh, Azad and many more. Also no one showed any concern towards the current situation. It seems each one of us (not only those present in the House, but in society at large) has become self-centred, no one thinks of the country, let alone make any sacrifice as made by those remembered. Today each and every one of us asks a question: Mujhe is me kya milega, ya mera kya faida hoga? Yeh mera kaam nahin hai, mein kyun apni jaan jokhim mein daalu, ityaadi ityaadi (What will I gain out of this? This is not my job, why should I put my life at risk, etc etc).

Do we remember that those who got us freedom never ever asked why should I make this sacrifice?

My congratulations to all my fellow countrymen on this 70th Independence Day. May God make all of us happy, healthy and prosperous. But I want to warn all, including my own family members, against a different kind of slavery we are going to have, and that is SELFISHNESS. We are heading towards self-appeasement, and that is going to make all of us sick in a different way. And more than anything else, it will make us a very unhappy society.

Let us work towards the India of our dreams. Independent India may be a 70-year-old now, but in the comity of worlds nations she has just attained youth. And in youth I strongly believe - I think out of every thousand kids, two are prodigies. These two may be from a small village in Haryana or Telangana, deprived of all opportunities in life, barred from options that a Delhi or Mumbai-bred would get  yet smiling and braving the winds of adversity. They symbolise my idea of India  smiling, brave and facing every season of destiny with determination and dutifulness.

A country can never be a nation in the true sense unless there is a sense of belonging entrenched in its citizens. For the 1.25 billion of us, being Indian should be our first Dharma and our Nation the biggest temple.

As India celebrates its 70th Independence Day, we must resolve to put an end to the conflict between majoritarianism and minoritarianism. There are a lot of bright spots that can take India to the top, but one social issue that needs to be tackled is the conflict between the majority and the minority.

I have a strong belief: If a nations majority is made to feel insecure (in our case, due to parliamentary democracy, we do this all the time), then that nations minority can never be secure.

The key to this, in my view, lies in developing an economy which is all-inclusive: Let us develop a nation where there is no gap between demand and supply, let us develop a society which is based on trust and faith rather than mistrust and insecurity. I do believe that the FITTEST SHOULD SURVIVE in a competitive environment, but at the same time 1% of the population cornering 70% of the wealth, including next 9% or say top 10% population taking away 91% of wealth (data of 2000-2015) is not acceptable and speaks of connivance among the four pillars of society. This is result of widespread corruption in society. To my mind corruption is not only by way of bribery, but it is also triggered off when you and I and all of us waste our time, when we say Chalta Hai, when we say Mujhe Kya and so on.

Let us join our Prime Minister and take the pledge as advised by him and help him achieve what he has set out to achieve. My belief is that he alone cannot achieve even 5% of what he wants to. Each one of us will have to look through the lenses of these pledges and then compare our actions against these. If our actions are going in the opposite direction, then we will have to sacrifice our interests. We will have to sacrifice our wealth and much more.

Let us learn to understand our responsibilities (kartavya) rather than just demand our rights.

Let us follow the footsteps of our ancestors who, while performing their duties towards their nation, did not ask: Why should I?

Happy Independence Day

Jai Hind-Jai Bharat

Vande Mataram

(The author is Rajya Sabha Member and Chairman of Essel Group)


New Delhi: Stating that the country's security is his government's top priority, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said that there will be zero tolerance towards terrorism emanating from across the borders.

Only love, and not bullets or abuse, can help resolve the dragging problem in Jammu and Kashmir, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his Independence Day speech from the historic Red Fort.

"A warm hug is enough to do away with the problems prevailing in Kashmir," PM Modi said.

Hailing the country's armed forces, PM Modi said, ''The country's security remains our priority. Our Air force, Navy and Army have never failed in discharging their duty. During the surgical strikes, the world had to acknowledge our success.''

"We are committed for the development of Jammu and Kashmir and this is also the resolve of every Indian," the Prime Minister said.

Modi stressed that the separatist campaign in the state cannot be resolved by "gaali se" (abuse) or "goli se" (bullet) but by embracing every Kashmiri.

The Prime Minister, however, made it clear that there would be no let up while dealing with the separatists.

At the same, he appealed to the terrorists to join the mainstream.

"You have every right to make your voices heard in Indian democracy," he said.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday termed 2017 a special year and urged the youths to take the country ahead with determination to create a New India.

This is a special year. This year we are celebrating 75th anniversary of the Quit India Movement, 100th anniversary of Champaran Satyagraha and 125th anniversary of Ganesh Utsav, the Prime Minister said while addressing the nation after unfurling tricolour at the Red Fort on the 71st Independence Day.

We have to take the country ahead with the determination for creating a New India, he added.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that those born in the 21st century will decide the future of the nation and the year 2018 would be crucial for them in that quest.

"The year 2018 is significant for those born in the 21st century," Modi said in his speech on the occasion of Independence Day.

He said that from January 1, 2018, the millenials would start turning 18 and will then decide the future of the 21st century and shape the vision of a "New India".

"So I invite them to take this opportunity to shape the future of the nation and participate in India's development."

Recalling the combined efforts made between 1942 and 1947 to gain freedom, the Prime Minister appealed to the citizens to show similar power, effort and determination for the next five years to help the country progress.

The surgical strike on terrorist launch pads in Pakistani territory proved to the world Indias strength, Modi added.

Praising the armed forces, the PM said, In free India it is very important to protect the country. The surgical strike was a proof to the world about Indias strength.

He further maintained every soldier, irrespective of whether he was in the Army, Navy or Air Force, was contributing to the country.

Our soldiers have stood against everything that is against the country such as infiltrators, militants The world has seen our strength.

He came down heavily on those who have looted the nation and the poor and said that these people are now not able to sleep peacefully. Those who own benami properties are facing difficult times now, he pointed out.

Soon after the Benami Act was implemented, the government has seized benami properties worth Rs 800 crore, he said.

He said his government had implemented the demand for One Rank One Pension (OROP) for military personnel after it had been kept pending for 30-40 years.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has launched an online portal dedicated to the gallantry award winners since Indian Independence in 1947. The portal, gallantryawards.gov.in., will narrate the heroic stories of the soldiers.

The website will give details of the Chakra Series awardees such as Param Vir Chakra, Maha Vir Chakra, Vir Chakra, Ashok Chakra, Kirti Chakra and Shaurya Chakra. It will also contain information such as name, unit, year, citations and photographs of awardees till date. The Ministry of Defence would welcome any feedback or suggestion for further improvement.

The Government is launching a web portal gallantryawards.gov.in which will consist of information on all our brave soldiers, said PM Modi in his Independence Day 2017 speech, further adding, The youth should know the about the heroic stories of our soldiers.

We can change the nation with our vision of New India  a country full of opportunities, a progressive nation with scientific and educational achievements... The country needs to be of poverty, said the Prime Minister.

He also referred to the Kashmir issue, GST implementation, triple talaq, Gorakhpur infant tragedy among several others.
New Delhi: Patriotic fervour gripped the nation on the 71st Independence Day on Tuesday as people from across states and Union territories came together to celebrate the occasion.

The special day was also celebrated in Indian embassies around the world like Washington, Frankfurt, Turkey, Qatar, Kathmandu, Atlanta, Colombo and Yangon.

The official Twitter handle of Ministry of External Affairs posted the following pictures:

Adorned in Indian colours

Indian missions in Washington, Frankfurt,Turkey & Qatar lit up in the colors of Tiranga for IndependenceDayIndia pic.twitter.com/4DOi5xuh98  Raveesh Kumar (@MEAIndia) August 15, 2017

India@70.

Pictures of India House in Kathmandu, Atlanta, Colombo & Yangon on pic.twitter.com/0muEeieb6P  Raveesh Kumar (@MEAIndia) August 15, 2017

Indian High Commission lit up in Pakistan on #IndependenceDayIndia pic.twitter.com/Hl0RwQeG6n  India in Pakistan (@IndiainPakistan) August 15, 2017

Meanwhile, as chief ministers hoisted the tricolour amid tight security in the country, they announced development programmes, flagged challenges confronting them and pledged to take their states forward.

On the other hand, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today reached out to strife-hit Kashmiris, saying abuses and bullets will not resolve their problems but embracing them will, as he praised his government's economic reforms in a wide-ranging Independence Day speech.

In a 56-minute speech, the shortest of the four times he has addressed the nation, he also rebuked those who resort to violence in the name of religion, adding that casteism and communalism are like poison.

Wearing his trademark half-sleeves kurta, churidar pajama and a Rajasthani headgear, PM Modi spoke from the ramparts of the Red Fort to thousands of spectators including schoolchildren dressed like Lord Krishna, as well as crores of television audience watching the live telecast of his speech across the nation.

But most of his speech was devoted to the economy as he pointed out the various reforms carried out by his government, including demonetisation, the implementation of GST and the crackdown on black money.

Referring to recent incidents of natural calamities in various parts of the country as also death of children at a state-run hospital in Uttar Pradesh, he said sympathies of the entire nation are with the affected families.

(With PTI inputs)
London: Hailing the "longstanding" UK-India ties, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said on Tuesday that the UK was committed to working together with India to tackle global challenges.

In his message to India on its Independence Day, Johnson, whose wife is of Sikh origin, said the India-UK partnership was rooted in the Indian diaspora population based in the UK.

He said: "On behalf of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, I extend my warmest wishes to the people of India and the British-Indian community in the United Kingdom on the occasion of India's Independence Day.

"The United Kingdom and India share a deep and longstanding partnership, rooted in the 1.5 million British Indian diaspora in the UK who contribute so richly to our society. Our two countries are committed to working together to promote our people's prosperity, improve global security and tackle the global challenges that we face today."

Making a reference to the ongoing 2017 UK-India Year of Culture, the Conservative Party minister said the UK will continue to celebrate the strength of the bilateral ties including "our shared history, values, culture and language".

He added: "Whilst today is an opportunity to reflect on India's success over the past 70 years, it is also a chance to look ahead at a bright future for both our countries, supported by the flourishing ties between the people of India and the UK."
San Francisco: Google will pay Apple nearly $3 billion this year to remain as the default search engine on iOS devices, US-based research and brokerage firm Bernstein has said.



According to a note to investors on Monday, Google has increased the amount this year -- from $1 billion three years ago to $3 billion this year -- and Google`s licensing fees make up a large bulk of Apple`s services business.



"Court documents indicate that Google paid Apple $1B in 2014, and we estimate that total Google payments to Apple in FY 17 may approach $3B," CNBC quoted analyst A.M. Sacconaghi Jr. as saying.



"Given that Google payments are nearly all profit for Apple, Google alone may account for five per cent of Apple`s total operating profits this year, and may account for 25 per cent of total company OP growth over the last two years," he added.



Apple`s iOS devices contribute about 50 per cent to Google`s mobile search revenue, Sacconaghi noted.
Srinagar: In a special gesture, the 'Army Goodwill School' was renamed 'Shaheed Lt Umer Fayaz Goodwill School' on Tuesday to honour the martyred officer.

The Army officer from Kashmir was abducted and shot dead by militants in Shopian district in May this year where he had gone to attend the wedding ceremony of a relative.



Lieutenant Fayaz was abducted by five to six militants from his relative's house and his bullet riddled body was found in Harmain area.



Hailing from Kulgam district, Fayaz was in the Infantry and was posted in Akhnoor area in Jammu. He was commissioned in the Army in December last year.



Meanwhile, Lt Gen JS Sandhu, GoC 15 Corps, said today, "Persons involved in killing of Lt Fayaz have been identified and we are on their trail."

"Number of protests (in Kashmir Valley) and people participating in them is reducing. People are fed up with agitations and want their lives to go on normally," he added.

"Been fighting terrorism for 27 yrears but are confident of making major dent and bringing things under control to great extent." he further said.

(With Agency inputs)
Jammu: The three terrorists, who were involved in abduction and killing of 22-year-old Lieutenant Umer Fayaz in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir, an official said on Tuesday.

"Persons involved in killing of Lt Ummer Fayaz (in month of May) identified and we are on their trail," General officer Commanding (GoC) 15 Corps Lt Gen JS Sandhu told ANI.

He further added, "The number of protests in Valley and people participating in it are reducing. People are fed up with agitations and want their lives to go on normally."

"We have been fighting terrorism for 27 years but are confident of making major dent and bringing things under control to great extent," he said on the issue of terrorism.

On May 11 this year, a bullet-riddled body of Lieutenant Fayaz was found in Shopian district of south Kashmir hours after he was abducted by militants from a wedding procession.

Lieutenant Umer Fayaz, who hailed from the troubled region of Kulgam district, was posted with 2 Rajputana Rifles and had applied for leave to attend a cousin's wedding in Shopian.

The autopsy report showed marks on his body, indicating that the officer had resisted the suspected militants who had abducted him.

He was fired at from a close range, and the bullets had hit his head and stomach or chest region.

Locals said two masked men entered the house at 8 last night. The men asked Lt Fayaz, who was unarmed, to accompany them, and warned the family not to inform the police.

The killing caused anger among locals who demanded that the men responsible be identified and punished.
Kasaragod: At least 19 people were injured in a clash between Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) and BJP-RSS activists, which broke out after a DYFI rally this evening at a village here, the police said.

The incident occurred at Mavvungal village around 4 pm after stones were pelted by a group of people, allegedly comprising BJP-RSS workers, when volunteers of the DYFI, youth wing of the CPI(M), were returning after a rally at Kottapara, which was taken out as part of Independence Day celebrations, they said.

Cases under various IPC sections, including 147 (punishment for rioting) have been registered, the police said, adding that no one has been arrested yet and the matter is being investigated.

CPI(M) district secretary Satheesh Chandran claimed that eight DYFI activists were injured in the clash.

Two of them, who were seriously injured, were taken to the Pariyaram Medical College in Kannur while the others were admitted to the Neeleswaram Co-operative Hospital, he claimed.

BJP district president Sreekanth claimed that 11 workers of his party were injured in the "attack by DYFI activists" and they have been admitted to the Neeleswaram Hospital.

Recently, there has been a spike in clashes between cadres of the RSS and the CPI(M), with each accusing the other of murdering their respective workers.

On July 29, a RSS worker Rajesh was hacked to death in Thiruvanathapuram.

Union minister Arun Jaitley had visited the state and had accused the CPI(M) of using its cadres to "eliminate" its political opponents and creating an environment of violence.
New Delhi: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has condemned the CPI (M)-led Kerala government`s orders to prevent its chief Mohan Bhagwat from unfurling the national flag at a school in Palakkad district of Kerala on Tuesday.



Bhagwat, however, hoisted the tricolour defying the orders issued by the district administration.



"We condemn such brazen attempts by the CPI(M)-led government of Kerala to deny the basic civil right of celebrating Independence Day and their continuous attempts to poison the state of Kerala with divisive politics," RSS leader Manmohan Vaidya said in a statement.



Sarsanghachalak Bhagwat was invited by the Karnakayamman Higher Secondary School in Palakkad to participate in the golden jubilee celebrations of the school and the Independence Day celebrations.



On Monday night, the school received a notice from the District Collector stating that only institutional heads or elected representatives can unfurl the national flag in schools. However, the school management decided to proceed as planned and Bhagwat hoisted the flag.
Bhopal: The Madhya Pradesh government aims to make the state free of corruption and poverty by 2022, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said on Tuesday.

"We have resolved to make the state free of corruption and poverty by 2022," Chouhan said while underlining Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call for creating a country which is free of corruption, poverty, terrorism and casteism.

"Every poor in Madhya Pradesh will have a house of his own by 2022," Chouhan said addressing the Independence Day function here.

In this direction, the state government would build five lakh houses for urban poor and 15 lakh houses for rural poor by next year, he said.

Stressing the need to protect the environment, he said a mass movement called Narmada Seva Yatra was taken out earlier this year to revive the Narmada river  considered as the lifeline of MP.

The chief minister said that Rs 8,500 crore would be invested to develop greenery on the sides of Narmada river and to treat its water in next three years.

The state has sufficient electricity, he said, adding that consumers were getting 24 hours power supply daily.

The farmers in the state were getting electricity for 10 hours daily for agricultural purposes, he said.

He also said that the state government has decided to set up a global skill park with the help of Singapore-based Institute of Technical Education in Bhopal.

"The park will generate employment by imparting world class training in skill development," Chouhan said.

According to reports from various other parts of the state, including major cities like Jabalpur, Indore and Gwalior, the Independence Day was celebrated there with traditional fervour and gaiety.
Mumbai: Maharashtra on Tuesday celebrated the 70th Independence Day with patriotic fervor though the commemorations were marred due to heavy rains that lashed some parts of the state including Mumbai and the coastal Konkan region.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis unfurled the national flag at his residence and near Mantralaya, while his ministerial colleagues were scheduled to attend flag-hoisting ceremonies in districts.

Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu Governor C.V. Rao this year spent the day in Chennai where he would be taking part in various Independence Day functions, a Raj Bhavan official said.

There were solemn flag-hoisting functions organised at the Bombay High Court, headquarters of the Central Railway, Western Railway and Konkan Railway, civic headquarters and the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport.

The tricolour was also hoisted amid singing of the National Anthem in schools, colleges, housing complexes, various state and central government offices, private companies, district collectorates, villages, social and cultural organizations, corporate offices and others.

A variety of special events to mark Independence Day have been scheduled all over the state and Mumbai during the course of the day.
Itanagar: Arunachal Pradesh on Tuesday joined the rest of the country in celebrating the 70th Independence Day with day-long programme.

Unfurling the National Tri-colour here, Chief Minister Pema Khandu said, "Today we have to resolve that within the next five years when independent India turns 75, we will eradicate poverty, illiteracy and unemployment," Khandu said.

"We must pledge that each village and habitation of the state must be connected with roads and every poor family must have a home," he said.

People of Arunachal Pradesh who have seen armed conflicts shared a special relationship with the armed forces, who have stood by us in times of adversity and times of prosperity, Khandu said.

On the priority areas, he said that the government has taken steps to enhance the quality of school education and launched the Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Swavalamban Yojana for creating self-employment avenues for unemployed youths.

The government is partnering with reputed skill providers who will set up facilities within the state and help the youth in getting skills and placements, Khandu said.

He said the government is coming out with a clear-cut land policy on land ownership and titling to empower people and farmers to monetise the land which has been passed on to them by way of customary inheritance or acquisition.

In the health sector, the chief minister said, the government had started free chemotherapy facility for cancer patients at Tomo Riba Hospital in collaboration with Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai.

The government has also taken steps for farmer's loan and interest subsidy for women weavers, he said.

By December, all 1230 un-electrified villages in the state would be electrified and the entire state would be declared Open Defecation Free, Khandu said.

On the power sector, he said, the 110 MW Pare hydroelectric project and the 600 WM Kameng project would become operation this year.
New Delhi: As many as four persons were killed and over 15 injured after two vehicles collided on the Chittorgarh-Udaipur highway.

The victims, who were reportedly on a pilgrimage, were natives of Jhalawar district in Rajasthan.

As soon as the accident took place, the locals gathered on the spot and took the injured to a hospital in the vicinity. It is believed that some of the injured are critical as of now.

The police rushed to the spot as soon as the incident came to their knowledge.

Further details are awaited.
Police in Masaka have arrested a man who has been masquerading as a brother to the fallen Assistant Inspector General of Police Andrew Felix Kaweesi.

Police say that 29 year-old Mubarak Munyagwa muchunguzi, a resident of Kayirikiti in Masaka Municipality has been conning business owners in Masaka.

The Southern Regional Police Spokesperson Lameck Kigozi has confirmed the arrest and says the suspect has on several occasions identified himself as the Deputy Regional Police Commander and used both aliases to intimidate and obtain money from the public.

Kigozi says that the suspect will be charged with impersonation and obtaining money by false pretense.
Chennai: Actor Kamal Haasan on Tuesday fired a fresh salvo at the ruling AIADMK in Tamil Nadu virtually calling for Chief Minister K Palaniswami's resignation over alleged corruption.

In a series of tweets, he also invited people "who are brave enough" to take a vow for a new freedom struggle, apparently against corruption.

"If one state's CM should resign for a mishap & corruption under his govt. How come no party calls for resignation in TN. Enough crimes done," Haasan said without naming anyone.

He was apparently referring to the demands by the Congress for the resignation of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath over the death of more than 60 children in a government-run hospital in the northern state.



The national award winning actor-director has been critical of the AIADMK of late, alleging corruption in its government, drawing the ire of ministers.

Palaniswami and his cabinet colleagues had hit out at the actor for his remarks and dared him to substantiate his charges following which he had asked his fans to lodge complaints about corruption through social media.

While Palaniswami had asked Haasan to join politics to elicit response from the government, several of his ministerial colleagues had hit out at the actor asking among other things what his contribution was to the society.

Haasan also said unless there was independence from corruption "we are all slaves".

"Those who are brave enough to take a vow for a new freedom struggle, come we will win," he said.

The "Vishwaroopam" star said his aim was for a better Tamil Nadu and described both DMK, AIADMK and parties as tools, saying other options should be found if such tools become 'blunt'.

"My aim is a better Tamil Nadu. Who dares to strengthen my voice? DMK AIADMK & parties R tools to help. If those tools R blunt find others," he said.

Haasan had recently shared the dais with DMK Working President M K Stalin at a party-organised function here.
New Delhi: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath addressed the state, as the country celebrates its 71st Independence day.

"We need to emphasise on the development and prosperity of India. Our aim is to enlist India among the developed nations." said CM Adityanath

While citing the year 1857 which marks the first freedom struggle of India, said the Chief Minister.

He cited that UP marks the land of India's first freedom struggle that took place in 1857.

"Can we take the oath of devoting every moment of our lives in establishing a powerful India?," added CM Adityanath.
London: Hundreds of members of the Indian diaspora in the UK took part in the first-ever Freedom Run to mark India's 70th Independence Day with the one-mile journey beginning from the historic Parliament Square here.

The runners, sporting 'India@70' T-shirts and waving tricolour glow sticks, kick-started a one-mile journey from the statue of Mahatma Gandhi at the historic square in the heart of the British capital to India Place at the Indian High Commission in London.

Just after midnight, the Indian High Commissioner to the UK, Y K Sinha, addressed the gathering as tea and samosas were served to all participants.

"We started at Mahatma Gandhi's statue at Parliament Square and have come over a mile to India House to commemorate this historic occasion  70 years of Indian independence  we celebrate the massive achievements and great strides that India has made in the last seven decades," Sinha said.

"We wanted to do something symbolic and different to mark this milestone. And, what could be more symbolic than a run from Parliament Square opposite Big Ben to the Indian High Commission with such a large crowd of enthusiastic Indians," he said, adding that the 'Freedom Run' symbolises India's fight for "freedom from corruption and freedom from poverty".

The group of Freedom Runners chanted slogans of "Jai Hind", "Bharat Mata Ki Jai" and "Vande Mataram" as they made their way past iconic London monuments including the Big Ben, London Eye, Scotland Yard headquarters and Waterloo Bridge.

"It is the symbolism of starting at the seat of British democracy before midnight and culminating at India Place after midnight," added Dinesh K Patnaik, the deputy Indian high commissioner of India to the UK.

The event, organised by the Indian High Commission in London, was aimed at bringing together the Indian community from across Britain to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Indian independence and is likely to become an annual feature to mark Independence Day.
Ankara: Iran`s chief of staff arrived in Ankara Tuesday for "unprecedented" talks with Turkey`s leadership reportedly aimed at narrowing differences on the Syria crisis and coordinating policy on Iraq.

General Mohammad Hossein Bagheri is due to meet Defence Minister Nurettin Canikli and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during his three-day visit.

He kicked off the visit by meeting his Turkish counterpart Hulusi Akar, the state-run Anadolu news agency said.

Pro-government Turkish Daily Sabah quoted diplomatic sources as saying the visit was a "milestone" and would not have been possible unless both sides were willing to make deals on both Syria and Iraq.

Iran`s official IRNA news agency meanwhile described the visit as "unprecedented" in the history of bilateral relations.

"This trip was necessary for better consultation and cooperation on various military and regional issues," Bagheri said in a statement to state Iranian broadcaster IRIB, citing border security and the fight against terror.

Yet relations between overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim Turkey, a secular state, and the mainly Shiite Islamic Republic of Iran have on occasion been tense in the last years.

Erdogan has sometimes lashed out at the rise of "Persian nationalism" in the region, especially in Iraq.

Turkey and Iran lie on opposing sides of the Syrian conflict, with Erdogan seeking the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad to end the war and Tehran, along with Moscow, his key remaining ally and backer.

But Turkey and Russia have been cooperating more over Syria in recent months, helping to extract civilians from Aleppo and then co-sponsoring peace talks in the Kazakh capital Astana.

But with its anti-Assad rhetoric toned down, Ankara now appears especially concerned about the presence of the Kurdish People`s Protection Units (YPG) in the border area.

Although an ally of the United States, the YPG is considered by Turkey as terror group and the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which has waged a deadly three decade insurgency in the Turkish southeast.

The rise of jihadists in the province of Idlib, neighbouring Turkey, has also alarmed Ankara, Moscow and Tehran.

Both Turkey and Iran have substantial Kurdish minorities and they vehemently oppose a plan by Iraq`s autonomous Kurdish region to organise a vote on independence later this year.

Turkey has begun building a "security wall" along part of its border with Iran, regional officials said this month, along the lines of a similar barrier on the Syrian border.
Tehran: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Tuesday warned that the country could pull out of a nuclear agreement signed with the world`s major powers within hours if the US imposes more sanctions.

Rouhani delivered the warning during a live televised speech, reports Efe news.

He added the new "rulers" of the US should know that the "failed experience of sanctions" brought their previous administrations to the negotiating table.

Rouhani also criticszed US President Donald Trump for threatening to break the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Trump has repeatedly rallied against the agreement, which was signed between Iran and the P5+1 (UK, US, France, Russia and China plus Germany) countries in July 2015, calling it "the worst deal ever".

According to Rouhani, the International Atomic Energy Agency has acknowledged in seven reports that Iran was complying with the agreement.

"Iran has remained and will remain committed to the deal though any breach of promise by other parties will receive appropriate responses," the President added.

Iran agreed to limit its nuclear ability in exchange for lifting international oil and financial sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic.

The US has imposed on Iran several sanctions related to its ballistic missile programme, considered as a violation of the agreement by Tehran.
Tokyo: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a ritual offering to a controversial shrine to war dead on Tuesday, the anniversary of Japan`s World War Two surrender, but did not visit in person in an apparent effort to avoid increasing regional tensions.

Masahiko Shibayama, a lawmaker who made the offering on Abe`s behalf, said he did so to express condolences for those who died in the war and to pray for peace. He added that Abe said he was sorry he could not visit the Yasukuni shrine.

Past visits by Japanese leaders to Yasukuni have outraged Beijing and Seoul because it honours 14 Japanese leaders convicted by an Allied tribunal as war criminals, along with other war dead. Abe himself has only visited once since becoming Prime Minister again in 2012.

Maintaining harmony with China and Seoul is now more important than ever amid heightened tensions in Asia in the wake of North Korean missile tests, threats from Pyongyang to strike the area around the US Pacific territory of Guam and US President Donald Trump warning of retaliation.

"After the war, our country has consistently taken steps as a country that abhors war and treasures peace, and has made efforts to promote the peace and prosperity of the world," Abe said at a national ceremony to honour war dead on Tuesday.

"We intend to keep this immovable policy firmly, throughout the ages, while facing history with humility."

Abe visited the Yasukuni shrine in 2013, an action that prompted criticism from key ally the United States as well as from Asian nations, but has sent offerings on August 15 and during Yasukuni`s twice yearly festivals.

Dozens of Japanese lawmakers visited the shrine along with scores of ordinary Japanese, a move prompting a protest from media in China, which with South Korea views the shrine as a symbol of Japan`s past militarism.

The official People`s Liberation Army Daily wrote in a commentary on Tuesday that the anniversary should be a time for Japan to reflect on its history, not to "go further down the forked road of harming Sino-Japanese ties and regional peace and stability".

Tensions in the region weighed on the minds of many who visited the shrine.

"I am furious about the threat from North Korea," said Katsuhiko Ikeda, 78.

"North Korea`s missile threat towards Guam means anything would pass by Japan, and if anything happened, it could affect us."
By Samuel Ssebuliba

The Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee is yet to receive updates from the cabinet on the constitutional amendment bill 2017 in relation to land acquisition.

On 2nd August, Lands Minister Betty Amongi together her Constitutional Affairs counterpart Gen.Kahinda Otafiire requested the committee to give them two weeks to consult cabinet.

Speaking to KFM, the committee chairperson Jacob Oboth says they have not received any communication from both ministries about their readiness to appear before this committee.

He adds that the committee is still waiting for their response.

Meanwhile, Gen Otafiire says he is not aware that the time they were given by the committee has elapsed.
Manila: Philippine police killed at least 21 people in a series of raids near the capital Manila, in the bloodiest night of President Rodrigo Duterte`s war on drugs, official records showed on Tuesday.

Duterte won a landslide victory in presidential elections last year after promising an unprecedented war on drugs in which tens of thousands of people would be killed.

The raids from Monday to Tuesday resulted in the single largest death toll in one night of police operations since officers killed 16 people, including a city mayor, in a raid on a southern city on July 30.

Police records from Bulacan province, a light-industrial centre just north of Manila, said that 26 anti-drug operations were conducted in 12 towns and cities, resulting in the killing of 21 "drug personalities".

The raids also resulted in the arrest of 64 suspects, the seizure of 21 firearms and about 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of methamphetamines, popularly known as "shabu" the records said.

A breakdown of the incidents showed that the 21 were killed in 16 separate operations where all the fatalities were armed, the police added.

Spokesmen for the Bulacan police could not be contacted for comment.

Bulacan, a province of about 3.29 million people, has recorded numerous arrests and killings of drug suspects in recent months, the police records showed.

Duterte has vowed to protect police who kill drug suspects under suspicious circumstances.

Government figures show that since Duterte took office last year up to July 26, a total of 3,451 "drug personalities" have been killed in police operations.

More than 2,000 other people have been killed in drug-related crimes and thousands more murdered in unexplained circumstances, according to police data.

Despite warnings by human rights groups that Duterte may be overseeing a crime against humanity, he remains widely popular in the Philippines.
Beirut: Rebel rocket fire killed five civilians in Syria's Aleppo on Tuesday, a monitor said, in the deadliest bombardment on the northern city in months.

The rockets rained down on several districts in Syria's second city today afternoon, according to Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"Five civilians were killed and at least 10 others were wounded," Abdel Rahman told AFP.

"It's the highest toll we have documented in several months," he said.

The Britain-based Observatory said the rockets came from the western outskirts of Aleppo, where rebel groups are still entrenched.

Syria's government recaptured all of Aleppo in December, after a ferocious month-long offensive that ended with the evacuation of thousands of rebels and civilians from the city's opposition-held east.

That withdrawal was the biggest blow yet to Syria's rebels, who had overrun half the city in mid-2012.

Since announcing victory in Aleppo, Syria's armed forces have gone on to score advances in the wider province, as well as near Damascus and in desert areas in the country's center and east.

The conflict first erupted in March 2011 with protests against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad, but it has since evolved into a complex war drawing in international powers.

More than 330,000 people have been killed and millions more displaced.
Beijing: China has called on the US to back up Monday`s statement by senior US officials that Washington wished to resolve the Korean Peninsula issue through diplomatic means.



China`s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying made the remarks on Tuesday in response to an opinion piece by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, stressing the importance of a diplomatic solution to the crisis, Xinhua news agency reported.



Tillerson and Mattis wrote in The Wall Street Journal that Washington has "no interest" in regime change in Pyongyang nor in accelerated reunification of the Korean Peninsula, and that "diplomacy is our preferred means" of changing the Democratic People`s Republic of Korea`S (DPRK) course of action.



Speaking at a daily press briefing, Hua said that China hopes to see concrete policies by the US side towards North Korea that reflect the views of the two senior officials. "We also call on the DPRK to respond to these remarks," she said.



Tensions escalated on the peninsula after North Korea test-fired intercontinental ballistic missiles twice last month. US President Donald Trump warned Pyongyang that if it continued to threaten Washington, it would be met with "fire and fury".



In response, Pyongyang warned of the launch of intermediate-range ballistic missiles targeting the waters off the US island of Guam in the Pacific.



Hua said China has always believed that the security issue is the crux of Korean Peninsula denuclearisation and that "the key is in the hands of the US and the DPRK".



She said China hopes that all parties concerned will accept Beijing`s "suspension for suspension" proposal which requires North Korea to suspend its missile and nuclear activities in exchange for the suspension of large-scale military drills between the US and South Korea.



"We hope the two sides can work together and create conditions to restart dialogue," Hua said.



China will continue to implement UN Security Council resolutions and play an active role in the peaceful resolution of the Korean Peninsula issue, she said.



South Korean President Moon Jae-in said on Tuesday that US military action on the Korean Peninsula may not be taken without Seoul`s consent, and the crisis should "absolutely" be solved peacefully.
Freetown: Sierra Leone`s president appealed Tuesday for urgent help for the flood-hit capital of Freetown, where more than 300 people are feared dead, as rescue workers continued a grim search for bodies after one of the worst natural disasters to hit the country.

The Red Cross said it was struggling to excavate families buried deep in the mud that engulfed their homes, though several bodies were pulled up by machines in the devastated hilltop community of Regent on Tuesday, according to an AFP journalist at the scene.

Addressing the media in Regent, one of the areas hit hardest by the flooding, President Ernest Bai Koroma fought back tears as he said the devastation "was overwhelming us".

"Entire communities have been wiped out," Koroma said at the disaster site, where heavy rains streaming down the hill caused a landslide and engulfed homes three or four storeys high on Monday, many of them built illegally.

"We need urgent support now," he added.

The government has promised relief to the more than 3,000 people left homeless, opening an emergency response centre in Regent and four registration centres, while the Red Cross said 600 people were still missing, though the Interior Minister put the number in the thousands.

Israel and Britain said they were sending aid as quickly as possible to the stricken west African city of about one million people.

Red Cross spokesman Patrick Massaquoi told AFP on Monday that the death toll was 312, but another Red Cross official, Abu Bakarr Tarrawallie, put the death toll at 245 in an email to AFP on Tuesday, while local media and officials all gave different tolls.

"We are racing against time, more flooding and the risk of disease to help these affected communities survive and cope with their loss," Tarrawallie said.

At the Regent site, residents told AFP that boulders and rocks had killed many as they rolled onto homes in the early hours of Monday, while a hill partially collapsed as floodwaters streamed down the slopes.

One resident, Abubakar Mansaray, said it took just two minutes for the mudslide to suffocate families in the darkness.

"Many unfinished buildings were at the hilltop, with those sprawling shacks all gone," he told AFP.

Survivors required immediate shelter, medical and food assistance, and dozens of injured people were receiving treatment, the Red Cross`s Tarawallie said.

Abibatu Kamara, a mother of three who spent the night on her neighbours` veranda, said the government response so far had been absent.



"We have not received any food or blankets since the disaster occurred yesterday," she told AFP.

Three days of torrential rain culminated on Monday in the Regent mudslide and massive flooding elsewhere in the city, one of the world`s wettest urban areas.

Makeshift settlements that clung to the hills and shores were swept away or torn apart.

The city`s drainage system was quickly overwhelmed, leaving stagnant water pooling in some areas while creating dangerous churning waterways down steep streets.

Society 4 Climate Change Communication (S4CCC), a local environment group, called the tragedy a "wake up call".

"Man-made activity meets climate-change head on, a predictable event now made tragically real," the group said in a widely shared blog post.

Deforestation, a lack of urban planning and the nation`s existing vulnerability to climate change had all played their part, they said.

Sierra Leone`s meteorological department issued no warning ahead of the torrential rains, which might have allowed for swifter evacuations from the disaster zones.

At the city`s military hospital, community health officer Wilberforce Mohammed Rogers said he had treated several children with multiple injuries, including a six-month-old baby. Many had lost their parents, Rogers said.

An AFP journalist met victims sleeping in schools, community centers and out in the open, while others squeezed into the homes of relatives.

Foreign governments, meanwhile, began mobilising aid to Freetown.

Israel`s foreign ministry said it would provide "assistance immediately and in every way possible" including clean water, medicines, and blankets.

British International Development Secretary Priti Patel said she was "deeply saddened" by the devastation and was working with the government to establish what next steps to take.

Freetown is hit each year by flooding during several months of rain, raising the risk of waterborne diseases such as cholera.

Flooding in the capital in 2015 killed 10 people and left thousands homeless.

Sierra Leone was one of the West African nations hit by an outbreak of the Ebola virus in 2014 that left more than 4,000 people dead in the country, and it has struggled to revive its economy since the crisis.

The country ranked 179th out of 188 countries on the UN Development Programme`s 2016 Human Development Index, a basket of data combining life expectancy, education and income and other factors.
Kabul: The United States should withdraw all its troops from Afghanistan and stop listening to "stooges" in Kabul, the Taliban warned in an open letter to U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday.

The Trump administration is working to finalize a regional strategy that could include nearly 4,000 additional US troops, part of a NATO-led coalition, that have been requested by commanders in the country.

That plan has faced scepticism in the White House, where Trump and several top aides have criticised years of American military intervention and foreign aid.

"Previous experiences have shown that sending more troops to Afghanistan will not result in anything other than the further destruction of American military and economical might," the Taliban said in the English-language letter released to media and addressed to Trump.

The Taliban, seeking to restore Islamic rule, have been waging an increasingly violent insurgency against the Western-backed Afghan government since losing power in a U.S.-led military operation in 2001.

In the lengthy statement, the Taliban criticized the Afghan government as "stooges", "lying corrupt leaders" and "repulsive sellouts" who are providing Washington with overly optimistic "rosy pictures" of the situation in Afghanistan.

"The war situation in Afghanistan is far worse than you realize!" the statement said while arguing that the only thing preventing the insurgents from seizing major cities was a fear of causing civilian casualties.

The statement also took aim at generals, who the Taliban said "are concealing the real statistics of your dead and crippled" soldiers.

"We have noticed that you have understood the errors of your predecessors and have resolved to thoroughly rethink your new strategy in Afghanistan," the letter said. "A number of warmongering congressmen and generals in Afghanistan are pressing you to protract the war in Afghanistan because they seek to preserve their military privileges."

The senior U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, has requested several thousand additional troops to act as advisers to the struggling Afghan security forces.

Powerful voices in the US government, including Republican Senator John McCain, have also called for an "enduring" U.S. military presence in Afghanistan.

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters on Monday that the Trump administration was "very, very close" to a decision on Afghanistan, adding that all options were on the table.

US officials believe a South Asia strategy is not imminent and could take weeks until it is approved.

The Taliban letter concludes by saying the conflict could be resolved by the withdrawal of foreign troops.

"Everyone now understands that the main driver of war in Afghanistan is foreign occupation," the Taliban said.

"The Afghans have no ill-intention towards the Americans or any other nation around the world but if anyone violates their sanctums then they are mighty proficient at beating and defeating the transgressors."
Hagatna: After a week of threats from North Korea aimed at Guam, the island`s residents on Tuesday thought the worst had happened when two radio stations accidentally broadcast an emergency civil danger warning, the media reported.

The two stations, a music channel and a Christian network, alerted listeners at 12.25 a.m. (local time) of an unspecified danger near the US territory, reports the Guardian.

Civil danger broadcasts are rare and are used to warn civilians of an imminent threat, such as a military strike or terrorist attack.

The warning lasted only 15 minutes and officials later stressed that a real emergency message would describe the type of threat.

"The unauthorised test was not connected to any emergency, threat or warning," Guam`s Homeland Security Office said in a statement, adding it had worked with the radio stations to "ensure human error will not occur again".

"Residents and visitors are reminded to remain calm," George Charfauros, Guam`s homeland security adviser, said in a statement.

"There is no change in threat level, we continue business as usual.

"We continue communication with our federal and military partners and have not received official statement warranting any concern for imminent threat to Guam," he added.

Last week, North Korea detailed a specific plan to fire four missiles into the waters around the island which is home to 162,000 people and hosts two US military bases, the Guardian reported.

On Monday, US Defence Secretary James Mattis said any missile fired at Guam would be shot down, and warned that an attack "could escalate into war very quickly".

There is a government school in Jholamba. The school tells its own story.
YEREVAN, AUGUST 15, ARMENPRESS. Irans President Hassan Rouhani warned that Iran can quit the nuclear deal if Washington imposes new sanctions on Tehran, TASS reports.

If the US wants to go back to that experience, definitely in a short time -- not weeks or months, but in the scale of hours and days -- we will return to our previous situation very much more stronger, Rouhani said.

Iran and 6 world powers (Russia, UK, China, US, France and Germany) agreed on settling the Iranian nuclear deal issue on July 14, 2015, by adopting a Joint comprehensive action plan. The deal envisages elimination of sanctions on Iran imposed by the UN Security Council, the US and the European Union.
YEREVAN, AUGUST 15, ARMENPRESS. After recharging by water pipes at Yerevans Erebuni airport, the Russian IL-76 firefighting waterbomber aircraft departed for the 2nd time to the place of fire that broke out in Armenias Khosrov Forest state reserve, the ministry of emergency situations told Armenpress.

On August 15, early in the morning, Armenias minister of emergency situations Davit Tonoyan together with Russian rescuers conducted a reconnaissance flight with a helicopter to determine the places for dropping water on the fires in the Khosrov Forest state reserve. As of 08:50, the Russian IL-76 aircraft was carrying out the first flight. 2 flights and 2 drops are planned in advance.

On August 14, as of 17:00, 63 rescuers, 124 servicemen of the defense ministry, 19 environmentalists were involved in firefighting works in the Khosrov Forest state reserve.
YEREVAN, AUGUST 15, ARMENPRESS. The Investigative Committee launched criminal case to clarify the details of the death of soldier Abas M. Sloyan, the Committee told Armenpress.

The body of the soldier, born in 1998, was found hanged in one of the houses of Hatsik village of Shirak province on August 14, at 19:30.

Forensic examination has been commissioned.

Based on the investigation, it was revealed that A. Sloyan left the military unit voluntarily on August 13 and returned to home in Hatsik village.

The necessary investigative measures are being taken to clarify all the details of the death of 19-year-old soldier.
YEREVAN, AUGUST 15, ARMENPRESS. On august 15 working consultation was held led by President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan over the process of firefighting works in the Khosrov Forest state reserve, as well as on the proper control of fire danger situation in forest zones and areas adjacent to forests in the absence of rains and existence of constant high temperature, implementation of preventive works, works aimed at revealing the causes of the fires, observing the damage caused to the nature and rural economies, as well as the possibilities to recover them, press service of the Presidents Office told Armenpress.

The necessity to take new measures in the current situation was also discussed.

The consultation was attended by the Presidents chief of staff, Prosecutor General, ministers of emergency situations, agriculture, nature protection, head of the Presidential Oversight Service, deputy ministers of foreign affairs, territorial administration and development, as well as respective officials of the Presidents staff.

The President was reported on the difficulties and existing problems that emerged during the firefighting works, as well as the ongoing steps in accordance with the instructions tasked by the President recently aimed at solving those problems.

The sector representatives reported that all the necessary steps were taken, and at the moment the existing opportunities are enough to solve the problem in the territory of the state reserve.

President Sargsyan thanked all the people and structures that battled forest fires during this period. In particular, he thanked the Russian partners who currently are actively engaged in the firefighting works in the state reserve.




YEREVAN, AUGUST 15, ARMENPRESS. Armenias ministry of nature protection releases the preliminary amount of damage caused by fire in the Khosrov Forest state reserve, reports Armenpress.

Official at the ministry of nature protection Aram Aghasyan said according to preliminary calculations, the area of fire covered 2.5-3 thousand hectares, 8-10% of which are forest area.

After the air firefighting operations the main targets of fire are extinguished. The juniper trees were mostly affected, with an area of about 200 hectares.

On August 12 fire broke out in the area of the Khosrov Forest state reserve. Russian Il-76 firefighting waterbomber aircraft has already conducted 4 flights over the state reserve, and now is preparing for the 5th flight.
YEREVAN, AUGUST 15, ARMENPRESS. The Governments of Armenia and China plan to sign an agreement on safe use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, Armenpress reports the issue of approving the signing of the agreement is included in the agenda of August 17 meeting of the Cabinet.

Its expected that the signing of the agreement will give the two states an opportunity to cooperate in the sphere of nuclear energy. The nuclear cooperation will be exclusively peaceful and will not be used for creating nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosives or for achieving any other military goal. The states will be guided by the principles of the UN Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
YEREVAN, AUGUST 15, ARMENPRESS. National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) is considering the issue of adding gas supplies to Armenia, Armenpress reports director for international affairs of NIGC, Behzad Babazadeh told theiranproject.com.

The ceiling for Irans gas exports to Armenia in exchange for electricity is below 1 mcm/d. The Armenian side had demanded that Irans gas exports be increased to 2 or 2.5 mcm/d. NIGC is considering this request. Of course, NIGC prefers to sign a direct agreement with Armenia about increasing gas exports in order to be directly paid for gas exports. The gas-for-electricity agreement has been signed by the governments of Iran and Armenia and will be respected. The gas-for-electricity agreement has been signed by the governments of Iran and Armenia and will be respected, Babazadeh said.

To the question if a separate agreement may be signed with Armenia, NIGC official said, Yes, thats it. We have had talks in this regard. Of course, Armenia favors the price of Russias gas sales, which is low and we do not accept it.

Referring to gas supply talks with Georgia, Behzad Babazadeh said, An agreement had been signed for exporting gas to Georgia, but it has not been finalized. The reason is that gas must pass by Armenia to reach Georgia and Georgia-Armenia negotiations have not been finalized to that effect.
LOS ANGELESEvery year adult industry executives decide which industry tradeshows they plan to attend, and one of the easiest items to schedule in advance is Webmaster Access Amsterdam every September. This year ModelCentro is again doing its part to make the show unforgettable by stepping forward as a Diamond Sponsor throughout the entire event.

Unlike a lot of shows that are new or growing in their earliest stages of development, Webmaster Access has been nurtured by AVN in Amsterdam for what seems like forever, and it has earned its place among the best shows annually on the adult industry calendar, said Stan DAman of ModelCentro.com. I remember going to the show as an attendee and thinking one day Ill be able to sponsor it, as a way of paying forward all the benefits the show has given to so many of us over the years. This year looks to be the best the show has ever been, and we look forward to seeing you all there.

From September 8th to 11th of 2017 at the DoubleTree Hilton near Amsterdam Centraal Station, returning marketers and brand new ones can meet, discuss business strategies, learn from each other and create meaningful business relationships that propel the entire industry forward.

Set up your own meetings with ModelCentro online via the website by visiting modelcentro. com/meet/wma in advance, or come by the ModelCentro booth during the event for a more impromptu meeting with key execs who can help you earn more from every minute of content you create.
A small food producer is hoping to highlight the great baking tradition in Northern Ireland with a themed biscuit.

Iconic Biscuits, based in Lisburn, Co Antrim, has created a hexagonal shaped sweet treat reflecting tourist landmark the Giants Causeway.

Made from locally sourced butter, honey and whiskey, the product will debut next month and has been developed to address a gap in the market for a distinctive Northern Ireland biscuit in the tourism and hospitality sectors, director Michael Thompson said.

All the complimentary biscuits used by hotels here are either from England or Scotland, he explained.

Scottish shortbreads, for example, are featured in rooms in hotels and guest houses. Even the shop in the Giants Causeway in Co Antrim sells shortbreads made with English clotted cream, featuring an image of the Causeway.

Ive nothing whatsoever against these biscuits - their quality and taste are good. But it seemed to me that weve a great baking tradition in Northern Ireland and could be doing more to showcase this.

Local bakery Yellow Door, based in Portadown, Co Armagh, will make the biscuits on behalf of Thompson, a food marketing professional by trade, who is also baking small batches in his home kitchen.

A second biscuit is also in development and should be ready for production by Christmas, Thompson added.

"I want visitors to Northern Ireland to have an opportunity to savour genuine flavours of Northern Ireland, such as grass-fed butter, Antrim honey and whiskey, along with tea or coffee in their rooms and other facilities in their hotels, guest houses and B&Bs.

I think the hospitality sector here should be offering more locally branded food. We need to be showcasing our excellent produce at every opportunity and particularly on menus to tourists and other visitors. More distinctive Northern Ireland-branded foods are essential to enable us to build on the success of the recent Year of Food and Drink."

Yellow Door Bakery recently partnered with craft brewery Pokertree Brewing of Carrickmore to create a new beer from sourdough yeast.
Measure passed Senate unanimously, now in House, would give terminally ill patients access to experimental treatments

Right to Try is gaining momentum across the country, yet states worry a cumbersome federal approval process will continue to inhibit patients' access to experimental drugs.The Food and Drug Administration allows health-care providers access to experimental drugs and procedures but the process can take months, which frustrates terminally ill patients searching for a cure. Right to Try advocates are hopeful Congress will continue advancing federal legislation backed by the Trump administration.In North Carolina, House Bill 652 opened the door for terminally ill patients to try experimental drugs or procedures, but only after exhausting all other options. The patient's doctor must also provide recommendation for the treatment, and patients are required to give "informed consent" before going forward.The bill, which got bipartisan support, passed unanimously in the House and the Senate. Former Gov. Pat McCrory signed H.B. 652 into law in July 2015.Starlee Coleman, a senior policy adviser at the Goldwater Institute said.Coleman wrote The expanded access program, sometimes called the compassionate use waiver, is a formal way for terminally ill patients to ask permission from the FDA to use experimental treatments. Going through the process is time consuming. The FDA has a month to determine whether to grant or deny the request, and any questions restarts the entire review process. Finally the Institutional Review Board must decide whether to approve the patient's application.Thirty seven states have Right to Try laws, and the other 13 have introduced legislation toward that end. The Goldwater Institute , a conservative and libertarian public policy think tank, has championed Right to Try legislation across the country.Right to Try laws, such as North Carolina's, bypass the FDA waiver program and shorten the process to receive treatment.Advocates for Right to Try laws continue to push for a federal law that would prevent the FDA from superseding the state. When state law and federal law conflict with each other, it is the federal government that usually wins through the supremacy clause in the U.S. Constitution.Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, introduced the Trickett Wendler Right to Try Act of 2017 in January, and it passed unanimously in August. A companion bill was filed in the House by Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pennsylvania, and Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Arizona.Among other things, it would insulate doctors from some lawsuits if they prescribed experimental treatments to terminally ill patients.The White House recently restated its support for a federal Right to Try bill. Vice President Mike Pence signed Indiana's bill into law in 2015 when he was governor of the Hoosier State.Coleman explained.Some people may get a false sense of hope, but, says Coleman, the benefits outweigh the risks, and personal choice should trump government bureaucracy.
According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, in the previous two decades over 31 million students have dropped out of college shortly after beginning their coursework. There are many reasons for this trend, including rising higher education costs and entering students' lack of academic preparation and focus.Another reason, however, is that many students often report feeling hindered by their general education requirements, which constitute a third of coursework toward a bachelor's degree. Students spend their first two years satisfying those requirements.A well-designed, challenging general education program can provide a breadth of important knowledge, as well as writing and analytical skills that employers often say are lacking in recent college graduates. Still, many students consider general education to be a waste of time, and view courses unrelated to their majors as unnecessary obstacles.Should higher education cater more to those students, who are interested in jumping as soon as possible into their major coursework, and who might prefer a quicker path to the job market? If the answer is "yes," college leaders might look to Europe for inspiration.Most European students begin taking courses specific to their major right away. During the application process, they apply to particular programs of study, not just to a university in general. Mostly, there's no such thing as an undeclared major or a core curriculum.Instead, universities focus on making students experts in their respective fields, and little to no time is spent on coursework perceived to be unrelated to degrees. Since students study a range of subjects in high school, the thinking goes, general education in college is redundant. As a result, in Europe it only takes three years to earn a bachelor's degree.This kind of system, or something similar to it, would probably appeal to many American students. And if aspects of the European model were incorporated in the U.S., community colleges in particular might be in the best position to implement them. Those schools already are geared to students who want to earn degrees and certificates in short time.And consider that in recent years some community colleges have started offering bachelor's degrees. The idea is that doing so lowers costs for taxpayers and attracts students who might otherwise have attended more expensive four-year colleges. Perhaps the same logic would apply to a new kind of degree program-one in which general education coursework is abbreviated and students focus on their major much earlier.Policymakers and community colleges could work to build programs along those lines, following the lead of the European universities. These programs might take between two and three years to complete. Graduates would be expected to possess an understanding of their fields close to or equal to that of graduates of four-year institutions.Eliminating general education courses entirely would be undesirable, though, given employers' preference for employees with the skills and knowledge imparted by them. This new degree-what might be called a "specialist's degree"-would therefore require courses in math, literature, U.S. history, economics, writing, and science.Jamie Shea, an academic advisor at Wake Technical Community College in Raleigh, North Carolina, says such a degree has "potential." In a Martin Center interview she said, "I think it would be nice to have the option." She added, however, that it would be hard to predict whether employers would respond favorably, and she wondered whether this opportunity for specialization would devalue the traditional liberal arts education.To be sure, this proposal is radical. Policymakers would need to debate and study it over the course of months and years. And its implementation would be a complex undertaking, to say the least, considering the issues of accreditation and funding that likely would arise. Adding these degrees would require more state resources and faculty. And all of this would require bold thinking from an often hidebound education establishment.But to Shea's point about possible employer skepticism toward the specialist's degree, it's worth pointing to the very real skepticism employers have toward traditional college degrees. Time and again, surveys reveal that hiring managers are underwhelmed by today's college graduates-an unsurprising finding given that learning assessments regularly show that large numbers of graduates are ill-prepared for white-collar work.This is not to say that colleges wouldn't need to show that these new programs are rigorous and capable of churning out talented graduates. In North Carolina and elsewhere, community colleges have a history of partnering with industry to produce job-ready graduates; schools could exploit those relationships, and forge new ones. They could require students to take the Collegiate Learning Assessment to show how they stack up to those at four-year colleges. These are just a couple of possibilities.Regarding the concern that specialist's degrees could undermine liberal arts education, this instead could be a case in which competition sparks positive change across the education spectrum. For instance, if the specialist's degree concept were to take off, four-year schools would need to show more clearly their added value, or else prospective students might simply choose the lower-cost community college option.And four-year colleges' enrollment numbers may dip, but in the long run this might be a good thing. Students interested in the world of ideas, liberal education, and advanced learning would still attend traditional programs; over time they might even become the majority on university campuses, improving upon the current academic environment, which often seems too ready to accommodate the lowest common denominator.Also, if demand for the specialist's degree increased, reform-minded policymakers, recognizing that graduates may not have received a deep education in the liberal arts, might pressure K-12 schools to pick up the slack on the front end and provide a better core of classes. This would be welcome, since much of what passes for general education today would have been deemed remedial in past generations anyway. And it would benefit all students, whether they attend college or not, as well as employers and society.In North Carolina, if the past is any guide, a proposal to create these new degree programs would likely face strong opposition. Several years ago, four community college presidents floated the idea of their creating bachelor's programs in nursing. But the idea was rejected last year, with some members of the State Board of Community Colleges expressing concern about mission creep and the potential to undermine relations with the University of North Carolina system. (An articulation agreement had recently been approved, making it easier for two-year students to transfer to UNC schools.)At any rate, importing Europe's degree model would not be a panacea for higher education, in North Carolina or other states. But for those who recognize the perhaps unfortunate truth that many students simply can't be bothered with courses outside of their majors, it could provide a template to help make the best of the situation. And along the way, it could lower costs and inject healthy competition into the system.
In the aftermath of Saturday's Charlottesville, Virginia chaos - a physically violent conflict between disgusting white supremacist alt-right thugs and repulsive Antifa thugs, which culminated in a murderous attack by an apparent alt-righter on the Antifa crowd and other miscellaneous counter-protesters, resulting in the death of one person and injuries to another 19 - the hot takes have been coming fast and furious.Here are some of the things you need to know about the awful events of yesterday.. One of the hottest takes from the Left is that the alt-right represents the entire right - that what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia represented conservatives broadly. That's factually incorrect, and intellectually dishonest. The alt-right is not just conservatives who like memes or who dislike Paul Ryan. The alt-right is a philosophy of white supremacy and white nationalism espoused by the likes of Vox Day, Richard Spencer, and Jared Taylor.Here's Jared Taylor explaining the alt-right:They openly acknowledge their antipathy for the Constitution and conservatism; they believe that strong centralized government is necessary to preserve "white civilization." They label all their enemies "cucks" - men in favor of "race-mixing." Here's a solid guide to what the alt-right actually thinks.There Aren't. Thanks to the hard work of alt-right apologists like Milo Yiannopoulos, the widespread perception has been created that the alt-right is a movement on the rise, with a fast-increasing number of devotees. The media have glommed onto the alt-right in order to smear the entire conservative movement with it. The alt-right is quite active online - according to the Anti-Defamation League, I was their top journalistic target in 2016, and I received nearly 8,000 anti-Semitic tweets during the election cycle - but they aren't particularly large. They fill up comments sections at sites like Breitbart, and they email spam, and they prank call people, and they live on 4chan boards, but the vast majority of alt-right anti-Semitic tweets came from just 1,600 accounts.Thanks, however, to their online vociferousness, they convinced members of the Trump campaign, apparently including the president, that it was important not to knock them.Yesterday Was Nothing New. President Trump's initial response to the attack in Charlottesville made no mention of the alt-right or white supremacy or even of racism. He simply stated, "We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides. It has been going on for a long time in our country - not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama. It has been going on for a long, long time. It has no place in America." Trump, who has been fully willing to call out radical Islam, had nothing to say about the alt-right. Some Trump defenders point out that Barack Obama never condemned Black Lives Matter in the wake of riots and shootings of police officers, either. But Obama was wrong, and his wrongness is not an excuse for Trump to sit by and do nothing.On Sunday morning, the White House used an unnamed spokesperson to release a statement:Why didn't Trump just come out himself and say the same? Because he tut-tutted the alt-right throughout his presidential campaign. He refused point-blank to condemn the KKK during an infamous exchange with CNN's Jake Tapper in March 2016. He refused to condemn the alt-right targeting Jewish journalists like Julia Ioffe in May. His chief campaign strategist, Steve Bannon, was head of Breitbart when Yiannopoulos wrote his screed, and openly stated that the site had become "the platform for the alt-right." Sadly, Trump has shown willingness to accept support from any source, no matter how despicable.The alt-right piece of human debris James Alex Fields Jr., 20, of Ohio, apparently deliberately drove his vehicle into counter-protesters and Antifa members. That's an act of political violence no different from the car attacks of Nice, France or Jerusalem or London Bridge. That's terror.President Trump's milquetoast statement has emboldened members of the alt-right. Here's the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer: "He outright refused to disavow. People saying he ducked are shills and kikes. He did the opposite of cuck. He refused to even mention anything to do with us. When reporters were screaming at him about White Nationalism he just walked out of the room." That account may be unfair to Trump. But it's what white nationalists are reading. They see Trump as a useful figure. David Duke said as much at the rally: "This represents a turning point for the people of this country. We are determined to take this country back. We're gonna fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. That's what we believed in. That's why we voted for Donald Trump because he said he's going to take our country back."Antifa was violent in Charlottesville. That's not according to me; that's according to Sheryl Gay Stolberg of The New York Times, who tweeted thusly:A few wrap-it-up thoughts from Charlottesville: 1. Striking how many of the white nationalists were young people, almost entirely men. 1/3I saw club-wielding "antifa" beating white nationalists being led out of the park 2/2She was forced to backtrack and suggest that the Antifa thugs weren't "hate-filled" after online blowback. But Antifa has trafficked in hate and violence for over a year now - we all remember how they've been assaulting people asserting their free speech rights in Berkeley, and how they have been engaged in street fights with alt-righters in places like Sacramento.This isn't "whataboutism." Nothing justifies the alt-right's racist perspective or murderous violence by an alt-righter. But it would be factually incorrect to ignore Antifa's continuing role in the violent incidents that have now spread across the country. Because the Marxists in Antifa try to shut down free speech, they drive foolish people into the morally incorrect binary decision of supporting the alt-right, rather than loudly rejecting the ideology and violence of both sides.Some members of the Leftist media have attempted to term large swaths of the right "alt-right" - just last week, some idiots in the media attempted to lump me in with the alt-right because I thought Google was wrong to fire James Damore. I am, for the record, perhaps the loudest voice against the alt-right in America, and I openly and repeatedly criticized Trump for failing to condemn the alt-right. For some evidence, see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. There's a lot more where that came from. But the media seek to paint the entire right with the alt-right brush, even though the alt-right hates the Constitutional conservative right. That drives otherwise reasonable people into thinking that perhaps they are alt-right - and then they, in knee-jerk fashion, defend the actual alt-right because they're confused about definitions. The Left needs to stop this nonsense immediately.Charlottesville, Sacramento, Berkeley - we're watching a microcosmic re-enactment of Weimar Republic brownshirt-vs.-reds violence in real-time, complete with the same flags being flown. Just as then, some leadership condemning the evil of alt-right white supremacy, the viciousness of hard-left Marxism, and the violence anyone commits in violation of basic rights should be unceasing and thunderous.It's not.And so the problem is likely to metastasize.
Contact: Ford Porter

Ford Porter govpress@nc.gov

RALEIGH: Today, Governor Cooper participated in the launch of the Face to Face initiative, a national call to action sponsored by the Council of State Governments encouraging policymakers to personally engage with the people who are closest to the correctional system. Governors from across the country and both sides of the aisle are participating in today's national effort.Governor Cooper and DPS Secretary Erik Hooks visited the Pardoned By Christ (PBC) Transitional House in Raleigh to tour the home and speak with residents to hear about their experiences with the criminal justice system and the transition to independence after leaving prison.Gov. Cooper said.Supporting formerly incarcerated people who are working to transition to productive members of our communities is a priority for the Cooper Administration and ties directly to other critical issues facing our state and nation, including the opioid crisis and workforce development. Governor Cooper's budget, Common Ground Solutions for North Carolina, recommended an additional $9 million for behavioral treatment, support for local re-entry councils, and extending the length of time offenders may remain in transitional housing to help the successful transition of formerly incarcerated individuals back to the community.The PBC Transitional House ministry was established to provide support for ex-offenders as they transition back into society. Most have had substance use and addictive disorders that led to their incarceration. PBC provides a safe and healthy environment, free from substance use, promoting a lifestyle without dependency.The Face to Faceinitiative-sponsored by the National Reentry Resource Center and The Council of State Governments Justice Center in partnership with the Association of State Correctional Administrators (ASCA), JustLeadershipUSA, and the National Center for Victims of Crime (NCVC)- launched today with a wave of public activities, featuring both Republican and Democratic governors meeting with people impacted by the correctional system in their respective states.To date, other governors committed to participating include: Gov. Dannel Malloy (D-CT), Gov. Eric Greitens (R-MO), Gov. Gary Herbert (R-UT), Gov. Steve Bullock (D-MT), Gov. Brian Sandoval (R-NV), Gov. Nathan Deal (R-GA), Gov. Susana Martinez (R-NM), Gov. Kim Reynolds (R-IA), Gov. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) and Gov. David Ige (D-HI). Face to Face is made possible with funding support from the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance. For more information about the Face to Face initiative, visit CSGJusticeCenter.org/NRRC/Face-to-Face/
Company will create 170 jobs in Cleveland County and 30 in Charlotte

Contact: Ford Porter

Ford Porter govpress@nc.gov

RALEIGH: Albemarle Corporation, a global specialty chemicals company, will add 200 jobs in North Carolina, Governor Cooper announced today. In Cleveland County, the company will add 170 new jobs and invest $10.5 million over five years with a project facilitated in part by a Job Development Investment Grant (JDIG). The company also plans to continue to grow its corporate headquarters in Charlotte by adding 30 jobs and plans to increase its investment in Cleveland County to a total of $20 million.said Governor Cooper.Albemarle Corporation is a global specialty chemicals company with leading positions in lithium, bromine and refining catalysts. Albemarle Corporation products power critical industries, from energy and communications, to transportation and electronics. The company currently has approximately 150 employees at its Kings Mountain operations center and approximately 130 employees at its Charlotte corporate headquarters.said North Carolina Commerce Secretary Anthony M. Copeland.The North Carolina Department of Commerce and the Economic Development Partnership of N.C. (EDPNC) led the state's support for the company's expansion.Albemarle Corporation will add a variety of job functions in Cleveland County with this project, including operations and engineering services. Salaries for the 170 new Cleveland County positions will vary, with an average salary of $78,225, once all positions are filled. The average salary in Cleveland County is $36,576.said Luke Kissam, Albemarle's Chairman, President and CEO.Albemarle Corporation's expansion in Cleveland County will be facilitated, in part, by a JDIG, approved by the state's Economic Investment Committee earlier today. Over the course of the five-year term of this grant, the project will grow the state's economy by an estimated $390 million. Using a formula that takes into account the new tax revenues generated by the new jobs, the JDIG agreement authorizes the potential reimbursement to the company of up to $4.3 million, spread over 12 years. State payments only occur following performance verification by N.C. Commerce and N.C. Revenue that the company has met its incremental job creation and investment targets. JDIG projects result in positive net tax revenue to the state treasury, even after taking into consideration the grant's reimbursement payments to a given company.Because Albemarle Corporation chose to expand its existing operations in Cleveland County, the company's JDIG agreement also calls for moving as much as $479,300 into the state's Industrial Development Fund - Utility Account. The Utility Account helps rural communities finance necessary infrastructure upgrades to attract future business. Even when new jobs are created in a Tier 2 county such as Cleveland, the new tax revenue generated through JDIG grants helps communities across the state. More information on the state's economic tier designations is available here.said Senator Warren Daniel.said House Speaker Tim Moore.said Rep. Kelly Hastings of Cleveland and Gaston counties.Partnering with N.C. Commerce and the EDPNC on this project were the North Carolina General Assembly, the North Carolina Community College System, Gardner-Webb University, the City of Kings Mountain, Cleveland County and the Cleveland County Economic Development Partnership.
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.
Tom Campbell

The plight of rural North Carolina, like the weather, generates lots of talk but little action. Conditions in the rural east and west continue to deteriorate while urban and suburban areas are thriving.UNC's Carolina Population Center reports that between 2010 and 2016 nearly 75 percent of the cities and towns in North Carolina either lost population or grew slower than the state average. The hardest hit were located in Eastern North Carolina. The litany of rural problems includes not just the loss of population, but also business closures, high unemployment rates, crumbling infrastructures and tax base declines making it impossible to adequately support education, healthcare, roads, clean water and other amenities.The history of North Carolina since colonial times is one of population migration, generally westward, in search of better economic opportunities. Small towns grew up with local stores and banks, courts, local governments, roads and rails that aided farm to market and other commerce in these "crossroads" communities. Later, mechanization and manufacturing lured residents from the family farm to improved incomes. This migration reality continues today.Back in 1663, King Charles I granted eight Lords Proprietors dominion over Carolina and these eight landlords recognized that to prevent attacks and gain wealth from the venture they had to attract settlers to farm, fish and timber the land. They offered free land and greatly reduced taxes in exchange for settling here and many took them up on their offer.Let's think out of the box regarding present day rural areas. Perhaps what is old might become new again. North Carolina has established a precedent of offering economic incentives to big industry to locate or expand in our state.Let us propose a pilot project - offering free land and economic incentives for those willing to locate in our hardest hit regions. Is it possible we could incentivize excellent teachers, doctors and healthcare providers, small business owners and retirees sufficiently enough to get them to live and work where they are most needed? The economic impact wouldn't be so great as that 200 or 2,000 employee plant we are so eager to land, but in many communities another 50 or 100 people could greatly help restore viability. And to offset those who will surely protest we don't have the money for such a project we would remind them that our recently passed state budget that included tens of millions of dollars for pork barrel projects. Evidence indicates many of those who received funds never requested them.What could be more important than addressing our rural crisis? Every taxpayer, every resident, every corporation in our state has a stake in finding solutions, because the burden of supporting these impoverished rural areas, whether enforced by court action or moral obligation, will consume more and more taxpayer resources. We are not suggesting that the solution is the obligation of government alone but would also require assistance from philanthropists, corporations, landowners and others.Maybe our proposal won't work and maybe there are better solutions, but it is increasingly obvious that just talking about the problem isn't helping. Our state cannot prosper if 75 percent of its cities and towns are dying or stagnant. Let's try some new approaches. We are all in this together.
By Anna Mehler Paperny

CHAMPLAIN, N.Y. (Reuters) - Asylum seekers, mainly from Haiti, clambering over a gully from upstate New York into Canada on Friday were undeterred by the prospect of days in border tents, months of uncertainty and signs of a right-wing backlash in Quebec.

More than 200 people a day are illegally walking across the U.S. border into Quebec to seek asylum, government officials said. Army tents have been erected near the border to house up to 500 people as they undergo security screenings.

Over 4,000 asylum seekers have walked into Canada in the first half of this year, with some citing U.S. President Donald Trumps tougher stance on immigration.

The cars carrying the latest asylum seekers begin arriving at dawn in Champlain, New York, across from the Canadian border. On Friday, the first groups included two young Haitian men, a family of five from Yemen and a Haitian family with young twins.

"We have no house. We have no family. If we return we have nowhere to sleep, no money to eat," said a Haitian mother of a 2-year-old boy, who declined to give her name.

Each family pauses a moment when a Royal Canadian Mounted police officer warns them they will be arrested if they cross the border illegally, before walking a well-trodden path across the narrow gully into Canada.

Asylum seekers are crossing the border illegally because a loophole in a U.S. pact allows anyone who manages to enter Canada to file an asylum claim and stay in Canada while they await their application outcome. Because the pact requires refugees to claim asylum in whatever country they first arrive, they would be turned back to the United States at legal border crossings.

They Haitian family is arrested immediately and bussed to the makeshift camp. Border agents led a line of about two dozen asylum seekers on Friday into a government building at Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle to be processed.

The Red Cross is providing food, hygiene items and telephone access, spokesman Carl Boisvert said. He estimated the fenced-off camp, which has been separated into sections for families and single migrants, is about half full.

Story continues

Border staff and settlement agencies are straining to accommodate the influx, which has been partly spurred by false rumors of guaranteed residency permits.

Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said the government was enforcing all immigration laws.

"Canadians consider our country to be a very generous country and I'm proud of that. But we're also a rules-based country ... and it's important for (Canadians) to know that our rules are being enforced," she told reporters in Edmonton.

Canada is on track for the highest refugee claims this year in almost a decade. More than 4,300 of the 18,500 people who filed claims in the first half of 2017 crossed the border illegally.

The majority of illegal border crossers have been arriving in Quebec. The mainly French-speaking province got more asylum claims in the first six months of 2017 than it did for all of 2016, according to provincial government figures, and the influx is prompting a backlash.

Francois Legault, leader of Quebec's right-wing opposition party Coalition Avenir Quebec, called for a harder line on asylum seekers in a Facebook post, accusing the government of issuing "an invitation to stampede toward the Quebec border without going through customs."

Once processed, asylum seekers are bussed to Montreal, which has opened its Olympic Stadium, a former hospital, a school and other places to provide temporary housing.

Asylum seekers face a long wait and an uncertain future: Delays for refugee hearings are the longest they have been in years and time spent in the United States can count against applicants claims.

Canada ended its ban on deportations to Haiti last year and the success rate for Haitian asylum seekers has been mixed.

Edmond Clervoir and his family spent three days at the Quebec border and have been in Montreal's Olympic stadium a week, sleeping on cots among the 2,400 people housed in the arena.

"There are many steps to go through," said Clervoir, who had worked in a Boston hotel for a year before packing up. "But we'll go through those steps."

(Reporting by Anna Mehler Paperny; Editing by Chris Reese and Leslie Adler)
By Hyungwon Kang TORONTO (Reuters) - A 62-year-old Canadian pastor held in a North Korean prison for more than 2 1/2 years said he suspected his life sentence was commuted last week to help reduce pressure on Pyongyang. "I believe (North Korean leader) Kim Jung Un let me go as a gesture of goodwill in the face of so much rhetoric," Hyeon Soo Lim told a packed worship hall in a Toronto suburb on Sunday. That was his first public appearance since his release on Wednesday, during a week when Washington and Pyongyang were exchanging escalating threats of violence amid their long-running dispute over North Korea's nuclear program. Canadian authorities have declined to discuss the negotiations that led to Lim's release. Wearing a baggy charcoal-gray suit and speaking in his native tongue of Korean, Lim described a harsh life of labor in solitary confinement, where he was forced to dig holes in frozen ground for two winters. "The mud was so hard that it took two days to dig one hole, 16 hours," he told hundreds of parishioners. He said his health suffered in his first two months at the labor camp, and his weight dropped by 23 kg (51 pounds), but he added that his condition had since improved. The congregation at Light Presbyterian Church, one of Canada's largest houses of worship, welcomed him with flowers, hugs and standing ovations. "Reverend Lim's release was a miracle, work of God," said church founder Chai Hoon Park, who recruited Lim in 1985. "He escaped from the fire pit." Lim sat at the front of the hall holding his 1-year-old granddaughter, who was born while he was in captivity. He appeared jubilant, thanking his congregation and the Canadian government for their support. During his first year in captivity, he had no Bible, so he read more than 100 books and watched over 300 films, all of them about North Korea, he said. He then received Korean and English Bibles, which he read five times, memorizing more than 700 verses since he was not allowed to write. Lim was glad to be at his home church after worshiping alone for 130 Sundays, although he was grateful for an extended time of solitude with God, he said. "God gave me the ability to imagine," he said. "When you don't watch TV or read the newspaper, there's a lot of time." (Reporting by Hyungwon Kang in Mississauga, Ontario; Writing by Jim Finkle; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)
By Phoebe Fronista and Alkis Konstantinidis ATHENS (Reuters) - Firefighters battled more than 90 forest fires across Greece on Monday, an outbreak fed by dry winds and hot weather that saw blazes burning near Athens, in the Peloponnese, and on the Ionian islands of Zakynthos and Kefalonia. The fire near Athens was burning unchecked for a second day, damaging dozens of homes. It had started in Kalamos, a coastal holiday spot some 45 km (30 miles) northeast of the capital, and spread overnight to three more towns. A state of emergency was declared in the area. On Zakynthos, an island popular with foreign tourists, several fires continued to burn for a fourth day and authorities declared a state of emergency. One minister said those fires had been set deliberately. "It's arson according to an organized plan," Justice Minister Stavros Kontonis, who is the MP for Zakythnos, told state TV when asked to comment on the dozen fires burning on the island. "There is no doubt about it." It is not clear what caused the fires, and no investigation has begun into possible arson. Late July and August often see a outbreaks of forest and brush fires in Greece, where high temperatures help create tinder-box conditions. Near Athens, authorities ordered a precautionary evacuation of two summer camps and homes in the area and evacuated a monastery after flames reached its fence on Monday. Hundreds of Kalamos residents fled, heading to the beach to spend the night. "It was a terrible mess, that's what it was. You could see homes on fire, people running, people desperate, it was chaos and the fire was very big," a resident told Reuters TV. Andreas Theodorou, a local councilor, said the blaze had damaged "several dozens of homes." "Help did not arrive fast enough, and if you don't stop a forest fire so large as soon as it breaks out, it's very hard to put it out," he said. The fire brigade said rugged terrain dotted with small communities made the fire fighting difficult. In the Peloponnese region of Ilia, the site of Greece's worst fires in 2007, which killed more than 70 people, blazes broke out in three areas on Monday, prompting the evacuation of a village. (Additional reporting by Lefteris Papadimas, George Georgiopoulos and Karolina Tagaris; Writing by Karolina Tagaris; Editing by Larry King)
An immigration lawyer says as many as one in five Haitian asylum seekers crossing the U.S.-Canada border in Quebec may make their way to Toronto.

Joel Etienne says while it's an estimate, the city is a big draw for the thousands of migrants leaving the U.S. behind. Officials say upwards of 700 people a day  a large percentage of whom are Haitian  have been streaming across the border at Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Que., before being taken into custody and sent to Montreal, where thousands are now staying at a temporary welcome centre at the Olympic Stadium.

Toronto, meanwhile, has been dealing with an influx of newcomers all year. The number of refugees using the city's emergency shelter system is now more than double what it was last year, with an average of 1,223 people per night seeking help in July according to city staff.

Etienne says there's a key difference between many of the Haitian asylum seekers arriving now and those fleeing places like Syria. Many, he said, were well-established in American cities, like Miami, and are only leaving because of the U.S. administration's threats to deport them back to Haiti.

"I don't expect that the city is going to have to ... open up a thousand beds and get nervous about delivering emergency resources," he said, adding many have already established connections in the places they're hoping to call home.

For most, Etienne says, legal challenges will be their biggest hurdle.

Coun. Jim Karygiannis travelled to Haiti in the wake of the massive earthquake that hit the island nation in 2010.

While he's concerned about the growing number of refugees in city shelters, he says the new arrivals will benefit Toronto.

"Being a sanctuary city I think that we have to do everything we can to step forward and make sure that these people feel at home," he said.

Karygiannis said the city must find sustainable ways to make sure it can look after immigrants arriving here, floating the idea of a call for Torontonians to open their doors to newcomers for a few months at a time, or converting some of the city's abandoned buildings into housing.

"That will certainly ease the situation on the shelters," he said.
Security

Stanford Hosts Cyber Bootcamp for Congressional Staffers

Stanford University is hosting its third annual cyber bootcamp for congressional staffers this week in an effort to bring policy makers up to speed on a group of thorny and accelerating issues with myriad ramifications.

August 14-16, the university is offering informational sessions, panel discussions, role-playing exercises and networking opportunities for nearly three dozen staffers from the United States House and Senate, representing offices and committees such as Homeland Security, Commerce, Judiciary, Energy, Appropriations and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

"We created the cyber bootcamp precisely because many congressional staffers had told us this was the type of help they needed," said Amy Zegart, co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), a sponsor of the event, in a prepared statement.

Zegart said that after three years there is a waiting list for the bootcamp and points to Senator John McCain's visits to the Hoover Institution, which hosts the event, and CISAC as examples of the bootcamp's effects on policy making.

Topics and speakers at this year's bootcamp include:

"The Congressional Cyber Boot Camp is our signature event because we're connecting the worlds of public policy and cybersecurity in ways that help advance national security." Zegart said in a prepared statement.
TUESDAY, Aug. 15, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- As if people newly diagnosed with cancer don't have enough to worry about, a new study suggests the diagnosis may put their hearts at risk, too.

The study found that newly diagnosed cancer patients are at increased risk for a condition called arterial thromboembolism, which occurs when blood flow is blocked by a clot that's traveled from another part of the body, such as the legs.

The potential heart threat is higher "especially during the first six months after diagnosis," said a team led by Dr. Babak Navi, of Weill Cornell Medicine's department of neurology in New York City.

Looking through a 2002-2011 database of about 140,000 cancer patients and an equal number of people without cancer, Navi's team found that cancer patients had twice the risk of an arterial thromboembolism in the six months after cancer diagnosis than patients without cancer.

The study couldn't prove cause and effect, but the researchers said the risk for the clotting event varied by cancer type. Patients with lung, stomach and pancreatic cancers were found to be at highest risk.

Cancer stage seemed to matter, too. Patients with advanced cancers had a higher risk of the clot-linked event, compared to people with earlier-stage cancers, the researchers noted.

The study also found that cancer patients were at increased risk for heart attacks, as well as ischemic strokes, which are caused by blocked blood flow to the brain.

Why the uptick in cardiovascular risk after a cancer diagnosis? Navi and colleagues said that while smoking might be one underlying risk factor, the trend was seen even for patients whose cancers weren't linked to smoking.

The researchers noted that cancer has been known to induce what's known as a "hypercoagulable" state, where clot formation becomes more likely.

Certain cancer chemotherapies might also boost the odds for clots, the researchers said.

Whatever the causes, the findings suggest that newly diagnosed cancer patients, particularly those with advanced disease, might benefit from anti-clotting and cholesterol-lowering statins to reduce their risk of heart disease, Navi's group said.

However, because cancer patients are often prone to bleeding due to treatment, clinical trials are needed to assess the safety of such drug treatment, the researchers cautioned.

Two heart specialists weren't surprised by the new findings.

"Cancer leads to many secondary complications in the body, and one is the increase in blood clots, as this study points out, which can lead to heart attacks or strokes," said Dr. Satjit Bhusri, a cardiologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

But Bhusri stressed that before anti-clotting medications are prescribed, "each patient needs a personalized risk/benefit evaluation" to assess the safety of such an approach.

Dr. Puneet Gandotra directs cardiac catheterization at Southside Hospital in Bay Shore, N.Y. He agreed that the new study "serves as a call to arms for the cardiology and oncology community to work together in treating these highly complex patients."

The study was published Aug. 14 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

More information

The Radiological Society of North America has more on blood clots.
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New York, August 14, 2017Iraqi authorities should stop threatening the pro-Kurdish broadcaster NRT and political satirist Ahmed al-Basheer, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. In a letter NRT received August 10, the Iraqi Communications and Media Commission inquired whether the broadcasters Arabic-language channel would continue airing al-Basheers program and threatened to pursue legal action if the shows violations continue, according to news reports.

The letter, dated July 30, did not specify what violations prompted the threat, according to the reports. The program lampoons politicians and armed groups. In a July 28 episode, al-Basheer mocked the former head of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, Ammar al-Hakim, who a few days prior had announced his departure from the council to launch a new political movement, Tayyar al-Hikma. The newly formed movement announced possible plans to form an alliance with the Sadrist Movement and the ruling National Coalition ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for 2018, according to news reports.

The Iraqi Communications and Media Commission and NRT General Manager Mushrik Abbas did not immediately respond to CPJs emails requesting comment.

Iraqi regulators should not allow themselves to become political enforcers, threatening satirists with legal action for cracking jokes, CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour said from Washington D.C. We call on the Iraqi government to cease threatening NRT and political satirist Ahmed al-Basheer and to allow all news media to operate freely.

In a video statement published on August 11, al-Basheer said that the team behind the show was waiting to receive more information.

[Politicians] tell you that you have the right to criticize, that its a democracy, he said in the statement. But when criticism reaches them, they show their real faces.

In a video released yesterday in response to the regulators threats, al-Basheer imagines himself imprisoned for his work. You will find all fellow journalists here, an actor playing another prisoner says in the video as al-Basheer joins him in a cell.

According to news reports, Al-Basheers program first aired in 2014 on the Iraqi broadcaster Al-Shahid al-Mostaqil, where it developed its style of lampooning politicians and armed groups, but moved to the Iraqi TV channel Al-Sumaria in 2016. In May 2016, after Al-Sumaria broadcasted only a few episodes of the program, the Iraqi Communications and Media Commission ordered the channel to stop carrying it, saying the shows content was defamatory, according to news reports. Since 2016, the show has aired on the German broadcaster Deutsche Welles Arabic-language channel and on NRT, according to news reports.

Each episode begins with a reminder that the Iraqi constitution guarantees freedom of speech.
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New York, August 15, 2017Ukrainian security and immigration authorities should remove all restrictions on Russian journalist Tamara Nersesyans ability to report from Ukraine, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The Ukrainian National Security Service (SBU) last night detained Nersesyan, a special correspondent for the Russian state broadcaster VGTRK, and deported her to Russia.

Nersesyan told the Russian media holding RBC that security officials detained her in the street in Kiev last night, brought her to the SBU headquarters, and questioned her for three hours. She said she was told she was being expelled from Ukraine and banned from the country for three years because of her reporting, which security officials told her inflamed the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

We call on Ukraine to allow Tamara Nersesyan and all journalists to report freely from the country, regardless of their country of origin or the editorial line of their employers, CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova said. Banning Russian media from Ukraine is neither democratic nor conducive to resolving the crisis between the two countries.

The SBU accused the journalist of damaging Ukraines national interests, the Russian news agency TASS reported.

I hope nobody doubts that this person was acting to the detriment of Ukraines national interests, SBU spokeswoman Olena Gitlyanska wrote on Facebook today, without elaborating. According to Ukrainian media, Nersesyan had reported on the Ukrainian patriotic festival Bandershtat before she was expelled.

In May, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a decree that restricts or suspends the access of least 19 Russian media companies and four Russian websites to telecommunications services, and banned at least 13 journalists from entering Ukraine for a year, CPJ reported at the time.

Some Ukrainian journalists have also been harassed, threatened, or branded unpatriotic after criticizing the government, CPJ research shows.
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New York, August 14, 2017The Committee to Protect Journalists today condemned the harassment of journalists in Ukraine and called on authorities to ensure the press can report freely, after the countrys National Security Service raided the offices of a news website and a member of parliament criticized Sergiy Tomilenko, head of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine, for his response to the raid.

Security service agents searched the Kiev premises of the independent news website Strana and the homes of at least two of its journalists on August 8, according to media reports. Authorities accused the website of allegedly disclosing state secrets, reports said. The day after the raid, MP Dmytro Tymchuk accused Tomilenko of supporting anti-Ukrainian activities after the head of the union criticized the raid. Tomilenko told CPJ that he has since received threatening messages on social media.

The search of Stranas offices is part of a criminal investigation into allegations that the publication disclosed state secrets, Kyiv Post reported. Agents searched the websites offices in June on the same accusations and confiscated a flash drive from Editor-in-Chief Igor Guzhva that allegedly contained confidential information belonging to the Ministry of Defense, reports said. Guzhva is being investigated for disclosure of state secrets, according to reports. He has denied the accusation and said the flash drive was planted, according to reports.

Separately, prosecutors charged Guzhva in June with extorting money in exchange for not publishing articles about a politician, according to reports. Guzhva denied the charge and said he was set up, according to press reports.

Ukrainian authorities should end their harassment of Strana, drop all charges against Igor Guzhva, and stop fostering a hostile environment toward the press, said CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova. Politicians are creating a toxic atmosphere for the media by dividing Ukrainian journalists into patriotic and unpatriotic, when they should be encouraging a wide variety of viewpoints to inform the public.

Tomilenko said that after he criticized the harassment of the news website last week, MP Tymchuk accused the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine in a Facebook post of [acting] against the informational security of Ukraine by supporting anti-Ukrainian media. Tomilenko said he has since received multiple threats on social media. Some of the threats sent from Facebook users, which CPJ has viewed, called for Tomilenkos imprisonment and the cleansing of the fifth colonya reference to independent media.

During a mission to Kiev last month to launch a report on the unsolved murder last year of International Press Freedom Award recipient Pavel Sheremet, a CPJ delegation found an atmosphere of harassment and intimidation of independent journalists who criticize Ukraines government policies.
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union is rallying dozens of countries to stop the trade of torture equipment and lethal-injection drugs, which could make it harder for the United States to perform executions, a top EU official said on Thursday.





The bloc will call for an alliance against trade in goods such as spiked batons and drug cocktails at the United Nations in September following an EU move last year to strengthen its own export ban, the EU's trade chief Cecilia Malmstrom told Reuters in an interview.





"We want to ally with countries to try to stop the trade in products used for executing and torturing," Malmstrom said.





Abolition of the death penalty is a central tenet of the EU's foreign policy and is also a requirement for countries seeking to join the 28-nation bloc.





"We are talking about poison, chemicals used in executions, thumb screws, (electric-shock) belts," said Malmstrom, a Swedish liberal who as a former EU home affairs commissioner and EU lawmaker met torture victims and campaigned on rights issues.





"We've already seen that the end to some European countries exporting chemicals has made it more difficult to execute people in the U.S.," she said. "This is of course our aim."





Tougher EU laws, including a 2011 export ban on lethal-injection drugs, are making U.S. executions harder to perform by cutting off supplies by large-scale manufacturers of sodium thiopental, an anaesthetic in such injections.





Mongolia, which outlawed the death penalty in 2015, and Argentina, which has similar legislation to the EU, will jointly launch the initiative with the EU on Sept. 18 in New York.





Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Norway are among the first countries expected to back the plan, Malmstrom said.





'World's worst human rights offenders not expected to support the cause'





The alliance would first see governments sign up to a political commitment during the United Nations General Assembly, and then start helping local customs authorities track the transit of torture equipment and lethal-injection drugs.





If successful, the United Nations itself could eventually draw up a convention against the trade in goods used for torture and execution, which would be a legally-binding treaty.





The project marks an effort by the European Union to promote human rights after an economic crisis saw its "soft power" wane, business interests trumping rights issues and allies such as Turkey turn increasingly authoritarian.





Malmstrom said she did not expect the world's worst human rights offenders to support the cause. Iran, Saudi Arabia and China carried out the most executions last year, according to Amnesty International.





But an alliance at the United Nations could make it harder for countries to obtain, for example, Chinese-made riot shields with electrified spikes, and bring more publicity to the issue.





"China is one of the countries that tortures its own citizens and who executes people, so they are not on the list of invitees (to the alliance) but they are open to attend (the U.N. launch)," Malmstrom said.

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: Reuters, Robin Emmott and Philip Blenkinsop, July 20, 2017
A jury that found a former Dent County sheriff's deputy and state correctional officer guilty of murdering his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend couldn't decide Saturday whether he should be put to death for his crimes - a decision a judge must now make.





On Thursday, the jury found Marvin Rice guilty of 1st-degree murder in the shooting of Annette Durham, 32, and 2nd-degree murder in the shooting of Steven Strotkamp, 39.





During the penalty phase of the trial on Friday, the jury decided Rice should serve a life sentence for the 2nd-degree murder charge. The jury had a choice between life without the possibility of probation or parole or death on the 1st-degree murder charge. The jury voted 11 to 1 in favor of the death penalty, but the decision had to be unanimous.





Now the decision as to whether Rice will spend his life in prison or be sent to death row rests with Judge Kelly Parker, who has set a punishment hearing for Oct. 6.





The fatal shootings in 2011 sprang from a custody dispute between Rice and Durham over their son.





Rice had an affair with Durham while he was a Dent County sheriff's deputy. Durham, who struggled with drug addiction, had been in and out of jail several times and their son was born in 2010 while she was serving a prison sentence.





Rice and his wife took custody, but no formal agreement was in place, Dent County Prosecuting Attorney Andrew Curley told jurors in his opening statement Monday.





When Durham got out of prison in 2011 after another short stay, she was determined to get her life together and establish a relationship with her son, Curley said. Rice initially allowed her only brief visits supervised by him.





But on Dec. 10, 2011, she was allowed an unsupervised visit and decided that she wanted to keep her son overnight, Curley said.





When Rice found out, he went to the house Durham shared with Strotkamp outside of Salem.





He shot both with a .40-caliber pistol, took his son and then gave the boy to his wife before leading police on a high-speed chase that ended in a shootout in a Jefferson City hotel during a Christmas party, Curley said.





Curley said Monday that Strotkamp was able to identify Rice as his killer before he died. Durham's daughter also testified that she heard loud noises that she later learned were gunshots before seeing Rice with a pistol. He took his son and left without saying a word, she told jurors. She saw the 2 bodies before running for help.





Public defender Charles Hoskins told jurors that Rice "snapped" when Durham told him, "You're never seeing (your son) again, and neither is your family."





He said Rice was under "extreme emotional distress" at the time and that a pituitary tumor and the 17 medications he was taking affected his impulse control and made him misinterpret reality in a paranoid manner.

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The Foreign Ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, reiterated their grave concerns over the escalation of tensions in the Korean Peninsula, including the most recent testing by North Korea of intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, on the 4 and 28 of July of this year and previous ballistic missile launches and two nuclear tests in 2016.

These developments seriously threaten peace, security and stability in the region and the world. In this regard, ASEAN foreign ministers called on North Korea to immediately comply with its obligations under all relevant U.N. Security Council Resolutions.

ASEAN nations reiterated their support for the complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful manner, called for the exercise of self-restraint, and underscored the importance of creating conditions conducive for dialogue to de-escalate tensions.

ASEAN supports initiatives to improve inter-Korean relations towards establishing permanent peace in the Korean Peninsula. ASEAN stands ready to play a constructive role in contributing to peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula.

The foreign ministers strongly called on North Korea, as a participant of the ASEAN Regional Forum, or ARF, to help realize the ARF Vision to maintain the Asia-Pacific as a region of lasting peace, stability, friendship and prosperity.

Speaking in Manila, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson underscored that the new U.N. sanctions and ASEAN statement "send a strong message that North Korea understands the expectation of the rest of the international community going forward."

The hope is that North Korea will choose a different pathway, said U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, "and when the conditions are right that we can sit and have a dialogue around the future of North Korea so that they feel secure and prosper economically."
The Spanish Congress during an address by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.

In 2016, Helen Mukoro packed her bags and moved to Teruel in northeast Spain to start a new left-leaning political party whose goal was to defend decency, democracy, and human rights.

For 15 days, this 47-year-old Nigerian-born woman traipsed the length of Aragon with pamphlets emblazoned with UDT (Union de Todos  Union for All), introducing herself as the head of this new party that would only exist in the region. That was as far as the campaign went.

One of the reasons there are so many parties in Spain is that it is extremely easy to register

We focused on Teruel because its depopulated and we thought we would get noticed, she says, recalling the 48 votes she garnered at the general elections. It was the party that picked up the least number of votes in the entire country.

I couldnt even vote for myself because I wasnt registered there, says Mukoro, who actually lives in Denia, Alicante, where local elections in 2015 brought her an equally dismal result. But you know At least weve provided an example for other immigrants and have shown that we can participate in political life and help the country, she adds. Hers was just one of the 4,772 legally active parties in the country, according to the Ministry of the Interior.

Since the transition to democracy in 1976, the country has never had so many political movements actually registered with the authorities. During the last 10 years the number has skyrocketed by 50%, a trend linked to the municipal elections  2011 and 2015 were the two years when most entities signed themselves up with the ministry.

Only 20% of the 51 parties registered in 2017 have ambitions at the national level

The sheer volume of local political parties is one of the hallmarks of Spanish politics, says Gaspar Llamazares, the former federal coordinator of the United Left (IU) and founder of Actua, the second to most recent party to register. The most recent was Ola Cantabria, set up by former leaders of Ciudadanos in the northern region.

One of the reasons there are so many parties in Spain is that it is extremely easy to register. Curiously, theres little red tape involved. Moreover, once they are signed up, parties are considered permanent and actually need to inform the authorities should they wish to be dissolved. Consequently, many fail to take the last step. Of the five parties that have been registered the longest  Spanish Falange of the JONS, New National Left, Regional Social Party, Rural Spanish Party and Labor  four disappeared from the electoral map years ago. During the last general elections in Spain, for example, only 51 parties actually took part.

According to a study by the University of Barcelona, a new factor has come into play over the last 10 years, namely the economic crisis which put an end to the two-party system. New political parties such as Podemos and Ciudadanos were able to take advantage of the situation, said a university spokesman.

Helen Mukoros Union for All party garnered just 48 votes at the 2016 general election in Spain

Even the former superjudge Baltasar Garzon  currently the head of the legal team for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange  got involved, joining Llamazares in Actua. The traditional parties didnt perform well and that created an opportunity, he added. But you cant think of all the parties on the same terms. Many are simply the product of circumstance and are local.

Only 20% of the 51 parties registered in 2017, for example, had ambitions at the national level. Among them was Unidos para la Independencia de la Justicia  United for Independent Justice  set up on April 11 by a group outraged by a corruption case in which Spanish firm Afinsa allegedly operated a pyramid selling scheme. We have spent 12 years waiting for justice to be done, meeting politicians that seem to listen to us but then do nothing. So we decided to set up our own party, says Eduardo Berbis, the president who is getting into shape to fight the 2019 European elections.

We aim to appeal to all those collectives suffering injustice, he says.

English version by Heather Galloway.
The Engana railway tunnel, one of the longest in Spain , is part of an ambitious project proposed by Spanish dictator Francisco Franco 58 years ago, but was never completed. The military rulers political prisoners made up a large portion of its builders. Others were dragooned from neighboring towns, around 20 of whom lost their lives building this tunnel that was never used. Now, the regional governments of Cantabria and Castilla y Leon, in northern Spain, want to incorporate it into a footpath to revitalize the area, as well as compensating so much hard work.

Manuel Pelayo (left), 93, and Manuel Trueba (right), 83, two residents of Vega de Pas in the Cantabria region who participated in the construction of the Engana tunnel. Carlos Rosillo

Manuel Pelayo, 93, and Manuel Trueba, 83, are the only two people in the town of Vega de Pas still alive who participated in the building of the tunnel.

Pelayo enters the tunnel with the energy of a young man. Even in his old age, he vividly remembers the 12 years he worked in the tunnel, beginning when he was 27 in 1951. He recalls working an exhausting eight-hour shift, for which he was never properly paid.

Trueba worked in the tunnel for five years. There were many of Francos prisoners, but we had no contact with them because they were kept apart, said Trueba. We saw many people die. The history books put the death count at 17 workers. I suppose its true. Pelayo also mentions an accident that left one of his crewmates without an arm.

We saw many people die. The history books put the death count at 17 workers. I suppose its true Manuel Pelayo

The proposed 600-kilometer railway was supposed to link Santander, a city on the northern coast, with the Mediterranean. Franco shut down the project with only 30 kilometers completed. The Engana tunnel was the last and most difficult part of the route. It took 20 years to complete work estimated to take two. The job was completed in 1959, but the tunnel, with two kilometers in Cantabria and five kilometers in Castile and Leon, has been abandoned since then.

The regional governments of Cantabria and Castile and Leon aim to turn the area into a tourist attraction. The idea thats gained the most traction is turning the railway into a green pathway for pedestrians and bicyclists. They are also looking at installing a shuttle train to connect the two regions and bring people to the town of Valdeporres, where there a theme park has been built. The cost of the work is estimated at 15 million.

Recovering Engana is an act of historical justice, argues Francisco Martin, the head of the Cantabria regional tourism board. Collaboration with the Ministry of Public Works is essential to be able to act on the tunnel, since it is their property, and also to help finance the project.

Victor Manuel Gomez, a councilor in Vega de Pas, is also in favor of the project. Its interesting because finally the two regions would unite and give some sense to the work. Although abandoned, it arouses great interest and many people have come to know the tunnel. Gomez sums up the general feeling as one of failure and confusion. Many people died for nothing.

Pelayo and Trueba look at the tunnel with a mixture of resentment, couple with nostalgia for their youth . I would like it to be used, after all the work and money thats been invested, says Pelayo. It would be good for the town, for the people, and for us all. The young people have left and this area is left empty. Trueba is a bit more of a pessimist about the project. I think its going to be difficult, said Trueba. I hope Im wrong and they use it for something.

Trueba and Pelayo walk towards the entrance of the Engana tunnel. Carlos Rosillo

English version by Debora Almeida.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 15

Trend:

Azerbaijans contribution to the establishment of global peace is praiseworthy, said former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon as he met with Deputy Speaker of Azerbaijan`s Parliament, Chair of the Committee on Natural Resources, Energy and Environment Valeh Alasgarov.

He said that he met with President Ilham Aliyev during his tenure in the UN. Ban Ki-moon hailed development of Azerbaijan since his 2006 visit here.

We arrived in Baku to take part in the World Scout Conference. The Republic of Korea will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the National Scout Movement in 2020. He expressed his confidence that Azerbaijan will support Korea`s bid to host the 2022 World Scout Conference.

Alasgarov underlined the importance of the World Scout Conference 2017 being held in Azerbaijan, which will celebrate the 20th anniversary of its National Scout Movement in December. He said that despite being a young state, Azerbaijan has great experience in organizing important international events.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Aug. 14

By Huseyn Hasanov Trend:

Construction of a new international sea port is underway in the Caspian city of Turkmenbashi, Turkmenistan State News Agency reported Aug. 14.

"The project aimed at the development of port infrastructure envisages construction of car and passenger terminals, as well as container, loading, polypropylene terminals and other facilities developed in accordance with the environmental safety requirements of GreenPort international standard" said the report.

Once the sea port is commissioned, there will emerge great opportunities for sending cargoes arriving to Turkmenbashi along the Silk Road from Asian and Pacific countries further to Europe via ports of Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran.

It was previously reported that Turkeys Gap Insaat company plans to complete construction of the international sea port in the city of Turkmenbashi in December 2017.

Annual capacity of the port will be 17-18 million tons.

Cost of the project is more than $1.5 billion.

The project of the new port in the city of Turkmenbashi envisages construction of ferry, passenger and container terminals. The complex will include general loading terminal, bulk cargo terminal, polypropylene terminal, as well as shipbuilding and ship repair plants. Motorway with trestle flyovers will be also erected, and railroad tracks will be laid.

Total area of the new port will be over 1.4 million square meters. Total length of the mooring line will be 3,800 meters.

International ferry and passenger port in the city of Turkmenbashi will be able to serve 300,000 passengers and 75,000 trailers a year. Its container terminal has an average annual capacity of 400,000 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units).
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 15

Trend:

Italian food giant Ferrero SpA has held talks with the government of Azerbaijan, which may lead to the companys support of the hazelnut cultivation in the country, reads an article posted on global food industry news provider www.just-food.com.

The issue was mulled by Azerbaijani Minister of Agriculture Heydar Asadov and Ferrero officials, according to the article.

Azerbaijan is attempting to increase hazelnut production through a package of incentives that include state grants and preferential loans to hazelnut producers and the distribution of hazelnut seeds to farmers free of charge.

Ferrero has a dedicated subsidiary focusing on the cultivation of hazelnuts, reads the article. It comprises agri-focused units across six countries and eight plants across three, including Turkey. Ferrero already owns the world's largest hazelnut producer, Turkey's Oltan Group.

Turkey is by far the world's largest producer of hazelnuts with a market share of around 75 percent. Azerbaijan has a market share of only around 4 percent, but has ambitions to grow, said the article.

Ferrero SpA was founded in 1946. The company is a major user of hazelnuts in its products, such as Ferrero Rocher, Nutella and Kinder Bueno.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 15

By Azad Hasanli  Trend:

Baku will host a business meeting between Azerbaijan and Korea on September 13, 2017, embassy of the Republic of Korea in Azerbaijan said in a message, Aug. 15.

According to the message, representatives of Korean companies such as Yelim Painting System Co. Ltd, Mattron Corporation, Dongsan Valve Co. Ltd, Jin Gu Engineering Co., Kwangwoon, Keonsae High Pressure Co. Ltd, Daedong Marine Tech Inc., MS Tech Ltd, Daedong Industrial Co. Ltd and Beom Chang will visit Azerbaijan to partake in the meeting.

Within the framework of the planned visit, an event titled Bilateral cooperation between Korea and Azerbaijan in shipbuilding will be held in Baku.

According to Azerbaijans State Customs Committee, trade turnover with Korea amounted to $38 million in January-July 2017. Almost all of the shown amount accounted for the import of Korean products.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 15

By Azad Hasanli  Trend:

The World Bank (WB) is ready to assist the Azerbaijani government in developing new mechanisms of lending to the private sector, Naveed Hassan Naqvi, WB country manager for Azerbaijan, said in an exclusive interview with Trend.

"Well, its not the government business to lend. Weve seen the governments in developing countries financing specific things. And sometimes it works. But in general, you want the financial sector to make the decisions independent of the governments influence," said Naqvi.

He gave an example of the International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA), over 80 percent of shares in which is owned by the government. On July 15, 2015, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev signed a decree on the measures for rehabilitation related to the preparations for privatizing the state-owned shares of the International Bank of Azerbaijan OJSC. These measures cover the purchase of the banks troubled assets by the government, as well as the support to ensure its liquidity and the restoration of capital.

"It [IBA] owned 35 percent of assets in the market. Its balancesheet was in serious trouble which is why restructuring recently took place. I think the government is taking steps to deal with IBA. But the reason why IBA got in trouble was because these decisions [on lending] need to be taken by private actors," noted the WB official.

"I think certainly the bank [WB] is more than ready to offer advice and help in thinking through mechanisms through which loans can be made available to private entrepreneurs. IFC [International Finance Corporation] has a lot of experience in this field. They can work with individuals of financial institutions, they can work with them jointly to look at opportunities," added Naqvi.

Currently, there are several government sources providing concessional loans, such as the National Fund for Entrepreneurship Support (NFES) and the State Agency for Agricultural Credit. In particular, Azerbaijani entrepreneurs have been provided with loans in the amount of more than two billion manats through the NFES.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Aug. 15

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Turkmenistan Rashid Meredov led a delegation comprising senior officials of the Turkmen government to New Delhi on August 13-15, the Indian Foreign Ministry said in a message Aug. 15.

The delegation participated in the 6th Session of the India-Turkmenistan Intergovernmental Commission for Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technological Cooperation, held on August 14.

Sushma Swaraj, minister of external affairs and co-chair of the Indian delegation for the Intergovernmental Commission, hosted Turkmen Deputy Prime Minister Rashid Meredov.

The Intergovernmental Commissions discussions were held in a friendly and cordial atmosphere. Swaraj and Meredov comprehensively reviewed the entire gamut of bilateral relations and took stock of the progress achieved in the areas of energy, trade and economic cooperation, transportation and connectivity, security cooperation, civil aviation, information technology, science and technology, cultural and educational matters.

The sides expressed satisfaction at the current state of cooperation between the two countries and agreed to work towards fulfillment of the commitments reached during the meeting between the Turkmen president and the Indian prime minister during the latters visit to Ashgabat on July 11-12, 2015.

A protocol of the 6th Session of the India-Turkmenistan Intergovernmental Commission was signed by the two co-chairs.

During the visit, Rashid Meredov also met with Vice President Shri Venkaiah Naidu, Minister of Finance, Defence and Corporate Affairs Shri Arun Jaitley, Minister of Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Shri Nitin Gadkari and Minister of State (I/C) for Petroleum and Natural Gas Shri Dharmendra Pradhan.
Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Aug. 15

By Demir Azizov  Trend:

An Uzbek delegation led by Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov will pay a working visit to Kyrgyzstan.

During the visit, the delegation will partake in meetings of the Uzbek-Kyrgyz intergovernmental commissions for bilateral cooperation and for delimitation and demarcation of the state border, the Uzbek Foreign Ministrys press service said in a message.

The intergovernmental commissions co-chair from the Kyrgyz side is the countrys Prime Minister Sooronbay Jeenbekov.

The sides intend to discuss topical issues related to the development of relations between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, says the message.

Earlier, it was reported that during a meeting of the two countries presidents, the necessity of establishing long-term direct cooperation and increasing the volume of mutual trade up to $500 million in the next two years was repeatedly noted.

Meanwhile, in the field of delimitation and demarcation of the Uzbek-Kyrgyz state border, working groups of government delegations are finalizing preparations for concluding an interim agreement.

Total length of the border between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan is 1,378 kilometers. Nearly 300 kilometers of it have heretofore remained inconsistent in more than 50 locations.
Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Aug. 15

By Demir Azizov  Trend:

Uzbekistans President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has signed a decree appointing Ruslanbek Davletov as the countrys new justice minister, says a message posted on the Uzbek presidents website.

Davletov has served as the first deputy state advisor to the Uzbek president on coordination of work with appeals of individuals and legal entities.

The newly appointed minister succeeded Muzraf Ikramov, who has been appointed as chairman of the Accounting Chamber by another presidential decree. Ikramov has served as the countrys justice minister since February 2015.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 14

By Farhad Daneshvar  Trend:

While Irans recent joint venture agreement with Renault has boosted hopes for the countrys economy, Professor David Bailey suggests that the accord would threaten French carmakers rivals in the Middle Eastern country.

"Other carmakers will be looking to enter the fast growing Iranian car market and look to invest in the country, such as Volkswagen and Peugeot. The latter specifically is threatened by the Renault investment," Aston Business School Professor David Bailey told Trend.

Industrial Development and Renovation Organization of Iran (IDRO) cemented 660 million deal with French automaker Renault on August 7.

"There will be local content restrictions on the Renault investment so I expect to see supply chain investment in Iran from major international manufacturers to supply components," David Bailey who is known as an influential business expert on economic restructuring and industrial policy said.

Secretary of the Iranian Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association Mohammad Reza Najafi-Manesh earlier told Trend that cooperation between Iranian and European auto parts manufacturers and suppliers would lead to the transfer of the technical know-how to his country.

Reza Najafi-Manesh said that, currently in Iran at least 50 car parts manufacturing joint ventures have been organized in collaboration with international partners. He elaborated, outlining German Robert Bosch and Continental as two of the most outstanding foreign car parts manufacturers and suppliers having established several joint ventures in the Islamic Republic.

Renault sales in Irans car market registered a huge rise by 100.3 percent in the first half of 2017, increasing its share from the countrys car market to 9.8 percent.

Last year, French carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroen also inked a deal to launch a plant producing 200,000 vehicles annually in Iran. Peugeot was among the major players in Iran's car market before international sanctions were imposed.

Back in January, PSA Group announced that its global sales in 2016 increased by 5.8 percent, to 3.146 million units including 233,000 vehicles produced in the Islamic Republic under the French carmakers license.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 15

By Farhad Daneshvar  Trend:

Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) has denied reports on the closure of bank accounts of Iranian traders there.

Replying to Trends query on media reports suggesting that the ABC has blocked the bank accounts of several Iranian traders, the bank said it has not got any official notice regarding the issue.

Over the past week, a number of media outlets published reports that Iranian traders were facing en masse account closures in China as part of new restrictions imposed by the US on the Islamic Republic.

In the meantime, Iranian public broadcaster conducted interviews with several Iranian citizens in China who claimed their accounts with three lenders, namely Agricultural Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, and China Merchants Bank, have been closed.

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and the China Merchants Bank werent immediately available for comments.

In late July, the US Treasury introduced sanctions on several Iranian firms for their alleged involvement in the development of a ballistic missile program after Tehran launched a rocket capable of putting a satellite into orbit.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 15

By Fatih Karimov Trend:

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that his administration is ready to negotiate with the US for removal of non-nuclear sanctions if permitted.

Rouhani made the statements Aug. 15 while addressing the parliaments open session to review the government's plans and give vote of confidence to the proposed ministers, the state-run IRINN TV reported.

If you want us to lift all sanctions, we welcome it. We will proceed eagerly, but we will have in mind national interests as well, Rouhani told MPs.

The Iranian president further said that if the US wants to return to the pre-nuclear deal period, Iran in hours and days will snap back to much better condition than pre-JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, aka nuclear deal).

Rouhani said the US under Donald Trumps presidency ignores international treaties, adding that the US president has proved that he is neither a good partner nor a trustworthy party for negotiation.

Rouhani also argued that Irans success in fulfilling its commitments under the nuclear deal and safeguarding its rights are the main reasons behind the US administrations reneging and excuses.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Rouhani elaborated on the country's foreign policy, which he said has focused on the interaction with the world and safeguarding Iranians' dignity.

Today, no one can talk about any international coalition against Iran, he added.

Rouhani further rejected the claims that he had coordinated his new Cabinet list with the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, saying that is an untrue rumor.
(First version posted at 10:33)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 15

By Fatih Karimov Trend:

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that his administration is ready to negotiate with the US for removal of non-nuclear sanctions if permitted.

Rouhani made the statements Aug. 15 while addressing the parliaments open session to review the government's plans and give vote of confidence to the proposed ministers, the state-run IRINN TV reported.

If you want us to lift all sanctions, we welcome it. We will proceed eagerly, but we will have in mind national interests as well, Rouhani told MPs.

The Iranian president further said that if the US wants to return to the pre-nuclear deal period, Iran in hours and days will snap back to much better condition than pre-JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, aka nuclear deal).

Rouhani said the US under Donald Trumps presidency ignores international treaties, adding that the US president has proved that he is neither a good partner nor a trustworthy party for negotiation.

Rouhani also argued that Irans success in fulfilling its commitments under the nuclear deal and safeguarding its rights are the main reasons behind the US administrations reneging and excuses.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Rouhani elaborated on the country's foreign policy, which he said has focused on the interaction with the world and safeguarding Iranians' dignity.

Today, no one can talk about any international coalition against Iran, he added.

Rouhani further rejected the claims that he had coordinated his new Cabinet list with the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, saying that is an untrue rumor.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 15

By Umid Niayesh Trend:

Iranians of my age may remember a famous dialogue from the movie The Sunny Man (1995), where a man speaking with Azerbaijani accent advises his son, who is going to Japan for work, to find Turks there and benefit from their help. In response to his sons wonder, the man continues: Turks are everywhere.

That short dialogue actually still reflects the ethnic reality of Irans population. It is almost impossible to visit any city across the country and not hear somebody speaking in Turkic language dialect. Countrys main Turkic language speakers  Azerbaijanis, live mainly in north-western areas, where Iran shares borders with the Republic of Azerbaijan and Turkey  two countries with Turkic speaking population.

There arent any accurate or official statistics in reference to the number of Turkic-speaking population of Iran. Nonetheless, Ali Akbar Salehi, Islamic Republics former Foreign Minister, during his visit to Turkey in 2012, had stated that about 40 percent of Iranians speak Turkish.

Notwithstanding, at least for the last 100 years, various governments of Iran have seen Turkish language as a national security threat, and have neglected the Azerbaijanis civil rights, including education in their mother tongue.

Last October, for the first time in the Islamic Republics history, Irans Turkic-speaking Members of the Parliament (MP), including Azerbaijanis, formed a parliamentary faction called Faction of Turkic Regions, which included about one-third of the countrys 290-seat legislative body.

That daring move was met by very serious criticism on the part of the various power and intellectual circles, which viewed it as a threat aimed against Irans national unity through intensification of ethnic sectarianism. Later on, one of Azerbaijani MPs had announced disbandment of the faction, relating it to some sensitivities about the usage of the word Turk in its title, and its replacement with a new one called North-western provinces faction.

In the following months no information related to the factions activities was shared with public. It actually shifted to silent mode till last week, when President Hassan Rouhani introduced his new Cabinet of Ministers to the Parliament.

Some Azerbaijani MPs has criticized Rouhani for not including any Azerbaijani nominees for ministerial positions, reflecting upon the countrys largest ethnic groups concern about lack of share in the power structure.

Nonetheless, later on, Hadi Bahadori, pro-Rouhani Azerbaijani MP, stated that Faction of Turkic Regions has held a meeting with the nominees and five of them, including candidates for Defense, Intelligence and Interior ministries, are ethnically Turks, who have spoken in Turkish during the meeting. Related video, showing Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, nominee for the Interior Ministry, speaking in Persianized (poor) Turkish during the meeting with the faction, was released in social media. That move, on one hand, indicates that Turkic MPs have a significant political weight in the Iranian Parliament and, on other hand, may be considered as an effort to assure Azerbaijanis about their share in the important power bodies.

Zahra Saei, the spokeswoman for Turkic Regions Faction, also said that, MPs meeting with the Intelligence ministry nominee Mohmoud Alavi, stating that education in their mother tongue is one of the demands of Azerbaijani people, had requested the elimination of security approach towards the implementation of the Article 15 of Irans Constitution.

Actually the issues related to the ethnic groups rights have found their way to Irans political discourses in recent years. Furthermore, politicians have started to refer to it more frequently, especially during the elections.

In fact, nowadays, some ethnic Turks in the administrations inner circles are posing demands, which were tabooed for years and could have caused serious consequences for demanders security.

It cannot be denied that ethnic consciousness has significantly increased among the Iranian ethnic groups, including Azerbaijanis, in recent years. Nevertheless, geopolitical conditions in the region and concerns about the countrys territorial integrity, as well as radicalization of ethnic groups demands has forced the Iranian administration to be more attentive to the issue.

Specifying the share of the two (domestic and foreign) factors in the formation of the governments new policy requires additional research. Nonetheless, there isnt any doubt that these factors have pushed Iranian policy-makers into a new path and ethnic issues will play a pivot role in Irans policy-making procedures and its future.

---

Umid Niayesh is Trend Agencys staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @UmidNiayesh
Defense Secretary James Mattis said Monday if North Korea attacks the U.S., it could lead to war, Anadolu reported.

"If they fire at the United States, it could escalate into war very quickly," Mattis told reporters, adding that should North Korea pursue military action, the U.S. would attempt to shoot down any missiles aimed at either Guam or the mainland.

The top Pentagon official said the U.S. could assess "within moments" whether a missile was fired from North Korea and that "we will take it out" in that situation.

While Mattis stressed that his statement should not be read as a promise of war, the military would defend the country, and for them, "that's war."

"You don't shoot at people in this world unless you bear the consequences."

Last week, President Donald Trump also warned North Korean leader Kim Jong-un that he will truly regret it if he continues to threaten the U.S. and its allies.

"Military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely," he said on Twitter before retweeting Pentagon photos of B1 bombers that are said to be key to U.S. plans to strike the North.

North Korea threatened to shoot four missiles into the sea off Guam following heated exchanges with the U.S. over Pyongyangs nuclear weapons program.

Its state-run news agency reported that North Korea's army "will complete its plan to hit Guam before mid-August.
Hundreds of protesters against the policies of US President Donald Trump gathered in New York on Monday evening, Sputnik reported.

The demonstrators started arriving at the site near Trump Tower at 5 p.m. Trump is expected to arrive at his residence during the night.

The police protected the building using trucks with sand, and the sidewalk was fenced along Fifth Avenue.

According to media reports, the rally was organized, among other reasons, to show dissatisfaction with Trumps initial failure to condemn the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Trump condemned the violence at the Charlottesville rally, stating that the events were a "display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides." However, the US president initially refrained from blaming any particular group for the outbreak of violence and faced huge criticism over this fact. Later Trump directly condemned neo-Nazis and white supremacists in a statement.

On Saturday, white nationalists organized a "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville to protest the removal of the Robert E. Lee monument at a downtown park. The rally subsequently led to clashes and culminated in the car ramming attack that killed one person and injured more than 30 people. In addition, two Virginia State Police troopers died when their helicopter crashed, as they patrolled near the site of clashes.
Suspected Boko Haram suicide bombers killed at least 27 people and wounded 83 in northeast Nigeria on Tuesday, Reuters reported.

A woman bomber blew herself up and killed 27 others at a market in the village of Konduga near Maiduguri, the epicenter of the conflict between government forces and the Islamist Boko Haram insurgents, according to a village head and an official from a regional militia.

Two suicide bombers also blew themselves up at the gates to a nearby refugee camp, with no others killed but many injured, said an emergency service official.
The ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party needs to undergo a "much more radical change" ahead of the 2019 general elections, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday.

Speaking at an event marking the 16th anniversary of the AK Party at a theme park in the capitals Sincan district, Erdogan said the party had undergone a lot of changes during the last 16 years, "but this time we need a more radical change."

Referring to the recent reorganization made in the partys governing body, Erdogan attributed the party's current success to the continuous changes made in the party's organizational structure, saying this move should not be considered a "purge" but rather a "reshuffle" in this "service" which we consider a "relay race".

Five new ministers joined the Turkish Cabinet last month in a reshuffle of the government posts. Six existing ministers were reappointed, meaning a total of 11 changes in the 27-member Cabinet.

The reshuffle followed Aprils constitutional referendum that allowed Erdogan to resume his official ties to the ruling party.

Erdogan said the need for change was driven in particular by the 2019 elections, adding "We should work towards this end".

The president added that the completion of the 2023 goals would crown AK Party's achievements, referring to Turkey's vision for 2023, which marks the centenary of the Republic of Turkey.

The country has set specific goals and targets for the year 2023 that include major improvements in the economy, energy, health care, and transportation.

Erdogan retook the party reins at an extraordinary congress on May 21, 2017. For nearly three years prior, as president he was barred from leading the party, but constitutional changes ratified in a public referendum ended that prohibition.

He had led the party for 13 years starting from its foundation in 2001.

During his time as prime minister from 2003-2014 he saw two general elections in which the party returned to power with a greater share of the vote each time.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 15

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

Chief of staff of Iran's Armed Forces, Major General Mohammad Bagheri will today visit Ankara, Turkish media outlets have reported.

He is expected to meet with Hulusi Akar, head of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces, and discuss the situation in Syria.

Syria has been suffering from an armed conflict since March of 2011, which, according to the United Nations, has claimed more than 500,000 lives.

Militants from various armed groups are confronting the Syrian government troops. The Islamic State, the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) and Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) are the most active terrorist groups in Syria.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 15

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

Chief of Staff of Irans Armed Forces Maj. Gen. Mohammad Hossein Bagheri is holding talks with his Turkish counterpart Hulusi Akar as part of his Ankara visit, the Turkish media reports.

It was previously reported that the two sides will discuss the Syrian crisis.

Bagheri has visited Ankara at the invitation of Hulusi Akar.

The Iranian official is also expected to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Binali Yildirim.

Syria has been suffering from an armed conflict since March 2011, which, according to the United Nations, has claimed more than 500,000 lives.

Militants from various armed groups are confronting the Syrian government troops. The Islamic State, the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) and Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) are the most active terrorist groups in Syria.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
Kendallville, IN (46755)

Today

Mostly cloudy with snow showers around this morning. High 37F. Winds WNW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of snow 60%. Snow accumulations less than one inch..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Low 21F. Winds light and variable.
Three PKK terrorists were killed Tuesday in airstrikes in northern Iraq, Anadolu reported.

The terrorists were planning attacks on Turkish security checkpoints along the border with Iraq, according to the Turkish General Staff that said the air operation was launched in the Zap region and destroyed the terror group's shelters and weapon emplacements.

The PKK - listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the EU -- resumed its armed campaign against Turkey in July 2015.

Since then, it has been responsible for the deaths of 1,200 Turkish security personnel and civilians, women and children.
KYODO NEWS - Aug 15, 2017 - 12:43 | All, Feature

Japan marked the 72nd anniversary of its surrender in World War II on Tuesday, with the emperor and empress, the prime minister, and about 5,000 relatives of the war dead attending a ceremony to mourn those killed.

In his speech, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vowed not to repeat the devastations of war and to "humbly" face history in working toward world peace and prosperity but did not mention Japan's wartime aggression in Asia or the pledge not to engage in war.

Abe has not referred to Japan's wartime conduct in his speech at previous five ceremonies, including Tuesday's, although Japanese premiers have touched on the country's past aggression at the annual event since 1994, when then Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama expressed remorse for the country's wartime brutality in Asia.

"We will contribute to world peace and prosperity by sincerely tackling various challenges, including the issue of poverty, which could become a hotbed of conflicts," Abe said.

The ceremony comes amid growing threats posed by North Korea's nuclear and missile development programs and as Abe looks to revise the nation's war-renouncing Constitution.

Japan's new security laws, which took effect in 2016, allow its troops to fight abroad even when Japan itself is not attacked.

The ceremony was attended by Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko. The royal couple are believed to have only a few occasions left to attend the annual memorial, as the abdication of the emperor could come as early as the end of 2018.

"Reflecting on our past and bearing in mind the feelings of deep remorse, I earnestly hope that the ravages of war will never be repeated," the emperor said.

"Together with all of our people, I now pay my heartfelt tribute to all those who lost their lives in the war, both on the battlefields and elsewhere, and pray for world peace and for the continuing development of our country," the emperor said.

The participants observed a moment of silence from noon for the about 2.3 million military personnel and 800,000 civilians who perished in the war, including those who were killed in the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well as in the battle in Okinawa and other air raids.

The oldest relative at the ceremony at Nippon Budokan in Tokyo was 101 and the youngest was 6 years old.
- A popular Yoruba actor Mustapha Sholagbade has incurred the wrath of an ex lover

- The actor recently married his new US-based lover in a lavish wedding

- This angered one of his baby mamas who reigned curses on him on social media

A popular Yoruba actor Mustapha Sholagbade has incurred the wrath of an ex lover for marrying another woman in a big wedding.

Legit.ng earlier reported the bold move of the actor who married his new US-based lover in a lavish wedding. The wedding which was well attended by family and friends was not a happy news news to the actor's ex lover who wrote a long message, raining curses on him and tagging him a player.

READ ALSO: Singer Tiwa Savage spotted smoking Shisha

It is unclear which of his ex lovers sent the image shattering message as Mustapha is said to have two baby mamas who gave birth to baby boys for him in the same year. The actor, however, proved that making him a father is not the way to hold him down as he enjoys his new life with his foreign-based wife and in so doing, angers his ex.

Mustapha Sholagbade's babymamas, Adewunmi and Juwon. Source: Google

The pained ex exposed the actor as a player and gigolo. She accused him of sleeping around and breaking hearts of different women. The unnamed ex also painted him as a leech only attaching himself to rich women for money and favours.

READ ALSO: Levels don change: Kcee and E-Money grew up in this "rundown" house

She said: "Right from Laspotech, Odunfa, Ebute Meta as a whole. You are a play boy, gigolo, you sleep with girls and date them because of money. You take them home to your mum and she accepts them simply because she loves money than her life and later dump them because you feel they are not up to your taste and level."

Mustapha Ololade sholagbade let God judge me if only I am telling lies. You think you can ruin people's life just to have peace and be happy. Its a lie, what goes around comes around. Everybody knows why you married your new American based lover. She made you have a court wedding because she knows You will still look for a fault in her after months of marriage. How old are you with 2 baby mamas. You will reap everything on earth by the special Grace of God. I know you would deny this but let your conscience judge you and remember the day you will be alone in your Grave.

Mustapha and his new wife Source: Instagram, Gbera

PAY ATTENTION: Read best news on Nigeria's #1 news app

Watch Legit.ng video on who cheats more in a relationship between a man and a woman:

Source: Legit.ng
Yahoo Espana Originales

Gracias a Perdidos (Lost), Matthew Fox se convirtio en una de las personalidades televisivas mas destacadas de los 2000. Su papel como Jack Shepard, sumado al exito que arrastraba de series de los 90 como Cinco en familia, le hicieron destacar entre el publico y permanecer en la memoria de todos aquellos que siguieron este mitico titulo de aventuras y misterio creado por J.J. Abrams en 2006. Sin embargo, su destino profesional pudo haber sido muy diferente. Y es que, antes de adentrarse entre camaras y focos, no tenia intencion de convertirse en actor, sino que busco convertirse en un as de las finanzas. La culpa de esta motivacion fue de Charlie Sheen, quien gracias a su personaje en el clasico Wall Street que coprotagonizo junto a Michael Douglas en 1987 motivo al actor de Perdidos a convertirse en todo un magnate economico. Asi lo reconocio el propio Fox en una entrevista con Playboy en 2010 (recogida en Livejournal). Lo juro por Dios, aunque suene patetico, creo que ver Wall Street fue parte de la razon. De repente pense, voy a ser Bud Fox [el personaje de Charlie Sheen] y voy a ganar mucho dinero, afirmaba Fox en referencia a la carrera en Ciencias Economicas con la que se graduo en la Universidad de Columbia. Por suerte, la madre de su novia trabajaba en una agencia de modelos, le hizo cambiar de opinion, le abrio las puertas a empezar protagonizando anuncios y desde ahi fue ascendiendo hasta convertirse en la gran estrella de Lost. A este papel le siguieron titulos como Equipo Marshall, Speed Racer o Guerra Mundial Z, y aunque a mediados de la decada de 2010 decidio tomarse un descanso, este 2022 ha vuelto a nuestras pantallas con la serie Last Light en Peacock. Mas historias que te pueden interesar: El mal ojo de Aaron Paul complico su carrera tras 'Breaking Bad' Rowan Atkinson es mas genio de lo que podriamos pensar La motivacion por la que el nino de 'Willy Wonka y la fabrica de chocolate' nunca volvio a actuar
BEER-SHEVA, Israel...August 14, 2017 - A smiley face emoji and similar emoticons included in work-related e-mails may not create a positive impression and could even undermine information sharing, according to a new study by researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU).

"Our findings provide first-time evidence that, contrary to actual smiles, smileys do not increase perceptions of warmth and actually decrease perceptions of competence," explained Dr. Ella Glikson, a post-doctorate fellow at the BGU Department of Management, Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business and Management. "In formal business e-mails, a smiley is not a smile."

According to a new paper, published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, researchers from BGU, University of Haifa and Amsterdam University conducted a series of experiments with a total of 549 participants from 29 different countries.

In one experiment, the participants were asked to read a work-related e-mail from an unknown person and then evaluate both the competence and warmth of that person. The participants all received similar messages. Some included smileys while others did not. The results demonstrated that in contrast to face-to-face smiles, which increase both competence and warmth, the smileys in an e-mail had no effect on the perception of warmth, and in fact had a negative effect on the perception of competence.

"The study also found that when the participants were asked to respond to e-mails on formal matters, their answers were more detailed and they included more content-related information when the e-mail did not include a smiley," says Dr. Glikson. "We found that the perceptions of low competence if a smiley is included in turn undermined information sharing,"

In another experiment, the use of a smiley was compared to a smiling or neutral photograph. The findings show that in case of a photograph, a smiling sender was perceived as more competent and friendly than a neutral one. However, when e-mail on formal work-related matters included a smiley, the sender was perceived as less competent. The smiley did not influence the evaluation of the sender's friendliness.

Contributing to the ongoing discussion regarding the role of gender in use and interpretation of emoticons, this study found that when the gender of the e-mail writer was unknown, recipients were more likely to assume that the e-mail was sent by a woman if it included a smiley. However, this attribution did not influence the evaluation of competence or friendliness.

"People tend to assume that a smiley is a virtual smile, but the findings of this study show that in the case of the workplace, at least as far as initial 'encounters' are concerned, this is incorrect," Dr. Glikson says. "For now, at least, a smiley can only replace a smile when you already know the other person. In initial interactions, it is better to avoid using smileys, regardless of age or gender."

Dr. Cheshin of the Department of Human Services at the University of Haifa, and Prof. Gerben van Kleef of Amsterdam University also participated in the study. The study was funded by a grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research.

###

About American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (AABGU) plays a vital role in sustaining David Ben-Gurion's vision: creating a world-class institution of education and research in the Israeli desert, nurturing the Negev community and sharing the University's expertise locally and around the globe. As Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) looks ahead to turning 50 in 2020, AABGU imagines a future that goes beyond the walls of academia. It is a future where BGU invents a new world and inspires a vision for a stronger Israel and its next generation of leaders. Together with supporters, AABGU will help the University foster excellence in teaching, research and outreach to the communities of the Negev for the next 50 years and beyond. Visit vision.aabgu.org to learn more.

AABGU, which is headquartered in Manhattan, has nine regional offices throughout the United States. For more information, visit http://www.aabgu.org.
DALLAS, Aug. 14, 2017 -- Exposure to high levels of air pollution increased stress hormone levels and negative metabolic changes in otherwise healthy, young adults in a recent study conducted in China. Air purifiers appeared to lessen the negative effects, according to new research published in the American Heart Association's journal Circulation.

Researchers focused on fine particulate matter (PM2.5) -- a component of air pollution emitted from vehicles, factories, power plants, fires and smoking -- because many studies have suggested this type of major air pollutant might lead to cardiovascular and metabolic health consequences, according to Haidong Kan, M.D., Ph.D., study author and professor of environmental health sciences at Fudan University in Shanghai, China.

However, the biological mechanisms linking air pollution to cardiovascular risk are unclear. In this study, the first of its kind, researchers used "metabolomics" -- a method that could reflect how glucose, amino acids, fatty acids and lipids are metabolized -- to get a snapshot of the chemical processes by which cells produce the substances and energy needed to sustain life.

Researchers recruited 55 healthy, young college students, who received alternate treatments of real and sham air purification in random orders in their dormitory rooms.

Researchers measured indoor and outdoor fine particulate matter levels during the study, and at certain points did health tests and collected blood serum and urine samples to analyze the students' metabolites, inflammation and oxidative stress biomarkers. They looked for differences in blood serum metabolites, biomarkers and blood pressures with increasing exposure to fine particulate matter.

Researchers found:

Notable changes in 97 blood serum metabolites after fine particulate matter exposure.

An average 82 percent lower level of indoor fine particulate matter with air purifiers versus sham purifiers.

Short-term reductions in stress hormone levels after air purifiers were used.

After 24-hours with real air purifiers in use, exposure levels for fine particulate matter were in the safe range per World Health Organization.

Higher fine particulate matter exposure was also associated with increases in stress hormone levels, which are believed to induce high blood pressure, inflammatory and metabolic effects in the body, Kan said.

Fine particulate matter exposure impacted metabolism of glucose, amino acids, fatty acids and lipids. These changes, along with the significantly higher blood pressure, insulin resistance and biomarkers of inflammation and oxidative stress found among people exposed to higher levels, could be partly responsible for the adverse cardiovascular effects caused by air pollution exposure, researchers said.

"Levels of stress hormones, systolic blood pressure and biomarkers of oxidative stress and inflammation were significantly lower when using real air purifiers," Kan said. "Although we found significant health benefits with air purifiers, the actual health protection people could get from air purifiers in real living conditions is still not well-determined."

This was also a small study and whether the results translate to other countries remains to be seen, because air pollution levels are much higher in urban China than in the United States or Europe. Nevertheless, the study highlights air pollution's potential impact on human health in more ways than we currently know, Kan said.

"Future studies should examine whether the health benefits from short-term air purification can improve long-term health, and whether these findings are also found in people who live in low pollution areas," Kan said. The current study only focused on one particulate matter size found in pollution.

###

Co-authors are Huichu Li, M.S.; Jing Cai, Ph.D.; Renjie Chen, Ph.D.; Zhuohui Zhao, Ph.D.; Zhekang Ying, Ph.D.; Lin Wang, Ph.D.; Jianmin Chen, Ph.D.; Ke Hao, Sc.D.; Patrick L. Kinney, Sc.D. and Honglei Chen, M.D. Ph.D. Author disclosures are on the manuscript.

The National Natural Science Foundation of China, Public Welfare Research Program of National Health and Family Planning Commission of China, Shanghai 3-Year Public Health Action Plan, Cyrus Tang Foundation and China Medical Board Collaborating Program funded the study.

Additional Resources:

Photos available on the right column of the release link: http://newsroom.heart.org/news/air-pollution-linked-to-cardiovascular-disease-air-purifiers-may-lessen-impact?preview=144970683add5a3d33ad9577a6ac9fbf

After Aug. 14, view the study manuscript and editorial online.

Clean air archives

"Bad" air may impact "good" cholesterol increasing heart disease risk

Air pollution linked to blood vessel damage in healthy young adults

AHA Scientific Statement: Particulate Matter Air Pollution and Cardiovascular Disease

Follow AHA/ASA news on Twitter @HeartNews

For updates and new science from the Circulation journal follow @CircAHA

Statements and conclusions of study authors published in American Heart Association scientific journals are solely those of the study authors and do not necessarily reflect the association's policy or position. The association makes no representation or guarantee as to their accuracy or reliability. The association receives funding primarily from individuals; foundations and corporations (including pharmaceutical, device manufacturers and other companies) also make donations and fund specific association programs and events. The association has strict policies to prevent these relationships from influencing the science content. Revenues from pharmaceutical and device corporations and health insurance providers are available at http://www.heart.org/corporatefunding.

About the American Heart Association

The American Heart Association is devoted to saving people from heart disease and stroke -- the two leading causes of death in the world. We team with millions of volunteers to fund innovative research, fight for stronger public health policies, and provide lifesaving tools and information to prevent and treat these diseases. The Dallas-based association is the nation's oldest and largest voluntary organization dedicated to fighting heart disease and stroke. To learn more or to get involved, call 1-800-AHA-USA1, visit heart.org or call any of our offices around the country. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
ANGOLA  Some 50 people took part in a candlelight vigil in downtown Angola Monday night to spread the message that hate was not welcome in Steuben County.

The vigil was in the wake of the violent protests Saturday in Charlottesville, Virginia, held on the Public Square and on the steps of the Steuben County Courthouse, in the shadow of the statue of American Revolutionary War General Friedrich Wilhelm Baron von Steuben, the countys namesake.

The local group Community Coalition for Change, which emerged after the 2016 election, organized the event to pay respect to those injured or killed at Charlottesville, to reflect on the endemic racism diving the nation and to publicly commit to being agents of peace and change.

This isnt about politics, said Judy Rowe, Angola, and an organizer of the Third Congressional District group of Indivisible, which formed after the election to resist the President Donald Trump administration. Its about standing up for decency, respect and equality for Americans and to make it clear that the hate is not welcome in Angola.

Similar vigils were held in other cities across Indiana and the country.

The rally was a stand against hatred and about standing up for decency, respect and equality for all Americans.

Two members of local clergy were present, including Pastor Daryl Emowery from Calvary Lutheran Church, which also loaned the candles for the event, and the Rev. Deb Davis from First Congregational United Church of Christ.

The church needs to find a voice and take a stand against the hatred, Davis said.

Rowe said information about hate groups across the country is available on the internet, and that Indiana has more than its fair share.

Gayle Newton, also at the rally, she said the event took place in Angola because the community needs to speak up.

Its our community. We cant let the hate speakers out-talk the love speakers, Newton said.

It was agreed upon by many present that the actions of late are not OK, and as Newton said, Well keep fighting until love wins.

At least one local elected official, Angola Mayor Dick Hickman, was present at the event.

Steuben County has been active with marches this year, including a local womens march the day after Trumps inauguration on Jan. 21, a march for science, a pride march then Mondays vigil for Charlottesville, which included a number of speakers on the courthouse steps.

Elsewhere, numerous other communities held rallies in Indiana to take a stand against racism in response to a white supremacist rally that spiraled into deadly violence in Virginia.

Jim Sims, president of the Monroe County NAACP branch, told a crowd on Sunday night at the Monroe County Courthouse lawn in Bloomington that hatred, hate speech and hate groups wont be tolerated.

In Indianapolis, hundreds of people filled the stairs of Monument Circle on Sunday evening to sit in solidarity with the victims of Charlottesville.

At a rally in Terre Haute at the Vigo County Courthouse, some carried signs reading No hate in Haute, Silence is betrayal and Call bigotry by its name.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
a 10 belly landing.JPG

After a routine training run in Alpena County, Michigan in late July, US Air National Guard Capt. Brett DeVries survived the perfect storm of malfunctions to safely land his A-10 Thunderbolt II on its belly without the benefit of landing gear.

During a training exercise where A-10 pilots practice dropping inert bombs and ripping the planes' massive gun, DeVries' gun malfunctioned. Moments later, his canopy blew off his plane as he flew along at 375 miles an hour, according to a US Air National Guard write up of the event.

The incredible winds smacked DeVries head against his seat, nearly incapacitating him. "It was like someone sucker punched me," he said. "I was just dazed for a moment."

DeVries wingman, Major Shannon Vickers, then flew under his plane to assess the damage, finding bad news. The panels under his plane had been damaged, and it was unclear if he would be able to lower his landing gear.

Meanwhile, DeVries struggled against the wind and having everything loose in his cockpit. He could no longer benefit from checklists, which had become a liability that could now potentially fly out and get stuck in his engine.

DeVries, having the flight from hell, had two of his radios go down and had to communicate with Vickers and flight control on his third backup system. They worked together to find him a nearby spot to land and Vickers observed that DeVries would not in fact be able to use his landing gear.

a 10 pilots crew

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"I just thought, 'There is no way this is happening right now.' It all was sort of surreal, but at the same time, we were 100 percent focused on the task ahead of us," Vickers said.

Miraculously, thanks to the meticulous training A-10 pilots undergo and the incredibly rugged design of the plane, DeVries walked away unscathed, and maintainers will be able to fix the plane.

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Merck (MRK) CEO Ken Frazier resigned in protest from the White House American Manufacturing Council on Monday, citing President Donald Trumps failure to immediately and clearly reject the bigotry on display in Charlottesville, Virginia over the weekend. Hours later, Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank and Intel CEO Brian Krzanich followed suit, exposing themselves to the ire of a president who doesnt hesitate to retaliate. This ultimately sparked more widespread departures from CEOs and an ultimate disillusionment of the council along with the Strategy & Policy Forum on Wednesday.

Trump fires back after Merck CEO quits advisory council

CEOs have a responsibility to maximize value for shareholders, and that responsibility arguably includes not attracting attention that could hinder their ability to conduct business. But when it comes to politics and social issues, historical evidence shows a potential benefit of speaking up.

In fact, decisions by CEOs to embrace progressive political opinions have helped stock prices, according to a memo from Edward Reilly, CEO of the Strategic Communications segment FTI consulting.

Well-articulated social activism can still be a riskbut it can also be a competitive advantage, according to Reilly. This increased scrutiny of CEOs and their management teams by investors and customers, and the greater transparency expected by all stakeholders, has made leaderships values and sensibilities a major factor in where consumers take their dollars.

A 2016 Harvard Business School study found that Apple (AAPL) consumers had a higher intent to purchase products when they had been exposed to CEO Tim Cooks activism, which included speaking out against Indianas Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Tim Cook isnt just standing up for what he believes in  hes speaking to the values of the company he leads, Reilly said.

President Donald Trump looks at Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, holding a silicon wafer, during their meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2017. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Today, CEOs are taking on a greater role in framing public discourse, and this has expanded the CEOs role from that of guardian of the business and shareholder value to a figure who helps define the companys brand, culture and values, Reilly said.

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Reilly added that millennialsa key customer group for many companiesespecially care about companies values.

A study conducted by FTI consulting in 2014 found that investors, policymakers, and the general public wanted CEOs to play an active role in national policy debates.

This is the consumer as social activist, and its a wave that has not yet crested, Reilly said.

In other words, despite the looming threat of retaliation from the president, particularly after his retaliatory tweet to Frazier on Monday, taking a strong stand on progressive issues could actually work in companies favor.

Some signs of activism across industries

While there has been limited direct reaction to Trumps rhetoric and policy proposals, CEOs across industries have started to take on more public roles, according to Reilly.

Why is this happening now? You might say its the democratization of markets. You could say its the connectivity brought on by the social media revolution, but whatever the root cause, stakeholders today have more information about and ability to engage with (or about) companies and their leaders than ever before, according to Reilly.

More than 200 companies signed a letter from the Human Rights Campaign opposing North Carolinas HB2, known as the bathroom bill, for its policy dictating which restrooms transgender people should use.

Even 10 years ago the idea of the CEO of a $50 billion-plus company commending a colleague for his focus on noneconomic issues would be far outside the norm, according to Reilly

Allstates (ALL) Tom Wilson said shareholders must get a good return, but at the same time corporations must work to be a force for good in society.

Starbucks (SBUX) Howard Schultz has been outspoken on a number of social issues, including advocating for tougher gun control regulation and addressing race issues. He has been a pioneer of CEO social activism, telling Yahoo Finance that he believes an emotional connection with the consumer about higher values will also help business.

President Donald Trump walks in from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington in Washington, Monday, Jan. 23, 2017, before hosting breakfast with business leaders in the Roosevelt Room. Sitting at the table is White House Senior Adviser Steve Bannon, left, and Kevin Plank, founder, CEO and Chairman of Under Armour. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

I think the currency that matters most is your values and the trust with the consumer, Schultz said. And I think thats what weve tried to do. If you look at all the things weve done around social impact.

He has some clout, given that the stock is up over 19,000% since its IPO in 1992.

On the other hand, embracing Trump has proven to be a risk as well.

Following the comments at the beginning of this year by Under Armours (UAA) Ken Plank that he believed Trump was a real asset to the country, customers and analysts took notice and turned their backs on the company. Plank even was compelled to issue a clarifying press release embracing progressive values, following backlash from his pro-Trump comments.

Planks resignation from Trumps council on Monday is a major turn.

Under Armour engages in innovation and sports, not politics, he said. I love our country and our company and will continue to focus my efforts on inspiring every person that they can do anything through the power of sport which promotes unity, diversity and inclusion.



Nicole Sinclair is markets correspondent at Yahoo Finance

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Stocks have done worse ahead of a conflict than when the bombs started to fall
Less than a week ago, the world seemed to be on the edge of a nuclear confrontation or at least a bloody military conflict in East Asia.

What a difference a few days make.

After a weekend filled with a series of conciliatory statements from China, some of them downright surprising, the situation with North Korea seems to be less tense right now, which could be construed as a major win for the Trump team.

To be specific, the big move came Monday as China agreed to ban imports of North Korean iron, lead, and coal as part of new U.N. sanctions on Pyongyang. That's hitting Kim Jon Un's regime where it hurts.

But there was also the statement in the Chinese-run state newspaper Global Times on Friday that said that if North Korea attacks the U.S., China should remain neutral. In other words, they'd be on their own.

And there was even calming talk from this side of the Pacific. In a jointly-written editorial in Monday's Wall Street Journal, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis both insisted the Trump administration is not seeking regime change in North Korea and wants a diplomatic resolution to this dispute.

While these developments do not fully constitute a real solution to the potential threats North Korea's nuclear and missile programs pose to the region and the world, everyone's nervous meter seems to have gone down several notches.

Even the stock market is staging a recovery rally based on the developments. Sure, most of this relief is based on words. But wasn't it just President Donald Trump's words about how North Korea faced "fire and fury" from the U.S. that caused all the jitters and Thursday's big market selloff in the first place?

Now if these sanctions hold and North Korea simply halts its ICBM launch tests, what many saw as some kind of massive fumble by the Trump team could easily turn into the administration's biggest triumph of the year.

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It will be a very easy narrative for President Trump and his aides to pursue if they make the point that the president's tougher talkthat so many of his domestic critics condemnedseems to have moved China to finally do something meaningful to rein in North Korea.

By replacing President Trump's threatening rhetoric with the more conciliatory and reasoned statements of Mattis and Tillerson, the U.S. has given up nothing. But those words may have forced China's hand at long last.

All of this stems from a classic miscalculation by both Beijing and Pyongyang. Both of those countries are said to be seeking less of an America presence in East Asia. But threatening the U.S. and its allies with ICBM tests has produced the opposite effect with American military forces increasing their anti-missile power on the Korean peninsula as well as boosting the number of B-1B bombers to the region. By simply not doing what foreign powers and many political critics wanted, we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

President Trump may have done more than just use blunt tweets to get a better-than-expected result. As a candidate and as president, Mr. Trump has long complained about China beating the U.S. in trade. But on Thursday, President Trump indicated he may be willing to sacrifice the trade issue if Beijing steps up on the North Korea problem: "If China helps us, I feel a lot differently toward trade, a lot differently toward trade ."

Note that China made its announcement about imposing the import ban on the same day that the Trump administration signed a memo calling for China to be investigated for intellectual property trade violations.

In short, President Trump broke a lot of established foreign policy rules but seems to have come out on top.

At least for now.

Commentary by Jake Novak, CNBC.com senior columnist. Follow him on Twitter @jakejakeny.

For more insight from CNBC contributors, follow @CNBCopinion on Twitter.

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Bombardier CS100 Delta Delta's new Bombardier C-Series jet will enter service next spring.

The jets will be based in New York and Los Angeles.

Delta has 75 C-Series jets on order with an option for an additional 50 planes.

Next Spring, Delta's new fleet of Bombardier C-Series jets will enter service and they are expected to go straight into two of the airline's most hotly contested markets, New York and Los Angeles.

During Delta's most recent earnings call, company president Glen Hauenstein confirmed that the first of its new Bombardier jets will be based in New York.

On Monday, Bloomberg's Michael Sasso reported that Delta issued an internal memo to pilots regarding plans to also base its C-Series fleet in Los Angeles. In addition, the report identifies Dallas as another major market targeted by the C-Series.

A Delta representative declined to comment on the matter.

"We cannot comment on potential future commercial activities for regulatory compliance reasons," the spokesman said in an email. "Delta will only confirm flight schedule detail when flight schedules are published for sale or as part of regulatory filings."

However, the importance of these base locations cannot be overstated. New York, Los Angeles, and Dallas are not only three of the most highly competitive market in the country, they are also home to American Airlines and Southwest Airlines.

Bombardier C Series

Over the past few years, Delta's direct competition with the two Dallas-Fort Worth area airlines has increased considerably.

With its acquisition of AirTran Airways in 2012, Southwest's presence in Delta's Atlanta fortress has grown considerably. And the newly merged American Airlines now has the benefit of US Airway's former fortress hub in Charlotte, which has become a popular transit location, allowing it to effectively siphon traffic from Atlanta.

With the C-Series, Delta has a long range, ultra-fuel efficient, 100-seat jet capable of making money in markets where competition has depressed profits. In addition, the new Bombardier jet will allow Delta to operate mainline service in markets that traditionally made do with smaller regional jets.

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"Having a 100-seat long range jet does open up some new market opportunity that we don't have today," Hauenstein said during the call.

Bombardier C Series Swiss

According to the airline's president, Delta plans to use the C-Series on a number of routes currently operated by its 76-seat regional jets. This will, in turn, allow the 76-seaters to replace tiny 50-seat jets, which are exiting the airline's fleet.

In April 2016, Delta placed an order for 75 Bombardier C-Series jets worth as much as $5.6 billion at list prices. In addition, the deal includes an option for 50 additional C-Series jets. This order makes Delta the C-Series' single largest customer.

The Bombardier C-Series is the Canadian airplane maker's first attempt at a modern mainline airliner in competition with the smallest variants of the Airbus A320- and Boeing 737-families of jets. The state-of-the-art airliner entered service in 2016 with SWISS and Baltic Air. Both airlines report that the C-Series has delivered fuel economy even better than Bombardier's claimed 20% improvement over previous generation jets.

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President Donald Trump and Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier

Merck (MRK) CEO Ken Frazier resigned from the White House American Manufacturing Council early on Monday, citing President Donald Trumps failure to immediately and clearly reject the bigotry on display in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Late Monday, Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank also announced he would resign in protest from the council and Intel CEO Brian Krzanich followed suit late Monday night. And while this then sparked more widespread departures from CEOs and an ultimate disillusionment of the council, it took some time for CEOs to speak out.

Why?

Given the current environment we are in, theres more of an expectation that CEOs will be engaged in their political and social environments, according to Columbia Law professor Eric Talley. But, individual CEOs may have an aversion to introducing new volatility to the companys stock price, particularly as companies seem not to be acting in as unified group.

Indeed, CEOs answer to shareholders before anything else. One of the last things they want to do is get on the bad side of the most powerful person in the world, especially if that person has the power to hinder a companys ability to conduct business.

Trump responded swiftly to Fraziers resignation with ire, tweeting that Frazier could now spend more time lowering ripoff drug prices.

While Mercks share price stayed positive on Monday, Trumps threatening reaction looms large.

On Monday, some CEOs like Goldman Sachs (GS) Lloyd Blankfein released general statements denouncing the violence over the weekend. But no CEO other than Frazier responded directly to the Presidents delayed condemnation of the white nationalist / neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. In fact, 22 CEOs remaining on the Presidents manufacturing council gave no indication that they would resign in protest like Frazier.

Until today, there have been very few direct actions from CEOs in response to Trump: Teslas (TSLA) Elon Musk and Disneys (DIS) Bob Iger both stepped down from Trump councils protesting the Paris climate deal withdrawal.

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Meanwhile, even though tech companies spoke out against Trumps travel ban in February, CEOs including Apples (AAPL) Tim Cook, Microsofts (MSFT) Satya Nadella and Amazons (AMZN) Jeff Bezos still met with the president at the White House in June.

Even Nordstrom (JWN), which announced in February that it would stop selling the Ivanka Trump brand, clarified its decision was based on sales and was not meant as political commentary. Trump blasted the company on Twitter the following week anyway.

This aversion to confrontation comes despite the fact that corporations are seen more as agents of engagement, as shown in recent Supreme Court cases like Citizens United and Hobby Lobby. Talley added that in practical terms, it would be difficult to show that speaking out politically could violate the CEOs fiduciary duty to shareholders.

The resistance to speak out against some of Trumps policies even comes despite historical evidence that shows a potential benefit of doing so. Decisions by CEOs to embrace progressive political opinions have actually helped stock prices, according to Edward Reilly at FTI consulting, which advises companies on public messaging.

Well-articulated social activism can still be a risk  but it can also be a competitive advantage, FTI consulting said in a memo. This increased scrutiny of CEOs and their management teams by investors and customers, and the greater transparency expected by all stakeholders, has made leaderships values and sensibilities a major factor in where consumers take their dollars.

Nicole Sinclair is markets correspondent at Yahoo Finance

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Well, it took two years. But Amazon has finally added a super-useful feature to the Echo: You can now set Reminders. Like, you can say, Alexaremind me to watch the new Game of Thrones at 9 p.m. And then at 9 p.m., itll say:

She says Reminder: Watch Game of Thrones.

Dont forget!

Correction: This post initially referred to the Amazon feature as named timers. In fact, the feature is called Reminders.

Adapted from Pogues Basics: Tech (Flatiron Press), by David Pogue.

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David Pogue, tech columnist for Yahoo Finance, welcomes nontoxic comments in the comments section below. On the web, hes davidpogue.com. On Twitter, hes @pogue. On email, hes poguester@yahoo.com. You can read all his articles here, or you can sign up to get his columns by email.
Tim Cook

Apple CEO Tim Cook strongly condemned the violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia over the weekend, explicitly labeling it 'white supremacy' and 'racist violence' in a tweet on Monday.

"Weve seen the terror of white supremacy & racist violence before. It's a moral issue - an affront to America. We must all stand against it," he tweeted.

Weve seen the terror of white supremacy & racist violence before. It's a moral issue - an affront to America. We must all stand against it  Tim Cook (@tim_cook) August 14, 2017

This was his second message about the "Unite The Right" rally in Charlottesville on Saturday.

Heartbreaking scenes in #Charlottesville. Violence and racism have no place in America.  Tim Cook (@tim_cook) August 12, 2017

Cook joins other business leaders who have offered strong condemnation of the violence in Charlottesville, which left three dead on Saturday.

White nationalists carry torches on the grounds of the University of Virginia, on the eve of a planned Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S. August 11, 2017. Alejandro Alvarez/News2Share via REUTERS

Pepsi's CEO, Indra Nooyi, tweeted about the clash on Monday, calling it "hate and intolerance." Tech company Twilio added hate speech as a prohibited term and condition for its service as well.

Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier stepped down from President Trump's manufacturing committee over the White House's tepid response to the events, which did not reject the white nationalist ideologies of the organizing groups.

Cook has personally seen racist demonstrations in the south. When he was a child, he saw the Klu Klux Klan burning a cross on a neighbor's lawn in Alabama, according to the Washington Post.

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He spoke about witnessing the cross burning in a speech at Auburn University in 2013:

"Not far from where I lived, I remember very vividly witnessing a cross burning at such a remarkable family. This image was permanently imprinted in my brain, and it would change my life forever. For me the cross burning was a symbol of ignorance, of hatred, and a fear of anyone different than the majority. I could never understand it, and I knew then that America's and Alabama's history would always be scarred by the hatred that it represented."





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Paul Manafort

Newly reported emails show a campaign foreign-policy adviser's efforts to set up a meeting between Donald Trump, then a candidate, and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Paul Manafort, the campaign chairman, expressed concern about the proposal and rejected the request.

Experts say the emails could pose a "devastating" legal entanglement for Manafort.

The ongoing investigation into whether President Donald Trump's campaign colluded with Moscow during the 2016 election gained new traction on Monday when The Washington Post reported that a foreign-policy adviser, George Papadopolous, sent at least six emails during the campaign offering to set up meetings with Russian leaders.

Papadopolous sent the first email to seven campaign advisers in March 2016 with the subject line "Meeting with Russian Leadership - Including Putin." His requests were reportedly met with hesitancy from multiple campaign officials, including retired Navy Rear Adm. Charles Kubic, who voiced concerns about violating both US sanctions on Russia and the Logan Act, a law forbidding US citizens from negotiating with foreign governments without authorization.

Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign chairman and a current subject in the Russia investigation, also expressed concerns about the proposal and rejected Papadopoulos' request for a meeting between Trump and Russian officials in May 2016, according to The Post.

Manafort's rejection stands in contrast to his willingness to accept a meeting with a Russian lawyer weeks later in June, a point that Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor, raised after the story broke.

Mariotti wrote in a series of tweets that perhaps the most important implication of the news was that "everyone on those emails was aware of the concerns expressed in the emails about meeting with Russians, including Admiral Kubic's concern about the legality of meeting with Russia."

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"If anyone on those emails later met with Russians or accepted aid from them," Mariotti continued, "the prior emails about concerns could be used to indicate that they knew that the meeting was problematic and potentially illegal but nonetheless persisted."

The meeting Manafort attended in June included Trump's son Donald Trump Jr. and his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner. Also present were Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin; Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian lobbyist and former Soviet military intelligence officer; Anatoli Samachornov, a translator; and Rob Goldstone, the British music publicist who arranged the meeting at the request of Aras and Emin Agalarov, a wealthy Russian family.

Trump Putin

The legal issues 'are very similar, if not the same'

What may account for Manafort's rejection of one meeting and acceptance of the other is that Papadopoulos' was "pitched as a Trump-level meeting," said Andrew Wright, an associate professor at Savannah Law School.

In one email in April 2016 to Corey Lewandowski, the campaign manager at the time, Papadopoulos said he had gotten "a lot of calls over the past month" about how "Putin wants to host the Trump team when the time is right," according to The Post.

Papadopoulos followed up on May 4, sending Lewandowski and Sam Clovis, the campaign cochairman, a message he'd received from Ivan Timofeev, a senior official at the Russian International Affairs Council, that Russian officials were open to Trump visiting Moscow.

Clovis replied, "There are legal issues we need to mitigate, meeting with foreign officials as a private citizen," according to the report.

Papadopoulos forwarded the message to Manafort right after he was named Trump's campaign chairman.

"Russia has been eager to meet with Mr. Trump for some time and have been reaching out to me to discuss," Papadopoulos said, according to The Post.

Related Video:

Watch news, TV and more Yahoo View, available on iOS and Android.

Manafort forwarded the email to an associate and said, "We need someone to communicate that DT is not doing these trips," The Post reported. They then agreed to have someone else handle the response, indicating that it did not require a reply from a senior official like Manafort.

The proposal of a Trump-Putin meeting by Papadopoulos  a lower-level campaign aide who told campaign officials he was acting as an intermediary for the Russian government  is "a very different calculus" than the president's son suggesting a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Wright said, and that may have factored into Manafort's decisions about whether to accept the meetings.

Still, he added, the legal issues about possible violations of the Logan Act and US sanctions against Russia "are very similar, if not the same."

'Devastating evidence in a trial'

A spokesman for Manafort, Jason Maloni, told The Post that Papadopoulos' email chain was "concrete evidence that the Russia collusion narrative is fake news."

"Mr. Manafort's swift action reflects the attitude of the campaign  any invitation by Russia, directly or indirectly, would be rejected outright," Maloni said.

Paul Manafort

However, the meeting Manafort attended in June 2016 was described in an email to Trump Jr. from Goldstone as "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." Trump Jr. forwarded Manafort that email chain, in which Goldstone provided more details of the meeting.

"If you're Paul Manafort and your defense is to say, 'I didn't think taking this meeting was a problem,' and then you have the prosecutor showing the jury emails that were sent a month earlier where people are raising precisely those same legal concerns  that's such devastating evidence in a trial," Wright said.

Mariotti agreed.

"I expect those earlier emails to be used against Manafort, who is already in the hot seat after the FBI executed a search warrant at his home," he wrote, referring to Papadopoulos' correspondence. "Although Manafort's lawyer suggests that the emails exonerate him, they appear problematic in light of the later meeting."

Manafort has come under increased public scrutiny after The Post reported last week that the FBI conducted a predawn raid on his home in July.

Agents working with Robert Mueller, the special counsel leading the bureau's Russia investigation, left Manafort's home "with various records," according to The Post.

Manafort has been cooperating with investigators' requests for relevant documents. But the search warrant obtained by the FBI in July indicates that Mueller managed to convince a federal judge that Manafort would try to conceal or destroy documents subpoenaed by a grand jury.

NOW WATCH: The 9 best memes from Trump's first 200 days in office





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Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett plays bridge during the Berkshire annual meeting weekend in Omaha, Nebraska, U.S. on May 3, 2015. REUTERS/Rick Wilking

Berkshire Hathaway dumped its entire $315.4 million stake in General Electric in the second quarter, according to filings.

The firm owned about 10.6 million shares in the company.

GE just recently promoted John Flannery to CEO, as Jeff Immelt stood aside. Flannery was head of GE's healthcare business before being tapped for CEO. Flannery was able to take hold of the healthcare division and grow it into a $18 billion business as its helm.

Berkshire Hathaway disclosed it closed its GE position in an SEC filing that reflects the firm's second quarter holdings. It's worth noting that the firm's positions could have changed since the date of the filing.

In addition to the GE move, Buffett's firm also added a large share of Synchrony, equalling about $520.7 in value, and a $418.1 million stake in Store Capital. Berkshire Hathaway decreased its holdings in IBM and Wells Fargo while increasing its BNY Mellon, General Motors and Apple positions.

The firm's top holdings are all well-known brand names that Buffett has become famous for championing. Kraft Heinz, Wells Fargo and Apple are the top three.

General Electric Shares are down 20.08% this year and rose 0.63% on Monday, the day the filing was released.

general electric stock price

NOW WATCH: Stocks have shrugged off Trump headlines to hit new highs this week





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- Continued Low Priced Oil Negatively Impacting Operations and Revenue Opportunities -

- Board Evaluating Immediate Closure of Operations -

LYNNFIELD, Mass., Aug. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- American Power Group Corporation (OTCQB:APGI), today announced it will extend the filing of its June 30, 2017 Quarterly Form 10Q via SEC Form 12b-25. On June 6, 2017, the company announced a corporate wide realignment of its strategic direction, reallocation of resources and reduction in workforce in response to significant operating losses due to the impact that continuing low oil prices were having on the companys dual fuel and flare capture businesses. The realignment resulted in a reduction in annual operating costs of over $2 million on a go forward basis.

Chuck Coppa, APGs CEO/CFO stated, The fundamental conditions facing our dual fuel business over the last several years have not changed. With oil prices remaining below $50 per barrel, the price differential between oil and natural gas remains extremely tight. The resulting delays in customer orders have negatively impacted our dual fuel operations and have made them no longer sustainable. Our efforts since June to secure licensing relationships, master distributorship relationships and/or joint marketing relationships with several of the largest domestic natural gas retail/wholesale gas suppliers have not generated material traction. Despite favorable economic conditions in the Mexican market, delays in securing material orders as well as our limited access to working capital have forced us to discontinue operating as we have been in that market.

Mr. Coppa added, Market conditions for our flare capture and recovery services in the Bakken region of North Dakota continue to be very soft, again due to low oil prices and reduction in the number of drill rigs operating in the region. We do not foresee any material positive changes in flare capture market conditions in the near term and have therefore elected to discontinue our flare capture initiative. As a result, we will report an impairment loss relating to our flare capture operations of approximately $1.5 million during the three months ended June 30, 2017. We are currently in discussions with several parties regarding the sale of all flare capture equipment, the proceeds of which would reduce our existing secured obligations. We cannot, however, be assured of the success of these efforts.

Mr. Coppa noted, As a result of the foregoing and our limited access to additional near term capital, our Board of Directors is evaluating several alternatives, including the immediate closure of operations.

About American Power Group Corporation

American Power Groups subsidiary, American Power Group, Inc. provides cost effective products and services that promote the economic and environmental benefits of our alternative fuel and emission reduction technologies. Our patented Turbocharged Natural Gas Dual Fuel Conversion Technology is a unique non-invasive software driven solution that converts existing vehicular and stationary diesel engines to run concurrently on diesel and various forms of natural gas including compressed natural gas, liquefied natural gas, conditioned well-head/ditch gas or bio-methane gas with the flexibility to return to 100% diesel fuel operation at any time. Depending on the fuel source and operating profile, our EPA and CARB approved dual fuel conversions seamlessly displace 45% - 65% of diesel fuel with cleaner burning natural gas resulting in measurable reductions in nitrogen oxides (NOx) and other diesel-related emissions. See additional information at: www. americanpowergroupinc.com.
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Indonesias President Joko Jokowi Widodo is again urging an increase in efforts to fight illegal drugs in the country.

Jokowi said police should shoot foreign drug dealers who resist arrest. He added that the country is in a narcotics emergency position.

Jokowi made his comments at a political event in late July. Days before the speech, police shot and killed a Taiwanese man for resisting arrest. Police say he and several others were trying to smuggle 1,000 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine into Indonesia.

Recently, Jakarta Police Chief General Adham Azis said he would not think twice about dismissing police officers who were not fighting drug trafficking enough.

In addition, the Ministry of Law and Human Rights recently announced a plan to place all people currently jailed for drug offenses into four prisons. The prisons in West Java, North Sumatra, Central Java and Central Kalimantan would get increased security, news reports say.

Human rights groups raise concerns

The New York-based rights group Human Rights Watch has criticized Indonesias campaign against drug trafficking.

In a statement, the group said, President Joko Widodo should send a clear and public message to the police that efforts to address the complex problems of drugs and criminality require the security forces to respect everyones basic rights, not demolish them.

The aim of Indonesias campaign is to stop the flow of the low-cost drug crystal methamphetamine. It is similar to the effort of President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines. He has been criticized for his violent campaign against drug crimes. Thousands of drug dealers and users have been killed.

Last month, Indonesian officials seized the largest amount of crystal methamphetamine in the history of the country.

The head of Indonesias narcotics agency, General Budi Waseso, called for a war on drugs -- similar to the one in the Philippines -- last September.

He told Australias ABC news agency, The market that existed in the Philippines is moving to Indonesia, the impact of President Dutertes actions is an exodus to Indonesia.

Severe punishments for drug crimes

Drug trafficking can carry a death sentence in Indonesia which considers the offense as serious as murder or terrorism.

People found guilty of low-level drug crimes are estimated to make up 70 percent of Indonesias prison population.

Erasmus Napitupulu is with the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform in Jakarta. He said there are many question about President Jokowis drug policy. He criticized the death sentence as putting a big burden on Indonesias justice system.

The death penalty targets small drug couriers, which in many cases leads to unfair trials. Indonesian law has not been able to bear the burden of fair trial(s), he said.

Southeast Asian countries have resisted lightening punishments for drug users or traffickers. Besides Indonesia and the Philippines, other countries in the area, including Singapore, want to continue with harsh punishments for drug crimes.

Last year, however, Thailand considered changing the criminalization of methamphetamine because prisons were becoming overcrowded.

But there are no similar signs in Indonesia.

In 2015, Jokowi led an anti-drug campaign that resulted in the execution of 14 people for drug offenses.

But, critics say that the severe punishments have not reduced the number of crimes. Claudia Stoicescu is a researcher at the University of Oxford.

She wrote, Far from having a deterrent effect, the number of drug-related crimes in Indonesia increased in the months after the executions were carried out in January and April 2015.

Other critics say increased resources used for drug-related arrests have taken money away from rehabilitation efforts. Some say those resources could be better used to help an estimated one million Indonesians addicted to methamphetamines.

Erasmus says Indonesia should learn from the experience of the United States.

The U.S. has reduced the number of arrests over small drug crimes and moved to legalize small amounts of the drug marijuana.

If Indonesia retains capital punishment as the main solution for drug issues, then I believe it is a political decision to preserve (politicians) image(s), not to protect actual narcotics victims, he said.

Im Mario Ritter.

Krithika Varagur reported this story for VOA News. Mario Ritter adapted it for VOA Learning English. Ashley Thompson was the editor.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

narcotics n. drugs that have a powerful effect on the mind and body whose use is highly controlled and often illegal

demolish v. to tear down, destroy

exodus n. the act of a group leaving a place

couriers n. people who carry packages or letters from one place to another

deterrent n. something that keeps people from doing some activity

rehabilitation n. the process of bringing someone (who is sick, injured or has a problem) back to health

retain v. to keep

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This is Whats Trending Today.

An abstract painting called Woman-Ochre is a work of the famous Dutch-American artist William de Kooning.

The painting used to hang in The University of Arizona Museum of Art.

That is until Woman-Ochre was stolen from the museum in 1985.

It had not been seen since then.

But that changed recently when a man who sells artwork and furniture visited a home in a small town in New Mexico.

David Van Auker sells old furniture and paintings in his store in Silver City, New Mexico. He was invited to a home nearby to see if there was anything he wanted to buy so he could sell it in his store.

At first, Van Auker thought he found a print of the de Kooning painting. Upon a closer look, however, he realized it was real paint on canvas.

Van Auker thought perhaps the homes former owner liked to paint and made a copy.

Eventually, he bought the painting and everything else in the home for $2,000.

When Van Auker put the painting up for sale at his store, some people said they thought it was an original.

That made him think. So he researched the painting and found a story from a newspaper in Arizona. The headline read: De Kooning Painting Valued at More Than $100 Million Missing for 30 Years.

The painting looked exactly like the one he had in his hands.

So he called the university and told the museum he thought he had its missing painting.

After a number of telephone calls, Van Auker took photos and emailed them to the university. They were sure he had something important. So the next day, a number of people drove about three hours to Silver City.

The group borrowed the painting and brought it back to the school in Tucson. After careful study, they decided it was the original, stolen 32 years ago.

De Kooning made the painting in the 1950s. A similar painting sold in 2006 for $137.5 million. Experts say the recovered Woman-Ochre may be worth $160 million.

Meg Hagyard is the acting director of the museum. She thanked Van Auker for returning the painting.

She called its recovery a monumental moment for the museum.

Van Auker said the experience of finding the lost painting was one of the most important moments in my life.

And thats Whats Trending Today.

Im Dan Friedell.

Dan Friedell wrote this story for VOA Learning English based on a report by the University of Arizona. George Grow was the editor.

What would you do if you found a stolen painting? We want to know. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page.

_______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

abstract  adj. expressing ideas and emotions by using colors and lines without attempting to create a realistic picture

canvas  n. a specially prepared piece of cloth on which a picture can be painted

headline  n. words set the top of a newspaper story

original  n. that from which a copy or reproduction is made

monumental  adj. very important

moment  n. a brief period of time; present time


The best educational environments are those that are fair to all students, male or female.

But in many places around the world, female and male students do not always have the same chances for a good education.

In todays teaching tips, we will discuss supporting gender equality in the classroom. We also will discuss how to create a more equal and balanced learning environment.

Helping future generations

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) says access to a good education is important for getting out of poverty.

An educated individual is more likely to grow up healthy and have more opportunities for employment. This increases their chance of raising healthy children, and supporting them to also get an education. When all students, both male and female, have equal access to educational opportunities, the results impact future generations.

Creating more equal educational opportunities for students begins in the classroom and with the teacher. A strong teacher is one who treats their students fairly and creates an environment where students feel equally able to take part.



1. Tips for learning environments

Teachers can create the appearance of gender bias through unintentional, nonverbal actions. The first step to correcting this problem is to organize your classroom in a way that makes all students feel equal.

Establish rules

It is important for a teacher to establish a set of rules from the very beginning that promote equality. An effective way to do this is to create class rules with students. Ask students to suggest ideas for how to keep an equal and respectful classroom.

This permits the teacher to point to the rules as something that the whole class has agreed on. It is important to include rules that deal with respecting students, respecting the teacher and participating in class.

Have a classroom seating plan that supports equal participation.

If you find that certain students, regardless of their gender, are not participating in class, try to change your class seating plan. For example, try having students who usually sit in the back come to the front.

Teachers tend to interact the most with students sitting closest to them. For this reason, it is important to change the seating order (if possible) to give all students a chance to sit near the teacher.

Have equal academic and behavior expectations for all students

Teachers should try to avoid making things easier for either male or female students by giving them easier questions in class, or trying to solve things for the students.

Doing this can create the perception that certain students are not as smart as others. Teachers should hold the same expectations of all students.

Use group work

Often there will be some students, male or female, who are not comfortable speaking in front of large classes. But, they may feel more comfortable speaking in small groups. In order to give all students the opportunity to take part in class, try doing some activities in small groups of three to four students.

2. Tips for classroom strategies

After organizing your class in a way that promotes equality, the next step is to consider the effects of your actions in class.

Addressing students equally

One of the main opportunities students have to participate in class is when they are answering teachers questions. Teachers need to call on or talk to both female and male students in a balanced way. Research shows that both male and female teachers often call on male students to speak in class more often than female students.

Provide enough wait time to answer questions.

Some students, male or female, may need time to think about the answer to a question when called on by a teacher. When calling on students who seem to wait longer to answer a question, make sure to give students at least four to five seconds. Research shows that giving students more time to answer will increase the number of students who participate.

Use gender neutral language

Sometimes in English people use male pronouns when referring to a group. But, this can make female students feel left out. Teachers should use gender neutral pronouns whenever possible. One example is, instead of saying guys when referring to a class or group (which is common in American English), say everybody or everyone.

Body language

Teachers may not realize that their body language with female students might be different from what it is with male students.

Whenever male or female students are talking, use respectful, listening body language. Face the listener, do not walk away, and do not interrupt students.

Also the teacher can move to different areas of the classroom while speaking. This is important because students sitting further from the teacher tend to participate less.

Discipline

Be aware when male students insult female students, or female students insult male students.

If the insults appear to be gender-based, students may be discouraged from participating in class in the future. Be quick to intervene and discipline the students making insults. This shows students of either gender that they will be supported.

However it is important that both male and female students are given the same discipline for the same actions.

These strategies will help teachers create a more equal classroom environment for their students. They will also help teachers effectively manage their classrooms. Remember: The best form of teaching is the fairest form of teaching!

Im Alice Bryant

And Im Phil Dierking

Phil Dierking wrote this story for VOA Learning English. Mario Ritter was the editor.

What other teaching strategies help promote gender quality in classrooms? We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page.

_______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

bias  n. a tendency to believe that some people, ideas, etc., are better than others that usually results in treating some people unfairly

discipline  n. control that is gained by requiring that rules or orders be obeyed and punishing bad behavior

gender  n. the state of being male or female

impact  v. to have a strong and often bad effect on something or someone)

neutral  adj. not expressing strong opinions or feelings

perception  n. the way you think about or understand someone or something

promote  v. to make people aware of something 

participate  v. to be involved with others in doing something

tend - v. used to describe what often happens or what someone often does or is likely to do
La Crescent Common Council members asked a few questions, but displayed total unanimity Tuesday as they voted to accept $372,000 in grant money from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development.

Terry Erickson, La Crescent Community Development Director and Shawn Wetterlin, La Crescents Building and Zoning Official joined Cindy Vitse from SEMCAC to notify the council that funding will be now be available in the form of loans to revitalize La Crescents aging homes.

A lot of effort goes into pulling these things together, Erickson told the council. We went door to door to get the surveys out and got a good response.

As the surveys came in, the responses raised concerns about the income levels the city had to work with.

We compete with cities across Minnesota, he said.

Vitse, who administers the funding, said that the surveys showed a need as well as intent, and those were two of the primary considerations for meriting the award.

According to Wetterlin, the survey targeted the older housing located primarily in the central downtown area. Loan recipients needed to show a household income of 80 percent of or below the Houston County median family income. Vitse compiled a waiting list as the surveys came in and will award loans on a first come-first served basis. She indicated the goal is to rehab at least 15 owner-occupied homes. The loan is capped at $22,000 per family with zero per cent interest.

Other stipulations include full repayment of the loan if owners move within one or two years of the loan origination. But if homeowners remain on the property for the full seven years, the loan is forgiven. Vitse also said the loan must be used strictly for rehabbing  bringing the property up to health, safety and county building codes. The money cannot be used for new carpeting or other amenities.

Wetterlin also told the council that building activity in La Crescent is running higher than average. He said that 12 lots are already sold in Apple Blossom Point and about the same number remain. He also said that four lots were left on Red Apple Drive and only about four in La Crescent that offer full service.

Emergency mitigation

Last February, Houston County approved an emergency mitigation plan, but each municipality must sign-on to benefit.

Olivia Niday, Houston County emergency management director, told the council that joining the plan helps expedite federal or state funding following a natural or man-made disaster.

The plan can be accessed via the Houston County website. The council voted unanimously to join the plan.

Other business

Marvin Witt asked the council to consider the possibility of building a 30-foot-wide road from West gate to the swamp on the east. Mayor Mike Poellinger stated that since this would be considered part of the bike trail system, there might be a funding mechanism available. Well look at some options for that, said Poellinger.

The council formally adopted the agreement to accept $44,000 in grant money from MnDot toward the purchase of wetland credits to mitigate the wetland impacts of the second phase of the Wagon Wheel Improvement project. The city will pay the remaining $11,000.

City administrator Bill Waller also received approval for filing the state transit operating assistance application for 2018. In 2017, the city will receive $245,000 in assistance to operate the local bus service.


Signs for the recent protest in Charlottesville, Virginia promised to Unite the Right. That expression was directed at white nationalist groups that oppose the removal of a statue from a public park in the city.

The statue is of General Robert E. Lee, who led Confederate forces in battle during the Civil War. After four years of fighting, Union forces defeated the Confederates.

The white nationalist groups have different plans and goals. Here is a look at some of the terms used to describe some of those present at the protest.

White supremacist

White supremacists believe the white race is better than other races. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is a nonprofit civil rights group. It says white supremacy is a historically-based system of abuse and oppression of continents, nations and peoples of color by white people and nations of the European continent. The SPLC says the aim of the system is to protect and defend a system of wealth, power and rights.

Alt-right

Some white nationalists and white supremacists use the term alt-right to describe themselves. They want to restrict immigration, limit government powers, and enforce law and order. They believe Western culture is better than other cultures. Alt-right activists do not agree with the democratic ideal that all members of society should have equal rights.

KKK or the Knights Party

The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) is one of the oldest hate groups in the United States. The group has a long history of violence. It began targeting black Americans. But it has also attacked Jews, immigrants, homosexuals and, until recently, Catholics.

In 1975, David Duke founded the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Duke said his goal was to make the KKK less violent. He and his supporters call themselves the Knights Party. They believe that non-whites should obey Christian teachings. They believe whites must not marry or live near non-whites. They also believe that in the years to come, they will be recognized by the American people as the white rights movement.

Neo-Nazis or American Nazi Party

The Neo-Nazis or American Nazi Party wants all Aryans in North America to unite. On its website, the party says there must be an all-White National Socialist America; an America in which our children and our grandchildren will play and go to school with other white children; an America in which they will date and marry other young people of our own race; an America in which all their offspring will be beautiful, healthy white babies. The party says the culture, society, businesses and politics of the United States should be free of foreign and Jewish influence; an America in which White people are the sole masters of our own destiny.

Neo-Confederate

Neo-Confederates believe the American Civil War never ended. They consider themselves members of a new Confederate Army. Their goal is to have a country made up only of the southern states.

Traditional Workers Party

Members of The Traditionalist Worker Party believe the U.S. is far too large, diverse, and infested with lobbyists and oligarchs for realistic solutions to come from a centralized, top-down approach to solving political problems. The group wants power taken from the corrupt and unaccountable federal government. It says power should be given to community and regional leaders who stand for traditional values, strong families, and revived cultures.

Groups opposing the Unite the Right demonstration

At least two opposing groups publicly opposed the protest last Saturday.

Black Lives Matter

The Black Lives Matter (BLM) group says on its website that it is working for the validity of black life. The group was founded in 2012 after the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an African-American teenager. BLM says it supports black queer and trans folks, disabled folks, black-undocumented folks, folks with (criminal) records, women and all black lives along the gender spectrum.

Antifa

Antifa is short for the term anti-fascists. Mark Bray wrote a book called Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook. He says the antifa movement came out of resistance to Italian leader Benito Mussolini and German leader Adolf Hitler in the 1920s and 1930s.

The movement opposes the alt-right and the rule of U.S. President Donald Trump. These groups are not organized and not considered widespread throughout the country. They strongly oppose discrimination against homosexuality, racism, sexism, and sometimes capitalism.

VOAs Aline Barros researched and wrote this explanation of protest groups in the United States. Christopher Jones-Cruise adapted her report for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section, or visit our Facebook page.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

homosexual  n. a person who is sexually attracted to people of the same sex

Aryan  n. used in Nazism to identify a supposed master race of non-Jewish whites with Nordic features

destiny  n. what happens in the future; the things that someone or something will experience in the future

infest  v. to fill (a place) in large numbers

lobby  n. an organized group of people who work together to influence government decisions that relate to a particular industry, issue, etc.

oligarch  n. a person who belongs to a small group of people who govern or control a country, business, etc.

validity  n. the state of being acceptable according to the law

queer  adj. homosexual (offensive in most of its uses, but it is also now sometimes used in a neutral or positive way especially by some homosexual and bisexual people.)

trans  adj. abbreviation for transgender (which is defined as of or relating to people who feel that their true nature does not match their sex at birth)

spectrum  n. a complete range of different opinions, people, etc.
If the Saygus V smartphone had shipped in 2015 as originally promised, it would have been an impressive device. The phone featured the one of the best processors available at the time, some of the highest-resolution front and rear cameras, plenty of built-in storage plus two microSD card slots and a removable battery.

But the SaygusV didnt ship in 2015. Or 2016. Nearly three years later, the company is still at it though and Saygus says a few days ago the Saygus V finally received FCC approval. The paperwork still needs to be filed (which explains why I cant find it on the FCC website yet), but maybe theres a chance the phone will actually ship soon.

What remains to be seen is whether theres anything resembling a chance that you might want to buy it.

At this point, the phones 5 inch, 1920 x 1080 pixel display, 3GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, and Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor all look pretty dated.

Update: The specs have been updated to include a Snapdragon 835 processor, 128GB of storage, and android 7.1 Nougat software. The RAM, display, cameras, and other hardware remain similar to those shown in early 2015.

Some features do still look reasonably attractive at a time when many phone makers are eliminating legacy features along with screen bezels. The Saygus V has a removable 3,200 mAh battery, 802.11ac WiFi, NFC, and an IR transmitter. It has a USB 3.0 Type-C port as well as a headphone jack and stereo speakers, and theres a fingerprint sensor on the side of the phone.

There are two SIM card slots and two microSDXC card slots. And the phone is waterproof.

TheSaygus V will ship with a 21MP rear camera and a 13MP front-facing camera assuming it does ever ship.

via Droid Life
I flew Spirit last month, there was an incident on my plane and they gave everyone two $50 vouchers as compensation. I went to book with them; turns out the vouchers only cover the "flight" part of a fare. That seemed reasonable; even when you buy with miles/vouchers on other airlines you have to pay the security fee yourself, and I could see why it might not cover bags or seat upgrades. But it turns out that even the "flight" part of Spirit's non-government tax/fee fare is split into 3 pieces: flight, unintended consequences of DOT regulations, and passenger usage charge. And at least for the flights I was looking at, most of the fare is loaded onto the passenger usage charge, for which a voucher cannot apply. For the $104 flight I was looking at, only $21.41 was payable by voucher. I understand they're Spirit's vouchers and they can make whatever rules they want, but this really changed my opinion of Spirit from a budget airline to a sleazy budget airline.
When the mice went gray and bald, the doctor knew he was onto something.

For more than 10 years, Dr. Lu Le had studied cells and genes, hoping to understand the roots of cancer and further the search for a cure.

Instead, in his lab at UT Southwestern Medical Center, he discovered something unexpected - a chemical and biological process that could explain gray hair and bald heads in people.

Science often works this way. A search in one direction leads to an entirely different discovery in another. For Le, baldness and graying weren't concerns of his research. And yet, there they were, gray and bald mice inside his lab.

"We accidentally, serendipitously, discovered the cell that directly gives rise to hair. That was new," said Le, associate professor in the department of dermatology with the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Now Le, who at 46 has a few flecks of gray in a full head of black hair, is hoping to create a topical compound or other remedy that could turn back the clock on thinning and graying hair.

"That's within the realm of possibility," Le said, "and we're working in the lab to do that for that next step."

There are no guarantees; any remedy is likely to take years of careful lab work.

ACCIDENTAL DISCOVERY

Le's research had focused on how cancer begins - in particular with tumors that grow on nerves in a disorder called neurofibromatosis. He and his team would remove different proteins in the tumors to better understand how they formed.

That's when Le discovered the role a protein called KROX20 plays not just in nerve development but in hair color and growth.

The KROX20 protein turns on in skin cells that develop into shafts of hair. These cells then produce a protein called stem cell factor (SCF) that is essential for hair color. When that SCF protein was deleted from mice in KROX20 cells, their hair turned gray and then white. And when the scientists deleted the KROX20 cells, the mice turned bald.

"The mice turned gray and then completely white. That was unexpected," Le said.

But science requires results to be repeated. And that's what Le has been doing since he made his discovery about two years ago.

"The first thing we do in science is to repeat it, to make sure it's true," Le said. "Every single time, consistently, we got the same result. You rarely have a piece of data where it repeats every single time."

RESULTS WENT VIRAL

The results were published in May in Genes & Development, a peer-reviewed scientific journal. The story immediately attracted tens of thousands of page views and readers on the journal's website and was picked up by news sites around the world.

"I can tell you that it was amazingly well-read in a short period of time," said Terri Grodzicker, editor of Genes & Development.

Fellow scientists also commended the work of Le's team.

"This is an exciting and novel development of great significance," said Dr. Luis Garza, an associate professor of dermatology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Such unexpected discoveries aren't entirely by accident, Garza said, quoting Louis Pasteur's famous saying: "Chance favors the prepared mind."

It is not simply chance, Garza said, "but careful, observant scientists who made this work a success."

VIETNAM REFUGEE

For Le, the discovery is the pinnacle of an unlikely career, one that might never have happened for a man who came to America as a teenage refugee.

Le was born in 1971 in Vietnam, near My Lai, three years after the notorious massacre of hundreds of civilians in that village by U.S. troops.

Le's father had worked on America's side during the war. When it was over, Le had little choice but to leave his homeland.

"There was no future for us at that time after the war, when North Vietnam took over the South," Le said. "Our only option was farming."

He decided to escape, setting out as a teenager on a dangerous ocean journey on a tiny fishing boat propelled by a motorcycle engine.

"I didn't know how to swim. I could have died," he said.

Instead, he made it to a refugee camp in Thailand, then to the Philippines and finally to the home of relatives living in Long Beach, Calif.

Le credits the work ethic he learned at a young age to his success in science. He attended high school from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. and then worked at McDonald's from 5 p.m. to midnight. With no buses running that late, he had to run home about five miles through dangerous neighborhoods.

It's an experience he recently repeated with his three young children. "I made them walk from that McDonald's to where I used to live - although not in the middle of the night," he said. " I hope they learned something. It's a life lesson."

In Long Beach, McDonnell Douglas (now part of Boeing) had plants that built aircraft, and Le became interested in aerospace engineering. But at UCLA, he got a job in a research lab and fell in love with the work.

In addition to being a scientist specializing in tumor development in the nervous system, Le also has a medical degree and is a board-certified dermatologist. That made him well-qualified to grasp the significance of what was happening when his lab mice turned bald and gray.

Scientists already knew that stem cells contained in a bulge area of hair follicles were involved in making hair and that SCF was important for hair color, said Dr. Le.

What they learned was what happens after those stem cells moved down to the base, or bulb, of hair follicles. They discovered how the KROX20 protein switches on in cells that develop into a hair shaft and produce SCF protein required for hair color.

INSIGHTS INTO AGING

Because graying and thinning hair are predictable signs of growing old that ultimately affect all humans, the study provides insights on aging in general, Le said.

Throughout history, the quest to understand what causes hair loss and why hair turns gray "has been a topic of considerable interest," Le said. "We all want that youthfulness," he said.

Le and his team will now try to determine if what he found applies to humans. That is, they will try to determine if the KROX20 cells and the SCF protein diminish as people age, leading to graying and hair thinning as well as male pattern baldness.

MILLION-DOLLAR QUESTION

The million-dollar question - whether baldness and loss of hair color is reversible - is a long way from being answered. However, with the new discovery of the hair shaft producing cells, it is possible, Le said.

Le's working theory is to see if he can restimulate the stem cells in the hair follicle into hair-producing cells and grow hair again.

"I think that is the biggest implication of the discovery here," he said.

He will also try to restore the color-producing protein (SCF) into these hair cells. "If we can find a way to reintroduce this SCF back, we can have the color back," he said. "We have a lot of work to do.''

Hundreds of millions, if not billions, would eagerly welcome his results. No pressure, though.

2017 The Dallas Morning News

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Sarah Hawley, Ph.D., MPH. Credit: Michigan Medicine

A new study finds that more than half of women with early stage breast cancer considered an aggressive type of surgery to remove both breasts. The way women generally approach big decisions, combined with their values, impacts what breast cancer treatment they consider, the study also found.

Contralateral prophylactic mastectomy - a procedure to remove both breasts when cancer occurs in only one breast - has become increasingly popular in recent years, with more than 20 percent of patients opting for it. For most women, removing the unaffected breast does not improve survival.

To understand what factors are driving this increase, researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center asked women how they approach the emotional side of decision-making - if they often regret their decisions, if they take a more rational or more intuitive approach and how much they want their doctor to tell them what to do.

"The decision-making process is complicated. We found there are a lot of values that come into play," says lead study author Sarah T. Hawley, Ph.D., MPH, professor of internal medicine at Michigan Medicine.

Researchers surveyed 2,362 women newly diagnosed with early stage breast cancer. Women were asked how strongly they considered prophylactic contralateral mastectomy as a treatment option. They were also asked about their values and their decision-making style.

About 54 percent of women said they considered double mastectomy, with a quarter saying they strongly considered it. Results are published in the journal Cancer.

Women who reported they were worried about making a bad decision were more likely to consider double mastectomy. Those who considered themselves more logical in their decision making considered it less often than those who said they go with their gut.

Of the concerns studied, worry about cancer returning and avoiding radiation exposure were most strongly associated with considering contralateral prophylactic mastectomy.

Reshma Jagsi, M.D., D.Phil., with a patient. Credit: Michigan Medicine

But a more aggressive surgery does not always address those concerns, the researchers note.

"Fears about radiation are common, so it is very important to make sure women are fully informed before they make the decision to pursue much more aggressive surgery than they need," says study author Reshma Jagsi, M.D., D.Phil., professor and deputy chair of radiation oncology at Michigan Medicine.

"We need to make sure women understand how far technology has advanced to make radiation treatment safe and tolerable. We also need to make sure women understand that even after mastectomy radiation might be recommended, if the cancer has certain features," she adds.

In addition, women who said they wanted to make their own decisions most of the time, rather than relying on their doctor, more strongly considered double mastectomy. The findings suggest that this more aggressive treatment tends to be driven by patient desire, rather than a physician's recommendation.

"It goes against what the traditional shared decision-making model would suggest, which is when you involve people and inform them fully, most people would be inclined to choose less extensive treatment," Hawley says.

The researchers suggest that physicians and decision aids need to consider patient values during the process. Hawley and colleagues have developed a decision tool that walks patients through an exercise to prioritize their values, mapping those values to potential treatment decisions. They plan to broaden that based on these findings.

"If physicians have feedback that a patient likes to make decisions a certain way, they can understand the patient's emotional processing and help the patient make a decision that meets her needs physically and emotionally," Hawley says.

This could mean educating patients about misperceptions around risk. Many patients overestimate their risk of cancer returning, and they may not understand the impact of double mastectomy. It could also mean simply acknowledging a patient may feel uncomfortable with some treatment recommendations.

"A lot of these conversations around therapy - including extensive therapy that may not be truly beneficial in terms of survival - may come down to emotional values. Physicians need to help patients feel comfortable with treatment decisions within their underlying nature and values. This includes helping patients understand when less extensive treatment might be the right option. Patients need to feel secure in knowing that choice will give them their best chance at survival," Hawley says.

More information: Sarah T. Hawley et al, The association between patient attitudes and values and the strength of consideration for contralateral prophylactic mastectomy in a population-based sample of breast cancer patients, Cancer (2017). Journal information: Cancer Sarah T. Hawley et al, The association between patient attitudes and values and the strength of consideration for contralateral prophylactic mastectomy in a population-based sample of breast cancer patients,(2017). DOI: 10.1002/cncr.30924
Allison Lastinger, MD, holds a collection of Patient Empowerment Tools, which are used by patients to remind nurses and doctors to wash their hands when entering their room. Credit: WVU

Armed with new tools, patients and parents felt empowered to remind healthcare providers to perform hand hygiene, successfully improving compliance rates, but just over half of physicians felt that patients should be reminding providers, according to a new study published in the August issue of the American Journal of Infection Control, the official journal of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC).

Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) contribute to significant rates of illness and mortality, with an estimated five to ten percent of patients admitted to acute care hospitals in the United States acquiring an HAI. Most HAIs are preventable, and the single most effective measure to reduce HAIs is hand hygiene.

Allison Lastinger, MD, of the West Virginia University (WVU) School of Medicine, led a multidisciplinary research team that performed a cross-sectional survey of parents of hospitalized children, adult patients, and primary care physicians at the WVU Medicine J.W. Ruby Memorial Hospital, a 645-bed tertiary care teaching hospital in Morgantown, WV. Using an anonymous, self-administered questionnaire, the multidisciplinary research teamwhich included Kayeromi Gomez, PhD, of the WVU School of Public Health, Ellen Manegold, BA, of the WVU Department of Psychology, and Rashida Khakoo, MD, of the WVU School of Medicineexamined their attitudes toward a new patient empowerment tool (PET) at the hospital. The parent and patient surveys were distributed from December 2015 to June 2016; the physician survey was distributed in November 2015.

"Patient involvement is increasingly recognized as an important component of hand hygiene improvement strategies," said Linda Greene, RN, MPS, CIC, FAPIC, 2017 APIC president. "Organizations must realize that patients and families are an important part of the healthcare team, and their involvement in hand hygiene campaigns should be encouraged."

A total of 222 adult patients and parents completed the survey (108 adult patients and 114 parents). Most adult patients (64 percent) and parents (70 percent) said the PET made them feel more in control of their care. Most parents (77 percent for physicians and 81.4 percent for nurses) and adult patients (64.8 percent for physicians and 71.2 percent for nurses) felt comfortable using the PET to remind healthcare workers to perform hand hygiene. Researchers noted, however, that parents were nearly 20 percent more likely than adult patients to speak up if a physician did not perform hand hygiene. In Ruby Memorial Hospital, hand hygiene rates increased from 48 percent in 2015 to approximately 75 percent in 2016 as a result of the hospital's multipronged initiative to increase handwashing rates among its healthcare providers. "Forty-eight percent is pretty standard," said lead study author Dr. Lastinger, "so 75 percent is phenomenal."

Among 89 healthcare provider responses (29 residents and 60 attending physicians), only 54.9 percent felt that patients should be involved in reminding providers to perform hand hygiene. Overall, physicians indicated that they would prefer a patient make the request verbally, rather than using the PET to remind them to perform hand hygiene.

Of the physicians who did not support patient involvement, 37 percent felt that it was not the patient's responsibility to remind physicians to perform hand hygiene; 16 percent felt that it was embarrassing to the doctor; and 13 percent felt that it would have a negative impact on the patient-physician relationship.

While a number of studies have examined the role of patient involvement in healthcare worker hand hygiene, few have examined the role of family members in reminding healthcare providers to perform hand hygiene. However, the study notes that if patient involvement is to be successful, healthcare workers must accept it as helpful and not as a threat, which proved to be somewhat of an obstacle in this instance.

"Based on the results of this study, patient empowerment appears to be an effective strategy to facilitate healthcare workers' adherence to hand hygiene, but acceptance of the PET by providers remains a challenge," said Lastinger. "Barriers to hand hygiene adherence among healthcare providers should be identified and addressed."

More information: Allison Lastinger et al, Use of a patient empowerment tool for hand hygiene, American Journal of Infection Control (2017). Journal information: American Journal of Infection Control Allison Lastinger et al, Use of a patient empowerment tool for hand hygiene,(2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.ajic.2017.02.010
Whole genome sequencing using long fragment read (LFR), a technology that can analyze the entire genomic content of small numbers of cells, detected potentially targetable mutations using only five circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in a patient with metastatic breast cancer.

The study is published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, by Brock Peters, PhD, senior director of research at Complete Genomics Inc. in San Jose, California, and BGI-Shenzhen in Shenzhen, China; John W. Park, MD, professor of clinical medicine, and director of Novel Therapeutics, Breast Oncology, at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF); Hope S. Rugo, MD, professor of medicine and director of breast oncology and clinical trials education at UCSF.

The Complete Genomics team and colleagues from UCSF evaluated CTCs from two liquid biopsies drawn from a 61-year-old female patient with ER-positive/HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer at two different time points during her course of treatment. First, they isolated 34 highly pure CTCs using immunomagnetic enrichment/fluorescence-activated cell sorting (IE/FACS) technology developed by Park and Mark Magbanua, PhD, at UCSF. Then they used LFR to perform advanced whole-genome sequencing by splitting the genomic DNA from the CTCs into 3,072 individual compartments, with each compartment containing approximately 5 percent of the cancer genome. The DNA in each compartment was subsequently labeled with a unique barcode, the compartments were combined, and the genomic DNA and barcodes were sequenced.

"From 34 cells we accurately detected mutations present in as few as 12 percent of CTCs, established the tissue of origin, and identified potential personalized combination therapies for this patient's highly heterogeneous disease," said Peters.

According to Peters, this research is the first application of LFR technology to CTCs. "LFR subdivides the genome into compartments, allowing us to count the fragments with somatic mutations across all the compartments to accurately quantify the number of mutations present in a population of cells. It also serves to remove false-positive single nucleotide variants," explained Peters.

"LFR, which explores the more than 20,000 genes in the genome and all non-coding regions, is more comprehensive than gene panels, which examine about 100 genes and focus on small genomic regions typically associated with a disease," he continued.

Because prior studies indicate that five CTCs can be expected in about half of the patients with metastatic disease, and evaluating 34 CTCs is cost-prohibitive, Peters and colleagues analyzed five different batches of five CTCs and replicated their findings. The researchers estimated that the cost of their advanced whole genome sequencing technique on five CTCs would be about $3,000 within the next few years, in line with current oncology diagnostic tests.

"That our sequencing method could detect the most important somatic mutations from just five CTCs in a noninvasive liquid biopsy is important, demonstrating cost-effectiveness and utility in clinical settings," said Peters.

"Our work highlights the importance and utility of using accurate and quantitative whole genome analysis in a clinical setting," said Peters. "We identified targetable mutations that would have been missed by current clinical sequencing strategies. In the near precision medicine future, this type of information will be critical for selecting effective personalized multi-drug treatments."

Study co-author John W. Park, MD, professor of clinical medicine, and director of Novel Therapeutics, Breast Oncology, at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), said, "We observed that it is possible to develop a robust strategy for liquid biopsy using whole genome sequencing of circulating tumor cells. This approach allows detailed molecular profiling across the patient's entire cancer genome."

Study co-author, Hope S. Rugo, MD, professor of medicine and director of breast oncology and clinical trials education at UCSF, said, "The IE/FACS allows for exquisite and full-scale isolation of highly pure CTCs with little or no contamination of normal blood cells, thus providing the robustness needed for accurate whole genome sequencing of a few cells. Taken together, the liquid biopsy platform we described in this study suggests a viable approach for minimally invasive yet comprehensive and real-time testing of metastatic cancer in the clinic."

According to Peters, the main limitations to the study are that only a single patient was studied and none of the suggested possible therapies could actually be tested, emphasizing the need for larger studies.
Hungary on Tuesday became the latest European country to withdraw egg products imported from Germany containing the insecticide fipronil.

The EU member state's food safety agency Nebih said it had ordered the withdrawal of Asian-style frozen foods imported from Germany by a Hungarian catering trade supplier.

"The Hungarian firm supplied catering units exclusively," Nebih said, adding that all of the suppliers' clients have been informed of the withdrawal order.

The move followed a notification by Germany to the EU's food safety alert system that traces of fipronil had been found in the products of the exporter, Nebih said in a statement posted on its website.

The insecticide has now been discovered in eggs in 17 European countries since the scandal came to light at the start of August and was even found as far away as Hong Kong.

Millions of eggs have been pulled from supermarket shelves and dozens of poultry farms closed, with the European Commission due to hold a crisis meeting in September.

Fipronil, an insecticide, is commonly used to get rid of fleas, lice and ticks from animals but is banned in the European Union from use in the food industry.

Belgium became the first country to officially notify the EU's food safety alert system of the presence of tainted eggs on July 20, followed by the Netherlands and Germany.

However, the news did not go public until August 1.

The EU insists there is no threat to humans, but the World Health Organization says that when eaten in large quantities it can harm people's kidneys, liver and thyroid glands.

 2017 AFP
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

During a depressive episode, people often report having reduced energy, feeling slowed down and having reduced interest in activities. As their mood lifts, energy and activity return to their usual levels. A new study in Biological Psychiatry reports altered measures of daily activity in patients whose depressive symptoms improved in response to the fast-acting antidepressant ketamine. The differences were present before starting treatment, suggesting that activity patterns may help identify patients who would benefit from the drug.

In the study, first author Dr. Wallace Duncan and his colleagues from the Experimental Therapeutics and Pathophysiology Branch at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland used wristwatch activity monitors to examine measures of circadian timekeeping systems, including the timing and levels of activity. The 51 patients included in the study had either major depressive disorder or bipolar disorder, and all of the patients had depressive symptoms that had not responded to previous treatment attempts.

Duncan and his colleagues showed that patients who responded to a single infusion of ketamine initially had more activity earlier in the day and lower activity later in the day than patients who did not respond to ketamine. "In other words, their daily activity clock was shifted forward," said Dr. John Krystal, Editor of Biological Psychiatry.

Responders also had advance-shifted timing of their activity on the first day after the treatment, and increased overall activity levels on the third day, consistent with the notion that activity levels are part of the clinical response to ketamine.

"These findings are the first clinical results to suggest that trait-like circadian activity patterns are associated with rapid mood response to ketamine," said Dr. Duncan. Altered measures of circadian timekeeping on the third day suggest that changes in circadian circuits may mediate ketamine's continued effects on mood.

In addition, the differences in activity levels before and after treatment suggest biological differences in the circadian systems that regulate activity between people who respond to the drug and those who don't. The authors suggest that the underlying differences may help predict ketamine's effects on mood.

"It would be nice if daily patterns of activity could be used clinically to identify people who might respond to ketamine and to monitor clinical improvement," said Dr. Krystal.

According to Dr. Duncan, the study is also important because it shows that rapid-acting treatments such as ketamine can provide key insights into the relationship between sleep and circadian rhythms, activity and mood response. The activity signature produced by ketamine suggests that the clock gene machinery that controls circadian rhythms may be linked to the type of depression that responds to ketamine. In addition, depressive symptom scores were associated with decreased activity and increased sleep quality on the first night after the infusion, indicating that improved sleep quality may be key to ketamine's rapid mood effects.

More information: Wallace C. Duncan et al. Motor-Activity Markers of Circadian Timekeeping Are Related to Ketamine's Rapid Antidepressant Properties, Biological Psychiatry (2017). Journal information: Biological Psychiatry Wallace C. Duncan et al. Motor-Activity Markers of Circadian Timekeeping Are Related to Ketamine's Rapid Antidepressant Properties,(2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2017.03.011
A Western Sydney University report has revealed that a cycle of misinformation, shyness and fear is preventing migrant and refugee women from receiving adequate sexual and reproductive health care and support.

Professor Jane Ussher from the Translational Health Research Institute (THRI) at Western Sydney University was the lead researcher on the 'Sexual and Reproductive Health of Migrant and Refugee Women' study.

Over a two-year period from 2014 to 2016, 169 migrant and refugee women in Australia and Canada participated in interviews and focus groups, discussing a wide range of issues about their bodies and relationships.

Professor Ussher says the results revealed that cultural and religious issues are a barrier to women caring for their own sexual and reproductive health.

"For the women involved in this study, sex is a topic that is not openly discussed. Unmarried women are often not permitted to discuss sex, and open communication about sex within marriage is also uncommon," says Professor Ussher.

"Any knowledge that these women have about sexual health issues is often pieced together  from female friends, relatives and the media. Many are too shy to seek out additional information, and would not see a doctor out of embarrassment."

The study involved a diverse range of women, aged from 18 and 70 years (with an average age of 35). Their relationship status ranged from married, single, divorced and widowed; and religions included Muslim (66%), Christian (20%), Hindu (7%), Sikh (2%) and Buddhist (1%).

The women had all arrived in Australia or Canada an average of 6 years prior to participating in the study, from countries including Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, India and Latin America.

The interviews revealed that many of the women:

Had no prior knowledge of menstruation prior to their first period. Many described the experience as being "isolating, shocking and frightening;" thought they were sick or injured; or believed they were being punished for wrong-doing.

Only learnt about the link between menstruation and reproduction after they had become pregnant.

Had minimal knowledge about sex prior to being married.

Felt ashamed to obtain contraceptives, or avoided any form of contraception out of concerns about the side effects.

Had very little knowledge and awareness about cervical cancer, or the need for cervical screening. The HPV vaccine was not considered important for young unmarried women, and some feared that Pap Tests would impact their virginity.

Had little knowledge about sexually-transmitted infections (STIs). Most women only knew of HIV/ AIDS, and believed that women were not at risk of STIs if they were monogamous.

Many participants reported having experienced urinary tract and yeast infections. However, seeking help from health care providers was sometimes delayed due to a lack of understanding of the infection; use of home remedies; or a belief that their health was up to fate or god's will.

Professor Ussher says the women's underlying beliefs and lack of education posed some significant social and health concerns.

"Sexual and reproductive health is a key component of quality of life," says Professor Ussher.

"From this study we know that migrant and refugee women have poor knowledge of issues related to their own sexual and reproductive health, and are underutilising sexual and reproductive health services.

Professor Ussher says the study reveals a need to provide culturally safe medical care, health education, and health promotion, and to increase capacity to access sexual and reproductive services.

The report highlights:

The need to make sexual and reproductive health a higher priority within multicultural health, and health in general.

The need for language and culturally appropriate sexual and reproductive health information to be available to women and men in migrant and refugee communities.

The importance of access to culturally sensitive health education programs, including peer support groups, for ongoing education about cervical screening, HPV vaccinations, STIs and urogenital tract infections, and negotiating safe sexual relationships.

The 'Sexual and Reproductive Health of Migrant and Refugee Women' study was funded by and Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Grant. The study was conducted in conjunction with Family Planning New South Wales (FPNSW), The Community Migrant Resource Centre (CMRC) and Simon Fraser University in Canada.

The 'Sexual and Reproductive Health of Migrant and Refugee Women' report (PDF, 520.45 KB) is available online, and the outcomes of the study are highlighted in a forthcoming journal article in Archives of Sexual Behavior.

More information: Jane M. Ussher et al. Negotiating Discourses of Shame, Secrecy, and Silence: Migrant and Refugee Women's Experiences of Sexual Embodiment, Archives of Sexual Behavior (2017). Journal information: Archives of Sexual Behavior Jane M. Ussher et al. Negotiating Discourses of Shame, Secrecy, and Silence: Migrant and Refugee Women's Experiences of Sexual Embodiment,(2017). DOI: 10.1007/s10508-016-0898-9
From the public files of the La Crescent Area Police Department.

Friday, Aug. 4

Background check regarding conditional offer of employment with the City of La Crescent. Main Street.

9:01 a.m. Emergency medical. Willow Street.

11:16 a.m. Assisted individual with Department of Motor Vehicle services. Main Street.

12:20 p.m. Traffic stop, verbal warning for speed. County 25 and Skunk Hollow Road.

12:57 p.m. Shore Acres bypass opened for cement truck delivery. Shore Acres Road.

1:18 p.m. A 23-year-old Hokah man cited for following vehicle to close. Hwy. 14/61.

1:32 p.m. Zoning complaint/property line dispute. Jonathan Lane.

2:32 p.m. La Crescent resident reported two abandoned bicycles.

2:51 p.m. Harassment reported. Main Street.

3:51 p.m. Damage of property by use of BB gun, two juveniles cited. Spruce Drive.

5:52 p.m. Found property. Main Street.

6:49 p.m. Three individuals reported as trespassing on railroad bridge, suspects gone upon officer arrival. Shore Acres Road.

7:55 p.m. Cat running at large, animal taken to La Crescent Animal Rescue. Beacon Valley Road.

8:45 p.m. Open door, building was secured and owner was contacted. Oak Street.

8:56 p.m. Open door, building was secured and the owner was contacted. Oak Street.

8:58 p.m. Emergency medical. Seventh Street.

10:10 p.m. Traffic stop, verbal warning for motor vehicle equipment violation. Hwy. 16/26.

11:15 p.m. Barking dog complaint. Fourth Street.

11:15 p.m. Traffic stop, verbal warning for speed. Hwy. 14/61.

Saturday, Aug. 5

12:22 a.m. Open door, building secured and owner contacted. Kistler Drive.

6:33 a.m. Emergency medical. Ninth Street.

7:09 a.m. A 57-year-old Caledonia woman cited for speed. Hwy. 14/61 and Fourth Street.

7:51 a.m. Gas drive off. Third Street.

8:07 a.m. Traffic stop, verbal warning for speed. Hwy. 14/61.

8:30 a.m. Dog bite reported. Oak Street.

11:24 a.m. Shore Acres bypass opened for oversized vehicle. Shore Acres Road.

1:07 p.m. Reported stolen bicycle, bicycle was recovered abandoned. Elm Street.

1:39 p.m. Emergency medical. Eagles Bluff Road.

2:33 p.m. A 25-year-old La Crescent woman cited for illegal vehicle registration, expired vehicle registration and proof of insurance.

4:54 p.m. Traffic stop, verbal warning for speed. Elm and First Street.

6:48 p.m. Traffic stop, verbal warning for speed. Twilite Road and Hwy. 14/61.

9:56 p.m. Traffic stop, verbal warning for speed. Kistler Drive and Hwy. 16.

10:24 p.m. A 18-year-old La Crescent man cited for speed. First Street and Elm Street.

11:08 p.m. Open door, building was secured and owner contacted. Kistler Drive.

11:21 p.m. Traffic stop, verbal warning for illegal driving conduct. Twilite Road and Hwy. 14/61.

11:22 p.m. Open door, building was secured and the owner was contacted. Kistler Drive.

Sunday, Aug. 6

12:07 a.m. A 38-year-old Buffalo City, Wisconsin. woman cited for driving while intoxicated. Kistler Drive and Hwy. 16.

10:28 a.m. Auto unlock with keys inside. Chestnut Street.

1:24 p.m. Unwanted subjects at a business refusing to leave, subjects left prior to officer arrival. Chestnut.

4:39 p.m. Juvenile welfare. Jonathan Lane.

6:23 p.m. Traffic stop, verbal warning for speed. Second Street and Elm Street.

7:30 p.m. Extra patrol request related to additional parked vehicles in the street due to apartment complex parking repaving project. Lancer Boulevard.

7:52 p.m. A 22-year-old Viroqua woman cited for speed. DNR Landing Road and Hwy. 14/61.

8:03 p.m. Traffic stop, verbal warning for speed. Twilite Road and Hwy. 14/61.

8:08 p.m. Traffic stop, verbal warning for failure to move left when passing stopped emergency vehicle. Twilite Road and Hwy. 14/61.

8:55 p.m. Emergency medical. Fourteenth Street.

Monday, Aug. 7

Theft reported. Twilite Street.

11:45 a.m. Shore Acres bypass opened for concrete pumping truck. Shore Acres Road.

3:01 p.m. Parking permit issued for a trailer related to residential construction activity. Main Street.

3:08 p.m. Feral kittens caught and taken to La Crescent Animal Rescue. Oak Street.

4:08 p.m. Bicycle reported stolen. Grandview Court.

4:29 p.m. Credit card fraud under investigation. Chestnut Street.

5:52 p.m. Barking dog complaint. Fourth Street.

7:34 p.m. Issue of a vehicle parked on private property, vehicle moved by owner. Lancer Boulevard.

7:36 p.m. Traffic stop, verbal warning for speed. Second Street and Elm Street.

Tuesday, Aug. 8

8:22 a.m. Houston County Sheriffs Office background check regarding a permit to carry applicant. McIntosh Road.

10:32 a.m. Trouble with party. Main Street.

11:26 a.m. Fingerprinting for employment background check. Main Street.

11:40 a.m. Report of a lost domestic cat, cat later found. Oak Street.

12:41 p.m. Library staff report a soda can was tossed in the book drop. Main Street.

1:15 p.m. Assisted project hero- United Health care ride 2 recovery, bicycle event as it passed through town. County Road 6.

2:37 p.m. Temporary parking permit issued regarding the repaving of an apartment complex parking lot. Main Street.

2:56 p.m. Drivers license record request. Main Street.

3:10 p.m. Welfare concern. Walnut Street.

3:22 p.m. Assisted La Crescent public works with water shut off for non-payment. Sycamore Street.

3:32 p.m. Assisted La Crescent public works with water shut off for non-payment. Moore Street.

3:49 p.m. Assisted La Crescent public works with water shut off for non-payment. Sycamore Street.

4 p.m. Assisted La Crescent public works with water shut off for non-payment. Regent Drive.

4:25 p.m. Assisted Houston County Sheriffs Office regarding juveniles jumped off the CP rail bridge into the water. Hwy. 16/26.

4:53 p.m. Over time vehicle parking complaint. Redwood Street.

5:09 p.m. Harassment/restraining order papers placed on file. Main Street.

5:11 p.m. Trouble with party complaint. Main Street.

5:12 p.m. Landlord/tenant dispute. Sycamore Street.

5:14 p.m. Harassment/restraining order papers placed on file. Main Street.

6:20 p.m. Traffic stop, verbal warning for speed. Hillview Boulevard and Hwy. 14/61.

8:02 p.m. Door-to-door solicitation complaint, subject was stopped and told to cease activity until a permit is obtained. Park Street.

8:50 p.m. Motor vehicle unlock. Haralson Lane.

10:03 p.m. Welfare concern. Third Street.

10:39 p.m. Complaint of juveniles playing in the street. Eleventh Street and Spruce Drive.

Wednesday, Aug. 9

Arrested a 33-year-old La Crescent woman on an active arrest warrant. Sycamore Lane.

9:52 a.m. Permit to purchase firearm application. Main Street.

11:03 a.m. Emergency medical. Fifth Street.

11:56 a.m. Scam reported. Main Street.

12:18 p.m. Gas drive off under investigation. Third Street.

12:44 p.m. Shore Acres bypass opened for oversize residential contractor vehicle. Shore Acres Road.

12:44 p.m. Shore Acres bypass opened for delivery of a dumpster for residential construction activity. Shore Acres Road.

2:48 p.m. Driving complaint. Mill Street, Hokah.

3:01 p.m. Houston County Sheriffs Office requested assistance in checking the welfare of a man walking along highway waving a kayak paddle. County Road 7 and Hwy. 16., Hokah.

3:45 p.m. Found key ring. Fourteenth Street.

3:57 p.m. Shore Acres bypass opened for oversize construction vehicle. Shore Acres Road.

4:34 p.m. Business alarm, employee error. Walnut Street.

7:24 p.m. Emergency medical. Riverview Avenue.

8:39 p.m. Emergency medical. Seventh Street.

Thursday, Aug. 10

8:10 a.m. Bicycle versus motor vehicle. Bicyclist was transported by ambulance to the hospital with non-life threatening injury. Second Street and Hill Street.

12:09 p.m. Traffic stop, verbal warning for speed. County Road 25 and Skunk Hollow Road.

2:20 p.m. Emergency medical. Main Street.

4 p.m. Neighbor dispute. Willow Street.

5:50 p.m. Suspicious activity reported, juveniles suspected of possibly smoking marijuna. Redwood Street.

9:32 p.m. Report of an injured deer, deer stood up and ran off on officer arrival. Twilite Road and Hwy. 14/61.

10:40 p.m. Suspicious vehicle, everything was checked out okay. Beacon Valley and McIntosh Road.

11:44 p.m. Motor vehicle theft, vehicle recovered parked in the city of Caledonia. Kistler Court.
It's meant to boost your health but Minnesota doctors caution that this alternative health remedy can send you or a loved one to the emergency room.

Six people have been treated at Hennepin County Medical Center this year for injuries sustained after accidentally drinking highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide.

Although these were accidental cases in which the patients thought the odorless, colorless liquid was water, there are people intentionally drinking diluted hydrogen peroxide as a natural treatment for sinus infections, inflammation and other ailments.

"The way people describe it is that they take 3 drops of concentrated peroxide and dissolve it in about eight ounces of water and take it three times a day," explained Dr. Ann Arens, a medical toxicologist at the Minnesota Poison Control System. "There are a bunch of websites and YouTube videos. There's no science behind any of it helping. There's no benefit of doing it and it really opens you up to a lot of potential harm."

Doctors have seen more cases of hydrogen peroxide poisoning in the last two months, she said.

The hydrogen peroxide in these cases is stronger than the 3 to 5 percent concentration usually found in the drug store. In these cases, the bottle is labeled "food grade quality" and contains 35 percent hydrogen peroxide.

"It burns as soon as you drink it," Arens said.

Consuming the liquid can burn holes in the esophagus and stomach, and can create oxygen bubbles that can be released in the blood stream. When that happens, explained Dr. Stephen Hendriksen, an emergency medicine doctor at HCMC, the bubbles can travel to the brain and cause seizures and stroke-like symptoms.

2017 Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
President of Georgia Zourabichvili says about 100 thousand Russians settled in country

CNN: Democrats to retain control of Senate after congressional elections

Alen Simonyan: We are truly and sincerely committed to the peace agenda

Artak Beglaryan: Genocidal purpose is apparent

French maritime services rescue more than 140 migrants trying to swim across English Channel

Biden says he is satisfied with results of midterm elections in U.S.

Slovenia holds second round of presidential elections

'Witch' burned alive in India, 14 arrested

COVID-19 cases are expected to surge in Germany this winter

Dollar makes worst showing in week since early days of COVID-19 pandemic

Germany withdraws from Energy Charter Treaty

Is Jordan country that has not supplied arms to Armenia?: 'The press usually has reliable information'

European Commission approves nationalization of Russian Gazprom's German subsidiary

Pashinyan: If the state interferes with the exchange rate unnecessarily, the economy will only suffer

U.S. to work with strategic coalition of Southeast Asian countries

Armenian PM: To reform army, it is necessary to make military service more attractive

Putin and Raisi discuss topical issues of the bilateral agenda

Blinken: Ukraine must decide on timing and content of any talks with Russia

Catholicos expresses hope that Russia efforts will contribute to ensuring free, safe life of Artsakh Armenians

More than 50 of poorest developing countries are on brink of bankruptcy, says UN official

Armenia ex-ombudsman: We are facing serious national security issues (PHOTOS)

Biden has no plans to meet with Saudi crown prince at G20 summit

EU offers natural gas price cap assurances amid disagreements with member countries

Scholz is against establishment of ceasefire in Ukraine on Kremlin's terms

Turkologist: Turkey does not support agenda of achieving peace with Armenians

Sweden to not permit deployment of nuclear weapons on its territory after joining NATO

Erdogan signs decree on appointing Turkey ambassador to Israel

Information security expert: Some Armenia officials received letter that they were victims of national hackers attack

Armenia FM meets with France minister of foreign trade

Foreign Policy: US to resume nuclear arms control talks with Russia

Armenia opposition MP: Artsakh army reduction is impermissible

Biden to warn Chinas Xi that North Korea path could lead to increase in US military presence

US Treasury chief: India can buy as much Russian oil as it wants

Newspaper: Armenia authorities trying to find legal grounds for signing peace treaty

Newspaper: People of Karabakh not going to tolerate final destruction of their army

Texas woman sentenced to death for killing pregnant woman, removing fetus from victim

Van Gogh's painting sold for a record $117 million

Gentiloni: EU countries have accumulated enough gas to get through the coming winter

Several dozen activists detained at protest rally in Baku: They chant slogans 'Freedom!', 'Resign!'

Princess Haya seeks asylum in Wales

Pashinyan: Iran is concerned about the presence of other actors in our region, which are not in the territory of Armenia

Pashinyan: Presidents of Russia and Azerbaijan listened to presented proposals

Volvo reveals its flagship EX90 electric crossover

Pashinyan: Yerevan supports Russia's proposals for Armenian-Azerbaijani settlement

Pashinyan: Russia cannot withdraw from Karabakh unless it creates additional guarantees for peacekeeping mission

Pashinyan: We will do everything to Armenia-Azerbaijan sign peace treaty by end of year

Russia bans entry of Biden's family and White House press secretary

Pashinyan: We believe there should be a dialogue between Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh

Pashinyan says positions voiced by some member countries of CSTO are unacceptable

19 countries that use euro currency will slide into recession over winter

Pashinyan to Baku: If 1991 border is mutually recognized, what are your troops doing near Jermuk?

Pashinyan: If the Karabakh issue is solved, why is Azerbaijani Armed Forces shooting at Karabakh residents?

Pashinyan: Russia should say whether their version of peace settlement is still circulating?

Pashinyan: Maybe Azerbaijan doesn't want Armenia to receive revenues?

Pashinyan: Azerbaijan must withdraw its troops from Armenia

Pashinyan: My yesterday's speech served its purpose, Azerbaijani MFA no longer uses 'corridor' term

Microsoft founder Paul Allen's collection of world masterpieces sold for $1.6 billion

Public TV of Armenia hosts Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan

China shows drone killer

Armenian FM meets his French counterpart

Rishi Sunak decides to close hole in British budget through austerity

Delegation of Russian MPs visits Jermuk resort town

Lavrov and Mirzoyan discuss regional agenda

Harut Sasunyan: The best way to achieve peace is to be prepared for war

Turkish prosecutor demands court to ban Istanbul mayor from political activities

German business leaders warn against leaving China

Sasunyan: Russia and US pursue their own interests in South Caucasus

British economy shrinks in three months, foretelling prolonged recession

Iranian Ambassador to Azerbaijan summoned to Foreign Ministry

Euro rises above dollar for first time in long time

Hungarian Foreign Affairs Minister calls Council of Turkic States 'forum of peace' and praises Turkey

EU embargo on Russian oil will be a boon for OPEC

Armenia defense minister receives China ambassador, military attache

Lemkin Institute condemns Azerbaijan president's genocidal rhetoric

Dollar goes up, euro rises sharply in Armenia

U.S. warns Europe that conflict over Taiwan will cause massive global economic shock

EU calls on Armenia, Azerbaijan to moderate their rhetoric

Erdogan says Turkey has been waiting at door of EU for 52 years and will give answer when time comes

U.S. fears that European support for Ukrainian strategy will begin to weaken

Armenia, Iran emphasize need to quickly implement agreements reached (PHOTOS)

Armenia soldier wounded by Azerbaijan shooting undergoes surgery

Gas over morality: Hungary guards Azerbaijan's interests

U.S. quietly seeks concessions from Saudi Arabia after Mohammed bin Salman humiliated Biden

Italy's Ambassador to Armenia visits Gyumri

Russian Armed Forces complete redeployment of grouping from right bank of Dnieper

IRGC: Adversaries are frightened and on alert

Armenia appoints ambassador to Sri Lanka

Kremlin doesn't consider leaving Kherson 'humiliating'

Israeli president thinks the world is concerned about Netanyahu's far-right coalition partner

Chinese MFA: China is not distancing itself from Russia, as Biden believes

Ukraine will seek help from its foreign partners in financing Starlink satellite internet systems

Erdogan: Situation in South Caucasus remains fragile

Marukyan: Azerbaijans Aliyev admitted that his country started 2nd Karabakh war, despite previously insisting opposite

Azerbaijan blackmailing Armenia through Lachin corridor

Turkish-occupied northern part of Cyprus becomes observer in Organization of Turkic States

Armenia PM: In his latest speech Aliyev flagrantly violated agreement on refraining from threat or use of force

World Bank official: Armenia is one of best countries in terms of credit portfolio performance

Azerbaijan president makes repeated accusations, threats against Armenia

Iran citizens injured in Armenia road accident

China reveals new giant drone that could point to the future of air warfare
Two children who have lived in the Netherlands for nine years but face deportation to Armenia have gone into hiding while their mother is deported.

Armina Hambartsjumian, the mother of Lily (11) and Howick (12), was picked up at her home at a refugee centre in Amersfoort last week and was put on a flight to Paris on Monday, Defence for Children said. She will then be put on another plane to the Armenian capital city of Yerevan, according to DutchNews.nl-

We have never before come across a case in which a mother is deported while the children remain in the Netherlands, Defence for Children said. The children were born in Russia and have never been to Armenia. Nor do they speak the language.

The children were not at home when their mother was picked up and their whereabouts are unknown. She has also refused to say where they are.

On August 11, judges in The Hague ruled that the family can be deported because the children do not qualify for the child amnesty introduced by the outgoing government in 2012. In order to qualify, children must have become rooted in the Netherlands and their families must have cooperated with attempts to deport them.

In addition, the fact that the mother has been separated from her children is her own fault, the court said.

On August 11, friends of the children made a last-ditch appeal to junior justice minister Klaas Dijkhoff for clemency. Supporters of the family say they should be allowed to stay while the coalition negotiations are ongoing.
White supremacists, racists and neo-Nazis need to be called out for what they are.

It is vital that we hold our governments accountable for denouncing the discriminatory, hateful and often violent actions of these groups.

Seeing Nazi flags being marched through our country's streets is extremely unsettling. We must remember what history has taught us and stand up against this hate.

While not giving undue attention to these extremist groups is important, I believe a situation like this demands a response.

Nazis were ignored and left to their business for far too long and as a result we saw humanity's darkest time.

While the context now may be different, I believe lessons learned should not be forgotten.

The size of these hateful groups doesn't matter; what matters is that they are still present and openly active in today's society, and they continue to recruit young members.

That concerns me and tells me that we are not educating our youth enough about how to choose a morally right life in a global society. It is our duty to call groups like this out. If you are silent, you are complicit.

YWCA La Crosse will not normalize racism. We will call it out and we will work to engage all in addressing racism, hate and bigotry.

Please join YWCA La Crosse in calling this incident what it is -- a lethal demonstration of extremists intent on discrimination and hate -- and work with us to heal, educate and communicate with love and respect for all.

Ruthann Schultz

La Crosse
I lost my granddaughter to heroin addiction, Anita told me. Weve lost so many people, Tena added.

Recently, former Marine Tena Quackenbush and her friends, including Quincy Garvin, Jasime Funmaker, Lori Pettibone and Cindy Ward hosted a gathering to promote and encourage recovery from addiction, especially the scourge of heroin addiction.

Ms. Quackenbush started #StoptheStigma, an organization with a mission to stop the stigma of addiction. She was joined by members of Natives Against Heroin in hosting the event.

Wogixete Wi was a traditional pow wow. Translated from Ho-Chunk, wogixete wi means Loving Us. Reaching out with love to those in recovery and to those still suffering from addiction was the theme of the pow wow.

I was honored to be one of the speakers at the gathering.

You are making a difference, I told the pow wow attendees. Building a culture that heals. Putting aside our differences and working to bring love and healing to all who suffer.

Traditional drummers joined us, including the Red Bone drummers from Minneapolis. The Andrew Blackhawk Legion Post #129 assisted in organizing the event. Ho-Chunk members of all ages danced in brightly colored costumes adorned with intricate beadwork.

Eighty-one-year-old Clyde Bellecourt mesmerized the group with his stories. The famous Native American civil rights organizer co-founded the American Indian Movement (AIM). Mr. Bellecourt is a White Earth Ojibwa. He shared how a group of a few motivated people can change the world.

AIM was started with fewer people than you have here, Mr. Bellecourt told us. And mostly women and children.

At the potluck dinner following the pow wow, I was seated with some of the elder women. They shared with me many sad stories about the scourge of heroin addiction.

Celeste told me, My grandson ODd in my home. I didnt even know he was there. She found all types of drug paraphernalia hidden in her house. The boy just turned 25 and is now in jail.

Tena showed me a photo of the dresser in the room where a woman recently succumbed to addiction. On it were two bottles of Naloxone, more commonly known as Narcan, which blocks the effects of narcotics. Even with this prescription antidote, the woman died of an overdose of heroin laced with a deadly elephant tranquilizer.

This is murder, tribal elder Anita told me. Johnny just buried his daughter yesterday. Johnny was sitting right behind me. As I gave him a big hug, he thanked me for coming to the pow wow. We dont want her to die in vain, Anita continued. This is all so senselesswe are fighting. We need something done immediately.

The discussion continued with important questions asked but not answered. Why the moms and dads didnt pay attention to their young ones? Why the police showed up too late to an area where a heroin party took place? Why are the young girls willing to sell themselves to the dealers who got them hooked? Why arent the tribal police watching the party houses? Why arent the abandoned party houses boarded up?

We have to close down the houses, Anita said. They talked of policies and procedures, but people are dying.

Closing up the abandoned houses as soon as possible is something Tenas group #StoptheStigma is working hard to accomplish. They boarded up some abandoned buildings. There are policies and procedures to work through, but the group has been successful. Tena even received permission to open up one of the buildings as a house of sobriety and recovery.

Getting people into treatment is a challenge. It shouldnt take three weeks for an assessment and six months for treatment, Tena told me. People need a safe place to go. They are in immediate crisis and they need intervention.

For all of us, as Tena says, Our goal should be saving lives.

Tena and her friends started the group because they and their mentees/sponsees in recovery suffered hateful posts on Facebook. They realized the stigma of addiction not only added to the difficulties of recovery but also made it harder for someone suffering from addiction to BEGIN the long recovery journey.

Changing the culture takes longer. The Wogixete Wi Pow Wow was a beginning. Each one of us can continue loving us and act to help #StoptheStigma.
Armenian deported from the Netherlands without children has been informed that she must leave the country since 2009, Junior justice minister Klaas Dijkhoff noted.

Human rights activists and organizations, dealing with children's rights, condemned the deportation of the woman, dutchnews.nl reported.

Dijkhoff said the woman had tried multiple times to win the right to remain in the Netherlands but that these had all been rejected.

Although separating a mother from her children is a far-reaching decision the mother regrettably decided not to leave with her children, he said, adding that the Netherlands is ready to reunite the family as soon as it can.

Her children, Lily (11) and Howick (12), were born in Russia and have never been to Armenia. Nor do they speak the language.

Earlier it was reported that two children who have lived in the Netherlands for nine years but face deportation to Armenia have gone into hiding while their mother is deported. Armina Hambartsjumian was picked up at her home at a refugee centre in Amersfoort last week and was put on a flight to Paris on Monday. She will then be put on another plane to the Armenian capital city of Yerevan.
Its no secret that Jackson County is battling the opioid epidemic like the rest of the state, but the problem only seems to be growing as being a recovering addict is a tough road.

Tena Quackenbush knows that struggle all too well, and has started to work towards combating the stigmas that recovering addicts can face.

She said she started using after her brother died in a car accident. She used because she struggled with how to cope with the loss.

On July 4, 2012 after 25 years of addiction, Quackenbush made that her personal day of liberation from addiction and has concentrated her efforts since then into giving people the same hope.

Ive been fighting this war for a long time, Quackenbush said.

She had previously worked for the Ho-Chunk Nation helping with Taking Back Our Community, which was a prevention program held at the Lunda Center.

The idea for #StopTheStigma started when she commented on a Facebook post offering support for someone going through a trial, and she was attacked with names and insults for being an addict in recovery.

I thought, you know what, this is what the problem is right here, Quackenbush said. People are stigmatizing other people and labeling them.

That experience spurred her to start the movement and hashtag #StopTheStigma to help debunk those ideas and provide support for those who need it.

While her personal social media experience may have been met with negativity, Quackenbush says the response has only been positive for #StopTheStigma.

The focus of #StopTheStigma is loving people until they can start loving themselves and actively reaching out into the community to help and support people.

Quackenbush knows how important being proactive in these situations can be in getting people into recovery.

Were trying to save lives and get people out of active addiction and onto the road to recovery, Quackenbush said. By stigmatizing people its not helping, its making them crawl back into their homes and into the ditches and isolation and thats not helping them at all.

#StopTheStigma has only recently been able to have a physical location, but Quackenbush said theyve already been very busy.

They helped their first client find a safe place to stay and get help before they even officially opened their doors.

Quackenbush has big plans for her space in downtown Black River Falls as she looks ahead to the future.

The first Narcotics Anonymous meeting was held earlier in the week and will continue every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, she plans on holding Wellbriety sessions as well.

There is no charge for any of the services or help that #StopTheStigma offers as Quackenbush said she is just giving back what was given to her.

The building is located between the old Falls Theater and Donna Ks, with the door located in the back down the alley.

The door inside is painted bright red as red is the color for recovery with a #StopTheStigma sticker in the window.

Her plans dont just stop with the building, Quackenbush is eyeing plans to revamp the whole alley way.

She set up shop in what used to be known as trap alley because it is where a lot of drug deals used to happen and where the police would find many needles.

The plan is to make a complete 180 in the area and turn it into recovery alley.

I can already see the mural I want to put up now, Quackenbush said.

For those wanting to help #StopTheStigma, Quackenbushs phone number is 715-299-4130. The program is always looking for donations of clothing for women or safe places for people to recover, as well as monetary donations if possible.
Alaska Aviation Safety Back in the Spotlight This Week

Pilot training, FAA oversight of Hageland Aviation, and guidance for pilots on deteriorating weather conditions to mitigate controlled-flight-into-terrain risk are topics to be discussed at the Aug. 17 hearing in Anchorage.

The National Transportation Safety Board is holding an investigative hearing Aug. 17, a hearing open to the public, in the Mid-Deck Ballroom of the Captain Cook Hotel, 939 W. 5th Ave. in Anchorage, Alaska. It will be the agency's first investigative hearing held in Alaska since the Exxon Valdez ran aground in March 1989 and is its first investigative hearing held outside of Washington, D.C., in nearly 20 years. The accident it concern is all too familiar: the crash of an Alaska commuter aircraft.

The agency has been investigating the Oct. 2, 2016, crash of flight 3153 near Togiak, Alaska; it conducts investigative hearings as part of a major transportation accident investigation to gather sworn testimony from subpoenaed witnesses on issues identified by the NTSB during the investigation and to allow the public to observe the investigation's progress. According to the agency's announcement, an investigative hearing differs from a board meeting in that no analysis is conducted or discussed at the investigative hearing  it is for fact finding only.

Flight 3153 was a scheduled commuter flight operated by Hageland Aviation Services, Inc., d/b/a Ravn Connect. The turbine-powered Cessna 208 B departed Quinhagak, Alaska, at 11:33 a.m., Oct. 2, 2016, destined for Togiak, with two pilots and one passenger aboard. It hit steep, mountainous, rocky terrain at about 11:54 a.m. approximately 12 miles northwest of Togiak, killing all on board.

"The NTSB is conducting this investigative hearing in Alaska because the majority of witnesses we want to hear from are in Alaska," said board member Earl Weener said last month. "We also believe that holding the hearing in Alaska will help increase awareness within the Alaskan aviation community of the issues surrounding controlled flight into terrain accidents and flight into instrument meteorological conditions. There have been 36 accidents involving controlled flight into terrain in Alaska between 2008-2016, resulting in the loss of 40 lives. We know aviation in Alaska is central to sustaining communities, economies, and the enjoyment of the wilderness of our nation's last frontier. The safety issues being addressed in this hearing will bolster the efforts already underway within the Alaskan aviation community."

Pilot training, FAA oversight of Hageland Aviation, and guidance for pilots on deteriorating weather conditions to mitigate controlled-flight-into-terrain risk are topics to be discussed at the hearing; NTSB said its review of accident data showed Hageland Aviation Services aircraft have been involved in six accidents since 2013, four of which involved controlled flight into terrain. The agency issued two safety recommendations in 2014 asking the Federal Aviation Administration to conduct audits of operators owned by the holding company HoTH, Inc., which included Hageland Aviation Services.
{image1}Signs, signs, everywhere signs. But do you ever really look at them?

If so, then you've probably met my friend Marshall Deerfield, who lives on Interstate-94, on the way to Madison. Or you've bumped into one of rock guitar's living (?) legends in Harambee, Keefe Richards.

Milwaukee  and southeastern Wisconsin  street signs pay tribute to politicians and settlers, but also to all kinds of other people, places and things.

While Lapham (named for Increase Lapham, tee hee) doesn't intersect with Kisslich Place or Mount Court, thankfully it isn't anywhere near Hackett Avenue or Kneeland Street.

You might get some good advice on Landers Street, but steer clear of the pixies on Fairy Chasm and the potentially haunted Casper Street. Casper's animated friends are spread across town. Homer Street is in Bay View but the Peanuts gang is all over the place: Brown Street on the North Side, Linus Street in Bay View, Woodstock Place on the East Side and Marcy Street to the south.

It's amazing how many streets are named for characters of '60s and '70s vintage sitcoms and dramas: "Diff'rent Strokes" fans will want to visit Rae Avenue and Willis Place. While Thurston Avenue might be a little too rich for your blood, what about Murray (the cop) Avenue, Vera (Alice's co-worker at Mel's) Avenue or icky Quincy Avenue, where the mood is a little more somber even if the coroner's office isn't located there.

Perhaps that mood is what led the founding fathers of Brew City to wish they were elsewhere. Like Beale Street (named for the Memphis byway), Drury Lane (although there are no theaters on this one, or at least none to rival London) and Waverly Place (New York's doesn't have a lake view!).

While Duluth Avenue, Michigan Street and Brooklyn Place might be a little ho-hum, there's always a party on Rio Street and nothing says Euro fun like Dover Street, Geneva Place or Bremen Street.

Ironically, despite Horace's urging, one can't go west on Greeley Street.

Greeley wasn't the only one to get a street named for him. Even English prime ministers like Gladstone are honored and so are great minds, too, like Edison in Downtown and Euclid on the South Side.

It's just a shame that Story Parkway doesn't intersect with Poe Street, Faulkner Road or Ruskin Street.

I could go on but instead I'm going to see if I can make Olive and Vine meet up at Bender Road. If not, I guess I'll drown my sorrows over on Downer.
There are several restaurants in history where I wish I had dined before they were lost to time: La Mere Braziers Rue Du Royal in Paris, Fernad Points La Pyramide in Vienne, France and Jean-Louis Palladins Jean-Louis in Washington D.C. These may just seem like a jumble of French names to the less-than-historically inclined, but to me, they are landmarks, culinary treasures that shaped an era or, at the very least, a camelot moment. They are mile markers in the evolution of our dining culture, almost more real in what they left behind than what they were in actuality.

Though not as storied, nationally or internationally lauded, last week, another restaurant that was a hallmark of good eating and formative for me personally and my city, was lost to time. For Milwaukee, it was a lion in what it accomplished and got away with zeitgeist-like panache: an offal heavy menu, fine dining priced dishes modeled to be paired with beers, a bar menu that preceded a host of national culinary trends.

This place was distinctively precious for me, because I dined there, drank there and even, it could be argued, lived part of my life there. Major turning points for me took place at its front bar, dining room and back lounge.

The restaurant I am referring to was Milwaukees Hinterland, which, after 10 years, closed its doors for good on Aug. 9, 2017.

The first few years after Hinterlands 2007 opening were a sweep of time and memories. Because I lived near the restaurant, the place became my Cheers, albeit a bit more gustatory.

I came to know the staff well and they me; they became more than people delivering a plate or refilling a glass. I had my 38th birthday fete at Hinterland and then my 40th. Hosting it there was less of a celebration for me per se than a mechanism to get as many friends as I could to know about the restaurant I connected with on so many levels. I used my 40th as leverage to insist people come for the party then return for dinner.

I have great memories from that event: Mayor Barrett politely explaining who he was to my Dad; David Gordon, the then director of the Milwaukee Art Museum, in deep conversation about the occult with my friend Theresa Reed, the Tarot Lady; chefs that turned up late, who would eventually become some of the darlings of the citys restaurant scene. Many of them met for the first time at that party. I remember them standing together, their drinks in their hands, salubrious grins on their faces, looking around as if to say, "Just wait and see what we will do." Nearly every one of the party guests returned for dinner and loved it.

Hinterland was the place first I had sauteed veal brains  soft and dense as they were light, as if warm foie gras has been strained through fresh cream. I ate it silently at the bar, paired with one of Hinterland Brewerys saison beers, and came to know, bite by sip, that cooking could be a form of reverence and revolution on a plate. I ate antelope, huge and rustically cooked, flavored with a rich, electric vegetable sauce that would make any French saucier of the classic old restaurants of Europe nod with approval. Housemade hot dogs, ramen before anyone else in the city was doing it, a white fish dish that still haunts me ... the debt I owe Hinterland for the expansion of my palette cannot be overstated.

When you walked into Hinterland, you were greeted by stairs that led up to the dining room. To your left, a long bar was punctuated on the end by an enormous vintage French wine bottle drying rack. Just past the rack was a row of high stools facing the bar. Seated at the second bar stool from the end, I had two of the most important conversations in my life.

The first conversation was in 2007 with Arthur Ircink, the creator and producer of "Wisconsin Foodie," the television show I have hosted for a decade. There at Hinterlands bar, he pitched me on the idea of the show. We talked at length, and though I nearly said no, that yes indelibly changed the direction of my life.

Four years later, at the same bar stool, I met a woman with whom I would fall in love and eventually marry. We talked for hours, finally moving from the bar to the dining room for a proper dinner. The service team that night, my friends, watched this happen and ebbed and flowed around us, shepherding something more that just a meal.

At its best, a restaurant is a living entity, a moment in time, a snapshot of what people, in search of more than nourishment, want best. It is place where time zigzags like in a good dream. Where the familiar swirls with the anticipation of what will happen next. Where we leave sated but not full, because there is an ineffable sense that you will come back again. For my Hinterland, that is not to be, though I had my time there and the restaurant had its time with me  something shorter than an era, but longer than a Camelot moment.
We've written about Milwaukee artist Tula Erskine (nee Gertrude Kundmann) before, and I'm always interested to hear more about her work, especially the paintings and other works she created for Milwaukee Public Schools buildings.

As you can see from the resume below, written in her own hand, Erskine did a fair bit of work to help brighten the days of Milwaukee schoolchildren.

"The artist Gertrude 'Tula' Kundmann Erskine was born in 1907 and grew up at 2901 W. North Ave.," writes Nancy Aten, a landscape architect who is working on cataloguing works that Erskine donated to the Urban Ecology Center.



Erskine's resume, written in her own hand. (PHOTO: Chris Young)

"Her father was a baker. She attended Washington High  studied with art teacher Rebecca Chase. She got a degree in art education from Milwaukee State Teachers College and went on to teach art at Rufus King."

You'll notice that in the resume pictured above, Erskine noted that she painted a 3x12-foot mural of Joan of Arc for her high school. Aten says that in 1935, Erskine referred to these "hall murals at Washington High," too, in addition to "tile murals at Steuben, tile murals at Boys Tech, and fireplace mural at Imanuel (sic) Philipp."

Well, Tech has since been replaced, but the decoration survives at the currently closed Philipp and at Steuben Junior High, which is home to Milwaukee French Immersion School.

But what of the Joan of Arc mural, which does not hang in any hallway at Washington High these days?

Aten contacted Washington's then-principal  since replaced  who connected her with school alumnus and historian Linda Durrenberg. The latter hadn't heard of Erskine but did know of some female students of Chase, the art teacher, and she mentioned she had seen a few paintings by them.

Her research turned up this article from the school newspaper, The Scroll, from the 1920s ...

It turns out that Tula's Joan of Arc portion of a 27-foot mural  created along with another student, who would do the other section, featuring King Arthur, in Room 210  was to adorn Room 222. In its June 8, 1927 edition, The Scroll published Tula's preparatory drawings for the paintings, which provides a good date for the work.

Although Tula graduated in January, she returned to the school to continue work on the paintings, work that continued into the summer. In fact, it appears that the two women were still painting into the autumn, when Tula was hit by a car that failed to stop when she was walking on 25th Street and North Avenue.

Suffering three broken ribs and "minor bruises" in the early October accident, young Gertrude told The Scroll  with no lack of melodrama  "A great medieval dragon seemed to leap upon me. It kept crushing me, and try as I did, I could not push it from me. Then all was black."

According to Durrenberg, Room 222 is now Room 208, Room 210 is now the main office, and there are no murals in either space.

But, fortunately, Durrenberg kept looking. Three days after writing to Aten to share the article, she wrote back to say that Erskine's Joan of Arc had been located in storage at Washington, as was Erna Meixner's King Arthur. But, the mural was actually a series of paintings that Tula executed  unless she painted them as one long work that was later chopped into smaller segments.

The paintings represented, according to Durrenberg, The Vision, Riding to Court, The Coronation, The Last Battle and The Death of Joan.

Aten is seeking a professional photographer willing to donate services to photograph the works as part of the volunteer cataloguing work she's doing. If you are qualified and willing to help, please send me an email and I will connect you.

It's unclear at the moment whether or not the paintings will be displayed once again at the school  though Durrenberg says the idea has been floated  but it sure is nice to know that these pieces of Milwaukee art history have survived and could be seen publicly again at some point.

Earlier this year, two Birger Sandzen paintings found in a boiler room at Washington in 2004 were sold at auction, raising $772,000 for student scholarships at the high school. That paintings had been a gift from the class of 1927. There reportedly has not been any discussion about selling these Tula Erskine works.

Meanwhile, Aten  with the help of Chris Young  continues to work on the Erskine items at the UEC.

"Later in life she became an expert in local flora especially mushrooms and they were her focus," Aten says.

"The botanical drawings she made in her later life are really extraordinary. In her 80s she became involved with the Urban Ecology Center when it started at Riverside High and then was in the trailer parked next door. Tula died in 2001 and left funds and artwork to the Urban Ecology Center."
Since its inaugural year in 2014, the Black Lens program at the Milwaukee Film Festival has served as one of the event's most recognized and most lauded elements, bringing diverse stories and storytellers to the screen  and earning an AMPAS grant last year. And 2017's selections would appear to live up to that legacy, as Milwaukee Film today announced its list of picks for this year's festival, expanding out to eight features, as well as not just one but two short programs.

"Adding additional films, including two shorts programs, means a greater diversity of voices and perspectives," said Black Lens co-programmer Geraud Blanks in a press release.

"We have more women and mixed-race directors, writers and producers than ever before, in large part because of our ability to expand our programming this year. The added room also made honoring 'Love Jones' and bringing 'Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982-1992' back to Milwaukee possible without eliminating deserving films from emerging filmmakers."

"The addition of a second shorts program is exciting, as it helps us to strengthen the mission of Black Lens," added co-programmer Donte McFadden, in the release.

"We want to make Black Lens a destination for African-American filmmakers to screen their work. The shorts program allows for us to introduce many emerging filmmakers from across the country and allows Milwaukee residents the chance to see films that they wouldnt see anywhere else."

Here are the films that make up this year's Black Lens program:

"72 Hours: A Brooklyn Love Story?"

In "72 Hours," gifted young student Caesar faces a choice between the comfortable world  his long-term girlfriend, his friends  he knows in Brooklyn and the new bright future that awaits him in a prestigious university upstate.

"ACORN and the Firestorm"

The origins of "fake news" and the media takes center stage in the true-life documentary thriller "ACORN and the Firestorm," about the bankruptcy and shuttering of America's largest grassroots community organization by two amateur journalists and the ensuing firestorm that helped create right-wing news empire Breitbart News.

Black Lens Shorts: Family Matters

2016 marked the first year of Black Lens Shorts, showing an array of short stories representing African-American cinema. It was such a success, the Milwaukee Film Festival has brought the shorts program back for a second year  complete with TWO collections for 2017. The first evening analyzes family of all types, across genres of all kinds, including:

"Amelia's Closet"

"Cul-De-Sac"

"Gema"

"The Homecoming"

"New Neighbors"

"Night Shift"

Black Lens Shorts: Lost & Found

The second evening covers a variety of genres and stories, from classic folklore to gun violence and more.

"90 Days"

"Dear Mr. Shakespeare"

"The Forever Tree"

"Hold On"

"See You Yesterday"

"#WhereIsBeauty"

"You Can Go"

"Destined"

Qasim Basir's crime thriller "Destined" describes two paths in one man's life  one in which Rasheed is an ambitious architect moving up the ranks of his organization, another in which he's Sheed, a drug kingpin ruling over his former childhood streets  all based on one crucial moment.

"Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982-1992"

After 2014's "Jimi: All Is By My Side," Oscar-winner and Milwaukee Film board member John Ridley ("12 Years a Slave") makes his return to the Milwaukee Film Festival with "Let It Fall," a documentary about the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, as well as the events and struggles that led up to it for a decade.

"Like Cotton Twines"

An American volunteer in Ghana finds himself in the middle of a culture clash when he attempts to free one of his brightest students, who has been sentenced to life as a sex slave as punishment for her father's mistakes.

"Love Jones"

This beloved '90s romance  about a poet (Lorenz Tate) and a photographer (Nia Long) that meet at a poetry slam and try to determine if they're in love or it's just a fling  makes it back to the big screen, thanks to a special 35mm screening at the Oriental Theatre.

"Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Black Colleges and Universities"

The first official entry in Milwaukee Film's nationally recognized Black Lens category for 2017, "Tell Them We Are Rising"  directed by MFF alum Stanley Nelson of "Black Panthers: Vanguard of a Revolution"  tells the story of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and their crucial impact on African-American history.

"Unrest"

A medical mystery is underfoot in the documentary "Unrest," as director and Harvard Ph.D. student Jennifer Brea battles a sudden fever brought on by a syndrome long since forgotten by modern medicine.

The Milwaukee Film Festival has now announced almost 30 of its selections  and it's still got plenty to reveal. So stay tuned to OnMilwaukee for updates  and then get your popcorn ready for the festival this fall, running Sept. 28 through Oct. 12.
Mississippi River's Gulf Outlet. A University of Kansas researcher is conducting research in two Louisiana parishes adjacent to the mouth of the Mississippi River -- Plaquemines and St. Bernard to assess perceptions of environmental risk among a vulnerable population in the region and the links between attitudes about climate change and local discursive and political processes surrounding coastal restoration issues in the region. Credit: US Army Corps of Engineers

Mainstream criticism of people who deny climate change essentially portrays climate skeptics as being out of touch, ignorant or somehow incapable of understanding the facts about climate change.

However, an early look at ongoing work by a University of Kansas researcher examines alternative reasons for climate change denial, specifically economic, social or cultural influences on why individuals or entire communities remain skeptical of climate change.

"The most obvious example of this is the instance of an individual who works for an industry, such as in oil and gas production, that may be negatively impacted by regulatory policy," said Jacob Lipsman, a KU doctoral student in Sociology. "This also functions on the community level; for instance, in southeast Louisiana, oil and gas represents a disproportionate source of revenue for coastal parishes."

His project focuses on two Louisiana parishes adjacent to the mouth of the Mississippi RiverPlaquemines and St. Bernard. Lipsman assessed perceptions of environmental risk among a vulnerable population in the region and the links between attitudes about climate change and local discursive and political processes surrounding coastal restoration issues in the region.

It is crucial to study these issues in Louisiana right now because the state has already lost over 1,800 square miles of landan area the size of the state of Delaware to coastal erosion.

"This land loss has major impacts on communities both directly in terms of increased flood vulnerability and indirectly through potentially decreased economic productivity," he said.

He will present findings of pilot research in the project on Tuesday, Aug. 15, at the American Sociological Association's 2017 annual meeting in Montreal. The project was funded on a grant from the National Science Foundation, and the KU Institute for Policy & Social Research provided assistance with the award submission and will help to manage the award.

So far in his research, Lipsman has found despite the higher than average rates of climate change denial in southeast Louisiana, parish residents have shown an environmental awareness that, on the surface, seems inconsistent with climate attitudes.

"Local residents are aware of coastal erosion and are focused on addressing this issue, whether or not they attribute this land loss to climate change," he said.

A major centerpiece of coastal policy is the Louisiana's Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast, a 50-year, $50 billion series of proposals designed to restore Louisiana's coast. The master plan includes a range of project types including sediment diversions, shoreline protection, hydrologic restoration, structural protection, non-structural protection, and others.

While residents may not be entirely focused climate change itself, the coastal master plan is a major focus in local politics, particularly since the legal settlement from the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill has made major funding avenues available for the execution of the master plan.

The region is a prime place to study alternative reasons for climate change denial because southeast Louisiana communities rely so heavily on oil and gas, commercial fishing and maritime industryall of which would be affected by environmental regulationsfor revenue.

"We investigate whether this rather than an inability to understand basic science, is a contributor to climate skepticism in the region," Lipsman said.

This work could help those who advocate for climate change policies in how they engage with those who deny climate change based on economic or cultural factors, he said.

"If an individual or a community is resistant to the idea of climate change for economic or social reasons, climate advocates will not be able to effectively communicate with these individuals about climate change simply by presenting more data," Lipsman said. "By better understanding the processes of climate change denial, climate advocates will be better equipped to have an effective dialogue with individuals and communities that are skeptical of these ideas."
Davide Tanasi, Ph.D., assistant professor in the USF Department of History, leads a team in uncovering the ancient Roman villa Durreueli at Realmonte. Credit: Dr. Davide Tanasi

Some of the mystery behind one of Sicily's largest ancient Roman villas is now solved thanks to a team of archeologists from the University of South Florida in Tampa, Fla. They're the first to successfully excavate the 5,000 square meter Roman villa of Durreueli at Realmonte, located off the southern coast of Sicily.

Project director Dr. Davide Tanasi, assistant professor in the USF Department of History, and his students worked alongside USF's Center for Virtualization and Applied Spatial Technologies (CVAST). Together they created terrestrial and aerial 3D scanning of the entire villa, an invaluable tool in guiding the excavation and interpreting the villa's architectural phases.

Through a month of excavations, they determined the villa was consistently occupied between the 2nd and 7th century CE and reconfigured to settlement in the 5th century Common Era (CE). That conclusion comes following the discovery of new walls, floor levels, staircase and water channel.

The team found cookware and lamps along with a large quantity of African Late Roman pottery and related materials such as kiln spacers. This leads researchers to believe an important function of the village was to produce pottery, bricks and tiles in industrial scale, helping explain the economic history of Late Antique Sicily.

Parts of the Roman villa of Durreuli at Realmonte were uncovered during a Japanese-led excavation effort in 1979-1985, but the team did not discover such an extensive part of Roman history.

USF worked in conjunction with the Superintendence for Cultural Heritage of Agrigento and plans to continue its research next summer. Such an effort is important to USF and Tampa, as it is a sister city with Agrigento, the provincial capital in which Realmonte is located.

The excavated ancient Roman villa is located off the southern coast of Sicily. Credit: University of South Florida
You can't grow money on trees, but you can earn money for letting trees grow. Or at least you can through a pioneering California program that allows forest owners around the United States to sell carbon credits to companies required by the state to reduce emissions. Researchers at Stanford analyzed the program and found that the initiative has valuable environmental benefits beyond just offsetting greenhouse gases.

"Many developing countries with large forests are interested in similar programs to avoid deforestation," said lead author Christa Anderson, a graduate student in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources at Stanford's School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences. "California provides the first proof of concept with a government program that credits standing forests."

Storing more carbon

California law requires the state to reach 1990 levels of greenhouse gases by 2020, and 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. A cap and trade market  which includes power utilities, industrial facilities, transport fuels and natural gas suppliers  is a cornerstone of these efforts. In the market, polluters can buy offsets to meet some of their emission reduction requirements.

Forest offsets, which account for the majority of offsets in California's cap and trade market, involve forest owners changing the way they manage their land so trees will store more carbon. This could involve cutting trees less often, reforesting previously forested land or improving forests through various management practices. Under any scenario, professional foresters vet the changes to ensure they are effective.

Forest offsets, which account for the majority of offsets in Californias cap and trade market, involve forest owners changing the way they manage their land so trees will store more carbon. Credit: Kate Lamy/Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment

For each additional ton of carbon dioxide their trees store, forest owners can earn a credit  worth about $10 currently  to sell to California companies required to reduce or offset their greenhouse gas emissions. Since it started in 2013, the program has earned forest owners about $250 million, while offsetting 25 million tons of carbon  an amount equal to 5 percent of California's annual passenger vehicle emissions.

Detractors say offset purchases allow polluters to avoid reducing emissions and may credit reductions that would have occurred without the program. While valid, the concerns have not been borne out, according to the paper published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.

Exhibit A for the program's effectiveness: The researchers point to the fact that most forest owners involved with the program are timber companies and investment land owners that had been logging their land previously. These landowners had to change their practices in order to participate in the program  further evidence of the offsets' impact.

Although California's cap and trade program allows the use of forest offsets up to an amount equaling 8 percent of a polluter's emissions, the volume issued so far is only 2 percent of total capped emissions. Because the pool of available offsets is quite small, polluters still need to reduce their own emissions directly, rather than relying on purchasing offsets. The program as a whole leads to emissions reductions that wouldn't have occurred otherwise, the Stanford scientists found after analyzing metrics used to confirm individual projects' robustness.

Still, Anderson and her co-authors warn against using forest offsets in large numbers because they may distract from urgent and drastic emissions reduction priorities elsewhere. One example: State legislators recently introduced a bill to convert California's energy sector to 100 percent renewable sources by 2045.

Lessons beyond California

The forest offsets approach may invert the standard paradigm in which conservation-oriented landowners manage land primarily for that purpose, and achieve sustainable forest management and carbon sequestration as co-benefits. In the California program, forest owners with a range of motivations adjust their land management to achieve greater carbon sequestration. In turn, they get sustainable forest management and conservation as co-benefits. For example, 17 of the 39 forest offset projects analyzed contain habitat for endangered species, beneficiaries of management changes aimed at carbon sequestration.

"California is figuring out its cap and trade future," said co-author Katharine Mach, a senior research scientist in the School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences. "Forest offsets have been a small but mighty portion of the state's climate action to date, which can inform where California goes next."

Carbon offset programs under development in Canada, China and elsewhere would do well to take a few cues from California's example, according to the Stanford researchers. Among them:

A requirement for 100 years of monitoring offset projects after their last received credit provides confidence that the offsets credited are real emissions reductions over an extended duration.

Most offset projects can earn substantial credits in their first year, which may enable projects otherwise financially unfeasible.

By embracing projects with multiple motivations  rather than only those that prioritize carbon sequestration  California avoids limiting program participation and benefits.

Because the program's minimum carbon baselines are based on widely respected U.S. Forest Service census data, confidence in its climate benefits is high.

In the meantime, the researchers suggest improving California's forest offset program by requiring participants to report a wider range of data on co-benefits and by taking into consideration climate change risks for the initiative.

More information: Christa M Anderson et al. Forest offsets partner climate-change mitigation with conservation, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment (2017). DOI: 10.1002/fee.1515 Journal information: Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment
Astronauts have always had to pack light. Luckily, when they've visited the moon or lived on the International Space Station, Earth is literally in sight. And if they had a medical issue or injury, home wouldn't be far away.

But for astronauts on future deep-space missions, like one to Mars, even a simple radio message might take up to 20 minutes to reach Earth. So how can they pack light and still bring all of the necessities, especially with an increased risk of injury during a six-month flight?

The answer could be what Dr. Julielynn Wong calls the "doctor's bag of the future": 3-D printing.

In January, Wong was the first to 3-D print a medical supply in space. Using a laser hand scan saved from the fitting process for space gloves, free software and a 3-D printer on the space station, she created a customized finger splint.

Hand injuries are common in astronauts. When they're in zero gravity, their hands and arms operate like their legs and feet since they grip and pull themselves from place to place rather than walking. Mallet finger injuries, which involve the tendon that straightens the end joint of fingers and thumbs, are the most common.

Finger splints may need to be worn for up to two months, coming off only once a day to clean the skin. Little holes in the splint allow the skin to breathe.

In addition to customizing the splints for the shape of astronauts' fingers, Wong arranged the holes into a star pattern.

Wong knew that the splints would work because in 2014, she and her colleagues printed 10 surgical instruments and tested them in a study against standard steel instruments. They worked equally well, but the 3-D ones could be printed in space -- or in rural and remote areas on Earth that lack access.

Wong combined her interests in public health and aerospace medicine -- for which she is dual board-certified -- to found 3D4MD, a company that 3-D prints medical supplies on-site wherever they are needed. Her "Medical Makers" around the world design medical tools and assistive devices, which can be created with free software and 3-D printers in libraries, clinics or someone's home.

The global community of innovators, patients and health care providers at 3D4MD has designed complex prosthetics for patients with missing or amputated limbs and simple solutions inspired by the needs of its own employees who have disabilities.

"We have hundreds of people across 10 countries crowdsourcing low-cost solutions to save lives, time and money," Wong said. "We have projects with humanitarian medical organizations like Doctors Without Borders to train workers on how to scan and 3-D print in the field."

This way, if medical equipment breaks in the field, Makers can design a digital fix for a part, ensure that it's printable and send it back in an email so the part may be printed on-site.

To help build the catalog of cheap, printable supplies, tools and devices, 3D4MD also hosts "make-a-thons" around the world. People of all ages, some who have never 3-D printed anything come together to brainstorm, design and create solutions to challenges that are presented.

Some of the items 3D4MD has designed and printed include simple solutions like a cupholder and bookstand that can be attached to a wheelchair as well as an insulin syringe handle that can be used by diabetes patients with limited use of their hands. The designs cost only a few dollars to make.

"We don't start designing solutions until we've met a patient or health care provider, because we have to understand their needs or challenges," Wong said. "We always ask them to take us through their day. And we want to empower patients to create the solutions they need the most."

Students design for space

The launch of the first 3-D printer to the space station in 2014 has inspired others with its potential, including a partnership between NASA and the American Society for Mechanical Engineers.

Together, they created Future Engineers, which issues two challenges a year to students from kindergarten to 12th grade to create 3-D designs for space.

Every challenge represents a real need that astronauts have identified, from tools and containers to food solutions and medical challenges that Mars astronauts may face. Experts judge the designs and interview with the finalists before declaring two winners, one under 13 and one over 13.

"These students are not only coming up with extremely innovative designs, but they're learning 3-D design skills that are imperative for the future of space and on Earth," said Deanne Bell, founder of Future Engineers.

The most recent challenge was to design a medical 3-D print that could be used for the journey to Mars. The two winning prints were a dual IV/syringe pump that overcomes the issue of zero gravity when administering IVs in space and a delivery device that astronauts can use to administer epinephrine and other drugs in self-treatment.

With 3-D printers showing up in classrooms across the country, students who may normally be turned off by math and science are realizing that they too can be engineers.

"It's extremely important to include the student aspect, because 3-D printing is a rapidly developing area, and we need skill sets to design functional parts that work," said Niki Werkheiser, NASA's In-space Manufacturing project manager. "Whether or not these kids go on to become engineers, and I think many of them will, seeing them feel that empowerment and controlling their destiny is extremely powerful, and those are the qualities we look for. So many of the problems we work through at NASA don't fit into a box."

Bell and Werkheiser, who work closely on Future Engineers, both wish they had had such opportunities when they were students.

"I was probably 18 before I held the first part in my hand that I designed on a computer," said Bell, a mechanical engineer. "These kids are making their ideas, printing and holding them and understanding the basics of engineering at a young age."

Werkheiser's department at NASA also works with universities and small businesses that are working on printable medical solutions for the future. Printable designs will be able to help astronauts with dental care, custom casts for fractures and sprains, sustainable tips for thermometers, vitamins, antibiotics, skin grafts and even food.

In turn, these devices can be used on Earth in remote areas that can't afford access to these items or types of care.

"So much of what we do at NASA is about making life better on Earth," Wekheiser said. "3-D printing evens the playing field so that you can create or make wherever you are."
Volunteers using a driving simulator were monitored via standoff and wearable sensors, which recorded perspiration, heart rate, breathing rate, gaze and facial expressions to capture the drivers' state as they were overloaded by multitasking. Credit: University of Houston

Distracted drivingtexting or absent-mindednessclaims thousands of lives a year. Researchers from the University of Houston and the Texas A&M Transportation Institute have produced an extensive dataset examining how drivers react to different types of distractions, part of an effort to devise strategies for making driving safer.

In a paper published Aug. 15 in the journal Scientific Data, the researchers make the dataset publicly available for the first time and describe how they collected the information.

The study was conducted with 68 volunteers, all of whom had a valid driver's license and normal or corrected-to-normal vision, on a driving simulator. Drivers were tracked with both thermal and visual cameras, along with palm sensors, sensors to measure heart rate and breathing rate, and an eye tracking system.

Ioannis Pavlidis, Eckhard Pfeiffer Professor and director of the Computational Physiology Lab at UH, said the study is the first to tackle three types of distracting elements - sensorimotor, such as texting; cognitive, such as absorbing thoughts; and emotional distractions.

Texting, the researchers found, led to far more dangerous driving, while a "sixth sense" appeared to protect those suffering emotional upset or absent-mindedness. Texting interfered with that sixth sense, letting drivers drift out of their traffic lanes. The researchers reported this result in the journal Scientific Reports last year, using a subset of the data they collected.

Additional investigation showed that "eye tracking and breathing rate proved useful metrics for measuring the impact of texting while driving," Pavlidis said. "But that wasn't helpful in cases of emotional or cognitive distractions." However, he said the researchers found heart rate signals captured via wearable sensors and perinasal perspiration captured via miniature thermal imagers were able to track all forms of distraction - a result that is reported in the current Scientific Data paper.

That and other findings provide the groundwork for future safety systems, said Robert Wunderlich, director of the Center for Transportation Safety at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. Given the widespread use of smart watches capable of measuring heart rate, he said this result opens the way for universal sensing of all forms of distraction at the consequential source, that is, the driver's sympathetic system.

The potential market for interventions is huge. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 3,477 people were killed and 391,000 were injured in motor vehicle crashes involving distracted drivers in 2015. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law banning texting while driving earlier this summer, leaving just three states that have not banned the practice.

The experiment worked like this: Volunteers drove the same segment of highway four times in a high-fidelity driving simulator - with no distraction and with cognitive, emotional and physical distraction. They were monitored via standoff and wearable sensors, which recorded perspiration, heart rate, breathing rate, gaze and facial expressions to capture the drivers' state as they were overloaded by multitasking.

At the same time, the simulator's computer recorded driving performance variables including speed, acceleration, braking force, steering angle and lane position.

In addition to Pavlidis, authors on the paper include Panagiotis Tsiamyrtzis of Athens University of Economics and Business, who spearheaded the data analysis and validation; Salah Taamneh and Ashik Khatri of UH; Malcolm Dcosta of Elizabeth City State University; Pradeep Buddharaju of University of Houston-Clear Lake; Michael Manser and Robert Wunderlich of the Texas A&M Transportation Institute; and Thomas Ferris of Texas A&M University.

Along with the publication of the paper in Scientific Data, the researchers released the full dataset in the Open Science Framework (OSF) databank.

This experiment represents an emerging form of multimodal design, where an abundance of highly quantitative variables are measured continuously, providing a 360-degree view of the studied conditions. Pavlidis noted that these designs are now possible because of technological advances in wearable and imaging sensors, as well as the emergence of robust computational algorithms.

The deluge of data such multimodal experiments produce requires sophisticated curation and complete openness, he said, not only for purposes of reproducibility but also as a means to investigate the dataset's full potential.

More information: Salah Taamneh et al, A multimodal dataset for various forms of distracted driving, Scientific Data (2017). DOI: 10.1038/sdata.2017.110
Facebook will spend $750 million on a new data center in central Ohio, the company announced Tuesdaymarking another boost for the state's growing technology sector.

The world's biggest social media company joined Republican Gov. John Kasich and a host of other dignitaries to announce its 10th data center will be in New Albany, just northeast of Columbus.

The 22-acre (8.9-hectare) data center will be powered exclusively with renewable energy. It is expected to employ 100 people to start and to begin providing services in 2019.

Rachel Peterson, the company's director of data center strategy and development, said several factors attracted Facebook to the location, including fiber and power infrastructure, government support, livability and the availability of high-tech talent.

"We look at that community fit and how we're going to live and work in a community," she said. "We not only live there. We work there, too. We hire there locally. So we want to make sure there's a strong fit."

She said the availability of renewable energy sources, including wind, solar and hydro, was critical to the decisiona factor underlined by Kasich, who has pushed back against legislative efforts to turn back the state's alternative energy requirements.

"It is critical that we continue developing the renewables, because, believe me, at the end of the day, if the Facebooks and the Googles and the PayPals and the Amazons think that we are not committed to renewable energy, they will not come here. Period, end of story," he said.

Menlo Park, California-based Facebook has been adding data centers in the U.S. and internationally to handle the growing number of photos, videos and additional digital content it must process from its 2 billion users. The Ohio project was code-named Sidecat as it moved through the successful application process for $37 million in state tax incentives.

U.S. Rep. Pat Tiberi, whose district will house the facility, said it's "incredibly important."

"It continues to show not just the Silicon Valley, but job creators all over the country, that, hey, you know what, something must be happening in Ohio," the Republican congressman said, noting the hope that a synergy is beginning to build.

Amazon opened three cloud-computing data center sites in central Ohio last year. The company invested about $1 billion in centers in New Albany and two other Columbus suburbs, Dublin and Hilliard.

Kasich said Tuesday's announcement shows Ohio is diversifying its economy beyond its heavy reliance on manufacturing. He hopes the growing number of tech jobs entice younger workers to move to or remain in Ohio, whose population growth has stagnated as average ages rise.

"Ohio has it all," Kasich said. "You've got the cool factor. You've got exciting companies. You've got the lower cost of living."

He noted other recent technology investments in the state, including by Explorys, IBM Analytics and Teradata. Cologix, a Denver-based date company, also plans a $130 million data center on its Columbus campus.

 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
New research out of Boyce Thompson Institute reveals surprising insights into the genetic exchange along the Silk Road that brought us the modern apple. Credit: USDA-ARS

Centuries ago, the ancient networks of the Silk Road facilitated a political and economic openness between the nations of Eurasia. But this network also opened pathways for genetic exchange that shaped one of the world's most popular fruits: the apple. As travelers journeyed east and west along the Silk Road, trading their goods and ideas, they brought with them hitchhiking apple seeds, discarded from the choicest fruit they pulled from wild trees. This early selection would eventually lead to the 7,500 varieties of apple that exist today.

Researchers at Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) have been working hard to excavate the mysteries of the apple's evolutionary history, and a new publication this week in Nature Communications reveals surprising insights into the genetic exchange that brought us today's modern, domesticated apple, Malus domestica.

In collaboration with scientists from Cornell University and Shandong Agricultural University in China, the researchers sequenced and compared the genomes of 117 diverse apple accessions, including M. domestica and 23 wild species from North America, Europe, and East and central Asia.

A tale of two roads

The most exciting outcome of this genomic comparison is a comprehensive map of the apple's evolutionary history. Previous studies have shown that the common apple, Malus domestica arose from the central Asian wild apple, Malus sieversii, with contributions from crabapples along the Silk Road as it was brought west to Europe.

With the results of this new study, the researchers could zoom in on the map for better resolution. "We narrowed down the origin of domesticated apple from very broad central Asia to Kazakhstan area west of Tian Shan Mountain," explained Zhangjun Fei, BTI professor and lead author of this study.

In addition to pinpointing the western apple's origin, the authors were excited to discover that the first domesticated apple had also traveled to the east, hybridizing with local wild apples along the way, yielding the ancestors of soft, dessert apples cultivated in China today.

"We pointed out two major evolutionary routes, west and east, along the Silk Road, revealing fruit quality changes in every step along the way," summarized Fei.

Although wild M. sieversii grows east of Tian Shan Mountain, in the Xinjiang region of China, the ecotype there was never cultivated, and did not contribute to the eastern domesticated hybrid. Instead, it has remained isolated all these centuries, maintaining a pool of diversity yet untapped by human selection. First-author Yang Bai remarked, "it is a hidden jewel for apple breeders to explore further."

The sour (but firm) side of the story

As the apple traveled west along the Silk Road in the hands of travelers, trees grew from dropped seeds and crossed with other wild apple varieties, including the incredibly sour European crabapple, Malus sylvestris. The sourness of crabapples was once described by Henry David Thoreau as, "sour enough to set a squirrel's teeth on edge and make a jay scream."

The authors found that M. sylvestris has contributed so extensively to the apple's genome that the modern apple is actually more similar to the sour crabapple than to its Kazakhstani ancestor, M. sieversii.

"For the ancestral species, Malus sieversii, the fruits are generally much larger than other wild apples. They are also soft and have a very plain flavor that people don't like much," Bai remarked.

A map depicting apple's ancient journey along the Silk Road. Credit: Alexa M Schmitz/Yang Bai

The hybridization between ancient cultivated apples and M. sylvestris, followed by extensive human selection, gave us new apples that are larger and fuller in flavor, and with a crispy firmness that gives them a longer shelf life.

Bai further explained, "The modern domesticated apples have higher and well-balanced sugar and organic acid contents. That is how the apple started to become a popular and favored fruit."

A sizeable discovery with big potential

A new flavor and texture may have put the apple into our pies, but size matters a great deal too. In crop breeding, one of the most desirable traits selected for is a larger fruit or seed. In nearly all cases of fruit domestication, the wild ancestor has tiny fruit that were shaped into their large, nutritious cultivated counterpart through centuries of selection. For example, the domesticated tomato is at least 100 times larger than its wild relatives.

"This is not quite the case for apple. Its domestication started with a medium to large-sized fruit," asserted Bai. "It has great potential for further enlarging fruit size in breeding programs."

By comparing the many different apple genomes, the researchers were able to find evidence supporting two different evolutionary steps contributing to apple's size increase - one before, and one after domestication.

The large size of Malus sieversii compared to other wild apples gave it a great advantage for domestication. It had already evolved to a suitable size before it was even cultivated, likely making it more attractive to growers who would then not need to spend much effort selecting for larger fruits.

Such a lack of size selection also means that the genes responsible for size increase still retain a variability that holds potential for future selection. But it can also make identification of the size-associated genes difficult. Despite this, the extensive breadth of the new study allowed the researchers to identify several genetic markers underlying the fruit size increases, which is great news for breeders who might want to further increase the apple's girth.

The apple (genome) falls far from the tree

While consumers may ask for better apples, breeders are met with difficulty when it comes to polishing apple traits. One major issue is that apple can't self-pollinate. It can only cross with other varieties, introducing too much genetic variability with each generation. While genetic change is necessary to tweak a trait of interest, too much change will tweak everything. Combined with the several years to get from apple seed to fruit, this makes breeding for desired traits a challenge.

"The genomic regions and candidate genes under human selection for a certain trait identified in this study will be very helpful and inspiring to breeders working on the same trait," asserted Fei, who expects that the results from this study will, "improve speed and accuracy of 'marker-assisted selection' in apple."

Now with an extensive and diverse collection of representative apple genomes, thorough and careful analyses have allowed Fei's group to distinguish important genetic markers that will greatly aid breeders in their quest for better apples - be it for disease resistance, shelf-life, taste, or even size.

When asked how big she thinks an apple could get through breeding, Bai responded with a twinkle in her eye, "Well, in my wild imagination, maybe one day it can be as big as a watermelon."

More information: Naibin Duan et al, Genome re-sequencing reveals the history of apple and supports a two-stage model for fruit enlargement, Nature Communications (2017). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-00336-7 Journal information: Nature Communications
Greece is asking Europe for four CL-415-type water bombers to help tackle its forest fires

Greece on Tuesday pleaded for assistance from European neighbours to help battle wild fires including a blaze ravaging a forest near Athens.

In total 146 fires have broken out across Greece since Sunday, and while most have been brought under control, authorities are worried about three on the coast near Athens, in the western Peloponnese and on the island of Zakynthos.

The government "has asked for the activation of the European civil protection mechanism for air support ... because of the danger posed by the fires," fire service spokeswoman Stavroula Malliri told a press conference.

She said Greece was asking for four CL-415-type water bombers, which are built for aerial firefighting and can fly up to 322 kilometres per hour (200 miles per hour) and scoop up 1,620 gallons (6,000 litres) of water in about 12 seconds.

Malliri said Cyprus had already offered 60 firefighters, while France said it could not contribute any manpower or air support because it is battling its own fires in the south and Corsica.

French authorities said a blaze in the southern town of Luceram, near Nice, had finally been brought under control Tuesday after burning for 48 hours.

Greece called in the army to assist firefighters around Kalamos, 45 kilometres (30 miles) east of Athens, where a fire has been burning since Sunday.

Nearly 300 firefighters, 100 soldiers, five air bombers and seven helicopters had been mobilised in the Attiki region, home to Athens, where fires are smouldering in a zone of forest and scrubland dotted with vacation homes.

At least five properties were destroyed and three others evacuated, authorities said, as smoke from the blaze clouded the skies over the capital on Tuesday morning.

Firefighters were also battling flames near the town of Amaliada in the western Peloponnese and on the tourist island of Zakynthos, where several fires were ragingsome thought to have been started deliberately.

Authorities have ordered the evacuation of vulnerable people, children and the elderly.

Soaring temperatures and tinder-dry forest floors across southern Europe have led to a rash of devastating wild fires

"Such a situation is unheard of," regional fire chief Vassili Matteopoulos told local media on Monday.

"We had 22 fires on Zakynthos just in the last 24 hours."

Political backlash

Efforts to control the blazes were complicated by winds reaching speeds of 40-50 kilometres per hour, according to the fire service.

The blazes also sparked controversy between the opposition and the cash-strapped government, which was accused of negligence, with local officials decrying a lack of air support.

"In this crucial hour, the priority" is to battle the fires, the office of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said. "The time for review will come later."

Soaring temperatures and tinder-dry forest floors across southern Europe have led to a rash of devastating wildfires, notably in Portugal, where 64 people died in a massive inferno in June.

On Tuesday some 1,450 Portuguese firefighters were battling at least four blazes in the central Santarem and Castelo Branco regions, emergency services said.

And there were fresh fires in Albania, according to the interior ministry, where more than 5,000 hectares (12,000 acres) of Albanian forest have been torched since July.

French authorities said the fire in Luceram had resulted in no evacuations or property damage, but had burned 150 hectares (370 acres) of forest.

At least 300 firefighters had worked to tackle the blaze, the biggest of several to hit the Alpes-Maritimes region of France this summer.

 2017 AFP
Despite federal officials labeling centers where immigrant women and their families are held as family detention centers or release programs as "Alternative to Detention," University of Kansas researchers found the detention complexes function like jails and prisons and that ATD programs are essentially expanded surveillance schemes.

Women held with their children in such centers are often required to wear orange jumpsuits, and often color-coded by a level of threat, according to a recent study KU scholars conducted in interviews with attorneys who frequented the detention centers in Pennsylvania and Texas.

"The detention of immigrants, especially of Latinos, today is very similar to incarceration in the regular criminal justice system, even though an immigration violation is a civil offense and not a criminal one," said Cecilia Menjivar, KU Foundation Distinguished Professor of Sociology. "What immigrants go through in the immigration enforcement system amounts to forms of punishment that are only handed down in criminal cases."

Menjivar, Andrea Gomez Cervantes, a KU doctoral student in sociology, and Bill Staples, professor and chair of the KU Department of Sociology, will present the study, "'Humane' Immigration Enforcement and Latina Immigrants in the Detention Complex," on Tuesday, Aug. 15, at the American Sociological Association's 2017 annual meeting in Montreal.

The researchers interviewed lawyers who had access to the detention centers and who also worked with immigrants placed in the Alternative to Detention programs, to ask them about the population of the centers, the conditions there, the role of law enforcement, the infrastructure and an overview of experiences.

The attorneys themselves noted how similar the centers functioned to prison or jail-like institutions despite the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency often referring to the detention centers as residential centers or campuses, often using infantilized language. These centers are often built in remote locations, making it difficult for detainees to communicate with their families or to obtain legal assistance, they mentioned. Life there is also highly regimented, and all activities take place in the same location.

Lawyers described the centers as having thick concrete walls, heavy doors monitored by guards, small windows or none at all, metal detectors, high fences and flood lights that stay on all right. In some cases, several families are held together in one room at a time in several bunk beds and a shared bathroom. Other facilities consisted of several trailers that house the detained women and their children.

"Even though we know how similar those conditions are to prisons, the language that is used to describe those centers is very benign," said Menjivar, who also co-leads the KU Center for Migration Research, which promotes KU research on causes, types and consequences of human migration at the state, regional, national and global levels. "Officials refer for instance to the centers as family centers or they want the centers to be certified as child care centers. The language used is very neutral, even child- and family-friendly, as if it's just a holding place, but in fact, that's not the case at all."

The research points to the inconsistencies of language the government uses and the conditions of the centers.

"On the one hand, this is how policies and programs are presented, but on the other hand this is how they actually work on the ground," she said. "We're trying to show the discrepancy between what the official narrative is and the experiences of immigrants who go through these facilities."

Menjivar said it's important to study conditions of those going through the immigration enforcement system, especially as the U.S. has sought to ramp up deportations over the past decade and now that the Trump administration has put a heavy emphasis on immigrant detention. Much political rhetoric also focuses on the criminalization of immigration.

The researchers also looked at current practices of immigrant incarceration, focusing on its outsourcing to private corporations running prison or detention facilities. The Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement contract with two large companies, CCA and GEO, that run private prisons, to house, detain, surveil and process immigrants for deportation proceedings, the researchers said.

"This is the expansion of incarceration for people of color," she said. "We have very high levels of the African Americans population placed in prisons, and we also have immigrants, mostly Latinos, who are put in detention centers that really function as prisons. So, both populations end up removed from society through imprisonment. The more immigrants are criminalized through law, the more they are going to end up in this type of incarceration."
During California's recent drought, media coverage focused on residents cutting back on water usage as a conservation measure.

However, a University of Kansas researcher who examines water conservation policy and the habits of well owners in Kansas said the story is likely more complex than that when individuals are organized by their types of water supplies.

Brock Ternes, a KU lecturer and doctoral graduate of Sociology, has constructed one of the only datasets of wells owners used in the social sciences and found that well ownership is significantly correlated to increased watering during droughts and that water conservation varies among those who own different types of wells.

"People who have higher levels of awareness in Kansas tend to also be using more water during droughts, but I don't think that makes them bad environmentalists," Ternes said. "These are people who are more aware of their water supplies and in the business of using water."

Ternes surveyed 864 Kansans, of which 48 percent were private well owners and 52 percent relied on municipalities for their water supplies to their homes.

Like so many regions suffering from recent droughts, rural Kansas has been particularly hard-hit by the scarcity of water. The High Plains Aquiferan underground water source that much of Kansas relies on for waterhas been over pumped for its valuable irrigation water, and researchers estimate that unless pumping is curtailed, the aquifer will no longer support irrigation wells in portions of southwestern Kansas within 25 years, Ternes said.

It might seem counterintuitive that well ownerswho are generally more aware of their own water supplies than those who rely on municipalities, according to Ternes' previous researchuse more water during a drought, but he said it's likely a function of how they use the water, especially while irrigating crops. During non-drought years, adequate precipitation tends to reduce the reliance on groundwater for sustaining crops.

Ternes said well owners are likely more aware of water supplies and know when to tap into the aquifer to keep their crops alive because they can rely on adequate precipitation during non-drought years.

"When people are faced with a problem of resource scarcity, they don't necessarily curtail their consumption," Ternes said. "In other words, drawing from a stock of natural resources in times of scarcity or stress does not automatically disqualify someone from being an environmentalist. But over-users during times of abundance can be ruled out. This implies that groundwater stewardship requires selective timing for making extractions."

His latest research project adds to scholarship on well ownership and environmental citizenship.

"Groundwater is a crucial source of freshwater for people all over the world," Ternes said. "And wells moderate the relationship between water supply awareness and drought-time watering practices. This work suggests that environmental researchers need to study well owners as a distinct social group with consequential responses to droughts."

He will present his findings on Tuesday, Aug. 15, at the American Sociological Association's 2017 annual meeting in Montreal.
Credit: Northeastern University

Over the weekend, several white nationalist rallies in Virginia devolved into violence that culminated when a man drove his car into a group of counter-protestors, killing one person and injuring dozens more.

In the wake of the , various officials have referred to the events by myriad descriptors, including "domestic terrorism," and "violence," among others. And late Saturday, the Justice Department announced it was launching an investigation into the deadly crash as a possible civil rights violation.

How important is the language used to describe such events? And where are the boundaries between free speech and hate speech, or hate crimes and domestic terrorism? Three Northeastern faculty members, whose expertise encompasses constitutional law, hate crimes, and terrorism, weigh in.

Assistant professor Max Abrahms, who studies international security and terrorism, said the weekend's events were unquestionably terrorism. Margaret Burnham, University Distinguished Professor of Law and founder of the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project, breaks down the Justice Department investigation and noted that "the demonstration in Virginia on Friday was hateful but it wasn't criminal." And Jack McDevitt, associate dean for research in the College of Social Sciences and Humanities and director of the Institute on Race and Justice, explained that the driver of the car can be charged at both the state and federal levels.

How does one determine whether an event was terrorism or something else?

Abrahms: There's no consensus over the definition of terrorism throughout the world, and for good reason. People generally use the word instrumentally, in order to delegitimize actors they don't like, or they'll withhold use of the term in order to legitimize actors they do like. In authoritarian countries, for example, leaders will label all dissidents as 'terrorists' whether or not they use violence.

Academics, however, tend to agree on who is a terrorist and who is not based on this criterion: A terrorist is a non-state actor who uses violence against a civilian target for some kind of political goal. Based on that criteria, there's no question whatsoever that the violence in Charlottesville was terrorism.

In general, Americans, when they think of terrorism, think of international terrorism instead of domestic terrorism. That's a little peculiar because the vast majority of terrorism in the world has historically been domestic. In the U.S., we've had a huge domestic terrorism problem called the Ku Klux Klan.

Burnham: Terrorism is as much a term of art as it is a criminal charge. Here, we're talking about whether, as a rhetorical and political matter, it can be considered terrorism.

The incident where the gentleman drove his car into a crowd of citizens certainly seems to meet that standard of constituting an act of terrorit was an act meant to interfere with the political rights of citizens in a violent way.

Classifying it as domestic terrorism increases the powers of the federal government to investigate, under the PATRIOT Act, introduced after 9/11. Domestic terror in itself is not a crime, but a violation of federal or state law can qualify as domestic terrorism.

So, was the violence in Charlottesville terrorism or a hate crime?

Abrahms: There's a lot of overlap between a hate crime and terrorism; they're not mutually exclusive by any stretch. A hate crime is prosecuted more severely than a non-hate crime because there's an understanding that the pain caused by the crime goes beyond the immediate victimit spreads fear more broadly.

The same is true of terrorism: There's a broader audience than the immediate source of violence. The difference is that, when we're talking about terrorism, we're always talking about violence, whereas a hate crime can be something like graffiti.

McDevitt: Hate crimes are terrorismit's not a Venn diagram. Terrorism is trying to send a message that you're destabilizing something, and hate crimes are all about sending a message.

The U.S. has separate terrorism statutes, so the question for prosecutors becomes: What's the most appropriate way to punish this act? Sometimes we get tied up in the term of the momentin the 1990s, we were talking about hate crimes, today we're talking about terrorism, but either way, if there are motivations beyond an assault, for example, we have to unite as a community and say 'We won't stand for that.'

Late Saturday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Justice Department was opening a civil rights investigation into the incident in which a man drove a car into a crowd of counter-protestors, killing one. What will the Justice Department be looking for, specifically?

Burnham: In 1968, the Civil Rights Act added legislation that makes it a federal crime to use force to willfully injure or intimidate any citizen because they were participating in lawful speech or assembly. It gives prosecutors the opportunity to bring a case if the speech or action was directed against an individual, and in this case, it seems pretty clear it was directed generally against a large group of people.

If the conduct of the driver of the car, James Alex Fields, Jr., was motivated by a desire to harm people on account of what they were saying, that would be a civil rights violation, but prosecutors would have to find that motive.

Even though the murder victim in this case was a white woman, if he attacked her on account of her affiliation with, or her support for the rights of certain targeted groups, it's possible he could be charged with a hate crime.

State law enforcement officials in Virginia have charged Fields with second-degree murder in the attack. Would a federal indictment, should there be one, supersede the state charge?

McDevitt: There's no double jeopardy rule for state- and federal charges. People can be prosecuted for both.

The real issue for the federal prosecutors is whether they can document that his intention was driven by bias.

Organizers have described the Virginia rallies as "free speech rallies," though they descended into violence. Where is the line between protected free speech and hate speech?

McDevitt: Protected free speech is not a crimeyou can stand up on a stage and say whatever you want. Where that starts to change is if you then look down from the stage and call out an individual person. That becomes a threat, and protected free speech goes away.

The other difference is, you can't yell "fire!" in a movie theater when there isn't one, because the implication is that people will get hurt trying to escape.

Prosecutors could argue the events in Virginia would fall into that last rubric because the language they were using was meant to stir up violence.

Burnham: The demonstration in Virginia on Friday was hateful but it wasn't criminal. Indeed, not only was it not criminal, it was First Amendment protected, even though it may have looked exactly like a Klan rally.

Free speech is constitutionally protected; not only is there a subjective right of individuals to express their points of view, there's also an object of dynamicpeople who want to speak within the context of the First Amendment are guaranteed the protection to do so.

When the speech devolves into a street brawl, then there are all kinds of other legal prohibitions that come into play.

But, for all of these free speech rallies, the American Constitution holds speech as an important value. That value, though, is a means of promoting democratic involvement. So even when the speech is really about excluding certain groups from participation, it's still protected speech even though it seems to defeat the whole purpose of the very values intended to be protected by the First Amendment. That's the bargain that the Founding Fathers struck.
One of the major barriers that environmentalists face in trying to implement sustainable practices is getting disparate groups to agree on what needs protecting and which way is the best course of action.

Work by a University of Kansas researcher shows that the development of local food systems in Kansas and Missouri could help bridge some of those gaps, especially as the process of sharing sustainable farming knowledge and educating local consumers provides an avenue for finding common ground across differing moral orders and environmental ideologies.

"Many of the farmers I talked to expressed being surprised at the relationships they built with people who were so different than them," said Ruth Stamper, a KU doctoral candidate in Sociology.

Stamper will present her findings on Tuesday, Aug. 15, at the American Sociological Association's 2017 annual meeting in Montreal.

In her interviews with Kansas and Missouri farmers seeking to develop sustainable agricultural practices as part of local food systems, she found a mix of first-time farmers usually entering the arena for environmental reasons and multi-generation farmers who were looking to change their approach, or at least differ from corporate farming operations.

Local farmers tend to raise crops and livestock to produce food that can be consumed locally, often sold through farmers markets or at home. Corporate farming operations often raises crops solely for livestock consumption, rather than as food meant to make it directly to someone's dinner table.

Religious beliefs among the local farmers she interviewed often emerged as the most obvious difference that participation in local food systems tended to bridge, she said. Much of the traditional family farmers were devout Christians who would often initially voice skepticism about first-generation farmers, likely having reticence about environmentalism and worshipping of nature or farmers who were members of the LGBTQ community.

Instead, as they began to interact more with each other within the local food system and farming efforts, they became more accepting of those not like them.

"The local farmers all have the same kind of end goal in mind, even though they were coming from two different ideologies," said Stamper, who farms near Joplin, Missouri. "They were coming together to build these local food networks, to educate and produce consumers for their products. They shared practices and how they were educating themselves, creating this space where they are building they relationships that haven't necessarily developed before."

This type of research could be key in helping develop local food systems and movements, Stamper said.

"It's crucial to be studying local food networks and sustainable agriculture because it's a very important way that we can be addressing climate change," she said. "We need to be focusing on local solutions. Supporting sustainable agriculture is really vital for healthy, food-secure communities, for our relationship to the environment, and especially for finding ways to come together across these ideological divides to address serious environmental concerns."
A NASA research plane, with the agency's science director onboard, will fly out of Boeing Field in Seattle on Aug. 21, to capture the first video of the total solar eclipse as it sweeps ashore at the Oregon coast.

"We're kicking off the show," said Leslie Williams, spokeswoman for NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center in Southern California, where the plane is based. The video will be part of a livestream on NASA TV that tracks the eclipse along its 2,500-mile path from Oregon to South Carolina.

NASA officials, including science director Thomas Zurbuchen, will discuss the eclipse and answer questions from the public at The Museum of Flight. The museum will also host a public viewing of the partial eclipse that will be visible in Seattle, with free eclipse glasses for the first 1,000 visitors.

Seattle was selected for the mission because of its location and the opportunity to collaborate on public outreach with the Museum of Flight, which sits right on Boeing Field, said Ted Huetter, the museum's public-relations manager.

"We have a parking spot right next to our fence," he said.

The NASA Gulfstream III, a large corporate jet modified for science, is part of a constellation of aircraft and satellites and an army of professional and citizen scientists that will be studying the first total solar eclipse in 99 years to cross the country from coast to coast.

The jet will land in Seattle around noon on Aug. 20. On eclipse day, it will take off early and fly to Lincoln City, Ore., said pilot Troy Asher.

There, the aircraft will repeatedly fly a north-south loop, giving camera operators a front-row view as the moon blocks the sun and the shadow begins to race across the continent. To improve video clarity, crews replaced two of the plane's windows with optical-quality glass, Asher said.

Shooting out of the windows, the videographers and photographers will document the eclipse from beginning to totality in that location. "They will be able to see it develop, from fingernail sliver to fully covered," Asher said.

In Lincoln City, the eclipse will start at 9:04 a.m. Totality will begin at 10:16 a.m. and last just under two minutes.

While the videographers are at work, Zurbuchen will be operating a handheld spectrometer to analyze the sun's chromosphere and corona-the wispy, outer atmosphere that is only visible during a total eclipse.

Flying at 25,000 feet, the jet should be well above any clouds. If necessary, it can climb as high as 45,000 feet, Asher said.

But the plane won't be able to chase the eclipse across the country-because it's not fast enough. The moon's shadow will be zipping eastward at more than 2,400 mph, Asher pointed out.

At the Museum of Flight, staff and NASA officials will guide visitors through a free public viewing event on the lawn from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. Aug. 21. The eclipse will not reach totality in Seattle, but about 92 percent of the sun's surface will be covered by the moon.

The partial eclipse will start in Seattle at 9:09 a.m., reach its maximum extent at 10:21 a.m. and be over by 11:39 a.m.

Paid visitors will be able to watch NASA's live video of the total eclipse in the museum auditorium. After the plane returns to Boeing Field at around 12:30 p.m., Zurbuchen will also be available to answer questions.

It's unsafe to watch any portion of the partial eclipse without eclipse glasses or a pinhole projector. The only time it's OK to look directly at the sun without eye protection is during the brief period of totality, when the sun is completely blocked by the moon. But totality will only occur in a narrow swath that stretches from Oregon to South Carolina.

2017 The Seattle Times

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Credit: University of Manchester

Researchers from The University of Manchester are using polystyrene particles rather than expensive polymers to make the next generation of solar cells, which are used to make solar panels, more stable and even cheaper.

The move could significantly reduce the cost of production and manufacturing of the solar cells, making electricity cheaper in the future for the public at a time when energy prices are increasing.

The research, published by The Royal Society of Chemistry in the journal Nanoscale, shows how University of Manchester scientists are using insulating polystyrene microgel particles to reduce the costs and improve the stability of Perovskite Solar Cells or PSCs.

PSCs are a new kind of solar panel and deemed one of the top ten emerging technologies by the World Economic Forum. This is because they have unprecedented increases in their rate of power conversion efficiency and potentially have relative low cost per watt.

Solar panels are now commonplace on houses and buildings across the UK, but their widespread use is still hampered by high production costs. These traditional photovoltaic (PV) panels incorporate silicon to harvest the light which is converted into energy but it is an expensive, energy-intensive material to produce. Recent research has turned to PVs using a cheaper compound, perovskite, as the light harvesting layer instead of silicon.

PSC power conversion efficiency is now approaching parity with established solar PV technology, which took decades to reach. So, with the potential of achieving even higher efficiencies in a much shorter time and their relatively low production costs, PSCs are now becoming more commercially attractive.

However, current PSCs typically use organometallic halide perovskite (OHP) as a light absorber, which readily degrades when exposed to water. This makes their practical use limited, especially in the UK climate. The cells also rely on a hole-transportation layer, which promotes the efficient movement of electrical current after exposure to sunlight. But manufacturing the hole-transportation organic materials is very costly and these lack long-term stability. This is where the use of insulating polystyrene microgel particles comes in.

Prof Brian Saunders, Professor of Polymer and Colloid Chemistry from the School of Materials at The University of Manchester, says: "More research is required to enable the full potential of the exciting PSC technology to be realised. Improving PSC stability and reducing expensive hole-transport material (HTM) use are two aspects that are gaining increased attention. That is why we're looking at how best to produce PSCs, keep them dry and make them even more commercially viable in the future."

He explains: "The perovskite layer in solar cells is not inherently unstable, but the required HTM layer is. HTM layers made of congregated polymers are thin but they are also relatively expensive and contribute a significant portion of the total cost of the solar cell. In this study we used polystyrene, which is 1 ten thousandth of the cost of polymers to produce, and is also hydrophobic which helps improve the stability of PSCs. Overall the enhanced stability and lower costs of production hugely outweigh any of the decreased efficiency."

Going forward Prof Saunders is keen to further refine the microgel approach to minimise the impact on efficiency and work on reducing toxic lead content in PSCs.

More information: Mu Chen et al. Reducing hole transporter use and increasing perovskite solar cell stability with dual-role polystyrene microgel particles, Nanoscale (2017). DOI: 10.1039/C7NR02650A Journal information: Nanoscale
ONALASKA  Tom Krajewski of Onalaska was wary Monday of the proposed deal to bring a technology plant to Wisconsin at the price of $3 billion.

Money is like manure. If you pile it in one place, its not going to do any good. Youve got to spread it around, said Krajewski, a former staff member at Wisconsin Community Development Finance Authority 30 years ago.

Krajewski was one of dozens of La Crosse County residents who raised concerns ranging from the environment to the state budget to return on investment Monday in response to the Foxconn Technology Group deal being considered by the Wisconsin Legislature. About 70 people packed into the meeting room in Onalaska Public Library during a listening session organized by state Sen. Jennifer Shilling and Rep. Jill Billings to express disapproval of the deal, announced in July by Gov. Scott Walker.

If the deal is approved, the Taiwanese firms display screen plant would be built in southeastern Wisconsin, with proponents saying it could bring 3,000 to 13,000 jobs to the state.

I love the jobs, if were going to get them, but its kind of a rosy scenario, Krajewski said.

Barbara Frank, La Crosse, agreed that jobs are critical, but urged legislators to look this gift horse in the mouth, particularly after a Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau Report estimated that it would take the state 25 years to recoup the $2.85 billion in proposed cash payments to Foxconn.

This just isnt a good investment, she said. Frankly, as a private investor, something that would take 25 years to get a return on, forget it.

Dennis King, Onalaska, opened the discussion by asking a question that was later echoed throughout the room.

Its never been explained by Foxconn wants to come here, King said. I assume its the $3 billion.

However, Kings main concern was the portion of the deal to exempt the plants developers from state environmental requirements.

What kind of pollution are they going to create? King asked.

With a large amount of water used in the process, King questioned what effects water run-off would have on sewage and the water supply in the area.

Wisconsin is pristine. Our water is good. Im not for it, King said.

Shilling clarified that the exemption would not change state law. It would exempt Foxconn from statutory requirements, such as environmental impact statements. Once it is up and running, it would need to follow environmental regulations.

They want to save money at our expense, King said.

People also raised questions of Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources enforcement, asking whether it would adequately hold Foxconn accountable.

Jeff Berger, Holmen, asked whether Foxconn offered the kinds of jobs Wisconsin wants, citing poor conditions in overseas factories.

This company does not have a good track record, he said.

He urged people to contact Wisconsin legislators and tell them to turn down the deal.

We dont want this factory in here, Berger said.

The deal will go before the state Assembly this week.

By Thursday, I have to vote, Billings said, despite her unanswered questions.

Billings added that the deal would likely pass the Assembly, but its future is less certain in the Senate.

Shilling criticized Walker and state Republicans for rushing the bill through the Assembly.

As the deal was unveiled, it was lacking on details, Shilling said. We in the legislature have been asking for details, been asking for analysis, have been asking for briefings from the Department of Administration and from (the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation).

Shilling said it was important to know whether this was a deal the state could afford before moving forward.
Conventional particle accelerators can range from large room-sized devices to facilities multiple kilometers across. One of the ways that scientists have looked to reduce the size and expense of future accelerators is by developing laser -driven plasma acceleration. Such accelerators, however, are growing in size and complexity in order to maintain relevance for one of their applicationshigh energy physics. However, there are many applications that can use a lower energy and higher repetition rate accelerated beam. For the first time, scientists have observed the production of relativistic electrons driven by low-energy, ultrashort mid-infrared laser pulses. A research team at the University of Maryland, USA, with support from the Technical University of Vienna, Austria, will present their group's findings at Frontiers in Optics + Laser Science APS/DLS (FIO + LS), held 17-21 September 2017 in Washington, DC.

"We're trying to develop laser-driven accelerators that are extremely compact and have a high repetition rate," said Howard Milchberg, Fellow of The American Physical Society (APS) and The Optical Society (OSA), and professor of Physics and Electrical Engineering at the University of Maryland. "That means using as low a laser pulse energy as possible to generate relativistic electrons. Such sources could have use in rapid scan imaging for medical, scientific and security applications."

Recently, the development of optical parametric chirp pulse amplification (OPCPA) systems in the mid-infrared has enabled the use of long wavelength pulses on the femtosecond scale. Until this development, long wavelength laser pulses have primarily been available from CO2 lasers, but they have a complicated multi-pulse structure with pulse durations extending, at the shortest durations, beyond several picoseconds, hundreds of times longer.

Common laser-driven acceleration experiments depend on short laser pulse interaction with a gas target. Compared to prior experiments, the long driver wavelength used in this project resulted in easy access to what is called the "critical density" regime. Because the critical density varies inversely as the square of the laser wavelength, gas targets used for mid-IR laser pulses can be up to 100 times less dense than those used in the visible and near-IR, making them far less difficult to engineer.

"When a few-millijoule femtosecond mid-IR laser pulses is focused by a curved mirror into a hydrogen gas jet - a stream of hydrogen puffing out of a nozzle - a collimated pulse of relativistic electrons beams out the other side of the jet," Milchberg said, describing the experiment. "However, this can't happen unless the laser achieves an extremely high intensity - much higher than achievable by focusing with the curved mirror alone. It does so by relativistic self-focusing in the ionized hydrogen gas so that it collapses to a size much smaller than its focal spot."

The importance of being in the critical density regime, according to Milchberg, is that it promotes relativistic self-focusing even for low energy laser pulses. This boosted high-intensity interaction generates plasma waves that accelerate some of the electrons from the ionized hydrogen into a forward-directed relativistic beam.

The team found that electron beams were present for powers such that the characteristic self-focusing length in plasma was shorter than the, gas jet width, showing that electron acceleration cannot occur without relativistic self-focusing.

Relativistic self-focusing is an extreme example of the well-known process of self-focusing in nonlinear optics, but now with the bonus of accelerated relativistic particles generated from the nonlinear medium.

Even with only 20 millijoules of mid-IR laser energy, the laser in these experiments can significantly exceed the threshold for relativistic self-focusing, giving rise to relativistic multi-filamentation. The team observed multiple relativistic electron beamlets associated with these filaments.

These innovations are among the beginning steps for the development and applications of high repetition rate laser driven accelerators. "In particular," Milchberg said, "long wavelength femtosecond lasers are especially promising, as they can access the relativistic nonlinear regime of free electrons surprisingly easily."

More information: The presentation entitled "Laser wakefield acceleration with mid-IR laser pulses," by Daniel Woodbury, will take place from on Monday, 18 September at the International Ballroom East, Washington Hilton, Washington DC, USA. Media Registration
NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson collects images of the back of the eye during a routine check into astronaut eyesight. Crew members' bodies change in a variety of ways during space flight, and some experience impaired vision. Credit: NASA

NASA's future deep space exploration  including to Mars  is an unprecedented venture in spaceflight, requiring us to tackle challenges we've never faced before. For instance, we know the human body changes significantly while in space, and we'll need to find ways to address those effects. NASA is conducting research to learn more about the long-term impact of extended human spaceflight. One experiment that just launched, Rodent Research-9, is contributing to this goal by sending rodents to the International Space Station, to study how a lack of gravity in space affects blood vessels, eyes and joints.

Using transport and habitat technology developed at NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley, the mice will fly to the space station aboard the 12th SpaceX resupply mission, and return to Earth about a month later. Due to biological similarities to humans, the mouse is a good choice of model organism for research aimed at understanding biological changes caused by the space environment. By studying rodents in the short term, NASA can make predictions about long-term human biological change in space, with applications here on Earth as well.

"Space biology scientists have observed accelerated changes in mouse physiology in the space environment that are characteristic of some human diseases, such as osteoporosis and aging," said Kevin Sato, the project scientist for the space biology project at Ames. "Similar changes have been observed in astronauts, so the space environment allows scientists to study physiological changes in the astronauts using the mice as a model."

"We can also investigate physiological disease processes, which normally take years to develop, during the duration of a space flight investigation," said Sato. "The changes we see during this rodent research experiment will allow us to better prepare our astronauts for long-term exposure to low-gravity environments."

Three-in-One Mission Supports Future Human Space Exploration

With limited opportunities to send experiments to the space station  the only true microgravity laboratory that exists  NASA must use each mission to its full capacity.

For Rodent Research-9, the agency's space biology program is sponsoring three scientists from different universities to address different issues. NASA's bio-specimen sharing allows the three investigators to work with the same group of mice, without having to send three different missions to the space station. The three complementary research investigations will be combined into one cost-effective mission, addressing questions that are fundamental to human space exploration.

The Rodent Research Hardware System includes three modules: (left) habitat, (center) transporter, and (right) animal access unit. Credit: NASA/Ames Research Center/Dominic Hart

Two of the investigations will identify how microgravity affects blood vessels in the brain and in the eyes. Some astronauts on long missions on the space station find that their vision becomes impaired. The leading theory to explain this suggests that, without Earth's gravity, fluids shift from the lower to the upper body, causing an increase in pressure in the head and eye, leading to visual impairment. The experiments with mice will help test this theory.

Exposure to weightlessness also can cause tissue degeneration in hip and knee joints. The third experiment on RR-9 will look at cartilage loss in these joints. Researchers will study how the gait of the mice  their manner of walking  is changed by these conditions. Understanding how weightlessness affects cartilage will help NASA develop ways to counter these adverse effects, allowing humans to stay healthier in space for longer periods of time.

For humans here on Earth, rodent research related to limited mobility and degrading joints can help scientists understand how arthritis develops in people, and a better understanding of the visual impairments experienced by astronauts can help identify causes and treatments for eye disorders.

Don't Redesign the Wheel

NASA's ongoing series of rodent research investigations use a proven and standardized hardware system. For decades, Ames has designed, constructed and tested hardware for rodent research experiments, including rodent habitats, transporters and an animal access unit. This hardware is versatile and reusable, providing ongoing support for space-related rodent research carried out by NASA and its partners in industry and academia.

"This kind of in-depth research is possible because of the unique hardware Ames has been able to provide for rodent research," said Janet Beegle, rodent research project manager. "By transitioning from a payload system  where a researcher's team would start from scratch each time we send up an experiment  to a permanent hardware facility provided by NASA, we can have an ongoing and consistent rodent research presence on the station."

Through well-designed and cost-effective experiments such as Rodent Research-9, NASA is tackling the obstacles in our path to reaching Mars and beyond. With the knowledge gained by understanding how human biology thrives and changes in space, we can better serve human needs on Earth and beyond.

More information: For the RR9 technical mission page, visit: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sta  xperiments/2440.html

Provided by NASA
When scientists confirmed their existence in the San Gabriel River in 2008, the green sea turtles were thought to be oddballs or lost wanderers.

The federally endangered species usually is found in tropical haunts - amid coral reefs or on the sandy beaches where they lay eggs. But this colony was cavorting in the southern end of the river, where the flood control channel's tainted urban runoff mixes with tidal flows in the shadows of electric power plants and the 405 Freeway.

With each massive turtle that poked its grapefruit-size head above the murky water for a gulp of air came questions.

How many were there? What were they eating? Were they adapting to the challenges the two-mile-long, 100-yard-wide channel between the cities of Long Beach and Seal Beach presented: fishing hooks, motorboats, illegal dumping and tons of garbage that washes in every time it rains?

After years of monitoring their behavior and tracking their movements, federal scientists - assisted by a small army of volunteers organized by the Aquarium of the Pacific and the Los Cerritos Wetlands Authority - are coming up with answers to some of the riddles the turtles pose.

"The green sea turtles in the San Gabriel River are thriving," said Dan Lawson, a biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service. "Over the past decade, we've seen about 100 of them in the river and in nearby Alamitos Bay, Anaheim Bay, Huntington Harbor and the Naval Weapons Station.

"But they'd be a lot happier if our regulatory agencies did a better job of controlling trash in the river," he said.

The colony, according to experts, is composed of juveniles hatched off central Mexico, where the population is increasing thanks to nesting beach protections and a reduction in poaching. Exactly when they arrived, or if they traveled together or as individuals, remains unknown.

The turtles range in size from a sheet of notebook paper to 100-pounders and eat almost anything they can clamp their mouths on - including snails in the river and eel grass in the estuaries of the Naval Weapons Station.

An analysis of tissue and shell samples conducted by Arthur Barraza as part of his graduate work in marine biology at Cal State Long Beach showed relatively low levels of toxic heavy metals and carcinogenic substances.

"These turtles are fairly healthy, at least right now," he said. "Contaminants accumulate in their tissues over time, and their harmful effects can initially be subtle and hard to detect."

The good news about the turtles' health is offset, however, by the sight of them having to navigate through rotting garbage, discarded shopping carts, tires, plastic bottles and bags.

Mike Kaspar, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works, said the agency was "in the process of cleaning up that portion of the river right now."

Standing recently on a slanting concrete wall as sea turtles surfaced in the foamy current and county crews picked up trash onshore, Cassandra Davis of the aquarium's San Gabriel River Sea Turtle Monitoring Project was hopeful.

"We have the ability to transform this unlikely habitat into an urban oasis for wildlife, including Los Angeles' resident sea turtles," she said. "So we ought to do that, because they deserve better than this."

2017 Los Angeles Times

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
The people behind Adaptricity (from left): Stephan Koch, Andreas Ulbig and Francesco Ferrucci. Credit: Courtesy of Adaptricity

ETH spin-off Adaptricity has developed software that can be used to analyse the increasingly intelligent power grids. It will soon be put to the entrepreneurial test, with sales of software licences set to begin this autumn.

Andreas Ulbig and Stephan Koch must have had a sixth sense. When the two ETH doctoral students began tinkering with a software solution for intelligent power grids in 2010, they could scarcely have known that just a few years later, the Federal Council and the Swiss people would vote for a phase-out of nuclear power. Without this energy transition, the two scientists might never have turned their idea into a start-up. But that is precisely what they did, teaming up with business IT specialist Francesco Ferrucci to found Adaptricity at the start of 2014.

One of the biggest problems with the energy transition are the high costs; for example, electricity grids must be expanded in order to keep pace with the rising proportion of renewable energy, heat pumps and electric cars. As copper cable for power line construction is becoming increasingly expensive, the necessary investment runs into the billions. This is where Adaptricity comes in: the company's founders have developed software that helps power grid operators better understand and plan their networks. As a result, unnecessary investment can be avoided and in fact necessary grid investment can be made more cost-effective.

Distribution grid as a big black box

Ulbig (35) is chief operating officer of Adaptricity and  like CEO Koch  came from Germany to do his doctorate at ETH. He opens his laptop and shows us an example to illustrate how the simulation works. On the screen, we see a satellite map showing power lines to individual households. Ulbig can simulate what happens if a photovoltaic system is built in the district. With a click of the mouse, he drags one on to the map. The network voltages change immediately, but only by a minimal amount. Moreover, no more than 15 percent of the area's grid capacity is used, even in peak times. Ulbig's conclusion: "You could build this PV system easily without having to upgrade the power grid."

Ulbig is amazed at how little is still known about power grids. "The distribution grids are like a big black box," he says. This means that grid operators often learn of power outages only when those affected call the power companies to report a fault. In Swiss households, electricity meters are typically still read by power company employees. This could soon change, however, as the federal government is planning to invest in smart meters, which allow data to be retrieved in real time. Adaptricity can analyse the data supplied by these intelligent electricity meters and calculate the corresponding network load. Thus, the company brings light into the darkness of the black box, creating grid transparency.

With one click, the researchers can visualize what is happing to voltage if a photovoltaic system is built in the district. Credit: Adaptricity

In the midst of a growth spurt

Until recently, Adaptricity's company head office was a 25 m2 room in ETH's Power Systems Laboratory. It all began when Koch was hired by ETH as part of the Pioneer Fellowship programme after completing his thesis. After foundation of the company, Koch was joined by other staff members, many of them students or interns. Together, they worked on the software and took part in research and pilot projects in collaboration with ETH. At first, projects like these provided the small ETH spin-off with its initial funding, in addition to some consulting contracts for Swiss grid operators. In 2015, Adaptricity also received CHF 130,000 in start-up assistance from the Venture Kick funding initiative.

Since the start of 2017, however, Adaptricity has been on a growth path. In February, the cable manufacturer LEONI acquired a two-thirds stake, putting the company on a sound financial footing for now. As a result, the start-up moved from ETH to Hohlstrasse in Zurich's Kreis 4. Today, the company employs 22 staff members, some of them in Germany.

Success depends on licence sales

However, the biggest change is yet to come. Until now, Adaptricity has derived its turnover primarily from consulting contracts with grid operators in Switzerland and Germany. Last year, this work alone earned the company a six-figure sum. However, the company's future success will depend on a different, scalable model: the sale of licences for its SmartGrid software platform.

Adaptricity's IT staff are currently putting the final touches to the product, with sales expected to begin this autumn. The success of this line of business will determine whether Adaptricity meets its objectives: the company's founders hope to break even in the 2019 financial year. At present, the company's success comes first  so much so that co-founder Ulbig, who is also a part-time lecturer at ETH, recently refused an offer of a full professorship at a German university.

It's easy to draw up a list of Adaptricity's potential customers, as grid operators are the only suitable candidates. In Switzerland, they are all publicly owned. However, the company is also looking abroad. Luckily for the company, the energy transition is a political trend not only in Switzerland but also in other countries, such as Germany. The starting position for Adaptricity is therefore the same as before its foundation: ultimately, politics will decide how much money is put into renewable energy and thus into intelligent power grids. The more politicians push the issue, the better for the smart grid analysts from Zurich.
A 3-D image of Bistahieversor sealeyi, which was found in the Bisti Badlands in New Mexico and Imaged at Los Alamos' unique facilities. Credit: Los Alamos National Laboratory

Researchers using Los Alamos' unique neutron-imaging and high-energy X-ray capabilities have exposed the inner structures of the fossil skull of a 74-million-year-old tyrannosauroid dinosaur nicknamed the Bisti Beast in the highest-resolution scan of tyrannosaur skull ever done. The results add a new piece to the puzzle of how these bone-crushing top predators evolved over millions of years.

"Normally, we look at a variety of thick, dense objects at Los Alamos for defense programs, but the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science was interested in imaging a very large fossil to learn about what's inside," said Ron Nelson, of the Laboratory's Physics Division. Nelson was part of a team that included staff from Los Alamos National Laboratory, the museum, the University of New Mexico and the University of Edinburgh. "It turns out that high energy neutrons are an interesting and unique way to image something of this size."

The results helped the team determine the skull's sinus and cranial structure. Initial viewing of the computed tomography (CT) slices showed preservation of un-erupted teeth, the brain cavity, internal structure in some bones, sinus cavities, pathways of some nerves and blood vessels, and other anatomical structures. These imaging techniques have revolutionized the study of paleontology over the past decade, allowing paleontologists to gain essential insights into the anatomy, development and preservation of important specimens. Team members will present their findings on the fossil, Bistahieversor sealeyi, August 23 at the annual Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting in Calgary, Alberta.

To peer inside the 40-inch skull, which was found in 1996 in the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness Area near Farmington, N.M. the Los Alamos team combined neutron and X-ray CT to extract anatomical information not accessible otherwise and without the risk of damaging the irreplaceable fossil. Los Alamos is one of a few places in the world that can perform both methods on samples ranging from the very small to the very large scale.

The thickness of the skull required higher energy X-rays than those typically available to adequately penetrate the fossil. The Lab's microtron electron accelerator produced sufficiently high-energy X-rays.

To provide an alternate view inside the skull, the team also used a newly developed, high-energy neutron imaging technique with neutrons produced by the proton accelerator at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE). The neutrons interact with the nuclei rather than the electrons in the skull, as X-rays do, and thus have different elemental sensitivity. This provides complementary information to that obtained with X-rays.

The team's study illuminates the Bisti Beast's place in the evolutionary tree that culminated in Tyrannosaurus rex.

"The CT scans help us figure out how the different species within the T. rex family related to each other and how they evolved," said Thomas Williamson, Curator of Paleontology at the New Mexico museum. "The Bistahieversor represents the most basal tyrannosaur to have the big-headed, bone-crushing adaptations and almost certainly the small forelimbs. It was living alongside species more closely related to T. rex, the biggest and most derived tyrannosaur of all, which lived about 66 million years ago. Bistahieversor lived almost 10 million years before T. rex, but it also was a surviving member of a lineage that retained many of the primitive features from even farther back closer to when tyrannosaurs underwent their transition to bone-crushing."

The Bisti Beast skull is the largest object to date for which full, high-resolution neutron and X-ray CT scans have been performed at the Laboratory and required innovations both to image the entire skull and to handle the image reconstruction from the resulting large data sets.

This work advances the state of the art in imaging capabilities at the Laboratory and is already proving useful in imaging larger programmatic items related to the Laboratory's national security mission.
La Crosse police identified career felon Roger Burzinski as the armed carjacker fatally shot by officers during a pursuit Sunday on the citys South Side.

Burzinski, 54, of Green Bay, stole a Chevy Trailblazer from Houska Park about 5 p.m. after confronting a woman in the passenger seat at gunpoint. She was able remove her 3-year-old daughter from the backseat before Burzinski sped off with her 1-year-old daughter still inside.

Police found the car minutes later at 10th and Green Bay streets. Burzinski led officers on a pursuit of speeds up to 47 mph from South Avenue to Eighth Street, where he drove through a road construction site at Johnson Street, went airborne and crashed into a parked car about 10 minutes later.

Two officers, identified as Andrew Adey and Stephen Hughes, shot and killed Burzinski when he refused to comply with orders and they noticed he had a firearm, according to the department.

The child was unharmed. No officers were injured.

Adey and Hughes, with the agency for five and four years respectively, are on paid administrative leave per department policy pending the investigation by the state Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation. La Crosse County District Attorney Tim Gruenke will decide whether the shooting was justified.

Burzinskis criminal record in Wisconsin stretches back to 1980 and includes convictions for possession of a firearm by a felon, second-degree sexual assault of a child, battery to police, second-degree recklessly endangering safety, fleeing police and armed robbery.

He served six years in prison for robbing a La Crosse convenience store of $60 by claiming to have a firearm in 1985 and four years for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in 1994, according to the complaints filed in La Crosse County Circuit Court. Records from the other cases were not available Tuesday.

Burzinski was released from prison in September after serving 11 years for armed robbery, fleeing police and felony drunken driving in two Brown County cases.

The state Department of Corrections issued an apprehension request for Burzinski on March 24 when he absconded from extended supervision and failed to comply with the states sex offender registry.
Ten years ago, state Rep. Gene Pelowski, DFL-Winona, looked around the area he represented  Minnesota House District 28A  and didnt see major signs of damage from the overnight storm that dumped up to 15 inches of rain on the region. A block outside his district, though, and it looked like a war zone.

You couldnt go anywhere and not see the impact, Pelowski said. Unless you had seen it, you wouldnt believe it.

Hardest hit in southeastern Minnesota was Rushford, a city of about 1,700 residents in northeastern Fillmore County that had a bowl-like dike system that made it difficult for the water inside the bowl to get out once it got in. The town was devastated, submerged for days after the storm.

The August 2007 flood remains Minnesotas costliest disaster to this day by a large margin  the next costliest event was the 2012 flood in Duluth, which cost the state well less than half what the 2007 deluge cost.

Youre talking about numbers that were literally off the charts for us, Pelowski said of the 2007 flood, which prompted a presidential disaster declaration.

The state Legislature ended up approving a $157.3 million disaster relief bill to help with flood recovery in the impacted communities, but for a while there actually was some doubt that the state was even going to help.

Seventeen days after the rain let up, then-Gov. Tim Pawlenty had not yet declared the flooding a disaster, which was required before the Legislature could meet in special session to provide aid. Rushford residents had put up signs urging Pawlenty to call a special session, but hed still not done so when he came to town on Sept. 5.

Pelowski was in the crowd at the Rushford High School gym when Pawlenty addressed assembled residents, saying nothing about a special session before ending his speech and asking for questions. Pelowski had a question: I stood up and said, Governor, when are you going to call a special session?

Pelowski kept pressing the governor in what Pelowski described as a sharp exchange, and a photographer got a shot of Pawlenty and Pelowski facing off, almost like old West gunfighters  high noon at Rushford High.

In the next issue of Rushfords newspaper, the Tri-County Record, editor Myron Schober railed against the governor in an editorial topped with an incendiary headline: Rushford, Pawlentys Katrina, a reference to the feeble federal response to Hurricane Katrina two years earlier.

Within two days of the editorial getting statewide attention, Pawlenty called a special session. It shows you the power of the press, Pelowski said. The amazing thing about Rushford is that it exists at all today.

Pelowski might have pushed Pawlenty for a special session, but the veteran legislator  hed been a state representative for about 21 years at that point  had his work cut out for him to craft a disaster relief bill from scratch.

Special sessions are dangerous because we are working on partial knowledge, and were also working on high emotion.  They were literally attempts to throw money at something when we dont really have a clear picture, Pelowski said. This is why special sessions arent so special.

There had to be a better way, Pelowski figured, and two weeks after Pawlenty signed a $157.3 million disaster relief bill for communities hit by the flood, Pelowski began working with Kathy Novak of House Research, Paul Moe of the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development and others to come up with a new process, one that would spell out what the 13 state agencies involved in disaster relief would do and give them the flexibility to act without having to create a special bill for every major disaster.

This disaster playbook, known as Chapter 12A, still required a special session (unless the states part-time Legislature already was in session), but all lawmakers had to do was approve the spending rather than creating a disaster relief package from scratch. The playbook got its first workout with the 2009 flooding in the Red River Valley.

In 2012, the states legislative auditor suggested another refinement to Minnesotas disaster response, creation of a disaster relief fund so that no legislative involvement would be required to get emergency assistance flowing. Pelowski again helped spearhead the legislation, known as Chapter 12B, that created a state disaster assistance fund, starting with a $6 million pool of funding and later growing to a recommended level of $22 million.

The state Legislature still approves the spending to replenish the disaster assistance fund, but since the Disaster Relief Appropriation Bill was signed into law in 2013, special sessions are no longer required.

Ten years ago, Pelowski had established himself as a specialist in higher education and technology matters, but that storm in August 2007 set him on a new path. I never expected to become a semi-expert on disasters, said Pelowski, the fourth most senior member of the House. It just happened because the severe damage happened so close to his district and because he was chairman of the House Government Operations Committee at the time.

Pelowskis efforts to refine the way disaster relief is provided in Minnesota earned him the Association of Minnesota Emergency Managers Elected Official of the Year award in 2014.

Across the river, Wisconsin already had a disaster relief fund in place in 2007 because of a major disaster that happened exactly two years before the 2007 flood. In the wake of the tornadoes that wreaked havoc in Viola and Stoughton, the state established the Wisconsin Disaster Relief Fund. Lori Getter, crisis communications director for Wisconsin Emergency Management, said that the fund now sits at $700,000, but she said the Legislature replenishes the fund as needed.

In the wake of the 2007 flood, the Federal Emergency Management Agency provided a total of $50.2 million in Minnesota and $17.9 million in Wisconsin.

Getter said the state paid roughly $1.5 million for disaster recovery after the 2007 flood. When FEMA provides disaster relief, it seeks a 75/25 split, with the 25 percent coming from state and local sources. In Wisconsin, Getter said, the state pays half the required local match for FEMA assistance.
A PCI PTS 4xPED Device, Dynasty simplifies PC/tablet based POS while delivering security and reliability.

(PRWeb August 09, 2017)

Seal Beach, CA, August 7 2017  MagTek, Inc., the worlds leading supplier of secure digital transaction technology and hardware, announces the launch of Dynasty, MagTeks newest addition to its roster of mPOS offerings. As payment options expand, the need to accept Magnetic Stripe, Chip Card and Contactless payments via a certified PIN Entry Device is growing. Dynasty supports all of these needs with a rugged ergonomically designed case that surrounds certain iPad tablet devices for secure payment transactions.

The Dynasty is designed to offer a PCI PTS 4xPED (PIN Entry Device) to be used as either a permanent mounted device  featuring a 100mm VESA (Video Electronics Standard Association) mounting pattern  or as a semi-mobile device allowing the merchants to determine the optimal point of purchase for their customers. An additional upside for integrators is the availability of SDKs and APIs providing a faster path to market implementation.

Flexibility and security are top of mind in todays payment industry. MagTeks Dynasty fulfills both and then some, says John Arato, MagTeks General Manager and Vice President of Retail Solutions. Recognizing the widespread use of iOS devices in the development of POS solutions, MagTek designed the Dynasty to serve as a secure and reliable tool that mPOS developers can confidently build around and easily incorporate into their solution.

Answering the industry clarion call for security, Dynasty encrypts the magstripe and EMV data inside its secure circuitry. This is just one layer of the MagneSafe Security Architecture (MSA), MagTeks layered approach for security. MSA uses open standard encryption with derived unique key per transaction (DUKPT) key management, tokenization of card data, and MagnePrint card authentication. Combining MSA with the utility of iOS tablets, Dynasty provides a rugged, Secure Card Reader Authenticator that can be applied to any payment environment and can secure a variety of payment types.

For more information about MagTek visit us at the RetailNow Show, booth #230, August 7-9th, at the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas, NV or online at http://www.magtek.com.



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Mastercard Second-Quarter 2017 Financial Results

Purchase, NY  July 27, 2017  Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE: MA) today announced its financial results for its second quarter of 2017 through an earnings release that is available on the companys Investor Relations website at www.mastercard.com/investor. The earnings release will be furnished with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on a Form 8-K and available here.

At 9:00 a.m. ET today, the company will host a conference call to discuss these financial results. The dial-in information for this call is 844-579-6824 (within the U.S.) and 763-488-9145 (outside the U.S.), and the passcode is 44659602. A replay of the call will be available for 30 days and can be accessed by dialing 855-859-2056 (within the U.S.) and 404-537-3406 (outside the U.S.), using passcode 44659602.

This call and all related materials can also be accessed through the Mastercard Investor Relations website at http://investor.mastercard.com/investor-relations/events-and-presentations/default.aspx.

About Mastercard Incorporated

Mastercard (NYSE: MA), www.mastercard.com, is a technology company in the global payments industry. We operate the worlds fastest payments processing network, connecting consumers, financial institutions, merchants, governments and businesses in more than 210 countries and territories. Mastercard products and solutions make everyday commerce activities  such as shopping, traveling, running a business and managing finances  easier, more secure and more efficient for everyone. Follow us on Twitter @MastercardNews, join the discussion on the Beyond the Transaction Blog and subscribe for the latest news on the Engagement Bureau.

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Inventory needs to be managed and managed well, or you are going to get in recurring trouble, and lose your credibility and hard-earned conversions, whether 

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By Caroline Thorpe

There are plenty of international schools in Paris  48 English-language institutions alone, teaching 27,300 pupils, according to the International School Consultancy. They are popular with both expats and French families who want their children to have the advantage of a second language.

However, standards vary considerably, warns the Good Schools Guide International. The usual maxim applies: parents, do your homework. Signs of a good school, according to the guide, include fee-paying agreements with large multinational companies (such as discounted fees), strong governance (look for published meeting minutes) and inspection reports from a credible independent body.

International baccalaureate

Learn The International School of Paris is unusual in offering pupils the chance to follow the international baccalaureate curriculum for their entire school career, starting with the primary curriculum in nursery and culminating with the IB diploma. In 2017, 95 per cent of final-year students achieved their diploma, compared with around 80 per cent worldwide. The English-medium school has about 700 students, speaking 60 native tongues, and is centrally located in the citys 16th arrondissement.

Pay* 31,600

Live A five-bedroom house with a swimming pool and parking for four cars is within walking distance of the primary school and three metro stops from the senior school.

Available through Knight Frank, 9.5m

American

Learn The Lycee International American Section is not your plain-vanilla US pick. But, while you get your head round the curriculum, know that this bilingual and bicultural school gets good results. The American Section is one of 14 parts of the Lycee International, located in the western suburb of St Germain-en-Laye. Its 700 students, aged three to 18, follow the French national curriculum and take some US-rooted classes. Final-year students gain an international version of the French baccalaureate  the pass rate here is 100 per cent  and can also take US advanced placement qualifications.

Pay 10,660

Live A 10-minute drive from the school is an eight-bedroom, 19th-century house with a separate guest cottage.

Available through Coldwell Banker Paris West Residential, 3.35m

British (national curriculum of England)

Learn The British School of Paris is located in a suburb about 17km west of central Paris and claims to be the oldest and largest school in France which is based on the English national curriculum; the GSGI finds it outstanding, if expensive. Established in 1954, the coeducational school has 780 pupils, aged three to 18, from more than 50 countries. Last year, 80 per cent of leavers went to their first-choice university, and achieved A*-C grades in 84.5 per cent of their A2 A-level papers.

Pay 28,796

Live A detached house in Croissy sur Seine has four bedrooms and 2,300 sq m of living space.

Available through Barnes International, 1.464m

Something different Sudbury School Paris is a French-English bilingual school with no timetables or curriculum. Instead, pupils decide for themselves how to organise their own time. Prospective students, aged three to 19, can apply throughout the year. Annual tuition peaks at 6,500.

*Fees typically increase as the child moves up the school. The figure given is the average annual cost of tuition for final year students, and does not include additional payments such as registration fees.

Photographs: Sergey Borisov/Alamy; Dreamstime
WASHINGTON (TNS)  A Senate-passed bill intended to help dying patients access experimental drugs will likely face lengthier deliberations in the House. While the Senate fast-tracked the bill on Aug. 3, the House will likely subject it to a hearing and markup before bringing it up to a vote, according to congressional aides and a lobbyist.

The bill would reduce some of the paperwork involved in getting access to experimental treatments, and would offer protections to the drug companies who choose to make drugs available outside of a clinical trial. Its the federal version of Right to Try measures that have been passed in 37 states with support from libertarian-leaning Republicans who say the Food and Drug Administration prevents dying patients from getting treatments.

The Senate bills sponsor, Sen. Ron Johnson, threatened to slow down consideration of a separate bill to renew the FDAs fee-collection authority unless his bill was also brought to the floor. So the Senate passed the Wisconsin Republicans bill by unanimous consent in order to finish work on the FDA bill ahead of the August recess.

Johnson agreed to proceed to the FDA bill only after getting promises from House leaders that they would also pass the Right to Try legislation. A similar House bill led by GOP Reps. Andy Biggs of Arizona and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania has more than 40 co-sponsors, including four Democrats. The House supporters will likely back passage of Johnsons bill.

But if the House Energy and Commerce Committee changes the bill in its expected markup, the Senate would have to vote again. That could stall the bill.

Energy and Commerce staffers are still reviewing the bill, and the committee has not yet scheduled a hearing or markup, according to a spokeswoman.

If the committee does not make changes, a House aide said, the bill would likely go to the floor under suspension of the rules.

After several iterations, the pharmaceutical industry said it does not oppose the bill  but they are not exactly endorsing it.

We appreciated the opportunity to work with Senator Johnson and look forward to continuing to work with his office. The revised Right to Try legislation that passed the Senate includes important protections for patient safety and the clinical trial process, said Andrew Powaleny, a spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the industrys main trade group.

Currently, when a patient seeks access to an experimental drug, his or her physician must work with the drug company, the FDA and an institutional review board that signs off on drug testing to approve the treatments use. When originally introduced in January, Johnsons bill would have taken the FDA and other government entities out of that process. It would have let the states define terminal illness, potentially leading to dozens of different standards across the country about who would qualify for access. It also would have prevented the FDA from using outcomes associated with the experimental use when considering the drugs application.

The new bill, instead of leaving the definition of terminal illness to the states, says that eligible patients should have a life-threatening disease or condition as defined by current federal law. It also gives the FDA the right to use outcome data if the administration determines that it is critical to assessing the drugs safety  or if the drug company wants the outcomes used.

The drug companies would also have to provide the FDA with information about the experimental uses. Like the original bill, the new version shields companies against liability, but extends that protection to manufacturers who chose not to grant access to treatments. The bill would also limit the drugs that can be provided to those that have already completed the first phase of formal clinical trials, which are conducted to assess drug safety.

The bill does not compel any drug companies to provide experimental treatments, but its provisions are designed to ease their concerns when they do.

Some companies are just not going to do this, and thats OK, said Starlee Coleman, a senior policy adviser at the Goldwater Institute, a conservative think tank and a major backer of the Right to Try effort. But for companies that want to, and want to do it without a delay or red tape associated with the FDA process, they now hopefully will have that option.

Ultimately, the drug industry doesnt seem to think that the bill would do all that much, which is why they arent opposing it.

Drug companies assume that a federal law wont have a big effect on them, that things will remain kind of where they have always been, said James C. Shehan, a senior counsel for FDA practice at the law firm Lowenstein Sandler.

He said companies that have traditionally sought expanded access to treatments likely still would, and those that havent probably wouldnt start. Companies still have the final say on allowing expanded access, and they have different points of view on this in general and on specific individual requests that depend on many factors, he said, such as safety and availability of the drug.

Some skeptics of the bill think that if the FDA isnt involved, it could deter companies who are seeking the agencys guidance from participating. Coleman noted, however, companies that choose to seek the FDAs approval before participating in expanded access programs still could.

In July, the Government Accountability Office found that the main FDA-related barrier to expanded access was that companies werent certain how the agency would use data about adverse outcomes. The FDA says that it is important to track adverse outcomes, but that its reviewers recognize that the patients using the drugs in this context are already at greater risk of death than the population typically being tested. Ultimately, the FDA agreed with the GAO that it could be clearer about how it uses outcome data.

Otherwise, the GAO report suggested the FDA isnt slowing down access to experimental treatments. From 2012 through 2015, out of 5,753 requests, the FDA approved 5,697  a 99 percent approval rate. The FDA told GAO investigators that it typically responded to emergency requests within a day.

The agency also has worked to improve the process. In 2016, it released a new form for physicians to fill out that requires less than half as much information as was previously required and is designed to take 45 minutes to complete. In July, the Reagan-Udall Foundation, a nonprofit that receives money from the FDA and private industry to conduct research relevant to the FDAs mission, launched a website to help doctors and patients navigate the experimental treatment process.

Aside from the Right to Try bill, Congress has taken other steps to improve access to treatment. The recently passed FDA user fee bill, which President Donald Trump is expected to sign, requires the agency to convene a public meeting to assess barriers to clinical trial participation. Last years 21st Century Cures Act requires drug companies to make public their policies on expanded access.

Currently, when a patient seeks access to an experimental drug, his or her physician must work with the drug company, the FDA and an institutional review board that signs off on drug testing to approve the treatments use. Johnsons bill aims to make access to experimental drugs much easier.
United Rentals, Inc., through its subsidiaries, operates as an equipment rental company. It operates in two segments, General Rentals and Specialty. The General Rentals segment rents general construction and industrial equipment includes backhoes, skid-steer loaders, forklifts, earthmoving equipment, and material handling equipment; aerial work platforms, such as boom and scissor lifts; and general tools and light equipment comprising pressure washers, water pumps, and power tools for construction and industrial companies, manufacturers, utilities, municipalities, homeowners, and government entities. The specialty segment rents specialty construction products, including trench safety equipment consists of trench shields, aluminum hydraulic shoring systems, slide rails, crossing plates, construction lasers, and line testing equipment for underground work; power and heating, ventilating, and air conditioning equipment, such as portable diesel generators, electrical distribution equipment, and temperature control equipment; fluid solutions equipment for fluid containment, transfer, and treatment; and mobile storage equipment and modular office space. This segment serves construction companies involved in infrastructure projects, and municipalities and industrial companies. It also sells aerial lifts, reach forklifts, telehandlers, compressors, and generators; construction consumables, tools, small equipment, and safety supplies; and parts for equipment that is owned by its customers, as well as provides repair and maintenance services. The company sells used equipment through its sales force, brokers, website, directly to manufacturers, and at auctions. The company operates a network of 1,360 rental locations in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. United Rentals, Inc. was incorporated in 1997 and is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut.
American International Group, Inc. offers insurance products for commercial, institutional, and individual customers in North America and internationally. The company's General Insurance segment provides general liability, environmental, commercial automobile liability, workers' compensation, casualty, and crisis management insurance products; commercial, industrial, and energy-related property insurance; and aerospace, political risk, trade credit, portfolio solutions, crop, and marine insurance. It also provides professional liability insurance products for a range of businesses and risks, including directors and officers, mergers and acquisitions, fidelity, employment practices, fiduciary liability, cyber risk, kidnap and ransom, and errors and omissions insurance. In addition, this segment offers personal auto and property insurance, such as auto, homeowners, umbrella, yacht, fine art, and collections; voluntary and sponsor-paid personal accident; supplemental health products; extended warranty insurance products; and travel insurance products. Its Life and Retirement segment offers variable annuities, index and fixed annuities, and retail mutual funds; and financial planning and advisory services; record-keeping, plan administrative, and compliance services; and term life and universal life insurance. It also provides stable value wrap products, and structured settlement and pension risk transfer annuities; and corporate- and bank-owned life insurance and guaranteed investment contracts. This segment sells its products through independent marketing organizations, independent insurance agents, financial advisors, direct marketing, banks, and broker-dealers. The company was founded in 1919 and is headquartered in New York, New York.
AstraZeneca PLC, a biopharmaceutical company, focuses on the discovery, development, manufacturing, and commercialization of prescription medicines. Its marketed products include Calquence, Enhertu, Faslodex, Imfinzi, Iressa, Koselugo, Lumoxiti, Lynparza, Orpathys, Tagrisso, and Zoladex for oncology; Brilinta/Brilique, Bydureon/Byetta, BCise, Byetta, Crestor, Evrenzo, Farxiga/Forxiga, Komboglyze/Kombiglyze XR, Lokelma, Onglyza, Qtern, and Xigduo/Xigduo XR for cardiovascular, renal, and metabolism diseases; Bevespi Aerosphere, Breztri Aerosphere, Daliresp/Daxas, Duaklir Genuair, Fasenra, Pulmicort, Saphnelo, Symbicort, and Tudorza/Eklira/Bretaris for respiratory and immunology; and Andexxa/Ondexxya, Kanuma, Soliris, Strensiq, and Ultomiris for rare diseases. The company's marketed products also comprise Synagis for respiratory syncytial virus; Fluenz Tetra/FluMist Quadrivalent for Influenza; Seroquel IR/Seroquel XR for schizophrenia bipolar disease; Nexium, and Losec/Prilosec for gastroenterology; and Vaxzevria and Evusheld for covid-19. The company serves primary care and specialty care physicians through distributors and local representative offices in the United Kingdom, rest of Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Australasia. It has a collaboration agreement with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. to research, develop, and commercialize small molecule medicines for obesity; Neurimmune AG to develop and commercialize NI006; Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. to develop eplontersen, a liver-targeted antisense therapy in Phase III development for the treatment of transthyretin amyloidosis; Proteros Biostructures GmbH to jointly discover novel small molecules for the treatment of hematological cancers; Sierra Oncology, Inc. to develop and commercialize AZD5153. The company was formerly known as Zeneca Group PLC and changed its name to AstraZeneca PLC in April 1999. AstraZeneca PLC was incorporated in 1992 and is headquartered in Cambridge, the United Kingdom.
Authenticoms legal battle with two rivals it claims are trying to drive it out of business drew its first blood among employees Tuesday, when the La Crosse company yielded to financial pressure and laid off about a dozen workers.

Authenticom founder and CEO Steve Cottrell, who declined to talk about the layoffs, had been steadfast in his resolve to keep the companys nearly 110 employees on the payroll amid what has become a protracted antitrust suit against CDK Global and Reynolds and Reynolds Co.

Authenticom, a data integrator in the automotive industry, filed the suit on May 1 in U.S. District Court for Wisconsins Western District in Madison, alleging that CDK and Reynolds are colluding to block Authenticom from gathering information in a quest to bankrupt the La Crosse company. The three companies are the only players in the sector, in which Authenticom integrates auto dealers data, such as sales figures, car inventory, and parts and service reminders, for more than 15,000 dealerships nationwide.

The plot caused Authenticoms profits to plunge by 77.22 percent between the third quarter of 2015 and the first quarter of this year, according to the suit.

The companies actions have left Authenticom cash flow insolvent, with insufficient earnings and resources to satisfy its outstanding debt obligations, the suit alleges. Authenticom was unable to pay an $11 million principal payment on a loan from BMO Harris Bank due April 16, 2017, and has received a limited 90-day forbearance from the Bank pending the outcome of the forthcoming preliminary injunction motion.

Authenticom, which Cottrell founded in 2002 in his sons old bedroom and now is headquartered in the Doerflinger building in downtown La Crosse, also could not pay a tax-related obligation of about $1.17 million that was due on April 18, the suit says. In addition, several financial institutions have Authenticom requests for financing, citing doubts about Authenticoms continued viability because of Defendants actions, according to the suit.

The delay in recovering revenue as the suit has dragged on created a situation in which we cannot continue with a full staff because of the delayed revenue and lack of work, a company official said Tuesday.

The company is offering the laid-off workers, said to be mostly in support areas, career placement assistance, the official said.

The layoffs came just two weeks after La Crosse Mayor Tim Kabat and U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, D-La Crosse, had visited Authenticoms headquarters in the Doerflinger building downtown as a show of support and congratulations for maintaining full employment during the court proceedings.

Those procedures have gone back and forth, with Authenticom achieving what appeared to be a major win early on with a preliminary injunction against the CDK and Reynolds. But a couple of ping-pong decisions since then have left the injunction against the pair lifted at this point.

Cottrell was thrust into a national spotlight in 2015, when President Barack Obama saluted Authenticom during a financial address he delivered at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

So this business that began in Steves sons old bedroom is now one of Americas own fastest-growing private companies based in a historic building right here in downtown La Crosse, Obama said.

Now, I guarantee you Steve worked hard, he put everything he had into it. He took enormous risks, the president said. But he also is somebody who recognizes that he didnt do it by himself.

Hes proud of what he accomplished, but he also talks about how fortunate hes been to be part of a community like La Crosse, Obama said.

The president lauded Authenticoms practices of paying fair wages, with paid sick days, and treating employees like family.

CDK Global is a publicly traded Delaware corporation with headquarters in Hoffman Estates, Ill. It provides DMS software and services to car dealerships throughout the country and has more than $2 billion in annual revenues. The private corporation of Reynolds and Reynolds is headquartered in Dayton, Ohio.
The Travelers Companies, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides a range of commercial and personal property, and casualty insurance products and services to businesses, government units, associations, and individuals in the United states and internationally. The company operates through three segments: Business Insurance, Bond & Specialty Insurance, and Personal Insurance. The Business Insurance segment offers workers' compensation, commercial automobile and property, general liability, commercial multi-peril, employers' liability, public and product liability, professional indemnity, marine, aviation, onshore and offshore energy, construction, terrorism, personal accident, and kidnap and ransom insurance products. This segment operates through select accounts, which serve small businesses; commercial accounts that serve mid-sized businesses; national accounts, which serve large companies; and national property and other that serve large and mid-sized customers, commercial trucking industry, and agricultural businesses, as well as markets and distributes its products through brokers, wholesale agents, and program managers. The Bond & Specialty Insurance segment provides surety, fidelity, management and professional liability, and other property and casualty coverages and related risk management services through independent agencies and brokers. The Personal Insurance segment offers property and casualty insurance covering personal risks, primarily automobile and homeowners insurance to individuals through independent agencies and brokers. The Travelers Companies, Inc. was founded in 1853 and is based in New York, New York.
An Islamist extremist was killed Tuesday in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka after detonating a suicide vest and other explosives as police prepared to raid his hotel room, an official said. The blast, on the third floor of a hotel in the city centre, sent police running for cover and showered the streets below in rubble and smoke. National police chief A.K.M Shahidul Hoque said the deceased was a foot soldier from Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh -- a local militant outfit blamed for the massacre of 22 hostages at a cafe popular with foreigners in Dhaka last year. "He was carrying bombs and a suicide vest. The door was blown off in one explosion, and he died in the second explosion," he told AFP. "He is a JMB member. He is a former madrasa student." The incident came as Bangladesh marked an annual national day of mourning to commemorate the assassination of the nation's founding leader and secular icon, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, in a military coup in 1975. Bangladesh is now ruled by Sheikh Mujibur's daughter Sheikh Hasina, who has ordered a bloody crackdown on Islamist extremist networks that has left nearly 70 suspected militants dead. Hasina, along with Bangladesh's president and other dignitaries, was paying tribute to her father at a memorial just a few hundred metres from the hotel where the extremist detonated his vest. Hoque told reporters that the extremists had planned to attack those marching in processions. Hasina's secular government blames JMB for a slew of attacks in recent years on foreigners, atheist bloggers, rights activists and religious minorities. Five of its senior leaders have been executed on charges of murder, genocide, torture and rape, triggering nationwide protests by their supporters. In the deadliest of these recent attacks, five gunmen stormed an upscale cafe in Dhaka's diplomatic zone in July 2016, killing 22 people including 18 foreigners. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack, but police and the government blamed JMB for the carnage, discounting suggestions that the Syria-based militant group had a foothold in Bangladesh.
Khong (left) and Le arrive at the High Court. PHOTO: Safhras Khan/Yahoo News Singapore

Three British men who had initially gone on trial for rape in Singapore have been sentenced to between five-and-a-half and six-and-a-half years in jail and caning on reduced charges of aggravated molestation.

Khong Tam Thanh, 22, Vu Thai Son, 24, and Michael Le, 24, pleaded guilty in the High Court on Monday (14 August) to outraging the Malaysian womans modesty by having sex with her while forcibly restraining her at the Carlton Hotel on 10 September, 2016.

Khong and Vu also each admitted to another charge of outraging the modesty of the woman, whose identity cannot be revealed due to a gag order, by using their fingers to penetrate her private parts.

On Tuesday, Khong was sentenced to six years jail while Vu and Le were given jail terms of six-and-a-half years and five-and-a-half years jail respectively.

Khong and Vu were also each sentenced to eight strokes of the cane, while Le was given five strokes. Any person who is convicted of aggravated molestation faces between two and 10 years jail and caning.

Prior to their sentencing, the trio submitted letters of apology to the victim. After Khongs original charge was reduced, he offered $5,000 to the victim to show his remorse.

The trio, who are of Vietnamese descent, arrived in Singapore on 9 September, 2016, and were part of a group that attended a stag party for Khongs brother. The group had booked three rooms on the 16th floor of Carlton Hotel, located at Bras Basah Road. They later headed to Zouk, a popular night spot.

It was at Zouk that the woman, who was 23 at the time of the incident, met Ahn Viet Trinh, also known as Richard, for the first time. Richard, 24, was with several friends including Khong, Vu and Le. The woman, who was drunk, suggested to Richard that they return to his room at the Carlton Hotel and he agreed. They then had consensual sex.

At that point, Khong, Vu and Le were gathered in a separate room with several other friends. After the woman fell asleep in Richards room, the trio took turns to enter the room and have sex with her. Deputy Public Prosecutor G. Kannan said that the trio did so like clockwork beginning with Khong, followed by Vu and Le.

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The woman woke up while Le was having sex with her and they had an argument. Le claimed that he was the person that the woman had gone to the hotel with. After Le left the room, Richard returned and the woman confronted him as she suspected that he was involved in the incident. However, Richard denied having knowledge of what had happened.

Richard, who is also a British citizen of Vietnamese descent, absconded from Singapore before investigations were completed.

In passing her sentence, Judicial Commissioner Hoo Sheau Peng called the incident disturbing.

They knew that the victim (who was intoxicated) was unable to defend herself and they violated her. They had no respect for the dignity and the anatomy (of their victim), she said.

JC Hoo allowed the sentences for both Le and Khong to commence at a later date, to allow the duo to spend some time with their family members who have flew in from the United Kingdom. Le will start serving his sentence on 18 August while Khong will start his on 22 August.

Vu, who is currently in remand, will start serving his sentence immediately. His sentence was backdated to 12 September, 2016.
Greece on Tuesday pleaded for assistance from European neighbours to help battle wild fires including a blaze ravaging a forest near Athens. In total 146 fires have broken out across Greece since Sunday, and while most have been brought under control, authorities are worried about three on the coast near Athens, in the western Peloponnese and on the island of Zakynthos. The government "has asked for the activation of the European civil protection mechanism for air support ... because of the danger posed by the fires," fire service spokeswoman Stavroula Malliri told a press conference. She said Greece was asking for four CL-415-type water bombers, which are built for aerial firefighting and can fly up to 322 kilometres per hour (200 miles per hour) and scoop up 1,620 gallons (6,000 litres) of water in about 12 seconds. Malliri said Cyprus had already offered 60 firefighters, while France said it could not contribute any manpower or air support because it is battling its own fires in the south and Corsica. French authorities said a blaze in the southern town of Luceram, near Nice, had finally been brought under control Tuesday after burning for 48 hours. Greece called in the army to assist firefighters around Kalamos, 45 kilometres (30 miles) east of Athens, where a fire has been burning since Sunday. Nearly 300 firefighters, 100 soldiers, five air bombers and seven helicopters had been mobilised in the Attiki region, home to Athens, where fires are smouldering in a zone of forest and scrubland dotted with vacation homes. At least five properties were destroyed and three others evacuated, authorities said, as smoke from the blaze clouded the skies over the capital on Tuesday morning. Firefighters were also battling flames near the town of Amaliada in the western Peloponnese and on the tourist island of Zakynthos, where several fires were raging -- some thought to have been started deliberately. Authorities have ordered the evacuation of vulnerable people, children and the elderly. "Such a situation is unheard of," regional fire chief Vassili Matteopoulos told local media on Monday. "We had 22 fires on Zakynthos just in the last 24 hours." - Political backlash - Efforts to control the blazes were complicated by winds reaching speeds of 40-50 kilometres per hour, according to the fire service. The blazes also sparked controversy between the opposition and the cash-strapped government, which was accused of negligence, with local officials decrying a lack of air support. "In this crucial hour, the priority" is to battle the fires, the office of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said. "The time for review will come later." Soaring temperatures and tinder-dry forest floors across southern Europe have led to a rash of devastating wildfires, notably in Portugal, where 64 people died in a massive inferno in June. On Tuesday some 1,450 Portuguese firefighters were battling at least four blazes in the central Santarem and Castelo Branco regions, emergency services said. And there were fresh fires in Albania, according to the interior ministry, where more than 5,000 hectares (12,000 acres) of Albanian forest have been torched since July. French authorities said the fire in Luceram had resulted in no evacuations or property damage, but had burned 150 hectares (370 acres) of forest. At least 300 firefighters had worked to tackle the blaze, the biggest of several to hit the Alpes-Maritimes region of France this summer.
A Swiss national punched a taxi driver on the nose as he found the victim rude and was unhappy that the card payment option was not available.

Yannick Alexandre Varidel, 28, who is in Singapore on a visit pass, was jailed four weeks on Tuesday (15 August) on one count of voluntarily causing hurt to Transcab driver Ng Hong Poh, 53.

The court heard that around 1am on 18 March this year, Ng picked up Varidel and a female friend from OUE Tower. Before the pair boarded the taxi, Ng informed them that he could only accept cash payment as he did not have an ATM terminal in his taxi. Varidels friend told Ng that she could pay the fare by cash before Ng drove the passengers to Studio M Hotel.

When the taxi arrived at the destination about 10 minutes later, an argument broke out between Varidel and his friend as she refused to leave the taxi with Varidel. The Swiss insisted on paying the cab fare with his ATM card and handed his card over to Ng.

The taxi driver said that he was unable to accept card payment and dropped the card while returning it to Varidel. In response, Varidel punched Ng in his face. Ng, who went to Khoo Teck Puat Hospital for treatment, was found to suffer tenderness on his nose and over the upper lip.

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Kumaresan Gohulabalan asked for four weeks jail, saying that the attack was unprovoked and out of the blue. He added that the taxi driver had already informed Varidel that he was unable to accept card payment before Varidel boarded the cab.

In mitigation, Varidels lawyer Megan Joan Chia said that her client had acted under the influence of alcohol and out of anger. Varidel had been arguing with his female friend and was frustrated over the lack of card payment, Chia added. He had also mistaken Ng to be discourteous to him when Ng dropped the card.

Pointing out that her client had been stranded in Singapore for some five months, Chia added that Varidel had tried to reach out to Ng to apologise but had been rebuffed.

The lawyer added that her client, who was of a tall stature, did not intend to cause serious harm as Ngs injuries would have been far more serious if he did. This is a one-off infraction completely uncharacteristic of [Varidel], said Chia.

In sentencing the Swiss national, District Judge Lim Tse Haw said that a no nonsense attitude was needed towards ensuring the safety of public transport workers. For voluntarily causing hurt, Varidel could have been jailed up to two years and/or fined $5,000.
By Josh Smith and Jibran Ahmad KABUL (Reuters) - The Taliban told U.S. President Donald Trump in an open letter on Tuesday that the military situation in Afghanistan was "far worse than you realise", and sending in more troops would be self-destructive. A senior Taliban official told Reuters the rare decision to address Trump directly was timed to coincide with the president's deliberations on the future of U.S. policy in Afghanistan. "Previous experiences have shown that sending more troops to Afghanistan will not result in anything other than further destruction of American military and economical might," the Taliban said in the lengthy English-language letter. It criticized the Afghan government as "stooges", "lying, corrupt leaders" and "repulsive sellouts" who were providing Washington with "rosy pictures" of the military position. The Taliban, seeking to restore Islamic rule, has waged an increasingly violent insurgency against the Western-backed Afghan government since losing power in a U.S.-led invasion after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001. Those attacks were planned by al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden from a base in Afghanistan. "The war situation in Afghanistan is far worse than you realise!" the letter said, arguing that the only thing preventing the Taliban from seizing major cities was a fear of causing civilian casualties. The senior U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, has requested several thousand additional troops to act as advisers to the struggling Afghan security forces. Influential voices including Republican Senator John McCain have also urged an "enduring" U.S. military presence in Afghanistan. But such plans have faced scepticism in the White House, where Trump and several top aides have criticised years of American military intervention and foreign aid. U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters on Monday that the Trump administration was "very, very close" to a decision on Afghanistan, adding that all options were on the table. However, U.S officials believe it could take weeks for a South Asia strategy to be approved. "We have noticed that you have understood the errors of your predecessors and have resolved to thoroughly rethink your new strategy in Afghanistan," the Taliban told Trump. "A number of warmongering congressmen and generals in Afghanistan are pressing you to protract the war in Afghanistan because they seek to preserve their military privileges." Some Taliban leaders disagreed with publishing the letter as they believe the group is close to being able to end the war on its own terms, while the "Americans are no longer in a position to fight this never-ending war," one Taliban official said. The first official said the Taliban was open to "discuss all issues with the United States for bringing peace to Afghanistan" if American troops are withdrawn. "Everyone now understands that the main driver of war in Afghanistan is foreign occupation," the Taliban letter said. "The Afghans have no ill-intention towards the Americans or any other nation around the world but if anyone violates their sanctums then they are mighty proficient at beating and defeating the transgressors." (Additional reporting by Idrees Ali in Washington; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
A prominent student leader on Tuesday pleaded guilty to defaming Thailand's royal family by sharing a news story about the kingdom's new monarch on Facebook, his lawyer said. Jatupat "Pai Dao Din" Boonpatararaksa, 25, is the latest anti-junta activist to be hit with the country's draconian lese majeste law which bans any criticism of the monarchy. The law, which carries up to 15 years in jail per charge, has been wielded with increased ferocity under Thailand's military rulers. He has been held in custody since his arrest in December for sharing a profile of King Maha Vajiralongkorn written by the BBC's Thai-language service in London. On Tuesday he changed his plea to guilty, his legal team said, a stance that usually trims the sentence of alleged offenders. "After Jatupat consulted with his family, he pleaded guilty this morning before the court for committing the alleged wrongdoing as charged," Krisadang Nootjaras, one of his lawyers, told AFP. The court in northeastern Khon Kaen province is expected to sentence him later on Tuesday, he added. Those charged with lese majeste in Thailand are almost always convicted, often behind closed doors. Many people arrested for the crime plead guilty hoping for a reduced sentence. The severity of the charge makes real scrutiny of the wealthy and powerful royal family all but impossible inside the kingdom -- including by the media. Use of the lese majeste law has generated widespread international criticism, including from the United Nations. A UN report earlier this year noted that the conviction rate under the law had gone from 75 percent before the 2014 coup to 96 percent last year. Many of those jailed have been handed record-breaking sentences as long as 30 years, often for comments made on social media. Jatupat hails from Thailand's northeast, a poor and rural region where anti-military sentiment runs high. He was awarded a prominent human rights award in South Korea earlier this year. Vajiralongkorn ascended the throne after the death in October of his father, Bhumibol Adulyadej, who reigned for seven decades. He has yet to attain his father's widespread popularity.
How the heck do they do it?

You know who Im talking about. Im talking about those successful small business entrepreneurs who get tons of business and engagement online.

Sure, they hustle just as much as you do. They attend the same networking events. But theres a difference.

They seem to have much more business than you do. Theyre closing more deals. Theyre generating more leads through their website.

So whats the difference between you and them?

Theyre probably blogging. Theyre probably using their small business blog to build an online audience that is engaged with their brand.

If youre a small business entrepreneur or solopreneur, you have probably heard of content marketing, right? No doubt youve heard of the importance of creating valuable content for your website. But maybe you havent taken that first step yet.

A small business blog is one of the most-used and effective content marketing tools at your disposal. Simply put, if youre not blogging, youre leaving money on the table.

Heres some stats for you:

Marketers that use blogs get 67 percent more leads than those who dont.

81 percent of U.S. online consumers trust information and advice from blogs.

Companies that blog have 97 percent more inbound links .

61 percent of U.S. online consumers have made a purchase based on recommendations from a blog .

60 percent of consumers feel more positive about a company after reading custom content on its site.

If youre an entrepreneur, you need to consider how youre connecting with your audience. Since you might not have the huge marketing budget of a mega-corporation, you will have to use other means to build and connect with your audience.

One of the best ways to do this is by blogging. Its been shown to be highly effective at generating quality leads for your business.

Many business owners overlook the potential rewards that blogging can provide. But youre a savvy entrepreneur, so youre not going to make this mistake, are you?

This post is going to give you ten benefits that a small business blog can provide for your business. When you read through this post, you will learn various ways you can use your blog to generate more business, earn more credibility and make it easier for prospects to find you online.

Why You Should Have a Small Business Blog

1. Market Research

Having a blog with many articles allows you to more effectively understand what your audience really wants. From the back end of your site, you can spy on what pages people are viewing the most, and this gives you an idea of where their interest lies. When you know what types of content perform the best, you know what types of content to continue to create.

Also, you can use your blog to request feedback from your audience. If you have an engaged following, its very likely that they will be happy to answer the questions you have.

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

As you probably know, theres not much of a point to having a killer website if nobody can find it. One of the biggest keys to getting more traffic is making sure that people will find your site when they use search engines. As a matter of fact, search engines are the no. 1 driver of traffic to content websites! SEO is something that you cant ignore if you want to have a viable online presence.

The more relevant content you have on your website, the more likely it will be that you will rank for certain keywords. This is where a small business blog comes in. Consistently publishing high-quality content on your blog will do wonders for your search engine optimization efforts.

When you produce useful content, Googles algorithms will rank your site higher. Over time, your site will make its way to the front page of search results. Not only that, but when people read high-quality content, theyre more likely to link back to it. Earning quality backlinks from other high-authority blogs will do wonders for your SEO efforts.

3. Customer Engagement

Engagement is immensely important for any online business. Its not enough to just create great content. You also need to interact with your audience as much as you can. You cant have any success by just talking at your audience. You need to have ongoing conversations with them. It will help you know your audience better. It will help your audience know you better.

Thats what you want.

If you enable comments on your small business blog, you can discuss topics and get feedback directly. This can tell you a lot about your customer base. Not only that. It shows your audience that you are interested in interacting with them. This will increase loyalty and help you form a deeper connection with your audience.

4. Communicating Your Mission

One of the most important components of effective branding is purpose. Connecting with your audience means embracing a unique brand perspective that can give your audience something they can connect with on an emotional level.

This is where blogging comes in.

Your blog is a place where you can communicate your brand purpose. This is important because establishing a strong brand is an important part of encouraging customer loyalty. When you communicate a brand purpose that goes beyond what you sell, it helps you stand out from your competition.

For example, if you are a business that sells vegan meat substitutes, you can express your brands purpose by posting animal welfare material on your site. This shows your audience that your company is focused on something more than just making money.

5. Communicating With Customers

If theres something going on with your service  for example, there will be a planned outage or lack of availability  you dont have to keep your clients in the dark. Having a centralized place to post announcements is extremely important because people dont always read their email.

6. You Can Offer Promotional Material

A small business blog is also a great place to offer occasional promotions. If you already have an engaged audience that consumes your content, they will be able to see what discounts or promotions you are offering. Its a great way to keep your customer base informed.

Sure, you can spread your coupons around Facebook, but its better to get into the habit of compelling your audience to visit you at your own site, especially if its an ecommerce site. Keep them coming back for more by posting your promotions on your blog.

Heres a caveat: you dont want to overdo this. While blogs can be great for offering promotions, it shouldnt be used solely for this purpose. Most of your content should focus on offering informational value to your readers. If you only post promotional content, your audience will not continue to visit your blog.

7. Showing Your Human Side

People want to know that there are actual human beings behind the business that they buy from. Post some personal stories and talk to your customers through your blog.

This is an opportunity for you to let your personality shine through. When youre writing blog posts, dont smack your reader in the head with a bunch of corporatespeak. Nobody wants to read that. No really, they dont!

Its much better to write in an informal style that people can relate to. When it comes to blogging, its not just about what you say, its about how you say it.

8. You Can Become a Source of Value

The key to effective blogging is providing value. Nobody is going to read your content unless they get something out of it, right?

If you want to build influence, you have to be valuable. You can do this by providing helpful information to your readers through your blog.

Arjun Reddy, the founder of Super Baby, builds credibility with his websites resources section by giving actionable tips to his visitors.

Our visitors are parents who are looking for fun ways to help their children become smarter. The advice we give in our resources section is designed to provide helpful parenting tips for our readers.

The reason Reddy is enjoying success is because hes providing value up front. When you do this, you show your potential clients that you are valuable to them. Thats why content marketing works. When youre creating content, you should be asking yourself what your reader is going to get out of that particular piece of content. Each piece of content should be designed to inform, educate, or entertain. If possible, you should do all three!

9. Networking!

When you have built an audience and gained some notoriety, it can attract other entrepreneurs to you. For an entrepreneur, networking is important, isnt it?

If youre able to grow your readership effectively, you will gain more credibility. This will attract other influencers in your niche. You never know who might be paying attention right?

This could lead to other opportunities for your business. You might be able to take advantage of the key relationships that you form through your small business blog.

10. Building Credibility

Having a small business blog gives you a presence in your niche. A blog is a record of quality value and experience that you are bringing to your audience. This will give you instant street cred when someone finds your content.

Lissette Palencia, CEO of Sleeping Angels has built a steady stream of clientele by using her blog to provide valuable information to her websites visitors.

As you can guess, when you run a nanny agency, your clients are parents who are concerned about the safety of their children. They want to do the research first. When they visit our website, they find tons of valuable information that helps them make the right decision for their family. Not only does it inform them, it makes them more comfortable with doing business us.

This is essential for your business. Your blog is a tool that you can use to establish credibility in the minds of your potential clients. Prospects will read your content and gain value from it. Then, they will become far more willing to buy from you because you have already given them a significant benefit through your blog.

Conclusion

Heres the thing. If youre looking to expand your online presence, you need to be creating high-quality content on a consistent basis. A blog is one of the best ways to do this.

These are just a few reasons to keep a blog if youre an entrepreneur, but there are much more. Just remember that anything that can bring value to your audience is something that you should consider adding to your business.
An essay written by Southern Bluffs Elementary School DARE graduate Lilly Ackerman was selected the winner in the state of Wisconsin.

Lydia Hogues was the state runner-up. Hogue is a student at St. Patricks Elementary School in Onalaska.

Students are required to submit an essay about what they learned in the DARE program as part of graduation. La Crosse and Onalaska DARE officers submitted the essays to a state contest.

When state DARE officers voted on all submitted essays, Ackerman and Hogue tied for first. The DARE board of directors selected the winner.

The essays will be posted on the Wisconsin DARE website.
A good bookkeeper can be hard to come by. And thats a problem that one entrepreneur learned throughout the course of his career, leading to him starting his own bookkeeping brand  Legacy Advantage.

Read more about the company and what sets it apart in this weeks Small Business Spotlight.

What the Business Does

Provides bookkeeping services in a trustworthy way.

Legacy Advantage President Bob Wang told Small Business Trends, At the core, we are a bookkeeping company, but our vision is so much more! The bookkeeping industry is fragmented, and the overall client experience is poor at best. Our desire is to become the most trusted bookkeeping brand in the world.

Business Niche

Associates who provide great service.

Wang says, Our associates are super engaged because they love being here. We have a huge mission were all fighting for and they all want to be a part of this journey.

How the Business Got Started

By noticing a couple of different opportunities.

Wang explains, Opportunity #1  It was really hard for business leaders to find a good bookkeeper! Bad bookkeeping is frustrating for everyone involved, so I wanted to create an awesome bookkeeping business that would create a win win win relationship between the accountants, the business owner, and us.

Opportunity #2  There isnt a name brand that is known for bookkeeping. Most of the time, when people ask for bookkeeping, they usually ask for a referral from their accountants, lawyers, friends, and family. There isnt a specific place to go, to find a bookkeeper. So we want to be the first thing people think of when they think bookkeeping. When people are looking for a bookkeeping solution, I want them to think Legacy.

Biggest Win

Completing an acquisition in late 2016.

Wang says, We had may inquiries from businesses in the Fraser Valley, but we couldnt service them because people didnt want to cross the bridge. I knew I wanted to expand into the Valley, so I reached out to numerous bookkeepers for coffee to get an idea on what the market is like. Its a strange thing. When you put your words into the universe, it makes it happen! One of the people I reached out to said that are actually looking to retire and sell their business. So we started talking and decided to make it happen. Now we have 2 locations with the ability to service all of lower mainland. We have 2 locations, and double the number of super star team members.

Biggest Risk

Taking a chance on that acquisition.

Wang says, We are a startup company and bootstrapped the whole thing. The only cash injection we got was the inheritance that my Grandparents gave to me. My grandparents penny pinched their whole lives and saved $75K. They wanted to give it to me to give me a head start. Instead of buying a car, or investing in stocks, I decided that the best way I can use their money is to invest in this company. I poured some funds into marketing, but most of that went to paying for this acquisition.

How Theyd Spend an Extra $100,000

Promoting the business.

Wang says, [Id] spend more on marketing & PR so we can generate more awareness about our bookkeeping brand and offer more benefits to our staff.

Favorite Quote

Everything rises and falls on Leadership  John Maxwell

* * * * *

Find out more about the Small Biz Spotlight program
Those, who missed the Dream vs. Reality exhibition can view it online.

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Art, propaganda and history about Slovakia during the years of 1939 to 1945 can be found online at sen x skutocnost (Dream vs. Reality). The project of the Slovak National Gallery (SNG) which accompanied an exhibition of the same name is no longer running its exhibition, but an online version will be available in Slovak and English.

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The web site has lots of texts, pictures, photos and audio shows what was happening in the Slovak State that was a satellite of then-Nazi Germany. This era belongs among the most complicated of Slovak history, the introduction of the web site reads.

]We want a wide public to have the possibility to read this story, stated SNG, as quoted by the SITA newswire. SNG believes that people from abroad will also read the texts.

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Those who did not visit the exhibition now have a chance to use a service at Web umenia (Web of art). This online catalogue of fine arts from Slovak galleries offers a virtual view of exhibitions with 360-degree panorama and zoom function.

The exhibition lasted from late October to February and was the both the largest and most complicated exhibition SNG has ever held. More than 40 galleries, museums, archives and owners of private collection across Slovakia collaborated to present 1,200 art pieces showing the status, appearance and function of art and propaganda during the Slovak State.

Paintings, sculptures, drawing, graphics, photos, films and design complemented the expert texts. A special 400-page catalogue was published to accompany the exhibition.

The art exhibition also displayed photos from the celebration of the 53rd birthday of Adolf Hitler in front of the national theatre in Bratislava, citizens heiling to the state anthem during Labour Day, anti-Jewish caricatures and drawings made by Jozef Fedor in a concentration camp.
Volunteers will prepare a multimedia installation for visitors.

Uhrovec was one of the castles involved in a castle-renovation employment project. (Source: Courtesy of Peter Horansky)

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The castle of Uhrovec is joining the Night of Castle Ruins scheduled for August 19. The civic association housing volunteers working on the preservation of the castle ruins has prepared a multimedia installation dedicated to an outbuilding, Martin Varga, the head of the association informed.

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The ruins of Uhrovec Castle are located about 15 kilometres from the town of Banovce nad Bebravou. Sitting atop a steep hill in the Strazovske Vrchy mountains, it is one of the oldest and most beautiful preserved examples of castle architecture in Slovakia. Even so, Uhrovec is one of the countrys lesser-known castles.

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Volunteers plan to completely restore the outbuilding within next three years.

The installation will take place after sunset, from 20:30 until 23:30.

The installation will bring an innovative presentation of cultural heritage via new technologies, said Varga as cited by the TASR newswire.

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The premises of the castle will be open for visitors also during the day. The volunteers will also prepare refreshments to be served in a period style.

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Read also: Castle in Povazska Bystrica reopened Read more

The ruins of castels Kamenica, Lednica, Katarinka, Bystrica, Brekov, Hricovske Podhradie and others will participate in the Night of Castle Ruins.
The change affects Slovaks travelling to US from Istanbul with Turkish Airlines.

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Slovaks will no longer need to hand over their laptops and electronic devices to airline staff when flying to the US via Istanbul on Turkish Airlines. The US lifted the ban on July 5.

As part of a broader airline security effort to combat threats of terrorist attacks, the US imposed restrictions on large electronic devices in aircraft cabins in March for flights from several airports.

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While this measure left the international airport at Bratislava unaffected, travellers flying from Kosice would have been prepared for some restrictions.

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These measures applied only to passengers traveling from Kosice to the US or the United Kingdom with Turkish Airlines, as well as to some others from Africa and the Middle East, Juraj Toth, the spokesperson for Kosice airport, had explained to The Slovak Spectator while the ban was in effect. He added that in aircraft cabins on flights heading to the US, the directive banned electronic devices larger than a standard smart phone, like tablets and laptops, with the exception being medical devices.

Turkish Airlines operates a regular route to Istanbul from Kosice. For travellers flying from Kosice to the US via Istanbul, the ban meant that passengers were able to use their electronic devices on the flight from Kosice to Turkey, as well as while waiting at the airport in Istanbul. The devices were left with authorised staff from Turkish airlines prior to boarding the plan in Istanbul and returned upon arrival at the final destination in the US.

During the 102 days when the ban was valid, Turkish Airlines collected from its passengers 81,736 electronic devices and carried overprotected baggage to the US on 1,087 flights. Of the devices, 75 percent were laptops and tablets. Cameras, GPS devices and kindles made up 25 percent, Turkish Airlines informed.
The opposition is calling on him to do more.

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The Education, Science, Research and Sport Ministry will cancel a call for proposals for EU-funded projects in long-term strategic research and development and will issue a new one shortly, Education Minister Peter Plavcan announced on August 14.

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Among its list of measures include the disbanding of the current evaluators in charge of gauging projects seeking EU funding and organising a new selection in September. The way in which projects are assessed will also undergo changes, said Plavcan, a Slovak National Party (SNS) nominee.

The minister was speaking after meeting with representatives of research institutes and industry to discuss the allocations of EU funds for research and development. The ministry has come under fire for its controversial allocations of EU funds designated for research.

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Plavcan said that he watched in incredulity as the issue of EU funds took on a political ring, and he was astounded by reports in the media last week. He was emphatic that the ministry has not paid a single euro towards the projects that emerged successful from the much-disputed call for proposals.

The same day on which a letter, which I hadnt received myself, appeared in a daily, I immediately halted the two calls for proposals, said Plavcan. Not a single euro has been paid out. Everything was stopped in good time to allow for a proper review.

He also offered assurances that businesses which were successful in another call for proposals, this one to support new industrial research and development centres, will be required to present their plans to the public.

If any doubts arise, the companies would do themselves a disservice if they did not pull out of the projects under such circumstances, the minister said.

As for the warning letter that the European Commission has sent to Slovakia over the distribution of the funds, Plavcan said that Slovakia has received such letters before.

But this was the first time that weve received such a letter following media reports, said Plavcan.

He averred that he is not planning to step down.

I have work to do, and whether or not I will resign is somebody elses call, Plavcan said.

Opposition wants Plavcan to do more

Veronika Remisova, MP for the opposition OLaNO-NOVA, responded to the steps announced by Plavcan by saying that he has not done anything to dispel doubts looming over the two calls for proposals for EU-funded research projects and that he fahas iled to spell out how SNS will address the situation.

He [Plavcan] would not comment on the single most important thing  what hell do to make sure that we use the 600 million judiciously and help Slovak researchers and businesses, instead of having to pay the money back to the EU budget, said Remisova as cited by TASR.

He didnt give lie to the fact that many projects were assessed by unqualified evaluators or that the independent evaluators included senior officials from ministries under SNSs remit. He also wouldnt say what he plans to do about the outsized number of dubious companies with no revenues or employees that are set to receive millions of euros.

Remisova asserted that contracts have already been signed with most of the businesses that were successful in the call for proposals.

Notwithstanding his claims that not a single euro has been paid out, Mr. Plavcan knows full well that hell need to pay up because of the signed contracts, Remisova said.

Background on the scandal

The ministry has been through several tumultuous weeks following reports of controversial allocations of EU funds intended for research that have prompted the opposition to demand Plavcans removal and that SNS lose its remit over the ministry altogether.

The controversy has had some carry-over effects on the coalition and is seen as a contributing factor to SNS chairman Andrej Dankos decision to withdraw from the coalition agreement last week.

Meanwhile, the European Commission has suspended payments regarding four calls for proposals and enjoined the ministry to desist from closing new contracts with funding recipients.

In anticipation of new measures, the ministry is currently looking into the technicalities of the issue, which has also caught the eye of the European Anti-Fraud Office and Slovakias National Crime Agency.
The poll showed there are no differences in the perception of extremism among various social environments.

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Extremism and its increasing influence is a serious problem according to nearly three-quarters of people living in Slovakia who are personally concerned by this trend. Only 13 percent of Slovaks have a different opinion and do not consider the rise in extremism a problem we should worry about.

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Moreover, 63 percent of Slovaks are concerned by the spread of hatred and intolerance via social networks and consider it a serious problem in society. This stems from a poll carried out by the Focus agency for the Institute for Public Affairs (IVO) think tank between July 13 and 24, on 1,025 respondents older than 18 years of age.

The poll also showed there are no differences in the perception of extremism among various social environments. Extremism concerns the majority of both men and women, the majority of people of different age groups and different education; also the majority of both Slovaks and people with Hungarian nationality; and the majority of inhabitants of all regions and municipalities of different sizes.

The only statistically important factor is political preferences. While among supporters of the far-right Peoples Party  Our Slovakia (LSNS) only 21 percent consider extremism a serious problem, in the case of supporters from other political parties it is 63-84 percent, the poll showed.
The complaint concerns the tenders conditions.

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The state-run railway passenger carrier Zeleznicna Spolocnost Slovensko (ZSSK) is facing problems with the planned purchase of 25 new electric trains to be used on regional lines.

Following the complaints of one of the bidders, the Swiss producer of trains Stadler, the tender worth 160 million is being scrutinised by the Public Procurement Office (UVO), the Sme daily reported.

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It is not clear at which stage the inspection is as UVO refuses to comment on the ongoing process.

Several companies have already complained on the first tender to purchase the electric trains, run during the rule of the second Robert Fico government (2012-2016). The current management of the Transport Ministry scrapped the tender following complaints of the European Commission, which considered the conditions unfair. Most of the money for the purchase is to be allocated from EU funds, Sme wrote.

The deadline for submitting the bids for the current tender expired on August 14. The deadline was postponed several times as ZSSK had to change the conditions following the recommendations from the EC.

Some bidders had also sent ZSSK the objections to the previous conditions. Their names, however, are not known and will be published only after assessing the bids. One of them may be Stadler, Sme reported.

It is possible several companies submitted their bids, including the French company Alstrom, and the Czech company Skoda Transportation. The latter often cooperates with the Slovak firm ZOS Trnava, owned by tycoon Vladimir Poor.
The solar-powered benches can charge mobiles and offer free wi-fi.

One of four smart benches now available in Bratislava. (Source: Cortesy of Bratislava city council)

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After a trial installation of a smart bench in Bratislava, three more benches have been added to the Slovak capital. Now there are two smart benches in front of the Old Market Hall at SNP Square and another two installed near the cafe Propeler at the Razusove Embankment.

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The benches run on solar energy, Iveta Keselakova of the Bratislava city council explained, adding that the solar panels of each bench generate approximately 100 W of electricity per hour.

The bench is a product of Power Mode, which lent the city one bench over the winter. After its successful trial operation, the bench was granted to the city.

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While sitting on the benches, people can charge mobiles with or without a USB cable and connect to the internet with free wi-fi. The benches also collect information about the air and offer instructions for how to use them.

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Evaluation of these data will serve for setting better and more effective services for citizens as well as for visitors to Bratislava, said Keselakova.

The purchase of the three benches was covered by the Adient company.

We noticed smart initiatives of the city council and on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of our business centre in Bratislava, we decided to support it via these benches, said Peter Kovac, director of the Bratislava business centre of Adient.

We sit in the very centre of the city and our employees like to spend time here. At the same time, smart technologies fundamentally belong to our business, Kovac said.
An exhibition, subtitled Contemporary Graphic Art Confronting History, shows the less-known, less decorative and less usual works of graphic artists of one generation.

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Apart from trying to express their affinity for a visually rougher style, engraving and scraping (technical and thematic), the title also cites the hard-boiled literary style and the selection of motifs and subjects. Moreover, the leitmotif and the title developed gradually during the preparatory work, rather than being set from the very start, head the Slovak National Gallery and the exhibition co-curator (with Lucia Gavulova), Alexandra Kusa, said.

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The six artists, in their forties, are connected  apart from their age - by their rough style following the tradition of engraving and the etching, she explained. These include Erik Binder, Jan Cumlivski, Emil Drliciak, Palo Cejka, Juraj Horvath and Tomas Klepoch. We know there are more artists who could fall under the definition of the Rough School but we wanted to present the most typical and outstanding representatives  avoiding those whose creations are similar so that it does not get dull and boring, Kusa noted.

Non-commercial and non-traditional graphic artworks

Graphic art is a classical genre with a long domestic tradition but the works on display are contrary to what is usually made with commercial purposes. The works and their artists are anti-pole to the established graphic school represented by Albin Brunovsky and his successors and students.

The six contemporary artists are confronted, in a fine selection and also with their works put in the context of Slovak art history, with older graphic artists, from Albrecht Durer, through Slovaks Ludvit Fulla, Albin Brunovsky, to Ernest Zmetak and Orest Dubay. Rather than being a homogenous or self-proclaimed group with a common agenda, style and/or technique, they represent six individuals who  when put together  can offer a broader view of one generation.

Their works have been either selected from ready outputs already on offer combined, however, in an innovative way, or made specifically for this exhibition. Also, each artist has got one room to show his creations, and these rooms also reflect their different work methods and personalities.

In some cases, they have collaborated before and the results are now on display within the Rough School.

Each artist is "rough" in their own way

Juraj Horvath, whose work is rather well-known in the Czech Republic where he lives and who is also a book illustrator, said about his room that brings an overview of his creations since 1990: I defined myself and delineated against the avant-garde, using its language but focused on its predecessor, art deco, calling the style fun-deco, Horvath said. For me, each of the motifs exhibited here is something of playing cards that I play until today.

He told The Slovak Spectator that, apart from practical views like availability of graphic works, he intentionally chose less-known things to display as part of the exhibition  as books circulate much more among people than artwork at exhibitions. Horvath added that he wanted to show, too, that he still makes non-utilitarian art in the solitude and freedom of his studio, and to present his long-term work rather than something quickly made and site-specific.

Erik Binder, whose room is designed as a messy studio and who made a site-specific installation for the SNG, said that beginning in September he would like to put up a kiosk there and give advice not just on art history but also on psychology. He added that he could manage to do so also in English and maybe other languages, too, like Japanese, Chinese... he laughed. Binder also said that the first hour of consultancy would be for free but the rest paid.

In the last room, called the Dark-room, the idea is to bring together the strongest, literally darkest and most impressive works of all the authors exhibited, not just figuratively but literally huge and heavy to give the visitors a good portion of the Rough School before they leave the gallery, Kusa summed up.

The exhibition on the third floor of the Esterhazy Palace in L. Stura Square in downtown Bratislava lasts until October 29, being opened daily except Mondays from 10:00 to 18:00 (and on Thursdays between 12:00 and 20:00). Admission is free. There are leaflets on the exhibition in English, as well as labels and information panels. The catalogue of almost 500 pages is, unfortunately, only in Slovak but it mostly contains reproductions of the graphic works, anyway. Starting in September, there will be a Sunday Rest guided tour once a month on Sunday in English.
Juniper Networks, Inc. designs, develops, and sells network products and services worldwide. The company offers routing products, such as ACX series universal access routers to deploy high-bandwidth services; MX series Ethernet routers that function as a universal edge platform; PTX series packet transport routers; wide-area network SDN controllers; and session smart routers. It also provides switching products, including EX series Ethernet switches to address the access, aggregation, and core layer switching requirements of micro branch, branch office, and campus environments; QFX series of core, spine, and top-of-rack data center switches; and juniper access points, which provide Wi-Fi access and performance. In addition, the company offers security products comprising SRX series services gateways for the data center; Branch SRX family provides an integrated and next-generation firewall; virtual firewall that delivers various features of physical firewalls; and advanced malware protection, a cloud-based service and Juniper ATP. Further, it offers Junos OS, a network operating system; Contrail networking, which provides an open-source and standards-based platform for SDN; Mist AI-driven Wired, Wireless, and WAN assurance solutions to set and measure key metrics; Mist AI-driven Marvis Virtual Network Assistant, which identifies the root cause of issues; Juniper Paragon Automation, a modular portfolio of cloud-native software applications; and Juniper Apstra to automate the network lifecycle in a single system. Additionally, the company provides software-as-a-service, technical support, maintenance, and professional services, as well as education and training programs. It sells its products through direct sales, distributors, value-added resellers, and original equipment manufacturers to end-users in the cloud, service provider, and enterprise markets. The company was incorporated in 1996 and is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California.
The following companies are subsidiares of Quanta Services: (De) Lazy Q Ranch LLC, 1 Diamond LLC, 1Diamond AS, 618232 Alberta Ltd., 8246408 Canada Inc., Advanced Electric Systems, Advanced Electric Systems LLC, Advanced Utility Testing & Maintenance LLC, Alexander Publications LLC, Allteck GP Ltd., Allteck Limited Partnership, Apprenticeship Programs Inc., Arby Construction, Arcanum Chemicals LLC, Arnett & Burgess Oil Field Construction Limited, Arnett & Burgess Pipeliners (Rockies) LLC, Arnett & Burgess Pipeliners Ltd., B&N Clearing and Environmental LLC, Banister Pipelines Constructors Corp., Banister Pipelines Constructors GP Ltd., Banister Pipelines Limited Partnership, Brent Woodward Inc., Brink Constructors Inc., Brink Constructors Inc. A Corporation Of South Dakota, Brown Engineering and Testing, CAT SPEC Ltd., CAT-SPEC Limited Partnership, CAT-SPEC Limited Partnership (Regd Name) CAT SPEC Ltd., CAT-Spec Limited Partnership, Canadian Utility Construction Corp., Cat Spec Limited LP, Cat Spec Ltd, Cat Spec Ltd. L.P., Cat Spec Ltd. LP, Cat Spec. Ltd. LP, Cat-Spec Ltd (A Domestic limited Partnership), Cat-Spec Ltd LP, Cat-Spec Ltd., Cat-Spec Ltd. L.P., Cat-Spec Ltd. LP, Cat-Spec Ltd. Limited Partnership, Catalyst Changers Inc., Chatham Electric, Citadel Industrial Services L.P., Citadel Industrial Services Ltd., Citadel Industrial Services Ltd. L.P., Citadel Industrial Services Ltd. Limited Partnership, Coe Drilling Pty Ltd., Computapole, Conam Construction Co., Consolidated Power Projects Australia Pty Ltd, Conti Communications Inc., Crux Subsurface Canada Ltd., Crux Subsurface Inc., Cutting Technology - 1 Diamond LLC, DB Utilities Inc., DE Lazy Q Ranch LLC, DNR Pressure Welding Ltd., Dacon Corporation, Dashiell (DE) Corporation (Dashiell Corporation), Dashiell Corporation, Dashiell Corporation DBA Dashiell (DE) Corporation, De Mears Group, De Mears Group Inc., Delaware Quanta Technology LLC, Delaware Underground Construction Co., Didado Utility Company Inc., Digco Utility Construction L.P. Digco Utility Construction Limited Partnership, Dorado Specialty Services L.P., Dorado Specialty Services Ltd., Dorado Specialty Services Ltd. L.P., Dorado Specialty Services Ltd. Limited Partnership, Dorado Specialty Services. Ltd. L.P., Driftwood Electrical Contractors, EHV Power ULC, ELITE PIPING & CIVIL L.P., ELITE TURNAROUND SPECIALISTS LTD, Elite Fabrication Ltd. Elite Fabrication LP, Elite Piping & Civil Limited Partnership, Elite Piping & Civil Limited Partnership, Elite Piping & Civil Lp, Elite Piping & Civil Ltd L.P., Elite Piping & Civil Ltd., Elite Piping & Civil Ltd. L.P., Elite Piping & Civil Ltd. Limited Partnership, Elite Piping and Civil L.P., Elite Turnaround Specialists L.p., Elite Turnaround Specialists Limited Lp, Elite Turnaround Specialists Limited Partnership, Elite Turnaround Specialists Limited Partnership, Elite Turnaround Specialists Ltd Lp, Elite Turnaround Specialists Ltd., Elite Turnaround Specialists Ltd. L.P., Elite Turnaround Specialists Ltd. LP, Elite Turnaround Specialists Ltd. Limited Partnership, Energy Consulting Group LLC, Enscope, Enscope Pty Ltd, FIC GP LLC, Field Personnel Services LLC, First Infrastructure Capital Advisors LLC, First Infrastructure Capital GP L.P., Five Points Construction Co., G-Tek, G-Vac, GEM Engineering Co., Grand Electric Inc., Great Lakes Line Builders, Grid Creative Inc., Grid Manufacturing Corporation, Grid Training Corporation, H.L. Chapman Pipeline Construction Inc., Haverfield Aviation, Haverfield Aviation Inc., Haverfield International Incorporated, Heritage Midstream LLC, IM Electric Inc., IUC ILLINOIS LLC, IUC Nebraska LLC, InfraSource Construction LLC, InfraSource Field Services LLC, InfraSource Services LLC, InfraSources Construction LLC, Infraestructura ETP de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V, Infrasource Engineering Company PC, Infrasource Iowa Underground LLC, Infrasource Of Pa LLC, Integracion Tecnologica del Peru SAC, Intermountain Electric Inc., Intermountain Electric Inc. A Corporation of Colorado, IonEarth LLC, Irby Construction Company, Irby Construction Company Inc., Iron Mountain M.J. Electric LLC, Island Mechanical Corporation, J.C.R. Construction Co. Inc., J.C.R. Utility Construction Co., J.W. Didado Electric Inc., J.W. Didado Electric LLC, J.w. Didado Electric, JBT Electric LLC, Kingston Contracting Inc., Lazy Q Ranch LLC, Lazy Q Training Center LLC The Lazy Q Lineman School, Legend Foundation Services, Lex Engineering Ltd., Lindsey Electric L.P., Logical Link, Longfellow Drilling, M. G. Dyess Inc., M. J. ELECTRIC LLC IRON MOUNTAIN, M. J. Electric LLC, M. J. Electric LLC - Iron Mountain, M. J. Electric LLC DBA M. J. Electric Iron Mountain LLC, M.J. Electric LLC DBA M.J. Electric Iron Mountain, M.J. Electric LLC Iron Mountain, MTS Field Services, MTS Field Services (Richmond Co), MTS Quanta LLC, Manuel Bros. Inc., Marathon Construction Services, Mears Canada Corp., Mears Equipment Services LLC, Mears Group Inc., Mears Group Pty Ltd, Mears Installation LLC, Mearsmex S. de R.L. de C.V., Mejia Personnel Services LLC, Mercer Technical Services, Microline Technology Corporation, Mid America Energy Services Inc., NACAP Niugini Ltd., NC Northstar Energy Services Inc, NGI Construction, NGI Construction Inc., NGI Construction Inc. (FN), NLC CA. Inc., NLC FL. Inc. Northwest Lineman Center, NLC ID. Inc. Northwest Lineman College, NLC TX. Inc., NPC Energy Services LLC, Nacap Australia, Nacap PNG Limited, Network Communication Services, North Houston Pole Line L.P., North Houston Pole Line Limited Partnership, North Sky Communications, NorthStar Energy Services Inc., Northern Powerline Constructors Inc., Northstar Energy Solutions LLC, Northwest Lineman Center, Northwest Lineman College, Northwest Lineman Training Center, Northwest Lineman Training Center Inc., Nova Constructors LLC, Nova Constructors LTD, Nova Equipment Leasing LLC, Nova Group Inc, Nova Group Inc (CA), Nova Group Inc., Nova Group Inc. DBA NGI Construction, Nova NextGen Solutions LLC, O. J. Pipelines Canada Corporation, O. J. Pipelines Canada Limited Partnership, O.J. Industrial Maintenance, O.J. Pipelines Canada, One Call Locators Canada Ltd., P.D.G. Electric, PAR Electrical Contractors Inc., PDG Electric Co., Par Internacional S. de R.L. de C.V., Performance Energy Services Guyana Ltd., Performance Energy Services L.L.C., Phasor Engineering Inc., Phoenix North Constructors Inc., Phoenix Power Group Inc., Potelco Inc., Potelco Incorporated, Power Delivery Program Inc., Price Gregory International Inc., Price Gregory Services LLC, Probst Construction Inc., Probst Electric Inc., QEPC, QEPC Power Solutions LLC, QES GP LLC, QP Energy Services LLC, QPS Engineering LLC, QPS Engineering LTD., QPS Engineering PLLC, QPS Environmental, QPS Flint Construction, QPS Flint Tank Services, QPS Global, QPS Global Services, QPS Global Services (Richmond Ci), QPS Professional Services, QPSE, QS Mats, QSI Engineering Inc., QSI Finance (Australia) Pty Ltd., QSI Finance (Cayman) Pvt. Ltd., QSI Finance Canada ULC, QSI Finance GP (US) LLC, QSI Finance I (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., QSI Finance I (US) LP, QSI Finance II (Australia) Pty Ltd., QSI Finance II (Lux) S.a r.l, QSI Finance II (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., QSI Finance III (Canada) ULC, QSI Finance III (Lux) SARL, QSI Finance IV (Canada) ULC, QSI Finance IX (Canada) Limited Partnership, QSI Finance V (US) L.P., QSI Finance VI (Canada) ULC, QSI Finance VII (Canada) Limited Partnership, QSI Finance VIII (Canada) ULC, QSI Finance X (Canada) ULC, QSI Inc., QSN Lux Holdings I SCSp, QSN Lux Holdings II SCSp, QSN Lux Holdings III SCSp, QSN Lux Holdings IV SCSp, QTSL LLC, QUANTA FOUNDATION SERVICES, Quanta APL GP II Ltd., Quanta Asset Management LLC, Quanta Associates L.P., Quanta Aviation Services LLC, Quanta Canada GP ULC, Quanta Canada Holdings III Limited Partnership, Quanta Canada Holdings LP, Quanta Canada III GP Ltd., Quanta Capital GP LLC, Quanta Capital LP L.P., Quanta Capital Solutions Inc., Quanta Cares, Quanta EPC Services, Quanta Electric Power Construction LLC, Quanta Electric Power Construction Management Inc., Quanta Electric Power Services LLC, Quanta Electric Power Services West LLC, Quanta Energized Innovations Ltd., Quanta Energized Services U.S. LLC, Quanta Energized Services of Canada Ltd., Quanta Energy Services LLC, Quanta Environmental Solutions, Quanta Equipment Company LLC, Quanta Government Solutions Inc., Quanta Holdings I (Netherlands) B.V., Quanta Holdings II (Netherlands) B.V., Quanta Infraestructura de Chile SpA, Quanta Infrastructure Services LLC, Quanta Infrastructure Services S. de R.L. de C.V., Quanta Inline Devices LLC, Quanta Inspection Services, Quanta Insurance Company Inc., Quanta International Holdings (US) LLC, Quanta International Holdings II Ltd., Quanta International Holdings Ltd., Quanta International Limited, Quanta Kingsvale LP Ltd., Quanta Lines Pty Ltd., Quanta Maine Services LLC, Quanta Middle East LLC, Quanta Pipeline Services Inc., Quanta Power Australia Pty Ltd, Quanta Power Generation Inc., Quanta Power Inc., Quanta Power Solutions India Private Limited, Quanta Resource Development, Quanta Services Africa (PTY) Ltd., Quanta Services Australia Pty Ltd., Quanta Services Chile SpA, Quanta Services Colombia S.A.S., Quanta Services Costa Rica Ltda., Quanta Services Guatemala Ltda., Quanta Services International Holdings II LP, Quanta Services International Holdings LP, Quanta Services Management Partnership L.P., Quanta Services Netherlands B.V., Quanta Services Panama S. de R.L., Quanta Services Peru S.A.C., Quanta Services Puerto Rico LLC, Quanta Services of Canada Ltd., Quanta Subsurface Canada Ltd., Quanta Subsurface LLC, Quanta Tank Services, Quanta Technology Canada ULC, Quanta Technology LLC, Quanta Technology UK Ltd., Quanta Tecnologia do Brasil Ltda., Quanta Telecom, Quanta Telecom Services, Quanta Telecommunication Services, Quanta Telecommunication Services LLC, Quanta Telecommunications Services LLC, Quanta Underground Services, Quanta Underground Services (Culpeper Co), Quanta Underground Services (Spotsylvania Co), Quanta Underground Services Inc., Quanta Utility Engineering Services Inc., Quanta Utility Installation Company Inc., Quanta Utility Operation LLC, Quanta West LLC, Quantecua Cia. Ltda., R. R. Cassidy Inc., RMS Holdings LLC, RMS Holdings LLC (Delaware), RMS Welding Systems, RMS Welding Systems LLC, Ranger Directional, Realtime Engineers Inc., Realtime Utility Engineers Inc., Redes Andinas de Comunicaciones S.R.L., Riggin & Diggin Line Construction, Rms Welding LLC, Rms Welding Systems LLC, Road Bore Corporation, Ryan Company Inc. The, Ryan Company Inc. of Massachusetts, Ryan Company Inc.(The), Seaward, Seaward Corp, Seaward Corporation, Service EC (DE) Inc., Service Electric Company (DE), Service Electric Company Inc., Service Electric Company of Delaware, Servicios Par Electric S. de R.L. de C.V., Servicios de Infraestructura del Peru S.A.C., Southwest Trenching Company Inc., Specialty Tank Services L.P., Specialty Tank Services LP, Specialty Tank Services Limited Partnership, Specialty Tank Services Limited Partnership, Specialty Tank Services Ltd., Specialty Tank Services Ltd. (LP), Specialty Tank Services Ltd. L.P., Specialty Tank Services Ltd. LP, Specialty Tank Services Ltd. LP, Specialty Tank Services Ltd. Limited Partnership, Stronghold General LLC, Stronghold Holdings (BVI) Limited, Stronghold Inspection L.P., Stronghold Inspection Limited Partnership, Stronghold Inspection Limited Partnership, Stronghold Inspection Lp, Stronghold Inspection Ltd L.P., Stronghold Inspection Ltd., Stronghold Inspection Ltd. L.P., Stronghold Inspection Ltd. Limited Partnership, Stronghold Limited Partnership, Stronghold Ltd., Stronghold Ltd. Limited Partnership, Stronghold Management Holdings LP, Stronghold Specialty General LLC, Stronghold Specialty Ltd., Stronghold Specialty Ltd., Stronghold Specialty Ltd. Limited Partnership, Stronghold Tower Group LP, Stronghold Tower Group Ltd LP, Stronghold Tower Group Ltd., Stronghold Tower Group Ltd. LP, Stronghold VI LLC, Subterra Damage Prevention Specialists Ltd., Summit Line Construction, Sumter Utilities Inc., T. G. Mercer Consulting Services Inc., TA Construction, TC Infrastructure Services Ltd., Taylor Built, Texas Specialty Tank Services Ltd. LP, The Aspen Utility Company LLC, The ComTran Group Inc., The Hallen Construction Co. Inc., The Massachusetts Ryan Company Inc., The Ryan Company Inc Of Massachusetts, The Ryan Company Inc., The Ryan Company Inc. (Massachusetts), The Ryan Company Inc. of Massachusetts, The Ryan Company Incorporated of Massachusetts, The Ryan Company Of Massachusetts Inc., The Ryan Company of Massachusetts, The Ryan Company of Massachusetts (FN), Tom Allen Construction Company Inc., Tom Allen Construction Company of Delaware, Trans Tech Electric, TurnKey Automation Limited Partnership, TurnKey Automation Limited Partnership, TurnKey Automation Ltd., TurnKey Automation Ltd. Limited Partnership, TurnKey Automation Ltd. Limited Partnership, TurnKey I&E Ltd., Turnkey Automation Ltd. L.P., Turnkey Automation Ltd. LP., UCC Underground Construction Co. Inc., Ucc - Underground Construction Co., Underground Construction Co. Inc., Underground Construction Co. Inc. (Delaware), Underground Electric Construction Company LLC, Utilco Inc., Utility Fleet Services, Utility Line Management Services Inc., Utility Testing & Maintenance LLC, Utility Training Services Corporation, VALARD Polska sp. Z o.o., Valard, Valard, Valard Construction (Ontario) Ltd., Valard Construction (Quebec) Inc., Valard Construction 2008 Ltd., Valard Construction Australia Pty Ltd, Valard Construction LLC, Valard Equipment (AB) Ltd., Valard Equipment GP Ltd., Valard Equipment Limited Partnership, Valard Geomatics (Ontario) Ltd., Valard Geomatics BC Ltd., Valard Geomatics Ltd., Valard Mechanical Ltd., Valard Norway AS, Valard Sweden AB, Valard Zagreb d. o. o., Wade D. Taylor Inc., West Coast Communications, Winco Helicopters, Winco Inc., Winco Inc. an Oregon Based Corporation, Winco Powerline Services, Winco Powerline Services Inc., Winco Powerline Services Inc., Winco Services Inc., World Fiber Inc., and mmit Line Construction Inc..

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Occidental Petroleum Corporation is an international oil and gas giant founded in 1920 to explore for oil in California. The company made its name in the early 1960safter discovering the Lathrop Gas Field in Lathrop, California. The company expanded into chemicals manufacturing in 1968 and then in 1972 it became a pioneer in the quest to extract oil from shale. In 1993, the company made a historic move by exiting its coal operations, and then it did so again when it embraced a lower carbon future.

The company worked to realign its goals with a carbon-free future in 2021. After extensive review, new carbon emission targets were laid out along with a plan that the Transition Pathway Initiative recognized as being 1 of 3 coming from major oil companies that could realistically result in net-zero emissions by 2050. Since then the company has laid interim goals that include net zero from operations and energy by 2040 and no routine flaring by 2030.

Today, Occidental Petroleum is an integrated energy company with operations in the US, the Middle East, Africa, and Columbia along with some other smaller operations. The company operates a network of best-in-class production, delivery, and storage facilities with operations centered in the US. On a net basis, the companys US operations accounted for more than 75% of the total in 2022 with 19% from Middle East operations and the remainder from Columbia and elsewhere.

The company engages in the oil & gas business as an explorer, producer, and mid-stream infrastructure operator. The company operates through three segments that include Oil and Gas, Chemicals, and Midstream & Marketing.

The oil and gas segment explores for oil, develops new fields, and produces hydrocarbon liquids, gasses, and condensates. The chemicals segment manufactures a range of chemicals including chlorine, potassium chemicals, and vinyl. The midstream segment transports, stores, and markets hydrocarbons. It is the 6th largest oil and gas producer in the US by market cap. The company attained the position after its acquisition of Anadarko Petroleum in 2019, the 4th largest oil and gas acquisition at the time.

Berkshire Hathaway became Occidental Petroleums largest shareholder in mid-2022. The firm had purchased more than 26% of the shares as of 10/14/2022 and had regulatory approval to purchase up to 50% of the company in total.
Our portfolio of high quality UK commercial property is focused on London Offices and Retail around the UK. We own or manage a portfolio valued at 13.7bn (British Land share: 10.3bn) as at 30 September 2020 making us one of Europe's largest listed real estate investment companies. Our strategy is to provide places which meet the needs of our customers and respond to changing lifestyles - Places People Prefer. We do this by creating great environments both inside and outside our buildings and use our scale and placemaking skills to enhance and enliven them. This expands their appeal to a broader range of occupiers, creating enduring demand and driving sustainable, long term performance. Our Offices portfolio comprises three office-led campuses in central London as well as high quality standalone buildings and accounts for 65% of our portfolio. Our Retail portfolio is focused on retail parks and shopping centres, and accounts for 31% of our portfolio. Increasingly our focus is on providing a mix of uses and this is most evident at Canada Water, our 53 acre redevelopment opportunity where we have plans to create a new neighbourhood for London. Sustainability is embedded throughout our business. Our places, which are designed to meet high sustainability standards, become part of local communities, provide opportunities for skills development and employment and promote wellbeing. In April 2016 British Land received the Queen's Award for Enterprise: Sustainable Development, the UK's highest accolade for business success for economic, social and environmental achievements over a period of five years.
FLEETCOR Technologies, Inc. provides digital payment solutions for businesses to control purchases and make payments. It offers corporate payments solutions, such as accounts payable automation; Virtual Card, which provides a single-use card number for a specific amount usable within a defined timeframe; Cross-Border that is used by its customers to pay international vendors, foreign office and personnel expenses, capital expenditures, and profit repatriation and dividends; and purchasing cards and travel and entertainment cards for its customers to analyze and manage their corporate spending. The company also provides employee expense management solutions, including fuel solutions to businesses and government entities that operate vehicle fleets, as well as to oil and leasing companies, and fuel marketers; lodging solutions to businesses that have employees who travel overnight for work purposes, as well as to airlines and cruise lines to accommodate traveling crews and stranded passengers; and electronic toll payments solutions to businesses and consumers in the form of radio frequency identification tags affixed to vehicles' windshields. In addition, it offers gift card program management and processing services in plastic and digital forms that include card design, production and packaging, delivery and fulfillment, card and account management, transaction processing, promotion development and management, website design and hosting, program analytics, and card distribution channel management. Further, it provides other products consisting of payroll cards, vehicle maintenance service solution, long-haul transportation solution, prepaid food vouchers or cards, and prepaid transportation cards and vouchers. The company serves business, merchant, consumer, and payment network customers in North America, Brazil, and Internationally. The company was founded in 1986 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that increasing the number of jobs in the United States, like those promised for Wisconsin by Taiwanese electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn, could have a tremendous impact on race relations in the country.

The car companies coming in, with you know, Foxconn, if we continue to create jobs at levels that I am creating jobs, I think thats going to have a tremendous impact  a positive impact  on race relations, Trump told reporters at Trump Tower in New York City. Because people are going to be working, theyre going to be making a lot of money  much more money than they ever thought possible.

Trumps comments came days after he received backlash for not condemning hate groups by name on Saturday after deadly clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, during a protest by white supremacist groups over the dismantling of a statue of Robert E. Lee.

Trump, instead, criticized violence on many sides, which drew pressure from Republicans and Democrats to call out the groups that incited the violence.

On Monday, the president said neo-Nazis, white supremacists and members of the KKK who take part in violence were criminals and thugs. At Tuesdays press conference, Trump said he did not immediately call out the groups because he needed more information.

Foxconn and Gov. Scott Walker have signed an agreement that would bring up to 13,000 jobs to Wisconsin through the creation of a 20 million-square-foot plant that creates LCD panels. Foxconn chairman Terry Gou has said he wants to invest $10 billion in the campus, and Walker has proposed giving the company $3 billion in incentives to build it.
MasTec, Inc., an infrastructure construction company, provides engineering, building, installation, maintenance, and upgrade services for communications, energy, utility, and other infrastructure primarily in the United States and Canada. It operates through Communications, Clean Energy and Infrastructure, Oil and Gas, Power Delivery, and Other segments. The company builds underground and overhead distribution systems, including trenches, conduits, cell towers, cable, and power lines, which provide wireless and wireline/fiber communications; clean energy infrastructure comprising renewable energy; natural gas, product transport; electrical and gas transmission, and distribution systems; heavy industrial plants; compressor and pump stations, and treatment plants; water and sewer infrastructure, including water pipelines; and other civil construction infrastructure. It also installs electrical and other gas distribution and transmission systems, power generation facilities, buried and aerial fiber optic and other cables, as well as home automation and energy management solutions. In addition, the company offers maintenance and upgrade support services comprising maintenance of customers' distribution facilities, networks, and infrastructure, including communications, power generation, pipeline, electrical distribution and transmission, and heavy civil infrastructure; service restoration for natural disasters and accidents; and routine replacements and upgrades to overhauls. Its customers include public and private energy providers, pipeline operators, wireless and wireline/fiber service providers, broadband operators, install-to-the-home service providers, and government entities. MasTec, Inc. was founded in 1929 and is headquartered in Coral Gables, Florida.
YPF Sociedad Anonima, an energy company, engages in the oil and gas upstream and downstream activities in Argentina. The company's upstream operations include the exploration, development, and production of crude oil, natural gas, and NGLs. Its downstream operations include the refining, marketing, transportation, and distribution of oil, petroleum products, petroleum derivatives, petrochemicals, LPG, and bio-fuels, as well as in gas separation, natural gas distribution operations, and power generation. As of December 31, 2021, it had interests in 119 oil and gas fields; approximately 643 million barrels (mmbbl) of oil; and approximately 2,447 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas. It also had a retail distribution network of 1,654 YPF-branded service stations; and 18 exploration permits. In addition, the company owns and operates three refineries with combined annual refining capacity of approximately 120 mmbbl; approximately 2,800 kilometers of crude oil pipelines with approximately 640,000 barrels of aggregate daily transportation capacity of refined products; and crude oil tankage of approximately 7 mmbbl, as well as maintains terminal facilities at five Argentine ports. Further, it participates in 21 power generation plants with an aggregate installed capacity of 3,091 megawatts; offers diesel, fertilizers, lubricants, phytosanitary products, and ensiling bags; and supplies diesel, gasoline, fuel oil, coal, asphalts, paraffin, and sulfur, CO2, decanted oil, and aromatic extract. The company was founded in 1977 and is headquartered in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Equity Issues

1Million Project to Close Homework Gap for 180,000 Students This School Year

About 70 percent of high school teachers assign homework that requires some online activity, yet millions of families in the U.S. with school-age children lack internet access at home. For the 2017-2018 school year, Sprint launched a nationwide campaign aimed at closing the homework gap for these students.

Through Sprints 1Million Project, the company has ambitiously committed to providing 1 million high school students living in low-income households with free and connected smartphones, tablets and hotspot devices.

The 1Million Project began last year, when Sprint piloted the project across 11 cities and distributed devices to 4,000 students.

Now, for the inaugural year of the five-year program, around 180,000 students at more than 1,300 high schools will receive one of the aforementioned devices equipped with 3GB of high-speed LTE data per month for up to four years while they are in high school, according to information from the company.

The initial launch includes high schools located across 32 states, with an additional 62 set for activation in New York near the end of September.

To learn more, watch the project overview video below or visit the 1Million Project site.
The following companies are subsidiares of Colgate-Palmolive: 887357 Ontario Inc., COLGALIVE S.A., CP GABA GmbH, CP International Holding C.V., CP West East Investment Limited, Cleaning Dimensions Inc., Colgate (BVI) Limited, Colgate (Guangzhou) Company Limited, Colgate (U.K.) Limited, Colgate Business Services of the Americas S.C., Colgate Flavors and Fragrances Inc., Colgate Global Business Services Private Limited, Colgate Holdings, Colgate Inc., Colgate Oral Pharmaceuticals Inc., Colgate Palmolive Ghana Limited, Colgate Palmolive Holding S.Com.P.A., Colgate Palmolive Nouvelle Caledonie Sarl, Colgate Palmolive Tanzania Limited, Colgate Sanxiao Company Limited, Colgate Venture Company Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (America) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Asia) Pte Ltd, Colgate-Palmolive (Blantyre) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Brunei) Sdn Bhn, Colgate-Palmolive (Central America) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Central America) Inc. y Compania Limitada, Colgate-Palmolive (Centro America) S.A., Colgate-Palmolive (China) Co. Ltd, Colgate-Palmolive (Costa Rica) S.A., Colgate-Palmolive (Dominica) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Dominican Republic) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (East Africa) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Eastern) Pte. Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive (Egypt) S.A.E., Colgate-Palmolive (Far East) Sdn Bhd, Colgate-Palmolive (Fiji) Pte Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Gabon) S.A., Colgate-Palmolive (Guyana) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive (H.K.) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Hellas) S.A. I.C., Colgate-Palmolive (Hong Kong) Holding Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Kazakhstan) L.L.P., Colgate-Palmolive (Latvia) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Colgate-Palmolive (Middle East Exports) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive (Myanmar) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (New York) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Poland) Sp. z o.o., Colgate-Palmolive (Proprietary) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Research & Development) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Romania) SRL, Colgate-Palmolive (Thailand) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (UK) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Uganda) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Vietnam) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive (Zambia) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Zimbabwe) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive A.B., Colgate-Palmolive A/S, Colgate-Palmolive Adria Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive Argentina S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Asia Pacific Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Asia Pacific Treasury Services Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Belgium S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Bolivia Ltda., Colgate-Palmolive Canada Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Caricom Service Co. Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Central European Management Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Chile S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Cia., Colgate-Palmolive Comercial Ltda., Colgate-Palmolive Commercial (Hellas) SP LLC, Colgate-Palmolive Commerciale S.A.S., Colgate-Palmolive Commericale S.r.l., Colgate-Palmolive Compania Anonima, Colgate-Palmolive Company Distr. LLC, Colgate-Palmolive Company GmbH, Colgate-Palmolive Cote dIvoire S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Cyprus Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Development Corp., Colgate-Palmolive East West Africa Region (Pty) Ltd, Colgate-Palmolive Enterprises Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Espana S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Europe (Holdings) Sarl, Colgate-Palmolive Europe Sarl, Colgate-Palmolive Finance (UK) plc, Colgate-Palmolive Global Trading Company, Colgate-Palmolive Holding Argentina S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Holding Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Hungary Kft Limited Liability Company, Colgate-Palmolive IHQ Services (Thailand) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Inc. S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Industrial Ltda., Colgate-Palmolive Industriel S.A.S., Colgate-Palmolive International Holding LLC, Colgate-Palmolive International LLC, Colgate-Palmolive Investment Co. Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Investments (BVI) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive Investments (PNG) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive Investments (UK) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Investments Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Israel Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive Italia S.r.l., Colgate-Palmolive JSC, Colgate-Palmolive Lanka (Private) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Latin America Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Manufacturing (Poland) Sp. z o.o., Colgate-Palmolive Marketing Sdn Bhd, Colgate-Palmolive Maroc S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Mocambique Limitada, Colgate-Palmolive NJ Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Nederland B.V., Colgate-Palmolive Norge A/S, Colgate-Palmolive Participacoes e Investimentos Imobiliarios Lda., Colgate-Palmolive Peru S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Philippines Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Pty Ltd, Colgate-Palmolive Retirement Trustee Limited, Colgate-Palmolive S.A. de C.V., Colgate-Palmolive S.p.A., Colgate-Palmolive Senegal S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Services (Hellas) LLC, Colgate-Palmolive Services (Poland) Sp. z o.o., Colgate-Palmolive Services CEW GmbH, Colgate-Palmolive Services S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Slovensko s.r.o., Colgate-Palmolive Support Services, Colgate-Palmolive Temizlik Urunleri Sanayi ve Ticart S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Transnational Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Ukraine LLC, Colgate-Palmolive Unipessoal Lda, Colgate-Palmolive de Paraguay Sociedad Anonima, Colgate-Palmolive de Puerto Rico Inc., Colgate-Palmolive del Ecuador S.A.I.C., Colgate-Palmolive del Peru (Delaware) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Eeska republika spol. s r.o., Colpal CBS S de R. L. de C. V., Consumer Viewpoint Center Inc., Cotelle S.A., Dimac Development Corp., Dominica Coconut Products Limited, EKIB Inc., ELM Company Limited, Elta MD Holdings Inc., Elta MD Inc., EltaMD, Filorga Americas Inc., Filorga Asia Limited, Filorga Benelux SA, Filorga Cosmetiques Polska, Filorga Middle East DMCC, Filorga Portugal Unipessoal Lda., Filorga RU Limited Liability Company, GABA Europe Holding GmbH, GABA International, GABA International Holding LLC, GABA Schweiz AG, GABA Therwil GmbH, Gamma Development Co. Ltd., Global Trading and Supply LLC, Hamol Ltd., Hello Products, Hello Products LLC, Hills Funding Company, Hills Pet Nutrition (NZ) Limited, Hills Pet Nutrition (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Hills Pet Nutrition Asia Limited, Hills Pet Nutrition B.V., Hills Pet Nutrition Canada Inc., Hills Pet Nutrition Denmark ApS, Hills Pet Nutrition Espana S.L., Hills Pet Nutrition GmbH, Hills Pet Nutrition Holding B.V., Hills Pet Nutrition Inc., Hills Pet Nutrition Indiana Inc., Hills Pet Nutrition Italia S.r.l., Hills Pet Nutrition Korea Ltd., Hills Pet Nutrition Ltd., Hills Pet Nutrition Manufacturing B.V., Hills Pet Nutrition Manufacturing s.r.o, Hills Pet Nutrition Norway AS, Hills Pet Nutrition OOO, Hills Pet Nutrition Pty. Limited, Hills Pet Nutrition S.p.A., Hills Pet Nutrition SNC, Hills Pet Nutrition Sales Inc., Hills Pet Nutrition South Africa Proprietary Limited, Hills Pet Nutrition Sweden AB, Hills Pet Nutrition Switzerland GmbH, Hills Pet Nutrition Taiwan Ltd, Hills Pet Nutrition Trading (GZ) Co. Ltd, Hills Pet Nutrition de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Hills Pet Nutrition de Puerto Rico Inc., Hills Pet Nutrition s.r.o., Hills Pet Products (Benelux) S.A., Hills Pet Products Inc., Hills Veterinary Companies of America Inc., Hills-Colgate (Japan) Ltd., Hopro Liquidating Corp., Hygiene Systemes et Services SA, IES Enterprises Inc., Inmobiliaria Colpal S. de R.L. de C.V., Inmobiliaria Hills S.A. de C.V., Innovacion Creativa S.A. de C.V., Kolynos Corporation, Laboratoires Filorga Cosmetiques Espana S.L.U., Laboratoires Filorga Cosmetiques Italia S.R.L., Laboratoires Filorga Cosmetiques S.A., Laser Brand Toothpaste, Lournay Sales Inc., Mennen Company, Mennen Interamerica Ltd., Mennen Limited, Mennen South Africa Ltd., Mennen de Chile Ltd., Mennen de Nicargua S.A., Mission Hills Property Corporation, Mission Hills S.A. de C.V., Norwood International Incorporated, Olive Music Publishing Corporation, PCA SKIN, Paramount Research Inc., Penny LLC, Pet Chemicals Inc., Physicians Care Alliance LLC, Productos Halogenados Copalven C.A., Purity Holding Company, Purity Music Publishing Corporation, Refresh Company Limited, Samuel Taylor Holdings B.V., Sanex, Sanxiao Company Limited, Services Development Co. Ltd., Societe Generale de Negoce et de Services (GENESE) S.A., The GDN - The Global Distributive Network SAS, The Lournay Company Inc., The MPDP - The Medical and Pharmaceutic Distributive Platform SAS, The Murphy-Phoenix Company, Tom's of Maine, Toms of Maine Holdings Inc., Toms of Maine Inc., Veterinary Companies of America Inc., Vipont Pharmaceutical Inc., and XEB Inc..

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General Cable Corporation develops, designs, manufactures, markets, and distributes copper, aluminum, and fiber optic wire and cable products for the energy, industrial, construction, specialty, and communications markets. It offers electric utility products, including low- and medium-voltage distribution cables; high- and extra-high voltage power transmission cables; bare overhead conductors; and submarine transmission and distribution cables. The company also provides electrical infrastructure products, such as rubber-and plastic-jacketed wires and cables, low- and medium-voltage industrial power cables, and cable wire harnesses, as well as rail and mass transit, shipboard, oil and gas, armored mining, and alternative energy power generation cables. In addition, it offers communications products comprising high-bandwidth twisted copper and fiber optic, multi conductor and pair fiber and copper networking, telecommunications exchange, coaxial, and low detection profile cables, as well as fiber-optic submarine cable systems, submarine networks, and offshore integration systems. Further, the company provides construction products consisting of construction cables, flexible cords, halogen-free, low-smoke, and flame retardant cables, as well as rod mill products, including copper and aluminum rods. Additionally, it offers design, integration, and installation services for products, such as high and extra-high voltage terrestrial and submarine systems. The company sells its products directly to utilities, independent distributors, retailers, contractors, and original equipment manufacturers in North America, Europe, Latin America, and Africa/the Asia Pacific. General Cable Corporation was founded in 1992 and is headquartered in Highland Heights, Kentucky.
By Bozorgmehr Sharafedin and Noah Browning LONDON/DUBAI (Reuters) - Islamic State is seeking to radicalise disaffected ethnic minorities in majority Shi'ite Iran to encourage attacks intended to avenge Tehran's offensive against the group across the Middle East. Sunni Islamic State, in decline in Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for an unprecedented attack on June 7 in which suicide bombers and gunmen attacked the Iranian parliament and Ayatollah Khomeini's mausoleum in Tehran, killing 18 people. The attackers were Kurdish Iranian Sunnis. In interviews, dissidents and representatives of Iran's minority Kurds, Baluchs and Arabs said that decades-old liberation movements are evolving into sectarian-tinged struggles, spurred on by geopolitical rivalries in the region. They told Reuters some Iranian separatist groups, several of which have pursued armed insurgencies for their nationalist or civil movements, increasingly see themselves as part of a struggle between Sunnis and Shi'ites in the region. Some activists side with Shi'ite Irans increasingly assertive rival, Sunni Saudi Arabia, to show their anger against what they see as oppression by the Iranian theocratic state, in which up to 10 percent of the population is Sunni. Other radicalised Iranians go even further by joining al Qaeda and Islamic State, enemies of both Iran and Saudi Arabia, to wage war on Shi'ites on the battlefield. The Erbil-based head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) - a secular armed group which launches periodic attacks into Iran - said religious extremism was rapidly gaining traction among "emotional, poorly educated youths." "If the Islamic Republic of Iran does not change its policies towards Sunni Muslims in Iran and in the region, more people will be inclined to organisations like Daesh," Mustafa Hijri said, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State. The Iranian government declined to comment. Sunni militant groups have long carried out periodic attacks on military and civilian targets, in protest against what they say is discrimination against Iran's Arab minority and Sunni ethnic groups. Iran stepped up its crackdown against members of such networks in recent years, with arrests and death sentences. THREATENING VIDEO On Aug 9, IS issued a video threatening new attacks in Iran and calling on young Iranians to rise up and launch jihad in their country. The group has often showcased its global reach by airing testimonials from its polyglot foreign followers online. But its heaviest propaganda swipe at Iran came with a 40-minute documentary in March which attacked Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as a friend of the West and featured Baluchi, Persian and Ahwazi fighters urging attacks inside Iran. The video was released as Iranian-backed Iraqi forces and militias recaptured major areas from Islamic State territory in Iraq and Syria. "We tell you, O Zoroastrian apostates," said a fighter called Abu Mujahid al-Baluchi, naming Iran's pre-Islamic faith. "Our hands won't be far from you. As you tasted our strength in Iraq and the Levant, by God's will we will conquer Persia and make it Sunni." After the Tehran attack, Iran was quick to blame Saudi Arabia, pointing to a statement by Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman in May that the kingdom would make sure any future struggle between the two countries "is waged in Iran". Tehran offered no evidence to back up its charge, and Riyadh denied the accusation. Reacting to the Tehran assault, the kingdom said it condemned terrorist attacks everywhere. Iran has arrested at least 100 people linked to IS since the attack. Critics say the Iranian government has used the June attack in Tehran to crack down on minorities. The government declined to comment. Earlier this month, the Iranian state news agency said that security forces had broken up a group linked to Islamic State which was planning attacks on religious centres. Intelligence ministry agents arrested "a terrorist group linked to Daesh (Islamic State) that intended to carry out terror operations in religious cities," IRNA said. They were trying to bring weapons and ammunition into Iran and 27 people were arrested, it added. Days earlier, Iranian media said Iran's Revolutionary Guards had killed two people in clashes with a group of militants in the northwest of the country, where shootouts with Iranian Kurdish militant groups based in Iraq are common. In June, Iran announced the arrests of members of a group linked to Islamic State which was planning suicide attacks. It did not elaborate. Anti-government Kurdish activists told Reuters that authorities for years tolerated Salafi preachers and militants linked to al Qaeda on condition that they shunt their violence beyond Iran's borders towards Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Forces linked to Daesh were publicly collecting money in some mosques in Iranian Kurdistan and the regime was clearly turning a blind eye to these actions," Hijri of the KDPI said. Iran's Interior Ministry declined to comment. IRANIAN ARABS Mokhtar Hooshmand, a Kurdish activist jailed in Iran on national security charges from 2010 to 2012, described the rise of Sunni militants in Kurdish areas and meeting dozens of the militants behind bars. "They started preaching in 2004 in mosques. They made no secret of forming morality enforcement squads, attacking female hairdressing shops, weddings and cafes." "Many Iranians have joined IS, have been trained in Syria or Iraq and are now back in the country. Daesh has influence in all Sunni provinces of Iran," he added. Reuters could not independently verify his statements. Apart from Kurdish regions, potential flashpoints centre on Sunni Baluchis or residents of the poor area of Sistan-Baluchestan in Iran's southeast, and ethnic Arabs of oil-rich southwestern Khuzestan province. Minorities in Iran say they are deprived of decent living standards and civil rights. While majority Shi'ite, many Arabs of the area they call Ahwaz see themselves as under Persian occupation. Their struggle for independence or autonomy has taken on a religious bent. Iran has accused Saudi Arabia of providing material or financial support to Ahwazi militants, a charge denied by the Saudi government. Some privately-owned Gulf religious TV networks have advocated the Ahwazi cause. "In Ahwaz, thousands of Shi'ites have converted to Sunni Islam after 2005, but not all to extremist Sunni groups like al Qaeda," said Mohammed Majid Ahwazi, a political activist and journalist in Sweden, who was also jailed in Iran for two years for dissent. "Before the Syrian crisis, Arab countries were indifferent to the internal affairs of Iran," he said, adding: "But after the Syrian crisis, Bahrain unrest, war in Yemen and the presence of the Revolutionary Guards in Iraq - Arab countries have put Ahwaz, Baluchestan and the Kurds issue on their agenda." (Editing by William Maclean and Peter Millership)
By Tatiana Jancarikova BRATISLAVA (Reuters) - Slovakia should be part of a deeply integrated 'core' European Union driven by Germany and France, its prime minister said on Tuesday, backtracking from previous eurosceptic positions and distancing himself from some other east European states. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron agreed in May to outline a roadmap for deeper EU integration, even as nationalist governments in Hungary and Poland earned rebukes from Brussels over their challenges to media freedom and liberal democracy. "The fundamentals of my policy are being close to the (EU) core, close to France, to Germany," Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico told a news conference. "I am very much interested in regional cooperation within the Visegrad Four but Slovakia's vital interest is the EU," he said, referring to the regional grouping that also includes the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary. A three-term, left-leaning prime minister, Fico oversaw Slovakia's adoption of the euro in 2009. It remains the only Visegrad member to be in the common currency. Fico, who once said Brussels bureacrats were "detached from reality", has warmed towards the EU after Britain's 2016 vote to exit the bloc and the election of Emmanuel Macron, a pro-EU centrist, as president of France in May. Analysts say sticking to the EU core makes sense for Slovakia's small economy, which is driven by exports of cars and electronics to other EU member states, especially Germany. "Slovakia is being pragmatic, its interests are better served by sticking with the core EU," said Otilia Dhand, an analyst at New York-based Teneo Intelligence. Dhand said the Visegrad grouping had become associated with the nationalist thinking of Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban and the leader of Poland's governing party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, adding: "(this) carries only limited value in advancing Slovakia's own interests". Despite making common cause with other Visegrad states in refusing EU quotas on accepting migrants, Fico later made a compromise offer to accept 100 asylum seekers from Greece and Italy, thereby avoiding the legal action the EU instigated against Warsaw, Budapest and Prague. Last week Fico said Slovakia was ready for greater military cooperation in the EU and asked the defence minister to pick "European solutions" for the Slovak army, which is seeking to replace its outdated Russian Mig-29 fighter jets. But in his region Fico cuts a lonely figure in his pro-EU stance. Even in the neighbouring Czech Republic, the pro-EU Social Democrats are expected to lose an election in October. (Reporting By Tatiana Jancarikova; Editing by Gareth Jones)
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand's prime minister and junta chief Prayuth Chan-ocha will visit the White House in October, Thailand's foreign minister said on Tuesday, adding trade and security would be on the agenda, the latest sign of warming ties between Bangkok and Washington. Last week U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson paid a visit to Thailand - the highest level visit by a U.S. official since the military took power in a 2014 coup. Tillerson's trip and Prayuth's invitation from U.S. President Donald Trump to visit the White House are the latest sign that Bangkok and Washington are re-establishing normal diplomatic relations following the coup. "There will be discussions with President Trump about trade, investment, military security and the regional situation which is a big issue," Thai foreign minister Don Pramudwinai told reporters. The Thai government had previously said the visit would take place in July. A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok said he had no new information on Prayuth's visit to the White House, which follows an invitation extended by Trump to Prayuth during an April telephone call between the two. "We look forward to the Prime Minister's visit to Washington, DC. We continue to seek a mutually agreeable day for the prime minister's visit to the White House," spokesman Steve Castonguay told Reuters. Tillerson's priority has been urging Southeast Asian countries to do more to cut funding streams for North Korea as tensions mount between the United States and North Korea. The United States has said it believes North Korean front companies are active in Thailand and is trying to encourage the Thais to shut them down. Tillerson, however, made no public comment on North Korean firms during his 5-hour stay in Bangkok where he met with Prayuth. Don said the issue was not specifically raised during Tillerson's visit. "The United States has not pressured Thailand to shut North Korea business," Don said. "The secretary's visit discussed broad issues." (Reporting by Amy Sawitta Lefevre, Pracha Hariraksapitak and Panarat Thepgumpanat; Writing by Amy Sawitta Lefevre; Editing by Michael Perry)
University of North Georgia (UNG) President Bonita Jacobs opened her State of the University address with an anecdote about a recent conversation she had with an academic colleague.

"Recently, I was talking with a vice chancellor at the (University System of Georgia) office who reminded me that  in his words  UNG is now a rock star, and also that we need to think big," Jacobs said Aug. 14 at the annual gatherings that launch the 2017-2018 academic year. "We have advanced so much in recent years that it is sometimes easy to underestimate all we have accomplished and who we have become."

Jacobs reminded the assembled faculty, staff and guests by touching on a number of accomplishments achieved by UNG in the past year.

Among the highlights:

For the second year in a row, Forbes magazine named UNG as one of the nation's top higher education institutions in its annual "America's Top Colleges" rankings, rated third among only five public universities in Georgia included on the list. UNG was also only one of three public universities in the state on Kiplingers annual list of "Best Values in Public Colleges."

Fourteen students applied for the Fulbright program, with 10 selected as semifinalists. Nine won the award, placing UNG among the top-producing universities in the nation this year.

The Lewis F. Rogers Institute for Environmental and Spatial Analysis (IESA) was recently designated a Center of Academic Excellence in Geospatial Science, the only institution in the state with that designation, and one of only 25 in the nation.

UNG's Corps of Cadets excelled and outpaced the other senior military colleges in last years Cadet Leadership Course, with 32 percent of cadets earning "top block" rankings, placing them in the top 15 percent in the nation.

Recent graduates in teacher education, physical therapy, and clinical mental health counseling scored a 100 percent pass rate on their required licensure examinations.

With success comes challenges, Jacobs said. She addressed the issues that will affect UNG in the near and long term, with funding topping the list.

The University System of Georgia (USG) Board of Regents approved the capital budget proposal, including $3 million for the planning and design funds for renovations to the Lanier Tech campus in Gainesville when UNG takes possession of the property in 2019. UNG received additional funding to add 71 new faculty positions and 43 new staff positions, the first year such a significant number of employees were hired, Jacobs said.

I am grateful to the Board of Regents, the General Assembly and Governor Deal for their support of UNG, said Jacobs.

Affordability is another key issue, Jacobs said. It is being addressed through textbook initiatives, reduced course fees, increased scholarships and the Student Money Management Center.

Other challenges included economic and workforce development initiatives, undocumented and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) students, and the recently enacted guns on campus law.

As UNG faces these and other issues, Jacobs said it is important to focus on the university's mission.

"We need to be thoughtful about the legacy we are building," she said. "How do we make it better? Are we turning out educated people in every sense of the word? We must reinforce our values of leadership, integrity and character in addition to high academic standards and critical-thinking skills in a changing world."

To that end, Jacobs cited the evolving role each UNG location plays in meeting students' needs. The Blue Ridge Campus will be a "game-changer" as it is determined what courses and programs will best serve that community. The Cumming Campus is expanding its graduate programs and partnering with Forsyth County School's Career Academy. The Dahlonega Campus is growing its programs in business, languages, health care, and education. Programs in communications, film and nursing are growing to meet demand on the Gainesville Campus. The Oconee Campus is set to be a premiere campus for students in the two-year transfer program

In closing, Jacobs said UNG is an emerging institution on the path to national prominence, providing students with an educational experience built on quality academics, affordability, accessibility, and a commitment to student success and leadership development.

Jacobs reiterated the university will continue its commitment to excellence, asking the audience to consider the word "significance." Derived from the Latin significantia, it denotes "meaning, force and energy."

"The work we do through UNG has meaning; we are a formidable force; our energy helps give flight to our students' dreams and to the future of north Georgia," Jacobs said.

Read Dr. Jacobs' full 2017 convocation speech
The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. was founded in 1869 by Marcus Goldman as an investment bank catering to institutions and businesses. Among the firm's first products are the revolutionary use of commercial paper for entrepreneurs which opened a new method of finance for business and industry.

The original firm expanded to Goldman Sachs in 1882 with the inclusion of son-in-law Samuel Sachs and again in 1885 with a son and another son-in-law. The firm joined the New York Stock Exchange in 1896 expanding into trading of its own and in 1898 it was worth $1.6 million. The company began its work in the IPO market in 1906 with the initial public offering of Sears, Roebuck & Co., and then moved on to Ford and other prominent names of the time.

The 1930s brings a change of leadership and a new direction for the firm. The company shifted toward a purer play on investment banking and embarks on a campaign of acquisition that lasted until the present day. The company doesnt go public itself until 1999 and from that point on it will change into a bank holding company that not only offers investment banking services but takes deposits too, and in 2016 the company added consumer banking to its list of services.

Today, Goldman Sachs is a financial institution that provides a range of financial services for corporations, institutions, governments, and individuals globally. The company operates through four segments that include Investment Banking, Global Markets, Asset Management, and Consumer & Wealth Management. According to US banking regulations, it is systemically important to the financial health of America.

The company is headquartered in New York, New York, and operates 6 regional headquarters as well. Regional headquarters are located in financial hotspots such as London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Bangalore, and Warsaw. Among its many prominent CEOs are John Corzine and Hank Paulson who both went on to successful work in government.

The company's Investment Banking segment provides a full range of financial advisory services as well as underwriting for the public markets. The financial advisory services include but are not limited to strategic advisory for mergers and acquisitions, divestiture, restructuring, and spin-offs. This segment is also engaged in middle-market lending and transaction banking. Underwriting services include IPOs, preferred stock, debt instruments, and bridge loans.

Goldman Sachs Global Markets segment facilitates market transactions for institutions, banks, brokerages, corporations, and governments. Services include execution, derivatives, financing, clearing, settlement, and custody.

The Asset Management segment manages client portfolios across the investment spectrum while the Consumer & Wealth Management segment provides advisory and banking services to consumers.
SANTA FE  In an unusual move, two members of an independent federal board that provides oversight of the nations nuclear weapons labs has gone public with criticism of a recent agreement they say compromises the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Boards objectivity.

In a letter posted on the DNFSBs website, board members Jessie Roberson and Daniel J. Santos objected to a recent agreement between the board and the federal Department of Energys National Nuclear Safety Administration that details a safety board employee to the NNSA for 120 days or more. The weapons labs are part of the NNSA.

The board employee will work in an NNSA office that coordinates legislative activities with congressional staffers in support of the budget and policy interests of the NNSAs weapons activities and defense nuclear nonproliferation programs and tracks the annual defense budget bill.

In their letter to the other three members of the DNFSB, Roberson and Santos said, This action diminishes the DNFSBs execution of its mission by unnecessarily raising doubts about the objectivity and independence of the work of the DNFSB.

Roberson and Santos said the letter was intended to document their previously communicated strong objections to deploying safety board staff to any office in the DOE whose duties are external advocacy on behalf of organizations and functions the DFNSB is required by statute to independently evaluate.

The advisory board was created by Congress as an independent agency to monitor potential threats to public safety from federal nuclear weapons work. It has offices at various facilities around the country and posts inspectors weekly safety issues reports about Los Alamos National Laboratory and several other sites. The DNFSBs latest public hearing on Los Alamos took place in June in Santa Fe, focusing on LANLs plutonium work.

The Aug. 11 letter from Roberson and Santos suggests they were outvoted on detailing the staffer to NNSA by the three other board members  Sean Sullivan, Bruce Hamilton and Joyce Connery. The board has rejected previous proposed staff details to DOE, the letter says. No one from the NNSA or the DNFSB could be reached for comment Monday afternoon.

Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Watch New Mexico commended the two board members for raising objections. Its part of a continuing pattern to try and muzzle the board, he said of the staff deal.

Don Hancock of the Albuquerque-based Southwest Research and Information Center said it was pretty unusual to see a public split among DNFSB members, who are presidential appointees. From the publics standpoint, we need more confidence in the oversight of DOE and the NNSA, not less, he said.
A prisoner escaped Monday evening from a detention center in Deming NM, according to a New Mexico State Police spokesman.

Officer Carl Christiansen said police were notified around 8 p.m. that Joshua Mirka escaped the Luna County Detention Center.

Mirka should be considered dangerous, he said. Christiansen said anyone who sees Mirka, or knows where he is, should call police.

Mirka was last seen wearing orange pants, orange shirt and black shoes.

Christiansen described Mirka as 6 feet tall and weighing 220 pounds, with brown hair and hazel eyes.

Police arrested Mirka on July 27 after a pursuit in the Deming area, Christiansen said. He was being held on a failure to register as a sex offender out of Washington, California.

Mirka is also a person of interest in connection with an armed robbery in California, he said.
As the trial began Monday for a former middle school teacher accused of inappropriately touching a 13-year-old special needs student, the defense warned jurors about the power of a false accusation.

Prosecutor Caitlin Dillon said in her opening statement that Kenneth Jehle touched the girl on three separate occasions in 2014. He pushed the students cellphone into her back pocket, slapped her on the buttocks while play fighting with her, and placed a tube of lip gloss in (her) crotch, Dillon said.

He was her seventh-grade teacher, Dillon said. He was supposed to provide knowledge and instruction in a nurturing and safe environment and he violated that trust.

In his opening statement, Jehles defense attorney, Stephen Lane, described the various versions of the students story, and the ways that it had shifted and evolved over the years.

I have no idea what these kids are going to say when they get on the stand, because every time they tell their story its different, Lane said, speaking of the alleged victim and a classmate who is also expected to testify.

He described the plot of The Crucible, a play that tells a fictionalized story of the Salem witch trials. Lane said the play is a cautionary tale about the power of a false accusation and the power that out-of-control teenagers can have when they start to levy these kinds of accusations.

Albuquerque Public Schools paid $750,000 in 2015 to settle a lawsuit alleging that the district ignored multiple complaints about Jehle. According to that lawsuit, he had been the subject of allegations at three schools over more than 10 years.

He was eventually fired from the district.

This is the first of two trials scheduled for Jehle, who is also accused of child sex crimes involving a female relative. That trial is set to begin later this month.
Schools across Wisconsin are starting a new year without knowing exactly whats coming from the state as lawmakers continue to put off passing a new two-year state budget.

For many school officials, the delay isnt worrying them much at this point. But for some, spending on staff, new course materials and training is on hold. And if a new budget isnt in place soon, payments to schools in rural areas could be delayed and school officials there may turn to borrowing to fill the gap.

With the state budget not being settled, theres a lot of uncertainty across all superintendents and people managing the finances of school districts across the state of Wisconsin, said Brad Saron, superintendent of the Sun Prairie School District. And what that means is, really, everything is on hold.

Most schools in Milwaukee and in the states voucher programs have already started their 2017-18 school year, and schools in the rest of the state will have their first day on Sept. 5.

But lawmakers are more than a month late in passing a new two-year spending plan that includes funding for public and private-voucher schools and determines how much money districts can raise in property taxes.

Republicans in the Senate and Assembly have failed so far to find consensus on transportation funding, prompting the budget delay, and have now turned most of their attention to legislation providing $3 billion in subsidies for Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn to build a massive campus to create LCD panels in southeastern Wisconsin.

Legislators keep saying it looks like the budget is baked, its soup  but its not, said state Superintendent Tony Evers, who is considering running against Gov. Scott Walker in 2018.

There will be ongoing concerns

Evers said school officials are worried funding increases they have been told for months are coming could be diminished as lawmakers work on an incentive package for Foxconn.

I think there is a fair amount of concern (from school district officials) that were not sure were going to get this money, Evers said. So until a budget is finalized, I think there will be ongoing concerns.

The leaders of the state Senate have said lawmakers on the states budget-writing committee could resume work on the budget Aug. 23. But if a budget is not in place eight days later, schools in rural areas will miss state payments they usually get in September to subsidize school operations, according to a memo from the Department of Public Instruction sent to budget-writing committee members this month.

(The delay) may cause some districts to have to short-term borrow to cover this deficit, said Kim Kaukl, executive director of the Wisconsin Rural Schools Alliance. The majority of our districts are already working with very tight budgets and any aid delay in payments can have a serious impact.

DPI spokesman Tom McCarthy said the department could push back the rural school payment deadline if lawmakers gave DPI a clear signal that the budget was going to be passed quickly.

Saron, who oversees a district in Dane County of about 8,000 students, said the delay has paused plans for staffing and training, purchasing some course materials and reserving money for wage increases and benefits for school employees. He said his district will need to hire staff for about 100 new students, but that its difficult to figure out exactly how to pay for them.

The Madison School Board intentionally did not use all of its taxing ability in a preliminary spending plan it passed earlier this year to be mindful of the impact on our taxpayers, Madison School District spokeswoman Rachel Strauch-Nelson said. But if aid comes in less than projected, that may change.

The lack of a state budget increases our risk for having to make adjustments down the road, which would impact our local taxpayers. Weve often asked for stability from the state level, but this is another example of the opposite, she said.

Delays in hiring and purchasing possible

Walker has proposed $649 million in new spending for schools, including increasing the amount of money schools get per student by $200 in the 2017-18 school year and by another $204 in the 2018-19 school year. The current level is $250 per student.

But Republican lawmakers in the Senate and Assembly have each proposed separate education spending plans. Kaukl said a number of rural school districts have delayed hiring and purchasing until they know what is included in the state budget.

This may mean classes may begin with substitute teachers covering a class, classrooms being overloaded or, worse case, courses being dropped, Kaukl said.

Dan Rossmiller, a lobbyist for the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, said more than 90 percent of contracts with teachers were issued in May but there may be cases in which district officials must fill recently vacated positions, or want to fill additional positions.

School districts dont have to approve their final budgets for the school year until late October, but DPI must set general state aid payments by Oct. 15, which is used by districts to set their tax levies by Nov. 1.

Dean Gorrell, superintendent of the Verona School District, said the lack of a new state budget has had some impact on us, but not much at this point.

The impact is in our negotiations on base wages with our support staff union, he said, adding that the union and district officials have agreed to wait until a new state budget is in place.

Monona Grove School District Superintendent Dan Olson said the delay doesnt have much of an effect on his districts budget because the School Board there already approved final staffing plans and a preliminary spending plan.

Uncertainty over voucher payments

Meanwhile, most schools in the states private voucher programs have started the new year without knowing exactly what taxpayer-funded payments they will receive for each student enrolled using a voucher, according to the DPI memo.

If the budget isnt in place by Sept. 5, the first payments to the private voucher schools will not reflect proposed increases in funding and the payments the schools receive beyond September will need to be adjusted to reflect the new amount. Summer school payments to the schools also could change based on what the state budget ultimately includes.

And if a new state budget is not in place by Oct. 3, the amount of state aid deducted from school districts share to pay for private voucher schools and independent charter schools could be insufficient to cover the true cost.

Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, and Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette, who head the Legislatures budget-writing committee, both said Tuesday they want the budget to have Walkers signature by Labor Day.
Peter Grotte-Higley showed up at the monthly meeting Saturday of the Albuquerque Recorder Society.

Not a major news event per se, except that Journal reporters had been unable to reach him after he was profiled in a Journal story on Thursday that included his criticism of the care he was receiving under a court-ordered guardianship/conservatorship.

Grotte-Higley said his personal cellphone vanished last week and remained lost as recently as Sunday. He continues to have access to a land line in the Northeast Heights boarding house where he was placed last year by Ayudando Guardians Inc., now under federal indictment for allegedly embezzling client funds.

A Journal reporter on Aug. 8 was ordered to leave the boarding house in 2900 block of Tennessee NE when reporters attempted to drive him to Ayudando offices near Downtown so he could find out the status of his case and finances. A manager intervened and refused to allow Grotte-Higley to leave.

Grotte-Higley, 81, is a Holocaust-era survivor originally from what is now the Czech Republic. Ayudando has been placed under the oversight of the U.S. Marshals Office.

It appears Grotte-Higleys guardianship case is now getting some attention, even garnering attention from out-of-state Journal readers who want to help.

A court docket sheet shows a new attorney has entered an appearance in his 2016 case and several social service agencies are believed to be working behind the scenes to help him. No one from any agency returned Journal phone calls last week. Under state law, guardianship/conservatorship proceedings are held in closed session and the actual filings in the case  except for the docket sheet  are confidential.
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

Students across the state are gearing up for a new school year, but one group at Sandia High has a particularly rigorous schedule ahead.

Those 26 juniors and seniors are enrolled in the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program, which offers challenging coursework focused on critical thinking and college preparation.

Monday was a busy day for area children overall, as it was the first day of school for Albuquerque Public Schools.

Sandia High is among a handful of New Mexico schools that offer the IB program and the only one in the APS district.

Launched 49 years ago in Switzerland, the IB diploma is currently granted in 3,104 schools across 147 countries. The International Baccalaureate, a nonprofit educational foundation, also provides programs for pre-K, elementary and middle school students.

Seventeen-year-old Mikhaela Barnes said she is glad she signed up.

Its a private school education for free, Barnes said.

The aspiring fashion designer described Sandias IB students as tight-knit and highly motivated.

On Monday, Barnes sat next to her friends Sydney Nesbit, a future environmental health specialist, and Tessa Dallo, an aspiring radiologist.

The three are all considering their college options, including demanding private schools like Vanderbilt and the University of Denver.

Ann Goswick, Sandia Highs IB coordinator, said students in the program are often accepted into top institutions  and they thrive when they get there.

College isnt a culture shock for these kids, Goswick said. They are taking school seriously.  Theyre very engaged.

Sandia High administrators are hoping more students will take advantage of IB thanks to a new effort to pre-enroll freshmen. This year, 80 freshmen are on track to enter the IB program when they are juniors.

Within the next three years, Principal Larry DAnza would like to have 50 juniors and 50 seniors in IB, and more sophomores and freshmen prepared to enroll.

Our goal is to create a school within a school, DAnza said.

The program has the support of Mayor Richard Berry and the city, which provided a $115,000 check in 2013, when Sandia High launched the IB diploma.

The city continues to help cover IB test and application fees, which run $750 to $900 per student.

We need to prepare our young people for a global future, and this program embraces the value of providing a world-class education to future generations and instilling them with a strong sense of global responsibility, Berry said in a 2013 statement announcing the IB diploma.

APS does offer Advanced Placement courses across all high schools. Advanced Placement classes provide college credit with a passing score on the final exam. Unlike IB, Advanced Placement is not a formal diploma program.

For all the fanfare, IB has flown a bit under the radar.

We had anticipated there would be more interest, said APS spokeswoman Monica Armenta.

She noted that it has sometimes been tough to get the word out about IB, which is popular on the East Coast but not well known in New Mexico.

Private schools and charter schools can attract high-performing students through ad campaigns, which APS cant afford, Armenta said.

Our money is supposed to go to the classroom, Armenta added.

Goswick agreed that IB can be a hard sell.

Many seniors want time to enjoy their last year in high school, Goswick said, but IB students have to stay focused and dont have time to goof off.

We need to find the parents and kids who want to take part in this, Goswick said. People dont always understand the long-term benefits of the program. Its not easy, but nothing that is really worthwhile is easy.

Goswick said she would love to see APS expand IB to the middle and elementary school levels, creating a pipeline of high-performing students for Sandia High.

Some board members have also asked for an IB diploma program on Albuquerques West Side.

Armenta said the district is prioritizing school choice to provide families with programs that address diverse needs, including gifted education.

International Baccalaureate Diploma Program basics

The IB Diploma Program covers six subject areas and three core requirements

Subject areas

 Language and literature

 Second language

 Individuals and societies (economics, philosophy, history, etc.)

 Sciences

 Math

 Electives

Core requirements

 Theory of Knowledge: a class that develops inquiry and critical thinking skills.

 Extended Essay: an independent research project, culminating in a 4,000-word, college-level paper.

 Creativity, Action, Service: a minimum of 150 hours of sports or fitness, artistic pursuits, and community service each year.

Source: Sandia High, www.ibo.org
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

New Mexico ranks among the worst in the country for both its violent and property crime rates.

And its population of women in prison is on track to exceed capacity next year, according to national analysts.

A bipartisan legislative panel began diving into these challenges Monday  part of whats expected to be a two-year effort to address crime, with legislation proposed in each of the next two sessions.

The legislative effort comes amid increased public concern and outrage over rising crime in New Mexico. In Albuquerque, new efforts by local government officials, prosecutors, business leaders and the judiciary are under way to address the issue.

The Criminal Justice Reform Subcommittee  newly revived after a three-year break  began its work in Downtown Albuquerque with a blunt look at how New Mexico compares with the rest of the country.

Carl Reynolds of the Council of State Governments Justice Center, a nonpartisan group, told lawmakers the state has an unusually high crime rate.

The violent crime rate per capita is third-worst in the country, after Alaska and Nevada, based on 2015 data reported to the FBI. The property crime rate is second-worst, after Hawaii, according to the data.

New Mexico is somewhere in the middle, though lower than the national average, when it comes to the rate of people incarcerated. New Mexicos prison population has been climbing, however, even as other states are seeing reductions, Reynolds said, and the female prison population is projected to exceed capacity by next summer.

Some lawmakers asked whether the lower-than-average incarceration rate is a factor in the preponderance of crime.

Reynolds said there doesnt seem to be a correlation between incarceration rates and crime but that understaffing in police departments can affect the crime rate.

The size of Albuquerques police force fell 24 percent over a recent 5-year period, though city officials and prosecutors say changes in court deadlines and other factors in the courtroom have pushed the crime rate up.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle said Monday that they want to take care to make effective changes, rooted in research into whats worked elsewhere and the conditions in New Mexico specifically.

State Sen. Sander Rue, R-Albuquerque, described the situation in his city as a crisis, with too many criminals allowed to re-offend. If more incarceration isnt the answer, he said, then lawmakers better have strong evidence to back up the effectiveness of other approaches.

Right now, Rue said, the public is demanding this pound of flesh.

State Rep. Antonio Moe Maestas, an Albuquerque Democrat whos worked as a prosecutor and criminal defense attorney, said his colleagues in other parts of the state may not realize how underfunded the criminal justice system is in Albuquerque. The volume of cases can be overwhelming for the prosecutors, public defenders and others working in the trenches, he said.

Its like the post office  the mail keeps coming, Maestas said.

Rue and Maestas are co-chairmen of the subcommittee.

Lawmakers didnt settle on any firm proposals Monday.

But they discussed the possibility of increasing speciality and treatment courts that focus on substance-abuse treatment and can keep people out of custody, among other ideas. They also broached the ideas of hiring the Council of State Governments to help carry out research and craft new policies that could be considered in the 60-day legislative session that begins in 2019.

Reynolds, of the Council of State Governments, said New Mexico is well below the national average when it comes to supervising defendants through probation or parole  one potential area for strengthening.

A 30-day session of the Legislature will begin in January. Rue said lawmakers could propose a smaller package of bills in the session, followed by more extensive changes in 2019.

Gov. Susana Martinez, a Republican, is expected to include proposals to toughen criminal penalties on the agenda of next years 30-day session, which is largely focused on the state budget otherwise.
Cities and states accelerated their plans to remove Confederate monuments from public property Tuesday as the violence over a Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, moved leaders across the country to plan to wipe away much of the remaining Old South imagery.

Only two statues were taken down immediately, in Gainesville, Florida, where the Daughters of the Confederacy removed a statue of a Confederate soldier known as Ole Joe, and in Durham, North Carolina, where protesters used a rope to pull down a Confederate monument dedicated in 1924.

But the anti-Confederate momentum seemed to ensure that other memorials would come down soon. Many local and state governments announced that they would remove statues and other imagery from public land, or consider doing so, in the aftermath of Saturdays white nationalist rally that killed one person and injured dozens more.

The changes were publicized as President Donald Trump defended Confederate statues in wide-ranging remarks.

This week its Robert E. Lee. I notice that Stonewall Jacksons coming down, Trump said during a visit to Trump Tower in New York. I wonder, is it George Washington next week, and is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You know you really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop?

Asked specifically whether Charlottesvilles Lee statue should come down, he said: I would say thats up to a local town, community or the federal government, depending on where it is located.

All around the country, Republican and Democratic officials at the state and local levels moved swiftly to begin a process to remove the statues.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said he would ask the Legislature to reverse a 2015 law signed by his Republican predecessor, Pat McCrory, that prevents the removal or relocation of monuments, and to defeat a measure giving immunity to motorists who strike protesters. He also planned to ask state officials to determine the cost of moving Confederate statues and to give him options of where they could go.

Our Civil War history is important, but it belongs in textbooks and museums? not a place of allegiance on our Capitol grounds, Cooper said in a statement.

In Maryland, GOP Gov. Larry Hogan said Tuesday he would push to remove the statue of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney, author of the infamous Dred Scott ruling in 1857 affirming slavery, from state land.

While we cannot hide from our history, nor should we, the time has come to make clear the difference between properly acknowledging our past and glorifying the darkest chapters of our history, said Hogan, who before had resisted calls to move the statue.

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings announced plans Tuesday to ask his city council to appoint a task force to study the fate of the citys Confederate statues. Rawlings said he personally finds the monuments to be dangerous totems, but a task force would ensure a productive conversation.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, a Republican, called on state officials Monday to remove a bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate cavalry general and an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan, from the Tennessee Capitol. Protesters earlier draped a black jacket over the head of the bust while cheering, Tear it down!

Similar plans were being made in Baltimore and San Antonio, as well as Lexington, Kentucky; Memphis, Tennessee; Jacksonville, Florida; and elsewhere.

In Durham, Sheriff Mike Andrews said protesters who toppled a nearly century-old Confederate statue in front of a North Carolina government building would face felony charges. The Confederate Soldiers Monument, dedicated in 1924, stood in front of an old courthouse that how houses local government offices. The crumpled and dented bronze figure has been taken to a warehouse for storage.

Deputies later arrested Takiyah Thompson, who identified herself Tuesday as the woman who tied the rope that was used to tear it down. She said her actions were justified because Confederate statues represent white supremacy.

A law professor and director of the Center for Terrorism Law at St. Marys University in San Antonio called removal a slippery slope, saying judging historical figures through a modern lens can be difficult.

A healthy democracy and people within that democracy should be able to say, This is our history. And history is made up of actions of human beings, and human beings arent perfect, said Jeffrey F. Addicott, who stressed he was speaking for himself and not the law school.

Statues, he added, can be moved, but hes opposed to them being put in a warehouse never to be seen again because then youre kind of erasing or rewriting history.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans condemned attempts to take down Confederate statues around the country.

These statues were erected over 100 year ago to honor the history of the United States, added Thomas V. Strain Jr., the groups commander in chief. Theyre just as important to the entire history of the U.S. as the monuments erected to our forefathers.

Strain, who said his group did not participate in Charlottesville, condemned the Klan, white nationalist groups, neo-Nazis and other extremists.

Its painful to watch for lack of better words, he said. It was our family that fought, and it was our families that died, and now we have these knuckleheads hijacking the flag for their own purposes.

But city and state officials said Charlottesville convinced them its time to move on from having Confederate imagery in prominent public places.

In Lexington, Kentucky, Mayor Jim Gray moved up his announcement by a day in reaction to the Charlottesville bloodshed. Memorials to John C. Breckinridge and John Hunt Morgan are perched outside a former courthouse that was the site of slave auctions before the Civil War.

This is the right time, Gray said Monday. We accelerated that because of the events in Charlottesville, but I knew that it was the right thing to do.

___

Associated Press reporters Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar in Washington, Claudia Lauer in Dallas, Bruce Schreiner in Louisville, Kentucky; Erik Schelzig in Nashville, Tennessee; Jonathan Drew in Durham, North Carolina; and Jason Dearen in Gainesville, Florida, contributed to this report.

___

Jesse J. Holland covers race and ethnicity for The Associated Press in Washington. Contact him at jholland//www.twitter.com/jessejholland or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/jessejholland .
BLACK CANYON CITY, Ariz.  A wrong-way vehicle collided head-on with another vehicle on a rural stretch of Interstate 17 in north-central Arizona, seriously injuring the four people in the two vehicles and partially closing the highway for about four hours Tuesday morning, the state Department of Public Safety said.

Passers-by removed the injured from the two vehicles, which were fully engulfed in flames when troopers responding to 911 calls reporting a wrong-way driver traveling northbound in southbound lanes of the freeway arrived at the scene, the department said.

The wreck  the latest in a frustrating series of wrong-way freeway crashes in Arizona  occurred at about 2:45 a.m. near the Sunset Point Rest Area north of Black Canyon City, which is 45 miles (72 kilometers) north of Phoenix.

DPS spokesman Raul Garcia said the cause of the wreck is under investigation.

But he said impairment hasnt been ruled out and that most wrong-way crashes involving injuries or deaths stem from impairment.

We cannot arrest our way out of this problem. This is a social issue that has to be attacked by all of us, he said.

Garcia said the wrong-way driver and three people who were in a second vehicle were seriously injured and taken to hospitals.

Identities were not released, and it wasnt immediately determined where the wrong-way vehicle entered I-17.

Wrong-way freeway crashes have killed at least eight people in Arizona this year.

Tuesdays crash occurred in an area with few alternative routes and where wrecks can create miles-long traffic backups that last for hours.

Highway officials are studying ways to widen I-17, the main route between Phoenix and Flagstaff, possibly by adding reversible lanes in the Sunset Point area.

Within metro Phoenix, the state is moving forward with a pilot program to use thermal camera technology and electronic signs on a 15-mile (24-kilometer) stretch of I-17 to detect wrong-way drivers and provide warnings to other drivers and alerts to troopers.

Gov. Doug Ducey directed state agencies to accelerate the camera project after metro Phoenix saw three wrong-way wrecks in a span of about two weeks.
State Police are searching for a person who shot and injured a man in northern New Mexico.

Monday night, some people inside a black SUV fired multiple shots at man in another car in Las Vegas, N.M.

The suspects fled while the victim suffered a gunshot wound to his left hand.

He is currently in the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

Any one with information regarding the shooting is asked to contact police.
FAIRFIELD, Conn.  Police say a Connecticut woman and her 12-year-old daughter were locked inside a convenience store by an employee who suspected them of stealing, and they kicked out the stores glass doors to escape.

The girl is also accused of using a stun gun on the 7-Eleven worker.

Police say 41-year-old Bridgeport resident Dorsey Saunders and her daughter were locked in the Fairfield store Sunday night by a clerk who said they stole energy drinks. The Connecticut Post (http://bit.ly/2waach3 ) reports they kicked out the glass and ran into the parking lot, where the girl used the stun gun.

Saunders and her daughter face several charges, including larceny. The mother was charged with impairing the morals of a minor.

Saunders denied stealing and told police she broke the doors because she was scared.

___

Information from: Connecticut Post, http://www.connpost.com
University of New Mexico's plan to build a new hospital reached a significant milestone Tuesday when UNM's governing board voted to hire an architect to start advanced design work.

The design would focus on just the first phase, which includes 120 beds, six operating rooms and clinical offices. But the project is just the start of what UNM Health Sciences Center leaders see as the eventual replacement of all UNMH's adult-care units in its existing 1950s building  a structure that they argue is inadequate in both size and efficiency measures.

The Board of Regents' unanimous approval to proceed with the architectural planning  met with a round of applause from UNM's medical school faculty and other supporters at the meeting  marks a clear step forward for a yearslong UNMH expansion effort that has already stalled once.

I think this is a very important day for our university, our community and our state, UNMH CEO Steve McKernan told the Journal in an interview after Tuesday's vote. It will allow us to continue to deliver and enhance high-quality care for a lot of patients.

UNM had actually been further along in a 2012 bid to build a new 96-bed facility, needing only a final OK from the Gov. Susana Martinez-led State Board of Finance to begin construction. But the board never held a vote, thus preventing the hospital from moving forward.

Officials presented a new proposal earlier this year that ultimately envisions a 408-bed hospital (including 48 adult psychiatric beds) on UNM-owned land north of Lomas, between University and the arroyo. HSC Chancellor Dr. Paul Roth told regents it made more sense from a financial perspective to construct it in phases, starting with the 120-bed phase. That phase will cost an estimated $230 million to $250 million, and UNM has saved more than $200 million for such a project.

Roth said the proposal will also undergo a detailed financial analysis to ensure its viability in what was described as a parallel track to the architectural design.

Roth told the Journal in an interview that Tuesday's vote felt monumental.

We have been planning and looking forward to positive movement on the hospital project, and it's difficult to explain to you in just a few words what this really means to the medical staff of UNM Hospital, who are our faculty in the medical school, and the significance of this to our hospital staff, who literally almost every hour of every day find themselves  not being able to provide critical and significant health care for people that they know is required from our facilities, he said.

He and others contend that UNMH is not big enough to meet statewide demand for its Level 1 trauma and other subspecialty services and also that the existing facility does not adequately accommodate modern medical technology or have rooms big enough to serve training needs.

Roth said UNM in the past year had to turn down 1,000 patient transfers from hospitals around the state.

Several medical faculty members and administrators spoke in support of the hospital during the meeting.

I think the need for capacity is felt every day by our faculty and patients, said Dr. Mark Unruh, chair of the internal medicine department, adding he sometimes feels despair for patients who have difficulty getting admitted to the hospital due to space limitations.

Regents President Rob Doughty asked Unruh if HSC administrators had given Unruh and his fellow department chairs an adequate voice in planning.

I can tell you the process has been very inclusive; the leadership has engaged the faculty and chairs all along the way, and I would expect that to continue, Unruh said.

Regent Tom Clifford expressed concern that the 120-bed facility would not include an emergency room, citing the chronic overcrowding in UNMH's existing ER. Roth and McKernan explained that the overcrowding usually reflects an inability to find beds around the hospital for ER patients who have been stabilized and received admission orders.

By increasing in-patient beds through this facility, we will not have to use up sometimes half of the entire emergency department for patients waiting for beds, Roth said.

McKernan said a request for proposals for an architect should be issued in the next month. The planning process will take an estimated 15 to 18 months. UNM would still need a series of approvals  including from the regents, the state Higher Education Department and the State Board of Finance  before it could start construction. Given the timeline, UNM is likely to face a different Board of Finance than the one where its 2012 proposal died, since New Mexico will in 2018 elect a new governor.

If the project proceeds according to the current timeline, the new facility should open by mid-2022.
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

SANTA FE  A top Republican Party official in New Mexicos second-most populous county stepped down Tuesday, two days after making social media comments about violent, leftist protesters that sparked outrage.

The Dona Ana County Republican Party announced on Facebook that it has accepted the resignation of its former chairman, Roman Jimenez, who had previously said the comments were taken out of context.

The county partys new interim chairman, Victor Contreras, said Tuesday that he and other county party officials stand in opposition to acts of violence and racism that occurred in Charlottesville, Va., when a large group of white nationalists gathered to protest plans to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Contreras also offered condolences to the family of Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old who was killed Saturday when a car plowed into a crowd of people peacefully protesting the white nationalist rally.

We believe there is no room for bigotry, racism or hate in our country, Contreras said in a statement.

Jimenezs original social media post had received national attention and drawn condemnation from the New Mexico Republican Party and other GOP officials, some of whom called on him to resign.

In the post, Jimenez wrote that violent, leftist protesters were getting exactly what they asked for.

The white ones have been taught to hate their color, the women are taught to hate men, black and minorities want to kill whites and police, he wrote.

Jimenez, who could not be reached for comment Tuesday, told the Journal on Sunday that the post had been taken out of context, but he did not answer additional questions. In a subsequent post, the county party claimed the original message was not specifically directed at the Charlottesville events.

However, Rep. Steve Pearce, who is the only Republican member of New Mexicos congressional delegation and is seeking his partys nomination for governor, said Tuesday that Jimenez was right to step down from his county party position.

Romans post was unacceptable, said Pearce, who represents the southern New Mexico-based 2nd Congressional District. Regardless of differences, Americans must treat each other with respect. His actions could not go unaddressed.

Two-term Republican Gov. Susana Martinez said earlier this week that she condemned the comments.

Anti-racism rallies and vigils were held in several New Mexico cities  including Santa Fe, Albuquerque and Las Cruces  after the weekend events in Virginia.

The Democratic Party of New Mexico said in a Tuesday statement that the controversial social media post highlighted differences between the states two largest political parties. The resignation is good news, but it by no means changes the fact that hate and racism exists in the Republican Party, the Democratic Party said in its statement.

Jimenez is a retired New Mexico State Police captain who now works for a private security firm, according to the companys website. He also said in an online biography that he had served as a member of Martinezs security detail.

In a February interview with the Las Cruces Bulletin, he praised both Martin Luther King Jr. and President Donald Trump, saying the president has emboldened people to speak their minds a little bit more.

Dona Ana County has become increasingly Democratic-leaning in recent years. Of the 13 state legislators who represent districts encompassing all or parts of Dona Ana County, two are Republicans and 11 are Democrats.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.  Authorities in Colorado say a police officer shot and killed a person suspected of shoplifting at a Walmart.

A spokeswoman for the El Paso County Sheriffs office, Jacqueline Kirby, says Colorado Springs police were called to the store Monday night. She says the suspect was identified and shot after a chase.

Kirby said its not clear yet whether the suspect was armed.

The officer is currently on paid leave. No further details on the officer or suspect were immediately available.

Colorado Springs police spokesman Lt. Howard Black says the officer wont be identified until after his or her family is notified and a psychiatric evaluation is completed, likely within 72 hours.

The sheriffs office is investigating under a 2015 state law that requires police to get outside help reviewing officer shootings.
Republican lawmakers in six states have pushed this year for legal protections for motorists who hit protesters blocking traffic. Fairly or not, theyre facing an intense backlash now that violent images of a car ramming into a crowd protesting a white supremacist rally have been seen around the world.

The lawmakers say their goal has never been to incite violence, but to shield drivers from costly lawsuits for accidents they blame on illegal street protests. Bills in Texas and North Carolina to protect drivers from civil liability if they unintentionally injure or kill protesters remain pending, but their chances of passage appear dim after Saturdays attack in Charlottesville, Virginia, which killed a woman and injured at least 19 people. The four other bills were voted down or failed without advancing.

The bills are part of a backlash to large, disruptive protests over the last year against police shootings of black men, the Dakota Access pipeline and policies of the Trump administration. Some shut down major freeways, angering motorists and drawing concern from public safety officials. Lawmakers responded with new laws across the country, passing a $200 fine in Tennessee for blocking emergency vehicles, a South Dakota measure that criminalizes highway protests and tougher trespassing laws in North Dakota and Oklahoma.

The driver immunity proposals have been particularly contentious. Critics, including the American Civil Liberties Union, labeled them hit and kill bills that undermine free assembly and embolden extremists by suggesting they have a free pass to drive through protesters.

Bill sponsors have been inundated with criticism on social media following the arrest of James A. Fields Jr. for allegedly ramming his Dodge Challenger through a crowd of counter-protesters in Charlottesville. The attack killed 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injured others who had gathered in the streets to oppose white nationalists, who were protesting the removal of a confederate monument. Scores of critics have bluntly told the lawmakers on Twitter and Facebook that they are complicit in Heyers death.

Bill supporters have rejected that claim and denounced the Charlottesville attack. They note that the wording of their bills would not protect drivers who deliberately target protesters, and any intentional attackers would still face criminal and civil liability.

It is intellectually dishonest and a gross mischaracterization to portray North Carolina House Bill 330 as a protection measure for the act of violence that occurred in Charlottesville this past weekend, that bills sponsors, Reps. Justin Burr and Chris Millis, said in a joint statement.

Burr explained the intent in April as the House voted 67-48 to pass the bill: You shouldnt run out in front of cars on the interstate or the highway and attempt to illegally protest. If you do, it should be at your risk, not at the risk of the liability of those individuals driving down the road.

A North Carolina state senator said Monday there are no plans to advance the measure in that chamber.

In Florida, Sen. George Gainer said the intent of his now-failed bill was to protect only those motorists who unintentionally strike protesters blocking traffic. He denounced the reprehensible actions of the evil person in Virginia.

Texas Rep. Pat Fallon wrote that he had received outrageous hate from critics of the bill he introduced last month, and said the Virginia attack was murder.

The debate over Tennessees bill, which would have shielded drivers exercising due care, showed how the measures have been divisive.

During a March hearing, Democratic Rep. G.A. Hardaway said he worried the law would allow extremists to deliberately attack protesters and then claim it was accidental. He cited social media posts from Trump supporters that suggested the bill would make it legal to run down protesters when the president visited Tennessee.

It was providing them the type of motivation, inspiration to get out there and be violent, he said. Those who seek to harm others, they think this gives them cover.

All Lives Splatter, read one internet meme that showed a car driving over protesters.

The sponsor, Republican Rep. Matthew Hill, said he did not condone such posts, which he dismissed as ignorant or unfunny. He said he simply did not want someone to lose their livelihood, their home, their savings after accidentally hitting a protester they didnt see. A committee rejected his bill.

Critics say it can be hard to know whether a driver striking protesters did so intentionally, citing a January incident at a Nashville protest over Trumps immigration restrictions.

Vanderbilt University graduate student Peter Capretto, 29, said he and three other members of a protest safety team were wearing neon vests and protecting a crosswalk at an intersection when they were struck and carried 200 feet on the hood of an SUV. He recalled screaming for his life until the driver stopped.

He turned into us, hit us at a relatively moderate speed and accelerated while we were on the hood, Capretto said. It was absolutely intentional.

The driver and his wife told police they feared for their lives after protesters surrounded their SUV, claiming protesters jumped on the hood as they tried to drive away. No charges were filed, and the driver hasnt faced legal action.

Capretto, who testified against the Tennessee bill, said the Virginia attack triggered painful memories, and confirmed for me that Republican legislation about driver immunity is emboldening drivers to attack protesters.

___

Follow Ryan Foley on Twitter at https://twitter.com/rjfoley
Albuquerque is about to have one more option for security. EagleForce Security, an Arizona-based security company is moving into the New Mexico market.

According to a news release, the company received several requests from its Arizona clients for help protecting their interests in other states.

The expansion includes seven other states and will roll out by the end of August. The company is planning to hire 40 new employees  36 security guards and four administrators  in New Mexico.

Owner Ryan Eldridge has over 20 years of experience in the security industry and began EagleForce Security in Arizona in 2010.

Eldridge said in a phone interview that EagleForce is planning on utilizing a virtual office to serve clients in Santa Fe and Albuquerque. The company will evaluate demand in the future and determine if more employees or a physical office are needed. It will all depend on the clients needs, Eldridge said.

The companys New Mexico client list already includes Tofel Construction, a company based in Arizona with offices in Albuquerque, among others. Eldridge said EagleForce is in contract negotiations with other New Mexico clients, including auto dealerships and property management companies.

This is a very hard business to get into, Eldridge said. We were fortunate to have clients right from the get-go, and that has really helped.

Though client requests are the main motivation for expanding into New Mexico, Eldridge said, a lot of the things we are hearing are about the lack of services in (New Mexico). He also cited Albuquerques increasing property crime and burglary rate as reasons to enter the market.

The company is accepting job applications at www.eagleforceaz.com.
LOS ANGELES  A woman claimed at a news conference Tuesday that film director Roman Polanski sexually victimized her in 1973, when she was 16.

She is the third woman to come forward with similar allegations about the director of movies such as Rosemarys Baby and Chinatown. The filmmaker has lived as a fugitive in Europe since pleading guilty in Los Angeles in 1977 to having sex with a minor.

The woman, who gave only her first name, Robin, spoke to the media at the Los Angeles office of her attorney, Gloria Allred.

She said she decided to come forward because of statements by Samantha Geimer, the victim in the 1977 case. Geimer has said she wants the criminal case against Polanski to end so she and her family can move on.

She was 13 when Roman Polanski sexually assaulted her. Forty years later, she wants a judge to drop the case against him

This infuriated me, said Robin, 59. I am speaking out now so that Samantha and the world will know that she is not the only minor Roman Polanski victimized.

In April, a Los Angeles County judge denied Polanskis latest effort to resolve the 40-year-old statutory rape case, saying that the filmmaker cannot be sentenced in absentia because he remains a fugitive from justice.

Neither Allred nor the woman would discuss details about the 1973 incident, which Allred said took place in Southern California.

Allred said the legal deadline for filing criminal charges has passed, but Robin reported her allegations to law enforcement earlier this year.

Robin is willing to testify at his sentencing in Geimers case if Polanski withdraws his guilty plea and goes to trial, and she hopes other victims will come forward, Allred said. Robin has no immediate plans to file a civil lawsuit.

While we understand that Ms. Geimer would like this case to end, Robin and I feel that it is very important that Mr. Polanski returns to court in California to be sentenced, Allred said. An exception should not be made for a Hollywood film director, and it would be wrong for the court to appear to give special treatment to Mr. Polanski.

Polanskis attorney, Harland Braun, said Allreds client has no business interfering with Mrs. Geimers life and opinion.

This should be a no-brainer. This case should be over, he said.

Geimer was a 13-year-old junior high student when Polanski, then 43, took her to Jack Nicholsons house for a photo shoot. He gave her champagne and part of a Quaalude pill and, according to testimony from Geimer, forced her to have sex with him.

After reaching a deal with prosecutors, Polanski was sent to a state prison for a 90-day diagnostic evaluation. Judge Laurence Rittenband, who was presiding over the case at the time, said the evaluation would help him reach a fair sentencing decision. The director was released after 42 days, with prison officials saying he did not need additional prison time.

Rittenband, facing fierce media pressure, went against the recommendation and decided to send Polanski back to prison for an additional 48 days.

Polanski then hopped a flight to Europe and never returned.

As the decades have worn on, two portraits of Polanski have emerged. Many still shun him as a criminal who fled from justice. But some in Hollywood have argued that he was treated unfairly by a judge who wanted to make an example of a powerful filmmaker.

In 2010, British actress Charlotte Lewis, who appeared in Polanskis 1986 film Pirates, accused him of forcing himself on her in 1982 in Paris, when she was 16. She also was represented by Allred.
The maternal grandparents of Victoria Martens, who was viciously raped, dismembered and set on fire last year, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Albuquerque and some of its police officers who failed to investigate child abuse reports prior to her August 2016 death.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday by attorneys Bob Gorence and Jason Bowles, seeks policy change at the Albuquerque Police Department and compensation for grandparents John and Pat Martens, the parents of Michelle Martens, who is now in jail awaiting trial in the death of her 10-year-old daughter, Victoria.

Also in jail awaiting trial is Michelles boyfriend Fabian Gonzales and his cousin Jessica Kelley.

APD arrested them after finding Victorias body smoldering in Michelles apartment bathtub. They say the trio, fueled by drugs, raped the girl and it wasnt the first time Michelle solicited or participated in abusing her child.

Five months prior to Victorias death, a report was filed with the states Children, Youth and Families Department that a man, one of Michelles boyfriends, had tried to kiss the girl.

But police never investigated that report, though later two department spokespeople would attempt to convince the public that they had investigated.

The lawsuit says that this failure to investigate was negligence that contributed to Victorias death. It also highlights that the department lacks a policy about which CYFD referrals are investigated and how they are investigated.

At all times relevant to this Complaint, the City had in effect policies, practices and customs that condoned and fostered the unlawful conduct of the APD Individual Defendants, and were a direct and proximate cause of Victoria Martens' suffering, injuries and death, the lawsuit says.

A city spokeswoman said Tuesday evening that the city has not been officially served with the suit and so had not comment on it.

The lawsuit seeks these policy changes:

 Requiring a review and response by an officer within 24 hours of any CYFD referral followed by a supervisor review within another 24 hours with a plan of action, if necessary, communicated to the chief within one week of implementing the plan.

 Holding annual training on crimes against children

 Creating of a tracking system of CYFD referrals so that no referral involving a child falls through the cracks.

The lawsuit, filed in 2nd District Court in Albuquerque, also seeks compensation for the Martens, including for the loss of their granddaughter and punitive damages.

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Inland Real Estate Acquisitions, Inc. announced today that it negotiated and helped close the purchase of Black Feather Apartment Homes, an 83-unit multifamily property located in Castle Rock, Colorado, a southern suburb of Denver. Matthew Tice, senior vice president of Inland Real Estate Acquisitions, Inc., facilitated the transaction, with assistance from David Neboyskey, assistant vice president and associate counsel of The Inland Real Estate Group, LLC, Law Department, on behalf of an Inland affiliate.

Located directly off I-25 in a major retail corridor of Castle Rock, the property was recently constructed in 2016 and features a mix of townhome, three-story walk-up apartments and owned condominium units. The transaction consisted of 48 two-bedroom, 32 three-bedroom and three four-bedroom apartments with 49 detached and 28 attached garages and 131 open parking spaces. Each unit at Black Feather Apartment Homes features nine-foot ceilings, stainless steel appliances, granite countertops and a full-size washer and dryer. The property also provides residents with access to a community swimming pool, clubhouse and barbecue areas.

Black Feather Apartment Homes' prime location places residents just a short drive from Denver or Colorado Springs and within close proximity to a variety of retail destinations, said Tice. Due to its high-end, condominium-quality finishes combined with convenient access to a major interstate, this property was an attractive acquisition opportunity and is an example of the type of multifamily properties we continue to seek out.

As of August 1, 2017, the property was 96.4 percent occupied.

This transaction marks Inland Real Estate Acquisitions, Inc.s 15th multifamily acquisition in Colorado. To date, Inland Real Estate Acquisitions, Inc. has facilitated more than $44 billion of purchases including apartments, single-tenant properties, medical office buildings and retail properties.

About Inland Real Estate Acquisitions, Inc.

Inland Real Estate Acquisitions, Inc. is the purchasing arm for various entities that are a part of The Inland Real Estate Group of Companies, Inc., a group of independent legal entities, some of which may be affiliates, share some common ownership or have been sponsored or managed by Inland Real Estate Investment Corporation or its subsidiaries (collectively, Inland). For additional information, please refer to Inlands website at www.inlandgroup.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170815006001/en/

Sally Blake, Inland Marketing & Communications, Inc.

(630) 586-6639

sally.blake@inlandgroup.com
WASHINGTON, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Global law firm Ropes & Gray announced today that Scott A. McKeown has joined its intellectual property practice as a partner in the firm's Washington, D.C. office, and as chair of the firm's Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) practice. Mr. McKeown, one of the nation's most experienced counsel in post-grant proceedings, adds a strong element to Ropes & Gray's industry leading IP practice, known for its outstanding record handling high-stakes patent litigation cases.

Mr. McKeown is the most active PTAB trial attorney in the U.S. having personally handled over 150 PTAB trial proceedings since 2012, including those in which more than half a billion dollars was at stake. Mr. McKeown also has significant appellate experience in PTAB appeals before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Mr. McKeown is lead post-grant counsel to some of the world's most well-known innovators. As a former electrical engineer, he has a deep understanding of a wide range of technologies, including computer software, wireless telecommunication protocols and network architectures, e-commerce applications, analog and digital signal processing, and medical devices. Mr. McKeown also maintains an award-winning blog which examines developments in patent litigation, including issues related to USPTO post issuance proceedings.

Mr. McKeown has been recognized as a leading PTAB practitioner by various publications, including Chambers USA, Legal 500, The National Law Journal, Intellectual Asset Management and Best Lawyers in America. In 2017, he was named as the "Litigator of the Year" in Virginia by Managing Intellectual Property for his successes before both courts and administrative bodies in high value patent disputes. He joins the firm from Oblon, McClelland, Maier & Neustadt, L.L.P., where he was a member of the management committee and chair of the post-grant patent practice group, which focuses on post-grant counseling, litigation and related prosecution issues.

"The PTAB can be an attractive alternative to the time-consuming and costly traditional avenues for patent litigation and defense," said Richard T. McCaulley, Jr., the chair of Ropes & Gray's nationally recognized IP litigation practice. "Scott's experience with post-grant proceedings will be a significant asset to our clients. Scott is recognized as a thought leader in this space, and has been from the inception of the PTAB."

Mr. McKeown received his J.D. from Temple University School of Law and his B.S. in electrical engineering, with honors, from Temple University. Outside of his PTAB practice, he is a Professorial Lecturer in Law at the George Washington University Law School, where he teaches the course on post-grant patent proceedings.

"I'm honored to join Ropes & Gray's premier intellectual property team," Mr. McKeown said. "Having previously partnered with the firm for joint clients, I was impressed by the collaborative culture and depth of litigation expertise. The firm's complex IP work for high-profile technology companies is a perfect fit for both me and my practice."

Ropes & Gray's intellectual property practice combines a sophisticated understanding of the latest legal developments with cutting-edge technical and scientific knowledge to offer an all-inclusive suite of IP services.

The firm's IP work extends to approximately 70 countries and a wide range of industries, including life sciences, technology and media, retail and consumer, private equity and financial services, and health care and education. In the highly competitive world of intellectual property, Ropes & Gray's IP attorneys are regularly recognized for their legal acumen by Chambers, Legal 500, Managing Intellectual Property, Intellectual Asset Management and other national and global publications. The firm was also recognized by U.S. News & World Report as 2017 "Law Firm of the Year" for patent law.

About Ropes & Gray

Ropes & Gray is one of the world's premier law firms, with more than 1,200 lawyers and legal professionals serving clients in major centers of business, finance, technology and government. The firm has offices in New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., Chicago, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, London, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo and Seoul, and has consistently been recognized for its leading practices in many areas, including private equity, M&A, finance, investment management, hedge funds, real estate, tax, life sciences, health care, intellectual property, business & securities litigation, government enforcement, privacy & data security and business restructuring. www.ropesgray.com

CONTACT:

Eric Goldman

Senior Public Relations Specialist

Ropes & Gray

eric.goldman@ropesgray.com

+1 212 596 9089

View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/leading-ptab-litigator-scott-a-mckeown-joins-ropes--gray-in-washington-dc-300504726.html

SOURCE Ropes & Gray
DUBAI, UAE, August 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Red Sea Housing Services and AECOM signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to collaborate in delivering innovative, modular affordable housing solutions on fast track basis for the Saudi Arabian market.

The MOU was signed between RED SEA HOUSING SERVICES COMPANY FZE (DUBAI) and AECOM MIDDLE EAST LIMITED on Saturday, 12th August, 2017. While Red Sea Housing Services (RSH) will manufacture and deliver the modular building units from its factory, AECOM will undertake the responsibility for designing, engineering, planning, and project managing these housing projects.

(Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/545184/Red_Sea_Housing_Logo.jpg )

Red Sea Housing Services' CEO, William Ali Mills stated that, "The collaboration between RSHS and AECOM will provide an ideal platform to deliver quality homes in The Kingdom in a fast and efficient manner using our state-of-the-art technology, at affordable prices."

This engagement brings together Red Sea Housing's modular construction expertise - an innovative building technique that dramatically reduces construction time and delivers buildings at the highest levels of quality, with AECOM's expertise in sustainable and energy efficient construction solutions. Jointly the companies look to tackle the rising affordable housing crisis.

Currently, the companies have signed a 12-month MOU with the main objective of exploring housing opportunities presented by the Ministry of Housing in Saudi Arabia.

"We are delighted to have signed this MOU with Red Sea Housing Services", said Hamed Zaghw, chief executive, AECOM Middle East, "By combining our knowledge of the local market, solutions for affordable housing, and our design and program management expertise, we will explore opportunities that support the priorities of the Ministry of Housing."

About Red Sea Housing Services

Red Sea Housing Services (RSHS) a global leader that provides high quality modular living and working environments for industrial and residential communities. With significant experience in providing industrial housing products and services in remote and urban locations across the world in more than 65 countries for over 4 decades, RSHS has cemented exceptional reputation for designing, planning, producing, managing, leasing, and operating corporate housing solutions. RSHS sets up the infrastructure and facilities required for global companies to construct high quality, reliable, durable and tailored modular buildings, and housing units, including hotels, offices, accommodation units, utility services, telecommunications networks, catering and recreation facilities, from its manufacturing facilities in Saudi, UAE, Ghana, PNG, and Malaysia.

About AECOM

A Fortune 500 company, AECOM is the world's leading design firm. It provides professional technical services in the fields of engineering, consulting, planning, architecture, construction management, project management, asset management, and environmental services.

For further information, please contact: Rakhi Raghavan, Global Marketing & PR Manager, Red Sea Housing Services, Email corporate.communications@redseahousing.com , +971-4-883-8589
Today, Amazon has a great Gold Box full of deals. This time on Logitechs best PC accessories. These include things like the MX Anywhere 2, the MX Master and other mice. As well as keyboards, webcams and even a few speakers for your desk setup. These products dont typically go on sale, at least not this low, so its a great time to pick one or two up, especially with it being back to school season and a number of students getting ready to head back for another year of school.

Speaking of back to school, there are a number of brand new Chromebooks on sale right now. Samsungs new Chromebook Plus and Chromebook Pro are both on sale for $419 and $499 respectively. These both have 12.5-inch displays and both feature the S Pen, which is a great tool for taking notes. On top of that, the ASUS Chromebook Flip is also on sale, coming in at $469. This one is a pretty powerful one, and has 64GB of storage on top of that. So a great selection of Chromebooks on sale right now at Amazon for those heading back to school this month.

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As always, all of the expiration dates listed below are set to expire at midnight PDT, unless otherwise noted, so keep that in mind.
Now that Google has officially released its Contacts applications to third-party devices, the company looks as though it plans to make rapid development and improvements to the app. According to the source, in fact, there are already several unreleased features already hidden inside Google Contacts that could eventually see a widespread activation. There are two features in total and they appear to be designed to make both sharing and getting in touch with contacts easier, in general.

First, to make sharing information about people within your contacts easier, there appears to be an unactivated option to create a QR code for contacts. If the option is activated, the option will most likely be accessible through the three dot context menu located at the top right of a contact page within the app. Of course, it bears mentioning that a third party app would be needed, as of this writing, to actually scan a QR code with a second device. With that said, Google could very well add that capability to a future update of its own Camera application to make things easier. The second change is in the UI and adds three buttons that allow quick access to call, text, or video-call a contact from their card within Contacts. Calling and texting are completed through whatever a given user currently has set as their default application, while the video call is tied to Googles own Duo application.

Previously, Google Contacts was only really available to Pixel, Nexus, Google Play edition, and Android One devices. With the widespread release of the app, it makes sense that Google would want to make the app as user-friendly as possible. The two features would certainly be a step in that direction but the discovery of those is, unfortunately, still not a guarantee that they will ever be implemented. In the meantime, the app is already yet another solid offering from the company as it stands and has several benefits over other manufacturers stock apps. Not least of all, for those already entrenched in the Google ecosystem, it is tied to the users Google account. That makes switching phones and keeping contacts synced much easier.
Today is National Relaxation Day in the U.S. and Google has taken to its official blog with tips and tricks to help everybody celebrate by winding down. To that end, the company would like to invite those seeking some stress relief to take part in some healthy breathing exercises, meditation, yoga, and spa treatments. Of course, it goes without saying that the company recommends using its own app offerings and associated features to assist in that endeavor.

First up, Google suggests entering the term Breathing Exercises into a Google search. The results should now include illustrative guides to the activity at the top of the page. Meanwhile, a search for yoga positions will return similar results for users more inclined to do yoga than meditate. Google also points to YouTube as an excellent source for helpful guides, citing an 84 percent increase in views for that kind of media year-over-year. On the other hand, not everybody is willing to put in extra effort just to relax. For those that would rather be pampered, the company says its Google Maps application can find spas, salons, and barbershops based on a users location and many businesses listed allow users to book a reservation right from the app. Thats thanks to the Reserve with Google features that Google added just a month ago. Finally, for those stuck at work or on a computer, there are several Chrome extensions available that fit in perfectly with National Relaxation Day. One of those, mentioned by Google, is the Mindful Break Chrome Extension, which helps users with breathing exercise tips and guides specifically for people who are short on time.

None of the features here are necessarily brand new, but Google says that it was prompted to remind users of them because as many as 44 percent of Americans admit to feeling more stressed out now than at any point during the previous 5 years. With consideration for the fact that it is, after all, National Relaxation Day, it may be that Google has a point. The tips outlined by the company could go a long way toward easing some of that tension, even if they do tend to be a little biased in favor of Googles own services.
Googles voice typing feature has expanded support for 30 new languages today making it more possible for users in more global regions to use the feature to type out anything from search queries to text messages, when simply typing things with your fingers just wont do. While the obvious benefits are there, like still being able to get a message out or perform a search for something while your hands might be full, one not so obvious benefit Google says is that voice typing can be much faster than typing things out with your fingers, which according to Google can be up to three times faster, and thats a huge boost in speed in getting a message out, which saves time and is just more efficient.

The bigger part of this update definitely revolves around the addition of newly supported languages as it makes Googles voice recognition more globally available, but Google isnt forgetting about the U.S.-based users. The update that added this new language support includes the ability for people to use the voice typing feature for inserting emjoi, though Google does note that this is only supported in English at the moment.

As for the new languages that were added as part of this update, Googles voice typing now supports Amharic, Armenian, Bengali, Georgian, Latvian, Marathi, Swahili, and many others. While it might have taken some time to get support for all 30 of these languages up and running, this isnt something which Google was capable of patching in overnight. According to Google it worked with native speakers of each language to gather voice samples so its machine learning technology was able to better understand responses and queries frpom those languages, but this was only part of the process as once the voice samples were collected Googles machine learning tech still had to listen to more responses to build on the initial set of responses it was able to recognize. With todays 30 new languages, Google states that its voice typing now supports a total of 119 languages. All of the languages included in todays crop should be able to utilize voice typing without a hitch, and English speakers in the U.S. should be able to give the emoji support a try.
Introduction

The Sony Xperia XZ Premium and the Huawei Mate 9 are among the best smartphones money can buy right now, which is why weve decided to compare them side-by-side to see which one represents more bang for your buck. While the former was launched earlier this year by the Japanese consumer electronics behemoth that is still struggling to get its smartphone business sorted out, the Mate 9 comes from the Chinese telecom giant that has experienced a dramatic rise in fortunes over the past couple of years and, has risen to the top of the global smartphone industry on the sheer strength of its market-share in China, where it has been the number one smartphone brand in that region for some time now. Both devices ship with premium hardware, so lets pit them against one another and see which one deserves your money and why.

Specifications

Sony Xperia XZ Premium

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The Xperia XZ Premium is Sonys latest flagship smartphone, and as is to be expected, ships with premium hardware from top-tier vendors. On the outside, it is hands down one of the best-looking smartphones on the market today, with a sophisticated but striking Loop Surface design. The top and bottom bezels of the device are made out of metal and have diamond-cut chamfered edges, which gives the phone a distinctive look. Much like some of its competitors in the market, the Xperia XZ Premium also comes with a glass back with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection. On the hardware front, the smartphone features a 5.46-inch Triluminos IPS LCD display which comes with a 4K pixel resolution (3840 x 2160) and is protected by Cornings Gorilla Glass 5. The device is powered by the Snapdragon 835 SoC that comes with the Adreno 540 GPU alongside an octa-core CPU with custom Kryo 280 cores. While four of those cores are clocked at 2.45GHz, the other four run at a maximum frequency of 2.19GHz. The device comes with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage that can be expanded by a microSD card of up to 256GB in capacity.

The rear-facing camera on the Xperia XZ Premium comes with a 19-megapixel sensor with 5-axis electronic image stabilization (EIS), PDAF and laser autofocus along with the customary LED flash. The camera has an f/2.0 aperture, 25mm focal length and a 1/2.3 sensor size, and can record 4K videos at 30fps and 720p videos at an astonishing 960fps, although only for very short bursts of about 0.15 seconds. The front facing camera is a 13-megapixel sensor that can record 1080p videos at 30fps and, comes with an f/2.0 aperture, a 22mm focal length, a 1/3-inch sensor size and 1.12m pixel size. The handset carries a non-removable 3,230mAh Li-ion battery with support for Qualcomms Quick Charge 3.0, while cellular connectivity includes support for 4G LTE, 3G HSPA and 2G GSM standards. In terms of software, the device comes with pre-installed Android 7.1 Nougat and is likely to receive the Android O update going forward.

While the Xperia XZ Premium is a decent smartphone in general, youll need to remember one thing if youre planning to buy the device in the U.S. Like its recent predecessors, it also misses out on the fingerprint scanner in its U.S. variants, so in spite of the hefty price-tag, the device doesnt even offer a standard biometric sensor thats become commonplace even in $100 handsets these days. On the positive side, the Xperia XZ Premium is fully waterproof and dust resistant like most Sony smartphones, and comes with an IP68 certification which means it can be submerged in up to 1.5 meters of water for up to 30 minutes at a stretch without any damage. Another big plus is the inclusion of the 3.5mm audio port, even though you still get USB Type-C connectivity for charging and data syncing.

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Huawei Mate 9

The Huawei Mate 9 is the latest in a long list of Mate-series smartphones that typically ship with large displays. True to tradition, the Mate 9 also features a rather large screen that measures 5.9-inches and, is of the IPS LCD variety with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. Huawei also likes to use its own, in-house HiSilicon Kirin SoCs to power its smartphones and tablets, and again, theres no exception to that rule with the Mate 9. The phablet is powered by the Kirin 960 SoC that comes with an integrated octa-core CPU that has four Cortex-A53 cores running at 1.8GHz and four Cortex-A73 cores running at 2.4GHz. The graphics processing duties in the chip is taken care of by ARMs Mali-G71 MP8 GPU. The Mate 9 packs 4GB of DDR4 RAM and 64GB of internal storage thats expandable via a microSD card.

Photography is one key area where Huawei has really upped its game these days, having tied up with German optics major, Leica, last year. The Huawei P9 series represented the first set of devices from the Chinese telecom major to ship with cameras engineered in association with Leica, and that list has only gotten larger over the past year. The Mate 9 follows the same path, and comes with a dual-camera module from the famed German brand. The dual-camera module incorporates a 20-megapixel RGB sensor for colored photos and a 12-megapixel monochrome sensor that shoots black-and-white photos. The dual-cam setup is accompanied by OIS, PDAF and Laser AF, 2x lossless zoom and a dual tone, dual-LED flash. Software features include touch focus, face detection, HDR and panorama. The front-facing selfie-cam on the Mate 9 comes with an 8-megapixel sensor that accompanied by a 26mm wide-angle lens with an f/1.9 aperture.

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Like its predecessor, the Mate 9 also has a rear-facing fingerprint sensor to unlock the device and an NFC chip for compatibility with mobile payment platforms like Android Pay. The handset ships with a 4,000mAh Lithium-Polymer battery with support for the companys proprietary SuperCharge technology that promises to charge the battery fully in just 90 minutes. On the software side of things, the Mate 9 runs Android 7.0 Nougat out-of-the-box in the form of Huaweis trademark EMUI (Emotion UI) 5.0. The device measures 156.9mm in length, 78.9mm in width and 7.9mm in thickness, while weighing in at 190 grams.

And The Winner Is 

The Final Word

The Xperia XZ Premium and the Huawei Mate 9 are both great devices when taken in isolation, but the Mate 9 wins this one in our opinion. Huaweis victory today has got as much to do with its ability to churn out high-quality devices at pocket-friendly price-tags, as with Sonys inability to offer full-featured devices at remotely affordable prices. Sure, the Xperia XZ Premium is a much more aesthetically pleasing and characterful device, and is also overall a slightly faster one, what with the Snapdragon 835 running the show under the hood, but the ultra-high price-tag, coupled with the lack of the fingerprint scanner (at least in the U.S. market) means that the Mate 9 just represents much better value for your money in every way possible. Make no mistake, the Xperia XZ Premium is a great device in itself, but it will need a severe price-correction for us to start recommending it against something like the Mate 9 that matches the Sony flagship in terms of overall performance, but can be picked up right now for just under $500 on Amazon.
Google recently acquired health technology startup Senosis Health, sources with knowledge of the matter said earlier this month. No financial details of the deal have been provided by the insiders, though the Mountain View, California-based tech giant reportedly negotiated the purchase while the company was in the middle of a series A round of funding from various venture capital investors in the United States, indicating that Google may have moved quickly in an effort to avoid an official valuation of Senosis Health that would have likely required it to pay even more than it did for the startup. Prior to its acquisition, the company operated solely on funds raised through the federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) which are said to be in the excess of $1 million.

The Seattle, Washington-based firm was co-founded by Shwetak Patel, a well-known computer scientist who previously established energy-sensing startup Zensi which he sold to Belking International in 2010 when he was only 28. Senosis Healths work force was in the low double digits when Google acquired the company, though its currently unclear whether all of its engineers were offered positions at Alphabets subsidiary following the purchase. Its understood that the startup will continue pursuing its goal of creating portable health monitoring solutions that can be implemented into smartphones, albeit backed by Googles funding and data.

Seeing how Alphabet already runs a standalone health division in the form of Verily thats been investing in a broad range of related industries in a rather aggressive manner in recent years, its unclear why Senosis Health is now set to join Google instead of that particular unit of the U.S. tech conglomerate as its mission seems to be a better fit for the latter than the former. Sources familiar with the deal said that the startup is meant to bolster Googles endeavors related to digital health in the region but didnt clarify on the matter in any capacity. Likewise, neither party has yet confirmed the deal that was originally reported on Sunday and it remains to be seen whether Senosis Health will continue maintaining the HemaApp, SpiroCall, and OsteoApp under Googles corporate umbrella or if it refocuses its resources in the near future.
It seems a new Android TV player is set to become available soon, according to a new report out of Cord Cutters News. The information provided here specifically notes that this is a device that is in some way affiliated with Google. That is, beyond all Android TV devices coming running on Googles Android TV platform. So the suggestion being made here is that this is either a Pixel Player or more likely, a follow up device to the Xiaomi Mi Box.

To be clear, the report is not stating that a Mi Box 2 is coming but instead that a new Android TV device is on the way that is representative of the arrangement Google had with Xiaomi over the Mi Box. So while this might not come to market as a Pixel-branded Android TV device, it is understood that the device will be the direct result of Google and a third-party manufacturer working together on the device. Another example is the Nexus Player which although was a Google-affiliated product, was an Android TV device manufactured by ASUS. Which on the speculation front, could mean that ASUS and Google have partnered up again to release a new version of the Nexus Player.

While the report details that none of this information is confirmed (as it is said to be based on several sources), there is the expectation that the device will be launched this fall. Which does marry well with when Google is expected to unveil its latest Pixel smartphones, and any other hardware the company has in store. By comparison, although the Mi Box was officially launched at Google I/O (much earlier in the year), it did not hit the market until the fall and around the time when Google held its October 4 event in 2016. So there is good reason to suggest that a Google-backed Android TV player would be unveiled at the same event this year. Unfortunately, besides the suggestion that the Android TV player is en route, there are no details being provided as to what the device is, or what it will offer. With the exception that it will come running with the latest version of Android  which by then will be Android O.
A new rumor has just surfaced, and it claims that the Xiaomi Mi MIX 2 will arrive on September 12. Now, in addition to that, this new rumor, that comes from China, claims that the Mi MIX 2 will come in two variants, one variant will sport 6GB of RAM and 128GB of native storage, while the other one will include 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage on the inside. The more affordable variant of the phone is said to cost 3,999 Yuan ($599), while the more expensive model will set you back 4,999 Yuan ($749) should you choose to buy it, presuming this info is accurate, of course.

Now, as per some previous info, the Xiaomi Mi MIX 2s codename is Chiron, and the device is expected to ship with the Snapdragon 835 64-bit octa-core processor, which is not all that surprising considering that its predecessor came with the Snapdragon 821 last year. A 12-megapixel shooter (Sonys IMX386) is said to be included on the back of the Mi MIX 2, and a 5-megapixel camera (OmniVisions OV5675 sensor) will be available on the front side of the Mi MIX 2. The phone will probably be made out of metal and ceramic once again, though we didnt really hear anything in specific regarding its build, though it is expected to come with a 93 percent screen-to-body ratio. Android Nougat will come pre-installed on the Xiaomi Mi MIX 2, and on top of it, youll get Xiaomis MIUI 9 OS, which is the newest variant of Xiaomis Android-based skin.

If the provided info is accurate, the Xiaomi Mi MIX 2 will arrive sooner than expected. The first-gen Mi MIX unit was announced in October, and it did not become available until November, and the Mi MIX 2 might arrive one month early, at least according to this info. This means that the Mi MIX 2 will launch soon after IFA, and it might be Xiaomis way to trump Apple and the companys iPhone 8 launch. In any case, the Mi MIX 2 will probably be a sleek-looking smartphone with really thin bezels, and it will be interesting to see how will it differentiate from its predecessor, as a number of leaks surfaced at this point, providing different designs for us to check out.

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A quick-thinking barrister in the UK used Google Translate to help a defendant after the Mandarin speaker was not provided a translator during her appearance.Joan Smith had to download Google Translate on her phone to help Xiu Ping Yang, who was being accused of food hygiene breaches at her Chinese restaurant in Eston, North Yorkshire, The Law Society Gazette reported. Smith is a direct-access barrister and she was at the Teesside Magistrates Court last week for an unrelated case.An interpreter wasnt present and it became clear the defendant could not speak English. She didnt understand what the judge or prosecutors were saying to her or what was happening, she told the Gazette.The clerk asked if anyone had any way of communicating with her. No one had phones on them and the council said they didnt know of anyone who could interpret. So I downloaded the Google Translate app and tried to explain what was happening. It worked eventually but it could have been a long day, she said.Redcar and Cleveland Council, the plaintiff, said the court bore the responsibility to engage an interpreter for the woman. However, Ministry of Justice guidance says the prosecutor is responsible for notifying the court of the need for a translator in civil cases.HM Courts & Tribunals said it always takes steps to ensure an interpreter is available when it is notified of the need.It is vital that victims, witnesses and defendants understand what is happening in court to guarantee justice is done, it said.
Identifying stakeholders and the role each can play in reducing the level of toxicity in the legal profession;

Eliminating the stigma associated with help-seeking behaviours;

Emphasizing that well-being is an indispensable part of a lawyers duty of competence;

Educating lawyers, judges and law students on lawyer well-being issues;

Taking small, incremental steps to change how law is practiced and how lawyers are regulated to instill greater well-being in the profession.

For community investment through legal work: Legal Aid Clinic, Legal Services Clinic and Antashchetana

For community contribution through volunteering: Law School 101, Kaalitales Project and Puler

Amid increasing concern about the wellbeing of lawyers, especially stress and substance abuse, a new report calls for action to tackle the issues.The Path to Lawyer Wellbeing: Practical Recommendations for Positive Change has been published by the American Bar Association and several other groups and is described as the most comprehensive roadmap yet for the wellbeing of legal professionals.ABA president Linda A. Klein says that the association has been working assist lawyers with substance abuse and mental health issues.Despite these efforts, sadly prior research clearly demonstrates problems persist for too many in the legal profession, she said These task force recommendations represent renewed efforts by us and others to create additional policies and programs that will lead lawyers to a healthier and more satisfying life style, better representation of our clients and an improved system of justice.Among the five key recommendations:You can read the full report here Maurice Blackburn Lawyers says recommendations to reform Australias criminal justice system send powerful messages about abuse within institutions.The firms abuse law principal Michelle James says that the stories heard by the Royal Commission show the extent to which institutions have ignored abuse and a stronger approach is necessary to ensure that is changed.For decades institutions have chosen not to act on abuse allegations, and the consequences of this inaction for abuse survivors has been devastating, Ms James said.She added that religious institutions in particular have put their reputations ahead of doing the right thing.We must send a strong message that not only are such failures completely out of step with community expectations, they are also out of step with the law, with serious consequences for not acting on abuse allegations or concerns, she said.The proposed changes would include making failure to report in religious confessionals a criminal offence.Six projects have been named as potential winners of Herbert Smith Freehills Community Engagement Awards in India.The shortlisted individuals/teams are:The awards are an extension of the law firms work with Indian law schools in connecting law students with social projects.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are rapidly changing the face of many industries, but how influential will they be in the legal profession, and what issues could arise from AI implementation?K&L Gates partners Cameron Abbott and Jim Bulling will discuss the future impact of artificial intelligence on the legal profession at the inaugural Legal Tech Summit , coming to Sydney in November.The session will cover whether lawyers should ever allow AI to make decisions on their behalf, the risks to client confidentiality, whether machines will ever be able to predict the outcomes of court cases and the fairness of AI, and whether its algorithms can be manipulated to be biased.Registration starts from $300 per person with Super Saver discounts available on registrations made by 25 August. Group discounts are also available for bookings of four or more delegates.The Legal Tech Summit will be held at The Westin Sydney on 2 November.
WASHINGTON  One of the difficult but primary duties of the modern presidency is to speak for the nation in times of tragedy. A space shuttle explodes. An elementary school is attacked. The Twin Towers come down in a heap of ash and twisted steel. It falls to the president to express something of the nations soul  grief for the lost, sympathy for the suffering, moral clarity in the midst of confusion, confidence in the unknowable purposes of God.

Not every president does this equally well. But none has been incapable. Until Donald Trump.

Trumps reaction to the events in Charlottesville was alternately trite (come together as one), infantile (very, very sad) and meaningless (we want to study it). There are so many great things happening in our country, he said, on a day when racial violence took a life.

At one level, this is the natural result of defining authenticity as spontaneity. Trump and his people did not believe the moment worthy of rhetorical craft, worthy of serious thought. The president is confident that his lazy musings are equal to history. They are not. They are babble in the face of tragedy. They are an embarrassment and disservice to the country.

The presidents remarks also represent a failure of historical imagination. The flash point in Charlottesville was the history of the Civil War. Cities around the country are struggling with the carved-stone legacy of past battles and leaders. The oppression and trauma that led to Appomattox did not end there. Ghosts still deploy on these battlefields. And the casualties continue.

But Trump could offer no context for this latest conflict. No inspiring ideals from the author of the Declaration of Independence, who called Charlottesville home. No healing words from the president who was killed by a white supremacist. By his flat, foolish utterance, Trump proved once again that he has no place in the company of these leaders.

Ultimately this was not merely the failure of rhetoric or context, but of moral judgment. The president could not bring himself initially to directly acknowledge the victims or distinguish between the instigators and the dead. He could not focus on the provocations of the side marching under a Nazi flag. Is this because he did not want to repudiate some of his strongest supporters? This would indicate that Trump views loyalty to himself as mitigation for nearly any crime or prejudice. Or is the president truly convinced of the moral equivalence of the sides in Charlottesville? This is to diagnose an ethical sickness for which there is no cure.

There is no denying that Trump has used dehumanization  refugees are animals, Mexican immigrants are rapists, Muslims are threats  as a political tool. And there is no denying that hateful political rhetoric can give permission for prejudice. It acts as a psychological lubricant, says University of New England philosophy professor David Livingstone Smith, dissolving our inhibitions and inflaming our destructive passions. As such, it empowers us to perform acts that would, under other circumstances, be unthinkable.

If great words can heal and inspire, base words can corrupt. Trump has been delivering the poison of prejudice in small but increasing doses. In Charlottesville, the effect became fully evident. And the president had no intention of decisively repudiating his work.

What do we do with a president who is incapable or unwilling to perform his basic duties? What do we do when he is incapable of outrage at outrageous things? What do we do with a president who provides barely veiled cover for the darkest instincts of the human heart? These questions lead to the dead end of political realism  a hopeless recognition of limited options. But the questions intensify.
The name is BMW Roadster Concept and all we knew until now is how it looks from the profile, coming courtesy of a teaser photo . Now, however, the automaker returns with more information on the concept for the G29 Z4. Its Japanese brother  nee 2018 Toyota Supra - is internally identified as J29.Promising a sporty and progressive design, the Roadster Concept expresses the new BMW design language from all perspectives and in all details. What that really means, it remains to be seen at Pebble Beach this Thursday. Adrian van Hooydonk , whos job title reads senior vice president of the BMW Groups design department, digs the looks of the Roadster Concept. From the dynamic-looking front to the striking flanks to the clean-cut tail end: a few lines and the subtle interplay between surfaces are enough to generate a sense of power and emotion, he said, adding that the series-production version of the car is set to be unveiled over the course of next year.Based on spy photos of pre-production vehicles, the retractable hardtop roof is gone and it its place comes a lighter, more classically-correct soft top. Then theres the matter of transmission choices, with the Z4 being offered with a six-speed manual even in the United States. The Supra , by comparison, doesnt get a manual, and that's a bit of a shame when you think about it.The range-topping model will be the M40i, which employs the B58 turbo inline-six that develops 360 PS (355 hp). Lower down the lineup, the 2018 BMW Z4 will be available in the sDrive30i and sDrive20i. Both models rely on the B48 2.0-liter turbo four-cylinder used in the F30 330i and G30 530i.Also on August 17 at Pebble Beach's world-renowned Concours d'Elegance, the BMW Concept 8 Series is set to make its North American premiere.
Let's take the Porsche Cayman GT4 in the piece of footage at the bottom of the page, for instance. The 911 Carrera S (we're talking 991.1 matters here) engine and the 911 GT3 suspension mean that the GT4 is an ideal track toy - we must also factor in the splendid handling balance delivered by the mid-engined layout of this Porscha.Sure, the manual tranny of the GT4 might not be the best friend of the stopwatch, but we're talking about track thrills, not numbers here.However, even such a winning combination can be difficult to handle when dealing with the caprices of the Nordschleife. And, by that, we're referring to the ever-changing weather at the Green Hell In the case of the Zuffenhausen lap we have here, the track was being assaulted by heavy rain, with the adventure leading to a tata-a-queue.The shenanigan took pace in the Bergwek section of the track, having been caught on the dash cam of the vehicle following the German sportscar.And, thanks to the atmospheric aural delights of the 385 hp Cayman, we can clearly notice the moment when the driver gets back on the gas. The mid-corner maneuver was apparently executed to brutally for the condition of the track - of course, the tires play an extremely important role in such scenarios, but we're not aware of the rubber details surrounding this Porscha.Once the GT4 driver noticed the hefty slip angle reached by the car, he decided to pull the plug, hitting the brakes and thus amplifying the slide - given the moderate velocity of the car, this was a safer choice than trying to bring the posterior back in line by giving the car some gas, which could've led to an overcorrection and possibly a crash.
North Korean state media reports that Kim Jong Un is backing off from his threat to launch missiles at Guam, a U.S. territory, per the WSJ. He decided to call it off after he visited a military command post and looked over a military plan his senior officers presented him.

Get smart: Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu, a visiting clinical assistant professor of Global Affairs within the NYU SPS Center for Global Affairs who's an expert on North Korea, told Axios earlier today that he didn't expect North Korea to follow through on Guam because North Koreans are the "masters of evoking threats. They're trying to match Trump word for word."

This comes after a tension-filled week in which Trump said he would rain down "fire and fury" on North Korea if it threatened the U.S. again and in which the North threatened to launch missiles at Guam.

What to watch: Kim could change his mind "if the Yankees persist in their extremely dangerous reckless actions, North Korean state media warned.
Between March and September of last year, George Papadopoulous, a member of the Trump campaign's foreign policy team, sent at least half a dozen requests on behalf of Trump or his team to meet with Russian officials, The Washington Post's Tom Hamburger, Carol D. Leonnig, and Rosalind S. Helderman report. The report is based on campaign emails read to the Post and confirmed by two others with access to them.

In one email Papadopoulos wrote to seven campaign officials with the subject line "Meeting with Russian Leadership  Including Putin" in order "to discuss US-Russia ties under President Trump." An April 27 email allegedly reads, "Putin wants to host the Trump team when the time is right."

An important note: "it is unclear whether [Papadopoulos] was acting as an intermediary for the Russian government, although he told campaign officials he was," the Post reports.

Papadopoulos reportedly pressed on with his goals despite protests from his colleagues on the campaign.

The internal reactions:

Campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis thought NATO allies should be consulted before moving forward

Adviser Retired Navy Rear Adm. Charles Kubic mentioned some legal concerns, including the Logan Act, which blocks U.S. citizens from negotiating with foreign governments. He added, "Just want to make sure that no one on the team outruns their headlights and embarrasses the campaign."

Campaign chairman Paul Manafort expressed concern and rejected a May 2016 proposal for Trump to meet with Russian officials. A month later Manafort met with a Russian government lawyer in Trump Tower along with Jared Kushner and Donald Trump Jr.

Who is Papadopoulos, per the Post: "Less than a decade out of college, Papadopoulos appeared to hold little sway within the campaign" He used to participate in a Model UN program and served as an intern at the conservative Hudson Institute. He was signed up as a volunteer for the Trump campaign and in March 2016 Trump announced he was to be on his foreign policy team.

The exchanges were reportedly handed over this month to congressional committees after the White House and defense lawyers reviewed them.
Israels Defense Ministry claims to be investigating reports that senior executives of an Israeli defense company struck an Armenian military position with a suicide drone recently in an effort to sell such weapons to Azerbaijan.

The Israeli daily Maariv reported on Sunday that representatives of the company, Aeronautics Defense Systems, travelled to Azerbaijan over a month ago to finalize a contract for the sale of its Orbiter 1K unmanned aircraft capable of carrying special explosive payload.

Citing a formal complaint lodged with the ministry, the paper reported that two Israeli drone operators rebuffed Azerbaijani officials demand to demonstrate the use of the deadly drone by hitting the Armenian position in an undisclosed area with it. But other, more senior representatives of the company agreed to launch the deadly craft towards the target, the paper said.

One of the operators subsequently resigned from the company in protest, while the other plans to follow suit soon, according to Maariv.

Reacting to the report, the Israeli Defense Ministry said: The claim is being examined by the relevant parties at the ministry. The complaint was filed with the ministry's Defense Export Controls Agency, reported another Israeli daily, Haaretz.

Aeronautics Defense Systems, meanwhile, denied the report, saying that the operational action was carried out by the purchaser alone.

According to Nagorno-Karabakhs Armenian-backed Defense Army, the Azerbaijani military most recently attacked its frontline positions with a suicide drone on July 7. Colonel Armen Gyozalian, the commander of an army unit stationed in northeastern Karabakh, told the Hay Zinvor newspaper earlier this month that two of his soldiers were lightly wounded in the incident. No Armenian military hardware was damaged in that drone attack, he said.

The Azerbaijani army heavily used similar suicide drones manufactured by another Israeli company, Israel Aerospace Industries, during the April 2016 hostilities in Karabakh, which left at least 190 soldiers from both sides dead. Baku had gotten hold of them as part of multimillion-dollar defense contracts signed with the Jewish state.

The Israeli weapons sold to Azerbaijan have included not only various types of unmanned aircraft but also air-defense systems and anti-tank rockets. Aeronautics Defense Systems, the Oribter manufacturer, reportedly started supplying drones to the Azerbaijani military in 2008.

Armenia has long expressed concern at the Israeli-Azerbaijani arms deals, saying that they undermine international efforts to end the Karabakh conflict. The Armenian Foreign Ministry on Monday reacted cautiously to the Israeli newspaper report. We are aware of problems and monitoring them, a ministry spokesman told Tert.am.

The report came less than three weeks after Israeli Minister of Regional Cooperation Tzachi Hanegbi visited Yerevan in an apparent bid to improve his countrys frosty relationship with Armenia. Hanegbi signed a number of bilateral agreements with Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian and Culture Minister Armen Amirian. He also met with Prime Minister Karen Karapetian.
15 August 2017 17:24 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

Following the the new wave of Western sanctions against Russia, Armenians have once again raised the issue of countrys possible exit from the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) to preserve the remains of Armenias collapsed economy. Armenian MPs and experts keep noting the need of leaving the Russia-led structures.

In 2015, Armenia became the fourth full-fledged Member-State of the Eurasian Economic Union together with Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia.  For most Armenians, this meant only more economic pain as the country needed to adjust tariffs and trade rules.

The well-known Ukrainian expert and economist, Alexander Okhrimenko, commenting on the issue, ruled out the possibility of Armenias exit from the Russian integration structures.

For now, the exit of Armenia from the EAEU or from any other Russian structure can be considered only hypothetically, Okhrimenko said. Anti-Russian sanctions of the West cannot but affect the economy of Armenia, they have connection; all the economic control levers of Armenia are in hands of Moscow.

Moreover, the West is not interested in Armenia. Neither Europe nor the United States are interested in the problems of Armenia, in the countrys dilapidated economy, according to him.

Integration into the European community is a dream for Armenia. Armenian politicians should address the pressing problems, and not cheat poor Armenians with meaningless illusions about European integration, Okhrimenko noted.

The expert pointed out that the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict remains the only reasonable step for the recovery of the Armenian economy and the wayout for the countrys political isolation.

The reason for the troubles in which this country remains for many years is the obstinacy of the Armenian leadership, which impedes by any means the negotiation process, he said.

Azerbaijan has long ago stated it is ready to settle the conflict through negotiations with Armenia with mediation of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs. However, the Armenian side is constantly trying to make up reasons to avoid a constructive dialogue and preserve the unacceptable status quo in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Okhrimenko noted that as long as the authorities of Armenia delay substantive negotiations with Azerbaijan and try to keep the status quo indefinitely, the problems of this country will only increase.

The Armenian society has long been speaking about distressing unemployment, endless outflow of people from the country, and many other problems. As a result, Armenia lost thousands of people, and very soon the country may turn into a state of elders and the disabled.

The negligence of the authorities to the situation in their own country and to their citizens became the reason of serious problems, Okhrimenko said. The problems are not solved, but instead accumulated like a snowball, and this is being reflected in the welfare of the general population.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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15 August 2017 13:49 (UTC+04:00)

By Yoon Young-kwan

So far, the war between US President Donald Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un over the latters nuclear program has been fought only in words. But each turn of the rhetorical screw deepens the risk that, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, jaw-jaw could turn into war-war.

Last month, following North Koreas second intercontinental ballistic missile test of the summer, the United Nations Security Council unanimously agreed to impose new and even stricter sanctions on the tiny country. The response, reported in North Korean state-run media, was a pledge that strategic steps accompanied by physical action will be taken mercilessly with the mobilization of all [North Koreas] national strength.

The next day, Trump went off script, asserting that further threats from North Korea would be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen before. North Korea immediately did just that, threatening to carry out an enveloping strike on the US territory of Guam. Trump shot back that the US military is locked and loaded.

And, indeed, as this exchange of rhetorical fire has unfolded, the US has reportedly been preparing revised military options for striking North Korea. More ominous, according to a confidential US intelligence report, North Korea has achieved the capability to miniaturize nuclear warheads, and may have as many as 60 bombs. The stakes are rising in Kim and Trumps game of chicken.

It is unlikely that either North Korea or the US actually wants war. But, as the late English historian A.J.P. Taylor concluded, after studying eight great wars since the late eighteenth century, wars have often sprung more from apprehension than from a lust for war or for conquest.

According to Taylor, many European wars were started by a threatened power, which had nothing to gain by war and much to lose. If Taylor were alive to witness the current situation  characterized by fear-enhancing misperception, miscalculation, and overreaction  he would undoubtedly be feeling an alarming sense of deja vu. The question now is: what can be done to avoid catastrophe?

For starters, both the US and North Korea will have to avoid cornering one another. During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, US President John F. Kennedy was firm in his stance that Soviet missiles would not be permitted in Cuba. But he knew better than to pursue a total American victory and a total Soviet defeat.

Instead, Kennedy offered a deal that would protect Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchevs reputation in the eyes of Kremlin hawks: the US would withdraw its missiles from Turkey (which were superfluous already), in exchange for the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba. That pragmatic and courageous approach created the necessary space for the two leaders  neither of whom actually wanted a nuclear war  to retreat from the brink without losing face.

To bring todays crisis to a peaceful conclusion, Kim will have to tone down his aggression. But, for that to happen, the Trump administration needs to demonstrate clearly that its goal is not regime change, but policy change  that is, denuclearization  in North Korea.

Unfortunately, the signals coming out of the US are still mixed. While Secretary of State Rex Tillersons recent remarks on the crisis focused on diplomacy, CIA Director Mike Pompeo has mentioned regime change, and National Security Advisor General H.R. McMaster has raised the possibility of a preventive war.

While it is important to put pressure on Kim to bring him to the negotiating table, such pressure must be more carefully calibrated. If the US appears to be seeking regime change or a preemptive war, a panicked Kim will be more likely to lash out. The goal should be relative, not absolute, security for both sides.

To this end, it is crucial to maintain rigorous civilian control of the military. World War I broke out largely because of the militarization of the political decision-making process. By not taking national military-mobilization processes off of autopilot, European political leaders allowed for an international chain reaction to occur. Once the march to war had begun, there was not much room left for diplomacy.

Yet, far from making space for diplomacy, Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka recently told the press that, The idea that Secretary Tillerson is going to discuss military matters is simply nonsensical. But why shouldnt Americas top diplomat have significant influence over military matters? If this does not change soon, we may, as then-British Prime Minister David Lloyd George wrote of World War I, [muddle] into war yet again.

South Korean political leaders must also avoid being swept up by this intensifying war rhetoric. After North Koreas 2010 sinking of the Cheonan warship and bombardment of Yeonpyeong Island, the South Korean military toughened its rules of engagement. Now, South Korean military leaders are warning that if North Korea attacks again, it will face retaliation not just against the proximate source of those attacks, but against the Norths command leadership. Much like Trumps threats, this policy is intended to deter North Korea, but it is more likely to fuel a rapid escalation of conflict.

China also has a key role to play. On June 10, 1994, at the peak of the first North Korean nuclear crisis, China informed Kims father, Kim Jong-il, that it would no longer veto UN sanctions on North Korea, driving the elder Kim to adopt a less antagonistic position. China may be using a similar tactic today, as it declares publicly, via state media, that North Korea should not count on Chinas support in a military conflict of its own making.

Neither Trump nor Kim seems to have sufficient political capital to spearhead a shift from military threats to diplomatic solutions. Given the far-reaching risks posed by this rapidly escalating crisis, it may well be up to other stakeholders to take the lead. Will China act as the regional stabilizer it so often proclaims itself to be? President Xi Jinping is being tested in this crisis as much as Trump and Kim.

Copyright: Project Syndicate: A Dangerous Game of Chicken

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15 August 2017 12:14 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

Hungary, which has the highest trade turnover with Azerbaijan among the South Caucasus countries, will realize a major agricultural project in the country.

Groundbreaking ceremony for a greenhouse complex to be jointly built by Azerbaijani CTC Holding and Hungarian companies will be held on August 15 in Azerbaijans Khizi region, the Hungarian embassy in Baku reported

The greenhouse complex worth 17.2 million euros will be located on the territory of 210,000 square meters. The project will be financed by the Hungarian Export-Import Bank.

Currently, this is the largest joint Azerbaijani-Hungarian agricultural project, said the Embassy.

Kesz International Kft. will be a contractor for the project of the greenhouse complex construction.

The agricultural production is one of the most developed fields of Hungarys national economy, while development and strengthening of the agro industries are one of the top priorities for Azerbaijan today.

Enjoying advantageous geographic location, Azerbaijan has every opportunity to increase export of high quality agro products, which are in great demand in neighboring countries.

The agricultural sector is important in Azerbaijan not only to increase export potential, but also to restore and protect the countrys food security.

Over 50 percent of the Hungarian trade with the South Caucasus region accounts for Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijans trade turnover with Hungary amounted to about $20 million in January-July 2017, according to Azerbaijans State Customs Committee. Last year, the trade turnover between two countries amounted to more than $50 million.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

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15 August 2017 13:06 (UTC+04:00)

By Sara Israfilbayova

Azerbaijan develops its agricultural cooperation with China in new dimensions as it does in all other spheres of the economy.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture Ilham Guliyev made the remark at a meeting with a Chinese delegation led by the chairman of the Board of the Beijing-based Norinco International Cooperation Ltd, Wang Yitong.

Guliyev said Azerbaijan will build a state-of-the-art plant using the Chinese experience in order to renovate Gakh Silk Farming Station.

The government greatly supports the agricultural development in Azerbaijan. Farmers and entrepreneurs are free from all taxes, except land tax, and get 70 percent and 40 percent discounts for fertilizers and machinery, respectively. We consider it expedient to apply China`s successful experience in the spheres of silk farming, cotton-growing and tea growing in Azerbaijan, he added.

Yitong, in turn, expressed interest in developing agricultural relations with Azerbaijan.

China is a huge opportunity and a priority market for Azerbaijan. More than 50 agreements were signed between the two countries so far.

In the first quarter of 2016, the Chinese government invested $419 million in various spheres of Azerbaijan. The cost of contracts signed between the two countries amounted to $227 million. Azerbaijan invested in 59 projects implemented in China and the total amount of these investments amounted to $7.8 million.

Trade and economic contacts occupy a significant place in bilateral relations between China and Azerbaijan. The process of interaction between the two countries was marked by constant tendencies of expansion and strengthening of cooperation.

In early August, Azerbaijan Export and Investment Promotion Foundation (AZPROMO) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT).

The document provides for the development of trade, economic and investment relations between the two countries, as well as promotion of export and exchange of experience.

Moreover, the active cooperation between China and Azerbaijan strongly contributes to the realization of the Great Silk road program.

The Great Silk Road is a general name of a caravan road, which has been the main two-way trading bridge of East and West since III century BC up to now. The Great Silk Road starts in Japan and China stretches up to Europe cutting through India, Afghanistan, Iran, Central Asia, Caucasus, Asia Minor, Northern Africa including/connecting Indian Ocean, Chinese sea, Japanese sea, Red sea, Caspian sea, Black sea, Azov sea and Mediterranean sea.

The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and China amounted to $395.6 million in January-April 2017.

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The president of the United States should represent all the people, even those who did not vote for you. We are not required to adore you.

You take an oath to defend the constitution, not your personal bank account.

When you make recorded statements, you should not repeatedly say I never said that.

You should refrain from incessantly degrading your predecessor.

You should make political appointments who do not have their personal wealth or debt linked to an adversarial government.

You should not praise leaders of thuggish, murderous regimes. They are not our friends.

You should not allow any foreign government Putin their fingerprints all over our democratic election process.

You should not ridicule and threaten journalists and citizens who exercise their First Amendment rights while encouraging exercising the Second Amendment.

You should not give speeches to thousands of 12-year-old Scouts that are rated more than PG-13.

You should not use Twitter to convey policy.

Your communications are archived for posterity. Once tweeted, it cannot be deleted

Linda Krahn, Black River Falls
15 August 2017 18:25 (UTC+04:00)

By Sara Israfilbayova

The State Committee on Property Issues of Azerbaijan held next auction on privatization of state property on August 15, which ended with the sale of 17 state properties.

Six of the sold objects are small state enterprises and 11- non-residential areas.

Four small state enterprises and 10 non-residential areas were privatized in Baku, 2 small state enterprises and 1 non-residential area -other cities and regions of the country. Two small state enterprises were privatized in Ganja and Ismayilli, respectively.

The state properties privatized in the capital city are located in the Garadagh and Sabayil districts.

Three of 11 non-residential areas were privatized in Nasimi, two- in Binagadi and Yasamal respectively, the rest in Narimanov, Nizami, Surakhani districts.

In order to protect state property and effectively manage it in the new economic realities, President of Azerbaijan signed a decree on May 19, 2016.

Under the decree, the acceleration of the state property privatization process has been defined as an important direction of the economic policy.

The portal for privatization  privatization.az, launched in July 2016, reflects all necessary information about the facilities, their addresses, location, and even initial cost and aims at facilitation of the process. The website is available in two languages - Azerbaijani and English. Why Azerbaijan is special section available on the website explains the reasons and advantages of investing in the country.

The privatization process is designed to attract both foreign and local investors, as well as develop the business environment of Azerbaijan.

Moreover, the State Committee on Property Issues held the first electronic auction on July 4.

The "electronic auction" service, which is available on the website privatization.az, combines the privatization procedure of vehicles and equipment. In the future, it will be possible to privatize small state enterprises and facilities, joint-stock companies through electronic auction. Now, the corresponding work in programming is being implemented.

Next auction on privatization of state property will be held on August 22.

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15 August 2017 17:59 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

Baku will host the Azerbaijani-Korean business meeting on September 13, 2017, the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Baku reported on August 15.

Representatives of ten Korean companies  Yelim Paint Spray, Mattron Corporation, Dongsan Valve, Jin Gu Engineering, Kwangwoon, KEONSAE HIGH PRESSURE, Daedong Marine TECH, MSTECH, DAEDONG INDUSTRIES and Beomchang  will arrive in Azerbaijan to attend the event.

The Embassy also noted that an event titled "Bilateral cooperation between Korea and Azerbaijan in shipbuilding" will be held in Baku within the framework of the Korean companies visit.

Azerbaijan was declared by the Korean government as priority country for economic cooperation for 2011-2013. In 2015, the Joint Intergovernmental Commission on Economic Cooperation was established between Azerbaijan and the Republic of Korea. Last June, the first meeting of Joint Economic Commission was held in Seoul.

The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and the Republic of Korea totaled $72.17 million in 2016, while $72.05 million accounted for the import of Korean products, according to the State Customs Committee.

As for January-July 2017, the trade turnover amounted to $38 million. Almost all of the amount accounted for the import of Korean products.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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15 August 2017 10:44 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

Enchanting, immense, boundless, alluring, mysterious - what other delightful words can be found to describe the incredible beauty of the sky? There are a lot of them. But even all these words can not fully convey the wonderful scene that we see daily above our heads.

The Shamakhy Astrophysical Observatory and Azerbaijan Photographers Union invite everyone to join a photo contest to capture this beauty.

The contest titled "Discover the Universe" is open for professional and amateur photographers.

Send your sky images to [email protected] until September 20.

The professional jury represented by the Director of the Shamakhi Astrophysical Observatory, Corresponding Member of ANAS Namig Jalilov, the Director of the Institute of Architecture and Arts, Ertagin Salamzade and the Chairman of the Board of the Azerbaijan Photographers Union,Mirnaib Hasanoglu will evaluate the works.

Three photographers who captured the most beautiful sky views , will receive gifts and chance to relax at Journey of the Universe Center.

The winners will be awarded with special diploma.

The contest results will be published on the official website of the Observatory.

The contest will be followed by a photo exhibition featuring 30 photos of the participants. The photographers participating in the exhibition will be awarded the certificate.

The contest rules are the following:

- The presence of heavenly bodies - the Sun, Moon, stars in photos;

- Name your work. In addition, each photo must be accompanied by the name and surname of the author. Any signature or logo is not acceptable;

- Photos must be taken within the last year;

- Photos can be in color or black and white;

- Photos must be in JPEG format, the size of the photo should not exceed 1500 pixels. Photos selected for the exhibition should be presented in a large format. If necessary, the jury has the right to request an initial version of the photo;

- One author can submit no more than three works;

- It is forbidden to assign other people's photos placed on the Internet;

- Photos taken with a mobile phone, as well as processed by a photo editor, are not accepted;

- The participant guarantees that the use of photos in the contest does not violate the rights of third parties and legally responsible for the violation of the rights;

- Submitting the photo the participant must confirm that the right to this picture.

For more information, please visit: http://www.shao.az

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

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15 August 2017 13:25 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

The Azerbaijan Culture Day was held in Minsk to familiarize Belarusians with rich culture and heritage of the Land of Fire.

The event was organized on August 12 by the Minsk City Hall, the international public association Congress of Azerbaijan Communities under the aegis of the Azerbaijani Embassy in Belarus.

Head of the Main Department of Ideological Work, Culture and Youth Affairs of the Minsk City Executive Committee, Pavel Skalaban and Ambassador of Azerbaijan to Belarus, Latif Gandilov attended the event, Azertac reported.

Gandilov, addressing the event, stressed that holding such an event shows the features of the Belarusian people - kindness, good nature, goodwill and integrity.

"We feel that Belarus treats other peoples and their cultures with great respect, and such meetings give us an opportunity to get to know each other better and enrich, "the ambassador added.

After the opening remarks, the Upper Town invited guests and residents of the Belarusian capital to enjoy Azerbaijani music and dances from Caucasus Legends and Sari Gelin groups.

The representative of Belarus at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2015, Ruslan Aslanov, the representative of Belarus at the international competition Turkvision-2015, Sasha Kyazimova and others performed on the stage.

The Azerbaijani music, cuisine and samples of art were presented to the guests within the framework of the event.

Besides, master classes on cooking Azerbaijani dishes were also held. Here guests could try real pilaf, dolma, shish kebab and taste oriental sweets and dried fruits.

The colorful celebration later featured a fashion show of Azerbaijani designer Sabina Alashova.

In 2016, the Day of Azerbaijani Culture entitled "Pomegranate Festival" took place in Minsk, Belarus in October. Minsk residents and visitors enjoyed delicious sweet pastry pakhlava, walnut and rose jams, kebab, pomegranate juice and aromatic pilaf.

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
15 August 2017 15:12 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

It's not quite Cold War II, but the cooling in the U.S.-Russia relations could prove to be one of the most challenging issues for the world, especially the South Caucasus region.

Beyond the prospect of the two world powers accidentally brushing against each other in Europe or the Middle East, there is concern that a near-complete absence of communication could result in further prolongation of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which threats the regional security.

Several experts have already voiced opinions that this factor will negatively affect the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which is mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group.

Although the OSCE Minsk Group, co-chaired by the Russian Federation, the United States and France, deals with the Nagorno-Karabakh issue for about three decades, its activities have brought no breakthrough results so far and the situations worsens due to the daily breaches of ceasefire and provocations of the Armenian forces.

Russian analyst and famous TV presenter Igor Shatrov, commenting on the issue, said that the OSCE Minsk Group is one of few international platforms where Russia and the United States have been able to speak with a common position.

However, in recent times, with the aggravation of the Russian-American relations, the Karabakh problem may become a ticking time bomb, Shatrov told Day.Az. It may undermine not only the Russian-American relations. Peace throughout the Caucasus is at risk.

Richard Hoagland, the U.S. co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, in turn, denied such thoughts, saying that Russia and the U.S. will continue to work together to resolve the conflict.

The U.S. keeps on working with Russia over this issue, despite the worsening of the relations between the two countries, he previously told the Voice of America. Nothing has changed in our work with each other; the relations between the co-chairs have not altered. Politicians may collide with each other, but we intend to continue the work.

Hoagland also noted that time has come for the parties to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to take steps to strengthen the trust.

Shatrov further added that he wouldnt expect progress in the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in the near future, until the confidence between Russia and the U.S. is restored.

Lets not be naive. Trust between Azerbaijan and Armenia, for strengthening of which Ambassador Hoagland calls on, is impossible in the absence of trust between Russia and the U.S.," Shatrov said.

He added that time has come for drastic change in approaches to the solution of the Karabakh problem and reformation of the OSCE Minsk Group.

Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a lengthy war that ended with signing of a fragile ceasefire in 1994. Since the war, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

Armenia still ignores four UN Security Council resolutions on immediate withdrawal from the occupied territory of Azerbaijan, thus keeping tension high in the region. Although the OSCE Minsk Group, co-chaired by the Russian Federation, the United States and France, deals with the Nagorno-Karabakh issue for over two decades, its activities have brought no breakthrough results so far.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
15 August 2017 12:39 (UTC+04:00)

By Sara Israfilbayova

Azerbaijans energy giant SOCAR and Russias LUKOIL are considering the possibility of joint acquisition of new assets in the fuel market of Turkey.

The Turkish retail fuel market remains attractive for LUKOIL, which actively promotes its interests in this sector of the Turkish economy, Anadolu Agency quoted Vadim Vorobiev, LUKOILs senior Vice President for sales and supplies, as saying.

Vorobiev told a group of Turkish journalists in Moscow that the Russian company has already allocated up to $1 billion for this purpose, adding that Turkeys petroleum products market is of strategic importance to LUKOIL.

Our company is studying opportunities to expand its share in the Turkish market. We discussed with SOCAR representatives the issue of acquiring the assets of third companies in the Turkish market. A concrete decision on this issue hasnt been made yet, he added.

Stressing that LUKOIL occupies 5-6 percent of the retail fuel market of Turkey, Vadim Vorobiev noted that in 2000-2010 it was more profitable to work in the Turkish market than in Europe.

Further, touching upon the crisis on the world energy market the LUKOIL official stressed that they dont plan to expand activities in Turkey in the next 3-4 years due the crisis, nevertheless expressed readiness to cooperate with other companies operating on the Turkish market on the issue of distributors network.

Lukoil is one of Russia's largest oil companies and one of the largest global producers of oil.

LUKOIL owns a 10-percent stake in the consortium for the development of the giant Shah Deniz gas field in Azerbaijan.

SOCAR began its activity in Turkey after privatization of Petkim Holding in 2008 and has been operating under brand name of SOCAR Turkey. The company was acquired by SOCAR as a result of a tender of privatization.

Petkim shareholders include SOCAR Turkey Petrokimya A.S. with a share of 51 percent, SOCAR Turkey Energy with 1.32 percent and 47.68 percent within free float.

It is expected that in 2018, the consolidated turnover of SOCAR Turkey Enerji will reach $15 billion and the company will become the second biggest industrial company in Turkey (the first is Koc Holding) with 5,000 employees and export potential of $3 billion. It sets a goal to become the biggest industrial company of Turkey by 2023.

SOCAR is 100 percent owned by the government of Azerbaijan. SOCAR participates in joint ventures (including ventures in Georgia and Turkey), consortia, and operating companies established with SOCARs participation.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
15 August 2017 10:15 (UTC+04:00)

By Dalga Khatinoglu

Iran has prioritized seven major oil fields for development - in West Karoon Block and South Pars gas fields oil layer.

During the first seven months of 2017, Iran launched Azar field and South Pars oil layer, while the statistics, prepared by Irans Oil Ministry and seen by Trend, indicate, that the other five fields, placed in West Kroob Block were also in development.

Currently, Iran produces 20-25 thousand barrels per day from the oil layer of South Pars, while the production level at Azar field reached 15,000 b/d. Iran plans to double the oil output of South Pars and increase the Azars output to 65,000 b/d.

Azar field, whith 2.5 billion barrels of in-situ oil reserves, and 16 percent recovery rate has been completed by 69.92 percent in July, compared to 68.52 percent in June.

One of the major projects in Irans upstream oil sector includes the first phase of five fields (West Karoon Block) in Iranian western regions with 66.7 billion barrels of in-situ oil reserves, joint with Iraq, sharing 9.5 percent of the countrys total in-situ oil and gas condensate reserves.

Iran says the production capacity of these fields, including the Azar field, has reached 320,000 b/d, compared to 280,000 b/d in January 2017. However, the actual output is half of this volume, because Iran has allowed an increase in its output by only 90,000 b/d to 3.79 mb/d, compared to October 2016, according to OPECs oil cut deal.

According to a document, prepared by Irans Oil Ministry and seen by Trend, the actual output of all these fields, including the Azar field in 1H17, reached around 200,000 b/d in July, less than June.

Iran has signed buy-back agreements with Chinese and domestic companies to develop these fields, but it is preparing to sign further deals with foreign companies based on the newly-designed agreement, called the Iran Petroleum Contract (IPC), to complete the development of these fields, especially to increase the recovery rate, which stands at below 10 percent on the average.

Yadavaran

Iran has signed a buy-back contract with Chinas Sinopec to develop the first phase of Yadavaran field, which contains 34 billion barrels of in-situ oil reserves. The project has been divided into 3 phases.

With completion of the first phase the output would reach 85,000 b/d, and in second and third phases the output would reach 180,000 b/d and 300,000 b/d, respectively.

According to the mentioned official document, the first phase of Yadavaran was developed by 0.19 percent to 99.34 percent, but the production level decreased by 6,000 b/d to 101, 174 in July month-to-month. The first phase of the field is semi-operational since 2012.

North Azadegan

Iran has a buy-back contract with Chinas CNPCI to develop the North Azadegan field. The first phase of the project was developed by 99.95 percent in July, about 0.94 percent more than June and its output stood at 73,160 b/d in July, about 2,169 b/d less than June.

North Azadegan contains 5.6 billion barrels of in-situ oil reserves. In the second phase of this project, the output level would double to hit 150,000 b/d.

South Azadegan

Iran also had an agreement with CNPCI to develop South Azadegan, but the country cancelled the deal with the Chinese company in 2014 because of long-delayed development process.

According to the official document, the projects first phase was developed by 38.92 percent in July, about 0.93 percent more than June. The first phase is aimed to produce 320,000 b/d of oil. The second phase would add 280,000 b/d to this volume.

The field contains 25.34 billion barrels of in-situ oil and its recovery rate is very low at 6.6 percent. Currently five foreign companies, including Frances Total and Japans Inpex are studying the Azadegan field and the ways of increasing the recovery rate, based on confidentiality agreements.

North Yaran

Iran is developing the North Yaran field with local companies  led by Persia Oil and Gas Industry Company  which have 73 percent share based on a buy-back contracts. The rest of shares belong to foreign companies.

North Yaran has been developed by 95.08 percent in July, about 0.07 percent more than June.

Iran produced 16,786 b/d in July, about 12,056 b/d less than June. The final capacity of the project is 30,000 b/d.

South Yaran

Like North Yaran, the South Yaran field is also being developed by local companies to produce 50,000 b/d of oil by July 2017. However the project has been developed by 81.82 percent, 0.28 percent more than June and 1.78 percent more than January 2017.

Overall reserves of North and South Yaran are estimated at about 1 billion barrels.

After completion of all the phases of the mentioned oil fields, their production capacity would reach 1.04 million b/d by 2021. Iran needs more than $15 billion to complete West Karoon projects.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
15 August 2017 12:00 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a decree approving the execution of seven investment projects worth $40 million in the Sirdaryo branch of the Jizzakh free economic zone.

Chinas Wenzhou Jinsheng Trading Co. will participate in the projects, reads the Uzbek presidents decree published on his official website.

It is planned to launch enterprises for the production of footwear, leather goods, brass and copper connectors for pipe fittings, locks and other products in 2017-2019 on the branch premises.

The largest project is for the production of leather goods, with the designed capacity of 60,000 square meters and the cost of $9 million.

Almalyk Mining and Metallurgical Combine will act as the Uzbek partner in four projects.

Sirdaryo branch of the Jizzakh free economic zone was established in 2009.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
By Trend

Thirteen PKK terrorists have been killed in airstrikes carried out by Turkish jets in northern Iraq's Mt. Qandil area, the Turkish military announced Monday, Anadolu reported.

In a statement, the Turkish Armed Forces said the airstrikes targeting the so-called headquarters of the PKK terrorist group took place on Saturday and left eight others heavily wounded "based on the intelligence gathered from local sources".

The airstrikes also destroyed four targets including an arms and ammunition depot and weapon emplacements, it added.

Turkeys military carries out frequent air operations in northern Iraq against the PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organization also by the United States, and the European Union.

More than 1,200 people, including security personnel and civilians, have been killed since the PKK resumed its armed campaign against Turkey in July 2015.

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First up, Joe Biden is thinking about dropping tariffs against China. But theres a spy in prison this morning that helps us understand why he shouldnt. Ill explain.





Your second brief, If youre looking for a good paying job, you might consider being a CEO for a health insurance company. One executive made $142M dollars last year. Let's talk about that.





And as always, Im keeping an eye out for developing stories. Put this one on your radar. Mexican cartels are grooming American kids online and paying them cash to traffic illegals or run drugs across the border. Ill share details.





If you enjoyed this episode of the President's Daily Brief, remember to subscribe and listen daily at podfollow.com/pdb.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Aug. 18-19, 2007: More than 11 inches of rain  including a state record 15.1 inches in Hokah, Minn.,  fell over southeast Minnesota and western Wisconsin, triggering flash floods and killing seven people in Winona and Houston counties, and many people were rescued from vehicles and rooftops. Numerous roads and bridges were washed out, houses collapsed due to mudslides and hundreds of homes had flooded basements. Damages estimated at more than $270 million, more than two thirds of it Minnesota.

June 7-9, 2008: Less than a year after the deadly floods, storms dump more than 7.3 inches of rain on La Crosse, triggering record flooding on area rivers, some of which rose a foot per hour and even left gauges under water. Damages estimated at $170 million to $200 million across southeast Minnesota, western Wisconsin and northern Iowa.

Aug. 15, 2010: A line of severe thunderstorms moved out of Minnesota and into western and central Wisconsin during the morning hours of August 13th. Strong winds created tree and minor structural damage, while widespread heavy rain of 3 to 4 inches caused some flash flooding, road closures, and rises along rivers, streams and creeks. Significant damage occurred to roads, homes and businesses in west central Wisconsin due to the flooding with an estimated $2.78 million in damage to public sector infrastructure. More thunderstorms developed south of the initial storms across southwest Wisconsin, which brought heavy rains and caused flooding problems into the afternoon hours.

Sept. 22-23, 2010: Up to 8 inches of rain soaked the region over two days as a slow-moving storm system passed over the area, forcing the evacuation of more than half the 2,400 residents of Arcadia, Wis. Water damaged homes, crops and infrastructure throughout the area, prompting disaster declarations in Buffalo, Trempealeau, Jackson, Taylor, Clark, and Juneau counties as well as a state of emergency in Minnesotas Winona, Houston and Wabasha counties. Damage estimates topped $15 million, much of it in Trempealeau County.

June 21-23, 2013: A series of thunderstorms brought heavy rains in successive days, triggering mudslides and widespread flooding around Boscobel, Wis., and washing out numerous roads in Wisconsin, southern Minnesota and northern Iowa. Federal disasters were declared in Allamakee, Clayton, Crawford, Fillmore, Grant, Houston, Richland, Vernon, and Winneshiek counties with about $30 million in crop and property damage.

Sept. 6-7, 2015: Two rounds of thunderstorms produced flash flooding across northern Trempealeau and Jackson counties, washing out roads and damaging homes and businesses in Osseo and Eleva. A state of emergency was declared for both counties with damages of more than $2 million.

Aug. 11, 2016: Repeated rounds of thunderstorms moved across western Wisconsin, triggering flash floods in parts of Buffalo and Trempealeau counties. Five families were displaced, residents of Independence were evacuated, numerous roads were damaged and stranded residents had to be rescued in Gilmanton. Damages were estimated at $5.7 million, much of it in Mondovi.

Aug. 23-24, 2016: Repeated rounds of storms moved across northeast Iowa on the night of Aug. 23, producing flash flooding in five counties. One person drowned when his/her car was swept off the road in Chickasaw County, and two people were rescued from a cabin near Lansing, while parts of Decorah were evacuated because of rapidly rising waters on the Upper Iowa River. A state disaster declaration was issued for Allamakee, Chickasaw, Clayton, Fayette, Floyd, Howard, Mitchell and Winneshiek counties. Damages totaled about $7.3 million.

Sept. 20-21, 2016: Heavy rains drench southeastern Wisconsin, triggering mudslides and flash floods in Adams, Clark, Crawford, Monroe, Richland, Vernon and Trempealeau counties. One man was killed when his home in Victory was swept down a hillside, and another Vernon County man drowned when he drove through floodwaters while attempting to rescue his cattle. A freight train derailed near Ferryville when the roadbed was washed away. Several people had to be rescued, and roads were washed out across the area. Dozens of homes and businesses were destroyed and dozens more damaged. Total damages were estimated at $22 million, more than half of it in Vernon County.

July 19-20, 2017: More than 7 inches of rain fell within about 12 hours over parts of southwestern Wisconsin, triggering flash flooding, mudslides, and sinkholes.
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Corinne was born in Oak Park, Ill., on Palm Sunday, March 29, 1931, in a blizzard. She was the daughter of the late Eric G. and Martha P. (nee Grumschlisch) Blomquist. On Dec. 21, 1953, she married Louis Uresk, DDS. While attending high school, Corinne taught music at Chicagos Hull House. Following high school, she went onto Wright Junior College, where she earned an Associates degree in 1950. Later, she earned her Bachelors degree from Northwestern University in 1952 and in 1954, she earned her Master degree, also from Northwestern University at the same ceremony when her husband earned his dental degree. Corinne was a music educator by profession. She taught elementary school string orchestra for a short time in Kenosha, Wis., prior to moving to Elgin. After starting and raising her family she joined her husbands dental practice as a dental assistant.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Rennie Sloan, rennie.sloan@cartercenter.org

ATLANTA...Carter Center CEO Ambassador (ret.) Mary Ann Peters is in Liberia from Aug. 15-21 to review Center health and peace programs and discuss program goals and progress with partners in government, civil society, and the international community. The Carter Center has been working to support peace, health, and democratic development with the people of Liberia for over two decades, Peters said. Being here with our program leaders and partners allows me to see our progress to support access to justice, access to information, mental health and the holding of peaceful elections. The Carter Center is committed to help secure a better future for all Liberians. Ambassador Peters is joined on this visit by leading program staff, including Carter Center Health Programs Vice President Dr. Dean Sienko.

###

"Waging Peace. Fighting Disease. Building Hope."

A not-for-profit, nongovernmental organization, The Carter Center has helped to improve life for people in over 80 countries by resolving conflicts; advancing democracy, human rights, and economic opportunity; preventing diseases; and improving mental health care. The Carter Center was founded in 1982 by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, in partnership with Emory University, to advance peace and health worldwide.
Starwood Property Trust, Inc. operates as a real estate investment trust (REIT) in the United States, Europe, and Australia. It operates through four segments: Commercial and Residential Lending, Infrastructure Lending, Property, and Investing and Servicing segments. The Commercial and Residential Lending segment originates, acquires, finances, and manages commercial first mortgages, non-agency residential mortgages, subordinated mortgages, mezzanine loans, preferred equity, commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS), and residential mortgage-backed securities, as well as other real estate and real estate-related debt investments, including distressed or non-performing loans. The Infrastructure lending segment originates, acquires, finances, and manages infrastructure debt investments. The Property segment engages primarily in acquiring and managing equity interests in stabilized commercial real estate properties, such as multifamily properties and commercial properties subject to net leases, that are held for investment. The Investing and Servicing segment manages and works out problem assets; acquires and manages unrated, investment grade, and non-investment grade rated CMBS comprising subordinated interests of securitization and re-securitization transactions; originates conduit loans for the primary purpose of selling these loans into securitization transactions; and acquires commercial real estate assets that include properties acquired from CMBS trusts. The company qualifies as a REIT for federal income tax purposes and would not be subject to federal corporate income taxes, if it distributes at least 90% of its taxable income to its stockholders. Starwood Property Trust, Inc. was incorporated in 2009 and is headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut.
Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. engages in designing, building, overhauling, and repairing military ships in the United States. It operates through three segments: Ingalls Shipbuilding, Newport News Shipbuilding, and Technical Solutions. The company is involved in the design and construction of non-nuclear ships comprising amphibious assault ships; expeditionary warfare ships; surface combatants; and national security cutters for the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard. It also provides nuclear-powered ships, such as aircraft carriers and submarines, as well as refueling and overhaul, and inactivation services of ships. In addition, the company offers naval nuclear support services, including fleet services comprising design, construction, maintenance, and disposal activities for in-service the U.S. Navy nuclear ships; and maintenance services on nuclear reactor prototypes. Further, it provides life-cycle sustainment services to the U.S. Navy fleet and other maritime customers; high-end information technology and mission-based solutions for Department of Defense (DoD), intelligence, and federal civilian customers; nuclear management and operations and environmental management services for the Department of Energy, DoD, state and local governments, and private sector companies; defense and federal solutions; and unmanned systems. Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. was founded in 1886 and is headquartered in Newport News, Virginia.
70 years after independence, the Indian Church faces opportunity

Today, August 15, India celebrates 70 years of independence.

It is a proud moment for the world's largest democracy. Though still a young democracy, the world should celebrate how far India has come.

In 1947, India was an impoverished, undeveloped country, grappling with the horrors and violence of the British Partition. Today, India boasts the fourth fastest-growing economy of the world. Revolutions in agriculture, technology and higher education in the past few decades have transformed the Indian economy, and the emergence of an educated civil society has propelled us forward on the world stage.

India has one of the most aspirational and youngest populations anywhere in the world  65 per cent of Indians are under the age of 35  and they're restless for more economic development and freedom.

Prime Minister Modi's rise to power can be largely credited to his ability to recognise and connect to the aspirations and dreams of the new India. The promise of economic development, mixed with a message of anti-government corruption, resonated powerfully with ordinary Indians.

India also stands as one of the most richly diverse nations in the world. We boast the world's second largest Muslim population and one of the oldest Christian communities. The wisdom of the founding fathers, namely Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and especially the great Dr. BR Ambedkar, gave us our constitution, which promises equality, justice and freedom for all.

However, despite progress under the present government, India is still beset by the persisting challenges of poverty, illiteracy, casteism, violence against women and communalism. On her 70th birthday, too many millions still live on less than one dollar a day and extremists remain focused on limiting freedom of expression.

For Prime Minister Modi and his followers, the question remains whether he will represent the best of Hinduism  as did Mahatma Gandhi and Swami Vivekananda, whom the prime minister quotes frequently  or if the extremist elements will extract their pound of flesh for supporting him politically and continue their divisive, casteist, anti-freedom and anti-capitalist agenda. We pray our prime minister will succeed in his developmental, all-inclusive agenda.

For the church in India, these challenges present a great opportunity to practically work out the good news of the Kingdom of God Jesus announced.

This begins by avoiding religious bigotry and aiming for peace among all faiths. India now more than ever needs peacemakers who will be called the sons and daughters of God, even as religious and caste violence emerges from time to time. The church must always fight for the unity and integrity of India whomever is in power.

The church must also reach with the unconditional love of Christ to those who are suffering, regardless of caste or religious background. In India, the poor have no access to quality English medium schools, medical care or employment and are often deprived of fundamental human rights. The rich have bought into the culture of materialism, and generosity is too rare in our culture. In a country where grueling poverty marks day to day life for millions of men, women and children, the church has both the mandate and opportunity to respond with generosity. The church can also assist the government in providing sustainable solutions to those in need.

Of all the oppressed people groups in India, I believe none suffers more than women. The church cannot ignore this. The abuse and violence against women is a blight on our entire world. How can a modern nation allow a 10-year-old to be raped every 13 hours? How is it that gang rapes of minors and young women are prevalent in various faith communities? India will be truly developed and free when her women are freed and equal, and have the rights not just in the Indian Constitution but that Jesus promised in the Kingdom of God. Thankfully, the Indian government is also moving step-by-step in the right direction on this issue having passed its first human trafficking law this year. The church too is focused on providing rehabilitative services to those in need.

In terms of Christian unity, the institutional church needs to accept there is a silent and increasing group of people from all backgrounds who have experienced personal faith in Jesus Christ. Their numbers now exceed the members within the institutional church, and I state this from my position as part of the institutional Anglican Church. I cannot afford to have a stepfather-like attitude to this movement of God.

This movement has not sprung up through coercion or forced or fraudulent means. Educated people of various backgrounds have found Jesus Christ. I've said to my friends in the Hindu right that even upper caste Brahmins and others have had spiritual encounters with Christ  like Sadhu Sundar Singh and Pandita Ramabai once did. I find these believers everywhere in my travels and work across India.

I do not think persecution will cause the demise of this silent movement. In fact, it will most likely cause it to grow more because of the spiritual power and dimensions of this phenomena. This is the kind of faith which throughout the centuries has emboldened Christians to lay down their lives for Jesus.

The spiritual dimension of the Holy Spirit's work cannot be explained away as mere religion. The numerical size of Indian Christians is greater than what the census figures tell us. In Tamil Nadu alone, the Pentecostal synod tells us that there are more than 50,000 Pentecostal Churches. The good citizenry of this church constituency is what led the state to abrogate the anti-conversion law that was passed by the late Chief Minister Jayalalithaa.

The unity of all those who honour and follow Jesus as Lord and Saviour is important not only for the health of the church but for India. The church can confidently say, 'Jesus and India first'. There is no contradiction between being a Christian and an Indian. As much as we should care for the poor of the world and injustice everywhere, Jesus wants us to care about our nation and people.

On this 70th anniversary of Indian independence, the church remains committed to showing God's love and hope for India.

Most Rev. Dr. Joseph D'Souza is the moderating bishop of the Good Shepherd Church and Associated Ministries of India. He also serves as the president of the All India Christian Council. He is the recipient of numerous awards and accolades for his work as a human rights activist. He is also the founder and international president of the Dalit Freedom Network. He can be reached at: moderator@gsoim.org.
Anglican Bishop launches scathing attack on 'lying, amoral' Donald Trump - and the 'Christian Right' for backing him

An Anglican Bishop has launched a scathing attack on the 'narcissistic amorality' of 'lying' Donald Trump, along withthe American 'Christian Right' for failing to recognise the president's traits before he was elected last November.

Nicholas Baines, the liberal-leaning Bishop of Leeds, launched his comprehensive assault on 'shameless' Trump and his evangelical backers in a blog post written in the wake of the violence carried out by white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, which Trump initially failed specifically to condemn.

But the blog, entitled, 'We won't get fooled again: Trump, Charlottesville and the American Dream' goes broader than the clashes over the weekend, to chart Trump's 'consistent' positions on domestic areas and international ones including North Korea, Russia and Nato.

Bishop Baines issues blame on what he calls the 'Christian Right' for failing to see the disastrous presidency coming.

'It appears that many Americans regret having voted for Donald Trump. Apparently, they believed his promises of magic restoration of greatness without asking questions of his empty rhetoric,' Baines writes.

'His misogyny, amorality, financial track record, sexual behaviour, narcissism and nepotism (to name but a few of the obvious challenges) would have ruled out the candidacy of any other semi-reputable politician for the Presidency of the United States of America. His subsequent lying, shamelessness, vindictiveness and inhabiting of some "alternative reality" (in which things that happened didn't happen and things that didn't happen did happen; in which things he said he didn't say and things he didn't say he did say) cannot have come as a disappointing revelation to anyone with half a brain or ears to hear.

'His espousal of the alt-right has not come as news. His condemnation of anyone and anything he sees as a challenge to himself ([former President Barack] Obama, for instance) is weighed against his silence in the face of inconvenient truth or facts.

'Yet, none of this is a surprise. It was all there to be seen before he was elected. How on earth did the Christian Right even conceive of the possibility of backing a man who can't put a sentence together and who epitomises narcissistic amorality? If Hillary Clinton couldn't be trusted because of her handling of an email server (or because Americans had had enough of political dynasties), by what stretch of moral imagination could Trump have been thought of as a cleaner, brighter alternative? To which base values did he appeal?'

Baines argues that Trump is in fact 'the most consistent politician America has seen', adding: 'Nothing that is happening now  the testosterone competition with North Korea's leader, NATO, Russia, for example  is new or surprising. It was all there to be seen. Either it was seen and approved of (which says something of the moral sense of the people who voted for him) or something blinded good people to the reality of what was put before them.'

Turning to Charlottesville, Baines says that the 'brazen impunity' of the white supremacists there 'is only possible because the fascists believe they can get away with it  or might even get approval from the top'.

Baines adds that 'there are moments in history where a tipping point is reached and it matters that people stand up and challenge the danger. This is one of them. Charlottesville is only one (relatively small) town in an enormous country, and most of the USA will have been as horrified as the rest of us at what they witnessed this weekend; but, the images coming out of this one place become iconic of a deeper malaise. People are right to look for consistency in the rampant condemnations and criticisms of their President in his favoured medium Twitter. If he damns Islamic terrorists and wet liberals for their actions, we can expect him to damn right-wing militias and neo-Nazi criminals when they walk his streets and drive cars into ordinary people. Silence.'

Baines concludes by praising those Christians who have condemned the violence in Charlottesville, before challenging the Republican party to 'stand up' against the Trump regime.

'As a Christian leader, not oblivious to similar challenges here (consider the acceptability of multiple lies during the Brexit campaign and the brazen impunity of those who told them), I applaud my brothers and sisters in the USA who stand against the corruptions described above,' he writes. 'I am proud that Christians (among many others) stood against the wickednesses of Charlottesville. But, I remain incredulous that evangelical Christian leaders, Bible in hand, can remain supportive of the President and administration that is corrupting their country. When will the Republican Party take responsibility, stop wringing their hands, and stand against this regime that will be able to do little without their support?'
Dad gunned down in front of his three kids as he entered Chicago church for the Sunday morning service

Members of Friendship Baptist Church of Chicago were in the middle of a hymn when they heard gunshots and the three frantic sons of 34-year-old usher Emmanuel Fleming burst through the church's large wooden doors. Their father, however, did not make it. Gunmen shot him and a visitor dead on the steps of the church on Sunday morning.

Eyewitnesses said one of the boys repeatedly screamed "I want my dad!" even as church members and other cowered for their lives.

"They were on their way up the steps to the church, and two gentlemen ran up from Jackson (Boulevard) and basically unloaded on them," the Rev. Reginald Bachus, the church's pastor, told the Chicago Tribune.

"It's just hard for me to believe that something like this could happen on a Sunday morning," he said. "Two young men on their way to church. ... I think that's the hardest part for me to grasp."

Police identified the murdered visitor as Michael Swift, 46. The shooting took place at approximately 11:15 a.m.

"The victims were going to church; two individuals came up and fired their weapons, striking the individuals," Deputy Chief Al Nagode of the Chicago Police Department told the Tribune.

The gunmen then sped off in a silver or gray SUV, Nagode said.

"We are extremely close with our faith-based organizations over there," he added. "It certainly is a troubled area, and we dedicate a tremendous amount of resources to it ... in an attempt to help the community out in any way we can."

All of Flemings' three boys are under age 10. They were baptized at the church where their father was killed. The last thing he told them was to run inside and take shelter from the bullets.

Bruno Carter, a church member from Humboldt Park, who witnessed the ordeal from just outside the church, told the Tribune that the suspected perpetrators had bandanas across their faces.

"The kids were partially in the door, and they heard the gunfire and their father was telling them to get in," Carter said.

Both Fleming and Swift tried to take cover behind a retaining wall but it wasn't enough to protect them.

"It seems like the more people march and carry signs  and the more churches bind together to say 'Stop the violence'  the more they disregard it and just continue to kill," Carter said.

The Christian Post reached out to Friendship Baptist Church on Monday for further comment but there was no answer. The church has been in existence for more than 100 years, according to its website.

Reacting to the shooting on Monday, city, state and faith leaders came together to condemn the shooting.

"When this cycle of violence reaches the doorsteps of a church, we are really in trouble," Chicago Police Commander Dwayne Betts said.

Bachus stated, "There should be a sanctuary from violence, and I believe that the church should be one of those sanctuaries, and yesterday we had the unfortunate incident happen here, two young men on their way to worship, one with three young sons between 6 and 10 years old, who had to witness their father being gunned down and it's time for us to make a change in our city."

This article was originally published in The Christian Post.
Honduras missionary 'shot dead' by biker who desperately tries to flee after his escape bike fails to start

A young missionary was shot dead in Honduras with his alleged killer forced to run away on foot after his escape bike failed to start.

Jonathan Ernesto Ordonez, 27, was fatally shot five times on his way home from church.

Witnesses alleged the killer drove over to him, pulled a gun out and shot time, before trying to flee the scene.

But video footage captured at the time shows the apparent assailant struggling to get his bike restarted before grabbing his victim's rucksack which was full of Bibles. When his bike fails to start he instead pushes it and runs up the road.

The harrowing footage was posted onto social media with police appealing for information.

Officers have since confirmed they have arrested a 39-year-old man named Wilmer Leonel Sierra on suspicion of murder, according to the Daily Mail.

Police said he has a criminal record with convictions for homicides, drug trafficking and making threats to kill.

An investigation is ongoing.

Honduras is one of the world's most dangerous countries and the Church, which is influential in the largely Catholic country, is frequently targeted by gangs and violent crime.
Hundreds of Christians who secretly converted in Iran seek asylum in Turkey, claiming persecution

Some 500 Christian converts from Iran have sought asylum in Turkey following persecution by the authorities, according to the Middle Eastern news website Rudaw.

Rudaw published a video from Van in Turkey, close to the Iranian border, in which Kurdish Christian converts refused to appear on camera or reveal their names, with one man and his family who converted to Christianity from Islam saying that they used to practise their faith in secret.

In Iran, 'there is not an accurate figure to say how many people have become Christians because everything is secret,' he said. 'When a Muslim converts to Christianity, they do so in secret. Rituals are secret since they are in danger...ours was secret, too.'

Another young man who converted only after he arrived in Van said that he did not think he could be the person he wanted to be if he remained Muslim. He added that he is now feeling 'comfortable' as a Christian.

And another said Iran is punishing many Kurds with the death penalty, although many of them share the same religion.

He claimed that hundreds of Kurdish youth in Iran have abandoned Islam and embraced Christianity.

'I changed my religion because I did not see anything in Islam. Whatever I saw was wrong,' he said.

'It is a fact that the government of Iran is an Islamic one, yet our youth are getting executed. In Iraq the same,' he continued. 'There is ISIS and [they] are killing people in the name of Islam, and there are vulnerable people who are being beheaded there. They have fled to Turkey, and we came to Turkey. That is why I did not see any good from Islam.'

According to Rudaw, there are around 1,500 Kurdish asylum seekers in Van, some of whom cite political, ethnic, or cultural reasons as their reasons to leave Iran, alongside the nearly 500 of them who have converted to Christianity.

The majority of those who spoke to Rudaw said they wanted to go to the US, Canada or Europe.

The majority of Iranian Kurds follow Sunni Islam, while the majority in Iran are Shiites.

Open Doors USA says that Iran considers Christianity to be a 'western influence', adding: 'Converts to Christianity from Islam make up the largest group of Christians and experience the most persecution.'

The Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Tehran, Ramzi Garmou, told AFP in December that people are grateful that they live in peace in the country as opposed to the rest of the Middle East.

'Thanks to God, we really live in peace and security, but our neighbours live in anguish and violence,' he said.
Liverpool church accused of running 'gay cure' therapies in undercover sting

A church in Liverpool is being accused of running 'gay cure' therapies after being targeted by an undercover investigation.

The Mountain of Fire and Miracle Ministry was found to offer prayers and counselling to help a reporter from the Liverpool Echo posing as a gay member of the public wanting healing.

The church's assistant pastor, known only as 'Brother Michael', told Josh Parry he would have to 'humble his soul' by fasting without food or water for 24 hours and the therapy would 'allow him to marry and have children'.

Describing homosexuality as a 'deceit from Satan', Parry was told people 'chose' to be gay.

He attended a prayer session and a one-to-one counselling session where Brother Michael said: 'You cannot be saying God gave you your penis and make it a rod, and now he created another thing like a hole that it fit properly into it.

'So for you to have a penis, it means you are a man. That is the way you are created.

'I will say one thing as well, you say all these things about "I'm feeling I'm confused about my sexuality".

'Thank God you say that you are looking for deliverance because you have got your deliverance.'

The Mountain of Fire and Miracle Ministries was orgininally founded in Nigeria in 1989 and has thousands of branches around the world including 90 in the UK.

When contacted for a response, the Liverpool branch's senior pastor, Dr Desmond Sanusi, said Brother Michael was not acting under his guidance and insisted the church does not discriminate.

'If you come to the church to come and pray to come and know god better you are welcome. We don't discriminate against people,' he said.

'It's been running for over 20 years and nobody has dropped dead.'

Christian Today contacted the national church's headquarters and was told they are looking into the matter but declined to give further details.

It comes weeks after the Church of England passed a resolution condemning conversion therapy as 'unethical, harmful and has no place in the modern world'.

In doing so the CofE became a co-signatory to a statement from several professional bodies including the UK Council for Psychotherapy and The Royal College of General Practitioners that says: 'Sexual orientations and gender identities are not mental health disorders, although exclusion, stigma and prejudice may precipitate mental health issues for any person subjected to these abuses.'
Mother jailed in Eritrean crackdown on Christians dies in prison

A Christian mother arrested during a government crackdown against evangelicals in Eritrea died in jail last week.

Fikadu Debesay was imprisoned alongside her husband in May, but died last week in the desert camp of Metkel Abiet, in Eritrea's Northern Red Sea Region, according to Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW). Her cause of death is unknown, though the region of her camp is known for its punishing heat.

Debesay was arrested in May during raids targeting evangelical Christians in the town of Adi Quala, as part of a crackdown against unsanctioned churches across Eritrea.

CSW chief executive Mervyn Thomas said: 'Our thoughts and prayers are with her family at this painful time. We think particularly of her children, who are mourning their mother in the absence of their detained father, and of the other children whose parent or parents are unjustly incarcerated.'

The government crackdown goes back to May 2002, when the state essentially banned religious practices not associated with the Catholic, Evangelical Lutheran and Orthodox Christian denominations or Sunni Islam. Since May this year, as many as 210 Christians have reportedly been detained, with 23 Christians rounded up just in the first week of August.

The harsh prison conditions are said to have cause a mental breakdown for one woman detained in June.

Thomas added: 'It is alarming to note that conditions and treatment in detention are so inhumane that they can cause a mental breakdown. Clearly, human rights and fundamental freedoms continue to be violated comprehensively in Eritrea, and the situation of freedom of religion or belief is deteriorating. Once again we urge the international community to ensure that the government and its officials are made to account for the crimes perpetrated against Eritrean citizens, and to maintain pressure on the regime until every prisoner of conscience is freed without precondition.'

This week Eritrean Catholic priest and government critic Father Mussie Zerai, who has been responsible for saving thousands of lives of migrants in the Mediterranean, described a 'war against migrants in the Mediterranean'. He was protesting against a ban by Tripoli's government on NGO rescue ships operating closer than 97 miles from the African coast, according to ANSAmed.

Zerai is a vocal opponent of the Eritrean government and its treatment of its citizens, and was in 2015 nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. He has come under scrutiny recently after being accused of illegally sending information about boats and landings to NGO refugee rescue ships. He said that he has always acted in full legality and that his 'interventions are aimed at saving human lives'.
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After leaving the White House in January 2017, Barack Obama and his family set out to do what all newly retired presidents have donego back home, or find a new one. In Obamas case, though, the new residence is in Washington, D.C. At first, the Obamas presented their choice as temporarythey wanted to let their younger daughter, Sasha, finish high school in Washington, they saidbut their purchase of an 8,200-square-foot, $8 million mansion suggests a permanent stay. Obamas postpresidency is thus shaping up to be virtually unique in American history: rather than departing Washington, he is planting his flag there, establishing, in effect, a shadow presidency.

Obamas move breaks with long-standing precedent. Conscious of threats to the safe transfer of executive power in the young republic, Americas early presidents departed Washington on the expiration of their terms. After relinquishing his commission as general following victory over the British, George Washington was compared with Cincinnatus, the retired Roman general who assumed emergency powers, saved Rome, and then returned to his plow. Washington repeated his valiant act when he declined a third term as presidentGarry Wills calls him a virtuoso of resignationsand set the standard for future executives by going home when his political work was done.

The American ideal of a president is essentially republican: a citizen steps forward to serve the government and returns to private life when his term is up. Washingtons diaries and correspondence of 1797 are consumed with matters of housekeeping, husbandry, and accounts. Mount Vernon had gone to seed, and Washington was forced to shore up his personal finances. Though he stayed abreast of national events and voiced his opinions to his associates, he stayed out of the affairs of government; keeping a safe physical distance from the capital reinforced that resolution.

Following Washingtons model, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe each returned to their farms, in varying degrees of insolvency. True, John Quincy Adams, finding retirement dull, soon returned to public service as a congressman, a role he embraced and thrived in, but his ambitions were not imperial. Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren went home, too, when their terms in the White House were finished.

In the modern era, only one other former president remained in Washington after his term of office ended. Stroke victim Woodrow Wilson took up residence on S Streetjust a few blocks away from the Obamas new Kalorama home. But Wilson was an invalidindeed, he spent the last 18 months of his presidency in seclusion, with his wife largely managing the affairs of state. Unlike Obama, he was in no position to assert his postpresidential authority or impose himself as a presence on the national stage.

Harry Truman retired to Missouri, broke, in 1953. Dwight Eisenhower retired to Gettysburg, eight years later. In 1969, Lyndon Johnson lit his first cigarette in 15 years, telling his daughters, Ive now raised you girls. Ive now been president. Now its my time! He went to his ranch, grew a ponytail, and died within three years. Richard Nixon skulked off to California and reengineered himself as a statesman, Gerald Ford made himself rich, and Jimmy Carter became a professional humanitarian. Ronald Reagan rode off into the sunset. George H. W. Bush splits his time between Houston and Maine; his son George W., a full-time Texan, paints. Bill Clinton arguably broke the mold through his efforts to install his wife as president, but even that ambitious enterprise was centered in New York, not Washington.

True, some ex-presidents have plotted returns to office. When Grover Cleveland left the White House in 1889, his wife, Frances, told a staff member to keep everything in place because she and her husband would be returning in four years. They did. But Cleveland was an outlier. (Hes also the only president to serve two nonconsecutive terms.)

Traditionally, former presidents gave their successors a lengthy grace period, during which they refrained from critiquing them: George W. Bush waited until 2015 before criticizing Obamas foreign policy. By contrast, Obama, only two weeks after Donald Trumps November victory, announced that he would take on the new president if necessary. Necessity arose quickly: Obama held a conference call that month with staff members of his social welfare nonprofit Organizing for Action, the successor organization to his Obama for America campaign. The ex-president told the depressed troops to get over it and move forward. Ten days after leaving office, Obama said that he was heartened by anti-Trump protests. Now, recent news reports indicate that Obama is planning a return to the national stage as soon as this Fall, and that he wants to take an "active role" in running the Democratic Party.

Obamas new home in Washington has been described as the nerve center of the anti-Trump opposition. Former attorney general Eric Holder has said that Obama is ready to roll and has aligned himself with the resistance. Former high-level Obama campaign staffers now work with a variety of groups organizing direct action against Trumps initiatives. Resistance School, for example, features lectures by former campaign executive Sara El-Amine, author of the Obama Organizing Handbook. Former White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina runs Organizing for Action.

Obama and his affiliated organizations are not addressing broadly humanistic policy goals, in the model of the Carter Center or even the Clinton Global Initiative. Rather, Obama is the spearhead of a movement seeking to obstruct the administration of his successor. By establishing himself so visibly within the nations capital, Obama is effectively turning the postpresidencyup to now, a venerable, if vague, institutioninto something more ominous.

Photo by Alexander Scheuber/Getty Images
The Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art has said that Erica Bolton has stood down from its board.

Bolton is also a director and trustee of Kids Company and is currently facing being banned from holding company directorships.

The Insolvency Service recently wrote to all of Kids Companys trustees to tell them that the Business Secretary intends to bring court proceedings to ban them from being company directors for up to six years.

The Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art is also registered with Companies House.

It is a London arts charity which runs exhibitions and education programmes to showcase the work of leading contemporary, as well as young international, artists.

Bolton became a trustee in 2010 and the charity has confirmed to Civil Society News that she has stood down, although she is still listed as a trustee on the Charity Commissions register and as an active director at Companies House.

A spokeswoman said: Erica Bolton, a trustee of the board of Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art since 2010, has resigned. As a board member she always acted in the best interest of foundation and was extremely generous. We thank Erica Bolton for her many contributions and wish her well in her future endeavours.

Two other Kids Company trustees, Alan Yentob and Handover, are listed as trustees of the Arena Foundation and Dauntseys School respectively. Both charities have been approached and not responded.

Handover was also the chair of Power to Change, a grantmaker endowed by the Big Lottery Fund to support community businesses, from its inception in 2014 until September 2015.




Total income from legacies has dropped by 1.1 per cent in the 12 months to June according to the latest bulletin from Legacy Foresight.

Figures released by charity legacy consortium Legacy Foresight show that the income of its 83 members fell by 1.1 per cent in the 12 month period to June 2017, down to 1.41bn. Legacy Foresight said its members income grew strongly in the first half of 2016 but incomes flattened off and have now fallen slightly since last summer.

It said that weakening markets meant overall legacy income had fallen despite climbing death rates, which it said would help sustain overall legacy incomes in the near future.

Climbing death rates continue to boost legacy numbers, which rose by 3.2 per cent in the past 12 months. These additional bequests will pay out over the next 18 months, helping to sustain overall legacy incomes.

The organisations bulletin blamed flagging house prices and jittery stock markets for affecting average residential values  with the average residual bequest values falling 3.7 per cent in the year to June 2017 to 57,000.

This was down from a record high of 59,100 in the year to June 2016 - the period leading up to the European Union referendum.

Legacy Foresight also said that most commentators expect the British economy to slow significantly over the next two to three years while the finer details of the Brexit deal are thrashed out, which is likely to negatively affect legacy income growth.

It predicted that, based on its market research, overall legacy income would grow by 2.7 per p.a. over the next five years  considerably slower than in recent years, but growth nonetheless.

This years Legacy Monitor programme benchmarked 83 charities who together account for 53 per cent of the legacy market, according to Legacy Foresight.
Charities with investment managers trading in investments or acting on their behalf may need to obtain an LEI code before 3 January 2018. Amanda Francis, managing partner at Buzzacott, explains what charities need to know.

What is an LEI?

An LEI is a unique 20-character alphanumeric code that identifies distinct legal entities (including charities) that engage in financial transactions, including transactions in listed investments. It is an international identifier and is not limited to the United Kingdom. The code is entered on a global database. It enables any legal entity that is party to a financial transaction such as buying and selling listed investments to be identified in any jurisdiction.

Legal entities in almost 200 countries are now required to have an LEI. From 3 January 2018 UK investment managers will not be able to execute investment transactions on behalf of clients who do not have a LEI.

Because the code is an international requirement, a Charity Registration Number or any other form of UK identifier do not qualify as alternatives.

Why are LEIs required and why are they important?

The LEI system was developed by the G20 group of countries in an attempt to reduce financial risk, limit tax evasion and other financial misconduct. The system seeks to identify, by means of a unique identity code, all organisations that are trading in financial investments so that their financial transactions can be tracked across different national jurisdictions and borders. This helps to ensure that such transactions are legal and that tax is being deducted by the relevant tax authorities when and where payable. More importantly, it helps governments and financial institutions to assess and manage the exposure of UK organisations to international debt and financial risk in the event of a crisis such as the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

What do you need to do?

If you are a charity that wishes your investment managers to trade in investments or continue to act on your behalf, you may need to obtain an LEI code before 3 January 2018. Before doing anything, you should check with your investment manager as to whether you need a code or not. If your investment manager manages a segregated portfolio of stocks and shares on your behalf, you will probably need one. You will only need to apply for one unique code regardless of how many investment managers you have.

Many investment managers are contacting their clients now to arrange for the codes to be obtained. Some investment managers will apply and obtain the code on behalf of their clients whereas others are asking their clients to obtain a code directly. If your investment manager offers to obtain an LEI for you, this may be far easier than applying for one yourself!

If your investment manager requires you to obtain a code directly, the easiest way of doing this is through the London Stock Exchange Group at www.lseg.com . Instructions as to how to go about doing this can be found here.

Is there a cost to obtaining an LEI?

Inevitably the answer is yes. The initial cost to apply for an LEI is 115 plus VAT. Thereafter, there will be an annual renewal fee of 70 plus VAT per annum. Renewal will be via the London Stock Exchange Group again unless your investment manager has agreed to do this on your behalf.

What information will you need when applying for an LEI?

Applications can be made on-line and your charitys name, address and certain supporting data and documents will need to be provided. Charitable trusts, for example, are likely to need to provide their trust deeds as part of the application. The London Stock Exchange aims to turn around applications in one to three working days.

Why act?

The global crisis of 2007/08 highlighted the need for an international system of identifying risk from the collapse of financial institutions and to assess financial stability. The system of LEIs applies to legal entities such as governmental bodies, companies and charities. While it may be seen as yet another piece of bureaucracy, it is an important step forward in managing global financial risk.

Charities with investment portfolios should contact their investment managers as soon as possible to ascertain whether or not they need an LEI and whether or not they need to apply directly for one or whether the manager will do so on their behalf.

Civil Society wishes to thank Buzzacott for its support with this article

Amanda Francis is managing partner at Buzzacott
Its not often that The Blade in Toledo, Ohio, takes an all-hands-on-deck approach to a national story rooted in a city nearly 550 miles away. But it happened this week.

A large rally of white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, turned deadly on Saturday, when a man in a Dodge Challenger drove into a crowd of counter-protesters. One woman was killed, and at least 19 others were injured. Back at the historic Blade building in Toledo, a sharp-eyed copyeditor named Tommy Gallagher, who also helps out on the photo desk, was looking at early images from Charlottesville and readying them for publication. What he saw stopped him short. Not only did the car that drove through the crowd in Virginia have an Ohio license plate, but, Gallagher noticed after blowing up the image, the registration tag bore the number 48. That meant it was registered in Lucas County, where Toledo is the county seat.

Gallagher alerted the Web desk. There werent many staffers in the newsroomit was a sleepy weekend shiftbut reporters were pulled in for overtime, including one who left an out-of-town bachelors party to make an abrupt road trip to Virginia. The Blade soon had original coverage not only from Toledo, where it scored a much-cited interview with the drivers mother, but also from Charlottesville, Bowling Green, Ohio, and Florence, Kentucky, where the driver grew up. Local reporting proved essential to the burgeoning national narrative, and the Blade was also able to bring a big, multi-faceted story to local readers.

ICYMI: The outrageous editorial by a Charlottesville daily that preceded violence

But first, they had to figure out who the driver was. I put three reporters on it immediately, and they were searching everywhere, says Dave Murray, the Blades managing editor. Through voter and vehicle registration records, he says, the Blade found that the car was registered in the name of James Fields, Jr., with an address in Maumee, a southern suburb of Toledo.

Hours before police announced Fieldss arrest and released his mugshot, Lauren Lindstrom, ordinarily a health reporter, was in Maumee to knock on doors. She felt cautious about misidentifying the driverthere had already been at least one social media-fed misidentification, and she was alert to the fact that the vehicle being registered in Fieldss name didnt necessarily mean that hed driven it. She wondered if there would be a police presence around Fieldss address, but there wasnt. But her questions to neighbors on the small cul-de-sac where the car was registered didnt bring much clarity.

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Lindstrom was ready return to the newsroom when she saw the garage door open at the address she believed was Fieldss. Alongside reporters from the Associated Press and Advance Digital, Inc., she hurried over to a woman who was getting out of a car. The woman turned out to be Fieldss mother, returning home from dinner. It quickly became clear that she hadnt heard about the events in Charlottesville.

Its very weird, Lindstrom says. For anyone whos covered victims families, tragedy victims, or [people connected to] perpetrators, youre almost [never] the first person to get to them. It puts you in a very unusual position.

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The tearful interview was brief, but revealing. Besides confirming Fieldss presence in Charlottesville, it also provided critical details: that he and his mother had moved to Maumee from northern Kentucky, that Fields had recently moved to his own apartment nearby, and that the police had not yet contacted Fieldss mother. This is also the only interview on record with Fieldss mother, who quickly excused herself and subsequently stopped talking with media altogether. A sheriffs deputy is now stationed outside her house to keep all visitors at a distance, Lindstrom says.

The Blade interview has been widely cited by national news outlets, bolstered by video Lindstrom captured on her cell phone. It gave a human face to the accuseds side of a grim breaking news story. I think it shows the benefit of local news, Lindstrom says. Were the hometown paper, and we were the ones on the ground. We were able to get there quickly.

The Toledo team didnt leave it at that. Before midnight, a senior editor and I talked by phone and I said, I want someone in Charlottesville, Murray says. After learning from Fieldss mother that they had only lived in Ohio for a year, he also wanted to send someone to Fieldss hometown in Kentucky.

That led to a second revealing interview by crime reporter Allison Reamer, which has also been widely credited in the national press. Reamer spoke to Fieldss high school social studies teacher, who described how Fields developed Nazi sympathies as a student. It was never aggressive, it was never a threatening situation, the teacher told Reamer in an interview that was also captured on video. As much as I could, I tried to counter his views. I tried to relate historical situations to the current world that we live in. When he learned of the charges against Fields, his first feeling, he told Reamer, was I failed, we failed.

On Monday, Reamer also reported that Fieldss mother had repeatedly called Kentucky law enforcement for help with her sons violent episodes. In one instance, she locked herself in the bathroom to get away from him.

Ryan Dunn, the Blade crime reporter who went to Charlottesville, heard about the breaking news while at a weekend-long bachelors party near Athens, Ohio. Dunn got a call at about 10:30 pm Saturday, asking if he could drive to Virginia early the next morning. He said yes. It was just clear. I was more taken by surprise, pleasantly so, that we were going to be so involved in covering this. Dunns friends laid out a makeshift bed of pillows for him on the floor of a side room, where he tried to catch some sleep before making the long drive.

By early the next day, he was in Charlottesville, doing spot interviews, and collecting photo and video. Leaving from Athens, rather than Toledo, cut about three hours off his traveling time, Murray says. We got a couple lucky breaks.

Figuring that much of the granular aftermath of the incident would be well covered by other reporters in Charlottesville, Dunn felt free to take a more feature-oriented approach, and to fill his Twitter feed with what he was seeing and hearing on the ground.

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I suppose it just reinforces to me that there is a strong local angle to pretty much every national story, Dunn says. I was really happy see datelines in the Blade and know that they are not just a rewritten brief or wire story, but that they represent reporters who were [actually] there.

Locally, the Blade spread out. It usually has one reporter in the newsroom on Sundays; this Sunday, it had four, with the city editor coordinating coverage. One reporter, Nolan Rosenkrans, reported from a nearby rally in support of Charlottesville. Another, Jennifer Feehan, wrote about the FBI interviewing Fieldss mother and how the Toledo area [is] no stranger to KKK, Nazi rallies. Murray was checking in, as was Editor in Chief and Publisher John Block, who was on his way back from a vacation in Nantucket. There were more local dispatches on Monday, including news that Fields, who had been living in a Toledo apartment complex since April, had been fired from his job as a private security guard in the wake of the Charlottesville charges. The Blades editorial page also weighed in, reflecting on what made James Fields possible?

We are a newspaper known for our local and breaking news coverage, and were ready to jump on a big story if theres a local angle, Murray says, adding with a laugh: I hope theres no big police news in Toledo right now because both our police reporters are gone, in Charlottesville and Kentucky.

Lindstrom and Murray both credited the Blades track record of fine breaking news coverage to a team that works well together. Editors and reporters were in communication almost constantly, Lindstrom says. Did you see this? and Can I help you file a FOIA remotely because youre on a phone and I have a laptop? and Can I relay something to an editor?

Its probably harder to do this now than 10 years ago, because the paper has a smaller staff, she adds. But when we suddenly realized this would be a national story with wall-to-wall coverage, we were able to have a piece of that and take ownership over it.

Murray echoes that. This just reconfirms for me that if news happens, we have to jump on it and jump on it quick. Dont hold back, and if it takes us out of the area, go. Go where the news is. Theres no reason we cant get in a car and cover a big story that has an impact on readers here.

ICYMI: If youre telling me his secrets, youre probably telling him mine. Now I know never to trust you.

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Anna Clark is a journalist in Detroit. Her writing has appeared in ELLE Magazine, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Next City, and other publications. Anna edited A Detroit Anthology, a Michigan Notable Book, and she was a 2017 Knight-Wallace journalism fellow at the University of Michigan. She is the author of The Poisoned City: Flints Water and the American Urban Tragedy, published by Metropolitan Books, an imprint of Henry Holt. She is online at www.annaclark.net and on Twitter @annaleighclark.
ON AUGUST 10, the Charlottesville Daily Progress published an editorial in anticipation of a rally that attracted hundreds of white nationalists, neo-Nazis, neo-Confederates, and racistsmany of them armedto the recently renamed Emancipation Park.

More than once, the editorial asks, How did we get here?

By way of an answer, the Daily Progress editorial board assigned responsibility. The editorials headline urged a lone city councilorVice Mayor Wes Bellamyto speak up now to calm [a] raging fire. Bellamy, who is the only black person on the City Council and who was elected in 2015 with a greater number of votes than any other candidate, organized a press conference in Emancipation Park last year and called for the removal of the Lee statue.

He was not the first councilor to consider such an action; councilor Kristin Szakos mentioned the idea in 2013, before Bellamy publicly announced his candidacy. But Szakos is never named in the editorial.

ICYMI: A copyeditor was looking at early Charlottesville images. While doing so, he made a big realization.

The editorial suggests that Bellamys call to remove the statue of Lee attracted the attention of a now dedicated foe, Jason Kesslera Charlottesville resident and erstwhile Daily Caller writer who tried to have Bellamy removed from city council and, through that work, became known in the alt-right community. Kessler organized the Unite the Right rally and applied for the permits to hold it in Emancipation Park.

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The Progress, however, argued that Bellamy is largely responsible for a conflagration that continues to escalate. It puts the blame on Bellamy for Kesslers actions.

1/ Wow. As Nazis gather to march on Charlottesville @DailyProgress blames target of racism, @ViceMayorWesB, for it.  SivaVaidhyanathan (@sivavaid) August 10, 2017

Just days before hundreds of white nationalists, neo-Nazis, neo-Confederates, and racists walked across the grounds of the University of Virginia carrying lit torchesand before a Hitler-fixated man was charged with murder and malicious wounding after he drove a car into a group of protestersCharlottesvilles daily newspaper argued that Vice Mayor Wes Bellamy had dropped a match on a gas field.

Alongside its inept assignation of blame, the Progress editorial equivocates. We observe that the feelings of a majority of our community lie somewhere between the impassioned protesters presented in the newsKu Klux Klan on one side, Standing Up for Racial Justice on the other, the editorial board writesas though the Klan were a civil rights organization. (The second group is actually called Showing Up for Racial Justice.) The name Emancipation Park does not appear in the editorial, nor does the word race.

For 755 words, the unbylined editorial fixates on its authors myopic ideas of the park as separate fromand basically untouched byhistory.

The editorial ignores, or is ignorant of, context. Lee Park, as it was then known, and the Robert E. Lee equestrian statue have existed peacefully in downtown Charlottesville for over 90 years, opined the editorial board. Reports in The Daily Progress from its beginning reflect civic pride.

Those 90 years include Virginias history of Jim Crow laws, massive resistance to school integration, and an urban renewal program that razed a historically black Charlottesville neighborhood and displaced hundreds of its residents. That history brims with frustration, a desire for justice, and the threat of violence: In a 1958 story about massive resistance in Charlottesville, a New York Times reporter wrote, The possibility of violence, once a school is opened on a desegregated basis, nevertheless cannot be entirely ruled out.

Yet Virginias history of racial tension and legacy of systemic inequality never enters the frame of the editorial. For 755 words, the unbylined Progress editorial fixates on its authors myopic ideas of the park as separate fromand basically untouched byhistory. It disputes the meaning of the symbols around which the rally was organized; at one moment, the editorial refers to the park and the alleged white supremacy it represents.

The racial symbolism of Robert E. Lees Confederate legacy is recognized by countless Charlottesville residents, as well as by those city councilors who voted to remove the statue. That symbolism is also recognized by the white supremacists who want the Lee statue to stay in place. Rather than address that symbolism and the history that charges it, the Progresss editorial board isolated and then criticized a black man whose office requires him to voice the concerns of his constituents. How did we get here?

TRENDING: Photographer behind graphic Charlottesville image recounts near-death experience



CJR REACHED OUT TO Anita Shelburne, the Progress editorial page editor. Shelburne directed CJR to Progress publisher Rob Jiranek. (Disclosure: Jiranek was the publisher of C-VILLE Weekly, where I worked for years as a reporter and editor. We overlapped at C-VILLE for just a few weeks.) In an email, Jiranek wrote that he will be meeting the next two days with editorial staffwhich includes Shelburne and the Progresss news editor, Wes Hesterand advisors to discuss and plan our future columns. Jiranek invited questions from CJR, which he said he would consider, but said he may not be able to provide answers before CJRs deadline.

I believe our editorial of the 10th conveys our view pretty clearly, wrote Jiranek, so its my hope that it stands as written.

CJR provided Jiranek with a list of 10 questions about the editorial and the newspapers perspectives on race. In addition to questions about the Progresss editorial practices and its hope for the editorial itself, CJR posed the following questions:

Why does the Progress apportion responsibility to Bellamy?

Does the Progress see any problem or contradiction in attributing responsibility to Bellamy, but not to people who coordinated and participated in the Unite the Right rally?

How does the Progress respond to the allegations of racism directed at the paper following this editorial?

What is the responsibility of the Daily Progress for providing historical context when publishing an editorial about a fractious and divisive symbol?

Is it the position of the Daily Progress or its editorial board that Charlottesville is not a racially divided community, and has not been during the past 90 years?

Jiranek replied an hour later. He wrote that the Progresss editorial advisory board meets every other week, and this editorial fell during the interim between meetings. Otherwise, Jiranek declined to answer CJRs questions.

Were very focused on our ongoing coverage of the Charlottesville events, and we need to maintain that focus, wrote Jiranek. He invited CJR to stay tuned to our coverage and upcoming editorials as I think that will help you understand.

By focusing on Bellamy, Charlottesvilles daily newspaper absolves itself of many of its own responsibilities.

The Progress has published two editorials since the rally. The first attributes the violence of August 12 to outsiders. The violence that erupted here today was imported, wrote the editorial board. It was pushed upon us. The second briefly praises a few state and local elected officials for their efforts to condemn the hatemongers and to sustain the cause of right-thinking. Among those praised is Wes Bellamy, the target of the Progresss first editorialvalued now, it would appear, for the work that the Progress condemned him for.

TRENDING: It is time to stop using the term alt right

AS WRITTEN, THE DAILY PROGRESS editorial singles out a black public official and criticizes him for a perspective on a public monument that is shared by thousands of Charlottesville residentsmany of whom might offer an answer to questions like How did we get here, if their newspaper only asked them. Whether those residents will feel able to trust the Progress after last weeks editorial is another question.

CJR contacted Bellamy, who invited a few questions by email. Answers to those questions, including whether the Progress spoke with Bellamy before publishing its editorial, were not available at the time of publication.

The Progress suggests Bellamy should use his influence to mitigate the damage of the citys racial tensions, after blaming him for setting Charlottesville ablaze. Perhaps he has learned some wisdom and acquired some maturity, the Progress wrotea reference to offensive comments posted on Bellamys Twitter account, for which Bellamy apologized. We would hope that Mr. Bellamy would use this wisdom now to try [to] control the conflagration he helped start.

But the Progress offers no suggestions for control, and no ideas for mitigation. By focusing on Bellamy, Charlottesvilles daily newspaper absolves itself of many of its own responsibilities.

It also fails to acknowledge its own efforts to documentand improve uponCharlottesvilles history. In 1924, one day before the dedication of Charlottesvilles Robert E. Lee statue, the Progress ran the text of a speech from Confederate historian and Sons of Confederate Veterans commander C.B. Linney without editorial comment. I thank God that we have lost nothing of our love for the Cause by the lapse of time, remarked Linney, which has wisely served to intensify our devotion, and will only reach its climax when we have ceased to live, and answered the last roll-call.

Decades agothough not before the dedication of the Lee statuethe Progress published two separate newspapersone with white society news and one with black society news. With last weeks editorial, the Progress risks bifurcating its audience again.

We are more than disappointed, the Progress writes of Bellamy, when a leader abandons that role and leaves civil unrest and economic cost to burn while he watches.

But the Progress neglected to examine its own role in the fire. Instead, it stood with its readership in a field of fuel the size of the city while racists walked through with torches.

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Brendan Fitzgerald is senior editor of CJR.
JD.com , China's second-largest e-commerce firm, on Monday said its net loss widened in the second quarter, as marketing costs damped the impact of higher-than-forecast revenue growth.

China's main rival to Alibaba Group reported net loss attributable to shareholders of 496.4 million yuan ($74.43 million), from 252.3 million yuan in the same period a year earlier.

That was on revenue which grew 43.6 percent to 93.2 billion yuan, well above its forecast range of 88 billion to 90.5 billion yuan.

Marketing expenses rose 63 percent to 4.1 billion yuan, mostly due to sales events in June.

The result comes as JD looks to expand overseas with investments in Southeast Asia, as competition at home intensifies while customer growth slows. It is also seeking to boost per-customer spend in China by bringing more overseas brands onto its local platforms through strategic partnerships.

JD in June said it intends to begin direct sales in Thailand before the end of the year and has plans to tap other markets in the region. It expanded its partnership with Wal-Mart Stores during the second quarter and invested $397 million in fashion retailer Farfetch UK.

The firm expects revenue for the third quarter to be 81.8 billion to 84.2 billion yuan, a rise of 36 to 40 percent from the same quarter in 2016.

JD also said it has completed the spin-off of subsidiary JD Finance, which analysts expect will have long-term benefits for its operating margin.

JD Finance is now a fully Chinese-owned entity, giving it greater regulatory freedom.
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin (R) and China's Vice Premier Wang Yang arrive at the U.S. - China Comprehensive Economic Dialogue to discuss bilateral economic and trade issues in Washington, U.S., July 19, 2017. Yuri Gripas | Reuters

Trump's move, the first direct trade measure by his administration against China, comes at a time of heightened tension over North Korea's nuclear ambitions, though it is unlikely to prompt near-term change in commercial ties. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer will have a year to look into whether to launch a formal investigation of China's policies on intellectual property, which the White House and U.S. industry groups say are harming U.S. businesses and jobs. The United States should respect objective facts, act prudently, abide by its World Trade Organization pledges, and not destroy principles of multilateralism, an unidentified spokesman of China's Ministry of Commerce said in a statement. "If the U.S. side ignores the facts, and disrespects multilateral trade principles in taking actions that harms both sides trade interests, China will absolutely not sit by and watch, will inevitably adopt all appropriate measures, and resolutely safeguard China's lawful rights." The ministry said the United States should "treasure" the cooperation and favourable state of China-U.S. trade relations, and warned that any U.S. action to damage ties would "harm both sides trade relations and companies". China was continuously strengthening its administrative and judicial protections for intellectual property, the ministry added.

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China's policy of forcing foreign companies to turn over technology to Chinese joint venture partners and failure to crack down on intellectual property theft have been longstanding problems for several U.S. administrations. Trump administration officials have estimated that theft of intellectual property by China could be worth as much as $600 billion. Experts on China trade policy said the long lead time could allow Beijing to discuss some of the issues raised by Washington without being seen to cave to pressure under the threat of reprisals. China repeatedly rebuffed attempts by previous U.S. administrations to take action on its IP practices, and has insisted it rigorously protects intellectual property. State news agency Xinhua said the U.S. investigation is a unilateralist "baring of fangs" that will hurt both sides. Jacob Parker, vice president of China operations at the U.S.-China Business Council said Trump's memo is only the beginning of the process, but that he expected a decision on how to move forward from the administration in 60-90 days. "I think it will be much faster than a year," Parker said. Coming to terms on a bilateral investment treaty would be a better way to get China to address the IP issues, he added.

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Samsung, Google and Philips are working with a start-up called Puls to deliver Genius Bar-style repairs and tech demonstrations to customers at home. Founded in 2015, Puls started out as a mobile phone repair service called CellSavers. It focused on fixing common mobile device issues like spent batteries or cracked screens. This week, the company changed its name to Puls to reflect broader ambitions, CEO and co-founder Eyal Ronen told CNBC. The company still sends technicians to a needy customer's door within an hour of booking or at another prescheduled time. But Puls technicians are now able to repair, demonstrate and install a wide variety of gadgets, including smartphones, tablets, smart light bulbs, televisions and smart devices like the Google Home or Nest thermostats and smoke alarms.

CNBC tested the Puls service, and true to its promise, technicians arrived within one hour of ordering, even on a Sunday morning, to mount a flat screen TV on a wall and demonstrate a Google Home smart speaker. The TV installation required two technicians for heavy lifting. Once they were on site, we also asked them to also repair a cracked iPhone 5 screen. With the parts and tools they had, they were able to complete all three tasks within 70 minutes.

Puls relies on freelancers instead of full-time technicians. Eyal said his company accepts only 8 percent of applicants, conducting extensive skills and background checks before assigning them to any job. The technicians who responded to our call, Chance House and Marcus Friberg, both had experience working at brick-and-mortar retailers and repair shops prior to joining Puls. They told CNBC they like working through the company's app, rather than in a shop, for schedule flexibility and variety. Puls provides "on-boarding" training for technicians, they said, but it's not mandatory. "If you know how and want to just repair iPhones all day you can do that," House said. "But if you want to get into more of this smart home stuff, as it gets more popular, you can learn that, too."
An uncomfortable but powerful truth that took most of my 20s to internalize: There's an opportunity cost to everything worthwhile in life. No matter what you're trying to accomplish, you'll have to give up something in order to make it happen. If you want to become a doctor, you give up most of your early 20s and about 10 years of your life for school and training. One of my best friends from college is a neurosurgery resident. By the time his training is done he'll be almost 40.

If you want to become an entrepreneur, you're going to give up a list of things a mile long. Time and the addictive feeling of certainty and security that come with a steady paycheck are just the tip of the iceberg.

When we see the careers of professional athletes, what the media shows us is glitz and glamor, ESPN highlight reels, shoe commercials and more. What they don't show you is the quarterback who practices getting the shit beat out of him by a defense, or the basketball player shooting 100 free throws each day. Decades of training and deliberate practice are the reality of becoming a professional athlete. Years of their lives are given up in pursuit of a dream. More from Srinivas Rao:

The profound power of consistency

6 ways to uncover your personal zone of genius

To celebrate your success, build a keystone habit When I asked people on Facebook what they had given up to get something else they wanted, I got about 60 answers. Some people gave up the ability to take risks and have financial freedom because they had to provide for their kids

To travel the world, some gave up familiarity, friends, family, and a sense of belonging and community

Some gave up food they loved in hopes of seeing abs he'd never seen before Even if you get what you want more than anything in the world, you will have to give something up. If you want to live an exceptional and extraordinary life, you have to give up many of the things that are part of a normal one.

In building my career as an author, speaker, and host of the Unmistakable Creative podcast, I've had to give up many things along the way.

1. Other people's definition of success

When I was in college, there was a unanimously agreed upon definition of what success looked like. While it wasn't explicitly stated, it was implied through people's conversations, behaviors, and decisions. Most of my friends who went to Berkeley did one of the following: They worked at prestigious firms like Mckinsey, Goldman Sachs, and Bain. And they went top 10 MBA programs like Harvard, Wharton, or Stanford. If not the above, they went to Law School or Medical school. Most of this was all done before they turned 30. This was the implicitly agreed up on the definition of success. Needless to say, these people were all smart, ambitious and highly motivated. By this definition, I was a complete failure. I had no prestigious jobs, no Ivy League MBA, and a bank balance that was close to zero upon graduating from Pepperdine in 2009. At 30 years old, I was basically starting from scratch. At some point, I realized that I had to give up other people's definition of success. This is one of the most difficult things to give up because it is so deeply embedded in our cultural narratives that it becomes the standard by which we measure our lives. Even as entrepreneurs we have collectively agreed that fame and fortune are the markers of success. But, giving up other people's definition of success is incredibly liberating and ultimately leads to the fullest expression of who you are and what matters to you. It's not a one-time thing. It's a daily habit of comparing less and creating more. Other people aren't going to live with the consequences of the choices you've made. So why would you live your life according to their definition of success?

In a conversation I had with Yanik Silver a few weeks ago, he told me a story about a client who wanted to become a billionaire. When he asked why, the client listed a number of reasons, most of which didn't require a billion dollars. By understanding the essence of our goals, what it is that we believe our achievements we'll bring us, it's easier to give up other people's definitions of success.

2. Financial security

"There is absolutely nothing more likely to dampen the prospects of becoming rich than a nice, fat, regular salary check."  Felix Dennis, "How to Get Rich" For a large amount of the last eight years, my income was extremely sporadic. There were plenty of months where I wondered if I should just give up and get a job. There was even a year when I almost quit. I had to temporarily give up financial security in order to do the work that I wanted to do and have the lifestyle I wanted. Giving up financial security isn't easy. As billionaire Shahid Khan said "money gives you choices. Not having money sucks. You have to say no to so many things you want to say yes to. I missed friends' weddings because I couldn't afford the trips

I gave up vacations that friends had invited me on

I stayed at my parent's house far longer than I ever intended to But when you've been fired from nearly every job you've ever had, the safety and security of a steady paycheck are an illusion. Gambling on the uncertainty of my entrepreneurial path seemed like a better bet than the supposed guarantees that came with a steady paycheck. I figured building a body of work would be far more valuable than to keep adding to my resume of failures. Short side note: If you struggle with your own body of work or aren't sure how to start, you'll love this swipe file I've put together. You'll find my best tips on honing your productivity & creativity, and finding the courage to carve your own path, rather than following someone else's footsteps. Get it here.

3. Most of my 30s

A few years ago I was telling my business partner Brian that I felt like I'd given up the entirety of my 30's. I spent my 30s doing what many people did in their 20s, building the foundation for my career. He said, "yeah, but your 40s are going to be amazing because of what you did in your 30's." I was planting the seeds for the person I eventually wanted to become. Even though I was living at home, I was determined to make sure it was time well spent. I gave myself an education that killed the crap out of the one I got in school. I read hundreds of books, wrote three books, planned a conference, produced an animated series, and interviewed more than 600 people for The Unmistakable Creative podcast. While all of these things didn't immediately increase my earnings, they raised my earning potential significantly. As I've said before, don't just increase your earnings, increase your earning potential.

Motivational speaker Zig Ziglar Corbis | Getty Images

Even if I had to search for a job, I'd have far more value to offer now than I did with my previous job experience. If you find yourself post-college, living at home, struggling to find a job, give people a reason to find you interesting. Time is the most valuable asset at your disposal. And you will have to give up some of it to accomplish anything. You don't have to give up your entire 30s. If you give up one hour a day for uninterrupted creation time, you'll be amazed by what you're capable of.

4. Fear of judgment

For years, I'd have conversations with family friends and distant relatives about the work that I was doing. I felt embarrassed by the fact that I was still living at home and not making much money. Every time I talked to one of them they would say, "So, still blogging?" Trying to explain that there was far more to what I was doing felt like a lost cause. It reminded me of this conversation that Dani Shapiro referenced in her book "Still Writing:" "I've thought of all the times that I've been asked if I'm still writing. I've been asked this by acquaintances and strangers, even by fans, readers of mine.. I've asked around and discovered that every artist and writer I know contends with a version of this question. It's asked of writers who are household names. It's asked of photographers whose work hangs in the Museum of Modern Art. It's asked of stage actors who have won Tonys. Of poets whose work is regularly published in the finest journals. No one who spends her life creating things seems exempt from it." The fear of being judged keeps so many of us from taking a shot at our most ambitious dreams. At a certain point, I realized it wasn't my job to convince the people I felt judged by that what I was doing was important, meaningful and valuable. I had to give up my fear of being judged and the need to be validated by certain people. After all, they weren't going to be listening to the Unmistakable Creative podcast or reading my books. So in the grand scheme of things their judgment or approval was essentially meaningless. The people whose opinions I did truly value, my business partners and really close friends didn't judge me at all. They supported me and could see a light at the end of the tunnel even in the moments that I couldn't. Once you give up your fear of judgment, your ability to work changes quite drastically. You become more present, productive, and start to gather creative momentum. You focus on the process, not the prize, and you start to see progress towards the life you want to live.

5. Any baggage related to the past

We all have a past. It's filled with wonderful experiences, grief, shit, and horrible things: Bosses we hated

An ex or two that pulled the rug out from under us and our self-worth.

People who caused shit storms in our lives and left us to pick up all the pieces.

We've lost people dear to us, keenly feeling the fragility of life. The past is something that's already happened and can never be changed. At some point, you have to give up whatever resentment you have towards people, circumstances, and experiences from your past. Otherwise, your future starts to look an awful lot like your past. When you give all that up, you end up ditching a lot of baggage. You walk through the world with a sense of lightness, peace, and freedom that makes its way into everything else that you do. For years I was pissed off about all the bosses who fired me. When I finally gave up being pissed off, I realized these people had given me a gift, and lit a fire under my ass. I wouldn't be doing what I am if it hadn't been for their firing me.
The horrible job. We've all had one. The one that has you dreading Monday as early as Sunday morning. The one that has you plotting dramatic "I quit" scenarios while you're taking your morning shower. The one that has you asking yourself "What am I doing here?" every few days. The worst part is feeling stuck. Maybe you can't find another job. Maybe you're not even sure where to look. You fear your fate is sealed forever. More from Student Loan Hero:

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How to lower your student loan interest rates The good news is many people have been in your shoes and managed to escape. Want proof? Below are six stories of people who not only quit their jobs but also ended up earning more. Here's how they did it.

It might be time to leave when you wish for a sick day 

Sometimes a job isn't bad; it's just the wrong thing for you. Or it was the right thing until stagnation kicked in. That's what happened to freelance writer and content strategist Kayla Albert. After working in the same role for several years in her hometown of Denver, she realized it was time to move on. "One Monday morning, I woke up hoping I was sick just so I wouldn't have to go into the office," Albert said. "That's when it became clear I needed to make a change." Luckily, she was already doing freelance work on the side, so she began to focus more of her energy there in order to plan a transition.

Comedian Dave Chappelle Randy Holmes | Getty Images

"I wanted to have close to one year's salary saved before making the leap," she said. "It helped ease my mind as much as possible." Albert decided she'd be able to save enough to quit in three months, which the freelance work helped her do. And it didn't take up so much of her time that she couldn't have a life. Between her full-time work and freelancing, she was clocking a reasonable 45 to 47 hours per week. She also told her network outside her immediate workplace about the upcoming change. This move is not only a good idea for building new clients; it also can help you follow through on your plans. Albert's network helped her stay on track and remain strong. For aspiring solopreneurs, Albert suggested a focus on preparation. "Start planning now," she said. "Even if you think tackling your dream is five years into the future, setting aside the money now will allow you to take the leap when you know it's time instead of muscling through a not-so-great work situation." It's been more than a year since Albert took the leap, and she's already outpaced her previous salary by eight to 10 percent. Even better, she works 25 hours per week instead of 40. For someone seeking a better work-life balance, it's the ultimate gain.

Another strategy that helped Albert was opening a business checking account so she could keep her business earnings separate and pay herself a salary. This move made it easier to budget the way she did when she had a full-time job. And the budgeting is even better now that her income is on the rise.

 or when work is taking over your life

Speaking of muscling through a not-so-great work situation, what happens if your job is taking over your life? When this happened to financial writer Kali Hawlk, she knew it was time to leave. "Your work is clearly important  but it shouldn't run your life," she said. "And it certainly shouldn't make you miserable ALL the time." Hawlk practices what she preaches in terms of taking risks for happiness. While she was working toward her goal of self-employment, she picked up her Southern roots and fulfilled her dream of moving to Boston. Now she loves her work life and home life equally, as she's able to work for herself and then go out and enjoy her adopted city. Hawlk's biggest focus as she made the transition was building her business to a reasonable size before taking the leap. Doing so provided some assurance that the business plan was sound and the success was replicable. And all that extra work paid off when it led her to a big enough client base that she could go full time on her own. "I wanted to earn at least twice as much from my own business as I earned from my job  to account for things like expenses, taxes, etc.  and I wanted to do that for at least three months in a row before I felt comfortable enough to go back out on my own," she said.

Brian Baumgartner as Kevin Malone, Steve Carell as Michael Scott and Rainn Wilson as Dwight Schrute in NBC's 'The Office' NBC | Getty Images

As Hawlk thinks about her progress from working full time to building a business of her own, she's pleased with how well things are going. She has not only fulfilled her dream of becoming her own boss, but she's also earning enough to do it in the city of her dreams. Now that's turning an unhappy scenario into a win.

 or when you realize you have a chance at self-employment

Unhappiness is one reason to leave a job, but so is the moment you realize you might have what it takes to start your own venture. When Careful Cents owner Carrie Smith Nicholson had that realization, everything changed. "I didn't set out to quit my job and be my own boss, but after spending two years with my blogging side hustle, I could see the potential to take it full time," she said. Like Albert and Hawlk, Smith Nicholson wasn't going to leave before her finances were ready. She wanted to save $10,000 first  a number she came to after adding up her monthly expenses. But when she hit $8,000, a family member experienced a health issue that made her realize she was close enough. So she put in her notice. Four years later, Smith Nicholson's business is booming. She's already doubled her previous income and is on track to triple it. What's more, she's turning her business success into a way to help others do the same. Her blog, which used to be focused on personal finance, now helps others achieve their entrepreneurial dreams. By helping people achieve freedom from the cubicle, Smith Nicholson is living a life of happiness and giving.

But she encouraged those who want to do the same to be practical: "My advice is to have a solid business plan in place. How are you going to make money? Does this revenue model fit into the kind of lifestyle you want to create?" If you don't answer those questions honestly, you might end up having to go back to a regular job. A little planning  both for the business and your finances  can go a long way to ensure the sustainability of your dream.

More ways you can prepare for becoming your own boss

It isn't easy to quit your job and start your own venture  and you might have a few sleepless nights before it all comes together. Here are a few things you can do to prepare yourself for what's ahead.

Get ready for some financial sacrifices

David Waring, father of two young children and founder of business review company Fit Small Business, quit his job as an executive selling institutional trading software to banks and hedge funds in 2011. Waring now earns roughly 50 percent more with his own company than he did then as a sales executive. But he knew it could take several years to reach success, so he built his business while working full time. He also saved up $40,000 and traded his Wall Street luxury apartment for a roommate and a walk-up in Harlem. One key for David was not spending too much money at the beginning  a strategy that dovetailed with his frugal ways.

"I chose a great business partner," he explained. "We did not invest a lot of money initially and let the idea prove itself on its own merit. Once things started working, we invested most of the profit back into growing the business."

Grow your industry knowledge and your network

Lily Taban, founder of public relations consulting company Fig & First, used her knowledge and network to get a business off the ground. Lily's first referral came through a friend and former co-worker who appreciated her experience and passion. And her business has grown on referrals ever since. If you have a solid list of personal contacts in your industry, reaching out to them to build a client base can be a great way to start. But make sure you don't hedge your bets so much that you never take the plunge. "I was always waiting to be 'ready,' and I would have lived my entire life waiting," she said. "There was always a fear or excuse holding me back from making the leap to work for myself." Prepare yourself financially and professionally, but remember: At some point, you're going to have to leap.

Prepare to make some mistakes

One of the hardest parts of working for yourself is how much time you spend doing things besides the thing you earn money for. Matthew Keesan, co-founder of Raaka Chocolate, learned that the hard way. Although he didn't want for clients in the beginning  he was able to turn the job he hated into a contract with the company he worked for, earning three times more  the pressures of operating a business were still there. "I learned, painfully, how to run a business  managing cash flow, managing client expectations, ensuring I got paid on time, etc.," he said. "It was easy starting with a client who was my former employer who didn't want to see me go." But in the end, he got his ultimate payoff. "I've been fortunate to get to work in a variety of industries, from finance to hospitality to technology, but the sweetest work of all is being my own boss," he said.

Want to take your own leap? Start planning
President Donald Trump must "level the playing field" on new NAFTA negotiations, the head of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce told CNBC on Tuesday.

"We don't believe, we never have, that NAFTA should be torn up and thrown out. That makes no sense whatsoever," Javier Palomarez said on "Squawk Box."

Palomarez, a Democrat, spoke a day before the U.S., Canada and Mexico begin talks on revising the North American Free Trade Agreement. Trade among the three nations has quadrupled since NAFTA came into effect in 1994, surpassing $1 trillion in 2015.

"We are very focused on the notion that Canada and Mexico are our number 1 and number 3 trade partners, and we should treat them accordingly," said Palomarez, whose organization represents 4.5 million Hispanic-owned businesses that contribute a combined $668 billion to the U.S. economy annually.

President Donald Trump has threatened to pull out of the agreement if he can't get a better deal for U.S. workers, citing lost manufacturing jobs. Canada and Mexico have said they are open to changing the deal.

In June, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said renegotiating NAFTA could spill into next year.

Palomarez said some members of Trump's Cabinet understand that the agreement benefits the United States. He hopes those voices will "win out."

Palomarez also said there appears to be a lack of understanding by some Americans on how the U.S. interacts with foreign nations.

"The average American doesn't recognize that 95 percent of the global market exists outside of the United States. And that when you look at all the corporations or companies that engage in foreign trade in this country, 98 percent of them are considered medium to small size companies," he said.
Voters head to the polls in Alabama on Tuesday for the state's Republican U.S. Senate primary.

The race to fill Attorney General Jeff Sessions' former seat has featured an endorsement from President Donald Trump and attacks on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. In Alabama, a deep-red state that overwhelmingly backed Trump, the Republican who emerges from the field will most likely win the special election.

Several Republicans are vying for the seat, but only three are considered serious contenders: Luther Strange, Roy Moore and Mo Brooks. Strange, the incumbent, was appointed to fill the Senate seat in February after Sessions became the top U.S. law enforcement official.

An average of recent polls shows the front-runner is Moore, who was removed as Alabama chief justice in 2003, with about 32 percent of support. Strange followed with roughly 28 percent. Brooks, a congressman and member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, has about about 17 percent, according to RealClearPolitics. If no candidate wins 50 percent of the vote, the top two go to a runoff next month.
"CEOs might argue that while they also loathe all that is wrong with the Trump administration, they can be more effective by remaining involved. Give me a break."

Does anyone doubt that even if he resigned from the Trump Council, any official at the Treasury, Fed or SEC or for that matter in the White House would be happy to take Jamie Dimon's call? Or that the head of the Department of Commerce would take a call from Jim McNerney, the former CEO of Boeing? Or that GE Chairman Jeff Immelt would not be able to "participate in the discussion on how to drive growth and productivity in the US" (his proferred rationale for failing to resign) without being on Trump's Manufacturing Council?

There is another argument I have heard CEOs make: "My company cannot afford to alienate the President and face retaliation." They should note that Merck's stock price rose yesterday (despite the President's disparaging tweet) as an indication that this fear is overblown. But more importantly, if this is what corporate America's leaders believe, it is a damning indictment of the President and of their own cowardice. If a substantial group of CEOs resigned en masse, what realistically could the President do other than tweet his frustration and hopefully ultimately take a lesson.

There is a long tradition in American history of business leaders as statesmen and moral leaders. Business played an important role in the passage of the Marshall Plan. Business leaders provided important support when the Supreme Court has upheld affirmative action. Business has long been a supporter of cooperation with other nations to promote prosperity. Most CEOs were strong and effective supporters of the Paris Climate Agreement. At the local level business leaders have fought to strengthen public schools and to resist discrimination against minorities.

This is the tradition that needs to be honored today.

In the Obama Administration, I frequently counseled that "business confidence is the cheapest form of stimulus." I resisted populist rhetoric that vilified corporations, instead favoring approaches that emphasized accelerating economic growth and competitiveness for the benefit of all. I still favor such an approach. But given the cravenness now on display in CEO-world, I fear that on the current path, a massive backlash against business is all but inevitable. Such a backlash would be highly unfortunate but not difficult to understand. Every member of President Trump's advisory councils should wrestle with his or her conscience and ponder Edmund Burke's famous warning that "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

Since writing this post, Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank and Intel CEO Brian Krzanich have decided to step down from Trump's Manufacturing Council as well. I applaud their decision, and hope that many other CEOs will follow suit.

Commentary by Larry Summers, the former Treasury Secretary and currently the Charles W. Eliot University Professor and President Emeritus at Harvard University. Follow him on Twitter @ LHSummers.

For more insight from CNBC contributors, follow @CNBCopinion on Twitter.
Amazon says the case is "without merit" and plans to defend itself "vigorously."

The State of South Carolina claims Amazon is responsible for $12 million in uncollected taxes, interests, and penalties for the first three months of 2016.

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President Trump has repeatedly attacked Amazon and its CEO Jeff Bezos for dodging financial obligations, tweeting as recently as June that the company avoids "paying internet taxes." While the president's claims have remained vague, at least one state is now making a similar allegation -- and providing some substance to back it up. In June, South Carolina filed a complaint alleging that Amazon failed to collect taxes on sales made by third-party merchants on the company's marketplace. These are products where Amazon is not the seller, but rather is connecting other businesses to consumers and providing the payment processing for the transaction as well as some customer support. The state claimed that for the first quarter of 2016, Amazon owes $12.5 million in taxes, penalties and interest, an amount that "will continue to accrue until this matter is resolved." In the complaint, obtained by CNBC, South Carolina's Department of Revenue said Amazon is responsible for collecting taxes on behalf of the businesses that used the marketplace to sell products to residents of the state. A spokesperson for the state declined to comment on why the audit was limited to that three month period. The dispute is the latest in Amazon's long history of complicated tax issues and threatens to become quite the headache for the e-tailer should South Carolina succeed and set a precedent for other states. Not only would Amazon have to put more controls in place, but costs would rise for consumers and sellers would lose a pricing advantage they currently have over physical retailers.

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"Going after the online marketplace facilitator is certainly a recent door that's been opened," said Jeff Glickman, a tax expert and lawyer at business advisory firm Aprio. "I certainly do expect more states to follow suit." Don't expect Bezos to back down. In Amazon's latest quarterly report, the company said, "we believe the assessment is without merit," and that such a change could be costly. "If South Carolina or other states were successfully to seek additional adjustments of a similar nature, we could be subject to significant additional tax liabilities," Amazon said. "We intend to defend ourselves vigorously in this matter." A spokesperson declined to comment further. As of early 2017 -- contrary to some of President Trump's tweets -- Amazon collects sales tax in every state where it's required for products the company actually sells. Retailers have to charge sales tax in any state where they have a nexus, which generally means a physical presence like an office or warehouse. Amazon has three warehouses in South Carolina.

But when it comes to third-party merchants, who now account for over half the volume of goods sold on the site, Amazon maintains that the seller is responsible for determining if sales tax is required and for collecting and remitting it. South Carolina is fighting that premise, arguing that under state law, Amazon is considered the seller because the company controls a large part of the sales process for its third-party merchants. For example, Amazon handles shipping and storing for some sellers who pay fees for the Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) program. Even sellers who store inventory at home or in their own warehouse rely on Amazon to manage some elements of the transaction, like payment processing and customer support, according to the complaint. Amazon also has strict policies on third-party sellers related to things like shipping times and refunds.

If one state is successful in pioneering a strategy that might be successful, I'd expect other states to pursue it as well. Darien Shanske UC Davis law professor

South Carolina isn't alone. According to Avalara, a provider of tax automation services, Minnesota, Rhode Island and Washington have passed legislation to tax marketplace sales, while Virginia and Arizona have their own sets of rules. New York and Texas have considered imposing taxes. The Multistate Tax Commission, which recently rolled out a tax amnesty program for online merchants, estimates that Amazon sellers owe about $2 billion a year in uncollected sales taxes. Darien Shanske, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, said that South Carolina has a plausible case because it's clear that Amazon and its sellers have more than a "passive" relationship. He said Amazon would likely be deemed responsible for tax collection if the state can prove the company is "sufficiently important" to helping out-of-state merchants' sales within the state.

Varies by state

"Third-party sellers are clearly choosing Amazon because of its own particular setup and benefits, beyond just passively having their things for sale on Amazon," Shanske said. "It looks to me that there's some kind of a relationship, approaching an agent or an independent contractor." One reason for the complexity is that laws vary by the state, and the ruling can come down to statutory interpretation. Utah, for example, recently ruled that sellers are not required to collect taxes. "It's an issue that state taxing authorities are going to pursue vigorously if they feel they have authority under their statute to do so," said John Swain, a law professor at the University of Arizona. "But it's very difficult to generalize." Shanske said that should the opportunity arise, many states will certainly be looking to bolster tax revenue. "If one state is successful in pioneering a strategy that might be successful, I'd expect other states to pursue it as well," he said.

WATCH: A government crackdown on Amazon is 'inevitable,' says Rich Barton
President Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping chat as they walk along the front patio of the Mar-a-Lago estate after a bilateral meeting in Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., April 7, 2017.

The US Department of Commerce houses the patent and trademark office, whose mission is to protect our nation's innovators and their intellectual property. Above our entrance is inscribed a quote from Abraham Lincoln: "The patent system added fuel to the fire of genius."

But today the American patent system and the American genius it protects are under serious attack.

Intellectual property theft and expropriation costs US businesses as much as $600bn a year, according to the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property.

Think of what that means  more than 3 per cent of America's gross domestic product is lost each year to theft, piracy and espionage. China is a primary culprit: it accounts for 87 per cent of all counterfeit goods seized at the border.

But this shocking statistic fails to capture the deeper danger posed by the manner in which Chinese companies and the Chinese government treat America's intellectual property.

China has announced a "Made in China 2025" plan to dominate in the production of semiconductors, artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, biotechnology and every other high-tech industry likely to drive economic growth beyond 2025. The US, which remains the most innovative country in the world, stands firmly in China's path.

But rather than building a globally competitive free market economy in order to compete, China has chosen instead to compel American companies that want to operate in China to turn over proprietary technology and intellectual property.

China does this by making joint ventures with Chinese companies a prerequisite for market access; by limiting American ownership to 50 per cent or less of most enterprises in China; and, in some cases, by requiring technology transfers as part of product sale contracts.

The Beijing government and Chinese companies also pursue an investment strategy whereby they identify US start-ups with scientific breakthroughs and then make investments in those companies on better-than-market terms. The primary consideration in this investment is not rate of return, but the capture of new technologies, which the Chinese then use for other purposes.

Through investments like this, Chinese companies gain access to breakthrough technologies that could create billions of dollars of future revenues without paying royalties. An initial overpayment of a few million dollars is very important to the American high-technology start up, but is a rounding error relative to China's multibillion dollar long-term objectives of technological superiority.

The Chinese actively search for those US companies that pioneer the technologies that China lacks. They then carefully target those companies in order to acquire their expertise. Meanwhile, companies seeking access to the Chinese market or to Chinese capital are pressured into turning over their patents, their most advanced research, and their know-how.

The offensive against American intellectual property does not end there. Less well known are the efforts of Chinese lawyers to initiate antitrust actions in Chinese courts to invalidate patents on the theory they create illegal monopolies. Think of how counterintuitive that is. The whole idea of a patent is to reward the inventor with a period of exclusive rights to the invention. A legally granted monopoly is no justification for an antitrust proceeding. But China is willing to go to great lengths to capture American technologies.

On Monday, President Donald Trump will direct Robert Lighthizer, the US trade representative, to determine whether to formally investigate Chinese policies, practices, or actions that may be harming US companies' intellectual property, innovation and technology by encouraging or requiring the transfer of technologies to China.

Through this directive, President Trump is fulfilling another campaign promise to consider all appropriate tools to address Chinese trade activities that may be harming American economic interests. He is the first president to take any meaningful steps toward dealing with this hugely important issue.

Through this action he takes the necessary strategic step to protect the base of innovation that has fuelled American productivity and undergirded our national security for decades.

Technological advances will shape our future and, under President Trump's watch, our innovators will reap the rewards for their willingness to take risks and invent new products and services that make America the most innovative country in the world.

Our allies and partners who share our commitment to innovation and value open competition are also harmed by China's activity. They should be equally alarmed. We will protect our intellectual property first, but will also lead in restoring the rules-based free and fair economic system.

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President Donald Trump, center, speaks while Michael Dell, chairman and chief executive officer of Dell Technologies Inc., from left, Phebe Novakovic, chairman and chief executive officer of General Dynamics Corp., Juan Luciano, chairman and chief executive officer of Archer Daniels Midland Co., Jared Kushner, senior White House advisor, Kenneth Frazier, chairman and chief executive officer of Merck & Co., Mark Fields, president and chief executive officer of Ford Motor Co., and Denise Morrison, president and chief executive officer of Campbell Soup Co., listen during a meeting with manufacturing executives in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017. Olivier Douliery | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The rhetoric between President Donald Trump and American executives continues to heat up Tuesday. Seven executives have now resigned from White House business councils in the wake of the president's perceived lackluster condemnation of Saturday's deadly white supremacist rally. It was two days after the death of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, Virginia, when Trump called out by name the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists. Now, several executives have resigned from Trump's business councils, after the Monday morning lead of Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier, who said, "I feel a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism." Trump doesn't appear to be missing them, however, tweeting Tuesday he has, "many to take their place." @realDonaldTrump: For every CEO that drops out of the Manufacturing Council, I have many to take their place. Grandstanders should not have gone on. JOBS! Other executives had previously resigned from the advisory councils because of the administration's immigration policies and Trump's stance on the Paris climate accord. Here is what the executives had to say:

Andrew Liveris, CEO of Dow Chemical

Andrew Liveris, CEO of Dow Chemical. Adam Jeffery | CNBC

Member of Manufacturing Jobs Initiative. Status: Staying on council. Liveris, who helped organize the initial meetings of the manufacturing council, announced Monday he will be staying on it. "I condemn the violence this weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia, and my thoughts and prayers are with those who lost loved ones and with the people of Virginia ... Dow will continue to work to strengthen the social and economic fabric of the communities where it operates  including supporting policies that help create employment opportunities in manufacturing and rebuild the American workforce."

Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell Technologies

Michael Dell Getty Images

Member of Manufacturing Jobs Initiative. Status: Staying on council. The company announced Monday there will be no change in its engagement with the Trump administration.

Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO, JPMorgan Chase

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase. Mark Urban | CNBC

Member of Strategic and Policy Forum. Status: Unclear. Dimon sent a memo to his employees on Monday saying, "We were all disturbed by the bigotry and violence in Charlottesville, Virginia this past weekend and pray for the victims, their families and the healing of the community." It went on to say, "As a firm, we have dedicated ourselves to advancing the American dream of economic opportunity for all." Dimon did not indicate if he would remain on the president's council.

John Ferriola, CEO of Nucor

John Ferriola, CEO of Nucor. Adam Jeffery | CNBC

Member of Manufacturing Jobs Initiative. Status: Staying on council. Ferriola condemned the violence over the weekend, saying he and Nucor "reject the hate, bigotry and racism expressed at the demonstration." He added that, "We believe a strong manufacturing sector is the backbone of a strong economy, and we will continue to serve as a member of the White House Manufacturing Jobs Initiative."

Jeff Fettig, CEO of Whirlpool

Jeff Fettig, chief executive officer of Whirlpool Corp. Adam Bird | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Member of Manufacturing Jobs Initiative. Status: Staying on council. Fettig, who is stepping down as CEO in October, said the company fosters an environment of acceptance and tolerance in the workplace and will continue on the council to "represent our industry, our 15,000 U.S. workers, and to provide input and advice on ways to create jobs and strengthen U.S. manufacturing competitiveness." Fettig did not specify whether he would continue in the role after stepping down.

Kenneth Frazier, CEO of Merck

Kenneth Frazier, CEO of Merck. Mark Neuling | CNBC

Member of Manufacturing Jobs Initiative. Status: Resigned Monday. Frazier kicked off the recent round of resignations Monday morning when he announced in a tweet, "As CEO of Merck and as a matter of personal conscience, I feel a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism." Frazier, the only African-American CEO of a major pharmaceutical company, was attacked almost immediately by Trump on Twitter. The president wrote, in light of the resignation, Frazier will have more time to "LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!"

Jeff Immelt, chairman of General Electric

Jeff Immelt Brian Snyder | Reuters

Member of Manufacturing Jobs Initiative. Status: Staying on council. Immelt stepped down as CEO on Aug. 1 but remained on the council, and GE said he will continue to do so while he is chairman. The company said, "It is important for GE to participate in the discussion on how to drive growth and productivity in the U.S."

Brian Krzanich, CEO of Intel

Brian Krzanich Heidi Petty | CNBC

Member of American Technology Council, Manufacturing Jobs Initiative. Status: Resigned Monday. Krzanich became the third resignation Monday following Frazier and Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank. He wrote in a blog post on Intel's website that he resigned "to call attention to the serious harm our divided political climate is causing to critical issues." He added, "Politics and political agendas have sidelined the important mission of rebuilding America's manufacturing base."

Doug McMillon, CEO, Wal-Mart Stores

Doug McMillon, CEO of Wal-Mart. David Orrell | CNBC

Member of Member of Strategic and Policy Forum. Status: Staying on council. McMillon said he would be staying on the council to "strongly advocate on behalf of our associates and customers, and urge our elected officials to do their part to promote a more just, tolerant and diverse society," in a statement posted on the company's website Monday. McMillon also criticized the president for his initial response to the violence in Charlottesville, writing, "he missed a critical opportunity to help bring our country together."

Denise Morrison, CEO, Campbell Soup

Denise Morrison, president and chief executive officer of Campbell Soup Co. Peter Foley | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Member of Manufacturing Jobs Initiative. Status: Staying on council. Morrison is staying on the council after denouncing the violence and "racist ideology" of the weekend's events. "We believe it continues to be important for Campbell to have a voice and provide input on matters that will affect our industry, our company and our employees in support of growth," the company said in a statement.

Dennis Muilenburg, CEO, Boeing

Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg arrives at Trump Tower on January 17, 2017 in New York City. Getty Images

Member of Manufacturing Jobs Initiative. Status: Staying on council. Muilenburg plans to remain on the council, according to the company.

Scott Paul, president, Alliance for American Manufacturing

Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing. Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Member of Manufacturing Jobs Initiative. Status: Resigned Tuesday. Paul wrote in a tweet Tuesday, "I'm resigning from the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative because it's the right thing for me to do."

Kevin Plank, CEO, Under Armour

Kevin Plank, CEO of Under Armour. Adam Jeffery | CNBC

Member of Manufacturing Jobs Initiative. Status: Resigned Monday. Plank resigned Monday evening, becoming the first person to follow Frazier's lead. Plank said, "Under Armour engages in innovation and sports, not politics" and said he "will continue to focus my efforts on inspriing every person that they can do anything through the power of sport which promotes unity, diversity and inclusion."

Michael Polk, CEO, Newell Brands

Michael Polk CEO of Newell Brands Richard Drew | AP Photo

Member of Manufacturing Jobs Initiative. Status: Staying on council. Polk announced he was staying on the council early Tuesday evening, after Trump's most recent press conference walking back much of his comments from Monday. "I plan to continue to collaborate with other leaders from diverse industries, who represent a variety of perspectives and beliefs, to help shape strategies and develop policies that foster a more vibrant economy and more jobs in the U.S.," he said in a statement.

Stephen Schwarzman, CEO, Blackstone

Steve Schwarzman, co-founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Blackstone Group LP. Mary Catherine Wellons | CNBC

Member of Strategic and Policy Forum. Status: Staying on council. Schwarzman said Monday he would be staying on the council. "I believe we need to find a path forward to heal the wounds left by this tragedy and address its underlying causes. Encouraging tolerance and understanding must be a core national imperative and I will work to further that goal," he said in a statement.





Mark Sutton, CEO, International Paper

Mark Sutton Katie Kramer | CNBC

Member of Manufacturing Jobs Initiative. Status: Staying on council. Sutton condemned the violence over the weekend and is staying on the council to "work to strengthen the social and economic fabric of communities across the country by creating employment opportunities in manufacturing," spokesperson Tom Ryan said.

Inge Thulin, CEO, 3M

Inge G. Thulin, President and CEO of 3M Company. Imaginechina | AP

Member of Manufacturing Jobs Initiative. Status: Resigned Wednesday. Thulin resigned Wednesday afternoon, saying the council was longer "an effective vehicle" to advance his company's goals of "sustainability, diversity and inclusion."

Richard Trumka, president, AFL-CIO

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. Getty Images

Member of Manufacturing Jobs Initiative. Status: Resigned Tuesday. After weighing his options, Trumka said late Tuesday afternoon he and Thea Lee, the union's deputy chief of staff, would be stepping down from the council. "We cannot sit on a council for a President who tolerates bigotry and domestic terrorism. President Trump's remarks today repudiate his forced remarks yesterday about the KKK and neo-Nazis," he said in a statement. "From hollow councils to bad policy and embracing bigotry, the actions of this administration have are consistently failed working people." This decision comes less than two hours after the president gave a rambling press conference walking back much of his statement from Monday.

Mark Weinberger, CEO, EY

Mark Weinberger Katie Kramer | CNBC

Member of Strategic and Policy Forum. Status: Unclear. Weinberger did not specifiy if he was leaving the council, but sad he was "deeply saddened and disturbed by the tragic, deplorable acts that took place in Charlottesville this weekend." He also added, "Now is the time for business leaders and government to unite to ensure we become stronger through our differences."

Executives who left for other reasons

Other executives have resigned in the past for others reasons and some have stepped down as a result of leaving their company.

Robert Iger, CEO, Walt Disney

Bob Iger, Chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Company. Michael Newberg | CNBC

Member of Strategic and Policy Forum. Status: Resigned June 1. Iger left the council after the U.S. announced it would withdraw from the Paris climate accords, tweeting, "As a matter of principle, I've resigned from the President's Council over the #ParisAgreement withdrawal."

Travis Kalanick, founder, Uber

Travis Kalanick. David Orrell | CNBC

Member of Strategic and Policy Forum. Status: Resigned Feb. 2. Kalanick was the first executive to resign from one of Trump's councils, citing backlash from associating with the administration in the wake of a controversial executive order concerning immigration. In a memo to staff, Kalanick wrote, "Joining the group was not meant to be an endorsement of the President or his agenda but unfortunately it has been misinterpreted to be exactly that." Kalanick also rejected any ban on immigrants or refugees in the memo.

Elon Musk, CEO, Tesla

Elon Musk Aaron P. Bernstein | Reuters
The number of professionals seeking a job in the U.K.'s financial capital is down 33 percent year on year, while the number of jobs available has shrunk 11 percent, due to the uncertainty caused by Brexit.

Clouds over the City of London Gregory Warran | Flickr | Getty Images

The City of London, home to the U.K.'s largest trading and financial services, is suffering from a loss of professional talent due to Brexit, warns a U.K. job recruitment agency. "The City is still haemorrhaging talent because of Brexit, and we risk losing jobs, too," said Hakan Enver, operations director at recruitment consultancy Morgan McKinley Financial Services, in a press release published Tuesday. The latest London employment monitor for July revealed the number of jobs and job seekers in the City, London's financial center, grew for the fourth consecutive month. The number of jobs available increased 1 percent month on month, compared to a decrease of 14 percent in the same month last year, while the number of professionals seeking jobs increased 12 percent. However, over a year the number of professionals seeking a job in the financial capital is down 33 percent, while the number of jobs available has shrunk 11 percent, due to the uncertainty weighing on the economy.

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"Normally the City clocks out for July, but with the industry being swept from under them, people are scrambling to make the most of the time left in the EU," said Enver. "EU nationals who want to stay in Britain have a shrinking window of opportunity to get a job and permanent residency, and many are seizing it." The City makes a huge contribution to the U.K. economy. The most recent available survey found that in 2015 the City employed 1.5 percent of the U.K.'s total employment and contributed 48 billion ($62 billion), or around 3 percent, in gross value added to the U.K.'s national income. But with the future trading relationship of the U.K. and the European Union still to be negotiated, many financial firms are putting off job recruitment or are preparing to open offices within the EU. For instance, asset manager Standard Life is considering Ireland as its European base for when the United Kingdom leaves the EU, its CEO told CNBC on Tuesday. Other firms have announced similar plans: Bank of America announced in July it would move some roles to Dublin, while HSBC will relocate 1,000 roles to Paris. "The language has changed. Employers and employees used to talk about 'if' they had to leave London. Now they're talking about 'when' they leave London," added Enver.

Justin Tallis | AFP | Getty Images
Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, David Davis and Chief negotiator for the European Union, Michel Barnier (not seen) hold a joint press conference during the second round of the Brexit negotiations in Brussels, Belgium on July 20, 2017.

The U.K. should not have to pay to have a customs union during an interim period after leaving the European Union (EU), Brexit Secretary David Davis said on Tuesday.

Britain has proposed a temporary customs union with the EU for at least three years after Brexit in order to allow the "freest and most frictionless possible trade" with the rest of Europe.

Every country inside the EU currently imposes tariffs on imports from abroad. However, countries in the customs union do not impose taxes on each other's goods.

When asked on ITV whether the U.K. would need to pay to remain in the EU's customs union temporarily, Davis replied, "No I don't think (so). Well, what happens in that interim period you have to leave me to negotiate."
Obamacare premiums for the most popular types of plans will sharply increase  by an additional 20 percent next year, and by an extra 25 percent in 2020  and the budget deficit also would spike if President Donald Trump ends key federal subsidies to the program, the Congressional Budget Office warned Tuesday.

The findings are certain to ratchet up pressure on Trump, and his Republican allies in Congress, to continue funding the payments to insurers. The payments reimburse them for discounts offered to most Obamacare customers in their out-of-pocket health costs.

Ending the payments would force insurers to increase Obamacare premiums to make up for the lost money, above and beyond the normal price increases expected each year.

The CBO estimated there would be 1 million more Americans without health insurance next year than there are now as a result of such a decision by Trump to end the so-called cost-sharing reimbursements.

But, by 2020, there actually would be 1 million fewer uninsured Americans because of that decision, the report said.

On top of that, killing those payments to insurers would result in an extra $194 billion added to the federal deficit, the CBO report said

While less money would be spent on the CSR payments, the government as a result would be required to spend even more money to offset the spike in premiums borne by most Obamacare customers, the office said.

The CBO report also found that if the subsidies paid to insurers end, as Trump has threatened, about 5 percent of Americans next year would live in areas that would have no individual health care plans being sold.

However, by 2020, most people would be able to buy such plans, according to the new report.

The White House immediately disputed the CBO's findings, saying the nonpartisan agency has been repeatedly wrong in the past in analysis of Obamacare programs.

"Regardless of what this flawed report says, Obamacare will continue to fail with or without a federal bailout," said White House spokesman Ninio Fetalvo.

"Premiums are accelerating, enrollment is declining, and millions are seeing their options dwindling," Fetalvo said. "This disastrous law has devastated the middle class, and must be repealed and replaced. No final decisions have been made about the CSR payments. We continue to evaluate the issues."

Trump has repeatedly threatened to end the billions of dollars in payments to insurance companies that sell individual health plans under the Affordable Care Act.

He has recently ratcheted up those threats on the heels of a humiliating loss in the Senate by Republican leaders to pass a bill that would repeal and replace major parts of the program.

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The CBO report was prepared at the request of Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives who want the CSR payments to continue.

Leslie Dach, director of the Obamacare advocacy group Protect Our Care Campaign, said the CBO's report "is the latest confirmation that the Trump administration's plans to sabotage our health care will hurt millions of middle class Americans -- bringing substantial uncertainty to the health insurance markets and forcing even higher double digit premium hikes."

"President Trump seems to prefer playing political sabotage games over doing his job of lowering costs and improving our health care," Dach said.

The payments compensate insurers for discounts given to low- and middle-income Obamacare customers on their deductibles, copayments and other out-of-pocket health costs. More than 7 million Obamacare customers qualify for the subsidies.

The Kaiser Family Foundation found that for people who earn 150 to 200 percent of the federal poverty level, "the average deductible is reduced to $809, a savings of $2,800" each year by the subsidies.

Insurers have warned they will have to raise premiums sharply to make up for the loss of the CSRs if Trump cuts them off.

That's because the insurers must keep offering the discounts, by law, even if they do not get the money promised by the federal government to subsidize those discounts.

The subsidies are already projected to cost the federal government about $10 billion in 2018.

The ACA requires the government to subsidize the premiums of Obamacare customers who earn 100 to 400 percent of the federal poverty level. The value of the subsidies rises with the premiums.

However, unlike the premiums for the subsidies, the cost-sharing reduction payments to insurers are not explicitly guaranteed by the ACA.

That fact led the Republican-led House to sue the Obama administration for making the payments to insurers even after Congress did not appropriate money for that purpose.

A federal judge in 2016 upheld the House's challenge to the legality of the payments. But she agreed to let the reimbursements continue to flow to insurers as the Obama administration appealed her decision.

After Trump took office, he could have ordered that the appeal be dropped, and, as a result, allowed the payments to insurers to end. But neither he, nor the House, has made a push to end the appeal as it became clear that premium prices would spike dramatically if the payments ended.

Last month, the federal appeals court for Washington, D.C., said it would allow a coalition of 16 Democratic state attorneys general to intervene in the pending lawsuit that challenges the legality of the payments to insurers. The coalition wants the payments to continue.

The court's decision could keep the payments flowing to insurers, at least for while, until legal arguments are made by the coalition.

Uncertainty to date over whether Trump will guarantee the federal payments through next year has already led some insurers to seek higher prices for 2018 than they would otherwise have requested.

Big insurer Anthem said it would effectively abandon the Obamacare markets several states in 2018, partly as a result of uncertainty about the CSRs.

In May, Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina asked for a nearly 23 percent increase in premiums next year. But the insurer at the same time said it would have requested an increase of slightly less than 9 percent if the cost-sharing reduction reimbursements were guaranteed.

Blue Cross Blue Shield later cut its rate increase request to 14.1 percent, which is still 5.3 percentage points higher than it would have been if the cost-sharing reduction payments were guaranteed.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that Ohio insurers are filing sharply higher premium requests with state regulators in case Trump ends the CSR payments.

Insurers already were asking for price hikes averaging 20 percent or more for 2018. But regulators asked for new requests that assume an end to CSR payments and other factors. For example, Molina Healthcare of Ohio wants to add a 21.4 percent average price increase on top of its existing request for a 24 percent increase.

 Additional reporting by CNBC's Bertha Coombs.
Protesters stage a 'die-in' before a town hall meeting with US Representative Tom MacArthur (R-NJ) in Willingboro, New Jersey on May 10, 2017. MacArthur wrote the amendment to the American Health Care Act that revived the failed bill, delivering a legislative victory for US President Donald Trump.

The Congressional Budget Office will weigh in Tuesday on how much it will cost Obamacare customers, insurers and taxpayers if President Donald Trump follows through on his threat to kill key federal subsidies to the program.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to end the billions of dollars in payments to insurance companies that sell individual health plans under the Affordable Care Act.

He has ratcheted up those threats on the heels of a humiliating loss in the Senate by Republican leaders to pass a bill that would repeal and replace major parts of the program.

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The payments compensate insurers for discounts offered to low- and middle-income Obamacare customers on their deductibles, co-payments and other out-of-pocket health costs. More than 7 million Obamacare customers qualify for the subsidies.

The Kaiser Family Foundation found that for people who earn 150 percent to 200 percent of the federal poverty level, "the average deductible is reduced to $809, a savings of $2,800" each year by the subsidies.

Insurers have warned they will have to raise premiums sharply to make up for the loss of the so-called cost-sharing reductions payments, or CSRs, if Trump cuts them off.

That's because the insurers must keep offering the discounts, by law, even if they do not get the money promised by the federal government to subsidize those discounts.

The nonpartisan CBO, in a statement Monday, said its analysis will include the expected effects on premiums from such a decision.

The report also will look at the effects on the number of people with health insurance coverage, the stability of the insurance market, as well as the effects on the federal budget.

The subsidies are already projected to cost the federal government about $10 billion in 2018.

But killing them could actually end up costing the government even more money than the decision would save.

In April, a Kaiser analysis said ending the cost-sharing reduction payments would lead to an extra $12.3 billion in other Obamacare costs in 2018 alone. As a result, the government would add $2.3 billion to its current budget deficit from such a decision.

And over the next decade, Kaiser found, the government would be responsible for $31 billion in extra Obamacare spending.

The extra spending is expected because the government would be responsible for covering most, and in some cases all, of the the higher premiums that Obamacare customers would be charged as a result of the demise of cost-sharing payments.

The ACA requires the government to subsidize the premiums of Obamacare customers who earn 100 percent to 400 percent of the federal poverty level. The value of the subsidies rise with the premiums.

However, unlike the premiums for the subsidies, the cost-sharing reduction payments to insurers are not explicitly guaranteed by the ACA.

That fact led the Republican-led House to sue the Obama administration for making the payments to insurers even after Congress did not appropriate money for that purpose.

A federal judge in 2016 upheld the House's challenge to the legality of the payments. But she agreed to let the reimbursements continue to flow to insurers as the Obama administration appealed her decision.

After Trump took office, he could have ordered that the appeal be dropped, and, as a result, allowed the payments to insurers to end. But neither he, nor the House, has made a push to end the appeal as it became clear that premium prices would spike dramatically if the payments ended.

Last month, a federal appeals court for Washington, D.C., said it would allow a coalition of 16 Democratic state attorneys general to intervene in the pending lawsuit that challenges the legality of the payments to insurers. The coalition wants the payments to continue.

The court's decision could keep the payments flowing to insurers, at least for while, until legal arguments are made by the coalition.

Uncertainty to date over whether Trump will guarantee the federal payments through next year has already led some insurers to seek higher prices for 2018 than they would otherwise have requested.

Big insurer Anthem said it would effectively abandon the Obamacare markets several states in 2018, partly as a result of uncertainty about the cost-sharing reimbursements.

In May, Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina asked for a nearly 23 percent increase in premiums next year. But the insurer at the same time said it would have requested an increase of slightly less than 9 percent if the cost-sharing reduction reimbursements were guaranteed.

Blue Cross Blue Shield later cut its rate increase request to 14.1 percent, which is still 5.3 percentage points higher than it would have been if the cost-sharing reduction payments were guaranteed.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that Ohio insurers are filing sharply higher premium requests with state regulators in case Trump ends the CSR payments.

Insurers already were asking for price hikes averaging 20 percent or more for 2018. But regulators asked for new requests that assume an end to CSR payments and other factors. For example, Molina Healthcare of Ohio wants to add a 21.4 percent average price increase on top of its existing request of a 24 percent increase.
A mother and son speak with a Sunshine Life and Health Advisors as they purchase health insurance under the Affordable Care Act at the kiosk setup at the Mall of Americas on January 15, 2014 in Miami, Florida.

But since then, the number has fallen as insurers have agreed to offer coverage in most of those areas.

In late June, according to federal health officials , there were 49 counties nationally that did not have an insurer committed to sell plans on a government-run Obamacare marketplace in 2018.

"This is not even a fraction of a percent of the people" in the U.S., said Cynthia Cox, associate director for Kaiser's Program for the Study of Health Reform and Private Insurance.

There are fewer than 400 people who currently buy Obamacare coverage though the federal HealthCare.gov marketplace in the two counties, in Ohio and Wisconsin, that remain at risk of not having an insurer next year, according to a map maintained by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Only two very small counties in the United States remain without an Obamacare insurer planning to sell health coverage next year after Centene on Tuesday said it will offer coverage in Nevada's remaining 14 "bare" counties in 2018.

Centene alone has been responsible for offering coverage in more than 40 previously bare counties in 2018, including 25 counties in Missouri alone.

"This is very good news for people who are getting insurance in this market," Cox said of Centene's move in Nevada, which guarantees that more than 8,000 current Obamacare exchange customers will have an insurer to offer plans.

"It appears at least at this point that most, if not all people will be able to get insurance in this market," she said, noting that she has heard rumors that Wisconsin's Menominee County will soon get an Obamacare insurer.

There were just 47 people who bought an Obamacare plan on HealthCare.gov in Menominee County this year.

"I think what this has shown is that the ACA [Affordable Care Act] is stubbornly failing to fail," Cox said. "The market is stabilizing, and insurers are on track to be profitable this year."

Before Tuesday, there were 14 rural counties in Nevada that did not have an insurer planning to sell Obamacare coverage next year. But Centene said it would sell coverage in those counties, as well as the state's three other counties where it had already announced that it will offer individual health plans.

Garrett Leaf, president of Centene's SilverSummit Healthplan subsidiary in Nevada, said the company "is pleased to serve its current Medicaid members in Nevada, and it looks forward to expanding its product offerings to the Health Insurance Marketplace in 2018."

Heather Korbulic, executive director for Nevada's state-run Obamacare marketplace, said, "We are grateful that SilverSummit has stepped up to the plate, offering relief to thousands of residents who thought they would be deprived of access to health insurance."

Cox said there is an incentive for insurers like Centene "to move into counties where they will be a monopoly."

"They wouldn't be doing this if there wasn't a profit" to be made," Cox said.

The Affordable Care Act requires most Americans to have some kind of health coverage or pay a tax penalty.

The law authorized the creation of HealthCare.gov and state-run insurance marketplaces to sell private individual health plans to people who did not have coverage from other sources.
And the campaign donation scorecard from 2016 proved that corporate America responded in kind, giving to the Clinton campaign over team Trump by wide margins in industry after industry. That was especially true in the tech sector, where people who work in Silicon Valley donated 60 times more money to Hillary Clinton than to Donald Trump.

That certainly makes the defections of people like Merck's Kenneth Frazier, Intel's Brian Krzanich, and Under Armour's Kevin Plank a little easier for President Trump to push back on, as he did on Tuesday when he tweeted that they were "grandstanders" and he has replacements for the defectors:

This followed his tweet on Monday, aimed squarely at Merck's high drug prices:

And yet, President Trump still remains committed to boosting the economy through business-friendly proposals like reducing the corporate tax rate and eliminating costly regulations. Of course, that's still not surprising, given the fact that the president is a lifelong businessman who obviously still thinks like one much of the time. And during his first week in office, he said he feels confident in sometimes criticizing big business because he believes the tax and regulation cuts his administration is promising --and in some cases already delivering -- are enough of a reward to American companies.

For any other president, this would be a form of political suicide. But President Trump's now long history of playing a renegade has paid off for him time after time. He's already proven to be the first Republican in modern history to be able to win a national election without strong corporate support, and it's obvious he thinks he can do it again.

President Trump often gets to have it both ways. He gets a certain degree of normalcy and establishment acceptance when he does things like being able to attract big name CEOs to his manufacturing council. (There are still nearly 20 business leaders on the council.) Until each and every one of them bolts, President Trump still gets a lot of positives. But then he gets to renew his populist credentials when he bashes those who choose to leave it for almost any reason.

And the CEOs who stay on or leave the council will enjoy the benefits of President Trump's pro-business policies either way. It's something of a win/win for them, too, in this symbiotic and shallow relationship.

As embarrassing as these CEO defections would be for those in the political class, this renegade president is simply a different case entirely.

The manufacturing council, for whatever it's worth, will continue to function in the perfunctory "for show" way it would have with or without the CEOs who have bolted. And the fate of more tangible Trump administration goals, like tax reform, will be decided by other factors because so many other groups besides this White House are pushing for them.

Commentary by Jake Novak, CNBC.com senior columnist. Follow him on Twitter @jakejakeny.

For more insight from CNBC contributors, follow @CNBCopinion on Twitter.
Starting Tuesday, one of China's biggest commodities derivatives markets is raising transaction fees to 0.05 percent of the total value, from 0.01 percent, on steel rebar futures contracts for delivery in October 2017 and January 2018. The Shanghai Futures Exchange is also limiting intraday positions on those contracts to 8,000 lots.

Talk about a roller coaster. Chinese steel prices are falling this week after spiking to record highs last week as a series of curbs targeting speculative trading kick in.

The October 2017 contract has slipped a bit over 2 percent so far this week to 3,880 yuan per metric ton, but remains up 35 percent for the year.

Chinese steel has rallied steadily this year, but high trading volume and a recent price surge has worried authorities. Increased oversight on the metal underscores Beijing's priority to maintain market stability in a sensitive political year, and its continued efforts to iron out the country's history of boom-and-bust cycles in commodities trading. China is both the world's largest producer and consumer of steel, so price fluctuations can hit the world's second-largest economy on all sides.

All of this "will continue to affect market sentiment this week, as the commodities market is mostly policy driven," wrote UOB Kay Hian analyst Sandra Huang in a research note. "We think the government is targeting to curb speculative trading in the futures market, rather than in the spot and stock markets."

The scrutiny on commodities is not going away. The Shanghai Stock Exchange has formally asked companies including Anyang Iron and Steel and Fangda Coal for comments on steel prices, the impact of cuts to capacity and production, and clarity regarding company profitability, according to filings. Earlier this month, official state media said the Shanghai exchange would strengthen its oversight of any corporate actions and issues that may pose financial risks to the market.

On Friday, the China Iron and Steel Industry Association said in a strong statement that the jump in steel futures was driven by speculation over the impact of coming capacity cuts, not fundamentals. It also said it had convened meetings with industry to analyze the "abnormal" price fluctuations.

Beijing is aiming to cut steel capacity by up to 150 metric tons by 2020, and major rust belt provinces are meant to scale back production this winter in efforts to lower air pollution. Analysts said last week that recently announced targets related to those cuts had contributed to the surge in pricing.

But given the series of curbs introduced over the last few days, analysts said they expect more action to come from authorities and for the current pricing downtrend to continue in steel, impacting other commodities.

"Basically, retail traders in China have taken this to mean the highs have been seen," said Chris Weston, chief market strategist at IG. "Clearly, there has been a liquidation of long positions from the bulls ... I would be cautious here and be keeping a firm eye on iron ore futures as the selling could accelerate."

The September 2017 iron ore contract traded on the Dalian Commodity Exchange is trading 4 percent lower so far this week.

China's top steel firms were all down Tuesday morning in early trade, led by a 3 percent drop in Maanshan Iron and Steel shares traded in both Shanghai and Hong Kong.
President Donald Trump and Senior Counselor to the President Stephen Bannon last year. Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images

For those who've forgotten one of the worst elements of the 2016 election, a short refresher is in order. Almost from the moment that Donald Trump descended on the lobby of Trump Tower to make his campaign announcement, an army of online trolls leapt to his defense. They cheered his denunciation of Mexicans as "rapists," they relished his attacks on so-called globalism, and heaven help anyone who dared attack their populist hero. I'm speaking, of course, about the alt-right, that motley crew of white nationalists, neo-Confederates, and outright Nazis who share a common belief that culture is inseparable from ethnicity. To these folks, Western civilization cannot exist unless it is a white civilization. The alt-right's primary "contribution" to Trump's election was a sustained, vicious assault on his opponents. I've told my story before. I saw our young daughter photo-shopped into gas chambers, terrible images of dead and dying black men and women plastered all over my wife's blog, e-mailed threats, and terrifying phone hacks. And I was hardly alone. My friend Ben Shapiro endured an avalanche of anti-Semitism. Erick Erickson's family faced a nightmare of threats. There was hardly a conservative Trump opponent who didn't face such trash to some degree. I knew multiple journalists who, for the first times in their careers, legitimately feared not just for their lives but for their family members' lives as well. More from National Review:

Campus conservatives gave the alt-right a platform

Is there still a conservative foreign policy?

James Mattis: No better friend, no worse enemy In response to this evil movement, Breitbart stood out among prominent conservative outlets, publishing perhaps the most influential apologetic for the alt-right and promoting that piece's co-author, Milo Yiannopoulos, as its premiere writer and personality. Yiannopoulos himself "trolled" and attacked Trump's opponents relentlessly, blasting out anti-Semitic messages at his targets and inspiring legions of Twitter followers to do the same. Meanwhile, Breitbart published bizarre hit pieces against its critics, including a video directed specifically at Shapiro that's chock-full of alt-right language and themes. The site's comment boards transformed into an open sewer, a virtual meeting place for the alt-right.

There's a good reason that white nationalists rejoice at Steve Bannon's proximity to power. There's a good reason that countless Americans look at that man so close to the Oval Office and fear his influence on their president's mind and heart.

None of this was subtle. It all happened in plain view. In fact Breitbart's thenexecutive chairman proudly declared that his publication was "the platform for the alt-right." His name was Steve Bannon. He is now the "chief strategist" for the president of the United States.



Breitbart's influence was thoroughly malignant. It normalized, minimized, and desensitized conservatives to a truly malicious and dangerous movement, all for the sake of "destroying political correctness" and helping Donald Trump. Here, for example, is an excerpt of Yiannopoulos's infamous piece justifying some of the hateful, vile, and threatening images that were filling Twitter in 2016: Just as the kids of the 60s shocked their parents with promiscuity, long hair and rock'n'roll, so too do the alt-right's young meme brigades shock older generations with outrageous caricatures, from the Jewish "Shlomo Shekelburg" to "Remove Kebab," an internet in-joke about the Bosnian genocide. These caricatures are often spliced together with Millennial pop culture references, from old 4chan memes like pepe the frog, to anime and My Little Pony references. He continued: Are they actually bigots? No more than death metal devotees in the 80s were actually Satanists. For them, it's simply a means to fluster their grandparents. I guess it's all fun and games until a member of the meme brigade drives into a crowd of people, sending bodies flying through the air. There's a good reason that white nationalists rejoice at Steve Bannon's proximity to power. There's a good reason that countless Americans look at that man so close to the Oval Office and fear his influence on their president's mind and heart. How can Trump look the American people in the face and say that he unequivocally condemns the alt-right when one of the men who did more than anyone else to enhance its influence works down the hall?



Moreover, there's strong evidence that Bannon is still up to his old tricks. According to an avalanche of reports, he's set his sights on the president's national-security adviser, H. R. McMaster, and is furiously leaking damaging stories to get McMaster fired. Once again, the underbelly of the Internet has had his back. As it became clear that Bannon was gunning for McMaster, a meme began to circulate depicting the latter as a puppet of international Jewish interests. Dark, unsubstantiated rumors started to spread about McMaster's personal life. Is it any wonder that he pointedly refused to say yesterday that he could work with Bannon?
European markets closed marginally higher on Tuesday as tensions between the U.S. and North Korea showed signs of subsiding, prompting investors to return to riskier assets.

The pan-European was up 0.09 percent with the majority of sectors moving in positive territory.

Oil and gas were lower with oil prices moving south as fears over a weaker demand in China and strong OPEC production weighed on investor sentiment. Retailers were also dragged lower as Next slumped 2.8 percent. Berenberg downgraded its rating from hold to sell saying a recent 10 percent rally in the share price provided "material downside" risk.

Fiat Chrysler held onto gains seen Monday following reports that it has received at least one bid from a Chinese automaker and continued at the top of the European benchmark, up by more than 8 percent.

Shares of food retailer Sainsbury were slightly higher after pressing pause on a proposed 130 million ($168 million) takeover of grocery wholesaler Nisa amid competition concerns.

German chemical company K+S was among the worst performer, down by 5 percent, after reporting weaker-than-expected results and withdrawing its 2020 EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) outlook.
Merck CEO Ken Frazier resigned from President's Trump's Manufacturing Council on Monday, saying "As CEO of Merck and as a matter of personal conscience, I feel a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism."

Later that day, two more CEOs joined him in resigning from the council  Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank and Intel CEO Brian Krzanich.

Krzanich explained his decision in a blog post, saying: "I resigned to call attention to the serious harm our divided political climate is causing to critical issues, including the serious need to address the decline of American manufacturing."

President Trump did issue a statement on Monday more strongly condemning racism as evil, saying, "those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including KKK, Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists and other hate groups"

However, his initial knee-jerk was to attack Frazier in a tweet, saying, "he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!"

Ironically, as chairman of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, Frazier has been the leader in urging restraint in pharmaceutical prices, being the first company to offer transparency on its prices between 2010-2016, and calling out miscreants like Turing Pharmaceuticals' Martin Shkreli and Valeant's Mike Pearson. Commenting on President Trump's tweet, CNBC's Jim Cramer suggested that the president owed Frazier an apology.

The courageous stand these three CEOs took raises the question: When should corporate leaders speak out on vital issues? What risks do they take, such as incurring the wrath of the president?

In recent months, we have been witnessing more and more leaders taking public stands on important issues. When President Trump withdrew America from the Paris Climate Agreement in June, Jeff Immelt, then the CEO of General Electric (now chairman), tweeted, "Climate change is real. Industry must now lead and not depend on the government." CEOs Bob Iger of Disney and Elon Musk of Tesla immediately resigned from the President's Strategy and Policy Forum following that decision.

These CEOs are walking a fine line between staying engaged by serving on presidential councils and resigning as a statement of principle over actions by public officials that run counter to their company's values and principles. In today's complex world, CEOs are looked to as standard bearers on important policy issues for their companies, while also representing multiple constituencies, often with conflicting views. It is in the nuance of making these tradeoffs that their true leadership is determined.

Given the importance of issues like health care, global trade, climate change, and corporate taxes, CEOs and their teams need to have access to the policy makers in Congress and the White House in order explain how these issues impact their businesses. At the same time they are charged with upholding the company's principles.

In Merck's case, Frazier must reflect the needs of millions of Merck's global patients and customers, as well as the interests of 55,000 employees around the world. These constituencies are highly diverse, reflecting every race, religion, and nationality, as well as gender, sexual orientation and political beliefs  all of which were cited by Frazier in his statement of resignation. Meanwhile, shareholders have their stake in the company and its financial well-being, as do many health care groups. How can CEOs like Frazier navigate these complexities?

I believe business leaders should base their stands on the company's mission and its values. If these are violated, then they have an obligation to speak publicly. Frazier felt the offense of extremists in Charlottesville this past weekend required a strong stand from the president against white supremacists and neo-Nazis, one that was not forthcoming. So did Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein.

Minutes after Frazier's statement and Trump's rejoinder, Blankfein posted his own tweet, quoting Lincoln, "'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' Isolate those who try to separate us. No equivalence w/ those who bring us together."

If their positions are based on their company's principles, not just self-interest, then these leaders are on solid ground, even if they incur the wrath of some policy makers and constituents.

Apple's Tim Cook and Salesforce's Marc Benioff have repeatedly spoken out against discrimination against gays and anti-LGBT policies in North Carolina and Indiana. Last week, Google CEO Sundar Pichai terminated employee James Damore for his 10-page manifesto that Pichai said "crosses the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace," such as suggesting that women are neurotic, characterized by high anxiety and lower stress tolerance.

As the public dialogue becomes more divisive, I anticipate that more business leaders will be taking public stands on behalf of the people and organizations they represent. I admire their courage and willingness to do so. Even when we disagree with them, we should be respectful of their bravery to stand up and be counted when the issues matter the most.

Commentary by Bill George, a senior fellow at Harvard Business School, former Chairman & CEO of Medtronic, and the author of "Discover Your True North." Follow him on Twitter @Bill_George.

For more insight from CNBC contributors, follow @CNBCopinion on Twitter.

READ MORE:

We asked the CEOs on Trump's manufacturing council about Merck's CEO quitting. Here's what happened...
Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer of Google Michael Short | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Google's diversity program discourages debate on the topic of bias and encourages employees who participate in anti-bias training to keep details of the sessions secret, according to slides for leaders and participants of one such session used by the company. At least two of the slides back up some of the claims by fired engineer James Damore, who after attending such a session wrote a memo calling Google "an ideological echo chamber where some ideas are too sacred to be honestly discussed." The memo led to his firing and has ignited a nationwide firestorm over what he wrote and how Google management has responded. Many slides from the diversity training decks use real-world examples to explain how conversations can be unintentionally biased. One slide, for instance, suggests that an employee who tells another, "The interface needs to be so simple your mother can use it," is guilty of "stereotype bias."

Other slides, however, may explain why Damore thought Google "has created a politically correct monoculture that maintains its hold by shaming dissenters into silence." For instance, in a slide titled "Off-topic for this session," the first point underneath that heading reads: "Debating whether bias exists at your organization."

That suggests any argument that Google is not biased is unwelcome at the diversity sessions, which are voluntary. Another slide titled, "Create a safe learning space," includes this instruction: "Don't repeat what people said in this room."

The presentations are called "Google's Bias Busting @ Work Facilitator Guide," which is available online here and "Bias Busting @ Work Slides," seen here. A Google spokesperson said, "Far from being secretive, these are documents we've intentionally made publicly available to the world for years, for discussion and feedback. And the context of these bias-busting sessions is important: to make these sessions productive, we ask participants to focus on their own experiences with bias, and not to disclose others' personal experiences. That's a common sense way of running an effective workshop. There are numerous other forums where employees are able to discuss our programs." Damore's memo sparked widespread criticism for including stereotypes that women are inherently more cooperative and less interested in status, and implying that they are less suited for coding jobs because of these traits, among other things. Critics have suggested that Damore's assertions lacked scientific backing and were selectively chosen to bolster a conclusion he'd already reached, among other criticisms. The controversy has come as Google, a unit of Alphabet , faces a U.S. government lawsuit that accuses the company of paying women far less than men in similar roles. In January, the U.S. Department of Labor sued Google to obtain employee data as part of an inquiry into alleged salary discrimination by gender. Google has refuted the allegation and says it has a gender blind approach to compensation. Two months ago, Google hired Danielle Mastrangel Brown as vice president of diversity and inclusion and chief people officer, a position she previously held at Intel. On a web page describing its diversity efforts, Google says it is seeking talent "where we haven't looked before."
Members of community groups calling for the 'de-colonization and de-militarization of Guam' attend a 'People for Peace' rally in Hagatna on August 14, 2017.

Typically, civil danger warnings are rarely broadcast as they are used to alert residents of imminent danger, such as a military strike or terrorist attack. Officials emphasized later that a real emergency message of this nature would describe the nature of the threat.

The two radio stations, a music channel and a Christian network, broadcast an emergency message over Guam's airwaves at around 12.15 a.m. this morning. The unspecified warning lasted approximately 15 minutes.

Radio stations in Guam accidentally broadcast an emergency civil danger warning on Tuesday, prompting residents of the U.S. pacific territory to fear the worst after a week of military threats from North Korea.

"The unauthorized test was not connected to any emergency, threat or warning," Guam's homeland security office said in a statement on Tuesday. The Office of Civil Defense added it had worked with the two stations "to ensure the human error will not occur again."

Last week, North Korea threatened to fire missiles towards Guam after an increasingly bitter war of words with Washington.

However, on Tuesday, Pyongyang appeared to back away from its previously sharp rhetoric. North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un was reported to have reviewed plans to fire missiles towards the territory before deciding to hold off for the time being, state media said.

Meanwhile, George Charfauros, Guam's homeland security advisor, called for residents and tourists to remain calm in spite of unconfirmed reports in the media.

"Remember there is no change in threat level, we continue business as usual and know there are U.S. Department of Defense capabilities in place," Charfauros said in a statement on Tuesday.

"We continue communication with our federal and military partners and have not received an official statement warranting any concern for imminent threat to Guam or the Marianas," he added.

Around 75 people gathered in Guam's capital city of Hagatna on Monday evening local time to call for peace. The territory is home to around 162,000 people and houses two military bases.
The ongoing legal battle between Hollywood actor Johnny Depp and his former business managers intensifies as reports reveal that his former business managers are facing investigations from three federal agencies.

Management Group founders Joel and Rob Mandel may potentially face fraud and money laundering charges by the Internal Revenue Service and Justice Department, while the Securities and Exchange Commission are probing how the firm managed Depp's funds, said people familiar with the situation, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

The Management Group has not been contacted yet in regards to the probe, according to a person close to the matter.

The IRS-Justice Department probe is in its early stages, while the SEC has already subpoenaed one person in its probe, said a person familiar with the matter, according to the report. Depp's lawyers have also met with government officials, the report said.

"In 30 years of business, no current or former client of TMG has raised any issue, other than Johnny Depp who continues to spread malicious, unfounded lies about the company. TMG will vigorously defend and defeat all of Depp's fabricated claims," a lawyer for TMG said in a statement to CNBC.
A London Stock Exchange employee fell to his death from an upper-floor balcony, officials said Tuesday.

Details around the incident are sketchy, but police confirmed it happened around 9:58 London time.

"The City of London Police is currently investigating the circumstances around the death and the incident is being treated as non-suspicious," a City of London police spokesman said. "We are now working to inform the man's next of kin."

The Sun newspaper reported that the man fell from the seventh floor and landed in the lobby. The Telegraph reported that the man was believed to be married and in his 40s. The paper also noted that each floor of the exchange has walkways with gaps.

"'It's horrifying, that's all I can say," one worker told the Telegraph.

The exchange confirmed the death in a statement.

"The emergency services were called immediately and are dealing with the incident. We will continue to offer them every support and cooperation possible," it said. "Our thoughts and condolences are with the family and friends of our dear colleague. We would ask that the privacy of the family of the deceased be respected at this time. "
There's increasing speculation that Mark Zuckerberg, the self-made billionaire chairman, co-founder and chief executive officer of Facebook, may one day run for office. And though it's unclear that he will make a bid for to be the next U.S. President in 2020, he could certainly afford it.

The clues

According to Politico, some of the signs that he does plan to run are there. Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan have hired Joel Benenson, a Democratic pollster, adviser to former President Barack Obama and chief strategist of Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign, as a consultant for their joint philanthropic project, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. The pair also hired David Plouffe, campaign manager for Obama's 2008 presidential run; Amy Dudley, former communications adviser for Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va.; and Ken Mehlman, who directed President George W. Bush's 2004 re-election campaign. Zuckerberg is on a yearlong "listening tour," where he is traveling to all 50 states and meeting with leaders and constituents in each  and, to document the trip, he has hired Charles Ommanney, a photographer for both the Bush and Obama presidential campaigns.

The denials

Zuckerberg denies that he has presidential aspirations. He wrote in a May 21 Facebook post, "Some of you have asked if this challenge means I'm running for public office. I'm not." He said the same thing to BuzzFeed News in January. But it sure looks like he might be. And he wouldn't be the first politician to try to mislead the public.

The costs

If he does run, it would cost only about one percent of his net worth to match the amount spent on Hillary Clinton's presidential bid of 2016, which some predicted at the time would be the most expensive ever. Overall, the bill for last year's presidential and congressional elections came to a record $6.5 billion, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The presidential race alone cost $2.4 billion. Of that, Clinton's campaign spent $768 million and Donald Trump's spent $398 million. Zuckerberg's net worth, made mostly through Facebook, is $71 billion as of Aug. 14, according to Forbes. That makes him one of the richest people in the world. It's hard to know exactly how much a presidential campaign could cost Zuckerberg. That would depend on how much he would shell out himself and how much he could collect from super PAC contributions and donations from supporters, as well as the price of advertising, travel, housing and staffing. However, the 2016 race could provide a template. Deadlines vary by state on when a presidential candidate must declare their candidacy, but there are 1,175 days until ballots are cast in 2020, and according to CNBC calculations, Zuckerberg, so far, has made $4.4 million for every day he's been alive.

Mark Zuckerberg announced in April 2013 the formation of FWD.us Bloomberg | Getty Images

The issues
Donald Trump is on the hunt for a scapegoat, and he has settled on Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell. He isn't entirely wrong to do so.

As a candidate, Trump promised big doings: repealing the Affordable Care Act and replacing it with  well, he was never very clear on that point. He promised big tax reform and sweeping regulatory reform, improved trade terms, and a big, beautiful wall paid for by a magical surcharge on Mexicans. None of that has come to pass, and Trump, who is constitutionally incapable of acknowledging his own surfeit of personal and professional failures, blames Congress.

Trump presented himself to the voters as a master negotiator and dealmaker, but that of course was the character he played on television, not the actual man. Trump cannot sit down with congressional Republicans  much less a bipartisan coalition  and negotiate a deal on health-care reform. The reasons for this are straightforward: There is disagreement among Republicans about what policies should be forwarded, and President Trump does not know what he himself thinks about any of them, because he does not think anything about any of them, because he doesn't know about them.

Trump does not do details  he does adjectives. He wants a "terrific" health-care system. So does Bernie Sanders, but the two of them don't agree on what that means in practice. At least, they don't agree anymore: Trump has in the past endorsed the same single-payer system that the grumpy little socialist Muppet from Vermont prefers, which he, or whoever writes the books published under his name, described at some length in his 2000 offering The America We Deserve. He pointed to Canada as an example of how health care in the United States should be organized. He might even have believed that for a week or two, but Trump is simply too lazy to do the intellectual work necessary to develop a coherent position beyond his facile superlatives.



More from National Review:

Polls don't measure what you think they measure

Another manufactured diversity spat

Mueller is squeezing Manafort

Trump's lazy ignorance encompasses much more than health care. In his decades as a vocal NAFTA critic, he has never offered in any specific detail any proposal for reforming any particular provision of NAFTA, and he has on occasion made it clear that he does not know what is actually in the accord. His public statements about tax reform have been all over the map, out-lefting Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren with his attacks on the carried-interest treatment of some financial firms' income and then doing his best impersonation (which is a very poor one) of Larry Kudlow preaching the gospel of pro-growth tax cuts. He once reversed and then reverse-reversed himself on H-1B visas over the course of a few hours. Expecting Donald Trump to act as a chief executive, lead negotiator, and deal-artist on recondite questions of policy and politics is foolish. His petulant tweets at Mitch McConnell  "Baby want sumthin to sign!"  communicate his expectations of himself quite well.

So why hasn't McConnell sent him something to sign?

The president is a weak leader, especially when it comes to questions of substance, but McConnell is not, and neither is Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. But  and I write this as an earnest admirer of both men  they may be the wrong men for the job. The wily McConnell and the steadfast Ryan were fine and effective opposition leaders. But they are not in the opposition any more. McConnell has been the Senate majority leader since January 3, 2015. Paul Ryan has passed through a series of senior leadership posts since 2011: chairman of the Budget Committee, chairman of Ways and Means, speaker of the House.

They have had a long time to get their legislative acts together. Of course, it would be easier to forge consensus if they had a president who knew or cared about the substance of the policy questions before them, but in the absence of such a president, it falls to the legislative leaders to do what needs doing. The British dumped Winston Churchill after the war, considering him a wartime leader unsuited to the needs of peacetime. If McConnell and Ryan do not want to be considered opposition leaders  and if the Republican party does not want to be considered an opposition party incapable of government  then now is the time to give us all reason to think otherwise.



Give the damned fool something to sign.



Dwight Eisenhower was happy to see off the Republican Senate majority in 1955, finding Lyndon Johnson's Democrats easier to work with than William Knowland and the Taftite Republicans who wanted to reverse the New Deal. (My people.) Trump, a dedicated explorer on the path of least resistance, may be making a similar calculation: Working with congressional Republicans is more work than working against them. Why let them be stumbling blocks when they are such handy whipping boys?



McConnell probably is safe for now, mainly because he has a job no one else wants. He is one of the few Republicans in the Senate not possessed by the delusion that he is fated to be president. If one of those promising young men bruised by the ugly 2016 Republican presidential primaries should ever come to his senses and decide that Senate majority leader is actually a pretty good job, things might go differently. Ted Cruz seems to like being a senator and might benefit from meditating upon the career of Lyndon Johnson. Marco Rubio actually has the political skills and personal ability to be a real leader in the Senate, but he doesn't seem quite convinced that's worth doing. Rand Paul is a bit of a lone wolf. Put your ear to the ground and you won't hear a stampede to Rob Portman or Pat Toomey. Ben Sasse would elevate the office.

However that goes, Republicans need congressional leadership. As ridiculous as it is to see the president of these United States bawling on social media that he just wants something to sign, McConnell and Ryan really ought to send him something to sign. If they cannot get that done, then they should make room for new leaders who can. Unified Republican control of the executive and legislative branches is not going to last forever, and there is much that needs to be done before the fickle fancy of the voters alights upon some new shiny object.



Commentary by Kevin Williamson, a roving correspondent at National Review. Follow him on Twitter @kevinNR.



For more insight from CNBC contributors, follow @CNBCopinion on Twitter.

2017 National Review. Used with permission.
Former President Barack Obama tweeted a picture and a quote in response to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, this weekend, and he has gotten a record-setting amount of engagement from Twitter users. The first of his series of threaded tweets has accumulated about 2.8 million "likes," making it the most approved of tweet of all time.

TWEET

Citing Nelson Mandela, Obama wrote, "No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion ... People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love ... For love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite."

The former record-holder is a tweet from pop star Ariana Grande telling fans that she was "broken" after a bombing of her concert in Manchester killed at least 22 people, including some children. It has about 2.7 million "likes."

TWEET

The third most-popular tweet of all time is far more lighthearted: Ellen DeGeneres' Oscars selfie.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has fumbled while using the social media platform. He retweeted and then deleted two messages on Tuesday, one that featured a cartoon train running down a character intended to represent the news network CNN and one that called the President a fascist.

Also on Tuesday, after three CEOs stepped down from their positions on his manufacturing advisory council, Trump used Twitter to accuse them of being "grandstanders." Shortly after that tweet went up, a fourth CEO also stepped down.

The President has come under criticism for his overall handling of the events in Charlottesville. On Saturday, instead of criticizing racists and neo-Nazis by name, Trump referred to violence "on many sides." Only two days later, on Monday afternoon, did he explicitly condemn white supremacists. By then, much of the PR damage had already been done.

Don't miss: Trump says America has 'the highest taxes in the world'here's how the US actually compares
A cybersecurity investigation into three of China's most popular social media platforms may have nothing to do with alleged illegalities. Instead, President Xi Jinping's administration may simply be looking to tighten censorship ahead of a major leadership reshuffle later this year.

Chinese Paramilitary police officers salute each other as they stand guard below a portrait of the late leader Mao Zedong in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China.

"In reality, the accusations are loosely connected to cybersecurity laws, which contains only a single clause related to content management," a team of China analysts at political risk consulting firm Eurasia Group, said in a Tuesday note.

"Instead, the Cyberspace Administration of China appears to be simply advertising the law  its crowning achievement  while enforcement is driven by an uptick in more prosaic repression and risk-aversion ahead of the 19th Party Congress," the note continued.

As one of the world's most-censored nations, Beijing regularly clamps down on social and traditional media in the lead-up to meetings of top political brass.

Slated for October or November, the Communist Party's 19th National Congress is due to unveil new leadership that will govern the country for the next half-decade. Five of the seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee, the ruling party's key decision-making body, are due to retire, but Xi is widely expected to stay on for a second term.

But even if he keeps his seat at the table, Xi still remains under the spotlight as he tackles challenging obstacles such as financial market liberalization and highly leveraged state-owned enterprises. So to demonstrate strength and uniformity before the high-profile meeting, Beijing is expected to prioritize steady economic growth and orderly societal conduct.
The Royal Bank of Scotland plans to cut 880 jobs from its IT department in London by 2020, according to a U.K. labor union.

Britain's Unite union claimed on Tuesday that the bank had informed staff of a further 40 percent cut of permanent IT staff, as well as a 65 percent reduction of contractors.

RBS employed 2,200 IT workers in 2016, but in three years' time plans to reduce those numbers to 950, the union said.

"Royal Bank of Scotland is continuing with its savage jobs culling program with today's announcement of a 40 percent cut in IT staff, totaling nearly 900 staff," Rob MacGregor, national officer for Unite, said in a statement on Tuesday.

"The decade of slashing jobs has done nothing to boost morale, increase consumer confidence or improve the bank's performance."

In March, the bank announced plans to close 158 branches  a potential loss of up to 362 jobs  due to a shift in customers preference for online banking.
U.S. President Donald Trump (2nd L) welcomes members of his American Technology Council, including (L-R) Apple CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in the State Dining Room of the White House Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images

To watch the president of the United States prevaricate and dissemble in the face of white supremacist terror is and hopefully always will be shocking. But it's hardly surprising. Donald Trump's march to the Oval Office began with the charge that Barack Obama was secretly born in Kenya, he catapulted to the top of the Republican pack with the charge that Mexican immigrants are predominantly rapists and murderers, and along the way he managed to espouse the view that a federal judge should be disqualified from a case on the basis of ethnicity. Trump embraces a politics of racial conflict because it works for him. As Bloomberg's Joshua Green recounts in his new book Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency, candidate Trump shrugged off media and political attention to his dalliances with the unsavory racist elements of the alt-right. "We polled the race stuff and it doesn't matter," Bannon told Green in September; "it doesn't move anyone who isn't already in [Clinton's] camp." More from Vox:

Debating the liberal case against identity politics

GoDaddy and Google have refused service to a notorious neo-Nazi site

This anti-Nazi film went viral after Charlottesville. It may be less effective than it seems. The fundamental issue is that the United States contains very few committed and vocal white supremacists (turnout for the Virginia rally was dwarfed by counterprotests nationwide). But it does contain an awful lot of white people. To the extent that politics is seen as a crude zero-sum struggle between racial groups, most of them are going to back the side they perceive as supporting the interests of white people. Yet the reality is that while Trump is inflicting tangible disproportionate harm to racial minorities across the country, he's not doing anything substantive to advance the interests of his typical white supporter either. He's loudly embraced a brand of toxic racial politics while quietly creating a narrow winner's circle of C-suite executive and inheritors of vast fortunes. And it's the loyalty of the business class, not of neo-Nazi street brawlers, that ultimately ensures Trump's position of power and is in turn receiving its due rewards.

Donald Trump's plutocracy

Trump's racial policymaking is both sadly real and entirely negative. From the various iterations of his travel ban to stepped-up internal immigration enforcement to wink-nudge encouragement of police brutality and neo-Nazis, Trump is creating an environment that both is subjectively alarming to nonwhites and singles out vulnerable groups for extraordinary levels of suffering. But these are not policies that actually do anything to advance the interests of the white population. They don't create jobs, grow the economy, or improve public safety. On immigration, where Trump's approach has taken on the most substance, it rather clearly does the reverse. Yet it's not the case that nobody is helped by Trump's policy agenda. Instead, over and over again Trump has put in place new politics that share a dominant plutocratic theme. Despite his well-documented struggles with the legislative process, Trump has gotten real things done, and they are overwhelmingly things that help incumbent businesses get over on the public interests. Trump and congressional Republicans, for example, deployed the Congressional Review Act to roll back many of the Obama administration's 2016 regulatory actions. Thanks to Trump: It's easier for mining companies to dump pollution into streams.

It's easier for oil companies to bribe foreign governments.

It's easier for broadband internet providers to sell their customers' user data.

But it's now harder for state governments to set up low-fee retirement accounts so people could save money without getting ripped off. Trump doesn't tweet about it much, but it turns out that making it harder for people to avoid financial rip-offs is something of a passion for the Trump administration. He has, for example, gutted enforcement of an Obama-era rule that would have made it illegal for financial advisers to deliberately rip off their customers. None of this, obviously, has anything to do with helping white people any more than the Trump Federal Communications Commission's ongoing efforts to dismantle net neutrality or the Trump Treasury's efforts to reopen corporate tax loopholes are motivated by concern for the welfare of the European-American population. At the behest of the chemical industry, the Trump Environmental Protection Agency has approved the continued sale of a pesticide that poisons children's brains, and at the behest of for-profit colleges, the Trump Education Department is rolling back regulations offering debt relief to students misled by scam schools. The winners here are not "anxious" working-class heartlanders, but the owners and managers of big companies who have the government off their backs and barely even need to defend their stances in public with Trump's antics sucking up the bulk of attention.

Trump's attacks on minorities help almost nobody

Can Democrats convince white people that racism hurts them?

Lyndon Johnson, speaking at the Jung Hotel in New Orleans during the 1964 campaigntold an extraordinary secondhand story about what an old Southern senator allegedly told former House leader Sam Rayburn (D-TX) when Rayburn first got to Washington and called on him: He was talking about the economy and what a great future we could have in the South, if we could just meet our economic problems, if we could just take a look at the resources of the South and develop them. And he said, "Sammy, I wish I felt a little better. I would like to go back to old"  and I won't call the name of the State; it wasn't Louisiana and it wasn't Texas  "I would like to go back down there and make them one more Democratic speech. I just feel like I have one in me. The poor old State, they haven't heard a Democratic speech in 30 years. All they ever hear at election time is 'nigger, nigger, nigger!'" Johnson, himself a Southerner, bookended the story with a vow to enforce the Civil Rights Act as "the law of the land" but also said that "I am not going to let them build up the hate and try to buy my people by appealing to their prejudice." The argument of both Johnson and the possibly apocryphal senator, in other words, was that Jim Crow, though obviously distinctly burdensome on the black South, had also been detrimental to the white South. Rather than investing in its people and developing its full economic potential, the South spent decades propping up a nationwide conservative coalition whose policy preferences kept the region poor and backward. Johnson was reelected that year in a landslide, but he didn't convince the white voters of Louisiana (or Mississippi or Alabama or Georgia or South Carolina) who backed the GOP for the first time that year and have done so loyally ever since. Back in February of 2016, Ian Haney-Lopez and Heather McGhee urged Bernie Sanders to adopt this style of argument as a means to improve his standing with voters of color in the Democratic primary. "The progressive movement," they wrote, "should expand from a vision of racism as violence done solely to people of color to include a conception of racism as a political weapon wielded by elites against the 99 percent, nonwhite and white alike." Sanders didn't really do this and lost the primary while garnering very few nonwhite voters, and then Clinton proceeded to wage a general election campaign that largely inverted this advice. Seeking to counter Trump by assembling a broad coalition of decency, Clinton focused on Trump's personal unfitness and racism while downplaying traditional policy issues. It didn't work. But it came close enough to working, and Clinton suffered from enough idiosyncratic problems (James Comey, etc.) that it's tempting  especially in the wake of the spectacular events of Charlottesville  to some to try again. But it would be a mistake.

Corporate America has learned to love Trump

WATCH: Intel CEO Brian Krzanich quits Trump's manufacturing council
At some colleges you're going to have to study hard  but not at these schools.

The Princeton Review asked 137,000 students at 382 colleges, "How many out-of-class hours do you spend studying each day?" and found that students at these 10 schools study less than students at any other college.

The average size of the schools on this list is 8,899 students, significantly more than the average size of the , which is 1,752.

St. John's University in Queens, New York tops the list as the school where students study the least. With 16,440 enrolled students, St. Johns is a private Catholic university that promises "a safe, healthy and challenging academic career." Students, on the other hand, say that studying at St. Johns is anything but challenging. One student told Princeton Review that classes are "easy to follow and there are never any surprises." Students across all majors agree that "the workload is not overwhelming."

West Virginia University, which enrolls 22,350 students, is the largest school on the list. One West Virginia students described the school as "a relaxed, social and extremely school-spirited environment." West Virginia also ranked as the second biggest party school in the country. Unfortunately, the fun may not be paying off for these students. Only 32 percent of students graduate from West Virginia in four years.

Check out the full list below to see where students are putting in the fewest hours:
Former tech CEO Dan Price never had an interest in becoming a doctor, lawyer or engineer growing up. Raised by a family of independent business owners, he always aspired to be his own boss. He reached that goal by age 25 when he helped launched a venture capital firm followed by a million-dollar phone tech company and hasn't looked back since. Today, Price, 59, leads the Sweet Virginia Foundation, an educational nonprofit where he's a beekeeper and donates flowers from his farm to local elders. He further supports senior citizens through his BrightStar Care home assistance franchise  for which he expects to earn $2 million in revenue  as an additional way to continue his entrepreneurial lifestyle of over 35 years.

Daniel Price in his Sweet Virginia Foundation field of flowers. Courtesy of Daniel Price

"In my early teens and 20s, I decided I'm going to pursue this entrepreneurial path," Price tells CNBC Make It. "I feel very satisfied and fortunate in the way things have worked out for me. I've worked very hard and I've given it my best shot, but I've also been very fortunate in establishing relationships with the right people." Price was a high schooler in the early 1970s when he first learned about Harvard Business School. He tells CNBC Make It that from that moment, he "zeroed in" and focused on a plan for what it would take to get in there. "I made conscious decisions in undergrad to pursue that life of trying to own and operate my own business," Price says. "Getting into Harvard would help fast forward the process, do it earlier in life and increase the chances of attracting capital." After graduating Harvard Business School, Price partnered with two former coworkers from his post-undergraduate job at accounting firm Arthur Andersen to start their own venture capital firm. They started by making small investments of a half million dollars to $2 million at early stage companies, one of which was Discovery Channel and proved highly successful. But after a few years of working in the finance world, he felt out of place. "Having people come to me with plans that they needed capital for really wasn't my thing," Price says. "I wanted to be in the entrepreneur's seat."
House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady told CNBC on Tuesday that Republicans on Capitol Hill and President Donald Trump will be able to revamp the U.S. tax code this year.

"We are on track to deliver transformational, bold tax reform this year because President Trump and the House and Senate are working together to deliver on that timetable," Brady said.

"That didn't happen on health care," the Texas congressman said on "Squawk Box."

"While America is divided on the benefits of Obamacare, there's no one defending the status quo of this broken, complex, ugly tax code," Brady said.

"To me, it feels so much different than health care," he said.

Brady said support from the president is key to passing tax reform: "My sense is from President Trump is he's all in."

But are voters?

A Gallup poll this spring showed Americans who feel they pay too much in federal taxes dropped to 51 percent in April. That's down from 57 percent a year earlier.

Responding to possible wavering public opinion, Brady said, "In the town halls and round tables ... Americans are starved, hungry for something better than what we have."

Brady plans to deliver a major speech on taxes at the Reagan Ranch in Santa Barbara, California on Wednesday.

On Aug. 16, 1986, at the ranch, President Ronald Reagan signed the tax reform package that he championed into law.



"Tax reform is hard. It's the challenge of a generation," said Brady. "But again, I don't think anyone can defend where we're at."
The press conference's Q&A session became a rapid-fire exchange between the press and the president, who had already drawn criticism for his response to the events in Charlottesville, Virginia, which resulted in one death.

President Donald Trump held a Tuesday press conference that was slated to address infrastructure spending but turned into a wide-ranging, chaotic question-and-answer session.

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly was photographed staring at the ground, arms crossed, as the president fielded questions on Tuesday about White House staff and a white supremacist rally in Virginia.

"You had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists and the press has treated them absolutely unfairly," Trump . Trump noted the rally started over the potential removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, asking, "Are we going to take down Thomas Jefferson's statue?"

Reporters also pressed Trump on the fate of White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.

The photo of Kelly was taken during the Q&A session, according to NBC News' Kristin Donnelly, who tweeted the image, which quickly went viral on Twitter.

Kelly, a general and former commander in the Marines, has been lauded by political commentators as Trump's "last hope" to bring order to the White House staff. The New York Times' sources said Kelly was seen as a "beacon of discipline."

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.

 CNBC's Jacob Pramuk contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump makes a statement on the violence this past weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia at the White House on August 14, 2017 in Washington, DC. Getty Images

The president of the United States finally condemned white supremacist violence in Charlottesville on Monday, two days after an initial statement that blamed "both sides" for violence largely instigated by far-right activists (including a car attack on counterprotesters that killed one person and injured 19). But the only part of his remarks that appeared to promise that he was devoting not just words, but action, to the problem of right-wing extremism in America  "We will spare no resource in fighting so that every American child can grow up free from violence and fear"  was actually the most hollow. On Saturday, too, Trump promised to get to the root of the problem: "We want to get the situation straightened out in Charlottesville, and we want to study it. And we want to see what we're doing wrong as a country where things like this can happen." The problem is that his administration has already indicated that it thinks it knows the answers to these problems. It's cut funding for outreach to counter white supremacism, while pushing punitive "law and order" responses to civil unrest. More from Vox:

Debating the liberal case against identity politics

GoDaddy and Google have refused service to a notorious neo-Nazi site

This anti-Nazi film went viral after Charlottesville. It may be less effective than it seems. Trump's willingness to explicitly say that white supremacism is bad (even if it's only offered in response to criticism) is worth at least something  it's a nod in the direction that white supremacism is an ideology that ought to be ostracized. But his administration's actions threaten to undermine any value in countering white supremacism that Trump's rhetoric might have had.

The Trump administration has systematically rejected efforts to counter right-wing violence

Barely a week after President Trump was inaugurated, rumors began to swirl that he was going to change the name of the federal "Countering Violent Extremism" task force, located in the Department of Homeland Security, to "Countering Islamic Extremism"  and that the task force would accordingly "no longer target groups such as white supremacists who have also carried out bombings and shootings in the United States." The task force's name hasn't changed. But its function has. After a review of grants provided by the task force, the Trump administration preserved most of the grants (which involved Islamic communities)  but killed a $400,000 grant to Life After Hate, a group that attempts to "deradicalize" young men drawn to white supremacism. It's not that the Trump administration didn't have evidence that right-wing extremism was a potential problem for public safety. According to Foreign Policy, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI issued a report on May 10 called "White Supremacist Extremism Poses Persistent Threat of Lethal Violence," which noted that white supremacists "were responsible for 49 homicides in 26 attacks from 2000 to 2016  more than any other domestic extremist movement."

Trump may see 'law and order' as the solution to everything because it reminds him of his electoral success. Other members of his administration see it as the solution to everything because they believe the fundamental problem is 'social disorder,' not racism or white supremacism.

But among conservatives skeptical of "identity politics," there's been a longstanding resistance to any government warnings about far-right extremist groups. When the Department of Homeland Security published a report in 2009 warning of increased racist extremism after the election of President Obama, the backlash was so intense that the department had to formally retract the report. So it's not surprising that weeks after the FBI/DHS bulletin, the Trump administration pulled funding from the one grant that attempted to address that strain of extremism. And it's not surprising that weeks after that  days before the violence in Charlottesville  homeland security adviser Sebastian Gorka told a television interviewer that the focus on white supremacist violence was "overblown." Trump's promise, now, to "spare no resources" in solving the problem doesn't inspire much confidence when his administration has shown so little interest in hearing that the problem might be a problem to begin with.

The Trump administration sees this as a problem that "law and order" can solve
Uber has settled with federal regulators that accused the start-up of "deceptive privacy and data security claims."

More than 100,000 names and driver's license numbers were stolen in a 2014 data breach of Uber's database, operated by Amazon Web Services. The Federal Trade Commission said the company could have made low-cost attempts, like using multi-factor authentication, to prevent the breach.

Plus, the FTC said, the ride-hailing start-up stopped using an automated system for monitoring employee access to consumer data after less than a year.

"Uber failed consumers in two key ways: First by misrepresenting the extent to which it monitored its employees' access to personal information about users and drivers, and second by misrepresenting that it took reasonable steps to secure that data," Maureen Ohlhausen, acting chairman of the FTC, said in a statement. "This case shows that, even if you're a fast growing company, you can't leave consumers behind: you must honor your privacy and security promises."

Uber agreed to privacy audits for the next 20 years and will be implementing a new privacy program as part of the settlement.

"The complaint involved practices that date as far back as 2014. We've significantly strengthened our privacy and data security practices since then and will continue to invest heavily in these programs," an Uber spokeswoman said. (Uber's settlement states that it "neither admits nor denies" any of the allegations.)

This isn't the first time that Uber's faced scrutiny over its privacy practices. The company was fined $20,000 at the beginning of last year after a New York investigation into the company's "God view" tool.

The existence of the "God View" tool was reported by BuzzFeed's Johana Bhuiyan (now at Recode). Bhuiyan hailed an Uber on the way to meet with an Uber executive, and when she arrived, she said she was told that the executive had been "tracking her." Emil Michael, formerly one of the top executives at Uber, also suggested in 2014 that Uber executives could dig up information on journalists.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman investigated the tool, which allowed executives to view to riders' locations in an aerial view. That settlement required Uber to encrypt rider locations, adopt multi-factor authentication.

The latest tussle with regulators comes at a tumultuous time for Uber, which is without a chief executive amid the fallout from a sexual harassment investigation within the company.
Uber said Tuesday evening that it would comply with an order from the Philippines' transport regulator to temporarily stop operations after a motion for reconsideration was denied.

The U.S.-based ride-hailing company had briefly ignored a cease and desist order issued Monday by the country's Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB). Instead, Uber filed a motion for regulatory reconsideration of the regulator's decision to suspend the platform's accreditation for a month.

Uber said it filed the motion because of "overwhelming rider and driver demand." In a Facebook post at the time, Uber said operations would continue until the motion was resolved.

But local media reports said the regulators rejected the appeal and that Uber drivers were still not allowed to pick up passengers. The regulators were not immediately available for comments when contacted by CNBC.

Uber yielded to the ruling in a new Facebook post on Tuesday evening, where it said it was "disappointed with the LTFRB's decision" to deny the appeal. It also said it was looking to resolve the matter as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, Asia-based Uber rival Grab said its operations were still up and running after it complied with the regulators' July 26 order to stop accepting and accrediting new drivers. The regulators had ordered both Grab and Uber to deactivate new drivers who came on board after June 30.

"In light of the recent order of the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board, we find ourselves in a unique situation. We ask the patrons of ride-sharing to bear with us as there has naturally been an increase in bookings made on the Grab platform," said Brian Cu, head of Grab Philippines in a media statement.

With Uber drivers out of commission, it is likely that Grab could see a surge in demand from its ride-hailing services.

The decision to suspend Uber's operations came amid an ongoing dispute between the LTFRB and ride-hailing services. Reuters reported that the regulatory disputes have prompted investigations by both chambers of the Philippine Congress.

In July, media reports said the regulators fined both Uber and Grab 5 million pesos ($97,570.50) each for letting some drivers operate without permits.

Last year, the regulators suspended the processing of applications of ride-hailing services that included Uber and Grab in order to review existing policies on how to regulate the industry better. That meant new drivers who signed up with either operator would not have a legal permit from the authorities.

LTFRB Tweet: ADVISORY to all Uber TNVS

In its Monday advisory, the LTFRB said it "strongly recommended" Uber to extend financial assistance to "its affected peer-operators during the period of suspension." The notice called it an "expression of good faith" toward competitors that suffered due to Uber's "predatory actions."

In April, Uber resumed its ride-hailing services in Taiwan after a two-month suspension that followed fines from the government.

 Reuters contributed to this report.
Amid the political chaos of the last few days, the White House's chief economic advisor, Gary Cohn, said Tuesday that tax reform can happen this year.

"We just spent literally the morning upstairs working on our tax reform plan, tax reform rollout. We are going to hit the ground running literally this month on tax reform," Cohn told reporters following President Donald Trump's press conference.

"We hope we can get taxes down between now and Thanksgiving," Cohn said.

The economic advisor said "no one's sure" where health care will end up.

But "we've got a great, I would say, skeleton" for tax reform, Cohn said. "We need the [House of Representatives] Ways and Means Committee to put some muscle and skin on the skeleton and drive tax reform forward, and it's our objective to do that between now and the end of the year."

Highly anticipated plans for infrastructure spending could also come soon.

Cohn said once taxes move from the House of Representatives to the Senate, "we'll put infrastructure into the House."

In Tuesday's news conference, Trump defended his response to the deadly violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend. He reverted to his original argument blaming all sides, a position that drew bipartisan criticism.

The controversy follows Trump's strong words against North Korea last week that raised concerns about a nuclear threat. The ongoing investigation into connections between the Trump administration and Russia around the 2016 election has also worried some that the White House may be too distracted to get tax reform and other stimulative measures in place.

U.S. stocks surged to record highs following Trump's election win, boosted by expectations on increased economic growth from promised tax reform, infrastructure and deregulation. S&P 500 futures were about a point higher late Tuesday.
As the CEO of the communications software company Basecamp, Jason Fried has taken a non-traditional approach to finding success in the tech industry. In addition to his relaxed company culture and 32-hour summer work week schedule, Fried has grown his business while turning down more than 100 investments from venture capital and private equity firms over Basecamp's nearly 18-year history. "Basically, when you take other people's money you owe them something," Fried tells CNBC Make It. "You either owe them money back or a business decision that is kind of no longer yours. Often times that means selling the business or being acquired and being run by someone else, and we don't ever want to do that."

Warning young entrepreneurs that an outside business investment usually means you're "setting a time-frame on your existence," Fried adds that he's never been interested in outside funding because receiving money doesn't always translate to knowing how to make a profit. "We make money from our customers and because we are profitable we are able to stay in business," says Fried. "When you raise money from VCs they aren't that interested in revenue and profit growth. They are interested in you raising more money so they can eventually sell." As a Chicago-based tech company that rakes in $25 million in annual revenue according to Forbes, Basecamp's team of over 50 remote employees provide freelancers, small businesses and large companies with a software that offers one central location for internal communication. Fried says turning down investments has not only allowed them to rely on profit gains for growing their business, but it's also allowed them to hire when they want to hire and grow and spend at their own pace.
An artist impression of the proposed Kolos data center Image copyright KOLOS

A small town in the remote north of the Arctic Circle is set to be home to the world's largest data center. The Kolos facility is being developed by a US-Norwegian partnership, also called Kolos, who say the site will eventually draw on a record-setting 1000 megawatts of power. On their website, Kolos claim Ballangen's cold climate and access to hydropower will help trim energy costs by as much as 60 percent. The company added that Kolos will be a "fortress for data".

"The Kolos site is surrounded by water and hills, providing a natural moat to protect against any physical risks," it claimed. The firm said the center will directly create 2,000 to 3,000 new jobs and support 10,000 to 15,000 jobs in the area. Scandinavia is no stranger to large data centers with Facebook's own version located about 240 miles away in Sweden.

A computing power revolution
Deutsche Bank upgraded Wynn Resorts to buy from hold and increased its 12-month price target, citing forecasts of increased mass market volume, or walk-in business, in China and VIP strength.

Shares of Wynn were up 4.3 percent Tuesday after the release of the Deutsche Bank report.

"We believe the mass ramp at Wynn Palace, post the floor reconfigurations, is beginning to accelerate," wrote Deutsche Bank analyst Carlo Santarelli. "Given the strength in VIP and our view of upside Consensus revisions, we feel current levels represent a favorable entry point."

Following the announcement of its second-quarter earnings in July, Wynn Resort shares fell over 7 percent; the stock is down 9 percent over the past month.

Deutsche Bank blamed declines in walk-in business in the second quarter for the July stock slip. Quarter-over-quarter walk-in table performance dropped 5 percent and mass table revenue was flat.

"It's very important that you don't get caught up in the very short-term myopia," CEO Stephen Wynn cautioned during the July earnings call.

"Mass has an awful lot to do with access.  We're literally surrounded on four sides by things that are under construction that will add to our mass."

But with construction nearly complete and Wynn Palace floor reconfigurations in the rearview mirror, the Deutsche Bank researchers raised Wynn's 12-month price target to $150 from $138, representing 17 percent upside from Monday's close.

"We believe the recent changes to the mass casino floor are having the desired impact," said Santarelli. "Our channel checks indicate a decided improvement in mass traffic, a continuation of strong premium mass traffic, and accelerating VIP volumes."
The Missourians Opinion section is a public forum for the discussion of ideas. The views presented in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Missourian or the University of Missouri. If you would like to contribute to the Opinion page with a response or an original topic of your own, visit our submission form
Dril-Quip, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, designs, manufactures, sells, and services engineered drilling and production equipment for use in deepwater, harsh environment, and severe service applications worldwide. The company's principal products include subsea and surface wellheads, subsea and surface production trees, mudline hanger systems, specialty connectors and associated pipes, drilling and production riser systems, liner hangers, wellhead connectors, diverters, and safety valves, as well as downhole tools. It also provides technical advisory services, and rework and reconditioning services, as well as rental and purchase of running tools for use in the installation and retrieval of its products; and downhole tools comprise of liner hangers, production packers, safety valves, and specialty downhole tools that are used to hang-off and seal casing into a previously installed casing string in the well bore. The company's products are used to explore for oil and gas from offshore drilling rigs, such as floating rigs and jack-up rigs; and for drilling and production of oil and gas wells on offshore platforms, tension leg platforms, and Spars, as well as moored vessels, such as floating production, storage, and offloading monohull moored vessels. It sells its products directly through its sales personnel, independent sales agents, and representatives to integrated, independent, and foreign national oil and gas companies, as well as drilling contractors, and engineering and construction companies. The company was founded in 1981 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.
Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce was formed in 1961 with the merger of the Canadian Bank of Commerce and Imperial Bank of Canada. The merger, the largest in Canadian banking history, gave the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce its name but not its true origin. The founding banks originated in 1867 and 1873 respectively and were among the countrys oldest surviving banks at the time. The business is headquartered in Toronto and located at the iconic CIBC Square in downtown Toronto.

Today, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce is a diversified international financial institution serving more than 13 million clients globally. It provides a full range of financial products and services for individuals, families, businesses and institutions in North America and around the world. The companys goal is to create value by providing consistent returns and sustainable growth. The company maintains a lower-than-average credit profile to help achieve that goal and keep it in a position to take advantage of strategic opportunities.

The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce operates in 4 segments that include Canadian Personal and Business Banking, Canadian Commercial Banking and Wealth Management, U.S. Commercial Banking and Wealth Management, and Capital Markets. In late 2022 the company brought in over C$20 billion in revenue, had more than C$678 billion in deposits and had more than C$896 million in total assets. In regard to the banks health, it carries high AA or A+ investment grade credit ratings from all the major credit rating agencies.

The companys products and services include personal and business deposit accounts, checking, savings, credit cards, and loans. Loans include mortgages, business credit, student loans, and agri-business. Other products include investment services, wealth management, and insurance services. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerces digital platform, which was the first launched in Canada, is award-winning and ranked #1 for customer satisfaction by J.D. Power.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerces strategy is built on 3 drivers. The first is focusing on high-growth, high-traffic client demographics, the second is elevating the customer experience through digital and the third is investing in differentiators within fast-growing markets. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce is also a committed dividend payer that has not only paid a dividend every year since its inception but increases it on a regular basis as well. The company is also well-known for its long-term dividend growth and has a 15-year CAGR above 5.0%.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce is committed to sustainability. The companys efforts won it a spot on Canadas Greenest Employers list for 2022 as well as recognition as Best Diversity Employer and for gender equality.
Pampa Energia S.A., an integrated power company, engages in the generation and transmission of electricity in Argentina. The company operates through Electricity Generation, Oil and Gas, Petrochemicals, and Holding and Other Business segments. It generates electricity through combined thermal generation plants, open-cycle gas turbines, and hydroelectric power generation systems, as well as through a wind farm. The company has an installed electricity generation capacity of approximately 4,970 megawatts; and 21,414 kilometers of high voltage electricity transmission network in Argentina. It is also involved in the exploration and production of oil and gas. In addition, the company offers petrochemicals, such as styrene, synthetic rubber, and polystyrene. As of December 31, 2020, it had approximately 12.625 thousands of barrels of oil and LNG, as well as 24.537 millions of cubic meters of natural gas; owned a refinery with an installed capacity of approximately 25.8 thousand barrels per day; and operated a network of 92 gas stations. The company was formerly known as Pampa Holding S.A. and changed its name to Pampa Energia S.A. in September 2008. Pampa Energia S.A. was incorporated in 1945 and is based in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Rockwell Automation, Inc. provides industrial automation and digital transformation solutions in the United States and internationally. The company operates in three segments, Intelligent Devices, Software & Control, and Lifecycle Services. Its solutions include hardware and software products, and services. The Intelligent Devices segment offers drives, motion, safety, sensing, industrial components, and configured-to-order products. The Software & Control segment provides control and visualization software and hardware, information software, digital twin and simulation software, and network and security infrastructure solutions. The Lifecycle Services segment provides consulting, professional services and solutions, and connected and maintenance services. The company sells its solutions primarily through independent distributors in relation with its direct sales force. It serves discrete end markets, including automotive, semiconductor, warehousing and logistics, and other discrete markets, as well as general industries comprising printing and publishing, marine, glass, fiber and textiles, airports, and aerospace; hybrid end markets, such as food and beverage, life sciences, household and personal care, and tire, as well as eco industrial, including water/wastewater, waste management, mass transit, and renewable energy; and process end markets comprising oil and gas, mining, metals, chemicals, pulp and paper, and others. Rockwell Automation, Inc. was founded in 1903 and is headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Mastercard Incorporated, a technology company, provides transaction processing and other payment-related products and services in the United States and internationally. It facilitates the processing of payment transactions, including authorization, clearing, and settlement, as well as delivers other payment-related products and services. The company offers integrated products and value-added services for account holders, merchants, financial institutions, businesses, governments, and other organizations, such as programs that enable issuers to provide consumers with credits to defer payments; prepaid programs and management services; commercial credit and debit payment products and solutions; and payment products and solutions that allow its customers to access funds in deposit and other accounts. It also provides value-added products and services comprising cyber and intelligence solutions for parties to transact, as well as proprietary insights, drawing on principled use of consumer, and merchant data services. In addition, the company offers analytics, test and learn, consulting, managed services, loyalty, processing, and payment gateway solutions for e-commerce merchants. Further, it provides open banking and digital identity platforms services. The company offers payment solutions and services under the MasterCard, Maestro, and Cirrus. Mastercard Incorporated was founded in 1966 and is headquartered in Purchase, New York.
Each month sees a fall in the number of schools under the control of local authorities. In June another 95 applications to become academies were approved. These are converter academies. The figure doesnt include the sponsored academies  the hostile takeover bids for failing schools.

What Alastair Campbell disparagingly called bog standard comprehensives are, rather paradoxically becoming the exception rather than the rule. 70 per cent of state funded secondary schools are academies or free schools; 30 per cent are local authority maintained. Schools are using their independence to innovate and specialise. Among primary schools the councils still dominate but that is also changing.

We have church schools, studio schools, and University Technical Colleges. Incidentally these are just the changes within the state sector. There has also been a sharp increase in the number of children being home educated. The number of independent schools has also risen  and at 518,432, pupil numbers in 2016 are the highest since records began in 1974.

The Rev Jesse Jackson declared, in his speech to the Democratic National Convention in 1984:

America is not like a blanket  one piece of unbroken cloth, the same colour, the same texture, the same size. America is more like a quilt many patches, many pieces, many colours, many sizes, all woven and held together by a common thread. 

Increasingly this is true of schools in England. A huge change has taken place which has been largely unremarked upon. Freedom is messy and there have been muddled and false starts. But overwhelmingly, variety, choice, and competition has meant that standards have been driven up.

Among the changes when a school escapes municipal clutches is that a council can no longer impose a quota of governors.

In some ways this might be greeted with councillors as a relief. One less thing for us to bother about. Many councillors are themselves governors. Indeed often a councillor is a governor for more than one school. Even so this does not fill the quota and thus Cabinet Members for Childrens Services on upper tier authorities search around for Party members willing to serve. The opposition also have a quota so the Shadow councillor is also involved in talent spotting,

This requirement is being scaled down.

Despite that change, I still regard it as an important part of my role to encourage capable people to volunteer for this task. Often their politics will not be central to the task  although given the Marxist leadership of the National Unions of Teachers it is important to have robust voices in challenging indoctrination and the arid mindset of political correctness. I have persuaded retired businessmen and retired lawyers who have been willing to become school governors and who found their professional skills are very much put to use.

So I hope that councillors will continue to seek out talent for this role. The schools in the areas we represent still wish to have thriving connections with the wider community. Those residents we represent who have something to contribute should still be given a nudge.

The only real difference, which is all the difference in the world, is that the state has become the servant not the master. Governors can not be imposed. They can offer their services and be accepted if they are wanted.
In May, Dublin welcomed the Celebrity Eclipse and next year, the ship will debut a handful of sailings using Dublin as a turnaround port for the Norwegian fjords.

Dublin shows considerable capacity for further development as a marquee destination and is seeking to become a turnaround port for cruise ships by 2020, commented Pat Ward, head of corporate services for Dublin Port Company.

That may be attainable, as the port is adding another 19 calls this year, up to 128, with 210,000 passengers and crew expected.

What we have seen is our cruise season has lengthened, Ward told Cruise Industry News. Traditionally, the cruise season has spanned April to September. However, more recently weve seen cruise calls in January and December. This is a testament to the demand-led nature of the industry and how popular Dublin is as a destination.

Any homeporting dreams will need to be backed-up by a strong airlift portfolio. There are 1,723 flights weekly from Dublin Airport, which is a 15 to 20 minute drive from the port. There are 186 flights daily to European destination and up to 14 direct flights daily between Dublin and 15 major U.S. cities.

By 2026, the 230 million euro Alexandra Basin Redevelopment program will be complete, providing new and deeper berths, as well as widening the turning basin and allowing ships to berth further up-river.
Nordic Cruise Company is moving ahead with its plans to build a series of four expedition ultra luxury yachts, according to Ulf Henrick Wynnsdale, president and CEO.

The first ship will be delivered in May of 2020, Wynnsdale told Cruise Industry News. Three more 220-passenger vessels will follow from Spains MetalShips & Docks in 10-month intervals.

A significant amount of fundraising for the project is complete.

The four ships will be the first expedition ships that are LNG ready, with capacity to sail up to 36 hours on LNG while burning MGO the rest of the time. They will also be equipped with hydrogen fuel cells, said Wynnsdale.

We are not going to be the second best. We are going to be the best. I know we have tough competition, but competition is always good, Wynnsdale said.

Concept to Now

Since an initial ship concept was released in January, the company went back to the drawing board, adding capacity, making the ships bigger at 16,500 tons and giving them a totally new exterior look, courtesy of Hareide Design, which drew up a new vessel stance and incorporated much more glass into the ships design.

The GA we have now is probably the ninth or tenth version. Its been changing. We are not going to jump into this and develop a ship that is not top of the line, Wynnsdale said. In January, we introduced the concept of an ultra luxury yacht with some expedition capabilities.

Now, the vessel is an expedition ship, while retaining the mega yacht look. A sales plan is being formulated with David Morris International and the company plans to target the high-end of the U.S. source market. Multiple focus groups have been held across the U.S.

A hotel partner that will lend its name to the operation is still in the cards, Wynnsdale said.

I am confident that with the expedition vessels entering the market, the demand is more for luxury and exploration, and the onboard experience is going to be just as important as the destination.

Most staterooms will offer so-called infinity-style balconies. There will also be a top-deck observation lounge and large aft marina. Absent will be helicopters and submarines.

Green

Being the first LNG-powered expedition ship, Nordic Cruise Company is on a mission to be green, also including fuel cells and battery power.

DNV GL has signed on as the class society. Wynnsdale said battery power would supplement two main engines during peak periods of demand, so a third would not have to kick in. The vessel will have four main engines.

Wynnsdale said that after a thorough review process, the company will construct the vessels at MetalShips & Docks in Spain, which has specialized in both mega yachts and offshore vessels. The yard and the shipowner have been talking for a full year. Wynnsdale added that there was little capacity for cruise-ship building in Norway and the Chinese yards he held talks with would have had challenges delivering a luxury product.

Since announcing its intent to enter the business in January, there has also been a slight branding adjustment  as Norwegian Cruise Company has become Nordic Cruise Company. The startup is also promising to be the Ultra Luxury Green Expedition Cruise Line.

Expect further branding changes before sales and marketing kick into high gear, with or without the addition of a hotel partner.

We plan to stay far away from the word cruise ship, Wynnsdale explained. There are so many people that have a totally wrong picture of what cruising is all about. Expedition and voyages will sound much better.
NAFCUs Dan Berger, Carrie Hunt and other senior staff were at the White House Monday for a meeting with Andrew Olmem, special assistant to the president for financial policy and member of the National Economic Council. They discussed issues of importance to the credit union industry, including Treasurys recent report on banks and credit unions and the need for regulatory relief for the industry.

In addition to Berger, NAFCUs president and CEO, and Hunt, executive vice president of government affairs and general counsel, Mondays meeting included association Vice President of Legislative Affairs Brad Thaler and Senior Associate Director of Legislative Affairs Chad Adams.

Before joining President Donald Trumps National Economic Council, Olmem served as the Republican chief counsel and deputy staff director at the Senate Banking Committee. He was also an assistant economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
Singapores Mounting Cyber Threats

Security agencies will find it increasingly challenging to deal with the threat of terrorism, as terrorists can now easily access sophisticated capabilities through the internet or dark web, said Senior Minister of State for Defence and Foreign Affairs Mohamad Maliki Osman.

In the face of such non-traditional security challenges, regional militaries have to step up cooperation and adapt to the new security environment, he added in a speech recently at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies 19th Asia-Pacific Programme for Senior Military Officers (APPSMO).

Below is an excerpt from his speech.

The world has experienced an eventful year of turbulence and security challenges. Allow me to share some perspectives on our increasingly complex security environment.

Ongoing conflicts continue to simmer and threaten regional peace and security.

All of us are deeply concerned by the series of deliberate and provocative actions by North Korea, including the two nuclear tests in January and September last year, as well as what appears to be a ballistic missile just last week.

While Singapore is not a major player on the Korean Peninsula, we watch developments there keenly as any disruption to peace and stability on the Peninsula could destabilise the whole region.

Any miscalculation could have devastating consequences and upset the existing rules-based international order that has allowed peace and security to flourish in the Asia-Pacific for the last few decades. We hope the major players on the Korean Peninsula can find a way to resume dialogue and prevent the situation from deteriorating.

Over the past one year, we have also seen a proliferation of non-traditional security threats, such as cyber and terrorist attacks.

On cyber-security, Im sure all of you present are aware of the recent Wannacry and Petya attacks which crippled the critical infrastructure of some states and shut down numerous businesses around the world.

The damage from such attacks would be incalculable for many countries, especially as we become more and more reliant on computer networks and the internet.

Terrorism is also increasingly becoming a key threat to our region.

While we are seeing a defeat of ISIS militarily in Iraq and Syria, we are also witnessing a re-emergence of terrorism in the Asia-Pacific.

ISIS has intentions to establish a caliphate in our region too. It has been estimated that more than 1,400 Southeast Asian citizens have travelled to Iraq and Syria to support ISIS, and a large proportion of this number could return after the defeat of ISIS in the Middle East.

There have been an increasing number of attacks claimed by ISIS in Southeast Asia in recent years, such as a grenade attack in Malaysia in June last year and the Jakarta bombing in May this year.

The ongoing siege in Marawi is a reflection of the increasing likelihood of the violent extremism spreading from the Middle East to the Asia-Pacific.

In addition, regional terror groups are well-funded, using charities and non-profit groups as a cover to support terrorism. The ease with which terrorists can conduct small-scale attacks with everyday materials, such as pipe bombs, is also a significant concern.

For example, in Marawi, unlike previous incidents with Abu Sayyaf that were typically kidnappings for ransom, the current Abu Sayyaf is well-armed, well-organised and well-funded by ISIS.

It is supported by funding from illegal drug trafficking networks and a very complex and sophisticated chain of command that runs from Syria, through the Philippines, to Indonesia and elsewhere in the region.

As of early June, the death toll was about 100 including terrorists, government troops and civilians. While the actual fighting is limited to Marawi for now, the trafficking and funding ties, as well as the spillover of terrorist insurgencies, to other parts of Southeast Asia and beyond is a significant source of concern.

The barrier for such terrorist elements to access sophisticated capabilities ranging from cyber to biological and chemical weapons is also lower as they are easily available through the internet or dark web.

This will have a concomitant impact on the security and stability of our region. Militaries and Homeland Security forces will also find themselves increasingly hard-pressed to deal with such adversaries as they gain almost near-peer capabilities.

The modus operandi of terrorists is also constantly evolving. ISIS has been very effective in its use of social media thus far.

For example, ISIS has adapted its propaganda material into various languages to cater to the different populations in our region. We are also witnessing increasing sophistication in ISIS use of the internet.

Recently, ISIS started creating its own social media platforms to avoid security crackdowns on their communications, as companies like Facebook and Twitter start clamping down on ISIS accounts.

An equally great concern for us in this regard is the challenge of fighting self-radicalisation of individuals as they are exposed to radical ideologies via the Internet. Linked to this is how we should strengthen the resilience of our people in the face and aftermath of such terrorist attacks.

Role of Armed Forces Today

In the face of such non-traditional security challenges, how relevant are the armed forces, which have traditionally been structured for full-on conventional warfare.

As conventional conflicts become increasingly unlikely, how prepared are our Armed Forces to address the new challenges in todays security environment?

The fight against terrorists has moved beyond the frontlines in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan and come closer to home.

As seen from the Paris attacks, these terrorist attackers are striking in cities, where the terrain is significantly more complex and challenging  urban, high rise, and densely populated areas where militaries are unable to bring the full range of their capabilities to bear.

At the same time, homeland forces may find themselves overwhelmed should these attackers be equipped with military grade capabilities. Militaries will need to find ways to adapt to the new security environment.

The Singapore Armed Forces is therefore building a SAF Training Institute City (SAFTI City), to train our battalions to fight across both conventional and urban terrains successively.

The SAF also recognises that counter-terrorism is a Whole-of-Government endeavour which requires seamless interagency coordination, underpinned by an effective legal framework.

Unfortunately, the threat of terrorism is no longer simply confined to kinetic attacks.

With the availability of cyber tools leaked from the US National Security Agency, terrorists now possess advanced cyber weapons that can take out critical infrastructure and retrieve sensitive military information even as they perpetrate their attacks with devastating impact.

In this regard, it is also important for a countrys cyber infrastructure and defence to be adequately prepared. The Ministry of Defence is in the midst of establishing the Defence Cyber Organisation, which will have about 2,600 soldiers when it is fully stood up.

Regional Cooperation

To counter the cross-border nature of these emerging threats and maintain the existing rules-based international order, Singapore is fortunate to enjoy strong support and cooperation from our friends and partners around the world.

In particular for our region, we have multilateral platforms like the Asean Defence Ministers Meeting (ADMM) and ADMM-Plus to build confidence and interoperability.

Besides addressing non-conventional threats, the ADMM and ADMM-Plus are also valuable platforms in our regional security architecture to build trust and confidence among regional militaries.

As Singapore assumes the ADMM Chairmanship in 2018, we hope to promulgate common guidelines across the maritime and air domains as confidence-building mechanisms for our militaries to reduce tensions and the risk of miscalculations in the region. This is particularly pertinent as the maritime and air traffic in the Asia-Pacific increases with the rising development and prosperity of countries in the region.

In this regard, we hope to expand the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea, or CUES in short, to all ADMM-Plus countries. We also hope to establish a set of guidelines for air encounters between military aircraft, akin to the US-China Memorandum of Understanding on the Rules of Behaviour for Safety of Air-to-Air Encounters.

These confidence building mechanisms would be practiced during upcoming ADMM-Plus Exercises, such the maritime security exercise that Singapore will co-organise with the Republic of Korea.

In addition, CUES would also be practiced during the ASEAN-China Maritime Exercise that Singapore will facilitate in our capacity as the ASEAN-China Dialogue Relations Coordinator.

As we grapple with the threat of terrorism, regional countries will have to come together to shoulder this collective responsibility.

Closer cooperation with each other is critical especially as terror attacks could be planned or even launched from one country to damage another.

Last year, Singapore convicted four Bangladeshi nationals who plotted to finance terror attacks in their own home country. We also saw an ISIS-linked group plotting to launch a rocket attack on Singapore from the island of Batam.

Singapore and Indonesia worked closely together to foil the attack and arrest the group.

As Malaysian Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein rightly said, such joint initiatives and cooperation will show ISIS that they are not just facing individual countries but a united Southeast Asia.

Intelligence sharing is also essential in countering the threat of terrorism.

Given the transnational nature of terrorist threats, no one country has the bandwidth to identify all the threats out there. The only way we can address this is if countries pool our resources together and share intelligence.

During my visit to Indonesia in June this year, the Indonesian Defence Minister General Ryamizard Ryacudu suggested to develop a regional framework for intelligence sharing, joint training and exercises on counter-terrorism.

Hisham and I think that this is a good and timely idea given the increasing terrorist threat, exemplified by the Marawi situation in the Philippines.

Beyond the Asia-Pacific region, we also recognise the global nature of threats like terrorism and cyber-attacks. In this regard, we welcome all our partners to also share their experiences and ideas through professional exchanges and exercises between militaries.

Of course, aside from the military exercises that we conduct, dialogue is also important. Particularly in times when we may not always agree on the way forward, we can leverage platforms like the Shangri-La Dialogue and APPSMO. These are useful in developing shared perspectives on security threats and finding constructive solutions.

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Australian Government Networks Hacked:
State Street Corporation, through its subsidiaries, provides a range of financial products and services to institutional investors worldwide. The company offers investment servicing products and services, including custody; product accounting; daily pricing and administration; master trust and master custody; depotbank services; record-keeping; cash management; foreign exchange, brokerage and other trading services; securities finance and enhanced custody products; deposit and short-term investment facilities; loans and lease financing; investment manager and alternative investment manager operations outsourcing; performance, risk, and compliance analytics; and financial data management to support institutional investors. It also engages in the provision of portfolio management and risk analytics, as well as trading and post-trade settlement services with integrated compliance and managed data. In addition, the company offers investment management strategies and products, such as core and enhanced indexing, multi-asset strategies, active quantitative and fundamental active capabilities, and alternative investment strategies. Further, it provides services and solutions, including environmental, social, and governance investing; defined benefit and defined contribution; and global fiduciary solutions, as well as exchange-traded fund under the SPDR ETF brand. The company provides its products and services to mutual funds, collective investment funds and other investment pools, corporate and public retirement plans, insurance companies, foundations, endowments, and investment managers. State Street Corporation was founded in 1792 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.
Weatherford International plc, an oilfield service company, provides equipment and services for the drilling, evaluation, completion, production, and intervention of oil and natural gas wells worldwide. The company operates in two segments, Western Hemisphere and Eastern Hemisphere. It offers artificial lift systems, including reciprocating rod, progressing cavity pumping, gas, hydraulic, plunger, and hybrid lift systems, as well as related automation and control systems; pressure pumping and reservoir stimulation services, such as acidizing, fracturing and fluid systems, cementing, and coiled-tubing intervention; and drill stem test tools, and surface well testing and multiphase flow measurement services. The company also provides safety, downhole reservoir monitoring, flow control, and multistage fracturing systems, as well as sand-control technologies, and production and isolation packers; liner hangers to suspend a casing string in high-temperature and high-pressure wells; cementing products, including plugs, float and stage equipment, and torque-and-drag reduction technology for zonal isolation; and pre-job planning and installation services. In addition, it offers directional drilling services, and logging and measurement services while drilling; services related to rotary-steerable systems, high-temperature and high-pressure sensors, drilling reamers, and circulation subs; managed pressure drilling, conventional mud-logging, drilling instrumentation, gas analysis, wellsite consultancy, and open hole and cased-hole logging services; reservoir solutions and software products; and intervention and remediation services. Further, the company provides equipment and drilling tools; tubular handling, management, and connection services; equipment rental services; and onshore contract drilling and related services through a fleet of land drilling and workover rigs. Weatherford International plc was incorporated in 1972 and is headquartered in Baar, Switzerland.
Kinder Morgan, Inc. operates as an energy infrastructure company in North America. The company operates through four segments: Natural Gas Pipelines, Products Pipelines, Terminals, and CO2. The Natural Gas Pipelines segment owns and operates interstate and intrastate natural gas pipeline, and underground storage systems; natural gas gathering systems and natural gas processing and treating facilities; natural gas liquids fractionation facilities and transportation systems; and liquefied natural gas liquefaction and storage facilities. The Products Pipelines segment owns and operates refined petroleum products, and crude oil and condensate pipelines; and associated product terminals and petroleum pipeline transmix facilities. The Terminals segment owns and/or operates liquids and bulk terminals that stores and handles various commodities, including gasoline, diesel fuel, chemicals, ethanol, metals, and petroleum coke; and owns tankers. The CO2 segment produces, transports, and markets CO2 to recovery and production crude oil from mature oil fields; owns interests in/or operates oil fields and gasoline processing plants; and operates a crude oil pipeline system in West Texas, as well as owns and operates RNG and LNG facilities. It owns and operates approximately 83,000 miles of pipelines and 143 terminals. The company was formerly known as Kinder Morgan Holdco LLC and changed its name to Kinder Morgan, Inc. in February 2011. Kinder Morgan, Inc. was founded in 1936 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.
Tuesday, August 15, 2017





The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the state of California joined the city of San Francisco yesterday in taking legal action challenging a Trump administration threat to withhold federal public safety grants from cities that refuse to cooperate to the extent sought by the U.S. government in immigration enforcement.

A lawsuit filed by Attorney General Xavier Becerra makes California the first state in the country to take on the U.S. Justice Departments plan to pull the grant money. San Francisco filed its own lawsuit Friday, the second such legal action it has filed against the Trump administration.

Becerra said the states lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, was based on the same grounds as the citys  that President Trump and his administration cant withhold money from a congressionally approved program without Congress agreement.

Here is the statement issued by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra:

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra today filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration for its unconstitutional attempt to force California law enforcement officials to engage in federal immigration enforcement, rather than allow them to use their discretion to determine how best to keep their communities safe.

Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice placed unlawful and inappropriate immigration enforcement conditions on certain public safety grants for law enforcement. This action jeopardizes critical crime fighting resources and threatens the safety of California residents. More than $28 million in federal funds that California uses for programs supporting law enforcement, recidivism prevention, crime victims and witnesses, and at-risk youth are at issue.

The Trump Administration cannot manipulate federal grant fund requirements to pressure states, counties or municipalities to enforce federal immigration laws, said Attorney General Xavier Becerra. By placing unconstitutional immigration enforcement conditions on public safety grants, the Trump Administration is threatening to harm a range of law enforcement initiatives across California. This is pure intimidation intended to force our law enforcement into changing the policies and practices that they have determined promote public safety. Its a low blow to our brave men and women who wear the badge, and to the communities they serve. We will fight these unlawful federal actions that would make California less safe.

Congress has appropriated $28.3 million in law enforcement funding grants to California through the Edward Byrnes Memorial Justice Assistance Grant program (JAG). Every state is entitled by law to a share of these formula JAG funds. For the first time, however, the U.S. Department of Justice is imposing two so-called special conditions on receipt of JAG funds to force state and local law enforcement to engage in federal immigration enforcement.

President Trump signed an Executive Order on January 25 seeking to withhold federal funding for so-called sanctuary jurisdictions. This Executive Order has been the subject of legal challenges. Pursuant to a court order, the Executive Order is subject to a nationwide injunction at this time.

Attorney General Becerra has consistently pushed back on the federal governments threats over so-called sanctuary jurisdiction policies. In June, he led nine states and the District of Columbia in filing a friend-of-the-court brief in the United States District Court, Northern District of California, in support of the City and County of San Francisco, the County of Santa Clara, and the City of Richmond in their challenge to the Trump Administrations executive order targeting sanctuary jurisdictions. In March, Attorney General Becerra filed two separate amicus briefs in support of the City and County of San Francisco and the County of Santa Clara, respectively, as they challenged the Trump Administrations Executive Order.

In May, Attorney General Becerra joined four other states and the District of Columbia in releasing a report that refutes the Trump Administration's claims on so-called sanctuary jurisdiction policies. The Setting the Record Straight on Local Involvement in Federal Civil Immigration Enforcement: The Facts and The Laws, report outlines how the experience of many local law enforcement agencies has led them to conclude that public safety is better served by focusing their time and resources on combatting and apprehending dangerous criminals and establishing trust and cooperation with law-abiding immigrant communities rather than focusing on immigration enforcement.

KJ

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2017/08/california-state-sues-trump-administration-over-sanctuary-city-threat.html
BWX Technologies, Inc. manufactures and sells nuclear components in the United States, Canada, and internationally. It operates in three segments: Nuclear Operations Group, Nuclear Power Group, and Nuclear Services Group. The Nuclear Operations Group segment provides precision naval and critical nuclear components, reactors, nuclear fuel, and assemblies for the United States Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration's Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program and other uses; missile launch tubes for United States Navy submarines; close-tolerance and equipment for nuclear applications; and converts Cold War-era government stockpiles of high-enriched uranium, as well as receives, stores, characterizes, dissolves, recovers, and purifies uranium-bearing materials; supplies research reactor fuel elements for colleges, universities, and national laboratories; and components for defense applications. The Nuclear Power Group segment offers commercial nuclear steam generators, nuclear fuel, fuel handling systems, pressure vessels, reactor components, heat exchangers, tooling delivery systems, and containers; engineering and in-plant services for nuclear power plants; designs, manufactures, commissions, and services nuclear power generation equipment; in-plant inspection, maintenance, and modification services, as well as non-destructive examination and tooling/repair solutions; and supplies medical radioisotopes and radiopharmaceuticals for research, diagnostic, and therapeutic uses. The company was formerly known as The Babcock & Wilcox Company and changed its name to BWX Technologies, Inc. in June 2015. BWX Technologies, Inc. was founded in 1867 and is headquartered in Lynchburg, Virginia.
Aetna Inc. operates as a health care benefits company in the United States. It operates through three segments: Health Care, Group Insurance, and Large Case Pensions. The Health Care segment offers medical, pharmacy benefit management service, dental, behavioral health, and vision plans on an insured and employer-funded basis. It also provides point-of-service, preferred provider organization, health maintenance organization, and indemnity benefit plans, as well as health savings accounts and consumer-directed health plans. In addition, this segment offers Medicare and Medicaid products and services, as well as other medical products, such as medical management and data analytics services, medical stop loss insurance, workers' compensation administrative services, and products that provide access to its provider networks in select geographies. The Group Insurance segment offers life insurance products, including group term life insurance, voluntary spouse and dependent term life insurance, group universal life insurance, and accidental death and dismemberment insurance; disability insurance products; and long-term care insurance products, which provide the benefits to cover the cost of care in private home settings, adult day care, assisted living, or nursing facilities. The Large Case Pensions segment manages various retirement products comprising pension and annuity products primarily for tax-qualified pension plans. The company provides its products and services to employer groups, individuals, college students, part-time and hourly workers, health plans, health care providers, governmental units, government-sponsored plans, labor groups, and expatriates. Aetna Inc. was founded in 1853 and is based in Hartford, Connecticut.
SunTrust Banks, Inc. operates as the holding company for SunTrust Bank that provides various financial services for consumers, businesses, corporations, institutions, and not-for-profit entities in the United States. It operates in two segments, Consumer and Wholesale. The Consumer segment provides deposits and payments; home equity and personal credit lines; auto, student, and other lending products; credit cards; discount/online and full-service brokerage products; professional investment advisory products and services; and trust services, as well as family office solutions. This segment also offers residential mortgage products in the secondary market. The Wholesale segment provides capital markets solutions, including advisory, capital raising, and financial risk management; asset-based financing solutions, such as securitizations, asset-based lending, equipment financing, and structured real estate arrangements; cash management services and auto dealer financing solutions; investment banking solutions; and credit and deposit, fee-based product offering, multi-family agency lending, advisory, commercial mortgage brokerage, and tailored financing and equity investment solutions. This segment also offers treasury and payment solutions, such as operating various electronic and paper payment types, which comprise card, wire transfer, automated clearing house, check, and cash; and provides services clients to manage their accounts online. The company offers its products and services through a network of traditional and in-store branches, automated teller machines, Internet, mobile, and telephone banking channels. As of December 31, 2018, it operated 1,218 full-service banking offices located in Florida, Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Maryland, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia. SunTrust Banks, Inc. was founded in 1891 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.
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The AroundTown section of the Clipper-Herald is to notify the public of upcoming events and to publicize pertinent information from individuals, groups or organizations that are not for profit.

PEOPLE

An open house honoring Tommy and Ronnie (Hagan) Smith for their 50th wedding anniversary is planned Aug. 19, 2017, 2-5 p.m. at the Overton Family Building, 601 1st St., Overton. Hosting the event are Denise (Smith) Laverack and Dawn (Smith) Andersen. Those unable to attend may send cards to Tommy and Ronnie Smith, 810 West 10th St., Lexington, NE 68850.

The family of Jim and Cathy Stone is suggesting a card shower to celebrate the Stones 50th wedding anniversary on Aug. 26. Cards may be sent to Jim and Cathy Stone, 1604 Grafton Drive, Lexington, NE 68850

HAPPENINGS

Miller Dances: All Dances start at 7 p.m. Bring finger food and snacks. Questions? Call 308-325-2909. Aug. 19: No Dance - Firemens Barbecue. Aug. 26: "Diamonds and Dust," - Free Dance for Darlenes birthday.

An Open House will be held Thursday, Aug. 17, 2:00-4:00 p.m. at Eastlawn Apartments. The public is invited to view the newly remodeled Wilma Buckley Hall and view the apartments. Refreshments will be served.

A fundraiser will be held for Robin Morton, a Lexington teacher, on Aug. 19 from 6 to 10 p.m. at the Alma Municipal Pool. If unable to attend, donations can be mailed to: Robin (Miller) Morton Benefit, First State Bank Loomis and Alma, P.O. Box 140, Alma, NE 68920.

The 4-H Cafe at the Dawson County Fairgrounds will be open Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 19 and 20, 7 a.m.-3 p.m. daily, during the High school Rodeo.

Lexington Womens Christian Connection is hosting "Keeping Watch," sharpen, deepen, strengthen, inspiration from Gods Word, Saturday, Aug. 19, 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the Lexington Public Library, 907 N. Washington St., Lexington. Speaker will Meryl Bishop, of Maine. Lunch will be provided. Reserve your place today via text, USPS or email to: Pam Schram, PO Box 718, Ponca, NE 68870, Pam10schram@gmail.com or 712-490-2687.

Overton Christian Church will host The Dysart Family for a live performance on Sunday, Aug. 20 at 10 a.m. A love offering will be taken. Carry in dinner to follow.

Lexington Area Christian Womens Connection will

meet for a 9:30 a.m. brunch Tuesday, Aug. 22 at Kirks Restaurant, Lexington. "A Safe Place" is the theme and Special Feature will be Jill Vaughn, North Platte with "Deborahs Legacy," building hope one day at a time. Music will be by Ivy Zimmerman. Speaker will be Debra Lord, Indianola, Iowa, giving her speech titled "True Confessions of a Former Good Girl." Reservations and cancellations by noon Monday, Aug. 21. Call Sheri Giesbrecht, 308-320-0952 or Teresa Lanman, 308-324-8386.

A fundraiser for the Blanche Senior Scholarship

"Wings and Wine" Night will be Thursday, Aug. 24 from 5 - 9 p.m. at Macs Creek Winery and Vineyards.

The Dawson County Museum is seeking volunteers to assist with the Mobile Childrens Museum, "Truckin Through Nebraska," when it visits Lexington on Aug. 31-Sept. 2. Shifts are from 10:15 to 3 p.m., Thursday, Aug. 31; 10:15-2 p.m., 2-6 p.m., Friday, Sept. 1; and 10:15 to 3 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 2. A short orientation and lunch or snack break will be figured into each shift. Please contact Crystal Werger, Dawson County Museum executive director at 324-5340 or stop by the museum at 805 N. Taft during regular hours to complete a volunteer registration form.

The 27th annual Callaway Kite Flight, located on U.S. Hwy. 40, four miles southeast of Callaway will be held Labor Day weekend, Sept. 2, 3. Flying begins around 10 a.m. each day. Professional flyers from several states will participate and assist amateur flyers. There will be daily candy drops and other activities for the kids and vendors on-site both days. Admission is $3 per person per day.

The gates will be open,8:00 a.m.-noon, at the City Service Building for disposal of household waste on the 3rd Saturday of the following months: Aug. 19 and Sept. 16, 2017. There is a minimal fee for disposal of household waste, furniture, wood, appliances and misc. items. Paint, chemicals and construction debris will not be accepted. Call the Service Building at 324-5995 if there are any questions.

WIC Clinics for Dawson County are scheduled as follows: In Lexington, MNCA Building, 931 West 7th, Tuesday through Thursday the first full weeks for each month. Call 308-324-6212 for appointment. In Cozad, Parkview Building, 120 E. 9th, Monday, Aug. 14 and Sept. 18. In Gothenburg, American Lutheran Church, 1512 Ave. G Sept. 11.

Events at the Lexington Grand Generation Center - Public Bingo on Mondays at 7 p.m. Must be 18 to play. For questions call 308-324-2498. Homemade Pretzel Baking on the first and third Tuesday of each month at 1 p.m. Cost to purchase pretzels is .50/pretzel, $6.00/dozen. Purchase and/or come help roll!

Love in Action Outreach, 907 West 8th St., Lexington, is open Monday through Thursday, 12:30  4 p.m. For assistance go to 909 West 8th St. Donations of clothes, furniture and other items any time back of store or contact 308-651-0925 for further assistance. Monetary donations are accepted as well.

Are you a person with compassion and good listening skills? Parent-Child Center would like to give you the opportunity to put those feelings and abilities into practice. The Parent-Child Center needs volunteers to answer our lines after office hours. If you are interested please call for more information at 308-324-2336.

If you visit the grave of a veteran and the flag holder is missing or damaged, please notify the Dawson County Veteran Service Office by calling 308-324-3041.

Volunteers needed for Adult Education ESL and GED classes offered through Central Community College. To volunteer contact Marge Bader, volunteer coordinator at 308-785-2111 or 324-8483 or email mbader57@msn.com.

Lexington Area Parkinsons Disease Support Group Meetings are held the second Thursday each month at 2 p.m. in the education room at the Community Health & Fitness Center (1600 W. 13th, Lexington) For more information contact Dixie Menke at 308-325-5350 or 308-784-4022 or Brenda Bierman at 308-324-2523 or 308-325-9216.

RYDE Transit - Public Transportation is available Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. To schedule a ride in Dawson County or Lexington call 308-324-3670. Public Transportation is easy to ride and open to everyone.

MEETINGS

American Legion in Lexington meets the first Tuesday of the month at 7 p.m. at Heartland Museum of Military Vehicles.

Bingo Night at Lexington Regional Health Center will resume in the fall. Bingo will resume at the Corner Cafe on Sept. 7, 2017. The staff reports they really enjoyed everyone and cant wait to see everyone in the fall.

Survivors of Suicide Support Group meets every second Monday of the month from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at First Baptist Church, 1616 W. 39th St., in Kearney. For more information contact Carol Rowedder at 308-237-2635.

LEXINGTON PUBLIC LIBRARY

Novel Stitchers meets on Tuesdays at 3:00 p.m. If you enjoy stitching--knitting, crocheting, quilting, cross stitch, needlepoint, or have another portable stitching project--join us at the library for two hours of stitching and visiting. We will meet on Tuesdays, Aug. 15, 22, and 29 from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. in the Lexington Public Library Board Room. We would love to have you join us.

The August Booked for Lunch program will be held at the library on Aug. 24. Crystal Werger, director of the Dawson County Historical Museum will present the program.To reserve a spot call the library at 308-324-2151.

We have re-stocked the book sale at the Lexington Public Library. There are lots of childrens booksboth fiction and non-fiction. Drop in and check it out. All items are $0.25 a piece.

LEXINGTON GRAND GENERATION CENTER

Exercise room is open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. Every Sunday the Center available for rent.

Wednesday

9:15 a.m. - Go4Life

9:30 a.m. - Coffee/Crafts

9:30 a.m. - Pool T. - Broken Bow

12 p.m. - Charlotte Endorf - Annie Oakley

12:45 a.m. - Ive Got It

1:30 p.m. - FROG

2:30 - 3:30 p.m. - Hot cookies

3:00 p.m. - Strength Training

Thursday

9:15 a.m. - Tai Chi

9:45 a.m. - Dancercise

1:00 p.m. - Wii bowling

Friday

9:15 a.m. - Go4Life

12:45 p.m. - Cards

1 p.m. - FROG

LEXINGTON GRAND

GENERATION

CENTER MENU

Homemade bread everyday. Choice of skim, 2% or chocolate milk. No reservations needed except for large groups. Serving time: 11:30 a.m.

Wednesday

Baked chicken, baby bakers, California blend, pears

Thursday

Salisbury steak, potato casserole, roasted cauliflower, mixed fruit

Friday

Pork loin, potato cakes, tomato medley, apricots

ELWOOD SCHOOL MENU

Breakfast

Wednesday

Pancakes and yogurt or cereal, toast, fruit

Thursday

Muffins, oatmeal, yogurt or cereal, toast, fruit

Friday

Hash or cereal, toast, fruit

Lunch

Wednesday

Chicken sandwich, baked beans, chips, peaches

Thursday

Rotini baked, corn, mandarin oranges, breadstick

Friday

Pork fritter, sandwich, salad, greenbeans, applesauce

LEXINGTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS MENU

Breakfast

Wednesday

Mini muffin loaf, fruit, juice

Thursday

Breakfast Tornados, fruit, juice

Friday

Breakfast pizza, fruit, juice

Lunch

Wednesday

100 percent beef frank/bun, chceseburger, sub sandwich, yogurt, baked beans, salad bar with variety of fruit and vegetables

Thursday

Chicken patty/bun, cheeseburger, sub sandwich, yogurt, chicken rice, corn, salad bar with variety of fruits and vegetables

Friday

Quesadilla/salsa, cheeseburger, sub sandwich, yogurt, black bean salad/tortilla chips, salad bar with fruit and vegetables

OVERTON SCHOOL MENU

Breakfast

Wednesday

Cinnamon roll and omelet

Thursday

Breakfast on a stick

Friday

Breakfast pizza

Lunch

Wednesday

Chicken patty sandwich

Thursday

Taco in a bag

Friday

Little Caesars pepperoni pizza

ORGANIZATIONS

AA/NA: open meeting Friday nights at 7 p.m. at Plum Creek Mall at Two Bridges Counseling, 513 N. Grant St., Suite 3a, Lexington.

Westside Group: AA/NA open meeting on Monday and Wednesday nights at separate locations at 8 p.m. Monday night meetings at First Christian Church, 1206 N. Erie St. in Lexington. Wednesday nights at Community Health Center (west of hospital) 1600 W. 13th St. in Lexington.

AA Elwood: at 8 p.m. on Sundays at United Methodist Church, 601 Rush in Elwood. Contact: 785-3567 (Tom).

Al-Anon meets Mondays, 8 p.m. at the LexChristian Church, 13th & Erie; Wednesdays, 8 p.m. at Lexington Regional Health Center Board room, use east entrance; Thursdays, noon at Grace Lutheran Church, 105 E. 17th, use office door. For more information call 308-651-0143 or308-324-2288.

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings, non-smoking: at noon on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at St. Anns Catholic Church basement, 301 E. Sixth St. Contact: 308-651-0143.

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings, non-smoking - Smithfield: At 8 p.m. on Thursdays at Hope Lutheran Church, 74098 Road 436 in Smithfield. Call 785-3567 or 472-3376.

Celebrate Recovery: a 12-step, anonymous program helping participants overcome any hurts, habits, addictions or hang-ups. Meets twice: 1) at 7 p.m. on Thursdays at Lexington Evangelical Free Church, 810 S. Washington Street. Contact: 308-324-3825 or 308-238-1298. 2) at 6:30 p.m. on Fridays at Parkview Baptist Churchs Y.A.C., 1105 Park St.. Contact: 308-324-4410.

The Compassionate Friends, Lexington Area Chapter (a support group for parents who have lost a child), meets the third Monday of each month at 7:30 p.m., at the Great Western Drive-In bank meeting room, corner of 6th and Lincoln. For more information call 308-320-1483.

Community Action Partnership of Mid-Nebraska Public Immunization Clinic, 1st & 3rd Mondays every month: Open 10 a.m.-noon and 2-4 p.m. by appointment at 931 West 7th St., Lexington. Clinics serve ages 2 months - 18 years. Children must be accompanied by an adult, previous vaccination records required. Contact 308-865-1352 ext. 143.

Dawson/Gosper County CASA: seeking Volunteers. CASA Volunteers are everyday people from all walks of life, who advocate through the court system in the interests of children. Contact 324-7364 for more information.

Grupo Lexington AA (Spanish Speaking) open meeting Saturday nights at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 11 p.m., at 114 West 6th St. in Lexington.

Lexington Area Grief Support Group: meets at 4:30 p.m. on the first Mondays of each month at Fitness Center, 1600 W. 13th Street. Open to anyone experiencing the death of a loved one. Contact Lexington Regional Health Center Home Health office, 324-8300.

Lexington Optimist Club: meet at Kirks Nebraskaland Restaurant every Thursday at noon except the first Thursday of the month. If you need to get ahold of us you can email us at lexoptimist@gmail.com or you can send mail to Lexington Optimist Club, PO Box 355, Lexington, NE 68850.

Lexington Rotary Club: meets the first and third Wednesday of the month at Lexington Public Library from 12 to 1 p.m. For more information contact Kirsten Faessler at 308-324-8333.

Narcotics Anonymous: open meeting on Sundays at 12 p.m. at Two Bridges Counseling, 513 N. Grant St. Suite 3a in Lexington.

ORGANIZATIONS

AA/NA: open meeting Friday nights at 7 p.m. at Plum Creek Mall at Two Bridges Counseling, 513 N. Grant St., Suite 3a, Lexington.

Westside Group: AA/NA open meeting on Monday and Wednesday nights at separate locations at 8 p.m. Monday night meetings at First Christian Church, 1206 N. Erie St. in Lexington. Wednesday nights at Community Health Center (west of hospital) 1600 W. 13th St. in Lexington.

AA Elwood: at 8 p.m. on Sundays at United Methodist Church, 601 Rush in Elwood. Contact: 785-3567 (Tom).

Al-Anon meets Mondays, 8 p.m. at the LexChristian Church, 13th & Erie; Wednesdays, 8 p.m. at Lexington Regional Health Center Board room, use east entrance; Thursdays, noon at Grace Lutheran Church, 105 E. 17th, use office door. For more information call 308-651-0143 or308-324-2288.

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings, non-smoking: at noon on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at St. Anns Catholic Church basement, 301 E. Sixth St. Contact: 308-651-0143.

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings, non-smoking - Smithfield: At 8 p.m. on Thursdays at Hope Lutheran Church, 74098 Road 436 in Smithfield. Call 785-3567 or 472-3376.

Celebrate Recovery: a 12-step, anonymous program helping participants overcome any hurts, habits, addictions or hang-ups. Meets twice: 1) at 7 p.m. on Thursdays at Lexington Evangelical Free Church, 810 S. Washington Street. Contact: 308-324-3825 or 308-238-1298. 2) at 6:30 p.m. on Fridays at Parkview Baptist Churchs Y.A.C., 1105 Park St.. Contact: 308-324-4410.

The Compassionate Friends, Lexington Area Chapter (a support group for parents who have lost a child), meets the third Monday of each month at 7:30 p.m., at the Great Western Drive-In bank meeting room, corner of 6th and Lincoln. For more information call 308-320-1483.

Community Action Partnership of Mid-Nebraska Public Immunization Clinic, 1st & 3rd Mondays every month: Open 10 a.m.-noon and 2-4 p.m. by appointment at 931 West 7th St., Lexington. Clinics serve ages 2 months - 18 years. Children must be accompanied by an adult, previous vaccination records required. Contact 308-865-1352 ext. 143.

Dawson/Gosper County CASA: seeking Volunteers. CASA Volunteers are everyday people from all walks of life, who advocate through the court system in the interests of children. Contact 324-7364 for more information.

Grupo Lexington AA (Spanish Speaking) open meeting Saturday nights at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 11 p.m., at 114 West 6th St. in Lexington.

Lexington Area Grief Support Group: meets at 4:30 p.m. on the first Mondays of each month at Fitness Center, 1600 W. 13th Street. Open to anyone experiencing the death of a loved one. Contact Lexington Regional Health Center Home Health office, 324-8300.

Lexington Optimist Club: meet at Kirks Nebraskaland Restaurant every Thursday at noon except the first Thursday of the month. If you need to get ahold of us you can email us at lexoptimist@gmail.com or you can send mail to Lexington Optimist Club, PO Box 355, Lexington, NE 68850.

Lexington Rotary Club: meets the first and third Wednesday of the month at Lexington Public Library from 12 to 1 p.m. For more information contact Kirsten Faessler at 308-324-8333.

Narcotics Anonymous: open meeting on Sundays at 12 p.m. at Two Bridges Counseling, 513 N. Grant St. Suite 3a in Lexington.

SMART Recovery for those with alcohol abuse struggles, is held in Lexington (adult meeting) on Thursdays from 7 - 8 p.m. Meetings in Cozad on Tuesdays from 7 - 8:30 p.m. at American Lutheran Church. Youth meetings in Lexington from at 7 p.m. at Club 180, located at 210 W. 7th St.
This website is inclusive of tolerant people of all faiths, without exception. Neither anti-Semitism nor Islamophobia nor homophobia should ever be acceptable to anyone. We must all strive to live in peace and harmony with each other, regardless of religious affiliations, or none. Intolerance is the mother of strife and conflict.   Mark Alexander

We Britons are Europeans!Wir Briten sind Europaer! Nous, les Britanniques, sommes europeens !  Mark AlexanderEmail me at:markalexander.librabunda@gmail.com
Several Chinese firms are being investigated by the countrys internet authorities after claims that their social media services were being used to disseminate illegal content.

Baidu, Sina Weibo and Tencent are all under investigation by the Cyberspace Administration of China for alleged infringements of Chinas Internet Security Law, as well as other regulations aimed to preventing the spread of content that the government has termed inappropriate.

A statement from the authority said that the firms were suspected of enabling the dissemination of material related to violent terror, false rumours, pornography and other hazards to national security, public safety, social order.

The material in question is user-generated content sent via Baidus microblogging service Baidu Post, Sina Weibos similar Twitter-like offering, and Tencents WhatsApp-like WeChat platform. These three services are some of the most widely used social networking sites in China.

The CAC said it had informed the firms about the allegations against them, noting that it would conscientiously implement the Internet Security Law and other laws and regulations, and further increase the internet information content supervision and law enforcement efforts to investigate and deal with all kinds of illegal acts online.

China brought its Internet Security Law into force in June. Under its terms, service providers must monitor all content generated via their platforms and introduce systems that allow them to determine the source of this content. Any companies that do not comply with these regulations can face fines or total suspension of activities.
Omantel is acquiring a 9.8% stake in Kuwaits Zain Group for $846 million in a cash transaction.

The agreement covers 425.7 million of Zains treasury shares, and requires a green light from the regulator.

Martial Caratti, Omantels CFO, described the holding as a deliberate investment for Omantel as we position ourselves as a leading digital service provider. This is in line with our Corporate Strategy 3.0, launched in 2015. We have always emphasised that growth will come from continued diversification, and this acquisition positions Omantel for the future.

Zain meanwhile said that the agreement would provide significant liquidity and that the proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes, including the potential prepayment of certain debt obligations. The groups CEO Bader Nasser Al-Kharafi noted that this liquidity would enable further financial and strategic possibilities at a time where we continue to seek opportunities in the digital space and invest in upgrading our modern networks to enhance the mobile experience for our customers.

Omantel and Zain are aiming to cooperate on core business functions in the hopes of broadening their revenue streams and leveraging Zains global footprint. The group operates in eight markets across the Middle East and Africa.

Earlier this year, Zain entered a bid for Omans third mobile licence, with the winner due to be announced on 4th September. Omantel is the countrys largest operator with 3.9 million connections, while Ooredoo has 2.8 million.
Two directors of pension consultancy and administration firm Mattioli Woods have resigned as a result of an internal review into the company's governance.

A company announcement released on Tuesday said chief operating officer Mark Smith and benefits managing director Alan Fergusson had quit the board with immediate effect.

"The move follows internal and external reviews of the effectiveness of the company's board, its sub-committees and the group's senior executive management framework," the company statement said.

Fergusson and Smith will keep their roles on the senior executive management team.

The companys chief executive Ian Mattioli said, "Rebalancing the board between non-executive directors and executives is more in line with the quoted companies alliance governance guidelines. We also believe this rebalancing sets the optimal business structure to compete successfully for the next phase of the company's growth."

The resignations reduce the board to six members and further directors are not expected to be added at this time.

The announcements did very little to affect stocks, as of 1525 BST, shares remained steady, up 0.50p to 819.50p.
Oil and gas company, Rockhopper Exploration announced its Abu Sennan drilling concession in Egypt had maintained a stable level of production, averaging 3,300 barrel of oil equivalent per day over the first six months of the year.

Al Jahraa-9 well showed that the sand was water wet, but the reservoir pressure was in line with other oil producing wells in the reservoir and reported an oil show deeper than any other in the region, which it said, "demonstrated further potential" elsewhere in the concession.

Following a successful side-tracking of the Al Jahraa SE-2X into the Al Jahraa SE field, oil pay had been confirmed from wireline logging in both the AR-C and AR-E reservoirs.

After completing the well in the deeper AR-E reservoir production was running at roughly 250,000 boepd, the company said in a statement.

The firm also stated that outstanding receivables for Egypt had continued to reduce as further payments had been collected throughout July.

Rockhopper had a 22% working interest in the Abu Sennan concession.

"We are pleased with the overall progress in Egypt and, in particular, with the continuing reduction in our receivables balance. While it is disappointing that the Al Jahraa-9 well was water wet, the deep oil shows are an encouraging indication of the additional potential at these deeper levels in other areas of the concession," said Sam Moody, chief executive of Rockhopper.

As of 0950 BST, shares in the company had seen a 4.67% dip, down to 18.11p.
The UK government has suggested a temporary customs union with the European Union after Brexit as it published a position paper on Tuesday.

However, it also stated that Britain would also be free to negotiate its own international trade deals - something it cannot do as an EU customs union member.

Brexit Secretary David Davis suggested Britain may also be prepared to pay to stay in the interim arrangement, adding that the period would have to end before the next UK election, which has to be held by 2022.

According to the document, the UK would try to agree either a "highly streamlined" border with the EU, or a new partnership arrangement with no boundaries. It wanted to see an deal that created frictionless" trade.

The customs union allows goods to travel across the EU free of tariffs and checks. The sticking point will be the Britain's insistence that it can strike trade deals with non-EU states.

Under one option of the plan, Britain would "continue some existing arrangements we have with the EU, reduce or remove barriers to trade through new arrangements, and adopt technology-based solutions to make it easier for businesses to comply with customs procedures".

A second option would be a new customs partnership " by aligning our approach to the customs border in a way that removes the need for a UK-EU customs border. One potential approach would involve the UK mirroring the EUs requirements for imports from the rest of the world where the final destination is the EU".

The government admitted there would be "an increase in administration compared with being inside the EU Customs Union".

"While the government has looked at precedents set by customs agreements between other countries, it is not seeking to replicate another countrys model and will pursue the approach that works best for the UK," it added.

A European Commission spokesman said the interim period request had been noted, but reminded Davis that it progress was still needed on other key issues such as the rights of EU nationals, the border with Ireland and the final divorce bill before Britain leaves the bloc in March 2019.

"An agreement on a future relationship between the EU and the UK can only be finalised once the UK has become a third country, the spokesman said

"As (EU chief negotiator) Michel Barnier has said on several occasions, 'frictionless trade' is not possible outside the single market and customs union."

EU Parliament coordinator Guy Verhofstadt, echoed the EU position in slightly stronger terms.

"To be in & out of the Customs Union & "invisible borders" is a fantasy. First need to secure citizens rights & a financial settlement," he said.

Davis said he could not see a deal on the final financial settlement being reached before November.

There wont be a number by October or November, he told the BBC.

Labour's shadow Brexit secretary, Sir Keir Starmer, branded the customs proposals "incoherent and inadequate" and "designed to gloss over deep and continuing divisions within the Cabinet".

British Retail Consortium chief executive Helen Dickinson said a proper deal was essential to ensuring UK consumers are able to buy the products they want after Brexit.

However, this is a complex issue, including safety checks as well as customs paperwork and we need to develop a system that avoids disruption at our ports, she said.

We import more food than non-food from the EU and much of that is fresh, so delays would have a significant impact on supply chains. We want to work with Government to develop a system which works for consumers."
Investec's Ian Gordon lifted his target price on challenger bank Aldermore's shares slightly higher, describing the lender's first half performance as "superb".

Loan growth volumes up by 19% on the year were ahead of forecasts, net interest margins were broadly stable at 3.5% and impairments were minimal, he explained in a research note sent to clients.

No less possitive, Aldermore managed to strengthen its tier one capital buffers more rapidly than expected, meaning that a maiden 2017 dividend "now seems assured".



Analysts at HSBC raised their target price on shares of St James's Place, pointing to the improving productivity of the asset manager's advisors, scope for greater capital returns and better growth prospects versus rivals.

Regarding the first of those points, the broker's analysts pointed out how St.James's advisor productivity had accelerated between 2015 and 2017 to reach a compound annual growth rate of 16%, up from 4% per year between 2010 and 2015.

That, HSBC said, showed the company's acquired advisor businesses were maturing, meaning the unit could sustain growth in net inflows and assets under management without having to accelerate the recruitement of outside advisors.



Berenberg downgraded its recommendation on shares of Next following the recent rally in the fashion retailers's shares, telling clients there was now "material downside" following the company's weather-driven second quarter beat.

Analysts at the German broker also lowered their target price from 3,850p to 3,650p, arguing that its excess of store space robbed it of the flexibility needed to invest in what clients wanted most, namely product and free home delivery, leading to a loss of market share.

True, in the near-term offering home delivery might subtract five percentage points from its Directory operating margins on an EBIT basis, they conceded.

Yet in their opinion it was ultimately necessary, instead of focusing on short-term profitability and cash flow, if management wanted to defend its market share.
Monday saw gold selling off from recent highs as tensions between the US and North Korea seemed to simmer down over the weekend.

Investors saw this as a good opportunity to take some profits after pushing the precious metal to near two-month highs seen on Friday.

By 1600 BST, spot gold was trading 0.37% lower on the day at $1,284/oz. as gold futures for December delivery fell 0.5% to $1,287. The US dollar was also seen broadly strengthening, which gave investors slightly more incentive to take advantage of the timing.

David Madden of CMC Markets said, "Gold has turned lower today as investors adopt a more risk-on attitude. The metal was given a major boost last week because of the sell-off in global stocks, and now we are seeing funds flow the other way."

In other precious metals, spot silver was down 0.05% to $17.10, platinum was down 1.24% to $971/oz. and palladium was up 0.41% to $897.6/oz.

Energy markets saw a significant drop in spot WTI crude on Monday of 1.19% to $48.35 a barrel and a similar drop of 1.14% in Brent crude to trade at $51.29.

Oil futures have recently been given a helping hand to trade above $50 thanks to efforts by OPEC (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries) and other oil producers to limit output. Monday, however, saw oil prices reverse course on news that refinery runs in China dropped in July and that reduced demand is expected, as well as gains across global markets recovering from fears of a US/North Korean nuclear standoff.

Regarding recent Libyan oil production, analysts at Panmure Gordan wrote, "The recovery in Libyan production has been the single largest factor driving global supply growth in the last few months." Bob Yawger at Mizuho in New York had this to say on Libya,"It is back to the Libyan situation being the most important thing here," adding "You have Libyan barrels off the market, so supply is not what it was at this time last week."

In base metals, spot copper was marginally down 0.29% to $6,412/metric tonne on Chinese news that year on year industrial production was down 6.4%, below forecasts of 7.1%. Copper prices hit their highest level in more than two years on 9 August and are up almost 8% this quarter.

On the agricultural front, according to a Reuters poll of 10 analysts, the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) weekly crop report should forecast that crops for soybean and corn would be rated 60% good to excellent. This should help bolster both crops which saw heavy drops on the 10 August. Monday's price action was fairly subdued with soybeans for November delivery down 1.26% to $9.34/ bushel and corn for September delivery also down 0.8% to $3.58.
According to North Korea's official news agency KCNA, Kim Jong-un has received paperwork from his army containing its plans to fire missiles towards Guam.

The leader examined the plans Monday for several hours with top ranking members of the Korean People's Army, and will allegedly monitor future actions of the United States before making a decision on whether to take any military action.

"He said that if the Yankees persist in their extremely dangerous reckless actions on the Korean peninsula and in its vicinity, testing the self-restraint of the DPRK, the latter will make an important decision as it already declared," the KCNA release read.

Last week, Pyongyang's threats brought about a heightening of tensions in the region, culminating in Donald Trump threatening to unleash "fire and fury" on North Korea if it followed through on its threats to launch missiles towards the Pacific Island of Guam.

South Korean president Moon Jae-in said Tuesday that there would be no military action without Seoul's consent and that his government would prevent war by any and all means.

"Military action on the Korean peninsula can only be decided by South Korea and no one else can decide to take military action without the consent of South Korea," Moon said when commemorating the anniversary of the nation's liberation from Japanese military rule in 1945.

"The government, putting everything on the line, will block war by all means," Moon said.

"Trump reaffirmed that the United States stands ready to defend and respond to any threat or actions taken by North Korea against the United States or its allies, South Korea and Japan," the White House said in a statement early on Tuesday.

Kim Jong-un urged the US to make the right decisions "in order to defuse the tensions and prevent dangerous military conflict." This marked a toning down of rhetoric between the two nations, and an ease in geopolitical tensions which saw global markets start to recover from a shaky week as a result of the sabre-rattling.

Stuart Culverhouse of investment bank Exotix Capital, said, "Today's statement from North Korea, coming after more conciliatory tone from the US administration yesterday, may help to de-escalate the threat of conflict and reassure investors after a nervous few days. There remains a risk of a renewed war of words, if not worse, but this outbreak of calm may be something to build on in terms of dialogue."
US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis cautioned North Korea that it would be "game on" if the rogue nation fired missiles towards the US or its territories, including Guam.

In addition to the 170,000 inhabitants, Guam, which has officially been a US territory since the establishment of the Guam Organic Act in 1950, is home to roughly 7,000 US military personnel and their families.

Donald Trump had previously said he would unleash, "fire and fury" if North Korea continued to provoke the United States, to which the Kim Jong-un responded to by outlining a plan to fire four Hwasong-12 missiles to splash down in the water 18-25 miles off the coast of Guam.

Mattis told Pentagon reporters Monday that any such actions could, "escalate into war very quickly."

"If they shoot at the United States, I'm assuming they hit the United States -- if they do that, then it's 'game on'," when asked if he considered the Pacific Island located 8,000 miles away from Washington DC to be part of the US, he said, "Yeah, it sure is."

While the Defence Secretary remained vague on what exactly the US response would be if North Korea came good on its threats, he noted that US surveillance outposts and systems would know if any missiles had been launched, "within moments."

He denied that his words themselves were a declaration of war, saying that was for the President to decide and, "perhaps Congress," but firmly stated, "the bottom line is we will defend the country from an attack."

All this comes just hours after Marine General Joseph Dunford sought to reassure South Korean officials that a diplomatic solution to the tensions with North Korea was Trump's priority.

Mattis, who had also previously advised the President to focus on a diplomatic resolution to the situation, said he wasn't trying to reignite tensions, "It's not that I'm over here, Dr Strangelove," but "you don't shoot at people in this world unless you want to bear the consequences."
Stocks are holding higher following the most recent official statements around the crisis on the Korean peninsula which are helping to calm traders' frayed nerves.

As of 1217 BST, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was standing 0.15% or 0.60 points higher at 376.77, alongside a 0.33% or 40.34 point gain for the Dax to 12,205.77 while the Cac-40 was rising 0.55% or 27.97 points to 5,150.15.

In parallel, euro/dollar was edging lower by 0.23% to 1.1750 and Brent crude oil futures were slipping 0.72% to $50.38.

The VStoxx volatility index for the Euro Stoxx 50 was down by 5.75% lower at 14.77 in tandem.

Overnight, US Defence Secretary James Mattis warned North Korea that a missile strike that hit US territory, including Guam, would meet a response.

The day before, South Korea's president Moon Jae-in had stressed in a meeting with US general Joseph Dunford that "no one may decide to take military action without the consent" of the South.

Soon after Mattis spoke, North Korean state media said that its leader Kim Jong-un had reviewed plans to fire missiles towards the US Pacific territory of Guam but would wait and watch to see what the US did.

Commenting on the situation, Stuart Culverhouse, global head of macro and fixed income research at Exotix Capital, said: "Today's statement from North Korea, coming after more conciliatory tone from the US administration yesterday, may help to de-escalate the threat of conflict and reassure investors after a nervous few days. There remains a risk of a renewed war of words, if not worse, but this outbreak of calm may be something to build on in terms of dialogue."

Meanwhile, Germany's economy slowed a tad in the second quarter with foreign trade exerting a drag on activity. Gross domestic product expanded at a 0.6% quarter-on-quarter pace over the three months to June, according to the Federal Office of Statistics.

That was one tenth of a percentage point less than expected by economists. However, the prior quarter's rate of GDP growth was revised up from 0.6% to 0.7%.

Still on the calendar for later in the day, US retail sales figures for July were scheduled for release at 1330 BST.

Shares in Danone were on the up after Bloomberg TV, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that activist hedge-fund Corvex Management had taken a stake in the company.

Lufthansa was gaining altitude following a report that it and the government will support the restructuring of Air Berlin.

K+S was sharply lower after the company told markets it was unlikely to reach its 2020 targets due to the slow recovery in potash prices.
Stocks were seeing a small bid with traders hoping that the most recent statements from Pyongyang might mean that tensions on the Korean peninsula were now headed well and truly lower, despite which a widely-followed gauge of stockmarket volatility was holding near its recent highs.

As of 0914 BST the benchmark Stoxx 600 was edging higher by 0.06% to 0.23 points to 376.39, alongside a 0.22% or 26.47 point gain for the Dax to 12,194.57 while the Cac-40 was rising 0.25% or 12.99 points to 5,134.25.

In parallel, euro/dollar was edging lower by 0.20% to 1.1752 and Brent crude oil futures by 0.16% to $50.65.

The VStoxx volatility index for the Euro Stoxx 50 was only 2.54% lower at 15.27.

Overnight, US Defence Secretary James Mattis warned North Korea that a missile strike that hit US territory, including Guam, would meet a response.

The day before, South Korea's president Moon Jae-in had stressed in a meeting with US general Joseph Dunford that "no one may decide to take military action without the consent" of the South.

Soon after Mattis spoke, North Korean state media said that its leader Kim Jong-un had reviewed plans to fire missiles towards the US Pacific territory of Guam but would wait and watch to see what the US did.

Commenting on the situation, Stuart Culverhouse, global head of macro and fixed income research at Exotix Capital, said: "Today's statement from North Korea, coming after more conciliatory tone from the US administration yesterday, may help to de-escalate the threat of conflict and reassure investors after a nervous few days. There remains a risk of a renewed war of words, if not worse, but this outbreak of calm may be something to build on in terms of dialogue."

Meanwhile, Germany's economy slowed a tad in the second quarter with foreign trade exerting a drag on activity. Gross domestic product expanded at a 0.6% quarter-on-quarter pace over the three months to June, according to the Federal Office of Statistics.

That was one tenth of a percentage point less than expected by economists. However, the prior quarter's rate of GDP growth was revised up from 0.6% to 0.7%.

Still on the calendar for later in the day, US retail sales figures for July were scheduled for release at 1330 BST,

Shares in Danone were on the up after Bloomberg TV, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that activist hedge-fund Corvex Management had taken a stake in the company.

K+S was sharply lower after the company told markets it was unlikely to reach its 2020 targets due to the slow recovery in potash prices.
David Davis, the Brexit secretary, is expected to set out more clearly the governments hopes for a future customs deal with the European Union this week, to help inform the next round of Brexit negotiations. With Theresa May not expected to return to her desk in Downing Street from her holiday until Thursday, the government is keen to show that preparations for Brexit have not ground to a halt. - Guardian

David Davis, the Brexit secretary, will signal today that Mr Hammond has the upper hand by announcing plans for the present customs arrangements to stay in place for an interim period that could last for up to three years. A government position paper to be published today will say that Britain is looking at introducing a temporary customs union during which there will be no need for companies to fill in additional paperwork, ensuring that goods move smoothly across the border with the rest of the EU. - The Times

Ireland has threatened to block Britain's plans for a two-year transition period after Brexit amid a furious row over customs arrangements. Phil Hogan, the Republic's EU commissioner, said that Ireland could be the "biggest victim of this mess" and accused the UK of "high-level delusion". - Telegraph

British start-up technology companies are being denied access to their single largest source of investment funding as European institutions begin to cut the UK out of future projects. Venture capital funds say they have been told that the European Investment Fund (EIF), which indirectly invested more than half a billion pounds a year in Britains technology sector, has now effectively turned off the tap to new British commitments. - The Times

Brexit is being blamed for a decline in the number of job vacancies in the City and a drop in applications for key posts compared with last summer. According to headhunters Morgan McKinley there was an 11% slide in the number of City jobs in July, compared with a year ago, and a 33% fall in professionals seeking positions. - Guardian

J Sainsbury has halted exclusive takeover talks with Nisa Retail because of competition fears, opening the door for the Co-operative group to renew its interest in the wholesale and convenience store retailer. Sainsburys has told Nisa that it cannot make a formal offer until the competition watchdog has ruled on Tescos proposed 3.7 billion purchase of Booker Group, the nations largest wholesaler. - The Times

Aldi has struck a deal with a US grocery start-up that will allow it to deliver food directly to homes in three American cities. The partnership with grocery delivery company Instacart will allow customers to buy food from the discount supermarket chain for same-day delivery. - Telegraph

Stamp duty is damaging the economy because it stops people from living where they want and forces them to spend longer commuting, a think tank says. The Adam Smith Institute suggests that stamp duty is costing the economy an extra 9.28 billion because it is gumming up the housing market and stopping people from living where they want. - Telegraph

Britains largest provider of further education and adult skills is facing an uncertain future after it tried to suppress a damning report by the education watchdog. Learndirect was told that its apprenticeships were ineffective and that its oversight was weak. - The Times

Donald Trumps business advisory panel has been thrown into crisis after three executives quit in the wake of the presidents failure to immediately denounce white supremacists over a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that left one dead and several others injured. The CEOs of pharmaceutical giant Merck, sportswear retailer Under Armour and computer company Intel have all resigned from Trumps American Manufacturing Council as pressure mounts for business leaders who aligned themselves with the president to abandon his administration. - Guardian

Shares in the owner of Snapchat bounced 6.4pc on Monday after employees became eligible to sell their stock and as institutional investors hit the deadline by which they had to report their quarter-end holdings of US equities. Snap's shares closed at $12.60 on Monday, still 25pc below their initial public offering price, but an improvement on last week's price, when shares briefly dipped below $12 after it reported slowing user growth in its recent quarter. - Telegraph

Sweeping employment changes, including advertising all UK jobs with flexible working and giving fathers additional paternity leave, should be made to tackle the gender pay gap, the equalities watchdog has recommended. Offering flexible hours to all job applicants will help combat pay disparities between men and women, while increasing job opportunities for disabled people, according to the Equality and Human Rights Commission. - Guardian

A proposed 14bn class action lawsuit against Mastercard is being revived after lawyers filed to appeal against a ruling that barred the case from heading to trial last month. Lawyers for former financial ombudsman Walter Merricks have made their application to the UKs Competition Appeal Tribunal just weeks after it refused to certify his claim. - Guardian
Standard Life Aberdeen was up the top of the index gainers leaderboard on Tuesday for the second successive day after its merger was completed.

Shire was higher as it announced the application for Europe-wide marketing of its lifitegrast dry-eye disease drug has been approved by the UK. "If approved, lifitegrast would be the first and only treatment in a new class of drugs to address the signs and symptoms of dry eye disease in adults in Europe," the company said.

Financial services firm Hargreaves Lansdown saw its shares fall despite confirming it had "sufficiently strong financial, liquidity and capital positions" and pledged to operate a "sustainable and progressive ordinary dividend policy" with special dividends in future years when sufficient excess cash and capital is available.

Gold miners like Randgold, Fresnillo, Rio Tinto and BHP-Billiton were in the red as gold headed for a second day of losses but found some support at $1,273, close to levels it ran into difficulty around a couple of weeks ago.

Next was lower after Berenberg downgraded its recommendation following the recent rally in the clothing retailers's shares, telling clients there was now "material downside" following the company's weather-driven second quarter beat.

Market Movers

FTSE 100 (UKX) 7,387.51 0.46%

FTSE 100 - Risers

Standard Life Aberdeen (SLA) 428.70p 4.36%

BAE Systems (BA.) 595.00p 2.50%

easyJet (EZJ) 1,296.00p 2.45%

CRH (CRH) 2,720.00p 2.29%

International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG) 625.00p 1.96%

Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 264.60p 1.93%

Diageo (DGE) 2,546.50p 1.86%

Paddy Power Betfair (PPB) 7,500.00p 1.76%

Shire Plc (SHP) 3,853.00p 1.58%

British American Tobacco (BATS) 4,916.50p 1.47%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

Next (NXT) 4,227.00p -3.82%

Provident Financial (PFG) 1,901.00p -2.81%

Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 7,240.00p -2.62%

Fresnillo (FRES) 1,511.00p -2.33%

BHP Billiton (BLT) 1,338.50p -1.65%

Anglo American (AAL) 1,238.50p -1.43%

Rio Tinto (RIO) 3,369.50p -1.27%

Direct Line Insurance Group (DLG) 394.00p -1.08%

Mediclinic International (MDC) 736.50p -1.07%

Taylor Wimpey (TW.) 189.50p -0.99%
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) told the manufacturer of the meat-like Impossible Burger that the company hadnt demonstrated the safety of the products key genetically engineered ingredient, according to internal FDA documents. Despite FDAs concerns, Impossible Foods put its GMO-derived burger on the market for public consumption.

GMO Ingredient Gives Product Meat-Like Taste and Red Blood-Like Color

The Impossible Burger is made using a genetically engineered form of a protein called soy leghemoglobin (SLH) or heme that is found in the root nodules of soybean plants. Impossible Foods adds a SLH gene to a yeast strain, which is then grown in vats using a fermentation process. The SLH or heme is then isolated from the yeast and added to the Impossible Burger. Heme gives the Impossible Burger its meat-like taste and red blood-like color.

Impossible Foods claims its product uses about 75 percent less water, generates about 87 percent fewer greenhouse gases and requires around 95 percent less land than conventional ground beef from cows. Its produced without hormones, antibiotics, cholesterol or artificial flavors.

The GMO-derived Impossible Burger is sold in 43 restaurants nationwide, including several burger chains, and Impossible Foods has attracted significant funding from investors such as Bill Gates.

FDA: Arguments Do Not Establish Safety of SLH for Consumption

According to documents obtained by ETC Group and Friends of the Earth U.S. through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Impossible Foods submitted an application to seek GRAS (generally recognized as safe) status for SLH from the FDA in 2014. The FDAs 1997 GRAS notification policy allows a manufacturer, like Impossible Foods, to decide for itself, without FDA input, whether or not a product is safe.

But the FDA warned Impossible Foods that SLH would not meet the basic GRAS status. The FOIA-produced documents state that the FDA believes that the arguments presented, individually and collectively do not establish the safety of SLH for consumption, nor do they point to a general recognition of safety.

According to Michael Hansen, senior scientist at Consumers Union, Impossible Foods claimed that the engineered SLH/heme was identical to the SLH that has been in the food supply but the company had no safety testing data to back that claim.

You are taking something that has never been in the food supply before and you come to the FDA, say it is GRAS, and you have no safety data, particularly from feeding studies, Hansen said. Their argument has literally come down to saying this is exactly identical to the heme weve always been eating, but its not true.

In discussion with FDA, Impossible Foods also admitted that up to a quarter of its heme ingredient was composed of 46 unexpected additional proteins, some of which are unidentified and none of which were assessed for safety in the dossier.

Its only 73 percent pure, the other 27 percent is from proteins from the genetically engineered yeast that produces it, and these have an unknown function, Hansen said.

According to the FOIA documents, Impossible Foods withdrew its GRAS application in November of 2015.

Despite the FDAs warnings, Impossible Foods went ahead and started selling the Impossible Burger in 2016.

The FDA told Impossible Foods that its burger was not going to meet government safety standards, and the company admitted it didnt know all of its constituents. Yet it sold it anyway to thousands of unwitting consumers. Responsible food companies dont treat customers this way, said Jim Thomas of ETC Group. Impossible Foods should pull the burgers from the market unless and until safety can be established by the FDA and apologize to those whose safety it may have risked.

David Bronner: Totally Unethical to Market and Feed an Untested Protein

A recent New York Times article by Stephanie Strom brought the controversy over the Impossible Burger to light.

In response to the article, Impossible Foods issued a press release attesting to the safety of its product. The company said that a panel of food safety and allergy experts at three universities unanimously reaffirmed last week that soy leghemoglobin is generally recognized as safe.

Impossible Foods also said it will voluntarily provide the results of a study feeding rats SLH and additional data to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Yet, Impossible Foods is submitting feeding study results to the FDA after the product has been on the market for a year.

Its very troubling that Impossible Foods has put this product on the market and, more than one year later, still has not submitted requested safety data, including a rat feeding study, to FDA, Hansen said.

David Bronner, president of Dr. Bronners Magic Soaps and plant-based foods advocate, had earlier expressed support for the Impossible Burger as a solution to environmental problems caused by industrial meat production. But the recent revelations have changed Bronners opinion.

While there is great potential good that the Impossible Burger could do, its totally unethical to market and feed an untested protein to people and claim that it is identical to what we already eat, he said.

Major Loopholes in FDA Food Safety Regulations

The fact that companies like Impossible Foods can request GRAS status, then withdraw the application when the FDA raises concerns, and yet still put a product on the market shows major loopholes in FDA food safety regulations, according to Hansen.

The GRAS process is so broken. Its perfectly legal for a company to say whatever compound they want to use is determined to be safe, and then put it in the food supply, and not even tell the FDA.

Another major loophole is that, while FDA conducts reviews of genetically engineered plants and animals, the agency doesnt review products made using genetically engineered microorganisms like the Impossible Burgers heme.

The FDA doesnt even request safety data, Hansen said.

Hansen believes the GMO heme should be regulated as a color additive because Impossible Foods promotes hemes ability to give the burger a blood-red color like meat. The FDA requires safety assessments of color additives.

If it affects color and marketability, it meets the definition of a color additive and should be regulated as such, he said.
Bottom Line: Next-generation sequencing of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) identified distinct genomic profiles with potentially targetable alterations in 99.7 percent of patients with carcinoma of unknown primary (CUP) who have detectable alterations.

Journal in Which the Study was Published: Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Authors: Shumei Kato, MD, a medical oncologist and assistant clinical professor in experimental therapeutics in the Division of Hematology and Oncology and Center for Personalized Cancer Therapy at Moores Cancer Center; Razelle Kurzrock, MD, chief of the Division of Hematology and Oncology at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Director of the Center for Personalized Cancer Therapy at UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center in San Diego, California.

Background: CUP is a rare metastatic disease with no identifiable primary tumor with an incidence of 7 to12 cases per 100,000 per year. "There is a large unmet need in the CUP patient population. Response to standard platinum-based combination chemotherapy is modest at best and overall median survival is poor, about six to eight months," said Kato.

How the Study Was Conducted and Results: Using liquid biopsies from 442 patients with CUP, the researchers interrogated 54 to 70 genes in ctDNA using next-generation sequencing. They found that a total of 66 percent of patients had at least one characterized genetic mutation and 43.9 percent harbored two or more. The most prevalent variants were found in the genes TP53, KRAS, PIK3CA, BRAF and MYC. Among CUP patients found to have at least one characterized alteration, 99.7 percent of patients had theoretically actionable genetic mutations, either with off-label use of FDA-approved agents or agents currently under investigation.

Next, the researchers conducted two case studies to demonstrate the clinical relevance of their findings. In the first case, which was evaluated by Dr. Brian Leyland-Jones and colleagues who collaborated from Avera Cancer Institute, they analyzed a series of five liquid biopsies from a woman with metastatic CUP and identified dynamic changes in ctDNA that corresponded to therapeutic interventions. "This case demonstrated that cancer can change dramatically during treatment and the changes can be identified using simple blood tests to allow for customizing therapies," Kato explained.

In the second case, the investigators matched a patient, with adenocarcinoma of unknown primary with liver and abdominal lymph node metastases harboring KRAS and MLH1 mutations, to combination treatment with trametinib (Mekinist), a MEK inhibitor targeting downstream KRAS mutation, and nivolumab (Opdivo), an anti-PD1 checkpoint inhibitor. Within eight weeks, the patient had a partial response (36.4 percent tumor reduction) and a rapid decline in tumor marker CA-19-9, an antigen used to monitor treatment response.

Authors' Comments: "Our research is the first to show that we can use a simple blood test to evaluate ctDNA effectively in this difficult to diagnose patient population," said Kurzrock. "This is important because, with CUP, it has been problematic to determine how to treat patients."

"Our results show that ctDNA evaluation is feasible in CUP and that most patients have a unique somatic profile with pharmacologically actionable mutations," she added. "Liquid biopsies can be used to guide and evaluate treatment response in patients with CUP and should be included in next-generation clinical trials."

Study Limitations: CUP diagnosis was reported by referring physicians and the database was de-identified, so it was not possible to evaluate clinical characteristics and outcomes.

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Funding & Disclosures: This study was supported by funds from the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Fund and by the National Cancer Institute. Kurzrock receives consulting fees from Xbiotech, Roche, and Actuate Therapeutics; has an ownership interest in CureMatch Inc.; and has research funds from Incyte, Genentech, Pfizer, Sequenom, Guardant Health Inc., Foundation Medicine, and Merck Serono. Kato declares no conflict of interest.

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About the American Association for Cancer Research

Founded in 1907, the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) is the world's first and largest professional organization dedicated to advancing cancer research and its mission to prevent and cure cancer. AACR membership includes more than 37,000 laboratory, translational, and clinical researchers; population scientists; other health care professionals; and patient advocates residing in 108 countries. The AACR marshals the full spectrum of expertise of the cancer community to accelerate progress in the prevention, biology, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer by annually convening more than 30 conferences and educational workshops, the largest of which is the AACR Annual Meeting with more than 21,900 attendees. In addition, the AACR publishes eight prestigious, peer-reviewed scientific journals and a magazine for cancer survivors, patients, and their caregivers. The AACR funds meritorious research directly as well as in cooperation with numerous cancer organizations. As the Scientific Partner of Stand Up To Cancer, the AACR provides expert peer review, grants administration, and scientific oversight of team science and individual investigator grants in cancer research that have the potential for near-term patient benefit. The AACR actively communicates with legislators and other policymakers about the value of cancer research and related biomedical science in saving lives from cancer. For more information about the AACR, visit http://www.AACR.org.
Aug. 15, 2017, London, UK: The Biogerontology Research Foundation and the Oxford University Scientific Society announce a partnership to elevate the impact of their respective public education and outreach activities in the area of biogerontology and aging research.

"The Oxford University Scientific Society is proud to announce a collaboration with the Biogerontology Research Foundation. As a student society, it strives to advocate public understanding of science by hosting distinguished experts from a variety of disciplines ranging from life sciences and chemistry to engineering, information technology and even ethics. In addition, the OUSS will be looking to expand the range of events it organises to include conferences, hackathons and panel discussion. The Biogerontology Research Foundation's goals regarding longevity and healthy life extension align with our own and within the next academic year we will devote a portion of our efforts to promote the science of aging amongst the Oxford academic community." said Jakub Stefaniak, President of the Oxford University Scientific Society and Director of Public Outreach & Education of the Biogerontology Research Foundation.

The Biogerontology Research Foundation has always striven to keep public education and outreach regarding aging research, and encouraging young scientists to enter the field, among its top priorities, via its student internship program and through a variety of conferences and symposia held throughout the past decade. Their hope is to continue this tradition by strengthening their connections to leading university student societies like the Oxford University Scientific Society.

"The Biogerontology Research Foundation is proud to announce a partnership with the Oxford University Scientific Society. Public outreach and education is perhaps more important for biogerontology and the clinical translation of effective healthspan-extending interventions than for any other field within life-science given the massive potential that the field has to relieve suffering and lessen the economic burden associated with demographic aging with respect to how little funding the field receives. Educating both the public at large as well as young scientists about to choose a career path about the future promise of biomedical gerontology, and advocating for a paradigm shift in healthcare that emphasizes healthspan extension and compression of morbidity over sick care and single-disease treatment, has never been more important, and we hope to make a small but measurable impact on this front in the years to come." said Franco Cortese, Deputy Director & Trustee of the Biogerontology Research Foundation.

Part of this newly-announced partnership also involves the appointment of Jack Stefaniak, President of the Oxford University Scientific Society, as Director of Public Outreach and Education at the Biogerontology Research Foundation, where he will lead the foundation's outreach and education efforts, including organizing events, conferences, panel discussions, meet-ups and a monthly Biogerontology Research Foundation podcast.

"The Oxford University Scientific Society is one of the oldest and most reputable undergraduate science societies in the world providing students with access to some of the most prominent academic luminaries and industry thought leaders. Ageing is among some of the most prominent scientific and social challenges humanity is facing today and we are very happy to join forces with the OUSS to help develop experts and leaders in the field of biomedical gerontology." said Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, the Chief Scientific Officer of the Biogerontology Research Foundation.

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About the Biogerontology Research Foundation

The Biogerontology Research Foundation is a UK non-profit research foundation and public policy center seeking to fill a gap within the research community, whereby the current scientific understanding of the ageing process is not yet being sufficiently exploited to produce effective medical interventions. The BGRF funds and conducts research which, building on the body of knowledge about how ageing happens, aims to develop biotechnological interventions to remediate the molecular and cellular deficits which accumulate with age and which underlie the ill-health of old age. Addressing ageing damage at this most fundamental level will provide an important opportunity to produce the effective, lasting treatments for the diseases and disabilities of ageing, required to improve quality of life in the elderly. The BGRF seeks to use the entire scope of modern biotechnology to attack the changes that take place in the course of ageing, and to address not just the symptoms of age-related diseases but also the mechanisms of those diseases.

About the Oxford University Scientific Society

Established in 1882, Oxford University Scientific Society is one of the oldest science societies in the world. It organizes debates, events and talks, and offers its members the opportunity to listen to interesting and talented speakers who are at the forefront of their field. The society offers its members the opportunity to listen to interesting and talented speakers who are at the forefront of their field. The talks are held weekly and are intended to be of general scientific interest. Past talks have included Sir Martyn Poliakoff, Professor Alexander Halliday, and Sir Roger Penrose. The society also organises free or subsidized visits to places of scientific interest. Past events have included tours of the Joint European Torus project, the Bodleian Library, the Oxford Museum of the History of Science, the National Space centre in Leicester, the Body Worlds exhibition in London and the MINI factory in Oxford.
Centuries ago, the ancient networks of the Silk Road facilitated a political and economic openness between the nations of Eurasia. But this network also opened pathways for genetic exchange that shaped one of the world's most popular fruits: the apple. As travelers journeyed east and west along the Silk Road, trading their goods and ideas, they brought with them hitchhiking apple seeds, discarded from the choicest fruit they pulled from wild trees. This early selection would eventually lead to the 7,500 varieties of apple that exist today.

Researchers at Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) have been working hard to excavate the mysteries of the apple's evolutionary history, and a new publication this week in Nature Communications reveals surprising insights into the genetic exchange that brought us today's modern, domesticated apple, Malus domestica.

In collaboration with scientists from Cornell University and Shandong Agricultural University in China, the researchers sequenced and compared the genomes of 117 diverse apple accessions, including M. domestica and 23 wild species from North America, Europe, and East and central Asia.

A tale of two roads

The most exciting outcome of this genomic comparison is a comprehensive map of the apple's evolutionary history. Previous studies have shown that the common apple, Malus domestica arose from the central Asian wild apple, Malus sieversii, with contributions from crabapples along the Silk Road as it was brought west to Europe.

With the results of this new study, the researchers could zoom in on the map for better resolution. "We narrowed down the origin of domesticated apple from very broad central Asia to Kazakhstan area west of Tian Shan Mountain," explained Zhangjun Fei, BTI professor and lead author of this study.

In addition to pinpointing the western apple's origin, the authors were excited to discover that the first domesticated apple had also traveled to the east, hybridizing with local wild apples along the way, yielding the ancestors of soft, dessert apples cultivated in China today.

"We pointed out two major evolutionary routes, west and east, along the Silk Road, revealing fruit quality changes in every step along the way," summarized Fei.

Although wild M. sieversii grows east of Tian Shan Mountain, in the Xinjiang region of China, the ecotype there was never cultivated, and did not contribute to the eastern domesticated hybrid. Instead, it has remained isolated all these centuries, maintaining a pool of diversity yet untapped by human selection. First-author Yang Bai remarked, "it is a hidden jewel for apple breeders to explore further."

The sour (but firm) side of the story

As the apple traveled west along the Silk Road in the hands of travelers, trees grew from dropped seeds and crossed with other wild apple varieties, including the incredibly sour European crabapple, Malus sylvestris. The sourness of crabapples was once described by Henry David Thoreau as, "sour enough to set a squirrel's teeth on edge and make a jay scream."

The authors found that M. sylvestris has contributed so extensively to the apple's genome that the modern apple is actually more similar to the sour crabapple than to its Kazakhstani ancestor, M. sieversii.

"For the ancestral species, Malus sieversii, the fruits are generally much larger than other wild apples. They are also soft and have a very plain flavor that people don't like much," Bai remarked.

The hybridization between ancient cultivated apples and M. sylvestris, followed by extensive human selection, gave us new apples that are larger and fuller in flavor, and with a crispy firmness that gives them a longer shelf life.

Bai further explained, "The modern domesticated apples have higher and well-balanced sugar and organic acid contents. That is how the apple started to become a popular and favored fruit."

A sizeable discovery with big potential

A new flavor and texture may have put the apple into our pies, but size matters a great deal too. In crop breeding, one of the most desirable traits selected for is a larger fruit or seed. In nearly all cases of fruit domestication, the wild ancestor has tiny fruit that were shaped into their large, nutritious cultivated counterpart through centuries of selection. For example, the domesticated tomato is at least 100 times larger than its wild relatives.

"This is not quite the case for apple. Its domestication started with a medium to large-sized fruit," asserted Bai. "It has great potential for further enlarging fruit size in breeding programs."

By comparing the many different apple genomes, the researchers were able to find evidence supporting two different evolutionary steps contributing to apple's size increase - one before, and one after domestication.

The large size of Malus sieversii compared to other wild apples gave it a great advantage for domestication. It had already evolved to a suitable size before it was even cultivated, likely making it more attractive to growers who would then not need to spend much effort selecting for larger fruits.

Such a lack of size selection also means that the genes responsible for size increase still retain a variability that holds potential for future selection. But it can also make identification of the size-associated genes difficult. Despite this, the extensive breadth of the new study allowed the researchers to identify several genetic markers underlying the fruit size increases, which is great news for breeders who might want to further increase the apple's girth.

The apple (genome) falls far from the tree

While consumers may ask for better apples, breeders are met with difficulty when it comes to polishing apple traits. One major issue is that apple can't self-pollinate. It can only cross with other varieties, introducing too much genetic variability with each generation. While genetic change is necessary to tweak a trait of interest, too much change will tweak everything. Combined with the several years to get from apple seed to fruit, this makes breeding for desired traits a challenge.

"The genomic regions and candidate genes under human selection for a certain trait identified in this study will be very helpful and inspiring to breeders working on the same trait," asserted Fei, who expects that the results from this study will, "improve speed and accuracy of 'marker-assisted selection' in apple."

Now with an extensive and diverse collection of representative apple genomes, thorough and careful analyses have allowed Fei's group to distinguish important genetic markers that will greatly aid breeders in their quest for better apples - be it for disease resistance, shelf-life, taste, or even size.

When asked how big she thinks an apple could get through breeding, Bai responded with a twinkle in her eye, "Well, in my wild imagination, maybe one day it can be as big as a watermelon."

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Research reported in this news release was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (31572091), the Special Fund for Agro-Scientific Research in the Public Interest of China (201303093), and the US National Science Foundation (IOS-0923312, IOS-1339287 and IOS-1539831).

Writer: Alexa M. Schmitz, ams629@cornell.edu, (607-254-7476)

Media Relations Contact:Keith Hannon (607-254-4253) (kch95@cornell.edu).

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To learn more about Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) research, visit the BTI website.

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About Boyce Thompson Institute:

Boyce Thompson Institute is a premier life sciences research institution located in Ithaca, New York on the Cornell University campus. BTI scientists conduct investigations into fundamental plant and life sciences research with the goals of increasing food security, improving environmental sustainability in agriculture and making basic discoveries that will enhance human health. Throughout this work, BTI is committed to inspiring and educating students and to providing advanced training for the next generation of scientists. For more information, visit http://www.bti.cornell.edu.
The Center for Data Driven Discovery in Biomedicine at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) will lead a new, collaborative effort funded by the National Institutes of Health Common Fund to discover the causes of pediatric cancer and structural birth defects through the use of big data. The Center will be known as the "Kids First Pediatric Data Resource Center" (DRC).

Investigators at CHOP, in partnership with the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, the University of Chicago, Children's National Health System, the Oregon Health and Science University and Seven Bridges, will create a centralized, cloud-based database and discovery portal of well-curated clinical and genetic sequence data from dozens of childhood cancer and structural birth defects cohorts, comprising thousands of patients and their families. Partner organizations will provide expertise in the following areas:

The Ontario Institute for Cancer Research will support the innovative design and development of the Kids First Data Resource Portal (DRP) and associated web-based analytic tools for Kids First's disease-specific data sets.

University of Chicago will partner in the management and optimization of large-scale, genomic data processing for the Kids First initiative. They will also support the data coordination efforts by establishing cloud-based, open-source software needed for the operations of the Data Coordination Center within Kids First.

Children's National Health System will support project-specific efforts for the Administrative and Outreach Core within Kids First, and will also coordinate additional foundation and consortia-based partnerships for the generation of new, large-scale pediatric cancer and birth defects data.

Oregon Health and Science University will provide resources and new technologies to the Data Coordination Center to support community standards and frameworks for reproducible genomic analysis. They also provide a deep knowledge of cross-disease analysis, especially in cancer.

Seven Bridges will further develop the scalable, cloud-based data analysis platform using the infrastructure the company co-developed and deployed CAVATICA platform with CHOP. This platform will help researchers collaboratively analyze genomic data sets and provide access to Kids First data to the entire scientific community.

"Scientists are beginning to recognize the developmental biology connections between structural birth defects and pediatric cancers, and building on that shared understanding, we can now leverage new technologies, cloud computing, and sophisticated algorithms for collaborative discovery to develop improved, less toxic therapies," said Adam Resnick, PhD, Director of the Center for Data Driven Discovery in Biomedicine (D3b) at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

The Kids First Data Resource Center will allow researchers to instantly search large genomic datasets using new data visualization tools and cloud-based data-sharing platforms. Researchers will be able to identify genetic pathways that underlie and may possibly link childhood cancer and structural birth defects, such as congenital heart defects, hearing loss and cleft palate. Additionally, the DRC will develop new analytical tools to provide the research community with access to this large-scale data for use in the discovery of novel and improved treatments for children diagnosed with cancer or structural birth defects.

A lack of available resources and access to large-scale pediatric disease data limits the ability of research scientists to uncover new clues for biological discoveries of childhood cancer and structural birth defects, slowing the development of new diagnostics, less toxic treatments, or cures. The Kids First Data Resource Center will provide for non-siloed and integrative access to both genomic and clinical data across cancer and birth defects, a first in the pediatric research community.

The National Institutes of Health Common Fund's Gabriella Miller Kids First Pediatric Research Program recently announced the award to establish the DRC. Contingent on available funds, the award is expected to provide funding for five years of up to a total of approximately $14.8 million. Within the NIH, the Kids First program is primarily led by four Institutes and Centers (ICs) -- the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), in partnership with the Office of the NIH Director and with additional involvement of several other key NIH Institutes and Centers.

"NICHD is committed to supporting research on birth defects as part of its overall focus on improving the health of children," said Dr. Diana Bianchi, Director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. "The Kids First initiative provides a unique opportunity to use DNA sequencing information to gain a better understanding of the underlying causes of birth defects and childhood cancers."

Analyzing data from different disease types is crucial to the biological understanding and precision treatment of pediatric diseases, as studies suggest that children born with birth defects are at a higher risk of developing childhood cancer, currently the leading cause of disease-related death in children.

"For clinicians, structural birth defects and cancer have been some of the most challenging areas of pediatric medicine. For the first time, clinicians and researchers, along with academic, government and commercial partners, are coming together to fully harness the power of emergent technologies, shared data, and precision medicine. This collaboration will lead to improved outcomes for every child across all of these diseases," said N. Scott Adzick, MD, Surgeon-in-Chief of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and Director of the Center for Fetal Diagnosis and Treatment at CHOP.

Approximately 6,000 patient samples will be ready for analysis at the inception of the Kids First project, growing to more than 25,000 by 2018, making it the largest pediatric data cohort of its kind. In addition to the development of the Kids First Data Resource Center, CHOP investigators will also contribute to the generation of large-scale data from associated Kid's First Program sequencing efforts across pediatric cancer and structural birth defects, including data from neuroblastoma samples collected by CHOP oncologist Dr. John Maris through the Children's Oncology Group and structural birth defect and cancer samples collected by Dr. Hakon Hakonarson of the Center for Applied Genomics at CHOP.

The Kids First DRC will also integrate data from consortia-based efforts including the Children's Brain Tumor Tissue Consortium (CBTTC) and the Pacific Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Consortium PNOC), which will contribute data collected from more than 2,000 children with brain tumors.

"It is only through an authentic partnership with patients and families and the integration of efforts across disciplines, from surgery to oncology to genetics, within and across institutions, that these efforts are made possible," noted Phillip (Jay) Storm, MD, Chief of the Division of Neurosurgery at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "The Kids First DRC will continue to work closely with partnered foundations, disease-specific consortia and other partners in support of patients and their families."

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The Kids First Act was established in April 2014, less than six months after 10-year-old Gabriella Miller, an advocate for childhood cancer research, died from an inoperable brain tumor. Her efforts to raise awareness of childhood cancer raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for children's cancer charities and launched Smashing Walnuts, a foundation dedicated to childhood brain cancer research. As a result of these advocacy efforts, Congress passed the Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Act to direct funding into the NIH Common Fund over a 10-year period in support of pediatric research.

About Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Children's Hospital of Philadelphia was founded in 1855 as the nation's first pediatric hospital. Through its long-standing commitment to providing exceptional patient care, training new generations of pediatric healthcare professionals, and pioneering major research initiatives, Children's Hospital has fostered many discoveries that have benefited children worldwide. Its pediatric research program is among the largest in the country. In addition, its unique family-centered care and public service programs have brought the 546-bed hospital recognition as a leading advocate for children and adolescents. For more information, visit http://www.chop.edu
Astronomers using Caltech's Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO) have found evidence for a bizarre lensing system in space, in which a large assemblage of stars is magnifying a much more distant galaxy containing a jet-spewing supermassive black hole. The discovery provides the best view yet of blobs of hot gas that shoot out from supermassive black holes.

"We have known about the existence of these clumps of material streaming along black hole jets, and that they move close to the speed of light, but not much is known about their internal structure or how they are launched," says Harish Vedantham, a Caltech Millikan Postdoctoral Scholar. "With lensing systems like this one, we can see the clumps closer to the central engine of the black hole and in much more detail than before." Vedantham is lead author of two new studies describing the results in the Aug. 15 issue of The Astrophysical Journal. The international project is led by Anthony Readhead, the Robinson Professor of Astronomy, Emeritus, and director of the OVRO.

Many supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies blast out jets of gas traveling near the speed of light. The gravity of black holes pulls material toward them, but some of that material ends up ejected away from the black hole in jets. The jets are active for one to 10 million years--every few years, they spit out additional clumps of hot material. With the new gravitational lensing system, these clumps can be seen at scales about 100 times smaller than before.

"The clumps we're seeing are very close to the central black hole and are tiny--only a few light-days across. We think these tiny components moving at close to the speed of light are being magnified by a gravitational lens in the foreground spiral galaxy," says Readhead. "This provides exquisite resolution of a millionth of a second of arc, which is equivalent to viewing a grain of salt on the moon from Earth."

A critical element of this lensing system is the lens itself. The scientists think that this could be the first lens of intermediate mass--which means that it is bigger than previously observed "micro" lenses consisting of single stars and smaller than the well-studied massive lenses as big as galaxies. The lens described in the new paper, dubbed a "milli-lens," is thought to be about 10,000 solar masses, and most likely consists of a cluster of stars. An advantage of a milli-sized lens is that it is small enough not to block the entire source, which allows the jet clumps to be magnified and viewed as they travel, one by one, behind the lens. What's more, the researchers say the lens itself is of scientific interest because not much is known about objects of this intermediate-mass range.

"This system could provide a superb cosmic laboratory for both the study of gravitational milli-lensing and the inner workings of the nuclear jet in an active galaxy," says Readhead.

The new findings are part of an OVRO program to obtain twice-weekly observations of 1,800 active supermassive black holes and their host galaxies, using OVRO's 40-meter telescope, which detects radio emissions from celestial objects. The program has been running since 2008 in support of NASA's Fermi mission, which observes the same galaxies in higher-energy gamma rays.

In 2010, the OVRO researchers noticed something unusual happening with the galaxy in the study, an active galaxy called PKS 1413+ 135. Its radio emission had brightened, faded, and then brightened again in a very symmetrical fashion over the course of a year. The same type of event happened again in 2015. After a careful analysis that ruled out other scenarios, the researchers concluded that the overall brightening of the galaxy is most likely due to two successive high-speed clumps ejected by the galaxy's black hole a few years apart. The clumps traveled along the jet and became magnified when they passed behind the milli-lens.

"It has taken observations of a huge number of galaxies to find this one object with the symmetrical dips in brightness that point to the presence of a gravitational lens," says coauthor Timothy Pearson, a senior research scientist at Caltech who helped discover in 1981 that the jet clumps travel at close to the speed of light. "We are now looking hard at all our other data to try to find similar objects that can give a magnified view of galactic nuclei."

The next step to confirm the PKS 1413+ 135 results is to observe the galaxy with a technique called very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI), in which radio telescopes across the globe work together to image cosmic objects in detail. The researchers plan to use this technique beginning this fall to look at the galaxy and its supermassive black hole, which is expected to shoot out another clump of jet material in the next few years. With the VLBI technique, they should be able to see the clump smeared out into an arc across the sky via the light-bending effects of the milli-lens. Identifying an arc would confirm that indeed a milli-lens is magnifying the ultra-fast jet clumps spewing from a supermassive black hole.

"We couldn't do studies like these without a university observatory like the Owens Valley Radio Observatory, where we have the time to dedicate a large telescope exclusively to a single program," said Readhead.

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Additional authors of The Astrophysical Journal studies are: Vikram Ravi of Caltech; Walter Max-Moerbeck (MS '08, PhD '13) and Anton Zensus of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy; Talvikki Hovatta of University of Turku and the Aalto University Metsahovi Radio Observatory; Anne Lahteenmaki and Merja Tornikoski of the Aalto University Metsahovi Radio Observatory; Mark Gurwell (MS '92, PhD '96) of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory; Roger Blandford of Stanford University; Rodrigo Reeves of the University of Concepcion; and Vasiliki Pavlidou of the University of Crete.

The two studies, titled, "Symmetric Achromatic Variability in Active Galaxies: A Powerful New Gravitational Lensing Probe?" and "The Peculiar Light Curve of J1415+1320: A Case Study in Extreme Scattering Events," are funded by NASA, the National Science Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution, the Academia Sinica, the Academy of Finland, and the Chilean Centro de Excelencia en Astrofisica y Tecnologias Afines (CATA).
LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Aug. 15, 2017- - Researchers using Los Alamos' unique neutron-imaging and high-energy X-ray capabilities have exposed the inner structures of the fossil skull of a 74-million-year-old tyrannosauroid dinosaur nicknamed the Bisti Beast in the highest-resolution scan of tyrannosaur skull ever done. The results add a new piece to the puzzle of how these bone-crushing top predators evolved over millions of years.

"Normally, we look at a variety of thick, dense objects at Los Alamos for defense programs, but the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science was interested in imaging a very large fossil to learn about what's inside," said Ron Nelson, of the Laboratory's Physics Division. Nelson was part of a team that included staff from Los Alamos National Laboratory, the museum, the University of New Mexico and the University of Edinburgh. "It turns out that high energy neutrons are an interesting and unique way to image something of this size."

Watch a video on the team's research here.

The results helped the team determine the skull's sinus and cranial structure. Initial viewing of the computed tomography (CT) slices showed preservation of un-erupted teeth, the brain cavity, internal structure in some bones, sinus cavities, pathways of some nerves and blood vessels, and other anatomical structures. These imaging techniques have revolutionized the study of paleontology over the past decade, allowing paleontologists to gain essential insights into the anatomy, development and preservation of important specimens. Team members will present their findings on the fossil, Bistahieversor sealeyi, August 23 at the annual Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting in Calgary, Alberta.

To peer inside the 40-inch skull, which was found in 1996 in the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness Area near Farmington, N.M. the Los Alamos team combined neutron and X-ray CT to extract anatomical information not accessible otherwise and without the risk of damaging the irreplaceable fossil. Los Alamos is one of a few places in the world that can perform both methods on samples ranging from the very small to the very large scale.

The thickness of the skull required higher energy X-rays than those typically available to adequately penetrate the fossil. The Lab's microtron electron accelerator produced sufficiently high-energy X-rays.

To provide an alternate view inside the skull, the team also used a newly developed, high-energy neutron imaging technique with neutrons produced by the proton accelerator at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE). The neutrons interact with the nuclei rather than the electrons in the skull, as X-rays do, and thus have different elemental sensitivity. This provides complementary information to that obtained with X-rays.

The team's study illuminates the Bisti Beast's place in the evolutionary tree that culminated in Tyrannosaurus rex.

"The CT scans help us figure out how the different species within the T. rex family related to each other and how they evolved," said Thomas Williamson, Curator of Paleontology at the New Mexico museum. "The Bistahieversor represents the most basal tyrannosaur to have the big-headed, bone-crushing adaptations and almost certainly the small forelimbs. It was living alongside species more closely related to T. rex, the biggest and most derived tyrannosaur of all, which lived about 66 million years ago. Bistahieversor lived almost 10 million years before T. rex, but it also was a surviving member of a lineage that retained many of the primitive features from even farther back closer to when tyrannosaurs underwent their transition to bone-crushing."

The Bisti Beast skull is the largest object to date for which full, high-resolution neutron and X-ray CT scans have been performed at the Laboratory and required innovations both to image the entire skull and to handle the image reconstruction from the resulting large data sets.

This work advances the state of the art in imaging capabilities at the Laboratory and is already proving useful in imaging larger programmatic items related to the Laboratory's national security mission.

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About the project

This work was funded by Los Alamos National Laboratory capability development funds from the Applied Engineering and Technology division and from National Nuclear Security Administration Science Programs, and through a grant to UNM through the New Mexico Consortium. The team comprised Michelle Espy, Cort Gautier, James Hunter, Adrian Losko, Ron Nelson, and Sven Vogel, of Los Alamos National Laboratory; Tom Williamson, Curator of Paleontology at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science; Kat Schroeder, of the University of New Mexico and Steve Brusatte, of the School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

About Los Alamos National Laboratory (http://www.lanl.gov)

Los Alamos National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national security, is operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, a team composed of Bechtel National, the University of California, BWX Technologies, Inc. and URS Corporation for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.

Los Alamos enhances national security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction and solving problems related to energy, environment, infrastructure, health and global security concerns.
DURHAM, N.C. -- Biomedical engineers have grown miniature human blood vessels that exhibit many of the symptoms and drug reactions associated with Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome -- an extremely rare genetic disease that causes symptoms resembling accelerated aging in children.

The technology will help doctors and researchers screen potential therapeutics for the disease more rapidly, with the goal of eventually creating a platform for personalized screening. The technique also offers a new way to study other rare diseases and could provide insights into treating heart disease in the elderly.

The study was published online on August 15 in the journal Scientific Reports.

"One of the drugs currently prescribed for this disease extends patients' lives by three months, and that's been considered a major feat," said Leigh Atchison, a doctoral candidate in biomedical engineering at Duke University and first author of the study. "They're looking for anything that will extend lifespan by even a few months. It's that devastating."

Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome -- or simply progeria for short -- is a non-hereditary genetic disease caused by a single-point mutation in the genome. It is so rare and so deadly that there are currently only about 250 known cases worldwide.

Progeria is triggered by a defective protein called progerin that accumulates outside of a cell's nucleus rather than becoming part of its structural support system. This causes the nucleus to take on an abnormal shape and inhibits its ability to divide. The resulting symptoms look much like accelerated aging, and affected patients usually die of heart disease brought on by weakened blood vessels before the age of 14.

"Progeria isn't considered hereditary, because nobody lives long enough to pass it on," said George Truskey, the R. Eugene and Susie E. Goodson Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Duke. "There are currently 75 children in clinical trials, which is amazing given the rarity of the disease. But with 15 compounds under consideration for trials, the math just ultimately won't work out. You can't try all of these drugs or various combinations of them in humans, so we're hoping our platform will provide an alternative way to test them."

Blood vessels are difficult to simulate because their walls have multiple layers of cells, including the endothelium and the media. The endothelium is the innermost lining of all blood vessels that interacts with circulating blood. The media is made mostly of smooth muscle cells that help control the flow and pressure of the blood within.

Researchers believe that it is the deterioration of these smooth muscle cells that ultimately leads to the heart disease and failure that so often kills patients with progeria. But because there are so few people with progeria, it is extremely difficult to study in the patients themselves.

"Because it's such a hard disease to study, we wanted to see if we could create a platform using human cells that more accurately represents the disease and then use it for drug testing," said Atchison. "So we tried to grow miniature artificial blood vessels using induced pluripotent stem cells derived from cells taken from patients with progeria."

The plan worked. In just four weeks of growth, the engineered blood vessels exhibit many of the symptoms seen in people with the disease -- symptoms that simple cell cultures have not been able to recreate. The blood vessels also respond similarly to pharmaceuticals, revealing nuances into how current therapies are working.

While the blood vessels showed improved function after a week of being dosed with an analogue of rapamycin, a drug known as everolimus, calcification and other symptoms of cardiovascular disease remained. This implies that the drug is helping the smooth muscle cells work better, but not remedying the underlying symptoms.

"That's why our system could be so useful," said Atchison. "It could tell us exactly what the drug is doing in a quicker, more high-throughput manner, and whether we need a second treatment to address other aspects of the disease."

The success may aid the study of other rare diseases, too.

"The major thing we're happy with is that this serves as a proof of principle for creating a vascular model of a rare disease in the laboratory to better understand it and hopefully develop a therapy," said Truskey.

The research may also provide insight into why some elderly people become especially prone to heart disease. Many heart patients have shown the same buildup of the progerin protein, so researchers believe there may be a link between the two conditions.

There are, of course, limitations to the new artificial blood vessels. They are not connected to any outside organs, nor are they embedded in the complicated biology of a living human being.

"We only created smooth muscle cells from progeria patients in this study, but their endothelial cells might play a major role as well," said Atchison. "If we can incorporate endothelial cells derived from the patients' own cells into the model as well, then we can create a more personalized testing platform for these patients."

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This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (UH3TR000505, R01HL126784), the National Science Foundation (GRFP Grant #1106401), the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund, and the Progeria Research Foundation.

CITATION: "A Tissue Engineered Blood Vessel Model of Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome Using Human iPSC-derived Smooth Muscle Cells," Leigh Atchison, Haoyue Zhang, Kan Cao, George A. Truskey. Scientific Reports, Aug. 15, 2017. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-08632-4
New study in The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry indicates that middle-aged and older adults have the potential to use tailored smartphone interventions to self-manage their illness

Philadelphia, PA, August 15, 2017 -The use of new technologies in geriatric psychiatry shows promise for advancing personalized medicine and improving patient care. A new study in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry describes the successful adaptation of an integrated medical and psychiatric self-management intervention to a smartphone application for middle-aged and older adults with serious mental illness.

Care of middle-aged and older patients with serious mental illness is complicated. Often these patients suffer from other medical conditions and are at increased risk of premature death. They have two to three times higher health costs than individuals in the general population. In order to help patients cope with their illness, researchers from Dartmouth developed a smartphone-based intervention using an adaptive systems engineering framework and principles of user-centered design. They found that even patients with limited technical abilities could use this App successfully. The App and intervention protocol were developed using commercially available products from Wellframe.

"The use of mobile health interventions by adults with serious mental illness is a promising approach that has been shown to be highly feasible and acceptable," explained lead investigator Karen L. Fortuna, PhD, of the Dartmouth Centers for Health and Aging and the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. "These technologies are associated with many advantages compared with traditional psychosocial interventions, including the potential for individually tailored, just-in-time delivery along with wide dissemination and high population impact. Nevertheless, the process of adapting an existing psychosocial intervention to a smartphone intervention requires adaptation for a high-risk group with limited health and technology literacy."

Following multiple design iterations, investigators tested the App's usability. Ten participants (mean age of 55.3 years) with serious mental illness and other chronic health conditions reported a high level of usability and satisfaction with the smartphone application.

The App takes patients through 10 sessions over a period of approximately three months, covering topics such as stress vulnerability and illness, medication adherence and strategies, and substance and medication abuse. Physicians can remotely monitor App use, and intervene when problems are detected, facilitating telemedicine for less accessible populations.

According to Dr. Fortuna, "Smartphone applications also potentially facilitate patient engagement in participatory, personalized, and preventative care. As the healthcare industry increasingly embraces prevention and illness self-management, it is important for physicians and patients to be actively involved in designing and developing new technologies supporting these approaches."

The use of smart devices is poised to revolutionize how we think about clinical information and facilitate personalized interventions in a way that could not have been conceptualized before these technologies came into existence. This study is part of a special issue of the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry that captures an important moment in the evolving relationship between technology and the clinical care of older adults.

"It has often been noted that with the pace of technology development being so rapid, research may not be able to keep up. While this may be true in the most literal sense, this set of nine papers represents a major step in developing a body of research to guide how technologies can interface with clinical care," noted guest editor Ipsit V. Vahia, MD, McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA, and the Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.

These papers highlight the potential of technology based-approaches, provide direction on how this area of work needs to develop, and put a spotlight on the major pitfalls that the field must consider in order for technologies realize their full potential. They also address the relative lack of evidence to date supporting use of these technologies and the lack of clarity on data security and privacy related to use of these devices.

Dr. Vahia continued, "While the potential of technology to impact geriatric psychiatry care in this manner has long been recognized, this issue provides substantial evidence to demonstrate that this potential is translating into reality. Simultaneously, it also makes clear that the work is just getting started."

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Philadelphia, PA, August 14, 2017 - During a depressive episode, people often report having reduced energy, feeling slowed down and having reduced interest in activities. As their mood lifts, energy and activity return to their usual levels. A new study in Biological Psychiatry reports altered measures of daily activity in patients whose depressive symptoms improved in response to the fast-acting antidepressant ketamine. The differences were present before starting treatment, suggesting that activity patterns may help identify patients who would benefit from the drug.

In the study, first author Dr. Wallace Duncan and his colleagues from the Experimental Therapeutics and Pathophysiology Branch at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland used wristwatch activity monitors to examine measures of circadian timekeeping systems, including the timing and levels of activity. The 51 patients included in the study had either major depressive disorder or bipolar disorder, and all of the patients had depressive symptoms that had not responded to previous treatment attempts.

Duncan and his colleagues showed that patients who responded to a single infusion of ketamine initially had more activity earlier in the day and lower activity later in the day than patients who did not respond to ketamine. "In other words, their daily activity clock was shifted forward," said Dr. John Krystal, Editor of Biological Psychiatry.

Responders also had advance-shifted timing of their activity on the first day after the treatment, and increased overall activity levels on the third day, consistent with the notion that activity levels are part of the clinical response to ketamine.

"These findings are the first clinical results to suggest that trait-like circadian activity patterns are associated with rapid mood response to ketamine," said Dr. Duncan. Altered measures of circadian timekeeping on the third day suggest that changes in circadian circuits may mediate ketamine's continued effects on mood.

In addition, the differences in activity levels before and after treatment suggest biological differences in the circadian systems that regulate activity between people who respond to the drug and those who don't. The authors suggest that the underlying differences may help predict ketamine's effects on mood.

"It would be nice if daily patterns of activity could be used clinically to identify people who might respond to ketamine and to monitor clinical improvement," said Dr. Krystal.

According to Dr. Duncan, the study is also important because it shows that rapid-acting treatments such as ketamine can provide key insights into the relationship between sleep and circadian rhythms, activity and mood response. The activity signature produced by ketamine suggests that the clock gene machinery that controls circadian rhythms may be linked to the type of depression that responds to ketamine. In addition, depressive symptom scores were associated with decreased activity and increased sleep quality on the first night after the infusion, indicating that improved sleep quality may be key to ketamine's rapid mood effects.

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Notes for editors

The article is "Motor-Activity Markers of Circadian Timekeeping Are Related to Ketamine's Rapid Antidepressant Properties," by Wallace C. Duncan Jr., Elizabeth Slonena, Nadia S. Hejazi, Nancy Brutsche, Kevin C. Yu, Lawrence Park, Elizabeth D. Ballard, and Carlos A. Zarate Jr. (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2017.03.011). It appears in Biological Psychiatry, volume 82, issue 5 (September 2017), published by Elsevier.

Copies of this paper are available to credentialed journalists upon request; please contact Rhiannon Bugno at Biol.Psych@UTSouthwestern.edu or +1 214 648 0880. Journalists wishing to interview the authors may contact James McElroy at NIMHpress@mail.nih.gov or +1 301 443 4536.

The authors' affiliations and disclosures of financial and conflicts of interests are available in the article.

John H. Krystal, M.D., is Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine, Chief of Psychiatry at Yale-New Haven Hospital, and a research psychiatrist at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System. His disclosures of financial and conflicts of interests are available here.

About Biological Psychiatry

Biological Psychiatry is the official journal of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, whose purpose is to promote excellence in scientific research and education in fields that investigate the nature, causes, mechanisms and treatments of disorders of thought, emotion, or behavior. In accord with this mission, this peer-reviewed, rapid-publication, international journal publishes both basic and clinical contributions from all disciplines and research areas relevant to the pathophysiology and treatment of major psychiatric disorders.

The journal publishes novel results of original research which represent an important new lead or significant impact on the field, particularly those addressing genetic and environmental risk factors, neural circuitry and neurochemistry, and important new therapeutic approaches. Reviews and commentaries that focus on topics of current research and interest are also encouraged.

Biological Psychiatry is one of the most selective and highly cited journals in the field of psychiatric neuroscience. It is ranked 6th out of 142 Psychiatry titles and 10th out of 258 Neurosciences titles in the Journal Citations Reports published by Thomson Reuters. The 2016 Impact Factor score for Biological Psychiatry is 11.412.

About Elsevier

Elsevier is a global information analytics business that helps institutions and professionals progress science, advance healthcare and improve performance for the benefit of humanity. Elsevier provides digital solutions and tools in the areas of strategic research management, R&D performance, clinical decision support, and professional education; including ScienceDirect, Scopus, ClinicalKey and Sherpath. Elsevier publishes over 2,500 digitized journals, including The Lancet and Cell, more than 35,000 e-book titles and many iconic reference works, including Gray's Anatomy. Elsevier is part of RELX Group, a global provider of information and analytics for professionals and business customers across industries. http://www.elsevier.com

Media contact

Rhiannon Bugno

Editorial Office, Biological Psychiatry

+1 214 648 0880

Biol.Psych@UTSouthwestern.edu
PARIS, 15th August 2017: New data provides the first proof that the Earth has a natural thermostat which enables the planet to recover from extremes of climate change - but the recovery timescales are significant. This work is presented today at the Goldschmidt conference in Paris, and has just been published in the peer-reviewed journal Geochemical Perspectives Letters*.

The idea of a natural temperature thermostat was first proposed in 1981, but until now no-one has been able to provide data to show that the recovery from the hot and cold temperature fluctuations were associated with a specific mechanism.

Now a group of British scientists has shown that recovery from global cooling events is associated with changes in the rate of weathering of rocks, which is the main mechanism of removing CO 2 from the atmosphere. In weathering, rocks are dissolved by rain and river water; the process removes CO 2 from the atmosphere, which is then transported to the seas by rivers to be locked up in carbon-rich rocks such as limestone. The more weathering, the more CO 2 is removed from the atmosphere.

The team had previously found evidence supporting the role of weathering in cooling the Earth in times of high temperature. This current work confirms that a slow-down of weathering takes place in cold periods, and so supports the concept of an "Earth thermostat".

The researchers were able to use the Lithium isotope ratios in rocks as a measure of weathering. They examined rocks from the period of the Hirnantian glaciation - around 445 million years ago - which correspond with the second greatest extinction of life in history, when around 85% of marine species were wiped out, due to the cooling and a dramatic drop in sea levels (estimated at around 80m) as water was locked into ice fields and glaciers.

The samples, which came from Anticosti Island (Quebec, Canada), and Dob's Linn (near Moffat, Scotland), show that global chemical weathering rate declined by a factor of four temporarily during the 5C cooling that caused the glaciation, removing less CO 2 , allowing the climate to recover from the cooling.

Lead scientist, Dr Philip Pogge von Strandmann (University College London and Birkbeck, University of London) said:

"From looking at the relative abundance of lithium isotopes in ocean-derived rocks, we were able to confirm that chemical weathering is the driver of the Earth's natural thermostat. When there is a warmer climate, there is more weathering, and when it is cooler there is less weathering: this is what you would expect, given that chemical reactions go faster with increasing temperature. So more weathering removes CO 2 from the atmosphere and puts a break on global warming. However, when the temperature cools, the reverse is true, and less CO 2 is removed from the atmosphere in cold periods. This is the process that has allowed life to survive on Earth for around 4 billion years, and is what we are reporting in Paris".

Nevertheless, we need to be clear that the changes in temperature are gradual, and that recovery can take hundreds of thousands of years. Given the rapid increase in the rate of global warming at present, this kind of wait is not an option for us".

Commenting, Professor Jonathan Payne (Professor and Chair, Geological Sciences, Stanford University, CA, USA) said:

"The theory that chemical weathering provides a stabilizing feedback on Earth's climate goes back several decades, but observational confirmation of this hypothesis has been incomplete. In this study, Pogge von Strandmann and colleagues add a critical new piece of confirmation by using lithium isotopes to demonstrate a reduction in the chemical weathering rate associated with climate cooling - exactly the behaviour predicted if rates of chemical weathering serve as a stabilizing feedback on climate. This study is illustrates beautifully how new isotope proxy systems are enabling critical new tests of hypotheses both old and new and, in this case, confirming a theory that helps to explain why the Earth has enabled life to flourish continuously for more than 3.5 billion years".

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*This presentation is based on a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Geochemical Perspectives Letters, June 2017 (see http://www.geochemicalperspectivesletters.org/article1726)
Plants have been used to produce a new vaccine against poliovirus

Plants have been used to produce a new vaccine against poliovirus in what is hoped to be a major step towards global eradication of the disease.

A cross-cutting team of scientists, including Dr Johanna Marsian working in Professor George Lomonossoff's Lab at the John Innes Centre, Norwich, has produced the novel vaccine with a method that uses virus-like particles (VLPs) - non-pathogenic mimics of poliovirus which are grown in plants.

Genes that carry information to produce VLPs are infiltrated into the plant tissues. The host plant then reproduces large quantities of them using its own protein expression mechanisms.

Professor Lomonossoff, from the John Innes Centre said: "This is an incredible collaboration involving plant science, animal virology and structural biology. The question for us now is how to scale it up - we don't want to stop at a lab technique."

VLPs look like viruses but are non-infectious. They have been biologically engineered so they do not contain the nucleic acid that allows viruses to replicate. This means that they mimic the behaviour of the virus, stimulating the immune system to respond without causing an infection of poliomyelitis.

Laboratory tests demonstrated that the poliovirus mimics provided animals with immunity from the disease paving the way for human vaccines to be produced by plants on a major scale with the input of pharmaceutical industry collaborators.

The breakthrough was made by a consortium funded by the World Health Organisation (WHO) which is seeking to eradicate a disease that has been known since antiquity.

The WHO is seeking alternative vaccines that avoid use of the live virus as part of an international drive to completely eradicate the virus worldwide.

A global scourge up to the middle of the last century, poliovirus has been reduced by 99 per cent since 1988 due to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative led by the WHO. Current polio vaccines, however, require the production of huge quantities of the virus. Using the live virus not only represents a risk of the virus escaping, the use of the live attenuated (weakened) virus, effectively maintains polio in the global population.

VLPs were expressed at the John Innes Centre using Hypertrans transient plant expression system which had previously been developed there. This successful development not only holds promise for the production of vaccines for polio: it could become a frontline diagnostic resource in producing vaccines against other viral outbreaks.

"The beauty of this system of growing non-pathogenic virus mimics in plants, is that it boosts our ability to scale-up the production of vaccine candidates to combat emerging threats to human health," said Prof Lomonossoff.

In the past 20 years plants have become serious competitors to bacteria, insect cells, yeast or mammalian cells as production systems for pharmaceutical materials. They are cost-effective requiring simple nutrients, water, carbon-dioxide and sunlight for efficient growth and the transient expression system can be adjusted rapidly with low costs.

The work at the John Innes Centre furthered work of scientists at the University of Leeds, who first discovered a way of producing the virus-like particles (VLP) using the Hypertrans expression system.

Despite successes of plant-based expression to produce VLPs of papilloma and hepatitis B viruses, poliovirus VLPs had previously proved too unstable to make practical vaccines using this technique. A problem is that the genetic material which causes replication of the virus and which is therefore absent from the VLPs, also has a role in holding the particles together.

However teams from The National Institute for Biological Standards and Control, and the University of Leeds identified mutations within protein coats which enabled the production of VLPs which are sufficiently stable to act as vaccines. Experiments at the University of Oxford showed that these were identical to native poliovirus retaining their shape when warmed, and which are effective in protecting animals against poliovirus.

The team used cryo-electron microscopy at Diamond Light Source's Electron Bio-Imaging Centre (eBIC) to obtain a clear look at the structure of the VLPs. They confirmed the structure and showed that the external features of the particles were identical to those of poliovirus.

Dave Stuart, Director of Life Sciences at Diamond and Professor of Structural Biology at University of Oxford said, "We were inspired by the successful synthetic vaccine for foot-and-mouth disease, also investigated at Diamond as part of UK research collaboration. By using Diamond's visualisation capabilities and the expertise of Oxford University in structural analysis and computer simulation, we were able to visualise something a billion times smaller than a pinhead and further enhance the design atom by atom of the empty shells. Through information gained at Diamond, we also verified that these have essentially the same structure as the native virus to ensure an appropriate immune response."

This collaboration means manufacturing the particles stabilised in plants on a large scale as precursors to vaccines is now much closer to becoming a reality. The results are outlined in the journal Nature communications: Plant-made Polio 3 stabilised VLPs - a candidate synthetic Polio vaccine.

The collaboration includes the John Innes Centre, The National Institute for Biological Standards and Control, Oxford University, University of Leeds, Diamond Light Source, the Henry Wellcome Building for Genomic Medicine.

Background information: Poliovirus: the scourge of summers past

An ancient Egyptian stone engraving provides a clue that the poliovirus has been a disturbing blight on our lives since antiquity. The 3,500-year-old engraving appears show a polio victim, a priest with a withered right leg.

From then the virus was widely feared up until the middle of the last century and the arrival of the first effective vaccines. Polio is now down to a few hundred cases a year world-wide, but these numbers remain steady as the virus is maintained in the environment by the use of the live attenuated vaccine.

"The poliovirus is a very nasty disease and certainly until the 1950s was a real scourge." said Professor George Lomonossoff of the John Innes Centre, based at Norwich Research Park.

"It was known as the summer plague and here in Norwich the main source of it was bathing in the river Yare near Earlham Park."

"Most people had very mild symptoms but some people got paralytic polio and in worst cases couldn't breathe properly and had to be put in an iron lung in order to breathe."

Poliovirus is the causative agent of poliomyelitis which destroys motor neurons in the central nervous system causing paralysis or even death. Transmission is primarily by ingesting infected water.

The Global Polio Eradication Initiative led by the World Health Organisation has resulted in 99 per cent fewer cases in the past 30 years by using two highly effective vaccines: the live attenuated (weakened) vaccine developed by Albert Sabin and the formaldehyde-inactivated or killed virus developed by Jonas Salk.

Production of both vaccines, developed in the 1950s, requires propagation of large quantities of live poliovirus increasing the risk of accidental re-introductions.

Because of this risk, the WHO has intensified its search for cheap and viable alternatives, this breakthrough using the virus-like particles presents an exciting new option. Virus free vaccines will allow polio to be eradicated, they will prevent recurrences without the risks associated with the using the live virus vaccines.

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Press Contact:

Adrian Galvin

Communications & Media Manager

John Innes Centre

Adrian.Galvin@jic.ac.uk

Tel: +44 1603 450 238

Notes to editors

1. Plant-made Polio 3 stabilized VLPs - a candidate synthetic Polio vaccine (lead author Johanna Marisan) is published in Nature Communications (embargoed until 10:00am BST on 15th August). On publication the paper will be available at: http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/s41467-017-00090-w

2 The John Innes Centre is an independent, international centre of excellence in plant science and microbiology. Our mission is to generate knowledge of plants and microbes through innovative research, to train scientists for the future, to apply our knowledge of nature's diversity to benefit agriculture, the environment, human health and wellbeing, and engage with policy makers and the public. To achieve these goals we establish pioneering long-term research objectives in plant and microbial science, with a focus on genetics. These objectives include promoting the translation of research through partnerships to develop improved crops and to make new products from microbes and plants for human health and other applications. We also create new approaches, technologies and resources that enable research advances and help industry to make new products. The knowledge, resources and trained researchers we generate help global societies address important challenges including providing sufficient and affordable food, making new products for human health and industrial applications, and developing sustainable bio-based manufacturing.

This provides a fertile environment for training the next generation of plant and microbial scientists, many of whom go on to careers in industry and academia, around the world.

The John Innes Centre is strategically funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).

The John Innes Centre is the winner of the BBSRC's 2013 - 2016 Excellence with Impact award.

Find out more: About Leaf Expression Systems - http://www.norwichresearchpark.com/organisation/leaf-expression-systems

3. The National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC) is a global leader in the standardisation and control of biological medicines, playing a major role in assuring the quality of biological medicines worldwide. NIBSC is a centre of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency which also includes CPRD and MHRA. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency is an executive agency of the Department of Health.

4. The Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics is a research institute of the Nuffield Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford, funded by the University, the Wellcome Trust and numerous other sponsors. It is based in purpose-built laboratories on the University of Oxford's Biomedical Research Campus in Headington, one of the largest concentrations of biomedical expertise in the world. With more than 400 active researchers and around 70 employed in administrative and support roles, the Centre is an international leader in genetics, genomics and structural biology

5 eBIC at Diamond Light Source

The Electron Bio-Imaging Centre (eBIC) was established at Diamond following the award of a 15.6 million grant from the Wellcome Trust, the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). The location of eBIC enables scientists to combine their techniques with many of the other cutting-edge approaches that Diamond offers; whilst a partnership with the University of Oxford allows users to access the Polara, a high-containment cryo-electron microscope. http://www.diamond.ac.uk

6 The University of Leeds is one of the largest higher education institutions in the UK, with more than 33,000 students from 147 different countries, and a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities.

We are a top 10 university for research and impact power in the UK, according to the 2014 Research Excellence Framework and we are The Times and The Sunday Times University of the Year 2017. Additionally, the University has been awarded a gold rating by the Government's Teaching Excellence Framework recognising its 'consistently outstanding' teaching and learning provision. http://www.leeds.ac.uk
CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (AUG. 15, 2017). Perhaps the saddest drug abuse stories are about unsuspecting children who inadvertently ingest dangerous substances in the home. Fortunately, the case described in this report has a happy ending due to fast action on the part of the response team and pediatric emergency physicians and neurosurgeons. Detailed information on the case can be found in the article, "Severe bilateral cerebellar edema from ingestion of ketamine: case report," by Nicolas Villelli, MD, and colleagues, published today in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics .

Background. Ketamine is a medical drug administered to humans (including children) and animals to induce sedation and anesthesia. Its euphoric and dissociative side effects have made it attractive to people seeking recreational drug highs. A ketamine overdose can have serious consequences, and the drug has been implicated in deaths--some due to physiological responses to the drug alone and some caused by risky behaviors brought on by the drugged state.

The Article. The authors recount the case of a 10-month-old baby girl who was found in an unresponsive state along with her brother and grandmother. Initially, carbon monoxide poisoning was believed to be responsible. Not until later did the police determine that all victims had eaten from dishes previously used to soak tobacco leaves in ketamine for use as a recreational drug known as "Kommon."

The child vomited after eating eggs from her dish and went to sleep. She was later found unresponsive by a family member who called for emergency services. At the hospital, it was necessary to use emergency intubation and ventilation for the child's poor breathing. She was minimally responsive and displayed abnormally high muscle tone.

Imaging studies revealed severe swelling in the cerebellar hemispheres. This was blocking the normal flow of cerebrospinal fluid, causing a situation that could be rapidly fatal. The upper part of the brain seemed spared from damage. This set of findings was unusual, because most of the time the upper part of the brain is damaged from lack of oxygen and the cerebellum is spared. This reversal of the expected findings suggested a specific association with the drug that was ingested.

The patient received emergency placement of a drain to divert the spinal fluid, followed by surgical decompression to allow more room for the swelling and to reduce the pressure on the brain.

The patient's neurological condition slowly improved, and artificial ventilation was removed six days postoperatively. At two weeks postoperatively, the infant was able to participate in rehabilitation exercises and the external ventricular drain was replaced with a cerebrospinal fluid shunt. Six months after the injury, although imaging studies showed permanent damage to the cerebellum, the child's clinical recovery was remarkable. Her muscle coordination was normal and, other than a slight speech delay, she was meeting all appropriate developmental milestones.

Prior to this case report not much was known about the pediatric brain's reaction to a ketamine overdose. The importance of this paper lies in the detailed description of the patient's clinical features and the unexpected imaging findings.

In discussing the findings of this study, the corresponding author, Dr. Daniel H. Fulkerson, MD, provided the following comment:

"We are very excited that the child has recovered well following this life-threatening event. Unfortunately, we fear that cases like this will continue to occur, as we have seen a dangerous rise in drug use in our state and in the nation. Innocent kids are often affected. We hope this case shines some light on this particular exposure and helps other medical facilities recognize these unique findings."

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Disclosure: The authors report no conflict of interest concerning the materials or methods used in this study or the findings specified in this paper.

Villelli N, Hauser N, Gianaris T, Froberg BA, Fulkerson DH: Severe bilateral cerebellar edema from ingestion of ketamine: case report. Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics, published online, ahead of print, August 15, 2016; DOI: 10.3171/2017.5.PEDS16695.

Drs. Villelli, Hauser, Gianaris, and Fulkerson are affiliated with the Department of Neurological Surgery, Division of Pediatric Surgery, Goodman Campbell Brain and Spine; Dr. Froberg is with the Department of Clinical Emergency Medicine and Pediatrics, Indiana School of Medicine.

For additional information, please contact: Ms. Jo Ann M. Eliason, Communications Manager, Journal of Neurosurgery Publishing Group, One Morton Drive, Suite 200, Charlottesville, VA 22903. Email: jaeliason@thejns.org Phone 434-982-1209

The Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics is a monthly peer-reviewed journal focused on diseases and disorders of the central nervous system and spine in children. This journal contains a variety of articles, including descriptions of preclinical and clinical research as well as case reports and technical notes. The Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics is one of four monthly journals published by the JNS Publishing Group, the scholarly journal division of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons. Other peer-reviewed journals published by the JNS Publishing Group each month include the Journal of Neurosurgery, Neurosurgical Focus, and the Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine. All four journals can be accessed at http://www.thejns.org.

Founded in 1931 as the Harvey Cushing Society, the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) is a scientific and educational association with more than 8,300 members worldwide. The AANS is dedicated to advancing the specialty of neurological surgery in order to provide the highest quality of neurosurgical care to the public. All active members of the AANS are certified by the American Board of Neurological Surgery, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons (Neurosurgery) of Canada, or the Mexican Council of Neurological Surgery, AC. Neurological surgery is the medical specialty concerned with the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of disorders that affect the entire nervous system including the brain, spinal column, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves. For more information, visit http://www.AANS.org.
Communicating via spoken language is a fundamental human capability that enables us to form connections with other people by sharing knowledge and emotions, working together and assessing our experiences. Thus, losing the ability to comprehend speech due to a stroke, traumatic brain injury or neurological disorder such as dementia, is particularly devastating.

Auditory word comprehension is a complex cognitive process that requires the participation of multiple brain areas to transform initial auditory signals into meaningful abstract concepts. The first, and most basic, aspect of understanding spoken language is the auditory processing of speech sounds. However, many subsequent steps involving multi-layered, hierarchical brain networks are necessary to derive phonemes, syllables, words, syntax, meaning and context.

Currently, our understanding of exactly which brain areas handle the various aspects of spoken language comprehension is incomplete. The prevailing theory is that neocortical regions adjacent to the auditory cortex are primarily responsible for word comprehension. However, recent studies in patients with primary progressive aphasia have challenged this concept and suggest that the left temporal pole may play a central role.

To unravel these conflicting findings, a team of researchers, led by Leonardo Bonilha, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor in MUSC's Department of Neurology, in close collaboration with Julius Fridriksson, Ph.D., Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of South Carolina's (USC) Arnold School of Public Health and the USC Aphasia Lab, developed a novel study methodology to identify the specific neural structures that, when damaged by stroke, are associated with impaired auditory word comprehension.

"We need to better define what takes place in the brain when someone understands speech so we're better able to help those with aphasia who cannot do that anymore," explains Bonilha."Evidence indicates that areas associated with speech comprehension are in the posterior lateral temporal lobe and close to those responsible for hearing. What we need to define is how they are linked to other brain areas that process all the secondary associations that enable you to understand and connect meaning to the sounds you hear."

Capitalizing on their recent work to optimize connectome mapping in individuals with post-stroke brain lesions, the team designed a study combining traditional voxel-based lesion symptom mapping (VLSM) with connectome-lesion symptom mapping (CLSM). CLSM, a new brain mapping method based on the concept of the human brain connectome, provides a three-dimensional map of all medium- and long-range white matter connections outside of the area damaged by the stroke.

"Before CLSM, we primarily looked at the stroke lesion, the damaged area," explains Bonilha. "We focused on understanding what brain areas were gone and matched those to what function was gone. But, of course, brain functions don't depend exclusively on one area. Using the connectome, we can see the impact of the stroke beyond the lesion and begin to identify networks that the damage has disconnected beyond the stroke lesion. These areas might appear to be OK on MRI after the stroke, but, in fact, they are disconnected and do not receive the signals they need to function."

The team reasoned that assessing white matter networks beyond the area of cortical necrosis may provide a more comprehensive assessment of brain damage, residual brain integrity and its impact on language processing.

They recruited 67 people with chronic aphasia who had suffered a one-time ischemic stroke at least 6 months prior to the study. Each participant was assessed for word comprehension, aphasia and aphasia severity, as well as semantic processing. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was conducted to facilitate VSLM and CSLM. The computational steps to measure the connectome from MRI were developed in collaboration with Chris Rorden, Ph.D., professor of neuroimaging and endowed chair in USC's Department of Psychology.

VLSM and CLSM are complementary. "Both tools provide valuable information," says Bonilha. "The connectome tells us about areas outside the lesion that were highly connected to that region and where reduced connections post-stroke are affecting a particular function. But the connectome is not good for looking at areas inside the lesion to determine what functions happen there. That's where voxel-based methods are more useful."

Study results supported the prevailing view that posterior lateral and inferior aspects of the temporal cortex are most critical for word comprehension. In addition, these areas may serve as a 'hub' that integrates the auditory and conceptual information necessary to recognize words. CLSM results also explained why other studies suggest that the temporal pole plays a role in word comprehension by revealing that the temporal pole is functionally and structurally connected to the middle temporal gyrus. The authors propose that, when the pole is disproportionally affected, an indirect knock-on effect may lead to a statistical association with poor word comprehension.

This study provides a more comprehensive description of crucial neuronal networks involved in speech comprehension that may contribute to improved targeting of therapy for individuals with impaired auditory speech comprehension. Its findings demonstrate that temporal poles (in the anterior temporal lobe) are part of a broader network associated with semantic interpretation. However, when the effect of object recognition is factored out, only the core of that network (i.e., the middle and inferior temporal areas) is necessary for word comprehension. While the left temporal pole has an indirect role in word comprehension, the anterior temporal regions most likely play a central role in additional and deeper levels of semantic processing. The study's findings also indicate that the temporal pole is likely to be essential for recognizing objects -- an important early process for matching spoken words to pictures or objects.

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About MUSC

Founded in 1824 in Charleston, The Medical University of South Carolina is the oldest medical school in the South. Today, MUSC continues the tradition of excellence in education, research, and patient care. MUSC educates and trains more than 3,000 students and residents, and has nearly 13,000 employees, including approximately 1,500 faculty members. As the largest non-federal employer in Charleston, the university and its affiliates have collective annual budgets in excess of $2.2 billion. MUSC operates a 750-bed medical center, which includes a nationally recognized Children's Hospital, the Ashley River Tower (cardiovascular, digestive disease, and surgical oncology), Hollings Cancer Center (a National Cancer Institute designated center) Level I Trauma Center, and Institute of Psychiatry. For more information on academic information or clinical services, visit musc.edu. For more information on hospital patient services, visit muschealth.org.
Our Sun is active: Not only does it release a constant stream of material, called the solar wind, but it also lets out occasional bursts of faster-moving material, known as coronal mass ejections, or CMEs. NASA researchers wish to improve our understanding of CMEs and how they move through space because they can interact with the magnetic field around Earth, affecting satellites, interfering with GPS signals, triggering auroras, and -- in extreme cases -- straining power grids.

While we track CMEs with a number of instruments, the sheer size of the solar system means that our observations are limited, and usually taken from a distance. However, scientists have recently used data from 10 NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) spacecraft in the direct path of a CME to piece together an unprecedented portrait of how these solar storms move through space -- in particular, narrowing down the changes in speed that happen as CMEs travel through the solar system beyond Earth's orbit. The results were published on Aug. 14, 2017 in the Journal of Geophysical Research. This new set of observations adds key information to the models needed to track how material moves and changes throughout space in the solar system -- crucial to understanding the medium through which our spacecraft travel, as we venture farther and farther from home.

On Oct. 14, 2014, a CME left the Sun, as measured by spacecraft that watch for CMEs from afar using an instrument called a coronagraph. From there, the CME washed over spacecraft throughout the inner solar system -- including passing by Curiosity on Mars, near comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and out to Saturn. This wealth of data from directly in the path of the CME is a boon for scientists working on space science simulations. At NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, scientists work to validate, host and improve such simulations, and this new information provides the most comprehensive look to date at how the speed of a CME evolves over time.

"If you have just one data point, you can simulate that easily, because you only have to validate that one point," said Leila Mays, a space scientist at Goddard and an author on the paper. But Mays points out that while the model may be tuned to match that one data point, it's unlikely to be accurate in the big picture. "Once you get more data, you can put together more pieces of the puzzle."

CMEs like this are common, especially when the Sun is in an active phase, as it was in 2014. This particular CME first caught scientists' interest because of its interference with another set of observations: the interaction between Comet Siding Spring and the Martian atmosphere.

"We found at the time of the comet's passing, there was some solar wind disturbance around Mars," said Olivier Witasse, a space scientist with ESA and lead author on the paper. "Which was a bit of a shame because we wanted to see the effects of the comet on the atmosphere."

Witasse and team used models from the Community Coordinated Modeling Center, or CCMC, based at NASA Goddard, to provide more context about the CME that had interfered with their measurements.

"The experimental forecasting at the CCMC made finding this CME possible," said Mays. "We were able to use our database of CMEs and throw them all into this simulation to see which were candidates for their observations."

After Witasse's team realized that comet 67P -- and therefore ESA's Rosetta spacecraft, then orbiting the comet -- was lined up to be right in the path of the CME, too, they began hunting for other observations.

"From there, it was an exciting chase to see where else the CME might have hit," said Mays. "Sometimes the impacted spacecraft's instruments weren't on, but we were able to gather other housekeeping data."

This added up to seven direct, confirmed detections of the CME. ESA's Venus Express also measured the CME indirectly, and two additional NASA spacecraft had probable detections of the CME as well -- a few months and then more than a year after it burst from the Sun. New Horizons on its way to Pluto very likely observed this same CME in January 2015, and Voyager 2 on the edge of the heliosphere may have observed it in March 2016. Because of Voyager 2's great distance from the Sun and New Horizons' lack of a magnetometer -- an instrument that measures magnetic fields -- it's not possible to say for certain if the particle changes detected by those spacecraft were caused by this particular CME.

"Once a CME travels that far from the Sun, it gets squeezed between large, merged interaction regions in the solar wind, so it's not as easy to determine exactly what's going on," said Mays.

Studying how such space weather affects the farthest regions of space, where there are fewer observatories to measure such things, remains a tantalizing area of research -- the more we know about our neighborhood, the more we can protect the technology we send out to explore our solar system.

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NASA looked at the rainfall rates within Tropical Storm Gert as it continued to strengthen and found the most intense rainfall on the tropical cyclone's eastern side. Just over 12 hours later, Gert would strengthen into a hurricane. As Gert has strengthened, the storm began generating dangerous surf along the U.S. East coast.

The Global Precipitation Measurement mission or GPM core observatory satellite passed above tropical storm Gert on August 14, 2017 at 9:36 a.m. EDT (1336 UTC) when winds had reached about 57.5 mph (50 knots). Data collected by GPM's Microwave Imager (GMI) and Dual-Frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) instruments were used to show the coverage and the intensity of rainfall around Tropical Storm Gert. The area covered by GPM's radar swath revealed that the most intense rainfall, measuring greater 3.5 inches (90 mm) per hour, was located in bands of rain on the eastern side of the storm.

That GPM pass was mentioned in a National Hurricane Center (NHC) Tropical Storm Gert Discussion that noted, "A recent 1336 UTC (9:36 a.m. EDT) GMI overpass shows a large band of convection wrapping around the circulation ..."

At NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, GPM's Radar (DPR Ku Band) data was used to create a 3-D cross-section view through Gert. This examination of the storm's 3-D precipitation structure showed that the tallest thunderstorms were located in an intense band of rain east of Gert's center. The tall thunderstorms in that band were shown by DPR to reach altitudes above 9.4 miles (15.2 km). GPM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA.

On Aug. 14 at 1:18 p.m. EDT (17:18 UTC) NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Storm Gert, located off the coast of the southeastern U.S. The image showed that the bulk of clouds were still on the eastern side of the storm, but powerful thunderstorms surrounded the low-level center of circulation. A thick band of thunderstorms also wrapped into the center from the south.

On August 14 at 11 p.m. EDT Gert become the second hurricane of the 2017 season.

At 5 a.m. EDT (0900 UTC), the center of Hurricane Gert was located near 31.8 degrees north latitude and 72.5 degrees west longitude. That's about 450 miles (725 km) west of Bermuda.

Gert was moving toward the north near 12 mph (19 km/h). A turn toward the northeast with an increase in forward speed is expected later today. Maximum sustained winds remained near 75 mph (120 kph) with higher gusts. Gert has the opportunity to gather some strength later today or Wednesday. The estimated minimum central pressure is 986 millibars.

The National Hurricane Center noted that as Gert has increased in strength, ocean swells generated by Gert will spread northward along the east coast of the United States from North Carolina northward to Long Island during the next couple of days. Swells are also expected to affect Bermuda during the next couple of days. These swells are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions.

Gert is expected to travel toward the northeast over the open waters of the northern Atlantic Ocean and dissipate by Saturday August 19, 2017.

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For updated forecasts on Gert, visit the NHC website: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov.
A randomized controlled trial has shown that a brief behavioral treatment delivered by community lay workers significantly reduced psychological distress in women exposed to gender-based violence. In a study published in PLOS Medicine, Richard A. Bryant of the University of New South Wales, Australia, and colleagues tested the five-session intervention on 421 women in Kenya.

Gender-based violence, which includes actual or threatened sexual or nonsexual violence committed by an intimate partner or others, has been experienced by more than a third of women worldwide. Its adverse impacts on physical and mental health make it a global health issue. The World Health Organization has developed Problem Management Plus (PM+) as a brief 5-session intervention to treat people experiencing psychological distress following adversity. Because lay community health workers can be trained to deliver PM+, it is particularly applicable in resource-limited settings.

This study, in a peri-urban area of Nairobi, Kenya, randomly assigned 421 women who displayed distress and impaired functioning to receive either 5 individual sessions of PM+ or enhanced usual care (EUC). The primary outcome was psychological distress as measured by total score on the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) assessed at 3 months after treatment. Assessments by investigators who were blind to the treatment assignment indicated that women who received PM+ reported significantly less psychological distress, with a moderate effect relative to EUC. The difference between PM+ and EUC in the change from baseline to 3 months on the GHQ-12 was 3.33 (95% CI 1.86 - 4.79, P = 0.001) in favour of PM+.

Further study is needed to evaluate the sustainability of PM+ in the community so that survivors of gender-based violence can be safely identified and treated without stigma. Limitations of the study include no long-term follow-up and a reliance on self-report rather than structured interview data. The PM+ manual is available for dissemination at the WHO website.

In an accompanying Perspective, Alexander C. Tsai of Harvard Medical School, USA, says: "The potential widespread deployment of PM+ stands at the intersection of two vital issues relevant to women's health: mental health and interpersonal violence. Until the large-scale structural forces that give rise to health disparities affecting vulnerable populations can be eliminated ... the health system will continue to play a key role in the multisectoral response to violence against women in resource-limited settings."

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Research Article

Funding:

This study was supported by Grand Challenges Canada #0368-04 to JU & AS, World Vision Canada to JU, and World Vision Australia to AS. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing Interests:

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Citation:

Bryant RA, Schafer A, Dawson KS, Anjuri D, Mulili C, Ndogoni L, et al. (2017) Effectiveness of a brief behavioural intervention on psychological distress among women with a history of gender-based violence in urban Kenya: A randomised clinical trial. PLoS Med 14(8): e1002371. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002371

Author Affiliations:

School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Westmead Institute for Medical Research, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

World Vision International, Monrovia, California, United States of America

World Vision Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya

Psychosocial Support Centre, Nairobi, Kenya

Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, Netherlands

World Vision Canada, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada

Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland

IN YOUR COVERAGE PLEASE USE THIS URL TO PROVIDE ACCESS TO THE FREELY AVAILABLE PAPER:

http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002371

Perspective Article

Funding:

No specific funding was received to support the writing of this Perspective. ACT acknowledges salary support through US National Institutes of Health K23MH096620. The funder had no role in the decision to publish or the preparation of the manuscript.

Competing Interests:

ACT receives a stipend as a specialty consulting editor for PLOS Medicine and serves on the journal's editorial board.

Citation:

Tsai AC (2017) Lay worker-administered behavioral treatments for psychological distress in resource-limited settings: Time to move from evidence to practice? PLoS Med 14(8): e1002372. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002372

Author Affiliations:

Chester M. Pierce, MD Division of Global Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston,

Massachusetts, United States of America

Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Mbarara, Uganda

MGH Global Health, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

IN YOUR COVERAGE PLEASE USE THIS URL TO PROVIDE ACCESS TO THE FREELY AVAILABLE PAPER:

http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002372
WASHINGTON - Conventional particle accelerators can range from large room-sized devices to facilities multiple kilometers across. One of the ways that scientists have looked to reduce the size and expense of future accelerators is by developing laser -driven plasma acceleration. Such accelerators, however, are growing in size and complexity in order to maintain relevance for one of their applications--high energy physics. However, there are many applications that can use a lower energy and higher repetition rate accelerated beam. For the first time, scientists have observed the production of relativistic electrons driven by low-energy, ultrashort mid-infrared laser pulses. A research team at the University of Maryland, USA, with support from the Technical University of Vienna, Austria, will present their group's findings at Frontiers in Optics + Laser Science APS/DLS (FIO + LS), held 17-21 September 2017 in Washington, DC.

"We're trying to develop laser-driven accelerators that are extremely compact and have a high repetition rate," said Howard Milchberg, Fellow of The American Physical Society (APS) and The Optical Society (OSA), and professor of Physics and Electrical Engineering at the University of Maryland. "That means using as low a laser pulse energy as possible to generate relativistic electrons. Such sources could have use in rapid scan imaging for medical, scientific and security applications."

Recently, the development of optical parametric chirp pulse amplification (OPCPA) systems in the mid-infrared has enabled the use of long wavelength pulses on the femtosecond scale. Until this development, long wavelength laser pulses have primarily been available from CO2 lasers, but they have a complicated multi-pulse structure with pulse durations extending, at the shortest durations, beyond several picoseconds, hundreds of times longer.

Common laser-driven acceleration experiments depend on short laser pulse interaction with a gas target. Compared to prior experiments, the long driver wavelength used in this project resulted in easy access to what is called the "critical density" regime. Because the critical density varies inversely as the square of the laser wavelength, gas targets used for mid-IR laser pulses can be up to 100 times less dense than those used in the visible and near-IR, making them far less difficult to engineer.

"When a few-millijoule femtosecond mid-IR laser pulses is focused by a curved mirror into a hydrogen gas jet - a stream of hydrogen puffing out of a nozzle - a collimated pulse of relativistic electrons beams out the other side of the jet," Milchberg said, describing the experiment. "However, this can't happen unless the laser achieves an extremely high intensity - much higher than achievable by focusing with the curved mirror alone. It does so by relativistic self-focusing in the ionized hydrogen gas so that it collapses to a size much smaller than its focal spot."

The importance of being in the critical density regime, according to Milchberg, is that it promotes relativistic self-focusing even for low energy laser pulses. This boosted high-intensity interaction generates plasma waves that accelerate some of the electrons from the ionized hydrogen into a forward-directed relativistic beam.

The team found that electron beams were present for powers such that the characteristic self-focusing length in plasma was shorter than the, gas jet width, showing that electron acceleration cannot occur without relativistic self-focusing.

Relativistic self-focusing is an extreme example of the well-known process of self-focusing in nonlinear optics, but now with the bonus of accelerated relativistic particles generated from the nonlinear medium.

Even with only 20 millijoules of mid-IR laser energy, the laser in these experiments can significantly exceed the threshold for relativistic self-focusing, giving rise to relativistic multi-filamentation. The team observed multiple relativistic electron beamlets associated with these filaments.

These innovations are among the beginning steps for the development and applications of high repetition rate laser driven accelerators. "In particular," Milchberg said, "long wavelength femtosecond lasers are especially promising, as they can access the relativistic nonlinear regime of free electrons surprisingly easily."

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About the Presentation

The presentation entitled "Laser wakefield acceleration with mid-IR laser pulses," by Daniel Woodbury, will take place from on Monday, 18 September at the International Ballroom East, Washington Hilton, Washington DC, USA. Media Registration

A media room for credentialed media and analysts will be located on-site. Media interested in attending the event should register on the FiO + LS website media center: Media Center.

About FiO + LS

Frontiers in Optics is The Optical Society's (OSA) Annual Meeting and held together with Laser Science, a meeting sponsored by the American Physical Society's Division of Laser Science (DLS). The two meetings unite the OSA and APS communities for five days of quality, cutting-edge presentations, in-demand invited speakers and a variety of special events spanning a broad range of topics in optics and photonics--the science of light--across the disciplines of physics, biology and chemistry. The exhibit floor will feature leading optics companies, technology products and programs. More information at: FrontiersinOptics.org.

About The Optical Society

Founded in 1916, The Optical Society (OSA) is the leading professional organization for scientists, engineers, students and business leaders who fuel discoveries, shape real-life applications and accelerate achievements in the science of light. Through world-renowned publications, meetings and membership initiatives, OSA provides quality research, inspired interactions and dedicated resources for its extensive global network of optics and photonics experts. For more information, visit osa.org.

Media Contacts:

Rebecca B. Andersen

The Optical Society

randersen@osa.org

+1 202.416.1443

Joshua Miller

The Optical Society

jmiller@osa.org

+1 202.416.1435
The mercury found at very low concentrations in water is concentrated along the entire food chain, from algae via zooplankton to small fish and on to the largest fish -- the ones we eat. Mercury causes severe and irreversible neurological disorders in people who have consumed highly contaminated fish. Whereas we know about the element's extreme toxicity, what happens further down the food chain, all the way down to those microalgae that are the first level and the gateway for mercury? By employing molecular biology tools, a team of researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, has addressed this question for the first time. The scientists measured the way mercury affects the gene expression of algae, even when its concentration in water is very low, comparable to European environmental protection standards. Find out more about the UNIGE research in Scientific Reports.

The UNIGE research team is led by Vera Slaveykova, professor of environmental biogeochemistry and ecotoxicology in the Department F.A. Forel for environmental and aquatic sciences, and vice-president of the School of Earth and environmental sciences, Faculty of Sciences of the UNIGE. The scientists selected a green microalga measuring barely six microns by ten, known as Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. The alga was chosen not because of its colour or the two flagella it uses to swim but because, of all the primary producers in the aquatic environment at the the lowest level of the food chain of the food chain, it is the one whose genome has been fully sequenced. The availability of this genomic information made it possible to compare gene expression of algae exposed to different concentrations of mercury and to determine the associated effects.

Mercury disrupts the metabolism of algae

The researchers were able to analyse the transcriptome of the microalgae -- i.e. the set of all RNA molecules that controls the expression of their genes -- using molecular biology tools. As professor Slaveykova explains: "We were able to accurately determine which were over-expressed or, on the contrary, under-expressed as a result of exposure to mercury." And the conclusion was clear: mercury disrupted the metabolism of algae, with numerous genes being deregulated, regardless of whether the concentrations were comparable with those set by European environmental standards, lower or higher than those usually found in the environment.

An alga that seems healthy from a physiological point of view appears altered when its gene's expression is examined. The dysregulated genes are involved in diverse processes, from the generation of reactive oxygen species triggering antioxidant defence to the alteration of the flagella and cell motility. The photosynthesis and transport of essential elements such as zinc, iron or copper are also affected. It is difficult, however, to establish an exhaustive list since, as professor Slaveykova points out: "Of the 5,493 genes specifically dysregulated by methylmercury, we don't yet know the function of 3,569 of them, even though this alga is the most widely studied of all the primary producers". Together with inorganic mercury, methylmercury is one of two forms of the element analysed by the researchers. It is formed by the transformation of inorganic mercury caused by bacteria in the anoxic environment. It magnifies in the food chain and can directly affect the central nervous system of the top consumers.

The accumulation of mercury in fish, together with its impact on human health, have been the subject of numerous studies since the Minamata disaster, when the population of this eponymous Japanese fishing harbour was hit by large-scale pollution in the mid-twentieth century. However, thanks to the transcriptomic approach adopted by the UNIGE researchers, we now know how mercury enters the food chain and affects the microalgae at its base.

An environmental and public health issue

Although mercury is found naturally in the environment (it is emitted, for example, when a volcano erupts), its concentration has been steadily increasing because of human activity: by burning coal or releasing mercury as part of various industrial processes. It is now estimated that over half the mercury in the air is linked to human activities, and that the ratio is nearly two-thirds in the aquatic environment. And it is a global problem since high levels of mercury have been detected in the blood of polar bears, far from any source of contamination. It is crucial, therefore, that we understand the governing mechanisms, both from an environmental and public health perspective.

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California is expected to face a statewide shortfall of primary care providers in the next 15 years, with acute shortages in the Central Valley, Central Coast and Southern Border areas, due to the uneven distribution of care across the state, according to a report released Aug. 15, 2017, by Healthforce Center at UCSF.

In what is believed to be the first report that makes joint projections of supply and demand for primary care physicians, nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) in California at the regional level, UCSF researchers developed a range of forecasts of the supply, based on current levels of both providers and trainees, and population growth estimates. The mid-range estimate showed a shortfall of about 4,700 primary care clinicians in 2025 and a need for roughly 4,100 additional providers in 2030 to meet the expected population demand.

The authors recommended close monitoring of the clinician supply, as well as a strategic effort to both recruit and retain new primary care physicians throughout the state to fill expected gaps that may arise as soon as 2025.

"California faces a looming shortage of primary care clinicians in the coming decades," said Janet Coffman, PhD, MA, MPP, one of four authors of the reports and associate professor of health policy at Healthforce Center, Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies (PRL-IHPS), and Department of Family and Community Medicine (FCM) at UCSF. "If we continue along our current path, more and more Californians will need to visit the emergency room for conditions like asthma, ear infections or flu because they lack a primary care provider."

"California's Primary Care Workforce: Forecasted Supply, Demand, and Pipeline of Trainees, 2016-2030" is the second in a series of three reports on primary care from Healthforce Center at UCSF, which were funded by the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc. and used unique, California data sources.

The first report, released Feb. 16, detailed the state's current supply, characteristics and pipeline of primary care clinicians and trainees, and identified primary care clinician shortages in most California regions compared to national benchmarks. The team will produce a third and final report later this year focused on strategies being implemented in California and other states to increase the supply.

Multiple Strategies Needed to Fill Potential Gap

The latest report forecasts the supply of primary care clinicians (MDs, NPs and PAs) through 2030 in California for five specific regions: Greater Bay Area; Sacramento, Sierra and northern counties; Central Valley and Central Coast; Los Angeles, Orange and the Inland Empire; and the Southern Border. For each profession, three to four forecasts of supply were generated based on different assumptions about the rate of growth in graduations from training programs and, for physician assistants, the percentage of clinicians providing primary care. The report also presents forecasts of demand for primary care physicians under several different sets of assumptions.

In 2030, California is projected to have 78,000-103,000 primary care clinicians, with NPs and PAs composing nearly half of the total. Mid-range forecasts indicate the state would need about 4,700 additional primary care clinicians in 2025 and about 4,100 additional primary care clinicians in 2030 to meet demand. High-range supply forecasts suggest the state could have a small surplus of primary care clinicians in 2030, although the researchers said this seems doubtful because training programs would likely heed market signals and reduce the number of trainees. Trainees also may elect to pursue opportunities in specialty care if primary care jobs are not available. The most dire estimates showed a total shortfall of approximately 10,500 primary care clinician full-time equivalents by 2030.

The Central Valley and Central Coast region and the Southern Border region are projected to have the worst shortages, the researchers found. In 2030, these regions are projected to have shortages of 18 percent and 17 percent, respectively, whereas the state overall is projected to have a 10 percent shortage. Mid-range forecasts suggest the Central Valley and Central Coast region would have an estimated 71 primary care clinicians per 100,000 residents, and Southern Border 80 per 100,000 residents, compared to the state average of 86 per 100,000 residents.

The forecasts are based on current growth trends in each area of primary care providers, as well as current patterns of utilizing physicians. A reduction in the number of Californians with health insurance, such as those that could result from a repeal or significant retraction of the Affordable Care Act, could reduce demand for primary care clinicians. Forecasts for physician assistants are less precise than for nurse physicians, due to limited data on their migration patterns and the numbers employed in primary care.

The authors said multiple strategies at the national, state and regional level will be required to fill the potential gap between primary care demand and supply. These include:

Actively recruiting primary care physicians to practice in California;

Expanding primary care residency programs, particularly in the regions at greatest risk for long-term shortages;

Improving retention of physicians, particularly younger physicians;

Ensuring 3-7 percent annual growth in graduations from NP and PA education programs so the number of graduates keeps pace with projected demand;

Expanding team-based primary care models that maximize the use of all clinicians, and supporting alignment of insurance reimbursement with team-based care; and

Ensuring scope-of-practice regulations for NPs and PAs maximize their capacity to provide primary care and to work at the highest level of their education and knowledge.

Primary Care Becoming More Integral in Health Care Delivery

The first Healthforce Center at UCSF report found that most California regions fall below the benchmark of 60 primary care physicians per 100,000 people. While physicians still constitute the majority of primary care clinicians, the report found that from 2004 to 2016, the number of NPs and PAs grew at 75 percent and 98 percent, respectively, versus 36 percent for physicians, and represent a larger share of the primary care workforce in rural compared to urban regions. A third of physicians and a third of NPs in California also are over age 55, suggesting that the state will face a more severe shortage of primary care clinicians in the coming decades, regardless of the fate of the Affordable Care Act.

"These forecasts underscore the importance of NPs and PAs in meeting the primary care needs of our state," said Joanne Spetz, PhD, co-author and associate director for research at Healthforce Center and professor at the PRL-IHPS, FCM and School of Nursing. "State leaders and health care organizations need to support their work in order to avoid shortages in the future."

The overall goal of the three Healthforce Center at UCSF primary care reports is to enable stakeholders to assess the adequacy of the current workforce, anticipate future gaps and identify effective policies for addressing these needs, the authors said.

Prior assessments of the state's primary care workforce have concluded that California does not have a sufficient supply of primary care clinicians, these clinicians are unevenly distributed across the state, and Latinos and African-Americans are underrepresented among them. However, they largely have not considered the contributions of NPs, PAs and osteopathic physicians, whose professions are growing rapidly and playing a more integral role in health care delivery.

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Formerly called the Center for the Health Professions, Healthforce Center at UCSF has conducted research about the health care workforce in California and across the United States for 25 years. Its studies assist providers and policymakers in addressing critical health care challenges with rigorous analysis and actionable, unbiased data. This report and additional research on the evolving health care workforce are online at healthforce.ucsf.edu.

Co-authors on the reports include Igor Geyn, former research analyst in the PRL-IHPS, and Kristine Himmerick, PhD, postdoctoral scholar at Healthforce Center.

UC San Francisco (UCSF) is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. It includes top-ranked graduate schools of dentistry, medicine, nursing and pharmacy; a graduate division with nationally renowned programs in basic, biomedical, translational and population sciences; and a preeminent biomedical research enterprise. It also includes UCSF Health, which comprises three top-ranked hospitals, UCSF Medical Center and UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals in San Francisco and Oakland, and other partner and affiliated hospitals and healthcare providers throughout the Bay Area. Please visit http://www.ucsf.edu/news.
Clinical trials that test changes in the design or use of high-risk medical devices are often poorly designed, and can rely on inadequate or potentially biased data, according to a new study by researchers at the UC San Francisco and Yale School of Medicine.

In the study, published August 15, 2017 in JAMA, the authors reviewed clinical trials supporting U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of changes to high-risk devices over the last decade. They found that fewer than half of these studies were randomized, blinded, or controlled - the "gold standards" for clinical trials of drugs.

The FDA defines high-risk devices as those that "that support or sustain human life, are of substantial importance in preventing impairment of human health, or which present a potential, unreasonable risk of illness or injury."

The consequences of poor testing of medical devices can be severe several of the devices investigated in the clinical trials analyzed in the new paper had been recalled for safety or efficacy issues.

"There's a lot of pressure on the FDA to speed things up, to let innovative or life-changing treatments go to market," said Rita Redberg, MD, MSc, a professor of medicine at UCSF and the study's senior author, "but you don't know if they're innovative or life-changing until you've done a careful study. These were short studies, with low-quality data, and little follow-up after approval."

The paper is published alongside another from researchers at the London School of Economics and Harvard Medical School that notes similar problems in accelerated approval paths for pharmaceuticals. In an accompanying editorial, former FDA Commissioner Robert Califf MD, MACC, calling for continued discussion and reform of both approval processes.

Investigation found brief studies, incomplete data

To mitigate the potential hazards of high-risk medical devices, the FDA requires that these devices undergo rigorous initial clinical testing, known as premarket approval (PMA), before they are sold, a process that Redberg and her collaborators have been studying for years.

In a 2009 study, her research team found that, more often than not, clinical studies to support PMA lacked blinding, randomization, or proper controls. That study was a wake-up call for device regulators. "We got a ton of emails from people thanking us for exposing this important issue that nobody was talking about," said Redberg.

But the original PMA is seldom the whole story. As device makers update their devices - modifying the design or providing for different uses than the original purpose - they must submit "supplements" to the FDA for approval.

"Many devices can have hundreds of different supplements attached to them," said Sarah Zheng, MD, a resident physician in psychiatry at UCSF, and a co-lead author on the paper. "So we wanted to check the quality of evidence supporting these important changes as well."

Redberg and Zheng were joined in the research by co-lead author Sanket S. Dhruva, MD, who received his MD from UCSF in 2009, completed his residency in Internal medicine in 2009, and is now a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar at Yale School of Medicine.

There are many paths to supplement approval, and only one, the so-called panel track, requires clinical data, so the team investigated the rigor of 78 panel track supplement approvals, supported by 83 studies. The studies supporting supplements, they found, suffered the same problems as the PMA studies.

As with PMA studies, most supplement trials weren't blinded, randomized, or controlled. But in nearly a quarter of the supplement studies, the analysis procedures were changed after the study began, and many failed to present data from all the participants, potentially biasing the studies' results. Most studies lasted less than six months, and many presented incomplete data on age and sex, making it harder for physicians to evaluate the risk of a device in particular patients.

"Physicians and patients need to be aware of how little we actually know about these devices," said Zheng. "If patients need to have the device removed because it isn't functioning properly, that can be very risky and expensive."

Little recourse if devices harm patients

The investigation takes on particular significance because patients who are harmed by FDA-approved devices have few legal options. In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Riegel v. Medtronic, Inc. that FDA approval protects manufacturers from lawsuits over devices' safety or efficacy; this principle is likely to hold even if approval is based on a study that did not follow best practices. "If the FDA approved it, that's that," said Redberg.

In order to improve post-approval procedures, the FDA has discussed standardizing data on medical device failures, leveraging electronic medical records and assigning a unique ID to each device to make it easy for doctors to report device failures or safety threats. "The FDA says they want to do more work on post-approval, but nothing's in place yet," said Redberg. "Even when they do ask for a post-approval study, it's often not completed or done at all."

"I think there has to be more public and congressional calls to have reasonable assurance of safety and effectiveness before devices are approved," said Redberg said. "Until then, all we know is that a lot of devices on the market haven't been shown to be safe or effective."

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All authors of the new study completed and submitted the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest, and none were reported.

About UCSF: UC San Francisco (UCSF) is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. It includes top-ranked graduate schools of dentistry, medicine, nursing and pharmacy; a graduate division with nationally renowned programs in basic, biomedical, translational and population sciences; and a preeminent biomedical research enterprise. It also includes UCSF Health, which comprises top-ranked hospitals, UCSF Medical Center and UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals in San Francisco and Oakland - and other partner and affiliated hospitals and healthcare providers throughout the Bay Area. Please visit http://www.ucsf.edu/news.
Christopher Meehan is honored for making significant contributions to the field of civil engineering and enhancing lives in the process

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has named University of Delaware professor Christopher Meehan to its 2017 class of Fellows.

This honor is given to ASCE members who have made significant contributions to the field of civil engineering and enhanced lives in the process. Just three percent of the organization's more than 150,000 members hold the honor of Fellow.

Meehan, an associate professor and the Bentley Systems Incorporated Chair of Civil Engineering, specializes in geotechnical engineering, with particular interests in soil mechanics and soil shear behavior, slope stability, foundation engineering, geosynthetics, soil-structure interaction, soil and site improvement, intelligent compaction, and levee system design.

"This is clear evidence that Chris's engagement with and involvement in the geotechnical community is having an impact," says Sue McNeil, professor and chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. "If you have had an opportunity to hear Chris talk about any of his projects you know that he identifies interesting problems, finds innovative solutions grounded in sound engineering principles, and approaches each problem with passion and enthusiasm. He also engages graduate and undergraduate students in the research."

Meehan joined the UD faculty in 2006, the same year he completed his Ph.D. at Virginia Tech. He is also the director of the Delaware Center for Transportation, which conducts research, development, and educational activities to advance transportation in Delaware and beyond. He has been a member of ASCE since 1996. Among other professional career honors, he received a 2012-2013 Fulbright U.S. Scholar Grant and a National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2009.

Meehan has written dozens of refereed journal articles, including seven so far this year. The National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Department of Defense, the Delaware Department of Transportation, and the Delaware Solid Waste Authority support his research.

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The different ways men and women behave, passed down from generation to generation, can be inherited from our social environment - not just from genes, experts have suggested.

Rather than the sexes acting differently because of genetic inheritance, the human environment and culture allow for the transfer of some gender-specific behaviour traits from generation to generation.

In an article in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences by Cordelia Fine, from the University of Melbourne, John Dupre, from University of Exeter and Daphna Joel from Tel-Aviv University show how new advances in evolutionary theory, and current models of how sex influences the brain, suggest that for some gender-related traits, the interactions between the genetic and hormonal components of sex with other factors create variability between individuals whereas environmental factors supply the stable conditions needed for the reproduction of the trait in each generation.

These two important shifts in scientific thinking point to the possibility that gender roles seen across different generations are sometimes best explained in terms of inherited socio-environmental conditions.

"Even in non-human mammals, adaptive traits that have reliably developed in offspring for thousands of years can disappear within a few generations, if the relevant environmental conditions change," said Professor Dupre.

"Genetic inheritance continues to be critical for the capacity to quickly learn an adaptive behavior, but environmental factors that are stable over generations remove any selective pressure for the development of parallel genetic mechanisms."

The academics used recent thinking from evolution theory and recent findings from studies of the relations between sex and the brain for the article.

As part of another study Professor Joel and colleagues found that human brains are composed of unique mosaics of features, some more common in one sex and some more common in the other.

Professor Joel said: "Masculine and feminine behaviors cannot be explained by the existence of male and female brains, as has previously been suggested. Our research suggests that intergenerational inheritance of gender-specific traits may better be explained by highly stable features of the social environment."

The article says non-genetic mechanisms may be particularly important in humans because our culture strongly encourages us to have male or female roles. The enormous human capacity to learn also allows for information to be passed from generation to generation.

Professor Fine said: "The conclusion is the need to question the pervasive assumption that it is always biological sex, via its direct action on the brain, that does the 'heavy lifting' when it comes to the gender traits we inherit and display."

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Sex-Linked Behavior: Evolution, Stability, and Variability is published in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences.
Distracted driving - texting or absent-mindedness - claims thousands of lives a year. Researchers from the University of Houston and the Texas A&M Transportation Institute have produced an extensive dataset examining how drivers react to different types of distractions, part of an effort to devise strategies for making driving safer.

In a paper published Aug. 15 in the journal Scientific Data, the researchers make the dataset publicly available for the first time and describe how they collected the information.

The study was conducted with 68 volunteers, all of whom had a valid driver's license and normal or corrected-to-normal vision, on a driving simulator. Drivers were tracked with both thermal and visual cameras, along with palm sensors, sensors to measure heart rate and breathing rate, and an eye tracking system.

Ioannis Pavlidis, Eckhard Pfeiffer Professor and director of the Computational Physiology Lab at UH, said the study is the first to tackle three types of distracting elements - sensorimotor, such as texting; cognitive, such as absorbing thoughts; and emotional distractions.

Texting, the researchers found, led to far more dangerous driving, while a "sixth sense" appeared to protect those suffering emotional upset or absent-mindedness. Texting interfered with that sixth sense, letting drivers drift out of their traffic lanes. The researchers reported this result in the journal Scientific Reports last year, using a subset of the data they collected.

Additional investigation showed that "eye tracking and breathing rate proved useful metrics for measuring the impact of texting while driving," Pavlidis said. "But that wasn't helpful in cases of emotional or cognitive distractions." However, he said the researchers found heart rate signals captured via wearable sensors and perinasal perspiration captured via miniature thermal imagers were able to track all forms of distraction - a result that is reported in the current Scientific Data paper.

That and other findings provide the groundwork for future safety systems, said Robert Wunderlich, director of the Center for Transportation Safety at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. Given the widespread use of smart watches capable of measuring heart rate, he said this result opens the way for universal sensing of all forms of distraction at the consequential source, that is, the driver's sympathetic system.

The potential market for interventions is huge. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 3,477 people were killed and 391,000 were injured in motor vehicle crashes involving distracted drivers in 2015. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law banning texting while driving earlier this summer, leaving just three states that have not banned the practice.

The experiment worked like this: Volunteers drove the same segment of highway four times in a high-fidelity driving simulator - with no distraction and with cognitive, emotional and physical distraction. They were monitored via standoff and wearable sensors, which recorded perspiration, heart rate, breathing rate, gaze and facial expressions to capture the drivers' state as they were overloaded by multitasking.

At the same time, the simulator's computer recorded driving performance variables including speed, acceleration, braking force, steering angle and lane position.

In addition to Pavlidis, authors on the paper include Panagiotis Tsiamyrtzis of Athens University of Economics and Business, who spearheaded the data analysis and validation; Salah Taamneh and Ashik Khatri of UH; Malcolm Dcosta of Elizabeth City State University; Pradeep Buddharaju of University of Houston-Clear Lake; Michael Manser and Robert Wunderlich of the Texas A&M Transportation Institute; and Thomas Ferris of Texas A&M University.

Along with the publication of the paper in Scientific Data, the researchers released the full dataset in the Open Science Framework (OSF) databank.

This experiment represents an emerging form of multimodal design, where an abundance of highly quantitative variables are measured continuously, providing a 360-degree view of the studied conditions. Pavlidis noted that these designs are now possible because of technological advances in wearable and imaging sensors, as well as the emergence of robust computational algorithms.

The deluge of data such multimodal experiments produce requires sophisticated curation and complete openness, he said, not only for purposes of reproducibility but also as a means to investigate the dataset's full potential.

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Citation: Taamneh, S. et al. A multimodal dataset for various forms of distracted driving. Sci. Data 4:170110 doi: 10.1038/sdata.2017.110 (2017).

Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2017.110

The full dataset is available at https://osf.io/c42cn/.
Moving up the greasy pole in the office does not make people feel more personally free, new research has shown.

The research, from the University of Kent, looked at whether exercising influence over others in social situations, such as at work, leads to a greater sense of personal freedom or 'autonomy'.

The study found that there was no correlation between elevated social influence, or 'power' and elevated personal freedom, suggesting that the relationship between influence and autonomy diminishes with increasing levels of power.

However, the research, by Dr Mario Weick and Stefan Leach of the University's School of Psychology and Dr Joris Lammers from the University of Cologne, Germany, did find that a lack of personal power correlates with a lack of social power.

In one study 800 people from the US, UK, Germany and India were asked to recall events they thought of as either high or low in influence and high or low in autonomy. The researchers then asked participants how influential and autonomous they felt in these situations.

A second study, asking 200 people to report how much influence and autonomy they experience in their everyday lives, confirmed that the relationship between influence and autonomy grows weaker with increasing levels of power.

The research suggests that gaining influence over people does not lead to increased personal autonomy. Among the reasons for this, the researchers suggest, is that with every gain in discretionary abilities and control, for instance at work, individuals also gain additional responsibilities and often face an increase in scrutiny.

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The research, entitled Does influence beget autonomy? Clarifying the relationship between social and personal power (Stefan Leach, Mario Weick and Joris Lammers) is published in the inaugural issue of Journal of Theoretical Social Psychology. See: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jts5.5/full

For a copy of this paper and interview requests, contact Martin Herrema at the University of Kent Press Office.

Tel: 01227 823581/01634 888879

Email: M.J.Herrema@kent.ac.uk

News releases can also be found at http://www.kent.ac.uk/news

University of Kent on Twitter: http://twitter.com/UniKent

Notes to editor

Established in 1965, the University of Kent - the UK's European university - now has almost 20,000 students across campuses or study centres at Canterbury, Medway, Tonbridge, Brussels, Paris, Athens and Rome.

It has been ranked: 23rd in the Guardian University Guide 2016; 23rd in the Times and Sunday Times University Guide 2016; and 22nd in the Complete University Guide 2015.

In the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2015-16, Kent is in the top 10% of the world's leading universities for international outlook and 66th in its table of the most international universities in the world. The THE also ranked the University as 20th in its 'Table of Tables' 2016.

Kent is ranked 17th in the UK for research intensity (REF 2014). It has world-leading research in all subjects and 97% of its research is deemed by the REF to be of international quality.

In the National Student Survey 2016, Kent achieved the fourth highest score for overall student satisfaction, out of all publicly funded, multi-faculty universities.

Along with the universities of East Anglia and Essex, Kent is a member of the Eastern Arc Research Consortium (http://www.kent.ac.uk/about/partnerships/eastern-arc.html).

The University is worth 0.7 billion to the economy of the south east and supports more than 7,800 jobs in the region. Student off-campus spend contributes 293.3m and 2,532 full-time-equivalent jobs to those totals.

In 2014, Kent received its second Queen's Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education.
Despite federal officials labeling centers where immigrant women and their families are held as family detention centers or release programs as "Alternative to Detention," University of Kansas researchers found the detention complexes function like jails and prisons and that ATD programs are essentially expanded surveillance schemes.

Women held with their children in such centers are often required to wear orange jumpsuits, and often color-coded by a level of threat, according to a recent study KU scholars conducted in interviews with attorneys who frequented the detention centers in Pennsylvania and Texas.

"The detention of immigrants, especially of Latinos, today is very similar to incarceration in the regular criminal justice system, even though an immigration violation is a civil offense and not a criminal one," said Cecilia Menjivar, KU Foundation Distinguished Professor of Sociology. "What immigrants go through in the immigration enforcement system amounts to forms of punishment that are only handed down in criminal cases."

Menjivar, Andrea Gomez Cervantes, a KU doctoral student in sociology, and Bill Staples, professor and chair of the KU Department of Sociology, will present the study, "'Humane' Immigration Enforcement and Latina Immigrants in the Detention Complex," on Tuesday, Aug. 15, at the American Sociological Association's 2017 annual meeting in Montreal.

The researchers interviewed lawyers who had access to the detention centers and who also worked with immigrants placed in the Alternative to Detention programs, to ask them about the population of the centers, the conditions there, the role of law enforcement, the infrastructure and an overview of experiences.

The attorneys themselves noted how similar the centers functioned to prison or jail-like institutions despite the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency often referring to the detention centers as residential centers or campuses, often using infantilized language. These centers are often built in remote locations, making it difficult for detainees to communicate with their families or to obtain legal assistance, they mentioned. Life there is also highly regimented, and all activities take place in the same location.

Lawyers described the centers as having thick concrete walls, heavy doors monitored by guards, small windows or none at all, metal detectors, high fences and flood lights that stay on all right. In some cases, several families are held together in one room at a time in several bunk beds and a shared bathroom. Other facilities consisted of several trailers that house the detained women and their children.

"Even though we know how similar those conditions are to prisons, the language that is used to describe those centers is very benign," said Menjivar, who also co-leads the KU Center for Migration Research, which promotes KU research on causes, types and consequences of human migration at the state, regional, national and global levels. "Officials refer for instance to the centers as family centers or they want the centers to be certified as child care centers. The language used is very neutral, even child- and family-friendly, as if it's just a holding place, but in fact, that's not the case at all."

The research points to the inconsistencies of language the government uses and the conditions of the centers.

"On the one hand, this is how policies and programs are presented, but on the other hand this is how they actually work on the ground," she said. "We're trying to show the discrepancy between what the official narrative is and the experiences of immigrants who go through these facilities."

Menjivar said it's important to study conditions of those going through the immigration enforcement system, especially as the U.S. has sought to ramp up deportations over the past decade and now that the Trump administration has put a heavy emphasis on immigrant detention. Much political rhetoric also focuses on the criminalization of immigration.

The researchers also looked at current practices of immigrant incarceration, focusing on its outsourcing to private corporations running prison or detention facilities. The Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement contract with two large companies, CCA and GEO, that run private prisons, to house, detain, surveil and process immigrants for deportation proceedings, the researchers said.

"This is the expansion of incarceration for people of color," she said. "We have very high levels of the African Americans population placed in prisons, and we also have immigrants, mostly Latinos, who are put in detention centers that really function as prisons. So, both populations end up removed from society through imprisonment. The more immigrants are criminalized through law, the more they are going to end up in this type of incarceration."

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During California's recent drought, media coverage focused on residents cutting back on water usage as a conservation measure.

However, a University of Kansas researcher who examines water conservation policy and the habits of well owners in Kansas said the story is likely more complex than that when individuals are organized by their types of water supplies.

Brock Ternes, a KU lecturer and doctoral graduate of Sociology, has constructed one of the only datasets of wells owners used in the social sciences and found that well ownership is significantly correlated to increased watering during droughts and that water conservation varies among those who own different types of wells.

"People who have higher levels of awareness in Kansas tend to also be using more water during droughts, but I don't think that makes them bad environmentalists," Ternes said. "These are people who are more aware of their water supplies and in the business of using water."

Ternes surveyed 864 Kansans, of which 48 percent were private well owners and 52 percent relied on municipalities for their water supplies to their homes.

Like so many regions suffering from recent droughts, rural Kansas has been particularly hard-hit by the scarcity of water. The High Plains Aquifer -- an underground water source that much of Kansas relies on for water -- has been over pumped for its valuable irrigation water, and researchers estimate that unless pumping is curtailed, the aquifer will no longer support irrigation wells in portions of southwestern Kansas within 25 years, Ternes said.

It might seem counterintuitive that well owners -- who are generally more aware of their own water supplies than those who rely on municipalities, according to Ternes' previous research -- use more water during a drought, but he said it's likely a function of how they use the water, especially while irrigating crops. During non-drought years, adequate precipitation tends to reduce the reliance on groundwater for sustaining crops.

Ternes said well owners are likely more aware of water supplies and know when to tap into the aquifer to keep their crops alive because they can rely on adequate precipitation during non-drought years.

"When people are faced with a problem of resource scarcity, they don't necessarily curtail their consumption," Ternes said. "In other words, drawing from a stock of natural resources in times of scarcity or stress does not automatically disqualify someone from being an environmentalist. But over-users during times of abundance can be ruled out. This implies that groundwater stewardship requires selective timing for making extractions."

His latest research project adds to scholarship on well ownership and environmental citizenship.

"Groundwater is a crucial source of freshwater for people all over the world," Ternes said. "And wells moderate the relationship between water supply awareness and drought-time watering practices. This work suggests that environmental researchers need to study well owners as a distinct social group with consequential responses to droughts."

He will present his findings on Tuesday, Aug. 15, at the American Sociological Association's 2017 annual meeting in Montreal.

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Mainstream criticism of people who deny climate change essentially portrays climate skeptics as being out of touch, ignorant or somehow incapable of understanding the facts about climate change.

However, an early look at ongoing work by a University of Kansas researcher examines alternative reasons for climate change denial, specifically economic, social or cultural influences on why individuals or entire communities remain skeptical of climate change.

"The most obvious example of this is the instance of an individual who works for an industry, such as in oil and gas production, that may be negatively impacted by regulatory policy," said Jacob Lipsman, a KU doctoral student in Sociology. "This also functions on the community level; for instance, in southeast Louisiana, oil and gas represents a disproportionate source of revenue for coastal parishes."

His project focuses on two Louisiana parishes adjacent to the mouth of the Mississippi River -- Plaquemines and St. Bernard. Lipsman assessed perceptions of environmental risk among a vulnerable population in the region and the links between attitudes about climate change and local discursive and political processes surrounding coastal restoration issues in the region.

It is crucial to study these issues in Louisiana right now because the state has already lost over 1,800 square miles of land--an area the size of the state of Delaware-- to coastal erosion.

"This land loss has major impacts on communities both directly in terms of increased flood vulnerability and indirectly through potentially decreased economic productivity," he said.

He will present findings of pilot research in the project on Tuesday, Aug. 15, at the American Sociological Association's 2017 annual meeting in Montreal. The project was funded on a grant from the National Science Foundation, and the KU Institute for Policy & Social Research provided assistance with the award submission and will help to manage the award.

So far in his research, Lipsman has found despite the higher than average rates of climate change denial in southeast Louisiana, parish residents have shown an environmental awareness that, on the surface, seems inconsistent with climate attitudes.

"Local residents are aware of coastal erosion and are focused on addressing this issue, whether or not they attribute this land loss to climate change," he said.

A major centerpiece of coastal policy is the Louisiana's Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast, a 50-year, $50 billion series of proposals designed to restore Louisiana's coast. The master plan includes a range of project types including sediment diversions, shoreline protection, hydrologic restoration, structural protection, non-structural protection, and others.

While residents may not be entirely focused climate change itself, the coastal master plan is a major focus in local politics, particularly since the legal settlement from the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill has made major funding avenues available for the execution of the master plan.

The region is a prime place to study alternative reasons for climate change denial because southeast Louisiana communities rely so heavily on oil and gas, commercial fishing and maritime industry -- all of which would be affected by environmental regulations -- for revenue.

"We investigate whether this rather than an inability to understand basic science, is a contributor to climate skepticism in the region," Lipsman said.

This work could help those who advocate for climate change policies in how they engage with those who deny climate change based on economic or cultural factors, he said.

"If an individual or a community is resistant to the idea of climate change for economic or social reasons, climate advocates will not be able to effectively communicate with these individuals about climate change simply by presenting more data," Lipsman said. "By better understanding the processes of climate change denial, climate advocates will be better equipped to have an effective dialogue with individuals and communities that are skeptical of these ideas."

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University of Nevada, Reno entomologist Andrew Nuss and biologist Dennis Mathew are looking for a way to stop the spread of mosquito-borne disease. The goal of their research is to identify key mosquito odorant receptors that govern mosquito host-preference for humans and to genetically modify those genes in order to create mosquito strains that avoid biting humans.

"Mosquitoes are a big problem in transmitting disease," Nuss said. "Malaria is foremost among these, resulting in more than 400,000 deaths worldwide every year and millions infected. Not all of these infections are fatal, but this illness contributes to other diseases, the ability to work and quality of life."

Nuss is an assistant professor in the University's Department of Agriculture, Nutrition and Veterinary Science, whose research proposal was recently awarded a $500,000 grant by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, an agency within the U.S. Department of Defense.

By taking a closer look at the issue, Nuss noted key problems in the way mosquitoes are controlled now, and he came up with his new approach.

"Killing mosquitoes is one way of preventing the spread of disease, and others are trying to develop malaria vaccines, which has been difficult," Nuss said. "By and large, we have been using vector control as a way to prevent the spread of disease, and primarily that has been through the use of insecticides. While that works pretty well for a while, eventually the mosquitoes can become resistant, then you're left with a chemical you can't use, and sometimes they become resistant to entire chemical classes."

Nuss who is based in the College of Agriculture, Biotechnology and Natural Resources, decided to approach the mosquito problem by studying their sense of smell. The mosquitoes that are most important when it comes to transmitting diseases are the ones that have become highly attuned to feeding on humans, facilitating rapid human-mosquito-human disease transfer.

"They have become co-adapted to us because we live in these nice, concentrated cities where they can find lots of people to feed on," Nuss said. "They preferentially feed on humans, and their odorant receptors may be attuned to human odors, specifically. So, we want to tweak that system by either knocking out the receptors that are responsible for human feeding, or replacing them with receptors from other mosquito species that feed on other animals in the environment."

If these human-seeking mosquito species can be modified to avoid feeding on humans and instead on other animals, this could break the human-mosquito-human transmission cycle. Unlike insecticide-based vector control strategies, this would also ensure that mosquitoes could still feed on other animals in the environment to complete their life cycle without pressure to develop resistance.

Nuss continues his research with the help of collaborator Dennis Mathew, an assistant professor with the University's Department of Biology whose lab focuses on the neuroscience of smell, specifically in fruit flies. Together, Nuss and Mathew have combined their labs to work on understanding the olfactory makeup of mosquitoes.

"In my lab, we have a system where we can measure what the smell receptors of fruit flies - or other insects - can sense," Mathew said. "So, Andrew and I talked about taking advantage of this system and in this project we are going to identify those mosquito smell receptors that we suspect smell human odors and put them in the fruit flies. We will then use the fruit fly system in my lab to figure out which receptors are most sensitive to human smells."

Mathew's research looks at understanding how fruit fly neurons that express smell receptors sense environmental odorants and translate these olfactory inputs into the insect's behavioral output.

The fruit fly larva, which is the Mathew lab's favorite model system, has a very simple smell system compared to mammals or even other insects. It has only 21 smell receptors and 21 pairs of neurons expressing them. In contrast, a human nose has approximately 400 smell receptors and approximately 10 million neurons. The numerical simplicity of the fruit fly system enables elegance and simplicity in the scientific approach.

While most scientists who work in this field are developing repellents, Nuss and Mathew are taking a bioinformatics approach to truly understand and change the common receptors found in mosquitoes.

Nuss and Mathew are working on the project together, along with Nuss's Research Associate Rana Pooraiiouby. With the recent grant from the Department of Defense, they are able to continue their research in what is considered a relatively new field. The $500,000 grant covers the first two years of their research, with a possible extension period of one year for an additional $470,000.

"Insect mitigated disease is a tremendous problem and we have been hammering away at it with a number of different approaches, with most of them involving chemical insecticides for years and years, but the problem remains," Nuss said. "So, we need new strategies, and our research is an approach where the mosquitoes still get to survive in an environment just as long as they are not biting humans. Preventing the spread of disease is the ultimate goal."

Nuss joined the University in 2016 after completing a post-doctorate at Purdue University. He received his bachelor's degree in entomology from Purdue University, and continued on to finish his master's. He received his doctorate in entomology from the University of Georgia. His previous work at both universities involved mosquitoes as well, and his work at the University of Nevada, Reno is an expansion of earlier research.

Mathew joined the University in 2014 after completing his postdoctoral work at Yale University. He completed his bachelor's degree in microbiology and biochemistry at SIES College, Mumbai, India, and his master's in biotechnology at the University of Vadodara, India. He completed his doctorate work at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he studied molecular and cellular biology investigating mechanisms underlying synapse plasticity before coming to the University of Nevada, Reno College of Science.

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AGRIGENTO, Italy (Aug. 15, 2017) - Some of the mystery behind one of Sicily's largest ancient Roman villas is now solved thanks to a team of archeologists from the University of South Florida in Tampa, Fla. They're the first to successfully excavate the 5,000 square meter Roman villa of Durreueli at Realmonte, located off the southern coast of Sicily.

Project director Dr. Davide Tanasi, assistant professor in the USF Department of History, and his students worked alongside USF's Center for Virtualization and Applied Spatial Technologies (CVAST). Together they created terrestrial and aerial 3D scanning of the entire villa, an invaluable tool in guiding the excavation and interpreting the villa's architectural phases.

Through a month of excavations, they determined the villa was consistently occupied between the 2nd and 7th century CE and reconfigured to settlement in the 5th century Common Era (CE). That conclusion comes following the discovery of new walls, floor levels, staircase and water channel.

The team found cookware and lamps along with a large quantity of African Late Roman pottery and related materials such as kiln spacers. This leads researchers to believe an important function of the village was to produce pottery, bricks and tiles in industrial scale, helping explain the economic history of Late Antique Sicily.

Parts of the Roman villa of Durreuli at Realmonte were uncovered during a Japanese-led excavation effort in 1979-1985, but the team did not discover such an extensive part of Roman history.

USF worked in conjunction with the Superintendence for Cultural Heritage of Agrigento and plans to continue its research next summer. Such an effort is important to USF and Tampa, as it is a sister city with Agrigento, the provincial capital in which Realmonte is located.

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Purnendu "Sandy" Dasgupta, the Hamish Small Chair of Ion Analysis in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Texas at Arlington, has been named recipient of the 2017 Talanta Medal, an international award that recognizes world leaders in the analytical chemistry field.

"This is a tremendous achievement and great recognition of the impact of Dr. Dasgupta's work and the esteem in which he is held by the professional community," said UTA President Vistasp Karbhari. "I am proud that he is a colleague and on the faculty at UTA and remain deeply thankful for the wonderful way in which he engages with our students and our faculty ensuring that the thrill of discovery permeates each of us."

The Talanta Medal was initiated in 1961 by Pergamon Press, which was later acquired by multinational publishing group Elsevier, as a prestigious award of a gold medal for outstanding contributions to analytical chemistry. Dasgupta is the fourth American academic to win the award and the first of Indian origin. A special issue of Talanta, an acclaimed international journal devoted to Analytical Chemistry, will be published to coincide with the award ceremony, to commemorate this occasion.

"This is a tremendous honor and I'm very grateful for this recognition by my peers," Dasgupta said. "By recognizing me, they are also honoring several generations of my students from all over the world, who are so involved and committed to my work and form a cornerstone of my success."

Dasgupta has won numerous awards over the course of his career. In 2016, he was awarded the Eastern Analytical Symposium's highest award, the Award for Outstanding Achievements in the Fields of Analytical Chemistry, and the Tech Titans Technology Inventors Award for his many innovations in chemical and environmental analysis.

Other honors include the 2015 American Chemical Society Division of Analytical Chemistry J. Calvin Giddings Award for Excellence in Education; the 2012 Stephen Dal Nogare Award in Chromatography; the 2012 Wilfred T. Doherty Award, DFW Section of the ACS; and the 2011 ACS Award in Chromatography. He also was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and an honorary member of the Japan Society of Analytical Chemistry, both in 2015.

Dasgupta's high-impact research is improving public health on a global scale, a clear demonstration of advancing the University's Strategic Plan 2020: Bold Solutions | Global Impact.

Among his recent research projects, Dasgupta led a team which devised a new method to measure the amount of blood present in dry blood spot analysis, providing an alternative to the current preferred approach of measuring sodium levels. Dry blood spot analysis is simple, inexpensive, and is routinely used to screen newborns for metabolic disorders. It also has proven effective in diagnosing HIV infection in infants, especially in developing countries where health budgets are limited.

Another of Dasgupta's recent projects is the development of a prototype for an implantable in-line shunt flow monitoring system for hydrocephalus patients, which could lead to better treatment, especially in infants and children who account for a large percentage of shunt operations every year.

In another project, Dasgupta is using a $1.2 million grant from NASA to further the search for amino acids, the so-called building blocks of life, by extending a platform he developed to detect and separate ions.

Dasgupta's active research areas also include methods for environmentally friendly analysis of arsenic in drinking water; rapid analysis of trace heavy metals in the atmosphere; iodine nutrition in women and infants and the role of the chemical perchlorate; and the development of a NASA-funded ion chromatograph for testing extraterrestrial soil, such as that found on Mars.

Dasgupta received a bachelor's degree with honors in Chemistry from Bankura Christian College in 1968 and a master's degree in inorganic chemistry from the University of Burdwan in 1970, both located in West Bengal, India. He came to the United States in 1973 and earned his doctorate in analytical chemistry under Philip W. West, with a minor in electrical engineering, from Louisiana State University in 1977. He has published more than 400 papers and holds 29 patents.

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Every time we swallow food, cells that line the intestines must step up their activity in a sudden and dramatic manner. According to a new study by Weizmann Institute of Science researchers, reported in Science, they rise to the challenge in the most economic fashion.

In business or engineering, when one has to get production underway quickly, instant decisions are made. These might involve instantly throwing all ones resources into boosting production with existing equipment, or else first spending all those resources to equip the plant with proper machinery. The latter might seem to be a less efficient production method but it can actually, in some cases speed things up considerably. Dr. Shalev Itzkovitz and his team in Weizmann's Molecular Cell Biology Department discovered that this is just the method adopted in the lining of the intestinal wall.

This lining is a single layer of elongated cells that come into contact with food on one narrow side, and with the bloodstream on the other. Thus they absorb nutrients on one side and release them into the blood on the other. The scientists discovered that the two sides of the cell differ in the composition of messenger RNA, or mRNA: About 30 percent of the genes expressed in the intestines produced mRNAs that appeared either on one side of the cell or on the other. The two sides were also found to differ in the content of protein-making machines called ribosomes: The number of ribosomes on the food-facing side was double that of the bloodstream-facing side; as a result, the production of proteins on that side was much more efficient.

The scientists further discovered that whenever food enters the bowels, cells in the intestinal lining immediately respond by increasing the production of ribosomes, particularly in the food-facing part of the cell. To this end, the cell dispatches to the food-facing area large numbers of mRNAs that carry the genetic code for making ribosomes. This part of the cell then becomes an intensive production shop of sorts, generating the proteins needed for processing the food.

Itzkovitz explains: "For most of the night and day, cells in the lining of the intestines just loll around, but once food appears, they must instantly step into action. Generating new mRNA molecules from DNA in order to make new proteins would have taken the cells about half an hour. Instead, they can increase production of certain proteins within minutes by moving the mRNA molecules encoding the relevant proteins into the side of the cell that is rich with ribosomes. This strategy enables them to deal with the arrival of food in a fast and efficient manner. "

In addition to opening the door to new studies in the "economics" of cells, the findings may have medical implications, as intestinal lining plays an important role in the both absorption of nutrients and protecting the body. It may now be possible to investigate whether the failure of mRNAs to move to the proper part of the cell - or a lack of balance between mRNAs in the high- and low-production areas of the cell - may play a role in such diseases as colitis and Crohn's disease, and possibly also in bowel cancer.

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The research team included Dr. Andreas E. Moor, Matan Golan, Efi E. Massasa, Dr. Doron Lemze, Tomer Weizman, Rom Shenhav and Shaked Baydatch of the Molecular Cell Biology Department; Orel Mizrahi , Roni Winkler and Dr. Noam Stern-Ginossar of the Molecular Genetics Department; and Ofra Golani of the Life Sciences Core Facilities Department.

Dr. Shalev Itzkovitz's research is supported by the Henry Chanoch Krenter Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Genomics; the Rothschild Caesarea Foundation; the Cymerman - Jakubskind Prize; and the European Research Council. Dr. Itzkovitz is the incumbent of the Philip Harris and Gerald Ronson Career Development Chair.

The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, is one of the world's top-ranking multidisciplinary research institutions. Noted for its wide-ranging exploration of the natural and exact sciences, the Institute is home to scientists, students, technicians and supporting staff. Institute research efforts include the search for new ways of fighting disease and hunger, examining leading questions in mathematics and computer science, probing the physics of matter and the universe, creating novel materials and developing new strategies for protecting the environment.
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Dairy farmers have used the platform of this years Pembrokeshire County Show to celebrate their work as part of a farming union's #ProudToProduce campaign.

The county of Pembrokeshire, in Wales, is renowned for its milk production, with more than 300 dairy businesses producing dairy in the county.

The annual Pembrokeshire County Show provided the ideal opportunity for dairy farmers to shout about the role they play in supplying Wales with natural favourites like milk and cheese.

NFU Cymru President Stephen James said Pembrokeshire has a 'long held tradition' as a milk producing county.

He said: For centuries farmers in this corner of West Wales have made the most of the unique landscape and climate to set-up systems that provide milk, cheese, yoghurt and cream for the people of Wales, as well as maintaining and enhancing the local environment and supporting the local economy.

Dairy farmers, regardless of where they are from or what system they use, are all in agreement that the key to a successful dairy enterprise is that cow welfare is king. Happy, healthy cows are paramount to every dairy business, both emotionally and economically.

'Negative image'

Mr James said it was important that dairy farmers communicate this message with the public and counteract detractors who seek to paint a negative image of their work.

For example, dairy farmers have said they have 'suffered a blow' after the Advertising Standards Agency approved a vegan campaign which describes milk production as 'inhumane'.

The campaign, which was launched by the organisation Go Vegan World, said drinking milk is cruel to cattle as production separates calves from their mothers 'fresh from their wombs.'

Mr James continued: As dairy farmers we need to do more to shout about whats great about Welsh dairy and ensure the public can make a meaningful link between our work and the products they buy from the fridges of their local supermarket, farm shop or farmers market.

NFU Cymru Pembrokeshire County Chairman Jeff Evans added: As a dairy farmer I am extremely #ProudToProduce for Wales. While we have World Milk Day every year, I dont think we do enough throughout the rest of the year to shout about the numerous health benefits of drinking milk.

It was great that we were able to use my local county show here in Pembrokeshire to speak to the public about local milk production and ensure that they are not reeled in by some of the myths that are spread about our sector.
EU commissioner for agriculture Phil Hogan has hit out at a 'high level of delusion' in the UK over Brexit.

Mr Hogan called for Britain to remain in the customs union in order to significantly mitigate the impact of Brexit on Ireland and reduce risks on trade.

Speaking to the Financial Times, he also dismissed Liam Fox's trade deal preparations: "Barrier-free trade in goods and services with the EU has worked more than any number of hypothetical trade agreements that Mr Fox talks about around the world.

"They're talking about being a soft Brexit but they're acting in the negotiations in a way that can only lead to a hard Brexit.

"If there is an appetite for a pragmatic and reasonable outcome to a free-trade agreement, well then membership of the customs union would make a significant contribution to this."

UK farming unions are concerned that the influx of low quality imports will mean British farmers will struggle to compete.

President of the Ulster Farmers' Union (UFU) Barclay Bell said: "Politicians must ensure that food standards are upheld and cheap, low quality imports are not permitted to undermine our industry.

"Countries wishing to trade with us must demonstrate they can meet the high standards expected by UK consumers."

The warnings came as David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, announced the UK will seek the same trading rules with the EU for an interim period, of perhaps three years.
A 3,000-acre family-run farm has secured a six-figure finance package from HSBC to purchase a new biomass boiler, enabling the business to significantly reduce fossil fuel consumption and increase grain yield.

The new biomass boiler will provide Tythegston Farm, in Glamorgan, South Wales, with a sustainable heating solution to enhance the grain-drying process by allowing the farm to harvesting the crop earlier.

By purchasing the new biomass boiler, tenants of the farm, Richard and Lyn Anthony, will also have access to the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI), a government initiative that financially rewards farmers for generating and using renewable energy to heat their businesses.

The funding for the biomass boiler has been drawn from a 300 million lending fund committed by HSBC to support agricultural businesses in the UK, as part of its wider support package to help British SMEs realise their growth ambitions.

'Eco-friendly'

Lyn Anthony, co-owner of R&L Anthony Ltd, said: HSBC has helped us achieve a sustainable and eco-friendly solution for our farms harvesting process and we can now dry grain almost all year round, which is something we havent been able to do before.

Our relationship manager at the bank, Justin Long, has an in-depth understanding of our sector and expertise and was able to put the right funding package in place for us.

Euryn Jones, HSBCs Regional Agriculture Director for Wales and South West of England, commented: For more than 40 years HSBCs dedicated agriculture team has provided tailored finance packages to farmers like Richard and Lyn.

This is an exceptionally well-managed and progressive arable farming business and the couples dedication to becoming a greener, more sustainable business is testament to their forward-thinking approach to farming and, with our financial support now in place, we hope to see them achieve these ambitions.

The arable farm in Bridgend, which supplies animal feed to farmers across South Wales, has been owned by Richard and Lyn for more than 20 years.

Between them, the husband and wife team, alongside their son David, have more than 30 years experience in arable farming and employ four permanent staff.
Producers see losses increase to 26-28 per pig, estimates show
The leading lady of Prabhas starrer Saaho, has been a subject to several reports over the last few months. Finally, the producer of the film has confirmed the news of Shraddha Kapoor being roped in for Saaho.

Mumbai Mirror quoted the producer of Saaho as saying, "Shraddha is the perfect choice for the role. We are excited to have her on board with us. Saaho is Prabhas's first film in Hindi and so it is very special for all of us. It is an ambitious project and will have some really high-octane action scenes."

Saaho has already gone on the floors. Currently, the shooting is going on in Hyderabad. Buzz is, it will also be shot in Mumbai, Romania and Abu Dhabi.

It is being shot in three languages-Hindi, Tamil and Telugu-simultaneously. The actor will start shooting from mid-August.

Apart from Shraddha, we will also get to see some high octane action sequence between Prabhas and Neil Nitin Mukesh., who plays the antagonist in the film.

We are damn excited to witness the chemistry of Prabhas & Shraddha. What about you?
Dulquer Salmaans Bollywood Debut

Here is a big news for all Dulquer Salmaan fans. The young actor of Mollywood is all set to make his big debut in Bollywood. Reportedly, the actor will be seen sharing the screen space with Bollywood actor Irrfan Khan in an upcoming film, which will be directed by Akarsh Khurana. This yet-to-be-titled film will be produced by Ronnie Screwala.

The New Teaser Of Dulquer Salmaans Solo

The makers of Dulquer Salmaan's upcoming film Solo, has come up with the latest teaser of the movie. Importantly, the new teaser of the film was launched by none other than popular Bollywood film-maker Karan Johar. The latest teaser introduces the character Rudra, to the audiences.

Second Schedule Of Pranav Mohanlals Aadhi

Pranav Mohanlal's debut film as a lead hero, titled as Aadhi, went on floors in the first week of August. The shoot of the film commenced in a resort in Nedumbassery. Reportedly, the second schedule of the filming has commenced in Bengaluru. Reportedly, major portions of the film will be shot in the IT city.

Vimaanam Completed

Prithviraj's Vimaanam, which is being helmed by debut film-maker Pradeep M Nair will be the actor's big release after ADam Joan. Reportedly, the shoot of the film, produced by Listin Stephen has been completed and the makers released a new poster of the movie.

Jayasuryas Aadu 2 To Go On Floors Soon

Aadu 2, is the much awaited film of Jayasurya, which will mark the comeback of the popular character Shaji Paapan. Now, according to the latest reports that have come in, Aadu 2 will go on floors by the first week of September. Most of the actors from the prequel will also be a part of the sequel.

Lijo Jose Pellisserys Next Movie Announced

Popular film-maker Lijo Jose Pellissery has announced his next directorial. His next film will feature Chemban Vinod Jose, Vinayakan and Dileesh Pothan in the lead roles. The makers have titled the film as Ee.Ma.You (Eeso Mariam Yousep). This upcoming film will have its script penned by PF Mathews.

Release Dates Of Velipadinte Pusthakam and Adam Joan

The upcoming Onam season is expected to offer a big feast for all the Malayalam film audiences. Reportedly, the release dates of Prithviraj Adam Joan has been finalised. The film will hit the theatres on August 31, 2017. If reports are to be believed, Mohanlal's Velipadinte Pusthakam will hit the theatres on the same day.
Ford Motor Company (F 2.26%) said that its sales in Europe fell 4.8% in July, as solid SUV sales once again fell short of offsetting a decline in sales of the Blue Oval's car models, caused in part by tight supplies of the all-new 2018 Fiesta.

The raw numbers: Ford's market share slipped again

Ford sold about 99,900 vehicles in July in the 20 Western and Central European markets that it considers its primary market in Europe (what Ford calls the "Euro 20"). That was down 4.8%, or about 5,100 vehicles, from its total in July 2016. The decline dropped Ford's market share in the region by 80 basis points from a year ago, to 6.4% for the month.

In Europe as a whole, including Russia, Turkey, the former Soviet republics, and the countries of Eastern Europe (what Ford calls the "Euro 50"), Ford sold about 117,500 vehicles in June, roughly flat from a year ago. Ford's market share in the Euro 50 was also flat from its year-ago result, at 7.6%.

SUVs and trucks have been strong. (Sound familiar?)

Here in the U.S., good sales of Ford's SUVs and trucks are helping to offset a shift in buyer preferences away from traditional sedan models. A similar story is unfolding in Europe, where sales of Ford's crossover SUVs, particularly the smaller ones, have been strong.

Ford's Kuga is the European sibling of the U.S.-market Escape. Like the Escape, the Kuga got a facelift for 2017, and that has probably helped its sales. Euro 20 sales of the Kuga rose about 24% in July from a year ago, to over 12,000 sold. It's now Ford's third-best-selling model in Europe, behind the perennial best-selling Fiesta and Focus.

Ford is also doing well with the EcoSport, a subcompact SUV based on the Fiesta's architecture that was introduced late last year. Ford sold about 4,900 EcoSports in the Euro 20 last month and has sold roughly 40,000 year to date.

The larger Edge completes Ford's SUV lineup in Europe. The Edge is a Ford mainstay in the U.S., but sales are much slower in Europe, as Europeans prefer smaller vehicles. Still, Ford sold about 1,200 Edges in the Euro 20 in July, up about 20% from a year ago.

As in the U.S., the sale of trucks and vans to commercial fleets is an important business for Ford in Europe. It's also going well: Ford sold about 26,600 commercial vehicles (including its Transit vans and Ranger pickups) in July, up 9.7% from a year ago. Ford's 13.3% share of Europe's commercial-vehicle market made it the market leader for July.

But the all-new Fiesta is in short supply, and that's hurting Ford

Again, as in the U.S., sales of Ford's car models in Europe are mostly down -- but one in particular is down a whole lot.

Model July 2017 Change (YOY) Ka+ 4,500 N/A Fiesta 12,400 (43.6%) Focus 16,300 (5.2%) Mondeo 4,900 (5.8%) Mustang 800 (33%)

The small Fiesta isn't a big seller in the U.S., but it has long been Ford's most important model in Europe, and one of the Continent's best-sellers for years. Its huge year-over-year sales decline probably isn't due to a Europewide change of heart, but rather -- at least to some extent -- to short supplies.

As Ford CFO Bob Shanks told us last month, Ford is in the process of rolling out an all-new 2018 Fiesta in Europe. Supplies of the all-new Fiesta have been tight as Ford ramps up production.

Shanks told us that limited Fiesta supplies entirely explained Ford's 2.2% decline in Euro 20 sales in the second quarter, and that's probably the story here as well. Note that while Fiesta sales were down about 9,600 units in July, Ford's overall sales in the Euro 20 were down just 5,100.

Long story short: If Fiesta sales had been flat year over year, Ford's overall Europe sales would have been up last month. When will it turn around? Probably in another month or two.
Most investors likely know something about Kinder Morgan (KMI 2.69%) since it is one of the largest and most popular energy infrastructure companies in North America. If nothing else, many know the company for its above-average dividend, which it supports with a vast portfolio of pipelines and storage terminals that generate stable fee-based cash flow. That said, while many know the basics, few probably know these four interesting facts about the company.

No. 1: Kinder Morgan's roots trace back to Enron

Before forming Kinder Morgan, Executive Chairman Richard Kinder was the president of Enron. However, he stepped down in 1997 -- several years before Enron's implosion -- and teamed up with William Morgan and other investors to buy the general partner of a small publicly traded pipeline company called Enron Liquids Pipeline. They called their new endeavor Kinder Morgan Energy Partners and set out with a plan to use the master limited partnership (MLP) structure as a growth vehicle to build and buy energy infrastructure assets. At the time, the company only had 175 employees and an enterprise value of $325 million. However, $59 billion of investments and acquisitions later, and the company is one of the largest operators of energy infrastructure assets in North America.

No. 2: Its top two executives only get paid $1 per year

While many top executives rake in millions of dollars in compensation each year, co-founder and Executive Chairman Rich Kinder only earns $1 per year in salary and doesn't receive a bonus or stock grants. Likewise, CEO Steve Kean only receives $1 in compensation each year. The reason these men get paid so little is that both own a large chunk of the company's stock, so their compensation comes from creating value for investors -- including themselves -- via dividends and capital appreciation. In fact, management and directors of the company collectively own 14% of its outstanding shares, with Kinder's stake alone currently worth $6.6 billion according to Forbes. That significant insider ownership is why the company's tag line is "Run for Shareholders, By Shareholders."

No. 3: The company operates enough pipelines to circle the Earth more than three times

Kinder and his team have grown Kinder Morgan from a small pipeline company into one of the largest in North America. It currently controls 84,000 miles of pipeline, which if laid end-to-end, would circle the earth more than three times. Most of those pipes transport natural gas. In fact, at roughly 70,000 miles, it operates the largest gas pipeline network in North America that currently moves 38% of the gas consumed in the U.S. on a daily basis.

Kinder Morgan expects that system to continue growing, driven by the expectation that natural gas demand in the country will increase by 35% over the next decade. The company already has $3.4 billion of new natural gas pipelines under construction and several other projects in development, including a more than $1 billion pipeline project with DCP Midstream (DCP -1.93%) to move gas out of the Permian Basin. The DCP Midstream-partnered project, if approved, would add another 430 miles of pipe to the company's network by 2019.

No. 4: It's the 13th largest oil producer in Texas

While the natural gas pipeline business currently supplies about 55% of Kinder Morgan's earnings each year, another important contributor is the company's oil business, where it gets about 7% of its profit by using carbon dioxide to coax oil out of Texas' legendary Permian Basin. In fact, last year the company produced more than 20 million barrels of oil, which made it the 13th largest oil producer in Texas, accounting for about 2% of the state's total output. That output should head higher in the future since the company plans to spend $1.1 billion over the next five years to unlock more oil trapped underneath the Lone Star State, as long as oil cooperates.

Focused on growing what matters most

While Kinder Morgan had relatively humble beginnings, the company is now a force in the energy infrastructure segment. That said, the focus of management throughout the years hasn't just been to grow the size, but to increase value so that shareholders -- including management -- could enjoy the benefits of this wealth creation. It has done that by building and buying assets where it can generate high risk-adjusted returns and predictable cash flow streams because that's the best way to grow the value of the company and create wealth for investors.
Muller has revealed how its new Direct Futures contract will work in an effort to mitigate milk market volatility for its 700 non-aligned farmers.

Producers will be able to commit up to 25% of their annual milk supply for up to 12 months ahead into a fixed-price contract, linked to the UK Milk Futures Equivalent (UKMFE).

See also: Look to future markets to cut volatility, farmers told

Non-aligned dairy farmers can choose between locking in at a fixed price for each month or taking the monthly market price derived from the European Energy Exchange (EEC) market monthly price.

Muller base price formula The forward pricing formula will be calculated using EEX market prices for skim milk powder (SMP) and butter calculated independently by FC Stone/milkprices.com This price will then be subject to the terms of the payment index, which takes butterfat, bactoscan, somatic cell count and graduated seasonality into account. Less 2p/litre for transport

0.55p/litre cost of hedging for Muller (if producer chooses to fix the milk prices in future months)

5% processor margin for Muller

Who is eligible?

Muller Direct producers will be eligible if they have produced at least 40,000 litres a month for the past year.

The minimum volume that can be placed on the contract will be 120,000 litres split by 10,000 litres per month, with producers able to decide each month which months they would like to fix.

How will the Direct Futures Contract work?

Producer A decides to fix up to 25% of their annual milk production at a set price

Producer A can look up the forward milk prices on the Muller website, published by 1pm every Monday

On the second Wednesday of each month, the producer can submit a request to fix a set volume at the updated prices shown for up to 12 months in the future

Mullers agriculture team will alert Producer A if the trade was successful together with the final fixed future price on Friday

Protection from uncertainty

Linking a proportion of your farms production to the futures market could help to protect your business from uncertainty caused by changes in the farmgate price, said Muller agricultural director Rob Hutchinson.

Certainty on future milk price will enable you to better forecast your business margin.

Muller will offer an initial 35m litres of milk into the first 12-month phase starting in September, with a further two phases planned for January and April 2018, which will take the total volume involved to 100m litres.

If the contract is oversubscribed, Muller will divide the volume out with the minimum allocation of 10,000 litres first and then evenly allocate any remaining volumes amongst producers.

Transparency

Im delighted Muller has opted to use FCStone/ milkprices.com UKMFE as the independent and transparent mechanism in helping to operate their new Futures Contract for Muller Direct suppliers, said Stephen Bradley of milkprices.com.

This contract allows suppliers to take an element of control in order to build some milk price stability into their businesses.

He added, At the same time, the ability via the Muller farmer website to lock in volume through fresh deals at a set time each month also adds a new dimension of flexibility for the supplier.




Haiti - News : Zapping...





Taxi-Moto : New measures in force

Since Monday 14 August 2017, taxi-motorcycle drivers can no longer travel without a helmet or a road vest and carry more than one passenger, according to a statement from the Secretariat of State for Public Security.



Triple escapes at the BLTS

On the night from 12 to 13 August 3 detainees escaped from the premises of the Office for Combating Drugs Trafficking. The escapees: Berger Milot, an alleged gang leader implicated in the attack on the presidential parade in Arcahaie, Clauvis Cadet and a Bahamian Taylor Periquio Valentino (wanted by the FBI) were locked up in a secure cell under the watchful eye of 6 armed and experienced police officers trained in Colombia and the United States, the latter were placed in solitary confinement. Information confirmed by Inspector Gary Desrosiers, deputy spokesman for Haiti's National Police, who was unable to explain how these bandits escaped from the cell where no bar was sawn. Pending further investigation, research notices were issued against the detainees on the run.



11 candidates recipients of scholarships from Canada

The Canadian Francophonie Scholarship Program (CFSP) funded by the Ministry of Global Affairs Canada (GAC) selected 11 Haitian students for the 2017 cohort. They will be specializing in: water engineering , epidemiology, public health, audit and internal control, public administration and hydro-agricultural infrastructure management. Nine of them, 5 women and 4 men, will leave in mid-August 2017 for a period of two (2) years - September 2017 to September 2019. They come from various Ministries such as Finance, Agriculture, Planning and others, the Haitian Association of Economists (HAE), the Faculty of Agronomy and Veterinary Medicine (FAVM/UEH).



Consulate of Montreal closed

The Consulate General of the Republic of Haiti in Montreal informs the general public and the Haitian community in particular that its offices will be closed on Tuesday, August 15, 2017, on the occasion of the feast of Notre Dame in Haiti. Services will resume as usual on Wednesday, August 16th.



Haitian artists in China

The Ballet Bacoulou and the Traditional Orchestra of Haiti are currently in China to participate in the 10th edition of the China International Youth Arts Festival, which will take place from 10 to 21 August 2017. The main event takes place in Beijing, but 9 other cities in the country, including Shanghai, Guangzhou and Jinan will host other activities. Concerts, opera, dance, forums, exhibitions and workshops, among others, are part of the festival's program, which receives more than 5,000 artists from 37 countries and regions of the world.



The beach of Gelee is clean

During the Summer Camp "Gelee zero fatras" , the participants cleaned the beach of Gelee of Les Cayes https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-21724-haiti-environment-les-cayes-youth-involved-in-waste-management.html . This initiative of the Town Hall of Les Cayes , warmly welcomed by the merchants and visitors, was carried out thanks to financial support from UN environment / Haiti from a fund of the Government of Norway.



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As a hospitality industry veteran with twenty years of management experience at hotels and resorts across the US, Derek McCann comes to Santa Monica from his most recent role as managing director of Loews Ventana Canyon Resort in Tucson, where he continued the propertys longstanding legacy as one of the destinations premier resorts. Prior to joining Loews Hotels & Co in 2014, McCann was Vice President & Hotel Manager of Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville, Tennessee, a position he held after ten years with Gaylord Hotels. During his time in Nashville, McCann was actively involved on the boards of University of Tennessee's School of Retail, Hospitality and Tourism Management, as well as with Junior Achievement of Middle Tennessee. After nearly two decades, McCann will be returning to Los Angeles, where he began his career in hospitality as Assistant Front Office Manager of the Sheraton Gateway Los Angeles Hotel. Originally hailing from Edinburgh, Scotland, McCann earned a degree in Hotel Administration from Cornell University in 1996. In his free time, Derek and his wife Erika love to travel and explore the outdoors with their two children.
Service Excellence and the Hotel Industry is in our DNA

It is not very often that I write a self-serving article but I think it is important to note that, as a hotel technology company, service excellence is a key element within our DNA. It helps us deliver great technology to our hotel clients and the industry at large.

Technology, at its foundation, is developed either to make ones life easier or to enable people to communicate more effectively. The problem with developing technology for technologys sake is that companies become too highly focused on the development of the technology, forgetting to understand its full impact on their end users and audience. There can also be a huge void between the development of technology for specific industry vertical if the founders and developers do not have a thorough understanding and knowledge of the targeted industry.

The hotel industry in incredibly unique. There is a myriad of different styles of hotels with diverse priorities. There are the smaller properties or those more transactional in nature and on the other end of the spectrum, there are large properties that offer every type of service and amenity available. When we look at todays guest, they are far more complex than they were twenty years ago. There are those looking for that transactional environment while others crave being fawned over. Some are traveling on business, and others are on vacation. Mix the guest requirements or expectations with the different type of property, and now you have an extremely intricate industry. Fairmont Hotels Heritage Place even has a page on its website to educate the traveler on how it differentiates their brand versus others.

Service has always been the glue that holds the hospitality industry together. The service experience starts at the beginning of the guests journey. They start looking at locations and their associated hotels. Their immediate reaction can be based upon the visual and textural content to help them make a decision. Conversely, if they place a call to a reservations center, they have now connected with a person who must exude service at the initial contact phase. When arriving at the property, the service element is heightened. First step is checking in at the front desk and here, they are met again, with someone who must focus on developing a relationship with the guest and providing exemplary service. The guest may wish to forgo the formalities of checking in at a front desk, so the hotel must offer the self-serve options for the guest to go directly to their room. This is an example of a fundamental use of technology as a service. The service element and technology requirement continues as the guest dines at the property restaurant, lounges by the pool or orders room service. It is always there and always expected.

When hotels and hoteliers are under such scrutiny related to ensuring that they deliver the service that todays demanding guest expects, they should not have to worry about the technology that supports their operations.

The technology provider needs to recognize the hotel landscape and how it has changed over the years - along with guest expectations. The technology partner must have some of the same priorities and objectives as the hotelier and what is needed to optimize efficiently and profitably. The technology partner actually needs to serve as a technological extension of the hotel itself. The relationship is truly a bond.

When your technology partner has effectively the same DNA within their team as the hotelier has within their operations, the service element is at the forefront. A hotelier needs to feel confident that their tech partner has got their back at all times - whether there is an issue with the platform or there is a front desk person who just needs a little help. If the technology partner has a knowledgeable support team with the same passion for service that hoteliers have for their brand promise to their guest, then this is truly a win-win scenario.

When deciding on a new technology platform a large number of hoteliers will look at features, functions and how well the platform will integrate with their other systems. These are all very valid areas of concern that need to be addressed to determine the right fit, however hoteliers need to spend more time reviewing the support and service that they will be receiving from their technology partner. A good place to start is asking for references, talking to their peers and researching the support operations center performance. If the level of service is not there, then the implementation will not be a success, and there will likely be long term negative consequences.

Service excellence and the hotel industry DNA need to infiltrate every department within your technology partners business. If it isnt there, maybe you need to take a look somewhere else.

About the Author:

Jos Schaap, CEO  Founder of StayNTouch

Jos has a 20+ year track record in hotel software technology. He began StayNTouch with the vision of re-inventing the hotel PMS technology; making it simple, mobile and transitioning the software to the cloud. Prior to StayNTouch, Jos spent 17 years at MICROS Systems Inc. (Now Oracle Hospitality), as a Senior Vice President in charge of global product development and strategy for the Lodging and eCommerce divisions. During his tenure, MICROS hospitality products became the global market leader growing the companys revenues from less than $300 million to $1.1 billion. Jos was responsible for introducing a number of new products enabling MICROS to enter all hospitality segments from limited to full-service hotels. Connect with Jos on linkedin.com/in/josschaap.

About StayNTouch

StayNTouch is a Software as a Service hotel property management systems (PMS) company focused on developing solutions that help hotels raise service levels, drive revenues, reduce costs, and ultimately change the way hotels can captivate their guests. Developed with mobility in mind, the pioneering platform enables hotels to create long lasting relationships with their guests by delivering personalized service levels that todays guests require. StayNTouch operates on tablets and smartphones, empowering hotel employees to go above and beyond in exceeding guest expectations at every touch point.

Powering over 75,000 rooms globally, our game-changing solution frees hotels from the constraints of legacy or premise systems, dramatically streamlines operations, increases margins, and revolutionizes how front-line staff connect with guests. StayNTouch is a trusted partner to many of the most forward thinking hotels, resorts, casinos and chains in the industry, including Yotel, Zoku Amsterdam, Valencia Hotels, The Freehand Hotels, Modus hotels and the Fontainebleau Miami Beach.




Home2 Suites by Hilton Houston Webster

Located at 600 West Texas Avenue, Home2 Suites by Hilton Houston Webster offers guests access to NASA Johnson Space Center, Challenger Seven Memorial Park, Clear Lake Regional Medical Center, Galveston Island and Houston's downtown area.

Home2 Suites by Hilton announced last week its newest property, Home2 Suites by Hilton Houston Webster. Designed for travelers who want to maintain their normal routine, the hotel features 91 suites and a range of value, tech-focused and eco-conscious amenities. Home2 Suites by Hilton Houston Webster, halfway between the Houston and Galveston-metro areas, will help to welcome the more than 26.5 million visitors that visited the region in 2016.

"Southeast Texas has welcomed Home2 Suites with open arms, and our property is excited to continue the brand's expansion in this increasingly popular region," said Matthew Hovorak, general manager. "In addition to offering guests a tremendous mix of amenities that deliver convenience and value, our hotel welcomes guests to interact whether unwinding at the fitness center or enjoying the pool."

Owned by LH Webster LLC and managed by Lodgic Hospitality LLC, Home2 Suites by Hilton Houston Webster offers all-suite accommodations with fully equipped kitchens and modular furniture, providing guests the flexibility to customize their suite to their style and preference. The hotel also features complimentary Internet, inviting communal spaces, and trademark Home2 Suites amenities such as Spin2 Cycle, a combined laundry and fitness area, Home2 MKT for grab-and-go items, and the Inspired Table, a complimentary daily breakfast that includes more than 400 potential combinations. Guests can also enjoy an outdoor saline pool, outdoor grills and a relaxing fire pit in the evening. Home2 Suites by Hilton Houston Webster is pet-friendly.

Located at 600 West Texas Avenue, Home2 Suites by Hilton Houston Webster offers guests access to NASA Johnson Space Center, Challenger Seven Memorial Park, Clear Lake Regional Medical Center, Galveston Island and Houston's downtown area.
Rendering of the Hilton Jeddah Al Salamah District Hotel

Hilton (NYSE: HLT) announced the signing of a management agreement with Fahd Abdallah al-Harbi & Sons Limited to open DoubleTree by Hilton Jeddah Al Salamah District in Saudi Arabia. The hotel is expected to begin welcoming guests in Q1 2020.

"Saudi Arabia features our largest pipeline in the Middle East, and we are pleased to be expanding our portfolio in the country with the addition of this property," said Carlos Khneisser, vice president of development, Middle East, North Africa & Turkey, Hilton. "As Saudi Arabia's second largest city and the biggest seaport in the Red Sea[1], Jeddah is a key business and leisure destination. We are delighted to have signed the first DoubleTree by Hilton property in Jeddah and are confident that the upscale brand is a good fit for the city."

DoubleTree by Hilton Jeddah Al Salamah District will be conveniently located just 10 kilometres from King Abdulaziz International Airport. It will be near Al Madina Al Munawwarah Road, the main artery connecting the airport with the rest of Jeddah, offering easy access to Jeddah's business districts. The 114-guest room hotel will feature a fitness centre, outdoor pool and spa, and will also offer a business centre, large multifunctional meeting room, meeting room and boardroom. Dining options include an all-day dining restaurant and a lobby cafe.

"We look forward to welcoming travellers to Jeddah with DoubleTree by Hilton's unique style of hospitality, which begins with our signature, warm DoubleTree cookie upon arrival and continues with excellent service throughout a guest's stay, said Dianna Vaughan, senior vice president and global head, DoubleTree by Hilton.

Jeddah has a large port and is home to several company headquarters, making it a logistical and commercial hub. In addition, King Abdulaziz International Airport offers direct flights to destinations around the world, and expansion plans are expected to increase the capacity of the airport to approximately 80 million passengers by 2035[2]. The airport also features a Hajj terminal built specifically for pilgrims going to Makkah - Jeddah acts as a gateway to the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah,. The area is also a popular destination for travellers within Saudi Arabia because of its location along the coast of the Red Sea and its range of retail and dining options.

Fahd Abdalah Abdelrahman al-Harbi, the principal shareholder of Fahd Abdallah al-Harbi & Sons Limited together with Finesse Al Finesse, the owner representative and CEO of Vin & K development company, said, "We are very pleased to have partnered with Hilton to open this upscale hotel. DoubleTree by Hilton is a leading brand globally with a strong presence in Saudi Arabia - we are confident this hotel will meet the highest standards in international hospitality."
Why Affordable Luxury Hotel Brands Are Heading to Asia

Yotel and CitizenM might be better known in Europe and the United States but it wont be long before they become familiar brands in Asia.

These affordable luxury hotel brands are making headway in the region as they embark on a spate of new launches across many of its most popular destinations.

CitizenM, which blazed a trail in European cities for its trendy vibe at pocket-friendly room rates has welcomed its first guests in Taipei this month and is already expanding its footprint with outposts in Kuala Lumpur and Shanghai next year. Meanwhile Yotel, which defines modern luxury as having everything guests need at their fingertips, is focussing on Singapore. Its Orchard Road hotel will be launching in September and its first Asian airport hotel will open at the city states Changi in 2019.

Joining these sizeable players is Azerai, a new brand by legendary hotelier Adrian Zecha whos behind the gilded Aman hotels. Azerai made his debut in Luang Prabang in Laos in May with rooms going for US$250 a night.

Sweet stay, better price tag

Affordable luxury hotels are increasingly common as the concept of luxury democratises. According to a report by Euromonitor, affordable luxury has emerged as a growing sector a result of the up-scaling of mass market accommodation options and the anti-premiumization of the traditional luxury market.

The concept of luxury is changing, its no longer just razzle-dazzle extravagances for high net worth travelers such as room service from crisply dressed waiters or expensive spa treatments. The idea of luxury is more about well-designed rooms and unique experiences which allow time to relax yet also enable them to remain easily connected to the outside world, observes Frank Sorgiovanni, Head of Research for Hotels and Hospitality at JLL Asia Pacific.

Since consumers are willing and able to spend on travel more frequently thanks to higher disposable income globally, there is a demand for properties that offer such luxuries at friendlier price points as seen in the success of these hotel brands such as 25 Hours and CitizenM.

At the same time, travelers are becoming savvier in how they spend their money so any hotel that can offer all the creature comforts from orthopaedic mattresses to walk-in showers in a compact room at a substantially lower rate over a nearby upscale or luxury property is a tempting alternative, adds Sorgiovanni.

Expanding East

Asias large travel market with a booming middle class and competitive low-cost airlines catering to them is naturally attractive as a region for affordable luxury brands to expand into.

Its not just international brands targeting affordable luxury in Asia Pacific; home grown versions are also building a presence in this new space. Besides Azerai, there is Ovolo from Hong Hong, described as luxury boutique and Tribe from Australia which promises an edited hotel experience geared towards their target audience of tech-savvy travelers who want a slice of luxury without the big price tag.

There is no shortage of accommodation options in Asia which offer great value, but hotel guest expectations in this region have also risen, says Sorgiovanni. Its not enough to be reasonably priced. Well-traveled tourists whove been to Europe and the U.S. expect the same level of amenities and experiences as what theyve had overseas.

Source - JLL Real Views
6 Tips for HRs to Reduce Office Expenses

Posted by Amit Sen on Tuesday, 08-15-2017 2:21 am

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HRs are not just for recruiting employees and tackling staff grievances. A senior HR manager also plays a crucial role in handling the expenses of the office, especially in relation to employee and clients. Have you just been promoted to the role of senior HR manager? Thats great. As a responsible HR manager, you must be seeking for ways to cut down on unnecessary business expenditures. Well, nothing to worry- the post below has laid down 6 tips for HRs to reduce office expenses. Plan a systematic recruitment campaign A systematic approach goes a long way in curtailing unnecessary expenditures. There are several job search portals today and its natural that your company posts its recruitment ad on as many platforms possible. But honestly, not all portals can reward with same prospects. Thus, check out the report of the previous recruitment campaign. See which platforms gave your company the maximum number of compatible candidates. You are sure to find a couple of portals that did not...

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When baby boomers took their first real jobs upon entering the workforce, their demands and expectations were ridiculously low by todays standards. On their first day on the job they got an employee handbook that they took home and scanned while eating dinner or watching TV. Company training, if there was any, was minimal. For the most part, they accepted the idea that it was normal to feel ignorant and unskilled in the first weeks or months on a new job. They expected to learn the ropes by making mistakes. When it came to promotions, most boomers were equally willing to proceed by trial and error. Nobody told them, Here is just what you need to do to get ahead in our company . . . here is the next position well be considering you for. One day in the hazy future, they hoped that their bosses would call them in and say, We just gave you a promotion . . . you may leave early and take the family to dinner to celebrate. Was there feedback? Of course, there was. There were quarterly, semiannual, or yearly job reviews that usually followed the script, Heres what youve been doing wrong, heres where you need to improveso do it, session over. In short, many baby boomers were happy to toil away in black boxes, learning jobs and building careers in a loose way that would seem absurd to the members of todays younger millenn...
We work towards an equitable,

gender-just, self-reliant and

sustainable fisheries,

particularly in the small-scale,

artisanal sector

We work towards an equitable,

gender-just, self-reliant and

sustainable fisheries,

particularly in the small-scale,

artisanal sector

We work towards an equitable,

gender-just, self-reliant and

sustainable fisheries,

particularly in the small-scale,

artisanal sector

We work towards an equitable,

gender-just, self-reliant and

sustainable fisheries,

particularly in the small-scale,

artisanal sector
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Yemen's Central Bank, based in the country's south, is accusing a Saudi-led coalition of blocking flights bringing cash to the country and strangling its economy.

Governor Mansr al-Qaiti says the blockade deprives Yemen's internationally-recognised government of the ability to pay salaries for 1 million civil servants.

He says the coalition, which is fighting Shiite Houthi rebels to restore al-Qaiti's government, banned 13 flights carrying cash to the southern port city of Aden since April, without justification or clear reason.

Sunday's statement expressed deep regret for such impediments, saying they undermine the bank's daily business and accusing the coalition of strangling Yemen's economy.

The situation in Yemen Show all 14 1 /14 The situation in Yemen The situation in Yemen Houthi supporters trample on a US flag during a gathering mobilizing more fighters into several Yemeni battlefronts, in Sana'a, Yemen EPA The situation in Yemen People carry the coffins of men, who were killed in the recent Saudi-led airstrikes during their funeral, in the Old City of Sanaa, Yemen AP The situation in Yemen Pro-government fighters give food to Yemeni children on the road leading to the southwestern port city of Mokha. Yemeni rebels are putting up fierce resistance in a key Red Sea port city where they are encircled by pro-government force Getty Images The situation in Yemen A Yemeni stands in front of a graffiti protesting US military operations in war-affected Yemen, in Sana'a, Yemen. According to reports, US Special Forces troops allegedly disembarked from US helicopters in the Yemeni town of Yakla and attacked several houses belonging to members of the terrorist group Al-Qaeda, killing three high-ranking Al-Qaeda members and nine civilians, six women and three children. One American serviceman has been killed and three injured in the attack EPA The situation in Yemen US Special Forces troops allegedly disembarked from US helicopters in the Yemeni town of Yakla and attacked several houses belonging to members of the terrorist group Al-Qaeda, killing three high-ranking Al-Qaeda members and nine civilians, six women and three children. One American serviceman has been killed and three injured in the attack EPA The situation in Yemen A Yemeni female fighter supporting the Shiite Huthi rebels, and carrying weapons used for ceremonial purposes, takes part in an anti-Saudi rally in the capital Sanaa Getty Images The situation in Yemen Yemeni female fighters supporting the Shiite Huthi rebels, and carrying weapons used for ceremonial purposes, take part in an anti-Saudi rally in the capital Sanaa Getty Images The situation in Yemen A boy shouts slogans next to pro-Houthi fighters, who have been injured during recent fighting, during a rally held to honour those injured or maimed while fighting in Houthi ranks in Sanaa, Yemen Reuters The situation in Yemen Balls of fire and smoke rise from a Houthi-held military camp following alleged Saudi-led airstrikes, in Sana'a, Yemen EPA The situation in Yemen Yemenis search under the rubble of damaged houses following reported Saudi-led coalition air strikes on the outskirts of the Yemeni capital Sanaa Getty Images The situation in Yemen A Yemeni boy looks on as Yemenis search under the rubble of damaged houses following reported Saudi-led coalition air strikes on the outskirts of the Yemeni capital Sanaa Getty The situation in Yemen A Yemeni boy sits amidst the rubble of damaged houses following reported Saudi-led coalition air strikes on the outskirts of the Yemeni capital Sanaa AFP/Getty The situation in Yemen Marine One with US President Donald Trump flies with a decoy and support helicopters to Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware, for the dignified transfer of Navy Seal Chief Petty Officer William 'Ryan' Owens who was killed in Yemen Getty Images The situation in Yemen US President Donald Trump aboard the Marine One to greet the remains of a US military commando killed during a raid on the al Qaeda militant group in southern Yemen on Sunday, at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, US Reuters

Since the Houthis overran northern Yemen and seized the capital, Sanaa, the government has worked from Aden.

Al-Qaiti's remarks reflect deep divisions between the coalition and the government.

Associated Press
Internet Wallpapers

New Delhi, Aug 11 (IBNS): A Mauritius-based investor, Royale Partners Investment Fund, on Friday said it has offered to invest $1.67 billion (over Rs10,700 crore) in embattled Sahara groupas Aamby Valley project, a press release from Sahara Corporate Communications said.

The investment offer, proposed as a debt arrangement, comes at a time when the Supreme Court has ordered auction of the Aamby Valley resort town between Mumbai and Pune in Maharashtra.

Sahara group pegs the market valuation of this project at over Rs 1 trillion. Royale Partners Investment Fund Limited, registered in Mauritius as a global business company, is owned by Dubai- headquartered RPMG Investment which is into investment management, private equity, asset management and proprietary trading.

Saharas advocate Gautam Awasthi, meanwhile, said in a statement that the group had moved an application before the Supreme Court seeking permission for entering into an agreement with Victor Koenig UK Limited, with the nominee Royale Partners Investment Fund Limited, for inviting an investment of $1.67 billion into its Aamby Valley project.

The Supreme Court on Thursday said the auction process will go on according to the schedule, but if Rs 1,500 crore is paid, as proposed by the group, into the Sebi-Sahara refund account by September 7, then it may pass an appropriate order.

The group had asked the court to postpone the auction, which is to start with publication of a notice on 14 August, till 16 September to enable Sahara group chief Subrata Roy arrange the money.

Sahara lawyer told the court that hotels in New York have been sold and soon money would be coming into the Sahara account after which Rs1,500 crore would be deposited into the Sebi-Sahara refund account by September 7, as had been directed by the court.

The Sahara group ha been engaged in a legal battle with SEBI since long for failing to refund billions of dollars to investors in a bond programme.
Berlin, Aug 15 (IBNS): Inflammatory processes in the liver lead to elevated cholesterol levels in people with diabetes, thus promoting subsequent vascular diseases.

This is the result of a study by scientists of Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen, Technische Universitat Munchen (TUM) and the Collaborative Research Center SFB 1118 at Heidelberg University Hospital.

The paper, which has now been published in the journal Cell Reports, presents a previously unknown mechanism.

Vascular diseases play a key role among the long-term complications in people with diabetes. Cardiovascular diseases are the most common reason for all hospitalizations, accounting for 75 percent, and these diseases are responsible for fifty percent of all deaths. An important risk factor for atherosclerosis, circulatory disorders and vascular complications is elevated cholesterol.*

Even if blood glucose levels are well controlled, some people with diabetes have a higher risk of long-term complications. We wanted to understand the underlying cause for this, said metabolism researcher Dr. Mauricio Berriel Diaz, deputy director of the Institute for Diabetes and Cancer (IDC) at Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen. He conducted the study together with Professor Stephan Herzig, director of the IDC and chair of Molecular Metabolic Control at TUM. Herzig is also the co-spokesman of the DFG Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 1118, which is studying the influence of disturbed metabolic processes on long-term diabetes complications at Heidelberg University Hospital.

In their study, the researchers focused on inflammatory processes that are known to occur in many metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes and obesity and contribute significantly to long-term complications.

Specifically, they concentrated on the inflammatory cytokine TNF- (tumor necrosis factor ), which is known to induce the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS)** in the liver. The scientists demonstrated that these ROS inactivate the transcription factor complex GAbp (GA-binding protein).

In experimental models, this loss in turn inhibited the protein AMPK, an energy sensor of the cell. As a result, excess cholesterol was produced, and typical atherosclerosis symptoms developed.

Our data suggest that the liver plays a key role in the development of common diabetic vascular diseases," said first author Dr. Katharina Niopek, researcher at the IDC. "GAbp appears to be a molecular regulator at the interface between inflammation, cholesterol homeostasis and atherosclerosis. Without its protective effect, this leads to hypercholesterolemia *** and increased lipid deposition in the arteries.

Since initial patient data supported our findings, the new signaling pathway regardless of how well the blood glucose levels of the patient are controlled  may be a key component in the development of long-term diabetes complications which could be utilized therapeutically, said Herzig, who led the study.

Image:wikimedia commons
Mumbai, Aug 15 (IBNS): Etihad Airways and LakmA Fashion Week on Tuesday announced a collaboration with one of the most lauded and inspiring international contemporary designers, Paris-based Manish Arora, who returns to the prestigious Mumbai fashion event after more than five years.

The celebrated Indian couturier marks the 10th anniversary of his colourful Paris collection by presenting CosmicLove at the Lakme Fashion Week Winter Festive 2017 on Aug 19.

His show, Etihad Airways Presents Manish Arora, will take the star-studded audience of Bollywood celebrities, lifestyle media and fashion lovers on a visual journey that spans the tribes of Africa and the outer reaches of the universe.



Known for his astute craftsmanship and unique play on colours  his trademark being pink and gold  Aroras designs are inspired by Indian heritage but with a contemporary vibe.

Etihad Airways flew Manish Arora on its recently-launched Airbus A380 Paris  Abu Dhabi service and onwards to India, capturing his journey on film from the French capital to Delhi, during which he speaks candidly about his inspiration from the varied cultures and environment for his renowned creations.

From the iconic Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe and the fashionable Canal Saint-Martin in Paris to Delhis historic India Gate and one of the countrys oldest and busiest markets, Chandni Chowk, the video charts Manish Aroras trip that also takes in his flagship stores in both cities. Watch the video here https://youtu.be/DyKynRER3OI

Manish Arora said: I am delighted to celebrate the 10th anniversary of my Paris collection CosmicLove by showcasing it during Lakme Fashion Week. The line I am bringing to Mumbai is inspired by the tribes of Africa and outer reaches of the cosmos. Having spent 10 years of my working life in Paris after launching my career in Delhi, I have drawn much inspiration from my travels to the work I create. Its wonderful to be associated with Etihad Airways, an airline I have admired and travelled with for so many years.

The collaboration with Manish Arora is the latest initiative by the Abu Dhabi-based carrier to demonstrate its position as the fashion industrys preferred airline. This will be the airlines third presence at Lakme Fashion Week over the past 12 months, further elevating its premium brand presence alongside the worlds most revered luxury names.

Last year, Etihad Airways struck a comprehensive global agreement with WME | IMG to become a long-term partner of the fashion community. The relationship helps further connect the airline with fashion capitals of the world and build travel loyalty with this vibrant sector.

Patrick Pierce, Etihad Airways Vice President Marketing Partnerships, said: Working with esteemed designers such as Manish Arora strengthens Etihad Airways commitment to the fashion industry, where we are fast becoming the airline of choice. Our video is a unique portrait of Manishs journey back to Lakme Fashion Week, one of the leading events on the international fashion calendar.

Mumbai is the latest stop in Etihad Airways global fashion calendar, supporting 17 mens and womens fashion events worldwide every year, with shows in London, Milan and New York following next month.

Jaspreet Chandok, Head-Fashion, IMG Reliance Ltd, added: It is a moment of absolute pride for us to announce the return of Manish Arora to Lakme Fashion Week. The tie-up between a global brand such as Etihad Airways and Indias greatest fashion export Manish Arora is organic on many levels and will lead to a showcase that people will remember for a long time.

During Lakme Fashion Week, Etihad Airways will present Runway to Runway, an exclusive travel programme tailored specifically to the international fashion community, including editors, designers, models, photographers, stylists, students of fashion, bloggers and fashion industry executives, plus the global community of fashion devotees. Visitors will be encouraged to sign up and enjoy benefits such as airport lounge access and priority boarding and check-in.
New Delhi, Aug 15 (IBNS) Addressing the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort on India's 71st Independence Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in Jammu and Kashmir, t neither abuses, nor bullets, but only embracing, can solve the problems in the State.

"Na gaali se, na goli se, parivartan hoga gale lagaane se ( Not with abuses, neither with bullets but with embracing change will come)," he said in his speech.

In his speech, the PM recalled the great women and men who worked hard for India's freedom. He said the people of India stand shoulder to shoulder with those affected due to natural disasters, and the tragedy in Gorakhpur.

The Prime Minister noted that the current year is special, because it marks the 75th anniversary of the Quit India Movement; the 100th anniversary of Champaran Satyagraha; and the 125th anniversary of the celebration of Saarvjanik Ganesh Utsav  inspired by Bal Gangadhar Tilak.

The Prime Minister said that the nation had shown its collective strength between 1942 and 1947, culminating in Indias independence. He said that we must show the same collective determination and resolve to create a New India by 2022. He emphasized that everyone is equal in our nation, and together we can bring about a qualitative transformation.

The Prime Minister called for an end to the chalta hai attitude of complacency, and its replacement with an attitude of badal sakta hai for positive change.

Modi said that Indias security is our priority, and the surgical strike had underscored this. He added that Indias stature in the world is rising, and several countries are cooperating with India in fighting the menace of terrorism.

On demonetization, he said that those who have looted the nation, and the poor, are not able to sleep peacefully, and honesty is being celebrated today. He asserted that the fight against black money will continue, and technology will help bring about transparency. He encouraged people to further promote digital transactions.

The Prime Minister described the implementation of GST as a key illustration of cooperative federalism. He said the poor are joining the mainstream through initiatives of financial inclusion. He emphasized that good governance is about speed and simplification of processes.

Describing his vision for New India, the Prime Minister said that people would be the driving force behind the establishment, rather than the other way around  Tantra se Lok nahin, Lok se tantra chalega.

The Prime Minister appreciated the farmers and the agriculture scientists for record crop production this year. He said the Government had procured 16 lakh tonnes of pulses this year, far in excess of the procurement of previous years.

The Prime Minister said the changing nature of technology is resulting in the requirement of different skill-sets for employment. He also added that the youth is being nurtured to become job-creators, and not job-seekers.

Mentioning women who have to suffer due to Triple Talaq, the Prime Minister said that he admires the courage of those who have stood up against this practice, and added that the nation stands with them in their struggle.

The Prime Minister said India stands for peace, unity, and harmony. He said casteism and communalism will not help us. He strongly condemned the use of violence in the name of faith, and said this will not be accepted in India. He said the call of the Quit India Movement was Bharat Chhodo, but the call today is Bharat Jodo.

The Prime Minister said significant attention is being paid to the development of eastern and north-eastern India. He said the Government has taken India on new tracks of development, without slackening pace.

Quoting from scriptures, the Prime Minister said that if we do not take the right step at the right time, we do not achieve desired results. He said this is the right time for Team India to resolve for New India.

He called for a New India where the poor would have houses, and access to water and electricity; where farmers would be free from worry, and would earn twice of what they earn today; youth and women would get ample opportunities to fulfil their dreams; an India free from terrorism, communalism, casteism, corruption and nepotism; and an India which is clean and healthy.

The Prime Minister announced the launch of a website to honour gallantry award winners.
New Delhi, Aug 15 (IBNS) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday launched a new website to honour all the gallantry award winners since Independence.

Announcing the launch of the website http://gallantryawards.gov.in/ in a series of tweets, the Prime Minister said the portal will preserve and tell the stories of our bravest men and women, civilians as well as armed forces personnel.

In remembrance of our heroes who have been awarded gallantry awards since Independence, launched the site http://gallantryawards.gov.in/

In remembrance of our heroes who have been awarded gallantry awards since Independence, launched the site https://t.co/4aZmAC92zG  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 15, 2017

The portal http://gallantryawards.gov.in/ will preserve & tell the stories of our bravest men & women, civilians as well as armed forces personnel, he posted.

"If you have any information/photo that is missing and can be added to the portal, please share it through the feedback link on the site,, the Prime Minister said.
Kathmandu, Aug 15 (BNS): The Indian Embassy in Nepal celebrated the 71st Indian Independence Day at its premises, on Tuesday, according to media reports.

The ceremony began with hoisting of the national flag by Ambassador of India Manjeev Singh Puri who then read out the message of the President of India.

The Presidents message highlighted the achievements of India in various fields in the past 70 years.





At the event, Ambassador Puri distributed cheques worth NPRs.5.73 crore and blankets to 15 widows, next of kins and two wards of deceased soldiers of Indian Armed Forces.

Books were also donated to 61 libraries, educational and training institutions located in different regions of Nepal, including in remote districts.



On this occasion, 30 ambulances and six buses were gifted to various hospitals, non-profit charitable organizations and educational institutions of different districts to strengthen education and health services in Nepal in a reaffirmation on the commitment of the Government of Indias support to Nepal in its journey towards development.



Students of Indian Culture Centre, Kendriya Vidyalaya and Modern Indian School sang patriotic songs. A performance by the Indian Music Band Astitva was also made at the event.



According to a release from the Indian Embassy in Nepal. since 1994, the Government of India has gifted 632 ambulances to various organizations across 73 districts in Nepal. This has helped in bringing healthcare services to the doorstep of thousands of people who do not have easy access to health centres. India has also so far gifted 124 buses to various educational and welfare institutions, making access to education easier for thousands of students.

The 71st Independence Day of India was celebarated at the premises of Embassy of India on August 15, 2017. More @ https://t.co/xujM4kkdgK pic.twitter.com/CSCzX4eZWb  IndiaInNepal (@IndiaInNepal) August 15, 2017





The 71st Independence Day function was attended by Embassy officials, their families, members of the Indian community and other guests.

The ceremony concluded with a performance by the Nepal Army Band.



Images: IndiainNepal/Twitter
New Delhi, Aug 15 (IBNS): President of India, Ram Nath Kovind, paid tribute to the Indian soldiers at the Amar Jawan Jyoti, India Gate, New Delhi, on Tuesday, on the occasion of the country's 71st Independence Day.

The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Armed Forces.

President Kovind laid a wreath at the memorial and singed the visitor's book.

The three Service Chiefs: Admiral Sunil Lanba, General Bipin Rawat and Air Chief Marshal B.S. Dhanoa were also present during the President's visit.

On Monday, addressing the nation, the President said, "On August 15, 1947, we became a free nation. Sovereignty and the responsibility for our destiny moved from the British crown to the people of India. Some have called this process a transfer of power.

It was much more than that. It was the culmination of a dream for our country  a dream seen by our forefathers and freedom fighters. We were free to imagine and build our nation anew.

It is crucial to understand that this dream for a free India was rooted in our ordinary villages, in the well-being of our poor and underprivileged, and in the all-round development of our country."

He also reminded everyone about the sacrifice made by the countless freedom fighters.

Later tweeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi, "Rashtrapati Ji perfectly summed up Indias rich past, our vibrant present & roadmap for a New India in his address today."

Rashtrapati Ji perfectly summed up Indias rich past, our vibrant present & roadmap for a New India in his address today. @rashtrapatibhvn  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 14, 2017



Images: PIB
New Delhi, Aug 15 (IBNS): Although Assam has been reeling under severe flood and disruption in activities, the calamity could not stop school children and others in the flood-affected districts from observing the 71st Independence Day.

The All India Radio tweeted a series of pics showing how the school children and other enthusiasts braved the waters to hoist the Tricolour in flood-affected Nagaon, Dhubri and Barpeta districts of Assam.

A tweet from the official handle of the Chief Minister Assam said, "As Assam faces its worst flood in decades, I offer my deepest sympathies to those affected by it & condolences to the deceased: CM"

As Assam faces its worst flood in decades, I offer my deepest sympathies to those affected by it & condolences to the deceased: CM  Chief Minister Assam (@CMOfficeAssam) August 15, 2017

According to media reports, the flood has so far affected 25 districts and snapped railway lines too. As of Monday, the total loss of lives has gone up to 102, media reported.



Images: AIRNews/Twitter


New Delhi, Aug 15 (IBNS) Prime Minster Narendra Modi today addressed the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort on the 71th Independence Day. Following are the highlights from his speech:

1. Greetings to my fellow Indians on Independence Day.

2. For the freedom and glory of the country, those who have contributed, those who suffered and sacrificed their lives, I salute all those noble souls, mothers and sisters on behalf of 125 crore people of the country from the ramparts of the Red Fort.

3. We remember the great women and men who worked hard for India's freedom.

4. People of India stand shoulder to shoulder with those affected in the wake of natural disasters in parts of the country & the death of children in the hospital.

5. This is a special year- 75th anniversary of Quit India, 100th anniversary of Champaran Satyagraha, 125th anniversary of Ganesh Utsav.

6. The Quit India Movement was Bharat Chhodo, but the call today is Bharat Jodo.

7. We have to take the country ahead with the determination of creating a 'New India'.

8. From 1942 to 1947, the country had demonstrated collective strength, in the coming 5 years, we have to take the country forward with the same collective strength, commitment and hard work.

9. In our nation, there is no one big or small...everybody is equal. Together we can bring a positive change in the nation.

10. We have to move forward for making a New India with the collective strength of 125 crore people without any discrimination of small and big people.

11. 1st January 2018 will not be an ordinary day- those born in this century will start turning 18. They are Bhagya Vidhatas of our nation.

12. We have to leave this 'Chalta Hai' attitude. We have to think of 'Badal Sakta Hai'- this attitude will help us as a nation.

13. The country has changed, is changing and can change. We have to move forward with this belief and commitment.

14. Security of the country is our priority. Internal security is our priority. Whether it is our oceans or borders, cyber world or space for all kind of security India is capable to defeat all such inimical forces.

15. Our uniformed forces have achieved the pinnacle of sacrifice in fighting left-wing extremism, terrorism, infiltration and elements disturbing peace. The world had to recognise the strength of India and it clout in the surgical strike.

16. One rank, One Pension policy has boosted the morale of our security forces.

17. Those who have looted the nation and looted the poor are not able to sleep peacefully today.

18. No law was passed for those having Benami property for years. However after the recent passage of the Benami Act, within a short span of time, government has confiscated Benami property worth Rs. 800 crores when these things happen, common men feel that this country is for the honest people.

19. Today, we are celebrating the festival of honesty.

20. GST has shown the spirit of cooperative federalism. The nation has come together to support GST & the role of technology has also helped.

21. Today, the poor of the country is joining the main stream and the country is moving torwards the path of progress.

22. Good governance is about speed and simplification of processes.

23. India's stature in the world is rising. The world is with us in fighting the menace of terror. I thank all nations helping us doing so.

24. We have to work for the progress of Jammu and Kashmir.

25. There is no question of being soft of terrorism or terrorists.

26. Neither by bullet: nor by abuses but by hugging we can solve the problem of Kashmir.

27. Our fight against black money and corruption will continue. We are trying to bring transparency through technology.

28. There is no question of being soft on terrorism or terrorists.

29. People would be the driving force behind the establishment, rather than the other way around  Tantra se Lok nahin, Lok se tantra chalega.

30. New India will be the biggest strength of democracy.

31. Nature of job is changing with changing demand and changing technology.

32. We are nurturing our youngsters to be job creators and not job seekers.

33. I want to mention those women who have to suffer due to 'Triple Talaq'- I admire their courage. We are with them in their struggles.

34. India is about Shanti, Ekta and Sadbhavana. Casteism and communalism will not help us.

35. Violence in the name of 'Astha' is not something to be happy about, it will not be accepted in India.

36. The country is being run by peace, unity and harmony. It is our civilisation and culture to take everybody along.

37. We are taking the nation on a new track (of development) and are moving ahead with speed.

38. We are devoting significant attention to eastern India- Bihar, Assam, West Bengal, Odisha, Northeast. These parts have to grow further.

39. Our farmers have worked hard to ensure a Record foodgrain production.

40. Over 5.75 crore farmers have been covererd under Pradhan Mantri Fasal Beema Yojaana.

41. Under Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana, 30 projects have been completed while work is on for 50 more projects.

42. Under Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samapada Yojana we are providing handholding to the farmers from availing seeds to accessing the markets for their produce.

43. More than 14000 un-electrified villages have been electrified.

44. 29 crore JanDhan accounts opened.

45. More than 8 crore youth have received loans without any guarantee.

46. We are fighting corruption - for the bright future of India and the wellbeing of our people.

47. Our fight against black money and corruption will continue and move forward and the loot in the country will not be allowed.

48. Our strive for a Corruption Free India has yielded results.

49. Black money worth Rs. 1.25 lakh cror has been unearthed.

50. Over 1.75 lakh fake companies have been shut down.

51. Post GST savings and efficiency in transportation sector has increased. Efficiency has gone up by 30 percent.

52. More money has come to the banks due to demonetization which will give impetus to the economy.

53. Our country has the worlds largest youth population. Today is the era of IT and lets move ahead on the path of digital transaction.

54. Let us lead from front, promote digital economy and adopt the Bhim App.

55. We have moved from Co-operative Federalism to Competitive Co-operative federalism.

56. It had been said in the old scriptures that if a work is not completed on time, one does not get the desired results.

57. For the Team India it is the right time to commit for a New India.

58. We shall build together an India, where the poor will have concrete houses with water and electricity connection.

59. We will build such an India, where the farmers will have a peaceful sleep without any worry. He will earn double than what he is earning today.

60. Our resolve is to build an India, which provides all the opportunities to the youth and women to fulfil their dreams.

61. Our resolve is to build such an India, free from terrorism, communalism and casteism.

62. We will build together an India, where there will be no place for nepotism and corruption.

63. We will build together such an India, which will be clean, healthy and fulfil the dream of self-rule (Swaraj).

64. We aspire to build a Divya and Bhavya Bharat.
Srinagar, Aug 15 (IBNS) Separatist-led strike has paralysed life in Kashmir region on India's 71st Independence Day, police said, as security has been beefed up across Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday.

The call for complete strike has been given by the hardliner Hurriyat leader, Syed Ali Gilani, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference Chairman, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, and JKLF chairman Muhammad Yasin Malik.

The top separatist leaders have either been placed under house arrest or detained inside police stations.

Mirwaiz Umer Farooq was placed under house on Sunday evening while Syed Ali Geelani continues to be under house arrest at his residence in Hyderpora area of the city.

All the shops, commercial establishments, schools, colleges, universities, petrol pumps were shut in the city while private and public transport was also were off the roads.

The authorities had deployed CRPF and police personnel in sensitive areas of Civil Lines including Lal Chowk, Budshah Chowk, Dalgate, Maisuma, Jehangir Chowk and Batamaloo to main security and law and order.

Earlier, a security blanket has been thrown around vital installations and checking intensified across Kashmir Valley ahead of Independence Day to thwart any attempt by militants to disrupt the celebrations.

Recent incidents of infiltration and most encounters in southern parts of Kashmir and ceasefire violations along the border have led to additional deployment of police and paramilitary forces in the state.

Meanwhile, authorities restored cellular and internet services across valley after suspending it for five hours in view of recent militant threats .

(Reporting by Saleem Qadri)
Srinagar, Aug 15 (IBNS): Reposing full faith in the Indian Supreme Court, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Tuesday said that she hopes the apex court will strike down the petition challenging the state's special status.

I have full faith in the Supreme Court. I have conviction that like in the past, this time as well, the Supreme Court will strike down (the petition challenging 35A), she said and urged the Indian government to resolve the Kashmir issue through dialogue.

She said that cutting across party lines, we all stand together to save the identity of the state whenever it is challenged.

Nobody can separate us when our identity and culture is at stake. We are united to save our special status, she said.

In her address at Bakshi Stadium Srinagar on the eve of Indias 70th Independence Day, Mufti lamented that youth in Kashmir instead of having pens in their hands have guns on their shoulders.

Kashmiryat is not seen anywhere in Kashmir but it is now seen in Jammu and Ladakh where people from all faiths walk shoulder to shoulder, she said.

Kashmir issue is a human issue that needs to be resolved within the framework of humanity," said the CM.

"I hope that the Central Government will bring Vajpayee Jis promise into practice and take the people of Jammu and Kashmir out of this whirlpool through dialogue. Dialogue is also in our agenda of alliance, she said.

She also appealed to Pakistan not play negative role in Kashmir.

Appealing to Pakistan to stop its negative role in Kashmir, Mehbooba Mufti said that Pakistan should engage India in a dialogue and help in the resolution of Kashmir issue.



(Reporting by Saleem Iqbal Qadri)


New Delhi, Aug 15 (IBNS): Indian and Chinese troops on Tuesday exchanged sweets at Nathu La mountain pass in Sikkim on the occasion of India's Independence Day.

However, reports said that there were no ceremonial meeting held between the officers of the Indian Army and China's People's Liberation Army as per the tradition.

Residents of the Nathu La area also got sweets from the Army as part of the Independence Day celebrations.

This comes after heightened tensions between India and China resulting from the Doklam plateau standoff in Bhutan.

The ongoing tensions had built up following the construction of a road by China in Bhutans Doklam region.
New York, Aug 15(Just Earth News): Amid a mudslide and flooding in Sierra Leone, Secretary-General AntAnio Guterres on Monday reiterated that the United Nations stands in solidarity with the Government and people in the ongoing rescue efforts.

In a statement attributable to his Deputy Spokesperson, the Secretary-General said he was saddened by the deaths and devastation throughout Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, and the town of Regent.

The Secretary-General extends his condolences to the people and Government of Sierra Leone for the loss of life and destruction caused by this natural disaster, the statement said.

Hundreds of people are believed to have died in the mudslide early this morning, many of whom were likely still sleeping.

Photo: Dominic Chavez/World Bank

Source: www.justearthnews.com
Dhaka, Aug 15 (IBNS): Security forces in Bangladesh on Tuesday killed a suspected terrorist during an operation at a hotel in Dhaka's Panthapath area.

Security forces conducted raid in the hotel.

The deceased person has been identified as Saiful Islam.

Saiful possibly died by exploding his suicide vest, Inspector General of Police Shahidul Haque was quoted as saying by The Daily Star, adding that he was involved with Islami Chhatra Shibir politics.

The operation conducted on Tuesday was codenamed as August Bite.

Image: Internet Wallpaper


Ottawa, Aug 15 (IBNS): Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday condemned the attack in Burkina Faso of West Africa where two of his countrymen had died.

In a statement, Trudeau called the attack as "cowardly".

The Canadian PM stated: "These cowardly acts seek to instill fear and divide us. In the face of hatred, we must stand united in the values of diversity, openness, and inclusion.

Around 18 people died in a suspected attack by jihadists at a restaurant in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, two days ago.

Out of 18, two persons who died were the Canadians.

According to Global News, Tammy Chen and Bilel Diffalah were the two Canadians killed in the attack. While the former worked with an NGO, the latter was involved in charity works.

The Canadian PM issued an official statement on his Twitter handle.

Read my statement on the terrorist attack that killed 18 people in Burkina Faso, including 2 Canadians: https://t.co/an9WKCjr1J  Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) August 15, 2017

Condemning the attack, Trudeau asserted his will to fight against terrorism globally. "Canada strongly condemns this heinous attack. People should not have to live in fear over their safety and security  no matter where they call home or where they travel. We will continue to work closely with the international community to fight terrorism and bring those responsible to justice."

The Prime Minister even offered his condolences to the families who had lost their close people in the attack.



(Reporting by Souvik Ghosh)

Image: Official Facebook page of Justin Trudeau.
Toronto, Aug 15 (IBNS): The Toronto police on Tuesday released few more images of the man who is wanted in a bomb threat investigation.

The Toronto police are in search of the man who created a panic on Sunday afternoon by saying he had a bomb with him and would blow it up while travelling in a busy south bound train of the city, media reports said.

The incident resulted in an unsafe evacuation, disrupting the railway transport at the Yonge-Bloor station. The culprit, however, flew away from the middle of the crowd.

The police got an access to some images of the accused from the security cameras.

On Tuesday, the Toronto police took to Twitter to share the pictures."Please RT-> Man wanted in bomb threat investigation~Bloor-Yonge Subway Station~Aug13/2017~New security camera images of man released ^mh" they tweeted.

Please RT-> Man wanted in bomb threat investigation~Bloor-Yonge Subway Station~Aug13/2017~New security camera images of man released ^mh pic.twitter.com/2xWNoIoZTc  Toronto Police (@TorontoPolice) August 15, 2017

The police have asked people to come forward if they could trace the person. Contact numbers provided by the police are 416-808-5100 and 9-1-1 for non-emergency and emergency cases respectively.



(Reporting by Souvik Ghosh)

Images: Official Twitter handle of Toronto Police.
Toronto, Aug 15 (IBNS): Dinesh Bhatia. Consul General of India in Toronto, hoisted the Indian tricolour in the consulate in Toronto this morning to celebrate the 71st Indian Independence Day amid a larger gathering.

Nearly 500 gathered people -- old, young and children  dressed in traditional as well as in formal attires from different walks of life like from media, industry, business celebrated the occasion as Ontario Games players cheered and applauded the flag hoisting ceremony conducted by Bhatia and his wife.

Bhatia in his speech attributed the independence of India to the sacrifices of great leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad, Ramprasad Bismil, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar-- known as the Father of Indian Constitution -- and countless others who gave their lives in the freedom movement.

Gandhijis philosophies in the nation building on honesty and truthfulness should be inculcated in every citizen of India, said Bhatia.

"He said Gandhji was not alone in his nationwide struggle for freedom for reform but also people like Ambedkar played a big role.

"Patel instilled in the people the spirit of nationality, integrity and discipline," he said adding that millions of people joined him in the struggle for Indias freedom.

He said Netaji Subhas Bose had told the people of India that he will give them freedom and under his leadership millions of people joined to fight for the freedom of India.

Nehru emphasized green heritage and traditions so dear to us could co-exist with technology to modernise our society.

Bhatia continued that the people of India and abroad should not forget the teachings of the great leaders, many of whom who had given their lives for Indias independence.

"We need to draw inspiration from these great leaders to ensure the prevalence of gentler and happier societies where people from different walks of life understand each other and live in peace and harmony without regardless of caste religion or status in life," he said.

Bhatia in his message to people of India said that the inequality amongst people should be eradicated for the nation to progress.

Bringing up the topic of girls education in India, he said that the advocacy of Beti Bachao, Beti Padao meaning that girls should be saved and educated should be adopted completely so that there is not a single uneducated girl in the whole nation.

Bhatia in his speech encouraged each rich Indian family to pay the fees of another girl of a poor family. It is the duty of all Indians to think of other peoples needs, besides their own. Bhatia in his message said that India would be a fully literate society in a few years.

Internet should be wide-spread, but should be used judicially, said Bhatia in his message, to further the cause of education.

He said it should be the duty of each and every citizen to follow the policies formed by the government. Indian Government is fighting to eradicate poverty from the nation and has adopted many practical ways of reducing the gap between the rich and the poor, he said and added the need of a strong partnership between the government and the citizens, between the individual and society, between the family and the public.

Bhatia added that 17 months back when he joined his office he had started several initiatives like provision of emergency services on the same day even on holidays, open house on every Friday where any body can come without any prior appointment and added that the number of complaints from people had reduced significantly.

(Reporting by Asha Bajaj)
Some big trends are happening in America for women, and these trends will likely be snowballing in the near future. The first trend: the growing financial muscle of women. The second: women's growing leadership. Add to this mix the upward trajectory of women's role in philanthropy, and you may have the makings of a paradigm shift.

In conversing with Debra Mesch, director of the Women's Philanthropy Institute, and Andrea Pactor, its associate director, I came away with a sense of how forces are aligning, now more than ever, for women to take the lead in philanthropy and beyond, and shape public policy for the common good.

Let's review the case for women's growing financial muscle. "Women are becoming the recipients of a massive transfer of wealth," said Mesch. A quick review of the numbers: $10-million-plus, women-owned firms increased by 57 percent in 2013. Forty-five percent of American millionaires are now women, and 48 percent of estates worth more than $5 million are controlled by women. In 2013, an estimated 60 percent of high-net-worth women made their own fortunes, and by some estimates, as much as two-thirds of all wealth in the U.S. will be controlled by women by the year 2030.

And the case for women's growing leadership? We are seeing more and more breakthroughs for women's leadership across the board, from religion to politics, from business to nonprofit, from the household to the White House. Hillary Clinton is the most obvious example of the perfect nexus of women's leadership and philanthropy, with her dual role as both a political and a philanthropic leader. This presidential race may yield the first female president, and it's no accident that she has a strong history in philanthropy, a field that has been ahead of the curve in pushing for promising social policy changes for women for several decades.

Add to this the women in communities forming giving circles. Scholars in the field are calling this process "the democratization of philanthropy," and the results of this massive cultural shift have yet to be fully realized.

But wait a minute. Let's back up. Where did all this momentum for women and philanthropy come from? Andrea Pactor traces the study of gender and philanthropy back to the very practical pursuits of two leading women fundraisers. Sondra Shaw-Hardy and Martha Taylor, who started the National Network for Women as Philanthropists in 1991, perceived a critical difference in the way women approached giving. They also recognized a huge deficit in the field of fundraising that needed to be addressedcultivating women donors.

"The two women (Shaw-Hardy and Taylor) who created this work did it not only to help women come into their own in philanthropy, but also to change the way fundraisers perceive donors," said Pactor. "So this particular strand of women's philanthropy study emanated from a very pragmatic approach to fundraising."

In 1997, the National Network for Women as Philanthropists became the Women's Philanthropy Institute, and then became part of the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy in 2004. The program functioned mainly as a home base for the lectures and presentations that Shaw-Hardy and Taylor made about gender and philanthropy across the country, and why it was such an important factor in fundraising. In its early years, the program functioned primarily to provide donor education to women donors about their power and influence in philanthropy, and at the same time to guide fundraisers to engage women as donors.

Debra Mesch came on as director of the Women's Philanthropy Institute in 2008, and helped the Institute gain traction by establishing a volunteer leadership council. In 2010, WPI began its signature research series Women Give, and each year, this research has built out the picture a little more on how gender is influencing philanthropy, and what we can do to maximize the return on women's positive influence. As we recently reported, that research just got a major boost from the Gates Foundation.

Mesch and Pactor both see a lot of transformation happening on the ground for women in philanthropy. "Pockets of very powerful women at the community and grassroots level are forming their own giving circles, their own collective giving models, their own modes of engaging in philanthropy, to make powerful changes in their own communities and across the globe," said Mesch.

Pactor agrees that giving circles are not just a trend, but a cultural phenomenon that is growing steadilyand an important way in which people are participating in society, as people organize their own giving campaigns and groups for giving. "There are giving circles for everybody out there." Pactor pointed to the Women's Collective Giving Network, an association of 47 giving circles, with more than 10,000 women philanthropists in the mix.

Pactor also sees an important new development in the Prosperity Together Initiative, which launched in November 2015 and brings together 28 women's funds and foundations to provide $118 million in funding for women and girls of color. "This represents a new direction for the women's funds. What Prosperity Together did is, it reframed the conversation, and it took existing dollars and pooled them to get more traction and bandwidth." Pactor sees this move significantly increasing the visibility of women's funds, which work to address inequality for women and girls.

Pactor also sees great potential for the new generation of women leaders in philanthropy coming up through these women's funds. "They are bringing a lot of new momentum and ideas, leaders like Jennifer Lockwood- Shabat at the Washington Area Women's Foundation, Liz Vivian out of the Women's Funding Alliance. These women have the potential to take the state women's funds in new and important directions." Pactor also talked about the strength of Lee Roper-Batker from the Women's Foundation of Minnesota and Roslyn Dawson-Thompson of the Dallas Women's Foundation, more longstanding leaders of the women's funds who have laid the groundwork for the younger generation.

Mesch sees big things happening in the near future with our understanding of women's role in giving at the micro-levelhow individual households are influenced by their female members. "We know women are much more interested in the idea of legacy, and leaving a legacy to their children and grandchildren. That's another area of potential new findings that will influence practice."

Pactor and Mesch talked about the example of Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan's giving, and how it has evolved since the couple's marriage in 2012. "The recent giving that they have made, particularly in the Bay Area, to us, clearly reflects the research in the sense that she is a full partner in helping to craft their giving plan," said Pactor. "We think that kind of high visibility of women's role is another way that people like that will influence other people in their giving."

Mesch also cited the giving of Bill and Melinda Gates as an example of a couple negotiating its philanthropic giving. She referenced Nicholas Kristof's recent article on the 15th anniversary of the creation of the Gates Foundation, which describes how Melinda Gates has taken a stronger role recently in advocating for women to be central to the Gates's giving.

"She [Melinda Gates] has a strong belief that giving to women and girls really makes an impact in the community, and changes the status of women and girls. She is a full partner with Bill, but she has also started her own track, now, on funding for women and philanthropy."

And where do Mesch and Pactor see things going in the future for women and philanthropy? "Technology," said Mesch. "Women seem to connect better with a lot of the technology around philanthropy, so we want to see where that can go in terms of further developing and amplifying giving."

Pactor sees two other big trends: public policy and impact investing, both areas where women are becoming more strategic in terms of spending their money. "As more women come into philanthropy, they are realizing that they need to work on the legislative level and focus more on public policy."

She also sees women as having an edge when it comes to reinventing philanthropy with financial tools like impact investing. "The concept of impact investing appeals to a lot of women," she said. "So I think we're going to hear a lot more from women about that."

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The Irrawaddy

Childrens Hospital Visit | Aug. 20

A local volunteer group Wisdom for Life is visiting Yankin Childrens Hospital to present storybooks and to read to young patients. Volunteers are encouraged to join.

August 20, Yankin Childrens Hospital. Contact Tel: 09-799816779; 09-43176169; 09-972933229; 09-263675616

Film Story of Khiam & Lecture on Traditional Music | Aug. 18

This event will feature a documentary film on making of the Naga tribes 10-meter long traditional drum made from a hollowed log. The movie screening will be followed by a talk by Myanmar musician Diramore on Myanmar traditional music.

August 18, 6:00 pm. Japan Culture House, Room 322B, 2nd Floor, Building-C, Pearl Condo, Kabar Aye Pagoda Road

Myanmar Wine Lovers Club: Wine & Food Pairing | Aug. 16

A variety of wine will be available for tasting. Reservations can be made by email at [email protected]

August 16, 6:30 to 8:30 pm. CAFE DEL SeOUL, No. 24/1 Pyay Road, 7 Mile, Mayangone Tsp. Tickets 10,000 kyats (including wine & canape).

Nutrition Promotion Event | Aug. 19

This event is organized by 3MDG Myanmar Fund and the Livelihoods and Food Security Trust (LIFT) Fund to promote public awareness about the importance of nutrition in the first 1,000 days of a childs life. There will be quizzes, a puppet show and nutrition talks by well-known speakers.

August 19, 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. Yangon Gallery, Peoples Park.

Australia Canterbury Education Group Seminar | Aug. 17

Education opportunities at Australian universities will be outlined at the event. Registration here.

August 17, 5:30 to 7:00 pm. Edulink Office, Junction Square 3rd Floor, Tel: 09-425765090.

MasterBaytar: Retro Session | Aug. 19

This night will bring about reminiscences of 1990s with songs from the decade played the whole night.

August 19, 8:00 pm to 2:00 am. The Penthouse, No. 271-273 Ba Ga Yar Street.

BOSSY BEATS at Basement Bar | Aug. 19

Bossy Beats is a music movement, concert series and social program that celebrates diversity and femininity.

August 19, 8:00 pm to 1:00 am. The Basement, No. 785 Mahabandoola Road, Lanmadaw Tsp. Entry: 8,000 kyats

Doemal Food Land | Aug. 18  19

There will be a variety of samples for foodies, and a lucky draw with food challenges between 1:00 and 2:00 pm, and 5:30 and 6:30 pm on both days.

August 18-19, 9:00 am to 9:00 pm, Junction Square.

Group Art Exhibition | Aug. 16  20

A group art exhibition of 16 artists will feature over 40 paintings on different subjects.

August 16-20. Myanmar Art and Artisan Organization, Bogyoke Market.

To the Sea | Aug. 1  28

Artist San Myints exhibition will showcase 25 acrylic paintings depicting the lives of people in Rakhine State.

August 1-28. Eternal Art Gallery, Yuzana Housing.
Burma Myanmar Govt to Send Special Envoy to UN

The Myanmar govt will send a special envoy the UN in New York to explain the situation in Rakhine State. / Reuters

NAYPYITAW  The Myanmar government will dispatch a special envoy to be stationed in New York where the UN is headquartered to explain the Rakhine issue to the international community, said U Kyaw Zeya, permanent secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He mentioned the plan in response to The Irrawaddys question during the Asean 50th anniversary celebration in Naypyitaw on Monday.

We met concerned directors-general and explored ideas. Weve made proper preparations to assign a separate body, said U Kyaw Zeya.

The Rakhine issue calls for cooperation and coordination among all ministries to find an answer, he said.

We cant shift the responsibility to each other. We have difficulties handling this issue but well try to achieve success by working together. Not only our foreign ministry, but other agencies are also working to find a solution, said U Kyaw Zeya.

On July 24, Daw Thandar, a well-known human rights activist and National League for Democracy (NLD) lawmaker, submitted an emergency proposal to the Lower House to condemn UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Myanmar Yanghee Lees end-of-mission statement after concluding her recent visit to the country on July 21.

Lee said she was disappointed to see the tactics applied by the previous government still being used, and that she would strongly urge the government to allow an international independent body to investigate allegations of rights abuses particularly in Rakhine State, and in conflict regions in Myanmar at large.

Daw Thandars proposal was unanimously approved by the parliament. Daw Pyone Kaythi Naing, an NLD lawmaker from Shan States Kalaw, additionally proposed sending a special envoy to the UN to counter international allegations and provide briefings outlining Myanmars legislative perspective on the situation in Rakhine State.

She told The Irrawaddy that Myanmars government was only able to respond after international agencies make allegations, and that the government should take the initiative to explain the situation to the UN first.

Daw Pyone Kaythi Naing, who is also a member of the Lower House International Relations Committee, has consistently promoted the idea of sending a special envoy to the UN whenever there has been parliamentary debate on issues in Rakhine State.

We are in a defensive position, while the other side has disseminated widespread propaganda in the international community, she told The Irrawaddy.

The government should send a special envoya respected figure with diplomatic expertiseto the UN to counter it, she added.

The State Counselors Office announced on August 11 that it was considering imposing a curfew in certain areas in Rakhine State; and that it would cooperate with the Myanmar Army to counter militancy. Since militants attacked border police posts in Maungdaw last October, 59 people have been killed and 33 went missing as of August 9, according to the State Counselors Office.

According to sources from Rakhine State, Myanmar Army troops in cooperation with local security forces are conducting clearance operations in the Mayu Mountain Range, where they claim that militants are hiding. Clearance operations carried out in the area after the October border guard post attack resulted in widespread accusations of human rights abuses committed by the military.

The Myanmar government should find a long-term solution, spur economic development, and create education and job opportunities in Rakhine State rather than isolating communities, said political analyst U Tin Maung Than.
Burma USDP-Led Coalition Calls on Govt to Reject Rohingya Ethnicity

A Myanmar border guard police officer stands guard in Taung Bazar village, Buthidaung Township, northern Rakhine State, on July 13, 2017. / Simon Lewis / The Irrawaddy

YANGON  A coalition of 20 political parties led by the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) called on the Myanmar government to declare to the international community that there is no Rohingya ethnicity in the country.

Party representativeslargely from minor groups currently unrepresented in Parliament, including the Democratic Party Myanmar, National Democratic Force, and the National Development Partydiscussed issues in northern Rakhine State on Monday at the USDP head office in Yangon. After the talks, they signed the statement, which contained four demands: improve general security in the region, provide increased security for government staff, enforce the 2014 counter-terrorism law, and reject the term Rohingya to describe a population of more than 1 million Muslims.

The self-identifying Rohingya are widely labeled throughout Myanmar as Bengali, implying that they are immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh, rather than belonging to Rakhine State.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimated in May that 168,000 Rohingya had fled violence and persecution Myanmar in the last five years, mostly seeking refuge in Bangladesh and Malaysia. Most recently, following militant attacks on police outposts in October 2016, Myanmar security forces carried out clearance operations in Rakhine State, displacing nearly 70,000 Rohingya to Bangladesh.

Myanmar State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been criticized for not speaking out on behalf of the group, and has previously labeled both the terms Rohingya and Bengali as emotive. She told UN Special Envoy for Human Rights in Myanmar Yanghee Lee in June 2016 that these controversial terms should be avoided.

Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Tuesday, USDP central executive committee member U Hla Thein chastised the international community for complaining about human rights violations to the government while ethnic Rakhine and members of the security forces are being killed by militant terrorists.

In early August, seven ethnic Mroa sub-ethnicity of the Buddhist Arakanese in the regionwere found dead of gunshot and machete wounds in the Mayu mountains of Maungdaw Township in northern Rakhine State. While no one has been arrested for the murders, local sources have said they suspect militants active in the borderlands of committing the murders.

Hundreds of troops were deployed to Rakhine State last week after a meeting between military commander-in-chief Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing and a seven-member delegation from the Arakan National Party (ANP) in Naypyitaw.

The Irrawaddy reported on Monday that the Myanmar military gave a verbal order to villagers in the states northern townships to avoid entering the Mayu mountains for any reason, in order to avoid fatalities while they conduct clearance operations in the area.

U Hla Thein told The Irrawaddy that the recent mission was not enough, if further attacks potentially happen in the area.
Burma Yangon Chief Minister Files Complaint Against Reuters

Yangon Region Chief Minister U Phyo Min Thein, pictured at a press conference in 2016. / The Irrawaddy

YANGON  Yangon Region Chief Minister U Phyo Min Thein filed a complaint against wire news agency Reuters on Monday over an article about his regional governments deal to import buses from China, Myanmar Press Council told The Irrawaddy.

The article, published on August 6 under the headline Suu Kyis man in Yangon under fire over transit deal with China, questioned the transparency and accountability behind two deals, estimated at more than US$100 million, according to the report.

U Aung Hla Tun, one of the two vice chairpersons of the Myanmar Press Council, told The Irrawaddy on Tuesday that the council received the complaint letter from the chief minister on Monday and would inform Reuters about the complaint on Tuesday in order to mediate the case.

The chief minister told the council the article was factually incorrect and Reuters had failed to verify the articles information with him, said U Aung Hla Tun, adding that the council could not disclose any further details about the complaint.

Reuters, however, stated in its report that U Phyo Min Thein declined several interview requests from Reuters regarding the story.

The move will be the second incident in which the Yangon chief minister has filed complaint against a news organization. In November of last year, U Phyo Min Thein filed a case with the Tamwe Township police station and a complaint to the Press Council against Eleven Media Group and its chief executive officer Dr. Than Htut Aung, for an alleged accusation in the papers editorial that he had accepted a bribe.

The article quoted Yangon National League for Democracy (NLD) lawmaker U Kyaw Zay Ya as saying U Phyo Min Theins government lacks transparency and the image of the government would be damaged if he doesnt change.

In late April, Yangon planning and finance minister U Myint Thaung said at the regional legislature that Yangon Bus Public Company (YBPC) purchased 1,000 buses from two Chinese companies selected and endorsed by the Chinese ambassador to Myanmar at a total cost of US$56 million.

Another 1,000 buses were bought from Beiqi Foton Motor Co. Ltd., another Chinese state-owned company, in a private deal by businessman U Kyaw Ne Win, a grandson of late dictator Gen. Ne Win, reported Reuters.

There was no public tender or debate in the regional legislature before the deals were agreed, added the report.

YBPC is a public-private joint venture majority-owned by the regional government, one of the many companies which services the governments Yangon Bus System (YBS).

The ambassador guarantees the quality of products and the price of vehicles are reasonable, U Myint Thaung told the parliament.

The two chosen firms were Anhui Ankai Automobile Co. Ltd. and privately-owned Zhengzhou Yutong Bus Co. According to the Reuters report, the former is state-run and the latter is led by a member of Chinas National Peoples Congress.

Dr. Maung Aung, secretary of the Yangon Region Transport Authority (YRTA), the regional government body that oversees the bus system, told The Irrawaddy in January that a government-to-government deal would make the process faster as the city was in short supply of buses.

Dr. Maung Aung was not available for further comment at the time of reporting.

In an email to The Irrawaddy regarding the chief ministers complaint, a Reuters spokesperson said, Reuters stands by the fairness and accuracy of the story.

The regional government requested 70 billion kyats in the 2016-2017 fiscal years re-budgeting process, saying that the large sum was to be spent on public transportation reform in the commercial capital.
News Police Shoot, Arrest Elephant Poacher in Irrawaddy Region

Seized items included improvised firearms, gunpowder, and elephant tusks, hide, and meat. / Pathein Township Police Force)

PATHEIN, Irrawaddy Region  Police arrested an elephant poacher after an exchange of fire in Irrawaddy Regions Thabaung Township on Sunday.

A combined force of local police, forestry police, and officials from the forestry department spotted three poachers during a patrol in the forest of Khayin Chaungpya, around 30 miles from Thabaung.

One poacher was arrested and two others got away, according to the Irrawaddy Region Police Force.

The combined force found a skinned elephant and poachers during their patrol, police Lt-Col Khin Maung Latt of Irrawaddy Region Police Force told The Irrawaddy.

One of the poachers shot at police with an improvised firearm, and the combined force returned fire. We arrested him after he was injured in the right thigh.

The arrested poacher, Cho Lwin, is from a village in Shwethaungyan in Pathein Township and was initially admitted to Thabaung Township Hospital before being transferred to Pathein Hospital on Monday for surgery.

Police also seized four elephant tusks, two improvised firearms, two containers of gunpowder, 11 metal balls, two 15-inch knives, a three-inch arrow, dried elephant hide, grilled elephant meat, a tail and a cell phone.

The skinned and decapitated elephant was 40 years old.

We found four tusks, so we assume they killed two elephants, though we have yet to investigate, said the police lieutenant colonel.

Police were chasing the two unarmed poachers that escaped, he said.

Police have charged all three suspects under the Protection of Wildlife and Conservation of Natural Areas Law and for carrying unlicensed firearms.

From January to mid-August, 11 elephants were killed by hunters in Pathein, Ngapudaw and Thabaung townships in the Irrawaddy Regionmost of them killed by poisoned arrows, according to the Irrawaddy Region Police Force.

On the occasion of World Elephant Day last week, national and international conservation organizationsincluding the Wildlife Conservation Society and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)warned of Myanmars declining wild elephant population following a surge in demand for their skin.

At least 30 wild elephants have been poached so far in 2017 with six elephants killed in the last six weeks. This is far above the previous yearly poaching average for Myanmar, said Aung Myo Chit, country coordinator of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, according to a joint press release.

The number of wild elephants in Myanmar has plummeted to between 1,400 and 2,000 compared to tens of thousands just decades ago.

Conservation groups are working with the Myanmar government to train rangers, according to the statement. In July alone, 45 rangers were trained.

Training rangers is the first step on our journey to win this battle against poachers, said Christy Williams, country director of WWF Myanmar. Rangers are on the conservation frontlines, protecting the worlds natural and cultural treasures. With their commitment and the help of our supporters, there is hope for Asian elephants.

On Friday in parliament, Minister for Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation U Ohn Win said his ministry would coordinate with the defense ministry to equip forestry department personnel with arms.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.
Commentary The Khaki Guardians of The NLD

U Lwin, U Aung Shwe, U Kyi Maung and U Tin Oo.

YANGON  When they received an ultimatum from the Union Election Commission (UEC) in December 1991, both the National League for Democracy (NLD) acting chairman U Aung Shwe and secretary U Lwin faced a dilemma. They were told to expel Daw Aung San Suu Kyi from the party or dismantle the NLD. The reason, according to the then military regime, was her connection with armed insurgent groups and the receipt of aid indirectly from abroad.

With Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and NLD chairman U Tin Oo under house arrest at the time, it was a hard choice for U Aung Shwe. He didnt want to see the party shut down under his leadership. So, he followed the UEC order and faced serious criticism from NLD sympathizers at home and abroad. To the juntas delight, party members were divided on the issue, as the chairman also made a series of follow-up expulsions, including U Tin Oo, from a list handed down by military rulers. Mass resignations followed. On the other hand, the party still legally existed, at least. U Aung Shwe said he acted as he did for the partys survival.

After Daw Aung Suu Kyi and U Tin Oo were released from house arrest in 1995, the pro-democracy icon resumed her position as NLD general secretary while U Tin Oo assumed the role of vice chairman. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi once described U Aung Shwe and U Lwin, a former colonel and the father-in-law of current President U Htin Kyaw, as the guardians of the NLDs survival while the party was under fierce pressure and threats from authorities.

With the death of U Aung Shwe, the 99-year-old ex-brigadier general, on Sunday, the party has lost its second to last guardian. U Kyi Maung and U Lwin died in 2004 and 2011, respectively, and only U Tin Oo, the former general, is still alive. But he was admitted to the hospital in May after suffering a stroke. He is now 90.

Ironically, despite its long defiance against military rule in the country, all four of the NLD guardians served in the army. They joined as young men, and some fought against the British and Japanese for the countrys independence. They served as general, brigadier and colonel until they were forced to retired by the then dictator Ne Win after he came to power in 1962.

Since the NLD formation after the popular uprising in 1988, they joined the party as members of the Patriotic Old Comrades Leagueone of three founding factions of the main opposition party. In spite of being initially being regarded as turncoats, history has proved that they were caretakers of the party who managed to keep the NLD going, especially in the 1990s and 2000s when the military regime tried its best to quash the party. They are politically humble NLD supporters and followers of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi who never took credit for their actions. The Lady knows this.

When Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and U Tin Oo were first put under house arrest in 1989, U Kyi Maung, a former colonel, took over the leadership of the party and helped steer it to its landslide victory in the 1990 election while empowering the partys youth. But a few years later, he fell out with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and in 1997, he quit politics altogether.

The NLD faced another life-or-death situation in early 2010 while the Lady was under house arrest again: register for the military-organized general election or face extinction, as the regime would no longer deem the party legally valid.

U Tin Oo, the vice chairman, decided against taking part in the election, citing the election laws as unjust. When a vote was held on whether or not to join, his faction won. The election turned out to be rigged and the NLD still enjoyed popular support despite its refusal to register for the polls.

Controversial Figures

For all of their top positions since the formation of the NLD, the guardians didnt easily win the hearts and minds of the majority of party members. Their military backgrounds didnt impress the partys young membership, as they had joined the NLD out of hate after their bitter experiences during the armys bloody crackdown in the 88 Uprising.

We only thought of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi as our leader. For us, they were from the Patriotic Old Comrades League. We didnt see them as among us, recalled Ko Zaw Aung, who was then a member of the NLD Central Youth Working Committee.

He remembered that their youth members were rarely patient with the older members at meetings as they always took everything into consideration.

When U Kyi Maung became the chairman in 1989, they welcomed him cautiously. They once frustrated their new leader at a meeting by calling him a turncoat. The ex-colonel was mad enough to slam the table in front of him, the former youth member said.

But later, he built trust among young people by empowering themwhich led to the NLDs victory in the 1990 election, he explained.

Monywa Aung Shin, the editor of the partys newspaper D-Wave, called U Aung Shwe a good leader despite controversies around him for expelling Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

He took a flexible, defensive line that kept our party alive amid the juntas oppression. He knew when to move forward and when to retreat, he said.

Both U Aung Shwe and U Lwin calmly managed to move the party forward, he added.

Ko Zaw Aung couldnt agree more with what Monywa Aung Shin said. The 48-year-old social researcher told The Irrawaddy that when he learned about the expulsion, he was upset and thought, How dare they do that.

But later, he realized it was for the partys survival. And there was good reason to believe so.

When Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and U Tin Oo were released in 1995, many thought U Aung Shwe would be punished for the expulsions.

But on their first meeting, the ex-brigadier general told the Lady: Suu Suu, I hand the party back to you.

To many peoples surprise, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi replied, Its OK, Uncle. Lets work together as we did before.

The juntas plan to divide the NLD proved to be fruitless.

Setting Good Examples

Despite the initial controversies that they brought, nobody can deny the fact that the guardians were men of vision who understood what they needed to do to move the party forward while standing at the forefront of Myanmars struggle to democracy.

The current military leaders should learn how their seniors led toward the countrys democracy movement, Ko Zaw Aung said.

He added, apart from learning, they should collaborate more with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi for democratic transition.

If they do, the army will go down in history for their graceful participation in the countrys reform.
Guest Column Debating with Data: A Response to The Myth Myanmar can Afford to Ditch

A woman waits to cast her ballot during the general election in Mandalay, Nov. 8, 2015. / Reuters

A recent post on Tea Circle, The Myth Myanmar Can Afford to Ditch, argues that Burmese women are free, independent, and empowered. Alas, available data does not support such an argument.

A 2014 Study by the Asia Foundation found that 71 percent of respondents believed that men make better political leaders than women. An identical 71 precent believe that men make better business executives than women. The study found no differences between male and female respondents in holding these opinions.

Broader Burmese society reflects these views. According to the 2014 census, 270,000 women identified themselves as employers  i.e., business owners, whereas 777,000 men identified themselves as business owners. Of the 100 largest Burmese conglomerates, only three are run by female CEOs. The census also revealed that for 7.2 million women, their primary job is household work, although this is true for only 270,000 men. On average, a working man earns 138,000 kyats per month; a working woman earns 110,000.

Women are excluded from top government jobs too. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi remains the only female minister. Only 14.5 percent of the Union Parliament (excluding the seats set aside for the military) are women  an improvement from the previous parliaments but still a long way to go before the country achieves a parity. Likewise, there is a scarcity of women in other government departments and branches.

At the Presidents Office, women make up 53 precent of total employees, but only 10 percent of management level positions (management level is defined as Deputy Director or equivalent position and above). In the Union Election Commission, which singularly failed to discipline gender discriminatory language during the 2015 election, women make up 52 percent of total employees, but 9 percent of management. Figures are almost identical for the Constitutional Tribunal.

The Foreign Office, whose workforce is 49 percent women, drops to 23 percent women at senior levels. From 1967 to 2015, the country had no female ambassador. That year, Daw Yin Yin Myint was appointed ambassador to Germany, becoming the countrys second female ambassador ever, following Daw Khin Kyi, the widow of General Aung San, who served as Burmese ambassador to India from 1960-67. In the Ministry of Mines, 42 percent of the workforce is female, but 10 percent of its senior level positions are females. Female mining engineers are rare and in local culture, it is believed that if a woman were to enter a quarry or a mine, said quarry would stop producing minerals or collapse altogether.

At the Ministry of Education, 79 percent of its workforce is female and 76 percent of its leadership roles are filled by women  a parity to which other departments should aspire. However, at school-level  where an ordinary citizen first encounters social hierarchies as a child  the picture is less rosy. In elementary schools, 85 percent of the teachers are female, but only 63 percent of principals/heads of school are female. In middle schools, 90 percent of teachers are female, yet women make up only 71 percent of principals. In high schools, 82 percent of teachers are female, and only 59 percent of principals are female.

In addition to the lack of women in leadership roles, womens position domestically is precarious too, where they play Nancy to the patriarchys Bill Sikes. In the 2015-16 Demographic and Health Survey, it was found that 51 percent of women agree that wife beating is justified under certain circumstances, a slightly higher percentage than the 49 percent of men who agreed. Men, however, are no paragons of virtue: 21 percent of men believed that wife beating was justified if their wives were involved in too much social activity. In Yangon, nearly two in five men held such a view.

Fifteen percent of women ages 15-49 have experienced physical violence, and three percent of women ages 15-49 have experienced sexual violence. However, only a small proportion of these violent attacks ever get reported. In 2016, there were 1,100 reported rape cases in Myanmar (and 700 cases in the previous year). Many rapes go unreported due to a culture of silence; a well-known Burmese saying, Dont make one shame into two, exhorts against a rape survivor going public. Among women who have experienced physical or sexual violence and sought help, the majority sought help from family or neighbors. Only 0.9 percent of women noted they went to the police; a further 2.5 percent and 2.9 percent sought help from lawyers and social work organizations, respectively.

All these statistics are just the tip of an iceberg in a country where information is not readily available  information such as the availability of safe abortions. Even in rape cases, and in cases where the mothers life is in danger, abortion is prohibited in Myanmar. Many suffer and perish in back-alley clinics.

As such, we cannot afford to ditch the myth of female repression. We need to fight harder for gender equality, and as the original author noted, there is a lot to be hopeful about in Burmese society. The same Asia Foundation report cited above noted that 82 percent of respondents feel a woman should make her own choice when voting. The Demographic and Health Survey found high asset ownership rates, control over earnings, and participation in decision making for women. Labor participation among 20 to 24-year-old women is high at 72 percent.

From an economic standpoint, it makes sense to keep talking about and promoting womens welfare and empowerment. Our internal assessments at First Rangoon show that if Myanmar increases female labor participation from the current 54 percent to 75 percent, the countrys GDP will increase by $7 billion (13.8 percent growth).

It should be a goal of the current government and parliament to maintain the high labor participation rate among the 20 to 24-year-old women, and amend the laws and institutions that disenfranchise and disempower them. Changing societal views and attitudes, not to mention religious and cultural teachings, will take time and generations. The institutional and legal reforms, however, can  and should  start immediately.

Born in Yangon, Shine Zaw-Aung studied International Relations at Stanford University, where he was an honors fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation. He co-founded First Rangoon, a consultancy, and contributed to the Myanmar Ministry of Foreign Affairs at MISIS. Shine is currently working toward his MBA at the University of Chicago.

This article originally appeared in Tea Circle, a forum hosted at Oxford University for emerging research and perspectives on Burma/Myanmar.
Women Karen Women Wary of Return to Myanmar

Naw Kwut, landmine survivor. / Nyein Nyein / The Irrawaddy

Naw Kwut was a young Karen woman when she stepped on a landmine and lost her right leg while she was forced to act as a porter for the Myanmar Army 20 years ago.

We were treated badly. They asked us to do everything for them, she said, recalling her experiences in the jungle. She grew up in a village controlled by the Karen National Union (KNU)s Brigade 1, in Thaton, Mon State.

Naw Kwut is one of the many women who survived the conflict, along with suffering torture and human rights abuses by Myanmar military troops. She fled to KNU-controlled territory on the Thailand-Myanmar border to seek help after losing a limb.

Now 45 years old, the mother of four children is working to help other disabled people. She worries about her childrens safety and education if she is to return to her village.

I will not go back yet. People say we have peace, but there is neither peace nor tranquility for us, she said, adding that many disabled people and their families share her concerns.

No Peace in the Jungle

Even though there has been no engagement between the KNU and the government army in KNU-controlled territory for a few years, the women in those areas feel that there is no security for them to be able to return to their homes.

The KNU signed a bilateral ceasefire agreement with the government in 2012 and the nationwide ceasefire agreement (NCA) in late 2015. It is a leading ethnic armed group  along with NCA-signatory the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS)  negotiating with the government and the Myanmar Army to build federalism through the peace process.

The KNU has been conducting pilot surveys in areas where displaced persons and refugees are slated to return. But demining efforts have yet to start and land redistribution remains a challenge.

It may be true that there is peace for those who live in the cities, but there has never been peace for people in the jungle and remote villages, said Naw Kwut.

Naw Myaing Poe, the chief justice of the KNU, echoed her concerns. She said the area is not safe and that it is important that women look out for themselves.

Helping Others

Many women are no longer hoping that men will provide security and are preparing themselves. Some have joined the KNU in an effort to learn self-defense skills in case of further attacks or conflict.

One such woman is Nan Cho Cho Win, a villager in her young twenties from the Irrawaddy Region. She is a medic trainee in a community health program run by the KNU, where she and other women learn how to provide medical treatment, along with receiving basic military training.

She said it doesnt feel as though there is peace and that the whole country seems to be in a fragile state.

I joined so that I could help others without access to healthcare. And knowing defense techniques will prepare us in case of future clashes.

The KNU also trains people from other ethnic groups who are keen to learn. Laydeya is an ethnic Naga woman who is training to be a medic. She is preparing to take her knowledge back to Naga territory.

I came to learn because the Naga region faces many disease outbreaks as well as clashes, she said.

Regarding the current peace process, she is less aware of it, but said she wants peace between all ethnic groups.

Women, Leadership and Peace

In the past, when Karen men were targeted for persecution under the allegation of supporting the Karen resistance, Karen women served as village heads and protected their people, despite lacking formal security training.

Karen State now has more female village heads than other areas around the country, according to a United Nations Development Program research study in 2015.

But in peace negotiations, men largely outnumber women in delegations representing the government and ethnic armed groups.

Womens views need to be heard during peace negotiations, said Naw Myaing Poe.

These women village heads would be happy to come to the table if they were invited. Its sad that they arent, even after putting their lives at risk throughout our struggle, she added.
With over 100 Hype Cycles already published by Gartner this year, one of its most famous, the Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2017, targets AI everywhere, transparently immersive experiences and digital platforms as "megatrends".

Gartners Hype Cycles. This hype is the hope for technologies to go past the innovation trigger, strive the peak of inflated expectations, solider on through the trough of disillusionment, climb the slope of enlightenment and successfully make it onto the plateau of productivity  without earning the circled red cross of becoming obsolete before the plateau.

Now comes one of the most anticipated - the Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2017 which Gartner says reveals reveal three distinct megatrends that will enable businesses to survive and thrive in the digital economy over the next five to 10 years".

These are:

Artificial intelligence (AI) everywhere;

Transparently immersive experiences; and

Digital platforms.

Gartner says these are the trends that will provide unrivalled intelligence, create profoundly new experiences and offer platforms that allow organisations to connect with new business ecosystems".

We should also hope they dont provide unrivalled intelligence to rival humans into extinction, but perhaps Ive watched too many dystopian science fiction movies.

Back to reality, we are reminded by Gartner that its Emerging Technologies Hype Cycle is the companys longest-running annual Gartner Hype Cycle, providing a cross-industry perspective on the technologies and trends that business strategists, chief innovation officers, R&D leaders, entrepreneurs, global market developers and emerging-technology teams should consider in developing emerging-technology portfolios".

So, why is this particular Hype Cycle unique amongst 'most' of Gartners Hyped Cycles?

Were told it is unique among most because it garners insights from more than 2000 technologies into a succinct set of compelling emerging technologies and trends, and that this particular cycle specifically focuses on the set of technologies that is showing promise in delivering a high degree of competitive advantage over the next five to 10 years (see the embedded image below)".

Mike Walker, research director at Gartner, said: Enterprise architects who are focused on technology innovation must evaluate these high-level trends and the featured technologies, as well as the potential impact on their businesses.

"In addition to the potential impact on businesses, these trends provide a significant opportunity for enterprise architecture leaders to help senior business and IT leaders respond to the digital business opportunities and threats by creating signature-ready actionable and diagnostic deliverables that guide investment decisions."

So, here is the Hype Cycle weve all been waiting for!

Note: PaaS = platform as a service; UAVs = unmanned aerial vehicles

Source: Gartner (July 2017)

And what are some additional details behind the big three mega trends?

AI Everywhere

Artificial intelligence technologies will be the most disruptive class of technologies over the next 10 years due to radical computational power, near-endless amounts of data, and unprecedented advances in deep neural networks; these will enable organisations with AI technologies to harness data in order to adapt to new situations and solve problems that no one has ever encountered previously.

Enterprises that are seeking leverage in this theme should consider the following technologies: Deep Learning, Deep Reinforcement Learning, Artificial General Intelligence, Autonomous Vehicles, Cognitive Computing, Commercial UAVs (Drones), Conversational User Interfaces, Enterprise Taxonomy and Ontology Management, Machine Learning, Smart Dust, Smart Robots and Smart Workspace.

Transparently immersive experiences

Technology will continue to become more human-centric to the point where it will introduce transparency between people, businesses and things. This relationship will become much more entwined as the evolution of technology becomes more adaptive, contextual and fluid within the workplace, at home, and in interacting with businesses and other people.

Critical technologies to be considered include: 4D Printing, Augmented Reality (AR), Computer-Brain Interface, Connected Home, Human Augmentation, Nanotube Electronics, Virtual Reality (VR) and Volumetric Displays.

Digital Platforms

Emerging technologies require revolutionising the enabling foundations that provide the volume of data needed, advanced compute power, and ubiquity-enabling ecosystems. The shift from compartmentalised technical infrastructure to ecosystem-enabling platforms is laying the foundations for entirely new business models that are forming the bridge between humans and technology.

Key platform-enabling technologies to track include: 5G, Digital Twin, Edge Computing, Blockchain, IoT Platform, Neuromorphic Hardware, Quantum Computing, Serverless PaaS and Software-Defined Security.

Walker added: When we view these themes together, we can see how the human-centric enabling technologies within transparently immersive experiences  such as smart workspace, connected home, augmented reality, virtual reality and the growing brain-computer interface  are becoming the edge technologies that are pulling the other trends along the Hype Cycle.

Gartner notes that AI Everywhere" emerging technologies are moving rapidly through the Hype Cycle".

This is evidenced by technologies such as deep learning, autonomous learning and cognitive computing are just crossing the peak, which shows that they are key enablers of technologies that create transparent and immersive experiences".

Finally, Gartner says that digital platforms are rapidly moving up the Hype Cycle, illustrating the new IT realities that are possible by providing the underlining platforms that will fuel the future".

Technologies such as Quantum Computing (climbing the Innovation Trigger) and Blockchain (having passed the peak) are poised to create the most transformative and dramatic impacts in the next 5 to 10 years.

Walker concludes: These megatrends illustrate that the more organisations are able to make technology an integral part of employees', partners' and customers' experiences, the more they will be able to connect their ecosystems to platforms in new and dynamic ways.

As usual, Gartners clients can read more in the full report, which is available to relevant parties at relevant prices, with this research part of the Gartners Trend Insight Report 2017 Hype Cycles Highlight Enterprise and Ecosystem Digital Disruptions.

That report features over 1800 profiles of technologies, services and disciplines spanning over 100 Hype Cycles focused on a diversity of regions, industries and roles, this Trend Insight Report is designed to help CIOs and IT leaders respond to the opportunities and threats affecting their businesses, take the lead in technology-enabled business innovations and help their organisations define an effective digital business strategy.

Naturally, Gartner will have plenty more during its regular Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2017 events around the world, with Australias to run from 30 October to 2 November on the Gold Coast.
Microsoft Azure will be available from highly-secure data centres in Canberra, starting in the first half of 2018.

Microsoft has announced plans to add two more Azure regions in Australia, in partnership with data centre operator Canberra Data Centres.

Canberra Data Centres is already home to systems operated by of for more than 40 government departments and agencies, CEO Greg Boorer (pictured, left) told iTWire.

These systems have varying security classifications, and the Azure Canberra regions are planned to achieve certification for Unclassified and Protected data.

The company currently operates four data centres (with a fifth to be added) across two campuses, with a current capacity in excess of 60MW.

Microsoft Azure ANZ engineering lead James Kavanagh (pictured, right) said current estimates are that the Federal Government spends around $9 billion a year on ICT, but cloud accounts for less than 1% of that. In common with other organisations, the magnitude of government expenditure on running existing systems leaves little for digital transformation.

Obstacles to increasing government use of cloud services include compliance issues and the difficulty of moving existing mission-critical systems to new platforms.

Microsoft's strategy is to establish two new Azure regions - a "very significant investment" - in Canberra, in partnership with Canberra Data Centres.

The new regions will act as a resilient pair, being sufficiently close to allow low-latency networking between them. Furthermore, Canberra Data Centres is already on the ICON dark fibre network connecting most government buildings in Canberra.

The "vast majority" of government agencies already use Canberra Data Centres, said Boorer, and it is the largest aggregation point for government data. All this business has been won through open tenders, he emphasised, adding that the data centres themselves have been built to Top Secret standards.

Furthermore, 48% of the company is owned by the Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation with 4% held by the management team, so an adverse change of control "would never be contemplated." The other 48% is held by New Zealand based and dual-listed infrastructure holding company Infratil.

Apart from compliance issues, the size and scale of government data is a barrier to moving workloads to hyperscale cloud providers in Sydney or Melbourne. It made more sense to drop that type of infrastructure into Canberra Data Centres where the data already lives.

Kavanagh said the necessary work has been done for the new regions to meet the requirements of Unclassified and Protected data, which accounts for the majority of government systems, although the actual testing "takes a bit of time." Agencies and departments also have the opportunity to run Azure Stack (Microsoft's Azure software running on customer-owned hardware) physically alongside legacy systems and the new Azure regions, perhaps for Secret or Top Secret workloads.

This unique and "significant strategic partnership" between Microsoft and Canberra Data Centres provides an opportunity to "unblock the government digital transformation agenda," he observed.

The isolation mechanisms between Azure customers are "entirely adequate and effective" for Unclassified or Protected data, Kavanagh said, and the new regions will not be open to all comers. "There will be a restriction process" but the details are still being worked out with the Federal Government.

The announcement was welcomed by companies that provide services to government agencies and departments.

For example, Intelledox co-founder and executive director Michelle Melbourne said "Weve been a Microsoft partner for over two decades and we have proven the value of innovating on a trusted cloud like Microsoft Azure.

"We can confidently deliver our Infiniti solution to enable the transformation of digitally focused government agencies as well as insurance, banking, financial services, education and healthcare companies globally.

"This investment by Microsoft in Canberra opens new possibilities, but even more importantly it highlights their commitment to supporting the ecosystem we are building with government and enterprise to evolve and grow. And thats going to make a big difference to all Australians."
Four men associated with a partner vendor of network channel Star India, a distribution partner for HBO, have been arrested for leaking episode 4 of season 7 of HBO's blockbuster Game of Thrones.

The leak took place on 4 August, according to a report by Indian TV channel NDTV.

The Indian leak is unrelated to the hack and subsequent leak of material from HBO itself which was reported to have taken place in the last week of July. Episodes of episodes of Ballers and Room 104, along with a script reported to be from the fourth episode of GoT, were among those leaked at the time.

The people responsible have threatened to leak more material unless a ransom was paid.

The Indian leak, from Prime Focus Technologies, took place two days before the episode was due to be screened both in the US and India.

Another Indian site, Midday, quoted Prime Focus vice-president Shailesh Manohar as saying in his complaint to police that employees had been provided special IDs for storing and processing data on the company's servers which are accessible from Mumbai, Bengaluru and Kolkata.

The complainant has stated in the FIR (first investigation report) that recently, the fourth episode of season seven of Game of Thrones was stolen from the server, by access gained through the special ID of an employee named Abhishekh Ghadiyal.

"Later, the stolen data was sent out using the email account of one Mohammed Suhail, a police officer said.
Its not even an Olympics year, and yet Panasonic has the ultimate Player/Recorder on offer with the release of the DMR-UBT1 with premium 4K UHD playback, a versatile Twin HD Tuner, plus a huge two terabyte hard disk drive with Full HD recording".

Celebrating the launch of this versatile new recording device, Doug Campbell, Panasonics Category Manager for AV and Imaging, said: This unique new model provides Australians with incredible quality and convenience through the brilliant viewing experience of 4K; as well as the versatile smarts of Panasonics Full HD Recorders all in the one device.

Naturally, the DMR-UBT1 lets you enjoy stunning 4K resolution display of the latest 4K Blu-ray movies and series with outstanding clarity, lifelike depth and vivid colours, whether youre watching 4K UHD Blu-ray discs or 4K Video on Demand".

As youd expect, flexible recording and viewing to suit your lifestyle is the hallmark of this device, from recording in Full HD to the 2TB HDD or Blu-ray/DVD disc; viewing via TV, smartphone or tablet; using the Twin Tuner to record free to air TV programmes while watching Netflix; and access to TV programmes in and out of the home".

This lets you catch up with your favourite content  whether its Netflix or the latest HbbTV, and if you use Panasonics "TV Anytime" feature, you can effortlessly stream TV to your smart device wherever you are in the world".

The recording player also features a 3D glass cut design in a compact body, with a stylish bevel cut finish on all four sides, with Panasonic assuring us this makes it perfect for complementing any flat-panel television".

It will retail from late September from the major consumer electronics retailers at $1099.

So, what are the other features and benefits that Panasonic has graced its media release on the topic with?

We start off with the promise of stunning 4K Blu-ray viewing and high-quality audio".

Were told that the DMR-UBT1 delivers uncompromising quality in picture and sound. At the heart of the player, Panasonics HDR 4K engine, the HCX (Hollywood Cinema Experience) Processor for Ultra HD Blu-ray, delivers the most accurate movie playback, true to the filmmakers intention. In addition, the 4K Direct Chroma up-scaling function delivers 4K-quality pictures with high resolution and rich colours from 2K content. Users can also view 4K videos (MP4) that they've taken with a camera or camcorder and can output JPEG data in 4K resolution".

"The unit provides excellent audio to match the viewing experience. The DMR-UBT1 switches off unnecessary circuits  such as the HDMI or coaxial output  to reduce noise and enhance performance. In addition to conventional WAV/FLAC/MP3/AAC/WMA formats, DSD (5.6 MHz/2.8 MHz) and ALAC music files can be reproduced. Simply connect to a home audio system to enjoy music sources equivalent to studio master sound quality.

With conventional Blu-ray Players, the images in dark scenes can be difficult to see in bright room conditions. Panasonics HDR Adjustment function faithfully reproduces dark and bright areas regardless of the viewing environment. In this situation, the user can activate the function to forcibly raise the brightness of low-brightness areas. Even when switched to a bright scene, the image is analysed and optimised.

Then theres those convenient recording and networking smarts.

Panasonic says its TV Anytime and the Media Centre App support multi-room TV streaming, remote viewing and remote recording using your smart device. Wirelessly send a recorded program or live broadcast to a tablet to view content in comfort from any room in the house; or stream them to your smartphone or tablet wherever you are in the world.

The units versatile recording capabilities include a two terabyte hard disk drive that captures a massive 1370 hours of HDTV, with the ability to attach an optional external HDD.

The DMR-UBT1 has a host of recording smarts. Series Recording ensures youll never miss an episode of your favourite series again. By registering TV programs with the Series Recording function, they can be automatically recorded and stored to watch when you please. With Keyword Recording, enter a favourite category such as sport and the Recorder will record all EPG programs with this keyword. Using the Panasonic Media Centre App, you can set recordings remotely anywhere in the world.

Twin HD tuners allow two different programs to be recorded simultaneously; and consumers can record live TV while watching Netflix at the same time. Its also possible to Pause and Rewind live TV.

Other useful features include built-in Wi-Fi, Mirroring, DLNA and a web browser. Viewers can mirror the display of compatible mobile devices to a TV screen. With the press of a button, images, videos, apps or games on a smartphone or tablet (Android 4.2 operating system or higher) can be shared.

DLNA allows content such as photos, videos and music to be shared with other connected devices throughout the home. Every member of the family can enjoy the content they want, regardless of time and place. For big-screen Internet in the living room, an integrated web browser allows favourite websites to be enjoyed through the TV.

Youll find more on Panasonics wide range of Blu-ray players and recorders here.

The local Panasonic site does not list the DMR-UBT1 yet, but presumably this will be rectified by the time it arrives at retail in late September.
D-Links DAP-2610 concurrent dual band Access Point (AP) has arrived, claiming to deliver a high-performance WLAN solution that includes a broad range of functions and the latest generation 802.11ac Wave 2 Speeds".

If you havent yet upgraded your business (or your home!) to 802.11ac Wave 2 Wi-Fi technology, then what are you waiting for?

All the latest devices have been compatible for a while, delivering much faster Wi-Fi and better taking advantage of the much faster broadband speeds that most people are now able to access.

D-Links DAP-2610 Wireless AC1300 PoE Access Point is its first Business Grade Wave 2 access point in Australia and New Zealand, and is billed as a slim device, providing both wall and ceiling mounting options able to achieve a maximum data throughput of up to 1300Mbs and uses both the 2.4GHz and the 5GHz frequency bands in parallel".

D-Link promotes it as offering business class Wi-Fi with enterprise wireless performance, with the use of "MU-MIMO making a noticeable difference, along with Built-in RADIUS and Dynamic VLAN, guess access control, scalable wireless network management, flexible deployment, multiple operation modes, efficient power saving and plenty more".

It can also be used in multiple modes:

as a stand-alone access point;

as part of a wireless distribution system (WDS); and

as a wireless client.

Its two simultaneous active radio modules also allow the system to be used as part of a mesh configuration".

D-Link naturally assures us that this makes its DAP-2610 a good choice for small and medium-sized companies who want to offer their employees or customers a high-performance WLAN environment at an affordable price".

So, what are the tech specs providing the features and benefits on offer?

Well, were told that the DAP-2610 uses the latest generation WLAN standard 802.11ac Wave 2 which enables the 2.4GHz module to achieve data transmission rates of up to 400Mbs and the 5GHz module up to 900Mbps".

The radio modules in the DAP-2610 access point offer high power design with up to 23dBm output providing better coverage for wireless clients. MU-MIMO Beamforming optimally adapts transmitted signals to the location of the clients and the environment so that a variety of devices can simultaneously exchange data at maximum speed.

A Gigabit Ethernet port offers connectivity to the access point from the local network if a physical connection is required. By supporting WDS (Wireless Distribution System), mesh configurations are also possible, in which the access points are only connected to one another via Wi-Fi, as well as to the LAN, whilst still providing services for clients. An extensive quality-of-service implementation allows the categorisation of data, for example VoIP data packets are prioritised over file transfers.

As youd expect, theres more. I mean, theres always more, and in this case, theres no exception.

More power to you and the DAP-2610 can be delivered either via a power supply or a network connection via 802.3af PoE (Power-over-Ethernet)".

Numerous management options facilitate administration in any environment. In addition to a built-in Web server with SSL support, SSH, Telnet, and SNMP, D-Links Central WiFi Manager (CWM) management software is also available at no additional cost. The Central Wi-Fi Manager allows further management functions including the configuration and management of up to 500 Access Points.

In addition, explains D-Link, the DAP-2610 is equipped with a captive portal and extensive authentication functions, allowing the device to be utilised as a Wireless Hotspot for small businesses such as cafes or hairdressers to provide a Wi-Fi hotspot for their customers. The Access Point includes a dedicated RADIUS server as well as LDAP, POP3 and passcodes to allow a variety of methodologies to enable clients to securely access the device.

And what about the all-important spectre of security?

Naturally, D-Link has this covered, too, nothing that IT security has top priority in the corporate environment and the DAP-2610 meets the security requirements of small, medium and large enterprises by supporting WEP, WPA and WPA2, as well as a RADIUS client".

Client isolation hides the data traffic of the end-user devices while WLAN segmentation shields complete WLAN networks from each other. Also integrated is Network Access Protection (NAP), which checks conditions for accessing end devices in connection with NAP-enabled servers.

Rogue access points are reliably detected and reported to the administrator, and scheduling functionality can switch off the WLAN at certain times, such as out-of-business hours. The DAP-2610 also supports eight VLANs (Virtual LANSs) per band, providing a flexible way to incorporate the Access Point into an existing network whilst providing maximum connectivity for wireless clients.

So, if the idea of s shiny new DAP-2610 AC1300 Wave 2 Access Point at $279 appeals to you, then the news that it is available now from D-Link online and at authorised resellers should be very appealing!
The GNOME Desktop project has celebrated its 20th anniversary with a party in Orinda, California on 29 July, a day that happens to be the birthday of project co-founder Federico Mena Quintero.

Founded on 15 August 1997 by Mena Quintero and Miguel de Icaza, GNOME has grown to become one of the two more widely used desktop environments by Linux users.

Rosanna Yuen, the first woman to submit code to the GNOME Project and the project's director of operations, speaks during the 20th anniversary celebrations. Also in the picture are (from left) are Carlos Garnacho, Garrett LeSage, Federico Mena Quintero (seen cutting a cake below), Jonathan Blandford and former GNOME executive director Karen Sandler

The project was started because the main desktop environment existing at the time, KDE, was based on QT, a library that was not released under a free software licence.

Version 1.0 was released in 1999. Since then there have been 33 stable releases.

The project has set upto provide a more detailed history of the project, along with some fun facts.

The latest stable release, GNOME 3.24 or Portland, included new features like the GNOME Recipes application and Night Light, which helps users avoid eyestrain.

The upcoming version of GNOME 3.26 or Manchester is scheduled for release in September.

The GNOME project has more than 6000 contributors, and includes about eight million lines of code.

The name GNOME is an acronym for GNU Network Object Model Environment.
Video software and services company Ooyala has appointed Jeremy Cath as its vice-president of services for Asia Pacific and Japan.

"Jeremy is a customerfocused services leader with a natural ability for driving long-term business engagements," said vice-president and general manager for Asia Pacific and Japan, Steve Davis.

"His strategic consultative approach and track record in implementing services strategies to support accelerated growth will benefit our clients and prospects across the region.

"We look forward to the positive impact which his skills and experience will provide to our customers in the deployment of Ooyala solutions."

Cath has more than 25 years' experience in software development and consulting.

He joins Ooyala from Microsoft where he was a technical evangelist and program manager, and previously worked for Amazon as a solution architect and manager.

Cath has also served as technical director for several broadcasters including Endemol Southern Star and rushTV, as well as software companies such as Sterling Software and KnowledgeWare.

Earlier in his career he worked in software development for Calor Gas and Forte Hotels.
During yesterdays Legislative Assemblys (AL) plenary meeting, the Secretary for Transport and Public Works, Raimundo do Rosario, discussed with lawmakers about the mandatory building inspections concerning buildings that are 30 years old or older, as well as a penalty system related to mandatory building inspections.

The meeting was convened to discuss a motion presented by Mak Soi Kun, who proposed that the government should conduct mandatory inspections over old buildings.

Specifically, Maks proposal indicated that the government should speed up the legislation work on the rules of penalties and obligations regarding buildings with more than 30 years of history.

Lei Cheng I firstly voiced that Macau indeed has a mandatory building inspection scheme. However, the region does not give out fines as a way of enforcing people to conduct building inspections.

Rosario said that the government is already conducting mandatory building inspection[s] every five years. We can fine, [] fining is easy. The problem is how to collect the fines. If there are owners committees, it is relatively easier. But if there are none, how do we collect the fines?

Rosario said that the problem is which party should inspect the buildings, and how to collect the fines.

Ma Chi Seng said that the government should conduct a wide propaganda in order to improve the civil sense of importance of buildings maintenance.

Rosario agreed with Ma and said last year, the government granted MOP20 million, and this year it has granted MOP15 million for building maintenance. [] If the buildings [owners] do not reach an agreement, there is nothing I can do. The initiative is in the hands of the buildings [owners].

Ho Ion Sang pointed out that some of the governments housing maintenance funds recorded only one digits worth of applications. Why were there so few applicants? asked Ho.

I dont know why is it not popular, [] I only know that we have money, [] we have to wait for owners to come looking for us, declared Rosario.

When replying to other lawmakers inquiries, Rosario said that the government has responsibilities, and owners also have many responsibilities as well, therefore the government cannot replace owners in many of their tasks.

Melinda Chan commented that it is a good concept, that of the 20 years mandatory building inspection. Afterwards, she asked how can the law be implemented, and who will pay for the inspections? Is the government going to pay for 100 percent for the owners?

Under the current regulations, the government is [partially] paying for the inspections, which I think is correct. The government is now paying for 30 percent [of the cost], explained Rosario, adding that the government is not the main responsible party for a buildings maintenance. That is a liability that belongs to the owners committee.

Si Ka Lon suggested the government should enhance public awareness regarding building inspections. Many residents are not aware [that they should inspect their buildings], noted Si.

Rosario told Si that more awareness among the residents regarding building maintenance has been agreed on by all sectors.

Lam Heong Sang wanted Rosarios answer on how the government is implementing its current mandatory building inspection policy.

Rosario told Lam that if a new building is maintained every five years, it does not need to be inspected. [] if you do not cease maintenance, you do not need to inspect the buildings. The problem is that, in Macau, nobody minds [maintains] buildings for many years.

Angela Leong said that the the public is disappointed at the government because it does not conduct mandatory building inspection. [] owners do not know how [and] when to conduct the inspections.

Replying to Leong, Rosario said there is a mandatory building inspection, but nobody is doing it. Nobody is caring about it.

The secretary remarked that the problem lies in how to collect the fines? I think the biggest problem is to assign responsibilities to small owners.

Zheng Anting, while arguing with Rosario, said if the government thinks it [collecting of fines] is a big problem, how can residents solve it? It is more complicated [for small owners].

Au Kam San suggested an idea which was later agreed to by Rosario. He wondered whether the government can add some tax on top of the citys current property tax, instead of fining the owners.

Theoretically, it is possible, but needs to be written down in the law, said Rosario, who then noted that the governments consideration is in fact the same as Aus suggestion.

The secretary then raised one question to all of the lawmakers: Why do we have to fine? Cant we just discuss and talk to residents?

The motions proposer, Mak Soi Kun, then voiced that the government is conducting mandatory inspections of cars every eight years. Mak considered that similar policies can be applied to buildings.

He also criticized Rosarios statement that it is difficult for the government to collect fines. If you are aware that things can fall from a building at any time, and you dont do something, then there is a problem, said Mak.

Rosario noted that if a car has a few problems, I could say the car cannot go out [be used]. But if a building has problems, can I tell the person to not live in said building?

Fong Chi Keong voiced his opinion at the very end of yesterdays AL plenary meeting.

The people do not care about their own properties, []what are the reasons that the government should pay for it? People in Macau are used to not paying, said Fong, who also remarked the Macau government is the best government in the world.
Freshworks, a California-based cloud business software provider, has appointed Sidharth Malik to the newly created global position of chief revenue officer.

Malik brings over 22 years of global experience in the IT industry to Freshworks, having served in sales leadership and general management roles at Microsoft, IBM, Salesforce and, most recently, Akamai Technologies.

He joins Freshworks after a successful career at Akamai Technologies over the last five years, where he served as the managing director, overseeing all operations of the company in India.

We are very excited to have Sidharth join Freshworks at a key inflection point in our journey, said Girish Mathrubootham, chief executive and founder, Freshworks.

We believe his valuable experience in building global teams, expanding markets and growing revenues make him an ideal choice to further accelerate our growth at Freshworks.

With its refreshing suite of business software, I believe we are well positioned to transform the way our customers engage with their customers and employees, Malik said.

I look forward to partnering with Girish and the entire team at Freshworks as we expand our product portfolio and partner deeper with our customers globally.
British security researcher Marcus Hutchins, who came to prominence after he inadvertently stopped the spread of the WannaCry ransomware in May, has pleaded not guilty to writing the code that was used to create the banking trojan Kronos.

He was arrested in Las Vegas on 2 August after he had boarded a plane to leave the country after attending the annual DEFCON conference. The following Monday he was released on US$30,000 bail.

Here's Brian Klein and @marciahofmann talking to the press after hearing. Short statements. pic.twitter.com/fqofWKTrPZ  Lorenzo Franceschi-B (@lorenzoFB) 14 August 2017

Hutchins' lawyer Brian Klein told the court in Milwaukee that his client was "not guilty" of the six charges levelled at him, Motherboard reported.

He can now travel to Los Angeles and live there while he waits for his trial.

Things to do during defcon:

Attend parties

Visit red rock canyon

Go shooting

Be indicted by the FBI

Rent supercars  MalwareTech (@MalwareTechBlog) 14 August 2017

While Hutchins will be tracked by GPS, he will now be allowed full Internet access so he can continue to work. But he will not be allowed to access the sinkhole he used to stop the WannaCry ransomware.

The prosecution has claimed that Hutchins admitted to FBI agents he was the author of the code that became Kronos.

While the chargesheet filed against Hutchins only accuses him of being involved in writing and spreading Kronos, the head of a security firm, Dave Aitel of Immunity, has alleged that he was involved in WannaCry himself.

The trial is expected to take place in Milwaukee in October.
Australian secure payments data platform, EFTsure, is collaborating with professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers Australia in a move aimed at helping clients to mitigate the risk of fraudulent or erroneous business payments in the electronic payment process.

EFTsure chief executive and co-founder Ian Mirels says under the agreement with PwC, EFTsures platform can help validate the accuracy of payee information, protecting a businesss assets and its people through its innovative, cross-verified proprietary database combined with external data sources and independent EFTsure verification procedures.

Joining forces with a market leading, global accounting firm will help us reach more Australian businesses and provide PwC clients with best practice and innovative solutions for the digital age we now live in.

According to Mirels, banks ignore account names when processing electronic payments and, he says, they make payment by reference to BSB and account number only. Therefore there is no certainty that the payee name an authorising officer sees on the payment screen or payment report is the actual recipient of the funds.

Vendor Master File management is typically an area that is susceptible to internal control weakness due to the volume and dynamic nature of suppliers. These weaknesses are being exploited. We are seeing on average a 25% anomaly rate in customers' VMFs which require review to ensure they dont lead to payment fraud or error, if they are not remedied.

PwC partner Matthew Lunn says, PwC is focused on digital transformation, operations transformation, and cyber risk management.

Signing the collaboration agreement with EFTsure enables us to introduce this innovative technology company to our clients. EFTsures products may help them identify errors or potentially fraudulent payments on a more real time basis.

According to Mirels, EFTsure is being used by organisations of all sizes and industries, including ASX200 companies, local government, schools and small and medium sized businesses. The solution does not require any integration into a customers financial systems which makes the installation process hassle free, he says.

EFTsure recently announced that it has partnered with Australian venture capital firm, Our Innovation Fund, LP, having raised $2 million Series A funding.
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By Arie Perliger | (The Conversation) |  

The attack in Charlottesville, Virginia, in which a man named James Alex Fields Jr. used his Dodge Challenger as a weapon against a crowd of protesters, underscores the growing violence of Americas far-right wing.

According to reports, Fields was a active member of an online far-right community. Like many other far-right activists, he believes that he represents a wider ideological community, even though he acted alone.

My 15 years experience of studying violent extremism in Western societies has taught me that dealing effectively with far-right violence requires treating its manifestations as domestic terrorism.

In the wake of the Charlottesville attack, the Department of Justice announced it would launch a federal investigation:

that kind of violence, committed for seeming political ends, is the very definition of domestic terrorism.

This acknowledgment may signal that a growing domestic menace may finally get the attention it deserves. While attacks by outsider Jihadist groups will probably continue, domestic terrorism still deserves more attention than its getting.

Domestic terrorism

Terrorism is a form of psychological warfare. Most terrorist groups lack the resources, expertise and manpower to defeat state actors. Instead, they promote their agenda through violence that shapes perceptions of political and social issues.

Fields attack, if it was motivated by racist sentiments, should be treated as an act of domestic terrorism. Here I define domestic terrorism as the use of violence in a political and social context that aims to send a message to a broader target audience. Like lynching, cross-burning and vandalizing religious sites, incidents of this kind deliberately aim to terrorize people of color and non-Christians.

I consider domestic terrorism a more significant threat than the foreign-masterminded variety, in part because the number of domestic terror attacks on U.S. soil is greater. For example, my report published by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point identified hundreds of domestic terror incidents taking place between 2008 and 2012.

Another report, published in 2014 by New America Foundation on domestic incidents of extremist violence, shows that excluding the Orlando nightclub massacre, between 2002-2016, far-right affiliated perpetrators conducted 18 attacks that killed 48 people in the United States. Meanwhile, terrorists motivated by al-Qaidas or the Islamic States ideology killed 45 people in nine attacks.

The Orlando mass shooting, given its mix of apparent motives, is difficult to categorize.

A spontaneous appearance

In briefings with law enforcement and policymakers, I have sometimes encountered a tendency to see U.S. right-wing extremists as a monolith. But traditional Ku Klux Klan chapters operate differently than skinhead groups, as do anti-government patriot and militia groups and anti-abortion extremists. Christian Identity groups, which believe Anglo-Saxons and other people of Northern European descent are a chosen people, are distinct too.

Certainly, there is some overlap. But these groups also differ significantly in terms of their recruitment styles, ideologies and whether and how they use violence. Across the board, undermining the threat they pose requires a more sophisticated approach than investigating their criminal acts as suspected hate crimes.

In an ongoing study Im conducting at the University of Massachusetts Lowell with several students, we have determined that, as it seems to be also in the case of Fields, many attacks inspired by racist or xenophobic sentiments are spontaneous. That is, no one plans them in advance or targets the victim ahead of time. Instead, chance encounters that enrage the perpetrators trigger these incidents.

Sporadic attacks with high numbers of casualties that are plotted in advance, such as Dylann Roofs murder of nine African-Americans in a Charleston, South Carolina church, are always big news. More typical incidents of far-right violence tend to draw less attention.

The fatal stabbing of Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche and Rick Best aboard a train in Portland, Oregon on May 26 seems to be no exception. The alleged killer of these two white men, Jeremy Joseph Christian, attacked them with a knife after they stood up to him for haranguing two young women who appeared to be Muslim, police said. A third injured passenger, Micahel Fletcher, has survived. Much of the media coverage is focused on Christians violent and racist background.

Given the spontaneous nature of so much far-right violence, U.S. counterterrorism policies should, in my view, target the dissemination of white supremacist ideology, rather than just identifying planned attacks and monitoring established white supremacy groups.

An iceberg theory

The number of violent attacks on U.S. soil inspired by far-right ideology has spiked since the beginning of this century, rising from a yearly average of 70 attacks in the 1990s to a yearly average of more than 300 since 2001. These incidents have grown even more common since President Donald Trumps election.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit that researches U.S. extremism, reported 900 bias-related incidents against minorities in the first 10 days after Trumps election  compared to several dozen in a normal week  and found that many of the harassers invoked the then-president-elects name. Similarly, the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit that tracks anti-Semitism, recorded an 86 percent rise in anti-Semitic incidents in the first three months of 2017.

Beyond the terror that victimized communities are experiencing, I would argue that this trend reflects a deeper social change in American society.

The iceberg model of political extremism, initially developed by Ehud Shprinzak, an Israeli political scientist, can illuminate these dynamics.

Murders and other violent attacks perpetrated by U.S. far-right extremists compose the visible tip of an iceberg. The rest of this iceberg is under water and out of sight. It includes hundreds of attacks every year that damage property and intimidate communities, such as the attempted burning in May of an African-American familys garage in Schodack, New York. The garage was also defaced with racist graffiti.

Data my team collected at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point show that the significant growth in far-right violence in recent years is happening at the base of the iceberg. While the main reasons for that are still not clear, it is important to remember that changes in societal norms are usually reflected in behavioral changes. Hence, it is more than reasonable to suspect that extremist individuals engage in such activities because they sense that their views are enjoying growing social legitimacy and acceptance, which is emboldening them to act on their bigotry.

Budget cuts

Despite an uptick in far-right violence and the Trump administrations plan unveiled earlier this year to increase the Department of Homeland Security budget by 6.7 percent to US$44.1 billion in 2018, the White House also proposed to cut spending for programs that fight non-Muslim domestic terrorism.

The federal government has also frozen $10 million in grants aimed at countering domestic violent extremism. This approach is bound to weaken the authorities power to monitor far-right groups, undercutting public safety.

How many more innocent people like Heather Heyer, who was killed in Fields attack  and Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche and Rick Best in Seattle  have to die before the U.S. government starts taking the threat posed by violent white supremacists more seriously?

This is an updated version of an article originally published on May 28, 2017.

Arie Perliger, Director of Security Studies and Professor, University of Massachusetts Lowell

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.



Related video added by Juan Cole:

CBS Evening News: Charlottesville car attack suspect denied bail in first court appearance
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By Julia Conley, staff writer. | Commondreams.org |  

A memo by the FBI and DHS said white supremacist groups pose a bigger threat to the U.S. than other extremist organizations.

White supremacist groups have been responsible for more homicides than any other domestic extremist movement in the past 17 years, according to a memo by the FBI and DHS.

White supremacist groups have been responsible for more homicides than any other domestic extremist movement in the past 17 years, according to a memo by the FBI and DHS. (Photo: Karla Cote/Flickr/cc)

A government intelligence report obtained by Foreign Policy shows that federal law enforcement agencies expressed concern earlier this year about the domestic threat white supremacist groups posed and would continue to pose.

While President Donald Trump spent much of his campaign and the first six months of his presidency warning Americans about the dangers posed by immigrants from Central America, refugees from majority-Muslim countries, and the street gang MS-13, the joint intelligence bulletin compiled by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) notes that members of white supremacist groups were responsible for 49 homicides in 26 attacks from 2000 to 2016, more than any other domestic extremist movement.

According to the two agencies, racial minorities have been the primary victims of [white supremacist] violence. The second most common victims were other Caucasiansand other white supremacists perceived as disloyal to the white supremacist extremism [WSE] movement.

The report is dated May 10, five days before prominent white supremacist Richard Spencer led protests over Charlottesville, Virginias plans to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Leea demonstration that was quickly denounced by city officials and offered a preview of the bloody protests that erupted in Charlottesville this past weekend.

The report details several attacks by white supremacists that took place over the last year, including one in which an extremist allegedly stabbed a black man for kissing a white woman in Olympia, Washington, and one in which a black man was murdered by a white supremacist in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

The bulletin also says that the FBI and DHS are primarily concerned with attacks by lone offenders and small groups of white supremacists, due to the decentralized and often disorganized status of the WSE movement. It also mentions the often spontaneous and opportunistic nature of these acts that limits prevention by law enforcement.

Following the violence in Charlottesville over the weekend, some officials signaled a move toward recognizing white supremacists for the threat they pose to Americans and encouraging law enforcement agencies to fight harder against them. On Monday, the Illinois State Senate passed a resolution calling for police in the state to designate white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups as terrorist organizations, and to pursue the criminal elements of these domestic terror organizations in the same manner and with the same fervor used to protect the United States from other manifestations of terrorism.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Via Commondreams.org

-

Related video added by Juan Cole:

Undercover Nazi Michael German: Police Inaction Encourages White Nationalist Groups | MSNBC
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By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) |  

Trump finally came out, two days late, to denounce explicitly and by name the hate groups who organized an invasion, hundreds-strong, of little Charlottesville, VA (pop. 46,000) on Saturday.

While the statement will take some of the political pressure off the president, it will be dismissed by most Americans as too little, too late and at worst insincere.

The difficulty Trump faces is that his initial reaction, on Saturday, in which he blamed many sides for the violence, was clearly spontaneous and represented his first gut reaction. He thinks that liberals, Blacks and Mexicans were as guilty as (or more so than) Steve Bannons Alt-Right, the Nazis, the KKK, the bikers, etc. I.e. the White Nationalists who have killed the majority of of those killed in domestic terrorist incidents during the past decade in this country.

Immediately after his pro forma, prepared statement (which carefully avoided mentioning the Alt-Right), Trumps staff leaked his alleged plans to pardon Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona. Arpaio was notorious for his profiling-based unconstitutional round-ups of immigrants. When a court ordered him to desist, what with the fourth Amendment and all, he went on with his round-ups, and so was convicted of criminal contempt of court.

Pardoning Arpaio is the White Nationalist move.

Likewise, Trump has not backed off building his wall.

He hasnt apologized for calling Mexican-Americans rapists and criminals.

He hasnt apologized for his years-long public campaign to denigrate Barack Obama as not an American citizen.

He hasnt backed off his bizarre Muslim visa ban.

In the end, there is one reason that Trump cannot heal the country, cannot properly eulogize Heather Heyer, who died for her anti-hate activism.

Because Trump, based on his public statements, would have been a perfectly plausible attendee of the Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville last Saturday.



Related video:

The Oregonian: Trump condemns KKK, neo-Nazis: Racism is evil'
TORONTO, Aug. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cardinal Resources Limited (ASX:CDV) (TSX:CDV) (Cardinal or the Company) is pleased to announce that it has acquired two large scale prospecting licences (PLs) located in North East Ghana from the Kinross Gold Corp (Kinross) subsidiary Red Back Mining Ghana Limited (Red Back) (Figure 1).

Cardinal has entered into a definitive agreement with Red Back to acquire 100% ownership of the licences. The PLs are strategically located adjacent to Cardinals Ndongo tenement (173.36 sq km) which increases the new Ndongo combined tenement area to 286.67 sq km. This enlarged area significantly increases Cardinals land holding over the Namdini major regional shear and allows the Company to extend its exploration programme into this highly prospective terrane.

Cardinals Chief Executive Officer / Managing Director, Archie Koimtsidis stated:

The 100% acquisition of these large-scale licences clearly demonstrates our commitment to the regional prospectivity within the Upper East Region of Ghana.

On a regional scale, Cardinal now has tenements that span ~900 km and contain two major regional shear zones, namely the Bole-Bolgatanga Shear Zone and the major Nangodi regional shear zone on which the Namdini Project is located.

Located along the Nangodi shear is the historic Nangodi Gold Mine, which produced 18,620 oz Au at 24.54 g/t during the 1930s.

The consolidation of the acquired land package with our large scale Ndongo tenement, which is located on the same regional shear zone as the Namdini deposit, will allow Cardinal to progress its regional exploration programme.

Completion is subject to customary regulatory approval.

Figure 1. Newly acquired areas (Nangodi and Yameriga) adjacent to existing Ndongo tenement





ABOUT CARDINAL

Cardinal Resources Limited (ASX:CDV) (TSX:CDV) is an African gold-focused exploration and development Company which holds interests in tenements within Ghana, West Africa.

The Companys Namdini Project has a declared gold Mineral Resource of 23.86Mt @ 1.21 g/t for 931,000 oz Indicated and 100.15Mt @ 1.13 g/t for 3.63Moz Inferred (Refer to Cardinal Technical Report on Namdini dated 5 April 2017). The Company is focused on the development of the Namdini Project through a resource expansion drilling programme, pre-feasibility studies, detailed metallurgical testwork and process flowsheet studies. Exploration activity is also underway at the Companys Bolgatanga (Northern Ghana) and Subranum (Southern Ghana) Projects.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Aug. 15, 2017) - Columbus Gold Corp. (TSX:CGT) (OTCQX:CBGDF) ("Columbus") is pleased to announce the results from the recently completed exploration drilling program at the Montagne d'Or Gold deposit in French Guiana. The drilling program, which consisted of 31 diamond drill holes, totaling 5,280 metres, was designed to test the potential to increase the size of the Montagne d'Or deposit to depth and along strike.

Highlights:

Drill hole MO-17-295 confirms the potential to increase the size of Montagne d'Or deposit at depth. Drill Hole MO-17-295 returned 0.92 g/t Au over 41.2 metres, including 1.92 g/t Au over 17.7 metres, and was intercepted 175 metres vertically below the deepest hole previously drilled in the principal upper felsic zone ("UFZ"), the secondary lower favourable zone ("LFZ"), and the footwall zone ("FWZ").

Drill hole MO-17-304 confirms the potential to increase size of Montagne d'Or along strike. Drill hole MO-17-304 returned 0.56 g/t Au over 58.1 metres, including 2.32 g/t Au over 9.0 metres, 400 metres to the west of the Montagne d'Or gold deposit.

Drill hole MO-17-311 confirms the potential for new discoveries in and around the Montagne d'Or Gold deposit. Drill hole MO-17-311 returned 5.53 g/t Au over 8.0 metres, including 8.96 g/t Au over 4.7 metres and is located to the north of the Montagne d'Or deposit.

"We're extremely pleased with the drill results," said Robert Giustra, President and CEO of Columbus Gold. "The holes which were widely spaced and up to 1,250 meters away from the deposit, confirm the potential to materially increase the size of Montage d'Or along strike, and at depth."

Highlights of the exploration drilling program are as follows:

Drill Hole Intercept (m) Grade Length True Width Zone From To (g/t Gold) (m) (m) MO-17-295 524.0 569.1 0.92 45.1 41.2 UFZ incl. 549.6 567.3 1.92 17.7 16.2 MO-17-297 41.1 78.4 0.48 37.4 36.3 UFZ MO-17-303 7.0 38.5 0.47 31.5 28.1 UFZ MO-17-304 70.5 128.6 0.56 58.1 52.7 UFZ incl. 119.6 128.6 2.32 9.0 8.2 MO-17-311 29.0 37.0 5.53 8.0 7.4 New incl. 29.0 33.7 8.96 4.7 4.3 MO-17-325 191.0 200.5 1.82 9.5 8.1 UFZ 238.8 248.5 2.22 9.7 8.4

Depth extension of the Montagne d'Or deposit

One drill hole (MO-17-295), tested the down-dip (depth) extension of the principal UFZ and secondary LFZ and FWZ mineralized zones on drill section 2890mE, within the west-central segment of the deposit. The deepest intersection to date along this segment of the deposit returned a cut of 2.88 g/t gold over 67.0 metres at -235 metres vertical depth from surface (0m ASL elevation) in hole MO-12-72 drilled on section 3010mE (120 meters east).

The down-dip extent of the UFZ in new hole MO-17-295 returned an intersection 0.92 g/t Au over 41.2 metres, including 1.92 g/t Au over 17.7 metres at -175m ASL elevation. The gold mineralization on the principle UFZ zone has now been extended at depth by 175 metres vertical in the west-central segment of the deposit.

The down-dip extent of the LFZ and FWZ returned intersections 0.32 g/t Au over 23.0 metres, including 0.81 g/t Au over 5.6 metres, and 1.75 g/t Au over 6.5 metres, including 12.10 g/t Au over 0.8 metres, respectively. The LFZ and FWZ are partially assimilated by granodiorite and felsic porphyry intrusive rocks at depth.

Western extension of the Montagne d'Or deposit

Magnetic, electromagnetic and radiometric airborne geophysical survey data has traced the prospective volcano-sedimentary sequence hosting the Montagne d'Or gold deposit for up to 5 km to the west. Twenty-one (21) drill holes on four (4) fences, located on sections 2200mE, 2000mE, 1600mE and 1150mE, were drilled to test the soil-gold anomaly and rock chip gold values obtained along the western projection of the drill-defined Mineral Reserves. The planned drill fences represent 200, 400, 800 and 1,250 metre step-outs from the western limit of the Mineral Reserves at 2400mE. Drill hole fences 1600mE and 1150mE are located on an exclusive exploration permit ("PER") recently granted to Columbus Gold in July 2016.

The principal UFZ zone was extended 400 metres to the west with near surface intersections of 0.48 g/t Au over 37.4 metres (MO-17-297, section 2200mE), 0.47 g/t Au over 31.5 metres (MO-17-303, section 2000mE), 0.56 g/t Au over 58.1 metres, including 2.32 g/t Au over 9.0 metres (MO-17-304, section 2000mE), and 1.82 g/t Au over 9.5 metres and 2.22 g/t Au over 9.7 metres (MO-17-325, section 2000mE).

Further to the west, on section 1600mE and 1150mE, granodiorite intrusive is found to be the dominant rock type, most likely representing the magma chamber to the felsic volcanics and heat source to the hydrothermal alteration and mineralizing events. Gold values were obtained in remnant slivers of felsic volcanics. An exploration target lies westward of section 1150mE on the interpreted west flank of the felsic volcanic center, as illustrated on the following link:

Surface auger grid sampling over this target area is planned in late 2017.

A gold mineralized interval was cut in the saprolite zone in hole MO-17-311 on section 1600mE grading 5.53 g/t Au over 8.0 metres, including 8.96 g/t Au over 4.7 metres. This new mineralized zone is located to the north of the general Montagne d'Or mineralized trend, hosted within a mixed volcano-sedimentary sequence. A cross-section is available at the following link:

East extension of the FWZ

Two drill holes (MO-17-323 and -324) were drilled to test the east continuity of the FWZ along the north contact of felsic volcanics and a wedge of mafic volcanics. This zone is untested east of section 3825mE and presents an excellent target for near surface resource development within the current footprint of the Montagne d'Or deposit.

Hole MO-17-323 was collared on section 3925mE, a 100-meter step out from hole MO-14-185 drilled on section 3825mE (1.47 g/t Au over 37.6 metres). The FWZ intersected in hole 323 is characterized by multiple sulfide mineralized intervals from 48 to 68 metres hole depth (20 metres) and from 85 to 126 metres (41 metres). The best gold interval, 0.90 g/t Au over 11.4 metres, was returned at 85.2 metres in hole depth.

Hole MO-17-324 was collared on section 4325mE, a 500-metre step out from hole MO-14-185, and intersected multiple sulfide mineralized intervals from 95 to 150 metres in hole depth. The best gold interval, 0.85 g/t Au over 10.0 metres, was returned at surface within the saprolite zone. This hole may have been collared within the FWZ.

Gustave geochemical anomaly

Six (6) drill holes (MO-17-317 to -322) investigated a broad northwesterly-aligned soil-gold anomaly. The geochemical anomaly, located 500 metres to the east of the eastern limit of the Montagne d'Or deposit, straddles the boundary between mining concession C02/46 and an exclusive exploration permits ("PER") granted to Columbus Gold in July 2016. The highest values within the Gustave soil-gold anomaly are centered on a quartz vein uncovered at the southwest limit of the trend, referred to as the "Gustave" vein. The Gustave vein, oriented N40W and dipping 60 to the NE, was tested with two core holes in 1997 (MO-97-47 and -48). An intersection of 31.94 g/t gold over 3.5 metres, in hole MO-97-48, was returned within the immediate wall of the vein.

No significant gold mineralization was encountered in this exploration drilling program. The source of the broad soil-gold has not yet been identified.

About Columbus Gold Corp

Columbus is a leading gold exploration and development company operating in French Guiana, France, and in Nevada. Columbus holds a major interest in the Montagne d'Or project in French Guiana, which hosts a world-class gold deposit with a recently completed Feasibility Study. Columbus is presently evaluating a number of mine construction financing options. In Nevada, Columbus is advancing its Eastside gold discovery. Eastside has outstanding infrastructure for mining and processing, and metallurgical testing indicates that gold and silver at Eastside are amenable to cyanide leaching, whether oxide or sulphide. Columbus recently announced plans to spin out its US property portfolio, including Eastside, into a new company called Allegiant Gold Ltd.

Qualified Person, Technical Info and QA/QC

Columbus Gold obtained all authorized permits to conduct drilling operations. A mining work declaration ("DOTM") and a mining work authorization ("AOTM") to conduct the drilling program on concession C02/46 (Montagne d'Or) and the adjoining Bernard and Cigaline exclusive exploration permits ("PER") were submitted to the Regional Directorate for the Environment, Development and Housing ("DEAL"), which regulates mining and exploration activities in French Guiana.

Diamond drill holes were bored with HQ-size core in the upper oxidized saprolitic zone and NQ-size core in fresh rock. The core was placed in heavy PVC plastic core boxes with covers and transported by Columbus Gold personnel to camp Citron logging facilities, located 5 km from Montagne d'Or. Columbus personnel are present on site at all times during the drilling program.

The core was photographed for reference and logged by Columbus Gold geologists who also identified the sampling intervals. Samples were collected by sawing the core in half; sample lengths vary between 0.5 and 1.3 meters. Individual half-core samples were sealed in heavy duty cellophane plastic bags and placed by batch of 9 samples in sealed polypropylene bags for air transport to Cayenne and subsequent trucking to Filab Amsud laboratory in Paramaribo, Suriname, an ISO 9001 and ISO / IEC 17025 accredited laboratory. The remaining half-core is stored in sturdy core racks on site at camp Citron for reference. Samples were assayed for gold by the fire-assay method using an atomic absorption finish on a 50-gram pulp split, and ICP-MS multi-element analysis, including copper, for samples within gold mineralized intervals.

A quality assurance and quality control program (QA/QC) was implemented by Columbus and Filab Amsud to ensure the accuracy and reproducibility of the analytical method and results. The QA/QC program includes the insertion of gold and copper standards, blanks and field duplicates in each laboratory assay batch and systematic re-assaying of samples returning values above 5 g/t Au by the fire-assay method using a gravimetric finish on a 50-gram pulp split.

The drilling program was conducted under the supervision of Rock Lefrancois, Chief Operating Officer for Columbus Gold and Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101, who has reviewed this news release and is responsible for the technical information reported herein, including verification of the data disclosed.
Montreal, Quebec / TheNewswire / August 15, 2017 - John Cumming, President and Chief Executive Officer of Stellar AfricaGold Inc., (TSX-V: SPX) ("Stellar" or the "Company") announces:

BALANDOUGOU GOLD PROJECT BULK SAMPLE UPDATE

The Company is pleased to report that the 150 tonnes per day gravity pilot plant has arrived in Guinea. The three 40 foot containers were cleared by Customs and a convoy of trucks is now en route to the B3 site of the Balandougou gold project. The Company further announces that the site preparations are on schedule and ready for the installation of the plant.

During June and July 2017, the Company stockpiled 15,000 tonnes of mill feed for the gravity plant. The sample consists of 800 truckloads of oxide material from 3 different areas along the B3 gold-bearing structure. The mining cost of the stockpiled sample was less than US$ 4.00 per tonne.

In preparation for the sample extraction, the Company excavated three new trenches, designated TE2, TF2 and TG2. The three trenches were channel sampled at a depth of three metres. Each sample is a two-metre composite sample taken across the mineralized high quartz content sections. A total of 66 samples were taken and sent to ALS Laboratory in Bamako for Fire Assay, Atomic Absorption Finish on 50g aliquot. The results of these samples are expected in the coming weeks and will be released as soon as processed and reviewed.

ABOUT THE B3 GOLD STRUCTURE

Stellar discovered the Balandougou B3 shear zone in 2010 during a regional and detailed soil geochemistry survey exploration program, and a strong NW-SE trending gold anomaly approximately 1,150 metres long by 350 metres wide was outlined. The geochemical anomaly was subsequently investigated with 76 Reverse Circulation drill holes totalling 5050 metres at a 50m grid interval along an 800 metres strike length, and then by 16 diamond drill holes totalling 2,350 metres. Using an excavator, five trenches at 100 metre intervals were excavated to a depth of more than 3 metres across the B3 zone, and an extensive structural analysis was undertaken by AECOM, an independent consultant, to better understand the controls of the gold mineralization.

ABOUT THE BULK SAMPLE PROGRAM

In 2016 as part of preparatory work for a feasibility study Stellar engaged the Metallurgy and Mineralogy Division of SGS South Africa to perform a four-stage gravity recovery test work on a 72-kilogram composite sample collected from the mineralized sections of trenches F, G and H across the B3 gold structure.

The pre-test head grade of the composite sample submitted to SGS was 3.5g/T Au. For the test, a 50 kilogram sub-sample was concentrated through four stages of gravity separation using consecutively smaller milling sizes. The overall gold recovery after gravity separation was 66.2% with 33.8% of the gold remaining in the gravity tails. The 33.8% unrecovered gold in the tailings is thought to be due to the presence of fine gold particles in the initial sample that were too fine to recover using only gravity separation.

To address the issue of fine gold not being recovered by gravity separation, the Company requested a bench test using cyanidation on the tailings after completion of the last stage of gravity separation to evaluate the suitability of a cyanide circuit to process the gravity tailings and increase the gold recovery. The cyanidation bench test of the gravity tailings resulted in a 91% gold recovery from the tailings over a four-hour leach period.

The combination of the four-stage gravity separation followed by cyanide leaching test resulted in a combined gold recovery of 97% of the tested head grade.

Stellar also engaged XKJ Solution, a branch of Henan Xingyang Mining Machinery Manufactory of China, for the engineering design and subsequent fabrication of a 15-to-25-ton-per-hour gravity pilot plant to process a proposed and permitted 15,000 tonnes bulk sample.

The final design parameters and the fine tuning of the pilot plant were set according to the results of the SGS Mineral Services four-stage gravity test results. The pilot plant was design with all required components including a primary crusher and a fine jaw crusher circuit and a ball mill to discharge -0.2 mm size material into two Knelson Concentrators for optimal gold recovery. Final gold recovery from STL-60 Knelson concentrate will be performed on two 6-S shaking tables.

ABOUT STELLAR AFRICAGOLD INC.

Stellar AfricaGold Inc. is a Canadian gold exploration Company based in Montreal, Quebec, with operations concentrated mainly in West Africa and in Quebec.

The Company is currently developing the promising gold potential of the advanced exploration stage Balandougou project in Guinea, including a 15,000 tonne bulk sample program. (see News Release March 1, 2017) The Company also owns the Namarana project in neighbouring Mali. In Quebec, the Company owns 100% of the Opawica Project in the Chibougamau mining camp.

The technical content of this press release has been reviewed and approved by independent consultant Greg Isenor, P. Geo, a Qualified Person as defined in NI 43-101.

For further information please contact Maurice Giroux, VP Exploration, Stellar AfricaGold Inc., 410 St-Nicolas, Suite 236, Montreal (Quebec) H2Y-2P5. Tel.: 514-866-6299 Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or access the Company's website at www.stellarafricagold.com.
North Korea's intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), Hwasong-14, is lauched at an undisclosed place, July 29. / AFP-Yonhap



By Kim Jae-kyoung

SINGAPORE  The rapid development of North Korea's missile and nuclear capabilities is disrupting the strategic balance on the Korean Peninsula and raising the risk of a military conflict, global credit ratings agencies warned, Sunday.

They said if tension builds up further, it will cause serious damage to South Korea's financial markets and economy.

"The way we generally view the tension on the Korean Peninsula is that it wouldn't be rational for either North or South Korea to start an outright war," Thomas Rookmaaker, director of Sovereigns and Supranationals Group at Fitch Ratings, told The Korea Times.

"However, the strategic balance is changing. North Korea continues to strengthen the ability of its weapons to reach U.S. territory and there is a risk that confrontation could be triggered by an unexpected event or a judgment error on either side."

He expressed concern that war would highly likely imply the end of the North's regime and massive destruction in the South.

"While the tension buildup has shown a cyclical pattern for years, the current tension level is higher than we have seen in the past few years and uncertainty has increased, with the potential for spillover in international relations," he said.

His warning comes as tension has significantly built up recently with the North Korean regime making progress in the development of its nuclear weapons, and escalating rhetoric on both sides.












Senior U.S. national security officials said Sunday that a military confrontation with North Koreas is not imminent, but they cautioned that the possibility of war is greater than it was a decade ago.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo and Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, President Trumps national security adviser, tried to provide assurances that a conflict is avoidable, while also supporting Trumps tough talk. They said the United States and its allies no longer can afford to stand by as North Korea pushes ahead with the development of a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile.

Were not closer to war than a week ago but we are closer to war than we were a decade ago, McMaster said, adding that the Trump administration is prepared to deal militarily with North Korea if necessary.

But he stressed that the U.S. is pursuing a very determined diplomatic effort led by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson thats coupled with new financial sanctions to dissuade North Korean leader Kim Jong Un from further provocations.

The U.S. military is locked and loaded every day, McMaster said, repeating Trumps threat.

Pompeo said theres nothing imminent today, in response to a question about how worried should people be over the escalating tensions. He said the U.S. has a pretty good idea of North Koreas intentions, but Pompeo declined to provide specifics. The CIA chief described Kim as rational and responsive to adverse circumstances.

The reaction in North Korea that we are intending to get is an is an understanding that America is no longer going to have the strategic patience that its had that has permitted him to continue to develop his weapons program, Pompeo said. Its that straightforward.

The top U.S. military officer, Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, is traveling in Asia and expected to meet with leaders in South Korea, Japan and China. Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters traveling with him that he aims to sense what the temperature is in the region. He also will discuss military options in the event the diplomatic and economic pressurization campaign fails.

Were all looking to get out of this situation without a war, Dunford said.

Chinas president, Xi Jinping, made a plea for cool-headedness in a phone conversation with Trump on Saturday, urging both sides to avoid words or actions that could worsen the situation.

The call came after Trump made fresh threats against North Korea on Friday, declaring the U.S. military locked and loaded and warning Kim that he will regret it fast if he takes any action against U.S. territories or allies.

Trump has pushed China to pressure North Korea to halt a nuclear weapons program that is nearing the capability of targeting the United States. China is the Norths biggest economic partner and source of aid, but says it alone cant compel its wayward ally to end its nuclear and missile programs.

The White House said in a statement that Trump and Xi agreed North Korea must stop its provocative and escalatory behavior. It also said that the two reiterated their mutual commitment to denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

State-run China Central Television quoted Xi as telling Trump the relevant parties must maintain restraint and avoid words and deeds that would exacerbate the tension on the Korean Peninsula.

But Trump on Friday appeared to set another red line  the mere utterance of threats  that would trigger a U.S. attack against North Korea and big, big trouble for Kim.

North Koreas Minju Joson newspaper said in an editorial Saturday that the Norths army is capable of fighting any war the U.S. wants.

The tough talk capped a week in which long-standing tensions between the countries risked abruptly boiling over.

New U.N. sanctions condemning North Koreas rapidly developing nuclear program drew fresh ire and threats from the North. Trump, responding to a report that U.S. intelligence indicates Pyongyang can now put a nuclear warhead on its long-range missiles, vowed to rain down fire and fury if challenged.

The North then came out with a threat to lob four intermediate-range Hwasong-12 missiles near Guam, a tiny U.S. territory some 3,200 kilometers from the Norths capital, Pyongyang.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., welcomed Trumps pugnacious approach, arguing that many of the presidents critics failed to stop North Korea from developing a nuclear weapon that could hit the United States.

President Trump inherited a mess, Graham said. All those smart people who are criticizing his rhetoric and his policy, how well did you do?

Pompeo and Graham were on Fox News Sunday, and McMaster appeared on ABCs This Week. By Richard Lardner, Washington AP

North Korean tensions arent deterring tourists from Guam

Tourists havent been deterred from visiting the tropical island of Guam even though the has been the target of threats from North Korea during a week of angry words exchanged by Pyongyang and Washington.

Chiho Tsuchiya of Japan heard the news, but she decided to come anyway with her husband and two children. I feel Japan and Korea also can get danger from North Korea, so staying home is the same, said the 40-year-old.

Won Hyung-jin, an official from Modetour, a large South Korean travel agency, said several customers called with concerns, but they werent worried enough to pay cancellation fees for their trips.

It seems North Korea racks up tension once or twice every year, and travelers have become insensitive about it, Won said. His company has sent about 5,000 travelers to Guam a month this year, mostly on package tours.

The U.S. territory has a population of 160,000, but it attracted 1.5 million visitors last year. One-third of Guams jobs are in the tourism industry.

Guam is a key outpost for the U.S. military, which uses it as a base for bombers and submarines.

The islands sandy beaches and aquamarine waters make it a popular getaway for travelers from Japan and South Korea. Guam is only about three hours by plane from major cities in both countries.

The number of South Korean travelers in particular has been growing lately because five low-cost airlines started flying to Guam from South Korea, said Antonio Muna, the vice president of Guam Visitors Bureau. This helped boost arrival figures to a 20-year high in July, Muna said.

The threats came in a week in which longstanding tensions between the countries risked abruptly boiling over. New United Nations sanctions condemning the Norths rapidly developing nuclear program drew fresh ire and threats from Pyongyang. President Donald Trump responded by vowing to rain down fire and fury if challenged. The North then threatened to lob missiles near Guam.

Kenji Kikuchi, 39, arrived from Japan last week and planned to leave Tuesday as scheduled. He was aware of the threat from reading the local newspaper and was a little worried. But he said North Koreas missiles would fall in the water not on Guam. His 8-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter werent concerned.

They talk about it, but they dont care about it. So they like the sea and the pool, he said.

The Guam Visitors Bureau has heard reports of cancellations, but Muna said it doesnt yet have any concrete figures on how many took place. Officials are still expecting a strong August, Muna said.

Japan and Korea make over 90 percent of our arrivals. And theyre much closer to North Korea than Guam is, Muna said.

The agency has been relaying assurances from the governor and defense officials that Guam is protected and safe, he said.

Trump told Guams Republican governor the global attention would send more tourists to the island.

Youre going to go up like tenfold with the expenditure of no money, he told Gov. Eddie Calvo in a telephone conversation Calvo posted Sunday on Facebook. Trump said hed been watching scenes of Guam on the news, and it just looks like a beautiful place.

At a news conference yesterday, Calvo said that Guam is in a normal state of readiness and its business as usual.

There is no change in security threat levels.

He told the reporters that we are defended and will be protected. AP
By Andrew Salmon





"Tensions are spiking" around the Korean peninsula  again. Global media are issuing dire Armageddon scenarios  again. Social media is alive with conjecture about what dire steps Pyongyang or Washington will take next  again. Anxious friends and relatives are calling Seoul and asking expatriates for reassurance  again.

Sigh. Given the frequency of "spiking tensions," it is time for an expat form letter. Allow me...

Dear Mum and Dad/Dear Son and Daughter/Dear Colleague (DELETE AS APPROPRIATE):

Thank you for your concern. Let me (yet again) reassure you: Nobody in Seoul is digging bunkers. Nobody is hoarding bottled water or instant noodles. There are no air raid drills or missile alerts. Neither US nor ROK troops are on full alert. Local capital markets  those hyper-sensitive indicators of risk  have barely moved. (In fact, as of this month, foreign ownership of Korean stock is at an all-time high of over 33 percent.) And the shops, bars and restaurants here are doing business as usual.

None of this indicates impending doom.

True: Extra US military assets have been deployed to the region. However, this is common in times of "spiking tensions." (Note: These "tensions" actually affect only a handful of politicians, generals, diplomats and journalists  barely a few thousand persons in a nation of 51 million.) It is not suggestive of imminent war. No advance combat indicators  major US reinforcements arriving in Korea, the evacuation of US civilian personnel; security lock-downs at US bases in Korea and region-wide  are being noted.

Please, stop giving credence to hysterical global and social media commentary. Do you remember the exact same fears in 2013? When  despite warnings of the 1953 armistice being rescinded; of a return to Korean War combat; of fiery apocalypse  nothing actually happened?

Yes, everyone has gone haywire over US President Donald Trump and his recent vitriol aimed at Kim Jong-un. Don't panic! He was merely stating what former US presidents have said  warning North Korea of US resolve, etc, etc. The only difference is he was using the bellicose rhetoric North Korea uses endlessly. Common sense should tell you: A war of words and a war of weapons are very different things.

Moreover, for both sides the risk-reward ratio regarding commencing hostilities does not add up.












China has announced that it will cut off imports of North Korean coal, iron ore and other goods in three weeks under U.N. sanctions imposed over the Norths nuclear and missile programs.

China, the isolated Norths main trading partner, has been reluctant to push leader Kim Jong Uns regime too hard for fear it might collapse. But Beijing is increasingly frustrated with Pyongyang and supported a U.N. Security Council ban on Aug. 5 on coal and other key goods.

The Chinese customs agency said yesterday that it will stop processing imports of North Korean coal, iron and lead ores and fish at midnight on Sept. 5.

The announcement follows an escalating exchange of angry words between Kims government and the Trump administration in Washington. The latest U.N. sanctions are intended to block North Korean exports worth USD1 billion  a significant share of total exports valued at $3 billion last year.

Even as he seeks Beijings help on North Korea, President Donald Trump is poised to seek a trade investigation of China for the alleged theft of American technology and intellectual property. MDT/AP
Atlanta, GA In May 2015, Cynthia Ziegler from Brookhaven, Georgia received a devastating diagnosis from her doctor. Ziegler had stage IV lung cancer and there was no reason for optimism. Until that day Ziegler had no idea there was a dangerous cancer lurking in her chest.

Two years earlier, in December 2016, Ziegler had surgery to repair an abnormal aortic aneurysm. On December 16, 2016 in preparation for the operation she had a series of chest X-rays at St. Josephs Hospital in Atlanta ordered by her doctor.The radiologist spotted a small 7 mm nodule in her left lung that gave him cause for concern.According to the statement of claim filed in the State Court of Dekalb County State of Georgia the radiologist recommended Zieglers doctor order a CT scan for further clarification. Rather than simply passing on the X-ray to Zieglers doctors office Zieglers office was actually called by telephone and told of the findings.Two days later, a second doctor reviewed the x-rays showing the nodule according to the documents.Neither doctor followed up with a CT scan nor was Ziegler told about the nodule according to the statement of claim.Then two years later she is diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer that has gone into her liver, her spleen and several places in her bones, says Johnson. She is on an experimental treatment regimen treatment that has been keeping her alive, but right now it is not working.Jonathan Johnson, the attorney that now represents Ziegler in a delayed diagnosis medical malpractice lawsuit says the doctors should have followed up.There is a note (filed with the documents) from one nurse saying she made a phone call over to the doctors office to call their attention to the X-ray, says Johnson from Jonathan W. Johnson, Attorneys at Law in Atlanta, She did not just send it over, she called to draw their attention to that x-ray. She called to emphasise that it needed to be done.Cynthia Zieglers cancer is considered terminal and she has been offered palliative care says Johnson.The lawsuit names as defendants Zieglers doctor, the second doctor who reviewed the x-rays, as well as St. Josephs Hospital of Atlanta, Emory Healthcare and The Emory Clinic.According to the statement of claim as a direct and proximate result of the negligence of all of the above-named defendants Cynthia Zieglers lung cancer progressed to untreated and unchecked stage IV lung cancer causing a delay in treatment that has greatly reduced her life expectancy.Asked for comment by LAS, Interim Associate Vice President, Health Sciences Communications Exec. Director, Media Relations & Research Communications, Woodruff Health Sciences Center, Emory University, Holly Korschun said in a written statement that, Emory does not comment on pending litigation. This includes any individually named employees.
A urinary tract infection, or UTI, is a bacterial infection of any part of the urinary tract, which includes the bladder, kidneys, ureters (tubes that connect the kidneys to the bladder) and the urethra (the tube that allows the bladder to be emptied). Infections of the bladder or the urethra are the most common.

In the United States, about 8.1 million people visit the doctor due to a urinary tract infection each year, according to the American Urological Association.

Causes

Most often, a UTI occurs because bacteria enter the urethra and travel up to the bladder, where they multiply.

Bladder infections are typically caused by Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria, which are common bacteria in the human gut, according to the Mayo Clinic. Infections of the urethra can be caused by E. coli, or by sexually transmitted infections, such as herpes or chlamydia.

Bacteria in the bladder can also move up to the kidneys and cause a kidney infection (known as pyelonephritis), which can cause permanent kidney damage. An untreated UTI in the bladder can lead to such an infection.

Symptoms

According to the National Institutes of Health, symptoms of a UTI include:

A strong and frequent urge to urinate often, even after you've just emptied your bladder

Pain or burning while urinating

Cloudy or bloody urine

Pain in the lower abdomen or back (pelvic pain for women, rectal pain for men)

Signs of a kidney infection may include:

Chills or night sweats

Fever

Pain in the side, back or groin area

Flushed or reddened skin

Nausea and vomiting

In older adults, mental changes or confusion are often the only signs of a UTI, according to the NIH. For this reason, UTIs in the elderly are often missed, said Dr. Ketul Shah, a urologist from The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. If an elderly patient comes to the hospital because they are confused and not feeling well, it's important that doctors rule out common problems (such as UTI) first, before they start treatment for other, less common problems, Shah said.

Risk factors

Women are more likely than men to get a UTI. One reason for this is that women have a shorter urethra than men do, and it is closer to the anus. Both of these reasons explain why bacteria can reach the bladder more easily in women. Sexual activity also increases a woman's risk of UTI.

The drop in estrogen levels that women experience after menopause also can make the urinary tract more vulnerable to infection, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Blockages of the urinary tract, such as those caused by a kidney stone or an enlarged prostate, can block the flow of urine and increase the risk of UTI.

People with an impaired immune system, such as those with diabetes and other conditions, have a decreased ability to fight off infections, which can increase the risk of UTI.

People who have a urinary catheter are also at increased risk for UTI.

People who hold their urine for long periods of time may also be at risk for a urinary tract infection, Shah said. Urine has a high amount of glucose and proteins, which can allow bacteria to grow, Shah said. "The bacteria has more time to multiply" when people hold their urine, Shah said.

Diagnosis

To diagnose a UTI, doctors collect a urine sample to look for bacteria or byproducts from bacteria, such as red and white blood cells, Shah said. Doctors can also perform a urine culture  in which the urine sample is cultured in a lab to see if it grows bacteria  which takes about 24 to 48 hours, Shah said. The latter test can help doctors determine which antibiotics are most suitable to treat the infection, Shah said.

Treatment

Usually, a urinary tract infection is treated with antibiotics to prevent the infection from spreading to the kidneys. Symptoms of a bladder infection usually go away within one to two days after starting antibiotics.

Patients who are prescribed antibiotics should take them exactly as it was recommended by your healthcare provider, and they should not stop taking the drug until your provider says it is safe to do so, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A recent opinion article published in The BMJ (British Medical Journal) has questioned the long-held advice of finishing a course of antibiotics even if a person is feeling better to prevent the relapse of an infection. The article suggests this advice might be contributing to an increase in antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Women with recurrent UTIs  meaning having more than two or three UTIs in a year  may be told to take antibiotics after sexual activity to prevent infection. Longer courses of antibiotics, or stronger doses, also may be required for people with recurrent infections.

A more severe infection of the kidneys may require hospital treatment. Hospital treatment involves injecting fluids and antibiotics through a vein. Some people may need surgery if the infection is caused by a problem with the structure of the urinary tract, according to the NIH.

UTIs in children can be serious because the infection can sometimes affect the growth of the kidneys, Shah said. Children who have had a UTI may require further testing to make sure their urine is not traveling back up into the kidneys, Shah said.

Prevention

Ways to help prevent UTIs include drinking plenty of water to dilute urine and flush out bacteria, and urinating after intercourse. Women who've gone through menopause may use estrogen cream around the vagina to reduce the risk of infections, the NIH says.

A 2012 review suggested that cranberries may help prevent UTIs, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center. Cranberries may interfere with the way bacteria attach to urinary tract cells.

The idea that cranberry juice can prevent UTIs is controversial, because although some studies show a benefit, other studies find little evidence of a benefit, or suggest that the benefit is a placebo effect, Shah said. Still, because cranberry juice is safe and not very expensive, Shah said he does recommend it as a way to help prevent UTI.

Additional reporting by Cari Nierenberg, Live Science Contributor.

Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+.

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An earthquake-toppled house in the ancient city of Jerash is providing archaeologists with clues on how artisans constructed mosaics during the eighth century.

The ancient house was likely undergoing a remodel when, on Jan. 18, 749, the massive earthquake struck Jerash, located in what is now Jordan, the researchers of a new study found.

Before the earthquake, artisans were putting together mosaics for the floors of the house, but they abandoned their artwork after the natural disaster struck. This abandonment turned the house into a time capsule, allowing modern-day archaeologists a chance to see how artisans from the Umayyad  the early Islamic period  assembled these decorative mosaics. [Photos: Lost Roman Mosaics of Southern France]

"It offers a unique glimpse into the moment in time immediately before the earthquake struck," the researchers wrote in the study.

House of the Tesserae

This map shows the location of Jerash. (Image credit: Copyright Antiquity)

Archaeologists have already combed through much of Jerash, an ancient walled city that flourished from the first century B.C. through the middle of the eighth century A.D., when the earthquake struck.

However, two archaeologists realized that areas within the highest part of the city, located in the northwest quarter, had yet to be studied. In particular, an extravagant house with partially completed mosaic floors caught their attention.

They dubbed it the "House of the Tesserae," named for the individual tessera pieces that make up its mosaics. The house was likely owned by wealthy people, as it had several rooms surrounding a courtyard, where a rainwater-collecting cistern sat hidden underground. The house also had a porch lined with Roman-style Corinthian columns, said study co-researcher Rubina Raja, a professor of classical archaeology at Aarhus University in Denmark.

The archaeologists studied the northwest quarter of the walled city of Jerash, shown here in red. (Image credit: Copyright: the Danish-German Jerash Northwest Quarter Project; Lichtenberger and Raja/Antiquity 2017

The top floor of the two-story house had tumbled onto the ground floor  likely because of the violent earthquake, Raja said. But, curiously, both floors were barren of all furniture and daily objects, suggesting that the owners had cleared out the house for a remodel, Raja said.

"What we found in there was the preparation for new wall paintings in the house, and then these new mosaics that were about to be laid," Raja told Live Science.

The floor of the upper level was already adorned with large mosaics  all geometric in pattern, meaning they didn't show a specific scene  indicating that the house was structurally sound, at least before the earthquake hit, Raja said.

"Mosaics are heavy things," she said. "They're small stone cubes, but they are all set in mortar and a sort of plaster to be kept in place. So, in total, they become extremely heavy."

Distinct finding

The northern section of the tesserae trough. (Image credit: Copyright: the Danish-German Jerash Northwest Quarter Project; Lichtenberger and Raja/Antiquity 2017

On the bottom floor, the archaeologists found troughs filled with "thousands and thousands of mosaic tesserae that were pristine, unused and ready to be laid in a larger mosaic," possibly on the ground floor, Raja said.

Those tesserae-filled troughs suggested that the mosaic pieces were made on-site, she said. Until this finding, researchers were unsure whether ancient artisans crafted the tesserae in permanent, off-site studios or on-site. [Photos: Ruins of Mysterious Wall Found in Jordan]

"What our findings now indicate is that these tesserae were indeed most likely produced on location," she said. "You would have the craftsmen or craftswomen who actually carved these tesserae on-site to be used later."

Moreover, the "tesserae were not just thrown on a heap, but they were carefully stored before they were used," said study co-researcher Achim Lichtenberger, a professor of classical archaeology at the University of Munsterin in Germany.

The researchers also found the skeletal remains of a young person, who was likely trying to exit the house when the earthquake hit. It's possible that a metal hammer found near the body was used to produce the tesserae, which were made of white limestone, pinkish limestone and a black stone that has yet to be identified, Raja noted.

A close-up of some of the tesserae recovered from the trough. (Image credit: Copyright: the Danish-German Jerash Northwest Quarter Project; Lichtenberger and Raja/Antiquity 2017

"We're not completely sure it was used for this, but the fact that it was found close to the trough with all of these white tesserae in it, inside a house that's otherwise swept for objects, does indicate that there might be a relation between the tool and the tesserae," she said.

Abandoned quarters

Archaeologists have dated more than a million pottery shards from the northwest quarter of Jerash over the past six years, and none of them date to the period after the earthquake. It wasn't until the 12th century that people returned to the area, Raja said.

It's possible that any survivors from the northwest quarter moved to Jerash's main streets, she said. Perhaps, despite "the richness of these houses, the catastrophe was so devastating there was not enough means, or enough manpower, to actually rebuild the complete city after the earthquake," Raja said.

The study was published in the August issue of the journal Antiquity.

Original article on Live Science.
This vintage engraved illustration reveals the sun's corona during the total solar eclipse of Aug. 18, 1868, from the peninsula of Malacca in Malaysia.

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

For centuries, astronomers have realized that total solar eclipses offer a valuable scientific opportunity. During what's called totality, the opaque moon completely hides the bright photosphere of the sun  its thin surface layer that emits most of the sun's light. An eclipse allows astronomers to study the sun's colorful outer atmosphere and its delicate extended corona, ordinarily invisible in the dazzling light of the photosphere.

But total solar eclipses are infrequent, and are visible only from a narrow path of totality. So eclipse expeditions require meticulous advance planning to ensure that astronomers and their equipment wind up in the right place at the right time. As the history of astronomy shows, things don't always go according to plan for even the most prepared eclipse hunters.

Into hostile territory, at the mercy of the map

Samuel Williams, the newly appointed professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at Harvard College, was eager to observe a total solar eclipse. He'd seen a transit of Venus in 1769, but had never had the chance to study the sun's corona during an eclipse. According to his calculations, a total solar eclipse would be visible from Maine's Penobscot Bay on Oct. 27, 1780.

But reaching Maine from Massachusetts would be something of a problem; the Revolutionary War was raging, and Maine was held by the British Army. The Massachusetts legislature came to Williams' assistance; it directed the state's Board of War to fit out a ship to convey the eclipse hunters. Speaker of the House John Hancock wrote to the British commander in Maine, requesting permission for the men of science to make their observations. When the astronomer-laden ship arrived at Penobscot Bay, Williams and his team were permitted to land but restricted to the island of Isleboro, three miles offshore from the mainland.

The morning of the big day was cloudless. As the calculated moment of totality approached, at half past noon, the excitement built. The sliver of uneclipsed sun became narrower and narrower.

Then, at 12:31 p.m., it started becoming wider and wider. Williams realized, to his frustration, that he wasn't in the path of totality after all. They were 30 miles too far south.

After a subdued voyage back to Massachusetts, Williams tried to determine what had gone wrong. Some astronomers, at the time and in following centuries, suggested his calculations of the path of totality were inaccurate.

Williams, however, had a different explanation. In his report to the newly founded American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he blamed bad maps:

"The longitude of our place of observation agrees very well with what we had supposed in our calculations. But the latitude is near half a degree less than what the maps of that country had led us to expect."

Since half a degree of longitude corresponds to 30 nautical miles, this could explain why Williams ended up too far south.

Although Samuel Williams missed seeing a total eclipse, his expedition was not a total failure. While watching the narrow sliver of sun visible at 12:31, he noted it became "broken or separated into drops." These bright drops, known today as Baily's Beads, are the result of the sun's light shining through valleys and depressions along the moon's visible edge. They're named in honor of astronomer Francis Baily; however, Baily saw and described the beads in 1836, nearly 56 years after Williams observed them.

Hard to observe with smoke in your eyes

Almost a century later, in 1871, English astronomer Norman Lockyer was eager to observe a total solar eclipse.

Three years earlier, he and French astronomer Jules Janssen had independently measured the spectrum of the sun's chromosphere; to their surprise, they found an emission line in the yellow range of the spectrum, not corresponding to any known element.

Lockyer boldly claimed that the emission line was from a new element that he named "helium," after the sun god Helios. Realizing that eclipses offered a helpful opportunity to search for more undiscovered elements, Lockyer became a strong advocate of eclipse expeditions. He knew the total solar eclipse of Dec. 12, 1871 would pass across southern India and persuaded the British Association for the Advancement of Science to sponsor an expedition. Wishing to show that British rule in India was linked to scientific progress, the British government chipped in 2,000, and the P&O steamship company offered reduced fares to India for the eclipse hunters.

Lockyer's voyage to India went smoothly. (This could not be taken for granted; in 1870, on his way to view an eclipse from Italy, Lockyer was aboard a ship that ran aground off the east coast of Sicily.) The team set up their instruments on a tower at Bekal Fort, on the southwest Indian coast. The morning of Dec. 12, 1871 was cloudless. Although Lockyer was suffering from a fever (and from the effects of the opium he was taking to treat it), he was ready.

Then, during the initial phases of the eclipse, he noted odd activity in the region below the fort. Local inhabitants were gathering a huge pile of brushwood to fuel a bonfire; apparently, by creating a bright fire on Earth, they hoped to encourage the darkening sun to become bright again. Lockyer was alarmed; the column of smoke would have risen directly between him and the eclipsed sun, ruining his observations.

Fortunately, the local superintendent of police happened to be present; he summoned a squadron of policemen who put out the fire and dispersed the crowd. During the now smoke-free eclipse, Lockyer made valuable observations of the structure of the sun's corona.

To see an eclipse you must see the sun

Jump ahead to the early 20th century. The English Astronomer Royal Sir Frank Dyson was eager to view a total solar eclipse. He didn't have to travel far, since the eclipse of June 29, 1927 had a path of totality cutting across northern England, from Blackpool in the west to Hartlepool in the east. As an eminent figure in the scientific establishment and a renowned expert on eclipses, Dyson had no trouble in commanding financial support for his eclipse observations.

What he could not command, however, was the famously fickle English weather. During the month of June, northern England averages about seven hours of direct sunlight per day; however, this comes from a mix of weather that includes completely overcast days and completely cloudless days. Dyson didn't know what to expect.

After checking the weather records along the predicted eclipse path, Dyson decided to observe from the Yorkshire village of Giggleswick. As he and his team prepared for the eclipse, the location choice initially seemed dubious; for two weeks before the eclipse, the sky was completely cloudy every afternoon, at the time of day when totality would occur on June 29.

Despite the grimly unpromising weather, crowds of hopeful people converged on the widely publicized eclipse path. Railway companies ran special excursion trains, towns along the path of totality sponsored "eclipse dances" and newspapers offered "ecliptoglasses" to subscribers.

In the end, unfortunately, most viewers along the eclipse path were disappointed. From the errant cloud that blocked the totally eclipsed sun from Blackpool Tower to the unbroken overcast sky at Hartlepool, the weather did not cooperate.

Happily for Frank Dyson, however, the town of Giggleswick was nearly the only location along the eclipse path that had clear skies during totality. The estimated 70,000 people who converged there, following the lead of the astronomer royal, also benefited from Dyson's good luck.

After the eclipse, Dyson's public statement was, by British standards, positively bubbly:

"The photographs have come out extremely well. A very clear and striking eclipse. Our observations went off very well indeed."

Despite the difficulties posed by weather and smoky bonfires and dodgy maps astronomers have always persevered in their quest to view eclipses.

Barbara Ryden, Professor of Astronomy, The Ohio State University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
No matter where you are in the contiguous United States on Aug. 21, if skies are clear, you'll see something that hasn't been glimpsed since 1918  a solar eclipse visible across the country from coast to coast.

But what if you're not on the ground? What if you happen to be in midair on an airplane during the total solar eclipse?

Unfortunately, the outlook for seeing the disk of the sun directly isn't good if you're traveling on a commercial flight, experts told Live Science. However, with a little calculation, you can figure out whether the effects of the eclipse will be visible on the clouds around you or on the ground below. And some lucky flyers may find that they're crossing the eclipse's path at just the right moment to experience the dark shadow of totality (when the moon's shadow completely covers the sun), experts said. [NASA's Total Solar Eclipse Maps (Photos)]

Only those in the path of totality  where approximately 12 million people live, though many will be traveling there to view the celestial event  will experience the dramatic daytime darkness of a total eclipse. In other parts of the country, daylight could fade to a near-twilight dimness, depending on how much of the sun is blocked by the moon.

A special Alaska Airlines charter flight is scheduled to "chase" the eclipse, Alaska Airlines representatives announced June 26 in a statement. The flight, which is not available for commercial booking, is scheduled to take off at 7:30 a.m. local time and will carry astronomers and eclipse enthusiasts off the coast of Oregon and over the Pacific Ocean, to catch sight of the eclipse before it begins its journey across the mainland of the U.S., Space.com reported.

"Flying high above the Pacific Ocean will not only provide one of the first views [of the eclipse], but also one of the best," Sangita Woerner, Alaska Airlines' vice president of marketing, said in the statement. (Apparently, the sun will be rising just at the time the solar eclipse "touches down" at 9:48 a.m. PT, or 16:48:33 UTC, meaning the sun will rise while it is completely eclipsed, according to Eclipse2017.org.)

Many people who have commercial airline flights scheduled for Aug. 21 may also find themselves in the air while the eclipse is underway. If you're one of those people, what might you see if you're flying over a part of the country experiencing a partial eclipse? And what could it look like if you're crossing the path of totality while the eclipse is at its peak?

It's all about the angle

Being able to see an eclipse from the air depends on the angle of the moving sun relative to the airplane, and by the time the Aug. 21 eclipse begins, the sun will be too far overhead to be visible from an airplane window, meteorologist and Space.com skywatching columnist Joe Rao told Live Science.

In 2016, a total solar eclipse  seen here from Alaska Airlines Flight 870  began at 23:19 UTC on March 8 and reached its maximum point at 01:59 UTC on March 9, with totality lasting 4 minutes and 9 seconds. (Image credit: Alaska Airlines)

In 2016, Rao was a passenger on Alaska Airlines Flight 870 during a total solar eclipse, which reached its maximum when the sun was about 10 degrees above the horizon. This year, when the show begins for people on the western coast of the U.S., the sun will be significantly higher in the sky  about 40 degrees above the horizon, Rao said.

At a typical flight altitude of around 35,000 feet (11 kilometers), airplane passengers seated on the plane's "sun side" might be able to glimpse the sun only if its height above the horizon is no more than 30 degrees, Rao told Live Science.

Unfortunately, this means that the angle of the sun's position during the Aug. 21 eclipse will make it impossible to see through a window of a commercial aircraft, "even if you are contorted to have your nose pressed up against the bottom of the window from a 'sun-side' window seat," Glenn Schneider, an astronomer with the Steward Observatory at the University of Arizona, told Live Science in an email.

For the Alaska Airlines eclipse flightscheduled for Aug. 21, Rao has advised airline officials to fly the plane 1,000 miles (1,609 km) off the Oregon coast, in order to catch the eclipse over the Pacific Ocean when the sun will be around 25 degrees above the horizon, he told Live Science.

Schneider, who also worked with Alaska Airlines to determine the best course for their eclipse charter flight, explained that the custom flight path "was defined to fly across, not along, the moon's shadow, to put the sun at the right azimuth [angle] to be visible out the aircraft's right-side windows," he said. [The 8 Most Famous Solar Eclipses in History]

Light and shadow

But even if you can't see the sun directly from an airplane, depending on where you are in the sky during the eclipse, you might still be able to see a change in the light around you if the sun is partially blocked by the moon, an effect that Rao described as "counterfeit twilight."

"It's not the kind of twilight that you see when the sun goes down," Rao said. "It's just strange  in the sense that the quality of light is different from what you're usually accustomed to seeing. It's kind of like putting on a pair of polarized glasses; there's a metallic-like color to the sky," he said.

The more that the sun is covered, the more dramatic that view will be, Rao told Live Science. And those on certain flights may find that their path aligns enough with the movement of the moon's shadow, enabling them to experience the drama of totality.

"You'll definitely notice once we get past 80 to 90 percent, the inside of the cabin is going to be getting darker," Rao said.

"It's going to be like curtain time at a Broadway play in the 30 seconds before totality that light's going to dim down very quickly," Rao said.

However, finding yourself on a flight crossing the eclipse path at the precise time of totality is "a real long shot," Schneider told Live Science in an email.

Calculating your path

If you're scheduled to be on a commercial flight while the eclipse is underway, how could you find out where your flight path and the eclipse's path might intersect? Your best course would be to consult the flight-tracking website Flight Aware  which provides moment-by-moment flight data  and look at past flights along that route to estimate your plane's latitude and longitude positions while in the air, Rao told Live Science.

Passengers on commercial airline flights scheduled to fly across the U.S. during the eclipse may see the effects of the eclipse on the clouds or on the ground. (Image credit: Flight Aware)

"I would look at the history over the last 10 days of that flight I'm going to be on," Rao suggested. "I would try to draw some kind of a mean or average of where the plane usually is  or where it has been over the last 10 days  and then try to match it up against the totality path," he said.

By comparing the timing as well as the longitude and latitude positions of the airplane's flight path to similar coordinates along the eclipse path  available through an interactive map produced by NASA  fliers can estimate how much of the sun might be covered at a given point during their travels, Rao explained.

"If it's more than 70 percent, you'll notice it if you're looking out the window of the plane," he said. "The clouds will appear yellow or amber in color instead of bright white, because the light that comes from around the edges of the sun has a different quality than the light when the sun is not eclipsed."

Those who find they are flying close to the path of totality  though not directly in it  may see the moon's shadow projected on the clouds nearby or even on the ground below the airplane, a sight that is "quite remarkable," Schneider said. From a typical commercial flight altitude of about 35,000 feet, the horizon is about 200 miles (320 km) away, "so you can see quite a distance, and you could get lucky in that regard," Schneider said.

"Hopefully, there'll be enough of the sun covered that you'll be able to notice something out of the ordinary, something different from what you would normally see during a flight," Rao added.

REMEMBER to never look directly at the sun during a partial eclipse. Make sure to wear protective eclipse-viewing glasses (sunglasses won't cut it).

On Aug. 21, Live Science reporter Mindy Weisberger will be sending eclipse updates while on a commercial airplane flying from Los Angeles to New York City, departing at 8:25 a.m. local time. Will there be visible evidence of the eclipse from midair? Follow Live Science on Facebook and Twitter to find out!

Original article on Live Science.
A police chief from the Public Security Police Force (PSP) is currently under investigation for allegedly using public money for private purposes, according to a report by Macao Daily News. The male police officer, who is in his 50s, has been serving in PSP since 1993. According to PSP, the case was reported to the authorities by other parties within the bureau. The suspect is currently working for PSP, but has been removed from his position. PSP is investigating whether third parties are involved in the case.

MOP342 million granted for housing maintenance

Until July 31, the Housing Bureaus (IH) Building Maintenance Fund granted MOP342 million in subsidies for the maintenance of buildings across Macau, according to a statement released last week by IH. The subsidies involve 2.862 applications. Over MOP270 million was granted to 2,405 applicants  the majority  seeking assistance for repairs to facilities in buildings common areas. Over MOP53 million was granted to 265 applicants for building maintenance subsidies. About MOP4.5 million was granted to the remaining 164 applicants as interest-free loans for building maintenance programs.
This ancient Greek "computer" called the Antikythera mechanism continues to puzzle scientists as to what it was used for.

More than 2,000 years before the Great American Solar Eclipse, which will darken the skies over the U.S. on Aug. 21, astronomers in ancient Greece developed their own "supercomputer" to predict eclipses just like this one.

The ancient gearbox, called the Antikythera mechanism, was used to identify astronomical events that could anchor their calendar. [See Photos of the Ancient Antikythera Shipwreck and Treasure]

Ancient supercomputer

Sponge divers discovered the mysterious gearbox in 1900, when they took shelter from a nearby storm on the island of Antikythera. The divers unearthed an ancient shipwreck, and archaeological investigations revealed that the Antikythera shipwreck likely sank about 2,000 years ago, on its way between Rome and Asia Minor, Live Science previously reported.

When explorers looked through the wreckage, they found a shoe-box-size contraption covered with dials and filled with about 30 gears made of bronze. Though the mysterious object had fragmented into dozens of pieces, archaeologists soon figured out what the enigmatic object was used for: The hand-cranked gearbox would have allowed ancient Greek astronomers to figure out the position of the sun, moon and stars at any given time in the future.

Though the mysterious astronomical calculator's 2,000 years under the sea have corroded it, scientists have used 3D imaging to reveal some of the text on the box, which provides instructions on how to use it, according to a 2016 study published in the journal Almagest.

"Before, we could make out isolated words, but there was a lot of noise  letters that were being misread or gaps in the text," Alexander Jones, a professor of the history of science at New York University, told Live Science last year. "Now, we have something that you can actually read as ancient Greek. We can tell what these texts were saying to an ancient observer."

For instance, the new information reveals that there was a zodiac chart on the front of the gearbox showing the planets moving through the different constellations, the study found.

Eclipse predictions

In 2014, scientists reported in the journal PLOS ONE that they had deciphered the dial and algorithm used to predict eclipses. It turned out that a four-turn spiral revealed eclipses using specific glyphs to denote the time and type of eclipse. Lunar eclipses, for instance, were denoted by the glyph for , which was short for the moon goddess  (Selene), while solar eclipses were denoted by H, which is short for the sun god  (Helios). (The English word "eclipse" comes from the Greek word "ekleipsis," meaning abandonment, because the ancients believed the sun was literally abandoning the Earth during that time.)

What's more, the Greek computer was surprisingly sophisticated. The Antikythera mechanism could not only predict the timing of eclipses but also reveal characteristics of those eclipses, such as the amount of obscuration, the angular diameter of the moon (which is the angle covered by the diameter of the full moon) and the position of the moon at the time of the eclipse, the study found.

Though the full meaning of eclipse events in Greek culture isn't entirely clear, it's evident that the eclipses were seen as important omens. For instance, the ancient historian Herodotus claimed that the eclipse of Thales (allegedly in 585 B.C.) literally stopped a war between Median king Cyaxares and Lydian king Alyattes, who saw the darkness as a sign to stop fighting. However, many scholars doubt that truly occurred, according to a 1997 paper published in the journal Electronic Antiquity. Ancient Greek astronomers also used eclipse events to calculate distances between celestial objects.

Many ancient cultures have long tied eclipses to other civilizational cataclysms. For instance, historical texts reveal that the Assyrians believed that a king's rule was in jeopardy during a lunar eclipse if Jupiter was obscured, according to "Letters from Assyrian Scholars the Kings Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal" (Eisenbrauns, 2007).

Originally published on Live Science.
by Philip Rosenstein , August 14, 2017

During violent protests, when it was made clear to Americans who the "enemy" is, President Trump's 2020 reelection campaign released a new TV ad-- Let President Trump Do His Job -- targeting a different enemy: the mainstream press and Democrats.

Anyone critical of the president -- standard political practice in a free society -- is now his "enemy."

Despite the terrorist attack in Charlottesville, Virginia, when President Trump refused to call out the violent white supremacists, KKK and neo-Nazis, the tone deaf ad was still released.

The 30-second spot, launched by Trump for President, has no public data on total spend. Advertising Analytics told MediaDailyNews that it ran in Arizona on Monday morning.

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The ad kicks off with images of Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) as the narrator begins: Democrats obstructing. The media attacking our president.

On the media front, the ad highlights various anchors from MSNBC and CNN, including: Dana Bash, George Stephanopoulos, Joe Scarborough, Don Lemon, Rachel Maddow, Anderson Cooper, Brian Williams and Mika Brzezinski.

The ad goes on to tout President Trumps record of job creation and lowering the unemployment rate, before mentioning the stock market and military strength. (MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi has challenged the veracity of the economic claims in the ad.)

The presidents enemies dont want him to succeed, the male narrator says near the end of the spot, with images of the various media personalities named above, this time including Chuck Todd, April Ryan, Fareed Zakaria and Jake Tapper.

In light of the Charlottesville tragedy, many commentators and historians were stunned that Trump released a re-election ad -- feeling that the moment calls for moral fortitude, not division.
by Jess Nelson , August 15, 2017

Encrypted cloud storage company Tresorit has launched a series of new data control features to help brands meet GDPR compliance standards.

Designed to strengthen the data privacy of consumers in the European Union (EU), the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will become enforceable on May 26, 2018. Once implemented, the GDPR will require brands and organizations to maintain stricter data policies -- particularly in the way they organize, maintain, and use the personal data of their customers -- in order to secure personal data from third-party access.

Any company communicating with consumers in Europe must adhere to the privacy legislation in less than one years time, even if the brand itself is not based in Europe.

Marketing teams can benefit from Tresorit when preparing for the GDPR, as the companys software helps brands comply with several provisions in the European privacy regulation.

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Tresorit Business, the companys enterprise software, gives brands control over their data through encryption. The company encrypts every file before it is uploaded to the cloud to keep it secure from third-party access. Furthermore, it makes the re-identification of customers incredibly difficult in the event of a data breach.

Encryption does not solve for all the GDPR requirements, but it is a step in the right direction for companies seeking to secure their data and protect users privacy.

Furthermore, Tresorit Business has been upgraded with additional data control tools for administrators, including a revamped dashboard granting an overview of security settings and permissions. Consent is a critical component of GDPR, and marketing teams cannot process their customers data without customers approval -- similar to email marketing subscriptions. By centralizing data management, Tresorit helps brands comply to the data control requirements in data-driven marketing in the European Union.

Finally, Tresorit Business has been updated with a new password recovery system and device control features, enabling admins to revoke access to specific devices if they are lost or stolen.
15.08.2017 LISTEN

Sensational gospel musician ,Officer Kwasi Fori has released his debut song for 2017 titled Watch your Tongue

Speaking exclusively with razzonline.com,officer Kwasi Ofori said he intend using the song as a campaign tool to advice his fellow musicians and the world as a whole to be wary of what they say:

The words of an individual can be a judgement for his imprisonment;words uttered always go beyond the reach of the speaker,what one will say will echo throughout eternity and we are what we say.Watch your tongue is a song meant to plead with the media ,leaders of the nation, all security personnel,citizens and most especially my fellow musicians to choose pleasant words when opportunity befalls them to speak,He told razzonline.com

He emphasized again that,the use of the tongue is very critical because;

"The tongue has no bone but it can break a heart,the tongue can ruin a nation and set it up in flames,the tongue can corrupt the body and put oneself in shame,one can be blessed or cursed with the tongueI believe as citizens we should all serve beyond our professional responsibilities.Show an attitude of patriosm in all aspects of life,He opined

Officer Kwasi Ofori,a police officer at the legal and prosecution unit in Accra and noted with the hit song,Hwehw3 No and Biakoye featuring King Ayisoba, pleaded with his fellow musicians, movie producers, poeters, writers etc to help support his Watch Your tonguecampaign.

Apart from being a police officer and a musician,Officer Kwasi-Fori who is also the CEO of Hype link Multimedia; then thanked the Police administration, the media,Kwame Sefa Kayi, KSM,Kaba,brother Asempa,Reagan Mends(Online News Surgeon)Dr.Who(Hot FM)Mr Isaac Oduro(Peace FM) Mr Kwame Tikese, Baba spirit, Rev Nyansa Boakwa,Mr Otu Kofi etc for supporting his Watch Your Tongue campaign.

Kindly listen to 'Watch Your Tongue below!

https://soundcloud.com/user-168295290-700846614/officer-kwasi-fori-watch-your-tongue
4G LTE operator, Busy Ghana in line with its strategy to focus on empowering the youth and entrepreneurs in Ghana, has launched the Emerging Fashion Designers competition to help jumpstart the careers of a significant number of upcoming fashion designers. This move, according to Praveen Sadalage, Chief Executive Officer of Busy, was mainly to empower young fashion designers in the fashion industry.

Mr. Sadalage who was speaking at the fourth edition of the monthly 'Grow Your Business Series' over the weekend said any budding fashion designer who wanted to be part of this great revolution should visit Busy's JUMP portal ( www.jump.com.gh ) to access information to enter the competition.

We believe in the youth of Ghana and believe that with the right kind of support, the youth in Ghana can lead this country and Africa to make great strides both now and in the immediate future. The competition will run for four weeks and interested persons can share their work/ sketches online ([email protected]). Three applicants will be shortlisted on a weekly basis by a panel of judges. The 12 shortlisted applicants will be taken through a master class and a two day '' mentorship program with established designers, he stated.

He added that the 12 designers would then be required to be put together a sketch of their collection for review by the judging panel. Mr. Sadalage added that the top 3 will have the production of their collection fully funded for display at the 2017 Glitz Africa Fashion week. The best designer out of the top 3 collections will be selected as the final winner and ultimately, the winner will take home a cash prize, a Busy router with 3months data supply and an opportunity to showcase this/ her work at the 2018 Glitz Africa Fashion week.

The judges for the competition include Claudia Lumor, Chief Executive officer and Editor in-chief of Glitz Africa magazine; Oheneba Yaw Boamah, brand owner and designer of Abrantie The Gentleman, Jessica Naa Adjeley Konney; renowned fashion blogger and Karen Kane; the brand owner of KASH boutique and salon as well as Television host of the Jodha Akbar chatroom.

The launch event, which was heavily patronized by fashion enthusiasts, saw spectacular designs by Jermaine Bleu and Megs Signature displayed on the runway.


Bamako (AFP) - Gunmen attacked two United Nations bases in Mali on Monday, killing a peacekeeper, a contractor and seven Malians, the UN said, in the latest attacks on its presence in the country.

The peacekeeper and a Malian soldier were killed in an attack in the early morning in Douentza, in the central region of Mopti, according to a statement from the UN mission in the country, known by the acronym MINUSMA.

Hours later, six men toting guns and grenades drove up to the entrance of the UN mission's camp in Timbuktu in northwestern Mali, the UN announced in a separate statement.

They opened fire on Malian UN security guards, killing five of them, as well as a policeman and a civilian contractor whose nationality was not specified, the UN said in a separate statement.

A UN source told AFP six guards had been killed, but the statement said one was wounded but had not died.

Two suspected jihadists were killed in the Douentza attack and six in Timbuktu.

The assault underlines the scale of the UN's struggles to contain a death toll among its peacekeepers that has already earned its Mali mission the unwelcome title of the world's deadliest active UN deployment.

Another peacekeeper was lightly wounded in Douentza and six others, as well as a Malian security guard, suffered injuries in Timbuktu, according to the UN statements.

"I don't have enough words to condemn this cowardly and ignoble act a few hours after the terrorist attack we endured in Douentza," said UN Special Representative for Mali Mahamat Saleh Saleh Annadif in a statement on the Timbuktu attack sent to AFP.

"We must combine all our efforts in order to identify and apprehend those responsible for these terrorist acts so that they can answer to their crimes in court," Annadif added.

A Malian security source meanwhile told AFP that the Timbuktu security guards were "killed on the spot," though the attack soon attracted the attention of Malian forces and French helicopters stationed in the area, who fired on the attackers.

On Monday night, reinforcements were deployed to both bases and in the city of Timbuktu itself.

Active in Mali since 2013, the UN mission, known as MINUSMA, is constantly targeted by jihadists that roam northern and central Mali, and has also been beset by operational difficulties including a lack of helicopters and allegations of abuse lodged by the population.

Last week, UN peacekeepers accused former rebel fighters and a rival pro-government militia in the north of the country of having used child soldiers in recent clashes.

In 2012, key cities in northern Mali fell under the control of jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda, who exploited an ethnic Tuareg-led rebel uprising, leading to a French-led military intervention and the eventual deployment of MINUSMA.

Although the Islamists were largely ousted, attacks have continued on UN and French forces, civilians and the Malian army.

Monday's attacks in Mali came hours after an assault in Ouagadougou, the capital of the neighbouring Sahel state of Burkina Faso, where 18 people were gunned down at a restaurant popular with foreigners.

France is pushing for five countries in the western-central Sahara region to form a joint "G5" force to combat jihadism.

It would comprise 5,000 men drawn from Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger.

But the plan has met with worries over funding, with an estimated 400 million euros ($471 million) required to make it operational.
Suspected Islamic extremists opened fire at a Turkish restaurant in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, yesterday [Macau time], killing at least 18 people in the second such attack on a restaurant popular with foreigners in the last two years.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the violence, which started at Sunday night [local time] and continued into the early hours yesterday. Gunfire could be heard almost seven hours after the attack began.

Communication Minister Remi Dandjinou told journalists that at least 18 people were dead and eight others wounded, according to a provisional toll. He said two of the attackers were also killed.

The victims came from several different nationalities, he said. At least one of the dead was French.

Security forces arrived at the scene with armored vehicles after reports of shots fired near Aziz Istanbul, an upscale restaurant in Ouagadougou. The attack brought back painful memories of the January 2016 attack at another cafe that left 30 people dead.

Police Capt. Guy Ye said three or four assailants had arrived at the Aziz Istanbul restaurant on motorcycles, and then began shooting randomly at the crowds dining Sunday evening.

Burkina Faso, a landlocked nation in West Africa, is one of the poorest countries in the world. It shares a northern border with Mali, which has long battled Islamic extremists.

The three attackers in the 2016 massacre were of foreign origin, according to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, which claimed responsibility in the aftermath along with the jihadist group known as Al Mourabitoun. But the terror threat in Burkina Faso is increasingly homegrown, experts say.

The northern border region is now the home of a local preacher, Ibrahim Malam Dicko, who radicalized and has claimed recent deadly attacks against troops and civilians. His association, Ansarul Islam, is now considered a terrorist group by Burkina Fasos government. AP
On media websites, Ghanaian reporters were giving undue credit to the National Democratic Congress parliamentary minority for the governments decision to withdraw the bill seeking to establish the Office of the Independent Special Public Prosecutor. Well, the truth of the matter is that the NDC-MPs, led by Mr. Haruna Iddrisu, had merely complained on procedural grounds, to the effect that the bill had not been gazetted before it was brought to the august floor of the House for debate. Now, that is not equivalent to the sort of civically responsible due diligence conducted by Mr. Martin Amidu, the former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, who was scandalously fired because he had flatly refused to give up his investigation of the Woyome Heist, at the request of then-President John Evans Atta-Mills.

Those who are fond of praising the late President as the most honest and righteous postcolonial Ghanaian leader that ever lived, have obviously forgotten that many of us have mnemonic capacities that are more powerful and deeper than that of a pachyderm. At any rate, the real problem with the Special Independent Public Prosecutors Bill was that of the lack of clarity of the language of a clause that inadvertently sought to imply that only behemoth or the most massively corrupt of public officials will be snagged and punished by this prosecutorial adjunct to the Office of the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Ms. Gloria Akuffo (See Emile Short Backs Withdrawal of Special Prosecutors Clause 3News.com / Ghanaweb.com 7/27/17).

The National Democratic Congress Parliamentary Minority has been vigorously resisting the passage of President Addo DankwaAkufo-Addos electioneering campaign promise of establishing an Office of the Special Independent Public Prosecutor, on the specious grounds of witch-hunting because they had largely constituted the previous regime, which is alleged to have racked up more debts for the country than any other government since the fabulously profligate Nkrumah-led government of the so-called Convention Peoples Party (CPP).

Actually, as far as I have been able to ascertain for myself, at least via a critical reading of Mr. Amidus remarkably long disquisition, there is not much that was amiss with the language of the clause of the bill in question, namely, Clause 4 Section 4. Needless to say, nitpicking is what Ghanaian critics do best. But I was also wondering whether Attorney-General Gloria Akuffo could invite suggestions from Messrs. Amidu and Short, among others, on how to best rephrase the clause and/or the sections of the same to clearly reflect the functional purview of the Office of the Independent Special Public Prosecutor. Time is of the essence here, especially when one reckons the fact that the Akufo-Addo Administration is fast entering into its seventh month. Which means that the first anniversary of this government is only five months ahead.

Of course, the present government has achieved far more in six months than any previous National Democratic Congress regime, including that of the partys founding patriarch, Chairman Jerry John Rawlings. One also hopes that Nana Akufo-Addo and his point men and women will be preparing to fully focus on the One District, One Factory policy agenda of the present government.

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs
Founder and President of Concerned Voters Movement (CVM), Mr Razak Kojo Opoku, has applauded the Bank of Ghana under President Akufo-Addo's government to restore financial discipline and enforcement of Banking and Financial Laws of Ghana to protect customers' monies from missing.

In a statement signed by, Mr Razak Kojo on August 14, 2017 and cited by Daniel Kaku indicated that when Merchant Bank was was collapsing, the Bank of Ghana under former President John Mahama's government sold it to a four months old Fortiz Private Equity Fund, which according to him, was an allegedly NDC-owned Company Limited.

Below is the full statement;

The Bank of Ghana Under President Akufo-Addo's Government Deserves A Big Round of Applause----CVM

The smooth take over of UT Bank and Capital Bank by GCB under Purchase and Assumption(P& A) transaction is an indication that the current managers of the Economy is really thinking outside the box.

John Mahama's Government wasn't thinking right and wisely, they could have adopted the Purchase and Assumption(P & A) Agreement to save all the monies belonging to the Customers of DKM, God is Love Fun Club, Jasta Motors, amongst others.

When Merchant Bank was collapsing,the Bank of Ghana under John Mahama's Government sold it to a four months old Fortiz Private Equity Fund, an alledgelly NDC-owned Company Limited.

Fortiz Private Equity Fund was incorporated in 2013 and went ahead to purchased Merchant Bank in the same year 2013 with no track record.

After the purchase of Merchant Bank by Fortiz Private Equity Fund in November 2013, their Board Chairman, Dr. Kingsley Fletcher was again rewarded with an appointment from John Mahama's Administration on 5th March 2014 as the first Chancellor of University of Professional Studies, Accra(UPSA) supervising Prof. Joshua Alabi(then as Vice-Chancellor of UPSA) who is now 2020 flagbearer hopeful of the NDC.

UT Bank and Capital Bank started collapsing during John Mahama's Administration due to the poor management of the economy. From the officials of these two Banks and from the records of Bank of Ghana, UT Bank and Capital Bank were on life support for survival since 2015.

But thanks to the wise decision by Bank of Ghana under President Akufo-Addo's Government to restore financial discipline, enforcement of Banking and Financial Laws of Ghana, and protect the monies of Customers, GCB, Government-owned Bank has taken over these two distressed Banks such as UT Bank and Capital Bank through Purchase and Assumption transaction.

GCB has been in existence since 1953 unlike Fortiz which was four months old when it acquired Merchant Bank.

The competence of NPP Government and incompetence of NDC Government is crystal clear for sound Ghanaians to differentiate between the two.

...Signed....

Razak Kojo Opoku

(CVM Founder & President)
15.08.2017 LISTEN

This take over raises a pool of relevant questions of which no one seems to be asking. How do we explain to Ghanaians, a bank which was adjudged the best growing bank in just 2016 run into financial distress in a year after? Capital bank?

Is it a deliberate attempt by the owners of the two banks to use their political connections to hand their debt to the state to settle?

Was the process of asset liquidation and acquisition followed ? Where is the audit and review reports of the banks to

Confirm the the truth in this transactions

Was the public notified ?

Why the hasty attempt by GCB to take over in a very day the communication about the liquidation of the two banks hit the public space.

Was the sale of the two "dept inclined" banks advertised ? How many interested

parties express interest in the take over.

What were the modalities used in selecting GCB ?

Is this take over part of grand scheme to bail political financiers from financial mess, using the tax payers money to buy a sinking bank?

What happens to people who supervised the liquidation of these two banks under the auspices of gross financial incompetence and mismanagement ?

Did the banks put their customers on acquisition notice ?

What if am a customer, and l don't ever want to have any financial dealings with the take over bank, GCB?

Mensah Otabil, who appears to be one of owners of Capital Bank, a critic of Past govt on mismanagement, can we also say he's incompetent for driving capital bank into the ditch?

According to press release by BoG, the two banks have been on a life-support for two years, and that the GCB has pumped had huge sums of money into their operations in a attempt to revitalise and resuscitate these two banks, how true is this information considering the fact that capital bank emerged as Best growing Bank in ghana in 2016, was the bank in deep financial mess when this award was given ?

With GCB's public admission of retaining just a percentage of the numerous workers of the two banks, who is going to pay the retrenchment and reparation package for the affected workers who are now in anguish and frustrations ?

Is GCB being force by some hands at the corridors of power to buy the two bankrupt banks for fester personal interest, if not what them is the interest of the GCB chasing a financially distressed bank?

Let's ask the relevant questions !!
Barack Obama made an indelible remark in Ghana when he visited the country in 2009. The word of the renowned and astute orator still lives with us and ishaunting our leaders day by day.Being an African himself Obama knows that the myriad problems confronting the African continent despite the innumerable God bestowed natural resources are as a result ofinstitutional failure.

The institutional failure is the result of incompetent, visionless, greedy and self-cantered desires of African leaders. Suffice it to say that God loves Africa more the any other continent in the world and this explains why He has given the continent so many natural resources than the rest of the continent in the world so that it may not go to friend cap-in-hand.

This brings to mind with nostalgia a thought-provoking poem in primary six, titled LOOK TO YOURSELF. The poem, in part of the stanzas admonished all [Africans] to be self-reliance with the gift of natural resources God has given us:

You have all things and you will never thirst

Your land has many things, great and good

Rich soil, mineral and other things

Do not go to friend cap in hand

Honey and milk flow in your land

You have got all the richest gift

Others have not got half your gift

Indeed the land of African has many things, great and good. We have rich soil, mineral and other things that can be used to transform the continent to rival the western countries where we often go kowtow for loans and alms. But the opposite of what this poem admonishes is the status quo in Africa. Africa has all things yet it is thirsty. There is honey and milk flowing in Africa yet it still go to friend cap-in-hand. Others have not gotten half of the gift of Africa yet Africa beseeches them for help.With this mentality of African leaders, one wonders hard what the continent would have been without these abundant natural resources.

Ghana has been battling with chronic environmental problems that are negatively affecting the economy and health of the people. The activities of illegal mining popularly known as galamsay and poor sanitation are among the top problems the country is facing in recent years. Politicians have made their way out in providing lip-services to assuage the electorates in their desperate attempts to win power but have done little to solve the very problem they promised the people to eradicate when they come into power.

The activities of galamsay is costing the country so much to worsen itsalready plight of mismanagement and corruption by politicians and civil servants. Those who are supposed to be protecting these lands and water bodies arethe very people who are secretly spearheading the destruction of the environment for their selfish interests to the detriment of the nation. Chiefs, assemblymen, District Chief Executives, MPs, the police, are all partner in crime in this chain of environmental destruction in the illegal pursuit of gold. If your memory ability is low to comprehend or remember this then kindly search for Anas undercover video on galamsay activities in TwifoPrasoin the central region to abreast yourself.

Cocoa farms, arable lands and timbers are being destroyed by illegal mining. Fresh water bodies which serve as a source of drinking water to some communities have been polluted by the activities of these illegal mining, chemicals like mercury which are used by the miners to trap gold dust is heavily present in these waters, making it unwholesome for human consumption. The Ghana Water Company has time without number complained that the activities of illegal mining are negatively affecting their operations since they have to spend more money on chemicals to purify the polluted water for safe consumption. Governments have also failed to make hay of the activities of the galamsay by its inability to regulate them to earn the country some incomes. The land commission which issue permit to small scale miners is also helpless. They issue the permit and sit in the comfort of their office and these miners operate with impunity without recourse to the mining regulations.

All these impunities are perpetrated because the country lacks strong intuitions to deal with the ills in our society without fear or favour.Instead, Ghana seems to be ruled by strong-men. The command of the politician is louder than a whole institution.

Barack Obama admonished African leaders when he made his maiden visit to Ghana in 2009 that Africa doesnt need strong-men, it needs strong institutions. Indeed Ghana needs strong institutions to work for the interest of the country, not strong-men to enrich themselves and their families at the expense of the taxpayer.

I am not in any way trying to remind and re-enact the sorrow of Major Mahama tragic death but what was his mission inDenkyiraObuasi which led to his gruesome murder? Many questions are still begging for answers. Was he there protecting Chinese mining sites as was initially speculated? Because there was no anti-galamsay task force set up by government at the time to clamp down galamsay. Whose behest were Major Mahama and his colleagues acting upon?Were they in Abuasi on the authority of the state or upon the command of some strong-men?

A month before Major Mahama incidence, the Lands and Natural Resources Minister, John Peter Amewuwas taken aback when he made an unannounced tour in galamsay areas in the Ashanti region and bumped into a mining site heavily protected by military personnel from the Ghana Armed Forces. The said site was owned by some Russians and Ukranians. This was at the same period the president of the nation hadordered all galamsay sites including small scale mining sites to cease operation until further notice. Peter Amewu sounded sceptical on outcome on the fight against galamsay and concluded that until the law enforcement agencies begin to take this action seriously, I dont think there is any way we can achieve our objectives.

Small scale mining, like retail business in Ghana is the sole reserve for Ghanaians but foreigners especially Chinese are found mining everywherejust like how they are taking over retail business in Makola market. Some Ghanaians connive with these Chinese who have the mining equipment and machines and obtain mining permit in their Ghanaian name but behind the scene the real owners and miners are the Chinese. What we often hear is that the Chinese are providing technical support and expertise to the company.

The previous administration made several attempts to end the menace of the galamsay by deploying anti-galamsay taskforcesto mining areas but that exercise ended in futility. The incumbent government at the beginning of this month deployed 400 security personnel from Ghana armed Forces and the police in an anti-galamsay operation duded Operation Vanguard to wipe out illegal mining in the country after the miners defied theinitial ultimatum to vacate their mining sites which perhaps necessitated the launch of Operation Vanguard task force.This exercise has received wide approval from various quarters because it is the last hope many think can clamp down illegal mining in the country.

However the approach with which the task force operates is condemnable. They need to be reminded that they have not been deployed to wage war against the miners. They have been sanctioned to apprehend illegal miners to face the law of Ghana and not to destroy and kill. Their approach in the operation is as bad as the galamsay operation itself. It is wrong to use wrong to correct wrong. It does not make sense to burn excavators and other machines of the miners after they have bolted their site upon sensing the advancement of the task force. If nothing at all, the state needsthose machinesin the end if they are found guilty at the law court. The excavators can be used to level the deadly pits created at the sites to rejuvenate the land for cultivation. The last time I checked one large size excavator cost between$200,000 and $850,000. Can the task force burn Chinese excavators since they are also heavily involved in galamsay?

The the anti-galamsay task force needs to tone down their adrenalines and bring perpetrators to book rather than engaging in the warlike approach. Two wrongs do not make a right. The ultimate objective of this encounter is for government to re-strategize and regulate the mining sector to the benefit the country than individual enriching themselves. It is not also a war affair to kill and destroy propertiesbelonging to the miners. The excavators and the machines can be confiscated for the country.

It takes insight and vision to have foresight.

Writer: Malcolm Akatinga Ali

Email: [email protected]
ADABRAKA-- Beginning in September 2017, the Sam E. Jonah School of Business at the African University College of Communications (AUCC) will be offering exciting new masters programmes. This is made possible thanks to our collaboration with the Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business at The University of the West Indies.

The programme will be delivered via multi-modal technology, allowing enrolled students to attend actual classes taken at the Lok Jack Graduate School of Business in Trinidad from the comfort of their homes.

This programme is accredited by the prestigious Association of MBAs, the gold standard for MBA accreditation, making AUCC one of only two universities in Ghana offering a programme with this internationally recognized accreditation.

Classes are interactive and practical and Ghanaian students will attend and participate in LIVE classes with students from Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana and other countries through the multi-modal platform. The interactive tool will allow the student in Ghana to be seen and heard by the students and faculty in the class, allowing for a personal, authentic and interactive classroom experience.

The courses will feature international Faculty with a wide range of industry and academic experience, exposing Ghanaian students to authentic business teaching and learning methods that will help them jumpstart their careers in a global context.

Dr. G. Koryoe Anim-Wright, President of the African University College of Communications shared her enthusiasm about the partnership.

This is a unique opportunity for AUCC to provide masters programmes to our talented graduates who are eager to continue their studies with us, she stated. And what better way than to partner with a world-class institution such as Lok Jack Graduate School of Business?

While employees and businesses appreciate the flexibility of online programmes, many find the experience impersonal, isolating and non-interactive, Dr. Anim-Wright continued. Our programme combines the best of both worlds  allowing students to immerse themselves in a classroom experience by attending actual classes using the interactive educational technology tool.

Under this partnership, AUCC has received approval and authorisation from the National Accreditation Board to offer the following programs:

International MBA;

International Master of Strategic Marketing;

Executive MBA; and

MBA in Sustainable Energy Management.

The first three programmes are accredited by the Association of MBAs in the UK.

Dr. Kamla Mungal, who visited AUCC in 2016, is the Director of Accreditation and Academic Development at the Lok Jack GSB.

The Lok Jack GSB is committed to its development purpose and recognizes the importance of global partnerships in addressing systemic issues and facilitating change. Our authentic learning philosophy will ensure deep interactions and a truly global education for all our students, local and global. We look forward to a rewarding partnership between the UWI-ALJGSB and Sam E. Jonah School of Business, she said.

About Sam. E Jonah School of Business

The Sam E. Jonah School of Business at the African University College of Communications (AUCC) was established in 2014 to provide top notch business and management education to Ghanaians and the international community. The Business School is affiliated to University of Ghana, GIMPA, and currently with Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School, University of West Indies. Named after the international business mogul Sir Sam E. Jonah, the School is poised to developing a new cream of scholars and leaders who are equipped to transform knowledge in business and management into world class career opportunities and enterprises to advance our societies.

About Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business

The Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business was established in 1989 as a joint venture between The University of the West Indies and the private sector of Trinidad and Tobago to provide postgraduate education in business and management. Today, Lok Jack GSB is recognised as the premier institution for the provision of business and management education, training and consultancy services in Trinidad and Tobago and the wider Caribbean region. The motto Innovatus Ars Ducendi, means Innovating the Art of Leadership.
Rome (AFP) - Italy has seen a sharp fall in the number of migrants arriving on its shores, a decline that has left experts scrambling for an explanation.

Summer is traditionally the peak season for migrants attempting the hazardous crossing of the Mediterranean from North Africa to Europe.

But, to much surprise, only 13,500 have arrived in Italy since July 1, compared to 30,500 over the same period in 2016 -- a year-on-year fall of more than 55 percent.

Many migrants are from poor sub-Saharan Africa, fleeing violence in their home country or desperate for a better life in prosperous Europe.

"It's still too early to talk of a real trend," cautions Barbara Molinario, a spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

One mooted reason for the fall is tougher action by the Libyan coastguard. The force which has been strengthened by help from the European Union (EU), which trained about 100 personnel over the winter, while Italy has provided patrol vessels, recently supported by Italian warships in Libyan waters.

Migrants and refugee arrivals in Europe via the Mediterranean, according to the International Organisation for Migration

But according to figures from UN's International Office of Migration (IOM), the Libyan coastguard have intercepted fewer than 2,000 migrants since early July, compared to more than 4,000 in May.

Another reason put forward to explain the decline is tougher action by NGOs who have been accused by critics of colluding with smugglers to pick up migrants at sea to prevent them from drowning.

But these organisations have been involved in only a fraction of migrant rescues -- and three NGO vessels are still operating in the hope of picking up those in need.

Blocked routes

For Mussie Zerai, an Eritrean priest who campaigns for migrants in distress, the likelier cause for the decline lies inland.

Agreements between the EU and transiting countries mean "the routes are blocked, the crossing points are more monitored," Zerai told AFP.

In Sudan, the authorities have said they have beefed up border patrols, but deny reports from humanitarian organisations that they have been using violent militia which have been fighting rebels in Darfur.

"In Libya, the tribes in the south have also sign agreements. The migrants are thrown into nightmarish detention centres in the desert or are turned back," Zerai said.

In West Africa, awareness campaigns have been launched to try to dissuade young people from making the hazardous trip to Libya, where violence and exploitation await, before they even try the perilous sea crossing.

"We are working very hard back home to discourage our youngsters from trying to cross to Europe by sea," a Ghanaian community chief who has been in Libya for 26 years said.

"We don't want them to perish for a dream that may not come true. We talk to them, explain how things really are and let the elders in the villages and the bishops and priests in churches make them promise to be careful if they decide to go to Libya."

He added: "There are still a lot of Ghanaians in Libya. They are here for work and to send money back home for their families. Many of them decided to return, especially the young ones, with the help of the embassy and the Libyan authorities."

Fears of the risks in Libya may explain why the number of migrants arriving in Spain, via Morocco, has tripled since the start of the year to 8,200, according to IOM figures.

Molinario said that an EU ban on selling inflatable boats to Libya may also have made life a bit more uncomfortable for smugglers.

Even so, demand is likely to remain high, given that there are still hundreds of thousands of migrants in Libya, who find themselves in a war-torn country and at risk of violence and abduction.

OIM spokesman Flavio di Giacomo suggested that one reason could be conflict between rival smuggling rings, or perhaps a shift in strategy by smugglers to take into account tougher conditions.

But, he acknowledges, "we don't really know what's happening".

The decline in numbers has eased the political pressure resulting from the inflow -- but only temporarily.

Migrant conditions

Since 2014, 600,000 migrants have landed in Italy, but more than 14,000 have died.

Italian newspapers which, just a few weeks ago, were accusing NGOs of abetting an influx that seemed uncontrollable have now switched to reports on the terrifying conditions faced by migrants in Libya.

"Sending them back to Libya right now means sending than back to Hell," the deputy foreign minister, Mario Giro, said earlier this month.

Italy is pushing for centres for refugees to be set up in Libya that could provide safety.

"We are working on it, but it's difficult," said Molinario. "We need funds, agreements with the authorities and access to the country," she said. The UNHCR itself had had to withdraw its foreign staff from Libya in 2014.
The Chaplain of the Sunyani Senior High school (SUSEC), Reverend David Boakye, has urged parents to value their children welfare more than their work.

The Principal of University of Education College of Agriculture Education, Reverend Professor Anthony Afful-Broni speaking at the matriculation of the college at Asante-Mampong said Cyber crime and occultism are on the ascendance in the tertiary institutions in the country.

Sharing his thought on the subject, Rev. David Boakye said the situation must be blamed on the negligence of parents who have neglected their responsibilities of caring and bringing up their children in the society.

He said there are multi factors that have contributed to this social problem, including parents not having much and quality time for their children in their various home, bad friendship, negative use of social media and invasion of foreign movies on the Ghanaian market.

He said the consequences of parents valuing and acquiring more money than taking good and proper care of their children are enormous and serious, which is affecting the socio-economic development of the country negatively.

The Chaplain of SUSEC asked parents to monitor the moments, friends, and the current life style of their children and if they notice some changes, they should sit them down and talk to them or better still seek counselors advice for them.

Rev. David Boakye said children uncared for by their own parents associate with bad company which influences their lives negatively.

He also cautioned parents to be careful with some of the newspapers, pamphlets and other materials they send home, since some of them affect childrens lives and sense of judgments negatively, if they get hold of them.

The Chaplain said since the sense of judgment of some children is low, parents should guide them in most decision they take.

He asked Gospel ministers to teach their members, especially children about life principles and also educate them to accept the fact that, there is no short-cut in life.

Rev. David Boakye said if the children are initiated into Cyber-crime and Occultism, it affects their academic performance.

He observed that most discipline committees in the various institutions in the country are not performing very because of certain challenges. He therefore called on the authorities to adequately resource institutional committees to enable them function effectively.
Following the collapse of UT Bank and Capital Bank, the Bank of Ghana has indicated that the shareholders of Capital Bank will not be compensated.

The same may apply to UT Bank shareholders though the central bank is considering compensating shareholders of UT, listed on the Stock Exchange.

Discussions with the Ghana Stock Exchange in the coming days will determine the way forward for persons or organisations who bought shares of UT Bank on the stocks, according to the Head of Banking Supervision of the Bank of Ghana, Raymond Amanfu.

With respect to Capital Bank, Mr. Amanfu explained that its shareholders should have been more vigilant given they bore the brunt of the risk.

Now you must protect your interest as a shareholder. They appointed the board. The boards are accountable them so if the board is accountable to you and you are the shareholders, and quite a significant number who are shareholders are on the board, and you supervise the banks to get into this situation  you are the risk taker.

In UT Banks case, it has institutional shareholders, some of which are on the Ghana Stock Exchange so thus further considerations will have to be made, Mr. Amanfu said.

We think that there are issues of listed companies which are being discussed with the stock but the fact that we are listed does not mean that we should wait for you to prove how much of deposits money that is at stake compared to the huge deposits that have been taken.

are we supposed to say that because you have listed, you allow the banks to run and but millions of deposited funds at risk? That is why were are saying we have to discuss this matter further with the stock exchange because, ultimately, the ordinary shareholder is the highest risk taker, he added.



By: citifmonlne.com/Ghana
Wa, (UWR), Aug. 14, GNA - Mr. Ibrahim Akalbila, the Coordinator of the Ghana Trade and Livelihood Coalition has appealed to the government to give the needed attention to female farmers to enable them have adequate access to farm input to improve productivity.

He said female farmers had the potential of improving productivity if they had access to credit facilities, mechanisation services and inputs among others as their male counterparts.

Addressing the media during a press conference to disseminate the 2016 Agro-Policy Performance Barometer (APPB) and Agro Barometer Index (ABI)reports in Wa, Mr. Akalbila stated that there was the need for the government to generate a database of farmers in the country in order to target and support female farmers.

The dissemination of the report in the Greater Accra, Brong Ahafo and Upper West Regions which formed part of activities of GTLC to influence government and private sector policies towards the agricultural sector was supported by the Christian Aid.

He further explained that female small holder farmers had demonstrated proven skills in farming and were more sufficient in the use of farm inputs and other resources to increase productivity.

Mr. Akalbila decried the high cost of ploughing as well as farm inputs such as fertilizer and chemicals among others which had deterred farmers from cultivating large fields to increase food production to help ensure sustainable food security and reduce poverty among small holder farmers.

He also observed that in as much as farmers invested on their farms, poor agronomic practices, lack of improved seeds as well as improper land preparation among others served as barriers to high crop yield.

He lamented government's low investment in the agricultural sector and said only 51 percent of the 2016 budget for the sector was disbursed, which he noted could not help meet government's vision of improving suitable productivity in the sector.

Mr. Emmanuel Wullingdool, the Policy Officer of GTLC indicated that the coalition provided farmers with mechanisation services and capacity building in their quest to help farmers improve production.

He also added that the coalition assisted small holder farmers to establish Village Savings and Loans to help them have access to credit to invest on their farms to increase productivity.

The report which focused on the objectives of the Medium-Term Agriculture Sector Investment Plan (METASIP) project such as ensuring food security and increased productivity centred on tomato, maize and rice production in nine farming communities in the Upper West, Greater Accra, Ashanti, Brong Ahafo, Northern and Volta regions.

GNA

By Philip Tengzu, GNA
Undoubtedly, the standard of our education was appreciably high in the late 50s to 90s until the infusion of political policies into it when it begun to fall from the first and second cycle through to the tertiary level. Today there is relatively nothing to write home about our education. The decision or choice we make today will determine the outcome of our education tomorrow. If indeed our politicians believe education is the key to success then they must make sure they put in place measures that will promote our education to make it one of the best in Africa. If government, politicians and our educationist want to make a choice that concerns our education it is imperative to weigh the options available critically and choose the one that can yield positive results in the near future.

To the best of my knowledge as an educationist education is the only modern vehicle that can send us to our destination or the only weapon for we the poor and the rich to break even and as such Governments, politicians and educationist must not gamble at all with it because the growth and survival of mother Ghanas tomorrow lies in the hands of the younger generation. The fallen standards of our education today must be put at the doorsteps of our politicians. The three tiers of government had failed in their statutory role of providing quality education for the citizens of Ghana.

When you look at the environment of some public schools you would be shocked. Most of our Basic schools are in a deplorable state and instead of our politicians renovating them they will sit down for the building to collapse and kill our innocent children of which their children will not be affected because they attain their education abroad. Teachers and students of most of our Basic schools which have no fence walls are left at the mercy of Cattles and lunatics. We are having more children but we are not providing enough facilities to cater for them. The private organizations that were supposed to rescue the situation have also taking advantage of making money all because government have not been able to provide adequate resources to our public schools.

Investment by government and politicians on the education of our younger generation could never be a waste because the growth and development of our beloved country depends on them. Education should not be taken lightly at all particularly at the childs development stage by government and politicians. Educating our younger generation is a serious business and there is no room for it being treated like a Jackpot. Developed countries value education as the only pathway to success and excellence in life that is why they thought it wise to use their resources to invest in giving back to its citizens free and quality education. Government and Politicians must remember someday God will judge them not according to the huge donations they gave to the clergy.

I cherished the primary education all us went through as one of the best system of education in the world when it comes to discipline, good morals, character. Thanks be to God majority of our politicians went through the first and second cycle education through to the tertiary level and that has put them where they are now. It would be disastrous for our generations to come if our politicians decide to put their political interest first at the expense of the betterment of these future generations.

Look at the way and manner they look unconcern about the consequences of their educational policies they bring on board and how it affects the future generations. The NDC government for political reasons reduced the four year completion for SHS students to three years that made it possible for two batches to write WASSE at the same time. This brought an extra burden on parents and teachers to the extent that parents had to pay extra money apart from the normal school fees. The time teachers have to use to mark students examination papers and record marks had to be sacrificed in order to teach these two batches of WASSE candidates that the NDC government used as guinea pigs for their experiment. At the end of it all it took only the exceptional students in form three to perform.

I have been itching to ask what is wrong with our educational policies and how our policy makers value it. The proposed extension of instructional hours with two additional hours is something I disagree with absolutely and I will call on government to have a second look at it. To every decision we make in life it is imperative we factor in both the positive and negative sides of it by weighing it to see which one outweighs the other before taking a final decision. After all, the acquisition of knowledge by students in the classroom cannot be measured on long hours of instructional hours, but the ability of teachers to deliver. As the Greek maxim says men sana incorpore sano that is a healthy mind can be found in a healthy body. We live in a country where teachers are denied their monthly salary for months all because of system errors at the Controller and Accountant Generals department.

The proposed additional instructional hours by government will only introduce poor performance in the classroom and will also contribute lackadaisical attitude and over burden teachers in the classroom. More so, most of our students because of long instructional hours in class will lead them to truancy. When you are tired and you keep on learning at the end of it all the achievable results will be 100% concentration and absorption will be nil. Government wants teachers in the Primary schools to upgrade themselves through the Distance learning program and the little time they will use after school too should be given to parents who leave their homes at dawn and come back home when their wards are asleep. The good initiative brought by the erstwhile J.A. Kufours good governance known as Capitation Grants to head teachers of Basic Schools across the country to enhance effective teaching and learning suffered a big blow under the former regime.

Education of the child is a shared responsibility which should not be shifted on the neck of teachers. Lets not forget the school feeding program have also not reached every basic schools in the country. If government intends to have effective teaching and learning in our basic schools, then the best way to go is to introduce Subject teaching at the Primary level too. It will go a long way to prevent teachers who are weaker in a particular subject to brush off a topic they feel they cannot teach well.

Its laughable when our politicians claim private schools are performing better than the public schools. Whilst teachers in the private schools are teaching in a conducive environment those in the public schools are teaching under un-conducive atmospheres where bad scent from public toilets, lunatics entering the classrooms at any point in time, wee smokers smoking around the classrooms and unnecessary noise from the community is the order of the day. Teachers in the public schools need hundred percent (100%) attention, and the atmosphere for learning must be very conducive. Go to many public Basic schools you will notice there are insufficient textbooks especially English reading books for pupils. It is pathetic in this modern Ghana teachers have to write passages on the chalkboard because they cannot share only five English reading books to over forty pupils in class.

Where in this world would you see a Member of Parliament will be kind enough to use about 3.7 million old cedi of his Getfund to build a school block and put in cement chalkboards instead of marker boards for teachers to write on without considering the health problems the chemicals in the chalk will bring to the teacher?

I am not surprise at all about 90% of teachers in the teaching service and those on retirement wear eye glasses to the extent that the most unfortunate ones go blind.

There are insufficient desk for pupils to sit on in most public schools and teachers have no option than to pack pupils like Sardine on one desk. Lack of syllabuses for teachers in the basic schools and the few ones left are either bad that the printing cannot be read by the teacher. Npp government under erstwhile J.A. Kufours administration saw the need to promote reading at the basic level and because of that provided them with Gateway to English and Library books. Other textbooks were also supplied in abundance with the exception of Religious and Moral Education. My passionate appeal to government is to first of all find ways of addressing the above mentioned challenges before thinking of implementing a new thing that will not be a plus to its good policies.

Michael Kessey ( Akissiway)

0244548693/ 0266263399
Chinas government appealed to U.S. President Donald Trump yesterday to avoid a trade war ahead of what the White House says is a possible announcement of an investigation into whether China is stealing U.S. technology.

An official told reporters the president would order his trade office to look into whether to launch an investigation under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 of possible Chinese theft of U.S. technology and intellectual property.

There is no future and no winner in a trade war and both sides will be the losers. As we have emphasized for many times, the nature of China-U.S. trade relations is mutual benefit and win-win, said a foreign ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying.

Considering the importance of the China-U.S. relations, China is willing to make joint efforts with the United States to keep trade and economic relations on sustained, healthy and stable development on the basis of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit, Hua said.

Earlier Monday, a state newspaper, the China Daily, said Trumps possible decision to launch an investigation could intensify tensions, especially over intellectual property.

A decision to use the law to rebalance trade with China could trigger a trade war, said the commentary under the name of researcher Mei Xinyu of the ministrys International Trade and Economic Cooperation Institute.

And the inquiry the U.S. administration has ordered into Chinas trade policies, if carried out, could intensify tensions, especially on intellectual property rights, the commentary said.

It gave no indication of how Beijing might respond but Chinese law gives regulators broad discretion over what foreign companies can do in China.

If an investigation begins, Washington could seek remedies either through the World Trade Organization or outside of it.

Previous U.S. actions directed at China under the 1974 law had little effect, said the China Daily. It noted that China has grown to become the biggest exporter and has the worlds largest foreign exchange reserves.

The use of Section 301 by the U.S. will not have much impact on Chinas progress toward stronger economic development and a better future, said the newspaper.
Freetown (AFP) - Rescue workers resumed the grim task Tuesday of pulling bodies from destroyed houses and muddy pools in Sierra Leone's capital Freetown, where more than 300 people have died in flooding and mudslides.

The government has promised relief to the more than 3,000 people left homeless, opening an emergency response centre in the hilltop community of Regent, while Israel said it was sending aid as quickly as possible to the stricken west African city.

Registration centres to count the homeless were due to open across Freetown, a city of around one million people, while Interior Minister Paolo Conteh warned via Sierra Leone's state broadcaster that thousands of people remained missing.

The death toll from massive flooding in the Sierra Leone capital of Freetown is currently at 312 but the Red cross warned it could rise further

Red Cross spokesman Patrick Massaquoi told AFP on Monday that the death toll was 312 but this is expected to rise further as his team assess disaster areas in Freetown and tally the number of dead.

President Ernest Bai Koroma appealed for unity from a nation still struggling with the legacy of Ebola and a long civil war in an address to the nation on Monday.

"Our nation has once again been gripped by grief. Many of our compatriots have lost their lives, many more have been gravely injured and billions of leones' worth of property destroyed in the flooding and landslides that swept across some parts of our city," he said.

"Every single family, every single ethnic group, every single region is either directly or indirectly affected by this disaster."

'Entire communities washed away'

Three days of torrential rain culminated in a mudslide in Regent, the worst affected area of Freetown, and caused massive flooding elsewhere in the Sierra Leone capital

Three days of torrential rain culminated on Monday in a mudslide in Regent, the worst affected area, and caused massive flooding elsewhere in the city, one of the world's wettest urban areas.

Informal settlements that cling to the hills and shores were swept away or torn apart, and the city's drainage system was quickly overwhelmed, leaving stagnant water pooling in some areas and creating dangerous churning waterways down steep streets.

"In places, entire communities seem to have been washed away and whatever is left is covered in mud," said Abdul Nasir, programme coordinator for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).

He described Red Cross volunteers "digging with their bare hands and whatever tools (were) available to find survivors".

The Sierra Leone meteorological department did not issue any warning ahead of the torrential rains to hasten evacuation from the disaster zones, AFP's correspondent based in Freetown said.

Israel's foreign ministry said it would provide "assistance immediately and in every way possible" including clean water, medicines, blankets, while EU Commissioner Christos Stylianides said the European Union "stands ready to help", without elaborating.

Annual ordeal

Freetown residents have spoken of their struggles to cope with the destruction and find their loved ones after the deadly flooding and mudslides in the Sierra Leone capital .

The scale of the human cost was clear at the city's main morgue at the Connaught Hospital, which was overwhelmed with bodies on Monday, while residents spoke of their struggles to cope with the destruction and find their loved ones.

An AFP journalist saw several homes submerged in Regent village, a hilltop community, and corpses floating in the water in the Lumley West area of the city.

Deputy Information Minister Cornelius Deveaux confirmed on Monday that Koroma had declared a national emergency, and said his own boss, Information Minister Mohamed Bangura, was in hospital after being injured in the flooding.

Deveaux said hundreds of people had lost their lives and had properties damaged, and promised food and other assistance for the victims.

Freetown is hit each year by flooding during several months of rain, raising the risk of waterborne diseases such as cholera.

Flooding in the capital in 2015 killed 10 people and left thousands homeless.

Sierra Leone was one of the west African nations hit by an outbreak of the Ebola virus in 2014 that left more than 4,000 people dead in the country, and it has struggled to revive its economy since the crisis.

The country ranked 179th out of 188 countries on the UNDP's 2016 Human Development Index, a basket of data combining life expectancy, education and income and other factors.
The Ghana Education Service (GES) has served notice henceforth all teacher trainee graduates will take a licensing exams.

Before we recognize you as a professional teacher, you will need to be licensed, Rev. Jonathan Betteh, the GES Public Relations Officer told Morning Starr host Francis Abban Tuesday.

According to him, the move is part of the sectors professional development and it applies to both trainee teachers graduating from public and private teacher training colleges.

He said preparations are far advanced for the exams to take place in September and that whoever fails cannot hold himself as a professional teacher.

Teachers who fail the exams will not be allowed to teach at a certain level. To be seen as a professional, you will have to pass the licensing exams, noted Rev. Betteh.

However, the deputy General Secretary of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) in charge of professional development, Gifty Apanbi argued the move by the GES will be unfair to students taught with different curricula.

It will be unfair to examine all with a particular curriculum, she stated on Morning Starr Tuesday. We are not against the licensing but things must be done right.
Emmanuel Kofi Nti

15.08.2017 LISTEN

The Commissioner-General of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), Emmanuel Kofi Nti, last week unleashed a busload of police officers and staff of his office to come and threaten the management of Western Publications Limited, publishers of DAILY GUIDE, with closure.

For the period that the drama-like spectacle lasted, the offices of the newspaper became a cynosure of the neighborhood; it caused an embarrassment to a corporate entity, which has over the years not shirked its financial responsibility to both the state and the community.

The threat, which appears to be an agenda by the Commissioner-General to throw the company out of business and render hundreds of its employees redundant, came at the heels of a number of payments made to the authority in the last few months  in fulfillment of its financial obligations, consistent with the company's practice over the years.

A substantive payment made to the authority when the GRA personnel, including the police, came first thing Monday morning, was followed by a portentous warning: Pay up or we shut down the company when we return with TV crews and other media.

A source at the newspaper house can confirm that the Commissioner-General is determined to cause further embarrassment to DAILY GUIDE.

A number of threatening correspondences preceded last week's surprise attack by red-eyed personnel whose orders from their sender were simple: Shut down the DAILY GUIDE, despite the company's agents engaging the government institution the previous working day.

The Commissioner-General is said to have vowed to chase all private establishments with outstanding monies to pay into the government chest, his riveted attention on DAILY GUIDE said to be intended to underscore his brusqueness, regardless of the consequences.

Management of the company was taken aback by the manner in which the correspondence from the authority was crafted and then the threatening posture of the staff, not forgetting the hostility of the police who descended upon the premises of DAILY GUIDE menacingly to execute the diktat of the Commissioner-General.

Indeed, a management staffer was to remark later that But for my quick intervention, DAILY GUIDE would have been out of circulation on the day following their descent on the premises.

He added, It might appear the Commissioner-General has an axe to grind with DAILY GUIDE, especially since other entities are not suffering this level of hostility and embarrassment.

Reached for his comment, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Western Publications Group, Kwame Blay, said, I am amazed at the threats from the GRA to an entity which has never failed in meeting its financial obligations to the state, albeit sometimes in installments. We consider such payments as obligatory, something incumbent upon every responsible entity such as ours. We therefore do our best to incessantly reduce the burden of indebtedness periodically. To treat us as though we hardly meet such obligations and even threatening us in the manner in which the Commissioner-General and his assigns did, considering the amount involvedand. The fact that we were notified of this indebtedness only weeks ago is to say the least, unfortunate in a decent corporate world where arbitrariness has no place. We have dealt with the GRA since we commenced operations and would do all we can to support it in its revenue mobilization drive, the dividends of which we appreciate as much as he does.

Mr. Blay continued, Whilst we ask for and expect no level of favour or consideration on this issue, we deem the agency's aggressive and abrasive reaction to be disproportionate by far to the amount, which in itself has been disputed between our company and the authority.

The Commissioner General who has a background in taxation, statistics and rural banking, assumed the post early this year and seems geared to impress powers-that-be or is being nudged by unseen hands.

By A.R. Gomda




State prosecutors have charged Charles Nana Frimpong, the businessman who allegedly shot and killed an artisan at Alajo mechanic yard in Accra last week with murder.

The accused was earlier charged with an attempted murder when he reportedly shot 33-year-old Richard Yaw Boadi during verbal exchanges over wrong parking.

The victim was rushed to the Ridge Hospital and was receiving treatment until he died on Thursday.

In the autopsy report, the artisan's right kidney and colon were removed because they were badly damaged by stray bullet.

During Frimpong's second appearance in court yesterday, the prosecutor, Chief Inspector Hanson Armah, said the prosecution would wish to substitute the old charge sheet with a new one (murder)  a request the judge, Ms. Victoria Guansah, granted.

According to C/Insp. Armah, on August 8 at the Alajo railway crossing, the accused murdered one Richard Yaw Boadi, a mechanic.

He said one Dr. Dadzie informed the police that the victim had passed on at the hospital where he was receiving treatment

Paul Asibi Abariga, lawyer for Nana Frimpong, while expressing his condolence to the bereaved family, said the defence was amenable to whatever the prosecution would do.

He said the prosecution had not yet given the defence team a copy of the charge sheet.

Mr Abariga further informed the court that his client had complained of pains and prayed the court to give an order for the accused person to be given medical care.

C/Insp. Armah requested that the remand warrant of the accused person be changed from police to prison.

But Mr Asibi wondered if it would not be easy and better for the police to have the accused in their custody, especially when investigation was still ongoing.

The trial magistrate ruled in favour of the prosecution and remanded Charles into prison custody until August 30, 2017, when hearing would continue.

The 34-year-old mechanic was killed when he reportedly attempted to separate a fight between the accused and a 'trotro' driver.

According to reports, Charles, in the course of the fight, shot into the crowd, hitting Yaw Boadi in the abdomen.

After firing the gun, Frimpong allegedly locked himself in his car for fear of being lynched by the incensed mob until the Tesano police arrived at the scene.

The unidentified Sprinter bus driver was reportedly returning from a mechanic shop close to the Alajo rail line while Charles was also heading towards another mechanic shop on the same single and narrow road used by all vehicles.

The accused, who was driving a Hyundai Elantra with registration number GS 190-16, was said to have parked in the middle of the road, thus blocking other motorists.

The Sprinter driver, who was returning from the opposite direction where the accused had parked his car, allegedly shouted at him to move his car since he had blocked the road.

This did not go down well with Charles and so there were heated verbal exchanges.

Both the trotro driver and Nana Frimpong reportedly came out of their vehicles to attack each other.

Some traders, mechanics, taxi drivers and commuters, who witnessed the incident, moved to separate the two men.

In the process, Charles purportedly pulled a gun from the car and fired shots sporadically.

Yaw Boadi was hit by stray bullet in the course of the melee.

[email protected]

By Jeffrey De-Graft Johnson


Former Attorney General, Martin A.B.K. Amidu has described two top opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) officials as 'attack dogs' who are engaging in what he called 'monotonous acts of character assassination.'

According to the former AG, the NDC National Organizer, Kofi Adams and the party's deputy General Secretary, Koku Anyidoho are deliberately making unfounded allegations against him.

He said they should take notice that he would not be cowed.

Mahama Surrogates

He said all those attacking him since he started anti-corruption crusade in the party belong to what he called Mahama Surrogate NDC Faction.

I am for peace but if the Mahama surrogate NDC faction wants war it will be taboo to the values of the core NDC grounded in the 4th June and 31st December Revolutions for me to run away from it, Mr. Amidu said in his latest news release.

They ought to be warned that their modus operandi will not lead to reasoned dialogue and reconciliation with me but may push me to invoke my right pursuant to Article 2 and 130 of the Constitution so that the Supreme Court may settle once and for all whether or not under Article 55 of the Constitution a political party can gag a citizen from defending, and upholding the Constitution demonstrated with a Supreme Court judgement simply because he is perceived to be a member of that political party.

Persistent Lies

He said specifically that Koku Anyidoho and Kofi Adams have continuously claimed that he (Amidu) was on the payroll of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) government but said he was unperturbed.

The strategy of the NDC has been to unleash the National Organizer and Deputy General Secretary of the NDC not to answer the pertinent issues raised in my article but to, as usual, attack my person and assassinate my character, honour and integrity.

Inactive Role

Mr. Amidu, per his argument, appears to be on his way out of the NDC when he asked Can someone from the NDC tell Ghanaians how active I have been in the NDC and how many times I have attended or been invited by the National Executive, Regional Executive, Constituency Executive or Branch Executive since 1st January 2012 to any meeting or activity of the Congress? None whatsoever!

I met some of the executives only when the founder, President Rawlings, has invited me to join his side of the delegation when the executive or visiting foreign delegations have an appointment with him. I am and will remain on the side of the man of honour, integrity and anti-corruption warrior, President Jerry John Rawlings, who stands at the core of the NDC defending the 1992 Constitution, adding I will never, ever be on the side of the incompetent, corrupt and looting John Dramani Mahama Government and its surrogates of the so-called New NDC.

Is it now that the NDC is waking up to the fact that I am a party member who should not pursue constitutional rights against the inept and corrupt Mahama Government?

Breach of Trust

Mr. Amidu repeated his claim that former President John Evans Atta Mills (deceased) breached the longstanding trust between them in the heat of what has now become the infamous Woyome GH51.2 million scandal.

He said the late President's betrayal played a role in his resignation from the NDC government as AG.

Mr Amidu said it was only when he showed then Minister of Information and Media Relations, Mahama Ayariga the letter naming all those involved in the Woyome scandal that the Government stopped spreading the false allegation that I did not name the gargantuan criminals.

As for Koku Anyidoho's recent timid insinuation that I may be on the payroll of the NPP, it is an old and tested lie taking its roots from the ganging up from the first publications of the NDC rented press starting from 3rd January 2012, accusing me of favouring the NPP and prosecuting NDC supporters and financiers, he fired, adding I had intelligence back then that Koku Anyidoho as the Communications Director at the Presidency was the conduit that was used to orchestrate the personal attacks and character assassinations, because I was exposing those involved in Woyomegate.

He said, Only bootlickers and corrupt officials fear to speak the truth to fellow citizens and to power. I had no skeletons in my cupboard to be blackmailed with so there was nothing to worry about. That is the benefit of integrity and uprightness in public office.

EC Boss Allegation

He said his suspicion that then President John Mahama had brought in Charlotte Osei as the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (NDC) to rig the election for the NDC was never challenged when the party was in power but could turn around to say they were going to investigate him (Amidu) when they (NDC) have become powerless in opposition.

The Mahama Government was in power and controlled the policing apparatus of the Republic, but because it knew that I was speaking the truth it dared not to investigate or ask me for substantiation of the allegation, he said, adding So how come that out of government the incompetent John Dramani Mahama surrogates in the NDC, which was not the appointing authority under Article 217 of the 1992 Constitution, now have the audacity to ask me to produce evidence on an incompetent appointment they did not make?

By William Yaw Owusu


IMANI Centre for Policy and Education has been studying the challenges  both current and potential  that negatively impact trade in Ghana. These challenges have been analysed under two major areas: 1) trade competitiveness and diversification, and, 2) trade facilitation and port efficiency.

IMANI published its first major report in June 2017. The paper, titled IMANIs Efficiency Report on Operations at Ghanas Tema Sea Port; More Needs Doing can be assessed @ http://www.imaniafrica.org/2017/06/27/imanis-efficiency-report-operations-ghanas-tema-sea-port-needs/

This article provides a summary of the research that has been undertaken into port efficiency and performance in Ghana, which includes discussions with and the perspectives of various stakeholders such as the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA), Meridian Port Services (MPS) Ltd., the Ghana Institute of Freight Forwarders (GIFF), and a former employee of African Independent Feeder, a shipping company.

The importance of an efficient port for trade, development and economic growth cannot be understated. Efficient ports facilitate trade competitiveness and greatly increase revenue mobilisation. The appropriate question to pose now is what makes Ghanaian ports inefficient, and what are the salient challenges they face? One pertinent issue that was mentioned by nearly all stakeholders involved the inefficiencies within the cargo clearing process. These include 1) long cargo clearing and processing times, 2) the multiplicity of agents in the inspection and customs processes, 3) the absence of paperless processes throughout.

Long cargo clearing and processing times

During IMANIs interview with a former employee of African Independent Feeder, the lengthy cargo clearing processes at the ports was highlighted as a serious issue. Most importers are unable to clear their containers within the 7-day demurrage-free time. This observation was also noted by GIFF. In addition, GIFF stated that in an ideal and efficient situation, it should take approximately 5 days for goods to be cleared at customs. However, this is not the case in reality. It can even take more than a fortnight for goods to clear. The unnecessary delays affect both the ability of importers to quickly distribute their goods, and tend to lock up much needed capital for other business operations. Importers are required to pay container detention fees and demurrage deposits to shipping lines prior to a container being cleared from the port. Container deposit fees serve as a guarantee that importers will return containers back to the shipping line in time, once their contents have been emptied. GPHA estimate that shippers pay over $100 million in container demurrage annually to the government, in ports throughout the country. The longer the cargo clearing and processing time, the longer the funds sit with the shipping lines, and the fewer funds are made available for the importers business. This challenge is compounded as the repayment of container detention fees often takes a while to come into effect.

Multiplicity of regulatory agents in the inspection and customs process

Multiplicity of regulatory agents and the duplication of roles during the physical examination is also a serious inhibitor of efficiency at the Port of Tema. Custom Examination Officers physically examine container, alongside about18 agents from different Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs)  sometimes more  which is highly unnecessary, allows room for corrupt activities, and lengthens the whole inspection and customs process. As GIFF so adequately described, the more layers you have, the more corrupt the port is. This issue was also brought up by MPS, who mentioned that the inspection and customs processes were duplicated. Other stakeholders including the Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and the GPHA have also decried the challenge of multiple regulatory agencies and their impact on efficiency at the port.

A mandatory joint inspection has been announced by Vice President Dr Bawumia to address this challenge. This policy is expected to take effect from 1 September, 2017. Under this policy, not all containers will be inspected, only those with a certain risk level. A risk engine will be introduced, which will assign risk levels to importers depending on the level of their compliance. Further, if an inspection is necessary, only the agencies required for the inspection will be informed, and they will have to sign in electronically to confirm their participation.

The absence of paperless processes

The lack of paperless processes at the Ports is another significant inhibitor of efficiency. However, MPS Terminal is the only terminal operator at the ports that has implemented a paperless system, which has allowed it to become a leader in port efficiency.

As of Monday 7 August 2017, Ghana Community Network (GCNet) began to pilot paperless processes at the Tema Port. This is one part of the three highly commendable policy ideas put forward by the Vice President. The policy ensures that by 1 September 2017, all transactions at Ghanaian ports will be 100 per cent paperless, enabled by an electronic system, which will be powered by GCNet. It will also ensure that the processes and players along the value chain from exporters, cargo tracking, warehousing, freight forwarding, payment systems, free zones, regulatory bodies and shippers all operate on an electronic basis.[1] These will greatly improve trade facilitation, revenue mobilisation and port efficiency and has significant impacts for economic development across the nation. Moreover, the introduction of paperless systems will also make multiple inspections and the role of superfluous agents and MDAs redundant.

Additional measures to improve port efficiency

Additional measures taken by Vice President Bawumia, to be put into effect by 1 September, 2017, also include the removal of internal customs barriers. This means that duties will be paid on goods that are destined for re-export, and no vehicles will be able to leave the ports without paying their duties, as a new automated gate opening system will be linked to the risk engine for inspections. Consequently, these new measures will expedite the inspection process and ensure that duties are paid where they are due. Moreover, the resultant decline in the complexity of inspection and control procedures will lead to a decline in costs, delays and minimise corrupt and informal payments which would have been used to speed up processes, and even make government agents and importers compliant to such unlawful situations.

Commendable efforts

Vice President Dr Bawumia and the NPP Government must be commended on the practical measures that are currently being put into place to improve port efficiency in Ghana, and ensure that the nation becomes one of the most competitive ports within the sub-region, and in the long-term, even globally. These measures are necessary to stimulate national economic development, increase tax revenues and minimise the corrupt practices among importers, customs officers and clearing agents. With these measures in place, and the active participation of key stakeholders, the nation will see positive and sustainable improvements in the realm of trade and economic development.

This update was compiled by Ms. Anita Nkrumah and Ms. Akua Dei-Anang with IMANIs Centre for Economic Governance and Political Affairs. For interviews please call 0554309966 or 0302972939.

Notes

[1]. Ghana Web (2017), We are ready for paperless transactions  GCNet Executive Chairman, 25 July, Ghana Web Business News. Available from: https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/business/We-are-ready-for-paperless-transactions-GCNet-Executive-Chairman-562830
Johannesburg (AFP) - Zimbabwe's first lady Grace Mugabe handed herself over to South African police and was due in court Tuesday, officials said, after allegedly assaulting a model who was at a Johannesburg hotel with her two sons.

During the incident, which occurred on Sunday, Mugabe, 52, allegedly attacked Gabriella Engels, 20, with an extension cord, leaving her with wounds on her forehead and the back of her head.

"She's not under arrest because she cooperated and handed herself over to the police," South African Police Minister Fikile Mbalula told reporters.

"In terms of foreign citizens, they must understand they have responsibilities -- especially those who hold diplomatic passports.

"I cannot just go to Zimbabwe and beat up people there and then the matter will disappear.

"From the police side, we have had to act in the interests of the victim, we have opened a case."

Pictures on social media appeared to show Engels with a bleeding head injury after the alleged incident in Capital 20 West Hotel in the upmarket Johannesburg district of Sandton.

Mugabe allegedly arrived with bodyguards and accused Engels of partying with her sons Robert and Chatunga, both in their 20s, who are based in the South African city.

'She started hitting us'

"We were chilling in a hotel room, and (the sons) were in the room next door. She came in and started hitting us," Engels was quoted as saying by the TimesLIVE website on Monday.

"The front of my forehead is busted open. I'm a model and I make my money based on my looks."

President Robert Mugabe and first lady Grace Mugabe, seen here in April, have two sons and a daughter together

Mugabe, who is 41 years younger than her husband Robert, has two sons and one daughter with the Zimbabwean president.

"There was a criminal case opened in Sandton at Morningside (station) yesterday, but I can not release any name. Right now we have not arrested anybody," national police spokesman Vish Naidoo told AFP.

Sizakele Nkosi-Malobane, a provincial minister in Gauteng province, told Jacaranda FM that the case should be pursued through the courts.

"We hope that it will send a strong message to all leaders who abuse their power and assault innocent people in our country," she said.

Grace Mugabe regularly speaks at rallies in Zimbabwe and is seen as one potential successor to take over from her increasingly frail husband.

Last month she urged her 93-year-old husband to name his chosen successor, fuelling renewed speculation about the race to take over from the world's oldest national leader.

The Zimbabwe government made no immediate comment.
Dakar (AFP) - Senegal's constitutional council has confirmed a widely expected landslide for the coalition of President Macky Sall in legislative elections, bolstering his image ahead of a 2019 re-election bid.

The constitutional council confirmed that presidential coalition Benno Bokk Yaakaar (BBY) would take 125 of the Senegalese parliament's 165 seats, in results were published via the public APS news agency.

The coalitions of ex-president Abdoulaye Wade and Dakar Mayor Khalifa Sall took 19 and seven seats respectively.

The decision is the final approval required for the results of the July 30 vote to be definitive.

The election had a turnout of 53.66 percent among Senegal's 6.2 million registered voters, though many complained on the day of organisational problems.

Fourteen parties will be represented in the national parliament, where for the first time half a million Senegalese living abroad will be represented by 15 "diaspora" lawmakers.

There were a record 47 lists of candidates contesting the election, and clashes between supporters of President Sall, Wade and Mayor Sall led to several arrests during the campaign.

Wade has said his coalition will not participate in future elections organised by Sall's government, describing the July vote as a "masquerade", though he won a seat in the vote.

Mayor Sall is currently in jail awaiting trial for embezzling state funds -- charges his supporters say are politically motivated -- but also won a seat. It is not clear if he will be able to take it up.
Dr. Kwame Achampong-Kyei

15.08.2017 LISTEN

The Executive Chairman of GLICO Group, Dr. Kwame Achampong-Kyei, has been presented with a special commemorative award for his outstanding contribution in the field of insurance to the economic development of Ghana.

This award was conferred on him at a special Diamond Jubilee Business Leaders ExcellenceAwards ceremony, organized by Top Brass Ghana under the auspices of the National Planning Committee of Ghana's 60th Independence anniversary.

In the accompanying citation, Dr. Achampong-Kyei was recognized for his outstanding contributions in business and entrepreneurship over the past 30 years, which have led to the growth of insurance in Ghana.

An astute and passionate businessman, Dr. Kwame Achampong-Kyei, established GLICO in 1987, as a specialist life insurance company.

Today, GLICO has grown into a group of companies consisting six reputable companies operating in the insurance and financial services industry namely: GLICO LIFE; GLICO CAPITAL, GLICO HEALTHCARE; GLICO PROPERTIES; GLICO GENERAL and GLICO PENSIONS.

The award was received on his behalf by the Group Head, Legal, Andrew Achampong-Kyei and the Group Head, Corporate Affairs & Marketing, Nana Efua Rockson.

On receipt of the award in his office, Dr. Achampong-Kyei was elated and expressed gratitude to the organizers and the Ghana @ 60 Planning Committee for the special recognition.

He noted that many successful individuals receive posthumous awards for national contributions, so it feels humbling to be acknowledged at Ghana's 60th Independence.

I will not rest on my oars until Ghana's insurance sector is vibrant and insurance penetration doubled. I am still passionate and committed as I was 30 years ago to bring insurance to the doorsteps of every Ghanaian household, he enthusiastically stated.

Dr. Kwame Achampong-Kyei's instrumental leadership has led to making the GLICO brand a household name in Ghana.

GLICO continues to maintain its leadership position in the financial and insurance industry and has recently revolutionize operations in line with digitalization to deliver value to its growing customers.

A Business Desk Report




Farida Naa Bedwei (2rd from left) in a group photograph with the participants

MTN Ghana Foundation has launched its maiden Apps development project dubbed, MTN Girl Code: Tech Camp for women at a brief ceremony at MTN House in Accra on Wednesday.

According to Cynthia Lumor, Executive Director, MTN Ghana Foundation, the project would focus on increasing the participation of women in the MTN Apps Challenge from the current 3% to an appreciable level over the next three years.

She further stated that it would focus on setting up an Apps Camp to train young females from tertiary institutions between the ages of 18 and 30 in Mobile Apps development, Internet of Things (IoT) project development and Animated Video Creation.

The Executive Director further stated that cash prizes would be presented to the finalists after the training period while the best projects designed and developed from the three programme areas will selected for entry into the MTN Apps Challenge.

She indicated that participants for the maiden edition of the MTN Girl Code are expected to be selected from four tertiary institutions in the Greater Accra, Central, Ashanti and Northern regions.

While encouraging more young ladies to develop interest in ICT, the Executive Director added that by training more women in the sector, the benefits of Apps development and ICT as a whole would be extended to the larger society to improve the livelihood of people in communities across the country.

It is our belief that our drive towards increasing access to ICT throughout the country can be truly achieved through involvement of more females in the sector, he remarked.

She expressed hope that the project will strengthen the skills of existing and aspiring female developers, engineers and animation designers and also increase the number of females with the requisite skills to compete in future editions of the MTN Apps Challenge.

Farida Naa Bedwei and Vida Anima Ackon, Software Engineers, called on more women to get actively involved in projects to solve challenges in society.

By Solomon Ofori